SECTION TWO: APPROACHES

Chapter Five: Vampires by Moonlight

Buffy figured it was one of the perverse laws of relationships that when one partner warmed up, the other cooled down; when one came on, the other started backing off.

The fact was, despite everything, she didn’t remember feeling this good since practically the great mayor/snake/explosion that had destroyed the previous incarnation of the high school.

Willow’s covert sullenness, that usually made everything awkward and hesitant, didn’t prevent Buffy from dragging her out for shopping and lattes, even if the shopping was only thrift stores. Boutiquing could be fun because it was like scavenging: you never knew what you might find and you might even be able to afford it.

When Xander started his utterly predictable grouching and ranting about Spike’s presence in the same cosmos as himself, Buffy had no problem telling him to find somebody his own age to pick on because bad-mouthing old people like Spike was just mean. Xander looked at her funny but dutifully came up with fresh candidates to snipe at.

Dealing with her friends in a direct, straightforward manner was so simple, and so plainly necessary, that Buffy couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t done it long ago instead of agonizing endlessly over what they might think of her if they knew any of her terrible disgusting awful secrets. Like having a very, very old boyfriend who was absolutely the hottest item she expected she’d ever see, and lucky to have him, and what had all the fuss been about anyway?

Not that Spike was truly old, not inside, or outside either for that matter, but it was hard to argue that somebody whose combined age was something like 150 wasn’t due some senior points here and there. Buffy told Spike about it and he looked at her funny too.

Too bad. He’d get over it.

For no particular reason Buffy knew, Spike had become fascinating to watch and fun to tease. She began to read his body language automatically, without even thinking about it. She heard words in his silences and answered accordingly, and got searching, pensive looks from him in response. She felt good. She felt happy and confident, with energy to spare, and what could be wrong with that?

Apparently something was, though, because Spike’s bounding, headlong energy, that generally required him to keep the brakes on pretty much 24/7 and drink himself unconscious several times a week just to slow down to the speeds normal people lived at, had dropped away to nearly nothing. Buffy wondered if there could be such a thing as an energy vampire and, if so, she’d somehow been turned without knowing it. There was no real reason to think her increase in vitality was at his expense, but it had to be coming from somewhere and the reverse ratio of rise to fall was pretty conspicuous.

And it was as if he wasn’t sure how to behave around her anymore. Way backed off, shy, diffident, vaguely hopeful, as if he was continually worried about saying or doing the wrong thing and getting hammered for it, which was just dumb after all this while and besides she didn’t do the dumb stuff anymore and therefore his worrying about it, if that’s what it was, was really peculiar. And also very un-Spikelike.

But even though she tickled him into near hysterics one night, he wouldn’t admit what was wrong or even that anything was, when that was obviously untrue. He didn’t even pitch a fit when accused of brooding.

Strangest of all, though, was the flatlining of whatever passed, in vampires, for libido. Since vamps didn’t have much going by the way of hobbies or outside interests, sex took up the slack in terms of what to do with your day, or night, or unlife, or anytime you weren’t actively hunting or feeding or sleeping. Since vamps didn’t actually need much sleep, and feeding took, what: maybe fifteen minutes a day?--no cooking or chewing involved, after all: speeded things right up--a whole lot of quality time was open for fooling around. So when the question was sex, the answer was always Yes, assuming they bothered to answer at all and didn’t go straight for the clinch. Always time enough for that, and repeats, and dares, and long elaborate games involving the creative use of various food and non-food items. Sex was play and conversation and provocation and consolation and sometimes even battle: every other kind of relatedness could be and was subsumed into sex with a single-minded intensity Buffy had never found in any of her human lovers. Which, she suspected, was one reason she really, really preferred vamps in bed.

They didn’t get bored and were never boring. They didn’t do the deed and then roll over and sleep when you were still highly interested. They didn’t beg off for headaches. With a singular although spectacular exception, they always respected you in the morning and were just as interested as the night before, or even more so since they weren’t going anyplace until nightfall. Four or five screaming redhot orgasms barely counted as foreplay. And without getting into the gross details, particular times of the month only made things hotter and more intense all around.

Sex was something vamps tended to be passionate about. Extremely.

Of course almost everything she knew about that she’d learned from Spike, so maybe she was overgeneralizing. Maybe he was as exceptional in that way as in liking highly spiced human food and hot sauce in his warmed-up pigs’ blood, which no other vamps seemed to have the least inclination for, going by the non-menus at the demon bars. Maybe the demon average was something closer to Clem, the only actual friend of Spike’s Buffy knew of, who didn’t exactly seem wild monkey sex material and displayed all the sexual aggressiveness of Captain Kangaroo.

Even in the bad old days, the dumb stuff days, sex between her and Spike had been pretty equal opportunity. If the opportunity offered and sometimes when it didn’t, either of them was apt to do the initial pouncing. Now, with a fair amount of opportunity and even inclination, Spike had to be courted, practically seduced, and continually reassured. Either she pounced or nothing happened. And sometimes even when she did: he might duck away, slide away, with unexplained pressing business elsewhere. His diffidence and uncertainty, newly notable in ordinary contact, came into full bloom in bed. The normal ferocity and aggressiveness, that Buffy more liked than not, clear gone. And what she felt, for no reason she could name, as a terrible unchanging sadness underneath.

Sure, they were probably all gonna die when the Hellmouth started spewing Turok-han. But that was no reason to get all depressed in the meantime.

She overheard, one evening, Spike in the front hall trying to sweet-talk Xander into giving him a ride down to L.A. to collect the motorcycle he’d left there, outbound for Africa, and butted in to offer the SUV and her company instead.

A head tilt and a glance. “Wouldn’t want to put you out, Slayer.”

“Slayer’s not going. Slayer never has any fun: it’s in the manual, just ask Giles. This is a Buffy offer. Come on: catch a movie or something while we’re there,” Buffy proposed, grabbing the non-tatted arm and leaning close, grinning in his face.

When it appeared that needed thinking about, she wheedled, “You can drive.”

Slow, small smile. “All right. Might actually make it, in that case. When?”

“Well, how about like now?”

“But…there’s patrol, innit?”

“Xander can take it. Can’t you, Xander? Surrounded by all that luscious girlflesh you can’t have? How are you feeling about torture tonight, Xander?”

Xander rubbed his hands together. “Pretty sanguine, actually. Gives me a chance to try out those inline skates.”

Buffy gave him the required skeptical look. “You have inline skates?”

“No, I have an excellent reason to get some. And some rope. And reins. A whip. Maybe train for the Iditerod.”

“Sure, you do that, except no whining about the bruises when the SITs find out you regard them as bitches. Of the canine variety.”

“Deal,” agreed Xander cheerfully. “I’ll have Andrew take pictures, make the cover of the National Enquirer right next to the Satan image on the moon and the world’s most obese kitty-cat.”

“Meow,” said Buffy, then told Spike, “See? All set. You ready?”

More thought required. “Maybe stop at Willy’s a few minutes?”

“Sure, no problemo. But this isn’t a Willy’s night, is it?”

“No. Just something to catch up. If that’s all right.”

Buffy faked a frown. “I don’t know, I’ll have to give that some serious consideration. OK. Serious consideration over.”

One of those searching looks, as if she’d caught him wrong-footed and dumped him in the training room, and he wasn’t quite sure if she was mad or not, whether he ought to stay down, not risk either of them losing their temper and the fight going real. Which had happened, but surely not lately.

She asked, “You want to get some tapes or something?”

“No, radio’s fine. Keys by the phone?”

“As ever.”

Perhaps twenty minutes later, sitting in the SUV in Willy’s parking strip, Buffy began tapping her fingers on the dash. She’d figured Spike was just stopping by for drinking supplies, but that certainly didn’t take ten minutes. He’d left the motor running, though. After another round of tapping, Buffy switched the engine off, stuck the keys in her pocket, and went in search of him. A quick scan of the bar’s patrons didn’t turn him up, but she spotted one of his minions clearing a table: the nervous one that always seemed to suspect she was just itching to stake him, which was really excessive because Spike’s minions were perfectly harmless. He seemed to think Buffy’s asking about Spike’s whereabouts was a trick question and guessing would therefore be suicidal. Buffy turned away, annoyed, deciding to check out the side of the lot.

She saw two guys sitting on their heels in conversation, and although the light wasn’t that great past the building’s corner, Spike’s bone-white hair was unmistakable. As Buffy approached, both looked up: golden-eyed and game-faced. Startled, Buffy halted, and the vamp that wasn’t Spike rose with more an air of calm politeness than alarm: the way any guy might stand up when a lady entered a room. So it also seemed politeness that his features flowed and smoothed before he met her eyes.

Standing too, Spike apparently felt an introduction was called for: “Slayer, Mike. Michael, this is the Slayer.”

The vampire, Mike, gave her a composed nod. With his broad forehead and wide-set light eyes, he reminded Buffy vaguely of Riley Finn. Broader and slightly taller than Spike, he appeared to have been turned in his early thirties, a little older than Spike’s apparent age, which could mean anything.

If you didn’t count Dracula, who’d introduced himself, Buffy had never been introduced to a vampire before and felt at a complete loss how to respond.

Quite casually and still game-faced, Spike said to the other vampire, “So we’ll settle up about this tomorrow, all right? Got someplace to be at the moment.”

“All right. See you then. Slayer.” With another nod to her, Mike turned and started away. As Spike headed back toward the van, Buffy fell in alongside, checking over her shoulder twice to make sure the strange vamp wasn’t stalking them.

“Friend of yours?” she found herself asking, more nervously than she’d intended.

“Just somebody I know. One of the cousins, is all. No need to worry about him, long as I’m with you. And I believe he might actually have the sense to stay clear of you otherwise, though you never know.”

“But…who is he?”

“Dunno all that much about him. Ex-merc, has some good weapons knowledge, contacts. Figure, myself, he’s one of those came down from the Wild Geese, along ago. Looks it, anyways. Chaps like that, they been turning up for a good few centuries now since Ireland couldn’t feed its own, the young boyos hiring out as muscle of one kind or another to wherever was hiring. Not all of ‘em vamps, of course.” Spike pulled open the van door and swung in behind the wheel. “You take the keys, pet?’

Caught in a third backward glance, Buffy climbed in on the passenger side and passed over the keys.

Starting the engine, then backing to turn, Spike remarked, “Put you in mind of that yob Finn, didn’t he.”

Startled again, Buffy responded, “You read minds now?”

“Just figured. All those boyos cut from pretty much the same cloth. Seen ‘em from Moscow to Lima. Michael, he’s not a bad sort, considering. Trying to live by rule, like what he used to know. Won’t work in the long run, it never does, but no use to tell him so. In the meantime, he’s a steady enough chap.”

Buffy’s fingers flew to her temples. “Stop, stop. No, not the van, just the talk. One vamp I have to think of like a person is all I can handle. All right, two,” she added, obliged to think of and add Angel. “Three’s too many. Three does not compute.”

“Have to know where the people leave off and the monsters begin,” Spike responded easily. “Only natural. I expect the monsters start anyplace south of Peaches, like you said. Not altogether sure where the line for me should fall, but that’s all right. I expect you’ll sort it out however seems best to you.”

“The one I thought of first wasn’t Angel,” Buffy told him, a little stung he’d think otherwise. “It was you.”

“All right,” Spike responded, still agreeable, watching the road.

Buffy had the feeling she’d somehow committed an argument and then lost it, all without intending any such thing.

Reaching the highway, Spike switched on the high beams, which brightened the dash lights as well. He was still in game face. Until then, Buffy hadn’t been sure.

Buffy said, “How come?” and gestured when he glanced around at her.

“See better this way, love.”

“Then why not all the other times?”

A shrug, a lift of the hand not holding the wheel. “Didn’t think of it, probably. If you’re expecting me to be consistent, you face sad disappointment.” Eyes still steady on the road ahead, Spike added, “Or maybe I figured then that it mattered, show you only what you’d be comfortable seeing.”

That was blunter than she’d heard from him in some time, and blunter and more direct than she’d expected. “And now it doesn’t matter?”

“Well, you seen my demon now enough times, I expect it’s no surprise.”

All the same, he either shed the mask or resumed the other, whichever way he thought of it: as if the fact of her mentioning it constituted a request.

Buffy didn’t think he was trying to be provoking or was deliberately misunderstanding her, which made it the more frustrating. They were simply consistently misreading each other’s signals. Or at least he was, hers.

They came to the coast road and turned south. Doing maybe sixty. Poking along.

Buffy finally had to say it: “Your virtue is astonishing. Under the speed limit, no liquor in the vehicle, no radio blasting away, not even smoking. What--”

“Don’t have a driver’s license,” Spike offered, “if that makes you feel any better. Go ahead an’ get something on the radio, if you want.”

