Chapter 9: Patience

Spike looked balefully at the new cellphone Buffy set before him on the kitchen island. Willow, mashing cereal into milk, grinned knowingly. Turning from stuffing PopTarts into the toaster, Dawn looked on.

“Don’t lose this one,” Buffy told him firmly. “We’re talking major bucks here.”

“Yeah.” Spike gave the cellphone a dismissive, experimental tap with a forefinger. He hadn’t lost the last one: he’d merely released it to gravity. But it was on Buffy’s dime, so he wasn’t about to argue.

Dawn piped up, “I’ll enter the speed dials for you, if you want.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Bit. That would be good.” Spike nudged the cell in her direction.

Buffy looked skyward when the first number he specified was Willy’s. Didn’t know what her problem was: it was a number he used a lot and one that was on his mind now. The number of her cell was next, so he didn’t know what she was being so lofty about. Well, yes he did: severe shagging withdrawal. Didn’t do much for his disposition, either. Back just wasn’t up to acrobatics, gymnastics just yet, and it wasn’t much fun having to be so careful all the time. Really spoiled the mood. Since sitting and standing were about all that was currently on the menu, there was less aggro in doing without. Shouldn’t be too much longer until he was fit. Another couple days, maybe: by week’s end.

The caravan of SUV, van, and car had gotten in about two in the morning. Spike had slept through the entire return trip, except for the part where he had to cross the yard and climb the back stairs. The rest of the night, he’d spent on the front room couch rather than attempt the stairs to the upper story. There’d been no need for Willow to magic out the insultingly small bullet: it had gone cleanly through the upper part of his right arm, and the wound had sealed and healed within minutes. Just a brief annoyance: more the fact of it than any damage. Well rested and well fed, Spike thought Bit and the two women looked decidedly un-chirpy.

Finishing a politely covered yawn, Willow remarked, “You’re not a technological Neanderthal like Giles. I didn’t have to do the whole ‘this is a keyboard, and this is a mouse, and this is the monitor’ drill with you. So what do you have against cellphones?”

Spike thought about it a minute. “Too distant. Don’t much like talking to people I can’t see.”

“Right with you there,” Buffy put in fervently, pouring coffee.

Spike went on, “Admit it’s better than not being able to talk to them at all. Sometimes it’s convenient. Sometimes, it’s the only way. But it feels strange. Not real.” His thought took another turn. “Red, you said to remind you.”

For a second, she looked puzzled. Then she brightened and rose, collecting her bowl. “Give me a few. Then come on to the den.”

As Willow trotted out, Spike looked around. “Den?”

Still fiddling with the phone, Dawn informed him, “What used to be the dining room, opposite the living room that’s now the front room.”

“Oh.” He’d always thought of that room as the parlor, except houses didn’t have parlors anymore, and who the hell cared anyway.

As Buffy set a cup of coffee down in front of him and started to say something, there was a knock at the back door. When Buffy opened the door, it was Rona, with the morning delivery of bagged blood. Finding Spike sitting at the island, Rona checked and gave him a look--likely because it was the first time they’d seen each other since well before Kim’s death. Spike just picked up his cup without letting on he’d noticed.

“Hi, Spike. Where do you want this?” Rona held up the hospital transport cool box.

Spike tapped the top of the island. “This what you’re doing now?”

Unloading the cool box, Rona said, “Sort of. Got first shift at the DoubleMeat, too. Between that and being this fictitious Holden Webster creep, it should do for now.”

“You’re staying, then.”

Rona didn’t look up. “Yeah. I could patrol, when you’re ready. If you want.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Spike, are you mad at me? On account of Kim?”

Drinking coffee, Spike consulted the soul, which proceeded to tell him what he ought to be feeling and how he ought to behave toward this hesitant and conscience-stricken teen-aged girl child. He told it to shut up. “Somewhat. Weren’t none of you thinking, that night. But you could have done worse. Didn’t actually go and try to get yourself turned, like they thought you might.”

“That was a dumb idea,” Rona admitted. “Extreme and dumb. I just wanted…. But what’s wrong with wanting to be a vamp anyway, Spike?”

“There’s a reason why it’s not generally something people volunteer for. But you should ask the expert.” He nodded in Buffy’s direction.

Buffy raised both hands. “So not gonna get into that! Got to get going or I’ll be late. You too, Dawnster.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, Spike, here’s your cell. And this is a list of the speed dial numbers I put in. If you want any more, tell me: there’s still two slots left. OK?”

Spike took the phone and glanced at the list she’d written on a paper napkin. “Yeah, all right. Thanks, Bit.”

Rona waited until Buffy and Dawn were gone, then faced Spike again. “You gonna let me patrol?”

“Patrol, that’s up to the Slayer.”

Rona dismissed that comment with a grimace and a wave. “She’s gonna say yes, we both know that. What I’m asking is will you let me? ‘Cause I know if you don’t, it ain’t gonna happen, no matter what Buffy says. Don’t you dodge me, Spike. Let’s have the truth here between us.”

Spike considered her for a long minute. “Then, yeah: I’ll let you. Might be I’ll have other things of my own along the way. Think you might be up for that?”

“Depends on what kind of things, don’t it?” Rona retorted, hands on hips.

“Expect it would. Got a shooter out there someplace. Low caliber. Hasn’t targeted anybody I know of but me. Might be I’d like to set some watchers in place, see if I can make his acquaintance.”

“Yeah, Dawn told me about that…. Sure, I’d be good for that.” Rona pulled the napkin to her and wrote on it, then pushed it back. “That there, it’s the number where we’re staying. Bunking in with Kennedy just now, for the time. But I pay my own share, ain’t freeloading off nobody here. And Ken: she invited too?”

“She can come ask. Maybe. Depends on what she’d expect from it. And ‘Manda.”

“Don’t know about ‘Manda. I stayed with her a few days. Seemed like she’d dodge or change the subject when anything like patrolling came up. Seemed like she wants things to just be like when she didn’t know nothing about vamps or Slayers or what stance to use with an underhanded cut. But we’re still good, me and ‘Manda. I could feel her out. In a manner of speaking.”

Spike checked, and found Amanda’s number among those Dawn had listed. “No need. Ask her myself, whether she wants to remember or forget. Figure on weapons drill, Saturday at first light. Casa Spike. See who’s in then.”

“That’ll do.” Rona took a step toward the door, then turned back. “Meant to say, lucky it wasn’t worse, with that Tarkin beastie. Seen Sh’narth now: never want to see one of those. They sound real mean to go up against.”

Spike understood that Rona was expressing concern about his injuries in a roundabout way, which he supposed was nice of her. For himself, he wasn’t real interested in them, just wanted them to heal and quit annoying and limiting him. He said only, “Taskin, it’s just trying to get by, like everything and everybody. Just passing through. They leave us alone, we leave them alone.” He reached for the top blood bag. “Appreciate this. Since it’s you taken this on, I know it will be done proper.”

Rona gave him a big pleased grin, then turned on her heel and left, jauntily swinging the cool box and even remembering to shut the door tight behind her.

Before opening the bag, Spike remembered Willow had something to show him in the den, and carefully slid off the chair and ambled down the hall.

Empty cereal bowl set aside, Willow was working intently on a computer Spike had never seen before. Looking up, she immediately rose, explaining, “Giles got a req OK’d for this on the grounds that before you can translate, you gotta be able to read. Nice monitor, hey?”

She patted the screen: about the size of a Life magazine, open upright, and nearly as flat. Though Spike hadn’t had much contact with computers, he certainly could see that the screen was many times the size of the one on Willow’s laptop. He leaned over the keyboard with arms braced on the table, ignoring the chair for the moment. Didn’t want to be sitting that low, just yet. He tapped the screen, then drew his hand quickly back, checking Willow’s face to see if touching was allowed. Likely not.

Willow said, “I got a list from Giles of about ten manuscripts, scrolls, or whatever, that they want help with, and downloaded them. Now you said you’d do it, they’ll hurry up and start scanning in the ones that can’t travel. Anyway, this is what I wanted to show you. Take a good look.”

Frowning unconsciously, Spike studied the manuscript page on the screen. “Transcribed Hu-tesh. Demon language, mostly using Arabic alphabet, but the vocabulary is closer to Jinn. Going on about…” He followed a few lines with his finger, carefully not touching. “…a Black Mage named Ashteroth’s Servant, roughly, which would put it no later than 4th century B.C.E. Burned up, I think, and took most of a town with him. He--”

“OK, now look,” Willow said, reaching past him, and struck two keys together. The manuscript jumped. Three lines completely filled the screen. All the characters were clear and sharp and about ten times the size they’d been before. Willow beamed, proud of her trick. “You can blow it up or take it down as much as you please. I’ve built some nested macros for you for different resolutions. Don’t worry about the geek-speak, I’ll print off instructions for what keys to hit for each one.”

She hit another key and the manuscript page vanished. A quick sweep and click of the mouse and an empty white screen appeared. “Best thing for you is to play around a little with the word processor, get used to the keyboard and saving your stuff, that sort of thing. I’ve built you a directory where all your stuff will save to, that’s the default, until you need more directories to keep track of things. Major hand-holding here, for which I expect to be duly paid, thank you. Oh: not by you! I’ll submit invoices. I’m your technical support. Sort of like a combination mechanic and engineer. You name the problems, I’ll find a way to fix ‘em. For instance, you’re gonna need an embedded program to reproduce the character sets of some of those non-human languages. Don’t have to worry about a printer, but a lot of that’s not gonna display wizziwig without….” She saw his face and stopped, smiling sympathetically. “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to understand what I say--just the manuscripts. I’ll show you how to annotate. Not a problem, really. I’ve been playing around with their database and their dedicated software for almost a year now, and I’ll do the navigating until you’re up to speed.”

Spike straightened up with care. “Couldn’t I just read it off, have somebody else take it down?”

Willow was shaking her head. “If it was straight English, sure. But who’s gonna be able to transcribe those demon languages by ear? Think of it this way: if it was easy, Spike, they wouldn’t need you. Sorry, but that’s a non-starter. Sure, there’s a learning curve, and just at the first it can seem pretty overwhelming. But--”

Willow stopped abruptly. Bending her head, she fitted two fingers on either side of her nose where glasses would have rested. Spike found the change in her manner--from effervescent confidence to apparent pain--striking and troubling. After a long minute and without changing her fingers’ position, Willow laughed nervously. “Guess I’ve been logging too much screen time, playing with those macros. Or maybe it was the drive. I haven’t driven that kind of distance for…well, I don’t remember. So a long time.”

“Maybe…you should get somebody to look at that. Doctor, maybe,” suggested Spike. He kept to himself the conviction that one of his fragile human “towers” was under serious attack--something he’d been expecting.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Eyestrain. Nerd occupational hazard. It’ll be fine. Really!”

But Willow’s forehead was still creased and pained while she vigorously waved off his concern. Spike noticed that she’d also gone several shades paler.

“How long is it, that your eyes have been bothering you?”

