Sacred Flame

Nocte

Rating: NC-17 for violence and mature themes

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They are the property of ME and Joss Whedon. I use them only for the purpose of entertainment.

Summary: Future Fic. William the Bloody returns to Sunnydale after an extended absence (seventy five years) to find something crucial. He finds things very different. The Hellmouth is more deadly than ever and the denizens of Sunnydale do not welcome new arrivals. Set after the events of S6 up to Normal Again but further into the future.

Author’s Notes: Please review!

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Part One: Prologue

It was the dead of night. The kind of night unlit by moonlight, dark and silent. The only illumination came from the dim stars winking overhead and the distant lights of a solitary car. On the outskirts of a small town, the car rolled to a slow stop. The deep rumble of the outmoded gasoline engine choked and stopped. The headlights remained lit, shining on a warped sign swaying in the wind. The driver’s side door opened and a figure emerged. The driver swung the dented door shut behind him with a sharp clank and strode in scuffed brown boots towards the sign. The feet stopped as the driver regarded the sign silently. A pale hand reached out to brush desert dust from the front to reveal three words painted atop a cheerful sunset and palm trees. The colors were faded to a near uniform beige but the words were still legible. “Welcome to Sunnydale”

The driver squatted in the sandy dirt, brown leather coat trailing on the ground, and ran his fingers over the outline of the sunset. How many times had he stood here? Did this make three? Four? He couldn’t remember. One thing he did know was that he had not passed this way for a long time. A long time even for one of his lifespan. Once he had sworn he would never return but current circumstances dictated otherwise. The driver stood and gave the sign a savage kick. The brittle wood splintered further and it hung at a drunken angle. Yet still the damned thing stood. He looked down the road to where he knew his destination lay.

Returning to the car, the driver revved the engine back to life and roared back onto the cracked asphalt that served as the road into town. The sign continued to sway in the night wind as the red light of the car taillights faded into the distance and only the starlight remained.

The car rolled slowly through the streets of Sunnydale a short while later. The driver gazed out at familiar landmarks, a storefront featuring a once bright blue box painted with yellow stars, a warehouse half collapsed and showing signs of fire damage, a once popular club now unlit and deserted. It was all so very different now. No lights shone from within the windows. Trash littered the neglected streets. The burnt out wreckage of vehicles blocked his car’s progress and the driver was forced to stop in front of an abandoned coffee shop and get out and walk.

He strode the darkened sidewalk; avoiding overturned shopping carts and piles of refuse. His sharp ears could pick up the tiniest sound but the only hints of life were the muffled squeaks of rats in the sewers beneath his feet. Looking up he saw the bulbs from all the streetlights were shattered, explaining the shards of glass crunching under his boots.

This town had finally succumbed to the seething evil of the Hellmouth. People had moved away to towns were death was not a daily event. To places where the night held nothing more fearsome than muggers and gangs. The only things that lived here in Sunnydale anymore were the creatures of hell. Permanent residents who fed on the malevolence that poured forth from the gateway to a thousand demonic dimensions and the odd inhuman tourists who came from around the world to visit the demonic equivalent of the Grand Canyon. If the visitor had been human, he would have been quite vulnerable to any one of these creatures as he explored. But vulnerable was not something he had been for a long while.

The first time had been hundreds of years ago as he bleed to death in an alley not much better lit than these ruined streets. The last...three quarters of a century before when little men in white had chained his demon with electricity and a tiny sliver of plastic. It had not lasted long. He could still remember the searing pain when a well-paid shaman had ripped the chip from his skull with the sheer force of his magically enhanced will. He had not really expected to survive the procedure and was mildly surprised that it had left him without permanent damage.

Since then, he had been more or less invincible. He kept to the night and picked his battles more wisely. There was no real limit to how long he might survive. Each year that passed made him more powerful. Other demons gave him a wide berth or extreme courtesy if they wished to stay alive. His reputation as one demon not to be crossed was well deserved and he provided the occasional reminder to keep the more stupid fiends in line. As he stood in the middle of the once thriving town looking up at the stars above, he let down the barriers within and allowed the familiar pain to course through him like scalding blood. All the creatures of the night knew his name. From Europe to Asia, and even here in America although he had been gone a long time. He was William the Bloody...the elder vampire...scion of the House of Aurelius...and he had come home.

