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Barb
Downtown Sunnydale on
a Saturday night, an island of small-town ambience in the ocean of So Cal
suburbia. Main Street, lit up with the glitter and sparkle of Christmas
lights, hosts the usual good-time Saturday crowds augmented by hordes of
shoppers. The Bronze, the Espresso Pump, the Sun Theater, all
packed. Go further downtown, towards the docks, and the streets grow
narrower, darker, and the seedier allure of the Fish Tank and the Purple Onion
draw their own circles of clientele.
If you are human, you keep
to the light, stick with the swirling mass of high school kids with oversized
jeans and backwards baseball caps, college kids in fashionable piercings and
haircuts that had been out of date in L.A. for weeks, adults young and old
grabbing the bit in their teeth and throwing over the traces of the
workweek. If you are human, and have lived in Sunnydale any amount of
time, you know something is out there in the dark, beyond the sodium glow of the
street lamps. You join in the buzz of talk and ever-so-slightly-nervous
laughter and hope that by refusing to name it, you can ward it off.
If you aren't human, you
keep to the darkness, stalking the mortal herd with predatory precision.
You drift along the edges of the crowds, silent as the mist that legend said you
could turn to--legend was wrong, but who needed special effects when you had
strength and speed and senses far beyond the mortal? There's nothing human
which could match you, much less best you. Scout the sidewalks, looking
for tonight's victim. The blue-haired woman with the armful of
packages? The lanky young man with the soul patch and the air of
existential discontent? Or there, in the alleyway ahead, the young couple
necking heedlessly against the wall, hands and mouths all over each other, lost
in a carnal fog?
If you are
a vampire, you smile to yourself and glide forward across the gum-pocked
pavement in front of the theater, cruel delight welling deep inside as you
imagine your hand falling on the man's shoulder. You imagine his look of
shock, the woman's terror as you tear his jugular open, the fear in their eyes
as delicious as the blood in their veins. You suit action to thought, reaching
out; but before your hand comes to rest upon its target, the man in the alley
turns to face you in a swirl of black leather. His golden eyes and ridged
brow and sharp-fanged, arrogant smile mirror your own, the only reflection you
will ever know.
If you are
a vampire, you realize, too late, that there is only one heartbeat to be heard
between them. You start to back away, thinking that you have intruded upon
the other's kill; but there is no blood on his mouth, and his hand, cold as your
own, closes about your wrist with a strength that exceeds your fledgling prowess
by a century or more, pinning you in place. The delicate pink tip of the
woman's tongue darts across her kiss-swollen lips, and her eyes are bright with
excitement, not fear.
If
you are a vampire, you look upon the faces of the Slayer and her traitorous
consort and know that you've made a terrible, terrible mistake. As the
wooden stake plunges into your chest, there is one moment of needle-sharp,
achingly brilliant pain which lasts forever, the forever you were promised when
your sire first placed your dying lips to the wound at his breast and bade you
suck.
And then you are
gone.
Buffy nudged the pile of
dust at her feet with a disdainful toe, and the evening breeze finished
dispersing the remains of the vampire who'd attacked them. Spike slouched
against the brickwork, watching her with an admiring half-grin that didn't quite
conceal his fangs. She watched him back from beneath lowered lashes.
His pale hands drew a rising arc in the darkness as he brought his lighter up to
meet the cigarette held askew in one corner of his mouth. His left thumb
flicked the striker of the gold Zippo and the flame leaped up, conjuring twin
gold-on-gold reflections in his eyes. The light lent the momentary
illusion of warmth to his angular features, threw the brow ridges of his demonic
face into sharp relief and cast the hollows of his cheeks into deep
shadow. He cupped his right hand around the cigarette, and the red ember
at its tip flared, dimmed, and brightened again as he drew it to life.
She couldn't stand smokers,
hated the smell of cigarettes, and was in full agreement with the old joke about
the designated smoking areas in California being Arizona and Nevada. So
why was the sight of Spike lighting up so god-damned sexy? Something about
the way that sensual mouth pursed around the cigarette...or maybe the way those
strong, long-fingered hands manipulated the lighter... He flicked the
lighter off and returned it to his coat pocket. Smoke trickled from
between his parted lips and coiled upwards in a lazy spiral. "Was it good
for you, love?"
"Not as
good as this." Buffy dragged him down without waiting for him to shake off
the game face, grabbed his cigarette, and tossed it over her shoulder. She
was afraid for a moment that he'd take her curiosity wrong, but after a moment's
surprise Spike responded with all the enthusiasm she could have wished, and they
were feeling each other up and trading long nicotine-flavored kisses
again. The first time Angel had kissed her he'd vamped out uncontrollably,
and ever after had been wary of it happening again. If anything, Spike
seemed to have the opposite reaction; he had to concentrate to keep from
reverting to human at her touch. Buffy ran her tongue over his teeth,
testing the sharp points of his canines. Different. Dangerous.
