Spike’s booted feet hit the chamber’s floor with a resounding thud. The impact sent years worth of dust spiraling up around his legs. Light shone into the cavern from the world above, but the rest of the area was darker than a Bhravian breeding pit. His face shifted and golden eyes attempted to pierce the blackness. No such luck. The tingling down the back of his neck told him that the gloom was not completely natural. There was something else too, a feeling not unlike being watched, and the vampire could feel strong magic somewhere in the room. Then again, it could just be the building. He had been on edge ever since he had stepped through the front door. Even so, when nothing attacked him after a few moments, he called back to his two partners in crime.

“All clear!”

The ringing echo of his shout had barely started to fade when a red streak, barely visible in the thick gloom, darted through the hole in the ceiling and dove for the vampire. He grinned indulgently at the newcomer as the little beast wheeled around his head before finally coming to rest on his shoulder.

“Sense anything, little one?” he asked, absently stroking the winged serpent’s spine feathers.

A little puff of air and the rustling of feathers were Meret’s responses, but Spike could read them as easily as if she had spoken words aloud.

“Yeah, me too. Wonder what we’ve found this time.” He stepped out of the light, eyes glowing, and waited. The darkness seemed less oppressive once he was standing in it, and his eyes soon started to adjust. Many things had changed since his entrepreneurial enterprises had been exposed to the Scoobies, but the last of his companions had to be the best of the fringe benefits.

“You out of the way?” Buffy called from the hole in the cavern’s ceiling.

“As if I didn’t learn my lesson the first time,” he replied. And he had. The knot on the back of his head had healed, but the memory was still there. Some of their equipment was heavy, and the slayer had a habit of not looking where she threw things.

“Very funny.”

A duffel bag, stuffed to bursting with supplies, fell through the hole in the ceiling. It was followed in short order by a rope and the slayer herself, dressed in worn blue jeans and a UCSD tank top: her usual looting gear. Her hair was pulled into a sloppy pony tail and her face sported a smear of dirt down one cheek, but the vampire barely noticed such distractions. All he saw was the grace of her movements, the strength hidden in her slight form as she descended the rope with practiced ease. Part of him was relieved to know that his frank admiration was well hidden by the darkness around him, even if Meret’s soft echo of his thoughts would easily give him away if the slayer was “listening.”

After the incident with the warlock, and Buffy’s subsequent discovery of his extracurricular fundraising, she had insisted on joining him. Well, actually she had tried to give the money from her bank account back to him, and had screamed like a banshee when Dawn started mysteriously acquiring new shoes and groceries, before finally compromising with the vampire. After a great deal of yelling and more than a few threats of physical violence, it was decided that Dawn would do research on new prospects while Buffy and Spike would share field duty. Their earnings were split three ways, and if Dawn still occasionally showed up with new jewelry or inexplicable spending cash, the slayer simply pretended not to notice.

And Meret? Well, she was Meret: empathic scourge of hot wings and reptilian treasure hunter extraordinaire.

There had been surprisingly little grumbling from the Scoobies, even after the three found a cache of old Spanish coins, which had netted them a fair commission from the Sunnydale Museum of Natural History. Perhaps it had something to do with their realization that the vampire’s money-making schemes really involved glorified slaying, sewer trotting, weed picking, and other less than glamorous tasks. Perhaps it was the fact that they were able to keep tabs on the vampire in the most oblique of ways through Meret, a sore spot for the vampire. Oh, they still watched the growing relationship between the slayer and the vampire very closely, but none of them volunteered to baby-sit the pair on their ventures.

Spike and Buffy had fallen into an easy camaraderie ever since he had nearly died saving Dawn, and the rest of Sunnydale for that matter, from a magically inclined mercenary, but their dynamic was so unfamiliar, their situation so odd that it was Spike, for once, who had hidden behind barriers of his own construction.

Through Meret, Buffy knew everything about Spike’s moods and disposition, especially his feelings for her. Even though the vampire had always worn his heart on his sleeve, the situation was simply too raw. He had nearly died a scant few weeks before, and it had shaken him with the knowledge of his own fragility. Brought back from the brink by a girl who herself had been dead until recently, Spike found himself thrown into an awkward friendship with the entire Scooby gang and a confusing partnership with a slayer who bore his marks on her wrist.

Buffy, for her part, was certainly recovering from her abortive stay in heaven, but she still had a long way to go. Held in check by his own emotional confusion and vulnerability, Spike was scared to do much beyond offering her the occasional gift via Meret and an understanding ear. Oh, he still loved her, perhaps more now than ever, but he had never before felt so very exposed. In the dark predawn hours when even the most nocturnal of humans tended to leave the true denizens of the night in peace, Spike could admit to himself that he was afraid.

All of his masks: his sarcasm, his bravado, his questionable ability to hide his strong emotions, all were stripped away now that Meret had entered his life. He loved the coatl fiercely, but he was terrified of her effect on his relationship with the slayer. Buffy was getting a first-hand education on a subject that Spike had spent the last one hundred and twenty years attempting to destroy, hide, or deny: the true nature of William the Bloody Awful Poet.

Over the past month, Buffy and Spike had grown closer, but never quite as close as the vampire would have wanted. Her continued acceptance of his small gifts and attentions gave him hope, but even those crumbs weren’t enough to shake him out of his emotional paralysis. And so they danced around each other at arm’s length, a holding pattern that earned rolled eyes and “helpful” advice from Dawn, Tara, and Anya.

Apparently unaware of the vampire’s contemplations, Buffy finally dropped the last few feet, landing in the dark cavern.

“Think you’ll need the witches’ latest present, love,” Spike called from his vantage in the darkness.

Buffy squinted in his direction, her human eyes unable to pierce the dark veil. “Magic huh? Dawn owes me two nights of dish detail.” She paused. “Not to sound like a total ditz, but where are you?”

The vampire chuckled, letting his feature slip back into human guise and stepping back into the ring of faint light. “Won’t let me out of your sight, huh? Knew I was hot, slayer, but this is overkill.”

One perfectly groomed eyebrow arched in response. “I just don’t want to have to carry you back to Giles’ again because you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

Never gonna let me forget that, are you?

“Hey! How was I supposed to know it was magic?”

“Spike, it was a green, glowing statue of a scaly chicken.”

“But I didn’t feel anything!”

“I don’t care if you got any tinglies or not! It was soooo obviously magic that it wasn’t even funny. Plus? It moved.”

“It did not!”

“Did too! I saw it! And what kind of vampire doesn’t recognize a basinet when he sees one? Even Xander knew what it was.”

“You mean a basilisk love, or is Anya not tellin’ us something?” The banter was nice, familiar. It was almost enough to make him forget where they were. Almost.

It was almost enough to convince Spike that he had a chance with her. Almost.

“Whatever. The point is you suck.”

“Only if you ask nicely. And can we please get on with the lootin’ and whatnot? You don’t want to miss the big send off, and I don’t want to listen to you whine if you do.”

“Fine,” she groused. “Just try not to turn your whole side into stone this time. You’re heavy enough already.”

While the slayer dug around in their bag, Spike slipped into the darkness again to sulk. Meret rubbed her head against his cheek, but her conciliatory gesture was ruined by the wide streak of amusement coloring her thoughts. Some things never changed, and the women in Spike’s life, be they human, vampire, or coatl, had a knack for ganging up on him. The fact that Buffy was right, and he should have known better than to touch that figurine three nights ago only made him more irritable. He flexed his left hand subconsciously, but Willow’s potion had done the trick. He would always bet on Red over a cockatrice anyway.

A soft glow drew the vampire’s eyes back to the center of the room and the slayer. She had finally found the large crystal Tara and Willow had spent so many hours working to create. Under normal conditions it was perfectly clear, but when introduced to magic it glowed. The color and intensity indicated the type and strength of the magic involved. A side benefit was that the conjured light countered the unnatural darkness and the cavern was soon bathed in a warm yellow glow.

“Yellow’s for illusion, right?”

“Yuh huh.” Buffy was looking around the room, turning slowly with the crystal in front of her. When she turned towards Spike, the crystal swirled with hints of green, the protection spell Willow and Tara had put on Meret probably, and deep flashes of red. “Wait a sec. Where’s the red coming from?”

Red was the color of summoning and possession. Red was not a good sign.

Spike turned around to see what was behind him and came face to face with an age-darkened skeleton, mouth hanging open in a rictus, silent scream. Much to his chagrin, the vampire leapt back with a startled curse. Even as he heard Buffy step into the darkness behind him, he could not take his eyes off of the body.

It was old. Time had erased any trace of flesh or hint of smell. The skeleton stood against the wall, cradling a small, iron jar, lidded and rusty, in its cupped hands. Dust and cobwebs covered the bones, but underneath the accumulation of so many years, Spike could see what held the skeleton in its upright posture. A web of fine metal filaments had been wrapped around the body, anchoring it to the wall. The strands did not look strong enough to support the skeleton’s weight, but the bright glimmer of the net, free of any tarnish or rust, attested to its unnatural state.

The jar itself looked ordinary enough, but the sensation that had been crawling up and down Spike’s neck since he had entered the room seemed stronger when he looked at it. Meret’s reaction was somewhat more telling. Her coils tightened around his neck, strong enough to choke him had he been human. Mentally, she was tense and fearful, feelings Spike did not usually ascribe to the little coatl on their treasure hunting missions. Something was certainly off.

