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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 lost most of Thursday. He wasn’t sure how. Felt so good, he didn’t particularly care, but it puzzled him whenever he roused from his walking dream, checked his watch, and found another two or three hours had gone someplace. Maybe south--south sounded good to him. Warm there. Good place for the untethered hours to go. Then the fog would roll back and blank out the puzzlement.
Once, the fog lifted and he found himself fighting all-out against a trio of Tethys demons: many-limbed, with tough black shiny chitin, spurs at the joints, had to go for the eyes on those, then get a blade in under the skull plate and separate it from the thorax; looking around the big indigo-dark temple space for something with a cutting edge….
Another time, his opponent was an ugly stinking troll in furs and leathers and odd scraps of cloth, and he was keeping clear of the huge hammer, indifferently in and out of dappled sunlight on a hillside, the sun chartreuse and empty of harm, and almost got himself mashed flat trying to puzzle that one out, wondering what’d become of the Tethys or had he done for them? Weapon, came the insistent thought: had to find a weapon, don’t worry about the Tethys, dealing with the troll now, and that was no problem, not really: just get uphill of him, dodge the hammer swing, and go right at him, hard and fast, maybe knock him off balance and rolling. Anyway, tear his throat out. Try not to get hit in the long while it would take the troll to collapse. Had all the weapon he needed, he was a fucking vampire!
The minute he thought that and started to act on it, the hillside and the strange sun were gone and the next he knew, he was perambulating along the sewers. Marks at the junctions told him where he was, and a glance at his watch told him it was already past the time the Slayer was due for her workout.
Some way, he’d blown off the whole day’s agenda, yet couldn’t bring himself to care. Actually, he felt most inclined to get extremely drunk and blow the rest of it. The agenda--even the thought of the agenda--bored him stiff. And the thought of a long session with the translation was even worse. Sit and stare at a screen for hours? What had possessed him to agree to that? Very no fun whatever. Fighting Tethys, now that was more like it. He wondered how that had all come out and how he’d missed the finish.
Take on Digger, maybe: Digger would have enough fighters by now to put up a good scrap. There’d been a reason he hadn’t taken Digger on directly before now but he couldn’t bring it to mind.
He felt strange, stoned, and that puzzled him because that was Mike’s preferred impairment, not his. So maybe starting an all-out battle should be put off awhile. Stoned, his judgment wasn’t worth shit. Besides, the thought of fighting in Digger’s labyrinthine lair didn’t feel like fun, once he started considering it. Felt like an appealing trap. Put him off the idea somehow. Hell with it all. Just go up to Willy’s, take on the house. Drink himself paralytic afterward. But get someplace safe first, considering the blood price Digger had set on him.
He couldn’t think of any fun that didn’t drag waves of complications rolling in behind. Nothing simple and direct, the way he wanted.
Had to be hallucinating again: the Tethys’ cathedral, the troll and the hillside in the wrong colored light. Might better sideline himself and wait for the sense to come back.
Wished he could talk to Joyce, but he recalled she was gone, likely to where he’d never be, so fuck it. Likewise Dawn, whom he missed acutely: wanted her real bad to sort this for him, tell and confirm for him what was real, but that was a shut door too, couldn’t go there. Not Buffy, though: had to keep all the nonsense clear of her or like as not, she’d figure he’d slipped a cog and gone all crazy again, want to chain him up in the basement except the shackles were gone, no way to lock him down until the sense came back. Shackles, they’d been comforting in a way: locked down, he’d known he couldn’t hurt anybody who mattered. Didn’t have that worry on his mind. But she’d taken against them somehow so they were gone and he’d have to manage this all by himself.
Had to stay well clear of the Slayer. No help to be had there.
Seemed like every way he turned, he ran up against a blind wall. Rat in a maze, subtly herded along a path by finding everything else closed off and no way to get above it, figure how to go. Too stoned and fogged to see it plain, yet too driven by restlessness to stop where he was.
When he started battering the walls with his fists, the soothing fog slid back in, feeding him reassurance that none of it mattered and there was no need to hurt himself over it even though the hurt had felt good--like the beginnings of clarity. Feeding him pleasure, right now, that was an escape from choice. Didn't have to care about none of it, only drift and let the fog take him. Let himself be pushed wherever it was he was needed to go. Fog didn't want him tormented or uncertain. Liked him fine the way he was and would presently deliver him to more fighting and all things that satisfied his nature.
Couldn’t very well argue with that.
**********
It wasn’t the end of the world, Buffy thought, without a hand free to rub at her eyes because she was carrying a carton containing her pencil pot, half a dozen computer diskettes, a notebook, a few pens, and the six remaining squeeze bottles of smell down the school’s front stairs toward the SUV in the parking lot.
She’d only lost her job, and what was that? A part-time nothing, a make-work service usually performed unpaid by the head of the P.T.A., that she didn’t even belong to. It was really stupid to feel like the world’s utter failure, except that she did. So she was a stupid failure. Not to mention guilt: one Charissa Richardson, whose name wasn’t even on the roster, claimed she’d gone into the gym a virgin, on Tuesday, and left otherwise. The family doctor had confirmed her non-virgin status. A complaint of inadequate supervision had been lodged by the parents.
Not rape, Principal Doty had assured her. Youthful high spirits, poor judgment on everyone’s part. No one claimed otherwise. But better all around if appropriate action was seen to be taken and the person technically responsible for supervising that after school activity was sent away, presumably to the more structured environment of the business world. That might fend off a lawsuit, which the school really couldn’t afford under present circumstances. However, he was quite willing to provide a reference, should one be needed, since her job performance had been quite satisfactory except for this one regrettable lapse in judgment.
So the bottom line was that she was out, and so was her rowdy exercise/self-defense class.
She tossed the carton on the middle bench seat and slid the door shut. Then she turned against the vehicle, her face hidden in her bent arm, and bawled.
She’d been rejected. Was unwanted and disapproved of. Had Done Something Wrong. It was devastating. She couldn’t think through the ramifications. If she’d been told that losing her job meant that in two hours, marshals would arrive to seal and seize Casa Summers and dump them and their belongings out on the street, and that she’d have to go back to the horrible Double-Meat Palace and beg the manager for her old job back, she would have gulped, nodded numbly, and believed it.
Willow knew about catastrophes like this: once she’d gotten a B on an algebra exam and been inconsolable for weeks. But Buffy’s try to reach Willow by phone went unanswered. In class, perhaps: Buffy never could keep Will’s daytime schedule straight.
