Chapter 28


The first thing that Quentin Travers became aware of was the sticky feeling of blood and sweat as it rolled down the side of his face only to dry half way and leave his skin feeling tight.

He was hot—uncomfortably so—despite the room he was in being quite cool. His body was slick with perspiration and the pressure beneath his skin seemed to pulsate in time with his heartbeat as his body thrummed back into awareness.

Despite the pain in his body, however, it was the realisation to which he came that made his stomach drop with a cold pit of dread.

Travers held no false hopes that the magick his body had been fighting to handle before his impromptu voyage into the land of unconsciousness had left his body. He could feel the energy crackling beneath the layers of his skin, pulsing and growing in its urgent need to find an outlet.

Regardless of his beliefs regarding one William the Bloody, Travers held no misconceptions that the vampire could have known the implications resulting in his actions when he forced Travers to exit the ritual circle. However, the result was no less effective. Without the aide of an outlet to release the magicks trapped within him, Travers knew he was little more than a dead man on borrowed time.

He knew damn well that any hope he had of completing the ritual was gone, and for a grown man—one whom was well into the acceptable age of retirement—he pondered for a moment the absurdity of how the sudden urge to throw a tantrum can overwhelm you at the most obscure times.

He had just come to the unavoidable truth that without help he would likely die in a few hours, yet at that moment he felt like doing nothing more that throwing himself onto the ground and kicking and screaming like a child about the unfairness of it all.

Travers had been planning this for what seemed like his whole adult life after he was accepted into the ranks as a Watcher. Years and years had been spent researching only to come to the realisation that his time would likely come and go before the events foretold in the prophecy could even be put in motion.

To have the dream swept out beneath him after only a few short days of hope that it would be him and it would be completed was beyond cruel in his book.

Who the hell did these people think they were? Did they even read the rest of the prophecy? Did they even know what this girl would bring about? What it would mean for the Council and therefore the greater good of the world? Or did they know and just not care?

He felt the sudden pulse of the magicks still trapped within him strengthen at the same moment a wave of fury washed over him. The effect left him gasping for breath as he slumped back against the post he was tied to like some ritual sacrifice.

He let his eyes move sluggishly across to the man trussed up opposite him.

Hank Summers looked dead—skin flushed white, eyes closed and almost any movement barely nonexistent. If Travers looked closely, though, he could see the steady rise and fall of the man’s chest that told him that though alive, he was still out cold.

Deep purple and blue shading had begun to spread across Hank’s jaw, tinged in areas with a mustard yellow hue. Travers could only imagine what his own face looked like if that was what one punch had accomplished. The vampire had taken great pleasure in hitting him repeatedly before the grand finish that had left him unconscious and sentenced him to a painful death.

Try as he might, Travers couldn’t wrap his head around why the vampire was there at all, why he had aligned himself with the Slayer in the first place. The lack of repercussions from his entrance into the circle told him enough of why he would be interested in preserving her life now, but he could not bring himself to believe that any such feelings had developed before their abnormal truce.

While it was documented that vampires and slayers had worked together in the past, it was usually due to the slayer’s descent into darkness, not the vampire’s ascent into the light.

William the Bloody was certainly an anomaly. One that would have to be studied by someone that was not Travers and not destined to die from the strain that magicks could put on the body if left unchecked too long.
Travers momentarily contemplated trying to escape and finding the first helpless woman he came across and using her body as a means of saving himself. The idea was quickly dismissed. While he had no qualms about the plan itself, he had no doubt that he was currently tied to a post in the Slayer’s basement and therefore knew it would be impossible to even think of making it out of his bindings, let alone the house.

A mirthless chuckle was torn from his lips as he felt another pulse from the trapped magicks echo through his body. How quickly tides could change.

“I see that you are managing to keep your spirits up despite the situation you have landed yourself in.” Travers looked up at the sudden appearance of Rupert Giles standing at the bottom of the basement stairs.

There was little inflection in his voice which would suggest what he was thinking one way or another. Giles’ face was a blank canvas. No expression marked his features, and it was difficult for Travers to know one way or another how the end was going to play out.

“Mr. Giles, so nice to see that your manners are still at the same standard as the were when we last met,” he spat out in a sarcastic voice, feeling the need to get the first word in and prove he wasn’t afraid of one of his own employees.

“Excuse me if I could care less regarding your comfort during your…stay here. Did you expect anything more after what you attempted to do to my Slayer?”

So it would be anger that won out in the end, Travers mused as he blinked away the sweat that had beaded on his forehead and begun to run down into his face and into his eyes, blurring his vision for a moment.

“Your Slayer?” Travers scoffed. “She is the property of the Council, and as Head of the Council it is my prerogative to do with her what I will. I saw an opening which I could use as means of increasing the Council’s power, and I took it. You, Rupert, and your little gang of teenagers having interfered with such a project will be subject to the appropriate punishment—”

“Oh shut up, you pompous wanker.” Irritation flashed over Giles’ features as he ripped his glasses off his face. “I can assure you that once this is over you will no longer be in charge of the Council and therefore your threats as to me or any of Buffy’s friends receiving punishment are idle at best. What you attempted to do was done with no more drive than the desire to expand your own power.”

