The roar of the motorcycle's engine reverberated through the endless tunnels of stone. Her body pressed tightly against his back, the only spot of life in the stygian darkness, warming him even through the leather. Warmth, but no softness was left in her; she was slim and hard and deadly, the strength of her arms wrapped round his waist like steel. Terribly strong, and terribly fragile. He wanted to turn around and hold her in return, but they weren't out of the tunnel yet, and looking back would ruin everything. He kept his eyes fixed on the stony floor of the cavern as they rode along, weaving in and out between forests of stalagmites. How long had it been? He couldn't remember, and he was getting hungry.
"We could stop for a bite, love!" he shouted, but she couldn't hear him over the engine noise. But then, he knew she didn't want him to bite, so maybe she was just ignoring him. Demonic fury boiled up in his breast and he felt his face shifting, but there was no one but himself to fight.
She sobbed against him. She only cried when there was no one to see. His anger evaporated, and he pointed ahead, to where pale light blossomed at the end of the tunnel. "Look, love, there's the end. We'll be outside soon."
Her silent, awful weeping continued, and he knew with sinking certainty that it was the prospect of escape that tormented her. And he knew what he had to do. He twisted in the seat in one of those contortions possible only in dreams. He had one glimpse of her face, of the quiet, terrible sorrow in her eyes transmuting to relief and peace, before his fangs met in her neck and she faded away into nothing, disappearing like mist in sunlight.
Thump.
Spike jolted awake, the dream shredding as the waking world intruded on his senses. He lay motionless beneath the blankets, locked in place by a tension as deep and cold as permafrost, and wished his heart could still pound, just for the relief of feeling it slow again. He forced himself to draw a deep breath and relax, muscle by muscle. After a moment he rolled over and peered over the side of the bed. The haphazard pile of books and magazines accumulated there had collapsed of its own weight again, precipitating a minor paper-slide. He regarded the mess, then sighed and tossed the fallen volumes back on the heap. He should shovel it all back onto the bookshelf, though it was hard to see the point since the whole lot would inevitably migrate back again within a week.
He lay back and folded his arms behind his head, frowning up at the canopy overhead. If he had to dream about the Slayer, couldn't his subconscious have obliged with something more entertaining than this half-arsed testament to an obsolete classical education? Spike threw off the covers with a low, irritated growl and got up. His internal clock informed him that it was approaching four in the afternoon. Bugger. He'd overslept and missed Passions. He flipped on the light to dress--habit, nothing more, since he could see perfectly well in the pitch darkness--and wrestle his hair into some sort of order.
Part of the dream had been straightforward enough. His stomach rumbled as he climbed the stairs to the upper level of the crypt, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the late afternoon light. He ambled over to the fridge and surveyed the contents: A few swallows of pig's blood in a styrofoam take-out cup, the bagged blood he'd obtained last night, a half-empty bottle of black olives, and a scraped-dry jar of crunchy peanut butter. There was Weetabix on top of the fridge, but when he tilted the box it contained only a thin layer of crumbs at the bottom. Time for a grocery run, then. He felt around in the pockets of his jeans and came up with a grand total of twelve dollars and fifty-three cents. That might cover a pack of fags and a pint or two, but just barely.
"Spike, old mate, a spot of dishonest toil looks to be in order." He considered his options. He could go down to the Bronze and hustle pool, or better yet over to one of the bars near the UC Sunnydale campus--too many people knew him at the Bronze, and marks were getting harder to come by. Or he could just lift a few wallets, though the chip made that risky if he got caught. Or he could try heading over to Buffy's place and cadging breakfast there--he ended up at the Summers' residence often enough these days that Dawn had added pig's blood to their regular shopping list... but somehow after last night that had a riskier feel to it than unarmed robbery. "Or you could just drink your brekky and stop whinging. There's an idea." He pulled out one of the bags of blood and the old ‘Kiss the Librarian' coffee mug he'd acquired from Giles, and started to bite off the corner.
And hesitated, plastic between his teeth. Buffy wouldn't like you doing that. Amber flecks coalesced in his eyes and dissolved again. After a moment he growled softly, bit down and tugged. "Sod what Buffy likes." And stopped. Pull the other one, you great nance. You know bloody well you're going to roll over and do whatever she wants you to in the end, so why not just hand her your balls on a platter right now and be done with it?
He set the bag down on top of the refrigerator and glared at it as if it were the author of his troubles. "Right, and what did she ask you to do, exactly? Take the blood back so the shop wouldn't have to pay for it. Moot point now, innit? Drink up." He picked the bag up. Set it down again. Clasped both hands behind his back and began pacing restlessly. But you know bleeding well what she meant. Of course he did. "Never enough for her, is it? Can't kill, can't feed, gotten so pathetically attached to a sodding lot of humans that you're beginning not to want to, and she still wants more?" Spike came to a halt, shoulders tensed, then whirled and pounced. He grabbed the bag in both hands and sank his teeth directly into it with a feral snarl. Squoosh . His teeth didn't puncture the plastic.
He'd forgotten to shift into game face.
"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGHH!" Spike slammed the bag back down on the fridge. He grabbed the coffee mug and with grim deliberation slit the corner of the blood bag and poured it in. He stalked over to the nearest chair, flung himself down, and took a defiant swallow. Oh, yeeeesss. Rich. Savory. Life itself. Infinitely better than pig's blood.
Still... it would've been better with Weetabix to go with.
And it was ice cold, and tainted with the medicinal tang of anticoagulants. Couldn't compare to what it tasted like pumping warm and fresh from a still-living throat, and Spike had long since accepted that he was never going to taste that particular flavor of bliss again, even if, someday, the damned chip finally wore out. He set the mug down, lit a cigarette, and took a contemplative drag. Would it, really, be that much of a hardship to give up this occasional treat if it would make her...
"Not. One. More. Word." He took another swallow and glared into the mug, daring it to talk back. Buffy'd never asked him to make any of the changes he'd gone through in the last year. For most of the time they'd known one another, she'd been adamant that he couldn't change. In a strange way last night indicated she'd accepted that he had. That he could. And that... that was both exhilarating and terrifying. Easy enough to follow the path the chip in his skull prodded him down, and convince himself he had no choice. To keep following that path of his own volition...
To his vast relief, someone started pounding on the door of the crypt.

Xander stood in the long shadows outside the crypt, listening to the echoes of his door-pounding die away inside the crypt and fidgeting. Bad idea, coming here. It was just that all his other ideas were worse. It had been almost a month since he'd exchanged more than a cursory word on patrol with Spike, and he was feeling distinctly awkward. He ran over what he was going to say in his head for the dozenth time. Not apologizing. Definitely not. Nothing to apologize for, and who apologized to demons who conned your best friend into raising your other best friend from the dead anyhow? Spike ought to be apologizing to them, damn it! Especially Buffy! Oh, wait, he already had. Damn.
He could hear intermittent snatches of conversation from within the crypt, no words, just the low, accented rasp of Spike's voice. He pounded on the door again. He had just about decided that the lack of response meant that Spike really did have other company when the wrought-iron door flew open with a bang. Spike's pale face appeared, sporting a ferocious scowl and a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his lower lip. He looked thoroughly pissed off. No shock there; pissed off was Spike's ground state. "Oh, it's you, is it? What the bloody hell's wrong with you, knocking instead of barging in like you own the place?" the vampire snarled.
"Because barging in on you usually results in seared eyeballs. I heard voices. Or rather, voice. Harmony back, or are you practicing pick-up lines on another robot?"
Spike affected boredom. "Long walk, short pier, Alexander Harris. Mix well."
"Ooh, tetchy." Xander peered over the vampire's shoulder. He hadn't been to the crypt in almost a month, and in the blue shadows of late afternoon the interior looked different. The big marble sarcophagus still loomed at the end of the room, and the old black and white television and the mini-fridge were familiar, but the ratty overstuffed armchair and attendant packing crates had given way to a scattering of less dilapidated chairs, chests and low tables. Over the summer Spike had taken the fit to 'stop living like a bloody anchorite' and had flung himself into dragging home all manner of scavenged furniture and appliances. Xander had actually helped him move some of the larger pieces in downstairs, but since Buffy's return... "At times like this I find it helpful to break out the sock puppets. Then you merely look geeky rather than insane."
"Well, yeh, if that's your goal I'd say you've succeeded admirably." He glanced down at the bag in Xander's hand, nostrils twitching. "What do you want?"
"Who says want? I just happened to be in the neighborhood..." Spike looked at him. Not buying it. Xander hunched his shoulders. This was going to be hell. "Look, right after Buffy came back, I was... Things got said... not that they weren't perfectly justified things, but..." Xander grit his teeth and forced himself to continue, "If Buffy can... then I guess I... Sanctuary?"
A demon of mirth flickered to life in Spike's eyes and the corners of his mouth acquired a wicked curl. "Let me guess. The demon bird's got some less than manly wedding-related activity on the schedule."
Xander passed his free hand over his eyes and groaned. "She wants me to look at flower arrangements.”
"Squealing in girlish glee at the prospect, no doubt.”
“There was some vocalization in the ultrasonic, yeah. So I told her I’d love to, but I’d already made plans."
“Ahhhh. Let me further guess: none of your mates from work are available?"
Xander feigned deep interest in the weeds growing along the edge of the doorway and kicked at the doorpost of the crypt. "Fishing trip." At Spike's raised eyebrow he clarified, "I don't deal well with bait. Besides, I do the Blair Witch thing on a daily basis. Who needs to travel to the piney woods for creepy near-death experiences when I can stroll over to your place?"
Spike took a drag on his cigarette and flicked ash in Xander's general direction. "And therefore you're thrown back on the company of the soul-challenged bloke you swore you were never going to speak to again?"
Xander heaved a resigned sigh. "It's that or go visit my parents. And frankly, given a choice between a bloodsucking creature of the night and my family..." He made an ‘eh' gesture with his free hand. "It's a close call."
Spike folded his arms and leaned against the doorway. "Care to explain why exactly I ought to take pity on you, me bein' evil and all?"
Xander held up the paper bag and waggled it. Sauce was beginning to soak through the bottom. "I brought wings."
The vampire cocked his head to one side, obviously enjoying Xander's discomfiture, and allowed the wicked quirk of his lips to blossom into a full-blown smirk. "Well, why didn't you say so? Lassie come home, all is forgiven."
Xander followed him inside and kicked the door shut behind him. "I still hate you, y'know."
"Right, I'll keep it in mind. Did they come with those little carrot things?"
"It's not that I don't love her to pieces," Xander said, setting the bag of wings down on the nearest table and flopping into an adjacent chair. Spike made the noise which meant he was pretending to be interested and produced a bowl from somewhere to put the carrot sticks in. "I mean, I'm marrying her, right? But she drives me absolutely insane sometimes. Normally Anya’s up front about everything--that’s one reason I love her, right? No guessing games. But for some reason this whole wedding thing has turned her into a space alien. I know if I hang around and let her turn the puppy eyes on me I'll end up spending the whole evening debating the merits of the Spring Mist Arrangement over the Daffodil Rhapsody. If I don’t venture an opinion she’ll get hurt because I don’t care about the flowers, and if I do venture an opinion she’ll get upset because we don’t agree on the flowers. I'm convinced that come the wedding I'm going to enter a fugue state about the same time I enter the church and will remember nothing anyway, so what do I care what the flowers look like? It would make life so much easier if she’d just say ‘Here, Xander, this is what I want. Do it now,’ instead of expecting me to agonize over something I really don't give a hoot about."
Spike collapsed in the chair opposite and picked up his mug of blood. He looked ruefully at it for a moment, set it down and went over to the refrigerator. He returned with a styrofoam container full of what was, to all appearances, identical blood, and dipped a carrot stick into it. "Bearing in mind that I'll torture you to death with a barbecue fork if you repeat this... Harris, minus the flowers, I know exactly how you feel."

