She would have thought the man intended something unethical if it weren’t for the fact there was that scowling, mannishly stocky nurse standing nearby, holding up the paper sheet that covered most of her body, and hid the doctor, and her own lower body from her eyes.
“A little tug now,” the doctor said, and she gasped as something did tug at her strangely numbed flesh as she felt something slide into her, and she gasped as she felt a curious heat behind the numbness. Both faded almost at once as she saw the doctor stand upright, smiling as he looked down at her.
“That should be all we need. Call me back in…two days, and we should have the test results back by then,” he told her.
“You can get dressed now,” he told her as he turned, wrote a few things on her chart, and then pulled off his rubber gloves before he tossed them away, and then left the room without looking back.
“All right,” she heard the nurse grumble. “We aren’t open all night,” she told her as Buffy Summers lay blushing on the table as the iron-haired matronly woman built like a man in her eyes snatched the paper sheet off her, leaving her bare, and chilly in the cool room. “Get dressed, and I’ll have your paperwork waiting at the desk.”
“Uh, thanks,” she told her as she rose, trying not to feel too embarrassed. After all, she had faced demons who were more threatening than even this intimidating woman.
“Well,” Ola Winters demanded of her brother as the door closed behind the voluptuous blonde Slayer.
“Did you not see,” Dr. Clarke asked with a grin as their secretary/familiar locked the door after Buffy.
“I had to distract her, and the sheet was in my way, too.”
“Oh, I know that disappointed you,” he grinned, knowing his sister’s fondness for nubile young girls.
“All the same, how far did you get?”
“I tasted her juices, and when it seemed she was numb enough not to notice that,” he grinned, flashing his fangs. “I tasted her blood.
“After which, I gave her a bit of my own to remain behind to infiltrate the small wound she will not even notice until too late.
“The Slayer is ours,” he chortled. “And the beauty of our plan, is she will not even notice until far too late.”
“So much for Angelus, and the Hellmouth. Even that anarchistic letch Spike could not get this far,” Ola sniggered.
“Let us not crow, dear sister, until we have completely neutralized the Slayer, and her entire support group. Remember, she has formidable allies that might yet overcome our plans if our hand is tipped too soon.
“So let us take this slowly. Carefully. Then, the victory shall be ours.
“Just as the Firm has finally taken hold of Angelus’ leash, we shall soon take hold of this infernal Slayer.”
“Yes,” Ola smiled, her expression absolutely feral as she eyed the blonde disappearing down the street. “Then every vampire in the world shall know that the Icinoughs are still a force to be reckoned with,” she hissed, using their true name from old country.
“Just don’t get impatient, and ruin things for us again,” Thomas Clarke, once known as Tormond Icinough centuries past told her.
“Me?”
“I still remember that mess you made with that Romanian prince. Dracul, indeed,” he snorted.
“How was I to know he was that psychotic,” she huffed.
“Mmmm, mayhap the thousands impaled as lawn ornaments before he became a vampire?”
Ola merely glared.
“As I recall, it was you who helped make that mess, by trying to assassinate him when his power base grew to rival our own.”
“Whatever,” Thomas waved a hand dismissively. “We cannot discount her allies, for do not forget, she has both a watcher, and a witch among her retinue.”
“It is the vengeance demon I worry about,” Ola murmured as she turned from the door, a glint of red deep in her eyes shimmering in the darkness as the secretary switched off the lights.
“Just stick to the plan, and not even that white witch can stop us,” he assured her.
Ola nodded, and followed her brother out the back door into the night.
To hunt.
---
Buffy felt restless all day, and it was more than usual. Just as she had for over a week now. Part of the reason she had finally yielded to Giles’ suggestion, and gone to a gynecologist yesterday. After all, it isn’t everyday you survived being raped by a hellspawn that literally crawled right up out of hell through the Hellmouth after a couple of Goth chicks decided to try a ritual that was all too successful in the basement of their school. A basement, coincidentally, that lay right over the top of that gateway to hell itself.
It had been a hard fought battle, and Xander was still laid up with a broken leg, and a few fractured ribs in its wake. The reptilian demon had knocked her around worse than any of her enemies had ever managed in all the years she had been the Slayer, and she thought she was done for when that ugly beast had bent her over, and sank its fangs into her shoulder.
Instead of ripping her apart for lunch, though, the thing had ripped her jeans off (her new jeans, too!), and then actually raped her. It was far worse than Spike’s rough use, or even that Freshman kid that took her to a dance one time who spent most of his time apologizing every time he fumbled around in a vain attempt to please her.
To her surprise, the thing decided to drag her down into the sewers with it after it had raped her. Still half naked, she had been as repulsed as much as she was worried at the time. Who knew hellspawn were as witless as real men when it came to women. It set her in an alcove deep in the sewers, and set to making a nest for her as if she were going to stay there.
Hell apparently didn’t know much about modern women.
Or Slayers.
She was out of there the moment it disappeared on one of its foraging runs, and when she returned, it was with Willow, and every sharp object she could find. Okay, that was an exaggeration, but the enchanted sword of an infamous demon slayer certainly helped that second time she faced her scaly rapist. That time, she came out on top. So to speak.
Only two days after her victory, she started to feel odd, and after a crisis of ego, she confided in Giles and Willow about what had happened while she was the hellspawn’s prisoner. Magically, they found nothing wrong with her, and suggested a more conventional examination. Since she couldn’t too well go to a doctor and complain about being raped by demons, she went to a new gynecologist in town she likely wouldn’t be seeing again. Well, not too often, and gave him a general complaint.
