52. Origins
"The – the origins of the
Slayer?" Giles
echoed, a puzzled frown on his face. "What could that possibly have to
do with the entity that's attacking Buffy now?"
The sharp breath that Buffy drew in, the slight tightening of her arm
around Spike's waist as he opened his mouth to reply, drew his
attention before he could. He looked at his mate with concern – and a
sudden cold feeling of apprehension, as he felt the return of the
malevolent force within her, struggling for dominance of her body and
mind.
"Buffy?" he said softly, hesitantly, every instinct telling him to flee
– but he knew better than to actually try it.
If he attempted to get away from her now, it could be just the catalyst
the cruel being within her needed to regain control.
Fortunately, Dawn was immediately aware of the danger, and reached down
beside Spike to clasp her sister's hand at his side in hers.
"Come on, Buffy," she whispered intently, solemn, wary eyes focused on
her sister's face. "Fight it. Fight it off."
Dawn's firm, steadying touch on her hand seemed to draw Buffy back from
the edges of insanity, and she suddenly turned her hand under her
sister's to clasp it tightly, her eyes closed and her jaw set with
determination as she struggled. Finally, the battle consuming her
seemed to pass, and she opened her eyes, looking up and around the room
at the others with a weak little smile.
Her words were directed at Giles, in response to his last question, as
she remarked in a quiet, shaky voice, "I guess it has a *lot* to do
with it, Giles. Because whatever this thing is – it sure doesn't want
Spike to tell us what he's about to tell us. I know that much."
She looked around the room again at them all, her eyes bright and clear
and shining with excitement, as she realized aloud, "So I guess that
means it must be true."
She was quiet for a moment, as everyone took that in, processing the
simple truth of her statement. If the mere fact that Spike was about to
tell them caused the creature inside her to attack, then what he was
about to say must pose some threat to it, some reason for it to want to
stop him.
"I told you he was telling the truth," Buffy reminded her friends in a
voice of triumph tinged with resentment, before turning to meet Spike's
eyes again. "Go ahead," she urged him gently. "What were you saying?"
She could not blame the vampire for his hesitation. His body felt so
tense, tight and hard under her arm, as he gazed into her eyes, his own
wide and searching, and full of an anxious, wondering fear that struck
her again with a feeling of guilt.
"Buffy – are you sure? I mean," he explained softly. "I don't wanna get
you – too upset. I'm not the only one you might go after, pet. Remember
that," he reminded her, his eyes solemn and questioning.
"Dawn's right here. She's holding on to me, and I'm gonna be fine. You
have to tell us what you know, Spike," Buffy insisted, gently but
unyieldingly. "Obviously, it's the key to beating this thing. We have
to know."
He knew that she was right. They wouldn't have a chance of stopping
this thing unless they knew what it was that they were up against. He
had no choice but to tell them what he knew.
But the knowledge that the act of telling them was going to increase
the chances of the entity taking her over again, with the full
intention of stopping *him* from revealing its secret – well, it was
quite simply – bloody terrifying.
"Come on, Sweetheart," Buffy urged him gently. "It's all right.
Nothing's going to happen."
Her expression was calm and confident and reassuring, and Spike
reminded himself that as long as Dawn was touching her sister, from
what they had seen so far, it seemed that the entity could not
resurface. He took a deep breath, looking down and nodding, a bit
shakily, before turning to face the group again.
"Right," he began nervously. "Okay, then. So – the first Council of
Wankers – long time ago, dawn of time and all – they made the first
Slayer..."
"*Made* her?" Anya echoed dubiously, a look of alarm on her face. "From
– from what?"
Spike looked quickly to Buffy to gauge her reaction, and was not
surprised to see that her eyes were wide, her expression slightly
stricken, as she considered the implications that Anya had brought up.
"A girl," he replied softly, holding her gaze with reassurance in his
eyes. "Just a normal girl."
"So – what did they do to this normal girl to make her the Slayer?"
Willow asked, her interest in the situation drawing her out of her
morose mood a bit.
"Um," Spike began cautiously, clearing his throat. "see...that's the
tricky part. There was – a ritual. A rite they used to give her –
power, strength, speed, instinct – all the things that make the Slayer
capable of defending the world...of standing a chance against all the
nasties that are out there..."
"What – sort of...of ritual?" Buffy asked, her words coming out at a
slow, almost difficult pace.
Spike looked at her with a dark, wary look of alarm, watching as she
shook her head as if to clear it, and then focused her eyes
deliberately back on his, giving him an expectant look as she waited
for him to go on.
"Well – they took – it was the essence of – of a creature..."
"What sort of creature?" Giles asked, his tone a bit sharp – but Spike
was hardly listening to him.
The vampire was focused completely on the Slayer, who was closing her
eyes and leaning her head back against the sofa, one hand to her
forehead, as she fought for control.
