Title: HUNTRESS
Author: psimetis
E-mail: psimetis@hotmail.com
Spoilers: Season 3, Doppelgangland
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: vampireW/T
Characters: Vamp Willow, Vamp Tara (Savage Tara), Dark Slayer Buffy, Slayer Kendra, Slayer Faith, Watcher Giles, Watcher Wesley, Ethan Rayne, Joyce Summers, Drusilla, Cordelia, Angel
Disclaimer: All characters of BtVS and its universe are all rights and owned by Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon. This is a fan to fan appreciative effort made for absolutely no profit.

Summary: Alt. Wishverse: Three Slayers, two Watchers, one one-armed vampire of Aurelius named Willow, and one feral vampire named Tara. This is a story of two vampires who manage to save each other. Romance, Character Fic, VAMPIRE fic, BDSM, D/s

Warnings: MELANCHOLY, Tara-Death, Vamp Willow Cripple, Imprisonment by Box, scattered Willow parts, implied Sex without Consent, Animal Death, Tara-Indecency, implied rape, public sex

Author’s Note: I wanted to tackle a vamped Tara idea, the idea being, is it possible to have a vamped Tara retain at least some of the very human and appealing qualities that were hers and still avoid the complete She is Tragically Evil Demon or ‘let’s Ensoul Tara’ answers? As always, I like my stories with alot of gray. Let’s see how I did. ;) Enjoy.

Further Notes: And yes, yet another version of Wishverse’s Vamp Willow and Dark Buffy. AND, please, understand that this is Vampire Tara, not Human Tara. Do not read if you expect your beloved Human Tara in vamp form. This is a character exploration. Thank you.

* * *

HUNTRESS

The skies cry tonight, thought Drusilla. Huge tears fall from the Night’s eyes. Rage was in the air as well, the lightning flashing and the thunder booming its impotent cries.

“No no no,” Drusilla chanted, mimicking the thunder’s rolling roars, even as a young woman streaked across the lightning lit meadow below the vampire, desperately fleeing her wolf pursuers. “No no no,” Dru repeated, in unison with the girl’s mouthed words. “No no no”.

Drusilla stood in her wet, white gown beneath the trees, and dreamily traced the largest white scar that bad, bad, crowd of humans in Prague had made on her face.

“No no no,” she whispered, and watched the girl fall finally to the savagery of the wolves.

Lightning flashed and struck suddenly, many tendriled in its white fire rage, right where the wolves gleefully tore at their prey.

Dru glided down the wet grass, the howling wind whipping. She smelled singed fur and electricity. The wolves whimpered and keened and abandoned their prey. Drusilla watched them run off quickly, in search of new game. Dru stopped before the torn body.

“Too late,” the vampire admonished, turning her disapproving, pale face up. The cold rain beat upon it as she gazed at the broad face of the full moon. “Too, too late. But isn’t it just like you Ones. I was abandoned by my Lord once, and now she by her Goddess.”

“You called,” Dru then continued, looking down at the dying girl. She smiled. “You called upon the Moon. But I came.”

Slowly, the vampire knelt upon the soaked grass and laid a cool hand on the girl’s wet, cold face. “She has a bit of you now,” Dru whispered conspiratorially. “She’s making you Hers. You called, but I heard too.”

Lightning flashed, revealing Drusilla’s demon face.

“Mummy will make it all better,” her mouth full of fangs said.

That night, Tara Maclay died in thunder and lightning beneath the Dark Goddess. She died and became Hers.

* * *

‘Watcher and Slayers’

Giles descended the staircase to the floor of his library at Sunnydale High and realized he was enjoying a rare sense of contentment. Buffy had yet to make an appearance, but Kendra was present, and thanks to her influence, Faith was here as well. Wesley bustled among the book stacks, irritatingly uptight--even for Giles--but was now, thanks to the new Watcher’s time with them, a more manageable pain in the ass than in the past. Larry, Oz, and Nancy, his original White Hats, also had yet to appear, but Giles knew they would make their entrance long before Buffy’s calculated late arrival.

