Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1

by John Vorholt;Arthur Byron Cover;Alice Henderson

  “Man! We’re in long pants and they still hate us!” Xander cried.

  “It’s seems like everyone hates everyone right now,” Buffy said, knowing it was more complicated than that. But her gut was sick of the hatred in the air, of the tension and the reek of burning buildings and rotted garbage building up in the streets. This was not how she’d envisioned Paris. She always thought she’d be sitting at some cosmopolitan sidewalk cafe, sipping cappuccino with a fiendishly handsome Parisian poet or painter, bags upon bags of designer clothes piled at her feet.

  She made a mental note to return sometime when a Reign of Terror wasn’t on.

  They worked their way down the next alley, and suddenly Buffy resisted the urge to cry out in relief. There, in front of her, hurried the assassin vampire, his frizzy hair practically glowing in the light from a nearby window.

  “There he is!” she whispered loudly to Xander.

  He ducked inside a small door halfway down the alley. Loud laughter and the clicking of glasses emanated from within. “Let’s go!”

  She slunk to the edge of the door, then peered around it. Inside, a raucous bunch of vampires gathered, their feet up on tables. Women in low-cut dresses sat on men’s laps sipping mugs full of red, viscous liquid. The assassin headed directly over to a particular table, as if he already knew someone there.

  He stopped at the table, joining a man and a woman. The man had long, dark hair, tied in the back with a black ribbon. His back was to Buffy. The woman, also turned away, wore a very elaborate blue velvet gown trimmed with white lace. She laughed at something her companion said, her blond curls bouncing around her shoulders.

  The assassin cleared his throat, and the male vampire turned to face him. Buffy sucked in a sharp breath as she saw his face. Ducking out of the door, she pressed flat to the alley wall.

  “What is it?” Xander asked, seeing the alarm on her face.

  Buffy tried to catch her breath. The assassin wasn’t the only one who knew him. Buffy did too.

  It was Angel.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Angel!” Xander cried, and Buffy clapped a hand over his mouth. In a harsh whisper he said, “You mean Angelus, right? Like in Giles’s Watcher journals? Wasn’t this when he was the scourge of Europe? Didn’t he personally wage his own Reign of Terror on everyone around him? Didn’t he kill his own family?”

  Buffy said nothing, only nodded. She needed to think.

  After a moment, she dared another peek inside. The assassin now sat at the table with Angelus, talking adamantly with him and his companion. She turned slightly to say something to the hired killer, and Buffy recognized her, too. It was Darla, Angelus’s sire. This merciless duo had slaughtered unknown masses of people throughout the centuries.

  The assassin continued to talk, and Darla and Angelus nodded. Then he showed them something Buffy couldn’t quite see. Angelus’s body blocked the way. She strained for a look, but to no avail. Darla looked impressed, and the assassin put it away again.

  Then he watched them expectantly. Darla and Angelus rose from the table, entering a room behind the bar. Buffy could no longer see them. She ducked out of the way again, wanting to avoid detection.

  “What’s going on?” Xander asked her.

  “I think he’s recruiting Darla and Angelus to help,” she told him.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We need to lure them out somehow, so we can stake them before they find the Slayer.”

  “Even Angel?”

  Buffy didn’t answer that question. It made her sick to think about it. She loved Angel. She thought of him back in the future, guarding Lucien for them. She’d make sure she left here without having to do anything like that. “Hold on a second.”

  She leaned back in and saw Darla and Angelus return. Between them they held a struggling girl, bound and gagged. She’d been bitten several times, and blood streamed down her neck, staining her once white dress deep scarlet.

  The assassin’s face lit up with excitement as soon as he saw the girl. He nodded to Darla and Angelus.

  What was going on? The girl staggered, weak from loss of blood. The sheer excitement on the assassin’s thin face could mean only one thing. This wasn’t some snack Darla and Angelus were offering him.

  This was the Slayer.

