The Prophet
by Rainne
Part Seven
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The next morning, Willow and I awoke to the smell of sausages frying downstairs. After a long and satisfying snuggle, she found some clothes in her closet that I could wear and we started out of her room to grab a quick shower before presumably joining the rest of the household in the kitchen for breakfast.
There was a piece of paper hanging on the outside of the door. It was inscribed with a large number seven, below which had been printed the words "That has *got* to be some kind of new world's record."
"That's Dawn's handwriting," Willow said, pulling the note down. "What-?"
Just then, giggles from the stairwell caught our attention. Dawn and Mercedes stood at the head of the stairs, grinning at us in a decidedly evil manner. "Nice performance last night, Stud," Dawn said, looking directly at me.
"Yeah," Mercedes chimed in. "Sounded like everything, um... worked out okay." She giggled again. "We were sure you guys would still be asleep, so Buffy sent us to wake you for breakfast."
Willow, for some unfathomable reason, decided to play innocent. "Sleep late? Why?"
I just rolled my eyes as the response came from Dawn. "Well, it's got to take massive amounts of energy to go all night like you two did. Especially at that volume."
"It's gonna take massive amounts of energy for you to heal after I kick your butt back down the stairs, Smarty-pants," I mock-threatened, menacing her in a comical manner so she'd know I was teasing.
"Ooh... I'm sooo scaaaared," she drawled back at me, her eyes twinkling. "Mercedes, help, your sister's gonna spank me!"
Mercedes was no help at all. She simply burst into boisterous laughter that echoed down into the hallway. I pointed my finger at both girls in general. "You two are bad influences on one another."
Willow sighed. "Just go tell Buffy we'll be down in a minute, okay? We have to shower."
"Be careful you don't drown!" came Dawn's parting shot as they thundered back down the stairs in the manner of young elephants.
I sighed and followed Willow into the bathroom, where I found her examining her shoulder. I had bitten her accidentally the night before, and I think she was just realizing it. She touched the wound gently, then glanced up at me. I bit my lip, chagrined. "Oh, God, Will... I'm sorry..."
But she was looking at it more carefully. "Dakota. These are just normal teeth marks."
I leaned closer into her shoulder, noted that she was right, and shrugged. "And? I still bit you. Not very much with the coolness." I sighed. "Maybe we shouldn't... I mean, what if I... I don't want to..."
She laid her finger across my lips. "Dakota. They're ordinary teeth marks. This is a deep bite. You drew blood. But they're ordinary teeth marks."
"So what does that mean?"
She smiled at me, stood on tiptoe and kissed me gently. "You controlled yourself." I must have looked completely blank, because she continued. "I noticed it at dinner last night. Angel used to vamp out whenever he fought or tasted blood, and he had a soul, like you. Spike still vamps out whenever he tastes blood. I've seen him do it. But last night, at dinner, didn't you notice everyone kind of flinch when you went to drink? Nobody wanted to watch you change, but we were kind of stuck. Everyone sort of steeled themselves.
"But you didn't change. I noticed it. You drank blood, but you didn't vamp out. And here, on my shoulder. You tasted blood — human blood, even — but you didn't vamp out.
"I think we should tell Buffy and Giles. You have more control over the demon than I've ever seen in my life. I'm not sure you're an actual vampire in the sense of the regular vampires. I think you're something new. And then, there's this one last detail." She pointed.
I followed her finger, looking from her shoulder to the mirror, where I studied my reflection carefully. "Um. Will?" I knew it was my reflection, because its lips moved when I spoke, and it looked as terrified as I felt. "That... um... that's pretty fuckin weird."
---*---
The girls came back down the stairs sounding for all the world like a cattle stampede. I glanced up from the stove as they came down. "Can you guys make a little more noise next time? I think the next county missed your arrival."
"Oh, Buffy." Dawn gave me her version of the Look of Shame. Obviously I was embarrassing her in front of her friend. "They're up. They said they were going to take a shower and then they'd be down."
"I hope they don't drown," I mumbled under my breath. Last night had been possibly the roughest night of my life, and I had neither fought nor killed anything except perhaps my own personal demons. Lying awake in bed until three o'clock, listening to the woman I loved more than life itself make love to a strange day-walking vampire who had been her best friend before me was a new and unwelcome experience that I hoped I'd never have to live through again. I was surprised I didn't have dark circles under my eyes.
The girls were waiting for their breakfast, though, and plotting mayhem and destruction for the rest of the day. I thought it was wonderful that Dawn had a best friend, and I thought that perhaps Mercedes was just the kind of person Dawn needed in her life: bad enough that Dawn didn't feel that she was hanging out with a goody-two-shoes, but good enough that whatever trouble the two of them got into was probably not likely to involve drugs, alcohol, prostitution or the police. I scrambled eggs quickly to go with the sausages I'd been frying in another pan and, in a feat of timing both unprecedented and unexpected, timed the cooking of both foods to be completed exactly as the toast popped out of the toaster. I dished quickly and slid the plates across the island to two hungry and much-impressed teenagers.