It was a typical White Hats meeting; not of the desperate, covert sort that he’d held for his original White Hats cadre, but of the solid, assured sort now made fact after the Master’s death and the destruction of his vampire Order of Aurelius. Giles realized that the reason he felt this rare sense of ease, of satisfaction, was because he understood that at this moment his White Hats were the strongest they had ever been.

Thanks to the presence of three Slayers, which was in itself, such an incredible circumstance. Good now prevailed in Sunnydale.

Giles surreptitiously eyed the vampire in their midst.

Good had prevailed so much so, that what was left of the Master’s kin were now reduced to helping them.

Willow sat, as always, at a spot at the library research table where she could keep an eye on everyone. Her serene, sweet demeanor not withstanding, Giles knew the vampire sat purposely at the table in order to intimidate those present. Noone wanted to chance sitting too close to her. Except for Buffy and himself, the rest of his crew held an intense resentment for the vampire’s presence. She was Aurelius, she was responsible for many heinous deeds as her Sire’s lieutenant, and she had an irritatingly, deceptively cute way of always winning the war of insults, much to the ire of the others. She was especially deft with his less witty Slayers, Kendra and Faith. Despite the vampire’s past, Giles did not mind her presence. Trust of her was not assured, nor her loyalty, but because Good had prevailed, the vampire’s obedience could definitely be assured. For the present, it was a satisfactory ‘business’ transaction.

While Giles waited, politely offering everyone tea which Wesley naturally agreed to, he sipped his fresh cup and watched Larry, Oz, Nancy, and Amy enter the library. They carried coffee and pastry boxes which Faith immediately attacked. It was the usual routine, but this time with a new development: as nonchalantly as possible, Amy, their newest White Hats member, placed a foam cup before Willow, who never ate or drank anything at these meetings. Giles had since learned that vampires could enjoy eating what humans ate, if they chose to. The Watcher had to wonder what was in the cup, and why Amy actually took the trouble to give the vampire anything. Willow merely sat quiet and still, her pleasant, almost bored expression unchanged, and ignored her cup.

Amy, Giles knew, was teaching Willow magic. Since they allowed the vampire to live, it seemed wiser to allow the witch on their side to teach Willow rather than let the curious vampire go to someone they didn’t control. Whatever Willow had learned from Amy, and from her discreet attention to his library’s books, she had yet to use against them, as far as Giles knew.

Buffy finally chose to make her entrance into the meeting.

“Buffy!” came the various greetings, along with “B’”, “Buff”, and “Buffster”. Buffy stepped jauntily down into the library’s common area. She wore yet another understated, but expensive outfit. Her hair and nails were bright and well done, her make up impeccable. The Slayer who had declared her ‘retirement’ from slaying was looking exceptionally well, by Giles’ estimation, very unlike the cold, rather brutal killer who had first arrived in Sunnydale. Since then, she had regained a a rather cheery persona, thanks, it would seem, to her current involvement with the wealthy Cordelia Chase.

“Hey guys!” Buffy threw out in airy greeting. She approached the table and casually grabbed the back of a chair, leaning her weight on her hands. “What’s the what?”

“The ‘what’,” Giles answered drily, from his seat at the head of the table. “Is several things, actually...”

With the official start of the White Hats meeting underway, Giles knew to concede the rest of the information sharing to Wyndam-Price. The young man was prone to eagerly volunteering information he’d researched, often interrupting Giles. The older Watcher felt it prudent to just let Wesley recount the ‘411’, as Buffy would put it, and bear the pointed inquiries, smart remarks, and rapid disassembling of his personal, and therefore, misguided Watcher-trained assertions of certain situations at hand. It was good experience for the clueless young man.

Through this portion of the meeting where Wesley was often verbally battered by the others, the vampire Willow would usually keep silent. Perhaps it was to project an ‘I’m above all this’ type attitude, but Giles believed it was more about her hiding the fact that the vampire was incredibly bored. Kendra would always keep at least one eye on the demon, while Buffy...

