Rating/Content:
Romance, angst, drama…my story has it all, wrapped up in a nice little R
rating.
Pairing:
Spike/Buffy
Spoilers:
Everything up to Grave. There is the
vaguest reference to something in Sleeper,
a song used in that episode. But nothing spoilery after the end of season six.
Feedback: Of
course!
Distribution: Ask
and ye shall receive.
Author’s note:
This story is a sequel to A Will, a Way,
and a Woman. If you haven’t read that story it’s a safe bet you won’t
understand this one, so I suggest you try that one on for size first.
Summary: After much
trial and error, Spike and Buffy are living and loving together in the
Summers’ home. But cohabitated bliss is interrupted by an old enemy seeking
revenge…. *Work in progress.*
Disclaimer: Not
mine. Not mine! NOT MINE! There. Happy now???
Out
of Mind, Out of Sight
Written
by Phoebe
Teaser
Laq was one of
those typical, monster-of-the-week type demons. He was all bumpy skin and dark
robes, red glowing eyes, and plans for an impending apocalypse. It was just
another by-the-book Tuesday night demon hunt.
Maybe his very
banality was what got her. Buffy was not expecting a challenge and therefore she
did not give the fight her all. She fought half-heartedly, like a racehorse
which wins without trying, breezing the course knowing that the others are too
far behind to be a threat. She was overly confident. It was a mistake.
Laq let her beat on
him awhile—perhaps in order to afford her the self-confidence, which would
make her sloppy. He waited until her stake was raised, poised for the
death-strike, and then he calmly raised his arm. His mottled gray hand was held
palm out to her, and she stared at it, suddenly confused. She dropped the stake.
Laq’s fingers
wriggled slowly, pushing out, and then curving back in; they drew her toward
him, hypnotizing her with their movements. When she was but a few inches away,
his fingers stretched wide from the palm. Something fast and blinding-white shot
from the heel of his hand, aiming right for her.
Before the flash
could reach her, something charged Buffy from the side, knocking her down. She
rolled several feet across the dirt floor of the cave before coming to rest
against the rock wall.
“What—?” she
sputtered, spitting out dirt.
“Should have done
your homework, love,” Spike told her. His lips brushed her forehead as he
climbed off her, pulling her to her feet even as he rose.
“What is that
thing?”
Spike wiped a line
of blood from his forehead. His eyes were darting around the cave, searching for
the laq, which had retreated into the shadows at his arrival. He turned to her,
examining her wounds as he answered her question.
“It’s a laq
demon. Nasty boogers, bit smarter than your average. They enthrall their victims
then draw out their life-energy. It’s what they live on, the aura of other
creatures. He nearly bloody got you.”
“I’m okay,”
she said, pushing his hands away. “We have to—”
“’s okay,” he
told her. “I got it.”
Before she could
answer, he was gone, running down the narrow tunnel of rock in search of the
demon.
Buffy followed as
quickly as she could, but the heel of her shoe had broken when Spike threw her
to the ground, and the lopsided gait caused by running with one two-inch heel
and one flat one slowed her down considerably. By the time she reached them,
Spike had already gotten control over Laq and was…
What was
he doing?
“See…your first
problem lies in the fact you’re a demon,” Spike said, and his voice had the
lilting note of laughter in it. He was smiling slightly, circling Laq with the
slow, easy gait of a seasoned predator. He made a short leap to avoid something
in his path and Buffy glanced down. He had cut off the demon’s hand.
Another leap.
Make that hands.
The laq kept
turning, never allowing Spike to slip behind him, but he was on the losing end
of this battle and he knew it. Both of them did.
“See…being a
demon, I would’ve killed you anyway,” Spike told the demon. “It’s, well,
it’s kind of what I do now. It would have been short and painless—all
business. But…you tried to feed off my girlfriend…and now it’s not so
businesslike…and not so quick. See now
you’ve given me an excuse to enjoy it.”
The demon crouched
down as Spike completed another circle. He bounded forward suddenly, attempting
to get past Spike and escape down the tunnel. Buffy readied herself to stop him,
but there was no need. Spike threw out his arm, blocking Laq’s path. The demon
didn’t have time to stop, so he hit Spike head on. Spike thrust his arm
forward, heaving the laq to the dirt.
Blood spurted from
the demon’s wounded arms, spraying Spike. He wiped a hand across his face
carelessly as he crouched over the demon.
“Well, look at
you…all injured and helpless…Let me give you a hand.” He picked up one of
the demon’s severed hands and threw it at him. It bounced off Laq’s chest
and Spike laughed at the demon’s terrified expression. “Not so tough without
the magic fingers are you?”
Buffy moved out of
the shadows and Spike’s amused expression changed, softened. “Spike…”
she said.
She didn’t have
to say anything more; he understood what she meant perfectly. Shrugging his
shoulders carelessly, he delved into his boot-top and produced a blood-encrusted
knife, no doubt the same weapon used to amputate Laq’s hands. He looked at the
knife a moment, tested the sharpness against the pad of his thumb. Then he
plunged it into the laq’s chest.
Buffy shook her
head slightly as Spike twisted the knife, pushing it in until the handle touched
the demons breastbone. “You know, sometimes I think you enjoy this too
much,” she said.
He looked over at
her and grinned.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Out
of Mind, Out of Sight
Blood merged with
the flowing water, spilling from his hands to stain pink the white porcelain of
the sink. Spike had lived in the Summers’ home for almost a month now, but he
still had not come to terms with the guilt he felt every time he stepped into
the bathroom. Buffy might have been more than generous in her ability to grant
him an absolution, and she certainly seemed to feel no particular aversion to
the room, but Spike could not help flashing back on that incident every time he
walked into the bathroom at night. It was his habit to keep the lights off when
he entered, a way to further cloak his sins in darkness.
Tonight was no
exception. He hadn’t turned on the light and the blood on his hands looked
black in the dim glow of the nightlight. He scrubbed them with soap, scraping
his skin and nails with a brush until they were raw, but he couldn’t get
clean. He was stained with the demon’s blood.
After the
adrenaline had ceased to flow, after the joy of death had left his nostrils,
Spike had become frightened by his behavior. What was it in him that liked to
kill? What was it about him that craved the feel of his foe’s warm blood on
his hands? He hadn’t just wanted to kill the demon—he had wanted to hurt it.
It had hurt her and all he could think about was revenge. Had Buffy not shown up
he would have played with Laq all night, tortured him until he died of it.
Because it was fun.
He shivered.
It wasn’t wrong,
was it? It couldn’t be wrong—not if it was for her. It was the fear of
losing her, that was all. The rage he had felt at seeing something evil and
disgusting daring to take his beloved from him. It didn’t mean he was still
bad. He wasn’t. She wasn’t bad and
she enjoyed it. Buffy had told him so. It was part of the game—hunter and
hunted. You had to enjoy it somewhat if you were to survive.
Of course, Buffy
only enjoyed the kill. She enjoyed winning.
He enjoyed pain.
Spike gripped the
edges of the sink tightly, bowing his head and gritting his teeth. He was trying
to force it away, the confusion. It pervaded his existence always, threatening
the happiness he felt at being here with her. He had a soul; it was supposed to
be enough. It was supposed to make everything easy, to show him right from
wrong, and to keep him from enjoying things that were bad. Only it didn’t. He
still felt evil. A lot of the time, he
still had to think about things before he could figure out if they were wrong or
not. Sometimes Buffy would get mad at him for doing things that seemed perfectly
natural and he didn’t understand why. Why were certain things wrong? Why did
the demon in him awake from its slumber and lust for blood during a fight? Why
did he always insist on satisfying its desire? He was the demon—why couldn’t
he control it?