Thrilling.
She really had meant for tonight to be all business.
Really. They had work to do. Vamps to kill, crazies to track.
So naturally Spike had to show up looking hotter than a two-dollar pistol, and
ride her around on what was essentially a two-wheeled, gas-powered vibrator
until she was all hot and bothered. At least it wasn't just her.
Spike had scarcely let her out of arm's reach all evening--always catching hold
of her hand or touching her cheek or stroking her hair or brushing against her,
as if to reassure himself that she was really there. Or maybe just to be
touching her. For all her own longing, she'd never realized how starved
for physical contact he was, too--going on two days' evidence, Spike was big on
the PDAs.
So they were
being businesslike. Really. Here on the town's main drag it was ever
so much more inconspicuous for the two of them to go arm in arm than to stalk
along like a pair of Old West gunslingers lookin' fer trouble at the OK
Corral. Ending up macking in the alley next to the Sun was just an
occupational hazard of going arm in arm, was all.
His soft cool lips
tantalized her throat, his fangs making little teasing pinpricks against her
skin that never came close to really drawing blood. Some part of her was
completely astonished at all this implied about his control and her trust of it,
but the rest of her shivered and melted as his hand slid up and over her
shoulder, stroking the line of her collarbone where it ran beneath her jacket,
then dropping to cup her breast. Her nipples went taut under his
fingers. He had an unerring sense of what kind of touches, and where,
turned her to goo. Best of all it was mutual; her hands were eliciting all
kinds of happy little rumblings from Spike as they explored the lean hard lines
of his torso. It was very easy to tell exactly what kinds of touches he
liked, and where.
She made
an attempt to break free of his circling arms that barely qualified as
quarter-hearted. "We should patrol."
"We are patrolling."
"Patrolling implies
actually moving from place to place at some point."
He nuzzled her
collarbone. "I am moving from place... to... mmmmrrrhhrr...." Now
this was a cool discovery; rub a vampire's brow ridges and he'd follow you
anywhere. Fun with game face. Who knew? Spike tilted his head
back with a goofily blissful expression, allowing her easier access to that
completely lickable Adam's apple, and said hoarsely, "Got a dangerous vampire to
keep an eye on right here, Slayer."
"Really?" She took
advantage of the invitation and licked his throat, reveling in his pleasurable
shudder. "I always thought this one was kind of a creampuff. I hear
he uses excessive amounts of hair gel."
"How many times, pet?" His
husky growl went right to the center of her being and pulsed there.
"What?"
"How many times did you
bring yourself off today, thinkin' about last night?"
Thump him on the chest,
hard. Had to be hard; soft wouldn't make an impression on that rock-solid
body. "As if!" Could she make a quick grab for his shirt pocket and
find out what the heck he was hiding in there? Or would any such attempt
degenerate into further sessions of Grope The Vampire, and would either of them
really object if it did?
Spike only laughed. "How many?"
She looked up, biting her
lower lip with a reluctant smile. "Twice." At his skeptical look,
"Well, twice before Tara got home." Her smile went wicked. "And
you?"
He nipped at her
pouting lip and chuckled. "If the whelp had shown up a few minutes
earlier he'd've gotten an eyeful. I'll be in Guinness for non-stop wanking
any day now if this keeps up. Not that I wasn't close already."
Buffy reached down and
toyed with the buttons of his fly, cupping the already sizeable bulge in his
jeans and letting her fingers stray to one side, then the other, teasing
him through the worn black denim. "Seems to me like you're
keeping up very nicely." He groaned and his cock jerked and hardened
further beneath her touch. So nice not to have to pretend
Spike didn't exist below the belt buckle, especially when the real estate
in that neighborhood was so choice. It was a little aggravating that he
could scent her arousal no matter how she might try to hide it, but
everyone could see just how hot she got him, and it gave her a heady,
joyful jolt of sexual power. She did that to him, she, Buffy
Summers, the one Angelus hadn't thought worth a second go, the one Riley had
left for not needing him enough.
Spike growled deep in his
chest and ground his body into hers. She was half a breath away from
yanking the jeans right off those narrow, muscled hips (damned if she could tell
what besides his hard-on kept them up in the first place) and going down on him
right then and there when the scream tore through the noise of traffic and
Saturday crowds.
"Bugger," Spike snarled with truly heartfelt viciousness.
Buffy bit back similar
sentiments. Time to save the world, or at least the local part of
it. "Sounds like it came from across the street. Come on."
They dashed out of the
alley and down the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians and prompting a few more
shrieks from the people who noticed that Spike was still all fangy.
