NOTE : This story takes place in an alternate Buffyverse, a few years in the future. Faith has remained with the Scooby gang, and has become Buffyβs secret girlfriend. Dawn is now at college and Willow and Tara are still together. Spike is still evil and some of Buffy's past adversaries are not as dead as she thought.
++++++++++
The day was getting worse by the hour. Buffy and Faith looked around the carnage. The bar was drenched with the blood of its slaughtered patrons. Buffy could only stare in horror at the torn remains of so many people. Faith crouched beside one of the corpses, absently brushing her long, dark hair behind one of her ears. Almost in a whisper she said, "These vamps took their time here and had fun, Bee."
A wet, gurgling cough came from behind the bar. Buffy vaulted the counter and saw a man lying slumped on the floor. He was crimson with blood from head to toe. Quickly, she knelt beside him and lifted him to a sitting position. Immediately she saw that she could do nothing to save him; he had three long furrows torn in his throat. His eyes flicked open and he gave another choking cough. "B... Buff... Buffy?"
"Willy?" She was horrified to realise that she had not even recognised the man. "Who did this Willy?"
Another choking cough as blood gurgled up from his mouth. "Spike's men... dis... distraction," his body was shaken by a final cough, "while... he summons... Brakkhan..." His words tailed off as the last of his breath left his body.
Faith looked toward Buffy, "Who'd ya reckon Brakkhan is?"
Gently Buffy laid Willy's body down, "I don't know, but I bet I know who will."
++++++++++
Giles looked up from the large, dusty book he had been studying for the last twenty minutes. He slipped his spectacles from around his face and began to clean them with his hanky. Gathered round the table in the magic shop were all the Scoobies, looking expectantly at the Watcher.
"It's very bad, I'm afraid," he said in his staid, English accent. "Apparently Brakkhan is one of the Elder demons. Very old; very powerful. He is known as The Corrupter because he can expel a breath that has such powerful hypnotic abilities that his victims will do his bidding, no matter what he demands. As is his sadistic nature, that is usually something he knows the victim will find particularly disgusting and vile."
"So if this ugly works his mojo by halitosis then I'll be sure to hold my breath when I chop him into pieces," Buffy smiled. Across the table, Xander shot her a big grin.
"No, I'm afraid it's not as simple as that, Buffy. You don't have to breathe in his breath; he just has to breathe upon you. It is said that no army can defeat him because, with his power, they will only become his slaves instead."
"I wonder if anybody bothered to mention this to Spike?" Xander quipped.
"The books I have don't give any clue as to how Brakkhan can be defeated." Giles tossed the book down onto the round table before him. "But there is mention of someone who may help us. Apparently, a long time ago, Brakkhan made a life long enemy of a demon called Ko-lan the seer, ever since which the two have sought to defeat each other."
"Hey, I know about him," Willow blurted from where she sat on her girlfriend Tara's lap. "He's also an Elder demon. But if what I remember is correct, he can't enter our plane of existence, so I guess he couldn't help us."
"P..P..Perhaps he c..could, Honey," Tara said. A small frown creased her brow, "His spirit could be summoned with an old druid ritual. Maybe he could just tell us what we need to know to defeat The Corrupter." Willow smiled at her and then lent forward to place a quick kiss upon her forehead before turning back to Giles and Buffy.
"Tara's right. Only a pagan druid ritual will be strong enough to summon him," then her confident look slipped partly and her cheeks flushed a little red, "but it would involve a highly sexual enactment to generate the mystical portal."
Xanderβs grin threatened to split his face in two. "You mean like naked witches dancing in a circle?" he asked, a little too enthusiastically. Anya, his girlfriend, gave him a sharp dig in the ribs.
"Of course! The pagan rite of Albion. It's the only way. Why didn't I think of that?" Giles said, thumping his fist down on the table. Suddenly he froze and his smile faded. He looked over to the two witches, "Oh, dear."
"Ah-huh!" Willow nodded, glancing anxiously at Buffy.
"What?" the Slayer said. Nobody answered. Buffy looked quickly from Giles to Tara and then back to Willow. "WHAT?"
"The rite of Albion needs you to do some very important things, Buffy. Specifically, you must anoint a virgin with the fluid of life and then burn a cloth soaked in the juice of a maiden." Willow's cheeks were almost as red as her hair.