The morning paper was still scattered across the kitchen island: headlines full of anthrax scares, neighborhood squabbles with the zoning commission, and a string of burglaries down by the docks. It was both reassuring and annoying, the way the world puttered on oblivious to supernatural catastrophe. Giles supposed that those responsible for averting mundane catastrophes would think much the same of him.
"...no, I don't know for how long. I'm not even sure if." Buffy switched the phone from one shoulder to another, broke an egg into the glass of pig's blood and cooking sherry on the counter in front of her, and stirred vigorously. She was casual this morning in grey workout pants and a pink spaghetti-strap top, her hair pulled back in an all-business ponytail. Makeup obscured the evidence of too little sleep beneath her eyes, and her movements were quick and efficient, but there was tension below the surface, a sense of clockwork too tightly wound. "I just need to know if you can take her on short notice. Yes or no, Dad." She picked up a bottle of Worcestershire sauce in one hand and Tabasco in the other, examined both with a dubious frown, then shrugged and shook a generous dollop of each into the mix. "Fine. No, Mr. Giles or Spike will drive her up if it turns out--Dad, if I have to drive on the freeway there really will be an apocalypse. I'll let you know. And thank you." With clench-jawed reluctance she added, "Say hi to Linda."
She stood blinking in the middle of the kitchen for a moment, then rubbed her eyes. "Sorry. Sleepless in Sunnydale. Did you want anything? Coffee, orange juice, pig's blood if you're feeling adventurous? Totally covered in the beverage department."
"Surely after six years I've impressed upon you that tea is the requisite drink for bad news. At least, until after four in the afternoon, at which point Scotch becomes an acceptable alternative."
"Ah, so that's an English thing, not just a vampire thing. Got it." Buffy began rummaging through canisters and pulled out a handful of brightly colored foil packets. "Ummm... I think these are all Tara's, but she won't mind. Would you like Lemon Ginger Zest, Ginseng Goodness or Chamomile Raspberry Repose?"
"Er... surprise me." Spike's gradual insinuation into the Summers household wasn't something he was entirely comfortable with, but if it meant Buffy's indoctrination into the making of a proper cuppa, perhaps it was worth estrangement from the Council.
"Morning, pet. Rupert. Won't call it good." Spike slouched into the kitchen, massaging his temples as if every separate hair follicle hurt, and proceeded to insinuate his arms around Buffy. Buffy reached up and cupped the arch of his cheek in one hand, and the vampire leaned into her touch with a low rumbling growl, nuzzling her palm in a feral caress. The gesture was both tender and deeply disturbing, and Giles looked away with the feeling he'd seen something raw and private, and the even more uncomfortable realization that they'd trusted him to see it--a trust that made him complicit in something he didn't fully understand. In refusing Travers's proposal, he'd made a courageous stand for principle, or the biggest mistake of his life.
Tara appeared at Giles's side as silently as an apparition, and plunked a foot-tall stack of grimoires of assorted sizes and degrees of decrepitude down on the kitchen island. Dawn followed her in bearing the bells and candles. The younger Summers sister turned mulish as she spotted the phone on the counter. "You're not gonna pack me off to Dad's, are you?"
"It's one option." Buffy handed Spike the glass of curdled reddish- brown goo and stuck Giles's teacup blithely in the microwave. Giles winced and Spike went blank-eyed in horrified sympathy. She turned to Tara, her face a study in harsh compassion. "Anything?"
"Maybe," Tara said. Her eyes were red and her nose looked sore, but if she'd been crying, she'd not let it interfere with her work. "Page ninety-four." She opened the spellbook at the summit of the stack to the correct incantation and handed it to Giles. "It's a spellcloak. You can cast it around buildings so only certain types of people can see through it. There's a place in t-town that has one--they say you c-can't even find it unless you're a demon or into black magic."
"Rack's place?" Spike took a sniff of the revolting-looking mixture Buffy'd concocted and disposed of it in three ravenous gulps. He set his glass down and licked his chops with a nostalgic air. "Haven't been there in an age. Dru and I used to..." His eyes went to Dawn, and he cut himself off. "Clem was around when it went in. He told me it took a full coven a fortnight's worth of chanting and prancing about to set that one up."
Giles looked askance at Tara. "Are you certain you're up for this?"
Tara's fingers knotted in the folds of her skirt. "Willow could punch through any spell I can cast anyway, so there's no sense in trying for strong. What I can manage will only last a week or so, and it'll have to be very specific--generalities like 'no violence' or 'no evil' are a lot harder to enforce than 'No Willow' or 'No Harbingers.' I thought--I thought that if I used a little of everyone's energy the finished spell won't 'feel' like any one of us, and maybe she won't notice it at all."
"A disguise for a cloaking spell?" Giles closed the book and handed it back to Tara. "That's quite clever."
"I did a spell once," Buffy offered. "I could placehold. Give me weird words to say and I'll say 'em. And Spike--"
The vampire executed a shrug of studied and unconvincing indifference. "Done a thing or two in my time. Could lend a hand."
Tara went pale, then red, and stammered, "I mean, except, the kind of magic I do and the kind Spike's done don't, um--not mixy, much--"
Spike immediately adopted a disdainful sneer. "Could, but won't. No worries, Glinda. I shan't be mucking up the good vibrations."
"No, I didn't mean--I mean, I did mean--" Tara stopped, flustered, and Buffy's eyes narrowed. Her veneer of calm was beginning to acquire hairline cracks.
"Both of you can just suck it up and deal with one another," Giles interrupted, exasperated. "Spike, Tara doesn't trust you completely? Observe my tears. You nearly ate the love of her life. Stop being a tosser." He rounded on Tara, who jumped. "And when you're facing a witch who could snuff all of us out like wet lucifers and someone offers to help, bloody well say thank you very much."
Spike shuffled his feet and buried his nose in the remainder of his breakfast. "Um. Yeah. Whatever you need, kitten."
Tara went even redder. "I'll s-start setting up for the spell. Um... it might make things hard on the mailman."
Buffy, who'd been watching the whole exchange with the air of someone ready to bring out a squirt bottle if necessary, relaxed. "All we get is bills anyway. Do it. I called the school and said Dawn needed another day to kick her flu, so she can minion for you." Tara nodded and departed for the living room, Dawn in tow. Buffy rubbed the side of her nose. "Anya and Xander won't be free till after work, but Strategy Girl is thinking it's a bad idea to sit around and give the Harbingers time to find a new lair, set up a new altar and get down and be chanty again. We've got to hit them again while they're off-balance. Giles--in all the research you did on the First Evil when it went after Angel, did you ever discover any way of fighting it directly?"
Giles knew exactly what she was trying to avoid, and the words he had to say were stones in his belly. "I'm not sure it's possible to fight it directly. It's one of the fundamental forces underlying the metaphysical universe--one might as well attempt fighting the law of gravity. You can defy it for a moment here and there with a flying carpet or an airplane, but sooner or later..."
"So we'll get a flying carpet or an airplane." Buffy's eyes were polished agate. "It's not invincible, Giles. That was the mistake I made with Glory. I heard the word 'god' and fell apart. She was stronger and faster and tougher than me, but like I haven't fought a hundred creepy- crawlies that fit that description?" She clenched both fists together on the kitchen island and leaned forward, tiger-fierce. "Fundamental phooey. I don't care what it is. All I need to know is what it can do and what it can't do, and I'll figure out how to beat it."
"At the moment, anything Willow can do." Giles removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "The problem we face is that Willow's not simply being tricked or harried by the First's illusions. She's willingly accepted its power into herself, and the only way to defeat it may be..."
There was a long pregnant pause, and when Buffy spoke her voice was clipped and calm and precise. "I am sick and tired of being strong enough to kill my lovers, my sister, my friends, myself, rah rah go Slayer--but never quite strong enough to save them." From somewhere underneath the island came the ominous crack of wood about to splinter, and Spike laid a hand across hers. She looked down and let go of the countertop with a guilty start. "There has to be some way to separate them. We'll find it."
Giles nodded. "I'll go over everything again, of course." He already knew what he'd find. A part of him was already in mourning for the blithe red-haired girl who'd somehow slipped away in the last two years--but then, he thought, watching the Slayer's fingers twine through the vampire's, it was the nature of children to slip away and be replaced with bewildering suddenness by adults whom one barely knew. "In the meantime, as if we hadn't enough to occupy us..." He gave her a quick synopsis of Travers's phone call.
"So if money's the carrot, what's the stick?" Buffy wasn't overjoyed at his news, that much was obvious, but equally obviously the Council's machinations took a back seat in her mind to more pressing problems. "Are they sending the goon squad again? Pulling your visa?"
Giles turned his glasses over in the knife-edge of sun which penetrated the curtains, watching it slice shards of light from the metal rims. "Both, I expect. The first attempts will be feints. Travers isn't one to waste resources lightly. He's calling your bluff, but he'd find nothing so satisfying as seeing one or both of us come crawling and begging him to take us back into the fold."
The microwave dinged and Buffy handed Giles his tea. "I hope he's got a hobby to keep him busy while he waits. What I'd like to know is how they found out to begin with. If that guy with the camera was just getting confirmation--"
Dawn stuck her head back into the kitchen, brandishing scissors in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. "We need something personal from everyone. Hair would be good."
Buffy backed away, hands going protectively to her scalp. "Get thee behind me, Sweeney! The last time you cut my hair I had to go to the emergency room for severe emotional trauma."
Her sister rolled her eyes, expertly snipped a lock of Giles's hair before he could object, and advanced on Spike. "If you'd just stood still it would have matched Malibu Barbie perfectly." She dropped the sprinkling of platinum blonde curls into the bag with the pinch of greying brown and her own long dark tress, and handed Buffy the scissors. "Here, cut it yourself. And I know the Council is what you find in the dictionary when you look up 'stuffy,' but if you ask me all the moaning and thumping was probably a big clue."
Buffy went bright pink and almost sliced off an entire handful of hair. "We do not...thump."
Giles sighed and gave his teabag an unenthused poke with a spoon. "Dawn does have a point, Buffy. Spike's motorcycle has been parked in your driveway for the last three days, there's an ashtray on the front porch railing, it's nine in the morning and the curtains are drawn, and you're making pig's blood smoothies for breakfast. It doesn't take Sherlockian powers of deduction to ascertain that there's a vampire spending more time in your home than his own. The two of you may as well have left a trail of breadcrumbs for the Council's local informants. Still--"
"Motorcycle and ashtray says 'vampire?' I could be dating a Hell's Angel!" Giles raised an eyebrow, and Buffy crumpled. Spike gravely extended a finger and pressed her lower lip back in. "Anyway, if Travers is making with the ominous hints, Faith could be in big trouble right about now. I'll call Angel and have him--"
"Buffy...wait." Giles reached across the island and placed a hand on her forearm. "Perhaps it's a coincidence, but last weekend while you were in L.A., Angel called me to, er, discuss the two of you. He specifically brought up the possibility of the Council's finding out about your relationship. Travers knew the two of you were together; he did not realize the chip was no longer functioning. A Sunnydale informant would most likely have known about the latter development."
"No!" Buffy gave a vehement head-shake. "He wouldn't--Angel wasn't loving the concept of me with Spike, but he wouldn't do that..." She trailed off. "He wouldn't," she repeated, a little waver of uncertainty creeping in.
"Wouldn't he?" Spike's lip took on a reflexive curl at mention of his grandsire. "Not for spite or jealousy, no--he's too proud of his sodding soul for that. But for your own good? He thinks I'm taking the piss about sticking to the straight and narrow. Drop a word in that Travers git's ear, and if all goes well and Rupert cooperates, you and Dawn are set up for life and I'm out of the way without him having to sully his hands with my dust."
"And if Rupert proves recalcitrant," Giles finished, "then you and I are no worse off than we were the first time we broke from the Council, and the odds are excellent that the Council will try to eliminate Spike regardless."
"I don't believe it," Buffy repeated stonily, "Not unless I hear it from him."
Spike sucked his cheeks in and glanced at Giles; Giles mimed a shrug. There was no use in arguing with Buffy on this particular subject. "I may be wrong, of course," he said, in the tone which meant I am anything but.
"There's this, too." Buffy's fingers closed upon Spike's, the blurred reflection of her hand in the Formica floating eerily on nothingness. "Point: Willow's right. I shouldn't be here. I'm upsetting the Balance and I should just let her zap me back to kingdom come. Counterpoint: Somehow I'm not thinking the Eyeless Brigade will shake hands, call it a draw and go home when I'm gone. But say we stop Wills--then what? Balance still all wonky." Her grip on Spike's fingers tightened. "I have never wanted to die less in my entire life, but--"
A chilly hand began weaving his intestines into elaborate knots, and Giles could see with perfect clarity that pale, peaceful face laid out amidst the rubble once more. This is what a Slayer does. You know it's only a matter of time. "No! You'll not be thinking of that, hear?" Spike ground out, putting voice to the protest Giles dared not allow himself. "Not you. Red said I was buggering things up by being a do-gooding ponce, didn't she? I've had a good century plus, and--" his voice went husky for a second-- "My taste of paradise. So if someone's got to kack it to even things up--"
Spike's motives might be the utterly selfish ones of keeping his beloved alive, but Giles could have wished Travers here, just so that he could watch the expression on the old git's face. Buffy remained unimpressed. "It's not your decision, Spike."
"And why the hell not?" he demanded. "Since when's it our lookout to keep the bleeding Balance in order anyway? Powers take a holiday?" He exhaled with an angry snort, warming to his argument. "What, next time we run across someone sharpening their fangs on a warm neck in a cold alley, we have to check our quota before dusting the wanker? What do we tell the dish of the day? 'Sorry, mate, can't save you, we've been too good this week!'"
"Loathe though I am to admit it, Spike has a point," Giles cut in. "We can no more hope from our mere mortal vantage point to understand the workings of the Balance, much less control it, than we can hope to destroy the First. You are the Slayer, Buffy, and your task is..."
He had to stop there, seeing the look in Buffy's eyes; sad and amused. "Kill vampires? The job description's kind of expanded on me in the last few years, Giles." She sighed. "But you're right, both of you. I can save the universe, but the day I start thinking I can run it I'll be playing in Willow's sandbox." The corners of her eyes crinkled--not a smile, but cousin to one. "Guess I'll just have to wing it. Think I can manage that?"

"There! See? There goes another one."
Tanner jerked awake. It was warm, and he was lying on something more yielding than hard ground or a park bench, wrapped in clean blankets instead of his ratty old sleeping bag. The rich scent of coffee teased his nose, mingled with the incongruous slaughterhouse tang of blood. Couch. He was lying on a couch. In someone's living room. Tanner rolled over with practiced stealth, leaving the blankets heaped over his shoulders undisturbed, and surveyed the room through slitted lids: comfortable, lived-in furniture, slightly worn carpet in that ubiquitous shade of 70s harvest gold, walls adorned with family photos and a few pieces of quirky African-themed art. The clock on the VCR claimed it was after nine A.M., but the dimness of the room made it seem much earlier. A Christmas tree stood to one side of the unlit fireplace. It looked half-alive, literally--the tinsel-hung branches at the top of the tree were supple living boughs, and the base was wire and green plastic.
The Key and the White Witch were on their hands and knees in front of the empty fireplace, gazing up at the holiday aberration. They were engaged in setting up what looked like a small ceremonial altar on the hearthstone. The stained-glass glow of colored lights played across their faces, red and blue and green and amber. "It must have started after I went to bed last night," the witch said.
