“I feel your lips,

I taste your skin,

I need to know,

I need to feel you from within.

As your blood burns through my skin,

I feel complete, I breathe you in.

It’s where you end and I begin,

if only I could stay here… forever.”

So I’m supposed to be headed to Torrance, to get Cordelia and ‘convince’ her to help us out. But I know that even as a vampire, I’ve got nothin’ here. I feel empty, and last night sure proved that. I don’t have the instincts that Buffy has, the training, the year or more of easy familiarity with super-human strength and speed and toughness. And the damn senses. I keep getting distracted by sounds, so far away as to be meaningless, scents I’ve never even noticed. When I vamp out near someone, I can almost see the blood coursing red and hot under the skin. Maybe I’m imagining it, but it’s still distracting, and in a world where everyone moves like lightning, I can’t afford it.

People who are counting on me can’t afford it.

So I am remembering something Harmony was saying to Amber in class the other day, about taking her little brother to the zoo to shut him up, since she was supposed to be babysitting, and hearing sounds from the quarantined section. It was months ago. They should have been ‘put down’ immediately, isn’t that what they do to man-eaters?

I have to know.

I pull into the parking lot, and I see the night security guy on the other side of the closed gates, shining a flashlight at me. We eye each other guardedly as I cross from the truck, car, SUV thingie, to the gates and I can smell the fear. He’s an idiot, he knows things are crazy in town, some sort of ‘riots’ or ‘gang warfare,’ but here he is, reporting for duty, to keep some kids from spray-painting some benches or teasing the monkeys.

“We’re closed for the night…”

He shuts up when I leap the fence and land next to him, “I know. Didn’t you get the memo, I’m here to check the animals in quarantine, we are going to ship them out tomorrow and I have to make sure they’ve had their shots and are ready for transport.” I babble meaninglessly while I pin his arm, which is holding an honest-to-God revolver. I didn’t realize I was that strong, I have his fingers pressed so hard to the metal that he couldn’t even pull the trigger if he wanted to, and the gun is now pointed into the air. He’s off-balance, almost hanging from the arm I have pinned above his head, and the flashlight is rolling crazily around the ground, casting freaky shadows all over the place, while his other hand now flails at my shirt, trying to get a grip.

I didn’t actually plan to bite him. His blood is hot and bitter, and I can tell he’s been drinking. I can’t taste it in his blood, but I can sure as hell smell it this close to his face.

He jerks around, trying to pull free, hand clutching at my chest like we’re making out, and I don’t know why, but I feel like we’re dancing. I begin to move around, sort of pulling him with me, not letting go of his arm, which I’m now holding straight out from us, as if we are waltzing, with my mouth still fastened to his throat. I feel his heartbeat thundering against my teeth, down my spine, in my balls. Nice.

He finally falls limp, and I’m suddenly lost again. I have no idea what to do now. He isn’t dead, and I have this instinct to finish him, but I am not hungry, and I’m not nearly done feeding tonight.

Warring instincts collide, the urge, drummed into me since childhood, to clean my plate (and everyone elses, if possible), to finish what I’ve started, and the strange reflexive need to see if he is okay. I pull out, ignore the obvious sexual metaphor, and check him, hanging now, unable to stand on his own, from his hand, which can’t release the gun, because I’ve got his hand in a death-grip still. He’s bleeding freely from the sloppy tears in this throat. Looks like I’m a messy eater, still. Better get a bib.

I let go of his hand and he drops to the ground, releasing the gun as he falls. I can see him fumble around, but he seems to be only semi-conscious. Heh, I said 'semi.' Also, shut up, brain. I rip off his shirtsleeve and wrap it around his neck, to stop the worst of the bleeding, trying not to tourniquet his neck in the process, since that would sort of defeat the purpose. I don’t know why I’m not killing him. I don’t know why I don’t want to. I really don’t care about him, he’s an idiot who shoulda left town last night and doesn’t deserve a second thought, but it’s instinct. Instinct is all I’ve got right now, and it’s why I have to do this, why I’m not gonna work as a vampire, if I don’t fix it.

I grab the gun, stick it in my coat-pocket (after a brief consideration of shoving it in my waistband, followed by a realization of how messy that could be if I tripped and it went off), and head off to the hyena house.

