Suzanne was well aware that binding herself to a Greek goddess, even one such as Psyche, was unpredictable to say the very least. Yet in spite of all the risks, this seemed like the only logical step to take, since the mortality rate of the “magically inclined” Sunnydale shop owners was rivaled only by that of the fruit fly.
The plan was simple. After securing her essence to the goddess of souls and drinking the nectar of the gods, she’d achieve immortality. Easy peasy.
After gathering and placing all that was needed on the makeshift altar, she took several deep, cleansing breaths to help clear her mind before proceeding.
She arranged and lit the three ritual white candles, then placed each herb at the bottom of the stone pestle in the order the spell dictated. Taking the heavy mortar in hand, she ground the herbs together, making a fine powder. Once satisfied with the consistency, she steadily poured the mixture into the ceremonial sea-blue glass bowl that held the final ingredient, golden Ichor.
As the powder slowly dissolved into the viscous liquid, her earlier irritation with Larry, that shyster of a warlock who totally overcharged her, bubbled up slightly. She let this anger fester for a moment before pushing it aside and fully focused on the task at hand.
This spell was very specific, not only in the preparations, but also in one’s positioning and mindset during the incantation.
The spell called for her to face east while the sun was at its highest point in the midday sky. Since her apartment was in the basement and faced west, her shop was the only place this could be done. Second, she had to be pure of heart and willing to accept the binding.
So far, so good. Now came the tricky part.
Over the last week, she’d been listening to CDs and watching videos to help her learn Greek. Even though she knew this was a very difficult language to learn and master, especially in such a short period of time, it was critical for her to get it right. One mispronunciation during the spell and she could be binding herself to the table for all she knew!
Suzanne pulled the incantation from the bodice of her dress. She then laid the worn piece of parchment next to the ceremonial bowl. With another cleansing breath, she out stretched her arms, reaching skyward as she began chanting.
“Ω, Ψυχή, θεά της ψυχής, σε παρακαλώ χάρισε μου το δώρο να συνδέσω το είναι μου μαζί σου. Ω, Ψυχή, σε παρακαλώ άκου την έκκληση μου, να διατηρήσεις την καρδιά μου αγνή, να με κρατήσεις ασφαλή. Σε παρακαλώ, Ψυχή, άκου την έκκληση μου—”1
Before she could utter the final word needed to complete the spell, the small brass bell hanging over the door jingled, breaking her from her trance-like state.
The customer, a middle-aged woman, who was most likely a housewife trying to spice up her love-life, gave her a tentative smile before heading over to the wall and perusing the merchandise lining the shelves.
Suzanne suppressed her irritation and plastering on her best, “Blessed Be, how may I help you?” smile as she approached the customer. After having a ten-minute discussion on the properties and differences between sandalwood and cedar, the woman finally decided on a package of ten sandalwood incense sticks and a simple wooden holder.
After ringing up her purchase, Suzanne called out her standard farewell of, “I know you’ll enjoy that.” before quickly rounding the counter and heading back to the task at hand. Before making it half way across the room, she heard stirring at the rear of the store that immediately grabbed her attention.
With tentative steps, Suzanne walked toward the back entrance. In the shadows of the last wall-to-ceiling shelf, stood a man dressed in all black and a leather duster with a crown of bleached hair. He was muttering to himself while impatiently and rather roughly, flipping the pages of a spell book.
She could feel his anger rolling off him in overpowering waves. When she asked if she could help, he claimed he wanted a curse, one complete with painful disfigurements.
She needed him to leave as soon as possible. His negative energy could easily ruin her entire spell, but before she could send him away, the distinctive jingle of another customer’s arrival sounded.
With a few departing words to this angry man, Suzanne approached her new customer, a timid, young Wicca. She immediately felt the woman’s pure, white energy radiating off her. Suzanne hoped this woman’s positivity balanced out the negativity now plaguing the room.
With her standard greeting and a smile, Suzanne spoke with the young witch to find out what she needed. Luckily, after the woman read her short list of items, it didn’t take Suzanne long to figure out what kind of spell she wanted—a love spell.
After Suzanne tried to break the tension by teasing the other woman by requesting to see her ID for this type of spell, they discussed the necessary ingredients. When the young witch clarified she actually wanted a delust spell, Suzanne gave her a quick warning before collecting the supplies, ringing her up, and sending her on her way.
Now I just have to get rid of Mr. Negativity.
With a deep breath, Suzanne marched to the back of the store, hoping the man had found what he was looking for and would leave.
Hopefully, he got bored and was gone already .
Unfortunately, he was still where she had left him. Despite how uncomfortable this man made her feel, Suzanne tried her best to make her voice sound cheerful.
“So, did you find a spell book?”
“Forget the book.”
