__Do Not Go Gentle__
By B'cat
It is not for the meat
But for the sake of the game
That we hunt.
~‘Hausa Hunters’ - Hausa
* * * * *
Yippee-ky-ay motherfuckers!
~Bruce Willis
* * * * *
Hunting.
Moving through the silent moonlit graveyard as quietly as a shade. Bare feet padding over
disturbed earth. Feel how fresh it is between the toes. Feel it. Smell it. Taste it in the air.
Birthing soil.
The former occupant is still close by, newly born, naked and vulnerable. Hungry. Looking, blindly
seeking, its first kill. Thrashing through the first hours of its life like a new born foal trying
to stand, not thinking, not knowing anything but the necessity to rise up and live. It is a
sacred time, a pure time, a naked time. A time consumed with a burning lust for blood.
She doesn’t need to tell him what she has found. He knows. Crouching silently beside her,
toes curled into the grave’s disturbed soil, he knows. She can feel him shivering with it. He
inhales the night air, searching: her partner, her other half, her Watcher.
A twig snaps somewhere in the darkness and he growls beside her.
They run.
Hunting.
Chasing through the undergrowth. Branches whipping by; leaves and cold turned earth sent flying.
Heart racing with excitement. It burns and smoulders through her chest, her belly, lower.
And there it is. Breaking cover to flee over the open ground. Eyes flash, pure carnivore
desire, and she is sprinting as fast as a cheetah, as fast as Death itself. The ground flies
under her feet and the trees are a blur. Then her Watcher veers away and takes off on an angle,
anticipating an ambush up ahead. Now it is just her and the Prey. And the chase.
The glorious chase.
Gaining ground on it as it flees through the graves. It’s swerving, jumping, leaping and
stumbling over the tombs. But her feet move in an effortless blur. Each footfall perfectly
placed. She is flying along the ground, leaping over the grave markers like they aren’t even
there.
Then one flawlessly timed vault and she has it. They go down in a skidding heap, churning up the
leaves and rot until the air smells like perfume; incense. Its newborn claws scratch at her and
every wound feels like fire. Like power. Like bliss.
Its fangs snap and chew air. Foam flies from its lips. And then the stake. Its sharp point,
like lightning, striking the chest and piercing the heart. She can feel the heart sack tearing
as the sharp wood forces its way through into the tough heart muscle and for a moment she wishes
she had used her hands, her teeth. But then the dust. Dust. Exploding dust. And she inhales
it, eyes half shut, dreamy.
* * * * *
Stoned.
A growl: confident and predatory.
And right behind her.
One twist and she is up, whirling to face the new comer.
And there he is. Pacing slow and deliberate on the edge of the clearing. Skin like alabaster,
like marble, glowing under the moonlight. Eyes on fire, watching her. He’s gauging, judging.
She smiles. He isn’t going to run, he isn’t going to flee: he’s going to fight.
Better than the chase, better than anything.
He returns her smile and his fangs glint in the moon glow. She shivers. She can feel the
energy radiating from him, the barely contained power, and her skin burns where it touches her.
This is the one.
Finally, this is The One.
They clash. Claws and fists and feet and fangs. Blood and bruises. Looking for the killing
moment. Looking for death. But it never comes and they fight forever and it is perfect. It is
ecstasy.
Then he throws her back. She hits the ground, rolls and is up again, ready. And he is still
there. Blood like black glistening spider webs streaking the porcelain of his skin. Bruises like
storm clouds. Pretty. Sexy. And he is still there, waiting, snarling around a smile:
feral and knowing.
Her blood feels hot in her veins and she knows he can smell it. His nostrils are flared, chin
lifted, eyes intense. She looks into those eyes and sees herself reflected. Sees fury and death.
Then he swipes his tongue over his split lip, tasting his own blood and she frowns. His blood is
hers by divine right, but he’s taunting her with it, showing off bloody fangs in a sharp smile.
And suddenly she understands.
Her charge is met move for move even as she knocks him from his feet and they fall. Down into an
open grave. Soil falls like a rain shower to cover them as she takes her right to his blood. A
Slayer’s right. She feels his fangs bear under her lips and she answers his growl. Even as his
claws rise to sink into her throat, even as she stabs down with her stake, she finally understands
and she is alive: finally Alive.
“Spike...”
* * * * *
“ARGH!”
Buffy sat bolt upright in bed.
Oh my god.
No, no, no, no, no. Not again! Not again.
Adrenaline and something she didn’t want to acknowledge was still racing through her veins.