"Maybe we should – should wait a bit..." he suggested softly, and there
was no mistaking the fear in his voice as he shifted slightly backward
across the couch, his body pulling against her arm around him, before
he remembered that that was a bad idea, and forced himself to ease back
toward her a bit.
"No!" Buffy looked up, forcing a smile, but her eyes looked a little
hazy, and her voice was a bit labored, as she insisted, "No, I'm fine,
Spike...we don't have time to wait for anything...go ahead...what sort of
creature, and what did they use it for?"
Spike was silent for a moment, swallowing hard before he replied. "A –
a demon. They took the essence of this – this demon that they had
trapped – and they...they put it..." He stopped, struggling over the words.
She was *so* not going to like this.
"Inside her," he finally replied in a whisper.
The room fell silent for a long moment, as they all processed what he
had just said.
And then everyone started talking at once.
"That's preposterous!" Giles insisted, indignant. "How dare you suggest
that the Council would ever..."
"How would putting a demon in her make her a warrior *against* demons?"
Willow asked with a frown, considering the ramifications of what he had
said.
"Wait – are you saying that there's a demon in Buffy? Or that – that
there's *always* been a demon in Buffy?" Joyce asked, her eyes wide
with alarm.
"No..."
The Slayer's soft, horrified whisper somehow seemed to drown out all
the other voices in the room – at least in Spike's ears. He looked up
at her with concern when he felt her arm pull away from him, and she
drew back against the couch away from him, staring at him in shock and
shaking her head in denial.
"No – that's not possible," she insisted slowly, standing up from the
sofa, her eyes still focused on him.
"Buffy," Dawn said, her voice trembling and urgent. "Calm down. You
need to come back here..."
"Buffy," Spike attempted, his voice trembling noticeably, his eyes
downcast as he fought back a sick feeling of fear that rose in his
stomach. He could feel the pain, the terror, the anger of denial,
rising up in his mate – and Dawn was not touching her at the moment –
and he just knew that something terrible was about to happen. "Buffy,
please – that's not what I'm saying..."
"Then what exactly *are* you saying?" she demanded defensively, backing
away from him toward the center of the room. "They put this demon in
this girl to make the Slayer – so – where does that leave me? What is
*happening* to me, Spike?" By the end of her words, her voice had risen
to an alarming pitch that revealed the strength of her painful emotions.
"Buffy..." Dawn had risen from the couch and was slowly, carefully moving
toward her sister. "Buffy, please...you have to...you have to come to me..."
She reached her sister, whose attention was still focused on the
increasingly terrified vampire on the couch, and reached out to grasp
her arm gently. Buffy started to jerk away from her, but froze,
listening, when Spike began to speak.
"They didn't put the demon in you, Buffy," he told her in a low,
earnest voice, though his eyes were focused somewhere around her waist.
He couldn't quite bring himself to meet her gaze, afraid of what he
might see there.
Buffy's mind grasped desperately at that tiny seed of hope offered by
his words. Maybe she had misunderstood...maybe it wasn't so bad...so...so
*sinister*. As she forced herself to calm down, she realized with alarm
that the entity she was struggling against was roiling up inside of
her, struggling with a greater strength than before to regain control.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm down, putting her arm gently
around her sister, knowing that she needed greater contact. And
amazingly, as her arm wrapped around Dawn, she felt the power of the
force inside her ebbing away.
Recognizing that Buffy needed to be closer to Dawn, Spike scooted down
the sofa a bit as the girls approached, so that when they sat down this
time, Buffy was in the middle, with her mate on one side and her sister
on the other.
"I – I'm sorry, Spike. Go ahead," Buffy said, not looking at him, her
eyes wide and still a bit shocked as she focused on the floor. "If they
didn't – put the demon in her – what did they do, exactly?"
"They couldn't risk that...not a full-scale possession like that," Spike
went on, his voice low and trembling. "The demon they were dealing with
– much too powerful – too dangerous. They had to keep the demon itself
trapped...but they did a spell to release a part of its *essence*...and...and
that's what they put in the first Slayer."
"Not the demon – but – its essence," Giles echoed slowly, frowning
slightly as he processed the words.
"What's the difference – exactly?" Buffy asked, taking in a deep,
steadying breath and leaning closer to her sister. She felt more in
control, the closer she was to Dawn – and at the moment, though she
could feel the thing inside her raging to get out – it was weak, and
unable to overcome her.
"Quite a lot, actually. The essence of the demon included traits like –
its strength, speed, agility – instincts that you use now to help you
in battle. But the *actual* demon – its personality, its will –
remained locked away." He paused, looking up to meet her eyes, feeling
a sense of relief when it was only his Buffy that stared back at him
solemnly.
