Fanfiction: He's The Light In Her Fridge
Friends
Faith opens her mouth widely so she can put on her black stripe of eyeliner without blinking. Her reflection in the mirror looks pale, greenish even. She hopes it is because of the puke green paint on the bathroom door. Her invisible companion, who has decided he needs to be in the tiny bathroom at the same time as she to put in thick gobs of hair gel, jostles her arm. And how weird is it that Spike’s invisibility in the mirror has affected the tube of gel he’s holding?
“Hey!” she snaps. “Watch the arm!”
Now she looks like Crybaby. Kinda cool, but not for tonight. She sees a Q-tip floating towards her in the mirror. She snatches it out of the air and grunts a thank-you.
The council pays them both a small salary, a stipend as they call it, Faith for being the Slayer and Spike for acting as Watcher-In-Training. It doesn’t stretch to houses with big bathrooms or attractive interior decorating, even out here in the middle of nowhere, a.k.a. a suburb of Cleveland. At least Giles pays for full medical, which is more important for a Slayer than a swanky apartment.
Faith finishes her Egyptian left eye and goes on to the right. It’s always difficult to make it exactly the same, so she concentrates hard and ignores Spike’s mutterings. He thinks she should get on with it already.
She gets out her lipstick and paints her mouth, bites a tissue, powders, paints it again. The Faith in the mirror still looks pale. Slayer healing should get its butt in gear, all her other wounds have healed up, although there are still big red zippers all over her belly. She hopes they will fade in time, even if Spike admires them and licks them regularly. He thinks battle scars are sexy. Anyway, that’s what he says.
Rouge. She needs rouge for that healthy all-American glow. As she applies the color, she suddenly thinks that maybe, for Cleveland standards, she has overdone the eyeliner a little. Then again, she has seen what goes for fashion on her few forays into the glittering nightlife of Ohio, and she is sort of sure big hair went out of style when Dallas went off the air.
“Do my eyes, too?” demands Spike.
Faith pictures a raccoon-eyed Spike besieged by the local talent.
“I think you are pretty enough without it,” she says, capping the lipstick tube. “You look like the dude that crashed out of heaven coz he pissed off God.”
The son of the morning snorts and thrusts out his full lower lip. Faith would like to suck on it, but sticks to tweaking his ass, so as not to smudge the lipstick. It’s a really nice color called Deadly Nightshade, courtesy of Sunnydale Wal-Mart. It’s nearly gone, she notices regretfully.
The beauty session is finished. She twirls around for Spike. “You think I look nice? Nice enough to make friends?”
Their mission tonight is to make friends, or meet potential friends, and possibly even witches or friendly demons. After Faith’s close encounter with Untimely Demise Spike has decided he hasn’t taken his Watcherly duties seriously enough and that she needs a team to survive. Faith is afraid she won’t make any, because she never has before. Except Buffy, and look how that ended.
Spike looks at her, chewing on his lip. “You look gorgeous. So do I. But do we look friendly and approachable, that’s the question…”
Faith looks down at her purple corset top and black leather pants. Spike is in dark purple and black as well. The only female member of the Cleveland population whose clothes she’s paid any attention to wore tight pink stretch polyester, and the guys plaid shirts and beards. She’s already doubtful about their friend-finding mission, and this clothes crisis is not helping. She thinks about changing into her ripped blue jeans and a T-shirt of Spike’s, to hide her corset and what’s in it. No, they’ll have to take her as she is.
They go through the rules once more. There will be smiling. Alcohol will not be consumed. They will pretend not to smoke. They won’t mention vampires, Slaying, magic or sex.
“But how will we know if people want to be our Scoobies if we don’t mention these things?” Faith argues as Spike settles behind her on the bike.
He wraps his arms around her securely, which Faith still thinks is very romantic, she and her man on the bike.
“The books say you should look friendly, laugh a lot and your body language should be open,” Spike says.
Spike and his new passion for How-to books. Faith has acquired the habit of making detours around the colorful heaps of paperbacks on the coffee table, Tai Chi, working out, Jane Fonda, top sport, etc. He’s started taking this watcher thing really seriously and is determined to get her in peak condition. Faith doesn’t mind the training thing, she’s always enjoyed pushing her own limits, but the food obsession is worrisome. He watches her eat now and forces pills down her throat. Apparently the doctor at the hospital, when she was wounded, told Spike that she was a little undernourished. Faith thinks she looks as good as ever, but it seems to be some blood thing. A vamp would have an affinity for that, she supposes.
So. Open. “Legs open?”
“It’s not literal,” Spike explains, punctuating the words with an impatient jab in her ribs. Faith can feel his eyes roll behind her back. She likes to aggravate him because he’s so cute when he gets wound up, all wildly disordered hair and waving arms.
“How did you make friends before?” Faith asks.
Spike shrugs. “Play pool, get pissed, beat each other up, drink someone together. You know.”
Faith sighs. “I’d go for that, except the last part. So would demons, I expect. But I meant, how did you do it when you were human?”
Spike’s face falls. “I didn’t have any.”
Faith is faintly disappointed. She has always imagined Spike as one of these swanky heroes on a horse, waving his sword and rescuing maidens, like people did in the past. He has kinda rescued her, after all, even if she’s no Buttercup.
Faith roars off on her gleaming black steed to the first bar. It’s actually an English pub, called the Green Man. Faith has picked it out because of its name, which sounds kind of demony. Spike slips his hand under her jacket and squeezes her breast, which almost makes her swerve off the road. Faith whoops with glee, and they have a great time on the slippery roads, Spike’s icy hands wandering everywhere and letting in winds that bear greetings from the north pole, Faith writing crazy black words on the gray tarmac to get him off her pillion seat.
They leave the black and white road to continue on its own and enter the orderly world of color coordinated parking lots. Their destination beckons to customers with a smiling chartreuse electric guy blinking on and off. The crowd inside couldn’t be more different from Stinky Ned’s. The people are a sea of ice cream shades and sip clear colored drinks from blue bottles with their hungry pastel mouths. Faith thinks she looks like an inkblot on the fancy carpet and checks if she drips black stains. The flowered carpet under the thick soles of her boots cringes but doesn’t change color.
She swaggers over to the slab of gleaming cherry stretching into infinity and plunks herself down on the plump leather of a stool shaped like a pistachio green tampon. She sits with her back to the bar, legs open like Spike said. She can feel the bartender ooze up behind her, coldly swishing a wet cloth around her bare elbows.
“Two tequilas,” she orders without looking at him.
Spike comes up to her, a big smirk on his face. “Lovely place, pet. What made you pick it?”
Faith shrugs. “The name? Kinda demon-friendly.”
“Uh-huh,” Spike says.
Their drinks arrive. They’ve both licked, tossed and sucked before Faith remembers The Rules.
“Fuck! Spike, we drank. Now what?”