She didn’t have time to react to the man’s grumbled response before his face distorted, and he plunged his fangs into her throat, feeding ferociously.
As she felt her life’s blood draining away, her heart beat slowing and soul slipping from her body, her last thought was,
If only…
The Following Monday Night
Something was bloody wrong!
Early tonight Spike had finally entered Honduras and it still was taking everything he had to not turn his Desoto around and head back to California or more specifically, Sunnydale.
He thought with each mile he got closer to his beloved Drusilla, he’d be sporting constant wood, and just itchin’ for a good rough and tumble. Instead, ever since he’d left SunnyD, he’d been softer than a bloody grape.
He’d stopped in some small no-name town to wet his whistle with cheap liquor and even cheaper local cuisine. He figured feasting on some little hot mujerzuela would put a spring back in his step—and his cock.
Spike entered some hole-in-the-wall cantina, sidled up to the bar, and laid a handful of pesos, that he’d stripped off the evening’s first Happy Meal, down on the counter.
“Dame una botella de Tequila, déjala, y que no se vacíe, compadre.”
(“Give me a bottle of Tequila, leave it, and keep them coming, mate.”)
The sweaty heavy-set bartender eyed Spike as he scratched at his sizeable gut that was barely covered by a filthy, tattered wife-beater. With a snort and keeping his eyes trained on Spike, he dropped his hand below the lip of the bar, produced a bottle of Tequila and a shot glass, then slammed them both down on the wooden surface.
Spike nodded his thanks, grabbed the bottle by the neck, unscrewed the cap with a twist of his wrist, and drank straight from the bottle. In one long swallow, he downed every drop of amber liquid, relishing the burning from gullet to gut.
The clearly unimpressed bartender removed the first empty bottle from the bar and replaced it with another full one, then moved away to deal with another customer.
Spike unscrewed the cap of the new bottle and poured a healthy swig into the shot glass. He tilted his head back, downing the gut-rotting liquid in one go. He continued this four more times before a feminine purring in his ear interrupted him.
“¿Quieres compañía, gringo?”
(“Want some company, gringo?”)
Spike lowered the shot glass back to the bar and regarded his new company. He’d sensed her long before she made her approach. Her distinctive scent of sweat, rose water, and sex had been making his mouth water since he first stepped into this shite hole. She was a voluptuous, raven-haired puta, and he knew just the type. She’d spread her thighs for a few pesos and enjoy every minute of it.
This little encounter was what he needed to get both his heads back in the game. Just a ‘fuck and feed’ before hitting the road again.
"¿Algún sitio tranquilo al que podamos ir, nene?”
(“Somewhere quiet we can go, baby?”)
Her response to his purred request was a Cheshire cat-like grin as she grabbed his hand and led him outside to an adjacent alley. The dark and dank passage reeked of piss and sex. Thankfully, he didn’t need to breath.
“¿Polvo o mamada, rubito?”
(“Fuck or suck, blondie?”)
Hell, why did he have to choose? He wanted both. Spike loved dually penetrating some skirt with his cock and fangs buried deep and her mingled screams of pleasure and pain ringing in his ears.
As she lowered his zipper, his demon rose to the forefront. Even though the cramped space offered little light, with golden eyes he saw perfectly. He regarded her for a moment, and then it hit him, everything was all wrong—her hair, her body, her scent—just bleedin’ wrong.
Spike was shaken from his thoughts by her hot hand wrapped around his still limp cock and her nasty, scoffed insult.
“¿Qué clase de hombre de mierda eres tú?¡Quizás lo que te gustan son las pollas!”
(“ What kind of fucking man are you? Maybe you like cock instead!”)
Spike roughly grabbed her by the shoulders, which dislodged her hand, and tugged her closer so she could see him better. Her dark eyes widened and her mouth fell open to release a scream that was instantly silenced by his hand.
“Not a man, puta, and obviously you’re not woman enough to get me off,” Spike growled before lunging and piercing her throat with his fangs.
After draining her dry, he dropped her limp body on the filthy ground. Spike zipped up his fly as he stepped over her discarded form with no regard. Then with fury fueling his steps, he headed back to his car. He slid into the driver’s side, slammed the door shut, and ran his hands through his hair as he seethed with frustration.
The Slayer, it’s all that bitch’s fault. She’s bloody ruined me!
It had to be her. Last time he was in Sunnyhell all drunk and weeping over Drusilla, the Slayer had called him pathetic. In her exact words, he was “a shell of a loser.” Well, she wasn’t wrong.
When he left SunnyD, he had a plan how to woo Dru back. It was a decent plan, but now he realized it wasn’t enough. He needed some bigger. A grand gesture to prove he hadn’t lost his edge.
That’s it!
