Death Comes on Swift Wings
by Xanderphile

Part Two: Raising the dead

"Oh, this is wonderful!" Snapped Giles. Clearly he was not the only one far from thrilled about the possibility they had a very dangerous vampire roaming Sunnydale. Sean looked totally bemused that this had happened, and he said for about the millionth time:

"How the hell did this happen?"

"Sean, for the last time, we don’t know!" Snapped Angel.

"Buffy, you mentioned that she said her name to you?" Giles asked.

"Yeah, it was something weird, err, Angel what was it?

"I think it was Anck-su-Namun, I’m not sure, she had a really thick accent. I could hardly make out what she was saying," He answered.

"That’s familiar," Giles said, frowning.

"Yeah, bet this leads to yet another apocalypse. Does this ever stop?" Moaned Anya.

"No," The rest replied.

Giles dismissed them, and settled down to his books, a very bad feeling building. If the name was Anck-su-Namun that was definitely going to be trouble ahead.

Angel dropped Buffy off at her dorm. For the first time since they had re-started their relationship she asked, "Do you love me?" Angel looked surprised, "Why do you think I’m here?"

"Sorry, I was just remembering all that stuff I said before, don’t you hate me just a little?"

"Maybe I did at the time, but not now, what’s brought this on?"

Buffy decided to ignore the change of subject, "Well, it looks like we are heading for another apocalypse battle and I just needed to know. Now that I’ve said it, it sounds stupid!"

"No, it makes perfect sense. Besides, we don’t know that it was the same vampire in the sarcophagus."

Buffy glared at him.

"But it probably is" He added sheepishly.

"There! It’s so much easier when you tell the truth!" She said, Angel smiled and Buffy was amazed by the rarity of it.

"I’ll see you tomorrow"

They kissed lightly and Angel left. Buffy watched him go, wondering if he had told her the truth about not being angry with her. Not that she would blame him if he had been, because she had been, quite frankly, a bitch to him. It was mainly her still being angry with him for leaving. Then, as she opened her dormitory door, she began to wonder if Riley had lied about the reason he had left. He had never been quite the same since he found out about Angel. Buffy knew it wasn’t easy knowing the reason they had split up was not because they didn’t love each other but the total opposite. She sighed, she had liked Riley but it never had been the same. Buffy had tried her hardest to make have the same fire, but Riley was just different.

Relationships were always complicated.

Anck-su-Namun was very impressed with this New World. All the things people had were amazing. And wasn’t it ironic that vampires from this New World thought she was amazing? Anck-su-Namun had not been happy to learn that there was a Vampire Slayer in the town of Sunnydale. Not only that but she was in love with a vampire. According to one of the vampires she had met, her reaction to this news was just like everybody else’s. The priests that had resurrected her had either been followers at the time of her unfortunate demise or descendants of the afor mentioned. The rest of the vampires had joined the following for lack of anything better to do. One in particular called Spike, who could no longer bite people, had been quite happy to join her following saying that ‘if this means I get to see that slut of a vampire slayer die, along with Mr Nancy Boy, I’m in!’ And he would, for was it not written that she would bring death on swift wings to anyone who stood for light and righteousness? "Adachi-shy lay Amman!" She called in an ancient language. She had been alive for well over 2,000 years, counting her time buried under ground. The spoken language no longer existed in Eastern Europe, where she had been born. Her followers came to her, and looked for further instruction. She smiled and said in her faltering English, "It has begun!"

Angel wandered into his mansion. He found a presence waiting for him it was familiar so Angel just called out, "Sean, do you honestly think I don’t know when you’re here?"

"Hey! Who said I was trying to hide?" Sean asked indignantly. Then he smiled and said with mock anger, "Damn this magic field!"

"Not very useful for hiding. So, what brings you here?"

"Oh, Giles phoned me, he said he may know how Anck-su-Namun is planning to bring death to everyone on this earth. See, she wasn’t cursed by a bunch of gyppos but by other vampires," Sean explained.

"Gyppos?"

"English slang for gypsies, anyway, it appears she needs to sacrifice a lot of vampires to a god called Amun-Dra, which will cause the Underworld to come to earth, and you will know the whole story of how beings from the Underworld bring death with their arrival and everything will die pretty quickly."

"Does she plan to do this anytime soon?"

"We don’t know yet," Sean replied, "But even if she begins it straight away, she needs to do some rituals first," He explained.

"Let me guess, Giles wants me to ask around the vampire community?"

"Yep, because your just such solid buds with them, Y’know?" Sean joked.

"I’ll see what I can do," Replied Angel.

Anck-su-Namun finished the first ritual, which involved special chants in Amun-Dra’s name. None of the vampires from Sunnydale knew about her past, that she had been totally willing to sacrifice other vampires to bring the Underworld forth. Her followers did and she had granted them asylum from sacrifice all those years ago. Her mind went back to that night were the vampires had cursed with the Hom-Dai, it was not an entirely present memory:

"You have placed this upon yourself, Anck-su-Namun, you have left us with no choice," The vampire priest Josephus said. "You have been condemned to the Hom-Dai" Anck-su-Namun had screamed in fear, as a rule vampires feared nothing. But this was different in every way. She had heard of the Hom-Dai before. Obviously Josephus had been acquiring spells from the Romani.

The rest of that unpleasant night Anck-su-Namun refused to remember, because all she could remember was the pain. She would be avenged soon, because the day of her destiny would soon be coming. Very soon. "Kadeli im haupt-le, Josephus!" She yelled defiantly at the empty room, her words meaning, You will never harm me again, Josephus. "Parses ghet moaden, sehader!" Because my day will come!

Part Three Forthcoming

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