Chapter 2 - Denis the Memories of the Acts
Tara came to with a yawn and stretch. To the casual observer, it would've looked as though she'd woken from a late afternoon nap – except for the giant crimson bloodstain that still soaked the front of her blouse.
She looked around in confusion, her face rapidly morphing between vamp and human as she wrestled with the conflicting feelings and impulses that were now coursing through her as the demon began to make itself comfortable in its new human shell.
Her eyes settled on her Wiccan lover. "Willow? Willow, what's going on?" She again stretched, and as she did so, settled into vamp face. "I'm hungry."
"She's hungry." Willow echoed. "What are we supposed to do?"
Spike glanced around the room lazily, weighing his tactical options and trying to understand the shifting power balance that had come with Tara's reawakening. "I'd say you need to find her someone to eat," he answered bluntly. "And pray the Slayer doesn't find you both first."
"Buffy, Buffy, Buffy," Tara spoke – her voice more brittle than he'd remembered. "Can we ever have a conversation that doesn't involve Buffy?"
Willow flinched at Tara's harsh words. "Of course, Baby. Of course . . . we'll just go out and find something for you to eat, and then we'll figure the rest of it out."
"Why do we have to go out?" Tara had shed her shirt and bra, and was rifling through the closet for something clean. Spike tried to look away, though she seemed either oblivious to or unconcerned by his presence.
It could've been a conversation they had on any other night – a couple trying to decide whether to go to a restaurant or get delivery – except that one of them was a newly risen vampire, and the other the most powerful witch he knew.
"We don't," Willow answered, still desperately trying to please her, "I just thought that you'd want to . . ." she searched for words. "Feed."
Tara slid a new blouse off the hanger and began buttoning it, and for a moment, Spike wondered whether she had heard Willow. The expression on her face when she turned around made it clear that she had. She wasn't Tara any more, but an animal, driven by pure instinct, doing what the demon inside her was driven to do.
She moved toward Willow, her eyes tinged yellow, her voice almost a half octave deeper, her stutter gone. "Oh, I want to feed . . . and I think you look delicious."
Willow started, but didn't struggle, as Tara's fangs sank into her neck. It was as though she'd known it was coming, and as she settled back a mixture of pleasure, pain, and relief on her features, the moment held Spike's attention. The bloodlust coupled with lust was captivating. Then his instinct for self-preservation won out over his voyeuristic impulses, and he bolted from the room.
He ducked into Dawn's bedroom, and saw her sitting on the bed, silent tears streaming down her face. "Spike?" she whimpered. "Spike, what's going on – where is everyone?"
"Not now, 'bite sized," he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her forcefully up from the bed. "Grab some clothes; we gotta get out of here!"
"Oww, Spike, you're hurting me!" she yelped, and then repeated a little with confusion and even greater fear, "You're hurting me."
"Yeah, think the chip's on the blink . . ." he began to explain and then stopped. "Look, we've got bigger problems than that. Get some clothes, I'll leave a note for your big sis, and I'll tell you the whole sodding story when we get back to my place."
Dawn crossed her arms defiantly. "How do I know you're not gonna eat me?"
"What??" Spike sputtered.
"Your chip's not working. How do I know you're not trying to lure me back to your crypt so you can eat me?" Dawn asked this as if it was the most logical thing in the world.
"Because Buffy would have my undead ass in a sling if she knew I was even thinking about touching your pretty little neck. That's why."
"That's right," Dawn poked him in the chest, directly over his heart for emphasis, "so don't you be getting any ideas."
As Spike muttered a general epithet regarding all Summers women, Dawn grabbed a change of clothes, then handed him a notepad. He hastily scrawled a note, and then put it in an envelope with Buffy's name in bold print and tacked it to the door. He only hoped it would serve as warning enough.
~~@~~@~~@~~@~~ "You turned Tara!?" Dawn took two steps back from him and started searching the crypt for something with which to defend herself. "Buffy is so gonna stake you."
And not just for that . . . Spike thought. To Dawn, he only said, "I know . . . she needs to understand though – there were exigent circumstances."
"Been watching Law & Order reruns again?" She relaxed slightly seeing Spike's very genuine contrition.
"It's on every single bleedin' channel!" he whined.
Dawn jumped up to take a seat on one of the sarcophagi. "You know Buffy's not really an 'exigent circumstances' kinda girl."
"I know . . ." he sighed and sat next to her. "You think it'll count for anything that I saved you?"
"Maybe she'll thank you before she stakes you," Dawn answered with irony.
"I should be so lucky," he muttered.
Dawn's brow wrinkled. Even with Sunnydale's abnormally high death rate, it was hard to be prepared for the death of a friend. At the same time, neither of them were who they used to be – and Dawn had enough firsthand experience with vampires to know that. They were already dead, and nothing was going to bring them back.
"Maybe you could be the one to kill them," she suggested with a reassuring pat on his leg.
"Tara maybe," he mused, "But Teen Witch is scary strong – I don' know that I can take 'er."
Dawn pondered his words for a moment, and then smirked. "She's not going to wake up until tomorrow, right? And anyways, I know where she gets her power."
"Rack?" Spike asked, having already heard the rumors, and then repeated before she could answer, "Rack . . . of course." With an excited glint in his eye, he smiled for the first time that evening. Then, pointing an authoritarian finger at Dawn, he ordered, "Stay there."
"Oh no," she countered, jumping from her perch on the sarcophagus. "I'm comin' with you."
