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Nan
AU, continues from The Blood Is the Life. As Spike and Buffy try to
hold onto their partnership and their love, recently unsouled Spike tries to
secure his position as self-proclaimed Master Vampire of Sunnydale...against
the wishes of The Powers That Be and the Slayer's ancient mandate. Magic, new
arrivals, old friends (and enemies), dreams, visions, e-Bay, tribute blood,
and cookies all play a part in the tense give and take between vampire priorities
and human necessities.
Disclaimer: All is Joss's. None is mine. No profit. Just more Spikejoy for everyone.
Spike knew Buffy wasn’t comfortable with his bringing Mike along on patrol, any more than Mike was comfortable being brought. They barely exchanged a word, as if they each were pretending the other wasn’t there. And after decking him in good order at the factory, Buffy was being all polite, enough to make a pig gag, which pretty much ruled out her asking the blunt question What the hell is he doing here? or saying in so many words that having Mike at her back made her itchy as hell.
Spike wasn’t all that pleased with either one of them, and he considered their putting up with each other as part of their penance. How could anybody expect him to keep track of the little things, like the new wide-scale blood delivery or the progress on recruitment, if he couldn’t depend on the big things not going haywire the minute he took his eyes off them?
Plain enough that they were jealous of each other, and neither about to call it by its name, which maybe he was dumb not to have expected and headed off, but there you were. Also plain that Buffy wasn’t easy being around vamps, and maybe never would be, for all her trying, which Spike gave her due credit for, even though it’d turned her all snappish and surly, and she’d flashed out at him for it. Better him than dusting one of his crew, which was the likely alternative. He could take it and she knew that, so she’d done as well as she could, considering. Spike wasn’t put out at her on his own account.
Hadn’t been all that quick on the uptake himself, this afternoon: all shaken up and drunk on top of it, trying to get through the time any old how, and that hadn’t been enough. So his fault as much as anybody’s, what had happened and nearly happened.
And then there was Michael, beginning to get the feel of his authority, taking a stance, just as he should…but without the patience or the sense to finesse the Slayer the way you had to. Seeing her as a threat and then unable and unwilling to back off when she wouldn’t. Going after her on Spike’s account, as though Mike’s claim should override hers.
Big mess.
They got through the patrol without encountering anything but three dumb fledges and later a pair of rambunctious Rolfin, that the Slayer always made a point of taking out despite the fact that they preyed only on domestic pets, no threat to humans, and specially liked the fighting breeds like pit bulls, Dobermans, which would have inclined Spike to let them be if it’d been left up to him, which it wasn’t. So fine, they took out the Rolfin in good order, so all the fluffy spaniels and Pekingese could sleep safer in their posh little beds. All one to him. On patrol, it was the Slayer’s call.
Cleaning her sword before replacing it in the sheath she wore over her shoulders, Buffy said, “That’s enough for tonight. Thanks for the help.”
Spike nodded, catching each of them by the arm, holding them in place. "Then I'll have my say."
“What?” Buffy asked, uneasy but not pulling away.
“Oh, hell, Spike,” was Mike’s contribution. He knew what was coming, or ought to. Nothing except what he was due.
“Michael, you laid hands on the Slayer, that I’d given my personal bond that nobody would so much as look cross-eyed at her whenever she was up there. And you knew it. And did it anyway.”
At least Mike didn’t whine that he’d been provoked or make excuses. Shoulders sagging a little, frowning at the ground, he said, “Fine. Not in front of her, though.”
“Anyplace I say.”
“Yeah. Fine.”
Slayer protested, “He thought he was defending you.”
“Don’t give a goddam what he thought. He’s crossed me, in public, and I won’t have it.”
“Then you two sort it out however you want. I don’t have to watch--”
“You stay put, Slayer,” Spike ordered, quick and flat. And though she was surprised, she left the call to him, which he appreciated. “Now, Michael. Slayer, she’s what’s important here. She takes a notion to dust me, I won’t lift a hand against it. Nor let anybody who answers to me do it neither. Only reason I’m standing here is on account of she’s chosen to go against everything she believes, everything she thinks is right, and let me be. Could have dusted me a hundred different times, and most of those times, I rightly deserved it, according to the rules she goes by. But she still gave me a pass.”
“Because--” Buffy broke in.
“You shut up, Slayer. I’m putting this to Michael how he has to understand.” Returning his attention to Mike, Spike went on grimly, “The right I have over you, that same right she has over me. I continue by her sufferance, that she can change any time, and I got nothing to say about it. And nobody else has the right to interfere with that. It’s between me and her. Now do you hear me, Michael.”
“Yeah.”
“And do you understand it?”
“I guess. Yeah.”
Spike let go his arm, still holding Buffy’s. “Now, Slayer. Michael here is my declared get--I’ve claimed him of my blood and of my making. That means you got any problem with him, you come to me. You don’t deal with him except as I say. He’s mine, and I stand responsible for whatever he does. He gets out of line, that’s mine to deal with, not yours. Today, he was out of line, and you let him get by with it, which is more than he deserves and only because you don’t know our ways. I stand answerable for it.” Spike took Amanda’s taser from his pocket and slapped it into Buffy’s hand, directing, “Do me.”
Together, Buffy and Mike protested, “No!”
“You shut up, the both of you. I want this settled. Don’t never want to deal with such again, not from either of you. Buffy.” Spike held her appalled eyes, trying to make her see and accept that this was necessary. “You can take me out when I’m not looking; you can do this.”
“No!” Mike blurted again. “I’m the one was out of line. If somebody has to answer for it, it should be me. Don’t.”
“You’ll get yours, boyo,” Spike said coldly. “Never doubt it. But Slayer has first right, and nobody comes at you except through me. That’s what it means, that I’ve claimed you for mine. So you stand and you keep shut, you hear me?”
“Don’t,” Mike said to Buffy. “Please.”
