BtVS Knight Chronicles books 1,2 and 3

Writers note - Books 1 and 2 contained here are the second drafts of the story. Minor errors are contained within and any help you, the reader, can provide on spelling, grammer and story continuity is much appreciated.

Book 3 is currently undergoing its second draft and only up to chapter 14 is currently contained herein... More will follow when it is edited!!!

I hope you enjoy my story

Regards

FM

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Chronicles of the Knight

Book 1 - Onward

1

Dawn struggled down the last of the tower’s steps, dreading what she would find at the bottom. Buffy’s last words echoing round in her head.

For a moment, when she finally reached the bottom, all she could see was the rest of the gang crowding round a pile of debris. Bricks, a few pieces of timber and a metal pole, like the ones they used for scaffolding.

As Willow and Tara moved in closer, she caught a glimpse of her sister’s leg, perfectly still, draped over some bricks.

Holding onto a metal post that was part of the tower next to her for support, she daren’t move any closer. Off to the side, Xander had picked up a hurt Anya and was cradling her in his arms. He was walking slowly over to where Buffy lay. Even from here, she could see the unshed tears in his eyes.

Further round, Spike was cowering from the rising sun, his skin starting to smoulder, and he was actually crying while staring at Buffy. An out of place thought flitted through her mind. The big bad crying? It was just too strange. But the thought faded with the growing dread as her mind caught up with the fact that Buffy had jumped from the tower.

Giles was standing almost perfectly still by the rubble. He glanced briefly at Dawn, a world of pain in his eyes. But Dawn could see that a part of him self, no two parts her mind corrected, seemed to have died. Concern vied for grief on his face. He was torn between different parts of himself.

She looked down at her stomach, still bleeding from where she had been cut. Her right hand was crimson, flooded in her own blood. The silken ceremonial gown she had been made to wear was likewise slick with warm stickiness.

She looked up and saw her sister’s face, a thin rivulet of blood running from the corner of Buffy’s mouth.

Blood that was the same colour as her own. Summers blood, her blood.

Raising her hand to stare at it directly, coated in red from her belly, Buffy visible through her spread fingers and surrounded by a halo of dawning sunlight and falling dust, she let loose her feelings.

She wasn’t sure if she actually screamed out loud, or if it was just in her mind, but Willow and Tara spun round wincing like they had been stung.

They had turned just in time to see Dawn fall down to her knees, hand still at eye level and finally fall down to the ground face first.

She was vaguely aware of Willow screaming her name, and of the presence of people kneeling down beside her. But she was more aware of the rapidly dwindling sensation of a sticky wetness down her front, and the gradually fading pain from where she had been cut.

A voice sounded in her mind. “Give into the blackness and know peace.” The voice was that of a stranger, but it seemed so tempting and soothing.

"Don’t give up Dawn,” echoed a separate voice that sounded so much like Buffy’s.

A shadow loomed over Dawn. A shadow that had no source, it just was. "Be brave, live, for me." Came the voice again.

Dawn smiled at hearing Buffy’s last words. But the darkness was closer. She managed a smile just before she passed into the blissfully painless blackness. Whispering her sister’s name as she went. "Buffy…."

2

The darkness was cold and lonely. She wanted to get out.

Pain ebbed into Dawn’s consciousness and she became aware of being grabbed by several pairs of hands and moved from one uncomfortable surface to another.

The pain was unbearable.

Overlapping voices were talking in English, but using phrases she didn’t understand. Was too tired to comprehend.

A sharp jab of pain in her arm, and thankfully, the pain eased and she slid back into the darkness.

Giles stood outside the trauma room’s door looking through the glass. He was alone. Xander was off with Anya somewhere else in the hospital, making sure she was okay. Willow was with Tara, who was undergoing medical tests to determine why she had recovered her sanity. Spike, having sustained burns from the rising sun had fled.

His thoughts drifted momentarily to Spike.

Although Giles really didn’t like the Vampire much, he had stayed and fought when most people, and demons would have run. He had even been thrown off the tower by another demon, while trying to save Dawn.

Though Spike had failed in trying to rescue her, Giles bore him no ill will. That surprised him.
Spike had no soul, but he was certainly beginning to act like he did. He had even seen Spike cry, and as far as he knew, crying was unique to those beings that had a soul.

"How’s she doing?" came a soft voice from over his shoulder.

Giles glanced off to the side, momentarily startled, and saw Willow standing next to him.

Her eyes were all bloodshot and her cheeks were flushed red from crying. He tried to show her a reassuring smile, but it died on his lips quickly. "She’s doing better,” he said. “The doctors said that she was bleeding so much because she had an anti-coagulant in the wound, I…. I presume from the knife that cut her."
Giles took his glasses off and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. It came away damp, but not from blood.

Loosing a slayer was an occupational hazard for a Watcher. But Buffy had become so much more than that. She had become like a surrogate daughter, and Dawn right along with her.

He sighed and looked down at Willow as she gazed into the trauma room, one hand resting on the glass of the door. "How’s Tara?" he asked.

Willow looked up at Giles and a small twist of her lips rose, trying to become a smile. It failed, but there was still some joy behind her eyes, vying for a place against the grief. "She’s fine. The doctors are saying that they think the shock she sustained restored her to her rightful mind.” Willow looked back in at the bustle of activity surrounding Dawn as the medical staff treated her wounds “I don’t think I will, you know, correct them."

Giles nodded slowly as he replaced his glasses. "Probably a wise idea.” He paused. Was now the time to tell her? Might as well he decided. “The police want to talk to us all you know?"

Willow just nodded, now not taking her eyes off the unconscious Dawn, lying surrounded by Doctors, Nurses and medical equipment.

Giles followed her gaze back to Dawn. She looked so young and vulnerable lying on the table. For a second, Giles wondered if she was dreaming. Then worried that she might be having nightmares instead.

He looked down at Willow, and saw tears flowing freely down her cheeks. Reaching over he put an arm round her shoulders and pulled her closer. She resisted for a moment, intent on keeping her gaze focused on Dawn. But, then she relented and buried her face in his shoulder. His own tears threatened to flow free again, and he tried to choke them down. One slid down over his cheek as his grief won the battle against his self-control.

They stood there; Willow not looking at the array of medical personnel working on Dawn, Giles, unable to force his gaze away.

What would he do now?

**********

Standing further down the corridor, a figure lurked in one of the few areas of shadow. A thick black cape flowing around him, almost like it was alive. All his features were completely hidden by either cape or shadows.

Normally a figure like that would attract a lot of attention anywhere. But this time, no one was paying the slightest attention. Almost like he really was the shadow.

The figure leaned forwards to get a better view of Giles and Willow as they stood in the corridor entwined in each other’s embrace.

Yes. He knew who they were. More importantly, now he had found them, he had found Dawn.

The figure stepped back into the shadows. Silent as a ghost, and like a statue he stood there.

3

"What are you thinking Dawny?"

Dawn knew it was Buffy’s voice. But it floated around in the blackness of her unconsciousness. A voice from the grave?

"I miss you Buffy!" she thought.

"I know” came the echoing reply.

Dawn’s mind swirled back into the void and the silence that can only come with oblivion.

“Fight the darkness Dawn,” whispered Buffy.

Dawn was scared. But she did it anyway. Trying to wash away the darkness in the vain hope that, on the other side was her sister, alive and well, and that this was all a terrible nightmare.

“Don’t fight the dark,” said the other voice she had heard earlier as the world began to brighten. “In the dark is the only place you can hear your sister.”

Dawn, halfway between the light and the dark froze. Which voice to believe?

Her sister’s, or this other one? Before she could even begin to fathom the depths of an answer, a sharp jab stabbed into the darkness. The world around her grew light again, taking Buffy’s voice with it. Replacing it was a bright light and barely subdued throbbing pain.

Opening her eyes, the light poured in and her eyes closed again by reflex. Opening them again in a squint to allow them to adjust to the lighted room, Dawn saw that she was staring up at a white ceiling, made up of those foam-like tiles with recessed fluorescent lighting.

The decor just screamed hospital to her. She should know. She had certainly spent enough time in them recently what with her mother’s brain surgery and subsequent death.

Giles’s head loomed into view as he leaned over her bed, only to be replaced a moment later with a nurse. She was asking questions, and though Dawn heard them, and understood them, she didn’t see the point in responding. “Why bother?” one of the voices had said. “You have noting left in the world.”

Dawn agreed. Buffy was gone. What was the point in living?

Giles followed the doctor out of the room, leaving Willow and Tara to sit by Dawn’s bedside. Giles looked back to see Willow reach out and take Dawn’s hand and squeeze it, while Tara took Willow’s other hand and squeezed that.

Focusing his attention back on the doctor, he set his mind to concentrate on one task at a time.

The doctor was as tall as he was. Young with shoulder length hair that was not quite brown, but could not be classed as blonde either. The doctor was young and looked tired. Bags hung under his pale grey eyes.

He cleared his throat before he started talking. "She lost a fair amount of blood, which we are replacing by transfusion.” He glanced at the clipboard in his hands and read the notes he had made there. “I’m more concerned about her state of mind than anything else.”

The doctor gestured to a man who was walking down the corridor. "This, Mr. Giles is Doctor Stein. He’s the consultant from our psychiatric unit and would like to have a few words with you, and your, err, friends."

Giles nodded slowly, not noticing the attitude the doctor had to him, as he had no doubt wondered about why an older man like him knew so many young people. Giles turned to face the new doctor, who held out his hand. He had a regal bearing and skin that looked naturally tanned.

Giles hesitantly reached out to take the offered hand and allowed the doctor to enfold his hand with a firm but gentle grip, and a cautious handshake ensued. The doctor’s skin was wrinkled slightly with age, but the skin was soft. Like it had never done much in the way of physical work.

His voice was clear and strong and held an east coast accent, "From what I have been able to obtain from the police, you were all involved in some sort of” he paused looking for the right words, “cult activity?"

As Giles looked blankly at the doctor, a detective moved up besides them and pulled out a black notebook from a pocket followed by a pen.

Giles looked at the new man feeling a growing sense of unease. His badge was plainly visible hanging from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. The suit was a very dark green with a summer yellow shirt and a green tie that was almost the same colour as the jacket and trousers. He was short and slightly rounded. He looked like he had spent too much time doing paperwork and less out walking and doing his job. But his eyes were alert and intelligent.
His voice had a southern accent. Not being an American that was all Giles could tell from the voice. "Excuse me gentlemen, but as we haven’t had a chance to talk yet, do you mind if I listen in?"

Giles looked carefully at the detective. Could this have anything to do with Ben? If the police suspected him of murder, or even manslaughter, they would take him away for questioning. That meant he would be taken away from Dawn.

He forced his mind to focus and to try to think of a way out of his possible situation, but grief was clouding his judgement.

He shook his head ever so slightly. What could he do?

Suddenly a story sprang into his mind from nowhere, being whispered by a voice that was not his own, but that he seemed unable to resist saying out loud. "Dawn was the victim of threats from a person who called herself Glory, err, himself Glory.”

The detective scribbled down a note then looked up at Giles, a little surprise in his eyes. "Did you report these event to the police Mr…. Giles’ isn’t it?"

Giles shook his head. "We were on our way to report it when we were ambushed and Dawn was taken away. We were forced to follow."

Another note scribbled down and he asked the next question without looking up. "You were forced to follow?"

Giles nodded and continued. "We ended up at some sort of building site that was occupied by some scarred men in brown robes, and they were giving directions to some other people."

Doctor Stein broke in. “Those people are the missing patients we reported earlier this evening.”

The detective looked over at the doctor over his notebook "All of them were mentally ill patients missing from this hospital?"

The doctor nodded sharply.

The detective turned back to look at Giles, his gaze almost burrowing into his skin. “Please continue…. What happened next?”

Giles cleared his throat and the voice in his head echoed out and he recited the words. "Yes…. well, Dawn was taken up to the top of the tower. We were left pretty much alone at the bottom, and we took a chance to escape."

The detective raised an eyebrow "We?" he asked quizzically.

Giles nodded. There was no way he could shelter anyone from this. Besides, he could not seem to resist the voice in his mind. Logically, he knew that the police, even the usually incompetent Sunnydale police, would find something to tie the others in, and then he would be caught lying. "Yes, Buffy, Xander, Willow, Anya and Spi… err myself."

The detective scribbled some notes down on the pad, before looking back up. "Please continue Mr. Giles."

"Well, we broke free of our guards and, we tried to rescue Dawn."

The detective paused mid note. "You didn’t consider going for police help?" he asked with a hint of suspicion.

Giles nodded. "Of course, but there wasn’t much time. On the way to the site, one of the people in the brown robes was quite happily saying that they were going to kill Dawn. If we had left her, she would have died." He almost choked at that moment. He looked back at Dawn lying all but catatonic on the bed and wondered for a second what would have happened if Dawn had died on that tower and not Buffy.

The detective broke up that thought a second before Giles could wash it away on his own. "Well, that was a very selfless act on the part of you and your friends" he said.

Giles looked into the detective’s eyes trying to gauge whether the man was telling the truth, or if he was trying to be sarcastic. Settling on the truth, Giles continued to speak what the whisper in his head was saying. "Buffy managed to get up to the tower and release Dawn, but she was pushed off by Glory."

“Buffy is the one who is now dead?” he asked quietly.

Giles froze for a second. That was the first time anyone had said she was actually dead. He closed his eyes and nodded. He wanted to go home.

The detective softened his voice. “I’m sorry for your loss Mr. Giles.” He cleared his throat and his voice returned to normal. “Now…. that was just after Dawn received her injuries?"

"Yes." He said softly as he opened his eyes again.

"What happened to Ben? You say he called himself Glory?" he pushed quietly.

"When he came to the bottom of the tower chasing Dawn, I hit him." He paused, desperately wanting to take that back. Why did he just say that? The voice had told him too, but why did he say it? Now the police would know it was he who had killed Ben.

The detective looked up into Giles eyes this time and appeared to be trying to read them.

"You hit him…. what with?" he asked simply.

Giles shook his head. He couldn’t stop saying what the voice was telling him. He wondered for a second if he was going mad. "I don’t remember exactly. It was big, heavy and flat on one end. It looked like an overgrown hammer."

The detective looked suspiciously at Giles for a moment. "Would you be interested to know how much damage your ‘hit’ did?"

Giles looked startled into the detective’s eyes, while hoping that he did not look as guilty as he felt about Ben’s death. "Not really, no." he stuttered

He cleared his throat a little before starting. "Well, according to the coroner, who does not like being dragged out of his bed at sunrise by the way,” the detective joked to himself, “death was by asphyxiation.” He paused for a second to study the look on Giles’s face.

Giles simply looked confused, so he continued. “It appears that the beating he received from you was severe, but that his death was caused by swallowing his own tongue."

Giles frowned as he digested that information. "So I didn’t kill him?"

"No Mr. Giles. The Sunnydale police department has decided that the matter does warrant further investigation, but that for the moment, your friends and you are going to be treated like the victims of a cult that we have suspected of being in the area."

Giles sagged against the wall with relief, while the voice in his head whispered to him again. "Don’t worry, I will take care of it!"

Giles shook his head. He was hearing voices. He was going mad. Could the loss of Buffy put him over the edge?

The psychiatrist apparently satisfied nodded. "I can use this information to develop a treatment for Dawn."

Giles looked at the older man confused. "A treatment? I don’t understand."

The doctor looked through the glass of the door at Dawn lying on the bed. "The events that occurred last night must have been extremely disturbing for Dawn. Especially culminating in the death of her sister. I’ll use the information you’ve given me here to try to help Dawn come to terms with it."

Giles nodded. "Yes of course."

Doctor Stein looked Giles up and down, and then glanced in at Willow and Tara. "If you, or your friends need to talk to anyone about this, I can give you my number."

He held out a card that Giles reached out and hesitantly took from the man’s hand before glancing at the text and then sliding it into his jacket pocket. "Thank you doctor, detective." He nodded at each man.

They both nodded in return and moved away down the corridor. Giles moved back into Dawn’s room and resumed his place by her bedside. His mind was working as fast as it could, trying to think about the problems he was facing.

One question stayed at the forefront of his mind.
Where had the voice come from?

**********

Further down the corridor, the cloaked figure smiled to him self and moved deeper into the shadows. It was all coming together.

4

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed the corners of his eyes with his left hand. It was now late evening, nearly twelve hours since Buffy’s death.
No time in his life had ever seemed to drag out so much. Not even when he had found out of Jenny Calendars death at the hands of Angelus a couple of years ago.

The sound of the door opening to his left startled him. What startled him even more was the man that walked in. Short and rounded, he had mostly black hair, just beginning to go grey at the temples. "Blackmore?" he asked slowly.

The man broke out a smile that flashed brilliant white teeth. "I’m glad you remember me Ripper."
Giles frowned at the use of his old name.

"I don’t use that name anymore Black."

Blackmore just nodded, the smile slowly draining away from his face. "We heard what happened, you know, to the slayer."

Giles looked into Blackmore’s eyes. “How?" he asked, a touch of anger leaking into his voice. The council was going to interfere again. He could almost see it coming.

"You know we have our ways.” He replied cryptically.

Indeed, Giles did know that the Council had many ways to check on the Slayer. It was their job after all.
“I heard that you were reinstated as a watcher.” Blackmore said happily. “Is that the key?"

"THAT is Buffy’s sister, and she has a name!" barked Giles, more anger leaking out to his words.

Blackmore held up his hands in a defensive gesture. "OK! Ok, so this is Dawn.” He paused and looked down at her. “How is she?" he asked carefully.

Giles looked back at the bed and Dawn lying on it. He knew that the doctors had stopped her bleeding and had replaced most of her lost blood by transfusion. In fact, an I.V. line was still attached to her. But what really made him pause for a moment was the fact that she just lay there on her back, hair spread around her like a halo, staring up at the ceiling, exactly as the nurses had left her.

"The doctors say that she is in some sort of coma," he muttered.

Blackmore frowned as if in thought. Then realisation spread across his face and he nodded as he moved round besides a sleeping

Willow. “Post Traumatic Stress?” he asked.

Giles shrugged and absently stroked Willow’s head She had fallen asleep a few hours ago, and was now partly sprawled on Dawn’s bed.

"Who the hell is this?" came an angry voice from over by the door. He had never heard it open.
Giles looked over to see Xander move further into the room, pushing Anya ahead of him in a wheel chair. Suddenly leaving his love by the end of the bed, he moved round in a confrontational stance to loom over the short Blackmore. Giles could see anger flash in the young man’s eyes as he stared down the other watcher.

"He’s a watcher Xander," said Giles tiredly.
Xander looked over at Giles, a little shock in his eyes, rapidly replaced with a deep suspicion.

He reached out and grabbed the lapels of Blackmore’s suit and hauled him up to make him stand on tiptoe. "Well, I hope you and the council are HAPPY!" he snarled.

Blackmore, seeming only slightly phased by Xander’s aggression merely shook his head slightly. "No Mr Harris, we are not. The death of Miss Summers has shocked the entire council and guild to its very core!"

Giles moved round the bed and placed his hand on Xander’s shoulder and gently squeezed. Willow, now awake from the commotion, got up and moved to his other side, taking one of Xander’s arms in both of her hands. But she still kept a wary eye on the strange watcher.

Suspicion is hard to kill.

"This won’t help Xander!" she said quietly.

"No Will? But it might make me feel better!" Anger spilled into his voice. Barely contained rage.

"Xander Harris, let him go!"

Xander turned his head to stare at Anya sitting in her wheelchair with a scowl on her face. Just like that, all the anger leaked out to be replaced with a deep sense of hurt and guilt.
Without apology, he dropped Blackmore and moved over to kneel in front of Anya and buried his head in her lap.

Giles strongly suspected that, as Anya stroked his unruly black hair, he was crying. He didn’t blame him. But, yet again, there were other things demanding his attention. "What do you mean Buffy’s…. passing…. has shocked the council?" asked Giles warily.

Blackmore turned to focus his attention on Giles again. "We didn’t expect her to die. All the signs pointed at her surviving."

Willow spoke up. "All the signs?" a little confusion in her voice. “There were signs?”

Blackmore nodded at her. "The council has a powerful group of magicians and witches, some of who are versed in reading the signs of the future. Every one of them said the slayer would survive.” He paused for a moment and glanced around the room conspiratorially. “What makes it worse is that we can’t find the new slayer!" he revealed

"What? So you’re just going to replace Buffy?" Xander looked over at Blackmore with his anger rising under the surface again. His hands were clenched tightly around the arms of Anya’s wheelchair, his knuckles white in response.

Blackmore sighed, "Mr. Harris, you must know that, although Miss Summers caused the guild a lot of troubles, she was also the most powerful and successful slayer for over seven centuries,” he shook his head slowly. “The council did not want to loose her."

Blackmore sat down in the chair that Willow had previously occupied and looked over at Dawn, who still lay unmoved. "Normally, the mystics in the employ of the council have divined the location of the successor slayer within an hour of the passing of the old one.” He paused while he rubbed his temple, “these days, with modern technology to help, contact is made by a watcher within six hours. The problem we have is that they can’t even find a replacement. All they can detect is Faith, and what they describe as an echo of Miss Summers."

"An echo?" enquired Willow hesitantly.

"Yes young lady,” Blackmore replied. “What they say is that they can still feel a residual presence that was the slayer…. that was Miss Summers.” He shook his head. “The confusing part is that the echo is in three distinct locations. One is where the…. err…. portal opened. The other is where she is currently, the…. err…. morgue." His voice dropped for the last word like he didn’t want to say it but could think of no other word to use.

"What about the third presence?" urged Giles.

"The third presence is in this room Rupert." Blackmore replied quietly

Almost as one, all faces turned towards the still catatonic Dawn.

Blackmore rose from the chair and glanced down at Dawn. Giles thought he saw genuine concern in the man’s eyes. "The council is determined to help anyway it can. We have people leaning on the police investigating the events of last night.”

He paused again, as if unsure of whether to mention something else. “I know it is also early to be thinking of this, but the council also wishes to pay for Miss Summers funeral and organise it for you."

At the shocked stares coming from the room’s inhabitants, Blackmore quickly elaborated. "It is the least we can do for you… and her. Regardless of the troubles she caused for us, the world owes her so much…. and so does the council! If there is anything else we can do, please let me know."

Giles hesitated. The contacts at the council were spread across the globe and into the highest echelons of many governments. If they could help him solve a problem….

"Well, actually, there is,” he began, “Now Dawn has lost Buffy and her mother, the hospital is trying to contact her father. But they can’t reach him, so they plan to place Dawn in to care of the state. I… we can’t let that happen!"

Giles left unsaid that Dawn was the last link any of them had to Buffy, and that she had become as much of a friend as any of them had to each other.
Willow nodded furiously in agreement

"We can’t loose her. We just can’t!"

Blackmore just nodded with a hint of a smile and moved out of the room. He returned a minute later with the same Doctor from earlier in tow.

"Mr. Giles?” started the doctor, “Your lawyer here has told me to fill out this paperwork for you.”

The doctor glared down at Blackmore who stood passively by, a black leather suitcase clutched in one hand that hadn’t been around earlier.

The doctor continued, “This paperwork is for you to fill out,” he said, passing some of it to Giles. “It places you as the temporary legal guardian of Miss Dawn Summers till such time that her father is contacted, or state social services deems it necessary to place her into foster care."

Astounded, Giles reached out and took hold of the paperwork. Too surprised to say anything to Blackmore, he just nodded once, to receive a jovial wink as he backed out of the room.

"I'll be in touch with you about the funeral. Take care." Then, the watcher was gone.

5

Willow slumped back down in the chair next to Dawn’s bed, automatically reaching out her left hand to clasp tightly the unresponsive girl.

The news that Giles was to be her temporary guardian was certainly a welcome bonus. The bad news was that it went against everything the doctors recommended, and they wanted that known.
"I’m telling you Mr. Giles that in her present condition it is highly inadvisable for her to leave the hospital. She is obviously in a deeply withdrawn state. She responds to no outside stimulus, not even pain." The doctor looked weary. Almost as though he had head this argument a thousand times before. Perhaps he had.
"So you will stop me from taking her?" Giles asked, a trace of anger and frustration leaking into his voice.
The doctor sighed and hung his head slightly, a lock of his shoulder length hair falling across his forehead. "No Mr. Giles. I have been ordered by my superiors to release her into your care.” He looked back up and underneath the weariness in his eyes was a deep concern for those whom he treated. “But I do strongly protest. She needs professional help!"
Giles sighed and sat at the foot of Dawn’s bed. He suddenly felt extremely weary himself. Not surprising since he had not slept in two days. His side was hurting from where he had been stabbed with a spear a few days ago. Or was it longer?

His head was spinning slightly from the lack of a decent meal in days, and his memories of the past weeks had seemed to blur into one horrid knot that would not come undone.
Rubbing his side over his wound he forced his mind to focus on the task at hand. He knew it deep down in his core that Dawn was not to be left here. "Doctor, I understand your concern, but wouldn’t it be more helpful if she was surrounded by a familiar environment and people who love her? What if I were to bring her in for treatment sessions?" Giles looked hopefully at the doctor.
He knew that the paperwork entitled him to temporary legal guardianship over Dawn. But he needed reassurance that she was in no danger if he took her home.
He frowned inwardly for a moment. No danger? Well, maybe no medical danger would have been a better term to use.
The doctor looked dubious, but staring at the paperwork, he realized that he had little choice in the matter. "If I leave you to fill out the paperwork, I will book Dawn in for a set of appointments over the next few days.” He signed off at the bottom of the chart and looked back at Giles. “I still don’t like it though!" he stated
Giles felt the first smile on his face begin to tug at the corners of his mouth. But it quickly died under the burden of grief he was feeling. "Thank you doctor."

**********

Giles stood outside the hospital room, staring at Xander and Anya talking a little further down the corridor. He envied them. They had something that he hadn’t had for a long time. Companionship and love.
Sure, he loved the entire gang, but it was more the sort of love a father would give to his children. What he really needed now was a shoulder to cry on like Xander and Anya had with each other now. But he had to remain strong. For Dawn. And for himself.
"You can go in now."
Giles turned to nod at the nurse leaving Dawn’s room and he pushed open the door. The bed was now empty, and Dawn sat in a wheelchair next to it, with a plain blue hospital blanket thrown over her legs.
Giles had taken Willow over to Buffy’s house and had waited while she had gathered some clothes.
It had been a strange sensation, standing in Buffy’s home, alone. Knowing that it’s walls would never hear her laughter, or that he would never see her smile at him as he mounted the step to the front porch.
He swallowed and closed his eyes. If he went down that line of thought he would get lost in it.
He opened his eyes and looked down at his charge, and she almost seemed like herself again.
She was still a little pale, but Willow had remembered to pick out her favourite blue dress. She and Tara had even taken the time to brush Dawn’s hair and neatly pleat some of it into her preferred style of two braids running round her head to meet at the back, and run down past her shoulders.
He still remembered the day when he had child minded her a few months ago. He had sat on the edge of her bed while she braided her hair the same way she had it now, talking about boys, listening to overly happy music and complaining about being ‘baby-sat’.
Of course, that was before they had all realised how sick Joyce was. It was also before Dawn had found out what she was.
She had seemed so happy and normal. Painting her nails, listening to what she called music, but what he described as strangled songs sung by people who were chosen for their ability to dance. And then of course talking about boys.
He frowned inwardly again. He was getting himself lost in past thoughts. He shook the feelings of loss that they dredged up away.
Forcing a smile that, he hoped, seemed more genuine than it felt, he moved round behind the wheelchair and rested his hands on the pushing handles.
Leaning down to place his mouth near her ear, he whispered "It’s time to go home Dawn."

**********

The car park was dark, and nearly empty of cars. It had been early morning when they had arrived at Sunnydale hospital to take her home, and it was now well past midnight.
Giles was pushing Dawn’s wheelchair towards his car, followed by Willow and Tara while Xander was taking Anya to his car that he had gotten earlier.
The silence that hung in the air was bitten off as a stifled scream echoed round the side of the building. The group froze as one under a streetlight, casting shadows larger than life around them.
Xander reached inside his leather jacket to remove a stake and he edged round Anya to place himself in the way of any potential frontal attack.
Willow and Tara had moved away to one side and taken each other’s hands and already Giles could feel a tingle on his skin as their magick built in the air.
He noticed absently that he had also assumed a protective stance in front of Dawn, and that the entire group, tired and moral-sunk like they were, still had enough fight left in them to be cautious.
Their caution was well founded as a group of sixteen demons rounded the corner.
The intellectual part of Giles mind recorded the events as they happened, independent of the fear that coursed through his body.
He was aware of Xander swearing under his breath, and the collective gasps of Willow, Anya and Tara.
He recognized and mentally catalogued three Polgara’s, a Vahrall, twelve Vampires and the last one in the middle of the group that he failed to recognize at all.
It was standing twelve feet tall, and had a vaguely human form. But it was horribly disfigured with sunken black eyes, a sloping forehead, a black fanged maw of a mouth and barbs at shoulder, elbow, wrist, knees and ankles. Spikes protruded from amongst a thick mane of black hair that looked more like a cloak, and seemed to move of it’s own accord.
The demons stopped fifty yards from the gang and faced off in two lines around the massive demon that reached out a five-foot long arm and gestured to the group and spoke in a halting language Giles did not recognize.
"Valt-ruhj nah re-corgy. Noh goreas what chos diestre!"
Xander was the first to break the silence, his voice not quite even. "What did he say? Anyone know what he said?"
Giles merely shook his head, and held his breath as one of the Vampires stepped forwards into a light. It was already in its demon form, nose and face wrinkled and a mouth barring a set of pointed teeth. "He said, ‘Give us the Key. No one will be harmed!’"
Giles shook his head and set himself to fight. "Why do I find that hard to believe?"
The big demon cocked its head at Giles as if considering what he had said.
Then it happened.
The demon roared out more of a sound than a word and the Polgarras' charged with amazing speed across the tarmac.
Using their club-like appendages, they hit Giles from two different directions before he even had time to react. One club, striking him across the chest, another taking his legs out from behind and making him sprawl out on the ground, his head hitting the tarmac with enough force to make his teeth rattle and flash stars before his eyes.
Xander was by his side in a second and used his stake to hit one on the back of the neck.
Unfortunately, the demon’s harder skin meant that the stake only penetrated an inch and succeeded in only angering the demon. It swung its arm round to strike Xander in the stomach with enough force to lift him off his feet and deposit him to the ground.
Willow and Tara, focused their combined powers on the closest threat and began chanting under their breath in perfect synch with each other. Magick built in the air, sending ripples of what felt like static outwards. A powerful swell in the air to caught two of the Polgarras’ full on and lifted them clear off their feet. They landed with bone shattering force against the wall of the hospital and stayed down.
The third Polgarra however had positioned itself directly over Xander and was preparing to deliver a blow to the head that would probably have cleaved it in two.
Anya screamed wordlessly as the club descended to her love’s head.
The air above Xander rippled for a second and a leather gauntleted hand appeared, stopping the blow dead about four inches from a startled Xander.
The hand was attached to a figure enshrouded in a flowing black cape, billowing slightly in the breeze. "Now why would you want to do that?" The sentence, spoken by the figure was a soft English and said by a male. It seemed so out of place in the moment.
The Polgarra looked up into the hood of the cape and Giles swore it almost blanched its mottled green skin as it began to back away.
The caped figure seemed quite happy to let it go as he moved round the sprawled Xander, his cape trailing over the sprawled man, and stalked forwards towards the group of Demons.
The figure stopped, interposing himself between the two groups. "I have a counter proposal for you. Leave now, without the Key, and YOU won’t be harmed!" he said in a clam voice.
The big demon in the centre bellowed out what sounded like a laugh, which the other Demons took it as a signal to attack.
The caped figure moved forwards with blinding speed, drawing a silver and gold long sword from under his cape.
A quick swing to the left removed the head from a vampire, turning it to dust in a second. Without even slowing down, the figure completed a 360-degree turn, flashing the silver blade three more times. Each swing took off the head of an attacking vampire, turning them to dust that spilled down to the ground only to be kicked up again as the rest of the vampires entered the fray.
One of them slid in past the blade and stepped gingerly round behind the cloaked figure. Barring its teeth, it grabbed hold of the wrist holding the sword and began to apply its preternatural strength to stop the progress of the blade.
Another Vampire seeing the slowing of the sword, ducked under a blow that was designed to take off it’s head, and locked it’s hands round the figures throat.
Within seconds, the cloaked figure had slain five of them, but had quickly become hidden under a pile of thrashing demons that hid him completely from view.
Giles looked on from the ground where he was kneeling. Anya had wheeled over to Xander as he had gotten up from the ground.
Willow and Tara had placed themselves in front of Dawn and looked on startled by the events.
Giles was torn between getting them all out of there and helping the caped figure. But his responsibility was to Dawn and the others.
But what if the caped figure died?
Suddenly, from between the gaps left by the thrashing vampire arms and legs, a blindingly bright light flared in the night. Giles raised his hand to cover his eyes, and as the light died he stared in shock as the vampires fell to the ground all bursting into flames like they had been hit by sunlight. As they hit the ground screaming in pain, they turned to dust, leaving the cloaked figure crouched alone on the ground, shrouded by his cape.
He slowly rose from the ashes to face the last of the demons. "I did warn you!" he said, his voice still calm and not betraying any edge of fear or even being slightly out of breath.
"Nore-rhure reck fash!" snarled the large demon and it began to walk forwards on its elongated legs.
Lifting his sword arm to point the blade at the big demon, the cloaked figure began to step forwards. Without changing his pace, he started to twirl the blade.
The big demon faltered in its step and started to back away as the sword pointed at it began to glow blue, lending a surreal light to the shadows.
It stretched its mouth around the words it said, as if it did not normally speak English, and found it hard to do so. "I will be back human!"
The cloaked figure stopped, holding the sword one handed in a defensive stance. "And I will be waiting!" he replied calmly.
With that, the last of the demons still alive all disappeared in a flash of smoke, almost like a cheap magician’s trick, except they had really gone.
Giles stepped forwards towards the caped figure, nervousness seeping into his voice but jockeying for position with relief. "We can’t thank you enough!"
The caped figure whirled round to face the gang and simply nodded his still shrouded head, while raising his sword into a classic salute.
The figure then spun round, throwing his cape into an arc before disappearing himself by fading into a swirling distortion of air.
Giles looked about him as if he was expecting him to reappear, while backing away to the light offered by the street lamp.
He shook his head as Xander stepped up besides him.
Together they backed away and cautiously made their way over to the cars.

**********

From the caped man’s perspective, he was still standing exactly where he was, but was now invisible to the gang. He watched silently as the group began to get into the two cars nearby.
His gaze lingered momentarily on Dawn, who had sat unmoving through the incident, and his heart felt for her sorrow. He had known such pain once, and he would never wish it one anyone.
He gave a weak smile and sent a tendril of his thoughts into her subconscious and whispered into her mind. "You’re not alone little one."
He watched the cars drive away, then turned and stalked off into the night.
The only evidence he had left behind was the memory of his presence in the minds of the people he had protected, and a pile of dust that was rapidly being carried away by the evening breeze.



























6

Blackmore hung up the phone and settled back in the stiff form of the chair.
He glanced at the paperwork spread across the unfamiliar desk in his hotel room and sighed. He had just finished organising the funeral. It had not been easy, but the date had been set for three days hence. Not bad work considering the slayer’s body had only been cold for two days.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and picked up the phone again. He dialled the number he had for Giles’ home.
The buzz of the call tone echoed down the line to him before finally giving way to an answer phone message.
Closing his eyes with relief about not having to discuss the arrangements then and there, he spoke after the beep to leave a message. “Hello Giles. It’s Blackmore. I’ve made all the arrangements for the Funeral. It’s in three days time. Monday at 10am. The directors will send the cars round to the Summers’ house to collect you about 9:30. I err…” he paused looking for the right words, “well the minister wanted to know if any of you would be saying anything during the service. I told him yes, but if you don’t want to, give me a call and I will alter the arrangements. I’m staying at Sunnydale Heights Motel.”
Placing the handle back down on the receiver he rose from the uncomfortable chair and moved over to the bed.
He scowled down at the slightly faded maroon sheets before he climbed onto the bed and sank into its comfortless support, letting out a long sigh and closing his eyes to the world.
He had left the drapes shut during the day to cut out the seemingly perpetual glare of the Californian sun. Besides, it was dark now, and he was soon dozing in and out of wakefulness.
A rasping echoed into the room, piercing the calm that had settled around him and his eyes flew open.
The sound repeated, closer this time. He checked his watch. Not five minutes had gone by till he had sunk down onto the bed.
This time the sound came from outside the door and Blackmore got a growing feeling of dread settling in his stomach. Sliding a hand to the bedside table, he grasped the hilt of the stake he always had nearby.
He was a watcher; he had been trained never to be defenceless if he could help it.
Still, his heart dropped down into his throat as the door burst inwards in a shower of splinters, and he had to turn his eyes away from the hail.
Several of the sharper bits dug into his cheek as he rose, stake in hand, already turning back to see his attacker. What he saw stopped him dead.
A blood red cape filled the doorway, completely shrouding whoever, or whatever, was hidden underneath.
Blackmore firmed the grip on his stake as the figure crossed the threshold, all but gliding towards him.
“You have complicated my task human,” came a voice from under the hood. A female voice, like oil sliding coldly down Blackmore’s skin, made him shiver even in the heat of the room.
“Wha… what are you talking about?” he stammered out as the figure halted a dozen feet from him.
“You have interfered with the Key.” She replied coldly, prompting the fear in Blackmore’s chest to tighten it even further. “For that you will die,” she whispered.
Blackmore’s eyes bugged out as he felt the pressure on his chest tighten again, forcing all the air from his lungs.
Clawing at his throat, black spots began to swim before his vision as he stumbled forwards a step, dropping his stake to the ground.
He fell to his knees with most of his vision gone and his lungs screaming in pain as he tired to take a breath. But no breath came as pressure was applied to his throat like a vice.
Then the darkness swam up and claimed him and he barely felt the pain of his head hitting the floor.
The figure turned, the red cape billowing out and grazing across the dead cheek of the man who had been Blackmore, before flowing out of the room to disappear like a shadow into the moonlight.