Everything felt
muddled. His thoughts were moving too fast to capture and it made his head ache.
He bit his lip and moaned softly because everything hurt.
Then her arms slid
around him, smooth and cool as drifting snow. He felt her lips press into the
back of his shoulder, heard her whisper, “It’s okay.”
“I don’t
understand,” he told her.
“What don’t you
understand?”
“Everything.”
He shook his head slightly. “Everything I do—everything I feel—I have to
think ‘is this wrong’ and I never know. I can’t figure it out, Buffy. I do
these things and it feels okay but it’s not. I enjoyed
hurting that demon. I liked the feel of his blood and the smell of his fear—I
liked the power of death. It seemed right—he hurt you and it seemed right to
hurt him back. But it wasn’t.”
“Spike…” She
took him by the shoulders and turned him around to face her. “It’s all right
for you to be confused.”
He looked at her
with puzzlement. She hadn’t turned the light on either. The room was dimly
cast in blue from the nightlight plugged into the wall; it offered just enough
light for him to see her. Her expression was soft and understanding.
“Why is it all
right?” he asked her.
“The rules have
all changed for you…you need time to adjust, it’s understandable.” She
reached up, gently touched the gash on his forehead. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m all
right,” he whispered. The warmth of her body reached him in perfumed waves,
melting away the confusion and replacing it with something else. As long as she
stayed this close, looked at him this way, he didn’t think he would ever feel
confused about anything again.
His face was
flecked with the demon’s blood, but she was kissing it anyway, her lips
tracing the curve of his jaw, the lines of his cheekbones. Her fingers combed
through the short strands of his hair, petting and urging his head down toward
hers.
He mouthed her name
without sound, closing his eyes at the first gentle touch of her lips against
his. This was the room where he had tried to force himself on her—the room
that proved the downfall of their relationship, the entering into its lowest
point. However, the soft touch of her lips, the lightest caress of her hands,
showed him what he hadn’t been able to see on his own. Everything bad that had
happened—including the attempted rape—needed to happen in order for them to
arrive in this place now.
His lips curved
into a smile against hers as he drew her closer. One hand left her waist to
reach behind him and flick the switch on the wall, flooding the room with light.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Early one morning, just as the
sun was rising
I heard a maid sing in the valley below
"Oh don't deceive me, Oh never leave me,
How could you use, a poor maiden so?"
She
was singing to him, her voice pure and soft and sweet. The moon was orange in
the sky, and she was trailing through the field like a dark dove flying low. One
slender hand was outstretched, her fingertips just brushing the tops of the
sunflowers as she walked. When she reached the end of the row she looked over
her shoulder at him, her lips curved into a smile.
“Hello,
pretty Spike,” she greeted him. One hand stroked the petals of a sunflower,
the other stretched to him encouragingly.
Spike
looked at the proffered hand longingly. She was so near—so beautiful. It would
have been so easy…but…
He
shook his head. “I—can’t.”
The
delicate dark eyebrows rose, the red-rose smile fading into a pout.
“Can’t…or won’t?”
Before
he could answer her, she had turned away again. She began moving down the
stretch of grass beyond the field, singing softly:
Remember the vows that you made
to me truly
Remember how tenderly you
nestled close to me
Gay is the garland, fresh are
the roses
I've culled from the garden to bind over thee.
Spike
began to walk faster, following her almost against his will. The words quivered
in her throat longingly as her head tilted back and she sang to the sky.
Here I now wander alone as I
wonder
Why did you leave me to sigh and
complain
I ask of the roses, why should I
be forsaken,
Why must I here in sorrow remain?
She
was moving so slowly—almost like a cloud that drifts across the sky. Yet he
had to run to catch up to her, had to keep running to keep up. He grabbed for
her hand, but his own barely grazed it, too far away to grasp her. “Wait—”
She
smiled softly to herself, but did not pause in her movements. Her voice grew
louder, the words of the long stronger and clearer now.
Through yonder grove, by the
spring that is running
There you and I have so merrily
played,
Kissing and courting and gently
sporting
Oh, my innocent heart you've betrayed
“Wait!”
he said again, louder this time. “Stop—I don’t—I don’t know what you
want from me—”
She
disappeared into a grove of trees and Spike followed her. Wet branches hit him
in the face, leaves crunched under his feet as he searched for her. But the
grove was dark and he couldn’t see. There was nothing ahead of him but
blackness—nothing around him but trees and the sound of her voice.
How could you slight so a pretty
girl who loves you
A pretty girl who loves you so
dearly and warm?
Though love's folly is surely
but a fancy,
Still it should prove to me
sweeter than your scorn.
“I
didn’t slight you!” he shouted into the night. “You left me, remember? I
didn’t want you to go—I didn’t ask for it—”
A
stick whipped up between his legs and he stumbled, almost losing his balance.
Quickly, he righted himself, picking up the jagged branch and waving it
threateningly as he screamed into the night “SHOW YOURSELF!”
Soon you will meet with another
pretty maiden
Some pretty maiden, you'll court
her for a while;
Thus ever ranging, turning and
changing
Always seeking for a girl that is new.
Suddenly,
the trees disappeared and he was in a flat, empty field where nothing grew but
grass. The sun was shining brightly in his eyes, making him squint. Some feet
ahead of him stood the figure of a woman.
It
was her—he knew it was her. He felt a sudden, killing rage sweep over him.
What right did she have to haunt him when it had been she who had ended it? What
right did she have to challenge his happiness with her songs and her questions?
He
charged forward without thought. The hand that clutched the broken branch drew
back and then plunged forward, driving the stick into her back so hard it pushed
out the other side. His aim was true—he had reached the heart. Yet there was
no explosion of dust, no quick fading of life. Warm blood gushed onto his hands;
the figure turned around to face him.
Buffy.
He
stared into her shocked, agonized face without comprehension.
It wasn’t until her hands curved around the stake just barely
protruding from her chest that he realized what he had done. “Buffy—”
She
fell forward into his arms, gasping and choking for breath. Her eyes were huge
in her face, mirroring pain and disbelief. A single word passed her lips in a
broken whisper: “Spike…?”
And
over the dying beat of her heart, Spike could hear Dru chanting triumphantly:
Thus sang the maiden, her
sorrows bewailing
Thus sang the poor maid in the
valley below
"Oh don't deceive me, Oh
never leave me,
How could you use, a poor maiden
so?"
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Spike bolted
upright in bed.
For a single,
agonizing moment, he had no idea where he was. The dark room, the wide bed with
its fluffy comforter, all seemed as foreign to him as his dream. Then, as his
heartbeat slowed, as the cold sweat dried on his forehead, he remembered.
Beside him, Buffy
was curled into a ball under the blankets, her small, warm body pressing into
his side. She looked small and innocent, delicate, as she had never been. She
was in love with him, in bed with him…
And he was dreaming
of killing her.
Careful not to wake
her, he slipped out of bed. He needed to get out of here. He needed to be where
the walls wouldn’t close in on him. He needed to go somewhere to think.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
It was cool
outside, the air crisp with impending winter. The white glow of the streetlamps
made the lawn look silver and cool in the early hours of pre-dawn. Everything
was quiet and still. The world seemed dead, completely at peace.