Vaulting the hood of an acid-green Nissan parked at the intersection, Buffy
paused on the corner, trying to concentrate on the tingle along her nerves that
meant vampires were nearby. She'd never been as good at this aspect of the
Slayer biz as the hitting parts, and having to filter out Spike's overwhelming
presence didn't make it any easier. Still... "There," she said, pointing.
Spike's gaze followed her
outstretched hand and he nodded, eyes lighting at the prospect of carnage.
There were four this time. Smarter than the one who'd attacked earlier,
too. Two of them, human features to the fore, were standing guard in the
mouth of the alley behind the hairdresser’s, camouflaged in seedy-young-adult
uniforms of baggy jeans and oversized flannel shirts. Both stared
insolently at the passers-by and silently dared anyone to venture past
them. No one was taking them up on it. In the shadows of the alley
behind them, two dimly visible figures loomed over a body sprawled out on the
oil-stained concrete. Its leg kicked fitfully, once.
The guard-vamps sprouted
fangs and dropped into a fighting stance the moment the two of them
approached. Buffy shot a look at Spike--all it ever took. She dove
at the vamp on the right while he tore into the one on the left with a joyful
roar. Instead of closing with her foe she feinted, dropped, and rolled
under his swing to come up behind him. She back-kicked as she came to her
feet and slammed her heel into his kidneys as Spike grabbed his opponent by the
scruff of the neck and rammed his head into the wall. The force of Buffy's
kick sent her target staggering forward face-first into Spike's waiting fist,
but she didn't bother to track his progress; without hesitation she leaped at
the pair who were feeding on the man on the ground. She dug her fingers
into the nearest one's shoulder and yanked him upright. "Hey, Mr.
Selfish! Didn't your mom teach you that you shouldn't eat if you didn't
bring enough for everyone in the class?"
The interrupted vampire
snarled and lunged at her. She smashed a hard left into his jaw, sending
him reeling back into the side of the nearby dumpster. Buffy grinned,
flexing her hand. Oh, yeah, that felt good.
The second one's
head snapped up, runnels of crimson trailing from the corners of her
mouth. "Make-up's running, Elvira. Have a wet-nap." She
snapped a front kick at the crouching vampire, catching her right under the
chin. "Oopsie. That was my boot." Number One kicked off the
dumpster and pounced her from behind. She elbowed him in the nose, whirled
in place and drove her fist into his solar plexus. His legs went out from
under him and she brought her knee up to catch him in the face again. The
sound of bones breaking was music. Yeah. This was the stuff.
Get out all that... frustration.
She caught a glimpse of
Spike as she spun, engaged in his own dance with the other two. He was
outright toying with them--he'd shifted back to human form, foregoing the extra
advantage of strength and speed that letting his demon aspect surface gave
him--saying, in essence, I don't need it for you. He'd leave
himself open, let them get in a hit or two, think they had him going, and then
let go with a lightning-swift series of brutal kicks and blows. His face
was alight with that huge tongue-wagging grin, loving the fight, turned on as
all hell by the act of pummelling someone into the ground.
He caught
her eye and winked, conspiratorial.
You got off on it.
And I suppose you're
telling me you don't?
The chill cramp of self-disgust in her stomach had a knock-down drag-out with
the adrenaline rush of the fight, and lost--for the moment, anyway. The
moment almost cost her; both of her foes took instant advantage of her
distraction and for a second she staggered under the impact of their
fists. She crashed into the side of the dumpster and the side panel fell
open with a clang; one of the plastic bags inside burst and garbage cascaded out
onto the ground. Buffy leaped to her feet, well and truly pissed off
now. "Do you realize this blouse has to be dry-cleaned?" she snapped,
whipping out her stake. "No more Ms. Nice Slayer!"
Over at the mouth of the
alley Spike had taken note of her slip and already disposed of one of his foes;
now he wrestled the second one into a headlock and wrenched, hard. The
guard-vamp's scream was cut off as his head and body parted company.
Spike was coming for her,
bursting right through the shower of grey-brown particles which were all that
was left of his opponent. Buffy rammed her stake home, straight
through the rib cage of the female vamp, and whirled, looking for the other
one--no way was she going to let Spike dust more vamps in a night than she
got. There he was, by the dumpster, just turning to face her. She
readied the stake for a blow. Spike fell into position behind the
remaining vamp, boxing him in. Buffy struck. The vampire howled in
fear and dodged, but she'd taken that into account. Mr. Pointy arced
towards his heart.
It
wasn't there.
Giles had
told her more than once during their training sessions that the opponent most to
be feared was the inexperienced one, because they were the most
unpredictable. Over the years Buffy had found the advice to be accurate,
but pretty much useless--how could you predict something that wasn't
predictable? Or in this case, even an opponent? The vamp gang's
victim, still supine, had kicked the last vampire's legs out from under
him. Her target was now flat on his butt on the ground, and her stake was
now headed straight for Spike's chest.
