Summary: Shelia discovers some more of our cultural idiosyncrasies, and her daughter is becoming exasperated by her reactions. Marcus has a real job on his hands explaining his actions to Giles. And a certain cockney vampire is seriously brassed off ...

Darkness was his world.

A vampire thrived in the blanket of night, moving from shadow to shadow in deathly silence. Humanity was easy prey when daylight had deserted them. Of the darkness, the vampire was king.

This was different.

Here, the undead had no power. There was no prey to hunt, no shadows providing a multitude of hues to disguise your movements. This was darkness, pure and unyielding. This was despair, where the hunter was now the prey.

“Come on, show yourselves!” Spike screamed into the void before him. “To scared are yer? Can’t handle one little vampire can you?”

He rushed forwards, lunging sightlessly, desperate to find something corporeal.

Or at least, he mused tersely, corporeal enough to have all seven miserable shades kicked out of it.

“What’d you want?” The frustration was consuming him. He was death, terror, the scourge of humanity. He killed, maimed, butchered where he saw fit. Thousands had fallen at his whim.

Power; that was his all. He controlled, and what he disliked, he destroyed. That was the way of it. And he’d be damned if something he couldn’t even see would be the one to bring it all to an end.

“You too scared to come out?” he repeated. “You crapping yourself with fear, eh? You’ll have a bleedin’ good reason to be scared of me, you bastards! When I’ve finished with you, you’ll be praying to whichever bugger you believe in to end your miserable existence. I’ll rip your mangled goolies off and ram ’em up your arse! I’ll bite yer eyes out so you can watch me beat you about the head with your own bleedin’ spine.” Nothing. He added, trepidation steadily overwhelming him, “You hear me, you wankers?”

It heard him, but did not answer. There was no need; he would discover what was required of him in the fullness of time.

Time.

There was always more than enough time.

The vampire screamed a further multitude of obscenities into the darkness, only relenting when his aching throat prevented him from continuing. It burned like hot coals in his neck, searing pain only exacerbating his anger.

He slumped morosely to the floor, his aching muscles forcing him to acquiesce. He spat, cursing as saliva caught his jacket.

Vampires, contrary to popular belief, had the full range of human emotions. Pity, mercy, compassion; these were all deeply suppressed, but were present nether the less. But there was one other, more despised among his kind than even these weaknesses. It was now rising inexorably to the surface.

Spike was scared.

* * *

“Rupert, I’m sorry.”

Marcus was moving through the devastation of the battle, fastidiously avoiding those remains that had not be vaporised with the undead. His foot glanced by a bloodied arm, testament to his final, desperate struggle.

“Marcus, I don’t give a flying one –” Giles took a deep breath “ – I don’t care what regrets you feel, or which apologies you offer. You nearly got your damned foolish life ended right here. And this entire clan would have sodded off out of the country, would have wrought their terror in some other place far beyond our control.”

“The won’t be wreaking jack now.” Marcus quipped sardonically, finally reaching Giles. The katana hung limply in his hand, the vampire’s blood streaked across its sleek blade.

“Don’t you give me that acerbic bull!” Giles snapped. “You know bloody well what the procedures are. Christ! Did you not have any comprehension of their strength?”

“They’re vampires. They’re strong bastards. I kill them. Needn’t say any more really.”

“Except, perhaps, that they were ancient, immortal warriors. Did you know that their eldest member was three thousand, four hundred years old?”

Marcus shuddered. So his opponent hadn’t been bluffing. He, Marcus Richards, had walked straight into the middle of some of the eldest, wisest, most deadly creatures on the planet.

And I won. But the arrogance didn’t wash. He had indeed been a damn fool, and he knew it. His gaze fell upon the centre of the factory, a low gasp escaping his lips.

Two skeletons lay there. He knew only the most powerful, the very eldest vampires’ skeletons remained after death. It was almost unheard of. He remembered the remains held in display in the Watchers headquarters, of a vampire beheaded during the horror of world war one. And even he had been happenstance, his cranium destroyed by a freak shell.

“I guess I got lucky.” It was all he could think to say.

