The Sweetest Blossom
by Kari Mouke

Prologue

      Buffy reached a heavy arm across her mate to grab the shrilly ringing telephone.  Normal people were up and around by ten o’clock in the morning.  They weren’t normal; however, neither were they people.  They were vampires.  They were also supernatural detectives of the international variety.  Although their home base was in Sunnydale, California they went wherever business dictated.

      “Hello?” Buffy mumbled sleepily.  This wasn’t the business line.  She could be sleepy sounding if she wanted to.

      “Oniha?” A woman’s voice came over the phone lines.  An old familiar voice.  One Buffy hadn’t heard in two and a half years.  It wasn’t an unkind voice but it sent her to places she’d rather not go.  Lonely places she’d left far behind her.

       “Grace?” Buffy asked.  “What’s wrong?”  Something had to be wrong for the biological mother of the body Buffy wore to be calling her.  They just didn’t have that kind of relationship.  As a matter of fact they didn’t have a relationship at all.

       “Umm, I don’t know how to say this, but you’re haunting the house,” Grace said, getting it all out as quickly as possible.  There was no sense in hesitating.  It was what it was.

          “Excuse me?” Buffy asked, sitting up straight.  The sexy blonde vamp beside her finally rousing, intent on the sound of his mate’s voice.

        “It’s not you, dear, but it is some type of essence of you.  We brought in a Shaman.  The same one that looked at you before.  He said that an evil spirit has inhabited the house,” Grace explained.

    “You think I’m an evil spirit?” Buffy asked, hurt.

    “Oh, no.  Certainly not.  It is the evil spirit that has stirred up your essence.  There are pockets of you all over the house.  It is not the you we saw.  It’s the you, you hid from us.  I did not know how much you were suffering, Oniha.  I’m terribly sorry.  I wish you had shown us.  If you had, perhaps this would not be happening now,” Grace said evenly.  She wasn’t accusing the girl.  Or at least that wasn’t her intention.  It was just that it was terribly difficult to walk into the washroom and discover a small child sobbing her heart out, calling for people Grace had never known and did not know how to find for her.

    “I don’t understand, Grace.  What kind of evil spirit?  Does it have a name?” Buffy asked, ignoring Spike who was starting to pantomime.  Why did people do that when a serious phone conversation came up?  As if she could really listen to Grace, interpret Spike’s arm and facial movements, and form any kind of response to either of them.  Honestly.

    “Old Joe did not know the name.  He only knows that it is malevolent and that it is using the energy you put out with your sorrow to sustain itself.”  Grace’s voice broke.  A tiny sob coming to the surface.  “It’s just so hard, Oniha.  It is breaking my heart, and it is scaring the children.  Your father is taking us all away.  We are packing now.  But Old Joe is worried that if left unchecked the spirit will grow and that it will possibly tap into the essence of who you are now.  He thinks it could hurt you and maybe others.  He said you need to come and fight it.”

    “Did he say how we fight it?” Buffy asked.  She’d written to the birth parents and told them about her current life.  About finding her family again.  She’d given them her phone number and address.  Grace had sent a polite note back saying she was happy that Oniha had finally found her way, but this was the first actual conversation the two women had engaged in.

    “No.  Only that you have to come.  That’s all I know.  Do you want your father to pick you up at the airport?” Grace asked.

    “No.  We’ll be fine.  Is the house open?  Do I need keys?” Buffy asked.

    “The key will be in the usual place, Oniha.  It will always be there for you,” Grace said seriously.  Her heart would never be whole where this lost child was concerned.  This child who would not be comforted by her.  This child who she was told was not hers, but who felt like hers.

    “Thank you, Grace.  That means a lot to me.  My mate and I will be there as soon as possible.  There is something I did not tell you before and I really need to tell you in person.  When Spike and I arrive I’ll call you so we can meet.  Is the cell number the same as before?” Buffy asked.  There was a tightness building up in her chest.  She did not want to go back there.

    “The numbers are the same.  The house, my cell, your father’s cell.  We look forward to seeing you.  The children have missed you, Oniha,” Grace said quietly.

    “I’m sorry, Grace.  We’ll be there soon,” Buffy promised.

    “Alright, dear.  Goodbye.”

    “Goodbye.”  Buffy hung the phone up and threw herself into Spike’s arms, letting the tears fall.

    “Shh… sweetheart.  I caught most of it, but I need to know everything.  You need to calm down and tell me what’s going on?” Spike directed.  He wanted nothing more than to hold her and let her cry it out, but he’d caught the part where something might hurt her and he couldn’t quite get past that.

    “There’s some sort of evil spirit occupying the house where I lived.  It’s using my pain to feed itself, causing some sort of ghost me or something.  I’m not sure,” Buffy told him, sniffling.

    “She said it could hurt you?” Spike prompted.

    “Old Joe doesn’t know.  It maybe could hurt me or others.  Maybe,” Buffy emphasized.

    “So it goes something like this – it’s eating off of the energy you left as a child and once it’s done there it’ll trace the line of energy you put off as Dru dragged you across the country until it finds the real you and starts up its Buffy buffet again,” Spike stated.

    Buffy’s eyes went wide.  “You aren’t just a pretty face, are you?”

    Spike only gave her half a smile.  He felt icy tendrils of dread spread down his arms and legs.  His girl was in danger and he had no clue how to help her.  He reached for the phone.

Chapter 1

    “So this is where you were?” Spike asked.

    Buffy had noticed that he’d been kind of distant.  It was nothing anyone else would pick up on, but she wasn’t anyone else.  She was his mate.  It had started after the phone call he’d made to Wesley.  Buffy was sitting beside him during the entire phone conversation, and she could not account for the way he was acting now.  The plane ride over here had been fraught with tension.  Her worry over returning to the past.  His… whatever it was.

    “Yep.  This is it.  Not home sweet not home,” Buffy mumbled uneasily.  She’d called Grace and Dave the moment she’d gotten off the plane.  They were going to meet them at the restaurant of the hotel they were staying at.  Buffy was debating whether to get a room at the same hotel or whether to provide them all with some distance.

    Spike didn’t reply to her comment.  He was seized with tension.  He’d failed her before.  It was extremely humbling to know she’d gone beyond death just to be with him.  Add to that the whole ‘I was waiting for you to rescue me’ thing, and he was feeling like a complete failure.  Undeserving.  Beneath her.  From the things the mother had said, Spike figured he was about to witness her pain first hand, and he honestly didn’t know how to deal with it.

    Buffy saw the line between his eyebrows.  It had been there for the last sixteen hours.  “Spike?” she said softly.

    “Yeah?” he answered as he maneuvered the rental car in out of traffic.

    “Are you upset with me?” she asked in a small childlike voice.

    Spike looked at her sharply, swerving just a bit as he did so.  “Why the soddin’ hell would I be mad at you?”

    “It’s just that you’ve been kind of ‘not there’,” she explained.

    Spike sighed as he reached to place her hand in his.  “Not you, kitten.  It’s me.  I’m just…  I really hate that I didn’t find you.  That I didn’t know you were here on this planet and needin’ me.  It eats at me.  It’s my greatest regret.  Sometimes I get to thinkin’ about bitty you.  All scared and alone.  Callin’ for your Spike.  I can’t get it out of my mind,” he confessed.

    “Since when?” Buffy asked.  Had this been building over the last couple of years?

    “Since I found out my name was your first word,” Spike said in a choked voice.

    Buffy leaned in, putting her head on his shoulder.  “Oh, baby.  Don’t.  Don’t do this to yourself!  I would live another sixteen years of loneliness if it meant I could have just one moment with you.”  Buffy took a breath to calm herself.  Tears pushed back, she continued, “I am so happy with you, Spike.  Totally and completely happy.  You are my everything.  I don’t regret a thing.  Every tiny detail led me to you, and that’s why I wouldn’t change anything.  I love us.”

    There was a suspicious ‘sniff’ as Spike rubbed at his eyes with his free hand.  “I love us, too,” he said quietly.

    They drove the rest of the way in silence.  Just enjoying one anther.  It might be the last chance they got for awhile.  Spike had told Wesley everything that Grace had said, and that he himself suspected.  Wesley was trying to contact a medicine man he knew of by reputation to see if he could come and give his opinion on the matter.  The man was also a professor at a University so he couldn’t just drop everything and come.  Somehow telling your superiors that you were leaving to check out an evil spirit just didn’t rate as a believable emergency.

    “This the place?” Spike asked.  He never could tell what was scarier?  His mate as navigator or his mate as vehicle operator.  Neither was ever a sure thing.

    “Yeah.  I don’t remember this hotel.  I think it’s new.  It’s amazing how quickly a place can change,” Buffy commented.

    “It’s gonna be okay, you know,” Spike told her.  “’M not lettin’ anything separate us.  Not this time.”

    Buffy looked at him.  “I know you won’t, Spike.  I believe in you,” she swore.

    Spike leaned over and pulled her lips into his mouth for a slow, sweet suck.  He let go and sighed, leaning his forehead against hers.  “Love you, Buffy.”  

    “Love you, Spike.”

    “Good.  Let’s do this!” Spike stated.

    They got out of the rental car and headed into the hotel lobby.  They found their way to the restaurant with ease.  They didn’t need signs or spoken directions.  They just followed their nose.  

    “That them?” Spike asked, spotting an older couple, formally dressed sitting at a table looking nervous as hell.

    “Yep.  Good eye,” she told him.

    “Good eye nothing, pet.  You look just like your mum.”  He saw her wince.  “Sorry, you know what I mean,” Spike said quickly.

    “I know.  It’s just easier.  You can refer to them as my mom and dad.  I even call them that around other people.  Dave calls me Buffy, but Grace usually calls me Oniha.  She tried the ‘Buffy’ thing for awhile, but it just wouldn’t stick,” Buffy explained.

    “I owe these people,” Spike told her as they approached the table.  “They took care of my girl.”

    Buffy squeezed his hand.  “They did the best they could.  I’m very fortunate,” she agreed.

    “Oniha!” Grace cried, coming to a stand and pulling the young woman into a hug.  “You look just the same, only happier.”

    “That pretty much sums me up!” Buffy declared returning the woman’s hug.

    Dave looked at Spike and held out his hand.  This man was way too old for Buffy.  “I’m Dave, Buffy’s father,” the man declared, making his position known.

    “I’m Spike.  Buffy’s husband,” Spike declared, making his position equally known.

    “Husband!  You must be twice her age.  She talked about you when she was little,” Dave pointed out with disapproval.  He’d read Buffy’s letter, but it hadn’t said anything about marriage.

    Buffy let go of Grace and distracted Dave with a hug.  “Hey, dad.  Don’t worry about Spike’s age.”

    “Just how old is he?” Dave asked, refusing to fall for the distraction.

    Buffy let go and moved back into Spike so that she was leaning against his chest.  “Old.  I’ll tell you exactly how old later.”

    They all took a seat.  Dave looked a little green around the gills.  “Is he as old as I am?”

    “Older, let it go.  Order something,” Buffy said holding up her menu in an effort to block the look on his face.

    When the waiter came they placed their various orders.  The adults each asked for a glass of something substantial.  Buffy got lemonade.  The tastes that appealed to her most in her vampiric state were those that were quite strong.  Sour.  Spicy.  Sweet.

    “So, you found your way,” Dave stated after their server had left.  He was going to try.  The whole thing didn’t sit well with him.  Buffy had hinted at some strange stuff when she was with them, but he’d dismissed most of it despite the confirmation of her origins from the Shaman.

    “Yeah.  There was this barrier stopping me from going home.  My friends did it.  It wasn’t meant to keep me out.  They thought I was long gone, if you know what I mean.  It was to protect my sister, Dawn,” Buffy explained.

    “Oh,” Dave answered.  He didn’t know what to make of any of that.

    “You didn’t say in your letter, Oniha.  How is your sister?” Grace asked.

    A grin split both Buffy and Spike’ faces.  “She’s great.  She’s a mom and everything!  She has two little girls.  One is named Joyce and the other is named Buffy.  We spend as much time with them as we can.  Spike raised Dawn after I was gone,” Buffy said proudly.

    Dave looked at the man.  “So basically, you have grandchildren.”

    Spike choked on nothing at all.  He’d never once thought of it that way.  “I suppose.  I think of myself more as an uncle, really.  Dawn was a teenager when Buffy left us.”

    Dave eyed the man coolly.  “I see,” he said.  “So you two got married.  Don’t you think that’s the sort of thing that we should have been invited to?”

    Spike growled slightly.  “We’re not actually married.  We’re mated.  It’s a hell of a lot more binding, and not exactly the kind of thing you invite humans to watch!”  It took him about half a second to realize he so shouldn’t have said that.

    Chapter 2

    “You just had to say it like that, didn’t you!” Buffy accused as she threw her bag onto the bed and started unpacking those things she typically took out of her suitcase.  When you had to leave suddenly, like they often did, you followed very specific unpacking rituals.

    “I’m sorry, luv, but did you hear what he was implying about me and the Bit?  He thinks I’m some sort of old letch!” Spike cried.