Buffy stood looking back and forth between them. Then she flung the taser down. “I’m not part of your damn vamp games, and I’m not playing this one. Sorry, Spike, but no. I don’t shoot 200 watts into…somebody I love…just because somebody tells me to!”
“Slayer chooses to give me a pass. Again,” Spike commented. In one quick motion, he scooped up the taser and gave Mike a charge in the small of his back. Mike went down like a felled pine. Graveyard grass was a better surface to land on than factory cement, Spike reflected, brushing the taser clean of grit before putting it away.
To Buffy, standing all freeze-faced, looking down at Mike, Spike commented, “It’s not the watts, love, it’s the volts. ‘Round about 50,000. Put a chap down nicely for about five minutes, that will.”
Buffy shrugged. “I just figured a two-hundred watt bulb is a pretty big bulb.”
“And 50,000 volts is pretty much like being struck by lightning.” He slid the taser back in his pocket. “Happens, he’s never taken a taser charge. About time he did. Next time one of the SITs tells him to stand clear, he’ll have a little more respect for it. Thing is, pet…Mike loves me in his own peculiar fashion. Not always smart about it. No more than anybody.”
“I see that now. Then how could you…?”
“Letting him off easy wouldn’t be a kindness. Only be worse the next time. Maybe somebody dead. He has to learn how to do. According to the way vamps see things. Just as glad you let me off, though--would have been a bit much on top of everything else, today.”
“But you said--” Buffy began, then slapped her hands on her legs in frustration. “I’m never gonna understand this!”
“Likely not. And maybe a mistake to try,” Spike acknowledged softly. “You stick to the ways you know, love. Don’t bother about the rest. That’s mine to see to. Maybe be best to go back to keeping it out of your way.”
“I’m trying…to connect,” she protested.
“Know you are. But maybe it’s not possible.”
She came and hugged him close and kissed the side of his mouth when he turned his face away. “But it has to be possible.”
“Yeah.” She’d think that, want that to be true. Didn’t make it so, though. But Spike wasn’t gonna argue. Things would be as they could be, and what anybody wanted didn’t come into it. “He’ll be coming to in a while now. You go on home. I’ll see to him.”
“I can wait,” Buffy offered.
“Love, bad enough I took him down in front of you. Be worse if you’re here to watch him stagger around, try to get himself working right again. Don’t think rubbing it in is really what you mean to do here.”
“No. No, I guess. All right,” Buffy agreed uncertainly, and went off.
His back sliding down a tombstone, Spike settled onto his heels and lit a cigarette, waiting for his unruly childe to wake.
**********
“Come in,” said the Slayer, opening the door.
She smelled nervous but didn’t actually show it, and she wasn’t scared about giving him access to her claimed place. Wasn’t scared of him at all. Well, no reason she should be, Mike supposed, though from anybody else, it would have been an insult. Well, nervous was something and as good as he was apt to get, considering that the Slayer outranked him by a fair bit even despite being human.
Mike had never been invited inside Casa Summers before and now wasn’t particularly sure he wanted to be, with Dawn absent. Nobody here he was much interested in talking to. He folded his arms, looking back toward his bike for no particular reason except not to be looking at her. Didn’t want to be rude, stare her right in the eyes like a challenge.
“All right,” said the Slayer coolly, “I’ll come out.”
Her house: she’d do what she pleased. It was nothing to Mike. Except that now he had an invite, he had a choice. That was different, he supposed.
She hitched a hip on the porch railing, facing him. Tiny little thing; but strong as a vamp twice her size and could do the air stuff, the flips and twists, like Spike did. So even though her hands were empty, Mike was properly wary and respectful. Owned Spike like Spike owned him, so she was due respect--Spike had made that perfectly plain last night, after the patrol. So when she’d sent a summons up to the factory for him today, he came as soon as the sunlight faded. No reason not to.
“You don’t like me much,” she said, opening with the obvious. Not waiting for an answer, she went on, “I don’t like any Sunnydale vamps except Spike, so we’re even there. But you’re important to Spike, and Spike’s important to me, so I thought we might have a talk. Try to come to some working arrangement.”
“Don’t need no arrangement,” Mike replied. “You forbade me Dawn, and it’s been a couple weeks, anyway, since I smelled you on Spike. You just want to get another handle on him ‘cause he’s moved out of your reach.”
She was silent, mouth all pursed up tight, for a minute. (Mike took note of her motions and changes of expression with quick side glances, still avoiding straight-on challenge stares.) She said grimly, “All right, that’s more true than not, even though I don’t like hearing it put that way. There’s a distance. Since he began this, he’s been all caught up in vamp things and trying to keep that all to himself. I think he thinks it’s safer that way. For us. Dawn and me and Willow, who live here. But the result is the distance. I don’t like it. So I’ve tried to mix into his stuff, and get him to keep mixing into mine, as much as possible. That’s not working and it just makes everything more complicated. Adds onto everything else he’s trying to keep track of. And I’m starting to think it’s more than he can do.”
“So?” Mike said when she stopped. “What’s that to me?”
“He’s not sleeping right. He’s taking those pills because days just aren’t long enough to get everything done no matter how he packs them and pushes himself. He--”
“Spike manages fine,” Mike interrupted loyally. “It’ll be better, now he’s gonna lair up at the factory as a regular thing. And…and you got a problem with that, you take it to him. Not up to me.” Mike was real annoyed at himself for saying even as much as he had. Nearly as bad as Digger, she was, making him start blabbing stuff that was none of her concern. Or if it was, stuff Mike had no business telling her, anyhow. Up to Spike, to tell her or not.
She stuck her hands in her sweater pockets. “I don’t understand. If we both care about Spike, there should be some common ground here. We should--”
“What do you want, Slayer? Why’d you call me over here?”
Again, the frown and the pursed mouth. “You’re not making this easy, Mike.”