Time slowed to a
crawl. She saw Spike's eyes go wide, and his right forearm start up to
block her at the approximate speed of molasses in January. She screamed at
the pokiness of her nerve impulses, which were moseying from her brain to her
arm at much the same pace.
She managed to divert her aim a fraction; he managed to block. The stake
went flying. Shaking with equal parts relief and absolute fury, she bent
and wrenched the nearest piece of sharp wood off the pallet leaning up against
the wall behind the dumpster and stabbed it into the fallen vampire's
chest. She stood there staring down at the place where it wasn't any
longer, unable to control her shivering. That could have been--could
have been-- "Spike! Are you OK?"
He patted himself
down. "Yeh. Still undead, no thanks to..." A fearful whimper
at their feet broke the spell. Spike's head turned slowly, his eyes
sparking gold. The man who'd almost been lunch staggered to his feet,
clutching the dumpster. Dark-haired, husky, wearing a Dodgers
t-shirt... "You. I know you," Spike whispered. "Ramon,
innit?" He smiled, the sweet, bone-chilling smile which presaged casual
bloodshed, and without any further warning his hand shot out to clamp around
Ramon's throat.
It had
always been characteristic of Spike that he could go from edgy annoyance to
full-blown murderous rage in the space of an eyeblink. It didn't happen
often these days; two years of living with the chip had forced him to learn how
to muzzle that demonic temper, but every now and then it chewed through the
straps. It's OK, Buffy thought, the chip will...
She flashed on the night a
month ago when she'd been dragged unwilling back to life, and the fight with
Magnus Bryce's men: the crack of gunfire, the fiery lash of the bullet creasing
her arm, Spike's fangs sinking into the neck of the man who'd shot her, heedless
of the pain the ship was causing... and for the first time it really sank in
that the chip made it very difficult for Spike to kill people--and very
difficult was not the same as impossible.
Her fist met Spike's nose
just before his fingers met flesh. He staggered with the double pain of
her blow and the chip-shock, dropping the terrified Ramon immediately.
Buffy heaved him up by the lapels with all her strength, tossing him across the
alley and into the wall. He hit with an audible thump, slid down the wall
and crumpled to the ground, clutching his head. Plainly dizzy and aching,
he found his feet, then reeled back into the brick wall as Buffy's hard little
fist smacked into his nose a second time.
"You ASSHOLE!" she
yelled. Buffy interposed herself between Ramon and Spike, balanced on the
balls of her feet, fist cocked and ready to hit the vampire again despite the
tears welling in her eyes and the quiver of her mouth. "What are you
THINKING?" For a long moment the two of them remained frozen, eyes locked,
Spike's bloodied face a mask of impotent fury, all the more frightening for
remaining human. "Spike..."
Her voice broke on his
name, and perhaps he sensed the fear behind her anger. The rage in his
eyes melted away as they softened from gold to blue, and he held out a
placating hand. "Sorry, love--got a little carried away--"
"Carried away? Don't
'love' me, you--!" Her fist lashed out and Spike's expression hardened
again--he grabbed her wrist before she could connect, making no move to fight
her, but pulling her close and holding on, hard, before she tore her arm from
his grasp. Buffy slapped both palms flat against his chest, ready to shove
him off. She made the mistake of looking up and was instantly lost in the
lustful, adoring azure of his eyes.
"Too late for that, pet."
Buffy's breath made a
little hitching noise in her throat. "This isn't a game! You could
have killed--" Ramon? Anyone? Should it have occurred to her
that he could kill her too?
Spike shook his head with a rueful laugh and let her go, massaging his
temples. "It didn't come off, did it?" He licked the trickle of blood from
his upper lip. "And yours truly's got a bugger of a headache to keep me
company for the next hour. No harm, no foul."
There was a voice in the
back of her head yammering No harm, no foul, no, it's wrong wrong wrong but I
need him want him love--oh God, not that, not now, don't say it don't think
it--still a monster, still a monster--=
Ramon, his dark eyes like
saucers, broke and ran, kicking up a shower of garbage.
"Fuck!" Spike yelled as a
crumpled milk carton smacked him in the head.
"Yeah!" Buffy gasped.
"I mean, catch him!"
The UC Sunnydale library had
been built in the 70's, during a phase when architecture was all blocky textured
cement pillars and plate glass. In the summer, in the daytime, the
interior was pleasantly light and airy, but at night, in the winter, sitting too
close to those vast blank windowed walls could give you the unnerving sensation
of floating in some starless Lovecraftian void.
Which just went to show,
Willow thought, giving the page in front of her a moody flip, that you could
make anything creepy if you tried hard enough. She sighed and pulled her
German dictionary over to look up another irregular verb. Obviously she
wasn't trying hard enough, because the evening remained as prosaic as it could
possibly be. Other students with book bags slung over their shoulders or
varicolored stacks of texts in their arms drifted past her carrel in knots of
twos or threes, exchanging low whispers on the location of the nearest card
catalogue terminal, or the periodical literature room. Willow peered at
them over the stacks of dictionaries and reference books piled around
her. No one seemed nervous. There were no ominous flickering lights,
no manifestations of power.
