Facing The MirrorsBy Raeann
Part TwoThey ended up at the Magic Box, gathered around the research table. Just like old times, Riley thought, except for the obvious undercurrent of emotion between Buffy and Spike. No, the soldier mentally conceded, that had always been there, too. It was just more blatant, now.
The Scoobies listened in horror while Riley filled them in on his history with the Scyllain. He explained how it had targeted his squadron. How it had waited patiently in the darkness. How it had consumed them all one by one until Riley was the last man left alive.
“You have no idea what it was like,” Riley finished his tale, “knowing that thing was stalking us. Nowhere to run or hide. Just the jungle, endless twisting vines, blazing heat at mid-day, shivering in the cold morning, the sweat and the bugs and the muddy ground sucking at your boots with every step. The blood freezing in your veins as darkness closed in. I could sense it circling, moving in the underbrush. Whenever one of my company fell…the screams…I can still hear them at night. And the way that it kills…when it touches you…takes you…it gets into your mind, into your body,” he shuddered and sat silent, staring at some hellish inner landscape.
“Tell me! How, exactly, did you survive this festive party?” Spike asked. His voice was filled with doubt about the man’s entire story.
“I was captured by a group of guerillas,” Riley replied, locking eyes with the Slayer. “I was taken to their camp by helicopter. I thought I’d escaped from the Scyllain. But a week later it found me. It began picking off the native troops. I told them if I left the area it would follow me. After a few more deaths they let me take a truck and flee. I made it to the airport and came back to the States. That should have been the end of it. I thought it was until three days ago in L.A. I was passing a store front and I saw it reflected in the glass.”
“So you came here,” Buffy said, not quite making it into a question.
“Brought that thing straight to the Slayer,” Spike growled.
“Hey, back off, Deadboy,” Xander said, leaping to the defense of his friend. “I’m sure Riley was just hoping Buffy would be able to help him kill it.”
“And when was he going to tell her?” Spike countered. “After the dinner and dancing?”
“Spike,” Buffy warned, staking him with a hostile glare.
She was obviously still angry about the brunette. Possessive little things, Slayers, Spike thought. He had never had this sort of problem with Dru. Of course, his Sire was partial to an occasional brunette herself.
“I didn’t mean for it to come after you, Buffy,” Riley was explaining. “I swear I didn’t. I just wanted to be free of it. I thought you might scare it away. Or, failing that, I hoped you could help me destroy it.”
“I will,” Buffy assured, leaning across the table to take Riley’s hand.
“You and what army?” Spike snorted hoping down off his perch on the stairs and striding toward the Slayer. “Oh, I forgot we have the army here already. Only it doesn’t seem to be making much of a dent in the Scyllain population now does it?”
Buffy surged to her feet. She whipped around on Spike, “Riley has been through enough already,” she snapped. “If you can’t be civil maybe you should leave.”
“Bugger that,” Spike said in a low tone. “I’m not leaving until the Captain here starts telling the truth. I know a thing or two about Scyllains. They’re patient, they’re fearless and they’re bloody hard to kill. That thing won’t stop until Iowa there is dead or it is. The only way for him to escape is to give it another target. Something too tempting to resist.”
“What are you trying to say, Spike?” Riley growled, standing up.
“I’m saying you brought it here hoping it would go for Buffy.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Riley asserted before turning pleading eyes on the Slayer. “I told you already, I thought you could stop it. I didn’t know that it was strong enough to hurt you. I’m just trying to stay alive. Stay one step ahead of it. Buffy, you have to believe me. I would never do anything that would put you in danger.”
“Yeah, like risking getting turned by some vamp whore or anything,” Spike said, rolling his eyes.
“Look who’s talking,” Xander commented. Anya made a shushing noise. Her gaze was locked on the combatants.
“At least I never sold her out to the highest bidder,” Riley returned, angrily. “Maybe that’s why your mind automatically goes there…cause it’s what YOU would do.”
