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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.
“So they didn’t get him?” Digger asked, looking up from lighting his pipe.
Mike shook his head.
“Incompetent fuckers!”
“Fledges.” Mike shrugged, emptied his glass, and set it back on the table. Wasn’t
a hint: he knew Digger would refill it when the old vamp poured another for
himself.
Digger wasn’t obvious about such things.
Digger could outdrink him and would send him home incapable, with an escort,
as often as Mike was willing to accept Digger’s calculated hospitality. Which
he did, two or three times a week. Unless he passed out, of course, and by default
accepted the further hospitality of one of Digger’s many beds. With Digger for
company. Sometimes Star, too.
Mike added, “If they’d held off another ten minutes, would’ve been a different
story: would’ve found him passed out cold on the floor and nothing between them
and the food but the Slayer.”
Digger chuckled, puffing smoke. “Drunk, was he?”
“No. Just trying to push himself past what he could do. Slayer calls ‘frog,’
he’ll hop or bust himself trying. He loses that patronage, it all comes down.
So I’m running the sweep tonight. His people and a couple of mine, test ‘em
out. He’d expect that.”
That was one of the reasons Mike had swung by Digger’s lair--to tell him that
before the fact instead of learning about it later, as he surely would. Digger
would rather the sweep be abandoned on account of Spike not being able to stretch
himself that far. Have that part of the new ways falling down when it was barely
begun.
“That’s right, boy,” Digger surprised him by saying, refilling both glasses.
“Get him to depend on you, then pick a good time and let it come down smash.”
“I expect.”
“Get him to hunt with you. Nothing makes a couple of vamps easy with one another
like sharing a kill. Except maybe sharing a bed!”
“Leave off,” Mike said without heat, batting away Digger’s hand. “Not goin’
out there stinking of you, you putrid old coyote.” He sipped his drink, shut
his eyes while it went down. “I’ve asked. He’s never taken me up on it. Always
‘Some other time.’”
“Thinks he’s too good for you.”
Mike opened his eyes, gave Digger a stare. “He is too good for me. Gave
me a district, named me his get and his ‘Favored Childe’ in front of God and
everybody. Told you, not gonna cross him, Digger, till I got my own patch locked
down tight, till I can last out the disruption on my own. Hold onto what I got.”
“You know I’d see you through any bad times. Like I always done.”
Mike looked lazily around the big earth-walled room and its rickety, mostly
hand-made furnishings. “Yeah, you and your four soldiers, dozen minions, half
dozen raw fledges. That’d be such a help.”
“Building back, boy: building back. Sometimes you win, sometimes the bear wins.
Ain’t forgot who sided, last time, with the bear.”
Mike shrugged. “Wasn’t hard to see who was gonna come out on top. Real dumb,
Digger, yanking that child for a pax bond, no dickering or agreement beforehand,
when she’s his particular pet.”
“Child? Pet? He’d marked her!”
“Doesn’t signify, except to get him mad. Mad, he’s worse than a bear: come through
a wall, come through fire to get at you, and you didn’t have anything like the
troops there to even slow him down. You’re damn lucky I could talk him out of
leaving you in an ashtray. And look what it got me in return. A territory and
a name: Michael of Aurelius. You played it dumb, Digger. I played it smart.”
“Sure, sure, he gives you things. Gives you the chance to face off against
those damn Turok-han, may they all rot forever in whatever hell they gone back
to. Gave you a beat-up old motor-whatsis--"
“Motorcycle, and she runs fine, and I ride while he walks.”
“Don’t care if he goddam crawls, and won’t that be fine to see,” said Digger
with a wolfish smile, and took a drink. Then he scowled again. “Named you to
a territory, gave you a name you don’t rightly own, and don’t think I don’t
know what a load of horse shit that is ‘cause he ain’t never sired nobody
except those few when he was drunk or something, and then turned around and
hunted all of ‘em down again. Too fucking nice to raise up food as an
equal or see to a fledge like it should be done, raise ‘em up right!”
Mike spat on the floor. It was an old rant. He’d heard it lots of times. Didn’t
interest him. He wasn’t yet old enough to interrupt a kill, rein in his demon
to that extent. No felt pleasure in stopping, feeding himself back to near-dead
prey. He accepted that it happened but couldn’t understand, with true body understanding,
why a vamp would bother or want to, except for expediency, extra hands for the
work or the fighting.
Digger went on, “Gives you all manner of toys and gimcracks: everything except
the only one that matters: himself!”
“I’ve had his blood,” Mike mentioned mildly. He didn’t add that Spike had also
had his because except for Dawn’s blood mixed in, that wouldn’t work. And now
that Dawn bore no living vamp’s mark, she likely wouldn’t let Mike feed from
her anymore, to mark her fresh. He’d lost that claim, that connection. It was
a sadness to him. And a confusion.
“You had that, and more, from me,” Digger shot back, his lined, froggy face
somewhere between a scowl and a pout.
Mike held up his glass. “And very fine it was, too.”
Digger slapped the glass out of his hand. Mike shoved out of his chair, out
of reach, pointing, declaring, “Told you, ain’t gonna carry your stink on me
all night. Stink up Star, if you’re that desperate. Told you: not gonna lose
that patronage.”
“While it lasts.”
“Yeah: while it lasts. And your little schemes around the edges ain’t gonna
affect things one way or the other, you pitiful old fart.”
Digger smiled like a shark. Like he knew something Mike didn't. “You’d best
be gone then if you’re gonna manage that sweep.”
“Plenty of time. Got the bike,” said Mike, and headed out through the tunnel
handiest to where he’d left it.