  And Buffy was too late.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Buffy paused outside the pub, getting her thoughts straight. The assassin hadn’t arrived at the pub for the first time just now, he’d already struck the bargain with Darla and Angelus sometime earlier.

  That probably meant that he knew exactly where to find them from the moment he landed. Which meant it had been the plan all along to enlist two of the deadliest vamps in history.

  They’d captured the Slayer for him, and in return … in return? How would the duo benefit from such a thing? Why not kill the Slayer themselves? Buffy had to get closer to hear what they were saying over the commotion of the pub. To their right was a small window, only feet away from their table. She signaled for Xander to follow her over there.

  They crept silently to a very narrow side alley and waded through piles of putrid garbage. Their feet slid in raw sewage, and Buffy stifled her urge to gag as the stench blossomed up from her feet.

  Behind her Xander did gag, and she turned to shush him. Tears streamed down his face. Removing his liberty cap, he pressed it over his nose and mouth.

  She reached the small window. Wooden shutters covered it, but they hung slightly open, and the windowpane had long ago been shattered. She pressed her ear against the wooden shutter and listened.

  “So where is she, then?” Angelus asked, his Irish brogue thick. Buffy had never heard it before, though she knew he was originally Irish.

  “She can’t be far away,” said a male voice in a American accent, obviously the assassin.

  “And you’re sure she’ll come to us?” Darla asked in her lilting voice.

  “Definitely. She’s probably been scouring the city for me. But she’s sharp, and she’ll find us here sooner or later.”

  “I’m growing bored with this,” said Darla. “It was fun drinking the Slayer, but I have other things I’d like to do with my evening.”

  Buffy heard Angelus give a soft moan, and she struggled to peer through the tiny slits in the shutter. Darla’s fingers combed through his hair, then scratched along his back playfully. “Much better things,” she added, her voice growing husky.

  Buffy felt a tightness in her stomach. She hated seeing this evil vamp flirting with her boyfriend. Even though he wasn’t technically her boyfriend. At least, not for another two-hundred-plus years and one soul later. Still. It made her sick.

  Darla cooed at him, and he grabbed her harshly behind the neck and brought his mouth to hers, kissing her hungrily and lustily. Buffy looked away. It was too much to bear.

  “Who are they talking about?” Xander asked. “I can’t quite hear.”

  “Me,” Buffy said.

  Darla giggled appreciatively, then said, “You had better produce this second Slayer soon. As I said, I’m starting to lose interest.”

  “But, Darla,” Angelus protested, “think of the power! Drinking two Slayers in one night. It’ll be the first time ever that two Slayers were killed at the same time! We’ll be infamous!”

  “We already are, my darling,” she told him, throaty and sensual.

  Buffy couldn’t take this much longer. Even the garbage didn’t make her this nauseous.

  A sharp cry brought her attention back to the shutter. She peered through. Darla’s teeth clamped down hard on Marguerite’s neck, and the young girl swayed in her seat, slumping against the table.

  How had she been caught? Buffy couldn’t imagine the horror of being the prisoner of ruthless killers. They must have overpowered her, caught her unawares. And now she’d been bitten. But had she drunk their blood as well? Was she forever tainted? Destined to become the very thing she’d dedicated her life to stopping? />
  Buffy pulled away from the window and looked at Xander in the dark. “The Slayer’s weak. I don’t think she can last much longer in there. Looks like she’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “What time is it?”

  Xander pushed up his cotton sleeve, reading the Timex hidden beneath. “An hour and ten minutes before we meet the others.”

  “That’s not enough time. They might kill her before that.”

  “Then what do you suggest? We could start back, look along the route they took—”

  “No,” Buffy said, holding up her hand. “I’ve got to face them now.”

  “But, Buffy! That’s not three assassins drunk on soldier blood in there. It’s Darla and Angelus! Not to mention the assassin and a whole boatload of drunken vampires just spoiling for a fight!”

  “Then I’ll have to lure them out here,” she said.

  “This is a bad idea, Buff. A very bad idea. You can’t fight all three.”