Buffy came up to his side, crystal leading the way and stopped, left arm barely brushing his right. If she noticed the light contact, she did not show it, but Spike’s body sang in reaction. It took a great force of will to not lean into her touch.

When the slayer brought the crystal closer to the little iron jar, two things happened at once: Meret hissed in warning and the crystal itself flared bright red before cracking down the middle. Acting on instinct, Spike grabbed the slayer and threw both of them as far away from the skeleton as he could. They landed heavily, Meret taking flight and hissing her displeasure at the rough treatment, and rolled with the impact. Both the vampire and the slayer leapt to their feet, crouched and ready in the small circle of light, but the room was as silent as it ever had been.

“Well, that was unexpected,” said Spike, voice dark and sarcastic after a few moments.

The room was supposed to be a hidden treasure cache of the Morelock family, a clan of necromancers that had gravitated to the Hellmouth soon after Sunnydale had been founded. The last of the family line had died in the seventies, the victim of a botched spell, and Dawn found a few records stating that they had hidden gold, maybe a few jewels or a rusty set of armor beneath the stone floor of their basement. She had certainly failed to mention a netted, ancient skeleton with what seemed for all the world like bottled evil held tightly in its bony hands.

“So slayer, broken red crystal plus Meret panicking equals a call to Ripper, right? So is it gonna be liquor, watcher, then airport, or perhaps watcher, then liquor, then airport?”

“Giles then airport. Skip the booze.”

Spike’s voice was jokingly resigned, “Ruin all my fun.” He gestured back into the darkness. “What’re we gonna do about that… whatever the hell it is?”

“Do you want to pick it up?” Buffy asked lightly.

The vampire shuddered and slid his hands, particularly his left one, deep into his coat pockets. “Ladies first.”

“Yeah… no.” The slayer dipped to deposit the broken crystal in the bag and zipped it closed. “We’ll bring Giles back, and he can figure out what to do with it.”

“Just gonna leave it here for any lurkin’ baddie to find?”

“You said this place is empty because demons can still smell…” she must have caught site of his darkening features, because she paused and amended what Spike knew she had been going to say, “the last owner of the building. That’ll keep them out one more night, don’tcha think?”

Spike only shrugged. He really wasn’t in the mood to discuss the house’s last resident in that moment, or any of the other related memories the building had for him. “You’re the slayer,” he said tightly before shouldering the bag at Buffy’s feet and grabbing a hold of the rope. The climb was easily accomplished, and the vampire soon found himself offering the slayer a hand over the threshold.

Spike hid the ropes and bag in a corner of the basement while Buffy replaced the false panel that had hidden the room’s entrance. They worked efficiently and discreetly, locking up doors, turning off lights, and covering their tracks so that when they did leave the Crawford Street mansion a few minutes later, only the most attentive of observers would have noticed their passing.

The car smelled of Armor All and the unstated fear of ending life as a Darwinian failure. Spike sometimes wondered if midlife crises were a strictly human thing, or a strictly male thing. If he was honest with himself, the desire to dye his hair a new color seemed to come around every fifty years or so. Did that count? Or was the point moot, because he would never, ever find a mate or have children in the same sense that drove human men to spend ludicrous amounts of money on sporty cars and expensive gym memberships when their hair began to gray?

Not that he would ever admit his contemplations in front of Giles, much less in the watcher’s speedy, red BMW.

And maybe Giles wasn’t too far off the mark. Maybe women were drawn to a shiny vehicle with a big engine and leather seats. Meret certainly seemed to like it. She had been banished from her perch on the dash board after a bug hitting the windshield barely an inch from her nose had resulted in a hissing spasm of brightly colored wings right in front of the watcher as he tried to change lanes. That hadn’t gone over well, and so Meret was sent to the back seat with the vampire to pout. Not that her sour mood had lasted very long. She was soon pressed up against the far window, watching the southern California landscape whiz by.

Spike was slouched in the back seat of the car, tucked uncomfortably under the raised ragtop. He wasn’t tall by any estimation, but the car company hadn’t designed the back seat to see much use. At least not with the top up. Or while the vehicle was moving. Spike snorted at the idea of the stuffy watcher performing any such vehicular acrobatics, but paused in thought. He seemed to remember some rumor involving chocolate and a police car. With a distrustful look at the back of the watcher’s head, Spike leaned a little closer to the leather seat and sniffed. Leather cleaner and a hint of spilled coffee from some weeks ago, but nothing else.

Thank all that’s unholy.

He settled back into his uncomfortable slouch, and listened to Buffy’s descriptions of their latest find. The drive to Sunnydale International had given her plenty of time to go over the details, with only a few interjections from the vampire. He didn’t see fit to interrupt her much though. Even though she tended to lace her reports with words such as magicky, deadish, groady, webage, or anything else she could tag with an unusual suffix (Spike still wasn’t entirely certain what “groad” meant though), she was remarkably thorough.

It was interesting what she did miss. At the mention of the Crawford Street mansion, Giles’ eyes had tightened with old pain. Perhaps the watcher didn’t think Spike could see him in the rearview mirror. Truly out of sight, out of mind as it were. Buffy had managed to build new memories of the building, and this, paired with her boundless ability to forgive Angelus, meant that she could walk into the mansion without the wounds of the past reopening.

Buffy seemed almost congenitally incapable of keeping a grudge, much less understanding someone else’s, and so she had run roughshod over Spike’s desire to avoid the mansion, regardless of the potential treasure hidden there. Without realizing it, she was doing the same to her watcher. The events of that year had stripped Giles of the woman he loved, his confidence in himself, and his surety in his Council training. Bound and tortured, he had lost more in the aftermath of Acathla’s raising than Buffy could possibly know, but Spike understood. Giles would have rather cut out his own eye than return to the mansion, but he would. Because Buffy was asking it of him.

The similarities were ironic. Spike too had lost the woman he thought to be the love of his unlife that year to Angelus. Broken, beaten, and confined to a wheelchair, Spike had been subjected to the type of tortures and humiliations he had thought to never experience again. He was a powerful scion on the Aurelius line in his own right, but without the use of his legs, Angelus had been able to humble him beyond anyone’s predictions, tormenting him until joining forces with the slayer seemed a reasonable course of action. Spike hated that mansion for everything it represented to him: Angelus, Drusilla, a sense of helplessness only rivaled by his first few days being chipped. He would have rather pulled out his own fangs than darken the mansion’s doorstep again, but he had. Because Buffy had asked it of him.

It was something else Spike would never mention to the watcher. Some truths simply didn’t help anyone.

Spike felt something tickle his hand where it rested on the seat. He looked down to find Meret, unblinking eyes fathomless, but mind open and understanding, staring right back at him. With the kind of tender smile that would have sent the Scoobies scrambling to research possession had they seen it, Spike scooped the little serpent into his hands and deposited her on his other arm where they could both look out of the window at the miles of desert stretched out under the dark sky. And the California countryside slipped by.

*****

In the end, Tara and Willow’s send off was everything and nothing the vampire had expected.

Giles had called in a few favors and had managed to get both of the witches enrolled in the semester abroad program at the University of Bath. While the schooling was perfectly legitimate, and as Willow had jokingly pointed out, it looked great on a resume, the real reason for their departure was for training with the Westbury coven. Althanea and Yvonne were going to meet the girls when they landed in Southampton, and had offered their home to the girls for the duration of their stay.

The real going away party had been held the night before at the Magic Box. There had been cake, music, tacky decorations and, since no one’s birthdays had been involved, no interruptions from Sunnydale’s demonic community. Except for Clem, but that didn’t really count. The floppy skinned demon was quickly being adopted by the Scoobies, especially after Giles pronounced him harmless when he thought he was out of the vampire’s hearing range.

Spike still felt somewhat out of place at such familiar get togethers, but the Scoobies were trying to include him. They really were, so he had been coaxed to stop hiding in the shadows and join in. Everyone had seemed to have a good time; even Tara had come out of her shell by the end of the evening. That might have had something to do with the flask Spike had dumped into the punch when the boy-band music got too tedious, but he felt it better that no one be the wiser on that front. Like all good things, the party was over too soon, and the crew had retired for the evening, leaving the night to the vampire and the slayer.

The next day had been a flurry of packing and last minute preparations. The witches had spent the late afternoon with Willow’s family, freeing up Spike and Buffy for their mansion raid. Afterwards, everyone had met at Giles’ apartment. Giles drove the mobile debriefing room while everyone else piled into Xander’s car and headed for the airport.

Meret had made her goodbyes before they had entered the airport, so as to not cause a panic amongst the high-strung airport security guards. After a fun turn through the metal detectors and x-ray machines, the group found themselves at the gated entrance to the concourse. There were tears, promises of phone calls and e-mails, jokes, and touristy suggestions. When it came Spike’s turn to say goodbye, Willow got a scrap of paper, which looked suspiciously like Buffy’s ladybug grocery shopping list, with a list of the vampire’s favorite London haunts if they managed to get a weekend in the capital.

To Tara, he handed over a few strands of his own hair. At her widening eyes, he simply shrugged. “Don’t have a phone or computer. Use ‘em if you need me or toss ‘em. Whatever you like.”