Tomorrow, she was sure, he would tell her what she had reasoned out herself. The oversized demon had likely just bruised her up a little, and she likely just needed some more rest, since even her Slayer’s healing ability had its limits.
“I’m what,” Buffy exclaimed as the doctor told her what had surprised him and his sister as much as the Slayer just then.
“You are pregnant,” Dr. Clarke told her, wondering how a pregnant Slayer was going to look anyway. She certainly wasn’t going to be doing much slaying anytime in the future as her belly swelled with life.
And what kind of child was it fated to be since he had already released the vampire contagion into her bloodstream even if she did not yet realize it. It had only been a few days. Two, to be precise. She looked a little weary, pronounced circles under the eyes, and she exhibited a lethargy that wasn’t there earlier. Still, this was the Slayer he was dealing with now. Not an ordinary human.
Ola was standing by just gaping for the most part as she kept looking at the file where his results had been recorded. He might be a vampire, but he was still a genuine, and quite good doctor. He had gotten into gynecology as an easy way to approach women at their most vulnerable. Who knew that the Slayer herself would end up walking right into his clinic the week after he had opened up shop in Sunnydale.
He held out a paper gown for her, smiling in a comforting fashion, and told her, “If you don’t mind, I’d like another look to ensure everything is all right.”
“But…you just…?”
He stared right into her eyes, exploiting her lethargy fatigue, and felt the connection. For once, the vaunted Slayer’s will and power did not resist him as he told her, “Just undress, and do as you’re told,” he commanded her.
She rose from her chair, and started pulling off her clothes.
“Now who’s being precipitous,” Ola hissed over the blonde’s shoulder.
“Be still,” he hissed, and the half naked blonde froze as she reached for her skirt.
“Not you. Finish undressing,” he told her firmly.
She did, then climbed back onto the examining table without a sheet, gown, or other cover as the two vampire siblings stared down at their prize. “The baby must already be affecting her, or she wouldn’t so easy to manipulate,” he told Ola as he set her feet into the stirrups, and spread her legs wide.
“Let me,” Ola hissed, her fangs showing as she started to push her brother aside.
“Not this time. We must remain discreet. When she is firmly in our grasp, you can taste her. I will even give you a choice of her friends,” Thomas smirked as he bared his own fangs, and leaned over her bared cunt.
The glassy-eyed blonde moaned softly as Thomas nipped at her tender, pink skin just inside her moist cavity. He sucked lightly, savoring the coppery flavor of hr blood mingling with her rich musk. He almost moaned himself in delight as he forced himself to stop from taking too much at once from her. He then used his sharp teeth to bite his own gums, and his tongue coated her glistening pink flesh with his own blood, ensuring much of it reached the fresh wound where he had jut sipped from her body in a manner unlikely to be discovered until far too late.
To be honest, he had always thought it a bit stupid to shout to the powers-that-be that you were in the area by running about ripping out throats wherever you went. He had not lived as long as he had by being stupid, or careless. His sister did tend to trip them up sometimes, but for the most part she accepted his lead, and admitted that his way was safer in the long run.
Just look what happened to Spike, after all.
And no one could forget that idiot Dracul when he decided to set up a little empire for himself in London, of all places.
He might as well have invited every demon slayer in the world to his sleeping place.
He straightened up, smiling as he wiped his mouth after having licked the blonde Slayer clean, her healing powers already closing the small wound just inside the mouth to her womb. By the time she regained her wits, as before, she would never even realize she had been bitten.
“Now,” he moved around the table to address Buffy as Ola put a paper sheet over her body with an obvious reluctance. “Wake up, and when you do, you’ll feel refreshed, and not remember anything that happened except that we discussed your case, and you are suffering from…
“A minor infection,” he told her.
Buffy sat up almost at once, her blue eyes clear and bright. For a moment both siblings felt an uncertain anxiety, but then she blinked, and grinned. “So, how is everything. You can beat that bug thing, right,” she asked casually like any other teen, or young woman.
“Of course. But I think a few more visits while I apply the antibiotics are in order. Considering the…seat of your problem, you don’t want to take chances,” he assured her as he finished writing on her chart, and handed it to Ola.
“So…two more days,” he told her, and we’ll see how you’re doing then.”
“Cool,” the blonde chirped a lot more perkily than when she had come into the clinic just after five, and not far from dusk.
Ola was still watching her as she left again, well away from the glass of the outer office since the sun had yet to truly set, and glanced at her brother. “Why didn’t you remind her of the pregnancy?”
“Let us leave that surprise for the future. It might just tip the scales, and if she realizes she is breeding now, she might seek another doctor. We need at least two more visits to ensure the taint is strong enough in her to corrupt the Slayer beyond redemption.
“You mean to harvest the child,” Ola realized.
“It would make a fine addition to our coven. The child of a slayer, bound to our will. Think what a coup that would be for us,” he grinned.
“And if it is a male?”
“We can always use more cattle,” Thomas shrugged.
“And I thought you were starting to get soft,” Ola drawled.
“You, of all people, should know better, my dear,” Tormond said in their native tongue, in his own accent.
Ola shivered deliciously, enjoying the feeling his cold tone sent racing up her spine.
“I cannot wait.”
“See that you do,” Thomas warned her.
Ola saw Buffy in the bar she frequented just three nights later, after her brother’s latest ‘treatment’ of the unwitting Slayer. She looked healthier than ever, when by now she should be pale, apathetic, and ready to seek out her new masters and beg for a chance at being converted.