Spike ignored the
sharp wind that cut through his clothes and flopped down on the back step,
staring out at the night sky. For a moment, he considered walking to the market
to pick up a pack of smokes; it had been a while and it would calm his nerves.
Buffy wouldn’t like it, but what Buffy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
Instead of getting
up, however, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
“Willow.”
There was a moment
of quiet, a moment when he thought she might not answer. Then “I’m
here.”
He caught the
slight strain in the words and immediately became contrite. “I’m
interrupting you.”
“No.
It’s okay. I’m supposed to be meditating—you know, healing myself
inwardly. But I’ve been at it for a while and I could use a break.”
“Right
then. Good.”
“So
what are you doing up at this hour? It must be very late there.”
“It
is. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Why?”
“Oh…you
know…too many good things on the telly. Really, digital cable offers the most
temptations…”
He felt, rather
than heard, her laughing. Yet when her thoughts reached him, they were sober. “Liar. You’re not even near the television. You’re outside,
staring at the moon.”
Spike jolted
slightly. “How do you know that?”
“I
can see it,” she
told him. “The moon is beautiful there. Nights here aren’t the same—it rains
a lot.”
“I
remember.”
“Why
are you outside in the middle of the night, Spike?”
He flinched. “I hate talking to you from such a distance. Makes my head hurt.”
“Spike…you’re
avoiding my question…”
“Why
are you even bothering to ask me? You know the answer already—if you can see
the moon from there then I am sure you can see this. You’re in here, all the
time, aren’t you? Poking around…”
“You
called to me, Spike. I’m in here because you wanted me.”
“I
know.”
“You
had a nightmare.”
“Yes.”
“Do
you have them often?”
“On
and off. Getting more frequent, I think.”
“Why?”
He could feel her
concern.
“I
don’t know.”
“You
do.”
He sighed.
Struggled with the question.
“Maybe—maybe
because I’m worried this won’t end well. Everything is—it’s all too
perfect. Her and me…the Little Bit. We’re a happy family here on fucking
Walton’s Mountain and it won’t last. It can’t last. I don’t deserve the
family, the happiness.”
“Does
it matter?”
“What?”
“If
you deserve it or not? Does it matter?”
A wave of
irritation washed over him. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I
want to be good. For her. I want to be what she deserves.”
“She’s
happy. She deserves that. You’re giving her what she needs. Whether you
deserve it or not is irrelevant. It will
last.”
“So
you think I don’t? Deserve it, that is. You think…”
“I
think you deserve to be happy. I think she deserves to be happy. Now both of you
are happy and I don’t understand why you are so worried.”
“Nothing
ever turns out well here. Especially not for us. These dreams, they have a sense
of—” He stopped.
“Yes,”
she pressed.
“A sense of what?”
“Foreboding.”
“Foreboding
of what?”
“That
I’m going to hurt her. You’ve seen the dreams. I keep…hurting her.”
“They’re
just dreams. You aren’t going to hurt her.”
“Someone
is.”
“How
do you know?”
He sighed heavily,
steam issuing into the cold air as though from a dragon’s mouth. He stared up
at the moon for a moment before he finally answered her.
“I
can feel it.”
*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Two
days later
“Coffee?” Anya
asked brightly, offering her menu to Halfrek. “It’s very rich with Columbian
flavor.”
Halfrek flopped
down at the table and waved both Anya’s menu and the approaching waitress away
with an impatient hand. “Please, if I wanted to poison my body I would use
cyanide; it’s much quicker.”
Anya lowered her
menu in disappointment. “Jeez…what flew up your
butt?”
Halfrek sighed
heavily. “D’Hoffryn refused to give me another amulet. He says it was my own
carelessness that caused the loss of my powers and that I should live with the
consequences of my actions for a while to learn my lesson.”
Anya looked at her
sympathetically. “Been there myself, Hallie. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well,
sorry isn’t really helping me now, is it?” Halfrek snapped. “I didn’t
ask you to meet me here so we could weep bitter tears over my desperate
situation.”
“Then what do you
want?” Anya asked, clearly confused.
“I want to make a
wish.”
“Oh.” Anya
dismissed this statement with a shrug. “Don’t be an idiot, Halfrek. I
can’t grant your wish. Vengeance demons can only grant the wishes of mortals,
remember?”
“Anya, did you
check your brain at the door or something?” Halfrek asked impatiently.
“Listen to what I am telling you: D’Hoffryn refused to give me my powers
back. I am a mortal now.”
Anya opened her
mouth then closed it just as quickly. For the first time in her life, she was
speechless. Halfrek was right. Anya could
grant her wish. Moreover, Anya would be obligated to grant Hallie’s wish.
Vengeance demons were not allowed the luxury of refusing the wishes of their
patrons.
She cocked her head
at her now-mortal friend curiously. “What is it you want?”
Halfrek smiled.
“I want him to suffer.
Chapter
Two
“Who has the
power?”
Dawn glanced from
the fledgling vampire who was standing before her to Spike, who was standing
just behind her left shoulder. She tried to gauge by his face what Spike wanted
her to answer, but it wasn’t easy. He was looking at her with that particular,
stern expression he always adopted during their slaying lessons. Dawn decided to
try the most obvious answer.
“He has the
power,” she said.
“NO!”
His voice was so
intense she jumped, her sweaty hand clamping the wooden stake even tighter.
“W—what?”
“He
doesn’t have the power,” Spike told her, motioning to approaching vampire
scornfully. “Look at him—he’s a fledgling. He doesn’t even know half his
abilities; he probably hasn’t figured out what he is yet. You have all the
power in this battle.”
“Umm…yeah…okay,”
Dawn said. “In this battle, maybe.
But he’s new. In a fight against a regular vampire the vampire would have the
power, right?”
“Wrong again.”
The vampire made a
clumsy lunge at Dawn and Spike dragged her out of the way easily. He brushed
some dust from her sleeve and took her by the shoulders, turning her so that she
faced the vampire again.
“You have the
power, Dawn. You know more about him than he knows about you—knowledge is
power.”
“What do you
mean?” she asked, by now thoroughly confused.
“To him you are
just a little girl,” Spike whispered into her ear. “He sees you as an easy
target—a meal. He’s waiting for you to run, to be afraid. If you don’t do
that—if you don’t act afraid, he’s going to be confused.”
“Confused,”
Dawn repeated. The vampire jumped at them again, and she stumbled backwards
against Spike’s chest. His hands were like vices against her shoulders,
refusing to allow further retreat.
“Vampires can
smell fear,” he told her, low. “They can taste it in the air. It gives them
confidence, power. If you aren’t afraid then they become uneasy because who
isn’t afraid of a vampire? You steal their confidence—you have the power.”
“But how can I
not be afraid?” Dawn asked. “I mean…look at him.”
The vampire clicked
his fangs at them and smiled.
“He’s an
imbecile,” Spike said dismissively. “You have the brains in this fight. You
have the power. Use it.”
He gave her a
little push and Dawn staggered forward. She was scared out of her wits—since
the night when Spike had saved her from Nikolai and his four cronies Dawn had
not attempted to fight demons by herself. Buffy had decreed she was not ready
and Dawn heartily agreed. Spike, however, insisted she needed to learn to take
care of herself in a fight. If she was to accompany them on patrols, she needed
to learn to help herself in the event he and Buffy were unable to come to her
aid. This was their first lesson with an actual vampire, however, and Dawn was
feeling less than confident in her abilities.
The vampire tried
to slip up behind her and Dawn turned very quickly, raising her stake.
