TITLE: Kamara

AUTHOR: Annie

FanficFreak@hotmail.com

ARCHIVE: Will eventually be on http://www.luminoustimes.com/oz.htm and
http://www.luminoustimes.com/buffy.htm

DISTRIBUTION: UCSL and EmCity. Anywhere else, just ask me first.

RATING: R for language

SPOILERS: Through season three of Oz, into season 4 of Buffy (with some very mild spoilers from the first season of Angel)

SUMMARY/NOTES: An Oz/Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossover set during season seven of both series. The title is ancient Egyptian and loosely translates into "one with Ka" or "the true double of Ka". I've taken a lot of care in doing the historical research needed for this fic so if I screw something up, please tell me so I can fix it. Additional notes for each chapter will be supplied if needed.

DISCLAIMER: Tom owns Oz. Joss owns Buffy. I own nothing. Please don't sue me.

DEDICATION: To Gemma and Jim, who beta read this fic and encouraged me with their suggestions, insights, and feedback. You guys rawk!

FEEDBACK: Craving it like a nonfat mochaccino.

Kamara
by Annie

PROLOGUE

Buffy slammed the door behind her, shaking the rain out off the bright red jacket she wore. "Sorry, Giles! Big nasties kept me longer than I expected." Wringing out her wet hair, she walked into the main room of the mansion, her home.

A year after Angel had left for Los Angeles, she was able to return to the place where he had lived. Where he had almost died. Where she had saved him with her blood. After that first trip, it got easier for her to be around his belongings. And almost two years after that, as the house remained abandoned, she and Giles moved their base of operations there. She, Giles, Xander, and Spike moved in, while Willow and Oz took Giles' old apartment. The forbidding stone mansion had eventually taken on a somewhat homey feel, thanks to Buffy's attempts at adding some girly touches. Now everyone sat there lounging on the stuffed couches and soft easy chairs, watching her come in from the storm. Waiting for her. She grinned sheepishly. "Hey, I said I was sorry. A girl's gotta Slay when a girl's gotta Slay."

Giles barely looked up from the book he had his nose in. "Quite all right, Buffy. I'm still in the middle of translating this text. Or rather, trying to translate it." He took a distracted sip from his ever-present cup of tea and went back to reading.

Willow smiled. "Yeah, Giles got a new book today! And word is, it's a prophecy."

Buffy groaned, throwing herself down on the couch next to Xander, who was scarfing a jelly donut. "Another prophecy? Please tell me I don't die again. 'Cause, you know, that really sucked the first time."

"Ohfmmnm, Bmmf. Oo ohn off ufst---"

"Halt!" Buffy threw up her hand, laughing. "Once more, Xander. Only this time, swallow."

Xander gulped the remains of the donut down. "I said: Oh, c'mon, Buff. You know you just want me to give you CPR again." He waggled his eyebrows at her and leered.

She rolled her eyes at his antics. "Where's Spike? Shouldn't he be at the secret club meeting too?"

Oz looked up from his guitar. "He's patrolling. You guys have been busy lately."

Buffy nodded. "Yeah, it's real weird. There's been a lot more risings in the past few weeks. I haven't been this busy since... Well, I don't think I've ever been this busy. I'm glad Spike is here to take up the slack. I can't believe I just said I'm glad Spike is here. Giles, I think I'm possessed by a demon."

Giles cleared his throat to get their attention. "It's only going to get worse. The vampires, not your, erm, inexplicable gratefulness for Spike's presence."

Willow paled slightly. "That's not very reassuring, Giles. Aren't you supposed to be the one who tells us it will all get better? 'With steady work and discipline and team effort, we shall vanquish the evil.' That's you. Isn't it?"

"Not this time," he replied soberly. "This book was sent to me by Wesley in London. The council has had it since several months after that horrific earthquake in Turkey three years ago. "

"I remember that!" Xander exclaimed. "Well, not in the sense of remembering since I wasn't there, but I heard about it. Thousands of people died, right?"

