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Barb
“I don’t want you to go,” Anya said. She was standing
behind him in the bedroom, fussing with his collar, and Xander pulled her hand
away for the third time. Normally he liked her to fuss a little--engage in
the mutual grooming ritual, she called it, more to tease him than out of
cultural cluelessness these days. Tonight her attentiveness bothered him
and he shivered her hands away like a horse twitching flies from its
skin.
Patience, always with Anya the
patience. “Ahn,” he replied, tugging his coat from its hook in the closet,
“It’s your shower. I’m not gonna hang around and mess that up for
you.” The living room was filling up with biddies of all ages and several
species, and a Sunday night which could have been profitably spent curled up
together on the couch watching bad movies and throwing popcorn at the TV screen
was already irretrievably lost.
Anya didn’t
pout; she never pouted. She just looked at him in that confused-but-eager
way she had, trying to understand his Earth logic. “But it’s a party where
all my friends give me presents and wish me well. You’re my best friend,
Xander. Of course you’re invited. And you don’t even have to give me
a present.”
“Girlfriends. Friends who
are girls.” He indicated himself with a flourish. “Me, not a
girl. I thought we’d gone over this.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, radiant in red (though God, he hoped she’d
tire of the platinum hair soon; it reminded him far too much of someone he’d far
rather kick than kiss). Her face wore that pinched unattractive frown
which had been more and more in evidence lately. Wedding stress, wedding
stress--but if the arrival of Halfrek and the rest of her demon pals had cheered
Anya, it hadn’t helped relieve him. He’d listened to them chattering in
the kitchen while Anya made dinner, stirring up memories of the good old days of
slaughter and destruction along with the tuna casserole. Sometimes he had
the uncomfortable feeling that Anya’s beauty really was just skin-deep, that at
any moment sharp teeth would slice through it from below and the Anya-skin would
fall away, leaving... something unpleasant, that was for sure. Xander
Harris, demon magnet. Because of course no normal human female could
sustain a long-term relationship with the likes of him.
He shook the thought away. Anya tried to be
normal. She put a great deal of effort into being normal, but never seemed
to realize the source of his nerves was the fact that she did have to put effort
into it. Now she was watching him again, trying to gauge his mood from the
set of his shoulders. “Sexual segregation at entertainment functions is an
antiquated custom. I don’t see why we can’t have an up-to-date
relationship.”
Xander ground his teeth and rattled
the hangers on the clothes rack so as to have an excuse not to turn
around. “Is that what Halfrek says about it?”
“No. It’s a valuable networking opportunity, and besides that, we
have Vienna sausages, which I know you like. Why do you keep bringing up
Halfrek? You’re not--do you find her more attractive than me?” Anya
gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth. “She been flirting with you,
hasn’t she? I knew it! She’s always been the beauty! It’s like
when she stole that Grud demon all over again! ‘Oh, you’re pretty,
Anyanka, but Halfrek, she’s stunning!’ And I happen to know she’s had work
done on her facial veins--you can bank on it, they’re not that perfectly defined
naturally!”
Why was it that women invariably
picked romantic rivals as maids of honor? Some feminine pack ranking
thing, maybe, the alpha female depriving the rest of the right to breed?
Xander abandoned the pointless re-arrangement of his shirts and walked over to
the bed, where he sat down and put an arm around her shoulders. “No, of
course not.”
Anya sniffled and laid her
head on his shoulder, letting him play with her hair. “You just don’t
realize the animal attraction you exude. It’s pheromones, I’m sure of it;
it drives women mad. I’ve seen them looking at you. Especially
Willow. Honestly, Xander, you drove the poor girl to lesbianism to try to
escape her hopeless passion for you.” She searched his face for traces of
residual Willow-lust, anxious. “It is hopeless, isn’t
it?”
“Anya, honey, sweetheart, darling,
you’re making me insane.” Xander caught up her wringing hands in his and
stilled them. “I lust after neither Willow nor Halfrek. I love
you. You’re gorgeous. And I’m going out on patrol. Spike says
there’s a Krallock demon on the loose, and we’re gonna take it
down.”
She caught at his sleeve, limpid
brown eyes full of nameless fears. “A Krallock demon? Do you have
to? Do you realize they can bite through pig iron? If you absolutely
can’t stay here, why not go to a movie or participate in something that won’t
result in bodily injury and reduced work hours? It’s a Sunday
night!”
More patience. Heaping
bucketfuls of patience. Anya, after all, came from a long line of demons
who sensibly abandoned ship when an apocalypse rolled into town, and he came
from a long line of people who were only passingly acquainted with the concept
of ‘sensible.’ “I know. But Buffy and Willow and Tara are all coming
to your shower, they being of the girl persuasion, and someone’s got to
patrol--”
“For one night, don’t you
think--”
Patience go bye-bye. “That we
can just let people be eaten for a change?” he snapped. Anya flinched
away, face crumbling around her wounded eyes, and he immediately felt like a
heel.
“I didn’t
mean--”
He hated feeling like a heel. “Yeah,
that’s the problem!” What exactly did that mean? Oh, well, it
sounded good. Forget reason and logic and all the nights they’d blown off
patrol to go to the Bronze or study or whatever; tonight Buffy was counting on
him. More or less. Xander stormed out into the living room, coat
flapping behind him. The effectiveness of his exit was somewhat marred by
having to maneuver around a string of middle-aged businesswomen engaged in
trying to pass an orange from one end of the line to the other without using
their hands, but as exits went, it was one of his better
ones.