Tara had nodded mutely and wrapped the gift in a tissue before sliding it into her wallet. Such a gift, freely given, could confer great power over a person in the hands of a skilled witch, but the vampire trusted his unlife in Tara’s hands. After a stuttered thank you, and much to Spike’s surprise, he found himself holding an armful of blond witch. His well-tuned sense of demonic dignity was embarrassed, but the greater part of him just wanted to hug her back.

The bemused, and somewhat shocked, faces of the others brought Spike back to himself. With a gruff “Take care of yourself, Glinda,” Spike backed away and let the others continue with their goodbyes.

And just like that, the two were gone down the walkway to their plane. They were taking a short hop to L.A., followed by an all-nighter to New York, a red eye to London, and a final skip to Southampton. Spike did not envy the girls their flight. He usually managed to avoid planes, but he had learned in his limited experience that jet lag was a ruddy bitch, even for those with vampiric constitutions.

Spike walked through the airport in silence. Outside of the members of the Summers family, who on the whole seemed to have a strange weakness for the bleached vampire, Tara had been the first person to really give him a chance. He missed her already.

“That was sweet,” whispered Dawn as the remaining Scoobies walked back out to their cars.

“I’m a vampire. I’m not ‘sweet,’” he growled.

“You’re right. That whole hugging thing back there? That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen a vamp do,” she managed to get the tease out though an impressive yawn. It was getting late for those of the group who bothered trying to keep a human schedule.

“Shut your gob.”

Despite his acerbic tongue, when Dawn asked to join them in Giles’ car, he made room for her in the tiny back seat. Revello Drive found the Key fast asleep on Spike’s shoulder, his coat around her shoulders.

If Spike somehow managed to trick fate and end up in Heaven, he thought it might bear a lot of resemblance to Wednesdays.

True to her promise, Buffy had started blocking out that afternoon each week for sparring sessions. Their first night had been awkward at first, neither really knowing the other’s limits or the remaining effects of the chip. However, when Spike’s first landed punch only produced the barest of shocks, the two had grinned like small children and really cut loose.

Giles had stood in the corner, coaching his slayer from the sidelines and wincing when a new piece of furniture fell under their half-playful, half-serious battle. Twenty minutes into the fight, he had been interested. One hour – impressed. By the two hour mark, he had taken a seat at the desk in the corner and was rapidly taking notes, an act punctuated by awed head shaking and glasses polishing.

Though the two were pulling their punches, the fighting was ferocious. Even before his unexpected change of heart after coming to Sunnydale, Spike had never felt more alive than when he was fighting for his life against a worthy foe, especially a slayer. As for Buffy, the vampire could sense her excitement and loved the glint of wild excitement he could see in her eyes. It was the strongest spark of life he had seen in her since her resurrection. He vowed to do whatever it took to get that gleam back more often.

In the end, three hours into the “fight,” two chairs, a bench, the pommel horse, and the punching bag had valiantly given their lives. Buffy and Spike had collapsed on the floor, both panting even though one only did it because his body remembered needing to after such exertion, neither able to claim victory. The crippled chip had seemed to register that Spike had never really intended to hurt the slayer, so he was left with only the most minor of headaches from the device’s attempts to shock him. After living through the chip’s full range of punishments, the pain was negligible.

Giles had stood on shaky legs and asked softly, “Was that how you fought… before?”

Slayer and vampire had traded looks and grinned. “Not exactly,” Buffy had said at length.

“How so?” asked her watcher.

“Well, we weren’t really trying to kill each other this time,” she started.

“And the slayer has kindly taken to layin’ off my nose,” added Spike with a lopsided grin.

“And Spike used to prefer weapons,” she added slyly.

He laughed. “Still do!”

Her girlish laughter had joined his own chuckles while Giles had watched with a kind of horrified fascination. It occurred to Spike that the watcher must have not seen Buffy fight in many of her more impressive battles. Oh, he had joined her for a few patrols, maybe even helped her slay a fledgling or two, but the big fights? The ones that were all about sweat and blood, life and death? Giles had little experience with them, much less under circumstances that would allow him to take notes. It must have been a rude awakening for the watcher. After that first evening, he had been even more adamant about continuing their Wednesday “lessons.”

The next week, Giles cleared the floor, stacking any equipment that could be moved against the wall before they ever arrived. He wrote pages of observations and the property damage was kept to a minimum. The week after, he started offering Spike advice during the fight, which was so unexpected that the vampire dropped his guard to gawk at the watcher, which earned him a foot in the gut for his troubles.

They sparred, and they snarked, and Spike could see a little more life in Buffy’s eyes each time.

This time was different though. This evening, Buffy and Spike had decided to dip into the weapon’s chest. He had thought about his decision all week, and decided to go with a staff. Oh, he could use a cutting instrument just as well, but staffs were discreetly nasty: a double ended club he could use in any variety of ways.

Buffy would not tell him what her choice was going to be, and so it had become a game. His guess was a sword: short, straight, and European. His slayer liked the classics, and he guessed that they both picked their best weapon the night they lost their memories, subconsciously working with their own strengths. She had spent the week discreetly needling him about his own choice, but he was willing to play her game and had not caved. Hopefully he had managed to convince Meret to keep his secret as well.

As usual, Spike headed out for Magic Box’s basement well before sunset. Meret was spending the evening with Dawn, the most untraditional and unobtrusive babysitter the teenager had ever had. From the “sound” of it, the girl was feeding the little coatl something spicy at the moment. He wondered if Tara could hear Meret all the way in Westbury. The witches had checked in when they landed, but Spike had been out when the call had come. Not that she would have been awake enough to answer his questions anyway.

Taking the safe route for once, the vampire wound his way into the shop’s basement from the sewers, leaving the sun to the humans. He climbed the stairs to find Anya counting the money from the register. “How’s the dosh?” he asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Anya, missing the sarcasm in his voice, answered brightly, “Fine, thank you! Anything new to add to the inventory?”

Spike responded by tossing a Crown Royal bag full of fossils onto the counter. The tiny stones were shaped like perfect stars with tiny holes in the center of each. They had once been part of flower-like sea creatures, long dead. Spike had been lucky; the age of rocks that held this type of fossil were rare in southern California. One of the local witches fancied a new set of runes that was more attuned to the earth magic she practiced, and Anya had sold her in the idea. It had taken the vampire a while to collect the tiny fossils, but he was developing an eye for them now, and they were easy enough to find now that he knew where to look.

Anya spilled the dime-sized fossils out onto the counter and inspected them. “For Mrs. Flannery?” At Spike’s assenting shrug, she continued, “You got twenty-four matching ones like she asked?”

“More like thirty, in case she doesn’t like some of ‘em. And there’s lots more where these came from in case she starts a fad,” replied the vampire.

“We wouldn’t want to flood the market, but a couple in the inventory wouldn’t hurt anyone. Besides, this is the kind of touristy stuff that the teenagers have been stringing on hemp necklaces lately. If you could bring me,” she tapped her counter with one of the fossils in thought, “maybe fifty more for now, that ought to be adequate.”

“I’ll get ‘em for you. Anything else you’re runnin’ low on?”

“Hmm. Pyrite, desert roses, quartz, you know, the usual. When are you planning on doing another mineral run?”

“After this snafu over at the mansion gets cleared up.”

“Speaking of which,” Giles appeared from the back practice room, “I would be interested in hearing your take on things before Buffy arrives.”

Spike winced. He really didn’t want to discuss the jar and the skeleton in the old mansion. “Not much to report other than what the slayer already told you.”

“Yes, but you can sense things she can’t. It would help with the retrieval tonight if you would care to enlighten me.” Giles’ patience with the vampire had expanded greatly in recent weeks, perhaps helped along by his tentative connection with Meret.

The vampire scowled, but was smart enough to admit defeat. “It’s like this, Rupes, there’s enough bad vibes from the darkness glamour, the remnants of Acathla, the shielding over the room, and the general hatred I have for that place that I shouldn’t’ve been able to tease out anything from the mess. But you know what? That jar stuck out like a Vegas stripper in a nun convention. I don’t know what it is, you know it doesn’t work like that, but it’s bad. If I had my way, we’d wall that room off and forget it ever existed.”

“You know we can’t do that, Spike. What if someone or something else happened upon it, especially if it is as powerful as you say? What then?”

Morality lessons. God, how he hated those. The vampire’s shoulders slumped. “I know,” he said in resignation.

“Well, if the artifact is as powerful as you say, I’ll bring my Tiran gauntlet and holding chest.” Tiran devices were like the HAZMAT suits of the magical world. Spike was at least relieved that the watcher was taking his warning seriously.

Anya, who had been listening to the proceedings with interest, piped up. “So, this powerful jar you’re going to get tonight…?”

“Yes, Anya?” Giles prompted.

“Are we going to be selling it, and if so, should it have a no return policy?”

The vampire and watcher looked at each other for a long beat. When their response came, it was loud and synchronized.

“No!”

*****

Buffy waltzed into the Magic Box at dusk with a smile on her face and a lilt to her step. Spike was in the book loft, lounging behind a stack of boxes where Anya would not see him and try to put him to work dusting or some other such thing. The slayer’s entrance drew his attention instantly, and he watched her from his vantage. “Hey Giles!” she called. “Those papers from the Council totally worked! I’m all with the enrollment again.” She dropped a stuffed satchel onto the research table and flopped into one of the seats.

The watcher smiled widely in return and walked around the counter. “Congratulations, Buffy! I take it they accepted the story about your coma?”