He never asked Digger directly about his schemes. Just stay skeptical, keep
assuming none of it could amount to anything, and eventually Digger would start
bragging to prove him wrong. Mike only hoped that it would be ahead of time,
to give him a chance to decide what to do about it. Decide what he wanted to
do about it.
Digger’s lair was an extensive warren running miles, in three dimensions. Mostly
under some tract housing but also back into the hills that were Sunnydale’s
southern boundary, the founding site. Digger had been excavating and extending
the passages, shoring them up with timber, for well over a century. Originally
a silver mine, by Digger’s account. Now long forgotten and appearing on no maps
except in the minds of those who’d learned their ways. Nobody knew all their
ways except Digger himself. No finer interlace of caverns, shafts, and reinforced
passages in town except those that had radiated from the hub of the Hellmouth.
And they were now mostly collapsed and dead-ended.
So in one way of thinking, Digger had the finest territory to be had: made by
and for vampires, with long sheer drops and climbs no human could negotiate
without dragging in a whole lot of gear; tunnels near the central chambers that
could be collapsed with an inhumanly strong tug on a rope; multiple exits where
no sunlight could intrude. No invasion or pursuit would ever find Digger in
this maze, or corner him in it.
No electricity. Just the occasional lantern or candle. No heat. Never warm here.
Nothing clean or wholly dry. No books or television or music, which anyplace
Spike settled into for even a day had to have for him to consider it minimally
habitable. And now the computer, up at the factory, that Spike was half blind
from, most days, staring at, and the continual headaches Spike still refused
to connect or blame on it. Working for pay. Not even tangible money but numbers
on a screen. Theoretical money. From the Watchers Council that was behind the
Slayer--the ultimate and absolute enemy of all vampires. Not hunting anymore.
Instead, having dead, cold blood delivered twice a day and joylessly feeding--again,
from the Council. Pacing the same dull round like a tiger at the zoo.
Though Mike found it disturbing, he understood it well enough: it was the price
of Spike’s partnership with the Slayer: there was nothing Spike wouldn’t do
to preserve that. And old though he was, Spike had a hankering for the new things.
Anything that kept the boredom at bay.
Spike took real and obvious satisfaction in being a vampire. But he still wanted
what he wanted, even when those things were incompatible with the needs and
limits of being a vamp. Wanted Buffy, wanted to fuck her and fight her, feed
on her and mark her (which was all fine) but also wanted her content with it.
Trying to give, when all that was natural for a vamp was to take, use up, move
on. Not try to stay, keep…. Wanted Dawn, but only her company: hoarding that
jealously, but taking nothing else of her nor allowing anybody else to have
it neither. Wanted Willow’s friendship and the support of her power but didn’t
turn her, which would have given him control, and her obedience, besides. Instead,
he left her free to turn on him anytime she took the notion.
Mike didn’t think that would go well for him in the end.
It was, he’d come to think, as if Spike wanted the sun. Digger was content with
the dark and would likely be mooching around this old dirty warren long after
the rest of them were dust, with their alien dreams and hungers.
Mike wasn’t sure what he wanted but he was prepared to wait and find out.
He lifted his head, catching a smell. Different, but he still knew it. He said
favorlessly, “Hi, Sue.”
The fledge came out of a cross-passage. She was dirty, muddy, wiping broken-nailed
hands on her hips. “Look,” she said, “you know where I can get a shower? A bath?
Anything?”
“Shoring up passages is dirty work,” Mike commented neutrally.
“I’m so sick of being dirty! Do you have a shower at your place?”
Well, that wasn’t subtle. “You allowed out?” Mike asked, knowing she wasn’t.
Mike knew Digger’s rules, having been a fledge here himself. Taken in for his
broad back and his willingness to accept orders, but given a place to be, something
reliable in all the confusion after he’d risen, alone and terrified and deep
in his demon’s bloodthirst, as most fledges did. He still owed Digger for that.
Sue twisted a bare foot in the dirt. “I could if I was under you. Instead of
Digger.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Spike!” Sue spat venomously.
“Not just that. Wouldn’t have taken you on anyway. Got too much to do, working
up a new territory, to bother about a fledge.”
Her game face was uglier than most. He didn’t tell her so. Only make her feel
worse, she couldn’t help it. And she might flash out at him, and he didn’t have
the time or the inclination to hammer her down the way pushy, uncontrolled fledges
needed.
Mike continued down the passage. Sue trailed along like an importunate pup.
Mike said, “You’re lucky to have any place at all. Get used to it. Get to where
you can shed game face ten minutes at a time, Digger will let you go out. Still
lots of abandoned houses: likely you could find one with a shower.” Reluctantly,
not sure it was a good idea, he added, “There’s water at Casa Mike. You could
use that, if you want. No matter to me, I don’t lair up there anymore.”
She looked up with human features and a sad/angry expression. “Can’t. Spike
told me I couldn’t go within five blocks of Casa Summers.” She wrapped her arms
around herself. “Ten minutes--that’s what Spike said.”
“The usual thing. You’d best get back to your work crew before you’re missed.
And punished.”
With a harsh laugh, she dragged up a sleeve, displaying bruises. “Yeah, punished,”
she said scornfully.
She considered a few bruises as punishment. Well, no point telling her. She’d
find out.
Sue complained, “I’m supposed to be a spy. But nobody’s contacted me! Unless….
Are you my contact?”
Mike belted her then, knocked her back into the wall. She rebounded, fell onto
her knees. Mike said sternly, “Don’t know what arrangement you got going with
Spike. Don’t want to know. And if you had an ounce of brains, you wouldn’t talk
about it--ever. Don’t you know how far vamps can hear? Idiot.”
Slowly standing, again game-faced, sullen, she said, “How am I supposed…to do
that when nobody tells me anything?”
