Chapter 11



They hadn’t been on the road more than a few minutes—a few peaceful minutes that had allowed their adrenaline levels to calm—before all hell had broken loose.

Buffy’s perceptive hearing had picked up the sound of acceleration, but it was her paranoia that driven her to poke her head around the seat to stare out the back window.

“Oh shit!” Buffy exclaimed. Her eyes, fixed on a point somewhere out the back window of the car, were wide and terrified.

“What? What is it?” Dawn asked as her eyes immediately went to the rear view mirror to see what it was her sister had seen. For a moment she was confused, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Dawn frowned and went to ask her sister what she had seen when the sound of heavy acceleration cut her off mid speech. Her eyes darted back to the mirror in time to see a car pull out into the traffic behind them and rapidly begin approaching.

For a second they had remained frozen as they watched the car gaining on them until it was close enough for Buffy to see the face of the driver pursuing them. She felt her heart clench at the sight of the ridges and yellowed eyes belonging to the driver. It was all she needed to see in order to kick her back into action. Instinct took over as she swivelled in her seat again.

“GO!” Buffy yelled. The car lurched forward from the sudden burst of power as Dawn responded to her sister’s command by slamming her foot down on the accelerator.

Dawn’s knuckles were white due to the strength with which she was gripping the steering wheel. Her foot was flat to the floor and her eyes wide as they tore through the streets of Sunnydale, narrowly missing traffic in their haste to lose those pursuing them.

Buffy tried to swallow the scream that threatened to rise in her throat as her sister weaved through the traffic. Cars of all colours were flashing past on either side as Dawn narrowly escaped hitting them.

“Oh my God,” Dawn breathed as she lent forward in her seat in an effort to see more of the road. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my—”

“Dawn!” Buffy snapped, cutting off her sister’s incessant ramblings.

“Are we losing them?” Dawn asked without apologising as she jerked the steering wheel to the right, practically pushing the vehicle beside them off the road as she fought to avoid hitting the car in front of them. Buffy gripped the seat as the sudden movement threatened to send her careening into the glass. Her hand shot out to brace herself against the dash board in an attempt to stop herself from being thrown around.

“No, they’re gaining on us!” Buffy answered after chancing a quick glance behind them, torn between keeping her eye on the road before them and swivelling around in her seat to peer out the back window.

“We have to get away from all this traffic!” Dawn yelled as her eyes furiously searched for the next gap.

“What? The traffic is the only thing keeping them from catching up!” Buffy argued.

“Well, it’s not going to matter how close they get if we get ourselves killed! I can’t keep this up, Buffy!” Dawn argued back. The tone of her voice had passed the stage of hysterical.

Buffy worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked between her sister and the rapidly approaching car behind them. “Well, where do you suggest we go?”

Dawn didn’t answer verbally. Instead she tore her eyes away from the road in front of her long enough to check for the nearest turn off. Buffy’s scream joined that of Dawn’s as her sister saw the gap she needed and jerked the wheel in that direction sending them flying across two lanes of traffic to hurtle down the darkened street onto which they had turned.

“Are you insane?” Buffy screamed, turning wide eyes on her sister.

“Don’t yell at me!” Dawn growled back as she navigated her way down the deserted road.

“You almost got us killed!” Buffy shrieked incredulously.

Dawn shot her sister a furious glare. “We’ll I wouldn’t have if they hadn’t been chasing you in the first place!”

The two sisters sat in a tense silence both unwilling to relent.

“Are they still following us?” Dawn asked tersely after a moment.

Buffy shot her a glare but turned to check the road behind them. The street behind them was dark and empty—no street lights illuminated its path. She vamped and tried stretched out her senses to try as pick something up—nothing, they had lost them for now.

“I can’t pick anything up,” Buffy said, turning back to face the front again. “I think we—DAWN! Look out!” Buffy screamed as her enhanced senses picked up the outline of a man standing before them, just out of reach of the car’s headlights. They were travelling too fast to avoid hitting him. By the time Dawn had responded to Buffy’s warning, they were already 10 metres from him and closing.

Both sisters screamed as Dawn wrenched the steering wheel sideways. The car began to turn before the back tires lost their grip and the vehicle began to fishtail violently.

“Take your foot off the accelerator!” Buffy yelled. Dawn let go of the steering wheel.

The view of the outside world began to blur as the car spun wildly out of control. Buffy felt the ‘thud’ of something hard impact with the car seconds before she was thrown sideways in her seat. Her head impacted heavily with the glass, causing a spider web of cracks to appear and send her blissfully into oblivion.


*****


‘Angelus! The Occasus Clan is requesting to meet. I think something has happened.’

His sire’s words were running on a repeating loop through his head. He had known something was wrong. He had felt something shift the second before the door had been flung open to reveal a frazzled Darla. Darla was never frazzled. The Occasus Clan had not held court with the Aurelians for centuries. Something was definitely up.

