Barb
Noon. He was in bed, but he hadn't slept. Tossed and turned for hours, paced
up and down the stairs in the crypt, alternated between stretching himself out
on the chill marble sarcophagus in the upper room and the perfectly ordinary
bed in the lower chamber, tried to watch telly and smoked till his throat was
raw, which took some doing for a creature immune to the ravages of nicotine.
He could feel the sun out there, making its patient circuit of the sky. He'd
never been patient. Oh, as a living man he'd been meek, all right, hemmed in
by social obligations and family pressures and all the things that just weren't
done, old chap, but never patient. Spike sat up with a snarl, kicked off the
sheets, and padded upstairs again.
In theory it didn't matter whether he had sheets on the bed or not; it wasn't
as if he were any warmer or cooler with or without them. He just liked sheets,
the way he just liked junk food and loud danceable music and penny dreadfuls
and a good football game with a good riot afterwards and all the other things
which ought to have been completely irrelevant to vampires. (Or, back in his
human days, guilty pleasures to gentlemen of leisure; becoming a demon had given
him license to indulge all the decidedly plebeian tastes he'd never dared admit
to while alive.) Spike had never wasted much time pondering the philosophical
implications of his infatuation with things human; it had pleased him, annoyed
Angelus and Darla, and completely bewildered other vampires, and that was justification
enough.
He lit himself another cigarette and flung himself down in the battered armchair.
After a moment of staring at the blank screen of the television, he leaned over
and grabbed his glasses off the crate which served as an end table and flipped
up the top. He groped around inside and pulled out a book at random. Plain
Tales From The Hills. Right, Rudyard, take my mind off my troubles.
Nowadays, it was the things he’d enjoyed openly as a human which were the
secret guilty pleasures. No one would have taken a Big Bad who read anything
more complex than the Racing Forum seriously--least of all himself. So, Buffy-love,
did you ever read for pleasure? Will said you lot had done Oedipus for a talent
show once, so I know you've been exposed to the concept. Bet not, though. You
always had an aversion to using the brains you were born with, and that godawful
sludge Angel used to mope over wouldn't have helped matters. Nausea indeed.
Sartre always made me ill. And Proust--did you know Soul Boy adored Proust,
or was he wise enough to keep that his own dirty little secret? Incredible,
isn't it? Remembrance of Things Wrist-Slashingly Dull. Never could stomach it
myself. Give me something with guts to it. The Greeks did it up proper. Blood
and love, or blood and rhetoric--the blood is compulsory...
He shut the book and closed his eyes, tilting his head back against the sagging
back of the chair. Talking of blood, you know what's funny, Buffy? I was this
close to a bloke's throat last night. Oh, I wanted to drink from him all right,
if that's what you're wondering. But I didn't want to kill him. Well, all right,
maybe a little, I'm not completely pussified and he was an annoying bastard.
Frankly it would've been smarter of us to leave them all a little dead. I'd've
been more than happy to rip him open in a fight. Just sittin' there, though,
seemed... unsporting. Is it the chip that's done this to me? Or was I always
weak inside, somehow, all along? 'Cos when I look back, love, it's a little
scary how easily I gave up on the killing. Could have had Harmony bringing me
snackies all along, but I never asked her. Could have beaten the shit out of
any two-bit vamp in this town once I found out I could, and made them kill for
me, but I never did. And that's long before I started trying to make nice for
you, love. What's that say about Big Bad Spike?
And now all I have to do to get you back is let five people who aren't us die.
Wouldn't even have to kill them myself. It would be so easy. If I didn't know
what was coming, if someone came up and told me about it next week, would I
care, as long as you were walking around in the sun again? Probably not. Too
bad, so sad, I've got Buffy! Sorry, love. I'm still a fairly nasty piece of
work.
But I do know what's coming.
Sod it all.
"...you're sure? All right. Thanks bunches, Wesley. Say hi to Cordelia."