She frowned as she realized she saw none of that in the Slayer who picked up a minor league vampire, and flung him across the room to end up impaled on one of the bull’s horns of a massive head mounted on the wall of the cowboy bar. She recalled just last week when she first found the bar, it had a Yuppie feel to it. Now, it had been redone in Old West memorabilia.
The clientele didn’t so much as bat an eye as the young vampire dusted in full view of everyone there, and the few that had looked up only shook their heads, and went back to their drinks. Ola walked over to the Slayer who was now pushing another young vampire against the wall, death in those blue eyes as she lifted a stake in front of the young man’s wide eyes.
“So, are you going to tell me what I want to know,” the young blonde asked in a sweet voice as if she had not just killed one vampire, and was about to kill another. “Or do you join your idiot friend in ruining the decor?”
“I’ll tell, I’ll tell,” the young man babbled, and Ola wanted to kill him herself. No wonder this new generation was so easy to take down. They had no spine. No blood in their veins.
“So, spill it.”
The vampire looked toward Ola, but saw the big, sturdy woman with cold, dark eyes wasn’t moving to help. He looked back at Buffy, and the stake she held, and told her, “He’s hiding in the museum. In the Egyptian exhibits.”
“Well, duh,” Buffy exclaimed, and dropped him. “All right. A deal’s a deal. But if I ever see you on my streets again, you’re going to end up being Hoovered.
“You got me, fang-boy?”
“I hear you. And I’m gone,” he said, and all but raced toward the door.
“Enjoy the show,” Buffy asked her, her eyes narrowing on Ola suspiciously.
“Actually, I did,” she smiled in a friendly manner.
“You don’t seem too freaked out by seeing vamps being dusted.”
“I came from the old country, Ms. Summers,” Ola smiled. “There is not much I haven’t seen,” she told her. “I did think America would be free of the old taints, though,” she sighed. “Apparently, I was wrong.”
“Evil is evil, wherever you are, and whatever it calls itself,” she told her. “If you’re looking for a night on the town, you came to the wrong bar.” she added as she slipped the stake behind her back under a blue leather jacket that molded to the girl’s body as much as her jeans.
“If I were you, I’d find one with less…unsavory types.”
“I believe we understand one another,” Ola said, casting a bleak look around her at the patrons that did actually look their way. “They leave me alone, and I don’t do anything that leaves them needing a doctor.
“Or an undertaker,” she smiled. “As I said, Ms. Summers, I am from the old country.”
“Right. Call me, Buffy,” she said cheerfully as she headed for the door.
“Would you like company,” Ola asked her impulsively.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea…”
“I know what you are hunting,” she told her bluntly as she walked out behind her.
“Do you,” Buffy asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
“I told you, Ms. Summ…Ah, Buffy. I am from the old country.
“It might have been some years since we last saw a Slayer there, but the evil that plagues us all is prevalent in whatever land you are born.
“And I take it the mysterious deaths of some of the local collegians is related to the creature you are hunting now.
“Likely…a Koolifa.”
“Actually,” Buffy smiled wanly, “It’s called a K’l’ph.”
“Well, language might vary, but it’s a spider demon, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Buffy nodded. “And if you know that, you should know that hunting it down is not a good idea.”
“Yet you are doing just that.”
“Yeah, well, I know what I’m doing,” she said, her blue eyes locked on Ola’s brown eyes as if hunting for something in their depths.
“As do I.
“I will accompany you, Buffy. I can, at the least, be a lookout for you.”
The willowy blonde shrugged, and turned to head uptown, toward the city museum. “You don’t seem too put off by all the weirdness around here,” she commented.
“As I said,” she smiled.
“You’re from the old country.
“Most people I know that left the old country try to go the other way when meeting up with old legends, and…such.”
“My brother would be the first to tell you I am somewhat impulsive, and often precipitous, but I do not like the idea of slinking vermin making their betters fear for the lives when it should be the other way around.”
“You’re a strange woman for a nurse,” Buffy commented as they neared the shadowy edifice that was the city museum.
“Well, I confess, I was a part-time vampire hunter in my own country.
“Until the authorities drove me out, as they did not understand that staking leeches was not murder.”
“I’ve had that problem on occasion,” the blonde admitted as she moved to the side of the museum, and eyed the open window on the second floor.
The wisps of thicker than normal spider silk were a dead giveaway.
“Gotcha,” she said, and glanced back at Ola.
“Stay here,” she stressed, and jumped straight up to catch the sill of the open window before levering herself inside.
Ola frowned as she watched the Slayer vanish into the dimly lit structure.
Something was definitely off. The Slayer should be weak as a kitten, and barely able to move by now. She should be on the verge of death, and turning. She should be helpless, vulnerable, and ripe for the plucking.
How in nine hells was she still so spry? So vital?
She waited a few moments, but even her enhanced hearing detected nothing. Deciding she had little else to lose, she started to follow her even as a strong hand dropped on her shoulder. A very strong hand.
“Anya. Darling,” she smiled as she was spun around to stare into a pair of very cold eyes as the brunette possessing them studied her. “Long time, no see.”
“Don’t darling me, Olga. What are you doing here? And where is that perverted brother of yours?
“If you’re here, I know he’s not far behind.”
“He’s at the clinic…
“Well, he’s busy. But I assure you, I’m not here for any mischief. In fact, we’re following Angel’s lead, and trying to live within the framework of the mortal world.
“And, for the record, I go by Ola now.”