    Buffy gave him a sardonic smile.  “Well, hey, at least now he knows you’re a really, really, really old letch!” Buffy quipped.  After Spike’s little announcement Buffy’d had to convince Dave to put all public questions on hold until they could go somewhere more private.  Dinner had been – unpleasant.  Afterwards they’d loaded into Spike and Buffy’s rental vehicle and drove around the city.  Talking.  They’d driven and they’d talked.  A quick flash of bumpies and fangs had been all of the convincing they’d needed, thankfully.  

    The bad part was that Buffy was quite sure both Grace and Dave were somewhat terrified of her now.  She doubted seriously she’d be seeing their children this trip.  The good part is they actually had faith in Spike and Buffy to get the job done.  The two vampires had explained about what they did for work, although they were honest about knowing next to nothing about evil spirits.

    Spike came up to his mate and pulled her into his arms.  She resisted for about half a second than melted as usual.  He kissed the top of her head.  “I’m sorry, kitten.  I really am.  I know this is hard on you, but it’s kind of hard on me too.  On the one hand I am so thankful to these people for taking care of you, and on the other hand I’m sort of jealous and resentful.  It shoulda been me,” he stated.

    How could she stay mad at him?  Damn, but she loved this man.  “I get that, Spike.  It’s probably better to have it all out in the open now anyway.  I just wouldn’t have minded a day or two to convince them how not evil we are.  You know?”

    “I know, pet,” he answered.  He would have said more but the phone in his pocket decided that was a good moment to ring.

    “’Lo?” Spike said, recognizing the number as Wesley’s.

    “Spike.  It’s Wesley.  Listen, my friend can meet you at Buffy’s parents’ house tomorrow night.  He’s going to get there about half an hour before sunset so that he can light a ritual fire before beginning.  He uses traditional Cherokee medicine and quite frankly he doesn’t want anyone not accustomed to its ways to be there.  Is that all right with you?”

    “It’s fine.  Don’t need to watch some hoodoo man light a fire anyway.  Seen it done.  Buffy and I decided not to go over there tonight anyway.  We got about two hours before the sun rises and you never know what we might get caught in.  This fellow know what we are?” Spike asked.

    “This fellow has a name.  Please do not ever refer to him as a hoodoo man in his presence.  As a matter of fact, don’t refer to him as a hoodoo man at all.  His name is Edward.  Use it.  He knows exactly what you are.  He isn’t entirely comfortable with it.  He does have some protection from your kind, however.  I have also given him my word that neither of you will purposely harm him,” Wesley explained.

    “Thanks, Watcher.  I appreciate that.  Wish Angel could be a little more open minded,” Spike snarked.

    “Me too, Spike.  But he has his reasons as you know.  I have told him about what’s going on and he is very concerned,” Wesley said.

    “Yeah, I’m sure. About Buffy,” Spike retorted.  Why did it hurt that his grand-sire seemed to detest him?

    “No, Spike.  Not just about Buffy.  He cares about you much more than he has admitted to himself let alone anyone else,” Wesley stated.

    “I’d like to believe that, Wes, but considering the way he immediately asks for Buffy each and every damn time he calls, it’s a bit hard to swallow.  Enough of this.  Got too much to deal with now as it is.  Thanks for the info.  Thanks also for setting us up with your guy.  With Edward,” Spike said.

    “You’re welcome, Spike.  Take care and do be careful.  We really don’t know what you are dealing with yet.  Call me as soon as you have any more information,” Wesley told him.

    “Will do.  Later, Watcher,” Spike said, hanging up.  Buffy was just coming out of the bathroom.

    “What’s the what?” she asked, padding naked over to the bed.

    “Wesley’s man, Edward, will be meeting us tomorrow night.  He has some kind of fire thing he wants to do before we get there,” Spike said absently.  He was entirely distracted by her tight little body.

    “Good.  I figured we wouldn’t be going over there tonight so I thought I’d get ready for bed.  I can feel sunrise coming, and I’m all done in,” Buffy confessed.

    “No nookie then?” Spike asked, teasing her.  Though he would have no trouble going a round himself, he knew how tired she was emotionally and physically.  He was completely content to just hold her.

    “Not tonight, dear.  I have a headache,” Buffy teased back.

    Spike threw her a smile as he went into the bathroom himself.  A quick brush of teeth, wash of face, and a moment to expel some of that human food they’d eaten, and he was ready to go.  He walked back out and double checked the curtains.  He’d already taped the edges down with duct tape, but he just needed to be sure.  He didn’t take chances with his girl.  Worries put to rest, he crawled in bed beside her, pulling her into his arms and letting out a big sigh.  Each and every time he did this he felt an overwhelming sense of rightness and belonging.

    Buffy snuggled into him, molding her body to his.  “Spike?  There’s something I didn’t tell you,” she whispered sleepily.

    “What’s that, baby?” he asked as he ran a hand down her bare back.

    “I can feel it,” she said.

    Spike automatically scooted away from her, and then realizing it wasn’t him she was feeling scooted back.  “Feel what?”

    “The thingy.  It’s calling to me.  I think it wants me,” she confessed.

    Spike’s eyes shot wide open.  “What the hell do you mean it wants you?” he hissed as he vamped out.

    “Calm down.  I’m just saying that I can feel it pulling me toward it.  Whatever it is, it is definitely targeting me,” Buffy confessed.

    “And you are just telling me now?” Spike asked incredulously.

    “Well, yeah.  Now’s my confessy time, you know that!” Buffy cried defending herself.

    Spike reached for the phone and punched in Wes’ number.  “Yeah.  We got a problem.  Buffy can feel it.  She said it ‘wants’ her.”

    Buffy watched intently as Spike talked with Wesley.  She could make out several words.  Wesley seemed extremely upset by this news.  She couldn’t quite understand what had everyone in such a fluster.  Didn’t they already know this?

    Spike hung up the phone and turned to her.  “I don’t want you going out there but you can’t stay alone here either.  Wesley, Conner, and Angel are flying out tomorrow night.  I’ll meet with this Edward guy and get the low down.  You stay here with your parents.  Got it?”

    “No, I don’t!  Why the upset?  What’s the big change here?” Buffy asked.

    “The change is that Wesley thought this was a coincidence.  That an evil spirit got sucked into the house by the energy residue left there from you, started suckin’ on the energy like the mindless thing we assumed it to be.  If it picked up on your arrival and is calling to you that means it’s a bit more sentient than Wesley and I figured it to be, and that it could even be targeting you personally,” Spike explained.

    “What?  You mean like an evil spirit with some sort of vengeance against me?” Buffy asked.

    “Or an evil spirit that someone conjured to send against you, using the energy from the house to call it up in the first place,” Spike told her.

    “This is not good,” Buffy stated.

    “No.  It’s not,” Spike agreed as he pulled her tightly against him.  They both just laid there.  Sleep would be a long time coming.

Chapter 3

    Edward could feel a malevolence as he maneuvered up the long drive to the Hendrix house.  It was like a dark little pressure reminiscent of a building migraine.  He had a sudden desire to be anywhere but here.  He had a responsibility, however.  He was a medicine man.  A somewhat thankless job in this day and age, but one of great importance.  People simply stopped believing in the power of the old ways as they became more and more Americanized.  He blamed everything from the media to public schooling.  Didn’t matter who he blamed, however.  It was as it was whether they believed or not.

    He had learned from his father who still practiced but whose arthritis had taken a turn for the worse these last couple of years.  Long drives were out of the question.  As Edward stopped his car and stepped out into the cool April air he was more than glad his father had stayed behind.  The pressure was intense.  There was a great evil here.  He reached into his Toyota Four Runner and pulled out his supplies.  He found a shallow place in the earth that was welcome to him and he laid down the oak kindling.  Then he took out a piece of flint and a rock to make a spark on the sponge of some of the oak.  He made an offering to the North, East, South, West, Upwards, and Downwards.  Using the lit sponge he got the fire going strong.  He also tossed a piece of deer meat into the fire.  It was done. He pulled out his pipe and lit it from the fire as he began his prayer.

    The Great Spirit was kind to him.  Cougar appeared and began to walk.  Edward followed Cougar, not as Edward, but as Di-da Ih-ne-se Is-gi.  It was what he was.  A child of the Paint Clan.  A Shaman.  He spirit walked with Cougar, following the sacred animal over the hills.  The strange pressure changed into an icy line.  The line grew thicker the further they walked.  Eventually they came to a cave.  Edward stepped back, his feet faltering as he caught sight of the horror in the cave.  A killer witch.  His surprise threw him back into his body with such force that he found himself lying sideways on the ground with his cheek pressed against the coolness of the earth.

    He sat up, gasping for breath.  Then he offered thanks to the Great Spirit for sending Cougar to him and showing him the evil.  This was very serious.  Killer witches occurred when people used the medicine for evil.  This witch was very powerful.  Unfortunately, Edward had seen the creature in the spirit world and therefore viewed it as it really was as opposed to how it would look if he saw it at the grocery store.  One thing he did know.  It was female.  Its age completely indistinguishable due to the malignance that covered it.  Edward looked up at the sky.  Night had fallen.  He looked at his watch.  Much time had passed.  The spirit world did not run on time in the way the world of humans did.

    The sound of a large car coming up the drive had his attention shifting.  Wesley had called to tell him the female would not be coming.  Edward agreed that was wise based on the new information.  Now that Edward had seen what he had seen he was even more grateful that the Chosen One had stayed behind.  

    He was not worried about meeting the vampire.  He could stop the creature from attacking him if necessary.  No, the vampire did not scare him.  The killer witch and the evil she had called did.  He watched as the car lights shut off and a very blonde man stepped out.  This was the Chosen One’s mate.

    “Can feel it,” Spike said as he walked up with his hand extended to the dark skinned man.  “I’m Spike.”

    Edward took the vampire’s hand.  He had expected it to be cool, but it was not overly so.  “I am Edward.”

    Spike nodded to the fire.  “How’d that work out for you?” he asked.

    “Well.  The Great Spirit was kind.  Cougar came and led me to the one who wishes to hurt your mate.  There is a cave up in the hills that it is conjuring in.  It’s a killer witch, much feared by my people.  A female.  She’ll appear human, normal.  She has called the evil spirit here to feed off your mate’s energy,” Edward explained.

    “Can you find this cave?” Spike asked.  “I imagine if we kill the conjurer the spirit will go, right?”

    “I wish it were that easy, Spike.  If we kill the conjurer then there is a chance the spirit will break loose and many could die.  We must instead find this witch and discover what medicine she has used to bring him forth so that we may counter act it,” Edward explained.

    “So we find her and chain her up.  Torture her for information,” Spike stated.

    “She could perhaps set the spirit free if she feels us coming,” Edward said.

    “Fuck!” Spike yelled.  “Give me something here, Edward.  I gotta know how to protect my girl.”

    There was a waver in the night air, a shift in the pressure.  Both men fell to their knees in response.  Edward held out a hand to Spike.  “Do not respond so strongly.  It senses you and can tell that you have a connection to its prey,” Edward warned.

    Spike nodded his head in understanding.  “Please, tell me how to fight this thing,” Spike said desperately.

    “I need to talk to my father and to Wesley.  You said Wesley will be coming out tonight?” Edward asked.

    “Yeah, about four hours from now.  He’s traveling with my grand-sire so they have to stick to a night schedule.  They’ll be staying at the hotel with Buffy and I.  Her parents are there too.  You want to come back with me?” Spike asked.

    “Yes.  I believe I will be staying on until this is finished.  I don’t know what I will tell my school,” Edward sighed.  “But this is more important than any job.”

    “Thanks, mate.  I appreciate it.  I won’t ever forget what you’re doing for my girl,” Spike told him.

    “It is what must be done.  Thanks are not necessary.  Evil like this must be stopped,” Edward declared.

    Both men came to their feet.  Spike looked at the house.  “Think I should go in?”

    Edward shook his head as he started to put out the fire with sand.  “No.  I don’t think it’s powerful enough yet to take you, but I wouldn’t want to risk it.  It would be best to wait and go in tomorrow night with your friends.  They are all warriors, right?”

    Spike nodded.  “Each and every one of them.  Even Wesley,” Spike said with a chuckle.

    Spike watched as Edward gathered up his things and put them in his car.  “You going to follow me back to the hotel?” Spike asked.

    “Yeah, don’t loose me.  I get all mixed up in the city.  My brother is a bond trader.  He lives in Chicago.  He loves the city.  But the city, any city, and I just have never found equal footing, you know?” Edward asked.

    “I can understand that.  Don’t mind it much myself, but I definitely prefer my little patch of suburban California.  A vampire in the suburbs.  Who woulda guessed!” Spike joked.

    Edward laughed and both men started to get into their cars.  Edward got in his first and turned the key.  He looked in his rearview mirror to check on Spike who was parked behind him when he realized the vampire was now standing a foot away from his car, staring at something near the house.  Edward watched in horror as the vampire started running toward the house.  He was running too fast for Edward to even get the door open let alone stop him.