Spike’s fingers curled into a fist. He lunged forward swift as a striking cobra, but Buffy was quicker. Her open palm caught the vampire mid-chest as she stepped between him and her former lover.
“Stop it, both of you,” Buffy commanded. As soon as Spike backed down, she began pacing off her confused feelings. “We can’t waste time pointing fingers. This thing is here now. It doesn’t matter why. We need to find it and kill it. Anya, Xander, hit the books; see if you can find out how I stop it. Riley, write down everything you know about it; habits, speed, strength, anything that could help. Spike, you come with me.”
She turned on her heel and stalked toward the basement, confident her orders were being obeyed. Spike fell into step behind her as she passed him. Palming on the overhead light as she went, she trotted downstairs. As soon as Spike closed the door, Buffy turned to confront him.
“What the hell is your problem?” she demanded, looking up at him.
“My problem?” Spike snarled, sweeping down the steps. “I’m not the one hanging all over my ex. Buying his bullshit story.”
“I’m not buying his story,” Buffy mumbled when he’d joined her at floor level.
“Yeah, that’s what I figur…” Spike began and then did a double take. “Uhm…whadya mean you’re NOT buying it?”
“It’s just too convenient,” Buffy said, narrowing her eyes and keeping her voice low as she glanced back up at the shop door. “You’re right, Riley’s lying about something. But I don’t think he wanted the Scyllain to kill me. He could have run off as soon as it attacked tonight if he wanted that. He stayed to fight. No, something else is going on and I need you to find out what it is.”
“You want me to beat the truth out of him?” Spike asked. “Love to oblige, Pet. Give me a headache, of course. Maybe I could just hold him down while you work him over. I wonder if that would…”
“Will you SHUT UP!” Buffy snapped and he fell silent so she could continue. “You remember the vampire businessman you told me about? The case of impending doom? Big scary something in the sewers?”
Spike nodded. “Vamp name of Bailey Conger ran up against some major nasty. A demon of some kind left him in sad shape. Whatever it was, it has all of the lowlifes running scared. I thought we should look into it but…oh…you think it’s the Scyllain?”
“What are the odds that there are two horrible, scary things in the sewer?”
Spike considered for a moment before shrugging. “Pretty good, I’d say, considering this is Sunnydale. But from what I heard about this Bailey bugger’s injuries, I’ll buy that’s what got him. I don’t think a Scyllain can absorb one of my kind but it could do a lot of damage trying.”
“Okay, well from what Riley told us about this thing, it’s some sort of touch telepath,” Buffy said. “Do you know if that’s true?”
“That’s what I’ve heard,” Spike confirmed, cocking his head. “It gets in the mind and the body. Absorbs its victims’ life force, completely. Takes ‘em all in, heart and soul.”
“So,” Buffy hypothesized, “if it attacked that Bill Bailey guy, maybe it left a bit of information with him. Way to its lair, plans for me or Riley, something we can go on to find it and kill it.”
“See where you’re heading, Pet,” Spike nodded, “so let’s go.”
“No,” Buffy shook her head. “You go! Out through the tunnels. I should stick close to Riley.”
“How close?”
“Spike!”
“Buffy!” The vampire returned in the same exasperated tone. “We’ve been over this before haven’t we? Doesn’t matter how secret you keep things. Won’t change what is. You’re mine, all of you, all the time. We belong together, Luv. I don’t like him even being here. Looking at you. Touching you. Gettin’ ideas.”
“Fine,” the Slayer ground out, her eyes blazing, “you don’t like it. I’ll keep that in mind. And while we are on the subject, you should make a mental note that I don’t like you picking up whores.”
“Didn’t pick her up,” Spike denied, indignantly, “left her right where I found her…or almost. Weren’t no whore neither. Just a random skirt in a bar. And I’d had way too much to drink, Pet.” As he explained away his indiscretion, he favored Buffy with a tiny pout and puppy dog eyes in hopes of softening her anger. “Lost my head. Felt her up a bit is all. She wasn’t anything to me, I swear it.”
