Angel had never hated Spike. In the days when Angel had been unencumbered by a soul, Spike had been a stupidly rebellious minion tolerated only because he kept Drusilla occupied when Angel had no need of her. Barely worth noticing, much less hating. When the two of them had met again three years ago, during Spike’s brief and eventful tenure as Master of Sunnydale’s vampire population, it had quickly become obvious that for all the outward trappings of power he’d assumed, Spike was still the same volatile mix of insecurity, viciousness, and bravado he’d always been. Soul well-lost once more, all the new improved Angelus had had to do was aim a few jibes at the soft underbelly of Spike’s pride and it was like old times again, Drusilla dancing attendance on Daddy and Spike reduced to jealous, impotent fury. Easy.
Until Spike had broken all the rules, and allied with Buffy to bring Angelus crashing down. Buffy’s hands had held the blade, but Spike’s shadow presence had been right beside her, crowing in triumph as she thrust it home and sent the once-more-souled Angel to hell. All that came later hinged on that moment when Spike had made the decision--for proper, selfish vampiric reasons--to fight for a day on the side of light. Now Angel brooded in the sparkling, modern kitchen of Hank Summers's L.A. apartment, and tried to decide if it were finally time for him to start hating Spike.
He definitely hated the whispers, the looks, the smiles, the touches--oh, he really hated the touches, teasing and tender--the way Spike’s shoulder kept brushing Buffy’s, the way Buffy’s hand kept meeting Spike’s on the way to the salt. Spike was still indulging his bizarre addiction to human food, and was devouring a revolting mixture of scrambled eggs, pig's blood, and tabasco sauce with every indication of enjoyment. Angel had always scorned that particular affectation; who was Spike trying to fool? Now he was almost glad of it; concentrating on the repulsiveness of Spike's breakfast kept him from dwelling on the far greater repulsiveness of Spike and Buffy exchanging besotted looks, or the rancorous exchange going on in the next room.
"...knew, and you didn't tell me?" Linda's voice was clearly audible through the closed bedroom door.
"Tell you what? 'By the way, dear, my daughter's dating a guy with no pulse?' Why should I think you'd believe it?" Hank’s voice wasn't quite as emphatic, but just as irritated. "I still don't believe it!"
Spike cocked his head in the direction of the master bedroom, thoroughly amused at the discord. "Think we're going to be sleeping in the car tonight, pet?" He dunked his toast into his mug of warm pig's blood until it was sodden with gore, and tore into it with gusto.
Don't you get it, Buffy? This is what a demon is. Strife is his raison d'etre.
Buffy did not get it; she just wrinkled her nose and poured herself more orange juice. "I don't know, but I hope you have a blanket in your trunk just in case. Watch it, you're dripping blood on the hash browns."
"Don't knock it till you've tried it, love."
"I'll stick with ketchup, thanks." Buffy aimed a little half-frown at Angel, the worried hostess fretting over a finicky guest. "Are you sure you don't want anything?"
Angel shook his head. "I'm fine." Any moment now his brain was going to explode with the impossibility of the situation. I can't move on, he'd told Buffy once. You can. I can't. But he'd begun to, this last summer after her funeral--not to someone else; that was impossible for someone in his circumstances, but to a place where he didn't feel her loss with every breath he didn't take. Living in a world without Buffy had proved infinitely easier than living in a world where Buffy existed and he couldn't have her. When they'd dragged her back, damn them--Willow and Dawn, anyway; Spike was already taken care of--he'd braced himself for the renewal of that old pain, but it hadn't come. The wound had finally closed, and he’d walked away from their post-post-mortem rendezvous with regret and a tremendous feeling of freedom.
Until today. It wasn't that she'd moved on--it was to whom she'd moved. "No, I take it back. I do want something. An explanation would be good."
Spike's knuckles whitened on his mug of blood and the muscles in his jaw worked. "I love Buffy, Buffy loves me, we've been shagging like minks
for a week, and with luck will continue to do so for many years to come. Anything else you need to know?"
Angel watched the younger vampire with loathing, imagining that smug face beaten and bloody, eyes swollen shut, that oily smirk smashed into broken-toothed ruin... Buffy's hand closed on top of Spike's, her fingertips barely extending to the first joints of his fingers, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Angel pressed his fingers to his temples. He could feel his skull starting its slow-motion, Technicolor expansion now.
Linda's muffled tirade continued. "I can't believe you'd put us in danger like this! He could have--"
"Talked us to death?" Hank rejoined.
Spike jerked upright. "I heard that, y'wanker!"
Buffy finished her orange juice, got up, tiptoed over to the bedroom door and rapped on it. "Uh... Dad? We have to leave now."
The argument within silenced itself abruptly. "Fine, honey. I'll see you later."
Buffy aimed a stern look at Spike, who mouthed 'Do I have to?' Buffy gestured emphatically at the bedroom door. Spike sulked for a moment, then heaved a sigh and recited, "Linda, I'm sorry I scared you, I promise never to eat anyone even remotely connected to you ever, and could you please not have your grandmum uninvite me while we're gone?"
More silence, then a grudging, "I'll think about it," from Linda.
Ordeal survived, Spike got to his feet, locked his hands over his head in a contented cat-stretch, and chuckled. "Your Dad can pick 'em. Bet she's a dab hand with a battleaxe." He scooped up a random assortment of breakfast dishes and dumped them into the sink to dessicate--only semi-domesticated, then. "We're taking the DeSoto, Peaches. I'm not entrusting my flammable hide to a sodding ragtop."
Angel watched stolidly as he walked over to Buffy and hooked his arm around her waist. He felt his fists starting to curl in on themselves again, and forcibly relaxed, muscle by muscle. He wasn’t going to give Spike the satisfaction of reacting further. Buffy rolled her eyes as Spike pulled her close, a little smile playing about her lips--very much aware of what he was up to, but not complaining about it. The kiss was deep, leisurely, and intense; far from prolonging it to tweak his nose, Angel got the distinct impression that the two of them had forgotten his existence entirely. They finally pulled away from one another, a reluctant, molasses-slow separation. Spike tossed his car keys into the air and caught them, shot Angel a cocky, infuriating grin, and sauntered out whistling. Buffy's eyes followed him out the door, the little smile lingering.
Angel entertained a vivid, satisfying image of running Spike over with his own car, grinding his body into red jelly on the pavement, and felt momentarily better.
Ten minutes later he stood with Buffy in the lobby of the Allman Luxury Apartments, waiting for Spike to bring the car around from the underground garage. Not by the southern exposure of the front doors, where morning sunlight streamed in through the plate-glass windows and set the brass door fixtures ablaze. They'd dodged the gleaming spears of light and crossed to the west-facing side entrance, still in deep shadow. Buffy hadn't hesitated, or checked the position of the sun. "So. You must have planned this all out pretty well ahead of time," he said with a nod at the front entrance. "Figured out all the places you can't go, all the things you can't do with a vampire in tow."
If Buffy noticed the sarcastic edge to his voice, she ignored it. "I’m all about meeting the challenge." She sounded almost cheerful about it. "They don't design buildings for daytime vampire access. This being of the good under most circumstances. Spike's scarily inventive when it comes to getting around in the daytime."
"It is scary, isn't it?" Definite oozing of sarcasm there.
Definite ignoring of oozing sarcasm on Buffy's part. He should have known there was something wrong at their awkward meeting last month, but he'd been too stunned by the fact of her return to do much but wonder at her presence. Buffy, in turn, had been tired and withdrawn. They might as well have been on different planets for all the connection they'd made. He wished he could lay it all to the anomaly of her death and resurrection, but no, this was simpler: two people apart, lives diverging day by day, month by month, year by year.
If he'd walked into this lobby today and seen her for the first time, would she arrest his eyes and heart as she had six years ago? Then it had been her innocence which drew him as much as her beauty, the terrible unfairness of this girl being made a sacrifice, sent all unawares to fight horrors beyond imagining. The slender young woman in the camel pullover was still beautiful, but no longer a child, no longer fresh and innocent and unspoiled. Death was her companion now; her eyes had seen too much of it, her hands had dealt too much of it, and now--why, God, why had he never killed Spike? It would have been so easy!--she’d taken Death into her heart. The blazing joie de vivre she'd displayed at fifteen was no more; would he notice her at all? Or would he pass by, his encounter with Buffy Summers nothing more than a moment of curiosity, quickly forgotten?
If he caught her eyes, perhaps he would pause a moment, still. The fire had dimmed, but the coals still glowed, waiting only the right breath of wind to blaze up again, the more fiercely, perhaps, for having been banked.
Buffy gave him a look as he stood brooding by the potted ficus, a quick lift of the head--pleading, almost shy, balancing lightly on the balls of her feet as if at any moment she might run to him--or away. She sought his eyes, apology in her own. "I didn't want you to find out like this," she said, quiet, sincere. "I was going to tell you. I was going to find the perfect words to explain it all, and tell you at the perfect time." She essayed a small, hopeful smile. "I haven't found the perfect words yet, but I'm pretty sure the perfect time is coming up in March, 2012."
Did she want him to accept this with no more cavil than he'd accepted Riley Finn? As if it were right and healthy, just one more instance of how she'd gone on with her life? "No time like the present. Tell me how you could do this. With Spike, of all--my God, Buffy!" Anguish tightened round his heart like barbed wire; not dead enough to ward off this pain, not yet. "Spike! You know what he is!" He strode towards her, towering over her (uncomfortable to do so; he’d grown used to looking Cordelia in the eye). His hand went to her neck, fingers tracing the fading line of bruises. "And you let him do this to you?"
Buffy stiffened at his touch. She pulled down her collar on the other side, exposing the overlapping white scars--the marks of vampire’s fangs, two from enemies who’d wished her dead or defiled, the third... "And I let you do this to me," she said. Her voice was trembling, very slightly. "What I let Spike do is my choice."
Self-recrimination sprang up in his breast like a weed no amount of reason could kill: he'd been dying, she'd provoked him, no vampire in creation could have shown any more control than he had under such circumstances... but all the rationalizations in the world couldn't change the fact that none of the bite marks on that fair neck belonged to Spike. It was queerly jolting. "He hasn't..."