“Right,” Anya drawled. “And why are you standing here outside a closed building long after dark.”
“I came with the Slayer.”
“You came with the Slayer,” the woman asked skeptically.
“I happened to be a local bar when she came looking for leads on the koolifa some silly sorority bimbo conjured.
“I’m just surprised they didn’t summon you. Isn’t this more your scene?”
“I’ve been out of the loop lately,” Anya shot back. “Not that it matters. This spider demon is just killing anyone in its way. It’s way past the revenge fantasy that cheerleader was envisioning when she summoned it.”
“So I’ve heard. So, why not just get the bimbo to banish it?”
“That was Plan A. Only it seems she was apparently the first victim. The silly slut is long dead.
“Now we’re at Plan B.”
“Which is?”
“Kill anything with more than two legs,” Anya spat, and leapt up, and somersaulted through the window without even visible effort.
“Showoff,” Ola muttered, and eyeing the window, chose to walk to a side door, and simply tear it open.
Buffy moved silently through the halls of the museum, feeling unseen eyes on her even though she would have sworn she was alone. When dealing with the supernatural, however, she had long since learned it didn’t hurt to have a healthy sense of paranoia.
She slowly descended the stairs, mindful of what she had already seen at Sunndale U earlier that evening.
A cheerleader who had lost her jock boyfriend to a prettier, (I.E. Bustier), Freshman, had used an old book of magic to summon a demon to deal with her enemy.
The demon instead turned on her, wrapping her up like a mummy before it set about desiccating every sorority girl in the house before it started upping the ante. Two fraternity houses had been found in the last week with everyone inside wrapped up like mummies in hell-spawned silk, and drier than last week’s meatloaf.
For some reason, the demon was limiting its predations to the university, but it was hiding elsewhere. She had guessed the vamps knew where, and she had been right. She just hoped she could delay it tonight long enough for Anya to find the demon’s conjurer, and free her in time to send her back.
She was about to step off the last stair when she felt the tug on her ankle.
Even as she almost tripped, she was suddenly jerked into the air, her arms and legs paralyzed as something stung her nape just before she felt a warm, snug cocoon flowing over her body as she was spun helplessly in powerful arms.
Eight of them.
Just before her head was covered, the dizzying motion stopped, and she was held before a huge, anthropoidal spider staring into her frozen visage.
“Hello, Ssssslayer,” the creature hissed at her. “You sssshould have ssstayed away.
“Now, your juicessss will sssate my young, too once I lay my eggsssss.”
She glared at the demon, promising all manner of unspoken carnage even as it spit in her face, and the world went black.
“Back off, ugly,” a familiar voice reached her, and Buffy grunted hard when she felt herself fall to the ground to slam into what felt like a glass casing that shattered beneath her.
“Thissss issss my prey, demon,” the spider ranted as the sounds of battle filled Buffy’s ears for all too short a time.
“And you,” she heard as she felt a hand wriggle slightly at her right side, as if the cocoon was loose.
“I just came to see the end of an enemy,” Ola’s voice replied, and Buffy frowned.
“Wait your turn, leech,” the spider spat at her as Buffy felt herself lifted again.
She felt her hand dangle free, and suddenly she could move as white-hot heat flooded her with anger at this demon’s insolence.
She didn’t know what it was with demons and progeny lately, but she was putting an end to this one.
She tore free of the cocoon with a surge of sudden strength that broke her paralysis, snatched up a nearby spear from an overturned display, and drove over ten inches of ancient, hardened wood into the spider’s skull before it could even react to her sudden escape as it lifted another cocooned body to its fangs.
The spider shrieked, and writhed madly as the cocoon went flying off to one side before the demonic entity literally melted down, scorching much of its surroundings with its acidy blood. Buffy moved carefully around the black ichors that still smoldered as she noted Ola standing there staring at her in awe.
“Weren’t you supposed to be outside?”
“Your…ah, friend came by, and I was afraid you were in trouble.”
“Hardly,” Buffy smirked. “I guess when I landed on that display case, it cut my wrapper open,” she said somewhat smugly as she drew the last of the strong silk off her shoulders and hair before going to free Anya, who still couldn’t move.
The look on her frozen face was eloquent, though.
It was a good thing the spider was gone, or it would have been really suffering once Anya regained mobility.
“I heard what it said about eggs. We’d better find its nest, or we’ll have dozens of its kind running free,” Ola told her as Buffy cut Anya free, then left her propped up nearby the safe area as she went to follow Ola’s advice.
With the old woman’s aid, they soon found three large caches hidden in mummy cases, and sent all three to the depths of hell in a blaze of fire.
“We’d better get out of here, too,” Ola finally said as the sounds of sirens reached them. “We are not going to be able to explain this one,” she said grimly.
“No, I guess not,” Buffy admitted, looking around at the carnage left in their wake.
By then, Anya was semi-conscious, but they still had to carry her out the back even as the police burst in the front.
Ola wisely said nothing about Buffy recovering so fast from the spider-demon’s toxins, or the fact she had seen the Slayer rip open that cocoon with her bare hands earlier, rather than being freed accidentally by her fall. She really needed to see Tormond. Something odd was happening to the slayer, and it might impact their own plans the way she was developing.
“I’d better get home before my brother starts worrying,” she told Buffy as they parted outside the museum. “Good luck with your…work,” she told her, and left before Buffy could reply.
“This is odd,” Giles frowned as he went through his files later that evening after Xander had left.