Still the yellow tape, which I duck under. Instincts, still, not to break the rules. Instincts that have to die, before they get us killed, again, or more, or whatever. Inside, blue tarps cover the ground, but the cage looks the same as always. I smell sour piss, feel the presence of living things before I see them. I brush aside the tarp with my sneaker, and the pattern is still there. No way this makes sense, why would they leave the magic pattern thingie here? Don’t they know what it’s for? Didn’t Giles tell them to get rid of it? Sunnydale. Go figure.

There. Both still alive. Both alert, aware of my presence, and the larger one. Oh yeah. She recognizes me. I feel her even from here. I feel something tighten in my chest, and she just tilts her head and sniffs, opening her mouth, tasting the air, tasting me. I remember that, being able to taste the air by opening my mouth. Probably looking like a mouth-breathing moron in the process. Well, not ‘like,’ I kinda was a mouth-breathing moron at the time…

I stare hypnotized at her for a second, while the smaller male paces behind her. I break eye contact and raise the gun towards the male. Click. Damn, safety was on. There it is, I look up and shoot the male in the hindquarters. The gunshot is deafening in this enclosed area, and I don’t hear the growl as she springs.

What the fuck is the use of an enclosure the damn animal can escape any time she wants to? Someone’s gonna get sued…

She’s on me like a cannonball, and I just get my arm in front of my face before she can rip out my throat. Her jaws were built to crack elephant bones. My arm lasts about a tenth of a second, and I feel the bones splinter in my forearm like matchsticks. I’ve dropped the gun, but that hand is now free, and I’m not exactly weak. I roll and slam her into the concrete hard enough to crack her skull and leave a red splatter on the ground. She isn’t dead, or even stunned, her claws tearing into my stomach as my own teeth do their work on her throat. She doesn’t manage to get an arm in the way, since she doesn’t have any. It feels like her claws have ripped my intestines out, and I’m glad that my jeans somehow held up, because it hurt when they dragged down past my stomach and I don’t want to think about whether vampires can regrow stuff like that.

She finally dies, not weakening or struggling feebly, but fighting like a monster the whole time, and then just stopping, shutting down, all at once. Something is happening, it isn’t supposed to feel like this. I can’t feel my arm, my chest or anything, not even her blood in my stomach, just fighting, rebellion, inside, like I’m about to throw up, but it isn’t in my stomach, it is in all of me, my head, my chest, all of me, like my skin is trying to throw out the rest of me, or crawl off and get away from me. I wish I could crawl away from me right now.

I guess that counted as a ‘predatory act.’

It passes and I get up, sore from the arm, and the stomach, and the whatever the hell that was. I hear the other hyena whine, see it trying to pull itself to the back of the cage with its forelegs, it’s shattered hindquarters dragging behind it in a trail of blood. In an instant I am beside it, having leapt as effortlessly into the cage as she leapt out, and I use my good arm to grasp it by the back of the neck and with all my strength break it’s neck. I had to do it. Instinct. I was responsible for him. He trusted me to make that decision, to save him from the pain.

I realize that I can’t just jump out of here, and have to fish around the back to find the feeding area. It takes six kicks to get the metal door open and my arm is killing me now. I’ve taken my shirt off and am holding it to my stomach to sop up the blood, since I don’t want blood to soak all down the front of my jeans.

On the way out, I see the security guard lying in front of the gate still. He’s dead.

Oh well.

I take his t-shirt and put it on, over what’s left of my own shirt, now tied around my midsection. Be honest, does this makeshift abdominal bandage make me look fat?

I have destroyed more clothing this week.…

So, I am off to Torrance, off to get Cordelia, and her little cabana boy, Enrique, too. Mwahahaha! I think that little pick-me-up did the trick. Which is cool, ‘cause I figured I’d turn into a raving nut-job running around chasing his own ass if it didn’t work out.

I can just hear the girls now, ‘Great, Xander’s turned himself into a dog.’ ‘Ooh, can we get him a leash, and one of those little sweaters!’ I studiously avoid wondering if I can lick my own balls.

So, next exit is Torrance, and I have discovered that every pre-set station Joyce chose was old and sappy. I finally get a good radio station when I arrive at Cordelia’s folks’ ‘summer house.’ Gah. Big. Bigger gate than even at the zoo. Long driveway, I can see the house from here, just.