"What's it mean?" the Key asked, rolling nervous colt-eyes in Tanner's direction. She was a tall slim girl with long chestnut hair and clear blue eyes--pretty. One day soon she would be beautiful. And that was all. The bright-blazing corona of emerald power which had enveloped her was invisible to him now, and the loss left him so hollow that he almost wept. When you'd lived in a world of liquid madness for the better part of a year, surely it was best to wean yourself from delirium gradually. You couldn't just look back, recoil at who you'd been and what you'd done, and walk way as if none of it mattered any longer. It was almost a relief when the vampire ambled into the adjacent dining room and collapsed into a chair. His pale aquiline face looked ghastly in the jewel-toned shimmer of the tree lights, a comforting hedge against encroaching normality.
The White Witch stroked the nearest branch tenderly, as if she could touch its maker by proxy. "It means Willow hasn't got any magic to spare, and she's pulling it out of any non-essential spells."
Tanner tamped down budding panic. Were they just planning to hide, then? He had to convince them otherwise. He could hold sanity at bay just a little bit longer--he needed that last edge of madness to hone his purpose, because if he thought about it rationally the hopeless enormity of it all would smother him. He'd show them. They'd understand.
His clothes were nowhere in sight, but there was a stack of clean ones on the arm of the couch, and all his earthly belongings were piled neatly in a cardboard box on the nearby coffee table--the yellow rubber dog, the makeshift crosses, loose change folded in the wallet that wasn't his--all the pathetic odds and ends of charms he'd contrived to ward his nights and days. But where was...? The panic blossomed into full-blown terror. He lunged across the space between couch and table, scrabbling through the box with both hands, hunting wildly through the debris of his life. The couch-springs made a horrible SPROING! as his weight shifted, and the vampire looked up at the noise, pinning Tanner to the couch with a bloodshot glare. "Oi, Slayer, your stray needs walkies!"
Tanner ignored him and kept searching. There it was, concealed under the pocket-rubble--his holy grail, the battered and dog-eared notebook. Tanner grabbed it and sagged against the table with a shuddering breath of relief. It was here. Safe. He subsided back into a jackstraw huddle of bony knees and elbows on the couch. He could feel the vampire's wintery gaze on the back of his neck as he examined the pile of clean clothes on the arm of the couch: paint-spattered Dockers, and a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt emblazoned with purple hibiscus. Chosen on the theory that even a madman wouldn't run away if it meant going out in public dressed like that, no doubt.
"Sorry. They're all we had that I thought might fit you." The White Witch sounded truly distressed about it. Tanner dropped the offending garment and summoned a smile.
"Beggars can't be choosers. Never thought I'd mean that literally."
She didn't look as if smiles were part of her repertoire at the moment, but she fashioned one for him anyway. "The bathroom's upstairs if you want to shower and change. If..."
"I can help you," he broke in, quick and awkward. He held out the notebook. "With this. And with your ward, if you want. I'm not much of a wizard, but..."
"That would be... sure." She took the ratty bundle of paper and paged through it, confusion wrinkling her fair brow. "Giles might... I'm afraid I don't..." She closed the notebook, handed it back to him and dropped to one knee beside the couch. The clear blue-grey of her eyes had gone cloudy. "Willow," she said. "Did you see her? Is she all right?"
"She was fine the last time I saw her. I gather things got exciting after I left the building." He shot another look at the vampire. It was staring at him--head cocked, dark brows knit over eyes full of inhuman hunger...but not for blood. Ravenous eyes, drinking in his grief and shame as if by sheer willpower it could force itself to a visceral understanding of remorse. Tanner fingered the regrettable yellow shirt, avoiding that disturbing gaze as he addressed its owner. "Last night. You saved my life. That's the second time you've... why?"
Heavy lids dropped over clear blue eyes, and a sardonic smile touched the perfectly sculpted lips for a second. "Sixty-four dollar question, innit? Would you believe that it seemed like the right thing to do at the time?"
Was the mockery in that voice for Tanner, or himself? "I've held your mind in my hands," Tanner whispered. The tendons of his fingers twitched with the memory. "It slipped through my fingers like black glass and fire."
"I'll take that as a no." The vampire settled back more comfortably into the chair, tucking his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans. "Well then--I like the fight. I love the Slayer. I get off on middle-aged poofs showering me with gratitude. Take your pick. Doesn't much matter, does it? Got the job done. Turnabout, mate--why'd you help Buffy?"
"The First's done with me. I'm no more use to it now it's got the Red Witch to play with." Tanner barely heard the small wounded catch in the White Witch's breath as the fury of betrayal rose within him again, along with a sardonic inner voice asking Well, what did you expect? It's evil. "It owes me, and if I can't get what I bargained for I'll get revenge instead. The Slayer can help me get it." He laid a hand on the cover of the notebook. "It's all in here, and she can have it. And besides..." He squeezed his eyes shut, and the soft glow of the tree lights played over his closed lids. "It was the right thing to do. I...I used to do the right thing, once."
Head-tilt. "Yeh? What's it like?"
Tanner laughed, an incredulous chopped-off bark. "God, you mean that! No wonder the Balance is fucked up. I envy the hell out of you, you know? No guilt, no remorse. I've got more chains than Marley's ghost dragging behind me--" Pair after pair of eyes--terrified, trusting, confused, all of them melding together in madness as his hands plunged over and over into mind after mind, and he said the right words in the right order...and all for nothing, all in vain. "You're free, and--"
In the time it took for Tanner to draw breath for the next word the vampire was across the room and leaning over the coffee table, spitting a curse as one hand brushed a pencil-and-rubber-band cross. Tanner could smell the blood on his breath, cool and rank like the draft from a meat locker. He threw himself against the back of the couch, but the vampire only bared white and perfectly human teeth in a mirthless grin. "Free? From what? Not like I can't feel guilt when I fuck up, you stupid berk. Just that I don't." He straightened, exchanging an inscrutable look with the witch. "Usually."
One word, the fulcrum upon which the universe teetered. The Slayer and the Watcher were in the room now, and the vampire retreated back to the dining room with an expression that suggested that the exercise wasn't helping his headache a bit. The Slayer stood with arms crossed, a cool and distant warrior-queen. "Mr. Tanner. I'd say we meet at last, but we've already met. You saved my life last night. Thank you."
Tanner hauled himself upright, clasping the notebook in his lap. "I..." God. What could he say to this woman, to any of them? "It was the day for it." He moistened his lips, feeling a terrible need to make her understand. "I'm sorry, you know. For all of it. But I was responsible for them. None of them could hold it together at all. They depended on me--Blondie and Jim and the Rabbit Guy. All of them. It seemed...I did the best I could. I never wanted--I tried..." He realized that his shoulders were shaking and his voice was threatening to run aground on a sob. They were waiting in ambush for him, every single one, hiding in the winter-bare groves of his memories, waiting to pounce. Men, women, young, old...minds he'd ravaged to feed the insatiable hunger of his own decaying brain and those of his ever-growing horde of followers.
The Slayer's cheeks went pink--angry, or embarrassed at his outburst? He couldn't tell. He looked at the Watcher. "You're Rupert Giles, right? You own the Magic Box."
"Part owner, as my partner would no doubt remind me were she here. Do I know you? Outside our current acquaintance, that is?"
"No. No...I've just been in the store once or twice." How mundane. Tanner pulled out a battered notebook. "Here. I...I thought perhaps this could help you." His voice sounded curiously hoarse in his own ears, as if too frequently left unused. The Watcher opened the notebook, skimming the first few pages with a frown and then proceeding more slowly through page upon page of cabalistic scrawls and elaborate diagrams with notes scribbled into every margin.
"I've been afraid to look at it," Tanner said. "Since...since waking up. Afraid it'll all be ravings and gibberish."
"Mmm." When in doubt, employ noncommital grunts. The Watcher skimmed another half-dozen paragraphs, puzzlement giving way to appalled fascination. He was turning pages swiftly now, glasses sliding unheeded down his nose as he flipped back and forth, comparing one crudely-drawn chart to another, double-checking the figures. "My God," he breathed, tracing the lines of one of the diagrams with a forefinger. He aimed a questioning look at Tanner. "A variation on Lieber's equations, if I'm not mistaken?" Tanner nodded. The Watcher reached the final few pages, composed entirely of closely-written notes, and looked up, face ashen. "This--this is astounding. Only a madman would attempt this. Er, no offense."
Tanner spread his hands. "None taken. As you say. But I give it to you, if you want it. My vengeance." He said the words lovingly, reverently; his benediction.
The vampire cocked an eyebrow. "You gonna translate for the crazy-talk impaired?"
"These..." The Watcher shook his head. "Well, some of it is completely mad. But this is a series of geomantic equations." He opened the book to an elaborate schematic of the water lines plotted against the street map of Sunnydale. "He's been charting the changes in the physical attributes of the town--traffic flow, new construction, ratios of distance and angles between existing landmarks, and so forth, in order to map the Hellmouth's fluctuating energy patterns. Which in turn yields a decent approximation of the shifts in the Balance and allows us to predict the Hellmouth's next major reversal. Which will be, and if it surprises you I despair of you on the spot, on the winter solstice." He looked at Tanner. "This is extraordinary."
Tanner smiled, almost shyly. "It was my job. I was a consulting geomancer for the Department of the Interior. Unofficially, of course. Before..."
"Glory?"
Tanner blinked, then laughed. "No, before I went on assignment to Haiti." He shrugged. He'd long since resigned himself to the disruption that particular event had wrought in his life. "When the loa decide that you're one of theirs, they don't take no for an answer. Glorificus came later."
The Slayer took the book, turning it this way and that and studying the diagram from several angles. "I don't get it," she said at last. "Nice to have a timetable for the next big flip-flop. We'll know to avoid picnics in the sewers that day. How does this help us fight the First?"
"In itself, not at all. It's what Mr. Tanner was planning to do when the er, 'big flip-flop' occurred," the Watcher replied.
Tanner nodded. "Get her into the Hellmouth. I wasn't sure how to do that, but you--you're the Slayer. You're strong enough to get her there at the right time."
The Slayer's face continued the model of incomprehension. The Watcher closed the notebook and re-adjusted his glasses. "Think about it, Buffy. The avatar of elemental chaos and evil, co-existing with the opening of a portal to a dimension of elemental order and good? Two equal and opposite forces, forced into such proximity--"
"Go boom," the Slayer finished, a glitter in her eye. The vampire sat up straighter, hangover forgotten at the cheery prospect of mass destruction. "Collateral damage? Exactly what boom factor are we talking, here?"
"The equivalent of a major earthquake, perhaps. We needn't worry about the universe winking out like a soap bubble."
"Oh, well, that makes it quite all right, then," the vampire muttered. "Safety first."
"Considering the fact that the dimensional walls are so weakened in this vicinity that if Willow succeeds in her plan, the universe could well do just that," the Watcher said with some asperity, "Indeed, safety first." He considered for a moment. "Though really, I doubt the effects would spread beyond this solar system."
"That's why the Harbingers were arguing against it." Tanner rubbed his chin. The gesture didn't soothe him. "Not that they care if the town is destroyed, but they'd all be destroyed too, the First would lose its foothold in this dimension, and if you think the Balance is fucked up now... The First thinks the Red Witch will survive, and that's all it needs. It's willing to risk it."
"Willow surviving, of the good," the Slayer said. "Everyone else surviving too, of the very much better. And doing this Hellmouth thing would destroy the First? Because if we're going to lower property values for all of Sunnydale, I think it's not too much to ask that we destroy ultimate evil along with it."
"Destroy? I very much doubt it." The Watcher steepled his fingers. "But the very least, it would lose its vessel, its priests, and its ability to manifest in this corner of the multiverse for a time--perhaps a considerable time."
"And the losing its vessel part? You mean lose as in it's kicked out of Willow, leaving her unpossessed and normal again, right?"
The Watcher looked at Tanner, who shrugged.
The Slayer pursed her lips. "So basically I've got a choice between killing Willow before she possibly blows up the world trying to save it, and a totally untested plan created by a nutcase which will only maybe kill Willow and definitely trash the whole town in the process?"
Everyone was silent for a moment, and Tanner held his breath. If they refused, he'd have to bear the weight alone again--there was no question of giving up now, but if he could pass the burden of his revenge to younger, stronger shoulders... "An admirable summation," said the Watcher.
"All right," the Slayer said. "Let's get to work. We've got a town to trash."

"What do you mean you couldn't find it?" Willow demanded. "You went to 1630 Revello Drive, right? Because there's a Rivelle Drive on the other side of town, and sometimes the mailman--"
The two Harbingers crowded together in the doorway of the small side- cavern Willow had appropriated for her own use. Cot, desk, all the comforts of home--it was actually bigger than the dorm room she'd shared with Buffy their first year at college. The taller Harbinger cringed, and Willow suppressed her ire. No wonder Evil Overlords were always strangling minions with the Force or exploding them with blasts of hellfire; the toadying just begged for it. "Exalted Vessel, we went to the correct street. The Slayer's dwelling was not to be found."
"Not to be found how? Was there a bare foundation with pipes sticking up and a bathtub waving in mid-air? Exactly what did it not look like?"
The Harbingers exchanged creepy eyeless glances, at a loss for words. Not all of them had the lids sewn shut, Willow had observed. Some of them had weird symbols carved or branded into ruined flesh, comprising, perhaps, some demonic alphabet. At another time she'd have been eaten up with curiosity to decipher it. If she stood them all in a row and used her Scooby decoder ring... "We..er...we were simply unable to find it, Exalted Vessel."
...it would probably turn out to be a commercial for Ovaltine. They'd poked their eyes out, after all. Willow frowned at the Harbinger over the liquid-crystal screen of her laptop. "Never mind. Have the crazies been fed? Go take care of it."
Magic. Had to be. She'd felt the tentative scratching around the corners of her mind an hour ago. It wasn't an attack. Tara wanted to talk. Which was worse than an attack, because it had a much better chance of succeeding. She had a small army of Harbingers and a dozen human agents she could deploy to fight off any intruders bent on doing physical damage. They had a secure base here in the caverns, and after the debacle with Buffy sneaking in on Tuesday night, Willow'd spent the next twenty-four hours ensuring that the major tunnels leading into the main cavern were protected with illusions which would leave anyone attempting to infiltrate wandering in circles. In that time, Tara must have done something similar to Buffy's place.
It didn't matter. Tara was good, but no more than good. Her power was the steady glow of a hearthfire, not a blazing brilliant comet-flare, and Willow had no doubt that once she put her mind to it she could dispel whatever it was Tara had done. She had all the magic, all the muscle, and no reason to listen while they tried to talk her out of this. Willow resolutely ignored her lover's soft, insistent probing and murmured the cantrip which allowed her aetheric Web access.
Googling for grimoires spellbooks heaven dimensions brought up one hundred and forty-seven entries; she scrolled down the list, noting the most promising links. Oddly enough, there were way fewer reference works on heaven dimensions than there were on hell dimensions. She supposed it made a kind of sense--most people who ended up in a heaven dimension probably weren't very motivated to come back and write memoirs. She clicked on the first link and for the dozenth time in the last forty-eight hours breathed a non-denominational prayer of gratitude for Project Gutenberg. Cut off from the Magic Box, Giles's private collection, and her own modest stash, she'd still managed to amass a basic occult reference library without ever leaving the caverns.
Another Harbinger entered with a silver tray, bowed extravagantly and extended its offerings towards her. "Exalted Vessel, I have traveled vast distances and endured great hardships to deliver to you the objects of your desire--tuna on rye, no pickles, and a cream soda. Is it to your liking?"