Spike doesn’t answer; he grins his sexy grin at someone behind her back. Faith turns. It’s a sleek middle-aged person in a pink dress shirt with a collar like John Travolta. He smiles at them with lots of very white even teeth and Faith bares hers in an instinctive threat.
“I can see you are an adventurous couple,” the guy starts out. “Hi, I’m Jaye. And you are?”
“Not interested,” Faith cuts in, because she doesn’t like the gleam in Spike’s eye.
Jaye hesitates, dancing a little on his tasseled loafers, alternating inviting looks at Spike with hungry forays into her cleavage until he gets that Faith calls the shots and leaves with a sigh.
“Let me tell you, pet, that slagging people off is not going to make us friends.”
Faith rolls her eyes. “Baby, believe me, that guy is not prime friend material. He just wanted us for a threesome or something, or to join him and the wifey. That is so not what we’re here for.”
Spike looks unconvinced. “So?”
“Would you have done him in the old days? You and your vampire Mom?”
Spike makes a face. “Dru? We’d have eaten them, yeah.”
“Let’s split, Spike. People who make good food probably don’t make good friends.”
“Faith, all human beings make good food. We need to be a bit more selective now.”
Three bars later, they’re still being very selective. Everybody who’s approached them wants either to fight Spike or fuck Faith or both. And the other way around in a nightclub called The Pink Zone. Making friends on purpose is hard. How did Buffy do this? Spike suggests taking up a hobby, or night classes for bonding over homework, but going back to school is the last thing Faith’s prepared to do.
“Let’s just go back to Stinky Ned’s and play pool,” she suggests.
In Stinky Ned’s there is really no point in sticking to the ‘no smoking’ rule. No one would notice, and they might die from instant nicotine poisoning if they don’t spread some protective smoke around themselves. There’s a deep beat underneath the music Ned plays, and the pool table beckons. Faith starts to feel more herself. This is her kind of place, where there is the spice of real desperation underneath the bluegrass music and the rough talk. There could be dancing, or fighting, she doesn’t really care which. Spike’s swagger broadens and he stares back hard at the men who swivel their heads slowly around to check out the newcomers. They’ve been here before, but they’re not exactly regulars yet. Ned behind the bar nods at Spike and taps a beer for them. It’s a cheap brand, but it tastes the better for all the ridiculous waters and Diet Cokes they’ve swilled, which are giving Faith a sugar high and bellyache.
The pool table is empty and Faith challenges Spike to a game. She’s feeling lucky tonight. When she’s chalking the tip of her cue, a new bartender comes in and replaces Ned. There’s something familiar about him, but Faith doesn’t know exactly what.
Halfway through the game – she’s losing - a song she likes comes on and Faith starts moving to the beat. She’s the only woman dancing on her own, but what does she care? Most of the men in the room look at her with eyes that would like to touch and grope but Faith isn’t bothered. She’s really dancing for Spike.
From the corners of her eyes, Faith sees Spike circle the dance floor, or whatever you would call the small open space between the bar and the pool table if you were being kind to Ned. His eyes are focused on her face, never wavering or breaking contact. Faith turns her body like a passion-flower following the sun, keeping her face towards Spike as he walks slowly and deliberately through the crowded bar. It’s as if he’s attached a cord from his heart to hers, never slackening the tension that stretches tautly between them. Her heartbeat speeds up and her breathing becomes deeper. It’s foreplay, and he isn’t even touching her. He is claiming her though, very publicly telling the other guys in the bar that she’s his, something she would never have thought she’d let a guy do to her, but with Spike everything’s different. Every inch of her is his, not only all the pieces other guys want, but her heart and guts as well.
The throbbing rock music fades out and changes to a slow twanging number. Faith stops dancing, ready to return to her beer, but Spike is walking towards her, clearly intending to dance. She stands still and waits for him. He puts his arms around her and they fit together like groove and tongue, as always. His knees just above hers, her hipbone below his. Faith buries her face in his neck, unable to keep from giving him a quick hungry nibble on his scar. She feels him hardening against her as they slowly sway to the music’s nasal complaining, ‘Stand by your man’. Her mom used to listen to this until the record had turned grey, and the memory of her Mom’s scent of hairspray and old smoke mixes oddly with the present. Oh yes, she will stand by her man, vamp or not, until what? Until she dies, she guesses, killed in the line of duty. It’ll be a good couple of years, if she’s that lucky. Maybe she’ll have seven, like Buffy, maybe less. As long as Spike is with her, she’ll go at life full tilt. He makes her give everything.
When the music stops Spike walks her to the bar and hoists her up on a stool, slipping in between her legs. Faith feels the roughness of Ned’s bar top under her bare elbows, so different from the smoothness in the downtown bar. She much prefers it here. Spike runs his fingers up and down her leather-clad thighs. Faith lets her head fall back and closes her eyes. She doesn’t need sight to feel this. Her Slayer antennae send strong danger signals of Beware, Vampire! down her spine, Spike’s fingers set off an upward trail of sparks and they meet in a dazzling burst of fireworks halfway.
Dimly through the light show a half-familiar voice says, “Your usual, Spike?” and two shot glasses and a bottle of JD materialize near the trailing ends of her hair on the bar.
Spike’s hands freeze. “Willy? Thought you went down with Sunnydale…”
Willy’s little half whine, half laugh. “Us other citizens got out in time, Spike. Hard to miss the portents. Bought myself a sweet portion of old Ned’s here, he’s retiring soon. Business gonna be looking up, they say.”
Faith lifts her head and checks Willy out. He’s the same weasely guy with the fake smile and the voice from Little Italy.
“Hi,” she says.
Willy’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “Hey, Slayer,” he answers without enthusiasm. “I thought you were, um, out of the game?”
So, even the demons know about the Slayer in prison. Faith shrugs. “I’m here, ain’t I?”
Willy nods and turns away. Spike pours them each a shot. Faith can see him think, his eyes don’t see her anymore. It’s a Giles look, a Watcher look, seeking advantage and weighing options. She really doesn’t want to see it on her lover’s face. She grabs his belt and yanks him close, bites his Drusilla scar again.
“Home, James,” she growls in his neck.
His fingers dig into her upper arms with satisfying intensity. He calls to Willy to put up a tab for him and they leave. Spike keeps a light hold on the back of her neck when they walk out, so there’s no single moment he’s not touching her. When they’re home and she’s riding him, moonlight streaming though the window so that Spike is made of pale blue ice, Faith thinks fleetingly of their mission. But who needs friends when there is the perfect lover filling you up to the farthest corners of your mind and body with his cock and his eyes and his love?
*
When Faith gets home, there is a perky little ladybug on wheels in their driveway. Its red paint gleams with exaggerated cheerfulness in the grey December air and only the black spots are missing. Faith goes in the house ass first, arms full of shopping, and when she turns around, a creature that looks like a pink marshmallow man after extensive liposuction pops its head out of the fridge. It has two of her beers in its dewlapped hand.
