Spike’s booted feet hit the chamber’s floor with a resounding thud. The impact sent years worth of dust spiraling up around his legs. Light shone into the cavern from the world above, but the rest of the area was darker than a Bhravian breeding pit. His face shifted and golden eyes attempted to pierce the blackness. No such luck. The tingling down the back of his neck told him that the gloom was not completely natural. There was something else too, a feeling not unlike being watched, and the vampire could feel strong magic somewhere in the room. Then again, it could just be the building. He had been on edge ever since he had stepped through the front door. Even so, when nothing attacked him after a few moments, he called back to his two partners in crime.
“All clear!”
The ringing echo of his shout had barely started to fade when a red streak, barely visible in the thick gloom, darted through the hole in the ceiling and dove for the vampire. He grinned indulgently at the newcomer as the little beast wheeled around his head before finally coming to rest on his shoulder.
“Sense anything, little one?” he asked, absently stroking the winged serpent’s spine feathers.
A little puff of air and the rustling of feathers were Meret’s responses, but Spike could read them as easily as if she had spoken words aloud.
“Yeah, me too. Wonder what we’ve found this time.” He stepped out of the light, eyes glowing, and waited. The darkness seemed less oppressive once he was standing in it, and his eyes soon started to adjust. Many things had changed since his entrepreneurial enterprises had been exposed to the Scoobies, but the last of his companions had to be the best of the fringe benefits.
“You out of the way?” Buffy called from the hole in the cavern’s ceiling.
“As if I didn’t learn my lesson the first time,” he replied. And he had. The knot on the back of his head had healed, but the memory was still there. Some of their equipment was heavy, and the slayer had a habit of not looking where she threw things.
“Very funny.”
A duffel bag, stuffed to bursting with supplies, fell through the hole in the ceiling. It was followed in short order by a rope and the slayer herself, dressed in worn blue jeans and a UCSD tank top: her usual looting gear. Her hair was pulled into a sloppy pony tail and her face sported a smear of dirt down one cheek, but the vampire barely noticed such distractions. All he saw was the grace of her movements, the strength hidden in her slight form as she descended the rope with practiced ease. Part of him was relieved to know that his frank admiration was well hidden by the darkness around him, even if Meret’s soft echo of his thoughts would easily give him away if the slayer was “listening.”
After the incident with the warlock, and Buffy’s subsequent discovery of his extracurricular fundraising, she had insisted on joining him. Well, actually she had tried to give the money from her bank account back to him, and had screamed like a banshee when Dawn started mysteriously acquiring new shoes and groceries, before finally compromising with the vampire. After a great deal of yelling and more than a few threats of physical violence, it was decided that Dawn would do research on new prospects while Buffy and Spike would share field duty. Their earnings were split three ways, and if Dawn still occasionally showed up with new jewelry or inexplicable spending cash, the slayer simply pretended not to notice.
And Meret? Well, she was Meret: empathic scourge of hot wings and reptilian treasure hunter extraordinaire.
There had been surprisingly little grumbling from the Scoobies, even after the three found a cache of old Spanish coins, which had netted them a fair commission from the Sunnydale Museum of Natural History. Perhaps it had something to do with their realization that the vampire’s money-making schemes really involved glorified slaying, sewer trotting, weed picking, and other less than glamorous tasks. Perhaps it was the fact that they were able to keep tabs on the vampire in the most oblique of ways through Meret, a sore spot for the vampire. Oh, they still watched the growing relationship between the slayer and the vampire very closely, but none of them volunteered to baby-sit the pair on their ventures.
Spike and Buffy had fallen into an easy camaraderie ever since he had nearly died saving Dawn, and the rest of Sunnydale for that matter, from a magically inclined mercenary, but their dynamic was so unfamiliar, their situation so odd that it was Spike, for once, who had hidden behind barriers of his own construction.
Through Meret, Buffy knew everything about Spike’s moods and disposition, especially his feelings for her. Even though the vampire had always worn his heart on his sleeve, the situation was simply too raw. He had nearly died a scant few weeks before, and it had shaken him with the knowledge of his own fragility. Brought back from the brink by a girl who herself had been dead until recently, Spike found himself thrown into an awkward friendship with the entire Scooby gang and a confusing partnership with a slayer who bore his marks on her wrist.
