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Barb
The cavern was illuminated with rank
upon rank of black candles, tall pillars and short squat votives crowded together
on ledges, a great waxen pipe-organ with flames guttering low and sullen on
each black and curling wick. Stalactites of drippings festooned the cavern
walls. Willow watched a droplet of wax roll down the side of the nearest
candle, slow, and freeze in the cool air. It smelled of licorice.
One of the eyeless men--the leader, Willow
guessed, though they all looked identical--knelt before her, his bald leathery
head bent in obsequious reverence. A dozen or so of his companions milled
about at the opposite end of the cavern, having taken their fawning to a discreet
distance after she'd singed a few burlap robes. Harbingers, they called
themselves, and that name was naggingly familiar, but she couldn't exactly stroll
into the Magic Box and play Research Girl right now. She'd made them fetch
her a bench to sit on. It looked as if it had been ripped out of one of
the old Initiative labs--there were bolt-holes in the bottoms of the legs and
the slate-blue leatherette upholstery sported some fairly nasty-looking claw-marks
on one end. Better than bare rock, though; if she was going to play Evil
Overlord, there were going to be amenities. (She was pretty certain that
her current situation was in blatant violation of Evil Overlord Rules #22, 50,
and 54, but she had #29 down pat.)
"It's very simple," Willow said to the
eyeless man. "You and your boss can't do diddly-squat without me.
So let's ditch the cute little manipulation games, 'kay? Tell me exactly
what the frilly heck is going on and maybe I'll just, you know, do something
radical like help you. Not loving the mini-Armageddon concept." She avoided
the creature's lack of eyes, her fingers picking at mildewy stuffing through
the rents in the bench. "You're all pissy because I didn't kill Dawn and
Spike didn't kill me and Buffy didn't kill Spike, but is any of that what you
really want? No. What you want is to re-balance the Balance.
Am I right?"
The Harbinger raised his mutilated head
and did the staring-into-space thing that passed for looking at her. "What
we want," he said in his dry grasshopper whisper, "is to overwhelm this entire
plane in a firestorm of destruction, and enslave those we do not slay outright
for an eternity of torment." A rictus which vaguely resembled a smile distorted
his face for a second. "However, correcting the Balance is an acceptable
short-term goal."
Willow swallowed. Never let them
see you sweat, or stutter, or... even some of Spike's liquid courage would be
nice right about now. "OK. So the problem is there are too many good guys
running around. This can't just be happening because I brought Buffy back
from the dead. There's been two Slayers ever since she died the first
time."
Raven-harsh laughter rang in her
ears. "No. It is not just happening because you brought the
Slayer back to a life she'd willingly renounced, but your rash actions in doing
so precipitated the present situation nonetheless. Why do you think fate
drew Daniel Tanner to you, to make you our agent? That, too, is balance."
The laugh chopped off short and he struck the butt of his staff against the
cavern floor, speaking a word that grated like the stone-on-stone scrape of
an opening tomb. A many-leveled game board shimmered into being in front
of her, Salvador Dali channeling Harry Potter. Pieces advanced, retreated,
fought and died, and with every move the configuration of the board shifted
around them, an ever-changing pattern of action, reaction and consequence.
"Even this is a simplification, but the
Balance, you see, is not a simple see-saw," the eyeless man said. "One
piece for every living and unliving creature in this world. Any one of
whom can, at the right time, in the right place, make an immeasurable difference.
But there are certain individuals who, by virtue of power or determination,
are recognized as warriors for one side or another."
Willow gripped the edge of the bench
and leaned forward, studying the pieces in fascination. There was Buffy,
sword in hand, the white queen. Giles and a mini-Willow flanked her, clad
in bishop's robes and bearing ancient tomes, and there was Xander carrying a
knight's lance. Opposite them was the black king--the Master, with Darla as
his queen and a court full of minions. A new figure entered the fray,
black and white entwined: Angel and Angelus frozen in a terrible struggle, the
man pinning the demon. The board shifted; Angel staked Darla and Buffy
crushed the Master's bones. Another shift and Spike roared onto the board
with Drusilla, a black knight in the service of a new dark queen. Angelus
ascended the throne, the new black king, and Spike interfered with his queen's
move to allow Buffy check and mate.
Willow watched as Faith threw aside her white
sword for Mayor Wilkins's obsidian knife, and stood at his right hand.
Angel departed for the far ends of the board. Maggie Walsh died at the
hands of her own creation. Faith changed sides again, Anya peered out
of a castle that looked suspiciously like the Magic Box, Dawn arrived out of
nowhere, neither black nor white, but a brilliant green. With each move
and countermove the board changed, the dark pit at its heart slowly becoming
a level plane, and an ominous upthrust of squares, like the burgeoning of a
newborn volcano, began to form in its center.
The eyeless man looked down upon the
board, his slash of a mouth dragging lines of his wrinkled countenance down
with it. "Historically the Slayer fights alone, but Buffy Summers has drawn
others to battle at her side. It was for her sake that Angel rejoined
the fight on the side of the Powers. It was through his intervention that
Faith did likewise. There are not only two Slayers, but the side of Light commands
the vampire with a soul, and controls the Key, which was never intended to take
part in the great struggle at all. Further," the Harbinger's voice took
on a tinge of disgust, "Buffy Summers has suborned one of the greatest dark
warriors of our age."
Willow blinked down at the tiny figure of Spike
rearing back on his motorcycle, a jet-black anomaly among the assemblage of
white pieces, and didn't bother to suppress a snort. "Spike? Near
brush with sharp pointy teeth here! I'd call him part of the solution,
not part of the problem."
"You are alive, are you not?" the
Harbinger said. "Therefore he is part of the problem." The tiny
figure of Buffy fell to its death from a miniature tower, and the swelling in
the center of the board ceased its expansion until mini-Willow pulled mini-Buffy
through a glowing portal and into play once more. "Being what he is, he
cannot change sides. The human soul is a mutable thing; a demon's essence
is carved in diamond."
"But Angel--"
"Angelus did not change; he was subdued.
