I decided I I need an image showing how small Aniryu males are, for refence Hypatia here is a even 5′(152cm). These two Dudes are pretty normal size wise though the one on the ground is more or less at the max size they get. Which tends to be a common thing for trans-man like him.
I really need to figure out more of the Aniryu Language so they can get names as I’m liking these two dudes.
[3 images. A person sitting at a table eating food. Mauricio Taricco et al. sitting at a table. A close up of a laptop. Captions: Other cometary mass extinctions in other epochs seem likely. If true, this would mean that comets have been the bringers... ...both of life and death.]
• S H A D O W B R I N G E R
Three pieces from my short project BRINGERS, a series of dark fantasy digital artworks that i posted recently on instagram, hope you enjoy them during this dark period of quarantine, hope you are safe, hope to be able to bring you some light.
Feel free to follow, i’ll post much more of this kind soon (;
Done in copics. Didn't use reference so not entirely accurate since first drawing some of these characters.
One on left is my Veria WOL White Mage. But I switched back to Miqo'te after a while anyway.
Middle: Emet-Selch and then Right: Y'shtola
AN: This chapter was inspired by BTVS 7.09 “Never Leave Me.”
Warnings: threats of rape, implied torture
Chapter 25: House Full of Hostages
The sun was barely up, but the Scoobies were already nervously waiting in the living room while Buffy and Dean were busy with the vampire upstairs. "I'm not sure I've heard a worse idea," said Willow, "and that includes the time Xander covered a pepperoni pizza with M&Ms."
"I knew The Supremer would have its moment in the sun,” Xander replied.
“Spike killed a bunch of people, so Buffy and Dean brought him back to the house?” Dawn asked in disbelief.
“Willow’s back in the house,” said Anya.
“That’s different,” snapped Dawn. “Not like you can judge.”
“I’m just saying we’ve seen this from Buffy before,” Anya continued. “She’s not always with the group think of who to kill and who to not-kill. Frankly, I’m surprised Dean is going along with this lunacy. I thought he’d be more black and white and stabby about this. Plus, bonus he-man points for killing Buffy’s ex.”
“If Dean thought the best option was staking Spike, he would have done it,” said Sam, “but he thinks Spike’s more valuable alive at the moment.”
“It’s not just Spike.” Willow paced as she calculated the possible outcomes. “They think he’s being controlled by something. Okay, what if it pushes his big red murder buttons while he’s here? Or worse! What if it comes for him? I mean, it’s followed him from the school basement, to town, and to that old woman’s house. Who’s to say it won’t come here?”
“It already did,” Dawn said grimly.
“For being the head of the Kill The Bleached Bastard Club, you’ve been very quiet, Xander.”
Xander stood up and headed for the kitchen. “Anyone want some cereal? I hear it’s in peak season.”
Spike’s head pounded, a feat since he didn’t have any blood to pound. Several parts of his body ached and tingled the way it did when it was trying to heal, the way it did when he’d been in a fight.
He opened his eyes, but his vision was blurred, no doubt from the blow to his head. From the smell, he could tell he was in Buffy’s house. It was a concentrated scent. The vanilla extra sweet, the lilac fresh, the sex overpowering. Last time he’d smelled this was in his lower, more perverse moments when he’d sneaked into Buffy’s bedroom to rifle through her underwear drawer and steal souvenirs.
Something was holding down his arms, his legs, his body. He was tied to a chair, but why? “Buffy?”
“Sorry, buddy boy, it’s just me,” said an unfriendly, rumbling voice.
“‘Buddy boy?’ Are we besties now, Dean?”
The prior night came back to him in flashes. A room full of vampires. Drusilla. He’d begged to be staked, but instead, he was in Buffy’s home. She didn’t know the danger her mercy put everyone in.
“Why ‘aven’t you killed me?” Spike asked again, his vision coming into focus. “Know you’re aching to.”
Sitting on the end of the bed, Dean set his elbows on his knees and leaned in as if about to share a secret. “Because of Buffy.”
Momentarily delighted, Spike ran his tongue over his lip, licking the stale blood. “Got you on a short leash, does she?”