    Spike had been going to shut the door when a sound caught his ear.  It was the sound of a small child crying.  He stepped out of the car to look in the direction of the sound.  There near the front door of the house was a little girl.  It was Buffy.  She was sobbing.  She was calling his name.  Asking him to come and get her.  Even if he’d stopped to think about it for a moment, he would not have been able to stop himself.  He ran to the little girl and picked her up in his arms.  

    “Shhh, baby.  It’s okay.  I’ve got you,” he whispered brokenly into her hair as he cradled her in his arms.

    “Spike.  Is it really you?” Buffy cried.  “I’ve been calling and calling, but you never come.  How come you don’t come and get me?  I want to go home!  I want you and Dawnie! I’m so lonely.”

    “I know, baby.  I know.  I got you now.  Shhh.  It’s okay.  I got you now,” Spike said.

    A coldness stole over him.  It was like nothing he had ever felt before.  Suddenly everything around him ceased.  There was no sound.  There was no smell.  He couldn’t feel anything.  He could only see.  There was a blackness moving in toward him.  It was like a thick, chalky shadow.  It reminded him of floating gun powder.  It smelled like that, too.  He could feel the darkness starting to move up his nose and go in his ears.  It was creating a low buzzing sound throughout his insides.

    Edward reached the vampire just in time, grabbing him by the nape of his duster and dragging him from the house.  He never stopped singing the entire time.  It was a song of protection taught to him by his grandfather when he was a little boy and would get scared of the dark.  He could see the black stuff that had entered the vampire start to leave the further he drug him from the house.  When they reached the cars, the vampire began to struggle and cough, expelling the evil.

    “Have to get to her!” Spike yelled, trying to clear himself of the thick substance so that he could get the strength to break free of this man who was keeping him from Buffy.  “She needs me!  She’s scared.”

    Sure enough as soon as the words were spoken, the sound of a little girl screaming in fear hit their ears.  She was shrieking over and over for Spike.  Calling for him.  The vampire began to punch out at Edward, trying to hit him with weakened fists.  Edward let go and ran to the fire pit.  There had been several large rocks nearby.  He grabbed one and then ran back over to the vampire, who was struggling to get up, and bashed him on the head.  When the vampire slumped into unconscious, the screaming stopped.

    Edward loaded the man into his own car, feeling in the man’s pockets as he did for a cell phone.  Then he pulled the car forward into the loop, driving by the house as quickly as he could and down the drive.  When he hit the pavement of the county road he felt a swell of release.  The pressure was backing off.  Now all he had to do was call the man’s mate, calm her down, get directions to the hotel, and find his own way in the busy city.  It was going to be a long night.

Chapter 4

    Edward was not surprised to see a worried, dark skinned beauty pacing in front of the hotel when he finally pulled up.  She’d caught his eye as if she knew exactly who he was and promptly approached the car, hoping in.  Her hands went to her mate.  “Go to the back.  Around the block.  I need to carry him upstairs and we don’t need people asking questions,” she directed.

    Edward was made extremely uncomfortable by her lack of reflection.  The male had been lying down and so he was not missed in the reflective object.  But the girl was simply not there.  It was very unnerving.  He drove as she instructed, pulling into a parking garage and parking as close to one of the elevators as possible.  He figured she’d be asking him questions, but she was silent.  He got out of the car and opened the door for her.  Out she came with an armful of man.  She didn’t even appear to be straining under the weight.

    “Grab your stuff and follow me,” she ordered.

    Edward did as she instructed.  He had only one bag he would be bringing up with him.  It held his clothes, toiletries, and syllabary.  She was at the elevator when he turned around, waiting impatiently for the descending car.  The doors opened and thankfully no one was coming out.  They got in.  The silence stayed.

    Buffy had worried about him going out by himself, but she knew it would be stupid for her to go with him.  Possibly put him in even more danger.  She laughed.  She’d done it anyway.  He’d gotten hurt and it was her fault.  She didn’t blame Edward for knocking him unconscious.  The brief description of events that the man had given her told her everything.  Spike could never abandon her.  Not even a her that wasn’t real.  She sniffed a little, leaning over to kiss his forehead.  She loved him so much.

    The door opened and Edward held out his hand, keeping the doors from sliding shut.  He followed her down a long hall.  A door opened and a man walked out.  Edward found his hands immediately filled with half a vampire.  

    “Had a little too much to drink,” Buffy said, with an overly bright smile and roll of the eyes.

    The man gave them half a smile back and walked by quickly.  As soon as he was gone, Buffy shifted Spike’s weight back into her own arms.  She didn’t want to share any of him.  “Mine,” she said with a low little growl.

    The otherness of the creatures next to him hit Edward then.  A human may have felt possessive towards their spouse and wished to hold them, but they wouldn’t have laid claim like that.  He had the sudden feeling that the next few days were going to be a learning experience.

    They got to the door and Buffy said, “Card key.  Left pocket, Edward.”

    Edward was very nervous putting his hand into her pocket.  He was glad the male was still out cold.  A little worried, too.  He had certainly hit him hard, but he had a feeling that vampire constitution should have allowed the man to be awake by now.  He pulled out the card and ran it through the slot.  The door clicked open and Edward pushed it back, allowing Buffy to walk through.

    He watched as Buffy set Spike on the bed and than proceeded to strip his clothes off of him.  She was making this odd rumbling sound low in her throat that resembled purring.  She touched each bared appendage carefully, looking everything over.  She also appeared to be smelling him.  She came to his head last, as if she knew already that was where his only outward injury lay.

    Buffy knew that Spike was wounded on the side of his head.  She could smell the slight bit of blood.  But his entire body seemed to reek of disturbance.  Her demon could not pinpoint it, and it was driving her crazy.  It needed to rip and tear into something.  It needed to be able to fix things.  The best she could do was clean the one wound she could see and then offer him blood.

    “I have to clean this,” Buffy warned the human hovering behind her.

    “Do you need me to get you anything?  Antiseptic or bandages?” Edward asked.

    Buffy gave a laugh.  It was an unpleasant sound.  “I have everything I need right here,” she growled as she morphed into her true face.  She watched the human flinch and it pleased her demon.  His small bit of fear acting as a balm to her ravaged spirit.  Then she crawled onto the bed and began to lick at the cut.

    One part of Edward felt that he should look away as the act was so intensely intimate.  The other part, the hidden part that most people refused to take into the light of day, wouldn’t look away.  She took her time, thoroughly licking at the wound and continuing the purring sound.  Edward was transfixed.  Then she did something even more strange.  She raised one clawed hand and drew a line across her throat.  Immediately the vampire underneath her stirred.  One moment it was a slow coming into awareness, the next it was a strike.  Edward nearly yelled out a warning as the thing latched onto her neck.

    Spike smelled Buffy.  It was as simple as that.  And right now he needed Buffy more than he needed anything in the world.  He bit into his mate, filling his senses with her.  He drank deeply.  As he felt her essence running through his veins like quick silver he flipped their positions, pushing her knees apart with expert ease.

    Buffy giggled.  Here was her guy.  “Spike!  You might want to stop.  We have company.”

    Spike stilled.  He scented the air.  Buffy musk and human sweat.  Edward.  He turned his head to look behind him.  Sure enough.  One freaked out college professor.  “Sorry, mate,” Spike said apologetically as he rolled off of Buffy.

    Buffy got up and grabbed a towel out of the bathroom for Spike to cover himself.  She wanted him in the shower.  She needed to clean him, but she would have to wait until explanations were given and Edward was settled in his room.

    “There is a card key on the table by the door for you, Edward.  I got the room across the way from us for you.  Wesley has the one connected to yours on the right, as Angel and Conner have the one connected to ours on the left.  We’ll be safer that way,” Buffy explained.

    “Thank you,” Edward said, looking anywhere but in their eyes.  “Do you think you could…”

    “Oh.  Of course.  Loose the bumps, baby,” Buffy said to her mate.  They both shifted back into their human guises.  “Sorry if this freaked you out.  We really appreciate all that you are doing for us.  I’m especially thankful you brought my mate home.”  Buffy’s chin wobbled as a tear escaped.

    “Oh, baby.  Don’t cry,” Spike groaned as he pulled her into his lap.  “I’ve had all I can take of your sorrow tonight.”

    “I know.  Edward told me.  I am so sorry that happened to you, my love.  I don’t want you to see all that,” Buffy told him, placing a hand against his cheek.

    “It targeted him specifically, accessing the energy by the door where he would be able to see it.  It is much more intelligent than I had thought it would be,” Edward said.

    “Damn straight,” Spike agreed.  “It woulda had me if it weren’t for Edward’s quick thinking.  Never try to separate a vampire from its mate.  Especially if the mate is wounded or in pain.  Just hit the vampire on the side of the head.  Hard.  You have quite an arm on you.”  Spike winced a bit and touched his head.

    “Oh, blood time!” Buffy yelled as she jumped up and went over to the mini-fridge.  She pulled out two packets of blood and put them in the hotel microwave.  

    “I’m sorry I hurt you, Spike,” Edward apologized.

    “Don’t be sorry.  You saved my hide, and I know it!” Spike declared.  Then he turned to his wife.  “Turns out, baby.  There is definitely a puppet master like Wes and I figured.  Some ugly witchy bint up in the hills or something working the voodoo.”

    “Not voodoo.  Bad medicine.  It’s different,” Edward clarified.

    “We’ll leave the technical stuff to you and the Watcher.  Angel, Conner, Buffy and I will take on the big bads any way you tell us to.  I owe that thing in more ways than one,” Spike declared.

    “So you’re going to let me go with you?” Buffy asked as she poured the blood into two separate beer mugs.

    Spike took a mug from his girl.  “Thanks, pet.  Yeah.  I gotta let you come.  The only way I can resist this is if I have the real thing beside me,” he said, taking a sip of the red liquid.

    Buffy smiled at him sweetly.  Just then Spike’s cell phone rang.  Edward handed it to Spike.

    “Lo?” Spike asked.  “I’m fine, peaches.  Keep your britches on.  Just got sucked in by the evil spirit, but Wes’ guy saved the day.  Now I’m back in my mate’s arms getting all tended to.  Where you guys at?”  Spike listened for a moment.  “Alright.  See ya then.  Just come on up to our room.  We have your keys up here already.  Goodbye.  And Sire?  Thanks for worrying,” Spike said as he hung up.

    Buffy laughed.  “I heard everything.  He was freaking out because he could tell you were in trouble like I could!”

    “Yeah.  He would have called sooner but he couldn’t get a signal before now,” Spike said sheepishly.  He was a bit chuffed, really.

    “He’s coming around, Spike,” Buffy said.

    “We’ll see,” Spike answered.

Chapter 5

    Edward had gone to his room to give Spike and Buffy some privacy and to get some well needed rest.  Spike was, for perhaps the first time since he and Buffy had become a couple, too tired for anything more than a cuddle now that the effects of Buffy’s blood donation had worn down.  He was perfectly content to just doze in her arms as they waited for the force that was Angel to arrive.

    Buffy would never admit it to Spike but she was in fact a tad bit nervous about Angel coming.  She wanted him here.  Wanted the back up for Spike in case she was taken over by this entity and unable to help her mate, but she was worried that Angel would make Spike think less of himself.  Hadn’t she done enough of that to him before she died?

    She ran a hand down his bare chest.  Then she leaned over to place a kiss above his heart.  “I love you so much,” she whispered brokenly.

    Spike reached a hand down to lift up her chin so he could look into her eyes.  “Hey, what’s brought this on?”

    “I just need you to know what an incredible man you are.  Don’t listen to Angel.  If he says anything about a ‘soul’ I want you to start thinking about him singing Burt Bacharach while dressed in drag as Bette Midler.  Promise me,” she begged.

    Spike laughed.  “Okay, kitten.  I promise.  But are we talking red or blonde haired Bette?  Need to know what to visualize.”

    “Definitely blonde,” Buffy affirmed.

    Spike pulled her up so they were face to face.  He needed to remind himself that she really wasn’t a scared little girl in an empty house right now, but a grown woman lying in his arms.  They lay with there heads side by side on the pillow, just giving one another sweet little kisses.  Feeling the Los Angeles trio as they pulled up and started making their way up to their floor, the kisses continued.  When there was a knock on the door – a heavy handed Angel kind of a knock – they broke apart with deep sighs.

    Buffy got up, she was wearing a tank and boxer pajama set that matched Spike’s black and grey stripped boxers.  It may be cutesy but she didn’t mind indulging in things like matching jammies once in awhile.  

    Spike normally rolled his eyes at such things, but he’d pulled them out himself when he knew Angel would be coming.  Apparently looking cutesy coupley in front of Angel gave him a childish thrill.

    She opened the door.  “Hey, guys!  Come on in.”  She stepped aside, allowing them through.  She gave each of them a hug as they walked by her.  “I can’t thank you enough for flying all the way out here,” she told them as she shut the door.

    Spike sat up.  He would have stood, but he was still feeling off.  The head injury had healed quickly enough, but the thing that had been inside of him had left some residue of itself.  It was weighing him down and making him feel like he had a slight case of vertigo.  He raised a weak arm.  “Hello everyone.  Ditto to what the wife said.”