“You figure anybody’s gonna trust you with a secret? When you blab out whatever
comes into your head? You listen. Watch. Figure out until you can make some
sense of what’s going on.” Like I do, he added, in his mind. “Then, maybe,
you’ll be worth something. Long as you’re bleating, you’re not listening. Now
get back to where you’re s’posed to be.”
He gave her a shove and continued on, to get to where the bike was parked, thinking
maybe when she’d developed decent control, he’d take her out: to the Bronze,
and then hunting.
She’d never been his favorite among the SITs--that was Amanda--but things were
different now, and being around somebody known and familiar had its appeal.
Somebody he could actually talk to, be at ease with. Missed that, since Dawn
had pulled away, shut him out. Might not be bad. A change, anyway.
**********
Buffy had known it was a risk to put Spike in her own bed to have out his forced
sleep. Last Sunday, after a similar long sleep, he’d come awake and then gone
totally berserk, rendering Willow’s bedroom down to flinders and scraps. Willow
was still grumbling, even though all the furniture had been Buffy’s.
But in the gym, she’d seen what she wanted: what she’d been frustrated, lonely,
and desperate without. That muggers pretense could easily have turned into something
X-rated, right there on the gym floor in front of everybody, and she’d hit him
hard when he’d flashed his eyes at her and grinned, well aware of what
she was going through. And then his eyes had changed a different way, wide and
wanting…and then the fledges had burst in.
Damn. Double and triple damn.
So she’d made sure that when he woke, he’d be right where she wanted him: in
her bed. With no goddam agenda, nothing to distract.
She’d tried to think of everything. She’d spent the morning putting lamps and
other breakables in boxes and storing them safe in the hall closet. She had
the morning’s cooler of bagged blood handy at the side of the bed because it
was minimally a day and maybe two since he’d fed: he’d be hungry that way, too.
And she’d pottered around all day unshowered because, however eww to her, that
was a turn-on to him--the concentrated smell of her. Wearing a tatty bathrobe
she didn’t care about…and nothing underneath. Her hair loose, the way he liked
it. Aching with pent-up passion and he’d know that too because he always did.
She felt a little weird, setting up a knock-about, anything goes, grope and
shag session in cold blood. But then she’d look at him and be certain he was
as starved for her as she was for him, and go lay her heated face against his
cool cheek, give him a hopeful kiss, then shiver and retreat, hugging herself,
when he didn’t stir. Blood not so cold, after all. Then she’d find some other
way to make the time pass.
Finally in mid-afternoon she ran out of patience and didn’t retreat. Almost
twenty hours should be enough for anybody, right? Dropping the robe, she pushed
back the covers and began petting him. When he did it, he called it “starting
without her”: she’d sometimes wake with him already inside her and moving, his
eyes gone dark and blank and intent, as they did at such times. And she’d smack
him and he’d give her one of those slow, sunrise smiles, all happy at her waking,
with the least edge of mischief to have surprised her, and usually she would
have been dreaming it, aroused by his attentions, so to wake and find it real
was even more wonderful and she’d forgive him his mischief and just let the
gladness pour in.
My turn, she thought, to surprise him.
It took longer than usual to get him hard and intermittently breathing: must
be real deep down. Sliding onto the bed to straddle him, she nipped and
pinched and tickled, seeking out his most sensitive spots. Though she got some
twitches and deeper responses, he still didn’t wake. (Don’t, don’t, don’t think
about fucking a dead body. That’s a whole ‘nother thing, and don’t think about
it!) As a last resort she fumbled in the cool-carrier for a bag, opened a corner
with the nail scissors she’d put handy on the bedside cabinet, and attempted
to feed it to him.
She didn’t expect the bag’s seal to give way, dumping its entire contents. She
didn’t expect him to come up in roaring, bloody game-face, drawn like a magnet
to the mark and biting down hard, tumbling her over backward and driving
into her convulsively. Suddenly being ferociously taken was a detonation in
her mind and body. Everything seized up, whited out in astonished sensation.
She spasmed, aimlessly flailing, wholly caught up in being simultaneously drained
and explosively filled. Everything violent and immediate gradually went floaty
and faded.
And she was gone.
**********
Willow had prepared carefully for her meeting with Amy. She’d reviewed a few
familiar short spells--she could hold only so many ready in her mind, and the
longer ones were no good: she’d be flamed or immobilized before she could finish--but
mostly she’d put in some serious time considering how she felt about Amy. Because
Amy was a power junkie, just as Willow was. Amy also liked the “my will be done”
kind of spells for the rush of safety/control, even if it was illusory and ended
up making everything worse, with a side order of guilt cookies coming right
up.
Amy had introduced Willow to the wonderful world of direct power drains: every
square millimeter of skin tingling with it, barely able to contain it, flashing
out with it on the smallest whim because there was always more. And no possible
retaliation except for her own eventual disgust, fear, and remorse. Which for
months, until her blow-up after Tara’s death, hadn’t been enough to keep Willow
from going back to it, having that wonderful feeling again.
Amy owned magic. Amy was magic. And Willow found that perilously appealing.
That was one of the reasons she’d made arrangements to pick Dawn up after school
and bring her along.
“You’re a conduit,” she told Dawn, wrenching the old Fiat around a corner. With
magic, or even power steering, she could have maneuvered the car more smoothly.
But she’d deliberately chosen a manual shift car without assisted anything to
make herself remember. To make her deliberate and careful. “If she whips out
something I can’t handle right away, I can draw on you to resist, counter-attack.”
“I don’t know, Willow.” Dawn sat hugging herself in her red cardigan, over her
school clothes, looking straight ahead. “The last time I went along with you
on something like this, I got my arm broken.”