Willow hung up the phone and straggled back over to the table in the rear of
the Magic Box. It was still piled high with books, and now with sheaves of printouts
of her own notes on the Raising ceremony--or some of them, anyway; there were
certain of her private speculations that she didn't feel like sharing with the
whole gang. Not now, and maybe not ever. Tara and Xander were going over the
mass of paperwork for the umpteenth time while Anya sat over behind the counter
making arcane notations in the shop's accounting program.
She sat down between Tara and Xander and rested her head against Tara's shoulder.
Tara put an arm around her shoulders and after a moment she felt her lover's
fingers stroking her forehead lightly. She'd gotten five or six hours of sleep
after Spike had dropped them off at Tara's dorm in the wee hours of the morning,
but she had a tension headache and wasn't feeling anywhere near her best. She
wanted nothing more than to go back to their dorm room and spend the rest of
the day letting Tara hold her and rub her head.
Of all of them, Tara had known Buffy the least amount of time, and while Buffy's
death had been sad for her, it wasn't the blow to the gut it had been for her
and Dawn and Xander and Giles... or Spike. Sometimes it was a comfort to have
someone around who was a little apart from it all; she didn't have to feel that
she should be supporting Tara in grief of her own. She could just give it all
up and let Tara be the strong one...
But now wasn't one of those times. Time to put on the Fearless Leader hat again.
Willow opened her eyes and sat up. "OK. According to Wesley, from what
they can tell from what happened with Darla's Raising, this is the top of the
line as resurrections spells go. When someone's brought back, they come back
exactly as they were just before they died, with their real body, soul and everything.
Darla was fine. Well, not fine, she was dying of syphilis, but that's not the
spell's fault. If you're terminally ill or grotesquely old or something it's
definitely of the bad, but Buffy wasn't either of those things--"
"It's always of the bad," Tara said firmly.
"Yes," Willow said, uncomfortable. "That way lies ickiness. But
my point is, if they bring Buffy back she'll be physically all right. The thing
is, a Raised person may not remember who or where they are. They're all confused.
What Bryce is probably counting on is that he can use that confused time to
cast some sort of a control spell, or maybe just use old-fashioned drugs or
brainwashing or something."
"So potentially..." Xander said slowly, "He could have a Slayer
with five years of experience at his beck and call. And anyone who'd kill five
people to get her probably wouldn't employ her to play tiddlywinks."
Willow gave a defeated nod. "Yeah. That's about it. Wesley says they'll
try and infiltrate Bryce's place tonight and see if they can find out where
the live sacrifices are being kept. If they can spring them, it may mess up
the whole plan. He used to go out with Bryce's daughter so he's been in there
once or twice before. I've got the Van Guys' e-mail address set up to forward
any mail from this Vespasian person to me, so he won't get suspicious about
them not answering anything."
Xander looked dumbstruck. "Wait, did you say Wesley went out with someone?"
"Strange, but true." Willow sat up and brushed her hair back from
her face. "We can't count on them being able to find them in time, though.
We're not even sure that they're being kept in L.A."
"So say we do stop them this time." Xander slammed the book in front
of him shut. "What's gonna keep this Bryce guy from rounding up another
bunch of victims next month, or next year, and trying this again? He's rich,
he's powerful, and he's human. We can't kill him. It’ll be damned hard
to get him arrested. I can't really see him groveling at our feet in abject
apology for his uncivilized behavior. What can we do about this long term?"
"Probably nothing," Anya said. She tapped on the monitor in front
of her with a pen. "That's why I want us to have lots and lots and lots
of money. Money is a much better defense than weapons."
"Oh, yay." Xander subsided into a disgruntled perusal of the nearest
batch of printouts. "That makes me feel much better."
Anya smiled at him fondly. "Me too."
"We won't have to worry about it again for awhile," Tara said softly.
"Raisings only work at specific times, and the times are different for
each entity Raised. By the time the stars are right again, it will probably
be too late for..." She paused awkwardly. "To bring her back."
"And isn't that just a sunshiny piece of news?" Xander muttered. "And
don't tell me about the cosmic balance, and that death is all part of the circle
of life, and all that crap. It still sucks wet gravel through a curly straw."
