"I am sooo going to kick his ass!" Buffy fumed, pacing around her
kitchen with a fervency that made Darian start to feel nervous again.
She was starting to look more like the version of the Slayer that his
sire had described. "He's been there the whole time, and I've been
worrying all this time over..."
"You have?" Darian was surprised.
Wide-eyed, realizing what she had just said, the Slayer frowned and
quickly corrected, "W-wondering! Wondering – what – happened. To him."
Darian smiled, an oddly knowing smile. "He didn't seem to think you'd
care."
*But that means he mentioned it,* Buffy realized with an unconscious
smile...then abruptly stopped smiling. Why *did* she care? she wondered.
Starting to calm down, thinking back to an earlier statement he had
made, she sat back down at the table. "So...he sired you...*in* the
Initiative?"
"Yeah. These soldiers just took me off the street. I remember I was on
my way to my pre-med classes. They said they needed to question me,
that I was to come with them. They were in uniform and all, I – I
didn't think I had a choice. They put me in cuffs, and I asked them if
I'd done something wrong. They wouldn't answer me at all. It was –
really creepy." He shuddered, and Buffy suppressed a laugh at the
notion of this *vampire*, creeped out by a couple of humans in uniform.
Darian continued, "They took me to his suite, and...and he turned me."
His voice trailed off, a distant expression on his face. "Not much of a
story," he admitted with a forced laugh.
"I knew it!" Buffy exclaimed, causing Darian to jump as she stood up
again. "So there, Riley, I *told* you the Initiative was still evil!"
Suddenly she frowned. "Riley! I wonder if he knows about this
army-making-vamps thing?"
"L-lieutenant Finn, Ma'am?" Darian asked hesitantly.
Buffy's eyes widened in surprise as she turned back to him. "You know
him?"
Darian's eyes were filled with a fear that made Buffy feel suddenly
very sick. "Y-yes, Ma'am," he repeated again, softer. "And h-he knows
about the turning. He – pretty much knows everything that goes on there
– he's – second-in-command of the whole place!"
Buffy was shocked into silence. "H-he knows? But – but Riley's..." She
shook her head. Riley? Riley who had probably never even pulled a tag
off a mattress Riley? How could he be involved with something as
sinister as an army group turning humans into vampires?
Standing decisively, Buffy reached for the phone, ,taking Riley's
emergency number from the kitchen drawer where she had stashed in
months ago, back when she was certain that she would never actually use
it.
After two rings, a professional-sounding female voice said vaguely,
"Customer service, can I help you?"
"Lieutenant Riley Finn, please. This is Buffy Summers," she said, as
Riley had instructed her. He had let her know that his staff would know
her name and know that she was to be put through immediately if she
called. She wasn't sure how she felt about having that much permanent
importance in his life.
But before she consider it, really the moment the words left her mouth,
Darian had bolted from his chair and toward the door.
Dropping the phone and employing her Slayer-speed, she managed to be
blocking the door before he could reach it. Gripping his arm, she
dragged him back to the chair and slammed him none-too-gently back down
into it.
Leaning into his face, putting on her best menacing glare, she said, "I
said I didn't want to kill you. Don't make me change my mind." She
stood up straighter. "I'll tie you up if I have to," she added.
She could hear a muffled voice coming from the dropped receiver as she
picked it up.
"Buffy?" The familiar voice sent an odd feeling through her. Not a
thrill exactly; even in their best moments, Riley had never exactly
thrilled her.
"Riley," she said, keeping her voice level. Glancing at Darian, whom
she was still pinning to the chair with one strong hand on his
shoulder, she saw him flinch as she said the name. Against her better
judgment, irritated that she even cared, she covered the receiver with
her hand and reassured him in a whisper, "I'm not going to turn you
in." And she realized with only slight surprise as she said it that she
actually meant it.
Shoot. Riley had asked her a question. "I'm sorry, what?" she asked
distractedly.
Riley laughed awkwardly. "What's going on over there? Who are you
threatening to kill and tie up?" He paused then added thoughtfully,
"Hopefully not in that order."
"Oh, um, my...sister," Buffy said, she hoped convincingly. It sounded
reasonable enough to her.
Riley laughed. Good. He thought she was joking. Buffy laughed.
God, this was awkward!
"So, um, Buffy," Riley said finally. "What's up?"
"Um...I've been thinking, Riley," Buffy finally replied. "I'd – I'm
thinking about taking you up on that offer you made when you left."
There was silence on the other line for a moment. Then Riley spoke,
sounding excited. "Buffy, really? I mean, that's awesome!"
"I'm *thinking* about it, Riley," Buffy cautioned him. "I haven't
decided anything yet. You know how it went last time I joined up. I
want to come check out your operation first; be sure this is what I
really want before I make a decision."
"Oh. Ok, yeah, that should be fine, Buffy. The new commander here is
actually dying to meet you. She was really disappointed last year when
I told her you didn't want to join us," Riley informed her.
"Yeah, well," She was sooo uncomfortable with this conversation! "been
there, done that, didn't much care for the logo on the T-shirt. You
know, the one that said, 'Let's assassinate the Slayer'?"
Uncomfortable silence. "I know, Buffy, but it's different now. You'll
see," Riley insisted. "When do you want to come?"
When she hung up the phone, she had set up plans to go see the
Initiative compound the next day. Riley and a couple of his men would
come to her house and pick her up. Immediately upon hanging up she
dialed her friends. They needed to meet right away. Once it was decided
that they would meet at her house in an hour, she turned around again
to face Darian, who was still watching her dubiously.
