**********

After the blowout, Spike slept the rest of the afternoon.

Because he still had the locket it couldn’t have been real, only a dream, but it felt real: walking up a long aisle with pillars ranked to either side and beyond the pillars, darkness. Herself, enthroned, all armed with breastplate, helmet, and spear, on a dais waiting for him at the end of it with blind white eyes like a statue’s eyes. But she saw him well enough. He was in no doubt of that.

He said, “Lady, all respect but you’re wrong. We also serve a purpose, even if it’s not yours. We have a right to be, and we are what we are. All your power won’t make it otherwise. You chose me for this, and this is what I do. Do what you must, or what suits you. Either way, I’m done being played.”

She replied, “You are not a Power. Yet we also are constrained to do what is in us to do. What we must and what we can. You have power only over yourself. We shall see if that is enough. You are still a pawn in play while the game lasts. It cannot be otherwise.”

Then he bowed in respect and walked away down the aisle into the dark and a different dream. But that was the one he remembered when he woke at sundown, and checked that the locket chain was still around his neck, and the locket still on it. So it couldn’t have been but a dream, and his purposes still kept within him and his own to know. And he was back in Buffy’s room, in her bed, confirming a vague memory.

Folded at the foot of the bed were the new pants, supple again and cleaned of all the blood. So he guessed the witch must be over her mad, or at least willing to set it aside.

He had a proper shower, as hot as it would go, washing the smaller splinters and the embedded glass shards down the drain, standing in the heat until the water ran clear. When he was dressed and set, he went downstairs.

Buffy and Willow were in the kitchen, just about to eat dinner. It bothered him that Dawn wasn’t there. He propped himself, stiff armed, at the middle counter as they slid onto tall chairs to either side.

Buffy asked him, “Well, what’s on the agenda for tonight?”

It was strange, realizing she didn’t know about the challenge fight. But things would converge again, after this. Some way. When he’d had time to think it out, not all stupefied by the curse.

“Got a fight to see to. Up to Willy’s. Then confirm the District Masters in the territories they’ve laid claim to. After, I’ll be back at the factory. Lost a whole day on the translation. Can’t get too far behind--money’s already spoken for. You go fetch Bit home. She and Janice don’t actually get on that well. Best get them shut of each other while they’re still friends.”

Poking a fork into her rice-and-peas, without looking up, Willow said, “A little later, I may know who set that spell on you. I’m about halfway back along the chain of evidence.”

“Oh, don’t trouble about that. I know.”

“You know?” Willow repeated blankly, and did look at him then.

“Yeah. Vamp name of Digger. Had his territory from the Master. Been here quite some time.” Spike scratched the scarred eyebrow meditatively. “When he saw me still standing--in a manner of speaking, that is--at Willy’s last night, that was it: we both knew an’ he ducked out fast. He’d set everything on the one toss, and lost. Had a really fine chance of catching me with that. Just his bad luck he didn’t. Has half a brain, Digger…which is more than can be said for most.”

“Did he admit it?” Willow wanted to know.

“Like I said, he ducked out.”

“Then how can you know?” Willow challenged.

Witch seemed to expect proof, human rules of evidence. Reasonable doubt. Courts, lawyers and suchlike. Didn’t work like that. Vamp societies were not democracies, not interested in protecting the innocent. Subordinate vamps lived on the Master’s sufferance, had no rights at all except what he granted them. Spike shook his head and tried to explain.

“Because it was magic. Too…abstract for most vamps. Indirect. Had to plan it out way in advance, find somebody to adapt a spell so’s it would work on a vamp. All…stages; complications. Most vamps wouldn’t think of it, much less do it.”

Buffy paused in sipping coffee to intone, “’Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.’”

“Just so,” Spike agreed. “And wouldn’t nobody expect a vamp to have a witch handy, able to figure it was a spell to begin with and then block and reverse it, fast enough to matter. Not hardly the usual arrangement.” Then he added, giving Willow her due, “Except for you, he’d have done me, no question. Should have worked. So it was just my good fortune, not bad planning. ‘F somebody’d tried to drop a rock on me, I’d have lots of candidates. Not magic, though. That’s Digger.”

Buffy asked, “So it’s Digger you’re fighting tonight.”

“Well, no: Michael. Been set awhile, but I wasn’t free to see to it.”

Buffy nodded: not like she agreed, but like she was thinking. She set down her cup. “I’ll drive you.”

“No, love. You see to Bit. She’s the one needs rescue.”

“I will drive you,” Buffy insisted, looking him in the eyes.

“Now, I explained about--”

“Are the SITs gonna be there?”

“Yeah, but--”

“So it’s not just the bumpy forehead contingent.”

He’d explained to her why he’d insisted on some human presence, demonstrating that his dominion spanned both, wasn’t just the usual agreement of predators on how to divide the food. “T’isn’t the same, love. You’re--”

“--the Slayer, yada yada, I know. I’ll wear pink. Grubbies. Ugly shoes. They’ll never know it’s me.”

“Know your smell, though,” Spike pointed out.

“That can be adjusted,” Willow mentioned, mild but steely. “Custom smells department, here. Oh, and I’m coming, too.”

“No, you’re not.”

“What if this Digger has a Plan B?” Willow argued. “In case Plan A went kaboom? I have a certain investment in you to protect now, Spike: replacement of a bed, two windows, a closet door--” She enumerated the damage off on her fingers.

Buffy observed, “You’re not winning here, Spike. Deal.”

They were ganging up on him. Not a whole lot he could do about that.
 

**********

They bypassed the line outside Willy’s, but Buffy and Willow were stopped just inside the door. A vaguely familiar vamp--one of the bartenders, Buffy thought--required ten dollars a head before he’d let them by.

Spike hadn’t been stopped, had kept going. Buffy grabbed his arm, asking indignantly, “They expect to be paid?”

“’Course, love. Space is limited. That makes it worth something. Now turn loose and cough up…and let me alone, since you’re trying to be inconspicuous an’ all.”

Buffy grumped, but she paid, while Willow gazed blithely into space, like it didn’t have anything to do with her. Buffy silently vowed to get it out of her later. Fortunately, they were equipped to take plastic. The bartender vamp stamped their hands to show they were legal, then let them pass.

As Spike had said, space was at a premium. Buffy spotted the SITs, in a tight little cluster with three vamps in Spike’s colors. Wanting to dissociate herself from them, Buffy put her head down, used her elbows, and pushed through the crowd to a place at the back between two shut doors--one, she knew, led to the back room where kitten poker was sometimes played; the other, at a right angle, led to the storage area. Always good to secure your exit, she thought.

She’d had the vague expectation she’d see fight fans departing her presence in all directions, holding their noses. What Willow chose as a camouflage scent, from one of her failed batches, left them both (to Buffy’s nose) smelling like very ancient fruitcakes that had died and had a funeral. With lots of lilies. Not to mince words, they reeked. But nobody around seemed to take any notice. Buffy could at least be confident that whatever she smelled like, it was not the Slayer. In fact, if anybody had recognized her smelling like this, wearing the abominable lilac sweats she reserved for floor mopping, toilet cleaning and the like, she’d have been seriously perturbed.

Willow, who’d drifted serenely in Buffy’s sometimes troubled wake, continued to look around interestedly. “I’ve heard about these fights,” she remarked. “I’ve even sometimes seen the aftermath. But I’ve never actually seen one.”

“Me neither,” Buffy admitted, rather keyed up to be in the middle of so many demons her every instinct told her she should be trying to kill. She used her elbow with perhaps more enthusiasm than necessary when a blue-skinned Navcoombe demon tried to push in between them. It backed off, muttering obscenities (presumably) through its mouth tentacles.

The far side of the room had been cleared and roped off. Nobody there except Spike and Mike, both stripped to the waist and game-faced, engaged in what looked like a heated conversation. Spike looked furious; Mike looked sullen. Evidently no gloves, head protection, or weapons were involved. No referee, either.

Mike was taller, broader, and had at least a thirty or forty pound advantage. Didn’t matter, Buffy thought: this was one of those situations where age and cunning would prevail over youth and strength. She’d sparred and patrolled enough with Spike to know that if presented with a choice between fighting Spike and a buzzsaw, any opponent would do well to choose the buzzsaw.

Willow remarked, “It couldn’t be any more packed: what’s holding things up?”

“Final betting, I think,” Buffy responded.

Still looking furious, Spike broke off the apparent argument and stormed away…for about three steps. Buffy knew to watch his feet and his balance and wasn’t surprised when he whirled and whip-kicked Mike in the groin hard enough to loft him against the front wall. She nudged Willow, who was raised on tiptoes, trying to see something in the other direction, past the crowd in front of the bar. “It’s started.”

