Disclaimer: Spike, Buffy and all the other members of the Sunnydale crowd belong to Joss Whedon, UPN, Fox, and so on, and so on. Grosse Point Blank was written by Tom Jankiewicz, D V deVincentis, S K Boatman & the vastly talented John Cusack. It is of course owned by Hollywood Pictures and Caravan Pictures and not me. I’m ripping the owners of them both off for no profit whatsoever, other than the happies I may get when and if you lovely people review.

Rating: PG-13 for now basically for language. May go up, I haven’t decided.

Note: Flashbacks are in italics.

Chapter 1

The young man watched round the edge of his open hotel room window, looking out at the elegant high rise opposite. He had an individual style, but he adapted his look to fit in wherever his career took him. Today, since he was in a four star hotel on New York’s Upper East Side , his old leather duster was packed away in his suitcase in the trunk of his hire car. He wore a high-end black suit with a black shirt and tie. His hair was bleached to a startling white-blonde, which had it been natural should have been accompanied by pink irises. Instead his eyes were blue, varying with his mood from the grey-tinted shade of a stormy ocean to the deepest ultramarine.

He used a headset attached to his cell-phone to speak to his secretary while he rinsed said eyes with a saline solution using an eye-bath. "The shipment’s arrived? One thousand rounds .357 magnum, steelcore. One thousand rounds .380, soft points. Okay, authorise the funds transfer from account 2795683 to account 76-845-69469-33484."

"Got it."

The man paced impatiently to his left, glancing out of the corner window, which afforded him a view for several blocks down the street. A movement out of synch with the general flow of the traffic attracted his attention. He picked up the rifle that sat ready-assembled on a chair set back from the window, looking through the attached scope. A few blocks down a bicycle messenger wove through the slow moving cars, with a large black shoulder bag slung across his body to rest against his hip. As he moved, his hand was hidden within the bag.

"You know, Spike," his secretary baited him, "there was a very interesting letter in the mail this morning."

"Spit it out, Cordy. Somethin’s obviously got you pissin’ your knickers." Spike continued to watch the messenger as he came nearer to his position. On the opposite side of the road a doorman dressed in a double-breasted coat with gold epaulettes and braid held open the door for the man Spike had been expecting, and his four bodyguards. Spike, however, kept his eye trained on the messenger as he came ever closer.

"Dear Sunnydale High Alumni,

Would you believe your tenth anniversary reunion has come round so fast? Or maybe High School seems a century ago? Some of the class of ’90 have definitely moved on to bigger and brighter things. Anya Jenkins is now a partner at one of the most prestigious firms on Wall Street. Aura Buckingham is working as a model and has been featured in several major fashion magazines and TV advertising campaigns—."

"Yeah. For incontinence pads." Spike put on a girlish voice (for him). "Incontinence isn’t just something that happens to older people. Lots of women our age have problems too."

"Looking at yearbooks and old photographs brings back lots of memories, some good, some bad. Whenever news of you filters back, the school is excited and proud of your accomplishments."

"Hold on."

Sighting once more on the messenger he tracked his movement using the rifle, leading slightly, watching first through the leftmost window, following smoothly through as the cyclist was obscured from sight by the wall. When the messenger came back into view his hand was no longer hidden in the satchel. The businessman’s bodyguards had just noticed the submachine gun in his hand, and were drawing their guns looking this way and that in panic as the cyclist’s chest exploded from the impact of the bullet from Spike’s silenced rifle. Before the effects of Spike’s shot had fully registered a dozen shots from four different pistols had also impacted into the cyclist’s chest and the businessman had been pushed to the ground. Still, the messenger’s momentum carried him forward until the cycle hit the side of a stationary car at the nearby junction, spilling the lifeless body onto its hood.

"As a graduate of the class of ’90, you are someone special. Remember, there’s nowhere you can go in life that you didn’t learn how to reach at "Sunnydale High

"Bin it, Cordy," Spike continued his conversation as he turned away from the window to dismantle the rifle with practised efficiency, stowing the pieces in their case as he broke it down.

"I thought it might be good for you… Open some new accounts… Network."

"Don’t tease me, princess. You know what I do for a living."

Over his shoulder a scene unfolded. The doorman poked his head around the decorative pillar behind which he had taken shelter. The entrepreneur lay on the ground as three of his bodyguards stood over him, the fourth having moved off to check on the cyclist. Behind them in the shadows the doorman unhooked the last couple of buttons on his coat. Even as Spike clicked the case holding the rifle pieces closed, the doorman pulled out a pair of chromed magnum pistols, alternating hands as he emptied two full loads into the surprised bodyguards and the body mass of the group’s central figure. He tossed the empty guns down on top of his corpse.

Hearing the first shots, Spike positioned himself with his back against the wall next to the central window. He twisted his neck to look down on the scene, for the first time noticing the doorman’s face.

"Soddin’ great Poof! Cordy, gotta go." Spike’s movements accelerated. The remaining items of equipment were slotted quickly into their spaces in his other case, the headset for his phone dropped into his jacket pocket and he headed rapidly for the hotel’s side door as police sirens became audible in the distance.

Liam Angelus stepped back through the glass doors into the foyer of the apartment building and from there through to the service exit. As soon as he was out of sight of the street he slipped off the greatcoat to reveal a three-quarter-length leather jacket and black dress pants underneath. By the time he pushed open the door at the back of the building, the distinctive braid-covered coat and its accompanying gloves and hat were inconspicuously stowed in a carrier bag, which he threw into the back seat of his hire car.

"I just got off the phone with a very unsatisfied customer."

"I don’t give a toss, pet. Tell them as far as I’m concerned I was paid for one job, ‘n’ that was the messenger. I don’t do two-for-one specials." Spike was on his cell-phone again, pacing impatiently up and down in front of his vehicle, one hand cradling the instrument to his ear as the other brought the cigarette, which was his stress-relief mechanism, to his mouth for a deep intake of carcinogens every time Cordy spoke. He and his hired black Lincoln town car were clear of the gridlock that was central New York, and he had parked up in an industrial area between there and the airport to take the call.

"They’re not happy."

