Chapter 13: Consolations and Confrontations

Friday afternoon, Dawn spotted Spike where they’d agreed to meet: by the Pizza by the Slice concession. Dawn hung back by a freestanding booth (coincidentally selling watches) to observe him for a few minutes.

It was so unusual to see him in a good counterfeit of daylight with people all around, just like a regular person. Almost. Because he stood out like a panther in a snowdrift.

First, of course, there was the duster. With the duster unbuttoned--she’d never seen him button it because it was all about the style, after all, and nothing to do with warmth--and therefore flapped wide, he took up three people’s space on the bench. Sitting with his right leg crossed over the other knee, left hand loosely gripping the ankle, foot bouncing idly as he looked around, watching the people: most of the time in blank boredom but sometimes focusing on someone as they passed, his head turning to follow them out of sight, eyes alert then and speculative. Hunting. She figured it was automatic, but it was fun to watch him doing it, knowing what it was, when the passers-by didn’t have a clue they were being sized up as potential snacks by a daylight vampire.

She noted what caught his eye. Highschool kids doing the mall hang-out thing, like she was--male or female, singly or in groups, though if the number was over three, he lost interest quickly. Otherwise, pretty equal opportunity. Women alone, naturally. Young stud-muffins all full of themselves, preening at their reflections in shop windows, especially those who affected semi-grunge. They amused him immensely. No interest in the droopy-pantsed teens or twenty-somethings: he dismissed them at once or scanned right past them. Obviously too unfashionable to consider eating when there were better pickings around.

He watched a couple of young guys who looked like migrant workers, leaning back against a store-front, for quite a long while, eyes gone cold and face expressionless. Dawn suddenly realized they were vamps too when they noticed Spike, apparently met his evaluating gaze, and skittered off rapidly, dodging in and out among people, losing themselves as fast as they could. Spike thought for a while before he’d processed their presence and resumed the scan.

Then his face changed. Not vamping out or anything, just…different. Brighter. He was watching a tall, long-legged girl talking animatedly with a friend as they moved slowly along, clogging traffic and oblivious to those passing around them. Blue and white striped tights, wide bands; blue jumper over a white mock turtleneck; flats; braces; long straight mouse-colored hair to the middle of her back. Not very like, he’d have been in doubt no longer than a second, but he kept watching until the girl and her friend entered a store, still talking.

That was almost sweet, Dawn thought. If anybody had bothered the Not-Quite-Dawn girl, she was certain they’d have had Spike in their face in less than a heartbeat. The look had been affectionate, protective. Not at all the way he looked at food.

When he got out a cigarette and started fiddling with it (the mall didn’t allow smoking except in two deliberately unpleasant designated areas, assuming patrons with the filthy habit were quite capable of stepping outside…into the sunlight…to indulge it), Dawn made a deliberately abrupt gesture, hiking up her backpack. His eyes found her immediately.

He bounced up and joined her in quick, long strides, inserting the unlit cigarette back in the pack.

Gesturing, Dawn mentioned, “Here’s watches…?”

“You see anything that looks good?”

Dawn gave the display a favorless scan. “Nope. This is the cheap stuff.”

“Well, what’s first: pizza, or that top you had your eye on?”

“They won’t take plastic for pizza.”

Spike dug in the duster pocket, glanced to either side, then flashed the top edges of green bills for just a second. “Figured how to use the machine. Without breaking into it, even.”

“Remarkable. The top, then. So no one else gets it.”

“Right you are. Lead on.”

Dawn kept her choices at Gap Teen moderate. The coveted yellow top with appliquéd flowers around the neck, two pairs of Anne Klein tights in candy pastels, and another top in Spike’s-eyes-blue, very plain otherwise, but she just liked it. She stuffed the backpack into the bag and handed it into his custody after he’d paid. Then they traipsed off to look at watches. He glowered at the prices but seemed to like the notion of never having to wind or otherwise tend them, considering everything now ran on batteries: he’d never bothered to notice.

The first store had nothing acceptable. Everything too beige and respectable. Roman numerals were apparently beneath contempt. The second store, y-clept Jentz, was more trendy. They agreed on a digital: no hands at all but a big display, pulsing silver on matte black, that included the date and the day of the week. It had alarm functions she doubted he’d ever use, and could be backlit with a button for nighttime. But Dawn thought what Spike mainly liked was the band: three-inch-wide black leather dotted with steel studs. The square wafer-thin watch was set into it with broad flat loops and hidden cross-pins at top and bottom: slightly recessed into the leather, nearly flush with its surface.

Pushing the duster sleeve back, Spike fastened the watch to his right wrist and tried it out, banging it against the display case to test it against impact and rough handling. To the relief of the salesgirl, it survived, as did the display case.

Spike held his arm up, turning the wrist at different angles to inspect the adornment. “Catch the light,” he remarked dubiously.

“This from the guy with the shocking platinum hair conspicuous from a block away at midnight,” Dawn pointed out.

“There’s that,” Spike admitted, briefly returning the salesgirl’s nervous smile. Playing to the audience. He asked the girl, “What d’you think, love: does it suit me?”

“Oh, yes!”

He liked that, flashing a glance to Dawn. “You think it’s OK, Bit? Looks right an’ all?”

“Definitely Big Bad but not so punk as to be retro. Kind of Early Industrial or Depression Chic. Hint of Art Deco. And it even tells time!”

“Hush yourself. You want to make fun, you wait till the next place. This is just the warm-up. Have to put on something of a show, Saturday.”

He stopped that explanation abruptly, eyes going shuttered and evasive. Because of Michael: she knew. She said nothing. Didn’t want to bring everything down getting into that.

From Jentz, Spike led her off to a leather shoppe (so designated) y-clept skins (all lower case, in neon) where she acted as his mirror for a pair of skin-tight black kidskin pants, just slightly boot-flared at the ankle (“None of that hippie crap.”), and assured him numberless times that they weren’t (1) “poofy” or (2) anything in the least slightest bit whatever at all like anything Angel might conceivably wear/have worn in this life or any other. Leather was practical, Spike informed her: wouldn’t curl, fold, or show small blood stains and was much better protection than denim, which was why it was so popular with bikers and other such non-poofy folk. Dawn nodded and agreed just as attentively as if she didn't know it was a lot of hooey, he just liked the look and wanted a compliant audience while he talked himself into it. The price was not discussed or even mentioned, probably from embarrassment. The store fortunately did take plastic.

They chose a studded belt to (subtly--hah!) echo the watch band, and accessorizing put them over the line into to ensembles, everything matching. They debated but ultimately decided against a vest: leather overkill, given the duster and all. The salesboy duly admired the duster, good workmanship on the seams, coat like that would never wear out, and gamely swallowed his disappointment about the vest.

The jeans went into the shopping bag. Spike wore the new pants and new belt and looked around surreptitiously to catch the effect, see if people noticed. Finding that they did, he walked with fresh bounce in his step, pulled-back shoulder strut, returning to the pizza-by-the-slice place.

It was always fun, shopping with Spike. He took it all so seriously. Sometimes Dawn thought he was the vainest creature alive (or whatever). And now, she didn’t have to worry about either of them being caught taking the patented Spike five-finger discount.

“Have to do the hair now,” Dawn decreed, gesturing with her slice, and then was in haste to capture the sagging string of cheese suspended between slice and mouth. “Haircut, first. The place next to the Beanery is walk-in. Gimme ten dollars and I’ll collect you in half an hour.”

That brought the reflex action of shoving both spread hands through the hair. No orange tomato-streaks: he was a neat eater. Excessive early training, probably. Victorian, and all. “Looks bad, does it?”

“No getting away from it, Spike--bad. And not good bad: bad bad.”

They synchronized watches, which Spike seemed to enjoy, insisting she adjust hers to match his, then agreeing what constituted half an hour. Then he forked over the ten without argument and went off to see to the shearing. Dawn finished her slice and the remainder of his, once she’d picked off all the cracked red pepper bits. Disposing of plates, most of the napkins, and her cup still sloshy with ice, Dawn wandered off to the chain pharmacy and selected black and indigo nailpolish (she preferred the indigo, but probably wouldn’t be able to talk him into it, traditionalist that he was) and a new haircolor from L’Oreal that promised highlights. How you got highlights on bone blond she couldn’t quite envision, but anything should be better than helmet-head. She disdained getting gel. She had some standards.

She still had ten minutes to kill. A small display of twisty blown glass figurines reminded her of The Glass Menagerie, which she’d recently read in school. And sure enough, there was a unicorn. Unicorns were uber-kitch, but still. Literary and everything. Lips pursed, she looked at the glittering fancies, brightly lit on their mirrored shelves, and pushed the button that made the display revolve.

Unicorns, she decided, were depressing. But not as depressing as the dragon on a lower shelf she’d bent to inspect. That made her stomach knot up.

She paid and dragged out to collect Spike at the K?ffewer.

Spike said at once, “What is it?”

“Did the guy freak when he couldn’t see a reflection?”

"They do vamps in back. Fitted out special," Spike replied shortly, undistracted. "What's wrong?"

“Don’t want to talk about it. C’mon, what’s next?”

He took her arm and made her sit on the nearest bench, squatting on his heels before her. He just looked up at her, waiting.

Words, she could have batted back. The waiting undid her. To her utter disgust, she burst into tears.

Somebody banged into Spike with a stroller. He shot upright, glaring, then dismissed the incident, drawing Dawn to her feet again and steering her to the nearest "alleyway" that led to a door marked "Employees Only." From the trashcan-sized object on wheels and the mop tipped against it, standing outside, the door would be a closet with janitorial supplies. Likely a favored place for dumping drained prey. The left wall was lined with lockers.

The side of Spike’s duster was a concealing wing she could hide within and bleat against his chest while he patted her head and made soothing noises.

Wiping her eyes and then blowing her nose on a wad of leftover napkins, she shook her head. “Didn’t mean to do this. It’s so dumb. And so useless.”

“What is, love?”

But from his flat, restrained tone of voice, she figured he’d guessed. There was a lot of that going around.

“Michael,” she admitted, flinging out a napkin-clutching fist. “A couple of hours after you called, the other night, he called. I thought it was you again and had super put-downs all ready, that time of night…. But it was Mike. And he was all wound up, ranting and raving about this terrible cock and bull tale you’d tried to sell him…. And through what he said, I could hear what you’d said. Hear your voice even. You’d told him. I didn’t say you could tell him. But never mind, that doesn’t matter. Anyway, then I told him. That it was true, that you’d said what was true and had to have trusted him to tell him something like that. I think he was drunk. He wouldn’t believe me, to start with. But eventually I made him. And then there were…other things. And I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. Which he then admitted was the marching orders you’d given him, so he wasn’t supposed to be even talking to me in the first place. And then I hung up on him.” She swallowed hard and scraped her eyes again with the napkins.

“What other things.”

“Just…things. Oh hell, you know it, there’s no point in my trying to be all coy about it. I told him I knew, all right? About him being the damn sniper.” She pulled away to stare him in the face, finding him all reserved and watchful. “It wasn’t that hard to figure. All I had to do was wonder why you’d never once tried to go after the idiot. Never once speculated who it might be. Never once took it seriously or even were very mad about it. It was because you knew. You knew…and still put up with it. And then all I had to do was think about who you’d know who was a specially good marksman. Somebody warped enough to think that peppering you with lightweight .22 bullets every few days was some sort of prank. Which was how you treated it. Not a long list, Spike. Had be a vamp. Had to be Mike, the ex-mercenary. When did you know?”