"Very good, Jeeves. Put it on the corner of the desk." The creature complied and backed out, salaaming, and Willow peeled back the waxed paper wrapping and took a bite. If there was one thing she could really get used to in this whole Evil Overlord business, it was the minions. She had Harbingers in charge of feeding, clothing, and cleaning up the crazies. She had Harbingers on the run fetching her the supplies she need for the upcoming rituals. She had Harbingers bringing her changes of clothes and setting up her office and fetching tuna sandwiches on rye, toasted, no pickles. True, she'd always imagined that when she achieved minions, it would be more in the role of a Professor McGonagall dispensing tart yet insightful advice to adoring students. Harbingers were a bit of a letdown... but still, minions! It was only a step from there to a corner office.
She pulled up Word while the new file was loading and double-checked the modified version of the crazy-curing spell. All it had required was a few tweaks to buffer Dawn's physical form from the flow of power, but of course Buffy wouldn't listen when she tried to explain. Willow pressed her lips together. She'd backed Buffy up through thick and thin for six years, and what thanks did she get? Big fat zilch, that was what, because she didn't happen to be a member of the back-from-the-dead club. Fine. It was Willow Rosenberg's turn to save the world now.
"Everything humming along?"
Willow started, almost losing her internet connection. Her vampire self was sitting on the corner of the desk, swinging her heels and smirking. "Do you have to pop in and out like that?"
"Comes with the territory, Wills." It leaned over and peeked at the file, incidentally displaying as much bustier-enhanced cleavage as possible. Willow edged away. It was just squicky when you came on to yourself. "How's our project going? Time's wasting."
Willow tapped a pen against her chin with a frown. Tanner's defection had been annoying, but not fatal. "There's been a slight setback, but I'm on it. You do your shape-changy-illusion thing and trick Dawn out of the house. Be someone she trusts, don't let her touch you, and as long as nobody else sees you not being there, we're made in the shade. There'll be a couple of the crazies with you to grab her if she makes a break for it."
"I'm more concerned with the next stage."
Willow's frown deepened. "We've been over this. Killing them would just make them martyrs to the cause. They'd be all dead and inspiring and Balance-tipping." Buy it, buy it, buy it...
"Mmmm, yes. You painted a very convincing picture." Vamp-Willow examined her perfectly manicured blood-red nails. "But somehow I still have all these nagging little doubts."
"I don't see why." Willow could feel the muscles tensing along her shoulders, rigidity creeping down her spine and out along all her limbs. There was no indication that this creature could read her thoughts, but somehow she couldn't feel sanguine. "It's simple. I send Buffy back, and while the portal's open I nab Spike's soul. Et voila, Buffy will be technically dead again, and the soul will mean that Spike's good-deed-doing won't count for a triple word score any longer. The Balance will be happy, the Hellmouth won't implode, and once everything's settled down I can bring Buffy back. Everybody's happy."
Vamp-Willow wriggled seductively. "Oooh, Tish, you spoke French. Sending the Slayer back to her eternal rest? Yummy. Bringing her back yet again, not so tasty. And your plans for Spikey..." Her alter ego made a moue. "Dull. Wouldn't you rather make him our very own puppy, with his very own collar and leash, and throw him the Slayer like a bone?" She-- it--sucked on an index finger, a cat-smile playing across her lips. "He liked you before he liked her, you know. You could make him like you again. He'd be happier. You wouldn't force your puppy to walk on his hind legs. That's not what puppies do best."
Willow's spine went crawly at the thought of all those other spells in the nameless grimoire, the ones which clouded minds and bound souls still living. Not the simple blunt instrument of a spell of forgetting, but a precision tool for recreating a mind in whatever image one pleased. Of course, it was harder to do mind-control spells on a vampire, but what a challenge! Except... she hit enter with more than necessary vigor. She didn't want vamp-on-a-rope. That was Buffy's gig. "What did getting a soul do to Angel?" she demanded. "Make him all hot to go out and fight that evil? No. He spent a hundred years moping and making exceptionally bad wardrobe choices. Why should Spike be any different? Already with the bad wardrobe choices--have you seen the jewelry? He's like an undead Huggy Bear."
"Angelus's soul ends up in left luggage a lot."
"I'm working on that." There wasn't enough irony in the world-- Horrors, Spike might lose his soul and stay sorta goodish! Willow tapped the file currently occupying her screen. "What's interesting? Angel's curse wasn't even part of the original Ritual of Restoration. If I can find or re-construct the older version of the spell there'll be no problems with Spike getting too cheery. And the sooner someone desists with the nagging and lets me get back to my research, the sooner I can reconstruct the original spell." She typed another set of search criteria into Google. "Besides, Spike pretty much handed his soul over to me to use in the spell to get Buffy back, so I figure I can do what I want with it."
Vamp-Willow's form shimmered and shifted, and Buffy lay along the edge of the desk--not right-now Buffy, but bouncy sixteen-year-old Buffy from the days when she'd had illusions and a figure. "Did he? Got it in writing, I hope?"
"Sorry. It was more of a handshake deal."
Mirror-Buffy rolled over and waved one sandaled toe in the air. "Soul-contracts pretty much extra-binding in any form, hmm? And the consequences for breakage..." A breathless pause; Willow couldn't quite interpret the expression on its face--was it threatening her with the consequences of breaking her own agreements again? Or...? It broke into a blinding smile. "I've changed my mind, Willow-wisp. Forward march on the soul-having of Our William. It'll be the kick." She giggled. "In fact, it'll be to die for."

The dead man sat alone in a room in the Sunnydale Motor Hotel, unmoving, unbreathing, staring at the telephone. In the old days, telephones had been substantial hunks of metal. You could beat someone's brains in with one. This one was sleek and weightless, mocking in its insubstantiality.
Angel leaned forward and reached for the phone, hesitating over the grid of glowing numbers. Things would have been so much simpler had Giles been his ally in this. He could have proceeded openly then, no need for this elaborate subterfuge, but Giles had lost his edge with Buffy's second death. He'd seen it at the funeral; something vital had gone out of the Watcher, something beyond the ravages of grief. Giles had lost the closest thing he'd ever get to a daughter; now she was restored to him, and there was nothing the Watcher could bear to deny her... even if it led to something worse than her death in the end.
If you couldn't recruit one Watcher, another would have to do. He dialed the number Wesley had given him and waited through one, two, three tinny rings. The drive up from L.A. had provided plenty of opportunity to second-guess himself. The plan was too complex, part of him insisted, and relying on the Council for anything was insane. The other part countered that reliance didn't enter into the equation; they were a tool, and he was using them. Known flaws could be allowed for, and the Council possessed the knowledge and resources Buffy needed--even if they'd been strangely reluctant to employ them on her behalf before now.
The line picked up on the fourth ring, and a voice said, "Travers."
"Is your team in place yet?"
The other end of the line seethed with one of the most virulent silences he'd ever heard. "Angel," Travers said at last, oozing false jollity.
"Can't get anything past that Council training, can I?"
Muffled noises suggested that Travers was talking to someone off- stage. Deep suspicion colored the man's next words. "I didn't expect you'd be on site. Or are you still in Los Angeles?"
"I've been in Sunnydale for two days." Irritation put an edge on his voice; it wasn't easy to drop everything and rush to Buffy's rescue these days. He had a life, in a manner of speaking. "I don't have to remind you that this is an operation I take a very close, personal interest in, do I? Your last attempt at taking down a rogue Slayer was a little less than successful. I intend to ensure this one succeeds." Remember, old man, I can make your job simpler--or impossible.
"The team is in place." He spat out a contact address as if it were poison. "They've been notified of your...interest in the case."
"Good. And Travers? I can smell your deceit through the wires. You know who I am and you know what I've done. I don't give a damn what you do with Spike once you have him, but as far as the Slayer's concerned, you will follow both the letter and the spirit of our agreement without fail...or you will be conscious for every minute of the six weeks it'll take you to die."
"I assure you, my word is as good as the man it's given to," Travers replied before Angel hung up on him. Travers would, of course, betray him. You used the tools at hand, he reminded himself. He lay back on the lumpy hotel bed, hands laced behind his head, and deliberately raised a vision of Spike in Buffy's room, in Buffy's bed, in Buffy's arms, before his mind's eye. Jealousy? Angel probed his soul like a man prodding the socket of a sore tooth. Some, he had to admit, even now, when he could not for the unlife of him conceive of a way of fitting her into his world, nor of cramming himself back into the cramped confines of Sunnydale. He could acknowledge the emotion without letting it control his actions, knowing that it was irrelevant to what must be done--Buffy's liaison with Spike was an abomination because of what Spike was, not because of who either of them were.
He conjured the younger vampire's angular face, the defiant set of the chiseled jaw as he stared his grand-sire down: I love her more than I hate you. Even granting Spike had been telling the unvarnished truth as he saw it, Angel knew exactly what a vampire's love was--a dark, obsessive thing which couldn't help but defile its object in the end. Buffy might never thank him for this, but he didn't want her gratitude; he wanted to see her living the sunlit, happy life he'd imagined for her, the life that was the only thing which had made his leaving her bearable.
He should have just killed Spike, Angel thought for the thousandth time. Just done it, rammed the stake into his heart right in the middle of his confident speech about how Angel could never kill the ones he'd sired, and been done with it. Proved the cocky little twerp wrong, for once. Unfortunately, the cocky little twerp was right, on the surface of it at least; Angelus had spawned half a dozen monsters in his day, who'd spawned more in their turn. Of all of them, only mad Drusilla and her insolent get Spike still walked the world. The rest were dust and ash, yet when push came to shove, somehow it had always been another's hand wielding the stake. It wasn't pity or compassion that stayed him--Angel had none for the creatures that reminded him too painfully of what he was, and what he wasn't. It was simpler than that. He had always yearned for children, and the things he'd sired were as close as he would ever get. To destroy them was to destroy himself; to destroy Spike...
Was necessity, nothing more. He wouldn't allow himself to take pleasure in it. Buffy would hate him. That was a given. But Buffy had hated him before when he'd acted for her good. He knew all too well the sacrifices she'd be willing to make for a shadow-bound lover, and how long before Spike began to play on that willingness for his own ends? Without a breath, he rolled over and got to his feet. Time to go. <>
"Next Saturday as in a week away, not two days from now, right?" Buffy tucked the phone under her ear and did mental math. That would be the twenty-second, and by that time the question of world endage would be moot, one way or another. It had been so long since she'd gone to any real Christmas parties...Mom had been sick last year, and making merry had been an effort of will. "Yep, I'm free that night. Should I bring something?"
Sandra's laughter rang through the line. "Just an appetite. I'll have enough leftovers of my own to foist off on people. And your boyfriend's welcome too, of course."
"Spike? Um... he's..." Buffy looked across to the dining room, where the subject of discussion was bent over a county surveyor's map of Sunnydale and environs spread out across the dining room table. Contrary to Giles's assertion, Spike was absolutely not spending all his time at her house. He'd gone home yesterday afternoon, and only come back half an hour ago. And she'd only seen him for a few hours last night for patrol and an unsuccessful attempt to find their way back into Willow's lair. Plus a little down time at the crypt afterwards, which so did not count, because crypt? Not her house. Quod erat demonsomething. "...free too, I guess."
"Well, bring him along. Anyone who puts Hallie in a snit is a pal of mine. We'll see you then."
"Sure." Buffy hung up, bemused. She was holed up in a spell-cloaked house with a vampire while her key-to-the-universe sister did make-up homework upstairs with a witch, and what upped the freakage quotient? An invitation to a Christmas party held by Anya's normal human friends. Or now, apparently, her normal human friends, a concept too alien to be examined closely just yet.
She pulled the living room curtains aside and stared out into the lengthening shadows. The Harbingers who'd swept through the neighborhood last night like deranged carolers had passed them by without a glance, so she had to trust that Tara's spell was working. She let the curtains fall back and rubbed her arms against a non-physical chill. Until they could come up with a way to lure Willow out from behind her own magical defenses... stalemate. Strategy wasn't nearly as satisfying as rushing in and busting heads.
At least it was almost dark, and in less than an hour she would be out patrolling, relieving her frustrations on the hordes of the undead. And anything else that happened to get in her way. Her hand hovered over the phone. Maybe she should call Giles and see if he and Tanner had made any progress refining the exact time when the Hellmouth would do its triple gainer, because who knew, maybe they'd miscalculated and it was tonight and...
Spike looked up, one eyebrow akimbo. "Not likely they've made a major breakthrough in the last fifteen minutes, pet."
Buffy snatched her hand away and stuck it behind her back. Sun not quite down yet. No pacing for Buffy, because pacing never did anything but wear out carpet. Buffy would instead do useful things like sharpening knives already honed to razor keenness, touching up nails already polished to gleaming perfection, and re-arranging things in cupboards which Tara would quietly put back in their original places tomorrow morning. She spotted a stack of envelopes. Aha. Useful Buffy would tackle the pile of Christmas cards to be addressed. She plopped down at the table across from Spike and ran down her mother's card list with growing mystification--the Finsters? The Aguileras? Who were all these people? Friends of her parents back in L.A.? Work contacts of her mother's? Well, stamps were expensive; they all got voted off the island. With gleeful abandon Buffy drew big fat Xs in red marker through three-quarters of the names on the list. She could accumulate her own stable of mystery names for future generations to ponder. One for Dad, one for Aunt Caroline, one for Cordelia because ex-Scooby even if she was a three-time gold medalist in the Bitca Olympics, one for--
She hesitated, shielding the next address with one hand and casting a furtive glance across the table. Spike's glasses were sliding down his nose again, inciting an irresistible desire to straighten them for him. His face seemed somehow more naked with them on, all his remnant humanity close to the surface and vulnerable. Maybe she should just address this one impersonally to Angel Investigations. No, that was silly. Spike had to get over his insecure jealous Angel thing. His and Giles's suspicions were completely unfounded, because Angel wouldn't... Just wouldn't. She could settle this immediately by calling him up and asking him about it--Angel was a lot more nocturnal than Spike, but he should be up by now. She could march right back over to the phone, dial the AI number, and ask him. And he'd answer.
And that was what she was afraid of.
Distraction good. My, my, wasn't that a yummy-looking vampire sitting across the table? She hopped to her feet again and bounced around the dining room table, draping her arms around Spike's shoulders and burrowing into his neck. "What's with the zen-like calm, Mr. Impatient? Are you on drugs? And can I have some?"
Spike disentangled her slightly and hitched his glasses higher on his nose, tapping his pen on the map. "All a facade, love; I'm distracting myself with shiny objects. Namely, lots and lots of presidential portraits." He indicated Clem's list of potential clients and the assorted demon lairs he'd marked off on the map. "Go after the Sluorn hide first, is what I'm thinking, after patrol tonight. Anya says it'll fetch the prettiest penny, and there's a whole colony of 'em up by the reservoir."
Buffy skimmed the notes Spike had added to each entry on the list-- whether the demon in question could be found in Sunnydale, and if so where; whether it would require a trip out of town; how much Anya would pay for the items on order and any other salvageable parts--and her eyes widened. One night of demon-hunting was going to net Spike as much as she could hope to earn in a week in sales or waitressing. This wasn't just grocery money. This was re-shingle the roof money. Maybe even, if it was steady, college fund for Dawn money. Horror of horrors, Anya had been right all along. "Math isn't my subject. Is that decimal point in the right place?"