***

Part Two: Prodigal

Across the street from where the man in the thigh length brown leather coat stood, a figure watched from a rooftop. A well-oiled crossbow rested comfortably in the crook of the watcher’s arm, a bolt loaded and ready to fire. The observer crouched motionless as the figure below looked upward. It would not be useful to be seen at this point. None of the locals would be so foolish as to walk these streets at night. They all knew that a painful death hid somewhere in the cement canyons that comprised downtown Sunnydale. The wise ones kept to the underground city that had sprung up around the Hellmouth and spread outwards like a cancer into the extensive sewer network. So why was this creature striding these streets like there was nothing to fear?

The answer was obvious. A newcomer. One of the many demons who came to see the wonder of the underworld that was the Hellmouth. The watcher generally liked to wait and see what these tourists did before dispatching them. Sometimes there was valuable information to be had from them before they died a bloody death. As the visitor moved away down the street, the watcher followed on soundless feet. Leaping from rooftop to rooftop with the ease born of decades of experience, the watcher kept pace with the quarry without trouble. He was headed for the graveyard beyond Crawford Street or what used to be Crawford Street. The watcher would have to go to ground level to pursue him there. With an easy jump thirty feet to the concrete sidewalk, the watcher continued the shadowed chase.

Spike crossed the wasteland that had once been a well-cared for cemetery. Half the grave markers were broken or kicked over. No flowers or wreaths decorated the stones. The dead of Sunnydale were abandoned, forgotten by the living. It was depressing even for a graveyard. His destination in sight, Spike slowed. The pain grew sharper inside his still chest. Why had he agreed to this? This brand of self-flagellation was not really his thing anymore. He had left it behind, along with a battered television and the dream of loving a living woman, some seventy five years before.

Squaring his shoulders, Spike lowered his dark head and pressed on. The sooner he was done, the sooner he could return to his simpler existence. He raised a fist and smashed it through the rotted wooden of the decrepit chapel door.

Behind a nearby statue, the watcher saw the visitor invade the chapel. It would be risky to follow. The chapel was small and there would be no way to hide inside. Waiting outside seemed the prudent thing to do in this situation. The watcher was not foolish. One did not survive countless years in a town given over to the forces of darkness without caution. It had been long ago that these lessons had been drilled into the watcher’s head by a caring teacher and many more years before the watcher tragically learned their value.

Spike moved without hesitation towards the altar at the head of the chapel. Climbing the steps, he ripped aside the moldering purple cloth covering the gray marble table and overturned the stone with one twist of his hand. The marble broke as it hit the floor and several small pieces skittered down the steps. Spike knelt and brushed aside years of accumulated filth to locate the object of his quest. A small metal grate was set into the granite floor. Spike dug his fingers into the holes in the wrought iron and gave it a sharp tug. The old metal gave way and the grate separated from the floor. Tossing it aside, Spike reached inside, his arm disappearing to the shoulder. A few seconds of rooting in the hole produced the desired result and Spike pulled his arm out of the hole holding a small book.

Leaning back on his heels, Spike examined the book. It was old...older than him and he handled it with care. He read the name embossed on the binding and grunted in satisfaction. Standing, he tugged a silk bag out of the inside pocket of his jacket and slipped the slim volume inside. He tugged the ties closed and tucked the bag back inside the pocket. Spike patted his breast to make sure it was safely lodged and turned to depart the chapel.

It was time to leave, leave this town and all its crushing memories. Spike shoved the broken door aside and emerged into the cold night air. A ten minute walk and he would be gone from this accursed place. He felt the need to hurry and increased his pace. From his left he heard a faint sound and whipped his head around to scan the forest of statues and grave markers. Seeing nothing he decided it was a wayward bird, probably unaware it had blundered into the earthly equivalent of hell. He resumed his pace only to hear another sound, a familiar buzzing sound. Where had he heard that before?

As a bolt buried itself in his chest just to the right of his unbeating heart, he remembered. A crossbow. That was the sound it made when it was fired. He sank to his knees as a wave of weakness washed over him. The bolt was tainted with something. He felt his muscles start to lock. A paralytic. As his eyes sagged shut and he fell forward Spike thought to himself that he had been correct...he never should have come back here...