He leaned against the lockers. “I kind of thought it might be,” he said quietly. “Wasn’t sure till we got back from Oregon and I asked about borrowing the bike. I looked at the mileage. I knew what it’d been before. Saw what it was then. About right for the trip up and back. So I knew.”

“Why didn’t you tell me!”

“Didn’t think it was important. Just a stupid damn prank, like you said. Getting his own back, being annoying, for what I’d been doing. Blowin’ up at him, like I did, on that patrol. Things since.” He spread his hands in a vague gesture. “Keeping track of what you two got up to, together. Holding him down other ways when I thought he needed it. Just the usual.”

"You wanted to protect him. And me."

He shrugged, looking aside. "Wasn't no big thing."

“Well, you’re a bloody idiot, Spike. Something like that, that he was goddam shooting you and then running off laughing…! That’s something I think I had a right to know! Do you understand? Nobody hurts you and gets a free pass from me! That’s not a prank, Spike: not to me! You never, ever keep something like that from me again. Not now, not in a hundred years, you hear me?”

She was shaking with fury but let him gather her in. No more pats, though; no more soothing noises.

“It’s just vampire games, love. Nothing for you to take all serious. No great harm done.”

“I say it’s serious and I don’t play by vamp rules. Think how you’d feel if the target had been Buffy.” He didn’t say anything, so she pursued, “Would it still have been games then?”

“What I’m hearing,” he said, “is you’ve pretty well decided. Is that so?”

“Yeah. It’s not worth it, Spike, feeling this way. All torn up inside. It’s too hard. I’m never gonna speak to him again, so it’s so dumb to miss him! I will never, never forgive him, and still miss him! It’s so dumb!”

“Yeah. Sometimes, it seems that way. Come on, now: cry into some ice-cream. Your sis swears by it, and she should know. And you been known to indulge a time or two. I been reliably informed that chocolate cures damn near anything. What d’you say?”

She'd been determined not to be dumb about this. She was still determined. She inspected and approved his haircut and showed him the color she'd chosen. Dry-eyed, she oversaw and pronounced on the selection of a silver ankle chain for Buffy, who wouldn't wear rings because they interfered with her grip on a sword and might catch in things, fighting. The chain had a tiny death's head on it, with ruby eyes. And it was completely practical since silver was a soft metal that would break with a strong tug and therefore couldn't hang up on anything or hobble her. When that trinket was bought and safely stowed, Dawn consented to go for ice-cream.

**********

Vamps didn’t get ulcers. The doings didn’t work that way. But Spike had good reason to know vamps got headaches. Migraines, even. All that thinking, that’s what it was. Going over things, and then over them again, rubbed something raw, like a blister, or wore it out with overstrain. And because the rubbing and the strain were intangible, they didn’t seal up and heal right off, like a knife wound, say. Only stood to reason.

Bloody unnatural, that much thinking. Stood to reason there’d be a price.

Not being able to sleep for being beleaguered by the fucking dreams, Pallas Athena in full kit nattering on about turning it all loose now, letting it go smash, probably was in there someplace, too.

Heading back to the factory through the pipes, toting the bundle of goods left after surrendering the shopping bag to Bit for her spoils, Spike fought back the impulse to phone the witch and have her come do the warm whoosh thing with her hand. But she wasn’t his on a string, to yank around anytime he wanted for just his own convenience. Didn’t have to have the soul to lay down a set of ground rules for himself on how to treat people who deserved well of him and then keep to it. Could figure it out perfectly well himself. Over and over and over…. Fucking hard, was what it was. Even had to remind himself he had a goddam watch now, to think to look at it. Six eighteen. Who the hell needed to know it was eighteen, or thirty, or forty-one? Nuisance, that’s what it was, for all it looked decent, and it did: Bit had said so. Little bint behind the counter, too. Must be so, then. He had witnesses.

Also had the second worst headache ever, cranking away behind his eyes.

In lieu of Willow’s hand, Spike broke into the back of a convenient pharmacy and selected a bottle of what he used to steal to beat back the chip-induced head-bangers and dry-swallowed four. Left ten dollars as soul-duty, leavegeld for the conscience he’d set aside, so that was all right.

He reviewed the agenda. The mall with Bit, that was done. Spend a couple hours on the fresh document, something easy in proto-Farsi by a nit setting out what he claimed was a spell to produce the Universal Solvent. Have to ask Red for a site that had a dictionary, check up on all the bloody chemical names so he could get the equivalents right, or maybe he could Google it for himself, he’d learned that. Anyway, one of the easier ones, not up to much more just now. Too much on his mind. After that, meet the Slayer for patrol, over in District 4, give those cousins a fright and a flash of his new kit. Which he likely should change out of, in case it got damaged and wasn’t fit to wear tomorrow. At those prices, wasn’t like he could just go out and knick a replacement, like you could with jeans.

The cell phone in the duster pocket buzzed.

Bloody hell.

He pulled the phone out and took a seat on the walkway. “Yeah.”

“Spike, I just thought I should warn you. I know about the soul.”

Fuck. Anya.

Spike set down the bundle and rubbed his eyes. “What about it, pet?”

“You’re right to be cautious, I don’t blame you a bit. I don’t believe this line is even secure.”

Spike shut his eyes. Either it would go smash, or it wouldn’t. The important thing was to keep going as best he could, as long as he could. “Don’t believe all that many vamps go in for spy gear, love. A good number severely challenged by radios. Light switches. What d’you want?”

“Why, to warn you. Like I said. To another demon, at least one inclined to notice, it’s perfectly plain. Except that it’s so normal. For a vampire, at least. It’s the norm, not to have the vibrating soul-signature. So likely no other demon would notice or remark on it. But you remember, I noticed right away, that you’d gotten it.”

“Certainly do. Punched you a good one in the nose for it, too.”

“Oh, I understand completely. You weren’t ready to have Buffy know that yet, so you hit me as a diversion. I don’t forgive you, but I understand. I was surprised, and when I’m surprised, I can forget all about tact and just blurt. Xander’s criticized me for it. Many times. Many, many, many--”

“Anya, I’m a bit caught up in things just now. S’pose you could get on with it? Make your point?”

“The point is not that I know: the point is that I’m being rudely pressured to tell Buffy about it. I assume she doesn’t know, or why the pressure? I’ve taken precautions, of course. I don’t like being interfered with. And I’m not surprised, so there’s no blurting issue. I’ve known for some time, after all. But I have to assume that if I’m being pressured, others are, too. And I thought you’d appreciate being put on your guard about that.”

All Spike could find to say was, helplessly, “Yeah.”

“What have you done to annoy the Powers this time, Spike?”

“What they told me. No quicker way to piss somebody off than to do exactly what they say. Could be, they figure I might stop being so cooperative here, all biddable, an’ figure I’d be the better if they hung a sword over my head, rattled it a little.”

“I assure you, I’m under no influence now. As I said, I’ve taken precautions. And by the way, Willow expressed herself pleased at the ingredients and spell components I’ve provided her. For your smell, that is. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get fresh civet, this time of year?”

“Nope. No idea whatever. Well, I guess it’s good of you to warn me, here. I’ll keep it in mind.”

“I gave the usual professional discount. I’m sure you wouldn’t expect special treatment, just because we’re friends.”

Leave off, shut your yap, you clattering bitch. “Never expect that, no.”

“That you’re incorporated now only means I have to provide proper invoices in duplicate, and I’m used to that: I’ve been incorporated for years.”

“Super for you, that.”

“Well, I have to go now. There are several important things I’m neglecting, talking to you.”

She rung off.

Spike put the phone away and waited for the pills to kick in.

His chances of continued existence, hanging on Anyanka’s tact.

Dawn on the outs with Michael, in a way the lad was bound to blame on Spike. When everything hung on Michael. On his being anything slightly more evolved than a total fuck-up and drama queen asshole. Was that a lot to expect? That the people around you be minimally sane and not screw the bloody pooch, against their own interests, every time they got the chance? Had to put a serious talk with Mike on the agenda. Midnight, maybe. Should see to it Mike got a phone. But likely he’d be at Willy’s, drunk off his ass and feeling sorry for himself, running off his mouth about it like he did. And Willy’s had a phone. So that was all right, then.

Shoving to his feet, Spike wondered what would be next to go pear-shaped, sidewise, and out of true.

Avoiding the array of bear traps that had already startled several vamps intending unauthorized entry, and the tripwire that would dump about a hundred gallons of diluted holy water down the pipe, Spike shoved himself out on the factory floor.

Turning on a light and the computer--screen bothered his eyes with no other light about: he could detect the flicker--he was still on the agenda, running only something like fifteen minutes behind. And the pills were doing their work: the headache had backed off. Traded that for swimmy and faintly nauseated, but that was a decent trade.

Fuck. He’d forgot Rona.

Unable to reach Rona direct, he was talking to the lab machine, naming here as the mark for the evening delivery, when Benny came and stood, waiting to tell him something.

“What?”

“Couple guys in a truck. They smell right.”

No what?

The guys proved to be Dogboy and that Harris, lounging by Harris’ truck. Waiting awhile, by the look. In the back of the truck were a Morris chair with intact cushions, that Spike remembered from Harris’ parents’ basement, an old Zenith console color TV, and a satellite dish. As Oz popped a beer and handed it to Spike, Harris said, “This is apology, deadboy. You won’t see it often, so appreciate it now. I heard what happened after I…dropped you off, the other night. Willow says I have seriously impacted my karmic debt to the universe at large. Which was not at all what I intended. Frankly, I don’t know what got into me that night. This place, maybe. All the happy memories. As in, not.” Xander surveyed the factory grimly. He finished his beer and crushed the can. Looked around for a garbage container, shrugged, and pitched it off, overhand, into the weeds. “So where do you want it and why is that little creep staring at my neck?”

“’Cause you smell so nice. And he can’t have any. In the back, I guess.”

Spike drank beer and blankly watched Harris and Oz go back and forth, emptying the truck. Couldn’t suss it out at all, why Harris would do such a thing of his own free will. Unless it wasn’t.

Pulling out the phone, he punched a speed dial. After a dozen or so rings, got Bit on the weapons chest phone. He was interrupting supper, which grieved him no end. He asked for Red and presently got her.

“Red, got Harris here--”

“You like the smell? Is it working? That’s test batch #6, and the only problem so far is that it wears off too fast. I’m gonna try--”

“Red, you set a geas on him or something? He’s civil, and that can’t be right. He’s brought me a fucking Morris chair.”

“So he raided the parental units. He said he would. Lightning raid, avoid contact at all costs. Good.”

“Explain it to me. Slowly. In a fragile state of mind here.”

“Naturally: post-mall. We have our ways of finding out these things,” responded Willow, with cheerful menace. “Xander wasn’t himself. Well, he was, but…not hmself himself, you see? And after the fact, it was pretty clear that our valued associates whose names begin with P had been, not to get too disgustingly graphic, messing with him. I’ve put a stop to that. I do not like my friends being messed with! I’m thinking Buffy might benefit--”

“No. You leave her be. She has her own deal with them, and it’s not to be interfered with.”

“Are you certain?” He could practically hear her eyebrows wrinkling.

“Real certain. Limits, Red. Got to remember limits.”

“Yeah. Well. I guess. I have a problem with that sometimes. So I’m told. Say--when do I get to see the pants? Purely academic interest here, you understand.”