“About a week. Something like that. I don’t remember noticing it before that drive north. To bring the blood and everything. I think I’ll just lie down for awhile. I should remember to take breaks, I should…” Willow’s voice trailed away as she ascended the stairs.

Spike gave the computer screen--monitor--a hard look, then went back to the kitchen and finished the blood quickly because the sun had started to shine in. It was still much too early to have any chance of reaching Willy, but he might as well follow up on the next item on his private agenda. He took the cellphone to the front room and relocated one of the wooden straight-backed chairs against the far wall and settled there. Consulting the folded paper from his pocket, he dialed the number. After two rings, a woman’s pleasant voice responded, “Sunshine Mystical Services, how can we help you?”

Spike had thought it all out, what to say. Holding the phone tight to his ear, he said, “Got this number from Oz.”

“Yes?”

“Figure maybe you can tell me how you can help. If you can’t, I need to look elsewhere.”

“Ah. That will be a moment. Phone consultations are particularly difficult, I’m sure you don’t realize….” Then the voice called him by the name of his birth: that he had never divulged to anyone since his turning. They were all long gone now and past being hurt, but his surname was one he’d endured torture to keep secret: Angelus had been a firm believer in the very thorough and violent dissolution of all human ties. Hearing it spoken casually, without hesitation, was a shock.

A chill ran down Spike’s back, and his free hand went to the new locket Willow had made for him. “Don’t you say that again. Ever.”

“What would you prefer to be called, sir?” responded the voice calmly.

“No need of that. If you know that, you know what I want. Where can I find it?”

“A moment please….” After a silence, the voice said, “There are several potential sources. One is at your present location, sir.”

“Besides that.”

“The nearest would be…I’m terrible with maps. Would Murfeesboro be acceptable?”

“That would do.”

“Then the name--”

“Don’t need the name. I can take it from there. What do I owe you?”

“No charge. Professional courtesy. Is there any possibility you might be visiting Anaheim in the near future? I’m always glad of a chance to meet Mr. Osborne’s friends and associates.”

Spike contained and stopped the impulse to cut the connection. “None I see coming. Do you think it’s likely?”

“No…. It seems not. Ah, well. Let me just say that it’s so pleasant to speak with someone who has confidence in our services. Too often, I find myself confronted with suspicion and incredulity.”

“Have that problem myself, love.”

“Yes, I see that you do. Well, we’re glad you’ve reposed such confidence in us. Be assured we will keep yours. If we were to receive any…sensitive communications for you, where might we direct them?”

Spike thought a moment. “Could tell Oz.”

“My impression is that our patrons would much prefer something more direct.”

Then Spike did allow himself to punch the button and end the call, muttering, “I just bet they would. Fucking bastards.”

Still not time to call Willy. Some way, he was gonna have to learn patience.

**********


That evening, sitting on the front porch steps Spike had coerced her promise not to leave, Dawn looked around at him. “You’re really rotten, you know that?”

“To the core, kitten.”

“I feel like bait,” Dawn complained, yanking fretfully at her hair.

A smirk was answer enough, since she was bait.

Wasn’t too long before he heard the bike and stood: not graceful, likely, but good enough. He leveled a finger and Dawn stuck out her tongue. Their agreement thus confirmed, Spike descended the steps and walked out to where Mike was settling the bike on its kickstand in a dark stretch on the opposite side of the street.

Stepping off the bike, Mike looked him up and down. “Thought you’d be worse.”

Spike shrugged, lighting a cigarette. “I set up that challenge fight for Saturday week. Just as soon get it over. Got other things to see to. Does that suit?” He already knew, having talked to Willy twice today. But it was also important to talk to Mike direct, because other matters hung by it.

Mike shrugged in response. “Well enough.” He started past, heading for the porch and Dawn, but Spike caught his arm, meanwhile looking the bike over.

Spike remarked, “Running all right for you, is she?”

“Decent little bike. Needed some work on the suspension: you beat hell out of it.” Mike was wary, waiting.

“Like to borrow it back. Just a day, is all. I’ll cover the gas and some over. Would twenty do it?”

Mike frowned, considering the bike too. “When?”

“Leave it tonight. I’ll have it back before sunrise, Thursday morning.”

“That’s two days.”

Spike just looked at him disgustedly, since they both knew perfectly well he wasn’t about to hop on the bike and take off in broad daylight.

“Make it thirty,” Mike said.

“It’s twenty, and you’re glad of it, because then you get to come up on the porch and visit. Otherwise, you push off.”

Mike lifted his chin, then shook off Spike’s hand and crossed the street to stand in the light of the streetlight there, plainly expecting Dawn to come running. But she’d promised, and didn’t. Spike smiled. Dawn’s loyalties might be divided, but he always could depend on her.

“Yeah, all right,” Mike said absently. He reached in his pocket for the ignition key and tossed it, high, to Spike, who put it away as he followed unhurriedly. Mike was already parked next to Dawn on the steps, and they were talking, by the time Spike came up the walk. Spike tapped the other vampire on the shoulder and, when he looked up, presented the $ 20 bill he’d begged from Willow, not having anything by the way of cash himself. Mike took it, frowning, and afterward kept looking around at Spike, who’d settled on the glider at the far edge of the porch, peaceably swinging just enough to make the suspending chains creak.

After about an hour, Mike went off down the street. Dawn came and flounced down next to Spike on the glider, demanding, “Is this the new regime, Mr. Obnoxious?”

“Nobody hurt. Nobody dead. You object to that, Bit?”

“I don’t know why I even listen to you!”

“Yes you do. Because in this, I put you first. An’ I look out for you. Even when you don’t entirely want me to. Long as I’m here, there’s certain choices you don’t have to make. And it’s better that way. Isn’t it.”

Dawn swung her feet. “Mike’s real peeved. Hadn’t fed in two whole days, so he could come to me clean.”

Spike thought it had been longer than that, but he didn’t say so. “And you,” he asked Dawn gently. “Are you peeved?”

“You don’t really expect an answer to that, do you?”

“Not really. You kept your promise. Don’t have to like it, so long as you do it. Now tomorrow night, I won’t be here. Gonna ask Buffy to keep an eye on things.”

Dawn looked at him alertly. “Where are you going?”

“Got an errand to run. If it all works out, I’ll tell you about it afterward.”

“Spike, why are you doing this? Why, all of a sudden, all this gratuitous chaperonage? Don’t you trust me?”

Spike gave her a quick hug, then held out his left arm and tapped the back of the hand. “What does that say, there?”

It was dark on the porch, but she didn’t have to see the tattoo to know. Mollified, she admitted softly, “It says ‘Dawn.’”

“Yes, it does. An’ it always will. That’s why it’s there. To remind me. And maybe sometimes to remind you.”

“You have something going: I can tell. What are you up to?”

“What I’d like you to do,” Spike said, “is hunt up maybe a dozen maps of Sunnydale. Photocopies, whatever, doesn’t matter. Big enough to see the street names. Single page size. And one of those big markers. Red would be good. And some tape. Any kind. Think you could come up with all that by Sunday, say?”

“Tell me why. Tell me what you’re doing.”

“You know planning’s never been my strong suit, Bit. Don’t want to embarrass myself too bad in advance. Just pushing at the pieces, trying to make a fit. Now I know where Buffy’s going, I can figure where I ought to be…. Seems like a good thing I gave Michael that bike. He’s had a lot of use out of it, seems like, by the mileage he’s put onto it in just a short while.”

Dawn just looked at him, not knowing what to make of that remark. Spike smiled at her and planted a quick kiss on her head. “You’re a great help to me, Bit,” he said, rising.

“And you just went completely off the weird scale,” Dawn retorted as he went into the house.

He found Willow in the den, squinting at the screen of the new computer. Noticing him, Willow said, “What you actually need is a touchpad: something you can write on. That would take care of the demon iconography. I’ll shop for one tomorrow after class. I see you have some notes on that first document, the one in Hu-Tesh. I’ve saved ‘em for you. Here, let me show you how to do that, or you’ll lose something.”

Obediently going to stand behind her, Spike watched her demonstration of how to save notes and even understood most of it. He’d figured out how to make the computer show the Hu-Tesh scroll, and how to switch back and forth between it and the screen that let him write notes. Not bad progress, he thought, for one day.

Willow said, “When you get that done, we’ll invoice the Council for your time. So keep track of it, OK? How many hours, how many minutes, on what days. I’ll make you a log you can fill in on each session. Suppose you spend, say, 80 hours total on it--that’s $ 8,000. Nice little sum, right?”

Willow grinned up at him. Spike stared. “Say that again.”

“Eight thousand dollars. As an expert consultant with absolutely unique knowledge they can’t get anyplace else, your time’s worth $ 100 an hour. That’s what Giles set up for you. Better than bartending, isn’t it?”

Spike leaned back against the wall.

Willow went on, “You’re gonna need a bank account. So you can-- Giles will take care of it, Spike. Before he goes. He’s still getting your papers together, to make you legal. You won’t have to--”

Spike said suddenly, “Make it so it’s Buffy’s. So she can have whatever she wants of it.” That was the only way it made sense: if he thought of it as the Council paying its Slayer like it should. Didn’t get them off the hook of actually paying her, but it would serve in the meantime.

That was the mortgage. That was repayment for all the food the SITs had eaten. That was repair of all the windows that’d been broken and the other damage to the house over the course of the battle with the First. It was what Buffy would need to do what she’d decided on: be Sunnydale’s Slayer and bring it out of the chaotic aftermath of closing the Hellmouth.

And of course Dawn would want to go to the mall.

Belatedly realizing that Willow had said something, Spike shook himself out of the daze of possibilities. “What?”

“I said, then you can pay me back the twenty you owe me,” Willow said, still regarding him kindly.

“Yeah. I guess….”

Willow laughed. “Now I know what dumbfounded looks like. You need to talk to Giles, Spike, about what arrangements you want made.”

“Yeah…. Tomorrow. Any chance you could front me another twenty?”

He had the bike, and it was only a short way to Willy’s bar. He thought his back would stand it if he was careful. But he was still enough on the outs with Willy that he could no longer run up a tab.

Nothing better to steady you down than getting outside as much liquor as you possibly could.

**********


When Spike rolled in about 5 in the morning, muttering to himself and bumping into things, Buffy knew he was very drunk. She supposed that was a good thing: it meant he’d built up enough energy to need to discharge it more or less harmlessly. But it also meant she’d slept alone, which she wasn’t all that pleased about.

Having pulled off his shirts (and almost certainly dumped them on the floor), he sat on the edge of the bed to remove his boots.

Rolling onto her side, Buffy ran fingers down his spine and felt him stiffen, then relax at the contact. Continuing to pet him in long, lazy strokes, she said, “Missed you. Did you have a good time?”

“H’lo, love. Didn’t mean to wake you.” One boot thumped on the floor. He changed position to work on the other. “In case. ‘F Bit goes outside tonight, could you keep a bit of an eye on things? Michael-wise, and all.”