Buffy smiled, a mischievous little feminine smile. "Are you kidding? He got offended when I brought it up, in a cute sort of punk-Victorian way. I thought he'd want to... but biting me? Not even on the radar for him. Except for those play-bites that make you go all tingly and... OK, TMI. Sorry."
Angel regarded the top of her head with bleak disapproval. "You do realize that if you ever use the word 'cute' to describe any aspect of Spike again, I will have to kill both of you?"
She took a step closer and laid a hand on his arm, earnest entreaty in her gaze. "I'm sorry. I don't want to make this hard for you. I really don't. But I can't--I can't pretend he's not important to me. I can't pretend he doesn't make me feel... whole."
"Whole? Buffy..." Angel hesitated, closed his eyes. She was still looking up at him when he opened them again, big solemn grey-green eyes searching his face, soft ripe lips parted ever so slightly... obscene, to think of their living human warmth pressed to Spike's chill dead flesh, as once they'd pressed to his. "You're right, this is your choice. But if this is the choice you're making, there's something wrong. I was in a bad place last year. The despair, the--I did some stupid things, things I regret. I thought they'd make me feel better--I thought they'd make me feel, period. But it only made things worse." Her eyes were attentive, but blank; nothing he was saying was striking any chords. He swallowed hard and forged on. "This isn't you. The Buffy Summers I know is a good person, a caring person. You can't tell me that Buffy Summers is capable of falling in love with a thing that's killed tens of thousands of people and doesn't care--that a monster like Spike is what it takes to make you whole."
He'd struck a nerve; she flinched as if every word had barbs attached. Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them back. “You don’t understand, you can’t--when I first came back... the whole world was grey, and flat, and so was I. I didn’t feel good, I didn’t feel bad, I didn’t feel anything. At all. Everything was just... nothing. Except Spike.” A shaky little laugh. “The last month’s been my own personal vampire edition of Pleasantville, minus the extra who looks freakily like an ex-boyfriend.” She wrapped her arms around herself, and her voice fell to a whisper. "Maybe I'm not the Buffy Summers you know. Maybe Willow screwed up. And if I'm not, what are you going to do about it? Take me back and trade me in for next year's model? I never asked to come back, but I'm here and you're stuck with me--this me. And this me needs Spike. Loves Spike."
Her voice steadied, and she repeated, "I love Spike," almost to herself--was this the first time she'd said these words aloud to anyone else? "I know what Spike is. He's killed more people than I can get my mind around. Just like you." Angel started to protest, but she cut him off. "I know who he is, too. He’s the one who sat with me when I found out Mom was sick. He helped me fight Glory and risked his life for my sister and stuck around after I died and helped my friends. He feeds me disgusting gooey nachos and cheats at poker and quotes Shakespeare and Johnny Rotten and watches my back and sort of repents of teaching my sister to shoplift." Her head came up, and she looked him right in the eye; the light was back in hers. "And he loves me. Spike loves me, and knows it's impossible, and is willing to fight to make it work anyway. He may be a monster, but he does a pretty good imitation of a man."
"And that's all it is. An imitation. He's not William."
She was angry, now, her gaze gone stormy. "No, he’s not. I didn't fall in love with William. I fell in love with the thing that killed him. Do you think I forget that, ever?”
"Yeah, I do. I was at your funeral. I got the whole 'Spike's a good guy now, he loved Buffy, the chip's just as good as a soul' lecture from Dawn." It had shocked him, Dawn's fierce defense of Spike, almost as much as the gaunt, limping, hollow-eyed specter Spike had been at the funeral. "It's bullshit. We both know it. He's--"
"Here," Buffy said, as the DeSoto pulled up to the curb and Spike laid into the horn. "Are you coming or not?"
"Buffy... I gave up everything we had so that you could have--" Something clean, something sunkissed and normal and good in your life. If you had to throw your life away on a vampire, why couldn't it have been me? But it was far too late to ask that question; he'd been the one to leave, after all--not just once, but at every turn when fate seemed determined to thrust them back together. He had a destiny, after all, more important than his happiness, or hers.
Her eyes softened, storm turned to sea-mist, and for the first time in any of the fights they'd had over that decision, he saw pity in them rather than wounded betrayal. His was not the only old wound which had begun to heal. "Yes. That's right. You gave up everything we had. And now we don't have it anymore. Please, Angel--don't break what we've still got." She turned and straight-armed the door, and after a moment Angel bowed his head and followed her out to the curb, to the place where sunlight and shadow met.

It wasn't a backup plan, Willow told herself, because she was going to come up with a miracle. She was just exploring her options. So far this option didn't look very promising. She'd been down to the Department of Social Services building with her parents half a dozen times over the summer, to deal with assorted Dawn problems, so she hadn't exactly expected marble halls and augustly bearded Viennese doctors selflessly toiling away on behalf of the indigent in libraries that made Giles's look like the Scholastic Reader Book Bus, but she hadn't expected quite so many roaches, either.
The balding, shirt-sleeved man across the desk from her smacked a dog-eared Ellery Queen paperback down on their visitor, inspected the corpse for a moment and flicked it into the trash can. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Rosenberg. Aaron Gustavsen.” He offered her a large flabby hand and Willow shook it gingerly. Gustavsen sat back in his chair and rubbed his brow. “Sorry. It’s like the Apocalypse in here.”
“It can’t--oh.” A squeaky nervous laugh died on her lips. “Figure of speech, right? Because the whole plagues-of-Egypt motif?”
“Might as well be the end of the world--they've been tearing up the sewer lines over on Alpert, and the damned things have been coming up through the drains in the bathroom. We're supposed to be getting an exterminator in Wednesday." He pursed his lips. "You said you were concerned about a group of homeless people squatting on city land?”
Willow nodded. “Concerned. Very. But not in a call the police way--I want to know what can be done to un-homeless them. And I think a lot of them aren’t all there.”
“How many did you say there were?"
"I'm not totally certain. Maybe eight? Or... fifteen?" Willow made an apologetic gesture. "I'm sure there's not more than twenty. But they're all living in the dump, which can't be sanitary, and, you know, winter's coming and I know we’re not on the Russian Front or anything, but it gets nippy. I'm worried about them. So I wanted to see if I could do anything helpful, because that's me, always helpful."
Gustavsen gave a noncommital grunt and began shuffling through the mass of papers on his desk--case histories, forms, menus from The Pizza Guys. "Let's see. First of all, you'd have to--are you related to any of them? No? We’d need to send a caseworker to make contact with them, convince them to come into the Center on their own, and sign up for one of the transitional programs. That would be difficult. Once that's squared away, you can get them into the Grapevine Clinic for diagnosis and prescription meds, with followup to make sure they're taking them, get them into a halfway house and employment assistance program..."
Willow brightened. That didn't sound too hard. "Well--that's great! How long will that take? Can we do it tomorrow? I can take you right there, and we can round them all up!"
He stared at her for a minute, then laughed--not unkindly, but as if her enthusiasm pained him. "First of all, we'd have to assign a caseworker, and we're so understaffed right now it's not funny. Two weeks, if we’re lucky. Then we'd need to make sure there's room for more people in any of the programs. What with the energy crisis last summer and the state's budget hemorrhaging to death, our DMH and PATH grants have been cut to the bone." He looked up from his papers and handed her a California Department of Mental Health pamphlet. "Three to six months, assuming no more budget cuts. They're good programs, when we can afford them."
Willow stared at the pamphlet. Helping the Homeless Help Themselves! it said, with a happy little picture of a kindly volunteer leaning over the shoulder of a sweet old woman who looked way more together than any of the bag ladies of Willow's acquaintance. "Six months? That's..."
"What we have to deal with." A note of sympathy entered his voice. "The other option is to get yourself appointed the legal guardian of the person you’re concerned about, with power of attorney. Assuming the court granted your petition, then you could have them committed to the state mental hospital. Though they’re so full I don’t think you could keep them there very long; they’d have to go out-patient, and someone would still need to see that they kept taking their meds... And you'd have to go through this process individually for each one of them. Believe me, I wish we could just wave a magic wand and help everyone immediately, but it can't be done." He smiled wryly. "About all we could do in the timeframe you're suggesting is call the police and have them kick them out of the dump and maybe arrest them for squatting."
"I--I see. That's not really what I had in mind." Willow got up and turned to leave, dejection in every limb of her body. Halfway to the door she turned and rushed back. "Isn't there any way to speed things up?"
He smiled--wistful, almost--and wasn't that weird and disturbing in a pudgy middle-aged bureaucrat? "There's corners you can cut here and there, but three months is the best you could hope for. If you want me to put your name on the waiting list for the Sunnydale Community Outreach, that's the most comprehensive--"
"Thanks, but I've got to--this is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. Talk. I've got to talk. To people--uh, relatives. And--thanks for the pamphlet."
She waved the little slip of paper at him, feeling like an idiot, and beat a hasty retreat out the door of the cramped little office before she could make a more elaborate and detailed idiot of herself--something involving tinfoil hats, maybe.
“Ms. Rosenberg!” Gustavsen called after her. Willow turned to see him standing in the doorway of his office, his scalp pink with exertion. “Some advice--don’t try to deal with this on your own. I know it’s heartbreaking--believe me, I know--but you can do more harm than good, especially if some of these men are mentally ill. If you want to help, volunteer at the Salvation Army or the Battered Women’s Shelter, or someplace where you can learn the ropes. Please.”
Willow nodded, her eyes falling to the toes of her Birkenstocks. “I understand.” She turned once more and scuffed down the corridor with her book bag bumping along behind her, discouraged. She'd missed lunch to come downtown, she hadn't accomplished a thing, and--she glanced at the clock over the deserted receptionist's desk in the lobby--she was going to be late getting back to campus for her biology class if she didn't hurry. "Wave a magic wand," she muttered. "Yeah. Right." She shouldered her bag and blinked as she walked out into the bright December sunlight. The book bag thumped against her back as she trudged down the sidewalk, one sharp corner digging into her shoulder blades with every step. Poke, poke, poke. A reminder of what the bag contained, down under Social Construction of Reality and Jansen’s History of Art .