"School newspaper?" Buffy asked.
Willow scrunched down in her seat and hugged her notebook to her chest. The waiting room couch made a loud obnoxious squeaking noise every time either of them moved. "I panicked." She shot an anxious glance at the door through which the secretary (whose desk nameplate proclaimed her Mrs. Finster) had disappeared. "There is a college newspaper. The Sun. Which, you know, makes sense in Sunnydale. And I did think about taking some journalism classes once." She expected Buffy to make a smart remark at that, but Buffy only nodded, and after a brief moment of inspecting her nails, went back to looking at the spot on the far wall which housed the ‘Scenic Views of the Rockies' calendar. Whether or not she noticed the calendar itself was subject to debate.
She was a million miles away again, her eyes grave and distant, staring into eternity as if it were the face of an old friend. Willow tried to keep the dismay out of her own expression. She'd been so... so Buffy this morning, and at lunch, but some time in the intervening hours while Willow was off at her afternoon classes it had all disappeared. It had been a big mistake, bringing her here, Willow decided. Hospitals gave Buffy the wiggins under the best of circumstances. And who could blame her? It was all linoleum floors waxed to a scary degree of gloss, and tubes and bedpans and machines that went ping. Even here in the administrative offices the smell of antiseptic and illness underscored every breath they took. With all that had happened in the last year, her mother's death, the plague of crazy people, Ben's betrayal... the whole medical profession was probably on the permanent blacklist for the Buffy Fun Club. The sooner they got out of here the better.
The door across the office opened and Mrs. Finster returned with a folder full of printouts. She trotted over to her desk, fussing with her frizzed hair--she reminded Willow of an elderly and slightly overweight poodle--and spread them out, examining them with a critical eye. "I think this may be the kind of thing you'd find useful for your article. You understand that I can't give you any individual patient information, dearie--that's confidential."
Willow nodded vigorously. "Oh, I know. We're just looking for general trends, you know, how the stresses of modern life affect mental health and, um, healthlessness. Anything you can give us will be just spiffy."
"Are they still here?" Buffy asked abruptly.
Mrs. Finster's severely plucked brows fluttered upwards. "Who?"
"The people in those files. The..." She stopped, clasping her hands together tightly--fearful, perhaps, that they'd escape her. "My mother was... she stayed here for several weeks last winter. There was a whole ward then, of people who'd just... lost it. Are they still here? Can we see them? Talk to them?"
"Oh, heavens, no, we're not a long-term care facility, dearie.” Buffy gave her that look of special loathing reserved for total strangers who call you dearie, but Mrs. Finster chose not to notice. “We can't afford to tie up that number of beds. The only reason we had all of them as long as we did was because the CDC was investigating, trying to determine the cause of the outbreak... though they never found anything, so you can't really call it an outbreak, now... most of them were released to the custody of their families, or..." She cleared her throat delicately. "You might want to contact the Social Services people, or perhaps the county hospital--they usually deal with indigent cases."
"You mean they just got... kicked out?"
Mrs. Finster's sweet rosy mouth pursed and she looked quite fearsome for a moment. "Certainly not. I don't know what rumors you've heard, but I can assure you that all of them went through normal checkout procedures. I'm afraid that if you want to discuss the incident last winter you'll have to speak to our lawyers."
"Lawyers?" Buffy looked blank. Willow rose hurriedly to her feet, causing the couch to emit a mournful plasticine screech, and scooped up the folder from Mrs, Finster's desk before she could change her mind.
"That won't be necessary, sorry to take so much of your time, c'mon, Buffy, time to go stop the presses and put the ol' issue to bed!" She took Buffy's arm and all but dragged her out of the woman's office. Buffy shook her off the moment they were out the door and stood in the middle of the hall, rubbing her arm. Willow tried to catch her eye. "Buff, think about it. They had a dozen physically healthy patients die in one swell foop when that Quellor demon got them, and then a month or two later another couple dozen just up and disappear, and plus the one the Knights of Byzantium broke out under their noses. There's probably half a dozen malpractice lawsuits pending against them right this minute. We know they went to go help Glory build her giant diving board, but I bet the hospital's board of directors wouldn't be jumping with joy even if they did know what really happened. They're going to be really, really testy if we get too nosey-Parker."
Buffy said nothing, standing there in the sterile white corridor with that little half-frown on her face--trying to remember what planet she was on on Fridays. Willow felt an overwhelming sense of frustration. It had all been so good this morning... "Buffy?"
"Hmm? Oh. You're right, I didn't think..." She looked around and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "We should go," she said, and then, so softly Willow could scarcely catch the words, "I hate this place..." She started off down the hallway and Willow hurried after her, trying to stuff the folder into her notebook without dropping its contents all over the floor.
She caught up with Buffy at the elevator, and looked from her to the lighted button on the wall. Buffy looked up at her approach and for a moment was there again, her eyes big and urgent. "Can you fix them?"
Willow glanced at the elevator buttons. "I think it just takes awhile for the car to get here--"
"No... the crazies. You fixed Tara. Could you do it for the others?"
"Sure." The reassurance was an automatic thing, spoken without thought--of course she could fix them. Memory of the spell she'd lost control of earlier nibbled at the edges of her confidence, and Willow pushed it aside. "I mean... probably. Depending." Painfully aware that she sounded nervous and feeble, Willow tried another tack. "The thing is, Glory's not around any more, and--"
The elevator binged at them and the doors slid ponderously apart. The two of them got on and Willow pressed the ‘Lobby' button. Buffy bit gently on her thumbnail as the doors closed and the car lurched into motion, and watched as the warm orange glow of the floor indicator traveled steadily downwards. She didn't look at Willow as she spoke, but there was an impassioned note in her voice that was both encouraging and a little disturbing. "It's important, Will. Spike said some things last night...maybe he can't care about people in general, but we should. We're in the world-saving biz, right? But who are we saving it for? It can't be just us. It can't be. When I need a vampire to remind me of that there's something seriously wrong."
Willow bit her lip. "When I fixed Tara I had Glory right there. I was able to suck Tara's essence right out of Glory's head and put it back into Tara's. Glory's gone, so--" She waved one hand to indicate the enormity of the problem. "All the essence she sucked out of people are gone too. And whatever's still doing it? Not Glory. So I can't even be sure that the same spell would work. On whatever it is." She laughed nervously. "Of course I could try Raising Ben and see if that would get us Glory back, but you guys seemed to frown on that--"
"Don't," Buffy said, her voice so flat and dead that Willow flinched. A second later the chill had vanished, replaced by anxious entreaty. "But you can find another spell, right? Are you saying you can't fix them?"
"No, I didn't say that! But you need to give me some time to work on it! There are... complications." The elevator clanked to a stop and the doors opened on a short hallway leading to the main lobby. In stark contrast to the quiet order of the administrative offices, the corridor was full of people: an intern striding by in scrubs, two nurses with clipboards arguing about whether or not Jessica was really going to leave Eric for Rocky, an orderly pushing an elderly black man in a wheelchair. A small horde of visitors, a whole family's worth of children, harried parents, and argumentative in-laws, trooped up to the elevator and clustered around the "You Are Here" building diagram, trying to determine if this was the green or the blue wing.
"Too bad you didn't try to find them over the summer," Buffy said as they wound their way past the line at the information desk. "If you had, you might have a spell which would work on them by now."
Something inside her, grown thin and brittle over the last month full of awkward silences and accusing glances, snapped. Two paces before the doors, Willow bridled, rounding on Buffy in a fury. "Well, I'm sorry, but I was wasting my time helping Giles track down your Dad, and convincing my parents to keep Dawn until we found him, and beating off Social Services, and planning your funeral and keeping Angel and Spike from killing each other during it and, oh yeah, slaying vampires and fighting demons and excess Knights of Byzantium in my copious spare time though why I bothered since Spike the Perfect was on the job--maybe because someone can't go traipsing around in full sunlight or, I don't know, fight humans without collapsing in agony, and oh, yeah, making sure you didn't get brought back as someone's mind-controlled zombie, though I'm beginning to think you'd be happier that way!" She didn't bother trying to keep the hurt and bitterness out of her voice now. "Open!" She flung the word at the front doors like a weapon, and they flew outwards as she stormed through, smashing into the shrubbery outside. That was more like it. That was what magic ought to feel like.
She strode out into the gathering twilight, trying to lose herself in the automotive maze of the hospital parking lot. For a moment Buffy stood dumbfounded, and then Willow heard her footsteps on the pavement behind her as she broke into a run to catch up. "Willow! Willow, wait!" Buffy took a shortcut over the top of an SUV and leaped to the ground in front of her. "Willow, I didn't mean--"
But she didn't sound apologetic; she sounded tired and irritated, like a mother dealing with a sulky child. Willow's hands curled into fists. "You know, I could understand it if you were mad at all of us. But with Dawn you're fine. With Spike you're fine. It's just with me that you act like I'm some horrible person you're forced to deal with. You were my best friend of the girl variety, Buffy! And now you're a total stranger and you hate me and I was trying to do the right thing, darn it!"
Buffy's eyes closed, squeezing shut against the words, and her whole body tensed against some coming blow. "I know that," she said, very softly. "I don't hate you, any of you. But... you didn't do the right thing. You did a wrong thing. You destroyed a soul to get me back--”
“That was Spike’s choice!”
“And Spike is so rational on the subject,” Buffy snapped. “Maybe it's easier with Dawn because she didn't know all about what the two of you were up to. She's a kid. She's supposed to do stupid--"
"And since Spike is a century older than any of us, he gets a free ride for senility?"
Buffy's eyes opened again. "No," she said, her voice clipped. "Spike gets a free ride for saying the magic words."
"And those would be?"
"'I was wrong, and I'm sorry.'"
"Oh, peachy doodle!" Willow flung up both hands. "Listen to yourself, Buffy! Not six hours ago you were all ‘I can't think he's got a cute tush because, the morals of it all!' You know why he's sorry? Because you're unhappy to be back. That's it, that's all, finito, the end. Look, I’m pro-Spike, honest. He’s the nicest evil dead guy I know. But you said it yourself, he doesn't care about the morals. And I do care, but my morals don’t match up with yours, so I'm awful and Spike's a saint? Pardon me if I think the cuteness of Spike's tush is a bigger factor in how you're treating us both than you want to admit!"
At that moment the automatic lights in the parking lot flicked on all around them, and the two of them were haloed in a multitude of long shadows, vying for space on the asphalt and echoing their every move. Buffy's hand closed on the side view mirror of the SUV and there was a crunching noise, as of metal deforming under pressure, and the brittle snap of glass cracking. "I'm going to forget you said that." If the humidity had been any higher, icicles would have formed on her words. "You want to know why I've been avoiding you, Will? I'll tell you. Because it's exhausting being around you. You want me to be fine so badly it hurts, ‘cause that means you did good, even if I won't admit it. And I... I love you, so I keep trying to be fine. For you, and for Dawn, and for Xander and Giles--" The intensity of emotion in her voice was frightening now, after so many weeks of detachment. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "But I can't be fine all the time, and Spike accepts that! He doesn't sit there giving me the ‘Are you OK now, Buffy? What about now? Still OK? Sure?' looks when I'm not. It's that simple."
"I'm sure you've convinced yourself of that," Willow said, matching the chill degree for degree. She took a fresh grip on her notebook. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got... things. Things to do." With an angry swipe at her own eyes she pushed past Buffy and hurried off down the long rows of cars, leaving her best friend of the girl variety staring after her, the mangled remains of the SUV's mirror in her hand.