“Lower your
arm,” Spike called to her. “You’ve left him a perfect opening to your
throat with your stake held so high. If he latches on your neck, how’re you
going to reach his heart? The best you could do is poke him in the head and that
would give him nothing more than a migraine.”
“I could give him
brain damage,” Dawn argued, lowering her stake slightly. “He could become
paraplegic—then I could get his heart properly.”
Spike laughed.
“Doubtful, Bit. A vampire’s head is a bit harder than that—I should know.
You wouldn’t be able to penetrate his skull. Even Buffy doesn’t bother
trying to do that.”
During this
argument, the vampire had been tapping his foot impatiently. Finally, he spoke
up, his speech slurring around his new fangs. “Hey—are we gonna get on with
this fight or not? Because I am really hungry…”
Spike rolled his
eyes. “Go on, Bit,” he told Dawn. “The Big Bad is waiting.”
Her eyes begged him
to help her, but he backed off by a distance of several feet. This was clearly
something he was expecting her to do alone.
Dawn bit her lip.
All right. She could do this. She could. All she had to do was stay calm, get
the power, and kill him.
Trying not to
hyperventilate, she approached the eager young vampire. “You want a fight?”
she asked him in a voice that just barely trembled. “Come and get it.”
His gold eyes lit
up. Either he liked the idea of a fight or she was letting off more fear-scent
than she realized. He started to circle her again, slowly.
“Spike…” Dawn
called, rotating in time to the vampire, struggling not to let him get out of
her range of vision.
“Don’t be
afraid, Bit. He’s trying to intimidate you, don’t let him.”
“Easy for you to
say,” Dawn muttered.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Anya leaned back in
her chair, her eyebrows raised. “So you want to make him suffer?” she asked.
“Well, there’s an original thought… I would’ve thought an ex vengeance
demon could have come up with a more distinctive way to open her wish. That one
is a little tired.”
Hallie glared at
her. “Are you even going to ask me what my wish is?” she demanded. “I
would have thought an experienced justice demon would at least be curious to
find out what her task would entail.”
“If you want to
know the truth, Hallie, I’m more interested in knowing the who
than the why. Who dumped you?”
Halfrek tossed her
dark curls and regarded her friend scornfully. “Maybe you’ve been making an
endless string of notches in the headboard,” she retorted, “but I haven’t.
No one dumped me.”
“Then why do you
want to make him suffer?”
“He’s the one
who broke my amulet,” Hallie seethed. “He is the reason D’Hoffryn threw me
out of the demon fold. Damn him. William. I want him to hurt.”
“William?”
“Yes, William.
And don’t ask me William who because you know perfectly well who he is.”
“I do?”
“He’s one of
the notches, isn’t he? William the Bloody,” she muttered. “Hmm. The bloody
pain in my ass, maybe.”
“William the
Bloody?” Anya’s eyes lit up with sudden recognition. “Spike! You mean
Spike!”
“Yes, that is the
name he’s going by nowadays,” Hallie told her.
“Spike
broke you amulet?” Anya pressed. “Why?”
“How should I
know?” asked Halfrek irritably. “I was offering him help and he went postal
on me. How should I know the reason?”
Anya shrugged.
“Well, you know vampires—emotionally unstable.”
“Unstable isn’t
the word I would use.”
“So what do you
want to do to him?” Anya asked, stirring a finger in her coffee. “Besides
cause him hideous pain I mean? The realm of possibilities for hideous pain is
endless.”
The two women
exchanged rapturous looks at this last statement.
Then Hallie’s
expression sobered as she fell to work thinking of how best to hurt Spike.
“What means most to him?” she pondered.
“That’s
easy,” Anya told her. “The only thing Spike cares about at all is Buffy.”
“Buffy?”
“And Dawn,
maybe.”
“Buffy the
Vampire Slayer?”
“How many girls
named Buffy do you think there are?” Anya asked. “On second thought, never
mind, this is California. Yes, Buffy
the Vampire Slayer.”
“Buffy is his
girlfriend?”
“They’re
practically joined at the groin.”
Halfrek sputtered
into her coffee. She daubed at her mouth with a napkin delicately before
snickering, “I think you may have the wrong part of the anatomy, dear.”
“Trust me I
don’t,” Anya assured her.
“So Spike is
dating the Slayer.” Halfrek smiled to herself. “Isn’t that
interesting…”
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Spike cocked his
head at the tableau before him. Dawn was lying flat on her back in the dirt,
legs and arm flailing helplessly as the vampire straddling her prepared to bite.
Spike waited until he was absolutely certain Dawn wouldn’t be able to correct
herself before he decided to intervene. He strode forward and, with a single,
fluid movement, he heaved the vampire off Dawn’s chest, throwing him against a
headstone with as much ease as though he were a rag doll.
“What did you do
wrong?” he asked Dawn as he helped her to her feet.
“I…uh…”
“You let him make
you afraid,” Spike told her. “You let him gain power over you.”
“Well I didn’t
mean to,” Dawn whined. “But he’s bigger than me—and evil. Of course I
got scared.”
Spike thought about
this a moment. She was right. How could he expect her not to be afraid of a
vampire when she had never faced a vampire alone and won? Yet how would she win
if she could never get past her fear of them?
The vampire started
to get up and Spike threw him back against the headstone. The dull thud of the
demon’s skull against the hard stone caught Spike’s attention sharply. It
gave him an idea.
He grabbed the
vampire by the collar and threw him over onto his stomach. Then Spike stood over
him and, grabbing the demon’s left ankle, he pulled the leg sharply over to
one side. A short, sharp snap told him the femur had broken.
Dawn watched with
horror as Spike hauled the vampire to his feet again, holding the creature up as
it staggered on it’s ruined leg. He led the demon over near to where she stood
and let go of it, leaving it to wobble unsteadily on one foot. Spike motioned to
it with a wide sweep of one hand.
“Go on, Bit.
You’re the stronger now. You have the power.”
Dawn looked from
Spike to the vampire and back again. Spike was right; she was the stronger of
the two now. She had two good legs and the vampire had but one. She was healthy
and energetic and he was sick with pain. She could kill him if she wanted. She
had the power.
A small smile
twitched at the corners of her lips and her eyes, as she looked at Spike, were
sparkling with pleasure. He grinned back at her, jerked his head toward the
vampire encouragingly.
Retrieving the
stake she had dropped, Dawn advanced on the vampire. The fledgling, besides
being in a great deal of pain, was also beginning to grow weak from lack of
nourishment. He had not fed since he had risen and this was beginning to take
its toll on him; he was trembling.
Still, he was
vampire enough not to give up without a fight. Hobbling unsteadily on his broken
leg, the vampire bared his teeth a snarled at Dawn. “Go on, bitch,” he
snapped at her. “Give me your best shot.”
Throwing a quick
glance to Spike, Dawn tightened her grip on the stake and charged forward.
The vampire had
excellent reflexes as befitted his kind, and he threw up his arm, warding off
her blow easily. He almost knocked her stake from her hand, and as Dawn was
preoccupied with maintaining her grasp on her weapon, the vampire slugged her in
the stomach.
The pain caught her
off guard; for a moment, she literally couldn’t breathe. Her adversary took
this opportunity to kick her legs out from under her.
Once again, she was
on her back and underneath him, but this time Spike did not have to come to her
rescue. Confident that Spike would not let the vampire hurt her, Dawn was able
to keep her presence of mind. As the vampire drew back in preparation to bite
her, she thrust her legs up with all her strength, forcing him off her.
