Summary: After her sudden, brutal attack, Willow is extremely shaken, as is Marcus ...

What was the validity of your actions?

The thought resonated throughout Marcus’s head. He could hear Giles’s cordial tone interrogating about his actions the previous night. Telling him how his order was not to engage in street brawls, reminding him of the danger of discovery.

“Well screw you Rupert,” Marcus snapped truculently. “That filthy little prick was about to rape her, so there was nothing else I could do. Hell, I’d be lower than he is if I had just stood by. Dammit!” This last expletive was uttered because the prolific warrior had just come to an unceremonious landing on the floor. He reiterated his curse, and kicked the scuffed tennis shoe across the disorganised living room.

The shoe suddenly reminded him of the girl who was currently situated in his bedroom. A runaway, Marcus presumed – a lost kid who had strayed too far into the bad part of town, and had all to nearly suffered the consequences.

“Hi,” he called. The greeting seemed utterly inadequate to the situation, but was all Marcus could think of. “Are you awake?”

He made his way up the short flight of stairs, which led to Willows sleeping form, and rapped lightly against the doors soft pine.

“Are you awake yet?”

Willow was jerked from her sleep, feeling as if some deep, atavistic presence was calling her. A garbled, mortified expletive escaped her lips: “J-Jesus!”

She grasped the duvet, pulling the sheets around her tiny body, tying in vain to purge the memories of that last, terrible night from her mind. She fell to the floor, dragging the bedding with her. It was a few seconds more before lucidity returned, and she was facing Marcus’s concerned face.

“Whoa kid.” He was kneeling beside her. “Easy. He’s gone. You’re safe; I’m not going to hurt you.” The words reeked of stolid cliché, but they were the best he could come up with. “You hear me? The man who attacked you has gone.”

Willow leaned up, the perpetration trickling in small rivulets across her brow. She curled into a foetal position, subconsciously attempting to stave off a danger that had long since passed. Her eyes met Marcus’s, her fear palpable in the haunted gaze.

“W-who are you?”

Best response to cliché is cliché, he thought ruefully.

“My names Marcus Richards. I’m an -” he searched hurriedly for a duplicitous profession “- a Martial arts teacher.” It seemed the most plausible cover. “I was returning home last night when I saw that -” he decided that word he was about to employ was too strong for the situation. “- that man attempting to, erm …” He was struggling to describe with some semblance of discretion what she had experienced.

“Rape me?” she whispered.

“Yes. I stopped him, and took you back here. You’d fainted.”

He had considered taking her to an A & E department, but decided against it. They would doubtless have contacted the police, and Marcus guessed they were the last people she wished to see, considering he had assumed her to have run away from home. And then there was the attempted rape; sometimes the questioning was almost as traumatic as the act. If the assailant had gone through with it, Marcus would not have hesitated for a second. But for all the terror the girl had experienced, she had been spared that.

He was still riled with guilt. Who was he to judge whether the police should be involved? He knew nothing of this. Given a score of beasts to fight, he would have been in his element. But this was a different kind of horror, one he could not begin to comprehend. One he did not want to comprehend.

I did my best! The thought was piercing, scathing. It was as if some inner presence was castigating him for his actions. I probably did the wrong thing, but I did my best!

He was so caught up in the cascade of thoughts that he failed to notice Willow rise to her feet and slip out from the room. The inattentiveness had lasted just a minute, but it was enough. By the time Marcus had noticed Willow’s absence she was already long gone.

* * *

It watched. That was the task that occupied the majority of its time. Watching, waiting, accessing the creatures that walked before it; creatures that were oblivious to its presence. It had once exuded the most beautiful of dreams. Now, it induced the most terrible of nightmares.

It had made its decision, and must now live with the consequences.

A woman was needed. She must be strong, both in body and mind. The task that was to befall her required the utmost fortitude.

She would be sacrificed, but for a greater purpose. A far greater purpose than she could otherwise hope to achieve.

The woman was sighted. It instantly knew she was the one. She had all the qualities required, in abundance. She was simply the one.

It moved, corporeality engulfing it for a fleeting second.

Shelia screamed, and entered the nightmare.

