"Buffy!"

Spike's injuries did not matter to him. He knew that he was weak and did not really stand a chance against Faith as it was; but none of that mattered. All he could think was that he had to get to his fallen lover across the clearing.

Giles caught his arm, pulling him back, speaking in a quiet, urgent voice, "Spike... *Spike*!"

The vampire turned toward him, staring at him with wide, panicked eyes. "Let me go! I have to help..."

"You *can't* help her, Spike. There is nothing you can do for her right now," Giles said in a voice that was calm, firm, breaking through the fear that seized the vampire and helping him to see the truth. "*I* can, and I will...but we have to go on with the plan. We have to take our chance to stop Faith!”

He glanced anxiously toward the dark Slayer, standing over her defeated enemy in a mixture of triumph and shock, her back to them, oblivious to their hurried conversation.

“As soon as her attention is no longer on me, I will help Buffy…like I helped you after Willow attacked you…remember?” Giles’ piercing ice blue eyes met his with an arresting gaze, willing him to understand the necessity of what he was saying.

Spike’s desperate eyes lit up with hope at the memory. “Right,” he whispered, nodding quickly, realizing that the Watcher was right. He took one more look at Buffy’s prone form across the clearing, and a chill went through him. She was so still! But he knew that, as Giles said, there was nothing he could do to help her at the moment, but Giles, on the other hand, was capable of healing her. “Right, then. Let’s do this.”

Giles searched his eyes for a moment with concern, then nodded slowly in satisfaction, glancing again toward Faith, who was crouched beside Buffy, her hand at her throat to check for a pulse. “Right. Back on your knees, Spike. Must keep up the act.” The Watcher’s voice was low and gentle, aware that Spike’s attention was mostly focused on Buffy at the moment, but needing him to carry on as planned if it was going to work.

The vampire quickly complied, dropping to his knees with his head in his hands, just as the Slayer turned and headed back toward them, a smug smile on her face. He knew that Buffy was still alive – if she had been dead he knew that he would have sensed it -- and that in a few minutes she would not even be injured, but he also knew that Faith would be suspicious if he did not seem upset.

It was not a difficult act to carry off.

“She’s alive,” she informed them with a shrug in a voice of unconcern. “So it looks like I’ll get to watch you kill your girlfriend, after all, Spikey,” she sneered, as she reached him, jerking his head up and back to smile cruelly into his tearful blue eyes. “Just as soon as my ritual is done.” She looked up at Giles. “So we ready to go then?”

“All is in order,” he assured her, nodding. “Go ahead and take your positions in the center of the circle, and I will stand a fair distance back to recite the spell. We’ve no way of knowing exactly what will happen once the spell begins, and it may not be safe for anyone but the two of you to be too close. As soon as I begin the incantation, go ahead and begin the ritual.”

When the Watcher went to stand about thirty feet away from the circle, halfway between it and the unconscious blonde Slayer, Spike knew that his words about safety and keeping his distance had only been excuse to work his way closer to Buffy.

Faith jerked him up to his feet and dragged him into the circle, where she turned to face him with a triumphant smirk on his face. “Here’s where it all begins, Baby,” she said softly, her eyes shining with eager anticipation. “As soon as Giles starts the spell, you’re going to follow the ritual, just exactly as I told you before, remember?”

The soft, patronizing patience in her almost gentle voice was chilling to him, knowing the cruel intentions she had for him and the woman he loved. He almost preferred her violence to that deceptive kindness, soft and gentle, yet masking such ruthless designs.

Almost.

She jerked his head back painfully hard when he did not answer, snarling in his face pointedly, “*Remember*?” The threat in her eyes was clear, and he knew he had to respond.

He nodded, his eyes closed, his face a mask of anguished resignation.

Satisfied for the moment, Faith released him with a little shove and a smirk. “Good. Now as soon as I tell you – go ahead and begin. And do *exactly* as the ritual requires. You will *not* drain me completely. You are going to do only what the ritual requires you to do.”

Spike opened his eyes, keeping them downcast as he nodded his unwilling submission. At this point to look Faith in the eye could be dangerous. He did not want her to see anything there that might make her suspicious. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced across the clearing to where Giles stood, ready to begin on Faith’s cue.

This was it.

All the planning of the past few days came down to this – the fate of Sunnydale and possibly the world resting on what went on in the next few moments. If his heart could have beat, he knew it would have been pounding; every nerve in his body was on edge. If all went according to plan, within a few short moments the threat of Faith would be nothing more than a distant memory.

And then, Giles began reciting the Latin words for the spell – but Spike recognized immediately that they were not the words of the spell that Faith intended. Faith, not being as observant as Spike was, did not recognize the words – the exact same words that Giles had spoken in her room a few nights before, when he had healed the injuries she had inflicted on Spike without even touching him.

But Spike recognized them, and had to suppress a smile as he realized that the Watcher was already beginning to help Buffy. Right, then. In that case, it was best to hurry up and get Faith good and distracted.

“Well, go on, then!” Faith’s impatient voice urged him, and he looked up at her through wide, serious eyes. “Do it!”

*She bloody well asked for it!* he thought with a grim sense of satisfaction that he did not allow his face to reveal, as it shifted smoothly into his natural vampiric features, feral golden eyes gleaming with anticipation that he knew Faith would not recognize, his fangs glistening as he leaned forward and placed a hand behind her neck, pulling her closer to him.

The Slayer did not resist, though her heart was pounding with a mixture of fear and exhilaration. This was what she wanted, and there was no chance of her actually being hurt. After all, the vampire was completely under her control. Still, every instinct in her screamed at her to fight or flee, not to let this creature of darkness sink his fangs into her vulnerable neck. He could see a momentary fear, indecision in her dark eyes.

