“You know, this is just too cool!” Faith’s tone was smug, satisfied, as she dragged her unwilling assistant in her transformation toward the center of the clearing. “I just can’t get over how perfect this is.”

She stopped a few feet away from the circle of mystical sand that Giles had already prepared for the ritual. Facing her captive, she held him by the collar of his coat with both hands and pulled him closer, so close that his face was mere inches from hers.

“Mine,” she gloated, her voice a soft, menacing whisper, a light of cruel triumph in her dark eyes. “You’re all mine, Spike.”

He was trembling, frightened, his eyes downcast to avoid hers. He knew that he was helpless against her. Even so, he shot back in a voice of quiet defiance, “I’ve never been and never will be yours, you bloody whore. So you can just sod off, cause no matter what you do, you can’t make me…”

Her brutal fist across his face broke his words off right there, sending him reeling backwards, but still held in place by her other hand. She followed that blow up with another one that dropped him to his knees, and then a solid kick to the ribs that doubled him over in pain, gasping for breath.

But Faith was not finished. “We’ll just see about *that*, you little piece of shit!” she snarled, infuriated by his defiance. She yanked him back up onto his knees, drawing back her fist for another devastating blow.

“Faith.” Giles’ voice was steady, even, as he tried to calm her, stepping forward to place a hand on her arm. “Remember, you need him conscious for the ritual.”

Faith was breathing hard, trying to regain control, as she stared down at Spike in hatred. “Right,” she muttered between breaths, still glaring at him, and it was clear that she wanted nothing more than to hit him again, and was hard pressed at the moment to remember her goal in bringing him here in the first place. “The ritual.”

Spike was struggling to rise from his knees, dizzy from the beating she had just dealt him. Before he could manage it, she grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head back and holding him there on his knees, her cold eyes narrowed in menace as she spoke softly, looking him directly in the eye with cruel promise.

“As soon as this ritual is over,” she told him slowly, emphatically, leaning in very close to his face so that he could not miss a single word. “I’m gonna have Giles make this spell permanent, Baby. Make you permanently mine. And then – we’ll see what I can and can’t make you do!”

The cold menace in her eyes sent a chill down his spine, at the thought of being permanently enslaved to her, forced to fulfill her every command, robbed of his very free will. The very idea was terrifying; he knew what sorts of things Faith would demand of him. He looked away from her hard, penetrating eyes, struggling to control the rising fear building inside him.

“We might as well do it now,” Giles spoke suddenly, with a tired, impatient tone that said that he really just did not want to be bothered with Faith and her demands anymore -- and Spike’s heart dropped down to his stomach.

“Do what now?” Faith was puzzled, turning her eyes on him, but not releasing her hold on her captive.

“I don’t need to control him anymore after this. I may as well transfer control to you *now*, make the spell permanent – rather than having to be bothered with it after the fact,” Giles explained, irritation obvious in his impenetrable ice-blue eyes.

“No,” Spike whispered, searching the Watcher’s eyes, his own wide and desperate. “No – please…”

A slow smile spread across Faith’s face at the idea he was suggesting, and she turned her eyes slowly back to Spike, clearly enjoying the terror that the suggestion brought out in him.

"I would imagine that afterwards, we'll be a bit – preoccupied – with other affairs," Giles pointed out with a cold smile. “And quite honestly, I really don’t want to be bothered with it later.”

"Yeah," Faith nodded slowly, her eyes glittering with sadistic anticipation. "Yeah, let's get it done."

"Don't," Spike said in a desperate, trembling voice as the Watcher approached him. He tried to pull away from Faith's hands, but could not break her grip. "Please! Giles! Don't do this!"

Faith smiled cruelly, moving around and crouching down behind him, wrapping a firm arm around his shoulders and holding him down on his knees as Giles reached him. She leaned down to whisper in his ear, "Just a few more minutes -- and you're gonna spend the rest of your life doing every...thing... I ...tell you. If I tell you to ram a stake through your own heart -- you'll do it -- because I *tell* you to."

She shrugged. "But I wouldn't do that," she assured him. "That'd be no fun." Her face lit up with evil inspiration as she added, "I know! I was planning on taking out your new little playmate, Baby -- but it could be so much more fun to make *you* do it. I could make you kill Buffy." Her eyes narrowed with malice as she leaned in even closer, her lips brushing his ear as she added, "You're good at killing the women you love."