* * *

Willow was lost. She had been lost since the moment she set foot in this city, but now the feeling was exacerbated. She had no destination, no assistance. Last night she had had the simple task of finding the Savoy hotel, but today it was different. Today she was not only alone, but was aimless. Shelia would surely have reported her disappearance to the police, who would now be scouring the city for her.

She chided herself for her foolishness. The police force of a major city such as London would have far greater things on their minds than a lost 15-year-old. They would placate Shelia, issue her description, and wait. The patrols would have another face to watch for, among the thousands who required their attention.

She conceded that her best course of action was to enter the nearest police station she came across, and wait for her mother to report her disappearance. It was far from preferable. She conceded, however, that it was her only realistic option.

“Hey, wait.”

She turned to see the man from the apartment moving rapidly closer. Panic set in, and she started to run.

“Stupid girl!” Marcus uttered the reprove in the first intake of air as he set off after her.

The chase lasted for several streets. Marcus was tall and athletic, while Willow was small and lithe. They weaved their way through a multitude of back-allies, the chill morning air turning their breath to chocking, brief clouds of vapour. Marcus’s intentions were entirely altruistic, but Willow was not to know that. She guessed he was another person out to take advantage of her, after finding her the previous night. Her recollections of the events were vague. He could even be her attacker’s accomplice.

The bustle of humanity and level drone of traffic signalled her proximity to a major thoroughfare. She knew that once she was in a crowd, her pursuer had no hope of finding her. The pace was excruciating, but still she persevered. The ground was hard beneath her feet, her shoes forgotten in the rush from Marcus’s apartment. She could hear the noise, drawing ever closer. In a matter of seconds, she would loose him.

Willow never even noticed the carrier bag blowing across her path. Her bare foot caught in the plastic, which slid it from under her. She was thrown forward, hitting the ground with a jarring thud.

The pain shot up her side, and Marcus was beside her.

“Jesus, what the hell are you playing at?” The tear that fell from the girl’s eye signalled to Marcus the gravity of his miscalculation. “Sorry, you had every right to be scared, every goddamn right. Here” - Marcus held out Willows tennis shoes - “you left them behind when you ran.”

She reached out gingerly for the footwear, her right arm and hip still throbbing from the impact.

“T-thank you.”

Marcus waited while she put them on, and then offered her a hand. She got hesitantly to her feet, and took a few uncertain steps forward.

“Okay?” Concern interlaced Marcus’s voice.

Willow nodded, and began walking. She limped, taking the pain away from her bruised joint.

Marcus walked reservedly beside her, and the two made their way into the cacophony of Oxford Street in a subdued silence.

* * *

There were two certainties about the London tube, Marcus informed Willow. It reeked like excreta – although that had not been his exact phrasing – and you could always be certain that you would be squashed like a sardine if you entered the thing during the rush hour.

As it was currently 8:30 in the morning, it was most definitely the rush hour
.
Marcus casually shoved a rotund businessman aside, and planted himself wearily in a seat. He ignored the mans indignation, and a hastily raised middle finger, in complement with the cruelly rapacious gaze Marcus fixed him with, discouraged any further protest.

He sank back into his seat; it had been a nightmare of a day. Rather inconsiderately, he had left Willow to fend for herself. She was unable to reach the grips swinging erratically from the trains ceiling, so was left maintaining a jarring balance among the commuters.

He could hardly bear Giles. He considered him to be an effete, arrogant Brit. But at this moment in time, he desperately needed his assistance.

* * *

Spike slept. It was virtually all he did now, having been deserted in the jet-black prison. From the furious charges he’d made at its walls, he had ascertained that it was roughly 40 yards square.

The fervent screaming had achieved little, and if his captors had been listening, they would now be familiar with the collective profanity of no less than 17 different languages.

So the sudden appearance of Shelia Rosenberg provided him with quite a shock. She materialized in a brilliant shimmering of light, the whole room temporarily consumed in a glaring radiance. By the time it dissipated, Shelia had managed to struggle indignantly to her feet.

“This is a disgrace!” She castigated her invisible assailant. “I’m an American citizen, and I demand you release me immediately!”

“Ah, food.”

She turned abruptly towards the direction of the menacing tones.

“Who is that?”

“The person who’s about to drain yer dry.” He allowed the vampiric guise to distort his features, and lunged.

