Chapter 1.05
Saturday, May 11th, 2002

Buffy lay back, trying to relax in the sparse, lavender-scented bubbles. She couldn't help remembering how, less than a week ago, Spike had carried her upstairs and bathed her. It was quite probably one of the most sensual experiences in her life to date. The problem was, right now, she had no way of knowing if the experience was one they would ever be able to repeat. She knew she wouldn't actually relax until a certain vampire was once more available to massage out all the knots from her tense, aching muscles.

Spike had sort of sneaked into her life. Even before she came back from the grave, he'd been there to listen to her problems and support her through them. He let her fall apart just like a normal girl, and when she donned the armour of the Chosen One, he stepped back and let her take charge once more. He never mentioned her weakness or used it against her. He let her maintain the invincible facade that the Scoobies, in their naiveté, needed to believe in.

Now, she needed him there in his familiar role. This was the first major crisis since her mother's death that she'd faced without his support. She knew if Dawn had been missing instead of him, that he would have made sure that they somehow got half an hour to themselves for her to just let go. He would have ensured that she had a break from the pressure of always having to be the strong one. The fact that she had no-one else who could fulfil that role just compounded her sense of confusion and isolation.

She was up against unknown opponents in an unfamiliar setting, and they had taken the man who had become her emotional rock. Maybe this time she wouldn't get a chance to give vent to the scared girl inside her. Maybe Buffy would have to wait. For now, she was the Slayer. Spike was her mate and a master vampire in his own right. Before this thing was over, Dru and everyone else she recruited were going to learn that they couldn't turn enough vamps to keep the two of them apart.

Buffy decided it was time to see if there was some way they could make this bond work for them. Either it would work or it wouldn't. She scooped up a handful of bubbles from the end of the bath nearest the taps, and picked one that was slightly larger than the rest to act as a focus in lieu of the crystals Giles had trained her to use. As she concentrated on its shifting iridescent colours, she tried to empty her mind of everything else except Spike and their bond.

She gradually built up a sense memory of him, starting with how he smelled... menthol cigarettes, breath mints, cologne, and underneath it all... the musk that was uniquely his. Only when she could close her eyes and make believe he was in the room with her, did she start to think about his touch.

Dawn shifted awkwardly on the lumpy mattress. She switched off the TV and listened to see if she could hear anything from the bathroom. She couldn't help but feel guilty. Once Buffy had explained her interpretation of events, Dawn knew deep inside that she was right.

Part of what made her feel guilty was the fact she was nearly as pissed at the vampire for playing the martyr as she had been when she'd thought he was saying those things for real. She should have known better. She'd seen the look on his face just before Doc pushed him from that tower.

She had felt betrayed. Spike, the one adult she could rely on not to patronise her, or sugar-coat things, had talked about her as if she weren't even there. He'd treated her sister as if she were some whore instead of his fiancée, and then he'd let that woman fling herself all over him. Betrayed had turned to hurt, and hurt had turned to pissed. Pissed at Spike had turned into pissed at Buffy for letting him act like that, and now she'd earned the title that she'd been so upset about the vamp using in the first place.

She tried to think what she could do to help. Buffy was right. If they hadn't had to look out for her, he wouldn't have had to go with Dru, or they would at least have fought. Dawn tried to work out whether it would have been better if the pair had been taken prisoner together, rather than Buffy being free but separated from him.

It didn't occur to the younger girl that Drusilla had no reason to take her sister prisoner. The vampiress would be far safer in a world where the only slayer was serving twenty-five to life for murder.

It never occurred to her that Spike had made his decision in order to protect Buffy as well as her. She didn't realise that, while he had every confidence in the slayer's fighting ability, he wasn't prepared to take a chance on whether she might be immune to Drusilla's mind tricks. Dracula hadn't had a problem getting to her, and Dru had killed the last slayer she had opposed without even a proper fight.

So, in Dawn's mind she was the sole reason Spike was in his current position, and she'd been so self-involved that instead of helping Buffy, she'd been getting on her case. The younger girl decided she would do whatever it took to get the vampire back. Just as she was trying to remember Lily's phone number, a scream sounded from the bathroom. Dawn rushed to the door and then hesitated outside. Maybe Buffy had simply fallen asleep and had a bad dream.