Spike always claimed that he’d picked this particular crypt to lair in because of the location: it was close to a power line he could tap into for electricity, had access to the web of sewer tunnels and caves which honeycombed the ground beneath Sunnydale, and was located on the side of the cemetery closest to the back fence of the police impound lot where he kept the DeSoto. All of which was true, but Xander strongly suspected that the real reason was the really cool windows: deep-set, arched, guarded with romantically gloomy iron crossbars. They let in enough light during the day to make most vampires extremely nervous, but Spike had always had a cavalier attitude towards sunlight--and candles, and cigarette lighters, and anything else in the ‘fire pretty’ category--for such a flammable creature.
"The place cleans up well," Xander said, with a magnanimous look around the crypt. In the warm golden light of the masses of candles Spike kept in the wall niches and along the windowsills, the place looked downright... comfortable. Several steps above some of the places Xander had called home in the last few years, anyway. “Pity I can’t say the same for the inhabitant.” He picked up the remote control and flipped idly through a few more channels, wondering when Spike had gotten cable. Stolen cable. Whatever. It had Argentine soccer and Czechoslovakian-language movies starring masked Mexican tag-team wrestlers, which was the important thing. “I do think you lost a certain je ne sais quai when you got rid of the pile of moldering skulls.”
“Yeh, wouldn’t you know it, a week later I really needed one. Always the way when you toss out rubbish, innit?” Spike dipped his last wing into the dregs of his blood and ripped into it happily while Xander watched with faintly queasy fascination.
“Can you really taste that?”
Spike stopped mid-bite. “No, I just get a thrill from exercising my jaw. ‘Course I can taste it.”
"Angel said you guys couldn't taste regular food."
The scarred eyebrow quirked. "Bollocks. Can't digest solid food, but it tastes just fine." Spike licked the gory mix of blood and hot sauce off his fingers and leered. "Blood just tastes better." He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. "You want to know the real reason the Broodmeister doesn't eat, besides being a self-flagellating wanker who wouldn't know fun if it walked up and bit him in the arse?" He laid a finger aside his nose. "Side effects."
Xander's brow wrinkled. "Eh?"
Spike chuckled. "Not to get crude, but what goes in must come out. On a strict all-blood diet it doesn’t amount to much."
"What--oh." An expression of enlightenment spread across Xander’s face. "OH. Way too much information, but oh. I can see where Angel'd want to avoid that. Not exactly... dignified, is it?"
"It's human," Spike said. "Peaches never could stand anything that reminded him of that poxy residue of humanity..." He bit into another carrot stick. "Yours truly, on the other hand, finds the variety worth the inconvenience." He hurled the empty styrofoam carton at the wastepaper basket by the fridge and bounced to his feet. "And speaking of inconvenience, I've got things to do, so you can bugger off now."
Xander conspicuously failed to move. He rolled back his sleeve and checked his watch. "Uh uh. I bribed you fair and square, you get to hide me from floral fantasias for the whole evening. My sources have also ascertained that it's Willow and Tara's night to patrol and Dawn's at Lisa's place, and we all know you have no social life outside Scooby Central--" Spike snorted and Xander took the rare opportunity to give him one of his own smirks back-- "So you have no excuse to ditch me."
“Stroppy tonight, aren't we?” Spike grabbed his duster and shrugged into it. “Please yourself--come along if you want, but I'm not going to slow down for you."
Xander got up and reached for his own coat. Half-way into one sleeve he paused apprehensively. “This isn’t going to involve breaking and entering, is it?”
Spike gave him one of those deep, nasty vampire chuckles. “Put it this way--I’m not taking you anywhere I wouldn’t take Dawn.”
“OK, that should... hey. I think I’m insulted.”
“Nah,” Spike said cheerfully. “No need to think about it.”

An extra woohoo to LA Ward for last-minute beta help this chapter!

"There are seven."
Tanner flinched and froze in the middle of the sidewalk, nearly dropping the filthy mesh bag he was carrying over one shoulder. He looked up. There was one modest patch of winter rye amidst the water-conscious landscaping in front of the Wells Fargo Bank, a pool of smooth, perfect, luscious emerald green surrounded by gravel and the pale, serrated leaves of succulents. The guy with no eyes was standing in the middle of it, and around his feet the grass had turned brown and dry as the winter-killed Bermuda it was supposed to be hiding.
From the moans and whimpers behind him some of the others saw the guy and some didn't. Dana, Jim and Ramon stumbled to a halt and clung to one another, staring about them with wide fearful eyes, while Lizzie, Blue, Matches and Carmel kept walking, straggling halfway down the block before they realized they'd been abandoned. Dana turned uncertainly back and waved. Tanner felt an internal lurch and looked down at his feet. The toe of his right shoe had slipped over the crack between one block of cement and the next. Shit, shit, shit. Reality yawed, ley lines crossed, worlds spun out of kilter... Trying to control his panicky breathing, he slid his foot back ever so carefully, and slowly, slowly the universe around him swung back into balance. He could hear the ponderous groan of the heavens realigning themselves overhead, the metallic screech of the stars sliding back into place. "Don't!" he hissed at the eyeless man.
Who ignored him, and repeated, "There are seven surrounding the Slayer. The Key. The Watcher. The Vampire. The Witches. The Demon. The Man. When the Balance is disturbed the pattern is always fragile. Pull upon the correct thread and the pattern unravels."
Tanner shifted impatiently. The names dropped into his mind, stones into a dark pool, leaving interference patterns of ripples behind. He would have known any of them in an instant now: the dark-haired girl, the bespectacled man, the peroxide-blond vampire from the poolhouse, the small redhead and the taller blond college girls, the girl with the sharp inquisitive face who ran the Magic Box, the dark-haired youth with the silly grin. "What do you want me to do?"
"Take my hand," the eyeless man said, voice as sere as the dead grass. Tanner hesitated for a second, but he'd promised. He stretched out his hand and the eyeless man grasped it. It was cold, cold and dry and withered. Not a dead thing, no, worse, a thing whose life had been stretched beyond endurance until existence became meaningless. He could feel the pulse beating in it, slow and awful, twitching against his palm, and then his own heart was pounding in rhythm, matching that feeble sickening twitch beat for beat. The eyeless man began to chant.

Twinned heartbeats throbbed in his ears, nausea built in his too-empty stomach. With each pulse dark energy flowed from the eyeless man, black, viscous, and chill, sinking into his bones and congealing within his flesh. Tanner yanked his hand away and stood shivering, clutching it to his breast and flexing fingers stiff and stinging with cold. His heart beat of its own accord again, hammering against its cage of bone, but the mad rush of blood through his veins did not warm him. "What...?"
"You are our instrument. Your touch shall open the gates of their hearts and they shall walk through the door into shadow."
Tanner licked his lips, tasting a residue of salt and bile. "Listen," he said, "We gotta hunt."
"Hunt then, but remember your promise. There are lives reserved for oathbreakers far worse than the one you lead."
Tanner hunched his shoulders, brows dipping in a sullen frown. "I keep my promises." There was no answer; the eyeless man was gone again, but the circle of dead grass where he'd stood remained, an urban crop circle to mystify the arriving bank tellers the next morning. Tanner pulled his jacket more closely around his shoulders, feeling the draft where the cool night air seeped in through the torn place in the armhole. He massaged the palm of his right hand with the thumb of his left, trying to work some feeling back into the numb flesh. "Dana!" he called. "Get back."
He waited while Dana herded the others back to the group. Eight. Eight of fourteen. Blondie out of commission because of her hands, and four more too far out of it to be of any help. Ronnie stuck back at the camp to look after them--and that would cost him dearly in the weeks to come, since Ronnie would miss out on tonight's hunt and would soon be in no condition to play backup. "Dirty," he whispered. "All torn and dirty." Couldn't be helped.
"We're going to split up," he said as Dana and the others shuffled back into line. "Like we did that time in July, right? Dana, you take Matches and head out for the park. Set up the circle behind the bandshell." He took the bag off his shoulder and handed it to her. "You remember how to do that, right?"
"Bright and rapture we see the coming day," Dana said. She couldn't talk worth crap, but like silent Ronnie, she still understood pretty well, even on bad days. She was fortunate that way.
"Yeah. Ramon, you take everyone else and find us a new friend."
Stunned silence. At last Ramon ventured, "Tanner... you always..."
"Tonight I can't." He tried to keep his voice calm and level. "I'll meet you at the park later." Tanner started off down the sidewalk, paused, and looked back; Ramon's face was sickly with apprehension in the yellow light of the street lamps. "Don't worry. I know you'll pick someone good."