The only way to go was big—bringing Dru the Slayer’s heart on a silver platter. Once that bitch was dead and buried, Dru would forget all his fuck-ups from last year, and they could start again.
Grinning ear to ear, Spike slid the key into the ignition and turned it, causing the engine to roar to life. He threw the car into drive, popped his favorite, well-worn cassette tape into the player, and peeled out of the cantina’s parking lot, spraying gravel in his wake.
While crooning along with his all-time favorite Ramones song, he turned onto the Pan-American Highway heading north.
Wednesday Morning
Something was very, very wrong.
Buffy stood before her bathroom mirror putting the final touches to her hair. She couldn’t really put her finger on the why or even the how, which made the wrongness even more bothersome. Whatever it was, something just felt off.
It all started a little over a week ago after Spike breezed into Sunnydale for a totally unexpected and completely unwelcomed visit. Actually, that should really tip her off on the why—Spike.
Wasn’t it always that bleached pest’s fault?
He came to town all drunk and pathetic ‘cause Dru had dumped him. Of course Spike blamed Angel, since Dru’s kicking Spike to the curb had nothing to do with him being an 80’s reject who was a complete waste of space and had a major case of verbal diarrhea with absolutely no clue what he was talking about.
Yeah, an 80’s reject who is super hot, has dreamy eyes, and—huh? Where the heck did that come from? Absolutely nothing about Spike is dreamy. And who says dreamy anymore, anyway? Channeling “Teen Beat” much?
She gently shook her head to clear away these crazy thoughts and tried to focus on more important things while she unscrewed the cap of her lip gloss.
Like how her couple-y friends were no longer couples since two people of the couples, who weren’t actually a couple, were caught kissing by the other two. Then to top that all off, she and Angel, even though they weren’t really a couple anymore, were now even less couple-y, since she decided to actually listen to the crap that came out of Spike’s mouth and told Angel they could no longer see each another.
And the cherry on this total crap sundae was the fact that the distance now between Angel and her didn’t bother her as much as she thought it should.
All these things were weighing heavily on her mind over the past week, and it was really starting to make her head feel like a piñata on Cinco de Mayo, without the cool candy and toy surprises inside.
Even after all the previous drama and the fact that everyone was still feeling the sting from their relationship fallouts, this past week had been quiet—actually, too quiet. It was almost unheard of when a Tuesday came and went, and there still was no baddie of the week.
Argh!
Buffy was really getting tired trying to figure out all this. It was time to pass the thought-baton to Giles. He’d figure out what’s what.
With a nod to herself in the mirror, Buffy applied a final coat of gloss, placed the tube in her purse for those much-needed routine touch-ups, and headed back to her room to finish getting ready for another enlightening day at Sunnydale High.
As Buffy slid on her favorite skirt and matching mules, she tried her best to ignore the minor pounding in her head and the major gnawing deep in the pit of her stomach that something was very wrong. With a final glance in her full-length mirror, she headed downstairs with hopes of Giles setting everything right.
Author’s Notes:
Big thanks to Sotia for fixing my Greek translation!
Big thanks to Adrianiling for offering and fixing my Spanish translations!
1. “Oh, Soul, goddess of the soul, please grant me the gift to bind my essence to thee. Oh, Soul, please hear my plea, to keep me pure of heart, to keep me safe from harm. Please Soul hear my plea—”
The clerk from this episode did not have a name. She was only known as “the clerk”. So I called her Suzanne, which is the actress’ name.
Ichor is in Greek mythology. Ichor is the ethereal golden fluid that is the blood of the gods and/or immortals.
“Mujerzuela” means harlot and “puta” means whore.
Teen Beat was a magazine to give girls a chance to drool over their favorite heart-throbs! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Beat
If you are wondering why I wrote, “It was almost unheard of that Tuesday came and went, and there still was no baddie of the week,” the reason is that the next episode after Lover’s Walk is The Wish. The only person/demon that remembered the alternative universe was Anya. So to everyone else, it appeared nothing had happened, ie: all is quiet.
squawks
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!
05/18/17 04:16 am
pj! I remember wishing one of your stories would be finished seriously about a decade ago. Amazing. I just tried an old password I used to use and amazingly got in too. Memories!
pj
03/20/17 01:20 am
10 yrs later, i finally rem my username and password. Pari, you rock. Hope you are well.
Rabbit_moon1
12/23/16 01:12 pm
I donate every month. Please donate to keep this site up!
AudryDaluz1
10/06/16 08:34 am
Great post.
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:45 pm
And anyone else who loves this site, it's worth mentioning there's a nifty little "Donate" option just below the shout box here! ;)
Chrissel
08/31/16 03:43 pm
Just wanted to take a moment to thank Pari and all the mods for maintaining such a great site!