Dean looked at his hands and rubbed them together like he was trying to brush off dirt. “I hated you the moment I laid eyes on you. Hated the way you talk, the way you move. Hated the hungry way you look at her. And then I found out you were a goddamn vampire.”
“Stop. You’ll make a monster blush.”
Dean rose from the bed, scratching his neck, and wandered over to a collection of photos on Buffy’s bulletin board. He had probably seen the pictures a hundred times as he passed in an out of her bedroom, but he inspected them silently as if they were brand new.
“You know what I like about Buffy?” Dean asked.
Spike rolled his eyes. “Do tell the inner workings of your torrid love affair.”
“She has so much life in her.”
Spike snorted. Buffy was a nightmare. A killing machine. A creature of the night deadlier than any he’d ever known. Life wasn’t her gift.
Undeterred, Dean continued, wistfulness in his voice. “She wants to grab all the life she can. Most hunters I know are dead men walking, withdrawn alcoholics just waiting for the inevitable. But Buffy, she has hopes and dreams and friends, the sort of friends who would put themselves in danger for her. Good friends.
“And for some crazy ass reason, she considers you one of those friends.”
This was not what Spike expected to hear when tied to a chair. “She, she said that? Those words?”
“She keeps saying, ‘Spike has a soul now,’ as if that can erase your past. But I was reading the other week about how vampires are empty husks led around by their demons. And reading your history, William the Bloody. Maybe that was you. Somehow I can’t imagine a blood-thirsty demon wanting to shack up with a soul.”
His piercing gaze on Spike, Dean said, “I know the look on a man’s face when he’s been forced to do something terrible.”
“You ever ‘ave a demon in you?” Spike asked.
Dean shook his head but said nothing.
“It’s like those cartoons with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, only the devil is alone and steering,” Spike said with a sneer. “I learned ‘ow to wrestle control back from this piss poor roommate. Thought getting my soul back would put me firmly in the driver seat, but I still ‘ear it growling up a storm, telling me what to do.”
“What’s it telling you now?” Dean asked.
Spike flexed his arms, but the rope held tight. They weren’t taking chances. “It wants me to rip your ‘andsome face off, cut you to bits. It doesn’t like you at all.”
Dean snorted as if Spike had told a pathetic joke.
But it wasn’t a joke. This wasn’t the time for posturing, for cock fights. He needed to understand the threat that sat before him. “It doesn’t want to kill ‘er. It wants to rape 'er, destroy ‘er. I will suck Buffy dry while I fuck ‘er, when she comes back, she’ll be all mine. Maybe I won’t kill you, just snap your neck and leave you paralyzed, keep you around as a blood donor, ‘ang you up in the bedroom so you can watch us ‘aving a good shag. Real question is, do I kill the little bit, take ‘er as she is, or let ‘er ripen a few more years?”
“You ain’t gonna do any of that.” Darkness took over Dean’s face.
“You know what I’m capable of.” Spike wasn’t sure himself anymore; the demon’s voice was worse than he remembered.
“I know what I’m capable of. If you’ve turned evil sock puppet, I’ll do what she can’t.”
Buffy wouldn’t be able to kill Spike and he knew it. She’d lost all perspective dropping him, a live grenade, in with her friends. He needed to make sure Dean would do the right thing despite what she wanted. ”Raping Buffy’s just unfinished business. She tell you about that? Tried to fuck her a few months ago, but didn’t finish the job. And she still likes ‘aving me around.”
Dean smirked before twisting back and socking Spike in the jaw, knocking his chair over and loosening a few teeth.
Buffy was searching for another phone number, hoping to find Giles, when she heard banging up in her bedroom. “What happened?” she asked Dean as he came down the stairs.
“Spike’s chair fell over.”
“Really?” She grabbed Dean’s right hand and rubbed her thumb over his red knuckles. “Put some ice on that. How’s the rest of you?”
He pointed to the bandage on his neck. “Just a new scar for the collection.”
“And the other thing?”