‘The Occasus Clan is requesting to meet. I think something has happened.’

Was it a coincidence that they requested to meet the night after sending their lap dog to sound out Angelus’ newest childe? What was Christian up to now, or his clan for that matter? It must have been his findings upon meeting Buffy—whatever they had been—which were then reported to his leader that had been the prompt for this sudden and unexpected call to meet. What had Christian been sent to find out last night? Angelus couldn’t foresee any other motivation for their sudden interest in meeting. There were too many questions for which he needed answers.

‘I think something has happened.’

Has or will? Buffy was out with her sister—unarmed and untrained. What had he been thinking letting her go out alone?

“Any idea of what this is about?” Spike asked no one in particular.

Angelus’ head snapped up to look at him. He held his childe’s gaze. “Buffy.”

No one word could have had a greater effect. Everything in the younger vampire seemed to still. It was more than simply a cessation of motion, but an utter stillness that no human could ever hope to achieve. Something dark flickered behind the blonde vampire’s eyes, and for the first time Angelus saw the vampire that Spike was capable of becoming with enough freedom and the right motivation—something dark, something vicious and more importantly something unstoppable that was driven by pure emotion.

“Buffy,” Spike repeated, not shifting his eyes from those of his sire. “What are you thinking?”

“It’s has to be more that just coincidence that the Occasus Clan want to meet with us now. The night after Christian’s little encounter with us at Requiem,” Angelus answered.

Spike growled, “Buffy’s out there alone.”

A firm hand on his arm stopped Spike as he went to stand. Spike looked down at his sire.

Angelus shook his head. “We are needed here. I will send out a team to track her down and make sure she gets home safely. I doubt that Christian or any of his flunkies would attack yet. She should be safe until after the meeting is over.”

For a moment it seemed that Spike would disobey his sire, wrench his arm free, and go out and look for Buffy himself. The hesitation warred in his eyes as he fought against the need to leave and his duty to his sire and clan. Spike growled again in annoyance as he settled back into his seat.

The last member of the Order was taking their seat at the long table which had been set up at the end of the hall for the purpose of the meeting, as the large set of double doors at the end of the hall swung open.

Spike tensed in anticipation as the first vampires of the Occasus Clan entered the room.

A trail of minions draped in black cloaks filed into the room in a perfect line before fanning out to create a ‘v’ along the sides of the room creating a line of defence against the selected Aurelian minions that lined the walls of the hall.

Spike snorted at their soldierlike behaviour.

Next came the members of the Order of Occasus. Spike’s eyes sought out Christian’s as he entered the room, but the vampire studiously avoided meeting the gazes of any of the vampires seated before him.

“Why is it that any time we ever want to do anything of importance it takes a bloody ritual to do it? I mean really, couldn’t they have just walked in the room and told us what they want rather than parading around in fancy robes while making fancy formations?” Spike groused, making no effort to lower his voice.

Angel growled at him. “We don’t question tradition, Spike. It is done as it has always been done.”

“Well, the ‘way it has always been done’ is taking too bloody long,” he growled back as one of his legs began to impatiently bounce up and down under the table. He was hanging onto the control over his frustration by a thread.

Spike rolled his eyes as the vampires before him simultaneous turned to face the doors and lowered their heads.

“Oh bloody fucking hell—”

“Shut up!” Angelus cut him off seconds before an almost crippling wave of power rushed out over them. His skin prickled like it wanted to crawl off his body and his eyes watered as an overwhelming weight pressed down on his chest. Spike’s hand shot out grip the table in an effort to steady himself as the wave receded again. He greedily sucked unneeded air into his lungs as he tried to fight off the crushed feeling with which the pulse of power had left him.

His eyes shot to his sire’s in panic. “What the fuck was that?”

Angelus shook his head, his eyes riveted to the figure that had appeared in the doorway at the end of the hall. Spike’s eyes followed the same path and frowned at the thin silhouette standing in the doorway.

The vampire’s power radiated throughout the room, outweighing that of even the Master’s as the vampire strode in confidently. The severity of the situation was suddenly making itself blatantly known. Spike had heard stories—stories he had believed to be no more than myth until this moment—of a vampiric status above that of Master. A status obtained not only through skill and reputation gained from high profile killings, but from age. Saying this vampire was old would be an understatement; the power exuding off of him was almost primeval. He knew now that the stories held truth—he was standing in the presence of an Ancient.

“Is that…?” Spike trailed off, looking to Angelus in question to confirm that what he was seeing was true.

“Clan Leader,” Angelus answered with a nod.

Spike shook his head. “No, anAncient.”



AN: Thanks to Andrea for the beta'ing this chapter for me *hugs* and to everyone who commented on the last chapter :D