The steely gaze Travers turned on him did little to shake Giles as he stood firm.

“You may be partly right, as such power was alluring in itself but the prophesized effects her transformation will have on everything you know will be far greater than my rise to power.” Quentin paused for a moment to let that piece of information sink in, knowing that he had just revealed something of which the other man had no knowledge. “It’s not too late to right the mistake though. All that needs to be done to complete the ritual is for you to untie me—.”

The force of the blow snapped his head to the side with such violence that the side of his face seemed to go numb for a minute. Travers coughed as he tried to recover, not surprised to see his blood decorating the floor. He was more than certain it had loosened a few teeth.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t even think of completing that sentence,” Giles’ said coldly as he stepped back from the head Watcher once more.

Despite the pain exploding through the side of his face, Travers managed a chuckle.

“What are you going to do, Rupert? Bind her to one of your children and hope it all works out for the best? Or maybe yourself? You know as well as I do that if the ritual isn’t completed by tonight she won’t last…and if she does she will be the cause of our downfall.”

Giles chose to ignore that with which Travers was trying to bait him. “If you must know, it is neither of the options you just presented. Spike will be the one with whom she completes the ritual.”

“SPIKE! You are binding the Slayer to William the Bloody? The slayer of slayers? Are you insane, man?”

“No more than you, I can assure you.” Travers felt the magicks pulsing and crackling within him as they fought their way through his system to find an outlet. He knew he had to calm himself, less that bring an end to him all together. He gasped for breath as the magick began to expand, rising to stick in his throat, which was growing tighter by the second.

“Oh God,” he managed to gasp out as his body was wracked with contractions as it attempted to overcome the tightening chest pain. “I’m dying, you fool! This is murder if you let me die!” he gasped out through gritted teeth to an apathetic Giles.

“No, it would be suicide. You did this all yourself, Travers. I do believe that the magicks caught in your body are causing you to have some form of heart attack,” Giles said as he calmly drew out his handkerchief and began the familiar routine of polishing his glasses.

Tears streamed down Travers’ face as another squeezing pain gripped his chest. “I wasn’t the one who stepped out of the circle! You are willingly binding your slayer to the vampire responsible for my death and the death of thousands before and after me. Do something!”

“I am.” A look of horror washed over Travers’ face at the amused note he could hear in the other Watcher’s voice. “I’m doing several things actually. I’m cleaning my glasses, and I’m also trying to remember if I finished all the brandy in the decanter upstairs—,” he paused and held his glasses up to the light to check for any dirt on the lenses before placing them back onto his face. “I’m contemplating what could have possessed you to ever think you could come after my slayer and get away with it. But above all, I’m doing my job. I’m watching.”

His smile was cold and unforgiving and it was in that moment that Travers realised that he was going to die and Giles would do nothing but stand there and watch.


***


Xander watched from the door way as Cordelia chatted animatedly with Willow on the couch. A week ago Willow and Cordy had avoided each other like the plague. Now, after spending a week together in forced company, the girls seemed to have formed a bond that had brought them closer together, possibly even made them friends.

“Cordy?” The smile she was wearing when she looked at him made his breath hitch and for the first time since Giles had informed him that it would be Spike to whom Buffy would be bound, Xander felt the feeling of inadequacy leave him.

It didn’t matter if he wasn’t ‘special’ anymore. When Cordy smiled at him like that, he felt just as special—if not more so—than any guy who was prophesized could feel.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” She gave Willow a shy look that was uncharacteristic to her normal behaviour and nodded as she got up off the couch and walked towards him.

Xander took her by the hand and pulled her out onto the back decking with him.

“Cordy,” he breathed again as he pulled her to him and hugged her fiercely. He buried his nose in her hair and in inhaled the scent of her perfume and shampoo.

She seemed shocked at first as her arms hesitantly wound themselves around his shoulders until she too was gripping him with just as much force.

“It’s not me,” he said finally

“What?” she asked as she pulled back so she could look him in the face.

“It’s not me who has to do the ritual,” he said with a small smile on his face as he waited expectantly for her response.

“Oh,” she uttered in a shocked voice.

“Oh?” he repeated in confused question. His brows furrowing as he looked at her to try and decipher what she was saying.

“Yeah. Oh,” she repeated with more determination.

“I thought you’d be happy,” he let go of her completely as he stepped back.

“Well I got over you, I guess.” Her arms crossed over her chest haughtily as she affected an uninterested pose he had seen her do thousands of times before with other guys. Now she was doing it with him.

“You got over me?” he could hear the hurt in his own voice and prayed to god she hadn’t noticed it too.

“Uh-huh,” she supplied flippantly, bruising his ego and self esteem even further.

Suddenly unsure what to do with his hands, he slipped them into the pockets of his jeans. “Oh.”

