Betas: Slaymesoftly and Mabel Marsters


Soul Survivors
Chapter Eighteen: Survivors


The sirens seemed far away, and even as the medical personnel rushed into the lobby, Buffy still felt like it was all surreal. Andra was in a state of shock. She didn’t cry; she just watched impassively as the men worked on securing Travers to the gurney. Another medic covered Albert Haynes with a blanket and called for the coroner.

“Let’s get you two out of here,” Spike said softly, trying to guide Andra away.

She stood rooted to the spot and followed the gurney with her eyes as it went by. Travers was still unconscious and it didn’t look good for him; not that Buffy cared. He deserved to die, and she hoped that he would.

Suddenly, Andra began to move. She went quickly across the lobby, and they followed her down the steps. Andra hugged her arms around herself as she watched the ambulance doors close on Travers.

“We’re taking him to the Royal Brompton Hospital,” one of the medics told the small group forming at the steps before he hopped in the ambulance sped away.

The crowd slowly dispersed, and when they were alone on the steps, Buffy turned to Giles. “Travers can’t get away with this.”

“What are we supposed to do? Go to the police and say that Quentin Travers killed a vampire?”

He spoke the words softly, but Andra gave a strangled cry and began pounding her fists on Giles’ chest. They quickly subdued her and she let out racking sobs as Spike held her tightly and spoke soothingly to her.

Buffy and Giles walked a few steps away, speaking together quietly for a minute before Giles went back into the building to sit with Aida. Andra was silent again, but she let Spike hold her. Buffy put her hand on the grieving vampire’s shoulder and exchanged a look with Spike.

What were they supposed to do with her now?

“You should come back to the hotel with us,” Buffy told her.

Andra shook her head slowly and stepped back from them both, wiping at her face with one hand.

“That’s right,” Spike agreed. “You shouldn’t be by yourself.”

With suffering and regret in her eyes, Andra said, “No. I need to be alone right now.”

“Wait!” Buffy said. “We’ll be going home soon, and I’d like to see you at least one more time before I go.”

Andra nodded. “I’ll come by the hotel tomorrow night.”

They stood side by side, arms linked and watched Andra shuffle slowly down the street. When she was out of sight, they turned into each other for a tight embrace. Buffy held on to him, clutching his duster for fear that he’d disappear right before her eyes.

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured into her neck.


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Shortly after sundown, the next night, Andra casually slipped past the doors and into the Royal Brompton Hospital. Squinting, she shielded her eyes from the florescent lights.

No one paid her any mind as she slowly made her way around. Andra was good at the hunt, and patience was one of the virtues she excelled at. She’d had hundreds of years to perfect her techniques. No evil thing that she was after could escape her.

She located him thirty minutes later on the fourth floor. He was alone with his eyes closed when she found him. Andra stood over him for a minute and watched him sleep, his chest rising and falling in peaceful slumber as the machines he was attached to droned and beeped on.

Andra’s face was a mask of indifference, but her hands clenched at her sides. She bent down to whisper in his ear, “Not long now, Quentin Travers.”

The man did not move or open his eyes, and she hoped that when the time was right that he would be awake to see her. She stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her, and searched for a good spot to wait.

She kept vigil around the corner, only peeking out when she heard steps in the hall a couple of minutes later. A nurse went into his room. Minutes passed, and then the nurse shut the door behind her and walked away.

Once she was sure the coast was clear, Andra slipped back into his room. She watched him as she closed the door behind her. Travers’ eyes were closed, but he was beginning to stir. She grabbed a chair to shove against the door handle. With the hourly nurse’s visit out of the way, she was relatively sure that she had time, but it would not be good to be interrupted while she was at work.

Soundlessly, she walked the few steps to stand beside his bed. She willed him to open his eyes, and when they fluttered open she was rewarded with a look of sheer terror. She knocked the call button off the bed. It swung back and forth, hanging on its wire by her legs.

Travers opened his mouth to yell, but she was too quick for him. Her hand was on his mouth before he could get a sound out. She was careful to make sure not to block his nose. She wanted him awake and coherent.

“Shh, now,” Andra told him in a cold voice while glaring at him with steely blue eyes. “You wouldn’t want to reopen your wound and spill all that lovely blood, would ye?”

As drugged as he was, his hands moved in slow motion to grip her arm, but even at full strength, he wouldn’t have been able to move her hand from his mouth. The watcher let out strangled, mumbling sounds, but she just ignored him. The monitors clicked and the beeping picked up speed.

“Do you know what a turned slayer, with a soul, does with all her time when she has hundreds of years?”

Other than his eyes getting wider, he showed no intention of acknowledging her words.

“I’ve been all over Europe, keeping the human population safe from evil bastards - both demon and human.” She inhaled the scent of fear in the room and glared at him again. “Yes, I have no problem killing a human being. The evil ones, that is; the ones who seem to get away with murder.”