“Oooh. Ouch!” Willow responded with a sympathetic wince as Mike answered with a fast series of body blows, not all of which Spike managed to avoid. He went down…and into a back roll that put him on his feet at the right distance to spin a roundhouse kick at Mike’s head. When that was intercepted and his ankle grabbed and twisted, he used the leverage of Mike’s hold to leave the floor and kick with the other leg directly into Mike’s diaphragm: not a disabling a blow with a vamp, what with the not having to breathe. But it hurt enough that it made Mike let go and bend forward, an opening Spike wasn’t in a position to take advantage of, having hit the floor on his back when his leg was released. He bounced into another backward roll, again on his feet, and barreled into Michael before the younger vamp could fully straighten or take a strong enough stance to hold against the impact. Again, Michael was driven against the wall. But this time, he’d seized hold of Spike’s left arm and was twisting, trying to dislocate it at the shoulder. Spike let him, using the opportunity to hammer at Michael’s face, particularly his eyes. When the strain on his shoulder became acute, he went airborne, unkinking the arm in a backflip and using Mike’s face to kick off against, driving them apart.

By this point, Willow had both hands to her face, peeking through her fingers. Buffy watched steadily, appraising the fighting styles. Mike, stronger but less agile and marginally slower, wanted to get close and pound away with fists and knees. Spike, the compleat acrobat, wanted distance for kicks and aerial work, compensating for Mike’s longer reach. Toe-to-toe, the advantage was Mike’s; apart, Spike could inflict damage while taking the least punishment in return. Following that strategy, Spike would only close when Mike was off balance. Whenever Mike could catch hold and they went into wrestling moves, Spike was at a disadvantage and fought clear as soon as he could.

So the fight was a chase, with Mike trying to close and Spike trying not to be caught. And each, of course, trying to disable the other.

Human opponents would have been in the care of paramedics, or dead, by this time. Given vamp endurance and quick recovery from any injury short of broken bones, Buffy knew this was still the beginning and unless one of the combatants made a serious mistake, the end could be hours away. There didn’t seem to be any rounds or any rules, in terms of exempting any part of the body from attack.

At the half hour mark, neither had even slowed. Spike was slightly favoring his left side: Mike had again gotten a chance to wrench the shoulder nearly to the point of bursting the joint and stomped the hip a couple of times when Spike hadn’t been able to roll out of the way fast enough. The only damage Mike showed was around his eyes, that Spike got an elbow into every chance he got. Both Mike’s eyes were swollen and sometimes bleeding when the healing couldn’t keep pace with the injury.

Presenting his right side, Spike braced with the left/back foot to swing a right-footed kick into Mike’s ribs. It didn’t have much force and Spike had to hop to get his lead foot down to retreat from Mike’s answering flurry of blows. And that was the second time Spike had pulled that move. Buffy jerked Willow’s arm to make her watch this because it was really good. Either Spike was careless enough to let himself get into a pattern (which Buffy considered extremely unlikely) or he was setting Mike up for a devastating follow-up. Making him expect that off-balance hop as he changed feet.

Spike flowed into what Buffy thought was a diversion, an interval that was mostly boxing, trading punches, circling up and down the room. Spike was keeping the weaker left as the lead foot, pushing off and balancing on the right, braced behind. Which set him crooked: leading with the left, yet trying to present the right, with the right the forward hand. Then, again the set-up: a quick turn-away, left leg braced back, then spinning into a right footed roundhouse kick to the head. And Michael bought it and came in, head butted forward, to take Spike down in the off-balance hop. Except Spike wasn’t there anymore. He’d gone down on his hands and flipped, locking knees around Mike’s neck. As Mike was pulled forward, Spike switched his grip to Mike’s ankles, momentarily immobilizing them, as though Mike were a bow and Spike, the taut string. Contracting, he flipped Mike completely over into the wall upside down--feet nearly at head-height, shoulders and head on the floor, neck bent…and Spike sitting on Mike’s chest, his knees immobilizing Mike’s arms, his hands locked in neck-breaking position--one on Mike’s face, the other behind Mike’s head.

They appeared to have a short conversation. Then Mike thumped the floor twice with his fist: capitulation.

The noise that followed was something else: Willow hunched her shoulders and covered her ears. Buffy muttered inaudibly, “And the crowd goes wild.”

Somebody unfastened the rope, opening the area, and the wild crowd immediately started moving into the space, probably to congratulate the winner (if they’d bet on him) and berate the loser. With Willow in tow, Buffy moved with them because crowds plus confusion equaled vulnerability and difficulty getting clear. But Spike wasn’t waiting to be congratulated: yanking his T-shirt straight, scarlet button-down in hand, duster caped across his shoulders, he was using the barge-with-elbows method of extricating himself from the crush, headed straight for the door, whistling up his people as he moved. He’d dropped game-face, but his human features were no friendlier--grim and set. He was mad and moving fast.

Dragging Willow, Buffy used her elbows to follow, hampered by big demons obliviously in her path. As she pushed outside, she saw Spike instructing the attentive SITs a few yards out into the parking area, absently rolling and rubbing the sore left shoulder. The parking area was almost as crowded as inside the bar and nearly as noisy. Humans and demons with bets on the fight, arriving too late to get inside but still waiting out the result and now either angry or elated, depending on which way they’d bet. Spike kept shoving them aside, whether well-wishers or complainers, concentrating on the SITs. Buffy saw only two of the trio of vamps, a female and a male at Spike’s back, both looking off into the dark like hounds impatient to be released into action; the other one had probably gone for a car, Buffy thought. Something happening, she thought. Something happening NOW.

As Buffy got close, the male vamp of the pair got in her way. She knocked him flat without breaking stride and grabbed Spike’s arm, demanding, “What?”

As Spike said, “Nothing,” Amanda burst out, “They’ve got Dawn!”

Spike and Buffy had a considerable silent conversation with their eyes. He didn’t want her involved. She was going to be involved no matter what he wanted. None of that needed actual saying.

Spike broke into words first: “She won’t come to no harm. Digger wants a meeting and he’s collected Bit for a pax bond, is all.”

“Some renegade vamp has my sister and you think you can make me stay out of it,” Buffy clarified with a million-watt glare.

“It will be worse if you’re there. It’s because of you, you and me, that he picked Bit to begin with: some damn fool with a big mouth made him figure Bit’s of value to both of us. Got my mark on her; and he thinks you hold my leash. If you come along, no way I’ll convince him otherwise.”

“Do you have any idea how much I do not care about what he thinks or wants?” Buffy shouted into his face.

Spike shouted back, “She is a pax bond, Slayer! She won’t be hurt if I meet with the fucker, hear what he has to say. After, she’ll be let go! If you don’t fuck it up!”

Buffy had no idea what a pax bond was and never wanted to, either. Hands on hips, she retorted, “Can we say ‘set-up’? Can we say ‘ambush’? What on earth makes you think this vamp wants to negotiate? He wants you dead, Spike! We know that!”

“If you show up, there will be nothing to negotiate because he won’t believe a word I say. You seriously think I’m gonna let Bit get hurt here?”

“You seriously think you’re gonna slug me, or set your vamps on me, and that will keep me from staying right at your heels, every step? I am not leaving my sister in the middle of a vamp free-for-all, not for any reason. And if that jeopardizes your wonderful plan for the vamps of Sunnydale, that’s just tough, Spike!”

Every syllable an effort at patience, Spike stated, “Your way will get her hurt. My way won’t.”

“Your way,” Buffy shot back, “has every prospect of getting you both killed because you are walking into an ambush, Spike! How can you not know that?”

For a second, Buffy thought he’d do it--slug her and try to impede her with vamps and maybe even SITs long enough to get clear himself.

Then Willow mentioned coolly, “Wherever you go, we’ll know. And show up about two minutes later.”

Realizing it was so, Buffy seconded fiercely, “Yeah!”

Spike still almost slugged her out of frustration: watching him work his fists at his sides, she could tell. Not the ten megaton blast that had wrecked Willow’s bedroom, but the same rage in search of a target. But he held himself still. “All right. Do this, then: I go in first, make the running. If there’s no trouble, I bring Bit out. If it goes bad like you think, you come in, sort it however you have to. Leave me to call it.”

He waited while Buffy thought it out, trying to weigh his priorities against her own complete indifference to vamp protocols and customs. Her distaste and distrust for all things demonic. But she knew it mattered to him. Mattered a lot. He’d kept it all away from her, not involved her. Not asked for her blessing. Refused her help. But she’d demanded to be told. To understand. She no longer had the luxury of ignorance that he’d granted her.

She trusted Spike implicitly. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was how far did she dare trust his judgment in a volatile situation, knowing no soul was guiding it? With, almost certainly, Dawn’s life depending on it?

Buffy said only, “There are weapons in the van.”