* * *

Not many people came by Giles’s office. It was secreted in the depths of the London museum, well away from the notice of the public. It was his inner sanctum, his sanctuary. The walls were lined with shelves, containing a multitude of books on his “specialty”.

So long as he actually did what he was paid for in addition to this, the trustees were willing to tolerate these eccentricities.

“Hey, Rupe.”

Giles’s could only think of one person who utilized that incongruous abbreviation of his name.

“Good morning Marcus,” he remarked coolly, not averting his gaze from the book in his hands. It was a new acquisition from the Czech Republic, with the word “Vampyr” incised in large gold letters across its front.

“I’m in trouble man. Real trouble.” The Watcher shuddered at the bastardisation of his language.

“Oh dear,” he said. “What a novelty. I’m sure you’ll be glad to know I haven’t had intercourse with myself yet.”

Marcus cringed at the reference to the previous night’s altercations.

“Okay, look. I was a jerk, all right? I was a stupid jerk, and I apologize. Now lets cut the crap – we’ve got something more important to deal with.”

This finally brought up Giles’s gaze.

“What is . . .” he began, but noticed that Marcus had already left the room.

He let forth an exasperated sigh, and followed.

* * *

Willow had visited museums before. Never before, however, had she seen anything of this magnitude. Stretched before her were objects spanning over 10,000 years. Pharaoh’s mummies, ancient scrolls written on unimaginably fragile papyrus; and these were only the contents of the initial case.

She moved onwards, held in a mesmeric reverie by the objects before her. She remembered a line from a film she’d seen, something along the lines of, “Such moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

So long as they continued their work in places such as this, she ruminated, then history would possess an immortality living beings could only dream of.

For the first time in a long, long while, Willow was happy.

* * *

Spike’s immortality was just as real as that of the objects in Willow’s sight. At this moment, however, its continuation was far less certain.

Whatever had prevented him from attacking Shelia has imbued its own brutal reprove throughout his body. He lay paralysed on the floor, blood trickling in minute rivulets from his nose and ears. His sight was gone, as was his hearing. He could not even remove the demonic visage from his face.

“You are required to feed from her.”

It was not a voice that had spoken. Its nature could not be described, for its esoteric characteristics were far beyond any corporeal comprehension. But it spoke nonetheless.

“However, that time is yet to come to pass. Presently, do not attempt to approach her. You know the consequences if you do.”

The vampire was released from whatever had been constricting his movements, and instinctively vomited. The foul mixture of blood and fluids erupted violently from his mouth, slathering to a gradual halt against Shelia’s feet.

She responded with a petrified scream. She suddenly realized the intrinsic value of the emotions she had been attempting to suppress in her daughter. She continued to exercise them to their fullest extent.

“I hate my life,” the peroxide blond vampire muttered to himself, and was not bereft of the irony of his words. “I really, truly, hate my stinkin’ life.”

He slipped into a pained sleep, accompanied by the cacophony of Shelia’s cries.

* * *

“Rupe, things are most definitely not copasetic.”

Giles turned to Marcus, realizing that for the first time in years, he did not understand the meaning of a word.

“I, erm,” he stuttered, desperate not to reveal his ignorance to someone he considered to be his intellectual inferior.

“Not good Rupert,” Marcus elaborated. “Things are not good.”

Giles, despite the indignity he felt, nodded in agreement.

“What should we do with the kid?” Marcus had come to the Greek gallery, and was desperately seeking a solution to his problems.

He felt responsible for the teenager he had rescued the previous night, despite his attempts to dismiss the inexplicable emotion from his mind.

He knew there were a multitude of homeless children on the cities streets, many of them in a far more detrimental condition than the girl he had rescued; girls who had given birth before they we’re even out of school, kids withering away from AIDS, hepatitis and another multitude of diseases, often left untreated for fear of discovery.

And yet, he felt responsibility. Maybe, he ruminated acerbically, it was because he knew of their plight firsthand. But his own experiences had not impelled him to take action before. So what had changed?

“Have you any idea of her age?”

Marcus shrugged. “I guess she’s around, I dunno, fourteen?” Like so many others, he had misjudged Willows years. It seemed hard to imagine any vestige of womanhood on the girl who was in reality only a few months shy of her 16th Birthday.