"You think I was overjoyed to see that poker-haired wanker? Why don’t you find out what that git was doing there and then maybe we can talk."

"I have that poker-haired wanker on the line for you. Why don’t you ask him."

"Patch him through."

"William, me boy, where are ya?" Every now and then Angelus betrayed a hint of the distinctive Irish brogue he’d worked so hard to get rid of, especially when he was being patronising.

"Prague."

"Very nice. I can just imagine you …riding on the trolley cars."

A second almost identical town car appeared from around a corner and pulled up sharply in front of the lay-by where Spike was parked. He threw his half-smoked cigarette down to the ground.

"I thought maybe we could talk," said Angelus as he and Spike eyed each other, cell-phone held to one ear, his other hand poised just under the edge of the leather coat.

"Well, tell you what, why don’t you drop me an e-mail or summat?" Spike suggested.

"Nah, I was thinking more one-on-one, mano e mano, you know." Angelus opened the car door, tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and walked toward Spike, one hand still inside his coat as he spoke.

"Cut the crap, Peaches. What d’you want?" Spike laid down his own handset on the car’s bonnet, mirroring Angelus’s posture.

"Hey, I’m putting together a co-operative, a sort of joint venture for those of us in our rarefied line of work. Avoid embarrassing …overlaps?"

"Like a union?" The blonde gave him a sceptical look.

"I was thinking more like a club. Membership by invitation only. Work less, make more."

"Hey, well, great idea, Peaches. Let me know how you go with that."

"You’re saying no?" Angelus apparently made a rapid change of topic. "Remember Peking, that rebellion."

"Yeah, so. Ain’t old enough to be senile yet?"

"That loony, General Woo? …You were like a colonel or something in that army, weren’t you?"

Spike rubbed a finger over his left eyebrow, a subconscious gesture caused by the reminder about the scar’s origin. "Yeah, well he can’t have been that loony. Sold you all those surplus tanks, didn’t he? An’ you shipped them to Alabama or Georgia or somewhere. How much d’you lose on that little deal?"

"Yeah, well, I took a bath on that," Angelus admitted.

"Yeah. That was fun."

"See, that’s what I mean. We could be together again; the old team, spreading death and destruction all round the globe. You know, make the big bucks, kill important people. Like I said, I want to make it like a co-op, everybody gets a share of the pie, according to what they bring to the table."

"’N’ since you’re organising it all, it’s safe to assume you’d be entitled to a bigger share than anybody else. Forget it."

"Look, what with everything that’s been happening in the Eastern Bloc an’ all, the employers are getting us a lot cheaper, ‘cause there’s so many of us."

"Yeah. The market’s flooded." Spike drawled sarcastically, his eyebrow raised. ‘Like anything this po-faced pillock had to say was news. All he was after was a share of everybody else’s money.’

"See, that’s what we’re all lookin’ at. Now if we had some sort of consolidated bargaining…"

Spike snorted his disdain.

"Look, boy," argued Angelus. "I don’t think you want to take us on. This is real. It’s all coming together as we speak."

"So who have you got in your little circus then?"

"Francis Doyle, uh, we got the Host…"

"That the one that slips stuff into people’s drinks?"

"Yeah, we’ve got Charles Gun."

"Axeman."

"We got Fred Burkel."

"The queen of the hotel hits. I thought she’d be too smart to get mixed up with this. You got a great crew."

"Yeah, well, everybody’s in."

"Yeah, well, not me. I don’t want any part of your dirty little scam."

"Alright, William. Life’s full of second chances, and here’s yours. You just think about coming back to the fold. You think about coming back ‘cause one way or another, boy, I’ll get ya." Angelus moved back toward his car, glowering at Spike as he reached behind his back for the door handle.

"Yeah, well, you better bring all of your army with you."

"Yeah? One little shot. You wouldn’t even see us."

"Yeah, right. Whatever you say… Nice to see you again." Spike treated him to a faux-bright smile and a glare that would have cut glass."

"Yeah, well, good to see you too, kid." Angelus pulled the car door open. "You like that Pacific North West country? Here it gets kinda misty up that way."

"Can’t say as I remember. S’been years since I was up there."

Angelus gave a twisted smile and then turned his back as if to get in the car before emitting a stream of dog noises somewhere between yelps and barks, closely followed by the cry of, "Boom!" as he threw his hands up and wide in imitation of an explosion.

Behind his back Spike flinched at the noise.

"Catch you." Angelus called a final greeting as he climbed into the car.

"Yeah. Drive safe now," Spike said sarcastically as Angelus threw the car into reverse and screeched tyres as he made a one-eighty before taking off in the direction he’d appeared from.

"Wanker!"

The dust hadn’t settled on the road before Spike’s cell-phone started ringing again. He swiped it off the hood and pressed the answer button. Cordy’s voice came through the headset loud and clear, "So come on back to the old alma mater signed "Sunnydale High School Reunion Committee.""

"Cordy, you can take that letter and shove it right up your arse along with you next colonic and the pink slip I’m about to order you to fill in for yourself if you ever mention one word about that bloody reunion ever again."

"Don’t hang up. Wait! Did you read yesterday’s offer?" interrupted Cordy trying to get her message out at ninety words a minute before he did just that.

"Hold on a minute." Spike looked down at the car’s fax machine, pulling off a full colour fax with a picture of a sailboat on it.

Cordy continued on excitedly as she heard him tear it from the machine. "It’s a Greenpeace boat. It’d be so easy."

"Bollocks off," retorted Spike. "I have scruples… You know I won’t work for the French." Spike fished in his pocket pulling out his pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter. He lit up and inhaled sharply before he continued.

"Listen, pet is everything all set up for Miami?"

"Well, duh. What do you think you pay me for?"

"Fine, fine, okay."

"Spike, are you alright? You don’t really seem like yourself lately. Is it the job? Are you gonna have to quit, ‘cause I haven’t exactly been ploughing funds into my pension plan, if you know what I mean? Is it getting to you? I mean ten year reunion, that means life’s kinda slipping by."

"Are you talking about realising I’m not going to live forever or about being afraid of dying?"