“Oh…oh,” Buffy seethed. “’Cause that is SO much better?”
“Better than what?” Spike returned, suddenly angry himself. “Dinner and a movie. Pretending I’m single when I’m not. At least, I didn’t tell you to get lost while I chatted her up. I didn’t shag her neither…just touched her and came over all queasy.
Which,” he added, pointing an accusing pair of fingers at her, “is totally your fault! Can’t get near another woman, now, it seems. ‘Cause all I want is you...24/7.”
Pulling the unresisting Slayer into his arms, Spike lowered his head until his mouth was right next to her ear.
“All I want is to lose myself in you,” he whispered. “No woman alive or undead that can match you, Buffy. You know it’s true. You know I’m yours.”
Buffy snickered and Spike jerked back to glare at her. “You think this is funny?” He demanded. “I open up, spill out my guts and that gives you a laugh?”
“I just had no idea,” Buffy said, fighting for the straight face, “how devoted you are. How much you’ve suffered for me! No more one night stands! Poor thing!”
“Fine,” the vampire groused, pushing her away and stalking toward the sewer entrance, “make a joke. When have my feelings ever mattered to you anyway? All I am is your convenient errand boy. So, I’ll just trot off now and fetch you that life or death information.”
He bent low to clear the exit and then stopped, looking up and back at her, “But do me a favor, Luv! Keep a close eye on your ex. ‘Cause, funny as you might find it, I don’t fancy burying you again.”
That said, he was gone. Buffy pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger as she wrestled with a headache. She sat down on the bottom step and dropped her head into her hands. She didn’t want to go upstairs and face Riley, Anya and Xander. She wanted to sit and think about her life; about how Spike always managed to turn things around on her. He was the one who had cheated and now she was the one feeling guilty.
Anya’s earlier comment about vampires and sex came back to her - ‘they will have sex with anything that moves.’ Buffy considered the implications of that statement. Maybe Spike really was appalled by his sudden stirring toward fidelity. She had ruined him for other women. Buffy felt a tingle of satisfaction run through her at the thought. She heard Spike’s whisper again in her head - ‘all I want is to lose myself in you..’ Buffy knew it was an echo of her own feelings. All she wanted was her sweet, infuriating Spike…24/7. Riley’s untimely return had at least clarified that much in the Slayer’s head.
The shop door opened and closed above her. Buffy felt the steps vibrating to a heavy descending tread. She turned to see Riley towering over her. He was massive, blocking out the light from the overhead bulb. Comparing him to Spike was like comparing a rhino to an alley-cat. The Slayer wondered how she had ever found such a hulking creature sexually attractive. Then he smiled and she remembered. Riley had covered her in bed like a favored blanket. He was warm, comfortable and plain.
“Bet you wish I’d never come back, huh? Better if I died in some jungle? Less complicated?”
Buffy sighed wearily. So much for comfortable, she thought, standing up to face him.
“I would never wish you dead, Riley,” she said. “That’s just… absurd.”
“But I did stir things up between you and Spike,” Riley returned, looking around as if he expected to see the vampire lurking. “It’s okay to tell me, Buffy, I know about the two of you. I’ve known for a long time.” He looked down at the floor and asked, “Do you want me to go?”
“Of course not,” Buffy denied, a touch too sharply. “And you haven’t stirred anything up. I already told you there is nothing between Spike and I for you to stir.”
“Yeah,” Riley nodded, smiling indulgently, “you told me.”
“But you don’t believe me?”
“I’m not blind,” Riley growled. “I see how you look at him. And Spike has been after you for a long time. Even before I left, I knew he wanted you.”
“So, what if he does?” Buffy asked, wafting her hand in the general direction of the sewer entrance. Then pieces clicked into place in her head. She frowned up at her ex. “Are you saying… Is that why you left? Because of Spike? Some sort of…” she made a face, “competition?”