“What’s ‘this’? And why should I care if it’s easy or hard? You’re none of my concern, either way. Except as Spike tells me. He says I got no business mixing between you. So fine, I won’t. Now are you trying to tell me different?”
She flung her hands. The sudden motion was unnerving, but Mike kept himself from reacting except to check her hands for a stake. “Mike, do you even realize that he loves you?”
“Course he does: named me his get, let me feed from him. Gave me a district to run. Gave me his keepsake watch for my protection. I’m useful to him, as best I can be. Others, he assigns to do other things for him, but none of them is a blood connection so they don’t signify. Only me.”
“He’s marked me,” she declared, like she thought that was some daring big thing to admit. “That should count for something!”
“Makes you his cow,” Mike responded, with a wry glance, flick and away. “Signifies that, anyway. Marked himself for Dawn. Don’t bear no mark for you, not that I yet noticed. But,” he added quickly, “he said you had same as sire’s rights over him, and gives you the respect of that; so I’m not saying different.”
Buffy lifted a glance of rueful frustration and sadness. Still didn’t smell anger or antagonism from her, which was strange, seeing as how she’d been questioning his connection to Spike and insisting she had the stronger claim, which Mike hadn’t contended otherwise…out loud, anyway.
She smelled nearly as nice as Dawn, though much more puzzling and therefore less attractive. Mike was pretty sure she didn’t like him. Then again, Dawn didn’t either, anymore, so that was probably no difference that signified.
She said, “I’m not getting through to you at all, am I.”
“Don’t know what you mean. Still don’t know what you want from me.”
“What’s the air speed of a laden swallow?” she demanded suddenly.
“European or African?” Mike responded, knowing that was the right answer.
They looked at each other awhile. Then she shook her head.
“Your logic is not of the earth logic. OK, I get that. Just tell me this: what Spike’s doing. What he’s wrecking everything else, and himself, to do. Is it worth it?”
“He’s Master of Sunnydale. Doing what’s needed, for that,” Mike replied, not seeing what she was getting at. How could Spike be top predator and the eldest, strongest blood in the area, with the will and the ferocity to enforce his claim against all opposition (as was proper), and act any other way than he did?
“I give up!” Buffy said, throwing her hands again. “You win!”
Mike nodded politely although he was certain dominance hadn’t changed, so nobody had won. People were unaccountable. No making sense of them. No use even trying.
“Thursday,” she said, “is Dawn’s birthday. We’re having a party here, after the class. Though she’s not even here. Though nobody that I know of likes Lady Gates very well. Spike says, ‘Have the party anyway,’ so we are. Dawn’s friends are invited…some of them, anyhow. The ones I know about. So you’re invited. Provided you can stay out of game face and don’t try to eat any of the other guests.”
Mike frowned. Last he knew, Dawn was officially furiousfuckingmad at him and wouldn’t speak to him except under combat conditions. Didn’t bear his mark anymore, didn’t allow him to taste her, didn’t want to keep company with him. And to Lady Gates, he had no connection at all. Wasn’t even her birthday, as humans would reckon things. He didn’t think Powers had birthdays, being ageless and timeless. So why he should spend time on such a farce made no sense whatever. Yet the Slayer plainly meant he should, even setting aside her implication that he had no more command of his demon than a fledge would. Classing that as ignorance, not deliberate insult.
“I’ll ask Spike. If he says come, I’ll come.”
“Good enough,” said the Slayer, on a sigh. “See you later, then. At the class.”
Mike thought that meant he should go, though he wasn’t entirely sure. He figured he’d best ask, since he didn’t want to be rude to Spike’s same-as-sire. “We done now?”
“Yeah, Mike. Stick a fork in us, we’re done.”
Taking the steps down to yard level in one long stride, Mike tried to shake his head free of confusion. Every once in awhile, she’d say something that was actually understandable--like about the swallow speed, and about the fork--so he couldn’t quite dismiss the rest as vaporous nonsense. Why couldn’t she talk plain, say what she meant, like Dawn did? And the SITs did, mostly?
It was clear she’d wanted to, tried to. And simply couldn’t.
Starting his bike, Mike decided to ask Spike about that too. Spike would make sense of it for him, or at least tell him how to do about it, which was all that signified.
********
As she approached the gym’s double doors, schlepping the remaining carton of the smell on her hip, Buffy could hear music. Which was therefore loud music. And when she opened the righthand door, that same smell hit her like a breath from a bordello, not that she was absolutely sure a bordello was what she thought it was.
Her dutiful errand was therefore what Giles would have called “carrying coals to Newcastle,” which Xander had explained to her as being like unto delivering an extra stooge, to make four.
The stooges inside were not exercising, or only a few. Nearly all were dancing in bare or stocking feet. Or maybe they were exercising too, since quite a few were gathered doing high kicks, alternate feet, in time to the bass thunder of a boom box set on the bottom row of bleachers. Going toward it to set the carton down, Buffy squinted her eyes and made a wincing face at the volume and the similar intensity of the smell. Absolutely everybody must be wearing it, sweating it into the air. And there was a lot of everybody: the gym was at least half full.
She climbed up the bleachers to get a view of the whole floor. From that perspective, she saw how a boom box could impersonate a rock band’s sound system: at least six were parked at intervals along the bottom tier, cranked up to the max. From behind and above, the volume seemed slightly less likely to make her ears bleed. She couldn’t discern a tune, apart from the pounding rhythm that made the bleachers bounce.
There were even more people than she’d thought--over a hundred, few aged above eighteen--jerking in weaving throngs to the thundering beat. She still wasn’t sure which were exercising and which were dancing. Several flavors of stomping line dances were weaving through the recognizable jitter-buggers, frug-ers, and others doing dances she knew no names for: alone, in pairs, or loose clusters performing the same motions. One maybe-dance involved propellering your arms slowly backward and prancing on tiptoes while lifting the other knee smartly against the chest. The mutant offspring of Michael Jackson and Michael Flatley?