“Oh yeah, because hey, look at my not deadness. And you were right, part time seemed like the best plan. School seems much more manageable in small doses anyway. I’m only signed up for two classes, but I can always up the number next year.” Her expression made that suggestion sound doubtful, but she did seem a little more excited about school than Spike could ever remember.

“So you decided which classes to take?” queried the watcher.

“Oh yeah,” she patted the bag on the table. “One English and one anthro. You’re so on tutoring duty if they turn out to be hard since Willow’s off in England.”

The watcher agreed wholeheartedly, veritably glowing with paternal pride. He had fought hard to convince Buffy to go back to school in the spring, and his joy in her decision was almost palpable in the room. To himself, Spike could also admit a small amount of pride, because it was the money he had given her that had freed the slayer up enough to even consider reentering the university.

With a sudden change in demeanor, Buffy turned around and looked right at Spike where he was sitting above her. “You coming down so we can fight or not? I’ve got my guess about what weapon you’re going to use right here.” She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and held it up.

Spike leaned over the bar and looked down at the slayer and the watcher. “Since you asked so nicely. And yeah, I already told Rupes here my guess.”

“Must you two always drag me into your immature games?” Giles complained somewhat peevishly when Buffy dutifully gave her piece of paper to the watcher.

“Killjoy,” mumbled Buffy. “I’m going to go change into my sweats. See you in five,” she called up to the vampire. And with that she was gone from his sight.

Spike climbed down the ladder and sat in the chair the slayer had just vacated. The watcher simply gave a long-suffering sigh and wandered back over to the counter. When he was sure Giles wasn’t looking, the vampire slid the textbooks far enough out of the slayer’s bag to read their titles. When he saw what classes the slayer would be taking, his mouth couldn’t help but drop open. British Poetry: 1780-1910 rested on the bottom of the stack, followed by Mesoamerican Mythology. The image on the cover of the second textbook included a stone carving of a plumed serpent, a coatl.

Spike had long ago stopped believing in coincidence, and the books were just too weird not to mean something. How much had Meret let slip in the last few weeks? How much had he?

The vampire was still pondering the slayer’s choice in classes when the call came from the training room. “C’mon Spike. I wanna hit something!”

That’s my girl.

He was up like a shot.



A/N In League With Serpents just picked up two awards at the FFAs. (Squee!) I don't know who nominated me, so if you're reading this, thank you so much!

Despite the Crawford Street mansion’s looming façade, Spike’s senses were still humming when he, Buffy, and Giles parked the watcher’s car on the curb and walked their way to the building’s front door. While his unbeating heart could not pump adrenaline through his veins as it once had, the demonic force that animated his body thrilled in the fight, heightening his senses and hastening his moves better than any natural process. Even though their battles were no longer serious, at least not in a life or death way, nothing could stir Spike’s passion and make him feel more alive than when he was dancing with a slayer. The fact that the slayer in question was Buffy tilted the balance even further. It was more intoxicating than any drug, any blood (save one) that he had ever tasted.

It turned out that they had guessed correctly. Buffy had wielded a padded sword and Spike, his staff. Their dance had been even more complex than before, weapons twirling, jabbing, and intertwining as the opponents slid around one another. To keep things interesting, their fists and feet were still involved, sweeping, kicking, and punching whenever the opportunity presented itself. Giles had cut their dance short when a particular heavy blow from the slayer had snapped Spike’s staff in half, prompting the vampire to flip the lengths of wood in his hands and start fighting double handed. The ragged ends must have made the watcher nervous, because he called for them to stop before things could get really heated.

The broken pieces of staff had started to go into the dumpster behind the shop before the vampire had retrieved them with a mumbled promise to carve the pieces into stakes. In reality, he just wanted a memento of the weekly sparring sessions. Then the watcher had made an interesting proposition: in order to improve Buffy’s depth of weapons experience, he asked them to choose each other’s weapons for the next week.

Even though Spike couldn’t see Giles allowing a whips and chains get-up for his slayer, he was more than happy to deck out the slayer in other weapons of his choosing. The idea provided a great deal of food for thought, with more than a few entertaining mental detours, on the drive to the mansion. The possibilities were endless: kamas, katars, glaive, tomahawk, daggers… Despite the feather-light touch in the back of his mind that was a fair approximation of a raised eyebrow from a creature lacking the requisite body part, Spike could almost forget where they were going in the play of his thoughts.

Giles obviously couldn’t though. As Spike trailed the man into the building, there was a stiffness in the watcher’s back, a coldness to his demeanor that wasn’t hard to interpret. The vampire understood him completely. What’s more, he felt the same tightness in the pit of his stomach that he was starting to associate with guilt. Not the fresh guilt of failing the slayer or allowing Dawn to get hurt, but old guilt. The kind that made him think about past kills. The kind a vampire was unaccustomed to confronting.

Buffy took the lead, walking them quickly though the main hall. The vampire wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to the statue of Acathla.

Pro’bly locked in the Council of Wankers’ basement.

They moved past the room where Giles had been tortured by Angelus. Spike scowled and picked up his pace, noticing that the watcher did the same. They moved past the garden, gone wild with time and want of care, down the winding stairs, and finally into the basement. While Spike retrieved their equipment, Buffy took their rope and tied it back around the exposed pipes that lined the far wall. They were old, but they were also thick and sturdy. Besides, the basement was solid concrete, block walls and poured floors with a couple of bare light bulbs illuminating its stark grayness. The pipes were the only things in the room that could serve as an anchor for the ropes.

When Spike reappeared, he dropped the bag next to the false panel and yanked the stone plate free to reveal the hole into the basement. “Your turn this time, Slayer.”

“You’ve got Giles?” she asked dubiously.

The two men looked at one another. Spike shrugged. “He’s not that fat.”

“I am going to pretend that I did not hear that,” replied the watcher in a huff.

Spike just smirked, and the slayer eyed them both dubiously before shrugging and jumping into the hole at her feet. A few moments later, her voice called back up from the room.

“Clear!”

In went the bag, and Spike picked up the rope at his feet and tossed the main coil into the dark hole in the floor. “You comin’ or what?”

Considering Giles’ expression when he had walked over to the vampire, Spike was heartily surprised that the watcher didn’t try to twist his head off from behind once they were in sight of the floor. The two had made the descent in silence, the human hanging heavily from the vampire’s neck. Nothing like the famed British stiff upper lip to make an uncomfortable situation somewhat more tolerable.

When Spike’s feet touched the floor, the watcher stepped away with an awkward cough. The vampire smirked, and spent a few seconds brushing himself off with exaggerated care. The expression on the watcher’s face, indignation that he tried to cover with forced indifference, set Spike laughing.

Buffy appeared out of the thick darkness and slapped the back of the vampire’s head. He ducked away, still chortling, and slipped to the other side of the inky curtain.

Even though he couldn’t see it in the dark, even with his enhanced vision, he could remember the location of the skeleton, and he kept to the other side of the room. The same feeling, of being watched, of disturbing something that should best be left alone, assaulted his senses, crawling up and down his back, making him tense, his mirth abruptly forgotten. The feeling did not recede, even when a few chanted words from the watcher dispelled the unnatural darkness, revealing the room in a more natural light.

There was the skeleton again, staring at him from the far side of the room. He couldn’t help sneering at it, irritated by the creeping uneasiness it created in him.

Buffy walked over to the skeleton, looking it up and down as if sizing up an adversary. A moment later her watcher joined her, commenting on the skeleton in a quiet voice as if loathe to disturb its rest. Not to be bested, Spike ambled behind them, sliding easily into their whispered conversation.

“The net’s magic, but weak. Crystal barely blipped. It’s Pandora’s jar there that’s got me worried.” His voice shattered the silence, making the watcher jump.

“I, yes, um. Quite,” Giles said, gathering his composure. He bent over and removed his glasses to look at the jar more closely.

“You know Giles, we could just…?” Buffy nodded towards the net and made a ripping gesture with her hands.

“It does just seem like a strength or preservation spell. That might be best. Give me one moment to get the gauntlet and steady the jar.” The watcher went back to their equipment bag and fished out a heavy glove of metal links. It was nondescript, impressively plain in design, but Spike could recognize Tiran handiwork from the smell alone.

The jar was small and fit easily in the watcher’s hand. He steadied himself and nodded to his slayer and the vampire. Buffy grabbed one side of the net, Spike the other. As if by some unspoken cue, the two threw all their weight and strength into the net.

And went stumbling across the room when the mesh unexpectedly gave way easily in their hands. Catching the watcher in their wake, they went down in a tangle of silvery net, arms and legs. Muffled curses from the watcher added desperation to their efforts to free themselves. When Spike finally got loose, he grabbed the slayer by a flailing arm and dragged her free.

After a few confused moments and more than a few loud curses from the vampire, the watcher was free as well, still muttering imprecations under his breath.

“Giles! Are you okay?” Buffy started looking him over worriedly, patting down his arms in search of wounds or who knows what else.

The watcher made a reassuring gesture, looking embarrassed by the slayer’s attentions. “I can assure you, I’m not injured. I just,” he looked at his left hand, the right still clutching the jar. He finally finished ruefully. “Well, I’m afraid that when we started to fall, I grabbed the jar with both hands. There doesn’t seem to be a reaction, though.”

