Love In Vein: Book Three - Chapter 11

The night was dark, a damp chill hanging in the air that was reminiscent of the one that lingered in the dungeon of the building she’d just escaped. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs and her nostrils with the scent of the night, and sighed it all out.

Idly perusing her surroundings, she listened to the distant hoots of owls and the steady beating of her heart.

She’d been patrolling for an hour.

This cemetery was dead.

She smiled at that, amused by her pun.

Twirling her stake, she let her thoughts turn to Spike and everything that had been happening. Things had been so quiet over the past few months, vampire numbers were down and she’d been hard pushed to find anything to slay most nights. She’d not forgotten what Spike had taught her, if anything she’d learnt even more about her abilities. Or at least the abilities she thought were hers.

She wasn’t sure, but she had the sneaking suspicion that her new heightened senses and strength had something to do with the bond that Spike had placed between them.

She remembered the time they had been sparring in the Magic Box while Angel watched on. She’d felt different, stronger and quicker than she used to be, and a lot more resilient to attacks. Spike had landed punches on her that once would have had her reeling backward, but they had just stunned her slightly.

She hadn’t questioned it at the time, she’d just presumed that it had something to do with getting in touch with her Slayer side and unlocking the power she held within. It was only over Spike’s absence that she began to think about it. Each night that she’d patrolled, she had honed her skills a little more, learning to track vampires and other demons, picking up on the telltale signs that they left behind, and discovering quicker ways to despatch them. Something about how easily everything showed up on her radar, including humans, had made her realise that something about her was different.

And the only thing she could think of that would give her the ability to track humans on her Slayer senses was the claim. Spike had told her it would give her abilities beneficial to her fight, and he hadn’t been wrong. Nothing had been able to get close to her during a fight, and even if they did, her healing power was faster now too. Any grazes she picked up were gone by morning, bad bruising disappeared within a day or two, and she could take a well-placed knock to the head and still keep going.

For a while she’d wondered if it was the ring, if somehow it gave her powers like it gave to Spike, but testing that theory by removing it before a patrol and placing it on the chain around her neck had shown that it had nothing to do with her new abilities.

So she was almost convinced it was the claim. The only thing she needed was to hear Spike tell her it was as she suspected and she could let it go.

A noise in distance caught her attention and she stopped for a moment, listening to the people as they laughed and shouted.

It must have been getting late. The bars would have turned out by now and people probably should have been home—if they had any sense. She set off in the direction she’d heard the voices coming from, tracking the people on her inner radar and keeping an eye out for any potential trouble. She wouldn’t make herself known to the people. She’d watch them from the shadows until they were free of the cemetery. Once they were outside the walls, she would go back to thinking.

Approaching them from behind, she slipped from tomb to crypt to tomb, watching them the whole time.

There were two of them, a girl and a boy. Her eyes immediately fell to their hands and she frowned as she saw they were locked together tightly. Feeling a pang of jealousy rise up inside her, she looked away, trying to shut out the sound of their happy laughter and the way they kept stealing kisses as they walked, and trying not to cry. She wanted Spike back, wanted to be able to patrol with him again, wanted to feel his arms around her and hear him whisper sweet things in her ear.

She wanted things to be like they used to.

Heaving a long, depressed sigh as she followed the couple, silently escorting them to the gates, she waited for them to disappear from view and then turned back into the cemetery.

Her stomach growled at her.

Her eating disorder had almost reversed since seeing Spike again. No longer wanting to starve herself to death, she was now comfort eating, and wanted to spend the whole time lost in chocolate cake and ice cream.

Things were just getting crazier and crazier—her eating habits, mythical beasts, Spike’s insanity, a rogue angel. What was next?

Looking up at the sky, she remembered the time she’d been walking with Spike in Sunnydale and he’d compared her to the moon and the stars, and had then given her the bracelet he’d stolen from the tomb.

Her fingers traced over the intricate pattern as she kept her eyes fixed on the heavens above.

She needed Spike back. She couldn’t have him, but not have him at the same time. It was all or nothing with her and it always would be.

She couldn’t bear feeling like she would only ever have him like he was now, half there and half somewhere else.

She couldn’t live with that.

Standing still, she furrowed her brows and let her eyes roam the heavens.

“Please?” she whispered as tears threatened to spill over onto her cheeks. “Cut me a break this once? I know he’s not really on your priority list…hell…he probably isn’t even on your list, but I’ve saved the world enough times, doesn’t that count for something? Just do this one thing for me, would you?”

She kept staring at the stars, the voice at the back of her head laughing at her for thinking that anyone was up there and listening to her. She didn’t know whether she really believed there was, but desperate times called for desperate measures and as far as she could see she deserved something back for all the times she’d put her life on the line to save the planet and the people on it.

“Please?” she said it one more time and then sighed, letting her shoulders sag as she began to walk again.

She’d made it across the grass to the path when a blinding flash filled the darkness. Turning on a pinpoint, she raised her stake up and moved into a fighting stance.

The angel regarded her coolly, as though the sight of the sharpened piece of wood didn’t bother it in the slightest.

