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Barb
He'd come to know
the sounds she made as intimately as he knew the contours of her body, or the
changing shades of her eyes. Throaty murmurs of content, kitten-mews of pleasure
and mouse-squeaks of surprise, excited whimpers and lusty screams--all music
to his ears, a rhapsody in B, and--
"Ow!"
"Love?" Spike dropped
out of game face immediately and pulled away from Buffy's throat. He hadn't
accidentally broken skin, had he? 'Ow!' wasn't part of the program tonight.
Buffy didn't answer. She was staring over his shoulder, widening ripples of
surprise in her sea-colored eyes. One hand fumbled at her bare shoulder, and
came away holding a small red-fletched dart. Her lips parted, releasing a small
sigh, and her lashes fluttered once--then her eyes rolled back, her head lolled
to one side, and her hand fell limp to the pillows.
Spike rolled over,
putting himself between her and the rest of the room in time to see Angel--Angel?!--barreling
straight at him, eyes a hell-bright blaze of gold in his normally impassive
slab of a face. Spike whipped round, scooped Buffy up, and flung her across
the width of the bed. She tumbled off the edge in a Maypole flutter of blankets
and hit the floor with a loose-limbed thump. "Sorry, pet!" Inelegant, but it
got her out of the oncoming behemoth's path.
A second later
Angel's fists were driving into his face. Ears ringing, Spike twisted and kicked,
his bare heel slamming into his grand- sire's jaw. The larger vampire grunted,
one foot slipping on layers of rugs as the blow took the momentum from his charge,
and collided with the bed. Angel rose with a bull-shake of his head, blood and
slaver flying from his wounded mouth. His hand shot out and closed on Spike's
ankle. The mattress yawed under their combined weights; Spike overbalanced and
Angel hauled him across the bed in a tangle of sheets. "What the bloody fuck
crawled up your arse and died, you colossal pillock?" Spike yelled. "You wanted
a few pointers, all you had to do was ask!"
Angel ignored him,
clamping another ham-like hand around his calf. Across the room a bookshelf
toppled over, spewing its contents in a chaotic swath across the carpet--Fuck,
I just got all that crap off the floor! and revealing two strange men crouched
in the crevice behind it, crossbow and pistol at the ready. Why the hell hadn't
he scented them? Spike plunged and fought against Angel's grip, scrabbling for
purchase amidst the sheets, Santiago's swordfish caught in the inexorable pull
of the line. His fingers met something cold and hard--hairbrush. He doubled
back on his own length and smacked the back of the brush full-strength across
his opponent's nose. Angel howled, but didn't let go; he heaved Spike into the
air and tossed him half-way across the bedroom. Spike crashed into the dresser,
collapsed to the ground and scrambled to his feet, brandishing the hairbrush
with a wild-eyed snarl. That tied it; he was going to have to kill the lot of
them. If word of this fight ever got out he'd perish from sheer embarrassment.
"What do you want? Minions didn't used to be your style."
"Step aside, Spike."
Angel spoke as if Spike's questions were irrelevant. "I'm here for Buffy. You're
just in the way."
"I wouldn't say
that's entirely correct," one of the men by the bookshelf said. "I believe we
do have some minor business to conduct with Master William."
The soft deadly
snick of the crossbow cocking filled the air behind him. Fuck, fuck, a thousand
times fuck; Angel was between him and Buffy's drugged and helpless form, and
fast as he was, he wasn't quite close enough to the humans to be certain of
turning and disarming the man in time. Outnumbered three to one, wielding a
hairbrush against a gun and a crossbow while his delicates flapped in the breeze...not
exactly a position of strength. Have to do something about that. Spike let the
brush fall to his side, straightened into an insolent damn-I'm-stunningly- well-endowed
lounge, and cocked a thumb at his dresser. "Mind if I slip into something less
comfortable, Peaches? You've gone and lost your romantic nature living in Lotusville.
Time was when you took a fancy to knock a bloke around you'd spring for dinner
first."
An infinitesimal
flicker of irritation showed in the slight lowering of Angel's brow. "Go ahead."
Shoulder blades
prickling in anticipation, Spike bent and pulled open the lowest dresser drawer,
taking advantage of the opportunity to sneak a look in the direction of the
bookshelf and mark the exact position of the two humans. They'd stepped out
from the little niche behind the shelf, and were standing ankle deep in Sunnydale
Public Library discards about eight feet behind him. Heartbeats even, hands
steady on their respective triggers. Professionals. He skinned into a dry pair
of jeans, taking his time with the buttons and maneuvering himself a little
closer to the men in the process. Angel working with a pair of Council wankers--there
had to be weaknesses in this little alliance he could exploit. They hadn't tried
to dust him outright, so Travers must still want him unalive and kicking. Probably
figured him for an easy catch, what with the chip. "Didn't expect to see you
here," he said, still addressing Angel. "Thought you'd leave her a few illusions.
Rupert sussed out that you'd gone telling tales out of school, but Buffy didn't
believe it of you."
The creases at
the corners of Angel's mouth deepened in disgust. "The last thing Buffy needs
is more illusions."
"Yeh, well..."
Spike pulled a clean shirt from another drawer and tugged it over his head.
Keep up the rhythm and maybe he could go so far as to get his boots on. "I'd
be more convinced of your tender concern if your gunsels here hadn't just shot
her full of horse tranquilizers. What exactly was it they were planning for
that Faith bird of yours again? Something she'd rather do five to ten to avoid?
Kill 'er off, you think, and make a new Slayer, or just run experiments?"
Another unreadable
flicker in those dark eyes. Absolutely maddening. In a century of poking and
prodding he'd never truly managed to penetrate that implacable reserve. Angel
folded his arms across his massive chest and shifted his weight, a faint smile
touching his lips. "Mr. Weatherby is a registered nurse, as it happens, and
Mr. Collins has a set of voluntary commitment papers--signed--in case you'd
like to examine them. Buffy's decided that in light of the disturbing behavior--that
would be you, Spike--she's displayed in the wake of her traumatic head injury
last spring, she needs a thorough medical and psychological evaluation. Her
sister will of course be provided for by the Council in the meantime."
Spike stared at
him, gobsmacked. Had Angel lost the plot entirely, driven round the bend by
progressive hair gel poisoning? "You think her friends'll believe that? Like
hell. You can dust me, maybe. What's the plan for Rupert? Gonna take him out
too? Yeh, that's not suspicious at all." He searched the other vampire's expression
for clues--was that a hint of uncertainty? Oh, yeah, work that sodding conscience,
soul boy. "Tweedledee and Tweedledum here don't come off too keen on helping
out," he ventured, with a jerk of his chin at the men beside the bookcase. The
one with the crossbow--Weatherby--tensed. Hah. "That because they're tender
of puncturing your hide, or because they don't care if I do?" He flashed a knowing
smirk at the humans. "Or maybe they know you're planning on a double-cross of
your own. They're bright chaps, those Watchers." He quirked an eyebrow at Weatherby
and let the smirk widen to a grin. "Funny how it works out, innit? He's on that
side of the room with the Slayer, and you're on this side of the room with me."
Paydirt. Hatred
sparked Weatherby's dull eyes to momentary brilliance, and his finger tightened
on the trigger. His partner laid a calming hand on his shoulder. "I'll give
you an A for effort," Collins said with a genial nod, "but we know all about
the chip. And entertaining as this has been, we've a plane to catch, so--"
"Know all about
the chip, do you?" Spike purred, gauging the depth of the loathing in Weatherby's
white-rimmed eyes. "Angelus here tell you the latest, then? Chip's not working
any longer." He morphed into vamp-face. "And I'm famished."