Chapter 15: Bloody Sunday

Dawn was the honored guest of a very old Master Vampire. She knew because he’d told her, spilling out before her whole shopping bags of the kind of food somebody had told him a zillion years ago that young human women favored. Candy. Gumballs and Godiva all mixed together, cascading onto the table. If she’d eaten even a tenth of it, she’d have gone into sugar coma and gained about 200 pounds, probably.

It was like being kidnapped by Willy Wonka.

Horribly embarrassing. Like she was some sort of dimwit heroine loser or something, snatched after the third set of commercials in a movie you watched because nothing good was on.

She’d been ridiculously easy to catch. She and Janice had been poking through a magazine, Dawn listening in idle misery to Janice pronouncing on where a given guy should be placed on her Hotness Scale<sup>TM  (patent pending), when Janice’s mom had come into her daughter’s frilly sanctum to report that Buffy had called and was picking Dawn up although she was welcome to stay for supper.

Did Dawn stop to consider that Janice’s mom was a certified idiot who’d accept any voice on the phone as Buffy’s if it said it was--including Charro or James Earl Jones? Oh noooo, Mr. Bill! Dumbass Dawn obediently trotted out to the curb and waited, anxiously clutching her second-best backpack and preoccupied with being miserable about herself and Spike…and was grabbed, just like that, by three vamps pulling up in a late-model green Hundai with a fourth vamp driving.

She’d made no attempt to use her taser: she might have taken two down but not all four. Besides, they were all fledges, minions, with maybe a pint of brains among them and therefore desperately afraid of getting their assignment wrong. If she’d showed any fight, they probably would have eaten her out of sheer nervousness. And then been terribly punished for it, but that wouldn’t have done Dawn any good. So she’d put on her meek, nobly suffering captive princess demeanor, that often could fool Math teachers, and settled down for the ride with eager interest.

They’d taken her to a rather nice motel about two miles from home, just a little short of the highway. The unit farthest from the office had been discreetly broken into--nobody actually lived there, so vamps could come and go at will--and she’d been greeted by her host, this frog-faced, bony old John Houston type who called her “Missy,” deluged her with candy, wanted her to admit she’d been treated well, and looked quite capable of going all medieval on her if things didn’t go his way.

He had loose grey hair and shrewd crinkly eyes that had seen a lot of sun before they’d had to give it up. Dawn speculated he’d met a vamp in a mining camp, in California’s olden days. Before malls, even. Certainly turned later in life than most vamps. Maybe even been turned for company because he never stopped talking.

He was willing to tell her stories about Spike’s less savory escapades when Spike first arrived in Sunnydale, with Dru--technically before Dawn existed but in memory before she’d been allowed to talk to him and thought the bleached hair was lame and goofy. Mostly they were the kind of stories Spike himself wouldn’t tell her anymore and the old John Houston type told with typical vamp relish over the most slaughterous parts.

“Never would’a thought that jackass would’a put something like this together,” he remarked, rubbing pensively at his mouth. “There at the first, he was showing off for his Lady, Drusilla. Now, seems like it’s the Slayer, your sister, Missy, running him. Damn little rooster, brains in his balls, assuming he’s got any.”

Unwrapping a tiny Tootsie-Roll, Dawn said moderately, “He cleans up nice. I think my sister’s been a good influence.”

She decided she more liked the old vamp than not. He called himself “Digger.”

Now all Dawn had to do was figure a way to make him bite her.

**********

Buffy drove: it was her SUV. Which was about the shape of everything, Spike thought.

For once, he didn’t bother about who got the front passenger seat. Didn’t look, didn’t know, didn’t care. Took a place in the third row of seats with their unwilling hostage. Not that she was unwilling to be there but that Spike was unwilling to be responsible for her: called herself Star, which was a laugh--an air-headed natural blonde, claimed she was Digger’s favorite childe. Offered in swap for Dawn, as Digger’s pax bond. Pneumatic, apparent age maybe upper teens, still near enough to a fledge that she couldn’t keep human features consistently in place. Directed to report to Spike, idiot Star hadn’t been able to find her way through the crush around Willy’s until they were ready to pull out. Bint stood beating on the van door in that knees-together semi crouch a certain sort of bint used to express frustration but mostly looked like she needed to use the loo (extra ludicrous in a vamp), bleating that they couldn’t leave without her because she was the pox.

Maybe at one time, she had been, too. Like Darla.

Once Spike got that straightened out, he shoved her in the back and got in after because he was fucking responsible for her. Whatever happened to her would happen to Dawn, who was worth a thousand of her. Buffy contended that all life was sacred, which implied all lives were equally valuable; which Spike had never believed and never would. Some people were obviously meant to be food; and fledges were infinitely disposable, a waste of the space. Star was both. She reminded him of Harmony.

As Star clattered on about how wonderful and kind Digger was, Spike was paying less than no attention, thinking:

If she fucks this up, I am fucking done with her. Slayer wants zero vamps in Sunnydale? Fine: there’ll be one less. Bitch can dust the rest in her spare time left over from working her stupid job and picking out stupid clothes.

No.

Got to take the computer with to do the bloody translation, and the bank account, and the tribute. It’s all got too complicated. The hell with it. Just let the whole thing go smash.

Back to mugging people in alleys. Hunting to feed. Don’t have to kill ‘em, not all of ‘em anyways. Screw the soul, I only got it for her, I can figure things out without it, thanks ever so. Only I don’t. Without it, don’t understand hardly any of what goes on, except for vamps, and they’re such boring company, I would fucking die of the boredom. Find Dru again, maybe? No, that’s gone, that’s over, can’t do that anymore. Makes no sense whatever.

Hell, just leave. If this doesn’t work out, no use to planning anything. Just take a car, start moving. Like how I got the motorbike. Saw it, wanted it, took it. Because I had to get Bit out of there with the fires and all….

No. Can’t leave on account of Bit. And certainly can’t take her with. Don’t feel right about that. And she’d come to hate me, know she would, it’s not what she’s for, if she’d even go to begin with. No, that’s no good. Can’t leave Bit. Then there’d be nothing worth the staying for. Can’t be around her, neither, with that mark. It would all go pear-shaped real fast if I was to try. I was right before: better to wait for the daylight. Have it done. Have it over.

Bitch has no respect for me. None at all. OK for fighting and fucking--oh, right, and feeding, she gets off on that now--and a damn nuisance the rest of the time or an embarrassment, yeah, don’t cog myself to her goddam limited inflexible world-view with the fucking Elect and the predestined Damned and never the twain shall meet and her mouth is so wonderful, so warm, and her eyes when she comes. But I’ll--

I don’t know what I’ll do if she won’t stand aside and let me do this one thing. Never asked for her help, kept all away from her, did it on my goddam own. Made all the running myself. And now fucking Digger has to go snatch Dawn and that brings her into it again and I will mutilate the bastard, I will fucking tear him to bloody shreds except he’s what’s needed to make this whole arrangement run, not him personally but vamps that can see past the next feed, the next fight, if they can’t see their own benefit in this it has no chance at all.

None whatever.

Powers will have what they want then. What they been trying to nudge into place, sliding the people around the board. They’ll win.

I will not let them win. But they don’t have to win. All I have to do is lose, and I’m real fucking good at that.

Can’t fight her. Never could. Not like I’d have to. Comes to that, I’d let her dust me. Won’t never do that no more.

Just leave. Get gone. If she won’t stand aside, this once, and let me finish it myself.

The SUV turned in and stopped in the marked parking spaces of the motel Mike had designated, passing along the word from Digger. Hell, for all Spike knew, maybe Mike had helped Digger snatch Dawn by way of payback though Mike had sworn he hadn’t. Spike wasn’t confident of where anybody stood in relation to him anymore.

Everybody got out. Spike stood absently working the shoulder, looking off toward the end unit in the line. Behind him, Star had finally shut up.

The three SITs and Dora, Carlo, Benny, and Huey--the latter coopted for this excursion because he was generally sensible--stood waiting for instructions Spike couldn’t give them, not knowing what the hell he was doing himself.

The Slayer came around the van and stood with folded arms, head bent. “All right,” she said abruptly. “Since she’s here,” (she jerked a hand at Star) “maybe this isn’t 100% trap like I thought. I’ll wait on one condition: Willow monitors.”

Spike eyed the witch, who was looking all perky and competent. Leveling a finger at her, Spike specified, “No spells. Not even if they come at you. Throw magic into this, more magic, it all goes sidewise. Less they throw magic at you, that is. Then it’s already past fixing and you do whatever you have to, to get Dawn and get clear.”

Witch bobbed her head, then pointed in her turn. It took Spike a second to realize she meant the locket. Yeah: blocked her, of course it did. He pulled the chain over his head and held it out to her. But Buffy took it instead and dropped it over her own head, then patted the locket into place on her chest.

