Recombination

A/N : Thank you Marzbar *hugs* yes she's so cute isn't she? Glad your still reading especially when you aren't keen on Spander, i just hope you like the rest of the fic lol. Got quite a few more chapters to update later tonight and your question about the eavesdropper with be answerred in them. Thank you for the lovely review and i hope you keep reading *hugs*


Xander frowned staring at the picture, "We’ll I’m not sure but I think that’s Willow." He squinted "I don’t know many other people with that colour hair, and look see, skirt." He grinned slightly and handed the picture back to Spike who stuck it to the fridge using magnets. "I’d definitely say she isn’t the most artistic in the world, you two have a lot in common." He informed the vampire, who scowled and finished adjusting the drawing.

"I’ll have you know I’m extremely artistic," Spike answered. "Bloody crap at the poetry and limericks but I still enjoy them and that’s what counts. Besides she likes them being up, it’s not like I spoil her." He added, a touch of ‘so there’ in his voice.

Xander rolled his eyes. "Sure that’s why our fridge is decorated with badly drawn stick figures and our fridge is always full of ice cream." He gave Spike a sympathetic look. "If it helps I brought her the new trainers she wanted yesterday and Willow had to restrain me from buying a playstation. Not that it took much restraint having three mouths too feed is taking a chunk out of my wages, not that I mind." He added hastily "But I would have thought Wesley would have been here by now, he was supposed to come down last week."

Spike, helping himself to a mug of warm blood, shrugged "so, he’s busy. He phones doesn’t he? And it’s not like he isn’t going to reimburse us." He held up a hand stopping Xander from interrupting. "Look he’ll be here, and we can get back to living again, without the kid." he drained his mug quickly placing it in the sink and added a little sullenly, "It’s not like we can’t have fun and enjoy ourselves, you just won’t." He frowned slightly. "I’m not saying I blame you or anything, it’s a little odd trying to do anything especially that with a kid in the house but still, it’s not like she knows what we are doing." He picked up the small black duffel bag and left the house heading towards the magic box, Xander following him.

"Hell no, I mean she can only smell me and you all over each other; we smell funky remember." Xander mimicked the child’s voice. "Besides I wouldn’t feel so funny about it if it wasn’t for a certain vampire, not a million miles away who left PWP fan fiction bookmarked on Willow’s old laptop and then sat our impressionable toddler in front of it to keep her out of his hair." He mock-glowered at the vampire. "For two hours! How you didn’t notice that she’d switched from nice, parental controlled AOL to the un-moderated Internet explorer I don’t know."

Spike at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "It’s not like I knew she’d watch me use it before, I guess she was just curious, its healthy, ‘sides it’s not all she looked up; it’s not like mini bit was just looking at that." He defended.

Xander’s eyebrows shot up. "No healthy is looking for pictures and stories on kiddies things; healthy is not walking into the kitchen to find my boyfriend watching TV whilst the toddler we’re taking care of is bouncing in her seat and yelling ‘look it’ at me because Wolfram and Hart apparently didn’t teach her the more colourfull side of the human language and she’s stuck on some of the words." He sighed. "At least she doesn’t know enough of the words and phrases to actually sort them into what they mean and get a good visual of interlocking parts."

Spike grinned slightly unable to hold it back any longer. "I keep forgetting about the kid being in the house, but in my defense I’m not the only one, you noticed how many times Giles and Buffy have bitten their lips remembering only at the last minute and Willow, god poor witch seems to have difficulty even spelling the words in front of the kid."

"Yeah we’ll those who can read, can spell." Xander sighed imparting his advice on Spike as they passed the cemetery.

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Clever kid that, doesn’t take after her dad," he murmured thoughtfully.

Xander turned back to look at him."Yeah well…" he paused. "Let’s just get this over and done with okay?" he asked hopefully not wanting to get into another, who is the daddy- Wesley or Angel, debate. Besides they had more important things to worry about.

‘From beneath you it devours’ seemed to be a popular Sunnydale phrase at the moment and the demon population seemed to have diminished slightly in the last few weeks of their return. Xander wished they could put it down to an over-exuberant slayer but knew it was more likely something more sinister; plus he’d been getting the wiggins all day, the feeling that something had been following them had been strong and he had had to physically pull himself away from checking over his shoulder every few minutes.

He knew Spike had dismissed it saying he couldn’t scent anyone but still Xander couldn’t shake the feeling and he felt immense relief as they pushed open the magic box door and walked inside shutting it firmly.
His relief was short lived as Spike stilled behind him, his body tense, his eyes warily scouting the shop. His lover was almost vibrating with suspicion.

Spike sniffed the air, he couldn’t smell blood but something was….off. There was a strange smell in the air. He moved close to the counter, ducked quickly around it and dropped to his knees to scoop up Anya’s unconscious form. Gently he carried her to the table and moved back over to pick up the also unconscious Willow. He set them both on the table, checking them over and ignoring Xander’s babbling about strange feelings and mojo. He half thought the boy might be right but any ideas he might have been able to come up with were quickly counteracted by a hard thump to the back of his head which dropped him to his knees. He just made out Xander’s graceless dive to the floor as he succumbed to the ever-increasing darkness around him.

********

The creature would have smiled had it had lips; instead it vibrated with pleasure watching the vampire and boy fall next to its last victims; the vengeance demon and witch. It gave a small sigh as it felt the first stirrings within the victims, the psychic connection working better then it hoped. There was no name for its kind, the information and texts having been long lost, the mayhem it caused becoming a thing of the past. Too old for even legends.

It knew what was coming back and it had been woken up to serve it, to keep the people placid especially the slayer. It hissed slightly, it hadn’t known what that was, the name meaning nothing but one glance at the young woman, one tentative sip of her emotion and passion and it had known; and it had hated. It had wanted nothing more then to drain the woman there and then, to absorb it all and revel in its glory. Such a meal would keep it satisfied for months if not years. The creature had once survived decades without feeding, centuries even and had merely risen up to take small towns now and then.

But now things were different they were going back to the old ways, something the creature longed for. It vibrated again as it felt the raw emotion from the boy, the pain he was experiencing, the anger, and the humiliation. It made a keening sound of pleasure accepting his thought and feelings, draining them from him and it played on his imagination, invoking fresh emotions.

The creature had started off small earlier that week, taking quickly and with no real finesse just building its strength up, by now it had almost the entire town under its wrap; anyone or thing capable of the truly conscious imagination that could be preyed on, human, vampire or demon. It was not discriminatory; it could feed on anything and everything, the old, the young, the clever, the stupid.

It whistled feeling more emotion reaching it; very soon it would have everyone. It could see each of its victims in its minds eye. Those tucked safety into bed, those that had wished to hunt that night, the slayer and her watcher in the training room, her friends within the shop. It had taken all the influential people, the mayor, the policemen, and the various services, sorcerers, witches, and powerful demons.

All it had left to consume was the weak; the sick, the dying and the young. The students from the high school it had not yet taken though it had made short work of each ones parents and guardians, the children and the pre-schoolers who lay curled up asleep in bed not realizing that come tomorrow their world would be a very different place.

The creature smiled, it had a reckoned upon everything, there was no one left to defend the town save for a bunch of children, it had prepared for every contingency; all but one however. The extreme stubbornness and intelligence of one Dawn Summers; who was sitting at home bored and babysitting and starting to get the feeling that everything was not right in the world.