Willow was wearing the dead
Muppet top--sleeveless, bright red, and very, very fuzzy. Buffy was
secretly positive that that top was a sign of the coming apocalypse--if not this
one, then another one down the line somewhere, involving large toothless furry
things gumming them all to death while reciting the alphabet. Its
appearance always signified Willow in one of her insanely positive moods, which
generally coincided with one of Buffy’s ‘life sucks dead rats through a garden
hose’ moods. Buffy gazed forlornly at the small gold-wrapped package in
her hands. It was beautiful--red velvet ribbon and professionally crisp
store wrapping paper in an abstract pattern of silver and gold bells that didn’t
look too obviously Christmas-y... and no acts of hideous evil required.
All she’d had to do was change the tags. Out goes the ‘To Buffy From Dad,’
in comes the ‘To Anya from Buffy,’ and ta-da, shower present. Wah
.
Tara patted her shoulder. “Be
strong. You’re doing the right thing.”
“I don’t want to do the right thing. I want my new Discman.” Weirdly
enough, after bawling on Spike’s shoulder, she’d gone home, showered, changed,
had another argument with Dawn about her grounding, and, as he’d predicted, felt
better. In theory she knew that a good cry and a wash-up afterwards were
restoratives, but she’d been sure that kind of emotional resiliency had
abandoned her back in the age of dinosaurs. A large part of her relative peace
of mind, she suspected, hinged on the fact that she already knew the solution to
this problem, however little she wanted to accept it right now. Or maybe
she was finally learning to harness the awesome power of Summers’ denial for
good rather than evil.
If, of course,
her best friend would ever drop the subject. “Me, I think Giles is all
over-reacty,” Willow said, dispensing seasonal good cheer and blind
optimism. “For all we know? This ‘leave the playing field’ biz could
be a good thing. It could mean ‘Buffy gets to retire from the
slaying and have the normal life she’s always wanted, yay!’ And it said
you’re one of these extra players which means that there’s others and if
we find them then we can--”
“Rub them out
for the good of humanity?” Buffy asked, extra-perky.
“We could at least find out why the extras
are extra.” Willow was not to be deterred by inappropriate humor. “And you
could try the retirement option and see what happens. I mean, you’re
supposed to be on strike anyway, right? Instead of making a secret
identity for your secret identity, you just quit for real for awhile.”
“Maybe you’ve got a point,
Wills--several simultaneous points--but we’ve never had much luck relying on
kinder, gentler interpretations of prophesy.” She’d been haunted by the
specter of an ordinary life for so long--she’d matched wills with Giles for it,
fought the Watcher’s Council for it, held on to Riley like a life raft for the
prospect of it. She'd thought that the trip to L.A. had finally exorcized
it. Now it rose from its grave once more, ranting about how it would have
succeeded if it weren’t for those meddling kids. What exactly did she mean
by a normal life, anyway? Starring in the Ice Capades and/or marrying
Christian Slater wasn’t really an option at this stage.
They checked the building number as they approached the
nearest block of apartments--they’d been here a hundred times, but the complex
was one of those cookie-cutter places where every unit looked much the same as
every other unit, and it wouldn’t be the first of those hundred times that
they’d ended up making embarrassed apologies to some retired couple from
Minnesota. The three of them crowded onto the landing and Tara knocked;
there was no response. “Can they hear us?” she asked, leaning over to peer
in the window. The drapes were drawn, and a bass thumpa-thumpa-thumpa made the
porch railings vibrate slightly.
Buffy bounced up
and down on her toes, trying to see through the window over Tara’s
shoulder. “Thing is, I’ve tried quitting before, remember? I can’t
just turn the Slayer powers off. Weirdness follows me around and waves its
tentacles in my face yelling ‘lookie, lookie!’” A familiar tingle chased
up her spine and down again. “Speaking of which...”
She turned, and there he was, the epitome of her non-normal life: Spike,
strolling up the walk behind them, a moving shadow in the gathering dusk,
slicked-back, bone-colored waves of hair licked with the faintest tinge of gold
in the last of the evening light. He had a bulky unfamiliar object slung
over one shoulder, and as he got closer she recognized it as the tranquilizer
gun he’d taken from Bryce’s men at Halloween. Trust Spike to keep track of
the cool toys.
“Hey.” She waved
Anya’s present at him. “You’re right. Having a conscience is highly
overrated. Turn me now so I won’t have to give this up.” I can
joke about this. Healthy sign of emotional distance or flashing neon ‘Go
directly to Hell, do not pass Go?’
Spike
stopped on the step below her. In the amber glow of the porch light the
corners of his eyes were crinkled in amusement and a pious smirk quirked his
lips. “Sorry, love, but your stunning example’s completely reformed
me. Wouldn’t interfere with your sacrifice for the world.”
“Curses.” Buffy slipped her arms
around his waist and leaned into him as if they hadn’t spent half the afternoon
shagging like mad things. They flowed together like quicksliver, her head
butting against his chest, her hands gliding up the small of his back.
Muscle rolled beneath her hands as he shifted the weight of the trank gun.
Very touchable, Spike, very tasteable. Blood and smoke on her tongue,
complex leather-whiskey-earth scent in her nose and rumbly happy-vampire noises
vibrating in her ear; a workout for all five senses. She could spend a
year learning the exact proportions of his mouth by heart, charting the curve of
his lower lip, the precise angle of the divot in his upper lip as the cool
supple flesh grew warm beneath her own.
She pulled away and nodded at the gun. “Don’t tell me,
let me guess. You were invited to the shower, and decided Anya really
needed something to keep Xander from straying out of the game
preserve.”
Spike snorted. “Some of us
have patrol tonight, Slayer Chavez.” He looked at Willow. “Got
‘em?”