She was shaking. Sweat was making the bed sheets stick to her skin. Oh god. That freaking
dream. Every night since the ghouls, since the dammed hell blood.
FUCKING SPIKE!
(ARGH: horrifying Freudian mental picture!)
Ohgodohgodohgod.
What the hell am I going to do?
Call Giles. Yes: call Giles. He’ll know what to do. Tearing back the covers she practically
leapt across the room to her dresser. Her hand curled around the phone. No, wait. What was she
going to say?
Hi, Giles.
Sorry to call so late.
Yes, everything is fine.
Sure - I’m fine.
Except for the horrible, shameful, hell-blood induced lust fuelled death dream featuring mucho
nakedness, blood and Spike, everything is great....
Oh god it was so shameful she couldn’t even say the words out loud. Not to Giles. Mom, Willow?
God no! She let go of the phone and sat back down on the damp sheets. Just calm down. Deep
calming breaths. Yes, everything is fine. Just a dream. Not prophetic or anything, just a plain
old dream. A run of the mill technicolour Slayer type horrible mixed up nightmare of blood and
hunting and death and lust and sex and Spike and - oh my god ..... With a groan she fell
back on the bed and covered her face with her pillow.
* * * * *
Giles jerked upright in his desk chair and blinked. What the-? Something had just woken him.
Something.... He looked curiously at the phone, his gaze drawn to it as if by a magnet. What
was he expecting? A call? He rubbed his face with one hand.
Buffy?
He waited a moment but the phone stayed silent. Odd. He was sure for a moment that he had been
woken up by something outside of himself. He sighed and rubbed his face again; massaged tired
eyes under his new glasses. Just as well probably. He had been having some seriously disturbing
dreams ever since the night of the ghoul attack and was not sure he wanted to put himself in the
position of accidently mentioning them by talking to Buffy so soon after having one. He drew in a
deep cleansing breath. Back to work.
The desktop in front of him was splattered with layer upon layer of notepaper, pens, pencils,
rune stones, bones, books and parchments and his Magia. None of it was helping much though. There
was nothing anywhere that told him anything more about these Hell god blood pools. Not even
Tilea’s writings, easily the most extensive of all the scratchings he had come across, took him
from the above ground search down into the Hellmouth proper. How could the Council have let this
happen? How could they have been so lax? Actually he knew the answer to that and it was one of
the reasons he had rejected the offer of a position on the High Council Inner Circle. Whether
concerning themselves with the acquisition of new books for a school library, planning for a
national budget or working on a yearly Hellmouth threat assessment, committees were committees
and usually stuffed it all up. He hated committees. That was something he and his Slayer charge
shared in common.
Thinking again of Buffy, Giles looked at his phone. Something had woken him up and if it hadn’t
been Buffy then what-
RING!
“Buffy.” Giles answered on the first ring.
“I’m sorry to say not Mr Giles.” An Englishman’s voice.
“Oh, its you.” Giles pursed his lips and sank back in his chair. He tried, very unsuccessfully,
not to get irritated. If there was one thing worse than committees it was dealing with their
lackeys.
“Oh yes Mr Giles, it is me as it has been everyday since I was born. Begging your pardon Mr Giles
sir, but you said to call at anytime of the day or of the night. Night or day.”
“You’ve found something?” That was unusually quick. Even though he was chief librarian at the
Council headquarters Barnabas Bartholomew Longbottom was not an especially sharp tack.
“Ah, well,” there was a hesitation. “Mayhaps something Mr Giles. Mayhaps something.” Giles
frowned, then he felt it. Even down the phone line he felt the rotten little bastard at it. Of
all the nerve-
“Put him on Barnaby.”
“Oo, er, I - I’m not sure I know-” Old Barnaby stuttered.
“If you are going to spy Knightly you could at least have the decency to put some effort into
it.” A moment of soft cloth sounds against the phone and some muted whispering. Then a new
voice:
“Rupert old boy!”
“What are you doing Knightly? This is none of your business.”
“Oh but it is my dear fellow. Anything that takes up Council resources is my business and it
seems you have been taking up quite a bit of Old Barnaby’s very valuable time these past few
days. I don’t think we’ve ever seen him quite so -”
“What are you after?”
“You haven’t changed have you Rupert. I would have thought a spell in the colonies would have
loosened you up little.”
“Knightly.” Warning tone now. Annoying little prick.
“Fine, fine, fine. We know you have Barnaby searching the archives for information on the
Hellmouth pools, even though we have already searched and given you what we had nearly a week ago,
I might add. So glad to hear your good self and the Slayer made it through by the way.