Wincing, Dean adjusted himself. “Not gonna feel like screwing tonight, if that’s what you want to know.”
“That was sort of off the table anyway seeing as there’s a vampire in our bedroom.”
Poking at the mix of business cards and paper scraps on the counter, Buffy tried to remember which numbers she’d called. Giles wasn’t answering his cell or his landline. The coven that helped Willow heal said they hadn’t heard from him in months. She picked up a heavy card on linen stock and tapped it on the counter. It was a simple design, just a phone number and the name Quentin Travers embossed in gold letters.
“I’m going to call the Watcher’s Council,” she said to Dean, who was watching her as he iced his hand.
“You need a gun that big for Spike?”
“I’m sure they’re chomping at the bit to help a vampire. No, Dean, this is bigger than Spike. It’s bigger than us. Whatever is controlling him, I’m sure it’s not planning to gift the world with pocket pandas and chocolate. Then there’s my blood-soaked visions.”
She crossed the kitchen and buried her face in his plaid shirt. Still smelling of basement dirt, he felt warm and solid in her arms. Present. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Dean, but I feel alone in this. Yes, you’re here. We have Sam and Willow, but we can only hit so much if we don’t know where to strike. Without Giles, I -- I feel lost.”
Tucking a lock of loose hair behind her ear, Dean said, “I know the feeling. So what do I need to know ‘bout these Watcher guys?”
“I’m hoping they’ll help me find Giles. I’m afraid they’re going to send someone with a disapproving scowly face and stuck up accent. Someone I’m going to have to argue with. Someone who’s going to get all nosy about you and where you’re from.”
“What happens if they find out?”
“Don’t know.” Buffy stood up and smoothed his shirt. “If they try anything, I’ll put on my protective girlfriend pants and rescue you.”
“My hero,” he said, leaning down to kiss her.
“There’s a crazed vampire upstairs, and you’re making out?” said Sam, who’d stolen into the kitchen.
Buffy estimated she’d had three seconds not thinking about the crisis they were in, three seconds away from the brink of tears, but before she could respond, Dean was embracing her. “Sammy, you’re interrupting a very important strategy meeting.”
“I can see that,” he replied, eyebrows up and dimples of disapproval on display. “You’ve got a room full of nervous people who want in on the plan.”
“Spike’s been in contact with the mysterious It more than any of us. We need to find out what It’s told him, how It’s communicating with him, and how It’s making him kill,” said Buffy.
“Do you actually see him sharing any of that info?” Dean asked.
“Maybe. We’ll start with kid gloves. He was pretty messed up at that house.”
“Let me know when you want me to step in for the messy stuff,” said Dean. “Maybe we should take him somewhere else so Dawn doesn’t hear?”
How long had he been alone with Spike? It couldn’t have taken her more than half an hour to shower and change, but he was already beating on the vampire. Once, she’d seen Dean cry, near hysterics triggered by memories of Sam’s death, of consequential decades spent in Hell torturing and being tortured. Knowing what he’d been through, how could she ask him to step into that role again? “I don’t want you to step in for the messy stuff.”
“You think it won’t go that far?”
“I’m not saying I don’t need you. There’s plenty to do. I’m saying the torture tools can stay in the trunk.”
“How can I help?”
Fucking grocery getter for a monster, Dean grumbled to himself. He appreciated that Buffy didn’t want him involved in interrogating Spike; he didn’t want her to see him like that, to know what he was capable of. Still, he’d rather be back at the house keeping an eye on things than out buying pig’s blood for his girlfriend to feed the vampire. Willow, nervously wringing her hands in the passenger seat, knew all the places in town they could hit for this unpalatable snack run.
“Can you turn that off?” she asked.
Dean bit his tongue and ejected the cassette. “Not a Metallica fan?”
“I like rock and alternative stuff, but that was making me so nervous, my skin was all prickly.”
“Relaxes me,” Dean said.
“You’re joking, right?”