"Yes, Xander. It was a terrible tragedy. However, that was part of a larger problem. The book was part of an ancient Byzantine library that had been buried until the earthquake uncovered the remnants. It contains the elements to a prophecy that makes the Master killing Buffy look like a garden tea party."

"That doesn't sound good," Oz spoke up.

"I'll take that 'not good'," Buffy interjected. "And raise it to a 'this really bites'!"

Giles raised his voice slightly to get them back on track. "It most assuredly is not good. The biggest problem, however, is the translation. This is an extremely ancient prophecy - nearly four thousand years old - and over time it has been translated from Byzantine to Roman, from Roman to Arabic, and now I'm trying to translate it from Arabic to English. Only, although my Arabic is passable, this is a dialect I'm not very familiar with. It's going to be a long process."

Buffy was all business now. "OK, so what do we have so far?"

Giles sighed. "Not much, I'm afraid. I know the prophecy originated in ancient Egypt, most likely during Queen Hatshepsut's reign of power, which was during the Eighteenth Dynasty. Hatshepsut was the daughter of Thutmose I and she ruled as a king, bringing twenty years of prosperity and peace to Egypt." He paused in his lecture, noticing the impatient look on Buffy's face. "Yes, well. Leaving aside the fascinating history of Hatshepsut for a moment, the text seems to imply a series of cataclysmic disasters resulting in the opening of a Hellmouth---"

"Stop right there, Watcher-man," Xander raised his hand like a schoolboy asking permission to use the bathroom. "A Hellmouth? I thought Sunnydale was home to the one and only Hellmouth."

Giles shook his head. "Not at all. There are several Hellmouths over the world, all inactive and guarded by the Council. The one in Sunnydale is the largest and most unstable, at least it was until now."

"Now?" Willow asked. "So this one in Egypt is active?"

"Not yet. According to my research, and my information is very sketchy at this point, the Hellmouth in Egypt was eventually closed, but only after it decimated one-third of Egypt's population at the time."

"OK, so it's been closed for a few thousand years," Buffy said. "What's the problem now?"

Giles looked at her steadily. "The prophecy. From what I've been able to glean, several events are going to happen over the coming months. As you know from the past, prophecies are very vague, and that's the ones I have full translations for. For this one, I only have a few disjointed phrases,
little of which make much sense."

"Such as?" Oz asked.

"Such as, 'Doublet moons of fear and running blood the Huntress battles...' Presumably, that's you, Buffy. The Huntress has been used in other ancient texts as a translation for the Slayer. In fact, there is some belief that the myth of the Greek goddess Diana, also known as the Huntress, was in actuality a renowned Slayer. But I digress. You've seen increased vampiric activity recently, correct?" She nodded. "If I'm right, you will be facing these conditions for two months."

Buffy nodded again. "Easy enough. Spike and I have been a little crazed, but we're handling it. What's the next part?"

"That's where it gets difficult," he responded, pushing his glasses up his nose. "The rest is just brief snippets. 'The world will dance...' 'Light will be halved...' 'The Lady of the Stars...' 'The Shaman, the Warrior, and the Scholar seek...' And..."

Buffy leaned forward. "And what, Giles? Don't hold back. Even if it doesn't make sense."

"Oh, this one makes sense, Buffy, " he replied somberly. "If my translations are correct, the final verse reads: 'And the mouth of Hell will swallow the Sun.'"

**********

Kareem Said was free. At least, part of him was free. His body still lay sleeping on the narrow slab of cheap cotton and noisy spring coils he laughingly referred to as his bed back in Oz. But his mind, his soul, SOME part of him was free. And even as the thought niggled in the back of his mind that this was all just a dream and before too long the blinding fluorescent lights would spark alive and startle him awake, he tilted his head back and sucked the warmth of the sunshine into his skin and grinned deliriously at the taste of freedom.

"Hey."