“What? Did you think I was going to waste my time pining over someone who was getting married?” she asked, her own voice cracking slightly on the last word. But he was too far gone in his own feelings to hear it.

He swallowed heavily and shook his head. “I guess not.”

“Because that would be stupid.”

“I guess so.” He looked away from her and to the kitchen door, his only means of escape from the conversation that had gone seriously wrong. “I guess I’ll go back inside then.”

“What are you dumb or something?” she yelled at him, causing him to spin around to face her again. “You’re just going to walk away and leave me standing here?”

He felt like a deer caught in headlights under the wrath of Cordelia and unsure which answer she wanted “Yes? No? Well, what else am I meant to do?”

“I don’t know! Tell me I’m wrong and that I shouldn’t have gotten over you!” He looked at her like she had grown a second head, unable to keep up or comprehend when the hell he was meant to be doing.

“Yeah, well what good would that have done? You’re over me,” he stated as his own anger started to take hold.

“Damn straight I am!” she yelled back at him in an indignant voice.

He rolled his eyes and threw his hand in the air “Well fine!”

“Fine!” She screamed back, not to be out done.

“Okay then,” he said as he went to turn away again. Cordelia let out a screech of frustration as she stomped after him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and swung him around to face her again.

“Damn you Xander Harris,” she muttered, moments before her lips crashed down over his. They both struggled for the dominance neither would willingly relinquish as they pushed themselves up against the side of the house.

“So you’re not over me?” he asked breathlessly as he pulled back.

“Oh, I so am,” she answered before lowering her mouth to his again.


***


Buffy let out a soft moan as she felt Spike’s hand slip under the material of her shirt to rest on the warmed skin at the small of her back. She felt flushed all over, tingly in all the right places. His hands roaming across the bare expanse of her skin underneath her clothing raising goose bumps along her flesh as she recalled the day she had lay in her bed and touched herself while he was only a few floors below.

A shaky moan left her lips as Spike’s tongue darted out to trace the exposed line of her collarbone following it before continuing up the curve of her throat. Shivering in pleasure, Buffy felt him give a soft possessive growl against the skin of her neck before nipping at it lightly.

“Want to make you mine so much, kitten,” he whispered against her skin before their lips crashed together once more, bruising and biting in their desperation to consume.

“Spike,” her whimpered plea shot straight through him as she set her hands to wander down his chest to slip under the black cotton of his tee shirt.

“Can’t though, don’t want to do anything that might bollocks up the ritual,” he noted as he nipped at her bottom lip before latching onto it with his teeth and sucking it back into his mouth so they could engage in another hurried kiss that had her yearning for more.

“Don’t talk about that,” she mumbled against his lips as she dragged her fingernails across the cool hard skin of his chest. Her lips travelled over his once more, as her hands searched out the feel of his body against hers. He growled in approvement at the act as his hands moved up to tangle in her hair.

Joyce froze in the doorway to the room before quickly shutting the door quietly so as not to disturb the two on the bed. Her little girl was all grown up—she’d known it before, but….her little girl was all grown up. She couldn’t deny it any longer, there was simply nothing that screamed ‘innocent exploration and experimentation’ in that kiss…her little girl was all grown up. Well, at least we know now that they’re not going to have a problem with being married.

Joyce took a deep breath before lifting her hand to knock on the door. She lowered it again before she could make contact with the wood. Maybe I should come back later—no, best to stop it now before they get carried away. You can do this.

Lifting her hand once more, she rapped sharply on the wood trying to ignore the scurried movements she could hear behind the door.

“Buffy?” she asked as she poked her head in. Spike and Buffy were practically on opposite sides of the room with him leaning against her dresser while she sat up in bed. “Can I talk to you both?”


***


Giles glanced down at the prophecy laid out before him. There was more to it, more to be decoded. More that could possibly be of some relevance which needed to be addressed before the ritual went ahead that night. At least that was what he believed based upon what Travers had hinted before he had died of a magical overload to his body.

He looked down at his watch—it was 5 a.m. He had roughly twelve hours to decipher and translate the prophecy before the ritual was to begin.

He didn’t want to admit it. He was a proud man and he didn’t like asking for help regardless of the circumstances. In this case he didn’t know which was worse; the fact that he would need the help or the fact that it was Spike who he would have to ask.

Sighing, Giles made his way into the kitchen to brew himself a much needed pot of coffee that would help keep him awake for the next twelve hours.

He would wait until Joyce had returned from breaking the news to both Buffy and Spike and prayed to God that Buffy would take it okay. The last thing he wanted was to bind his slayer—his daughter—to a vampire. But he needed this reassurance that it what she preferred.

Giles winced as he heard a shriek come from upstairs promptly followed by a thump. Didn’t take it so well then, he thought as he moved to the fridge to pull out the milk for his coffee. The giggling he heard next caused him to stop in his tracks and listen. Yes, what he was hearing was most definitely giggling and it was coming from his Slayer.

“She took it well.” He turned to a smiling Joyce in the doorway and couldn’t help the smile that found its way onto his face.

“So it seems.”