“You won’t get hurt,” Willow assured her for about the sixth time. “I have much
better control now: all that time with the coven. Breathing exercises, floating
a pencil or spinning a ball for hours until I was totally sick of it. Learning
all the therapeutic herbs. I’m humble: I know I need the back-up, can’t do everything
on my own just because I want to. And if she’s the one who’s been bombarding
Spike with malign spells, I have to find out what they are before I can do anything
about them!”
“Yeah, all right,” Dawn responded without enthusiasm. “I said I would. I don’t
have to like it too. Can I get a sandwich after? Buffy forgot to pack my lunch.”
“Yeah, sure, sweetie,” Willow agreed abstractedly.
“All I had was potato chips and some extremely vanilla yogurt. Blecch!”
In the pause after shifting gears to stop at a red light, Willow held out a
hand. “Give me your locket.”
Looking around with her face screwed up indignantly, Dawn clutched the necklace
defensively. “No!”
“It’s only for an hour or so,” Willow argued. “If you’re wearing it, I can’t
draw on you. And that’s the whole idea here.”
“Not my whole idea. So, fine, if I’m not a key, I’m a battery. But I’m
not giving up my locket: that would leave me open to an-y-thing!”
Willow needed her hand to run through the gears again as the light turned green.
“How’s Spike doing?” she asked, dragging the car around another corner.
“How should I know? I’ve been at school all day.”
“I just thought you might have called,” said Willow, fiercely enforcing patience
on herself, keeping her tone mild and level.
They both knew Buffy had taken a sick day to stay home with Spike. Who was almost
certainly still asleep but might get rowdy when he woke, finding he’d lost a
whole day. Fine, Willow thought rancorously: let him wreck her bedroom
this time! Her turn to do penance for having a vampire boyfriend!
Then she muttered a mantra that was supposed to enhance calm and serenity. She
could see the white clapboarded side of Amy’s house ahead. Pulling up against
the curb, she set the hand brake but left the engine running. She was really,
really tempted to erase Dawn’s reluctance, enforce her cooperation, with a Bidding;
but she couldn’t have, even if she wanted to. Not as long as Dawn had the locket
containing the most powerful influence-deflecting talisman Willow had been able
to devise. Not enough to completely shunt aside a really powerful spell designed
and tuned to Dawn’s own nature, as the deathwish had been tuned to Spike, latching
onto his weaknesses and uncertainties and launching itself from that secured
beachhead. But the talisman was enough to hold even such a spell at bay, unable
to inflict its full effect, long enough for an equally focused counterspell
to be assembled and set running to dissipate the attack.
Willow had one like it. So did Buffy. And a few others Spike had thought in
need of such protection.
Hold me harmless of all hurt, Willow recited in her mind, grimly determined
to be calm. Hold me in the Light, to do what is in accordance with the Earth,
and the Goddess, and all benevolent Powers.
“Dawn, I’ve told you, promised you, that you won’t get hurt here. I’m trying
to do what you asked: find out who’s been getting at Spike, with what, and why.
But if you won’t give me the locket, there’s no point. If Giles were still here,
I could draw on him. But he isn’t. Potentially, you’re an even better reservoir
than he was, because of your residual keyness. But if you won’t let me tap into
it, it might as well not be there.”
“Isn’t there another way?” Dawn asked in a small voice. “Can’t you scry him
some way, find out--”
“No, baby. I can tell that it’s there, but not what it is or how it’s affecting
him. It’s been absorbed: it’s part of him now. I can’t disentangle it until
I know what it is. How it was made. It’s a custom job: not something I can just
go look up in a book. But if you’re that scared, I’ll just take you home and
try to think of another--”
“What about Halloween?” Dawn interrupted, sounding rather desperate. “Isn’t
there power in that, you could draw from?”
“Not for me,” Willow answered grimly. “It will be around, all right. Samhain:
the Sabbat night. Feast of All Souls. You’re right: it has power. But nothing
I would dare touch. Whatever’s done has to be done before sundown.”
Willow found herself thinking, If Tara was here, she would have lent me her
power. Which just started her thinking about Tara, which was still so painful,
in so many ways, it made her want to throw her head back and scream.
“Or Anya,” Dawn blurted. “If Amy’s the one who’s hurt Spike, couldn’t he do
a wish against her? Makeher tell?”
Willow pulled her thoughts away from the sucking black hole that was Tara’s
absence. “Vengeance wishes tend to yield torn viscera, not information. And
I don’t know if Anya’s Vengeance Demon status is on or off at the moment. Do
you?”
Dawn shook her head, flinging hair. “I owed her a wish, but she used that,”
she muttered. “I don’t have any other…. I’m sorry, Willow. I didn’t realize
it would mean taking the locket off. I’m still connected to the Powers, except
the locket keeps them out of my head. Keeps them from knowing whatever I know.
And some things I know…are none of their business.”
“Like where Spike’s soul is,” Willow suggested, and Dawn bobbed a tight nod.
“If I took it off…I don’t know what would happen. What they’d do. They really,
really don’t like being shut out. I think. I don’t know. I don’t want to find
out.” Dawn’s fingers plucked at the air as though trying to grasp alternatives.
“Maybe…maybe we should just go home. Phone Giles, we could do that! Maybe he’d
have some different idea? Don’t you think?”
“Maybe,” Willow responded without interest, releasing the parking brake, grimly
working the gear shift and the clutch, then hauling at the wheel, to pull away
from the curb.
Consulting Giles, long distance, on handling Amy the Rat had less than no appeal.
All Willow knew was that the confrontation with her once-friend had been derailed,
averted. She couldn’t easily decide if she was more disappointed or relieved.
**********
Buffy blinked. Her head felt like a dizzy pumpkin balanced on a straw. Her mouth
was dry and tasted foul. Then she remembered, jerked, and shoved herself to
sitting, seized with the fear that she was too late, that Spike would have freaked
and broken out a window and the sunlight and….