Pungent as mothballs although more floral, the smell made it hard to focus or form thoughts. And the driving beat shattered any struggling vestige of thought, like reflections in a stomped puddle.
Buffy was reasonably certain of only three things: (1) absolutely nobody was waltzing (2) she was facing dismissal and possible lawsuits for holding an unauthorized, unchaperoned orgy and/or riot on school property (3) she’d spotted Spike’s bike outside, so he was here…someplace. She caught sight of the occasional red/black blur, but they were just vamps and SITs having a wild good time. She awarded herself points for spotting (and recognizing) Mike. Modest points, because spotting him wasn't hard, since he was a head taller than any guy near enough for comparison, moving with characteristic vamp grace, strength, and energy. No Spike, though: not a platinum head anywhere.
She wilted onto the high bench, knees together, feet apart (and tapping), trying to think what to do. Then Spike came bounding up the bleacher rows as though they were a set of stairs, grinning like a maniac. One sleeve of his scarlet button-down was torn and flapping. The other was completely gone. Before Buffy could enlist his help in solving the problem, she was part of it, her face locked between his cool hands to hold her still during the application of a ten-megaton kiss that went on for several forevers and involved tongue. After that she was too busy hauling his T-shirt free of his jeans waistband so she could get her hands up under there and find skin. Skin was important. Skin was good, cool against her heat. She wanted more of it.
Seized by a perverse impulse, she started tickling and nearly sent them both crashing and bumping down all the tiers to the floor. Convulsing, Spike grabbed her wrists and forced them wide, so they were standing front to front like some interrupted non-standard tango, since they were looking into each other’s faces with loony expressions. Buffy lifted on her toes and licked his chin. Spike laughed and made some comment the music drowned. She felt him start to move and went along, wide-stepping down the rows hand in hand, Spike batting away her renewed threats of tickling.
They latched onto a passing line dance that mainly involved skipping wide to the side and doing a complicated little triple-time hop/bounce at what seemed random intervals. Whenever the line paused in its galumphing progress, that was what you did before being jerked into motion again. Then for awhile they were surrounded by people doing vaguely Egyptian-frieze movements, lots of serpentine arms, undulating torsos, and chins pushed out and then snapped back, over one’s shoulder. Or maybe they were imitating wading birds. Anyway the motions were contagious and imitable, so they mirrored them, sinuously exaggerating each sway and glide.
Most of the would-be Egyptian wading birds just looked herky-jerky. On Spike, whose eyes had kindled with a devilish gleam, it looked good. There was nothing that didn’t look good on Spike.
Then Spike caught her waist and tossed her straight up. Buffy looked down at lots of kids looking up. Descending, she was caught and hurled high again--like being on a trampoline without needing to bounce. This time, to be doing something while airborne, she managed a half rotation and was caught from the back and sent off again with a definite spin in the release. So she tucked her arms tight against her sides and made a full 360 before falling back into Spike and set safely down before he staggered away, doubled over in laughter. The angle was good, so she jumped onto his back and executed a handstand on his shoulders, head-top to head-top, holding the pose as he straightened beneath her. Everybody looked so funny upside down that she started giggling and fell into what would have been a messy collapse if Spike hadn’t grabbed her arm, tossed her out horizontally, and cracked her like a whip. Then she was suddenly back, on her feet, decorously held…and goddam waltzing in defiance of the music.
Spike had his eyes shut and looked as happy as she’d ever seen him. And Buffy could tell that their impromptu gymnastics had been noticed--the kids around had stopped to watch, grinning broadly, some even applauding soundlessly. Some of them were vamps. And it occurred to Buffy that absolutely nothing bad was happening. Sure, she might lose her job over this, but that would be some other time and this was now. The vamps were pairing off with human partners or each other, executing steps a little more light-footed and sure than the rest but otherwise distinguishable only by wearing the colors. Not one single kid with a throat torn out. Nobody terrorized or screaming. Nobody even yellow-eyed. Because the vamps adhered to the limits Spike had set for them; because they knew the punishment would be sure, severe, and quite likely end in dust if they crossed those limits. With feeding prohibited, the picked crew were having a good time like everybody else in the hypercharged fog of sweat and the smell, music and motion.
This enchanted harmony within set limits, established and brutally enforced, was Spike’s doing. His new order. Not to be trusted beyond the limits, but perfect within them on the shared middle ground of the gym.
Freeing a hand, she reached up to cup his ear, and he bent to hear her: “I get it, Spike! I get it, what you’re doing!” When he drew back and blinked, she nodded emphatically, grinning so hard her face hurt. It was so great to finally understand. A connection.
He swooped in for a kiss. When she started to sag against him, he held her steady, his head bowed, and raised his right arm straight up, calling, “Here!”
Somehow, they’d learned that signal. The vamps could probably hear him anyway. With a spread hand descending, he sent them to silence the radios, and as the music diminished and died, everybody gathered around, leaving happy, respectful room for Spike and Buffy in the center.
Looking around, collecting their attention, Spike said ruefully, “Well, we’re for it now. Not exactly the sort of exercise we were s’posed to be doing. Liable to get in Dutch for it, too. Wasn’t the, the instructor’s idea here: you remember that if anybody asks. Just sort of happened. Anyway, though this could roll on fine till midnight, the hour’s up and more, and next time, we stick to business here, all right? And you lot, scatter yourselves around and make certain not a single bit of trash is left anyplace. You lot with the radios, go stand by yours so I know they’re all accounted for and claimed by who brought them. That’s a good idea, music to move to--but not so many. We’ll see to that, next time. No more radios, right?” As the crowd broke into swirling motion, policing the floor and collecting belongings, Spike called, “My lot, help ‘em locate their own footgear, and no good stealing somebody else’s for a lark. And be certain you get your jackets and what-all, too: whatever you brought with you. Can’t leave this place looking like what’s left after the best party I been to for awhile. Long while. Now go on. Not gonna try to get names of the newcomers, that’s next time, supposing they come back for what this class is really about. Not this ridiculous dancing around nonsense. And thank the, Miss Elizabeth here, for not shutting us all down when she first came in, like the good sport that she is.”