The slayer heaved a gusty sigh in relief. “Don’t scare me like that! I thought I had a squished watcher on my hands.” Giles smiled awkwardly and Buffy tittered a nervous little laugh that Spike had come to associate with the slayer blowing off a little post-emergency nerves.

“You sure it didn’t do anything?” Spike muttered, unappeased. The jar certainly didn’t seem any different. It still reeked of the darkest magics, but he had learned long ago not to trust magic. Even when the watcher restated his certainty on the subject, Spike gave the man and the vessel in his hands a wide berth. Giles might have dodged the bullet this time, but the vampire still didn’t want anything more to do with it.

Slayer and watcher went to the duffel bag, and Buffy was soon rooting around in search of the protective container they had brought. Giles stood nearby, peering closely at the jar as if able to see through the corrosion of many decades that covered its surface. Spike looked around while the other two worked, eyes falling on the skeleton where it lay, scattered on the floor. Its hollow eye sockets gazed up at him from the floor, but they seemed less vigilant than before.

Less imposin’ now you don’t have a leg to stand on, as it were.

The vampire smirked at the skull and stooped to yank the metal mesh out from under it, which sent bones and dust flying. At the slayer’s disapproving glower, he simply shrugged. “Waste not,” he said blandly.

“You should show a little more respect, one dead guy to another, you know,” she said, sarcasm light but present in her voice.

“One – it’s not a bloody table-cloth I can whisk out without disturbin’ the dishes. Two – Anya’ll want this whats-it for sure. And three – anyone who lived here before the Poof deserves more than a little disrespect.”

The slayer shrugged in equal parts amusement and resignation. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Necromancers!” she shuddered dramatically. “Bleh!” She looked back at the skeleton. “I wonder who he was.”

“She,” said the watcher. “Look at the flared hips and the sharp angles of the skull. That is a classic female skeleton.” At the disbelieving looks from the slayer and vampire, the watcher huffed. “I studied more than ancient texts and weapons arts you know. Regardless, I believe I will send another anonymous letter to the police department. Their coroners will be able to tell more about our mystery lady, and Willow assures me that her hacking abilities will in no way be hampered by her distance.”

After settling the newly stuffed bag on the slayer’s back, the two Brits watched Buffy climb the rope back into the world above. Spike kept his back to the watcher to conceal his admiring gaze, not wanting to antagonize a watcher who was about to be hanging from his neck again. Self preservation was one of the few things that could give the vampire a sense of tact.

A few minutes later, they were driving away from the mansion, Giles actually speeding in his unvoiced but obvious desire to put as much distance between himself and the building as possible. Spike was slouched in the backseat again, glaring balefully at the bag next to him on the back seat. Even though he knew it was impossible, thanks to the dampening chest, he could have sworn he could still feel the jar bristling with dark energy.

The vampire was starting to regret not simply keeping the gift he had left as a peace offering on the watcher’s kitchen counter: a bottle of Scotch with a note simply saying “I hate that bloody building.” In addition to providing a liquid outlet for his ill temper, if he had kept the alcohol for himself, he wouldn’t have to ponder the reason for his uncharacteristic empathy. There were two options, either it sported crimson scales and feathers or it had blond hair and hazel eyes.

Either way, he was whipped.

Spike managed to escape the Magic Box, paycheck in hand, before Giles roped him into helping research the jar. Rarely a week went by that the vampire didn’t regret telling Giles of his linguistic talents. It seemed that whenever a particularly nasty passage of Latin or Sumerian needed translating, Giles found a way to sting Spike’s pride in such a way that he soon found himself working on the texts without knowing quite how it had happened.

As for Buffy, she had been grabbed by Anya moments after entering the shop to discuss the former demon’s upcoming wedding. The horrified look on the slayer’s face and his own mental images of what constituted an appropriate bachelorette party in Anya’s eyes were enough to convince Spike that running was his best option.

Spike’s evening walks through Sunnydale had taken on a different cast ever since the chip had nearly burned itself out. Even though he had no desire to kill any of the people he passed on the street, the simple fact that he knew that he could seemed to dispel the bitterness that had eaten away at his thoughts ever since the Initiative had taken him prisoner. It was relieving in a way that he would never admit to the slayer.

Oh, there had been a couple of close calls. The latest example was a football player who had tried to cop a feel on Dawn on one of the rare occasions Buffy let her little sister go to the Bronze. A twisted arm from the slayer had sent the guy sulking to a dark corner of the club, but Spike was unappeased. While Buffy had dried her sister’s tears with hugs and promises of triple fudge swirl ice cream, the vampire had dealt with the situation in his own way. That was where Buffy had found him fifteen minutes later, snarling over the sobbing high schooler in the hallway leading to the bathrooms.

Even though a large part of him had wanted to kill the boy for daring to touch his
Nibblet, he hadn’t acted upon it, had barely roughed the boy up before Buffy found him. The brat was terrified, sitting in a puddle of his own making, but otherwise unharmed. For a second Spike had the terrible realization that he might have crossed the line, no matter how well deserved the boy’s treatment. He had steeled himself for the coming blow, perhaps even the coming stake, but neither had fallen. Buffy had simply placed a calming hand on the vampire’s shoulder without a word and waited until his features melted back into human guise.

Perhaps it was the understanding look in the slayer’s eyes when he finally worked up the nerve to meet her eyes, or perhaps it was the kick of her own that she added when she thought the vampire wasn’t looking, but either way, Spike began to think that they might still be okay. Without sparing a further glance at the weeping teen, Buffy had led him back to where the other Scoobies were getting ready to go back to the Summers’ residence to make good on the slayer’s promise of ice cream.

That evening, after the others had gone home and Dawn was safe in her bed, stuffed to the gills with chocolaty goodness, Buffy and Spike had sat down on the back steps. Companionable silence was something at which Spike had never excelled, so when the sound of crickets chirping and the rerun of X-files playing in the neighbor’s house started to grate on his nerves, he gave voice to the thoughts that had been swirling in his head since the Bronze.

“Wasn’t gonna kill the miserable git. Jus’ wanted to make sure he wouldn’t do it again.” He found the polish on his left boot fascinating after the admission, heart in his throat as he waited for her response.

“I know,” she had replied softly. At his confused look, she had tapped her temple with one finger and smiled mysteriously.

“Unfair advantage, that,” he had grumbled. “Takes all the mystery out.”

“Oh I don’t know about that.” She either hadn’t noticed or had ignored his baffled look, turning her attention to the stars instead. After a few moments of contemplation, he followed suit. The silence hadn’t seemed as oppressive after that.

*****

“So, are you guys, like together already?” Dawn asked, eyes wide with false innocence.

It was hard to get a being that doesn’t breathe to choke on a beer, but the girl managed the feat admirably. Spike snarled in irritation at the feeling of foaming hops in his sinuses, and glared menacingly at her. He hadn’t come over to the Summers' household to play twenty questions, not when he could have stayed at the Magic Box and suffered the same fate, but on less uncomfortable subjects. Like vampiric coming of age rituals. Or Angelus’ preferences in sexual partners.

“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he drawled, trying for nonchalance while wiping his much abused nose. Needless to say, it was a complete failure.

“Uh huh. So have you at least kissed yet?”

“Nibblet!”

“Because if you have, I want to hear all about it since she’s my sister and all.”

“Gah!” The vampire leapt out of his chair and started pacing the room while Dawn and Meret just laughed.

The three had been sitting in the living room, watching some disgustingly saccharine romantic comedy that the teenager had selected. The vampire stormed out of the room and into the kitchen. He downed the beer in his hand and tossed the empty bottle in the trash. There was a small cache of the alcohol and a jar of blood stashed in the back of the fridge that he had brought over after he and the slayer had started working together. He grabbed another beer, knowing that it was going to take a lot more than what was on the shelf if he wanted to drink his way out of Dawn’s idea of the Inquisition. With an irritable snarl, he slammed the door on the refrigerator and stomped back into the living room where he promptly collapsed back into the easy chair.

With a final raspy puff, Meret took off from her perch on the back of the couch and flew to the vampire. When she dipped to land on his shoulder, he didn’t shrug away, as much as part of him wanted to. Her warm thoughts and whimsical humor had the power to interrupt even his most determined sulk. Sure enough, a few moments later, he was scratching the tuft of feathers between her wings.

Manipulative wretch.

Meret just arched her back more and rustled her wings in pleasure.

“You should, you know,” Dawn’s suddenly serious tone of voice caught the vampire’s attention.

“Should what, Bit?”

“Kiss her.” When he snorted in disgust, she rolled her eyes and continued. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“She could stake me.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“You’re right. She’ll just avoid me like the plague because big sis knows what I’m gonna do even before I do.” He stopped scratching Meret in the midst of his ire, an action that earned a nipped finger. “Oi! I’m scratching you, you selfish little bint!” He suited his words with actions, and Meret coiled herself around his wrist where he couldn’t get away. Spike scowled, realizing once again that he had a knack for surrounding himself with pushy women.

Itches. The word that wasn’t really a word blossomed in Spike’s mind. It was hard to explain how Meret “spoke.” It only happened when she seemed to feel that her message was particularly important, such as when the coatl warned him that she and Buffy were coming to his rescue, or if she itched. There seemed to be no accounting for serpentine logic. The only way Spike could explain the sensation was that the words were simply inserted into his brain, as if he was being prompted to think of them. The “voice” was low and pleasant, but he had no idea how much of that came from the tiny serpent and how much from his own imagination.