7

Everywhere was black. They were dressed in black and it matched their moods.
They were all there. Giles stood next to Dawn in her wheelchair. He was dressed in a black suit and white shirt with a tie so dark red it was almost black itself.
Willow and Tara had meticulously dressed Dawn in a strappy black dress and a matching jacket. They had brushed her hair till it had shone and carefully applied makeup to her pale face.
With the exception of the fact she was in a wheelchair, and the haunted and vacant look in her eyes, she looked almost normal again.
On the other side of her was Anya, also still in a wheelchair. Xander stood by her side, their hands clasped so tightly that it seemed like they were afraid to let each other go, their knuckles white under the pressure.
Willow and Tara stood on Giles’s other side. They were both crying. Willow for the loss of Buffy and Tara, less from the loss, but more from the pain that was in her loves heart. They were holding each other as they gazed at the view, both dressed in almost matching ankle length black dresses, who’s hems floated in the near still breeze. Willow’s eye shadow had run down her cheeks in twin black lines, tracing their way down to her chin.
Tara turned Willow’s head to hers and took a tissue and carefully wiped the mess away. When she was done, she leaned her head against Willows and together they turned back to the view.
Some view.
It consisted of a beautifully manicured grass expanse, with small beds of flowers seemingly randomly scattered. Above them, a blossom tree shed delicate pink buds onto the ground like floral tears. Visible through the branches was the palest blue sky that he had seen in months, with not a cloud in site. There were no gravestones in this corner of the cemetery. It was still new, untouched by death. Till today.
Around the familiar faces, a crowd had gathered. Many of them Giles recognised from Buffy’s high school and some from the university.
He frowned inwardly. He had allowed Blackmore to organise the funeral, and the other watcher had gone out and contacted every person in Buffy’s address book. And they had all come, adding to the array of colours with their clothes, even though the dark colours predominated.
But despite all the colours, they were all black at their core.
For framed by all this was a casket.
The casket was ion silver with silver trimmings.
Inside was Buffy Anne Summers.
The priest stepped forwards. He was ready to start at last. Sombrely raising the black bible in his hands, he began to read, his eyes flicking from the coffin to his bible. His voice was a deep tenor, and seemed to personify the sobriety of the situation.
“For the lord said; for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to seek, and a time to lose; A time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to tear, and a time to sew; A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.”
He paused and looked at the congregation, his gaze taking in everything and everyone as only someone who had dealt with grief before could do. “Buffy Anne Summers has passed from this, our physical world, and into the next. She has risen on her good deeds into heaven, where she will live forevermore. She has fought her war, and now she has her peace.”
He paused again to look across the group closest to the coffin, his gaze passing over Willow and Tara, Giles, Dawn, Anya and Xander. “I’m sure if she could share with you any words in this dark hour, they would be words of comfort, words of solace. But she is not here, and so we must instead think of what she would say, or have those closest to her say it for us.”
The priest nodded gently to Giles who wiped a tear from his eye. He moved round the casket till he stood at its head, where the priest had stood and he recalled the speech that he had written and rehearsed till late into the night.
But a rehearsed speech now seemed wrong to him. As he stared down upon the visage of her final resting place, he knew that she deserved better than a practiced speech. She deserved what came from his heart.
“Those who were closest to Buffy knew this moment would come someday. But we had always planned on her life as if she were immortal. During her last few months, she knew grief as we do now. She lost her mother and it gave her pause for thought.”
Giles paused to swallow hard, trying not to cry and he glanced over at Dawn and he could not help a tear slide from his left eye.
“But with Dawn, she found a new meaning to her life.”
He paused again to take the handkerchief from his pocket to his eye to remove another tear and he returned his gaze to the coffin. “Buffy was a sister, a friend and a protector. She would have done anything within her power to help those in need. And so we stand here, a witness to that fact. For she has gone above and beyond the call of her duty as a human being. She died to give Dawn a chance at life. She died so we could all go on living. She died for the world.”
Giles paused, his breathing coming short and shallow as he fought to swallow the tears that were mounting in his eyes.
“I swear, here and now, that she did not die in vain. That we, her family, will continue the work she did.”
Giles broke completely as the tears streamed down his cheeks in a wave of grief. He wanted to say so much about Buffy, but he could not find the words.
Xander stepped away from Anya, prising his hand from hers. He moved up besides Giles and squeezed his shoulder.
Giles looked at the younger man, and they shared a moment of total clarity. Xander knew what Giles had wanted to say. Giles nodded and stepped back to allow the younger man to speak his heart and mind. Their hearts and minds.
“I can’t say much about Buffy that everyone does not already know,” he began, his voice raw with emotion, “and even if I could, how can I describe what is in my heart? Buffy may have died, but,” he paused to take a deep breath, “but she will go one, in here,” he reached up and touched his forehead, then moved his hand to cover his heart, “and here.”
Xander stepped back from the coffin as tears streaked down his cheeks. He shook his head and moved over to Anya and knelt besides her chair. Leaning his head against hers they both were crying silent tears.
The priest stepped back up to the head of the casket, and bowed his head slightly. “The lord is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.”
He raised his head and look straight out over the coffin, the tree at his back and the blossoms fell heavier, and the sun went behind a cloud as though the world itself mourned her passing.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the lord forever.”
The priest stepped forwards and rested his hand on the coffin. “We now say goodbye to you, Buffy Anne Summers. As the lord takes you to your rightful place in heaven, he leaves us with a final message. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, give I to you. Don't let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.
He looked up to the sky and used his hand to make the symbol of the cross across his chest “Answer me when I call, God of my righteousness. Give us relief from our distress. Have mercy on us, and hear our prayers.”
As the tears continued to flow from the gathering, the casket sank into the ground. Giles followed it with his eyes, mentally saying goodbye to Buffy, as did all the others.

As the casket finally disappeared from view, they all felt as if their hopes had gone down as well.
Then, when the coffin finally was gone, the sun came out in a blaze from behind the clouds, and the wind rose.
The light shone down through the branches of the tree, and bathed the hole in light, while delicate blossoms fell in to lie atop the silver of the wood.
Dawn saw it all, but it did not register to her. She was cut off from the world that rejected her and given her so much pain. But somewhere in the corner of the darkness that occupied her mind, she sat and cried alone.


8

Spike stood in his crypt looking out at the gathering of people who had come to say goodbye to Buffy.
He so desperately wanted to be out there with them, but the sun was out and blazing bright.
By some trick, there was a gap that allowed him to see the coffin through the crowd.
It was not a pleasant view.
He watched forlornly as the service proceeded. He wished he could have been out there with them. But the sunlight would have turned him to ash. So he had to wait for nightfall.
He felt a pang of emotion. Jealousy? When Giles stepped up to the head of the coffin and began to talk. Even from his vantage point, Spike could see the light glinting off falling tears like diamonds from his eyes.
Spike rested his head against the dirty glass of the window and closed his eyes. He had lost something when Buffy had died. But he felt something else. Something new. But not new. Something old and familiar, like it whatever it was had been re-found.

**********

Hunter stood under an oak tree in the cemetery. He was watching the service, but not with his eyes. His powers allowed him to invade the minds of others and see through them. He could, if he had wanted to, make the person he now looked through do anything. But that was wrong.
His view was lower through the stranger’s eyes than it would have been through his, and he felt too constrained by his mind being in a smaller body. It was almost a physical discomfort. But discomfort was a welcome distraction from the heartache he was feeling.
This was the first funeral he had been to since the death of his parents nine years earlier. He had been eight at the time. He was only just starting his training to becoming a Knight, and his parents had been so proud he had started to follow in their footsteps.
But his world had crashed down around him when they had been sent on assignment and never came back alive. The details had been kept from him, but he had managed to glean bits and pieces of information over the years since. He knew that they had died in battle from injuries. They had to have closed coffins.
But on the day, he could not resist it. He had run forwards to the coffin of his mother and pushed up the lid.
Even the lightening fast reflexes of the other Knights there to attend the service had not been able to catch him before he got a look at what was inside.
What he had seen was not his mother. It had been a pale shadow of her. An angry red line had traced her face from left eye to jaw, showing torn muscles and bone that glinted slightly in the light from the pale blue sky.
He had been young and he knew death existed. But when it first touches your life, it steals away something that can never be regained. Innocence.
He had lost most of his innocence that day. The rest had fled in the following years of his training. He had pushed himself harder and faster than any other undergoing training. He knew that he would never again feel the absolute safety that he had felt in his mothers lap, or the cuddle from his father before bedtime. But he had gained a direction from it.
He would safeguard others so that they would never loose what he had.
Standing there, part in his own body under a tree, invisible to those in the world, while part in some slightly older man’s body, his heart hammered against his tight chest with emotion.
He made the vision turn to look at the friends of Buffy Summers, and his gaze lingered momentarily longer on Dawn. She had lost what he had. But rather than be strengthened by it, she had become lost in herself.
He had come close doing to the same. Perilously close.
As he gazed at Dawn, he sent out a tiny tendril of thought. It brushed against her cheek and slowly entered her mind. It was dark and empty inside, like someone had turned out the lights. But as the probe went deeper, he felt her. She was still in there somewhere. But as he began to search, he felt power rising up from her core. It met his probe and forced it out so hard that he almost staggered and nearly lost his contact with the man he was using as eyes.
The power had been raw and untrained. It was a natural reaction to his invasion of her body. Still, it had been impressively powerful.
The service was suddenly over before he knew it, with the congregation beginning to break up. The person who he was looking through moved up and took the flowers he had been holding and rested them at the side of the grave. He moved over to Willow and Hunter could feel him smile.
“If there is anything I can do,” he muttered.
Willow turned to look at him, and the barest trace of a smile flicked across her lips, but she shook her head. “Thank you for coming Jonathan.”
He nodded and moved reluctantly away.
Hunter withdrew his focus from Jonathan and back into himself. Opening his eyes, he looked on as the crowd continued to disperse across the cemetery.
Buffy had known many people, and touched the lives of many more. Hunter could feel the world mourning her, and he mourned with them, his eyes following Giles and Dawn as he pushed her wheelchair across the grass and down onto a white gravel path that led to the waiting cars.













9

Hunter was the last one in the cemetery, well, except for the gravediggers working away from him. He had continued to stand there, still as a statue, as the gravediggers moved in to fill the final resting place of the slayer, and dusk had settled over Sunnydale.
He should have been doing his job and guarding Dawn, but he needed something familiar to him. He needed someone familiar to him.
Lowering himself to one knee, he closed his eyes and spread out his thoughts to sense the surroundings.
He could feel the presence of the gravediggers working. Their lives burning bright in his mind like a magnesium flare. Life amongst the feeling of death that permeated the cemetery.
He could also sense the presence of Vampires. Not by sensing their life. For they were not alive. Instead he sensed that which animated their human bodies. The spirit of a demon. It was like a concentrated sense of death. They were far away from him, and looking for food.
Hunter searched the area for other humans. There were none, so the vampires would go hungry tonight.
He also found an oddity.
Nearby, he caught a sense of a vampire. But where he should have felt a demon spirit, he found something else attached to it.
He focused his thoughts closer in that direction and explored the sensation.
The demon spirit was there, like the presence of death. But the other presence was alive. Life in a vampire?
Hunter shook his head and concentrated harder. The life he sensed in normal people he defined as their souls. When a human died, their soul left them, and they ceased to be. In vampires, the spirit of a demon replaced that soul. But there, in that one, something burned dimly besides the demon.
It was not a soul. That much he knew. But it was still alive, and it had the feel to it that made him think soul.
He had heard of a vampire in Los Angeles that had a soul. Indeed Angel was well known throughout the order of the Knights. They even had specific orders that he was to have no knowledge of their existence, less it interfere with his destiny.
Hunter pushed at the boundaries of the vampires mind. He could not delve too deep without the vampire spirit noticing something was wrong, so instead he pinched a nerve in its mind.

**********

Spike draped his long leather duster over his shoulders and prepared to go out into the night. He had to say goodbye to Buffy.
Reaching a hand out for the door, his vision swam momentarily. Shaking his head to clear it, he reached for the door again.
This time, his vision faded completely and he slowly sank to the floor. As he went, he got the vague sensation of something crawling around in his mind with a featherlike touch, and then everything faded.

**********

The sensation of crawling around a vampires mind is something he would never get used to. It was like he was seeing history unfold around him.
He saw memories of an early childhood home from an age long lost to books on shelves. Memories of a female vampire with raven dark hair and a slightly insane demeanour. He saw the love that this vampire had for her, and their adventures together.
He also saw a familiar face. Angel. The link in his mind was made in an instant. He was looking through the memories of Spike. The one time companion of Angel.
He saw a particularly strong series of images from world war two, when Spike had gone hunting the Slayers in waiting, and the chaos he and Dru had sewn on the battlefields of Europe.
He also saw a demon that he had believed just a myth. Skymirr. A demon so old, that it would be able to remember the wars that the gods had fought before the establishment of the great barriers and the forging of the key.
Hunter pulled out of the memories and back to his own body as the images proceeded up to the present day.
He had known from intelligence reports that human scientists had effectively neutered Spike, but he had doubted that it would had changed his nature.
He had been wrong. He could feel the loss he had suffered when Buffy had died. He could taste the love the vampire had felt for the slayer at the back of his throat like a bittersweet candy.
Unrequited love.
Hunter shook his head slightly to remove the sensation and left Spike to lie unconscious and dreamless. He could have woken him, but he knew that the trance he had placed him under would wear off by dawn. He would wake refreshed and ready to do what he needed to do tomorrow.
He felt a pang of regret for having interrupted Spike’s task for the night. But Buffy would not be going anywhere. He could say goodbye tomorrow.
Hunter again focused his mind and sent his thoughts outward. This time he did not stop them when they reached the edge of the cemetery. This time they soared at speed over land. He saw in his minds eye houses, deserts, woodland, rivers and savannas swoop below him as he searched out that one presence in the world he was looking for.
As his mind passed over the Atlantic Ocean, he felt the answering shimmer in the energies that he drew upon as a power source.
“Hear me master,” whispered Hunter to the air.
As he raised his head, the air shimmered before him, taking on the shape of a wizened old man. A shock of long hair so white, it almost had silver highlights, joined into a full beard and moustache. Cheeks above the white were wrinkled with age, but the eyes shone though like torches in the darkest night. Those eyes were the windows to a soul that was old and powerful, but still contained so much life and energy.
“What is it my pupil?” the shimmering head asked in a tone so mild that it seemed to want to belong to an angel, not the old man.
This was Merlin. The oldest human on the planet, and by far the most powerful. He was so powerful that he only answered to the Powers That Be directly, and it was they who had Merlin train the knights to do their bidding. Of course, there was more to the story. Much more.
Merlin was the son of a demon and a mortal woman who was a nun. He had the body of a human, but his spirit was forged with the powers of life that some people, Hunter included, had access too, combined with the powers of the demon.
He had grown up in the country of Britain during a turbulent time where kings constantly fought each other. He wanted better for humanity, and he set about trying to improve it. In doing so, he learnt to use his powers.
It was then that he got involved with fate, and the future of a man called Arthur.
It took many years of manipulation, but Merlin succeeded in having Arthur become a King, and between them, they defeated the Saxons, put down rebel lords and forged a united kingdom based on peace and justice.
But the Dark ones, a group of evil gods who were the opposite numbers to the Powers That Be, became wary and jealous of Merlin wielding so much power. So they conspired to remove it from him.
The result was the death of Arthur and the collapse of Britain into the dark ages. The only thing that saved Merlin was the Powers That Be, rescuing him and protecting him.
They had known that his heart was in the right place, and so offered him an opportunity to continue his work on a smaller scale, by training others to use the power of life. And so the Order of Knights was born.
Merlin had been the head of the order ever since, finding purpose in preparing Knights to go into this world, and countless others, to defend the defenceless. Now he, Hunter was a Knight. He had passed the rigours of his training, and had grown powerful. But with power came responsibility. Hand in hand with responsibility came decisions. He was not always wise enough to make those decisions alone, and so he still needed Merlin.
“Master, I…” Hunter’s voice trailed off as he suddenly regretted calling Merlin. He was a busy man with much to do. How would he respond to being interrupted over something as trivial as a feeling of unease?
Merlin smiled down at him. “You need not worry about calling me Matthew” he reassured.
Matthew smiled back, and though his expression was hidden inside his hood, he knew that Merlin had seen it.
“What troubles you my son?” he asked quietly
Hunter paused momentarily, considering the question. “I do not like this situation Master” he replied curtly. It was not his place to question Merlin, but….
Merlin smiled indulgently. “I have sent you to guard The Key. What is there that disturbs you so?”
Hunter looked down at the ground. He had broken one of the Knights laws the other night. Their main laws were ensconced in a code, the first line of which was ‘We are unknown to those we defend.’ How could he explain that he had broken that trust?
The answer was he could not. So he approached from a different angle. He hid the truth deep inside his mind and decided to hint at what he had felt that night.
“I feel her pain master,” he said quietly.
Merlin nodded sagely. “She reminds you of your own loss.”
It was not a question, but Hunter nodded anyway.
“It is understandable Matthew,” he said, his voice rolling around Hunters mind like a comforting blanket. “If you did not feel sorrow for her loss, you would not be human”
Hunter hesitated for a brief second, wondering if he should tell Merlin what he had sensed earlier when looking into Dawn.
Merlin noticed his hesitation and cocked his head. “There is something else?” he asked neutrally.
Hunter nodded, “There is something about Dawn. She has power.”
Merlin paused and looked down. Hunter felt the gaze from those eyes bore into him for a moment and he suddenly felt as if something significant had just happened. “Yes,” Merlin replied in a whisper that seemed almost harsh. “She has power. But that is not out concern. You are to protect her, that is all.”
Hunter raised his face to look at the shimmering visage of Merlin. “Yes master” he replied, a feeling of growing curiosity seeding in his gut
Merlin nodded curtly and the image faded away.
Hunter stayed on his knee and thought about what had just happened. Something was going on. He did not know, but it had to do with Dawn and her powers.
Dawn had power, and usually when a Knight came across someone with any sort of power, they made contact. If the person were untrained, then they would be recruited into the ranks of the Knights. If they were a force of evil, then they would be confronted and made to see the light, or…. or else.
Why had Merlin forbidden Hunter to contact Dawn directly and try to recruit her into the Knights?
Hunter rose from his knee and his brow creased into a frown. It was another piece to a puzzle he did not quite see yet. Now all he needed was a way to start piecing it together.
















10

Buffy was dead. As Dawn sat in her wheelchair at the foot of the freshly dug earth that was her sister’s final resting place, another tear streaked down her red flushed cheek. Or did it?
She knew she felt the tears, but there was no wetness on her cheeks. No blurring of her vision. It had seemed as if all she had done lately was be the focus of one painful moment after another. She was a walking disaster area. She had cried tear after tear, now she was unsure if her tears existed.
Come to that, did she exist. After all, she was only a blob of energy.
Could blobs of energy cry?
It didn’t matter. Not now.
In the space of a few weeks, she couldn’t remember exactly how long because everything had condensed into one large lump of pain in her heart, she had lost everything.
First to go had been her history.
She had discovered she was not a human, but a living energy matrix called the Key. She was just embodied in human form by a group of monks. She was the key to unlock the barriers between dimensions.
Finding out her life had been a lie had been hard and confusing. She had lashed out at everyone and everything as her mind constantly screamed that she was not real. At one point, she had even cut open her arm to see if she would bleed, and even when she did, she did not believe it was real blood.
Then she had lost her mother. Since her dad had left, she was the pillar of strength and understanding supporting her world. Without that pillar, her already shaken existence nearly crumbled till Buffy had stepped in to take over.
But Dawn began to resent Buffy, for she never seemed to cry over their mother’s death. But the two did come together in grief, and reached a new level of understanding of each other, that had only resolved in the face of the threat of Social Services taking Dawn away if they deemed Buffy could not cope.
Then, just as things seemed to be looking up, Tara had been attacked by Glory. She had been reduced to little more than a human vegetable, and incapable of taking care of herself. But that had started a chain reaction of events that had left herself, Buffy and the rest of the gang on the run from Glory and the knights of Byzantium.
And now…. now, she had lost her sister. Her last link to the world.
Why had she let Buffy jump into the vortex? She had been fully prepared to sacrifice her own life up on that tower to save the world, just as Buffy had done week after week since she became the Slayer.
Yet Buffy had stopped Dawn from ending her life and she had ended her own instead. Buffy had died. Dawn had lived.

**********

Standing back watching Dawn sit at the end of the Grave, Giles sighed wearily to himself. The funeral yesterday had taken a lot out of him.
It was still hard to believe that Buffy had died just four days ago.
Blackmore had called him up after the morning after the attack by the gang of demons. He had left a message on his answer phone saying that he had arranged the entire funeral.
Giles found it remarkable that the council had managed to organise anything so fast. He knew it was for selfish means. According to his old acquaintance, the council believed that no new slayer had been called because Buffy had left a mystical imprint on the world. They hoped that by burying her body, that imprint would fade enough for a new slayer to be called.
He had no idea if it had worked. He had read in the paper that a man fitting Blackmore’s description had been found in a motel room. The cause of death was yet to be established, but it appeared he had choked on something.
Giles shook his head. The entire gang was back at the cemetery little more than fourteen hours after the funeral. They still needed closure, and sitting moping around at Buffy’s home with a catatonic Dawn would not give them that.
He looked down at Dawn, hoping that she would make some kind of movement. Anything to let him know she was still alive. She did not move, not even the batting of an eyelid. He could barely even see her breathing. She was still as unresponsive as she was at the hospital. Four days and no change.
Giles knew he had his own problems to deal with, but they were nothing compared to what the young girl sitting in the wheelchair by his side had.
He knew that in the time since Buffy’s death, Dawn had not said a single word to anyone. She had not eaten or drunk anything at all. He knew that she had not slept. It was as though she wanted to die, or that part of her already had.
It was easier for Willow and Xander. They had found solace with Tara and Anya respectively. They all felt terrible for what had happened, but they could share that burden with each other. Giles had no one, as had Dawn.
Taking off his glasses and rubbing his tired eyes, Giles felt a tear run down his cheek. He knew that he should have cried a lot more before now, but there was simply too much for him to do to let his control go.
He had to cover his tracks in the murder of Ben, and had to talk to the Police about why Buffy had fallen from the scaffolding tower. The mysterious voice he had heard in the hospital had given him a story that the police had accepted.
The police had even tried to talk to Dawn but had gotten just silence from her.
As far as he knew now, the Police were saying that they were all victims of a cult that had roped in all the mentally ill people at Sunnydale Hospital in some bizarre sacrifice scheme.
All of the strange goings on that night had been explained away to most people’s satisfaction as trickery on the part of the cult.
The town council had even hired in a technical team to reproduce the entire goings on that night.
Although Giles knew from his restored contacts with other Watchers that the team was actually made up of powerful magicians in the employ of the council, sent to ‘contain the incident’. Yet again, the people of Sunnydale had swallowed the ludicrous excuses and resumed their daily lives.
He had talked to the others about the mysterious voice, only to find that they had all heard it, and that they had all been compelled to listen and remember it.
It had provided them with answers to all the questions the police had asked. But there was still that mysterious cloaked figure that had interrupted the demon attack. Giles felt sure that he was also responsible for the voice, but he had no proof.
If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.
The explanations that had been provided to the authorities would suffice to keep him clear of repercussions for now. But the situation with Dawn was not satisfactory.
"Mr. Giles?"
Giles started at the sudden voice and spun round to face the talker. It was a woman in a pastel pink pants suit. She had curly black hair cropped close to her skull, and covered in styling gel that allowed it to stick out in odd directions. Her face was young, but surprisingly lined, like she had had a hard life. The frown on her narrow lips also showed in her eyes that were red brown and bloodshot, but full of contained energy. Clutched in her left hand was a brown leather briefcase. She looked very official.
Behind her were two men in almost matching tan suits who looked enough alike to be relatives. Behind them, leaning against a squad car were four female police officers, one of who was resting her hand ever so lightly on her gun.
"Yes? Can I help you?" he asked defensively.
"My name is Morgan Guild. I’m from Sunnydale Social Services. I’ve come to meet with you and Dawn Summers," she said, her voice pleasantly rolling around Giles ears. “Would you mind stepping over here,” she asked, gesturing to a spot under another nearby tree.
Giles looked over his shoulder at Dawn, shaking his head sadly, before moving over to where the woman now waited. Dawn was sitting unmoved; shoulders hunched slightly, her normally glistening and straight hair, now lifeless and in an unruly tangle, despite Willow and Tara’s best efforts.
"I know it must be a difficult time, but we really do need to talk Mr. Giles," she insisted.
Giles turned back to stare at her. A flash of anger gripped his mind at the thought of this woman interrupting his grief. He was dying under a heavy blanket of emotion that had smothered his heart in the last few days. With melancholy regret and determined restraint, Giles was able to merely nod.
"We have received a report from the local hospital. It states concerns over Dawn,” she began. “We have studied the details of the case carefully and have decided to renounce the temporary guardianship you hold over her.” She looked up briefly into Giles eyes to judge his reaction, but Giles was momentarily too shocked to answer. “This has been done on the grounds that her interests would be best served under proper, supervised, care."
"Now just a damn minute!" That spark of anger flared again inside Giles, and his raised voice finally drew the attention of the others.
"Please calm yourself. I didn’t mean any disrespect to your efforts,” she began, her voice trying to sound earnest, but instead sounding hollow and false. “We have noted that her friends have all been helping you and that you have put a lot of effort in to seeing to her needs.” She lowered her eyes to the ground momentarily as she continued, “but we have also noticed that she is looking worse for wear since the social worker at the hospital signed off on the forms. We are concerned for her well-being,” she raised her eyes again to meet his, and Giles suddenly felt uncomfortable under her gaze. “Just as you are,” she finished quietly.
"You’re going to take her away aren’t you?" he asked her simply.
She nodded her head slowly, "I’m afraid we have no choice. The law is quite specific in situations like this. With no approved legal guardian in the vicinity, and our inability to contact the father, we have to take her into care."
Giles shook his head vigorously "You can’t. I won’t let you."
Morgan frowned and undid the clasp on the front of her briefcase with one hand. "Mr. Giles, you have no choice,” she said sternly. “I have the papers signed by a judge in my bag.” She paused and looked deeply at his face as if judging something. “If I have to, I will remove her from your care by force,” she warned quietly, “but it would be much better for her if you let her go."
"Let her go? LET HER GO!” he roared. “She may not want to go! Have you thought of THAT!” he spat pointing a finger at her face with vehemence. “She lost her mother and sister in the space of a few weeks. How would it look to her if I gave her up?"
The social worker sighed and reached into her briefcase. Pulling out a folder she held it out to him face up. "I am hereby informing you that Dawn Summers is now a dependent of the State. As such…."
Giles reached out and slapped the folder from her hand, flinging the papers inside across the ground in a rustle of manuscripts.
The woman took a step back in surprise, but the two men and the police officers all reacted fast.
The two men moved up to flank Giles and raised their hands in front of their bodies ready to fend off any further attacks, or to grab his arms and restrain him if necessary. Two of the officers moved round the group and positioned themselves in between Dawn and Giles, while the other two moved up to support the two men.
The rest of the group moved over at the sound of the raised voices, leaving Dawn and Anya together by the grave.
"What’s going on? Giles?" asked Willow in a rush of breath showing she was agitated and worried.
Giles stepped back from the two suited men, an edge of panic rising in his chest "They’ve come to take Dawn away!"
"No you…. you can’t!" Willow moved back towards Dawn, but was blocked off quickly by the two officers, she spun round to face Giles. "We have papers that say she's our responsibility!"
Xander stepped up besides Giles and stared down at the closest man in a suit, a look in his eyes said he would be happy to start a fight.
Morgan recovered her poise and the papers on the ground then cleared her throat. "Yes we can,” she affirmed holding up the papers. “The paperwork you have has been reviewed and revoked. Under your care it seems she has not been to school, nor has anyone phoned the school to let them know what is going on.”
She paused and took a deep breath, closing her eyes to regain her temper.
Suddenly, an expression flicked across her face and her eyes flew open. Giles watched her scan the cemetery looking for something.
After a second, apparently not seeing anything, s she returned her attention to Giles. “Although this is understandable in the situation,” she sighed out a with a small hint of nervousness in her voice, “she has also made no progress in the counselling sessions. Doctors have reported that she is looking frailer than when she left the hospital. Her outward appearance is nothing like that in the pictures we have, and even from here she looks tired.” She stopped and gestured in Dawn’s direction, “and how about her lack of communication?” she asked aggressively, her temper beginning to get the better of her. “According to the people we had observing her, all she has done is sit and stare out a window, despite all your attempts to attract her attention."
Willow, giving up on her attempts to reach Dawn turned round to face Morgan. "But she has only been out of the hospital for a couple of days. “We need more time,” she pleaded.
Xander glanced over to Morgan; his anger barely contained behind gritted teeth and clenched fists. “What if we can make her better? Can she stay with us then,” he asked.
Morgan frowned slightly, but then replaced the frown with a slight smile. To Giles, the smile looked false. The nervousness still seemed present. Indeed it seemed to have moved to her posture as well. "I can see you all care for Dawn very deeply,” she said. “If I give you two days more, she has to be talking, or at the very least eating. Otherwise, for her own safety, we will take her into care."
Nodding once at her two male companions, they all moved off to the waiting cars, leaving the Scooby gang watching them drive away. As one they turned around to stare at Dawn, who still sat unmoving in the wheelchair, staring at Buffy’s grave, oblivious to how close they had come to loosing her.

**********

From his vantage point under the same tree he had stood under during the funeral, Hunter watched the two cars move away across the small road that wound through the cemetery.
His gaze followed the lead car, as the sense of unease he had been feeling began to retreat. Over the years of his training, he had developed a very fine danger sense. Something about one, or more of the people that had been around had set it off.
The question is why.






11

Spike closed the last clasp on his only beat up suitcase. It was crammed with the things he could not bear to leave behind.
His entire life.
As he stared at it sitting on the stone coffin of the crypt, it seemed so pathetic.
He was moving on again. Walking over to stare out the tiny window that looked out over the graveyard that had been his home for a while now, he saw Dawn was sitting at the foot of her sister’s grave again.
Being unable to venture into the sunlight, he had watched the funeral yesterday from the deep shadows of his window. He had then gone out after the sun had set to say his goodbyes. Or he had tried. He had gotten as far as the door before he had collapsed into unconsciousness.
He had awoken with the sunrise, and he had realised he had missed his chance to get out of town.
He shook his head as he watched another group of people approach the gang, noticing with growing concern the presence of police officers.
His concern rose to a pitch when a small scuffle seemed to break out, but it died quickly. He continued to stare and wonder as the second group moved away.
As he stared out the window, his thoughts drifted. He still could not believe that Buffy had died.
He blamed himself of course. Willow had provided him with the ideal opportunity to demonstrate his determinedness to help Buffy. He had raced to the top of the tower to save Dawn and had ended up getting thrown off by that bloody Doc. Maybe if he had thrown him off instead, Dawn wouldn’t have been cut and bled onto the portal to open it.
Then Buffy wouldn’t have had to jump in to close it.
If. If. If.
He looked down at his sunburnt hands. He still could feel the burning of the sun as he sat there where Buffy had died.
For the first time since he became a vampire, he had actually cried. Since he had fallen in love with Buffy, he had to deal with emotions that no self-respecting demon possessed person should barely remember, let alone have.
He resisted the urge to sniffle as he stared at Dawn again. He had not dared to speak to any of the gang over the past few days. He had just retreated to the sewers, barely in time before he turned to dust, and made his way back to his crypt. Which is where he had stayed pondering the same situations over and over.
He needed help. That much he knew, but he also knew that there was only one person who could even begin to understand how to help him. And as much as it galled him, that someone was Angel. The only vampire he knew that had regained his humanity, and along with that, emotions. Especially guilt.
The last words he remembered saying to Buffy replayed in his mind like a broken record. "I know you never loved me; I know that I’m a monster, but you treat me like a man. And that’s…"
Why hadn’t he finished that sentence? He was dammed if he knew.
Hell…. being a vampire, he was damned anyway.
But it was time to find out his new path, and he believed that it could only happen in L.A.

**********

Completely undisturbed by the commotion going on behind her, Dawn barely felt yet another tear stain her cheek. Or did it. Again she was not sure if the tear was real or imagined. As she tried to focus her thoughts, the feel of the tear rolling slowly down her cheek vanished, leaving only the memory of its passing.
A shadow moved up to loom over her. But it was not a solid shadow. It was more like an afterthought of what someone’s shadow looked like.
"You can’t sit there forever Dawn." Echoed a familiar voice. Buffy’s voice.
"Can’t I? Why did you leave me Buffy?" asked Dawn, her voice echoing in her mind filled with emotion and the promise of a never-ending stream of tears. The shadow moved round her to reveal Buffy, standing there in the clothes she had been buried in. She almost looked like a bride in her ankle length white skirt and matching blouse. She even had the halo of flowers that Willow and Tara had made still wrapped around her head.
"You know I had to. I couldn’t live with myself if I had let you die," she whispered in reply.
"How can I live without YOU though?" wailed Dawn.
"The gang will help you if you let them. They do care for you.”
"Do they?” she asked with a hint of anger in her voice. “Or do they just care for the Key? Or do they just feel sorry for me? If it wasn’t for you, I never would have been able to hang round with them. They probably only liked me because I was your sister!"
Dawn watched Buffy crouch down on the ground next to her wheelchair; her skirt falling around her, and wrapping her up in a hug that felt like a breeze tingled over her skin.
"That is just not true. And you know it,” replied Buffy firmly. “On that tower, I did the best I could for you Dawn. If that portal had stayed open, the world would have ended. You would have ended. I died knowing that you would live on, and that made me happier than anything I had ever had done.” She paused and moved back from the ethereal embrace. “I have to go now,” she whispered.
"NO!" yelled Dawn.
"Dawn, I have to.” Buffy said softly. “I understand now what it all means. Death, my death, was my gift, to the world, and to you. If I’m still here, with you, then no new Slayer will be created, and there will be no one to oppose the darkness. I can’t let that happen any more than I could when I was alive."
Dawn’s fears were flowing freely now. The prospect of losing even the after image of Buffy threatened to drag her heart into an abyss it would never come out of. Something inside her thought that giving into the darkness was a good idea, and it beckoned her further down.


And then Buffy was gone, with just an echoing of her last words. "I love you Dawn…."

"BUFFY!"
The entire gang had been watching Dawn sit there for a moment, then she just screamed and collapsed off the wheelchair at the foot of Buffy’s grave.
Willow rushed over, tears rolling down her face, and wrapped her arms around Dawn. She got her to sit up and slowly rocked her back and forth, making shushing noises in her ear.
Dawn’s only response was to murmur over and over. "Buffy, please come back, I need you. Buffy please come back, I need you…."
Giles moved over and motioned for Willow to move aside, which she did reluctantly. Using her now free hands, Willow wiped the tears from her eyes and moved over to Tara to embrace her fiercely.
Giles leant down and took hold of Dawn. Picking her up and cradling her in his arms, he began walking towards his car, with the gang falling in behind him. They walked away from Buffy’s grave, with only Dawn looking back, seeing that outline of Buffy appear again, fading into existence and looking startled at Dawn.

**********

Nearby, still hidden under the tree, Hunter closed his eyes against the wave of empathy he felt for the girl.


12

Giles carefully placed Dawn down on the back seat of his car and stepped aside to allow Willow in next to her.
His heart was breaking for the poor girl, so lost in her thoughts. Shaking his head, he wondered how he could keep her out of the hands of the social services after the two-day deadline.
Things were in a mess. The last time Buffy had died, they had been able to resuscitate her. The result was that there were two slayers. Buffy and Faith, and he knew how well THAT had turned out! Could this time be worse?
Silly question. It already was.
Sitting behind the wheel, he turned over the ignition and waited for Tara to sit in the passenger seat next to him. There was the only bright spot from that night’s event. Tara, now fully back in control of all her faculties, was helping Willow through the rough times. No, they were helping each other he amended.
The group was so absorbed by its own troubles, that none of them noticed the shadowy figure shrouded in a black cloak lean momentarily into the sun from around a tree, watching the car pull away followed by Xander and Anya.

**********

Dawn sat huddled on the back seat of Giles’ car, not really aware of the world around her.
Images flashed past, and she could no longer determine if they were real or figments of her tortured mind. In the few days since Buffy’s death, nothing was real.
She remembered that night. Sometimes it was all a blur, other times it was so clear it was painful.
Her determinedness to stop the portal opening; her stunned silence as her sister had jumped off the tower into the vortex to close it with her blood, and her life.
She remembered the pained look on Spikes face as Doc had sunk the ceremonial dagger into his back, and the pain that went deeper than that. She had heard him whisper ‘No’ under his breath just as he had been thrown from the tower and the realisation he had failed the gang, Dawn, and Buffy.
She remembered screaming as she watched him fall.
She still remembered the pain as the same knife sliced open her skin and caused her blood to flow free. The feel of her blood as it soaked her dress and ran down her skin. The warmth and the stickiness and the smell. The pain as the ropes holding her wrists were pulled apart by Buffy, just as her blood hit the portal and started it opening. The pain as she wrestled with her conscience as to whether she should jump in to save the world, and the pain as she watched her sister do it instead.
For all intents and purposes, she was still up on that tower.
The echo of Buffy’s last breathing words was etched into her mind like they were carved into stone. She recalled standing on the tower, watching the sunrise and seeing the sudden look on Buffy’s face with the realisation of what she intended.
"Buffy, no," she pleaded.
"Dawny I have to," came the calm reply of her sister.
"NO!" she pleaded again, louder this time, as if she could turn her sister away from her actions with the volume of her words alone.
"Listen to me. Please, there is not a lot of time. Listen," she begged. "Dawn listen to me, listen, I love you, I will always love you…. this is the work that I have to do…. Tell Giles that…. tell Giles I figured it out and, I’m ok…. and give my love to my friends; you have to take care of them now…. you have to take care of each other. You have to be strong…. Dawn the hardest thing in this world is to live in it…. be brave, live, for me…."
Dawn remembered stumbling down the stairs, clutching an arm to her torn flesh, fearing that if any more blood fell on the portal, it would open again.
She recalled reaching the bottom, and feeling her heart collapse in on itself when she saw Buffy lying atop some debris, surrounded by her friends.
If only it had been her. She had only lived for a few months. It would have been so much easier for her to be the one to have jumped.
"No it wouldn’t!" The shadow of Buffy was back, sitting on the trunk of the car with her feet in between Dawn and Willow. Even though she was not really there, the wind rushing over the convertible BMW dragged her hair out behind her like a trail of gold.
"I’m seven months old Buffy.” Dawn said quietly, unmoving as she saw the sights of Sunnydale blur past the moving car. “My life is a lie. I was supposed to die up there! I’m the key; it was my lock that was opened. I should have closed it!"
The shadow looked down at Dawn, a sad smile flitting across her face mixed with a look of hurt, before she disappeared again.
Willow, sitting just a foot away, hand clasped tightly around Dawn’s, saw nothing except the broken shell of a girl as she stared out the window in exactly the same position that Giles had left her in.