“Can’t deal with that now, Red, sorry. Gonna have to blow off the translation as it is. Find some way to get to it tomorrow…. Tell Buffy…. Never mind. See her soon enough for myself. Patrolling.”

“All right. Anything else? Because my parsley pasta is getting cold.”

“Go get your parsley pasta.” Spike saw headlights turning in at the drive and cautiously approaching among the potholes, bobbing up and down. “Here’s my dinner, too. Thanks. About Harris. He’s always been like that…but not so much lately.”

“He was my friend first, you can’t have him. And neither can they. Nobody likes being played. Running now!”

“Right.”

The truck was empty now except for the satellite dish and a clump of rope. Harris came back and collected those.

Spike asked, “You going up on the roof with that?”

“Yep.”

“Gonna climb a metal roof…with rope.”

“Watch the master at work. Watch and learn. Or not, as you please.” Shouldering the dish, with an armload of rope, Harris tramped away toward the uphill end of the building.

Rona pulled up in the lab truck and cussed Spike out for not telling her the delivery mark in a timely manner. Again. “I got a life, too, you know! And I warn you, if I ever find you under my bed again, you’re getting a faceful of something you won’t like even a little, Spike. I got me a taser, too. You’re getting real creepy, you know that?”

Spike said nothing, just accepted the cool box, set down the beer, removed the bags, and passed the box back to her. She got in the truck and drove off.

As Spike shifted enough to bite through the first bag, Oz wandered up, looking after the lab truck’s bouncing brake lights. Waiting until Spike had drained the bag, Oz remarked, “She works for you.”

“Works for the Wankers’ Council, actually. It’s complicated.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Oz faced around toward him. “Leaving tonight. Stayed to lend Xander a hand, but….”

“Assignment?”

“Gig in Sausalito, but not for another week. It’s…just time to move on. Good to see everybody again.” A sharper glance, and then away. “Glad you got the chip out.”

“Yeah.” Spike bit open the second bag.

“Couldn’t live like that, myself. Helped me get out of the Initiative cage, too. Never thanked you.”

“No need. Wasn’t all that much help, really. Figured to double-cross you Scoobies once I was inside, but that didn’t quite work out. All for the best, I expect.”

“Yeah.” Oz smiled his sweet, thoughtful smile. “Scoobies. Yeah.” He wandered off.

Spike checked the watch: almost seven thirty. He wondered if he’d be really stupid to ask Harris for a lift to District 4.

**********

They’d run across a trio of Smanthar demons--like Fyarl, but less slime--among the tombstones. Buffy had done for one and Spike was dancing with the another, keeping his distance a bit because, well, slime, and he hadn’t changed out of the new pants after all, not before Buffy had seen him, and it came down on him suddenly how hopeless this all was. What a stupid thing it was to think he could stand against the Powers and accomplish anything worth the having. Nothing made sense because there was no sense to make. Like the worst parts of the Never dream. Just cored him out, left him empty of everything but despair.

He let the axe go and stood there. The Smanth, not believing his good fortune, lost no time in ramming a wrist-spar into Spike’s chest. Spike continued to stand there. Didn’t hurt much actually, not compared to everything else. Didn’t matter. A Smanth spar was organic, but it wasn’t wood. But maybe with a few more tries, the Smanth would do enough damage that it wouldn’t matter. Spike looked down and poked at the hole incuriously.

“Spike! What are you-- Spike!”

Leaving her opponent, Buffy slammed into the other Smanth as it was bringing both wrists up into Spike’s belly. So the combined tear was pretty superficial. Lot of blood, though. But that wasn’t gonna get the job done either. Axe was an awkward weapon to off oneself with. Stake, now--exactly the thing. Wavering, Spike tried to pull the stake out of the back of his pants, but that just twisted him around. He fell on his side.

Buffy was pulling at him, trying to get him to sit up. Must have done for both the Smanthars, then. Good. He wouldn’t have wanted her to get hurt, just because he was a waste of the space.

“Spike, what’s wrong with you?” Buffy demanded frantically, stripping off his shirt. Wadding it, she tried to stop the bleeding at his belly, which really didn’t signify. It was the hole in the heart that was the bad one, he thought distantly.

“Can’t get at the stake,” he explained, but she made no move to help him with it. Noticing the one Buffy had stowed, the same as he did, he reached for that instead. But she slapped his hand away before he could get the stake loose. Didn’t want him to use her stakes. Well, she was the Slayer, after all. He had no right to pinch her weapons. Or even touch her, if it came down to that. He pushed her away. Not all that hard, wouldn’t want to hurt her, but had to make her know he should be let alone. Unworthy. Disgusting. Undead soulless thing.

Spike got to his feet, stumbled a few steps, then pitched over again. Head slammed into a tombstone and he was gone awhile.

Heard her talking, but nobody to answer that he could make out. Breathing hurt, so he quit, wondering what had got him started. Didn’t need to breathe. Didn’t need anything, except to be gone, finished. Tried, but still couldn’t pull his stake free: damn tight pants. Should have known better than buy them, no matter what Bit said. Just playing him, playing along….

Bit. If he went, she was likely gone, too. So he shouldn’t….

Puzzled, vaguely alarmed, he got an elbow under him and pushed up. Toppled crooked against the tombstone. Head hurt like fury. Thought he’d taken pills for that. Well, it seemed to be back, any road. What was it he’d been thinking about Bit? He tried to call up the agenda, but that only made him dizzy, made his head hurt worse.

Right. Just be gone, that was what he was supposed to do. Maybe something on the agenda. Couldn’t bring it to mind just now. Only knew it. Deep. Strong.

Holding the belly wound, that was already sealing, not losing blood quite so fast now, he pushed to his feet and then slowly straightened. Could do that, it seemed. And he’d rather go standing up, facing into it.

And he’d sooner it was the Slayer anyway. What she was for, wasn’t it?

She turned and looked at him, made a face like he’d scared her somehow, and came running back to grab him, steady him. Made it easier.

He patted his chest. “Put it there, Slayer. Hole already started for you.”

“Ohgod. Ohgod. Spike, don’t do that! Lie down, here. Where’s all the blood coming fr-- Oh!”

His head went floaty and he was no longer certain he was standing. But that was no excuse. Well, he knew what would do. Not wait, not let it come to her from outside--serve it up himself. He’d be glad to be rid of it. Never was worth shit at keeping secrets. Such an effort, holding them in….

“Lost the soul, Slayer. Or set it aside, like. Same difference anyways. No better now than when you first laid eyes on me. And somewhat the worse for wear, besides. Now you go ahead, do what you should.” He reached, tried to find her stake, to set it in her hand, but she wouldn’t let him. No telling why. Women were unaccountable.

“Shut up, Spike. Just shut up. Willow’s coming, just wait until Willow comes, all right? Hold onto my hand. Hold onto my hand, Spike.”

But that would have meant touching her again, and he wasn’t to do that, for all he wanted to. Let go one inch and he’d be at her throat, mustn’t do that no more: he’d decided. But the strange thing was how she wouldn’t touch him. Hold his hand, yeah, but not take the stake and do what she should, even though he’d told her. Must not have said it clear enough, though he’d thought….

Lost some time there, he supposed. Everything all thick and heavy and dim. Had a watch now, didn’t he? But couldn’t get turned around to check it, see where the time had gone.

Some way Bit was there, pulling on him. That was all right, then: she could tell Buffy about the soul. He thought he’d said it to her, but she seemed to take no notice, saying, “Spike, you’re being played. Don’t let it. Don’t let them.” Which made no sense at all.

And Buffy saying, “Order of Taraka, Spike!” Which made even less. If there could be less than no sense. That was hard to figure. But she was crying, the Slayer, and that couldn’t be right. He reached up and touched her eyes, concerned. Which some way made her cry worse. He couldn’t see why she wouldn’t just get on with it, get it over.

“No vamps in Sunnydale,” he explained. “Zero count. Everybody content with that.”

She’d remarked on how dead Restfield was, making a joke of it, watching to see if he was gonna make objections to her patrolling through his territory. Complaining how he’d made her life all boring, nothing around to fight. That had been before the Smanthars, of course. And he’d explained how it was all proceeding well, vamps doing each other at a great rate, each group turned in against itself in smaller and smaller factions, sorting for mastery, they way they did, but seldom on such a scale, citywide. Fledges gone soonest, like dandelion puffs. Gingham Dog and Calico Cat, would just slaughter each other down to hardly nothing if let be at this stage, just a few remnants left…remnants; revenants…something or other like that, anyways, that she could dispose of in a few serious sweeps. And then there’d be none and the Powers all pleased and all, just like they wanted. Like she wanted.

But she wouldn’t do him, and he couldn’t understand why.

Lost some more time, and Willow was there, maybe had been before but he hadn’t noticed, anyways here now and chanting in a loud voice, strange smells around, aside from the lily of course, deathsmell, always the lilies left after the funerals and the sleeping in the ground.

“The hell with this,” Willow spat, “I can’t track it. Can’t block it. Here.”

Willow did something, and the suicidal anguish flicked out, just like that. Breathing wasn’t so bad now. The holes were sealing. Spike blinked and breathed, held between his two darlings, trying to make out what’d happened.

“Spike?” Dawn asked in a tiny small voice, reaching out and patting his face with her slim, soft girly fingers.

“Can’t make it out,” he explained.

Willow’s face came into his view, all anxious and angry. “You’ve been cursed, Spike. Somebody’s set a curse on you. Who’d have something of yours, something personal it would have to be? Spike?”

“Thinking. Yeah. Boots. Lost m’boots. Set ‘em out, had to have my hands free, see? Couldn’t carry ‘em too. But when I sent to look, they were gone.”

Buffy leaned in, eclipsing Willow, frowning thunderously. She pushed her hair aside, baring the mark, leaning in until she was all he could see. “C’mon, now. Not gonna have any argument about this. C’mon, Spike!”

She pulled at him but he held himself from it. Had promised himself not to feed from her without the soul. Would be a terrible thing, to do that. Not exactly sure why anymore, but knew it was, just the same. Could be she wouldn’t know, but he would. And must not do that. No.

And all the while, his demon frantic to get at her. Get at the blood. Frantic to change and take her. An accustomed, expected thing.

No.

He turned his head away, and yet it was there, right against his mouth. Couldn’t escape it. In his mouth and his throat, so strong and good, hot from the source, and he hadn’t the strength to not take it. The change ran through him and he bit down. Round, soft arm. Not pulling away. Hand patting at his face, telling him it was all right, that’s what she was for, to do for him and be with him always and it was Dawn, that he’d sworn he’d never do that way, must never mark her, not right that she should be just for him, should be for herself, whatever she wanted--

“This is what I want,” Dawn told him, steadily patting, untroubled and unafraid. “Told you: I decided. Always be here for you. So this is all right, now, Spike. It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t. Could never be right between them again. Feeding, he wept.

**********

Vampires were wonderfully resilient, Dawn thought. Here was Spike, practically eviscerated, a hole in his chest you could put your fist into, blood everywhere from the collarbone on down, barely able to lift his head or focus his eyes; and fifteen minutes later, he was on his feet and shrugging into the duster, telling Buffy he was fit to finish the patrol now, if she wanted.

Looking up from overseeing Willow bandaging Dawn’s arm, Buffy made a noise like a laugh--surprised into it. “I think we’re all patrolled out.”

“All right.” Spike turned and started away.

“Spike?” Buffy called after him. “Come home. Just for tonight. At least get cleaned up. Spike? Where are you going?”

He didn’t look around or answer.