Buffy held its gaze, her heart running at a million miles an hour and her instinct screaming at her to get away from it as fast as possible. She would have loved to have bolted across the grass in the opposite direction from the angel, but unfortunately her feet were completely ignoring every command she gave them.

Flexing her fingers around her stake, she held her nerve and assessed the situation.

This wasn’t the same angel she had encountered before.

This one had fairer hair and was more feminine than the last. It was slim, dressed in tight red trousers and vest like top, its pale skin a stark contrast against the colour of its clothing. It reminded Buffy of blood on tiles, blood on sheets, blood on anything.

Should angels wear red? She’d always thought they’d go more for the creams and gold.

Green eyes stared back at her and she almost felt like dropping her eyes, avoiding its gaze in an embarrassed fashion as though it was rude of her to look at it.

She hadn’t asked for it to pop into her life and scare the hell out of her. She didn’t want her heart to be the next meal on its list.

Hang on.

It wasn’t acting like the last one either. It was just standing there staring at her as though it was as shocked to see her as she was to see it. It wasn’t trying to intimidate her with the lizard tongue and broken wings. It was just watching her.

Its mouth moved.

Buffy arched a brow when no sound came out.

She leapt backward as its hand moved and she noticed for the first time that it was holding something.

Something silvery.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she peered at the object and frowned as she saw it was a bracelet. As the angel moved again, she raised her stake, showing it that she would attack if it tried anything.

The angel didn’t seem bothered at all, it just continued to walk toward her, its mouth moving silently and its hand extending as though it was offering the bracelet to her.

She tensed as it bent down and placed the bracelet on the floor.

Buffy stared at it.

It looked oddly familiar.

She looked at the angel and saw it was smiling slightly, its hand constantly intimating the bracelet it had placed on the floor.

How was she supposed to trust that it wasn’t a trap? The chances were she’d put the bracelet on and it would kill her, or paralyse her, or something worse. She didn’t even know what the angel was trying to tell her. Couldn’t the damn thing speak? It just stood there mouthing words at her that she was supposed to understand.

Buffy completely forgot that she had the use of speech and pointed down at the bracelet and then at her chest, her brows raised into a questioning look.

The angel nodded and pointed to her wrist.

Buffy’s eyes widened.

Looking at the bracelet on her wrist, she saw that the one on the ground was similar to it. Deciding that the angel didn’t look like it was as malicious as the last one, she crouched and picked the bracelet up, keeping her eye on the angel the whole time.

The new bracelet was wider than the last, it had a groove in the middle that looked like it was missing something and it slowly dawned on her what it was.

Taking off her gold bracelet, she placed it into the groove. It fitted perfectly, the two bands of silver encircling the gold. There were what looked like glyphs or writing of some sort on the bracelet now that the gold one was in place. It was as though it somehow completed it.

Slipping it back onto her wrist, she gave the angel a look of gratitude. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” the angel said.

Buffy’s mouth dropped open. “I thought you couldn’t speak?”

“I can…you just can’t hear me without that.” It pointed at the bracelet.

“Really?” She looked stunned and was silently thankful that Spike had swiped the bracelet for her now. “Who’d have thunk it.”

“I beg your pardon?” the angel inquired and she gave it a sheepish look.

“Nothing…” she said and then frowned at it. “I take it from the present that you’re not here to tear my heart out and eat it?”

The angel looked as though she’d disrespected it by even thinking that and then made a weird hissing noise that Buffy presumed was a sigh.

“So you’re here why? To give me the mystical doohickey?” Buffy kept her grip on her stake as the angel moved, backing off a few steps and spreading its wings.

She stepped back as they stretched to their full extent, a silvery beam of light engulfing the angel and nearly blinding her.

“You requested divine assistance,” it announced.

“Does he always send angels…hang on…he exists?” She couldn’t stop herself from looking stunned as it hit her—God existed, or at least something up there did.

The angel nodded slightly and then stood silently, waiting for her next question. It folded its wings away, the light fading as they settled against its back, and kept its eyes fixed on her.

“So…is this the part where you tell me he’s too busy to help?”

“Not at all, this is the part where you find the answer to the question that has been plaguing you—how to help that dirty little demon of yours.”

“He’s not dirty…well…okay, he’s a pervert at times…you didn’t mean that kind of dirty, did you?” Buffy decided that maybe she should think before speaking. “Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why? Why help Spike? Is it because I asked? I mean, he’s a demon like you said and you clearly don’t like him.”

“These decisions aren’t mine to make. I am merely here to carry out a command given to me.”

“So him up there sent you down here?” She watched the angel nod again, the look of patience it wore rapidly disintegrating. “God is offering me assistance?”

The angel shook its head in the negative and Buffy frowned. If God wasn’t doing this for her then it could only be doing it for Spike.

“Why?” She asked again as the angel stepped towards her, its hands held out in front of it. She froze to the spot as it placed them either side of her head with its palms facing her and a coldness swept through her. It felt like it was invading her mind.

The angel smiled.

“You’ll see.”

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