She next tried Spike, and that was even more frustrating, because you often had to wait through twenty or more rings before he’d pick up. This time, not even thirty brought a response.
Oh, why were the people you depended on never available when you really needed them?
Flinging the unresponsive phone onto the passenger side, Buffy turned on the ignition, shoved the gear shift, moved about five feet, then jammed the shift into Park while slamming on the brakes. Had to dive into her tote for tissues for an eye wipe and a nose-blow, in that order. Being an organized person, she had a small trash bag on the floor to dispose of the tissue wad. She took her foot off the brake while shoving the shift lever, and the SUV lurched forward.
The phone buzzed.
Everything jammed to a halt again. Buffy was too weepy and distressed to look for the caller ID: she just shoved the phone to her ear.
Anya’s voice blared, “Buffy, you have to get over here this instant, right away! Something terrible has happened!”
“What?” Buffy shrieked back, filled with horrible imaginings.
“The Chaos Stone has been stolen!”
“The what?”
“--and it’s all Willow’s fault. My life may be in danger! You have to come here right now and protect me and get it back!”
With no clear idea of what Anya was so wound up about, Buffy shoved the SUV back into gear and drove out of the school parking lot, scowling with Slayer determination, bumping heavily over the curb.
**********
Buffy had a vague recollection of the Chaos Stone: Angel had dug it up someplace, and it’d been used as a diversion during the closing of the Hellmouth, drawing away most of the Turok-han, clearing the way for her, Spike, and the SITs to get into the Hellmouth with nobody left to fight but the Bringers.
“But that’s not the point,” Anya declared, wringing her hands and pacing in front of a display of desiccated Hands of Glory. “It’s worth money. Lots of money!”
Buffy sat down at the big table. She wasn’t exactly glad of the distraction, but she was prepared to listen and try to understand what this had to do with her. “Remind me how you ended up with it.”
“Angel wanted it back, but Spike tossed it to me, and we both ran,” Anya explained, chin lifted righteously high. “I have it, so I own it. Or I had it…. And I had a buyer!” she wailed. “And now it’s gone!”
“What is the thingy, precisely?”
“The dial of a fixed dimensional portal that doesn’t exist anymore. So it doesn’t connect with anything. But it could be made to. Now, it’s just randomness, the keyhole of a door into noplace, everyplace. Energy blowing through like wind. It has an energy signature that demons are attracted to--particularly vamps. Metaphysical harmonics, or some such thing. Personally, I found it annoying, which was another reason I parked it elsewhere while I was shopping for a buyer. It set my teeth on edge.”
Looking around the shop, noticing the modifications made to the annex to repurpose the training room as retail space and pulling a slight frown on that account, though it was no surprise, Buffy asked, “It wasn’t here?”
“No, that’s what I’ve been telling you!” Anya flopped down in an adjoining chair, flinging her hands in agitation. “It’s best to be discreet about such things. You’d scarcely believe how unscrupulous some dealers in magical antiquities can be. So I certainly didn’t want it here: not nearly secure enough.” With hands clenched in effort, Anya forced herself to spit it out: “I engaged Olaf to look after it for me.”
“Your ex?” Buffy asked incredulously.
“He’s perfectly reliable. Well, stupid. And it was no imposition--all he had to do was keep it for me. And I paid him! Or would have, when it was time to collect it. And in that dimension, its shrieking was barely noticeable. No one should have been able to find it. Except Willow. I told Willow where it was. I was naïve and trusting, and now she’s betrayed me!”
“Slow down, Anya. How do you know it’s gone?”
Anya made a vexed face. “Well, I looked, of course! I generally pop over once a week, just to see how Olaf is getting on. A few drinks, a few laughs. It’s sociable! And it’s only a small interdimensional jump. Why shouldn’t I?”
“What does Olaf have to say about it?”
“Nothing. No Olaf, no stone. I came right back and phoned you.”
“Ahuh.” Buffy tucked away for further examination the possibility that Anya’s pop-in visits had been enough to alert even Olaf, who had an IQ well south of his blood pressure, that what was in his custody was valuable. “How valuable?”
“The current price is $ 100,000. And it was met, Buffy! I had a buyer!”
Buffy fanned herself. “That’s a big-ticket item, all right. But Anya--I don’t yet see how any of this has to do with me.”
“Well, there’s Willow: I admit she probably didn’t steal it herself, but she undoubtedly blabbed to somebody. And she’s your friend! And then there’s this Chaos Mage who wants to reopen the Hellmouth. I’d think that would concern you somewhat. And then--”
“Whoa! Whoa! Where did this come from?”
“Mike told me. Yes!” Struck by a thought, Anya dashed back to the main counter, got a yellow sticky out of the register, and dialed the phone, leaning on an elbow. After a long wait, she said, “It’s Anya. Yes, I realize you were probably asleep, but this is an emergency. Please come down now. Right away.” She listened, then said, “Yes, I’m quite aware that the sun is shining. There’s tunnel access in the alley, I’m sure-- Fine, that will be fine, I really appreciate--” Replacing the receiver, Anya remarked, “Vamps certainly can be cranky when you wake them up. I thought of Spike first, but I couldn’t reach him and besides, he’d want a finder’s fee. Mike will do just as well. Better.”
Buffy deduced that Mike wouldn’t require being paid.
While waiting for Anya to finish her call, Buffy had been wandering among the tables and displays, avoiding the Hands of Glory, for which she'd developed a fixed dislike. On the table nearest the shop door, half a dozen or so tiny one-ounce bottles were set out. Curly lettering identified them as "Sunnydale Seduction." On a nasty guess, Buffy opened one: sure enough, Willow's magicked smell. Repackaged.
"You're selling it?" Buffy demanded indignantly. "For" (she checked the sticker) "ten dollars an ounce?"
"Just because you have no retail sense doesn't mean nobody has," Anya retorted airily. "I was going to tell you, the next time we had a meeting. We haven't had one lately. So. You'll get your share. Or Spike Enterprises will. It's a sensible business arrangement. I don't know what you're so upset about."
"Did you ask anybody? Did you tell anybody?"
"Really, I can't see that it's important now, with everything else that's going on. Please wipe the bottle before you put it back: I can't sell it with your finger marks all over it."