She hadn't been hoping for any, she told herself sternly. She was just
doing research. Translating. Sure, the last time she'd opened this
book she'd been caught up in a transcendent mystical experience unlike anything
she'd ever known. But it had been wrong, and creepy, and evil, and anyway,
things had been different then.
Yes. Then you
had power.
Her hand
tightened on the pencil and the point snapped off, leaving a snail-trail
squiggle of graphite across her translation notes. "Oh--" She looked
guiltily around. It was practically sacrilegious to swear in a library,
wasn't it? "Bugger," she finished in a much softer voice.
There. British swearing didn't count. Giles had done it all the
time. Willow Rosenberg, too much of a weenie to say fuck in a
library. With a sigh she returned to her task. The scribbled
footnote she was currently translating ran over onto the next page. She
turned the yellow, dog-eared vellum over and began the laborious task of
translating the next section.
"In the next chapter," an oddly familiar
voice said. Willow's head jerked up. Her reflection in the
night-black glass gazed back, her but not her: a young woman in red lace and
black leather posed seductively in her carrel, leaning on one hand and looking
at her with a coquettish tilt of her head. Her hair, longer than Willow’s,
fell in russet sheaves about her pale, pixie-ish face. "Hi,
Snuggles." She wiggled the fingers of her free hand at Willow. "What
we want. In the next chapter." Her lips curved in a pouting smile
and her voice grew husky. "Wanna look?"
Willow jumped to her feet,
sending several of the books tumbling to the floor. She rubbed her eyes,
hard, but her vampire avatar was gone, and the reflection in the window was her
own prosaic self. "I'd say this verges on the disturbing," she
muttered. Well, she'd wanted a transcendent mystic experience... She
looked down at the shabby little book on the desktop, and after a few false
starts, extended her hand and ran a finger over the pages. What was that
disturbing rust-colored stain sticking those two leaves together? Best not
think about it. One by one, she turned the pages until the next chapter
heading leaped out at her from the top of one of them. The crabbed,
archaic lettering blurred into illegibility in several places further down the
page, but the title was clear: Addressing That Which Abides In The Great
Darkness.
That didn't
sound good. Let's face it, nothing in this puppy is Norman Vincent Peale
material. She sat down again, tracing the lines of text with one
finger and frowning at the difficult language. The first few chapters of
the grimoire had been devoted to necromantic spells of various kinds: spells to
bind a ghost to your service, spells to reanimate the dead, spells to create
zombies. The next few chapters had dealt with living souls, but had been
no less uncomfy to contemplate--here there were spells for influencing decisions
and clouding minds.
What
she'd hoped to find was something that would restore a damaged spirit and allow
her to regain her magic. This, however, was an invocation of some kind,
though the author was cagey about what exactly was being summoned.
Odd. Knowing the correct name of the being you were invoking was vital;
otherwise you risked losing control.
Who art beyond the light of sun or moon
Who precedeth time, who art the
final darkness
My soul is yours; grant me therefore all that I desire,
Yea, though my desires be as the boundless sea shalt thou satisfy them
And in retu--
The rest of the page was
hopeless; at some point, someone had spilt ink over half of it. Willow
turned to the next page; it wasn't in good condition, but she thought that it
might still be decipherable if she worked at it. Still, this wasn't at all
what she was looking for. Summoning some nameless,
really-not-good-sounding critter was not on the agenda. Even if it could
satisfy desires as boundless as the sea. Which did kind of cover getting
one's mojo back, didn't--
Willow slammed the book shut, stood up, and began stuffing things into her
backpack. It was past time to get home.
Not catching someone was a
good deal more difficult than it looked.
Up ahead of them Ramon
staggered to a halt and doubled over in the crimson glow of a NO VACANCY sign,
hands braced against his knees. Lincoln had once been the main route into
Sunnydale, back before the interstate came through, and was lined with a string
of grungy little motels built back in the 40's--horseshoes of little detached
cabins rejoicing in decaying pioneer ambience. Spike could remember
staying in ones just like them on cross-country trips with Dru, in the days when
they'd been new and fashionably kitschy. He made a mental note to mention
the fun factor of faux log cabin sex to Buffy, and to leave out the part about
having the inhabitants of the cabin next door for breakfast.
Lurking in the shadows of
the Ace Hardware store across the street, Spike watched as Ramon looked up,
scanning the apparently deserted street. The vampire could see the
droplets of sweat beading on his brow, each one reflecting the gory neon
light. The breeze brought the ambrosial scent of blood and fear to his
nose. Ramon'd tried to be tricky at first, but his pursuers knew downtown
Sunnydale intimately, and they were both faster and had more endurance than he
did. After ten minutes of dodging through alleys and doubling back, their
quarry had taken a straight course down Lincoln towards the edge of town.