Willow gave him a tolerant smile;
Laymen! it said. “Quality spellcasting,” she said, “Takes
time. They have to soak for another couple of hours. I’ll zing ‘em
them over to you after the shower.”
“Fat lot
of good that’ll do us if the blighter decides to show ahead of schedule,” Spike
grumbled. “Krallock demon,” he added by way of explanation to Buffy.
“We’re off to track it down its lair as soon as I extract Harris from the hen
party. They’re tough bastards. Red said she could add a little extra
mojo to the darts.”
Willow made a
‘pfft’ noise and waved his complaint away, unfazed. “A little! Ho
ho. This is no weenie little sleep spell. Au contraire! One
poke from these puppies will knock your beastie into next week.” She made
an illustrative jab at the air.
Tara looked
askance at Willow. “When did you agree to...?”
“Last night? When you guys were trimming the
tree with Dawn? And this morning, did you not notice the nasty green
bubbly thing on the left rear burner?” Willow sounded the tiniest bit
exasperated. “I told you, the magic’s back. I didn’t realize I
needed to clear every spell I do with you.”
“Of course not--it’s just... I mean...”
Tara
was looking flustered in the extreme, and Buffy intervened. “Isn’t it a
little soon to be making with the big magic? Tomorrow, big spell-casting
night, with us needing a well-rested, chipper Willow. It’s not that we
don’t trust you, Wills, but two days ago you were wearing yourself out lighting
your candle, and now you’re burning it at both ends.”
Willow folded pale arms across her fuzzy red torso, eyes
scrunched and lower lip protruding. Her good cheer was beginning to
acquire a sullen edge. “I told you, not a problem. If you don’t want
to believe me, fine.”
Spike kissed the
top of Buffy’s head and murmured in a perfectly neutral voice, “Red knows her
own limits best, eh?” To Buffy he added, “Be a love and don’t kill our
little pal if you happen to run across it before midnight, hey? Or at
least, don’t let anyone see you kill it? I’ve got money riding on
this.”
Buffy covered her ears in a
hear-no-evil pose. “I am shocked, shocked I tell you! As long as
it’s not kittens, I’ll try to restrain my killer instincts. It would help
if I had some idea what a Krallock demon looked like.”
“Christ, Slayer, what do they teach you in
these schools? Nine foot tall, claws as long as your arm, all over seaweed
and barnacles, smells like the Thames at low tide...”
Tara was knocking on the door again, to no apparent
effect. Spike made an impatient noise, brushed by Tara and hammered a fist
on the apartment door till it shook on its hinges. The porch-shaking
backbeat cut off, the door flew open, and from within the apartment a gale of
shrill feminine laughter added several degrees of wind chill to the nippy
evening.
A tall, statuesque woman in
a cream linen suit dress stood in the entryway. She could have just
stepped out of a cameo; she had a smooth oval face with regular features and
large, fine dark eyes. A mass of dark russet hair was piled atop her head,
spilling down her neck in a waterfall of ringlets, and a large, rather gaudy
gold-and-ruby pendant which didn’t match the rest of her tasteful attire in the
least was displayed prominently upon her bosom. This must be Anya’s maid
of honor, in human guise for the moment--Anya’d mentioned she was another
vengeance demon. The stone had a fire that drew the eye, and Buffy found
herself making calculations as to how quickly she could grab and crush it if the
need arose.
“You must be Xander’s
friends. Come on in, all of you,” the woman said. Her tone and
expression conveyed politely unexpressed curiosity as to why Xander’s friends
would be intruding upon Anya’s wedding shower. Buffy’s finely honed
bitch-detection alarms gave a warning buzz. “I’m Halfrek. Please
call me Hallie.”
Tara mustered a polite
smile, and Willow looked at Halfrek curiously--Willow’d come within a hair of
being a colleague, after all. Halfrek stepped back and held the door
open. The spotless apartment beyond was festooned with streamers in blue
and white and full of people. Considering the usual state of Xander’s
apartment when he’d been living alone, it gave one a real respect for Anya’s
talent for organization.
Willow
and Tara filed inside. Buffy hooked her fingers through Spike’s and
breezed after them, to be brought up short when Spike remained rooted to the
spot, staring at Halfrek. Had he never been invited in? She’d gotten
the idea that over the summer Spike had gotten in fairly tight with the rest of
the gang, but if anyone was likely to leave him uninvited, it was
Xander... She looked over her shoulder, questioning. “Spike?
Do you need an entry visa?”
“Eh?”
Spike had the pole-axed look of a man running into a girl he’d loved or hated in
high school at the ten-year reunion. He returned to earth with a shake and
stepped across the threshold, still staring at Hallie’s back as she made for the
living room, shooing Tara and Willow before her. His head was cocked to
one side in puzzlement. “Sorry, love, thought I saw a
ghost.”
“William?” Halfrek asked, turning
about, fine large eyes even larger with shock at the sound of his voice.
Her hand went to her bosom, (which did, to Buffy’s intense interest, actually
heave) covering her pendant in a curiously old-fashioned gesture. “Oh, my
stars. It is William! Why aren’t you dead?”
“Cecily?” For a second Spike’s face was naked--not just
open, but stripped, peeled bare to expose some quivering inner pith of emotion
never intended to bear the sting of open air. Then he straightened,
visibly pulling the Big Bad cloak around his shoulders--head cocked insolently
back, eyes hooded, one thumb hooked into his belt--a veritable Cherynobl of
danger and sex appeal. “I go by Spike these days, and as it happens, I am
dead.”
Was there a vibe here?
Buffy looked from one face to the other. Oh, we have an entire Moog
synthesizer’s worth of vibes. I do not like her, Sam I Am.