Buffy never hid the fact that she seemed quite...interested in the vampire.

Even now, his first Slayer was giving the vampire the keen attention of both her hazel eyes, the sort of amused attention one might give to a favored, but yet disobedient, pet. Giles was certain that much of Buffy’s focus on Willow was more about asserting a constant authority and impression of control that neither of the younger Slayers could ever hope to effect upon this childe of the Master. Buffy had long made it known to everyone--himself included--that she was the Slayer, the highest in their ‘food’ chain so to speak, and that meant not just dominance over vampires but even over her fellow Slayers as well. Giles would like to think that when Buffy watched Willow she was working that authority upon the vampire. The undercurrent of...intimacy that Buffy sometimes exhibited in her attentions was something Giles chose not to acknowledge.

Buffy reached across the table, the expensive, linked bracelet at her wrist dangling, and casually picked up Willow’s untouched foam cup. She raised it deliberately to her own nose. As a Slayer, Giles knew that Buffy’s senses could have easily identified the drink from afar.

“Chocolate, huh?” she remarked, the sound of her voice suddenly drawing everyone’s attention from the present argument with Wesley.

“As I was saying,” the younger Watcher huffed, attempting to continue.

“It’s chock full of sugary goodness,” the vampire merely breathed, in that little girl voice of hers. The vampire did not look at Buffy, but simply made her pleasant sounding comment to the room at large.

As Wesley stuttered a bit, attempting to continue, Buffy slowly and deliberately placed the cup back before the vampire.

“You should drink that,” Buffy suggested casually. Giles knew that anything Buffy said was never really as casual as her tone conveyed.

Willow continued to ignore her, her constant, polite attention on Wesley.

“--and we’re telling you,” an exasperated Faith was reiterating to Wesley. “That that werewolf you’re yakking about is dead. K’ tracked him to the site where someone definitely whacked him. And whacked him good too.”

“Another hunter?” Buffy’s voice suddenly asked, her tone now completely in Slayer mode. Kendra nodded in affirmation.

“But you found no body--” Wesley pointed out.

“Whoever did it carried it off, right K’?” Faith affirmed with her sister Slayer. “That’s the fourth werewolf from that rogue pack Oz i.d.’ed that’s been taken care of, and not by us.”

Everyone’s attention immediately turned to the vampire.

“So who’s doing this?” Faith chose to ask with her patented Slayer glare. Giles felt that her glare wasn’t as effective yet as Buffy’s, or even Kendra’s, but the youngest Slayer was getting there.

“We don’t know anything more than you do,” was the vampire’s sweet faced answer, referring to herself and to the vampires she controlled. She always answered in that deceptively polite manner. Anymore helpful info required some coaxing. Or a bribe. When Buffy was at the table however, Giles had noticed, the vampire was less likely to play games.

“Give us the ‘what if’, then,” Buffy suggested as sweetly. Willow’s slender, pale fingers that rested on the table top then lifted to touch her foam cup. It was a brief gesture, hardly worth noticing, but Giles had made it a point to closely watch the interactions between his first Slayer and the vampire. The Watcher had finally come to the conclusion that Willow was truly uncomfortable with Buffy’s focus upon her. Her lack of retort or of engaging the first Slayer in any sort of verbal match, as Willow was gleefully inclined to do with the rest of the White Hats, definitely pointed to that fact. Why she was uncomfortable however, Giles couldn’t exactly figure out.

“There are wild rumors,” Willow was finally sharing with the group. “Lurid tales of a wild woman, a possible demon, emerging from the forest and killing as she pleases, mostly other demons. Supposedly someone saw her eating a wolf.” Willow shrugged her slender shoulders. “They’re just stories.”

“But how long have these stories been circulating?” Wesley asked.

“For as long as the members of the rogue pack began disappearing,” Willow answered.

“What do you mean, ‘eating’?” Faith frowned at the vampire.

“Like this. Rraf,” Willow demonstrated, playfully gnashing her teeth. Giles quickly tamped down his amused smile.