Weatherby's bony
features contorted with fury and betrayal, and his attention wavered between
Spike and Angel--only for a second, but a second was all Spike needed. He launched
himself at the Watchers with a roar. The crossbow twanged and the bolt buried
itself in his shoulder, punching a searing line of pain through bone and tendon.
Spike staggered, recovered, tore the weapon out of Weatherby's hands as the
human frantically cranked it back for another shot, and flung it across the
room. The crossbow pinwheeled through the air to smash into the opposite wall.
Collins's pistol went off with an ear-splitting crack and Spike doubled over
as a swarm of fiery wasps grazed his ribs and ripped through the muscles of
his side.
Angel vaulted across
the bed the moment the crossbow fired, landing panther-light for all his bulk
beside Buffy's unconscious body. Spike surged to his feet and head-butted Collins
in the gut. Collins toppled over backwards, howling as his spine came into forcible
contact with the solid oak of the fallen bookshelf. Weatherby pulled a knife
and Spike kicked it out of his hand, ignoring the pain that stitched through
his side. A quick glance downwards revealed half a dozen tiny shards of wood
embedded in mangled flesh. He'd completely discounted the pistol, but it must
have been modified to shoot wooden slugs; the soft projectile had shattered
against bone and mushroomed into deadly fragments. Sheer luck it hadn't come
nearer the heart.
Without a glance
at his Council associates, Angel swept the Slayer into his arms, and, to Spike's
stunned surprise, raced for the tunnel opening. Bloody hell, the old bastard
had been planning a double-cross all along! Collins was trying to get
up; Spike stamped hard on his ankle and was rewarded with a satisfying crack.
That one wouldn't be going anywhere soon. He grabbed Weatherby and spun him
around, wrenching the man's arm up behind his back. "ANGEL!" he roared. He yanked
Weatherby's head down, baring the man's ill-shaven and unappetizing neck. "Bring
her back or I swear I'll tear his sodding throat out!"
Halfway down the
shadowy corridor, Angel paused, his expression as enigmatic as always. "The
way I figure it, Spike, either you're bluffing, or you're not. Either way, you
lose."
He was gone in
a whirl of black leather. "Bugger!" Spike bashed Weatherby's head into the nearest
bedpost for insurance and tossed the man aside. He rammed his feet into his
boots--bastards were still wet, and there wasn't time to root his Docs out from
under the bed. He yanked the crossbow bolt from his shoulder with a pained hiss
and took off after his vanished grandsire, bootlaces whipping around his ankles.
He passed the landing where he and Buffy had left the bundled Sluorn hide (still
propped against the tiled wall, draining salt slurry into the effluent) and
skidded round a corner. His left foot came down on an untied right lace, and
next thing he knew he was arse over tit against the wall. All but screaming
in frustration, he doubled over and tied his laces with shaking fingers. He
was off again within minutes, but he knew exactly how fast a vampire could move
and any time lost was too much. He pulled up short at an intersection, realizing
to his dismay that he couldn't pick up either Angel's or Buffy's scent beneath
the stink of the sewer. It wasn't just that the Watchers back at the crypt were
masking their scents somehow; they'd done something that left his sense of smell
no better than a living human's.
He schooled himself
to stillness and listened. The gurgle of the sewer mingled with the agonized
groans of the wounded Collins and the distant squeak of rats. Angel knew these
tunnels as well as he did, and was moving as silently as their kind knew how.
Spike caught a faint muffled thumping to the left and raced off down the left-hand
fork; if he'd chosen correctly, he should be able to catch up to his burdened
quarry within a few blocks.
But his luck was
no lady tonight. The thumping turned out to be one of Buffy's ridiculously high-heeled
boots tied to a sewer grate, banging against the metal bars in the flow of the
current. Spike ripped it free with a curse and retraced his steps, but by now
Angel had a hopeless lead. He halted in the middle of the intersection, legs
trembling and chest heaving. The flow of blood from both wounds, sluggish though
it was, was starting to make him dizzy, and his side ached with every breath.
Well, stop breathing then, you great git! Despite the pain, the ebb and
flow of air in his lungs steadied his nerves--it was half the reason he'd taken
up smoking all those years ago, just to have an excuse to breathe. Spike inhaled
and held the breath longer than humanly possible, let it out even more slowly.
Running mad through the tunnels wouldn't get Buffy back. Information might.
His eyes narrowed to golden slits, and his head swung back in the direction
of the crypt. Deep in his chest a low chain-saw rumble began building momentum.
Someone was about
to have a very unpleasant evening.
The last time he'd
held Buffy had been an awkward good-bye hug outside the diner where they'd met
after her resurrection. She'd been lost in his arms, a wispy leaf-skeleton of
a girl. She felt more substantial now, but she was still a very slight burden
indeed. Angel removed her remaining shoe and laid her out in the circle of lamplight
on the bed. Seeing her there produced an unexpected frisson of deja vu. In just
such a seedy pest-hole as this had he held Darla in the last precious moments
of her restored life, before Drusilla had stolen that life and her soul for
the second time.
He should have
realized what was happening to Buffy at that first meeting, before the first
courtesy sip of indifferent coffee. He'd watched Darla go through much the same
gamut of apathy, detachment, and desperation when Wolfram and Hart brought her
back. Neither woman, he suspected, would find the comparison flattering. Angel's
eyes fell shut for a moment, the hopelessness and failure of last year threatening
to overwhelm him. It wouldn't happen a second time.
He sat down in
the room's single chair and regarded Buffy's sleeping face. It wasn't peaceful;
her brows were knit, her mouth drawn tight. She lay curled beneath the threadbare
hotel blanket, her body curved like a half-drawn bow, one arm extended in a
search for something, or someone. Strands of hair twined like ivy around the
slender column of her throat, gathered where her chin tucked into the angle
of her shoulder. No wound there, thankfully; the interruption had come before
things could go too far, and by now even the faint indentations in the skin
left by the points of Spike's fangs had faded. He'd resisted the temptation
to check for bite-marks in less obvious spots.
Travers's private
line picked up on the first ring. It was a more reasonable time of the morning
in London now, of course. "There's been a slight change in plans," Angel said,
leaning back against the wall. The chair-back scraped against old plaster. "The
chip's not working."
There was a brief,
bristling silence on Travers's part. "How very convenient," he said with well-bred
bile. "I suppose you're going to tell me they got away? And that you need something
else in order to pursue them? Money? Information?"
"Travers, you have
nothing I could possibly want. Buffy's here with me. I left your men fighting
Spike--"
"You mean to say
you abandoned them to that monster?"
"My priority is
Buffy's safety, Mr. Travers. It never occurred to me that two highly-trained
Council field agents wouldn't be capable of handling a single vampire." Not
quite the truth; he'd felt an uneasy twinge of conscience about leaving Collins
and Weatherby to Spike's not-so-tender mercies, but only a twinge. After the
way they'd handled Faith's case a few years back he couldn't muster much sympathy
for their plight.
Travers grumbled,
but he couldn't very well argue without casting aspersions on his own men. "Very
well, then--bring Miss Summers to the rendezvous point as planned, and we'll
send a--"
"That's what I
meant about a change of plans." Angel stretched his legs out across the gap
between chair and the foot of the bed and propped his heels up on the worn chenille
bedspread. In a way the unexpected failure of Spike's chip had simplified matters.
"Spike was to be your guarantee of Buffy's cooperation. Until we know for certain
that your people have him in captivity, I'm thinking it would be better all
around if Buffy stays here in the States where I can keep an eye on her."