    Angel walked over to the bed, he winced a little as Buffy came to stand beside him in an obvious ‘You so much as move threateningly toward my mate and I’ll stake you’ sort of way’.  “I just want to make sure he’s okay,” Angel told her.

    “I hope so, Angel,” Buffy replied, not backing off.  She didn’t take chances with Spike.

    Angel could hear the doubt in her voice.  She had every reason to doubt him.  Of course he felt he had every reason to doubt Spike, too.  Sometimes things were complicated and there was just nothing that could be done about it.  He leaned over slowly, sniffing at his grand-childe.  He looked at Buffy.  “He smells sick.”

    Buffy’s chin wobbled.  “I know.  It went inside of him.  There’s something left behind.  I fed him and that seemed to help but he won’t drink any more from me,” Buffy said, leaving more unsaid.

    Angel took off his shirt and crawled into bed beside Spike.  He pulled the younger vampire to him and pressed him against his neck.  “Drink, childe,” he ordered softly.

    Buffy’s shoulders relaxed as if they’d been caught behind her and suddenly let go.  She hadn’t even known she was that tense.  She felt tears welling up in her eyes and she realized they were in response to Spike.  He was overwhelmed by his grand-sire’s gesture.  Maybe everything would be okay someday between the three of them.  She turned to Conner and Wesley to make sure they were okay, and was surprised to find them wide-eyed and staring.  She forgot how very little of Angel’s true nature they ever saw.

    “Can I get you guys something to drink?  There are some sodas and bottle water in the fridge?” she asked them.

    “I’ll take a can, Rose,” Conner said.

    “A water would be lovely, thank you,” Wesley answered, finally looking away from the intimate scene on the bed.

    Conner didn’t look away.  He was fascinated.  There was something so overwhelmingly right about what he was viewing.  It was a natural action that he felt drawn to in an almost primitive way.  It was at rare times like these that he missed his mother the most.  If she had lived… If she’d been able to control her demon like Spike could… He wondered if he would be a different person than he was.  More comfortable perhaps in his own skin.

    Buffy got the drinks and pulled the room’s two extra chairs over to the end of the bed so they could all talk.  Angel was done feeding Spike and was just holding him lightly in his arms.  Buffy crawled up on the bed next to them and laid in the crook of her mate’s outstretched arm.

      “Edward went off to bed, he’ll meet us in here in the morning to go over everything, but he found out there was some witch in a cave in the hills who was using what he called ‘bad medicine’ to conjure and control the evil spirit in the house,” Buffy explained.

    “How can we stop it?” Angel asked.  He hadn’t liked the feeling he’d gotten on the plane.  He’d sensed a few times over the years when Buffy, Spike, Drusilla, or one of his other childer had been in pain or trouble, but this was different.  This had felt like something was being taken away from him.  He didn’t like that at all.  Neither man nor demon could tolerate the loss of their own.  It’s part of why Angelus hated Buffy so strongly.  For her, Angel had killed Darla.

    “Can’t just do in the witch, according to Edward.  Apparently she controls the thing, and if she dies or knows we are coming it could be let loose on the world.  He said what we have to do is observe her using the medicine, so we can figure out how to take control of the thing and banish it to the spirit realm for good,” Spike told them.

    Wesley nodded his head.  “That all sounds right.  I don’t know much about Native American rituals or magic I’m afraid.  But it is in keeping with what I do know about calling up an entity to do your will.”

    “What can we do?  What can I do?  I’m usually just around in the muscle capacity,” Conner said.

    “Edward is going to give all of us some training on how to protect ourselves from it, but we need some heavy duty magical muscle on this one and none of us are too big with the mojo,” Spike said.  He wanted the boy to know how lost they all were on this.

    “We don’t want to call Willow and Tara,” Buffy said hesitantly.  How to tell Angel this one?  “With the kids and all we can’t risk them getting hurt.  So we need someone else in on this one.”

    Angel knew damn well who they were referring to.  Shit.  If they called her in, he’d have to send Cordelia a plane ticket.  “You want to call Drusilla, don’t you?”

    “Pretty much.  She’s the most powerful magic user we know of outside of Tara and Willow.  Plus, she can handle herself against the darker arts,” Spike pointed out.

    “Not to mention how totally pissed she’d be if any of us were in danger and she wasn’t asked to help,” Buffy pointed out.  She and Spike had kept in touch with Dru over the last couple of years.  Sometimes she just popped up.  Other times they hunted her down.  Having Xander and Harmony as their best friends really helped transition Drusilla into their lives.  Though there had been the awkward ‘Would you like me to turn you?’ question poised to Xander after a rip-roaring game of Life.

    “Mom will hate that,” Conner said immediately.  For some reason Cordelia was a little jealous of Drusilla.  Conner was pretty sure it had to do with his dad’s whole ‘souled vs unsouled’ thing he had going on.  

    Angel sighed.  “Yeah, she really will.”  He got up from the bed.  “You’ll have to excuse me, I have a phone call to make and the sooner I do it the better.”

    “I’ve never met, Drusilla,” Conner said.  “What’s she like?”

    Buffy and Spike both spoke at the same time, “One of a kind.”

Chapter 6

    The following afternoon found them all ensconced in Buffy and Spike’s hotel room, even Oniha’s parents.  It was a bit awkward at first, but the couple really did want to help if it was at all possible.  

    “So, what we need to do is have Drusilla go on a spirit walk with Edward?” Angel asked, needing to clarify what the medicine man and the ex-Watcher had laid out for them.

    “Yes,” Edward confirmed.  “I’d prefer it to be someone from the Paint Clan, but none of the people I know are willing to go that close to bad medicine.  They have loved ones to consider.”

    “Buffy and Spike are Drusilla’s loved ones,” Wesley pointed out.  “They have assured me, along with Angel, that she will be quite willing.  My only concern is having her side by side with you.  I have never spirit walked before, though many Watchers do, and I am not sure what a vampire is like in the spirit realm.”

    “She won’t hurt Edward,” Buffy promised.  “You’d be amazed at how focused and at how much self control she has when it comes to family.”

    “I’m not worried about the spirit walk,” Angel confessed.  “I’m worried about her being around people the rest of the time.”  He looked at Dave and Grace.  “She isn’t like Spike or me.  She’s extremely dangerous.  She also has thrall, so make sure that you are never alone with her unless one of us, and by us I mean vampires, is present.”

    Grace and Dave both nodded their heads.  They had no desire to be alone with any of them really.  Even Oniha.  They wanted to help.  They also really wanted that thing out of their house so they could bring their kids, who were currently staying at their uncle’s, back home.

    “When will mom be here?” Conner asked.

    “In about two hours.  Dave and Grace have kindly offered to pick her up at the airport,” Angel said.

    “She is human, right?” Dave asked.

    Both Conner and Angel looked at one another for a moment.  Conner was the first to look away and address the man.  “She’s a little more than human.  She has to be.  She has visions from the Powers That Be and they require a great deal from her.  Before she took on the aspect of a demon the visions were killing her.”

    “What do the visions do?” Grace asked curiously.

    “They tell her who needs help.  Then we all go in and save the day.  Well, usually,” Conner said sheepishly.  There’d been a time or two over the years they had arrived a little too late, or hadn’t been as strong as the other guy.  It happened.

    “That’s wonderful.  You guys really do something that matters.”  She turned to her husband and gave him a reassuring smile.  Then she turned back to Angel and Conner.  “We will be honored to pick up your wife.”

    “Thank you,” Angel said to them.  “You don’t have to worry about Drusilla.  Not only will she arrive at night, she’ll find her way here all on her own.  She can find us anywhere.”

    Buffy laughed.  “It is so true.  We didn’t even have to call her.  We knew she’d be on her way as soon as we wanted her to.”

    “She sounds like she has powerful magic,” Edward said.  “This is good.”

    “She had visions before I turned her,” Angel explained.  A pained expression came over his face.  “She’d been blessed.  I turned it into a curse.”

    Both Buffy and Spike moved over to him, touching him, reassuring him.  Edward had seen this action before with the vampires, but Dave and Grace looked extremely uncomfortable.

    “You are Christian, Grace?” Edward asked, trying to distract the couple from the intimacy of the vampires.

    “Yes, I was raised Catholic,” Grace told him.  “Dave is Methodist.  We have been raising the kids Methodist.”

    “If you ever want to experience the spirituality of your people, Grace, you would be welcome,” Edward said.  Then he looked at Dave.  “All of you.  We don’t exclude beliefs, we respect them.”

    Dave looked distinctly uncomfortable.  “Thanks, Edward.  We’ll talk about it.”  He looked down at his watch.  “Well, Grace and I need to go.  We want to stop off and spend some time with the kids before we pick up Cordelia.”

    “Thanks again for that,” Angel said, coming to a stand to shake the man’s hand as he showed him and Grace to the door.  There was a collective sigh of relief as the door shut after them.

    “Okay.  Here’s the nitty gritty,” Buffy said.  “Dru follows Edward.  She picks up the specifics of the spell.  She and Edward work out a way to take control of the spirit.  Then Spike, Angel, and I go in and kill the witch.  Hopefully by then with the help of Wesley the evil spirit thingy will be long gone.”

    “If it isn’t?” Conner asked.

    “Then we are all in deep shit,” Spike declared.  He gave Conner a long look.  “You know we want you to run if that happens.  Don’t think of it as desertion.  Think of it as regrouping to call in the big guns – meaning Willow and Tara.  Got it?”

    Conner nodded.  He was used to this order.  He’d missed Spike.  His dad always looked after him, but there was something comforting in the way Spike always made sure that Conner knew just what to do.  His dad was more of a ‘stay back and don’t get hurt’ kind of spokesman.

    “The most important thing is that everyone must stay as far away from the house as possible.  Obviously, Edward, Drusilla, and I will have to go in when the reconnaissance is done, but it is imperative that Spike and Buffy especially stay away from there.  That thing nearly killed Spike the last time.  I can only imagine what it would do if it got its hands on Buffy,” Wesley said.

    Angel and Spike moved in to touch Buffy.  To reassure themselves of her.  Spike nuzzled her neck and Angel kissed the top of her head.  Conner watched and felt a near physical imperative to join in.  All of the sudden all three vampires turned and looked at him.  Angel issued a sort of chortling growl.  To Conner’s surprise he knew exactly what it meant – ‘come here.’

    Wesley watched with a deep sense of satisfaction as Conner joined in on the vampire version of the family hug.  He’d tried over the years to get Angel to be more vampiric with the boy, but to no avail.  It was as if Angel feared that part in himself too much to let it out, even for Conner.  Wesley knew how much Conner loved Cordelia, but the fact of the matter was that he was the child of two master vampires.  He needed the ways of his family.

    An odd little giggle sounded from the closet.  It had Wesley and Edward both turning, wide eyed, to stare at the slatted doors.  The giggle sounded again.  The vampires in the room seemed to be unable to detect it.  Wesley raised a hand of warning to Edward, indicating that the man stay back.  Then he got up, grabbed a wooden stake off the counter and proceeded over to the closet door.  He opened it quickly, raising his stake.  Then he smiled.

    There are on her knees was Drusilla.  She’d been peeking at the cuddle tableau on the floor.  She’d also been shielding pretty heavily, which is why he’d been able to sneak up on her and open the door.  She looked up at him with her mysterious dark blue eyes and smiled.

    “Hello, Drusilla.  Welcome,” Wesley said.

    “Thank you,” Drusilla answered, taking his proffered hand so he could pull her to her feet.

    Wesley turned around to introduce Dru to Edward and found the man staring at the beautiful vampire with a look of near rapture on his face.  Uh-oh.

Chapter 7

    “Oh dear,” Wesley whispered.  Then louder, “I said ‘Oh dear’!”

    The vampires doing the group cuddle seemed to break out of the trance they’d been in, turning around as a group collective with surprised eyes.

    “Dru?” Angel asked.

    Drusilla gave Edward a knowing smile before looking away to address her sire.  “Hello, Daddy.”

    Angel knew it might be his last chance to hold her for… Well, for a very long time.  He came to his feet and walked over, pulling her into his arms.  He just rocked her back and forth for a bit, inhaling her scent.  “Missed you, sweetheart.”

    “I’m always missing you,” she whispered.  It was true.  But she knew something he refused to know.  People would come and go out of his life, but time was on her side.  As the years would come one right after the other, growing in their pace, as loved ones slipped away due to age and illness, she would remain.  Someday, he would be hers again.  For now, she could be patient.  Let him have this human fantasy of the wife and child.  She caught sight of Conner behind Angel.  She hoped the fantasy of the father would not overly hurt the reality of the son.

    “Give her over, peaches,” Spike groused impatiently.

    Angel reluctantly let go, turning to face Conner with some embarrassment.  “It’s just been awhile,” he muttered.

    “I understand,” Conner said.

    Spike crushed Drusilla in his arms, lifting her up off of the floor and turning her around until she squealed with delight.  Then he kissed her soundly before setting her down so that Buffy could have a go at her.

    Dru opened her arms.  “Come, my childe,” she said to Buffy, who wasted no time in flinging herself into the arms of her sire.

    “Thank you for coming,” Buffy cried.  “Something hurt Spike.  I could feel it but I couldn’t get to him.  He made me stay here, and I couldn’t get to him.”