One might even think you don’t trust us.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Giles retorted through his teeth. “You haven’t answered my
question Councillor: what do you want?”
“Barnaby hasn’t found anything new because there isn’t anything else here that you have not
already seen yourself or we have not passed on to you. So, the Council has held a session and
decided that your concern over our knowledge gap is not only justified, but highlights a situation
of grave concern.” Giles froze in his seat. They couldn’t be suggesting-? No, they weren’t
that stupidly naive. Couldn’t be. “The vote was unanimous: the Council is going to mount an
expedition into the Sunnydale Hellmouth.” Oh no, here it comes. “Obviously the selection of the
party is something that we have not yet finalized-”
“No.”
“Come come Rupert-”
“No, absolutely not. Its a stupid idea.”
“Really? How then do you propose we gather the data you have justifiably pointed out is
sorely lacking in our archives? I never pegged you for a coward Rupert.”
“Don’t patronize me with your childish attempts to manipulate, Knightly. I cannot go and neither
can the Slayer and you know very well why.”
“We have protective magicks-”
“Not that powerful.”
“I think you underestimate us Rupert.” Knightly actually sounded insulted which Giles found
childishly pleasing. “We have discussed all the aspects, the expedition will be
going ahead.”
“Then it will do so without myself and without the Slayer.” A pause on the line.
“Very well, if you insist.” All right, that was unexpected. He was silent for a second
and then forced his thoughts through the song lines, the ley lines, through the misty places and
found Knightly. “OW! That is uncalled for Rupert!” The Councillor’s voice squealed down the
line and Giles found himself blocked. “I have been nothing but honest with you.”
“Really? So who have you chosen to die this time?”
“No one is going to-” A frustrated sigh. “This is no longer your concern. You will kindly
desist monopolizing Barnaby’s time and move on to something else. We will send you a copy of the
data once it has been collected.” Giles did not speak for the longest time. The bastards. The
bastards. They had him and they knew it. He could not let them choose someone, no doubt some
young, eager, hopelessly naive and inexperienced someone (Wesley’s fresh, stupid young face popped
into his mind), to go in his place to die because of some committee decision taken during
a late night sherry session.
“Alright.” Giles clenched his teeth. “I’ll do it.”
“Well-”
“Don’t be an ass on top of a son of a bitch Knightly.”
“Welcome aboard, you-”
“Wait a minute, you haven’t heard my terms.”
“Terms, old boy?”
“You will give me command of the party.”
“Giles I-”
“Shut up and listen. If I am going to risk my life, and more importantly: the Slayer’s
life, for you then you will bloody well listen to me.”
* * * * *
Buffy couldn’t sleep. Actually scratch that: she was afraid to sleep. Instead she drew the
curtains against the seductive pull of moonlight, flipped the light switch and got down to some
Tai Chi. Clear the mind. Yes, don’t think of anything except the forms. Slow and fluid just like
Angel had taught her. Angel. Control the body and the mind will follow. Who was she to
argue with a century of learned anguish control?
Thinking of Angel though got her thinking of other vampires she had encountered which lead to
thoughts of the Master, Darla, Drusilla, and then, inevitably, back to Spike. She pursed her
lips, concentrated harder, but just got more Spike.
Rrrrrrr...
Dammit, why didn’t Giles tell her about all this earlier? They could have prepared. They
could have searched out a protective charm, or something, that would have put a wall between
herself and her Hell dimension attraction. Dammit! And if he couldn’t tell her, why hadn’t he
fixed it himself? She sighed, straightened from the crane form and repositioned herself for
another run through - she was being unreasonable and she knew it but jeez...
* * * * *
“Please, sit down.” Giles had motioned her to a kitchen chair and turned to the kettle.
Then - nothing. He fussed with cutlery and teabags and she sat there getting more frightened with each passing
second. After breaking a second nail picking at the cracked plastic tabletop she could stand it
no longer.
“Giles!”
"What? Oh yes. Yes.” He turned around, leaned against the counter and took off his glasses. He
still could not look at her. “Right. I’ve been meaning to have this talk with you for some time
now.” He bit at his lower lip.
“Okay.” Buffy prompted, not even trying to keep the apprehension out of her voice.
“Seriously freaking out now.”