Tara looked hurt, and Xander looked stubborn, and Anya looked worried. "Everyone
go home," Willow said.
"What?"
"Everyone go home," she repeated, making a little shooing gesture.
"We were all up way too late last night, and we're all tired and arguing
about this is just going to make us all kooky. We'll go kooky much more efficiently
if we all get some more sleep. So go do Sunday afternoon stuff. Tomorrow night
we'll work out an ambush at the warehouse for Wednesday." She pulled up
a smile for Tara. "I have one or two things I want to look up here, and
then I'll stop by the crypt and bring Spike up to date and meet you later for
dinner, OK?"
One of the few perks of being Fearless Leader was that people usually went away
when you told them to, but it still took more time than Willow would have liked
to clear the others out of the shop. Anya was the last to go, admonishing her
to lock up before she left. Willow stood in the shop's front door and watched
her walking briskly out to the car to join Xander. She glanced at her wristwatch.
Four o'clock, and the Magic Box was finally deserted save for her. Alone at
last.
Tara had left reluctantly. Tara was worried about her. Feeling more than a little
guilty, Willow cleared a space on the table for her laptop, flipped it open,
and pulled up the encrypted files where she kept the notes she hadn't felt like
sharing with the gang.
It was more than notes. It was the bones of a whole new spell. She'd never had
any intentions of using it, but the original Raising was the most powerful piece
of magic she’d ever gotten her hands on. Studying it would teach her things
she couldn’t possibly learn elsewhere. Its endless repetitions had reminded
her of a clunky old BASIC program, full of unnecessary loops and subroutines.
Surely she could tighten up the code a little, eliminate a line here, add a
more elegant phrasing there? It would be good practice.
It had proven far more difficult than she'd anticipated. The repetitions, the
multiple sacrifices, were all in there for good reason. Tara was right about
all magic having a price, but Willow preferred to think of spells as programs,
or math problems. You put a word here and it had an effect. Maybe too much effect,
so you added a material component there, or subtracted a gesture here. Multiply,
divide, manipulate--if you worked fast enough, who knew what you might accomplish
before the inexorable laws of magic demanded that the equation be made to balance
again?
She sat there for a long time, head propped up on one hand, chewing thoughtfully
on the end of a pencil. After awhile she got up and climbed up the ladder leading
to the balcony which housed the restricted section of the library. She knelt
and ran a hand over the backs of the miscellaneous volumes on the lowest shelf.
Her hand paused on a musty tome, and she slipped it off the shelf, turning it
over and over in her hands. You should just burn them all, Tara'd said
when Spike and Xander brought her the boxes full of old books from Doc's abandoned
apartment. Nothing good will ever come out of those... things. Can't you
feel it?
Willow ran a finger down the binding of the ancient, dog-eared volume before
her. No, she couldn't feel it. Oh, she could tell that the book held power,
of course, sense the tingle of potency when she caressed the spine or flipped
through the pages. Many of the books Spike and Xander had retrieved felt like
this in greater or lesser degree. So did a few of the books in Giles' library.
So had the curious set of three grimoires Wesley had allowed her to examine
during her trip to L.A. last spring. Power flowed through all of them, twisting,
knotting, yearning to be free... maybe Tara was right and there was something
inherently nasty about some of them. In many ways Tara was more sensitive than
she, but Willow honestly couldn't see it. It was all magic, and it all called
to her.
She climbed back down the ladder, holding the book awkwardly under one elbow,
and went back to sit at the table. She opened the book and leafed through the
first few pages, then opened it to the place where she'd left off the last time.
The lights flickered.
Willow looked up from the yellowed pages of the book and pinched the bridge
of her nose. The headache had grown worse, an insistent buzz in the back of
her skull like the drone of cicadas. The wavery lights weren't helping any.
She squinted up at the light fixture overhead. They seemed fine now. She wondered
if there were any aspirin left back in the training room. Probably not. The
training room was fast reassuming its original character of a storeroom.
She gazed at the book. It didn't have 'Darkest Magic' plastered all over the
cover in big scary letters, that was for sure. It just looked old, and battered,
and grungy, black leather binding falling apart and the spine all cracked. It
had no title at all.