He whirled at her voice, his smile softening to greet her. The girl had started coming to him two months ago. At first, he thought he was going crazy, that Oz had finally gotten under his skin and he'd end up babbling to himself in solitary about a beautiful teenage girl with young-old eyes and a brittle voice. He didn't share the dreams with anyone. Not Arif, not McManus. No one. He kept them wrapped tightly inside of him, fearing that he would lose them if he talked about them. He feared that more than he feared the idea of madness.

"There's not much time left. Tomorrow."

He nodded, knowing that questioning her was futile. It was always like this. He'd go to sleep and find himself in this place, this empty apartment with the constant sunshine and her waiting for him. She always looked the same, dressed all in black, dark curls ringing her face and eyes filled with the knowledge of her own imprisonment. She'd say what she had to and leave. Sometimes his vision would flicker and he'd see images of other people, other places. And Kareem would wake up, aching to see the tormented loveliness of her strange-familiar features once again.

"You gotta prepare yourself."

"For what?" He couldn't bite back his innate curiousity. Since she had first come to him, she had hinted at something coming, some event that would change everything. In her way, she had been trying to prepare him for what lay ahead, but she'd never respond directly to his questions. To his
surprise, she answered him this time. But her words chilled him.

"What else? For the end of the world."

CHAPTER ONE

Spike wandered through the cemetery, humming a Sex Pistols tune under his breath and keeping an eye out for any undead activity. It was strange. For two months he and the Slayer had been nearly overwhelmed by all the vamps in the area. It had gotten so bad that Buffy had actually let Spike take over her patrolling duties tonight so she could catch up on sleep. Between classes, training, and all the vampires, she was a wreck and her fatigue would get her killed. He knew she must be hurting if she conceded any weakness to him.

The peroxide-blond vampire snorted at his thoughts. Here he was, one of the most-feared monsters in history, and he was concerned about the Slayer's life. What a difference three years made. Three years since he had been blackmailed into helping Buffy, three years since his one mistake, his colossal fuckup. And now? Now he could have walked away. He'd paid his debt to Angel; he didn't have to stick around. But he did. Why?

"'Cause I'm a great bloody poof, that's why," he muttered to himself. Shaking his head to clear away the unbidden thoughts of the Slayer, he puzzled over the prophecy the ex-librarian was translating. TRYING to translate. He'd been at it for weeks and hadn't gotten any farther along than he was when he first got the damned thing.

Spike threw himself down on the grass and stared into the night sky, sifting through the phrases of the prophecy and keeping one ear cocked for the creepies. Despite going over the same bits and pieces for weeks and finding nothing, he tried again, reciting them out loud in the hopes that something would be jarred into recognition. He liked trying to figure it out. He had so much excess mental energy all the time and he'd always liked a tough puzzle, so this was right up his alley.

"'The Shaman, the Warrior, and the Scholar seek.' Could that be us? Red's a witch, could that be the same thing as Shaman? Rupert is the dictionary definition of a Scholar, and I guess I could be called a Warrior. Nah, it just doesn't fit. Shite!" He pounded the ground in frustration, not feeling the barely discernible tremor beneath his body or the sudden howling of neighborhood dogs. The stars above winked coldly at him, teasing him. He sighed. It was nights like this he missed his old life, his old...

"Don't go there, you arse. She's gone." But he couldn't stop the evolution of his thoughts, how they tripped back to the time when he hunted Slayers instead of helping them. When he listened to her dreamily name the stars and call them her own. His Dark Goddess, his... His Lady. His LADY. Lady of the Stars.

"Drusilla!" He sprang to his feet abruptly, one piece of the puzzle suddenly sliding into place. "Of course!" He took off running to the mansion, deserting the remainder of his patrol to give everyone the newest bit of information. But before he took ten steps, the earth lurched sharply, throwing him to his knees.

"What the...?" He picked himself up again, but once again the ground heaved violently. As he came down once more, a part of his brain saw the rock and tried to avoid it, but his head slammed into it before he could react.