13

Giles stopped the car outside the magic shop. He knew he should have taken Dawn home, but he couldn’t stand to go there again. Not yet anyway. The Summers’ house was too full of memories.
He felt so out of place at that house now. He had spent the days since Buffy’s passing, sleeping on the couch with the others never far away. They had not talked much, just sort of ambled around the house, staring at things like photos and trinkets, and remembering.
Releasing yet another sigh, he climbed out and moved round the car to help Dawn out. He was shocked to find her still sitting exactly where he had left her. Dawn was completely unchanged in her position, despite the fact that the seatbelt had obviously been rubbing painfully against her neck, leaving an angry red mark behind.
Giles turned her head slightly to examine the mark and more anger flared as he spitted Willow with a harsh stare. "Why didn’t you move her? Look at what’s happened!"
Willow swallowed visibly, seeming on the verge of tears, and the anger Giles had felt drained from him quickly. "I’m sorry, it wasn’t your fault.” He paused and looked down at his hands gripping the sun warmed metal of the car in his hands and took a deep breath. Letting it out, took away the last of the anger and he looked upon Willow again. “Please get her chair?"
Willow nodded slowly and got out the car, moving round to the back to retrieve the wheelchair from the trunk. She looked up momentarily as Xander pulled up in his car, and sat clutching he wheel in what looked like a death grip. Anya was sitting besides him and seemingly to talking softly to him.
Turning back to the trunk, Willow dragged the chair out and opened it up, just in time for Giles to lift Dawn up out of the car and down into the chair.
Tara leaned over and laid a blanket over Dawn’s legs before moving off to open the door to the shop.
Despite the fact that he had only owned it for a few months, stepping over the threshold was like stepping back into his own world. A world that used to be safe. But now…?
Parking Dawn beside the main table, Giles sat down heavily and just started to weep in despair. He couldn’t help himself. He had tried to be the stalwart member of the group, but he did not have the strength to do it.
Willow came over and placed her hands on Giles’ shoulder and squeezed gently. Tara approached Willow from behind and wrapped her arms around her lover, smiling slightly as Willow laid her head against her shoulder and rubbed her cheek with her own.
Willow moved away suddenly and looked momentarily shocked. “I just had a thought,” she said. "What are we going to tell Dawn’s dad?"
Xander parked Anya next to the table opposite Dawn and sat down facing Giles, a grim but determined expression on his face. "The truth,” he said. “That she died a hero."
Giles shook his head. "I never thought…" he started, but his voice broke apart into a strangled silence.
Willow tightened her grip on Giles’ shoulders. "Neither did we," she said softly.
Giles shook his head, removed his glasses and rested his chin on his hand. "I had built this barrier around us. Buffy, me, Dawn, Xander, Tara, Anya, you Willow, even Joyce.” He swallowed hard to choke down a sob that threatened to sound from his throat. “Together we were invulnerable. Even when Joyce died, it was sad, but.” He paused looking for the right words and he glanced sideways at Dawn, wondering if she could hear him, or if she did, did she care.
“When Joyce died, it was natural. So the… the bubble seemed to still be there." He paused to breathe a deep breath and swallow the lump in his throat. "Nothing could hurt us - could really hurt us."
He blinked away the tears, but it failed to work, so he resorted to wiping them away with the back of his sleeve, all decorum of being the quintessential Englishman fading away.
He did not have to say any more. He could see it in the eyes of his friends. He knew that they knew. Logically, this should have happened a long time ago. Himself, Xander, Willow and Buffy had spent many years ducking the odds. Slaying demons that by all rights should have killed them all several times over.
Yet that strange dance with death had only enhanced their feelings of invulnerability. Each time they beat the odds, they were determined to do it again the next time.
They could stake any Vampire, decapitate any demon, and avert any apocalypse….
But not anymore, not now. The barrier was gone. Dead, lying six foot under with the best friend and protector they could ever hope to have.
Now the barrier was gone, he had very real fears for the remaining members of the gang, and their ability to protect Dawn. They probably would have all perished the other night on the way out of the hospital if it weren’t for that mysterious figure in the cape.
To Giles, and the rest, the world was a much more dangerous place by far.
And that scared him to his very core.




















14

The cloaked figure strode down the middle of the road, not fearing discovery by the people that milled around in the late evening. He was Matthew Hunter. He was ‘The Hunter’. He was on a level of existence most of them could not know. He prowled the night serving them, and they knew nothing of him. He was a Knight.
He did need somewhere private for what he needed to do now though.
Spying a dead end alleyway ahead, Hunter changed direction and stepped into the unlit alcove off the street and turned to face the wall.
He began to lower himself to one knee but paused before it came into contact with the ground. He was supposed to be above concerns of cleanliness. But he could not help but wrinkle his nose at the mess on the ground.
So, he came to a stop with his knees just above the mess on the concrete, his black cape spilling around him. Surely it would not be noticed that he was not fully on his knee. Would it? He focused his thoughts and projected a mental barrier across the end of the alleyway. Should anyone get close to it, they would not see him and develop the sudden need to be somewhere else.
Sure that he would not be disturbed now, he threw his conscious thoughts out onto the energy that was life. He used his imagination to see the currents that flowed around him. Actually seeing life itself was an art far above what he was capable of, so he used his imagination to give it shapes. That way he could better direct his power. He imaged the powers of life like a living river. Swirling round, up, down, with undertows, cross flows. Everything linking everything else together in a living tapestry that was the world.
With his thoughts spread out he searched for a familiar presence. His mind rushed away from his body, and in his mind he could almost see himself flying over towns, cities, countryside and the Atlantic Ocean. He crossed the familiar coastlines of England, his home country.
There, at the northern part of Cornwall he found the presence in the life force he was after. Latching onto it with a mental grip, he felt the person on the other end respond by taking grip of the mental probe with his own mind.
Hunter focused his mind on that grip and it strengthened, forming a two-way link of power.
The air in front of him began to stir as the power of the other person followed Hunter’s own probe, strengthening it. An image shimmered to life in the turmoil of air. An image of a wizened old man, with long white hair, beard and moustache. Merlin.
Hunter raised his face to meet the shimmering gaze of the eyes that were at once intelligent and tired.
"Hear me my master," he whispered to the image.
"I have learnt that you have revealed yourself to them." It was not a question. Hunter grimaced slightly.
"Yes my master," he replied subdued.
"You know the consequences if the ‘Powers That Be’ knew of my interference in the lives of mortals.” The voice stayed even and calm, but Hunter knew that there was disappointment under the surface. Again it was not a question that had been asked. "Recite the code Hunter," demanded Merlin.
Hunter bowed his head and recalled the words that had bound his order since it’s inception. "We are unknown to those we defend. The forces we oppose know us only as nightmares. We are ‘The Knights’ and we serve life…."
"That will do,” interrupted the wizard. “Now explain why you disobeyed our most ancient laws?"
Hunter raised his hooded face to look at the penetrating eyes that gazed down on him. "Master, the girl was in danger from a band of demons. If I had not stepped in, they would have taken possession of her and killed those with her," he reasoned.
"The fate of those with her is only secondary to your main objective," replied Merlin harshly. “If you fail, then that is so, but to risk interference by the Powers?” He sighed, “I thought that you would have known better than that Matthew.”
"Yes master," Hunter replied dejectedly.
“Why did you not tell me of this when we talked earlier?” he asked bluntly.
Hunter shivered inwardly. What answer would be acceptable to Merlin? The answer was there wasn’t one. “I have no excuse master,” he replied quietly.
He could feel Merlin’s gaze try to pry into his mind, seeking the truth. Merlin let out a snort as Hunter let him in, but only so deep. There were things he would prefer to keep hidden even from his mentor. "You do not approve?" The tone in Merlin’s voice was almost of amusement. Almost.
"It is not my place to question master," replied Hunter firmly, hinting that he would actually love to question his orders.
"Please…. do!" came the neutral reply.
Hunter again focused on Merlin’s eyes to try to determine how far he could question his master. Most of the knights would never dare, but he was headstrong and determined.
"If we serve life, then keeping them alive was part of my duties," he replied.
The corner of Merlin’s mouth twitched, the sure fire sign of a repressed smile. "Matthew Hunter,” he began, unable to keep some trace of emotion from his voice. Was that emotion pride thought Hunter? “You are my best student, but you still have much to learn. But learn you will…. in time. For now, you must continue with your objective. I have changed the scope of your mission. The events that occurred the other day have set things in motion that should not have come to pass this soon. Find the Vampire called Spike and enlist his aid."
Now that was a surprise. He had invaded Spike’s mind the other day and had seen the vampire had begun to develop of some form of a soul. But to enlist the aid of a member of one of his order’s sworn enemies was…. well, different. "Yes master," he replied, keeping all trace of surprise from his voice.
"And Hunter, try to refrain from being further involved with The Keys’ companions," Merlin admonished. “Oh…. and I thought I told you that personal comfort was of secondary importance?”
"Yes master," replied Hunter wincing inwardly. He had noticed the knee not being on the ground. The image of Merlin faded away, the tendril of thought stretching across the world separating to return to their respective bodies.
Rising from his crouch, Hunter frowned. He was being tested. That much he was sure of. Trying to defend Dawn Summers without being discovered by her friends was very difficult, but not impossible.
It would mean that he had to be careful. But he was trained for this sort of thing.
But the conversation had also reinforced Hunter’s thoughts that he was here by Merlin’s request only. The Powers That Be had not ordered him in. Interesting. And dangerous for Merlin and himself if they decided to object.
Lowering the barrier across the end of the alleyway, he drew his powers around him like a second cloak and stepped out into the night. It was time to go vampire hunting.

**********

Spike had watched the sun go down from the small window in his crypt over an hour ago. But still he had not moved. He was reluctant to go and do what he felt he must.
Suddenly resolved into action, he picked up his beat up suitcase he moved towards the door. It had now been five days since Buffy’s death and one since the funeral. Now that Buffy was buried, it was time to move on. Halting once to look around what had been his home, he walked out into the late evening air and headed to the grave.
He sighed as he stopped before the freshly dug earth and knelt down. He looked at the ground, then up at the sky and a tear ran down his cheek. He swiped at it in anger for a moment. He was the Big Bad. He did not cry. More to the point, he was a vampire. You weren’t supposed to cry unless you had a soul.
But he did now as he said what he needed to. Soul or no.
“It was quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done,” he began. “You were such a wonderful friend,” he paused and frowned, “well the closest thing I had to a friend anyhows. I should have been happy just knowing you. But you turned me into a hopeless romantic, and I fell in love with you.”
He frowned again at what he had said, then bashed the palm of his hand against his forehead “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” He stopped bashing his hand and leant his head against it instead, propping it all up on his knee. “You never thought of me that way, did you? I didn't expect you would.”
He sighed heavily as he rested a hand over the fresh earth. “Should I have told you? Tried for something more? I don't know. I valued your….” He paused looking for the right words, but they did not come to him. “….well, for want of a better word, friendship. I wish I'd said something. Anything. Done something, to make me more than being a friend.” He paused again, his thought drifting to his memories of himself and Buffy. The memories seemed to mostly be of her beating him up. “Well,” he said, “At least I could have stopped you beating the crap out of me.”
He pinched some of the grave dirt between his fingers and let out a sigh. “You know, I was looking into getting a love spell done on you? I was that desperate to be loved. The trouble was, those things never last more than a day or so.” He paused again to think about that. “What would have been worse, a one night stand that would wreak what relationship we had, or my wrecking what we did have anyways with my constant moping over unrequited love?”
He shook his head and closed his eyes to squeeze down the tears he felt. “I don't know. When I was alive, I used to think that death made things so much clearer. But that's not how it is. When I died, I learnt nothing new. I know no great secrets of the universe or the meaning of life.” He let out a shuddery breath. “I'm sorry, but all I know is I loved you Buffy, and now you’re gone.”
He stood and reached out for his bag. One bag with all the possessions he could not bear to leave behind. "I’m sorry, I have to leave Buffy."
"Are you so sure?"
Spike nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the voice. Spinning around he came face to face with a cloaked figure that was far too close for comfort.
He automatically stepped backwards and felt freshly dung earth compact under his boots. To his horror he realized that he was standing on Buffy’s grave.
Anger flared white hot in his head as he sidestepped and raised his right arm to grab the cloaked man round the throat, moving with the preternatural speed of the undead.
Surprise blossomed on Spikes face as the cloaked figure reached up to intercept the incoming chokehold, and with unnatural grace and power deflected it casually to the side.
Re-evaluating his approach, Spike stepped swiftly away from Buffy’s grave and started to circle. The cloaked figure lowered slowly into a combat crouch, right foot forwards, left foot back, and turned side on.
"Who the hell are you, and what do you want?" Spike all but yelled at his opponent.
"I am called ‘The Hunter’,” he replied calmly, “and I only want you to uphold a promise that you made."
Spike stopped dead, confusion flowing across his features. "What?" he asked.
"You promised the slayer that you would defend her sister till the end of the world. I want you to fulfil that promise." Hunter said quietly.
"How do you know about that?" asked Spike incredulously.
"I know a great many things Spike," came the cryptic reply.
"What sort of answer is that?" he growled as his anger raged in his heart.
"An answer is what you make it, based on the question you asked," came another cryptic reply.
Spike frowned while he tried to sort out a discernible meaning from that. Instead he settled on traditional Spike. "What the bloody hell are you talking about?"
"You promised Buffy…." Hunter began.
"Don’t say HER NAME!" he yelled in rage, feeling his face shift into his vampire form. Nose ridge and forehead thickening and growing wrinkled, fangs protruding down. Eyes blazing yellow.
Hunter bowed his hooded head slightly. "As you wish."
"Now start again, before I beat you into hell." He growled and raised his fists ready to strike.
"To do that would cause you pain." Spike noticed that statement. So he was human, or at least pretended to be.
Hunter rose from his combat stance and stood still, his cape swirling in the night breeze. "There is more trouble coming to Sunnydale. Without the Slayer to oppose it, Dawn is in trouble. You can help her."
"Why the hell should I?" he asked out of reflex.
Hunter pointed towards the grave off to the side. "Does your promise mean so little now she is dead?"
The anger flared again and Spike bellowed as he charged forwards to tear this ‘Hunter’ apart.
Hunter casually raised his right arm and flicked his fingers sending a corresponding tendril of power out to meet the charging vampire. Spike stopped dead, unable to move a muscle. "I know you feel great pain. I know you feel like the world has ended, and did so up on that tower. But it did not,” Hunter assured, “and the sister of the slayer needs all the help she can get. Stick around and help her, or go to LA and run from yourself. I guarantee that running from your pain will not work."
Hunter lowered his hand, and in swirling of his cape, he stalked off into the night. He knew he could have played that better, and that he would probably get repercussions later down the line. But he needed to stop Spike from going. That meant he had to shock him into staying
On the other hand, he could have pushed Spike too far, and driven him off.
Hunter sighed. Things were getting complicated, and fast.
15

Xander leaned heavily on the door to the open refrigerator. The little light inside had not come on when he had opened the door. It seemed to him so symbolic. He had lost a light in his life when Buffy had died. A light that shone into the darkness, lighting up all the ‘good things’. In his fridge, that happened to be food. In his life, what Buffy had lit up had been more profound. It had been the hope of a better world where he and his friends could live without having to fight every evil force that decided to make the Hellmouth its home.
He sighed and shut the door. The light in his fridge could be fixed easily enough. Fixing his life would never truly be complete.
“Xander?”
Xander lifted his head up and looked over to the door to his bedroom. “Yeah Anya?”
“What you doing?” she asked.
Xander spared a look at the fridge before starting to walk across his apartment. “Nothin’. Why?”
“I need you,” she replied a second before Xander reached the partly closed door.
That made him pause for a second, a smile starting to crawl across his lips. His hand fell down to his side and encountered the bulge of a ring case in his pocket. His fingers caressed the lump before he pushed the door open all the way and leant on the doorframe. “I’m here,” he said.
Anya sat on his bed…. their bed with her back to the headboard. Her wheelchair sat folded by the side of the bed. She had one hand playing with one of the curls in her hair. A gesture she had picked up recently. She had been thinking of growing it longer since she had seen Dawn sucking gently on the end of her hair while doing her homework. He paused again as a pang of emotion stabbed him in the heart. That had seemed like an eternity ago. How could it only be just over a couple of weeks?
“What’s wrong?” asked Anya.
Xander sighed and leaned more on the wooden doorframe for support. “I was just thinking,” he said, a note of dejection in his voice.
Anya cocked her head and looked at him, her eyes seemingly going deeper than his skin. She was a couple of thousand years old now, and despite her apparent naivety, she was surprisingly wise about other people’s pain. Or should that surprise people? She had after all been a vengeance demon, taking pride in causing men pain over the centuries. “You were thinking about Buffy?”
Xander nodded. “And Dawn,” he added.
Anya smiled weakly and held out her hands to him. Xander returned the smile and moved into the bedroom. Getting on his knees on the bed, he crawled up to her and turned round to lie in her embrace. Her arms slid around him and held him tightly to her chest. In return Xander hugged her arms closer about himself after raising one hand to his lips and kissing it tenderly.
Her smell embraced him as well. A sweet smell of peaches that came from her latest choice of bath oil. But, under the artificial smells, he could detect the aroma of her. Her skin, her sweat. Her.
He moved slowly out of her embrace and slid off the bed. “Xander?” she asked a little worried.
Xander reached down into the pocket of his jeans. He had decided that he needed to rebuild his life. To do that he needed Anya to be a part of that.
Turning around, he sank to one knee and took the ring box out. Holding it up and looking deeply into her eyes, he opened it up. The ring inside reflected the light from the bulb over his head, casting a pattern on Anya’s face. With the reflected light, he could see tears beginning to well up in her eyes. Indeed, Xander could feel the tears in his eyes too.
“Anya….” He paused and took a deep breath. He had asked this question before. It was no easier the second time. “Anya, will you marry me?”
She raised a hand to her mouth as the tears slid down her cheeks. But she nodded and suddenly he found himself keeling next to the bed with her sitting on the edge. They were in an embrace so tight that he could barely breathe. And despite an area of black pain deep in his soul, the area that grieved for Buffy and feared for Dawn, the rest of him was elated beyond belief.
She had said yes. He was going to be with her for the rest of their lives.
“Xander?” she asked quietly in his ear as they held each other.
“Hmm?” he asked dreamily.
“Let’s not tell the others yet.”
Xander moved away to look at her face.
A puzzled expression crossed his features momentarily. He couldn’t understand, so he asked. “Why?”
She looked at the ring as she slid it onto her finger. “It wouldn’t be fair to them,” she said softly as she twisted the diamond-studded band on her finger. “Not yet anyway.”
Xander frowned but nodded. He could see now that she was right. But she had launched into a rushed explanation anyway, to try and make sure she had not offended him.
“Because they need time to recover. Especially Dawn….” she rushed out.
“Anya....” Xander broke in as she continued
“And Giles needs time too…”
“Anya,” he said more forcefully, raising her hands before his face.
“Yes?” she asked meekly.
“It’s okay…. you’re right. We should let the others have some time before we tell them.”
She smiled at him through her tears, and Xander felt his cheeks moist with his own tears. He leaned forwards slowly and pressed his lips to hers in a kiss. It started softly, but soon deepened till they felt that it would take a crowbar to pry them apart.
But Xander did move back. “Come on. We said we should be gone by now”
She smiled widely at him. “Okay, lets go,”
Xander moved back and opened the wheelchair. He noticed the expression of distaste on his fiancée’s face and wanted to smile. “Come on, the doc said you had to use it for at least two weeks.”
She scowled at him but sat in the chair without another word. But as he pushed her towards the front door, she leaned her head back against his hand on the handle. Her eyes were closed and she had a content and dreamy look on her face.
They still had much pain in them. But they now knew that together, they would get over it. Together as husband and wife.




























16

Willow sat at the end of Tara’s Bed staring at herself in the mirror fixed on the wall above Tara’s vanity. An old and malodorous book of witchcraft lay open on her lap. Try as she might she could not concentrate at her task at hand – finding a way into Dawn’s fortress-like mind and spirit. Willow could find nothing new that would help her, and time was quickly running out. The child protective services could not be held off forever. With luck, the same enchantment that had worked on Buffy would be able to break down the barriers that Dawn’s mind had constructed to surround her psyche.
For the past day or so, Willow had been trying desperately to put herself in Dawn’s shoes. Hoping that by understanding where Dawn was in her grief, she could help her. But without being inside Dawn’s mind, Willow could only make assumptions. She thought that perhaps Dawn’s personal reality was just too much for her. She had barely begun to realize her place in this world. Her reality had been shaky to begin with. Losing Buffy so soon after losing her mother was like a bridge over a crevasse disappearing from under her feet - again.
Dawn was afraid of the fall but afraid to land on solid ground, too. The uncertainty of that solid ground disappearing under her feet once again was much more of a risk than her mind was willing to take. Willow could only hope she would be able to reach Dawn using the same methods that were successful with her sister.

At that moment, however, sitting alone and quiet, the sound of silence echoing in the room, Willow was not thinking of Dawn. The reflection of this young, intelligent and lovely young woman was not what Willow saw as she gazed at the mirror. She in fact saw nothing. Her mind was elsewhere. It was in a place that was her own personal nightmare. It was a place devoid of all pleasures. A place of despair and loneliness. It was a place without Tara.
During the time Tara was incapacitated because of Glory’s diabolical intervention, Willow had remained strong. She could not allow the pain in her heart to overrule her sense of responsibility. She cared for Tara and made sure her basic necessities were met. She had protected her. It was natural and automatic for Willow to take responsibility for her. That was what someone did for the ones they loved.
This was something that Willow could understand. In the time since she found Tara, her whole perspective had changed. Once, she was in love with Oz. She thought he was exactly what she wanted – a sensitive, caring, loving, fun and intelligent man. The fact that he was a werewolf was easily overlooked. Her love for him was all encompassing – she thought. But Oz had left her. For whatever noble or insecure reasons, Oz abandoned her and the love she felt for him.
Then she found Tara.
In the midst of the pain of losing Oz, Tara was a light in the darkness. A beautiful, somewhat introspective and extroversive person, Tara became her friend. They shared similar interests and were naturally drawn toward each other. The friendship became something overwhelmingly important to Willow. She wanted to spend every moment of her time in Tara’s company. She felt like showing off her new friend to her old friends. She had an odd sense of pride in Tara and couldn’t wait for everyone else to see in Tara what she had seen.
She had wanted the gang’s approval, though she knew in her heart their approval didn’t matter. But when she had been accepted into the group a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She knew she wouldn’t have to separate her relationships. Tara was welcomed into the fold enthusiastically. Just as Anya had eventually become one of the gang, so had Tara.
Willow couldn’t place the exact moment when her friendship with Tara turned into romance, then love, and eventually what it was now - a deep and never-ending devotion to each other. Placing that moment was not important. What was important was that she still had Tara. She and Tara were still together and seemingly stronger than ever. They and the gang had made it through yet another battle against evil forces. All of them except Buffy.
She had monumental feelings of guilt.
The fear of losing Tara, of going on without her or with her, but in a non-responsive vegetative state, was always a possibility. Willow, being the rational one, understood that, but feared it desperately. She managed to hide her fear well. The others could not see what it took out of her to see her love in a state of idiocy. Her brilliant and beautiful young lover was degenerated to a life of insanity.
She was ecstatic when she got Tara back. The emotion was so overwhelming. She was almost afraid to admit to herself that her happiness over having Tara, her whole being, back was overshadowing her sadness at losing Buffy. She had known Buffy for so much longer than Tara and had gone through so much with her. She felt disloyal to Buffy, and it pained her deeply.
How could she be both happy and sad over what amounted to the same event? She could not reconcile those two emotions, and it was beginning to take its toll on Willow’s mind.
As Willow sat there staring at her reflection, yet seeing nothing, a tear made its way out of the corner of her eye and slowly slid down her cheeks. Another tear followed, and another, and another, until her cheeks were glistening with the moisture of dozens of tears.
The door to the apartment opened and closed. “Willow, I’m back. I hope Chinese takeout is okay. I couldn’t get…” Tara walked into the bedroom, her hands clutching a nondescript brown paper bag. At the sight of Willow’s sobbing face, Tara’s heart broke. She dropped the bag, which made a squelching sound as it hit the ground, and she ran to her lover’s side.
Tara knelt on the floor in front of Willow and enveloped her in a tight embrace. She began to rock her gently and stroke her soft, silky red hair.
“Shhh. It’s okay.” Tara cooed as Willow continued to sob quietly. “Everything will be okay.”
The two of them sat entwined together for several minutes. When Willow’s tears subsided, Tara loosened her grip, but Willow griped her even tighter. “Please don’t let go.” Willow whispered.
“Never.” This one word from Tara began Willow’s tears flowing again.
Tara pulled back to look into Willow’s eyes. What she saw broke her heart in a million different ways. Willow’s normally beautiful eyes, the eyes in which Tara could see the reflection of her love, were red and swollen. Unshed tears still threatened to fall. Her smile, which always warmed Tara’s heart, was replaced by an expression of sorrow and pain. Without words, Tara could hear Willow screaming for help, for comfort, for release of the pain that had been building inside of her for so long.
“Willow…” Tara could say no more. At the sight of her true love enduring such pain, Tara broke down. Her tears flowed freely and mixed with those of her lover.
Tara’s tears seemed to bring Willow out of her trance. She stood up, pulling Tara from her kneeling position on the floor and coaxed her into a prone position on the bed, laying her head gently on the pillows. Willow crawled up beside Tara and nestled against her love’s body where she felt welcome and safe, arms wrapped around each other and legs entwined. Emotional and physical exhaustion over came grief and the two women stayed there where they felt safe.

**********

Willow was the first to stir. She did not move her arms or legs for fear of disturbing Tara, who still lay in her embrace, eyes closed. She just gazed lovingly into the face of the person that made her whole. She quietly thanked the fates for sending this angel to her.
Willow gently placed her lips on Tara’s eyes and kissed them softly, first one, then the other. Tara stirred, but did not open her eyes. Willow half smiled. She had fallen asleep in the few minutes in each other’s arms. Willow then kissed her cheeks and the tip of her nose. Each kiss was as soft as a whisper, but filled with the love of a million passionate kisses. Again, she pulled back to gaze into her sleeping angel’s face.
Tara looked so beautiful and peaceful in her sleep. Willow’s heart nearly burst with the love and pride that she felt for her. And it was at that moment that she realized her feelings of disloyalty were unfounded. She was where she was supposed to be.
Buffy would understand her overwhelming and all encompassing feelings for Tara. She would understand how much of Tara’s soul made up her own. After all, hadn’t Buffy experienced the same thing with Angel?
Perhaps it wasn’t exactly the same thing. Angel was a demon with limits, some self-imposed some not, on his love, affection and desire for other people. Tara was an angel with limitless love, affection and deep desire for Willow, and Willow alone. But somehow Willow thought that had Angel been human the love that Buffy and he had shared would have been as deep and as powerful as her and Tara’s love was now.
Losing Buffy was a terrible blow to Willow. She was afraid Buffy was not at peace in her deathly existence, but perhaps with the help of her friends Willow would try and rectify that situation. These thoughts gave Willow comfort.
The relationship she had with Buffy, while no less important, was different than the relationship she had with Tara. It suddenly seemed clear to Willow that it was okay to feel different emotions and deeper depth of emotion for each relationship.
Willow closed her eyes, took deep, cleansing breath, and gave herself permission to accept Buffy’s death and to mourn for it, but to also accept the feelings of enormous gratitude and happiness she had at having Tara back in her arms. She had reconciled her emotions.
In the back of her mind she could almost hear Buffy. “That’s my girl, Will. You two are strong together. Take care of each other.” Then the voice was gone, as if it never existed.
Opening her eyes, Willow saw her lover in a new light. Two halves. One whole. They were meant to be together. The fates had written it, and so it would be.
Willow gently placed her lips on Tara’s. The kiss was slow and soft. Tara woke to this kiss and responded by slightly parting her lips and accepting what Willow offered.
When the kiss ended, Tara smiled at Willow. Willow’s bright eyes and warm smile had returned.
“Talk to me Willow.” Tara pleaded. “Why were you crying?”
Willow looked in Tara’s eyes and saw her reflection. “I had some things to work through. I’m okay now.”
Tara was not satisfied, but somewhere in her mind she heard “Let it go. She’ll be fine. You both will.” The voice was unmistakable, and it gave her peace.
“Really.” Willow repeated. “I couldn’t be better than I am at this very moment. I’m kind of hungry though.”
Tara lifted her head and glanced at the squashed bag of takeout leaking onto the carpet. “Well, I guess I can salvage some of the takeout.”
Willow looked at Tara, a devilish expression on her face. “That’s not what I’m hungry for.”
“Willow!” Tara said feigning shock, but couldn’t hold off the giggle that was bubbling in her throat. She threw her arms around Willow and they both laughed wildly. Their hearts beginning to heal with each giggle.
Tara finally gained composure. “We have to meet the gang, remember?”
“I remember, but I think we have a little time.” Willow took Tara’s face in her hands and kissed her sweetly. “Thank you, Tara.”
Tara needn’t ask Willow why she was thanking her. She already knew. Tara felt the same gratitude for Willow. No more words needed to be uttered.
The two women held each other tight and kissed passionately. Hands caressed. Minds mingled. Tongues entwined. Two souls becoming one.














17

Morgan closed the door to the office she had been assigned in the hospital and flicked on the light switch. The sight that greeted her made her grimace. It was a small room filled with office furniture. An inadequate bulb overhead provided scant illumination, and gave everything a tired look with the lack of light. Around three of the four walls were battered grey filing cabinets. Some had drawers open showing the stuffed contents of manila folders. Most of the cabinets also had more folders stacked on top of them, and many had folders stacked on the floor as well. A single potted plant that had seen better days sat just to the side of the door. A moth-eared tan couch filled the last wall, also covered in paperwork. Two chairs faced a desk just off the centre of the room. Neither chair matched, nor did her chair behind the desk.
Morgan dropped her briefcase onto the desk. The desk was standard office issue. Laminated chipboard with a metal frame and one set of two drawers on one side. The top of the laminate was covered by small scratches, coffee stains and yet more of the mass of paperwork that the Hospital had left for her.
She had only started her job four days ago and she had not yet started any of it, nor had she any intention of doing any of it. Well, except for the case involving Dawn Summers.
That one she had a particular interest in. As far as she was concerned, the rest of the work that had been sent her way could stay exactly where it was. She was not the social worker she made out to be. So she did not care about the rest of the people she was supposed to be looking after.
No, she had a much more nefarious purpose here in Sunnydale.
She knelt facing the wall away from the door. It was a position of submission, but then the person she wanted to talk to was more powerful than she. So she paid him respect. Even if it was out of fear.
“Hear me master,” she called.
Nothing happened, but Morgan knew it was a test. Her master was not the most patient of people, but he demanded strict obedience from his pupils.
Suddenly the temperature in the room dropped and Morgan could see her breath as a white fog. “Master?” she called again.
“I am here,” came the flat reply.
Morgan had repressed the urge to shiver in the cold. But the sounds of the voice made her give the smallest of involuntary shudders. The air in front of her shimmered, and from the flickering displacement emerged a dark outline. The outline had a shape, but it was difficult to describe. It looked like a black cloud that was narrow at the top and flared out towards the bottom.
“I have news,” she offered.
“Speak,” came the reply.
“I have found The Key,” she said with some pride in her voice. “But….”
The shape seemed to loom closer and Morgan’s voice caught for a fraction of a second in her throat. To displease her master was to flaunt with punishment. Not death. No. He knew things that were worse than dying. “I have been unable to separate her from the humans that protect her.”
The shadow seemed to rear back and Morgan let her breath trickle out from between her lips like breathing would hurt her. “The use of their laws did not work,” said the voice.
It was not a question, but she replied anyway. “No my lord.”
“Did the rest of the plan work out?” the image asked.
“Yes my lord. The Key’s mind is cut off from the world.”
“Excellent. You have done well despite the initial failure of the original plan. But it is of no matter. Now she no longer is in contact with the world, her friends will not be able to help her. You should be able to get any judge to give you a court order to remove her.”
“Yes master,” replied Morgan.
The shadow seemed to gaze at her more intently. “There is something else?” it asked with the slightest hint of anger in his voice.
“A disturbance in the life forces Master,” she replied with trepidation. There were many things that could disturb the powers of life. But she knew that her master was concerned with only one.
“A disturbance?” he asked, his voice turning guarded. “You believe it is one of them?” he asked.
Morgan nodded as she replied. “I do.”
“They act sooner than we had anticipated! How many?”
“One.”
“You are sure?” he demanded.
“Positive master,” she replied firmly. She might not be as powerful as her teacher, but she was competent.
The image froze for a moment, seeming to contemplate the situation. Morgan knew that if their presence was detected, that interfering old man, Merlin, would send more knights to the area. Hence they had tried to use more subtle means like the humans laws.
“Then there is little to worry about,” he said. “You have been well trained in the arts of concealment. They should not be able to detect you. Continue with the plan. Secure The Key for me.”
“Yes master,” she replied as the air shifted again, swallowing the black image and leaving the room much as it had been a few minutes before.
Getting up from her knees she took her briefcase from her desk and walked to the office door. It was late, but she should try to find a judge now. Keeping her master waiting was a dangerous pursuit. Opening the door, she stepped back out into the world and resumed her mission.










18

Willow slumped back in the chair. She had been trying to get into Dawn’s mind to try to help her. Just as she had done for Buffy barely six days ago. But something kept blocking her attempts. Repelling her like a wall.
Even with Tara now back, their combined powers still made no headway into penetrating the mental barrier around Dawn’s mind.
"It’s no good Giles, I can’t get through," she said with a heavy heart.
Giles slammed the book he had been reading closed in frustration. They had been at this since everyone had arrived in the late evening. It was now dark outside, but not nearly as dark as inside the magic shop.
"Perhaps we should try again?" ventured Tara hopefully.
Giles just shook his head. "It’s no use. Dawn is, quite frankly, beyond our ability help."
Willow shook her head. "No… no I refuse to believe that.” She then spitted Giles with a harsh glare, “And you don’t believe it either!"
Giles looked up and into her eyes. "Yes I do." He almost whispered.
"Hey what’s up?"
Giles, Willow and Tara all turned to see Spike standing in the doorway. He looked worse for wear. His skin stretched over his bones and his eyes sunken. His trademark leather duster hanging loosly on his frame.
Willow was the first to speak. "Hey Spike, you look like death…. err, what I mean is that you, err, don’t looks so well. You know, even for a dead guy. No I don’t mean that either!" Willow looked back at Tara. "A little help here?" she pleaded.
Spike moved out of the doorway and through the shop and leaned against the counter. "It’s OK Will," he reassured her softly.
"Well, Okey dokey then!" she replied in typical Willow liveliness.
"How’s the kid?" Spike asked as he pushed off the counter and headed to the little fridge that Giles used to keep the milk for his Tea in. Since Spike had become a regular visitor, there was usually a pint of blood hidden at the back as well.
Willow looked back at Dawn, who sat motionless, still in the wheelchair. She was seemingly staring at a spot on the wall. "Not so good."
Giles stood from the table and walked over to the little sideboard above the mini-fridge. He began to make himself a cup of tea. Without looking over at Spike, who now was less than a foot away, he talked to him. "So what brings you here?"
Spike shifted uncomfortably and pointedly stared at Dawn. "I had a visit from a guy in a cape."
Giles froze mid stirring of his cup of tea and looked over his shoulder as Spike was moving away. "A man in a cape?" he asked unable to keep the surprise from his voice.
"Yeah. He told me not to….” He paused mid step, considering whether to tell the gang he had planned on leaving Sunnydale and quickly changed his mind. “ err…. to keep an eye on Dawn."
"Why?" asked Giles curiously.
"He said that she was in danger," replied Spike bluntly.
At the mention of danger Xander broke off the low conversation he had been having with Anya and listened in.
Giles frowned. "His warning is a little late."
Spike moved forward, hands shifting in apparent nervousness and clutching the beaker of blood till is knuckles went white. "Err, yeah, I heard about the little scuffle the other night. But I think he meant somethi’n new."
Giles sat down heavily and stared hard at Dawn’s profile from where he sat, not uttering a word. He left the cup of tea he had made untouched on the table. He looked lost in thought.
Spike stared at Giles, then at Dawn, before turning his attention back to Willow, and lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Look, I know it’s none of my business, but has anyone told Angel?"
Willow look at Spike in total surprise. "Why do you mention Angel…? I mean that you…. you know, err… cared for Buffy, and Angel was…. err…. close to Buffy and all?” she stammered out.
Spike sighed and looked down at the blood in his hands before resting it upon the table. "Look, just because Angel and I haven’t seen eye to eye since he got his soul back, doesn’t mean that he should be ignored. He deserves to know."
Willow nodded. "I’m booked on the morning bus to LA. We were just trying to help Dawn before I went."
Giles tuned in his chair and looked up at Spike. “Tell me more about the man in the cloak,” he asked.

**********

Hunter had been walking the streets aimlessly for the past three hours, watching the sunset while his mind was lost deep in thought.
He wanted to be doing something, but it was the phase of the mission where he could do little but wait for his plans to develop.
If he had his way, he would have gone straight to where Dawn Summers was, and protected her from up close.
But with Merlin insistent that he remain hidden in the shadows…. Well, he wasn’t about to argue with the most powerful man who had ever lived.
Or would he have to have an argument?
Part of his training under Merlin had been spent cloaking himself so he could not be detected. He had tested his ability against Merlin in the past, and had always managed to elude him for a few hours. The old wizard only ever managed to pierce his invisibility with spells, never with his power in the forces of life.
Spells were only one of the powers that Merlin, and he himself possessed. As a Knight, he was primarily trained to use the power that life generated to do his ‘tricks’. A power that surrounded and penetrated everything was very useful. It allowed telekinesis, telepathy and many other abilities. But because of the nature of his job, he was also versed in the arts of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His repertoire of spells was mostly defensive in nature, and he had nowhere near the magical ability of Merlin. But their ability to manipulate the power of life was almost comparable.
It all came down to how long he could keep himself hidden. If he could get sufficiently far enough away from Dawn when he was about to be discovered, then it did not matter too much. The fact that Merlin had found out about his first appearance before Dawn disturbed him slightly. He knew that the Knights had a handful of agents. But he knew of none in the immediate area that could have spied on him.
Thinking further, he could only conclude that Merlin had been using his powers of divination again, and had seen the consequences of Hunter exposing himself to his charges. The price for his failure to remain hidden while on a mission was steep. The Powers that be used Merlin, and through him the knights, to effect their plans on the course of Human events. But Hunter knew that this mission was Merlin’s alone. If the Powers found out about such a direct interference in the course of things, Merlin would likely just get a warning. He was too vital to their battle against evil. He, on the other hand, knowing that the Powers had not sanctioned the mission, might also just get a warning, or he might even get crusade duty in another realm. Which was more likely. Unable to ‘punish’ Merlin directly, they would punish him through his followers.
He shivered at that thought. Most Knights served in the other realms. But crusade duty always was in the most dangerous of the other worlds. The last Knight to be sent on crusade duty was charged with allowing the Watchers Council knowledge of the existence of the Knights. That Knight had barely come back from his crusade in the dimension know as Ret-ot’laks alive.
But something was nibbling away at the edge of his mind. He almost felt it like a desire to be near the one he was protecting.
He had had visions of the future in the past. One of which he had back when he was twelve, was a vision of a faceless young girl held in an embrace of his powers as he crushed the life from her.
He still remembered the shock he had felt when he had received that vision. Most Knights only obtained the powers and concentration for visions of the future when they had been training for ten years or so. Meaning most of them were seventeen or older at the time.
Merlin had told him to ‘forget about the vision’, and that ‘if it was to come to pass, it would do so in its own time’. But Hunter had persisted in asking questions, only to receive the response ‘if it does come to pass, then at that time, it would all make sense’.
A typical sentence from Merlin. It made little sense on the surface, but there was hidden meaning.
But why had that particular vision come to mind just now? ‘Great’ he thought. ‘Another mystery to puzzle over.’
Shaking his head, he studied his surroundings. He was near his temporary home now. A near derelict office building in a dangerous part of town that was virtually forgotten. In fact, its largest population was For Sale signs.
As he moved round the rear of the building, he sprung nimbly to the top of a packaging crate and slid gracefully through the broken window. He had other means of entering and leaving his temporary home, but he preferred to save those easier means for a quick exit should the situation require it.
He walked over to an old futon mat that he had recovered from the trash outside a warehouse not far away. It was old, dirty and smelled faintly of something he’d rather not dwell on, but it served its purpose as his bed.
He was The Hunter. He did not require the luxury of a soft mattress, pillows, or sheets. He actually felt a certain amount of guilt for even using the mat and the threadbare blanket he had found. That guilt magnified as he recalled his talk to Merlin in the alley, and how he had not knelt in the filth of the alley before his master. Merlin had noticed.
Throwing himself down on the mat he allowed himself to rest. He had no use for long episodes of sleep. Sleep was a waste of time these days and he rarely had any to squander. A simple rest was all that he would spare. He was on his guard at all times. His muscles ready to spring to action, his ears constantly concentrating on the sounds around him. Even in this state of rest a demon had little advantage over him.
Reaching deep inside his core, he brushed the presence that was his own life force and his soul. It was tired, and as such, so was his body.
Expanding his powers outwards, he grasped the threads of power that was life around him and drew them slowly into his body. The threads wound round his muscles, refreshing them. They snaked through his stomach, feeding him, and penetrated his mind, blowing away the sluggishness of his tired brain. From the outside, he was bathed in a soft white light from head to toe that lit up the surroundings.
The glow faded as he released the threads of power. His body and mind were refreshed. He opened his eyes and allowed them to adjust to the suddenly darker room. Barely five minutes had passed, but he felt as refreshed as an entire night’s sleep.
He always felt guilty about doing what he just had though. He was drawing life from around him, to refresh himself. It just seemed selfish. He was acting like a vampire. But instead of drinking blood, he took the life force from directly around himself. A life force that had to come from somewhere.
Shaking his head, he stood and began to exercise. Push-ups, martial-arts manoeuvres, sword practice and finally he sank into meditation to once again clear his mind.
He had a feeling that he would need to be ready to go into action. And soon.

