*Just one more quick run
through,* Buffy told herself, as she began to retrace her steps back
through the dark alleys of Sunnydale's business district. She had long
since quit patrolling in cemeteries, as there were never any newborn
vamps around anymore. She now basically stuck to deserted streets and
alleys, where what few vamps were left would lie in wait for potential
victims.
Nothing tonight. Nothing any night. Nothing ever.
Why did that fact depress her? No vampires = job done = happy Slayer.
Right?
Wrong, she admitted to herself with a sigh. No vampires = no job =
*bored* Slayer.
Suddenly, to her surprise and relief – relief?!—she sensed a vampire
nearby. Looking quickly around, she saw no one but a young man standing
near the end of the street ahead of her. Casually she started toward
him, acting as if she hadn't yet noticed him. Just a normal dumb
blonde, out for an evening stroll alone through a dark alley. Perfect
vampire bait.
The young man turned toward her at the sound of her approaching
footsteps – and then took off running. Buffy gave chase, vaguely
wondering if vampires had some kind of sixth sense that screamed,
"Slayer! Danger! Run!" like her Slayer sense warned her of their
presence.
Obviously this particular vamp's sense were not that acute, after all,
she realized, stopping short. He had run them straight into a dead end.
Brick walls on three sides, and an itching-for-a-fight Slayer on the
fourth.
"New in town?" she smirked. "Next time invest in a street map. Oh
wait...never mind." She frowned, then shrugged and smiled. "Won't *be* a
next time."
To her disappointment, the vampire did not respond to her witty banter.
*Am I losing my touch?* she wondered. In fact, the fledgling before her
did not even seem to want to fight her at all. He was looking
frantically around for any route of escape. Finding none, he took a few
trembling steps backwards, until his back hit the wall, his hands
outstretched in front of him defensively...or...pleadingly?
Buffy didn't want it to be *this* easy. "Come on," she encouraged her
opponent, beckoning with both hands. "You can take me." She frowned
slightly, then corrected, "Well, no you can't. But you can try! Come
on. *Please* try?" She cringed inwardly at the whine on the end of her
own words.
*You are pathetic,* she informed herself. *The Slayer, begging a vamp
to attack her!*
Well this was obviously not going to be the fight she was hoping for,
but she still had her duty to do. Taking out her stake, she advanced on
the terrified vampire. As she drew nearer, she frowned. That was odd.
He had not vamped out once during the entire encounter; even now as she
made her attack, he was still in his human face – and a very nice human
face it was, she had to admit. The vampire, who could not have been
older than nineteen or twenty when he was turned, had thick, dark, wavy
hair and ice blue eyes, fine features that spoke of intelligence and
confidence. But this creature was anything but confident – or so it
appeared to be.
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. She recognized this. This was a ploy,
to throw her off her guard, make her feel sympathy for the undead evil
thing so she'd let down her defenses – and he could stab her in the
back! Er, rather, rip out her throat!
Well, she wasn't sympathetic! Not a bit!
She moved in quickly, tired of this peculiar confrontation. *Time to
end this.* A couple of steps from the vampire she raised her stake to
strike.
At the sight of the weapon, the creature finally went into action,
aiming a desperate, if poorly-aimed, swing at her face. She ducked back
to avoid it, so that it just barely grazed her cheek. The vampire took
a step past her – and suddenly dropped to the ground, holding his head
and moaning in agony.
Buffy froze, her heart pounding, her head spinning with the realization
as all the pieces came together in her mind.
She recognized *this*, too.
As the vampire struggled back to his feet, backing away from her again,
she exclaimed, "You have a chip in your head!"
The vamp did a quick double take, then stammered in a voice raspy with
lack of use, "H-how did you know that?" He flinched, as if expecting
her to strike him.
"I know another vampire who had one," she explained, her voice soft
with memory. "Put in by a group that called themselves the Initiative.
Know anything about them?" she asked, eyebrows raised and arms crossed
over her chest in her classic Slayer interrogation pose.
If this was indeed an escaped Initiative vampire, she would be faced
with the unpleasant task of actually calling the number Riley had left
her in case of slayage-related emergencies. She had sworn when he gave
it to her that she would never use it; she wanted nothing more to do
with the Initiative, ever again. Which was the reason that she *would*
call; Buffy could not find it in her to stake a creature that was no
harm to anyone, but if this vamp was being pursued by the Initiative,
there was no way that she was going to be found harboring him. The
Initiative appeared to be doing a decent job of things, this time
around, and Buffy preferred not to create any conflict with them. She
would call Riley and tell him to come pick up this wayward fledgling.
At the mention of the Initiative, the vampire's eyes grew wide with
fear. "Please!" he whispered, shaking his head and backing away again.
"Please don't make me go back there!"
"No one's making you go back," Buffy lied smoothly, making her tone
soft and soothing as she slowly maneuvered him so that he was backing
toward the wall again, and not toward the open street. She would try a
different tactic for once. "I just want to talk to you," she insisted,
stepping cautiously toward him once his escape was cut off.
This vampire was obviously as harmless as Spike had been after the
Initiative chip had been implanted – moreso, actually, because this
vamp lacked Spike's experience and intelligence. This alley left too
much opportunity for escape, and she had to get to a phone if she was
going to call Riley. Against the inner Giles-voice insisting that this
was a foolish thing to do, she was going to take him back to her house.
The vampire seemed to realize that she was up to something. He jerked
away as she reached toward him, snarling, "Yeah, right! Please! You
expect me to believe that the *Slayer* just wants to *talk* to me? What
you *want* is to kill me!" It was the first aggression that he'd shown
yet, and Buffy found herself actually pleased.