In the end it all comes down to what price you’re willing to pay to get what you want, doesn’t it? You were wiling to give up your soul to get your friend back. Or so you claimed at the time. How much are you willing to give up to redeem a dozen lives?
She left the DMH building and walked across the dry lawns, past the cooing flocks of slate-colored pigeons with iridescent necks that congregated around the little hotdog carts which catered to Sunnydale’s population of civil servants. There was the Municipal Court building, and Parks and Recreation, poured-concrete monstrosities dating from the ‘50s. Willow stopped at the fountain in the center of the square; the fountain itself was turned off, but the pool still held water, along with a selection of dead leaves and a scattering of verdigris-encrusted pennies. There was City Hall, with the Mayor’s office front and center, where Buffy’d had to rescue her from the late Mayor Wilkins. She tried to remember who the Mayor of Sunnydale was these days, and failed. The Right Honorable Not-A-Wilkins. She gazed down at her wavery reflection in the water. She didn’t have any change to make wishes on.
Her reflection smirked up at her. Is there anyplace in Sunnydale where you haven’t been kidnaped and held captive at one point or another?
“Shut up. Shut up! Do you think I’m stupid?” Willow shouted, causing several pigeons to flutter away in alarm. She dropped the book bag on the rim of the fountain with a thump and slapped the water with her open palm, sending droplets flying and breaking the face beneath her into a thousand crazy shards. “I know what you’re doing! I know what you’re trying to get me to do!”
A silent laugh echoed through her head. Do you, clever Wicca? No more games. No more illusions. Just the voice. Cold and smooth and dark, like deep water, like liquid obsidian. Then the only question before us is, are you going to do it?

Over the last six years Buffy Summers had developed a very firm set of rules concerning vampires, and kept them constantly in mind when dealing with Spike.

1. All vampires are to be staked, immediately.
2. There will be absolutely no flirting, taunting, or barbed sexual innuendo exchanged between Slayers and chipped, helpless vampires who are not staked out of misplaced pity and consideration of previous world-saving assistance.
3. Flirting, taunting, and barbed sexual innuendo between Slayers and helpless chipped vampires will never, ever lead to furtive contemplation of what big hands he's got, Grandma, or to sweaty, naughty thoughts about the implications thereof.
4. Sweaty, naughty thoughts about helpless chipped vampires will not lead to embarrassing over-reaction when one discovers said vampire harbors similar thoughts about Slayer, at least until vampire makes tactical error of chaining one to wall and threatening to sic ravenous ex-girlfriend on one, thus justifying over-reaction.
5. Slayers will never, ever forgive vampires for stupid chaining-to-wall stunt, regardless of degree of heroic suffering endured by said vampire for self and sister at hands of excessively bitchy hell-goddess.
6. Having forgiven vampire, Slayers will never be so silly as to re-invite said vampire into her home. Having re-invited vampire into home, will not give slightest hint of encouragement to said vampire's heart-melting declaration of devotion.
7. Slayers will never use dying and returning to life as excuse for hanging out with morally deficient vampire half responsible for resurrection, no matter how impressed she may be at younger sister's tales of what vampire did on his summer vacation.
8. Hanging out with morally deficient vampire will be on purely platonic, business level only. There will be no flirting, taunting, or barbed sexual innuendo (see Rule #2); neither will there be any undue appreciation of vampire's wit, fighting ability, supermodel-grade cheekbones, muscular yet compact build, et. al. Arguments and the occasional fistfight are not to be considered expressions of sublimated passion.
9. Having succumbed to sublimated passion, Slayers will never be so idiotic as to fall in love with morally deficient vampire. Having fallen in love with morally deficient vampire, Slayers will never be so idiotic as to tell him so. Having confessed love to morally deficient vampire, Slayers will never be so idiotic as to attempt actual relationship.
10. In hammering out relationship with morally deficient vampire, Slayers will never engineer a weekend involving said vampire, previous vampire boyfriend, father, and father's vampire-phobic girlfriend. It cannot end well.

She was still working on Number Eleven, which would involve Slayers never driving long distances in the same car with current and former vampire boyfriends. It wanted polishing.
They were tooling down Highway 91 towards Corona as fast as the law allowed or a little faster, the mid-morning sunlight striking a galaxy of miniature rainbows off the DeSoto’s grease-clouded windshield. Spike was wearing a pair of welder’s goggles to protect his eyes from the sun--in conjunction with the black leather duster, they made him resemble a demented World War I ace. “‘....rock all night, sleep all day, it don’t matter what they say...’” Spike jounced up and down in the driver’s seat in time to the music, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke, trailing the butt out the window. “Fuck, I love this song!”
“Is that what it is?”
“Oh, you love it too, baby! Better than that Chieftains bollocks, innit? Lights a fire under you!”
“It’s gonna light a fire all over you if you don’t roll up the damn window.” Angel slouched further down in the back seat. “On second thought, go right ahead and leave it down. And what’s wrong with the Chieftains?”
“Nothing, if your idea of good music begins and ends with ‘Danny Boy.’” Spike pulled his arm back in just before his hand began to smoulder, his manic grin never wavering. “Have to roll the window down if I’m going to have a smoke around you health nuts, don’t I?”
“Let’s not make that literal, hm?” Buffy opened the glove compartment and pulled the Triple A map from the mess of repair receipts, broken tire gauges, and general crud, unfolded it and re-traced their route for the dozenth time. “It’s the second exit, right?”
“Love, it’s twenty miles yet.”
“Right. Twenty miles. Ceasing to panic.” Buffy started to re-fold the map. “Not that I’m panicking. Large with Zen-like calm, here.” She regarded the abstract origami sculpture in her lap with dismay, gave up and stuffed the map back into the glove compartment in ignominious defeat. Spike looked at her, cigarette cocked at a jaunty angle in one corner of his mouth, and it was like fighting the magnetic pull of the earth not to scoot across the expanse of sun-warmed black leather between them and take refuge against his side, ridiculous goggles and all. That would upset Angel. On the other hand, wasn’t it unfair to Spike to act based on what would upset Angel? On the third hand, Angel was doing them a favor and it would be tacky to rub his nose in her new relationship. On the fourth hand...
...on the fourth hand she was headed to see Faith and her stomach was tying itself in knots--not weenie little granny knots, either, good solid double-hitches--and after days of planning she still had no idea what she was going to say. Spike’s leather-clad arm slid round her shoulders, and he snugged her up against his lithely-muscled torso (when had she crossed the seat?) as if they’d been machined for one another, interlocking Buffy n’ Spike action figures, stakes sold separately. The discordant twinging of her Slayer senses mellowed into Mmmmmmm, Spike , the tense knot between her shoulder blades eased up, and she felt a faint hope that she could engage Faith in civil conversation for five minutes before resorting to communication via blunt instrument. Next on Oprah: Vampire Valium--Moral Support or Co-Dependant Wackiness? You Decide!
But whichever it was, it worked, and if the fact that Spike slacked off on baiting Angel for the remainder of the trip meant anything, at least she wasn’t the only one jonesing for a PDA fix.
There was covered parking, or close enough for government work; no one caught fire on the way to the door. There was an hour-long delay while they signed in, were searched, and cooled their collective heels waiting for a private booth to open up. There were a dozen other people in the waiting room with them, including a few fretful children, so discussing what they’d come for was problematic. Every now and then a man with a clipboard popped out of a door, called out a name, and disappeared, apparently terrified of seeing his own shadow and causing six more weeks of incarceration. The lucky winner would get up, collect their children or CARE packages of cigarettes and toiletries, and file out through the same door.
Buffy perched on the edge of the bench, one hand fiddling with the cool silver weight of the ring on the chain around her neck. Spike was sliding progressively lower on his tailbone beside her, eyes closed, one hand thrust into his belt and his booted feet obstructing as much of the aisle in front of him as he could manage. Angel occupied the chair opposite, watching the two of them with folded arms and a melancholy frown.
A pair of guards marched by in the hall outside, escorting a sullen woman with short-cropped hair and an expression of dull resignation. Buffy watched them disappear down the corridor, feeling twitchy. The atmosphere was oppressive--the guards, the stark institutional rooms, the impersonal humiliation of the routine. Hello, prison! Duh! She’d wanted Faith here. Scratch that, she’d wanted Faith beaten to a bloody pulp, suffering every second of misery she’d put Buffy through tenfold, but prison was the right thing to do, so she’d settled. Or so she’d thought. Stalag 17 this wasn’t, but... Buffy tilted her head in Spike’s direction and whispered, “So if you did something awful, which punishment would you pick--get beaten up, or do ten years?”
“What d’y’mean, if?” Spike opened one eye. “Getting off scott free’s not an option, then? Beating. Lock me up and I’d go starkers inside a week.”
“Total agreement. I mean, it hurts, but then it’s over. Does that say something about us?”
“We’re not just masochists, we’re impatient masochists?”
“I am strangely not comforted.”
Mr. Clipboard did the human cuckoo-clock routine again. “Summers?”
Buffy got to her feet, all the knots in her stomach untying at once, releasing a flock of mutant killer butterflies. Angel looked up. “You want me to go in with you?” Buffy nodded, and he rose silently to his feet. Spike didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to; that he’d watch her back was a given. Her hand found his and hung on tightly as the three of them followed their guide out the door and into the large hall where the line of glass-divided booths stretched from one end to the other.
Buffy watched as they brought Faith into the cubicle, two big guards with crew-cuts and hands the size of Easter hams. Buffy wondered idly how long it would take Faith to turn them into cold cuts if the mood took her, and if Faith would enjoy doing it. Faith of the long dark tresses and heavy-lidded eyes, the face of a street-worn Madonna and the mouth of a Long Island dockworker, stood there while the guards uncuffed her hands, trying for nonchalant and mostly succeeding. Buffy pulled out the chair on her side of the barrier--it was the same kind of chair they’d had in her elementary school, bright blue plastic seat and all--and sat down. On her side of the glass Faith did the same. Slayers, dark and light. Worlds apart. Or maybe, these days, not so much.
