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Nan
RATING: R
Effulgent Spike (and Buffy, and Dawn, and everybody) belongs to Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon, to whom be all praise. I promise to return him only slightly battered, in chains, looking sexy as hell. No profit is intended--only more SpikeJoy for everyone.
Something was off. Spike felt it when the Bit woke him with collecting pillows and what-all she’d fetched to nest herself comfy. Must have stayed by him all night, he realized. Arms piled full, as she passed by she patted his head—like that’s what she did, like he was a pup gonna be desolate left alone.
Not that he minded, but it was off, wasn’t it? It had no source but he could smell it, feel it, like coming thunder.
From the noise upstairs, there was no chance getting at the shower anytime before noon. But he could do with a change of clothes. That was when he noticed the broken door again and recalled how it’d given him the trapped-in-the-open horrors. Oh. That was what the head-pat was about then: most likely he’d made a prat of himself about the door.
Well, it wasn’t as if it’d been the first time, or the Bit hadn’t seen him do worse. Seemed he was forgiven, anyway, which was all that mattered. Never liked to be on the outs with Dawn. Never would be if he could help it.
He enjoyed a bone-popping stretch, then went downstairs and rummaged in the cardboard carton of thrift-shop castoffs Buffy’s charity had provided. As he was changing T-shirts, Dawn called from above, “You decent? Never mind.” She came barging down. “I paged Xander, then celled him. He was not amused.”
“Bouncy little thing today, aren’t you?” Having made the final necessary adjustments, Spike turned around.
Dawn made a flopping, impatient gesture with both hands. “Well, he’s hung over and if you had an ounce of decency, you would be, too.”
Spike pushed both hands through his hair. “Did I make a nuisance of myself, Bit?”
“Of course,” she told him, grinning like a furnace. “Didn’t you want to?”
“S’pose I did. But I got three of ‘em.” His grin was smaller, tighter, and felt a bit like fangs.
“Three…of what?”
“Fledges I’d made. Two together, and I followed ‘em. Led me to the third. Then I did ‘em all. Best I can figure, can’t be more than six left. I don’t think—” Spike stopped himself because Dawn had backed into the cot and sat abruptly, holding to the edges. Her breathing was off. Spike dropped down onto his heels—close, but not touching. “And now I’ve upset you. Never thought, you didn’t bat an eye at Willie’s. Like your Mom, Joyce, when she came after me with that fire-axe. Didn’t faze her. Bit, I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”
Dawn left off clutching the cot edge to flip a hand. “I knew. It’s just… I knew.”
Carefully, he put fingertips on her arm, and that was all right. So he set his hand there. “Why that, and not the other?”
“Because…if they’re yours…. If they were yours, they’d be like you. Not some lame vamp, minion in a bar. Just all fangs and Rrrr,” she said, trying to pretend she wasn’t still upset. “They’d be like you: people.”
He smoothed her hair. Quick as a spark, his Bit. “There’s not many would figure that out, Dawn. Or care. But that’s why. They’re mine. I got to see to ‘em. Because there’s nobody else who will, except by damn bad luck, runnin’ head-on into the Slayer…. But I wasn’t thinking, the other night. If you don’t want to have a part in this, I understand. ‘T’wasn’t fair of me to ask you.”
She looked level into his eyes. “Tell me why.”
Spike rocked back and sighed. “Maybe you don’t want to know.” He waited, but she only waited too, unchanging. He settled down crosslegged, wishing for a cigarette.
“At the first,” he said finally, quietly, “you’re dead. Truly dead. No breath, no pulse, no life. You know nothing. Feel nothing. An’ all of a sudden…there’s everything.” His hands exploded, his arms flung wide, to show her. “A pebble drops and it’s thunder. A breeze, and you can’t hear yourself think for the noise. It’s dark, wherever you rise, but you can see each leaf of grass, separate, burning-like…and there are thousands on thousands of ‘em, everywhere. An ocean of smells, all different, each clear as a song. You see a house, a building, it’s like there was never such a thing, and you could be hours trying to take in how all the pieces fit just so. And you’re terrified. And it’s all wonderful. Beautiful. Intense. All strange, like nothing you ever dreamed of imagining…. And you want something so bad you can’t stand it, and you don’t know what it is, that you want. You go searching, trying to sort through all the everything about you, that you don’t understand and can’t take in except in tiny fragments…and it draws you, and you feel it and smell it and…it’s life itself. It’s alive.” Spike slowly folded his hands, watching himself do it. “It’s blood, Dawn. Happens to be in a person, but if you realize that, if you can even know what a person is in all the confusion…it doesn’t matter. Because somehow you know they’re no kin to you anymore, they don’t see what you see or feel what you feel. They smell like food. And…your body is changed, your face is changed…and you have what you need to get what you need. You’re strong. You’re fast. And then you bite through…and nothing has ever been so wonderful that you ever knew, as that blood is to you now. It’s sex and love and home and food and music and God and damn fucking all…. Most like, you spend your whole first night, risen, killing to get more of it. More than you need or can use. Because…you can’t help it. And…and whatever you had of love, or cleverness, or kindness, or honor or any good thing…is lost. Into the demon alive in your dead body, that’s all the life you have now. And all you know.
“And you’re a moron, and an idiot, an’ you got no sense, and no caution, and no least notion whatever about how to stay alive, or at least what feels like alive…. The demon is dirt stupid about this world, and you don’t know how to set the demon aside. So nine times out of ten, you’re caught by the sun without the sense to hide until it starts hurting, and then it’s too late. Or some enormous git stakes you with the hind end of a shovel. Or beheads you with a hoe, or throws a lamp at you, and you burn…. Most fledges are vicious, stupid animals, Dawn, and the best thing is to put ‘em down right off, quick as you can, because they’re torment and misery and…I don’t know how to say, to everything and everyone around them. Evil, soulless things….” He felt Dawn’s hand on his shoulder and laid his cheek against it. “’S’true, Bit. True as ever she said.”