I drive around and park on a side-street and take a deep breath (I have no idea why) and a running start to get over the wall.

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Note to self, I am stronger than I was two days ago. I probably could have gotten over this wall as a mere mortal, and I overshot it in grand style, landing, falling, rolling and tumbling a couple of times, slamming my broken arm in the process at least twice. I’ll just lie here and cry, like the big bad bloodsucking fiend that I am.

Or not. Hmm, no tears. How manly. I never was big on the crying thing anyway.

After a moment of exploring the exciting new worlds of pain I have discovered, I get to my feet and move to the house, which really isn’t that big. The high school is way bigger. I rub my good hand furiously back and forth across my jeans, trying to warm it up, so it isn’t noticeably too cold, and then I knock on the door, wiping off my shoes on an expensive hand-woven-by-unpaid-Mexican-laborers multicolored rattan mat that conspicuously does not say ‘Welcome.’

“Hello, yes?” the maid is Mexican. How stereotypical. She looks aghast at how bad I look, like a concerned mother would look, since I’ve seen them on TV. She hesitates before inviting me in, until I gasp, “Cordelia…” and stagger, as if about to collapse into the doorframe. She ‘catches’ me and helps me across the threshold, pulling me in. Counts as an invitation. Good to know.

Cordelia’s mother, whom I’ve seem at PTA meetings, since she’s on the school board, recognizes me, oddly, since Willows mother doesn’t always, and is beside me, offering me stuff, tea, a seat, her daughter. Hmm, okay, that wasn’t an offer actually, more like a summons. Cordelia shows up a minute later, having probably had a sherpa lead her here, from one of the outer areas, and I imagine he is waiting by the car to drive her back to her room.

“Oh my God, Xander, you look awful!” she says, as she bustles into the room, I am momentarily impressed at her tact, until she adds, “Worse than usual, even!” Ah, that’s our Cordy.

Long story short, I sob, which is hard, since I can’t seem to get tears to come, even when I fiddle with my arm to see if pain helps. A horrible story about the Master rising, and Angel going bad (interrupted by the fact that she apparently didn’t know that Angel was a vampire, oops, but also reassuring to know that I may not be a rocket scientist, but she is even less so) and killing Buffy, while the Master killed Giles and nearly killed me, showing her the nasty wound on my stomach and saying it is from a backhand swipe of his that knocked me out. She, predictably, doesn’t want to touch it, so I don’t have to worry about the body temperature thing yet.

Finally her mother has wandered off, supposedly to get tea, but I could see her eyes glazing the second I said ‘vampire.’ Some people just don’t want to know. I’ve seen it before. She’ll hide in the kitchen while I’m talking, and Cordelia would later sell her some story about gangs, and she’ll chalk up what she thought I said as mishearing it, or me being delirious, or anything but the truth.

“What about…” she starts, displaying an incredible amount of restraint, for her, “Willow?” I finish? She nods, looking concerned and gentle and as unlike Cordelia as any not-Cordelia-like-thing I could imagine. “Oh, I killed her.” I say, leaning up in gameface and pulling her throat to my waiting fangs.

Good God can that girl scream! A bomb goes off inside my skull. In Guatemala, a herd of feral migratory chihuahuas drives into the sea, their homing senses scrambled. Glass shatters all over the house, and I doubt there is a living bat left in the state. My brains (such as they are) dribble out of my ears. Actually, it isn’t that bad. I thought with the super-hearing, I’d be more sensitive, but apparently vampires ears aren’t particularly bothered by the sound of screaming. Useful defensive adaptation, I guess, since I imagine I’ll be hearing a lot of it…

Her mother comes into the room, having apparently been a lot closer than I would have imagined, but clutching the predicted ‘soothing’ glass of wine. ‘Hot tea’ my ass.

I look up, a little of her daughter apparently stuck to my face. Heh. Busted. Bet she never thought she’d walk in on her daughter like this.