As the guards left them, Faith ran the palms of her hands down the tails of her blue denim prison shirt, licked her lips. Nervous. Faith. Dark eyes flicked past Buffy’s shoulder to the two vampires in the background, doing their own little yin-yang thing--Angel loomed, Spike lounged. She looked to Angel first, seeking reassurance, then to Spike, full of questions. “So. B. You building a harem, or what?” She pressed her hand to the bridge of her nose, grimacing. “That was so not the first thing I planned on saying.”
“You had a first thing planned? One up on me.” Oh, this was going well. Maybe she should just launch herself at the glass screaming now and avoid the rush. Spike’s hand drifted over to rest on her shoulder, cool and solid, an anchor to a world where she wasn’t Psycho-Bitca Buffy. Pause, rewind.
Angel stirred. “Faith, this is Spike. He’s...” He stopped, struggled with it for awhile, and shrugged. “Present, for reasons beyond me.”
Spike smirked and gave Faith a little wave. “We’ve met.”
Faith peered out at him from between her fingers. “Figured that out, huh?”
“Yeh.” His smirk intensified. “Lost your chance for that confrontation I promised you, though. I’m taken.”
“Let’s just embrace the weirdness and move on, shall we?” Buffy interrupted. Temper-holding exercise #1: Count the nose-smudges on the barrier between her and Faith. My, what high-quality plexiglass. “I think the Council of Watchers is going to contact you soon, if they haven’t already. I think they’re going to ask for your help and offer to get you out of here. And I--” The words caught in her throat, “I’m asking you to turn them down.”
Faith braced one foot against the counter and rocked back in her chair, a frown twisting her brows. “Turn ‘em down?”
“With a rousing chorus of ‘Look For the Union Label.’ We’re on strike. I’m trying to get us paid. I know you hate me and I’m not too fond of you, but--”
“Fuck, B., I don’t hate you. I--”
“No!” Buffy cut her off with a sharp, one-handed chop. “Don’t. Don’t tell me you’re sorry. There’s not enough sorry in the world. Just... do this thing for me, and...” Think about bills. Think about Dawn. Think about Dawn’s tuition. “...we’re even.”
Faith studied her, pinching her lower lip between thumb and forefinger. When she spoke her voice was quiet, serious. “I’m copacetic, B. I owe you. But... not exactly the Council’s poster girl for good behavior, here. What makes you think they’ll hit me up?”
Buffy shrugged. “Because with me out of the picture--not patrolling, not making with the world saveage--you’re the only game in town. And the Slayer line’s through you, now. If the Council wants a Slayer, they need you. Or they need you dead.”
“Think they’d croak me?” Faith’s tone held mild curiosity, no more. “Well, hell, even if I wanted out of this pit ahead of schedule I wouldn’t kiss their mildewed British asses to do it. I didn’t get tried as an adult for nothin’. And if they want me dead...” She licked her lips again, and this time it wasn’t a nervous gesture at all. “I could use a workout. What?”
“Nothing. You just... remind me of someone all of a sudden. There’s one more thing.”
Buffy glanced over her shoulder, catching Spike’s eye. His scarred brow lifted fractionally; she nodded just as fractionally, and Spike heaved himself off the cubicle wall he’d been supporting and shoved his hands in his duster pockets. “Come on, Peaches, we’re wanted elsewhere.”
Angel looked to Buffy for confirmation--what, hadn’t he seen her explain it to Spike? Obviously not onboard the non-verbal Slayer/vampire bandwagon. “I’d like to talk to Faith privately.” Angel gave Faith a small encouraging smile and reluctantly followed Spike out of the booth. Buffy took a deep breath and turned back to her erstwhile nemesis. Faith looked a little older, a little more tired-- don’t we all?--but solider, somehow, as if the whirlwind of rage and loss within her had spun itself roots. “So, you’re looking very... rehabilitated.”
“Yeah, I’m rehabilitated as all hell. If I’m a real good girl they’ll let me off the Group W bench next year.” Faith kicked back in her chair and began winding one of her long dark locks around her index finger. The shadow of her old sly grin flitted across her face. “You look like you’re getting laid well and often. I almost didn’t recognize you without the pole up your ass. You and Soldier Boy still going at it?”
The mention didn’t hurt nearly as much as she thought it would. Of course, Faith wouldn’t be up on the latest episodes of The Many Loves of Buffy Summers. “Riley and I broke up last year. His unit got... reassigned.”
“So who’s the lucky--fuckin’ A!” Faith dropped her chair back on all fours with a crash and slapped a palm on the counter before her, the shadow-grin metamorphosing into the old lunatic glee. “B.! You vamp-lovin’ she-dog, you! It’s short, blond, and lickable, isn’t it?”
Buffy buried her face in her hands with an embarrassed little wail and looked up, fixing Faith with huge stricken eyes. “Is it that obvious? Am I walking around with ‘Spike’s Lust-Puppy’ stamped on my forehead? ”
Faith snickered. “Something like. I never figured you for the kind to take that particular walk on the wild side, but the vibe you two got going is something else. You better watch out, B., or you might start enjoying life.”
Despite herself, Buffy smiled. “You laugh, but the possibility’s a constant threat to my peace of mind these days.” You are not having a conversation with Faith. Stop it, right this minute. “There is something else I need to tell you about. When Giles talked to the head of the Council about the money sitch, part of the song and dance Travers gave him was a lot of hints about Slayers of a certain age going wonky somehow. For what it’s worth.”
Faith snorted. “Oh, yeah, I fear that. Been there, done that, got the commemorative margarita glass.”
Buffy began playing with the ring again. “So true--I don’t know how they’d tell with you. But--to channel Cordelia for a minute--it may be to your advantage that you’re kind of a whack-job. I don’t trust the Council any farther than I could punt City Hall, but I’ve got... outside evidence that they may be right.” She laced her fingers together on the countertop to still the tremor in them. “When we... when you first came to Sunnydale, you got me to touch it. The power. Whatever’s inside of us. But then--well, it made you crazy, giving in to it. Can’t be of the good.”
“I was fucked up long before I got Called, B.” Faith shrugged. “Can’t blame everything on the Slayer mojo.”
“Yeah, well, after that I thought I could put slaying in a neat little box. Just what I do, not what I am. Riley thought that was the way to go, too. Then two years ago we had to perform a spell to tap the power of the First Slayer to defeat the baddie of the month. Whatever it was we touched, it was old, and it was strong, and it had a really nasty temper and a permanent bad hair day. I channeled it. Ever since then, I’ve been...” She clasped her hands together, hard enough to leave white marks on the skin. “I don’t want to say different. This stuff was always there. That’s what’s scary about it. It just keeps coming closer and closer to the surface.” Leaving Riley asleep in their bed, oblivious, while she roamed unsatisfied through the night, hunting, searching, for-- “When I slay--” Deep, trembling breath of confession; what she could not admit to Spike, even though he already knew the truth of it, what she feared to admit to Giles, what she had barely begun to admit to herself--she could admit to Faith, who was also a Slayer, who had swum these same dark currents, navigated the same riptides of the soul. “I enjoy it.”
For once Faith’s face was unreadable. “I told you a long time ago, if you don’t you’re in the wrong line of business.”
Spike’s voice, sandpaper and honey, over the rush and whine of traffic: Christ, love, I hope you enjoy it! But Spike was a vampire, her opposite, her prey , just as she was his, and she couldn’t quite trust--not yet--that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. “Since I got back...” She stopped, her throat aching. “Since I got back, we go out patrolling, Spike and I--no. We hunt. We find vampires and demons and things that go bump in the night, and when we fight--it’s like we’re this, this force, this--the rush is incredible. I love it. And since we--I feel him, all the time. I can’t keep my hands off him. We come back to his crypt or my house and pig out on everything in sight or make love for hours. Or both. I’m sleeping better than I have in years. I think I’ve gained three pounds. I. Feel. Fantastic.
“And it’s wrong,” she finished quietly. “I know it’s wrong. I know there’s a chance that it the chip ever breaks down Spike’s not going to be able to control himself. He’s trying, and I’ll help him any way I can. But he’s a vampire, a demon, and he... if Spike falls off the wagon, people die. I shouldn’t be taking the risk.”
Faith frowned. “So you’re, what, all guilty over this thing with Spike? And you think that’s the wonkiness Travers was jawing about?”
Buffy shook her head. “No. The wonkiness is that I am taking the risk. I want to take the risk. Angel told me I shouldn’t need a monster like Spike to make me feel whole, but... I think I do. I think maybe...these things I’m feeling... I’m kind of a monster too. There’s something wrong with me, or I wouldn’t--I wouldn’t be this happy. And I like it. If I’m wrong I want to stay that way.” She met Faith’s eyes, her own level and sad. “I love him. And someday, I may have to kill him. I’m afraid that if I--if I get more wrong, I won’t be able to do it--not fast enough. I might even... someone might have to go through me to do it. You’re probably the only one who could do it. That’s why I’m telling you this.”
For a long minute Faith sat there, staring at Buffy with bemused sloe-dark eyes. Then she began to laugh, and in another breath she was doubled over, clutching her stomach with both hands and howling with mirth. Buffy stared at her, eyes narrowed and lips pressed even narrower, unable to decide if Faith’s Cheez Whiz had slipped completely off her cracker or if she were just really, really annoying. “I’m so glad my slow descent into moral quicksand is amusing.”
“Oh, B.,” Faith gasped, sitting up and wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry, but you’re so damned funny, sitting there with your trembly lip and your Brave Little Toaster face on! You think you’re goin’ over to the dark side, and your first move as a rogue Slayer is setting yourself up to get spanked if you get too naughty! Buffy Summers, the world’s most goody-two-shoes villain!”
“It sounded a lot more dramatic the way I put it,” Buffy muttered. She sucked in her lower lip. It is so not trembly.
“B., if it makes you feel better, if the day comes you can’t keep sweet William in line, I'll do it.” Faith chuckled. “I owe him a confrontation. But don’t sell yourself short. You’re still the top bitch around here, you know? And hey, I’m glad you’ve got something good goin’.” She leaned forward, forearms crossed on the counter. “He is good, I hope?”