    “Shhh,” Drusilla crooned.  “Mummy’s here now.  I’m not going to let any nasty thing gobble up my darlings.”

    Buffy felt a peace settle over her.  As if Drusilla saying it would make it so.  “Okay,” Buffy sniffed.

    Dru patted her on the head as she transferred her over to Spike.  She looked at the two of them with a swell of pride.  She’d been right to turn the girl.  It was as it was meant to be.  Which is why she was so very perturbed at whoever was trying to destroy what she had created.  No one messed with her children.  “May I say hello to your son, Angel?” Drusilla asked, thinking of another child.  A special child.

    Angel only hesitated for a brief moment.  Conner could handle himself against vampires, and Drusilla was all about family.  She’d only turned Darla back then because she’d thought that was what Darla had wanted.  Or at least that is what Darla had told him.  Drusilla.  His funny, nutty, loving childe.  “Yes, Drusilla.”

    Conner didn’t know why, but he felt shy.  He’d heard about this woman all of his life.  Mainly from Spike.  But he’d never been allowed to spend time with her.  To discover who she was for himself.  It was yet one more aspect of who he was that his father denied him.

    “Hello, Conner.  Your mother and I were very close,” Drusilla told him.  “She was a selfish, vicious creature, but magnificent in her zest for life.  Don’t let anyone tell you vampires don’t live.  We do.  We eat.  We reproduce.”  She looked at Spike and Buffy.  “And we care for our young.  Just like any other creature.”

    “Yes, ma’am,” Conner said.

    “Now let Auntie give you a hug,” she demanded, opening her arms.

    Conner moved into her hug, curious as to what he would feel.  The staggering recognition nearly floored him.  She was… family.  He felt a slight tug of it with Spike and Rose, but this was different.  This was almost like coming home.  He circled his arms around her waist and held on tight.  He could feel tears pooling in his eyes and fought to keep them from spilling over.

    Dru rocked him back and forth like Angel had done to her.  She didn’t like her chics so sad.  First, Buffy.  Now, Conner.  Things needed to be dealt with so she could see smiles on their faces.  She had a feeling that putting Spike and Buffy to rights again would be far easier than seeing Conner’s needs met.  She gave a disapproving look to her sire.

    Angel looked down.  Didn’t they understand he was doing the best he could?  It’s not like he’d moved to the suburbs with the kid and forced him to join the year book club.  Conner knew who and what he was.  They fought demons together.  He wasn’t denying him, was he?

    Wesley knew there were dynamics here that needed to be investigated, but for now they had a more pressing issue to deal with.  “I am quite glad to see you, Drusilla,” he said.  “Although I have to admit I am completely perplexed as to how you came to be here.”

    Dru kept one arm wrapped around Conner as she turned to give the ex-Watcher a secret smile.  “I spent the summer with Dracula and his lovely brides.  Picked up a trick or two.”

    Angel growled.  “Gypsy tricks!”

    Everyone in the room turned to look at him.  “Not that gypsies are bad,” he grumbled.

    “Indeed.  Well, you are here now.  Which is excellent.  This gentleman here is Edward.  He is a medicine man.  He is going to teach you how to spirit walk with him so that you can look in on the killer witch who is controlling the entity attacking Buffy,” Wesley explained.

    “It’s lovely to meet you, Edward.  Miss Edith told me about you.  We shall have a fine time together you and I,” she said with a purr.

    “Dru,” Angel warned.  “No harming or turning the humans!”

    Drusilla rolled her eyes, but only Wesley and Edward saw.  “Yes, Sire.  I can be a good girl when I need to be.”

    “It’s true, Angel.  She hangs out with Harmony and Xander all the time.  So far, Xander’s neck has been the exclusive property of his Spunky Cuddles,” Buffy said.

    Dru and Spike both winced at the horrendous moniker that Xander had given to his mate.  But then Spike thought about ‘Blondie Bear’ and Spunky Cuddles didn’t seem that bad.

    Angel looked doubtful.  “I know you have good intentions, Drusilla, but I will feel better if Spike or Buffy or myself is with you at all times.”

    “I guess it’s a good thing she doesn’t need to use the restroom,” Edward commented.  “Vampires don’t use restrooms do they?”

    Spike and Buffy laughed.  “Most don’t,” Spike said.  “’Course the wife and I like to eat the occasional bit of human food.  You know what they say about what goes in and all that.”

    Buffy punched Spike in the arm.  “Try and not be gross for at least one day.  One day, Spike!”  She shook her head at her mate.  “It’s even worse when he and Xander are together.  It’s like hanging out with a couple of twelve year old boys!”

    Angel shook his head in wonderment.  “I simply cannot imagine Xander and Spike hanging out.”

    “Times change, Angel,” Buffy told him.  “Back in high school I would never have imagined myself hanging with Harmony.  Or being in love with Spike.  Or thinking of Drusilla as family.”

    Angel gave a reluctant laugh.  “Yeah, I guess your right.”  

    “Drusilla,” Wesley said. “If you don’t mind.  Edward and I would like to get started as soon as possible.  Once night falls we can head back to the house and perform the fire ceremony.  Then the two of you will spirit walk, hopefully bringing back the information we need to take control and banish the entity.”

    Drusilla sat down on the floor, pulling Conner with her.  She knew when the boy’s mother came she wouldn’t be allowed to be this close to him, and she wanted to enjoy it while she could.  “Teach me!” she said eagerly.

Chapter 8

    The closer they got to the house, the more Buffy could feel it.  A strong pull.  This thing wanted her.  It was hungry for her.  She was scared.  Sitting here between the two people who would protect her most in this world, Spike and Drusilla, and she was scared.  Why was someone doing this to them?  And so hatefully?  They’d killed plenty of bad guys over the years.  She could understand someone wanting revenge.  But this was different.  This was so very personal.  Who knew of her past like this?

    Buffy wasn’t the only one distinctly aware of the evil’s desires.  Now that the thing had been inside of Spike, had left its mark, he could sense it.  He didn’t want to go back here.  Yet there was a part of him that wanted nothing else.  He’d had her in his arms, as unreal as it was.  For one second he was able to atone.

    The two cars pulled up on the gravel drive and stopped a good hundred yards away from the house.  Edward got out of the car first to light the sacred fire and make his offering.  When he was done, before he’d lit his pipe, he motioned for Drusilla to come out.  Her power had rubbed against him during the training, much like the big cat he was hoping to call this night.  Come to think of it, that is what she reminded him of.  Cougar.  Sleek, deadly, and powerful.  She didn’t feel evil to him like the spirit in the house or the killer witch in the hills.  She just felt like Cougar:  other.  He knew that if he treated her with respect that she would not harm him.

    Drusilla turned to her childer.  “You both need to stay in the car.  Only get out if you see us in trouble.  Please.”  Both Buffy and Spike nodded to her.  Unsatisfied, she got out of the car and shut the door.  This was terribly dangerous. She was well aware of the way the blackness called to her darlings.  She hated that her attention would be so taken by the ritual.  As if her will alone could keep them from being seduced by the thing.

    She walked over to Edward.  There were no flirtatious smiles as there had been during the training.  This was all business.  It required a purity of concentration.  She must be found acceptable by Cougar or he would not lead them.  If she tried to sense the witch and trail it in the physical world the witch would sense her back, and that would ruin everything.  The spirit walk was their only way.

    Edward took his pipe.  He lit it.  He took the first hit and offered his second prayer up.  Then he handed the pipe to the vampire beside him.  He did not watch her.  He kept his mind focused on his will.  Soon the pipe was back in his hands and there, on the outskirts of the light of the fire, stood Cougar.  There was a gleam in Cougar’s eyes tonight.  Edward had the feeling that the animal had enough of the evil coating its land.  This was a good thing.  It meant that their will and the will of the Great Spirit were one in the same.

    Drusilla saw Cougar.  It was funny.  She knew him, though she’d never met him before.  Not like this.  Not in America.  But she knew him.  She let Edward take her hand and they began their walk.

    Back in the car, Spike watched intently.  Drusilla and Edward were utterly vulnerable physically.  Their spirits were gone.  They could not possibly protect themselves.  So he watched, even though he knew that in the car behind him Angel and Conner were at the ready, equally as strong.  Wesley, too, though his strength lay in wits more than muscle.  Spike knew from first hand experience that Cordelia wasn’t any wimp either.  But still, he watched; focusing in on Edward and Drusilla helped him to ignore the call of the house.

    “Whatcha lookin’ at Spike?”  A tiny, childlike voice sounded from beside him, tearing his attention away from the fire.

    “Buffy?” he asked.  There beside him was the miniature version of his mate.

    “Yep.  Can we go now?  I don’t want to go back in that house,” she said quietly.

    Spike reached out a hesitant hand to touch her.  Solid.  Real.  She even smelled real.  “Buffy?  Is that you, baby?”

    “Uh-huh.  Can we go now?” she asked.  “I don’t like it here.”

    “Not just yet,” Spike said.  He casually glanced in the back seat.  No big Buffy.  Where the hell had his mate gone?  He had a sudden, horrible thought.  Fuck.  They were in big trouble.

    “Why can’t we go yet?” little Buffy asked, her large, dark eyes filling with unshed tears.  “You don’t want me to go with you, do you?  You never wanted me!  That’s why you didn’t come for me.  No one wants me,” she cried and then promptly disappeared.  

    “Buffy!” Spike yelled, reaching out for nothing.  He jumped out of the car and raced all around it, looking.

    Angel was out of the SUV in an instant.  “Spike!  What the fuck are you doing?  Get back in the car!” he growled.

    “I can’t!  Buffy’s gone!”

    “What do you mean Buffy’s gone?  I’ve kept my eyes trained on your car.  You are the only one who’s gotten out since Edward and Dru, Spike.  Now get back in the car.  It’s just trying to mess with you.”

    Spike looked up at him then.  His eyes were wild and desperate.  “She’s there?  Buffy’s there?  In the car?”

    Angel walked up and grabbed him by the arm.  “Yeah, Spike.  Come on.”  He led his grand-childe to the car and opened the door.  “Fuck!” Angel yelled into the night.

    A sob tore out of Spike’s throat.  “She’s not there!  She’s not there is she?”

    “No, Spike.  She’s not,” Angel admitted.

    Spike pushed against Angel, sending the bigger man crashing to the ground as he took off for the house in a dead run.

    Angel got up and ran after him.

    In the SUV, Cordelia had to put a restraining arm around her son.  “Conner you can’t.  If you go in there, Edward and Drusilla are completely vulnerable.  You have to protect them.  And the same goes for you Wesley.  I’ll go.”

    Conner shook his head.  “No mom!  No way are you going in there.”

    Cordelia gave him a pained smile.  “I have to, baby.  Don’t you see?  I’m the only one not related to her.  Spike and Angel share her blood.  They’re connected.  I have the best chance of going in there and getting them all out.”

    “Cordelia, you have the right of it,” Wesley began, “but what concerns me is how the spirit managed to get Buffy out of the car in the first place.  Either it managed to cloak her exit from us all, or it is so very powerful that it literally took her out of the car and into the house.  Either way, it means that it is capable of far more than we thought.”

    “Is there any other way, Wesley?  Until Edward and Dru get back, is there another way?” Cordelia asked.

    “No, there isn’t,” Wesley admitted.  Then he reached down and gathered a bag off the floor of the car.  “Here,” he said, putting a small bag around her neck.  “Edward, Drusilla, and I made these earlier.  It holds some personal items of yours.  It will offer only a minimum of protection, I fear.”

    “How does it work?” Conner asked.  This was his mother they were talking about.  The one who had put him to bed, made him soup when he was sick, and kissed the booboos away.  He’d been feeling a little disconnected from her recently, but right now she seemed like the most important thing in the world.

    “It works on faith, like most everything else.  In your mother’s bag, is a lock of your hair, your father’s, and hers, all woven together.   Along with a portion of the book she carries around with her of short stories,” Wesley explained.

    “But I’ve never even finished that thing, in like four years!” Cordelia said in confusion.

    “Yes, but it goes with you everywhere.  Your hands have held it.  Your eyes have touched it.  Your scent coats it.  And most importantly, your mind has been filled with it on several occasions,” Wesley said.  “The other item is the chain from the necklace Angel gave you on your first anniversary.”

    Cordelia wanted to berate him for touching one of her most precious possessions, but she didn’t.  If it helped.  Then it helped.  She looked over at Conner and ran a hand lovingly down his cheek.  “It’ll be okay.  Do you honestly think I’d let anything take you or your father away from me?”

    Conner shook his head.  “No, but I don’t like this.  I really, really don’t like this.”

    “I know, sweetie.  But I have to go.  It’s your dad,” Cordelia said, knowing that explained everything.  “Now, remember what Spike told you. If things go to hell in a hand basket, you get your ass out of here.  Go to the hotel and call Willow and Tara.”

    “I promise,” Conner said.  It was one of the hardest promises he’d ever had to make.  It went against every instinct he had, but he knew it was their best hope.

    “I love you,” Cordelia told him.

