He wasn't going to fuck this up.
Spike slouched in the comfortable embrace of his beat-up armchair, turning his shot glass round and round in his fingers. Willow'd been gone for an hour, and the litany in his head hadn't let up for a second. The whiskey warming his belly was starting to get lonely and hint that it could use some company. He cast a longing glance at the bottle of JD on top of the refrigerator. His fingers clenched on the armrest, gripping the layer of ancient fabric and cotton batting so tightly that the wood frame beneath creaked under the pressure. He didn't want another drink; that would imply needing another drink which would imply nervousness which would imply he had something to be nervous about. Which he didn't.
He wasn't going to fuck this up.
He sank further into the chair and glowered into the depths of his empty glass. Not like it was the end of the world, or the beginning of it. Bit unexpected, was all. What the hell had Wills been thinking, yanking the chip out of his head without a by-your-leave? Bloke had to work up to something like that. Not that she hadn't done him a favor, not that he wasn't grateful--balls, he was bloody well overjoyed--but he'd have liked a little warning, and a chance to talk it over with Buffy first. He set the glass down on the crypt floor. What had Wiccagirl meant, telling him not to mention it? This was no time for modesty. No, he'd tell Buffy right off and they'd chat it out. Everything nice and civilized--they could do that, couldn't they? A snarl twisted his lips at the memory of their earlier argument. Self-righteous bitch'd probably decide he'd had it pulled on purpose and--
With a rumble of disgust Spike heaved himself to his feet and padded downstairs to change into jeans and...anything not a black T-shirt. But he'd been hitting his meager supply of non-funereal colors hard lately, and all he could find clean after ransacking both dresser and wardrobe (five black T-shirts, two plain black button-downs, three patterned black button-downs, one black turtleneck) was the godawful black-grey-white variegated knit pullover Dawn had given him just before her Dad had shown up to take custody. Probably nicked, which thought, no matter how dutifully he tried, still made him feel more pleased and proud of her than disapproving; would have been a crime to pay for a thing like that. Wasn't the reaction you wanted from an honorary white hat, was it? He'd have to do better than that. Make himself do better.
The pullover made him look like an undead zebra, but it would have to do. Spike yanked it on over his head, laced up his boots, and started for the tunnels. Two steps into the echoing passageway he pulled up short and turned back to his bedroom, and hauled from beneath the bed the army surplus duffle wherein was stuffed a haphazard selection of his dirty laundry. He'd been meaning to hit the Wash N' Go one of these nights, but Buffy had a washing machine, and it was easier to have an existential crisis with more variety in his wardrobe.
It should have happened at night, he thought as he made his way through the tunnels. He'd have known what to do at night. He'd have been one with the darkness, sure, strong, utterly confident in his decision to...what? Once upon a time, and not all that long ago either, he'd had it all planned out, what he'd do when the chip came out. Whole thing choreographed down to the last scream and witty remark: the stalk, the fight, the victory, the last shared look encompassing his triumph and the Slayer's utter defeat before his fangs tore the life from her throat. He'd put a lot of thought into the epigram he'd paint on the wall of the Magic Box with her blood once he'd drunk his fill--something from Donne, perhaps. Then he'd kill the whelp and the Watcher and turn the witch, who'd make a smashing vampire, and take her to Brazil, there to hunt up Drusilla and flaunt his new conquest in her face until she realized what a stupid cow she'd been to cut him off. His dark princess would beg him to take her back, and he'd punish her for a suitable length of time before doing so--Dru'd love that part--and then they'd be off, the three of them, traveling the world and leaving a three-deep trail of corpses behind them.
'Course after hanging about Sunnydale long enough, he'd had to change the plan around a few times. Shag Buffy within an inch of her life, so she'd realize what she'd been missing, and then kill her. Right. Much better that way. And maybe he wouldn't turn Red after all--she'd been right considerate, unlike the rest of the Scooby tossers. Maybe he'd leave her warm and breathing instead, get Dru to do that thrall thing. And Buffy--he'd leave her alive to appreciate just exactly how badly he'd beaten her. Besides, Joyce would get all teary-eyed if he killed her daughter, and he couldn't do that to the woman who made the best cocoa in Southern California. Though he'd definitely kill Harris. And then go on a spree the likes of which Sunnydale had never seen, flood the mortuary for a week. Yeah, that was the stuff. Or--yeah, this was it--he wouldn't do anything at all, just keep up the helpful act, and when the truth finally came out he'd turn to Buffy with a smug look: Yeh, love, it's been out for months. Told you I could be good and she'd fall into his arms and he'd give Harris the punch in the nose he so richly deserved...
...and now? The nose-punching still sounded good. Chip coming out didn't change a thing--just like he'd told Buffy, just like he'd told Angel, just like he'd told himself, he could do the right thing, chip or no chip. He could. Long as he could hold still long enough to suss out what the right thing was. What the hell was wrong with Willow? She'd been off, definitely off. Up to something. Something fucking brill for him, but something. Spike curled his fingers into a fist and watched the play of muscle and tendon under the pale skin as he strode down the long echoing tunnel, a feral grin spreading across his face.
No more backing down from the likes of Shaun and David if a bet went bad, no more skulking, no more hiding. No more veneer of bravado plastered over rage and terror when some redneck bastard decided the little English guy was easy pickings. Not that he'd pick fights. Absolutely not. No swaggering into the Fish Tank and pounding the biggest, most thick-headed lunk in the joint into hamburger just because he could because... because why? Oh, yeah, it was wrong. Or so he was told. Though it would be fun. 'Cept it wouldn't really be in the nature of a fight, would it? More of a test. See if Wills had really done what she'd said she had, because after all this might be some sort of Wiccan practical joke, mightn't it? And absolutely no luring said thick-headed lunk into the alley and...
A noise down the tunnel caught his ear. A splash, a chittering--Spike set the duffle gently down on the damp concrete of the walkway which ran above the sluggish stream of effluvium in the channel below. His nostrils twitched, his keen sense of smell sifting out the strong rank scent of Rattus Norvegicus from beneath the even less savory odors of the sewer. He let his breath out in a long hiss and slipped into game face, dropping into a crouch. He ghosted down the tunnel, boots feather-light on the pavement--how many times had Angelus thumped him for making noise, those first few years? If he had a quid for each beating he'd own Microsoft by now. But it had paid off--he might be a bit rusty after buying his dinner at the butcher's for the last two years, but a century and more of hard-won stalking expertise wasn't forgotten that easily.
Ah, there it was. Spike's whole world narrowed to the sleek brown shape nosing along the base of the wall. The rat hadn't heard him yet; it bumbled along, sniffing for tidbits, licking the condensation which trickled down the tiles and provided a slightly less tainted source of drinking water for the creatures of Sunnydale Underground. He could hear its heartbeat over the low gurgle of the sewer if he concentrated, a swift fierce patter of life. It sat up on its hindquarters and bared strong yellow teeth in defiance at the world, and Spike grinned right back at it--You and me, mate, survivors. I just plan on surviving a little longer than you will . Spike swerved to avoid the pencil-thin shafts of sunlight filtering down through the holes in a manhole cover overhead, running the tip of his tongue over his fangs and reining in the hysterical giggle that threatened to burst from him at any moment. Christ, if anyone saw him now! William the Bloody, Scourge of Europe, giddy with joy at the prospect of killing a rat!
He pounced with infernal speed, skidding across the concrete with arms outstretched and fangs bared. The rat had time to react, just barely, before his fingers closed on it. It squealed and twisted in his grip, incisors sinking into the flesh of his hand, and Spike struck back just as swiftly and viciously, fangs piercing thin, foul-tasting hide and penetrating deep into the warm flesh beneath--
No pain. Oh merciful heavens, no pain, no blue-white forked-lightning shocks shattering his skull, no nothing but sweet hot living blood on his tongue. Not the teasing, chip-aborted taste he'd gotten at Halloween, not the reheated, days-stale leavings of someone else's slaughter--this was life itself coursing down his throat for the first time since Dru'd killed that college boy for him, and a million times better because he'd made this kill himself. Even if it was just a sodding rat, and objectively speaking tasted like shit. Spike snarled as the creature twitched and stilled in his grasp and the flow of liquid bliss slowed to a trickle and ceased; there wasn't much more than a swallow or two in a rat. Licking every trace of crimson from his lips, he tossed the cooling corpse into the sewer and looked hungrily around for more. Stand very still, and listen... yeah. There.
Fifteen rats and one stray Pomeranian (well, stray in the sense that he'd reached out of a sewer grate and snatched it) later, Spike ambled up to the bottom of the ladder leading to the manhole on Revello Drive, painfully full and blissfully happy. With any luck, in about ten minutes Buffy would be rubbing his tummy while he drowsed off his over-indulgence with his head in her lap--surely she was ready to make up by now. He patted the slight bulge in his normally board-flat stomach with a satisfied belch. Considering he was going to have to make a dash for Buffy's front door to achieve this nirvana, perhaps he'd gone a bit overboard, but killing the things was such a damned kick it was difficult to stop. Spike hitched his laundry over one shoulder and set out up the ladder.
He was absolutely, positively not going to fuck this up.


Buffy and Dawn might regard Doris Kroger as a bureaucratic fiend in human form, dispatched to torment them with forms in triplicate, but Willow had never minded Dawn's social worker. They'd met several times over the summer, while Dawn had been staying with Willow's parents and Giles had been trying to track down Hank Summers in Milan or Zambezi or wherever he'd been. Mrs. Kroger was a plump fortyish woman with a pouf of henna'd hair and a fondness for polyester pantsuits, whose perpetual air of vague apology masked a pair of very sharp eyes. She reminded Willow a little of her own mother, except less strident and actually interested in what you were saying. Of course, Willow had always gotten along better with adults than with people her own age, and now at last her own age was getting to the point where getting along with adults was reason to rejoice rather than an occasion for another visit to the guidance counselor.
But most of all Willow liked--nay, worshiped with an abiding passion--Doris Kroger because she was arriving in something less than forty minutes, and all attention would focus on her.
There was a burning spot right between her shoulderblades, just in that spot where you couldn't reach to scratch. It was the accumulated weight of who-knew-how-many accusing searchlight stares following her, all of which knew exactly what she'd done--never mind that there was no one else in the living room. Her insides were a yarn-ball tangle of guilt and worry which would have done Miss Kitty proud.
Where was that annoying dark voice when she wanted it to soothe her conscience and dismiss her fears? She hadn't done anything wrong, she reassured herself. Spike had wanted the chip out for ages. And he was all domesticated these days, just a big ol’ bleached-blond teddy bear with fangs. Wasn't he? Willow took a firmer grip on the handle of the teacup she was setting out. The gilt on the rim was slightly worn, revealing the austere white purity of the china beneath. "Aurum in integrum restituere," she whispered. Power flowed and curled within her, smooth as film noir smoke, banishing doubt and fear. As her thumb traced the curvature of the rim, a slim perfect line of gold followed behind it. It glinted in the afternoon sun and for a second Willow felt happiness of the sort she would never, ever wish on Angel.
Is it not worth a few small errands, this power? the ebony voice inquired, faintly amused.
It was almost a relief, not to be alone in her own head. I'm not doing this for the power , she protested. I'm doing it to help restore the Balance.
Laughter, deep and dark and bitter as Aztec chocolate, flavored with blood and cayenne. Yes, but the power is no less sweet for that, is it? her invisible companion said. You need not lie to me. Or to yourself. Only to them, as is necessary for their comfort. You deserve power, Willow Danielle Rosenberg. You were born for it. Do not shy from your birthright out of fear or false modesty.
The images burned in her mind: what she could do, who she could become. Vampires exploding into incandescent clouds of dust at a wave of her hand, demons abasing themselves at her feet. She strode fearless through the streets of Sunnydale... or why not L.A.? Paris, London, Alexandria, Harvard, M.I.T., Cambridge, the Bodelian, Stonehenge--ancient repositories of mystic knowledge thrown open to her eager eyes by obsequious men and women in tweed and sensible shoes-- It's Willow Rosenberg! It's such an honor, Miss Rosenberg... A web of spells traversed the globe through glittering fiber-optic cable, slender silver threads converging wherever she was, carrying her will across oceans, magic and microchips fusing into a ecstatic new whole. Mom and Dad, finally impressed, finally noticing. Tara, proud and loving at her side-- I taught her everything I know, but of course she's taken it far beyond... The Hellmouth not only sealed but destroyed forever. Buffy wouldn't need to patrol; she could have the normal life she craved, and Willow, she could have...
Anything she wanted. Everything she'd denied herself by remaining in Sunnydale.