“There wasn’t any competition,” Riley said, his mouth turning suddenly ugly as it twisted around the word, “because I had nothing to offer.”
“Riley,” Buffy said, stepping towards him, “that’s not true. You have a lot to offer. It was just that I….”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “I know. You needed someone dangerous.”
“What?” Buffy blinked at him. “Why would you even think that?”
“Because you’re the Slayer,” Riley answered, “And because you’re you.”
Buffy lost it. Her eyes flashed as she snapped, “So everything I do is about Slaying? I can’t love or be gentle? I can’t have a normal life. I am so sick of other people telling me who I am. What I’m supposed to feel. I’m just a person like everyone else. I’m not dark or weird or mysterious and there is nothing wrong with me.”
“I didn’t say there was,” Riley soothed. “Maybe it’s not wrong for you at all. Maybe it’s right for you to crave the demonic. Maybe that’s what you were made for.”
“What the hell is that suppose to mean?” Buffy snorted.
“You’ve tasted the evil, Buffy,” Riley explained, with exaggerated patience. “I know you enjoy it. When we were together, I wasn’t strong enough to let it crawl beneath my skin. Spike was right about me. I wasn’t monster enough to be the long haul guy. You’re a hunter, deadly. You needed something that…” he sighed, “just wasn’t in my nature.”
“Riley,” Buffy said, softening toward him again as she remembered how little she’d given him during their time together. Her eyes filled with tears as she tried to explain, “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t anything about you. I was the one who was shut down inside. I wasn’t ready to love.”
“And are you ready now?” Riley asked.
The Slayer considered the question. Her eyes were drawn to the far corner of the basement where she had last seen Spike. Was she ready to love someone?
“Spike?” Riley guessed, reading her mind. “Is he the guy?”
Buffy shifted her shoulders, stretching out the tension before she looked back at him.
“I don’t think we should talk about this anymore,” she said at last. “It’s not getting us anywhere. We should concentrate on finding your demon friend.”
“Oh,” Riley said, offhandedly, “he isn’t really that hard to find.”
There was a tiny sound overhead, like the distant peel of bells, and then the harsh rumble of booted feet on the floor above. Buffy had just started for the stairs when someone rattled the doorknob at the top. Xander called her name and tried the knob again. Buffy barely had time to register that the door was locked from the inside before she sensed the movement behind her. Frowning, she half-turned toward Riley. Her skin crawled with the charge of high voltage but it was too late to react. There was a bright flash and crackle as a paralyzing surge of electricity sent the Slayer to the floor in a senseless heap.
Spike ran into unexpected resistance attempting to locate Bailey Conger. Normally talkative sources fell silent when he questioned them. Whole barrooms grew quiet when he entered as dangerous demons edged their chairs out of his way. Finally, after paying three times what the information should have been worth, Spike made his way down into the sewers at the Elm Street entrance. He counted off the cross tunnels until he reached number six and then followed the damp wall to the left.
He climbed the first metal ladder he came to. It took him to the basement level of an abandoned apartment building. Once inside, it was relatively easy to locate the vampire’s nest. The smell of death was relentless. There was no one lurking about. Spike scratched at the plank of plywood Bailey Conger used as a door. There was a furtive sound, like the scurry of mice on the other side of the panel.
“Come on, mate,” Spike said. “I know you’re in there. Just want to chat is all.”
There was an even more violent scurrying in response. Spike decided to forego the pleasantries. He smashed his way into the lair. The smell that assaulted him was nearly incapacitating. Rotted flesh and other nastier things filled the air with putrescence. Rats scrambled underfoot. The floor was littered with rodent carcasses in various degrees of decay. In the far corner of the tiny room, a bundle of rags was attempting to pass through the solid stonewall. The bundle made an odd whimpering sound. Spike’s stomach churned as he focused on the immortal remains of Bailey Conger.
“Hey, now,” Spike said gently, “don’t you worry, I ain’t gonna hurt ya’.”