Buffy, for her part, was certainly recovering from her abortive stay in heaven, but she still had a long way to go. Held in check by his own emotional confusion and vulnerability, Spike was scared to do much beyond offering her the occasional gift via Meret and an understanding ear. Oh, he still loved her, perhaps more now than ever, but he had never before felt so very exposed. In the dark predawn hours when even the most nocturnal of humans tended to leave the true denizens of the night in peace, Spike could admit to himself that he was afraid.
All of his masks: his sarcasm, his bravado, his questionable ability to hide his strong emotions, all were stripped away now that Meret had entered his life. He loved the coatl fiercely, but he was terrified of her effect on his relationship with the slayer. Buffy was getting a first-hand education on a subject that Spike had spent the last one hundred and twenty years attempting to destroy, hide, or deny: the true nature of William the Bloody Awful Poet.
Over the past month, Buffy and Spike had grown closer, but never quite as close as the vampire would have wanted. Her continued acceptance of his small gifts and attentions gave him hope, but even those crumbs weren’t enough to shake him out of his emotional paralysis. And so they danced around each other at arm’s length, a holding pattern that earned rolled eyes and “helpful” advice from Dawn, Tara, and Anya.
Apparently unaware of the vampire’s contemplations, Buffy finally dropped the last few feet, landing in the dark cavern.
“Think you’ll need the witches’ latest present, love,” Spike called from his vantage in the darkness.
Buffy squinted in his direction, her human eyes unable to pierce the dark veil. “Magic huh? Dawn owes me two nights of dish detail.” She paused. “Not to sound like a total ditz, but where are you?”
The vampire chuckled, letting his feature slip back into human guise and stepping back into the ring of faint light. “Won’t let me out of your sight, huh? Knew I was hot, slayer, but this is overkill.”
One perfectly groomed eyebrow arched in response. “I just don’t want to have to carry you back to Giles’ again because you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”
Never gonna let me forget that, are you?
“Hey! How was I supposed to know it was magic?”
“Spike, it was a green, glowing statue of a scaly chicken.”
“But I didn’t feel anything!”
“I don’t care if you got any tinglies or not! It was soooo obviously magic that it wasn’t even funny. Plus? It moved.”
“It did not!”
“Did too! I saw it! And what kind of vampire doesn’t recognize a basinet when he sees one? Even Xander knew what it was.”
“You mean a basilisk love, or is Anya not tellin’ us something?” The banter was nice, familiar. It was almost enough to make him forget where they were. Almost.
It was almost enough to convince Spike that he had a chance with her. Almost.
“Whatever. The point is you suck.”
“Only if you ask nicely. And can we please get on with the lootin’ and whatnot? You don’t want to miss the big send off, and I don’t want to listen to you whine if you do.”
“Fine,” she groused. “Just try not to turn your whole side into stone this time. You’re heavy enough already.”
While the slayer dug around in their bag, Spike slipped into the darkness again to sulk. Meret rubbed her head against his cheek, but her conciliatory gesture was ruined by the wide streak of amusement coloring her thoughts. Some things never changed, and the women in Spike’s life, be they human, vampire, or coatl, had a knack for ganging up on him. The fact that Buffy was right, and he should have known better than to touch that figurine three nights ago only made him more irritable. He flexed his left hand subconsciously, but Willow’s potion had done the trick. He would always bet on Red over a cockatrice anyway.
A soft glow drew the vampire’s eyes back to the center of the room and the slayer. She had finally found the large crystal Tara and Willow had spent so many hours working to create. Under normal conditions it was perfectly clear, but when introduced to magic it glowed. The color and intensity indicated the type and strength of the magic involved. A side benefit was that the conjured light countered the unnatural darkness and the cavern was soon bathed in a warm yellow glow.
“Yellow’s for illusion, right?”
“Yuh huh.” Buffy was looking around the room, turning slowly with the crystal in front of her. When she turned towards Spike, the crystal swirled with hints of green, the protection spell Willow and Tara had put on Meret probably, and deep flashes of red. “Wait a sec. Where’s the red coming from?”