“Hi!” it says in a cheery tone. “You must be Faith!”
Faith attempts to slay him with her grocery bags, but as they are full of toilet paper and fat free snacks, this has very little effect.
“Oh! Hey!” the creature chuckles. “You seem really tense. I know we’ve never met before, but Spike and I go way back. Clem? Clement? Ring a bell?”
Faith hollers “Spike!”, and the guilty party comes ambling out of the living room, exuding mellowness and beery breath.
“You two never met? Faith, this is Clem, Clem this is Faith.”
“We got that far, honey bun,” Faith says between clenched teeth. “But what is Clem?”
Spike shrugs. “A friend, and as it happens, a demon.”
“So?”
“Well, I got out of Sunnydale in time, as you might have guessed because I’m here,” Clem says chattily, “and then I finally made that grand tour I’d been promising myself, and looked up some relatives. And then I said to myself, let’s visit my pal Spike. I found that sweet little witch, what’s her name? Like Beech or Juniper or-“
“Willow,” Faith supplies impatiently.
“Willow! That’s it. Sweet girl. Except that one time, of course. Anyway, she knew your address, and hey presto, here I am!”
Spike walks up to Faith and puts his arm around her in that neck-crunching way guys think girls like. “Faith and I were just thinking we needed people to flesh out our team. Because a lonely Slayer is a vulnerable Slayer, right?”
“Really? Another…I mean, you’re a Slayer? How interesting.” Clem takes a few steps backwards. “And what is your position on demons? Because Buffy and me, we had an understanding. I didn’t bother her, she didn’t bother me.”
How the hell is this floppy-eared bumbling thing going to help a Slayer and a Vampire? But then Faith thinks of Xander, and what he did for the Scoobs. Maybe this Clem could get donuts and repair stuff. If he isn’t, like, evil.
Spike reads her mind and says, “Clem here knows just about everybody in demon country, don’t you Clem? And if not, you know their brothers or best friends! He could keep his ears to the ground and we’d be informed of everything that goes down.”
Keep his ears to the ground and sweep up the dirt, more likely. Huh. Faith gets a heavy draggy feeling in her stomach. Demons and people are gonna come over and see her house. Sit on her couch. She looks at her living room, and for the first time sees that its cozy homey feel might be interpreted as fug-ugly and full of junk. Wow. They’ve never even vacuumed since they came here. The curtains are always closed and magazines and food wrappers give the drab room many uncoordinated touches of color. At night, when the candles are the only illumination, scattering little wavering pools of glowing orange, and she and Spike are smooching on the couch, she doesn’t notice that stuff so much but suddenly she sees it as Clem might. Candle-wax everywhere. The cleanest and brightest things in the room are the shiny blue sex toys spilling out of a bag. The closed pizza box on the TV with a date and time from three weeks ago stamped on it is whiter than the walls. If B.’s Mom saw this room she wouldn’t even step inside.
Where have her prison dreams of a pretty, clean house gone? Okay, they didn’t often go further than her getting off her bike, shaking her long shiny hair loose from her helmet and entering a vaguely sketched in white house, a twin of 1630 Revello Drive, but gleaming wood and fresh flowers were definitely co-starring somewhere in there. All she has been thinking about these past months is Spike, sex with Spike and Slaying.
“Gosh!” Clem says, trying to sweep some magazines off the couch, and discovering take-out boxes underneath. “It does have that lived-in look, doesn’t it? Not like your crypt at all, Spike, except the candles.”
Oh. Faith-less Spike was neat. She’d always pictured his crypt looking like Buffy’s basement, bare and dusty and smelling like the pipes had burst some time not too long ago.
Spike comes up to her and puts a cold hand on her back, rubbing it apologetically.
“I’ve been making a real mess of things,” he tells Clem. “Gives me hell about my sloppy ways, Faith does.”
Clem is a real gentleman and plays along. “You know what?” he says to Faith. “I’ll teach this messy fellow of yours to clean up properly. We’ll have a nice early spring cleaning, just in time for Christmas.”
Shit. Christmas. Trees and singing and cooking turkey. The only bird Faith knows intimately is Cold Turkey. She wants to go back in time to take notes of the one Christmas meal she almost had with Buffy and Joyce. She should have paid attention to the food instead of griping about Buffy’s absence and worrying about her present for Joyce.
Buffy could have done this. Hell, she did do it, playing house and taking care of her sister, B had friends and a real job. She and Spike have not made one friend so far, not even an acquaintance, in spite of searching the Cleveland bars thoroughly and repeatedly. And let’s not mention her own failure to keep a job for more than three hours.
Clem sails on, his ears ready to catch a good stiff breeze. “You know what? I could cook a really spiffy Christmas dinner for you guys. Just like old times.”
“You ate dinner?” Faith looks at Spike.
“We ate together,” Spike says and elaborates. “We ate our own personal food at the same time, watching a nice movie or something.”
Faith tries to picture this, coupla demonic guys on a couch, TV, blood, beer. She fails.
“Remember,” Clem says dreamily, “That one time that we couldn’t hear Jimmy Stewart because of the screaming of Spike’s victim?” He bends over and picks up a crackling empty snack bag. “Mm, Cheetos. Got any left?”
“When did you guys meet?” Faith says, fascinated by the blood and Cheetos mingling in her brain.
“You remember that, buddy? ‘25, ‘26? Thereabouts, girl, when there was easy money to be made running booze for humans.”
“So you’re like ancient, too?”
“Got a coupla centuries on him,” Clem says modestly. “I try to keep up with the times, though, not like most of the demon tribes. I live like a human being now, coz, man, booze, TV, microwave dinners, supermarkets? Changed my mind about the little suckers mighty quick, I can tell you. Was a lot less fun when Indians and sobriety were all there was, and you know, all the raising and catching and skinning and marinating you had to do on your own.”
Faith pictures Winnetou and Clem wrestling down a bison, and somehow extricating spare ribs and steak from it. Yeah. She gets that. He sounds okay.
*
“Hey, Slayer,” Willy says politely.
“Hey, Willy.”
Willy goes on silently with rubbing something goopy and yellow into the bar-top. It smells of her grandma’s house on Thursdays. The wood doesn’t gleam as nicely as Gram’s chairs did, though. The rest of Stinky Ned’s is changing as well. The windows, that Faith never even noticed were there, are open to the freezing air, the chairs are stacked on the table and something misshapen and undersized is on it scabby green knees scrubbing the floor. The demons are taking over Stinky Ned’s, just like they did at her house. What is it with demons and hygiene? She scraped candle-wax off carpets until she couldn’t take it anymore and took off on the bike. She’s never been a Mall kind of girl, so this is where she ended up. Spike and Clem were still vacuuming, dusting, throwing out trash, doing laundry and so on. It’s unnatural and she resents being made to feel it was her responsibility. Male chauvinist pigs. Not as if Spike ever picked his holey black socks up off the floor before.