He hung up on the
fulminating Travers--it was getting to be a ritual--and set the phone aside,
settling down to his vigil over Buffy's drugged slumber. Travers would doubtless
try to contact Weatherby and Collins now. He wondered idly if they were dead,
or if they'd managed to turn the tables and subdue Spike. He should care about
the outcome, he knew, just as he should have cared that not everyone at Holland
Manners's dinner party was irredeemably evil...but it all seemed academic. Weatherby's
violent hatred of vampires resulting in Spike's untimely dusting would be the
ideal outcome of this operation, but Weatherby's untimely death at Spike's fangs
had possibilities, too. He'd spun that line of bullshit about having Buffy committed
mainly for Collins's benefit, but if it made Spike angry enough to shatter his
pose of humanity, so much the better.
He left the room
once, just before dawn, to walk down to the soda machine beside the pool. While
the ancient machine hummed and clanked preparatory to spitting out a Diet Coke,
Angel gazed through the fence at the hollow of eggshell-blue concrete, drained
for the winter and locked up now. Soggy drifts of dead mulberry leaves encrusted
the cracked bottom. If Drusilla were here, perhaps her eyes could read the abandoned
pool like a giant's teacup, discovering therein auguries for the coming year.
Better she wasn't. The future had never done him any favors.
The can dropped
into the hopper with a clunk and Angel picked it up. He walked back to the small
dingy room with its cheap anonymous furniture and set it on the nightstand beside
the bed. Buffy stirred beneath the sheets as if the weight of his gaze had reached
her in the depths of sleep. "Spike?"
It hurt, a little,
that it wasn't his name she murmured, but who had he to blame for that? Spike's
words of a week past ate at him--She's with me because you let her go.
If he'd spent the last two years hunting for a way to remove the curse instead
of submitting to it...but he hadn't. It had never even occurred to him to try.
"It's me. You're safe." He reached across the bed to smooth the hair from her
eyes. "How are you feeling?"
Buffy's hand went
to her shoulder, fingers pressing out the residual ache of the dart. "Someone
shot me." She blinked up at the flyspecked globe of the ceiling light with a
muzzy frown. "And then glued my eyelids together, possibly after raising a small
family of pigeons in my mouth." She sat up, wincing a little, and he could tell
she was evaluating the stiffness in her limbs, assessing her readiness for a
fight. She looked around, still frowning, and then a flare of panic burned the
fog from her eyes. "Spike!" She flipped the blankets aside and jumped to her
feet. "Where's Spike? Did you see him? How long have I been out?"
"Spike's fine.
Or he was the last time I saw him. It's eight o'clock on Friday morning, and
you've been asleep for about four hours. You want something to drink?" Angel
gestured at the Coke. "I got diet."
"Thanks." She took
the can and gulped half of it. "Travers's people shot me, right? If you haven't
already done it, call Giles and let him know what's up. Erk, I'm a mess--is
my purse around here somewhere? And what happened to my left shoe?"
"It's probably
back at the crypt. Buffy--"
"Never mind, big
tough Slayer here, I can go barefoot for a few hours." She was already bent
over the rust-stained bathroom sink, splashing water on her face and straightening
wrinkled clothing. "And you said Spike was where, again?" She rubbed her upper
arms, shivering--was the room that cold? He had trouble, sometimes, remembering
exactly what the comfort zone for humans was.
"Buffy, we need
to talk."
"Do you have any
idea of the amount of trouble Spike can get himself into in four hours?" Catching
his expression, she amended, "Silly question. Did you bring any weapons? If
not, we'll have to hit my place and grab some before going after Spike." She
cast a dubious look at the bed. "That blanket's kind of flimsy; can you make
it to the sewers OK?"
"Buffy!" He strode
across the room, seized her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him;
after a second of instinctive resistance she relaxed in his grip. "Listen to
me. Spike's in no immediate danger. Travers's men had orders to take him alive,
or as close as he gets to it." With any luck, they'd violated those orders in
self-defense.
"Alive? Then--"
Dark-lashed Margaret Keane eyes gazed up at him with wounded betrayal--the look
she'd had that day in the tunnels, when he'd told her he was leaving, and on
the day she'd walked in on him cradling Faith in his arms. "How do you know--?"
Her mouth firmed against the quiver of her chin. "You...you did tell Travers
about Spike and me, didn't you?"
"Yes, I talked
to Travers." He hated that look. It was a carpet knife unhooking his vitals
and maybe he'd deserved it the first time, but this time she had no right to
it. "I tried talking to Giles, but he's so terrified of hurting your feelings
by taking the knife away he's willing to let you cut your own throat with it.
The Council was going to find out about you and Spike sooner or later. This
was the only way to be certain of keeping you safe, to work from the inside."
She wasn't thawing, and Angel's hands fell from her rigid shoulders and dropped
to his sides in frustration. "I told Travers I'd help him capture Spike and
bring you in, at a price, and that price was a guarantee of your health and
safety. They had enough trouble with Faith that he was willing to agree."
"And you trusted
Travers?" Buffy asked, incredulous. She stood bowstring-taut on the worn carpet,
fists clenched until the tendons stood out in the backs of her thin hands, and
for a moment Angel thought she was going to strike him. "You had no right."
"Right?" Resentment
flared; Buffy never had trouble justifying her own I-am-the-Slayer decisions,
but let anyone else dare-- "No. I had an obligation. Suppose you found out Xander
was sleeping with Drusilla--what would you do?" Something in the set of her
shoulders made him break off, appalled. "You didn't think I'd just hand you
over to them and leave you there, did you?"
"I thought--" Her
voice cracked and then the shell of stony reserve was back full-force. "If you
weren't planning to hand me over to the Council, what were you planning to do?"
"Get you away from
Spike. Play it by ear. The Council has people who could help you, with
the right pressure applied. Travers thinks you're out of control. I wouldn't
go that far, but Buffy, you're heading there. I could see it last weekend. I
saw it tonight. It's not just that you're crawling all over Spike. Slaying used
to be a sacred calling for you--now it's a game, or something to make money
on. Or, God help us, foreplay." He wanted her to hear concern and compassion,
and feared it would sound like pity or condemnation. "You...you inspired
me, once. You were a hero. And now...you're selling advertising space on your
stakes."
Buffy's chin went
up and her eyes chilled to wintry grey. Her gaze fell on the little cluster
of glasses sitting on the counter by the sink, each in their wrapping of sanitized-for-your-protection
paper, as if she would very much have liked to throw one. "You know what? The
electric company is oddly indifferent to the number of times I've saved the
world." She settled for picking up the remainder of her Coke and running her
finger around the rim. "You think I'm thrilled by the idea of spending my whole
life killing yuckies? I want a day job that actually, you know, occurs in the
daytime--but I'm a college drop-out with zero marketable skills, and until I
can get a degree or find something good that doesn't need one, I man a cash
register or flip burgers. Or I kill very expensive demons. The ever-growing
list of Summers creditors are casting their highly influential votes for the
demons. But I do not, I will not make money on slaying, Mr. Kettle with the
supernatural detective agency! Spike's paying gig and the slaying, totally separate
issues. They both just happen to involve killing things with defective fashion
sense."
Angel sighed. "Buffy,
this is about you, not Spike. After you told me what you'd been feeling since
coming back, I asked Wesley if there were any clues in the Scroll of Aberjian
that might give us an idea what caused it. Wesley has access to the entire text
of the scroll, not just the spell Willow copied--Anatole's commentary explains
a lot." He ran a hand through his hair, searching for words. "The Raising spell
pulls all the pieces together. Body, soul, memories....even if some of them
are missing or destroyed. Darla even got the memories of her existence as a
vampire, though the demon wasn't part of her resurrected self." It had haunted
Darla in those last few days, the question of who, precisely, she was now. The
possibility that the clean lines of demarcation he'd drawn between man and monster
could blur had haunted him too, and his dreams had been filled with uneasy visions
of Angel and Angelus, reflecting one another into hazy infinity. "But it doesn't
connect them. Darla--and you--felt disconnected because you were disconnected.