Willow squeezed her eyes closed and shuttered her mind and heart. It was only a partnership of convenience. Tonight she'd perform the last of her agreed-upon services and be free. Or mostly free. There was still the minor problem of her own magics being unreliable, and she wasn't so naive as to think that the force she was dealing with would allow her to tap infinite power for the rest of her life without demanding further little agreements. But with the power she had at her disposal, surely she could find or create a spell to fully heal her own abilities. She'd keep her bargain until then, and no longer. It wouldn't take long. She was sure of it.
The front door blew open and Buffy came sweeping in, flinging her purse at the couch and her jacket at the coat rack. Willow, setting the platter of cookies on the coffee table (chocolate macadamia nut, extra forgive-y) was momentarily transformed into a single over-stressed nerve fiber, heartily twanged by the slamming of the door. Her fingers spasmed and the platter slipped from her hands and clattered to the surface of the table. A handful of cookies slid off the edges. "Buffy!"
"At last report." Buffy strode into the living room and planted both fists on her hips, surveying the condition of the battlefield: carpet vacuumed, sofa cushions denuded of cat fur and Miss Kitty banished to the basement, from whence occasional plaintive yowls could be heard. Photos and knickknacks had been dusted and arranged for maximum wholesomeness, Joyce's good tea set arrayed upon the newly-polished surface of the coffee table. Buffy's pearly teeth fastened on her glossy lower lip; there was a tension in her that hadn't been present when Willow left for school that morning. Had the interview gone badly? "I guess it'll have to do," Buffy muttered.
Like you were such a big help cleaning, Willow thought a trifle resentfully. "If you're really worried, Buff, we can do a teensy glamor--"
The look that flashed through Buffy's sea-colored eyes was mildly appalled. "Thanks, but--" Her eyes went flinty grey as they zeroed in on Dawn, galloping downstairs in yet another change of outfit. "Dawn, it's barely three-thirty--why are you home already?" Her face went pinched and shrewish in Unpleasant Buffy Expression #36, and her voice could have cut glass. "This interview’s eighty percent of the final as far as The Kroger’s recommendation to the judge goes, and you're cutting classes on the very day--"
Dawn did a freeze-frame halfway down the stairs with one foot in mid-air, gearing up for a full-on ear-grating whine. "I am NO--" She cut herself off, dropped her foot to the stair-step and took a deep breath. "No, I'm not," she said in carefully reasonable tones. "They let us out early because there was a demon in the cafeteria. Some kind of snakey thing. It swallowed one of the lunch ladies and went to sleep all over the jocks' table. The janitors were poking it with brooms to see if they could get it to hack her up." She teetered back and forth on the stair-tread, staring at the toes of her sneakers and playing with a lock of her hair. "I know today is important, Buffy."
"Oh." Buffy ran a hand over her forehead and down over her eyes, as if she could wipe the stress-lines off her face. "I mean... I know you know. Sorry. I'm overly caffeinated."
"'sall right," Dawn muttered. She clumped down the remaining stairs, eyes downcast save for one shrewd look at her sister. "He asked you, didn't he?" she said. "And you got into a fight about it, didn't you?" Buffy blinked. For a second there was naked pleading in Dawn's eyes. "I can do it! I'll practice every day--I've been watching both of you, I know some stuff already, sort of--please, let me help!"
"Spike told you about--oh. You mean the fighty stuff." Buffy pressed her fingers to the sides of her nose for a second and turned away. "We'll talk about it later. I'm going to go upstairs and clean up. I'll be back down in a minute."
There was a ground-in weariness of a sort Willow hadn't seen for some time in the drooping lines of Buffy's shoulders as she went up the stairs. Dawn might be off on the details, but Spike had said, back at the crypt, that they'd had a disagreement... come to think of it, she hadn't heard that particular tone of defiant bluster from Spike in quite awhile, either. The voice slipped back into her head, oozing between the cracks in her thoughts like that black oil on the X-Files. This had better end soon; she was running out of creepy similes fast. They feed off one another. For good or for ill .
The vampire thing considered, Willow hoped that wasn't meant in an ickily literal manner, but she could see the sense of it. There was a connection there, always had been--maybe a Slayer/vampire thing, maybe just a Buffy/Spike thing, more likely a little of both--and while the connection itself couldn't be easily broken, their mutual trust in it, and in each other, was a new and fragile thing. The two of them could tear one another down with the same ease that they'd built one another up, these last few weeks.
Just so. A weapon, at need .
Willow sat down on the nearest arm of the couch, crossing her arms over her chest and huddling in on herself. She wasn't cut out for this sneaky stuff; she had a horrible urge to race upstairs and spill everything to Buffy, or dash into the kitchen and beg Tara to forgive her for whatever she hadn't done yet. Buffy's psyche was a mass of half-healed wounds that ached at every change of the emotional weather, and the largest and achiest had 'ANGELUS' tattooed on its butt. If she and Spike were already on the outs about something, discovering that the chip was gone might lead Buffy to panic and create a net increase in the quantity of vampire dust in the immediate vicinity before Spike could try to explain.
Assuming Spike even wanted to explain. Oh, God, what if he went right out and killed someone? Her heart started to hammer in her chest and the air in the room grew progressively shorter on oxygen. What if he grabbed some innocent six-year-old and sucked them dry and--it would be all my fault--it--
How so? the ebony voice asked with crisp disdain. You gave him a gift. If he abuses it, that is his folly, not yours.
Yeah, but... It was past time she got more information out of Mister Mystery. how is what I'm doing for you going to fix the Balance?
You are an exceptionally intelligent woman. All acts have consequences. Surely you've divined that for yourself by now?
Willow fiddled with the teacup. Pink roses in old-fashioned garlands bedecked the sides, below the rim of gold. Curing the crazies was obviously a gold star on the good side of the ledger, and removing their threat to the rest of the population of Sunnydale was even better. Using Dawn to power the spell... well, that was a little iffy. But Dawn wouldn't be hurt by it. That wasn't good or bad, not really, just... pragmatic. Removing Spike's chip...on the surface of it, enabling a vampire to prey upon humanity again was a bad thing. Except, she told herself firmly, Spike wasn’t exactly Joe Average Vampire these days. She was just giving him a chance to prove what he’d been saying for months--that he’d changed.
You're growing warm , the voice replied, amused.
She didn't feel warm. Willow shivered, and went out to the kitchen to help Tara.


Dawn had never quite figured it out. Vampires, no problem. Hellbeasts, nothing to it. Ancient mystic orders bent on world domination, piece of cake. But put Buffy, who could charm and bully equally effortlessly when she was in Slayer mode, in the presence of some mundane authority whom she had to impress, and her sister fell apart like an overcooked macaroni casserole. Of course, that had been before the whole dying-and-coming-back-to-life thing. Post-resurrection Buffy had plodded through the first stage of the guardianship paperwork with grim, listless efficiency. Buffy was neither grim nor listless today--June Cleaver on crack, more like. Dawn wasn't sure which was worse.
Dawn could only guess that the fight with Spike was throwing Buffy off her game. Like, into the next ballpark. She'd been jittery all through the tour around the house, answering questions with flood of too-cheerful babble which would have done Willow proud. Now she perched with ramrod-correct posture on the opposite end of the almost unrecognizably spruce couch--exactly far enough from Dawn and from the arms of the couch to discourage anyone else sitting on it. Despite cosmetic repairs (shoving Volumes 8, 15 and 22 of the 1979 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica underneath the saggiest spot) it had yet to recover from its stint as Vampire Nookie Central, and made frightening sproingy noises if you shifted the wrong way.
The Kroger was seated across the room in the overstuffed armchair, leafing through the pile of paperwork on her lap. She examined each document with excruciating care, as if she hadn't read them all six times before. Dawn was inured to the process by now, but Buffy had yet to build up an immunity. Mrs. Kroger looked up and inquired, "So, Ms. Summers--there are two other adults in the house besides yourself?"
Buffy had changed back into her interview clothes--sensible skirt and blouse and pumps, very respectable, very adult, very, very not-Buffy--and the wide, gleaming smile plastered over her face was scarily reminiscent of Spike's long-disassembled robot version of herself. "Yes. Willow and Tara." One hand escaped from its primly folded station on her lap to flutter in the direction of the kitchen, where Willow and Tara hovered in the doorway, ready to airlift in supplies or fresh troops if necessary, Tara serene in the face of bureaucracy and Willow sporting a pair of small worried lines between her brows. "Because we're the village."
Mrs. Kroger blinked.
The Stepford Slayer smile winked out. "You know, because it takes a village to raise a...uh... cookie?" She thrust the heaping plate of chocolate macadamia-nut at the social worker. "They're homemade." It apparently struck her that this was not necessarily an endorsement of quality, and she amended hastily, "But not by me. Willow made them, totally by herself. Though I'm not saying I can't cook, I can. People just keep asking me not to."
Dawn suppressed a groan and hastened to pour Mrs. Kroger tea from the rose-garlanded teapot. What had happened to the All-Business Buffy who'd railroaded Dad into signing over custody? The argument with Spike must have been a doozy. There had to be something she could say that would come off as well-adjusted and healthy-family-like rather than like a total brown-nosed suck-up. This teapot. Mom got this teapot from Grandma. And you see that little chip on the foot? I did that when I was eight and pouring tea for Mr. Gordo and Brown Bunny. I'm connected to this teapot. OK, technically as of a year and a half ago I was a blob of green energy with no teapot connections at all, but now I am. Connected. And you can't just--
"No thank you, dear, I'm trying to cut down." Mrs. Kroger declined the cookies with her usual vague smile and sipped her tea as if to reassure them that she didn't mean anything personal by the refusal. She set the teacup down and pulled a pen from behind one ear. "Let's see... you originally filed your application for guardianship last spring after your mother's death, is that right?" Buffy nodded, a nervous head-bob that made her resemble a dashboard ornament. "Your father was out of the country and unreachable at the time..." She glanced at Buffy with the look of mild inquiry Dawn had grown to dread over the summer. "But the first application was cancelled due to your death?"
"Er." Buffy attempted a light, carefree laugh. "The rumors of my... uh. Yes. But obviously, not dead, so here we go again." Mrs. Kroger pursed her lips at the police reports (touched up after the fact by Willow Rosenberg, hacker extraordinare) and the doctor's affidavit (supplied by a physician with untraceable but persuasive connections with the Council of Watchers, one thing the Council had cooperated on). It all affirmed that Ms. Summers had suffered a head injury in a fall at an abandoned construction site. Ms. Summers had survived the fall and wandered away in a daze before her friends arrived on the scene and summoned the police, all of whom assumed that the small, slight, blonde corpse mangled beyond recognition by the fall was Buffy Summers, until she miraculously appeared on Halloween, having finally recovered her senses.
Dawn watched Mrs. Kroger's eyes flicking back and forth across the close-typed pages. She'd practically memorized the thing; heck, she'd supplied some of the juiciest details of the cover story, and it was all she could do to keep from reciting it under her breath as Mrs. Kroger read through their literary effort. The doctor’s report was full of catchy jargon like 'post-traumatic amnesia' and 'flattened affect' and ended with a comforting assurance that Ms. Summers was currently healthy and in full possession of her faculties. So far the Sunnydale tendency not to inquire too deeply into anything that whiffed of weirdness was working for them. "And you don't remember anything about where you were over the summer?"
"No." This was more or less true. Buffy wove the fingers of both hands tightly together once more. "The doctor said it was a post-traumatic... shock... thingy. Is there anything else the judge is going to need to see to transfer my sister's custody back to me? Dad's not contesting--"
"Mmm, yes, I see that. Our main concern is that you don't have a job at present." Mrs. Kroger peered at Buffy over the tops of her glasses. "So--"
"But I'm looking!" Buffy protested, a note of panic peering over the concrete embankments of her good cheer. "I had an interview this morning, and I have two more later this week. I just haven't--"
"I was just going to say," Mrs. Kroger leaned back, her smile growing somewhat fixed, "that your household qualifies for several varieties of government aid."
Buffy, thoroughly derailed for a second, just gaped at her. "You mean... what do you mean?"
"Job counseling services, certainly. Also financial aid services, food stamps--"
"Food stamps? You mean--Welfare? " Buffy got out in a mortified squeak. "Oh. No. I couldn't--I mean, I'm sure we can get by without--I mean--"
"Of course if you find a job in the next few weeks it won't be necessary, but I'm going to leave you the forms just in case." Mrs. Kroger handed Buffy a sheaf of papers, and Buffy took them in a shell-shocked daze, obviously still stunned by the dreaded vision of Buffy Summers, Welfare Mother.