And he was sitting on the floor, finishing off a blood bag. Naked. Face and
chest covered in blood. The stuff that had erupted from the bag, probably. Mostly.
Still in game-face. And she…was on the floor. Just sprawled, limbs leaden. Not
even a pillow.
Glancing around, Spike remarked affably, “Made a proper mess of me, didn’t you?
And yourself. And the bed. Fifteen sorts of sticky.” Dropping the empty wrapper,
he collected a fresh bag and bit into it, his throat working as he swallowed
it down.
Buffy blinked some more, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
He’d bitten her. Soulless, and he’d still bitten her. Damn near drained her.
And fucked her while he was doing it. She’d passed out. And then…he’d calmly
pulled away, leaned around, and pitched into the contents of the cool box.
She felt a shaking inside as her heart tried to speed up, pump what wasn’t there.
The dizziness got worse and fog began to gather at the periphery of her vision.
Maybe it was a good idea to lie flat. Staring blankly at the ceiling, she tried
to relax, control the shaking. Not black out.
Spike slid in next to her, leaning on an elbow, nuzzling at her neck. “Ready
for another go, are you?” he purred into her ear.
She couldn’t find the breath or the words to say No. It was taking all her concentration
to keep the fog at bay. And he didn’t notice. Or didn’t care. Was quite ready
to start without her, indifferent to her lack of response. Was kissing her,
tasting her, with that blood-fouled mouth. And she couldn’t move, couldn’t….
“Pet? Buffy? Something wrong?”
She found herself drawing in a really huge, huge breath. Until her lungs and
her chest ached with it, until she felt as if she’d burst. “Get away! From
me!”
Her arm swung randomly, forcelessly, and bounced off him somewhere. She breathed
a second, recovering from the effort, then swung again. This time met nothing.
The motion flopped her over onto her side. She lay panting. Heat flashed through
her, followed by cold achiness, as her body tried to recover.
He’d always been more afraid of this than she had. Because he’d known it could
happen. Now it had. And she supposed it meant something, that in the full intoxication
of bloodthirst, he’d still stopped and left her alive. Something…but not much.
Not enough.
She rolled her head enough to see, and he’d backed off, obedient to her command.
Looking at her. Concerned. Perplexed, she thought. Though it was hard to tell
under the blood mask. She shut her eyes as the deep shuddering got stronger.
“Spike: shower. Hot!”
She couldn’t have stood, much less made it to the bathroom on her own. But that
was all right because he gathered her up and carried her. She could still depend
on him for things like that.
Still held in the shower, she tipped her head back and opened her mouth to let
the water run in. It seemed forever before the blood taste was washed away and
another forever before she'd swallowed enough to appease her thirst. Eventually
the water’s heat banished the chill, and she felt herself break into a full-body
sweat the water washed away. Slayer healing going into high gear to repair the
damage, replace the lack. She didn’t know how long he held her like that, cradled
passively against his chest, except it wasn’t an hour: the hot water would have
run out. Long enough for her fingers to go pruny, though. She studied them in
vague bewilderment as he put her down on the toilet to get her dry. Then he
wrapped the towel around her shoulders and continued to sit on his heels before
her. Knees all knobby. Head bent, not looking at her. Waiting for her verdict.
He’d been thinking too.
“Dressed,” Buffy decided: she couldn’t face that sodden, sticky bed. Couldn’t
stand remembering the smell.
He thought a minute, then left, shutting the door behind him. The room was warm
with steam, and the towel was large, soft, and comforting. When he came back,
he was wearing an old pair of jeans and had brought clothes for her, so she
wouldn’t have to go back into the bedroom for them. Silently, he helped her
dress, then assisted her downstairs to the front room. When she was settled
in the big chair, she said, “We have to talk.”
Spike shook his head and left without replying, turning kitchenward at the hall.
With only time to go and come, he returned with a mug of warm onion soup in
one hand and a glass of cooking sherry in the other. He set both on the weapons
chest beside her.
“Oh, I couldn’t--”
“Drink the soup. You need the salt,” he said curtly, turning away.
He must have opened the can and started the soup heating before he’d brought
her clothes. And the cooking sherry because, well, he couldn’t find anything
else.
Lifting the mug carefully in both hands, Buffy took a tentative sip and then
gulped until the soup was gone. He was right: she was desperately hungry for
salt. Well, he should know. The sherry was faintly salty, too. She felt better
when she’d finished it.
Sitting on the floor, he reached up a bare, hard ivory arm for the empty mug:
he’d lit a cigarette and wanted somewhere other than the floor to tap the ashes.
Buffy seized his wrist a moment, then let go, let him take the mug. Cigarettes
were forbidden anywhere except in the basement. He wasn’t going to the basement
and really needed the cigarette. Nothing there to be discussed.
“You put up,” Buffy said softly, “and put up, and put up. And then you explode.”
“Yeah. Seems like.”
He looked so grim and forlorn. Buffy patted the front of the chair. “C’mere.”
A pause while he thought about it. Then he slid himself so his back was between
her knees, facing away from her. Maybe it would be easier to talk and not see
each other’s faces. She began working on the muscles of his shoulders and the
back of his neck, under the damp ends of his hair. Everything predictably rigid,
bunched up.
She said, “No apologies?”
“It’s way past sorry this time. Tried to keep it all clear of you. Didn’t work
very well.”
“You have to put the soul back.”
He bent his head. “Can’t.”
“We can’t go on this way.”
“Yeah. Well, then.” He pulled away, stood. Blue eyes blank, face expressionless.
“Marked Bit. And now this. Can’t be doing things like this, love. Best let you
both be, then. Till this is over.”