"I kinda hadn’t looked at it like that."

"Then why are you so interested in me going to my high school reunion?"

"I just think it’s funny that you have one. I sort of imagined you being boxed up and shipped over here in a packing case, with a big sign on the side saying do not open except in case of emergency. Kinda like a real life GI Joe ninja doll."

Spike sighed. "My grandmother died when I was fourteen. After that, mum had no family left in England so we moved out to California to be near my dad’s folks. Okay? Does that satisfy your overdeveloped curiosity?"

"Sure."

"By-ye."

Spike sat cross-legged on the floor of his Miami hotel room. The only light on his sculpted features was the harsh blue and pink of the neon tubes outside. He wasn’t meditating or anything. Yoga wasn’t his thing. In front of him there was a hole in the floor. Two planks were lain lengthways over the hole with a gap in the middle. Below the hole which he’d made was a ceiling vent leading to the room below. Below the vent was a double bed in which a stocky middle aged man lay on his back sleeping.

Spike’s gloved hands lowered a fibre optic cable with a miniature low-light video camera down through the vent grating into the lower room and he checked his target was in position as anticipated. Then he turned his attention to the equipment that rested on top of the planks. A tripod supported a strange looking set up. Spike fed out some thick black thread from a reel, so that the end of the thread dangled mere inches above the open mouth of the sleeping man. Once this was in place Spike turned the tap at the base of a syringe positioned over the thread and pressed down on the syringe’s plunger.

The viscous blue liquid in the syringe dripped silently onto the thread as he maintained a constant pressure. He traced the progress of the liquid not wanting to cause the man to ingest more than necessary, lest it show up in the pathology report. It took less than a minute for the liquid to drain down the end of the thread. Unfortunately, mere seconds before the first drop fell, the man twisted in his sleep. His head shifted a fraction and the first drop, which by this time Spike could do nothing to stop landed half an inch to the right of the man’s mouth, startling him into consciousness.  

"Oh fuck," muttered Spike rapidly pulling camera and string back up into his own room. He unholstered a silenced pistol and ran for the stairs. Before the other man had woken up enough to do more than reach for his own weapon from the bedside cabinet Spike had kicked in his room door and the recoil from Spike’s first shot hitting him square in the chest drove him back onto the bed.

He still managed to speak, despite his pain and terror. "Whatever it is that I’m doing that you don’t like, I’ll stop doing it."

Spike treated him to a dispassionate smile as he raised his arm to administer the coup de grace. "It’s not me."

Spike pulled up his vintage de Soto at the back of his Chicago office block. Or rather, the block his office was in. It was reminiscent of the one Humphrey Bogart had in the Big Sleep. Filing cabinets rested against the half height wood panelling on one side of the long thin area that he rented. Above the cabinets ribbed glass allowed light through from a central corridor, but offered only a distorted view in. On the opposite side the windows gave a view of the city.

The area was divided into two unequal sections with more panelling and glass. The area at one end was barely big enough for Cordy’s desk and space to walk around it. The other side afforded yards before you came to a single chair, supposedly for clients but no one actually hired him in person. All the arrangements were made anonymously, electronically. At the far end of the office in front of a cream coloured wall was Spike’s desk.

Spike came in through the door leading directly to his part of the office, made his way through the permanently open double doors into Cordy’s section and greeted her. "Morning, sunshine."

"Hi."

As soon as she had replied he wandered back toward his own desk, before she could say anything else.

Cordy pressed the button on the intercom, causing a high pitched beep before her voice echoed from the speaker on her employer’s desk "Spike, are you ready for your messages?"

"Uh, gimme a second."

He lit up a cigarette and wandered aimlessly around his end of the area, straightening pictures that were already straight before picking up a motorbike magazine and sitting down behind his desk.

Cordy moved in her seat to watch him and when he sat down she picked up a bulky brown envelope and a red wallet wrapped in several layers of cling film, hovering by the connecting doors.

"They’re not happy."

"They’re not. I’m not bloody happy neither," Spike retorted.

"It was supposed to look like a heart attack. He was supposed to die in his sleep."

"Yeah, well, he moved.

His sleep research pattern suggested a deep sleep at that time. There’s bugger all to be done about it."

"This is a very valuable client." The brunette tried to make him take it seriously.

"Cordy, if we must do this now at least get your arse in the same room."

The secretary sashayed into the room, coming to a halt a couple of feet from Spike’s desk. "We’ve done a lot of business with them over the years… and they’re putting the blame for this on you. They say you’ve got to make amends."

"When?

"There’s someone due to testify in court on Monday morning. The jobs got to be done this weekend."

"Sod off. What do they want, a bloody miracle? There’s no way I can set up a job in that sort of time. Tell them I need my normal lead time."

The look on Cordelia’s face told him that no amount of bluster was going to change what needed to be done.

"Where?"

"Well, that’s the funny thing, I mean welcome to The Twilight Zone, Spikey. It’s in So Cal. You can drop in take care of business and then drop by the High School for your reunion."

Spike burst out of his chair as if she’d spilled boiling water in his lap. "I thought I told you to shut the fuck up about that."

"Touchy, touchy! Look, you cockney numbskull, it’s out of my hands. The fates want you to go back to Sunnydale, and they want you to make the sanction while you’re there."

"So, the client’s not going to budge on this."

"Not an inch. I booked you on an early flight for tomorrow morning."

Spike held out his hand toward Cordy. "Dossier… All right. I’m goin’ to be callin’ you from California. Make sure you pick up the dry-cleaning and feed the cat… Okay?"

"Don’t forget your identity." Cordy handed him the brown envelope, heaving a sigh of relief when he left the office, only to be cut short when he opened the door again.

"Luv, can you ring Doc Rosenberg. Tell ‘er I’m on my way over."

"Course."

She waited until she was sure he’d gone for good this time to let out an exultant, "yes!"

Spike sat in a plush armchair in the cosily decorated psychiatrist’s office. "So I got this invite to my ten year high school reunion. But, well, I’m in two minds whether I should go or not. I mean what am I going to say to anyone. I mean they’re all going to be married with kids and dogs and houses. They’re all part of something and they can talk about their jobs. What am I meant to say? I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork, and how have you been? It’s going to be a right bloody pisser… Shouldn’t you be taking notes or something?"