“Now I have one,” she commented with satisfaction.

In his mind, Willow’s voice said, Testing, one, two, three. OK, Spike?

As always, it made him all itchy and uneasy.

Yeah, fine. Super. Just shut up and listen like the lady said, right?

Aloud, Willow said, “Right. Sorry.”

Spike stabbed a thumb back at Star. And if I think “Star’s gone,” you give them the nod, right?

Willow looked troubled, considering the bint. Likely figuring out what would lead to his giving such a signal and considering that the bint was a vamp, a fledge--shouldn’t even register on her personal protection meter. Finally Willow said, “All right. Yes.”

“Right, then.” Spike waved his people after him a little way, to give instructions privately. He told the SITs, “You’re with the Slayer. Keep out of her way, do like she says. Isadora, you’re with me. You lot, you’re on the bint: put her in the van, keep her safe unless I say otherwise. Witch gives you the nod, you dust her. Slayer says, after that, you go in, take out whoever is left standing. You don’t turn the bint loose unless you see me an’ Bit, the both of us, and I say to. Not otherwise. Huey, you’re lead--you see to that, all right?”

Huey nodded.

Spike wheeled and gave the Slayer a final, frowning look: demanding she stay put, stay out of it. Chin lifted, she returned the look, promising nothing--fierce, determined, and damn silly in the ripped-out, faded-to-pink workout gear. Stank, too: he could smell her from there. And so consummately fuckable it took him an effort to turn away.

Starting across the lot, he told Dora, “You play you’re sweet on me, hand on my shoulder or whatever the whole time. No smiling, though: that would be overkill, he’d never buy it. Just like we been fucking a lot, all right? Things go wrong, you bring Dawn out if you can. That’s first. If you can’t or if there’s time, you take out whoever Digger’s got there with him. Digger, he’s mine.”

“Sure.” Dora said. Then, in a different voice, she said, “Sure, baby.”

She stuck her thumb into a belt loop at his hip, her fingers down inside the waist of the leather pants. Spike nodded approval. If he could have got the Slayer to do that, it would have been even better. But best if she didn’t come into it at all.

He wanted Buffy with him and wanted her gone. Wanted to be gone himself. Made no sense.

Thinking that, he noticed the back fender and rear wheel of the bike just past the row of units. Oh fine: Mike was mixed into it too. Nothing more needed to fuck things up completely.

The vamp on the door opened it and let them in.

**********

The room was dim. Vamps didn’t need much light.

When the door opened, for a minute it was brighter from the high sodium lights outside where the street met the highway. Then the door shut and it was dim again, no light except what came through the uncurtained front window.

Dawn was disappointed Spike didn’t look at her or acknowledge her in any way even though she could understand it: he wanted to downplay her importance, imply she was just an attachment of the Slayer and shove the both of them out of consideration and make Digger deal solely with him. The same with Dora being much too personal, standing behind the chair he pulled away from the candy-laden table and settled into: fiddling with Spike’s hair, resting her hand on the back of his neck. Dawn hotly didn’t like it but understood it was an act and made no protest.

She watched and listened intently, trying to discern Spike’s game plan and conform to whatever role (if any) he’d assigned her in it.

She didn’t know what Mike’s role was either or whose side he was on.

He’d arrived in sullen silence about ten minutes ago: his eyes swollen nearly shut, moving like an arthritic goat. Dawn surmised that he hadn’t won the challenge fight. Big surprise. Mike had sort of glanced at her, and she’d glared at him, and that was that. He was now stretched out on the bed with a wet towel over his face. Digger hadn’t questioned Mike’s presence, which seemed a bad sign.

Not counting Spike or Dora, there were six vamps in the room and another outside the door. It was important to know things like that.

Having greeted one another curtly by name, the two Master Vampires got down to business.

Digger’s opening salvo was, “Order of Aurelius. Sounds impressive to them what don’t know no better.”

“I expect,” Spike allowed, tossing the pack on the table and lighting a cigarette a little awkwardly with bruised, stiff hands--obviously his souvenirs from the challenge fight. “Continuity’s important. Knowing where you’re at and how to do.” He gestured with the cigarette. “You been a Master Vamp in this town a lot of years. Under the Master that was, and lately on your own. Nobody to tell you any different than how you please. Your own little operation running the way you like. Somebody sticks a spoke in that wheel, you’re not gonna like it. Gonna fight back. Only natural. Except magic: that’s not natural. S’not the way we mostly do. Original, like.”

“Slayer’s been in town awhile,” Digger countered. “I can deal with her all right. Feed her a few fledges now and again, she’s happy.”

Spike’s face tightened and turned cold. “Slayer don’t come into this. You deal with me.”

“Slayer’s out in the parking lot, waiting to run in and rescue her pet vamp. I’m surprised she let you come in on your own: getting tired of your line of patter, is she?”

“All the Slayer knows about vamps is how to dust ‘em. Well, and that after a patrol, she likes a vamp to bleed off all that built-up tension for her. Give her a nice back rub, like,” Spike commented with a wicked smirk. “It’s no secret: we have an arrangement, Slayer and me. I’ve marked her.”

“And this one, too.” Digger looked slyly aside at Dawn, who affected not to notice, unwrapping a chocolate. “Sisters. I like ‘em young, too. But bedding sisters is asking for trouble.”

“Some might think so.” Brushing aside candy wrappers, Spike stubbed the cigarette out on the table. “Well, this chit-chat’s been fun, but s’not to the point of why I shouldn’t clear out your territory like I cleared out Restfield. Set somebody less…original in your place. Thought that was why you wanted this meeting, pax bonds in place and all.”

Digger leaned back in his chair. “You’re a fuck-up, Spike. This thing you started, calling yourself Master of Sunnydale, I give it maybe two months. I’d like to be around to watch it fall apart. And afterward the Slayer will swing by, picking off what’s left. Your notions have already killed more vamps than she has in the past couple of years. You--”

“Culling,” Spike cut in. “Get the numbers more manageable. Have a few acknowledged leaders to deal with, not every idiot fledge with an opinion.”

“Spare me the political speeches. Slayer lets you run with this because it suits her. Your big ideas get vamps dusted. Why should she object to that? When it don’t suit her no more, or when all the new wears off your pecker, she’ll cut you down and the rest will collapse, worse than when you started messing with it. And you’re a fool if you think otherwise. You think the Slayer don’t come into this? Hogwash. Or do you figure I’m dumb enough to believe that shit?

“You cleared Restfield, fair enough. That’s been your claimed territory awhile, and those fuckwits provoked you--turned your cow, as I hear it. All well and good. But you come into my territory and clear it, which maybe you could do with that gang of minions you’re putting together up at the factory, and the other Masters hereabouts will know none of ‘em is safe in their own claimed places with you redrawing the lines, saying where vamps can and can’t hunt, and all this stupid smell folderol. They’ll combine, what’s left of ‘em, and wipe out you and yours while they still can. So you’d best leave me be. Or this thing of yours won’t last even two months, which is no great matter except I wouldn’t be here to see it, and I’d miss that.”

“You’re dreaming, Digger. Combine? You ever see vamps combine, except under compulsion, for more than ten minutes together? Except by accident, like that fucked-up attempt to hunt me through the pipes, the other evening? How much coordination went on, pptting that together, tell me? Just a bunch of Masters got nervous at the same time, is all--no coordination, the hunt all getting in its own way. I picked them off at will. You think I’ll tolerate a Master who don’t answer to me, gonna try to do me every time he thinks he sees a chance? You got one option here, Digger: bow your head, sing small, and mind your manners hereafter. Otherwise I’m better off without you.”

“What, and give you time to whip the other Masters into line, then come after me and mine with no distractions? Not hardly.”

Dawn realized, all of a sudden, that Mike was standing behind her, big and quiet. She hadn’t even seen him move. And Dora had moved to Spike’s right: almost in grabbing distance of Dawn. It was a different configuration in the room and Dawn didn’t know what it meant. She snuck her hand into her pocket.

At her prompting, Spike had once figured a vamp could kill a human in under two seconds. And Dawn was sharply aware that she was the only human present. More or less.

“So,” Spike said to Digger, replacing his cigarette pack and lighter in a duster pocket. “You had your say. Seems like we’re not about to agree here on what’s to be done. That’s it, then. Nothing left but to go and play it out. Meeting ended.”

He stood up.