The jumble of vampire parts gibbered and twitched and jabbered incoherently as it continued to frantically scrabble at the wall. Spike crouched down to the thing’s level. He fished out his last packet of bargaining blood and held it out to the creature. After several anxious moments, a broken, twisted hand snatched at the packet. Sickening sucking sounds ensued.
“There you go, nothing to fret about now is there,” Spike soothed. He let his words take on the melodious chanting rhythm that always calmed Drusilla. “You had a bit of trouble but you’ll be okay, right as rain real soon. Heal up again in no time. Just need a nip of blood in you. More where that came from, nice and fresh, too. But I need a little something from you. Need to make a deal. Have to tell me something. Okay?”
The creature looked at him with large liquid eyes. It seemed to be focusing on the sound of his voice.
“I need to know about the bugger what did this to you. Me and the Slayer. We’ll take care of him good, won’t be back to bother you again, a’right?”
“Can’t tell…mustn’t tell…knows you…and Horny, slick honey…he’s watching you,” Bailey Conger whispered, giggling at every pause. “Paid a pretty penny too…can tell you that…all of them pay…I’ve got the goods…can’t put one over on Bailey…cold day in Hell…mighty cold…so cold…coldnowGO AWAY, GO…oh, oh….hurts.”
“He’s watching me?” Spike asked, picking out the thread of truth from the creature’s maniacal ravings with practiced ease. “How?”
“Through the hole…take a peek…wanna see you have to pay…not you though…partner…we’re partners so you get in free.” Bailey found this bit of information hilarious and laughed until he started choking. “Huh..uhuh…you get in free…always in aren’t you…she’s so rough and ready…always letting you in…”
“Buffy?” Spike said, getting a sudden word picture out of the madness. “You mean the Slayer?”
“High and mighty Bitch,” Bailey snarled his mood swinging from overtly chummy to the other extreme. “Glad to see her take it up the ass, pay to see that….” The idea struck him as a good one and he confided, “They would pay to see that…Yeah…some would pay quite a lot to see that…quite a show, too…goes on all night…”
Spike felt his hackles rising as a horrible certainty struck him. He tried to keep his voice steady as his fingers curled around the stake in his duster pocket. His slitted eyes flickered with amber sparks.
“Yeah,” he agreed in a soft, deadly tone. “She really is something. So, how much would it cost me to take a peek at this little show of yours?”
“Five hundred dollars for a single session, more if you get a multiple,” the businessman recited. “Good chance of a multiple this time of night, too. They’ll have the music on.”
“So, if I pay you,” Spike pressed, “this five hundred, then I can see the Slayer and her vampire lover going at it? That’s what you’re telling me?”
“If you want to call him a vampire,” Bailey chuckled. “More like her whipping boy. Oh, but I’ll say this…wouldn’t mind whipping him once or twice. Can’t fault her there…good taste, our filthy little Slayer. Just look at how hot you are…really hung…too…wouldn’t mind…if…uhm…you and I arranged a little…uh…discountandyou…”
The pederast vampire peered at Spike and then started scrambling at the wall again.
“You,” he whimpered. “It is you. Trying to trick me…just like he did…lying…not fair…pretending to be someone…someone else.”
“The Scyllain?” Spike said, tired of going easy on this lowlife. “It tricked you? It paid to see this show and it tricked you? Hurt you? How? What happened? Did you see into its head?”
Bailey continued his mindless rant and Spike lost all patience.
“Talk to me you miserable, Poof,” he growled, grabbing hold of the bundle and shaking it hard, “or I will introduce you to a whole new level of pain.”
Bailey screeched like a peacock in the night. Spike flinched from the high piercing noise, dropping the little bag of vamp bones he yanked out his stake.
“Scyllain?” Spike barked, pressing the wooden point of his weapon down into the rags where he imagined Bailey’s heart to be. “What do you know about it? Where can I find it?”
“Hurts…hurts…” Bailey mumbled. Spike couldn’t tell if that was in response to his questions or his actions. He eased off a bit on the stake, just in case. The ruined vampire stared at the weapon. It appeared to have hypnotized him.
