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Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story (except Brian...Brian is mine). They rest belong to Joss Whedon, the WB, Fox, etc. etc. etc. I do however, own half-vampires (though I never would have come up with them if not for Joss and his amazing world...so please don't sue). And don't use them, without asking, 'kay?
Author's Notes: This is the second story in a trilogy. If you have not read the first one ("The Value of a Moment") read that first!!! This is not just me trying to get you to read my stories...this will make a lot more sense if you read that one first. And don't worry, that one's not nearly as long! This takes place five years after that one, in case you couldn't tell, and the third and last one takes place five years later. I love comments and e-mail (felicity_rose@hotmail.com), even flames, as long as they're at least a little constructive... If anyone else wants any of these stories, feel free to put them on your page, just tell me first, okay? Enjoy...
Part 1
Angel barely stopped himself from crying out to the girl at the corner. It wasn’t her. He had to tell himself that over and over. It wasn’t her. And even if it was . . . well, the last thing she needed was him “coming back from the dead.”
The girl was about average height, maybe a little shorter, with light brown blond streaked hair cut a few inches above her shoulders and a definite sense of style. From the back, she could have been Buffy. But it wasn’t her. He knew that. Buffy was in Sunnydale, California, in the United States. Angel was watching a girl on the corner of a street in Paris, France. Thousands of miles and an ocean separated them. Of course, she thought much more was between them. Like death.
Five years she had thought that. Five years Angel had been watching her in every way he could. Five years he had been hiding, because it was best this way. He had done too many things, too many horrible, unforgivable things to walk back into her life.
Five years he had had the ability, but not the courage to see her in the sunlight.
Buffy glanced up at the sun in the bright sky—back to the three people in front of her. She couldn’t say vampires, though they certainly all did a fair imitation. But it was the middle of the day, and though each wore sunglasses and was mostly covered by clothing, there was sunlight on their skin and they were not dead. Which was extremely annoying.
“Okay, I know you’re not vampires. I mean, obviously. So who are you? I have somewhere to be, you know, and I’d really like to get this out of the way as quickly as possible. Why don’t you just tell me who you are, I’ll kill you, and we can all be on our way? ‘Kay?” Buffy suggested. There was only silence from the three in front of her. She sighed deeply. “Or not.”
“They’re not vampires,” a voice behind her said. Buffy whirled—just enough to see this new person without taking her eyes off the other three. It was a semi-tall man with blond hair and a very nice smile. Not that she was paying attention. Really.
“Well that’s a little obvious,” Buffy remarked.
“They’re vampires’ children,” he said, ignoring her comment. Buffy opened her mouth to demand what he was talking about, but the three chose that moment to attack and she was suddenly too busy to talk.
There were two males and one female. The males came first, lunging at Buffy and the man beside her. At least, she assumed he was a man. On the Hellmouth, one never knew (that is, he could be a demon, or another one of whatever-these-things-were, not that he could be a woman). The first of the three sent a kick at Buffy, but she deftly evaded him, coming up to punch him in the jaw. He went flying backwards, but the female was on her right away, trying to get her while she was off balance. Buffy used the momentum from the girl’s kick to flip her over Buffy’s hip and to the ground.
She snatched a look at the other man, who was doing surprisingly well against his attacker. She paused a moment to admire his fighting technique and the long clean lines of his body before she pulled out a stake from one of her wrist sheathes and sent it flying towards the first one that had attacked her as he advanced again. He blew up in a cloud of dust and Buffy flipped to where he had been, turning to face the female, who had been about to pounce on her from behind.
“A little late,” she told the girl sweetly. She was answered by a hiss and a kick, which she avoided easily. She feigned a punch, but kicked the girl in the side instead, sending her down to the ground. Before she could rise again, Buffy was on her, driving her second stake in. She sprung to her feet, waiting for the third, but to her surprise he was nowhere in sight. There was only the stranger, smiling at her. He had a stake in his hand.
“He’s gone, oh illustrious Slayer” he told her gently. “And don’t worry, I don’t bite.” Buffy stiffened and went white, remembering the first time she had heard those words. The first person she’d heard them from . . .
“Are you all right?” the man asked. Buffy shook her head, then quickly remembered herself and nodded.
“I’m fine,” she said, then remembered his earlier comments. “Who are you? And how do you know who I am? And who the hell were they?”
“‘They,’ by which I assume you mean our lovely visitors were, like I said, vampires’ children, I know who you are because I’ve been looking for you—and seeing the way you fight, I don’t think anyone could NOT realize who you are—and my name’s Brian Westing. I think that answers all your questions?” he hazarded. He was really quite cute actually, though very different from Angel’s dark, brooding kind of handsome. Why was she thinking about Angel? Probably because of what he’d said.
“I thought vampires didn’t have children,” Buffy said. “At least, in my experience they never have.”