“Tie it,” Dawn told Willow, and trotted after Spike the second it was done.

Buffy in a fight was hell on wheels. But when it came to guys and emotional stuff, Buffy wilted, backed off, hid, and moped at the first harsh word. Caved, basically. Not Dawn. Dawn prided herself on being relentless. What she couldn’t outrun or outfight, she could outlast. She was the unquestioned possessor of the Summers family title for stubborn.

She wouldn’t have cared if Spike were crazy, heartbroken, and bleeding from the eyes: he wasn’t getting out of her sight.

He was hard to spot: the duster was good camouflage, dammit. Then he passed in front of a pillar with an angel perched on top. Dawn had him then, and soon caught up, even if at arthritic antelope pace, chugging along. Spike was even slower.

“Go home,” he said without looking at her.

“Got my taser!”

“Go home.”

“Make me.”

He did look around then, and she was surprised to find him game-faced, although she shouldn’t have been: he obviously needed the extra oomph, the extra acuity, to stay on his feet and keep going. He glanced at a tree as if he was thinking about what he could use to tie her to it. And she’d resist, prevent that, by tasering him. Only he’d take the taser away from her first, or try to. She already had her hand on it and could hit him right through the cloth of her pocket. Move and countermove: she figured they were both playing it out in their heads like reverse checkers. And either in his scenario, he lost, or he just gave up on it as too much work, because he left the tree in peace and continued on without further objection to her trailing along.

A few minutes later, Dawn realized why: reaching the wall, that he went up and over, even though he had to take a running start, and that she couldn’t have climbed without a ladder and a boost on her best day.

Oh.

She called plaintively, “At least tell me where you’re going!”

No answer, as she expected. Decisively out-maneuvered. And in a bad mood, as now, Spike was frustratingly impervious to wheedle.

Instead of racing back and maybe finding the SUV gone and herself stranded, Dawn sensibly got out her cellphone and called Buffy. “He got away from me,” she reported. “Over the wall.”

“I don’t think he wants company,” Buffy responded hesitantly.

“The hell with what he wants,” Dawn shot back, momentarily forgetting the sisterly protocol about strong language. “He absolutely positively shouldn’t be alone. His enemies already had one crack at him tonight. Want to give them another? The deathwish curse is still active: Willow’s locket is only deflecting it. What if something happens to the locket? And he’s majorly freaked: do you trust him to do anything whatever sensible for the rest of the night? Because I know I don’t! And what if--”

“All right, all right. Point made. Come on back.”

It took longer than Dawn liked to locate him, because although they had focus material galore in the shirt completely sodden with his blood, Willow didn’t have with her a map or the magicked powder needed to do the spell. They had to return home for that. When Willow set the map, with its glowing red dot, on the now-empty den table, Dawn lifted her head triumphantly because it confirmed what she’d said all along--Willy’s.

Spike was having himself a sulk and a drunk. Celebrating his failure to be as dead as he’d wanted and being bullied into feeding from insistent underage Dawns with blood powerful enough to get him on his feet, enabling him to get to Willy’s so he could drink himself off them again. About par for perverse, Dawn figured, when one was dealing with vamps.

She worried about him sometimes. More, lately. He definitely needed looking after and adequate supervision.

Willow opted to stay behind to research what she’d need to counterspell the deathwish. Revived by nearly a whole bottle of orange juice, Dawn was going even if it meant she had to call a cab and pay for it out of her allowance. But she didn’t have to: Buffy gave in fairly easily. Still shaken by Spike’s just giving up like that, Dawn thought, punching phone buttons as Buffy started the SUV with the usual grinding of gears. And probably by what Spike had said.

After eighteen rings, Dawn reported vexedly, “He’s not answering.”

“Why am I not surprised.”

“Worth a try. Go downtown.”

“What?”

“Go downtown. By the movie house would be good. Collect some of his vamps.”

“Oh.” Buffy turned left at the next corner.

Dawn tried phoning again. This time, she got the message that his cell had been turned off. One surprise right after another.

“He just said that,” Dawn offered cautiously. “To get you to stake him. About the soul. Provocation.”

Staring anxiously at the road, Buffy didn’t say anything. Rather than make things worse by protesting too much, Dawn shut up about it.

They hit downtown at a good time: the theater had just let out, and that was the dinner bell for vamps. Dawn rolled down her window and stared hard, directing, “Go slow. Go slow. Slower!” until she spotted faces she knew. “Stop!”

Mary and Dora lounging by a street light, looking like a pair of hookers. But sex wasn’t what they were trolling for, with their chalk-white faces and their glittering eyes.

Dawn jumped out, clutching her taser in her pocket because she didn’t have her smell on, forgot, couldn’t think of everything, and ran right up to them, blurting. “Spike’s hurt. At Willy’s with no backup. Get whoever you can. If they get him, they’ll come after you next, so don’t mess around!”

They both considered her curiously for a second, as if she’d just arrived from Mars…or they had. Then Dora put her head back and let out an ultrasonic screech that made Dawn clap both hands over her ears. Both hands showing, and empty. Mary vamped, smiling because they could have had her then, and they all knew it, and maybe next time they would, and Dawn didn’t think she’d ever forget that cold-eyed fanged smile, but this time they let her escape back to the SUV and slam the door. As Buffy pulled out, Dawn held onto the door armrest with both hands. That way, they didn’t shake as much.

“Vamps are creepy. Sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed.

Because she was looking for it, Dawn spotted Mike’s motorcycle in Willy’s parking area (she refused to give it the distinction of calling it a parking lot, since it wasn’t paved). Lateish on a Friday night, it was pretty parked up: Buffy pulled around in the back where there was less chance of the SUV being run into by some drunk demon pulling out, but a whole lot better chance of running into assorted nasties on the hunt, drunk or otherwise. Buffy opened the rear door and leaned in to collect her sword and, after locking up, stood a minute, checking out the immediate area, before she was ready to move. Dawn didn’t nag and stayed close, knowing a fight could break out any minute, out here or inside, and if one did, she was only a liability and her smartest action would be to get under cover fast. Second smartest action would be to run like hell and hope whatever was chasing was too drunk to catch up.

Inside, there were no fights currently in progress and the noise level was down enough to permit actual conversation if you shouted, even with the sound system banging away. If the rectangular room had been a boat, it would have listed heavily to port because the crowd was pretty much elbow-to-elbow on the right, in front of the bar, whereas the more open area to the left, where most of the tables were, seemed to be a place nobody much wanted to be.

Spike was there--William the Bloody in literal fact. He’d made no attempt to clean up. Was in fact making a point of showing off his ensanguined torso, having pushed the duster off onto the back of the chair. He therefore looked like he’d come straight from a slaughter…one he’d done, not one attempted against him. Showing, Dawn realized, that he was still there. Presenting the fact of himself, of his survival, to anybody who cared to come and look. Putting himself on display.

It would have seemed a further instance of suicidal foolhardiness except for the two Lorchine demon carcasses in a heap on the floor to the left of that table. The adjoining table had been reduced to kindling, along with several chairs. Presumably from that kindling, Spike had several pieces of wood fit to do duty as stakes lined up on the table before him, ready for the next go-round. His garrote lay in a neat coil. Also on the table was a fair-sized knife Dawn was pretty sure she'd never seen before: likely collected from the Lorchines. So there’d already been some action. But she and Buffy seemed to have arrived between challenges, assassination attempts, or whatever: two vamps had pulled up chairs not quite to Spike’s table--just out of easy reach--and were talking, arguing. Spike, vamp-faced and drinking from a bottle, didn’t seem to be paying any attention.

Behind Spike’s table, back in the corner, Mike was playing solitaire. His head lifted, golden eyes taking in Buffy and Dawn standing against the wall just inside the door. Then he attended to the cards again, shifting the stacks around, giving no sign of interest in anything else. Dawn didn’t know if he was potential backup, potential assassin, or potential audience placed conveniently to have the best view of whatever violent eruption came next in Spike’s vicinity. She thought it quite possible he hadn’t decided either.

Dawn didn't find it hard to suppress the twinge she felt, seeing him. He'd shot Spike for fun and she didn't tolerate that sort of thing. Not even a little.

Mike also had a bottle but wasn’t nearly keeping pace with Spike in the drinking department. Then again, he might have started sooner.

Each of the two front tables nearest the door was occupied by vamps. Three at one table, four at the other. Mostly they were glaring at their table-mates and talking loudly.

A fight broke out at Spike’s table between the two vamps there. They both came out of their chairs, snarling and slashing. One got hold of one of the convenient stakes and stabbed the other deep enough that the stake was consumed in the dusting. Straightening, the survivor said something to Spike, who nodded indifferently and replied, “All right.” Dawn couldn’t hear it, but saw him saying it plainly enough.

It seemed that the front tables were a sort of waiting area. As the survivor left, the three at the table farthest from the door got up, righting or bringing chairs as needed to range themselves around Spike’s table. Two started putting their case while the third sat sullenly silent.

It seemed a kind of court where any of the participants might suddenly do execution on any of the others. Vintage vampire, Dawn thought.

Since things seemed momentarily quiet, she took the opportunity to slide past the empty table, along the wall, and back to where Mike was finding solitaire such a fascinating occupation.

Dawn said, “Do you know what happened tonight?”

“Thought you weren’t talking to me.”

Dawn gave him a You Idiot look. “I’m not. This is for Spike. Somebody set a deathwish on him and he tried to get Buffy to stake him.”

Mike looked up briefly. “Looks like she didn’t.”

Dawn’s look escalated to You Stupid Idiot. “You’re not gonna get to fight him tomorrow if he gets himself dusted tonight. And at the rate he’s going, very shortly, he’s gonna be passing-out drunk. So I’d look after him, if I was you, or you won’t get much by way of a fight tomorrow.”

“You’re not me,” said Mike. “You say you’re not talking to me, but you are. Don’t make no sense. You were all mad at me, and I don’t know why. Ain’t done nothing to you, that you should be mad at me. Been good to you, every way I know how. I don’t understand none of it. You or him, either one. Both treating me like crap. Now you been letting him feed off you.” He gestured at the bandage on her arm. “Setting his mark over mine. Can smell him on you. That ain’t right. You leave me alone. I’m not friends with you anymore.”

“Well, that about sums it up,” Dawn decided, and left him to his dumb solitaire.

She was annoyed and upset enough that she forgot to walk wide, along the wall, but cut straight across toward where Buffy was standing, watchful and still. Spike caught her elbow--just above the bandage. “You get out. Got no business here.”

As coldly, she told him, “I told Mary and Dora. They’ll be coming. In fact, they’re here,” she added, seeing five vamps saunter in and take stock of the unbalanced room. The two vamp women plus three male vamps, two with crossbows. All wore some combination of red and black--almost livery. Team colors, anyway. Gang colors. They certainly stood out. Not as much as Spike did, of course.

Spike said, “What happens here is nothing to the Slayer. Nor to you. Unless I get dusted, which I don’t intend to do. So tell the Slayer, she should get on. Go home. And take you with her.” He pushed her away, releasing her arm.

He was semi-drunk and being tiresome. It didn’t do to take any notice of him when he was either of those things.

Returning to Buffy, Dawn reported, “Spike wants us gone.”

Buffy was watching the five vamps, who were settling around the empty front left table. “Are they the ones you talked to?”

Dawn nodded, thinking it odd Buffy had to ask. Dawn added, “I don’t know the guys by name. The women are Isadora and--”

“I didn’t ask about their names,” Buffy cut in harshly. “Are they on Spike’s side?”