As the demon crumpled in a heap in the dead grass, the watcher came out of concealment and slowly approached. Not knowing what this creature was, caution was prudent. The tranquilizer was not always effective. When the supine form failed to move for several minutes, the watcher decided it was time to see what it had acquired from the chapel. Not that a fight would be unwelcome, the watcher enjoyed battles, but if there was something fragile on the demon’s person it would be better to recover it without violence. More of that hard earned prudence.

Finally standing above the unconscious figure of the demon, the watcher prodded him with a grubby sneaker-clad toe. No reaction. He was lying face down in the dirt but the watcher could see the line of his jaw beneath tousled dark hair. Human looking. A vampire? Rare for this area. Vampires preferred a ready supply of human blood and Sunnydale lacked that for the most part. Definitely a newcomer. A small black silk bag poked out from beneath the vampire’s leather coat and the watcher used a foot to draw the bag nearer so it could be picked up.

The bag contained a book. Odd. Vampires weren’t known for their love of literature. Certainly there were some but it had been an eternity since the watcher had met one. Forget that. Such thoughts only led to unhappiness. The watcher put the book; bag and all, in a knapsack and bent down to pick up the vampire. Slinging the limp body over one shoulder with careless ease, the watcher carried him away. More information was needed. Time to take the prey home and lock it up. She had many interesting toys at home to get the demon to talk...

***

Part Three: Pain

The watcher carried the lean body of her captive up a winding stone staircase without effort. She climbed upwards towards the doorway of the crumbling gothic manor she called home now. Using her unencumbered hand, she turned the large iron handle on the door and pushed it open. The interior of the building was dark. It wasn’t a good idea to attract attention in this town with too much light. Over time the watcher had learned to move comfortably in the dark, knowing where every sharp corner and piece of furniture stood.

Moving through the gloom to another door, she descended into the room she used as a dungeon for her captives. Once this windowless chamber had probably held nothing more important than wine and supplies but it served her well as a place to question demons. She threw her burden on the tight packed dirt floor, lit one smoky torch and went to get some chains to bind him. Vampires were generally smarter than most of the demons she dealt with. They had that human brain to work with. This made them deadly and difficult to keep imprisoned. The best thing to do with vampires was kill them immediately but there was this strange little book...she needed to know more.

Finding a sturdy set of manacles, the captor knelt and secured them around the vampire’s pale wrists and boot covered ankles. She tightened the bolts until she couldn’t see any light between the metal and the flesh. It would hurt him but that was really the point. Hauling the limp body over to the wall, she threaded the thick chains through a ring set into the stone wall. She gave the ring a sharp tug to make sure it was secure and stepped back to take her first look at the creature.

The guttering orange light from the torch danced across his lean face, which was half hidden by a tousled mop of black hair. Leaning in, the captor could see that the black was a dye. Golden brown roots winked from the crown of his skull. Reaching out, she grasped his face in one hand and forced it up into the light so she could get a better look. Razor like cheekbones, an angular jaw, charcoal lashes sweeping down across pale skin. The color of his eyes remained hidden but somehow she knew they were blue. Not the warm blue of a summer sky but the color of an iceberg floating through frozen seas.

She shook her head to clear the rebellious thought. It was laced with pain and pain was to be avoided. One last detail caught her attention...a semi circular scar looped through one eyebrow dividing the brow into three distinct parts...a blade had done that...wielded by a small Asian girl...the captor shook her head again...No! That was not a real memory.

Seeing that the broken tip of the crossbow bolt still protruded from his bloodstained chest, the captor grasped it in one small hand and gave it a quick pull. It came free in her hand followed by a fresh torrent of blood and an agonized yell from the vampire. She stepped back as the creature fought his way towards consciousness. She went to a wooden table on the other side of the room and perused a collection of knives and other weapons. Which one would prove most effective? It was time to get information...

In the drug and pain induced haze that held him, Spike struggled to come back to the world. He didn’t want to stay here in his dreams. This was were the memories lived...the cruel memories of why he had left this damned place to begin with.

“Who are you?” a low voice asked.