“No!”
He made a sudden, aimless gesture with the mug. “Got no goddamn fucking choice!
You know what I am. You want--” Breaking off, he hauled open the weapons chest,
heedless of the sherry glass smashing against the wall, and came up with a stake
he forced her to close her hand around. Bent over her, arms braced to either
side, he said, “You want to stake me, go ahead. Be done with it. What the hell
am I supposed--”
Wrenching her hand free, Buffy grabbed his neck and pulled his head down into
a frantic series of gnawing kisses. When she had to stop to gulp air, he yanked
himself away, took two wandering steps, and dropped down on the floor again.
Back bowed, head bent: all folded into himself. When the chair creaked, he said,
“Don’t. You wouldn’t like…what would come of it. ‘M right on the edge--” She
could see his back move with breathing. “It didn’t. Feel wrong. Felt all sorts
of good.” He shuddered: maybe a head-shake. “Always…feels all sorts of good.
Can’t take care with you anymore. Not without I think it all out beforehand,
can’t….”
She waited, but he didn’t finish the thought. “You have to put the soul back.”
“No.”
“I’ll find out where it is and do it--”
“No!”
Noise at the front door. Willow and Dawn came in, arguing, then stopped in the
doorway, staring.
Dawn said, “Are you two having a thing? Because if you are, I don’t--”
“Bit,” Spike interrupted, unfolding to stand. “Get the soul.”
“You mean--?”
“Get it.”
Dawn stared to be sure he meant it, then dropped her backpack and hustled away
down the hall.
Willow asked, “What’s going on? Did your room get wrecked?”
Buffy and Spike both ignored her.
Thumps and bumps from the basement. Then Dawn returned with a different backpack,
holding it carefully before her.
Saying anxiously, “I’ll have to refresh on the ritual,” Willow reached for the
backpack but Dawn avoided her, continuing past to present the backpack to Spike.
When he didn’t take it, she set it on top of the TV and unzipped it, removing
from it an Orb of Thessula glowing with its contents. Scooping it one-handed,
Spike hurled it against the nearest wall. He’d flashed into game-face. He glared
at Buffy for a moment, then turned on Willow, who looked startled and appalled,
leveling a finger at her.
“You try to undo that, Red, and I’ll finish what I started in your bedroom.”
“Is it back?” Buffy asked.
“No,” said Willow, “it’s gone.”
“I guess,” Dawn said shakily, “that means we can visit Amy after all.”
**********
Dawn pinched herself and said softly, “Ow.” She guessed that meant she was still
here.
It also apparently meant Spike’s soul wasn’t gone gone: not like he’d
dusted or anything. No longer contained in the smashed jar, it had been released
to the air, or the aether, or wherever souls went when they weren’t attached
to anybody.
She wasn’t attached to anybody. Only to an untethered soul. Majorly shiversome.
Spike’s sudden glance told her he hadn’t thought about that side of it until
now. He told Willow, “What I said before. About fitting up some different anchor
for Dawn. See to it.”
Dawn burst out, “I don’t want that! I never wanted that! Stupid vampire, it
wasn’t so you’d be my anchor: it was so I’d be yours! So you wouldn’t do something
dumb, get yourself dusted. So you’d know it wasn’t just you, that you were risking!
So you’d show a little sense sometimes about what you let yourself get into.
And now you’ve thrown it all away, let it go smash, you idiot! Moron! Fool!
Jerk!” She found herself pounding on Spike’s chest, doing no damage whatever,
and he didn’t even hug her or anything, just stood and let her do it. She couldn’t
reach him. Not really. This time, he’d gone too far away: inside himself. She
couldn’t reach, and he wouldn’t.
Willow dragged her away, saying, “There’s no time for this.” She tried to steer
and push Dawn out the door.
Dawn didn’t care, and said so, yanking free of Willow, glaring at Spike. “You
don’t care. You never cared. Got what you wanted--Buffy--then got rid of the
soul the first chance you had. Are you hunting now, Spike? Feeding on people
yet? Because the bagged blood is only second best, we all know it, and now there’s
nothing to stop you doing it direct again. You--”
Willow shook her, interrupting, “We have to get there before dark!”
Spike asked Willow, “What’s all this, then? Who’s Amy? What's she got to do
with anything?”
Buffy stood up behind Spike, hands hovering as though she wanted to touch him
but had the nasty suspicion he was red hot, blurting, “Spike…?”
Still tugging on Dawn, Willow told Spike, “I’ll explain later.”
“Won’t be here later. Explain now.”
In a commanding, spell-y voice, Willow declared, “Confutate,” and everybody
shut up. Dawn had words to think in, but they wouldn’t come out of her mouth.
Not even an indignant Ahh ahh, like when your tongue was impeded by a
thermometer and you couldn’t say the truly devastating thing you were thinking.
Not that Dawn was thinking anything that devastating. Or, she thought, looking
at Spike being all irritated and detached, like he was around his vampire crew
but never with them, because they were freaking family, maybe she was.
Her stomach was all knotted up: they hadn’t stopped on the way home and she
hadn’t had anything since breakfast except the horrible vanilla yogurt and the
potato chips except that now she didn’t want anything anyway, wasn’t even hungry,
would probably just barf if she tried, she was so upset because nobody was doing
anything about Spike. Not even Spike. And she couldn’t get the words to come.
Pointing demandingly at her mouth, Dawn let Willow drag her back toward Willow’s
car.
“Locutate,” Willow said wearily, making a gesture that required her to
release Dawn’s arm as well as her words, and bent to unlock the passenger door
because she had to: the Fiat came equipped with power nothing. Dawn threw
herself miserably into the seat.