They discovered Faith has twelve pairs of black pants. Clem is arguing that instead of buying more black leather she should buy a better quality of food. Had Clem been a Home Room teacher in a former life? Sheesh.
Willy shoves a beer towards her, still not speaking. Faith leans her chin in her hand, vaguely enjoying watching Willy work. He goes on methodically waxing the bar top, and then he calmly and precisely folds the cloth, screws on the top of the tin of wax, washes his hands. He turns and puts a CD in the player, and then starts cleaning a stack of beer glasses that don’t look dirty to Faith. The music is oddly syrupy, melancholy and dark, making Faith think of men in pencil moustaches with out-thrust pelvises driving high heeled women backwards over the dance floor.
“How did you get into the demon catering business, Willy?” she asks idly, as a second beer appears just when she wants it.
Willy throws her an unreadable look from those little brown eyes. “Took over from my Dad,” he says, still cleaning glasses.
He doesn’t elaborate. What does she have to do to get the man to talk? “And how did your Dad get started in demon bars?”
Willy shows his teeth politely but doesn’t look her in the eye. “He got laid off from his job as a foreman on a demon farm. He used the severance money to buy the bar in Sunnydale. “
Faith licks the foam of her upper lip thoughtfully. Demon farms? Everything she’s ever heard about demons from her Watchers suggests that demons are the scum of the earth, reaping and not sowing.
“Severance money? Pretty good employers, sounds like.”
“Uh-huh,” Willy nods.
“So, what did they grow?” Faith continues, elbows on the bar, stretching her neck to keep Willy in sight, who’s sort of stroking a yellow cloth over the row of bottles at the other end.
“Demon food,” Willy says cryptically.
A third beer comes up. Faith toasts Willy with it and decides regretfully that she really should get back to the boys in aprons at home. She tosses back the brew and realizes that even the beer has gotten better. Demon beer?
*
Clem is in the kitchen when Faith gets home. Dinner stress steams from the pans on the stove; pans they apparently possess. Clem’s ears are bright red and stand off his head like warning flags while he furiously stirs something brown and nice smelling. Faith slips past him to the living room.
It is now dust and trash free, and Clem and Spike have uprooted a baby fir tree from the local forest and planted it a corner, where it stands with hunched shoulders against the ceiling. The painful lack of taste and color in the decor is all the more obvious for it. It smells of cold outside air and a scent that is like air freshener, only nicer. Spike stands surveying the room with a frown. He pulls at his lips.
“It needs something more, love,” he declares seriously. “More color and holiday spirit.”
If his bright eyes are any indication, he’s already imbibed a lot of holiday spirit. He suddenly disappears into the kitchen and returns with the trash bag. Under Faith’s disbelieving eyes all the shiny crinkly wrappers they’ve so painstakingly picked up are fished out and stuck on the branches of the silent dark green tree. Well. If you look through your lashes, and imagine candle light, the effect might not be bad. There certainly would be a Christmas ornaments’ store open somewhere, but Faith knows the idea of just buying things would never enter Spike’s mind on its own. Finally he’s satisfied with the overall effect. He picks up an old envelope, draws a crude fanged face on it and sticks it on top of the tree.
“Not bad, Spike, but why the drawing?”
He looks at her challengingly. “It’s tradition, innit, to have an angel on top of the tree?”
*
Faith was never the lie-abed kind of girl before, but morning has become her favorite time. Staying put in her warm nest, ignoring the pale call of the new day, being surrounded by the solid good-smelling arms of her vampire. Spike nuzzles her neck until she wakes up. Her body is usually a couple of strides ahead of her, already heated, and slicked up where she should be slick. Spike always knows exactly when she crosses the fuzzy line between tingly but half-asleep and raring to go, and in that perfect moment he slips into her. She shifts from Park into Reverse and smooshes her butt into his hips. She’s never gotten her driver’s license, but that doesn’t stop her from smoothly sliding out of the parking lot and hurtling down the highway. Even though there’s lots of changing lanes and violating the speed limit, it’s too early for words yet, and they communicate with traffic signs of little grunts and sighs.
When she finally opens her eyes she really doesn’t want to see just her pillowcase, so she slips off his cock and turns in the air like a dolphin catching the slippery herring and corkscrewing down on it in a perfect dive. Now she can see intent blue eyes, and pink lips that are thrust out in the serious quest for her next orgasm. There’s no such thing as morning mouth with a vampire and she grabs the back of his head and kisses him rhythmically, working with his thrusts. The springy curls under her hands get mashed and spring back, mashed and spring back.
Mmm. Spike’s mouth tastes like it looks, lush and pink, soft and wet and hard mixed like the white of his teeth and the deeper carmine inside. Her belly growls. That’s what you get from making all that saliva.
“Orgasm first or breakfast in bed?” Spike asks, never missing a beat.
Faith closes her eyes for a moment, trying to take gauge the emptiness of her belly, but taking away sight makes the sensation of his cock dancing inside go up several notches in intensity and she digs her thumbs below his hipbones and gasps, “Don’t stop.”
Spike is never cruel to her early in the morning and obliges by driving in against that spot right there and she sees black stars before her eyes when she opens them again. Now she needs food right away, or one of these early morning post-orgasm headaches is going to come on. Spike presses her back into the pillows and hurries to the kitchen. The sound of plastic ripping and a soft rushing remind her of what she’s eating these days and she groans. It’s food, okay, but muesli and yogurt? So not her dream of proper breakfast. But Spike hangs onto Clem’s every word on nutrition as if it’s scripture, and she likes to please him.
In comes cold unappetizing breakfast, but thank god he’s started the coffee. She’s eating giant portions these days coz muesli just doesn’t seem to pack the amount of sugar and grease she craves. When her own eating sounds stop for a moment, she becomes aware of a yammering that she heard vaguely while they were fucking. For a second she thinks it’s a baby crying, then she dismisses it as cats howling, but now she realizes it’s the wind. Its icy fingers pinch her butt and she crawls back under the covers. Spike prances over to the window, buck naked as he is, and twitches open the curtains in death defying motion. Faith’s body jerks; it wants to save him from the lethal sunlight, but the world is gone. There’s just this gray vortex, the perfect accompaniment to the howling music the wind makes. So this is a real Cleveland snowstorm, straight in from Canada, where the people are mellow but the climate is harsh. Or so Faith has heard. She nestles back a little deeper in the warm bedding. They can play around all day.
Spike yanks back the covers and hauls her up. “Come, love,” he says. “We can just go out and get it before I need my beauty sleep.”
What? Out? In this? He’s insane, but as that’s not a new discovery, what’s special today? Oh right, they were going to get Clem a fish for Christmas dinner, which is tonight. Faith isn’t keen on fish, of which there was much in prison, but hey, small trouble for a guy who can’t get into Wal-Mart without dozens of people shitting themselves in fear.