Giles motioned to the rear of the factory, where several masked men had emerged, and rapidly began the grisly task of disposing of the fights foul remnants. Marcus saw the organs and limbs he had so carefully avoided being dropped unceremoniously into industrial strength plastic bags. He winced, and then his jaw dropped in abject horror.

One man began to extract a multitude of weaponry from a small crevice in the factory’s wall. Marcus saw maces, swords, spears and a litany of every possible weapon of aggression in the clean-up crews hands. His only consolation was that any form of projectile weapon was conspicuous by their absence.

“Oh my God.”

“I doubt divine intervention would have provided much assistance.” Now it was Giles’s turn to be acerbic. “It seems they were busy cleaning their weaponry when you appeared. If you’d arrived any later,” a cruel grin crossed his face, “it’d be your entrails we’d be taking home in a plastic bag.”

“Damn!”

Giles turned, his eyes querying Marcus’s sudden anger. The man had walked to the centre of factory, and was staring at the factories hard concrete floor. Giles noticed in disgust the horrific array of organs spread across the ground, blood-drained blue intestines spread in a foul trail by Marcus’s feet.

“She’s gone.” Marcus kicked at the entrails, sending the coils of flesh streaking a bloody path away from him. “That undead bitch has upped and left. How the hell’d she do it? I blew her guts out and she’s still managed to escape!” The incredulity was evident in his exasperated features. “She saw my face Rupert; she saw my goddamn face! Now every vampire in London will be out for blood and after my ass.”

Giles was tempted to put in another snide remark, but resisted. Marcus had been an idiot, acting with an unbelievably arrogant obtuseness towards the whole endeavour. But he didn’t deserve this. Giles had seen the victims of the undead’s revenge, the images would haunt him for a lifetime. They made Marcus’s work here look like a blessing from above. “Surely you wore a mask?”

“Yeah, but I shook it off when I went hand to hand. It restricted my line of vision.” Marcus had slid dejectedly down into the gore at his feet, and Giles bit back his disgust to join him. “Those who were going to had already run off, so I didn’t see any point in retaining the damn thing.” He turned with resigned submission to Giles. “I’ve been a dumb prick, ain’t I?”

“I wouldn’t disagree.” Giles remarked with candour. “You’re hardly a neophyte to our cause, and you should have know better.” The watcher decided he’d castigated Marcus enough. “But you’ve also rid us of these animals. You are to be thanked for that.”

Marcus rose, and began a stilted, halting walk away from the horror behind him. His weary gait betrayed all too clearly the exertion the day’s event had taken upon his body.

“You’ll have to go into hiding.” Giles was beside him as they strolled into the cool evening’s air. “You may be an insolent, headstrong upstart, but we need you.” The gentle grin on his face served to negate the tension between the two men.

“Where’d you suggest I move my butt to then?” Marcus tried to reply with as much languor as he could, but his tension was plainly evident.

“Well, there’s always the Museum. I’m sure we –”

Marcus interceded: “Piss off Rupert – there’s no way on God’s clean earth I’m sticking my ass in that academic shithole of yours.”

“Well well, three profanities in the same sentence.” The acerbic bite briefly returned to Giles’s voice. “You intellectual prowess must be increasing exponentially.”

“Go shag yourself,” Marcus breathed acidly.

The crestfallen warrior dragged his aching body off into the industrial wasteland that surrounded the building, muttering derisively about Giles as he went.

“Well sir?” A young woman approached him, removing her bloodstained mask as she did so.

“He’s hardly the most, a’hem, taciturn of people. But he’s resolute, courageous, and skilled. Nothing pusillanimous about the fellow, nothing at all.”

He smiled gently at the novice Watcher.

“He’ll turn up at nine sharp. I have no doubt he’ll be a real pain in the arse, but I’m sure you can find some endeavour suitable for him.”

“Yes sir.” She replied with apparent lethargy.

However, under her breath, she muttered one of the cultural idiosyncrasies Marcus had inadvertently assimilated from England: “Bollocks.”

* * *

Willow had often felt smothered. The crowds in the bronze, her fellow pupils, life in general pressed unyieldingly down upon her.

However, never before had she been as physically constrained as she was at this moment. The serried masses of commuters pressed unyieldingly against her small body, to the extent she became certain she would suffocate.