Digger said, “Pity about Star,” and flung a handful of bright, glittering powder at Spike almost the same instant Dawn hit him in the ribs with her taser. As Digger slumped, a big strong hand closed around Dawn’s, made her drop the taser, and she was pitched away, caught and whirled all in an instant like a rough, uncontrolled square dance move. Maybe the door had been locked. Anyway, whoever had an arm around her middle yanked, and the door came off its hinges. She was spun into the brighter parking area and flung sprawling onto the macadam. Legs all around her and a hand pressing her down when she tried to roll to her knees. Amanda’s voice directed, “Stay down,” so she did, realizing a fight was going on outside, too--all around her. Car alarms going off everywhere as cars were jostled and bumped or had vamps thrown onto them. It was the three SITs around her, guarding her. Lights were coming on in the other units. Dawn stayed down.

A vamp tackled Rona, and the protective triangle around Dawn dissolved into flailing limbs. Unarmed, no stake even, she scrambled clear.

Most of the vamps were around Buffy, but some them were wearing Spike’s colors, so that was likely all right. Dawn turned to look at the doorless end unit. Dora was backing out, then Mike and Spike, both of them fighting other vamps--the battle inside spilling into the open.

Dawn ran to Dora and demanded, “Bite me!”

She’d tried to cajole Digger into doing it, but he’d just laughed at her.

Dora didn’t even bother looking around, commenting, “You’re nuts.”

It was because she had Spike’s mark. Nobody else would touch it. Worse than the perfume, as a get-away.

Then Mike turned around and clouted Dora off her feet. “What she said. Bite her.”

Dora, on the ground, looked back and forth between them. When Mike lifted a fist, Dora got up warily, leaning away from the threatened blow: Mike was bigger than she was--a lot. Dawn extended her arm and Dora nipped at it, saw Mike’s fist descending, and bit down hard. It really hurt--not like getting bitten by Mike or Spike, when there’d been this tingly thing, and then the oceanic sense of the deep drawing. Eyes squinched up, Dawn directed, “More,” and Mike still threatened, so Dora completed the bite and started pulling up blood. As the pain vanished into the other sensations, Dawn relaxed.

Commenting, “That should do,” Mike staked Dora. Through the ghost-shape that dissolved and fell, he told Dawn, “We’re even now.”

Back behind, Kennedy wailed, “Nooooo!”

**********

Spike handed Star down from the van like a princess and insisted her arm be folded into his, walking along the line of variously yodeling, screeching, and blatting cars, telling her how although an ordinary person might take it wrong that Digger had started the festivities knowing it would mean she got chopped, a really superior person would see that Digger’s heart just hadn’t been in it and he hadn’t really meant it like that at all. By the time Spike delivered to the doorless doorway and gave her a push inside, she’d chewed the lipstick off her lower lip and her eyes were steadily yellow.

Should give Digger something else to think about for awhile.

Then, because all sorts of civilians were milling about by now, trying to silence their anguished and indignant cars, Spike hotfooted it to the van and popped inside--next to Bit, as it happened--and Buffy floored the pedal.

Buffy and the witch in front, and nobody but him and Bit in the middle set of seats. And Bit smelled indefinably different, felt different in a way he at first couldn’t put a name to. Then he realized: his mark had been overset with another: Dora’s.

“Where’s Dora got to?” he demanded furiously, grabbing at the door handle. Buffy flipped on all the locks before he got the door open. “Bit, she marked you! She--”

“She’s gone,” Dawn broke in listlessly. “Dusted. I didn’t know that was what had to happen. I made her do it. I didn’t understand the consequences. She didn’t want to. It’s all my fault.”

“Now, Bit,” Spike began, and tried to draw her in, but she first stiffened and then pulled away, scooting sideways along the seat until she was sitting by the far window. “Bit, she had no business doin’ that, no matter what you said. Can’t make a vamp bite, though there are times your sis comes close. S’not your fault--”

Dawn shook her head so violently that her long hair flew. “We made her. Mike and me. Then Mike dusted her and said we were even. How does that make us even, Spike?” She looked around, all tearful and miserable.

“Oh.” Spike tried to think it out, what had happened, beyond the facts that Dawn had been retrieved safely and he’d left Digger in one piece, still immobilized by the taser but very much aware of what was going on, that he couldn’t lift a finger either to aid or to stop. Both, to Spike, wholly satisfactory facts. “Well, his claim was set aside. By mine. And now mine’s been set aside too, and the vamp that marked you is gone. So in a way, that puts you back to the beginning--as though you’d never had Michael mark you to start with. Nobody has a claim on you no more.”

“No, I’m just a vampire slut with three damn bites--”

“Watch that!” came the directive from the front seat, driver’s side. Slayer had been marked three times, too. But only the last really counted, of course.

Sliding over, Spike tugged free the arm Dawn was clutching so tight, blood seeping through her fingers. When he lifted it and bent to it, Dawn demanded harshly, “What would this commit me to?”

“Nothing, Bit. Nothing at all. Just thought I’d seal it for you. Make it quit bleeding. Nothing but that.” Spike waited. When Dawn made no more objection, resolutely not looking at her arm or him, he licked the punctures closed. The taste of her blood was still glorious. But because it wasn’t associated with his own mark, his demon barely roused. And Spike had already fed well today. It took no special effort to taste and still let go.

He supposed he should be grateful to Dora, but a grudging acknowledgement was the most he could manage. He still would have dusted her himself if he’d caught her at it or known about it in time. A Master Vampire’s mark was not to be set aside--even when the Master Vamp himself wished it had never been set.

Humans weren’t the only ones allowed to be contradictory, he thought.

“That powder Digger threw at you,” Dawn said suddenly. “The glitter: what did it do?”

Spike shrugged. “Nothing whatever, far as I can tell. Magic doesn’t much work on vamps. Dunno what he meant it to do. I’ll maybe ask him sometime. Whatever it was, he overpaid.”

“Ask him? But he’s…. You dusted him…didn’t you?”

“Not hardly. Left him just like he was, after you done him with the taser, which was a neat piece of work: how come you still had it?”

“They took my backpack. My pajamas and…some things were in it, in case I had to stay over tonight. After they’d dumped it out, made some stupid jokes about everything, they stuffed it all back in again and took it away. However, not being totally dim, I had my taser in my pocket. They’d already found my cell, so I couldn’t say it was that, and besides, they wouldn’t have let me keep the phone. So…I said it was a radio,” Dawn explained, trying not to fizz and giggle but doing it a little anyway. “And they didn’t know it wasn’t. If you’ve never seen one, it doesn’t look much like a weapon. And here’s me, looking all girly and helpless, you know. So…they let me keep it!”

Dawn broke into giggles, and Spike was smiling too at her wit and resourcefulness. He tugged at a pinch of her hair, saying, “Digger didn’t know he’d picked Dawn Dragonslayer!”

“Oh, stop.”

“Thing is, you done him a favor, Bit. ‘F you hadn’t taken him down, I’d have had no option but to dust him. Which I purely didn’t want to do.”

She showed him a puzzled frown. “But I thought you’d be all mad, because he’d, well, taken me.”

“Now, that’s the problem: hard to know how anybody will hop, how anybody will take things. As far as mad goes, I was and I wasn’t. ‘Cause I’d set you aside in my mind. Had to. And I knew you wouldn’t come to no harm, so long as Digger still wanted to talk. So I wasn’t worried for you like your sis was, that didn’t understand what it means, to call for a pax bond to secure a meeting. I took it as a good sign, that there still might be a way to salvage things. So long as your sis didn’t go all Slayer on me and bust things up.” That last, he said deliberately louder to be sure the front seat heard and took note. “See, Digger’s useful. Smart, after his own fashion…and willing to try a different thing--magic--if force won't get it done. Not all that fond of magic myself, but I'm impressed that he tried and would'a had me except I was lucky. But he's also stubborn most ways: doesn’t like things changing from what he’s got used to. And that's a useful thing, too. He’ll be just as stubborn to hold to the new ways, once they’re settled in around him and consistent, if I’m not always leaning on him, disrupting his people. He can’t have above three, four vamps that answer to him now: we done the rest. So he knows I could walk in and wipe him out anytime. But I had the chance tonight and good cause, and let him be; and he knows it. So he’ll sing small and not make a noise for himself for awhile, till he’s built his numbers back up. And awhile is all I need to get this in place and running.” That reminded him: he pushed back the duster sleeve to consult the watch, pushing the tiny button that made the pulsing numbers light up. Going for eleven. “Oi: Slayer! Need you to drop me downtown. Willy’s will be fine. Slayer?”

“Going home first, Spike,” Buffy called back. “We have to talk.”

Well, that didn’t sound good. “Got a midnight deadline here.”

“We’ll make it,” Buffy assured him.

Dawn screeched, “Turn around! Turn around! We have to go back! Turn around!”

Everybody said, “What?”

“My backpack--my homework’s in it!”

**********

Having placated her sister by promising to help redo the lost homework, Buffy led the way inside, towing Spike by the hand, and plunked herself down on the battered old sofa in the front room. “C’mon,” she directed, patting her sweat pantsed thighs. There was a little delay while he slid off the duster and draped it over the nearest chair, then made as if to pull off his shirt, which got nixed, since Dawn was present and didn’t want her eyes seared by the sight of naked Spike.

