Chapter 19



A wave of hot anger washed over Angelus the moment he stepped across the threshold of the ex-Watcher’s apartment and into the small living room, and his gaze darkened. Giles, who was standing by the door, quickly took a step away from the clearly angry vampire. He was willing to work with them, but suffice to say he still didn’t completely trust them, at least not when they looked ready to kill at a moment’s notice.

Angelus took in a disgusted breath through his nose and let it out slowly before glaring across at his childer—he could smell their scents all over one another and it made his demon furious that they would take such risks.

“Sire—” Spike began respectfully as he took a step towards his sire.

Angelus snarled at his childe, “How could you be so phenomenally stupid?”

Buffy, who had opened her mouth to talk, snapped it shut again. Her demon cowered submissively as the glare that had been directed at Spike turned on her. Buffy bowed her head under his furious gaze. It only seemed to make his demon angrier.

“Angelus,” Darla said soothingly as she moved to his side, placing a calm hand on his shoulder, “perhaps now is not the time for this discussion? We have bigger problems to deal with.”

Angelus shrugged off his sire’s hand. “I can barely fathom what the hell you must have been thinking when you decided to take her like that!” he continued as he rounded on Spike. “Have you no grasp of the situation that we are in and what will happen if Silas finds out you have taken something that he believes rightfully belongs to him? We are trying to avoid an all out war and here you are royally fucking things up once again!”

“Angelus!” Darla cut in commandingly, “Now is not the time! Nothing can be done about it now. We came here to discuss other things.”

Angelus stared at her for a long moment, before deciding that it wasn’t worth the risk of increasing her anger, and moved to take a seat. Satisfied, Darla took the seat beside him and motioned for the other two to sit as well. Spike looked like he was ready to continue the argument and take the chance to add his own two cents to be heard.

“Silas?” Buffy asked, directing the question towards her grandsire as she took a seat submissively. “As in the vampire responsible for turning the Aurelian Clan Leader Simone?”

“You know something?” Angelus asked as he sat forward in his seat watching his childe intently. Buffy fought the urge to shrink back under his gaze. She knew that she had somehow angered her sire by sleeping with Spike the night before, but she didn’t understand why. It had something to do with the mention of Silas though, she was sure.

Buffy worried her bottom lips between her human teeth. “Silas was cremated during Simone’s Embracement though, wasn’t he?”

Angelus frowned quizzically at his childe. “Her Second Turning actually, but he was later resurrected. How did you know that? We’ve spent days researching both vampires and only recently came across that information.”

Buffy frowned. How was she going to tell them of the ‘dream’ she had experienced after her Embracement?

“I saw it,” she began slowly, “after my Embracement. I thought it was a dream. I looked into it a little afterwards but I couldn’t find much information on either vampire—none on Silas.”

“You ‘saw’ it? You mean in a vision?” Spike asked, forgetting his previous anger in the face of new information that might be able to help them. Buffy nodded uncertainly.

“How long after your Embracement was this?” Giles asked her. He had been unusually quiet since heated argument that had broken out in his living room the moment the two elder Aurelians had arrived.

“Directly—when I was still unconscious from the ritual,” Buffy said quietly turning to the ex-Watcher.

“Imprinting.” Darla cut in knowingly.

Buffy frowned in confusion. “What’s imprinting?”

“When a vampire undergoes a traumatic experience such as Simone’s Second Turning or your Embracement, it can sometimes lead to a memory of the experience being imprinted into the area or an object related to the incident—like a recording of the event almost.” Giles explained as he took over once again, “If another vampire experiences a similarly traumatic incident in the same area they can sometimes absorb those memories. It would appear that Simone imprinted the memories of her Second Turning into her surroundings and you absorbed them during your Embracement.”

“So, what I saw actually happened?” Buffy asked.

Both Darla and Giles nodded, “It would seem so,” Giles agreed.

“Can this help us at all?” Spike questioned.

“I wouldn’t think so. We already knew that Silas was cremated during Simone’s Second Turning and that he was later resurrected,” Giles said absently as his mind wandered back over all the information they had managed to scrape up thus far.

“We need more to work with,” Angelus said in frustration. “We need to know more about Simone and Silas. At the moment all we have is speculation on why he wants Buffy, nothing solid.”

“Are you telling me that the vampire who kidnapped me is actually Silas, the vampire who turned Simone?” Buffy asked in disbelief. She looked around the room as the others nodded. “How old is this vampire?”

“Old,” Spike said in a tone of voice that told her she didn’t want to know the exact answer.

“But you have theories about why he’s after me?” Buffy asked.

“Theory. Singular.” Spike snorted, “And we can’t be sure that it’s the truth.”

“We think that Silas believes you are Simone reincarnated. He was her sire and he was in love with her, or so the story goes,” Darla explained easily. “If you believe the theory that vampires harbour a hybrid soul made from that of a human and a demon, then it is possible that you have her soul. We can’t be sure though.”

“He thinks I’m a reincarnation of Simone, with whom he was in love?” Buffy asked in disbelief. “Why? I look nothing like her!”

A pointed silence descended over a group.

“You know, that is actually an amazingly good point,” Giles said, quickly reaching for one of the many books spread throughout the room and flipping to a page that had a painting of Simone’s likeness on it. Together the group studied it, their eyes flicking between the image on the page and the fledgling childe sitting before them.