“Spike--!” Buffy tried to think of a way to put it that (a) he couldn’t dodge and (b) wouldn’t constitute or provoke an outright confrontation. She finally said, “All right, let me predict: no matter which of the three thousand ways you’ve been weird lately I mention, you’re gonna tell me you’re off, expect me to agree, end of conversation. How about we skip that part, OK? Take that as given. OK, you’re off. Why are you off? I really want an answer to that, Spike.” When she’d waited several minutes without getting any response, she blew it by breaking the silence first, trying to make a joke of it: “Is it blood poisoning from the tat? What?”

“As good a reason as any.”

Damn. She’d given him an out, and he’d taken it.

Then, maybe because he was Spike, he surprised her. “I expect I’m like that Michael, in a way: tryin’ to suss it out by the rules. Rules I don’t feel anymore. Trying not to be a nuisance about it or put a foot too wrong, but maybe that’s not possible. Anyway, this is the best I got, so either it’s enough or it’s not. If you say it’s not, I dunno where I’m to go with it.”

She slid over against him and put her arm through his non-tat one, lacing fingers into his fingers. Just as she’d suspected, all his muscles, everything in him, all locked, tight, and rigid. He wouldn’t clasp her hand, probably because there’d be fingers broken, hers or his or maybe both, if he did. But with probably the one grain of sense she’d had all night, Buffy didn’t remark on the obvious, didn’t say anything at all. Just leaned her head onto his shoulder and waited for whatever was next: for him to settle or not, or explain or not, leave the ball this time entirely in his court and see what happened.

After maybe ten minutes he slowed and pulled off onto the margin. Turned off the headlights, set the drive in Park, and turned off the key. Rather than pull away, he said, “Gonna get out now.”

“All right.” Buffy let him go, then opened her own door and down. She expected to find him pacing, but he’d only leaned back against the van near the front wheel well on her side. She mirrored his pose even to the folded arms, both of them looking outward.

A car passed behind them and then gradually silence again. There was enough of a moon to distinguish sky from the land descending between this roadside and the unseen sea. Buffy thought she could hear it, far off; but maybe it was only wind.

Spike said quietly, “I dunno if I can make you understand. Expect I shouldn’t try, won’t make things any better and will likely make them worse. But if you can’t be content if I don’t give account of myself, I’ll do as best I can to try.”

“I’ll try really hard to listen,” Buffy said. “I truly, really want to understand.”

“Let me think…. Well, to start with, it’s good you’re happier now. It just blazes off you. Anybody could see. An’ that’s yours and you deserve to have it. But what you don’t know is where that came from. The price of it. An’ I do, and I haven’t been able to get myself reconciled to it. Which is my problem, not yours, and I’ve tried as best I could to keep it away from you and manage on my own. But that’s throwing me off, and me being off, seems like that’s started to throw you off too. And I dunno what’s to be done, if this isn’t enough.”

“I think,” said Buffy carefully, “Giles would now detect the absence of a noun. You’ve told me, except you haven’t told me. Could you go a step or two back, to where this actually makes sense?”

“Dunno if it will, to you. Anyway. You recall that sister you had, except not really. Dawn.”

“No,” Buffy said honestly.

Spike laughed. Not a particularly good laugh. “Not surprising. Here.” He slipped a thin chain from around his neck and waited for her to bend her head so he could put it on her. A little dried-up twist of grass or something was pinned to it. “I don’t need it anymore, and when we’re done I’ll take it back if you want, since it’s only apt to make you sad to no purpose. All right, even though you don’t remember, bear with me here. For awhile, you had a sister. Five years younger than you, about. And her name was Dawn. An’ I loved you both very much, only different. But not one more, one less. She was taken, and sorted back into what she’d been before. Magic is as good a way to say as any, though it wasn’t that, not really…. And all of what was hers came back to you, because that was where it’d come from to begin with. And that’s as it should be. She told me so, and I got no argument. But the price of what you got back, that you’re so happy with now, is Dawn. An’ I’m not reconciled to it. There’s things I see in you now that are Dawn’s things, an’ it’s as if I think you stole ‘em. Know you didn’t, know that perfectly well. Doesn’t change anything. It’s as if it’s your fault she’s gone because you have the benefit of it, and I hold that against you. Angry with you sometimes on that account. ‘Tisn’t fair, but that’s the truth of it all the same. You give me time, and space, to be feeling toward you what I ought, maybe I will again. This isn’t something I’m doin’ on purpose or even believe is right. But it’s what is, and I’m doin’ with it the best I can. And likely this doesn’t make any sense to you whatever, because you got no memory of Dawn, like I have.”

Buffy scuffed a foot back and forth on the gravel. “When my parents split up,” she said slowly, softly, feeling her way, “for a long time I was mad at my mom. Because obviously it had to be somebody’s fault my dad wasn’t with us anymore, and if it wasn’t her it had to be me, and I couldn’t have stood that. Really, really couldn’t. Especially since this whole Slayer business had just dropped onto me like the proverbial ton of bricks, and I was really scared I was such a freak that nobody would ever love me if they knew. So it absolutely positively couldn’t be me, see? Had to be mom. And I was so wretched to her for a long time, before and after she moved us to Sunnydale, I’m ashamed now even to think about it. Because of course I loved her. A lot. You know. But it took me a really long while to get past that. To set it aside. When I could, I did. But I had to wait until I could. Does that sound to you anything at all like what you’re trying to tell me?”

His answer was to turn and take her in his arms, hard, head bent against hers. “Pretty much,” he responded hoarsely.

Buffy said, “Then Dawn probably was a smarter person than me, because I understand that, and I don’t think I would have, before. If that’s something that came to me from her, I’m grateful and I’ll try to make the best use of it I can. I have too many problems admitting vampires are even people to speculate about their being traumatized or neurotic or anything like that. Don’t have to deal with that kind of stuff if all you’re gonna do is stake ‘em.” She mimed that: imaginary pointy stick, a thump against his chest. “Sort of like the Watchers’ Council and the Slayers. Very limited viewpoint. It’s easier that way--for them. Easier, slaying, if you don’t know they have names, much less know what those names are. If they’re not people. Sort of like butchering your pet pig…. Holden Webster…. And yet it has to be done.”

“So it does.”

Buffy tried to think how all that applied. Mike, that she’d just met, connected up to it. And of course Spike. And even the minion in the bar, who maybe wasn’t your basic upstanding example of vamphood, but had his ways and likely his own way of thinking. Clem. And of course Angel. “Maybe,” she said to Spike, “I have to give up the monsters altogether. There’s a war on, and they’re mostly the enemy. But it doesn’t help see things clearly, as they really are, to demonize them. Even when they’re demons.” That made her chuckle, and Spike pulled in a deep, sighing breath, so she’d gotten through to him at least that much. Let him ease off some of the tension and what she now knew to be rigid self-control like watching your feet, going downstairs, which almost guaranteed a stumble.

Couldn’t do it by the rules: Spike was right. You just had to know, without thought, naturally, or you’d always end up getting it wrong.

“Things get complicated, that way,” Spike commented. “Dru is a monster. I been a monster in my time. Still am, mostly. And Angelus, you know. Others, that you don’t. There are true monsters out there, love, by whatever measure you choose. No cure for ‘em except to kill ‘em. No compromise, no dickering. Just put ‘em down, do ‘em as quick as you can.”

“I know. The old rules aren’t holding up. Have to make some new ones. And if that’s complicated, then it’s complicated. I’m giving you a new job, all right?”

“What’s that, pet.”

“Director of Demon Relations. Punch me whenever I go all human-bigot….” Another thought struck. “Was Dawn jealous of me? About you?”

“No, love. Not that I ever knew. Mostly she pissed you off stealing your clothes.”

“And don’t take this wrong but--”

“No. Red as good as asked the same thing, an’ I was good: didn’t hit her even a little. No, love. Neither of us wanted that. Not her and not me.”

“Ahuh. Have to work on that, then. Takes the mood right away if you’re looking at me and thinking fifteen-year-old jailbait kid sis.”

“Sixteen. An’ a half. And yes, that does come into it sometimes.”

“Ever fight with her? Spar with her, that sort of thing? Like you do with the SITs?” When he just shook his head, Buffy thought she saw the beginning of a way around that particular impasse.

It helped, she found, if she thought about this Dawn as Spike’s sister rather than her own, which was just too weird. But if she imagined the girl as his kid sister that he had lots of habits and ways left over from, and lots of unresolved feelings about, and was grieving for, and that Buffy reminded him of powerfully sometimes and in some ways, she could get her mind around that, accept that.

She’d never thought about vampires having families. To the degree she thought about it at all, she’d thought of each one alone, isolated. Like the Slayer.

It wasn’t true, anymore, for her. And maybe it had never been true for them.

She thought, For practical purposes, in just about every way that matters, Spike is Angel’s son.

That had never occurred to her before because they were about the same apparent age, you couldn’t see the near-century discrepancy the way you could with people. Other people. There certainly were ways it wasn’t true. But in a lot of ways, it was. And she’d have to think about that, to understand what it meant. To Spike. And to Angel. And to her.

She trailed fingers down his left arm, along the spiral of the tat. “Now, see, I know that: that’s hers, isn’t it.” A nod. “Then that’s hers. I won’t mess with it or give you grief over it. All I want is what’s mine. And that’s you, right?”

Another nod. Another big breath.

“Then d’you think maybe we can get this show on the road again?”

Finally, he turned loose of her. Then changed his mind and hugged her close again. Then went around the front, and they both got in.

Somehow Buffy wasn’t surprised when he pulled in at the next convenience store and came back with cigarettes for himself and a soda for her. You didn’t have to understand all the connections to know they were there and see them happening.

She had to make a friend of this Dawn: an ally. Both of them on the same side, both looking out for him. Things would be better then. She was pretty sure of it.

“So, tell me about her,” Buffy said, sitting close and nudging until Spike put the non-tat arm around her, though that meant his switching hands with the cigarette. “Tell me about Dawn.”

Chapter Six: The Boogey Man Credo

Since it was raining, Spike declared it a game night. So they all piled into the SUV, about thirty of them packed like sardines, and spilled out at the Auburn Park soccer field, which had big floodlights at the corners and was the preferred field of combat for Capture the Flag a la Spike.

No use of the hands allowed, except to hold the “flag” itself: a tattered terry washcloth that, wet and muddy, could be balled and thrown and could knock a girl down if she didn’t watch sharp and let it hit her smack in the face.

There were two teams, and the object was to touch the flag to the opposing team’s goal, by any means at all. Pure chaos. Everybody muddy and sliding within minutes. The nearest approximation to mayhem that could be contrived, with no weapons and nobody dying, full-out and frantic. And Spike loved it.

Standing by the SUV under a large red golf umbrella, wearing a bright yellow rainproof poncho, Buffy watched Spike and the SITs getting filthy and having wild fun.

He was beautiful in motion and in his happiness. Wonderful to watch. He’d take a jump, straight up, and it was like watching a skater’s spin: revolving in midair at least 90 degrees, almost infinite hang time, calmly scanning, finding the best receiver faced in his direction and ready, then pitching the wad of cloth hard, overhand or sidearm, before disappearing into the scrum already wheeling and sliding and passing around him, following the flag’s new trajectory and he right at their heels and then overtaking, to trip and deflect and block, opening the way for a run or a further pass. If there was a chance at an interception, he’d somehow find a little more acceleration, another step held in reserve to push off, and bring the rag down one-handed even when it meant coming down hard in the mud with everybody piling on and trying to grab it away.

Running through anybody not quick enough to get out of his way, dumping SITs who would then come up grinning and go right after him again and dump him in turn, if they could. Everybody nearly falling down laughing when somebody took a particularly spectacular spill. Your basic evil monster laughing his head off with a bunch of Potential Slayer girls whose consensus was that he was about the neatest thing since Leo, or whoever teenaged girls considered droolworthy at the moment. And quite a few of them, Buffy noted, very conspicuously not wearing a bra under their soaked upperwear: some because they didn’t need one but most although they did. Rah feminism! didn’t seem an appropriate explanation.

A good part of the time, Spike was in game face. It came and went like simply one of the expressions his face had--like a smile, or a frown. Nobody seemed to notice or care. Any more than they gave any visible notice to the varied and potentially embarrassing wet T-shirt displays of full frontal chestitude. All just intent on the score and the game. Yeah, sure.

When Buffy first set Spike in authority over the SITs, there’d been some vague idea, maybe expressed, maybe only assumed, that as the Slayer, it was beneath her dignity and image as leader to involve herself in the everyday routine of their training. She should stay aloof, distant, and awe-inspiring, what with the dying and the multiple world-saveage and that sort of thing.

Buffy slid the umbrella shut and absurdly tapped water off it before leaning it against the front wheel of the SUV. Then she whipped off her poncho or would have whipped it off if a gust of rainy wind hadn’t tangled it; she wrestled herself free of the poncho, let it fall, and stood revealed in her dangerous lilac sweats with only one knee out , fully bra’d and fortified, and ran onto the field waving her arms, shouting, “New rules! New rules! The short blonde gets to play!”

Everybody looked at her. Well, everybody should have stopped and looked at her but only Spike did and was unfortunate enough to be holding the flag at the moment which meant he got piled on and buried. Getting up, hitching his shoulders irritably, he watched the play proceeding downfield and yelled, :Oi! Here!”