Spike raised his head, knowing he was very much in the now. The throbbing pain in his chest told him that. The cursed bolt was gone but the wound had not had time to heal. He would need blood to do that. He tried to open his eyes but his eyelids felt like they weighed a few tons. All he could manage was a glimpse of the shadowy figure standing in front of a torch. He couldn’t make out any features but he could see that whoever it was, it was small and human. If he could get free, he could make short work of his captor.

“What is this book you have?” the voice pressed on.

Spike tried to offer his best sneer but it fell short. The drugs in his system had left him without much muscle control. He squinted out at his surroundings through bleary eyes. It was dark, dank, and filthy. Just the kind of place one would want to interrogate someone and the kind of place Spike had studiously avoided for the past fifty years.

“Why are you here?” came another quiet question.

That voice...it was female, Spike realized. A bloody girl had captured him. If this got out his reputation would be severely damaged. He would have to kill a lot of demons to regain the level of respect he required. He managed a mocking laugh at his captor. She wouldn’t get anything from him, the silly bint.

The girl stepped forward and with blinding speed buried a small knife in the palm of Spike’s hand, pinning it to the stone wall. He felt tendons separate and at least one bone crack. He screamed in pain and surprise, swiping out with his uninjured hand but she was too fast. She ducked his clumsy blow and stepped back to her former position, just out of reach.

“Bloody bitch! What I ever do to you?” Spike hissed, trying to pull his hand loose.

“Answer my questions and I’ll take it out,” she whispered.

“Sod off. I’ve been tortured by people who know what they’re doin’ an’ I didn’t crack then. You don’t have a prayer.” The pain restored Spike’s wits and he felt adrenaline course through him, clearing his vision and sharpening his other senses.

“I have more knives, vampire. It would be easier just to tell me what I need to know,” came the reasonable voice again.

His captor turned her back on him and walked to a table across the room. She picked up a wickedly curved knife, much larger than the last, and held it up for him to see.

“We are just getting started, vampire...are you sure you want to do it this way?” she asked him with a trace of regret in her voice.

“Bring it on. I usually don’t go after humans much any more but in your case I’ll make an exception,” Spike hissed.

The girl started forward with her cruel looking blade and for the first time she passed to the right of the torch, giving Spike an unobstructed view of her face. The burning in his chest and hand immediately took second place to the crushing pain in his heart. It couldn’t be...she was gone...she had been gone for sixty-five years.

The girl stopped at the look on the vampire’s face. Was he breaking? Were those tears coursing down his hollow cheeks? Maybe more torture was unnecessary.

She stood in front of him...looking so much the same and yet very different. The same dark gold hair, the same clear hazel eyes, dusty jeans and a gray sweatshirt, functional sneakers.... but that look in her eyes...that was not the same...what did he see there?

Spike tried a few times and finally forced out a question from his constricted throat. It was barely audible, the harsh rasp...but she heard him.

“Buffy? Is that you?”

***

Part Four: Forget

Spike watched for a response from the girl holding the knife but she did not speak. She just looked puzzled. Even that expression was familiar though. Every expression that had ever crossed her face was branded in his mind, he remembered it all. One of the curses of vampiric immortality was that nothing ever faded away with age, every memory remained bright and clear as if it had happened yesterday.

“Buffy?” he repeated urgently.

She raised the knife again. “Heard of me, have you? I thought everyone had forgotten the Slayer of Sunnydale. The new one in Buenos Aires gets all the glory. The way I like it. By the time demons find out about me...its too late.”

She advanced on him with the knife.

“Buffy...what are you playing at? It’s me, y’can’t tell me a few ounces of black dye make me that different, you know me. Put that bloody knife down.” Spike demanded.

The girl shook her head. “No I don’t think I will and I prefer if my demons just call me Slayer by the way. It maintains that important professional distance.”

Before he could respond, she slashed the blade across his abdomen shredding his shirt and baring the blood-soaked skin beneath.

“Bloody hell! Stop! Buffy...it’s Spike!” he cried, recoiling from her knife.

“Finally we’re getting somewhere. You have a name, vampire. Spike? Is that it?” The Slayer said approvingly.

The pain Spike had felt when he first saw her face sank into a kind of dread. Spike looked at her in disbelief. She didn’t know him. Even after seventy-five years, she should remember him. He hadn’t exactly been the bloody paperboy. What was wrong with her? He had to figure it out quickly before she got tired of carving him up and just killed him. He could see that his death would mean nothing to her. He was just another monster.