“Oh no Buffy.” That galvanized her Watcher and he pulled out a chair to sit at the table, then
he reached out and engulfed her hand in his larger one. “There is nothing to worry about. I
haven’t been reticent to tell you because it was something - threatening. I just haven’t told you
because, well frankly, it was of greater concern to teach you the more immediate facets of being
the Slayer, initially. The, uh, actual Slayage if you will.
“Then, with the fuss with the Master, Angelus, Adam and such; not to mention various and sundry
panic attacks regarding overdue papers and tests, the right time just never arose.”
“So, you’re going to tell me now right?” She took a deep breath. “How is the Slay - how am I
connected to the Hell dimensions?”
“As you know, for every generation there is a Slayer. One girl, chosen from all others to fight
the darkness.” He looked at her for a moment, curiously. “Have you ever wondered how each Slayer
is chosen?”
“Sure.” Buffy said. “But I thought it was all - you know - some mysterious mystical unknowable
thing. Like Britney Spears.”
“Brit - What?”
“You know, Britney Spears. Blond, dancy, can’t sing for nuts. Virginal my ass.” She muttered
darkly. “Anyway, I mean, how did she get so big? Who knows? Its one of those mysterious things
- like the meaning of life, or pixie boots? I mean who would have thought suede-?”
“Stop, please.” Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. Squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment.
“Alright, from that unfathomable string of analogies one takes it that you haven’t given it a lot
of in-depth thought?”
“Well-”
“Alright.” Giles replaced his glasses and looked at her. “Here it is: from the beginning of
knowable time, for as long as vampires have existed, from the dawn of human kind there have been
Slayers. We are not sure how the first one was created, who created her I mean, but there has
been a lot of research conducted and a lot of knowledge preserved from ancient times.” He took a
breath, paused for a moment - “the first Slayer handed down a legacy. Along with saving humankind
from a very premature demise she left another mark of her passing. Her bloodline.”
“So-”
“So, you are a direct descendent of that first Slayer.” Buffy blinked at him - woah, heavy.
“Her essence flows in your veins.”
“So that means that Mom-”
“No.”
“Dad then.”
“No.”
“Hey, is this your very not subtle way of telling me that I’m some freakish foundling left on my
parent’s doorstep?”
“No, your parents are your parents.” He smiled. “We aren’t talking about genetics Buffy. It’s
something more primal than that. If it were only genetics then the bloodlines would be so weak by
now that no new Slayers could arise.
“You have the Slayer’s, well, it is hard to put into words like this, but within you is part
of her very essence. What made her the Slayer, you have inherited. By detecting this essence the
Council is able to pinpoint the location of each new Slayer.”
“Okay, handling that.” She nodded slowly. “So, what about the hell attraction bit?”
“From what we know, the first Slayer was formed in response to the creation of the first vampire.
Somehow, the progenitor of the vampire bloodline slipped into this dimension and so the first
humans were murdered and in their shells parts of the essence of that demon took over. Now,
whoever or whatever, created the Slayer to counter the vampires did so by using material from that
very vampire demon. It makes a perfect kind of sense if you think about it.” Giles had that
geeky guy on speed look in his eye: staring into space, faintly excited, oblivious to his freaked
out Slayer charge.
“Okay, thinking about it.” Buffy prompted. “So far seeing no perfect.” Giles did not appear to
have heard her.
“The best analogy is the criminal profiler.” He went on. “ How does the profiler catch the
killer? Answer: by figuring out how the murderer thinks. What will be his next move; how does he
arrive at that point? The profiler reaches inward to find some sympathetic chord that allows him
to intuit the next move of the killer.” He broke off from his musing and looked at Buffy. “It
doesn’t mean that profilers are killers. It doesn’t mean that they are one and the same as the
murderers they are hunting, just that they, unlike most of the population, have the innate
ability to empathize with the murderer. That ability enables them to catch their quarry and
prevent more deaths.
“It’s the same with the Slayer. The ability to understand the motivations and desires of the
Undead, and I mean really understand them, in here,” he tapped his chest “gives the Slayer the
supernormal ability to hunt them down. It doesn’t mean that the Slayer is a hell beast. Do you
understand what I am saying?”
“I think so.” She picked at her broken nail. The kettle suddenly whistled and Giles instantly
moved to the counter. She smiled behind his back: Pavlov’s Watcher, conditioned to make tea at
the sound of a whistle. It was a strangely comforting thing to watch. “What about you then?”
“Ah, well.” He fussed with his tea bags. “Watchers are a little different again.” He poured
hot water into the cups. Steam billowed upward to fog his glasses. “To start at the beginning:
not all members of the Council have the potential to become Watchers, you know. Very few in
fact.” He returned to the table and handed Buffy her tea. He blew on his as he sat down again.