"William, I’m not taking notes because you’re not my patient." The diminutive psychiatrist tried once more to make her point, knowing it would be futile.

"Oh, don’t start all that crap again, pet."

"William, I’m emotionally involved with you."

Spike leered in her direction. "I think I might have noticed, luv." He wiggled an eyebrow at the cute redhead.

"I’m gay. I’m emotionally involved because I’m afraid of you. That’s an emotional involvement. It would be unethical if I were to work with you under these conditions. William, you didn’t tell me what you did."

"I bloody did."

"You didn’t tell me till we had already had four sessions, William. Then I said I didn’t want you to keep coming, but every week, same time, there you are. And I’m required by law to report it if you commit or are thinking about committing a crime."

"For one thing, if you keep repeating my name to give some sort of connection, you should know nobody I like actually calls me William any more. It’s Spike. An’ I know the law, pet, but what’s the point of coming here if I can’t tell you about the stuff that’s bugging me. Besides I know where you live."

"Hey-y-y, that’s not very nice. That’s a blatant threat. H-How am I meant to function as-as an unbiased professional when you’re saying things like that so that I’m left trying to come up with something creative in case you decide to just shoot me? And I don’t even want to know where the name Spike comes from."

"Not where you think. It was somebody’s warped sense of humour ‘cause I was so skinny in high school. An’ I wouldn’t even think of killing you. I was just kidding."

"Spike, you thought about it or you wouldn’t have said it. You kill people all the time. How am I supposed to know you won’t kill me? Spike, if you want these sessions to continue, even in their present capacity you are going to have to quit with the threats." The normally quiet, almost elfin doctor seemed to light up like a firecracker. Obviously she could only be pushed so far.

"Look, I just want to work through all this stuff. I read your books The Annihilation of Death, Kill Who? A Warrior’s Dilemma. They were on the New York Times Top Twenty best-sellers list. I got the impression you might have a feel for my situation."

"Spike, the books were ghost written. Look, I don’t know what I’m meant to say." The doctor pinched at the bridge of her nose as if she were getting a headache.

"What do you say to all your other patients? Ask me how I am or something?"

"How are you, Spike?"

Spike sighed. "I don’t know. I’m not real focussed. I’m pissed off a lot. There’s been a lot of problems with work and I’m bored and sort of restless."

The woman made another attempt, actually sounding almost perky. "Well, hey. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but maybe it’s remorse for all the people you kill that’s making you feel like that. Maybe, deep down you’re not happy in your work."

"Screw that, Red. I’ve been doin’ this for years and it’s only lately I’ve been havin’ all these problems. If I turn up at your door, the chances are you did something to bring me there. I couldn’t give a toss about those people." If anything Spike protested too much, as if he was spouting arguments he no longer really believed.

As if he realised this he changed track. "I don’t want to talk about work. It’s not like someone’s job defines who they are as a person."

The physician hid her sceptical glance behind her hand. "Okay. What do you want to talk about?" she asked.

"I don’t know. Should I talk about dreams? You want me to talk about dreams?"

This time it was Dr. Rosenberg who sighed. "If you want to talk about dreams, talk about dreams. It’s your dime."

"I had another dream about Buffy."

"The girl you’re obsessed with?"

"I wouldn’t call it an obsession," Spike said defensively.

"Ten years worth of dreams about loss and angst centred on the same girl? To me, that sounds like an obsession. Look. Go to this reunion. Go see what these people mean to you. See this girl…"

"Buffy," ‘he blonde supplied when the shrink seemed at a loss.

"Right. See Buffy and - just this one weekend …Don’t kill anyone. See what it feels like."

"I’ll try."

"Don’t try, William. Just don’t do it."

Note: Flashbacks are in italics.

Chapter 2 – You can never go home again

Everything he needed for the Sunnydale trip was waiting and ready. His clothes were packed, his weapons cleaned and packed neatly away in their cases. His tickets and ID were safely stowed away in his pocket book. He had everything from toothpaste to a travel hair-dryer. He was just checking his hair one last time in the mirror when he heard the double beep that announced he had e-mail.

He rattled the mouse until the monitor came out of standby mode, reading aloud the words that appeared in blue on the screen. "‘Services no longer required for California venture.’ What? ‘Alternate vendor to service contract at original cost.’ What alternate vendor?" Comprehension rapidly dawned on Angelus. "Spike. Ingrate, arrogant son of a bitch! Swiped the damn job out from under me. I was that guy’s fuckin’ Yoda. Let’s see if he’s so happy when he comes home and Miss Kitty’s nailed to his front door, or maybe just her head in his bed? Maybe sever his spinal chord, kinda appropriate, a knife in the back for the little back-stabber? See how he fancies life in a wheelchair, huh?"

As he spoke to himself he typed a response to the electronic message. "Preparations have begun in good faith. Expenses have been incurred." He hit the ‘enter’ key and waited for a response.

"Connection is terminated. Status idle," replied the text across the screen.

"Right, you think you’re so smart. How much do you think you’re going to have to pay once Spikey boy is out of commission?" Angelus picked up the phone and hit a series of buttons from memory.

A bright young female voice came on the line. "Agent Walsh’s office. How may I connect your call?"

"Hi." Angelus was suddenly all charm. "Can you put me through to extension 17 please?"

"Graham," answered the voice on the other end.

"Hi, I’ve got a line on that hostile you were looking for. Flying into Sunnydale tomorrow. He’s scheduled to hit a star federal witness before he can testify on Monday morning. Now, if you guys keep an eye on him, as soon as he does his job, you can do yours…"

Angelus hung up the phone with a feeling of satisfaction. Spike gets the witness. The spooks get Spike. Before the client can find out the target’s gone, we get in touch to let them know Spike’s dead, renegotiate the fee and get money for nothing.