“Yeah...Spike...William th’ Bloody...ring any bells?” he said slowly.

She just looked blank. “Every demon believes it is world famous, sorry to disappoint you but I guess you aren’t as important as you think,” she replied, turning the blade in her hands so the blood dripped in the dirt at her feet.

“Buffy!” Spike shouted. “You know me!”

The name rang in her ears and the smoky little room faded away as time rushed backward.

*”You left him? What is wrong with you? Did the whole Bison Lodge Day of Disaster not make an impression on you? Why would you let him go Buffy? He loved you!” Xander shouted at his friend.

Buffy blinked. Did she just zone out or something? She focused on the vampire again.

“I don’t know you, I don‘t want to know you. I just want to know what the deal is with the book. Planning to raise some hell beastie or something? What’s your evil, Spite...or was it Spike?” Buffy replied to Spike’s impassioned plea.

Spike slumped in his chains, feeling defeat wash over him. He wasn’t reaching her. Was this a spell? Was that why she was still alive? Still young? The price was her memory?

“What about all the others. They all gone from your mind too? The witches? Red an’ her blond girlfriend?” Spike growled as he tried not to notice her knife drifting closer to his flesh.

*“Th’ witches? Red an’ her blonde girlfriend?

Buffy slammed the lid shut on that memory, her heart racing as she remembered that horrible day. How had the damned vampire known about Willow and Tara? She jabbed the knife into his abdomen again and twisted. He howled in pain and bucked against his restraints.

“No more...” she hissed. “No more about them. I don’t know how you know but that's not what I need from you. The book...what is it for?”

He didn’t answer. He just looked down at the blade sticking out of his stomach. He could take a lot of damage but this was bad. The mention of her friends had pushed Buffy too far. There was far more than simple amnesia going on here. He saw the room fade in and out, the outlines of his tormenter wavering, the pain was getting to him.

Buffy sighed. He was getting stubborn. Time for a break. She walked back to her worktable and picked up a small vial of milky liquid. Taking the lid off, she sniffed the contents. She bought this off a local demon that liked to stay in good with the good guys as well as the bad. It was a powerful tranquilizer and might make the vampire more willing to talk when he came to. She carefully dipped a small wooden dart in the liquid and stopped it back up.

Walking back to the bleeding demon, she nonchalantly jabbed him in the neck with the dart. He barely twitched. His eyes closed and his head lolled forward. Buffy pulled both her knives out of his flesh and cleaned the gore off of them with a soft rag. Good weapons care was very important...who had taught her that?

She looked at her captive carefully...he was completely unconscious. She felt safe in leaving him for a short while. The night was only half over and she still had half the town to patrol. He would be secure enough here until she got back. Extinguishing the torch, Buffy grabbed her knapsack and headed upstairs. She made sure the lock on the door was tight and ventured back into the night.

***

Part Five: Elsewhere

Spike was dreaming again. His four wounds glowed a dull red in his subconscious. It seemed easier just to sink back into dreams than concentrate on the fiery pain.

*“Thanks mate. Here’s your payment,” Spike said to the tattooed shaman, handing him a crumpled wad of bills streaked with blood.

Exhaling sharply, Spike threw his head up and looked around. It was dark. He couldn’t hear anything...no breathing...she was gone. He moved his hand, realizing she had taken the blade out. Damn her, now he couldn’t pick the lock with it. He pulled against the chains but was rewarded only with a fresh seepage of blood from the large wound in his side. The girl had a way with a knife. He wondered when she’d grown so good at torture. He wondered a lot of things...Buffy, still young, alone, and apparently having no recall of him. She might be more than slightly mad.

He squinted through the gloom, trying to see if she had left the book in the room with him. No sign of it. What would he do if she had left it? Assuming he could get free, would he have just left her here and gotten the book out of Sunnydale? His mind instantly rejected that thought. Never again. He couldn’t walk away again. Leaving Buffy the first time had led to his own brand of madness...the madness that came from not being able to forget.

* Spike strode through the rain soaked night, his senses attuned to the slightest sound...The demon he was tracking had gone to ground here in the cemetery called Les Innocents outside Paris and he meant to find it. A handsome reward awaited the one who brought its head back to a certain warlock in the city.