Actually the brief glimpse of the purpling bruises on his abs was enough to make everybody quiet down. He settled as bidden, stretched out on the sofa with his head in Buffy’s lap, booted ankles crossed. Though he’d been clearly edgy about the threatened talk, he still sighed, relaxed, and let his eyes fall shut.

“Midnight deadline,” he warned. “I’d set the alarm on my watch, except I dunno how. All eat up with gadgets.”

“I’ll keep watch,” Dawn volunteered. “On the watch.” Making a face of comic dismay at the phrasing, she dropped down on the floor beside the couch, reaching to take Spike’s hand, hold his wrist in watch-inspecting position. Again, a little awkwardness, unease, before he’d let her. But when he had, he relaxed still further; and Dawn played with his fingers, smiling to herself.

Whatever had been wrong between them still wasn’t entirely right, Buffy observed. But she’d overheard the byplay between them about the fresh bite and hoped the self-consciousness and hesitation would fade as the mark did.

“OK,” Buffy said, having made the atmosphere as non-confrontational as she could without leaving Dawn out, “now tell me about the soul.”

“Well, it’s little, and black, an’ I keep it in a jar--”

Dawn smacked his arm. “It is not!”

“Bit, you stay out of this,” Spike directed, lifting his head and blinking at her.

Dawn immediately pulled everything in close, tight, subsiding without complaint.

Spike sagged back again. “So I lied about the jar. What is it that you want to know, love?”

“Pretty much everything,” Buffy admitted, indulging in small, non-pornographic petting and stroking around his neck and shoulders. She’d seen that vamp bitch with her hand in his pants!

But restaking her claim wasn’t all or it, or even most of it. For some time--since he’d returned from his mysterious trip, now that she thought of it--she’d felt distanced from him; and not by her own choice. There had been reachings across to one another, from both sides, but that had only made her the more aware of the gap, the separation. And once aware of it, she found it unendurable. It felt smothery, like not being able to draw in enough air for breath. She wanted to grab, hang on, but contented herself for the moment with petting.

Buffy knew that desperation wasn’t lovable and only drove people away.

“Well, it’s different without,” Spike said slowly. Frowning a little, thinking it out. “Can’t say it’s not. Sort of like if you were to try to live at the mall, in the air-conditioning. Make you forget about weather, after awhile. Nothing means very much. Or…no, that’s not a good way to say. I’ll try again here. Not much signifies. Yeah, that’s better. And a lot, more than I thought there’d be, I just don’t understand. Can’t make sense of anymore. Some of it, I know in my head or remember, enough to get by, anyways. See where they are, and what they are, but they don’t…register the same as I recall they used to. Real hard to explain, actually,” he said with an upward look into Buffy’s face and a slight laugh.

“That’s the bad part,” Buffy said, steadily petting her reassurance and making the contact she’d only just realized she was starved for. “Tell me the good part, that made it seem worthwhile or at least necessary to set the soul aside.”

“That’s easy: freedom.” No frown, no thinking required. “Not endlessly worrying about what might go wrong. What I might do wrong. What I already done wrong. But…that’s not true neither. I worry more than ever. All the time, really. But I don’t care. So I can stay with the worry, work through it, put the next piece in place and go on. Soul, it cramps you all up, like, with ghosts and maybes. Set it aside, everything’s clear and cool and the same distance away. Simple and direct--not all tangled up in connections." His hands rolled and fingers poked between fingers, showing the confusing connections, then separated and stood apart to show simple…which to Buffy looked like isolation. Nothing touching. Connections were confusing and limiting, no doubt about it, she thought, as Spike continued, "I can just do the thing at hand an’ on to the next. Like I have to, to get this all done.”

“But you’re having explosions,” Buffy remarked, just calm, just saying it. “Like Willow’s room. Like the despair and exhaustion already there, that let the curse get at you and make it worse. Like giving in and biting Dawn, despite that being quite a big no-no to you, apparently. Things building up, inside, that it seems you have no way to handle without the soul. So it builds and builds until it explodes.”

“Yeah. Seems like. Haven’t had headaches like this since the chip. Pretty much all the time now.”

“This minute?"

"No. Too busy hurting elsewhere, I expect. No, this minute is good."

“Then will you listen to me a little now? It’s seemed, lately, that you’re halfway mad at me a lot of the time. Or you’re expecting me to be mad at you. Not complaining. Just saying.”

“Yeah,” Dawn chipped in unexpectedly. “You really do, Spike.”

“All right,” said Spike, and reached his right arm back to draw Buffy’s head down for a lingering gentle kiss. His other arm had reached the other way, to stroke fingers through Dawn’s hair, as Buffy saw when he let her straighten. “Must be so, then. If the two of you gang up on me, not much left to argue about. It’s most likely--”

Buffy set fingers on his mouth, and he stopped, looking up at her. She said, “That’s not what’s important. I just don’t want anybody to be mad right now. Or think I am. I’ve just been thinking it out, the best I can. About the soul. And there some things I want to say and have you hear me. Both of you.”

“Go ahead, an’ I’ll try to control this overwhelming urge to knock you through the window. Or something.”

“Or something,” Buffy echoed, smiling, probably a bit wanly. “I know it’s not like I thought. Not like Angelus. Which is all I had to go by, and all I thought of. You’re not that different, soulless. And you don’t hate me, which is something I’ve never gotten over and likely never will.”

“No, love. Not even a little. Get a bit impatient sometimes, but never could hate you--”

Buffy pressed her fingers to his mouth again, and again he fell silent. She said, “Soulless, to me, is a combination of the terrible time with Angelus…and the Boogey Man Credo: what I was taught, that soulless meant thing, meant enemy, meant a monster who wanted to hurt me and everybody I cared about as much as it possibly could, and would if I didn’t stop it. It meant pain and hurt to me. Done…for fun.”

She had to stop and reassure herself with a kiss. She was remembering their old fights, before she’d come to know it as dancing. The gleeful malice. His desire to make her hurt…because he enjoyed it. The unending innuendo and implication that she enjoyed being hurt, sought him out on that account. A long time over now. But she remembered, and knew he did, too.

Biting her lip a moment, she went on, “I know you’re not like Angelus: nothing else is like Angelus. I know you went and got your soul…so you could understand. So we could stop hurting each other. I know a lot of the time it’s a torment to you, so much that I can’t imagine how it could possibly be worth it to you. Especially since I know now that you could have gotten rid of it, set it aside, pretty much any time you wanted. But you didn’t. You lived with it. And I respect you for that. If I could be free of what it means to be the Slayer, I’d be done with it in a second.”

“You only tell yourself that, love. Truth is, it’s what you are. And you’re the finest one ever. Beautiful as a sword with it, you are.”

Buffy bobbed her head. “Praise from the former evil undead opposition is praise indeed.”

“I mean it!”

“I know you do. I know you now. And even setting aside all the claptrap I still carry around on the subject of souls, and even accepting your judgment that it was necessary, to do what you believed you had to, about setting up a new way for the Sunnydale vamps to be--those that survived the preliminaries, anyway--” (They swapped a sincere, ruthless grin.) “--the lack of it is hurting you, and it’s hurting me. It’s different, and I can feel the difference--a thousand ways. Things that should be easy, absolute no brainers, get to be these huge productions. There's this big distance instead of close and comfortable. Like always starting out wrong-footed, off balance, so we bang into each other, get the moves wrong. Not smooth and simple, like it should be. Not because the Boogey Man Credo says so: because I feel it. Without the soul, nothing...fits right. Connects right."

"Yeah," Spike agreed quietly.

"So can you put it back? Now? Can you put it back at all?”

“Sometime,” Spike said, and sighed. “Thought it would be now, but it can’t be. Till I can back off from this Master Vamp of Sunnydale shit, that I truly don’t want now and never did, but is what has to be done to keep the balance in a way it can stay. Can’t leave off until things quit rocking. And that’s gonna be longer than I thought. Because I can’t wrap it up, tie the bow, and hand it off like I expected.

“Part of it is dealing with vamps. Can’t wonder or guess about things there. Gotta know and do,” (He clapped his hands together with the words, startlingly loud.) “just like that! Never pity ‘em. Never try to make friends because vamps have no friends. Just other demons they don’t happen to feel like killing just at this moment. Never trust. And never want to. Let it all be cold, and the same distance away, and not wish it different because it never can be. That’s the one reason. Other reason is the Powers. Bit can tell you about that. Only left off hurting the witch, and Harris, when they knew they couldn’t get at me that way. Hostages. Can’t let them do that, and they’d be right at it again if they thought it’d work. Willow can block some things. Not all of it. Specially if she doesn’t know that’s what it is, that’s where it’s coming from. Remember how her eyes got so bad? Yeah. Give you good odds, that was the Powers. Never can be completely sure, they don’t admit to it. But that’s how they do, the bitches.