“Yeah, all right. You gonna hunt the sniper?”

Laughing, he flopped back onto her legs, an arm bent across his eyes. So he wouldn’t simply fall asleep like that, Buffy hitched higher, to sitting, so she could fold herself over him and kiss him, petting his front instead. That was generally a good way to get, and keep, his attention. Besides, she liked the planes of his chest and abdomen and the reactions she could spark.

“What’s funny about that?” she asked.

“Mmm? Oh. Sniper. No, that will take care of itself. What was it? Oh. Got an errand to do tonight. Back by sunup. Being good: won’t forget the cell.”

She meant to ask what the errand was but he’d started kissing her back and that distracted her. Even drunk and running on automatic, he was an excellent kisser. After awhile, getting the rest of his clothes off seemed indicated and it got a little silly because one boot was still on and the pants wouldn’t come off over it. They rolled around on the bed, Buffy trying to work the boot off, Spike not interested in this preliminary and intent on getting her to hold still. That escalated into actual wrestling, strength against strength. Buffy’s bed didn’t have enough room for that: they tumbled onto the floor. Somehow getting the boot off didn’t seem so important after that.

Buffy wanted the initiative and kept it. Applying her mouth to his erection as though it were covered with chocolate only very serious attention would remove nearly always was enough to tame his aggression and make him lie back, babbling incoherent, mostly obscene endearments. Only after forcing him eventually to explosion did she remember that his back was still hurting and then was all contrition and concern, holding his face and demanding if he was all right, if she’d hurt him, in between hot open-mouthed kisses until he shut her up with a demonstration of his superior kissing expertise that impressed her forcefully with how all right he was. She could make amends, he said, with one of those nice, digging-in sort of back massages and promised not to fall asleep while she did it. Which still left the initiative with her, which she liked: he was often but not always thoughtful about things like that. Just enough exceptions to keep things interesting.

He nearly kept his promise--she thought he drifted off for a few minutes but it was hard to be certain, he was so bonelessly inert under her hands--but suddenly roused and pitched her onto the bed, announcing that it was her turn, which of course really meant that it was his. She was subjected to licking, nuzzling, and nipping until she was frantic to have him solidly inside her, but he wasn’t satisfied with frantic, he wanted desperate before he’d consent to go for completion, and she punished him with a bout of merciless tickling. He retaliated in kind, and they ended up on the floor again. He knelt to grab a pillow to slide under her hips. Then it became serious and slow, gazing into each other’s eyes, flexing and arching in tidal rhythms. His inhuman control brought her to climax twice. Before she’d settled from the second, she saw his eyes flash amber, his whole body more fierce, possessive, and demanding. As he bent to the mark, her third orgasm had already begun. She clutched him to her and within her, a completed arc of ecstatic claiming and possession, both of them fully lost in it, shuddering and convulsing, falling finally, after an unknown forever time, into sated collapse. As he released the mark and bent his smoothed forehead against her neck, she clasped and rocked him, unaware that she was weeping until he stirred and began kissing her eyes, gentling her with his hands, murmuring, “Hush, love. Hush now.”

She shook her head. “Can’t. Love you so much. So much. Love you forever.”

“Do anything for you. Give you everything, anything. My shining, beautiful Slayer. My joy. My peace. So warm and strong for me. Hush now, love. Hush and rest.”

What seemed like the next instant, her alarm sounded. Finding herself in bed, the comforter tucked up around her, and Spike cuddled against her back with one arm over her, spread hand on her stomach, she awoke happy and wondering how she’d done without him ever. He was the dearest man, alive or not, she could possibly imagine.

**********


When Buffy returned home after work and grocery shopping, she found Spike already gone though it wasn’t yet dark. Mildly disappointed not to be able to do the groceries-unloading dance with him, she pressed Dawn into service. Dawn pestered her with questions: where had Spike gone and what was he up to and was Buffy really gonna make her stay on the porch and then spy on her like she was twelve years old, which she never had been actually, and it was so not fair! The answers were (a) Buffy didn’t know (b) probably nothing (c) yes (d) then she should stop behaving as though she were and (e) so what? Dawn then demanded how it was possible Buffy hadn’t asked where Spike was going, considering it was gonna take all night on Mike’s motorcycle, and didn’t she care, considering he’d already been shot twice?

Buffy’s lightning retort was, “Go do your homework.”

“Fine!” said Dawn, flapping her hands, and left the frozen food in a pile on the island.

Putting the pile away herself, trying for the record in least-open-freezer time, Buffy was vaguely troubled: she hadn’t realized the bike was involved.

Maybe Willow knew.

Finding the normal late afternoon haunts empty, Buffy concluded that probably Willow had gone someplace, like to the library, or was visiting college friends at one of the dorms. Out with Oz, even. No reason Willow shouldn’t be anyplace. Buffy checked the answering machine attached to the tethered phone in the front room and found only the dueling recordings of aborted sales calls. Willow was such a methodical soul, it was unusual for her to miss supper and not have called or left word of her intended absence. Checking the least likely place, she found Willow laying on her bed with a microwave hot pack across her eyes and all the curtains drawn.

“Will, are you OK?”

Willow limply explained that she was on the point of death from mortification: Kennedy had registered to audit Willow’s Intermediate German class and moved twice to sit next to her. Tried to pass her notes. Nearly provoked a scene. Willow had been so upset that she’d barfed on the Founder’s bust. It had been awful, and she’d had to call maintenance, and looking at it had made her even sicker, and could she die now please because better that than explaining to Professor Grossmeyer precisely what the problem with the new auditor was.

“I’d rather clean an oven that’s cooked lasagna,” Willow wailed. “I’d rather have a big old hangnail that gets infected and swells all up. I’d rather listen to chalkboard squeaks for a month. I’d rather--”

“Why don’t you e-mail him/her/it? You’d still have to explain, but you wouldn’t have to watch his/her/its face while you’re doing it.”

“Oh, that is such a good idea! You’ve saved my life, Buffy!”

“Harassment is harassment, even when both of you play for the same team, gender-wise. Remember Cordelia!”

“Oh please, do I have to? I’m afraid I might barf again, and that makes my head hurt so bad--!”

“Yeah, I was wondering what was with the hot pack. Headache?”

Willow lifted the edge of the pack and opened an eye for a second, then pressed the pack back into place as though even that momentary glimpse had hurt. “I’d ask you not to tell anyone, except there’s nobody left not to tell. Don’t tell Dawn. That would be good. And certainly don’t tell Oz. There: that does make me feel better.”

“What am I not telling them?” Buffy asked.

“Killer eyestrain. I’m getting these headaches and everything goes all dark and soupy. Like New England clam chowder, only dark. Lumps and stuff swimming in it. I’ve never had geek disease! I’d do a divination, find out if somebody, Amy maybe, has put some kind of hex on me, but that involves yucky stuff and I just know I’d barf….”

“Maybe when you feel better,” Buffy suggested soothingly. “Just one thing, then I’ll let you go back to dying. Did Spike happen to mention where he was going?”

“No, he was too flabbergasted about the money.”

“What money?”

“You mean he didn’t tell you? Oh, maybe he meant it to be a surprise, and I’ve ruined it, and now he’ll hate me--!”

“Willow, Spike is not gonna murder you. However, I may, thereby solving all your Kennedy problems. What money?”

Willow chanced another peek. “When I told him Giles had wangled him an hourly rate of $ 100 per, for consulting, I thought he was gonna faint right there in front of me. Then you could practically see the wheels turning, all the stuff he’d like to do with it. He was gonna talk to Giles about it today, setting up a joint account and everything. Giles would know. I think I could keep tea down. Would you make me some sassafras tea? And dry toast.”

“Sure, Will,” Buffy agreed, and wandered back downstairs in a daze. A surprise? Not likely: Spike was Mr. Instant Gratification. Not that he didn’t have any self-control but he saw no need for it. The first time they’d met, he’d made this big threat to kill her on Saturday. Then he simply couldn’t wait and showed up in the middle of parent-teacher night and raised hell until Joyce battered him about the head with a fire axe. To think, or to feel, was pretty much to act, with Spike. When he couldn’t, he got all wound up and was apt to explode sideways and take out the equivalent of a city block, complete with shrubbery and small animals. No, she didn’t buy the surprise theory.

True, neither of them had been much inclined to talk, this morning. As drunk as he’d been, at least to begin with, it was possible he’d simply put the matter out of his mind and forgotten. He did that sometimes, even with urgent stuff. But if he’d reacted as Willow had described, why hadn’t he told her right then? Why had his (obviously) first impulse been to go to Willy’s and get himself bombed?

Was there something about the prospect of the money, or the work itself, that bothered him the way the blood deliveries had initially bothered him? And he wasn’t gonna say anything until he’d sorted it out and decided? Sitting at a desk and working for hours, for days, certainly wasn’t part of her image of Spike…or maybe his, of himself. Although he’d agreed, might actually doing it strike him as…too William?

Realizing she was just spinning her wheels and making herself crazy to no purpose, she located a packet of Willow’s nauseatingly healthy tea and set water to heating. A fresh occasion to use the tea infuser. Waiting for the water to boil, she collected her cell from its stand on the hall table and punched in Giles’ current number. But the conversation didn’t really clarify anything, only confirmed Willow’s account. Yes, Spike had called today to make arrangements for a joint checking account, with credit cards appertaining thereto. It was to be a business rather than a personal account--better for tax purposes. And if Spike applied himself diligently, the average monthly income could reasonably be estimated at between eight and sixteen thousand dollars, at least in the short term, dealing with a backlog that had been centuries in accumulating. Giles expressed himself as surprised by Buffy’s surprise: many lawyers, doctors, and the like charged comparable or even higher rates for their services.

“I don’t know, Giles,” Buffy responded, tucking the cell into her shoulder to continue talking while pouring the boiling water into the teapot. “To little miss $ 12.50 an hour, here, it’s fairly mind-boggling. And Spike ‘applying himself diligently’ just does not compute, somehow. Tell me honestly: do you expect this to blow up in all our faces?”

“I see no reason why it should. If his academic background conforms at all closely to what I’ve come to suspect by little things he’s let drop over the years, frankly, he should regard it as a piece of cake. Complete with frosting. Very little actual research involved--drawing almost completely on what he already knows. If mere research were all that was required, these works would have been deciphered and annotated long ago. Buffy, has this somehow become a source of tension, even disagreement, between you?”

“No,” Buffy said, scissoring the envelope and coaxing the tea into the infuser. “The opposite. He hasn’t said word one about it. Or the money. And it’s probably nothing, but that’s started to worry me.”

“Then simply ask him, for heaven’s sake!”

“I will. Just as soon as I see him. Thanks, Giles.” Buffy closed the connection and set the cell down. She thought of calling Spike’s new number, but it was nearly dark now: she visualized him on a motorcycle doing something like eighty when his cell beeped or buzzed and decided against it. Anyway, she wanted to see his face when she brought this up. See all the eloquent body language she’d learned pretty well how to read. This wasn’t something for a phone anyway. One of the face-to-face things of life.