The lights began to flicker again. The book was difficult enough to make out
even without electrical problems, written in a crabbed hand in a debased variety
of church Latin. Fifteenth century, probably, a bad translation of a tenth-century
Arabic text. Someone had scribbled notes in the margins in a low German dialect
and someone else had scribbled notes on the notes in sixteenth-century English.
Within an hour she had three dictionaries spread out around her to look things
up in, and she was still having trouble.
She'd been working on this since a few weeks after Buffy's death, and the sections
she'd managed to translate so far were, she had to admit, a lot more disturbing
than anything in good ol' 'Darkest Magic'. The spells in 'Darkest Magic' were
destructive and flashy, but there wasn’t really anything all that dark
about them. It was just, she suspected, that no one would take a spellbook titled
‘Pretty Decent Magic’ seriously. The stuff in this one, though...
nothing flashy here. The spells were as grungy and low-key as the book itself,
but something about them... well, she couldn't say 'felt wrong', could she,
not after telling herself that there was no difference between the feel of one
grimoire and another?
Twitchy. They made her feel twitchy.
He that desireth return from the land of Osiris hath many paths to walk, and this one be...
Shadowed? Unknown? What declension was that adjective, and which noun did it refer to, 'he' or 'path'? Willow flipped through the Latin dictionary, trying not to lose her place in the main text as she did so. Tenebrarius... darkness? Of the darkness?
...and as Horus he returneth, yea he returneth clothed in flesh...
Return clothed in flesh? Could this have some relevance? Osiris and Horus
were Egyptian gods, and Osiris was killed by Set and...
Suddenly several previously obscure passages made sense. The lights were flickering
again, violently, and the pain in her head was growing, but Willow paid neither
any attention, focusing on the translation with all her being, biting her lower
lip hard enough to draw blood. The cicada-buzz was louder now, waxing and waning
in time to the dimming of the lights. The shadows crawled round the edge of
the room--that was only the lights, only the lights and the ongoing California
power shortages.
She pulled up the file of not-for-the-public notes on the Raising and began
making alterations, adding a line here, deleting a reference there. Her fingers
flew over the keyboard of the laptop, transcribing text and notes and notes
on the notes. No... it wasn't transcribing any longer. She was creating.
This, this was the heart of magic she'd been struggling towards for so long.
Her breath came harder and faster as she typed. The buzzing grew to unbearable
proportions, ringing through her head like a jackhammer, and the shadows in
the corner of the shop writhed as the lights whined and failed overhead. Terror
and elation filled her in equal proportions. Willow hit the last return and
smacked 'Save'. Almost immediately the flickering stopped. Willow took a deep
breath. She felt drained and lightheaded. She glanced up; the fluorescent were
glowing steadily again, and the droning buzz in her ears was gone. Shaking slightly,
she closed the shabby black book, and began straightening up the mess of papers,
pens, and dictionaries. By the time she'd returned the books to their places
on the shelves, and put everything else away, she was feeling more like herself
again.
Before she closed the laptop, she checked to be certain the file was still in
the folder, half expecting to find that there was nothing there. For a moment
her fingers hovered over the trackball but her stomach went cold and tight and
she decided against re-opening it. She wasn't sure she could face looking at
what she'd just put together. Not yet. She tucked the laptop into its case,
made sure she'd put everything away, and started towards the front door.
On the threshold she hesitated, then turned back and walked over to one of the
glass cases. Inside were a selection of small glass and ceramic objects, statues
and fetishes and idols of various types. Among them were two or three palm-sized
spheres of smoky glass. Their surfaces were curiously crackled, as if they'd
been through a fire. Willow opened the case and reached for them. Her hand hovered
indecisively over the selection for a moment before settling on one of them.
She pulled it out and examined it, her heart pounding. The Orb of Thessula lay
quiescent in her hand, empty, useless--a New Age paperweight, no more. She tucked
it into her purse, conscientiously counted out the purchase price and left it
on the register. She locked the front door of the shop behind her and started
down the street. It was getting dark, and though the buzz in her ears was gone,
the buzz of her thoughts wouldn't die down. She had to talk to someone... not
Tara. She knew what Tara would say about this, and she didn't want to hear that,
not right now.