Grumpily, Buffy swiped the tiny bottle on her sleeve, then thumped it down. It galled her that Anya was making money from what they were giving away for free. But she should have known better. For a moment, she considered requiring a finder's fee, that even Spike wasn't dim enough to pass by, according to Anya. But no. Regretfully, she decided that would be Wrong.
If this theft was part of the attempt to reopen the Hellmouth, it was her duty as the Slayer to prevent that from happening. The Council had made it abundantly clear that Slayers were not to be paid for doing their duty. Despite Spike’s often expressed contempt for that view, Buffy reluctantly accepted it even now, when she imagined her modest bank balance vanishing under a deluge of bills for lack of a paycheck.
“OK,” she said, settling back at the big table, “let’s see if I have this right: you had this major, somewhat broken, magical rock, in your possession because you ran off with it.”
Anya nodded cheerfully. “The Indiana Jones approach: grab the rock and run, carefully avoiding pygmies with blow-pipes, snakes, rivals, and back-stabbing assistants. A time-honored method.”
“And you parked it for safe-keeping with your ex, who may have walked off with it himself, for all we know.”
“Nuh-uh. Doesn’t have the brains. Besides, it’s a very ugly rock: it doesn’t look in the least valuable! Besides, I’ve taken vengeance on Olaf once already: he really, really wouldn’t like what I’d wish on him the second time around.”
“You’re Vengeance Demoning again?”
Anya shrugged. “I still have friends in the business. And would I ever be due a major vengeance for a betrayal like this! That stupid, Olaf isn’t. Mike will determine. Vamps are excellent trackers. And any vamp would know if the stone was anywhere near. It’s perfectly straightforward: I want my property back! Because it’s mine, and timely recovery and sensible, profitable disposition will avert a possible apocalypse. Buffy, you don’t seem to be taking this as seriously as you should: you seem distracted. Is something wrong?”
**********
It was a heluva big troll. Very dead. A couple of hours, maybe. And Spike’s smell plain from twenty feet away, which was about as close as Mike cared to get.
He’d been in jungles with people shooting at him and nothing like as spooked as he was now. Standing on a hill in the fucking daylight, and the daylight the wrong color, in some other fucking dimension (and what the hell did that mean?) and everything smelling strange and wrong, and if they said it was a troll Mike guessed they’d know, but he’d never in his life seen anything near so huge and ugly except a whore in Lagos and she hadn’t been anything like that size, and smack in the middle of it, Spike’s tag.
His trace, still hanging in the air, plain as anything. Followed it right downhill, once Mike had more or less got over feeling like he’d been yanked inside-out, one second standing in the Magic Box, uncomfortably holding hands with Anya and the Slayer, and the next on this wrong-shaped hill, gullies not running the way they should, trees all wrong and flabby looking, and locking right onto the two familiar things: the smell of blood and death, off a ways, and Spike.
He’d done this: Spike had. And how the hell was Mike supposed to play this?
First thing, he decided, was not to throw up. Anybody always looked like a fool, doing that. Next thing was to keep his mouth shut, which should also help with the not throwing up part.
It was like being seasick or like watching a 3-D movie without the special glasses.
He turned his back and walked off a little distance upwind, like he was hunting a track. No need of that whatever, but it was something to do, a reason not to be standing over the huge ugly foul stinking corpse with the two women, who were talking in upset voices but didn’t seem to mind the light or the thoroughly alien landscape that was freaking Mike so bad.
If he couldn’t get out of this light in the next five minutes, he was gonna come totally fucking unglued and do something. Didn’t know what. Something.
Expect a vamp to suddenly find himself in broad daylight and behave like it was nothing, like his demon wasn’t going absolutely apeshit, shaking so deep and constant it probably didn’t even show and what was that smell? And how could Spike have been in this place and keep it together enough to take down a thing like that, that troll, not just be hunting a hole to hide from the light?
Done it good, Spike had: took the throat right out. Blood everywhere roundabout. Women, they were stepping in it (don’t look!). So must not be good for feeding on, trolls. Might be good to know that, sometime. Spike’s blood, too, some. Mike stooped, touched, tasted. Not a lot, though. And the blood track went up, past those trees (?), back toward the wretched, crooked shack where they’d landed.
God, he had to get out of here before he made a total spectacle of himself!
Anya, she was talking to him and he hadn’t taken in a word. He waved uphill and started off, leading them along the trace, staying well ahead and the Slayer at his back: didn’t like that, not one bit. Could feel her there, some way, Death right behind him, sizzling on his nerves, something he’d thought about but never actually felt, and if he went for her, Spike would be months in showing him what a mistake that was. Unless, of course, the Slayer did him quick, which was a lot more likely.
And he just stopped. Couldn’t hack it.
Slayer, she circled him wide around, standing a good distance, watching him. “Mike…are you all right?”
Mike made some sort of noise that wasn’t a laugh. “Bad place here. Let me be.”
“Sunlight,” said the Slayer, and Mike glanced up and was surprised to see that she knew. “Your demon’s having problems with it.”
Not mocking him for going all unstrung, like he might have expected. Just saying it, understanding. Neutral.
Mike didn’t know what to make of that. Realized he was standing there truefaced, the demon damn near going into hysterics, and it wasn’t him. It was the demon. Demon was shaking him, not himself. He got that. Tried really hard to find the place inside that was just him, not the demon. Find a place to stand, accept the fact that this sun wasn’t hurting him, only the demon’s terror of it. Accept that the only way back was on: do what they’d brought him to do. Or some of it, anyway. Hold what he knew, which wasn’t much, steadily inside, not blurt it out just to be rid of the pressure of keeping shut about it.
Only the demon. Not him. Inside, he shouted something like Shut up, you maniac! You’re not helping here! I’ll get us out of this if you’ll just shut up!
And the demon backed off. Curled up and hid, some way. Trusted what he said and retreated.
That had never happened to Mike before.
Deliberately, because he could, he forced trueface back inside, where it belonged.
“Killer went back up to the shack. Not there anymore, though. Nobody close at all.”
Slayer, she didn’t move until he glanced and caught her eyes. Then she nodded, smelling and seeming all calm and steady. Businesslike.
Mike thought he’d never really noticed the Slayer of her before, like he felt it in this place.
He said, “Other day, when I pitched you off. I was totally out of line. Sorry.”
“All settled and done,” she replied over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.” Then she stopped, turned, to assure him gravely, “Apology accepted.”
They went on, the women, with the Slayer leading off, striding up the hill. Mike saw no reason to follow, instead going along his own track to the place they’d landed. Assuming the way in was also the way back, as good a place as any to wait for it to be done.