There was a scatter of backward-shouted, “Thanks!” and somebody tried to get “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow” started but it petered out as the gym cleared. Directed by a flipped thumb, the vamps waiting by the door went out too.
“I’ll get the lights,” Spike said, starting toward the bleachers and the inner wall. Over his shoulder, he added, “See you brought the rest of the smell. Didn’t tell ‘em: enough around already to choke an elephant. Have to talk to Red about that. The fug’s chewable, in quantity, an' stinks of magic something fierce. There were a couple times I thought this was gonna turn into something absolutely else. Didn’t, though--not that I know of, anyways. Save the case for next time, I guess. I’ll take it back to your office for you. Afterward.”
Bounding up a few rows, he killed all the lights. A rattle, shortly after, marked his checking that the inner doors were secure. Buffy stood in the darkness tracking him by sound as he came back to her across the floor and wasn’t surprised when he grabbed hard and started trying to suck all her vitality out through her swollen lips.
“Now,” he growled in her ear.
Following, moving with his motion, everything reduced to smell and touch and taste, Buffy wondered that he’d thought a word was needed. When the time was right, you just knew. And everything followed from that, as it always had.
**********
He’d taken adequate thought. Fed himself up as much as he could take, even to getting a bit into the fledges’ ration. Had all the floor mats laid out in the corner under the bleachers, with some pillows, and a snuggy quilt: for under, so there’d be something between her and the mats’ plastic when he was nailing her into it; and for over, so she wouldn’t get cold in the between times. Nearly a hundred square feet of improvised bed: should do, no matter what they got up to.
With no mats set out for falling onto, the class had turned warm-up exercises into dancing. And it’d all gone on from there.
Taking thought had meant he’d been wholly distracted all day. Yearning toward it. Dreaming of it. Locked in arousal he didn’t want to waste on anything but its proper object. And then walking into the compelling haze of the smell, that fuzzed the edges and made everybody seem desirable and available to him. Could have shagged half the room and been working on the other half before Buffy arrived, so warm and so herself that no one else was the least appealing and he’d pulled out of a spontaneous group grope to get to her.
Good thing she hadn’t been ten minutes later. What she’d have walked in on wouldn’t have been anything like so harmless and innocent.
Have to have a talk with Red about the effect of the pheromone-heavy smell in volume, in an enclosed space, particularly on smell-sensitive vamps. Tone the next batch down considerable or there’d be consequences. Might already have been some, though he’d given his crew a good talking-to before his mind veered off and rejected anything that wasn’t sensation and readiness and need, all focused on her like a spotlight.
Taking thought beforehand meant that now he didn’t have to think at all. Could just turn loose and do.
They did. Frantic after weeks of abstinence, they exploded into one another. Couldn’t even make it as far as the prepared nest for the first few times. Couldn’t separate long enough to fully shed even the minimum clothing--haul it away, rip it, push it aside, and lost again. The taste of her, under her breasts, and her smell of wanting, sent him into immediate spasm. He came in his jeans, constricted, not even inside her. Unrecovered, still caught in that first release, he was back at her, wanting to taste every inch of her skin. Game face emerging and fading unnoticed, flexing within himself as everything inside was welcomed into the warmth. Seized, handled, scratched, bitten, wrestling and rolling, strength matched to need and his joy that she rose to him as would a great wave, capable of hurling him into rocks but instead engulfing and tumbling him, powerful and playful. Everywhere. Nothing he knew that wasn’t her. Again going for the tickling, that sent him into helpless spasms and another blowout stronger than the first and collapse after, passive while she yanked his boots off and able to be of little help with removing the sticky jeans.
“Sorry to put all the work on you, love. Think my spine’s melted,” he said blurrily. Her face came down and her hot mouth silenced him. Or at least dismissed anything but hard-drawn breath and babbling.
Eventually, on hands and knees, he led her to discover the nest, the quilt and the pillows, and swarmed all over her there, and it was so stupid ever to talk of “taking” a woman. It was giving, all giving, tuned to her now in a conversation of touches, finding where and how she most wanted him and giving her that, still incapable of delay but able to surprise her with fingers and mouth and tongue, startling sudden noises from her and pleased with his own inventiveness as she came to climax and convulsed, screaming.
Gentling her down afterward, holding her through the aftershocks, nuzzling at the mark that summoned and assured him that all was permitted. No hurt, no harm, except what she wanted, except what came of itself in the varying torques of their coming together. Didn’t need to hurt her. Nor not afraid of it, neither. All good, the bruised and aching places. Let him know it wasn’t a dream.
She slept a little then, and he continued to hold her, reaching behind and tenting the quilt around to hold her warmth, a little sad that he had none of that to give her when it meant so much to him. Softly petting until she stirred, all wonderfully slippery with sweat and smelling strongly of them both, cheek and sweated hair against his chest, stroking along his ribs, licking and nibbling at his nipples. Then she bit, and the galvanic shock went straight to his cock. Hard again and aching that good ache but patient with it now, keeping things on the simmer, not desperate to be finished. Time for less demanding kisses, investigating the precious inner fold of her elbow and behind her knee. Attending to her poor punished feet, the ridiculous shoes she inflicted on herself, brainwashed fashion victim to accept such self-imposed torture when the turn of a slim ankle, the imagined flare of a calf, was the quintessence of feminine allure in his day, not foot-binding as though modern girls were the inheritors of the heathen Chinese so that the toes withered and dropped off, nothing left but the stub of a foot, and on like that, meanwhile kneading and working the muscles, taking each toe into his mouth for separate attention while she defended her idiot choice of footwear on the grounds of practicality, like a stiletto heel was any help in staking a vamp or pivoting with a broadsword. Completely ridiculous. Happily bickering and all the rest simmering steadily underneath.