    “I love you too,” he said, swallowing hard.  Then he watched as his mother walked into the night and was eventually swallowed up the blackness that seemed to surround the house.

Chapter 9

Buffy was scared.  She didn’t like being in the house all by herself.  Grace and David usually had someone stay with her when they had to leave.  But this time they’d left her all alone. She wondered if it had something to do with the baby.  The baby wasn’t here either.  Just Buffy.  All alone in the big, big house.  She didn’t like it one bit.  It was dark.  Things came out in the dark.  Grace and David didn’t believe her, but she knew they did.

Spike would believe her, but he wasn’t here.  He was supposed to be here.  Why hadn’t he come for her?  Maybe he didn’t want her.  Maybe she’d been bad before, and now she was being punished.  She’d be stuck here alone forever.  Forever, without Spike.  The thought made her feel really bad.  Her little chin started to quiver and she curled herself into a ball.  The tightest ball she could.

Spike hit the door of the house hard.  He gripped the brass handle and pulled until it came away from the framing.  For one terrible moment he thought he would hit a barrier, but then he remembered that Buffy had told him when she was four they’d had cement poured for a pool in the back.  She’d written ‘Come in Spike’ into the wet cement so that he would always have an invite.  So that he could get to her.  The thought of that one, desperate act kept him awake some nights.

He walked across the threshold and into the darkness of the house.  Even with his superior night vision things remained dark.  It was as if the darkness itself was a sentient being.  He didn’t call out to her.  He didn’t dare.  Instead, he used the bond he shared with her like a life-line, letting it pull him along to where she was.    

Angel was right behind Spike.  He saw him walk through the door and tried to follow, but he hit the barrier.  “Fuck!  Spike!” he yelled.  It was futile.  Even if the vampire had been inclined to answer, he never would have heard him.  The house was taking the sound in, absorbing it.  Angel decided to walk around the house and see if he could at least see what was going on inside.

An open window caught his attention.  He had to step through some overgrown ivy to get to it, but once he did he could see clearly into what looked like a sterile guest room.  He leaned his forehead against the barrier.   Nothing.  He couldn’t sense a thing.  Then suddenly the room began to change in front of him.  Rose covered wall paper appeared along with a white canopy bed decorated with a pink, Swiss-dot coverlet.  A tiny lump formed in the middle of the bed, under the covers.  It was a little girl.  Angel could hear her crying.

 “Buffy!” he yelled helplessly, lifting up a fist to pound against the barrier.  A vine snaked out from the side of the house, grabbing his fist and pulling it against the hard brick.  Angel looked at it and went to pull it away with his other hand but suddenly found it just as trapped against the other side of the window.  He tried to step away and break free, but the vines wound around his legs, pushing him flush against the house so his forehead was pressed against the barrier.  He tried to struggle but they just got tighter, cutting into his skin.

Buffy didn’t like her room.  It wasn’t hers.  Nothing was hers.  Nothing except Spike and Dawn, but they weren’t here.  Just her.  All alone in this room that mocked her with its sweet wallpaper and impossible joy.  She just wanted to go home.  Home to Spike and Dawn.  She was so lonely.  And now even David, Grace, and the baby were gone.

Spike followed the trace of his mate down the darkened corridor.  He tried to flip on a light switch but it proved useless.  Eventually he came to a door.  This had to be it.  He could feel her.  He pushed open the door slowly, staring into the room.  His eyes immediately went to the lump in the middle of the bed.  “Buffy” he called out softly.  “It’s me, kitten.”

The lump on the bed became completely still.  Then there was a slight sniffle.  “Spike?” It was the tiniest of whispers.

He didn’t know if it was her or not.  If it was just some old image of her that the spirit in the house was using, or if it was in fact Buffy.  But it didn’t matter.  It sounded, smelled, and felt like his girl.  So he went to her.  He walked into the room, and slowly pulled back the covers.  A dark waterfall of hair appeared, slightly parted on the side to reveal one dark eye.

“Hey, sweetness,” he said as he leaned down to gather her up.

“Is it really you?” she asked.  “’Cause sometimes I think you’re here and your not.”

Her words went straight to his heart like arrows.  Painful little shafts of regret.  “It’s really me this time.  I came for you.  Sorry it took me so long, baby.  So, so sorry.”

Buffy uncurled herself and let him pull her into his arms.  She wrapped her tiny little hands around his neck and placed her forehead on his nose.  “I’ve been missing you,” she told him.

“I know. I know.  Not gonna let you go,” he promised.

“Good,” she said, then added in a whisper, “I think there’s something wrong.  The house feels different to me.  I can’t find Grace and David or the baby.”

Shivers of dread danced along Spike’s spine.  This was too easy.  If he tried leaving would she disappear again like she had in the car?  Sucked back into the house?  Why had he been allowed to find her?  Was this just an image of her being used to distract him from the real her?  If so, it had him.  There was no way he could put her down.  Not sure at all if it was the right thing to do, he walked over to the door.  And was promptly thrown back.  

“See,” she said.  “It’s the house.  It’s different.  Something is wrong.  It’s making my tinglies go off.”

‘Slayer’, Spike thought.  It was a sign he had the real thing.  He doubted that was something that the evil spirit would have thought to say.  Now, as to why it was able to take his Buffy and turn her into bitty Buffy he had no clue.  “’S alright, luv.  We’ll get out of this.  We aren’t alone.  Just have to wait it out.  We’ll sit down on this very girly looking bed and wait it out.”

“Okay, Spike.  As long as I’m with you I know I’ll be okay,” she declared.

Spike’s heart hurt.  How had he ever managed to win Buffy over like this to where as a mere child she had complete faith in the useless, evil creature that he was.  He sat down on the bed and held her tightly to him.

From the window Angel watched in complete horror.  He could see it.  It was seeping into them, filling them with its blackness.  He tried to shout out warnings to them, yelling over and over for them to leave.  But they couldn’t hear him.

Cordelia came up to the door with the short sword gripped tightly in her hands.  She realized that it wasn’t the most affective weapon against some spiritual entity, but hey, a weapon was a weapon, and it felt good in her hands.  One of the vamps had done a nice job of tearing the door open.  She took a deep breath for courage and stepped over the threshold.  Both her demon side and her human side sort of shrank back, as if the thing that was in the house was deeply repellent to them.  But somewhere in here was her husband.  So she forced herself to go forward.

She didn’t have the handy enhanced sight as part of her demon package, so she felt along the wall for a light switch.  She wasn’t surprised to find it already in the ‘on’ position; nevertheless she gave it three or four ‘down/up’ flips before calling it quits.  Figures.  Damned evil spirit.

 Okay.  This would be a feel your way along the house kind of thing.  Feel your way along the scary, dark, evil inhabited house.  She decided to keep her left hand on the wall at all times and just go forward, making left hand turns when she found an opening.  As long as no one was passed out and unable to call out to her from the middle of the floor she would find them.  Eventually.  Or something nasty and horrible would find her first.  This so wasn’t the life she envisioned for herself when she was growing up.

Back in the bedroom Spike realized he was getting sleepy.  So was Buffy.  At first she’d been chatty.  Telling him about her life and asking after everyone from Sunnydale.  Occasionally she’d get this funny look in her eye, like she was somehow familiar with what he was telling her.  He turned their positions so that he could cradle her from behind.  What would a nap hurt?  Who knows how much time they would have until Drusilla and Edward came back from the spirit walk.  He bent down to kiss the top of Buffy’s head and that’s when he noticed it.  Before she’d looked about eight or nine years old, now she looked younger.  Like maybe five or six.  Funny.  He gave her the kiss and then let his eyes close.  Just a nap.

Angel was thrashing around.  He had to get free.  He had to help them.  Spike obviously couldn’t see what was happening.  The blackness was inside of them.  It was sucking Buffy away, making her smaller and smaller. Instead of growing younger, Spike was starting to rot like the dead body he was, losing bits of himself.  All the while the entity that was possessing the house was growing stronger.  Angel could feel it.  A sudden sound from inside the house reached his ears.  It was the sound of a woman screaming.  Cordelia!

With a renewed burst of desperation, Angel tore at the vines.  It was useless.  He felt useless.  A cold rage started to burn inside of him.  He knew this rage.  It was the rage of the demon.  The rage of Angelus.  Cordelia may be Angel’s wife, but Angelus had been the one to claim her, and he wasn’t about to let some fucking spirit take his mate or his childer.  For once Angel and the demon were in complete agreement.  He did something he swore he would never do.  He let go.  He could feel himself falling into the deep abyss that was his inner self.  A burst of power came forth as Angelus sprang to the fore, and he used it to tear himself free from the vines.

He knew he couldn’t go inside without an invitation so he turned and ran back to the SUV.  He glanced at the still forms of Drusilla and Edward.  They were still in the spirit walk, but they were safe.  

Conner saw him approaching and jumped out of the car.  “Dad!” he yelled as he flung his arms around his father. Angel was always good at giving him hugs, but this time it was a near crushing, desperate embrace that he received from his father.  “Where’s mom?” Conner asked.

“She’s stuck in the house.  I need a phone.  Quick,” Angelus said as he let go of the boy.

Wesley came out of the car and handed his boss a cell phone.  “Here, Angel.”

“Thanks, Wes,” he said as he dialed the number of the hotel and asked to be put through to Grace and David’s room.  “Yeah.  I need an invite into your home.  My childer and my mate are inside.  The name’s Angelus.”  When the couple had given him a verbal invitation he handed the phone back to Wesley.

“Angelus?” Wesley asked, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Wes.  I’m not going to slaughter you all.  Soul boy had to let me out.  He wasn’t strong enough to fight this thing.  Now I’m going to go in there and get my family the fuck out.”

“You’re bleeding,” Conner said quietly.  He’d been told all of his life that if Angelus ever made another appearance he was to stake him.  No questions asked.  But all he could think about was that he was hurt.  He was his father and he was hurt.

Angelus looked down at his wrists.  “Shit!”  He held one wrist up to the boy and stuck the other in his mouth.  When the kid just looked at him he pulled his wrist away.  “It’s in your saliva.  It will stop me from bleeding.  I don’t want that thing to get a taste of my blood.  Now suck.”  He put his wrists back.

So Conner had his first taste of blood.  Not just any blood but the blood of his father.  He closed his eyes.  It was one of the most comforting feelings he’d ever experienced.  When Angelus pulled the wrist away, Conner growled in protest.  It was another first.

Angelus laughed.  That was his boy.  He gave a slight salute to the men and took off back to the house.  This time with an invite.

Chapter 10

Cordelia’s knee hit something solid.  “Ouch!” she yelped, putting her hands out to feel her way.  A cabinet.  A counter top.  She was in the kitchen.  Figures.  Maybe there would be a flashlight.  She ran her hands along the wood until she came to a drawer. She opened it and rummaged around.  A slight sound caught her attention  So slight, she paused, listening.  It was a drawer.  A drawer was being opened.

Shit.  This was bad.  Something went whizzing by her ear, barely nicking it.  She screamed.  Then she moved, trying to get to the other side of the kitchen.  To any other room.  Any room that didn’t contain knives!  She hit a wall.  Fuck!  She turned to run the other way but another knife came out of the blackness going into her shoulder and pinning her to the wall.  Her legs tangled up with the small plastic trashcan resting against the wall causing her to fall towards the ground.  The knife in her shoulder tore a ragged whole in her flesh, but kept her in place.  She screamed again.  Another knife came flying, entering the other shoulder.

This was it.  She was going to die.  Her only regret was not getting to say goodbye.  To tell Angel just how much she loved him.  At least she’d gotten to tell Conner.  Her baby knew.  She opened her mouth, not to scream, but to say her last words.  Maybe the wind would carry them.  Whisper them in his ear wherever he was.  “I love you, Angel.  Always.”

“Love you too, baby.”  The words came from in front of her.  He was here. “Now hold on.  This is gonna hurt,” he warned.

“No. Don’t.  You have to get out of here!  It’s in here.  It’ll hurt you,” she said frantically.  And no sooner were the words out of her mouth than she heard him grunt.  A knife.  In his back.  “Please, Angel.  Go!  I love you.  You have to go,” she pleaded.

Angelus ignored her just as he ignored the knife, now two knifes, sticking out of his back.  He yanked hard, removing the object that had his wife embedded in the wall.  But before yanking the other out, he tore her shirt away and began to suck at the wound.  He repeated his actions on the other side, and then turned her around so he could suck at the wounds on her back.  Three more knives plunged into his flesh.  Apparently Grace liked to cook.

“Okay, baby.  We’re gonna run now,” he said as he pulled her protectively to his side, shielding her as much as he could.  They made it into the living room and down another hall.  Unfortunately it was in the opposite direction as Spike and Buffy.  They went into the first room with a door and closed it firmly behind them.  

Cordelia was kissing his neck and pulling knives out all at once.  She was also crying.  “It hurt you.  It hurt my guy.  I’m so gonna find a way to kill it!” she hissed.

Angelus laughed.  He understood why Angel had chosen this one.  At first he’d been a little pissed.  The fact that she was part demon helped, but the fact that she wasn’t Drusilla weighed against her.  Over the years, however, her bravery and her pluck had earned a place in his heart.  Also, he knew Cordelia was ageing; someday he would have Dru again.  Until then he would live his life beside this fierce beauty.