He looked around at how things appeared in the wrong sunlight. How the shadows fell. Took note of the strange smells, even though he couldn’t interpret them. Might be useful, sometime. Just himself, standing there, taking notice. Separate from the demon. It felt strange, but much better than the panic.
He took out the pocket watch. Not to check the time, just to hold it, see how it shone in the daylight. It steadied him, doing that.
Figured he now knew why Spike had missed the sweep, last night. Mike had seen to it, but it had bothered him because it wasn’t like Spike to not leave word when plans changed. Some other business to attend to, apparently. When it became Mike’s business, Spike would tell him. Still, he didn’t like not being told. Not knowing what he was supposed to be doing, how to play things.
He’d wait until Spike told him what to do about this business with the fucking troll. There should be a chance for that, at Dawn’s party tonight. Whatever else was going on, Spike wouldn’t miss that. Keep shut about it, in the meantime.
Presently the women came back toward him, talking between themselves. When they came close, Anya called, “Mike, do you know the Chaos Stone? That felt like a tiny Hellmouth?”
It was a dumb question: every vamp in Sunnydale who’d survived the Turok-han would know the call that thing put out, though hardly any would know it by sight or be able to put a name to it. However, Mike didn’t say so, just bobbed his head.
Anya continued, “Can you feel it here?”
“It’s not here. Can we go back now?”
“Are you sure?”
Mike didn’t want to piss her off, considering she was the only one who knew how to get back. “I’m real sure. It’s not anyplace around here. Is that what you’re looking for?”
“Yes,” she admitted, as though it cost her something. “Olaf, my ex, was keeping it for me.” The downhill tilt of her head said she meant the troll.
Her ex. Unless she was a shape-changer, like the demon whore in Lagos, the lady had fucking strange taste in fucking. Didn't seem all that cut up, though, to find him that way. Mainly annoyed, seemed like. Mike was gonna have to reconsider.
“If I notice it, I’ll tell you about it,” he offered, and that seemed to be finally enough: she held out both hands, one to him and one to the Slayer.
Mike had never expected he’d be so glad to hold hands with the Slayer.
**********
Willow decided that everybody other than herself was totally crazed.
There were vamps in the basement, digging. Waving small jars, Xander wanted to talk about the magical refractive index of latex paint, as compared to oil-based. Noticing that Buffy looked tense and depressed, Willow gladly turned from Xander’s bizarre questions and suggested they go mall-hopping tomorrow afternoon after they finished class and work, respectively. She was astonished when Buffy’s face crumpled and Buffy burst into tears and ran off upstairs. When Willow started to follow, Rona caught her by the front door, where the SITs, in overalls, T-shirts, and bandannas, were checking in deliveries, asking if she’d seen Spike.
Without waiting for Willow to respond, Rona explained, “He didn’t collect the tribute this morning, nor yesterday evening, neither. And he’s not answering his cell, no matter how long you wait. Huey thought maybe he made do with what’s flown in for the fledges, but Sue says not, it was all there. So--”
“Sue?” Willow interrupted blankly.
Rona stopped in mid-gesture: frowning, puzzled, slightly impatient. “You know: Sue! Suzanne. That got herself turned in Chicago, came--”
“Oh: that Sue,” Willow responded meekly. “How does Sue come into it?”
“Through the pipes. She’s in the basement.” Rona’s eyes widened. “Oh, you mean, like, come into it! Well, she’s a fledge, isn’t she, so she’d know if they’d been shorted. And I know we said we’d do for him, but not if he’s gonna pass up perfectly good tribute blood ‘cause he’s too frickin’ lazy to go collect it. Anyway, if you see him, tell him I brought it all and stuck it in the fridge, in the vegetable crisper, and if he don’t get it soon, it’s gonna go off on account of no preservatives?” With a brisk nod, Rona turned back to comparing the contents of a box against a checklist, leaving Willow with her jaw hanging and the impulse to wibble her lips with a forefinger, indicative of extreme bafflement.
Then Anya came out of the den to announce she’d stuck Willow’s laptop and reference materials in the cupboard, to clear the table, and wanting to know when the next batch of smell would be ready, since the current supply was almost exhausted and it wasn’t good business sense to create a demand and not be geared up to fulfill it.
Hands on blue-aproned hips, hair done up in a multicolored scarf, Anya waited expectantly for an answer.
Feeling not merely pinned down but skewered like a bug, Willow protested that nobody had even told her the supply was getting low and she’d expected to have a post-mortem on the effects before going to fullscale production.
“Why?” Anya asked brightly. “Has it died?” Then she, too, went into the pained lip-tremble, the welling and wounded eyes, and sobbed, “He wasn’t much, or actually he was quite a bit too much, but he was my moron, and I’ll miss him!” Then she flung herself into Willow’s uncertain embrace and wept heartily on her shoulder while Willow tentatively patted her back and made there, there noises, staring past Anya at the SITs, but they either ignored her mute appeal or shrugged to indicate they didn’t know what’d gotten into Anya either.
After a couple of minutes, Anya sniffed loudly, blew her nose on a tissue from her apron pocket, and announced, “I’m such a weak, weepy sentimentalist, considering that the local equivalent of wolves and badgers are probably gobbling up his entrails right now. Trolls aren’t much for funerals, it only encourages neighbors being eaten by the immediate family. So I honor their customs.” She dabbed at her eyes. “You still haven’t given me a delivery date for the smell.”
“A week?” Willow suggested feebly.
“Well, if that’s the best you can do.”
“I think Buffy said something about having part of the last carton in the SUV.”
Anya clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s splendid! Broken down and repackaged, that should last at least that long. I had the foresight to lay in ten gross of the more attractive, smaller bottles, so there’s just the decanting and labeling to be done. And don’t worry: a 40% share goes to Spike Enterprises, Inc., just as I told Buffy. All properly accounted for, every drop. I’m certainly aware of the need for fluid assets, now that Buffy’s been fired. Where are the van keys?”
“In the saucer. On the weapons chest,” Willow said, pointing like a statue of Fate. Fired?
“Thanks!” With a friendly arm pat, Anya went off to rescue the carton from languishing uselessly in the vehicle.
Fired?
Going upstairs and tapping cautiously at Buffy’s door, Willow found her curled up on the bed and sobbing into Mr. Gordo’s well-worn plush. Sitting on the foot of the bed, Willow put on crinkle-eyebrow concern face and got the whole account of Buffy’s magnificently awful day. So far, she thought darkly, since the party was yet to come.