Spike shook his head. It seemed so vivid. That liquid Buffy was dosing him with. It must have a hallucinogen in it. He thought back on that night. Noelle had been the first... but every few years, Spike had felt that need. The need to purge his grief in a battle with the only human who could stand against him. He would search the world...find the current Chosen One and act out his little play again. A little dance, a little super-potent blood, a lecture on the value of life to the semi-suicidal Slayer and away into the night. It was madness, his madness.

It had been a few years since the last one...the one in South America. She was still alive if he could believe Buffy. But now...there would be no more. Not now that he had found her. Now the only fight he wanted was the one to bring her back to him. Spike redoubled his efforts to break his chains, he had to get free. The next time Buffy came down here, she would kill him.

With strength born of desperation, Spike flung his arms wide and was rewarded with the protesting shriek of shattered metal. His manacles fell to the ground in several pieces. Spike ran to the worktable and grabbed the small bottle of tranquilizer and charged up the steps. The door was locked. A few forceful kicks splintered the solid oak and he was through. He looked around for Buffy but the upstairs was as deserted as the dungeon. He took in the Slayer’s abode. A cavernous main room, black sheets stapled over the tall windows, bare tile floors.

A metal chair, a card table, an army style cot with one thin gray blanket in the corner of the vast room. There was a crate filled with bottled water and various canned goods, another box filled with rumpled clothing. No lamps, no rugs, no media screen. Spartan wasn’t the word. She lived this way? On the table, Spike spotted a shabby shoebox. Was his book in there? He had to get it back and quickly. Getting it out of Sunnydale was just too important.

He nudged the lid off the box...no book...just something that battered his already aching heart. Photos...of Dawn. Dawn in a mortarboard, holding a diploma in one hand, a big grin plastered across her face. Dawn with some besotted looking boy. Spike felt a rumble of protectiveness. Stupid...it was long over. He flipped through the much-handled pile of pictures. A wedding...no sign of Buffy in the wedding party. Or any of the other Scoobies for that matter. Just a radiant Dawn and that same boy. Another photo...a baby...Spike turned the picture over... Anne, one week old...read the inscription. Dawn’s baby, named for an absent aunt. In numerous photos the baby grew, joined by a brother, school plays, proms, another set of graduations, and nowhere in any of them was Buffy. The last thing in the box was an flowery invitation dated some ten years ago, A Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary Party...a hand lettered plea at the bottom...Buffy, Please come. Love Dawnie

Why had she cut herself off from Dawn? Niblet had obviously tried to keep Buffy in her life...A muffled thump announce the return of the Slayer. He turned to see her standing in the doorway, the dim morning light shining around her. A look of rage came over her face as she saw him holding her pictures.

Spike held one up. “This one is my favorite. Always been a sucker for weddings...Dawn looked beautiful. Lot like you actually...bit taller though. This bloke she married...you liked him? Must have, right? Otherwise you’d of run him off right quick.” Spike rambled; contemplating Dawn’s long gone youth.

“Stop. Stop acting like you know my life...my...” Buffy choked on the words. “My sister...how’d you get free?”

Spike carefully placed all the photos back in the box and closed the lid. “I’m not your average vampire, pet. Mere chains aren’t gonna keep me when I choose to get out.”

“Why are you still here then? You know I’m going to kill you...why aren’t you long gone?” Buffy pulled her crossbow from her knapsack as she spoke and leveled it at Spike’s chest.

“Two reasons. You have my book...and I need it back. Secondly and more immediate...I don’t ever plan to leave you again...no matter how much you want me to.” Spike replied quietly.

Buffy stared at him for a long moment, wondering at this mad creature’s strange behavior...and pulled the trigger.

***

Part Six: Late

The bolt caught the vampire in the shoulder, spinning him around and slamming him to the tiled floor. He lay face up just looking at Buffy in shock. Buffy wondered why he lived...she had really planned to kill him just then. Not that she missed her target, that hadn’t happened in years. She couldn’t afford to miss...people got hurt when she...Buffy fought back the image...

No. Buffy had meant to miss this demon. At the last second, something inside her twitched, the weapon tilted the tiniest fraction of an inch so the bolt lodged in the shoulder and not the heart. Why did she do that? The vampire moaned from the floor. Buffy snapped out of her reverie and walked over to where he lay.