Spike drove yet another black Lincoln along the freeway from the airport toward what had once been his hometown. Instead of the black suit, he wore a rather more casual outfit. His jeans were black and so tight that if someone were to look closely enough they could probably tell you the dates on the coins in his back pocket. He wore an open-necked deep blue shirt that brought out the colour in his eyes, or it would have done if they hadn’t been obscured by the mirror-finish shades he wore. His black leather duster draped around his frame like the old friend it was. A cigarette burned down in his hand as it tapped against the steering wheel. As he drove through the outskirts of town, craning forward in his seat to take in sights at once familiar and unknown, he switched off the punk CD he had been listening to, choosing to sample the local radio network. The song Pretty in Pink took him straight back to junior high and the first time he saw her.

Several hundred yards behind him, two men were bickering with each other as their station wagon followed along behind him. Both men looked as if they would have been at home on a college football team about a decade previously. Graham’s hair was that shade that was too light to really be brown and too brown to be blonde. Like Angelus’ it was gelled to stick straight up at the front, but thanks to slightly more taste it was only about half the length. He had the kind of open face and straightforward attitude that led most people to trust him instinctively.

His partner appeared more openly intimidating, looking less at home in his regulation blazer and slacks. Forrest carried with him an air of hostility, as if all mankind was his enemy until proven otherwise. Like many African Americans he shaved his head totally bald, but it was the fact that he seldom smiled that really gave the impression of austerity.

"Bullshit," Graham gently responded to Forrest’s claim. "You always have to know them all."

"I was on a job in Lisbon, ‘bout two years ago and I saw him," his partner insisted.

"No, man" Graham shook his head, splitting his attention between the argument, the road and Spike’s vehicle. "You didn’t. You know what, he hasn’t been in Portugal since ’86. If you read the file you’d know that." He temporarily freed a hand from the wheel to peel back the cover on the unopened file resting in Forrest’s lap. "Why don’t you read the file?" he replied somehow still managing to sound cool and even-tempered.

"Bonn, then. I spoke to him in Bonn. Angelus was there. He introduced us." Forrest refused to be outdone.

"Whatever. How about since you two are such bosom buddies, I’ll just take the weekend off and you can kill him?"

Spike hummed along, thinking back to the fall of ’86 and his first day as part of the American education system, and the temporarily welcoming sight of the diminutive blonde in the tiny mini-skirt sitting on the wall by the school’s main entrance. When the DJ came on at the end of the track, his jaw dropped and he reached to turn up the volume.

"Okay, guys. That was The Psychedelic Furs from the days when the brat pack were making movies that didn’t go straight to video, and we all thought Andrew McCarthy was going to be the next Steve McQueen. And that goes out to the returning veterans of Sunnydale High class of ’90. Here on WFSC, we’re going to be celebrating with you guys by making a return to the eighties. All day, every day from now till Monday morning each and every track’ll be from the years 1980 through to 1990…"

Spike made his way toward the centre of town, pulling his car into the parking bay at the front of the unit that housed the town’s local radio station. The DJ sat in her booth looking out on Sunnydale’s main thoroughfare as the Lincoln slid to a halt before her. Spike turned sideways in his seat, using his right hand to obscure the lower half of his face, the mirrored shades hiding his eyes as he watched the girl who haunted his dreams, seeing her in the flesh for the first time in a decade.

"…And we’re continuing with Bon Jovi, going back to the days when his hair looked like he had it done at the local poodle parlour with Wanted Dead or Alive." Her words slowed as she reached the end of her intro, something causing the hairs on the back of her neck to tingle almost like an early warning system as she tried to make out the partially silhouetted figure through the windows of the town car. She couldn’t see his eyes. His sculpted cheekbones and full lips were hidden behind his hand. The white-blonde hair, shorter but the same shade it had been ten years ago, the way he held his cigarette, his posture and the dark clothing were still enough for her to be sure. It was him.

"Welcome back, Dalesmen," she said in a sultry tone that sent shivers down his spine, before she had time to reconsider her reaction to him.

Shoving the car into drive, he pulled back out into the midmorning traffic. Spike exhaled a huge breath that he hadn’t been aware of holding. ‘Damned if she didn’t look every bit as good now as she had ten years ago. And damned if he didn’t have a soddin’ hard on. Three bleedin’ words and she had him again already.’ His route home took him past the high school and he pulled up at the front of the building, deciding to stretch his legs and have a look at the old place. He was surprised to see a familiar figure heading toward the main entrance.

He called out to her without thinking, surprised and pleased that she was still there. "Miss Calendar! Oi! Miss!"

The elegant, yet casually dressed woman turned, her arms full of papers. "William? William Blank?"

Spike lit a cigarette and pulled off his sunglasses as he closed the distance between them. At about ten years his senior his former teacher still had the same svelte figure and huge thick-lashed eyes that had featured in many a teenage fantasy when he’d studied there. Only an occasional sign of grey at the roots of her dark lustrous hair and a couple of extra laugh lines marked the decade that had passed.

"William Blank. Your disappearing act was up there with the Lindbergh baby. The teachers all had a pool on where you’d end up. Princeton? Harvard? North Western? Oxford? Cambridge? …And you just went …nowhere? Disappeared without a trace."

"Yeah, well, I decided to go for a career with on the job training. Skip the whole college thing. You’re looking good. Probably still have a flock of sixteen year old boys hanging round the computer room pretending to work on their projects."

"Thanks," she gave a short laugh. "I think. You’re not so bad yourself in a sort of Goth way. Is that the same coat you had when you were here?"

Spike shrugged and gave a disarming smile. "Ain’t broke, don’t fix it." The ringing of a bell signalled a rush of activity.

Miss Calendar looked up in the direction of the school building. "They’re playing my song. So, where you off to now?"

"I’m just on my way home."

"Oh, oh. Really? Well, I must be going. Young minds to fill." The teacher seemed discomfited and backed toward the building as she spoke.

The sound of a nearby window being thrown open temporarily distracted Spike’s attention and the woman slipped away unobserved. A malproportioned head with ears more suited to a chimpanzee emerged from the open window. "Blank! Don’t think, just because you’ve graduated, you can smoke on school grounds! There are laws now about smoking in public places in California." Spike rolled his eyes as he walked back to his car ignoring Snyder’s voice in the background. He briefly contemplated doing a service to the current attendees of the school by eliminating the homuncule, but remembered his shrink’s advice and merely gave him a two fingered salute instead, not even deigning to turn round and look at him.