“Sounds like a feral,” he chose to note bemusedly.

“Yeah, but a feral what?” Larry piped up. “Besides being female and maybe in a fur bikini?” he added with a big lecherous grin. Nancy gave his shoulder a slap.

“Hey, aren’t you the football player who’s gay now?” she reminded Larry. He had the good grace to appear sheepish.

“Oh yeah. Old habit,” he excused.

“Me and K’ can--” Faith began.

“No,” Willow interrupted, much to the surprise of everyone. “I’ll go.”

“You?” Wesley blurted with incredulity. Though his comment was forward even for him, Giles knew that it reflected the sentiment of practically everyone in the room. Everyone, except for perhaps himself and Buffy.

“It sounds interesting,” the vampire softly gave in explanation, even as she looked at Wesley with the tolerant indulgence one would give to a very dim person. “And if she’s real I’d be more likely to have an informative conversation with her. Rather than hit first and ask questions later. Like some people,” Willow added sweetly, this time directing her remark at Faith and Kendra.

“Willow goes,” Buffy laid down in her ‘don’t question me’ voice, effectively cutting off a retort Faith was predictably about to make. Sullenly, Faith sat back.

“Well then,” Giles remarked in address to everyone. “Since that’s decided, I think that wraps up the business at hand.”

He watched his group disband, some chairs quickly shoved back and cups discarded. Willow slowly stood up, her movements always deliberately sinister, yet also always very graceful. What remained of her right arm came into view, her long leather coat sleeve neatly pinned up. With her left hand she picked up her hot chocolate cup.

“You wouldn’t know it, but Cordelia makes a really good hot chocolate,” Buffy chose to comment from where she still lounged at the end of the table. The vampire paused.

“Hard to believe,” she murmured lightly. “Cordelia can’t even make a cup of water.”

Giles had to suppress yet another grin. Buffy only smiled widely.

“I think you’d like it,” Buffy blatantly suggested. She looked at the vampire with humor in her face, keenly interested in her response.

Willow turned for the library entrance, fully intending to leave.

“I might just die first,” she casually imparted, cutting a sleek figure in slender black as she left.

The interaction was typical, Giles knew. It was Buffy’s own style of baiting the vampire, and it was also an overt form of harassment. But still, he mused privately. He didn’t understand why a vampire like Willow seemed to take it so personally.

* * *

‘The One Armed Vampire’

Willow did not remember exactly how that fateful night in the abandoned factory had ended. It had been a night meant for glory, when her personally designed blood draining machine would debut and her Master would finally proclaim his complete domination of at least this portion of the human world. Instead the Slayer known as Buffy arrived and in spectacular fashion, staked her Master. In the melee, Xander had died as well. Willow remembered the temporal snatch that surprisingly occurred just at that moment and which forced her into an alternative dimension. When she was abruptly returned to her own present time, she remembered a sudden collapse of the floor and a fall into debris. After that, she remembered nothing at all.

Thus, when she woke up in what appeared to be a sparse, wooden coffin, stood up on one end, and a wiry, older gentleman apparently extracting some blood from her, Willow thought she had been time snatched again. To one really fucked up reality.

“Ah, you are awake,” the fellow had said, in a distinct, British accent. “You will find yourself sufficiently weakened, and of course, bound.”

Willow had cautiously tested out the ‘bound’ theory. She was chained up tight all right, and gagged.

She also discovered that she could not sense her right hand. Not at all.

“But where are my manners,” the man continued. He indicated himself with a fist at his chest, still holding the blood filled syringe. “I, my dear, am Ethan Rayne.”

The name hadn’t meant shit to Willow, but in the days, weeks, and eventual months to follow, she couldn’t help learning everything the very chatty and quite evil warlock had to say about himself, his god Chaos, and his obsession with ‘Ripper’ Giles.

She never could remember what had happened that night in the factory, but she had suspected, despite Rayne’s protests, that he was the one who had chopped off her right hand.