Spike rolled his eyes. "Look now, Polly Pocket, I don't have the time to watch you. Tara's a big bad now, and I'm not gonna let you risk your pretty little neck just so's your big sis can kill me twice."
"I can take care of myself." She threw her shoulders back and tossed her hair in an attempt to look more mature than she was. "Buffy was already killing vampires when she was my age."
"Oh bollocks!" Spike knew there was no way he was going to win this argument. "Fine, then, but don' make me regret this."
"I won't!" Dawn assured him and strutted out of the crypt after him, her chin still held high.
~~@~~@~~@~~@~~ "Charge paddles to 350!" the ER physician called. "Clear."
Buffy watched from above as defibrillator paddles were inserted into her open chest cavity, and again as her body jumped in response to the jolt of electricity. It stung, and she felt an odd pulling sensation.
"Again!" the doctor called. "Clear!"
The prickling, pulling sensation grew stronger, and she wanted to cry out – surprised when her throat proved too tight to allow her to do so. And then it all disappeared into a void of blackness and pain.
"We've got a pulse," the doctor announced.
~~@~~@~~@~~@~~ Everything seemed louder to Tara without the added white noise that came from the thrum of her pulse behind her ears.
It wasn't something that she noticed when she was alive, but she missed it now that she was dead; its absence was deafening.
Willow was on the floor where she'd left her, the blood on her throat just starting to congeal. Tara traced the outline of the wound with a light fingertip and drew some more of the blood to her mouth and sucked it off her finger. Willow had a sweetness – like a fruity wine – underlying the bitter, metallic taste of her blood. She had power, too; there was an almost intoxicating potency to her lover's blood – more than she'd ever realized when they were alive. She laughed, harshly, at the fool she'd been before – trying to get Willow to stop using her magic. That would never happen now. The two of them, together, they could own this town.
She laughed again. It was going to be fun. If Spike asked nicely, she might even let him join in.
It was time to move, though – before the others came back. She paced, confused; the oppressive silence in her head was keeping her from thinking clearly. Where could they go? She looked down again at Willow's still body. Of course!
Rack.
She should have thought of it sooner.
The majicks surrounding his den would hide them for as long as they needed, and as an added benefit, there was probably another meal or two to be found there.
She picked her lover's body off the floor, and headed out into the night.
~~@~~@~~@~~@~~ "It's around here somewhere!" Dawn's voice had reached the painfully high pitch that came with frustration. "She's taken me here before!"
She rounded the corner of another alley, and began desperately feeling along the cinderblock walls. "It's gotta be here. It's gotta!"
She rounded another ally, Spike just behind her, and was startled by someone on the other side. "Tara!" she exclaimed and fought the initial impulse to shrink back.
"Dawn." Tara seemed to smile, and Dawn wondered whether it was just a trick of light that her canine teeth seemed longer, sharper than they had been. "You really shouldn't be out right now. You could . . ." at that Tara's face transformed into a sinister reflection of itself, "get hurt."
"I'm not alone," Dawn replied without moving. Her voice quaked, and she mentally cursed the betrayal of her fear.
"I'm with her," Spike stepped from around the corner. In one swift move, he pushed Dawn aside, hissing, "run, Niblet – run!!" and then turned to face Tara.
"Spike," Tara sidled toward him. "You wouldn't kill me now, would you? After all . . ." she took a step closer, and he could almost see the absence of pulse under her skin in the dim streetlight. "You made me."
He was frozen – watching her, and she continued to move. With lithe, sinuous motions, she worked her way slowly in his direction until she was only a hairsbredth away him. "I didn't think so," she whispered, running one long nail along the line of his neck with enough force to reopen the healing wound from which she'd drunk only hours before. Then, with a quick, cat-like flick of her tongue, she lapped up the few blood droplets that seeped from it. "You're too sweet."
He could only stand there, paralyzed with fear and confusion, as she slipped back into the darkness, as fleeting and ephemeral as a shadow.
She was so different – so unlike the quiet, reserved Tara he'd known. The constant pressing knowledge that he was the being responsible for having made her that way both pleased and sickened him.
~~@~~@~~@~~@~~ Red. Hot and red, the light filtered through her eyelids. She tried to turn away from it, but found she couldn't. She started to take a deep breath but found she couldn't do that either. She felt like she was gagging, choking, and tried desperately, again, to breathe.
Around her, there were sirens, bells, whistles – noise – too much noise. She shuddered, still choking, and forced her eyes open in spite of the pain.
She was met with stark white – such a severe contrast to the red that had been surrounding her only moments earlier that she shut her eyes to drive out its brilliance. Curiosity and a need to know what was happening to her drove her to open them again. White. White sheets. White walls. White tape holding tubes in her arms. White fluorescent lights shining down on her from the white acoustical tiles of the ceiling.
She was in a hospital.
That very knowledge only served to increase the pain in her chest, and the tightness in her throat. She didn't belong in a hospital. She tried to scream – to make that clear to anyone that would hear her, but she only gagged and choked around the tube in her throat, while the cacophony of the incessant bells and whistles grew louder.
"Oh, you're awake." A woman – also in brilliant white – entered the room and spoke to her. "You should really be resting. You've had a very close call. I'm gonna give you something to help you go back to sleep." She drew a needle out of her pocket and slipped it into a port leading to one of the tubes in her arm.
She tried to fight the narcotic, but it was a fruitless battle – as too many of her more recent ones had been, and soon her vision began to blur, and red slowly winning out over white until there was nothing but blackness.
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