William the Bloody is--" He clenched fleshless fingers into scarecrow fists,
and hissed in tones of loathing, "--trying to do the right thing. Being
what he is, his motives cannot but be selfish--he fights for good to sate his
craving for battle, to gratify his vanity, to bring happiness to those he..."
the loathing distilled into pure acid, "...loves." The eyeless man
pronounced the last word as if it were poison and his lips would wither to speak
it. "But still, he is trying. That in itself is... unprecedented.
It shakes the foundations of the possible."
On the board, Spike saved Daniel Tanner
from a pair of anonymous vampires, and the Hellmouth boiled up like a witch's
cauldron. "That's it?" Willow slid off the bench and dropped
to her knees beside the board. She picked up the tiny jet figure and turned
it over in her fingers. Weird to think that Spike without a soul was a
bigger problem than Angel with. "That's what messed everything up? It's
all Spike's fault for slacking off on the homicidal mania?"
"No more or less than it is the fault
of Buffy Summers's renewed existence on this plane. Either one is unbalancing.
Together they threaten disaster."
"What if we just teleport one of them
to Maui or something?"
The eyeless man managed to convey complete
contempt without moving a single facial muscle. "Insufficient. They
must either be removed from this plane, or enticed to our side. Else..."
The vision of Sunnydale as a blasted
field of corpses flooded her senses once more, heat and crow-calls and the stench
of rotting flesh. Willow gripped the game-piece tightly, its tiny sharp projections
digging into her palm, and fought with her heaving stomach. "Your side."
"If you say so." The Harbinger's
smile was edging into Hannibal Lecter territory. "The former would be
simpler, the latter of more long- term benefit. To some extent the Balance
is self-correcting. When it skews too far to one side, random factors
combine to provide individuals with opportunities to act so as to increase the
presence of whichever side is lacking. But the individuals presented with
such opportunities must choose to take advantage of them."
Willow frowned. "Like Spike did
when he helped Buffy defeat Angelus... or when he turned against Adam... or
when he held out against Glory, or..." Spike, it seemed, was large with
the answering when opportunity knocked. She was beginning to see why the
Black Hats might be peeved with him--not exactly the most reliable of employees.
The Harbinger nodded grimly and Willow narrowed her eyes. "Wait a minute.
Losing my magic bringing Buffy back...that's one of these random factors, isn't
it?"
The smile became an incongruously
prissy smirk. "Your reputation for intelligence is well-deserved.
And you, unlike your comrades, realize that maintaining the Balance is more
important than petty hopes of victory for your side. Who, then, is the
more virtuous?"
Suck-up. Still, in the midst
of stomach-churning fear and guilt it was a comforting thought. Just because
the eyeless guy was evil didn't mean he couldn't be right. Spike had gone
against his home team three or four times and had ended up helping save the
world each time--why couldn't she do the same? Unlike Spike, she wasn't
running off half-cocked in a passion to do the right thing for all the wrong
reasons. She'd thought this out. She was responsible for this mess;
it was up to her to clean it up. She looked up at the Harbinger.
"Removed from this plane, or converted, huh?" Willow closed her eyes and reached
out for the cords of power binding her to the remnants of Tanner's band, reeling
them in. Deep within her was the sound of satisfied laughter.
Spike had never tackled brooding as an
art--for one thing, Angel had staked out that emotional territory and guarded
it with dog-in-the-manger ferocity for the last century, and for another, a
proper brood required a an attention span Spike didn't possess. A day
or two of deep brown study, tops, and he'd be exploding with the twitchy compulsion
to do something. The closest he usually came was a sulk, preferably
accompanied by getting good and smashed. Right now he regretted his lack
of expertise.
They liked him. Tara'd said so,
and Tara, of all people in the world, wouldn't lie. But they didn't trust
him, not with the chip gone, not even Niblet. The knowledge was a gnawing
ache in his gut, all the more painful for his inability to explain its presence.
Buffy loved him. She lay draped atop him now, the afghan-wrapped chrysalis
of some arts-and-crafts-minded moth, deep in untroubled sleep only inches away
from the fangs which had come so close to meeting in Willow's tender neck.
If that wasn't trust, what was? And shouldn't that have been enough, that
Buffy trusted him with her life?
Except, of course, that he knew better
than anyone that there were plenty of things Buffy held dearer than her own
life. Her sister. Her friends. Her world. Her sodding
duty, however weary of it she claimed to be. She'd entrusted him with
Dawn once, and he'd failed her, and was bidding fair to do so again. His
arms tightened fractionally around Buffy's shoulders and he timed his breathing
to hers, drawing just enough air into his unresponsive lungs to fuel the low
frustrated rumble in the depths of his chest. Each heartbeat marked a
moment he'd never have with her again--each one to be seized and drained to
the utmost. Holding her was a small slice of heaven, but...
...it wasn't enough.
Not good enough. Not for her.
Never good enough. Got to find a way to do better.
A sharp little elbow jabbed him in the
ribs as Buffy stirred in her sleep, and the top of her head bumped against his
chin. She'd been catnapping for an hour now, and he had no intention of
waking her; she'd gotten less sleep last night than he had. Too late;
a second later the chrysalis heaved, stretched, and split open. Buffy's
tawny-blonde head emerged from the fuzzy blue and crimson folds, staring into
the empty spaces of the night--kindred to the empty spaces behind her eyes.
The windows of her soul had the shades drawn again. She looked down at
him as if at a stranger, and the afghan bunched beneath her clenched fingers.
Her nails bit cresents in his chest through the intricately knotted yarn.
"Am I here? Is this real?"
Her voice was a lost thing in the wilderness.
God, for an enemy he could fight, something with spines and scales he could
pound into jelly and know that it would never trouble her again! Nothing
to do against this foe but endure, while emptiness mocked him through her eyes.
He cupped her face in both palms and smoothed one hand across her forehead,
pushing the tangled locks of hair away from her face. "Shh, love.
It's real. You're real--were you dreaming? You're awake now, pretty
pet..."
For a moment she remained frozen in his
grip, and then, to his enormous relief, a hint of spring appeared in the winter
grey of her eyes. Buffy melted against him as the thaw spread through
the rest of her, wrapping her arms around his torso. "Sorry," she whispered.
"Just one of those... spells."
"I know, love. I'm here."
"Sometimes I think they're what's real.