Spike is rubbing his hands. “Haven’t been out in the daytime in ages,” he says. “Cool. Let’s slap on our snow chains and get going.”
Yeah, yeah. Coffee first. Her legs are still a bit wobbly from the recent major zinger and now that she’s standing and feels the come dripping down her thighs, a shower wouldn’t come amiss either.
Spike can never resist grabbing a handful of Faith, and takes a deep whiff. “Don’t bathe,” he says. “What’s good enough for Napoleon is even better for me.”
Isn’t it weird how even the coolest guys give their dicks a pet name? Not as if she ever thinks of her pussy as little Faith or Lolita or something.
*
The ice stretches away for miles on all sides, black if they look down, white at the horizon, where it meets a gun-metal gray sky. They are lying below the howling winds that are chasing whirling snow bunnies all around Lake Erie, in a little pocket of silence and interstellar cold that sucks the life out of them from below. Someone shoots off a cannon close to their ears and the booming sound races through the water beneath them to the shore, and then returns slower and lower, shaking the marrow of their bones and making Faith’s teeth ache.
“Was that the cavalry, coming to our rescue?” Faith asks with chattering teeth.
Spike shoots her a concerned look. “No, just ice breaking and settling,” he says. “I remember hearing it when I was little we skated on the Thames one winter. Deeply scary to my little boy guts.”
“To my big girl ones as well. If the ice breaks will we be able to get back? Won’t it sink?”
“Ice floats, honey. And it’s about three feet thick. Don’t worry.”
Spike can talk all he likes, but he isn’t the one who’ll be drowning. And who’s freezing her ass off right now. Her ass is the highest part of her, catching the most wind and it won’t be fun at all if it’s gonna break off and shatter into a thousand frozen flesh colored pieces. Will Spike be able to put her back together again?
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?”
“Clem and me, we always hunt our own Christmas dinner. Clem’s doing the meat course, we do the fish course.”
“What’s wrong with turkey?”
“Nothing, but this is more fun!”
Spike’s skin is lilac, making him look like a cartoon figure with his yellow, white-rimed hair and red rimmed eyes. He freezes, the spear in his hand quivering in the wind, and then thrusts the spear down in the cold black hole. He uses such force that he slides along with it and Faith gets her stiff limbs working only just in time to catch a sockless blue ankle. She doesn’t think vampires can drown or die from cold, but wouldn’t it be a drag to have to wait until spring to dredge up Spike and unthaw him?
The fish is hauled up and killed with a blow to the head. Faith is less sure about this venture than before. It doesn’t look like the fish she used to fillet at all. She doesn’t like the way its pale eye stares at her haughtily or the oily rainbow sheen its colorless scales have.
When Faith tries to get up, fish cradled in her arms like a cold slimy baby, the wind blows her legs out from under her just like that. Crawl instead? Spike casts a worried eye over her, drags her over to the bike and lifts her onto the pillion seat. Faith clings to him, her cold face swathed in useless frozen shawls, and buries her nose in the stiffened leather of his duster. Tiny shards of ice break off and are snatched up eagerly by the black day around her. There is no warmth behind Spike’s back, only shelter from the murderous wind. The journey home passes in a haze of miserable sounds, the whiny slipping of their snow tires on the ice, the wind’s shrill scream circling her and trying to pry her loose from Spike.
*
Ta ta ta dum…It’s Clem’s cheery rap on the door. Faith and Spike are playing poker at the kitchen table. Clem plunks down the big bags of stuff he’s carrying. Suspicious green things are sticking out. Spell supplies, Faith hopes. Could be Christmas dinner though. Clem looks at them and scratches behind his floppy ears.
“Um, guys, why are you wearing blankets? I’m expecting like festive clothing, people! Don’t tell me you didn’t know about that little human custom?”
“It’s washday and we didn’t all have your opportunities, Clem,” Faith says absentmindedly. Spike’s bluffing and she’s gonna take him.
“True,” Clem muses. “My uncle used to have a business near the Sunnydale docks, and he taught me everything about food, and manners, and human customs.”
“Sea food?” Spike says.
Clem hesitates for a moment. “No, more like land food, actually. We catered to special needs. It got too risky coupla years ago, so in 1996 my uncle packed up and moved to a quieter location. I’m actually thinking of opening a place right here, because business is sure to pick up with all the demons that are gonna come in.”
Faith looks up. “They are? Is there gonna be an apocalypse?”
Clem chuckles and starts unpacking his utensils. There are lots of very sharp knives and mountains of things that don’t look much like the foods Faith usually eats. She recognizes some of them from the prison kitchen.
“Oh please, not another apocalypse. You get so tired of them after you’ve seen two or three, and they never get to go through anyway, so why bother to get all excited? It’s just that with the Hellmouth becoming active, I’m expecting a lot of traffic.”
“Thought the Hellmouth was active already, mate?” Spike says. “Watcher told us to come guard it.”
Clem raises several ridges of skin above his eyes. “Were you never paying attention to anything but kittens and Slayers, Spike? The Hellmouth is becoming active because there is a Slayer in town. Her positive energy wakes it up, and it starts calling to demons all over the world.”
Faith can actually feel her jaw drop and snaps it shut with an effort. What the hell? Her presence activates the Hellmouth? She looks at Spike. He’s looking kinda slapped in the face as well. What? Faith mouths to Spike. Spike lifts his shoulders. For the first time ever Faith feels an urgent need to talk to Giles. This can’t be good.
“Here,” Clem offers. “Have a nice piece of celery to chew on while we work.”
Faiths eyes it without enthusiasm. “Aren’t vegetables supposed to be green? This looks kinda pale and bloodless, like a vampire vegetable.”
Clem’s easy chuckle again. His ears wiggle when he does that. “Spike, you remember celery?”
Spike grunts. “Vaguely. Seemed limper back then. I’m sure I remember vegetables need to be boiled a long, long time.”
“Gosh, Spike, you sure don’t keep up with the times, do you? Delia tells us celery is a wonderful crunchy flavorful vegetable that can be eaten raw. I brought dip.”
Clem starts dividing chores. Faith gets to peel potatoes, since she’s done that before, and Spike, who has no cooking skills at all, is salting the turkey skin.
“Prefer my food raw, thank you very much,” Spike mutters.
Clem winks at Faith and offers to leave one leg out for Spike to gnaw on.
“Ta, mate, this dog hasn’t sunk to chicken juice quite yet.”
“Slayer feeding you?”
A shiver runs down Faith’s spine, both hot and cold. Spike is welcome to suck and nibble on every part of her, but not with his real teeth. Yet. Reminds her too much of Angelus and Barry Manilow. It’s the one thing Buffy never gave him, so she does think it over occasionally. She just doesn’t want to tell Spike what it makes her think of, because, hey, Angel, off-limits topic in Casa Spike.