“So it can’t be now, love. Or all up to now will have been for nothing, and the Powers get what they want. Big final crash, some clean-up slaughter, and no more vamps in Sunnydale. Likely not even me. Because who knows what project they’d fling at me next, if I do this one--abandon it, really--to their specifications and their taste? What would I stand against ‘em with, if I don’t stand now? It’s some better, since I told you. That I’m not trying to hide it, what I am, pretend different. Know you don’t like it--don’t blame you. Knew you wouldn’t. Thought you might even dust me over it, first you found out.”

Buffy shook her head. “Once, maybe. Not anymore. If you say it’s necessary, I accept that. I know we’re on a deadline tonight: we can hash the rest of it out some other time. But for now--I want to help. If you can’t take the soul back now, I want to shorten the time till you can. Let me help. I understand--the Slayer’s involvement would undermine your authority. So don’t take the Slayer’s help: take mine. You’ve had the SITs with you, apparently no problem there. Pretend I’m a SIT. I can mind and go to the mark. We’ve been fighting as a team a long while now. Pretty good at it, actually. On patrol, the lead changes according to the circumstances. So you take the lead for awhile. I’ll even smell funny for you.”

“Have to think about that.” Spike pushed up to sitting, elbows on knees, hands together in a fist by his mouth, gazing meditatively at the opposite wall. After a couple of minutes he checked his watch, then nudged Dawn with a knee, asking, “Think she’s earned a trial as second?”

Dawn nodded, a big up-and-down.

“Well, that’s it, then. The rest, we can work out later, like you say.”

“And I’m coming, too,” Dawn declared, springing to her feet. But her mouth corners turned immediately down when her eyes met Spike’s.

“Not tonight, Bit. This late, your job is getting to bed, and to sleep, without benefit of tucking in. On a patrol, that’s one thing. Tonight’s a free-for-all running hunt, till first light, nearly, and I couldn’t keep track of you. We’ll be all split up, scattered. And there’s nobody I’d trust you to. Can’t risk my best adviser that way. And nothing fit for you to do. Another night. Not now.”

No tantrum. No shrieking or foot-stamping. Astonishingly calm, Dawn said only, “OK, Spike. It’s your call.” She headed off toward the stairs.

Buffy understood herself collected and directed as Spike caught up the duster and nodded toward the door. Jumping up and following, she braced herself, took and lifted his hand, and set the keys on his palm. He tossed and caught them once, with the grace not to look too jubilant, then led off.

In for a penny, Buffy thought, in for a pound, though who’d want a pound of pennies eluded her. If she could defer to Spike’s lead, she could put up with his driving. Maybe she’d better not look.

**********

A free-for-all running hunt it was, too.

Spike sent Buffy, still disguised with worn-out sweats and scent, off with the SITs, hunting together--something they were long accustomed to and good at, so he figured he could leave them to it. His own crew, waiting by the theater--the mark he’d named--Spike briefed and then quizzed more extensively: a dozen, all in the colors.

He divided them into four squads, named the lead of each, and made sure each squad had enough stakes and clubs to see them through five hours of intermittent mayhem. He told them to stay together and fight as a unit (lot of bloody hope of that, but he told them anyway). Told them any vamp they encountered not in the colors and not with the smell (anointing them despite their expressions of disdain) was fair game. Warned them some vamps might actually be bright enough to be wearing the colors even though non-us; so if there was any doubt, go by the smell because nobody else yet had that. Told them they were not to hunt anything but vamps tonight: not if a bloody human flopped in front of them; not if they caught some non-us vamp feeding on a kill. Just dust the vamp, let the kill lie, and on to the next. Told them they were not to get dusted themselves or fall to quarrelling and dust each other, no matter the provocation. Told them if they met opposition out in force and in numbers, to break and retreat to the mark. Then they’d go after the opposition two or three squads together in something like an organized fashion.

Not a hope in hell they’d actually do it, a good half of them were fucking morons, but he told them anyway and warned them he’d be around, watching, and would know who fucked up. Threatened anybody who fucked up with horrible unspecified punishments he hadn’t thought up yet but they weren’t to know that and seemed suitably impressed and intimidated.

Sending them off, Spike knew there’d been too many instructions and it would have been better to tell them “Kill any vamp you find, except each other,” but they’d have found some way to fuck that up, too, so might as well begin as he meant to go on.

The squads had been sent to the district’s periphery. They’d come back, dusting what vamps they could and driving the rest before them, to something like a final grand melee, the all against the all, at the mark.

At least that was the idea.

Spike picked one squad to follow and watched them from a rooftop through their first engagement, which went all right. He dropped down and gave them a word, to reinforce the notion that he was keeping tabs on them, then went to check on the next squad, clockwise from the mark. The three of them had been dumb enough to engage with five vamps by the Bronze, and lost one of the squad. Spike weighed in with his night’s chosen weapon, a pool cue, and got that sorted. Four non-us vamps dusted, one fled, one casualty. Spike chewed out the remaining pair for not waiting until the non-us bunch was busy with a kill or something before going after them. Made him homesick for the SITs, it did, and he told the pair so in graphic terms, comparing them unfavorably to teenaged girls, until he thought better of it, shut himself up, and left them to continue their sweep. Wouldn’t want to get them so resentful of the SITs that they’d go after the next one they came across, regardless of orders.

Always complications.

The third squad, he was some time locating. They’d found no vamps to dust in their first hour, sweeping the shut uptown stores where the hunting was bad after midnight anyway, and had retired to the Wander Bar to consider their options. Spike rousted them out with a severe tongue-lashing and the forfeit of their bottle, which he kept for himself since it would have been a pity to waste it.

By the time he checked on the fourth squad, which had done for six vamps so far and hadn’t fucked up in any conspicuous way, Spike had worked out all the residual stiffness left over from the challenge fight. He’d done about all the supervision he could tolerate and wanted to settle down to a few fights of his own, unencumbered by strategy or anything beyond the joyous ferocity of the fight itself.

He’d reserved a four square block area centered on the theater for his personal hunting patch. Returning there, nicely warm, he proceeded to kill whatever moved. Did two vamps in an alley, feeding on a drunk and his date. No help for the drunk, but the date was hysterical and ambulatory, so he sent her on her way with a fanged grin of encouragement, then jogged on to see what else the night would offer. Found an idiot vamp crossing a parking lot, under the lights, right out in the open: probably driven ahead of the squads. Spike did her after a bit of a chase, which he enjoyed. Did her personal, fangs in the throat and then a broken neck, very satisfactory. She’d fed less than an hour before, the blood not fully changed, so there was a bit of a snack in it for him for an extra bonus.

Heard a fight in progress, snarls and yells and wood meeting metal, and headed that way eagerly to find a squad engaged outside a florist’s with a lone vamp defending himself with a broken-off parking meter. Spike arrived just as the meter connected with ribs and slammed Emil through the florist’s display window. Lots of noise, naturally, and an alarm going off but nobody took any notice since the Sunnydale police hardly ever responded before daybreak, prudently leaving the town to the monsters.

“All right,” Spike said, carefully inserting himself between the combatants, facing his own squad, “you lot go on now. See what else you can scare up.”

“No colors,” objected Nate. “No smell.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll see to this. You lot go check the all night pharmacy on Sycamore and around there, see if you can find any vamps trolling for druggies. Then come back to the mark. Go on.”

Emil climbed out of the window, picking out glass and swearing as he rejoined Nate and Bet, and the three of them sullenly went off as directed.

Without turning, Spike said, “You’re an idiot, Michael.”

The parking meter clanged, pitched into the street. Then Mike said, “I know. Wanted to give you this back before I go. Sorry, it got busted.”

When Spike looked around, Mike was holding out the gold watch that had done duty in lieu of a locket. Mike continued, “When you flipped me upside down, there at Willy’s, it came out of my pocket. It’s quit running. Back popped open, too. I read what it said inside. Figured, an old watch like this, somebody’s keepsake. Somebody name of William. That was your name. From before. William the Bloody…. Your keepsake. Then I started to figure it out and know what kind of gigantic idiot I’d been all this while.” Mike shook his head. “Still don’t understand but that’s all right. You take it. I squared things with Dawn, and mostly with Digger, to make up at least some for the harm I’d done, being such a fucking fool. Digger, he played me, but that’s no excuse. Whenever I got mad, there he was somehow, listened real fine, telling me I had the right of things and I should get my own back for how you treated me. Let on he was my friend. Always had the price of a drink or a bottle. Welcome at his lair anytime. Would have been real pleased to have me pop off at you with my M16 instead of the .22 bolt-action. Not quite dumb enough for that, but nearly. On account of because I didn’t understand why you were doing me like that. Still mostly don’t, not why, but when I saw the inside of the watch, I knew what: you were teaching me, or trying to. As much as I’d let you, which wasn’t much. So fucking dumb and contrary, it’s a wonder you ain’t thrown me out long since, put up with me trying to set up like you done, with Dawn and all, going behind your back to Digger ‘cause he’d take me when you wouldn’t. I’m a waste of the space, and best thing is to get out, you don’t have to bother with me no more, I’m gone.”