  “I don’t have a choice, Xander! That Slayer is about to die, and she’s going to continue dying because they’re waiting for me. I have to give them what they’re waiting for.”

  She wished now she’d taken a crossbow.

  “This is crazy, Buffy. Let’s go find the others!” Xander pleaded.

  She looked at him gravely, studying his face, the worry there. “Xander, friends are a bonus to a Slayer. We have to do this gig alone. I’ve been lucky so far to have you all by my side in a crunch, but in a moment like this, I have to stand on my own.”

  “I’m going in there with you,” Xander said, fear making his voice shake.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Then I’m going to find the others,” he finished resolutely.

  “Good. Do that.” Buffy didn’t want to worry about him while she was fighting. She had to preserve the Slayer line.

  He began to leave, then turned back. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly, meeting his eyes in the shadows.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he told her, and took off at a run.

  She turned back, peering in through the shutter again, and devised a plan for luring them out. Something low-key. Something that wouldn’t attract the attention of the other vampires.

  She skirted around the edges of the building, trying to find the best place to fight. At last, a block away, she found a wide alley hidden partially from view from the main street, yet open at both ends. It would allow for her to escape with Marguerite if she needed to.

  Reaching into her satchel, she pulled out the small pad of paper and pencil that Giles had insisted they all carry. Finally it would see use.

  On a sheet of paper, she wrote, “Outside. One block east. The alley. Bring the Slayer.” She tore it off, folded it into a paper airplane, and walked around to the open door again. Taking careful aim, she let it fly. It landed expertly in front of Angelus.

  Buffy took off for the alley, pulling a stake out of her satchel as she ran. Once there, she climbed a rickety wooden staircase running down the exterior of one building. Her leg felt stiff as she climbed. Even with her Slayer healing abilities, the wound was doing a number on her agility. With some effort, she ducked down out of view behind two large wooden crates. She wanted to gauge the situation first, make sure it was just the three vampires.

  She sat and waited, heart thudding, wondering if Angelus was really the evil monstrosity the Watcher journals made him out to be. She breathed slowly to steady her pulse as she waited. Tonight she might have to stake her love in this lonely alley, or it might see her own death instead.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Darla, Angelus, and the assassin filed into the alley, dragging the weakly struggling Slayer behind them. They’d blindfolded her. She stumbled, found her footing, and staggered along behind them. Her skin was as pale as porcelain. She’d lost a lot of blood and was close to losing consciousness. Red poured out of the open wound on her neck.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Darla sang.

  Marguerite twisted suddenly in Angelus’s grasp, trying to break loose. He grabbed her around the back of the neck, pulling her close. “And where do you think you’re going? What would a trap be without its bait? You’re here to bring us the other Slayer. Don’t tell me you mean to disappoint.”

  She shrugged him off, then swayed and fell to the ground. She delivered a weak kick to his knee, but it was still enough to make him cry out sharply. Angrily he grabbed her hair, wrenching her up to her feet. He pressed his lips close to her ear. “You’d be wise not to do that again.”

  Buffy watched as the foursome walked farther into the alley. Then Darla turned to the frizzy-haired assassin. “So? Where is she?”

  “She’ll be here,” he assured her.

  It angered Buffy to hear him talking as if he knew her. What did he know? But he was right nonetheless. She wouldn’t let them just kill Marguerite, even if they were using the girl as bait to catch her.

  She knew it was a trap, but she had to descend anyway.

  Waiting for her moment, she sized up the situation. She couldn’t fight all three. Perhaps if one of the vamps weren’t Angelus, she might pull it off. She’d seen Darla fight before, and she could be ruthless. And she had no idea how well the assassin could fight. He was probably blessed with the same martial arts capacity vamps mysteriously achieved upon rising from their graves. But the other assassins, except Victor, hadn’t been that tough.

  She’d have to grab the Slayer and run. But Marguerite was in no condition to sprint through the streets of Paris right now. Buffy suddenly wished she’d waited for the others. They could have ushered Marguerite to safety while Buffy held off the vampires.