“Team Spike. Yup. And possibly Mike, back in the corner.”

“Oh. Right. I know you won’t like it, but I don’t want you seeing him anymore. It’s just not right. You have to realize--”

“Oh, that’s so terrible,” Dawn intoned. “I couldn’t possibly consider it unless my allowance was increased to twenty dollars a week. I’m almost seventeen, after all.”

They traded almost identical impassive stares.

Buffy deduced, “You’ve already broken up with him.”

“Oh, how could you possibly think such a thing? Eighteen.”

“Fifteen, and that’s my final offer.”

“Seventeen.”

Turning toward the door, Buffy countered, “Twelve, and ask Spike to give you an allowance. He’s the one with the money around here.”

“You’re getting half, and he has staff to support. Sixteen.”

“Done,” said Buffy.

**********

Spike could still feel the deathwish leaning and bumping at the edges of things. Trying to get in, get at him again. He was so thoroughly sick of himself, he was almost inclined to let it. But not yet. Not until he had things sorted.

Almost all the districts had checked in. Only two remained contested, without a clear leader emerging. And maybe those two would be set by morning. Then things could proceed, past the Saturday night/Sunday morning deadline. Then his crew, in their distinctive kit, could start sweeping downtown and the mall area and take out any rebellious, unwary, or simply stupid survivors of the present culling. Start mass distribution the stink vamps would learn to leave alone or else get dusted. Get on with it.

A bit like a human election, he thought. Except he’d appointed himself dictator, and districts slaughtered the internal opposition instead of trying to buy their votes.

Get that in place. Then he could back off a bit himself. Tend to the translations and getting Casa Summers fixed up better than new instead of having to deal with tries at assassination a dozen times of an evening.

At least that was what he'd thought. Until he'd fucked it all up by marking Dawn.

Sitting isolated and paralytically drunk at the table at Willy’s, Spike hadn’t yet been able to shut his mind down. It all went around and around.

He was so sad about Bit, what he’d done to her. Maybe even with her, since she’d been far from objecting or shrinking away. But she didn’t know, didn’t appreciate the emotional significance to a vamp of setting a mark on a person. Hadn’t with Michael, either. To her, it was just a scar, tidy and inconspicuous. To a vamp it was ownership, identification, protectiveness…and sex. Feeding rights, of course, were at the bottom of it. But all the feelings were tied together, keyed into the awareness of that proprietary mark.

Could mark a dozen people, own them all, no problem. Had marked Buffy, and that connection was a joy to him. But he’d kept Bit apart from that. Tolerated Mike’s mark on her because it was a fact, even though she didn’t take seriously enough how that set Mike into orbit around her, spiraling smaller and smaller circles till he’d either take her or they’d come to some stable arrangement, like Spike had with Buffy. Or used to have.

Because he’d told her about the soul. Not having it. Setting it aside. She hadn’t taken much notice yet. But alerted, puzzled, she would. She’d notice the things he did that a soul would have barred him from, or at least made horribly difficult. Notice the things he didn’t do or overlooked, missed entirely, that the soul would have made plain and obliged him to do. Then she’d know.

He didn’t think he’d have fed off Dawn if the soul had been in place. Didn’t know what he would have done instead, but something else.

The only way he’d been able to maintain his connections to Buffy and Dawn was by keeping them absolutely separate. It was OK to turn loose with Buffy--pound her black and blue, or fuck her up against a wall and howl with his release. She could take it. Could take him, if so inclined of an evening, exactly the same way. He could feed from her, within limits and with care, and know it as profound communion between them, not merely food. Because she was the Slayer.

Dawn was not.

She’d break. What Bit was so blithe to give, he’d take. He’d take it all. The mark gave his demon leave to come out and play with her as it chose. Any way it chose. Fucking and feeding inseparably interconnected. Humans could not finally endure vampire play.

Which was why Buffy wanted vamps dead. In her heart, there were no exceptions. She wanted all of them gone. Zero count. Yet she’d set him apart, exempted him from the mandate of extermination that was the Slayer’s mission--largely on account of the soul. If he broke Dawn, if the Slayer saw and felt he was no different from the rest, just another evil soulless thing, that exemption would be gone. She’d come after him. And he’d let her. Just stand there and accept the stake--as he’d tried to tonight. And that would be an end.

Besides, only a fledge would think he could fuck and feed from a pair of sisters--rank stupidity not to know it would all go smash. Vamps were indiscriminate about such things; humans were not. The balance he’d kept and held between them, the distinction he’d maintained in his feelings toward each of them, had been lost. For a sup of blood he’d been unable to refuse. The price of that was not being able to see her, smell her, be aware of her close presence without imagining her naked and getting hard. Wanting to sheathe himself in her. All of that in the taste of her blood. All implicit in the mark.

No. Didn't want to feel that, be that to her. Wanted it to be how it'd been, the egg unbroken.

Even without the curse getting at him, Spike seriously wished he was dead. Not facing impossible choices and the death of love. Its murder, even.

But against the Powers, against the Slayer, he’d set himself to this: establishing vamps in Sunnydale not as a plague but as a valid constituency. A part of the whole with a right to be there. Demons had owned the world before humans ever were. From the first, Sunnydale had been established to be their feeding ground. They had a right to exist here regardless of the Slayer’s views. Without the Hellmouth fueling the craziness and flooding the place with transients answerable to no one, it should work.

Limit vamp numbers, then let ‘em cull out the stupid, the incompetent, and the spectacularly unlucky among the human population: as the Slayer did with vamps. An even and stable balance, neither overtaxing the other, predators and prey. If a vamp ate some frat boy too dumb to take warning or notice that people with the right smell, easily available, didn’t disappear with the same frequency as those without, by Buffy it was murder. By Spike, it was getting the bloody idiot out of the gene pool and good riddance. At least as food, the git would serve some useful purpose. A thing on which he knew he and the Slayer would never agree.

But what wasn’t shoved in her face, she was real good at ignoring. As long as she had sufficient fledges to dust on patrol, alternate nights, she was content she was doing her duty, performing her goddam sacred mission from the Powers. There was an achievable balance, Spike had hoped and believed.

And still hoped, still believed. Except he wouldn’t be part of it very much longer. She’d come after him. Because of Dawn. Because of the soul. And Dawn's existence tied to his own. So even surrendering to his own death had unacceptable consequences. He couldn't resolve it, get his mind around it. Could come to no acceptable resolution that would put things right.

And no way was Michael ready to receive it all from his hands, hold it in shape and together.

Fuck. The bottle was empty.

Chapter 14: Challenge and Reply

The watch said 3:37 a.m. Late or early, the way people counted the time. Past midnight, supposed to let them be: in the dark time, when they were all busy sleeping like they did. Hell with it. Spike hit the speed dial anyway.

Made it to four rings. Then Bit’s voice saying angrily, “Whoever this is, it better be--!”

“Bit.”

“Yeah, Spike. What’s wrong? Or are you just drunk?”

“Bit, you got to get yourself a different anchor some way. Not be tied to me. That won’t do.”

“But I don’t want a different anchor,” she said, all calm and gentle, like she could be sometimes when you got past all that other, that she defended herself with and hid behind. When it was just true talking between them, as if soul to soul. “It’s what I’m for. Why I came back.”

“No. Won’t do. ‘Cause I’m not gonna last here, Bit. An’ I can’t…. I dunno how to do, if that takes you with me.”

“Then you have to last.”

“Can’t promise that, Bit. It’s all gonna go smash, and if that’s just me, that’s one thing. Just as well, maybe. But you got to get yourself tied to something else, instead of me.”

“Spike, that’s just the curse affecting you, and tomorrow, Willow will get--”

“Tisn’t just the curse, Bit. It’s me. I’m wrong. You shouldn’t be tied to such a thing as me. Always wanted you to be your own. And that can’t be now, with what’s happened. Now I’ve set a mark on you.”

“Oh.” Long silence.

“Didn’t mean for that to happen. Didn’t want that.”

“But it was my fault! It was me--!”

“Doesn’t change it, Bit. I’m as sorry as can be.”

Dawn asked in her very smallest voice, “Have I spoiled it all, then?”

“Not your fault. You don’t know how these things are. Tried to tell you, about Michael, what it meant, but…”

“I wouldn’t take it seriously. Yeah. Spike…come home. We’ll talk this out when we’re both thinking a little clearer, and--”

“Can’t do that, Bit. Can never come back. Can’t talk to you except like this. Wouldn’t be the same, if I was there. Bet you never thought you’d hear me say nothing good about the cell phone.”

“Spike--”

“Hush, now I’ve upset you, an’ I didn’t mean to do that. Didn’t mean none of this. Love you, sweetheart, but can’t be safe for you no more. On account of the mark. So like I said, you got to find some way to be your own an’ not tied to me no more. You ask the witch, ask Willow. Maybe she can think up some way. Will you do that, love?”

“You come home, Spike,” Dawn insisted. “I promise I won’t bother you. You won’t even see me. But you need them. Need us. You do. You get all crazy on your own, you know you do. You freak, and then do something uber-dumb…. You’re freaking now: I can tell. Come home. You have to get the curse lifted, for one thing. You have to come back for the you-know-what, that I hid for you.”

“Not gonna do that, Bit. Best it stays wherever it is. With what’s happened, it would never give me no peace. Worse than before. Can’t do that again. Even without it, I-- You just think on what I said. About getting yourself free of me. You ask the witch: maybe she’ll know. Even ask Lady Gates, instead of that other--to get you something stronger to fix yourself to.”

“Spike, you knew it might happen. You warned me. You said you’d go ahead anyway.”

“Feel different about it now. Didn’t realize what a total waste of the space I was then. You do like I say.”

On her voice again desperately calling his name, he pushed the button to close the connection. When it buzzed, the next second, he turned it off.

**********

At 3:58 a.m. by Spike’s watch, Huey came from behind the bar to shut off the jukebox, then undertook the delicate job of getting Spike to leave, even though the bar didn’t close until 4:30. Spike could tell Huey intended to be persistent, if he planned to spend a whole half hour on that job if he had to.

Spike was about the only patron left. As the bar had emptied, Spike had sent his crew of bodyguards off to take care of their nighttime business. Nothing left to stay for. Since Huey had tactfully not brought up the cost of the breakage, Spike didn’t give him much of a hard time about chucking him out. Got himself upright, resumed the duster, and paused only to light a smoke on the way out.

Problem was, there was noplace Spike wanted to be.

Plenty of time, though, before first light to decide where to lair up. If nothing else appealed, he could open the nearest sewer cover and tuck up in some alcove until he’d slept himself sober and as ready as he was apt to get to face the new day.

He turned left and started walking slowly in the direction of the school. As good a way as any.

He’d gotten as far as the dock area of Willy’s when Mike complained from behind him, “I don’t understand.”

Spike stopped and carefully wheeled around.

Arms folded, the neck of a bottle in one fist, hair flopped over his forehead in an untidy dark wing, Mike was scowling at the ground. “I mean, you none of you make sense. I take a few piddley potshots at you, and you ain’t mad at me but Dawn is, that I never done nothing to except what she wanted. Where’s the sense in that? You set your mark on the girl, over mine, then tell her you ain’t coming near her again. Why’d you do such a thing if you don’t want her? Why not leave her to me, that did? You blow hot and cold, approve me one minute, hammer me into the ground the next. Half the time, for the same damn thing! You tell me not to see her, and give as a reason she’s some Power and older than electricity, that’s such foolishness nobody would believe. And then she tells me it’s so, and a big secret. Says she’s not talking to me. While she’s talking to me! Can’t make it out. Doesn’t make no sense whatever.”