She was frightened enough already.
The western sky was still glowing by the time she got to the cemetery, but
the last burning edge of the sun had slipped below the horizon. She was going
to be late for dinner, but that couldn't be helped; Spike hadn't (so far, anyway)
figured out a way to steal telephone service. She knocked on the gate of the
crypt, but there was no answer. After a moment she pushed the gate open and
stuck her head inside. "Spike?"
The vampire was asleep in the armchair, barefoot and shirtless, a motionless,
inhumanly beautiful ivory statue in the grey evening light. His chin had dropped
to his bare chest and one pale hand was spread across the open pages of a book
lying across his lap. A pair of old-fashioned wire-rimmed glasses were perched
precariously on the end of his nose, a hair’s-breadth from falling off.
Willow cleared her throat. "Spike, wake up!"
Spike started, blinked, and automatically shoved the glasses back into place,
regarding her over the top of the lenses in a manner so reminiscent of Giles
that Willow, keyed up as she was, almost burst out in hysterical giggles. It
must be some sort of English thing. A second later he came completely awake
and snatched the glasses off before realizing that it was a bit late for that.
He settled for swinging them nonchalantly in one hand. "Will! Ah, hullo,
I was just... reading."
"Well, shoot. That ruins my theory about your wretched Artful Dodger childhood
and tragic struggle against illiteracy."
Spike looked embarrassed, though since he couldn't blush it was rather hard
to tell for certain. "Keep it. Sounds a lot more exciting than swotting
at Eton." He set book and glasses down on the crate beside the chair, got
up, stretched very decoratively, and went over to the mini-fridge against the
wall. He waved her to the chair, and she sat down gingerly. It felt weird, and
after a moment she realized that it was because there was no warm spot where
he'd been sitting. He pulled out a plastic baggie of blood, bit the corner off,
and poured it into a glass. A horrid thought seemed to strike him. "For
God's sake don't tell Harris, I'll never hear the end of it."
She smiled wanly. Spike seemed to sense that her heart wasn’t in the banter,
and went over to the nearest wall niche to light a few candles. As the little
cluster of flames strengthened and filled the crypt with mellow golden light
he used the tail end of the match to puff a cigarette to life. "So... news?"
He sounded strained. Willow felt a surge of guilt. She'd never been entirely
certain how much of the whole Spike-loves-Buffy mess had been her fault. Two
years ago, right after Spike had been caught and chipped by the Initiative scientists,
she'd accidentally caught the two of them up in a love spell... sort of. Though
both of them had appeared to snap out of it when the spell broke, Willow often
wondered if it had had anything to do with subsequent developments. Spike had
been suicidally depressed and at loose ends at the time, and then suddenly he'd
been happy. If he’d associated that happiness with loving Buffy--who knew
what weird little connections might have been made down in his subconscious?
If vampires even had a subconscious...
On the other hand, he'd been obsessed with Buffy from the first time he'd blown
into Sunnydale, and sometimes Willow suspected that something--not love, but
something--had been brewing in Buffy's subconscious almost as long. Spike and
Buffy had always talked big about killing each other, but instead they kept
fighting and letting one another get away, breaking apart and coming back together
like Silly Putty. So maybe she'd had nothing to do with it.
"We're going to meet up at the shop tomorrow night around nine, and work
out how to stop the ceremony on Wednesday," she said. The vampire nodded.
"Are you... do you want to come? I mean, I know this must be...hard..."
"Will," he said, looking almost his age, "If I wanted to stop
you all it would take is a single phone call to Bryce. For all you know I've
already done it."
She caught those ancient, pain-filled eyes with her own and held them. "If
you had, you’d either be gloating or not telling me at all."
He grimaced as if the words stung him. "True. I'm a pathetic, whipped excuse
for a monster, aren’t I?” He chuckled bitterly. "So count me
in for Wednesday."