And then, she closed her eyes and threw her head back, baring her throat to him, her breath coming fast and shallow as she waited, every muscle tensed and ready.

*Easy,* he warned himself. *Slow, careful – don’t act like you want to – don’t get too eager…*

Slowly he lowered his mouth over her throat, sliding his fangs through her smooth olive skin as easily as he could, though he longed to rip through her flesh with a savage intensity that had been building inside him for the past year, culminating with the abuse she had heaped on him over the past few days.

But he knew that if he hurt her too badly right at first, did anything to make her afraid or suspicious – she might change her mind and abandon the ritual. At this moment, he was physically not strong enough to take her in a fight, and they would lose their best chance of beating her. So, as much as he longed to tear her to pieces, he knew it would have to wait.

For a few minutes, at least.

As his fangs pierced her flesh, she let out a soft gasp of shock, and a little pain. It always hurt a little, though if it was someone that you loved, the pain could be exquisitely pleasurable.

Spike had no desire to give her pleasure of any kind; she had taken all that she ever would from him, and now it was time for him to take something back.

As the hot, sweet taste of her blood filled his mouth, the coppery liquid flowing down his throat, he felt it immediately begin to go to work on the wounds that covered his body from her beatings and abuse. As he drew harder from the puncture wounds in her throat, he felt her body weaken, and she started to slip. He caught her in his arms and lowered her to the ground, his hands pinning her arms by her head as he felt the Slayer’s strength pour from her body – into his.

As the world spun around her, the images before her eyes growing blurry around the edges, Faith realized that she was hovering on the edge of consciousness from the extreme blood loss, and panicked, beginning to struggle against his restraining hands. Strengthened and healed by the Slayer’s blood coursing through his veins, Spike was easily able to hold the weakened Slayer down against the hard ground beneath them.

And that was when he knew that their plan had succeeded.

He withdrew his fangs from her throat, drawing back to meet her gaze, his golden eyes flashing with triumphant fury. She stared back up at him, her eyes widening in gradual understanding – followed by horror, and strangely enough – betrayal.

None of it phased Spike. In fact – he relished it, as a slow, cold smile spread across his face. “Just for the record, pet,” he said in a low voice that would have been seductive under any other circumstances, “if this is what you meant by ‘power’ – I’m not impressed. And as for me killing my girlfriend…” He paused, leaning in close to whisper in her ear, “I think you had the wrong Slayer in mind.”

She struggled uselessly against his hands at her wrists, desperate panic in her eyes. “Let – go!” she gasped, trying to pull away, to no avail.

“Not likely, pet,” he sneered. “You don’t control me anymore – in any way. And unfortunately for you, Slayer – I remember *everything* about the past few days – and I’m going to make sure *you* never forget it, either!” His eyes grew serious, and his voice deadly cold, on the end of his statement, and she could see the bitter rage in his eyes at the degradation and violations she had committed against him over the past few days.

And that was when Faith realized the truth -- she was going to die.


Across the clearing, the disoriented, disheveled Slayer rose to her feet, a bit confused as she glanced around her, trying to remember what had happened – but unhurt. Her eyes fell on the pair on the ground a few yards away, engaged in a struggle, and she started automatically forward to go to Spike’s aid.

Her Watcher’s hand caught her arm and stopped her, pulling her back.

“Let *go*!” she snarled, turning on him with such ferocity in her glittering green eyes that the older man took a couple of steps back.

“Buffy – look,” Giles spoke cautiously to her, gesturing with his hand toward Spike and Faith, his eyes gazing into hers with a hesitance, an insecurity that only served to confirm her suspicions.

There were things about this plan that he had kept from her.

She stared at him for another long moment with bold contempt in her eyes, her expression making it clear that she knew he had, to some extent, deceived her, before she reluctantly turned her eyes toward the pair struggling on the ground.

It only took her a moment to realize with a great sense of relief that Spike really did not seem to need any help. Just as they had planned, once Faith had allowed Spike to nearly drain her, for the sake of the ritual, she was too weak to fight him off. And with the absence of the control spell that Faith thought was on Spike – that Buffy now suspected *had* been on him, at least at some point – the vampire was free to take his vengeance on the girl.

She watched as her lover drew back from his victim to speak to her quietly, the look on his face, even from this distance, mockingly triumphant. She felt a chill go down her spine with the realization that this was more than saving the world to him – this was a moment he wanted to savor.

She could not say that she blamed him, after what Faith had done to Drusilla.

Suddenly, Buffy’s eyes were drawn away from the pair by a movement, caught out of the corner of her eye, on the edge of the woods on the opposite side of the clearing. She looked quickly to where she had seen it, but it was gone.

“Someone’s over there,” she said quietly to Giles, who followed her gaze with an alarmed look in that direction.

“Faith’s consort?” he guessed.

“Most likely.” Buffy’s voice was grim. “Well, I guess that rules Angel out,” she said with some optimism as she scanned the edge of the woods for any further sign of movement.

“I suppose it does,” Giles agreed, his voice distant as he, too, watched for whoever or whatever it was that they had seen.

At just that moment, in a stroke of poetic irony that Buffy could not quite bring herself to appreciate, the figure they had seen stepped into the clearing, rushing toward the fallen Slayer and the vampire above her. Even from this distance, Buffy could see that he was intent on the destruction of the latter, as he made his way with lightning speed toward them.

She could also see that Spike was too caught up in the moment of his retribution to even be aware of the presence of this new danger, an opponent much more capable of actually causing him damage than the fallen, weakened Slayer who was all but defeated already. His focus on the one who had caused most of his suffering over the past year, he failed to observe the approach of the other – his enemy.

His sire.

Angelus.