When the last knife was out and she’d sopped up as much blood as she could with her torn shirt, she turned him around and attacked his mouth.  She couldn’t get enough of him.  “If we still didn’t have to rescue Spike and Buffy I would fuck you right into the ground.  Do you have any idea how sexy it is when you rescue me like that?” she asked, biting and nipping at various places on his body.

“There’s always time,” he growled as he threw onto the carpet and worked her pants down.

“Angel!” she yelled in shock, though not attempting to stop him.  Before she could manage a more coherent protest he’d opened the fly to his pants and shoved himself into her core.

“Angelus, actually.  But feel free to cry out whatever you want,” he told her as he pounded away.

For one second Cordelia paused.  She wasn’t afraid.  It was something else.  That tiny, niggling wonder if she was cheating on her husband.  Then she acknowledged firmly what she had failed to acknowledge before:  Angelus was just as much her mate as Angel.  “Alright, baby, but make it quick,” she said as she joined in.

“Fuck, I love you, Delia,” he rasped, touched at the way she was accepting him.

“Love you, too.  My guy.  My husband.  My mate.  Angelus.  Oh…  Oh… Ungh!!!  Angelus,” she screamed as she came hard.  Why did violence always do this to her?  Maybe it was the part demon thing.

Angelus came right along with her.  It wasn’t the fastest fuck of his life.  Darla had gotten that privilege.  But it was damn close.  Have to make it up to her later.  He hopped up, pulling her with him, and righting both of their clothes.  “Okay, let’s go get my childer.”

“I’m right with you,” she declared.

Angelus rattled the door handle.  “It’s locked us in.”  He gripped the door hard and ripped it off its hinges.  “This thing is really pissing me off.”

They walked along the hall, making their way back towards the kitchen so they could get to Spike and Buffy.  Nothing moved.  No sound.  No light.  Nothing.  It was this complete lack of anything that was so unnerving.  It felt like death.  Except without the whole after life part.  

Angelus tried to talk.  He tried to tell Cordelia that the spirit was playing a mind game with them.  Sometimes allowing for sound.  Sometimes not.  But nothing came out.  At least they could still feel.  He squeezed her hand reassuringly.  They eventually made it to the door outside of the room that he’d been forced to peer in at.  It was easy.  Too easy.  

He turned the door handle and pushed the door effortlessly open.  His senses returned all at once.  He could hear.  He could also smell.  It was a smell he was familiar with.  It was the smell of a rotting corpse.  He looked at his wife.  Her face had gone completely white.  She was staring at Spike.  Or what was left of him.

Her hand firmly gripped in his, Angelus walked up to the bed.  Buffy looked to be about two years old at this point.  “Spike,” he whispered.

“Huh?” A sleepy Spike mumbled, turning over with his precious bundle still cradled in his arms.

“We need to get you out of here.  It’s killing you both,” Angelus declared.

“Caaank,” Spike said.  He looked at his grand-sire funny.  Why couldn’t he talk right?  He reached up a hand to feel at his mouth.  It didn’t feel right.  When he caught sight of his hand, however, he screamed, waking up Buffy.

The small child turned hard eyes on Angelus and Cordelia.  “What you do?” she demanded, holding tightly onto her Spike.  She didn’t care how horrible he looked or smelled.

“It wasn’t me, Buffy.  It’s the house.  Or the thing in the house.  It’s like it’s eating you two.  We have to get you out of here,” Angelus told her, hoping that little or not she could still process what he was saying.

“’Kay,” she said, and then turned to look at Spike.  “I’s okay, Spike. We gonna get outta here.”

Spike was horrified.  He looked like a weeks old corpse that Drusilla had left in the trunk of the Desoto.  He couldn’t understand how Buffy could touch him.  Especially being just a little tot.  What had happened while he’d been sleeping?  Angel was right; they needed to get out of here.  But he was afraid Buffy’d get sucked back into the house again.  Only he didn’t have the necessary equipment to tell that to Angel.  So he settled for grunting and pointing at her.

“You’re worried that she’ll just disappear again?” Angelus asked.

Spike nodded.

“It’s the chance we have to take, Spike.  Otherwise you both just die and I won’t accept that.  Don’t make me order you,” Angelus said severely.

Spike’s eyes widened.  This was his true grand-sire.  This was Angelus.  A feeling of immense relief came over him.  Somehow he knew it would be okay.  Angelus never let anything happen to one of his own.  He nodded and stood up on shaky legs, still holding Buffy.

Cordelia let go of her husband’s hand and walked over to link an arm around Spike.  Angelus did the same on the other side, immensely proud of his mate’s backbone.  They practically had to carry the vampire out of the house.  Nothing stopped them.  That’s what worried them most of all.  They made it to the bottom step on the front porch when Buffy started to shake.

“Don’t leave me!” she wailed, gripping Spike tightly.

“Ngungh,” Spike said in frustration.  How could he make her understand that he wasn’t going to leave her?  He couldn’t fucking talk.  And if she didn’t stop squeezing his neck like that it was going to pop off.

Angelus looked down at the petrified toddler.  “Buffy, is that what happened back in the car?  Were you afraid Spike was going to leave you here?”

“Yes,” she whispered, loosening her grip.  

Angelus looked at Spike and Cordelia.  “I think this thing is tied into her subconscious.  As long as she doesn’t fear being abandoned, I think we can get her out to the car.”

Spike grunted in desperation.

Angelus looked down at the child, staring into her eyes.  “Buffy.  Spike can’t talk, but I’m his elder and I know what he is saying.  He’s telling me to tell you that he loves you and that nothing, not even death, will separate him from you.  Do you understand?”

Her green eyes filled with hope.  “Nothing?”

“Nghungh,” Spike rasped.

“I love you, Spike!” she declared, kissing him on his blackened cheek.

Spike felt a tightness around his eyes.  He realized he couldn’t cry.  No moisture in his body, but that he wanted to.  Here he was a disgusting, rotting corpse and she was kissing him.  This was his girl. Always his girl.

They started walking again towards the cars, and hopefully for a way to kill this thing before there was nothing left of Spike and Buffy.

Chapter 11

“We have to return now,” Drusilla said to Edward.  She could feel the need of her childer.  Something horrible had happened to them.

 “First we need to know exactly how to take the power from her.  So that we can control the evil spirit,” Edward reminded her.  They’d found the killer witch easily enough, but she appeared to be in a trance.  They were unable to witness any ceremonies that would reveal to them the bad medicine being used.

 “Leave it to me,” Drusilla told him.

 Edward looked at her and nodded.  “I will trust you on this.”

 Drusilla spared him a slight smile before turning with him to walk out of the cave.  She had to get back.  Had to help her beloveds.  Time was running out.  She slipped her hand into Edwards.  “Trust, you said,” she whispered before moving through the spirit world at a lightening fast pace.  She may be a mere spirit here, but she had experience in the physical world of moving in ways that humans weren’t accustomed to.  Edward was unaware of his own possibilities in this realm.

 Edward felt himself soaring through the night.  It was a heady pleasure unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.  Somewhat like Drusilla herself.  This dark, charming creature called to him in ways he knew she should not.

 They arrived back at the cars to an absolute horror.  Spike was rotting away.  Buffy was slipping out of existence.  The evil spirit was consuming their essences at an alarming rate.

 Spike was leaning against the tire of the car with an infant Buffy in his arms.  Angelus and Cordelia were flanking him, propping up each of his weakened appendages so that he could continue to grasp his precious girl.  The baby would go to no one else.

 Drusilla got up, shaking off the spirit world before Edward did, and walked up to her sire.  She knew instinctively it was her true sire.  What a terrible ache to see him again and not be able to give herself to him. 

Angelus looked into the eyes of his favorite childe.  A world of sorrow and a world of promise passed between them.  Their time would come again.

 Edward came up and stood directly behind Drusilla, sensing she needed support.  “We watched the witch but we were unable to see how she is controlling the evil.”

 “Fuck!” Angelus cried out.

 “It is okay, my sire,” Drusilla whispered.  “I know how to fight this.  I know the witch.  I know the power she is using.  It doesn’t belong to her.  Nothing but a thief!” Drusilla spat out.  Then she turned to Wesley.

 “You must take the baby from Spike.  Take it, and don’t give it back no matter what,” she said to the ex-Watcher.

 “Why?” Wesley asked in confusion.  “Why me?”

 “Because you still reek of Council.  They trust you least of all that are here,” she explained.

 Wesley had no idea where Drusilla was going with this, but at this point he didn’t see a lot of options.  He bent down and pulled the baby out of Spike’s weakened arms.  The vampire tried to growl.  He tried to weep.  But he didn’t have anything left.  Nothing but his sorrow shining through filmy eyes.  But the baby did.  The baby had something left.  The baby had what all babies have.  Lungs and the willpower to use them.

 Buffy didn’t know what was happening.  All she knew was that she was no longer where she wanted to be.  Spike.  She wanted her Spike.  She could still smell him. Still hear him as he moaned for her.  Spike wanted her.  Someone had taken her away.  She opened her mouth and began to wail.  She kicked her little legs and beat her little fists in the air.  Long, drawn out screeches rent the night splitting it open.  Her face began to turn red, her cries reaching a rhythm of intense rage.

 Spike struggled to reach her, shambling over to Wesley across the gravel drive on his knees and elbows.  “Ahhhii,” he moaned.  He was trying to say ‘mine’.  He couldn’t understand why Wesley was doing this.  Why anyone would want to take Buffy away from him.  Didn’t they understand they belonged together?  She’d fought death to come back to him.  Death.    He reeked of it.  Could feel bits of himself sloughing off as the gravel cut into his skin.  Death had come for him once again.  Death was trying to separate him from his love.  It was wrong.  All wrong.  Anger started to fill him.

 “Anghhh!!!” he growled out.  Ever closer to Wesley.  Ever closer to his goal.  Buffy.

 Angelus moved to help him, but was stopped by a stern look from Drusilla.  This was Spike’s battle.

 Wesley was having quite a time of it.  The baby in his arms was strong.  And exceedingly pissed.  He was holding onto her for all that he was worth.  Just a tiny baby and yet her Slayer strength.  Wait…  “Buggery bleedin hell!” Wesley yelped, letting go of his charge.  Buffy did not fall to the ground, however.  She was attached to Wesley’s neck with her teeth.  Not Slayer strength it turned out.  She was still a vampire.

 Angelus was impressed as hell.  Buffy had a firm bite on Wesley and she was shaking her tiny little head back and forth, sucking his blood and just generally making her point known.  Suddenly she began to grow.  Instead of an infant she was back to being a toddler, the size of her knocking Wesley to the ground. Still, she stayed on, growing ever more before their eyes.  When she looked about four years old she let go, but not before delivering a vicious kick to Wesley’s ribs. 

 “That’s for taking me away from my Spike!” she growled before turning to go to her vampire.

 “Ugnghhee,” Spike moaned from the ground.  He’d seen what she’d done.  That was his girl.  His amazing girl.

 Buffy ran to Spike and lifted him to a sitting position so she could crawl into his lap.  “Mine!” she yelled to the people around her, to the evil spirit, to the night sky, and to the killer witch in the cave.  “My Spike!  My vampire!  Mine!”

 Her words wrapped themselves around the anger that had entered Spike.  They braided together, moving through his system, reminding him of his purpose.  Of his reason for being.  Buffy.  Yes, he had failed her.  He hadn’t been there for her when she was a child.  He hated that, but he was here for her now.  He wouldn’t fail her this time.  He would not let some worthless, evil entity suck his life away.  Not when his life was so very important to her. 

 “It’s working,” Edward whispered to Drusilla.  Buffy was getting older and Spike was starting to knit back together.

 “Should I feed him?” Angelus asked.

 “No.  They will take what is theirs back from the spirit,” Dru said firmly.

 Spike felt a weight in his lap.  A nice, solid, good-sized Buffy weight.  He also felt a full pallet with lips and everything.  “I love you,” he said tenderly.

 “I love you, too,” she whispered in a broken cry.  “This is all my fault.  It was my pain that let this thing feed on us.  I’m so sorry.  I thought I’d let it go.”

 “How could you let something go that I held onto so strongly, kitten?” Spike asked tenderly.  “It’s been eating at me ever since you told me what happened.  This isn’t your fault.  It’s ours.  Now let’s go kick its ass and the ass of whoever is behind it.”

 Buffy jumped to her feet and spun around.  She pulled him down for one desperate, passion filled kiss.  “I’m with you, baby.  All the way,” she declared.

 “I know you are,” he answered with confidence.  Then he looked at Drusilla and Edward.  “How do we kill it?”

 Dru smiled at him.  It was a wicked smile.  One he’d seen a thousand times before on his sire.  “All you need is love,” she sang.

 Spike through his head back and laughed.  “I think that can be arranged.”  He picked Buffy up and threw her over his shoulder.  “Don’t mind us!” he called out.  “Just gonna shag my woman senseless on the floor of her childhood bedroom.  Someone call Grace and David.  Let them know they’ll be wanting new carpet!”