“Talk,” Spike whispered, lowering the stake and trying another tack, “or I’ll take you to see my lady.”
“I’ve seen her,” Bailey said calmly. He grimaced in a way that might have been suggestive if he’d had more of a face to work with. “He’s seen her too. Not your lady…anyways…that’s what he says…that’s why he came…came back…came to get what’s his!”
“What?” Spike asked. Genuinely puzzled, he sat back on his haunches as he considered this tidbit of information.
“Told me he was going to kill you,” Bailey confided, “for touching her. Said he promised you he would.”
“The Scyllain told you that?”
Icy fingers clawed into Spike’s chest as the words took him back to his last meeting with Riley Finn. “You’re sure? It wasn’t a Soldier?”
“Soldier,” Bailey confirmed nodding his head like a marionette. “Out of the jungle and into the beast. Hung like a horse.”
The shattered little vampire shrieked, then, high and long. He screamed and flailed about for some time. Patiently, Spike waited him out. It took far too long, but he managed to ease the remains of Bailey’s fragile mind back on topic. And before he reduced the offensive creature to ashes, Spike pieced together a coherent story from his ramblings.
The Scyllain had paid, more than once, to see he and Buffy together. It had its lair in the old Initiative caves. The beast was prolific, massive and deadly. It had a large hive with soldiers and “fat girls” and other frightening parts of the whole. It was interested in the Slayer; focused on her. But not as an alternative to Riley Finn. Buffy, it seemed, had been right about that. Her ex had no intention of offering her up as a sacrificial lamb. His intentions weren’t any where near that pleasant.
It took Spike less than five minutes to find a phone. The owner of the cell offered only token objection when the vampire snatched it out of his hand. He was more concerned with his life and the door of his new Lexus. The latter was lying in the street, Spike having removed it from the car on his way to the phone.
There was no answer at the Magic Shop. Spike tried the Summer’s House. Dawn hadn’t seen Buffy or Riley but she told him Willow was on her way to see Xander at the shop. After exacting a promise from Niblet to stay indoors and away from Riley, the vampire dialed the Magic Box again. Willow picked up on the tenth ring. Spike was just about to hang up when she came on the line.
“He-hel-hello?” she said shakily.
“Let me talk to the Slayer,” Spike growled.
“Sp-i-Spike?” Willow asked obviously shaken.
“Yes, it’s me!” the vampire snapped. “Now put the bloody Slayer on the phone!”
“The Slayer isn’t here,” a gruff masculine voice cut in. “Who is this? What’s your position?”
Spike cursed into the phone. He was already moving, trotting toward the U.C. Sunnydale Campus, when Willow spoke again.
“Spike,” she said, interrupting his colorful string of profanity. “The army is here. Buffy’s been kidnapped and something…something terrible has happened to Riley.”
“Not as terrible as what is going to happen to him,” Spike said, firmly.
“But,” Willow began. She was talking to a dial tone. “I thought you didn’t know where Buffy was,” she finished.
The redhead looked at the phone for a minute, and then hung it back on the wall cradle. She turned to glance across at Xander and Anya. The couple was seated at the research table along with four men in combat fatigues. There were other men covering each of the exits with automatic weapons.
“Do we have a position on that caller?” the officer standing next to Willow asked a seated man with a headset on.
“Triangulating sir,” the soldier muttered, tweaking a dial. “Cell phone. Still on him. Got it.”
He plotted out the coordinates on a topographical map of the region. Then looked up at his commander with fear filled eyes.
“He’s heading for Sector 28, sir,” he said, swallowing down a lump in his throat the size of a radish. “The Initiative.”
The Slayer awoke to a serious case of déjà vu. She was in a catacomb of some kind, chained to a wall and staring into a familiar face. Only the face had changed. It was no longer pale and gaunt. It was full-cheeked and tanned. Not the face of a svelte vampire but that of a hulking soldier.