*
To Faith’s great relief there’s no sitting down at the table kind of Christmas dinner. Wouldn’t it have been embarrassing when a vampire and demon knew the right fork to use and she didn’t? They just sit down in front of the Grinch with plates on their lap. She’s dressed up in her nicest black pants and purple corset. Clem is wearing a tux, which she thinks doesn’t suit his coloring, but she doesn’t mention that. Spike wears a black silk shirt and she has helped him put on eyeliner. The black lines around his eyes make him look both younger and more wicked, like a depraved Greek statue. His shirt hangs open and shows a smooth expanse of creamy white flesh. She hopes Clem won’t hang around until all hours; she wants to lap up that cream from between the black chocolate layers.
The appetizers are crusty shellfish which require a lot of carefully calculated violence to open. Inside there is a bit of gray snot. Spike feeds Faith one of the translucent Jello creatures. It doesn’t do all that much for her, but she’s been in an all-woman prison long enough to understand why Spike really digs the taste.
After the disastrous fish course, where even the cook himself doesn’t manage more than a token bite of the flaky gray-white flesh, Clem doles out a heap of potatoes and a thick meaty sauce. It’s like the three bears, and only Goldilocks is missing. Clem a whole big heap, Faith a middling big heap and Spike a token bit so he won’t feel left out. Faith wants to take a bite but Spike grabs her wrist and asks Clem what kind of meat is in it.
“Hey,” Clem says, affronted. “Spike, you know I wouldn’t…”
“No, no, okay,” Spike says. “Just checking.”
Faith takes a careful bite, and it tastes just like Thai pork. Very nice. If she forgets about the fish adventure, Clem sure can cook, even if his taste in movies is doubtful. After the Grinch comes White Christmas accompanied by turkey, but Faith doesn’t really approve of the combination. The turkey isn’t fascinating enough to make her sit through Bing Crosby, but Spike and Clem know all the words and have a great time. She sloshes more red wine in her glass. She’s more a beer kind of girl, but it does go well with dinner, she decides.
The guys take pity on her and put in Matrix Two. She’s seen it but it’s still cool. That’s more like it. She hardly even notices when ice cream is spooned into her mouth by Spike, on whose lap she’s sitting, she’s concentrating so hard on memorizing the moves. That’s some fighting. She and Spike should try some of these leaps and turns, they’re really awesome. In fact, she’s going to try them right now. She shoves aside the coffee table and leans backwards like Keanu. He must have more muscles than she, because no matter what she tries, she falls ass backwards on the chartreuse carpet.
Spike is laughing so hard his eyeliner is running. It looks even better on him. “It’s done with wires, sweetheart,” he says.
This is a blow for Faith. How is a Slayer to compete against wire? She thinks a bit. And Charlie’s Angels? Them too. That’s too bad, because she really likes Lucy Liu.
Spike and Clem prefer Cameron Diaz. Faith snorts.
“Guys always go for blondes,” she says. It’s not fair.
“I go for you, don’t I?” Spike says.
She crawls over to him, because the thought of standing up makes her dizzy. His lap welcomes her with open arms and she hides her hot buzzing face in his cool neck.
“Um, hi,” a sweet female voice says hesitantly. Spikes’ hands unclasp her and then grip her a little bit too tightly. Faith lifts her reeling head and sees a girl sitting in the chair they never use because its springs are faulty. She’s smiling shyly at them and fiddles nervously with her hands in her ample shocking pink lap. Her oriental gold-edged skirt hangs down prettily, but she doesn’t seem to dent the cushions the way she should. Her face tugs a bit at Faith’s memory strings, but she can’t reach the right hiding place in her mind right now.
“Tara?” Spike says.
“Hi, Tara,” Clem says. “How’s heaven been treating you lately?”
*
Faith peers again at the scrap of paper with the address on it. This must be it, Tara said so. She hadn’t imagined witches to be rich and powerful, but if they live here… At the start of the driveway the snow abruptly ends. There’s isn’t a speck of snow or even mud on its pebbled expanse, and she feels like a troll in her snowboots. The mansion looming up before her is lit from below like a stage. She stares at the way it cuts out the big spangly stars and the frosty clear night sky. There are double stairs leading up to the front door. She can even choose between approaching it with the left hand stairs or the right hand stairs. Left feels better.
Ding dong, the bell hums politely.
Faith waits. She rocks on the balls of her feet. The rich make her nervous. There are no lighted windows on this side of the mansion, so maybe no one’s home. She’s about to sprint off to her loyal bike when she hears footsteps behind the door. It opens smoothly, without a sound.
In the tall door opening stands a small bag lady. A mean looking, sixteen year old bag lady, with birds’ nests in her dark hair and wearing thirteen sweaters. Maybe it’s fashion when they’re cashmere?
The layered girl says nothing, just stares at Faith, who starts to feel as if she has two noses. She notices there are real birds fretting and pacing in the girl’s hair.
Faith clears her throat. “Um, I don’t know your name, but…”
The intensity of the air between them doubles. “There’s no one here that …” the girl starts, but then checks herself and stares extra hard at Faith. “You’re not from the library, are you? You subpoenaing me because my books are late or what?”
Faith wishes she’d thought this over better. Or brought Clem or something. “Um, no, but a friend of mine detected your use of magic, and we thought you might like to talk to people who deal with that kind of thing on a daily basis.”
The girl barks brief laughter. “Huh. A self help group for delusional witches? No thanks. I’ll deal with my peculiarities on my own terms.”
She must be a witch, she uses words like Willow used to.
“Not a self help group. We fight demons and vampires, mostly. We’re kind of peace keepers.”
The girl stares. Her eyes are an intense violet color that seek a hole in Faith’s skull to sneak in and wreak havoc. Faith takes a step back. She prefers dealing with demons, at least she knows she could kill them without a thought if need be.
“You believe in demons? And in witchcraft?”
Faith nods.
The girl motions with her hand and intones, “Incende!”
Faith jumps off the landing with a shout. There’s a wall of roaring orange fire between her and the girl. Whoa, Willow, eat your heart out. This girl has power. Faith feels her cheeks unexpectedly stretching with a big smile. Tara was right. She could be a valuable member of their team.
“Hey! You coming to meet the demon and the vampire?”
The flames bank. The girl steps over them and leans on the balustrade. The roosting birds in her hair, robins, Faith thinks, twitter agitatedly. “You still here? Not scared off yet?”
“Aw, girl,” Faith says, “I used to work with this Wicca who nearly destroyed the world two years ago, until a friend talked her out of it. So, I think your flames are kinda cool, and we could use ‘em.”
There is silence. The girl pads softly down on felt slippers, staring at Faith with puzzled eyes.
“Well. Okay. Show me the vampire and the demon. Just one?”
Faith slings an arm around her.
“DarkStarPrincess?”
“Please! That’s just my web-ID. Morgan Vanderbilt.”