"Buffy? Are you okay?" she called through the door.

She waited for an answer. When none was forthcoming, she tried the door, finding it locked. She squatted down and examined the lock from the outside. Finding what she was looking for, she pulled a coin from her jeans pocket and fitted it into the slot in what looked like an oversized screw-head under the round door handle. There was a loud click as the bolt slipped back into the open position, and Dawn pushed the door open. Once again she thanked Spike for his pointers in petty larceny.

The sight that met her eyes momentarily left her paralysed with fear. Buffy lay in the tub, but her head had flopped back and to one side. If the bath had been free-standing, Dawn was sure it would be hanging right back. As it was, it was supported by the walls behind and along the side of the bath. It was obvious Buffy was unconscious. That alone wasn't what scared her younger sister so much. What scared her was the fact that where the bath water wasn't obscured by clouds of bubbles it was turning red, thick swirls of colour moving through the water as if it were some gross demonstration of Brownian motion. The coppery tang of blood filled the air, and Dawn had to concentrate to quell the churning it caused in her stomach before she was physically sick.

Dawn knew that the hot bath water would speed the bleeding and prevent any wounds from clotting. That was why people slit their wrists in the bath. So that meant the longer Buffy stayed in the bath, the more blood she was losing. Dawn reached down and pulled both her sister's arms slinging them over her own shoulder. She struggled with her sister's slick form; half lifting her and half dragging her startlingly light body out of the water and onto the bathmat.

Dawn grabbed a towel and wiped the mixed water and blood from Buffy's body, trying to find the wound or wounds the blood had come from. Even after close examination, she was unable to find a single blemish except for Spike's teeth marks on her neck, which had long since closed over.

Lorne debated what he should do next. He could call the Furies and get them to come over during the day tomorrow to put the Sanctuary spell in place around the hotel. As Holtz had proved, it had its limitations. Nevertheless it was better than nothing. He could skedaddle as fast as his tastefully draped legs would carry him, and hope the vamps wouldn't bother watching the exit through the sewers except in daylight, or that they didn't know about it. Lastly, he could start making phone calls to the others in the crew to warn them not to come back to the hotel. With a sigh, he pulled out the list of cell phone numbers and started dialling.

"What's up?" Gunn asked.

"Something needs to be up?" Lorne responded.

"For you to be callin' when we're out on a job?" When Lorne didn't immediately reply, Gunn continued. "Don't matter, man. We were just on our way back to base anyway, once we detoured past the taco stand. So, man, what is up?"

"We just got a heads-up that Angel's got some family in town. From what I've heard, enough family to fill a small convention hall."

"Whooo, I take it you ain't talkin' about any of the "good" side. And what does the main man have to say about this?"

"I left that job to Miss Sunnydale, along with letting him know that they've already got her honeybun."

"This call just keeps gettin' better and better," Gunn commented in a dry tone.

"Yeah, well, bearing in mind that they might already be watching the hotel, I'm thinking you and cup cake should maybe take Junior and find somewhere else to stay the night."

"That would be just fine... if Junior hadn't taken off after a bunch of vampires ten minutes ago."

"How big a bunch are we talkin' about, here?" Lorne asked wary of the answer he might get.

"'Bout five or six."

"From what I've heard that ain't even the tip of the iceberg. Sounds like they might be bait."

"Or they could just be a bunch of neighbourhood vamps lookin' to party. We'll see if we can catch up with 'im."

"And I'll call Daddy Dearest..."

Gunn cut the connection and turned to Fred. "Looks like we gotta whole mess a trouble. Seems like Connor might need some backup."

"Can't let you do that," a soft, and under other circumstances, Lorne would have said seductive, female voice came from the kitchen doorway. At the same time, the main doors of the hotel pushed open to admit a dozen people he suspected weren't really people any more, not in the strictest sense of the word.

"Sure you can, sugar." Lorne turned to face the woman who had addressed him, startled to realise that he recognised a couple of Caritas' former patrons in the group flanking her.

"'Fraid not. See according to the plan, Angel doesn't come into this until after we take all his people from him."

"Somehow, I can't see Angel liking that plan."