Spike grinned, with one of those sly, sidelong looks that dared her to ask if he was joking or not. "Yeh. Had Mrs.-Harris-to-be double-check. Not quite what I could make knocking over ATMs, but it's a start."
The slippery slope was ever so much more slippy when cushioned by large amounts of cash at the bottom. Buffy worried her lower lip. "I suppose it would be overkill to have someone else along, um, overkilling-- I mean, we don't want the Sluorn to go the way of the buffalo, and who needs two Sluorn hides anyway? Especially at those prices."
Spike sat back and regarded her over the rims of his glasses with all the sultry appeal of a potential wage-earner. "If this little venture takes off, a partner might come in handy. I've got your back on patrol; wouldn't mind having someone a bit quicker to the mark than Clem to watch mine." His big square palm and long cool fingers enveloped her hand and his lips took on a small wicked corner-curl. "Love, I don't think you're cut out for a shop-girl."
"I'm not sure my future's in peddling demon guts, either, but--" The phone rang, and Buffy leaped for it with equal parts relief and apprehension. "Hello, Summers residence." Might be Giles, might be Angel, might be...
"Miss Summers," the voice on the phone said, "This is Darryl, from Oshman's personnel department. We've reviewed your application, and your recent interview was very impressive. If you're still available, you're hired. Your hours would be from two to ten, Wednesdays through Sundays."
"Two to ten?" Buffy asked, dismayed. In some ways that would work; she could push back patrol with no problem, and that would actually put her sleeping schedule in better sync with Spike's preferred hours, which should so not be a consideration... but she'd lose all her afternoon and weekend time with Dawn. "I'd hoped for--"
Darryl from Personnel made a small noise, the verbal equivalent of a sympathetic smile. "Yes, I realize that, but the shift we're hiring for is our late holiday hours. The job would last until January sixth, and it's very possible that you could be hired on permanently at the end of that period. We'd like you to start tomorrow."
"I--" She needed this job. She hated the whole idea of this job. Saving humanity was a cakewalk compared to placating an individual human who didn't want to listen when you told them the kitchen was out of the blue plate special. She could bring the perky; she'd done it before and could do it again and they really, really needed the money and why did Spike have to sit there waving that warm, juicy slice of forbidden fruit pie ala mode in front of her nose while Darryl offered her dehydrated fruit snacks? This was a normal job, a step on the road to the normal life she'd always wanted, right? Right?
"I'm afraid I've found something else." Buffy set the phone down, dizzy with freedom and terror. There would be other interviews, other jobs with better hours and better pay. Jobs that didn't require risking her life and manicure driving a knife through the horny carapace of a Sluorn demon in the dead of night. Jobs that didn't make her blood sing and her heart race or make her feel she'd accomplished something for the Sandras of the world when she fell exhausted into bed with the dawn. But until she found one...
Spike was watching her, eyes glinting behind the lenses of his glasses. Outside it was full dark, and up and down Revello Drive timers were flicking on and multicolored constellations blinked into existence, defining the darkness into roofs and trees and fences. Buffy glanced down at the list of X'd-out addresses, picked up a pen and added 'Sandra Murchison & Family' to the bottom of the list. She reached across and plucked the glasses off Spike's nose, folded them up and tucked them in his shirt pocket. "C'mon. Let's go fight that evil."

A block down the street, a motorcycle rumbled to life. A second later the bike tore past trailing a whirlwind of fallen leaves, the pale helmetless head of its rider bent low over the handlebars. Three figures rose from the shrubbery flanking the entrance to Restfield Cemetery as soon as the engine-noise faded.
"The target's laired in a crypt here," Collins said as they passed beneath the wrought-iron arch of the entrance. Angel had never forgotten that voice, though he'd only heard it once before, screaming orders over the din of helicopter blades. Now it was friendly. Unctuous. Ingratiating. Under no circumstances to be trusted. Obviously Travers had had a word with them, but Angel wasn't in any mood to assume it had been a good one. "Minimum of two entrances, one above-ground, one below. Keeps odd hours for a vampire. He's usually up and about by two or three in the afternoon and he's been seen round town in the mornings more than once. Spars with the Slayer the local magical supply store in the afternoons, then takes off on his own affairs for a few hours and meets up with her again around eight or nine in the evening. They patrol for two or three hours, sometimes hit the Bronze or the Alibi Room after, then go back to the Slayer's place or his crypt for a bit, and then one or the other of 'em goes home. At least, that was the pattern. Local gossip has it that in the last week he's started staying the night at her house."
"I've heard the local gossip too." Angel brushed the remains of the local gossip off the knee of his trousers. "Better the crypt than at Buffy's house; fewer witnesses, and none that'll care."
The cemetery was full of cold wind and rustling in the grass tonight. Collins rattled the handle of the crypt door and jumped back in surprise when it swung open with a creak. Weatherby grunted and took a firmer grip on his crossbow, eyes darting across the uneven ground from shadow to shadow, tombstone to tombstone. "Think it's a trap?" Unlike Collins, Weatherby wasn't making the pretense of cameraderie. Every word sounded as if it were being dragged out by main force.
"We saw him leave."
"Could've circled round, dropped into the sewers and come back in through the lower levels," Weatherby pointed out.
"Spike never did learn to guard his perimeter." Angel pushed forward and shoved the iron-bound door to, stalking into the dim interior of the crypt. He looked around--expressionless, but managing to convey contempt in the set of his shoulders. His nostrils dilated. "He's not here."
Spike's home was less of a sty than most vampire lairs. Fastidiously tidy, really, considering. He picked a couple of magazines off the nearest coffin-table and tossed them down again. Penthouse and Caffiene, and God knew which Spike jerked off to. Scents of candle wax and cigarette smoke hung heavy on the still air, along with others barely perceptible to human noses: blood and whiskey, peanut butter and apples, old upholstery and sex, Willow and Xander...and strongest and most recently, Buffy. Underlying everything else, making his hackles rise, the familiar earthy scent of vampire. Of the line of Aurelius, younger than he, but no fledgling. Angel made an uneasy circuit through the eclectic mix of scavenged furniture and funerary marble, an old lion in the territory of an upstart cub grown to unexpected adulthood. Family, the beast within him whispered. Rival.
He had no inclination to listen to either prompt.
Weatherby and Collins followed him in, cautious despite the certainty that the crypt was empty. "Twenty-five years in the field," Weatherby muttered, shining his flashlight into corners. "Seen everything, I thought--and now we're taking charity from him. Reformed, Wyndam-Pryce says. Has a soul."
"You want to tackle the Slayer alone, you just say the word," Angel murmured, examining the layout of the upper level. They could hide behind the sarcophagus, but it wasn't a prime spot for an ambush. "But I seem to remember her taking your pal apart into his component atoms the last time you tried." He examined the smaller 'room,' which contained a battered mini-refrigerator plastered with photos and old grocery and to-do lists (why did Spike need three different kinds of olives?) Another sarcophagus had been pressed into service as a table-cum-counter, and a set of shelves containing an utterly prosaic assortment of dishes and dry goods lined the crypt wall. Angel opened the refrigerator and removed one of the Styrofoam containers (Kohlermann's Fine Meats, Serving Sunnydale Since 1947) and sniffed. Pig. Almost a disappointment.
Weatherby gestured to the ladder leading down to the lower level. Collins produced an unmarked spray bottle and spritzed it around a couple of times as they clambered down to the lower levels. Angel stopped inhaling; the spray would mask their scents when Spike arrived, but breathing it in would numb his own sense of smell.
The crypt's lower level was a series of caverns dug out haphazardly, one from the other, until they broke into one of the sewer tunnels. It was less tidy down here--clothes and books in more evidence, along with a CD player, a creaky-looking turntable, and a record collection which appeared to have been assembled from the dregs of six other people's discards. Layers of rugs lent an air of sybaritic decadence. Angel picked his way through the maze to the bedroom. One of the dresser drawers was open; it contained a small selection of blouses, slacks, and lacy underthings. Angel stood staring at it for a moment, then slammed it shut without further examination.
Weatherby and Collins followed in his wake, examining odds and ends of Spike's possessions with revulsion. "More places to hide in down here," Weatherby observed. He walked over to the bed and twitched the coverlet aside with a disgusted snort. "She's letting him do her, all right."
Bile rose in Angel's throat and he turned away, though not before catching a glimpse of the small brownish spots on the creamy expanse of sheet--left unchanged in token of Spike's conquest, probably. He hadn't wanted final confirmation that despite her denials, it had come to that. Spike would gloat over them, roll in them, reveling in Slayer's blood. A red surge of desire rose up in him to kill both men, that no one might ever know that Buffy had allowed herself to be so degraded--and it had to have been 'allowed;' Spike's chip would have prevented a real attack. Angel fought his rage down, hands clenched tight at his sides, and turned; Collins was checking the flash on his camera. "You don't need that."
"But we do," Collins replied, ever reasonable. "You seem to think that we're some kind of cloak and dagger operation, Mr. Angel, and I suppose that's understandable considering our previous misunderstanding with Wyndam-Pryce--"
"Double-cross," Angel corrected. Collins waved the distinction away.
"--but we can't just accuse Miss Summers of going rogue with no evidence. Slayers heal fast, and we need documentation. After all, at the moment we have no proof she's done anything with William the Bloody that she didn't do with... well, with you." He smiled, twisting the knife for all it was worth, and Angel reminded himself for the hundredth time that he needed these men for awhile longer. Collins held up the camera and feigned snapping a picture. "Don't worry. They won't end up on the front page of the Mirror. Her, ah, counselor will need to know the extent of her dependancy."
Angel gave him the flat-eyed, inhuman stare just long enough to make the man start to sweat, then nodded. It didn't matter, after all. They could videotape the whole operation if they liked, complete with director's commentary, for all the good it would do them.
A half-excavated niche concealed behind a bookshelf, where it looked as if Spike had given up a planned expansion after running into a tangle of tree roots, provided a hiding place for the humans. Weatherby readied both crossbow and anaesthetic dart gun for easy access. Collins applied the scent-masking spray liberally around the lower level and the two Watchers crammed themselves into the tiny space. Angel took up a separate station behind the wardrobe and didn't bother to remind the men that if he took the trouble to listen closely, Spike could hear the blood rushing in their veins. It made no difference to his own plans if they were discovered untimely.
The wait was interminable. The humans fidgeted and sighed and thumped in their dank corner, spending their mortal heat huddled against the raw earthen walls while Angel stood unmoving and immovable, dark and cold as the night around them. No satisfaction in this hunt. He didn't want to be here; he had cases to pursue at home--but how could he turn his back on her?
You did it once before, a bitter internal voice reminded him. Twice.
He wouldn't let himself hate Spike. That would give the other too much power. But he could hate that drawer filled with Buffy's silly, frothy underclothes, and all it implied. He could hate the fact that the last week had left his hard-won inner peace in bloody ribbons, hate the fact that he woke up in the middle of the day wondering--had he done the right thing, really, in leaving her? Or was Spike, damn his too-perceptive eyes, not entirely wrong in accusing him of taking the easy way out?
He caught the sounds in the tunnels long before the Watchers did, and tensed in anticipation. Two pairs of footsteps, carrying something heavy; two pairs of lungs working almost in unison--was it someone they weren't expecting...? No, only one heartbeat. Sometimes it seemed that Spike breathed just to piss him off.
There was a thump and a dragging scrape as the two of them dropped whatever it was they were carrying, and a moment later Buffy appeared in the irregular hole leading off into the tunnels, her nose wrinkling as it did when she'd just killed something particularly slimy. "Serious second thoughts about my future as a gut-peddler here. Next time, Spike? If a demon exudes unmentionable secretions, mention them!"
"Oh, come on, don't tell me you weren't enjoying yourself." Spike's pale head materialized out of the tunnel's gloom and he stepped over the makeshift threshold a pace or so behind her, axe balanced over one shoulder and coat flapping wetly against his knees. "Could see it in your eyes when we encountered that mud puddle." He grinned. "Explains why Sluorn hides fetch an arm and a leg; it's bloody near what you have to give up to get one."
Buffy sniffed. "Killing the Sluorn? Not a problem. Killing the Krallock demon when it showed up to object to us killing the Sluorn, marginally entertaining. Skinning the Sluorn and dragging its raw, stinky, drippy hide all the way back to town, beyond gross." Buffy brushed at the sleeves of her coat, making a futile attempt to remove some of the still-damp slime off the fun-fur trim. "Besides, who died and made you the expert on skinning things?"
"Love, don't ask me questions like that 'less you want to know the answer." He replaced the axe on the weapons rack beside the tunnel opening and followed Buffy into the bedroom. He struck a match from the bedside table and coaxed life into a candle or two, and shadows retreated to the corners of the room as the lttle spears of flame strengthened. "Would it appease the pouty lip if the profits go straight into your dry-cleaning bill?"
Behind his back, Buffy smiled and tossed her hair. "Maybe. The pouty lip can be pretty demanding."
"Have to put some thought into satisfying it, then." Spike shucked out of his duster and hung it on one corner of the wardrobe, where it began a morose drip-drip-drip on the floor. "Bright side, pet--least it didn't bowl you into the reservoir."
Buffy divested herself of her own coat and pulled a space heater attached to a long hunter-orange extension cord out from the corner of the room. She turned it on and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her hands out over the grille and bouncing a little on the mattress. "I think the axe between the shoulder blades more than adequately expressed your displeasure. Or, as anyone not Giles might say, wicked cool move with the axe."
"You ripping its bowling arm out of its socket wasn't such a shoddy piece of work either." Spike pulled his sodden T-shirt over his head and balanced precariously on one foot to worry the knots out of his equally sodden bootlaces, and Buffy leaned back on the bed to take full advantage of the view. "Now let's just hope its mum doesn't show up at the Bronze tomorrow night wanting best two of three."
Neither of them gave any sign of noticing the Watchers concealed only a few yards away--Angel knew he'd have to concentrate to hear them if he didn't already know there were there, and Spike seemed safely preoccupied with other matters. Once or twice Buffy looked around with faint puzzlement in her eyes, her Slayer senses perhaps picking up some vagrant trace of vampire-other-than-Spike, but that was all. Should he feel it more or less keenly, Angel wondered, that she no longer had an infallible sense of his presence?
Spike kicked off his boots, peeled off his damp socks and jeans and stood naked in the expanding bubble of warm air around the space heater. He stretched, eyes closing in hedonistic bliss. Sheer vanity, maintaining that perfectly-muscled body, as a vampire's strength depended far more on the age and lineage of the animating demon than on the condition of the dead flesh it animated. The decades fell away and Angel was in another candlelit room, Darla at his side, the two of them watching with amused contempt as Drusilla fussed over her new toy. Drusilla had stripped the funeral suit from newly-risen and extremely confused William like a doll, dressing him for his first hunt.
It had been a good joke--the scrawny, hollow-chested young man, hung like a damn Percheron and obviously at a complete loss as to the proper employment of the largesse Nature had granted him. He'd cowered there, blanched and ludicrous as a plucked chicken, trying fruitlessly to conceal his growing erection as Drusilla's hands pinched and patted and flitted away again, her cruel, innocent sloe-eyes full of unspeakable promises. And then a sea-change: the tide of demonic lust and hunger, mated to perfection with the unleashed passion of his human host, rose in his eyes and William had smiled--that cheeky sex-on-a-stick grin which was the first harbinger of Spike to come, the same smile he was turning on Buffy right now--bent down, and kissed her.