19

Willow pulled the door to Dawn’s bedroom till it was only open a crack. After Spike had arrived at the Magic shop, they had given up trying to help Dawn for tonight. So they had all gone to Buffy’s house. Willow closed her eyes and rested her head against the doorframe. It was still Buffy’s house. She was no loner around, but it was still hers.
Opening her eyes again, she blew out a breath. She and Tara had gotten Dawn clean and put her to bed. Whether she would sleep or not was yet to be discovered.
Moving slowly and quietly down the stairs, she paused at the bottom. Giles had fallen asleep in the one of the armchairs and was snoring very quietly. That made her smile despite herself. She never would have imagined that Giles would be the sort of person to snore. It just wasn’t…. well British. It just wasn’t Giles.
Tara had fallen asleep on the couch. Looking at her watch, she realised she had to be at the bus station in a little under ten hours.
She debated whether to wake Tara, then decided it would be cruel to do so. She needed the sleep. They all did.
So, she went searching for blankest and pillows, returning to the living room a moment later, her arms pilled up with them.
She carefully tucked a pillow under Giles’ head, and placed a blanket over him, before turning her attention to Tara.
She looked so peaceful asleep. But every now and then, she would moan slightly. Bad dreams? Not surprising really. Loosing her mind, even temporarily had hurt her deeply. Willow had been having nightmares over the past few days as well. Some were about Buffy. Most were about loosing Tara.
Those thoughts made her feel guilty. Guilty that she cared for Tara more than Buffy, who she had known a lot longer. Had fought with, shed blood with.
She quickly shook off the feeling. She had talked this over with Tara already earlier this evening. Still, it was hard not to dwell.
Placing a pillow under Tara’s head, she lay down on the couch next to her lover and pulled the blanket she had found around them both.
Tara stopped moaning in her sleep, and a hand suddenly snaked around Willow’s waist and held her close. Willow felt slightly happier as she drifted off to sleep.

**********

The attack came late at night.
Tara was the first to notice something was out of place. She awoke to find Willow and herself lying on the couch in the Summers’ living room. A pillow under her head and a blanket draped over them both.
Slowly prying her arm out from Willow’s embrace, she slid up the back of the armchair, carefully holding Willow to stop her falling off to the floor.
Then, carefully getting off the chair and edging over to the window, she moved the curtain out of the way and scanned the front yard.
Nothing. Looking back over her shoulder wondering whether to wake Giles or Willow, she decided to allow them to sleep. It was probably the first decent sleep either of them had had in the past week.
Turning towards the front door, she went outside, muttering a senses enhancement spell under her breath.
Before she could finish, a shadow detached itself from the wall above her and dropped straight down surrounding her and stifling her scream.

**********

Willow woke with a start. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she swung her legs off the sofa and sat up. Something was wrong.
Looking round the room, she suddenly noticed that she was alone on the couch. Tara had slipped off somewhere.
Puzzled more than worried, she glanced around the rest of the room, and only stopped when her eyes fell to rest on a shadow moving in the open doorway. "Tara?" she asked quietly.
With no response, Willow looked at Giles and decided not to wake him. He was obviously very tired and sound asleep, still making little snoring sounds deep in his throat. She half smiled again at the thought of teasing him about it in the morning. The smile quickly faded. Now was not the time for such things.
Deciding to investigate the open door, she told herself she was a witch and not totally defenceless.
Peering round the doorway, she looked over the front yard and saw nothing out of the ordinary. A few shadows moving, cast from the streetlights.
Moving down the step, she raised her left hand and pointed her index finger towards the sky and muttered a spell under her breath. "Liuhtjan"
The tip of her finger began to glow like a candle, before an actual flame sprung forth, lighting up the area around her in a harsh yellow light.
A shadow moved across her vision and bumped into her. Before she even had a chance to draw a breath and yell to Giles for help, a furry hand had covered her mouth and lifted her off her feet.
Kicking and attempting to yell, Willow was dragged across the yard, down onto the street, and thrown heavily against a tree across the road from the Summers’ house.
A vampire leaned around the tree with a rope in his hands, his face vamped out and showing a smile that was all fangs. "Well, look at this. Who says you can’t get decent take-away in this town?" he joked in a voice that was too high in pitch. Whoever this person had been, he had been turned young, before puberty had caused his voice to break.
Willow looked up into the empty yellow eyes of the vampire and set her face into what she hoped was not so much terrified as determined. Suddenly the streetlights went out and she knew that they were responsible. She had to get help. So she did the only thing she could do. She screamed.
The vampire’s arm came down in a blurred rush, struck her across the forehead and turned everything into a blissfully unaware darkness.
Giles woke at the sound of a scream. For a moment he wasn’t sure he had heard it. He had been dreaming about watching Buffy fall from the tower. She had not screamed, but in his dreams she had been calling for help, and he had been glued to the spot, unable to move forwards to catch her. To save her.
When he rubbed his tired eyes and saw the open front door, he was immediately on alert.
Stepping up to the doorway, he glanced down at his own shadow. Then scanned the yard. Pausing through mid scan, he did a double take down at his shadow. "Well that can’t be right!" he muttered.
The only light was that from the moon, and it was scarcely enough to cause a shadow. The only light? Giles looked up again and saw that the streetlights were off for the entire block.
Getting a sinking feeling, he backed up into the house and was about to turn to run upstairs, when the shadow that he had thought was his, detached from the doorway and leapt at him with preternatural speed.

**********

Hunter hit the brakes on his Suzuki Turbo GSXR1100 motorcycle. The bike was so powerful that, for a bare second, it tired to escape his control. But it stopped, throwing his short cape out around his arms. He stayed still, watching the darkness ahead.
There were no streetlights and that concerned him.
The bike revved once before falling silent as he turned it off.
Something was wrong. Hunter could feel it deep in his core. There was a taint of evil lurking in the air.
Dismounting his bike, his waist length cape suddenly started to grow, spreading out around him till it reached its normal full length. Moving almost of its own accord, like it was alive, it swirled around him despite the lack of a breeze, and the fact that Hunter was standing perfectly still.
Reaching out with his powers, he allowed his presence to float on the currents that life created, till he found what he was looking for. Over by a tree, he could feel three dead spots in the life.
He smiled to himself. Vampires.
He slid forwards moving across the road like an oil slick.
The vampires probably never knew what hit them. They had just finished tying up Giles to the tree next to Willow and Tara, and were arguing about whether ‘their boss’ would object to them having a little midnight snack.
The first died with an accurately thrown stake from thirty feet. The other two vampires looked up as their companion disintegrated into dust and saw a shadowy figure shrouded in a black cape standing in the middle of the road.
The two looked at each other and smiled. Dinner was served. They stepped away from the tree and halted. Hunter’s only response was to raise his left hand and gesture for them to come.
The two vampires charged at the same time. Their preternatural speed and strength would have worked to their advantage against many humans and many other demons as well. But Hunter was both and neither.
He used his hidden right hand to whip out his enchanted sword in an arc that sliced across the vampire’s necks, dusting both of them.
Completing a full circle like a pirouette, Hunter used the momentum that the sword had obtained and swung it round in a circle before himself, using the manoeuvre to kill the speed, before sliding the sword home into it’s scabbard.
Sliding out his small dagger from his left hip, he got a mental grip on it and sent it flying across the distance between himself and the three tied up against the tree. As he ran past them in a blur of billowing cape, the dagger slashed three times with pinpoint accuracy to slice up the thick ropes binding Giles, Willow and Tara to the tree. Then, without pause, the dagger continued its flight to catch up to its owner.
Hunter slowed as he entered the house. Things were more dangerous now. He was entering a strange environment where the possibilities of ambush and close fighting were a distinct reality. It was unlikely that he could swing his sword in here without it slicing through a wall and getting caught on power cables and frying him.
Sliding up beside him, his dagger dropped down neatly into its scabbard and he released his mental focus on it.
He scanned the downstairs that he could see with his eyes, while his mind searched the rest of the house. He sensed the evil taint above him, prompting him to look up the stairs.
Firming his resolve, he glided silently up the steps. He caught another sense of evil. But as he reached out with his thoughts to find it, he felt a presence partially disguised. It was like he was sensing whatever it was, but there was interference around the presence. He judged it at being outside the house, but on his level.
Hunter frowned. That couldn’t be right. That would mean that the ‘whatever it was’ would be flying, yet he could hear sounds coming from a lot closer.
Besides, Earth hadn’t had any flying demons for well over three centuries, and it was unlikely that Merlin would have been unable to detect the presence of one if it had arrived from a different dimension.
Suddenly, stopping Hunter’s musing short, a shadow exploded out of the door to his left carrying an unconscious Dawn over one shoulder. It was then that he realised that this demon could distort its presence to make it difficult to sense. Hence he had sensed it further away than it really was.
The shadow was solid, and it bowled into Hunter with enough force to knock him backward down the stairs causing him to land hard on his back. If it weren’t for the armour plate he had strapped on under his tunic, he probably would have broken his back.
Hunter used his reflexes stop himself from falling head over heals down the stairs, and instead pointed his legs straight in the air. Grabbing the banister he spun round on his back before lowering his feet to point down the stairs, all while still sliding down.
This stunt allowed him to hit the ground at the bottom with his feet under him and to take off running after the shadow and Dawn, barely loosing ground to the demon.

**********

Giles had just finished waking Willow up from unconsciousness when he saw Dawn seemingly floating in mid air rush down the street. Looking back to see Willow looking up at him, she nodded once. "Go!"
Giles needed no second instructions. He picked up speed to run to his car, pulling out his keys from a trouser pocket on the way.
From out of the house, the cloaked figure from the hospital exploded out of the doorway with amazing speed. He saw at once that the shadow demon had too greater head start, and even with Dawn over one shoulder, could out race him. Hunter angled to wards Giles’ car, the cloak trailing behind him like wings.
Just as Giles turned over the ignition and began to accelerate, Hunter leapt and landed skilfully, to stand on the passenger seat.
Giles looked up startled, to see the figure landing next to him. He was about to reach for the dagger he kept hidden under the dashboard when the figure reached up and lowered his hood. Staring down at Giles was a young man with intense blue eyes. He broke Giles’ moment of astonishment by saying, "Drive now!" in a determined voice.
The voice was extraordinarily compelling and, without thinking, Giles found himself looking back to the road and slamming his foot down on the accelerator so hard that the rear end of the car fishtailed slightly. But it soon got its grip back and they were picking up speed to close on the demon.
Hunter raised himself to lean out of the car, one foot still on the seat, the other on the door itself. One hand gripped the frame of the windscreen while the other was pointed out into the air like a wing.
As they neared the retreating figure, Hunter drew out his dagger with the hand from the windscreen and braced himself.
He leapt out of the car and stabbed the dagger deep into the furry back of the demon. He hit both demon and Dawn with enough speed to send them all sprawling, but just before she was about to hit the ground, Hunter reached out with his mind and secured the young girl in an iron strong telekinetic grip.
Pain arched across his back and sides as he landed awkwardly on his arm and heard a horrendous snapping sound. He rolled end over end down the road for twenty feet before arresting his momentum.
Off to the side, Dawn sank down to the ground on the grass verge without a scratch.
Hunter’s mind screamed in pain as he lay in the middle of the road. But through the pain, he heard his own voice saying ‘Get up. The demon is still around. GET UP!’
Roaring in pain under the weight of a broken left arm and right leg, Hunter raised himself to his feet and scanned the area around him.
The demon was still invisible, but what was visible was the knife sticking out of it, and a trail of copper coloured blood oozing from the wound.
Hunter drew his sword and they charged each other. Just before they met, Hunter’s broken leg gave out under him, causing him to skid to his knees and slice the demon open across the waist. Entrails spilled out across the ground, accompanied by a monstrous roar of pain.
But Hunter did not get away cleanly. The demon had had it’s arms open to clasp Hunter into a powerful bear hug, but because he had fallen to one side when his leg gave out, the right clawed hand managed to slash him across the temple. The force of this blow caused Hunter to spin about and slam his head down onto the road sending the world dark.”













20

Pain was a fact of life. We are born through pain, we live with pain, and pain is present when we die.
Pain had been a companion of Hunter’s for so long, it was his anchor to reality. All through his youth he had sustained cuts, scrapes, even broken bones from the arduous training under Merlin.
So more pain was hardly a surprising sensation as the darkness floated away.
Opening his eyes, the pain that had been just at the edge of his unconsciousness flooded in and threatened to make him pass out. But he gritted his teeth and stayed conscious.
He was lying on his back on the couch in the living room of the Summers’ house. Morning light was just beginning to drift in through the partially closed curtains. Giles stood at the gap looking out, an axe clutched in his left hand. He had the air of a nervous man.
A concerned face leaned over from one side, and it took a moment to realize that the face was that of the other witch, Tara.
An angry Xander soon replaced that face. His normally unruly hair even more tangled in the early hours of the morning. He reached out and rapped Hunter on the side of the head with his knuckles, doing little to improve the headache that was growing. "Hey… HEY… Come on, snap out of it!"
"Xander, that’s enough," came a stern voice from out of his line of sight.
"Enough of what Will?” Xander asked as he turned his head to look somewhere else in the room. “We need some answers, and he has them!" Xander returned his attention to Hunter, but he stopped himself from hitting out again by the fact that Hunter was now turning his piercing blue eyes to focus on Xander. Hunter let just a little threat seep into his eyes, saying ‘If that hand hits me again, it won’t be going back to you intact!’ Xander got the message and backed off slightly.
Hunter leaned up on his good arm, sending fresh jolts of pain arching through his body. But he rode the pain out by reaching inside himself for his centre of calm and power. He focused it on his injuries and had the power of life flow through them.
The broken bones in his arm and leg began to heal at an accelerated rate, and the tissues around them regenerated. Bruises shrank and lost most of their colour, and most of the pain eased away.
Xander backed away even further, surprise vying with an edge of fear on his face. “Did anyone else see that?” he asked.
“Indeed,” said Giles as he turned his attention from the outside to the events transpiring in the room.
Hunter paid them little attention as he continued to pour energy into his wounds, focusing more on fusing the bones together. It would take at least four hours to completely heal, but the sooner he got started the better.
“Nothing I have ever seen heals that fast,” murmured Giles.
“I’ve seen something like that before,” broke in Spike.
“Really? Where?” asked Giles curiously, suddenly going all academic.
“Don’t remember,” replied Spike.
“Well gee Spike, that’s useful,” retorted Xander.
“Hey,” he said in a raised voice, “You live a couple a hundred years and we can see how good you are at remembering stuff!”
Sitting up fully, Hunter’s gaze drifted across the room. His cloak was lying across a nearby chair, and most of his equipment was laying around it on the seat and the floor.
Spike, hanging around in the areas where the light from the partially open curtains would not fall on him was holding Hunter’s own Long Sword, still in its flame-decorated scabbard.
That left him with just his normal clothes. He really was dressed like an old fashioned knight with a black tunic that conformed closely to his upper body, showing his defined but not too large muscles. Below his waist, where his equipment belt normally rode, the tunic flared out into a short pleated skirt shape ending about mid thigh. Actual black tights, and riding style calf high black leather boots completed the outfit. He would not have looked out of place in medieval Europe, but he looked very out of place anywhere in the modern world.
Combining his outfit with his looks, he looked distinctly feminine. A problem that he rarely had when his cloak shrouded him, sporting swords and knives.
"Giles…. the spell’s ready…" Hunter turned to look over at Willow, who was sat crossed legged a short way away. An arrangement of herbs and potions was arrayed about her.
Sniffing the air, he picked out the smells of several different mixtures, which his training told him were the main constituents in a powerful magical truth potion.
Willow waved her hands and a globe of vivid purple liquid floated into the air. Hunter made a guess at what was coming and mentally reached out to stop the ball flying towards him.
But as he took attention away from healing his injuries, the pain rocketed back into his mind and made him loose his concentration for the briefest of moments.
The briefest of moments was all Willow needed as the potion ball floated across the room and hit Hunter square on his chest. The liquid soaked through his tunic and touched his skin underneath, quickly entering through his pores and moving into his blood.
"We have some questions to ask you." Hunter turned and looked over at Giles as Xander took his place by the window. He also took the axe from him. Giles came and crouched down at Hunter’s feet. "First off…. Who are you?"
Hunter tried to bring himself under control, but the potion was already spread throughout his system. He had a choice, he could either work on removing the potions effects, or he could continue healing his broken arm, but not both at the same time. At least not effectively.
Before he could decide the potion had forced the answer from him, and he felt his mind begin to slip away. "My name is Matthew Hunter.”
Giles looked over at Willow and received a confirmatory nod in return. Happy that the spell was working, he continued the questioning. But before he could, a new voice drew the attention of all those in the room.
"Why did you save Dawn?" asked Anya from a wheelchair sitting next to Dawn over by the doorway to the room.
"She is my mission. I am here to protect Dawn Summers," he replied. He tried to focus more of his energy on fighting the potion, but his powers were incompatible with the magic.
Giles rose from his crouch and moved over to Dawn, and placed one hand protectively on her shoulder. Despite the abduction attempt she had just been through, there had not been a scratch on her.
"I need a better answers than that," he said. Pointing at Hunter, he continued. "Why are you here? I want the full story!"
"I have been sent to protect Dawn," Hunter replied monotone. He could not help but answer the question, but he could still choose how far to answer it.
"You’re a little late,” replied Giles sarcastically. “We could have done with your help when… when…." He broke off as a tear ran down his cheek. He placed his hand against it in mild surprise.
"I was not sent to help you against Glory. For that I am sorry," Hunter said softly. He could already feel the potion wearing off under his mental assault on its hold over him.
Giles tilted his head to one side. "Sorry? Sorry? You’re sorry what? That you are alive while Buffy is…. is…." He moved further into the room and stood in front of Hunter, staring down at him. The frustration and anger he was feeling was evident to all in the room. Spike stood and watched with feigned disinterest. Xander had found the view outside the window suddenly very fascination. Willow and Tara were looking uncomfortably at each other. Anya was just staring at Giles, openly distressed. "Why are you here?" asked Giles after a short pause that had seemed to stretch out to infinity.
"I have been sent to protect Dawn…" he replied again.
"FROM WHAT?" yelled Giles.
The others all looked at him, startled by his behaviour. Giles had always been the level headed one. He very rarely lost his temper. In fact, the only times he had lost his temper was when some spirit or demon was affecting his mind. Well, that and when he had a go at Buffy for keeping Angel’s return from hell from him. But then again, events were similar to what had recently occurred. Then he had just lost Jenny Calendar to Angelus. Now he had lost Buffy.
"I don’t know," replied Hunter bluntly.
Giles looked over at Willow, who closed her eyes for a moment before nodding. "He’s telling the truth," she said.
Giles moved up and again placed a hand lightly on Dawns shoulder then squeezed it. Tears were visible unshed in his eyes and he stared down at Dawn like she was the most important thing in the world. Nodding once he looked down at Hunter and steeled his gaze. "What are you?"
"I am a Knight," he replied, the potion-induced truths still containing a hint of his pride at that fact.
"A knight of what?" Giles asked puzzled.
"A Knight of Justice."
Giles frowned at the mention of the title. Xander picked up on the pause and broke the moment’s silence. "What. Giles? What is a Knight of Justice?"
"They are more commonly known as Knight’s of the Round Table,” broke in Spike. Then he clicked his finger and pointed at Hunter. “Now I remember where I saw that healing trick. During world war one, some old guy used to wander the battlefields healing the wounded. He like, placed his hands on them and they healed.”
Giles shook his head. “King Arthur is just a legend," he said, “his knights never really existed.”
"King Arthur was no legend. He and Merlin founded our order," replied Hunter. He suddenly clamped down on his words as he realised that he had volunteered that information freely. Merlin would understand the fact he could not fight off a truth potion immediately, but volunteering information?
Tara and Willow exchanged looks of awe before Willow posed the question that must have been on everyone’s mind. "Merlin? Not THE MERLIN?"
"Yes," he replied.
"Wow, we would so love to have been able meet him…!" she said enthusiastically. She quickly clamped down on it and made a stern face. “Right… no being happy round the question guy.”
"It can be arranged," replied Hunter, unable to keep the slightest trickle of a smile from his face. Indeed, under normal circumstances, Merlin loved to talk to other practitioners of the arts.
"What? Merlin is dead…. Isn’t he?” asked Willow hesitantly. “I mean, no one could still be…. How do you know him?"
"He was the one who trained me."
Giles interrupted Willow. "Merlin trained you. What for?"
"He is the servant of the Powers that Be. He trains knights to do their bidding in this world and others."
"At the orders of the Powers?" asked Giles.
"Most of the assignments we receive are from them, yes."
"Is Dawn one of those assignments?" asked Xander.
"I don’t believe so,” replied Hunter. He could feel the last effects of the potion fading from his system now. But the damage was done. He might as well answer their questions his way. He could always remove the memories from their minds later. “All I know is that her life is in danger, and so here I am."
“Can we trust him?” asked Anya from over by the doorway.
Tara and Willow exchanged a look, before replying. “Yes,” they said in unison.
Willow elaborated, “The potion is still working, and he can’t lie to us.”
Giles turned to look at Willow, studying the look on the young woman’s face. If that was true it raised several more questions.
Hunter suddenly broke the magic surrounding the potion down and swept it from his system in a blaze of power. It was then that he realised that he felt a tickle at the back of his mind. It was a sure-fire signal that someone was attempting a telepathic link. The only person who would be trying that would be Merlin. Hunter grimaced inwardly. Somehow, the old wizard knew what had transpired.
"I have to go!" Hunter rose to his knees, and suddenly Giles, Xander and Spike all had weapons pointed at him. "Those won’t stop me," he said calmly, but he still froze in position. Just in case.
Spike stepped forwards and threw the scabbard off the sword. "No? Well we shall just have to try!" He hefted the blade and pointed it towards Hunter.
Suddenly, the sword began to shake slightly in his hand, and the white stone embedded in the hilt began to glow softly.
Spike attempted to drop the blade in surprise, but as he let go, the blade stayed hovering in the air. Then it spun round so the handle was facing Hunter, and the point was directed at Spike, who’s only response was "What the hell?"
Hunter reached up and took a hold of his blade with amazing speed and back flipped to the doorway. "You can either trust me, as the truth potion should have told you, or we can settle this here and now. My mission only requires that Dawn survive," he threatened to Xander who had exchanged the axe for a crossbow.
Giles stepped in the way and placed his hand on the sword and pushed it slowly to the ground. "We trust him."
Xander and Spike both moved forwards and said "But!" as the same time, but Giles turned his head and glared at both of them. "We trust him!" he said firmly.
He turned back to Hunter and looked deep into his eyes and saw something in them. The honest truth.
Hunter, looking back, felt his soul stir in recognition of the honour and integrity in Giles. Here was someone that cared so deeply for Dawn, that he would put his own life in danger without question.
Forcing the sensation away, he gestured at his equipment and it floated across the room towards him.

Plucking pieces from he air, he strapped on his equipment belt first, before having all the contents of the pouches fly into their usual homes.
He kept a careful eye on Xander and Spike as he sorted out his gear. Spike had gotten a dagger from somewhere and his knuckles were going white where he gripped the hilt too tightly. But they both remained peaceful.
Attaching his cloak, he pulled up his hood. Once his face was hidden from their eyes, he looked at Dawn and smiled to her. Then, stepping backwards he threw his cloak about him and walked out the door to disappear like a shadow under the rising sun.

21

The daylight swallowed Hunter as he stalked away from the Summers’ house towards his bike. But despite the brightness of the day, his mood was darkening rapidly. His wounds still stung as he walked, and they would for a while. Accelerated healing was fine for most things, but he would not be at full fighting fitness for a few days. But even now they were useable. Just really sore.
It was bad enough that he had become needlessly entangled in the situation. But it got worse still as he had revealed significant details to the people he was supposed to be protecting. A bad violation of the knight’s code of practice.
Mounting the Suzuki Turbo GSXR1100 he turned it over, causing the finely tuned engine to roar into life. His living cloak instantly shortened to waist length, so it would avoid becoming entangled in the wheels.
Throttling up, the back tire screeched as it sought a grip on the tarmac. A whiff of acrid smoke rose into the air as he burned rubber. When the tire found a grip, the bike launched itself down the road like a bullet. Hunter began accelerating upwards, passing the speed limit and knowing that his warrior’s reactions would allow him to avoid any obstacle.
The feeling at the back of his mind grew more insistent. Demanding his attention. Within a minute, he had left the suburbs behind himself, and was racing down the main street, weaving in and out of the rest of the traffic.
It took him barely five minutes to cross the town and arrive at the abandoned office he was using as a temporary home. Depositing his bike in the small area that used to hold the building’s rubbish, he re-established the spell that he had cast to keep the doors locked, and un-openable by anyone but him. Then, using a drainpipe, he scaled the wall and used a hole in the roof that used to house a skylight to enter the upper floor, before descending to the room he was using to sleep in.
Kneeling down facing an internal wall, he sent out his thoughts to latch on to those that were pressing at the back of his mind.
"What is thy bidding my master?"
The image of Merlin shimmered in to the air as Hunter raised his head. He looked deep in to the wise but tired eyes and saw that they held genuine anger and disappointment.
"You have disobeyed me," said Merlin flatly.
Hunter lowered his head. It was not a question he had been asked. "They caught me when I was injured," he tried to reason.
Hunter thought for a second that he had sensed a flash of concern from his mentor. But if faded just as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him with the impression that it had never been there. Instead, Merlin’s voice remained neutral. "Explain," he commanded.
"A shadow demon came for the girl. I engaged its vampire escort and gave chase. I sustained injuries in the ensuing fight, and fell unconscious."
"They questioned you when you came round?"
"Yes master."
"They used a potion by one of the witches?"
"Yes master."
Merlin looked thoughtfully down at his brightest student, some of the anger fading away, but still leaving the disappointment.
"You chose to heal your injuries rather than fight the truth potion? Did you seriously doubt your survival?"
"I decided that it was better to be able to defend myself and the girl,” replied Hunter. He felt a flicker of hope that this awkward situation would be over soon. “Besides, the others are always very close to her. Defending her without them noticing was always going to be difficult," he reasoned.
"Difficult but never impossible my student!" replied Merlin, a note of caution underlining his tone.
Hunter looked back up into Merlin’s eyes, and he saw then what he was expected to do.
"Must I do the procedure?" he asked hesitantly.
Merlin’s gaze hardened again. "How many times must I go through this with you? The procedure is necessary for their benefit as well as ours!"
"Why?” he asked defiantly. “They have already seen so many strange things, what are a few more?"
"True,” conceded Merlin. “But irrelevant in the scheme of things."
Hunter lowered his head and inwardly sighed. He would have to place a memory block on them so that they would never remember the events that surrounded him…. unless.
"A memory block on the witches will be difficult master. Would it not be better to perform a brotherhood vow?"
Merlin looked up and gazed over Hunter’s head, as if looking at something far away. "It is possible that they may be trustworthy enough. Unlike the last ones!"
Hunter nodded, eager to do this instead. Swearing them to secrecy was a much more appealing alternative than blocking their memories. He was however aware that the last time a brotherhood vow had been taken, it had been given to a Watcher. That watcher had then betrayed that vow by telling his fellow council members. Admittedly, the knowledge had remained inside the Watchers Council, and the members of the guild that were aware had been sworn to secrecy by the council. It was information that they had classified so secret, that most of the other members of the organisation did not know of the existence of the allies in the struggle against the forces of darkness. But that was not the point.
"I believe they can be trusted master."
Merlin looked down and his gaze seemed to penetrate to Hunter’s very soul. "Yes, I’m sure you do believe that,” replied Merlin thoughtfully. “I wonder though. Are you’re feelings on this matter clear?"
Hunter forced down a grimace. How did he do that? Normally when another presence was trying to read his mind he could feel them and stop them. But not Merlin. Merlin could always read his soul. Forcing his emotions down deeper, he wrapped them in his powers. "They are clear my master," he affirmed.
Merlin continued to stare, but finally just nodded. "Since you have been exposed to all of them. You must ensure that they understand the price of that knowledge. Continue your mission. Remember what would happen if our cause here was found out."
"Yes master."
Merlin’s image faded from view, and Hunter sagged down on to his smelly mattress. Despite only having rested a short while ago, he felt incredibly weary, and he just wanted to sleep. But there was work to do. Remember the consequences Merlin had told him. How could he forget them? It was likely that this unsanctioned mission would result in his exile from the earth to the other realms. Although all knights eventually served some time in them, he did not relish the thought of being unable to return home.
Sitting back up, he crossed his legs and focused his mind outwards and threw his thoughts out on the world.
It was time to search for the source of the attacks on Dawn.


22

Hunter sent out his conscious thoughts and latched on to a strong current and began to follow it. He marvelled at how he could sense it reacting in some way with everything it touched.
Riding the currents of the power of life was like riding the rapids of a river in your mind. The energies put out by life bounced into each other, causing the sensations of ripples and eddies. It was beautiful to feel.
Hunter found a particularly strong ripple and latched on to it. Exploring the edges he found could read the thoughts of lovers, as they were intimate with each other. Not wanting to intrude on their privacy he drifted on, secretly jealous that they had something he had yet to experience.
Love.
Another strong ripple flowed around a dark void in life. Instantly recognizing the presence of the lifeless void that was a vampire, Hunter searched the nearby area for the hint of a possible victim.
Reassured that the Vampire had no prey in its sights, he moved on again, noting the location. He would visit the area later if he had the time and remove another demon from the world.
Suddenly, a larger black void rose from the ground. In his mind, it looked like an oil slick rising straight up in the air, and slowly taking on the form of a large bat.
Hunter probed the edges of the darkness and suddenly his mind was impaled with pain. Images flashed into his thoughts. Horrible images that were the stuff of the darkest nightmares and beyond.
People undergoing horrible torture. He saw one woman that was watching a Var’tork demon eat her husband alive, one painful bite at a time.
Var’tork's were the distant cousins to Vampires. Mostly human in form, they all had grey pallid skin that was scaly in places. Their mouths were ringed with three sets of teeth, and opened into a black maw that always stank of death. They normally burrowed into fresh graves and ate the newly dead. But, back in times long gone, they used to hunt humans. Their outer row of teeth was hollow and could inject coagulants into the victim’s blood to stop a victim from bleeding to death, prolonging their agony.
Another image was of a family that had been eviscerated. Even the children were not spared.
Another image was of the Gresh_no’to demons impregnating women with their offspring. Another closely followed that image, with the same the women screaming through unimaginable pain as the young ate their way out from the inside.
Then he saw an image that he held onto. He was in a darkened room, squeezing the life from Dawn by crushing throat. Her eyes were wide with betrayal, and the bat shadow was standing over Hunter’s shoulder urging him on.
Hunter pulled away from the images, his mind reeling. His mind floundered for some form of normal contact, and he almost lost touch with his body in the flight from the images of the nightmares.
Hunter fell from his sitting position and lay face down on the floor, letting the tears flow. He had not cried for years. But he did now. All of his fears from the past twelve years, ever since he had started his training with Merlin, poured out of him in an uncontrolled rush.
He knew without a doubt that it was the future he saw. His future.
He had seen such an image before. When he was younger, he had been meditating in a woodland clearing. He had seen the same image then, but had not understood its significance. When he had asked Merlin about it, the reply had been that it was one of a possible number of futures. It may never come true. If it did, Hunter would understand the significance of it with time before the event.
Now he knew.
He knew that he held Dawn’s life in his hands, and that if she died, the world would sink into a chaos it might never recover from.

**********

It was three hours till Hunter moved from where he was lying on the floor. He had become uncomfortable after the first ten minutes, and the pain of lying on the uneven floor had set in after thirty.
But he had relished in the pain to anchor him to the world. His life was lived so far outside of anything that would be considered ‘normal’ that any contact with reality was welcome. Even pain.
Rising from his prone position, he stretched out his muscles to return the feeling to them. He could have reached out to use his powers, but the nightmare images still were fresh in his mind. He did not yet dare to try in case the images returned.
Shaking down his cloak, the dust billowed around him. He had a better idea now what was after Dawn. He had sensed that it was evil to the core. But that it was not an ancient evil. This was something newer. But powerful. More importantly, the presence he had sensed had power.
He looked over at the cracked mirror that was one of the few articles left in the office after it had closed, and stared at his reflection.
With the exception of his head, he was enshrouded in his living cloak. He looked like a shadowy nightmare from the neck down. The only thing that made him seem human was his face.
He had young features. High cheekbones just noticeable and giving his face a distinct proportion. A high forehead mostly covered by his dark chestnut coloured hair in a style that was similar to that sported by the Beatles in the sixties. In fact, his hair was so dark that it was nearing black.
What set him apart from the darkness that surrounded him was the paleness of his skin, and its apparent delicate looking complexion. Plus his eyes.
They were three shades of blue. The darkest made a ring around the edges of the iris, with the other two making up a mottled pattern moving towards the pupil. What made them stand out more though was the fact that, if you got close enough to see them, his eyes contained flecks of yellow gold.
He turned away from the mirror. It was drawing his attention away from what he must do.
He was a knight. It was his job to protect people from evil.
Turning back for one last look at his image, he focused on his eyes. The image of himself strangling Dawn rose up again and made his chest tight. He swore then and there that he would die to protect Dawn. He would die before he would harm an innocent. He would never give in to the darkness that he had buried deep in his soul.
For indeed he did have darkness. No one knew the extent of the torment he had suffered when he had lost his parents. He had wrapped up all the dark emotions that he had about their deaths and buried them so deeply that even Merlin, for all his power and wisdom did not know they existed.



23

It was the dead of night as Morgan slammed the door to her temporary office closed behind her. The glass window hidden behind the closed blind rattled in its frame with the force. Her anger was tangible as she stalked around the tatty desk, slamming her briefcase down on the worn surface.
How could they? They had risked everything to try to carry favour with their master. Instead of succeeding, they could have jeopardised everything.
What made it worse is that she would have to be the one to pass on what had happened. Not them. They were luck they had died in their attack. If they hadn’t, they would surely have had to pay the price for their failure.
But, as Morgan pondered reporting to her master, a cold lump of fear settled in her stomach. What of he held her responsible for not keeping them in control?
That made the cold lump freeze and her face blanche.
There was only one way to find out.
Moving back round the desk she dropped to her knees and reached out for the familiar presence of her master.
“Hear me master,” she said to the empty air. Except that it was not empty for long. Her master had responded faster than ever before.
“Master,” she began. But she was interrupted by the cold voice that came from the shadow.
“Explain the death of the shadow being!” he demanded.
Morgan lowered her head towards the ground even more than it already was. She was desperate not to look at the visage before her as her gut temperature dropped to absolute zero.
“He tried to capture the key to carry favour with you my lord,” she explained.
“You did not try to stop him?” asked the cold voice in return.
“I did not know….” She began to reason.
“Why?” cut in the voice, anger at the edges.
“I was trying to minimise my presence so the knight would not know of my involvement,” she said in desperation.
“Did it work?” he asked.
Morgan felt the first fluttering of hope as she raised her head slightly. “Yes master.”
“Then you did as well as you could.”
Morgan barely dared to hope that he actually meant it, but as a second ticked by and he did not rescind the statement, her spirit rose.
“But you have still failed me,” he warned, and Morgan’s hopes went on a roller-coaster ride as they sank again. “The shadow’s accomplices died with him?”
“They were slain by the knight master,” she replied in a deadpan tone.
“Do not think I have let you off lightly here Morgan,” the voice warned. “You are not so essential to my plans that I could not punish you or have you replaced.”
Morgan swallowed hard. The fear expanding again. She was powerful in her own right, but nothing compared to the power of her master. She had been a powerful witch when he had discovered her. But her magicks had proven futile against his powers. They were like nothing she had ever experienced. He had forced her into submission, where she had willingly stayed while she had learnt from him.
She had been plotting to remove him eventually. Studying the techniques he had shown while increasing her knowledge of black magick. She was more powerful than he suspected. But still most of that power was in magick and not in the forces of life.
But she had a secret weapon she had been developing. A spell that would bind the powers of life from interacting with a knight. It would leave them powerless. Better yet, there was no defence. It could be reversed, but it would take a powerful counter enchantment to do.
The spell was nearly perfected. At the moment it needed ten or so minutes to perform. A fatally long time in battle. So she was working on reducing it. Then she would be able to usurp her master’s position and use the key for her own ends.
“What are you thinking Morgan?” asked the voice, an edge of warning hidden under the tone.
“I was considering our next move master,” she lied. Well, it was partly true. She needed the key as much as he did.
“Do not mock me,” he roared, then his voice dropped into a bare whisper that chilled her to her very bones. “Remember the last time you did?”
Morgan shivered as the temperature in the room dropped and she felt the icy fingers of her master’s power edge into her mind.
Indeed she did remember. The pain had been agonising. She had never known her body could hurt so much.
“Do not think that, just because you share my bed now, I will not punish you,” he warned.
The icy fingers in her mind contracted and Morgan felt the first twinges of the pain that he was capable of inflicting upon her.
She wanted to scream. Wanted to hurt him back. But she knew that, at the moment, she would only prove insignificant to him. For now.
“Remember how I reward loyalty and success as well,” he said. As suddenly as the fingers of ice had entered her mind, they changed into something else. A caress of her mind and body that made her shiver, not from the cold that emanated from the shimmering air before her, but from the pleasure he inflicted upon her.
He had done this after she had entered his bed for the first time. The pleasure she had felt had been a small touch of heaven. Ironic really. Such pleasure coming from one so dark as he. It rose to such a level that she could not help a whimper escape the back of her throat.
It also made her contemplate not killing him when she took his place. Indeed, she might keep him around, powerless as her plaything. It would be a dangerous thing to do. One moment of letting her guard down and he would kill her. But then, the greatest of pleasures is often inextricably linked with pain.
“Continue as we originally planed,” he said as the feelings of joy left her body feeling weak. “The knight does not know of your involvement.”
“Yes master,” she breathed out still trying to get a grip on her body as it came down from the unnatural high he had given her.
The air before her collapsed in on itself and the image of her master dissolved.
Morgan let out a heavy breath and sank to the ground. The combination of the pain he had caused her mind, and the pleasure he had caused her body making her just want to lie there till she recovered.
But she had work to do. So she rolled over and stood and ran her hands down the skirt suit she wore to remove the wrinkles. Then, picking up the briefcase, she stalked out the office into the night.