She popped the infuser into the pot and added the lid, checking her watch to estimate brewing time. Nearly twelve hours before Spike was apt to get home.

And where the hell had he gone?

**********


By the time Spike reached Sunnydale on the return leg, he well and truly had the road in his bones and was too tired to slow down. He took corners at eighty, straight-aways at ninety, and noticed the traffic signals not at all. Fortunately there was barely any other traffic moving and what there was saw him coming soon enough to get out of his way. He didn’t spare a glance or a thought on them. Sometimes near the end of a long trip, it was that way: a clear, effortless focus that saw everything in distinct contrasts of light and dark.

Approaching Revello, he thought vaguely of people sleeping. Then he thought fuck it and jammed the bike into a skidding turn only the absence of parked cars let him complete. Finally braking, stopping, felt so strange that he stood awhile, astride the inert bike, before he could trust his balance enough to dismount and set it on its kickstand. Pocketing the key, he unstrapped his carryall from pillion and crossed the street with the sense of vibration, ghostly engine noise, and wind still pushing at him.

He’d done something like 500 miles in less than eight hours on the road. And even that had been cutting it fine: it had taken longer than he’d expected to ask around and identify, then locate, the witch he was looking for. But it had all worked out. He had what he’d set out for and brought it back safe. That was all that mattered.

As he started up the stairs, Buffy stood from the glider where she’d been waiting, wrapped in a comforter she still held around her. “Heard you coming,” she said dryly. “From quite a distance.”

He turned aside to kiss her, very glad to have beaten the sunrise and be home. Some of the vibration bled away at the contact. Holding her in a one-armed hug, he steered them inside, then shut and bolted the door.

“Shouldn’t have waited up,” he told her, all easy gentleness, concern freed of confusion. “Almost time for you to start getting ready.”

“Where did you go?” she asked, going into the front room and dropping onto the couch, so he trailed along and sat beside her.

“Town called Murfeesboro. To pick up something I wanted--piece of equipment. Borrowed Michael’s bike. Long haul for a little bike like that. Ran fine. He’s worked on the suspension.” He settled and leaned back, still trying get accustomed to the loss of hurtling motion. “You have any trouble with him?”

She shook her head. “Everybody on their best behavior. The occasional Stare of Vicious Death, but I’m used to that.”

“Good.” He got up stiffly. “While I think of it, I’d best give the bike key to Dawn. Michael won’t come for it before sundown now, and that way, he’ll be sure to get it.”

Her voice caught him in the doorway: “Willow told me about the money. Why didn’t you tell me?”

He wheeled around, a little surprised at the question but not at all put out. A bit more distance, calm and objective, was the first difference he’d been able to notice. “Because there isn’t any yet, and Rupert hasn’t yet set up an account to hold it. Can’t very well cut the cake till there’s a cake to be cut.”

“Are you OK with it?”

Seemed to be something she’d worried about. Spike wondered why. “Take money from the Watchers’ Council? Won’t trouble me for a second. Ninety percent of what they want looked over is metaphysical claptrap and some git’s puffery about how he had these grandiose plans to raise himself up a demon, an’ then something went wrong and nothing happened whatever, told in detail and at exhaustive length. That and the alchemical equivalent of grocery lists. A whole lot of magic in the world and not much of it in words. If they’re fools enough not to know that, it's no concern of mine.”

That felt right, and odd, in about equal measure. So it was gonna take some getting used to, after all. He’d expected that, though there was no way to know exactly what or how in advance. Strange that it should be strange, when it should be so familiar. But so much had changed….

On impulse, he went back and held out his free hand. Lifting Buffy out of her nest of comforter, he bent to kiss her searchingly and her arms came up around his neck. When they separated, she seemed to have put aside whatever had been troubling her. He said, “Come on upstairs. Time for Bit to wake up anyway. By the time you have your day things set out, I’ll be back for the show.”

Going with him up the stairs, Buffy remarked, “Willow had a run-in with Kennedy yesterday at college. Lost her lunch over the Founder’s bust in the rotunda, and then a bad sick headache afterward. All weepy and morose.”

“Her eyes,” Spike agreed. “That will be better soon.”

“You say that like you know it.”

“It’s pressure, is all. I think there’s a way to get some of that pressure off her and keep it off. Then it’ll all sort itself out.”

At the head of the stairs, they separated. Buffy went on into her own room. Spike tapped at Dawn’s door. “Bit, it’s me. You awake?”

“Am now,” came Dawn’s sour reply.

“Can I come in a minute?”

Instead of answering, she came and opened the door, leaning so only her head and shoulders showed. “What?”

“Want you to keep track of something for me. OK if I come in?”

She moved aside to make room. She wore a long animal-print T-shirt, mostly yellow on white, that made her look as though her legs ended about at her breastbone. But his sense of her was completely unchanged. The distance was right. The warmth was right, and the cool fondness. Wouldn’t have to worry about that, then.

Setting the carryall on a chair, he unzipped it. A faint, pale silver light showed through the opening. Cradling it carefully because it weighed hardly more than a soap bubble, he drew it out with both hands and placed it on the floor: a clear orb, about melon-sized, set on a wooden base, shining with a cloudy glow. “Not as fragile as it looks,” he remarked, as Dawn went down on one knee to touch it with a tentative finger. “Take a hammer or a big rock, something like that, to break it. So you won’t need to be careful of it that way. But you need to keep it safe for me. Hidden.”

She looked up suddenly, then back at the globe, her fingers stroking the curve. “I know this. How do I know this, Spike?”

He hadn’t wondered about that, but it made sense that she'd feel the connection. “Likely because you have a little piece of it. It’s my soul.”

Chapter 10: Ice

Dawn gaped at Spike, filled with excitement and admiration, and blurted exactly what she was thinking: “You actually did it! You are so freakin’ awesome!” She sprang up and nearly knocked him over, hugging him. “How does it feel? Do you feel all eeevil again? Did you--” (She pushed herself to arm’s length to look, suddenly sober, into his eyes.) “--you know, eat anybody on the way home?” Seeing the answer she sought, she raced on, “Oh, this is so incredibly neat! No chip, no trigger, and now no soul!”

“No hostages,” Spike said flatly. Then his hands came up and he removed the locket, on its chain, from around his neck. He dropped it on the floor and crushed it under a boot heel. Meeting her eyes again, he added, “You keep yours. Just in case. ‘Cause you got custody of this.” The toe of a boot nudged the Orb. “You don’t tell nobody: not Buffy, not Willow, not your little friends at school. And certainly not Michael! Nobody. You don’t even hint. It’s important: can you do that, Bit?”

Dawn solemnly crossed her heart, then zipped her lips. “But you got to tell me absolutely everything!”

“Later. When you get home from school, come wake me and we’ll talk. Have to go now.” He turned to leave, but Dawn caught his arm and he looked at her and waited.

She said, all in a burst, “I know, I can see, you’re tired and all. But…are we different, Spike? Do you…still love me?”

He leaned and kissed the part in her hair, which Dawn considered a good sign, as far as it went. “You remember that summer? Before I went and got it?”

Reassured, Dawn kissed his cheek, hardly having to go to tiptoes at all to do it. “That’s all right, then.”

“Nothing changed at all between us.” He gestured at the Orb. “You tuck that away someplace safe, now. And we’ll talk later. Oh, and here’s the key to the bike--for Michael. You see he gets it. And don’t forget about those maps.”

When he was gone and the door shut, Dawn hopped from foot to foot, fizzing with excitement that he’d actually gotten rid of the soul, or at least separated himself from it. Gone back to plain pure vampire--and there was absolutely nobody, nobody, better at that than he was.

The main problem with the Orb was the glow. She looked wildly around her room, considering various hiding places, finding none suitable. Then she popped the Orb into her backpack and hotfooted down to the basement. She dug into the pile of camping equipment--stuff she knew hadn’t been touched or noticed practically forever--until she located one of the insulated sleeping bags. Unrolling it, she thought this would have been good to have up in Oregon, but neither she nor Buffy had thought about anything except getting there. Singular lack of practicality. Probably went with the superhero mentality. Oh, well.

Sliding the Orb inside, she re-rolled the sleeping bag, then replaced the bag within the pile and laid other stuff on top so nobody would notice the heap had been disturbed or give it a second glance. Giving it a final pat of approval, she danced back up the two flights of stairs to start getting ready for school.

All through her classes, she thought of hardly anything else but Spike’s separating himself from the soul and parking it out of the way, where it couldn’t interfere. Served it right, she thought fiercely, considering the nuisance it’d made of itself, making him feel fundamentally wrong all the time! Who’d put up with that if they didn’t have to? It was beyond cool, what he’d done: it was ice.

In Biology she started making notes on what she thought the changes and effects were likely to be. In American History, doodling in her notebook, she drifted into a once familiar speculation about whether she, former mystical key of energy, had a soul. And then she smiled, realizing of course she did: she had his. Just a little scrap, only enough to hold her together, not enough to nag or dictate. And he’d trusted her with the rest. Nobody else--just her.

It had felt familiar. Something like a cherished stuffed toy you hadn’t quite outgrown, so that you still loved it but didn’t altogether believe that it was real anymore or that it loved you back. But Spike did. Loved her back. Because, as he’d reminded her, he always had.

That was all right, then.

Galvanized to action, she surreptitiously munched her bagged baloney sandwich and drank her stick-a-straw juice in the library at lunchtime, deciding among various maps of Sunnydale she unearthed from the local history stacks. Selecting the one least dependent on color coding, she toted it to the big new photocopier and made twenty good copies (black and white, naturally).

In Algebra there was a test, so she had to pay attention and didn’t accomplish much during that period. But Gym was next, and she took occasional breaks from the required exercise routines to do cartwheels along the edge of the ballfield in sheer sunshine exuberance.

She bought a red marker at the drugstore where the bus stopped on the way home. Tape, they already had. So that was everything.

Rushing in the door, she found Willow in the den installing a touchpad on the new computer and invoking curses on hardware quirks and software incompatibilities.

Standing, clutching her backpack against her chest, Dawn asked, “Are you feeling better today?”

“A pox upon handshaking!” Willow said in a terrible, ending-the-world-now voice, then turned to Dawn with a cheerful smile. “Only eyestrain, just like I thought. I gave myself a break from squinting yesterday, and when I woke up this morning, all gone, poof!”

No more hostages, Dawn thought. The Powers knew they could no longer get at him that way because he no longer cared. Not that he’d hate Willow or Giles or Oz or anything like that. Just a well-fed predator’s cool detachment. Could be dangerous if any of them crossed him, but they were no longer likely to do that, and that would keep them safe. At least that’s how Dawn saw it.

She dashed upstairs and hammered on Buffy’s bedroom door. “Spike? Spike, wake up, get decent! We have to talk. Spike?”