He kept her in that wooden box in some back room Willow eventually assumed was to a store, and took her blood when he needed it for his dark magicks. It was Aurelius blood, and since Willow was a childe of the Master himself, it was an immediate, direct source of ancient, mystical power. Willow was Rayne’s dark, little fuel tank during the times he needed it, so to speak.

“Rather a better alternative to using my own blood, I must say,” the warlock would mention conversationally. “You’re just so powerful, my dear. You’d make an excellent witch.”

Willow didn’t give a fuck about that, really. But when he’d ungag her, longing for more than a one-sided conversation, she would sometimes engage him in discussions about magic. If only to get him close enough to finally sink her teeth into him, of course. But Ethan Rayne was often too self-aware and smart for that. He was a smart little asshole, Willow had surmised, or else the White Hats would have put a permanent stop to him.

Willow had also decided back then that the White Hats had to be incredibly stupid too, because while she was gagged and locked up in that box, she could hear Ethan in his encounters with ‘Ripper’ in the front store room, or his interactions with any of the three Slayers when they confronted him. And sometimes she would hear him getting a well deserved beating. But they never killed him, thus allowing Rayne to continue his games of Chaos, and Willow had thought that very, very stupid.

Then one night Ethan Rayne returned to the back room in a state of anxiety the vampire knew she could finally take advantage of.

“Well this is it, old fellow, this is it,” he was muttering to himself. “No turning back.”

“It’s been a pleasure, my dear,” he added, taking, what Willow knew, would be the last sample of her blood.

The moment Rayne left the room, Willow had bent her body as far forward as it could go, her thinner, starved frame now allowing for more loosened chains, and savagely bit her right arm completely through at the elbow.

It had hurt like hell, but it had to be done. She freed herself of the remaining chains, left her bloody stump behind in the box, and crawled in a bloody heap to the front room. Ethan was hastily working on something at the shop’s counter. She bit down on his ankle and easily severed the artery there.

Ethan Rayne howled in horror and agony and kept howling, even when Willow had taken him to the ground and finally bit his throat out.

Willow sipped her hot chocolate as she reminisced, the car heater of the Volvo that had formerly belonged to the Chaos magician, blowing warmth comfortingly.

She had ended up with even less of a right arm, but it was either that or death, and she was glad to have given Ethan Rayne his.

The vampire stepped neatly out of the car, which she had parked before one of Sunnydale Forest’s lesser known woodland trails. It was a clear night and Willow could see perfectly. Her one hand buttoned her coat closed and she slipped into the thick, verdant green.

Willow, being a vampire, was not one for nature, but she couldn’t allow the Slayers all the fun. She needed this chance to hunt.

* * *

There were two points of power in Sunnydale, although the one that belonged to the vampires was substantially weaker than the all encompassing Slayer rule. Willow, after freeing herself from Ethan Rayne and regaining some strength, managed to also, despite her crippled state, take over the then thoroughly emptied and abandoned Bronze. An unavoidable truce had to be established with the Slayers, or it would have meant Willow’s death. The White Hats tried to force her to be their lackey, but Willow liked to think she had some autonomy. The vampires who sought refuge with her at the Bronze had safety more or less guaranteed from Slayer stakes. There was no more killing, at least not of innocent people, and no more real hunting. Willow felt her Sunnydale entering its new age, the Age of Slayers, and her Master’s glorious ‘New World’ vision now passed. Willow did not want to pass with it.

“You’re a vampire,” Willow breathed into the night breeze, pausing to enjoy the very faint sensation of one of her Brethren nearby. No one of her Kin would be out this deep in the forest. Vampires naturally liked to be near their human food source, and within easy, fast reach of shelter from the sun. “I knew you’d be. You only hunt at night. Going only after the wolves was a clue too. Master said they were our natural enemies.”

Willow glided further into the forest, allowing her magical, as well as vampire senses, guide her.

“Let’s see who you are,” she whispered, beginning to feel the excitement of the hunt.