Mrs. Kroger folded up her reading glasses and replaced them in her purse. "You seem to have all your paperwork in order--your hearing is set for the twenty-first. Your father's nominated you as your sister's guardian and waived requirement of service, so--"
The front door shook under a thundering volley of pounding, and the distinctive odor of singed vampire filled the air, temporarily drowning out the cookies. Dawn jumped to her feet, but Willow was ahead of her, sprinting for the door and flinging herself spreadeagled against it, more as if she wanted to hold it shut than in preparation for letting someone in. She opened the door the tiniest of cracks and peered out. "Spike!" she yipped, as if this were the last person she'd expected to see. Well, in the middle of the day, maybe... nah, this was Spike. "We're busy!"
"Ducky. I'm smoldering." Spike applied his superior strength to the door and Willow was scooted backwards across the carpet. Spike elbowed his way through the door and toppled over the threshold, duster pulled over his head, trailing smoke and dirty socks behind him. He dropped his laundry in the foyer with a thump and shrugged his coat back into place with a catlike air of 'I meant to do that.' He was looking particularly disheveled and human despite the wisps of smoke, and the faint flush in his cheeks meant he'd been feeding very recently. Willow clung to the door, staring at him in round-eyed apprehension, like he had spinach in his teeth or something. Doris Kroger (and everyone else, for that matter) was staring too--though, due to the combination of the duster, the striped pullover, and Spike's usual collection of jewelry no straight man alive or dead ought to be allowed to wear, more in an "Oh my God, look at the fashion victim!" way than in an "Excuse me, why is that man on fire?" way.
Spike had obviously forgotten all about the meeting with Mrs. Kroger. Confronted with the assembly in the living room, he squared his shoulders, flashed his on-the-pull smile at the social worker and rose above his sartorial handicaps by sheer force of charisma. "Hullo, all. Didn't mean to interrupt. Came over to use the washer, and--" His eyes locked onto Buffy's in one of those gazes that excluded the entire rest of the universe. "Something's come up."
Buffy gave the vampire a narrow-eyed once-over to ascertain that, for once, he wasn't engaging in double-entendre, and whipped out the blinding smile again. "Mrs. Kroger, this is Spike." Dawn winced at Mrs. Kroger's sedate blink; undoubtedly 'Spike' ranked number three on the Top Ten List of Bad Boyfriend Names, right below 'Killer' and 'Fang,' though well above 'Ripper' and 'The Butcher.' "Spike...er...Williams. He's...uh..." Buffy's eyes glazed over in critical terminology meltdown; you could see the read/write errors piling up. "We're seeing each other. He was a big help with Dawn over the summer."
"Right," Dawn agreed. "He's always very responsible and law-abiding and--" Buffy elbowed her in the ribs, and Dawn shot a glare at her--What?.
Spike warmed up the smile and caught Mrs. Kroger's eyes in the we-are-the-world look for a second--which, if Dawn was any judge, thawed The Kroger more thoroughly than a ream of signed testimonials. "Pleased ever so." He bent over and murmured urgently into Buffy's ear, "We really need to talk private-like, pet. Can we--?” He gestured towards the kitchen.
Willow went into a coughing fit which prompted Tara to come over and thump her on the back in concern. Buffy rose briskly to her feet, irritation with Spike setting flight to her earlier nerves. "Spike, in case it’s escaped your notice, I'm in the middle of something important." She latched onto his collar and headed for the front door, tugging him after her. "So if you'll just marshal all your lame arguments about the job for later, I'll--"
Dawn frowned. Job? There was way more going on here than some argument over whether or not she could patrol. Buffy was freaking, Willow was freaking, Spike was failing to freak only because outsiders were present and he was hoarding cool points. The vampire dug his heels in and resisted tuggage. "Not about that , love. It's important. Very, very important." He was talking to Buffy, but looking at Willow, eyes brimming over with question marks. For a moment Willow's eyes were riveted to the toes of her sandals, but then her head came up defiantly and she smiled, a tight hard smile stuck somewhere between anger and determination. Whatever Spike was asking, she wasn't going to answer.
Buffy, her attention still on Mrs. Kroger's reactions, hadn't noticed the exchange. She nibbled an impeccably manicured thumbnail, obviously coming to the conclusion that there was a slayage emergency--why else would Spike be interrupting now?--which would require her to dash off to the rescue, and simultaneously dash their hopes of Mrs. Kroger making a favorable report to the judge at the custody hearing. Annoyance, resentment and resignation warred in her eyes for a second before resignation won out. "OK," she said at last. "But make it fast." She turned back to Mrs. Kroger. "Would you excuse us for just a moment?"
Another vague blink, in the space of which, Dawn was sure, Spike's height, weight, shoe size, and the exact shade of Clairol Ultra-Light Blond he favored were cataloged and submitted to the Social Services Dubious Associates Database via telepathy. "Certainly. Take your time, Ms. Summers."
"Come on, then, Spike, and let me know what can't wait another hour." Buffy stalked off towards the kitchen, and without looking back waved at the duffle and added, "And bring that with you. The world can live without exposure to your Tigger jammies."
"Oi, now, I don't--" Recalling the presence of The Kroger, Spike clenched his jaw on his intended rejoinder, snatched up his duffle and trotted after her sister. There was an uneasy silence punctuated by the sound of two pairs of feet descending the stairs to the basement, and two voices muffled to inaudibility by intervening layers of drywall and cinder block. Mrs. Kroger sat with plump implacable majesty, her bright starling eyes darting insatiably around the room. Dawn leaned unwarily forward to snag a cookie and the couch SPROINGed at her; guilt froze her in place with one hand outstretched.
Footsteps, ascending. "...don't have time to play around now, Spike!" Heavier footsteps, booted, following. "Buffy, love, you've got to listen to me! I--"
Lighter feet, halfway up, pausing, turning. Dawn imagined arms folding to the accompaniment of tight-lipped Buffy-disapproval. "What? You what?"
"I--"
Silence. Buffy's voice, sheathed in ice. "Hello, you have reached the end of Buffy Summers's patience. When you actually have anything worthwhile to say, please leave a message at the sound of the beep."
Footsteps, heavier, booted, descending, with something of defeat in their cadence. And lighter feet ascending once more. A second later Buffy emerged from the kitchen, huge fake smile an insufficient mask over too-bright eyes and the angry tremor in her shoulders. Dawn blanched. There was a difference between normal Spike-and-Buffy sniping and a real fight, and this was it--hurt lurking within those eyes instead of irritation. Buffy seated herself upon the couch once more, re-folded her hands, and smiled warmly at Mrs. Kroger, all unease burnt away in the wake of her anger. "I'm so sorry for the interruption. I'm afraid Spike doesn't always take things as seriously as I'd like him to. Now--you said something about job counseling?"
"We need more tea," Dawn whispered, seizing the teapot and heading for the kitchen, heedless of the sofa's agonized complaint. Halfway there she realized she was still carrying her filched cookie, but there wasn't any graceful way to turn around and put it back.
"Dawnie!" Willow grabbed for her wrist as she whooshed past, heading for the basement stairs. "I don't think that's a good idea right now. He sounded pretty cranky, and--"
Well, duh. Dawn rolled her eyes. Anyone who went tippy-toes around Spike when he was in a bad mood might as well give up talking to him at all. Willow should know the drill by now. "It's OK. I have a Ph.D. in dealing with cranky vampires." She left the teapot on the kitchen island and racketed down the stairs without slowing; the tawny forty-watt glow of the basement light was brighter than the candlelight in Spike's crypt, and she could take those stairs blindfolded. She made plenty of noise. Spike would hear and smell her coming regardless, but it was only polite to give fair warning when intruding on a sulk.
The muted whoosh of the washing machine filling up drifted up to her ears. Spike was slouched in a sunshine-yellow vinyl beanbag chair, remnant of Joyce Summers's swinging 70's days. He leaned back against a pile of flood-damaged boxes, and a handful of styrofoam pellets trickled out through several small tears in the beanbag's sides, reminding Dawn why it had been banished to the basement to begin with.
Three weeks after they'd first moved to Sunnydale, Mom opening the front door to find Buffy swinging it at a shrieking Dawn's head, and the living room carpet spangled with tiny white pearls... Another non-existent memory of her non-existent life. Everything I remember doing with Spike is real. She could hold on to that.
Spike left off flinging his remaining clothes into haphazard piles (darks and darkers) as Dawn hopped off the last step of the stairs, and looked up at her with a frustrated snarl. Dawn ignored it. Spike's rages came and went with the force and speed of summer monsoons--by the time you got properly scared, he'd be flipping channels and demanding to know why the bloody hell you were cowering in the corner with a cross clutched over your head. Or you'd be dead. Either way, you might as well skip the cowering. She pulled up a box of her own and sat down. The mildew-stained cardboard sagged beneath her weight. "So. What's the panic? You all right? You look kinda green."
"Your sis does that to me." Spike shot a venomous glance up the stairs, tossed the last pair of monster-goo-encrusted jeans into their proper pile and oozed further down into the beanbag. He let his belt buckle out a notch and closed his eyes. "Nah, I'm fine. Overdid a bit at lunch."
Dawn snickered. "I didn't think that was possible." She extended a magnanimous hand and offered him the cookie. "Want dessert?" There were rules to everything: if you wanted information, ply Buffy with shoes, ply Spike with grease and sugar. At least until you were old enough to ply him with alcohol.
Spike opened one eye, surveyed the cookie with disfavor, and closed it again. "Ha bloody ha. In the future, remind me that ten's my limit." Something about that statement made him snap out of his incipient torpor. Both eyes shot open, blue and cold, and dark brows dipped together over his nose. "Didn't stop me saying that," he muttered. "I had five too many rats for lunch."
"Rats? Yeurch." Dawn curled her tongue in distaste. "I thought rats were, like, too gross even for trailer-park vampire cuisine. Mr. Kohlermann having a pig's blood shortage?"
"Not exactly. Normally I wouldn't touch rat if you paid me, but this was a bit of a special occasion." Spike took a deep breath. "I k--" The word choked off as if someone'd cut off his air; Spike's face contorted and cords of muscle stood out on his neck with the effort, but nothing came out. He slammed a fist into the stack of boxes, panting. "There's got to be a way--" He leaped to his feet and began prowling the basement with frenetic energy.
Pieces clicked into place. "You're under a spell."
Abject gratitude lit Spike's eyes. "Got it in one!"
"A rat-eating spell? Is that why Buffy's all ticked off? Lips that touch rat will never touch mine?"
"Gah. No!" He stopped and smacked his fist into his palm. "Pen and paper!"
Dawn cast about for a second. "Oh! Wait!" She dove into one of the boxes and emerged with a tattered cigar box full of broken crayons and desiccated Magic Markers. She shoved it at Spike. "Here."
Spike grabbed a red crayon and dropped to his knees, scribbling out on the flap of one of the cardboard boxes 'I CAN KX##~~...' "Fuck!" he snarled and began again. 'W!77oooH TOK Th~^v^v...' "ARRRGGGHH!!!" Spike smashed the box to flinders, scattering mis-matched Legos and a selection of headless, chewed-on Barbie dolls across the floor, and knelt in the wreckage, chest heaving.
"Okay, you can't talk about it or write about it," Dawn said, trying to project calm. "Can you nod yes or no? It's something you need to tell Buffy, right?"
The vampire tensed and nodded. Lightning failed to strike. "Now we're getting somewhere," Dawn said, rubbing her hands. "Is it dangerous?" Spike hesitated, brows twisting, and raked both hands through his already-unruly hair. At last he nodded. "Is it happening soon?" Headshake. "A long time from now?" Another headshake, accompanied by rising frustration in his eyes. "It's already happened?" Vigorous nod. "Is it something Buffy needs to do something about?"
Again a hesitation, but before Spike could determine which answer he wanted to give, the door at the top of the stairs opened and Willow stood backlit in the opening. "Do you two have something to share with the class?"


Dumb, Willow. She should have known trying to scare Dawn off talking to Spike wouldn't work; Dawn had never been properly afraid of the vampire even when he'd been dangerous. And she couldn't exactly hint that he wasn't un-dangerous any longer. She stared at the uninformative surface of the basement door with one hand on the cool worn brass of the doorknob and twisted another knot in the flowered gauze of her skirt. Her fingers tightened, and the knob turned.
"Do you two have something to share with the class?"
Two pairs of blue eyes, one large and warm, one narrow and chill, gazed up at her. Haloed in the light of the bare bulb, Dawn sat enthroned in cardboard, arms folded across her bony knees and her face rapt with the bizarre game of Twenty Questions she was conducting. Spike was pacing like Rilke's panther, caught mid-turn as Willow opened the door. Dawn scrambled to her feet, her upturned face blossoming with a smile of relief at sight of Willow. Spike looked up as well, but there was no smile in his eyes, only wariness. "Willow!" Dawn cried. "Just who we need to see. Spike's under some kind of spell and he can't talk about it but there's something important he needs to tell Buffy, and--"
A rivulet of perspiration trickled down her temple, stinging in the corner of her eye. She couldn't do this. Willow Rosenberg had never told a successful lie in her life, she was worse at it than Spike was, she wasn't cut out for sneaky--
Willow raised a hand, feeling the rush as her eyes went onyx. "Dawn," she said softly, "Be still."
