There were three of them, dressed in weird armor, uncommonly strong, even for vampires.
Buffy said, “Oh, okay nice. Hey, ow, okay. I’m letting go. I don’t want to fight all three of you.”
Without warning, she kicked the vampire in front of her—he wore a braided ponytail and a wicked-ugly set of fangs—right where it counted. “Unless I have to,” she said, and they were off. As the ponytail guy doubled over, another one, who had a scar that had sealed his eye shut, slammed her in the back.
They flung her against a chain link fence. Then two pulled her between them as One-Eye moved in for the kill. He bared his fangs and lowered his face toward her neck. She smelled death on him.
Her death.
Suddenly a familiar voice rang out as someone yanked One-Eye’s head back.
Angel.
He said, “Good dogs don’t bite.”
Buffy threw herself backward, kicking her legs up and catching her two captors in the head. One went down. Ponytail grabbed her and threw her against the fence as Angel dodged One-Eye.
Angel moved like a panther: fast, savage, and deadly. He went for the one who had fallen as One-Eye ripped a pointed spike off the wrought iron fence and lunged at him.
“Look out!” Buffy shouted as he slashed Angel across the ribs. She fought Ponytail, smashing his head back with her open hands, and then slamming both her fists, doubled together like a wrecking ball, into his face.
Angel was down; she paused to kick One-Eye in the face, then urged Angel to his feet, screaming, “Run!”
They flew. Down one block, through an empty lot, and across another block as they moved into a residential area. Angel matched her step for step, almost as if he knew where she was leading them. As one, they turned onto Revello Drive. Buffy spared a glance at him; he was holding his side. She frowned, worried, but pumped harder as the snarling vampires gained on them. Dashing ahead of Angel she opened the front door.
She herded him inside, yelling, “Get in! Come on!”
Just as she shut the door, One-Eye leaped onto the porch, grabbing for her. She smashed his hand with the door. He pulled it free and she slammed the door shut. She locked it as she looked through the panes, fighting to catch her breath.
Behind her, Angel said, “It’s all right. A vampire can’t come in unless it’s invited.”
“I’ve heard that before, but I’ve never put it to the test.”
The three vampires paced the porch, growling. She didn’t know how long they would loiter, but it appeared Angel was right. They weren’t going to be able to come in without an invitation. A comfort, that.
As was the sight of Angel standing in her house, hurt, but alive and staring back at her with his dark, penetrating eyes.
She said, “I’ll get some bandages. Take your jacket and your shirt off.”
He followed her into the kitchen, shedding his black jacket and pulling his white T-shirt over his head. She reached to get the first aid kit out of the cupboard.
Then as she turned and saw that he had his back to her and was naked from the waist up, her heart began to pound. She paused, hypnotized by the sleek taper of the muscles in his back and his arms, the smooth skin on the nape of his neck.
A large tattoo of a flying creature rippled on his right shoulder as he moved slightly, and she stirred from her daze and said, “Nice tattoo.”
Then she began to bandage his wound. He was cold. That made sense; he was shirtless and it was chilly out. His wound was deep, and she was surprised that he didn’t seem to be in more pain.
They were standing very close together. Buffy was aware that his face—his lips—were inches from hers. To distract herself, she said, “I was lucky you came along.” Then, regaining her composure to a degree, she tilted her head up at him and asked with a tinge of mock suspicion, “How did you happen to come along?”
He replied, his voice soft and deep, “I live nearby. I was just out walking.”
“So you weren’t following me? I had this feeling you were.”
His smile was faint, but it was there. “Why would I do that?”
She spoke rapidly, her fingers ripping through the sterile packaging in the kit. “You tell me. You’re the Mystery Guy who appears out of nowhere.” She gave a little laugh. “I’m not saying I’m not happy about it tonight, but if you are hanging around me, I’d like to know why.”
She finished the bandage and straightened up, now even closer to him.
He said, “Maybe I like you.”