A hundred and twenty years ago, Angelus had cuffed William's head very nearly off his shoulders for his presumption. He felt his fingers clenching and unclenching for a repeat performance.
Buffy was starfished on the sheets, the shoulder-straps of her top slipping negligently down her bare arms. Her face lacked the pallor and sunken eyes of the habitual suck junkie--if anything, she looked even better than she had last week in L.A. Glorious. Bright eyes and fetching grin and perky little nipples standing at attention beneath that flimsy pink cotton-knit top. No bite-marks visible, but that meant little in the face of the damning evidence on the sheets. Angel could imagine Spike's oily, coaxing wheedle all too easily. Just this once, to show how much you love me. Felt good, didn't it? Once more can't hurt... And then fangs would sink into sweet flesh and that rich hot blood which was power incarnate would flow down his parched throat, filling him with new strength, and--Angel shook his head with a strangled gasp, driving the memories away. This had been a mistake. Perhaps time and circumstance had burnt out the blazing passion they'd shared, but God, he'd loved her once, and this was torture.
But it didn't seem that the quarry had the convenience of their observers in mind tonight. Spike took a silver-backed brush from the dresser nearby--old, real pig's bristle--but instead of settling in for a round of vampiric debauchery, the two of them curled together on the rumpled expanse of the bed. Buffy reclined against Spike's chest while he ran the brush through the sunlit fall of her hair, working out the fight-tangles for a full hundred long, sensual strokes. Now and again Buffy reached up to tease the snarls from Spike's damp unruly curls with her fingers. They discussed the fight with the Krallock demon. And Christmas shopping. And some mysterious problem with Willow, all in cryptic verbal couple-shorthand, all while Spike played with the shining waves of her hair, fanning the tawny silk across her shoulders.
The mutual grooming session was revolting enough, but none of it was what the Watchers had come for. Until Buffy took the brush away and rolled Spike over. There was an assurance to her movements, an alien and ferocious grace, a wantonness which both aroused and terrified--everything Angel had seen and wondered at outside the restaurant last week, grown deeper and more intense. Her hazel eyes were half-lidded and misty, the wide mouth that was so firm and determined on the hunt gone soft and giving. They were nested in the heap of pillows now, nose to nose, belly to belly, kissing. Just kissing.
Kisses that took their time, kisses that knew they'd get there eventually. Meandering kisses, nibbling their way across the translucent delicacy of eyelids and earlobes, trailing down the smooth ivory slopes of throat and jaw. Small sharp Buffy-teeth grazing Spike's Adam's apple just so, drawing low exquisite moans. Feather-lipped kisses, chaste in their hesitancy. Long, deep tongue-kisses, smoky and molasses-sweet, dark and warm and languorous. Buffy whimpered as Spike slipped into game face, pressing closer, tongue thrusting hard into his fangs. Buffy's hands slid up his torso, hands drawing lazy circles over the muscles of his back and sides as both their bodies thrummed to Spike's resonant growl. Her head tipped back, her throat bared, ecstacy in her eyes as the ivory scimitars descended...
Atinic light painted the room in stark black and white as Collins's flash went off, and a near-inaudible pfft of air marked the discharge of Weatherby's dart gun. Angel was in motion even as the flash faded.
He'd been wrong. Destroying Spike was going to be a pleasure, after all.

Chapter 33


He'd come to know the sounds she made as intimately as he knew the contours of her body, or the changing shades of her eyes. Throaty murmurs of content, kitten-mews of pleasure and mouse-squeaks of surprise, excited whimpers and lusty screams--all music to his ears, a rhapsody in B, and--
"Ow!"
"Love?" Spike dropped out of game face immediately and pulled away from Buffy's throat. He hadn't accidentally broken skin, had he? 'Ow!' wasn't part of the program tonight. Buffy didn't answer. She was staring over his shoulder, widening ripples of surprise in her sea-colored eyes. One hand fumbled at her bare shoulder, and came away holding a small red-fletched dart. Her lips parted, releasing a small sigh, and her lashes fluttered once--then her eyes rolled back, her head lolled to one side, and her hand fell limp to the pillows.
Spike rolled over, putting himself between her and the rest of the room in time to see Angel--Angel?!--barreling straight at him, eyes a hell-bright blaze of gold in his normally impassive slab of a face. Spike whipped round, scooped Buffy up, and flung her across the width of the bed. She tumbled off the edge in a Maypole flutter of blankets and hit the floor with a loose-limbed thump. "Sorry, pet!" Inelegant, but it got her out of the oncoming behemoth's path.
A second later Angel's fists were driving into his face. Ears ringing, Spike twisted and kicked, his bare heel slamming into his grand- sire's jaw. The larger vampire grunted, one foot slipping on layers of rugs as the blow took the momentum from his charge, and collided with the bed. Angel rose with a bull-shake of his head, blood and slaver flying from his wounded mouth. His hand shot out and closed on Spike's ankle. The mattress yawed under their combined weights; Spike overbalanced and Angel hauled him across the bed in a tangle of sheets. "What the bloody fuck crawled up your arse and died, you colossal pillock?" Spike yelled. "You wanted a few pointers, all you had to do was ask!"
Angel ignored him, clamping another ham-like hand around his calf. Across the room a bookshelf toppled over, spewing its contents in a chaotic swath across the carpet--Fuck, I just got all that crap off the floor! and revealing two strange men crouched in the crevice behind it, crossbow and pistol at the ready. Why the hell hadn't he scented them? Spike plunged and fought against Angel's grip, scrabbling for purchase amidst the sheets, Santiago's swordfish caught in the inexorable pull of the line. His fingers met something cold and hard--hairbrush. He doubled back on his own length and smacked the back of the brush full-strength across his opponent's nose. Angel howled, but didn't let go; he heaved Spike into the air and tossed him half-way across the bedroom. Spike crashed into the dresser, collapsed to the ground and scrambled to his feet, brandishing the hairbrush with a wild-eyed snarl. That tied it; he was going to have to kill the lot of them. If word of this fight ever got out he'd perish from sheer embarrassment. "What do you want? Minions didn't used to be your style."
"Step aside, Spike." Angel spoke as if Spike's questions were irrelevant. "I'm here for Buffy. You're just in the way."
"I wouldn't say that's entirely correct," one of the men by the bookshelf said. "I believe we do have some minor business to conduct with Master William."
The soft deadly snick of the crossbow cocking filled the air behind him. Fuck, fuck, a thousand times fuck; Angel was between him and Buffy's drugged and helpless form, and fast as he was, he wasn't quite close enough to the humans to be certain of turning and disarming the man in time. Outnumbered three to one, wielding a hairbrush against a gun and a crossbow while his delicates flapped in the breeze...not exactly a position of strength. Have to do something about that. Spike let the brush fall to his side, straightened into an insolent damn-I'm-stunningly- well-endowed lounge, and cocked a thumb at his dresser. "Mind if I slip into something less comfortable, Peaches? You've gone and lost your romantic nature living in Lotusville. Time was when you took a fancy to knock a bloke around you'd spring for dinner first."
An infinitesimal flicker of irritation showed in the slight lowering of Angel's brow. "Go ahead."
Shoulder blades prickling in anticipation, Spike bent and pulled open the lowest dresser drawer, taking advantage of the opportunity to sneak a look in the direction of the bookshelf and mark the exact position of the two humans. They'd stepped out from the little niche behind the shelf, and were standing ankle deep in Sunnydale Public Library discards about eight feet behind him. Heartbeats even, hands steady on their respective triggers. Professionals. He skinned into a dry pair of jeans, taking his time with the buttons and maneuvering himself a little closer to the men in the process. Angel working with a pair of Council wankers--there had to be weaknesses in this little alliance he could exploit. They hadn't tried to dust him outright, so Travers must still want him unalive and kicking. Probably figured him for an easy catch, what with the chip. "Didn't expect to see you here," he said, still addressing Angel. "Thought you'd leave her a few illusions. Rupert sussed out that you'd gone telling tales out of school, but Buffy didn't believe it of you."
The creases at the corners of Angel's mouth deepened in disgust. "The last thing Buffy needs is more illusions."
"Yeh, well..." Spike pulled a clean shirt from another drawer and tugged it over his head. Keep up the rhythm and maybe he could go so far as to get his boots on. "I'd be more convinced of your tender concern if your gunsels here hadn't just shot her full of horse tranquilizers. What exactly was it they were planning for that Faith bird of yours again? Something she'd rather do five to ten to avoid? Kill 'er off, you think, and make a new Slayer, or just run experiments?"
Another unreadable flicker in those dark eyes. Absolutely maddening. In a century of poking and prodding he'd never truly managed to penetrate that implacable reserve. Angel folded his arms across his massive chest and shifted his weight, a faint smile touching his lips. "Mr. Weatherby is a registered nurse, as it happens, and Mr. Collins has a set of voluntary commitment papers--signed--in case you'd like to examine them. Buffy's decided that in light of the disturbing behavior--that would be you, Spike--she's displayed in the wake of her traumatic head injury last spring, she needs a thorough medical and psychological evaluation. Her sister will of course be provided for by the Council in the meantime."
Spike stared at him, gobsmacked. Had Angel lost the plot entirely, driven round the bend by progressive hair gel poisoning? "You think her friends'll believe that? Like hell. You can dust me, maybe. What's the plan for Rupert? Gonna take him out too? Yeh, that's not suspicious at all." He searched the other vampire's expression for clues--was that a hint of uncertainty? Oh, yeah, work that sodding conscience, soul boy. "Tweedledee and Tweedledum here don't come off too keen on helping out," he ventured, with a jerk of his chin at the men beside the bookcase. The one with the crossbow--Weatherby--tensed. Hah. "That because they're tender of puncturing your hide, or because they don't care if I do?" He flashed a knowing smirk at the humans. "Or maybe they know you're planning on a double-cross of your own. They're bright chaps, those Watchers." He quirked an eyebrow at Weatherby and let the smirk widen to a grin. "Funny how it works out, innit? He's on that side of the room with the Slayer, and you're on this side of the room with me."
Paydirt. Hatred sparked Weatherby's dull eyes to momentary brilliance, and his finger tightened on the trigger. His partner laid a calming hand on his shoulder. "I'll give you an A for effort," Collins said with a genial nod, "but we know all about the chip. And entertaining as this has been, we've a plane to catch, so--"
"Know all about the chip, do you?" Spike purred, gauging the depth of the loathing in Weatherby's white-rimmed eyes. "Angelus here tell you the latest, then? Chip's not working any longer." He morphed into vamp-face. "And I'm famished."
Weatherby's bony features contorted with fury and betrayal, and his attention wavered between Spike and Angel--only for a second, but a second was all Spike needed. He launched himself at the Watchers with a roar. The crossbow twanged and the bolt buried itself in his shoulder, punching a searing line of pain through bone and tendon. Spike staggered, recovered, tore the weapon out of Weatherby's hands as the human frantically cranked it back for another shot, and flung it across the room. The crossbow pinwheeled through the air to smash into the opposite wall. Collins's pistol went off with an ear-splitting crack and Spike doubled over as a swarm of fiery wasps grazed his ribs and ripped through the muscles of his side.
Angel vaulted across the bed the moment the crossbow fired, landing panther-light for all his bulk beside Buffy's unconscious body. Spike surged to his feet and head-butted Collins in the gut. Collins toppled over backwards, howling as his spine came into forcible contact with the solid oak of the fallen bookshelf. Weatherby pulled a knife and Spike kicked it out of his hand, ignoring the pain that stitched through his side. A quick glance downwards revealed half a dozen tiny shards of wood embedded in mangled flesh. He'd completely discounted the pistol, but it must have been modified to shoot wooden slugs; the soft projectile had shattered against bone and mushroomed into deadly fragments. Sheer luck it hadn't come nearer the heart.
Without a glance at his Council associates, Angel swept the Slayer into his arms, and, to Spike's stunned surprise, raced for the tunnel opening. Bloody hell, the old bastard had been planning a double-cross all along! Collins was trying to get up; Spike stamped hard on his ankle and was rewarded with a satisfying crack. That one wouldn't be going anywhere soon. He grabbed Weatherby and spun him around, wrenching the man's arm up behind his back. "ANGEL!" he roared. He yanked Weatherby's head down, baring the man's ill-shaven and unappetizing neck. "Bring her back or I swear I'll tear his sodding throat out!"
Halfway down the shadowy corridor, Angel paused, his expression as enigmatic as always. "The way I figure it, Spike, either you're bluffing, or you're not. Either way, you lose."
He was gone in a whirl of black leather. "Bugger!" Spike bashed Weatherby's head into the nearest bedpost for insurance and tossed the man aside. He rammed his feet into his boots--bastards were still wet, and there wasn't time to root his Docs out from under the bed. He yanked the crossbow bolt from his shoulder with a pained hiss and took off after his vanished grandsire, bootlaces whipping around his ankles. He passed the landing where he and Buffy had left the bundled Sluorn hide (still propped against the tiled wall, draining salt slurry into the effluent) and skidded round a corner. His left foot came down on an untied right lace, and next thing he knew he was arse over tit against the wall. All but screaming in frustration, he doubled over and tied his laces with shaking fingers. He was off again within minutes, but he knew exactly how fast a vampire could move and any time lost was too much. He pulled up short at an intersection, realizing to his dismay that he couldn't pick up either Angel's or Buffy's scent beneath the stink of the sewer. It wasn't just that the Watchers back at the crypt were masking their scents somehow; they'd done something that left his sense of smell no better than a living human's.
He schooled himself to stillness and listened. The gurgle of the sewer mingled with the agonized groans of the wounded Collins and the distant squeak of rats. Angel knew these tunnels as well as he did, and was moving as silently as their kind knew how. Spike caught a faint muffled thumping to the left and raced off down the left-hand fork; if he'd chosen correctly, he should be able to catch up to his burdened quarry within a few blocks.
But his luck was no lady tonight. The thumping turned out to be one of Buffy's ridiculously high-heeled boots tied to a sewer grate, banging against the metal bars in the flow of the current. Spike ripped it free with a curse and retraced his steps, but by now Angel had a hopeless lead. He halted in the middle of the intersection, legs trembling and chest heaving. The flow of blood from both wounds, sluggish though it was, was starting to make him dizzy, and his side ached with every breath. Well, stop breathing then, you great git! Despite the pain, the ebb and flow of air in his lungs steadied his nerves--it was half the reason he'd taken up smoking all those years ago, just to have an excuse to breathe. Spike inhaled and held the breath longer than humanly possible, let it out even more slowly. Running mad through the tunnels wouldn't get Buffy back. Information might. His eyes narrowed to golden slits, and his head swung back in the direction of the crypt. Deep in his chest a low chain-saw rumble began building momentum.
Someone was about to have a very unpleasant evening.


The last time he'd held Buffy had been an awkward good-bye hug outside the diner where they'd met after her resurrection. She'd been lost in his arms, a wispy leaf-skeleton of a girl. She felt more substantial now, but she was still a very slight burden indeed. Angel removed her remaining shoe and laid her out in the circle of lamplight on the bed. Seeing her there produced an unexpected frisson of deja vu. In just such a seedy pest-hole as this had he held Darla in the last precious moments of her restored life, before Drusilla had stolen that life and her soul for the second time.
He should have realized what was happening to Buffy at that first meeting, before the first courtesy sip of indifferent coffee. He'd watched Darla go through much the same gamut of apathy, detachment, and desperation when Wolfram and Hart brought her back. Neither woman, he suspected, would find the comparison flattering. Angel's eyes fell shut for a moment, the hopelessness and failure of last year threatening to overwhelm him. It wouldn't happen a second time.