She couldn't handle sneaky. But as she'd slowly come to recognize over the last few years, she could handle power. The girl froze in place, her lanky adolescent form half-way to standing, her eager mouth open. Dawn, interrupted.
Spike took one look and all the muscles in his shoulders bunched; he whipped round to face up the stairs, both hands clenched on the bannisters, seeming all of a sudden a great deal larger than he really was. The ice-chips of his eyes bored into Willow's, full of fury--but more puzzlement. "Will," he growled, sandpaper-rough, "what the fuck are you doing? Why won't you let me tell Buffy about--" He gestured at his head. "What've you done to Dawn?"
"Nothing," she said, harder and faster than she wanted to. "Nothing. She's fine. Just... stopped for a minute. Do you really think I'd hurt her?"
Spike's cheeks hollowed. He hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans and rocked heel to toe, saying nothing for rather longer than was comfortable. "I'd've said no, yesterday."
Willow felt heat rise in her own face. "Well, I wouldn't!" she snapped. "I just don’t want anyone to know I took your chip out. I've got my reasons, all right?"
"Feel a bit less dodgy if I knew what they were. Now Buffy thinks I’ve wandered over to cock up her tea party on a lark, and I can’t tell her different.” The anger in his eyes was layered over an inner bruising. “If you've messed me up for good with her, Red, I swear I'll--"
Cue scary background music--Spike’s Theme, menace in a minor key. "What, kill me?" Her voice was too shrill, and Willow forced it to a lower register. "Come after me with a broken bottle? Doesn't take you long to fall off the wagon, does it, Spike?" She felt a twinge of anger not her own in the back of her skull: her silent partner hadn't liked her saying that--why? The power surged up within her, wordless reminder that she no longer needed to fear Spike in any sense.
He flinched and dropped his eyes--was the surfeit of blood in his system at the moment enough to justify the shamed tinge of red at his eartips? "Wouldn't do that," he muttered. “Not to you. Not nowadays." He met her eyes once more. "You understand that, don't you, Will? It's not...I just wouldn't." There was a subtle note of pleading in his voice.
You have no need to play on this creature's shame or his sympathy for your own safety. Neither of which qualities he has any real claim on.
"I know." Willow kept her own voice level in the face of another flare of anger from her invisible companion. It could just suffer; it needed her, or it wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to get her. She could afford to test her bounds a little. She and Spike had always gotten along, give or take an assault or two; there'd been a time when his assurance that she was bite-worthy had delivered a real ego-boost right alongside the abject terror. "Mrs. Kroger's leaving at five-thirty and we're going to go over to the Magic Box and meet the others at six to go over the crazy-catching plan. Go on up and I'll unfreeze Dawn."
The planes of his face shifted as he gazed up at her, demon-ridges coming to prominence. A thought-swift blur of motion and Spike was beside her on the stair. Willow had time to draw half a startled gasp before the cool weight of his hand fell on her shoulder. She jerked her head up to meet the lambent golden eyes only inches away from her own, the pupils flashing red in the dim light. His voice rasped against her ear like a cat's tongue. "Anyone else pulled this with me," he murmured, "Or with her," he jerked his head down the stairs towards Dawn, "and they'd be picking my teeth out of their jugular by now. You might want to think about that."
It wasn't even a threat. Just a statement of fact, one of Spike's not-so-subtle reminders: Hello, vampire . God, those fangs were terrifying up close, inch-long upper canines, half-inch lower canines, rip-saw rows of incisors in between...she'd seen what teeth like that, powered by inhuman muscle, could do to human flesh, seen mangled bodies and bloodless faces in the corridors of Sunnydale High. They had fun. What did it say about the infinite capacity of the human mind to trivialize that her primary reaction these days was Wonder how long Spike had to practice talking through those things to get rid of the game-face lisp?
"You can't kill me, Spike," she said, a little breathless with the enormity of the realization. Hello, incredibly powerful witch. "You couldn't even if you wanted to." Spike's eyes reflected the truth of her words, made her reckless. "But I could kill you. And I haven't. Instead I gave you a nice early Christmas present. You might want to think about that."
For once, Spike's face was unreadable. "I will, Red. I will." He turned, his features sliding back towards humanity again, and walked up the stairs. The open door framed him in light for a moment and he looked down at her. “You really would have made a smashing vampire.” Then he was gone. Willow sagged against the railing with a little whoop of hysterical laughter . She couldn't afford to give in to it for long. She straightened and trotted downstairs.
She halted among the remnants of the Summers girls’ childhood, gazing at the motionless figure of Dawn and nudging red and yellow plastic bricks aside with the toe of the Birkenstocks. What now? Things were moving too fast, events banging into each other, bumper cars out of control. Dawn had figured out too much for comfort; should she erase the memory of her conversation with Spike? There was Lethe's bramble in her room upstairs, and the spell was a simple one. She could run up and get it now, and hope no one came down here while she was gone. Or she could let Dawn tell her everything, and pretend to investigate... Willow groaned; she could see this devolving into a farce all too quickly. Why is it so important no one know I took Spike’s chip out?
The dark voice within was silent. It had said all it really needed to say; do these things, and power is yours; refuse and I take it away. Except she wasn’t doing it for the power, and why did that sound as lost and uncertain in her own ears as Spike’s I wouldn’t do that, not nowadays? Willow ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. She couldn’t think about that now. There were too many ways Spike could get around the spell she'd laid on him. Unless... she laughed, relief washing over her. She could erase his memory! She should have thought of that before. He couldn't tell anyone how the chip came out if he didn't know.
Buffy was still grilling Mrs. Kroger about job prospects in the living room when Willow slipped past and ran upstairs and into her and Tara's room. She grabbed the bouquet of herbs in the jar on the dresser--tansy and heal-all, fennel and columbine; there's rosemary, that's for remembrance; we need the opposite of that--and extracted the sprig of bramble. Purple bristles on a faded green stem, prickly to the touch. Clutching it in one damp palm she stole downstairs once more.
No one looked at her. Spike was in the living room now, exerting his charm, such as it was, on Mrs. Kroger, while Buffy looked on with the air of the Russian judge about to award his performance a 6.5. Willow slipped past, back to the wall. Tara gave her a worried look as she raced through the kitchen, but Willow smiled and waved and mouthed 'Getting Dawn!' and was down the basement stairs before she could be questioned.
The sweet musty odor of the herb filled the basement as she crumbled it beneath Dawn's nose and whispered, "Obliviscere." The broken fragments caught fire in her palm, consumed by cold blue witchlight. Power tingled and sparked in the air around them, rising like embers on the smoke of the burning. Dawn’s nose twitched. Willow lifted her hand again. "Dawn, ferre!"
Dawn sneezed and lurched into motion, immediately lost her balance, and staggered into the beanbag chair, cracking both kneecaps on the floor. "Ow!" she yelled, rolling over and clutching her knees. She looked up from her hedgehog-ball of pain to see Willow staring down at her and her cheeks went red. "I tripped on something," she said with a defensive hair-toss. "Not normally Superklutz." She sat up and rubbed the worst-bruised knee. "Ow... why am I in the basement?" One hand went to the back of her head in a tentative search for painful lumps, always the first possibility in Sunnydale when one found oneself in a strange place with memory loss. When her fingers found nothing, she grabbed the nearest box and levered herself to her feet. "Omigod, Mrs. Kroger! How long have I been down here? Buffy’ll slay me!"
"Not long," Willow reassured her, extending a helping hand. "You came down to check on Spike’s washing.” She walked over to the machine and held up a small plastic scoop half-full of blue liquid. “See? Forgot the fabric softener, and you know how hard he takes laundry mishaps.” She opened the lid and poured the Downy into the reservoir. “You didn’t come back up right away, so Willow to the rescue. Mrs. Kroger's still upstairs."
Dawn stood rubbing her head for a moment. “I should get back.”
She leaped deerlike for the stairs, and Willow shouted after her, "Dawnie! Wait! How would you like to go along with us tonight? Just to make with observiness? "
"Really?" Dawn paused on the stairs, looking stunned, for real this time. "You've got to be kidding. Didn't Buffy totally freak out when Spike asked her--" She frowned, confusion welling up in her eyes as her thoughts ran into the blurry, ragged edges of missing places in her mind. Willow watched closely; it was the nature of the human mind to fill in gaps--she'd learned that in the part of the psych class before the professor had gone insane. It was so easy to coax a mind into filling in the blanks... "Spike and Buffy had a fight," Dawn said with more confidence. "About me learning to patrol. I came down here to talk to him about it." She frowned. "And the laundry, I guess."
"That was a good excuse," Willow said. "Look, I'm completely with Spike on this. Sunnydale's a dangerous place full of dangerous beasties, so Dawn with the kung-fu grip? Great idea. Hence the invite."
Dawn bit her lip, tempted. "Won't Buffy have a spaz fit?"
Willow grinned. At least something was going to be easy. "What Buffy doesn't know won't hurt us. I can disguise you so you won't be in any danger. Sort of a variation on the glamor spells Buffy's using to patrol incognito, except it'll just make you..."
"Invisible?"
"No, too many side effects. Just unnoticeable. You know, like Hitchhiker's Guide? A Someone Else's Problem field. Villainous types can see you, they just won't think you're important. Heroic types likewise."
Dawn considered this, her eyes lighting up and an answering grin spreading across her face. "Sounds cool. When do we do it?"
Willow pretended to think about it. "Meet me down here after Mrs. Kroger leaves. I'll cast the spell, and make sure you get into the car when we drive over, and don't get any doors slammed on you. Once we're at the Magic Box, if you just hover and don't say anything, no one will realize you're there. You can watch the whole thing, get a good first-hand look at the crack world-saving team in action. Sound good?"
"Sounds fantastic," Dawn crowed, whatever minor worries she'd had about her lapse lost in the excitement of the new plan. "I'd better get up there, before Buffy implodes. See you later!"
As the younger girl dashed off up the stairs, Willow's sight doubled for an instant and instead of Dawn's familiar coltish grace she saw an intricate mandala of green, shimmering and pulsing in the darkness. Power. As much power as she herself was now tapped into, but fallow, useless--the engines of Creation, harnessed to a go-cart.
Tonight she’d change that.
She walked over to the washing machine and leaned into it, folding her arms and pillowing her head on its vibrating surface. Another mission accomplished. It was all coming together. Whatever was to occur tonight would steady the teetering Balance, and save Buffy from whatever obscure but doubtless unpleasant fate awaited the person who'd upset it... Willow Rosenberg, Big Gun, would have saved the day once again.
Maybe, for once, she'd get a thank you.

Sunset, viewed from the doorstep of Cabin 5 of the Coronado Del Sol Motor Hotel, smog-tainted gold etched with contrails in purple and silver. Tanner stared upwards, trying to wrest meaning from the runic lines before the wind smudged them to illegibility. A shadow fell between him and the cryptic sky: a woman, thirty-five or so, tall and hunch-shouldered over the armload of packages clutched to her thin chest. Not beautiful, and her mud-brown, stubby-lashed eyes would never benefit from coming out from behind her glasses. But they were kind, as was her voice when she walked over and looked at him--at him, not past him, as so many people did--and said Edith Keeler's three most important words.
Tanner smiled and shook his head. She returned the smile (a little nervous, as much relieved as not) and moved on. He lurched to his feet, reached out, whispered the right words in the right order, and plunged his fingers into the back of her skull, through the thin straight mouse-brown hair. She sank to her knees with a wounded sigh, and the packages tumbled to the sidewalk. The outer skin of her mind was taut with longing and long-abandoned desire, the interior bursting with emotions sweet and warm as sun-ripened nectarines.
He thought about taking her with him, making her one of them. But she had looked at him, not through him, and so he left her drooling in the doorway, propped against the peeling turquoise door. The Coronado Del Sol charged by the hour; hopefully no one would mistake her for one of the regulars, but if they did, he told himself cynically, perhaps it wouldn't be entirely unwelcome.
He shuffled over to the newspaper kiosk on the curb, bending to squint at the date on the headlines. Monday, December 10th. Fourteen shopping days until Christmas. Twelve days since the eyeless man had promised him healing for his charges, eleven days since he'd passed the slippery black burden he'd carried on to the Red Witch. Eleven days since he'd been dropped like a jilted lover.