24

Angel opened the door to the Hyperion hotel laughing and smiling with his friends, and their new acquaintance Fred.
They had successfully escaped from a parallel dimension, called Phylea, ruled by Monks related to Wolfram and Heart, having foiled a plot to kill all the Humans that had inhabited the realm. All in a weeks work.
Angel had even conquered his pure demon self and gazed upon his true human reflection. The highlight of the adventure had been returning home with everyone. Even though home was where he could not walk in the sunlight as he had in the other realm. It was good to be back and out of danger. For a while.
But his smile faded as he saw Willow sitting on the corner of the red sofa. As he faltered, taken aback be her presence, he felt instantly that something was wrong. That feeling only grew as she looked sadly up at him.
"Willow?" inquired Angel, some of the surprise in him coming through in his voice.
"What?" Cordelia looked down from the entryway at her old acquaintance and noticed the haggard look on her face.
"It’s Buffy,” said Angel.
Wesley stared hard at Angel, wondering what he meant, but as he too gazed into Willows eyes, he knew the truth.
Buffy had died.
"When?" he asked breathlessly.
"A few days ago…. Angel…we… tried to call you, but…."
Her words trailed off as they sank into his soul. Had they called him for help? Could he have prevented her death if he had been given time?
"I….” He paused and closed his eyes against the pain in his chest. “We’ve been out of town."
He went to move further into the lobby, but his legs just seemed to give way underneath him. He sank to the steps, tears beginning to roll down his face.
His one true love was dead.
"How?" It was the only question he could even think of.
Wesley placed his arm on Angel’s shoulder and squeezed tightly. "Are you sure you need to hear this…?"
Angel shrugged off Wesley’s hand and interrupted him, glowering at Willow. "Tell me!"
Willow wrung her hands together in anxiety. Breathing in deeply, she let out the breath and a tear slid down her cheek. Explaining it to someone else when she could barely accept it herself was not easy. Each word driving home the truth like a hammer in her heart. "It all started with Dawn. I don’t know if Buffy told you or not, but she wasn’t…. well…. human."
Cordelia sat next to Angel and put her arm round his shoulders and leant her head on his. "What do you mean not human? Of course she’s not human…. she’s a teenager!"
Willow frowned at Cordelia, too tired to snip at the other woman as she continued. "She was made by a group of monks from an energy form called ‘The Key’."
"The Key?" inquired Wesley. "The Watchers council sent a pack of information about some key just before…." He trailed off as Willow frowned at him.
Wesley decided that, at this point, discretion was the better part of valour. So he moved over to the desk, and began to leaf through the stack of books he had left on the side. Finding the one he was after he began to scan through the pages.
Willow watched him for a moment. Did this not affect him at all, she thought. Anger leaked into her as he continued to read. Her mind, always having logic to it somewhere, reasoned that he was a watcher. He knew that slayers lived on borrowed time. Was Buffy just another slayer to him? Her gaze was drawn back to Angel as tears slid down his cheeks. Willow noticed a strange woman she had never met before looking to the man, Gunn she recalled his name, for some kind of explanation of Wesley. Gunn just shrugged and looked down on Angel. No help there.
"So she’s been this…key for a while and we never knew?" Angel asked, his voice thick with emotion.
Willow shook her head. “No. She err, was made by the monks a little over seven months ago."
"Seven months? But that can’t be. Buffy was complaining about Dawn when we were all at Sunnydale High together!" said Cordelia as she had a death grip round Angel’s hand.
Willow shook her head again. "No it was all the monks. They made Dawn and gave her a life so she would be harder to find."
"Oh my god…" Cordelia looked hard at Willow in disbelief.
Angel looked up, tears streaming down his face. "Harder to find? Who was looking?"
Willow looked down at her feet. This was the second part she had been dreading telling Angel. But he picked up on it. "Tell me Willow. I need to know what happened. All of it!"
"A hell god," she all but whispered
"A what? Did you say a hell GOD?"
Willow nodded, not daring to look back to his eyes for fear of seeing them full of the sort of pain she had seen in the others over the past week.
"Why didn’t she tell me? I could have helped her!"
Willow looked up. "She didn’t want to drag you into it."
"Drag me into it?" Angel looked incredulously across the lobby at Willow. He rested his head in his hands and shook it slowly, muttering, "How could she?"
Cordelia hugged Angel closer, her own tears falling silently onto his shirt, while Gunn looked on uncomfortably. The other woman was looking on more uncomfortable still.
Wesley looked up from his books, his face pale but unblemished by tears. "So it was an actual god?" he asked.
Willow nodded, angry with him for not seeming to care for Buffy. Wesley swallowed loudly.
By the look from Angel, Willow decided that he should hear the truth. All of it. Hiding anything would only hurt him later. So, with another deep breath, she continued the tale.
"She called herself Glory. She was after Dawn to open up the portals between dimensions so she could return to her own."
Wesley looked up from his reading again. "But, according to this. That would mean that the other dimensions would spill out into ours!"
"We know that!” she snapped. Closing her eyes, she took another deep breath and wished that someone had come to do this instead of her. Or that she had some company. The trip from Sunnydale to L.A. had seemed to last an eternity. The people around her unaware of her agony, continuing their daily lives as if the world had not nearly ended.
Breathing deeply again, she continued. “That’s why we went to stop her."
Angel glowered at Willow. "You went to take on a god? Do you know how stupid that is?" Anger speared from him. He was frustrated, emotional, and desperate.
"We had to Angel,” her tone all but pleading him not to make this any harder than it already was. “Glory had gotten a hold of Dawn. She would have died and the world would have ended."
Angel pondered that a moment and he felt that the world had ended. Though he had not seen Buffy for a long while, he still had very deep feelings for her. Even while they were apart, he had the hope that they could one day be together. He was destined to become human if he could avert the coming apocalypse. What was the point in becoming human when he had no one to share that life with?
He closed his eyes and squeezed Cordelia’s hand. He could feel the wet patches on his shirt where her tears had fallen. Cordy, always seemingly so above emotion, never ceased to surprise him with the true depths of her feelings. "When is the funeral?" he asked
Willow gulped and wrung her hands again. "We already held it."
Angel surged to his feet causing Cordelia to flounder for balance for a moment. "You held the funeral without me?" he raged. Anger had bled into his voice along with all the frustration he felt. "Gunn?"
Gunn almost jumped after standing so still, listening in on the conversation about the slayer who he only knew from conversations and information gleaned from Cordelia and Wesley "Yeah man?"
"Take care of getting my car out of the bar would you. I’ve got to go to Sunnydale!"
"Err…. Sure!"
Fred looked between Angel and Willow, not really comprehending what was happening. "Angel? What’s going on?"
Angel shook his head. "I wish I knew Fred. The others will take care of you while I’m gone."
Cordelia stood and placed herself in Angle’s way. "Like hell I will…. No offence Fred?” the other woman shook her head meekly. “I’m coming with you!"
Angel glared at Cordelia, but said nothing. She had known Buffy as well. It was only fair that she got to say goodbye too.
Wesley moved out from round the desk and approached Angel. "I should come too."
Angel looked over at him and nodded.
Willow was tempted to glare at Wesley. How could he seem so…. aloof from the events. But, a glare was not that effective through tear-blurred eyes.
"Gunn? I need to borrow your wheels," said Angel as he headed towards his room.
"Hey sure… you know anything to help out,” Gunn called out after him.

**********

Angel stood looking down at the earth and the headstone that marked Buffy’s grave. Since he had regained his soul, he had felt many emotions and feelings.
Regret was usually foremost, and was why he had worked so hard to repent his sins. Anger was always present. It had been part of his nature for so long, it was hard to let it go.
But now he was feeling hurt. It was like someone had taken away his soul and placed a black hole in his heart instead.
He had driven to Sunnydale at record speed, and gone straight Buffy’s grave. It was now late night, and Cordelia had gone with Wesley and Willow to Buffy’s house, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
"What were you thinking?" he asked the grave.
"She was thinking of her sister."
Angel spun round to see a cloaked figure walking slowly down the grass towards him.
He was on his guard, but he had his suspicion this was the person he had been told about. The one who was here to help. "Willow told me about you."
Hunter bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. "I have heard much about you too Angel."
"How did you know?"
Hunter lowered his hood and cocked his head "Your name or…" gesturing at Buffy’s grave, "or what she was thinking?"
Angel glanced down at the grave, "Both."
Hunter smiled sadly. "There is only one vampire with a soul. I can feel it in you. It is like a trickle of life in your otherwise dead body. Small but so bright it’s almost blinding."
Hunter moved closer so Angel could see into his eyes, two orbs reflecting the moonlight in the shadow cast by his hood. "As to what she was thinking, there is no trick to it. This entire area is filled with her essence like a perfume."
Angel looked up and glanced around, as if hoping to smell her on the wind.
He could smell nothing. Could get no sense of her. He closed his eyes against the pain he felt and concentrated on his job. Making the world a better place. This time, that meant asking this cloaked figure questions and getting answers.
But what to ask he thought. Why not keep it simple was the obvious answer. "Why are you here Hunter?"
"I’m sure Willow told you."
"I want to hear it for myself."
Hunter nodded sagely. "Glory was not the only one looking for Dawn. She was just the one to find her first. Now they know that Dawn is the key, and they want her for her own ends."
"And you’re here to stop it?" he asked, a trace of sarcasm leaking into his voice.
"It is a mission I have been tasked with yes," replied Hunter coolly.
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
"I have to answer to someone. If they decide Dawn no longer warrants protection, then they will order me to another assignment."
"You sound like Riley," said Angel. Though his contact with Buffy’s former flame was, to say the least, minimal, he had heard a fair amount about the ‘soldier boy’. He had quite a few contacts in Sunnydale and LA that told him these things. Much of which he really did not want to know, but needed to know just the same.
Hunter frowned in puzzlement for a moment till he recalled hearing the rumours of a government organization dedicated to investigating supernatural phenomenon and demon life. A soldier named Riley Finn had been one of their most prominent field operatives.
"Why do you do it?" asked Angel.
"Do what Angel?"
"Fight."
Angel heard Hunter sigh ever so slightly. "I could ask you the same question. My parents were Knights in the order when they killed while on assignment. Merlin brought me up and trained me in their absence."
"So you right for revenge?"
"Nothing so dark. I fight so no other young child will have to go through what I did."
Angel nodded and looked back down at the grave. "She wasn’t supposed to die you know.”
Hunter frowned and moved up besides him to look down at the grave. He could sense that life had started to return to normal in the disturbed soil that marked the grave. A few seeds had been dropped by birds and lay just under the surface. Their shoots just beginning to sprout. Life went on. Angel seemed to want to go into denial. Hunter searched inwardly for logic. He did not notice any other signs of denial about Angel. But Angel’s statement sounded so certain. One way to find out he thought.
The night breeze stirred his cape and cooled his skin. "What do you mean?" he asked.
Angel looked sideways at the black clad warrior and felt an instant need to share the burden of his pain and confusion. Even though it was with a complete stranger. "I made a deal with the Powers That Be."
"Ah! Not always a wise move I think."
Angel nodded and his mind filed away Hunter’s apparent knowledge of the Powers.
"Last year, I took out a Molok demon. Its blood mingled with mine and restored me to life."
"The demons healing ability?" asked Hunter.
Angel nodded. "It gave me a heartbeat and a chance to be with Buffy."
Hunter nodded, seeing where this was leading. "But it also removed your ‘special abilities’?"
Angel nodded. "When the demon had healed itself, I went to try to kill it, and it almost killed me and Buffy.” Angel paused while he swallowed the lump in his throat. “It was then I found out that Buffy would die soon."
"And being human, you could do nothing to help….” said Hunter. “So you went to the Powers and asked to be turned back?" Hunter stared hard into Angel’s eyes as his appreciation of the vampire grew.
"They took my life in exchange for hers. Now they’ve sold me short!" he said, anger flaring like a fire in the night of his despair.
"Have they?" asked Hunter
Angel faced off against him. "Of course they have. Buffy is dead. She should be alive. Its why I am like I am!"
Hunter stepped backwards and lowered his head. "That is what you feel now, but events are in motion," he said conspiratorially
Angel pulled up short at that. "What?"
Hunter looked back up into his eyes. "If I tell you, it could change what is destined to happen,” he said with an apologetic tone. He then squared back his shoulders. “That I can not allow,” he said with conviction.
Angel growled deep in his throat. "You will tell me or we find out how good you really are,” he threatened.
Hunter looked to the heavens for a moment, closed his eyes and sighed. "Buffy is not really dead. She will return. It may take time, but she will be back!"
"How?" demanded Angel.
"I’m not sure yet. The future is clouded and still in motion. I can see she will be back, but not when or how."
Angel turned and looked down at the grave, then back up and scanned the cemetery, like he was looking for Buffy to just appear from thin air.
"You can not tell anyone Angel!" Hunter looked deeper into his eyes. "I mean it! The future works best when we are unaware of it…. trust me!"
Angel met Hunter’s gaze and knew he was telling the truth. From what Willow had told him on the trip here, Hunter had risked his life for Dawn already. They knew he had told them the truth so far. Even if that truth had been forced out with a spell. Could it really be that the future Hunter had seen was now in jeopardy all to make him feel better?
Hunter nodded once again and spun on his heel, walking away into the night, with Angel looking after him.
Looking back down at the grave, Angel felt hope once again. He was immortal, and so could wait forever for Buffy to return. The question is what would he do if he had to tell her that he had left Dawn unprotected in that time.
"Hey… Hunter! Wait for me!"

25

Hunter strode through the door to the Summers’ house with Angel in tow and into a scene of chaos. His first clue to there being something wrong was the presence of three police car, two unmarked sedans and a van in front of the house.
Inside the living room, chaos reigned. Giles was being pinned down by two police officers as a woman in a suit read aloud from some official looking papers. They were taking Dawn into protective custody.
Xander was likewise being restrained by two police officers, while Willow and Tara were standing in a corner out of the way behind another police officer who had her hand resting menacingly on her gun.
Spike was off to the side being restrained by four of the largest officers, and Hunter could sense that the vampire was only a fraction away from loosing control. He might not be able to hurt humans, but he would scare them half to death and they might shoot him.
"No, I won’t let you take her!" yelled Giles from amid the tangle of arms and legs he now found himself in. "Angel, Hunter…. STOP THEM!"
Angel placed himself in the doorway and stared down the police officer standing next to the four social workers. Anger flared in the vampire and Hunter could feel the hidden darkness that Angel lived with day after day rear its head. Afraid of what might happen if Angel lost control, Hunter sent out a tendril of power that doused the growing anger. Just in time. Hunter swore that he had seen a yellow glow rising in Angel’s eyes.
The woman reading from the paperwork faltered as she looked up. Hunter caught her gaze as it flicked between himself and Angel and he felt a sense of dread. It was intangible, but he had learnt to trust his feelings. Hunter placed himself in the middle of the room in front of the social worker and stared hard into her features.
She seemed momentarily taken aback, and Hunter wondered if it was because of his attire, or some other hidden reason.
"Back off buddy! The police are here for a reason,” she said with a flash of anger in her voice.
Hunter lowered his hood so their eyes could meet, and the woman took a step backwards. "We have the full weight of the law behind these notices,” she warned. “I am warning you all now that if you refuse to let us take Dawn peacefully, all visiting rights will be revoked!"
Another two social workers wheeled a still catatonic Dawn towards the front door. Angel looked down into her eyes, and was reminded of Buffy’s own. He looked up imploringly at the others in the room, but he knew that they were beaten.
The only way to stop them taking Dawn was to fight them. Even with Angel and Hunter there, the chances of an officer getting to their weapon were too great. A bullet might not kill Spike or Angel, but it could easily be fatal to anyone else in the room. If they intervened, then the police would also want them.
Hunter scanned his eyes over the papers, turned and looked at Angel and nodded sadly. "The papers are in order…. Angel, let them pass."
"NO" screamed Giles and Willow simultaneously as a forlorn Angel stepped aside.
Suddenly Xander exploded into action. Ducking out the grasp of one officer, he swung both fists into his gut, bending him over and knocking him into the other. Darting across the room, one of the social workers in a non-descript tan suit stepped into the way and tackled him to the ground.
The two officers he had escaped were on him in an instant, one placing a leg across the back of his neck while the other grabbed hold of his futilely struggling arms and locked them behind his back in handcuffs.
Hunter turned side on to the female social worker in charge, the one he recognized from watching the day after the funeral, so as to appear less menacing. "I want to go with her," he said softly.
She looked up at him and scowled. "You and your friends are in no position to make demands!” she barked. “Now get out of my way before I have you all arrested for obstruction!"
Hunter backed down, keeping his eyes on her as she went to follow Dawn out of the room.
One of the officers that was atop Xander spoke up. “What do you want us to do with this one?”
Morgan stopped in mid stride and turned to look down at Xander. Frowning she said, “I don’t care. If you want to charge him with assaulting a police officer, then that is up to you.”
Hunter watched intently as Morgan walked from the room. Behind him, the two police officers looked at each other. That one look indicated that they understood the situation, no one was really hurt, and that the paperwork would only stop them from doing their jobs. Besides, in a town like Sunnydale, a cop was having a good day if getting hit by a young man was the worst thing that happened.
The cop who had been hit sighed. “Let him go.” Looking down sternly at Xander the cop put on his best menacing face. “If I ever hear of you in trouble again….” The warning was left unfinished. But Xander got the message. He cast his eyes to the floor and looked meek. Of course, anyone who was familiar with Xander, or like Hunter could sense thoughts and feeling, knew that it was an act. When you had faced down the denizens of hell, what was a cop?
The cops released Xander and Giles last. Willow took hold of Xander as he sat up on the floor. Tears streaked down her cheeks.
Spike and Angel moved to restrain Giles, but he didn’t move. He just stared angrily at Hunter. "You’re supposed to be here to protect her! HOW COULD YOU LET THEM GO?" he bellowed.
Hunter turned to face him and pulled up his hood. “A fight here and now would have been dangerous for you AND Dawn”,” he replied softly, but stressing the ‘and’. “I will follow them and make sure she remains safe. I will also contact some people I know about setting her free,” he continued. Then, without another word, Hunter turned and headed for the door, fading from view as he walked.

**********

Dawn was partially aware of the events going on. But they no longer concerned her. She was engulfed by the blackness in her mind. She was vaguely aware of some men talking as they jostled her about and into the back of a van.
"Why are you like this Dawn?" whispered Buffy’s voice. "Live, for me!"
Dawn whispered her reply. "Why live for you when you aren’t here?"
The spectral Buffy rounded the open van doorway, but remained standing outside the as the double doors were closed.

**********

As Morgan sat in the passenger seat of the van, she turned round in her seat to see that the girl was safely ensconced in the wheelchair harness.
Satisfied, she turned back to face the front, and, as the van pulled away from the Summers’ house, she breathed a heavy sigh.
She had come face to face with the knight that was protecting Dawn. For one dreadful moment, she had feared that the mental shroud she had drawn about her powers would not be enough to stop him from sensing her, and the knight would attack her.
But, her shroud had held. She had gotten the key for her master.

**********

Hunter mounted his bike and it too faded from view as he shrouded it as well. Turning the ignition, he accelerated off after the van, weaving through the police cars as they dispersed to the night and other duties.
He had a terrible feeling that something important had happened, but he did not know what yet.
The van pulled up outside a building next to the Sunnydale Memorial Hospital. The building looked old. Before coming to Sunnydale, Hunter had done a fair amount of reading about the town. This building used to be a hospital for the terminally ill. A brick facade and Monticello windows and doors gave it a regal air. But he could feel the despair that had permeated the walls from the patients that had died there. He also knew from his readings, that after a recent rise in the number of mental health cases, the hospital had re-opened the old building and refurbished it, converting it to a psychiatric unit.
The social workers unloaded Dawn and took her inside, with Hunter following still shrouded by his powers and invisible to them.
He watched in silence as the desk clerk booked Dawn in and filed out the residency paperwork with the social worker.
"What’s wrong with her?" the man behind the desk asked.
The social worker turned and stared at Dawn as she parked by one of the men in the tan suits. "Who knows,” replied Morgan. ”But the docs here will cure her."
"She’s been given into the care of the state huh?" the man asked as he handed over the completed paperwork.
Morgan smiled. “Yes, the state is going to ensure she gets the best possible care.”
Morgan personally took a hold of the handles to Dawn’s wheelchair and pushed her down one of the corridors.
Hunter followed stealthily behind.
They worked their way past the freshly decorated common rooms where other long-term mental patients were allowed during the day.
Hunter was momentarily taken aback as they passed through a set of double doors that had a sign reading that the area beyond had yet to be refurbished.
Indeed, paint cans, ladders, dustsheets and other tools were scattered around like bodies on a battlefield. But still Morgan kept on walking till she reached a side corridor and turned into it.
The corridor was long, ending in a dead end wall, and seemed to have been recently refurbished. Large windows mostly hidden behind thick blinds lined one wall, while the other had evenly spaced doors down it.
Stopping outside the last room, Morgan took a key from atop the clipboard that held the paperwork the clerk had given her and unlocked the door.
Hunter froze and slid to the side of the corridor, watching as Morgan got down in front of Dawn.
He stretched out his senses to hear what was being said.
“you have proven most awkward to get hold of my dear. You might like to know that my revenge is coming soon. On your medical records is a series of ECT treatments. I might invite your friends along to watch you fry.”
Hunter’s blood wanted to boil as she laughed, but the horror of her words astounded him. How could she say such a thing? If Dawn could hear her?
What was also surprising was that Electro Convulsion Therapy was often used in cases of severe depression, or psychological disturbance. He had not known that modern medicine allowed it on someone as young as Dawn.
Sliding down the wall, he vowed to get his contacts to investigate this social worker. She was malicious as hell and a danger to her clients.
As he approached Dawn and Morgan, Hunter could see that the room she had been given was actually a padded room. As he watched the hospital staff took off her clothes and dressed her in a straight jacket and deposited her none too gently to the floor.
Hunter’s anger flared like a nova, he rushed down the last corridor and slid inside the room seconds before the door closed.
Kneeling down besides Dawn, he carefully turned her over and sat her upright. Placing a hand on her forehead, he used his powers to check her for injuries.
Satisfied that she was not hurt physically, he moved her carefully to one side of the room, away from the harsh light spilling in from the glass window in the door.
Sitting himself down against the wall, he pulled Dawn into an embrace, and settled her head carefully on his chest.
The question was how could he keep her safe in here? The answer was, he couldn’t. And knowing what the doctors had in store for her made him contemplate getting her out now.
But that would give him the same problems he would have had back at the Summers’ house. Although he did not doubt his ability to keep ahead of the law , it would mean having to have Dawn fully conscious and mobile. In which case he would have to be in direct contact with her and in violation of his agreement with Merlin.
He hadn’t even solved the problems he had created for himself with her friends.
Closing his eyes, he imagined a centre of calm in his mind radiating outward to the rest of his body. Now was not the time for contemplating such things. He needed to protect Dawn, but he also needed to get in contact with his sources to get her out of here legally.
Feeling that she was getting cold in the room, he drew his cloak about them both.
He needed help.
There was only one way of getting that.
Taking her head, he rested his temple against her soft hair and sent out a tendril of thought looking for Willow or Tara. "Hear me,” he called into the ether.

**********

Across town, Willow was sitting holding Giles as she cried about loosing Dawn, and he tried to keep his British stiff upper lip.
Suddenly Willow looked up into the air and cocked her head to one side. "I hear you! Where are you?" she asked to the air.
Giles removed his hand from covering his eyes, startled at her behaviour.
"How is Dawn? Is she there with you now?" Willow asked the air again.
Giles shook his head. “What are you doing?”
Willow flashed a smile at him. “Its Hunter, I can hear him in my head.”
Giles felt a ray of hope land upon his soul. “How is she? Where is she?” he asked.
Willow waved at him to keep quiet. Willow shook her head and more tears flowed "No!" she all but wailed and buried her head in her hands.
Giles felt his heart sink again. He did not want to know what Willow had been told, but he had to. It was his duty. He had failed to be a proper Watcher to Buffy. He would do it instead for Dawn. "What is it?" he asked.
Willow buried her head in her hands as she told Giles, not wanting to see the look of outrage and despair on his face. “They put her in a padded room.”

26

Hunter had held Dawn in his arms for an hour before despair began to claim him. In that hour, he had not moved, neither had she. Not even the bat of an eyelid.
Moreover, the strain of maintaining his invisibility shroud was beginning to take its toll. More so now as he had established an image of Dawn still being in the middle of the room where the orderlies had left her, and not off to the side where they now were.
During the time spent in the padded cell, he had informed Willow of the situation, and gotten her to call some of his contacts to get them working on Dawn’s freedom.
All that was left now was to wait till they worked through the legal system to get Dawn back into Giles’ care.
Or was it?
Something in his mind was telling him that he could help Dawn. It was a feeling that what was wrong with her was not natural.
Willow had been using magic to try to help Dawn. This he knew. He had sensed the magick the burgeoning witch had used. He also knew that she had failed. That concerned him. Magick was not often very effective at healing, but Willow had done that particular spell before and it had worked well. Was it possible that his powers would provide a different way in to Dawn’s catatonic mind?
Carefully moving Dawn’s head, he rested his temple against her soft hair and sent out a tendril of thought into her mind.
He felt her presence in the energy field created by life. So strong, but held back by a wall so dark it seemed to not so much as absorb light, but refuse to be lit up.
Teasing his thoughts down to a fine point, he pressed against the wall and his consciousness poked into hers.
With a suddenness that startled him, his mind was dragged in the rest of the way. What he found was exactly what appeared on the outside.
He knew then that the shutdown of higher brain functions was being forced upon her. She had been forced into her own mind, and then trapped here.
As Hunter floated in the black, a riot of sudden activity punctuated the darkness. The images flashed by so fast, that it was a blur of pure chaos that Hunter could not even begin to interpret.
Grabbing hold of the thoughts when they next occurred, Hunter held it in place in the dark, refusing to let the night come again. But he lost his grip on the darkness and got sucked into the thought.
Hunter found himself face down on a pale carpeted floor. Rolling to the side, he sat up and looked around. He recognized the surroundings of the Summers’ house. Buffy was arguing in the Kitchen with Joyce about babysitting duties and Dawn was talking on the phone to a friend about how unfair it was that she had to be treated like a child.
A perfectly normal scene from any one of millions of homes in America.
Then the darkness swallowed it up sending Hunter tumbling into the void. He lost his sense of orientation as he span, only to recover it in a wash of disorientation as another image flashed into existence.
Hunter grabbed hold of a doorframe and hauled himself to his feet, fighting the urge to empty the contents of his stomach rather violently.
As he stood, he became aware of his surroundings. Dawn was standing in the doorway to the living room of the Summers’ house. The rest of the gang were staring in horror at her as she stood bleeding from her arm with a knife in her hand.
"Is this blood?” she asked, her voice thick with pain and distress.
"Dawn!" cried out Buffy as she launched herself at her sister.
"Baby…!" cried out Joyce, as she too was moments behind Buffy.
"What did you do?" demanded Buffy.
"This is blood isn’t it…? It can’t be me…. I’m not a key, I’m not a thing!" replied Dawn, her voice heavy with shock.
"Oh, sweetie no. Wha-what is this about?" asked Joyce tentatively.
"What am I? Am I real…. am I anything?"
Hunter’s heart really felt for the young girl as she discovered what she was and the tears rolled down her face as Joyce folded her up in a hug.
"Who are you and why are you here?" came a voice from behind him. Hunter turned from the memory to find Dawn standing besides him, paying part attention to the scene, and the other on him.
Momentarily caught off balance, he did nothing but stare at her. But, with a little shake of his head, he regained his composure. "I am here to help you…. I was sent by your friends," he replied.
"They’re not my friends. They only know me because of Buffy!" replied Dawn, her voice filled with raw pain and a host of other emotions.
Dawn faded away and the scene changed again to that of her bedroom.
The memory Dawn was sitting on the bed, arm in a bandage Joyce had just finished putting on when Buffy entered the room.
"Why didn’t you tell me?" she asked them softly without looking up.
"We were going to it’s just.…" Buffy said, her voice trailing off, as she could not think of anything to say.
"We thought it would be better if we waited until you were older," broke in Joyce
"How old am I now?" asked Dawn.
"You’re 14 sweetheart, you know that," replied Joyce.
"No,” broke in Dawn. “The monks…. when did.… when did…?" she asked, her voice trailing off into a quiet sob.
"Six months ago," replied Buffy softly as she hugged her arms around herself.
"I’ve only been alive for six months, huh?" asked Dawn as she tried to hold back her tears.
"You’ve been alive a lot longer than that to us," Joyce said, trying to comfort her.
"You don’t know that, you don’t know anything.… I’m….I’m just a key right? Everything about me is made up."
Hunter closed his eyes against the scene. He was supposed to be a hardened warrior. He had killed demons and creatures in battle. Had caused them pain till they died. But, this event split his barriers asunder and made him weep.
"Dawn, mom and I know what we feel, I know I care about you. I know I worry about you…." Buffy said as she sat on the bed next to Dawn.
"You worry about me because you have to…. I’m your job.… protect the key right?" Dawn’s voice was edged with sarcasm.
"I worry because my sister is cutting herself!" Buffy said with strain in her voice.
"Yeah? How do you know? Maybe it’s just another fake memory from my fake family…." Dawn bit out.
"Sweetheart…." Said Joyce, her voice soft but filled with a world of pain for her child.
"Get out, get OUT GET OUT…!" she cried, her voice rising into a shriek.
Buffy and Joyce moved reluctantly from the room, and Hunter looked on with tear filled eyes as Dawn curled up into a ball hugging a stuffed toy.
Too hurt to look on the girl as she wept, he turned to look away. Away from the hurt filled pain in Dawn’s eyes as she lay on her bed. The pain he saw was too reminiscent of the pain he had in his heart when he lost his parents. His world had come close to collapsing, much as Dawn’s had.
"You know my pain?"
Hunter looked over to see the avatar of Dawn standing there again. Unable to say anything he simply nodded.
"How?" she asked.
Hunter closed his eyes against the pain that such memories as she was asking about surfaced. "My parents died when I was six…. they were killed in a battle.”
The darkness swallowed them again, throwing Hunter into a dizzy spell, till a solid floor appeared under his feet again. The darkness disappearing as suddenly as it had arrived.
It was a building he had never seen before. But the décor screamed school at him.
Walking down a corridor lined with lockers, Hunter heard Dawn’s voice begin to rise in anger.
Picking up his pace, he rounded a corner and skidded to a halt. Dawn was standing behind her desk, shoving her school things into her backpack. Her classmates were all staring open mouthed at her and her teacher was standing behind his desk looking flustered.
“You just can’t go Dawn,” he said as he gripped the edge of the desk with his hands sending his knuckles white.
“You can’t tell me what to do!” yelled Dawn as she zipped up the bag and threw it over her shoulder.
The teacher moved to stand in the doorway as Dawn approached. Hunter could see a tear welling in the corner of her eye. She stopped dead a few feet away from the teacher and stared at him, her eyes full of a blaze of emotions that she could not hope to express.
“I can’t let you go Dawn,” the teacher said, his voice now filling with anger.
“Get out the fucking way!” Dawn yelled so loudly at the teacher, that the students and teacher in the classroom across the hall stopped working to stare out the windows at her.
The teacher’s mouth dropped open in pure shock as Dawn shoved past him and out into the corridor.
Her footsteps faltered for a second as she saw the people across the hall watching her, but she sped up again down the corridor.
The teacher leaned out the door and called after her. “You’ll be hearing from the principle young lady!”
Hunter turned and followed her as she hurriedly walked down the corridor. There was nothing he could say to the memory to make her feel better. But, from a sense of duty, and morbid curiosity, he followed.
As she reached the turn in the corridor, she suddenly burst into tears and sped up till she was sprinting full out.
The doors at the end of the corridor opened out to the yard, and she hit them barely slowing down. The doors flew open and crashed into the walls and she ran for all she was worth.
The memory flew away again and Hunter was spinning through he darkness. But another memory soon swam up to fill the void.
This time, Hunter watched in silent emotional turmoil as he watched the memory play out with Dawn tearing up her diaries and setting fire to them.
"Why did you destroy the diaries Dawn?" he asked the air.
The avatar of Dawn moved round the room, staring at the memory of her self. "They were a lie.... I was a lie…. what is the point of living a lie?"
Hunter frowned. "You didn’t believe that…. I know you don’t now!" he stated.
"Don’t I?” she asked. “The only reason I had for going on was my feelings for mom and Buffy. Now they’re gone….” She looked down at the fire in the small metal bin as her memory self climbed out the window. “….and so is my reason," she added under her breath.
The image shifted again to the locker room at Sunnydale hospital as Hunter recognised the male form of Glory, Ben, sitting down opposite a distraught Dawn.
"Two steaming cups of chocolate goodness courtesy of…. whoever I swiped it from out of the cupboard! Couldn’t find any marshmallows. I’ll try to steal some for next time,” he said, his voice light and comforting.
"Don’t like them anyway,” replied Dawn.
"What…. Is that even possible?" asked Ben in mock surprise.
"Too squishy. When I was five, Buffy told me they were monkey brains and I…." She trailed off as she realised that the memory she had was a fake.
"Dawn, was your mom brought back in…? Is that why you’re here?" asked Ben softly.
"No, my mom’s just fine!" replied Dawn, her voice thick with sarcasm on saying mom.
"Is there anybody I can call? Your sister?"
"I don’t have a sister!" bit out Dawn.
"Oh….” said Ben as if he suddenly understood. “Did you two have a fight? It’s OK. I know how that goes…. I got a sister too. They can be a real pain sometimes, huh? I tell you, there have been a lot of nights I wish she didn’t exist either!"
"It’s not Buffy…. It’s me…. I’m the one that doesn’t exist,” she replied.
"Look, I know that it can feel that way sometimes, but when you’re older…."
"No! You don’t understand!” broke in Dawn. “It’s not real…. none of this… THEY made it!"
"Dawn-" broke in Ben.
"I’m nothing,” she continued. “I’m just a thing the monks made so Glory couldn’t find me! I’m not real!"
"You’re the key?" asked Ben, his voice filled with shock.
Dawn froze for a second, but only for a second. She needed answers, and before she could even think, she found herself asking questions. "How do you know about the key?"
"Go, before she finds you. Don’t ask me how she knows cause she always knows. Just go!" said Ben as he all but clawed out of the chair he had been sitting at to stand and look around nervously.
"Wait… calm down….just tell me!" pleaded Dawn.
"You don’t understand. You’re a kid. You stay; she’ll find you. She finds you; she’ll hurt you!"
"What’s wrong with you?"
"You’re what she’s been searching for. I am telling you run…. you don’t know…. oh no…. oh god no she’s coming…. I can feel her…. you’ve got to get out…. no, oh no, she’s here….”
Ben’s features shifted as he transformed into Glory while still talking, his voice giving way to hers. “She’s here!"
Glory looks down upon Dawn a little confused. "Hey…. don’t I know you?" she asked.
Hunter looked hard at Glory and wondered if she were truly dead. Can the immortal die? Can a god die?
"Why back here Dawn?" he asked the air again.
"Why not?"
Hunter turned and looked at the avatar again. She seemed intent on watching her former self.
"I wouldn’t have thought this was a highlight in your life," he stated.
Dawn smiled sadly. "Everyone I cared for was still alive and looking for me. Why wouldn’t I be happy there?"
Hunter frowned and went to reply, but the scene changed again from the locker room to an examination room where Dawn and Glory were standing facing each other.
"Okay. Small talk over. I'm in a bit of a crunch here, so let's cut right to the ooey gooey centre. Your sister, the slayer, has my key. Its mine, I want it. Do you know where she squirreled it away? There's ice cream and puppy dogs in it for you if you start singin’."
Dawn swallowed her fear over being in the presence of the most dangerous enemy Buffy had yet faced. Her mind wanted her to search for answers again. "I'm not sure. What does it look like?" she asked tentatively.
Glory smiled fondly and put her hands over her heart. "Well... the last time I caught a peep ... it was a bright green swirly shimmer. Really brought out the blue in my eyes…. but then those sneaky little monks pulled an abracadabra, so now it could look like anything. You see the predicament I'm in?"
"Maybe.…" Dawn began nervously.
"Yes?"
"Well, maybe if you ... told me more about it, I'd know if I've seen it. "
Glory sighed as she leaned forward and put her hands on the table on either side of Dawn. Dawn gasped nervously as Glory gazed at her for a moment. "Okay!" she said.
"So this key thing, its been around for a long time?" asked Dawn.
"Well, not as long as me…. but…. yeah, just this side of forever!"
There was a long pause, followed by Dawn asking "Is it evil?” very quietly.
"Totally…!” replied Glory, prompting a little gasp from Dawn. “Well no, not really,” continued Glory. “I guess it depends on your point of view."
"What’s it for…. I mean…. if it’s a key, there’s got to be a lock…. right?"
"Yes, we have a winner."
"S..so what does it open…?" Dawn stammered out.
Glory paused and the expression on her face changed to one of suspicion. Hunter glanced down at the Dawn avatar that appeared at his side. He watched her expression change to one of remembrance as she watched the scene unfold.
"I smell a fox in my hen house,” said Glory, her tone indicating she was getting annoyed. “Is that why you have been playing sugar and spice with Uncle Ben? Trying to get a peak at Glory’s unmentionables?" the hell god asked.
"No…. I…." stammered Dawn as terror tried to claim her.
"Shhh…. I kinda’ wanna’ hear me talking right now. ME TALKING….!” She leaned right up close to Dawn as she continued. “You know what I’m starting to think? I’m thinking that maybe you….” Dawn’s expression almost collapsed in on itself with apprehension, as she feared Glory discovering her secret. “….don’t have any idea where my key is! Very irritating. Irrational…. You know what I mean, tiny snap dragon?”
Glory banged her hands on the table and then rubbed her head like she had a headache. “Like…. bugs under my skin. And say, I'm feelin' a little..."
"What's wrong with you?" asked Dawn
"Hey,” said Glory as she broke into a smile. “Hey! This doesn't have to be a complete waste of my precious time. I've been meaning to send the slayer a message. And I could use a little pick-me-up…. two birds, one stone, and boom. You have yummy dead birds!"
Hunter wanted to do something, anything to help Dawn in this situation. But it was a memory. Not real, and she had already survived it.
He watched in silence standing next to Dawn as she replayed the arrival of Buffy and Spike and the ensuing fight in the hospital room. Hunter winced in sympathy when Buffy got in the way of a tyre iron thrown by Glory and aimed at Dawn. He almost blew a sigh of relief when Willow and Tara transported Glory away with a spell.
He then turned his attention to the two girls sitting together on the floor of the room. Marvelling at how such a sterile atmosphere could breed such warmth between the two sisters as they talked.
"Are you okay? Did she hurt you?" asked Buffy.
"Why do you care?" retorted Dawn.
"Because I love you. You're my sister."
"No I'm not!"
"Yes you are. Look, its blood. Its Summers’ blood,” said Buffy, her hand coming away from her abdominal wound bloodied. “It's just like mine. It doesn't matter where you came from, or… or how you got here. You are my sister. There's no way you could annoy me so much if you weren't.”
Hunter turned and looked back down at Dawn. "She was right you know. She still is."
Hunter looked back as the scene played out and the two girls walked out from the trashed medical room arm in arm.
"Is she mad about the whole fire thing?" asked Dawn.
"I think you sorta have a get-out-of-jail-free card on account of big love and trauma."
"Really? Okay. Good. You think she'd raise my allowance?" asked Dawn.
"Don't push it,” replied Buffy with a mock stern tone.
The Dawn avatar turned to look up at Hunter. "Why are you here?" she asked again.
"To help," he replied softly.
"I don’t need help!"
Hunter focused his mind and burrowed through Dawn’s thoughts. As he did, he caused the scene to change again.
Dawn was standing outside her classroom, asking Buffy why she had visited the school, and instantly nervous wondering if Glory had found out about her.
But even fearing for the worst had not prepared her for the news she was given.
"Why did you bring me here?" the avatar asked.
"Because you need closure Dawn," replied Hunter softly. “Trust me,” he added even quieter still.
"Get out of my mind…. GET OUT!" she shrieked.
Hunter braced himself for the shockwave of Dawn’s power trying to throw him out. But her inexperience with her abilities and the emotional trauma she was bearing from watching herself receive the news of her mothers death turned the wall of force away as it collapsed into a black hole of emotional despair.
"Please… don’t make me watch…!" she begged Hunter and grasped his wrist in desperation.
Hunter took a hold of Dawn’s shoulders and turned her to face the images. They watched in silence as Dawn first refused to believe Buffy, and that it was all a mistake. Then sinking to the ground in a heap as her world ground to a halt in the face of insurmountable fact.
Her mother had died.
Dawn cried in Hunters arms, and he held her close to comfort her. His own heart aching in sympathy for what he had felt when he had lost his own parents all those years ago.
The scene faded and Dawn was back up on the tower with Spike and Doc fighting for supremacy on the gantry.
She remembered the pained look on Spike’s face as Doc sank the ceremonial dagger into his back, and the pain that went deeper as he whispered ‘No’ under his breath just as he was thrown off the tower, realizing he had failed the gang, Dawn, and Buffy. She remembered herself screaming as she watched him fall.
Dawn screamed in Hunter’s arms as well and desperately tried to bury her head in his arms. Emotions flooded off her across Hunter’s senses.
The pain as the same knife sliced open her skin and caused her blood to flow free.
The relief Dawn felt upon seeing Buffy walking out onto that catwalk, and the sense of safety that her sister brought.
The pain as the ropes holding her wrists were pulled apart by Buffy, just as her blood hit the portal and started it opening.
The pain roiled as she wrestled with her conscience as to whether she should jump in to the newborn portal to save the world.
The pain as she watched her sister do it instead, leaving her with only memories, most of which the monks had given her, and the others she was so unsure of.
The echoes of Buffy’s last breathing words were etched into her mind like they were carved into stone. Standing on the tower, watching the sunrise and the sudden look on Buffy’s face and the realization by Dawn of what she intended.
"Buffy, no," she pleaded.
"Dawny I have to," came the calm reply of her sister.
"NO!" she pleaded again, louder this time, as if she could turn her sister away from her actions with the volume of her words alone.
"Listen to me. Please, there is not a lot of time. Listen," she begged. "Dawn listen to me, listen, I love you, I will always love you…. this is the work that I have to do…. Tell Giles that…. tell Giles I figured it out and, I’m ok…. and give my love to my friends; you have to take care of them now…. you have to take care of each other. You have to be strong…. Dawn the hardest thing in this world is to live in it…. be brave, live, for me…."
Dawn screamed audibly as well as mentally as she saw Buffy once again jump off the tower.
Then they were at the base of the tower, watching the memory of Dawn’s descent to the bottom, and eventually collapse at the foot of the stairs.
"NO…. BUFFY! Please come back!" the avatar wailed to the rising sun.
"I can’t yet Dawn…."
Hunter turned round to see an image of Buffy standing there staring at her sister and his jaw dropped.