“What is it,” Anya asked, wishing the kid would leave her alone, and go crush on his next obsession. Human/demon relationships never worked out. She knew. She had buried more than her share.
“This book is all wrong. The pages are all out of order.
“This plate should be on page one-ninety-five, not seventy-three, and this one…
“Oh, dear. Oh, dear,” he echoed, holding up a hand-colored plate from the pages he had been sifting.
“What is it,” Anya grumbled.
“The demon Buffy faced last month wasn’t a t’ph’s, as we surmised.
“If I place these pages in their proper order, it seems she was actually assaulted by a r’z’kii.”
“Tell me you’re kidding,” Anya grimaced.
“I’m afraid not. Look at this,” he said, holding up the meticulously drawn image of the reptilian demon Buffy had managed to elude, and finally slay after it had raped her.
“Oh, hell. You know what this means?”
“She may be infected with the corruption of one of the Ancients. One of the Fallen themselves,” Giles said gravely. “We have to find her. It’s already been almost a month since she was…taken. God only knows what damage has been done.”
“Suddenly, it makes sense,” she told him. “I never could figure out how even Buffy took out that spider-thing virtually single-handedly. “The demonic influence must already be growing.”
“Call everyone. Warn them,” Giles ordered her as he scooped up several older books. “I have to see if we can find some way to reverse this before it’s too late.”
“Right,” Anya nodded.
Dawn smiled up at her sister as Buffy came into her room. “You’re home early. Slow night?”
“Real slow,” Buffy told her, feeling a restlessness she did not quite understand as yet.
“So, wanna order pizza, and watch a movie,” she asked, putting away her history text she was studying. “You know? Have a real family kind of moment for a change?”
“That’d be nice,” Buffy smiled, suddenly aware of how good her sister smelled.
Better even than chocolate.
“Buffy,” Dawn asked, noticing the peculiar expression now covering her sister’s face.
“Buffy, are you…?”
“Hmmmm? Oh, I’m fine,” Buffy told her, shaking her head as if she had been daydreaming. “What do you want on your pizza,” she asked, and headed for the phone.
Ola shook her head at her brother, “How is it possible? She should be begging blood by now, not killing koolifa without effort.”
“I cannot say,” Tormond told her. “There was…something in her blood when we did the usual tests, but I barely paid it any attention since that was not our primary concern.”
“Maybe we should find out just what else might be in her,” his sister asked even as the door crashed open, and the Slayer stood before them with her eyes blazing.
Only they looked very, very red, rather than their usual color.
“Buffy,” Tormond asked, turning to stare at her in confusion as Ola saw the Slayer in a different light at that moment.
“Tormond, she’s…”
“Hungry,” Buffy growled, and was on top of the disguised gynecologist before he could blink in spite of his supernatural speed and reflexes.
“You did this, didn’t you,” she asked, baring her teeth to show not ordinary fangs, but two long, needle-sharp incisors in the front of her mouth. “So it’s only fair you are my first, too.”
Tormond Icinough screamed as he tried in vain to pull free of the Slayer’s grip on him as she buried her fangs in his throat, ripping out his throat more than she bit him.
Ola screamed for the first time in centuries, in vain as Buffy then tossed the already disintegrating form of the ancient vampire aside as she locked her crimson eyes on Ola.
“You……I’ll keep,” she smiled coldly as Ola screamed again, feeling genuine fear for one of the rare moments in her long life.
“Please,” she gasped, backing away from the blood-soaked Slayer. “I…I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me,” she begged.
“I know you will. I like you,” Buffy said coolly “So, like I said, I’ll keep you.”
Ola didn’t have time to scream again when Buffy lunged at her.
---
“Something weird is going on guys,” Xander said as he came back to the bookstore in the early hours before dawn.
“I haven’t found one single vampire all night, and even the usual clubs are closed up tighter than mausoleums,” he told Giles who looked up from his books.
“We have another problem,” Anya told him. “Buffy may be turning.”
“Into a vampire? How?”
“No,” Giles said impatiently. “Not a vampire. Something worse.”
“How much worse can you get than a blood-sucking fiend from hell,” Xander demanded.
“How about a blood-sucking fiend from hell bent on reproducing demonic spawn to overrun the world you’ll then rule through your progeny,” Anya suggested blithely.
“Anya,” Giles groaned as Xander gaped.
“You’re kidding? Right? Tell me you’re kidding?”
“We’ve been trying to reach you all night. To warn you.
“Right now, Buffy may be under the influence of one of the Old Ones. A true Fallen.”
“Oh, hell,” Xander muttered. “If she went home…?”
“What,” both of them asked him.
“Well, I went by to check with Buff earlier, but couldn’t get anyone at the door. I thought Dawn might be asleep, and Buffy was still out, but…I can’t find her anywhere.”
Anya frowned. “If she didn’t stay home…Where would she have taken her victims?”
“Victims?”
“Right now, our friend may be operating under the influence and instinct of a r’z’kii?”
“A what,” Xander frowned.
“One of the original Fallen, as I said earlier,” Giles told him. “One that is, most the most part, driven by the need to reproduce itself.”
“But…Buffy’s a girl,” Xander frowned. “How could she…?”
Both of them stared at him.
“Never mind,” he grimaced, not liking their expressions. “So, what do we do?”
“Find her, and hope Willow can remove the corruption before it becomes part of her.
“She’s already looking for her now.
“If she’s not at home, though, I cannot imagine where she might be.”
“Someplace she would consider safe,” Xander shrugged.
“Gee, why didn’t we think of that,” Anya asked.