Across the street, a seven-foot man with skin the color of verdigris and hair and beard of winter-brown oak leaves strode past the line of storefronts, passing windows full of fake snow and Christmas sale signs. The leaf-shaped bronze head of his spear clove through Gordian knots of shoppers, who stepped back, and stared, and decided it was a promotional stunt.
Gods stalked the streets of Sunnydale. In such times, a mortal madman could plot revenge against a force of nature with some chance of success. Tanner watched the Green Man disappear into the twilight and pulled a grimy spiral notebook from his coat pocket. He started walking, feet placed just so on the cracked old sidewalk, in time with the syncopated blink of Christmas lights. He filled page upon page with cabalistic scrawls as he walked, jotting down portents in the random territorial scrawls on dumpsters, the secret patterns gleaned from decaying brickwork in the alleyways. The spider's web of electrical lines overhead intersected at angles mirroring the message of the contrails, and he recorded it all painstakingly.
He halted at the corner of Main and Wilkins, where spray-painted symbols ringed the manhole cover in the center of the intersection, hieroglyphs in neon orange and electric blue revealing the paths of municipal ley lines: electricity and gas, sewer and telephone lines. They could tell other stories for those who knew how to listen. Tanner dropped to his hands and knees on the oil-slick asphalt, palms splayed across the gritty-greasy composite, and squinted, shifting position until the dashes and arrows aligned.
Concentration was key. A thousand one, a thousand two, counting off the seconds as the traffic lights overhead flashed from green to yellow, from yellow to red. He counted through five reds to be sure, averaging them out in his head. Twenty-three. Twenty-three now. Twenty- one last week. Tanner huddled over his notebook pocket and scribbled down the times, along with a few scrawled sketches. Constellations of neon signs, Christmas decorations and traffic lights swung into alignment, and his shoulders trembled under the weight of the knowledge thus vouchsafed.
Last night he'd collapsed screaming in the 24-hour Denny's up on Sixth, clutching his head and rolling under table as light poured into this brain. The waitress with the mole on her chin had called 911, but he'd dragged himself to his feet and staggered laughing into the night before the police could arrive, into a darkness vibrating with anticipation, every piece of steel and concrete eager to whisper its secrets in his ear. Sunnydale was the event horizon surrounding the singularity of the Hellmouth. Last night, that singularity had briefly inverted itself, radiating light instead of hoarding darkness. That light had revealed to him the shape of his vengeance. All he needed was the right time, and the means to draw his enemy into the trap.
It would happen again. Before the New Year, definitely. Christmas? Or would the older nexus of power around the solstice draw events to it? Tanner clambered to his feet, wincing at the gravel-pocks in his knees and elbows. He stood on the curb, chafing his arms with his hands. A week, two weeks--more observations were needed. Precision was essential.
In the meantime, he had other responsibilities. He sighed. Lizzie was dead, and the drifter they'd found under the park bench to replace the vampire and his friend had never emerged from his stupor. One caretaker gone, one more helpless mouth to feed. He ticked off the names in his mind: Dana, Blondie and Blue were rebuilding the circle in Weatherly Park. Ramon and Jim and Matches and Carmel were meeting him near the Wal-Mart, where they'd pool the money they'd panhandled earlier in the day and buy supplies for the encampment.
Tanner turned left on Inverarity and headed for the Wal-Mart, passing the alley that sometimes led to Rack's place. Half a dozen pairs of eyes even more desperate and hollow than his own followed him. He'd have given them the oblivion they paid for free, but they had nothing left that even he would want. No, he needed fresh meat. Two, three minds if they could manage it, strong ones who might hold on to a few scraps of reason afterwards. Maybe that would be enough to get The Rabbit Guy and the others back at the encampment on their feet for awhile.
And then... then a little trip down to the caverns, to pay a visit to the eyeless men.


Being invisible might give you a feeling of power and freedom. Dawn didn't know, never having been invisible. Being unnoticeable was just plain creepy. The hurried spell Willow'd cast on her had involved a clipboard, a spider's web, and her yearbook photo. Willow clipped the photo to the board, detached the web carefully from between the rungs of the broken chair in the garage and laid it across the photo, and chanted a few lines from The Waste Land while applying a thick layer of hairspray which affixed the web to the photo and blurred the photo into unrecognizeability. "Carry it," she said, thrusting the sticky board into Dawn's arms, "and look busy. If anything happens and you need to be the center of attention, just drop the clipboard. That'll end the spell, so be extra sure you want the noticement before you do it."
So Dawn held on to the clipboard, feeling like a complete idiot, and edged through the front door and out onto the lawn along with everyone else. Buffy and Tara stepped around her on the way to the driveway with vague murmured apologies: Excuse me, please , and that was it. She piled into the back seat of the SUV with Willow, and Tara didn't even ask why she was being scrunched into a corner. Even when they came to an unexpected stop in the middle of an intersection in the wake of her sister's split- second decision not to run the yellow after all, and she thumped against the back of the driver's seat, her presence remained a non-event.
Xander and Anya were already at the Magic Box when they got there, along with Giles, who was still poring over a two-foot stack of Watcher’s journals and treatises on the Balance. He got to his feet as they came in and adjusted his glasses, and took Buffy aside to show here something in one of the books. Buffy nodded her terse little Scarlett O'Hara I'll-deal-with-that-later nod and took up her station in front of the ladder to the restricted section of the Magic Box's library, one fist cocked against her hip. Dawn gripped her clipboard and weighed her odds of grabbing a seat at the research table--would someone try to sit on her? Probably not, but... Buffy glanced around the room, looking right at Dawn, and right past her. Xander and Anya and Tara, taking their own seats at the research table, ditto. They knew she was here. She just didn't matter. In a spirit of perversity, she reached over Giles's shoulder, in plain sight of everyone, and closed the book in front of him.
If she'd been invisible, there'd have been whooping and hollering and who-did-thats. As it was, Giles just made a little noise of annoyance and opened the book up again. Dawn backed away from the table and hugged herself, digging her fingers into the muscle of her arm to reassure herself she was still real. She'd had nightmares like this, where she bobbed through the world like a balloon, unable to touch anything, or dissolved slowly into green light. An encouraging little smile from Willow was all that kept her from dropping the clipboard and giving it up right then.
"OK, gameplan," Buffy said. She really ought to have had a blackboard full of circles and arrows and a pointer, but she was making do with the Fun In Sunnydale map put out by the Chamber of Commerce (Brought to you by the Espresso Pump and Aunt Nettie's Antique Boutique!) and a wooden yardstick. "All the attack locations Willow was able to track down in the newspaper archives and the hospital files are here." She tapped the off-center scattering of red push-pins with the tip of the yardstick. All within a mile or so of Weatherly Park, which is where they've got their little Picnic Table of Doom set up. Their main base is here--" she waved at an area a foot or so to the left of the map, "--at the dump. We could try to catch them there, but not loving the idea of taking them on their home ground."
Or the idea of garbage-related booby-traps, Dawn thought. Buffy had changed into low-heeled boots, but was otherwise still wearing her interview clothes. But Buffy was probably right to avoid the dump--she knew from the times she'd accompanied Spike on his scavenging expeditions over the summer that it was a maze of trash-hills and valleys, way too easy to disappear in. She cleared her throat loudly and Anya looked around, hen turned back to Buffy. Don't say 'disappear.'
"None of the newspaper stories mention the victims being ganged upon," Buffy continued, "and we know Tanner was alone when he slurped on Willow's head. It looks like it's strictly table for one when he's just recharging his own batteries. It's only when he needs to juice up the whole commune that they all Junkyard Commando and take prisoners." She clasped the yardstick behind her back. "Tanner's the only really dangerous one in the bunch--once he's out of the picture we can turn the rest of them over to the authorities. So what we're going to do is try to catch him and neutralize his powers." A gesture at the door to the alley. "Spike’s out moving the dumpsters to block off the alley. Will, you and Tara set up your spells there."
"We're good to go," Willow said, patting her bag with a witchy grin. She'd already gotten some of the stuff out, Dawn noticed; in her other hand she held a sprig of some prickly purple thistle-looking herb, rolling it back and forth between her thumb and forefinger. “And nobody’s eaten anything since lunch, right? Because if you cheated on the fasting part, you will be sorry.” She gave Xander a meaningful look, which he studiously ignored. Dawn wondered if Spike’s rat buffet counted against him, and then frowned. Rats? Where had that thought come from? Spike couldn’t eat rats; the chip wouldn’t let him.
Buffy nodded without returning Willow’s grin. "Giles, you’ll be helping Willow?” Subtle difference there, Dawn noted; the others got ordered; Giles got asked. He nodded confirmation and Buffy plowed forward. “Xander, you and Anya will take your car and cruise Lincoln." She thwapped the street leading to the dump with the tip of the yardstick. "Spike and I will go on foot and scope out the side streets, maybe do a little standard patrolling. Anya, you've got your cell, right?" Anya held up the sleek black device and nodded. "If you catch sight of any of the crazies, give me a call. If we sight them, we'll call you." Buffy patted her purse; one of the money-saving strategies of The Budget had been cancelling their long-distance service and getting a pay-per-call cell phone plan. Dawn stifled a sigh of relief that she hadn't picked today to borrow it to keep up with the Shanias and Tiffanys at school. With all the excitement of the afternoon she'd've totally forgotten to put it back.
"Once we've got them in our sights, Spike and I'll cut Tanner away from the herd and drive him back towards the alley," Buffy went on, doing a General Patton turn in front of the map. It struck Dawn with less- than-pleasant force that she took her right to argue with older-sister- Buffy for granted; from the attentive looks everyone was aiming in older sister's direction, arguing with Slayer-Buffy wasn't an option. "He can't suck Spike's brain, so Spike's in no danger from him. Spike can block him and I can hit him if he tries to give us trouble. We'll get him and as many of the others as we can to the alley. Tara will do her magic- grounding thing and render him all fluff-puppy harmless, and then--"
The back door to the shop opened and Spike slunk in, head down, hands buried in the pockets of his increasingly-battered duster. He started for the table and stopped... well, dead, eyes fixed on the thistle-y herb cradled in Willow's hand. Without saying a word, he backed off and took up a watchful stance against the bookshelves.
Dawn was overcome with the conviction that there was something weird going on. Spike kept darting little glances at Buffy and half opening his mouth, then lapsing back into unhappy silence. Every now and then a Buffy-ward glance would get diverted, and he'd blink and turn in Dawn's direction for a moment, brow knit. Then he'd look away again: No one I know, no one I need bother with. Willow'd done good; spells geared to work on humans didn't always cover a vampire's keener senses, and spells intended to influence living brains didn't always cover undead ones, as they'd discovered with the whole Ben/Glory switcheroo business. If Spike thought she wasn't worth watching, neither would any other random vampire they might run into. At the same time it was stupidly comforting that he noticed her at all.
"--we round up the rest of them so Willow can do her mass cure thing. Any questions?" Buffy asked, turning expectant eyes on everyone in turn. "Comments? Lavish praise?"
"What if we don't find them?" Anya asked.
Buffy grimaced. "Next step, braving the Sunnydale landfill. That it? Then let's rumble."
"Don't forget you're not yourself tonight," Tara said, holding up a small make-up mirror with a photo of a non-descript woman taped to it. Buffy grimaced again; one-two punch in the old vanity, Dawn thought with a snicker, but Buffy submitted to Tara's casting the glamor without further argument. Disguise in place, she caught Spike's eye and beckoned him after with a lift of her chin, the imperious gesture looking very odd on the illusory middle-aged face she was wearing. Whatever they were fighting about, Buffy wasn't going to let it interfere with slaying business. Spike unfolded himself and followed her, but he still looked troubled.
Dawn rested her chin on the top of her clipboard and frowned. The exchange reeked of eau de peculiar. A day that went by without Buffy and Spike arguing about something was as rare as snowfall in Sunnydale, so why should this squabble in particular bother him? She felt like there was something she was forgetting...
"Hey, Dawnie." Willow's fingers caught Dawn's sleeve as she started after the others. "Maybe it would be better if you hung with me and Giles and Tara," she whispered. "All the action's going to go down right here in our very own alley."
Dawn thought about it--real serious thought; she didn't have weapon, and she had to hold onto the dorky clipboard or the spell would fade. Not an ideal setup for self-defense. Still, if she'd wanted to spend the night sitting in an alley waiting for something to happen, she could have stayed home and hoped Mrs. Andrevich's tomcat would get caught by the automatic sprinklers again. And what was the point of a don't-notice-me spell if she stayed where no one would notice her anyway? "I thought the idea was for me to observe a patrol. They're just going after ordinary guys," she whispered back. "Ordinary guys I already outsmarted once. It's not like we're up against brain-eating zombies or even vampires. And anyway I'm just going to watch."
