Title: The Query Series
Author: NyxMne Chaosis
Email: magmyr@umailme.com
Distribution: SFA
Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 in parts for character death)
Setting: Post-Lover's Walk (Season 3)/Pre-Harsh Light of Day (Season 4)
Summary: After his drunken fiasco in "Lover's Walk", Spike returns to Brazil to woo back Dru.
Disclaimer: Joss owns all.

Willow's Query


"Must be a magic spoon," she decided and clutched it closely to her, not wanting to face the presence that had descended upon her. Instead, she mulled over the events of the last few moments.

Inside of an instance everything had changed. One minute she was standing at the Bronze, staring into a spoon trying to locate something gooey on her mouth, and the next minute she was standing in a dark dingy bathroom inside a strange house, staring into that same spoon.

Stranger things have happened on the Hellmouth, she thought. Anything was possible. Magic rings. Magic statues. People turning into fish or hyenas. That was the beauty and ugliness of magic. At this point, she wished she hadn't listened to Buffy and Oz's discouragement regarding her magic. She'd probably have several useful conjuring spells known that would help her out of this situation.

A tour of the house had revealed that the thickly boarded up window in the bathroom was a reoccurring decorative motif. The place was sparsely furnished and no where could she find a way out. Cautiously, she had idled into a large room with a sofa and dining room. That's when she heard the crash from another room.

Eyes wide and staring, Willow had trembled at the tinkling sound of broken glass and still trembled. She wasn't alone in the house. Someone or something had brought her here, but she never would have suspected who or what it was that had... never in a million years.

Willow had gulped, clutching the spoon to her stomach in an attempt to still her shivering form. She had strained her eyes in the darkness, moving slowly. Her back against the wall, she had felt along the boards that sealed up a door. She had tried to pull at them, but it was no use. They were firmly nailed in place.

The sound of footsteps had prompted Willow. With back against the wall, she inched toward a doorway. The doorway had led into the bedroom where she now stood. This room looked oddly out of place in the run down house. Only a canopy bed with elaborately carved mahogany posts draped in black gossamer furnished the room. The sheets were disheveled, as if someone had slept there.

A quick glance around the room had revealed an open closet. On a metal hanger, hung a long black leather jacket. The jacket reminded her of someone... someone blonde and fangy, someone with a cockney accent...

... someone she suspected now stood behind her.

"Mmmm, little lamb lost?"

There it is. The voice. His voice. Spike.

The panic. Too shallow and too many, my breaths make my head feel light weighted. But I have to face him. Slowly I turn, and leaning against the door jam is my worst fear, my worst enemy. I raise the spoon. If it got me here, then maybe it can get me back.

Spike lashes out for me, tears the protection talisman from my neck. Desperately, fearfully, I gaze into the spoon that trembles in my hand. Nothing happens. I shake the spoon and try again. Still, nothing happens.

"Not a magic spoon," I declare in a whisper.

"You got my present," he says smugly, smiling that menacing vampire smile. He holds the necklace before me. That's when I realize it was the necklace that brought me here, and that it wasn't a gift from the Wicca shop. It was simply a lure, a trap.

"It was quite the find," Spike says, admiring it. "Lifted it off a Gypsy so many years ago. She was a tough bird, but Gypsy blood is a delicacy." Spike tosses the pendant in the air, and catches it in his palm. "Forgot I had the trinket, until I was figuring out a discreet way to get you here. It took you long enough. You mustn't look at yourself in the mirror much?"

There is no saliva in my mouth, which makes for painful gulping.

"What do you want, Spike?" I ask, finding my voice. "More magic spells? Still trying to win back Dru?"

"Hell no!" he replies, nearly laughing. He shoves the necklace in his pocket, and righting his posture takes a step toward me.

Defensively, I lift the spoon and point it at him. He laughs. In a flash, he tears it from my fingers and looks at it. Mockingly, he raises it in the air and makes stabbing gestures at his midriff.

"Oh, oh, oh," he shouts. "I've been spooned to death by a little witch. The shame of it all." Smiling, he tosses it over his shoulder and I jump nervously as it clangs on the wooden floor.

"You see, I'm just looking for a way to pass time 'til Dru comes back to me."

"Wow," I say sarcastically. "Vampires can be delusional too."

My comment wipes the smile from his face. He glares at me with a sneer. Silently I chastise my loose tongue. He steps closer.

"Let's play a game, shall we?" he says in a deep growl, his face morphing into his true demon form.

I slip past him, bolting for the door, his laughter spilling over me as I run through the living room and down a short hallway.

"Help!" I scream in desperation. "Somebody help me, please!"

"It's no good," Spike calls after me. "No one'll hear you, luv. I made sure of that."

In a tiny kitchen, I try to pry away the boards over a back entrance, but they are also nailed firmly into the door frame.

I turn to run, but Spike is there. He descends upon me in a rush. I manage a blow to his jaw, but he shakes it off with a fury. His arms catch me. It's as if I'm gripped in a vise that wrenches me close to his cold body. Swiftly, his fangs tear into my neck. I gasp at the shock of the piercing pain.

Regardless, I struggle as the blood flows out of me. My wriggling eventually works. His fangs withdraw, but he clenches me only tighter, lifting me into the air and slamming me against the hard surface of a kitchen table.

The weight of his body pinning me down, his knee tightly wedged between my legs, I can't move. I can't kick. I can't breathe. His fangs tear into me again, the pull of his hunger becoming a deafening pulse throughout my body as my heart tries to replace the loss of blood. All I can do is lie there. All I can do is wonder...

"Mother Goddess, what did I do to deserve this?"