“Don’t worry,” she assured Buffy earnestly. “Spike’s been paying me as a consultant--you know: Spells and Smells?” (That got her a watery smile and a sniffy chuckle.) “And he’s been keeping right up with it, too: all Mr. Efficiency, if you can believe that. And I was thinking about a new computer, mine’s already two years old and that’s a little clunky for a high-speed pipe, but really, really, that can wait!” Willow waved her hands emphatically. “And I have my scholarship, and that covers living expenses just about, if you happen to be a rat or something.” And what HAD become of Amy, she wondered, the house all vacant and standing open, then shook herself back to the topic. “It’s not as if Spike won’t be chipping in, either. Or too, depending on how you look at it. And Anya’s on our side, making money hand over fist on the smell we paid to produce and giving us a whopping 40% of the take. So how could we possibly lose out, here? There’s plenty of time, months, before we have to start tightening the old belt. I’m way no on the belt tightening!” She patted Buffy’s shoulder. “It’s not as if it was a real job or anything, Buffy.”
Buffy teared up a little again. “But it was mine, and I liked it. Felt like I was really helping, at least sometimes. Used the spell-checker on all my reports, when there was time, hardly ever late, even skipped lunch sometimes, sat through nearly every one of those stupid all-faculty-and-staff meetings--”
“There, there. I know you did. A model of punctuality and attendance, and who could ask for more? You already have a calling, Buffy, and that’s way better than some stupid part-time charity job!”
“The pay sucks rocks big time.”
“Well, that’s the thing about a calling: you don’t get to dicker. Picketing is also heavily discouraged.”
“You bet it is! Thanks, Will.” Pushing hair out of her face, Buffy made another watery smile. “Maybe I’m getting past the panic-stricken, going to the poorhouse now phase. But it was just so awful, feeling like a total loser in the wonderful world of Real Life, and I couldn’t get ahold of anybody, and then Anya shrieking in my ear about the wretched Chaos Stone…. I hate to admit it, but it was almost a relief.”
“Yay, distractions,” commented Willow absently, biting her bottom lip. “I don’t like it, about the stone being gone. True, I don’t like the stone, it made me all itchy until Spike tuned it, but if somebody could hook it into the dimensional instability that’s all that’s left the Hellmouth….” She looked up, and her eyes and Buffy’s traded unspoken information and agreement.
“Could be bad, yeah. Would Amy have the--?”
“Not on her best day. Anyway, she’s gone. No, no idea where. But it’s not like Amy’s the only witch in the world, or even in Sunnydale. Only the cheapest, who’ll take commissions from vamps…. Present company excluded, of course. Buffy, we’ve been spread too thin. We’re all keeping track of our little piece, not comparing notes nearly often enough. There’s just too much going on. We have to start having regular meetings again, like we used to. Before Giles….” Willow stopped delicately, to see if that was gonna set off the waterworks again.
“I know. I should be calling them, but I’ve been all caught up in this back-and-forth push-pull business with Spike. Not arguing about control, not really…just trying to make things fit, somehow. He’s trying as hard as I am to find ways to keep helping without letting everything he’s responsible for go smash, doing it.”
“But it drains the energy,” Willow commented sympathetically, and Buffy nodded heavily several times.
“Oh, yes: major energy suckage, big time. It’s just so frickin’ hard to connect.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Willow said with lifted lip corners. “Somebody missed curfew by quite a bit, last Tuesday. I sort of thought some kind of connecting thing was going on. Like the No-Tell Motel?”
“Exercise mats under the bleachers,” Buffy replied wrily. “The epitome of wild romance. Well, some kind of epitome, anyway.” She smiled, eyes downcast. “But he does try.”
“I’ve always said that,” Willow affirmed. “That Spike, he’s a tryer. Haven’t you always heard me say that?”
Buffy shrugged gracefully. “I guess. Even if he didn’t turn up for patrol last night. No big. So I’m totally with the mission here, all right? M for mission, M for meetings. After the party?”
Willow blew out a breath, blinking. “Yeah. All right. I’ll spread the word. Even Spike, if I can find him. It seems as if he’s Mr. Unavailable: even Xander asked if I’d seen him.”
“Oh, he’d never miss Dawn’s party. Even if Dawn’s not here to enjoy it. He’s probably curled up in an abandoned refrigerator someplace, having a nice nap. Do normal people have lives like this? Stop, don’t answer that!”
“Then you’d have to kill me?”
“Then a skipping return to the great pink hereafter wouldn’t look quite so attractive.”
It was Buffy’s first reference in a long time to Willow’s dragging her out of heaven. Buffy said it lightly and waited to smile until Willow risked looking at her, making her know that was over enough to finally have become joke-worthy.
“Was it pink?” Willow asked cautiously.
“I honestly forget. Probably.” Rolling off the bed, Buffy began poking through her closet. Turning only her head, she commented, “If we have a meeting, I may finally find out what Xander’s been doing in the basement. I’m not sure if I’ll survive the revelation. I’ll just change costume for Action Barbie and I’ll be right with you guys.”
“Ah, Buffy? A suggestion? Before you change, shower. A definite aroma of demon goo….”
“Yeah--tramping around dimensions where the grass is brown and the dirt is green in my office clothes: whatever could I have been thinking? Ruined my shoes, too. Not demon, though: troll.”
Willow nodded. “Anya said. Sic transit baby-devouring Olaf.”
“Rest in pieces.” Buffy reached for a robe. “The memory lingers on, huh?”
Willow held her nose. “I’ve become a minor expert in the field. Trust me: you don’t want anybody but your best friend noticing.”
“Then I’m lucky my best friend noticed,” Buffy said so warmly that Willow had a happy little shiver. “Luckily, my only company was Anya. So no danger there.”
Leaving Buffy to it, Willow glanced at Dawn’s shut door, decided against knocking, and clopped down the stairs to the busy hallway.
She’d make cookies, she decided. Not that there seemed any lack of food, but she felt her cookie-making had become traditional for affairs of this sort. Good cookies, like good magic, were the product of art and had to be done by hand.
Thinking over the circumstances of Buffy’s dismissal, Willow thought, The smell’s too hot. Huh. Imagine that. And Spike hadn’t said word one to her about it. Maybe he liked it that way: Mr. Cheekbones-Slinkyhips should be a good judge of degrees of hotitude. She should check with him before changing the formula. Get it too tame and nobody would wear it and worse, it wouldn’t sell. It was a truism: hotitude sold.