“It’s easy to get lost in. Their early stuff has these beautiful, complicated melodies and long ass guitar solos you just don't hear anymore, which is one of modern rock’s biggest tragedies. Tell ya what, I got a copy of this on Sam’s computer from a concert they did with the San Francisco orchestra, and I bet you’ll like it backed by violins and stuff.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then Buffy won’t be the only person in the house with shit taste in music.”
Willow snapped to look at something out the window and yelled, “Stop the car! Stop the car!”
Dean slammed on the brakes, and she bolted down the sidewalk after a short blond boy in a large black coat. Quickly finding a place to park, Dean chased after her and found her scuffling in an alley.
She had the boy pinned against the wall and was practically spitting in his face. “You don't know the first thing about pain, but I'm willing to give a lesson.”
“Help me! Please, save me! She’s trying to kill me!” shouted the kid when he spotted Dean.
“Hey, I was speechifying!” whined Willow.
“Ginger, you wanna fill me in?” Dean asked. He’d never seen her violent and pushy, but it was hard to believe this trembling kid with a puddle of piss forming at his feet could possibly be any threat.
“Remember Warren?” Her voice was dark, dangerous.
“Killed Tara. Suffered the consequences. Got a pretty strong mental picture.”
“Andrew here was one of his lackeys.”
“I didn’t kill Tara!” Andrew protested, trembling. “I had nothing to do with that. Buffy beat us so bad, I was packing up to leave town.”
“Shut up, you worm. Dean, check his bag.”
Near the mouth of the alley was a brown paper sack with a blossoming bloodstain. “Please, don’t be a cat. Please, don’t be a cat,” Dean muttered. “Looks like someone else went to the butcher. We got some fresh meat and a whole lotta blood. One of ‘em popped open, but he had eight quarts.”
“Pull the car around. Do you think he’ll fit in the trunk?”
Dean huffed. “I can fit three of him in the trunk.”
Xander and Anya searched Andrew’s coat while the Winchesters tied him to a chair in Dawn’s room, a pile of stuffed animals transfixed on the scene.
“I won’t tell you anything,” their new captive squeaked, “no matter how roughly you manhandle my body. Seriously, you should maybe touch my body some more.”
Sam rolled his eyes and left.
“You don’t want me handling you, kid. I’d take your fingernails first, then start asking questions,” Dean said before following his brother out the door.
Standing in the hallway, they could hear Xander and Anya start their good cop, bad cop routine. “We’re gonna make you squeal, little piggie!”
“Today has only increased in crazy,” Sam sighed.
“Double the hostages, double the fun?”
Sam shook his head. “Where are all the pieces?”
“Whatever the big boss is has visited Dawn, Willow and Fangs McGee, who’s been killing people on request, but cuz a that chip, he ain’t supposed to be able to do that. The little one --” there was a smack and thump behind Dawn’s bedroom door, “fancies himself some sorta criminal mastermind. Willow said he can conjure up some pretty sick spells, so she’s thinkin’ he’s connected to whatever hell else is going on.”
“And he was one of the people who killed Tara?”
“No, he was in on the world conquering part of it, but was seriously afraid of Buffy beating the shit outta him. You shoulda seen him in the alley with Willow. Pissed himself.”
“Like all criminal masterminds,” Sam said dryly.
“She did skin his buddy.”
Xander and Anya came out of Dawn’s room looking stern before closing the door and dissolving into a giggle fit. “Did you see that?! I made him cry!”
“You’re a good bad cop,” Xander beamed.
“He was annoying me, and I wanted to slap him, so I went ahead and slapped him!”
“Oh, nice line there about the fingernails, Dean. You really helped get him ready to spill. ‘Course he jumps every time Willow’s mentioned too. Where is Will?”
“She’s downstairs folding laundry with Dawn,” Sam replied.
“Sinister, thy name is Willow. Okay, An, you go relax for a bit, and I’ll go pretend to be the weasel’s friend.”
“Feel free to turn up my demon reputation but gloss over how I can’t bring any of that pain anymore.”
“Never underestimate your ability to cause people pain,” said Xander before ducking back into the bedroom.
Anya smiled a love-swoony smile. “Xander’s so sweet. He still believes in me.” Pleased with her accomplishments, she practically skipped down the stairs.