Spike looked Halfrek up and down,
nostrils flaring. “You took up a new profession after the news about
Harding got round?”
“Why, yes, D’Hoffryn
contacted me right after--” A look crossed Halfrek’s face, as at a memory
which should have been haunting, but which time and distance had rendered
meaningless. “Oh. My. Roger... So that was you.” Her
voice sharpened. “You didn’t go after me.”
A slow and unpleasent smile stretched across his face, and Spike’s
canines extended for a second. “Professional courtesy, Miss
Addams.”
Buffy was beginning to feel as if
she were witnessing some kind of emotional tennis match. Halfrek lobs a
funny look into the net, and Spike responds with a backhanded compliment!
Fifteen all! “Excuse me,” she said, waving a hand. “Did someone
forget to pass out the scorecards?”
Spike
was immediately contrite. “Sorry, love. Bit of a shock. This
is--was--Cecily Addams. We were acquainted, back in London...” He
hesitated. “Before I was turned. Halfrek, this is my girl.” He
gave ‘my girl’ a defiant emphasis, as if he feared Halfrek might miss the point.
“Buffy Summers, the Slayer.”
Buffy
smiled very sweetly and tucked a hand around Spike’s arm, suppressing an urge to
take a leaf from his book and growl at her rival. My vampire. You
cannot have him on a boat, you cannot have him in the coat.
Xander appeared out of the mob of women in
the living room, shrugging into his regrettable brown coat. Buffy had
always had high hopes of it being shredded by something with big teeth and a
taste for Naugahyde, but so far nothing had obliged her. Xander looked
none too pleased with life, but he didn’t give any of them a chance to ask
questions. “What’s up, Spike? Old girlfriend?”
Spike and Halfrek said “Not by half,” and “Hardly,” in frosty
unison.
Xander’s eyebrows went up.
“Well, excuse me for engaging in banter without a license. You ready to
rock, Spike?”
“Yeh.” He tossed Xander
the tranquilizer gun with a little more force than necessary. “Will’s not
gonna deliver the goods till later, so if we meet up with anything before then
you’ll have to beat it to death with the stock.” Spike considered
this. “The night’s looking up.”
Xander
shouldered the trank gun and headed for the door. Spike turned to follow;
on impulse, Buffy caught hold of his duster and tugged him back. “Hey,
you. I need my recommended daily allowance of Spikey goodness before you
go.” Something chilly thawed in his eyes,
and the small cold doubt which had started to crystallize in her own gut melted
as she felt one of those deep growly laughs go through him. “Well, we’ll
have to do something about that, Slayer. Can’t have you going all
weak-kneed, can we?”
With an
inscrutable look in Halfrek’s direction, Spike bent to kiss her, and mmmmmm,
good. In the midst of being ten dollars and fifty-two cents shy of
dead broke and Giles leaving and cryptic loas and crazy wizards there was Spike
kissage, and it was very, very good, deep, slow, caressing tongue stroking
tongue while Xander made gagging noises unheeded in the background and Spike’s
strong hand slid down from the small of her back to grab her ass and heave her
upright and damned if her knees hadn’t gone out on her there for a second.
“You’ll pay for this,” she whispered into his ear, and Spike gave her a wicked
leer.
“Can’t wait.” And he and
Xander were out the door and gone.
Buffy straightened her blouse, wiped the silly grin off her
face, and turned to face Halfrek. “So,” she said brightly. “There’s
cake?”
The whole thing was Spike’s
fault, of course. Xander wasn’t sure exactly why or how, but if you
traced the connections back properly, everything was Spike’s fault. If he
hadn’t mentioned the stupid Krallock demon, maybe Xander would have taken Anya’s
advice to go see a movie, and the bed waiting for him when he returned wouldn’t
be the living room couch, and they wouldn’t be lost in the Sunnydale sewer
system.
Not that Spike was admitting
to having led them astray. The author of their predicament stood in the
middle of the crossroads--or more accurately, the cross-tunnel--half-smoked
cigarette askew in one corner of his mouth, his lean face sporting the
tight-lipped scowl which usually presaged someone or something getting smashed
into very small pieces. The tunnels remained blank and uninformative: each
one perfectly straight, faced with ancient tile which had once been white but
was now a dingy cream where it wasn’t mottled with stains from rust or
mold. Mysterious pipes and cables snaked along the walls, their
color-coded insulation slowly flaking away into powder. Every twenty feet
or so a ceiling panel provided feeble greenish light. The ceiling was just
low enough to make Xander feel like ducking constantly.
Xander set the tranquilizer gun down, one hand
straying to the pocket of his coat where the ordinary, un-magical darts
nestled. “Look, I know it’s against Guy Rule #147, but I think it’s time
to accept that we’re lost.”
Spike
removed his cigarette and snarled, “We are not bloody lost!” He
whirled around, duster flaring, and stalked ten or twelve paces back the way
they’d come. His fingers clenched on the haft of the axe with which he’d
supplemented their trank gun, and his pale angry eyes flicked from side to side,
examining the featureless tile of walls and ceiling. “I bloody well live
down here, in case you’ve forgotten. I know these tunnels like the back of
my hand--most of these tunnels--the ones near the crypt, anyway--and this
intersection shouldn’t be here. This tunnel’s supposed to take a jog left
here and run into the main sewer line for Wilkins Boulevard fifty feet further
along.”
Xander folded his arms and leaned
against the nearest bundle of mystery cables. “Well, it doesn’t. So
we can either wander like Charlie on the MTA until we get completely lost, fall
down a pit, and starve to death--”
“I
wouldn’t count on you living that long,” Spike muttered.