“If Buffy knows everything that’s going on in your head, which she doesn’t because pfft, I’ve been able to hear Meret way longer and I still can’t figure you out half of the time, then wouldn’t she have already run for the hills?” Dawn looked at his critically. “Plus, it’s not like a constant thing or whatever. I mean, we have to concentrate to really hear her unless she’s on about something or wants to talk to us. Why? What’s it like for you?”

Spike eyed her curiously. He didn’t have to think about hearing Meret. She was just there. “Little more… present,” he mumbled.

Dawn rolled her eyes at his non-answer. “Anyway, it’s not like you weren’t obvious about what you felt before, even without the snake-shaped play by play.”

Spike’s patience was wearing thin, and he finally snapped at the girl. “And look what it got me! A broken nose and a magical disinvite!”

“Ever tried flowers?” The nonsequitor stopped the vampire mid-rant, mouth hanging open. “They seem to go over way better than chains and ritualistic sacrifices.” Spike was still staring at her as if she had grown a horn. “Oh! Or chocolate! You know, schmoopy stuff.” The vampire blinked, fingers moving mechanically as he continued to scratch the coatl’s back, but he was listening. Oh, was he listening. “I bet you were all schmoopy with Drusilla, in a vampy way that probably involved ickiness that Buffy doesn’t want me to know about.”

Well, that snapped him out of his silence. “Why am I even listening to you? You’re two years old. Max.” He harrumphed to himself, but his thoughts did turn back to a vampire’s idea of romance. He had been creative through the decades, anything to keep his dark princess happy, and yeah, a lot of it had run towards the macabre, but not everything. There was too much of William in him for that.

“You’re listening to me because I’m your in. She’s my sister. And since you love bringing my keyishness into it, I’m made of her.” Blue eyes met blue eyes challengingly. “Trust me.”

Never had a teenager uttered a more terrifying phrase.

*****

Despite Dawn’s interesting schemes, and there were a great deal to be had, Spike finally had to flee before his head started spinning. The unfortunate thing about hope, or perhaps its greatest strength, was that is was almost impossible to kill. There were so many things running through his head that Meret started wheeling around his head on the walk home, agitated by his turbulent thoughts.

Buffy slamming the door in his face after revoking his invitation. Buffy kissing him after pretending to be the ‘Bot. Buffy telling him he was beneath her. Buffy entrusting Dawn to his care. Buffy slamming him into a wall, knowing he couldn’t fight back. Buffy offering him her wrist when the chip had almost killed him.

Buffy having access to everything he felt, everything he thought.

Buffy Buffy Buffy.

It was enough to drive a vampire mad.

So he did what any demon would have done in the same situation. He killed a few things, drank a lot, and went to bed.

And then he dreamed.

Spike was standing in the sunlight, untouched and unafraid in the way of dreams. He was in the slayer’s backyard, but there were weapons everywhere: swords and axes, arrows and strange, multi-edged things he had never seen before, all sticking out of the ground. He picked his way around them, careful to not snag his coat on the blood-smeared blades, and made his way to the back porch.

It was then that he saw someone he had not seen in a long time and would never have expected: Joyce. The woman was sitting on a wooden bench, sipping from a tall glass of lemonade. Spike stopped for a moment at the top of the steps and just looked at her. She was younger than he remembered, healthy and beautiful in a simple yellow sundress, her hair thick and shiny around her shoulders. She was smiling at him with the same welcoming warmth that had drawn him to her kitchen counter instead of her neck once upon a time.

“I’ve missed you, mum,” he said, voice rough with emotion.

“But you come by and see me all the time,” she replied, and patted the spot on the bench next to her. “The neighbors can be noisy, but when the Chosen speaks, they tend to quiet down so I can hear.”

In the dream, her strange words only rated a nod and a soft smile. It was the same smile he had once reserved for his own mother. “I never doubted.” He sat down at her side and looked back out into the yard. The field of weapons was gone, replaced by lapping waves. The sun glittered on the clear water.

“I made you a drink,” she said. A mug of hot chocolate appeared in the woman’s other hand, and Spike accepted it with a murmured thanks. He looked into the steaming mug, tiny marshmallows just like he loved, before taking a hesitant sip. It tasted like home.

Joyce reached out and brushed a hand over his hair. “Don’t worry William,” she said, gentle fingers soothing the sudden trepidation he felt. Loose tendrils fell in front of his eyes, honey brown. Suddenly there were glasses perched on his nose and he was wearing the brown suit he had worn the night Drusilla had turned him. “They never saw you coming. No one did, but you were never one for plans, were you?”

Her hand dropped to her lap again, and she sipped from her lemonade, ice tinkling musically against the glass. “Tell her to stop skimping on the cream. She cries at night sometimes because it’s too thin. They both do.”

“I will, Joyce, if she’ll listen.” There was no doubt in his mind who Joyce meant.

The woman patted his knee through the stiff brown fabric. “I think she might. This isn’t the task you were chosen for, Chosen, but it might be the most important one in the end. I know I can trust you.”

The two sat in silence, enjoying their drinks and the sound of the waves where they crashed against the wooden supports. With his keen eyes, Spike noticed a dark smudge on the horizon. “A storm’s coming.”

“I know,” replied Joyce, unworried. “Call it another test or chess, but you’re getting a lot of attention from high places, for better or worse.”

“Who?”

“Them. The ones who chose you and the ones they represent. They’ve watched her for a while, but you’re the new player on the field. Speaking of which, could you take this inside?” she held up her empty glass. “I’d like to enjoy the view for a little longer, and it’s sure to bring ants.”

Spike stood and carried the two cups to the door. As he opened it to step inside, he called back jokingly, “I live to serve.”

“Man,” Joyce continued. “But I don’t think it’s a cookbook anymore.”

He found himself in the door of his crypt, but it was full of billowing strips of gauze. The dirty, white fabric varied in size from wispy threads held together by the barest of weaves to sheet-like swaths of cloth. Shadows of figures played along the fabric, illuminated by some unknown light source further into the crypt. Spike thought he could see glimpses of a woman slipping through the hanging gauze as he made his way to the battered cabinet that served as his kitchen counter. She had dark skin, hair, and eyes, at least what little he could see under the caked layers of clay, and moved like a stalking cat, crouched, low, and silent. She was dressed in the same white cloth that filled the room and was carrying a long, twisted stake.

That certainly didn’t go very far to set the vampire at ease. The glasses in his hand disappeared, replaced by a similar weapon. He looked at the stake and saw that his arm was covered in his familiar black leather again. Suitably armed and armored, he looked up again and found the strange woman facing him, not four feet away. Leonine hair framing her hollow-cheeked face, which was painted to resemble a death’s head. The sudden sharpening of his eyesight and fangs accompanied the change in Spike’s features.

Neither one moved or spoke, but in their appraisal of one another, a decision was made. The strange woman jerked her head in a brief nod and faded into the hanging gauze again, disappearing before his very eyes.

A delicate hand touched his shoulder, and Spike whirled, spinning strips of cloth around him in his wake. A young woman stood in front of him, creamy skin offset by long red hair. And by red, he meant red, like blood or his favorite silk shirt. Solid red eyes, wide and slightly tilted, gave her an even more exotic appearance. An embroidered dress, worked to resemble rows of crimson scales, hugged her slender form, and conspicuously bare feet completed her appearance. She was beautiful, there was no denying that, but the vampire felt more kinship to her than attraction.

All is new.

The voice in his head was familiar, but the source confused him for a moment.

“Meret?” he finally asked, shocked. The girl tilted her head to one side and looked at him, but she did not blink. Never her. Now that he looked closer, black tipped, red feathers were scattered through her hair, and her strange eyes, lidless but rimmed in thick lashes, were certainly the coatl’s. It was more than a little disconcerting.

This is how you see me, so this is how you see me. Come.

She reached out a hand again, and Spike took it. “Where are we going?” he asked as she led him back out of the crypt.

To her.

And sure enough, as soon as they stepped out of the crypt, they found themselves standing in front of Buffy and another woman. The two were seated at a folding table with an ornate tea set arranged between them. The rest of the room was lined with strange plants and bones, bundled together and attached to every available surface. Spike looked at the girl who was also Meret in confusion.

You touch the Dream now.

With a flash, Meret assumed her normal serpentine form and disappeared. He turned back to the scene in front of him and found the two women watching him. Buffy was dressed in a pair black slacks, a wispy, tie-back top, and her favorite black boots, the kind that were equally good at turning heads and kicking demons. However, when she turned her head and looked at the other woman, her attire changed. For a moment she was dressed in torn, white rags and mud covered her body like the woman Spike had seen in his crypt just moments before.

“Never pegged you for the Boris Karloff look, love,” he said.

She looked at him and she was suddenly back in her regular clothes, hair hanging in silken waves instead of tangles lanks. “It’s all the rage in England. I thought you’d like it.” Her eyes were bright and unworried.

“I do, but the clay must play hell on the upholstery,” he looked at the woman sitting across from Buffy and noticed for the first time that she seemed to be decaying right in front of his eyes. “But maybe that’s overrated,” he commented, noticing the dust and other, less savory things that were collecting around the hem of the woman’s old fashioned, black dress. Her skin was grey and mottled, and patches had fallen away to reveal the muscle below. Only her strangely familiar eyes seemed untouched by time, and Spike found the greenish orbs more than a little disconcerting.