“Riley?” the Slayer frowned in confusion. “Wha-what happened? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Riley shrugged, “I just wanted to talk to you, Buffy. Alone!”
“And this?” she said rattling her chains. “This is your idea of alone time? Dragging me off to a cave and shackling me to a wall?”
“No,” Riley conceded, “I just thought you might like it this way.”
“Like it? LIKE IT?” Buffy yelped. She was beside herself at the very idea. “What is WITH you people and chaining me up? If you would check the ‘All Slayers’ issue of Playboy, you would see that ‘chaining me up’ is NOT listed as one of my turn-ons.”
She slammed her manacled wrists into the wall, fisting her hands around the interconnected links of the restraints, “I mean, whatever happened to saying it with flowers?”
“Flowers are for ordinary girls,” Riley responded, in an all-too-reasonable tone of voice. “Come on, Buffy. You know you like it rough!”
“No, NO! I do not,” Buffy assured him, shaking her head. “I like it…non…rough.”
“Funny, that’s not what Spike tells me.”
“Spike!” Buffy said, turning beet red. “You talked to Spike about this?”
“Yeah,” Riley confirmed. “He said you like it rough, dangerous. A little monster in your man.”
Buffy rolled her eyes to the Heavens as she growled. “Oh, he is such a dead man.”
“You’ve got that part right,” Riley nodded, pulling a wooden stake from his inner pocket and giving it a practiced twirl. Buffy felt an icy fear touch her heart, slide down her spine and settle in her groin as she watched him play with the weapon.
“What did you do?” she whispered, barely choking out the question. “What have you done to him?”
“Relax,” Riley snorted, highly amused by her fear. He tossed the stake to the floor at her feet. “He’s still walking around, somewhere…not breathing!” He leaned in close to the Slayer and added, “At least until we get done here.”
Riley’s eyes were cold, emotionless and inhuman. Buffy shuddered and looked away. Then she suddenly recognized the place. It was, it must be, Adam’s old lair. It had that governmentally certified decorator touch. Plus, it was a complete weirdo’s retreat; rotting sofa, lab tables, burnt out remains of computer terminals and jittery overhead lighting.
Riley backed away from her and then crossed to the nearest metal exam table. There was a red and black duffle on it. He unzipped a pocket on the side of the bag and pulled out a couple of compact discs. Then he upended the luggage. A wave of nausea swept over the Slayer as an assortment of sex toys and weaponry clattered out of the bag. Taking in the torturous array of equipment, Buffy comforted herself with the thought that Riley Finn wasn’t capable of sexually assaulting her. He was human. She was the Slayer. It was as simple as that.
“Of course,” Buffy amended mentally, “he does have me chained up and lots of sharp things…so…advantage psycho!”
“Riley,” she said, doing her best to sound friendly, “why are you doing this? This isn’t like you. Just let me go and I promise we can talk about whatever you want. We’ll just sit here and talk.”
“Like we always TALKED before,” Riley said as he started picking out various implements; nipple clamps, a serious vibrator and a tiny acetylene torch. “You never came to me…you would always go to him. How do you think that made me feel? My own girlfriend thinks I’m less important than some half-breed, vampire scum? Having you in my bed and then being ignored? Spike…he knew…I should have known too.”
“You’re right,” Buffy agreed, “I was wrong…so wrong. The way I treated you. I tried to tell you that night you left. I tried to catch you before the helicopter took off.”
“What kind of a fool do you think I am?” Riley snarled, striding toward her with a whip in his hand.
“No kind,” Buffy hastily soothed. “I just wanted to tell you that, I understand I was the one in the wrong. I never meant to shut you out. It was just that…”
“I wasn’t MONSTER enough for you!” He said, cracking the whip just to the left of Buffy’s face stirring her hair. The Slayer didn’t even flinch.
“No, NO! Riley, listen to me. Spike is so off base about that.”
“Yeah,” the soldier laughed, bitterly, “he’s off base alright…he’s all the way home!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen you with him, Buffy,” Riley explained with exaggerated patience.