Over an hour later, Buffy, looking exhausted and downcast, found Dean in the kitchen making a late grilled cheese lunch with Dawn. She fell into Dean’s arms, groaning as he rubbed her back. “Not going so hot, baby?”
“The whole blood-eating thing is super gross,” she said into his chest. “It has to digest or absorb or whatever happens inside a vampire. I skipped the biology lesson. He’s too exhausted to explain anything.”
“I’m sure that’s it,” Dawn grumbled.
“What do you mean?”
“He always wants to spend time with you, right? Now he’s got you alone in your bedroom feeding him. Spike’s gotta be thinking that’s pretty hot.”
“Ew. This just got worse.”
Dean held her face in his hands and smiled at her. He hated seeing her stressed like this, hated her feeling backed against a wall, hated her feeling so lost. “We got a pile of sandwiches with your name on them.”
“Not true,” said Dawn, grabbing two. “The ones with pickles are mine.”
“You need to eat and sleep,” Dean said gently. “Go curl up on the couch an’ take a nap. You’ve been up all night, barely slept the night before. No use grinding yourself down. I’ll make sure he stays tied up.”
Grabbing a non-pickled sandwich, Buffy said through bites, “Sam’s sort of taking up the entire couch, and last time you were alone with Spike, you punched him.”
“He deserved it.”
“No doubt, but I don’t want to lose you. I’ll sleep eventually.”
Sleepy eyed, Sam stumbled in. “I’m gonna head out for a few hours. Shower. Change.”
“Give me a minute,” Dean said before his brother disappeared. “What do you need me to do, Girly?”
Willow and Buffy sat on Willow’s bed, arms around their knees, listening to Andrew’s whimpering and Spike’s muttering.
“I could organize the basement,” Willow said, her voice hollow, her eyes far away. “Or I could build some sort of padded panic room for the panicking.”
Buffy grabbed her friend’s hand and squeezed. “Dean said you were a badass when you spotted Andrew.”
Pale, eyes wide, Willow nodded. “I-I figured he couldn’t be good news, but…” She leaned over and curled into a ball, her head on Buffy’s lap.
“Where does having him in the house fall on the weirdness scale?” Buffy asked, combing Willow’s hair with her fingers.
“You know that nightmare where you walk into class and there’s a test you forgot to study for?”
“Nightmare. Yeah. Sure, Will,” said Buffy dryly.
“It’s pass/fail, and I don’t remember any of the material.”
But it went beyond Andrew. Her mind buzzed with the past and a thousand what ifs. But something else was crowding out the flashbacks of Tara’s death.
Dread grew in Willow’s heart. Something was very wrong with Spike, she could feel it wafting off him, a similar disharmonious buzz as when she tried to get a read on the Winchesters. She’d noticed it a bit when she saw the demon in him, but brushed it off as a side effect of the spell. Now it was a war drum charge pounding on the other side of the wall.
Anya, working out some post-demon stress, had climbed deep into her bad cop role. So deep, Xander was having a hard time pulling her off Andrew, crying in the fetal position on the floor. “Anya, honey, that’s enough!”
“Isn’t this why you untied him, so the cowering would be more satisfying?”
“I’ll tell you anything, just keep the psycho chick away from me!”
“Let’s start with why you came back to Sunnydale.”
The bedroom was starting to reek of blood. Spike preferred the Buffy smell, but three quarts in, he was perking up, remembering.
“I didn’t know the bleedin’ chip ‘ad stopped working.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
“Don’t know. I don’t remember killing anyone. I mean, I know I did it, not denying that, but I don’t remember it. You know like ‘ow when you find a ticket stub in your pocket, and that proof in your ‘and is the only memory you have of a shoddy movie? It’s like that. I don’t know what I was thinking, feeling, doing, just that I turned and buried them.”
“Has that been happening a lot? The memory loss?”
Arms crossed and scowling, Dean stepped forward. “We have a bigger problem. Andrew is here. You know how he ties in.”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“Do you remember what happened in the basement last night?” Buffy asked. “You said Drusilla was there. You said she visited you in the school basement every day. What did she tell you, Spike?”