Tears ran down Mike’s face and he was breathing in quiet, tight sobs. He’d screwed up massively, got everything crosswise and tangled: a true Aurelian.

“Already have a watch,” said Spike, pulling back the duster sleeve to show it. “Don’t need that one.”

“All right, then have the motorcycle. I left it up by Casa Summers. Key under the door.”

“Don’t need that neither. Your leavegeld, fair and square. Now, will you listen to me here one minute, Michael?”

“Nothing to be said, you likely want to dust me on your own instead of letting Emil do it and I got no reason--”

“Shut up one fucking minute and listen, all right?” Spike sat back on his heels, and slowly Mike did likewise, eyes on the sidewalk, and the alarm still ringing its head off behind the broken florist’s shop window.

Spike said, “Not gonna tell you that you done good here. You nearly got Dawn hurt, and that’s something I don’t look aside from. But that was partly her fault, she asked for that mark, and I don’t know of any vamp who’d have told her no. Not even me, it turns out. And it’s taught her that what she does has consequences--maybe will make her somewhat more careful in future. She’s learned, and you have too. And about Digger, well, you always had a temper and a mouth, that’s nothing new. Maybe you learned vamps don’t have friends. Ever. Everybody out for their own interest, assuming they got the least clue what that is, which a lot of the time, they don’t. But don’t look for that no more. That’s gone, Michael. Part of the old life, and it can’t come back.”

“You been a friend to me,” Mike contradicted, finally looking up…to argue, naturally.

“Might seem that way,” Spike allowed. “But the fact is, I have my own agenda, always have. Nothing counts between vamps except blood, Michael. S’not always pleasant, but it’s always there. And it lasts. Got something for you to look at.”

From a duster pocket, Spike pulled out a folded paper and handed it over to Mike. While Mike frowned, reading through the list of confirmed District Masters Spike had made up to post at Willy’s, and hadn’t had the time because the Slayer wanted to talk, Spike lit a cigarette and waited for him to hit the final listing--for District 2: one of the pair whose vamps had done the Kilkenny Cats thing and slaughtered one another to the last vamp with no leader surviving. By that listing, Spike had written “Michael of Aurelius.”

When Spike saw Mike’s head rear back, he said casually, “So maybe you can figure why I’m not all that pleased about your offer to get yourself gone. Have need of you, Michael. Not exactly what I’d planned, but it will do for now. You run that district, figure what vamps you’ll let stay, that will answer to you well enough, you’ll learn a good bit of what you’ll need to know somewhat farther down the road.”

“But…this says I’m your get. Your childe.”

Spike nodded, breathing smoke. “And you were made by Angelus. But no vamps here know that but us, and I don’t think Angel’s gonna acknowledge you anytime soon--do you? You’re of the blood and the Order of Aurelius. If I acknowledge you, ain’t nobody gonna dispute it with me. You’re claimed, Michael--like it or not. I claim sire’s rights over you. And I have plans for you, if you can get your mind off yourself for two minutes together and see what I been trying to put together here. Need your help with that, Michael, if you’re willing. All proper vamp self-interest. Blood to blood.”

Mike handed the paper back and rubbed his eyes dry. “All right. Sire. Hell of a thing.”

Spike quoted, “’Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,’” and got a blank look in reply. “Never mind: human joke. Now, Michael, what I want you to do is stick that list up by the map at Willy’s before daybreak. Meant to do it myself, but there wasn’t time.” The list changed hands yet again. Spike went on, “Next thing is to pick out where you’re gonna lair in the district. There’s at least twenty masterless vamps, and likely more, still around, besides what got dusted tonight, and I need to know where I can send them. Any you take under your word and protection, you’re responsible for. You answer for them. To me.”

“Yeah.” Mike rubbed the bridge of his nose, that Spike had broken one time for the disobedience of Mike’s subordinates. “I figure I know that.”

Spike wasn’t about to burden the lad with emotional entanglements: that would only have confused things worse. Like the fact Spike had loved him steadily, if impatiently, for some time; like the fact he was the only childe Spike had ever acknowledged (even though he wasn’t) or willingly made. Blood was blood. That had to be enough, because that was all there was or could be.

No need to tell the lad that Spike meant eventually to name him Master of Sunnydale and would have preferred that it be sooner rather than the later he now knew it would have to be. That would come up in its own time: when Mike found he wanted it and began to reach for it, and Spike was content that matters were stabilized enough for him to let it go to the hands he'd meant it for from the first.

Have to let the lad find his own balance first before expecting him to take any substantial weight off Spike’s shoulders.

After another long drag on the cigarette, Spike added, “When other things come up you don’t understand, or you don’t know how to do, you come to me and I’ll tell you the best I know. And you can still ask Bit for advice. She’ll tell you the best she knows, just like always, and knows vamp ways better than any human you’re ever likely to find. Maybe even be your friend, because humans do that. Has to do with the soul, I think. Can’t ever rightly understand them without it. Just how it is.”

“I’m not getting no soul. If you expect--”

“Don’t expect you to, Michael. A bad impediment for a vamp, most ways. If ever you come to change your mind about that, we'll talk about it. You come up to Casa Summers tomorrow evening and Willow will fix that watch of yours. It’s a magical protection, and you need to keep it close.”

“Figured it was something like that. I’ll take good care of it.”

“Knew you would. That’s all, then. Here, and take this.” Straightening, Spike dug in the other duster pocket for one of the perfume samples--almost the last of the initial supply--and handed the tiny bottle over as Mike rose. “In case you run into another sweep tonight.”

“Smells really foul, Spike.”

“Stink yourself up anyway. Don’t want my people dusting each other over nothing.”

When that was all sorted, Mike went off, and Spike checked his watch. Going on four: whatever vamps had evaded the sweep squads would be starting to collect in Spike’s own patch as the squads closed in. He had the prospect of several more fine fights tonight. Stepping on the coal of his cigarette, he jogged up the street, checking the alleys and the street itself. As it got nearer to daybreak, any vamps still at large downtown would go for the sewers, to lair up there.

Well, he couldn’t expect to do ‘em all in the one night. It would be a gradual process, imposing the new rules on the old anarchy. Only important things happened suddenly, all in an instant: a flash of revelation, or a decision made, or love realized or fulfilled. It was just the consequences of such sudden things that took time to play out to their ends.

As he turned onto Wilkins, his cellphone buzzed at the same time he stopped short at the sight of a pair of Sh’narth, necks amorously entwined, lumbering in stately fashion westward down the middle of the street, tails whipping in time with their strides. Over them, a hopeful, importunate Taskin wheeled on huge dragonfly wings.

Holding the phone to his ear, still watching, Spike said, “I think I know what you’re calling about.”

At the other end of the phone line, Buffy’s voice said, “I caught sight of the Taskin. Is there a Sh’narth?”

“Two.” Spike leaned against a storefront. “Matched set. Love, we’re not armed for such. There’s other business tonight. And before daybreak, before there’s hardly any people around, they’ll be at the ocean. I say, let ‘em pass.”

“You think?” Buffy responded dubiously. “How about the Taskin?”

“It’ll go back to the rift, wherever that is, and wait for a better chance. Can’t do anything about it now anyways, flying like it is. Unless you have a rocket in your pocket.”

“Nope. No rocket. OK, it’s your sweep, so it’s your call. We leave ‘em alone and hope they go away. See? I can compromise! We’re at Fifth and Madison--where are you?”

“Fourth and Wilkins. Stay put, I’ll come to you. We’ll finish the sweep together, then drop the children and get home. All right?”

“There’s Dawn’s homework,” Buffy reflected glumly. “What teacher in her right mind will believe ‘Vampires stole my homework?’ I’ll have to write a note, I guess. And oh--nobody’s done anything about the party for Giles! And he’s leaving tomorrow!”

“We’ll put something together, love. Don’t worry. All he’ll care about is that you’re gonna miss him, and he knows that already. The rest is just details. We can do enough details to give him a proper send-off. It’s on the agenda.”

“If you-- There’s one! ‘Manda, send it back this--”

The connection was cut off. Tucking the pool cue under his arm, Spike ran, hoping some of the fight would still be left for him.


FINIS
12/07/03</sup>