And he was their quarry, no doubt about that. They'd loped along behind
him for a good three miles now, like wolves wearing down a deer on the Discovery
Channel. It had been a long time since he'd hunted a human being in
earnest, but the old skills returned with gratifying speed.
In the time it took the man
to wipe the sweat from his brow Spike left the doorway, flowing down the
darkened sidewalk with unearthly swiftness to crouch behind the wire lattice
shading a bus bench twenty feet closer to his mark. Across the street he
caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye: Buffy, leaving her own
hiding place for new concealment. A breath later she was by his side, her
gaze never leaving the back of Ramon's head.
She carried herself with
tense grace of a lioness stalking a gazelle. There was a wildness of
spirit in her that called out to him in kinship, and reveled as he did in the
hunt and the kill, that leapt up in joy within her when danger made the blood
run quick and hot in her veins. Artemis of Sunnydale, Night’s
huntress/Shall I behold thy unclothed glory/and the hounds of my heart tear my
flesh...? Oh, that’s brilliant, that is. No improvement in
compositional skills in a hundred and twenty years, I see. No, no
cold, chaste huntress this beside him. She brooked no comparison to old
goddesses, this woman who could out-fight and out-fuck the lot of them.
Whatever siren song the night held for her, Buffy had always denied it sway over
her life, living with a fierce resolve that the Slayer in her would be servant,
not master. He wasn’t sure if he loved her more because of or despite that
resolve and the distance it put between them.
He'd never been able to
take Dru on a hunt like this; she was too easily distracted--ironic that he was
finally getting to share this particular thrill with someone only after he could
no longer bring it to its deadly conclusion. Buffy laid a hand on his
thigh, splayed fingers warm through the black denim, and suddenly the lack of a
deadly conclusion didn't seem such a hardship. Perhaps he'd take to
carrying a camera like those ponces who couldn't bear to shoot the cute furry
animals.
She glanced at him
and made a small motion towards Ramon, a question in her eyes. Spike shook
his head. Normally he was willing to follow her lead on patrol, but this
was his element. Buffy fought demons; she had little experience with
hunting humans. Ramon straightened and jogged off again. Spike laid
a restraining hand on Buffy's shoulder, allowing their prey to move on
unmolested for a moment before continuing the pursuit. "He's headed
for the dump," he whispered.
Fifteen minutes
later, they were half-crouched at the summit of a mountain of junk, peering over
the crest and down into the valley below. Buffy brushed at the
unidentifiable smear of black gunk on her sleeve with distaste. "Why can't
more villains lair in luxury condos?"
‘Villains’ was stretching
it. In an arroyo formed by two intersecting ranges of trash, half a dozen
crazies were visible in the rubble. One of them going from one ramshackle
shelter to the next delivering food--plastic-wrapped microwave burritos, it
looked like. The others, under Tanner's supervision, busied themselves
with the Sisyphean task of keeping the shelters from falling to pieces around
them, adjusting the positions of old doors and pieces of plywood and sheet metal
according to some arcane architectural plan. "Bloody Hooverville down
there," Spike muttered. The aggravating thing was that this miniature
Calcutta had been growing practically under his nose all summer--he came to the
dump at least once a week to scout for useful discards. Not that he would
have considered it anything more than a possible source of amusement if he had
discovered it, but he'd probably have mentioned it to one of the humans, and
they'd doubtless have felt the need to investigate, and the whole mess could
have been nipped in the bud far earlier.
Still, it wasn't as if
they'd hung out a welcome sign. They'd done a bang-up job of hiding their
little community among the winding canyons of trash. Nothing was visible
from the area of the dump near the front gate, and since he'd often had Dawn
with him on his own expeditions here over the summer, he'd avoided foraging too
far afield. "Now what?"
Buffy elbowed herself up
over a broken-legged record cabinet and frowned down at the collection of
huts. "Survivor: The Hellmouth! gets yanked for low ratings," she
said. "Number one, we take Tanner out. Number two, we get the rest
of his little Kool-Aid cult. Number three... I haven't gotten to number
three yet." She dropped back down behind the crest of the trash heap and
kicked a tangle of old Christmas tree lights out of her way.
"Can't say that 'Get em's'
not a plan after my own heart, love, but exactly what are we going to do with
them once they're got?"
She
looked disgruntled. "If Tara's right and Will can't fix them up, I don't
know what we can do. But they shouldn't be living here like this, no
matter what. Maybe I can talk to Dawn's social worker about it.