That I'm still dead, or I was never alive at all and all this is--" She
broke off, racked with a continuous shiver. He'd never thought of her
as fragile, or someone to be protected in a physical sense, but she felt so
small like this, clinging to him like a burr. "I keep thinking--if I could
remember. If there was some connection between me now and and me then.
Something to fill up the empty place. I'd know. I'd be sure I was
real. But there's nothing."
Your fault she's like this, you selfish
tosser. Your soul that fetched her back. Spike's teeth met in
his lower lip, and the unsatisfying tang of his own blood flooded his mouth.
Sodding guilt. He hated it; freakish, unnatural thing, what business had
he feeling anything like it? In the last year it had infiltrated his mind
and heart like an emotional bindweed, getting into everywhere it wasn't wanted.
"Love," he whispered, miserable, "I'm..."
Her fingers on his lips silenced him.
"Don't be," she said. "Not now. I want to be here. Believe
that."
But she was still shaking, the shiver
muted through the enveloping blanket. He tucked the afghan's folds around
her shoulders, stroking her hair and crooning softly as if she were a nervous
animal to be soothed. Gradually Buffy relaxed beneath his touch, the last of
the tension easing out of her shoulders as she snuggled into his embrace.
"I did dream something," she said, a frown drawing a pair of tiny lines between
her brows. "You were in it. You, and Willow, and...something else.
It was your birthday. There was a party. You were sitting at the
head of the table, and you had a crown on, and Willow gave you a present.
It was a beautiful box, all tied up with a big red bow, and when you opened
it up there was this... this... this grail kind of thing, a golden cup."
A wave of deja vu washed over him.
He'd heard those words, or something like them, before--long ago and far away.
Something Dru had said, maybe, but he couldn't remember, and like much of what
Dru said, it didn't make any more sense the second time around.
Buffy went on, "It shone and shone, and
you picked it up to drink out of it... and I knew that whatever was in the cup
was going to kill you. Burn you up." Her eyes sought his, haunted.
"I tried to take it away from you, smash it, but you said you needed it--you
were crying, oh, God, like your heart was going to break--" Her voice
cracked. "And you raised the cup, and you drank, and you--you screamed,
and there was light everywhere, and--and--you were gone."
Spike brushed his lips across her forehead,
kissing away the worry- lines, and summoned up a century's worth of experience
in the fine art of handling women prone to prophetic nightmares. "Ah,
is that all, sweet? You got any idea how often I've set myself afire?
Takes more than a little charring round the edges to do Spike in. You
even sure this dream's one of the special Slayer jobbies, and not just come
of fretting over your sis all day?"
An almost-smile flashed across Buffy's
face and she scrubbed at her gritty eyes with her knuckles. "No, the nightmares
about Dawn have a lot more whining for Kleenex and Seven-Up in them. It
felt like a Slayer dream. But usually the Slayer dreams are more with
the Cecil B. DeMille, not so much with the David Lynch. What time is it?"
Spike glanced at the sky and consulted his
internal clock. "Getting on for ten."
Buffy struggled free of the afghan and sat
up, stretching. Her nose wrinkled disdainfully at their general air of
disheveled sticky mess. "We have got to stop doing this in places
with no running water."
"Sorry, pet. I can kick the head
off a sprinkler if you like."
"Ooh, chivalry is not dead! C'mon,
Grr-Kitty, let's go get cleaned up. The night is young and we have multiple
asses to kick."
"Grr-what?"
"Don't blame me. Blondie Bear was
taken."
Spike dropped the rumble an octave and growled,
"Call me either one where anyone can hear you, chit, and I'll bloody well bite
you."
Buffy's eyes glinted at him beneath lowered
lashes, and ooh, yeah, there came the pouty lip, plump and pink and very, very
biteable. "Threat or promise, Spikey?" She leaned over the side
of the sarcophagus and began rummaging for her clothing. "We need to make
the rounds and see if anyone's got goss on Willow. If she's pulled a Saruman
on us she may be hiring orcs." Spike's eyebrow went up. "What?!
I saw the movie! He's the... the other beardy guy." She paused,
shirt in hand. "I don't even know how to feel about Willow right now.
Mad, and worried, and did I say mad? I kind of hate asking Tara to..."
Spike laced his hands behind his head,
licking the bitten place on his lower lip. "Yeh, not the most fun in the
world, hunting down your nearest and dearest. Supposed to meet Clem at
Willy's at eleven anyway; got business, and as of midnight Sunday last he owes
me fifty quid. By the way, there's a Krallock demon in town we could do
in any time we've a spare evening. Get me a fag while you're down there,
love?"
Her reply was slightly muffled.
"You don't need a cigarette."
Spike grinned. "Yeh? Came
so hard that last time I thought my balls'd turned inside out. Believe
me, pet, I need a ciggie." He could feel the heat rising in her; it was
such a turn-on making her blush. For all her uninhibited verve between
the sheets, Buffy liked to pretend a certain degree of innocence... or perhaps
it wasn't pretend after all; part of her allure was the constant sense that
he could astound her with her own body's capacity for pleasure. "Possibly
three or four. Come on, world'll end at least six more times before you
can expire of my second-hand smoke."
Buffy abandoned her search and flung
herself across him, straddling his hips, and pinned his arms over his head.
"Uh uh. It's my sacred Chosen One duty to fight evil, and smoking is evil.
All those TV ads say so."
Spike regarded her for a second, catching
his tongue-tip between his teeth, then twisted out from under her without warning
and reached for his duster. Buffy dove after him, grabbed the other flap
and managed to get a hand into one pocket. "Hah!" She waved the
half-empty package of Marlboros triumphantly in the air, sending a few white
cylinders flying gracefully into the night.
"Bloody hell, give that back! Do
you know how much those things cost when you're not nicking 'em?"
Buffy stuck out her tongue, doing a little
nyah-nyah lap-dance that set her breasts jiggling enticingly, and fuck if he
wasn't packing wood again. She broke into a smug grin. "Make me."
"Grrrraarhh!" He lunged for her.
Buffy ducked inside his reach. Her fingers were digging into his ribs, skittering
up and down over every sensitive spot she'd discovered in the last week and
a half, and Spike's growl metamorphosed into a shriek of laughter. "Bloody--YIII!!