"Wow, Buffy, I've never seen you do that before," Dawn commented. "Nothing's even burned or cold."
"Hush before I take it away from you," I threatened with a wink and a grin. I turned back to the stove to throw on some more sausages for the grown ups as the girls carried their plates and glasses of milk into the living room to eat in front of the television.
I peeked into the refrigerator for more eggs and to see if there was blood left for Dakota. I certainly hoped so, because I'd be embarrassed if there wasn't. Luckily, there was still one pint left. I pulled it out, poured it into a mug and tossed it into the microwave. Well, not literally tossed it.
The sausages were almost done and I was scrambling more eggs as Dakota and Willow, scrubbed and fresh-faced, came down the stairs and into the kitchen. I tried to recreate my feat of culinary splendor but failed, and the toast was cold by the time it arrived on the plates. Willow had turned the microwave on and Dakota was sipping at her mug of blood, no vamp face anywhere in sight. I wondered if Willow had paid any attention to that fact. Dakota just looked like a regular person sipping at a mug of coffee. Willow reached for her plate, wincing a bit, and switched arms abruptly.
"Will? You okay?" I asked without thinking. Then I blushed, realizing what the possible source of her soreness might be.
She dropped her arm. "No. I'm not. Something weird is going on."
"Nothing new there," I commented, but I was focused on her anyway. When Willow Rosenberg says something weird is going on, she means it.
She pointed at Dakota's face. "Look. No bumpies."
I nodded. "Noticed that."
Dakota set the mug down. "No bumpy face when I drink blood. I never realized it before, but the only time I go bumpy-face is when I do it consciously. Even when I've... uh... fed. Even then, if I don't remember to go bumpy, I don't go bumpy."
"Okay," I conceded, "I give it a six on the weird scale."
She glared at me as though I were mentally challenged. "Think about it, Slayer," she spat, stretching the title as though it were an insult. "Look at me! I walk in the daylight; crosses don't burn me; garlic doesn't faze me, or don't you think I noticed we were having garlic bread at dinner last night; I don't gameface when I feed; what does it all add up to you, Slayer? The only thing I've got in common with a real vamp is being locked out of people's homes, not having a reflection and drinking blood. And to be honest with you, I'm not even sure about being locked out of people's homes. I've never tried going into one without an invitation. Not even this one. I just stopped on the porch, thinking to myself 'Well, here we are, self, stuck out on the porch in sunlight that ought to turn us into a big pile of dust but instead just gives us a nice suntan.'
"And then this morning I get up, I walk into the bathroom, and what do you know? For the first time in six years, I look in a mirror and what do you know? I've got a reflection. Bit of a nasty shock. So what do you think, Slayer? Personally, if I'm really a vampire, I'm no vampire I've ever seen before. I'm starting to feel a little bit like Darryl Hannah in Clan of the Cave Bear, you know? Not my people, gonna go see if I can find some other pretty blonde folks. You know?"
I frowned, thinking, then reached into the cabinet over the sink. "Come here."
She came and stood beside me, read the bottle I'd pulled out of the cabinet, and held her hand over the sink. "Do it."
"It'll hurt like hell if we're wrong."
"Just do it."
Willow came up behind us to see what we were doing and cried out in protest as I splashed the holy water across Dakota's outstretched hand, but she was too late stop me. Dakota's teeth gritted in preparation for the pain and I flinched back in preparation for the ungodly smell. We were both pleasantly surprised.
Dakota's hand neither smoked, smelled nor burned. It just got wet. "Sunlight, holy water, garlic, crosses, nothing. And a reflection. No bumpies." I mused out loud, studying her face, which looked rather panic-stricken. "Dakota, I think I know what it is."
"Well then please, Slayer, enlighten me."
I sighed. "I'll have to ask Giles, but... Dakota, I think you're evolving."
---*---
The knock on Rupert Giles' door startled him, as he'd been watching something very engrossing on the American BBC. God, he missed the BBC. He stood, walked to the door and opened it. Buffy stood there. "Hi, Giles. Don't say anything, just for a second, okay?"
He nodded, unsure what was going on but willing to play along for the moment. Then the day-walker stood before him. Fascinating young lady. She laid a finger on her lips as he automatically started to greet her, reminding him to keep his silence. Then she stepped forward.
He stepped back, expecting to see her recoil at the threshold. Instead, she crossed it and entered easily into his living room. She sighed and turned to Buffy. "I was right."
Buffy turned to Rupert. "That's why I didn't want you to say anything. I knew you'd invite her in, and we wanted to test it." They quickly began filling him in on the events of the morning and the conversation they'd been having. He was fascinated.
"I'll have to do quite a bit of research. I don't know anything about vampires evolving. I didn't know it was possible, pardon me Dakota, but I didn't believe it was possible for dead things to evolve."
"Well, you see," Dakota said quietly, "That's my real concern. I mean, what if I'm not really dead?"