She's got to be good for something besides dropping by to snoop for dirty
dishes." She glanced over her shoulder. "This bites. I don't
do strategy. Giles does strategy. I hit things."
Spike sucked his cheeks
in. "The Watcher isn't going to be around to do strategy much longer,
pet."
That made her
flinch. Without a word, Buffy got to her feet and began picking her way
through the rubbish, back towards the front gate. Spike followed her in a
small landslide of trash. He studied the set of her shoulders as they
walked; her arms were folded across her chest and she kept her head down.
The retreat into blank non-emotion was painful in contrast to the animation
she'd shown five minutes ago.
As they reached the gate to
the dump Spike hesitated, then took a couple of longer strides to catch up with
her, and fell into step at her side. He couldn't help feeling that he was
taking an enormous chance, somehow, despite all they'd shared in the last
twenty-four hours, but buggered if he was going to let her crawl into her shell
again and pull the shell in after her. He put an arm round her
shoulders. Buffy looked up at him, startled, and for an instant she
stiffened, about to pull away. But she didn't, and bit by bit the
tenseness drained out of her. At last she leaned into his side, butting
her head into his shoulder with a muffled sigh. "It's so much easier when
you can solve problems by killing something," she said wistfully.
Spike's mouth twitched in a
wry smile. "Tell me about it."
It was well past midnight
when they rolled into the Summers' driveway. Buffy pulled off her helmet
and shook her hair out. "Gah. You are never, but never, going to con
me into driving that monster again. It's like a recurring Driver’s Ed
nightmare."
Spike leaned
back in the seat and grinned at her. "Come on, if the Bit can drive it,
surely it's not too much for the mighty Slayer! But if it makes you wobbly
in the knees, next time you can take the bike." Buffy's speculative look
made him regret the offer instantly. Her only advantage over Dawn as a
chauffeur was possession of a valid driver's licence--he might drive like a
maniac, but Buffy Summers drove like an inexperienced maniac. Following
along behind her on the motorcycle for the brief drive from the Magic Box back
to the cemetery would have been heart-stopping had his heart been beating in the
first place, and went a long way towards explaining why she cadged so many rides
with him when she had her mother's perfectly good SUV sitting in the
garage. He gave the motorcycle a protective pat and silently promised it
never to let her near the ignition. "Well. Suppose I'd better be
getting on home."
Buffy
stood in the driveway, turning the helmet round and round in her hands.
"Do you--I mean, it’s not that late--would you like to come in for a bit?"
Spike allowed himself a
smirk at her incongruous attack of propriety. "This the bit where I'm
supposed to shuffle my feet and look shy? Right--" He adopted a dreadful
American accent. "Gosh, Buffy, that'd be swell!"
"Oh, get off the bike and
come on!" Buffy snapped, but her eyes were sparkling. "I'm only inviting
you in so I can palm Dawn's gross casserole off on you."
"The Bit's a culinary
genius, and someday you Philistines will appreciate her." Spike let down
the kickstand, and swung off the bike to follow her inside. The house was
dark, not that that made any difference to him, and there was no sign of light
from upstairs. Willow or Tara sometimes made a late night of spellcasting
on weekends, but not tonight, apparently.
Buffy maneuvered around the
furniture in the darkened living room and turned on the light in the
kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and began rummaging around.
"Speaking of munchies, you want anything? Tara left some hamburgers--"
"Thought you'd never ask,
I'm half famished." Spike reached over her shoulder and snagged the carton
of pig's blood, twisted the cap off and took a long swig.
Buffy made an irritated
noise and pointed across the kitchen to the cupboard where the glasses
were. "Spike, were you raised in a barn? Don't drink out of the
carton!" She looked nonplused for a moment. "Did I just say
that? Kafka moment. I'm turning into a giant Mom. You've got
my permission to kill me now."
"There are worse fates,
love," Spike said with a chuckle. He went over to the cupboard, took his
usual glass from the shelf and poured himself a generous helping of the pig's
blood. He stuck the glass in the microwave and took the carton back to the
fridge; Buffy was examining one of the wrapped up hamburgers with a faintly
queasy expression.
"I think
this one's yours--that, or Tara's getting really forgetful." She handed it to
him; to Spike's delight it was practically raw and oozing blood all over the
bun.
"Now that was right
thoughtful of her." Spike took a large bite and raised his eyebrows at Buffy's
gagging noises. "Wha?" He retrieved his glass of blood and took it
and the burger into the living room, set them down on the coffee table and
sprawled out on the couch with a sigh of content. Buffy followed him in a moment
later with her rather more well-done meal and a mug of decaf tea--mint, by the
smell of it--shoved him over and curled up beside him.
They were both too occupied
with wolfing down their post-midnight snack to say anything for awhile, and
Spike felt no need to break the companionable silence afterwards. Buffy
didn't seem to be in a particularly amorous mood; she had the faint line between
her brows which denoted deep thought, and was content to burrow into his side
and draw comfort from his nearness. Spike sipped his slowly cooling blood,
listened to her heart beat, and tried to figure out why he felt so odd.