**********

Vern Schillinger was in his pod reading when he heard the shouting. He looked up at the hack station in idle curiousity but turned back to his book when he saw it was just Said ranting again.

"Crazy fucking nigger. Prob'ly just wants to suck McManus off so he can eat camel shit or whatever it is they do."

Robson snickered in agreement. "Yeah, fucking raghead MUSLIM," he echoed in a sing-songy voice.

Vern just rolled his eyes and went to take another look, since the shouting hadn't gone down. At least the commotion would get him away from Robson, who, despite being a loyal member of the Brotherhood, was one of the most fucking ANNOYING men Vern had ever had the displeasure of bunking with. At least Beecher, in all of his aggravating craziness, had original thoughts in his head most of the time. All Robson did was parrot what his superiors, in this case Vern, said. Fucking moron. He thought getting moved out of gen pop and back into Em City would get him away from the dickless wonder, but no
luck. Robson sucked up to Lopresti who sucked up to Murphy who sucked up to McManus. The end result, as usual, was a suckfest for Vern. Such was life.

Leaving his pod saved his life. When the first jolt hit and tossed him casually to the concrete floor, he still had enough sense to notice the two foot long shard of glass from the front door fly towards Robson and pierce his brain, killing him instantly. In the two seconds of stunned silence that followed, Vern took a mental flash picture of the delicious irony. Robson had been killed by glass through the eye, much like Beecher had tried to do to Vern. Copycat, indeed.

Then the second shock hit and Vern was too occupied with trying not to get buried in falling glass and concrete to find much humor in anything anymore.

**********

Buffy slept deeply, her body wrapped in the warmth of the bed she had shared years ago with Angel and her dream self similarly wrapped in Angel's arms. In her waking hours, the pangs of loss and hurt she felt when she thought about her former lover were mostly healed. Her thoughts of him were colored by the years of separation, so that now she could remember him with fondness and faded love. But in her dreams, they met each other as the lovers they could never be in reality.

Angel held her close, wanting their stolen time together to last forever, but he knew it couldn't. "Buffy, you need to wake up."

She shook her head and snuggled closer to him. "Don't wanna."

He released her reluctantly and stood up, gazing at her lithe form tangled in the sheets of his bed. "You have to. There's not much time left."

She closed her eyes, feeling the dream slipping away and not fighting it. Angel faded in her senses. "Time for what?" she murmured.

The images flashed through her mind, a kaleidoscope of destruction and agony that jerked her completely awake. She bolted out of bed and ran into the living room, where everyone burned the late hours in trying to decipher the prophecy. Xander was the first to notice her.

"Buffster, aren't you supposed to be catching up on your z's?"

"We need to get somewhere safe. NOW!"

Not knowing what she meant, but trusting her judgment, they leapt up and followed her into the open courtyard. The night was eerily silent, even the summer insects hushed. Giles looked at Buffy, puzzled.

"Might I ask what we're doing out here?"

She shook her head. "Not now. You'll know soon enough. This will have to be it. No trees, completely open. Lie down on the ground and STAY there." She grabbed Willow's hand, the closest one to her, and pulled her down until they were both lying prone. Xander, Oz, and Giles followed quickly, until the group lay flat on the stone blocks of the courtyard, clutching each other's hands.

"Now what?" Oz asked, but before Buffy could answer, he got his response. The ground bucked sharply underneath him, then settled briefly.

Buffy looked at him, her green eyes piercing in their grimness. "Now we hold on."

**********

Ryan O'Reily and Toby Beecher were playing cards when they saw Said run up the stairs to the hack station and confront Murphy, gesticulating wildly.

"What's that about?" Toby wondered.

"Fuck if I know," Ryan answered. "Go fish."

Toby absently pulled a card from the deck, still watching Said, who was becoming increasingly agitated. In seconds, the Muslim's voice spiralled up into a panicked shout, and they could hear what he was so worked up about:

"You need to get everyone somewhere safe! You don't have much time left before it hits!"