From the world. From yourself. If you're lucky, the pieces eventually start
to click together again. If you're not lucky...you could go on like that, for
years. Numb. Not dead, but not really alive."
He'd seldom seen
Buffy Summers truly afraid, but in this moment her eyes held a crawling horror
that said Anything but that. She banished the look with a shake of her
head and took a half-step forward, facing down the intangible. "Well, that's...mind-numbingly
terrifying. But this justifies you ratting me out to Travers how, exactly? I'm
getting better, Angel. Big-time clickage."
"There's no guarantee
the pieces will fall back into exactly the same pattern they held before you
died. Outside influences could...disrupt things." He sank down on the edge of
the bed, shoulders slumping, and tried to ignore the headache which was beginning
to chip away at the back of his eyelids. "Travers claims it's a constant struggle
for older Slayers to control certain...darker urges...as their power increases.
Before your death it was a struggle you were winning hands down. Now you're
not even trying." He looked up, eyes bleak. "How long has Spike been feeding
from you?"
"What?"
Buffy choked, spraying Diet Coke across the bedspread. "I told you before--he's
never--were you watching--that was just playing!"
"I don't need a
diagram to tell when Spike's fed on Slayer's blood," Angel snapped. "I was there
for his first Slayer kill, remember? I know the look."
"Your Slaydar's
gone wonky, then." Buffy flung out both bare unmarked arms. "Do I look like
Spike's been feeding on me? Do you think I could hide it if he was? Real-life
vamp bites aren't cute little pinpricks, they're great big nasty chomp marks,
as I ought to know having survived three of them, and I think I'd notice if--oh.
Oh." Her tirade devolved into an embarrassed mumble. "There may have
been some...exchange of bodily fluids--but not by biting! And so not your business!"
"Spike drinking
your blood isn't my business?"
"Angel," Buffy
said through gritted teeth, "Breathe."
Caught by surprise,
he inhaled, not the superficial intake of air he needed for talking, but a deep,
real breath--the kind he avoided taking around her if at all possible. Seeing
her was bad enough. Buffy's essence flooded his senses, warm and female and...very
recently off her courses. Oh, God. "Get it? Buffy is a No Biting zone, and we
will never, ever discuss this subject again, capisce? Look, I've got to go.
Spike could be in trouble and Willow's gone all Dark Phoenix on us and the First
Evil is back in town and I just don't have time for this...this guy stuff. You
and Spike can have your pissing contest after the apocalypse, 'kay?"
"Time?" Angel was
on his feet in an inchoate haze of fury, looming between her and the door. "Do
you think I have time to put my entire life on hold and race down here
to pull you out of a briar patch that you of all people knew better than to
jump into in the first place? Well, let me enlighten you--I don't! Gunn's barely
speaking to me since his pals went on that demon-killing spree, Lorne's sobbing
in his Sea Breeze because his bar's been trashed yet again, Wesley's a wreck
since he nearly took an axe to Fred and the Tro-Clon is coming--and what's that,
you ask? I don't know, but what do you wanna bet it's not good? I have apocalypses
of my own to deal with, but here I am! That's what you want, isn't it? Someone
to be all about you, all the time? The difference is, Spike does what he thinks
will make you happy. I'll do what I think is right, no matter how much it hurts!"
She flinched as
if he'd slapped her. "You're hurt? Excuse me? I'm the one with a bullseye
on my derriere, and Spike may be--"
"Good riddance
if he is! Whatever darkness lies in you, he draws to the surface. Before I loved
you I admired you. You made me want to be a better man." He wasn't going to
cry; tears were for boys, for women, for pansy-ass ex-poets. A man might weep
upon release from hell, but on all lesser occasions he stayed in control of
his emotions. She'd seen more of his tears over the years than anyone, living
or dead. "I can't stand by and watch you drown in him!"
"For someone so
damn inspiring," she whispered, "You don't trust me much, Angel. Did you ever
think that maybe instead of drowning in each other, we'd both learn to swim?"
Angel turned away,
not because he couldn't meet her eyes but because he didn't want her to see
the turmoil in his. "There are some tides the strongest swimmer in the world
can't fight." He'd always been the adult in their relationship, the rock which
weathered her emotional storms. It had been second nature to conceal things
from her--that he was a vampire, that Darla was his sire, that Drusilla and
thus Spike were of his getting, that even knowing of the curse, he'd desired
her to the point that would have destroyed them both. To protect her, he'd maintained,
silencing the inner voice which whispered in the hot still hours of daylight
that it was also to protect himself.
Buffy was staring
down at his clenched hands, at the thin half-moons of crimson along the heel
of his palm, where the nails had cut into the flesh. She took a stiff, unwilling
step towards him, then another, and another. He felt her palm come to rest on
his shoulder, weightless as sunlight, and as painful. Her fingers slid down
the length of his arm to curl around his hand. Tenderness there, but no passion.
If he took her in his arms, kissed her...it would be nothing more than stirring
up ashes just to see if he could. He'd left her behind, but had anything really
changed?
"Spike can't change
me," said Buffy. "I can't change him. We change ourselves. Because we want to.
Because we have to. You didn't bring me back--"
"I could have."
Buffy's lips parted
over a stillborn exclamation. "I could have," Angel repeated, his voice diminishing
to a ragged shadow of itself. "The Powers That Be owe me a life. I fought for
Darla's life, and I won... and it was all for nothing, because she'd already
come back by magic once. But I'd still won a life, and when Willow came and
told us that you'd died, the first thing I thought of was that I could bring
you back." He was the one shaking now.
"It wouldn't have
been right," she whispered, the delicate moth- touch of her fingertips fingers
tracing the lines of his bowed shoulders. "I know that. I died a good death,
doing what I had to do. I could never blame you for--"
"It wasn't because
it was right." Every muscle was rigid as iron with the effort of getting the
next word out, and the next, as the white-hot supernova of anger collapsed to
a black hole of self-loathing. "God, I told you once I was weak--I watched them
lower you into the ground, and it was like I was going with you." He remembered
black lacework leaves edging a blood-washed sky; they'd held the funeral as
late in the evening as the mortuary allowed. Spike held onto Dawn like a talisman.
The younger vampire's sobs were barely audible over the dull thud of clods hitting
wood, even to his ears, and that made them all the more intolerable. You
never loved her as I did, you aren't capable of it... "I grieved for you
all summer. And then little by little...it got better. I began to get over you."
"But that's--"
Her hand came to rest, lightly, on his face, lifting his head. "I never wanted
anyone to spend their lives mourning me, Angel."
"You don't understand."
Words strung on barbed wire. Each syllable drew blood. "It was easier
with you dead. I didn't have to think about you being there, two hours away
and untouchable as the moon. You were gone forever, and it was such..." His
voice cracked. "Such a relief. I should have told Willow, or Dawn, at
least, that I had a life to spend. I didn't. I didn't tell anyone. And then
last month you called, and the first thing I thought was 'Oh, God, it's beginning
again.'"
Buffy sat down
on the bed, pale and stunned, and then, to his astonishment, she laughed--a
broken-backed laugh that was half tears, but a laugh still. "Let me guess: you
feel guilty. Don't. It's--well, it's not all right, but I get it. I really do.
It's pretty much exactly how I felt when you came back from hell." She shivered,
and this time he didn't think it was from the cold. "It could have. Started
again, I mean. I was so lost...I could have chosen the pain to hold on to. Grab
a handful of razor blades and you'll know you're real." She frowned. "That metaphor's
lost something with the advent of Gillette Daisy."
He couldn't accept
that easy absolution. "You were so distant when we met. You left without asking
for anything, and I was grateful. I didn't want to think about what you
might be going through. I could have prevented all of this. If you'd been brought
back by the Powers instead of whatever dark magics the Raising spell calls on--don't
you see, Buffy? I have to save you now. Because I didn't save you then."