“Never will, neither.” Because it was easier, Spike dropped down to sitting, the duster puddled into folds roundabout. “On account of they think different. Hit A and it’s B that yells ouch. Got connections and disconnections all mixed up--can’t even guess at ‘em. It all blends, blurs. Never anything simple. Can’t help but hurt ‘em. Try an’ wait and listen, hold off, wait for a sign, and it’s still like a rock trying to cozy up to an egg. T’isn’t the rock that’s gonna break.” He whacked himself in the chest: where the healed hole was, that hurt so bad, all twisted up and aching. “They’re so damn. Fucking. Fragile. An’ still they wear you down to nothing. Between ‘em, grind you right down to powder.”

Mike came a couple of steps forward and sank to one knee. “Then why bother about them? Already got all we need. Can’t never be like them, that’s gone. Why even try? This is better. Complete. Fuck ‘em all.”

“’S’not like I didn’t try. Never get it right or how they want. Never figure out how to do ‘cause what they want the one day, that’s wrong the next. What one likes, other won’t have at any price. No two the same. All different. Can’t suss it out. Have to bloody know. And I don’t. Never will. Soul or not, no difference--wrong regardless.”

“Ain’t worth it, trying to be friends with the food. Want everything, don’t give nothing back but grudged little sips. Fuck ‘em all.”

Mike offered the bottle and it seemed like a good idea. Spike took it and put some down. Wishing for some other place to be, no matter, so long as it wasn’t here and was empty for miles and miles around. Nothing to touch or to touch him. All dark, all quiet, no wind stirring. Night unchanging.

He vaguely noticed something coming in from behind. Vamp, or a couple. Both hands conveniently free, Mike picked the attacker out of the air, flung him down, stomped him. Attended to the other, acquiring in the process a baseball bat that came in handy for dusting the first one. Spike didn’t take much notice. Nothing to do with him, and the boy seemed to be managing all right. Used to get off on that too: getting angry, busting things up. Didn’t care enough to bother anymore. Let the lad enjoy himself.

The interruption dealt with, Mike held out a hand. Spike absently passed the bottle back.

“Light’s coming,” Mike said after awhile. “Best get in.”

“Yeah.”

“You picked someplace?”

That was the boy’s good manners again: you never asked another vamp where he laired up. Unless he volunteered that information.

“Could break into Willy’s, use the cool locker,” Spike responded eventually. Subject didn’t interest him. “Might do that.”

“Could come back with me. There’s space enough.”

“Feel like being on my own. Another time, maybe.”

“All right. See you tonight, then.” Mike dropped the bat, carefully placed the bottle on the ground, and went off.

Birds waking roundabout, starting their noise. Nothing to do with him, birds. He collected the bottle and there was still some left. Likely enough to last. He was in no hurry and didn’t feel like moving.

Noise of wheels, an engine. Then quiet again. Except for footsteps crunching on gravel. Wandering about, then quieter on dirt, weeds.

Spike didn’t bother looking up. No need: he could smell her plain enough. Only the Slayer, and he didn’t want to know more about that.

“You turned your phone off,” she accused.

It was always something.

She said, “Dawn says you freaked. About feeding from her. She says it’s something bad.”

“No matter. Done is done.”

“How are we supposed to know these things if you never tell us?”

Spike shook his head. No point trying to explain because that was the point. No way to convey the differences because it was all difference. No way to translate. No way to understand or be understood. He got that now.

He finished the bottle and pitched it away.

She came and knelt down by him. Reached out and touched his arm. Duster was protection: he didn’t have to feel the touch. All the same, he pulled the arm away. Wrapped both arms tight around himself to hold everything back, hold it in.

“You look terrible,” she said next. “Don’t smell that great, either. Bet a shower would feel good. Really hot. Get--”

“No.”

“Spike--”

“No.” Finally he lifted his head, looked at her. She had colors, and that offended him. Wasn’t of the dark, had never been of the dark, didn’t belong anyplace he was, where it was monochrome and still, unchanging. Always simple and what it was. “’M not some damn dog you’re trying to coax inside. Let be.”

“No, you’re an insane drunk vampire without the goddam sense to get out of the daylight and I’m not gonna let that happen! Get in the van. We’re going home.”

She was angry at him. Normal. He knew how to do that. He unwound and slugged her. She went away. Wasn’t good, but better. Didn’t like her colors. Didn’t like her eyes, that wanted something from him and saw deep and didn’t see at all. Better dark. He shut his eyes to make it all go away. Couldn’t do nothing about the birds, though.

“You still have the locket,” her voice said from a little way off. “I can see it. So this isn’t the curse: this is you.”

He pulled his knees up and bent his head onto them, arms wrapped around to shut her words out. If he listened, if he heard, it would all start again: wanting things. No use to that.

Closer, her voice said, “I took Dawn to Janice’s. She’ll stay there today until we get this figured out. Anya’s opened the Magic Box early so Willow can get what she needs for the counterspell. There’s nobody there, Spike. Just us. It’s all protected. All safe.”

He held onto himself harder but couldn’t keep her voice out. Never had been able to do that. And she smelled just like herself, as she always had. Didn’t want to want her even though that was allowed. Not like Bit. It was all one and he didn’t belong to it. Was something else. Always had been, always would be. “Don’t have the soul,” he threw at her, because that was what would do it. It was easier the second time.

“I know. You said that. But that won’t do it, Spike. I love you back before that.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do. I love you back before Harmony and back before Drusilla. All the way back. All the times you couldn’t see any way ahead, and went ahead anyway, that was me, loving you.”

“No.” He shook his head. That was impossible. Made no sense whatever.

“All right, I wasn’t very good at it, at first. Had to practice. But once you start, it goes all the way back. I love all the you there is. From now, backward. From now, forward. Never a you without me loving you.”

He shook his head again. “Don’t understand.”

“Can’t understand. Just how it is. Don’t have to understand it. Only believe it. Three impossible things before breakfast, right? And what’s more impossible than us?” She waited but it was too hard to think of answers, arguments. “Spike, your hands are smoking. We have to go. Now.”

Couldn’t take it in. Couldn’t open up to it or allow it to get through or everything would shake to pieces, burst apart.

For a moment, she hugged him tight and said in his ear, “If you go, Dawn goes. She told me. You’re not just you. You’re us. Now deal.”

Then she flung him into the shadow of the building and stomped off to bring up the SUV.

**********

Leaning in Willow’s doorway, Buffy remarked, “If somebody told me a year ago that I’d be frustrated because a vamp wouldn’t bite me, I would have known they shopped at Walgreen’s for the bargains.”

Willow glanced up from drawing a design on the floor of her room in different colored chalks, checking it about every two seconds against a picture in a large book open on the floor. “It really doesn’t hurt?”

Buffy scuffed one foot back and forth on the pulled-aside throw rug. “Not enough to…make me give it a pass.”

“Really sexy?”

“Are you channeling Vamp Willow?”

“No, because then I’d know, wouldn’t I?” Willow countered, checking the book again, then changed chalks to fill in the present section with rounded green symbols. Everything curved and connected. “There,” said Willow, sitting back.

“Should I…?” Buffy asked, leaning farther toward the hall side and looking toward the shut door of her own room.

Willow shook her head briskly enough to make her auburn hair fly. “I have the outer ring yet to go, and the candles to place…. Another half hour or so. Time enough to order lattes,” she hinted. “Order out, like the big people do. Only we are the big people now, aren’t we? That’s scary….”

“Yeah. He’s gonna need coffee. Lots of coffee.”

Inscribing runes with yellow chalk, Willow said, “Double espresso, extra sugar. At least two.”

“Since when do you like espresso?”

“Not for me: for him!”

Buffy looked at her. “How come you know that and I don’t?”

“Well, you haven’t had the tour of the new and improved factory, have you? Where he orders out for certain favored guests. The barracks, as I now think of it. Xander’s holding out for the Fortress of Solitude. But I prefer barracks. Because there’s a whole lot going on up there other than solitude, if you see what I mean.”

“With Spike?”

“Well, no-- At least not from what Ken said. For one thing, he’s the boss. For another, he’s been run off his feet pretty much since we got back from Oregon. No time for hankying or pankying, even if he were so inclined. And I have Spike pegged as preferring quality over quantity. And if we’re gonna get that espresso….”

“Right you are. I’m on it.”

Buffy opened her bedroom door very cautiously and quietly. Though it was past noon, drawn curtains and towels hung from the rods preserved an early morning dimness. Spike was still asleep and had barely moved: hadn’t thrown the covers off yet. On his back, your basic Crusader on a tomb position rather than his usual facedown starfish sprawl. Arms still wrapped around himself although the wounds were all sealed--on the surface, anyway. Still hurt, though, she thought.

She should send out for extra blood, too. He’d had only the ordinary evening tribute ration yesterday, and even that was an assumption. He’d lost so much. The maybe two minutes he’d fed from Dawn before yanking himself away wouldn’t have been anything like enough to replace it, to say nothing of the healing. And it was a mystery known only to Rona where today’s morning ration had gone…. When Buffy had pulled into Casa Summers’ graveled parking area, he’d been passed out under the Official Designated Tatty Emergency Blanket. Only nominally awake, he hadn’t even tried to get anything started with her in the shower: kept drifting off, sagging against the tiles. She’d had to shake him to keep him upright long enough to sluice off the worst of the streaked, dried bloody mess. He probably would have curled up and slept in the shower, if she'd let him. Definitely not running at anything like full capacity.

He’d been asleep about seven hours. Five was generally enough. After that, he got antsy, wanted to play or at least be up and doing. Not now, though. Just unmoving Crusader imitations.

She regarded Spike fondly but also thoughtfully. No soul there. She’d have to think about that. Think it through.

She tiptoed to the dressing table, collected her cell from its charger stand, and backed out again, pulling slowly on the door until the latch caught.

The Espresso Pump was one of her speed dials. Strolling back down the hall, she placed the order, knowing what Willow liked. Also two double espressos with triple sugar. So who knew? Then she hit another speed dial and left voicemail on the lab machine about the extra blood. She specified ASAP, but since she didn’t know how often Rona checked the messages, that could be anytime up to sundown….

She returned to watching Willow, who was now working on the outer ring. The symbols there were in white chalk and forked outward. What looked like pointy V’s and W’s, all attached. The outer ring didn’t look friendly.

“So how’s Kennedy these days?” Buffy asked presently, continuing the previous conversation.

Willow flashed up a quick, rather wry glance before comparing her design to the book again. “All right, I guess. She has a new interest in life: Spike’s made her his bookkeeper.”

“His what?”

“Shhhh. Bookkeeper. Clerk. Something like that. Power!” Willow flexed biceps over her head. “You remember Giles used to say vamps were a whole big sucking thing?”

“Wasn’t Giles, it was me, but yeah.”

“Well, apparently that’s not the half of it. Shall I go on?”

“Do I want to hear this?”

“Part of a well-rounded education. So, yeah. You do. It seems Ken has found there’s life beyond tongue-studs. Shall I go on?”

“What’s her name?”

“Isadora, and she’s about a million years old, bangs, brunette, maybe ninety pounds soaking wet, like an evil Barbie with these enormous dark eyes.” Willow made an eyeglass circle with thumb and finger, showing how large. “So ultra-vamp, it’s camp. Camp vamp. And she has (and I quote) ‘A tongue like flame’ (unquote).”