Her aim was deadly accurate; the words were devastating to him.

"No," he whispered, closing his eyes against the tears that sprang to them, his voice trembling with the anguish of her words and the terror they inspired. He nearly added, "please", but bit back the word at the last second. She would never hear him beg, no matter what she did to him. He was determined not to give her that.

Faith did not miss his near-slip, and smiled coolly at him. "Don't bother, Baby. You're gonna be begging me for mercy soon enough." She paused. "It's gonna be so much fun -- breaking you again," she sneered, malice in her eyes.

He started to speak, then stopped, frowning. "Again?" he questioned. "You *never* broke me to begin with, you bloody bitch! And you never will!" he declared defiantly.

Faith laughed at some private joke of her own, her hand rising to run through his hair in a mocking gesture of affectionate tolerance. "Yes, I have, Honey," she informed him in a patronizing tone. "You just don't remember it."

"*What*?" Spike's voice was full of confusion.

"Side effect of this little control spell is that you don't remember being under it when the spell comes off. You don’t remember any of actually. So -- we've actually been through all this before, and a lot more -- you just forgot all about it."

His eyes widened slowly with gradual understanding.

She leaned in closer, her voice a whisper of seduction as she whispered, "And Baby -- the things I did to you! You begged me to stop -- over and over -- and you will again, Spike. And I...can't...wait!" He flinched at the menace, the cruel suggestion, in her tone, as she nodded to Giles. "Go ahead."

Spike was ordered to stay on his knees, ordered not to resist, as the Watcher closed the slight remaining distance between them. He cringed with a gasp of terror as the Watcher began his Latin incantation, then closed his eyes in despairing resignation as he passed his hand across his head.

Suddenly, Spike's eyes snapped open, and he stared up at the Watcher, wide-eyed with shock. He opened his mouth to speak, shaking his head slightly in disbelief.

"Silence," Giles ordered softly, piercing blue eyes boring into Spike's in wordless communication.

"I bloody well will not!" Spike snapped in an angrily trembling voice, stumbling hastily to his feet. "I am bloody sick of your..."

"Shut up," Faith ordered suddenly, her voice hard and cold.

And Spike instantly obeyed.

Faith’s smile widened as a look of devastated understanding passed over the vampire’s face. He no longer had to obey Giles – but he had to obey Faith, which was so much worse. And this time, it was permanent.

“Sweet,” Faith remarked in satisfaction. Her smile instantly disappeared as she ordered, “Now on your knees.”

Spike obeyed, wondering with rising apprehension what she would expect of him next, knowing that he would have no choice but to do it, no matter how degrading or humiliating it was – and it was sure to be both. Faith was too intelligent to allow Giles to make any changes at all to the spell that had bound him without performing another “test” to be sure that she would still be safe once the ritual began.

She walked slowly to stand directly in front of where he knelt on the ground. “You’re mine now,” she declared. “And as your first act of obedience – to prove your submission…” she went on with a smirk. “You’re going to clean my boots. With your tongue.”

He stared at her in indignant disbelief – which was quickly replaced with helpless hatred as he bowed his head to obey her command. The instant before his mouth reached her boot, she drew back her foot, lightning fast, and kicked him viciously in the face. He fell back, gasping and choking on the blood that filled his mouth.

Faith dropped to the ground beside him, putting her hand behind his head and pulling him back up to his knees, steadying him. The expression in her eyes was mockingly sympathetic as she pulled him closer to her. He was shaking, gasping for breath from the shock of the unexpected brutal blow.

Not giving him time to recover, Faith leaned in close to whisper, “Kiss me.”

His eyes revealed his disgust, but he submitted to her command, her tongue ruthlessly invading his mouth. When she finally pulled back, her full lips were smeared with his blood. She slowly, sensuously licked them clean, smiling into his eyes.

“Not so bad,” she shrugged carelessly, a wicked glint in her eyes.

He was a vampire, but the sight of her blood-stained smile -- *his* blood on her lips – made him sick.

“Okay,” she said, her tone lighter, and satisfied, as she rose to her feet. “I’m convinced. Let’s do this.”

As she turned and headed toward the circle for the ritual, she failed to register the fact that her newly enslaved vampire rose to follow her – without her command to rise from his knees, where she had ordered him.