He sat down in the room's single chair and regarded Buffy's sleeping face. It wasn't peaceful; her brows were knit, her mouth drawn tight. She lay curled beneath the threadbare hotel blanket, her body curved like a half-drawn bow, one arm extended in a search for something, or someone. Strands of hair twined like ivy around the slender column of her throat, gathered where her chin tucked into the angle of her shoulder. No wound there, thankfully; the interruption had come before things could go too far, and by now even the faint indentations in the skin left by the points of Spike's fangs had faded. He'd resisted the temptation to check for bite-marks in less obvious spots.
Travers's private line picked up on the first ring. It was a more reasonable time of the morning in London now, of course. "There's been a slight change in plans," Angel said, leaning back against the wall. The chair-back scraped against old plaster. "The chip's not working."
There was a brief, bristling silence on Travers's part. "How very convenient," he said with well-bred bile. "I suppose you're going to tell me they got away? And that you need something else in order to pursue them? Money? Information?"
"Travers, you have nothing I could possibly want. Buffy's here with me. I left your men fighting Spike--"
"You mean to say you abandoned them to that monster?"
"My priority is Buffy's safety, Mr. Travers. It never occurred to me that two highly-trained Council field agents wouldn't be capable of handling a single vampire." Not quite the truth; he'd felt an uneasy twinge of conscience about leaving Collins and Weatherby to Spike's not-so-tender mercies, but only a twinge. After the way they'd handled Faith's case a few years back he couldn't muster much sympathy for their plight.
Travers grumbled, but he couldn't very well argue without casting aspersions on his own men. "Very well, then--bring Miss Summers to the rendezvous point as planned, and we'll send a--"
"That's what I meant about a change of plans." Angel stretched his legs out across the gap between chair and the foot of the bed and propped his heels up on the worn chenille bedspread. In a way the unexpected failure of Spike's chip had simplified matters. "Spike was to be your guarantee of Buffy's cooperation. Until we know for certain that your people have him in captivity, I'm thinking it would be better all around if Buffy stays here in the States where I can keep an eye on her."
He hung up on the fulminating Travers--it was getting to be a ritual--and set the phone aside, settling down to his vigil over Buffy's drugged slumber. Travers would doubtless try to contact Weatherby and Collins now. He wondered idly if they were dead, or if they'd managed to turn the tables and subdue Spike. He should care about the outcome, he knew, just as he should have cared that not everyone at Holland Manners's dinner party was irredeemably evil...but it all seemed academic. Weatherby's violent hatred of vampires resulting in Spike's untimely dusting would be the ideal outcome of this operation, but Weatherby's untimely death at Spike's fangs had possibilities, too. He'd spun that line of bullshit about having Buffy committed mainly for Collins's benefit, but if it made Spike angry enough to shatter his pose of humanity, so much the better.
He left the room once, just before dawn, to walk down to the soda machine beside the pool. While the ancient machine hummed and clanked preparatory to spitting out a Diet Coke, Angel gazed through the fence at the hollow of eggshell-blue concrete, drained for the winter and locked up now. Soggy drifts of dead mulberry leaves encrusted the cracked bottom. If Drusilla were here, perhaps her eyes could read the abandoned pool like a giant's teacup, discovering therein auguries for the coming year. Better she wasn't. The future had never done him any favors.
The can dropped into the hopper with a clunk and Angel picked it up. He walked back to the small dingy room with its cheap anonymous furniture and set it on the nightstand beside the bed. Buffy stirred beneath the sheets as if the weight of his gaze had reached her in the depths of sleep. "Spike?"
It hurt, a little, that it wasn't his name she murmured, but who had he to blame for that? Spike's words of a week past ate at him--She's with me because you let her go. If he'd spent the last two years hunting for a way to remove the curse instead of submitting to it...but he hadn't. It had never even occurred to him to try. "It's me. You're safe." He reached across the bed to smooth the hair from her eyes. "How are you feeling?"
Buffy's hand went to her shoulder, fingers pressing out the residual ache of the dart. "Someone shot me." She blinked up at the flyspecked globe of the ceiling light with a muzzy frown. "And then glued my eyelids together, possibly after raising a small family of pigeons in my mouth." She sat up, wincing a little, and he could tell she was evaluating the stiffness in her limbs, assessing her readiness for a fight. She looked around, still frowning, and then a flare of panic burned the fog from her eyes. "Spike!" She flipped the blankets aside and jumped to her feet. "Where's Spike? Did you see him? How long have I been out?"
"Spike's fine. Or he was the last time I saw him. It's eight o'clock on Friday morning, and you've been asleep for about four hours. You want something to drink?" Angel gestured at the Coke. "I got diet."
"Thanks." She took the can and gulped half of it. "Travers's people shot me, right? If you haven't already done it, call Giles and let him know what's up. Erk, I'm a mess--is my purse around here somewhere? And what happened to my left shoe?"
"It's probably back at the crypt. Buffy--"
"Never mind, big tough Slayer here, I can go barefoot for a few hours." She was already bent over the rust-stained bathroom sink, splashing water on her face and straightening wrinkled clothing. "And you said Spike was where, again?" She rubbed her upper arms, shivering--was the room that cold? He had trouble, sometimes, remembering exactly what the comfort zone for humans was.
"Buffy, we need to talk."
"Do you have any idea of the amount of trouble Spike can get himself into in four hours?" Catching his expression, she amended, "Silly question. Did you bring any weapons? If not, we'll have to hit my place and grab some before going after Spike." She cast a dubious look at the bed. "That blanket's kind of flimsy; can you make it to the sewers OK?"
"Buffy!" He strode across the room, seized her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him; after a second of instinctive resistance she relaxed in his grip. "Listen to me. Spike's in no immediate danger. Travers's men had orders to take him alive, or as close as he gets to it." With any luck, they'd violated those orders in self-defense.
"Alive? Then--" Dark-lashed Margaret Keane eyes gazed up at him with wounded betrayal--the look she'd had that day in the tunnels, when he'd told her he was leaving, and on the day she'd walked in on him cradling Faith in his arms. "How do you know--?" Her mouth firmed against the quiver of her chin. "You...you did tell Travers about Spike and me, didn't you?"
"Yes, I talked to Travers." He hated that look. It was a carpet knife unhooking his vitals and maybe he'd deserved it the first time, but this time she had no right to it. "I tried talking to Giles, but he's so terrified of hurting your feelings by taking the knife away he's willing to let you cut your own throat with it. The Council was going to find out about you and Spike sooner or later. This was the only way to be certain of keeping you safe, to work from the inside." She wasn't thawing, and Angel's hands fell from her rigid shoulders and dropped to his sides in frustration. "I told Travers I'd help him capture Spike and bring you in, at a price, and that price was a guarantee of your health and safety. They had enough trouble with Faith that he was willing to agree."
"And you trusted Travers?" Buffy asked, incredulous. She stood bowstring-taut on the worn carpet, fists clenched until the tendons stood out in the backs of her thin hands, and for a moment Angel thought she was going to strike him. "You had no right."
"Right?" Resentment flared; Buffy never had trouble justifying her own I-am-the-Slayer decisions, but let anyone else dare-- "No. I had an obligation. Suppose you found out Xander was sleeping with Drusilla--what would you do?" Something in the set of her shoulders made him break off, appalled. "You didn't think I'd just hand you over to them and leave you there, did you?"
"I thought--" Her voice cracked and then the shell of stony reserve was back full-force. "If you weren't planning to hand me over to the Council, what were you planning to do?"
"Get you away from Spike. Play it by ear. The Council has people who could help you, with the right pressure applied. Travers thinks you're out of control. I wouldn't go that far, but Buffy, you're heading there. I could see it last weekend. I saw it tonight. It's not just that you're crawling all over Spike. Slaying used to be a sacred calling for you--now it's a game, or something to make money on. Or, God help us, foreplay." He wanted her to hear concern and compassion, and feared it would sound like pity or condemnation. "You...you inspired me, once. You were a hero. And now...you're selling advertising space on your stakes."
Buffy's chin went up and her eyes chilled to wintry grey. Her gaze fell on the little cluster of glasses sitting on the counter by the sink, each in their wrapping of sanitized-for-your-protection paper, as if she would very much have liked to throw one. "You know what? The electric company is oddly indifferent to the number of times I've saved the world." She settled for picking up the remainder of her Coke and running her finger around the rim. "You think I'm thrilled by the idea of spending my whole life killing yuckies? I want a day job that actually, you know, occurs in the daytime--but I'm a college drop-out with zero marketable skills, and until I can get a degree or find something good that doesn't need one, I man a cash register or flip burgers. Or I kill very expensive demons. The ever-growing list of Summers creditors are casting their highly influential votes for the demons. But I do not, I will not make money on slaying, Mr. Kettle with the supernatural detective agency! Spike's paying gig and the slaying, totally separate issues. They both just happen to involve killing things with defective fashion sense."
Angel sighed. "Buffy, this is about you, not Spike. After you told me what you'd been feeling since coming back, I asked Wesley if there were any clues in the Scroll of Aberjian that might give us an idea what caused it. Wesley has access to the entire text of the scroll, not just the spell Willow copied--Anatole's commentary explains a lot." He ran a hand through his hair, searching for words. "The Raising spell pulls all the pieces together. Body, soul, memories....even if some of them are missing or destroyed. Darla even got the memories of her existence as a vampire, though the demon wasn't part of her resurrected self." It had haunted Darla in those last few days, the question of who, precisely, she was now. The possibility that the clean lines of demarcation he'd drawn between man and monster could blur had haunted him too, and his dreams had been filled with uneasy visions of Angel and Angelus, reflecting one another into hazy infinity. "But it doesn't connect them. Darla--and you--felt disconnected because you were disconnected. From the world. From yourself. If you're lucky, the pieces eventually start to click together again. If you're not lucky...you could go on like that, for years. Numb. Not dead, but not really alive."
He'd seldom seen Buffy Summers truly afraid, but in this moment her eyes held a crawling horror that said Anything but that. She banished the look with a shake of her head and took a half-step forward, facing down the intangible. "Well, that's...mind-numbingly terrifying. But this justifies you ratting me out to Travers how, exactly? I'm getting better, Angel. Big-time clickage."
"There's no guarantee the pieces will fall back into exactly the same pattern they held before you died. Outside influences could...disrupt things." He sank down on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumping, and tried to ignore the headache which was beginning to chip away at the back of his eyelids. "Travers claims it's a constant struggle for older Slayers to control certain...darker urges...as their power increases. Before your death it was a struggle you were winning hands down. Now you're not even trying." He looked up, eyes bleak. "How long has Spike been feeding from you?"
"What?" Buffy choked, spraying Diet Coke across the bedspread. "I told you before--he's never--were you watching--that was just playing!"
"I don't need a diagram to tell when Spike's fed on Slayer's blood," Angel snapped. "I was there for his first Slayer kill, remember? I know the look."
"Your Slaydar's gone wonky, then." Buffy flung out both bare unmarked arms. "Do I look like Spike's been feeding on me? Do you think I could hide it if he was? Real-life vamp bites aren't cute little pinpricks, they're great big nasty chomp marks, as I ought to know having survived three of them, and I think I'd notice if--oh. Oh." Her tirade devolved into an embarrassed mumble. "There may have been some...exchange of bodily fluids--but not by biting! And so not your business!"
"Spike drinking your blood isn't my business?"
"Angel," Buffy said through gritted teeth, "Breathe."
Caught by surprise, he inhaled, not the superficial intake of air he needed for talking, but a deep, real breath--the kind he avoided taking around her if at all possible. Seeing her was bad enough. Buffy's essence flooded his senses, warm and female and...very recently off her courses. Oh, God. "Get it? Buffy is a No Biting zone, and we will never, ever discuss this subject again, capisce? Look, I've got to go. Spike could be in trouble and Willow's gone all Dark Phoenix on us and the First Evil is back in town and I just don't have time for this...this guy stuff. You and Spike can have your pissing contest after the apocalypse, 'kay?"
"Time?" Angel was on his feet in an inchoate haze of fury, looming between her and the door. "Do you think I have time to put my entire life on hold and race down here to pull you out of a briar patch that you of all people knew better than to jump into in the first place? Well, let me enlighten you--I don't! Gunn's barely speaking to me since his pals went on that demon-killing spree, Lorne's sobbing in his Sea Breeze because his bar's been trashed yet again, Wesley's a wreck since he nearly took an axe to Fred and the Tro-Clon is coming--and what's that, you ask? I don't know, but what do you wanna bet it's not good? I have apocalypses of my own to deal with, but here I am! That's what you want, isn't it? Someone to be all about you, all the time? The difference is, Spike does what he thinks will make you happy. I'll do what I think is right, no matter how much it hurts!"
She flinched as if he'd slapped her. "You're hurt? Excuse me? I'm the one with a bullseye on my derriere, and Spike may be--"
"Good riddance if he is! Whatever darkness lies in you, he draws to the surface. Before I loved you I admired you. You made me want to be a better man." He wasn't going to cry; tears were for boys, for women, for pansy-ass ex-poets. A man might weep upon release from hell, but on all lesser occasions he stayed in control of his emotions. She'd seen more of his tears over the years than anyone, living or dead. "I can't stand by and watch you drown in him!"
"For someone so damn inspiring," she whispered, "You don't trust me much, Angel. Did you ever think that maybe instead of drowning in each other, we'd both learn to swim?"
Angel turned away, not because he couldn't meet her eyes but because he didn't want her to see the turmoil in his. "There are some tides the strongest swimmer in the world can't fight." He'd always been the adult in their relationship, the rock which weathered her emotional storms. It had been second nature to conceal things from her--that he was a vampire, that Darla was his sire, that Drusilla and thus Spike were of his getting, that even knowing of the curse, he'd desired her to the point that would have destroyed them both. To protect her, he'd maintained, silencing the inner voice which whispered in the hot still hours of daylight that it was also to protect himself.
Buffy was staring down at his clenched hands, at the thin half-moons of crimson along the heel of his palm, where the nails had cut into the flesh. She took a stiff, unwilling step towards him, then another, and another. He felt her palm come to rest on his shoulder, weightless as sunlight, and as painful. Her fingers slid down the length of his arm to curl around his hand. Tenderness there, but no passion. If he took her in his arms, kissed her...it would be nothing more than stirring up ashes just to see if he could. He'd left her behind, but had anything really changed?
"Spike can't change me," said Buffy. "I can't change him. We change ourselves. Because we want to. Because we have to. You didn't bring me back--"
"I could have."
Buffy's lips parted over a stillborn exclamation. "I could have," Angel repeated, his voice diminishing to a ragged shadow of itself. "The Powers That Be owe me a life. I fought for Darla's life, and I won... and it was all for nothing, because she'd already come back by magic once. But I'd still won a life, and when Willow came and told us that you'd died, the first thing I thought of was that I could bring you back." He was the one shaking now.
"It wouldn't have been right," she whispered, the delicate moth- touch of her fingertips fingers tracing the lines of his bowed shoulders. "I know that. I died a good death, doing what I had to do. I could never blame you for--"
"It wasn't because it was right." Every muscle was rigid as iron with the effort of getting the next word out, and the next, as the white-hot supernova of anger collapsed to a black hole of self-loathing. "God, I told you once I was weak--I watched them lower you into the ground, and it was like I was going with you." He remembered black lacework leaves edging a blood-washed sky; they'd held the funeral as late in the evening as the mortuary allowed. Spike held onto Dawn like a talisman. The younger vampire's sobs were barely audible over the dull thud of clods hitting wood, even to his ears, and that made them all the more intolerable. You never loved her as I did, you aren't capable of it... "I grieved for you all summer. And then little by little...it got better. I began to get over you."