Willow's eyes shifted to the back of Tara's head and back again. "Yeah, but--"
The tail of Spike's duster was fast disappearing out the front door; if she didn't hurry, it'd be impossible to catch up. She might not have been on a real patrol before, but she'd been on the periphery of several of Spike's impromptu demon-killings over the summer, and she'd held her own last week. It wasn't like she was crippled or anything. "Don't worry. I'll be careful. You and Xander used to patrol all the time before you put on the pointy hat. And hey, maybe I can bonk someone over the head with the clipboard." Dawn waved and scooted after Spike and her sister.
The bright breezy day had ushered in a cold damp evening. The streetlamps were burning sodium-pink holes in the darkness and the chill had fangs enough to bite through thin California sweaters. Out on the sidewalk in front of the Magic Box, Dawn looked right and left, her long hair whipping around her face. She caught sight of Spike's white-blond head, already half-way down the block, tucked the clipboard under one arm and took off running. It was impossible that Spike and Buffy didn't hear her coming, but she didn't even draw an incurious look. Dawn slowed and caught her breath, hanging back as they turned and headed south on Laramie, parallel to Lincoln.
This was one of the oldest parts of town. Shops alternated with old- fashioned apartments and the occasional revenant house, single-story, palm-shaded bungalows dating back to the twenties. Dawn could feel the tiny hard nuts of queen palms rolling under the soles of her sneakers. Disadvantages to the plan were becoming evident. There had to be tricks to patrolling, things she should be learning. Signs of demonic activity, likely vampire hideouts--clues!
The problem was, Spike and Buffy weren't obligingly narrating their adventures. As far as slaying went, they'd gone all Quest for Fire the minute they were out the Magic Box door, communicating via grunts and significant glances. Buffy touched Spike's elbow, he nodded, and the two of them dissolved into the shadows so quickly and completely that Dawn could have sworn it was magic.
She stood there on the dark street in heart-thudding panic for a minute, until the sounds of an off-stage scuffle reassured her that no random dimensional portals were involved. In another minute the two of them strolled out of the bushes, brushing vamp dust from their sleeves while Buffy grumbled about grass stains, and continued down the street as if nothing had happened. Another time Spike nudged Buffy, who shook her head. They moved on, kicking palm nuts off into the grass and leaving Dawn mystified as to what they'd noticed and why it wasn't worth checking out further.
Worse, in between alarms, the two of them were deep in a Serious Couple Talk--or maybe a Serious Couple Lecture was a better description. Buffy was delivering an impassioned rant, and Spike was prowling alongside with frustration pouring off him in waves.
"...fine for you to be all rebel without a pulse, but I've got to play by the rules or I lose Dawn. And showing up to lure me into the basement for a quickie, not helpful. In fact--"
There was a brief flare of light, followed by the nose-twitching scent of burning tobacco. Oh, great, Dawn thought with disgust, on top of everything else she was going to be trailing along breathing Spike's smoke. Gah. She dropped back another pace. Spike broke into Buffy's monologue with an exasperated jab of his cigarette. "May be hard for you to credit, but I don't spend every waking moment plotting to get into your knickers. Not exactly the mystery of the ages what you keep in 'em any longer."
Dawn couldn't see her sister's face, but she recognized the twitch of Buffy's shoulders, the little flinch that said someone had gotten in a body blow. "Oh. Really," she said, perfectly flat.
Spike turned on his heel as casually as that, and put a fist through the plate glass window of Funkadelic Threads. Dawn jumped back with a startled yip as cracks spiderwebbed out to the corners of the window and a glittering shower of glass rained to the sidewalk, leaving a cantaloupe- sized hole right between Big BigBIG Christmas Savings! and 25% Off Selected Sweater Sets. "Sod it, Buffy," he snarled, "I didn't mean it that way and you know it!"
Buffy folded her arms across her chest and curled her lip, her tone as bitter as the alum a five-year-old Dawn had once mistaken for powdered sugar. "That's right, I forgot--women fascinate you for their minds. Like Drusilla--oh, wait, she lost hers. Or Harmony--oh, wait, she never had one to begin with."
"Or Buffy Summers, who smothered hers beneath the weight of her massive throbbing insecurity." Spike's cigarette arced through the night, hit the concrete and exploded into orange sparks. He grabbed Buffy's shoulders and slammed her up against the stucco. "Look, you stupid bint, I fucking adore you, I'd take you against the sodding wall this very minute, and if you can't get that through your solid ivory skull I'll pound it in with Maxwell's silver bloody hammer, but I didn't come over this afternoon for a shag! I needed to tell you--"
His words cut off in a pained grimace--chip shock, from the push? It didn't matter, because in two seconds flat Buffy'd grabbed him right back, pulled him down, and started sucking his face hard enough to strip chrome off a bumper. Spike vamped out and ground his hips into Buffy's hard enough to make the window rattle in its frame and then the two of them were writhing and moaning and slobbering all over each other.
Dawn spun around and started back the way she'd come, sticking her fingers in her ears and walking as fast as she could go without actually breaking into a run. Oh, God, vampire-and-illusion-clad-Slayer wall sex. She so didn't need to see this. Or hear it, or have it pop up in conversation with her therapist twenty years from now. Joking with Tara about what was going on in the next room was one thing, but this was way too raw, way too personal, and there were some things about her sister that she really didn't want to know. Right back to the Magic Shop and the nice safe lesbians for this little black duck.
Behind her Spike gasped, "Who was that, pet?" and Buffy's voice, muffled, answered, "There was a who?"


She absolutely hadn’t intended it to get this far, Buffy reminded herself. This wasn’t just some routine patrol, it was a Mission. And it wasn’t some dark alley or deserted rest stop, it was right in the middle of a very public street. And her period was still in full swing, which made for a logistical problem, or had until Spike disposed of it along with her underwear (and we are not adding that to the permanent collection, are we, Mr. The Bloody?) and besides, it was cold . But there he was, all snarly and ravenous for her, and all of a sudden she’d gone from stepping up to the plate to sliding for home without passing any intervening bases.
46 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the time and temperature sign over by the bank, which meant Spike was hovering somewhere around 50, if he kept moving. And he was moving, oh God was he moving, driving into her over and over, let’s hear it for friction, people! Her thighs scissored his flanks, her heels drummed against the small of his back. Stucco bits dug poky fingers into her shoulders, snagging her hair with each thrust while Spike growled ecstatic, half-intelligible filth into her ear. She wanted to whisper to him, too, tell him how he made her feel--wanton, liberated, terrified. Tell him he was beautiful. Tell him what she wanted to do to him, wanted him to do to her. All that came out was "Uhn, uhn, uhn, UHN!" Luckily Spike had a Ph.D. in translating incoherent Buffy-noises. Vision dissolved into white haze, pressure built to volcanic levels: Harder, faster, deeper, harder, harder, harder...
The world exploded in a colorless blaze. Buffy’s body went bow-taut, slamming into the wall and clenching around him; Spike threw his head back and came with a triumphant howl, emptying himself into her in long wringing spasms. They slumped against the wall, bodies twitching and shivering like racehorses after a match. Spike's breathing grew shallow and irregular again as he remembered it wasn't really required of him, and Buffy's legs unwound from his waist and reluctantly took up the task of bearing her own weight. Thank God for oversized dusters and unseemly haste; they’d neither of them peeled off more than the absolute minimum amount of clothing necessary to get Tab A into Slot B. Anyone passing by would see a disheveled but not obviously indecent pair. Buffy blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. “So... uh... that was you, seducing me from my duty with your sinister attraction, right?”
Spike chuckled. “Don’t think you gave me much seducing time, pet. What say I give it a try now?”
Slowly, he withdrew and sank to his knees before her, cool fingers trailing down her belly, across the trembling muscles of her thighs. His lips, still warm from their initial frantic kisses, moved over her sex-flushed skin, and then his long agile tongue flicked out, teasing shivers from her. Tentative licks at first, then long sure muscular strokes alternating with butterfly-touches and little blunt-toothed nips, following the tributaries of crimson and silver up her thighs to the source, until it plunged into the welling heart of her personal Nile.
She thought he came again when she did, just from the taste of her, but it was impossible to be sure, what with the near-blacking-out with pleasure and all. She had the dim sense that she really ought to be a lot more shocked and horrified at herself, but Bad Buffy had seized temporary control of Buffy-Brain Central and Good Buffy appeared to be locked in the supply closet. Spike was still kneeling, arms locked around her hips, cheek pillowed against her belly so that her whole body thrummed with his boneshaking absolutely-not-a-purr. “Oh, love, love, going to be the second death of me, but I'll go a happy man...”
Buffy ran her fingers along the curve of his skull, ruffling the short plushy hair at the nape of his neck. Considering the Jello-y condition of her skeletal system, when would it be safe to leave off leaning against the wall and stand on her own? A week or so, yeah, that should do it...except--Attack of the Mundane Annoyances--she really needed to put in another tampon now or she'd be all icky again soon. Not that Spike would mind, but... "We can't keep doing this."
His hands slid along the arches of her hips, up under the rumpled folds of her skirt and down again to clasp the curve of her ass with an approving rumble. The little leaps and twitches of the muscles beneath the ivory-satin skin as his fingers moved were mesmerizing. "Doing what?"
"Having sex to make ourselves feel better every time we have an argument."
Spike looked up, tongue-tip protruding wickedly from a sharp-toothed grin. He cocked an eyebrow. "Why not? Works, dunnit? I feel better."
"Yeah, but...doesn't it bother you even the slightest bit that for us a shoving match counts as foreplay?"
His shoulders quivered with laughter. "Perfectly normal for me, pet." Spike's voice had dropped to a ragged whisper, but as usual, he still had something to say. Unlike this afternoon, when he'd stood gaping like a goldfish on the stairs, unable even to come up with one of his implausible lies...
Something went click in the Deductive Reasoning Department of Buffy-Brain Central. Since when is Spike ever speechless? Something funny's going--
"Whossat buzzing?" Spike mumbled, lips nuzzling the damp curls at her crotch. "Didn't bring a few toys with you, did you, Slayer?"
Buffy groped blindly for her purse, which had somehow wrenched itself around to dangle behind her. "Phone," she said intelligently. She disentangled herself with a groan and Spike, with vast reluctance, pulled away. He stood and tucked himself back into his jeans, stepping back far enough to allow her to move, while keeping the voluminous sweep of his duster interposed between her and the rest of the world--one of those bizarrely gentlemanly gestures he was prone to now and then. Buffy tugged her skirt (its pristine interview-quality innocence compromised hopelessly for all time) back down over her hips and fumbled with the cell for a moment. She jabbed the 'talk' button, and said in her best 'I have not just had one of the top ten orgasms of my life, thank you for asking!' voice, "Hello?"
Anya's sharp voice crackled over the staticky connection. "Buffy? We're on Lincoln and Devonshire, and we just spotted Tanner heading south, back towards the dump. There are four or five men with him. I'd be careful. They're carrying Wal-mart shopping bags."
Buffy's spine went cold, and Good Buffy stuck out her tongue at Bad Buffy and booted her out of the captain’s chair. "Erk. On it." She thumbed the phone off, stuffed it back into her purse and pulled out her compact and the hygienic necessaries to effect quick repairs. "We'd better make them ditch the goods before Willow sees them, or they'll be little piles of ash." Spike's other eyebrow did the honors this time. "Lock her in an abandoned factory, no problem, but do not tell Willow you shop at Wal-Mart."
Spike snorted. “Glad to see her social conscience is alive and well, even if the other sort’s on holiday--though I say it as shouldn’t.”
Buffy decided she didn’t have time to ask for an explanation of what he meant by that. She tilted her compact to catch the light of the streetlamp and examined her reflection for lipstick smudges; Spike lounged back against the nearest telephone pole, watching her with a smug grin. Damn men, all they had to do to hide the evidence was zip up. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the broken window. "That's coming out of your allowance."
"Ah? I'm a kept man now, am I?"
"No, you're a rising entrepreneur. Anya says so."
Spike blinked, stunned. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her a puzzled look. "Knew I was good, love, but I didn't think I was that good."
Buffy paid great attention to de-wrinkling her skirt and maintained a straight face with some effort. Note to self: Sudden unexpected capitulation excellent move for putting smarmy vampires off-balance. "Giles pointed out that it could be a useful cover. Besides, anything to keep you from hanging around on street corners and propositioning loose women."
