A leech
She found the door of the factory open, and there was almost silence inside; she could only hear some voices. Battle’s over? Her curiosity spiked as to who had won; either way, it would be interesting, although she would’ve enjoyed actually joining the fight. Cautiously, she went in and sniffed the air. The thick, heavy smell of human blood assaulted her like a big warning sign, attracting her. There were many casualties, it seemed. It also seemed the vampires had won.
“Who’re you?” someone asked - a very tall and muscular vampire, who didn’t wait for an answer before seizing her. “Master, we have an intruder!”
Again, someone was mentioning that Master guy, but now she was going to meet him. The vampire all but carried her to the factory’s main wing, where she saw lots of dead bodies and a large group of vampires forming a half-circle around two figures. The first one was strewn across the floor; the second was skinny and stood tall: it was a bald, horrendous vampire, pointy-eared and rodent-faced. This must be the Master... the Master of rats, she noted, allowing the strong vampire to push her inside the semicircle and down to her knees.
Now she could clearly see the body on the floor: it was just a dead girl, her blonde hair tied up in a single long pigtail. There was a weird angle to her neck, and she understood that the cause of her death had been just that - a broken neck. Then, she looked up at the Master, trying not to smile.
“What have we got here?” the Master asked. His voice was strangely subtle, not the kind of thing one would expect to come out from such a mouth.
“It’s just a leech, Master,” the vampire said. “I caught her entering the factory.”
A leech? Hey! She felt the urge to attack the vampire, but just bit her lower lip. Easy there, if you want some information. Don’t get Ol’ Splinter mad. Early in her human life she had learned about the advantages of silence, the way you could learn more about people if you shut your mouth and used your eyes and ears instead. You could register their reactions, and then adapt your actions consequently, so that they wouldn’t get mad...
“Did you smell the bodies, the blood?” the Master asked her, sniffing his own right hand. “You didn’t come to fight, you did nothing for me. So ‘nothing will come of nothing’*,” his voice had risen a little. “Somebody, kill her. I’m not in the mood.”
“I didn’t come to eat,” she said, hurriedly, before anyone could volunteer, keeping the humble pose.
“Why did you come, then? Who are you?”
“My name is Tara. I am looking for a vampire who I believe is your subject,” she dared to look up to the faces surrounding her. None was familiar. “I’m looking for the vampire who sired me just tonight.”
“Who did that, tonight of all nights?” the Master cried, pointing at Tara, indeed treating her as a thing.
No one stepped forward, and Tara frowned. Where is she?
“Her name is Willow,” she said causing an immediate response of groans and head-shakes around her. Particularly the Master seemed affected by this - albeit very theatrically: resting his forehead on one of his claw-like hands.
“Willow, you say?” he asked, looking as if he was about to recite the “to be or not to be”** speech.
“Yes. All I know is that she has red hair...”
“Stop! I know who she is!” he howled, pitifully.
“Where is she, then?”
The Master glared at her for a minute, and then the tiniest smile appeared in his overturned lips. Without detaching his eyes from Tara, he lifted a long, bony finger and pointed languidly to his left. The other vampires moved to the sides, parting like the Red Sea and forming a narrow corridor. Tara stood up and followed it, seeing that it ended before a very damaged cage made out of wooden planks. There, on the ground, under a broken piece of wood, was a small pile of ashes.
I can’t believe it. She’s dead? Tara knelt before the ashes and sifted through them with her fingers.
“They were my favorites, Xander and Willow,” she heard the Master say. “At least Xander was killed by the Slayer. But how could Willow perish in the hands of some miserable humans? I’ll tell you how. She went out, saw you and transformed you, losing some of her blood and getting a little weaker. If she hadn’t transformed you, she’d be alive now.”
Tara closed her right hand into a fist and went back to the Master, sticking her hands inside the pockets of her leather pants. She had listened to his words but, at the same time, her mind was racing with other thoughts. She didn’t know why, but this situation felt wrong. It was as if Willow shouldn’t have died. It sounded strange, sentimental and all-too human, but she couldn’t shake the feeling away: they should have met. However, the truth was, as the Master had said, that if Willow hadn’t transformed her, the redhead would probably be alive - or at least she would’ve had the golden chance of facing the Slayer.
Talking about the Slayer... Tara glanced at the dead blonde and tapped the body with the tip of her boot. “Is this the Slayer?”
“Yes,” the Master said, indifferently.
“I would’ve liked to have a go at her,” she grinned and crouched beside the body. The Slayer wore tough, worn-out clothes and had a thin, slanted scar crossing both her lips. “Rough little bitch, wasn’t she?”
“Not particularly...” the Master said. “I wonder why Willow chose you. Attraction played an important part, no doubt. But to make you a vampire... she hadn’t done that before.”
She kept quiet, secretly thinking about the strange, illogical link that she felt existed between them. Attraction. Yes, somehow, it was a concept she could ascribe to them. The remembrance of Willow’s a-little-too-wide smile assaulted her. No one could know how she craved to see it again.
But what did it matter now? There could be no mystery to solve if Willow was dead.
Willow was dead. A little pile of ashes. Tara hitched her thumbs in her pockets and followed the cadre out of the factory. No one had welcomed her and no one had expelled her either, so she guessed she could go with them, but not with them.
* King Lear, William Shakespeare
** Hamlet, William Shakespeare