The woman scowled, angular, dried features made even more severe by her tight bun and high-necked outfit. “I take my tea without milk,” she hissed, and the force of her exclamation knocked a dried piece of dead skin loose from her forehead. It fell onto her wire rimmed glasses, apparently obscuring her sight. With a jerky movement, she whipped the wire-rimmed bifocals from her face and retrieved a handkerchief from somewhere in the folds of her skirt. She cleaned the lenses violently, her jerky motions sending other flecks of decayed flesh floating to the floor. “I take my flesh the same.” With that, the woman’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she collapsed into dust, skeleton skittering across the floor in an exact replication of the scene in the Crawford Street mansion.

Spike kicked the skull away where it had come to rest by his foot. “I see the neighborhood hasn’t improved.” he commented.

Buffy rose from her seat and shrugged. “She wanted to share a cup of tea, but Giles told me to never trust a woman who serves tea without biscuits.”

The vampire’s lips twitched with suppressed mirth. He pointed to the cookies on the silver platter. “Those are biscuits, love.”

“No, they’re cookies. I should know. I’ll be one soon.” Buffy was again dressed in rags and mud for a moment and she looked at the vampire curiously. “Something’s different. Why are you here?”

“Looking for the other side of his coin,” a voice replied behind the vampire. Spike whirled to find an old man, ancient but hale, leaning casually against the wall. He was dressed in a faded, green robe with strange designs on the hem and had green feathers woven into his iron-grey hair. Spike blinked in surprise when he noticed that the old man had solid green eyes, as lidless as Meret’s had been. “Elaine was just a figment, but it was good that you did not drink from her cup, child of my brother, Child of Life. Her family has toyed with my charges for too long. I don’t like meddlers.”

The room flickered and their surroundings ran like wet paint. The grey swirled into bright colors, which in turn solidified into the Bronze. People were dancing to a complex, primal drumbeat. Spike could see Willow and Xander, Tara and Anya among the gyrating bodies. They seemed to glow in the smoky room. “Dance with them, Child of Life; the Dream is changing and your steps will guide its path.” Grinning like a schoolgirl, Buffy went to her friends and joined in their patternless movements. Soon, her steps slipped into the rhythm and Spike was transfixed.

The old man laid a hand on the vampire’s shoulder. “You should go to her, child of mine, Child of Death. The Dream is dancing to accommodate you, after all. It’s been a long time since her line of Chosen was selected. Old habits and the cosmic hierarchies die hard. I would think you would like dancing the death of the old order.”

“Never a better time,” Spike replied, eyes following the slayer’s every move. Without another word, he glided forward, smooth and silent like the predator he was. Buffy saw his approach when she glanced over one shoulder, but did not move away when his hands slipped around her waist and he joined her dance, move for move.

The vampire looked back at the old man and found him smiling next to a copy of himself, dressed in red robes. The man in red looked curious, but cautious. Over the drums, Spike heard the man in green say “Sineya let him in, which is unprecedented. She knows better than most that the Dead need a defender as much as the living.”

“They won’t always see eye to eye on this,” the man in red replied.

“Do Life and Death ever? Leave them be, brother. Greater powers than us decreed this. It is done.” With twin looks of understanding, or perhaps it was antipathy, the two men faded into the darkness, leaving the room to the dancers.

The warrior in Spike’s arms and the driving music slowly overwhelmed all of the vampire’s senses until there was nothing left but Buffy and the driving beat of drums. He pulled her closer and they danced, because that was all they had ever done. And the Dream danced with them.

*****

Wakefulness came slowly to the vampire. Sounds intruded on his consciousness first: the shallow breaths of the sleeping coatl on the pillow next to him, the raucous call of a crow somewhere outside, the drip of water further down one of the adjoining tunnels. Then smells: Meret’s earthy tang, cigarettes, the vanilla candle that had managed to find its way in amongst all of his unscented ones. He basked in the microcosm of his crypt for many minutes, savoring the stimuli that came to him in the wake of one of the strangest, but most rejuvenating, dreams of his unlife.

When he finally opened his eyes, he found one green feather in his left hand.

Meret daintily cleaned the last drops of blood out of Spike’s mug while the vampire himself sat in his easy chair, twirling the feather between his fingers. It looked like one of Meret’s, but it was much too big and, of course, the color was different: emerald green with bluish tips.

Strange dreams were perfectly acceptable.

Strange dreams that left calling cards the next morning? Not so much.

He had asked Meret about it, and her only response had been rapid-fire images from the dream itself and the scent of juniper for some reason. The images convinced him that not only had Meret shared the odd visions, but that she really had been the strange girl in red. When he asked her for some insight, he had received the mental equivalent of rolled eyes and a firm picture of Buffy, wrapped in ragged gauze and smeared in wet clay. He had finally thrown up his hands, literally and figuratively, before retreating to his chair to think. Meret “spoke” when and if she pleased, and it was shaping up to be a non-verbal kind of day.

It wasn’t that hard to determine the source of the feather. He remembered similar ones braided into the strange old man’s hair. The one who had called the vampire his child. The one who had called Buffy his niece, or something like that.

And it had been Buffy. He was convinced of that. Just like he knew that he had really spoken to Joyce. The dark skinned ghost who had been waiting for him in his crypt was still an enigma; he just didn’t know what to think about her.

The possibilities made his head spin. He wanted to run to the Magic Box immediately, but he knew it would do him little good. Buffy was attending her first day of classes back at UC Sunnydale, and wouldn’t be back until late afternoon, at the very earliest. Giles would undoubtedly do the research, but it was the slayer he wanted to talk to, whose thoughts he wanted to hear.

The wait was maddening, but he managed to waste a few hours watching Dawson’s Creek with Meret and whittling the broken ends of his staff down into six stakes. They were still rough, and needed a good sanding, but they were thin and their tips true. The three with the wider handles would stay with him, but the other three, the slender ones that would better fit a smaller hand, those had another fate.

*****

Spike nodded a greeting to Anya after he and Meret slipped into the back door of the Magic Box. The former demon was typing away on her computer, and she acknowledged his greeting with a sour hello. Nothing put Anya in a good mood like tallying profit margins, so she had to be doing some other, onerous task. Spike gave her a wide berth.

As the vampire neared the door, he picked up a voice coming from the front of the store. It was Buffy, that much was obvious, and the vampire could hear her words without much of a problem, seeing how she was almost shouting with agitation. Making sure to shush Meret, he stopped short at the door out of the practice room when the slayer’s words became too interesting to interrupt. Anya snorted loudly, but when Spike turned around to glare at her, she was already facing the computer again, fingers typing away. He leaned closer to the door and focused on the conversation happening on the other side.

“Something was different last night, Giles. The dream started normal enough, what with the cryptic mumbo jumbo, bad vibes, and ominously low lighting, but then it changed. It felt more real, like I was really there, talking to them. I’ve never had a slayer dream that felt like that before.”

Slayer dream?

Spike had heard of such things, prophetic dreams sent to the chosen one when the Powers decided she needed a little extra help. He had even heard the specifics of some of Buffy’s dreams from time to time, but he had never expected to see one first hand. He stood next to the door, waiting to learn more about her experience this time.

“Are you sure?” Giles voice was smooth, an obvious attempt to calm his slayer. “I understand that this particular dream seems… anomalous, but it might be perfectly normal in the scope of all slayer dreams.”

“Then how do you explain this?” Buffy asked, slamming something down on the research table. “And why do I have a vampire spying on me from the practice room?” she yelled.

Damn! Caught!

Spike opened the door with a shamefaced grin and stepped through to face the slayer’s wrath. She was dressed to kill, as usual, but it was her boots that caught his attention. They were the same ones she had been wearing in the dream, and they were tapping with irritation.

“Old habits die hard?” she snapped.

“Like cosmic orders,” he replied, eyes trained on her face, waiting to catch any hint of a response.

The slayer’s response verified everything he had suspected. She sank into a chair, pale and wide-eyed. “You were really there?” she asked uncertainly. He responded in the best way he could. The green feather in his hand earned a gasp from the watcher, but it was the object Buffy retrieved from amongst the piles of books and do-dads on the table, the same object she had apparently placed there so forcefully just moments before, that held the vampire’s attention. It was a crimson match to the feather in his own hand.

“Guess so,” he replied, voice devoid of emotion. He wanted to see how she reacted, and it was taking all of his effort to keep a tight rein on his emotions. If she had really been there with him last night, well, the phrase “dream come true” started to take on interesting new interpretations. But if she hadn’t, if her actions had been guided or influenced by the dream, that was another matter altogether. He waited for her verdict with his hands clenched, barely registering the feather-light flicker of the crimson serpent’s tongue against his cheek.

Buffy looked a little shell shocked, and as the seconds ticked by a dusky pink spread across her features. The vampire figured that she had to be remembering some of the highlights of their dance. Who would have known that the slayer would let him put his hands there? He forced the memory from his mind, unwilling to give Buffy the upper hand.

“If I might interject,” Giles’ voice was soft and courteous, but pitched to draw the vampire and slayer’s attention. “I understand that this whole situation might be awkward, but I would also like to point out that this gives us an unprecedented opportunity to gather more information than usual from one of these prophetic dreams.” Spike nodded reluctantly, and the slayer soon followed suit. “Buffy, could you start from the beginning again?”