27

“Buffy Summers?” Hunter asked incredulously.
She nodded as she asked, “Who are you?”
Hunter stared hard at the spectre before him. He tried focusing his thoughts to map where Dawn was generating an image of Buffy from, but he could not find her origins in Dawn’s mind. He did find a third presence though.
“You can’t be real!” stated Hunter as he continued looking at the image.
“I am as real as I can be…. given the circumstances,” she replied somewhat cryptically
“You’re….” he began.
She nodded. “I know. But here I am,” she replied as she moved forwards and laid a hand on the back of the avatar of Dawn and Hunter. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said softly as she looked at her sister’s back with tear filled eyes.
Hunter closed his mouth and regained some of his composure before answering. “I am Matthew Hunter.” He looked down at Dawn, still sobbing away, only being held up by his arms, face buried in his elbow. “I’m here to….”
“I know why you’re here,” Buffy broke in. “I thank you for what you are trying to do…. but I question your methods.”
Hunter frowned. “It was the only thing I could think of,” he said defensively.
“You’re forcing her deeper,” she said with an edge to her voice that made Hunter raise his head and stare at her hard.
He shook his head. “I’m forcing her to face reality.”
Buffy began circling Hunter as he continued to hold Dawn. She was not sobbing as much, but Hunter could feel that her tears had soaked through the sleeve of his tunic.
“What reality would that be?” asked Buffy as she closed the last foot between them and began to stroke Dawn’s hair slowly and softly.
Hunter looked down at Dawn as she tilted her head to one side so she could glance at Buffy with watery eyes showing the capacity for more tears. “That what things we cling to in this world are often more fragile that we would like to believe,“ he began.
“What does it matter?” Dawn bit out from tight lips as she attempted to stop her crying.
Hunter gently placed his hand on her cheek and turned her face to him. “It matters because you are alive!”
“Am I? Are you sure?” she replied.
Hunter smiled weakly into her eyes. “Yes. I can feel the life within you. Your soul is like a beacon in the dark. You have the capacity for so much life.”
“What is the point of living a lie?” she retorted. “My life was just patched together by a group of monks!”
Hunter placed his hands on Dawn’s shoulders, forcing her to look at him, even if she refused to meet his stare, and instead focused on his chest. “The fact that you have only been as you are now for less than a year does not detract from what you are now!”
Dawn looked up in to Hunter’s eyes and for a second he almost lost himself in those blue orbs. Her words focused his thoughts again. “I don’t understand.”
Hunter sighed and ran a hand down her cheek to remove the line of a tear. “Dawn, you have friends out there who care for you. They may have gotten to know you because of a group of monks. They may have gotten to know you because of Buffy. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that they are here for you now, when you need them.”
Buffy smiled and nodded as she continued to stoker her sister’s hair. “All you have to do is let them in Dawny.”
Dawn looked at her sister with a world of sadness in her eyes and sniffled. “But if I let them in…. you….” She broke off as her voice gave out and she wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve.
“Won’t be there?” finished Buffy.
Dawn nodded meekly, staring down at Buffy’s feet.
“I lost you out there…. I don’t want to loose you here either,” Dawn almost wailed.
“What makes you say that?” Buffy asked softly.
Dawn frowned. “The other voice told me that…” she trailed off at the look from Hunter.
“What?” she asked.
“What other voice?” asked Hunter.
“The woman. The one who told me I could find Buffy in here…” her voice trailed off again as another tear coursed down her rosy red cheek.
Hunter looked cautiously around. A mystery woman. Curious.
“I’m not real in here though Dawn.” Buffy whispered sadly.
“You are to me.” Dawn whispered back.
Hunter watched the two embrace, and he wanted to cry as well. The emotional tension in the vision was overpowering. He could feel the hurt like an open wound deep in Dawn’s heart and soul, with the wound dragging everything down into it like a black hole.
“I will always be there Dawn. Maybe not close enough to reach out and touch, or even talk too, but I will always be with you in here….” Buffy reached out and placed a hand on her head, before moving it down to rest it above her heart. “And here.”
Dawn looked at her sister, the truth slowly sinking in to a level where she could understand it. Sinking in past her grief and denial. Buffy had died so she could have some form of life. To live it out in a perpetual non-existence would be to dishonour what she fought and died for.
Hunter could feel the conflicting thoughts in her mind run through his own and recognised them as the thoughts he had experienced when he had lost his parents.
“Life and death,” he stated, “our lives, our deaths, are an intricate balance of factors. Sometimes we can balance it all together, but sometimes it beats us. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It is the way of things.”
“The way of things?” enquired Dawn.
Hunter nodded. “The universe wants to balance. Matter is balanced against anti-matter. Positive is balanced by negative. Light and Dark. Good and Evil and life by death. My powers originate from the energies put out by living things. I can manipulate them to affect change on a small scale. I can lift objects, I can heal the sick and I can read people’s thoughts. But this power is finite. Life generates it, death makes it weaker.”
“How can you say death is good?” bit out Dawn.
Hunter shook his head. “Death is rarely good. But we have to remember that the universe is a battleground for balancing forces. My kind fights for good and life against the forces of darkness that battle for evil and death.”
“So what…. That’s supposed to console me?” Dawn remarked sarcastically.
“You have been hurt by death,” Hunter said as he stroked Dawn’s arm, acting as a comforting presence to her. “But life goes on. What did Buffy’s death mean if you do not live?”
Dawn’s jaw dropped as Hunter asked the question she had asked herself just moments ago in her private thoughts. Anger flared in her as this stranger hit too close to home. Before she even realised what she was doing, she had reached out and slapped Hunter hard across the cheek.
Hunter saw it coming, but did nothing to avoid the slap. It was not real. His mind registered the pain of a hit, but he knew that when he left Dawn’s mind, the imagery and sensation would fade and there would be no mark on his body.
Within a second of her lashing out, Dawn closed her mouth and wanted to start to cry again. He was right. Her thoughts were right. To not live would be to have had Buffy die in vain. She might just as well have jumped off that tower if she continued the way she had been.
But it was still hard.
“But what about the other voice?” she asked. “It said I would lose you. I don’t want to let you go Buffy.”
Buffy hugged her again. “You don’t have to let me go, just move on without me. Live for me. Remember?”
Dawn nodded and enfolded herself in her sister’s arms again.
Hunter frowned. He was suspicious of this ‘other voice’ Dawn had been hearing. It was likely connected with her enforced coma. The question was why?
Most forces that were seeking Dawn would want to take her. The easiest way to do that would be to do it by force.
Then it dawned on him. She HAD been taken. And without force!
Suddenly, Buffy let go of Dawn and looked over her shoulder. She quickly looked back and the expression on her face was one of worry. “You have to go now!”
Hunter looked up from the two girls. He could sense it too now. A looming shadow on the horizon.
Dawn caught on and she looked around frantically. “What? What is it?”
Hunter backed away and released his mental probe on Dawn’s mind and began to retreat his consciousness back to his own body.
As he forced his way out of the dark shroud that surrounded her mind, he pierced the bubble.
Dawn would be able to fight her way clear of the darkness now.
Just in time.
Trouble was on the way.

28

Hunter’s eyes flew open to the darkened room about him, and the harsh light filtering in through the glass window high in the padded door.
He was till sitting with his back to the wall, Dawn all but in his lap and both wrapped in his living cloak. As he leaned forwards around Dawn, he felt her stirring. Hunter reached round and clamped a hand over her mouth and turned her head towards him.
The lack of light made the outline of her face ethereal in nature. Except her eyes. They all but glowed with a renewed vigour for life. Understanding the hand over her mouth, she nodded sharply.
Hunter removed his hand and noticed that her lips were pressed together in grim determination.
The mental image he had created of Dawn, still in the middle of the room was unchanged. Anyone looking through the door would see her lying prone on the floor, and not notice them against the wall. But Hunter doubted that he could maintain the illusion if someone entered the room and tried to move her.
His ears pricked up as he caught snippets of conversation from outside the door. “….for her ECT therapy…. till later…? up due to changes…. schedule…. not told about this…! They must have screwed up at admin again…. Well…. paperwork checks out…. You might as well….”
Gently prodding Dawn away, Hunter rose to his feet as a key rattled in the door, and he slid along the wall, Dawn following close behind.
As the door opened, Hunter gathered his powers. Hunter knew instantly that the four people entering the room were vampires, and that the two orderlies outside were human. He could feel another presence close by. A dark presence. But he could not pinpoint its location.
Hunter flicked his wrist, releasing the catches on the wooden stakes he had strapped to his wrists. The sharpened points snapped down to protrude past his clenched fists, and drew the attention of the nearest vampire, who saw nothing through Hunters mental shroud.
Being un-dead, vampires were partially immune to the powers of life that Hunter used as his main weapon. But partially was not totally.
Hunter projected an image over in the corner of a Gret’j’kor demon. It stood at one and a half meters tall and was very human looking except for the retractable claws that rose from the backs of its hands, and the green glowing eyes.
The Gret’j’kor were one of the most human looking demons around, and had become well established in human society. They used their strength and speed to make profitable livings as cops and firemen. Some were even into professional sports like American football. But their main source of work was as private detectives or bounty hunters. Though not really a match for a vampire in one on one combat, they often travelled in packs of five or six, and made a good living out of hunting down the infamous un-dead creatures.
Three of the vampires fell for the ruse and shifted to their demon forms and set themselves for the attack. The fourth was still looking at where Hunter edged along the wall to striking distance.
Hunter pushed off from the wall with his back and stabbed the curious vampire straight through the chest, dusting him in an instant.
The sound of the attack brought two of the others spinning round to face the noise, as Hunter dropped his shroud, he ducked beneath an outstretched arm and stabbed another up under the ribcage and deep into the heart. Then he stepped out to the side to avoid a punch, spinning as he went to stab the next vampire though the back. The point of the stake penetrated to the heart and dusted the vampire.
The fourth however had attacked the illusion of the demon in the corner and had found it was false. That meant it was out of Hunter’s striking range, giving it enough time to turn around and face off.
The two stepped forwards and exchanged body blows, Hunter leaving gashes from the wooden spikes, the vampire leaving no impact through Hunter’s body armour chest plate.
Hunter backed away and reached out to his powers. Anger at the situation these creatures had formed flared white hot in his soul. How dare they attack an innocent like Dawn! He gathered his powers into a solid wall and smashed his force down on to the vampire. Bones shattered under the assault, spraying blood across the room. Then he grabbed a hold of it’s head and pulled, tearing flesh and ripping apart tendons and ligaments in one stroke, pulling the head away from the body and sending the vampire to dust-Ville.
Hunter’s power levels dropped and he wanted to fall to his knees in horror at what he had just done. He had given in to his primal urges and tasted the dark powers.
Spinning on his heel, Dawn cringed against the wall looking at him strangely. Part horror, part gladness at being alive.
Hunter grabbed hold of his dagger and slashed the leather straps restraining Dawn’s arms in the straight jacket. Taking a hold of her arm, he stalked from the room, bowling over the orderlies who had come to investigate the noise inside the room.
Hunter looked at them and hesitantly pulled his powers out again and draped a blanket of darkness over them, making them blind to his presence.
“HEY! STOP THEM!” came a female voice from behind him as Hunter stalked down the corridor away from the orderlies who stood staring confusedly at each other.
Hunter turned round to see the female social worker that had ordered Dawn detained. She waved her hands and muttered under her breath and Hunter felt the two orderlies emerging from their brief lapse and focus onto the escapees.
Hunter pushed Dawn on ahead and set himself to face the two humans. He now recognised the woman for what she was. A witch.
All three being Human, he was prohibited from killing them without due provocation. But being a Knight, there were always other possibilities.
Tentatively reaching out with his abilities, he found that the Witch had established some sort of barrier around herself and the orderlies, preventing him from trying to confuse them again. So he changed tactics and reached out to the locks of four more doors down the corridor.
Using his mind, he tore the doors open, and prompted the residents inside to emerge. Three men and a woman, all in straight jackets staggered out of their padded rooms and straight to the two orderlies, bowling them over and falling atop of them.
As a reward for their assistance, Hunter reached out to their minds and flooded them with his energies, forcing them into a healing trance.
Damaged nerve endings healed, neural trauma was removed and synapses stabilised. All four of the patients ceased struggling against the two orderlies as they tried to get out from under them. When they woke, they would be completely normal and capable of being released out to the world.
Hunter spun on his heel and raced after Dawn, running down the corridor, his living cape billowing out behind him.
Behind him, the witch gave chase.

Hunter and Dawn burst out into the night and ran across the lawn of the building towards the road and where Hunter had parked his bike.
Behind them in the entryway, four more orderlies lay sprawled over the floor. Having to go through them to get out, Hunter had torn open the water main under the floor. The water pressure had caused the floor to flood, and allow Hunter and Dawn to get past them as they slid across the now slick surface.
But their escape did not end there. The social worker/witch stalked after them, her eyes glowing with a blackness that was darker than the absence of light and promised death.
Hunter felt the dark powers building and heard the muttering in Latin. Overhead the sky rumbled menacingly as clouds boiled into existence, roiling across the sky and clashing together like a time-lapse scene from a Discovery Channel programme on weather.
As Hunter skidded to a stop beside his bike and stuck the key in the ignition, the heavens opened and a torrent of rain lashed down at them.
The first bolt of lightening stabbed down from the sky and struck the top of the hospital, causing sparks to fly from the lightening conductor on the roof.
The second bolt lanced down and landed just a few feet away. The energy caused Hunter’s hair to stand on end, while the expanding shockwave of heated air knocked him off balance as he tried to get on his bike.
Using the fact he was off balance to one side, Hunter spun round to face the witch as she stalked across the lawn. But before Hunter could even think of any sort of counter attack, a third bolt stabbed down from the sky and hit the ground directly between himself and Dawn, with tendrils of the power stabbing out and impacting them both.
The energy stabbed deep into Hunter’s body and he felt his flesh begin to cook as the power knocked him clean off his feet, flying to land on his back and skidding across the slick grass to come to a rest nearly 30 feet from where he had started.
Turing over onto his stomach, he got his arms under himself and pushed off the ground. He was in agony as little flashes of silver pain arced through his body, and his muscles twinged erratically.
Raising his arms to the side, Hunter concentrated his thoughts and sensed the energy all about him. He knew when the next lighting strike would come, and he was ready for it.
His cape flared out and danced in the night air, fanning around his outstretched arms. The lightening again stabbed down from the heavens and struck him. The power filled his living cape with energy that spilled over into his body.
He opened his eyes and saw that arcs of the electricity jumped across the fabric of his cloak and body and he revelled in the feeling of power it granted him.
He could do anything!
He could reach out and kill the witch!
He could rule the world!
He could make Dawn his!
No
At once the thoughts entered his mind he pushed them aside and squashed them deep down in his soul. He had a darkness in him it was true. Everyone did. But he would control it.
To use the power that wrongly would be to give in to temptation. To give in to his darkness.
Turning round he faced the witch as she slowed her approach in surprise.
Swinging his arms to point at her, with his cloak mimicking the motion, he re-focused the power and lanced it out at her.
The lightening blast struck her mid-torso, and lifted her clean off her feet, making her fly backwards and crash through a street light pole and bring it down on top of her.
Hunter sagged to his knees, exhausted from containing and focusing all the energy of a bolt of lightening.
Got to get up his mind screamed at him.
He exercised his muscles and raised himself slowly to a standing position. He was hurt and in pain and only his will power was keeping him standing.
He staggered over to where Dawn lay stilly on the ground.
He could feel her pain in his senses. She was hurt too. Badly.
Reaching her side, he sank to his knees again and fought the urge to black out. If he did, they were both as good as dead. He leaned over Dawn and rolled her over, prompting her to cry out in pain.
Hunter gasped at the extent of her injuries. The entire left side of her was burnt. Parts of her mane of hair had shrivelled up, filling the air with the stanch of burnt protein. Her temple and cheek were blistered red, and her leg was all but blackened. Hunter was sure that the injuries under the leather of the straight jacket would be similar.
It was remarkable that she was still alive after such a blast, let alone conscious.
Hunter reached around her body and got a hold of her prompting more screams of pain.
He himself screamed in pain as he rose to his feet, careful to not put too much pressure on Dawn’s burns.

Staggering one painful step after another, his vision tunnelled down to his objective, he staggered towards the brightly lit doorway of the Sunnydale ER.

29

The automatic doors closed behind Hunter as he staggered into the brightly lit emergency room reception area.
He needed help for Dawn desperately. If he spared any more of his concentration or power to start to heal her, he would loose the battle raging within his own body.
Even now, he was using his powers to keep his heart beating a regular rhythm as he healed the damage it had sustained.
He needed to buy time. If the hospital staff could keep Dawn alive for long enough, Hunter could heal his own problems and then start to work more fully on hers. He had already tried to push her into a healing trance and had only partly succeeded. He was too tired and it was not enough. She needed a concerted effort from an outside source to heal such grievous wounds.
Taking another step forwards, his legs gave out from under him. The four hundred yards from outside had been the longest journey of his life. All he could do was take one agonizing step after another.
Yelling in agony as he sank to his knees, he cried out for help, causing the people all around him to freeze and stare in shock.
A group of people dressed in scrubs quickly came over their shock and dashed forwards to aid the two injured.
Pairs of hands reached out and lifted the weight of Dawn from Hunter’s arms, just as he finally succumbed to the pain and he slid himself into the quiet darkness of a healing trance.

**********

Dawn wanted to scream in pain as she was ripped from Hunter’s arms, but her voice failed her as she felt like she was falling down into velvet blackness.
She had been listening to his regular heartbeat through his chest and breathing in time to it. She had felt the enveloping comfort of his presence wrap around her, bind her to her self, and to him. The feeling was at once intimate and loving. For the briefest of moments, despite the pain that wracked her body, she had found comfort.
Now, although the presence was still there, it had been forced to the side as her own sensations flooded back to the fore.
Snippets of conversation accompanied disjointed sensations filling her body as the ER staff worked on her.
“Get them to the trauma room!” yelled a male voice.
“What happened?” cut in a female.
“Don’t know,” replied another. “He just staggered in and collapsed to the ground with her in his arms.”
“Hey, maybe they were struck by lightening from the storm outside,” broke in another male voice.
“Doesn’t matter…. Lets get them hooked up!”
“BP’s falling on the girl!” came the female voice again.
“I’m going for a central line…. And get the burns chart!” came the male voice again, surprisingly calm.
“Why is this one in a straight jacket?”
“You think that’s strange. Did you see the guy who carried her in?”
“Do you think they are from next door?”
“Call them and find out,” broke in the male voice.
Dawn felt strange sensations as they worked on her. She felt the cooling effects of saline washing over her body, and the lessening of the pain as chemicals flooded into her blood, and the relaxation of her muscles.
“She’s fibrillating…. Starting C.P.R. and get the crash cart!” The voices sounded worried, but strangely, Dawn did not feel worried as darkness started to claim her blurred vision.
“Hook her up to 100% oxygen and push 0.1 milligram of Eppie and 1 milligram of Lidocane IV.”
“Ok, Eppie is in and Lidocane is going in now!”
“Paddles…. charging 200…. clear….”
The power broke through her body, disrupting the darkness with a burst of something else.
“No change!” cut in one of the female voices again.
“Charge 300 and clear!”
Again, she felt the power arc through her body, and echo off something deep in her core. A stronger power that rejected this outside interference. She felt the power surge within her propel itself outwards, shocking her heart with it’s own energy.
“What the hell was that?” came a confused female voice.
“What?” replied the male
“The monitor just shorted out!”
“So hook up another!” cut in the male a little angrily.
“Ok…. We’ve got a good rhythm. BP is rising.
‘DAWN?’
The voice broke through the tumult of messages and sensations she was hearing and feeling, washing them out and making her feel like she was floating in sea of white silk.
‘Dawn? Are you okay?’
‘I don’t know. Who are you?’ she whispered in reply.
‘I am Matthew Hunter. I was the one in your mind…. remember?’
‘I remember. Where are you?’
‘Everywhere and nowhere’ echoed the response.
‘I’m scared!’
‘I know. I’m here for you!’
The outside world faded completely away and Dawn found herself dressed in a flowing white shift, floating in her dream like sensation. Her surroundings looked like white silk had formed into a liquid. She reached out a hand to touch the surface, and a tingle travelled up her arm.
From out of the silk rose a hand, followed by the rest of Hunter’s body, floating around in front of her, he smiled serenely, dressed in a pure white version of his normal clothes, and his cape flying about him like a set of wings. Dawn could sense his spirit radiating about him like a heavenly glow.
He looked like an angel.
With mixed trepidation and excitement, Dawn held out a hand to Hunter, drawing him in to an embrace.
The feelings of holding a man so close welled up through her. It was everything like she had thought it would be, laying alone late in her room and dreaming of a fairy tale prince to make her his. Yet it was also nothing like it at the same time.
The embrace was intimate, but not physically. Their hearts and minds were as one person. Feelings and thoughts were transferred between them, with the other unable to tell if the thought had originated within themselves or the other.
Their spirits mixed and reinforced each other’s. If they had been aware of their outside bodies, they would have found themselves healing.
For this time, it did not matter what happened in the outside world. They had found something in each other that was lacking from their own life. They had found solace at the loss of loved ones, comfort for the trials in their lives, and hope for the future in each other.
They had found in each other a soul mate.
30

Hunter woke with a blinding headache. He found himself face down on a soft cold floor and with a growing realisation that he was in deep trouble. His eyes flew open and it took him a moment to realise he had actually opened them as the room around him was so dark.
His arms were restrained, crossed over his chest with his hands all but tucked under his armpits. He instantly thought about the straight jacket Dawn had been placed in.
But far worse from his perspective was that his sense of life was dead. For as long as he could remember he had been able to sense the flow of life around him, and for years now he had been able to take life and shape it around his will.
Yet, impossibly and inexplicable, he could not feel the currents of life.
Hunter attempted to reach down inside of himself for the life contained within his own body. He could feel it, but it was surrounded by…. something.
Hunter rolled over to his back and stretched his legs, working out the cramps he seemed to have accumulated from lying on the floor in an uncomfortable position.
A stinging pain stabbed down his right leg as he moved it, reminding him of the massive burns he had sustained from the lightening strike brought down by the witch.
Without access to his powers, he had no way to accurately judge the state of his healing. He knew that he had entered his healing trance, and had psychically linked to Dawn, but he had no idea how much of the damage had been repaired.
A smile creased his lips despite the severity of the situation. His link with Dawn had been like nothing he had ever experienced. The ease of the contact and the depth to which it had gone were deeper than what he remembered even with his mother, before she had died.
His thoughts of Dawn quickly ended in a fear for her life. He had been sent to protect her, but all he had done so far was escort her into deep trouble.
Movement down by his feet drew his attention. He cautiously stretched out with a toe to prod at the moving object.
His toe came into contact with leather and elicited a groan of pain. Looking down to his feet, Hunter noticed a faint line of light a short distance away, leaving a silhouette of a human form lying on its side.
Hunter carefully turned and crawled over to the silhouette. As he neared, the meek light allowed him to see features. A halo of dark hair spread around on the ground. Hunter knew that in daylight, the hair would be a rich chestnut brown, and framing a beautiful angelic face of a sprightly teenager.
Hunter almost broke down in relief as he saw that significant progress had been made in healing Dawn, but she was still in bad shape and would need a couple of days in a healing trance to remove the last of the damage. Without the trance she would never truly heal and would be scarred for life.
Hunter wanted to hold her close, as he had in his link with her, but his straight jacket prevented that. So instead, he concentrated on working out a plan to escape their incarceration.
His eyes, almost adjusted to the low light levels scanned the room.
It was very similar to the room he had helped Dawn escape from earlier…. when…? Today? Yesterday?
Padded walls, ceiling and floor were all cool to the touch, and smelt faintly musty, like it had not been used in a while. The bar of light was probably a gap under the door he reasoned.
Carefully crawling around Dawn, Hunter approached the door and rested his head on the floor to look under it.
Very little detail presented itself to his eyes, and all he could make out was a tilled, beige coloured floor.
Sitting with his back to the door, he slid up the wall, carefully so as not to strain his right leg, till he was standing. He wobbled as he became dizzy and nauseated, as he finally stood straight. If it were not for the door he was leaning against, he believed he would have fallen back to the ground.
Turning, he ran his cheek up the door till he felt the cold touch of glass on his skin. Probably a window in the door! Presumably covered from the outside by something.
Putting his warrior honed muscles to the test; he strained against the straps holding his arms against his chest, causing the leather to creek under the strain. Ultimately the straps did not give. Hunter shook his head. Part in despair, and partly to remove the lingering drowsiness he was feeling.
Without his powers, he would be in trouble to escape safely with Dawn still unconscious. But to do so without the use of his arms? That was just plain suicidal.
Walking over to where Dawn lay still unconscious, Hunter sank down to his knees at her head and faced the door.
He would do anything to protect her, even if it meant sacrificing his own life.

**********

Giles slumped down in the seat of his car and sat quietly for a moment, ignoring the enquiring faces of Xander, Willow in the back and Anya next to him.
Finally ending the drawn out silence, Willow leant forwards between the seats. “Well?”
Giles response was so out of character for him that all three in the car reared back in shock as he physically lashed out at the steering wheel and let loose a string of words in a language that was not from this dimension. Or at the very least, not fit for normal conversation.
Sitting back in his seat after finishing his tirade, he removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was hoping that the twinge of pain he was feeling in his temples now was not going to become a full-blown headache.
Xander rested his hand on Anya’s shoulder as he leaned forwards between her and Giles. “I guess it didn’t go so well huh?”
Giles shook his head slightly still holding his glasses away with one hand while the other, propped up on the steering wheel now supported his head.
“Did that help? Maybe I should try hitting the wheel?” broke in Anya in her typical…. I don’t get what you’re feeling so I’ll be cheerful anyway tone.
Xander squeezed Anya’s shoulder more tightly, prompting her to tune in her seat to look at him, and register his barely perceptible shake of his head and a quiet muttering. “Save it for later!”
“Oh…. I’ll be quiet now!” she said smiling.
Giles sighed heavily. “They won’t let me in to see her. Apparently she attacked several of the staff so she is being kept in secure isolation for her own safety.”
Willow shook her head. “Dawn was comatose the last time we saw her. Unless they cured her in, like, a few hours, then there is no way she would be able to attack anyone.”
Xander frowned as he ruffled his hair with the hand he removed from Anya’s shoulder. “So no body gets in but the docs?”
“And Hank Summers…. If they can ever find him,” muttered Giles
“Well we’ve got to do something!” protested Willow.
“I agree Willow…. But what?”
Giles turned on the engine and pulled away from the mental institute, carefully manoeuvring past a work crew tidying up a fallen streetlight column and replacing some burnt turf on the lawn. Then he was driving round a tow truck picking up a discarded motorcycle from the edge of the road.

**********

The group remained silent as they shuffled into the Magic shop and avoided the eyes of the rest of the group milling about the premises.
Wesley rose from the table by the bookshelves and moved to the little side table where Giles kept his tea making facilities and busied himself making a cup of Earl Grey. Without turning round he spoke up. “No luck then?”
Willow slumped down next to Tara and leaned her head on her shoulder. “The only non medical person allowed access is Hank Summers.”
Cordelia froze pacing the room. “So why don’t we find him?”
Giles snorted once but fell silent and stared hard at nothing in particular, his mind far away from the room.
Willow raised her head to look at Giles in sympathy before turning to answer. “If the police and stuff couldn’t find him with all their resources, how are we going to?”
“Angel, Wesley and I are a detective agency…. It’s what we do,” she retorted.
Angel broke in. “We have no idea where to even start looking Cordi!”
Wesley handed Giles a cup of tea before returning for one of his own, pausing in mid step with a thoughtful look on his face. “Can we substitute one of us for him?”
Giles looked over at Wesley, understanding dawning on his face.
Spike rose from the shadows of the corner, eyeing Angel with trepidation. “Err…. Not that I want to put a dampener on that idea, but, except for Giles, none of you look old enough.”
Willow perked up as her mind worked the problem. “Hey…. That’s it! Tara and I can do a transfiguration spell.”
“Err Willow?” put in Tara quietly, only to be ignored as the group focused on this latest idea.
Giles looked at Willow hopefully. “You mean turn one of us into Hank Summers?” he asked.
Willow nodded energetically while, unnoticed, Tara shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“Take whatever you need from the shop for the spell Willow,” offered Giles.
“I should be the one to be changed Willow” Angel said as he stepped forwards.
“No,” Giles shook his head adamantly. “She is my responsibility, I should be the one.”
Spike shuffled forwards closer to the group. “I could go?”
Angel eyed the fellow vampire dubiously. He had heard all about Spike’s chip. The device buried in his skull preventing him from harming anything living. But he still doubted his intentions, even after he had heard the stories of how he had played a significant part in the defeat of Glory.
Believing Spike had done these things still left him a long way from trusting him.
But Willow solved the problem, “It can’t be you Spike.”
Spike glowered at Willow, making her quickly pour out a reason. “What if you need to protect her from normal people as well?”
Spike looked down at the floor, his hopes for elevating himself above his last defeat crushed below the facts of the situation.
He was effectively neutered.
Anya paused mid-motion of flicking a feather duster across some books, having immersed herself in a comforting task. Which for her was earning money. She had given up using the wheelchair. “What if Hunter took her?”
Giles froze with his cup of tea near his lips and frowned. “I think Willow is right about not sending Spike,” he said. “And I don’t believe Hunter would harm her.”
Wesley looked hard at Giles. “Are you sure? What do you really know about him?”
“I agree with Giles” broke in Angel. “I’ve looked into his eyes. He’s not the type.”
“What type?” retorted Spike. “He was the one who let the social people take her away!”
“I let them go too Spike,” replied Angel quietly.
Willow rose from her chair and moved up the stairs to the landing at the back of the shop and began scanning the book-laden shelves. While she looked for the spell, she began rattling off ingredients, causing Wesley, Anya and Giles to start hunting round the shop.
Tara wrung her hands looking slightly distressed as she plucked up her courage to say what she needed to. “It won’t work.”
The milling ceased as the gang turned to face her, causing her to shift uncomfortably. She was happiest when she was just outside the main focus of the group.
“What?” remarked Giles.
“The spell won’t work,” she replied meekly.
“Why?” he enquired.
“We need his essence.” She stated matter-of-factly.
“His essence?” copied Willow, frowning for a moment as she absent-mindedly flicked through the pages of the book she had pulled out. But as she worked through the spell in her head her frown gave way to realisation. “Oh…. wouldn’t there be something of his at the house?”
Tara shrugged. “It’s possible.”
Giles looked off for a moment racking his brains for the definition of essence. The problem was that, in the world of the super and preternatural, essence had several meanings. So, drawing a blank, he asked Willow.
“You can normally only get someone’s essence from a piece of them…. a lock of hair is used normally. But it can also be gotten from a personal object that means something very much to them.”
Giles nodded. “I’ll need someone’s help to go through their house to find something.”
Angel looked over at Wesley and arched an eyebrow. He nodded in return. It was obvious to them that there was one significant detail missing from their friend’s plans.
“Oh wait,” blurted Cordelia. “How do we know what contains his essence?”
Willow looked to Tara and her expression fell as she shrugged.
Xander slammed his hand down on the table “I’ve got it!” he yelled, only to look round at all the faces turned his way as he rubbed his suddenly sore hand. “What?” he asked innocently.
Willow rolled her eyes while Giles rubbed his forehead. For someone now in his very early twenties, Xander still had the sense of a six year old.
“Oh…. right! Err…. You remember when Buffy and I got into the Initiative?”
Giles nodded, prompting Xander to continue. “Buffy and I went in disguise. I got hold of the lab coats and military uniforms and such!”
“So?” enquired Giles
“So…. I still have the lab coats, and what do doctors wear?”
“Oh… oh… I know!” broke in Anya in her perpetually mock cheerful mood. “Lab coats and black silk underwear!”
Xander banged his head on the table as another detail of his personal life surfaced courtesy of his lover.
Spike smirked at the revelation while the rest of the group looked at Xander like he was a weirdo, while Cordelia just gave an “Eww!”
“I get where your going Xander,” responded Angel. “How many coats do you have?”
“Four,” came the muffled response as he continued to rest his head on the table.
“Okay… Xander, Wesley Spike and I will go in disguise to get them out!”
“You’re taking me along?” replied Spike somewhat surprised.
Angels turned to face him. “Don’t take it personally…. I just want you where I can see you.”
“I should go,” demanded Giles. “Dawn is my responsibility!”
“You’re too well know by the hospital staff…. you’d blow all our cover,” replied Angel. “We’ll bring her back Giles. Trust us.”
Giles nodded reluctantly. He knew that was true, but he still wanted to be doing something worthwhile to help.
“Willow…. Cordi can you two hack into the Hospital mainframe and find out where they took her?” asked Angel.
Willow looked surprised at Cordelia as she took a bag from the nearest chair and opened it to reveal a Laptop computer.
She sidled up to the other woman and lowered her voice. “You can hack?”
Cordelia looked over to her friend and smiled. “Of course…. who did you think does all the computer work for the agency?”
Spike stepped forwards and smashed on fist into his open palm. “Lets get to work here people…. we’vegot a damsel in distress to rescue!”

31

Giles frowned as the action around the shop continued apace without him. He found it as frustrating as hell as he was not needed.
Xander had gone back to his flat with Anya to pick up the doctors coats. They had been gone for nearly an hour, and Giles suspected that they had gotten distracted, yet again, with their carnal pursuits.
Willow and Cordelia were still sitting at their respective laptops. Together they had pulled up plans of the hospital, room assignments, and any other detail that they though might be relevant.
Angel and Spike were out in the sparing room. He did not know what they were up to, but by the look on Spike’s face as he had asked to talk to Angel, he had guessed that it would be best to leave them alone.
Tara was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a pentagram trying to do a tracer spell on Dawn.
Wesley was availing himself of the collection of books Giles had built up recently. Giles had offered to help, but had been politely turned down as Wesley suggested he get some sleep. Apparently, Wesley had recently come into possession of three new books and he had been working on a translation.
The fact that his help had been turned down had ruffled his proverbial feathers. But, he understood that he must look like how he felt by now. He had not had a decent night’s sleep since Buffy had….
He closed his eyes. His dreams had taken on a new twist the last time he had tried to sleep.
This time, Buffy had survived her fall from the tower, but had become disgusted with him for killing Ben.
She had spared him. Why couldn’t he?
Giles opened his eyes again as Ben’s image swam up to confront him.
He let out a small gasp that went unnoticed by most of his companions. He saw Cordelia glance at him from the corner of her eye, but she returned her attention to her work.
He knew that he had done the ‘right thing’ by Buffy and the world when he had killed Ben. But was it the right thing to have done morally?
Ben was not Glory.
Or was he?
It appeared in the end that Ben had given in to Glory, simply to get rid of her. Who could blame him really? If he were stuck in the same body as Glory, wouldn’t he try almost anything to get rid of her?
No. Almost was not everything. He would have drawn a line somewhere.
But still killing Ben had started to haunt him.
He had seen people die before. He had even been responsible for other people’s deaths. The first time when he was still ‘Ripper’ he had summoned a demon. That demon had later returned to haunt him and kill those whom he had summoned it with.
But Ben was the first person he had killed with his own hands.
As he thought about it, he stared at the hand he had used to smother the man’s nose and mouth. Ben/Glory had been so hurt that he could barely put up a struggle. It had been all too easy to finish him off.
He had gotten a momentary sense of power from the act. But, as the night ended and Buffy jumped to her death, he had realised that he had betrayed his sense of values.
He knew that Dawn had seen something of that in his expression just before she collapsed. She had seen part of him die.
It was not his innocence that he had lost. He had lost that a long time ago when he fell in with the wrong crowd. No, rather what he had lost was the last of his morals.
He had committed crimes that had gotten gradually worse over time. It had started with minor thefts when he was young. Moving up through demon summoning. Now murder. He doubted that he could get any worse.