She heard his voice but not what he said, but at least it indicated he was awake. Eventually he came out: jeans on, barefoot, shirt hanging undone, carrying the cellphone. He went right past her without a glance or a word, obviously still mostly asleep, and she trotted along behind to the kitchen and tried to be patient while he removed a packet of blood from the insulated box on the counter, next to the refrigerator, and started to assemble coffee makings. Dawn said, “Here, I can do that,” and he nodded wordlessly and let her. Unselfconsciously he vamped to pierce and then drain the bag. No mess: he didn’t miss a drop. Same with the next. Dawn thought him even more gorgeous in vampface, and he knew it; all the same, he wouldn’t have done that to feed, even in front of her--not without some remark to acknowledge and blunt the edge of the strangeness. The first true change she’d seen. Mentally, she noted it down, sliding the prepared cone into the top of the coffee maker and the pot underneath. Taking no chances, she’d made enough for several cups.

She picked up her backpack from the counter, where she’d laid it, commenting, “I got the maps. Want to see?”

“In a minute, Bit. Let me catch up with myself first.” He rubbed his face with both hands, then disposed of the third bag from the morning’s delivery. Lifting the cellphone, he carefully touched in a number, then held it to his ear. “Me. No need to fetch any more today. I’m good. But I want to talk to you and Kennedy after you have your dinners. Maybe seven. Casa Spike. Tell Kennedy, no excuses.” He ended the call as abruptly as he’d begun it, so Dawn figured he’d left voicemail on the machine at the Webster lab. For Rona. Her guess was confirmed when he touched one of the speed dial numbers and again waited. After time for a few rings, he said in one of his polite voices, “It’s Spike, the trainer at Ms. Summers’ dojo. Might I speak to Amanda, please.” Another wait. Then he said, “’Manda. Spike. I called a meeting for tonight, seven, Casa Spike.” He listened, then said, “Understand about that. Still want you there, so you’ll know what’s happening. All right? Fine.” He closed the call and put the cell away in his pocket. He nodded to himself, and Dawn imagined him putting a checkmark on a mental list: that chore accomplished.

Game face smoothing, he said, “Want you there too, Bit. How’s the coffee?”

Dawn glanced. “Another few minutes.”

“All right. Smoke first, then.” He went off, down into the cellar.

Dawn dithered a second, then decided to wait and take the coffee with. Pulling down a mug, she added two more notations to her mental file: he was being very methodical, which meant he had quite a lot of this planned out--unusual; and he was moving, purposeful, toward some specific goal.

She held that thought as she carried the coffee mug down to him. Handing it over, she asked, “What you’re doing: for the Powers, or against?”

“Both.” He took a big swallow of the scalding coffee: pretty much impervious to hot, cold. As Dawn took the other chair, he continued, “So far as our ways agree, got no objection to doing what they want. Not past, that, though.”

“And what do they want?”

“For me to set myself up as Master Vamp of Sunnydale. With all the trimmings. Like it used to be, with the Master: centralized power. And then bring it all down. Couldn’t neither of us take something like that on until all that, with the Hellmouth and the First, was settled. They had no instrument. And I…wasn’t settled enough. Not even to try. Not even to think about it much, though the notion did pass through my mind a time or two. Not possible. Everything too confused.”

“Because of the soul,” Dawn said knowingly.

“Partly that. And partly, learning how to get on with the children. The SITs. Learning how to delegate. And run things without having to fight every inch of the way. Not having everything fall apart the second I turned my eyes away. Learning how to look after Michael. And that business with Angel. Getting that finally sorted. Nothing left to prove there. Not fighting ghosts anymore, issues that should have been dead and gone a century ago. Won or lost, doesn’t matter anymore. They’re settled, done. All of that.”

Dawn was quiet, thinking it out, while Spike finished the cigarette and most of the coffee. Then she asked, “What’s it like?”

He flashed a small smile. “Knew you were gonna ask me that. An’ I’ve tried to think. It’s simpler. A lot of things I was concerned about, just gone away.” He flipped a hand, open-fingered. “Can’t at the moment see why I bothered about them at all. But I know I did. So I’ll be cautious about them, about doing something different that would affect them. Feels good. Feels free. But I know the price of that is gonna be blind spots. Things I just won’t see anymore when they come up. I’ll need you to help with that, Bit. If you think there’s something I’m not seeing, not taking proper notice of, you tell me. May not always do what you say, but I’ll listen because I know I have to.”

“Listen to Buffy,” Dawn advised, very seriously. “Because I don’t think I’m the best one to know any better than you do.”

He was shaking his head. “Can’t. Because she won’t be with me in this. It’s what she needs, but not what she wants. She’d never agree. She’s gonna fight it every inch. As soon as she knows about it. Might even come to the point of staking me over it. I know it, and if it comes to that, I’ll let her. I have to know that, going in. And you have to know it too, because you’re gonna be pulled both ways. You already are. Because Michael comes into this, too. So I’m telling you now, no harm will ever come to Buffy by my hand or with my consent. No matter how bad it gets and no matter what it looks like. If there’s no other way, I’ll let her dust me and not lift a finger against her nor let anybody else do it neither.”

“Nor me?” Dawn asked very quietly, making finger pleats in her school skirt.

“You, I’m prepared to be a little more flexible about.” Spike reached and tugged at her hair. “Dawn, what would happen to you if I go?”

Dawn shrugged, refusing to look at him. “I don’t know. How would I know?”

“Dawn.”

“Well, your soul, that little bit I took, is what I’m built around. Anchored to. So if it flies free….”

“Sort of what I thought. So could be, neither one of us, you or me, will get out of this. But I can’t not do it, Dawn. That’s a choice I don’t have. On account of the hostages. Can’t let the Powers do ‘em like that, on my account. I believe I’ve stopped that for now. They know they can’t get at me that way anymore. And I’m at least setting out on what they got…mapped out to be done. But the second I cross ‘em, and they know it, they’ll try to put anything handy in my road. Got to expect that. Might come at me direct, but that doesn’t seem to be how they do. So it’s one thing to risk myself. It’s something else to pull you into the pot with me. Is that gonna be all right with you, Bit?”

“Would that stop you?” Dawn rejoined bluntly.

“No,” Spike admitted.

“Then what are you asking me for?”

“Dunno. Feel better about it, I s’pose, if you told me to go ahead. Never have liked being on the outs with you. You know that.”

Dawn folded her arms and raised her chin crossly. "Go ahead, then. I don't care."

"Then I will," Spike declared.

"Fine."

He considered the empty cup. “That was fine coffee, Bit. Past ordinary. Did you maybe spit in it?”

She jumped out of her chair and hugged him with every ounce of strength she had. He didn’t hug her quite so hard because it would have cracked her ribs.

**********

Of the nine vampires gathered in the side yard of Casa Spike shortly after sundown that Friday evening, it occurred to Spike that he was the only one who went by a self-assigned name. Unless you counted Huey, who’d indifferently kept the name Spike had set on him as a minion. The roving vampire biker gangs still kept to the old ways in that respect: names like Razor, Fang. But it seemed that holding onto their prior names and what of their prior identities they could was the custom among Sunnydale vamps. Odd. Spike decided he didn’t care as long as they showed up when summoned.

Only seven of the nine were invited. Mike had somehow gotten word and showed up on his own: hunkered down on the other side of Dawn, visibly proprietary of her, so that the other vamps stayed well clear.

Dawn stank of lily-of-the-valley. Could have smelled her a block away, easily. Her own deeply attractive scent nearly drowned in it. Which was the idea.

Gesturing with his cigarette, Spike told the vamps, “Got a proposition for you. There was a girl who was mine, with my mark on her. Restfield vamps took her and turned her, couple weeks back. In my old crypt. You all know Restfield’s always been my territory. But they moved in, set up a couple nests, without so much as a by your leave and hunted it an’ took one of my cows and turned her.” Spike knew Kim would have been appalled to be referred to as a cow, but that was the part of the relationship vamps would understand. “I’ve had other things to see to. Now it’s time I see to them.”

Spike left it at that, looking around at them: the vamps who’d gone up against the First…or more precisely, against the Turok-han, which they’d hated like daylight. No need to spell it out for them: they knew what was due for an insult like the one the Restfield vamps had slapped him with. The fact that he’d issued a summons to this meeting, at Willy’s, said the rest.

Huey, a tall, dour vamp who was currently the bartender/bouncer at Willy’s, asked, “What’s in it for us?”

“I don’t come after you. Ever.”

Isadora (flapper-thin and wearing bright yellow hot-pants and a red tank top that showed off her bony shoulders, apparent age maybe 16), asked, “And the Slayer?”

Spike shook his head. “Slayer has no part in this. You take your own chances there. Keep clear, if you’re smart. This is mine.”

Isadora turned her bobbed head, and lifted her hand, toward Dawn. Mike went threateningly game-faced. Isadora set her hand back on her knee, not challenging.

Spike said, “Dora, whose mark does Dawn have on her?”

“I can’t tell from here, with that smell. I guess it’s Mike’s, though, by the way he’s guard-dogging her.”

There were some scattered laughs at that. Likely because Mike was so young he wouldn’t have been allowed to say boo on his own, much less claim sole rights to a cow, in the old style of things: in the Master’s day. Although Spike didn’t know precise ages, he doubted any of the other vamps was under thirty and some, like Huey and Isadora, he thought were considerably older.

Spike stubbed his cigarette out in the grass. “That smell means she’s also mine, regardless of other signs. I don’t dispute Michael’s claim. This is a different thing. Somebody smells like that, you stay the hell away or I’ll rip your head off.”

Taking the point fastest, Huey said, “There’s going to be more?”

“A few. They’ll be along.”

Another of the women, Mary (black, with a great mass of tangled hair and a sharp, hungry profile, apparent age about 40), commented, “Still don’t see why I should enforce your boundaries. It’s not like I’ve ever had to worry about keeping clear of them, or you.”

Spike looked up briefly while lighting another cigarette. “Things are changing, Mary. There’s gonna be sides. One is mine. Which do you want to be on?”

Huey asked, “Beyond Restfield, you mean?”

“Could be. That’s for another time. But whoever backs me now has hunting rights on whatever territory I claim. With some limits.” Spike tipped his head toward Dawn.

Everybody was quiet then, and Mike looked around, shedding game face as he looked at Spike. Didn’t have to hold up a giant sign for them to take the clue that this was the beginning of something larger.

Mike said, “What d’you mean?”

Spike smiled at him. “Shut up, Michael.”

Again, some answering smiles at proprieties being maintained.

Mike glowered. “We’ll talk about this.”

Spike nodded calmly. “Certainly will. Saturday week.”

Mike and others stirring, changing position, realizing a different weight had been set on the challenge fight: no longer merely personal, but dynastic. Order of Aurelius business, done right out in public, open for betting. Those who’d caught it looked alert, interested. Only Michael looked surprised, and showed it. Well, he was young yet, and not Spike’s own get nor his minion anymore, so he’d likely not realized until now that just the fact of him constituted a challenge Spike was obliged to answer. Mike hadn’t learned how such things worked, never having been a part of an established vampire clan.