Her silver anklet was still in place. Tasted fine. She jerked her foot away, complaining that it tickled, and a fine one she was to talk.
Then she started telling him about Mike coming over and he fizzed as quietly as he could, hearing what she’d said, knowing what Mike would have made of it; touched that she’d even tried, sweet silly cow. Sounded like Mike had minded his manners, anyway, which was good enough and all he expected. But her talking love and Mike surely hearing dominance was just so impossibly funny he couldn’t keep it altogether inside so she pounced him, all indignant, and then opted for her turn on top, controlling the pace, and that was fine too, whatever she pleased. Bossy little minx when the mood took her, and he happy to have it so, changing leads never a problem for him. Had quite enough of being in charge in the ordinary way, glad to lie back and be ridden, letting it all build how it would, deeply sheathed, and the view glorious too, looking up at her: all ribboned and auraed with radiant heat, all the more beautiful for being self-forgetful in her blindness, all inward focused and intent, hair elflocked and wayward, hiding and then revealing her face as she moved on him.
Might not have been bad with the shackles, much like this and skip all the sad waiting but she wouldn’t even try, and that set him off somehow.
He flipped and held her and bore down hard, fast, impatient. Forcing sweet noises from her and making considerable noise himself like they weren’t supposed to at her place on account of Bit, needing her rest and all, not to mention Red, but no reason now not to cut loose and just fly. The mark called him out of himself and he bit down hard, everything clenched and exploding and completely gone into the sensation and the taste of her, smell and taste fused and overwhelming. Taking in the power while giving it back, no will left in the matter whatever. Part of an arc. Whited-out blank.
The voice inside him saying, It could be like that all the time. Lost in an ecstasy of completion.
He thought he said to it, “Bugger off. This is mine. I shut you out.”
Can’t do that, dear boy. Not once you’ve let me in. Besides, if I were out, I couldn’t do this to you.
A wave of pure bodily pleasure washed over him, devoid of context or significance. It lasted however long it lasted and was gone when it was gone. Sense seeped slowly back.
Dazed and lethargic, he thought he said, “Buffy’s better. We’re better. It all means. That, that’s just some trick.”
An appealing trick, nevertheless, isn’t it? Direct stimulation of the pleasure centers. Overloads the receptors with bliss. It’s impossible to feel better than that. Quantity and availability beat occasional, inconsistent quality every time. Over time. You’ll like my service. I absolutely guarantee it.
“Fuck off. Wanking myself unconscious for eternity isn’t how I figured to spend my unlife.”
Then, you hadn’t experienced it. Like the chip’s opposite: pleasure instead of pain. Unending. Your demon understands.
“And the button in your hand. Think not. If it’s so great, you do it. Be rid of you then. Fold all small and disappear up your own arse, why don’t you.”
Deliciously contrary. But your demon understands. Smug.
“I control my demon!”
Then followed an interval of vague drifting in which his exchange with the voice faded into a general unease and was forgotten except for the sated contentment of his demon, which was no very strange thing, after all. He became aware of lying stretched out with his head on the best pillow imaginable, Buffy’s belly, and her weeping onto him the way she did sometimes. Meant nothing bad, only letting all the stored-up sorrow out, which she mostly didn’t allow herself except at such times. Just how she was, how she did. He didn’t take it personally.
**********
Mike was on the hunt.
This player, this fucking sorcerer, Ethan Rayne, had made beaucoup enemies in Sunnydale, his last few swings though. So there were those that remembered. A bit of spite here, a grudge there. Somebody he'd pissed off with a non-delivery or a casual double-cross who wouldn't mind a piece of his hide if it didn't risk or cost them anything. Not many vamps, though--vamps didn't much like magic or those who played around with it. As Spike would have put it, too poncy, too sneaky, for blunt vamp smash-and-slash tastes. Much as Mike heard poisoners were regarded by the more directly murderous elite in prisons. So vamps didn't tend to have much contact with magic workers, not even enough to dislike them on a personal basis. Except, of course, Digger. However, Mike put off visiting with Digger, saving that for a last resort, instead proceeding roundabout.
First he built a network of connections who knew something of Rayne’s prior escapades, information mainly sourced initially from Willow, who’d have a natural interest in such things. With sufficient reason, Mike had gotten his mind around what Spike had finally accepted: that you didn’t need to be abroad in daylight to talk to somebody. Spike had given him a cell phone. Mike used it, sitting tense and intent in his own lair, an abandoned house at the edge of Tryed Stone Cemetery, that he shared with his crew of three fighters and five minions.
Talking on the phone was strange and uncomfortable--no smell or body language to go by, only the words--but it had advantages, too. There was no rank to be considered. No fight could break out over the phone. Those he talked to weren’t reacting to this big hulking guy with a fairly stupid, placid expression. Nor to a vamp that might take a notion to yank them apart if he didn’t like what he heard, since all vamps had a rep as crazy-volatile among the rest of the demon population. He was just a voice to them, as they were to him, and he found things were simpler that way. Much clearer, more understandable.
To Willow, all he had to do was identify himself as “Spike’s Mike” and she opened right up and told him in plain words what he knew to ask and even suggested promising lines of follow-up he hadn’t then thought of. Helpful, direct. He decided he more liked Willow than not. Apart from the magic, of course.
More demons than he would have thought had phones. Most weren’t listed in any book, but there was a network of demons who needed or wanted to contact others, and the connections spun out from there. Within a couple hours of starting, Mike had 127 numbers jotted down, together with their associated names and designations: he found that there were quite a lot of demons in the repair and delivery businesses, servicing those parts of Sunnydale humans avoided after dark. Nearly all the cabbies were demons of the less conspicuous breeds. Utility workers, too. It made sense, though he’d never had any reason to think about it before.