Since Spike's translation was what provided the fuel that ran this whole maybe-too-diversified operation, it seemed to Willow that he should have the deciding vote about the formula. It was a truism: hotitude sold.
How did anybody expect her to coordinate production if nobody bothered to tell her anything?
**********
Mike woke when Sue touched his arm. She said, “We’re through.”
She looked nearly as droopy eyed and dim as he felt, and likely was worse, since he’d had his sleep out, even if in bits and patches. But she’d been hellbent to be part of this detail, nagged Spike something fierce until he gave in, on the grounds that from her time with Digger, she knew shoring. Knew how to slot the ties so the ends met neat, hold the crosspiece overhead, against the ceiling, while the two struts got braced underneath. Then a couple of long nails at the joints for reinforcement, against shift. If the shaft was cut true and checked for plumb and level every couple of feet, wasn’t really anyplace for the ties to shift to. But heavy rains were at least possible, if unlikely; the soil was sandy; and the deforested hills roundabout might produce a mudslide like other California communities had suffered, now and again.
Spike wanted this tunnel solid when everything aboveground was flat. Like an A-bomb hit, for instance. Didn’t matter that was even less likely than the mudslide--that was what he wanted, and Mike’s job was to see that he got it.
Any idiot could dig, was Sue’s contention, but shoring, that was skilled labor.
With an actual carpenter heading things up and Mike as site boss, wasn’t a whole lot of need for a fledge with a couple weeks’ experience in trimming ties. As a fledge on probation, Mike had shored up the equivalent of maybe a dozen city blocks before Digger judged him fit for the open air and free hunting, but that was all right. It was enough if Mike checked the girl’s work a couple times a shift, made what few adjustments were needed, checked the overall progress, and catnapped the rest of the time. If she wants it, leave her to it, Spike had said, and that was good enough for Mike.
Giving her a chance to prove herself: all anybody could ask, was Mike’s opinion. And Spike was real good about that.
Mike rolled to sitting, then jumped up and paced the completed shaft, inspecting it. It sloped down, of course: wouldn’t want muddy rainwater backing up into the Slayer’s basement. The four vamps of the digging crew stood aside to let him edge past, Sue trotting at his heels and breathing anxiously whenever he stopped to give the shoring a good shove. Had to pass under a sewer line, then angle back up to reach the big concrete storm drain beyond. The opening was cut high: Mike had to duck and bend double to get head and shoulders through to check. Some loose dirt fell into his hair and down the neck of his shirt. Seemed good enough: the drain ran off to both sides at a slight angle, and there was a junction a few yards off: made for added stability and less chance of being trapped in the shaft by waiting opposition. Crash through that and you were home free. From the junction, you could get damn near anyplace in Sunnydale regardless of the sun.
Backing out, Mike nodded his satisfaction. He told the nearest digger, “Clear off now: people here are having a party and don’t want muddy monsters underfoot. Spike’s laid out for liquor. If you’re not back to the factory in half an hour to drink it, it goes to the sweep crew.” That last was a lie, because the booze was drugged. Keep them all peacefully passed out till Spike could confirm that he wanted them dusted, to keep knowledge of the tunnel as close as possible. Mike responded to their fangy grins amiably and pushed back against the tunnel wall so they could dash past. More dirt down his collar.
He turned and found Sue still there. “I’m staying for the party,” she announced. “’Manda said I could. I have clothes to change into. Fed up, and everything.”
“’Manda doesn’t have the say over where you go or what you do,” Mike pointed out sternly. “You been crawling around in the dirt for hours. Fed or not, you can’t shed trueface ten minutes at a time and how’s the Slayer gonna explain you--say you have a disease?”
“You’re as dirty as me,” Sue responded boldly, “and I don’t stink. And you’re going!”
“What I do is no concern of yours. Spike said the fledges go back, so you go back. Have your blowout. You did a good job here and I’ll tell Spike so.”
Finally he saw her, still whining and complaining, off down the pipe. When she turned at the junction, he listened awhile longer, then turned the other way. Sun was down, and the drain ran close by Casa Mike, where he’d left the bike, clean clothes, and a few other things. Though he no longer laired there, it was nearby and handy sometimes.
An hour later, showered and changed and (by his own estimate) no offense to nose or eye, he presented himself on the front porch of Casa Summers and rang the bell. The Lady Gates opened the door like a servant too full of herself to actually let anybody in.
Sticking his hands in the pockets of his bomber jacket, Mike said, “They got you doing this, huh?” with a certain sympathy.
“It fortifies the pretense that it’s my party. Are you coming in, or do you need to be invited?”
“No, got that all taken care of, thanks.” He slid past the threshold. Bending to her ear, he said softly, “Let her come out. Let her have her time. What are you scared of, that you can’t spare her a couple of hours?”
She turned away so fast her hair whipped his face. Mike didn’t mind. The hair streaked his skin with Dawnsmell, which was just fine, except no Dawn to go with it.
“I have things to attend to. Amuse yourself,” she directed without turning, lifting a hand, fingers artistically spread. Now Dawn, she’d have made a naughty gesture but Lady Gates was all into draping herself morosely against walls and looking bored out of her mind.
Well, nobody could accuse her of doing anything frivolous, like having a good time. Easing through into the front room, he found it plain enough where the presents went: a little stack of brightly wrapped boxes on the floor by the television. Mike snuck the box out of his pocket and set it safe in back: didn’t want something to land on it. Then he moved it to the side, but that was no good because the tiny card would get bent. So he put it in the back again. When everything else was moved away, it’d be seen well enough, he figured.
Xander and Anya were on the couch, opposite ends, Xander radiating nervousness, maybe because Anya was going on about the troll, about what he’d been like to fuck, and that would likely make anybody nervous. All the same, Harris had something about him that suggested he’d like to get lucky, do a couple of turns with her, and had some hopes in that direction. No accounting for all the effort humans put into a simple thing like fucking. Not like anybody really gave a damn. It would be like getting all wound up over sneezing, or some other automatic reaction.
He vaguely recalled he’d once felt different about it, but that was before and didn’t signify.
Squatting by the couch end Harris was hanging onto like it might buck him off any minute, Mike reported quietly, “Tunnel’s all done but the doors. I set the screen across, on the inside. You were gonna see to the doors, I recall.”