At this point, Ryan was decidedly interested. Said looked fucking TERRIFIED and anytime one of these guys showed fear, Ryan was around to take note of it for future use. "The fuck? Before what hits?"

Toby opened his mouth to tell him he hadn't a clue what Said was screaming about, but before he could, he found himself lying flat on his back several feet away. He turned his head to see Ryan lying in a similar heap halfway under the table where they had been playing cards, clutching his arm and moaning. He tried to shout to Ryan to see if he was ok, but couldn't catch his breath.

As the second shock hit, he watched helplessly as the ceiling plummeted down on them both.

CHAPTER TWO

"Less than twenty-four hours ago, catastrophic earthquakes rocked several major cities around the world. The quakes, ranging from 6.7 to 9.4 on the Richter scale, are believed to have caused the deaths of close to two billion people worldwide. The hardest hit was New York City, where early death tolls show a staggering loss of more than two-thirds of the city's population. Scientists are stymied in determining the causes for the simultaneous earthquakes, and only say that it's too soon to offer any explanations. In the meantime, rescue workers and volunteers in Los Angeles,
New York City, St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Bombay, Johannesburg, and Melbourne are doing what they can to find survivors of the deadliest and costliest natural disaster in world history. For CNN, I'm Tracey Peterson."

Buffy snapped off the TV in disgust. "You'd think that something like this would give them all a giant clue! Seven earthquakes hit at the same time, and they're looking at SCIENTIFIC explanations."

"You've been through this before," Giles soothed. "It's not much different than the explanations Sunnydale residents have come up with to explain everything that's happened here."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Rival gangs on PCP, gas leaks in the sewer system, gang-related neck injuries. I've heard them all. It just drives me crazy." She sighed, picking at the bandage on her left hand.

Miraculously, none of them were seriously injured in the quake. With the epicenter being in Los Angeles, they were far enough removed to only get a good shaking. Except for a few cuts and bruises, and a nasty bump on Spike's head, they all escaped unscathed. Even the mansion stood intact, testament to its solid foundation.

Buffy looked at Spike, who was lying on the couch with his head in Willow's lap, groaning piteously to get sympathy from the redhead. She felt a sharp pang of... something... as she considered what could have happened to him, being out in the cemetery with all those trees and granite crypts that toppled over during the earthquake. After three years, despite his whininess, barely-restrained brutality, and misogynistic views of women who weren't capable of kicking his ass on a daily basis, she couldn't imagine not having him at her back.

For that matter, she couldn't imagine any one of them being gone, and she looked around the room with affection and gratitude. Willow was laughing softly at something Spike had said, while Giles paced the room, on the phone with Wesley trying to use the Council's resources in finding out Drusilla's whereabouts. Oz and Xander knelt in the center of the room, selecting
weapons and packing them.

"You guys about ready?" Buffy asked them, and Oz nodded. Two hours ago, Doyle had called, asking for help. In LA, the vampires were out in full force, feeding on the survivors of the quake, and they needed reinforcements. Buffy asked Oz and Xander to go and they readily agreed and
began packing. She trusted Doyle and Angel to look after her friends, and she knew they were experienced enough in slaying vampires to take care of themselves. Spike wanted to go to but she nixed that idea, on the grounds that his head injury had weakened him too much.

Still, watching Xander and Oz pack up, she wondered if she had made the right choice. A thought whispered in the back of her mind that sending them away could set her on an irrevocable path. She pushed those thoughts away, knowing that Angel, Doyle, Cordelia, and Kate needed them more than she did.

**********

Vern opened his eyes and immediately thought he was dreaming. Perched on a small pile of rubble sat a woman, head cocked to one side like a bird and watching him. He closed his eyes and reopened them, expecting to see her gone. If he hadn't been in so much agony, he would have been surprised to see her still sitting there.