**********

Spike stubbed out the last of his cigarette on the wall of the training room. He was sitting on one of the few chairs watching Angel spar with the dummy.
And what a thrashing the dummy was taking. Spike thought that the other Vampire must have been working out his frustrations. No surprises there.
What did surprise him though, was the way Angel was handling the Buffy situation. He was still having difficulties himself, and it had been over a week now. He hadn’t even mourned loosing Drusilla this long.
Yet, as Angel delivered a punishing snap kick to the side of the training dummy, Spike wondered where the emotion was. Angel seemed to be treating Buffy’s death with a surprising casualness.
Maybe he really was over her.
“Angel?” he called out.
Angel stopped dealing out punishment to the dummy and turned to look at him. “What?”
Spike paused while he looked for the right words. They did not come to him.
Angel glowered and returned his attention to the dummy.
“Oh to hell with it,” muttered Spike under his breath. “How do you stop grieving?” he asked louder.
Angel froze again, and looked at Spike over his shoulder. “What?” he asked.
Spike felt very self-conscious, and he looked away to a spot on the wall as he repeated himself. “How do you stop grieving?”
Angel frowned. “Why do you ask?”
Spike shifted his eyes from the wall to the floor. “I just wanna know,” he muttered.
Angel looked at him suspiciously. “You’re grieving for Buffy?” he asked at length.
Spike nodded shortly.
Angel could not help but crack a smile at Spike. Spike saw it and spitted Angel with a withering stare.
That only made Angel smile even more. Despite the circumstances, he found it supremely amusing that the one person who had boasted that he would never let a slayer get to him, had seemingly let one get to him. Just not in the usual way.
Angel wanted to laugh as he pictured the sort of reaction Buffy would have given Spike if he had told her.
At the best, she would have pulled that ‘eww’ face of hers. At worst, Spike would have earned himself a stake.
Angel was just getting control over his smile when, from the other room, he heard Tara yelp.
The two vampires looked at each other for a moment, then both flew from the room.
The first thing Angel noticed was that Tara was still sitting on her pentagram, but now, Willow had joined her and appeared to be helping her up from the floor.
The second thing he noticed was that Tara was shivering despite the warmth of the air in the shop.
“What happened?” he demanded to know, his question being delivered at the exact same time as Spikes. The two looked at each other again, but quickly looked away.
In this endeavour, they might be on the same side, but there was a lot of ugly history between them.
Tara looked up at Angel as he towered over her. “I was doing a spell to trace Dawn,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “But when I though I found her, something threw me away.”
Giles reached down and helped Tara stand then manoeuvred her to one of the chairs round the table. “Threw you away?” he asked.
She nodded. “Another magick user.”
Angel looked at Giles. “Hunter?”
Giles shrugged. “I don’t know the source of his powers. It could be. But why throw Tara away?”
Tara shook her head. “It wasn’t him. It was something else. Someone else.”
“Then who?” asked Wesley as he closed one of the volumes he had been reading.
“I don’t know. But whoever it was, they don’t want us to find Dawn.”
“Do you think this is the person behind the latest series of attacks on Dawn?” asked Wesley.
Spike stepped forwards. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does,” Wesley retorted stiffly.
Spike shook his head as Xander spoke up from over by the door as he walked in carrying an armful of clothing. “Spike’s right. What matters now is getting to Dawn before whoever this…. other person or thing does.”
“Yes, quite right Xander,” replied Giles.
“Wow,” said Xander. “That’s got to be a first!”
The group all stared at him looking for an explanation and he smiled a little mischievously. “Agreeing with Spike and having Giles say I’m right…. all in one sentence!”
“It was a woman,” said Tara suddenly.
“What was? The other…. presence?” asked Willow.
Tara nodded. “I just remember her laughing at me.” Tara closed her eyes, her voice holding a slight quiver of fear. “We’ve got to go get Dawn.”
Xander threw three of the white coats down on the table and slipped his on. “Time to rock and roll!”

32

With no sense of the outside world, it was impossible for Hunter to guess at how long he had been in the padded room. Several hours at least.
All he could do was sit cross-legged in the middle, with Dawn all but comatose besides him.
His normally so organised and resolved mind was in total upheaval. For all his life he had had the subtle guidance of his powers to point him in the right direction. But cut off from them here and now, he was lost. No beacon of light to point the way in the darkness.
A slight groan and movement from his side drew him from his failed attempts at meditation. “Dawn?”
“Hmmm….” came the mumbled reply, fringed with an edge of pain.
Hunter lowered his head to near her ear and whispered to her, “shhh…. It will be okay Dawn…. I’m here.”
“It hurts!” she whimpered.
Hunter moved round to where she could see him and laid his head down in front of her and looked deep into her eyes. “I know….” he whispered.
Dawn looked back into his eyes and a tear streaked down her cheek. His eyes were so full of life that she could all but lose herself in their depths. They were three distinct shades of blue. A dark blue band ran round the outside, and a mottled mixture of blue towards the pure black pupil at the centre with yellow golden flecks on the iris, radiating outwards.
“I will get us out of this Dawn…. I swear!” Hunter tried to inject as much confidence and determination into his voice as he could. Even though he felt no such emotions, and even though he knew that Dawn could see through his charade with ease.
But she nodded weakly, wincing slightly in pain as she stretched her healing burns too far and cracked dry skin.
Hunter smiled at her when she opened her eyes again. “I’m going to try to untie you. Can you roll over?”
Setting herself in grim determination, she rolled over onto her other side, yelping in pain only once as her burnt side left contact with the floor, eventually presenting her back to Hunter.
Luckily the people who had captured them had not replaced her straight jacket with a new one where they had discovered the broken straps. Instead, they had used silver insulation tape to repair it all.
Their mistake!
Leaning his head forwards, Hunter bit out at the end of one of the strips of silver in an attempt to peel it away.
He grimaced in sympathy every time he bit too hard and caught Dawn’s skin through the jacket, but he kept on going.

Counting mentally in his head, he had reached 5432 seconds when he had finally gotten enough of the tape worked off to allow Dawn to get free use of one arm.
With her back wet with his saliva, he managed to pry up the other strip in less than 2000 seconds.
That was the problem with insulation tape. It sticks to everything. Rumours abounded that, without the tape, many industries across the world would have fallen apart years ago; the only thing holding them together was the tape.
For the first time, Hunter believed the rumour.
The two froze as they heard multiple heavy footsteps from under the door and muffled conversation between at least four different voices.
“Hurry!” Hunter urged Dawn as she fumbled with the straps holding Hunter’s own arms back.
Then the blind covering the small viewing window from the outside disappeared, flooding the room with a halo of light to highlight the two kneeling on the floor.
The overhead lights blared on, blinding Dawn and Hunter as they heard the door swing open.
Just then one of the straps fell away, giving Hunter free use of his left arm.
He launched into action, life sense blind and physically blind. But being warrior trained, he knew where Dawn was in the room, yelling at her to stay down, he orientated towards the nearest other sound of noise and used his free arm to clothesline whoever was making it.
Hunter kept on going as his arm contacted a large broad object that let out a howl of surprise and pain as the person fell backwards hard.
Pushing on, Hunter’s right shoulder crashed hard into an immoveable object, spinning him round to sprawl on the floor.
Opening his eyes, more, he made out three dark shapes looming towards him. With no real time to formulate any plan, Hunter rolled on to his back and pushed off with his feet to slide across the floor down the corridor, with the aim of getting more time so he could see his attackers.
Blind covered windows were to his right, while he slid past another door like the one he had come out. The other doors were on his left. The ceiling was painted the same colour as the walls, soft beige; with evenly spread fluorescent strip lights.
As his eyes recovered, he made out a vampire looming down on his with arms outstretched.
Hunter kicked up with one foot, aiming at the base of the jaw of the vampire. Hunter missed as the vampire leaned his head fractionally to the side. The vampire then reached up with amazing speed and grabbed a hold of Hunter’s foot by the ankle and snarled down at his potential victim.
Hunter lashed out with his other foot so fast it was a blur of motion; kicking up from the ground he locked his ankles together behind the vampires head. Pausing to savour the stunned expression that dawned on its devilish features.
Hunter pulled down and to the right while rolling over onto his stomach. The vampire howled in pain as his neck was brought to the point of breaking as he was flipped over. The vampire went spinning around the point where Hunter held its neck; like a human wheel. The vampires legs got tangled up in the heavy blind covering the window and pulled it down to partly cover him as he sprawled over on the floor.
The other vampires reared back in the face of blissful sunlight rising over the horizon. They were joined by the one Hunter had knocked over in his headlong rush out of the room while their comrade began to smoke under the blind. Hunter saw small guttering flames beginning to dance over the blistering exposed skin.
Seeing possibly his only opportunity, Hunter pulled the straight jacket up over his head in an attempt to free himself.
Just as one arm cleared the sleeve and the garment came off his head, he saw a fist arc in to him. With no time to react, the closed fist slammed hard into his solar plexus, breaking bone and splitting the skin open to allow blood to soak into his tunic. He doubled over in pain and gasped for a breath as it had been forced out of him.
A one handed chop to the back of the neck dropped him to the ground. His jaw hit hard enough to send stars dancing across his vision and blood splattering from inside his mouth. He had bitten the inside of his cheek. He was lucky he hadn’t bitten the end of his tongue off.
Blood began to trickle out of the corner of his mouth in a steady stream, running under his chin and down his neck.
Pushing up from the ground with both hands, he glanced to the side to check where the vampires were. In response, he got a closed fist to his right eye, smashing him back to the ground.
A kick landed to his ribs, forcing out what precious little breath he had left and cracking ribs. He gasped in air and pain shot through his lungs as the ribs poked into them. He knew if he wasn’t careful, he could easily puncture a lung.
Another kick followed, impacting on his hip and turning him over to his side. He lay his head down on the floor and closed his eyes. He was loosing the battle and at that point in time, with pain racking his body, he didn’t care.
He opened his good eye to see Dawn crawling out the doorway of the padded cell on her hands and knees. She froze and her jaw worked up and down in silence as she saw Hunter sprawled on the floor being beaten repeatedly by the three Vampires.
Their eyes met and he felt the resolve grow within him. He had found something special with Dawn. Something that he desperately wanted to explore. He would not give that up without a fight.
Another kick landed to his stomach, folding him around the blow and causing him to spray more blood and spittle from his mouth, all over the leg of the female Vampire.
“You bastard!” she yelled, “do you know how hard it is to get blood out of pantyhose?”
The question took a bare second to register. It seemed so out of place in amongst the violence.
To reinforce her point, the vampire aimed a vicious kick at Hunter’s head. If it had connected, it had enough force to knock him out and possibly break his neck. But he managed to deflect it to the side, sacrificing his right hand instead. The blow impacted on his palm, popping joints out of place in a blazing cacophony of pain.
Grimacing around the sting, he wrapped his hand around the deflected foot, stopping it, and allowing him to time to get his left hand wrapped around the ankle as well.
Now standing on one foot, the female vampire was off balance enough for Hunter to pull her over with his warrior-trained muscles.
She was wearing high heels and her other foot slipped on the floor easily. Her foot slid across the polished floor as she fell backwards, and the stiletto point stabbed Hunter deep in his left shoulder. It went so deep that he felt it grate bone. The feeling and sound echoing inside his skull and making him grind his teeth around a yell of pain.
The pain was overwhelming. At that point, he would have cut off his own arm to stop it.
He rolled over, clawing at the shoe from his arm and he bumped into the wall. Anger flaring as the two standing vampires laughed at the fortunes of their companion and the fact that their victims’ defence had hurt him more than the attackers.
Hunter let loose a feral snarl as he rose to one knee and slammed the shoe down on the polished floor, partly slick with his blood. The metal tip snapped off the bottom revealing a wooden core making up the pointed heel.
The vampires stopped laughing.
In one fluid motion, muscles screaming in protest, he rose and spun round in a pirouette, hand with the shoe trailing him stretched out from his body.
The wood penetrated the chest of the vampire on the right, stabbing in between bone and causing him to fall backwards in shock and surprise clutching at the wound.
Spinning back the other way, he slammed the heel through the neck of the other, spraying blood over the walls, and adding to that which he had shed on the floor.
The wounded vampire fell backwards into the light from the window and stumbled over the blind on the floor. His skin blistered and smoked within a second. Small flames sprouted on some parts, quickly spreading and setting the clothes on fire as well. Finally, he burst completely into flames with a long scream echoing down the corridor.
Hunter backed away towards Dawn, stumbling slightly as he realised, one of the kicks had broken his left leg. Now the initial burst of adrenaline was fading, it would no longer fully support his weight. He and Dawn needed to get out of there.
Dawn screamed as the two remaining vampires charged forwards together, leaping at him and taking him down to the floor hard.
As Hunter was tackled, he spun round to get his arms in place to control the fall. But he just ended up falling into Dawn. Her arms wrapped around him reflexively as they landed on the ground, her legs being forced either side of his. Their eyes ended up perfectly level, staring into each other. Their bodies so intimately placed that for a second, the world faded away around them.
But the world can be cruel, and it intruded on their moment. Her scream rose again, echoing down the corridor as one of the vampires leaned over them, looking in her eyes as he sank his fangs into Hunter’s neck.
His stifled yell joined hers. But he never looked away from her eyes.


33

Xander walked away from the smiling female security guard at the desk and over to Angel, Spike and Wesley. All four of them were dressed smartly, with white lab coats on. Xander handed over plastic tags that identified them as medical student visitors.
“How’d you do it?” enquired Angel as he clipped on the tag.
Xander flashed a crooked smile. “What can I say?” he glanced over his shoulder at the guard, “some of us are just so popular we can make people do anything.” He paused for a second thinking about that “hey…. that would really be kinda cool! I could convince people to give me money and stuff!”
Spike ignored Xander’s imaginings and glanced over at the guard and saw her staring intently at Angel. He smiled slightly around a pen he had in his mouth. He had put it there while Xander had talked to the guard. He was craving a cigarette.
Angel cocked his head slightly and looked at Xander intently “What did you give her?”
Xander’s smile faltered for a second. “She thinks that the paperwork was screwed up for our tour.” He dropped his voice to a mumble as he continued, looking down at his feet for a moment. “She also thinks that she has a date with you in a couple of days.”
Spike let lose a short burst of laughter and the pen fell from his lips. He stopped laughing as Angel glared at him.
“What harm did it do…. you don’t actually have to go out with her…. she just thinks you will!” Xander said regaining his smirk.
Angel frowned, “That doesn’t make it right!”
Xander’s smile dropped again. “Since when did you start objecting big time to unscrupulous methods dead boy?”
Angel glowered at the nickname Xander had given him. He knew that Xander knew that it annoyed him.
Wesley broke in with a restraining hand on Angel’s shoulder. “As much as I would love to stand around all day and discuss things in front of a committee, we have a job to do.”
Angel nodded, “You’re right. Let’s go find Dawn.”
Wesley hefted the sports bag full of weapons he was carrying over his shoulder and followed the others deeper into the mental building of Sunnydale hospital.

**********

The teeth of a vampire are perfectly suited to piercing human flesh and getting to the veins and arteries underneath.
If the vampire so wants it, the bite mark can be little more than a neat set of puncture wounds and a few indents from the other teeth caused by sucking.
Of course, they could also use their teeth to tear human flesh to shreds.
The fangs of one of the two remaining vampires sank deeper into Hunter’s neck. Blood started to flow freely around his mouth, dripping down onto Dawn as she whimpered, her eyes wide with terror.
She could no longer scream. There was simply too much weight on her chest to barely breathe, let alone scream. Hunter lay atop her and a vampire was on top of him. Without the vampire, the positioning would have been very intimate, especially after their shared experience while unconscious. Instead it was…. something beyond Dawn’s ability to describe.
The vampire reared back tearing away a chunk from Hunter’s neck and spraying blood across Dawn's face. She closed her eyes to prevent them being filled with blood. But the image had been burned into her mind even as she felt the blood trace a slick warm wave down her cheek.
She knew now that she was going to die. Never before had she felt the presence of death. Not even when she had been cut open and bleeding her life away courtesy of the demon called Doc.
She had known that Buffy would save her. It was her faith. Her sister had always saved her in the past. Always. Why should that time have been any different?
Of course, thinking about it, all those times she remembered being saved had never really happened.
And of course, last time, Buffy had won. But at a horrendous price. Her own life.
Now there was no big sister to save her. Just an after-image left of Buffy in her head. Was that image real or just part of her twisted mind? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had lost Buffy and the last of her belief that good always wins out died with her.

**********

Wesley paused and looked into a side room off the corridor. The room was dark, but something was moving inside.
Pushing the door further open, he flicked on the lights.
It was a small office. An inadequate bulb overhead provided scant illumination. Around three of the four walls were battered grey filing cabinets. Some had drawers open showing the stuffed contents of manila folders. Most of the cabinets also had more folders stacked on top of them. There were even folders stacked on the floor as well. A single potted plant that had seen better days sat just to the side of the door. A moth-eared tan couch filled the last wall, also covered in paperwork. Two chairs faced a desk just off the centre of the room. Neither chair matched, nor did the chair behind the desk.
What drew his attention though was a cardboard box, partly hidden behind the desk. Moving deeper into the room, Wesley glanced at the mass of files sprawled across the desk.
They were all medical reports on current patients. He recognised a few of the names of some of the people he had seen mentioned in the local paper. The ones that had miraculously recovered from a type of mass dementia. Giles had told him that, when Glory had died, the energy she had absorbed from them must have returned. A copy of the same paper he had been reading just after his arrival, but before he availed himself of Giles’ book collection, was open on one corner of the desk. The headline read as ‘Miracle of Minds?’.
As Wesley moved round the desk, he shifted his attention to the box. Jutting out of it was a large piece of black cloth, twitching slightly.
Twitching. Yet there was no real air movement in the stuffy office.
He tentatively reached out a hand and touched the moving fabric. Wesley was amazed at how soft it felt as he rubbed a hand across it.
“What’s up?”
Wesley jumped as Spike stuck his head around the door. As he turned to have a go at Spike for making him jump, the blonde vampire moved into the room. “Hey…. isn’t that Hunter’s sword?”
Wesley turned round. The fabric had slipped when he had been shocked by Spike. He took a close look.
Indeed it was Hunter’s sword. The intricately carved handle of golden metal and the black scabbard with a flame pattern down the side. He pulled on some of the black fabric and it kept coming till he held a black cloak in his hands.
Spike and Wesley traded knowing looks. If these things were in here, it meant that something had happened to Hunter.
Wesley stuffed the cloak and sword into the bag he carried, and together, he and Spike hurried from the room to find Angel and Xander.
They were right outside the door and they almost collided with each other.
“We found….” He was interrupted by a scream echoing down the corridor. All four turned to look down the corridor where the sound came from. The view was blocked by a set of double doors. On one of them, a notice about refurbishment was stuck to the glass. When the scream was repeated they took off, running down the corridor flat out and bursting through the doors.

**********

It felt like blood was running like a waterfall from Hunter’s shoulder as the vampire didn’t so much feed, but chew his way through flesh.
He couldn’t scream in pain as his mouth was filled with blood. It leaked from his lips and down onto Dawn’s in a constant stream. But the pain showed in his eyes. He could see it reflected in Dawn’s.
Her lips moved and some of the blood fell in her mouth. But the fear in her eyes could not get worse. Time seemed to be slowing as he bled his life away over the one he loved.
Yes. Love. He knew what love felt like now. He had not felt it since the death of his parents, but Dawn had rekindled his emotions. He had never felt so human near her, and he loved her for it. He loved the way that she tucked loose strands of her hair away from her face. He loved her eyes. He loved her face. He had yet to see her smile, but he instinctively knew that he would love it too.
Her lips moved. Her voice was but the smallest whisper. “Please….”

34

Angel saw a tangle of arms and legs and put on a burst of speed. Spike followed close at his heels.
As they ran, they both noticed that two of the people in the heap had the demonic visage of fellow vampires. One of the vampires was leaning over and feeding on someone, the other, a female, was pinning the lower body of the victim and laughing.
Angel felt his beast coming and he shifted to his demon form as he grabbed a hold of the vampire that was feeding. Angel had built up so much momentum, that he pulled the other vampire off his victim so fast that they both slammed into the wall of the corridor.
Angel bounced back from the impact, but retained his grip on the collar of the other vampire. Lifting the demon clean off his feet, he slammed him hard into the wall again and again.
Bone shattered under the attack. Skin broke and left bloody imprints and splatter marks up the clean wall.
Still Angel slammed the vampire against it.
Spike had tackled the female vampire to the floor and jumped down on her legs. The sound of breaking bone pierced through her scream of pain. But she started to crawl away from him anyway, fear on her face.

Hunter’s full weight was lying on top of Dawn. His head was limp, forehead resting on the floor beside her head. Fear filled her eyes as she tried to move out from under the knight, tears streaming down her face and thinning out the blood that covered her.
Wesley and Xander were there seconds behind and began to help Dawn get free. Xander all but dragged her to the side of the corridor while Wesley turned over Hunter and began to shove his hands against the neck wound, applying pressure, to stop the bleeding.
Angel turned around and held the vampire into the sunlight and snarled as the light fell on his own hands.
The vampire screamed as his skin blistered and began to peel away. “Please…. I was only following orders!” he wailed.
“Who sent you?” Angel demanded.
The vampire never got a chance to reply as he combusted into flaming dust for a moment, then fell to the floor.
Angel drew his hands out from the light and glanced at them. They were badly burnt and would take a long time for him to heel, but it had felt good to kill the vampire.
He tuned and snarled at the female vampire just as Spike lifted her off the ground and slammed her into the wall hard enough to send plaster falling to the ground to mix in with the blood slicked corridor.
“Who sent you?” he repeated his question to her as he stalked the few steps to the wall.
She only snarled in response, her yellow eyes glinting malevolently. Her earlier fear had evaporated under the heat of anger.
Angel leaned in close to her and growled, “wrong answer!” He jabbed a fist into her ribs hard enough to break some of them. “Who sent you?” he yelled over her cry of pain.
“I don’t know!” she spat.
Spike twisted her arm, snapping it out of joint in one swift motion, soliciting a yell of pain and rage. “Why don’t I believe you?” he asked innocently.
“It’s the truth!” she yelled around the pain.
Spike slammed her into the wall again and she passed out.

Xander knelt beside Dawn and placed a hand on her shoulder. She had sat with her back to the inside wall of the corridor in the light from the window. She was staring hauntedly at Hunter as blood continued to flow from his neck and around Wesley’s hands. His head had turned as Wesley applied pressure to the wound. His eyes were looking at her.
Xander looked between the two then placed himself in her line of sight. She seemed to be looking through him. “It’s okay Dawn, we’ve come to take you home,” he said reassuringly.
She turned her head slowly to look at him, her eyes coming into focus. “How’s Matthew?” she asked shakily.
Xander looked at her as surprise spread across his face. He blinked rapidly and a grin spread. “You talked? You Talked!”
“How’s Matthew?” she asked again, happy with herself as her voice seemed firmer.
Xander turned round to look a Wesley. He had now propped the young knight up against the wall and had torn a sleeve off his jumper and wrapped it round the neck wound. The fabric glistened wetly in the light spilling from the wound.
He had let his head flop to the side. It took too much energy to keep it up. He had also closed his eyes. It had taken effort to keep them open as well.
Without his powers to call on, he had no way to stop the bleeding or suppress the pain. Let alone start to heal.
He breathed a shaky but deep breath and bit down on the pain that his body returned through his nerves. Opening his eyes the world swam into focus as he stared at Dawn’s foot protruding past Xander.
He was hurt and badly. But he would live. He’d been hurt worse than this before. He frowned. Of course he had been able to accelerate his healing that time.
Wesley leaned back and looked into his eyes. “You haven’t severed any arteries or anything as far as I can tell. They just tore a lump of flesh away.”
Hunter nodded very slowly, the pain in his neck causing spots to dance before his eyes and threatening to make him pass out.
Dawn rose to her knees and crawled across the floor to Hunter. Xander tried to put her back where she was, but she pushed him away.
She turned around and slid down the wall to sit next to Hunter. Placing a hand over his on his knee, she squeezed it gently. “Thank you” she whispered.
He turned his head slowly to look at her. He was frowning. “What for?” he asked puzzled. “Bleeding on you?”
She smiled at the comment and looked in his eyes.
He saw her smile. His prediction was right. He did love her smile.
“No,” she replied, “for being there.”
He smiled back at her and squeezed her hand gently in return. “You’re welcome”. He looked over to where Angel and Spike had tied up the female vampire. He looked back, “Shall we go?” he asked plainly, like he was asking her if she would like to leave after a movie had finished at the cinema.
She nodded in reply and slid up the wall and waited for him to stand beside her.
Pain stabbed down his leg as he rose but he swallowed it. The taste of blood in his mouth went down his throat. Sickly sweet and coppery.
Dawn placed an arm around his waist and looked up into his eyes. Then, without a word between them, they began to walk slowly down the corridor.
The four men, two human, two not quite, watched them go. All had a look on their faces that suggested that they thought they had missed something…. significant.
“Erm….” broke in Spike causing Dawn and Hunter to pause and look over their shoulders at the blonde vampire. “What we gong to do with her?” he said poking the unconscious vampire being held up between himself and Angel.
“Let her go!” came the reply. But it did not come from anyone’s lips. Instead the voice seemed to float like an invisible darkness, an almost shadow, across the air. A female voice that was all too familiar.
35

Hunter moved carefully away from Dawn, motioning for her to move to the side of the corridor. His legs felt like jelly under him, but he managed to stay standing as he scanned the corridor ahead and behind.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice echoing slightly against the walls as he continued to look around.
A high laugh returned to him. “I am his servant. That is all you need to know knight!” The emphasis she placed on the last word made it sound like something unpleasant.
“Where are you?” demanded Angel. Without even being conscious of it, he and Spike had dropped the unconscious female vampire to the ground and had backed up against each other. They had spent so much time fighting together in the past, that it was a second nature reaction for them to cover each other while they fed and to watch each other’s backs on the run from slayers. Even though for the last hundred years they had been at loggerheads, old habits died hard.
The voice laughed. A shrill sound that seemed devoid of real humour. “Why would I tell you vampire?”
Hunter caught Dawn’s eyes as they nervously looked around. He smiled and nodded reassuringly, sending a jab of pain through his neck injury.
Reflexively his hand went to his neck and pressed on the wound. It had almost stopped bleeding. Almost.
“Are you the one behind the demon gangs?” asked Wesley as he pulled out Hunter’s sword and drew the blade slowly.
The voice echoed down the hall again. “How could a knight need the help of mere humans? Are you that weak?” Her voice sounded filled with scorn.
Hunter stood his ground. He knew where the voice was coming from now. He looked directly at a spot on the floor of the corridor twenty feet away. Someone was there. He knew it even if he could not see or sense them. His hunch came from a warrior’s instinct. “I know where you are,” he said determinedly.
There was a pause that seemed to stretch out for a moment. “Really?” The voice sounded higher pitched than before. Almost as though she was nervous. “Are you sure?”
Hunter turned to face a new direction as fast as he dared on his broken leg. The voice had moved. But where to?
The woman laughed again. “What’s wrong knight?” she spat. “Can’t you sense me? Can’t you sense him?”
The voice was now floating around him like it was being carried on the wind. Hunter cocked his head listening for any sound that could give away the movement of a person. Nothing but the voice sounded.
“Oh…. that’s right. You can’t feel anything can you?” Her voice seemed amused.
The anger and frustration Hunter was feeling began to boil under his skin. “What did you do to me?” he demanded to the empty air.
“I used a useful little spell that I developed.” Her voice was filled with scorn again.
It was clear to Hunter that she had no respect for others, and held himself…. or maybe all knights in contempt for some reason. He snarled and slammed his fist into the wall. His hand spasmed in pain as a dislocated finger snapped back into place with a wet click. Every nerve in his arm felt like lightening had passed through it. “Show yourself,” he demanded. “You want Dawn? You have to go through me first!”
The laughter filled the corridor again as the air began to shimmer. The effect looked the same as when heat radiated off the roads in summer. Except the ripples in the air were tinged with a red so dark it looked almost black.
From within the ripples, a human form emerged. The woman that stood there was very familiar. It was the social worker whom had Dawn taken into custody. Morgan Wildman.
She was dressed like a knight; blood-red tunic ending in a very short flared skirt with a floor length cape billowing around her. Strapped across her back was a large Sickle. A black shaft starting with a rounded pommel could be seen near the ground by her left foot, while it ended above her right shoulder in a gleaming silver hooked blade.
Morgan reached out an arm and the sword Wesley had been gripping flew from his hands to land in hers. She laughed as she swung the blade experimentally back and forth.
Hunter never took his eyes off of the sword.
“You want this?” she taunted, waggling the blade again.
He looked deep into Morgan’s eyes. Her pupils were a red brown and bloodshot, but alert and blazing with contained power. Without his powers there was no one in this corridor who could come even close to defeating Morgan in single combat.
Before he could warn anyone, Angel leapt forwards. He weaved left and right in a dazzling display of skill that would have had most opponents guessing where he was going to strike.
Unfortunately Morgan was no normal opponent. Feinting left just as Angel was in striking range, she quickly switched and stepped to the right, turning mid manoeuvre and swinging the longsword around as she went.
Angel sailed past her with the tip of the blade in hot pursuit, catching up to him as he slowed to turn and attack her from the side.
The blade struck home over Angel’s right hip slicing open flesh down to the bone and sending him over sideways with the force of the impact.
Blood from the wound sprayed outwards and splattered up the walls, making it look like someone had sprayed it with an airbrush.
As he fell, the blade flashed in the light again to impale him through the back, jamming him down to the floor. All Angel did was gasp in pain before falling unconscious with a kick to the forehead.
Spike had drawn a stake from his coat pocket and stabbed the female vampire deep in the heart as she regained consciousness. He had then followed Angel bare seconds later. The wooden stake still clutched in his hand, went arcing down towards Morgan’s head.
Morgan smiled malevolently as she withdrew the sword from Angel’s back and turned round gracefully to slash the sword across Spike’s chest.
The blade stopped the forward movement of his upper-body while his legs continued onwards. He slid under the blade to sprawl on the ground with a gash across his chest deep enough to show the glistening white of his ribcage.
He yelled in pain and shifted to his beast form as he leaned over and grabbed the woman’s leg and pulled her off balance, digging his fingers into her ankle enough to tear her hose and bring blood welling to the surface under his nails.
She slammed into the wall and bounced off, regaining her balance in a second and stomping down on Spike’s hand as he withdrew it to grasp his forehead as pain lanced through it from his head chip. Bones snapped as her heel crushed the wrist, the pain from that injury overriding the pain of the chip.
Another kick to the head and Spike too lay unmoving on the blood-slicked floor.
Morgan turned to face Xander and Wesley as they finished fishing a weapon each out of the now discarded sports bag. She gave them a look of contempt as Wesley raised a crossbow.
“Pathetic,” she snapped as she reached out a hand and used her mind to break the drawstring on the bow causing the bolt to drop to the ground. “Move again and you’re both dead!” she growled.
You could hear Xander and Wesley swallow in the second of silence as they glanced down at Angel and Spike.
Morgan turned to face Hunter and smiled slowly. “I never dreamed of facing a knight this soon. My master promised you to me…. Eventually. But now,” she paused and leaned her head to the side, her smile increasing, “killed while trying to escape I think.”
Glancing quickly at Dawn, Hunter stepped away from the wall and stood in the middle of the corridor. Setting himself in a combat crouch on his still intact right leg, he stared at Morgan and said one thing. “Bring it on!”


36

Hunter glared at Morgan through a strand of his dark hair that had fallen over his forehead. Hands out to the side ready to strike or parry an attack. Of course, if she attacked with the sword, the arm he used to defend himself would probably be cut off.
He needed to distract her. Hell what he really needed was an army or his powers back. He would have to settle for the distraction. “Why are you so full of anger?” he asked neutrally. His voice betrayed none of the fear he was feeling.
Real genuine fear. He had not felt it for so long he had almost forgotten what it had felt like. That lump in your throat. The block of ice that had been your heart settling in your stomach.
A light laugh escaped her throat, so seemingly out of place in the tension of the moment. “Dark emotions make me more powerful than anything you can imagine!” she responded.
He noticed that her voice held an edge to it. An edge of fear perhaps? It certainly held anger.
Fear?
Hunter smiled knowingly. She feared him. Or at the very least she feared his potential. The fear was barely there, or very well controlled. She knew that without his powers he was less of a threat than the vampires, but she still feared him.
His smile died when he suddenly remembered the fact that he did have no powers.
He had been well trained in the art of combat and war, but what made a knight so dangerous was their connection to the energy fields generated by life. Without them they were just human.
Without his powers he was just human…. No accelerated healing, no pain suppression, no enhanced reflexes. Just human.
If he fought her he would die. He knew that and found some comfort in that fact. If he distracted Morgan for even a few seconds, it could give Xander and Wesley a chance to get Dawn away.
“Xander, take Dawn out of here!” he said not taking his eyes of Morgan.
“NO!” she yelled. “The key stays here!”
“I’m not leaving you Matthew!” cried Dawn around her tears. He spared a glance to see her huddled against the wall watching him intently. Fear abounded in her eyes. But something else resided there as well. Hope. Even for just the second he glanced at her, her hope grew.
He turned back to Morgan. “What’s wrong,” he taunted, “don’t you have the nerve to face me with my powers?”
The tension level spiked another notch as she spitted him with a glance that would have killed him if it could. Indeed, if she had though about it, she could have killed him with little more than a thought.
It would take little effort to use her powers to crush his windpipe and suffocate him. Only a little more concentration would pinch a blood vessel or two and starve his mind of blood.
For that matter, it would only take a raw burst of telekinetic power and she could blend his brains inside his skull into a soup.
She shook her head and the fire in her eyes seemed to lessen a little. She smiled malevolently. “My master wishes you to be alive when he arrives. So maybe I will just cripple you a little more.” She smiled at him. The smile seemed to be made of ice.
He nodded and strode forwards careful on how much weight he place on his broken leg, each step making him feel like he wanted to lie down and never get up again. “So be it,” he said simply. The three words all but dripping with menace.
Morgan smiled as she raised the longsword before her, the blade glinting with an enchanted razor sharp edge from the sunlight pouring in through the window.
Dawn screamed ‘no’ as Hunter slid in to the left and leant backwards to avoid a slash that would have left a deep furrow across his chest.
His leg gave out and he continued to drop, kicking up with the intact limb to catch her outstretched arms at the wrists. Her reactions were one step ahead of him and too fast. His kick landed on a hand that was already moving away, lessening the impact.
He landed on his shoulder blades and pain jabbed into his head from his neck injury. But he kept his legs in the air, scissoring them together to catch the downward stroke of the sword.
His legs caught the hilt, but Morgan’s enhanced reactions had already started the blade moving towards her. The edge of the sword ran down his inner legs, tracing matching lines of blood.
He dropped his legs away from the sword and rolled out to the side till he met the wall of the corridor. Placing both hands on the ground he pushed up got to his knees and turned to face her. “You’re tough fighting an unarmed opponent,” he said sarcastically.
She smiled that icy smile again as she slid forwards. “No, I’m just not stupid enough to arm you.”

**********

Dawn watched the battle unfolding with undisguised horror. Matthew would die trying to save her. Just like Buffy had.
She wouldn’t let someone else die for her. She couldn’t let someone else die.
“I know Dawn,” echoed a voice in her head.
“Buffy?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes,” echoed the reply.
“I need to help him,” she pleaded.
“I know,” she said as her image shimmered before Dawn’s eyes. The avatar laid a hand on her shoulder. An ethereal contact that sent a little tingle through her body. “Fight with me?”
Dawn didn’t understand, but she nodded anyway. Buffy’s image dissolved into her skin, and then she knew.


37

Looking back years later, Hunter would still never guess why Morgan never noticed Dawn step away from the wall. In an instant she was beside Morgan and had reached out a hand to pluck the sword from her grasp. Spinning away like a ballerina to stop in the middle of the corridor. Her body frozen in a classic duelling stance.
Morgan froze for a second, surprise blossoming on her face. But quick as lightening, she had reached over her shoulder and grasped the sickle, bringing it out and around in a low arc. She took a couple of steps away from Hunter and Dawn and took the weapon in a two handed grip, right hand up near the blade, the left three quarters of the way down the long black shaft. She then spitted Dawn with an icy stare, a twist of her lips showing some amusement. “So…. the key has guts?” she asked sarcastically. “Shall we see if I can see them?”
Dawn held the longsword in a two handed grip and felt something otherworldly flow through her. It was as if she had phantom feelings of arms and legs.
“Follow my lead….” Buffy’s voice echoed in her mind.
Dawn stepped forward, following the sensations. She lifted the sword up and to the right, intersecting a downward slash from Morgan that would have opened her up from shoulder to hip.
The two blades sparked against each other under the force of the impact, and Dawn had to step back slightly to regain her balance from the power Morgan applied.
She felt the phantom sensations shift, and she glided off to the left, following them. Pitching the sword toward Morgan she deflected a horizontal slash.
Hunter leant against the wall breathing hard. He had lost a fair amount of blood and he was feeling it weaken him. But he still could not tear his eyes off Dawn as she glided in and out of reposts like a professional swordsman. She was no knight that much was for sure. But she moved with a fluid grace and skill that was not human. No, she was no knight…. but she could easily have been…. a slayer!
He smiled to himself at that thought. He had talked with the spectral presence of Buffy within Dawn’s mind. He knew that she was around in some form. An after image…. an avatar of her former self. Now it seemed as if Buffy was determined to help save Dawn once more.
Morgan performed a pirouette, her sickle slicing out and trailing behind her with deadly force. Hunter had to duck as the blade sliced through the wall where his head had been, continuing almost unhindered by the thick brick walls, to hack at Dawn.
Dawn stepped away from the slash while bringing the sword down and around to parry it. The force of the impact nearly tore the sword from her hands and sent a blaze of sparks showering across her skin. Both blades arced down to stab deep into the floor.
No earthly blades could have done that. Edging toward Xander and Wesley, who had dragged Spike and Angel out of the way of the fight, Hunter grimaced. Morgan was wearing a living cape and had an enchanted weapon. She was a fallen knight, or very close to it.
Dawn drew back, sword still in hand while Morgan stood still with her sickle in a guard pose, this time with the blade down low and the rounded pommel up by her left shoulder. Then they were off again, Morgan striking out and Dawn on the defensive, but being forced inexorably back.
Thanks to the ability knights had to sense the minds of their opponent it was unlikely a slayer could defeat a knight. But, if Dawn’s performance was any indication, Buffy had been close to the level of speed and skill that it would need.
Morgan set herself ready for another attack, evil glinting in her eyes as she faced off against the young girl before her. “I just thought I would let you know that my master wanted you alive. But you are still very useful even if dead,” she taunted, her threat hanging like ice in the air.
Dawn tilted her longsword in a mock salute. “Are you going to talk me to death, or try it for real?” she asked. But although the voice was hers, it was not something she could have said in this situation. It oozed something else. A confidence built up over years of fighting the good fight. A confidence she had never gotten. From what Hunter had heard, it was classic Buffy.
Never taking his eyes off the battle, Hunter finally joined Xander and Wesley as they rummaged through the sports bag for weapons. “You go against her and you will die,” warned Hunter.
Xander looked up quickly at the wounded knight. He knew that, but they had to help Dawn anyway. Returning his attention to the bag, he pulled out a corner of black fabric and grasped the hilt of a small axe. Hefting it once, he stepped toward Morgan.
Hunter just stared at the corner of the black fabric for a second. His heart skipping a beat in hope.
Reaching out one hand, the fabric of the cloak began to stir. The material was woven from an enchanted fabric that had an imprint of his soul. It was a living part of him.
Hunter’s eyes still on Dawn as she staggered under the onslaught from Morgan, the cloak stretched out from the bag toward his hand.
Xander slid around to Morgan’s back and raised the axe. His eyes went wide as Morgan reversed her strike to hit Xander square in his stomach with the rounded pommel at the base of the sickle shaft. He doubled over, and then fell to the ground as she bashed the pommel over the back of his head with a sickening crunch of metal on bone.
Wesley nimbly ducked under the pommel as it came toward him, grabbed a hold of Xander’s shirt, and began to drag him back down the corridor to relative safety.