“Back downstairs for you, demon,” she said dispassionately.

He just groaned again.

Buffy bent and pulled him up. He slung a leather-clad arm over her shoulder much to her surprise. She wasn’t helping him home from the bar; she was taking him downstairs to peel strips from his back until he spilled about his damned book. Why did he act like he trusted her?

She glanced up into his pain-wracked face in wonder. The scar drew her attention again. A battle...over a hundred years ago...how did she know that? Buffy straightened, taking his weight onto her thin shoulders and guided him past the broken door and down the steep wooden steps into her dungeon.

Back in the tiny room below, Buffy leaned him more or less gently against the stone wall and knelt next to him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The residual drugs in his system and his newest wound had left him barely conscious. She slowly drew the bolt from his shoulder, eliciting only a grunt from the demon. A thin trickle of blood wended its way down his destroyed shirt front and onto his lean abdomen. She had done some real damage here and still he acted like she was anything but his enemy. She brushed the black hair back from his face, thinking it was wrong somehow...the color. What had he said about dye?

“You know me,” he whispered.

She jerked her head up and scrambled back a bit. He was awake.

“Buffy. You know me. Otherwise I’d be dead by now. Let me tell you...” Spike coughed, bright spots of carmine dotting his lips as he spoke. “Let me tell you why I’m here. The book, it can change this place...change your miserable excuse for a life.”

Buffy shook her head. “I may look young but I’m not and I didn’t live so long listening to lies from self-serving creatures like you. You’ll tell me about the book all right but you’ll be screaming the truth from your chains...that way I’ll know its true”

She stood and went to fetch stronger chains from the back of the room. Bringing them, she began fastening them on Spike’s wrists. He didn’t resist, he just kept talking.

“When did it happen luv? When did the bad guys start winning more than they lost? Why did you stay when everyone else left?” he said softly but persistently.

Buffy resolutely went about her task. One wrist done...one to go.

“Let me help you. You aren’t alone...you know me,” he pleaded.

Buffy’s hands trembled. She looked up into pale blue eyes and shook her head. He must be lying. She was alone...she had been alone for a long time...He had to be trying to pull something. Then why did some part of her yearn to trust him, to listen? To not be alone in this corner of hell anymore. Her hands stilled. Almost of their own accord, they loosened the second shackle, slipped it from the vampire’s wrist. Then she unlocked the first and took it off as well.

Still staring at him she said “If you’re lying...I will kill you...a stake would be quickest but I know other ways that take much longer.”

Spike nodded slowly, not wanting to disturb this crucial moment. He climbed to his feet, keeping his gaze trained on her doubtful face. Maybe he was getting through. He looked down on the girl he thought he had lost long ago...even in worn clothing with her hair scraped back from her too thin face, she was the most incredible thing to him. To a man who had not seen or touched or spoken to anything he loved since he left this place at her request, she was everything. He slowly raised one hand and reached out to cup her cheek. She quivered but didn’t stop him. He traced the outline of her jaw with his thumb. So warm...still like a flame to his cold touch.

With the other hand...the one Buffy wasn’t paying attention to, Spike grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head backwards into the hard surface of the wall. The crack of her skull meeting stone was the last sound Buffy heard before the world went black.

Spike looked down at the crumpled figure at his feet. “Sorry pet. We don't have time for slow and easy.”

He picked up the chains she had decided not to use on him and briskly snapped them around her wrists, making sure they were tight enough to hold her. Tearing a strip from what was left of his shirt, he held it to the wound on the back of her head. He hadn’t wanted to be so rough but Slayers were tough and he knew he would only get one chance to subdue her. Leaving for a moment, he crossed to the worktable and selected a small dart from the horrific collection of weapons. He was mightily glad she hadn’t gotten to part two of ‘carve up the vampire’. Dipping the dart in his stolen bottle of tranquilizer, Spike knelt and stuck Buffy in the neck with it.

The drugs would keep her calm when she woke up, hopefully enough that she would listen to him. He sat down next to her limp form to wait. It wasn’t going to be pretty but it had to be done...

*“When did it happen luv? When did the bad guys start winning more than they lost?”