 “Ooh, Spike!” Cordelia called back.  “You are such a pig!”

 “Yeah, but he’s my pig!” Buffy declared.

 Spike marched boldly back into the house.  He could feel the spirit reacting, pulling at them, and attempting to make its way in again so that it could suck them dry.  “Not this time,” he growled with confidence.  He walked down the hall and into the bedroom.  Immediately the decor changed as it had before in an attempt to throw them off.  Spike put Buffy down on the ground, ignoring the parlor tricks.  “Feel up to a little kink, pet?”

 Buffy used her legs to snake around her mate and bring him down upon her.  She ground herself against him.  “With you?  Always!” she declared passionately.

 “Way too many clothes, luv,” Spike said, loving the feel of her against him.

 “Whatcha gonna do about that, Spikey?” she purred, biting into his ear.

 Spike growled and vamped, claws coming out.  “Tear them to shreds of course.”  And then he did just that.

 Not one to be outdone, Buffy followed suit until they were both lying on the remains of their clothes skin to skin.  “Come in, baby,” she whispered, gently this time.

 Spike pushed his way between her folds.  When he was buried to the hilt he paused and closed his eyes, relishing the way she felt around him.  Then he opened his eyes, looking into hers.  “Time to deflower this bedroom, my blossom,” he said in his best bedroom voice.  Then he pulled out ever so slowly before pushing back into her.  He repeated the action, increasing his pace, pounding into her harder and harder causing her to completely loose control.

 Buffy’s nails found purchase in the skin of Spike’s back.  Then they moved down, creating deep, bloody furrows across his alabaster skin.  The scent of his blood filled the room, driving them both into a frenzy.  “Spike!” she screamed out.  “Fuck, baby!  Harder!  Harder!  Make me bleed!” she demanded.

 Spike dove into her as hard as he could, pushing her down into the carpet.  He growled fiercely as he arched his back and bent his neck to capture a rosy nipple in his mouth.  He bit down hard, causing blood to well up all around her areola.  Then he started to suckle.  Brushing his tongue over the tip as he sucked her sweet blood down his throat.  “Mine!” he chanted over and over as he worked at her nipples, switching off one to the other.

 “Yours!” she growled out as she held his head to her breasts.  “Nothing can separate us.  Not death.  Not life.  Nothing!” she yelled.

 “Nothing,” Spike echoed.  That’s when he felt it.  It was a low buzzing that reminded him of an electrical current.  It was entering him, filling him up.  But there was a familiarity to it, much different from the foreign sensation of the blackness earlier.  This was… This was his.  No.  It was theirs.

 “Let it come, my love,” Buffy said, lifting his face up so she could capture his lips in a deep kiss.  Her fangs cut into his lips, and she lapped at the blood.  She was so close.  She could feel the pressure building.  She just needed…

 Spike broke away from her greedy mouth and tilted his head, knowing exactly what her need was.  They moved as one, biting into the other’s necks, viciously tearing at the skin as they growled and let the buzzing wash over them.

 From out in the yard, by the cars, the others felt a tingling across their skin.  It reminded them of the way the atmosphere felt right before a thunder storm.  Suddenly there was a ‘popping’ sound as something broke in the night.  The ground shook with its force and the true sensations of the night settled over the land.  It felt refreshing.  It felt right.

 Edward looked at Drusilla.  “Please tell me that wasn’t their orgasm?”

 Drusilla threw her head back and laughed.

tbc

Chapter 12

Buffy and Spike had a little problem.  Sure, the sex had been great, and they’d taken their power back from the big evil, but they’d been a little overly exuberant in the clothing removal department.  The idea of wearing Grace and David’s clothes after what they just did seemed… Well… Unseemly.  So towels it was.

Spike linked his hand with hers.  “Ready, luv?” he asked, gripping the towel with his other hand.  

“Ready,” she answered.

They walked, heads held high, towels clasped tightly, out to the drive.  Drusilla and Angelus looked at them with pride.  Cordelia didn’t seem to care one way or the other.  But Wesley and Edward could barely meet their eyes.  Conner was the interesting one, however.  Conner was looking at them as if he was studying them.

“One baddie down,” Buffy quipped.  “One to go.  Just point us in the right direction.  We’ll do the killin’.”

“Perhaps some clothes would be in order first,” Cordelia suggested.

Spike chuckled.  A lovely image of his beautiful mate running naked through the hills to slaughter someone entered his head.  Ahh… That would be good times.  Something hit his chest with a ‘thunk’.  He looked down.  Clothes.  Not his clothes, but clothes.  Conner’s clothes from the smell of them.  He glanced at Buffy.  She had an armful of what smelled like one of Cordelia’s ensembles.  He looked at the ex-cheerleader with one raised brow.

“What?” Cordelia huffed, closing the hatch on the SUV they’d rented.  “I’m a mother.  Preparedness is what I do.”

“Thanks, Cordy,” Buffy said as she walked on the other side of one of the big vehicles, dragging her mate with her.

The two quickly pulled the borrowed clothes on.  “At least you’ll be runnin’ without a bra,” Spike said.  “Had a fantasy of you runnin’ naked and wild through the hills.”

Buffy rose up on her tip toes and gave him a kiss.  “Ahh.  I’m sorry, honey.  Maybe another night when we aren’t fighting for our lives I can run naked through the wilds of Sunnydale.  Harmony could join me and you and Xander could run after us like cave men.”

The thought cheered Spike.  “Yeah, alright,” he agreed.  “Can’t wait to tell Harris.”

They walked back over to the group in somewhat ill fitting clothes.  “Okay, where is it and how do we kill it?”

“Follow me, my lovelies,” Drusilla sing-songed.

“We aren’t going to fly through the hills again are we?” Edward asked warily.  It was one thing to do that in spirit form and quite another to do it as ordinary Edward.

Drusilla gave him a sly grin.  “Not right now we aren’t,” she said mysteriously.  This college professor really needed some fun.  An experience or two with someone wicked to help him uncover a few layers was in order.  She wouldn’t keep him.  He wasn’t meant for her.  But there was someone out there for him.  Someone back home whom he saw daily but never saw him back.  When Dru was done, he’d be seen.  He’d shine.

As it turned out, they only needed Drusilla to lead them part of the way to the cave.  The angry screaming guided them the rest of the way.  

“Someone’s cranky,” Cordelia snarked.

Angelus leaned over his wife and nipped at her neck.  “Spankings might be in order.”

“I’m thinking more along the lines of a time-out,” Buffy said with a wicked laugh.

The group filled the cave entrance, catching the eyes of the killer witch inside.  Matted blonde hair topped the head of a disgustingly familiar figure.

“Lisa,” Buffy hissed, slipping into a predatory stance.

The woman hunched her shoulders and cackled.  “You think you’ve won, don’t you?  Just because you sucked the power from my evil spirit just like you sucked the power from me.  It was my power!  Mine!  And you took it.  Well, I found a new power and you can’t take this one from me.  You can lock me up.  Put me behind the Council’s bars.  Won’t matter.  The power will be with me.  I’ll be gathering.  All the time, gathering.  Waiting for the moment to unleash myself on y…”

Her body fell lifeless to the ground.  Everyone looked up at Conner in utter surprise.  He shrugged his shoulders.  “I wasn’t feeling like listening to a whole ‘evil wrap-up’ speech from her.  She always talked too much.”

Angelus left the group and stalked over to his son.  He pulled him into his arms.  “That’s my boy.”  He looked back at Spike.  “Did you see my boy?”

Spike smiled.  “I sure did.  Fine man you’ve got there, Angelus.”

Wesley was the only one who remained unimpressed.  “She was human.  We should have taken her back to the Council.”

Edward put a hand on his shoulder.  “She was corrupted.  There was no bringing her back.  She’d stolen the bad medicine.  It’s a serious crime.  A mark on her spirit.  To let her live would have meant the possibility of her letting loose another evil spirit.  This is the only way.  It is fitting.”

Wesley heard the man’s words, but he knew it would take some time before he could process all of them.  He nodded his reluctant acceptance.  “What needs to be done with the body?”

Buffy was the first to answer him.  “We burn it,” she stated as she walked over and picked up Lisa’s lifeless form and tossed it into the fire.  Then she turned back to her mate with tears in her eyes.

“Come here, kitten,” Spike said, opening up his arms.  

“I just can’t understand how she came to be so hateful!  All we ever did was defend ourselves against her,” Buffy cried as she wrapped her arms around Spike.

“She didn’t see it like that, baby.  She couldn’t.  She was twisted with dissatisfaction.  Always had been.  I could see it, but I didn’t care.  She wasn’t you and that was the whole point.  There was no risk of falling in love with her.  ‘S why I was so hard on you when you came to the hotel.  Knew right away that you could steel my heart, just took me awhile to realize you already had it,” Spike laughed.

Buffy nuzzled his armpit with her nose.  “Yeah, I did.  And you had mine.”

They waited outside of the cave for the body to burn.  It was a somewhat quiet group.  It was hard to feel victorious when one who had once been a part of your group, a warrior, had fallen.  When the body was as burned as it could be with the fire inside of the cave, they used sand to extinguish the flames and then walked back to the cars.  Dawn was coming.  It was time to get back to the hotel.

Buffy put in a quick call to Grace and David telling them they were all okay, but that before the house could be lived in again, Edward wanted to perform a cleansing on it.  She hung the phone up and then joined her mate in the shower.

When they were clean they dried each other off and climbed into the cool sheets of the bed.  Spike rolled on his side so he could look into Buffy’s eyes.  He reached up a hand and ran it lovingly over her face.  “I am amazed all over again at how well you love me,” he told her.

Tears filled her brown eyes.  “It’s what you bring out in me, Spike.  You bring out love.  It’s nothing more than a reflection of what you are to me.”

Spike felt his throat grow tight, and he swallowed with difficulty.  “I was this rotting, disgusting thing and you were this precious little girl, and yet you held onto me as if I was…”  His voice broke.  “As if I was the most wonderful thing in the world.  That just… Fuck, Buffy.”  He broke off, starting to sob.

She held him to her.  “Shhh, it’s okay.  Its okay, baby.  It’s a good thing.  Our love is strong.  It always has been.  We just had some trouble getting things together.  But now nothing can tear us apart.  Not even our own regrets and fears.  Tonight proved that.  Our love is everything,” she declared.  Her own tears were flowing freely down her cheeks.

Spike lifted his face up to hers and hungrily claimed her lips.  “Need you baby,” he whispered into her mouth.  “Need you nice and slow this time.”

“You’ve got me, Spike.  You’ve always got me,” Buffy whispered back as she guided him inside her where he belonged.

Epilogue

Buffy and Harmony were running for their lives.  Okay, nothing so dramatic, but they were running.  Slightly fast.  They were also completely naked.  The moonlight was shining down, casting their skin in a soft glow.

“Pretend to trip and fall,” Harmony hissed across to her friend.

“What?  Why?” Buffy asked.  She didn’t like the poor, dumb running female routine that most horror films portrayed.

“Because my Xanda Panda can’t keep up.  He’s lacking in the supernatural strength department, remember?” Harmony whispered.

“Oh, yeah.  Okay, here it goes.  I’m going to trip first, bringing you down with me,” Buffy whispered back.  Then she let out a little ‘yelp’ as she went down.

Harmony toppled on top of Buffy.  This should have meant the two men behind them would overtake them now.  But nothing happened.  Both women turned their heads, using their falls of long blond and brown hair to hide their eyes, and peeked.

“Why are they just standing there?” Buffy asked.

Harmony gave a little giggle.  Buffy could be so naïve at times.  “Duh, look at us.  All naked and lying on top of one another.  It’s got them completely immobilized.  We’ve slayed them without so much as breaking a nail.”

Buffy let out her own giggle as she realized the sight they must be presenting.  Then she slowly began to extricate herself from Harmony.  Nakedness didn’t bother her in the least, she was a vamp after all, but there was no way she could ever have sex with Xander.  He fell firmly into the brother category.

Seeing the women start to move, got the men’s blood flowing back to their heads.  Spike was the first to respond.  He vamped and howled into the night as he sprang up and pounced on his victim, slipping his fangs into the side of her neck.

Buffy played along by screaming and crying out, “No!  No!  Get off me you fiend!”

Harmony let Xander pin her to the ground and claim her with a kiss.  She loved him just like he was, but she hated the thought of ever living without him.  She hadn’t said anything yet, but Drusilla was working with her to find a way of turning Xander while keeping his soul.  It would be his decision, however.  But if he decided to remain human and grow old, well… The day after his funeral would be her first sunrise in a long time.

Spike threw his ‘kill’ over his shoulder.  “Well, mate,” he called to Xander.  “Think we ought to take these morsels back to our lairs?”

Xander gave Spike a wicked grin.  “Hell yeah!” he agreed, picking Harmony up and following Spike’s lead.

From a distant hill a lone figure watched.  She brushed her dark hair back from her forehead.  It was lovely seeing her darlings at play.  All was as it should be for now.  But soon there would be changes.  Of course ‘soon’ to a vampire is extremely relative.

The End

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