"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead," she snapped back, silencing
him. *Not the most original line, Buffy,* she shrugged inwardly. *But
there's a reason why it's overused. It works.*
This time when she moved forward and took him by the arm, he flinched,
but did not pull away, as she led him out of the alley and toward her
house. He was strangely compliant; he seemed to be used to being
ordered about, made to do things. For some reason, it was disturbing to
Buffy; she wondered just what sorts of activities the Initiative was
engaged in now. Why should it bother her? she wondered. What did it
matter what the Initiative did with the vamps, as long as they kept
them from hurting people?
Maybe it was just the fact that the boy had yet to vamp out in front of
her, Buffy realized. Even when under attack, he had kept his human
features. It was making her subconsciously think of him as human.
"Why didn't you go into game face?" she asked him suddenly as they
walked.
"Huh?"
"Your vampire face. Why didn't it come out when I attacked you?" she
clarified.
"Oh," he nodded, looking down at the sidewalk. He shrugged as he looked
back up at her. "It's not allowed."
Now it was Buffy's turn to go "Huh?"
"If I do, the chip will go off," he explained.
Buffy was surprised. Spike's chip had never gone off unless he had
actually attempted to hurt someone.
Sensing her confusion, he continued, "They don't like it. The soldiers.
They say it shows rebellion. We're not allowed to do it except in
training."
"Training?" Now Buffy was even more confused. His answers were just
bringing up more questions. But they had reached her front door, so she
paused to unlock it. Looking back at him, reluctant to ask, she said in
a soft voice, "What's your name?"
He looked startled for a moment, then responded haltingly, "D-darian."
Upon seeing her puzzled look, he explained, "It's been a while since
anyone's used it. We all have numbers instead of names."
*Hostile 17,* floated through Buffy's thoughts unbidden; she shook her
head to clear it and said, "Come in, Darian."
She gestured for him to go in ahead of her, then led him by the
shoulder toward the kitchen. Dawn was in the living room watching
television. She jumped up immediately and followed them.
"Mom says no boys allowed while she's not here," she said accusingly.
Annoyed, sitting Darian down in one of the kitchen chairs, Buffy said
flatly, "He's not a boy."
Dawn's eyes widened, and she came closer to Darian, looking him over
obviously and unashamedly. "He's a vampire?" She frowned skeptically,
glancing at Buffy. "He doesn't look very scary."
Buffy glanced at Darian and had to agree. In the harsh fluorescent
light, she could see that he was painfully thin and drawn. Pale bruises
stood out on his ivory skin in several places; he looked like he'd been
through hell, and without a bite to eat the whole time.
"Is he your prisoner?" Dawn asked excitedly.
"No...yes," Buffy nodded decidedly. "He's my prisoner."
"Are you going to torture him for information?" Dawn asked eagerly,
then without waiting for an answer, "Can I watch?"
Buffy turned to see Darian looking with horrified suspicion at the
fascinated thirteen-year-old circling his chair like a shark.
"Dawn, go upstairs," she ordered, opening the refrigerator door.
"I don't have to," Dawn declared, not taking her eyes off Darian.
"Go upstairs or I'll tell Mom you ate the whole gallon of fudge ripple
ice cream by yourself," Buffy restated her threat.
Without another word, Dawn headed for the stairs.
When Buffy turned away from the refrigerator with a bag of blood in her
hand, to meet Darian's look of horror, she shrugged, "My sister."
"Slayers have sisters?"
"This one does," Buffy muttered, sounding none too pleased about it as
she cut the corner off the bag and poured its contents into a mug.
"You keep blood in your refrigerator?" Darian asked, eyes wide in
surprise, but fastened on the mug in her hand.
Buffy shrugged, *really* not wanting to have that conversation. "Just
in case," she said softly as she put the cup in the microwave. Then she
turned and leaned against the counter, crossing her arms and frowning.
"Hey! I'm supposed to be the one asking the questions here!" she
pointed out. Without her meaning for it to, her frown softened
slightly, and she asked with more gentleness than she had intended,
"How long has it been since you've eaten?"
Darian swallowed, his gaze now firm on the microwave door. "Since I got
away. Three – no, four days?" he guessed.
As she set the heated blood in front of him, she sat down across from
him and watched him for a moment as he drank thirstily, draining the
mug in one gulp.
"Thank you," Darian said softly, giving her a grateful smile. Buffy
just looked away. There was a silence, before Darian broke it again.
"I'd never been outside the Initiative before...not since I was turned. I
didn't know what to do – how to survive. I'd have died out there if..."
"I'm *not* your savior," Buffy stated emphatically, hardening her voice
deliberately as she stood up. "I wouldn't *starve* a dog, or any
animal. Just because I'm not a heartless monster doesn't make me your
friend." She wondered if she was saying it more for his benefit or for
hers.
Against her will, she was starting to feel sorry for this creature.
Apparantly he had never hunted, never harmed a human, not if he had
been in the Initiative since he'd been turned. Buffy frowned as the
implications of that statement occurred to her. Did that mean he had
been turned *inside* the Initiative? She turned to ask him, but he was
talking again.
"Still," he argued, his tone still thankful, giving her a curious look.
"You *did* help me, and I'm grateful." He laughed softly. "My sire said
you *were* a heartless monster. He said you held *him* prisoner one
time and wouldn't feed him for days..."
Buffy's heart dropped, and suddenly she *knew*. Turning quickly back to
him she repeated urgently, "Your *sire*? Who's you sire?"
Darian frowned at her expression. "I don't know his name. I've always
only called him 'Sire'. But the soldiers refer to him by his
number—seventeen."
A/N: Ok, I know you've all been waiting patiently...the next chapter
will be all. about. spike. :) Just wanted to let you know :)