All the vamps looked up: Rona had arrived, and Kennedy behind her. Dawn immediately got up to dab them with the strong-smelling perfume, then resumed her seat between Spike and Mike. Rona dropped down at Spike’s right and a little behind; Kennedy remained standing, wary and nervous at the assemblage of silent vamps, nearly all of them regarding her yellow-eyed and interested.

Spike lifted the crossbow from the grass and set it conspicuously on his knee. Nobody made any move toward the two SITs.

Kennedy demanded, “Spike, what’s going on here?”

Rona muttered, “Ken, shut up and sit down.”

Kennedy insisted, “I want to know--”

Spike looked around at her, game-faced himself. Kennedy dropped hastily where she was, then scooted forward to be next to Rona. When the vamps’ attention shifted, Spike knew Amanda had come. Spike caught Dawn’s eye and pointed behind, sending her to set a perfume mark on Amanda, too. Spike heard a brief mutter of conversation between them. As Dawn returned to her place, Amanda settled in front of Rona, directly to Spike’s right. Interesting to see how humans sorted themselves without words: Amanda had been troop leader, and her position claimed that role despite her reluctance to show up at all.

But Spike looked past her to Kennedy. “You wondered what this was about. Tonight I’m going after the vamps that turned Kim. Likely nothing much you’ll have to do. Just keep any that try to run till I can get to ‘em.”

Kennedy gestured at the vamps. “And them?”

“Need more than three to cordon off the patch. ‘Tisn’t like you never worked with vamps before. As this is for Kim, I thought you’d want to sit in. Rona--you coming?”

Rona said, “Damn right I am.”

Spike returned his glance to Kennedy, who thought another minute, then said, “All right, I’m in.”

Only then did Spike look at Amanda, with the two acceptances pushing at her. Frowning, she said, “For Kim…. Yes. I’ll go.”

Which was about the way Spike had figured it would work out if played properly. He handed Amanda the crossbow.

Huey inquired, “That it?”

Spike nodded, surveying all the vamps. “Gonna count heads afterward, so if anybody’s leaving, now would be a good time.”

A vamp named Benny, toward the back, inquired, “You mean there’s gonna be a quiz?” and then ducked half-hearted smacks from those around him.

Seeing nobody offering to leave, Spike pointed at Huey. “You see that--”

Mike interrupted, “No.”

Spike turned to consider him. “Didn’t ask you here, Michael.”

“That don’t signify. Kim was my friend. My claim is second after yours. I’ll be answerable for the rest.”

Spike didn’t bother checking the other vamps’ reactions. If Mike claimed responsibility for their behavior, any failure in obedience would be his to sort out. Spike weighed the possible loss of some against the possible benefits of naming Mike his second so early in the game...and what it might cost to reject Mike’s claim.

He decided against trying to think that far ahead. For now, Mike had claimed authority, and Spike was inclined to let him have it.

“All right. You do that. Mark is the north gate of Restfield.”

As all the vamps and the SITs stood, Spike caught Dawn’s arm, holding her in place. He and Michael, holding Dawn’s hand to bring her with him, traded a long look. Mike apparently had the sense to realize Dawn was safer with Spike and the SITs than with him and a bunch of vamps unaccustomed to minding anybody, much less him: he released her hand and led the others off toward the mark.

Kennedy said, “I don’t have a taser.”

“Bit has stakes,” Spike replied. “Doing this the old-fashioned way.”

He saw no reason to inform them that Dawn did have a taser: for her own protection.

Amanda told the other two SITs, “Spike’s called the mark. Let’s go.”

**********

Dawn had run with the SIT pack before. She’d never seen a vamp pack on the hunt, though…and still hadn’t because the minute Spike came within sight of the cemetery gates, Mike (already inside) gestured to the rest of the vamps and they were simply gone, vanished. Dark into dark. Spike pitched each of the SITs to the top of the wall, and when it was Dawn’s turn, she found Mike waiting to catch her when she jumped. The next second Spike was down, rebounding straight into a run, too fast to follow. Taking the bag of stakes Dawn had carried, Mike hung back to guide them for the first few hundred yards but then was gone, too impatient to hold himself to their slower pace.

Amanda kept on, running all but blind now among the tombstones and trees. Rona and Kennedy flanked out to the left and the right and dropped back slightly, leaving Dawn directly behind the leader, hoping that ‘Manda knew where she was going because Dawn hadn’t heard anybody name a mark.

Amanda ran straight into a vamp, coming headlong in the opposite direction, and they knocked each other down. There hadn’t been time for Amanda to load the crossbow, so she punched up with a bolt as though it were a knife. The next second, Rona and Kennedy slammed into the tangle and the vamp exploded into dust. Then Amanda was on her feet and running, the flankers again moving wide.

The encounter had been so fast, Dawn could only assume it’d been a vamp because it’d dusted, only hope it hadn’t been one of “theirs.” She didn’t like the suddenness or the dark, didn’t like having to strike out instantaneously at whatever they met. It could be anybody, she thought. It could be Mike.

The next contact was Rona’s: a dark shape springing from behind a tombstone, bowling her over. As Rona hung on, Amanda and Kennedy converged but before they could dust that vamp another came onto them from behind. Dawn’s taser took it down. She was grabbing for a stake when the vamp poofed all over her, staked by someone in and already out before she’d had a chance to look.

“You watch that,” said a voice she recognized as Dora’s: the vamp in the hot-pants. “You could hurt somebody.”

The three SITs got to their feet, having dispatched the vamp that had jumped Rona.

Dora’s eyes flashed yellow, maybe catching some distant street light, as her head turned. “Wait,” she said, and they all stood uneasily, catching their breath, not sure if they should be taking Dora’s orders or not. Amanda armed the crossbow and Rona complained softly of having cracked her elbow against the tombstone.

“Go on,” said Dora after a minute or two. “The hunt’s gone past.”

Amanda led on at a walk, up a low hill. Dawn knew where they were now: leaving the common burial sites, entering the more exclusive district of mausoleums, elaborate crypts, and three-dimensional statuary, the latter mostly perched on columns. Coming to a paved path, Amanda followed it toward a trio of mausoleums. No trees were nearby, and the wall was in sight again, with street lights beyond: Dawn could make out what was happening.

Around the farthest of the three mausoleums, vamps stood in a widely spaced circle. Just inside the circle, one vamp was on the ground, not moving. Two more kept trying to break out but were shoved or beaten back. In the open space, in a blur of motion, Spike was fighting three vamps. Dawn knew him by his pale hair and then by his motion: nobody moved like Spike. Reaching the circle, Amanda started to bring up the crossbow but didn’t resist when Dawn pushed it down. The fight was too fast to be sure of a target, and a bolt that missed altogether stood a good chance of skewering someone on the far side of the circle.

As one of the fighting vamps burst into ash, Dawn realized they were all fighting unarmed. As Spike had said: the old-fashioned way. He’d literally pulled the other vamp’s head off. One of the two remaining vamps broke then, came straight at them. Amanda put the crossbow bolt through his ribs and he was gone--close enough that Kennedy sneezed and fanned her face. Spike and the last vamp were squared off a couple of yards apart, Spike with his weight on his back leg: a defensive stance. He said something and then laughed, and the other vamp came at him. The other vamp landed a blow but Spike held stance, stuck a hand bladed stiff into the other vamp’s rib cage and yanked out his heart. Turning immediately from the dust, Spike lifted a hand and somebody pitched him a stake. With two terse blows he dispatched the vamps who’d been trying to escape, then finished the one lying still.

Abruptly the circle of vamps was gone. Nobody left but Spike, wandering toward them making the nose-holding gesture for bad smell.

Dawn blurted hotly, “Not funny, Spike!”

“Hell yes it is, second most fun to be had while sober. Nobody gonna come within a mile of you children tonight. An’ he’s left you again.” Spike sighed theatrically. “Didn’t I tell him to keep his third eye on you lot?”

He meant Michael. And though the rest of his face was just ordinary except a couple of bruises that would go purple, his eyes were shining gold. Remembering the cool violence of his disciplining Mike for disobedience another time, Dawn felt ice slip in under her collarbone. “He stayed with us,” she protested quickly, and after a glance Amanda chimed in, “Yeah, and we got here all right,” without any great enthusiasm or even truthfulness, but she said it.

“Is that it, then?” Kennedy asked, making a near challenge of it the way she always did.

Spike lit a cigarette and squinted against the smoke. “That was the opening. Still the finale to come. But don’t have to rush this one. Beaters will be collecting them up. Come on, children. Mark is the Davis mausoleum by that big chestnut tree and the pond.”

He led them off, just an easy pace, keeping to the paved path, and it seemed almost normal again, jogging in the darkness toward a named mark, everybody alert but unafraid because Spike was with them.

Dawn took longer strides until she was moving level with him. “You’re uber-creepy tonight. Just so you know.”

He replied, “Pity Kim’s not here. She’d have enjoyed it.”

“Well, you’re enjoying it enough for both of you.”

“Think so, do you?”

“Yeah!” After a few more strides, Dawn said, “What’s this fighting barehanded? It’s like you’re playing with ‘em.”

“Ignorant little bint, aren’t you?”

“Well, it’s not like you actually explained anything, Spike,” Dawn retorted.

Spike made a tch click. “Keep forgetting you’re so new an’ all, don’t know nothing. Well, I’d just as soon hose ‘em with a flamethrower but that’s not how it’s done, pet. Keeping it personal here. Nothing between. Beat the living shit out of ‘em, then dust ‘em--every last one. Three purposes to be served.” He held up fingers on a hand already battered bloody. “One: do the sods. Two: edification of the troops. That I want so fucking terrified of me they’ll think twice before crossing me or forgetting to do what I tell ‘em. Michael, for instance.”

Dawn heard it then: he was being provoking, to get a rise out of her. Which didn’t mean he didn’t mean it, every word. So she did what she did when he was provoking: pretended to ignore it. “And three?”

He chuckled. “Three: have a fucking brilliant fight with half the world looking on.”

“Not Buffy, though,” Dawn jabbed.

“No. Not Buffy.” His voice had sobered. “That would put the wrong meaning on it, you see. This is my business, not hers.”

“Vamp business, you mean. Then why are we here?” Dawn demanded.

“Not just vamp business, pet. My business. Can’t be just us against them because that’s not how it has to end up. ‘Mine’ includes whoever I say it includes--humans, vamps, puppies, garter snakes, no matter. You. The children. And not just for territory but on account of Kim. Got to make ‘em see that, know that, accept that. For what comes afterward. To see that my word holds, and not just for vamps. From the beginning.”

They were coming to the pond: a concrete-bottomed eyesore full of gunk and mosquitoes and not enough clear water to reflect the dim lights spaced around its perimeter. The path curved around it. Reaching the first of the lights, Spike said, “Here,” lifting an arm, and they all stopped to his word and his gesture.

