The Dhampir VII
Happy Holidays!
December 19, 1997
Friday afternoon was always a time to celebrate, but this Friday was even more special because as soon as the dismissal bell rang, it meant a two weeks of blessed freedom. Humming softly to herself, Buffy half danced into the student lounge.
“Hey!” She swatted Spike, who was busily writing out algebra equations, in the back of head. “It’s almost Christmas vacation, so why are you studying?”
“You do realize.” Spike peered up from his math homework. “That the day we return from holidays, there’s a history project that will be due that week, and. . . .”
“Give it a rest.” Buffy flopped down next to Spike with an eye roll. “That’s then and this is now. Christmas vacation, two long weeks of sleeping in, and not doing homework. Plus, another upside is the cool things at Christmas like decorating the tree, holiday food, and prezzies.” She turned to Spike with a wide grin, but seeing his rather glum expression, her smile quickly faded. “What? No Christmas tree, or prezzies for you?”
Closing his notebook, Spike shoved it in his backpack, while shaking his head. “My Sire went along with the whole Thanksgiving thing, but Christmas. . .a big no no.” He slouched down on the couch with a sigh. “Easter too. Religious celebrations, you know.”
“Well, that blows.” Buffy was sympathetic. “But you could come to my house on Christmas Eve. My mom will be having a big dinner. Xander and Willow will be there. Christmas isn’t Christmas without watching a ‘Charlie Brown Christmas’.”
“And that’s the wonderful Christmas celebration that I’ve been missing all this time?” Spike said with disdain as the final bell of the day rang.
“What?” Buffy asked in puzzlement, as the two stood up to head for their lockers. Spike’s mood went from gloomy to contemptuous. She understood neither at this time of year, the beginning of Christmas vacation. “We also exchange gifts, small gifts.”
“I’d have to buy Xander a present!” Spike gave Buffy a when-the-world ends look. “You can count me out.” Turning abruptly, he strode away without another word.
Watching Spike walk away, Buffy was part dismayed and part angry. Giving a shrug, she muttered to herself, “welcome to America, Mr. Scrooge.”
**
December 25, 1997
“Head’s up.” A wrapped box landed a quarter of an inch from Spike’s nose, arousing him from a sound sleep. “Merry Christmas, Childe.” A jovial Angel threw himself into the chair next to their bed; his unusual mood due to his effort to be in the holiday spirit for his son’s sake.
Spike cracked open one eye for a moment before turning over, presenting his back to his Sire. “I’m still sleeping.” He pulled the covers over his head. “So leave me alone.”
“It’s three in the afternoon, and it‘s Christmas.” Angel stared at Spike’s back with puzzlement. He didn’t understand why his son wasn’t ripping open his present. “Time to get up and open your gift. Even your old vampire father is up.”
Turning over, Spike stared up at the ceiling. “That’s right. You’re a bloody vampire, so what are you doing celebrating Christmas?”
“Why not?” Angel ran a hand through his hair, wondering what warranted such vibes of animosity, when he had just given his Childe a gift. “Thought you’d be excited about a chance for presents.”
“I’m your son.” Spike sat up suddenly. “The son of a vampire, a demon.”
“Okay,” Angel agreed, still clueless.
“Didn’t you get the memo? Christmas is a religious, no it’s a Christian holiday. We don’t celebrate those kind of days.”
“Childe,” Angel said with a smile, thinking that Spike was just trying to do the loyal thing for his sake. “As far as we’re concerned, Christmas is an excuse for gifts, nothing more. Just think of it as supporting our economy, which, by the way, is also the opinion of many non-demons out there. Open your present.” He gave the gift wrapped box a push with his finger.
“No!” Stumbling out of bed with violent movements, Spike stomped his way to the bathroom and slammed the door shut with a loud bang.
Now totally baffled, Angel could only watch the performance while muttering, “and a Merry Christmas to you too, Mr. Scrooge.”
**
December 26, 1997
Walking through the shadowy streets of Sunnydale, Angel was happy to get out of his small apartment. The atmosphere since Christmas Day had been tense and uncomfortable.
“What did I do wrong now?” Angel lamented to Whistler, who had agreed to the stroll as long as they passed the Doublemeat Palace on their way back.