The vamp fell onto
his back in the dirt, and without both his legs to push off from the ground he
was having a hard time regaining his footing. He spent several minutes thrashing
helplessly around in the dirt.
Dawn, meanwhile,
was on her feet again, her weapon in hand. She bounded across the space
separating her from her enemy in a matter of seconds, swooping down to plunge
the stake through his chest. The figure exploded in a shower of dust, which
coated her face and clothes.
“Yuck,” she
said, spitting ashes from her mouth.
“Guess I should
have warned you about that,” Spike said.
Dawn wiped her
mouth with the back of her hand and laughed.
“Can we try a
real one now?” she asked.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
“So this Buffy is
what matters most to him, huh?” Halfrek said, smiling slyly over her espresso.
“Well, yes.”
Anya rolled her eyes. “I just told you that.”
Hallie set her cup
down with a thump. “I want her gone.”
“What? You want
me to kill her?”
“Would that
completely destroy him?”
“It didn’t the
last time she died,” Anya said. “I mean…he was upset…but he was fully
functional.”
“Then I don’t
want to kill her.” Hallie sighed thoughtfully. “I want…I want to take her
from him—I want her to despise him. I want her to destroy him for us.”
“Sorry, Hallie,
but you know the rules. I can’t make people fall in or out of love with each
other. I don’t have that kind of power.”
“I know, I
know,” Halfrek told her. “There must be another way, though.
Something…some way to make her hate him.”
Her eyes lit up.
“What about this
shiny new soul of his, how about we get rid of it? Then she wouldn’t only hate
him, she would kill him.”
“Umm…no she
wouldn’t.”
Hallie frowned.
“What do you mean? Buffy slays vampires.”
“True, she is,”
said Anya. “But she didn’t slay Spike before he got the soul—and she
didn’t hate him, either. He may have seen the rest of humanity as walking
beverage dispensers, but Spike loved Buffy even without a soul. He wouldn’t do
anything to make her slay him even if we took his soul away from him.”
“Damn,” Hallie
swore. “Then he could just go get a new one and we would be right back where
we started.”
The two women
looked at each other despondently.
“This is a lot
harder than I thought it would be,” Halfrek sighed.
“Life’s a
bitch,” Anya agreed fervently.
“Humanity is a
bitch,” Halfrek complained. “I can’t see how you stood it for so long.”
“It wasn’t
easy.”
“It’s
disgusting! There are all these body functions…excretions to deal with….”
“Wait until you
have to sneeze,” Anya told her. “The first time I did I thought I’d lost a
piece of my brain. Apparently, though, it’s what is supposed to happen.”
“Losing a piece
of your brain?”
“Well, not a piece of brain, exactly.”
“What then?”
Anya’s brow
furrowed. “I don’t know…but whatever it is, it isn’t the most attractive
substance on earth.”
“Great,” Hallie
moaned. “One more unattractive substance I have to deal with. Why on earth
would anyone want to become human?”
“Spike did.”
“Spike is an
idiot,” Hallie snapped. “Why when I knew him in London—”
She stopped.
“What?” Anya
asked. “When you knew him in London what?”
“He was
completely hopeless…totally weak.”
She smiled.
“Anyanka, I think
I may have finally found my revenge.”
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Spike looked at
her, puzzled. “A real one?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Dawn
leaned to brush some vamp dust from her shoe. “You know, a real
one…uninjured, experienced.”
His dark blue eyes
laughed at her, though the corner of his mouth turned down. “Looking for a bit
of a challenge now, Bit? You only just killed a fledgling.”
She shifted her
weight from one foot to the other. “I know…”
“But?” he
asked.
“But I want to
see if I can do better.”
He was pleased with
her but struggling not to show it. Buffy hadn’t liked the idea of him teaching
her to slay at all, and he was sure she would not approve of his mother cat
method of crippling Dawn’s prey to teach her to fight it. Taking the Bit out
after experience vamps and letting her go it alone would be sure to cheese off
the slayer.
Still…he
couldn’t help but be proud of Dawn. She’d done right well in her first
battle and was looking for more like any good fighter. He didn’t feel right
about squelching her enthusiasm just as it began to blossom.
After a moments
thought, he sighed. “Come on then.”
Maybe Buffy
wouldn’t like it, but Spike knew the two of them had vastly different tastes
in what was good for the Bit and what wasn’t. Buffy would like to coddle her
little sister, to protect her always. Spike knew you couldn’t wrap a child in
cotton wool and expect it to grow. Anyway, Buffy couldn’t be everywhere at
once and all it took was one outing alone for Dawn to be attacked by a hungry
demon. Best that she learn to defend herself before that happened. The fact she
was beginning to enjoy the task struck him as an imminently good sign. It meant
that she would learn more quickly.
Spike was not sure
why he was suddenly so impatient for Dawn to learn to slay. Perhaps it was the
dreams he was having, dreams of Drusilla that haunted his slumber and plagued
his waking hours with worry. For three nights she had come to him—and each
time she did Buffy ended up dead. Last night Dawn had died too. Though Spike was
no clairvoyant, even he could see that the dreams were a warning against
something.
Something was
coming and he could feel it. Something bad was about to happen to all of them.
While Spike was not entirely certain what part he would play in it but in each
of his dreams he had been a factor in the murders, either directly or indirectly
he wanted both of his girls to be ready. If Drusilla came back, he wanted them
to be ready for her—and ready for him if he ended up under her spell once
again. He wanted them to be able to kill him if they had to.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
“So go on,”
Anya said. “Wish it already.”
“I want Spike to
become the way he was.”
Anya looked
disappointed. “That’s it? You want me to take away his soul? Hallie, I told
you that won’t work—”
“I don’t want
him without a soul—and I don’t want him to be a vampire again,” Halfrek
said. “I want you to take him way back. I want you to make him William.”
“But why?”
Anya pressed. “I mean…why not just give him dysentery or take away his
genitals or something?”
Hallie rolled her
eyes. “Subtlety was never among your charms, dear. If you make him, William
then Buffy won’t love him anymore—she won’t even know him. And he
certainly won’t know her. William was what came before Spike—before the
vampire, before the super strength, before the Slayer. He won’t have that
demon in him—he won’t have any of those powers any longer. He’ll be
completely helpless…”
“And what will
you do? Kill him?”
Hallie smiled at
her friend complacently. “I’ll make him wish he was dead.”
Chapter
Three
“Hello?”
Buffy stepped into
the dark kitchen, kicking the door closed behind her. The house was very still
and dark, and it was only after she saw Dawn’s note that Buffy remembered why.
She flipped a light switch and leaned against the refrigerator to read the note.
Buffy:
Gone
patrolling. Spike said I should leave a note so I am. It’s Friday so I get to
stay out late. Spike said order yourself dinner and not to worry about finding
us. You’ve been studying for exams all week and Spike said to rest tonight,
that he would handle everything. Spike said I get to kill some tonight, which I
think is fair because you were letting me kill them all the time before Nikolai.
Spike said to tell you he’ll look after me so don’t worry but I know you
will anyway.
Buffy smiled at the
note. It was amusing and sweet how attached to Spike Dawn was becoming—and how
attached to Dawn Spike already was. The two of them had always had a
brother-sister vibe going, but lately Buffy had sensed it growing into something
else. Spike really seemed paternal towards Dawn, taking an interest in her far
beyond what he had before. He was even complaining about her clothes (what kind
of young girl wears trousers that tight?). Dawn, meanwhile, actually seemed to
respect Spike’s opinion, which was something she had never given Buffy. Though
she might argue with Spike (c’mon—it’s not that
low cut) she would ultimately comply with his rules, even when she didn’t like
them. It took a lot of strain off Buffy.