“That’s because it’s very uncommon. For one thing, vampires can’t have children with other vampires—just with humans. And most humans aren’t longing to have a vampire’s children. Or father them. Most vampires don’t sleep with humans, and when they do, they usually kill them afterwards. They seem to get like, an extra orgasm if they drink their partner’s blood afterward. I don’t know . . . not really my thing, but whatever floats your boat I always say . . . Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, noticing Buffy’s expression of horror. Which had nothing to do with him, or the recent fight. In fact, it had nothing to do with anything that had happened in the last five years. It had to do with the fact that she had been one of the humans who—well, she hadn’t longed to have his children—but one of the humans who slept with vampires. Voluntarily. Or one vampire. And turned him into a monster. Who had left the corpse of a girl he had raped outside her window.
“I’ll be fine . . . it’s nothing. Just . . . it’s nothing,” Buffy said, avoiding Brian’s gaze.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Sure,” Buffy lied. “Now what were you saying? Humans and vampires can have children.” His eyes (blue) were still worried, but he continued anyway.
“Yes. Well, the few times a human has borne a vampire a child or vice versa, the child has been . . . rather extraordinary, I’m afraid. You see, they have the strengths of a vampire—they can’t be killed like a human, and they have superhuman strength, as well as sucking blood—but without most of the weaknesses. They can be in the sunlight. It hurts their eyes—that’s why they all wore sunglasses—and it doesn’t feel too good on their skin, but they won’t burn up and die. On the other hand, they do age. I mean, if they didn’t they’d always be babies. They don’t age as quickly as humans, but they do age and will eventually die of age if they aren’t killed in any of the normal vampire-ways before that.”
“So why haven’t I ever seen any of them before? If they’re so great, I’d think the vampires would be cultivating them. And how did you get to be the big expert? And who are you—besides your name?” Buffy asked. There was still quite a bit of explaining to do.
“The smart vampires are cultivating them, but because they are basically vampires, a lot of them don’t get carried to term. Especially if the mother’s human. They . . . well, they bite. Inside. And if they kill their mother, or even rupture the protective sack, then they die. And they’re hard to deliver and often kill the mother doing so—or severely wound a vampire mother—so most female vampires refuse to have them. Plus, a lot of vampires are too stupid or wrapped up in themselves to realize what a great tool the half-vampires could be,” Brian explained. Buffy bit her lip and nodded. It made sense—except for the Master level vampires they were usually pretty dense. And she certainly couldn’t see someone like Drusilla agreeing to carry a child that might hurt her.
“That still doesn’t explain who you are or how you know about them,” Buffy pointed out.
“Well, it’s sort of a long story,” Brian said. Buffy arched her eyebrows and crossed her arms.
“I have time. Tell,” she commanded. He sighed but did as he was told.
“I was attacked by a vampire when I was fourteen. I had been studying martial arts as a fun, after school thing, and I killed her—purely by luck. I managed to push her off me and in doing so she ran into this broken rail in a fence—it sort of jutted out and she ran herself onto it. I was, as you can imagine, extremely fascinated. I started researching vampires, as well as really getting into my martial arts. Well . . . I managed to find a lot. I mean, there was all the made up trash, but I found a couple of things that described the way the vampire had died right on, and they told me a lot of other stuff too. So I kept researching, and eventually found out about the Slayer.
“By that time I had managed to find a few more vampires and kill them. One of them went after my little sister. I killed him before he hurt her, but it’s still sort of a revenge thing. Anyway, I’ve been hunting down vampires since then, and one of the dens I ran into had a bunch of half-vampires. That’s how I found out about them,” he explained. Buffy was staring at him disbelievingly.
“You hunt down vampires for revenge because one tried to kill you and one tried to kill your little sister?” she asked, just to clear things up and make sure she understood.
“Actually . . . well that was the beginning reason, but I mostly do it ‘cause it’s sort of fun,” he said hesitantly. Buffy felt her jaw drop and was sure her eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. She took a deep breath and recollected herself.
“You hunt vampires for FUN? You’re not for real,” Buffy said, sure he was kidding. He smiled and looked down, then looked back up and shrugged, still smiling.
“I certainly hope I am, ‘cause my mom would be very angry if she went through nine months, plus labor, not to mention raising my little hellion self to find out I wasn’t. And she’d really wonder who was living off the family trust fund,” Brian said, laughing. Buffy smiled despite herself.
“You actually think this is fun?” she asked.
“Well, it has it’s bad moments, but it has it’s good moments too. I mean, don’t you get a rush when you plunge a stake into a vampire and see them vanish into dust?” Brian asked.
“Um . . . a little. I guess. It’s always been more of a . . . ‘one down thousands more to go’ thing personally, but whatever floats your boat,” Buffy said, using his own expression. He grinned, recognizing it. “Are you one of those rich kids that would jump out of an airplane with a slightly defective parachute just to get a thrill?”
“Never tried it,” Brian mused. “It might be fun though. Why? Do you not like rich thrill seekers?” She thought on that one for a minute, then shrugged.
“Never met one before,” Buffy said. “I’ll have to tell you later. For now . . . maybe you should come meet my Watcher. He’ll want to hear about the half-vampires, if that’s okay.”
“I’d be happy to inform him,” Brian said. Buffy smiled brightly and gestured for him to go ahead of her.
“Good. And if you’re looking for vampires, you’ve certainly come to the right place . . .”