The corner of Buffy’s mouth twitched. “No. He’s not good. Yet. But he’s getting better.” She got up and started to leave, then halted and came back with a little hip-twitch in her walk. She leaned forward over the counter, resting her weight on her fists and lowering her voice to a throaty, eat-your-heart-out purr. “And the way you’re talking about?” She straightened with a smug little grin, and gave Faith the same little finger-wave Spike had earlier. “Don’t you wish you knew? See ya, F.”

The outer doors of L'Orangerie were flanked by dwarf orange trees, their small sour fruit just beginning to blush gold with the colder nights. From his vantage point in the front seat of the convertible, Angel could see all the way through the archway and into the courtyard beyond, where a fountain burbled in the center of the flagstone pavement. Evening deepened and merged with the night as he waited, and the lights in the courtyard came on, glimmering white and gold in the indigo shadows. The scent of citrus and damp stone contested with the fumes from the unending stampede of cars rushing by on La Cienega Avenue, but the clash of odors didn’t bother him; he hadn't inhaled for fifteen minutes.
It had once been his favorite part of the hunt, this--stalking his victim, learning their ways, their fears, their weaknesses, building from the timber of their own hearts the scaffold upon which he would hang them. Not for Angelus the quick kill; each death was unique and to be savored. He was, in his own way, an artist. He still found pleasure in pursuit, little though he liked to acknowledge the fact.
Men in exquisitely tailored suits and women in silk and pearls drove up, entrusted sleek late-model cars to valets and straggled up the walk, to disappear into the restaurant. Other parties straggled out by ones and twos and fours to reclaim their shining fiberglass chariots. The clothing was different, and the vehicles moved via internal combustion rather than horsepower, but the patterns of fashionable entertainment had changed little over the past two hundred years.
Laughter and fragments of conversation fell upon his ears, slices of other people's lives at once enigmatic and banal. Angel listened. He couldn’t help listening. He hadn’t tried to eavesdrop on Buffy’s conversation with Faith, either, but vampire hearing couldn’t help but pick up some of it, even from halfway across an echoing room filled with the yammering of two dozen other women trying to connect to the outside world across an inch-thick barrier of smudged glass. Having heard, he couldn’t ignore the implications. If he could get her away from Spike for awhile, or get Spike away from her, he could... he didn’t know what, maybe just run a stake through Spike’s chest and walk quietly away. But if Buffy were as emotionally dependant upon Spike as she seemed to be, he might be running her through as well. A dilemma.
The players in said dilemma emerged from the restaurant shortly after ten, party of four: Hank Summers, unassuming middle-aged man with greying brown hair and a slight paunch minimized by the cut of his dinner jacket; Linda Gutierrez, a Hispanic woman young and pretty enough to be a trophy girlfriend, though the forceful look in her eyes cast doubt on that notion; Buffy Summers, vampire slayer and sometime love of his life, ethereal in cream and rose, with her tawny-gold hair caught up and bound about the top of her head with a gold fillet; and Spike, former minion, former nemesis, long-time annoyance, lean, pale and elegant in a dark suit and a necktie only true love could have coerced him into. Linda was grilling Spike, who looked a trifle harried.
"...Tuesday,” Spike said, “but it was the bagged stuff from Willie's. The blood bank can chuck it when it expires or sell it on the black market; who am I to deny some poor overworked intern a little extra income?"
"Uh huh." Linda was obviously still skeptical. "And the last time you bit someone?"
"Er... Halloween. But there were extenuating circumstances! Tell her, Buffy!"
Buffy was right at his side, her fingers curled possessively around the crook of Spike's arm, laughing at his discomfiture in the face of Linda's rapid-fire questions, her upturned face illumined by a brilliant smile, tinged now with wicked humor. "If there hadn't been, he'd be Mr. Big Pile of Dust about now."
It struck Angel that he hadn't seen that smile in a very long time, and for a moment his resolve wavered. Only for a moment; he had not survived this long on sentiment. He reached across the front seat and picked up the stake, tucking it into the sleeve of his coat. His quarry was in sight; he need only cut him from the rest of the herd. He opened the car door and slipped out into the too-bright L.A. night, a shadow among shadows.


"...didn't know you spoke French," Hank said, unwillingly impressed.
Spike favored Hank with the thirteenth smirk of the evening. There was an American for you; never mind the bloodsucking creature of the night bits, the astonishing thing is he speaks more than one language! "Enough to get by. You spend fifty-plus years knocking about Europe, you pick up what you hear the most: 'Où est la salles des bains?’ ‘Mon Dieu! Arrêtez, s'il vous plaît. Ne me tuez pas!' the usual. "
"Show-off," Buffy said in the tone which meant she was incredibly pleased with him. She gave his arm a quick squeeze, her eyes brighter than the lights inside, and who needed a heartbeat when you had a girl like this looking at you like that? Her lower lip slipped out in a mock-pout. "I could have handled it. I took two semesters of French in high school."
He dipped his head to nuzzle her ear. "Love, you ordered a shoe."
Buffy looked sidelong up at him through lowered lashes, daring him to tease the pout into another smile. "So maybe I wanted a shoe. You can never have too many shoes."
Spike nodded, excessively sober, and turned on his heel, spinning her around with him. "Right then, back we go, and you can correct my pronunciation to the waiter--"
Buffy gave a little shriek of laughter as the valet drove up with Hank's Lexus, and wrestled Spike back to the curb. "Don't you dare!" Abandoning him for the moment, she grabbed her father in an impulsive, rib-cracking hug and kissed him on the cheek. "Dad, thank you! I think this is the first real night out I've had in a year, and it's been wonderful." Spike made a mental note that if what amounted to a double date with her father was producing this kind of reaction, a romantic dinner for two would probably induce Buffy-meltdown. Buffy did a little pirouette on the sidewalk, while Hank surreptitiously felt his sides to see if anything had snapped. "I just wish it didn't have to end--I feel like dancing till dawn, or--"
"Why not, then?" Spike caught her hand, pulled her back into the circle of his arm, and dipped her tango-fashion. "Got enough for a cab, don't we? We can find some speakeasy with a cover charge in the single digits and let the old folks toddle on home--"
Buffy giggled. "Coming from the only person here who's celebrated a
centennial, and uses the term speakeasy with a straight face..." She threw her father a hopeful upside-down look. "It won't bother you if we get in late? I know you said you had to go in to work this weekend..."
Spike suppressed a laugh at the guilt which creased Hank Summers's brow. If Buffy'd been a less scrupulous person she could have parlayed that look into a weekend at the Hilton at the least. As it was, Hank handed the valet his tip, hesitated, extracted his Visa card from his wallet and handed it to Buffy. "Here, sweetie. Have fun. Just don't make me come bail you out, hmm?"
“Ooh, platinum. My favorite color.” She reached up and ruffled Spike’s hair. It was barely possible, Spike thought, that he and Summers pere had one thing in common--her father seemed to be just as addicted to that glowing smile of hers as he was, looking pleased as hell when Buffy bestowed another hug which threatened the integrity of his internal organs. "Dad, you’re tops. The concierge had a phone--I'll go call us a cab." She dashed back towards the restaurant door in a flurry of--well, Buffy would have been able to describe the dress in exacting technical detail, but Spike settled for 'sheer floaty stuff.' Pity they were going to have to return it in the morning; she looked ravishing in the low-cut, cream-colored bodice which left exactly enough to the imagination...
"Don't let her get into trouble," Hank said, getting into his car.
Spike tore himself away from his diverting speculation on just how athletic Buffy could get in that dress before coming out of it and grinned. "Not a matter of 'let,' mate." He watched the Lexus pull away from the curb and took a deep breath for the hell of it, reveling in the scent of smog and oranges, and gave himself up to the luxury of dithering over whether or not he'd have a smoke.
Buffy's happiness was contagious, but this trip hadn't solved anything, not really--it might take weeks, or months, before the Council buckled under to Buffy's demands, if they ever did. Till then, she was still in a precarious position financially, and in her custody of Dawn. The thought of her having to take some scut-work job to make ends meet made him itch to crack a few Watcher heads. She wouldn't take money from him, for fear of where he might have obtained it. Spike rocked back on his heels and shoved his hands in his pockets, heedless of what he was doing to the cut of his suit. Buffy could be unreasonably suspicious at times; just because he'd happened to mention that between the two of them they were probably strong enough to rip an ATM machine out of the wall and break it open didn't mean he was planning on doing it. Not any time soon, anyway.
He needed very little for himself; scavenging, gambling, and the occasional petty theft kept him in blood and beers very nicely, with just enough uncertainty to make life interesting. He could have gotten a job, even in Sunnydale, where the underworld was a tiny, parochial thing compared to Los Angeles's thriving demon community. There were several higher-up demons in town who used vampires for muscle, and if there was one thing he was good at, it was kicking ass. Until recently he'd scorned the idea--he was no one's lackey, and though he'd shed as many of the trappings of his living days as he could, there remained a stubborn core of William-beliefs so deeply ingrained as to be instinct: one opened doors for a lady, one paid one's gaming debts even if one had to knock over a convenience store to do so, and a gentleman didn't sully his hands with trade.
Still, he wasn't a gentleman any longer by any stretch of the imagination, and Buffy was his girl now. That made him at least partly responsible for her welfare, not to mention Dawn's. Buffy would most certainly not see it that way, but... perhaps some sullying was in order. Spike felt a curious internal warmth that had nothing to do with body temperature--it had been a long time since anyone had depended on him for anything. Pride? Haven't had that in stock since the crash of '98, but root around in the cellar, mate, p'raps there's a crate left in a corner somewhere.