Willow gripped the handle of the laptop case to keep from twisting her hands.
"We all thought about it. Maybe for just a teeny weentsy moment, but we
all did."
"Yeh, but..."
"And I," Willow continued almost inaudibly, "did something about
it."
Outside in the graveyard a late cricket began chirping with moronic cheer. Spike's
hand froze in mid-movement, then continued on its way to the ashtray. He ground
his barely-started cigarette out very precisely in the center. "Did you,
then?" His dark brows knit slightly. "What kind of something?"
He didn’t sound shocked or accusing or worried. Just curious. She could
have hugged him. Willow pulled the laptop case up onto her knees and flipped
open the catch. "I've been working on this for a long time. Ever since
Buffy died, almost. And yes, I know: evil naughty magic, bad Willow!"
"You're talking to the wrong bloke if you expect a lecture on morals,"
Spike interjected. Willow laughed nervously.
"It's funny, Xander was asking this afternoon what we could do in the long
term to prevent Bryce from trying to Raise Buffy again. And the one sure way
is to Raise her ourselves." She was talking too fast, words tumbling over
themselves in an effort to get out. "I know magic isn't free. I know every
spell has a price, and the stronger the spell is, the greater the price. Like
there are all kinds of spells for raising people from the dead, but the trouble
with most of them is that the price isn't high enough, so you just get gross
decaying zombie type raisings of the dead--"
"Uh, yeah. Run into that once or twice."
"--and if you don't have anything to sacrifice, you pay the price yourself.
Like when I cast those spells against Glory, and had nosebleeds and migraines
for weeks afterwards." She checked the level of the battery and turned
the laptop on. "I know all this stuff, and I know that to really bring
back someone from the dead... that's a huge price. What's worth a life?"
She met Spike's eyes steadily. "Tara thinks resurrection spells are bad
because they upset the balance of nature, which is just... stupid. Heck, polio
vaccines upset the balance of nature. The way I see it, the real problem is
most wizards don't want to pay the price. So they make someone else pay."
She pulled up the file and opened it. Her hands were trembling on the keyboard.
"I'm willing to pay. I just need you to help me do it.” Now her voice
was shaking, too.
“What kind of price are we talking about, Will?” the vampire asked
softly. “There’s damned little I wouldn’t do to get her back.
You know that. You have no idea how close I came to making that call. The only
thing that stopped me was..." He trailed off, picking at his nails. “Two
things, really. Didn’t want to end up fighting you lot. But the main thing...”
"Buffy would have hated you?"
His eyes narrowed lazily. "I could live with that, pet. I could die with
that. If bringing her back meant she'd hate my guts, stake me the moment she
got her bearings, I'd do it in a heartbeat. If I had a heartbeat. But I couldn't
live with her hating 'erself. And she would, knowin' the price of her life was...
that." He shook out a fresh cigarette. “So whatever you’ve got
in mind, Will, if it’s something Buffy couldn’t live with... let’s
make damned sure she never, but never, finds out about it.”
Willow squeezed her eyes shut, shivering. She’d come here for just this
sort of encouragement, hadn’t she? Because Spike wasn’t good, no matter
how much he cared for Buffy and Dawn, or even, maybe, for the rest of them.
She forced her eyes open. "I’ve... I've made a few changes. It doesn't
need to kill five people anymore. Or even five vampires. It doesn't need to
kill anyone at all."
Spike walked slowly over to stand beside the chair. He retrieved his glasses
from the top of the crate, put them back on and leaned forward, staring at the
screen over her shoulder. "There's a catch, isn't there? There's always
a catch."
Willow didn’t look up from the screen. "It's... there's a lot bigger
chance of something going wrong.”
“And that would be...?”
She waved one hand feebly. “Oh, our heads exploding... that kind of thing.”
He made a dismissive noise. “Pfft. That.”
“And it's still nasty magic, Spike. It still requires a sacrifice. Something
worth a life."
It wasn't entirely accurate that vampires didn't breathe; they had to inhale
to talk, or smoke cigarettes, or sigh melodramatically. She could feel Spike's
cool breath tickling her ear whenever he spoke. Now he sighed. "And?"