Buffy! No! Not that! Not there, oh Christ, fuck, YOW!" They
flipped over the side of the sarcophagus and landed in a tangle of discarded
clothes and afghan. Spike's teeth were just laying claim to one pert little
breast when Buffy's purse rang from somewhere underneath the small of her back.
"Where'd it go, where'd--" Buffy
flailed around for the cell with one hand, keeping the cigarettes at arm's length
while Spike considered the delightful prospect before him. He gave the
aureole a few preparatory circlings with the tip of his tongue and hummed as
the delicate flesh crinkled beneath his touch. Buffy's eyes rolled back
as she finally found the cell phone. "Hello? Tara? Yeah, I
was just about to call you." She made furious get-off-me! gestures at
Spike, who ignored her blithely.
"See, vampire here, love." He blew
on the damp spot and turned his attention to the other breast, coaxing the nipple
higher and harder, relishing the little involuntary jerks of her hips under
his weight. "Got the world's biggest oral fixation--deprive me of my fags
'n I've got to suck on something..." Spike vamped out and caught her nipple
between the points of his fangs, nipping and savaging with a rough relentless
delicacy, until he could feel the blood pounding beneath the translucent skin.
Reverting to human shape, he drew one sensitive little raspberry nub into his
mouth with a growl, suckling avidly until the wild look in her eyes let him
know it was time to switch off. With the cell in one hand and his smokes
in the other Buffy was helpless to retaliate, and her every little wriggle and
gasp went straight to his resurgant cock.
"Static?" Buffy squeaked. "No, that's
Spike. Yes, I found him, and we had--a-ah!--long talk. He's, uh--oh!--looking
for his cigarettes. Filthy, filthy habit. We were about to sally forth
and--oooooh!--comb the underworld. But we can get his laundry off the
couch first. Uh! Bye!"
Buffy dropped the cell phone, clasping
the back of his head and pressing him closer, her fingers buried in his curls.
A long wordless moan urged him to make a more thorough mouthful of her.
The cigarettes fell from the nerveless fingers of her other hand, and Spike
immediately snatched them, rocked back on his heels and stuck one into the corner
of his mouth with a smirk. "Tsk, Slayer, lyin' down on the job?
What happened to sallying forth to comb the underworld?"
Buffy glared, panting hard, then
burst into giggles. Spike glanced down at himself; Little Spike was bobbing
enthusiastically against his belly, desperate for more attention. Buffy
rolled over, hiccuping with laughter, and shimmied across the pile of clothes
to give it to him. "Isn't smoking supposed to stunt your growth?"
Once Buffy's expert assistance rendered
him once more capable of zipping up his jeans in comfort, Spike lay in lazy
repletion, chin on hand, and watched her dress. She sat on the side of
the sarcophagus with her shirt half-buttoned, the modest swell of her breasts
over the abbreviated lace of her bra--she was small and firm enough to go without
if she wanted, but that flash of the forbidden always made his heart yearn to
race, so he was glad she sometimes didn't want. Her hands moved in sure,
graceful arcs, combing out her hair. A hundred strokes, he thought; lucky
brush, in such intimate daily contact with that cascade of spun sunlight.
He loved her hair, the sheen and bounce of gold silk above and the musky tangle
of chestnut curls below; all that's best of dark and bright indeed, and who
was he to sneer at unnatural blondes?
He ran a toe along her bare ankle and Buffy
looked down at him for one moment of perfect radiant content, and then trouble
entered her eyes once more. "Is it always going to be like this?
I mean, eventually do we get to the point where we can touch each other without
precipitating an exchange of bodily fluids?"
Silly question. He'd be wanting
her when she was wrinkled and grey--stake him now and his restless dust would
follow whatever wind stirred her clothing. "'Spect eventually we'll wear
each other out and be reduced to one or two shags a day like everyone else."
"I guess. This, with us, totally
refuses to suck. And I feel skeezy enjoying myself even a little when
Tara's home worried sick and Willow's... whereever, doing whatever."
Ah, yes, the Summers guilt complex reared
its annoying yet endearing head. "I'm worried about Red too, love, but
since we weren't planning on hunting her tonight I can't see we've set the schedule
back any."
Buffy looked at him, curious, and though
he wasn't sure what he'd said to prompt it, she smiled, one of those glorious
light-up-the-room smiles he'd happily endure a week-long John Tesh concert to
see. She
stuffed the brush back in her purse, buttoned her blouse up and slipped her
kicky little suede ankle boots back on--where the hell had she gotten those?
Sometimes he suspected Dawn wasn't the only light-fingered one in the family.
"It's funny. The first time we ever kissed, that time Willow messed up
that spell...the moment we touched, nothing else mattered. I was sure
it was the spell. But it keeps happening. Now I get to worry that
it's because of whatever freakazoid demony secrets are lurking in my sordid
Slayer past."
Spike allowed himself a nostalgic moment:
Memories of their torrid clinch while the battle with the Chumash spirits raged
around them had provided him with wanking material for the next year. He sat
up and began pulling on his boots. "What of it if it is? Say you've
a vamp fetish, say I've a Slayer fetish--good on us. Bloody brilliant
luck for the both of us we met."
Buffy shook her head. "You know,
I've got to stop listening to you. If I do it long enough, you start to
make sense."
The Zagros demon in the purple knee brace was leaving
the bar as the motorcycle roared into the parking lot. It snuffed the
air as they pulled up, and shuffled hurriedly out of their way as Spike swung
Buffy off the seat. Buffy watched it limp off across the unusually-full
parking lot, eyes narrowed. "Scales the exact same color as the Bridesmaids'
Dresses From Hell, I swear!" she muttered under her breath, her haunted
expression segueing into a fresh pout at Spike's chuckle. "Oh, sure, you
can laugh--all you have to do is show up in something black. What a sacrifice."
"Innit, though? Just goes to show what an altruistic
bloke I am. 'Course I also have to be polite to Harris. Bad form to eat
the groom on his wedding day." Spike offered her his arm; she took it,
and he matched her quick glowing smile--a week and a half of shagging each other
senseless in every position two exceptionally athletic and limber people could
manage, and this simple public touch still lit him up like an electric torch.
He didn't have to put on a show of swagger as they strode up to the front door;
he was escorting his lady and for that reason alone he was king of the world.