The monitors went crazy as he tried to shake his head. She knew she didn’t have much time before the monitors going off the charts would have someone hurrying to check on him.

“You, sir, are an evil bastard, and I can’t allow you to get away with murder.” He continued to shake his head while he dug his fingernails into the flesh of her arm. “Oh, yes! Your blood is going to taste bitter going down, but I’ll relish this one like none other. ‘Tis true.”

She made sure he saw her transformation into the demon; then used a hand to jerk his head to the side. Without pausing, she fell upon him and sank sharp fangs into his neck. She shook her head and ripped at his flesh. The clean white pillow was soon stained red.

Travers kicked at the sheets and hit her back with his fists, but to no avail. A spot began to form on his hospital gown as the stitches from his gunshot wound burst open with his exertion. The beeping of the monitor slowed and then failed altogether, the long tone signaling his end and bringing a bit of calm to her.

When she was sure she’d taken enough, she yanked her head back, with fangs still embedded, at an angle in the flesh so that the wound would not look so much like a vampire bite. She stared coldly down at the body of the man that had taken everything from her as she wiped her mouth on a sheet.

Then suddenly, she was moving at hyper speed. She tossed the chair away from the door, flung it open and zipped down the hall. Once she was near the stairwell, she slowed her steps. She could hear yelling and calls for assistance from a nurse.

Andra spit a few times as she made her way out of the hospital. She wanted the taste in her mouth gone, but at the same time, she needed it there.


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~


Buffy was emotionally, if not physically exhausted. Last night, they’d been up until after dawn, furiously making love to each; trying to cling to the reality of here and now. They were both still on the earth, they were together and they could still love each other.

As she got dressed, she remembered that night, not so long ago, when Spike had come into her bathroom. He’d told her that love was passion and that it burned. She’d said that she didn’t want to be consumed. Now she realized that he was right. Better to be consumed by the power of intense love than to be consumed by the world at large. Her hand went to her collarbone where she rubbed a finger over the smoothed edges of the emerald.

Spike was not in the room when she woke up. She hurriedly shoved her feet into her boots to go find him, but she didn’t have to look far, as he was in the sitting room. His back was to her as he sat on the couch and leaned over the coffee table. A bottle of single malt scotch, two half-filled glasses, a pile of cash and a set of playing cards lay between him and Giles. The watcher sat in the chair on the other side of the table, concentrating on his hand.

“Hurry it up, old man. I want to win this hand sometime before you up and die, cuz I know I’m not in the will.”

“Do shut up. I can’t think when you do that,” Giles said.

Buffy smiled at them as she came around the couch to sit next to Spike. “You’re not cheating are you?”

Spike smiled brightly at her and she basked in the wake of his love for her.

“Good evening, kitten. Thought maybe you’d sleep through until tomorrow.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “And no, I’m not cheating. Don’t have to with him.”

Giles looked at them over his cards with resignation. “I don’t know if I should be insulted by that or not?”

Buffy grinned at him. “It’s Spike; be insulted.”

The watcher grinned back at her and placed his cards on the table before leaning back into his chair in smug victory. “Don’t under estimate your opponent.”

“Hmpt,” was all Spike would say as he tossed his cards down.

Giles grabbed the bills on the table and pocketed them while Buffy frowned at Spike. “I hope that wasn’t our Paris trip money.”

“No worries, love. I won more than I lost,” Spike said as he patted his bulging jean pocket.

Then he used the remote to turn the TV on, while Giles cleaned up the cards and took the bottle and glasses back to the mini bar. It was all so domestic and she mused about how strange their lives had become. It was a good strange, but she never would have guessed that this is how they would have ended up.

“So what are the plans now?” she asked them.

After Giles moved his chair back in place and took a seat, he said, “I have my ticket for the night after tomorrow. We’ll leave for the airport right before sunset. You’ll have to take the Underground again by way of the sewer system from the hotel basement.

The thought of going through those disgusting sewers again made Buffy crinkle her nose. “Yuck, but do we have to leave so soon?”

Spike held her hand. “’Fraid so, pet. We’ll do Paris tomorrow night, but we’ll only have a few hours if we want to get back before daylight.”

“I got a call from Faith early this morning.” Giles adjusted his glasses and leaned back. “There’s increased demon activity, and it seems to be centered around the new high school. I think she’s going to need all of our help. We really need to get back.”

“Dawn didn’t mention that when she called,” Buffy countered.

“After so many years with a slayer for a sister, I doubt the usual pick up of activity in the fall would even faze the girl,” Giles said.

“He’s got a point there,” Spike said.

Breaking news interrupted the program on the television. Giles grabbed the remote to turn up the volume.