Then everybody stopped and came trotting, trailing, back to find out why he’d called play. It was clear Buffy had left him in sole charge far too long. Anyway, he cheated and yelled simpler things that she did, so of course they noticed. She should have yelled Oi.

The rain had begun to run down her neck and she knew her hair was being plastered flat because everybody’s was except Spike’s, on account of its being quite short and the amount of gel in it.

He folded his arms, giving her that cheerful runt look he knew perfectly well was infuriating and only worked because he was eight inches taller. “So. Slayer. What’d you have in mind?”

Puffing at wet hair did not blow it off your mouth. Buffy picked up the offending strand and laid it aside with immense dignity. Then she had the misfortune to look up into his face, all angled and rain-wet and new because of the floodlights, a whole different arrangement of shadows and as bright almost as daylight: the kind of light she normally never got to see him in; and the corners of his mouth tucking down to confine the smile and not show quite so many teeth. Simply polite. Altogether gorgeous.

“Slayer. You had a thought to share with us, maybe.”

“Oh! Yeah. Two teams. Two captains. My SITs with me, yours with you. And we win.”

“Don’t want much, do you, love?” he said, looking around as the muddy, almost indistinguishable girls divided a different way, roughly half gathering to Buffy’s right, the rest behind him, and space left between.

“It’s only fair that we win because we’re prettier,” Buffy informed him. “And the other new rule is that the role of the captain is to keep the other captain out of play as much as possible.”

His head tilt consulted his team and then hers. “Well, I s’pose that could be worked out. Try it, anyway. Who’s got the rag?”

A tallish girl, maybe Rona, held it high over her head.

He directed, “All right, midfield. Jump-off. Just the captains. Set yourselves now, children. See what the vertically challenged can show us. Rona, you do the toss, all right?”

Spike and Buffy walked to where Rona had gone to stand and set themselves. Buffy had her strategy all ready. When the toss came and Spike sprang up to grab it, Buffy tackled him straight in the middle and brought him down emptyhanded. And the play rolled over them. Buffy got in a good punch to his ribs before she took off after the flag.

Perhaps two hours later, he got her back fair and square in bed.

**********

“My strategy worked,” Buffy informed him smugly, drawing wandering cubist landscapes on his stomach with an idle finger.

“You lost. Four to three.”

“It wasn’t Vi’s fault she didn’t still have the flag when she got there. A natural mistake. Should have been a tie.”

“Wasn’t, though. Give it up, Slayer. My children are prettier. All of ‘em. Combined. Maybe. Not just now, though.”

It got intense again at that point.

“Strategy,” Spike said later, as though that were one of the milder curse words. Lying on his back, he had his left arm up behind, holding one of the brass spindles. Beautiful arm, the smooth sculptural set of the muscles, how everything flowed down to the lifted shoulder. The green spiral of the encircling tattoo.

“Too obvious?” Buffy responded dimly, curled up mostly against his side and chest, his other arm cradling her there.

“Oh, I don’t think the children are in any serious doubt what we get up to. You recollect it’s your subtlety I love you for. That and your strategy. Or mine. Both pretty pathetic, look at it fair.”

“You don’t get extra points for complications…. What.”

“Something of a Dawn moment there, is all.”

“Oh.”

“Put points to everything, no sense whatever to it. Always came out ahead, of course. Which was natural, considering she was the only one kept score.” Big sigh. Some silence, letting that go.

Buffy didn’t give in to her impulse to reach out and stroke the tat: that would have been too pointed, maybe even painfully intrusive. The memories were his. Buffy’d only earned the right to be explained to and try to understand. The right to wear the chain and the charm that let her keep the glimpses he was willing to share: memories locked, somehow, into the serpentine tattoo, so he needed no commonplace charm to be exempted from the ambient forgetting that continually tried to erase every last trace of the not-quite-sister he missed and mourned. Buffy didn’t have the right to claim or intrude on what wasn’t hers and might never be.

As best she could, Buffy tried not to do dumb stuff to him or with him anymore.

After awhile Spike said, “There’s a thing I been thinking about. Dunno if it’s…. Maybe bring it up at the meeting tonight, if you think there’s anything to it. That’s for you to say….”

“Noun, please.”

“Yeah. Getting to that…. Well, the thing is, you recall that Michael. He’s put together a sort of a squad. Cousins. Vamps. Claims to be trainin’ ‘em, like we do the children. Or something like. An’ he wants to put together a joint patrol, so to say. Based at the school, work out from there. Take down Biters, the Turok-han. So nobody has to figure out what the target is, no ugly mistakes. Wants to show off what the cousins can do, pretty much. Said I’d speak to you about it. So now I have. You call it however you feel is best.”

Buffy felt him start to shift: to turn away, put his back to her. “Hey,” she said, and made him know she’d noticed, made him stay. When she felt he’d settled again, she butted her head into his jaw and he hugged her closer a moment and then started petting, resuming the easy dialogue of touch and pace and gesture they seldom got wrong or misunderstood. Almost always right in motion.

“Are you not offering an opinion,” she asked eventually, “because you don’t like the idea? Or because you do?”

“Don’t see too many ways it could be bad, by itself. You and I would be there. Numbers don’t have to be even. One of his lot sets a foot wrong and I’ll do them and Michael both. And he knows that. An’ still wants to try it. Don’t see too much harm in givin’ it a try. But Rupert, he’ll go straight up in the air. We both know that. Dunno about Red, how she’d jump. Don’t think Harris will be all enthused…. Expect Anya won’t care much the one way or the other. Truth to tell, dunno what the children would make of it. They been dusting whatever vamps they came across, and except for me, that’s all they know. Might break something there we couldn’t put right after. Rupert, he won’t come around to it no matter what’s said or decided. So there’s more to consider than just the patrol by itself. An’ it’s gonna come down on you, the rest. That could get to be bad and make things harder. So I figure I’ll just leave it to you and abide the result.”

“And what’s the opinion of the Director of Demon Relations?”

“Hell, yes. Any of the cousins gets dusted, well, it’s not none of the children, now is it? They had their run. If they’re dumb enough to go after Biters, let ‘em. Give ‘em fucking party hats and wave them fond goodbyes. Hell, yes.”

There was the diffidence, Buffy thought. The deference he never failed to show the Slayer. And then there was the knife-edged, unapologetic ruthlessness underneath. That was the demon of it. Of him. No matter what face he was wearing at the moment.

“All right, I’ll think about it. Another thing,” she said. “I don’t think you’ll like it, but just put it on a shelf and look at it once in awhile. See if it grows on you.”

“Don’t want none of that now.”

What he did want, he didn’t have much trouble making clear. And Buffy went along with that for awhile. Then she told him, “Go to game face. I want to see it.”

Poised above her on braced arms, all luminous ivory shining in the candlelight, he turned his head completely aside and didn’t answer her any way at all.

“Do it. Let me see it. Don’t you, can’t you trust me to see it and still know it’s you? Do it, Spike.”

His breathing changed: she’d upset him. Quite a lot. “You don’t want that. An’ I don’t want you to want that.”

“Jealous of it?” she challenged.

“Something like. There’s bints get off on doin’ vamps. Don’t think much of that, actually. Don’t like it.”

Buffy put her hands on his shoulders and started kneading, digging deep. Arguing with her fingers and the connections, flesh to flesh. “Because they think vamps are freaks. And monsters. And that’s scary and sick and off-putting, right? But here I am. And I’ve nearly made myself not just believe but feel that vamps are people. Not human people, but people. And that’s part of you, and I want you to show it to me. Show you to me. Maybe it will be better than you think. Dare you.”

“No, love. Not gonna do that. You want that, you go elsewhere.”

She smacked him, because that remark deserved it. “Dare you. You know you’re gonna give in, when haven’t you given in when I knew it was important? So don’t start doing dumb stuff.”

“No,” he said, and pulled away. Even got out of bed and walked away. Collected his cigarettes off the table and lit one from a candle, giving her his back, his slanted shoulders. Balanced like a dancer.

Buffy pushed up on an elbow, wondering in spite of herself if insisting about this was right and necessary as she’d thought. “You show the children.”

“That’s different. Doesn’t signify. They need to see both the faces. Get accustomed.”

“I need to get--“

“No. Leave off about it. You dunno what’s…operating here. It’s a whole thing, can’t just split off the part you’d like to play with an’ all the rest ain’t there too. Doesn’t work that way. ‘Tisn’t me doin’ the dumb stuff here. Take my word or not, ‘s’all the same. Some things, you nag all you want, ‘s’not gonna happen. Won’t be that to you. So you’d best let it be, find some other game to play.” Then he wheeled around and he had gone vamp-faced: angry, golden-eyed, deeply frowning. Startling and beautiful as the long, supple lines, contained muscular strength, and alien stare of a leopard. “You say to me once that you love me, I might consider it. Not otherwise. No.”

And Buffy leaned back on the pillows and conceded this round. Not that he’d won, but that they’d both lost. Another stalemate.

Spike would mostly compromise but his demon, never. And that’s what she needed to come to terms with. What she needed both of them to be reconciled to. But she accepted that until something changed, that wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t risk it, or trust her, partly because he didn’t trust himself. And partly because, with all the changes and despite the fact that there was no one more important in her life, despite all the range of feelings she had for him and how much she needed him in all ways, he knew it wasn’t love and wouldn’t finally be content with anything less or anything else.

She couldn’t sing that tune. Her voice somehow didn’t go up that high. Pretty good on the alto stretches, she thought, but didn’t have that true, clear soprano you couldn’t mistake, once you’d heard it.

He’d turned away again, not waiting for any response or answer, knowing none was coming. He didn’t bring it up often--in fact, hardly ever. But she thought her silence in this one respect was something he was always aware of under and through all lesser silences, and mostly accepted, silent in turn unless forced to put words to it.

“All right, Spike,” she said so quietly nobody but a vampire could have heard her. “All right. Come back to bed now.”

“Not just now, pet. Presently.”

**********

At that evening’s Scooby+Giles and also Anya meeting, after they’d finished the agenda items and most of the snacks, Buffy knocked loudly on the side of the bucket she was sitting on because yelling Oi didn’t seem appropriate. When everybody looked at her, she said, “There’s something else I want to take up. Reconvene in the yard. Don’t want to check the hallway every five minutes for ‘little pitchers.’”

Hand in the chips bowl, Xander looked around the front room. “Sal Maglie’s here? And we’re keeping secrets from him because…?”

“The variety with ears, Xander,” said Giles, in his pedantic Giles-y way, balancing his drink while he got up from the couch. From his own flask, since proper Watchers didn’t do half-strength tepid red Kool-Aid.

“All right,” Xander responded argumentatively, carrying the chips bowl possessively against his chest, “what kind of pitchers don’t have ears?”

“Van Gough pitchers at the Louvre?” Willow proposed, trotting along behind with the dip bowl and the paper plate of radishes.

Xander said, “Score one for Willow punnage.”

At the same time Anya, who’d latched onto Xander’s left arm, said, “I met a client at the Louvre once, right by the statue of Fame. Naked, naturally--the statue, not the client. Perched on one foot and looked like a naked woman with some grey disease, maybe leprosy though that’s more silver, trying to write on a high chalkboard. But the chalk-looking things are actually trumpets. Not everybody knows that, but there’s a plaque. Well, this client….”

Anya’s brisk prattle diminished as the procession followed Giles into the kitchen and then presumably out, by the squeak-smack of the door.

Buffy and Spike traded a look. She noticed he already had his cigarettes in his hand. He was politely waiting for her to go so he could follow. Rearguard to the dangerous business of getting from the front room to the back yard. If she sat back down now he would too, except he wouldn’t smoke.

At times like this, Buffy realized all anew how profoundly weird her friends and associates were.

When Buffy went out the back door, Spike turned and pointedly shut both doors, inner door and storm door, in Andrew’s hopeful face. Then Spike went down the steps and folded crosslegged on the grass off by the lilac bush. Willow had collected a plastic tray-table for the assorted snacks and everybody but Anya, still recounting her tale of her Louvre Vengeance client, were opening and positioning lawn chairs. When she found everybody seated but her, Anya set her beady-eyed stare on Xander, who dutifully surrendered his chair to her and went off to get another for himself.

Buffy sat down on the top step of the porch--nearly always the unofficial podium. Except when Spike held court: he always preferred to be at ground level and a little to the side and the back. Lurking and watching even at gatherings he himself had called.

Buffy rubbed her hands on the knees of her jeans. Not that her hands were sweaty or anything. She just felt like doing it.

“OK,” she said, “here’s the what. Next item of business is the Boogey Man Credo. According to the late and highly unlamented--by me--Council of Watchers, vampirism is a loathsome affliction, a form of demonic possession in which the soul is ejected. These soulless monsters are all evil from the get-go and enemies of humanity. They should be put out of our misery as quick as possible and by any means necessary. Any dispute or discussion on this?” She was looking straight at Giles.

“No,” Giles said. “Ignoring the sarcasm, that’s fundamentally correct.”