She stared up at him, catching the scent of his body, the light sweat, the smell of soap or maybe incense. “Maybe?” she asked, somewhere between hopeful and playful.
He made no answer, only gazed at her. Buffy took a breath. She just knew that something was going to happen.
Something did happen.
The front door opened.
Yikes!
Buffy raced to the door. Her mother was still standing on the porch, putting her keys back in her purse and reaching to open the mailbox. Buffy jerked her mother inside and scanned for the enemy.
Joyce Summers said, “Honey, what are you doing?”
After glancing out at the yard, Buffy quickly closed and locked the door. “There’s a lot of weird people out at night, and I just feel better with you safe and sound inside.”
Then her next thought was of the handsome, older, shirtless guy in their kitchen and she said frantically, “You must be beat!”
Her mother did look weary. She nodded. “I am. For a little gallery, you have no idea how much—”
Buffy cut in, eager to move her along. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get into bed, and I can bring you some hot tea.”
Joyce looked pleasantly surprised. “That’s sweet. What did you do?”
It took Buffy a moment to register the question. Still pushing for innocence, she made her eyes wide. “Can’t a daughter just be concerned about her mother?”
Joyce’s gaze ticked past her. She said, “Hi.”
Behind Buffy, Angel answered, “Hi.”
Uh-oh. The jig was up. Luckily Angel had slipped back into his clothes. Buffy blathered, “Uh, okay. Um, Angel, this is my mom. Mom, this is Angel. We ran into each other on the way home.” And if she believes that one, I have some doctored report cards she could sign.…
Angel said, “Hello. Nice to meet you.”
“What do you do, Angel?” her mother asked, very politely squaring off as Angel hesitated: older guy versus dateable girl’s parent. Round one.
Buffy covered for him, saying, “He’s a student.” She realized he looked a little too old to be in high school. “First year community college. Angel’s been helping me with my history.” She laughed. “You know I’ve been toiling there.”
It was unclear how much, if any, of that her mother believed. Her mom said, “It’s a little late for tutoring. I’m going to go to bed, and … Buffy?”
Hint, hint.
“I’ll say good night and do the same,” Buffy promised.
Her mother gave Angel another scrutinizing onceover. “It was nice to meet you.”
She headed upstairs.
* * *
The Slayer held the front door to her home open and called loudly, “Good night. We’ll hook up soon and do that study thing.”
She shut the door and motioned to the waiting Angel to go upstairs with her. He followed her, aware of her closeness, aware that they were going to her bedroom.
He slipped inside as she checked down the hall, then shut her door. Quietly he said, “Look, I don’t want to get you in any more trouble.”
“And I don’t want to get you dead,” she insisted. “They could still be out there. So, uh. Oh.” She looked around, almost as if she had never been in her own room before. “Two of us,” she said awkwardly. “One bed. That doesn’t work. Um, why don’t you take the bed? You know, because you’re wounded.”
Angel was touched by her concern. Her hands on his body had been gentle and careful; he though
t of them now as he said firmly, “I’ll take the floor.” To cut off her protest, he added, “Oh, believe me, I’ve had worse.”
“Okay.” She gestured toward the window. “Then, ah, why don’t you see if the Fang Gang is loitering and, um, keep your back turned while I change.”
Angel smiled and crossed to the window, dutifully turning his back. He could hear the rustle of clothing as he studied the black night. Nothing moved outside, as if all was serene.
“I don’t see them,” he reported.
Inside, Buffy’s bedroom was not serene. It pulsed with tension and excitement. His. And hers, too. Of that he was certain.
“You know, I’m the Chosen One,” she said. He kept his back turned, unsure if she was finished dressing. “It’s my job to fight guys like that. What’s your excuse?”
“Somebody has to,” he murmured.
“Well, what does your family think of your career choice?”
How far should I go? What do I tell her? He replied simply, “They’re dead.”