“I have a few ideas,” Xander told them. “I’ll go nose around a little more, and…”
“Check your cell phone first,” Anya stopped him.
“Why? Oh. Geez, the battery is dead,” he realized. “I didn’t notice…”
“Take mine,” Giles told him, throwing him the device. “Call the Willow, the store, or Anya the moment you see anything.
“Under no circumstances are you to approach her if you see her, though.”
“She can’t be that bad,” Xander smiled ruefully. “I mean…”
“The vamps? They’re hiding from her,” Anya told him. “More than usual, too.”
“That should tell you something. So call us. Do not approach her,” Giles stressed yet again.
“Right, right. I got it,” he nodded, sliding the phone into his jacket.
“You think he’ll be all right?”
“He’s more likely to blunder into a vampire nest than find Buffy just now,” Giles sighed. “Let’s just focus on how you stop one of these hybrids.
“Considering all that is said of them, I’m surprised we stopped the original demon so easily.”
“Who said we did?”
“What are you saying,” Giles asked.
“Well, gee. Did you ever stop to think it let us send him home? That maybe it had done what it came for, and felt it had no need to hang around?”
“That is…a disturbing thought,” Giles admitted.
“Tell me about it.
“There’s been a lot of the old demons stirring lately. Kind of makes me wonder if things aren’t finally coming to a head.”
“That is even more disturbing,” Giles grimaced.
“Hey, I’m a demon, too, and that worries me.
“Let’s just figure out how to stop our favorite blonde melodrama from helping bring about the apocalypse this week, shall we?”
“Agreed.”
Xander crept into the Summers’ house, his hunch having him return after his calls had gone unanswered.
“Would you answer the phone if you had just turned into an unholy demon from hell,” he asked himself, and naturally, knew the answer.
“I’ll just sneak in, find her coffin, and then alert the guys,” he decided, easing in the back door after he managed to pop the lock that had never been properly fixed after the last time it had been forced open.
The house was dark, and still, but he still moved carefully.
“Now, if I was a evil thing hiding from the dawn…I’d be in the basement,” he realized, and moved to the door that led into the small basement that served as storage more than anything else.
He was halfway down the steps when he realized he could hear breathing.
Low, raspy breathing.
Swallowing hard, he decided it sounded like the breathing of more than one person. All sleeping. He moved to the foot of the stairs, and looked around, not daring to turn on a light, he held up a lighter he flicked on.
“Dawn,” he choked, seeing the first pale face of the familiar brunette with a grotesquely swollen belly laying on the hard floor next to five other females, all strangers. All with the same swollen bellies. All as naked as Buffy’s sister, but looking far from sexy just then.
“What the hell is going on,” he muttered as they stirred restlessly, and he jumped back toward the stairs before Dawn’s eyes fluttered open.
Only her usual pretty orbs were all white. Opaque orbs stared blankly around her for a moment, then the young girl settled back into whatever slumber claimed her. Xander, breathing hard, lifted the borrowed phone, and called Willow first.
The number rang endlessly, but no one answered.
“C’mon,” he muttered, breaking the connection, and trying Giles’ at the store.
“Giles?
“Thank God. You aren’t going to believe this……
“No, listen. I haven’t found Buffy, but I’m in her basement. Yeah, yeah. Listen,” he hissed. “There are five women down here, Dawn, too. All of them look like they were pumped so big their bellies should be in danger of exploding.
“No. No, they’re all out of it.
“I mean, Dawn looked at me, but I don’t think she saw me. Her eyes are all empty white kind of weird, y’know, and……”
He turned at the sound of something behind him, and stared at five, blank faces staring at him with empty, white eyes.
“Uh…hi,” he rasped uneasily just before his screaming started.
---
Buffy gasped as she held Willow’s head to her furred mons, grinding it into her face even as she felt a surge of heat that warped her entire body.
She fell back, still holding Willow’s face to her weeping slit as the witch’s tongue delved deep into her swollen, pink tissues.
Intoxicated by the musky fluids filling her senses as they filled her mouth, Willow lost all rational thought as she strove to suck down more and more of the delicious nectar flowing from her friend’s sex. She couldn’t seem to stop herself as she clung to her thighs, all but trying to force her face into Buffy’s sodden hole as they grunted and groaned, and writhed in mindless bliss on the floor next to Buffy’s bed.
By the time Willow fell back, gasping for breath as Buffy crawled up her voluptuously rounded form, she was so dazed she could not move an inch.
Not even when the alien pseudopod thrust out of Buffy’s bulging pussy to stab deep into Willow’s naked core.
Not even when Buffy’s lips peeled back to bare close-sit, and very sharp fangs like needles that she sank into Willow’s left breast just atop her nipple. Willow howled, and climaxed endlessly as her friend turned her into something other than human as the thick tentacle connecting them pulsed as it pumped something into the young witch’s womb.
Nearby, the discarded phone laying atop her torn clothing rang for a while, but it eventually stopped. The pair did not even stop their strange coupling when the faint sounds of screaming echoed up from beneath them.
Beneath Buffy’s slender, muscular frame, Willow’s abdomen gradually began to swell. The witch moaned in blissful agony with every inch added to her expanding waistline.
---
“This is getting crazy,” Anya frowned at Giles as she turned from the phone she had just hung up.
“What is it?”
“The Firm just called. Angel, and his team are on their way. They say they want to help us contain the Slayer before she brings about the end of the world. The Firm has decided that Buffy may be the next big thing to potentially doom us all, and end the world as we know it.”