A male reporter squinted past the lights shining down on him to stare directly into the camera as police activity went on behind him. “We’ve just had reports that a wild animal or…something is on the loose somewhere inside the Royal Brompton Hospital behind me.”

He pressed his earpiece closer to him and paused before nodding. “One death has now been confirmed. Somehow this animal found its way to the fourth floor without being seen by anyone and attacked a man who was brought in just last night with gun shot wounds.”

Turning to point at the large structure, the reporter said, “Hospital officials have locked down the building and police are not letting anyone in. They are evacuating patients as fast as they can and barricading staff in with patients who are too ill to leave their beds…”

Giles turned the volume down and the three of them stared at one another, dumbfounded.

“You don’t think--” Spike started.

“Yeah, I do.” Buffy got up to get her jacket. She should have seen this coming. They had to find her.

A light knock on the door had them all pausing. Buffy was closest to it, so she changed direction and opened it. Andra stood on the other side.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she told Buffy. “I told you I’d come tonight to say goodbye.”

Spike stood with Buffy as Andra stepped over the threshold. “Seems you’ve been a busy girl.” He pointed to the TV screen as Giles turned up the sound. “Looks like you’ve already been out calling.”

Andra narrowed her eyes at the screen. “That man was a criminal, and I saw no justice for his crimes in the near future.”

They were all silent, but Giles frowned at her with the type of disapproval that Buffy guessed Andra’d seen from her own watcher a few times before she had been turned.

Andra gestured with her hands in agitation. “That bastard was going to kill your slayer.” Her voice rose. “He killed my lover!”

Andra continued to glare at Giles as the phone rang.

Spike picked it up. “Hello. Yes. Here he is.” He held the phone out for Giles, “It’s Aida wanting to know if you’d seen the news yet.”

“I’ll take it in my room.”

Once Giles was gone, Andra relaxed her stance and sighed as she watched the reporter on TV. “You can’t blame me for wanting to rid the world of that filth.” Then she spit, and Buffy crinkled up her nose. “And, don’t you be telling me that I shouldn’t harm a human. There be evil out there in all types of forms. There’s a slayer out there to do the demon hunting, but no one to hunt down the evil humans.”

Spike put his arm around Buffy. “I, for one, am glad you did it. I say good riddance and thanks for saving me a trip.”

If the situation had been different, if it was Spike who took a stake to the heart, what would she have done? Buffy knew the answer and she couldn’t fault Andra for what she’d done.

Once they were settled on the couch and Andra in the chair, Buffy asked, “What do you plan to do now?”

“What can I do? I’ll stick around London for awhile and then I’ll go off and find a town that needs me.” She shrugged, and said wistfully, “It’s been years since I’ve been back to Scotland. Perhaps I’ll go there.”

The two blonds exchanged looks before Spike nodded at Buffy. She glanced at Andra with a hopeful expression. “You could come back with us.”

A look of pleasant surprise crossed the girl’s face before she closed it off. She slipped into her Scottish accent and said, “The New World? Ach, no. I’ll not be flying in one of those metal birds.”

“You could always take a boat,” Spike suggested.

She waved him off. “I’m needed here. Besides, you already have the current slayer and the two of you to fight the evil there. Who does Europe have?”

“But, you’ll be all alone here, now,” Buffy said softly. She’d spent so long with the support of friends and family, that she couldn’t image being alone like that.

“It’s nothing new to me. I live that way by choice, don’tcha know?” Andra swallowed and shook the pained expression from her face. “It will be hard to go on, knowing that he’s not here waiting for me to turn up when I get the notion, but I’ll be fine.” She nodded. “That I will.”

Rubbing his chin, Spike said with a gleam in his eye, “Pity that. I was looking forward to introducing you to Peaches--”

Buffy’s loud groan interrupted him.

“Peaches? They aren’t native to the New World. I’ve had one before,” Andra said with a confused look, probably thinking that they were a little daft.

“He’s talking about Angel,” Buffy said, smiling at her.

Andra looked even more confused. “I have to say, I’ve never seen an angel before, but you know one named Peaches?”

She looked on, shaking her head at them as Buffy giggled and Spike chuckled. “Yer a strange lot.”

“I have a feeling Angel would love ‘er,” Spike said. “She’s eternally walking around in the body of a fifteen year old. She’s exactly his type.”

Buffy hoped the glare she gave Spike affected him as much as the punch to his arm did.

“Sorry,” Buffy told her. “Angel is the name of a vampire who lives in Los Angeles. He has a soul, like us.”

“Oh?” Andra was curious now. “I had no idea there were so many of us out there.”

Buffy shrugged. “As far as we know, there is just the four of us.”

“There had to be more turned slayers in the history of the line,” Andra said.

“I’m sure there were. We’ve read of one other, but it looks like we’re the only survivors.”