The bar-cum-mediocre-restaurant was called Benders this year. It wasn't a dive, but it wasn't too classy, either--one of those establishments you found in every college town where any lack in the quality of the food and drink was made up by the variety of farm implements and old road signs tacked up on the walls. The patrons were mainly students from the nearby UC Sunnydale campus, along with a sprinkling of locals and the occasional high school senior trying out a fake ID.
Pro to hanging out with Spike, Xander thought as the waitress filled their glasses and set down the pitcher: Spike is old enough to buy beer.
It was difficult to tell how old Spike had been when he was turned; late twenties, probably, but he had one of those lean, ageless faces that looked more or less the same from twenty-five to fifty. The salient point was that he didn't immediately inspire waitresses to ask for his driver's licence, which was lucky as he didn't have one. Xander passed the vampire a twenty under the table and Spike handed it to the waitress with that half-smile and sideways, heavy-lidded glance which for some inexplicable reason made waitresses go all gooey. "Keep the change, luv."
Con: Spike requires my money to do so.
Spike reached for his glass and returned to his seeming perusal of the copy of the L.A. New Times he'd grabbed from the free bin inside the lobby. In actuality he was watching the crowd around the pool tables like... well, like a vampire intent on his next meal. He took a swallow and grimaced. "Lovely. The horse must feel much better now."
"Nothing like good ol' Guinness, huh? Cool. I had this weird urge for beer instead of warm, flat sludge."
"Remind me again why I stopped pinching your wallet?"
"Possibly because I haven't been in arm's reach?"
"I was saving you from yourself, you ask me. Yank blasphemer." Spike squinted at the paper and leaned back in his chair. "And would it be too much to ask for these wankers to hire a music critic who doesn't think he's the second bloody coming of Lester Bangs and just reviews the bloody albums?"
Xander considered asking who the hell Lester Bangs was and decided against it, since that would only provoke Spike to tell him. "So what exactly is our purpose here, besides inducing me to waste more of my hard-earned paycheck entertaining a cranky vampire?"
"Enabling me to collect my hard-earned paycheck." Spike scanned the little clumps of people gathered round the pool tables again, visibly sizing up and discarding prospects. "All you need to do when we get a table is pretend to give me a few pointers, show me the ropes like, and then stand back and let me work. In consideration of your delicate sensibilities, Harris, we're not going to skin anyone who doesn't roll up begging to be skint. Hah, there's one coming open. Come on."
Spike got up and headed for the pool tables. Half-way across the crowded floor the vampire stopped, a puzzled light in his pale eyes, and inhaled deeply. Xander, trying to juggle both glasses and the pitcher behind him, made an inquiring noise. Spike stood motionless for a moment longer, then exhaled. "Thought I recognized... nah, it's gone. Losing the plot, I am." He shook his head and set off for the pool tables again. Xander looked around, seeing nothing unusual in the crowd, then shrugged and followed him. They claimed the middle of the three tables before the previous players had finished hanging up their cues.
"Here we observe the wily vampire in his natural habitat, the pool hall," Xander intoned as he racked up the balls. "Note the exotic coloring of the pelt, designed by nature--or possibly Miss Clairol--to blend in with the cue ball and..."
"I'll pelt you if you don't shut your gob," Spike said, without much rancor. "Now teach me to play pool." He picked up the chalk as if he'd never seen one before and applied it tentatively to the tip of his cue. "Looks like jolly fun," he said in a spot-on imitation of Giles' cultured accent. All traces of North London vanished from his speech, the blue of his eyes went from icy and knowing to soft and luminous, and his body language from predatory to puppyish. "Fill my eager mind with knowledge."
"Uh... fine." Xander picked up a cue and looked nervously around. "Does this make me a shill?"
"Apparently it makes you unnecessarily talkative."
"OK, OK, just asking." This was probably a bad idea, he thought. But it was a couple of steps up from Spike's other methods of getting ready cash, most of which involved out and out larceny, and how many more chances was he going to get to be irresponsible and stupid with a reasonably clear conscience? He was getting married in... oh, God, only a month, and Anya would probably skin him if she found out about this--if only because he hadn't demanded that Spike give him a cut of the profits. Spike was eyeing him impatiently, drumming his fingers on the side of the table. Xander cleared his throat loudly. "The idea is to use the cueball--that's the white one--to knock the other balls into..."
Spike nodded, hanging raptly on his every word. In fact, ultra-cool vampire-guy Spike seemed to have completely disappeared, replaced by an earnest and slightly clumsy young man who'd had a bit more to drink than was good for him. He looked a great deal like Spike, and sounded a great deal as Spike might have sounded had he gone to Oxford instead of wherever the hell he'd misspent his youth, and played pool about as well as Spike might have if he hadn't had a century-plus of practice, reflexes Minnesota Fats would have killed his mother for, and a tolerance for alcohol bordering on the phenomenal even for a vampire.
Exactly the sort of fellow, in other words, that you wanted to get into a friendly wager with.
Spike set the stage carefully, Xander had to admit. He lost several games against Xander, but not too badly, and won once or twice, but not too well. He killed the first pitcher without much help from Xander, played another couple of games against a giggly redhead who only wanted to play for points, lost the first by one ball and the second by three, and made serious inroads on a second pitcher. He sulked vocally about how much better he'd do with a real wager on the line, but kept allowing Xander to talk him out of playing for money. At some point during the evening, the guys at the next table, a large, aggressively wholesome pair in letter jackets who'd been flashing a lot of cash earlier, began paying attention. By now, they were hard pressed to keep from snickering at the show.
"Look, Harris," Spike said, leaning forward and poking a finger at Xander's chest. "I've got the hang of it now. What I need is a little com-competitive edge." He was swaying a little and enunciating every word just a little too clearly; Xander, who'd seen Spike really drunk on more than one occasion and knew that it took considerably more than a couple of pitchers of American beer for the vampire to achieve this level of impairment, wasn't fooled, but it was a fairly convincing display for the lay observer.
"Yeah, you've got an edge all right." Xander removed the finger from just below his third shirt button, wondering if Spike expected him to start an argument or back down. "Let's go get you some coffee or something before you cut yourself on it."
A large hand clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, there, don't be so hard on your friend there," Frat Guy Number One said, displaying lots of large white teeth in what was probably a winning smile, if one happened to be a shark. "If he wants a real game, we'll play. I'm David and this is Shaun." He jerked a thumb at his slightly smaller and darker compatriot.
"William." Spike shook the offered hand enthusiastically and pretended to wince at the pressure. "Ever so pleased to meet you."

The ivory ball careened across the green felt and struck its target a glancing blow. For a long breathless moment the red ball teetered on the edge of the pocket, and then, bowing to the inevitable, tipped over and dropped in. Spike straightened, beaming at Shaun with a wide-eyed and slightly tipsy smile, stunned and delighted with his own good fortune. "I say!" he cried. "That was a lucky one, wasn't it?"
Theoretically they were playing doubles, but so far Xander hadn't had much to do except sit back, try not to screw up when his turn rolled around, and watch as ‘William', after a shaky start, wiped the table with their opponents. Considering the usual results of their own much lower-stakes games at the Bronze, Xander wasn't surprised at the wiping the table part, but there was no way Spike was this good an actor; faking being drunk was one thing, but he'd never been particularly good at deception in the past. Xander leaned over and whispered, "Who are you, and what have you done with the real Spike?"
The real Spike made an immediate reappearance and jabbed him in the stomach with the butt of his pool cue accidentally-on-purpose, ducking his head to hide the pained expression as the chip set off. He injected a note of wounded petulance into his voice for good measure. "Really, Harris, push off--not fair of you to coach, what?"
Shaun glared and ran a hand through his short-cropped chestnut hair, something he’d been doing with increasing frequency and vehemence as the night went on. He might be smaller than David (who really ought, Xander felt, to have been named Goliath) but he still had a good two inches on Xander and a good four on Spike, and he was using them to best advantage. "Yeah, back off. Let Willy-boy shoot."
Willy-boy graced him with a smile which came nowhere near his eyes and began lining up his next shot, screwing his face into a comical expression of concentration. Xander looked from him up into the blunt-nosed, linebacker's face of David, who was currently looming beside him with a distinctly unfriendly air, held up both hands and retreated to the nearest table to nurse his beer. Pro: Watch Spike take snotty college kids to the cleaners.
The frat guys hadn't gotten to the point of sounding belligerent yet, but it was beginning to penetrate that their earlier lucky streak against the supposedly inexperienced English guy had run out. Hopefully Spike would have the sense to quit while he was ahead. Sense? Wait, this is Spike. David folded his arms and watched as Spike prowled his way down the pool table, his jaw jutting forward. From his vast store of personal encounters with guys who would just as soon pound you in the teeth as look at you, Xander judged that David was still a ways from exploding, but he was getting there.
Click .
"I've won again, haven't I? Fancy!"
Further pro: I won't have to cover Spike's bets to avoid a serious ass-whooping.
A lighter, feminine voice cut through the riot of voices in the background. "...told Kevin I liked him, but that I didn't like him like him..."
Xander frowned. That sounded like...
David’s basso rumble overwhelmed it. "...look, one breaking shot, double or nothing..."
Spike fiddled with his cue, distressed. "I don't know, chaps, hadn't I better leave off? Luck can't last forever, you know. Still...not really sporting of me, is it...?"
"...can't believe he said that right in the middle of Mrs. Doormann's class, of all places--"
Xander stiffened and buried his nose in his beer, shading his face with one hand as Dawn, Lisa, and a third girl he vaguely recalled as Morgan (or possibly Megan) sashayed by on their way to the ladies' room, all too-casual hair flips and considerably more makeup than Xander remembered from having dropped Dawn off at Lisa’s place earlier. Wait a minute. Why am I hiding from them? He straightened up and assumed the awful mantle of adult authority--hopefully Dawn would notice. "Hey! Dawn! Aren’t you out a little late?"
Dawn froze at the sound of his voice, and a second later the other two girls, realizing something was amiss, did the same. Her eyes widened in horror. "Xander?" she squeaked.
"Dawn?" Spike's white-blond head snapped up and he stopped mid-shot, eyes narrowing. He set his cue down against the side of the pool table, but he didn't get more than a half-step away before David's meaty hand clamped down on his shoulder.
"Hey! If you think you can walk out now--"
"Sod off." Spike shrugged the hand off and stalked over to Xander's table. Looked like ‘William' had taken a powder. "Bloody hell, Bit, it's after midnight. Does Buffy know you're about?"
Dawn grabbed Spike's arm, all but bouncing up and down in agony. "Oh, God, Spike, you're not gonna tell her, are you?" she pleaded. "We were just about to head home, honest! She'll get all freaked out over nothing, you know how she gets--"
That earned her the raised eyebrow thing. "Yeh, and you know how I get, so the odds of my letting you toddle off home through downtown Hellmouth unescorted would be..?"
Megan's (or possibly Morgan's) jaw dropped, taking in the vampire's full bleached-blond and black-denimed glory. Spike, engaged in a heavy-duty glowering match with Dawn, failed to notice. "That's Spike? Oh. My. GOD. I thought you said he was, like, a million years old!" She tossed her head, toying with her streaked hair, and batted her heavily mascara’d lashes at Xander. "And you're kinda cute too. Geez, Dawn, introduce us!"
Dawn's look could have melted titanium. "Could you possibly be a little more desperate?" she hissed. "I don't think the entire bar heard you." She waved an unenthused hand from one side of the group to the other. "Spike, Xander, jailbait. Megan, Lisa, engaged guy and... uh... Spike."
A Death Star-sized shadow intervened between them and the nearest overhead light; David and Shaun were approaching, pool cues in hand, looming with menace aforethought. "Look, the family reunion's touching," David said, smacking his cue into his palm. "But there's a little matter of two hundred bucks we need to settle. NOW."
"Hold your water, you feeble-minded tossers!" Spike snatched the cue away and shook a admonitory finger at Dawn. "You budge one inch before I get back and I swear I'll nail your feet to the floor with tent pegs--gerroff, you!" Megan, who'd been inching coyly closer with an eye towards some arm-grabbing of her own, hopped back in a shower of giggles.
David blinked. "When did he start talking like that?"
"You know, this is a really good night for me so far," Xander said brightly. Dawn groaned.
Under the watchful eyes of Shaun and David, Spike strode back to the pool table, all pretense of amateurishness abandoned. He bent over, took aim, let fly with his cue in one smooth, economical stroke and stood back with a clinical eye to observe the balls scattering every which way over the felt. "Four, five, six..." He turned to David with a lift of his scarred eyebrow and the patented Spike smirk. "I believe you gents said double or nothing?"
"Fuck!" Shaun screeched. "There's no fuckin' way you could make that fuckin' shot! This is fucked, man!"
"Some of us are," Spike agreed.
"Too fucking right!"
Con: get the shit beat out of you afterwards because Spike can't defend himself against snotty college boys who want their two hundred dollars back.
Lisa shrieked as Spike ducked Shaun's wild swing with the pool cue. Xander leaped to his feet; not only was Spike unable to hurt a human without setting off his chip, the cues were wood and there was an outside chance that Shaun might accidentally impale Spike and do some real damage. Not to mention that if Buffy found out they'd gotten Dawn into a bar fight, there would be no end to the messy painful death she'd arrange for both of them. He gut-punched a totally unsuspecting Shaun, who doubled over with a shocked, painful ‘whoof!'--Xander didn't have super-strength, but he'd been fighting vampires for six years and working construction for two, and had considerable muscle to show for it. "RUN!" he yelled, shoving Dawn ahead of him.
Spike shot one gleeful yellow-eyed look at David, and Xander could all but read his mind. A second later the vampire had gone all fangs and brow ridges, lunging at David with a "RRAARRGGGH!" David yelled and fell backwards onto the pool table. Spike vaulted gracefully over his head and hit the floor at a dead run, swooping up Megan and Lisa in the process, though it was difficult to tell if this was out of a sense of responsibility for Dawn's friends or simply because they happened to be in his way. He caught up to Xander at the door and all five of them pounded out into the parking lot, the girls squealing and the men laughing maniacally. Bad Xander! This is not in any way amusing!
Spike yanked open the driver's door of the DeSoto, hopped in and gunned the engine. "Pile in, children!" he caroled as David and Shaun, accompanied by several equally large and irate friends, appeared silhouetted in the doorway of the bar. Xander grabbed shotgun by virtue of superior size, and the three girls crammed themselves into the back seat. “Can't a vamp get a break around here?" Spike gasped, tears of laughter running down his once-more-human cheeks as they tore out of the parking lot at indecent speed. "I wasn't even cheating that time!"
"Someone up there just likes you, I guess," said Xander. “So did they pay you any of the money before the big fraidy runaway?”
“Not a quid.”
“Figures.”
Something palm-sized and heavy landed on his lap with a thump. Xander grabbed it reflexively--leather? Spike was wearing the insane-vamp grin again.
“But I did manage to nick his wallet on the way out.”