“Nothing.” Whistler flicked the butt of his cigarette to the ground. “I told you, teenagers are a species unto themselves, whether they’re demon or human. No one understands them.”
“But he refused to open my gift!”
“Yeah, that is a little strange.” Whistler slowed his step, as he spotted a slim figure ahead of them. “Never would have figured William to not open a present. Slayer at two o’clock.” Squinting into the darkness, he had finally recognized the figure as Buffy. “What’s she got hanging over her shoulder?”
With his superior eyesight, Angel had already recognized Buffy a block before and had decided that perhaps a small chat with her would enlighten him to his Childe’s perplexing behavior. “Some kind of funny shoes,” he answered, as he quickened his step and turned toward the young woman.
“Funny shoes?” Whistler scratched his nose, as he strained to make out more details in the dimness of the night.
“Yeah, either funny shoes, or some kind of weapon,” Angel guessed, as he noticed the sharp metal blades on the bottom of each shoe. “Slayer,” he called out as they approached her.
“Funny shoes or weapons?” Whistler was still mulling that puzzle over, when he finally saw clearly what Buffy had slung over her shoulder. “For Christ’s sake, Angelus,” he exclaimed. “Those are ice skates the Slayer is carrying. Don’t you know ice skates when you see them?”
“Oh, right” Angel stared at the skates. “They used to just attach to the boot. I didn’t know that they made them all one piece now.” He held out a hand, gesturing to Buffy that he would like to study one.
Rolling her eyes, Buffy was beginning to understand why Spike was always complaining about his Sire still living back in the olden days. “So, what are you two up to?” she asked as she looked from Angel to Whistler. “And what’s Spike been doing lately?”
“My Childe’s been rather temperamental since vacation started.” Handing Buffy back her skate, he couldn’t help the slight accusatory tone in his voice. A part of him still liked to blame her for any problems he had with William.
“That so?” Buffy wasn’t surprised, as she grabbed her skate back and resumed walking. “Probably has something to do with a certain Scrooge of a father who won’t let him celebrate Christmas. I mean. . . .” She stopped and turned suddenly. She had been stewing over this fact since the Friday she had the conversation with Spike. “Granted, you’re a vampire, and Christmas is against your beliefs, but you know Willow is Jewish, and her parents allow her to come over to my house on Christmas Eve, and. . . .”
“Did you just call me Scrooge?” Angel interrupted, frowning darkly. “And perhaps one of the reasons my William is in such mood because you didn’t invite him over for. . . .”
“Yes, I called you a Scrooge because he told me,” Buffy continued to argue, “that you. . .wait a moment, I did invite him over for Christmas Eve, but he said you wouldn’t permit him to come because Christmas is taboo for. . . .” She trailed off as Angel and Whistler exchanged looks.
“Angelus is no Scrooge.” Whistler quickly came to Angel’s defense. “He went out and bought a Christmas gift for William, but Mr. Cranky Pants wouldn’t open it.”
“I thought you and, and your friends snubbed him, and. . . .”
“He missed out watching ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ with us.” Buffy’s tone was considerably less hostile. “Xander doing the Snoopy dance is a marvel to see.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Angel wasn’t exactly sure what a Snoopy dance was, but anything that had anything to do with Xander Harris was probably something he didn’t want to see. “So where are you headed now? Because perhaps you would like to come over and see if you can coax William out of his snit.”
“Right now I’m meeting Xander and Willow at the ice skating rink. My Christmas present from them was a half hour of having the rink all to myself. Xander was the one who managed to swing that since he knows a guy, who knows a guy. But afterward me and the gang can come over and cheer Spike up. If I can talk him into it, would he be allowed to join me in patrol later?” Buffy peered over at Angel hopefully.
“If you can get him out of the apartment for any reason, that’s fine with me. He hasn’t left it for over a week now.”
“Angelus, where you going?” Whistler called out, as Angel began walking with Buffy toward the skating rink.
“Going to just stop in and. . . .” Angel motioned for Whistler to join them. “See the rink.”
“Why?” Whistler asked with a smirk. “Never saw an artificial ice skating rink before?”