Red was the color of summoning and possession. Red was not a good sign.
Spike turned around to see what was behind him and came face to face with an age-darkened skeleton, mouth hanging open in a rictus, silent scream. Much to his chagrin, the vampire leapt back with a startled curse. Even as he heard Buffy step into the darkness behind him, he could not take his eyes off of the body.
It was old. Time had erased any trace of flesh or hint of smell. The skeleton stood against the wall, cradling a small, iron jar, lidded and rusty, in its cupped hands. Dust and cobwebs covered the bones, but underneath the accumulation of so many years, Spike could see what held the skeleton in its upright posture. A web of fine metal filaments had been wrapped around the body, anchoring it to the wall. The strands did not look strong enough to support the skeleton’s weight, but the bright glimmer of the net, free of any tarnish or rust, attested to its unnatural state.
The jar itself looked ordinary enough, but the sensation that had been crawling up and down Spike’s neck since he had entered the room seemed stronger when he looked at it. Meret’s reaction was somewhat more telling. Her coils tightened around his neck, strong enough to choke him had he been human. Mentally, she was tense and fearful, feelings Spike did not usually ascribe to the little coatl on their treasure hunting missions. Something was certainly off.
Buffy came up to his side, crystal leading the way and stopped, left arm barely brushing his right. If she noticed the light contact, she did not show it, but Spike’s body sang in reaction. It took a great force of will to not lean into her touch.
When the slayer brought the crystal closer to the little iron jar, two things happened at once: Meret hissed in warning and the crystal itself flared bright red before cracking down the middle. Acting on instinct, Spike grabbed the slayer and threw both of them as far away from the skeleton as he could. They landed heavily, Meret taking flight and hissing her displeasure at the rough treatment, and rolled with the impact. Both the vampire and the slayer leapt to their feet, crouched and ready in the small circle of light, but the room was as silent as it ever had been.
“Well, that was unexpected,” said Spike, voice dark and sarcastic after a few moments.
The room was supposed to be a hidden treasure cache of the Morelock family, a clan of necromancers that had gravitated to the Hellmouth soon after Sunnydale had been founded. The last of the family line had died in the seventies, the victim of a botched spell, and Dawn found a few records stating that they had hidden gold, maybe a few jewels or a rusty set of armor beneath the stone floor of their basement. She had certainly failed to mention a netted, ancient skeleton with what seemed for all the world like bottled evil held tightly in its bony hands.
“So slayer, broken red crystal plus Meret panicking equals a call to Ripper, right? So is it gonna be liquor, watcher, then airport, or perhaps watcher, then liquor, then airport?”
“Giles then airport. Skip the booze.”
Spike’s voice was jokingly resigned, “Ruin all my fun.” He gestured back into the darkness. “What’re we gonna do about that… whatever the hell it is?”
“Do you want to pick it up?” Buffy asked lightly.
The vampire shuddered and slid his hands, particularly his left one, deep into his coat pockets. “Ladies first.”
“Yeah… no.” The slayer dipped to deposit the broken crystal in the bag and zipped it closed. “We’ll bring Giles back, and he can figure out what to do with it.”
“Just gonna leave it here for any lurkin’ baddie to find?”
“You said this place is empty because demons can still smell…” she must have caught site of his darkening features, because she paused and amended what Spike knew she had been going to say, “the last owner of the building. That’ll keep them out one more night, don’tcha think?”
Spike only shrugged. He really wasn’t in the mood to discuss the house’s last resident in that moment, or any of the other related memories the building had for him. “You’re the slayer,” he said tightly before shouldering the bag at Buffy’s feet and grabbing a hold of the rope. The climb was easily accomplished, and the vampire soon found himself offering the slayer a hand over the threshold.
Spike hid the ropes and bag in a corner of the basement while Buffy replaced the false panel that had hidden the room’s entrance. They worked efficiently and discreetly, locking up doors, turning off lights, and covering their tracks so that when they did leave the Crawford Street mansion a few minutes later, only the most attentive of observers would have noticed their passing.