“That’s right. Dru was always there for me. Supporting me. Singing to me. She may ‘ave been mad, but that woman knows for love and loyalty, unlike some. Got myself resouled and was left to talk to hallucinations. ‘Ow’s that for a hello?”
Buffy rose from the edge of the bed and paced the room. “Spike, this isn’t about us.”
“It really isn’t,” Dean said. “This is about the sorry pickle you’ve got yourself in. Tied up. Confused. Still hungry. And right through that wall, answers. It’s you or him.”
“I know what you’re tryin, Dean, but I’m not falling for it.”
Buffy stiffened and looked around the room. “Spike, do you see Dean? Dean’s not here.”
Dean plunged his hand into Spike’s chest; sizzling, sharp, it felt like a lightning bolt to the heart.
Spike’s fangs descended. With a swift jerk, he broke the arms off the chair and swung at Buffy, scratching her face with the broken wood. He kicked her down and charged at the wall. Breaking through to Dawn’s room, Spike grabbed Andrew by the throat and bit him. Hands tugged at him, swatted him, but he clamped down harder. Andrew had to be stopped. A strong pair of small hands grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him into the door frame.
Spike shook his head, confused as to why he was suddenly on the floor, untied, and with a crowd gathered around a small blonde boy. Buffy stomped toward Spike, and kicked him in the face.
The tiredness made Buffy’s fingers stiff as she checked the lock on Spike’s manacles once again.
“Sure this will ‘old me? I don’t want to ‘urt anyone.”
Without answering, Buffy headed upstairs to her friends. She was tired of talking, of trying to figure out what was happening, of what she was even fighting. She wanted a giant plate of sweet and sour chicken and the freedom to sleep for three days.
Dawn was curled under Willow’s arm on the couch. Sitting on the coffee table in front of them, Buffy said, “I’ll call Dean. You can stay at his place until we get this sorted.”
“You shouldn’t have told him to leave, or, you know, invited a killer into the house,” Dawn grumbled.
“Thank you for the hindsight alert, but who else was going to patrol?”
Xander and Anya came downstairs. “Good news, Buff, is that Spike didn’t rip any electrical when he Hulked the wall. Bad news is there’s zero privacy for you and Dawn. The hardware store is closed, but if the Winchesters lend a hand, we can get it like new tomorrow.”
“Thank you. Anya?”
Anya, twisting one foot like a little girl, was staring wistfully at Xander.
“Earth to Anya?”
“Yes?”
“How’s Andrew?” Buffy asked.
“Sorry, with the interrogation, the fighting, and the manly construction talk, I started to feel a little aroused, which obviously pushed Andrew from my mind. Oh, well, the little twerp will live. I patched up his neck and tied him up again.”
“Other than Anya’s attraction to drywall, did we learn anything for all of this mess?” asked Willow.
“We did get our stoolie to sing,” said Anya, with a proud smile. “Andrew came back because he was having visions of a seal that he needed to give blood to for vague evil purposes. He was about to clarify, when KA-BAM! That’s the sound Spike made with the wall.”
“Did Spike tell you anything, Buffy?”
“What happened to Willow and Dawn has pretty much been an everyday occurrence with Spike, but he thought the ghosts were part of the soul guilt. He said he sees me and Drusilla the most. I yell at him, and Drusilla encourages him.”
“Good cop, bad cop!” Anya interjected.
“Maybe. He was talking to invisible Drusilla at the vamp house. Screaming at her. Upstairs, he was talking to Dean--”
“Oh God!” Dawn gasped. “So this baddie can look like anyone? Not just the dead? How do we know who’s real?”
Buffy sighed and unloaded the Winchesters’ secret. “Dean has died before. So’s Sam.”
Mouths agape, the Scoobies stared at Buffy. “Well, that explains your relationship a bit,” said Willow.
“Were you just not going to tell us this?” Xander asked. “Seems kind of important with a costume-loving evil on the loose.”