“Yeah, fine, good.” Looking him up and down, Harris remarked, “You’re all cleaned up. Hair wetted down and combed, and everything.”
It was a question, though it didn’t sound that way. “Slayer said I should come.”
“Sure, fine. Well, Buffy’s collecting coats out in the hall, and there’s a discreet bar set up by the refrigerator to make the evening slightly less bizarre for us grownups. You are a grownup, right?”
As they stood up together, Mike replied, “I’m six.”
“Six? Is that like dog years?”
“No. Vamp years,” Mike said, happily deadpan, and watched Harris do a gulp and a take.
“Michael! I didn’t see you there!” exclaimed Anya, holding out both arms like she expected he was gonna bend down and hug her. She didn’t look at all put out, though, that he didn’t. “I can’t imagine how I could miss anyone of such imposing stature!”
Fact was, he and Harris were about eye-to-eye, though Harris was toting around considerable lard. Mike saw no point in saying so, just nodded.
“Xander, take his jacket. What is it, about…certain people and leather? Michael, give Xander your jacket so I can see you!”
Uncomfortably aware of Lady Gates’ sardonic eye on him, Mike complied. After being invited, he’d chosen out a brand new, never-worn T-shirt: light blue, with the sentiment in white across the front, DO tell me about your gall bladder surgery! and across the back, and I’ll show photos of my grand-niece toasting kittens! He didn’t know why, it’d just tickled him. Anya, she just blinked, but maybe she wasn’t reading the sentiment. Lady Gates, though, came and leaned to read the front, then slapped both hands across her mouth and ran off, fizzing. So somebody had appreciated it, anyway, he guessed.
Anya said more nice things about him, calling him “Michael” a few more times, which he didn’t particularly like, and then started asking about his progress in locating Ethan Rayne: whispering and glancing fast left and right, as though she worried that the empty room would overhear. A vamp in the basement could have followed every word, but Mike still thought it odd.
“Know some places he’s been,” Mike admitted, which he figured wasn’t saying all that much, then was spared having to say anything else by Harris leaning in at the arch, wanting to know his preference in drinkables. That gave Mike an excuse to follow along to the kitchen, where Red was mixing something pink in a shaker. Smelled like fruit, mango, peach, orange, and rum so dark it was nearly black. Pointing at the shaker, Mike asked, “That just for you?”
She quirked her mouth and tilted her head, surprised. “No, it’s not exclusive, you can have some if you like. I was just gonna mix in some crushed ice, but….”
“Fine just like that.”
“All righty, then!” she said cheerily. As Harris exited, Red poured from the shaker into a champagne flute through a strainer. Gently, Mike separated her from flute and strainer and laid the latter aside, because she’d been straining out all the good part. Then he hovered his hand, offering to manage what was obviously, to her, a heavy and unwieldy object. She shrugged off his offer sharply, though he hadn’t meant to offend, then did a quick Anya-style left-and-right check and floated the shaker. Took her some frowning concentration to make it pour straight, not lose the cap and slop all over, but Mike held the flute steady and the transfer was accomplished.
When he took a small drink and then finished it all, she let the shaker come to rest on the top of the island and smiled. Letting go the rigidity, she started cutting up more fruit cheerfully enough. Glancing up, she commented not-quite-apologetically, “I don’t like being loomed at.”
As pleasantly, Mike commented, “It’s a wonder anybody does magic at all, considering how it stinks them up.”
Her face went pink. Then she said, “Hazard of the trade. Is it good?”
Mike collected a second flute from those stacked on a tray near the sink and took up the shaker one-handed. “Want it strained?”
She shook her head, fluffing auburn hair around her face. Pretty, Mike thought, and powerful after her own fashion, and determined not to be impressed by big moon-faced louts with stupid expressions. Lifting her chin, she declared, “If you can take it raw, so can I.”
Another sentiment Mike might like to see on a shirt. Steadying the cap with a thumb, he poured the flute half full in case she wanted ice, after all. She took a gulp, then made quite a business of swallowing. “Chewy,” she remarked, when she could talk.
“Yeah. Good like that,” Mike agreed.
“Something about an all liquid diet,” she reflected. “Spike likes Weetabix in his blood. Like Wheat Chex, only British,” she explained, catching right on that he didn’t understand. She licked her lips pensively. “Think I’ve got enough rum in there?”
“Let you know. Might take a bit more sugar, though.”
“More? That rum is practically alkified molasses already!”
“The way it’s made in the Barbados, there’s more sugar. Sometimes lemons, too. There’s no one set way.”
“I’ve been to Bath,” she announced. “Also the Cotswolds. And Devon.”
“Never been to Devon,” Mike admitted, amused by her immediate, defensive world-hopping one-upmanship. “Then again, I’m only six,” he added, to see if he could pull the same reaction from her as he had from Harris. But she just twitched an absent smile, herding the cut fruit pieces together with the blade of the big knife. Then she lost patience and scooped the fruit up between two palms and dumped it in the shaker, that apparently doubled as the top part of a blender. “Hands don’t count, do they?” she asked, pouring in the rum in a slow, glugging stream.
“Never minded in the Barbados.”
She set the cap and turned on the blender, which made a hellacious racket, blessedly brief. Snapping the switch, she gave him a sideways look. “Are you flirting? Because if you are--”
“Just trying to get through the time, not piss nobody off. Spike said be here, so I am. Anya, she flirts.”
She made a hiccupy, surprised laugh. “And then treats everybody to the post-game recap, blow by blow by blow. That sounds dirty, doesn’t it,” she reflected, licking her fingers. “I didn’t mean it that way, except of course that it is dirty, and I’m supposed to be bringing this to the den where everybody is now having cake and other munchables, and pretending that it’s punch, just like what the officially underaged are getting, so why don’t you come along and save me from further embarrassment? You could bring that tray of flutes…?”
The den was the main party room, with a Happy Birthday paper cover over the big table and assorted balloons he ducked warily, getting back near the big sideboard, out of the way. Besides Lady Gates, two other girls about the same age were sitting there chatting up a storm between them, not seeming to notice the Lady was pushing a small piece of yellow cake around her plate and then mashing with the tines of her fork, looking as if, on the whole, she’d rather be in Philadelphia.