“She’s sixteen,” Giles stated bluntly. “Unless you wish for things to become a great deal less copasetic, you’ll heed my advice.”

“Sixteen special here then?” Marcus inquired.

“It means she’s old enough to have a mind of her own,” Giles explained. “Basically, the law says she no longer needs a guardian. So it should keep the police out of your way.”

“Hell yeah,” Marcus intoned his agreement. “The last thing I want is those guys crawling over my back.”

They left the Greek exhibit, and began climbing the stairs to the next level.

“So what do you intend to do with her?” The question was blunt, Giles’s voice filled with as much lethargy as he could muster.

“How should I know?”

Marcus was at a loss. He just wanted to help her, driven by some illogical, intrinsic urge to do good.

“Perhaps you could send her to some descent Foster parents?” Giles suggested. They had just rounded the door into the Egyptian gallery.

“Rupe, if she’s run away once, she’ll easily do it again. Probably been abused or something.” Marcus was correct, but not in the way he imagined.

“Perhaps we should consult the Social services indirectly. I have a friend who works for them who could offer some advice.” Giles turned to face Marcus, who had abruptly halted. A sanguine grin had spread across his face.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned.” Marcus motioned forwards, and Giles gasped as he saw the subject of the indication.

“That’s her?” The shock was evident in his voice.

For Willow was sitting cross-legged on the floor, deep in debate with Sir Conrad Jones, the museum’s Egyptology expert. It was clearly not a one sided affair, with both talking in flurried voices, gesticulating rapidly to extrapolate on their words. Sir Conrad was reclining against a cabinet, a casual languor evident in his poise.

“You said she was a runaway?” Giles decided that this was taking hidden genius to hitherto unimaginable levels.

“Too damn right I did,” Marcus said. “I hadn’t got the faintest idea Rupert. This is incredible.” Giles was not about to refute that.

Willow saw Marcus, and gave a nervous wave. She said something to Sir Conrad, who nodded, rose to his feet, and shook her hand. He strolled across the gallery, stopping beside Giles and Marcus.

“Do you know her Rupert?” He asked.

“We are, um, acquainted.”

“Well you’ve got one amazing girl there,” Conrad beamed. “We’ve just spent the last half hour debating the technological precision of the pyramid construction process. She talked more cohesively that an Oxford undergraduate, even when the blighters are sober.” He chuckled at his own quip. “I used to think all that child prodigy stuff was completely spurious, but not after today. Incredible!”

“Yes, she is.” Giles could make the claim quite confidently, even though he had yet to meet Willow.

“Got to invite her to dinner sometime,” Conrad requested, an unexpectedly pleasant caprice emerging from the normally stolid man. “I would be delighted to continue our debate. Incredible.”

He turned away, still muttering his admiration of Willow; who had gravitated discretely towards the two men as they had held the discourse. She now moved nervously towards Marcus’s side, a dazzling vivacity suddenly evident in her blue-green eyes.

“H-hello again.” Her smile was nervous, for she knew she was supposed to have waited in the museum’s foyer.

“You had a good time kid?” Marcus inquired, the smile still evident.

She bobbed her head in agreement. Never before had her eclectic talents served her so well.

“How about we go get something to drink?” He suggested. “You like cappuccino?”

In fact, seeing as she lived in what Xander had, in a rare moment of wit, described as a one Starbucks town, she had not. But Willow was always open to new experiences.

“I guess,” she offered noncommittally.

“I know a place,” Marcus said. “You coming Rupert?”

“No, you two go on. I have things to attend to.” It was not the answer Marcus had been expecting, but it was what Giles had decided upon. “I’ll see you later.” This was directed solely towards Marcus.

“’Kay then,” he responded, giving Giles an acidic stare. “You cold-hearted shit,” he added under his breath.

He knew what Giles had just told him; he was to interrogate Willow for all she was worth. He left with the girl, cursing Giles for his perceived cowardice and cruelty.

If he had know what the Watcher did, Marcus would have been feeling infinitely more perturbed.

* * *

It would not be long now, mused Azrael.

At least, that had been its name. Now it was just shadow, conjecture, and darkness, an omnipotent spectre whose sole purpose was to do its mistresses bidding.

The two had been found; now all it had to do was wait.

For the beginning, and for the end.

© Byron, 2000