“Ick does not begin-- Aren’t you worried? For her, I mean?”

Willow glanced up again. “After Kim? She couldn’t be safer at Nieman-Marcus in the maternity aisle. ‘No turning without authorization.’ Also quoting. No vamp under a reasonably credible hundred is allowed. Identified violators of same to be reserved for the legitimate fledges’ torture practice. Which sounds real shiver-inducing to me. So I don’t think Ken is in any danger whatsoever of getting fangy anytime soon, no.”

“But if Isadora is like, a million, that’s more than a hundred, right?”

Willow quirked a smile. “Well, I exaggerated a little. Maybe closer to eighty-something. And Spike’s assured me Dora will not be authorized. As long as Ken’s there, anyway. Sets a bad precedent for the SITs, don’t’cha know. It would freak Amanda out of her sweet little mediocrity-loving mind, for one. So we do not turn the SITs, that’s a major no-no. All serene and copasetic in that department.”

“Again, how come you know this and I don’t?”

“Buffy, really. Have you asked? Have you watched Spike trying to think out the districts, how many vamps each can reasonably support? That’s the red notebook. Have you watched him surf for sources of fresh whole blood, like the tribute blood, trying to compare prices, volume discounts, and what would be lost in spoilage during transport? He wants to have his whole crew, as he calls them, independent in under a month. They’ll get enough fighting to keep ‘em happy enforcing the new rules. Won’t have much time for hunting anyway. So their rations will be provided. Courtesy of the Council, though the Council won’t know that. Out of Spike’s pay. Won’t be 100% hunt-free. But a fraction of what it is now. Take a lot of the pressure off. ‘Cause, after all, vamps like to hunt. And they’ll only switch to pigs’ blood and such if you shut ‘em in cages. Or the equivalent. That’s the green notebook and a couple of computer files. He still prefers writing by hand. He’ll get over it.”

“Will.”

“Yeah?”

“How come you know this stuff and I don’t?”

“Because you’re the Slayer, I guess. Not his de facto partner in Spells & Smells.”

“Spells-- You’re kidding!”

“Nope. Name’s mine, but the operation is real. I’ll have production set up in maybe another week. Vamp repellent. By fiat, not fact. But it should work.”

“The little sample bottles. Lily-of-the-valley.”

“The very same. Or not the very same: I’ve come up with a different formula. A lot less lily, a lot more valley, so to speak. Never had any idea before how hard it is to come up with civet, this time of year.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “Civet: isn’t that like skunk?”

“Sort of, for strength. But when you add it to other things, it’s sort of like the bass line, in music. The steady bottom notes that carry the rest along. What Oz, wearing his RenFaire hat, would call a ‘ground.’" She paused a moment with a private, wistful smile. "Hence, valley. And there are things I can do to it to make it pretty darn hot, if you know what I mean.” She waggled her non-chalk-holding hand, hanging from her wrist, expressively. “Might have to support the unplanned pregnancy clinic instead of the Y, but it’s an acceptable tradeoff. More life, not less. It’s always something.” Again, she sat back, surveying her handiwork. She leaned and smudged one line, then thickened another. Unfolding herself, she walked all the way around the circle, inspecting it intently.

“Good?” Buffy inquired.

“Good. I think. I had to adapt it because it’s basically for repelling demons. Not for repelling spellcasting from a demon. And done by a demon. Amazing that deathwish worked at all,” Willow remarked meditatively. “Must have had to chant a whole day and a night before letting it loose. And probably kick in a blood sacrifice to power it. Vamps and magic, pretty non-mixy. No natural aptitude, but no natural susceptibility, either.” She skidded one hand against the other. “Mostly slide right off."

“You know who did it?”

Her face pursed and judicious, Willow shrugged. “I know who bought the ingredients. Not a big demand in Sunnydale for malintente blossoms. Anya keeps a log of the more…outré purchases. Of course she wouldn’t show it to me. But something was making a racket out in the back alley, and it conveniently took her quite a long time to investigate it.” She bent to thicken a blue dot with precise strokes. “The curse had to be custom, to be cast against a vamp. Off the shelf would be no good. My guess is Amy. She does that kind of thing now…. But she didn’t cast it. A vamp did. At least one human involved. Bought the ingredients from a list, didn’t know how to pronounce half of ‘em. No mage there.” She tweaked another curlicue. “Give me another day, I’ll have a name, a description, or an image. But first things first here.”

The doorbell rang, and Buffy dashed downstairs to take care of the delivery. Yay, plastic. In the kitchen, she set the tall styrofoam cups on a tray for stability, then carried them back upstairs.

Willow accepted hers, still studying her design. “Wicked thing,” she remarked absently, “that deathwish. Lucky Spike’s paranoid. Or I wouldn’t have had a disc on me.”

“The locket,” Buffy deduced, uncapping her cup because she liked hers all mixed together, not layered. “That was Spike’s idea?”

Willow nodded. “To avoid having little tête à têtes with the Powers every time he took a nap. Kind of an all-purpose influence repellent. Can’t really block a full-blown spell, but it at least gave us some breathing space to get something more heavy-duty industrial strength ready.”

“But he didn’t have the locket--you did.”

Willow removed the straw from her pucker long enough to say neutrally, “It seemed prudent.”

“Who else has lockets?” Buffy’s tone made plain it was not a casual question.

“Well, it’s not the locket--it’s the contents.”

Buffy knew she was being finessed, which meant she had to know. She demanded, “Who, Will?” with Slayer severity.

“Well, I have one. Probably I’ll add it to my medicine bag, just on general principles.”

“And who else?”

“Well, Dawn of course. The poor girl deserves some privacy, after all.”

Buffy noted that for later pursuit. “And who else?”

“Well, Spike wanted Mike to have one.”

“In a locket?”

“In a watch. Pocket watch, to be precise. Spike contributed it.” Willow was watching her over the top rim of her cup.

And Buffy knew why. She’d seen that watch. In Spike’s treasure box. She’d even read the inscription. And he’d given it to Mike. She had an ooooh moment that Willow had plainly been watching for--to see if any penny dropped, and if it made a significant noise when it did.

“I understand things,” Buffy declared belligerently. “I can understand things! When anybody bothers to tell me, that is!”

“I just work here,” said Willow. “Not my fault if certain people have communication issues.”

“Any more?”

“No, that’s about it.”

“You mean Xander didn’t get one?” Buffy asked, mock incredulous.

“Well, wait, yes he did. But that was later. After he did the equivalent of dumping the lead Shark in the middle of Jets territory. I realized he needed a little buffering after that.”

“Everybody but me, in other words.”

“Yes, Buffy. Everybody but you. Correction: not Oz. Oz...was only visiting.”

Buffy pouted. “Why didn’t I get one? How come I got left out? Don’t I need buffering?”

“Because Spike forbade it, that’s why.”

“‘Forbade’: that’s strong.”

“Yeah, pretty strong, I’d say: I could hear the fangs over the phone line. On the grounds that you have your own arrangement with the Powers and this was not to be interfered with. He reminded me, rather sternly too, I might add, that your limits were to be respected.”

“I have limits?”

“Only in the best sense. Like personal space.”

“Huh. And this was Spike.”

“Or the best impersonation I’ve ever heard. The espressos are getting cold,” Willow mentioned.

Before going to wake Spike, Buffy had one last question: “What’s a Power?”

*********

Where your Slayer dreams come from. Huh.

Buffy had never thought dreams “came” from anyplace. They just were. But apparently not. They came, were sent, by these Power thingamajobbies. She was in communication with Powers…that wanted Sunnydale 100% vamp free. They’d been cool with the disruption Spike had set going by claiming the mantle of being the Master’s successor; but they were trying to block what Spike was doing now to settle things down again.

And Dawn was a part of them and also the possessor of a piece of Spike’s set-aside soul. So their unlives/lives were locked together—hers dependent on his. Buffy had known they were close, but not that close.

Very strange. Powers.

She pushed at Spike’s shoulders. “It’s time. Wakey wakey.”

His eyes blinked open. Blank. Orientation phase: figuring out where he was and why. That normally didn’t take long because their bed, their room, was the norm. Today, it took longer. Then everything just sagged. He showed no reaction to her being stripped from the waist up or to her neck decoratively bleeding. Nothing gross, just a little cut at the mark by way of encouragement.

Buffy ruffled his hair, which almost always made him scowl and flatten it down again. No reaction to that either. “You remember this morning?”

Slow thinking. “Yeah.”

“The curse is still getting at you,” Buffy told him. “The locket isn’t enough to deflect all of it. That’s why it feels like this. If I’d known that, I would never have let you go off by yourself last night. So it’s not you, Spike. It was the spell that had you sitting there, waiting for the sunrise.”

“Oh.” Finally, a little more animation: rubbing both palms down his face. And then jerk and still, yellow-eyed, as a very hungry vampire noticed the blood. He rolled onto his side, turning his face away into the pillow--likely wanting to conceal the full change.

From Buffy’s perspective, he’d presented his back to be rubbed. So cool and smooth, and the strong muscles under the skin. “This isn’t about souls,” she said. “This is about hurt, and healing, and us. About bodies, not souls. I know, no soul at the moment. It’s still OK.”

He muttered something into the pillow. Buffy thought it was, “Don’t want it to be about bodies.”

“But it is. That’s part of it. Sort of like sex. It’s what we make it. Each time. Love, or a roundhouse free-for-all. Or anything in between. It’s what we live on, what keeps us going. Keeps us together. It’s only life, Spike. And you’re letting it go to waste here.”

He rolled fast the other way. Face pressed against her belly, arms tight around the small of her back. Still hiding what he felt she couldn’t accept. She stroked fingers through his hair--crisp and freshly cut, although still two-toned.

“Want to see your demon.” Buffy let her weight descend, gradually dropping onto her knees at the side of the bed. His altered face slid up against her until it was pressed into the hollow between her breasts. “It’s OK: we have an ‘arrangement.’ Which sounds sooo dirty! Let it out. Let it come. I--”

In a flash he was higher, at her neck, biting down. Words, or the impulse to say them, went away. It felt so great, his feeding from her. Strongly pulling from her what he needed, what she had in endless abundance. The near-desperate hunger in how he held her in position, thumbs pressed hard into her upper arms. Not letting her move or pull away until he was done--like the penultimate stage of sex, when you were on the edge and absolutely positively had to finish now. And he was aroused, they both were. Panting between gulps, not letting go but having to breathe, interrupting the rhythmic suction. The urges becoming confused, the rhythm changing. Then he jerked his head away and down as suddenly as he’d claimed her: again butting at her chest, holding himself there, breathing hard.

She didn’t argue, just kept steadily petting the back of his neck and stroking down his spine as far as she could reach. He needed more, but that was all he was gonna allow himself to take. He knew where his limits were and Buffy accepted that. She could give herself up to it utterly because she trusted him to know. And he did: even without the soul.

“It’s freefall,” Buffy told him softly. “Like I could jump off anything, the highest tree, off a mountain, fly and float, and it’s never falling because you’ll always catch me. You let me fly with it. That’s so good. Out of the sky, even.”

He hadn’t come back to words yet. Sometimes it took him the longest time to settle. She’d tried to imagine what it was like, feeling what to you was the hot essence and perfection of life working in you everywhere. Maybe like being born. But she didn’t know. He wouldn’t even try to put it into words for her.

“Willow’s ready,” she said after awhile, after she’d felt some of his locked tension ease. “There’s coffee." She patted his back twice, briskly. "Get some pants on.”