Mike declined cake but accepted another flute of the pink punch, the kind from the shaker, not the kind from the bowl on the table, with the ladle in it. About 90 proof, was his guess, and the rum about half of it. Already had something of a buzz from it. So he’d stop with this one. Never had had Spike’s head for liquor. Or his taste for it, neither. Never knew anybody to get themselves fighting mad, and maybe dusted, after a couple of joints. But that seemed to be part of what Spike liked about it.
And Spike still wasn’t here. Mike had been watching for him every minute since he’d come through the door, but not a trace of him. And the table was being cleared now, the punchbowl and the remains of the cake moved off to the sideboard in preparation for the laying out of presents.
Harris carried them in on a tray, the whole pile wobbling precariously, so that Mike was real nervous until they were safely set down. Didn’t see his own tiny box, but that was all right: he’d go get it if it’d been missed, if Harris hadn’t stepped on it. Thought, because the presents were there, the unwrapping would be done in the front room but that had just been storage, while the food was laid out.
Lady Gates made a methodical business of opening the presents. Read each card aloud: “To Dawn. From Anya.” Then opened it: an envelope with a stock certificate. Then it was a pair of earrings from Harris. A leather-bound blank notebook from one of the girls, Luanne. A scarf from the other, Janice. With each, the Lady would look the giver straight in the eyes and say exactly the same thing: “It’s very nice. Thank you.” Then she’d give one melancholy twitch of a smile. It was like watching something animatronic. The girls didn’t seem to notice or care although the Janice girl smelled a bit uncomfortable. The adults, though, were starting to look around, like they’d much sooner be in Philadelphia, too.
The last present was Buffy’s: a watch. It got the same dead-eyed reception as the rest.
Then the Lady sat straight in her chair, fists on the table, and announced, “There’s nothing from Spike. Why is there nothing from Spike?”
As the Slayer was explaining with tight restraint that she didn’t know, Mike leaned and set aside the notebook, which he’d been itching to do since watching it get set on top of his present.
“Oh,” said the Lady, picking off the card. “To Dawn. From Mike.” She gave him a speculative glance, pulling off the squashed bow and then the ribbon. She opened the box and lifted the fold of tissue. And her face changed. And she screeched, holding the little box in the basket of her hands, head thrown back, pulse rate exploding.
Mike had sort of hoped she’d like it. He’d first gotten chocolates, a nothing sort of gift, had it wrapped and everything. Then he’d changed his mind. Gone back to the case he’d smelled her hand-print on, one time he’d been shadowing her and Spike through the mall, after she’d first taken against him. One look and he’d known what she’d leaned down, hand on the free-standing display, to examine and then leave behind.
A blown glass redgold winged dragon with flutters and streamers of whiskers, mane: could hardly look at it without destroying some tiny thread. Couldn’t find one with dragonfly wings, like a real Taskin, like the one she’d brought down on a rocky hillside and him too far away and barred by the sunlight from doing a single thing about it, far out of the carbine’s effective range, her running and fighting every second just the same, her and unseen Spike someplace behind or under the beautiful, deadly creature they’d some way contrived to kill between them. Didn’t seem to make any like that, out of glass. But this was the one she’d stopped by and bent to look at, her hand-print smelling all sad, so he’d hoped she’d know what he meant by it and at least like it for the praise of her it was, even though it was only his present and not very lifelike neither on account of the wings being wrong.
Dawn Dragonslayer.
“Get out!” she screeched. “Get out, get out, get out! You’re no help at all, you just watch and fiddle and do nothing! And I’m sick of it! Sick to bloody death of it, and you can just do me now or else get the hell out! I’ll trash your files, I’ll trash your whole fucking system so bad you’ll never get it sorted! You LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Mike had slid into the hallway, believing it was him she was screaming at. Not wanting to be there or anyplace around. Didn’t care about the jacket, didn’t need it, not gonna paw through the closet looking for it, just fuck it and get gone. He was about halfway down the basement stairs when it came to him that it was Dawn, truly Dawn, reading the riot act to Lady Gates, and turned back.
She was now screeching, “Where’s Spike? He wouldn’t not be here, not for anything. Where is he?”
Behind him, someplace down in the dark basement, something breathed, and moved, and a skittery little chuckle. Mike went down, one balanced, controlled step at a time, letting trueface flow outward for the acuity.
Humming, so soft even he could barely hear it: gave him a location--the opposite wall, moving from right to left. Not yet in view: he was still too high on the stairs.
Then he caught the trace and relaxed, settling midway down the stairs with a thump. “Spike, what the goddam hell you been doing? Just take off, leave everybody hanging, covering for you.”
More humming, and a rasping noise: a hand scraping cement block. “No shackles,” Spike responded in a sing-song voice, like he was making some joke Mike didn’t get. “No more shackles. All free. But I didn’t go up yet. S’posed to, but I didn’t. Figured it out, Michael: s’not the blood. It’s the hunting that’s the main thing. Never work without. But I’m s’posed to go up now. Give Bit her present.”
“What the hell are you on?” Mike demanded, furious at the doubletalk nonsense, and dropped down the remaining stairs with enough of a push, he was facing Spike no more than two feet off.
Stripped to the waist, ghostly pale in the darkness, Spike was working his way along the far wall, passing his right hand across the cinderblock as though in search of something. No smell of liquor whatever. Nor any smell of the other place, neither, with the wrong sunlight. None of the troll. But he stank of magic. And there was strong bloodsmell, strong as the shock of mothballs: from what Spike held in his left hand. Dangling a twisted ribbon from the middle finger, a human hand.
Gift-wrapped, Mike thought, with a sense like being punched in the gut.
“Spike. You just settle, all right? We’ll get this sorted out. Dawn’s back: she wants to see you. So you settle, and I’ll get the Slayer--”
“Yeah. Right. So, Michael: do you think she’ll like her prezzie?”
Spike turned half around, and he was grinning. His eyes were completely empty. And Mike went for him, knowing he didn’t dare go back upstairs and leave this behind him. Made contact for a second but Spike’s torso and arms were greased, oiled, something, and Mike couldn’t keep hold. And the skin-to-skin contact burned, sudden and fierce. He yelled for the Slayer, loud as he could. Before he’d got more than the first syllable out he got kneed in the chin and knocked crooked, down on his side on the cement. Rebounding the next instant, he lunged to block the stairs and got cracked behind the ear with what felt like a piece of pipe. Held onto the railing, finding his balance again, hearing that weird skittery little chuckle some ways off now.
Spike was gone. Off down the tunnel. And by the smell, left his fuck-ugly little present behind.
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