She did not realise that this was entirely normal for the Piccadilly line at 7:30 on a Wednesday evening.

Thanks to her mother’s diplomacy concerning Heathrow’s entire contingent of Taxi drivers, the London tube was now their only option to reach the Savoy hotel. Shelia had managed to ascertain the vague location of the place, but was still uncertain as to which station they should get off at.

She was currently attempting to garner the information in her usual manner.

“Sir, kindly inform us of the location of the Savoy hotel.” She was pressed unceremoniously against the face of what she considered to be a most disdainful example of the species. “Well don’t just stand there, answer me in the obsequious English manner.”

Unlike the cabbie with which Shelia had previously utilised the word, the man knew exactly what it meant. He had been running through the precise directions necessary to reach the building in addition to the station. He swiftly reconsidered his response. “Sod off.”

It was the third time Shelia had heard the phrase since embarking upon English soil. She was swiftly becoming acutely accustomed to it.

“How dare you? You tight assed British jerkoff!” Mothering America was now a distant memory.

The insult was screamed into the businessman’s face, and Willow knew with a resigned dread that her mother would be receiving no more assistance from the occupants of this carriage.

For her however, it was a different matter entirely. She briskly and cordially enquired the information from the man reading The Guardian who was seated below her. He responded in kind, giving a concise list of directions required to reach the Savoy.

“Mother, I know where it is.” Willow was pressing against her fellow passengers, desperately attempting to impart the vital information. She knew she had to change to something called “The Bakerloo Line” at “Piccadilly Circus”, the station that they were rapidly approaching.

With a sudden burst of compressed air, the tube shot from the tube tunnel. Willow saw they had arrived. She let out a shrill scream directed towards her mother.

“It’s Willow, mum. We get off here.” The commuters were already pushing their way forward, and Willow knew she had to join them. The girl was carried along with the crush as they exited the carriage, hoping her mother had heard her shouts.

With typical inattentiveness, she had not. Willow managed to struggle free of the commuters, just in time to see the train’s doors slam shut, separating her with a cold finality from her mother. She couldn’t even catch her eyes before the train departed.

She was alone. It was not a new feeling for the painfully shy girl, but this was far worse than normal. Even when she was abandoned within a crowd, at school or the bronze, she knew those around her. Not here. Here she was alone in the centre of a strange city, in a foreign country.

“Oh, crap,” Willow said.

She rarely swore, but this seemed to be as good a time as any. Her hands rummaged through her pockets, revealing what she feared they would; nothing. There were no dollar bills to convert. She knew her train ticket was currently situated in her mother’s handbag, where Shelia had jabbed it upon purchase, ignoring Willows request to retain it in case they were to become separated.

With nothing else to do, she made her way out of the station. It seemed to be an unending labyrinth of corridors and escalators.

Like something out of Greek legend, the girl mused. She slipped lithely through the ticket barriers, attaching herself to a woman who was struggling with her pushchair.
She left her side once they were through, and climbed out into the London streets.

The chill in the air bit her the second she emerged. It bit un-mercilessly through her thin cardigan, and caused her to wrap her thin arms around herself in an attempt to maintain some semblance of warmth. For someone used to the unyielding heat of the Californian coast, it was nearly unbearable.

The Savoy was located without much exertion, but the response she received upon reaching the desk was less than positive. They had no reservation in the name of “Rosenberg”. She pleaded desperately, receiving nothing but a cold apathy in return.

She left the opulent lobby, slumping dejectedly against the pavement. She brought her legs up against her, the cold now increasing in the descending dusk. Perhaps her mother had used a pseudonym to book their rooms, Willow ruminated. If her mother had even managed to contact the correct city, that was.

Willow desperately wished she had worn clothes more suitable for the auspicious nature of the hotel. A girl in a prim dress would undoubtedly have received far greater sympathy. Willow however, had worn her favourite cardigan. She remembered how Harmony had mercilessly mocked the garment, much to her chagrin. It was wonderfully comfortable, but incredibly worn. In complement with her faded skirt and scuffed tennis shoes, she could easily be taken for another of the runaways who frequently tried to scam a free room for the night in London’s many hotels.