“That’s fundamentally bullshit, Giles. And I hope you know it, because I certainly do. And I have for quite a while but not nearly long enough. For centuries, Slayers were children, and that definition is intended to frighten children. And no Slayer ever had the chance to grow up or question it. I have, and I do. Maybe the Watchers knew better. I hope they did. Because I’d rather have them hypocritical than utterly, irredeemably stupid.”

“There is,” Willow commented, frowning thoughtfully, “a pronounced resemblance to ‘The only good (hostile minority of choice) is a dead (hostile minority of choice).’ I know if I heard that now for the first time, it would probably set off my bullshit detector. Very non-PC.”

Buffy said, “We now have in our custody most if not all of the Potential Slayers in the world. Young and gullible and scared, just like I was when I first became the Slayer and swallowed it all whole and spit it back on request. I am not gonna repeat that crap to them. And I’m gonna insist that nobody else does, either. But there needs to be something in its place and I don’t have anything like that. So I want us all to put our heads together and come up with a new definition that sets out the true relation between humanity in general, and the Slayer in particular, to the cousins.” Deliberately, she choose Spike’s word, and Willow and Xander traded blank glances.

“Vampires,” said Anya. “Slang.”

“More than slang,” Buffy said. “Because every single vampire there is started out as human. I accept that they’re not anymore. But they were, and most of ‘em remember. These aren’t bug-eyed Martians from Andromeda--”

Spike couldn’t resist drawling, “Didn’t know the Martians had colonized Andromeda, pet.”

Buffy rolled on, after a quelling, pointed glance, “They have pretty much the same wretched senses of humor as the rest of us. They tell stories and sing songs. Maybe the stories are a little on the gruesome side, but some kids seem to like that.” Buffy was thinking of Dawn, what Spike had told her, but didn’t want to get off track explaining that and therefore didn’t say so. She was pretty certain he’d caught it, though. “They have homes, and friends. They can love and do, some more faithfully than others. There are smart ones and stupid ones, brave vamps and cowards. Some of them love music, especially if it’s loud. Some may get off on string quintets, for all I know. Despite the lack of a human soul, which I think we all will agree on except for certain special cases, they can and do give their word and then keep it, come hell or high water. Can’t do that without some kind of sense of honor. They’re much more like us than they are different, so I have no problem calling them cousins because that’s pretty much what they are. A different branch of the family; but if they’re monsters, they’re our monsters. And whatever we say about them should be true to that. True to what we actually know about vampires. We don’t have to settle this all tonight, but I thought we could make a start and then everybody get together a draft and we’ll talk about it again next time. Who wants to start?”

“I will,” said Spike, and everybody looked at him as if vaguely uneasy about what he might say. “Red, you got a notebook?”

Willow lifted and displayed it, nodding.

“Don’t necessarily need to write this down,” Spike said, finally lighting the cigarette he’d been holding. “But might be somebody will say something worth it. Doubt it, but it’s possible. An’ that occasion should be memorialized….Overall, vamps are a lot more independent than humans. Don’t need much and don’t depend on one another for it like you have to. Get a good lair to rest, then hunt maybe every couple, three days. Find some poor idiot and eat ‘em, drain ‘em. Do something else, the rest of the time. Play poker, maybe. Follow sports, maybe. Gossip. Vamps are terrible gossips. But that’s not important enough to write down…. Let’s see, what else. We live on blood, that’s common knowledge. Can eat other things for the fun of it and can make do for awhile with animals, but that don’t satisfy and it tastes really putrid from a carcass or preserved. It’s not the blood itself that signifies--it’s the life in the blood. We feed on life, and blood is only how the life is carried. Most people don’t seem to understand that, including those who should. And the closer that life is to us, the more we get out of it. So there’s not much life to be had, for a vamp, in a cat. Or a rat. Or a pig. Soon or late, it has to be human blood, and the person alive while the vamp feeds. So vamps are always gonna prey on people, on humans.

“However, to feed, there’s no requirement to kill. Can get by quite nice, for quite a long time, doin’ just little sips now and again. We don’t specially like killing, except some of us, just mean that way. Not all of us. Not all the time. When that happens, that’s about the power, not about the blood. In Europe, Middle Ages and maybe before for all I know, there were vampire knights, basically appointed assassins, lived at the courts and got on there quite well--never killed anybody local, just whoever they got aimed at. Met one once in Bavaria or Lichtenstein, I forget, and he told me, and I got no reason to doubt it. A good arrangement, and it worked in that instance for a couple centuries, each new ruler inherited him and his services, all regular an’ everybody satisfied. Name of Geoffrey, with a ‘G,’ I think it was. Think maybe that got written down some places. Likely you could find it, Rupert, if you cared to.

“So vamps and humans are always gonna be at odds. But it’s not necessarily a kill or die situation for you lot. There are negotiations possible. There have been arrangements in the past, and now, even, that I know about. Knew one chap in New York lived with a lady all of fifty years. Drank from her only a little, and only when she said: just how they did, that pleased them. Then she died, of course, and he started killing everything in sight, mostly laired in Central Park, and finally got dusted by the Slayer was there at the time. But that’s a different story.

“Ain’t sayin’ anything except that it’s not so absolute as Watchers would have you believe. It depends. That’s about what I have to say. Haven’t said anything except what’s true. Somebody else can take a try now based on bugger-all and I’ll try not to laugh too hard.”

Xander hurriedly finished chewing chips, gesturing. “Write this down, Will: Vamps are scary and annoying and talk too much.”

Willow dutifully added that to her summary.

Xander said, “And how about the demon?”

Eyes on her notebook and writing as she spoke, Willow said, “Demon is the wrong word. Animus, animating spirit, would be closer. Essentially, it seems to be a kind of symbiont capable of being propagated into a new host from an existing one under conditions of near-complete exsanguination.” She used her pen top to scratch the side of her nose. “In the Middle Ages, when the first descriptions of vampires we have were written down, demonic possession was probably the only way people could think about it. But that’s the wrong paradigm. Neither a demon nor possession is really involved. Anyone can be possessed at any time whereas the conditions for transmitting an animus are very limited and specific. It’s an inhabiting, animating spirit, and it’s there to stay. You can’t exorcise a vampire and get the human back, for instance, but that can work with possession. An actual permanent and predictable physical change results. Possession isn’t like that. The religious vocabulary is outdated, inefficient, inaccurate, misleading, and mostly wrong. More Boogey Man Credo. Does that sound OK, Spike?”

Spike shrugged. “Demon’s always been good enough for me. Have to get the pup, that Andrew, if you want to get into the Star Trek Trill routine.”

“Oh!” said Xander. “The Trill! Except no: no spots. And Jadzia Dax is a whole lot prettier.”

“Give it a rest, Harris.”

Buffy looked over at Spike. “Spike, if you can, give me a yes, no, or maybe on this. Are vampires automatically allied with evil? Should I assume any vamp, if given a chance, is gonna do what the First wants him to?”

“Damn well not. We like bein’ our own dogs, don’t take well to orders from anybody, ever. I told that Michael, organizing vamps to do damn near anything is about like herding cats.”

“Make up your mind,” put in Xander. “Dogs or cats?”

“Oh, an’ I s’pose you never tried to jam two metaphors together, Mr. I-never-went-to-college-because-they-didn’t-offer-scholarships-for-bein’-a-git?”

Willow put up a tentative hand. Across Xander and Spike’s bickering, she asked, “Michael?”

“All right,” said Buffy briskly, “that’s enough of that discussion for now. I want some sort of statement, no more than three or four sentences, from each of you by the next meeting. If you can, run off copies and circulate them in advance.”

“That’s homework!” Xander protested.

“Tough. Do it anyway, Xander. Which brings us to the last point. Michael is a vamp. A cousin. Spike knows him but doesn’t vouch for him in any way, shape, or form. Just a guy. Right, Spike?”

“About that, yeah.”

“And he’s made us a proposition. He’s recruited, or chosen, or whatever he’s done, some vamps willing, nay eager, to wipe out some Turok-han, that they call ‘Biters,’ which is certainly appropriate. Biters, it seems, have been disrupting Sunnydale’s vampire population nearly as much as they have the daylight taxpayers we all know and love and try to protect. And Mike wants to fight. He’s proposed a mixed patrol of SITs and his own…people?… And I’ve decided to try it, with all appropriate safeguards anybody wants to propose. Xander.”

“First proposal: stay home.”

“Thanks, Xander, I knew I could count on you. Next?”

Willow said, “I’d want to read them. Nothing personal, just general intentions. They gonna go for that, Spike?”

“Maybe. Specially if you don’t go walkin’ around in their heads in your great heavy boots like you do. Don’t see why we’d even need to tell ‘em, except if that’s your requirement.”

“Yeah.” Willow smiled at her notebook a bit wryly. “Consent’s important. I try to cross all the I’s and dot all the T’s, all regular and proper.”

“Probably could be worked out. If they won’t do what Michael tells ‘em on a thing like that, he should probably go ahead and dust ‘em anyway, they’re not gonna be no use. So, yeah, that can be managed.”

Calmly and deliberately, Giles set his glass on the table, rose, and walked out to the street to his car. Got in and drove away.

Spike remarked, “Well, there’s that county heard from.”

Buffy sighed. “About what I expected. But he has a right to have his say, even if that means I have to pry it out of him. So not looking forward to that.”

“When,” Spike asked.

“I’ll need a few days. For Giles. And to think out the best way to tell the SITs. I figure that’s yours, Spike: you know them best. And it would be best coming from you. But I’ll sit in, whatever you want. We can figure that out later. Say Saturday. That’s a busy night, lots of people out. Good hunting, I imagine. We’ll do it Saturday.”

“Good enough,” said Spike, and rose. “I’ll tell Michael, then. Mark is the school, toward Willy’s. Just past sundown, to give Red time an’ time for anything else anybody figures is called for.”

“All right.”

Spike too headed for the street, swung a leg over his bike, and a second later was off, the raw noise of the unmuffled engine slowly fading.

“Well,” said Willow, looking for a final unbroken chip in Xander’s bowl. “That will certainly be interesting. I assume I’m invited?”

Buffy nodded. She thought they’d probably end up with more spectators than patrol, but maybe that would be for the best. Whatever happened, everybody would see it. And that would probably eliminate most, if not all, the possible ways things might develop from there. Then, they’d know.

Chapter Seven: The Productions of Time

Spike stopped the bike, set the kickstand, and pocketed the key. But then he spent a couple of cigarettes’ worth of time, glancing occasionally at the lighted front window of Giles’ mini-efficiency, in the row of identical units, with the feeling that it was the other way around and the window was watching him, seeing if he’d actually do it or not.

So of course eventually he had to. He pitched the last cigarette, went up the walk, and knocked on the door.

When the door opened, he said at once, looking at his boots, “I got no quarrel with you. If it wasn’t for the children, I’d have nothing to do with it neither, for all I was the one who brought it up. Don’t like any part of it whatever. But it’s what has to be done if the children are to stand a chance against the Turok-han. How I feel about it don’t signify. And whether Red contends we’re demons or animi or goddam afrits, I couldn’t care less. We are what we are and changing names don’t change that.”

Giles said coldly, “An accurate Latin plural done on the fly is marginally enough to keep me from slamming the door in your face. What do you want, Spike?”

“A little talk.”

“Very well. Come in.”

“Don’t want to come in. Don’t think I could abide walls just now. Maybe you could come out awhile. If you would. Saw a picnic table off the other end of the row. Maybe there. Don’t expect it would take a whole long while.”

Spike stuck his hands in his pockets and started off, paying no attention to whether there were any following noises or not. The picnic table was the kind with an attached bench on each of the long sides. He slid up onto the table and put his boots on the bench. He’d just lit a cigarette when Giles came. With precise motions, the Watcher set on the table a bottle of very good single malt and two of the stupid wrapped glasses.

“No,” said Spike. “That’s generous, but no. Have to keep close track of myself these days…. I expect you’re Church of England. I’m Church of Fucking Practicality and sod the rest. You want to figure I’m damned, it’s no skin off my nose and you’ll get no argument from yours truly about it. Sometimes, seems that’s the only answer that makes sense.” He drew on the cigarette, then gestured with it randomly. “There’s things somebody should know, about what’s goin’ on and what’s coming. Nothing I can talk to Buffy about. But somebody should know. So I’m gonna tell you, if you’ll give me your word not to say anything about it to a living soul unless you know you must. Won’t dispute your judgment on that. Sometimes your principles don’t get on too well with my practicalities, but we’ve managed before and come to terms. So: we got a deal, or not?”

Having unwrapped a glass, Giles poured himself a deliberate measure, the fussy overprecise way that he did. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Spike. How are you bearing up. Regarding Dawn. Obviously I’ve noticed your new fashion statement, personal adornment. I presume it was put there to be noticed.”

“Don’t give the least fucking damn if it’s noticed or not. It’s for what it means, not what it looks like. Don’t have to give account of myself to you.”

“Very well. Perhaps that came out more abrasive than I intended. If so, I apologize. So. How is it with you?”