She shrieks, but not at all a Chase-worthy sonic assault, and Cordelia falls onto the floor, not quite dead yet. Mrs Chase and I simultaneously move towards each other (odd choice on her part, I think) and she grabs something off of a shelf. I have no idea what it is, and even seeing it streaking for my head, I can’t identify it. Phone? Lamp? Really big salt shaker? Oddly shaped sex-toy? Whatever, I snatch it out of her hand before it hits me and her hand is numbed from the force of our contact. “Shush.” I say, rapping the, whatever-it-is, on her forehead, firmly, like I am smacking a dog with a rolled-up paper, demanding its’ attention. There is a sound, a crack, and she just topples, boneless, as if someone just shot her. Huh.

I just killed someone. It just doesn’t feel right that it happened so fast, so easy. Funny, she still had the wine-glass in her other hand, and it bounced on the carpet. The glass is intact, and here she is, all broken instead, red wine spilling in place of the blood I didn’t take.

I’m still absently holding the unidentifiable bit of art deco when I see that Cordelia’s father has entered the room, holding a shotgun. The single-gauge sort. He is red-faced, kinda blotchy, and I think if I can stall him for about 45 seconds, he’ll probably have a heart attack.

But I don’t wait, he is rocketing towards me, and I realize as we impact that it is because I have leapt at him. There is an explosion of sound that thunders through my entire body, and my legs are gone. I can’t feel anything, and I think to myself that whomever made up that rule that you are supposed to run into a gun instead of trying to run away from it, was clearly going to be one of the people who hung back while the idiot who believed him ran up and took the bullet. There is roaring, and I realize it is me. I stop, strangely embarrassed.

But hey, I seem to have broken his neck when my good arm impacted his throat, so at least he died first. I manage to roll over, hazily curious as to how much of me remains, and am not sure if I am dreaming or in deep denial when I see two legs, still attached. No wound at all.

He fucking missed.

How cool is that?

I get to my feet, which is hard, since I have just the one arm, and my legs are still kinda numb, and cross over to Cordy, who is lying at the base of the couch, unconscious. I wonder if she was bravely reaching for a weapon, or a cell-phone, or perhaps a lipstick, to freshen up before she died. I lift her to her feet and she starts awake, but is too weak to struggle, or, thank God, scream. The moment seems to stretch into forever, and I lean in gently and pry her hand away from her throat, and tease open the cuts with my tongue. She collapses into me, not unconscious, but no longer strong enough to do anything but let it happen. I feel her pulse, even weak, it pounds into me like thunder and I feel my whole body shake with each beat. This is what Buffy didn’t give me last night, something that Cordelia will never give anyone, ever again, just for me, all for me. No one else will ever have this moment. I am her world, and she is mine. And then it’s over. She’s gone, and I felt it, felt her just drifting away, falling, falling, and I feel like I could fall with her forever.

I guess it was really falling, ‘cause I realize that I am on my knees, still holding her pressed up to me, her arms draped limply over me, like we were clinging together, like we’d just survived a massacre, or rescued each other from a disaster.

I finish the job, but with class, cleaning up the cuts on her throat, and biting my own tongue. I feed her my blood with a kiss. It’s not as romantic as I’d hoped, since there aren’t any parts of me that don’t hurt, and it isn’t like she’s around to appreciate my artistic touch. Last night with Buffy wasn’t real, I decide, wasn’t right. Willow was too fast, too desperate, I didn’t have any choice in it. I’ll always think of tonight, with Cordelia, as the night it finally happened.

I become dimly aware of the maid, looking on from the kitchen, where Mrs. Chase was drinking to drive away the demons (doesn’t work lady, believe me, I’d know). She looks pale, for a brown woman, and she reaches under her shirt and pulls up a tiny crucifix, mumbling what I assume to be prayers before pulling the door closed behind her. Guess being able to speak English is over-rated. She’s no fool, she understands me.

I pick up Cordy, wrap her up in a carpet that is probably worth more than all of the furniture in my room, and carry her out. I head for the side wall, where I parked, and end up having to drape her over the wall, climb up and over, which is a bitch with one arm, and then drop her down gently on the other side, before hopping down. I probably should have just thrown her over. It’s not like she can get any deader.

While sitting down in the drivers seat, I sit on the gun, which I left in my jacket. I may be dead, but I'm still an idiot. That's strangely comforting.

I drive like a maniac to get back to Sunnydale before the sun. The state of California loses no state troopers in the process. Which means I wasn’t pulled over.