Her senses led her to a mountain side, and Willow gamely climbed it, despite having only one hand. After a half hour’s ascent, she found a plateau, and trusting her senses, followed the flat surface rather than continued up. she came upon a ridge overlooking another cliff top and quickly flattened to the ground, hoping she hadn’t been detected. Below her was a lair, one with a small cave etched into the mountain surface, and....

Willow peeked her redhead over the edge of her mountain ridge.

And with four ragged wolf pelts, stretched out on wood frames and flapping in the night breeze.

Willow felt a sense of rare, giddy excitement when she spied the creature in question who had hung up those wolf pelts.

A woman, a young woman, her demon face to the fore, easily hefted a large, heavy wolf corpse over a shoulder. As she crested the rock surface for her lair, Willow saw that her feet were bare, and the remains of her clothes--what had once been a soft print dress--were mere rags, and were, the vampire assumed, probably the clothing the girl had died in.

She can’t be more than a month--two months old! Willow mentally exclaimed to herself. She watched the girl drop her burden with a resounding, dusty thump near her cave. The feral demon immediately raised her demonic, yellow eyes to where Willow hid.

Wild, utterly wild, Willow admired, staring down into the savage, yellow orbs. The girl’s long, tawny hair was in dirty tangles around her face, framing cheekbones and a soft, generous mouth that bared fangs. Willow no longer bothered to conceal herself, she rose to the palm of her one hand.

“Pretty,” she whispered, her soft pronunciation easily reverberating down in the still night air. The girl below suddenly broke into a run from her own ridge and quickly disappeared.

Oh shit! Willow’s mind exclaimed, as excitement and adrenaline gripped her. She took quickly to her feet and fled back the way she’d come. She was in the feral girl’s territory now, and an easy mark to be taken down. Willow rounded the plateau and hurtled down the steep mountain side, She hoped she had enough of a lead on the other vampire.

Willow heard a rough, feminine growl behind her. The red haired vampire leapt away and felt air whistle past her ears as she landed in a near tumbling run for the mountain’s base far below. She barely felt the sharp strike of falling rocks.

“RRAFF!” she felt snapped right at her ear. Willow nearly squealed. The girl had gotten so close!!

Willow’s legs scrambled faster, more rocks cascading. She knew once she hit the base the girl was going to take her--

She felt strong arms snap around her waist like a vise. Okay, maybe sooner--

They lost footing and sailed through the air, the forest bottom rapidly meeting them. It was times like this Willow was glad she wore top to toe leather. She lost less skin that way--

They tumbled in a hard jumble of limbs, elbows, and knees. The blonde vampire lost her grip and Willow felt momentum fling her away. When the world and earth stopped spinning, Willow forced herself to her feet.

The feral vampire was already to hers, watching her, her dress further torned and the entirety of her curvaceous form bloodied. Yet already, Willow could sense the other woman’s skin healing.

Willow took off like a shot.

When she was human, she ran track in school. Willow ran, Xander swam. She did well enough in her chosen sport, but a forest’s uneven floor was no well groomed track field.

“Yiii!!” Willow couldn’t help exclaiming with delight, as she felt the feral vampire deliberately touch her fleeing back. Willow pushed her long legs harder, feeling her pursuer match her every move and stride.

Any time now, any time, Willow thought as she fled. But a part of her really did not want this delirious chase to end. She hadn’t felt such exhilaration--such, dare she think it? Such aliveness since her Turning. To have ended up the hunted excited her so.

“RRAR!!” Willow felt snarled coldly at the back of her neck. Hands grabbed her and this time when they both fell, those hands did not let go.

The impact to the ground, with her bearing the soft, heavy weight of another on her back literally knocked the dead air out of Willow. While her head spun, she also was flipped around, her eyes now facing the night canopy and its stars. She felt that full, soft weight press along her front and the other girl’s firm grip on her shoulders, pinning her to the ground.

“Oh, you masher,” Willow reproached. The girl’s tawny locks tickled her face as Willow tried to recover from the fall. “Be...gentle, okay? It’s been a while since I’ve been ravished.”