Bloody hell. I'm happy.
"I lied to Will and Tara
the other morning," Buffy said.
Spike cocked his head
inquiringly and said nothing. She continued, "I told them I'd had a
revelation--about how no one's happy all the time, so it was normal that I
wasn't, yippee skippee I'm getting better." She contemplated her
tea. "I did have a revelation that morning, but that wasn't it."
Spike made a non-committal
go-ahead noise. The tension had returned to her limbs, as if what she was
telling him was difficult for her to get out. "It was about you pulling me
out of the way of that truck. I almost died. Again. And I
realized--you're not going to be there every time a truck comes along.
Sooner or later, I will die again. It was such a peaceful feeling. I
don't even have to do anything suicidal--I'm the Slayer. You said it
yourself--Death's always on my tail."
His fingers tightened on
her shoulder. "Buffy... you know that promise I made you, when you first
came back?"
Buffy looked up
at him with solemn eyes; in this light they were stormy grey. "You're not
backing out on it, are you? Willow claims the only reason you're sorry I
came back is because I'm unhappy about it."
Spike shook his head and
set his blood down on the coffee table, disturbing her briefly with the
movement. "Well... yeh, she's right there." He leaned back once more
and tucked her under his arm, his free hand straying to her face and stroking
her cheek. "No fear. When you die next, I'll make sure you stay
dead. But fair warning, Slayer--I'm on your tail too, and if the bloke
with the scythe thinks he'll get to you again without a fight from yours truly,
he's in for a shock." He dropped his head to rest his forehead on hers,
cringing a little at the broken note he couldn’t quite keep out of his
voice. "I'm sorry, love, that's the best I can do. I'm a selfish
bastard, and it's all I'm ever going to have, this right here. I want it
to last. I don't know where we vamps go when we get dusted, but it's
bloody well certain to have a warmer climate than wherever you end up."
A haunted look crossed
Buffy's face for an instant. She reached up, her fingertips tracing a
feather-light path down the arch of his cheek in unconscious mirroring of his
gesture. As if, mirabile dictu, the thought of his not being there
troubled her, and she sought reassurance of his presence. "I can live with
that. So to speak.” She laughed a little. “I'm beginning to
think... maybe I wasn't lying to them after all." The line between her
brows reappeared, and she tilted her chin up, regarding him with upside-down
gravity. "You wanted to kill Ramon tonight."
He raised his head and
looked down at her for a long, level moment. She kept her eyes fixed on
his, but he could feel a tremor running through her. He longed to say
something that would soothe it away, return the laughter to her eyes. To
lie to her. The one thing he’d never been able to pull off, even if he
hadn’t promised... You want it real, Buffy Anne Summers... He
braced himself. "Vampire, love. I always want to kill them."
She lay against him, quiescent, listening, neither drawing closer nor pulling
away. He felt the restless urge to get up and start pacing, but as long as
she was willing to sit here he wasn't minded to encourage her to leave.
So why are you still talking, you git? "Most of them, anyway.
Don't want to kill you. Or the Bit. Or the rest of your little gang
of followers--well, Harris, sometimes, but he'd stain the rug. We do that,
you know. Not kill the people we... get on with."
"So basically we've got
half a dozen people you wouldn't kill if the chip came out tomorrow, and then
there's the rest of the world?" Her voice was remarkably steady; no one
less attuned to her minute shifts of mood would have caught the quaver beneath
the confidence. “You see, I need to know where I stand, Spike.”
Spike rubbed the bridge of
his nose. "Not exactly. Look, there's always been categories,
like. People who shoot you, or tie me up and sodding near turn my brain to
tapioca--I'll always want to kill them. Most people, I don't give a damn
about them one way or the other. Unless I'm bored or peckish or pissed
off, and then I want to kill them. There's necessary people, like Bernie
Kohlermann or Willy, and I won't kill them, even if I want to--" And let's
not examine the laundry list of humanity piling up in this category too closely,
William, because I don't fancy explaining exactly how Dawn's silly little bints
of friends are vital to your continued existence, do you? It's like bloody
stray cats, once you give 'em names-- "And then there's people I... love,
and I don't want to kill them unless they're being particular bitches--oi, mind
the leather! But it's not the wanting or not wanting that matters in the
end, is it? It's whether or not they end up on the dinner
menu." He hesitated. "And--"
Both of them looked up at
the noise on the stairs. Tara stood there, clutching her robe to
her. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I fell asleep. I wouldn't
have interrupted, but I heard voices, and--it's Dawn. I got the call right
after you checked in at ten, and then I tried calling back, but you'd left and
no place else I called had seen you. She--she got arrested."
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