His current reputation was such that some prospective employers might even find it an advantage; owning the loyalty of the vampire who'd done in Slayers and his own kind alike would be a coup in some circles. On the other hand, his inability to attack humans was a distinct liability. More to the point, he'd never been good at taking orders from anyone he wasn't in love with, and none of Sunnydale's demon bigwigs were all that appealing. Scratch that idea, save as a desperation ploy. What other possibilities were there? Besides his talents in the ass-kicking line, he spoke a dozen-odd languages, both human and demon, could identify hundreds of demon species on sight, had a working command of black magic combined with an intense distrust of same, possessed an eclectic knowledge of nineteenth and twentieth century human literature, wrote poetry badly, and had a certain knack for interior decorating on a non-existent budget--not exactly a resume calculated to bring in a six-figure salary in a small college town, even for someone who wasn't a legally dead illegal alien.
The rasping snarl, pitched too low for human ears, interrupted his musings, and Spike perked up immediately. Whatever it was sounded large and brassed off, exactly what he needed to banish unprofitable thoughts about profits. Buffy would be out soon. Perhaps he should wait...
Right. He might be whipped and happy to be so, but he wasn't that whipped. Whatever it is, I can kill the bugger and be back in two ticks. Piece of cake.


It looked too simple. Summers and his girlfriend took off, and then Buffy ran back into the restaurant. The patness of it all made Angel suspect a setup, but there was no way any of them could have known he'd be here tonight; his decision to come had been wholly on the spur of the moment. Sometimes the simple explanation was the correct one, and luck was working in his favor.
Spike stood on the curb, rocking back and forth very slightly from heel to toe and gazing out at traffic with a contemplative expression. Angel's slow and purposeful stalk had brought him within fifty feet of his one-time protege when he heard the growl. Spike snapped to attention like a warhorse hearing a distant trumpet-charge, and a glittering, vicious smile spread across his face. He looked over his shoulder at the courtyard, then turned and strode away across the close-cropped lawn towards the side of the building, breaking into an eager trot at the sound of another growl. Angel increased his own pace to keep up. Spike pulled his suit jacket off as he ran, hopped a low stucco wall and disappeared behind a stand of topiary trees. A third growl segued into a full-throated roar, competing with the thump and rattle of the restaurant's heat pump. The roar was followed by the crackle of breaking branches and Spike came sailing back through the foliage, leaving a ragged hole in the center of the carefully-manicured privet hedge. He hit the grass rolling, somersaulted to his feet and shook himself violently, shedding leaves and twigs in all directions. He threw back his head with a wolf-howl, whooped "Come and get it, baby!" and dove back through the hedge.
Angel called down silent imprecations on whatever demon had wandered up out of the sewers to complicate his plans, and ducked around the hedge. Spike's opponent wasn't a species Angel recognized; it stood at least eight feet tall and must have measured as much across. Its haystack of a body was covered with thick slatey-blue fur and an assortment of shiny, multi-faceted black hemispheres in varying sizes radiating out in an irregular whorl from the tooth-filled maw in the thing's upper surface. Whether they were eyes, tympanic membranes, or something else entirely was impossible to say. It supported its bulk on three elephantine limbs and lashed out at Spike with another three long, whiplike tentacles, each equipped with a set of claws like ebony scimitars. Spike ducked as the nearest tentacle sliced through the air over his head, close enough to shave off the tip of a bone-white curl or two, and came up again inside the thing's reach.
Angel’s first thought was that Spike had just gone insane; there was no way he could fight this thing effectively without a weapon. It was too large to wrestle, punching and kicking would make little impression on that enormous bulk, and its fur looked too thick for a vampire's fangs to penetrate even had Spike been in game face. A second later the method in Spike's madness became clear as his fist hammered into one of the shiny black organs, smashing it to glistening jelly. The demon's roaring escalated and Spike darted back as it reared up on two legs and tried to trample him with the third.
Spike continued his lethal dance, ducking under or leaping over the whirling tentacles, flitting forward to pulp another eyespot whenever an opening presented itself. His arms were covered with translucent red-black goo to the elbow, and blood was running into one eye from a cut on his forehead where he'd been a hair too slow on a dodge. His eyes were aflame with kill-lust, his breath came in short harsh explosions through bared teeth, and there was a fine sheen of sweat on his face--physical reactions born of emotion, not exertion; a vampire's body had no need to regulate its temperature.
Angel wavered on the fringes of the fight, debating whether or not to join in. If he remained aloof there was a good chance his problem would be solved for him, but then he'd have to dispose of this thing by himself, and he'd left his thrice-cursed cell phone in the car so calling for backup wasn't an easy matter. The matter was taken out of his hands forthwith; Spike zigged when he should have zagged, and one of the creature's tentacles coiled around Spike's chest, pinning his arms and lifting him bodily off the ground. The concentric rings of serrated teeth in the demon's maw gnashed like an animate paper shredder as the tentacle propelled Spike towards the opening. With a curse Angel leaped forward, aiming a roundhouse kick at the thing's near leg. At the same time Spike vamped out, bent his head and sank his fangs into the wrinkled blue skin of the tentacle holding him, ripping out a sizeable hunk of ichor-dripping flesh.
The creature's roar took on train-whistle urgency. The tentacle holding Spike spasmed and flung the vampire into the side of the building. Spike landed hard on one shoulder and plummeted to the ground, gagging on demon blood. Angel dropped into a crouch, wrapped his arms around the leg he'd kicked, and heaved up and out. With a basso wail the thing swayed like a redwood about to topple, then tipped slowly and majestically over onto its side and lay there, waving its tentacles and kicking the air. The tentacle Spike had bitten twitched and shuddered, spattering purple blood across the grass.
Spike got to his feet, ran a hand through his disordered hair, and spat out a mouthful of purple goo. "Like sodding peppermint whale oil, that is. If other demons didn’t taste so disgusting my unlife would be a lot easier. " He dusted off the knees of his trousers, keeping an appraising eye on Angel. "Fancy meeting you here. Wondered if you were going to join in or stand there with your mouth hanging open in appreciation of my prowess." He rotated his shoulder experimentally, determined that everything was in working order, and walked over to retrieve his coat, all loose-limbed, predatory grace, as if he hadn’t just been tossed into a wall like a discarded rag doll.
You know what he is. Demon animating the mind and body of a man a hundred and twenty years dead, inhuman arrogance an imperfect mask for all-too-human fears. "So who exactly are you trying to fool, Spike?"
"Eh?" Spike's dark brows sketched twin interrogation marks. "What're you on about?" He shrugged back into his coat, concealing the worst of the damage grass stains and demon blood had done to his shirt. He began going through the pockets, and finally located his lighter and a sadly abused pack of Marlboros. He extracted a cigarette with care and straightened it out, then held the pack out to Angel. "Fag? Or is that too personal a question?"
Angel waved the pack away with impatience; Spike knew damned well that it was Angelus who smoked. Spike shrugged and lit up, tucked his lighter back into his pocket, and tilted his sleek white-blond head back to exhale a stream of smoke, his face was a razor-cheeked study in quiescent savagery. What we were informs what we become , Darla had told him, long ago. Were there still echoes in Spike of the diffident, bookish young man Drusilla had carted home to him and Darla, like a cat proudly presenting its owners with a bedraggled and half-dead mouse? Not that it mattered; William was dead, and any echoes of him that remained in Spike were only echoes.
"This." Angel strode over and gestured at the fallen demon. "Fighting things like this when Buffy's not around to watch and give you the Slayer seal of approval. Running around in the middle of the day, having a nutritious breakfast when the only four food groups you really need are O, A, B and AB--" Faster than thought, he whipped the stake out of his coat sleeve and rammed it against Spike's chest. "You'd almost pass for human. But not quite. You've gotten soft, old pal. The Spike I knew would never have let me get within five feet of him."
Spike glanced down at the wooden point making a divot in the lapel of his suit jacket, unflustered. "Yeh, I've gotten into this bad habit of trusting people lately. Give it a rest, Angelus. If you'd meant to stake me or Dru you'd have done it years ago, not pissed around setting her on fire--she told me about that little joke of yours. You're keen on the pre-show, but when it comes to the kickoff you're back in the stands. You'll beat us, burn us, drag us through hell at your heels--but kill us? Never."
"Fancy talk from someone whose last conversation with me was conducted with the business end of a hot poker." Angel held Spike's eyes for a beat, long enough to let Spike grow uneasy about the accuracy of his assessment, and at last let the stake drop. "Why should I, when I can will hurt you a lot more by letting you live? Don't expect me to weep for Drusilla. The crazy bitch deserved it." He might as well have reached in and run a file right along a nerve; hatred boiled up in Spike's eyes, their golden depths going molten. This was too easy. "Careful, Spike. If you keep asking for Angelus, you may get him."
A visible quiver of rage tensed Spike’s shoulders, but somewhat to Angel’s surprise he held himself back and twitched his coat back into place. "Right, I forgot. You're the good twin."
"I've been trying to figure it out all day," Angel said, ignoring him. It would be satisfying to rip Spike's spine out and tie it in knots, but ultimately pointless. For vampires physical pain was cheap, healed and forgotten in hours or days. No, if he wanted to wound Spike, he knew exactly how to do it. He stepped back a pace or two and studied the younger vampire. "What's in this for you besides the thrill of notching your bedpost?"
Still abnormally calm, Spike leaned back against the hedge and sucked on his cigarette. "Don't think I much care for your tone when speaking of my girl."
“Your girl.” Angel’s voice took on a gunmetal chill. "Tell me something, Spike. Do you believe your own line?"
"What d'you mean by that?"
"Simple interrogative sentence. Do you really believe you can give up being evil?"
Spike blew a smoke ring. "Give up the killing? Give up the rush of seeing things go smash? Give up the joy--" He kicked in another of the fallen demon's eyes with a black glee that suggested he would far rather be connecting the toe of his boot with Angel's face--"of hurting something? No." His nostrils flared. "But I can bloody well be selective about who I kill, and when. Traitor's not exactly a noble occupation, but you're in it right along with me, so glass houses, eh?"
If there was one thing Spike was not, it was a plausible liar, and his voice was edgy now with anger and sincerity. Maybe he had convinced himself, as well as Buffy, that he had a prayer of resisting his own nature for more than a token few weeks... no, months now, almost a year. An eyeblink to someone who'd seen two and a half centuries roll by, hell, an eyeblink to Spike, who was half his age. "I'm glad you realize that much," Angel said, lacing his hands together behind his back and pacing in a slow circle around Spike and the heap of quivering blue fur. "That you can't change what you are. Does Buffy, though--does she really?"