Spike sucked on his teeth for a moment, looking as if he were considering further comment and wisely deciding against it. There: blouse buttoned, hair straightened, lipstick touched up--ready to kick ass. "That's half a mile from here; we should be able to catch up to them and turn them around. They're used to dodging vamps, so if you flash the lumpies and give them a grrr or two maybe we can keep them on the run without having to fight them."
Spike's eyes gleamed gold for a second. "Fun and games, pet, but they know me by sight. Not likely to run from the bloke who..." He broke off and continued a little awkwardly, "...they think can't bite 'em."
That was a small problem. "Can't recognize you if they never get a good look. It's dark. Try to look mysterious."
Buffy set off at an easy lope, and Spike followed, matching his longer stride to hers. The night air rushed past her, cold and invigorating. Such a relief--no, such a--she never had to worry about leaving him behind.
Slayers don't do joy. The peevish voice of Good Buffy, prim in a skirt that wasn't slit up to anywhere, hair no doubt pulled back in a headache-inducing bun. Countered by the Says who? of Bad Buffy, snapping her gum. You don't even know what a Slayer is anymore--not really.
Maybe she didn’t. Giles's revelation, incomplete as it was, explained so much, and at the same time it explained nothing at all. She’d assumed that her willingness to accept Spike into her bed and her life meant that there was something wrong with her, some dark glorious flaw that accounted for her attraction to vampires and her world-saving malaise and Ghede’s assertion that she was responsible for the teetering of the Balance. If Slayers were part evil demon, and the Balance was out of whack because of her, then obviously she’d come back from the dead messed up, the dark Slayer-y killer instinct inside magnified somehow--by the resurrection spell, by hanging out with Spike too much--who knew, who cared? There it was, and the Summers’ mantra for the new millennium was deal with it.
But when she put all that together with Xander and Spike’s encounter with the Harrier, it didn’t add up. The Harrier had been a good demon, and if the Balance was out of whack on the side of good, but it was still her fault, then what did that mean? That she’d come back as Saint Buffy? Ha so very ha. She didn’t know many saints whose idea of a fun night out was screwing the undead on a street corner. If she felt herself any kind of a better person these days, it was due to the glow of physical well-being. Buffy Summers’s recipe for enlightenment: Eat, sleep, have lots of sex, and be nicer to people. Ooh, yeah, that’s going to cut into ticket sales on the Dalai Lama’s next lecture tour.
Besides, some stubborn part of her didn't want an explanation for the connection she felt to Spike. The effervescent warmth those cold hands could rouse in her was its own justification. She was tired of destiny, sick of things she was born to do. Spike had, from the first, been a wild card, and damn it, she wanted him to remain so. Someone in her world had to live unburdened by prophecies.
She might not know what a Slayer was, but she knew what one could do. Buffy shoved thought aside and ran.
Together they sped across a steeplechase of yards and parking lots, taking hedges and parking dividers in stride (there truly were practical reasons for wearing skirts slit up to there). A six-foot fence loomed up out of the darkness in front of them, encircling the back lot of a Circle K. Beyond it she could hear the desultory hum of traffic on Lincoln. A look at Spike, and both of them sprang up, grabbing the top rail of the fence and vaulting with effortless athletic grace into the parking lot beyond.
Spike landed in a billow of leather and shot upright, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. His night-sighted eyes roved around the lot, searching the inky shadows. There was nothing there but piles of milk crates stacked up against the chain-link, but he was clearly spoiling for a fight, all hopped up on Slayer's blood and testosterone. He wouldn’t get one against human foes, but maybe they’d get luck any run into a few more vamps. Buffy left the close-up reconnaissance to his keener senses and concentrated on communications. She flipped her hair out of her eyes, pulled out her cell again and punched Anya up on the speed dial. "We're behind the Circle K. How far have they gotten?"
Anya's voice faded, then strengthened again. "Not far. They're carrying an excess of consumer goods, so they can't move very fast. They're crossing Alameda now."
She didn't have to relay the information to Spike; his vampiric hearing easily picked up Anya's half of the conversation, and he was already in motion, duster swirling behind him. Buffy caught up in a few paces and they ran in silence for a moment. "Split up at Devonshire?" Spike asked.
Buffy nodded, envying his ability to use all his breath for talking. At the next corner she kept to the main thoroughfare and Spike sheared off, disappearing into the alley. She took a quick look for traffic and cut across Lincoln kitty-corner. It would be easier to sneak up on Tanner & Co. if she didn't trample right past them on her way to cutting them off at the pass. There was a metallic clang behind her as Spike found a rain pipe, and when she looked back for a second she saw him silhouetted between the air-conditioning vents on the roof of the dry-cleaning shop. Then he was gone--from her sight, anyway. The pins-and-needles tingle between her shoulderblades told her exactly how close he was, always.


Tanner trudged along the sidewalk, the others trailing behind him like a line of demented ducklings following their mother. A lithe figure darted across his peripheral vision, disappearing behind the blocky blue shape of a mailbox. One of Rack's cast-offs? When he turned there was nothing. Tanner increased his pace and began sorting through the scraps and tag-ends of spells that littered the bottom of his mind, and his fingers closed around the talismans in his pocket. The yellow rubber dog gave a muted squeak in his grasp.
Again the flash of movement almost too quick for his eyes to catch, and a nerve-rasping growl from the shadows. Sweat began to bead on his forehead despite the chill. They were being stalked. Driven. Tanner's head retracted turtle-like between his shoulders. "Follow me," he said, and cut across the street, hurrying from one pool of streetlight to another. The others followed, giving vent to uneasy moans and whimpers. Panic showed in Ramon's white-ringed eyes and he clutched his bag of Band-Aids and rubbing alcohol to his chest. He recognized that sound, the sound most residents of Sunnydale heard only once before their deaths. Vampires had almost gotten Ramon last week, but the Slayer had interfered. They couldn't bank on that kind of luck tonight. The one spell he could count on casting reliably was useless against the undead, and the last impromptu spell he'd tried had had spectacularly bad results. Somewhere in the dregs of his memory there was some charm or cantrip...
White light flooded from windows a block off the main street, illuminating half the corner, a fluorescent beacon in the night. Sacred Heart Fellowship Church, Rummage Sale Weds. Salvation. "This way!" Tanner snapped. There was nothing about sacred ground that would harm a vampire; only the cross itself, a symbol of life long predating the religion which had claimed it, would do that. But most vampires didn't know that--creatures of the night had their own fears and superstitions. Tanner dropped back and took Carmel's arm, urging him onwards. If they could all get inside...
A spark flared in the shadows beside the front door, illuminating the sharp, inhuman planes and angles of the creature's face for a heartbeat. They'd reached sanctuary too late. The slim dark figure separated itself from the wall and started towards them at a leisurely walk. The baleful vermillion eye of his lit cigarette bobbed, an evil will-o-wisp. "Run!" Tanner yelled. "Split up!" He turned and broke into a clumsy weaving trot, searching for something, anything, he could fashion into a cross. Two sticks, a lug wrench, anything at all--
Another figure, smaller but moving with equally deadly grace, materialized from behind an oleander hedge, cutting off Carmel as he stumbled for the alley. It was too late to catch all of them; Ramon hurled his bags at the shadowy figure and it flung up its arms to defend against the rain of Crest and cotton swabs and beef jerky strips. Tanner whimpered and changed course again. He had no idea if there were more than two, though it hardly mattered--the things were terrifyingly fast, circling their prey like sheepdogs with an unruly flock. In every direction he turned, yellow eyes and mocking fang-filled smiles blocked his path. In every direction but one.
Tanner ran, and Carmel and Matches and Jim ran with him. Ramon was nowhere in sight; maybe he'd gotten away. Over the pounding of his own heart he could hear metallic laughter from the scatter of cars in the parking lot, their grilles stretched into gleaming, chrome-toothed grins at his panic. And behind him, never slowing, never speeding, the sound of pursuing feet.


Somehow the walk back to the Magic Box seemed a lot longer than the walk out had been. Dawn had to stop herself several times from uneasy backwards glances, and remind herself that it didn't matter if the things in the night were going bump, because none of them would give her a second look. Any more than Spike and Buffy had. I need to wash my brain out with soap now. Overall, this had been a really dumb idea. She'd wanted to recapture the feeling she'd had last week in the park, when despite the nerves and the fear and the running away, she'd had the sense that she was doing something that mattered--that she was really truly helping.
And that, she told herself with disgust, is because then you were helping, not just sneaking along to spy on your sister's makeout sessions. She aimed a dispirited kick at a fallen palm frond. Why’d she let Willow talk her into this? It was such a little-kid thing to do, almost as dorky as daring Harmony to come inside the house. No wonder Buffy didn't want her patrolling. Well, this was the last time. Tomorrow there'd be a new Dawn Summers. Mature, responsible, fully-qualified-for-world-saveage Dawn Summers.
She was passing the last (or the first) of the apartment complexes on Laramie, only a couple of blocks from Main, when she heard the sound of racing feet behind her. She jumped off the sidewalk--caution, right, because she had no need to get scared as long as she had the clipboard in hand, but what if whoever it was ran her over? The man came tearing into sight a second later, legs pumping, arms flailing, running as if the devil were after him--in Sunnydale, a distinct possibility. Dawn debated stepping further back into the bushes...just in case. The guy was only a few hundred feet away and getting closer every minute--medium height, dark hair, a little heavy-set, Dodgers T-shirt...
Ramon. Dawn backed up, caught the heel of her sneaker on a sprinkler head, and fell flat on her butt. "Ooof!" The breath went out of her, but she managed to keep hold of the magic clipboard. She got one hand under her and crab-walked backwards a few feet before scrambling to her feet. He wouldn't notice. He couldn't notice.
Ramon's headlong careen came to a staggering halt two houses away. Dawn took another couple of steps back, bumping up against a thevetia bush. He kept coming, a few uncertain steps at a time, and oh, no, no, he was starting to angle across the laws straight towards her. He lifted both hands over his head, waving them to the sound of cheers or wails only he could hear, and cried out, "!la muchacha verde del sol, brillando intensamente y hermosa, me da por favor ligero!"
Was the spell not working any longer? The man moaned, reaching out to her, and in the fugitive light of passing headlights his face was twisted with fear and longing, all for her. "!Venido dime ligero!" he cried, fingers crooked in supplication. His need, his pain, were overwhelming--worse, somehow, than any physical threat. Blind terror overtook her, and Dawn ripped her eyes away from that tormented face and sprinted off across the darkened lawn for the bright lights of Main Street.


The censer was set up on the loading dock of the store across the alley from the Magic Box, and the dusty, open-sky scent of burning sage perfumed the cold air. Translucent coils of smoke wreathed her as Willow prepared for the rituals to come. Willow inscribed the last stroke of Malkuth on the rough concrete, and sat back on her heels to inspect her work. In lieu of the usual ritual circle, she'd decided to call on a tradition a little closer to home--she was hardly an observant Jew these days, but there was power in these symbols that resonated in her bones. She'd need all the help she could get tonight. The Tree Of Life covered most of the free space in the alley: three triangles in blue and red chalk, balanced one upon the other, with Hebrew letters in yellow and black at the nodes. Malkuth was inscribed below the bottom-most triangle.
"That's just amazing," Tara said, squatting down to trace one of the symbols with a fingertip--not touching the chalked lines, but the air above them. "No material components at all. It's like you just reach down under the skin and find the bones that magic has in common..."
Willow flushed with pleasure. "Oh, well, it's all modular. Just call me Henry Ford. A Jewish lesbian witch Henry Ford, but hey." She got to her feet and looked around. No sign of Dawn. Maybe she could pull this spell off with the power her invisible friend had lent her, but one of the conditions of her getting to keep that power was that she draw on Dawn's energies to cast it, and this spell had been crafted specifically to do just that. If Dawn was following Buffy still, she'd return eventually--but what if Buffy and Spike had managed to ditch her? Willow knew from experience how hard it was to keep up with Buffy if she took off at full speed, and Spike wouldn't hold her up any. Dawn could be anywhere. Maybe a summoning spell--
Tara's hand fell on her shoulder and Willow all but leaped out of her skin. "Hon, I know you're nervous, but you've set this up really well. If it doesn't work, you tried your best."
Forcing herself to relax, Willow laid her head on Tara's shoulder and slipped an arm around her waist. Tara, warm and soft and smelling of lilacs. "You always know just what to say. It's just the hurry up and wait."
The door to the shop opened and Giles walked out into the alley. He glanced up at the strip of city-pale night sky visible overhead. “Tara’s correct, Willow. You’ve done exceptionally well.”
Praise from Giles was always extra-special. Willow gave him a grateful smile, and couldn’t help but notice the weary droop to his shoulders and the dark circles under his eyes. A pang of guilt pricked her; she knew better than any of them just how exhausting research could be, and Giles had been knocking himself out for them lately, at the expense of his own affairs. “Are you sure you’re up to this? You look wasted.”