It could have been worse. It could have been Buffy. It could have been worse...
Dawn kept repeating her new mantra as the DeSoto roared along the dark streets, despite scant hope that it would bring inner peace any time soon. It had all seemed like such a foolproof plan when Lisa had suggested it. Lisa’s dad was out of town, and her mother slept with earplugs because of her insomnia, so arranging a sleepover at her place and using it as a cover for a night on the town was easy. Catching the late bus over to the college was equally simple. Buffy sometimes patrolled near the college, but if she wanted a break she always went to the Bronze, or more rarely, to Willy’s. No one she knew ever went to Benders.
Which was probably why Spike had picked it to hustle pool in. Life just wasn’t fair.
Despite the embarrassment of being caught, Dawn had to admit to a smidgen of relief, since while getting to Benders had been easy, the buses stopped running at midnight, and their plans for getting back home had been a little shaky. Neither Spike nor Xander seemed too upset with her, outside Spike’s usual outrageous threats of bodily harm; in fact, their victory over the forces of the Letter Jacket Brigade had left them both bouncing off the walls. Spike was steering with one hand and extracting David’s cash from the purloined wallet with the other, while Xander rummaged through the vampire’s CDs making gagging noises.
“Devo, crap. Sex Pistols, crap. Butthole Surfers, crap... don’t you have anything less than twenty years old in here?--hey! This is mine!” Xander shook Murder in front of Spike’s nose.
“What can I say? The title speaks to me. There’s a Linkin Park in there somewhere.”
Xander gave up and slapped a random CD into the machine and the dulcet strains of “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” blasted out into the night. He eyed the wallet-excavating process. “You’re only gonna take as much as they owed you, right?”
“Uh... yeah. ‘Course. Bugger all, I have to--double or nothing would have made four hundred, and there’s not three hundred here.” Spike tossed Xander two twenties. “Here’s your beer money, shill. How d’you fancy pool sharking as an occupation?”
“I’m not quitting my day job.” Xander tucked the money into his shirt pocket behind his rescued CD as Spike rolled down the window and made to chuck the wallet out. “Hey, hold on to that! There’s got to be ID in there, we can mail it back to him tomorrow or something.”
Spike slouched down in the driver’s seat, lit a cigarette and draped his arm out the window, trailing smoke. “Altogether too much work being a white hat if you ask me,” he grumbled, but tossed Xander the wallet again.
Dawn chewed on a lock of her hair. “Are you guys gonna tell...” she asked apprehensively.
Xander looked up from his examination of the wallet; he was apparently scrupulous enough to want to give it back, but not scrupulous enough to refrain from poking through David’s stuff. “Well--”
“Your sis has enough on her mind right now,” Spike interrupted. “No need to add to her worries, eh?” Dawn slumped back in the seat, relief flooding over her; of course Spike would come through. “If I catch you out running around without your leash again, mind, I’ll be taking you home in a plastic baggie.” He threw Lisa a look over the back of the seat. “Where’s your place again?”
Once out of immediate danger, Lisa had lapsed into temporary shell shock, and was currently staring fixedly at the place in the rear-view mirror where Spike’s reflection wasn’t. “Twenty-fourth and Ramada,” she got out in a subdued squeak. “You can take Wilkins south.”
Spike pursed his lips, figuring out trajectories. “Right then. I’ve got a stop or two to make and you’ll be home by two.”
“He’s not gonna kill us?” Lisa whispered.
“He can’t hurt you,” Dawn whispered back. “He’s got this chip--”
“And very good ears,” Spike interrupted. “And I could so kill you if I really wanted. Just so happens I don’t want to. Nyah.”
Dawn kicked the back of the seat. “Stop it! You’re gonna make Lisa pee her pants!”
“Not in my bloody car. And put your damned seatbelt on, it’s down in there somewhere.”
The first stop was Kohlermann’s Fine Meats, very likely the world’s only twenty-four hour butcher’s shop. Spike picked up two pounds of raw liver and several gallons of pig’s blood in quart containers, and spent a quarter-hour chatting up Benny Kohlermann, who worked the night shift. Back at the car, he stuck a straw through the lid of one of the blood containers and wedged it into the plastic drink holder up front like a Big Gulp, which didn’t help Lisa’s mental state any. Dawn accrued major unflapability points by nonchalantly helping pack the rest of the blood into the cooler in the DeSoto’s trunk. The second stop was the twenty-four hour Safeway on Wilkins, where Lisa thawed slightly, though she kept giving Spike’s lack of reflection in the store security mirrors surreptitious glances, and she’d tugged her cross necklace to the outside of her blouse.
Oddly enough, Dawn couldn’t remember Buffy having worn her cross necklace since coming back from the dead.
“Are you sure he’s... safe?” Lisa whispered to Dawn as the stood in the checkout line with Spike’s several purchases. Dawn shrugged, glancing at the vampire with a proprietary smile. Spike was the most and the least safe person she knew. Supposedly you could tell a lot about a person from their grocery list; what exactly a carton of Marlboro Reds, Nestle’s extra-rich cocoa mix, a block of extra-sharp cheddar, one bag of yellow apples, a jar of Jiffy extra-chunky peanut butter, and a random assortment of items from the Dry Crunchy Things To Dip In Blood food group added up to, Dawn wasn’t sure, unless it was that Spike was a sucker for anything with ‘extra’ on the label.
“He won’t hurt you, if that’s what you mean.” She felt a little sorry for Lisa; she’d run into Spike around the Summers house on several occasions and knew him as a friend of Buffy’s. Like most people who’d grown up in Sunnydale, Lisa was aware that there were things that stalked the darkness just outside the circles of lamplight--but also like most in Sunnydale, Lisa’s family never talked about them. Seeing Spike go all bumpy in public was a shock. It was tough, having to learn about vampires on the streets.
Megan was having no such difficulties. Megan always meant well, but she was blessedly free of the ravages of intellect, whether by nature or by choice. The fact that the dreamy blond guy had temporarily grown fangs wasn’t anywhere near enough to discourage her. She gazed admiringly at the back of Spike’s sleek head. “How come you never told us you hung out with all these hunky guys, Dawn?”
“It’s just Spike and Xander.” Dawn tried to inject the proper note of indifferent disdain as they followed the grocery-laden guys out to the parking lot. It was true she’d had a crush on both of them at one time or another, but that had been ages ago--last year, for crying out loud!--and she was over that now. It was excruciatingly embarrassing to be reminded of it. She wouldn’t have minded nursing her Spike-crush for longer, but Dawn was perceptive enough to know from the moment her sister had gone storming off to Spike’s crypt in the Lacy Red Blouse of Protesting Too Much to tell him that she had absolutely, positively no interest in him whatsoever that Spike’s unattached days were numbered. Of course at the time she’d had no idea that Spike would do something as colossally stupid as tying Buffy up and threatening to feed her to his ex, but... there was Spike for you. At least he’d learned his lesson. Maybe a little too well.
Back in the car, Megan leaned forward till her pert nose was practically in Spike’s ear, folding her arms on the back of the front seat. “Ohmigod, you’re totally a vampire, aren’t you?” she gushed, jiggling up and down on the seat. “Do you know my sister?” She giggled self-consciously. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it? Like, ‘I live in New York’, ‘Do you know my uncle?’ But there’s not as many vampires as people in New York, otherwise we’d all be, like, Lunchables by now, right?”
It was probably a good thing, Dawn thought, that Spike’s expression wasn’t visible in the mirror.
“Actually my sister’s in Acapulco right now--I got a postcard.” Megan tossed her hair proudly. “She’s doing, like, this self-actualization thing, y’know, but she might be home for Christmas. Except Mom disinvited her since last time she stayed at our place she ate the maid, and Mom is utterly strict about not letting us have food in our rooms, so seeing as you’re both vampires and all--Hey, could you make me a vampire? Harm said it was totally intense.”
The toe of Dawn’s Reeboks bumped into an empty Jack Daniels bottle half-sunk in the sea of fast food wrappers and empty blood bags littering the floor of the back seat. Perhaps with enough sincere mental effort, she could shrink herself small enough to fit inside and free herself from the abomination that was Megan in flirt mode. What she could see of Spike’s profile was wearing a sort of glazed, desperate look, as of a man revisiting horrors he’d thought long departed. “No.” He took a long pull at his pig’s blood Slurpee and ran his tongue over his teeth, apparently struck by a cheering thought. “But as a special favor I might be persuaded to drain you dry and leave your shrunken corpse by the wayside.”
Megan shrieked with laughter and Xander swivelled round in his seat to gaze upon her with a look in his dark eyes which approached awe. “Your last name wouldn’t be Kendall, would it?”
“It is!” Megan gave him an arch look. “How’d you guess?”
“I went to school with Harmony.” An evil smile crept across his face; obviously Spike was rubbing off. “And Spike--”
Spike shuddered. “Tried to kill her once. Didn’t take, unfortunately.”
Megan dissolved into giggles again. “You’re funny.”
Dawn scrunched down on the seat, trying to sink straight through the leather upholstery. That’s it, I’m in hell.
Lisa’s family lived on the opposite side of Weatherly Park, and they’d just turned off Wilkins onto Twenty-Fourth and were cruising down the long stretch of road bordering the park. A shadow moved on the road ahead, and Spike slammed on the brakes before Dawn’s brain had time to register it was there. “What was that?” Xander asked, craning his neck out the window.
Spike frowned, stroking the steering wheel with his thumbs and staring out into the tangled mass of trees. The branches overhanging the road were half-bare, and the breeze chased little drifts of ghost-grey leaves across the black asphalt ahead. “Some bird over there on the side of the road,” he said. “Thought for a minute she was going to take a header into traffic the way old Willy did the other night. She’s just sittin’ there, now--no, wait, here she comes.”
Amidst the fitful stirring of the leaves a darker patch moved. Dawn squinted, trying to make out the figure through the DeSoto’s half-blacked-out windshield, but she couldn’t make out anything more than an indistinct shape against the trees for several minutes. Then a woman materialized out of the night, heading for forty, with short flyaway hair which might have been sandy blonde in daylight. She was wearing a dark jogging suit, making her even harder to see, and she broke into an awkward, exhausted run when she got near the car. She flung herself at the DeSoto, clinging to the handle on the driver’s door with both hands and supporting herself on it. Up close, it was obvious even in the dim light that her face was smudged and leaves clung to her clothes in several places. “Oh, God, you stopped!” she cried. “You’ve got to help him--it’s back there, in the trees--they’ve got him!”
“They?” Xander was already getting out of the car. “They who?”
“I don’t--back, by the--the--” She began to sob, pointing shakily back into the depths of the park.
“You got any weapons back there?” Xander asked, heading for the trunk.
Spike sighed and got out of the car. “Bloody hell. Whoever said there was no rest for the wicked apparently never gave virtue a go. When don’t I?” He took the keys from the ignition and went round to unlock the trunk; while Xander was pulling out the implements of destruction, Spike came back up to the front of the car and handed the keys to Dawn.
“Get up into the front seat now, Pidge, and lock yourselves in,” he said in the tone that brooked no argument or wheedling. “If we’re not back in fifteen minutes, take this lot home and then go get your sister. She should be back from patrol by now.”
Dawn looked up at the vampire’s angular face, closed her fist on the car keys and nodded. She crawled over the back of the front seat and settled into the driver’s seat as Spike closed the door. She felt for the floor pedals with her feet, getting used to their positions again. Not too bad. When he’d first started teaching her to drive (as Spike had neither license, registration, nor insurance, he’d assured her that her lack of a learner’s permit was no obstacle) they’d had to adjust the seat for her, but she’d grown over the summer; she wasn’t that much shorter than Spike now. She heard Xander slam the trunk closed behind them and looked up at Spike, trying to be mature and capable, and flashed him a smile full of confidence she didn't feel. “OK. I can handle it.”
His expression remained serious, but there was a flash of... pride, maybe? in his eyes, and his hand, cool and dry and reassuringly large for someone his size, rested on her shoulder for a moment. “I know.”
Then he was gone in a flurry of black leather, he and Xander disappearing into the interlacing darkness of the trees with the sobbing woman tugging them along, and Dawn was left in the dark with a sinking feeling in her stomach and Megan and Lisa in the back seat. For several minutes no one spoke.
“You can DRIVE?” Megan asked.