She also missed the knowing look that passed between the vampire and the Watcher, as each of the three prepared to carry out the plan they had been waiting to perform.


Xander sighed as he flipped quickly through the television channels with the remote control, morosely wondering how everything had fallen apart so badly, so quickly. He hardly knew the vengeful, bitter girl who had somehow taken the place of his best friend.

Willow blamed Spike for all she had lost – but Xander knew that really, Spike was not the one who deserved to bear the brunt of her wrath. Only one person was responsible for the damage that had been done to their lives, and that was Faith. Not Spike – not really.

And certainly not Buffy.

She had had no way of knowing when she left what would happen in her absence. She could not be held responsible for the results a simple human mistake. Yet, Xander knew that at least subconsciously, whether she realized it or not, there was a part of Willow that blamed her friend for what had happened.

He knew because there was a part of him that did as well.

Suddenly, he began to wonder what was taking Willow so long down in the basement. She had been down there for a very long time. A feeling of apprehension came over him as he stood slowly from the couch, turning down the volume on the television to listen. The house was silent. He slowly walked into the kitchen, looking at the closed door leading to the basement for a long moment.

If Angel had somehow managed to get loose – and if he was as dangerous as Buffy suspected that he was – he shuddered to think what he might be capable of.

The thought of Willow down there, alone with Angel, was enough to spur him on to action, no matter what the results might be. He took a deep breath and reached for the handle of the door.

He nearly screamed out loud when the door opened before he touched it, and he suddenly found himself face to face with an equally startled Willow. “Will,” he gasped, stepping back. “God, you scared me!”

Willow laughed – and the sound struck him as off somehow, considering her mood when she had gone downstairs. He immediately noticed, however, that it was a nervous laugh, louder than normal, and her eyes were too wide – guilty. “Why did I scare you? I mean,” she rambled. “Why were you scared – by me? I’m not – not scary, not at all – I mean…”

“Will,” he cut her off, his voice soft, but full of a rising suspicion. “What’s going on down there?” He glanced past her toward the stairs, his suspicions confirmed when she stepped quickly into his line of vision.

“Nothing!” she insisted, too emphatically. “Nothing’s…”

But he had heard and seen enough to know that he needed to see more. Xander pushed past her and made his way down the stairs, with Willow protesting frantically as she followed him down. Her words broke off as he stopped short at the foot of the stairs, disbelieving of the sight that met his eyes.

Angel was gone.


Buffy made her way quickly through the woods on the outskirts of Sunnydale, her finely honed senses leading her nearer to the master vampire and her sister Slayer that she sought. Despite her gentle reassurances to Spike earlier, she was starting to feel very apprehensive.

After all – it was all well and good for her to try to make him feel better, to keep him from being afraid, but Spike was the one who was really putting himself at risk in all of this. Their plan was by no means fool proof, dependent on Faith’s reactions to their actions.

And Faith was nothing if not unpredictable.

She quickened her pace as she felt a familiar tingling at the back of her neck, an instinctive knowledge that her natural enemy – in this case her closest ally – was nearby. She could see the clearing in front of her, and ran the last few yards to its edge, stopping short just out of sight of the players in the little drama unfolding there.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she was certain that her heart skipped a beat, and she froze in her tracks at the sight that met her eyes. A fierce, protective rage rose up in her at the sight of the vicious, dark Slayer manhandling and abusing *her* vampire!

The rage began to build as a series of memories played through her mind – Spike’s battered, abused body the night he had come to her for refuge from Faith, who had almost killed him that night – the nightmares that had haunted him, the terrors that seized him unexpectedly when some small action or word reminded him of the cruelty that Faith had inflicted on him.

As she watched him, trembling, on his knees, helpless against the Slayer who stood over him, a single thought filled her mind.

*It’s not worth it.*

She could not allow Spike to suffer any more at Faith’s hands. Forget the plan. She would march in there and take Faith out herself – and *anyone* who tried to stop her, as well, she thought glancing at her Watcher, who was doing an awfully good job of appearing to be friendly with Faith at the moment, and at any rate would surely not approve of her decision to abandon the plan.

It didn’t matter, she decided with firm resolve, stepping forward decisively. Faith was going down.

* *Nobody* messes with *my* man!*