A muscle in Spike's jaw jumped. "You'd have to ask Buffy that."
"'Cause I'm not sure she really gets it," Angel continued. Spike turned uneasily in place, trying to keep him in sight. "The urges. You know. Not just for blood. For destruction. For a good slaughter. The sweetness of inflicting pain, the delicious scent of fear--not just any fear, either. Human fear. Human pain. That's our natural prey, Spike. Hard to imagine you've given it up entirely."
"'Our'?" Spike asked, his eyes hooded.
"You think I don't still feel it?" Even with a soul, even with the twin goads of guilt and remorse constantly pricking him, he'd given in to those urges more than once; he still woke sometimes from dreams of Kate’s rich living blood gushing into his mouth, or the artistic satisfaction of closing the doors on the crowd from Wolfram & Hart. Remorse was stronger than the satisfaction, but Spike knew none, and Spike had never possessed his self-control; the chip only provided him with an illusion of it.
Spike snorted, folding his arms across his chest. "Didn't think you'd admit it if you did. What's all this in service of? I've got a lady waiting."
"Harmony showed up in L.A. last spring."
"My condolences."
"Decided she was going to be a good guy."
"Really?" Spike looked intrigued for a second. "Did the bint make a go of it, or did she work the Kendall magic once again?"
"What do you think, Spike? She betrayed us to a vampire cult within twenty-four hours. So I'm just not all that convinced that your little turn-around is for real. I'll grant you've beaten her record. I'll even grant you love Buffy, the same sick way you loved Drusilla, and that makes it bearable being the neutered little lapdog you are today. But I know you, Spike. You're a monster, and furthermore, you love being a monster. You don't regret a single life you've taken, the first thought in your head when you see a human being walk into a room is 'Mmm, tasty!' and if that chip came out tomorrow--"
Spike's lips peeled back in a wolfish grin over sharp white fangs, and a harsh bark of laughter escaped him. "I'd what? Enlighten me, Angelus. What'm I going to do?"
"Right--you’ve changed. Got a quote for you: 'Not us! Not demons!' Name that tune, Spike."
"A prize fuckwit of my acquaintance." Between one absent breath and the next Spike was nose to nose with Angel, or as close to it as he could get given the difference in their heights. "You tell me something, Angelus! You had her! Had her in your arms, in your bed, all warm and alive--you tasted the closest thing to heaven our kind will ever know! How the bloody hell could you get up the morning after and rip her heart out? She loved you! She would have loved you even without your precious sodding soul if you'd let her, and you threw it all away! And later--you can't shag her lest you experience perfect happiness and lose that inefficiently attached soul again, and what d'you do? Turn the world upside down to find someone who could diddle with the curse? No, not our Angel! He scarpers off to the big city and starts a detective agency. Bloody brilliant!"
Angel grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him up level; Spike didn't fight it, just sneered into his thundercloud frown. "Do you think I had a choice ?" Angel snarled. “Do you think I wanted to hurt her?”
"In a word, yes!" Spike snarled back. "What's your sodding soul got to do with it? You love her or you don't, Peaches! You want an explanation? Here it is: Buffy's with me because you let her go, you bloody great git!"
Angel dropped Spike in one motion and in the next his fist connected with the younger vampire's jaw hard enough to slam him back into the wall of blue fur behind them. "I let her go because it was the right thing to do! Something you're incapable of understanding."
Spike pulled himself upright on one of the thing's tentacles, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. It left a gory smear of mingled red and purple across his sleeve. "What I'm incapable of is leaving her--not unless she gives me the boot herself. I’d fucking well rather walk out into the sun and burn. She makes me feel--balls, why am I telling you this? You know! And you left anyway, because you'd bloody well rather wallow in misery than try to solve the problem!"
"Better to face the misery than delude myself into thinking we had a future," Angel snapped. "And that's all it would be: delusion. Every single thing that made it impossible for Buffy and me goes double for Buffy and you. You're evil. She's not. You're immortal. She's not. You'll burn in the sun and she'll wither in the dark. It's not meant to be."
Spike's lip curled up to expose one razor-sharp canine and he all but spat at Angel's feet. "Why should I give a toss what's meant to be? I'm not the special pet of the Powers, with a bouquet of prophecies pinned to my manly chest. I can do as I sodding well please with my unlife--not that I wouldn't anyway. What's meant to be is what happens, when it happens, and not a minute sooner."
"What's happened," Angel said, emphasizing the word very deliberately, "Is that Buffy died. That's a traumatic experience."
"Yeh, seems to me I remember it being a tad upsetting. Can’t recall you being there."
"She told me that when she first came back, you were the only thing that seemed real to her. She figures that's love." Angel’s dark eyes raked Spike up and down. "I figure it's instinct. She's a Slayer. Killing your kind is what she was born for. Of course you're going to be the first thing she focuses on." He gave Spike a knife-edged smile. "But you know what? She's waking up now. She's starting to see other things again. I'm betting that when she realizes that there's a whole real, daylight world out there for her--she'll walk out into it. And you won't be able to follow her. What are you going to do then?"
"Ring you up and cry on your shoulder. Here, did you just hunt me down to--half a mo'." Spike cocked his head to one side, ice-blue eyes slitted, an incredulous grin curling across his face. "Bloody hell, I get it--you want me to cock up, don't you? You'd throw a sodding ticker-tape parade if I slipped and took a nibble from the nearest warm body. If I can be a good boy, you can't can keep yourself toasty warm at night with your woolly blankie of moral superiority. You didn’t help breaking her heart--no, that was Angelus. Can't hold the bloody special soul-having Angel responsible for what the soulless monster did! Well, bugger that! I've sussed it out, Peaches--it took almost a year for Buffy to admit I could love her, and she’s still half convinced there's something wrong with her that you couldn't love her without your bloody soul. If I'd no other reasons I'd play white hat just to spite you, y'pathetic wanker!"
"You know, Spike, I came out here tonight with half a mind to kill you, and--"
Spike's eyes went wide and Angel felt a twinge of irritation; surely he wasn't going to try the old 'There's someone behind you!' trick. A second later he recalled that Spike was the world's worst liar, and spun around. Not someone; some thing.
With a gargantuan shudder the blue-furred monstrosity rolled over, coiled its two uninjured tentacles around the nearest lamp post, and heaved itself upright to the accompaniment of metallic pops and groans. Spike dropped to his knees as a tentacle lashed out and the ropy appendage whipped over his head and wrapped itself around Angel. The creature had learned its lesson; the thing gripped him too low around the waist for him to reach it with his fangs. Spike, crouched on the grass below, looked up at him and laughed, then sprang at the demon, aiming for another eye. Before he reached his target a small lithe shape bearing a long, spear-like object came hurtling down from the roof of the restaurant. It landed squarely on top of the demon's rolling back, astride the gnashing pit of teeth, and thrust downward with the thing in its hands. The demon shrieked in pain.
"Past time you got here, pet!" Spike yelled. "You missed Peaches admitting he’s got half a mind!"
“Shut up and hit things, Spike!” The thing she'd rammed into the demon's maw was a push-broom, one of the industrial fiberglass-and-metal models. The demon choked and shook itself, and Spike laughed, pulping another eyespot. Buffy grinned down at him, her now-unbound hair a wild golden halo about her head, her eyes shining green and alight with feral joy. This time his arm went deeper; he hauled out something fibrous and necessary-looking. The demon jerked and staggered, a Brobdignagian marionette with tangled strings. Its rings of teeth pulsed futilely around the head of the broom, unable to spit it out or snap it into pieces small enough to swallow. Buffy hung on to the shaggy blue carpet of fur as it spun ponderously in place and started its second topple of the night. Angel struggled wildly in the grip of the creature's tentacle, and horror chased excitement from Buffy’s face as she realized it was going to land right on top of him. She yanked on a double handful of fur in a hopeless attempt to steer the creature’s bulk sideways.
Something slammed into him from the side just before he hit the ground, stretching the tentacle out to its fullest extent so that as the black-speckled blue hulk descended, it crashed to earth several inches short of Angel's body. The tentacle uncoiled on impact, and Angel rolled head over heels and fetched up against the foot of the privet hedge. The thing which had slammed into him lay draped across his shoulders for a second, then sat up and shook itself. Spike. Angel’s eyes narrowed. "What the hell did you do that for?"
Spike began picking privet leaves and clumps of mangled rye grass off his jacket. “Oh, there’s gratitude for you.” He cocked a sardonic eyebrow at his grandsire. "Because I love her more than I hate you."
Buffy let go of the demon's fur, dropped to the ground and ran over to them, skidding to a halt on her knees. "Are you all right?" Her words made no distinctions, but it was Spike’s shoulders her arms encircled. Her hands traveled over his face and body, checking for damage. Buffy cradled his head on her shoulder, her face buried in the sticky tangle of his hair, and Spike nuzzled her ear with a resonant growl.
"Never better, love." His eyes shimmered from gold to blue at her touch, and his brow ridges receded--no shame there at her touching his demon face; more as if he were slipping into a more comfortable set of clothes. "You?"
"Fine. Great. Wonderful. Mmmm..." Angel heard her breath catch and resume and her heart trip faster than her recent exertions could justify. Her lashes swept a fringe of dark silk across her flushed cheeks as grey-in-this-light eyes darted for a moment in his direction; had he not been there, Angel was convinced, the two of them would be tearing each other's clothes off and having at it on the blue-furred hulk at this moment. He had a queasy sense of deja vu on multiple levels: Spike making savage love to Drusilla, couched upon a heap of exsanguinated corpses. Buffy tearing across the dance floor of the Bronze to leap on him, giddy with her own strength and sensuality, heedless of the danger of unleashing it on him...or perhaps welcoming that danger.