"You won't like this."
"Try me."
"Dawn's blood is part of it."
"You're right, I don't like it."
"Not enough to kill her," Willow assured him. This was one part she
was sure about. "Part of what makes this work is that Buffy died in Dawn's
place to begin with. They're metaphysically equivalent. In a way, there's already
been a blood sacrifice--"
Spike's eyebrows went up. "Isn't that cheating a bit, Will, bringing back
the sacrifice?"
"It's within the letter of the law," Willow protested.
“No worries. I love a good cheat.”
"Nothing actually forbids it.” Even to herself, Willow sounded as
if she were trying to convince herself it would work. “In so many words,
anyway. But that's not all." She scrolled down the file and pointed to
a section near the end. "How up are you on Latin?"
"Rusty," he admitted. "Not much call for it these days."
His eyes flicked back and forth over the lines on the screen for a moment. "’Animam
meam dono pro beneficio amicae carae.’--I hope I'm getting that bit wrong."
"Then you're probably getting it right. What's worth a life, besides another
life?"
Spike straightened and rand a hand through his hair, looking down at her with
a curious expression, as if he'd never seen her before. "Not a lot,"
he said slowly. "But as I remember, there's something you 'eld dearer that
night I offered to turn you."
"I think the word you're looking for is 'threatened to turn me',"
Willow grumbled. The brief flash of humor vanished quickly. She looked up, her
mouth firming, and there was nothing joking in her face or her voice. "So.
Is the offer still open?"
She didn't get the chance to see a vampire completely floored that often. Spike
opened his mouth, closed it, and flung himself into a furious half-circle of
pacing. Willow didn't give him a chance to say anything further. "I still
have Jenny's re-souling spell on disk at home, and I've already got an Orb of
Thessula. I’ve been afraid to mess with the spell till now because it was
so powerful, but under the circumstances that’s a little silly, isn’t
it? I figure we set up the first part of the spell ahead of time, you turn me,
we call my soul back and catch it in the Orb, and..." her voice dissolved
into a shaky squeak. "Voila, we have a sacrifice."
"We bloody well do not!" Spike burst out, coming to a halt. He grabbed
one of her hands and pressed it to his forehead. "Am I feverish? I must
be feverish, because I'm bloody agreeing with Tara! You're insane, Will! Don't
get me wrong, pet, you'd make a smashing vampire, and I'm no end flattered you'd
want me to sire you, but here’s some Latin for you." He began ticking
points off on his fingers. "Primus, there's no guarantee I can bite you
without keeling over, and I'm buggered if I'll make a test run now. Secundus,
if I did turn you, you'd be just a tiny bit DEAD for two or three days, and
all bloodlusty and disoriented for another few days after that. By the time
you were fit to finish the spell, Buffy would be alive and well and kicking
ass for Bryce in L.A. And Tertius, once you were a vampire, there's no telling
if your demon self would be as keen on getting Buffy back as I happen to be,
as the first thing she'd undoubtedly do is stake the both of us. We’re
unreasonable that way." His eyes softened a trifle. “Will, you just
don’t understand how big a change it is, being turned. You can’t.”
Willow's face crumpled and her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Oh."
It was half a sob. “I do, Spike. I met my vampire self once. I didn’t
just need you to turn me for this. I wanted you to make me do the spell and
then kill me after.”
“Ah." Was that shock in his eyes, at last? "Well, bugger that.
I think Buffy would bleedin’ notice me killing her ex-best friend the soulless
demon. And besides,” he added gruffly, "I rather fancy you soul included."
He’s not going to help. He’s not going to... I don’t have
to... She covered her eyes with one hand, shaking in reaction as the adrenaline
deserted her and relief and disappointment flooded through her in equal portions.
"Whatever happened to 'It would be wrong'?"
"Sorry, not my idiom."
Willow couldn’t think of anything else to say. Spike returned to his frenetic
pacing, as if standing still put him in danger of exploding. The silence grew
between them as the last traces of sunset disappeared from the sky outside.