"I beg to differ. Angel likes the plan just fine, or he did when he used it on Grandma." She smiled broadly at Lorne as she sashayed across the room toward him. "So, what's it to be, songbird?" She reached up to stroke Lorne's cheek with her cold fingertips, before drawing them across his furrowed brow. "You want to take the limo ride in the back, or trussed up in the trunk?" Her thumb dropped to press against Lorne's eyelid. "Lonesome wants you alive, but I'm reliably informed that all we really need is your head. And eyes, well, they would also be optional extras, and you've got such pretty ones, too."

"Gee, honey, when you put it like that, it's like an invitation from Mom. How's a guy goin' to refuse?"

The vampiress tossed her head back and patted Lorne on the cheek a couple of times. "He isn't. And the name isn't sugar or honey or any other confectionery you might care to mention. It's Scheherezade, and you'd do well to remember it."

The vampiress slipped an arm through Lorne's, drawing him toward the main exit as if he were escorting her on a date, instead of her prisoner.

A stretch limo waited outside, and once Lorne was safely ensconced in the back seat, surrounded on all sides by Scheherezade and as many of her clan as would fit, the vampiress turned to her apparent second in command.

"Keep an eye on the place and call if we have any more visitors. If no-one else shows up by half an hour before dawn, head back to base, but avoid contact with Angel. He belongs to Lonesome."

"What about the kid?"

"That hasn't been decided yet. For now we just watch, and if you get the chance to pick off a human straggler..."

Somehow, it didn't surprise Lorne at all when one of the vamp toadies opened up the small fridge compartment in back to produce a cocktail shaker from which he poured a perfect seabreeze.

"I would have thought Drusilla would have first dibs on our Angel," Lorne commented.

"That's what she thinks, too," responded the vamp.

'So,' thought the green demon. 'There's already dissension in the ranks.'

Connor pursued the fleeing vampires. He had easily picked off the first couple as they had fallen behind the main group, stealing furtive kisses. He still had four left to get, but when they had realised that two of their number had been taken out without them noticing, they had taken to the rooftops. Their plan would have allowed them to evade human pursuit, but then, Connor wasn't human.

When they realised that their pursuer wasn't just keeping up he was gaining, they turned as one to face him. The four lined up as if they were gunfighters making their stand on the main street of Dodge City. Connor ran at them, launching into a flying kick on one of the men at the end of the line. He reached out with an arm at the last possible instant, to catch the one next to that with a high speed clothesline. At least, it would have been a clothesline were it not for the stake in Connor's hand.

Both the vamps were bowled over by the impact while Connor managed to land deftly on his feet, only to go straight into a spinning kick, even as the one he'd staked turned to dust. That left one off-balance, one prone and one unimpaired. He allowed his momentum to carry him round full circle and staked the vampiress that he had just kicked. As she dusted, a broad fist impacted with Connor's face, and almost simultaneously, a blow from the vamp on the ground struck him behind one knee in an effort to take him down to the ground, too. Connor felt himself begin to fall. His father's words echoed in his brain. "Watch your balance. You lose it, you lose."

The vampire he hadn't managed to take down, smashed a boot into his face even as he was going over. Before his head could clear, the vamp on the ground grabbed his wrist, slamming his hand repeatedly against the tarred roof, small particles of gravel that had been set in the tar for traction grazing Connor's knuckles until eventually his grip on the stake loosened. As he watched it roll away across the roof, he knew that was it. Sixteen years in the hell that was Quortoth had failed to prepare him for even a month on the streets of LA. He couldn't help but appreciate the irony.

The vampire who had been on the ground moved to straddle him, pinning his shoulders to the ground as the other vampire stepped back, preparing to practice his punting with Connor's head as a replacement for the football.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," came a voice from the shadows along with the double click of two crossbows being cocked. "He's family. And we take care of our own."

The vampire stalled in his run-up and stared at the speaker. "This guy ain't no family to you. He ain't even the same race."

"Nobody's the same race he is. But he's family just the same."

"Man. You ain't so-"

The words were cut off as the vampire turned to dust, a wooden bolt through his heart. The figure in the shadows turned to the remaining vamp, who was still holding Connor down. "I suggest you run," he told him as he methodically reloaded, "cause if you're still here in, say seven seconds, you'll be joining your friends in hell, about a second after that."