And into the notebook went what they knew about Rayne: where they’d seen him, what he’d been up to, why they disliked the bastard. Mike didn’t come up with a single individual who’d had any contact with the Chaos Mage who seemed to have the least respect or liking for him. Practically fell all over themselves to spew some story of how he’d done them down. Stupid, Mike decided, to piss so many off so casually, with such indifference. Given the chance, they’d turn on you, do you whatever small harm they could. Even mice could do you down, given enough of them; or distract and occupy your attention while somebody else came at you from a direction you hadn’t expected.
Rayne was a bit like Spike that way, he thought then, except that Spike knew and accepted that there’d be consequences of pissing people off on a wholesale basis and faced up to them and then beat them down, toe to toe, whenever they confronted him. So maybe not just stupid. More arrogant. And Mike had nothing against arrogance when it was earned. Like a Master vamp insisting on due respect and beating down any who refused it. Just the natural order of things.
In the first of the early twilight, he rolled over to the Magic Box to talk to the vengeance demon, Anya, that owned the place. In the lull between the end of the work day and the start of nighttime activity, the shop was empty and Anya, a nice looking woman, seemed not at all unwilling to talk to him--even flirted with him a little, which was always pleasant, though not at all serious, as best he could judge.
Leaning on the counter where the cash register was, Mike said, “Trying to get a line on this Ethan Rayne. Figure he has to buy stuff, to do what he does. And where else would he come but here?”
“Naturally,” Anya agreed with a brisk head bob. “I have the best selection and quality of materials to be found within a hundred mile radius.”
“You know him by sight?”
“I do now,” Anya replied with an extremely toothy grin, chin resting on an upright prop of fists. “I’d be a pitiful judge of customers if I couldn’t tell a true Adept from a novice at twenty paces: Adepts won’t tolerate more than a 30% markup, whereas novices can be overcharged wildly and are too ignorant to know the difference. Adepts smell of their profession. Like dentists and garbage collectors.”
“Expect they would. If he comes in again, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.” Mike pulled from a shirt pocket a yellow sticky with his cell phone number and passed it over. “Or just call sometime to chat, if you take the notion. Though I don’t expect a lady like yourself has much spare time, what with running this place. Expect you’re pretty busy, socially, too.”
“Well, I’m very involved with civic groups, the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Merchants’ Association, that’s true, and it does take up much of my time. With the extended evening hours, I seldom get home before midnight these days. Evening business has really picked up, the past few weeks. I’ve seen you patrolling.” By Anya’s expression, she’d liked what she’d seen, too.
Mike returned her smile pleasantly. “Spike, he calls them sweeps. To tell that from what he does with the Slayer. But yeah, I help out how I can. However he wants. Sort of his second these days, though I have a territory of my own. Always back and forth between there and the factory…. Kind of occupied past midnight on that account, though we’ll be going to two shifts soon--to midnight, and then to dawn. Sunrise…. Don’t yet have the hands to run that yet, though.”
“It’s been noticed. Much more repeat business, steady customers that don’t inexplicably disappear. In general, historically, vamps have been considered bad for business. That’s changing. The colors are noticed, even by merchants who don’t have the least idea what they stand for.” Anya tugged with two fingers at the sleeve of his black T-shirt, one he’d found with the slogan Farm Fresh Tilapia--Fewer Bones! and the logo of the Farmed Fish Association, a twisty looking fish caught in mid-jump. She smiled up into his face and gave his arm a pat.
No question: flirting.
She went on, “The Downtown Merchants’ Association is behind this initiative 200%, and you can tell Spike I said so. Or is ‘initiative’ a bad word for you? I know Spike gets an odd look in his eyes when I forget and use it, and no wonder, given his experiences.”
“No, don’t mean nothing to me.”
“Good. Anyway, we’re solid.” Anya shook her clasped hands in what Mike supposed was a sort of cheering-on gesture. Turning pensive, she continued, “I’ve been considering taking on extra staff for the evening. These ten-hour days aren’t healthy for a girl my age. I’m sure I look a positive fright--bags under the eyes, incipient wrinkles.” She offered her wide-eyed face for his inspection.
“Expect you’re tired, but it doesn’t show. Don’t see any wrinkles, not a one.”
“I said ‘incipient,’” she said crossly, rubbing at the space between her eyebrows. “So there are bags, then.”
“No bags, neither. Look like a magazine cover.”
“Really? Which one?”
Mike cast his eyes to the ceiling, visualizing magazine racks at the supermarket nearest his lair. “Modern Bride, maybe. Or Diet Surgery, that had that series about Melanie Griffith awhile back.”
She nodded emphatically. “So sad, when the before pictures look better than the after! A girl has to be extra careful when she’s only intermittently immortal. And the schedule is positively killing. So…before I actually advertise for help, might you be interested? Good-looking retail personnel make the customers so much more likely to think well of an establishment, and therefore much more likely to return. Repeat business: that’s the secret of successful retail.” Anya nodded solemnly, disclosing this sentiment--surely one worthy of a T-shirt, in Mike’s estimation.
“Couldn’t say. Have to ask Spike about it. Maybe. I’ll give it some thought. Now back to this Rayne. Anything he bought, that he had delivered? Maybe an address?”
“I think there was one phone order, now that you mention it: let me look.” She dug under the counter and brought out a ledger-style book. She banged it open on the countertop and started flipping pages, scanning with an intent frown. “There it is: 1601 Oak, second floor,” she declared triumphantly.
Mike got out a pocket pad and borrowed her pen to write down the address. Then he asked soberly, “We gonna be on the outs if I tear the head off a steady customer?”
“Well, that would really depend on why. Though in my profession, it’s not good to be overly inquisitive about final intent, motivation, that sort of thing. So I’m not meaning to pry, or--”
“He’s doing something to Spike. Something that’s….” Mike stopped himself at the last second, before admitting whatever it was had Spike scared--strong enough to smell. “I don’t like it and mean to stop it.”