* * *
Buffy stopped and turned toward him. The moonlight streaming through the window blinds cast shadows across his face almost like bars. His profile was sharply chiseled, and with her gaze, Buffy traced the silhouette. She asked quietly, “Was it vampires?”
He turned toward her, his face filled with unspoken pain.
“It was.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” His voice betrayed buried sorrow, hidden anger.
“So this is a vengeance gig for you?” she pressed.
For a moment there was silence. Then he looked at her, really looked, and said, “You even look pretty when you go to sleep.”
Suddenly she wished she had changed into more than her T-shirt and pajama bottoms. She smiled weakly and said, “Well, when I wake up, it’s an entirely different story. Here.” She handed him a quilt and a pillow. “Sleep tight.”
* * *
In the moonlit stillness they lay, she on her bed, he on the floor. Both awake, both staring at the ceiling, each acutely aware of the presence of the other. They had faced death together, and now they faced the nearness of each other.
“Angel?” Buffy whispered.
“Hmmm?”
“Do you snore?”
He smiled, just a little. “I don’t know. It’s been a long time since anybody’s been in a position to let me know.”
Buffy’s smile was bigger than his. A long time since. That was good. That was a thought she could drift away on, sleep and dream on.
But Angel stayed awake all night, listening to the beating of her heart.
CHAPTER 2
The next day, in what doubled as Slayage World Headquarters—the Sunnydale High School library—Buffy told Xander, Willow, and Giles what had happened the night before.
“He spent the night? In your room? In your bed?” Xander almost shouted.
Buffy flushed at her friend’s outrage. “Not in my bed. By my bed.”
“That is so romantic,” Willow said dreamily. No outrage there. A little envy, maybe. “Wow. Did you, uh, I mean did he, uh—”
Buffy said proudly, “Perfect gentleman.”
“Oh, Buffy, come on! Wake up and smell the seduction.” Xander frowned big time. “It’s the oldest trick in the book.”
Buffy asked pointedly, “Saving my life? Getting slashed in the ribs?”
“Du-uh. Guys’ll do anything to impress a girl.” Xander pushed out his chest. “I once drank an entire gallon of Gatorade without taking a breath.”
Willow nodded, backing him up. “It was pretty impressive.” Then she made a little face. “Although later there was an ick factor.…”
Giles approached, carrying a huge black leather-bound book. “Can we steer this riveting conversation back to the events that took place earlier in the evening? You left the Bronze and were set upon by three unusually virile vampires …”
Giles laid down the book and pointed to an engraving. “Did they look like this?”
They were Buffy’s three vampire amigos.
Buffy nodded. “Yeah. What’s with the uniforms?”
Giles looked grim but satisfied. That happened whenever he was right about some ravening monster intent upon either sucking Buffy’s liver out through her nose or causing the basic end of the world as it was known and loved. “It seems you encountered the Three—warrior vampires, very proud and strong.”
Willow blinked, impressed. “How is it you always know this stuff? You always know what’s going on. I never know what’s going on.”
Giles waved a hand at the piles of dusty books as he sipped from a coffee cup. “Well, you weren’t here from midnight to six researching it.” Buffy’s call had reached him just as he was ready to turn in.
Sheepishly Willow agreed. “No, I was sleeping.”
Giles turned to Buffy. “Obviously, you’re hurting the Master. He wouldn’t send the Three for just anyone.” He thought a moment, cleaning his glasses. “We must step up our training with weapons.”
Xander added, “Buffy, you’d better stay at my place until these samurai guys are history.”
Buffy wasn’t quite sure she’d heard him right. “What?”
“Don’t worry about Angel,” he went on. “Willow can run over to your house and tell him to get out of town fast.”
Giles shook his head. “Angel and Buffy are not in immediate jeopardy.” He put his glasses back on. “Eventually the Master will send someone else, but in the meantime, the Three, having failed, will offer up their own lives as penance.”
Buffy nodded to herself, a little tired, a little wigged. Three down, how many more bazillions left to go?