Spike took a lot of
strain off Buffy in other ways, too. Slaying was one. Now that she had enrolled
full time in classes at U.C. Sunnydale again, Buffy didn’t have a lot of free
time on her hands. Between attending classes during the day and studying for
exams in the evening, she was beat, and Spike helped her out by taking over
patrolling on most nights. She went with him for a couple of hours before bed,
usually, but battling vamps was a piece of cake if there were two of you.
In addition, Spike stayed out much later than Buffy did, combing the
cemeteries and the Bronze until dawn. Since he had started patrolling vampire
attacks were down by almost a third.
Not that their
lives were perfect. Happy as she was to be settled down with Spike, it was
certainly not always easy living with him. Living the great majority of his
existence without a soul had left him strange and a little bit morbid. He had
very fixed ideas on the way things should be and unwavering opinions on how
things were. Though he never said it outright, Buffy knew he believed that all
slayers had to die before they reached twenty-five. The fact that she had died
twice already only reinforced his belief that her time was running short, and
combined with this was the fear that she was happy and happiness would lead to
her undoing. On more than one occasion, he had pointed out that her anger at
life and, most particularly, at men was what gave her her strength. Now that she
was contented, Buffy knew Spike was afraid she would not be able to fight so
well. This was one of the deciding factors in his taking over part of her
patrolling. He trusted his own abilities, if he didn’t trust hers, and he felt
that so long as he went patrolling with her she would be safe. Nothing she said
could convince him otherwise. Sometimes she could hear him pacing the hallway
outside her door, long after she and Dawn had retired for the night. More than
once, she had found him keeping a lone sentry beside the front door, fixated on
the singular belief that the current Big Bad was on its way to do her in as she
slept.
Another problem lay
in the fact that he had not yet come to terms with his own past actions. The
soul had not bothered him so much when he was unhappy—any guilt he had felt
had been drowned by pain and self-pity. Now he was happy, and his past deeds
began to weigh heavily on his conscious. He had nightmares about them, dreams
where he awoke screaming or cursing or crying. Though he refused to talk of them
to her, Buffy knew from the way he sometimes talked in his sleep that his dreams
were of his vampire days. Sometimes he said Drusilla’s name and, once, he had
yelled for Angelus. When questioned about these dreams he either shrugged them
off as a joke or refused to speak of them at all. But after such a dream he
always refused to go back to sleep, sometimes staying up for several nights in a
row.
Despite his
overwhelming effort to be good, Buffy knew Spike had a long way to go before he
could consider himself trustworthy. Years of violence and cruelty given and
received had left him more than a little warped in the morals department, and
even the new soul could not prevent the occasional outburst of demonic behavior.
The laq demon was only one in a string of misdeeds, and though she did not doubt
for a second he regretted his behavior afterward, it was a little disconcerting
to watch him grow so completely unhinged for a short while. When he lost his
temper—and he often did when the demons hurt her or Dawn—he seemed to lose
control of himself completely. The laq had received one of the worst of his
outbursts, but there were vampires he had pinned down and blinded with holy
water, others he had burned with crucifixes. A fungus demon had been knocked
down and beaten with a rake until the unfortunate creature’s head
disintegrated under the blows. After each incident, he had broken down in her
arms, begging her to forgive him for being bad.
Buffy did forgive
him. She understood even better than him why he felt compelled to do these
things and she did not hold them against him. She knew that she and Dawn could
trust Spike with their lives and he would never hurt them. It was the demons who
had to watch out for him and, though she felt a little uneasy about his methods,
demon killing was what they did. She was not going to condemn him just because
he gained a little pleasure from the slaughter. He had been taught by over a
century of carnage that killing was fun. The fact he could restrain himself as
well as he did was remarkable to her. One couldn’t expect him to change
overnight, and she was willing to help him on the gradual climb to human
normalcy.
In fact, the only
behavior Buffy had no patience with was Spike’s treatment of her friends.
Spike loved Willow.
The two of them shared some strange connection that had not been broken when she
went to England, and Buffy knew Spike was counting the days until “Red” came
home again. She was his confident since their first chat at Tara’s grave and
the two of them refused to let an ocean get in the way of their telepathic
communiqué. Had it not been so obvious that Spike was the complete slave of her
own heart, Buffy might have been jealous by his relationship with her best
friend. Instead, she merely felt a weary sense of relief that he got along with one of her friends, at least.
Not so with Xander.
Spike hated Xander with a passion that would not die. Nothing, not threats, or
pleas, or cajoling would convince him to treat the other man with a smidgeon of
respect. Xander had gotten in the way of Spike’s happiness one too many times,
had derided him one time to often, for Spike to allow himself to forget it.
Xander tried. With praiseworthy fortitude, he tried his best to make up for past
actions. Shortly after Spike moved into the Summers’ home, Xander apologized
for his offenses, assured Spike of his own willingness to be friends, and
offered to bury past hatchets on the spot. Spike had merely smirked at the
apology, cocked a suspicious eyebrow at the proffered hand, and answered the
request for friendship with a crushing “Eat my cock, Harris.”
Giles was in
England and, though Spike made no effort to hide his disdain for the former
watcher, it did not present so much of a problem as did his hatred for Xander.
Not only would Spike refuse the friendship of the man, but he resented Buffy’s
friendship with him also. He never openly objected to the alliance, but each
visit by or to Xander resulted in Spike sulking morosely for days. Whenever
Buffy tried to talk to him about it, Spike would shrug her off. “Did I say I
didn’t want you to see him?” he would ask innocently. “The man might be as
thick as two short planks but if you gain pleasure in his company then go right
ahead. I’ve no objection.” But he did, and he let her know it in a variety
of unpleasant ways.
Still, even this
thorn in her side was not sufficient to ruin Buffy’s good mood at passing her
finals. Happily anticipating a night free of studying and slaying, she decided
to celebrate her freedom with a pizza. She lifted the lid on the cookie jar that
sat on the counter and stuck her hand inside. The cookie jar was where she,
Dawn, and Spike kept their household money—any money left over after bills.
Usually, this was nothing more than a handful of fives and maybe a ten or so,
but increasingly the horde of cash kept there had been growing larger. When
Buffy withdrew her hand now, she found it filled not with the ones and fives she
expected, but with four crisp one hundred dollar bills. She hastily put them
back and dug out a couple of tens.
It worried her,
sometimes, the money Spike was bringing in. Buffy had quit her job at the
Doublemeat Palace after management expressed their concern over her
“conflicting interests” (i.e. they did not like the idea of her leaving
early or coming in late in order to get to her classes on time) and since then
she had been more worried about money than ever. Giles helped some; his half of
the proceeds from the Magic Box paid for the utilities and upkeep of the
Summers’ house. Still, it was not enough to pay for the bills and the
groceries, and Buffy’s tuition and Dawn’s school supplies, and for a while,
it had looked as though Buffy would have to leave school again to get a full
time job. Then Spike had moved in.
He didn’t work.