In what had become a habitual gesture, Spike rubbed the back of his left hand with his right: touching the words. Freshening his awareness of them. “About at the end of my tether. Try to keep on keeping on but ‘s’not working. Some days better, some days worse. No matter. What I have to tell you has to do with what is, and what’s coming. Some of it, I’ve seen. Visions, like. I think they’re from…from the fact it was Dru that turned me. And if some way we all come through this, that’s a thing I’d like to talk to you about sometime. Considering I don’t doubt you’re sometime gonna try to put a new Watchers Council together, it’d be nice to have some true things said, like raisins in among all the tripe…. But that doesn’t signify now. I need your word to go any farther with this.”

“I swear I will keep your confidence until in my best judgment that would no longer be the right thing to do.”

“Good enough.” Spike got his lighter out of his pocket and started playing with it. Slipping it from hand to hand. Clicking the flint to a flame, then snapping the cover shut, and then again. Turn the cool silver weight around and about between his palms. Couldn’t abide his hands being empty or still any length of time. Balancing himself and the things he touched, testing and feeling the balance every moment with a sense of faraway speculation.

He began, “I think what’s coming is gonna depend quite a lot on the cousins. I’ve spoken to Michael, and we’re on for Saturday, that patrol. So that’s the beginning, if it goes all right. There are quite a few hundred vamps in Sunnydale, and damn near all of them could fight and would if it were put to them the right way, so they could see their own advantage in it. Then once they’re in, hold them in. But it can’t be me that does that. Since Dawn’s been gone, I haven’t been connecting all that well. Can’t know what to do except by the rules. And the rules can’t hold me….” A shrug, a small downpulled smile. “You had beef for your dinner, Rupert. And port for afters. Pie, I think, though could be a pudding, what they call pudding this side, sweet…. Some sodding bad coffee an’ then decent brandy from your flask to cut the taste, at the meeting. I know that, an’ it’s damn distracting….”

Another tight, private smile at the flash of alarm and uneasiness plain in the beat of the man’s blood, the scent from exposed skin, the quicker pull of breath. Nothing to be seen but all there, known with complete immediacy. Fiddling with his lighter, distantly amused as one layer among many, Spike said dryly, “No fear, Watcher. I need you to outlast this night and I still have the choice. But ‘tisn’t because I don’t know or notice. Or it couldn’t be otherwise.”

Giles said coolly, “I am quite aware that you’re a vampire, Spike. It seems it’s Buffy that forgets.”

Spike responded, “I recall a bit of schoolboy Latin and you trot out the good booze. Think you’re a little too easy to please, Rupert. We’re not all chums together here. My kind eat your kind, and you better not forget it because I never do. You’re safe enough now but I won’t answer for tomorrow.”

“Are you putting me on notice?”

“Maybe. Best if everybody knows where he stands.”

Watcher gave him a nasty look. “If you’ve quite finished trying to intimidate me, perhaps you’d make your point, assuming that you have one. You’ve given the impression you want my help, or at least my cooperation. If so, you’ve chosen a curious way of going about it.”

The night began brightening to Spike’s changing eyes and he stopped, drew that back into himself again. “So you don’t think diplomat would be a good career choice here.”

Watcher barely controlled a smile and had some of his drink. “Get on with it. Save the dangerous creature of the night routine for some other time.”

“Well, if you say…. If diplomat’s out, I could fall back on being a fucking disastrous general. Got an atrocious temper and once I blow up, I don’t look nowhere else, don’t check for something comin’ up from behind. No strategy. Straight ahead, that’s all, and through whatever’s between. Though that’s fine for a bar fight, seems it’s not the best qualification for command. No makings even of a bloody second-rate T.E. Lawrence here. So I expect I should give it a pass.” Soberly, frankly, Spike admitted, “I don’t keep enough distance from things. If I get all caught up in this, I’m gone. Running with the pack. Snacking on small children, the occasional family pet. Whatever offered…. Couldn’t keep myself from it. I’ve seen it, dreamed it…. It will have to be Angel. He’s the only one can catch hold of this and bloody well hammer them all into line. Me, I’ll fight, sure enough, but after torturing some poor bugger a day or two, I lose interest. Not never Angel. He bloody well perseveres, never tires, never looks aside, stares it all down like a basilisk, everything all turned to stone….You know: he’s done you once. No need to go on about it, then. You know.”

“I’m surprised you’d even consider such a thing.”

“So am I. But I don’t see any other good option. Fact I don’t like it don’t change anything at all.” Spike pitched a cold butt and lit a fresh cigarette, pausing a minute to watch the flame play. “This will have to be his, in the end. But I will never contact him or summon him or beg him to come. Probably just as well, because I’d likely make a hash of that too, just out of sheer contrariness. Can’t help that, around him. I can’t abide him, nor him, me. So it would have to be you.”

By degrees the night had brightened to him again, every sound from the road and the hillside beyond crisp and sharp, scents awakening like the long soft toss of a shawl, and him comfortable and composed within his body, all the long bones at rest, fit smooth together as they should. All good and easy down the back of his neck, down the arms, centered and patient in the spine. Face settled as it wished to go, almost serene.

The Watcher didn’t like it, it set him uneasy. Spike couldn’t bring himself to care.

Still playing with the lighter, watching how the flat sides glinted and flashed, he continued, “Don’t believe it would ever occur to Buffy on her own account, to ask Angel for such help. At least she’s never said. Don’t believe she’d do it, though--to set him over me. I don’t believe she’d do me like that. Even though she should, and it could all hang by that. She don’t care for me, Rupert, enough to set that aside when it’s necessary. Tries extra hard on that account, tryin’ to make up for what’s not there, between us; an’ that locks her in, doesn’t let her see what’s best. To set me aside or throw me away at need. To use me like she’d use herself. Slayer’s ruthless; Buffy is not. She’s got to be made to see it. Set the Slayer in charge, act according to the Slayer’s priorities. Mission must come first--before me and before herself. Or it will all be lost. I don’t believe she’d listen to me about such a thing. Don’t believe she could face me and still do it. So it would have to be you.”

With the dispassionate Watcher calm Spike mostly despised and still relied on, Giles said, “What do you mean to do, Spike?”

“I don’t precisely know. Only know what I can’t. What I’m not fit for. Something dumb or other, I expect. She doesn’t need this from me, with all the rest. No matter how things fall out, I’ll keep it away from her as best I can.

“But Angel. If he comes, he’s in the place to take from me every fucking thing I care about. And that scares me so bad, I can’t find the words to tell you. I’ll lose it on my own terms before I’ll let him take it from me. And all the same, if that’s the only way this can turn out right, then that’s what has to be. If afterward I tell you different, don’t pay it no mind whatever. Anybody gets scared enough, they’re apt to do all manner of dumb stuff. Can’t answer for myself in that respect. This is all I got, best I know to do: to tell you and leave it with you. And trust you to do what you think is right. Which I got a hell of a lot more faith in than any notion I ever had of what was right. Don’t you let them push you out, Watcher. You stick with this. Because what in the green world is she ever gonna do without you? That’s all, then. I’m done.”

He pitched the last cigarette and lifted easy off the table, didn’t need the duster to balance him, all smooth-moving and right.

“Spike. Take care.”

Spike wheeled around and leveled an arm long to point. “Rupert, you move from where you’re staying. Move tonight. An’ if ever I come to your door again, don’t you let me in.”

He felt lighter, freer, for having that seen to and settled. Maybe he wouldn’t go straight back, cruise around a bit, let the air and the night come in. Good he’d gone and got his bike back. Wherever he was going, he could go fast.

Might be pleasant, though, to talk to Dawn again, see how things were for her, where she was and as she was. It’d been on his mind for some time, to do that: measurelessly lonely for her, lost and disconnected in his days; now, no reason anymore to deny himself. Since it had been done once, it could be done again, and no great matter to make the Powers manifest her to him as they had before, if he could just annoy them sufficiently. And that was something he was generally pretty good at.

That might well be fast, too.

**********

Spike stowed the bike in among some bushes by the house on Brown: not exactly hiding it, only putting it where it wouldn’t make a noise for itself the first time somebody looked. It wouldn’t set somebody to wondering where he was or looking for him on that account. He cut through the gap in the hedge to the back of Casa Summers and waited until the kitchen was empty to go quietly through and straight down to the basement. He set the bolt.

What’d become of Anya’s high-power focusing crystal, he had no idea. But there was more than enough power swirling around him here to make up for that. Any old thing should do.

He settled himself comfortable in the middle of the floor, a way he could stay for some while. His demon already free within him for the simplicity, he next set himself, reconciling to the unfitting things and putting the others away, so they’d not become distractions. He knew enough of magic to know that the first and most important thing was to focus himself. Otherwise everything would go lopsided and sideways. When he felt set, he took up the central crystal in his two hands.

There was a hitch, a momentary confusion as the flow from the cardinal crystals adjusted to the different angle and purpose. Then it all came through him and out, following his intent.

The reason he’d been aware of the flow beyond what the witch could detect was that it had been made for him in the first place. It was attuned to him, and he to it, and Dawn had made it from and with her blood. So all aligned proper, no need to try to force it from its natural path or control it. It connected where it was made to go and all he had to do was stay open to it, let it take its intent from him. And that was very clear. Not confused at all.

He wanted Dawn.

Very fast, almost immediate: immense Presence, pressure that wanted him flat, tried to push him flat, but the power of the blood sacrifice, with its absolute purity, held steady against it. The Power had to respect that.

Why do you trouble Us again?

“Because I can.”

Why should We take any notice of you, creature?

“Well, you’re doin’ that, aren’t you? So I’d guess you’re obliged to. Or you wouldn’t. You just give me what I want and I’ll be gone the sooner and you won’t have to take any notice of me anymore.”

You are insolent and annoying.

“I certainly hope so. Given that a lot of practice. Now do what I say, you’re wasting more time arguing about it than it’d take to do it and be done.”

And immaterial but felt, an electric presence, Dawn was there beside him blurting urgently, “Don’t be dumb now. I’ve been ready. I took enough from you to pull in all the pieces and hold them. Waiting for you. Now we have to make Them free me. Make Them give me what I need to be apart, the way I was before. They won’t want to. We have to make Them. Go for broke, Spike.”

It wasn’t at all what he’d expected, but it was exactly what he needed to hear.

“You owe me,” he told the Whatever, the Power, considering, gathering certainty, gathering up everything he’d come to know to make of it a weapon and a lever, like a long, straight, heavy stick. Pool cue, maybe: he could imagine that, holding that just so, to make the right angle, bring the right force. “I served your purpose and you used me, and damn near used me up. And you had no right. I’m not your creature. I came in and held things together for you when there was nothing to make me. I wasn’t part of your purpose except that I chose to be. You owe me for that. And you’re called to account for it. I claim Dawn from you, to be as she was, with nothing took from anybody alive to make her so. It’s all hers, by her own right, from having been that and lived that, past what you intended for her. So give it back to her, it’s nothing to you, she’s nothing to you now. She’s not beholden to you. You got no more call on her, no reason to make or unmake her except to square things with me. Give her what she needs and let her go.”

And if we do not?

“Then I’ll damn well keep annoying you until you do.”

We have the power to end you and make that-which-is as though you had never been.

Then the Power threw it all at him: whirlwinds and storms and disorientation within those; pain and creeping disease and loss and despair. But mostly attack by scale, by vastness. Vastness of time and distance, that made any single moment or point of place meaningless and even statistically impossible, as if nothing could be that was. Multiple metamorphoses of geologic slowness, layer upon layer, change begetting change, huge, indifferent, cold. And then added to that, dimensions upon dimensions folded together in enormous detail and complexity, all alien and unknown and unknowable, far beyond what any lone creature could take in or comprehend.

And at that same time, very fast in his mind, Dawn muttering, “Don’t let Them dazzle you with special effects. It’s crap, Spike. They’re just trying to distract you, make you beat yourself down. It isn’t how it seems. The game is five-card stud. You’re holding and They have bupkis. A good pair against a red flush: four hearts and the down card’s a diamond. See it this way: it’s not a vague cloudy They, it’s a Lady named Gates and She likes to think well of herself. She’s treated us like shit, and She knows it. So She’s not happy with us and She doesn’t know the difference between nice and Good. Don’t let Her bluff you. Don’t let Her make you back off. She’s bluffing and She thinks we don’t have the guts to stay in the game. Raise, and keep raising. She’ll fold. Because ending us wouldn’t be goddam Nice. It’s chicken poker, Spike. She’ll fold, or we’ll be ended, one or the other. Go straight at Her. Tear Her throat out.”

And Spike found he could deflect the overwhelming Everything enough to say flatly, “Fuck you, bitch.”

The special effects let up: gone, just like that. It became very quiet for awhile.

Then the entity Dawn had whittled down, defined for him, as Lady Gates stated coldly, “You have no power to compel us.”