She sighed, cradling
her remaining shoe in her lap. "You can't save me, Angel. If I need saving,
it's only me who can do it. I shouldn't have come back at all, but since I'm
here...maybe I needed to put myself back together differently, and take a good
look at all the pieces." She looked at him. "Do you know how long it's been
since I felt good about myself? All of myself? If I'm a different Buffy,
vive la difference."
And who was she
now, this new improved reconstructed Buffy? "If it disappeared tomorrow...the
curse...would you..."
"Would you?"
There wasn't any
good answer to that question, he realized, because it wasn't the curse holding
them apart any longer, on either side. Buffy stroked his cheek. "I have to go
now. I have to find..." Her head jerked up and her eyes went wide, and she turned
towards the door as if pulled by a magnet. "Spike?"
The door exploded
inwards with a crash, and sunlight flooded into the room.
When your day kicked
off with a frantic five A.M. phone call from a vampire beginning, "Angel's kidnaped
Buffy. Get your arse over here and give me a hand with a spot of torture," you
were pretty much assured of a downhill slide from there. Xander leaned against
the crypt wall, calculating exactly how many hours he could shave off his rapidly
diminishing stock of leave time without cutting into his honeymoon. No contest
between Niagara Falls and rescuing Buffy, but man, Anya was going to be pissed.
"So why am I here again?"
"Because I got
tired of recycling my quarters waiting for Giles to answer his bleeding phone."
Spike was prowling back and forth across the crypt in game face, hands in pockets,
shoulders hunched, blue smoke trailing from the cigarette dangling from his
lips. He came to a halt in front of the two men chained to the wall--the very
same wall, probably the very same manacles, he'd used on Buffy last year and
no, we are not detouring down that perverted little by-way. "You know, Harris
here is non-combustible, so no point in stalling for sunrise, mates."
"You'll get sod
all out of us, y' goat-buggering corpse," Weatherby croaked. He stood swaying
in his bonds, all snarly and defiant despite darkening bruises and the runnels
of clotted blood oozing from his broken nose. There were a couple of teeth on
the floor of the crypt as well, but Xander honestly wasn't sure who they belonged
to. Collins, unable to put weight on his broken ankle, sagged in his restraints.
He kept making pitiful little kicked-hound whimpering noises, which Spike didn't
seem to notice. The wailing of victims was probably the vampire equivalent of
Muzak.
Xander'd never
considered himself Mr. Sensitive; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been
sick at the sight of blood. He'd watched steam rising from the savaged throats
of fresh vampire kills on long cold January nights, kicked aside moldering skulls
like stray beer cans searching through ancient tombs, and seen a Who's Who of
demons dismembered in glorious Technicolor. He was down with the carnage, Vin
Diesel cool. Dead bodies didn't bother him any longer.
Still-living bodies,
those could still give him a twitch.
Spike drew the
end of his cigarette to a cherry red, blew smoke in Weatherby's face, and then
backhanded the Watcher viciously, holding back none of his strength. Weatherby's
scream ended in a choked gurgle. "I don't ask a lot of life," Spike said. "Come
home, have a bite and a nice snog, and sleep the sleep of the unjust. 'S reasonable,
innit?" Another blow. "And if I can't have that..." He leaned closer. "Then
I want to know where Angel's laired up." He removed the cigarette and contemplated
it for a second. "And I've just had a happy thought: to get what I want, all
I've got to leave intact is your tongue."
The glowing coal-end
of the cigarette hovered an inch away from Weatherby's eye. Xander's stomach
turned over. "Spike--"
"Don't be such
a big girl's blouse, Harris." But the cigarette pulled back immediately, and
Xander came to the not entirely comfortable realization that that was
why Spike had insisted he be here. Xander Harris, Rent-A-Conscience, serving
Sunnydale since 1997. Weatherby spat in Spike's face the moment his binocular
vision was out of immediate danger, and the vampire snarled and punched him
again. Bones made nasty soft crunching sounds. Weatherby keened through his
splintered nose and went limp in his bonds, and Spike stepped back with an exclamation
of disgust. "Sod it, he's passed out again."
Xander snorted.
"Could that be because you just gave him, oh, his third concussion of the night?
This isn't working."
Human again, Spike
wiped his face off on Collins's shirttail and favored Xander with a sullen cobalt
glare. "You think you can do a better job, be my guest."
"Nuh uh. New York
abstains, courteously." Xander averted his eyes from the captives and retreated
to the far end of the little series of caves, pulling Spike with him. "The hitting?
Perhaps satisfying, but not working fast enough. If Willow were here she could
do a truth spell." God, he wished Willow were here. Threatening violence was
fine; heck, Buffy did it all the time. Throwing a few punches to back up the
threats, also peachy. But at that point, the bad guys were supposed to break
and spill their guts, eliminating the necessity of resorting to the messy stuff.
Criminals were a superstitious and cowardly lot; it was in the contract.
"Yeh, well, she's
not here, and Tara's not witch enough to bust through the Council's Jedi mind
tricks--fuck, it took Angelus hours to soften Rupert up to the point Dru could
get to him." Spike ceased his nervous pacing long enough to drive a fist into
the wall in frustration. A shower of earth pattered to the floor. "And for the
first time in my unlife, I regret to say I'm no Angelus."
Xander grimaced.
"Well, I'm sure as hell no Dru."
Spike raked a hand
through his hair, leaving streaks of gore in its wake--the gel had given up
the ghost some hours ago and he was starting to look like a refugee from the
undead version of Soul Train. "You're right," he said, nowise pleased
about it. "We haven't time to wear 'em down properly. We need something that'd
make 'em piss themselves even if we hadn't got 'em chained to a wall."
"Maybe we should
try Giles again--see if he knows their deep dark secrets from their days at
Eton," Xander suggested.
Spike snorted.
"If that lot's public school, I'm a vegetarian. 'Sides, there's only one deep
dark secret an Englishman's got from Eton, and I'm not in the mood to drop trou
and exploit it. What's a Watcher afraid of, anyway? Ghoulies and ghosties and
long-leggedy beasties are all in a day's work."
"That's the trouble
with fates worse than death, because most of them?" Xander yawned and rubbed
the back of his head. "Aren't. Except..." He snapped his fingers. "Fate worse
than death!" he repeated. "I'm looking at one!"
Spike vamped out,
bared his fangs and crooked his fingers in an exaggerated pantomime. "You thinking
what I'm thinking?"
"Yes, Brain, but
where are we going to get the complete score of the HMS Pinafore at this
hour?"
That garnered him
a blank look. Then, "Someone'll be singing soon enough," Spike replied cheerily,
and bounded back into the main cavern. He ripped the remains of Weatherby's
shirt away, leaving his neck and shoulders bare, then ran back to the washstand
in the bedroom and returned with the pitcher. Spike dashed water across Weatherby's
face and stood back.
The Watcher came
to, coughing up blood and snot, and slurred, "Think you're smart...L.A. team'll
come down here when we don'..."
"Shut yer gob,
idiot!" Collins yelled, springing to sudden livid life. He licked his swollen
lips and eyed Xander with loathing. "Working with one of them, are you? We made
that mistake and look where it's got us. Think you can get away with this? You'll
have the full wrath of the Council on your neck by midnight, both of you."
Spike grabbed Weatherby's
chains and pulled him close. "Oooh, lovely, a lifetime supply of tweed-wrapped
takeout! Tempting, but--" He sniffed Weatherby's naked shoulder with the air
of a connoisseur, and the man shuddered and moaned, trying to twist away as
far as his bonds allowed. "You'll be calling old Travers up in person and telling
him you're safe as houses."
"Spike, no!" Xander
clutched the vampire's shoulder and felt Spike's fractional wince as he put
pressure on the wound. He pulled Spike away from Weatherby. "You can't do...that!"