His nights were spent patrolling and he slept until early afternoon, rarely
rising before one o’clock. Yet ever since he had moved in, the cookie jar had
been stuffed with bills—small ones at first, but steadily increasing in size
as the days went by. Lately there had been an alarming number of fifties and one
hundreds, sometimes as much as ten or fifteen a week. It was starting to make
Buffy nervous. She knew Spike stole from the vampires he killed and the fact had
never bothered her overly much. The vampires certainly weren’t going to use
the money and Spike was right, thievery was nothing to them compared to the
stake through the heart they received. However, Buffy seriously doubted the
vampires in Sunnydale were as wealthy as Spike would have her believe. Even with
an average of three vampires a night, Buffy couldn’t see how Spike was
bringing home fifteen-hundred dollars a week. Something else was going on.
So far, Buffy had
not asked Spike what the something was. Truth be told, she didn’t really care
if he was doing something illegal or immoral. Since she had admitted her love
for him, she had learned to accept certain things, one of the biggest being that
Spike had a very fuzzy sense of right and wrong. It wasn’t his fault, really.
He was like Anya used to be, struggling to adjust to human rules after a century
of doing anything he liked. His soul and his heart were good, but sometimes he
just had a hard time discerning things that were technically okay (like stealing
from vampires) from things that were clearly unethical (like torturing the laq
demon for fun). Buffy was quite tolerant—so tolerant that she was quite
willing to let him go on his merry way so long as bodies didn’t begin turning
up. No, what worried her was that he might be doing something dangerous to
acquire the money. She could deal with the idea of him robbing a bank or
breaking into houses, but she could not bear the thought he might be hurt while
doing it.
Buffy knew she
needed to talk to Spike about the money, but she was reluctant to do so. Things
were going so well between them that she didn’t want to ruin it by accusing
him of doing something immoral or illegal to bring home the much-needed bacon.
And he was only doing it to help her. Without her, he could have lived off the
stolen-vamp money easily. Buffy and Dawn were what was costing a fortune, and
Spike seemed determined to help them as much as he possibly could. She dreaded
the thought of taking his kindness and throwing it back in his face, all because
a well-meant scheme was a bit on the shady side.
She pushed the
thought of confrontation from her mind, resolving to go back to it when she was
not quite so tired and hungry. Whatever Spike was doing to get money he
wouldn’t be doing it while Dawn was with him, so she didn’t have to worry
about him tonight, at least. As for now, she planned to follow his suggestion
and relax.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
“DUCK!”
Dawn’s upper body
twisted then dipped, narrowly avoiding the large piece of wood aimed at her
skull.
The vampire who
wielded the club was a husky she-vamp they had found near Xander’s
construction site at the high school. She had been prowling the sidewalks for
fresh meat and had found Dawn and Spike. When she realized she was both out
numbered and (in Spike’s case, at least) outclassed, she had made tracks to
the construction site to hide.
Instead, she had
found herself a weapon.
The two-by-four was
straight and strong, studded with crooked nails on one end. The vampire who
brandished the club was experienced and cunning. She was much quicker than the
fledgling Dawn had just killed, and fear made her even faster. She darted in and
out, taking great swings at Dawn’s face with the piece of wood.
Dawn had managed to
avoid every blow except one, and that one caught her only on the shoulder. She
was a little scratched and bruised from the strike, but she wasn’t hurt badly
enough to affect her fighting. If anything, she fought harder, determined to
beat the demon without Spike’s help.
She attempted the
lightening-fast roundhouse kick Buffy was so fond of but found it too difficult
and almost lost her footing. For a moment she stumbled blindly, struggling not
to fall over as a sharp pain stabbed each leg, reminding her just how not in
Buffy’s shape she was. The vampire took this opportunity to rush her, the
plank of wood raised high, ready to bash in her head.
Dawn rolled out of
the way and the wood struck the hard-packed earth instead. The vampire fell
forward, losing her balance from the forced of her blow. She stumbled for a
moment, throwing out her hand to catch herself before she hit the dirt.
Dawn didn’t even
think. Without even realizing what she was doing, she grabbed the two-by-four
and jerked it as hard as she could, which sent the vampire reeling to the dirt.
Dawn scrambled to get on top of the she vamp. The two of them struggled for a
moment as Dawn grappled to pull her stake from her pocket, and once the vampire
hit Dawn’s nose and made it bleed, but she never faltered. She drew her stake
and raised it high, plunging it into the demon with all the strength in her arm.
The vampire burst
into ashes beneath her and Dawn laughed as she fell to the ground with a thump.
She looked over at Spike joyfully.
“I did it!”
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Anya fingered the
chain of her necklace uneasily. “Halfrek are you sure this is what you
want?” she asked again. “There are so many other ways of getting even with
him—”
“It’s what I
want,” Halfrek insisted. “I want him back, William. I want him without the
confidence and the strength she gives
him. I want the little bastard weak…I want to crush him. I’m going to ruin
his life the way he has ruined mine—and then some.”
Anya listened to
this impassioned speech and just managed not to roll her eyes. “Okay…if
it’s what you want,” she sighed. “But it seems like an awfully complicated
way of going about things, if you ask me.”
“Well, I
don’t,” snapped Halfrek. “So grant the wish already.”
“Um, yeah…well,
you have to make the wish first, Hallie. I can’t do anything until you say the
magic words.”
The irritation
cleared from Halfrek’s brow, leaving her face smooth and blandly serene.
“You’re right, of course,” she told Anya, “how silly of me to forget.”
She shook her hair
back and cleared her throat. Her dark eyes met Anya’s with a glimmer of a
smile, her red lips parting to enunciate clearly every syllable of her desire:
“I wish for you
to bring William back.”
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Dawn grinned
happily at Spike, fully expecting praise for beating the vampire so easily.
Spike, however, was
looking anything but proud; he was standing some distance away, staring at her
with wide eyes and a slack jaw. His face was very pale—it hadn’t been that
white since his days as a vampire. He looked as though he were about to be sick.
Dawn climbed to her
feet. She brushed herself off quickly then glanced at Spike, who was staring at
her as though he had never seen her before. “Um…are you okay?” she asked
him.
He didn’t answer
her. His eyes moved from Dawn’s face to the pile of dust at her feet and then
back again. He shuddered slightly, his legs buckling so that he crumpled onto
the damp earth with a thump. He fell to his knees and did not rise.
“Spike!”
Dawn ran over to
him, reached out to help him. “Are you all right?” she asked. “What’s
wrong? Are you sick?”
Without standing,
he scrambled backwards in the dirt, avoiding her outstretched hand. His face was
ashen; a line of blood dripping from his temple looked unnaturally dark against
his pale flesh. His eyes were wide beneath his knitted brows—he looked like a
man who had seen a ghost.
Confused, Dawn
asked him, “What? Did I do it wrong or something? I tried to follow your
directions…and I did kill her. What’s wrong?”
She started forward
but Spike leapt to his feet, backing away from her so quickly he stumbled and
almost fell over a piece of debris that lay in his path.
“D—don’t come
any closer,” he commanded her. He held out his hands, as if to ward her off,
and continued his slow retreat backwards. “Get away, I tell you!”
“Spike—”
Dawn dropped her
stake and stopped where she was, staring at him with complete bafflement.
“Spike…what’s gotten into you? Did I do something?”
“I don’t know
what you did!” he retorted. “I—I don’t know you.”
“W—what?”
Dawn sputtered. “Spike…”
It happened so
quickly she hardly had time to comprehend it: one moment she was reaching out to
touch his arm and the next she was sprawled on the ground at his feet, her
cheekbone throbbing. He had hit her.
Spike stared down
at her with a strange mixture of terror and resolve. “I don’t know what you
are,” he said. He spoke slowly, enunciating each word carefully, as though he
thought she wouldn’t understand otherwise. “I don’t know you.”