***

Part Seven: Why

Spike lit another torch as the first burned out. Even though it was never completely dark to his eyes, he wanted light to study his captive by. She still slept...occasionally twisting and crying out in response to some hidden pain in her mind. When she seemed especially upset, Spike would pour more water into his makeshift rag and smooth the damp cloth across her feverish skin. There was no doubt she was reliving some terrible thing in her head where Spike couldn’t help her.

He felt a rush of anger. Did the people who sent him here know? Did they know that she was still alive, fighting an impossible battle alone? A battle that had turned her into this embittered shell of herself. He turned his newly recovered book in his hands and studied the title again...if they did...Spike would take his revenge...after they got what they needed from this thin volume...they would all die.

*Spike leaned against the railing in the neon strobed darkness and watched the writhing mass of humanity far below. The club was packed, money pouring into Spike’s accounts as he cheerfully watched. An old warehouse, some black paint, a complicated lighting and sound system, the odd piece of uncomfortable furniture, and booze, lots and lots of booze. A bloody gold mine this place was and he owned a part of it. No matter how much time passed, young humans always craved a dark place to congregate, to drink and be merry.

Buffy moaned in her sleep and Spike stroked her cheek to calm her. She would be waking soon, leaving the hell of her past behind to greet the hell of her present. Spike’s gaze floated over her slender form, the slightest hint of golden skin visible where her sweatshirt drifted up from her jeans. Had that Watcher known? He had looked away when Spike said there was only one Slayer in the world. Spike laid a hand on her bare skin, absorbing her warmth into him. He had to find a way to reach her because he wasn’t leaving this place without her.

***

Part Eight: Last

Buffy knew she had been drugged. The very liquid she had used to keep the vampire docile was now in her bloodstream. She wrestled to open her eyes and fight but the drug was too strong. Its insidious power drew her down, making her relive the awful events of seventy years before. Every sound, every color just as vivid now in her mind as it had been then in reality. Try as she might Buffy couldn’t stop the flood.

Buffy awoke, a painful lump in her throat. Willow...how she had failed her. Her dream had been so vivid yet there were always parts of the funeral that she couldn’t recall, Willow had said something, after she threw Buffy into the tree. Why couldn’t she remember? Why couldn‘t she forget?. She reached up to rub her head and realized she was chained. Her eyes flew open and she saw him. He was crouching in front of her, ice blue eyes trained on hers. He looked sad. Why sad, shouldn’t he be happy, capturing a Slayer. It wasn’t a common occurrence for a vampire.

“Bad dream?” he asked.

Buffy glared at him. “I knew you were lying. I’m a fool.”

“Always were pet. Let me go, didn’t you? Then again, I was a fool too, to leave.” Spike replied.

Buffy waited...he didn’t move. She pulled on the chains she knew were secure; he just raised his scarred brow in slight amusement. She kicked out with one foot and nearly caught him on the chin. He rocked back on his heels and let the blow breeze past.

“Nice try pet,” he said softly.

“What do you want?” Buffy shouted.

“Answers...an’ I’m not sure you have them,” Spike replied calmly.

“I’m not telling you anything,” she retorted, sinking down and leaning into the stone wall.

Spike just laughed and held up the knife she had used on his stomach. “Got a whole table full of toys that say different, luv...where should I start?

“Go ahead.” Buffy shrugged. She was completely indifferent. Maybe this vampire could do what no other demon in nearly a century had managed...end it.

Spike saw that she truly didn’t care and threw the knife down. He stood and looked down at the stubborn set of her jaw, she was just as hard headed as ever. He needed a different approach. Spike thought. There was more than one kind of pain...

“Tell me what happened to all of them. Dawn lived...happy...kids...what about th’ rest? I know about Giles, probably have more recent news on him than you do but the Scoobies...how’d it go for them?”

Buffy turned her head to the wall to shut him out. Spike watched her begin to saw her wrists against the metal of her shackles. It was working, she felt something.

“Tell me...about the carpenter.” He gave Buffy a rueful grin at the shocked look on her face. “Remember him do you, I’m th’ only one who slipped through th’ cracks in your bloody mind? Tell me about Xander...did his demon girl ever come back? What happened to him?”

Buffy shook her head, eyes clamped shut again. How did he know all this? She didn’t understand.

Buffy answered the persistent question, eyes still firmly closed. “He’s dead. Long dead.”

***

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