“--or we can admit we’re slightly lost, backtrack, take the
right tunnel, and those of us with steady jobs might possibly get home in time
to snatch six hours of sleep before having to be at the site tomorrow
morning. I know which option I’m going for.”
Spike glowered for a minute, the muscles in his jaw working.
Somewhere in the distance, water started dripping, marking time. Very
deliberately, Spike took the cigarette butt from his lips and ground it out
against the white-tiled wall, leaving a grey-black smudge. He tossed the
butt aside, shouldered the axe and set off without a word. Xander followed
with a sense of relief; it was never certain when Spike’s penchant for reckless
stupidity would kick in, and he couldn’t help feeling they’d just backed away
from the ledge over the bottomless pit.
He trudged down the corridor in Spike’s wake, hands shoved
into his coat pockets. His thumbs still ached from last week’s adventures,
though the bandage level had subsided and he had most of his range of motion
back. Anya was right, as she was with annoying frequency. He never
should have volunteered for slaying duty on a work night. He’d already
received one warning about clocking in late--just a friendly heads-up from Tony,
the job superintendent, who liked his work. The next warning wasn’t going
to be so friendly, and might go on his record. He couldn’t blame Tony;
there was no room on a construction site for a worker who continually showed up
late or sleepy or with mysterious injuries that interfered with his work.
It was dangerous, not just for him but for everyone he worked with: power tools,
heavy machinery, and heights were just as potentially deadly as vampires when
handled carelessly. And around every job site, clustered in every Home
Depot parking lot, were the dark-eyed, watchful men--the guys without jobs, men
who’d take over his spot in a hot second the minute the job superintendent gave
the word. Construction jobs were at a premium, and construction workers
were expendable. Hell, at any minute he could get laid off just because
some banker backed out and the next project failed to
materialize.
Buffy had to fit whatever job
she took around her slaying; it was beginning to look as if he was going to have
to give serious thought to fitting slaying around his job. And that
stank. There were thousands of construction workers, and only a handful of
vampire hunters. It was what he did after hours that made his life worth
something to the world, wasn’t it? Any schmoe could slap together a
condominium; how many could say they’d helped blow away the Judge with a
bazooka? But God, Anya wanted kids. How could he possibly--
“Bugger.”
He almost ran nose-first into the back of Spike’s head. The vampire
had come to an abrupt halt; they were at another four-way intersection, exactly
the same as the one they’d just left. Xander looked around uneasily.
“I don’t remember this.”
“That’s because it
wasn’t there.”
“That’s impossible. We
must have gotten turned around at that first intersection--all those tunnels did
look alike. We just went down the wrong one, and this is--”
Spike gave him the ‘Exactly how stupid are you,
anyway?’ look and pointed to the wall without a word. There at shoulder
height on the grimy tile was a black smudge, as if someone had ground out a
cigarette butt against the wall.
There was cake. There was also the ubiquitous veggie-and-dip
platter which Buffy suspected of traveling from party to party under its own
power, accompanied by its partner in crime, the cheese and cracker
assortment. Drinks included a surfeit of wine coolers in flavor
combinations never seen in nature, and fruit punch which proved to have been
liberally dosed with cayenne pepper--Anya had, apparently, been stricken with
this culinary inspiration after the summoning ritual.
Buffy batted aside a cluster of crepe paper wedding
bells and began the challenging task of assembling a crack team of hors
d’oeuvres on a dangerously bendy paper plate. Between the ritual, two
hours of workout, and two or three hours of... other workout, she was
starving. As she contemplated the optimal placement of broccoli
florets, Willow popped up beside her, earlier grouchiness
evaporated. “We timed it just right! The humiliating party games
just finished.” Willow gazed around. “I didn’t know Anya knew all
these people. Wow.”
“Yeah, how dare
she have a social life when we have none?” There were a dozen or so women
present, two or three of whom seemed to be friends of Anya’s from her vengeance
demon days, and the rest of whom, Buffy guessed, were people Anya knew
professionally. She recognized one or two faces as regular customers at
the Magic Box. Tara surfaced briefly, conversing with someone from her old
Wicca group, before she was sucked up into the crowd once more. Exhibit A,
the Normal Life. Buffy tried to imagine herself among them, and wondered
if this was what had driven Angel to lurking.
“We’re cool,” Willow assured her. “I know lots of people at school,
honest. I even have lunch with them sometimes. I verge upon verging
upon popular.”
“True. And I
spoke to the counter guy at Albertsons when I picked up milk. Plus, I have
an excuse. I’ve been dead. It cuts down on your opportunities to
meet and greet.” Buffy stood on tiptoe and tried to get an idea of the lay
of the land. Strategy. “Food promotes happy mingling. You get
drinks, I’ll get you a plate.”
Willow
saluted and made a break for the kitchen, where the ice chest was located.
Buffy shifted her own plate to a position of precarious balance on her forearm
and started loading up a second plate for Willow. As she tried to remember
whether Willow liked cauliflower or not, and if guessing wrong was likely to
trigger another sulk, Halfrek’s voice emerged from the background babble for a
second, low and mildly scandalized. She was talking to one of the other
vengeance demons. “...dating a vampire, can you believe it?”
The second vengeance demon put shocked
fingers to her lips. “No!”
“Declassé, isn’t it?” Halfrek looked down her lovely nose. “But
then, it’s not as though Slayers are anything but mongrels
themselves...”
Buffy was saved from the faux
pas of punching the maid of honor’s teeth in by the bride-to-be, who appeared
out of nowhere bearing more canapes. “Buffy, you made it!” Anya bubbled,
blocking her escape route. “I really thought you’d pretend you needed to kill
things tonight and not come.”