“A lot has happened in the last couple days, okay? It slipped my mind. Anyway, Spike thought he was talking to Dean, then he just...changed. He wasn’t even like the Spike who came to kill me in high school. He was different.”
“Perhaps we have a Manchurian Candidate situation,” said Xander, who was met with silent stares. “C’mon! It’s a classic! Okay, so Angela Lansbury has brainwashed her son for the Communist party. Every time she wants him to kill someone, she tells him to play solitaire, and gives him the mission when a certain card triggers his sleeper agent side. Only in our case, Spike is the son, the trigger is some unknown message from the undead person, and mystery baddie is evil Jessica Fletcher.”
“So what’s the mission?” asked Willow.
“When Spike broke free, he knocked me down, then went straight for Andrew, like he had a purpose. Anya, you said he was about to tell you what the seal is for. That has to be connected.”
“What now, Buff? Should we interrogate Andrew some more?”
“Stake Spike?”
“No.” Buffy stood up and stretched. “It’s past eight. Dinner, then plan. I’ll call Dean, and if someone could pick up a giant order of Chinese food, you will officially be my favorite.”
Leaving the phone to the important task of food fetching, she trudged up the stairs to the cellphone in her wrecked bedroom. She wanted a little privacy anyway. Her friends all expected her have answers, plans, foresight. With Dean, she could cry, maybe even gripe a little, and he respected her, still followed her lead even if it was something as distasteful as getting blood for Spike.
She’d just reached the top of the stairs when the lights went out and robed figures crashed through the windows and doors. Two bolted toward her, staves held high. She snatched one staff and butted the owner down the stairs, but the other sneaked past her. She chased him to Dawn’s room. With two daggers drawn, he stood over a whimpering Andrew. Grabbing one wrist, she spun the intruder around and headbutted him before yanking the blades from his hands. As she stabbed him in the chest, she swung back and gutted the second assassin who’d appeared behind her.
Checking that the upstairs was secure, she bolted downstairs calling for her sister. “She’s okay,” said Xander, standing over a bleeding body, Dawn shaking on the floor behind him.
Anya was by the broken back door, shaking awake Willow who was bleeding from a head wound.
“Looks like the house got the worst of it.”
Crouching over the assassin Xander had killed, Buffy felt a nauseating recognition. The robe. The runes branded over the eyes. “I know these guys. I’ve been dreaming about them for months. They’re the assassins in my visions. They -- they went straight for Andrew.”
“That makes sense,” said Anya. “If they’re connected to what was talking to Spike earlier, it knew who was here and where. Your house was a sieve even without the windows broken.”
“Spike,” Buffy whispered. “Has anyone checked on Spike?” She ran to the basement, practically tripping on the stairs. Against the wall hung an empty pair of manacles.
Spike’s head was throbbing again, and he could feel someone yanking on his arms as they tied him up. “You know, I’m getting right sick of being battered about.”
He opened his eyes to see the smirking face of Buffy lit by torchlight as robed figures with mutilated faces dug up a seal. “I told you there would be consequences. Andrew is possibly the most pathetic human I’ve ever met, yet you failed to kill him.” Two of her minions approached Spike with knives and began carving into his chest and stomach. He bit his tongue to deny her satisfaction. “Since he failed to bring me a blood sacrifice, you’ll have to do.”
Whatever he was tied to was hoisted up so he was parallel to the goat-faced seal below, his blood filling the grooves. “Buffy will stop you,” he hissed.
“Yes, Buffy. You didn’t kill her like I asked. You didn’t kill Dean either. Now they’re on to me. I was tired of hiding anyway, and I have some friends who want to play. Spike, do you want to meet a real vampire?”
The goat face disappeared under the pool of blood. The arms of the pentagram around it turned up and twisted to create a staircase. A gnarled grey hand struck the dirt, and a bony creature with a full set of spiny teeth rose from the ground and roared.
be around the light bringers,
the magic makers, the world shifters,
the game shakers. they challenge you,
break you open, uplift and expand
you. they don't let you play small with
your life. these heartbeats are your
people. these people are your tribe.