Getting in on the driver’s side, Willow said crossly, “If you want to do something
about Spike, help me identify the spell that’s making him this way.”
“Yeah, sure: it’s not any spell, Willow. He’s always been like this. Except…not
around us.” Dawn folded her arms hard and scuffed at a curved-up edge of the
floor mat, muttering bastard; idiot; git; freakin’ numbskull under her
breath. As Willow got the car started and yanked through the gears (one pained
screeeech!) to get it moving, Dawn demanded, “Where’s his soul now?”
“Some kind of limbo, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well, it isn’t as if I read up on it lately, Dawn! But…there seems to be something
like the Law of Conservation of Souls: as long as the owner’s alive, they don’t
just dissipate, or I couldn’t get them back. The way I did with Angel.”
Angel was undead too, so Dawn judged that a fair comparison. “How do you know
you got his soul back? His very own? Not just one that happened to be
floating past when you grabbed?”
Willow sighed, frowning at the road.
Dawn added, “And don’t tell me ‘It’s complicated,’ because I frelling know
that, all right? I’m asking you to uncomplicate it! So how do you know you got
the right soul?”
“There’s a mystical connection. Between the soul and the person,” Willow formulated
slowly, possibly through gritted teeth. “That keeps it waiting, wherever it
is, until that person really, completely dies. Or dusts, as the case may be.
When you invoke the soul, you’re also invoking the person you’re putting it
back into. Because typically, that person isn’t present. So it’s the right soul.
Nobody else’s would respond. I think.”
“Oh, great: you think!”
“It’s complicated! And I’m only just beginning, Dawnie! Give me a break here,
all right? There’s lots of stuff I don’t know, and I know that. All humble about
that, the way I’m supposed to be. Now please, please keep quiet: I have to review
my defense spells. I didn’t think I’d have to remember them this long. And I
can’t do that while you’re talking!”
“That was a red light,” Dawn mentioned sullenly.
“Rule two: don’t distract the driver. And do you have your seat belt fastened?”
Dawn attended to it. Geez! Like it was her fault Willow had run that
red light! And Spike had promised to teach her to drive, except the DeSoto was
someplace up on blocks, and maybe now he never would, all detached the way he
was, and she’d been so happy for him at first, that he’d set aside the nagging
soul that ruined everything, made everything so hard for him, and he’d assured
her nothing important had changed, everything still fine between them. Sure,
fine. The disconnected drift only begun then. Undetectable.
Stopping the spell wasn’t gonna solve the problem because the problem predated
the spell. What had only been simmering had come to a full rolling boil: she
wondered delicately exactly what sort of a thing Buffy and Spike had gotten
into, between them, to set off the full withdrawal. Probably something about
S-E-X. Or feeding. Or both, because he still wasn’t feeding right, or enough,
even though the bagged blood was human.
She didn’t truly believe what she’d accused him of: hunting, feeding, the way
ordinary vamps did. Mike, for instance. But if Spike detached himself from all
human connections, if he no longer had them to anchor him tight, tether him
close and safe, he probably would, sooner or later. Because, what was to prevent
him? And what was the alternative?
And if he did…and if Buffy found out about it….
Bad, Dawn thought. Could be very bad.
“Dawn,” Willow said, shutting off the engine, “I need your locket now.”
Looking around, Dawn saw that the car had stopped about the same place as it
had before. Taking what Tara would have called “a deep, cleansing breath,” she
slipped the chain of the locket over her head and surrendered it.
And instantaneously felt, knew, she was no longer alone. Not exactly the “eyes
on the back of her neck” sensation--more like an awareness of eyes behind
her eyes. A mutter of thoughts that weren’t her thoughts almost like background
voices in a polite restaurant. Nothing she could actually overhear, but still
there. Lots of them. They hadn’t said or done anything yet but she knew
they could.
She wondered if this was how people felt when they were possessed. Or dispossessed,
if it came to that. Or maybe it was like having fleas and therefore referring
to oneself as “we.” Just the thought made her feel itchy all over.
She trailed along behind Willow to the door and dispiritedly inspected the half-dead
foundation shrubs (knowing it was the cement leaching into the insufficiently
acidified soil that was killing them, without knowing how she knew: she
just did) while Willow rang the bell, waited, and rang again.
The shadows of the opposite houses were long, stretching all the way across
the street; and the remaining light was reddish and anything but warm.
The door was opened by a tallish, dark-haired woman about Willow’s age. Amy--assuming
that’s who she was--leaned diagonally in the doorway, blocking it. Her eyes
looked somehow both surprised and sly. “Oh, hi, Willow. You decide you want
to go clubbing again? It was fun the last time, so I’m still game if you are.
It’s been awhile since we went out. Together.”
The clear sound of insinuation was there, even for Dawn and her auditors. Dawn
didn’t know what Amy was insinuating. Her auditors did, and also judged it untrue.
Not a good omen, meeting someone for the first time and the first thing out
of their mouth was a lie.
Squaring herself up, showing resolve-face, Willow said, “I came to talk about
Spike.”
“Oh, is he still around? Still drooping around after Buffy, I think you said?”
“They’re a bit past droop. And there’s been some problem--”
“With a vamp? Why am I not surprised?”
“--with spells,” Willow continued, ignoring the interruption. “Being sold to
a vamp called Digger.”
“‘Digger’? Really? How totally quaint! And how’s your girlfriend--is
it ‘Thea’? ‘Farah’? I’m real bad now with names. Maybe because of all that time
I was kept as a rat--!”
Other than mouthing off at each other, Amy and Willow weren’t doing anything.
Except they were. Just nothing visible. But Dawn’s auditors and watchers--hell,
just say it: the Powers--were aware of it and didn’t care whether Dawn
knew or not.