“Never crossed
my mind,” Buffy lied. Anya looked so grateful, and she’d come this close
to forgetting about the party altogether, and closer to arriving sans
gift. Bad, inconsiderate Buffy. She really ought to make more
of an effort to make friends with Anya, if only Anya weren’t so... Anya.
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”
Anya’s eyes lit up. “I wanted to ask if you’d like to
be one of my bridesmaids. I would have asked before, but you were dead,
and it seemed pointless.”
“I--um. It
must be a pain to change the plans so close to the
wedding.”
“Oh, it is.” Anya gave her a
brilliant smile. “But you’re a friend, and one’s supposed to inconvenience
oneself for friends. Hallie!” she cried, propelling Buffy over to the
little coterie of women seated around the coffee table, poring over catalogs of
flower arrangements and gowns. “She said yes! You’ve met
Hallie--Buffy, this is Netta. I used to work with her.” Anya winked
violently at the word ‘work.’ “And Sandra Murchison and Lorri Collins,
Lorri works for one of our biggest suppliers...”
Buffy scrabbled up a cheery smile for the four pairs of inquisitive eyes,
human and otherwise, which fastened on her and the two heaping plates of food
she was carrying. Hello, everyone, this is my friend with the binge
eating disorder. She hurriedly divested herself of Willow’s plate and
sat down, attempting to take up the smallest possible space on the
couch.
“So pleased to meet you--Buffy, is
it?” Sandra extended a hand and clasped Buffy’s in a vigorous shake.
“Hi. I’m Max’s wife--I don’t know if you’ve met him; he used to be on
Xander’s construction crew? Though I’m confused--Anya, I could have sworn
you told us that Buffy was the friend who passed on last
May!”
Buffy’s brain threw a rod and
froze. “It was more a...”
Anya bounced
up and down, alight with enthusiasm and in no mood to let a little thing like
death and resurrection interfere with the celebration of her nuptials.
“She was. Show her the dresses!”
Was there a glint of malicious enjoyment in Halfrek’s eyes as she passed
the appropriate catalog over? Buffy went rigid with horror as she took in
the full glory of the dress in the photograph. She swallowed. Maybe
Willow could pull it off, considering some of the things Willow’d worn with a
willing heart. Besides, Willow was a redhead. Redheads looked good
in green. Bottle blondes looked like something fished up out of the
estuary at low tide in green, but she was strong, she could take it. Except for
the ruffles, no sane human being could take those ruffles, and--
She looked up, stared right into Anya’s bright, hopeful
eyes, and said, “It’s gorgeous.”
A cold
bottle, still dripping ice water, appeared in her hand. Literally.
Buffy almost dropped it in her lap. "Kiwi-strawberry." Willow draped
herself over the back of the couch beside her and gestured; her plate of hors
d’oeuvres left the coffee table and floated serenely across the intervening
distance; Buffy opened her mouth to say something about not freaking the
mundanes, but by that time Willow had the plate on the back of the couch and was
nibbling on a Ritz. "It's all they had left,” Willow said, waving her own
bottle. “I see you’ve been introduced to the Attack of the Asparagus
People." Buffy took a swallow of
kiwi-strawberry and felt her mouth implode as the cloyingly sweet liquid hit the
back of her throat. The wearer of the Elmo skin really had no call to cast
stones, and besides, Willow was Xander’s best man and would probably get to wear
a nice butchy tux or something while she was trapped in
this--this--
“Drink up,” Sandra
whispered. “We’re going to need all the courage we can get to wear those
dresses in public.”
With a wary glance at
Anya, who was chattering at Netta about the correct placement of the hideous
cabbage rose corsages, Buffy whispered, “Didn’t anyone try to talk her out
of--?”
Sandra snorted and took a swallow of
her own drink. “You don’t want to know what we talked her out of, believe
me. There were insects involved.”
“I
renounce curiosity.” Conversation. She was having a conversation
with a normal person--no need to panic; once upon a time she’d spoken to normal
people on a regular basis. Sandra looked to be thirty-five, maybe,
plumpish, with short poofy blonde hair every bit as natural as Buffy’s and a
wicked glint hiding in her mild brown eyes. Give up the slaying and
this could be me in ten or fifteen years--husband, two point five kids, white
picket fence. A rewarding career by day, PTA meetings by night!
Look, in the SUV, it’s Supermom! “So... your husband works with
Xander?”
A shadow crossed Sandra’s
face. “Used to. There was an accident last year. He’s in a
wheelchair. He works in the contractor’s office now.”
“Oh.” And of all possible subjects, Buffy
Summers picks... “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
Sandra shrugged. “We deal. It’s not easy, but sometimes I
think that if I didn’t have a fight on my hands I think I’d get
bored.”
Buffy swirled the watermelon-colored
liquid around in its bottle, took another sip and unpuckered her lips. “I
can relate, I guess. At least my boyfriend’s the walking
dead.” Sandra gave her an odd look and Buffy amended, “Uh, when he first
gets up. Spike’s not a morning person.”
Halfrek stood and announced that they were going to start opening
presents now. The there was a general whoop of approval and the guests
gathered round the couch as Netta began ferrying presents over to the coffee
table for Anya to rip open and exclaim over. As they turned to watch the
celebration of capitalism at its finest, Willow took a swig of her own drink and
nudged Buffy’s shoulder with an elbow. “Spike rates the B-word now?” she
asked with a teasing grin.
“I should hope
so, considering his performance in the foyer,” Halfrek said with an arch lift of
one perfectly manicured brow which managed to convey that either way, said
performance had been incredibly gauche.