"But that's--" Her hand came to rest, lightly, on his face, lifting his head. "I never wanted anyone to spend their lives mourning me, Angel."
"You don't understand." Each syllable drew blood. "It was easier with you dead. I didn't have to think about you being there, two hours away and untouchable as the moon. You were gone forever, and it was such..." His voice cracked. "Such a relief. I should have told Willow, or Dawn, at least, that I had a life to spend. I didn't. I didn't tell anyone. And then last month you called, and the first thing I thought was 'Oh, God, it's beginning again.'"
Buffy sat down on the bed, pale and stunned, and then, to his astonishment, she laughed--a broken-backed laugh that was half tears, but a laugh still. "Let me guess: you feel guilty. Don't. It's--well, it's not all right, but I get it. I really do. It's pretty much exactly how I felt when you came back from hell." She shivered, and this time he didn't think it was from the cold. "It could have. Started again, I mean. I was so lost...I could have chosen the pain to hold on to. Grab a handful of razor blades and you'll know you're real." She frowned. "That metaphor's lost something with the advent of Gillette Daisy."
He couldn't accept that easy absolution. "You were so distant when we met. You left without asking for anything, and I was grateful. I didn't want to think about what you might be going through. I could have prevented all of this. If you'd been brought back by the Powers instead of whatever dark magics the Raising spell calls on--don't you see, Buffy? I have to save you now. Because I didn't save you then."
She sighed, cradling her remaining shoe in her lap. "You can't save me, Angel. If I need saving, it's only me who can do it. I shouldn't have come back at all, but since I'm here...maybe I needed to put myself back together differently, and take a good look at all the pieces." She looked at him. "Do you know how long it's been since I felt good about myself? All of myself? If I'm a different Buffy, vive la difference."
And who was she now, this new improved reconstructed Buffy? "If it disappeared tomorrow...the curse...would you..."
"Would you?"
There wasn't any good answer to that question, he realized, because it wasn't the curse holding them apart any longer, on either side. Buffy stroked his cheek. "I have to go now. I have to find..." Her head jerked up and her eyes went wide, and she turned towards the door as if pulled by a magnet. "Spike?"
The door exploded inwards with a crash, and sunlight flooded into the room.


When your day kicked off with a frantic five A.M. phone call from a vampire beginning, "Angel's kidnaped Buffy. Get your arse over here and give me a hand with a spot of torture," you were pretty much assured of a downhill slide from there. Xander leaned against the crypt wall, calculating exactly how many hours he could shave off his rapidly diminishing stock of leave time without cutting into his honeymoon. No contest between Niagara Falls and rescuing Buffy, but man, Anya was going to be pissed. "So why am I here again?"
"Because I got tired of recycling my quarters waiting for Giles to answer his bleeding phone." Spike was prowling back and forth across the crypt in game face, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, blue smoke trailing from the cigarette dangling from his lips. He came to a halt in front of the two men chained to the wall--the very same wall, probably the very same manacles, he'd used on Buffy last year and no, we are not detouring down that perverted little by-way. "You know, Harris here is non-combustible, so no point in stalling for sunrise, mates."
"You'll get sod all out of us, y' goat-buggering corpse," Weatherby croaked. He stood swaying in his bonds, all snarly and defiant despite darkening bruises and the runnels of clotted blood oozing from his broken nose. There were a couple of teeth on the floor of the crypt as well, but Xander honestly wasn't sure who they belonged to. Collins, unable to put weight on his broken ankle, sagged in his restraints. He kept making pitiful little kicked-hound whimpering noises, which Spike didn't seem to notice. The wailing of victims was probably the vampire equivalent of Muzak.
Xander'd never considered himself Mr. Sensitive; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been sick at the sight of blood. He'd watched steam rising from the savaged throats of fresh vampire kills on long cold January nights, kicked aside moldering skulls like stray beer cans searching through ancient tombs, and seen a Who's Who of demons dismembered in glorious Technicolor. He was down with the carnage, Vin Diesel cool. Dead bodies didn't bother him any longer.
Still-living bodies, those could still give him a twitch.
Spike drew the end of his cigarette to a cherry red, blew smoke in Weatherby's face, and then backhanded the Watcher viciously, holding back none of his strength. Weatherby's scream ended in a choked gurgle. "I don't ask a lot of life," Spike said. "Come home, have a bite and a nice snog, and sleep the sleep of the unjust. 'S reasonable, innit?" Another blow. "And if I can't have that..." He leaned closer. "Then I want to know where Angel's laired up." He removed the cigarette and contemplated it for a second. "And I've just had a happy thought: to get what I want, all I've got to leave intact is your tongue."
The glowing coal-end of the cigarette hovered an inch away from Weatherby's eye. Xander's stomach turned over. "Spike--"
"Don't be such a big girl's blouse, Harris." But the cigarette pulled back immediately, and Xander came to the not entirely comfortable realization that that was why Spike had insisted he be here. Xander Harris, Rent-A-Conscience, serving Sunnydale since 1997. Weatherby spat in Spike's face the moment his binocular vision was out of immediate danger, and the vampire snarled and punched him again. Bones made nasty soft crunching sounds. Weatherby keened through his splintered nose and went limp in his bonds, and Spike stepped back with an exclamation of disgust. "Sod it, he's passed out again."
Xander snorted. "Could that be because you just gave him, oh, his third concussion of the night? This isn't working."
Human again, Spike wiped his face off on Collins's shirttail and favored Xander with a sullen cobalt glare. "You think you can do a better job, be my guest."
"Nuh uh. New York abstains, courteously." Xander averted his eyes from the captives and retreated to the far end of the little series of caves, pulling Spike with him. "The hitting? Perhaps satisfying, but not working fast enough. If Willow were here she could do a truth spell." God, he wished Willow were here. Threatening violence was fine; heck, Buffy did it all the time. Throwing a few punches to back up the threats, also peachy. But at that point, the bad guys were supposed to break and spill their guts, eliminating the necessity of resorting to the messy stuff. Criminals were a superstitious and cowardly lot; it was in the contract.
"Yeh, well, she's not here, and Tara's not witch enough to bust through the Council's Jedi mind tricks--fuck, it took Angelus hours to soften Rupert up to the point Dru could get to him." Spike ceased his nervous pacing long enough to drive a fist into the wall in frustration. A shower of earth pattered to the floor. "And for the first time in my unlife, I regret to say I'm no Angelus."
Xander grimaced. "Well, I'm sure as hell no Dru."
Spike raked a hand through his hair, leaving streaks of gore in its wake--the gel had given up the ghost some hours ago and he was starting to look like a refugee from the undead version of Soul Train. "You're right," he said, nowise pleased about it. "We haven't time to wear 'em down properly. We need something that'd make 'em piss themselves even if we hadn't got 'em chained to a wall."
"Maybe we should try Giles again--see if he knows their deep dark secrets from their days at Eton," Xander suggested.
Spike snorted. "If that lot's public school, I'm a vegetarian. 'Sides, there's only one deep dark secret an Englishman's got from Eton, and I'm not in the mood to drop trou and exploit it. What's a Watcher afraid of, anyway? Ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties are all in a day's work."
"That's the trouble with fates worse than death, because most of them?" Xander yawned and rubbed the back of his head. "Aren't. Except..." He snapped his fingers. "Fate worse than death!" he repeated. "I'm looking at one!"
Spike vamped out, bared his fangs and crooked his fingers in an exaggerated pantomime. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Yes, Brain, but where are we going to get the complete score of the HMS Pinafore at this hour?"
That garnered him a blank look. Then, "Someone'll be singing soon enough," Spike replied cheerily, and bounded back into the main cavern. He ripped the remains of Weatherby's shirt away, leaving his neck and shoulders bare, then ran back to the washstand in the bedroom and returned with the pitcher. Spike dashed water across Weatherby's face and stood back.
The Watcher came to, coughing up blood and snot, and slurred, "Think you're smart...L.A. team'll come down here when we don'..."
"Shut yer gob, idiot!" Collins yelled, springing to sudden livid life. He licked his swollen lips and eyed Xander with loathing. "Working with one of them, are you? We made that mistake and look where it's got us. Think you can get away with this? You'll have the full wrath of the Council on your neck by midnight, both of you."
Spike grabbed Weatherby's chains and pulled him close. "Oooh, lovely, a lifetime supply of tweed-wrapped takeout! Tempting, but--" He sniffed Weatherby's naked shoulder with the air of a connoisseur, and the man shuddered and moaned, trying to twist away as far as his bonds allowed. "You'll be calling old Travers up in person and telling him you're safe as houses."
"Spike, no!" Xander clutched the vampire's shoulder and felt Spike's fractional wince as he put pressure on the wound. He pulled Spike away from Weatherby. "You can't do...that!"
"What, make 'em my undead minions, subject to my every whim cos I'm their sire and master and all? Watch me." Spike shrugged Xander off with minimal winciness, and faster than blinking his fangs were sunk into Weatherby's flesh at the angle where neck met shoulder. Crimson beads welled up around the roots of his canines. Weatherby stiffened and screamed, thin and high and terrible, jerking violently in Spike's grasp.
Bent over the Watcher's crumpled body, Spike's demonic countenance was in shadow, lantern-yellow eyes glowing beneath a halo of wild, blood- matted curls. A hair-raising snarl rolled through the confines of the crypt, and Xander's hands took off on a not-entirely-voluntary quest for the nearest sharp piece of wood. He gripped the ever-present stake in his coat pocket. Act. It's an act. Is it an act? "Spike, think about what you're doing--"
"I'm thinking of nothing but." Spike pulled back, long pale fingers splayed across Weatherby's cheek as he held the man's head in place, and whispered in his ear, intimate as a lover. "You can tell me what I want to know now, or you can tell me later. Every secret the Council's entrusted you with, you'll spill, and glad to do it. And then I'll let you go. Back home to meet your mates, and won't that be a party? Me, I went for the mass slaughter, but you strike me as the type to pick 'em off one at a time, slow and careful. You got a wife, mate? Kiddies? You won't have 'em long." He laughed and ran his tongue along the wire-taut cords of Weatherby's neck. "Or maybe you will. Never saw the use of siring brats myself, but I hear some fancy it."
Weatherby's harsh panting breath faltered into a mindless whine and Collins's white-hot loathing could have incinerated both of them on the spot. "By the time we'd rise your Slayer whore will be long gone and our own people will know--urk!"
"If you want the comfort of being able to scream," Spike's hand was at his neck in an instant, fingers digging into the larynx, "You'll not speak of my lady like that. And as for time--there's ways to speed these things up." He grinned. "Sounds like the most fun I've had in years."
"I can't let you do this, Spike!" Xander yelled, hoping to hell that all this was still part of the act. He lunged forward, stake held high, and while he was still suspended in Matrix slo-mo, Spike turned, smiled indulgently, dropped Collins, grabbed Xander's wrist and twisted, hard. Pain lanced up his arm and the stake went flying. Wrist not broken, ergo, all part of act. Xander tumbled to the floor, trying to look injured--and to find the stake again, just in case.
The hope which had surfaced briefly in Collins's eyes foundered and sank into a mire of despair. "Damn you," he sobbed.
Spike melted back into human form and patted Collins's cheek with a smile that would have done Lucifer proud. "Already taken care of, mate. Now where's Angel, which flight were you supposed to take out, and what's this about an L.A. team?"
Ten minutes later they were pounding across the street behind Restfield cemetery to Spike's car, Spike's blanket flapping madly as they dodged tombstones in the slanting white light of early morning. Xander fumbled with the keys to the padlock on the gate of the impound lot while Spike vaulted the fence, barbed wire and all, and landed with a curse on the other side, clutching one hand to his ribs. The vampire staggered to his feet and tumbled into the driver's seat of the DeSoto in a cloud of acrid smoke, gunned the engine and threw it into reverse. Xander hauled the gate open in a screech of protesting chain-link and flung himself into the passenger seat. They tore out of the lot in a screech of burning rubber, leaving the gate askew behind them. He sank back against the ancient black leather upholstery and gave up a small prayer to the gods of the California highways. "Shit. What if Angel was lying to them about the motel he was in?"
"Then we'll stake out the airport. I get close enough, I'll feel her." Spike squinted into what little sunlight made it through the blacked-out windshield and hunched over the steering wheel, lips moving silently--what did vampires pray to? The dark cotton of his T-shirt looked wet and shiny where it stretched over his ribs; the fence-jumping must have torn the healing wound open again. "Get my goggles out of the glove compartment, Harris, I'm half-blind here."
"And does this actually make any difference in your driving skills?" A rummage through the wilds of the glove compartment turned up the welder's goggles and Xander handed them over. He immediately regretted it as Spike resorted to steering with his knees while he got them adjusted. "Think Angel's evil again? Maybe the First got to him too?"
"Hang about, hadn't thought of that." Spike considered this worrisome possibility for a moment. "Nah, Angelus would've had more fun beating me up. Most like he's just being more of a prat than usual." He laid into the horn and swerved across the yellow line to pass an arthritic VW Beetle. "Out of the way, you sodding tortoise!"
Xander watched indistinct shapes whiz by outside the darkened windows. "'There's ways to speed these things up?' What, Redi-Gro for vamps?"
"Well, why not?" Spike asked, offended. "Master vampire here. I could have powers!"
"Ex-master vampire."
"Oh, right, rub it in."
"So if he hadn't...would you have tried really... you know... sucking on that guy?"
Spike rolled his eyes. "I was biting his trapezius muscle, you git. You want to drain someone properly, you've got to get your fangs into the jugular. And no. Promised Buffy I'd never drink from anyone who wasn't willing."
"So--you'll suck, but you won't swallow?"
Spike spun the steering wheel through a one-handed 180 and the DeSoto slewed across traffic and bounced into the potholed parking lot of the motel. Gravel sprayed as he hit the brakes. Xander caught a glimpse of Angel's convertible through the tiny clear portion of the windshield, parked in a straggling row of vehicles near the manager's office. Spike flung his blanket over his shoulders, smirked across at Xander and made a smoochy face. "Wouldn't you like to know."


Buffy hauled Angel across the bed and out of the rays of incoming sunlight as two smoke-wreathed figures hurtled through the door. The tiny room filled with the ever-so-attractive fragrance of burnt vampire, and a second later, the smoke alarm affixed to the wall over the TV set went off with a shrill WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE! With the infinite resource and sagacity characteristic of Slayers, not to mention the lightning reflexes, Buffy snatched up the half-full can of Diet Coke and flung its contents at Spike, extinguishing the crown of tiny blue flames which had started to lick at the tips of his hair. The smoke thinned slightly, but the alarm continued to wail until Xander, with the presence of mind demanded of anyone with highly combustible acquaintances, yanked it off the wall and pulled the battery out.
Spike, singed, blood-streaked, and dripping with NutraSweet, flowed across the room like a hunting cougar and bared his fangs at Angel--not the challenge of an interloper, but a reminder that they were on his territory this time. Angel's jaw clenched and his own eyes flickered gold. Buffy stepped between them and gave herself up to a dizzy grin of pride and relief--of course he'd escaped the Watchers. "Spike!"
At the sound of her voice Spike was human again in an instant. Blue eyes raked her up and down for signs of injury or coercion, and then he broke into a radiant grin of his own, enveloping her in a sooty embrace and pulling her half off her feet (and not incidentally, out of Angel's reach). "Just coming to save you, pet."