"What, make 'em
my undead minions, subject to my every whim cos I'm their sire and master and
all? Watch me." Spike shrugged Xander off with minimal winciness, and faster
than blinking his fangs were sunk into Weatherby's flesh at the angle where
neck met shoulder. Crimson beads welled up around the roots of his canines.
Weatherby stiffened and screamed, thin and high and terrible, jerking violently
in Spike's grasp.
Bent over the Watcher's
crumpled body, Spike's demonic countenance was in shadow, lantern-yellow eyes
glowing beneath a halo of wild, blood- matted curls. A hair-raising snarl rolled
through the confines of the crypt, and Xander's hands took off on a not-entirely-voluntary
quest for the nearest sharp piece of wood. He gripped the ever-present stake
in his coat pocket. Act. It's an act. Is it an act? "Spike, think about
what you're doing--"
"I'm thinking of
nothing but." Spike pulled back, long pale fingers splayed across Weatherby's
cheek as he held the man's head in place, and whispered in his ear, intimate
as a lover. "You can tell me what I want to know now, or you can tell me later.
Every secret the Council's entrusted you with, you'll spill, and glad to do
it. And then I'll let you go. Back home to meet your mates, and won't that be
a party? Me, I went for the mass slaughter, but you strike me as the type to
pick 'em off one at a time, slow and careful. You got a wife, mate? Kiddies?
You won't have 'em long." He laughed and ran his tongue along the wire-taut
cords of Weatherby's neck. "Or maybe you will. Never saw the use of siring brats
myself, but I hear some fancy it."
Weatherby's harsh
panting breath faltered into a mindless whine and Collins's white-hot loathing
could have incinerated both of them on the spot. "By the time we'd rise your
Slayer whore will be long gone and our own people will know--urk!"
"If you want the
comfort of being able to scream," Spike's hand was at his neck in an instant,
fingers digging into the larynx, "You'll not speak of my lady like that. And
as for time--there's ways to speed these things up." He grinned. "Sounds like
the most fun I've had in years."
"I can't let you
do this, Spike!" Xander yelled, hoping to hell that all this was still part
of the act. He lunged forward, stake held high, and while he was still suspended
in Matrix slo-mo, Spike turned, smiled indulgently, dropped Collins, grabbed
Xander's wrist and twisted, hard. Pain lanced up his arm and the stake went
flying. Wrist not broken, ergo, all part of act. Xander tumbled to the
floor, trying to look injured--and to find the stake again, just in case.
The hope which
had surfaced briefly in Collins's eyes foundered and sank into a mire of despair.
"Damn you," he sobbed.
Spike melted back
into human form and patted Collins's cheek with a smile that would have done
Lucifer proud. "Already taken care of, mate. Now where's Angel, which flight
were you supposed to take out, and what's this about an L.A. team?"
Ten minutes later
they were pounding across the street behind Restfield cemetery to Spike's car,
Spike's blanket flapping madly as they dodged tombstones in the slanting white
light of early morning. Xander fumbled with the keys to the padlock on the gate
of the impound lot while Spike vaulted the fence, barbed wire and all, and landed
with a curse on the other side, clutching one hand to his ribs. The vampire
staggered to his feet and tumbled into the driver's seat of the DeSoto in a
cloud of acrid smoke, gunned the engine and threw it into reverse. Xander hauled
the gate open in a screech of protesting chain-link and flung himself into the
passenger seat. They tore out of the lot in a screech of burning rubber, leaving
the gate askew behind them. He sank back against the ancient black leather upholstery
and gave up a small prayer to the gods of the California highways. "Shit. What
if Angel was lying to them about the motel he was in?"
"Then we'll stake
out the airport. I get close enough, I'll feel her." Spike squinted into what
little sunlight made it through the blacked-out windshield and hunched over
the steering wheel, lips moving silently--what did vampires pray to? The dark
cotton of his T-shirt looked wet and shiny where it stretched over his ribs;
the fence-jumping must have torn the healing wound open again. "Get my goggles
out of the glove compartment, Harris, I'm half-blind here."
"And does this
actually make any difference in your driving skills?" A rummage through the
wilds of the glove compartment turned up the welder's goggles and Xander handed
them over. He immediately regretted it as Spike resorted to steering with his
knees while he got them adjusted. "Think Angel's evil again? Maybe the First
got to him too?"
"Hang about, hadn't
thought of that." Spike considered this worrisome possibility for a moment.
"Nah, Angelus would've had more fun beating me up. Most like he's just being
more of a prat than usual." He laid into the horn and swerved across the yellow
line to pass an arthritic VW Beetle. "Out of the way, you sodding tortoise!"
Xander watched
indistinct shapes whiz by outside the darkened windows. "'There's ways to speed
these things up?' What, Redi-Gro for vamps?"
"Well, why not?"
Spike asked, offended. "Master vampire here. I could have powers!"
"Ex-master vampire."
"Oh, right, rub
it in."
"So if he hadn't...would
you have tried really... you know... sucking on that guy?"
Spike rolled his
eyes. "I was biting his trapezius muscle, you git. You want to drain someone
properly, you've got to get your fangs into the jugular. And no. Promised Buffy
I'd never drink from anyone who wasn't willing."
"So--you'll suck,
but you won't swallow?"
Spike spun the
steering wheel through a one-handed 180 and the DeSoto slewed across traffic
and bounced into the potholed parking lot of the motel. Gravel sprayed as he
hit the brakes. Xander caught a glimpse of Angel's convertible through the tiny
clear portion of the windshield, parked in a straggling row of vehicles near
the manager's office. Spike flung his blanket over his shoulders, smirked across
at Xander and made a smoochy face. "Wouldn't you like to know."
Buffy hauled Angel
across the bed and out of the rays of incoming sunlight as two smoke-wreathed
figures hurtled through the door. The tiny room filled with the ever-so-attractive
fragrance of burnt vampire, and a second later, the smoke alarm affixed to the
wall over the TV set went off with a shrill WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE! With the
infinite resource and sagacity characteristic of Slayers, not to mention the
lightning reflexes, Buffy snatched up the half-full can of Diet Coke and flung
its contents at Spike, extinguishing the crown of tiny blue flames which had
started to lick at the tips of his hair. The smoke thinned slightly, but the
alarm continued to wail until Xander, with the presence of mind demanded of
anyone with highly combustible acquaintances, yanked it off the wall and pulled
the battery out.
Spike, singed,
blood-streaked, and dripping with NutraSweet, flowed across the room like a
hunting cougar and bared his fangs at Angel--not the challenge of an interloper,
but a reminder that they were on his territory this time. Angel's jaw clenched
and his own eyes flickered gold. Buffy stepped between them and gave herself
up to a dizzy grin of pride and relief--of course he'd escaped the Watchers.
"Spike!"
At the sound of
her voice Spike was human again in an instant. Blue eyes raked her up and down
for signs of injury or coercion, and then he broke into a radiant grin of his
own, enveloping her in a sooty embrace and pulling her half off her feet (and
not incidentally, out of Angel's reach). "Just coming to save you, pet."
"Don't--mmm--need
saving." Such a relief, the way suppressed anger and frustration drained away
at his touch, as though his cool solid body were some kind of emotional heatsink.
Urge to kill falling... The long muscles of his back twitched beneath
her fingers, and Buffy became aware that his shoulder was cold and damp against
her cheek. "Besides, I was just coming to save you." She raised one hand
to examine the damp spot; her fingertips came away smeared with red, and she
shook them accusingly under his nose. "How badly are you hurt? Are the people
who did this still on the loose?" Worried, she ran a hand down his abdomen.
"Here too?" Urge to kill rising...