Facing around to them, he said, “You’re past the beaters now. Come on slow. Anything comes at you, take it down. Otherwise, watch and mind Bit, like always. This is mine again now. I go in first and alone. Clear?”

There was the reflex chorus of right, Got it, and Clear, Spike from the SITs. Dawn waited until Spike looked at her, then said, “Rule Four.” She held up her hand, thumb tucked in. “You do them. They don’t do you.” She folded the hand into a fist.

She’d succeeded in surprising him. For a second the gold faded from his eyes and he looked tired and grim. Then he smiled and reached to smooth her hair. He said, “You smell absolutely horrible. Hardly need to chaperone you no more,” so she batted his hand away.

Then he spun and was running, half the distance to the Davis mausoleum almost before she had time to blink and focus, and the circle coming in from behind, driving a few vamps before them. Spike yanked the door open and was gone inside and it all began again, terrible and beautiful.

**********

Buffy woke abruptly from an anxious dream. Finding herself alone, she rolled over and looked at the clock’s illuminated numbers: 2:10. Restless, she pulled on a robe and padded to the adjoining room to check on Dawn. Buffy found her sister asleep clutching an oversized teddy-bear with frowning determination as though hanging onto the last tokens of childhood.

Shutting the door quietly, Buffy shook her head, wondering if she’d bring up the violation of Dawn’s 10:00 curfew. An outing to the mall with friends was a perfectly permissible Friday evening activity, and Dawn’s seventeenth birthday was approaching--for most teens an event that brought fewer restrictions, sometimes a part-time job, a car. The threshold of adulthood. Although Buffy wasn’t comfortable with the role or responsibilities of surrogate mom, the thought of surrendering them also made her uneasy. Sunnydale was such an unpredictably dangerous place. And Dawn was so fragile….

As she started down the stairs, Buffy noticed light from the den spilling into the hall and went faster. Spike was working at the computer despite an eye swollen shut and both hands bruised, swollen, and stiff. Clothes dirty and torn, with patches of dried blood. Blood crusted in his hair, too, that had run into his collar and dried there as an irregular band, nearly black. Obvious post-fight dishabille.

When he didn’t immediately react to her presence, Buffy leaned in the doorway and folded her arms. “You’re a mess.”

“Oh, hullo, love.” Glancing up, his good eye was all blue: no visible pupil at all. That and something about the abrupt, jerky way he moved told her he was drunk or high or likely both.

“C’mon,” Buffy said. “Shower and inspection.”

Again intent on the screen, he shook his head. “Nearly done with this, need to get it finished. Red can do the invoice. Get us paid. Dunno what the hell it means, likely nothing, was an abysmal git with no redeeming qualities whatever an’ his chronicle the biggest piece of puffery since Ozymandius, oh fuck, lost the screen again, no there it is, gone down into the corner, yeah. Took ‘em all on, cleared the lot. Fantastic fight, love, wish you could have seen it.”

Buffy bit her lip. “I would have liked to. If you’d told me.”

“No, no, not possible, shiq’far, what the hell is shiq’far, something to do with obedience, yeah….” Getting his left hand, with some difficulty, around a stylus, he drew big looping cursives on a smooth-topped device next to the keyboard, remotely guiding the hand’s motions with his tongue like a four-year-old fisting a crayon--completely blitzed, oblivious, flying.

Smiling a little to herself, Buffy collected the first-aid box and then a basin of water and a hand towel. As long as she didn’t block his view of the screen, Spike didn’t mind and paid little attention to her cleaning and checking his head and neck. Getting him to let her pull his shirt off was more complicated and a bit of a wrestle, all to the running counterpoint of his stream-of-consciousness babble that in disconnected bits and pieces made Buffy realize that he’d cleared Restfield.

Well, she’d known it was coming. From their last go-round on the subject, she understood some of the reasons for her exclusion. She gathered he hadn’t gone alone: he’d had some other vamps and the remaining SITs for backup. And he’d survived it with no damage that wasn’t already healed or healing. So she guessed she should just be glad it was over.

“--and done,” he announced abruptly, slumping back in the chair.

Buffy set the basin and towel aside. “C’mon, then: nice hot shower.”

Except for drawing her into a detour to the kitchen for several glasses of cold tapwater, Spike made no objection to being guided upstairs, stripped, and pushed to stand in water as hot as Buffy herself could tolerate: she’d stripped too and got into the shower with him. Having finally dropped focus, he was practically asleep on his feet and would likely have leaned against the wall like that until the hot water ran out, if not longer, if she’d let him.

Drunk, exhausted, warm, safe, Spike would go along with almost anything that didn’t require him to move much or open his eyes. Malleable and even poseable. As Buffy continued her examination of all the bruises, checking for broken bones that might heal wrong or internal injuries that might remain unhealed for days and surprise him with weakness, leaving him vulnerable if not given enough healing time, he’d quietly report “Ow” whenever the kneading and poking hit something particularly sore and otherwise accept whatever way it pleased her to touch him. As it always did. What with warmth, privacy, intimate contact and concern, and lots of slippery, sensitized skin, the post-patrol shower-and-inspection drill often was the opening act of the post-patrol shagfest. Rubbing shower gel over the planes of his chest, Buffy wasn’t surprised at the awareness of growing mutual arousal. She lifted up on tiptoes to share a languorous kiss, then laid her cheek on his shoulder, her arms around his neck, drawing his head toward his mark, that was already tight and tingling in anticipation. Her blood was healing to him, and loving intimacy, and one of the deep ways they related to one another. But although she felt the change run through him, the bite didn’t come. His arms drew her close and he butted his wet, thickened forehead against her collarbone. He was breathing in arousal and strong emotion.

Lifting her head, she kissed and then licked his ear, asking softly, “What?”

His response was a nuzzling back-and-forth motion against the upper part of her breast.

“What?” she asked again.

He murmured against her skin, “Not just now, love. No. Wouldn’t be--”

That was when they lost the hot water. Buffy jumped away and started grabbing towels. Spike was slower to react. Although he loved warmth, he was indifferent to cold and continued to stand, head bent, arms fallen and hanging, despite the frigid water pounding down on him from the shower head. Buffy dropped the towels on the floor and turned off the flow. When she looked, his face was in the last seconds of smoothing from the harsher contours of his vampire countenance and his stance was relaxing from the change too. She had the sense that he was forcing it away, imposing human appearance on himself, pushing away the energy and the appetite and looking lax and rather forlorn in consequence.

As soon as she’d taken his wrist and drawn him out of the shower enclosure, though, he turned brisk and almost normal, bending to scoop up two towels--one to wrap around her and the other to dry her hair with, invisible behind her in the steam-fogged mirror that reflected her own image only vaguely. It made her think of the bare Oregon hillside, her uneasiness about the fog lifting, full of the wrong concern; parting with him there.

Reaching past for a wide-toothed comb, he remarked, “Taken more from you than I should, this past week. Should let up on that for awhile.”

She looked half around, saying, “There’s always more.”

“Want to keep that for special. Not like you’re my cow, after all.”

“Cow?”

“Now, said you weren’t, don’t get all huffy. Hold still or I’m gonna do your ear a mischief here.” He continued to comb and smooth out the tangles, something Buffy always found relaxing.

When her hair was dry enough, Spike dismissed her back to bed, saying he’d be along presently. Buffy put on fresh pajamas and waited, sitting on the edge of the bed, knowing him quite capable of curling up naked on the bath mat and sleeping there, ready to startle Dawn or Willow in the morning. But eventually he did wander in, a towel around his hips, that he discarded as they both slid under the covers and Buffy turned out the light.

He shifted around about four times, trying to get all the sore places comfortable, ending up on his back with his hands behind his head. “Can’t shut it up,” he murmured presently. “Rattling along sixty to the dozen. Said they were painkillers….” After another silence almost long enough for Buffy to fall asleep, he remarked, barely above a whisper, “Words to frighten child and adult alike: ‘Spike has a plan.’”

“What plan?” Buffy inquired drowsily.

“So how’s yours coming, then?” Propped on an elbow, he was looking at her. “Hardly had a chance to ask.”

Yawning, Buffy reported her progress: on Monday, she had an appointment with the new principal (the last one having resigned after the trauma of the major subsidence) to discuss offering evening self-defense and aerobics sessions in joint sponsorship with the Sunnydale Community Center, whose director’s agreement Anya had already secured, given their shared membership in the Chamber of Commerce. She figured to start on a twice a week basis and patrol the other nights. Promising participants, she’d try to recruit for her planned escort service, along with the SITs: she hoped to have at least twenty semi-trained volunteers by the time holiday parties were due, and sixty plus an outreach program, going door to door with fliers, by Senior Prom weekend and graduation in the spring.

“Pay ‘em,” Spike advised.

“Huh?”

“Pay ‘em. They’ll turn out for that. Should have enough then. An’ you get paid, too. That’s what it’s for.”

Buffy thought about finding him, blitzed and banged up, at the computer, doggedly working away. She remembered Giles’ voice saying, “If Spike applies himself diligently….” She thought she understood then what he’d meant about his having a plan and snuggled close and kissed him, full of love and gratitude for his uncommon diligence.

“An’ I’ll have some…samples, like, for you to pass around,” Spike went on. “Vamps, they don’t like lily smell. Too much like funerals, and like that. Gonna get a bunch of samples, week or so, the little bottles. Give ‘em out at the school, to start with. Newest thing. Uber cool. Bit can help with that, and ‘Manda. Smells really strong. Really foul. Vamp would notice a block away.”

“Really? I never heard that.”

“Well known fact, pet. It’s garlic that’s the myth. More like garlic than not, myself. Well, you know that. Lily smell, though….” He made a retching sound. “Don’t you tart yourself up like that, love. Couldn’t abide it.”

“Note to self: avoid repulsive lily perfume. Sounds like a good idea,” Buffy mused. “If we could sell the cheerleaders on it--”

“No cheerleaders, love. Unless you want, of course. Get the geeks and the goths to take it up: they’re the real trend-setters, that lot. The thick glasses and the black nailpolish type. Could be Red could do somewhat, make children think it’s cool, attractive, all that sort of rot…. Have to remember to ask her.”

“When’s the last time I told you how amazing you are?”

Major smirkage. “Don’t recollect. Not recent, anyways. Likely, not ever, things being what they are.”

“You are amazing. Right now.” She was gonna kiss him, try to get something started, but as she reached, he rolled and was on his feet and gone out into the hall, carelessly naked. About a minute later he was back, having resumed his jeans that had been left on the bathroom floor. Passing to the window, he patted his pocket, explaining, “Need my fags. Even hung the towels up. Amazing, hey?”

“Who are you and what have you done with Spike?”

“Good question, love. ‘M trying to learn, trying to do better for you. Trying to remember all the fiddly bits….” Shoulder leaned against the windowframe, he’d pushed the curtain aside and was looking out into the night. “Can’t shut it up, though. It just goes ‘round and ‘round…” Lifted level with his head, his hand demonstrated the spinning. “Said they were painkillers…. You just settle, rest. I’m goin’ out on the roof here, have a fag, some air. Be back shortly.” He opened the window, ducked through, and considerately shut it from outside to keep the cool air out.