"Honey, you already knew she wasn't happy about it."
Willow made no response. She kept walking along the gravel path, faster than she should have in a graveyard in the dark. She could hear Tara’s footsteps behind her as she turned off between a pair of huge old cypresses, weaving through the tombstones towards the fence. The grounds keepers seldom penetrated this far. The footpath was faint and the ground uneven, and what graves lay here among the winter-dead grass were untended, perfect spots for tradition-minded vampires to bury their fledglings. Restfield (#5 in the Sunnydale Cavalcade of Death-Related Locations) was a mid-sized cemetery and one of the oldest in town, which meant it was a tough patrol.
Some of the newer ones, with their acres of small, tasteful, flat-to-the-ground tombstones to facilitate the use of riding lawnmowers, could be covered in fifteen minutes or less: stand in the middle and take a quick look round for disturbed graves and you were off. Here you had to hunt through a maze of baroque (and often broken) old headstones and mausoleums. Ironically, it would have been easier had it not been that this was the cemetery where Spike’s crypt was located: he strongly discouraged other vampires from horning in on his territory, so any newbie vamps to be found were invariably far off the beaten path, hidden away in some secluded corner.
Willow gripped her stake tightly, feeling the comforting smoothness of the wood against her palm. Why wood? she'd asked once, in a moment of scientific curiosity. Why not cold iron or silver or milled polyurethane?
It had taken Tara a moment to realize the question was a serious one. Because wood's something that was once alive and now is dead, too. She'd gone on to explain the answers to all the other questions: Sunlight because they're creatures of darkness. Fire because it's a piece of the sun. Decapitation because it breaks the cord between head and heart. All things which would sever the bond between human mind and body and the demon soul which animated them, and allow you to kill a vampire.
The answers had been obvious ones to Tara. She insisted that there was a logic to it, a logic of intuition and emotion. Willow didn't see it; what possible connection was there between shoving a vampire into the sunlight and driving a stake through their hearts? But Tara saw all kinds of connections which eluded Willow. If bad luck followed the casting of a spell, Willow automatically assumed it was coincidence. Tara, born to a family of witch-women, feared and despised by her male relatives, and raised in a community steeped in tales about the evil nature of magic, automatically assumed that the spell was at fault. When she thought about it, Willow really couldn’t blame her love for her irrational conviction that every minor spell held the seeds of doom.
"You know how Buffy always holds everything in,” Tara went on, “and then it boils over at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way. When you've both calmed down, maybe you could--"
"I am calm," Willow said. Anyone else might have believed her. They'd reached the fence, which was overgrown with climbing vines, queen’s-wreath and mile-a-minute. The leaves were starting to turn red-bronze in the fall chill and drop away, leaving the wiry stems behind, coiled tightly around the iron bars. She stopped and leaned against the fence, burying her face in the dusty-smelling foliage. Dry, curling leaves collected in her hair. "I'm just completely on my own here. I know the rest of you think I did something terrible, bringing Buffy back. The only one who backed me up was Spike. I couldn’t even have done it without his help, but as the Slayer goes, so goes Spike, so now he's switched sides."
Tara leaned up against the wall beside her, folding her arms across her chest. "Maybe that should tell you something."
Willow's face grew bitter. "What, that he wants to get in Buffy's pants as badly as she wants to get in his?" At Tara's soft cry of shock Willow's shoulders slumped and she buried her face in her hands. "I didn't mean that!" she wailed. "Spike understood why I had to bring her back! But the moment she is back he's all stuck to her like Superglue and 'Oooh, I was wrong', it's like they've got this treehouse with a big NO WILLOWS ALLOWED sign and every time I see them together I'm all 'No fair, she should be that happy to see me too!' but I know she wants me to apologize and I CAN'T, I can't lie to her and say I think I was wrong when I wasn't, and Spike apologizes for all the wrong reasons and gets a pat on the head so there's all this--this meanness rolling around inside me all tangled up like evil socks in a clothes dryer! And then I say something rotten to Spike so of course he goes and hides in Buffy's treehouse and if I had just one person to talk to who understood it would be ok but the--"
She felt Tara's hands on her shoulders, heard Tara's voice murmuring something soft and meaningless, smelled the familiar wool scent of Tara's favorite blue worsted patrolling sweater. It would be so sweet to sink into the other woman's comforting embrace, but Tara's sympathy was all a sham, and deep down Tara thought she'd done a horrible thing too. Still she couldn't resist the urge to butt her head into the soft scratchy blue doubleknit and cry out all her frustration and anger. "Sweetie, you're tired, you're scared, you're not thinking straight. " Tara stroked her hair. "There's nothing happening here tonight. Let's go find Buffy and tell her we’re going home. I'll fix you some tomato soup and we can get some sleep and tomorrow we can figure out how to deal with all this."
Willow snuffled. "I don't want to talk to Buffy about anything."
"You've got to see her sooner or later. We all live in the same house."
“And whose stupid idea was that?” Her own, of course. Give Buffy an income, however small, and some help with Dawn, but more importantly, try to turn back the clock to those first roommate days in college when the two of them had still been close, before classes and boyfriends and girlfriends and differences and death had driven that wedge between them, every day a little deeper.
"What's that?"
Willow felt Tara's hands tense on her shoulders, and the shift of Tara’s body as she looked up, back out towards the main path. The crunch of footsteps on gravel grew louder--too loud for a vampire, surely, unless it was a very clumsy one--but there were things other than vampires out there. Scrubbing her sleeve furiously across her stinging eyes, Willow straightened up and began readying a spell; nothing fancy, just a simple fire-starting cantrip. It would be equally effective against both vampires and humans, and at least marginally painful for about fifty percent of the demons they'd be likely to run up against. She shifted the stake to her right hand and groped for Tara's hand with her left. Tara gave her hand a squeeze and together they crept forward, ducking low under the bare trailing branches of her namesake tree. The long slender leaves underfoot didn't rustle at their passing; Tara's gift, not hers. Her love's hand in hers was at once reassuring and childish, a sweet embarrassment; it had been months, almost a year, since she'd had to pool her magic with Tara in order to cast spells. Until the Raising spell had gone wrong, she'd had power to spare.
They dropped to their knees behind a moss-grown gravestone (Selma Kingston, 1891-1963, Beloved Wife and Mother) and peered out at the path through the willow branches. The gravel stood out pale and glowing against the dark grass. A figure stood in the middle of the path, twenty or so feet distant, looking back and forth along the length of the walk. In the mingled light of distant streetlamp and the near-full moon he seemed indubitably human--a dark-haired, middle-aged man in drab, anonymous clothing, with a face that might once have been kind. Now every other emotion had been subsumed in resigned weariness.
Buffy looks like that.
"Do you think he's just lost?" Willow whispered.
Tara's intent gaze never left the man's face. "Oh, yes..." she breathed. She shook herself a little and continued in a more matter-of-fact tone, "He's lost."
Willow rubbed her nose, wishing she had some Kleenex. Why weren't there any post-sobfest anti-runny-nose spells? Maybe she could make one up and make a fortune and pay off Buffy's plumbing bills and everyone would like her again... "We should go talk to him, or he'll end up as some vamp's chew-toy."
"I think that's the point. He's out here hoping to get killed." At Willow's horrified expression Tara shrugged. "Some people strike out. Some of us strike in."
"There will be no striking in any direction," Willow said firmly, getting to her feet. Here was a concrete problem she could deal with. Sort of. At least they could get the guy out of the cemetery and into some more vamp-free area of town. "Hello?" she called, scrambling to her feet and brushing grass off the knees of her leggings.
The man twitched violently and spun round to face the sound of her voice, his hands trembling. Not the reaction of someone incredibly dangerous. Willow edged out from behind the tombstone. "Hey. Mister. It's not safe out here."