The woman rose and stalked to where he lay, the heels of her shoes clicking loudly in the still air. He ignored her approach, using his concentration to will the pain of his injuries away and assess the damage. She stood over him, long, dark hair framing her face, before she reached a thin hand out and pressed viciously on his chest. He whimpered in pain and anger, the lack of oxygen reaching his lungs silencing the roar he wanted to release. She jumped back and crouched to look in his eyes, amusement crossing her narrow features.

"Did Mumsy hurt you?" Her voice was low, softly accented. Vern thought it was English, or some other pansy European shit. "I'm Drusilla. And you're my new prince."

Oh, this is just fucking great, Vern thought. Oz comes down around my ears, my lungs feel like I ran the Boston Marathon in two minutes, and I've got a fucking crazy woman poking at me. He licked his lips to wet them and managed to croak out: "Get the fuck away from me."

She giggled and shook her head, wagging a finger at him admonishly. "Now, now, be nice. I'm here to save you. The stars told me to save you. They told me your name, Vern. Such a powerful name. So masculine. Grr." She giggled again and Vern noted briefly that it sounded alarmingly like Beecher's insane titters. He opened his mouth to tell her to fuck off again, and she CHANGED.

He knew he had to be dreaming now. Only in a nightmare could a creature like her exist, with the heavy brow and yellow eyes. And the fangs. Must be a dream.

"Must be a dream," he muttered to himself, even as she sank those wickedly sharp fangs into his neck.

**********

"Get up! You gotta get up!"

The voice penetrated Kareem's consciousness and he slid back into awareness. He sat up, wincing at the soreness in his muscles, and looked around him. What he saw was utter devastation. All around him, bodies lay torn apart and broken under concrete, glass, and slowly rising water. And there she stood, on the lower level, watching him survey the destruction.

He worked his way down to her, cautiously navigating the treacherous stairs. She was completely untouched by the dust that covered everything in what used to be Emerald City and was now a graveyard. He reached a hand out to her and she stepped back.

"No, don't. You can't."

He nodded. "How can you---"

"Be here, since you're awake? It's not easy, I tell ya. And I can't hold this for long. I'm still weak, my head..." She trailed off. "Look, you've gotta get out. She's here."

"Who's here?" Kareem felt the urgency in the girl's voice and shared it. Whatever, WHOEVER, she meant, they were a danger to him.

As always, she didn't answer his question directly. "There's two others. You need to find 'em and get out of here. It ain't gonna be easy, but you have to do it." This time, he saw the flash of images she sometimes delivered, and he understood. Seeing his acknowledgement, she turned to go.

"Wait! How will I know where to go?"

She didn't look back as she disappeared into the darkness. "I'll find you."

**********

When Vern woke up the second time, he felt different. Better. With casual strength, he lifted the slab of concrete that had crushed his chest and stood up, brushing the dirt off his bloody clothing. He was starving.

"You're awake, my darling."

He spun at the voice, snarling as he felt his face shift. Stunned, he brought his hands up and felt his features, familiar yet forever changed. And with a rush, he KNEW. He knew what he was now and he advanced on her - Drusilla, his memory prompted - and backhanded her, breaking his rule against hitting women because he knew she was no more human than he was anymore. "You FUCKING bitch! What the fuck did you turn me into!" He raged, and she grinned, a tongue sliding out to lick the drops of blood that formed on the corner of her mouth.

She danced back, clapping her hands in glee. "My prince! I saved you!" Her voice slipping into a cajoling murmur, rhythmic and entrancing to his enhanced hearing. "Look, I brought you something to eat."

His furious gaze followed her pointing hand and he saw the unconscious, but still living, forms of Leo Glynn, Tim McManus, and... and Chris Keller. For several long minutes, the remnants of his human self warred with his new demon for dominance, struggling to reassert some form of structure and order in his life. But his hunger, powerful above all else, won out, and he knelt
by the offerings. For that's what they were: offerings. Sacrifices from Drusilla to her new prince, lord, GOD. The idea was intoxicating, almost as much as the smell of fresh blood.