“I’ll have you know I saw the first ever artificial skating rink,” Angel said with some huffiness. He hated the fact that Whistler liked to rub his nose in the fact that he had missed out on many years of living, when he had resided for decades in the alleys of New York.. “It was built in Chelsea, London, England in 1876.”
“Wow,” and “fascinating,” were Buffy and Whistler’s comments, as they tried to look interested.
“I’ve just never seen an artificial indoor rink,” Angel muttered softly, as the three made their way across route 17 and into the parking lot of the Sunnydale Skate Land.
**
Gliding on the ice, Buffy was relishing her love of ice skating and the solitude of the moment. Well, almost solitude, as out of the corner of her eye, she could still see Angel and Whistler standing at the side of the rink. Shaking her head, she sympathized with Spike. It was hard for her to relate to a mother, who was twenty-years-plus older, but to relate to a parent, who was two-hundred-plus years older!
“Poor guy,” she muttered to herself. She’d have to be more supportive the next time he was complaining about his Victorian father. So wrapped up in her thoughts, she miss-stepped and awkwardly fell to the ice, sliding into the rink’s retaining wall.
“Umpf.” Buffy grimaced, not used to being clumsy. Before she could get to her feet, a muscular arm grabbed her around the throat pulling her up and slamming her onto the top of the rink’s wall. Strong hands were choking the air out of her, as she got her first look at her attacker, a burly, powerfully built man with straggly dark hair, and one blind eye. Trying to pull the man’s hands off of her, she was discovering that his strength was equal to her own.
Buffy dimly heard a shout of Slayer and suddenly was all too glad that she had bumped into Angel and Whistler. A flying leap from Angel knocked the man off of her, and she fell to the ice, while Angel began trading punches with the unknown assailant.
The man was formidable, as he was even getting the better of Angel, grabbing hold of the vampire by the throat, pinning him to the wall. Scrambling to her feet, Buffy instinctively reacted, as she swiftly skated toward the pair, grabbed a hanging net and swung herself toward the attacker. A well placed skate blade in the windpipe stopped the man in his tracks. Grabbing the front of his throat the man, choked and gasped for air, before falling down on the ice rink, dead.
Buffy, Angel, and Whistler all stared down at the man, trying to absorb what just happened.
“Guess you were right.” Whistler was the first to speak, as he looked over at Angel. “Those funny shoes were weapons.”
**
“Devil’s Spawn!” The voice was cruel, as the young boy was thrown to the church’s floor. “You will kneel here and pray! Pray that the Lord, Our God will accept one such as you!”
He remembered kneeling on the hard, concrete floor; its coldness seeping up through his knees and into his entire body. He remembered kneeling for hours, while in the distance he could hear Christmas carols being sung. He hated Christmas.
The door of the apartment flung open interrupted Spike’s memories. Sitting up quickly, he recognized his Sire’s footsteps, but there were. . . .”
“Spike!” The three voices spoke in unison, as Buffy, Willow, and Xander were suddenly standing in front of him.
“What the bloody hell?” he muttered, as his Sire appeared behind them.
“The four of you will stay here!” Angel ordered them. “I need to check on a few things. You!” He turned to Whistler. “Make sure they don’t leave the apartment.”
“But Angel,” Whistler protested. “If the Order of Taraka is in town and after the Slayer. . . .”
He was interrupted by four teenagers, who all spoke at once.
“Did you say the Order of Taraka, bloody hell!”
“Who’s the Order of Taraka, and what have they got against me?”
“You took that dead guy’s ring. In what way is it significant?”
“You can’t tell me what to do. Who do you think you are, my father!”
“Quiet!” Angel shouted loud enough to drown out everyone else. “You will all be silent! Now, the five of you will stay here together, until I return. Is that clear?”
Shaken and fed up, Angel’s temper had got the best of him, as his demon side appeared without conscious thought. Even Buffy was taken aback by Angel and at that moment she realized, that she was seeing the true face of Angelus, and he was everything Giles had been warning her about. No one spoke, just shook their heads in agreement. One last growl and Angel was out the door.
Moments passed before Xander broke the silence. “Can we say having a major wiggins?”
**
December 27, 1997
“This just sucks.” Elbows on the table, head cradled in her hands, Buffy heaved a huge sigh. “It’s Christmas vacation, guys,” she addressed Spike and Willow, who had their noses stuck in school books. “And we’re sitting here in the school library with the great choice of either researching the Order of Taraka, or studying.”