The noise hit him the minute they stepped inside--the
jukebox was blaring "This Kiss" over the din of a few dozen shouted conversations
in half as many languages. On a normal Tuesday night, Willy's place boasted
half a dozen customers, lurking in the corner booths or holding up the bar,
but tonight every booth and table was packed, and part of the crowd had spilled
over into the normally closed-off storerooms in the back of the building, much
to the disgruntlement of the kitten poker crowd.
Spike scanned the crowd for Clem, but the Sharpesi
demon was nowhere to be seen. The crowd wasn't the usual mix of vampires,
demons, and a few down-and-out humans looking to score a suck job or just too
fried to care who they drank with, either. The percentage of the weird
and unusual had gone way up. A pair of Serevus demons, (obviously from
out of town, judging by their matching I VISITED THE HELLMOUTH AND ALL I GOT
WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT attire) were posing beside the jukebox, their leathery
wings poking through slits in the back of the shirts and fanning the smoky air.
The tall, thin, bile-colored demon Spike recalled from their last visit was
squinting at the Serevi through the viewfinder of a cheap 35mm camera and urging
them "Closer! The wings are still cut off!" The looks of wariness,
fear and just plain huh? at the sight of him at the Slayer's side, instead of
a respectful three paces behind, were still pure gold. Word of Buffy's
break with the Council was all over town by now, but no one was quite sure what
it meant.
Willy was swiping a rag around a glass
behind the bar, with the effect of redistributing the smudges in new and interesting
patterns. He looked up as they approached, the tip of his long thin nose
twitching. "Hey, Slayer," he said, guarded. "Or is it just Miz Summers
now that you're a free agent again?"
"It's always Slayer to you, Willy," Buffy
replied, leaning against the bar. Spike settled into a hipshot slouch
behind her, arms folded across his chest. "Busy," she said, as the vampires
on either side of her grabbed their drinks and abandoned their stools.
"What is this, triple coupon night?"
Willy shrugged. "Bad stuff in the
downbelow, Slayer. Or good stuff. Either way, the Hellmouth's not
real reliable-like these days, and it's messin' up a lot of prime real estate.
You need a place to crash for the day, Spike, I'm rentin' out the storeroom.
Only fifty bucks a day, and cheap at the price."
"That would be the storeroom with the
windows that let in the nice sunbeams around tennish?" Spike asked. "Grand-dad
didn't recommend the view."
"Suit yourself. What can I do you for?
Got a nice fresh shipment of--"
"We need some information," Buffy interrupted.
"Willow Rosenberg. She disappeared Sunday night, and we think she's gotten into
something over her head. Have you heard anything--"
"Yeah, well, my memory ain't none too
good since that no-good skunk messed with my mind." Willy set the glass
down and picked up another one. Spike observed with interest that the
one he'd set down was now actually dirtier than the one he was cleaning.
"Not to mention the recent unpleasantness with the Hellmouth. All these
folks on the move, it's easy to miss one girl." At Buffy's hard-edged
look, he added hastily, "I'll tell ya anything I know, Slayer, you don't have
to bust up the place. But things is kinda hazy these days. I'm just
sayin'."
The corners of Buffy's mouth went pinched,
and her hand started to travel towards her purse. Willy was fishing for
a bribe, but considering the current strained state of the Summers financial
empire, Spike was fairly sure she didn't have enough to make The Snitch pony
up, and he wasn't inclined to part with any more of his own hard-earned dosh
than absolutely necessary. "This shouldn't strain even your limited mental
capacity, mate," Spike said. "Wiccan bird--red hair, green eyes, so tall,
yen for the ladies? Seen hide nor hair of her, or not?"
Willy smirked. "You're asking me?"
He threw a conspiratorial look at Buffy. "Last time the witch went missing,
Chip Boy here--urk!" Glassware went flying and the bartender's legs spasmed
in a frog-kick as Spike heaved him over the bar. Spike cocked his head
and smiled, very deliberately letting the man watch his face distort and his
canines lengthen and sharpen. The room went silent, as if someone'd flipped
the mute button on the whole chattering lot of them, and every head swivelled
to the tableau beside the bar, taking in the fact of Spike holding Willy at
arm's length a foot above the floor and not collapsing in agony.
"You might think," Spike said pleasantly,
"That this trick's working 'cause I'm not meaning to hurt you. Could just
be I'm just holding you here for the Slayer to whale on, not that either of
us'd do something that uncivilized--oh, wait." He drove his other fist
into Willy's gut while Buffy watched with critical detachment--not hard; barely
a love-tap by vampire standards, but Willy gave vent to a very gratifying 'oof!'
"Yes, we would."
"Spike, he can't tell us everything he
knows with a crushed windpipe. Let him down." Spike let go immediately
and Willy dropped, staggered, and narrowly averted a fall by grabbing the bar.
Buffy pushed that delectable lower lip out. "Besides, I'm not having any
fun. Next time I get to be the bad cop."
Spike stepped back with an elaborate bow.
"Deepest apologies, pet. Ladies first."
Buffy shot him a flirtatious smile and
rounded on Willy, grabbing the bartender by the lapels. She wasn't tall
enough to hold him off the floor, but she got her point across. "So?"
Willy rubbed his throat, and jerked his
head in Spike's direction. His protuberant eyes were showing a greater than
usual amount of white around the edges. "So he's...uh..."
"Are we talking about Spike?" Buffy
inquired, giving him a shake. "I don't remember us talking about Spike."
"Look, honest, Slayer, I don't know!
It's like a Rwandan refugee camp down there. Your Willow could be anywhere--but..."
He hesitated, and continued in a lower voice, "May not mean anything, but the
first folks to start moving, a couple of weeks ago, before all this got so bad?
They weren't movin' away from the Hellmouth. They were kiting out of the
section of the caves closer to where those Army guys were set up a few years
back. If your pal's involved with something, it may be setting up shop
there."
Buffy let Willy go and exchanged a look
with Spike while Willy made a hasty retreat to the relative safety of the area
behind the bar. Neither of them had any very fond memories of that particular
area of Sunnydale Underground. Spike pulled a twenty out of his pocket
and slapped it down on the bar. "Right, then. Clem comes in, we're
at the table over there. O-neg and Guinness, make sure it's the hospital stuff,
and don't think I can't taste the difference. You want anything, pet?