Tara would be waiting at the dorm, worrying... she should get up, go back...
continue doing the right thing. And she had classes tomorrow. She couldn’t
muster up the energy to get out of the chair. "So... I guess I’ll
see you tomorrow, then."
Spike made a vague affirmative grunt, lost in thought. He came to rest by the
doorway and stood there staring out into the night, his face hidden by shadow.
Willow flipped the laptop shut and began the arduous task of dragging herself
to her feet. She felt weak and jittery at the same time, but walking would probably
take care of that. If she didn’t throw up first.
"Half a mo', Will..."
Momentum interrupted, she sat down again. Spike had turned back to face her,
obviously stricken with an idea. "This spell of yours... any law says it
has to be your soul to make it work?"
Willow frowned, running over the restrictions and clauses of the spell in her
mind. "Um... no... I don't think so. But mine's the only one I've got dibs
on."
Spike was in front of the chair in two long strides. He dropped to one knee
in front of her and grabbed her shoulders, eyes alight. "Use mine."
"You don't have..."
"Not now! Not in my hip pocket, pet!" He jumped to his feet again,
alive with excitement. "But I did once, and it's out there somewhere, innit?"
He waved a hand at the ceiling. "Angel's was. Stands to reason mine is
too, dunnit? Not as if I'm using the bloody thing, so call it up and chuck it
in wherever sacrifices get chucked!"
"Spike!" It was Willow's turn to be stunned. "I can't--that would
be murder!"
"What, you think old William's poncing around in the clouds with a harp
and a halo?"
"Well... maybe. I don't know!” Her voice was an anguished wail. “I’m
not even sure what a soul is!”
The vampire was on his feet again, prowling round the room like a caged tiger;
if he’d had a tail it would have been switching madly. "I know what
it isn't. Fine, I'm not William. There's a big piece of him missing, and there's
a demon in its place. But what's missing's not his mind, nor his heart--my mind,
and my heart, damn it, beating or not. I've got those. They're part of me--they
are me. Bloody hell, Will, I know him. I know every day of his life. I know
what he'd give up for... for love... as well as I know what I would. Dru didn't
take me--him--by force. I may have been uninformed, but I was willing. If I
can give up my soul for her I can damned well give it up for Buffy."
“But if you--him--William--Arrgh!” Willow grabbed fistfuls of her
hair with both hands and yanked. “I’m all confused!” She worried
at her lower lip, still sore from her having bitten it earlier, and in her mind’s
eye pulled up the image of the cursor blinking amidst the lines of the spell.
"It... could work. The thing is..." She tried to catch his eyes again,
but he was moving too quickly, caught up in an exhilaration every bit as frightening
as her own had been. "You know, don't you, that getting your soul back
is about the only way Buffy might ever..."
He wheeled impatiently about, cutting her off with a gesture. "I know.
But it wouldn't do me any good having a soul if she's dead, would it?"
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather have it back yourself?"
"Oh, right, and end up like Angel, pissing and moaning over my sins for
the next century? I think not. Besides, pet, the only spell you've got to stick
it back in me is that dodgy piece of gypsy work with the world's stupidest curse
built in." He cocked a sardonic eyebrow at her. "And how long do you
think that would last, hmmm? Let's face it, I'm a bloody sight easier to please
in the true happiness department than Grand-sire ever was. I'd lose the sodding
thing the next time Manchester United makes the Cup finals. Hardly worth it,
is it?”
He came to a stop beside the chair again, bent down and purred into her ear,
“Besides, pet, you know you’re dying to use that spell. It's all coiled
up inside you, waiting. When’re you ever going to get another chance?”
Damn. He knew exactly how to get to her. But she’d known that all along.
Wasn’t that why she’d come? “We have to tell Dawn,” she
whispered, feeling the last of her resistance crumbling.
He laughed, a deep-down rumble that shook the chair. “‘Course we do.
Leave that to me, and run home to Kitten. If the Niblet says no, then it’s
all off. But honestly, Will, do you think there’s a chance in hell she’ll
say no?”
"No," Willow admitted. "I don't."