Boyfriend was so completely the wrong word for Spike, all wholesome and
malt-shoppy, but until she could think of something fitter for public
consumption than ‘demon lover’... Buffy gave Halfrek a smile as
poisonously sweet as the wine cooler. “Spike’s... mine.” She did her
own swoopy-eyebrow thing, matching Halfrek arch for arch. “So--you knew
him when he was--” Mindful of Sandra’s curious presence, she switched tracks
from ‘The notorious William the Bloody’ to “--younger? Did you go to the
prom together?”
Halfrek burst into peals of
laughter. Lovely, chiming laughter. Buffy decided that she
really, truly hated her. “We were acquainted socially. William, I
suppose, would describe us as intimate friends. He does have a tendency to
embroider, doesn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t know,”
Buffy said, all innocence. In fact, Spike had told her quite a lot about
his past; the problem was, she had no idea how much of it was embroidery and how
much cloth. In that grilling she’d given him last year, he’d dropped all
kinds of vainglorious hints, making out that he’d been a rebel from the cradle
on, with a trail of broken hearts and broken heads a mile wide and a continent
long by the time Drusilla had been smitten by his rugged good looks and devilish
charm. If William the Bloody had been a nineteeth-century gangster, would
that make the former Cecily Addams some kind of Victorian moll? But that
story didn’t match up with other bits and pieces he’d let fall in less guarded
moments, and she’d been warming to the idea of coaxing him out of himself little
by little.
Now, confronted with a possible
wellspring of information, she felt a perverse sense that this was
cheating. Spike had pneumonia when he was twelve, and his mother gave
him poetry books, and it’s a good bet his birthday is May 21. Or William’s
birthday was. Whatever. I found that out with my very own
investigative brilliance, Miss Tattletale Addams.
Halfrek settled comfortably, folding her hands demurely on
her lap. “I grant his family was respectable
enough...”
“Home sweet home,” Xander
muttered as they trudged into the intersection for the seventh or eighth
time. It didn’t seem to matter which of the four branches they chose to
follow. They’d tried each tunnel in turn. They’d tried splitting up
and going down two tunnels at once. They’d tried walking backwards.
They’d tried looking for trap doors and secret buttons. They’d tried
everything but leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, and every single attempt led
right back to their starting point.
Xander
collapsed, back against the wall, and slid to the ground, laying the
tranquilizer gun across his knees. Spike stared around at the four
identical tunnels leading off in for identically useless directions, perfectly
expressionless; then a snarl of rage contorted his face and he whipped the axe
off his shoulder and swung at the nearest wall. “Bloody, fucking...
rrrrarrggh!” Tile shattered under the force of the blow and a rain of dust
and knife-edged ceramic shards clattered to the floor. Spike stood in the
wreckage, golden-eyed with frustration and breathing in short angry
snorts. Then he heaved a sigh, propped his axe up in the nearest corner,
and slumped down against the wall opposite Xander.
Xander glanced at his watch. The liquid crystal display was
a featureless silver-grey. He frowned and shook his wrist to no
effect. He’d just put in a new battery last month. “How long have we
been down here?”
Spike grunted. “Does
it matter?” Anger still simmered in his eyes, little golden flecks boiling
up out of the blue. “Stupid bint,” he muttered. “Probably telling
the Slayer tales out of school right this minute. Doesn’t know when she’s
got it good. Could’ve killed her then if I’d taken the fancy to.
Could kill her now if I could get her bloody pendant; she seems to forget she’s
a sodding demon--”
“Spike, what the
hell are you talking about?”
“Bloody
Cecily bloody Addams is what I’m talking about!” Spike leaped to his feet
and began tiger-pacing back and forth. “Your Halfrek. Woman’s a
bleeding menace. Not as if I wasn’t going to tell Buffy eventually, but
the time’s got to be right for a thing like that. You don’t just go
blurting out your entire history to a bird on the first date.” He twitched
a sneer in Xander’s direction. “Or maybe you do, not having any history to
speak of, but--”
“Whoa, not my
Halfrek. You want her, you can keep her. Anya’s got some insane idea
that I’m hot for her.” Where the hell had that come from, anyway?
He’d seen what Halfrek looked like in her true shape, and had been trying
to avoid thinking about Anya’s having once looked the same ever since.
Even if the thought of falling for the veiny and terrifying Halfrek wasn’t
absurd, where did Anya get the notion he’d prefer anyone to her?
“Not that daft an idea for her to get, is it?” Spike
retorted. “You’re not exactly throwing yourself into the nuptial
frenzy.”
“Look, I just wanted to go to a JP
and get it over with!” Xander snapped back. One of the voices in his
head--the sarcastic one--pointed out that ‘get it over with’ was not exactly the
most romantic terminology with which to refer to his ultimate union with his
beloved. “The big wedding with the big guest list and the bigger price tag
was Anya’s idea.” He tilted his head back, staring up at the water-marked
ceiling. “I just can’t believe...” Spike was watching him with snide
amusement. “Forget it. You’ve got no idea what kind of commitment
this--”
Spike stopped pacing and roared
with laughter. “Commitment? You lost track of who you’re talking
to? Hundred and twenty years, mate. And if you think your demon
bird’s high-maintenance, you give Dru a try.”
Xander surged to his feet, fists clenched. “Anya’s not a God-damned
demon! Stop calling her that, or I’ll--”
Spike’s brows climbed up his forehead, accompaniment to a
smarmy grin. “What’s the matter, Harris, afraid your firstborn will pop
out all veiny and vengeful?”