I'm still flush with nice clean eyeball money."
"Diet Coke." She eyed the glasses
on the counter. "In the can, please. And I could go for some nachos."
"You heard the Slayer." Spike lapsed
back into human shape and gave Willy his most charming and predatory smile.
"Keep the change."
They headed for the table, loaded down with
drinks and Willy's Kitten Surprise nachos. Willy's limited menu was sadly
devoid of blooming onions, and Spike wondered exactly how high on the evil meter
breaking a few of the owner's fingers until he agreed to feature it would register.
Probably fairly high, going by the glowing sense of anticipation the thought
of doing it produced. Maybe he could just threaten finger breakage; contemplating
that only gave him a small happy.
Spike set his blood and Guinness down, delivered
Buffy her Coke, pulled out a chair for her and slouched comfortably down on
his tailbone. Buffy perched on the edge of her seat and picked up a nacho, nibbling
on the edge. "We can recon the caves--" she yawned. "Tomorrow, I
guess. Maybe Tara will be able to narrow it down to, oh, only fifty or sixty
miles of tunnel by then." She looked at the nachos, then down at herself,
eyes large with sudden doubt. "You'd tell me if I was getting fat, right?"
That made it official; he was absolutely,
positively The Boyfriend-- bizarre changes of subject and the most dreaded question
a woman could ask a man all wrapped up in one. "Is there any answer to
that which won't get me staked? 'Love, hate to tell you, but you're in
grave danger of ballooning up to a size two?'"
She smacked his arm. "I'm serious!
I've been eating like a horse lately. Do these pants look tighter to you?"
Spike favored her with a lascivious grin.
"Yeh, and the strange thing is, seein' you in 'em always makes my trousers tighter,
too. Think it's psychological?"
Buffy rolled her eyes. "You like getting
slapped around, don't you?"
"Depends on who's doing the slapping."
He waggled an eyebrow at her. "Still got those manacles under the bed,
you know."
"And once more, we enter into 'ew' territory.
Like I'd ever let you chain me up again."
"Thinking more of letting you chain me
up."
She snorted, but there was a gleam of--anticipation?
curiosity?--in her eyes. Make a note of that one for the one-month anniversary.
Buffy scooched her chair over, leaned into his side and gave his biceps a squeeze
as he slipped an arm around her shoulders. "You're a big ol' pervert, and if
you ever tell anyone I even thought about it the world will find out that you
purr when I scratch your lumpies. Hey, there's Clem."
"I do not--oh, you're thinking about
it, then?" Spike sat up and waved Clem over, and the bile-colored demon's
flash went off right in front of them, a hot needle in his light-sensitive eyes.
"Watch it, wanker!" He was half-way into game face, blinking white and
violet splotches from his vision and lunging over the table when Buffy caught
him by the collar and yanked him back to his seat.
"Chill, Spike. Save it for the
nasties."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" the creature
babbled, its pale bulging eyes darting back and forth between them. "Finger
slipped, wrong button, there's no film in it, please don't--" Wrapping
the camera in batrachian fingers and clutching it to its boney chest, the demon
backed off--a gratifying change from their last encounter, to be sure.
A that moment Clem bustled up with a pleased grin, his skin-flaps wobbling,
and the would-be photojournalist made its escape.
Clem beamed at him. "Hey, Spike!
You're looking good. For a dead guy, anyway. Here's that list you
wanted. There's only five of them so far, but once people start seeing
that you can come through I think-- oh, my." He gaped at Buffy.
"You really are going out with the Slayer? Who was that guy?"
"Dunno. Some arsewipe who picked
a fight with us a couple of weeks ago, and now apparently wants an autographed
photo." Spike perused the list: five names, five potential customers.
In time, he hoped, they'd be seeking him out through Anya's advertising, but
right now he needed a jump-start, and a little industrial espionage--er, word
of mouth never hurt anyone. "Been dealing with Teeth, this lot?"
Clem snagged a chair from the next table
and plopped himself down. Buffy waved him towards the nachos and the demon
grabbed a handful and crunched them down. "Yeah. Except for that
last guy; he's been going to Rack."
Buffy frowned. "Should I know these
people?"
"Yeh, you should," Spike replied.
"But you don't, so listen and learn."
Buffy smiled very sweetly at Clem and
kicked Spike in the shins. "Spike and I are--hey! That's not why he owes
you fifty dollars, is it?" She turned on Spike with an outraged glare.
"Were you making bets with him over whether or not I'd go out with you?"
In hindsight, that was when it all began
to go pear-shaped. "I bloody well was not!" Spike retorted, indignant.
"That would be--" Ungentlemanly was the word that leapt to mind, but would blow
his badass reputation completely.
Clem held up a conciliatory paw.
"Oh, no, nothing like that! It was just a little wager on that Krallock
demon that blew in from Seattle. Some of us--us demons, you know--didn't believe
you'd really stopped working for the Council, so I bet Spike you'd kill it before
Sunday night. But you didn't, so--" He fished a wad of crumpled bills
out of the folds of his tunic and handed them over to Spike with a cheerful,
saw- toothed smile. Spike took them with a sense of dread; something was
about to go terribly wrong.
"Krallock demon?" Buffy asked, her eyes sharp
as throwing daggers. "The one you just told me about tonight?"
Oh, buggering hell, this can't be
good. Spike became extremely interested in the foam on his beer.
"Uh... yeh. Since you're not working for the Council anymore," he cleared
his throat significantly to remind her that Clem was right there with his great
flaps of ears twitching like weathervanes, "didn't figure you'd need to know
from me." He ran a finger around the mouth of his glass and licked beer
suds off it.
Buffy grew ominously quiet. "Even
if I'm not working for the Council any longer," she said, "don't you think I
might need to know about the big boys in town?" There was a tightness
in her voice he couldn't quite analyze. "After all, Krallock demon...
I'm not the big expert you or Giles or Anya is, but aren't they on the large
and vicious side?"
Clem nodded vigorously. "They sure
are! Why, when it showed up for poker night last week--this was after
you took off for L.A., Spike--it bit Ralphie's head clean off after he bluffed
it into folding on a straight when all Ralphie had was a pair of fours."