“Okay, Morgan, there’s tons of demons here, and more coming in every day coz of me and the Hellmouth.”
“Hellmouth? And what about you?”
“I’m the Slayer. I’ll explain later. The guys you’re gonna meet are a friendly demon and a souled vampire. And a former witch.”
“How do I know they’re not gonna eat me?”
Faith is starting to like her. “Good question. Feel the heartbeat,” she says, taking the girls hands and thrusting it under her sweater.
Morgan squeaks and jumps a foot away from Faith. She looks like she’d like to have jumped farther, but isn’t athletic enough to pull it off.
“I’m not too comfortable with touching people,” she says threateningly.
Faith kinda got that. “Abused as a child?” she asks. “Me too.”
Morgan stares at Faith’s black leather. “Yeah,” she says doubtfully. “So what did you do, become a hooker or something?”
“Hey,” Faith says. Miss Seventeen Sweaters should watch it with the sassiness. It’s just her look, okay.
“Here, you can use this football helmet,” Faith says. Spike sent it specially, saying he knows human beings are fragile.
Morgan shakes her head and points at the birds. “Don’t wanna squash them. I’ll wear a small force field.”
Faith, Morgan, the birds and the force field climb on the bike. Morgan’s legs are so short they stick out to the side like in a child’s drawing.
*
In Willy’s bar Faith takes Morgan to their regular table. Clem and Spike are sitting huddled over their beers. Someone’s joined them, a small dark-haired woman. Girls are always hitting on Spike. Faith pays it no attention.
“Hey guys,” Faith says. “This is Morgan.”
Clem and Spike say ‘hi’ in subdued voices. They don’t make a move to introduce their guest to Faith, which puzzles her for a moment. Then the girl lifts a tearstained face and wanly says, “Hi Faith.” It’s Kennedy.
“Hey, Ken,” Faith says automatically. Huh. What’s she doing here? Cleveland’s already got a slayer, thank you. She almost sits down on the chair Spike got for her, but he jerks his head to remind her of Morgan, who’s motionless, birds screeching and flapping around her head, her muddy designer sneakers practically growing roots as she stares at Clem. And him wearing his friendly face, too. Faith sighs. This whole responsibility ‘n leadership thing’s not exactly her natural mode. She walks back over to Morgan. One of the tiny birds makes a threatening dive at Clem’s head.
“Morgan, get that bird of yours back,” Faith says. “What’s he gonna do, bomb the monster with his eggs?”
Morgan grabs her arms with scared black talons and hisses, “What is that? Is that an alien from outer space?”
“Morgan, meet Clem. He’s a demon, but he’s okay. We don’t kill him and he helps us. The guy with the bleach job is Spike, my boyfriend. He’s a vampire, like I told you. But he’s good too, and he’s got a soul. This is Kennedy. Kennedy is also a Slayer, though generally there is only one per town,” she adds pointedly.
Kennedy opens her mouth to say something, but Spike puts his hand on her forearm and she quiets. That’s new. This is Kennedy, right? The girl who would have staked Spike in a second if Buffy hadn’t been looking?
“Morgan’s the witch Tara said we should look up,” Faith continues desperately, now that everyone is silent and looking at her. The bird is still doing reconnaissance flights above Clem’s head. “Maybe she can help us, she’s as powerful as Willow.”
Kennedy bursts into tears. Oh. So the redhead finally kicked the pushy little bitch out, huh? Good on her.
Morgan still isn’t budging. Faith wants to shove her over to the table, so she can sit down and give Ken a hug, but she refrains from doing that and takes a frayed orange cuff, pulling at it gently.
“I’m not walking past that!” Morgan whispers squeakily. Is she talking about the Fyarl on the left or the necking – as in sipping from each other’s gaping neck wounds- vampire couple on the right?
Clem holds his flaky hand in the air and the little spitfire descends on it with wavery tweets and flutters. Morgan gasps softly near Faith’s ear. Clem slowly brings his other paw closer to the robin and deposits a tiny crumb on the marbled pink folds of his palm. The bird hops around it twice in nervous little circles and then pecks. Its tiny orange throat works infinitesimally; it searches briefly for more and then returns to base.
Morgan’s hand rises slowly above her head, her eyes never leaving the smiling Clem. It’s too bad that his smile, while well-intentioned, doesn’t make him look less scary. The bird rubs its head against Morgan’s finger. The diminutive witch sighs and walks determinedly to the table, where she plunks down next to Spike.
“Okay,” she says, her voice small but determined. “Tell me what you guys do and what you need me for.”
Spike smiles at her and holds out his hand. Morgan takes it. “Hi, I’m Spike.”
“Your hand is cold. Are you really a vampire?”
Faith holds her breath as she slides in next to Kennedy. She doesn’t think it would be a good idea for Spike to prove that right now. He doesn’t. Instead, he just nods. “Really. Show you some other time.”
“Maybe I can tell you a little more,” Tara’s voice says from behind Faith.
Faith starts. As a Slayer she’s so used to knowing when somebody’s behind her that Tara unnerves her when she does this, being ghostly and not moving a molecule of air, or rustling her immaterial clothes. Otherwise, she’s the sweetest, gentlest person Faith’s ever met, and she wishes she’d known someone like that earlier.
Morgan doesn’t notice, Faith thinks, because she says, “Hi! I’m Morgan. You?”
“Tara. I used to be a witch, too. Nowadays I help Faith with stuff.” Tara smiles sweetly at the younger girl, who relaxes a bit at hearing her low, diffident voice.
Faith sinks back in her seat gratefully. Dear Tara, who knows she hates doing exposition and stuff like that. She squeezes Kennedy’s shoulder while Tara is talking, and has a nice stare at Spike, who’s looking particularly lush and finely honed next to the untidy fraying trash bag shape that is Morgan. He’s tipped his chair backwards, in that way of his, balancing it on two legs, his big hands laced on his black Lycra stomach. His pinkies make a one-way sign straight at his crotch. Faith knows it’s a good thing their team is expanding, but she would really like to be sitting with Spike on the couch right now, she’d follow his directions faithfully. The taste of Spike, combined with a swallow of beer now and then is a combination she’s particularly fond of, and Spike says he likes the beer’s fizz against his exposed head. She can see Spike is not noticing her gaze, his eyes are miles away. Faith doesn’t want to know what he’s thinking about and wrenches her attention back to Tara.
Willy walks by and swipes Tara’s stool for a more physically enabled customer. Tara doesn’t notice, but Morgan does. Her birds explode in a cloud of browney grey wings and Spike lifts his hands reflexively to keep them out of his eyes. It does look kinda weird, Tara sweetly and earnestly talking on, floating in mid air, her ghostly ample butt denting just as if the stool were still there.
Faith decides to help Morgan out. “Tara, baby, you need to add a stool to your outfit. And I guess you forgot to mention to Morgan why exactly we need a second witch.”