Spike pulled the car over in front of the Mueller’s house and got out. He got out of the car and engaged the central locking. As he walked around the front of the car and looked up to check for traffic before crossing the street his automatic pilot mechanism suddenly went haywire. He looked back at the Mueller’s. ‘Yep. That was the house he’d seen for four years whenever he looked out of his bedroom window. There was the window it had cost him a month’s allowance to replace after he broke it playing baseball. So, okay, why was there a parking lot where his dad’s carefully tended lawn used to be and why was there a bloody supermarket where his mum lived.’

He headed for the across the car park at a jog making his way directly to the counter. There was no-one else other than the cashier in the store. Judging by the binder full of notes that was open by the cash desk, he was a student working to pay his tuition fees. He cast a nervous glance in Spike’s direction as the blonde strode purposefully toward him.

"H-hi. C-can I h-help you?" The guy was short, so short that his uniform looked way too long on him as if they hadn’t had a size small enough, or they had just given him the one that belonged to the last guy to quit irrespective of their relative stature. Everything about him just screamed ‘victim’. Normally, Spike would feel sorry for the guy. Today he was just someone he needed to get information from.

"You better hope so," Spike answered, pausing only to read the unfortunate employee’s nametag. "Jonathon. What’re you doin’ here?"

"Ehm, it’s my job?"

"No, dimwit," Spike almost snarled. "What’re you doin’ here?"

"Em, I d-don’t—"

"Never mind. Do you have a supervisor or a manager here?" Spike shot rapid-fire questions at the younger man, not giving him time to think between attacks.

"N-not today…" Jonathon stammered out his response.

"But you do have one. Where does he live?"

"Hey. I can’t tell you that."

"Where do you live?"

"I-I…"

"I-I used to— Bollocks it. No point feedin’ you yer arse in a sling for what’s bugger ‘all to do with you. How long have you worked here?" Jonathon’s mouth opened and closed as he tried to prepare an answer for the hyperactive Englishman.

"Em, a couple of months—"

"And yer boss. How long’s he been here?"

"I d-don’t."

"Right. Fine. Doesn’t matter. ‘S done, ‘s done." Spike strode off toward the back of the store, pausing half way down the aisle to pull his cell phone from his pocket.

The teller watched warily as he moved off, wondering if he should hit the panic button. The guy was obviously either on drugs or in need of some.

Half way across the continent an answer-phone kicked in. "You have reached the office of Dr Willow Rosenberg. There is no-one available to take your call at the moment but if you leave a message the doctor will get back to you as soon as possible."

Spike didn’t even wait for the beep. "Red! I know you’re the-ere. Pick up." The psychiatrist paused with her hand inches from the phone when she heard Spike’s voice, letting him rant on. "My mum’s house is gone. I pulled up and instead of our house, there’s a soddin’ K-Mart. They say you can never go home again, Doc… but I guess you can shop there."

The redhead waited till the line went dead and then blew a raspberry at the phone. "Just because I have to talk to you in person doesn’t mean I have to pick up when you’re in California." She gave a self-satisfied nod, proud of not giving in to him and went back to reading her trade journal.

Spike looked up as he finished the call, straight into Forrest’s eyes as the government agents observed his movements from their car, but as soon as they knew they’d been spotted he put his foot down driving away.

Spike made his way outside, watching the station wagon disappear round the corner before hitting speed-dial.

"Cordy? … Bollocks to the contract. The clients could flippin’ do a Morris dance naked in Times Square and I wouldn’t bloody care. Find my mum. Do whatever you have to do, but find my mum."

Chapter 3

Will frowned as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. The white shirt and black slacks didn’t seem right without a tie and a blazer, but they’d do until he sussed out what passed for schoolwear amongst this bunch of colonials. And okay, what with his gran and the transatlantic move, he’d missed a visit to the barber’s which wasn’t a good thing when you had curls like his to keep under control. Yeah, the wire framed glasses were sort of old fashioned, but better that than those huge bright coloured things that seemed to be in just now.

Sod it. It was as good as he was going to get. Wasn’t like he’d exactly set the world on fire at his last school. And by the looks of things it wasn’t about to change now. Anyway, the five percent of people who didn’t actually think secondary education was one of the many layers of hell were the ones who reached their peak there. English or American, school’s just something to be survived …one day at a time, starting today.

"You all ready yet, pet? You’re not going to have time for breakfast if you don’t hurry?" his mum’s voice carried up the stairs.

"Coming!" he called before grabbing his bag and rushing downstairs. He dropped the sports bag in the front hall and darted through to the kitchen, grabbing a slice of toast and a glass of orange juice off the table eating and gulping down the liquid without even sitting down.

"So how’s my darling boy, this morning?"

"Fine, mum, but I’d be better if you’d lay off with the ‘darling boy’s. Dad in his study?"

"Mm-hm," His mother confirmed. "He’s been up since six, trying to sort out his lecture notes."

Nabbing a second piece of toast to eat on the way, he stood on tiptoe to kiss his mother quickly on the forehead. At five foot seven, he was only a few inches taller than she was. He just hoped he was due a growth spurt. Dainty and frail was quite the look on his mum, especially since the ebony-haired beauty could almost pass for ten years younger than her thirty-two years. On a teenage boy, it was akin to walking round wearing a huge ‘kick me’ sign.

"See ya later. I’ll ring if I’m goin’ t’ be late." He slung his bag over his shoulder, paused to stick his head round the door to his father’s study and say a brief goodbye and then left for his new institutional torture.

"So, my William, d’you think our boy’ll be alright in your nasty American school?" Will’s mum put down the cup of black coffee on her husband’s desk and moved to the window, so she could watch their son as he made his way down the road.

Strong arms folded around her as her husband’s jaw came to rest against her temple. "I survived it. And despite all your English snobbery the American education system isn’t as bad as you’d like to make out, Dru. Got me into Oxford, didn’t it?"