"I'm not gonna turn you over to them," Buffy repeated impatiently.
"Stop looking at me like that!"
"You're just going to *join* them," he corrected with a biting sarcasm
in his voice that was now painfully familiar to her, now that she knew
just where he had picked it up.
"Um...no..." she said in a slow, patronizing voice, then muttered under her
breath what sounded like "stupid vampire!" Aloud she said, "If they're
doing what you say they are, I'm gonna bring them down. Even if I have
to do it from the inside."
The door to Spike's suite swung open, and he stood up immediately. In
this place, he never knew what was coming, and it couldn't hurt to be
ready. A soldier carelessly flung a battered, bleeding fledgling toward
him. The childe stumbled a few steps, then collapsed to the floor.
"Take care of it," the soldier ordered coldly, and slammed and bolted
the door.
He sighed wearily as he approached the trembling, sobbing fledgling.
This was not an uncommon thing, for a beaten, devastated childe of his
to be brought back to him for care; after all, the fledglings *were*
"officer material" – even if the humans were allowed to beat them like
dogs, and could not be bothered afterward to clean up the mess they had
made. But this childe was different, held a special regard with him.
This was his only daughter.
He had been shocked when they had first brought her to him. The
Initiative did not seem aware of equal opportunity laws. He had only
been made to turn young men before – never a girl. She had been
trembling, terrified, and he was stunned by her beauty, even panicked
and sobbing. Ok, he *was* a vampire -- *especially* panicked and
sobbing!
But the thing that had caught his attention was how much she looked
like *her*. And perhaps that was why, in spite of the fact that it went
against his very nature, he had found himself trying to calm her. Her
name was Diana, and she had just been walking home from a club she had
frequented with her friends, when the soldiers had taken her, she told
him. He had somehow managed to get her to stop crying and relax a bit;
she had been exhausted and overwrought and had actually fallen asleep
in his arms. Then, wondering why he bothered, he had been as gentle as
possible in following his orders, and she had slept through the whole
thing.
When she had awoken, she had punched him in the face – a rather nasty
surprise, as *he* had still been sleeping at the time!
Oh yes, she was *very* much like *her*!
But of course, she was no Slayer, only a newborn fledgling, and he
managed to quickly subdue her, and then begin the process of calming
her again. He had told her that it wasn't so bad, she was special,
because she was his, and would have a fate better than most of the
others here because of it. She would have a position, and would be as
fortunate as a vampire could be in this miserable place. All the while
he had felt like a sell-out for trying to convince her that it would be
ok, just to keep her from hating him for what he had done to her.
The first time they had brought her back to him, he had felt like worse
than a sell-out. He had felt like a liar and an utter failure as her
sire. Because he realized at that point with a sick sense of shock just
what he had turned her for.
Some soldier had taken a fancy to her on the outside, but as a human
she had had none of it. It seemed this soldier was someone of
importance, and had privileges the others did not, because to his
complete surprise, the order to turn her had indeed come from the
general herself. But the truth hit him almost as hard as the primal
rage that followed in its wake: she had been turned to be some
soldier's personal plaything!
Eventually through her tearful descriptions and details here and there,
he had figured out who the soldier was. Then it all fit – her striking
resemblance, the reason that it had been allowed at all...
Her human "master" was Lieutenant Riley Finn.
When the door had opened hours after she had been brought to him, it
had been Lieutenant Finn himself who had come for her. At the sight of
his childe, trembling and cowering from this miserable human, Spike had
heedlessly given vent to his rage, hurling himself upon the startled
lieutenant and ripping quite a vicious gash in his throat, draining him
so much that he passed out, before the chip fired enough to take his
own consciousness.
When he had awakened, the first thing he thought was that whatever the
general had done to the chip, it had made it much more painful than it
used to be. The second thing he had noticed was that the general was
standing over him. Before he had time to register the third thing – the
tiny device in her hand – the chip had fired again, with cruel,
excruciating intensity.
And kept firing. For an hour.
When it was finally over, and the tremors that shook his agonized body
had subsided enough to allow him to process her words, the general had
warned him that if he ever, *ever* attacked a soldier again, it would
not be an hour.
It would be a day.
With a new seething hatred in his heart for both her and Finn, he had
helplessly gone on watching Diana be abused day after day, sometimes so
badly that she would be brought to him to care for her, like this time.
He wondered with disgust what the Slayer would think of her wholesome,
corn-fed Iowa boy if she saw where his obsessions truly lay. He
realized a second later that she would surely be as disgusted as he was.
She must have fought him this time, he observed as he tended to her
injuries, various scrapes and numerous bruises. She clung to him,
begging him wordlessly to make her suffering stop. And his helpless
rage continued to build.
One day he would loose it upon this place, starting with Finn.
When the soldier arrived to take Diana back to her quarters, he leered
openly at her beautiful body, partially exposed beneath her torn
clothing. "She looks better," he noted suggestively, looking her up and
down.
Before he knew what he was doing, Spike had gripped the soldier's
collar and jerked him toward him menacingly. But he stopped there –
just short of an actual attack.
The soldier's smile faded quickly; then he smirked at him, glancing
derisively at the hand fisted in his shirt. But Spike could see the
fear that was still in his eyes; he could smell it on him.
But when the soldier pulled free with a sneer, brushing his collar
straight again, he let him and took a step back. When the door closed,
he put his hand to his head and braced himself with a hand against the
door, trying to get his temper back under control.
He had not attacked the soldier. Not really. Still, he knew he would be
getting a visit soon. He had to get a grip on his rage if he was going
to survive this place.
Or, he could release it – and this place would not survive him!