  She hadn’t thought this through. She was tired, and her leg still ached from the rifle ball that had passed through it. It still wasn’t up to par. She was tired—she’d barely slept lately, constantly worried about the next time jump. At least this was the last. Then she could get some decent sleep. And she wasn’t even missing any school, because when they returned, it would still be Sunday. That was hardly fair. At least she should be able to get some good, quality no-school days out of all this.

  “Show yourself, or we drain this Slayer,” Darla shouted, grabbing Marguerite and pulling her close.

  The most she could do would be to fight them while the Slayer ran away.

  A group of drunken revelers walked by, shouting. The vampires spun suddenly at the noise.

  This was her chance. She leaped down silently, landing on top of Darla. Marguerite sprawled to one side, hitting the alley wall. “Run, Marguerite!” Buffy shouted. The French Slayer rubbed her blindfold against the rough brick of the wall, and soon the dirty cloth fell down around her neck. Understanding Buffy’s English, she ran.

  Sitting on Darla’s stomach, Buffy punched her in the face, then stood up and delivered two kicks to her stomach and kidneys. Standing on her hurt leg, Buffy wondered if the kick hurt her or Darla more. But Darla swore, rolling into a fetal position. Quickly Angelus narrowed in on Buffy. She ducked under a kick, then a series of blows. He’d been a vampire for only thirty-nine years but was still deadly, she discovered. She kicked him hard in the face, and as he staggered backward, she swept his feet out from under him. Arms windmilling, he crashed hard onto the cobbles. Buffy looked toward the Slayer. She hadn’t made it out of the alley. The assassin blocked her way, dodging back and forth in front of her, leering and laughing.

  Marguerite stumbled.

  Buffy made a break for the other Slayer and fell flat on her face as a weight crashed into her back and shoulders. She smelled the familiar scent of Angel and was temporarily stunned by the vivid good memories it brought back. Then she elbowed him in the side, flipped on her back, and brought a heel down hard to his groin.

  She felt the reassuring weight of the stake in her vest pocket but didn’t reach for it. The only vamp she wanted to waste was the assassin. She couldn’t mess w
ith the time line, and Darla and Angelus lived far into the future. And she couldn’t stake Angelus, anyway. He might be a beast now, but eventually he became her love.

  With Angelus groaning and cursing her, Buffy leaped up, reaching the Slayer and the assassin. “Come on!” she shouted to Marguerite, grabbing her by the elbow.

  Buffy heard footsteps thundering down the main street, then Willow shouting, “Buffy?”

  The assassin turned toward the voices.

  “Willow, down here! Get Marguerite to safety!” Buffy yelled. She tackled the assassin from behind, and he fell hard. She straddled him, punching him harshly in the back of the head. She reached inside his jacket, patting him down for incantations. She found the telltale paper and stuck it in her own pocket. Then she produced the stake, raising it to thrust through the assassin’s heart.

  A hand grabbed her wrist harshly, yanking her up off the ground. For a second she was airborne, surprised at the brute force of the attack. She landed solidly on her feet, twisting her arm out of the grip.

  Angelus stood before her, his head dripping blood from a gash above his eye. He blinked the red liquid away to clear his vision.

  “Finish her, Angelus! That’s my boy!” Darla shouted from down the alley.

  Buffy looked at Angelus, at his dark eyes. When she met him, he never would have listened to Darla. He had staked his sire in the Bronze in 1997 to save Buffy. This time, however, there was no chance of enlisting Angel’s help. This time he was the enemy.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Buffy readied herself to fight Angelus. She tucked the stake back inside her vest pocket, not wanting to use it. At this action, Angelus raised a puzzled eyebrow.

  The assassin jumped to his feet, grabbing Marguerite.

  “Take your chance now, Franco!” shouted Darla, keeping safely out of the fray, Buffy noticed. No reason to mess up her pretty dress with all the frills. She had minions to do her bidding.