“No, you have the power to compel you. As long as your debt to me isn’t settled, you’re crooked and out of balance. You did that, not me. If you end me, you’ll never be right. I tell you how to square the debt. You gave me the handle and the lever I need: Dawn. And she claimed me. In your name. So as long as Dawn’s a part of you, you got to put up with me. With both of us. Mutilate yourself, or let her go. How much of you is she? Next to nothing. Why are you making this big deal about it?”

Lady Gates declared haughtily, “It’s a matter of principle. No one compels Us.”

“Then I’ll ask nice. Do us a nice favor here. Because you’re so big-hearted an’ all. Let the fucking child be where she belongs, where she wants--”

All at once, Spike wasn’t certain, wavered. Didn’t want in any way to do Dawn like Buffy had been. Didn’t want to yank her out of someplace and a way of being he knew he couldn’t even begin to imagine--

Dawn was solid enough beside him, just past where he could see without looking, to clip him sharply across the head. “Don’t be an idiot. I set this up, we set it up together. Get on with it. I put Her there for you. Do Her, Spike.”

Certain again, Spike shoved it all on the table that wasn’t a table: the playing field, the everything-there-was: call or fold. Chicken poker.

Several things happened simultaneously. The crystal in his hands shattered. He was hit, knocked rolling, by something of no great size but infinite momentum. And there wasn’t a single scrap of magic left in the dark basement.

And the child was all over him, grabbing everything she could get ahold of, hanging on like she was scared she’d be yanked away next second like had happened before. And him just as crazy, making sure she smelled right and tasted right and had the right number of fingers and features and limbs: that everything about her was exactly as it should be, exactly as with such difficulty he’d contrived not to forget. And it was, it was all right.

She was babbling, “I was so scared, so scared you wouldn’t guess, know the connection was both ways and take proper hold, I was so scared what I took wouldn’t be enough--”

Spike was content to just keep holding her close, with the weight all proper and her long legs, jeans and everything, exactly as she’d been when he’d lost hold of her, waving around on the floor while she found fresh ways to hang on and reattach herself. Her breathing was right, and the heart in a hurry to make the blood move, and she really smelled very fine, like she always had, and he’d actually forgotten that but it was true and part of her just the same, although he’d forgotten. So if he’d forgotten anything else, that probably was all right too. Hadn’t been all up to him, after all: she’d done it herself, too, so she’d have known not to leave anything out.

Neither one of them, he thought, could have done it alone. He found it a very deep and satisfying thing, that she should have needed him and not just him needing her to bring this off.

And Dawn was saying fiercely, “It serves Them right and it will serve Them well. Dimensionality has to be all the way down, has to be here and now, not just the everything and everywhere, and I can be that to Them, I fucking well am that whether They like it or not. And I missed you so goddam much!”

“Missed you real bad too, Bit. Coming all unstuck, no end to it. Kept you with me as best I could, but it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, an’ just exactly what did you take?”

Dawn sat back then, away from him, primly adjusting her clothes and her hair, little pats and tugs. “What I needed. And you don’t need to know the rest.”

“Yes, I do, Bit. An’ I’m not gonna face down Lady Gates and then turn around and let you get away with stuff. You tell me, now. What did you take?”

She gave him a long, measuring look that meant she was figuring precisely how much she could get away with. Looking innocent as all hell, as if that could gain her any mileage with him, as well as he knew her.

“Well, I’ll tell you this once, on condition that we never talk about it again and you forget it as quick as you can. Deal?”

“Good enough.”

She picked at her shirt, elaborately casual. “I took two things. One was a line of poetry. And the other was a piece of your soul. Knew you wouldn’t miss it, as little a piece as that. And it let me stay together and be and bring to me all the other pieces, so I’d be ready and all They’d have to do was let me go. All collected, all packed and waiting by the door, and it was a very tiny piece, and are you mad at me?”

“And what poetry did you take, pet?”

“It’s Blake. You have quite a lot of Blake, so I was pretty sure you wouldn’t mind since it was kind of an emergency, the only chance I was gonna get. Eternity is in love with the productions of Time. It seemed to fit, and I knew I could hang onto it and use it to keep being until you came. And are you pissed at me, Spike?”

“Just don’t do it again. Had enough misery getting that soul, I dunno how much yanking about it will stand without flying all to pieces. As to the poetry, that’s not strictly mine, so I guess there’s no harm in your taking it. You got enough now of what you need to keep you going, d’you think?”

Instead of answering, Dawn jumped up and started hauling him up too, though he was much too heavy for her, he had to consent and help. She started bouncing on her toes. “Come on, let’s tell Buffy, she’ll be so surprised!”

“Expect she will. That, at least. Go on, then.”

Dashing up the stairs, Dawn asked over her shoulder, “Did you get the bike? And will you take me out on it?”

“If you like, Bit. Whatever you please.”

SECTION THREE: ENGAGEMENTS

Chapter Eight: Striking Distance

Custodian of the weapons, Dawn perched attentively on the back bench of the Magic Box training room watching Spike with the SITs, who weren’t precisely sure who she was, except that she belonged to Spike in a way they didn’t, which was probably enough to know for now.

They’d probably expected Spike would explain when he arrived, but Spike never much believed in explanations and Dawn had doubted much account would be given for her. She didn’t mind.

She’d just set down the small sack of weapons he’d had her bring, the SITs milling around and none quite bold enough to demand who she was, what she was doing here, when Spike showed up--he’d had to take the roundabout way, through the tunnels and sewers, because of the bright morning light--and came straight to her. His hand closed around her shoulder at the neck and he turned her to face them. Dawn tried to put on a pleasant, noncommittal face, just as if she didn’t know all their names and hadn’t run with them on patrol.

“This is Buffy’s sis, Dawn,” he’d said. No prelude. No explanation, or hardly, continuing, “Been away awhile, an’ now she’s back. She helps me sometimes. You treat her right or you’ll hear from me about it. All right, doin’ back flips now, by twos. Push off, flip, to standing. If I can kick your leg out, you’re not doin’ it right.”

Watching, Dawn noticed he wasn’t the least shy with them anymore. That had progressed, while she’d been gone. He slapped or shoved them, or kicked a badly positioned leg out from under a SIT, dumping her, and then extended a hand to yank her up again, matter-of-fact and impersonal. And all of them businesslike too, soberly watching what he did and how he did it, watching the lesson rather than him. Not the way she remembered, all the giggling and moon eyes and whispered speculations.

If now and again Amanda or Kim or Rona flashed her a puzzled glance, as though some twinge of memory had sparked, Dawn didn’t let on she’d noticed. The matrix of fake facts and memories didn’t support her existence anymore. She’d have to earn everything she got and wasn’t at all displeased to have it so. Cleaner, she thought. No baggage. Start from here.

Buffy had known her right away--at least who she was. Welcomed her and been glad, even if mostly for Spike’s sake. Buffy had never really needed her anyway, that wasn’t how they’d been set up. The need had been all the other way, and that was over: ended with Dawn’s keyness. So they’d greeted each other with the kind of uncomplicated happiness friendly acquaintances might have, who didn’t really know one another all that well and therefore weren’t all tangled up with buried resentments and guilts and hopes, and could simply enjoy one another’s company.

They’d stayed up nearly all night, talking. Getting reacquainted. Comparing notes. Buffy wasn’t repressed and self-pitying and Dawn wasn’t clingy or shrill. Because of starting fresh, a new dynamic was emerging that Dawn thought she might actually like. Buffy had fixed French toast for breakfast and that had been pretty neat, actually.

Extra points for remembering about the French toast.

“Bit, why don’t you see if Anya might have a soda for you,” Spike suggested, swinging by after inspecting the nearest pair of SITs. Stopping just long enough to stroke her hair, trade a glance.

Not exactly clingy, but close to it. Wanting to check on her solidity, confirm her presence, every few minutes. Amazing, then, that he’d left her to sort out things with Buffy all on her own. Thought that was important, apparently. Because this was what he did when considering only himself: check on her, touch her, make contact. And Dawn didn’t really mind, although she didn’t have the same need for confirmation. Everything was solid and here, and she knew where she was and why. She was quite comfortable being Dawn again.

She saw that during their time apart, Spike had been alone in ways she hadn’t. So it would probably take him awhile not to be anxious about her. That was all right, she thought. He’d get over it and be easy with her again, given time. And they should have that, since she no longer had a passed expiration date hanging over her.

Dawn shook away that thought. Too abstract. Focus on the immediate. That was what she was here for.

Where did you come from, Baby Dear?/Out of the Everywhere into the Here.

Grinning wryly to herself, Dawn dragged herself out of the Everywhere into the Magic Box proper and found Anya halfway up a ladder, cleaning the shelves of crystals with a feather duster.

“Hi, Anya. Spike said--”

“Well! Color me astonished!” Anya exclaimed, swinging around on the ladder and nearly falling off as a heel slipped. Descending hurriedly, Anya came and gave Dawn a hug only slightly impeded by the feather duster that ended up pretty much in Dawn’s face. “Don’t tell me Spike’s managed to sweet-talk the Powers, now!”

“Wouldn’t exactly call it sweet talk, but something like that,” Dawn agreed, rubbing her nose, trying to push the duster away except that Anya felt it necessary to hug her again.

“Well, I’m amazed. Are you permanent now? Or just on loan?”

“Pretty permanent. All solid and everything. But it’s kind of ick to talk about it, so--”

“Most of the real things are,” Anya agreed, nodding vigorously. “Sex, birth, excretion. Eating. Sex.”

“And the neat thing is, I don’t have to go to school anymore because all the records got poofed. Lots of time to fake something up before next fall. So I’m not failing Civics anymore, isn’t that terrific? Anyway, Spike thought you might still have some soda around.”

“Well, I’ll look,” said Anya, and hustled off to check the small refrigerator under the front desk, next to the safe. Her head popped up over the desk. “So when’s the party?”

“What party?”

“Your homecoming party, of course! I have Diet Coke and that repulsive Dr. Pepper.”

“Repulsive, please, and I don’t think anybody’s planning a party, actually, since my being away and then coming back are both so weird, what with the complete forgetting I ever existed, except for Spike and now you, of course.”

Anya handed the can out over the desk. “When has weirdness ever stopped anybody around here before? We had a couplehood party for Willow and Tara, for heaven’s sake, and that one for Xander and me, the very-not-wedding one, and there was the back-from-the-dead one for Buffy, but nobody thought to tell her so she didn’t show up so that was kind of a bust--”

Dawn pulled the pop-tab and sipped the soda. “I think they’d freak, Anya. Honestly. Low profile, here.” She held her bladed hand level with her eyes, then raised it to head-height, to show how low the profile should be.

“Well, we’ll just disguise it then, that’s all.” Anya propped both elbows on the desk and bit her lip, in obvious thinking mode. Then she beamed in a way that made Dawn’s stomach sink in anticipation. Anya’s bright ideas had a way of turning disastrous. Anya declared, “The patrol. We can have a party for that. After all, it’s kind of a mixer. Getting acquainted, the demons and the rest of them. Cooperation. I’m sure a party would improve things. And if it’s your party too, nobody has to know but us. Now what would be appropriate by way of refreshments, not including the guests of course, that would be tacky--”

Dawn backed off and retreated to the training room. “Ah, Spike?”

Spike had taken a stance and a couple of SITs were taking turns trying to kick him out of it. “Yeah, what?”

Dawn went to him rather quickly, glancing over her shoulder every few steps. “I think you need to head this off. Anya wants to have a party. I don’t know what it’s for, but she mentioned a patrol and demons….”

Spike hung his head and sighed, relaxing from the stance, so the SITs quit kicking at him. “Right. All right, whoever can hold the longest handstand wins. I’ll get this sorted out quick as I can.”

Every single handstand had been abandoned and resumed at least once, and the SITs eyeing her, wondering if she’d tell on them, before Spike returned, rubbing at the back of his neck and in the last fading of game-face. Not pleased.

Dawn kept mum, figuring if he wanted a report on the handstands, he’d ask her, but she wasn’t about to volunteer. But Spike had apparently forgotten the assignment, giving the SITs a gathering wave, so that they all tipped out of their poses and came to sit around him on the mats nearest the back bench where Dawn had settled.

“All right, children, there’s something afoot and I been given the chore of explaining it to you. Some of you are gonna make nice with some vamps that are not me. Gonna patrol with ‘em. An’ they’re under strict orders not to eat you, but I dunno how well they’ll listen. Might be you’ll have to remind them. To dust, if need be. However, if things go well at all, you’ll get to take down a whole lot of Turok-han. Biters, we call ‘em. Us vampires.” And looking around at the SITs, he’d gone game-faced again: second time in just a few minutes. That surprised Dawn because he generally only did that to make a point, for emphasis, briefly. But none of the SITs batted an eye, so clearly they were more accustomed to it than Dawn was.

Spike continued, “It’s to be Saturday. So there’s three days to practice how you’re to do, and think about who’s goin’ and who’s not. Bit, lay out the new toys.”

Dawn emptied the sack onto the mat where he could reach: a dozen tasers, each about the size and shape of a small remote. Spike picked one up gingerly and showed it around.