She turned in his arms, brushing her lips against his. "That was fate. Nothin’ to do with your education system. How else were you going to meet your dark princess?" Deep blue eyes laughed knowingly back at her from an older, more confident version of her son’s features.

"So it was written in the stars that I was going to get you knocked up at seventeen, so you didn’t even finish your freshman year?" William asked.

"It was written in the stars that we would be together. Our Will just gave fate a helping hand, my love. It’s not like we weren’t careful. It was destiny," Dru replied.

"Well who are we to flout destiny?" William picked up his wife in his arms and carried her back to their bedroom forgetting all about the notes for the courses he was due to start teaching at Sunnydale U the following week.

Will kept an eye open for someone he could ask for directions as he neared the school’s main building. He smiled as he noticed the petite blonde perched on the wall near the building’s main doors. Her hair hung in golden glossy waves that ended level with her bust-line. It was held back from her face with a pastel pink ribbon whose bow flopped just slightly off-centre and matched the short flouncy skirt she wore. Her white camisole top failed to conceal the delicate straps of her bra. She kicked her tanned legs against the wall and blew perfectly co-ordinated bubbles as she looked off in the distance apparently waiting for someone.

He came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. Instantly, the girl was doubled over and coughing. It was only then that Will noticed the headphones that had made her unable to hear his approach. He’d only gone and managed to make her swallow her gum. He was aware of a group of figures jogging toward them, but he ignored them trying to make sure the girl was alright.

"God, pet, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you couldn’t hear me coming." He tried to rub her back, comfortingly but found himself pushed out of the way by a guy the best part of a foot taller than him. Everything about the guy screamed clean-cut All-American jock. And, oh look, they came in a two-pack with matching bimbos. The second jock came to stand directly in front of Will.

"I think you’ve done enough here. Why don’t you just move along and stop pestering the lady?"

William refused to be intimidated. "I just wanted to make sure she was alright."

"Buffy doesn’t need you to make sure she’s alright. That’s Riley’s job, and it’s one he takes kind of seriously so why don’t you just get the hell out of here before he decides to do something about you getting her into this state in the first place?"

One of the girls with the group butted in at this point. Her voice whining and slightly nasal. "Percy, why are you even talking to this loser? Hello?"

Will looked round the group and decided he wasn’t about to get a chance to either check properly on the girl or make a decent apology. "Alright, mate, can take a hint." He backed away from the group wondering if any of them were natural blondes or if they got a bulk discount on their peroxide. Once he’d reached minimum safe distance, he turned and almost bumped straight into another gum-chewing female.

"Deee-nied," said the tall black-haired boy with her. "Tut, tut, tut. You must be new if you don’t know better than to try talking to the Sunnydale Aryans without an invitation."

"Yeah, well, I was under the impression that you yanks had something in your constitution about freedom of speech."

Will couldn’t help but be aware of the mischievous glitter in the short brunette girl’s eyes, as she looked him up and down appraisingly. "Like the accent," she commented.

He couldn’t help an answering smirk as he answered. "’S nothin’, pet. Everybody’s got one where I come from." Sensing he was on firmer ground with this pair he decided to introduce himself, "Will …Will Blank."

"Xander Harris," answered the taller boy, "and this is my little sister Faith."

"Right, well, I don’t suppose either of you could point me in the right direction for the guidance office?" Will asked.

Spike cringed as he walked through the halls of the local mental hospital. It could have been worse. There were large windows letting in lots of light, but the net curtains covering them were too thick to permit the residents a view of the outside world. The colour scheme ran to cream near the top of the walls, but the bottom five feet was painted with a brown gloss that was easier to clean when the inmates made a mess with whatever bodily fluid happened to be flavour of the day. All in all the place seemed clean enough, but the day room looked like it hadn’t seen new furniture in twenty years.

The nurse, who was accompanying him, pointed over towards the far corner of the huge room. "She’s over there." Spike walked over toward the figure she indicated, not wanting to believe what his eyes were telling him. There were thick grey streaks in the wild hair and she seemed to be wearing a sort of fleecy dressing gown. As he walked round to face her he noticed the lines beneath her eyes and how the only make-up she wore was some smudged lipstick, whereas she’d always looked perfect, to him at any rate. She had always taken a pride in her appearance, her hair and make-up faultless, her clothes rich and stylish if not conventional.

"Mum?"

"Will. Sit. Sit." Spike couldn’t help but be glad she at least recognised him, even if she was trying to get him to sit in a wheelchair. "They’re fun. Go on," she insisted, so he sat.

He looked at her, wondering if this was what he was going to be like at forty-six. "How are you, mum?"

"I’m fine. They look after me ‘cause I’m a princess."

"Yeah? The nurse said you were taking lithium?" Spike tried to assess exactly how far-gone she was, but it was a hopeless task.

Dru looked over to her right, turning away from Spike’s gaze, humming an old tune, that he finally recognised as Wasteland by the Mission. Just as he decided she was off in a world of her own her head whipped back to face him. "I saw your dad last night."

Spike gave her a rueful smile; "I kinda doubt that."

"But I did. He said to keep to the right when I was driving."

"Mum. What happened to the house? What happened to the money I sent you? Dad’s royalty cheques?"

His mother twisted a finger in her hair like a small child giving him a coy smile. "Gone," she answered softly.

"Gone where, mum? What happened to it?"

"Stolen." She whispered to him as if confiding a secret. "The pixies stole it so that the fairy queen could have a lovely party, but I was not invited."

Spike sighed. "So what else did dad have to say?"

"He said that you should marry Buffy. She’s a keeper." The apparently lucid words caught Spike like a body blow, but Buffy hadn’t been his to keep for the last ten years.

"Yeah, well, the old man always did know what he was talking about," he conceded not knowing which of the two of them were crazier, his mum for seeing someone who’d been dead the past three years or him for listening to the message she was passing on.

He was interrupted by the sound of the nurse he’d spoken to earlier clearing her throat. "I have to take your mom back to the ward now. It’s time for her medicine."

His mum’s face brightened. "This is Nurse Beatty. She’s my best friend."