With little other option open to her, Willow began to walk. All she could think to do was find a well-sheltered bench somewhere, and pass the night there. Her mother would be hopelessly lost in the subterranean mass that was the underground system, so there would be little use in contacting the police until the morning. They would probably have to enact some child protection measures in the meantime. Willow was unsure of British law, but doubted the authorities would allow a 15-year-old girl to wander the night unsupervised. However innocent she may have been, she knew and dreaded her mother’s response if she was forced to collect her daughter from a police station.

So she walked. The air continued to drop in temperature, the discomfort increased exponentially by the sudden emergence of a bitterly chill breeze. Willow shuddered. Her legs quivered against the elements onslaught, the thin tights she was wearing provided scant protection.

It watched her.

It saw her vulnerability, the frailty of her small body against the darkness. Should she be next? Join the beast already in its possession? No, it swiftly decided; its mistress would not require such a fragile thing. It dissolved into the night, leaving the girl to the all to human dangers of a deserted London street.

They quickly manifested.

“Hi darling.”

Willow spun on the worn rubber of her shoes to see a gaunt, hagged man approaching her. His tattered overcoat fluttered in the breeze, creating a shimmering outline in the dull neon of London’s streetlights.

“H-hello,” Willow stuttered her response. She knew she was in trouble, her eyes glancing frantically for an escape route.

“American!” The shock was evident in his voice. “How you finding us then?”

“Nice.” There was no escape.

“How’d you think you’d find me?” He was beside her now. She guessed he was well into his twenties, although his taunt features could be serving to exaggerate his age.

Regardless of how many years he’d spent upon the earth, the disingenuous nature of his motives was painfully clear to Willow. His hand moved fast, her foot moved faster. The terrified girl landed a vicious blow to his shin, and started a desperate run.

He screamed in agony, and set out after her. She barely made a hundred meters headway before she was wrestled roughly to the ground.

“You dirty bitch!” He pinned Willow to the ground, saliva congealing around his mouth. “You thought you could just kick me and run? Only in the fucking movies darling.”

He wrestled his hand around her throat, and began to drag her towards a pitch-black alley. She screamed, clawed at him, but all to no avail.

“You been stuck one before?” The disgusting question resonated throughout the petrified girl’s head. “’Cos I’m gonna do you, right here, right now.”

He forced her down, one hand moving up Willow’s thigh, the other reaching towards his jeans.

She closed her eyes.

“Let her go.”

The voice was level, restrained.

“What the fuck?” Willow’s attacker rolled onto his side. “Oi, get lost, if you know what’s good for you,” he demanded curtly.

“Get off her, and go.” Marcus moved closer to the attempted rapist, his voice still level, but now displaying a cold danger between its deceptively dulcet tones.

“Piss off,” spat the girl’s assailant. The man was now on his feet, hand reaching towards his back pocket.

Before he could extract the knife, Marcus was upon him. He hurled the wretched man against the bleak alley wall, a horrible crunch sounding as his shoulder blade was shattered.

“Jesus Christ!” His face was clenched in agony, before all feeling drained from the area.

Marcus delivered a brutal kick to his face, sending his head jarring back against the concrete beneath him. By some miracle, his cranium remained intact.

“Now listen up.” Marcus was straddling the now-sobbing man. “Me and the woman are going to leave. You try to follow us, and I’ll pop your neck like a grape.”

He reached down, and lifted Willow into his powerful arms. A look of pure horror assailed him when he saw her face.

“You bastard,” Marcus said. He lashed out again, sending the man reeling backwards, the balance he had managed to regain instantly lost. “She’s only a child, you paedophilic son-of-a-bitch!” Another vicious blow was landed, this time resulting in the cracking of several ribs.

He restrained himself from taking any further punitive action. Whatever his flaws may have been, Marcus was not a murderer. At this moment however, he was extremely tempted.

He held Willow tightly in his grasp as he moved away from her now unconscious tormentor. He had seen much horror, much hardship in his life. But what he’d just seen contained a new level of disgust.

He vomited into the gutter, and carried Willow’s frail body to safety.

* * *

There was always time, it reasoned. She could wait. At the present, there was simply too much to be done.

There was always time.

© Byron, 2000