Xander didn’t
think; he just swung. He didn’t even see Spike move; one second the
vampire was there, and the next second he wasn’t, and Xander’s fist
smashed into the wall behind him. “AAAHHHHH!!! Fuck!” Xander
fell to his knees and contracted into a ball of agony around his throbbing
knuckles.
“And not even a hole in the wall
to show for it,” Spike observed from his new vantage point three feet to the
left. He slapped his palm against the tile. “Quality workmanship,
this.” He put his head to one side and regarded Xander with pursed lips
and hollowed cheeks. “You really are the biggest prat in creation,
Harris.”
Xander slumped against the
wall, his forehead pressed into the cold tile. After some minutes of
strained, breathless gasping of ‘ow, ow, ow,’ he rolled over painfully and
cradled his injured fist in his lap. “And you’re thinking that there’s
some chance I haven’t noticed this?”
“Not
really, but I never tire of calling it to your attention.” Spike dropped
to his haunches and draped a hand over each knee, rocking back and forth with a
look of honest curiosity. “What the hell are you narked about? Is
this still about me and Buffy?”
Yes. No. I take the Fifth. “Let’s see.” Xander
started to tick things off on his fingers, thought better of it, and continued
sans visual aids. “Buffy’s lost her mind and is dating another
vampire.”
“If it’s any comfort, I
wouldn’t say there’ve been any actual dates involved.”
“Shut up, I’m on a roll. Anya has half a dozen
old co-workers in town, all of whom think I’m human trash, and has been gabbing
happily on about the good old vengeancy days of yore--and yeah, it does bother
me just a tiny bit that the woman I love spent a thousand years maiming and
torturing guys who may have been creeps of one sort of another but probably
didn’t all deserve to have their parts rot off and their bodies devoured by army
ants. I know that’s not PC of me, but tough. And in less than three
weeks I’m getting married and I’m going to be personally responsible for the
welfare of another human being for the rest of our lives, so I am just a little
bit nervous, all right? Everyone else around here gets to explode in
random violence whenever they’ve had a bad day; I’m just joining the club.”
“Ah. Translation: It’s hard to get
shirty about the Slayer’s choice of snogging partner when Anyanka’s record of
bloodshed and destruction puts yours truly to shame.”
Exactly. “No, it’s totally
different. Anya’s human now.”
“Ah. Right. That old song again.”
“Eat flaming death, English pig-dog.”
They sat there for awhile. “She’s a tidy bird, Anya.” Spike pulled
his cigarettes out and shook one free. After ceremoniously drawing it to
life and taking a long drag, he flicked off his lighter and propped the hand
with the smouldering cigarette up on one knee. “You muff this up and
you’re a bigger wanker than I thought.”
“Thought you didn’t like her.”
“I
don’t. Don’t think she’s too fond of me, either, but that doesn’t mean we
can’t get on.” At Xander’s expression he assumed a smirk of
superiority. “It’s a demon thing. You wouldn’t
understand.”
“Well, it won’t matter if we end up
wandering around the bowels of the Great Underground Empire for the next sixty
years.” Xander shoved his hair out of his eyes with his good hand and
tried to estimate the time. It felt like hours, but the corridors were
only a couple hundred feet long at most, and it couldn’t possibly take more than
five minutes to walk from intersection to intersection. Figure in more
time for arguments, secret panel hunting, and staring hopelessly into space, and
they couldn’t have been here more than an hour, hour and a half tops. Not
long enough to feel hopeless about getting out, but plenty long enough to
engender growing panic about job security. We are in a maze of twisty
little passages, all alike. Except not twisty. And not likely to
be eaten by grues. Vampires, on the other hand... “Academically
speaking, exactly how hungry do you have to get before the pain just doesn’t
matter any more?”
Spike closed his eyes and
let his head fall back against the wall. “Doesn’t matter; you’ll be dead
of thirst inside a week and I can eat you in comfort.” His lip
curled. “I’d rather gnaw on loose insulation.”
At least there was a plentiful supply of it, Xander thought
morosely. He looked up at the nearest bundle of cables. Strands of
clean, unflaking plastic twined about one another, their colors bright and
eye-catching. What the... “Spike?” Spike looked up from his
cigarette, which had gone out, glower set on ‘kill.’ Xander pointed to the
cable. “Does this look different to you?”
“Of course it--” Spike flicked his lighter off and stuffed it back in his
pocket, and crawled over to peer at the cables. He frowned at them from
below for a moment, looked over his shoulder at the other cables visible, and
got to his feet. Round the circuit of tunnels he prowled, poking,
prodding, and sniffing. At last he halted in front of one of the bundles,
rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and looking perplexed. All of them
were like new. “There’s not even any nubbly bits left on the floor,” he
said.
“But this is the same
intersection.” Xander clambered to his feet rather less gracefully.
Why the hell had Spike had to mention dying of thirst? Now he was parched,
and the constant distant drip, drip, drip of water that they never reached
wasn’t helping. He tapped the tile with the black smudge in the
center. “There’s the cigarette burn, right...” He blinked.
There was, in fact, no black smudge to be seen.
“No, it’s this one, you--bloody hell.” Spike made another round of
inspection. “It’s gone.”
Xander
worried the inside of his cheek. “OK, I thought I knew what was going on
here. Some kind of teleport trap. Oldest trick in the Dungeonmaster’s
Handbook. But this is downright disturbing. It can’t be of the
good.”
“Oh, can’t it?” Spike looked
grim. “Did it ever occur to you to wonder what exactly happens when the
Balance gets too far out of kilter on the side of goodness and
light?”
“Not really. 700 Club
marathons?”
Spike’s shoulders twitched
in an involuntary shudder. “Hang on a bit and you’ll find
out.”
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