Clem shook his head ruefully. "Man, that Krallock sure doesn't like vampires!
Dust everywhere. We were sweeping Ralphie out of the furniture for hours."
"Gathering I needn't to go into mourning
for Ralphie." Buffy's tone didn't lighten any. "But let me get this
straight, Spike. You kept from me the fact that there was a dangerous
new demon in town--a demon that for all I know has been snacking on sweet little
old ladies and their poodles every night for the last week--so that you could
win a fifty dollar bet?"
Spike squirmed. "Well, yeh." He
was getting all defensive and bothered, and wasn't sure why. This was
demon business pure and simple, and done in defense of her little scheme, too.
Mostly. "Don't know what your knickers are in a twist about. All
I bet on was you wouldn't kill it by Sunday, 'cause of, you know; whether you
knew it was in town to begin with never came up. Never suggested to 'em
you knew it was there. 'S not cheating--much, anyway."
Buffy had drawn away from him and was
sitting up very straight, looking at him with huge wounded eyes, and Spike frantically
reviewed the last several minutes of conversation, trying to figure out what
was wrong. Krallock demons, large, dangerous, poodle snacking, little
old ladies, not cheating, much... Oh bloody buggering fuck.
It was the little things that got him.
Hadn't he used up his quota of irony
yet? Nobly turn aside from warm-blooded murder and trip up on a stupid
sodding sin of omission. Not a little thing to her, though, those hypothetical
old ladies. "Harris and I were going to take it out Sunday night," he
said, painfully aware of how feeble he sounded. "We just got distracted
by the Hellmouth going arse-up on us. And it's not as if we've had time
to hunt the bloody thing anyway! In fact--"
"That's not the point! You kept
something from me that affects my job--my real job, not whatever I end up doing
to pay the bills." Buffy drew a deep, dejected breath and let it out.
"And people could have gotten killed. Maybe they have."
She wasn't even angry, and that was the
worst part of watching the walls that had recently been breached between them
slamming up again behind her eyes. She was just... resigned. As
if she didn't--as if she couldn't expect better of him. This
is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang...
Spike sat there, gripping his glass, eyes glued to the scarred tabletop as Buffy
rose to her feet and slung her purse over her shoulder. Get mad at me, love.
Flay me up one side and down the other. Hit me, threaten me with stakes,
do something, say something. Angry means we've got a chance, angry means
you think I could've done better...
"I'm tired, Spike," she said. "I'm going
home."
He looked up, met her eyes, his own all anguished
desperation; she turned her head aside, as if from the sight of some terrible
wound. "Buffy, look, I cocked up--"
"Yes, you did." She was going
to leave him his pride, for all it was worth; no stomping out, no public humiliation.
Small favors. Buffy bent over and dropped a chaste kiss on his forehead,
and when she straightened her eyes were bright with emotion, fathomless pools
fringed with jet. "I love you," she whispered, fingertips so very gentle
along the side of his face, the line of his jaw. "I do. I will always..."
Her voice cracked in two, shattered into shards so painful he could see her
throat closing in agony around them, and how could he soothe away pain he'd
caused? "But this is one of the times it's very, very hard."
The room was spinning, and Spike squeezed his
eyes closed to shut out the sight of the hurt in hers, and found himself dragging
in huge harsh lungfuls of breath. As wounds made by words go, not so deep
as the grave nor wide as a church door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve...
She was gone when he opened his eyes,
and Clem was shaking his shoulder. "Spike! Hey! Spike, are
you OK?"
Spike gave one short bitter bark of laughter.
"Yeh. 'M okay. Just okay."
He was sitting in Buffy's living
room. He wasn't exactly sure why; everyone else had gone home or to bed.
"You can get the phone, can't you, Giles?" Buffy asked as she waltzed
out the door. "Of course," he answered, though he was
really quite tired. She tossed her hair and smiled at him, and he didn't
have the heart to complain. The phone rang the moment the door closed
behind her.
"Is Dawn there?" Breathless, giggly
girl-voices; Lisa, Megan, Janice, who could tell them apart? "She skipped
school and giant snakes ate the cafeteria, and only the Key can fix it."
"She's indisposed," he said, but the
other line was ringing.
"Hello, it's just me!" Clem, cheerful and faintly
apologetic. "I need to get this stuff to Spike." The demon's wrinkled
paw emerged from the receiver, holding a bouquet of squirming eyeballs.
"Can you take a message?"
"I think it might be better if--"
rrrring! "Mr. Giles? Have
you seen my daughter? I have to tell you, if you've let Willow go off
to destroy the world on her own I'll be forced to report you to MOO. I
didn't sign her permission slip."
He was juggling three or four receivers
now. "Giles!" Buffy chirped through one of them. "I found Spike, and it's
OK--he made me a vampire, and we're going to get married and live happily ever
after, except not so much with the living. Giles? Giles? Are
you there, Giles?"
Giles woke, his heart pounding, and lay
there for a moment, clutching his pillow and coming to the groggy realization
that the shrill insistent ringing in his ear was coming from the telephone downstairs
and not the remnants of his dream. He groped for his glasses on the bedside
table, crawled out of bed and staggered downstairs, barking his shin against
a box full of books. He swore bitterly, and grabbed the receiver, expecting
news of Willow, erupting Hellmouths, or gods on parade.
What he got was Quentin Travers.
"Rupert, are you mad?"
Giles slumped against the breakfast bar,
putting one of the leaning towers of books in grave danger of toppling, and
squinted across the darkened living room at the time on the VCR. "Very
possibly." He'd gotten home past midnight, stared at the pile of notes
and journals on the kitchen table for a moment, and very deliberately turned
his back on the whole mess and gone upstairs to bed. He ran a hand through
his hair. "Quentin, it's three in the bloody morning over here, and I have a
beast of a headache. Can't this wait?"
"How long have you known that Buffy Summers
has been... involved..." Travers invested the word with such concentrated
bile that Giles was surprised the phone lines didn't corrode, "with a vampire?"
Damn. Giles picked up the phone
and sat down on the couch. "Involved? Are you referring to Angel?" he
asked, schooling his voice to blankness.
"You know precisely to whom I am referring.