She couldn’t help but frown at her two friends. How did she, Buffy Summers, C student extraordinaire end up with two such studious pals?
“You, I get.” She glanced over at Willow. “But, you?” She pulled down the book that Spike held in front of his face. “I know you’re a good student and all, but jeez, aren’t you overdoing it a bit?”
“Ever since parent teacher conferences when most of my teachers decided to tattle.” Spike lay down his book and stared over at Buffy. “My Sire has been keeping a close watch on my grades. My Sire, formerly known as the Scourge of Europe, who terrorized both humans and demons alike in the nineteenth century. I believe his specialty was slow torture. What would you have me do?”
Exchanging looks with Willow, who had put aside her textbook to listen with interest, Buffy could only reply, “and I have no rebuttal for that argument.”
The doors of the library swung open with a bang halting any further discussion.
“Buffy!” Xander shouted, followed by a sopping wet Cordelia. “The king freak of the Order of Taraka was just at your house.”
“My house?” Buffy stood up, looking dismayed. She had been hoping that the assassin from last night had just been a one time shot.
“We stopped by to see if you needed a ride, and the Makeup Queen here. . . .” Xander shot Cordy a dirty look. “Heard the words free makeover and ushered him into your house faster than a bolt of lightening.”
“He. Looked. Normal.” Cordy enunciated through gritted teeth, as she glared back at Xander.
“Well duh, what was he supposed to have, an arrow with the word assassin over his head?”
“All right, all right.” Giles came out from the library’s back room. “Both of you calm down, and tell us what the assassin looked like.”
At that moment, Cordelia let out a shriek as a mealworm dropped out of her hair. “Ohmygod, I’m going for a shower,” she screamed, and turned and ran out of the library.
“Like that.” Xander gestured toward the worm before squashing it with his foot.
“You and bug people, Xander.” Buffy shook her head, remembering Xander’s close encounter with their former teacher, Natalie French. “What’s up with that?”
“No, this dude was completely different than praying mantis lady. He was a man of bugs, not a man who was a bug.”
“Well, the-the important thing is everybody's alright.” Giles said with concern. “Still, it's quite apparent that we're under serious attack. I’m expecting Angel and Whistler back any moment with, hopefully, some news.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth, when Angel and Whistler stepped through the library doors.
“We’ve confirmed that, indeed, the Order of Taraka was hired to come here and that their target is the Slayer.” Angel wasted no time in getting to the point.
“Who hired them?” Buffy demanded. “And why?”
Angel hesitated just a fraction of a second before answering. “Penn. Willy’s exact words were; Penn’s sick of that Slayer getting in his way.”
“Getting in the way of what?” Buffy frowned in bewilderment. She hadn’t run into Penn and his group for some time.
“After a few more inquiries, it seems that Penn’s ultimate goal is me,” Angel said gravely. “But for what, no one knew.”
**
“So these Order of Taraka guys are part of a society of deadly assassins dating back to King Solomon? Man, my life is never boring.” Sitting in the one easy chair in Angel’s apartment, Buffy was getting a quick lesson on the Order.
“Yes, their credo is to sow discord and kill the unwary.” Angel said, as he reclined on his bed with a half-asleep Childe’s head on his chest.
“And don’t you think. . . ?” Spike asked sleepily. He was bone tired. Christmas had brought up too many bad memories; it had worn him out. “That the three of us couldn’t handle a few poncy assassins?”
“They're a breed apart. Unlike other demons they have no earthly desires but to collect their bounty. They find a target and eliminate it. You can kill as many of them as you like, it won't make any difference. Where there's one, there will be another, and another. They won't stop coming until the job is done,” Angel explained.
“Bloody hell!” “Great!” Buffy and Spike spoke at the same time.
Buffy got up to go over to the cot they had set up on the other side of the room divider. Thankfully her mother was out of town, so there was no need to have to explain why she was hiding out in a vampire’s apartment.
“All I can say,” she yelled over the wooden screen, “is that the next time I see Penn, he’s going to get a big thank you from me for ruining my Christmas vacation.”
“Our Christmas holidays, pet. Our holidays,” Spike called back.
****
Finis