“But you’re not. So how come you’re different?”
“Well, it’s because of the blood, innit? The blood that made me. Old blood. Away back at the beginnings of things, vampires who got through the first confusion maybe made a decade or two. Made more of their kind and some had the tiniest least sense of anything beyond their own hunger, their own pleasure, to protect and teach the new fledges and gather together into a hunting pack. So more survived longer. And the Master of that pack, he might live to see fifty, or a hundred or two hundred. Survive to be powerful and clever. Make their demon submit. And what they are is what they give. It’s in the blood. If that vampire lived to a thousand years, his fledges woke smart. The shock of being turned didn’t overwhelm who they were before. They kept that. As vampires. They might remember music, and fine clothes, and could shed the face of the demon at will and walk among men and not be known for what we are….”
Dawn prompted, “You were Angelus’ fledgling.”
“Well, Dru…Dru turned me. But she was made by Angelus, and it was Angelus who gave her leave to turn me, to have a fledge to mind her when she took one of her spells, which was most of the time…. And Angelus was Master and Sire to us both, and a right vicious brute he was, no mistake…. And Angelus was sired by Darla, and Darla was the direct get of the Master himself: the Order of Aurelius, that’s the eldest lineage there is. Old blood. We’re…the absolute best at being monsters, Dawn. We rise smart and we’re not lost in the demon for years or forever. We see to our own: barring mischance or carelessness we’re not alone when we rise. We cooperate however much we hate each other. Hate or love, we never can forget what connects us because there’s nothing else, nobody else for us…. We plan, though I’m a poor example to go by, never been worth…worth anything at that, as Angelus, Angel, would be the first to tell you.
“And the thing of it is, Dawn, even I don’t have it in me to wish otherwise. That, like last night— You don’t need to know what that is to me. Well, it’s joy. Pure fucking joy. And it’s not in me to regret it. Any more than it’s in me to regret…comin’ together, like, with your sis. With the Slayer. Nothing could be better than that….”
“Getting back to the point,” Dawn said, very cool and dry. She tugged at his hair and made him smile.
“Yeah. Yeah. All right. Won’t fret you with the soppy stuff, then…. No credit to me, but whatever I’ve done, I’ve never turned anyone. Mostly too lazy. Had enough seein’ to Dru an’ all, without that. Never wanted the responsibility. Couldn’t be bothered. But there was this young chap came to me, some years back…sick, he was: knew he was gonna die—and wanted me to turn him. Idiot, of course, had no notion what that really would mean…. But anyway, I wouldn’t. Didn’t. Didn’t like the idea somehow. Dunno if Dru ate him or what, but anyway I didn’t turn him. And I’ve thought about it, since. Well, not really thought about it, but…. When I came to know I’d been used like a damn animal to do that… Breeding stock for the smartest monsters there are…. I won’t do that. I don’t…consent to that.”
Dawn’s touch on his forehead made him realize he’d gone to game face: with an effort, he withdrew his demon and saw Dawn’s anxious look likewise retreat. Shouldn’t do that around her anyway.
She caught his glance shifting to the manacle cuff and set her long, little girl fingers over it in interdiction. He shouldn’t have forgotten, shouldn’t have—
In a small overcasual voice, she asked, “When you see me…what do you see?”
At once he said, “I see you, Bit. Fierce an’ funny an’ fragile and brave as a lion.”
“And?”
“And mine. And that’s all that signifies. Let me get done now, pet.”
Instead she threw her arms around him. He held very still so as not to say or do the wrong thing and spoil it.
“You should get your hair cut,” she commented, ever so soft.
“I’ll see to it. Soon as I can. I get distracted.”
Finally she turned loose of him and sat back, regarding him with everything gentle and kind and approving, that he’d always hoped to see in Buffy and never had and now never would. Wasn’t what he was made for, this. But it made him able to bear the rest and be content.
“Let me finish, love, or I’ll never get through.”
She tossed her head. “So who’s stopping you?”
Her eyes at last let him go, and he breathed until he’d steadied himself. Thrown him off, that had. He had to think how to tell her what it was, what it meant.
He recollected, “Somebody—Rupert, I guess it was—asked me once to calculate up how many people I’ve eaten, or killed, or just bloody well wasted for the hell of it. I couldn’t begin to count. Not even begin. Coming to know a bit more now of what I am, and what it means…I think the worst thing a vampire can do is create another vampire. These fledges, now—it’s worse than murder: it’s murder forever. No end to it.”
“Like in Alien,” Dawn said. “One egg, and—” She meshed fingers together like huge savage teeth biting down.
“Yeah. Exactly like that. Never could abide that movie though that Ripley, she’s a treat, like a Slayer almost. Would have loved to’ve danced with that one, upon a time…. They’re mine. Mine to see to. And I will. At the first, they’ll stick to the places they know, like all fledges do. But once they get the wind up, know I’m comin’ after them or something is, they’ll scatter and then I’ll likely never find ‘em. I claimed a few minions, set them to looking, asking around. Tonight I’ll hunt again. And every night until I do them all. But you don’t have to—”
“Two are gone,” Dawn said. “Patrols caught them. Not your ordinary fledges, like you said. Willow helped me match up the descriptions with the obituaries and then with ID pictures from news archives, drivers’ licenses, military records. So I know when they died. I know their names. I have a good guess on two more I’m still working on. And I know where to look for another.”
“Brilliant. Bloody marvelous, pet. Let me get my notebook and we’ll check who’s been seen to and who’s yet to be done.”
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