“End…?
“Buffy,” Giles frowned. “But how would…?
“How could even she…?”
“Giles,” a familiar voice called out as the barricaded door burst open with ridiculous ease. “So, we’re in trouble again?”
“Faith,” he and Anya both exclaimed as they still mulled over the call from Xander that had so obviously ended in his death. “What are you doing here?”
“The Council got a call that convinced them to let me go free. As long as I came here to help.”
“Help with what,” Giles protested.
“An uber-demon,” Faith told him. “Haven’t you noticed even the usual vamps are really quiet lately?
“That most of your little Scooby Squad is MIA, and probably dead, or turned.”
“Turned,” Giles gasped. “Into what?”
“The r’z’kii,” Anya groaned. “It must have done more to Buffy than even we thought.”
“Yeah. It didn’t breed her, but it infected her,” Faith nodded. “I got the scoop after the Council bailed me out of the asylum.
“What you likely didn’t know is that she was also bitten by a vamp, and a spider-demon. Buffy is somehow combining Slayer powers with the most unholy demons of hell, and is getting ready to lay a brood of demons that will eventually overrun the planet if we don’t stop her.”
“Good God,” Giles moaned. “Tell me there’s a cure,” he rasped, clutching frantically at the first book he could reach as Anya stared in horror at Faith.
“Only one, Giles,” Faith told him grimly. “We have to kill her, or the world is lost.”
“Kill…Buffy.”
“It’s her, or the world, old man,” Faith spat. “She would be the first to tell us it was no choice.
“If she weren’t the one trying to turn us all into entrées.”
“She’s right, Giles,” Anya grimaced. “If even the Firm is scared enough to offer us help, it’s got to be bad.”
“What can I do,” Giles sighed, his years suddenly falling over him like a heavy mantle as his shoulders sagged, and his eyes clouded.
Two Slayers. Two of them under his care had been lost.
Buffy had been slain once, but brought back only to end up tainted.
Faith, rejected, and mad with her own problems.
Maybe it was time he left the Council.
“Wake up, old man,” Faith spat at him. “We still have work to do.”
He nodded, squaring his shoulders. “What do we need?”
“It just so happens, I have a plan.”
She grinned at Anya as she said it, “And I even have the bait.”
Anya did not feel comforted.
“What bait,” she had to ask.
“Us. Right now, Uber-Buff wants only females. Males are only food to her and her brood just now.”
“What do we do,” Giles asked as Faith went to a hidden panel, and pulled it open to lift a long, sharp sword.
“Buffy, and anyone she infected has to be beheaded, and burned.
“It’s the only way.
“Even the Firm guys that briefed me said if we don’t do both, there could still be repercussions.”
“All right,” Giles nodded. “As you said, Buffy would be the first to face this situation.
“Let’s go.”
“You have any clues where to start looking?”
“Her house,” Anya told her as she picked a weapon after Giles lifted a two-sided axe from the locker. “Xander called a few hours ago, and mentioned he found some of her brood.
“Right before the line went dead.”
“Which means he’s probably dead.”
“That’s what we think, too,” Anya nodded when Giles said nothing.
“All right. Let’s go.”
Faith unsheathed her sword as she stepped into the Summers’ house that remained quiet just before the sun began to set.
“Giles, stay here, and don’t let anyone out the door.
“Anya, back door.
“I’ll go to the basement first, and start there. If the Firm’s intelligence was right, the breeders will be the easiest to put down first.
“I’ll behead them, start a fire, and work up.
“If either of you see our girl, don’t hesitate.”
“We know what to do, Faith,” Giles told her.
“You’d better, old man. Or you’re dead, and we’re both incubators,” she told Anya.
“Ugh,” the vengeance demon shuddered. “I’d prefer to keep my figure, thank you,” she huffed, and swinging her shorter sword, walked toward the kitchen, and the back door.
Giles heard the wails only moments after Faith descended the stairs into the basement. A moment later, she was running up to close the door as smoke billowed up from below. “She wasn’t there. But I took out nine breeders.”
“Dawn?”
“Dawn, and Willow,” Faith said, heading for the steps that went upstairs. “Remember. Hold the door. Back out if you have to when the fire starts climbing, but don’t let her out if she gets by me.”
Even as she started up the steps, a naked blonde slammed into her, hurling her back the way she had come. Buffy turned to see the flames already spreading from the basement door, and howled in fury as she turned on Faith.
“I’ll tear you into pieces to feed the crows,” she shrieked as she grabbed the former Slayer and swung her up and around to slam into a wall.
Faith rolled helplessly away, her sword lost as Giles stared at the infuriated Slayer with glowing red eyes filled with malice.
“Giles, stop her,” Faith shouted even as she jumped up, and struck the tainted Slayer wih all her strenght.
Buffy’s head barely recoiled.
Then she backhanded Faith, who went flying through a window to land sprawling in the yard outside. She did not move, and Giles barely had time to glance at her before he turned to find Buffy charging at him with outstretched hands that ended in very deadly looking claws.
“I’m sorry, Buffy,” he cried, and swung the axe.
Buffy fell back, blood spurting from her throat as she fell into the rapidly spreading flames.
“Goodbye, Buffy,” he mourned as he saw her fall back into the flames that consumed her with almost an almost living voracity.
“Hell of an end to a career,” Anya tried to joke later as fire engines surrounded the gutted house, and they stood well away from the scene as neighbors quietly murmured their opinions that maybe the neighborhood would get back to normal without that house around any longer.