“With the other pair, that makes fourteen,” Spike said. “So fourteen of you get to go. Volunteers only, because this could go wrong real easy. But it’s worth trying, I think. An’ so does the Slayer. I’m workin’ on getting you one apiece, but haven’t got there yet. So this is what there is. Pair of these could take down a Biter, I think. But I’ll test that out, to know for certain, before you children will need to play with ‘em. ‘Manda, why you doin’ that?”

Leaning to collect one of the tasers, Amanda looked around and offered a short smile as she sat back, taser in hand. “I’m going, that’s why. Any reason not to claim mine now?”

“Guess not. Just mind you don’t lose it, then. They’re not easy to come by. An’ don’t run out the charge, testing it out. In fact, don’t test it out except if I’m there to watch and say how to do. All right?”

“All right, Spike.”

Immediately the other SITs started snatching. In just a moment, only three tasers were left unclaimed, not counting the one Spike still held. And one of those was taken by Kennedy, Willow’s girlfriend: collected with a slow deliberation as though she were making up her mind before, during, and after claiming it. She sat holding it in both hands, frowning at it thoughtfully.

Spike watched her but didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he said, “Now the thing to remember is that to the vamps with you on this patrol, you’re food. Lunch. Walking, talking lunch. They’ll probably try to behave, but that may not come to much. Not used to thinking any different than they do. And you’ll have things to learn and unlearn too, those of you goin’, so don’t you be all full of yourselves neither. You got to learn what striking range is. ‘Manda, come help me show this.”

Then Spike proceeded with the creepiest demonstration Dawn had ever seen him do: walking slowly alongside Amanda from the other end of the room and without any kind of warning whirling and at her neck, not quite biting down. Then another few strolling paces and at her again. Faster than the SIT could react, although after the first time she began trying--to get an arm up, to lean away. Spike was faster.

Then Spike led Amanda back to the far wall again, starting a little farther from her this time. Beyond hand-holding distance. And still at her, his hands locked tight at her shoulder and head, fanged jaws poised over the tilted neck: motion almost too fast to see. Three of those not-quite-attacks before they went to reset and began the stroll again with the distance between extended another notch.

It wasn’t until he was starting from fully eight feet away that Amanda had any chance of blocking a lunge, and the first time, Spike smacked her arm away and still achieved biting position. When the next lunge was interrupted by the braced point of Amanda’s elbow, Spike stood away and told her, “Now remember, this ain’t a Bringer here. Poke him in the diaphragm, he ain’t gonna care. Breathing’s a hobby, not a necessity. Where you gonna try to hit him, pet?”

“Throat?”

“Could do. But miss to either side and he’s in close an’ got you. Face is better. Bridge of the nose: right between the eyes.” Spike touched his own vamped-out face, showing her. “Miss and you got maybe an eye, cheekbone, temple. Enough to set him back on his heels a second, anyway. At best you bust the nose. If he gets past your arm, inside your guard, use the taser and take him down. But if you’re minded to go ahead and dust him then, remember that means one less thing between you and a Turok-han. That’s a better use for him. Don’t waste him unless he makes you. But if you can’t back him off, don’t play about: just do him.”

When Amanda had thought a minute and then nodded, Spike took her back to the far wall and made her say if he was in striking distance or not as they did another slow pavanne down the middle of the room, Spike circling in or away as Amanda came straight on. Eerily like steps in a formal old-fashioned line dance, punctuated by Spike demanding, “Now?” and Amanda responding Yesor No. It took three processions before Spike was satisfied she’d gotten it right every time.

Then he called Kim to him and did exactly the same thing with her.

Uber-creepy.

Presently it occurred to him that he’d left everybody else standing around with nothing to do. So he dismissed those who hadn’t claimed a taser and tried to send Dawn home too, except that she smiled and said, “No, I’m good.”

“You sure? Can’t be all that much fun, watching.”

“Slo-mo deathdance? I’ve never seen it before. Very edifying.” When Spike took her at her word, Dawn put her chin back on her fists, quite content to be here, watch him move. Another time, maybe, she’d bring a magazine but now he was working with Kennedy, whose stiff abrupt motions made plain that she disliked and feared him. Because of that, she made the fewest errors and needed the fewest repeats. Dawn figured Kennedy hadn’t been that comfortable with him to begin with and so had less to unlearn. Spike behaved to her exactly as he had to the others and commended her performance when they’d finished their final walk. Kennedy returned an impassive nod and then left.

No need of a magazine when you had something that interesting to observe and interpret.

It was nearly noon before he finished with the last of the SITs and let her go. As he came back toward Dawn, he shed game face: the first time he’d done so in about three solid hours. Interesting, Dawn thought, kneeling to collect the unclaimed tasers and return them to the sack. Spike dropped full-length onto the pad, turning onto his back with one bent arm across his eyes.

Dawn inquired, “Vamp patrol plus SITs plus party equals potential for extreme unpleasant wackiness?”

“I expect.”

“Can I be vanished again until it’s over?”

A sigh. “I’d see if Harris would talk her out of it, except then he’d be all for it because it was me, asking. So that’s no good. Keep meaning to get that boy sorted. Keep puttin’ it off some way.”

“Is he fun to argue with?”

“Not specially. If I wasn’t on the outs with him, though, I’d have nobody left to insult. Got to be somebody I don’t have to be polite to. Getting real sick of that. Chip don’t work an’ still I can’t hit Harris, even. Not even when he has it coming. Doesn’t seem right.”

Dawn flopped to use his torso as a backrest. It was midday, and he was tired: she could tell. “You can sleep here if you want. I’ll keep anybody from sneaking up and staking you.”

“Now that’s an idea. But what you gonna do if they try?”

“Well, there’s the fact I have three charged tasers here. And if that’s not enough, I could bite them.”

“You do that. That would scare anybody off, certain sure.” He stirred enough to start combing his fingers through her hair. Dawn leaned back in lazy comfort. “You know, strangest thing, Bit: Anya an’ Red and Buffy, all three, wanted to know if we were shagging.”

Dawn sat up sharply to look at him, and he was just looking back, not a scrap of self-consciousness or discomfort, telling her that just like he’d have told her anything. Delighted, she hugged him hard.

“Now what’s that mean?”

“Means I’m glad to be back, and no, you don’t have to worry: we manage just fine as we are.”

“Oh. That’s all right then.” He resumed fuzzing at her hair when she wiggled down to let him do it.

She’d believed the soul had completely robbed him of his demonic innocence--the blind spots where anybody else would boggle or cringe and he’d barge right through, quite unaware of any problem. It made her all kinds of happy to know that wasn’t so, that there were still some isolated pockets left.

She liked his demon, to the extent he had let her get to know it. She liked its directness and ruthlessness, its complete clarity about what it wanted. Things were so much simpler that way. In Anya, it came out as tactlessness whereas in Spike, it was mostly violence. But whichever, that was the demon of it: tart and alien and forever surprising. Dawn had the pleasant suspicion that she was going to get the chance to know his better.

Following that thought, she asked presently, “Demon getting impatient with all this uber nice?”

“Somewhat. I’ll go kill a few things tonight with Michael. Test out the tasers. That should help.”

From the way he said it, Dawn knew Michael was a vampire. And she’d never heard him speak of another vampire so comfortably, so familiarly, without a plain edge of contempt. Except Dru. “When do I get to meet Michael?”

“Dunno, Bit. Dunno if I’d trust Michael around you. If there was a problem, I’d have to pull his head off and he’s sort of useful now. So I’d just as soon not.”

Dawn shrugged. “Whatever. Want to know what Buffy made of me showing up?”

“Not specially. Expect she’ll tell me. If you tell me too, stereo. And you’ll say one thing and she’ll say another and I’ll have to remember who said which or somebody will take offense.”

“People are tiresome that way,” Dawn agreed. “Never saw you in game face that long at a time.”

“As long as what?”

“Demonstrating striking distance.”

“Oh. Didn’t notice. Nobody said…. Easier that way.”

Nobody said anything for awhile. When his fingers stilled in her hair, she looked around carefully and sure enough, he was asleep. Not quite turned: somewhere between, barely noticeable in the thickened brow and about the mouth a little. Defaulting to this now and not the other whenever he let go, forgot. No sign yet however that the demon was in any way at war with the soul: something she’d worried about when first she’d heard he’d acquired one. As things had turned out, the soul had proven handy, an anchor for her when she’d needed one, a Presence on the aetherial plane; but Dawn remained mistrustful of it and watchful for signs of its turning dictatorial, wanting everything its way. Human people didn’t have to put up with bossy souls. She didn’t see why Spike should either. His demon had at least squatters’ rights that should be respected.

Smiling, she slid lower so she could rest her cheek over his unbeating heart. This was nice, she thought. She’d missed this.

**********

“So, Michael,” Spike said. “You ever get hit with a taser?”

Mike’s response was an expressive glower.

“Think they’re little children’s toys, do you?”

“You touch me with that thing, I’ll come back at you,” Mike warned.

“Why, I expect you will. Not right away, though. Apt to slow you down somewhat, but likely you know that. Been practicing with it, have you?” Spike responded, all agreeable, figuring he likely had: on his minions, squad, whatever he was calling them. But wasn’t the same as knowing in your own flesh, the way Spike did.

“Got hit with an armor-piercing round once. Made quite a mess. I was the best part of a week healing from that one.”

“As long as a week. My, my.” Spike smiled to himself. He hadn’t played power games with another vamp in considerable time and rather enjoyed it.

They were sitting on the edge of the dock at Willy’s, the two of them, looking off in the direction of the school grounds. Eventually a Biter would come by, from the one direction or the other, and then they’d take it down. Spike had one of the big double-handed axes leaned by his knee. Tasers could put the Biter down but not dispatch it. Lots of room to be creative in that last regard.

If one actually came within the boundaries Willy claimed as his, so much the better because the bounty would apply then. Might make the price of a second batch of tasers if it proved to be a busy evening.

Spike was of two minds about drinking and both said yes. Absolutely, emphatically. Yet to be determined were when, and how much. One thing to get himself falling down incapable. Another thing to maybe let the lad get hurt, which wasn’t on the menu, because he’d be needed no matter how matters went later. So, later, then. And no more than for entertainment.

Lighting a cigarette, Spike asked idly, “So where’d you end up after Angola?” Passing the time, getting the boyo’s history on the installment plan, observing vampire etiquette that ignored questions like where you’d been born to the other life rather than this, what family you’d left behind or slaughtered, what schooling had been reduced to a hunt for blood and a safe place to lie up during the day. He didn’t know where Michael laired. Could have found out if he’d wanted, but if anybody knew where your lair was, you were apt to wake to thieves or worse or never wake at all, so you never asked about that and you never told. Always meetings, marks, set places away from what never was home….

Mike broke off in mid-sentence and they were both watching, listening long and intent. Spike slid off the ledge and got the taser out of his pocket, flicking the safety. He caught up the big battle-axe, setting the haft under his right arm, blade backward. Then he started after Mike at a steady, unhurried pace. The lad had reached the chain link fence that circled the perimeter of the school grounds. Eager but not stupid: noting Spike’s following pace, Mike moderated his own. A little apart, so nothing would easily surprise them both, they were angling toward the next gate, where there’d been motion.

Crossing the weedy lot along the fence, Spike scanned for advantage. With a Biter, you always wanted the option of getting high, adding to your reach. At the street where the lot ended, at right angles to the fence, there were a row of concrete and board benches along the bus loading area. A stout telephone pole with an attached street light presided about midway. Spike pointed and said, “Mark.” The other vampire nodded and headed directly for the gate, to locate the target and possibly draw it toward the chosen site. Pausing to prop the axe against the telephone pole, Spike circled right, into the dead-ended street, using what parked cars remained overnight as cover.

Biters. A pair, standing just outside the gate. Waiting for their chums, maybe. Mike showed himself and at almost that same moment, Spike kicked back against the rear quarter-panel of a sedan, a loud thump, then veered off, retreating fast through the darkness along a line of store fronts. One of the Biters was coming out to investigate the noise by the stores. Which left only one loping along the line of the fence toward Mike, now headed at a medium run back toward the benches. Decent set-up, Spike judged. They should have time to do the one before the other could arrive.

As Mike passed the first bench, the Turok-han barely a pace behind now, Spike stood close against the telephone pole and counted down aloud, “Three, two, one.” On one, Mike dodged aside, and Spike jumped in, and they took the Turok-han from two sides with the tasers. Mike went for the body, which got him slapped off his feet; Spike hit a swinging arm, partly to find out if the charge would be less effective that way. Hard to tell, since the Biter went down on its face as every muscle locked up.

Spike would have preferred to see how long it took the Biter to recover from the charge, but the other one was coming now and would have to be put down fast. Spike waited until the Biter had committed to Mike, then moved aside to not present a single target. Since Mike was closest, Spike let him decide how to make the initial hit and moved when he did. Again, they both hit the second Biter about simultaneously, Spike getting a clear jab at the back ribs, Mike striking someplace else. Spike continued the spin and caught up the axe. Mike stood clear, Spike swung two-handed, and it was a nice, neat beheading. A few paces, just enough time to bring the axe up and over again, and the other Biter exploded into dust, too.