* * *
Deep within the earth, the Three knelt before the Master. They still carried their aura of menace and destruction, yet they were afraid. Darla watched with excitement as they hung their heads in shame. The leader of the Three, so scarred that one eye was permanently shut, handed the Master a long, sharp impaling spear—a vampiric weapon of execution. Acting as if he had no plans to use it, the Master handed it in turn to Darla, who clutched it eagerly.
Their leader said, “We failed in our duty, and now our lives belong to you.”
The Master moved to Collin, and spoke gently in his dangerously warm voice. “Pay attention, child. You are the Anointed One, and there is much you must learn. With power comes responsibility. True, they did fail, but also true, we who walk at night share a common bond. The taking of a life—I’m not talking about humans, of course—is a serious matter.”
The leader of the Three raised his head slightly. Darla knew he was hoping that he and the others would be allowed to live.
Sounding like the little human boy he once had been, Collin asked, “So you would spare them?”
The Master gave Darla a look. They had been together so long, killed so many, that she understood what he wanted. Her eyes shining, she clamped her hands around the impaling spear and quietly took her position behind the leader of the Three.
“I am weary,” the Master said, “and their deaths will bring me little joy.” He shepherded Collin off a little way.
It was Darla’s cue. With all her strength and her pent-up rage, she gleefully shoved the spear through the scarred, powerful vampire. He shrieked, and then exploded into dust.
The shrieks of his brothers followed quickly.
“Of course,” the Master added, “sometimes a little is enough.”
* * *
The library door was half covered with a large sign that read, Closed for filing. Please come back tomorrow.
The sign seemed to Buffy an unnecessary precaution. As did Giles’s sweep of the hall to make sure it was clear, the locking of the doors, yada yada yada. Nobody at Sunnydale High was into the book-checking-out thing. More like the guy-and-girl-checking-out thing. And if you had an ounce of coolness, you did not go hunting for acceptable date material in the school library. She shook her head.
Buffy peered
into a large locker filled with weaponry. Some girls got to spend their afternoons picking out slip dresses, and some girls got to try machetes on for size.
“Cool, a crossbow,” she said as she touched the ancient weapon. Then she saw the arrows—more correctly, the bolts. Hey, witness knowledge girl!—and started to load the weapon. “Huh, check out these babies,” she purred. “Goodbye stakes, hello flying fatality.” Eagerly, she looked around. “What can I shoot?”
Looking perturbed with her—a frequent occupational hazard for this Slayer—Giles, in padded gear, took the crossbow and put it away, saying firmly, “Nothing. The crossbow comes later. You must first become proficient with the basic tools of combat. Let’s begin with the quarter staff.” He plucked up two long wooden poles and handed one to her. “Which, incidentally, will require countless hours of rigorous training. I speak from experience.”
She looked at the pole, then at him, and almost cracked up. “Giles, twentieth century?” she said. “I’m not going to be fighting Friar Tuck.”
Cracking up was the farthest thing from his mind. He replied with all his British-accented seriousness, “You never know with whom—or what—you may be fighting.” He put on a padded helmet. “And these traditions have been handed down through the ages.” He picked up the quarter staff. “Now you show me good, steady progress with the quarter staff, and in due time we’ll discuss the crossbow.”
He held the quarter staff across his body with both hands and got ready to rumble, Giles-style. “Now, put on your pads,” he told her.
She cocked her head. “I’m not going to need pads for you.”
He accepted her challenge with a slight lift of his chin. “We’ll see about that.” He saluted her by raising the right end of the staff. “En garde.”
Her first thrust was a bit tentative and he parried it easily; then, as wood smacked wood, she got the feel of the rhythm and fell immediately into it: thrust, parry, thrust, parry, thrust, thrust, thrust. She hit him high, low, in the middle, wham! practically heard his bones crack. He had taught her not to hold back; part of his duty as Watcher was to give her a real fight.