Left startled and alone in the bed, Buffy glanced at the clock. The lighted numerals said 3:43, and since midnight it had been Saturday with time at her disposal. She dragged a hoody fleece sweatshirt from a drawer. Pulling it on, she raised the sash, ducked through, and dropped down beside him on the slope of the roof, knees tucked up inside the sweatshirt and bare feet braced on the shingles. The air was clear and the sky was bright with stars. Spike’s bare torso shone like ivory.

Buffy mentioned, “You make a terrific target like that.” He made a derisive noise and didn’t move except to draw on the cigarette and then rest that wrist on his knee. “So,” she prompted, snuggling close and then held close, “tell me about the fight.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Just vamp stuff.”

“Fantastic, you said.” Buffy poked him in the ribs. “So tell me: you know you want to.”

“Well…. First nest was that Lovinger box, all the pillars and crap angels on it, north end. Came up quick, pack circled to drive in any they found roundabout, went straight in and there were eight of ‘em there. Caught ‘em cold, and the second they saw me, they weren’t in no doubt what I’d come about. Put away two right then, they didn’t know no better than to try to come at me all at once, getting in each other’s way. No organization.”

“What,” Buffy interrupted, “by way of weapons?” Because that was always a critical issue in conducting any fight.

Another shrug. “They had the various usual--knives, couple clubs, broken bottles an’ like that. Nothing serious, and three or four of ‘em fledges, they’re so fucking dumb. Took them out first, they just clutter up a fight, you know how they are. Well, first off, couple of ‘em tried to catch hold, lock me down so the others could come at me. Broke the one’s thumb an’ while he was yelling about that, tossed him into the other one an’ they both went down, see, and then--”

Listening as he described the flow of the fight and each of the technical problems it had presented, happily remembering and creating it for her, Buffy agreed it certainly did sound like a nice fight, one she regretted having missed.

**********

With at least some of the bruises from the claiming of Restfield still showing, Spike held court, Saturday evening, at Willy’s. He, Mike, Mary, and Isadora shared a table off in the left back corner; Huey came and went with drinks and occasional conversation. On the table, one of the small sample bottles of lily-of-the-valley perfume--chosen mostly because it was the cheapest he could find--stood pungently open. There’d already been complaints about it, in words and by gesture and expression. Pretty soon, there’d be a fight. No hurry, Spike thought. Still had a ways to run before the real killing began.

He wasn’t there to do but a couple of things. Mostly he was there to be seen, with a few other vamps around him that he treated as allies, not minions. Wasn’t time yet to start collecting or accepting minions, a personal household staff. That far, he already had planned out clear in his mind. No use thinking much beyond that: the situation was too chaotic and subject to change.

One thing he’d already accomplished was dressing Huey scathingly down, slapping him around some, busting him up a little, for offering oxycontin but providing goddam amphetamines. Huey claimed he’d gotten them mixed up in the dark, but that still was no excuse and Huey knew it as well as anybody. He’d taken his punishment without complaint or any serious attempt to defend himself. He had it coming: Spike had continued uncontrollably hyper to mid-morning before crashing, totally out for some ten hours. Threw Spike’s whole day off and was a nuisance to boot, having to guard every fucking thing he said or did with both his mind and his mouth in freewheeling overdrive.

At least he’d been able to retain the sense not to fuck or feed on Buffy. Couldn’t have controlled himself in either of those situations. Anything could have happened.

She’d realize soon enough that something was off. But it would be fucking moronic to give the game away first crack out of the box and then have to contend with that, too, on top of everything else.

He’d postpone that falling-out as long as he could. But as things developed, she was gonna notice and start wondering. Eventually, she’d know. Probably not everything, but enough. No help for that. Had to have his fallback position in place before that inevitable blow-up happened.

Setting the soul aside largely took the brakes off. Let him plan ahead as best he could, then launch directly into action without a whole lot of crap reservations, second-guessing himself, useless sympathy, and preparing for contradictory consequences, all of which couldn’t happen. Fuck the consequences. He’d deal with them as they arose. His love for his Slayer was just as intense, but it would have been stupid to imagine it unchanged. She was still unequivocally his; but he had less awareness that he was hers. Which was as it had to be. In this, he had to own himself, keep a sharp focus.

Knocking back her drink, Mary complained for about the fifth time, “This is so fucking boring.”

Spike felt about the same. But her complaining was starting to get on his nerves.

Grabbing the bottle, she found it empty and tossed it against the wall. “I want more,” she announced.

Spike said, “No.” He had money for maybe one more, and there were still four places to hit tonight.

“Why not?” Mary demanded.

“How about because you’re a whinging bitch?” Spike replied.

Mary started to come up out of her chair. Grabbing a fistful of Mary’s hair, Isadora yanked her back down, commenting, “If you want something, I can give it to you, chica.”

Spike was beginning to like Dora. Had at least two grains of sense to rub together and occasionally seemed to think about what she was doing. As she and Mary commenced yelling at each other, Spike smiled at Dora. Thus encouraged, Dora popped Mary in the eye, Mary blew out the door screaming curses, and things settled down again. Sorting themselves out in respect to him. Perfectly normal.

A couple of demons, a Navcoombe and an Akmar, wandered by, wanting to know if next week’s challenge fight was still on, considering he and Mike were sitting there so chummy, not hollering insults or anything. The Akmar, red-skinned with black freckles, was pissed off because he’d lost money when Spike had defaulted. Mike offered to arm wrestle him for the sum and broke his arm. The Akmar went off threatening unspecified mayhem. The Navcoombe said, “It stinks over here.”

Spike replied untruthfully, “I like it.”

The Navcoombe said, “You would.”

Dora flicked Spike a glance, checking, then put a knife in the Navcoombe’s belly and Mike stomped him until the Navcoombe went liquid and mostly seeped through the floorboards.

“Tidy,” Mike remarked, resuming his seat.

Huey came from the bar with three shots on a tray. Setting them out on the table, he said dryly, “Leavegeld, Spike. Willy wants you to take your custom elsewhere and I’d sooner not have to dispute it with you.”

“Making the customers nervous, hey? Or just Willy?” Spike downed the shot, deciding it would be his last, even free.

“Willy doesn’t want the place wrecked if nothing’s bet on it.”

“Understandable. Presently, then, Huey.”

Spike was nearly satisfied with the impression he’d made. He got out a map and the marker from the tote he’d brought along. Frowning at the tiny lines, he boxed in Restfield, and two extra blocks on all sides, with a thick red line. As he was drawing a big-headed T with a point on the end for the benefit of the illiterate, Dora said, “Hey, you want to fuck?”

Spike glanced up and found she was talking to Mike, who responded, “Sure, why not.” To Spike, Mike added, “Meet you at the next place, fifteen minutes?”

“Have a good time. Make it twenty.”

They finished their shots and left, and Spike put the final touches on his signature glyph. He taped the map to the wall under the odds board, attaching it on all sides so a single grab wouldn’t tear it free. He told Huey, “See that stays there.”

“As best I can,” Huey responded. “You know how it is.”

“All right,” Spike conceded. “Let me know who takes it down, then.”

“I’ll do that.”

Returning to the corner table, Spike reflected that one had to be reasonable about such things. It was word of the formal territorial claim he wanted spread--the map itself didn’t matter. He’d be posting another, with different boundaries, soon enough.

There was no mechanism in place for claiming territory anymore, so he was making one. That was what signified. Already, three vamps had gone to that wall to find out what Spike had posted there.

He emptied the little ounce bottle of perfume on the table, careful not to get any on his hands. The stink was considerable and would be all but impossible to get out of the rough plywood. Discarding the bottle, he capped the marker and dropped it back in the tote, among the stakes.

Leaving Willy’s, Spike took a roundabout way, threading through alleys and cutting behind buildings, mindful of the sniper. He figured that annoyance would have resolved soon; but timing, and hitting all the places he’d chosen for posting the map, was important tonight and any delay or distraction would be unwelcome.

Near the familiar alley behind the Bronze, the smell of blood hit him, drew him. Next to an overflowing dumpster, Mary was crouched over a fresh kill, feeding. Habit from years of incapacity kicked in: when the only way to taste human blood had been to drive other vamps off their victims.

He wanted it. Though there was no need anymore, no sense. The change flashed through him.

He wanted her. Wanted to lick the blood off her face, beat her into submission, pound into her, maybe rip her throat out as he came.

He was dizzy, rigid, and aching with how hard he wanted it. He saw, imagined, it all happening, felt how it would be for his demon to collapse on the corpses, spent and satisfied.

He thought incoherently, Dru…Pace…Non serviam.

With his demon upon him and overmastering him, he could feel no reason to deny himself the full of his desire. But this wasn’t tonight’s business. Not what he’d come for.

Dru, he thought. If Drusilla had been with him, if it had been her kill or his gift, they would have shared it. Had done, lots of times. He wouldn’t have felt icily isolated, connecting to no one, nothing. It didn’t have to be like this. There’d been Dru. He missed Dru, wanted Dru, making his own kills or sharing hers, no matter. Profound company even his demon respected and deferred to. Not this annoying trull too trivial and meaningless even to kill.

He didn’t want his schedule thrown off, what he’d planned and thought through, by being blindsided by a random kill he didn’t even need, a woman he didn’t want, except that he did. Didn’t want to be controlled by such things, whether it was the First, the Powers, or the fucking Council of Watchers. Non serviam. I will not serve.

The fucking Order of fucking Aurelius controlled their goddam demons or else they were no better than the least raw fledge, prey to every passing impulse, every appetite, every fear. They chose. They refused to let the demon dictate.

But he wanted it. All of it.

Dru…Pace…Non serviam.

He slid down the wall and sat hugging his knees, changed face bent onto them, trapped and shaken between the extremes of flaring heat and utter cold.

He wanted Bit. Dawn. Deep connection, chaste involvement without the confusions of passion. Wanted her here with him or himself wherever she was, no matter, no issues of dominance or control. Holding himself easily apart from her, not feeding from her or even truly wanting to, easy in her companionship. Mustn’t ever let his demon get past him or Dawn would be hurt, with no defenses except that she had a taser now, mustn’t let her ever forget her taser, make Michael keep his distance while she learned and chose, precious Bit, his sister-child and pure mother, always looking out for him, always so peaceful being with her. Pace. Peace, stability, trust, comfort. Antidote to extremes. Pace…Non serviam. Pace.

He wanted that. Not that other: what the demon was drawn to. He chose otherwise.

Eventually he was able to still his harsh compulsive breathing, unlock, find his balance, and stand, every careless trace of intoxication gone. The drained kill was cooling: hardly any hot bloodsmell left. Mary was gone. Nothing left here that he wanted. And he was late now to the next demon bar on his list. Best get on with it then.

He picked up the tote by its handles and moved on.

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