Giles sat down on the loading dock with a rueful snort. “Nothing a week’s retreat in the Cotswolds wouldn’t cure.” He looked down at the network of lines. “We’re short two people, I assume you know?”
Willow grimaced. No, only one. “I know. I’m hoping we can use Tanner. He is a wizard, he’s kinda sane most of the time, and I think he wants to help the rest of them. I’ve got something else in mind for Kether.” Don’t ask what, OK? “Tara’s spell will short-circuit his magic, but he’ll still have the knowledge of how to work it.”
“If it works.” Tara fingered the length of silver chain essential to her own part in the ceremony, letting it pour from one hand to the other. "And if we can convince him to cooperate. I don't like this. My mother showed me some things before she died, how to hex a rival--she didn't want me to be doing it, but she said I should know the signs and how to protect myself." She jounced the medallion in her palm, making the links jingle. "I know this isn't the same thing, but..."
"Hey, don’t you get all self-doubty on me,” Willow said, chucking Tara’s chin. “Sometimes you have to break omelettes to cast spells." She pulled away from her lover's side and paced down the length of the alley, careful to avoid stepping on anything important. She had here what amounted to a giant magical hopscotch grid, and she was woefully short on stones. "The crazies’ll go in the middle, on Tiphereth. I want you two on Bineh and Chokmah, and I’m going to put Spike and Anya on Geburah and Chesed--”
Giles straightened and took notice. “Anya? On Chesed? That’s an... unusual choice.”
“Tell me about it.” Willow stuck out her tongue. “But I figured she’s an ex-vengeance demon, maybe she’ll have the whole opposites thing going for her. Besides, options? Limited. So Mercy it is. Then Xander and I get Netzach and Hod, and knock wood Tanner gets Yesod, and Buffy gets Malkuth--because of having been dead and all? I coulda put Spike there, I guess, but I think he’s better at Geburah, and then you get the whole demon thing going with him and Anya in the second triad. Or maybe I should take Yesod... it’s associated with witchcraft and all, right? But Tanner on Intellect? Really not of the good right now. You know what? I should have cast a location spell on Buffy so we could tell how far away she is. Either that, or we need to get a cell phone too."
Giles held up a hand for quiet. “I don’t believe that’s necessary quite yet.”
"Are they gone?" asked voice from the street. A man's voice, pitched low and harsh with strain. Both witches froze, recognizing it as the voice of the man in the cemetery--Daniel Tanner. Willow and Tara exchanged looks, and faded back behind the stack of half-broken-down cardboard boxes beside the delivery entrance.
A figure slunk around the corner and halted in the mouth of the alley, pressed up against the wall. The chaser lights from the window of the café across the street limned him in a garish series of flashes in red, green and gold. Shabby clothes, less well-cared-for than Willow remembered, face more deeply lined--but unmistakably Daniel Tanner. Willow hunched her shoulders against the crawling sensation working its way up her spine, and fought back the urge to run. He can't hurt you now, said the black voice within her. Soon nothing will be able to hurt you.
"There, there, there, over the hill and far away," another voice--also male, also cracking with anxiety--broke in, shuffling up behind Tanner and clutching his sleeve. Heartbeats later two more men appeared, huddling together like children, and Willow's fear dissolved in a rush of pity. She'd been there, after all, if only for a few short hours, chasing through the labyrinth of her own mind for words that dissolved in her grasp, searching in vain for an escape from the crawling rot that was herself. She'd felt what these wrecks of humanity felt, known what they knew. And now she was going to fix it.


It was just on nine; most of the shops were closing or already closed, lights going out in one glowing commercial shrine after another, but people still straggled along Main, heading for their cars, or the late movie at the Sun, or to one of Sunnydale’s scattering of downtown restaurants. Spike loomed over the eaves of Gotta Book, motionless, breathless, still as stone, watching the swirls and eddies of humanity on the darkening sidewalks. Red, green, blue flashed in the unblinking gold of his eyes, limned each in their turn the savage ridges of his brow. The night was alive in his nose and on his tongue--exhaust fumes and dust, the piney smell of resin from the Christmas tree lot a block away, Columbian roast from the Espresso Pump and hot grease from the competing grills of McDonald’s, the In-and-Out Burger, and the Doublemeat Palace.
And permeating all, the heady scent of living human sweat and blood, insufficiently masked beneath perfume and deodorant. Spike probed the points of his fangs with the tip of his tongue and shook the thought out of his head. Work to do. The crowds weren’t as thick as they had been earlier--it was a Monday night, after all, and keeping track of the four men making their way down Main was child’s play. He’d have taken after the fifth if Buffy hadn’t bid him let the tosser go.
Thirty feet behind them, Buffy looked up, her gaze going unerringly to his perch, and gestured, pointing out the man in the windbreaker--Jim, if Spike remembered right from the night in the park. Spike studied him, observing the direction of his nervous glances and the jerking of his limbs with a century and a quarter of predator’s cunning. Oh, yeah, planning a break, all right--that way. Spike noted the speed and trajectory of his prey, the other pedestrians, and the approaching Impala said prey obviously intended to use as a cover, shifted his weight forward, and dropped over the edge of the roof into the darkness.
When you were eight, and you didn’t realize there was anything different about girls except the petticoats, you tried to impress her by standing on your head, which experiment generally resulted in a cracked skull and ignominious tears. When you were sixteen, and you knew there was all the difference in the world, you blushed and stammered, and she turned up her nose at your offer to escort her home when there were handsomer boys from wealthier families she could walk with. When you were twenty-eight, and you prided yourself on your sensitivity, you wrote her dreadful poetry, and got yourself killed when she rejected both it and you.
And when you were a hundred and forty-nine and possessed of reflexes a cat would kill for and a body of whipcord and steel which could finally stand up to your own grandiose expectations of it, and you were so in love it was like to un-kill you, you more or less reverted to eight. Look at me, Buffy, look, look, look! Only one hand!
Spike landed on all fours in front of the bookstore, uncoiled into a running leap and landed on the Impala’s hood as the sedan whooshed under him, kicked off and launched himself into the air before the startled driver had time to react. He hit the opposite sidewalk in a perfect shoulder-roll and sprang to his feet in the middle of the side street. A flash of fangs and a snarl and good ol’ Jim blanched and skittered back to the others.
Buffy nailed him with a killer eye-roll at fifty yards, and he broke into a mad grin--not the most reassuring expression in game face, apparently, since the crazies broke into an immediate trot.
They were headed in the right direction, so Spike leaned back against the corner of the store and waited for Buffy. She jogged up within seconds, tawny hair in fetching disarray around pink cheeks and bright eyes. Tara's glamor was starting to fade. “We’re almost there,” she said, all business. “Get ahead of them again, cut them off, and we’ll force them into the alley.”
“Right, love.” She learned quickly, his lioness.
“Oh, and Nemov? The Olympics were last year.”
God, he loved that tone, the bossy one with the smile underneath. Spike tossed her a smirk and a salute and sprinted off.
They hadn’t seen him yet. Of course not. He didn’t want to be seen. Slipping from parked car to mailbox to doorway while the little group stopped at the mouth of the alley behind the Magic Box and engaged in a whispered debate about what to do next. Ten feet behind them he put on a burst of vampiric speed--from his perspective, the humans’ movements slowed to a crawl while he tore past them and came to a stop across the street from the alley. From their perspective, had they been watching, he would have simply disappeared and re-appeared elsewhere, still grinning.
He could see down half the length of the alley from this vantage point, and recognize elements of the demon’s cats-cradle Will had scrawled across the oil-spotted pavement. As he watched, Tara stepped out from behind the heap of half-crushed boxes, wheat-colored hair swinging loose about her shoulders. Soft and quiet and unassuming, Tara, yet with an unconscious dignity that caught the eye. She stretched out both hands in front of her, palms upturned. "Mr. Tanner?" she asked, every movement, every shading of her voice calculated to soothe--no magic, just Tara. In spite of that, the little gang of men clustered in the mouth of the alley cried out at the sight of her. The acrid scent of fear lent piquancy to the pervading odor of unwashed humanity.
He sensed Buffy’s approach before he saw her, a lithe shape skulking along behind a row of parked cars across the street. She gave him a thumbs up, and he rose from the shadows and started across the street at a deliberate walk. Buffy slipped between two of the parked cars and together they converged on the alleyway, leaving their quarry no option but to back into the trap. Tara held up a hand as they got closer; Buffy halted some fifteen feet from the alley and Spike followed her lead. "Mr. Tanner?" Tara repeated, all sincerity and calm. "I'm here to help you, if you'll let me. We're here to help all of you."
Spike held his breath, distantly amused at himself for doing so. For a second it looked as if her plea would work, but whether it was a synapse misfiring in Tanner's frazzled brain, or the perfectly logical fear that Tara was a vampire too, panic flared in his faded brown eyes. His lanky frame tensed and his gaze went to Buffy. “Slayer?” he whispered, panic turning to confusion. “I thought--” He turned and saw the vampire's face clearly for the first time, and the confusion dispersed, replaced by grim resolve. "It’s him! He's harmless! Come on!" Spike stood his ground as Tanner charged straight at him with a wild yell. The others followed, albeit with less enthusiasm, a pack of waving fists and insane determination.
As Buffy lunged after the crazy in the blue baseball cap, Spike got a vague impression of a young girl with long brown hair who came running down the street out of nowhere. The girl swung wide, collided with the crazy, and Buffy’s swing met empty air as the man's feet flew out from under him and he dropped to the ground with a surprised grunt. Buffy swore and dove after the nameless man on the ground. The girl fell in the opposite direction, picked herself up and dashed into the alley, wide-eyed and panting. Spike immediately forgot about her and braced himself for the onslaught--stood his ground, thumbs tucked into his belt, watching his oncoming foes with an evil little grin which would have worried any sane attacker. Tanner and the other two flung themselves at him.
Spike sidestepped Windbreaker Jim--the old coot had to be sixty if he were a day; no threat there. Tanner’s desperate strained face was three feet from his own, Tanner’s bony fist was flying towards his jaw. Spike raised his right hand (lazily, from his perspective, lightning-quick, from Tanner’s) and caught the onrushing fist in a bone-crushing grip, absorbing the momentum of the blow with barely a grunt of effort. Tanner paled with shock and Spike’s left fist shot out in a carefully pulled punch.
He lived through a dozen eternities as his fist arced towards its target, because rats were one thing, but human beings (Your natural prey , Angelus’s voice pointed out) were something else again, and who knew what would happen when his knuckles connected solidly with the other man's jaw...
Crack of bone on bone, a wail of pain (hallefuckinlujah, not his!) and Daniel Tanner flew fifteen or twenty feet back and slammed into the alley wall, instantly unconscious--forgotten how sodding fragile the average human being was when you could really let go and hit them. Spike stood staring with incredulous joy at his clenched fist, which twinged just the slightest bit across the knuckles (already healing) and which was the only thing about him that did. He threw back his head and roared for sheer bloody-minded joy, whirling on his next victim, who came staggering into him reeling from Buffy’s blow. Spike grabbed Blue Cap by the shirtfront and hoisted him into the air, shaking him as a terrier would a rat. He rammed his nose into the man’s fear-convulsed face and bared his fangs, and the bastard all but pissed himself then and there. “Yeah! That's right! Quiver in your bleeding boots, chum, ‘cause Spike’s back and he’s a bloody--!”
The boast died in his throat as fingers gripped his arm, digging into his biceps hard enough to hurt. He looked down. Eyes confronted him, boring into his own--those gorgeous Sarah Crewe eyes, grey-green, flecked with golden brown, rimmed with impossibly thick dark lashes. Enormous. Horrified. Buffy stood beside him on the pavement, her lower lip just this side of trembling, her hand on his arm rock-steady, pulling Blue Cap back to earth. Her other hand hovered an inch away from her purse, where among other useful items, she always carried, as Spike knew very well, the well-worn length of oak which had served two Slayers in its time--just the thing for a vampire who'd killed two.
The look of betrayal in her eyes was worse than any stake.
He lost his hold on game face without even realizing it, tossed Blue Cap after Tanner, and dropped to his knees before her for the second time that night. “Oh, Christ, Buffy--my heart, my love, I tried to tell you, I really did!” His voice had gone husky and pleading. If she believed nothing else of him ever again, she had to believe this. “I know--I know I’m a monster. But I’ll do my damnedest to be a good monster--for you, love.” He spread his arms wide, baring his chest to that length of sharpened oak which had been polished on the bones of a thousand of his kind before him.
He closed his eyes--because it was traditional. And he waited.

Next