He'd seen something close to the core of her being that night, and again on the night when he'd given her those scars on her neck, something deep-rooted and frighteningly strong. Something Faith’s fall from grace had frightened her into keeping under rigid control ever since. Now, as she nestled in Spike's arms, he could sense that the bonds she’d placed on herself were loosening and fraying. Spike might not have prompted her dangerous intoxication with the darker side of her nature, but it was obvious that his presence encouraged it.
He wasn’t in love with her any longer, nor she with him, but he loved her still, if only for the sake of what she’d done in dragging him as far out of the darkness as it was possible for him to come. He couldn’t allow Buffy to fall into the abyss she’d rescued him from.
Unwitting of his realization, Buffy drew back and took in the condition of Spike's clothes with dismay. "I think I speak for both of us when I say thank God for Nordstrom's generous return policy." She jerked a thumb at the demon. "What is that thing?"
"Rudnark demon." Spike got to his feet and gave Buffy a hand up. "Not very bright, but they take a lot of killing. Teach me to go anywhere without an axe again." The Rudnark made a violent choking noise, something like the dying wheeze of a fork-clogged garbage disposal, and gave a final shudder.
Buffy gave it a kick and yanked the broom free. "On the other hand, maybe we've just been underestimating the lethal possibilities of janitorial supplies for all these years." She turned to Angel and took his hand. "We're lucky you happened to be here..." Suspicion clouded her eyes. "You did just happen to be here, didn't you?"
Angel looked at Spike, who shrugged infinitesimally: Your move. Spike had saved him from a painful convalescence at least, though he'd done so only for Buffy's sake, and keeping Buffy’s trust at this point was paramount. "Cordelia had a vision." True; Cordelia had had lots of visions.
"What you might call a fortuitous coincidence," Spike said, a wicked gleam in his eyes.
"Well, it's a good whatever he said." She squeezed Angel's hands and smiled up at him; a century of sunrise encompassed in a single human face--she'd never looked less like someone with a death wish. "Thank you. You know--I was terrified of seeing you. Terrified of telling you about... everything. But you’ve been--wonderful." She looked down at herself and wrinkled her nose. "The disco fever has definitely broken. Maybe we should just go find a hotel with dry-cleaning and room service and check in for the night. We can take a cab back to Dad's apartment before sunrise, sleep in, and head back to Sunnydale this evening."
Spike wrapped his arms around her from behind and nipped at her ear. "Mmm, I love a woman who takes charge. Lead the way, love."
"Thanks again!" Buffy called as they started off towards the waiting cab. "Say hello to Cordelia!"
Angel stood with hand in pockets and a deeply unhappy expression as the two of them walked off arm in arm, covered in purple ichor and palpably eager to be alone with each other. He had more sense than to ever admit to Cordelia that he'd been within twenty miles of Buffy Summers tonight. He felt a sick twist in the pit of his stomach.
He was going to have to call Giles. The Watcher hated him quite as much as Spike did, and for far better reason; if his passion was quieter, it was no less potentially deadly. But there was no help for it, given Buffy's disturbing behavior. Angel drew a pained sigh and headed back towards his car, and that thrice-cursed cell phone.

Candles, black. A whole bank of them, a Milky Way’s worth of miniature stars. The circle inscribed in red ochre and sulfur, sigils drawn at each cardinal point with blue chalk, because you couldn’t get powdered lapis on such short notice and Anya would have noticed something funny if she’d special-ordered it. Real frankincense, a fine powder scattered across the glowing coals in the brazier. It smouldered and melted around the edges as its languorous perfume rose into the still air of the cavern. Crow’s feather to the left, an ebony slash against the rock. Cock’s feather to the right, glowing tawny red in the candlelight. In the center of the circle, the knife. Silver, hand-long blade, triangular--a knife designed for the penetrating wound, for drawing blood.
Of course, there would be blood.
Willow smoothed the crumpled, ink-stained pages of the grimoire flat once more, tongue-tip wetting her lips. She’d copied as much as she could of the text and pored over its translation for the last several nights, even tried a small spell to leech the ink-stain out of the ancient paper, but there were still large segments of commentary she couldn’t read, and the exact purpose of the spell remained obscure. The blue chalk worried her, but Buffy would be coming back to Sunnydale tonight, and tomorrow--tomorrow she’d have to have her miracle ready. She’d compensated by using the frankincense instead of the combination of stoat’s musk and pine resin the spell called for--frankincense was expensive, but she had no idea where she was supposed to find a stoat. She’d taken other precautions, too: she’d drawn another, larger circle in corn meal and turquoise chips around the circumference of the cavern and called on Raven and Corn Mother and all the powers of an entirely different and antithetical tradition to confine any energies which might escape the inner circle.
She knelt in the center of the inner circle, sweating palms folded on her lap. Compared to some of the spells she’d done in her life, this one used comparatively little raw power. It was well within her current limits. Probably, if anything went wrong, she could break off the invocation, refuse to harbor the power she was calling and send it packing. Probably. There was no kidding herself that this wasn’t dangerous and stupid, but--
Visions of a wretched landfill encampment she’d never seen with her own eyes flashed through her brain, phantom shapes wracked with misery and fear that she could alleviate-- if only . Buffy’s face, her eyes full of disappointment: I thought I could depend on you, Will. Tara’s earnest voice, full of pity: I thought you were someone special. Other faces, other memories: Moloch, advancing on her with mechanical deliberation; Mayor Wilkins, cheerily threatening her with death; Spike, drunk and vicious and about to slice her face open; Verruca, laughing at her weakness; the scarecrow figure of Daniel Tanner, tearing her mind free of its moorings...
She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, breathing deeply to calm her racing heart. She raised her arms, palms outspread, and began. Willow picked up the cock’s feather, and flung it onto the coals. The stench of burning feathers joined the heavy odor of the incense.

Herald of the Dawn, guardian of the gates of ivory,
Let that which I summon enter!

She could feel the currents of power stirring, rising within her. She picked up the crow’s feather and tossed it after its mate.

Herald of the Dusk, guardian of the gates of horn,
Do not bar the way, but hold it open!

Willow fumbled for the hilt of the knife; the silver was chill against her skin, an interstellar cold. Willow scrunched her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, and plunged the knife into her palm, the point slicing through skin, stabbing through muscle and tendon, sliding between the metacarpal bones to emerge from the back of her hand. “Thus do I grasp the door into the Great Abyss!” she screamed, yanking the knife free. Agony lanced through her, pain too great to encompass shooting all the way up into her shoulder and coiling around her spinal cord. “Thus do I open the door!” Tears blinded her; blood flowed from the double wound in scarlet rivulets, dripping onto the coals and hissing like a nest of snakes. “Thus do I consecrate the threshold!”
Willow slapped her bleeding left palm down on the brazier. The red and black of the coals seared itself onto the back of her eyelids, and there was noplace she could escape. Fire and ice, meeting, melding, becoming one pain impossible in its scope and perfection. She could smell her own flesh burning, and a part of her mind flung up memories of summer barbeques and hamburgers broiling on the back yard grill. She almost vomited at the image, but with iron determination she swallowed her own bile and pulled her hand away. “The way is open, the path is clear! Enter in where you have been made welcome, Lord of the Great Dark, make of me the vessel for your power and I shall be thy willing servant!”
A wind sprang up where no wind should have been, and the candle-flames dipped and lay almost flat for a breath, for two--and then they were gone, every flame snuffed out, and the great dark they’d kept at bay rolled in and drowned all. There should have been thunder, there should have been lightning and the howling of wolves. There should have been the wailing of damned souls as the Hellmouth gaped wide. But the wind was gone as quickly as it had come, and there was only the deep silence of the caves, made deeper by the slow insistent drip, drip, drip of water in the far distance, in some jet-black fastness where the earth yet labored to bring forth a garden of stone, building its cold limestone blossoms petal by petal over the millennia. Willow knelt alone in the dark, cradling her throbbing hand in her lap and rocking back and forth in pain. Her sobs made pitiful little dents in the silence.
Out of the darkness a greater dark coalesced, black as night, black as ice in the deeps of midwinter, an absence of light so intense that it froze the eyes no less than too great a concentration of light could burn. Vast it rose above her, stretching itself from floor to roof-beam, from wall to wall, and perceiving her huddled there stooped like a falcon upon a dove.
Woman, why are you weeping?
There was nothing else she could say. “It hurts. It hurrrts!”
Then bid it stop.
Too dazed to do anything but obey, Willow mumbled, “Wounds be healed, pains be eased.”
The pain stopped. And there was no joy in the universe so great as that moment, when the mind still comprehended the full extent of the pain and realized it was no longer there. It was the feeling you got when the Midol kicked in, except a million times better.
Willow crouched on the bare stone floor, holding her uninjured hand. “Fiat lux,” she whispered. A ball of golden light sprang into being over her head, shining down on the half-melted ranks of candles, the sullenly smoking brazier, the bloodstained knife. She looked down at her palm; beneath the film of drying blood, the skin there was pink and smooth and perfect, save for a thin silver scar running through the center, bisecting the lines of head and heart and life. Turning her hand over revealed a matching scar on the back, from knuckles to wrist. She flexed her fingers, probing inwardly for the scraped-dry feeling. It wasn’t there.
She scrambled to her feet, looking around. There was her book bag and her trusty blue nylon duffle. She pointed at the brazier. “Cool!” She bent over and touched the rim with tentative fingers; the metal held no trace of heat. She picked it up, knocked the half-burnt coals out, and straightened, cupping it in her hands. “Clean!” Instantly, the metal sparkled in the witchlight.
And she felt fine. Just like her old self. Willow broke into a grin, and a giddy laugh escaped her. She hugged the brazier to her chest and spun around, scuffing the now-powerless sigils beneath the soles of her sandals. “Woo! I did it! Ignite!” The candles sprang back to life. “Volo!” She rose into the air and swooped around the cavern, narrowly missing a stalactite--Disneyland had a new E-ticket ride. “Willow Rosenberg, wicca supreme, rides again!”
The cold black voice brought her up short in mid-swoop. As it should be. But there will be time for celebrations later. It is time to meet your new companions.
One by one, from out the pitch black depths of the tunnels on every side, the eyeless men began emerging.

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