“What, the essence of the First Book-Guy isn’t all that common then?”
“Something like that.” Giles gave one of his faint tolerant smiles. He sipped at his tea.
“So, give!” Buffy demanded when he floated away on a tea high. “If I’m going to be all Silence of
the Lambs-girl then I want some company. What’s the deal with the Watchers.”
“Well, as you know, my grandmother was a Watcher. In fact, I come from a long line of Watchers.
Going right back on my grandmother’s side. Almost every generation of the Giles family has
produced a Watcher.” He sounded faintly proud of that which pricked Buffy’s interest. There
wasn’t much about his family, or his inheritance that he spoke positively about.
“So when did they tell you about your destiny?” She asked.
“Actually about the same age as you were when you were first approached. I didn’t take the news
very well either.” They smiled at each other. “Not much is known about the origins of the
Watchers. It is believed that they were also created by those that made the first Slayer. For
instance, Watchers have some of the Slayer’s capacity to heal, and share a little of the
instinctive understanding of the Undead, but compared to the Slayer herself it is piffling in
degree. Why Watcher’s were first created then is really a matter of conjecture. Maybe it was an
afterthought, an accident; maybe there was no reason at all.”
“Well, I for one am glad they were created.” Buffy said. Then she grinned. “I mean, who would
do all the book stuff for us?” She sobered again - “Actually, it all makes a kind of sense. When
I, you know - with the Hell blood and kind of - you know what - and you and Xander, well, you
know (her Watcher smiled, amused and paternal at the same time. He had taken the whole incident a
lot more calmly than she had. Typical Giles). Yeah, well anyway I sensed something when I
touched you.”
“You did?” Giles sat up straight in his chair. His eyes burned brightly, his body tensed.
“Yeah. At first I thought it was another Slayer. It was very confusing, somehow I knew that there
couldn’t be another and yet...” She trailed off as a smile of pure delight briefly curled her
Watcher’s lips. It lit up his face like the sun and she couldn’t stop an answering smile. That
she had been the cause of this happiness rather than pain was a surprisingly heady rush. She
should do it more often...
“So why the hell blood attraction then?” She asked
“Ah,” He sat back in his chair and scratched at his forehead with a thumbnail. “An unfortunate
side effect I am afraid. Vampires, Slayers, and possibly, well (he tried not to smile) probably,
Watchers, having all stemmed from the same demon/human mix are attracted to the very darkness they
were created from. It is not usually a problem. Its, ah, not everyday that one has to deal with
hell material in this dimension.”
They sat in silence and drank their tea. Very heavy, Buffy thought to herself, I have demon
essence. The very concept was distressing. Here she was, having been taught to hate, despise
and fight the evil Undead, now finding out that they were in fact mystically related. How sucky
was that.
“Are you alright?” Giles had asked after a time. “Do you have any questions?”
“I’m fine.” She had nodded, and crooked one corner of her mouth in a smile.
* * * * *
Now she wished she had asked more questions. Spike popped into her head again. Dammit! It was
no good; she would have to find something else to do.
I know - patrol the house!
She slipped into the darkened hallway and padded down toward her mother’s and Dawn’s bedrooms.
She looked into her mother’s room first. A familiar long shape under a huge mound of covers
emerged from the darkness. She squinted and reassured herself that there was actual breathing
going on under the tons of wool and cotton. It was just amazing, her mother had to have
equatorial blood lines, there was no other explanation for her utter hatred of the cold.
Further along she nudged the door to Dawn’s room. It was a mess - as usual. Clothes, makeup,
magazines, tapes, CD’s and junk were strewn over every available surface. In the gloom it looked like mounds and twists
of seaweed splattered along a beach. Why did Mom let her get away with it whilst she had to
keep her room in mind-bending order? It was just typical: favouring the youngest, always
looking after the baby; letting her frolic about in a Barbie fantasy land and live in a sty,
whilst expecting the older sister to go around staking vampires by night and cleaning her room by
day. She pursed her lips and frowned: like to see Dawn drive off a rampaging Mom eating
monster and remember to vacuum up the dust bunnies under her bed afterward...
Speaking of Dawn... Dammit, not again. The bed was empty, and she hadn’t even had the decency to
fashion a dummy out of pillows and cushions like any other self-respecting whiny little sibling
would have done. Rrrrrrr. Buffy curled her fists. There were no prizes for guessing just where
her sister had gone either. Fucking Spike.....
* * *