Something had called to the cold dark thing coiling within him, some silver-sharp pain which pierced it as the stars pierced the sky overhead--for the most part invisible in the greater light of the moon and the sleeping town below, but there all the same. It reeled him towards it on a thousand thousand individual skeins of agony, threaded on needles of white fire, and when the pull at last abated there they stood, rising out of the ground all fey and woodsy, crowned in dead leaves with moonlight spilling from their eyes.
The Witches.
He hadn't expected to find any of them so quickly. Days, he'd thought, days before his path crossed any of theirs, for all that the world of Sunnydale after dark was a small one, and all the paths that ran through it twisted into one another. But here they were. "It's not safe out there," the Red Witch said, and the pain behind her eyes sang to him. The White Witch hung back. She knew. She had eyes to see the void within him, where the Red Witch saw only skin over bones.
"Not safe anywhere," he said, and it came out a raspy croak because his throat was so tight with the effort of keeping in the dark. "I thought it would be him, with the moon in his hair. The thread to pull, the Tower struck by lightning." That was right, more than right; he'd seen it on the night the walls of the world came down, the vampire falling, falling, falling from the Dark Tower, setting even as the Slayer rose with the sun only to fall in her turn.
The Red Witch looked confused. Tanner felt a great need to explain to her--it wasn't out of malice, any of this, and it seemed important to let her know that. "He is a creature of evil. He's making the swing go too high." That hadn't come out right. She was still advancing on him, her movements slow and dreamy, steps in an unfamiliar dance. Tanner backed away. He couldn’t just cut in. The world was all over strings, and how was he to know which was the right thread to tug on?
“Are you all right?” the Red Witch asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said, nervous. He backed up a few steps, reluctant to leave the path. The trees loomed up on either side, lithe, restless willows and hoary cypresses. Trees fit for a place of death. Lovely, dark and deep, lions and tigers and bears, oh my--could he drop a house on her, perhaps? He banged into something hard and cold, and looked up. The monument rose over him in the moonlight, stark, but not pure: the white marble was tarnished, stained with streaks of black and rust from decades of winter rains, the angel with the sword upraised in his defense.
“It’s OK. Just come with us. We can take you--
“Willow, I think he's--"
The Red Witch reached for him, her pale hands glowing--moonlight, or something else? Words, what were the words? He couldn’t do anything without the words! His hand shot out, fingers crooked, and grasped the cold marble shin of the statue. “Them bones, them bones, them dry bones,” he choked out. Not what he wanted to say, not at all. “Gonna walk around, now hear the word of th-the... Lord of the Crossroads, hear me!” With shaking hands he pulled a bottle from his pocket, ancient little sample-sized bottle of Captain Morgan’s Jim had found in a dumpster behind the liquor store last week, part of some junked advertising display. Lizzie’d wanted to drink it but he’d known it would come handy for more than a thimbleful of oblivion. He fumbled with the cap and it came off at last, releasing the heady odor of half-evaporated rum. “You thirsty, I give you drink.” He splashed it out onto the grave-dirt at his feet and it soaked into the dry ground in seconds. He flung the bottle at the Witch, who yipped and hopped back.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
Tanner ignored her, caught up in the mangled spell he was crafting. From another pocket he drew a cellophane packet of crumbling cheese crackers and ripped it open, scattering crumbs on the damp earth. “You hungry, I give you food. Come you now, Papa Ghede, take your horse and ride--”
“This was not the plan!” the eyeless man shouted, dancing on the grass. It died beneath his feet, leaving a trail of vegetative hieroglyphs behind him. The ground beneath Tanner’s feet heaved, cracks appearing in the sod. A ghastly smell wafted upwards and Tanner’s stomach revolted, though he had nothing to rid himself of and only bile burned its way up his throat and into his mouth. He knew, as the arm thrust its way up into the night air, that he’d made a mistake, but he couldn’t think what it was he should have done. The ground buckled, and the earth cracked open with a sharp metallic retort like a steel girder snapping.
You one crazy horse, boy, a deep, inhuman voice said in his ears. But no horse can carry two rider. Less you throw the one you got, I got to walk .
Tanner fell back on his ass, whimpering as the thing he’d called shambled up out of the stinking earth, tall and gaunt and grinning, trailing dirt from the ragged edges of its long black coat. Its eyes shone like polished obsidian beneath the brim of the battered top hat, and wads of cotton draggled out from its ears and nostrils--corpse-wrappings.
The Red Witch didn’t back away. She stood her ground, shouting words Tanner’d known once, pulling moonlight from the air as the long black arm reached down for her. Magic crackled around her, arcing like tame lightning from finger to finger and lashing out at the looming figure overhead. Her eyes were black as night, black as the open grave, her clenched teeth white behind drawn lips, her hair leached of color under the pale moon but possessing still some quality of flame as it licked about her face. “Ignite!” she screamed as the hands came down to close about her, long fingers like the roots of trees entangling her in their grasp. The magic leaped up--
And the magic died away.
It fizzled out like cheap fireworks, leaving the witch small and scared and alone in front of the loa. Tanner, from his refuge at the feet of the stone angel, could see her eyes, normal now and gone wide and terrified with the sudden knowledge of her own vulnerability. Above Ghede’s laughter he heard her shrill, desperate voice babbling the words to half a dozen spells. And there was no power behind it, none at all, and Ghede laughed. Laughed, and swung her about in a merry, obscene dance step, singing.

Si koko te gen dan li tap manje mayi griye,
Se paske li pa gen dan ki fe l manje zozo kale!

“More rum!” The loa whirled his unwilling partner aside, almost carelessly, to turn his attention upon the White Witch.
“Tara!” the Red Witch screamed before all the air was driven from her body as she hit the ground. She rolled across the ravaged turf, a limp, helpless ball, to come to a halt against Tanner’s monument, and lay there drawing in ragged painful breaths and clawing at the stone with both hands, trying to drag herself upright. “Tara,” she sobbed, but whether the word was a cry for help or a wail of despair was impossible to say.
“Now!” the eyeless man howled. “Now, while you have the chance!”
Tanner crawled to his knees, the moonlight singing in his ears. The Red Witch lay splayed out on the grass before him, silver tear-tracks streaking her face. Power buzzed within him, tingling down his arms and through his fingers, his own slight talent and the cold oily tide of power surging over it. He remembered now. She was the one who’d shown him this spell was possible, on the night when the walls came down. “I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “I’m really sorry.”
And said the right words, in the right order, as he plunged his fingers right into her skull.

