Title: Don't feed the plants. 4/9
Author: Pythia
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them - Buffy and the gang belong to Joss, and
Audrey-II was originally cultivated by Roger Corman before being set to
music by Howard Ashman.
"Definitely blood," Angel reported, rising from his crouch in a billow of black leather and attitude. "A day old, maybe a little more. But not much."
"So much for Frank," Xander tried to quip. "Or .Orin. You think . who ever it was . was dead, when . whatever it was . dragged him ."
Willow winced. "Don't," she said, grabbing his arm and silencing the rest of his comment. Angel gave her a sympathetic look.
"Wasn't vampires," Buffy announced, her eyes darting round the shadowed passageway. Snyder's miserly attention to minor details meant that there were no bulbs in the overhead lights, and the only hints of light were those spilling in through the outer door, and distantly, a vague suggestion of illumination, deep within the complex. The Slayer's nose wrinkled. "But there's something ."
"I can smell decay," Angel said, moving to stand beside her. "Something sweet, like perfume, and .*damn.*" He set off at a run, heading deeper into the gloom. Buffy, after a startled beat, headed after him.
"What?" Xander questioned, staring after the two of them in bemusement. "What's got into him? What would a vampire smell that would send him running ." he broke off, sharing a horrified realisation with Willow's wide-eyed alarm.
"Blood," she gulped, starting to run, a little reluctantly, in the Slayer's wake.
[Fresh blood .]
Suspended as he was in mid air, his feet dangling and his heart pounding into rhythmical overdrive, Rupert Giles experienced a brief and utterly surreal moment. One in which he seriously considered that he might be experiencing a drug-related flashback - or possibly even a flash *forward*, his entire life between his first taste of LSD and *this* moment nothing more than a bizarre fantasy in which he'd returned to the fold and managed to get himself assigned a Slayer.
Because the lurid psychedelic thing that was part venus flytrap, part animated orchid and entirely arrogant appetite, was *exactly* the sort of impossibility that bad acid had a tendency to construct; a nightmare made manifest, painted over with ludicrous colour and given the deep velvet voice of a master of soul.
The overhead racking jolted forward another few inches, sending a stab of pain racing down his arms and jerking him back to instant reality. The monstrous plant lifted itself up on a thick, curvaceous stalk, took a moment to consider his approach - and then licked its lips a second time, darting forward to nip, almost playfully, at his toes.
His retreat was instinctive, a desperate upwards tug on his arms and an equally desperate lift of his feet; the first hurt like hell, and the second simply wasn't fast enough. Plump petals closed around one flailing ankle, the flower's lips pursing in an obscene parody of a kiss.
He struggled to free himself, feeling the soft whisper of something damp and slimy brush across the sole of his foot, tasting the blood that painted it. The creature made what Willow would probably term a 'yummy' sound - and then its grip tightened and it *tugged*, just like a puppy given a rag to play with.
Willow had arrived in the doorway of the biology lab in time to see Angel push his way into the curtain of leaves across the greenhouse door - and just as quickly back away again with furious curse, his hands smoking, almost as if he'd thrust them directly into sunlight.
Buffy, barely a step behind him, grabbed him and spun him round, putting herself between him and the flicker of light. Her eyes were wide as she stared at the vampire's shaking hands. So were Willow's. It was after ten at night; the world outside was dark and vampire-friendly. But Angel's skin was burning.
"What the ..?" Xander questioned from behind her, turning the vampire's head in their direction.
"UV," he hissed, his features twisting into their demonic visage as he wrestled with the impact of pain. "It's not as instant as sunlight, but . I can't help you in there. Not while the light shines. Buffy ." He turned to her with apologetic pain. "It's up to you to save him ."
She'd half opened her mouth to answer that when an agonised scream rent the air. A strangled, bitten-back scream of protest and pain. "*Giles*," they chorused with horror, recognising familiar tones in among that gargled, anguished cry. Buffy gave Angel a short, understanding nod and spun, raising her axe and charging forward, a look of total determination on her face. Willow and Xander charged after her, leaving the vampire huddled in the shadows, his face distorted and his eyes burning with helpless anger.
The shift in the light was the first thing that struck Willow as she entered the hothouse. She barely noticed the caress of heat, or the weight of humidity in the air; she was too busy blinking at the scene in front of her, letting the blur of colours and movement resolve into lurid impossibilities. There were vines and gigantic leaves, green and gold and purple-pink; there was a huge pod-like thing lying in the middle of everything, its limb like leaves quivering and curling with ecstasy - and there was a limp and bloodied figure hanging over its gaping maw, his blood dripping down onto the dark purple petals.
"*Shit*," she heard Xander swear behind her, expressing horror and disbelief in matching quantities. His voice tilted the flower thing towards the three of them, its lips rippling with what looked like amusement.
"Oh, *my*," it drawled, its head shifting back with a disconcertingly human movement. "First course *and* dessert. Must be my lucky night."
"Don't count on it," Buffy spat, shaking away her initial shock and replacing it with determined fury. The axe swung in her hand with ominous menace and her eyes darted around the vine-draped space, taking in everything in a single furious glance. "I don't know what you are, but that's *my* Watcher you're snacking on - and I don't share. Not even for a pretty please."
"Now aren't *you* a feisty one," the creature chuckled, hefting itself forward and - very deliberately - running its frilled tongue up the length of its victim's bleeding body. Willow's heart jumped at the sight - not just because the total *ickiness* of the gesture, but because Giles stirred at the thing's touch, a feeble protest of movement that demonstrated he was still alive.
"Get your . your *pistils* off him," she demanded angrily, taking a step forward - and then hastily leapt back as a vine as thick as her arm lifted itself from the ground and rippled in her direction. The plant laughed.
"Ooh, *momma*, so eager. Wait your *turn*, sweet thing. I never mix my courses. Savoury first," it drawled with relish, taking another slurping lick. "Honey later. I'll get round to you, I promise." And it chuckled again, a deep-throated sound that set the entire hothouse quivering.
"It's no use," a voice she recognised announced despairingly. "You can't stop it. You won't even get near it. Not now."
Willow turned, finding Simon Kellman huddled against the wall, his arms wrapped around his legs as he rocked back and forth. A whole series of things made sudden sense: the jerry-rigged greenhouse, the exotic-looking plant .
"I'm sorry," he was muttering brokenly. "I'm really, really sorry. I didn't mean this to happen, I didn't, I *didn't* ."
Buffy had begun to make her way into the body of the greenhouse, circling round the outer benches and looking for a way to get closer without goading the thing into unwelcome action. The plant continued to lick and suckle at its victim, chuckling softly to itself, letting her know that it knew exactly what she was doing. Kellman shuddered at the sound.
"You?" Willow queried, feeling a second surge of fury take control. She'd always had a soft spot for Kellman, who was a year ahead of her; he was a model student, and a fellow nerd, his obsession with his studies offset by his nervous manners and his unfailing 'eyes down' politeness whenever a girl spoke to him. Even her.
And he'd helped out in the library with the book cataloguing and everything.
Xander pushed passed her and dragged the shaking youth to his feet.
"You've got a lot to answer for," he declared, slamming Kellman up against the wall with a hint of an ex-hyena growl. "And unless you start telling me stuff - like where I find the light switches and how we get him down from there, you're going to start answering for it. Right, Will?"
"Right," she echoed, putting on her resolve face. She tried to ignore the way that rustling vines were grabbing at Buffy's determined stalk, turning it into 'leap and dodge, slash out and duck back' kind of progress. Kellman whimpered.
"I can't," he said. "I *can't*. It'll kill me ."