Spike stood up from the wheelchair, watching as the RN helped his mother into it. He walked round one side of the furniture grouping where they had been sitting as the nursed wheeled his mother round the other to reach the main corridor.

As he stepped out into the corridor, he smiled at his mom as the nurse took her back to her ward. She looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time. "You’re a handsome devil," she told him coquettishly. "What’s your name?"

Spike looked at the headstone that showed his father had died three years before, aged forty-seven. He hadn’t even found out until two months later. He’d been away on a job. He opened the bottle of single malt he’d found where their kitchen used to be and poured a stiff one for the old man. He couldn’t help thinking that his dad was better off where he was. The house was gone along with all the money he’d saved up. His wife was medicated to the gills, talking to dead people and trying to chat up her own son. Said son was a killer for hire. Yeah, dad would have been so proud.

He dropped cap and empty bottle onto the grass and walked away.

He booked into a local hotel. It was a huge rambling affair that dated back almost to the town’s founding, back to when it had once been a popular seaside resort. When he reached his room he pulled the furniture away from the walls a piece at a time until he found what he was looking for. He unscrewed the plate that covered over the disused fireplace and slid the case with the tools of his trade and the red plastic wallet into the gap that was revealed. He replaced the plate and slid the dresser back into place before he flopped back on the bed for the night. The dossier and all the business that went with it would have to wait. He had his own problems to think about.

Graham and Forrest watched as the Lincoln pulled into a parking space diagonally across from the radio station the next morning. They watched as Spike hesitated, almost getting back in the car twice before he finally crossed the road and pushed his way into the booth where Buffy sat.

If it were possible, he looked even paler than normal and he hovered in the doorway his weight shifting from foot to foot, looking for all the world like the awkward schoolboy he’d once been.

"Hi," he said, his greeting so soft it was almost a whisper.

Buffy sat in her seat stunned into silence until she realised that the current track was almost ended so she flipped the switch that put her on air. "That was Cyndi Lauper and this is Heart with… one of their songs." She set the turntable in motion but not quite sharply enough and the first bar or two played at something less than their intended speed before the equipment righted itself. She took off her headset and Spike was relieved to see the red light that said "ON AIR" wink back out.

"Hi," she replied, the tone of her voice neither hostile, nor welcoming.

For a moment he was struck by the panicked thought that maybe she didn’t recognise him. "It’s Spike. High School?" He watched as she rose from her seat to stand in front of him.

"I know who you are, bleach brain!" Her fist flew out almost too fast to see catching him squarely on the nose as always.

He quickly felt to make sure it didn’t need resetting and tried again. "Hi."

"Hi," she replied once more. This time her voice was marginally warmer as she edged a fraction closer to where he stood. Six inches separated them and neither was sure if it was six inches too much or about a state too little. How on earth do you greet the love of your life when you didn’t say goodbye and you haven’t seen them in ten years? Hug? No. Peck on the cheek? No. Handshake?

"Shake my hand?" Buffy held her hand out, unprepared for the charge that passed through both their bodies at the slightest touch. Afterwards she couldn’t say for sure, but she thought, maybe Spike had jerked her toward him. Their lips met and two pairs of hands moved feverishly to re-acquaint themselves with curves and planes that had once been as familiar as the lines of their own bodies. She pushed him back against the glass-panelled door of the booth and he kept his grip on her hips pulling her with him so that his leg parted her own, her crotch rubbing against his thigh. She reached upward, one hand gripping the taut muscles of his upper arm through the leather of the duster the other twining with the soft curls at the back of his neck, forcing his head forward to deepen the kiss. Finally, they had to come up for air. As the fog of hormones cleared from her brain, she punched his nose again on principle, before moving away to the far side of the booth.

Spike resumed his nervous shuffle, this time mirrored by his counterpart at the far side of the room. He looked at his boots suddenly finding the old cracked leather interesting, but unable for long to keep his gaze from her face. "So ten years, huh?" he threw out, as much an observation as a question.

"Ten years …ten years since you stood me up on prom night. Yeah it’s been ten years." Her voice steadily got firmer and louder as she continued. "So what you been up to, Spike?"

Spike shrugged. "Based in Chicago. Self-employed. Travel round a lot on business."

"That’s it? That’s ten years?"

Spike shrugged again and lit up despite her disapproving look. "Pretty much."

Buffy pulled the cigarette from her mouth, squashing it beneath her foot. "I was kinda hoping for some great abduction story. Something that might explain why I ended up sitting on the back porch crying my eyes out over you."

"Well, there’s a few stories but …no. Nothin’ that really explains…" Spike looked awkward again.

"So. Self-employed. Doing what?" Buffy asked, chin high.

"Professional killer." The words came out so quietly Spike cleared his throat. "I’m a professional killer."

Buffy raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Assassin. Hmm. They have like a trade journal for that? Maybe a union?"

"Funny you should ask… look, pet, your record’s nearly done. You’re going to have to … whatever. I think maybe I should piss off and leave you to it. I mean, I’m here for the weekend. I’ll be back, but for now, I think I should go?" As Buffy hurriedly pulled another record from its sleeve, he made his escape from the room.

"That was Heart with These Dreams from the year I first met the love of my life. The guy who just walked back in here, ten years after he stood me up on prom night and vanished without a trace. Not a phone-call, not a postcard. No explanation whatsoever as to why he left or where he’s been. He comes back and he’s evasive and he makes jokes about where he’s been and what he’s doing and then he ups and leaves again. And all those feelings I thought long dead are suddenly back as strong as ever.

What am I feeling? Is it pain? Is it hope or is it panic? Is it anger? That’s a given. Is it love …or is it indigestion?"

Graham and Forrest listened to Buffy as she filled the dead air by waffling about her deepest feelings while she tried to cue the next song. They watched Spike as he paced back and forth behind a parked SUV, never quite bringing himself to cross back to the far side of the road where his car was parked.

"I’m going to go with indigestion. What do you think Sunnydale? Do I let this guy back into my life? This man I thought was the one… This man who broke my teenaged heart… This man who’s walking right back into the station and into my booth?"

The "ON AIR" light went out once more and the population of Sunnydale finally got to hear the opening bars of The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen.

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