Coming over to stand in front of the Slayer, he raked her with a scathing glare. Buffy felt naked before him, exposed and dirty.
“You’ve seen…” she began her cheeks glowing with embarrassment. “When? How?”
“Oh, didn’t you know?” Riley sneered. “They sell tickets! Five hundred dollars a pop, to watch you do…” His voice broke and faded away as he looked back at the table full of instruments, “…what you do…”
“What I do,” Buffy thought feeling nauseous. “What I do with Spike. People have been watching us. Paying to watch us…like a freak show…or Internet porn.”
Her mind played back a series of violent, erotic images. Flesh meeting flesh, or leather or stone, torn clothing and skin, the sweating, the screaming, and the blood. How could anyone watching possibly understand what it all meant? How could she ever explain what it felt like to be the Slayer, and wrong and right…with Spike?
They did things together, to each other that were shocking. Buffy had never imagined, could never imagine, doing such things with anyone else. She had injured him for the pleasure it gave her, and then taken him into her body. Let him spill his seed into her mouth, into her womb and into her blood. She had fed and coupled with his demon. She had sodomized Spike and been sodomized by him. He had tied her up and Buffy had, in fact, enjoyed it.
Because Spike tied her up to revel in her power, not to diminish it. And that made all the difference. He didn’t want to break her. He didn’t want to see her humbled. Spike loved her strength. He gloried in it. It made him hard and hungry. Buffy could match him, strike for strike, cutting word for cutting word and passion for passion. And he loved her for it. Spike was in awe of her but not because she was the Slayer. He loved the lost child in her too and the confused embittered woman. He loved her warmth and wit. That love, of all she was inside and out, was what Buffy found so irresistible. It was what brought her back to his crypt night after night, yearning, pleading for his touch.
“I won’t call it ‘making love’ because it isn’t THAT…is it?” Riley was saying when Buffy tuned back in, “What does he call it?…Shagging?…but HEY! Why don’t we just call it what it is?”
He turned suddenly and screamed into her face, “FUCKING AN ANIMAL!” And then he laughed like the mad man he’d become.
The hot wave of shame that had washed through the Slayer evaporated into inhuman rage. She flexed her wrist and felt the cold iron give somewhere above her.
“You don’t know what the HELL you are talking about?” she snapped, heedless of her imminent danger. “Spike isn’t an animal. He loves me. More than you ever did. Better than you ever could.”
Buffy knew it was true. Everything she and Spike did together was for her pleasure. He never meant to hurt her, much. He only struck when she craved it. It was true that Spike had taken her violently, biting at her, bruising her and shafting into her. Buffy understood and shared in the need for conflict. He could be savage when meeting her own brutality, fist first. When they fought there was no quarter asked or given.
But, at the same time, Spike could be so very tender. As soon and as often as she needed him to be. Penetrating quick and shallow or deep and slow, he would love her; kiss her, his lips gentle on hers, his tongue smooth as silk. He murmured sweet nothings into her hair even as he screwed the stuffing out of her.
Afterwards, he would look into her eyes, as they drifted in sated contentment and sigh or smile. They laughed together, solved problems together and his face when he entered her was always filled with wonderment. That expression of bliss and the way he swiveled his hips, caressing her g-spot with a languid stroke, were two of Buffy’s favorite things in the world. Both of them made her feel like her bones were melting.
“I just don’t know which one of you is sicker,” Riley said calmly as he placed the whip back on the table and picked up a wicked looking scimitar, “But I’m willing to bet we find out it’s you.”
He used the tip of the sword to push a button on the computer console. To Buffy’s astonishment, the action had an immediate effect. A CD tray slid out and Riley dropped in a disc. He tapped the drawer closed and music began pulsing through the room. It was a simplistic melody over a bombastic rhythm. Buffy didn’t recognize the song or the boy band but the two-part harmonizing seemed to make her situation instantly worse.
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