“You did sever her head,” Faith asked, her bruised cheek already healing as her own abilities tended her injuries better than the paramedics.
“Yes,” Giles nodded. “I didn’t even have time to consider it.
“She came right at me. She was going to kill me.
“I…I cut her head off, and she fell right into the fire.”
“Good,” Faith nodded. “Then it’s over.”
“Whoa,” a white-haired vampire grinned as he appeared behind them just then. “Who had the barby, and didn’t invite us?”
“You missed it, Spike,” Anya smirked. “Your girlfriend is toast. Literally.
“Or was she yours,” the woman asked the quiet Angelus who stood staring at the smoldering house with hooded eyes.
“The chickee got around, love,” Spike winked. “You should know.”
“Hey, I’m not like…”
“Never said you was,” Spike said. “Just tell me you got the lot beheaded.”
“Yeah, we did,” Faith nodded.
“Why was it so important,” Giles asked. “There was nothing in my books about…”
“Your books, no offense, Watcher, are rather limited,” Spike told him. “Now, the Firm. They have a library you wouldn’t believe.
“Point is, though, if you hadn’t taken her head, she would have retained all those unholy powers she was collecting by sampling demonic venom, and all, and been a real holy terror down below.
“Enough that she worried some of the powers-that-be.
“Can’t be upsetting the apple cart, after all. They get cranky when you do that.
“Ask Angel.”
“Spike,” Angel growled, his brow furrowing as he turned to leave. “Go to hell.”
---
Buffy woke on a seared, fire-baked plain, her throat sore, but otherwise whole.
She was also completely naked.
Climbing to her feet, she found herself in the middle of an apparent desert, and being canny enough after years of fighting demonic forces, she knew exactly where she was in seconds.
“This is the thanks I get for risking my life all those years? For screwing up my life time and again? For putting up with every moron who had a connection to someone, or some thing?”
To say she was angry would have been an understatement as her eyes not only glowed, they radiated raw fury.
“That’s it. No more Miss Nice-Guy,” she fumed, and picked a direction, and started walking.
“I heard she fell in the Pit of Despair,” a octopod sniggered as the demons surrounded one of the few safe watering holes in the dimension better known as Hell.
“No, no, no,” a massive bestial creature with the body of a lion, the head and horn of rhino, and the arms of a reptile protested. “I hearing she is made a hot sssssuccubusssss, and now entertains Luciferssss houndssss of hell,” the misshapen demon laughed.
“I don’t care where she is,” a winged demon with bat-like features snapped as he sat sulking to one side. “When I find her, I’m ripping off her head, and using her bleeding carcass to feed me for eternity.”
“Oh, oh, I want the head,” the beast-demon pleaded. “I can use it to decorate my horn.
“Chicks dig bling,” the demon nodded knowingly. “I get the head.”
“You’d have to find her first,” another demon that looked almost human save for his flat, withered features grunted. “And I mean first.
“Wherever she landed, there’s a lot of demons down here that will be looking for her, and there won’t be much of her left when they do.
“That’s one bitch that is going to spend eternity in pain. She’ll likely be torn apart at least for the next few centuries before they get tired of her screaming.”
“Oh, I never mind the screams. It’s the whining I never cared for,” another demon, serpentine in shape, sighed.
“It doesn’t matter. None of us know where she is,” the octopod reminded his companions. “She could be anywhere.”
“She could be behind you.”
“Yeah,” the beastly demon agreed blandly. “She could even be…”
The gathering of demons turned, and gaped at the small, pink-skinned female glaring at them.
“It’s…”
“I’m thirsty,” the blonde covered in crimson dust from her long walk spat.
“Get her,” the serpent hissed even as the bat moved back away from the others, his dark eyes bright with fear.
Ten minutes later, if time has meaning in such places, pieces of demon flesh, torn apart in remarkably small pieces but still quivering with life, littered the plain. Buffy threw aside the larger portion of the beast she had drained of blood, and smacked crimson lips, feeling herself strengthen with every drop of blood or ichors she swallowed.
“That’s better,” she sighed, completely ignoring the water.
Then her eyes fixed on the bat, and a score of stunned, smaller demons that huddled back away from the former Slayer.
“Smart guys, aren’t you,” she smiled coldly, knowing they had not tried to fight her. “All right, listen up. I’ve had a really bad day, and it’s time someone else felt that way, too.
“So, either join me, or join those clowns,” she told the demons drawn to the carnage.
“Why we should be joining you,” a massive, seven foot demon demanded, his hard, rampant shaft poking her breasts as he moved close.
Without batting an eye, Buffy’s suddenly clawed hand tore off the phallic shaft, and before the creature could scream, she shoved it into his throat deep enough to choke him.
“How’s that for a reason,” she demanded as more than one demon moved farther back, hands cupping their groins.
Wherever they might be located.
“What do you plan to do,” the large bat asked cautiously.
Buffy turned to eye him. “I remember you. You turned me.”
“You turned the Slayer,” a demon murmured, awe in his tone.
“Alright, Thomas, here’s my plan…”
“Tormond, actually,” the bat said somewhat warily.
“Whatever.
“My plan is simple. I find my breeders, and then……
“We take over.”
Not one of the demons flocking to her side argued.
One was still trying to pull his own tireless prick from his throat.
Even more were still trying to pull themselves together.
Buffy didn’t notice. Nor did she care. She was feeling stronger than ever as she turned knowingly toward the center of Hell itself, and smiled a chilling smile as she told her makeshift army, “Let’s get started.”