"Don't--mmm--need saving." Such a relief, the way suppressed anger and frustration drained away at his touch, as though his cool solid body were some kind of emotional heatsink. Urge to kill falling... The long muscles of his back twitched beneath her fingers, and Buffy became aware that his shoulder was cold and damp against her cheek. "Besides, I was just coming to save you." She raised one hand to examine the damp spot; her fingertips came away smeared with red, and she shook them accusingly under his nose. "How badly are you hurt? Are the people who did this still on the loose?" Worried, she ran a hand down his abdomen. "Here too?" Urge to kill rising...
"Won't say I didn't think about eating 'em, just a little bit, but they're chained up back at the crypt." Xander nodded confirmation, and Buffy quashed an infantile desire to say so there! to Angel. She went virtuously back to assessing the seriousness of Spike's wounds instead. Spike glanced down at himself, dismissing the damage with a shrug. "'S nothing, love. Don't need saving either." He winced a little at her exploratory touch. "Though I might let Niblet get out the instruments of torture and check for splinters later."
Buffy tugged the lapels of his coat, which still smelled of reservoir water and duckweed, and whispered, "Sure I can't make it better?"
Spike buried his face in the curve of her shoulder and inhaled, dropping into that deep dark-chocolate shag-me-now rumble that set her bones humming. "Oh, yeh. Buffy makes everything better." He bent and licked the streak of blood from her cheek with a tender little growl.
Xander pulled a small, peeling roll of lozenges from a back pocket and offered it to Angel. "Tums? I keep them for just such occasions."
Reminded of his grandsire's presence, Spike's growl got deeper and considerably less affectionate. Angel's only response was a small bored sigh, which did nothing to improve Spike's temper. Buffy cautioned, "William..." and the growl subsided to a grumble. "It's all right. There's been a misunderstanding, and it's over." She sent a meaningful look in Angel's direction. "Isn't it?"
Angel's dark eyes bored into hers, intense and unwavering. After a long moment, he shook his head. "No, it's not. I want to help you, Buffy--"
"Giles needs it more," Xander broke in, shifting impatiently from foot to foot. "Helping, that is. Spike and I were just having a heart- to-heart with some of the G-man's esteemed former colleagues, and they happened to mention that they're not the only Watchers watching. Seems that while Angel was busy double-crossing Travers, Travers was busy double-crossing him."
Yay, Buffy thought, real trouble to distract from the latest episode of The Young and The Lifeless! Angel frowned. "I expected he'd try something after--what's he done?"
Xander shrugged. "Basically? This whole thing with capturing Buffy is a big fat red herring. Travers agreed to your kidnaping scheme because he knew it had a good chance of getting you out of L.A. There's a second team there now--they went after Faith the moment Travers was certain Deadboy Senior here was out of town. According to Collins they were supposed to play along with Angel and keep him occupied for a couple of days. If they managed to capture Buffy or capture or stake Spike, bonus. If they didn't, no big. Getting to Faith was the important thing." He looked a little ill. "Collins wasn't sure, but he thinks they're going to try to kill her and call a new Slayer."
Angel's face remained expressionless, but his eyes went from startled to Crush, Kill, Destroy. If anything could divert Angel's attention from her, it was Faith, and no, not bitter at all, why do you ask? Strategy Girl strikes again. "You should go," Buffy said firmly. "Faith's a sitting duck in prison."
"Damn it," Angel snarled. "I should have known. They had a third partner when they went after Faith last time."
Spike looked grim. "That would be a bloke name of Smith. Remember I asked what you planned to do about Rupert? Smith's here in Sunnydale, taking care of the Council's other loose end. I tried to get hold of Rupes for half an hour this morning before falling back on Harris, and no joy. I thought he'd just turned his ringer off, but--"
"Right. Giles may be reclaiming his place in the Guinness Book of World Records for Most Times Conked On The Head as we speak." Buffy glanced down at her bare feet, out at the inimical expanse of parking lot, grimaced, and started out the door. Spike touched her shoulder, and when she looked up, produced from his duster pocket her left boot, somewhat the worse for wear. "Glass slipper it's not, pet, but--"
She wasn't going to get all misty over a damp boot. Much. "You are nonetheless my hero. These are, like, my third-favorite pair of boots. Which might be more impressive if I owned more than three pair right now, but still. Come on, I can put them on in the car. Shotgun!"
Angel stripped the blanket off the bed and all four of them made a mad dash for the DeSoto. If there was anything in the world that smelled worse in the confines of a closed car than one slightly scorched vampire, it was two slightly scorched vampires. "Giles first," Buffy said, slamming the door behind her and shifting over to the middle of the front seat. If there was one thing that last twelve hours had done, it was banish any residual guilt over Spike-cosying in Angel's presence. "If he's OK, then Angel can head back to L.A. right away." She laid a possessive hand on Spike's thigh and felt the muscles bunch as he punched the car into gear and shoved the gas pedal halfway to China. Eight cylinders of environmentally unsound horsepower roared to life and the DeSoto peeled out of the lot in a cloud of exhaust.
"Minor problem. I take the radical step of driving a car that's not a moving violation in and of itself." Angel rapped on one darkened window with a knuckle. "I won't be able to leave till sunset."
"Git," Spike muttered. "If there's anything stupider than a vampire in a convertible...."
Angel raised an eyebrow. "It's a vampire on a motorcycle?"
"If you want to be a vampire on foot, keep talking."
"Shut up, both of you." Buffy glared from front seat to back. "Angel can borrow this car."
Spike sat bolt upright, taking maximum advantage of the few inches' difference in their seated heights. "He bloody well cannot!" Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Oh, bugger, all right, for Christmas and bloody puppies." He rounded on Angel, with terrifying disregard for oncoming traffic. "But you bring it back with a full tank, super high octane, mind, not that horse piss that makes the engine bang like happy hour at a whorehouse. And get it washed while you're at it. I don't want to get it back with bugs all over the grill."
Angel smiled tightly. "How about I just strap your skinny carcass to the grill as a hood ornament and let the smoke from your smoldering remains keep the bugs away?"
Xander sat back, laced his hands behind his head, and looked from one snarling vampire to the other. He raised pious eyes to the ceiling of the car and intoned, "Thank you, Santa, but when I said I wanted Spike and Angel locked in a closet together, there was this tacit agreement that I'd be elsewhere when it happened."
Buffy was positive that the Hellmouth situation was affecting time as well as the good/evil thing, because surely it had never taken so long to drive across town before, especially with Spike at the wheel. She managed to avert major bloodshed by insisting upon a detailed recounting of exactly what Collins and Weatherby had said from Spike and Xander, and a full report on Travers's plans from Angel by way of comparison. The DeSoto lurched to a stop in front of Giles's place shortly before nine by Xander's watch, and Spike was out of the car and dashing for the shelter of Giles's porch almost before Buffy was. Angel followed hard on his heels, apparently unwilling to let Spike outdo him in anything, even sun- related idiocy. The vampires crowded into the thin line of shade along the front window while Buffy, with Xander at her back, hammered on the rust-colored Mission-style front door. "There's three people inside," Angel said, his ear pressed to the glass.
"That's one too many." Buffy stepped back, fully prepared to kick the door in, when it swung open to reveal Giles. He was sans glasses and looked slightly harried, but most definitely conscious. "Giles!" she cried, pouncing him and giving him a rib-cracking hug. "You're not dead!"
"Buffy!" he exclaimed. "Likewise. I was beginning to worry--I've been trying to contact you all morning, and Tara said you hadn't returned home last night--"
"Long story," Buffy squeezed past him into the foyer, and the other three trailed in after her in a mutual stew of manly bristling and suspicious looks. "There were rogue Watchers, there was bloodshed, there was narrowly-averted lossage of really cute shoes. All this in addition to patrol, Willow-hunting, and a lesson in the correct methods of skinning giant armor-plated slugs. Is everything all right?" She lowered her voice. "We know there's a third person in here, and we couldn't get through on the phone--"
"Lines cut, I'm afraid. I've been using the pay phone in the rental office." Giles looked irritated for a moment. "Why in this day and age they wouldn't have assumed I had a cell phone and foregone the property damage--"
"Possibly because you still think the electric light bulb is a new- fangled luxury item?" Buffy peered past him into the living room, still a disaster area of half-packed boxes and precarious towers of books. "The Council sent the goon squad a little earlier than anticipated. Spike caught two of them, but according to them, there's a third one loose here. He's supposed to take you back to England for the Winston Smith treatment or something. But the main action is another team of three in L.A. trying to make Faith no longer a bottleneck in the calling of shiny new Slayers."
"Ah yes, Mr. Smith. We've met." Giles stepped aside and waved an arm at the couch. Slumped in the middle of a heap of disarranged cushions was an nondescript man, lean and slightly balding, dressed in dark Nikes, trousers, long-sleeved shirt, and stocking cap--either a Council wetworks specialist, or an elderly Goth with chilly ears. He was rocking slowly back and forth, staring up at the ceiling and blowing spit bubbles.
"Whoa," said Xander. "Danger, Will Robinson!"
"Ew." Buffy looked back at Giles. Given Giles's history, she wasn't really sure she wanted to know, but... "What did you do? Were there evil tattoos involved?"
Giles gave her a thin smile and retrieved his morning teacup. "I? Nothing. My houseguest, on the other hand..."
Daniel Tanner was sitting at the dining table in front of an untouched bowl of progressively soggier Weetabix. His head was buried in his hands, and when he looked up, his eyes were heartsick, far worse off than the unhappy Mr. Smith. "I didn't mean to," he whispered. "He--he attacked me, I just reacted--"
"Yes, and admirably quickly, too." Giles took a sip of tea. "The ingenious Mr. Smith effected an entry to the house through my bedroom window. Unfortunately for him, I had remained up late researching, and told Mr. Tanner he might as well use my bed. Mr. Smith mistook Mr. Tanner for me, and Mr. Tanner defended himself in his own inimitable--thank God-- manner." He gazed thoughtfully at the man on the couch. "I'm informed that this is the version of the spell which wears off in time, so in a few hours we can question him. We've been granted a stroke of luck here; we've captured the entire team before any of them had a chance to report back to Travers."
Buffy sagged against the stairwell. Finding Giles alive and well released an inner tension she hadn't realized was holding her up, and four hours of drugged sleep in a lumpy, Spike-deficient bed wasn't cutting it. "OK. Angel, take the DeSoto and get on the road to L.A. right now. They won't be expecting you. Check in on Faith and--" She stopped and drew a breath. "Sorry. Your town, your rules. Whatever you think'll work. Just let us know what the sitch is there as soon as possible."
Spike took the keys from his duster pocket as if he was giving up his liver and held them out to Angel. "If I find one scratch on that car when you bring it back--"
"Not in the mood, Spike," Angel growled. His eyes lingered on Buffy's face, as open as she'd ever seen them, full of hope and anguish and resignation.
She had to say something. "I'll walk you to the car."
It was more of a sprint than a walk; Angel ducked into the shadows of the DeSoto's interior and stared at the dash for a moment to familiarize himself with the equipment. "I'll bring it back tonight if I can," he said, poking at various knobs and dials and wrinkling his nose at the overflowing ashtray. He reached into a trouser pocket and pulled out his wallet, peeled off a few twenties and the keys to his car and handed them over. "Could you pay the motel for my room and make sure my car doesn't get towed?"
"Sure. No problem." She knew lots of words. Sometimes she could even arrange them into sentences. Some of them had to be the right thing to say at a time like this. "We can drive the car over to my place if you want; Spike's probably going to be there tonight, so--"
"Buffy..."
She gripped the edge of the car door. "Angel, I can trust you from now on, right? Not to pull this bullshit on me? Sunnydale's still my town. You can tell me I'm making the biggest mistake of my life, you can join Xander's We Hate Spike Club and be treasurer--whatever. But if you put Spike in danger again--"
Angel's hands tightened on the wheel. "Yeah? My last sight of Spike leaving the crypt was him standing over the unconscious body of one Watcher, about to tear the throat out of the other. Some danger."
"And you left?" Buffy asked--voice perfectly flat, because she was Calm, Reasonable, Mature Buffy, who didn't get into screaming matches with her vampire ex any longer. Calm, Reasonable, Mature Buffy was leaving finger-sized dents in the metal of the car door. She wanted him to understand, even if he couldn't approve. She wanted world peace and a pony while she was at it. "Listen, Angel. Get this. Spike is very important to me. If you'd let Spike die, I would happily send you back to hell. My job--my real job--is even more important to me. If you'd let Spike kill a human, I'd make you look back on hell as a fond memory."
His lips took on a bitter twist. "If you're right about him, there was nothing to worry about."
"And if I'd been wrong you'd have let a man die to prove a point?
God, Angel!" Buffy rubbed her forehead. "Saving me? For the thought, thanks. For the execution, not so much." He'd gone paler than usual, as if something she'd said had touched a hidden nerve. "We can't help it, can we? Hurting each other. It's just something that happens when we get close enough, like gravity."
He flinched. Just like that. "What I said earlier..."
"Don't say you didn't mean it."
Angel sighed. "Which part? No, I meant all of it. I do want to elp you, but I can see that forcing it won't work. Just...remember I'm here if you need me. I've been darker places than you can imagine, and I know what it takes to walk out of them. It's a hell of a lot harder to go uphill than down."
"That's...I'll remember." She could get mad again, or try logic. But somehow it didn't feel as if either option would make the situation any better. Maybe she'd just go home and make hot nasty vampire love with Spike instead. With handcuffs, and candles, and illicit borrowing of the strap-on Tara thought no one knew she had stashed under the laundry hamper, and...and letting him smoke in the house! Yeah! I'm bad, baby! "If I do need help, I'll call. Promise." On impulse she leaned down and kissed his cheek. "Don't save me, Angel. Save yourself."
He didn't respond. Buffy stepped back onto the curb and watched him, a lone blanket-draped figure hiding from the bright sunshine, and then the blackened window rolled up, erasing him from sight. Buffy walked back to the porch, where Spike was lounging against the doorframe, watching. Buffy took his arm and they went inside. A minute later the DeSoto's engine turned over, and the hulking black sedan pulled away from the curb.
Xander shook his head. "Now that guy," he said, "Knows how to make an exit."
"Pity he doesn't make them sooner," Spike muttered, watching out the window as his baby's taillights disappeared into the distance.
Buffy punched him lightly in the arm. "Let's get you home and patched up before you bleed all over something valuable. We need to figure out what to do with the Watcher's Local 201, but I'd like to be less brain-dead when I do it." She looked up at Spike, studying his face. "You do know you don't need to be jealous, don't you?"
Spike rubbed his biceps, a glint of laughter in his eyes. "I figured that one out when he tried stealing you." He slipped his good arm around her shoulders and whispered, "You feel the need to take out some frustration by pounding on something vampire-shaped, love, I'm fit enough for a sparring match."
Had love always been curled inside her, waiting through the chill of heart's winter for the proper spring in which to unfold and blossom, or had she, as Angel feared, built it piecemeal out of wire and tissue paper, desperate to feel something? She couldn't have imagined this weird, wonderful, terrifying feeling into existence. She didn't have that much imagination. "No," she whispered back, "Buffy and edged weapons, bad combo right now." She bumped her hip against his with a demure smile, reaching down and digging her fingers into the firm muscle of his ass. "But having something vampire-shaped pound on me? Very cathartic."

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