"Won't say I didn't
think about eating 'em, just a little bit, but they're chained up back
at the crypt." Xander nodded confirmation, and Buffy quashed an infantile desire
to say so there! to Angel. She went virtuously back to assessing the
seriousness of Spike's wounds instead. Spike glanced down at himself, dismissing
the damage with a shrug. "'S nothing, love. Don't need saving either." He winced
a little at her exploratory touch. "Though I might let Niblet get out the instruments
of torture and check for splinters later."
Buffy tugged the
lapels of his coat, which still smelled of reservoir water and duckweed, and
whispered, "Sure I can't make it better?"
Spike buried his
face in the curve of her shoulder and inhaled, dropping into that deep dark-chocolate
shag-me-now rumble that set her bones humming. "Oh, yeh. Buffy makes everything
better." He bent and licked the streak of blood from her cheek with a tender
little growl.
Xander pulled a
small, peeling roll of lozenges from a back pocket and offered it to Angel.
"Tums? I keep them for just such occasions."
Reminded of his
grandsire's presence, Spike's growl got deeper and considerably less affectionate.
Angel's only response was a small bored sigh, which did nothing to improve Spike's
temper. Buffy cautioned, "William..." and the growl subsided to a grumble.
"It's all right. There's been a misunderstanding, and it's over." She sent a
meaningful look in Angel's direction. "Isn't it?"
Angel's dark eyes
bored into hers, intense and unwavering. After a long moment, he shook his head.
"No, it's not. I want to help you, Buffy--"
"Giles needs it
more," Xander broke in, shifting impatiently from foot to foot. "Helping, that
is. Spike and I were just having a heart- to-heart with some of the G-man's
esteemed former colleagues, and they happened to mention that they're not the
only Watchers watching. Seems that while Angel was busy double-crossing Travers,
Travers was busy double-crossing him."
Yay, Buffy thought,
real trouble to distract from the latest episode of The Young and The Lifeless!
Angel frowned. "I expected he'd try something after--what's he done?"
Xander shrugged.
"Basically? This whole thing with capturing Buffy is a big fat red herring.
Travers agreed to your kidnaping scheme because he knew it had a good chance
of getting you out of L.A. There's a second team there now--they went after
Faith the moment Travers was certain Deadboy Senior here was out of town. According
to Collins they were supposed to play along with Angel and keep him occupied
for a couple of days. If they managed to capture Buffy or capture or stake Spike,
bonus. If they didn't, no big. Getting to Faith was the important thing." He
looked a little ill. "Collins wasn't sure, but he thinks they're going to try
to kill her and call a new Slayer."
Angel's face remained
expressionless, but his eyes went from startled to Crush, Kill, Destroy.
If anything could divert Angel's attention from her, it was Faith, and no, not
bitter at all, why do you ask? Strategy Girl strikes again. "You should
go," Buffy said firmly. "Faith's a sitting duck in prison."
"Damn it," Angel
snarled. "I should have known. They had a third partner when they went after
Faith last time."
Spike looked grim.
"That would be a bloke name of Smith. Remember I asked what you planned to do
about Rupert? Smith's here in Sunnydale, taking care of the Council's other
loose end. I tried to get hold of Rupes for half an hour this morning before
falling back on Harris, and no joy. I thought he'd just turned his ringer off,
but--"
"Right. Giles may
be reclaiming his place in the Guinness Book of World Records for Most Times
Conked On The Head as we speak." Buffy glanced down at her bare feet, out at
the inimical expanse of parking lot, grimaced, and started out the door. Spike
touched her shoulder, and when she looked up, produced from his duster pocket
her left boot, somewhat the worse for wear. "Glass slipper it's not, pet, but--"
She wasn't going
to get all misty over a damp boot. Much. "You are nonetheless my hero. These
are, like, my third-favorite pair of boots. Which might be more impressive if
I owned more than three pair right now, but still. Come on, I can put them on
in the car. Shotgun!"
Angel stripped
the blanket off the bed and all four of them made a mad dash for the DeSoto.
If there was anything in the world that smelled worse in the confines of a closed
car than one slightly scorched vampire, it was two slightly scorched vampires.
"Giles first," Buffy said, slamming the door behind her and shifting over to
the middle of the front seat. If there was one thing that last twelve hours
had done, it was banish any residual guilt over Spike-cosying in Angel's presence.
"If he's OK, then Angel can head back to L.A. right away." She laid a possessive
hand on Spike's thigh and felt the muscles bunch as he punched the car into
gear and shoved the gas pedal halfway to China. Eight cylinders of environmentally
unsound horsepower roared to life and the DeSoto peeled out of the lot in a
cloud of exhaust.
"Minor problem.
I take the radical step of driving a car that's not a moving violation in and
of itself." Angel rapped on one darkened window with a knuckle. "I won't be
able to leave till sunset."
"Git," Spike muttered.
"If there's anything stupider than a vampire in a convertible...."
Angel raised an
eyebrow. "It's a vampire on a motorcycle?"
"If you want to
be a vampire on foot, keep talking."
"Shut up, both
of you." Buffy glared from front seat to back. "Angel can borrow this car."
Spike sat bolt
upright, taking maximum advantage of the few inches' difference in their seated
heights. "He bloody well cannot!" Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Oh, bugger, all right,
for Christmas and bloody puppies." He rounded on Angel, with terrifying disregard
for oncoming traffic. "But you bring it back with a full tank, super high octane,
mind, not that horse piss that makes the engine bang like happy hour at a whorehouse.
And get it washed while you're at it. I don't want to get it back with bugs
all over the grill."
Angel smiled tightly.
"How about I just strap your skinny carcass to the grill as a hood ornament
and let the smoke from your smoldering remains keep the bugs away?"
Xander sat back,
laced his hands behind his head, and looked from one snarling vampire to the
other. He raised pious eyes to the ceiling of the car and intoned, "Thank you,
Santa, but when I said I wanted Spike and Angel locked in a closet together,
there was this tacit agreement that I'd be elsewhere when it happened."
Buffy was positive
that the Hellmouth situation was affecting time as well as the good/evil thing,
because surely it had never taken so long to drive across town before, especially
with Spike at the wheel. She managed to avert major bloodshed by insisting upon
a detailed recounting of exactly what Collins and Weatherby had said from Spike
and Xander, and a full report on Travers's plans from Angel by way of comparison.
The DeSoto lurched to a stop in front of Giles's place shortly before nine by
Xander's watch, and Spike was out of the car and dashing for the shelter of
Giles's porch almost before Buffy was. Angel followed hard on his heels, apparently
unwilling to let Spike outdo him in anything, even sun- related idiocy. The
vampires crowded into the thin line of shade along the front window while Buffy,
with Xander at her back, hammered on the rust-colored Mission-style front door.
"There's three people inside," Angel said, his ear pressed to the glass.
"That's one too
many." Buffy stepped back, fully prepared to kick the door in, when it swung
open to reveal Giles. He was sans glasses and looked slightly harried, but most
definitely conscious. "Giles!" she cried, pouncing him and giving him a rib-cracking
hug. "You're not dead!"
"Buffy!" he exclaimed.
"Likewise. I was beginning to worry--I've been trying to contact you all morning,
and Tara said you hadn't returned home last night--"
"Long story," Buffy
squeezed past him into the foyer, and the other three trailed in after her in
a mutual stew of manly bristling and suspicious looks. "There were rogue Watchers,
there was bloodshed, there was narrowly-averted lossage of really cute shoes.