He saw Leo Glynn's eyes flutter open and grinned ferally, knowing by the man's frightened expression that he was aware. "Nope, you won't do. I won't have any nigger blood running through MY veins, thank you. And as much as I'd love to tear you to pieces right now - and believe me, I CAN - I get the feeling from the lady that we don't have much time." With Drusilla giggling in delight, he reached out and snapped Glynn's neck, feeling little satisfaction in the easy death he had given the man who could have saved his son's life three years ago if he had not insisted on playing "I'm the boss" with Vern.

Moving on, he tried to get McManus to wake up, to no avail. A pity. It wasn't as much fun draining the man when he was knocked out. Still, Vern rose from the man's neck with a mouthful of dripping blood, and felt powerful and refreshed. He spat out the excess on McManus' face. "Take a look at your Emerald City now, motherfucker."

Chris was awake and struggling to get up, but Drusilla kept knocking him back down with playful swats. He had watched what Vern did to Glynn and McManus with mounting horror and an intense desire to stay alive. He was afraid, but pissed off too. Luckily for him, Vern wasn't hungry anymore. The older man looked speculatively at him, and what he said surprised him.

"Where's Beecher?"

Chris looked around and shrugged. "I dunno. He was somewhere else when the quake hit."

"Find him."

"What?"

Vern looked at Chris as if he were retarded and slipped into his demonic face. "Find. Him. I want Beecher. You find him and bring him to me, and I might let you live."

Chris shivered slightly at the yellow eyes glaring balefully at him, but stood his ground. "What if I just take off? No hacks in here to keep me in."

Drusilla wrapped a slim arm around Vern and whispered in his ear. Vern grinned. "Because, you fuck, there's lots more of US out there. You'll never get out alive."

Chris nodded in defeat and picked his way over the rubble to look for his podmate. He checked each pod, each body part he found, and his stomach churned constantly. He wasn't a weak man, but everything he had seen this day tested even HIS mettle. In what remained of the common area, he finally found who he was looking for.

Toby lay facedown under a large slab of ceiling, cheek pressed to the floor and arms outstretched, unconscious. Chris checked his pulse and breathed in relief that he was still alive. But then he remembered why he had been sent to find Toby, and felt afraid for his friend. Thinking, he came up with a solution.

Dragging another piece of debris over, he covered the rest of Toby's still form with it, burying him completely. He looked down on the shapeless mound. "I hope you get out of here, Toby. I did what I could." He went back to where Vern and the insane woman - VAMPIRE, he reminded himself - waited for his return.

"Well?"

"I found him." Chris thrust out the arm, detached at the elbow and covered in the piece of shirt he had taken off Toby. He hoped the subterfuge would work and that Toby would have at least a chance of surviving.

Vern pushed the gruesome part away in disgust, but Drusilla snatched it up and sniffed it delicately, like a gourmand smelling the aroma of a fine meal. "Let's go," Vern growled, grabbing onto Chris' arm. "I'll deal with you when we're out of this shithole."

Drusilla cradled the dismembered arm lovingly. "One more thing, my prince."

"What now?"

"I need to get my puppy. He's waiting for me."

Vern rolled his eyes. "A dog? You want to bring along a fucking DOG? We don't have time for this shit. Notice how the water's rising?"

She giggled and patted his cheek. "Not a dog, silly. A puppy. Come, he's right down here, ready and waiting on his leash." The two men followed her through the darkness of the destroyed prison until she stopped, and gawked openly.

There, tied to a piece of steel support, sat Cyril O'Reily, looking petrified and miserable. He chewed nervously on his long hair and started as Drusilla pet his head. "Good puppy. Mumsy's here, and she brought Daddy too." Her soft voice grew steely as Vern started to deliver a very strong objection to taking this RETARD along with them. "And Daddy is so very happy to see you, aren't you?" Her cold eyes challenged Vern to try and stop her. And Vern, being pragmatic as always, decided to wait until later to deal with the... puppy.

"Let's go," he barked, and the two vampires and two humans moved slowly out into the dark night of a dead New York City.