“Is Lady Gates of no help? I know her attitude toward Spike is somewhat ambiguous, or should that be ambivalent? Anyway, she certainly might be expected to intervene, since she considers Spike her property.”
“Don’t know what she’s after,” Mike responded, scowling. “Except for setting Dawn aside, that is. Hasn’t been helpful so far, that I can see.”
“Then by all means, stop the bastard,” Anya said, nodding several times. “But do be careful: mages aren’t easily approached and tend to have very nasty things up their sleeves by way of defense. Or they wouldn’t live as long as they do. Has Spike authorized you to act on his behalf?”
“On some things. Not about this, though,” Mike admitted unwillingly. “On the other hand, this Rayne won’t look to see me coming.” He quoted, “‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.’”
“Exactly right! And he certainly won’t hear it from me!” Anya placed fingers over her mouth, then made as if turning a key in a lock over her full and red-painted lips. “Everybody knows I’m the soul of discretion!”
A narrow look found no conscious irony. So maybe her eager rattling on about Rayne was only part of the general dislike of the man, or maybe it meant she considered them on confidential terms on account of the connection to Spike. Likely the latter, he decided.
“I’m serious,” Anya said, clasping hands around his wrist and looking into his eyes earnestly. “I’ve never known a vamp who wasn’t far too reckless, charging in without a plan of attack, much less preparing a defense. Spike’s notorious for that. I’ve had to bail him out of several situations over the years. If Spike hesitates to go after Rayne himself, there’s good reason, and you should give it a lot of serious thought before involving yourself.”
“Don’t worry on my account: I’m protected.”
“One of Willow’s lockets?”
“No, a watch. But same sort of thing, I expect. Spike gave it to me,” Mike informed her proudly.
“Willow’s a good ally and a powerful defense, even if she’s often unreasonable about what constitutes a trade discount. But don’t trust that talisman blindly, not against a mage with a taste for influencing vampires. If he can hurt Spike, he can hurt you.”
“That’s so,” Mike admitted. He hadn’t thought about that side of it. His respect for Anya’s shrewdness, already high, went up a notch. “Thanks for the warning. And I’ll take what care I can.”
“Be sure you do. I imagine you’re told all the time that you have the most lovely eyelashes. But the first time I remember seeing you, you had both arms broken, two black eyes swollen shut, and a concussion: you looked as though you’d been through a meat grinder. And that was just Spike! It would be a shame to get yourself turned into something hideous or trivial, like a newt or a Mayfly. After all, who pays any attention to a Mayfly? And they live such short, unimportant lives, too--the epitome of mortality. That’s if he doesn’t dust you outright, of course. Less hideous, but far more final.”
“I’ll take care,” Mike assured her, and thanked her for her help.
Took less than five minutes to get to that address on Oak. No surprise, the second floor apartment was empty, and maybe it’d been no more than a convenience address, where something could be dropped off and then collected later. But Mike thought not. Having forced a window, he stood in the space the drab living room furniture left open, shut his eyes, and pulled what information he could from the atmosphere. Definite stink and prickle of residual magic, though old and faded to nearly nothing. Magic of a dry sort, not the more active fiery kinds. Passive, like a bear trap, set and waiting for you to walk in, not the sort that would chase you down the street or erupt into your dreams, though he wasn’t so discriminating a judge of that as Spike was.
And stronger than the scent of magic was a mix of lingering personal scents: this apartment had been occupied by many over the years, and their smells lingered. Took him awhile to separate the older from the newer and memorize the distinguishing characteristics of the one associated with the magic, indefinably tied to it by smell.
He went in search of that smell. The apartment had been stripped pretty thoroughly but not repainted. He found a hand print on a door. Couldn’t see it, but he could smell it just fine. That helped him refine his original guess at Rayne’s own smell, as distinguished from all the other smell-ghosts that inhabited this place. He thought of taking the door, but it would be hard to maneuver on the bike, so he kept looking and found a crumpled tissue lodged unnoticed behind a bureau. Smell was distinct on it: it would do. Holding it carefully by the least corner with a two-finger grip, he ducked back out through the window and inserted the tissue in one of the set of panniers he’d gotten for his bike, to avoid mixing the scent with his own any more than he could help. A zip-shut bag would be good, but he hadn’t thought of that in time. He could pick one up on the way back to the factory.
When he’d set tonight’s sweep on that scent, if Rayne moved around anywhere in Sunnydale in the open air tonight, they’d have a lock on him they could follow to his destination and likely his lair. A good beginning. Mike wouldn’t have to go to Digger about it after all--not yet, anyway. Didn’t want to show his hand to Digger if he could avoid it, because Digger was almost certainly involved, since the target was Spike. And Mike didn’t trust himself to keep his mouth shut. Hadn’t seen much of Digger lately, except at some distance, at Willy’s. Not since Spike had let Mike feed from him. Digger would have noticed and expect to be told why, and Mike wasn’t at all eager to have that conversation. So best to put it off as long as possible.
Then he headed off to the factory by way of the mall. Picked up a box of zip-shut bags at the drugstore there, then wandered around moodily looking into shop windows, waiting for inspiration to strike. Dawn’s birthday party was tomorrow, and he was going, so human customs dictated a present. Likely why the Slayer had invited him and Spike had said yeah, go: raise the tally of presents.
But nothing looked good to him. Nothing spoke to his senses and said Dawn to him. Been so long since he’d kept company with her or tasted her, he reflected sadly. Caught her scent a few times, but angry words and a cold stare had gone with that, so he couldn’t really be happy at the memory.
She wasn’t really there, and maybe she wouldn’t like what he got her anyway because it’d been from him, so it likely didn’t matter what he got her. So just get something simple, any old thing, and get it gift-wrapped, and a card to go with. Be done with it.
Deciding, he grimly headed for the department store.
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