Tara mends her appearance and scrunches up her forehead at Morgan. “I’m sorry, sweetie, she says,” I should have mentioned that I’m a ghost. No more witchy powers for me.”
Morgan is breathing rapidly. Spike does a thing with his hand in the air at Willy and within seconds a shot glass full of transparent stuff appears. Morgan downs it without blinking an eye. Faith doesn’t mention under-ageness and bar licenses. She has no clue how Willy pulls this off, and if someone high up in Cleveland politics, like the mayor or something, is a demon, she really doesn’t want to know. Her world view has taken more than enough beatings; she’s keeping it in a sheltered spot these days.
Tara goes on, with Spike and Clem helping out occasionally. Faith tries to keep up with the flow of the conversation for a few seconds, but as it’s the past and theory, she just floats along.
She turns to Kennedy, who’s toying with her beer with unseeing eyes.
“You need a place to stay?” Faith says softly to Kennedy.
Ken shakes her head. “No, I’m fine, staying at the Holiday Inn near the airport. Just wanna hang with your gang for a bit until I’ve figured out what to do with myself.”
Faith’s heart sinks. Her posse is expanding at an alarming rate. And they really don’t need two slayers.
“You could ask Giles to give you your own territory.”
“Yeah,” Kennedy mumbles, with obvious lack of enthusiasm.
Faith hides a sigh and takes a swallow of beer. Check. Add one extra Slayer to the mix, complete with uncongenial personality. She’ll have to think of something, like dividing all of Cleveland in two parts, and then Kennedy can slay in the North and she in the South.
*
Faith looks over her little troupe, or what she can see of it in the erratic moonlight. Kennedy is looking very business-like, patrolling their perimeter, watched by a bemused Clem and Spike, who are making jokes about her state of readiness. This is not Sunnydale as besieged by the First; this is just chilly empty Cleveland, where the vamps are still innocent and unafraid of mankind, making them easy to slay. Tara is radiant in her bright pink sari, and stands comradely next to a shivering Morgan, who doesn’t look as if she’s having fun yet.
There’s a short drum roll of footsteps, a grunt, and when Faith turns she can see vampire dust drifting to the ground, silvered by moonlight like fairy dust.
“Ken!” she says. This really pisses her off. Trigger happy Kennedy should keep the vamps alive until Morgan has taken a good look at one of them.
“Did you not get what we’re doing here or what?”
“Hey! He came at me too fast not to stake them,” Kennedy replies defensively and turns her head away.
Oh shit, she’s not crying, is she? Yeah, she is. Even if the scolding is deserved, Faith kinda gets that Ken might be feeling a little tender after the break-up. She debates going up to her. No, she decides, Morgan is her priority tonight. Ken’s a Slayer, and older than Morgan, and she’ll just have to deal. She can’t be mom to everyone here. She still can’t really grasp that she’s doing this. And when exactly did she agree to the group huggy thing? Spike may think having a team will keep her alive longer, but if she’s gonna feel this irritated and overstretched for the rest of her life she’ll pass, thank you very much.
Her neck hair stands up straight, sending tingly messages skittering to her fingertips. Good, another one. She goes to stand next to Morgan, scattering fake giggles around like Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs. Morgan stares at her as if she’s gone insane.
“A vamp at ten o’clock,” she whispers. “Act human. Feminine and giggly, they like that.”
The vamp jumps out from behind a tree, his big canines on full display, arms high and wide. He roars. His eyes are yellow. He skids to a halt when he takes in Faith and Tara’s lack of prey-like movement or screaming and sniffs.
“You’re not…no, you’re meat. Lemme…”
The world is robbed of his next words, as Faith whips out her stake and drives it into his heart, stepping neatly aside so Morgan can get a full view of the staking and dusting process.
The moon has ventured out only the skimpiest little sliver of herself on this cold night, so there isn’t much light. The dark blue of the sky overhead is tinged with city purple at the edges. Cleveland style intrudes even on the color of heaven.
Faith turns to Morgan. “Didya get a good look?”
Morgan nods faintly. She makes the mistake of trying to grab at Tara for support and almost falls.
“I saw, I believed, I nearly fainted. I want you to take me home now.”
Faith hesitates. Patrol beckons, and she doesn’t want to give that Kennedy free rein on her turf. Maybe she can ask Clem? Clem and Spike are still kidding around. There are no vampires or demons attacking them, as usual. Without Faith they’d have no fun at all, poor things. Morgan fastens onto her jacket and the violet eyes double in intensity.
“I want you to take me home. Not one of the monsters.”
Faith mulls on this as they slog back to the bike through the snow. “Did you get that I’m a vampire Slayer? And Ken there too?” she says. “Vampire Slayers are a little bit monsters themselves, you know.”
Morgan’s path suddenly takes her a bit further away from Faith. “Do you have a creepy face too, like the vampires?”
“No. My monster is invisible. I mean, it’s just the part that gives me super strength and dreams and so on.”
Morgan perks up a little. “What kind of dreams?”
“Vision dreams, like warnings of things that might go down.”
“Cool!”
“Yeah. But now that you mention it, I haven’t had any for a long time,” Faith says.
“Well, I mean, it’s none of my business, of course, but it does seem kind of strange that you are a Vampire Slayer and your boyfriend is a vampire,” Morgan says.
“Huh. Ya think that’s the cause?” Faith asks. Obviously Morgan is a sharp brain that goes on thinking busily even if she’s scared. “I don’t know. Could be.”
“And the other monster? I guess the vampire sucks blood like in the movies, but what does the wrinkly one eat?”
“Cheetos, mostly,” Faith says with a grin. “And he’s very keen on having me eat Granola type stuff.”
Morgan looks at her if she’s stupid or insane or both. “Yeah, right. That’s what you’ve seen him eat. But what does he really eat, what was his diet before there were Cheetos?”
Yep, she’s a thinker. Faith has no clue, but she figures if Morgan thinks up the questions, it’s her job to find the answers. The rotund little shape next to her is fighting bravely with the knee-deep snow; her birds are keeping each other warm on their nest and Faith feels a surge of unexpected affection.
“Why don’t you come around tomorrow,” Faith says, “and I’ll show you the fat ancient books that you and my Watcher can have fun with together. Also, Willow used to do a lot of web research. You handy with the Internet?”
Morgan casts her eyes to heaven. “Duh. I spend most of my time AIMing with my Wiccan friends, what do you think?”
Faith doesn’t. She feels, mostly. And right now she feels very much like a grandmother who delicately asks her granddaughter about a first kiss and gets an answer back full of pills and condoms.
She drops the witch off at the start of her half-a-mile driveway. Morgan slides off, adjusts the nest and waves a thick mitt at her, unraveling cashmere flapping around it.
“That was fun. See ya tomorrow!”
She trudges off, a tiny bundle of rags on short legs, accompanied by sleepy bird tweets. Faith guesses they have a new witch on the team.