Dawn pressed a hand
to her rapidly swelling cheekbone. “Spike, what are you talking about?”
But he was backing
away from her, retreating quickly as one who expected to be attacked at any
moment. When he was a dozen or so feet from her, he turned and began to run.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Anya and Hallie
watched the scene from some distance away, having teleported there by virtue of
Anya’s demonic powers. At first, Hallie was quite pleased with the result of
her wish; she smiled brightly when Spike backhanded Dawn. Then her face fell as
he began his retreat.
“Hey! What is he
doing?” she demanded. “Where’s he going?”
“I don’t
know,” Anya replied. “But it sure looks like he’s in a hurry to get
there.”
Hallie stomped her
foot, her two-inch platform heel sinking into the soft earth. She wrenched it
out then turned on Anya, her face livid.
“This isn’t
right!” she snapped. “This isn’t what I wanted!”
“You wanted
William back,” Anya said placidly. “That was William.”
“Yes, I wanted
William back! But I wanted him in my general vicinity!”
“Well, I can’t
very control where he goes, can I?” Anya asked, clearly stung by the
criticism. “He still has a mind of his own. Besides, he suffering, you could
see in his face that he was terrified. That’s what you wanted, right? You
wanted him to suffer and he is…so what’s your problem?”
Halfrek threw a
sulky glance to her friend. “I wanted to be there to see it,” she said.
Some distance away
from them, Dawn was slowly climbing to her feet.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
William lunged
forward through the darkness. He had no idea where he was going but he knew he
had to get there quickly. Safety, he was seeking safety.
Oh, God what had
happened to him? Was he crazy? The last thing he remembered doing was speaking
to the raven-haired beauty in the alley behind Pearson’s Livery Stable,
letting her press her ruby lips against his neck. He remembered a blinding white
pain that was followed by something grand—then nothing at all. Nothing until
just a few moments ago when he found himself sitting in the dirt, watching a
young girl—
What had she been
doing?
The woman—the
strange woman with the gold eyes—that girl had killed her. Why? That woman had
born the same mark on her brow that the lovely dark-haired girl had, just before
she kissed him. Her kiss had hurt him, though he had liked it, and for the first
time William had time to consider it. What had she been? Was she human? Was the
other woman human? And what of the girl who had killed the woman? Had she killed
the dark-haired lady also? Perhaps she had attacked them from behind and William
was knocked unconscious.
One glance around
him told William this was not so. This was not the alley behind Pearson’s
Livery—this was not even an area close by. He did not know what this place
was, but it was not London, he was certain of that. It was an odd place, and
frightening, and William felt very deeply that he did not like it at all. In a
place where little girl kill deformed women with such obvious pleasure was no
place William wanted to be. He had to find his way home.
Aside from the
place itself, another bothersome difference was his clothing. William remembered
very clearly wearing his tweed suit and wide cravat to the Addams’ party. He
remembered it because the suit was new and he had been quite eager to show it
off to his friends. Now, however, he was wearing faded trousers of some coarse,
black material. Instead of a suit jacket, he wore a long-sleeved shirt of very
dark red and, under it, a black cotton shirt so faded it was positively gray.
His feet were shod in heavy, steel-toed boots of much scuffed black leather.
They were garments such as he had never seen on anyone, even the lower class,
and William had no idea where they had come from, or who had given them him. He
felt a sudden jolt of fear that perhaps he had been struck in the head by that
beautiful girl, then dragged out of the city and robbed. A quick search of all
his pockets revealed nothing.
The earth dropped
suddenly before him, and William barely managed to slide to a stop before he
tumbled over the embankment. Beneath him, stretching like a black snake in the
night was a road.
Tensing his muscles
to brace himself, William began climbing down the steep bank, his feet sliding
unsteadily on the crumbling earth. He wasn’t entirely certain where he was
going, but he knew that all roads lead to somewhere, and, though this one did
look a bit odd, it would be no exception to the rule. If it didn’t lead to
home, it would lead to a road that did lead to home. It had to. He was sure of
it.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
“BUFFY!”
Water splashed out
of the bathtub and onto the tiles in a wave as Buffy sat up quickly. She had
been on the verge of dosing in her bath when Dawn’s terrified scream suddenly
shattered the silence of the house. From the floor below, Buffy heard the front
door slam, followed quickly by Dawn’s feet pounding on the stairs.
Buffy climbed out
of the tub, throwing a robe around her shoulders just as Dawn came bursting
through the door without knocking. “Dawn, what on earth is wrong?” she
asked, bewildered and frightened by her sister’s behavior.
Dawn paused a quick
moment to catch her breath, then countered Buffy’s question with one of her
own. “Is Spike here?”
“What? No…I
thought he was with you.” All the blood seemed to drain from Buffy’s body as
she saw her sister’s expression go from one of fear to absolute terror.
“Dawn? What is it?”
“He’s gone,
Buffy!” Dawn began to sob, quietly at first, then growing quickly hysterical.
“Spike’s gone!”
“What are you
talking about?” Buffy took her sister by the shoulders and shook her roughly.
“Tell me what happened!”
“We—we were
just patrolling!” Dawn sputtered. “He was standing back and letting me fight
it—the vampire. He said I was ready and I was. I killed it, Buffy. But when I
turned to Spike, he was staring at me with the strangest expression, as if he
was going to throw up or something. Then he just fell to the ground, sort of
leaning over and holding his head. I thought he was sick and I asked him what
was wrong.”
She paused and
Buffy gave her an impatient shake. “And?”
“And he back away
from me—really quick, on his hands and knees, like he was scared of me. He
said he didn’t know me, and he asked me what I had done. I didn’t understand
what he meant—I still don’t. He kept telling me to get away and when I
didn’t he—he hit me.”
“Spike hit
you?” Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “Where?”
“Here.” Dawn
touched her bruised cheek lightly. “He hit me hard and I fell down. Before I
could get up, he had run away. I thought that maybe it was a joke—except that
I knew it wasn’t. He would never hit me. But I hoped it was. I was hoping that
maybe he had come here.”
“I haven’t seen
him,” Buffy told her. She felt numb, suddenly, in shock.
“We have to find
him, Buffy. He doesn’t know who I am—he didn’t even seem to know where he
was. He was bleeding from a cut on the head; I think that maybe the vampire had
hit him. Maybe he has amnesia or brain damage or something, and he’s just
running around out there in the dark. We have to find him and help him.”
She waited for an
answer, for Buffy to give her direction, a plan. Instead, her older sister
merely stared at her with an expression not unlike the one on Spike’s face
before he ran off. She looked dazed, frightened. Her chin started to quiver
slightly, and Dawn was horrified to realize Buffy was about to cry.
“Buffy, pull
yourself together! We have to figure out how to find him!”
“Willow.”
The word escaped
her throat so low that Dawn couldn’t hear it at first. Cocking her head
slightly, she asked, “What did you say?”
“Willow,” Buffy
repeated herself, a little of the dazed look leaving her face. “Willow can
find Spike. Willow will know what’s wrong.”
“But Willow’s
in England, remember? With Giles?”
“It doesn’t
matter,” Buffy replied. “She’ll know. We will go call Willow—she’ll be
able to tell us where to look.”
But for some reason
Buffy’s words did not fill Dawn with a great deal or confidence. It was all
very well to say Willow could fix everything because she could get into
Spike’s head and talk to him. But what if Spike didn’t remember Willow? What
if he didn’t let her into his head this time? What then?