Spike asked, “This one move any?”

“Not that I saw.”

“Good minute, ninety seconds, he was down then. Plenty of time. Come the patrol, figure the vamp should go in first. No great harm there if the Biter takes a swing. And that’d open it up for the children. Team of three, I’m thinking.”

“Team of four. Another vamp for backup, and the kill. Soon as the fucker’s down. I got enough for that.”

“Maybe. Consider it,” said Spike as they retreated across the lot to the side of Willy’s again. He didn’t altogether like the idea of even teams, vamps and SITs, even if only the SITs had tasers.

Sitting on their heels near the loading bay, they did a brief rehash, remarking on the Biters’ apparent reaction time and whether they’d seemed to react more to sight or loud noise, agreeing noise brought them faster and therefore maybe their distance vision wasn’t all that great. Ambush predators, more likely, than something that saw prey from a distance and ran it down.

“Anything else?” Spike asked.

“Well, it stank.”

“Yeah. Could be handy if we get to huntin’ ‘em in the streets. Not much help in the open…. Goin’ inside for something. Whack on the door,” Spike directed, slapping the metal lift door, that resounded like a big metal drum, “then to the mark out front if anything comes at you.”

“Don’t bring an audience.”

“Try not to,” Spike agreed.

He came back with a bottle of bourbon and the big roll of duct tape from behind the bar, kept for general repairs. When Mike declined firsts on the bottle, Spike pulled out a couple feet of tape, sliced it on the axe blade, then taped the taser (prudently safetied) crosswise on his right palm and thumb. He flexed the hand experimentally. Still left the fingers and most of the palm clear for holding the axe or any other weapon. And no chance of dropping or otherwise losing the taser.

That piece of experimental ingenuity deserved a drink.

Returning to sit on the edge of the bay, he observed, “Not precisely a fight. More of an execution. Your lot are gonna end up all wound up an’ with noplace for that to go. Have to figure some way to turn that aside or make a proper fight of it or they’ll turn on my children next thing.”

“They don’t dare,” Mike contradicted in a near growl.

“Fact they shouldn’t, and even know they shouldn’t, doesn’t mean that they won’t. What, you never done something outlandish stupid just because you were all wound up an’ no other way to let it out?”

“No,” said Mike flatly, insulted.

“Then either that’s a lie or you still got a bit to learn about what you are….”

“You callin’ me a liar?”

“Oh, please. All right, you’re not a liar, you’re an idiot. That better?”

Mike glared back at him, both in game face, of course. “I don’t have to put up with that from you!”

“Fine, you take the next one on your own, show me the fine points an’ all. Fucking independent git.”

“Fine, I will then!”

“You do that. Even let you borrow the fucking axe.”

“Don’t need your gear!” Mike declared haughtily, although Spike had spoken of the axe because Mike’s glance had gone to it.

Except for the taser, Mike had shown up empty-handed with nothing for the kill. Which should probably have earned him extra points, like the way Dawn awarded them.

Mike was so busy showing off his bristling alpha dog routine that he didn’t notice the Biter coming in from the other direction, likely all fed up and happy, until Spike pointed. And though it might have been amusing watching the wanker get himself pulled apart, Spike pitched a stake at him from the sack he’d brought the tasers in. Mike saw it coming out of the edge of his vision, quick enough to catch it before seeing what it was.

Spike remarked, “What they got ain’t a proper rib cage. More a layer of chest and back armor. Doubt the axe would go through it. Got to take ‘em up from the belly to get at the heart.”

Mike popped the stake in his palm a couple times, like he was thinking of tossing it back, but wasn’t quite idiot enough for that and stuck it through a belt loop, then jogged off to intercept the Biter. Spike didn’t bother watching. He’d done dumb stuff like that, showing off, when he was about that age. And likely since, he supposed. Only difference, he didn’t play to himself it was anything but what it was. Maybe not smarter but somewhat more honest.

Presently Mike came back, limping just enough to notice, no sign of the stake. Had his hair mussed too, poor child, and a bruise coming along the side of his face. He came straight at Spike and swiped the bottle out of his hand.

After he’d put some down, the younger vamp complained, “Not a real fight. Butchering meat’s more fun. That’s annoying. Near as annoying as you. But nowhere near as annoying as admitting I’m an idiot and I just done exactly what you said.” Grinning and mad at himself, both.

“Wondered if you’d notice that,” commented Spike moderately. “Now I expect one time you could have sat on a ridge or perched in a tree an’ picked off the opposition with a sniper scope all night and been right pleased with yourself, never the least twinge of impatience. Won’t be like that now. Never no more.” Spike slid his hip off the ledge and held both arms straight out, fingers spread. “Vamp ends here.” He swung around, defining an area arm’s reach out from his body. “If you can’t touch it, hit it, drink it or fuck it, you ain’t made contact with it. Inside here, that’s where you live. An’ nothing past that is gonna give you any satisfaction whatever. I liked your grenade. Liked the noise and the fine light it made. But if I had to fight Turok-han with ‘em for any length of time, I’d go after ‘em, hand to hand, fists and fangs, and likely get my head yanked off. Because anything else, that’s just video games, Michael. No blood in it. And no bloody satisfaction. Got to get your hands on it to know it, feel it’s a fight. Or any goddam thing else.”

“Right about that,” Mike allowed, after another pull from the bottle. “Tried one of those arcade games down at the mall, you know? Racked up fantastic points. Better hand-eye coordination than I’d ever had. And nothing. Just dust and ashes.”

“And what’d you do then?”

Mike lifted his face and admitted, “Kicked the damn thing in. Nearly got caught when the alarms went off…. Is that what it’s like? Having a sire? Somebody knows this stuff and teaches it to you, so you don’t have to learn every goddam part of it by trial and error?”

“Not much. Not really.” Having let his arms fall, Spike reached out for Mike to pass over the bottle. Spike sat back on his heels, and Mike hunkered down too. “Maybe some are different. I dunno. Mostly it’s getting hammered to do what you’re told: no more, no less, an’ no different. And mostly no explanations. Just do it. Maybe you figure it out a while afterward. Maybe you never do. Or there was no reason for it to begin with, just an excuse to hammer you down. A lot of times, that’s all it is. I been annoying a long while, Michael. An’ Angelus, he’s a cruel hard bugger an’ always has been and still is, never seen much difference on account of the soul. Not to me, anyways. I dunno which of us had the best of it--you or me. But we’re both here, either because of him or in spite of him. So I expect that’s all you can ask. It’s hard, any way you turn.”

They did a few more Biters, maybe five, and Spike swore when gripping the axe cracked the taser’s housing and ruined it. So taping it hadn’t been such a great idea after all. Trial and error, he thought--that’s all any of them had.

And none on Willy’s property, so not a penny of bounty out of the evening.

And Michael fidgeting around restless and not trying, anymore, to pretend otherwise. That was something, anyway. Taught the boyo something, at least.

Mike asked, “There any more use to this, you figure?”

“No, I don’t expect. One taser’s enough, for a vamp, who can take a little damage at close quarters if need be. Have to be two, for the children. And there’s not sufficient yet to go around, or to replace any that get broke. That’s cutting things a bit fine, but anyway, they work as advertised.” Spike finished cutting and pulling off the last of the tape from his hand and stuck the broken taser in his pocket, just in case it could be repaired.

The younger vampire looked around, both hands stuffed in his pockets. Wide-eyed, wide open expression: just like that Finn. “You figure that’s important, like you said before? To know what it’s like, getting hit with one?”

Spike stared. It was an offer to get tasered, just on Spike’s say-so. “You’re an idiot, Michael. Spend your thought on how to do the other fellow, not on such nonsense as that. Gimme back the toy, now.”

“Oh.” Mike pulled the taser from his back pocket and handed it over.

Except for that, Spike knew the lad would have tried it just the same: done himself, the second he got home or wherever he kept himself. Likeable, a boy as predictably stupid as that.

“No tasers for your lot, this time,” Spike said, collecting the axe. He’d leave it in the store room rather than be lumbered with it. “They’ll have to do with whatever they can, whatever’s to hand. All for the children. Because they’re more breakable.”

“All right. Want to come back to my place and fuck?”

“No, I got something else in mind, and then I’m due back here come midnight. Some other time, maybe. Got the bike, though: could drop you someplace.”

“No, that’s all right.”

**********

Spike cruised to one of the back edges of the extensive parking lot that flanked Sunnydale Mall. Waiting and watching the scatter of parked cars, he lit a cigarette, thinking about what a fine rest he’d had, there in the Magic Box, today noontime. Only a couple of hours, but the first time in months he’d actually wakened feeling rested. No eruptive prescient dreams, nothing expected of him, nothing he’d done wrong somehow while sleeping.

Sleeping with Buffy had its advantages, not that much actual sleeping got accomplished, and he planned to give her a thorough seeing to before the patrol and whatever might happen then; but Dawn’s company was also good in a different way and really restful. He felt a lot more peaceful within himself than he had for a long while.

Since getting the soul, maybe: as long as that. And now he thought about it, the months leading up to that had had their bad moments. Nights. Whole weeks, sometimes. That was when he’d been courting the Slayer, an experience combining the most brilliant shagging ever and bloody bare-knuckle brawls, sometimes both together. Could have done without some of it, but he could never quite decide which part he’d wish gone.

And he thought about Michael’s two offers. Well meant, he supposed, and friendly enough after its fashion, and it’d been awhile since he’d done a boy. But vamp sex meant considerably less than a handshake and Spike truly wasn’t interested in meaningless contact. Not like with the Slayer, when everything he did and didn’t do had meaning. And generally repercussions. Be unsatisfying to have it mean less: dust and ashes, the same as Mike had said.

Even with Dru, it had meant a lot and required considerable figuring and planning what might please her or at least hold her attention long enough to get her finished, much less himself.

And Bit, that he didn’t have to worry about at all that way, who just was. That could be good and even outright splendid sometimes, just be, himself, and no kind of performing required at all. He was glad she didn’t mind, didn’t expect that from him. Hadn’t ever thought she did, except for everybody asking. That had been strange, and he was glad Bit had agreed with him about it.

He noticed right away when somebody came into range. In one way, he was peaceful, knowing very plainly what he was going to do. But in another way he was strung quite tight because it’d been two days and a little now since he’d fed. Could have waited a little longer if he’d had to, hadn’t snapped at any of the children, it was still well within his control. But when food walked within his range, he noticed very sharp.

Pigs’ blood was a true abomination. Worse than meaningless. Barely food at all, hardly any life left in it whatever. Just a way to keep going, deny the unrelenting hunger for actual life that was fundamental to what he was. For years he’d had no choice about it on account of the damn chip. Just reaching could blind him and lay him flat for days. But that was done now and he’d made up his mind to it the same as he’d made up his mind about the tat. Done, accomplished in his mind even before he’d started.

He dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, to not be waving the coal about. Swung his leg over the bike seat and started walking. Woman, shopping bags dragging both arms down. Aiming herself at the green Toyota sedan. Nobody inside, waiting for her. Nobody else about. Spike adjusted his pace and his angle, to meet her before she reached the car. Didn’t want to set off the alarm.

The second he got within striking distance, he went fast and took her: a lot slower than a SIT and not expecting anything besides. Barely jerked, no struggle at all, as he opened her and the incredible first richness of blood hit the back of his throat. Feeding, he let her down and her packages down easy. Took four full long swallows and quit, shuddering with how hard it was to stop but managed to stop anyway, settle himself down enough, hold fast. Licked the bite a few times to finish closing it, then shed game face and began helping her up, finding her car keys and opening the Toyota for her, getting her parcels in the back, explaining to her how she’d fainted right away there in front of him and how she should wait until she was herself again before driving and get something solid to eat inside her as soon as she could, and she no more than nodding and bewildered and likely a little dizzy but he hadn’t taken enough for her to be worse than that.

He couldn’t do thrall but he could do this, be concerned and deliberate and persuasive, especially in Sunnydale where nobody was apt to admit to themselves they’d just been fed on by a vampire. They’d cling onto any other explanation for dear life rather than admit that.

Not even enough to take the edge off, he thought, watching the Toyota’s lights come on and the car start slowly rolling toward the exit. But it was real, alive, and his whole body exulted in it after the endless miserable fast. Pure life, pure meaning, drinking it down. As deep and profound as sex, except that he didn’t love the woman, of course. Didn’t dislike her, either, though. No need to end her, just for the first sip of a meal.

She was truly none the worse for it, any way that he could see. Of course Buffy wouldn’t look at it that way. But Buffy didn’t have to know for awhile yet.

Spike returned to the bike and was quiet there, feeling his proper food transforming inside, better than the finest champagne. Now, after the first taste, he was outright hungry so he’d have to take care with the next one, not to get lost and take too much. Maybe five, six people were gonna faint in the mall parking lot tonight and be helped by a solicitous stranger. And still plenty of time to make it back to Willy’s before midnight.

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