The blonde girl’s demonic face looked down at her uncomprehendingly.

“Oh,” Willow pouted. “Don’t tell me you don’t understaaaaaAh!” Willow ejected as she felt the other vampire’s thigh suddenly press between her legs. Willow arched at the abrupt contact, a direct hit with her clit. Sparkles flashed before her eyes.

“Bad--you,” Willow panted, understanding the pressure between her legs for what it was. A little show of dominance. She felt rough tipped fingers gently outline her face.

“All...all you had to do was ask,” Willow softly admonished, as she felt those fingers trail in exploration down the side of her face, to her throat, and then to her chest. She thought for a moment that the other vampire would rip her coat open--her favorite, and only coat too, but instead, the blonde took hold of the black leather sleeve that was pinned up. With a gentle hand, the feral vampire lifted the slender arm portion. A curious thumb caressed along the stump end.

CRACK! Resounded Willow’s lefty against the side of the blonde’s head. It was enough of a surprise to startle the other vampire. Willow quickly threw her off and scrambled to her feet. Her car was only twenty yards away, she could scent it.

When Willow made it to the front seat and started the car up, she could see the blonde vampire at the edge of the clearing, yellow eyes staring in perplexity. As Willow turned her car around she yelled in parting from her open window.

“Better luck next time!” she gaily bade, and sped the car away.

She made it back to the Bronze before dawn, and hoped the feral vampire was also now safely in her own mountain lair. Willow’s spirits were high as she ran up the interior steps that led to her personal apartment in the club. Once she tossed her coat aside, she flung herself upon her bed.

“Mmmm,” she hummed, trailing her one hand down her chest to tease beneath her waistband. The pale fingers slipped in, and for the first time in months, Willow touched herself.

* * *

The ring from the cell phone the White Hats had given her, woke Willow from a very contented slumber.

The vampire knew who it was. Calling her just after noontime was a way to catch her sleepy and therefore off guard. Willow had tried ignoring the phone calls once, even throwing the phone away. It only earned her a Slayer kick into her front door.

“Bitch. I need my beauty sleep,” she answered sleepily.

“So how did it go,” Buffy’s voice asked conversationally.

Willow looked down at herself, and realized she had fallen asleep right after masturbating. Her leather pants were bunched up around her lower legs. She smiled briefly, trying to hold on to the feelings of last night.

“It’s a feral vampire, she’s very young,” Willow answered. “She’s just a baby, but she killed a fifth one last night.” She couldn’t quite keep the hint of pride out of her voice.

“Really,” Buffy commented. “And how many humans do you think she’s killed?”

“I--” The vampire was thrown by the question. “I think none!” Willow hurriedly gave. She didn’t want the girl killed. She didn’t want that at all. Her urgent need to protect the feral vampire was leaving herself open to the Slayer however. Willow knew that by being direct she’d forfeited any leverage or ability to distance herself in this conversation.

“How can you know...none?” Buffy’s voice coldly asked her. It was the ‘Slayer’ voice.

“Killing innocents is a rite, it makes you a complete demon,” Willow reluctantly relayed, wishing she didn’t have to tell the Slayer, of all people, this kind of secret information of her brethren. “When that kind of killing is done, the commitment to evil is also complete. It gives a demon the scent of ‘Evil’. A--a kind of complete nature. It’s the kind you sense.”

Willow paused, and heard only silence on the other end.

“She...she only smells like animals,” Willow belatedly added.

The Slayer remained silent.

“Okaaay,” she heard the Slayer finally say. “Makes me want to check her out. See what kind of vibe I get from her.”

“No!” Willow protested. “Let me talk to her first. It’ll take a little time. She’s pretty wild. I want to bring her down to live with us.”

“Miss Grrr-Girl to live with your nest at the Bronze?”

“Yes.”

Again there was silence.

“I see her once you get her,” the Slayer finally ordered, no longer sounding like casual Buffy at all.

“Just keep Faith and Kendra away,” Willow ordered in return, and clicked off the phone. She threw it into the wall.

* * *