“You’re right. You look nothing like her,” Spike said to Buffy finally. “Which brings us to the question of why he suspected you to be her reincarnation in the first place, doesn’t it?”

“He didn’t though,” Angelus said suddenly, picking up the train of thought running through the group. “He suspected her mother. Christian placed he familial claim on Joyce before she had even given birth to Buffy.”

“He didn’t turn Joyce though,” Giles put in.

“Exactly!” Angelus continued, “So if they knew Joyce wasn’t the match, why put a claim on her that extends to any children she may have in the future if they—”

“If they didn’t have some reason to suspect the bloodline,” Darla finished for him. Darla turned to Buffy, “Your family must some how be related to Simone via her human ties.”

“You think I’m somehow related to Simone through my human family?” Buffy asked in disbelief. “This is too weird,” she said as she lent into Spike and he curled a comforting arm around her waist.

“So we need to get access to Buffy’s family history somehow. Giles, can you get access to any files on it from work?” Angelus asked.

Giles shook his head. “We don’t keep a record of a client’s family history. I might know someone who could help us though. She is a witch and very good at what she does; she might be able to perform some type of lineage spell to determine whether or not Simone is related to Buffy.”

Angelus and Giles stared at one another for a moment, locked in a silent debate over bringing someone else into their search. Finally Angelus relented. “She’s trustworthy?”

“She is,” Giles replied.


*****


Angelus sighed heavily as he felt Spike’s signature slip through the door behind him. He had stepped outside for ‘some air’ and a chance to take a break from scanning through book after book for any scrap of information that might be useful. So far they hadn’t come up with anything more than what they had already gathered.

Somehow he had known that his childe would follow him out once he left the room. He wore his emotions on his face ninety percent of the time and this instance was no different—he wanted to ask permission to take a request to be mated to the Master.

“No,” Angelus answered before Spike had even asked the question he knew was coming.

Spike stared at his sire completely stunned by his adamant refusal. “Why the bloody hell not?”

Angelus threw his hands up in frustration and spun on his heel to face his childe. “I can’t believe you would even think about asking me this now!”

Spike growled softly, careful not to make it sound like a challenge or outright defiance towards his sire—what he wanted was too important to let his volatile temper get in the way. “I can’t think of a better time to ask you! We both want to be mated, Angelus, and the sooner it’s done the safer she’ll be!”

“No, it will only put her in more danger! Why can’t you see that?” Angelus snapped impatiently. “Mating with Buffy now is only going to put us in more of a mess than we are already in.”

“I’m not worried about the mess, I’m worried about the woman I love!” Spike snarled heatedly at his sire.

“Well you should be worried about the mess, because it concerns the woman you love.” Angelus held his childe’s gaze as they stared each other down, neither willing to budge on the subject. Angelus loved his childe, truly he did, but there where times that he was so stubborn and blind to the truth that is drove him insane. “Christian marked Buffy’s mother. If the familial claim still holds over her and her kin—as Christian maintains it does—Buffy technically belongs to them and if they take us to the tribunal they would win and she would be theirs. It wouldn’t matter if she was your mate or not, their claim was placed first and it would hold precedence over your mating. If that happens, how long do you think you’d last once you were forced into separation? What kind of problems do you think that would create not only for Buffy but for your clan?”

“But—” Spike started, ready to square off with his sire again.

“Think about it, Spike. Silas wants her for himself, how do you think he is going to react when he feels your claim? When he sees your marks on her throat? How would you react if you saw his marks permanently branded on her neck?”

Spike deflated and sunk down into a nearby garden chair in the courtyard, “What if it were Darla? How would you feel were our positions swapped?”

Angelus sighed heavily. “I’m not saying you have to like the situation you’re in—hell, I’d think there was something wrong if you were okay with this—but you’d only be aggravating things. The answer is no.”

Spike turned his head away from his sire. His teeth were clenched in an effort not to react, not to yell and rampage about the unfairness of the situation, or worse, burst into tears.

“I know it’s hard, Will,” Angelus continued more gently. “I went through hell trying to convince the Master to let me mate with Darla. She was his favourite childe, and let’s just say he was more than reluctant to let her go. We’ll get through his though, and as soon as this has all passed I give you permission to take your request to the Master.”

Spike nodded, looking down at the hand resting on his shoulder. He couldn’t meet his sire’s gaze, yet somehow watching his hand was connection enough. “Thank you, sire.”

“You shouldn’t have slept with her you know,” Angelus said after a long silence had passed between them. “Not when we have no idea of how Silas will react to such goading.”

Spike opened his mouth to interrupt in an angry tirade, but Angelus cut him off before he could begin. “I’m not trying to argue with you. It’s the truth. There isn’t anything that can be done about it now. Let’s just hope he doesn’t find out and do all we can in the meantime.”





AN: I know it has been an eternity since my last update, but I promise that I will try and get back into regular posting. Unfortunately, I have had to deal with certain RL issues lately that have kept me away from the computer and writing for sometime. That said, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and hadn't forgotten too much of what had happened previously. Finally, a massive thanks to Andrea for the beta as always *hugs*