"We're talking about a terribly evil creature, here, Buffy," he
explained softly. "Power mad and deadly to anything that crosses its
path and dares to resist it. They couldn't risk letting the actual
demon free. No one would...deliberately."
"That's ridiculous!" Giles objected, anger and derision in his voice.
"Bloody preposterous! Where did you get such nonsense?" He looked to
Buffy for support, declaring, "He's making this up, Buffy...he's trying
to deceive you!"
Buffy considered for a moment, taking in the earnest, anxious look on
the vampire's face, the violence trying to rise up within her, but
suppressed by the strange power her sister held to control it.
"No," she said slowly, calmly. "I really think not."
"But – it's impossible! The Slayer is a being of light and purity born
to *rid* the world of such creatures – not by any means one of them..."
"I'm not." Buffy frowned, suddenly alarmed. "A demon. Am I?" she asked,
a bit anxiously.
"No," Spike assured her. "You're not. Having its essence just gives you
its – its characteristics. Some of them. But it doesn't *make* you a
demon. You should never have even been aware of anything to do with it,
if everything had gone as it was originally intended to. This demon
should not have been able to take on its own personality through you,
as it's been doing. It should have just given you the strengths that
belong to every Slayer, without ever actually – taking over, like it's
been doing."
"The releasing spell," Buffy said flatly, easily figuring it out.
Spike nodded. "Right."
One by one, all eyes eventually fell on Willow.
"Whoa -- *no*!" she said in a forcefully defensive tone. "I did that
spell right! There is no way that it should have made this happen!" She
looked to Spike as she pointed out, "If Buffy's 'source of power' is
the – the *essence* of this demon thingy – which was so obviously
already pretty much released – then how could the spell have had any
effect on her? If Buffy was already using the essence of the demon to
slay and all? How could something be released by the spell that was
already free?"
"It wasn't," Spike explained wearily. "The essence of the demon – the
part that's in every Slayer – is not the *source* of Buffy's power. It
*is* Buffy's power. The source of that essence – and in effect, of the
Slayer's power -- is..."
"The demon itself," Buffy concluded quietly, closing her eyes for a
moment, feeling a bit overwhelmed by the troubling realization.
"Good Lord," Giles said softly, his eyes widening as he realized,
reluctantly, that the pieces to Spike's story seemed to fit together
far too well to simply be coincidental.
"What...we're not actually *buying* this crap, are we?" Xander asked
incredulously, looking back and forth between the pale, shocked face of
the Watcher, and the remarkably calm, accepting face of the Slayer.
"He's so making this up! There's no way that Buffy's power comes from a
demon! She's good!"
"It's true, Xander," Buffy said softly. "I know it's hard to accept --
*God* do I know! – but – I would know if Spike was lying, like I said
before. And he's not. And besides..." She hesitated for a moment before
finishing quietly, "I can feel it. I *know* it's true."
The firm conviction in her voice left little room for argument. She was
the one actually experiencing it; none of them could credibly tell her
what she was feeling. As hard as it was to believe, and as much as none
of them wanted it to be true, they really had no choice but to believe
it.
"Okay," Buffy said quietly after a moment, looking up and around at the
group, determination in her serious eyes. "So we finally know what this
is. Now the only question is – how do I kill it?"
"See – there's the thing," Spike said slowly, a grimace of apprehension
on his face as he met Buffy's eyes with an apology in his own for what
he was about to say. His voice was cautious, hesitant, as he went on,
"We -- *can't* kill it. Its essence is bound to yours. Is – is a
*part* of who you are. If we destroy the demon – it would – it would
destroy *you* as well, pet."
The room was silent for a moment, as they all took in the shock of that
information.
Finally, Buffy spoke, her voice soft and carefully calm, though there
was fear mingled with the acceptance in her eyes.
"This thing is pretty dangerous. We have to consider the possibility
that – that maybe it's – necessary. To stop it. *Whatever* the
cost...rather than let it hurt – anyone. Than to let it get too much
control..."
"Buffy, no!" Joyce gasped in dismay as she realized what her daughter
was saying.
The thought of Buffy's willingly sacrificing her own life to stop this
demon was equally repulsive to Spike, but he was calmer than Joyce –
because he already knew that it was not really even an option.
"No," he said quietly, shaking his head. "See – it wouldn't just be you
that was sacrificed in the course of killing the thing, Buffy. This
demon, as evil as it is – is the source of the Slayer's power. *Every*
Slayer. If the demon dies – then the Slayer dies, too, when the demon's
essence that's a part of her is destroyed. And not only that – but
without the demon's essence to be passed on to the next girl..."
"...it's the end of the line," Giles concluded in a hushed, almost
horrified voice, as he considered the ramifications of that idea.
Buffy's eyes widened as she followed that same train of thought through
in her mind, her voice finally coming out in a shocked whisper.
"No more Slayers -- *ever*."