All this in addition to patrol, Willow-hunting, and a lesson in the correct
methods of skinning giant armor-plated slugs. Is everything all right?" She
lowered her voice. "We know there's a third person in here, and we couldn't
get through on the phone--"
"Lines cut, I'm
afraid. I've been using the pay phone in the rental office." Giles looked irritated
for a moment. "Why in this day and age they wouldn't have assumed I had a cell
phone and foregone the property damage--"
"Possibly because
you still think the electric light bulb is a new- fangled luxury item?" Buffy
peered past him into the living room, still a disaster area of half-packed boxes
and precarious towers of books. "The Council sent the goon squad a little earlier
than anticipated. Spike caught two of them, but according to them, there's a
third one loose here. He's supposed to take you back to England for the Winston
Smith treatment or something. But the main action is another team of three in
L.A. trying to make Faith no longer a bottleneck in the calling of shiny new
Slayers."
"Ah yes, Mr. Smith.
We've met." Giles stepped aside and waved an arm at the couch. Slumped in the
middle of a heap of disarranged cushions was an nondescript man, lean and slightly
balding, dressed in dark Nikes, trousers, long-sleeved shirt, and stocking cap--either
a Council wetworks specialist, or an elderly Goth with chilly ears. He was rocking
slowly back and forth, staring up at the ceiling and blowing spit bubbles.
"Whoa," said Xander.
"Danger, Will Robinson!"
"Ew." Buffy looked
back at Giles. Given Giles's history, she wasn't really sure she wanted to know,
but... "What did you do? Were there evil tattoos involved?"
Giles gave her
a thin smile and retrieved his morning teacup. "I? Nothing. My houseguest, on
the other hand..."
Daniel Tanner was
sitting at the dining table in front of an untouched bowl of progressively soggier
Weetabix. His head was buried in his hands, and when he looked up, his eyes
were heartsick, far worse off than the unhappy Mr. Smith. "I didn't mean to,"
he whispered. "He--he attacked me, I just reacted--"
"Yes, and admirably
quickly, too." Giles took a sip of tea. "The ingenious Mr. Smith effected an
entry to the house through my bedroom window. Unfortunately for him, I had remained
up late researching, and told Mr. Tanner he might as well use my bed. Mr. Smith
mistook Mr. Tanner for me, and Mr. Tanner defended himself in his own inimitable--thank
God-- manner." He gazed thoughtfully at the man on the couch. "I'm informed
that this is the version of the spell which wears off in time, so in a few hours
we can question him. We've been granted a stroke of luck here; we've captured
the entire team before any of them had a chance to report back to Travers."
Buffy sagged against
the stairwell. Finding Giles alive and well released an inner tension she hadn't
realized was holding her up, and four hours of drugged sleep in a lumpy, Spike-deficient
bed wasn't cutting it. "OK. Angel, take the DeSoto and get on the road to L.A.
right now. They won't be expecting you. Check in on Faith and--" She stopped
and drew a breath. "Sorry. Your town, your rules. Whatever you think'll work.
Just let us know what the sitch is there as soon as possible."
Spike took the
keys from his duster pocket as if he was giving up his liver and held them out
to Angel. "If I find one scratch on that car when you bring it back--"
"Not in the mood,
Spike," Angel growled. His eyes lingered on Buffy's face, as open as she'd ever
seen them, full of hope and anguish and resignation.
She had to say
something. "I'll walk you to the car."
It was more of a
sprint than a walk; Angel ducked into the shadows of the DeSoto's interior and
stared at the dash for a moment to familiarize himself with the equipment. "I'll
bring it back tonight if I can," he said, poking at various knobs and dials
and wrinkling his nose at the overflowing ashtray. He reached into a trouser
pocket and pulled out his wallet, peeled off a few twenties and the keys to
his car and handed them over. "Could you pay the motel for my room and make
sure my car doesn't get towed?"
"Sure. No problem."
She knew lots of words. Sometimes she could even arrange them into sentences.
Some of them had to be the right thing to say at a time like this. "We can drive
the car over to my place if you want; Spike's probably going to be there tonight,
so--"
"Buffy..."
She gripped the
edge of the car door. "Angel, I can trust you from now on, right? Not to pull
this bullshit on me? Sunnydale's still my town. You can tell me I'm making
the biggest mistake of my life, you can join Xander's We Hate Spike Club and
be treasurer--whatever. But if you put Spike in danger again--"
Angel's hands tightened
on the wheel. "Yeah? My last sight of Spike leaving the crypt was him standing
over the unconscious body of one Watcher, about to tear the throat out of the
other. Some danger."
"And you left?"
Buffy asked--voice perfectly flat, because she was Calm, Reasonable, Mature
Buffy, who didn't get into screaming matches with her vampire ex any longer.
Calm, Reasonable, Mature Buffy was leaving finger-sized dents in the metal of
the car door. She wanted him to understand, even if he couldn't approve. She
wanted world peace and a pony while she was at it. "Listen, Angel. Get this.
Spike is very important to me. If you'd let Spike die, I would happily send
you back to hell. My job--my real job--is even more important to me. If you'd
let Spike kill a human, I'd make you look back on hell as a fond memory."
His lips took on
a bitter twist. "If you're right about him, there was nothing to worry about."
"And if I'd been
wrong you'd have let a man die to prove a point?
God, Angel!" Buffy
rubbed her forehead. "Saving me? For the thought, thanks. For the execution,
not so much." He'd gone paler than usual, as if something she'd said had touched
a hidden nerve. "We can't help it, can we? Hurting each other. It's just something
that happens when we get close enough, like gravity."
He flinched. Just
like that. "What I said earlier..."
"Don't say you didn't
mean it."
Angel sighed. "Which
part? No, I meant all of it. I do want to elp you, but I can see that forcing
it won't work. Just...remember I'm here if you need me. I've been darker places
than you can imagine, and I know what it takes to walk out of them. It's a hell
of a lot harder to go uphill than down."
"That's...I'll remember."
She could get mad again, or try logic. But somehow it didn't feel as if either
option would make the situation any better. Maybe she'd just go home and make
hot nasty vampire love with Spike instead. With handcuffs, and candles, and
illicit borrowing of the strap-on Tara thought no one knew she had stashed under
the laundry hamper, and...and letting him smoke in the house! Yeah! I'm bad,
baby! "If I do need help, I'll call. Promise." On impulse she leaned down
and kissed his cheek. "Don't save me, Angel. Save yourself."
He didn't respond.
Buffy stepped back onto the curb and watched him, a lone blanket-draped figure
hiding from the bright sunshine, and then the blackened window rolled up, erasing
him from sight. Buffy walked back to the porch, where Spike was lounging against
the doorframe, watching. Buffy took his arm and they went inside. A minute later
the DeSoto's engine turned over, and the hulking black sedan pulled away from
the curb.
Xander shook his
head. "Now that guy," he said, "Knows how to make an exit."
"Pity he doesn't
make them sooner," Spike muttered, watching out the window as his baby's taillights
disappeared into the distance.
Buffy punched him
lightly in the arm. "Let's get you home and patched up before you bleed all
over something valuable. We need to figure out what to do with the Watcher's
Local 201, but I'd like to be less brain-dead when I do it." She looked up at
Spike, studying his face. "You do know you don't need to be jealous, don't you?"
Spike rubbed his
biceps, a glint of laughter in his eyes. "I figured that one out when he tried
stealing you." He slipped his good arm around her shoulders and whispered, "You
feel the need to take out some frustration by pounding on something vampire-shaped,
love, I'm fit enough for a sparring match."
Had love always
been curled inside her, waiting through the chill of heart's winter for the
proper spring in which to unfold and blossom, or had she, as Angel feared, built
it piecemeal out of wire and tissue paper, desperate to feel something?
She couldn't have imagined this weird, wonderful, terrifying feeling into existence.
She didn't have that much imagination. "No," she whispered back, "Buffy and
edged weapons, bad combo right now." She bumped her hip against his with a demure
smile, reaching down and digging her fingers into the firm muscle of his ass.
"But having something vampire-shaped pound on me? Very cathartic."
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