It was like a shoving match: push and counter and push, like two people holding
metal garbage can lids. Variously weapon, shield, and deflection depending on
how they were angled, how hard they were pushed. Nothing complex or targeted
yet--just assessing raw magical force and determining who had more.
Amy smiled: a real nasty, toothy smile. “Tara. Of course that’s it, and how
appropriate! Like the house in that old movie. Overblown, overdressed, and…over,
I see. Shot by accident, hey? How excessively dumb. But typical.”
Practically crackling with fury, Willow reached out and closed fingers around
Dawn’s wrist. Dawn stumbled forward from a sense of push. Amy fell backward
through the doorway. Willow advanced into the house, towing Dawn behind her.
Dawn could feel the power drain. Not very strong yet. Barely a trickle gathering,
running through her, and away. Something like the feeling she got when Mike
had fed on her, without the nice parts. Apparently energy and blood felt much
the same.
She remembered Xander joking one time about how, in an alternate universe, he
and Willow had been vampires. It had been a different Willow, a whole different
universe; but maybe this Willow remembered. Except, of course, that she needed
no invitation to go inside.
One way or the other, Willow was feeding on her. And Dawn's occupants were letting
it happen.
Amy was tumbled on her back, one knee bent. If Dawn had been someone else, she
could have looked up her skirt. Very undignified. Amy scuttled back until she
hit a tall cabinet that held china. The standing plates rattled as she pulled
herself upright against it.
“You’re crazy,” she accused, swiping hair out of her face. “Everybody knows
spells don’t work on vamps!”
“Some do,” Willow replied, still advancing. “A deathwish, that’s not too hard
to adapt. Because, after all, well, dead. I can see how the one in Gingrich’s
Apothecarium Malorum could be modified. Or did you use Morris’s Arcanum?
Yeah: the Arcanum--spiteful little twerp, Morris. Always reminded me
of Principal Snyder. I thought it might be, when I made the counterspell. Nice
to know I was right. So what was the flashy powder for, Amy? Something lingering,
with poison? Play with his head, or play with his body? Because he doesn’t seem
to be sickening just yet, but something’s definitely off in that quarter. You
see, I’ve come to regard Spike as not only a sort of weird friend, not just
my best friend’s boyfriend, which makes him a sort of boyfriend-in-law, but
as an actual business partner, and it’s my professional rule never to
let anybody mess with my business partners.”
Willow’s smile, though less toothy, was worse than Amy’s: at the same time genuinely
happy and genuinely malevolent. And the rate of draw was increasing.
Willow continued implacably, “I’m gonna give you one chance to tell me what
you did and how you did it. Your own secret, private recipe for hurting a vamp--for
money.”
“Not money,” Amy blurted.
“What, then?” Willow didn’t sound really interested.
“A chance. At real power. Not the feeble, sucky residue, that’s all that’s left.
Real power to draw on and use. Maybe I could cut you in…for a share--” Amy said,
with effort, as though all the breath were being squeezed out of her.
Willow laughed. It was not a nice laugh. “Power? Please! I have all the power
I need, nearly all the power I can use. Freely granted, not stolen or coerced.
You want to find out what a brain suck is like, Amy? I might even be merciful:
not the capacity, just the contents. I don’t have to ask, you know. I could
take! And if you tell me right now, I might not turn you back into a
rat. Keep you in the little cage, cute little wheel to run around in, great
food every day--all the comforts of home. Except for, well, being a rat. It
took me over five years to figure out how to undo your spell, turn you human.
Turn you back into a rat, I could do it just like that.” Willow snapped
her fingers.
Dawn couldn’t see much in the hallway anymore except the shine of Amy’s frightened
eyes. The power draw was fierce…and the Powers were amenable. Shoving Dawn aside,
a still point of awareness, just an onlooker, the Powers fed a rush of force
through the contact. And Amy burst into flame like a vamp on a sunny afternoon.
“I didn’t do that!” Willow exclaimed, flinging Dawn’s wrist away. “I didn’t
spell her to burn!”
(While Amy shrieked and contorted.)
“Yes, you did,” Dawn heard her own voice saying. Except not her voice. The Power
she was most attuned to and mostly a part of, the Power she’d taught Spike to
call Lady Gates, had assumed control…and residence. Dawn was a frightened observer
in her own head.
“I didn’t!” Willow protested, and said a Word that held Amy and her flames still,
in a sort of freeze-frame, except it was still happening. Just stopped. “I mean…I
didn’t mean to!”
“You’d better do your brain suck now, while she’s available,” Lady Gates (through
Dawn) recommended calmly.
“I can’t do that! I just said that. Being all blustery and everything.
I can’t just insert fingers in people’s heads and take their minds away! I’m
not a fricking god!”
Lady Gates considered saying, I am, but decided it was unnecessary and
possibly rude. Good manners were important when among the creatures, though
less so than among her peers. Instead, she said, “You should have remembered
that before, then. You shouldn’t threaten what you can’t deliver. I believe
it’s called ‘bluffing.’”
Looking back and forth between Dawn and flaming Amy, Willow flung up her hands
and wailed, “I don’t know what to do!”
“Go home. Call Giles,” Lady Gates suggested, secretly sardonic. “I’m sure he
knows some way to get Amy un-flamed and back to something like her original
condition. Such as it was. Repulsive little creature. But that’s a nice, solid
stasis you’ve created: it should last for…oh, at least a week. I’m sure you’ll
have something figured out by then. And then you can ask her your questions
again. I’m sure she’ll be more receptive.”
“But I didn’t do it!” Willow insisted, wandering back to the car. “I
don’t have the power to do a stasis. I’ve barely read about them!”
“Beginner’s luck,” suggested Lady Gates, with a sweet, Dawnish smile.
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