“Yeah.” He released her and swung his legs around, sitting on the edge of the bed. Still slumped, head bent. Still muzzy and slow and probably still depressed as hell underneath it all. But one of the perks of being a vamp was being able to put down an amazing amount of alcohol and never be hung over afterward. Burned it all off or something. “Damn. Didn’t last even a day.”

He was thinking of the black leather strutting pants. Hooking her bra, Buffy reached for her top. “Looked absolutely fantabulous while they lasted, though. Maybe Will can do something. She may not like being the laundry fallback, but hey, when you have a resident witch, it’s all of the good.”

“Good. Yeah.”

Since he still wasn’t moving, Buffy went to the dresser, pulled out a pair of jeans, and tossed them onto the middle of the bed. Slowly he drew them in, got them on, and stood to fasten the necessary. Then they went down the hall to Willow’s room.

Collecting and presenting one of the espressos, that he immediately lifted and started chugging, Buffy told him, “I left word for Rona to bring all the tribute blood here ASAP. With some extra. Because, healing. I don’t know when she’ll get the message, though.”

Spike nodded, having finished the whole cup in one uninterrupted pour. “I’ll do for now,” he said, with a sly sidewise glance.

When he crossed the room, carefully keeping wide of Willow’s design, Buffy assumed he was headed for the roll-top desk, where the tray was. Instead, he went directly to Willow, who was studying the book, now laid on her bed. He set his hands at her waist and lifted her arm’s reach high while she eeked in surprise and batted him about the head and shoulders with soft, ineffectual hands. Setting her lightly down, he kissed her, and not on the forehead either. A full-contact, head crooked, holding on hard, mouth kiss, possibly even with tongue. Buffy looked on benevolently as he let Willow go and stood back while Willow made faces and noises and wiped the back of a hand across her mouth.

“I know,” he said, “guy germs. But in a severely weakened condition here, Red--have to humor me.” Over his shoulder, as he went after more coffee, he continued, “That thing blindsided me completely. Took me right off my feet. Hadn’t the slightest, what’d hit me. Drowning, like.” He got the cap off the cup and drank about half of it, eyes shut in caffeine overload rapture. “Wasn’t for the friendly neighborhood witch that makes house calls, I’d have been gone, no question. Owe you a big one for that.”

Willow had finished wiping away the kiss and was ruefully smiling. “Hey, on retainer here, remember? No separate line item charges. And don’t forget, it’s the uber-suspicious vamp that’s the reason I’d spelled the wafers and had one handy in the first place. So, team effort here. Rah, team! Except, watch the promiscuous kissage, mister. Completely professional here. Consider yourself warned!”

“Oh, come on, you liked it, you know you did. You're gay, not dead. You just don’t want to get accustomed to it, that’s all. Change the parameters.”

“I like my parameters just fine the way they are, thanks! Did Buffy tell you, something like 20% of the spell is still getting through to you?”

“I told him,” Buffy protested. “Not the percentage, but--”

Finishing the second cup, Spike confirmed quietly, “Yeah, she told me. Hard to feel what’s me and what’s not.”

“More like impossible,” Willow replied. “It just takes over. That’s what makes it magic. And a really superior magic worker wouldn’t have let you run off, last night. I mean, with the black mojo still working on you. I was all spinning theories, spell components, what modifications would have to be made to hit a vamp like that,” (Willow flung hands around her head, illustrating the spinning.) “who could make them, and the fact is, I wasn’t thinking about you at all. Only tech stuff. Objective. And after we located you, Buffy was going, and I figured she’d tell you. Except…I hadn’t told her. So my bad. Sorry.”

Spike set the empty cup back on the tray. “’M still here. On account of…I have people that take good care of me. No complaints about the service from yours truly. Have to try harder, pissing you Scoobies off, seems like. Gone all soft on me. Even that Harris, Xander, giving me wrecked old telleys an’ Morris chairs. Not doin’ my proper job here.” He folded his arms. “Where d’you want me?”

Willow pointed. “In the middle. Don’t touch any of the lines. Sit.”

“Gonna take awhile?”

“Little while, yes. Why?”

“Had the coffee, very good. Had…other things. Also very good.” Again, a glance, only his eyes flicking momentarily aside. “Now I really really really want a fag. Do more for me than getting this crap out of my head. Got time for that? Please? Make a poor vamp happy?”

“Go ahead,” Willow decided abruptly, holding out a saucer. Instead, he sprinted into the hall to collect the necessary.

“Will!” Buffy protested.

“There’s gonna be incense. Smells. A little smoke, more or less, won’t make the least difference. For once, give the guy a break.”

“But…in the house!”

Willow showed her a stern not budging face and Buffy had to admit the earth would not be doomed by one indoors cigarette. She allowed the basement, after all, and it was the same air. But she had the unhappy feeling of letting her mother down.

Returning, just as though he’d read her mind, Spike said at once, “Joyce let me.”

“She never!” Buffy denied hotly.

“Certainly did. Knew a chap needed his little vices, keep things all even. Fine sensible lady, your Mum. Knew there were exceptions to everything. Something her daughter knows full well. ‘Bout souls an’ all….” Cigarette in mouth, lighter poised but not yet lit, Spike gave her one final chance to forbid. Then he lit up and turned about a third of the cigarette into ash in one long draw. He reached and took the saucer Willow was still holding and neatly tapped off the ash. Still hadn’t exhaled. Apparently that was optional. Finally, a small and slightly smoky sigh of contentment. “All right then.” He stepped carefully over the design and sat crosslegged in the unmarked middle, saucer in his lap. “Do your worst, I’m ready.”

As Willow struck a kitchen match against its box and started lighting the pillar candles spaced around the circle, Buffy asked her, “Will it be a problem if there’s talking?”

“Not if you keep it down. Once I get going, I’m in my own little world. Sometimes a problem, sometimes an advantage. A problem advantage. If I say Shhhh real loud, that will be a hint.”

Buffy sat down, likewise crosslegged, outside the circle, facing Spike. He lifted an eyebrow. Buffy folded her hands primly. “If we’re gonna be here for awhile, and if all the important cats have now escaped their respective bags…. Tell me. Explain to me what you’re doing.”

“You sure you want to know, pet?” Spike responded quietly. “Because you might feel obliged to do something. Slayer and all. Could be awkward.”

“I’m sure. Explain it to me, and about the Powers. I want to understand.”

**********

Spike felt it stop. Couldn’t identify, separate its presence but certainly felt it go.

Had been trying to compensate, be all chirpy and brisk for the Slayer and the witch, not let on. But when the curse’s awful undertow faded, he broke off in the middle of what he’d been trying to tell the Slayer and sagged in a puddle, arms across his knees and head bent onto them, breathing. Not even relief, because all the reasons were still left. Still unsorted, unresolved. Some, like Bit, still acutely painful. But the certainty of failure, the helplessness, and the self-loathing no longer fed into them, bloating them to insurmountable proportions. They backed off a little, leaving him a place to be.

“Spike--?” Buffy asked anxiously.

Spike patted at the air meaning it was OK, just let it alone. After awhile he steadied down a little and could try to fake normality again.

“It should be better now,” said the witch inquiringly from behind him.

“Some better. Yeah,” Spike agreed mechanically.

“How do you feel?” Buffy asked, all concerned, checking first with Willow with a glance, then leaning to reach across the chalked symbols to set a hand on his knee.

The next second he was eight feet back, crouched on the bed, game-faced and like to shake himself apart with rage.

He started hurling things at them, taking no notice of what he grabbed and flung. Snarling, shouting, “Get out! Out of here!”

The witch was minded to stay, stop him, scowling and indignant. But when he put a fist into the wall and just kept hammering at it, beating the plaster back to the laths and then hauling at them too, long splinters driving deep into his hands and forearms, but not enough, not nearly enough, the Slayer backed off and took the witch with her. The two bints withdrew, well out of the way.

He proceeded to take the room apart. Hurled books through the windows so the light blazed in through the slumping curtains, went back and forth through the beams heedlessly and that pain was nearly enough. Snatched up the pillar candles and pitched them out the windows, too. Tore the closet door off its hinges, broke it to scrap, veered away sharply from all the Willow-smelling clothes hanging inside and yanked the bed apart instead. Then another pass through the shifting sunbeams, smoking, and yes, that was the ticket, take on the strip of wall between the windows, pound hell out of it. The floorboards were no good, couldn’t get a good grip on any of them, so he dumped the dresser drawers and broke their sides off, cracking the precise dovetailing because it was all trim and fitting and competent, like it made sense. Attacked the roll-top desk next, yanked it to bloody flinders, right. Chairs came apart easy.

When he could find nothing else to break, he whirled between the smashed windows, barefoot in the glass, in and out of the light and spinning too fast for any part of him to actually catch fire. That at last was enough. He flung himself down in the mound of crooked broken wood and blood-spattered fabric that had been the bed, closed in on himself, and began sobbing.

After awhile Buffy slid back in with a tray, blood bags stacked on it. Set it on a clear piece of floor, looked at him a minute, then eased out again.

At first he didn’t want it. Wanted to kill something for himself. Have the blood hot and seasoned with fear from the hunt and the acceptance that was the last of it as the struggling slowly let off and stopped. But this was how it was now. Had to surrender that pleasure for others that maybe weren’t a match but good enough in their own way.

He waited, attending to the sufficient hurt, until the impulse to bust open the bags and throw the contents against the walls faded of itself. Could do that but it wouldn’t really be any improvement. Still sobbing with the tight, hitching breaths that went with that, he finally crawled to the tray and opened a bag. Waited until his demon grudgingly wanted this tame blood, since that was all there was. Life within the limits. Then he ripped into one bag after another and gorged himself on it till it was gone.

The splinters wanted to come out, sliding upward on the blood as the healing ejected them. He picked at them. Buffy returned, looking around at the wreckage, then came and silently started helping him work loose and discard the larger impalements.

He found he was about done with the crying, and very tired. He let himself slump into Buffy’s care and protection, content to have her do anything with him that she pleased. He was done fighting now. Whatever came after would come.

Presently he said, “Joyce, it would have been OK with her. She knew.”

Before this room had been Willow’s, it had belonged to Buffy’s Mum. He could still smell the ghost of her presence. In a dim way, he felt Joyce’s room had given its consent to the destruction. Not approved, but allowed. He folded an arm across his eyes.

Buffy picked splinters. She commented quietly, “You would now take over the title of most totally whacko boyfriend except nobody died. You gonna tell me what this was about?”

“Needed to. Needed to a long while. Maybe always. Dunno.”

The witch stepped inside, wary and angry: he could smell it on her. Surveying the Great No he’d made of the place, she snapped, “Well, that was real mature!”

Buffy said, “He confined it to one room. Unlike you.”

“Oh.”

“Only things, Will. It’ll be fixed.”

“My things!” Willow protested.

“Your turn, this time,” Buffy responded calmly. “If it makes you feel any better, you can count it as part of your penance.”

“Penance for what?” the witch demanded, angry again.

Buffy paused, biting her bottom lip against what she otherwise would have said. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Or just figure it’s unintended consequences from lifting the deathwish. Collateral damage.” Buffy pulled a long splinter from his wrist. There was a little blood. Then the skin sealed behind it. “Demons break things up. It’s what they do. Their métier…. Sometimes, you can’t get at what you really want to hit. So whatever’s between takes the damage.”

“Yeah,” Spike sighed. Buffy understood.

 

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