In the last several weeks our local sources have been claiming that Buffy Summers
is carrying on a public affair with William the Bloody and that you are not
only aware of the situation, you condone it. At first I dismissed it as
unfounded rumor, but within the last hour I've received a copy of a photograph
of the two of them in a... compromising position, and I can no longer ignore
the matter. We've had our differences, Rupert, I won't pretend we haven't,
but all your past betrayals of the Council have been in the name of a misguided
devotion to your Slayer. But this..." Travers sounded genuinely
grieved.
"Is still in the name of that misguided devotion,"
Giles replied coldly. Why couldn't he be having this conversation at nine
A.M. after a strong cup of Earl Grey? Travers knew exactly what time it
was in Sunnydale, he had no doubt. "In my considered judgement, Buffy's
association with Spike is doing her more good than harm at the moment.
Should that perception ever reverse itself, I am more than prepared to take
the appropriate steps to end it."
There was a hissing silence on the other
end of the line. "I'd hoped that your researches would have borne more
fruit by now. It would make explaining the situation less... traumatic.
There are reasons--"
"The extreme likelihood that the Slayer's
powers have a demonic origin of some sort? Yes, I deduced that some time
ago, Travers." Giles suppressed an urge to smugness; Travers would only
trip him up with it if he gave in to overconfidence now. "I fail to see
its bearing on the current situation."
Spluttering. "You fail--?
Good Lord, Rupert, what do you think's driving her to this unhallowed liaison?
We've seen it happen again and again--the power grows with age and use, and
if it's not channeled correctly, disaster! The Slayer who gives in to
her baser urges and engages in this... this miscegenation, invariably destroys
herself."
"Odd." Giles fought down a flare
of anger. "My research indicated that a number of them were destroyed
by the Council."
"All Slayers die sooner or later.
The point is, they can die in battle for us, or against us. Buffy Summers
has been teetering on the edge of rogue status for years--"
"No, Travers," Giles hissed, his hand
tightening on the receiver. "That's not the point. I've seen Buffy
die twice. Until you can say likewise of a Slayer you've Watched, don't
presume to tell me what the point is. She will die. But she can
die whole, as a warrior, fighting for people she loves and a cause she believes
in, or she can die broken, with despair chipping piece after piece of her soul
away long before her body ceases to breathe." He realized he was shaking
with anger, and took a deep breath, calming himself. "I don't pretend
to understand why Spike is necessary to her. I do not approve of Spike
taking the place he has in Buffy's life. But so long as he poses no danger
to Buffy or the others, it is not my place to approve or disapprove."
He waited tensely for the response to
that. Did the Council's unknown informant know of the chip's deactivation?
If so, that would narrow the field considerably, give him some idea who was
peaching on
them. Travers sighed. "The Council does not react well to extortion,
Rupert. This... work stoppage of hers is the second time Miss Summers
has resorted to it to gain her way with us, and in light of this new
information we will not--no, we cannot stand for it. A desire to provide
for her sister is one thing. Shirking her duties in order to...cavort
with a demon, the very creature it is her sacred duty to eliminate from the
world--that, sir, is a very different matter.
"Because of our past friendship, Rupert, I'm
giving you a chance I'd give no one else--a chance to do your duty. Buffy
Summers has gone through a tremendous amount of trauma in the past year, quite
aside from her return from the dead, enough to push the stablest person to the
edge. She needs help. Help we can give her."
Giles closed his eyes and leaned back against
the couch cushions. "Indeed. Your concern for her welfare touches me,
Travers. Do go on."
An eager note slipped into Travers's smooth
dry voice. "I can have a Council team in Sunnydale within forty-eight
hours. Counselors, parapsychologists, and so forth to examine and develop
a treatment program for Miss Summers, and a few of the more...physical types
to deal with the vampire. The creature's still cooperating with you, I
presume; as it's unable to attack humans it should be easy enough for you to
capture and restrain it."
They didn't yet know about Spike's unleashing,
then, though Giles couldn't imagine Spike keeping it a secret for long.
"Mmm, yes, so it should. Considering that our last several personal encounters
with
Council representatives have left me inclined to trust you only slightly more
than a soulless creature of evil, perhaps you should explain to me why I should
want to?"
The question seemed to floor Travers.
"Rupert, why do you think the Council exists? Why do Slayers have Watchers?
To record their triumphs and failures to be sure, but first and foremost to
guard against just what is happening now. To channel their abilities into
a form which will aid humanity." His tone was deadly serious. "You've
faced a rogue Slayer. And Faith was half-trained, undisciplined, sabotaged
by her own passions. Do you really want to face another one, this time
a Slayer who is, as you've pointed out yourself, the most experienced and determined
of her kind for a century? Allied, moreover, with one of the most vicious
and deadly vampires the line of Aurelius has produced? It is your sworn
duty to protect the world--with her, but also, if need be, from her, should
Buffy Summers decide to throw her lot in with the demonic strain of her heritage."
Travers cleared his throat. "And on a more mundane level, if you aid us
in containing the vampire for study and in gaining us access to Miss Summers,
I'm prepared to accede to Miss Summers's demands for a salary."
"I see." Giles sat silent for awhile, watching
the shadows of branches move across the drawn curtains. Travers's
offer deserved half-serious consideration, if only because Spike was, after
all, a vampire, and potentially dangerous for that reason alone. Still,
Spike was a vampire who had saved his life once, however self-serving his reasons
had been, and while Giles would have had no qualms about sending Spike to a
dusty death should it prove necessary, turning him over for vivisection seemed...
tacky. And there was a more important factor as well. "Quentin... regardless
of my opinions of Buffy's personal life, I will not lie to her on your account
again for any price. I'm afraid I couldn't possibly accommodate you without
discussing the matter with her first, and I think we both know what her response
would be."
"Ah." It was rather chilling that Travers
sounded perfectly calm, as if this had been the answer he'd been expecting all
along--well, it may have been; "Then it is with very great regret that I must
inform you that your association, and that of Buffy Summers, with the Council
of Watchers, is over."
"Haven't we gone through this before, Travers?
Without a Slayer, what do you intend to--"
He could hear the frosty smile all the
way across the globe. "That, Rupert, is no longer any of your concern."
And the line went dead.
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