The black fabric touched Hunter’s hand and set his nerves tingling with power. The fabric worked its way up his arm, flowing like oil up over his elbow and to his shoulder. Every piece of his body in contact with the cloak tingled. All at once his powers flowed back in on him like a wave crashing over a sea wall.
His power was at once like a cool breeze on his skin and a blazing fire igniting in his heart and soul. There were no words to describe it adequately. His cape, a part of him, had much ancient magic woven into its material. One of those was a counter to curses, providing a knight with some protection against death magicks. The counter spell also seemed to remove whatever curse Morgan had performed.
The cloak spilled up over his shoulders and began to enshroud him like a chrysalis.
Morgan spun round at the rush of power that rode over her like a herd of buffalo. What she saw almost made her forget about Dawn holding a sword at her back, and she screamed wordlessly as she turned back to press her attack.
Dawn felt the rush of power as well. It assailed her senses and the phantom feelings that she had attributed to Buffy faltered.
Morgan’s blade arced in to the side and she barely had time to react to block the attack. She was now in a fight for her life. The evil glint that had been in Morgan’s eyes from the start of the fight had now turned into a blaze of hatred and power.
Attack was met with riposte, as the blades struck off each other repeatedly in a complicated dance where failure meant death. But with each block, Dawn’s arms lost a little strength. She was going to loose. Morgan could see this and she smiled again, redoubling the ferocity of the assault.
The first rule of war was ‘The best defence is a good offence’. Buffy knew this, and as such, so now did Dawn.
She stepped forward closer to Morgan and struck the sickle on the black shaft and slid the blade down toward the woman’s hands. Morgan had a choice to either loose her fingers or move her hands.
She chose to move her hand, hopping backward to take her out of reach of attack. The smile on her face had disappeared like it had never existed. She moved into a rapid series of blows that rained attacks down on Dawn and sapped her strength faster.
Morgan reached out with her mind and grasped a hold of Dawn’s throat and began to squeeze, choking the air from her.
Dawn felt like icy talons had clamped around her neck. Then they began to close. Pain blossomed in her throat as the pressure mounted, her lungs burning with the reduced air flow, while the bone shattering blows of the sickle continued.
A blow caught the sword at an odd angle and it flew from her grasp to land on the floor in a clatter of metal.
Dawn sank to her knees, her vision swimming with black spots. Time seemed to move painfully slowly as Morgan raised the deadly blade of her weapon high over her head. A brief thought flickered through her mind as she suffocated. Morgan had meant it when she said she could be taken in dead or alive. Why did that surprise her?
Hunter saw the glint of metal as the sickle arced upward, catching the light in the corridor. It then began its descent toward Dawn’s head, whistling through the air as it went. But he did not see it with his eyes. He saw it in his mind, as clear as if he had seen it with his own gaze.
He stepped forward, gliding with preternatural grace, till he stood behind Dawn. Her head sagged back against his inner thigh, her eyes showing her fear at suffocating and watching Morgan’s blade descend.
He raised his arms and pressed his palms together, catching the blade of the sickle between them and stopping it dead an inch from Dawn’s scalp.
He opened his eyes to look directly into Morgan’s. Her expression was of pure shock, but just beginning to creep in at the edges was that fear again.

38

A slight smile creased Hunter’s lips as his sword floated up from the ground. Removing his hands from Morgan’s sickle, he pushed her away with his mind, causing her to stumble backward a few feet.
His sword landed in his outstretched hand and he swung it in a circle in front himself before stopping it with his other hand, then settling into a classic guard pose. His sword angled across his body, pointed tip by his left shoulder, and hilt by his right thigh.
Morgan snarled at him and slid her hands to the base of the shaft of her sickle and swung the blade in an arc that would bisect him. Hunter stepped away from the blade, turning to the left by spinning on the balls of his feet. He swung his sword around to point the tip towards the ground with the hilt at chest height. Hopping to the side and onto his right foot he finished his turn with his blade behind Morgan’s. A little flick of his wrist caught the shaft of her weapon and pushed it further away, leaving her open to attack.
She had made a rookies mistake. Against a normal opponent, the attack would have split the victim in two. But against another knight, it left a gap in her defences that was easily exploited
So, stepping into the gap left by the sickle’s passing, Hunter lashed out with his broken leg, striking Morgan’s left wrist where it held the shaft of her weapon. His nerves shot pain up his leg, but his renewed powers easily dampened the sensations. The sound of snapping bone seemed deafening in the corridor, mingling with her yell of surprise and pain.
Her wrist was an easy injury to heal for a knight.
If they had the time.
Time in a fight is a precious commodity, so she would be left with restricted movement.
That could prove fatal.
But Hunter did not want to kill her. He needed information from her at the very least. Anyone that a nearly fully trained knight would call master was someone that the order needed to take seriously.
At best, he could have her taken back to Merlin. The old wizard and founder of the order might just be able to teach her the error of her ways and turn her from her dark powers and onto the path of light. God knows that they needed all the warriors they could muster.
He hopped back, favouring his right leg and returned the sword to a guard position. “Why are you so full of anger?” he enquired.
She returned her sickle to its guard position, her left hand not quite gripping the shaft properly. “My anger makes me powerful,” she snarled at him, sweeping the blade down and around to try to take out his legs.
He easily jumped over the attack, spinning in the air, his right hand came away from the sword and jabbed her in the neck before he landed back on the ground just as he had left it.
She jumped back, her right hand going to her neck, massaging it slightly.
Hunter wanted to shake his head. She had taken her best hand off her weapon. “Your anger does not make you powerful,” he replied quietly, almost regretfully. “It makes you careless.”
She paused for a second before snarling at him again. Reversing the sickle, she used the rounded end like a club to bat at his arm.
He turned to the side to take a glancing blow from the pommel to his already wounded arm, while he bashed the hilt of his sword into her elbow, causing her muscles to spasm involuntarily.
She stumbled backward shaking her arm to regain some of the feeling. “It doesn’t matter if I die here,” she bit out through clenched teeth. “My master is still coming and HE will defeat you!”
Hunter began to circle to his right to make her turn around and present her back to Wesley as he repaired the crossbow.
She may have been a trainee, but she was not stupid. She stepped to the same side as Hunter, bringing them back into striking range but preventing him from circling her.
“Who is your master?” he asked quietly.
Morgan stepped backward and smiled. No humour shone through it. It was an evil look and made Hunter doubt if she could be redeemed to the light side. “Don’t make me harm you,” he all but pleaded as she began to murmur in Latin under her breath.
He felt the power of her magic grow. It was a different feeling than her use of the powers of life. That seemed natural, but the magic had an 'otherworldly' feel to it. Like it did not belong in this one, but was a left over of some ancient event. “Get them out of here, ” he said to Wesley over his shoulder.
Wesley dropped the broken crossbow and grabbed a hold of Dawn who was huddled against the wall in exhaustion. He began to drag her down the corridor, but she struggled, desperate to watch the battle unfold crying out, “we’ve got to help him!”
Hunter blocked her voice out. He could not afford distractions now. One thing was for sure; Morgan was a more powerful witch than knight.
Outside the window, the sound of thunder rolled across the sky, accompanied with multiple flashes of lightening and Morgan began to laugh.
Hunter gathered his powers around himself. He had not devoted all his energy to fighting the battle. Some of it had gone into healing his injuries. His neck was no longer bleeding and now his left leg had begun to heal, his bone fusing even as he moved forward to strike at Morgan.
Her laugh died as the outside wall of the corridor exploded inward in a shower of rubble and tendrils of lightening. He heard Dawn scream as a piece of brick smashed into her leg and tore the skin open in a gash across her thigh. Wesley had dragged her out of the way of the fighting and now he used his body to shield her from more debris.
A wind picked up in the corridor, blowing around Morgan and making her cloak billow out around her. It picked up the debris and propelled it away from her and began it swirling around Dawn, Wesley, Xander, Angel and Spike.
Angel grabbed the still unconscious Xander and began to move him out of the maelstrom, but a piece of flying brick sent him sprawling to the ground.
Spike crawled over the floor and helped Wesley shield Dawn with his body, grunting as a large piece of masonry slammed into his back hard enough to cut him, making him spill more of his blood onto the floor.
Hunter focused his powers, using his mind to latch onto the air itself, swirling it around and forcing the debris cloud away from the people he was supposed to be protecting.
The two winds collided with staggering power, sweeping all the debris in the corridor into a tornado.
Static electricity built up making the air seem alive with energy, and standing the fine hairs on the backs of necks on end.
More lightening arced from the sky, blowing out more of the wall and adding to the debris. Forks of lightening from the strike lanced into the tornado, bounding around it with tendrils leaking out across every surface. The energy danced like it was alive across the floor, ceiling and walls.
Hunter could feel Morgan’s anger and fear feeding the dark magic she was using, and he knew that it was growing out of her control. He could sense that outside, more energy was building. The roar of wind was deafening, punctuated by more thunderclaps, each one the result of lightening stabbing down from the sky.
He knew that Morgan had lost control. But did she know?
He had to end this now before she brought the whole building down around them.
He spun into action like a whirling dervish. Jumping through the tornado between himself and Morgan, his sword flashed silver, and lightening arced onto the blade and making it glow with power and heat.
As he emerged from the other side of the maelstrom, the blade passed down toward a surprised Morgan. The tip of the blade slashed through her face, opening a gash from above her right eye down to her jaw, cracking bone and letting her brains leak out to the floor in a shower of liquid matter. Her eye exploded as the metal passed through, sending blood and a heavy clear fluid spraying out. Chips of bone erupted from her jaw as the sword finished its deadly route.
Hunter landed on his feet in a crouch and looked at what he had done. Morgan fell in slow motion to her knees, her mouth open in shock that would never be removed now. Then she keeled over backward, her weapon dropping to the ground in a clang beside her.
Hunter felt the evil power wash out of her like a dark tide of energy. It flashed around him like he was a boulder in the path of a river.
His own powers seemed like a beacon of light momentarily surrounded by the darkest of nights. Around him, the spell faded and the debris rained down from the air to fall still on the ground.
Morgan was dead.

39

Hunter turned his gaze away from Morgan’s body and over to Dawn. Spike and Angel were helping her up from the floor, while Wesley was helping a now conscious Xander up as well.
He felt incredibly weary. His powers had started his body healing, but he had just killed a living person. Not a demon or the un-dead, but a human. His first human kill. It seemed wrong to him.
He did not doubt that her death had become necessary in the end, but that was small comfort.
He shook his head and walked slowly over to where Dawn was leaning against the wall of the corridor. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks, creating clean streaks down her skin through the mess left by his blood. Her normally shining brown hair was also matted and tangled due to his blood. All he could see that she was wearing was the pale cream leather straight jacket that was also spotted with blood, the long sleeves rolled up to her elbows, bits of silver tape clinging stubbornly. Her right leg had a deep gash that went into the muscle and was bleeding profusely down her bare leg.
Hunter moved forward and took her into his arms, holding her up with his strength. Bending partly down, he scooped her up and cradled her against his chest while she wrapped her arms round his neck and rested her head against his right shoulder. Her tears quickly soaked through the fabric of his tunic.
He turned without a word and began walking down the corridor. Passing over Morgan’s body without a falter in his step.

**********

Giles’s car screeched to a stop outside the hospital. He could see that a hole had been blown through the wall, and overhead, the thunderclouds that had appeared so suddenly, were receding just as fast. He leapt out of the car, stumbling onto the sidewalk and running towards the entrance.
Police cars and fire crews were just beginning to arrive on the scene, forming a cacophony of noise and confusion around him.
Willow and Tara had been doing a spell when they had felt the build-up of magical energy over the hospital. Disregarding the plan that he would stay away to keep from attracting attention to Xander, Wesley Spike and Angel as they infiltrated the hospital, he had gotten to his car.
Cordelia, Anya, Willow and Tara had followed him, all pilling into the Red BMW.
Now they all came to a stop.
Walking out of the main door was the battle weary group.
Hunter was carrying Dawn in his arms, holding her close. Giles’ heart fluttered with relief when he saw she was alive. Hurt, but alive. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she clutched to Hunter like he was the last man alive on earth.
Hunter saw the rest of the gang and changed direction to intercept them. His arms were getting tired. He had used up too much of his energy reserves recently. He would need a week of meditation and healing to be fully restored.
Hunter looked down at Dawn and he could not help but smile. His left hand was slowly caressing a nasty cut on her right thigh sending tendrils of healing energy into it, even while he held her close.
As Hunter paused before Giles, the watcher watched the cut begin to close, bathed in a soft glow that seemed to emanate from her very skin and that grew brighter after the passing of Hunter’s fingers.
Behind them came Angel, Wesley, Spike and Xander, all looking the worse for wear. The two vampires immediately finding the deepest possible shadows to hide from the early morning sun.
Giles stepped forward and felt tears of relief begin to roll down his cheeks. They were all alive.
Hunter continued to look Dawn in the eyes as the sunlight caressed them in living warmth. They could not help looking at each other. Situations like the one they had just been in tended to force people together, or force them apart.
They had come together. And in coming together, they had found something that was difficult to describe with words. They had both lost so much in their lives. Both had lost their family. Both had had their lives altered by that loss.
Both of them had felt safe in their parent’s arms. When they were held close, nothing in the outside world would or could harm them. It was the safest and best feeling in the world. Total peace.
They had both lost that when they had lost their families. Innocence like that, once lost, can never be regained.
But in each other, they had found a feeling that compared. Love. Combined with the knowledge that they would do anything for each other.
But it went deeper than that. Their connection through life had left them with the certain knowledge that they were soul mates.

Giles moved the last step between Hunter and Dawn. She turned to face the watcher and they embraced. “Thank god you’re alive,” he cried out, all pretence at his English decorum forgotten.
For a moment, they just remained like that. But Giles pulled away as the rest of the gang crowded round. “What happened?” he asked.
“The person behind the vampire gangs is dead,” Hunter said. “Without her to bring them together, they should return to their normal behaviour patterns of hunting alone.”
Giles nodded slowly. “What do we tell the police?” he asked cautiously, looking at the gathering crowd of EMS people.
Hunter smiled slightly, and answered with a hint of mischief in is voice. “We do not need to tell them anything.”
Willow looked confused. “But…?”
Hunter looked over at her. “They do not know we are here. I’m blocking us from their view and Dawn was never officially recorded on to the hospital records. Anyone that knew she was here was on the other side. They would only get themselves into trouble if they talked.”
Giles nodded again in understanding. “What now?” he asked.
Hunter looked at Dawn and she smiled slightly as she answered, “We go home.”

**********

Hunter lay Dawn down on her bed gently, and then he sat down on the quilt beside her. She smiled up at him as he gazed down on her face.
He smiled in return. How could he not? She was beautiful and her smile made his insides want to cry out with joy. He barely knew her. Yet, because of their earlier link, he knew her deeper than anyone ever could.
He reached out to his powers and focused them into his hands. He laid them gently upon her skin and began to caress the wounds, tracing them with his fingers. His power leaked from his fingers, infusing her body with energy and accelerating the healing process.
Dawn felt no pain, only a faint tingling sensation. Under his fingers, bruises faded before their eyes and cuts began to close. Dawn continued to smile at him as she slowly drifted into sleep under his care.

An hour later, Giles moved away from where he had been in the doorway to the room. He had been leaning against the doorframe for the past hour. He was fascinated by what Hunter had been doing, yet he was also worried. Worried that Dawn would not be safe.
As Hunter rose from her bed and stepped back, Giles saw she looked incredibly peaceful. He smiled inwardly and some of that reached his face.
Hunter turned away from the now sleeping Dawn, a grave expression on his face. Giles’ smile quickly died. There were so many things the watcher needed to know. But first, he needed to know if Dawn would be all right. “How long will she be out?” he enquired quietly, as though if he talked too loud he would wake her.
Hunter looked back at Dawn. “A day at most” he said just as quietly. Then he slipped past Giles and started down the stairs.
Closing the door to Dawn’s room, Giles followed silently behind him. They both stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Giles looked at Hunter, as the young knight stood shrouded in his cape looking at the front door to the house.
Giles frowned. “You’re leaving, aren’t you.” It was not a question.
Hunter nodded slowly. “I must report to Merlin,” he said with regret in his voice. “Morgan’s defeat has left us with questions that need answering. Morgan may have been the core of the gangs after Dawn, but there must be another.”
Giles looked shocked for a moment, and that passed into his voice. “Another like her?” The thought of another fallen knight made his stomach feel like it had frozen.
Hunter nodded again. “Morgan had not completed her training. She must have learnt from somewhere. I must find where and close it off.”
“Close it off?” Giles asked “How?”
Hunter sighed. “Our power is very dangerous in the wrong hands. If someone is out there training people how to use it for evil, then we must stop it.” Hunter paused and Giles had to strain to hear the next sentence. “The world can not afford the consequences if it is not stopped.”
Willow rose from the couch in the living room and moved over to the two men. “You’re not going to wait till Dawn comes round?” she asked surprised and a little hurt.
Hunter looked down at his feet, his decision weighing heavily on his mind. He sighed quietly in a ripple of breath. “Time is of the essence. Something is building, I can feel it.” He looked up through the ceiling above the front door as if he was not seeing the surface before him, but something else entirely.
“What do we tell Dawn?” enquired Tara as she came up besides Willow and put her hand on her lover’s shoulder.
Hunter frowned as his cape folded around him. “Tell her…” he shook his head trying to order his thoughts, “I will never really be gone.”
He then faded from view as though he had never existed.
Giles stepped forward to the space that Hunter had occupied just moments before and turned slowly in a circle.
He had a feeling that this was not over by a long shot.

Epilogue

Hunter sat perched in the tree outside the Summers’ house. He was going to regret what he was about to do, but it was necessary. His kind worked best when no one knew that they existed.
Reaching out with his mind, he implanted a thought into Wesley’s mind. Go home.
It took Angel, Wesley and Cordelia till that night to finally start to make their way back to L.A. As their car roared to life, Hunter dropped soundlessly from the tree and walked over to them.
A second before the car was due to pull away, he reached out with his mind and invaded theirs. He blocked off the memories of his existence, and replaced them with memories of spending the past few days visiting the others.
He explained away their injuries with helping out on a particularly vicious patrol one night, and Angel getting stabbed by a Vampire.
Then the car pulled away.
Hunter turned and looked back to the Summers’ house. His heart was full of mixed feelings.
First off, according to standing order, he should remove the memories of his presence from Dawn, Giles and the others. He had not made them swear an oath to keep the secret existence of the order a secret, but he believed that they did not need to. Who would they tell? Not Angel and the others. They thought they knew already.
But still. Not blanking their memories was a risk that could come back to haunt him later. Especially if Merlin found out.
Speaking of Merlin, he needed to go and sort out some answers about Morgan. To do that, he needed to get in contact with some of his sources.
Yet he also desperately wanted to stay. He could sense something was different. Something menacing floated on the air. But, then again, this was Sunnydale. Something evil was always happening.
Hunter shook his head to try to clear it. He had talked to Merlin already. The old wizard was adamant that Hunter should leave the area as soon as possible. Apparently the Powers had taken a sudden interest in the area, and Merlin did not want them to find Hunter there.
So, throwing his cape about himself, he stalked off down the street.

**********

The medical examiner put the last of the paperwork regarding the strange woman who had come in earlier that day in a plain grey filing cabinet.
He had been working in the morgue for years now and had seen many strange things. People who he had thought dead suddenly rising up from the tables. Those he had attributed to PCP. The strong drug nearly killing them, but when it wore off, they got up and left.
But the feeling he was getting now was unlike any of the earlier events. Shaking his head, he closed the door to the office and went to the common room to make a cup of coffee and watch the late shows on TV.
What he did not notice was, as he turned out the light, a form that was darker than a shadow slid into the morgue. It glided effortlessly between the trolleys covered in white sheets.
An air of evil permeated the air as the shadow stopped beside one of the bodies, reached out and withdrew the sheet to reveal Morgan’s slashed face.
A voice emanated from deep within the darkness, a guttural growling that sounded not quite right, as though the speaker found it was difficult to pronounce English. “You were careless Morgan, but you are still needed.”
Part of the shadow retracted to reveal a large hand. It was covered in a fine grey fur over shiny black chitinous plates with thick claws sprouting from the fingers.
The hand rested momentarily over Morgan’s forehead as one of the fingers bent at a strange angle on itself and slipped under a chitinous plate. Black blood oozed from the area, dripping from the fur and down onto Morgan’s lips.
The hand withdrew into the shadows as Morgan’s eyes opened and she breathed in.

Book 2 - Predators and Prey

Prologue

There was a force stalking the streets of Sunnydale C.A. The human inhabitants of the town could not feel it, indeed would never suspect its existence.
However, there were things other than humans living in that town. The town that sat atop the Hellmouth.
Demons of all varieties had flooded into the area following the news that the slayer had died. According to the demons, this meant that the unsuspecting humans were anybody’s meat.
Hellebore stepped round the corner, his gang of fellow vampires falling in behind him. They had been following the same human woman for about three blocks now. Watching her hips sway in time with the click of high heels. Seeing the streetlights reflect off a mane of golden hair.
Nevertheless, the feeling that something was not right did not leave the vampire. None of his followers could feel it. Then again, they were all the relatively newly converted. Still obsessed by the thrill of the hunt. Of the taste of blood. Give them a few hundred years and they would become more like he was. Aware.
He glanced to the sides as he realised that the street was empty, and the streetlights in the stretch were out. If he was going to strike, then it had to be now. No witnesses.
But still he hesitated. His awareness was tugging at the back of his mind. Yet, if he did not allow his followers to feed, they would grow more restless that they already were. Restlessness in vampires was not good news.
He did nothing more than nod and suddenly four of his followers were moving past him. They continued to speed up closing the distance between the gang and their prey. The preternatural speed of the undead meant the distance between hunters and prey was eaten up in half the time it would take the fastest human athlete.
The woman tried a scream as four pairs of hands clamped down on her body, dragging her back towards the rest of the gang. But she fell eerily silent as she caught a glimpse of a vampyrric visage under the weak moonlight.
Hellebore felt his features shift as his followers brought their prey to him first. They were well trained.
Teeth elongated to fangs, his eyes yellowed and his brow thickened.
The woman’s eyes flew wide as Hellebore began to lower his head to strike at her neck, his head becoming buried in course blonde hair. It was a shame the slayer had died, he thought absently. After a couple of hundred years, humans lost their challenge.
Just as his fangs touched the surface of pale and delicate skin, he heard a whoosh of air.
Curious, he raised his head out from under the flowing golden locks of his victim.
He found himself face to face with a shadow so dark it seemed more like the total absence of light. But the image was grainy.
Hellebore pushed the victim towards the shadow as he realised that the grainy appearance was actually caused by the falling dust of one of his fellow vampires.
The shadow moved as if it was made of oil, sliding to catch the woman and lay her so gently on the floor, yet suddenly was standing to meet the attack of the vampires as the moon hid itself behind a cloud. Almost like it knew what was coming and did not want to see the slaughter.
Hellebore stood back and allowed his followers to attack knowing that they would be happy to kill something challenging. But as Hellebore watched, it was with growing dread. The shadow continued to move with unnatural grace, slaying one vampire after another in rapid succession.
Then there were no more vampires left except Hellebore. The five hundred year old vampire snarled as he waded forwards to attack the…. thing that had slain his followers.
But, without even noticing it happen, he suddenly found a wooden stake sliding between ribs to pierce his heart.
Hellebore got one close look at the shadow as the cloud that had been obscuring the moon slid away.
One thought followed the vampire to hell. A human had defeated him.


1

With his cape billowing around him like a living shadow, Matthew Hunter stalked away from the pile of dust that was just beginning to swirl off into the night carried on the cool breeze. The dust was all that was left from the half dozen vampires he had just slain.
He allowed himself a small smile as he realised that he was nearly back to full fighting ability after his recent ordeal.
Thinking back on those events, the smile quickly vanished. What replaced it was a growing dread he had been feeling in the pit of his stomach over the past few days.
It had all started when the famous wizard, Merlin, had dispatched him to Sunnydale.
His mission was to safeguard a girl called Dawn Summers. He had been told that she was the younger sister of the current Slayer, Buffy Summers. He had been given no more details, which he had thought unusual. But he knew his job, and he knew Merlin. If he had not been given details, then there was certainly a good reason behind it.
He had arrived just in time to see Buffy die, and he had honestly believed that he had failed in his mission then and there.
But when he had seen Dawn alive, he had kept to the shadows. From there, he had noticed that a human was lurking around in the background.
Hunter had thought that the human was a harmless bystander. He was wrong. She had turned out to be a fallen Knight. Not a fully trained one, but still powerful, and well versed in magic. And she was after Dawn.
Her name was Morgan. His first contact with her had been when she was trying to pass herself off as a social worker. Apparently the plan was to remove Dawn without raising too much attention. She had also recruited a gang of demons to support her attempts to gain possession of Dawn.
At first, he had no idea why there was so much interest in Dawn. However, he was a powerful knight and he had learnt the truth in short order.
Morgan had wanted to use Dawn’s hidden latent powers to give her mastery over the Earth, and eventually rival the power of the gods.
For Dawn was created by all of the gods. Back in the mists of time, there had been no barriers between dimensions. This had allowed the demons to mix with each other, and led to them walking the earth for countless thousands of years before the rise of man. But it also meant that the work of one god in their own little corner of reality was often undone by another, sparking centuries long celestial wars.
To solve the problem, the gods joined powers and established 'unbreakable' barriers between realities, and made Dawn the key to the only lock. But because she was made by the powers of all the gods, her own power would one day rival and even surpass her creators.
That is, as long as she could survive in human form long enough to master her abilities.
Moving his right arm round in a circular motion to flex the still sore muscles, he then re-sheathed his enchanted sword.
It was time for his next assignment. That meant getting in touch with his master.
Moving to the side of the road, Hunter pulled his cape closer about his body to cut out the cooling night breeze.
Physical comfort was supposed to be beneath a knight’s notice, but when all you had on under your cape was a tunic and tights, you tended to notice the weather.
Suddenly, the temperature dropped again. But it was a different kind of cold.
During his training, he had been exposed to many otherworldly things. One that had particularly stuck in his memory was the feeling of being touched by the dead. It was a cold beyond cold. A feeling that went deep to your bones and made you feel like you would never be warm again.
Exactly what he was feeling now.
Hunter turned in a slow circle, his feelings stretching out to search for the cause of the sensation. But, as he came full circle, the reason was standing before him.
Buffy Summers.
She had been dead now for nearly 3 weeks. But here was Buffy standing before him. His voice sounded a little unsure as his eyes scanned her lithe body from head to foot and back again. “Buffy?”
“Dawn still needs your help,” she said, her voice sounding like it was coming from far away. Hunter’s mind clicked as it worked out that he was talking to the avatar of Buffy he had encountered inside Dawn’s mind. He had no idea how she could manifest herself in the real world. But then again, this was Sunnydale. The Hellmouth. Nearly anything was possible with the sheer amount of preternatural energy floating about.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice sounding more sure now he new what he was dealing with.
“There are forces after her,” the avatar replied cryptically. “You must not leave her undefended.”
Hunter made to respond, but before he could, the avatar faded away, her last words echoing around in his head with ominous undertones.
Hunter shook his head, closing his eyes to focus his thoughts. If the avatar was to be believed, then his mission was not over. But there was only one way to find out.
Back to his original plan. Time to call Merlin.




2

Pulling his cape around him again, he stepped into a darkened alleyway and lowered himself to one knee facing the wall. Raising his head to stare at the graffiti, he closed his eyes and sent his thoughts spiralling outwards. The sensations he felt while performing this search were always strange. It was as if his mind was speeding across the country searching out another mind. It made his head feel light, as though his brain had actually left it. Then, in the distance, he could all but see the glory of the power of Merlin.
Merlin was the most powerful being on the surface of the planet. He had gotten his power from both his mother and father. The mother had been a nun, while the father had been a demon. Though Merlin looked human, Hunter knew that the blood of his father ran through the frail looking man’s veins. It kept him nearly immortal. Merlin was hundreds of years old, and would still be alive for a thousand more.
As Hunter’s mind neared the glow of power that was Merlin, the wizard’s mind noticed his approach and responded. In an instant, the two had formed a link.
Hunter opened his eyes, the air before him began to shimmer. A ghostly image of Merlin’s wizened features swam into the air looking for all the world like a ghost.
Hunter focused his eyes on those of his master and felt the connection grow stronger.
“You continue to do well my student,” began Merlin without any greeting.”
“Thank you master,” replied Hunter with genuine happiness in his voice. He had personally believed that his last mission had been close to a fiasco. Indeed, since the time he had last spoken to Merlin, he had spent a great deal of time contemplating his actions. “Is there any news?”
Hunter was of course, asking about Merlin’s efforts to find out who had trained Morgan Wildman.
Merlin shook his head. “None. The teacher of the fallen one known as Morgan still remains hidden. I sense that, whoever it was is not in this world.”
That made Hunter pause for a moment. Most knights did not serve on Earth. Instead, they were sent out to stop the ‘nasties’ from coming to the planet in the first place. So he was no stranger to the idea of inter-dimensional travel. But it made the job of finding the trainer that much harder. There were so many alternate dimensions that no one had even catalogued them all. Even Merlin did not know all of them.
“There is something I need to tell you,” said Hunter as he forced his thoughts away from Morgan and her trainer.
“Indeed?” asked Merlin.
“I was just visited by…” He had to pause while he considered his answer. “… an avatar.” He finished.
“Of who?” asked Merlin, a mild note of curiosity in his voice.
“Buffy Summers… the last slayer.”
Hunter noticed one of Merlin’s eyebrows rise silently in curiosity. Hunter did not add any more details, but waited on his knee for his master to ask.
“I have a mission for you.”
“But…?” replied Hunter “What of…”
“It is related perhaps,” broke in Merlin. “Your mission is, surprisingly, exactly the same as the last one. The Powers That Be have told me that there is an evil that is on its way to Sunnydale.”
Hunter nodded. Just before he had left Dawn’s house the last time, he’d felt something menacing on the horizon. He had not sensed it since, but now Merlin had mentioned it, he could indeed sense it again.
“I have meditated on this matter and have decided that this presence is stronger and more destructive than anything you’ve faced since you became a Knight.”
Hunter wanted to balk. He was the most powerful knight for nearly half a century. He believed there was nothing he could not face.
“I understand master. I am ready.”
“Silence!” Merlin’s image quivered at the force of his irritation and annoyance. “You think you are prepared to face this unknown evil? If you believe you alone have the power to defeat what is coming and protect the Key, perhaps I have chosen the wrong knight!”
Hunter started to protest but thought it better to remain silent. Bowing his head, he prepared to listen to his master.
“I sense that you know that you are the strongest and most adept of my knights,” continued Merlin, “but your strength and skill pales in comparison to the forces that are building.”
Hunter could sense the calm that suddenly radiated off Merlin as he considered his options. He wanted to wince internally when Merlin had just dug into him. Being pulled off a mission was a serious thing for a knight.
“Your headstrong attitude and preference for acting on your own accord could be detrimental to the success of this mission,” said Merlin. “And, for that matter, to the lives of everyone in existence – past, present, and future.”
Hunter frowned internally. Could this mission really be that serious? Or was Merlin exaggerating?
Hunter thought on that, staring at the ground while he chewed it over in his mind. It was unlikely that Merlin would exaggerate. That meant that this mission was likely of great importance.
Merlin’s composure began to soften. “You will require assistance in your endeavour if you are to succeed. And you must succeed! The fate of this and many other worlds depends on your success. Look up Hunter. Look into the eyes of your ally.
The vision of Merlin wavered in the air, morphing into a much younger man with no beard. The face was quite distinctive. A widow’s peak, black hair and brown eyes with naturally lightly tanned skin.
“Edmond.” Hunter said his name with distaste.
“Yes,” said Merlin. “Edmond. He possesses the characteristics and skills that you lack. You will be of invaluable use to each other when the time comes to defend yourselves and to ultimately defeat the forces arrayed against you. You will be the yin to his yang.”
The image of Edmond’s face became haggard and wrinkled as it morphed from his handsome young features to that of the old and shrivelled Merlin. “You will find him in the city of Los Angeles. He is on retreat and so will be hard to find. I give you this to help you.”
What appeared, at first glance, to be a coin, was produced seemingly from the air itself. It fell to the ground with an audible jingle. Bouncing once, off the hard concrete, Hunter’s right hand shot out from under his cloak to catch the coin before it could fall a second time.
“This is the Coin of Larine,” explained Merlin. “I have placed on it the spell of Descries. It knows where Edmond is. Take it to the city. It will work like a compass. The closer you are to Edmond the brighter the coin will shine.”
“Master,” began Hunter. “Edmond and I, we…”
“Stop,” broke in Merlin. “You do not need to say what I already know.” Merlin’s image and their connection to each other began to fade. The last thing The Hunter heard before the vision was replaced once again by the graffiti covered brick wall was Merlin’s voice echoing through time.
“Find him.”

3

Removing the grimace from his face was an effort. He continued staring at the graffiti covered wall in a long silent moment. Why was Merlin doing this, he wondered.
He had never seen eye to eye with Edmond. They had competed for nearly everything while they were training together. Edmond had an ability to focus him self that allowed him to excel at the skill of gazing. He could meditate on events and see all the small angles. It was his greatest strength. And his most obvious weakness.
This became apparent to Hunter early on, but not to everyone else until their first mission. It was supposed to be the knight version of a milk run. A year ago, a small time demon had moved into a small village in Wales. He and Edmond were sent in to return the demon to its own dimension. Simple enough.
But on arrival, the two began to argue about the best way to send the demon back. Edmond maintained that they needed to scout around and do research to find the best way. He, on the other hand had voted for more direct action.
But he had compromised to Edmond, who had then started meditation while he scouted out the local area.
While he was gone, the demon had discovered Edmond’s presence by sensing the knight’s mental probing and had taken some of the villagers’ hostage.
What was supposed to have been a simple mission with a spell to open a portal to another world and send the demon through turned into a race against time to save innocent lives.
Hunter had been the closest to the demon’s lair and had reached it first. The battle had been short and bloody. The demon was slain, but several of the hostages were caught in the fight. They still had not fully recovered from their injuries.
But dwelling on the past would not help. Especially when they had undertaken their first mission when they were only sixteen. Both had done a lot of growing up since that day. Besides, if it was the wish of his master to work with Edmond, then there was little choice.
Hunter knew that he was headstrong, as opposed to Edmond who was prone to over-thinking events. Shaking his head, he focused his energies inside. Such thoughts against his comrades were unprofessional.
Headstrong action with his powers and skill had served him well up till now, but with Edmond along, he would have to be more careful lest the other knight get in over his head. Focusing on that thought, he suddenly realised that it was as arrogant as hell. But a noise off to one side drew his attention before he could further analyse his thoughts.
Without moving, he sent a tendril of thought outward.
There, off to his right, amongst the normal eddies of the powers of life that enshrouded the universe was a patch that life diverted around.
Hunter grimaced. A vampire, and an old one at that! The old ones were the most dangerous. They had had time to explore their limits. They knew when to fight and when to run. But many were more arrogant than he was. But theirs was an arrogance that only came with surviving so long. What did that mean his was?
Suddenly the life flowing around the demon shifted as the vampire moved forwards at breakneck speed and the time for reflection was past.
Rocking upward so he was standing, Hunter began to pivot on his left foot before he was all the way up. He then swung out of the line of attack while bringing his right foot up in a roundhouse kick straight into the vampire’s jaw. The force of the blow lifted the demon clean off his feet, throwing him to the floor.
Completing the spin, Hunter turned to face the sprawled vampire. A flick of his left wrist caused the hidden mechanism attached there to spring a stake out to run parallel with his hand.
Allowing the vampire back to his feet was one of the headstrong things Merlin had accused him of. It would have been much wiser to finish the vampire while it was still on the ground and at a disadvantage.
But there was no challenge in that.
Sinking into a combat crouch, right hand out to the side to balance himself, he stepped forward into the fray.
The vampire was fast. But Hunter was faster. A chop of the hand from the vampire was blocked by Hunter’s elbow, sending the force of the blow sliding down his arm.
Using his right hand, Hunter grabbed the vampire’s arm and applied leverage to spin him down to the ground. His left hand and the stake followed close behind to stab through the ribcage and into the heart.
In a flash, the vampire disintegrated into dust to be carried away by the breeze.
Rising once again, Hunter turned his back on the graffiti covered wall and began walking. Head cleared from the brief spell of action, he concentrated on the future and the journey to the City of Angels. It was time for his mission, and he NEVER failed.


4

The abandoned office building that Hunter called his home was located in an area of Sunnydale that was virtually forgotten. For sale signs decorated some of the old dilapidated buildings, but most owners didn’t bother. No one was buying anyway. Sunnydale was full of old dilapidated buildings. It was not the type of town that could support cosmopolitan businesses. The workforce seemed to disappear or die more often than not. Industry was not interested in that kind of a town. Perhaps it was just as well.
Hunter trudged to his makeshift home. Jumping nimbly atop a crate, he managed to slide gracefully in through a ground floor window high on the wall at the back of the building. He had other means of entering and leaving his home, but he preferred to save those easier means for a quick exit should the situation require it. He walked over to an old futon mat that he had recovered from the trash outside a warehouse not far away. It was old and dirty and smelled faintly of something he’d rather not dwell on, but it served its purpose as his bed.
He was a knight. He did not need the luxury of a soft mattress, pillows, or sheets. He felt a certain amount of guilt for even using the mat and the threadbare blanket he had.
Throwing himself down on the mat, he allowed himself to relax his muscles. He had no use for long episodes of sleep. Sleep was a waste of time. He rarely had any to squander. A simple rest was all that he could and would spare. He was on his guard at all times. His muscles ready to spring to action, his ears constantly concentrating on the sounds around him. Even in this state of rest very little in the world had advantage over him.
A fact he was proud of.
Thoughts of that night’s escapades ran through Hunter’s mind. He lived for the fight, the challenge, and the victory. Edmond was bound to interfere with his plans to defeat his current nemesis. Whom-ever that was. They did not think or plan in the same way. He would have to have to allow Edmond his say in their ventures. This was almost intolerable to Hunter. He believed this would only end up the same way as their last assignment. But disobeying his master would be an unforgivable sin.
After a few minutes rest Hunter sat up and dug the coin from his pocket. At this moment it was dull and dark. He examined it closely. It did not appear to be magical. It did not appear to be anything special, but he knew if it was from Merlin it was both those things and more. He put the coin back in his pocket and stood up. His journey was about to begin.
Outside the office building was a small-enclosed area that was once used for disguising garbage dumpsters from the sensitive eyes of the office building’s patrons. From this enclosure, which had been locked with a spell only Hunter could release, he extracted his Suzuki Turbo GSXR1100. This was more than a motorcycle; this was a rocket on wheels. Knights’ in this day and age did not ride noble horses they rode motorcycles.
And this was one of the best.
It was black, like his mood, and powerful like his body. Hunter started its engine and revved the motor. When he had first gotten the bike a few months ago, he had imagined that the roar of its engine was something like the roar of a dragon. He knew it was a childish thing to think really, but he was only seventeen after all.
Revving the engine again, he kicked it into gear. The rear tyre fought to find a grip on the slick concrete and he quickly smelt the heat of burning rubber.
Then the tyre caught all the grip it needed and the bike rocketed out of the enclosure like a bullet out of a gun.
He slid the bike sideways round the corner of the office and he was out on the road.
In no time at all, he was speeding down the highway, reaching ludicrous speeds of nearly 200 miles per hour. Constantly in his mind he was thinking of Merlin