It was better to get it all out in the open, Buffy assured herself. Or most of it. Really. No more festering resentment. Yep, now we have non-festering, out-of-the-closet resentment instead. Much better. She ducked under a low-hanging branch and touched the stake shoved into her belt briefly. She was too wrung out to be angry at this point; everything that was wrong with her life, starting with the fact that she was living it again, just kept trudging around and around in her brain, each worry biting at the tail of the one in front of it. She had to find a job. Was that fresh earth? Quick check... only gophers. Walk on. Without a degree she wasn't qualified for anything that paid decently. Let's face it, not qualified for anything much but slaying vampires anyway, unless someone's in the market for a really violent aerobics instructor. Willow was mad at her and jealous of Spike. She was mad at Willow, and...here she was, back from the dead for a month, walking through a graveyard at midnight, trying to come to terms with the fact that she felt most alive in the company of a dead man.
I want him.
Let's get that out of the way now, OK? I want Spike. I want to peel that stupid black shirt off like the skin off a grape. Want to lick him all over like a vampire popsicle. Want my hands on that body, want those hands on my body. Want that sweet, cruel, vulnerable, passionate mouth. Oh, yeah. Lips of Spike. Buffy want .
Spike, lounging on the couch between her and Dawn and smiling at her sister with a wondering affection when he thought no one was looking. Spike, talking soaps with her mother over hot cocoa. Spike, huddled on the sarcophagus, whispering I'd rather die through lips almost too bruised and swollen to speak. Spike, eyes alight over the fact that she'd read and liked some old poem. Spike, giving up his soul a second time for her sake, willing to let Willow's botched resurrection spell destroy him in order to save her. Spike, tossing off a snarky quip that left her snickering and trying oh-so-hard not to show it.
Spike, fangs tearing into the throat of the guard who'd shot her, even as the chip shocked him half-senseless and all right, maybe that counted as self-defense but--Spike, licking blood from his lips with complacent satisfaction afterwards. Spike, not giving a single solitary damn whether the man had lived or died.
A tombstone cracked under the force of her kick. Buffy want was one thing. Buffy get was something else. Her eyes swept the rows of moonlit graves as she stalked along the cemetery fence, one with the shadows, searching for something she could take out all her frustration on, something she could hunt, something she could slay. Irony sucks. She'd forgiven Spike his trespasses, but she couldn't afford to forget them. He’d killed tens of thousands of people in his century-plus of existence, and for all the astonishing things he'd done in the past year, she still had no idea what would happen on the day that the chip in his skull ceased to function and he was once again free to attack humans. Sometimes she could believe that he felt something akin to regret for what he was, even if remorse for what he’d done was beyond him, but was that enough?
The scary thing was, the ethical tangle wasn’t bothering her half as much as the emotional tangle--the fact that he was, potentially, a remorseless killer never left her thoughts, but it was taking a definite second place to the fact that he was Spike, and he loved her. She’d be the thing that gutter slime scraped off the bottom of its shoes if she took advantage of that love just to get her rocks off. She liked him too much to do that to him and how sick was it that she liked someone who was only a step or two away from seeing human beings as take-out, and if you liked someone and wanted them at the same time, was that love, and if so, why didn't it feel like either the swoony delirium she'd felt for Angel or the safe, comfortable thing she'd felt for Riley and why the HELL wasn't there anything for her to beat up tonight?
The scream caught her off-guard, but she was in motion before it died away. About time.
Buffy sped through the cemetery, ducking branches and dodging headstones as they loomed up out of the darkness. The noise had come from the eastern side of the lot, in the direction Willow and Tara had gone. There was very little Willow couldn't handle, and she was more worried that whatever it was would be reduced to its component molecules long before she got there than anything else. The run was exhilarating in itself, the steady rhythm of her breathing in counterpoint against her footfalls on the uneven ground. She heard another scream--definitely Willow--and a ghost of unease coalesced in her breast, pounding along with her heart.
Instead of dodging the next tombstone, she took it in stride, kicking off the top and leaping upwards to the roof of the nearest mausoleum. Dry leaves scattered beneath her feet as she landed on the summit. She straightened and shielded her eyes from the city glow and moonlight with one palm, surveying the panorama spread out on all sides, rank upon irregular rank of headstones meandering off into the darkness beneath the bordering willows.
The figure threading its way nimbly through the headstones was human, and wasn’t--a young woman with long tawny hair who had to be Tara, but who moved as she’d never seen Tara moving, in a jerking, bawdy parody of a dance. She was singing in no language Buffy knew, though a few words here and there sounded vaguely French, pirouetting about a large marble statue. Two more dark figures crouched in the grass at its base. A shadow followed Tara as she moved, its movements her movements, its laughter her laughter, something larger than human and not quite there. Look straight on and there was nothing but Tara, but in the corners of her vision Buffy caught glimpses of a long black coat, a tall top hat, an ebony face that was somehow oddly familiar. Tara paused her dance as Buffy watched, looking up as if sensing her presence, and a huge grin split her face. “Hey now! I hungry, thirsty--you bring me rum, ti-blanc? You bring me cigars? Kill me a rooster?” The voice was deep and rich and inhuman and reminded her of... someone.
“Tara?” Buffy jumped down from the mausoleum and advanced on the other girl cautiously. “Tara, is that you?” Tara danced lightly away, a lascivious grin lighting her face.
“Oh ho, rooster’s not the cock you want, hm?” She wiggled her hips suggestively. “You want advice, ti-blanc? You want luck? You want ask questions of Papa Ghede? You want this horse again? You follow the rules, you got to feed me. Bring me my rum, by damn!”
Buffy looked from Tara to the crumpled heap which was Willow and the cowering stranger beside her. She was at the statue in three furious strides, hauling the man up by his collar and shaking him. “What’s wrong with her?” she yelled. “What did you do? Turn it off!”
“I--I--” the man stammered, clearly terrified. “She’s being ridden by the loa. Ghede.” Buffy stared at him. “I don’t know how it happened!” he gasped. “I’m not... not that powerful. I didn’t even invoke Legba to open the gates to the spirit world--this shouldn’t have happened. Something called him here. Not me. Not me!”
He wouldn’t look her in the eyes, and kept staring at his hands in horror and loathing--he was lying, she was sure about that, but how much and about what she had no idea. “Who’s this Ghede when he’s at home? Is he dangerous?”
The man’s chin jerked up, and he looked at her as if she were insane. “Of course he’s dangerous! But if you treat him right there’s...You need to get some offerings. Food, candy, alcohol--not much, Ghede’s a nasty drunk and you don’t want to meet his Baron Samedi aspect--kill a chicken in his honor, something! Then he’ll answer your questions and dismount. He knows everything the dead know. Otherwise--”
“What?”
The man swiped the lank dark hair from his forehead, shivering in her grasp. “I don’t know. Ghede’s not malevolent... usually. But he’s unpredictable. He could ride her till she drops. He could get bored and leave. He could walk her in front of a bus. So you need to hurry--”
“Willow,” Buffy interrupted. “How badly is she hurt?”
“Red Witch,” the man whispered, his eyes going curiously blank. He shook himself. “I don’t know. She fell.”
Buffy stood there, rigid, then let go the stranger’s collar. He fell back with a little yelp and sprawled in the grass. “Keep her here,” she said, her voice as flat and deadly as she could make it. “I’ll be right back.”
It took five minutes, maybe, for her to race across the cemetery and bang perfunctorily on the door of Spike’s crypt before kicking it in. She knew the moment she went in that he wasn’t here; the electric sense of his presence was missing and the place felt empty. She began a methodical search of the upper level, and eventually found what she was looking for in a crate next to the mini-fridge--the bottles of Jack Daniels Spike had picked up at Willy’s the previous night, still in their brown paper bags. After a moment’s hesitation she grabbed one, tucked it under her arm, and tore out of the crypt at top speed.
When she got back to the angel monument, the strange man was gone, and Willow had pulled herself up to a sitting position and was leaning back against the pedestal of the statue, giggling at nothing, her eyes deep empty pools you could dive into and get lost in. No one else was in sight and for a cold horrid moment Buffy thought Tara was gone too.
“Boo!” Tara yelled in that not-Tara voice, jumping out from behind the statue.
Willow began clapping. “‘Ray!” she cried. “Round and round and round and round!”
Buffy ripped the brown paper wrapper off the bottle and held it out. “Here! Here’s your offering! Now get out of Tara and leave!”
The inhuman laughter rang out again. “How you think I appreciate a sacrifice, ti-blanc?” Tara’s hand shot out and snatched the bottle. She worried the top off and tipped it back, swallowing greedily, with loud gulping and smacking noises. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeyah! It not rum, but it do.” She twirled off into another dance step. “My houngan done run off, but he a sorry piece of shit anyway.” Tara flopped to the ground cross-legged and took another swig of whiskey, grinning widely and running the tip of her tongue over her teeth, a strangely familiar gesture. “You got three questions, ti-blanc.”
“The cat asked for a pair of russet leather boots,” Willow informed her, her elfin face grave. Buffy shot an anguished look at Willow, then rounded on Tara-Ghede again.
“What’s wrong with her?”
The bone-shivering chuckle again. “You already know the answer, ma petite. Her ti-bon-ange sicker than hell. She crazy.”
How unfair was it that she couldn’t punch that smug face in without hurting Tara? Buffy ground her teeth. “How can we fix what’s wrong with her?”
“You can’t. Last question, ti-blanc. Make it good.”
Her mind went blank, and the world held still. Ghede knows everything the dead know.
“Can I trust Spike?”
Tara-Ghede threw back her head and laughed. “As much as you trust any man, and as little. You say frog, he jump. But you have to say frog.”
“And what if I’m not around to say frog? What if I say frog and he decides I meant toad? What if--it’s bad enough I’ve got to be the Slayer and Dawn’s mom and the Summers’ family breadwinner! I can’t be Spike’s conscience too!”
The dark, liquid eyes, full of wicked humor, blinked as the grin spread across Tara’s face once more. “You got no choice there, ti-blanc. You already are.” She squinted down the neck of the whiskey bottle. “I give you one piece free advice: you been asking the wrong questions. Not ‘What’s wrong with her,’ but ‘Why’s it wrong?’ Not ‘How we fix her?’ but “How can she be fix?’ And not ‘Can I trust him?’ but ‘If he do whatever I want, what I want him to do?’”
“But--”
The bottle fell from Tara’s hands as she keeled over sideways, limp as an abandoned puppet. It hit the grass and rolled, spraying pungent amber liquid in its wake. Willow started back with a wail of alarm, waving one hand blindly in Tara’s direction. “No, no, Great Pan is dead!”
Buffy dove forward, ending up on her knees before Tara, clutching her shoulders with both hands. Tara moaned, leaning her forehead against Buffy’s shoulder and holding her stomach with both hands--hopefully not in anticipation of a mini-Ghede bursting out of it, Buffy thought. Tara looked up, her face pale and glistening with sweat in the moonlight, though the night was getting chilly, and made a painful gulping noise. “Buffy?” Her voice was her own again, but she sounded weak and sick and very, very confused. “I think... I think I’m going to be...” And then she was, jackknifing forward as half a bottle of whiskey and whatever she’d had for dinner came up in one violent heave.
Willow started sobbing, crawling across the grass towards her lover. Buffy tried to simultaneously leap back out of the way and not let Tara fall, ending up in an awkward, arm’s-length position of support. She began edging to one side, still on her knees. “Ew, ew, ew... Tara, it’s OK, you just drank too much. Or he drank too much, or, or something. Willow--” Willow batted at Tara’s shoulder with one hand and whimpered something about sugar cubes. Buffy freed one arm. “Sit down, please, I can’t--”
“I’m OK,” Tara croaked. “I think. I don’t remember... there was this... this thing, this big, big thing... my head hurts.” Her eyes widened. “Willow. Oh, gods, Willow--can you hear me?”
“In the dry times of year, in the leaves of regret, I know a hawk from a handsaw.” Willow poked the remains of Tara’s dinner with one finger and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Stinky.” She slumped, losing all interest in Tara, and began twisting a strand of her hair round her finger, tighter and tighter. Buffy sat back on her heels and pressed both hands to her forehead, feeling overwhelmed.
“We’ve got to get her somewhere safe,” Tara said, hauling herself upright against the marble angel and getting unsteadily to her feet. She held out a trembling hand to her partner. “Willow... come on, Willow...” Her voice broke. Not all of the moisture on her cheeks was sweat. “You’re going to be OK, honey, we’ll find some way to make you better, just like you made me better...” She looked over at Buffy, her eyes all to human now, and full of agony. “What are we going to do?”
Buffy ran a hand down her face. “Um. Crypt. It’s not far to Spike’s crypt. He wasn’t there when I went to get the whiskey... oh, fabulous, we managed to kill the whole bottle. Somehow I think ‘I had to give it to a raunchy cemetery god’ isn’t going to make him very happy.” She got up, avoiding the aftermath of Tara’s sick fit, and picked Willow up bodily. “OK. No panicking. If whatever happened to her is what happened to Willy, it’ll wear off.” I hope. “We go to the crypt. We clean up as much as we can. We keep an eye on Willow. What did happen to her?”
Tara hugged herself tightly for a moment, head bowed, eyes squeezed shut against the sight of Willow’s slack face. Then she sighed and looked up, retreating into her shell of calm reserve. “I’m not sure. We were patrolling, and we heard that guy coming. He seemed really out of it. Willow tried to talk him into letting us take him out of the cemetery, and he... called something. Some kind of power. Willow tried to fight it, and then it just... I can’t remember anything after that.”
“He called it Ghede.”
Tara frowned. “Ghede? That’s familiar... oh! I remember! We had that in my Cultural Anthropology course last semester. It’s Haitian. He’s one of the Rada loa, a pretty important one, I think. Guardian of the cemetery. He’s also, um, associated with sex.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Great, like I need sex and death tied up in my subconscious any more than they already are.”
“I don’t know much more than that about it. Voudoun’s way out of my field. I always thought it was a weird combo in class,” Tara mused. “On one hand he’s this dangerous scary death guy you go to for advice, and on the other he’s this chaotic trickster who likes to smoke and drink and make lewd jokes and have a good time. And he’s a protector of children.”
Buffy shrugged. “Doesn’t sound all that weird to me. Though he gives sucky advice. No way worth half a bottle of bourbon.”
Tara stroked Willow’s forehead. After a while she said thoughtfully, “No, I guess it wouldn’t seem weird, to you.”
Buffy still hadn’t figured out what Tara meant by that by the time they reached the crypt.

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