The tension temporarily broken, Spike walked over to the research table and sat down. When he leaned on the table, Meret took the opportunity to slither down his arm and onto the table. The little serpent looked at him with glittering, red eyes before poking her nose into a box of multi-colored crystals. She was calmer than the vampire, and Spike wondered if she knew something he didn’t.

Pro’bly.

Meret puffed a chuckle in accord, but chose not to enlighten him.

The slayer shook herself out of her distraction and launched into her version of the dream, one that was quite different from the vampire’s own. “I was in the old library, back in high school, but it was looking pretty burnt,” she started. “It was decorated up with these red streamers, but they were all torn up, like someone had thrown a big party and hadn’t cleaned up afterwards. There were, I don’t know, cups and confetti and stuff all over the floor and the skylight was boarded up, but some sunlight was coming through.”

She looked at Spike for a second before continuing. “Angel was there and he said something like ‘You favor fire.’” On cue, Spike winced. The last thing he needed was another look into the angst-fest that had been Buffy and Angelus. He managed to school his features when he noticed what might have been an apologetic look on the slayer’s face, even as she continued with her side of the tale. “He stuck his hand in the sunlight. It started smoking, but he just kept talking like it was no big. Something about roosters burning and deviants and breaking rules and stuff. I couldn’t catch it all because I was too busy yelling at him to get out of the sunlight. He finally backed away and said ‘You must unlearn what you have learned,’ made with the bumpies, and jumped at me. I don’t know what he was trying to do, because the next second I was in this weird hallway.”

Buffy started describing a corridor full of framed shards of mirrors, torn fabric, and silver knives, but Spike was concentrating on what she had just said. Angel’s behavior reminded him of their first meeting, so many decades ago.

Hell of a first impression.

Despite the unpleasant memories, his grandsire’s words stuck in his mind, strangely linked with the smell of popcorn and blood, but the connection escaped him.

The slayer’s words drew him back into the conversation. “…And there were stinky twigs and bones and stuff all over the walls. Oh, and she was all dead and rotting. Can I just say, gross? The whole situation was way too Crypt Keeper for me.” She scrunched up her nose at the memory, and Spike chuckled at her understatement. Buffy continued after favoring him with an arch look, “She tried to get me to drink some smelly tea, but that was when Spike, some weird girl who disappeared, and the green old guy came in. She got all mad and then turned into a skeleton. Then the old guy took Spike and me to the Bronze and told us to dance so that some kind of new order could be fixed, or something. He wasn’t making much sense, and his red twin showed up after that. They talked. We danced. I woke up with a feather on my pillow. End of story.”

Spike smiled to himself in bemusement. No wonder her world saving seemed to come down to the wire, if that was the level of detail she gave her watcher. In visions, even the most insignificant detail could have some importance, a lesson he had learned from Drusilla. Not that he wasn’t going to indulge in some careful editing himself.

Giles was writing furiously on a notepad, brows furrowed in thought. “Spike, do you have anything to add?”

“Um, yeah. See, other than the end, my dream was completely different, Rupes.” The watcher nodded absently and gestured for him to continue. “I was in the slayer’s backyard, only it was full of weapons and such. When I made it to the porch,” he paused for a moment, wondering how this news would affect the slayer, “I found Joyce sittin’ there.” Well that got Buffy and Giles’ attention. He winced, but doggedly continued. “We shared some drinks, the backyard turned into the ocean. She went on about how the Powers that Bugger have their eye on me now, kept callin’ me ‘Chosen.’ Said a storm was comin’.”

At the slight wavering of Buffy’s lower lip, his resolve broke. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. Meret! The little serpent looked at him, questioningly. Let her know I’ll tell her more later. Spike started talking again, but he kept an eye on the slayer. In moments, her eyes widened and he looked at him again with something that looked heartbreakingly like hope and gratitude in her eyes.

“I went inside, but it turned into my crypt. There were white rags everywhere, and some weird chit, wrapped in bandages, was there waitin’. Dark skin, hair, moved like a two-legged cat. She was smeared in mud and had a stake, but after givin’ me the once over, she disappeared.”

“Dear Lord,” the watcher interrupted.

The vampire had been paying so much attention to Buffy, that he hadn’t been watching the other Brit. Giles and his charge shared meaningful looks, which set Spike’s teeth on edge. He hated being kept in the dark. “What?” he grated.

Giles spoke while scribbling madly on his papers. “From your description, it sounds like you met the first slayer. She has been known to enter the slayer’s dreams from time to time. The oldest records say her name was…“

“Sineya,” Spike interrupted. At the others’ surprised looks, he explained. “The green bloke said somethin’ about someone named Sineya lettin’ me into the dream.”

“This is unprecedented.” The watcher stopped writing long enough to pin the vampire with eyes that were equal parts awed and calculating. “You didn’t just share a dream with Buffy. It sounds like you have been allowed entrance into the slayer dreams themselves. We had a similar experience after defeating Adam, but the first slayer made it perfectly clear that we were unwelcome,” he mused. “To my knowledge, none of us have had a similar dream since. I had thought that she was angry that we linked our minds with Buffy’s, but if she is actually the guardian of the slayer’s dreams, I suppose it makes the events a little more understandable. She wasn’t trying to kill us. She was simply evicting us from her territory.” Realizing that he had been rambling, the watcher waved for the vampire to continue.

“So yeah, first slayer,” Spike wasn’t sure how to take that. He had no idea why the First Slayer would approve of the Slayer of Slayers, so he opted for file the issue away for later. “Anyway, she disappeared and Meret here showed up.” The coatl squirmed in the box of crystals, sending colorful pieces everywhere. She seemed almost amused with her part in the whole matter. Buffy poked the little serpent and waggled a finger at her before scooping the crystals back up and depositing them around a suitably chastened coatl. Amused with the slayer’s ability to get Meret to behave, Spike continued. “Only she was a bird. All red, no eyelids, and she still spoke in my head. She took me to the room with Buffy and disappeared.”

“By bird you mean…?” Giles asked.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Girl. Said it was how I thought of her or some such rot. Anyway, she disappeared, the woman started yellin’ that she doesn’t like milk in her tea or flesh, whatever that means, and turned into a carbon copy of the skeleton we found in the mansion. Then the green guy showed up, said a bunch of cryptic mumbo jumbo, called the dead bint Elaine, and took us to the Bronze. He kept callin’ me his child, or ‘Child of Death,’ like it was my name or something. Same for the slayer,” he nodded towards Buffy, “only she was either ‘child of my brother,’ or ‘Child of Life.’ Told her to go dance with the rest of the Scoobies and sent me after her. That was when his red twin showed up. They spoke a bit about the first slayer, said something about reordering the universe and destiny. Then, as Goldilocks here said, we danced, I woke up with a feather, the end.”

Giles kept writing for a few moments, mumbling under his breath. “This is all fascinating. Could I bother you for a description of the man in green?” he asked the vampire.

Spike searched his memories for more details. “He was old, but he didn’t move like it. Green eyes, as in solid green, no pupils or whites. No lids either. Um, pale skin, iron grey hair. He was wearing some green robes with a geometric design on the hem and had green feathers braided into his hair. The other bloke looked exactly the same, but replace everything green with red.”

The watcher kept nodding during the vampire’s litany, as if he expected everything that was said. “I think that this might be connected to the incident last month. Your description certainly seems to match some of the images of Mictlantechutli, the god of death, and Quetzalcoatl, the god of life. You remember them?” Spike and Buffy shared dark looks before nodding in unison. “I’m only puzzled because the prophesy that involved them seems to have been fulfilled.”

“Rupes,” Spike spoke up. “The green one, Mictle-whatever, he said something about the dead needin’ a defender, same as the livin’. Don’t know if that’s important or not.”

The watcher nodded and made another note. It was a testament to how much Meret’s influence had changed the vampire’s relationship with the Scoobies. Giles’ willingness to listen to the vampire’s opinions, and Spike’s own openness with the watcher were relatively new developments, forged in near-martyrdom and the bond they all shared through the coatl.

In fact the only more surprising change had to be…

“Fangless!” Xander’s arrival was announced by tinkling bells from the Magic Box’s front door.

“Whelp!” Spike returned, but like the boy’s, his voice lacked any real venom.

“There’s a pool table with our name on it at the Bronze. Hey Buffster, G-man! You guys ready to come watch me kick Evil Dead’s ass at pool tonight?”

The watcher put his notes down on the table sighed. “Stop calling me that,” he glared half-heartedly at Xander, but the boy just grinned. “I’m afraid I might have to back out of our social arrangements for the evening. Buffy and Spike have presented me with an interesting problem that requires research.”

“Well, call if you want munchies. Buff?”

“I’ll come root for you. America loves an underdog,” she managed to keep a straight face, but Spike grinned ferally. The vampire had won every single game since their weekly rounds of pool started.

“You owe me fifty already, you really want to add to that?” Spike asked casually, his eyes glinting.

“Maybe I’ll get lucky and you’ll have blood-poisoning tonight or something,” he shrugged good-naturedly. “Oh, and I dropped Dawn off. She’s working on some big history project and Janice’s mother is going to drive them to school tomorrow. Ahn’s in the back?” At Buffy’s nod, he scurried off to fetch his fiancé.

“I guess this is our stop, Rupes. You have fun with the codices.” Spike grinned wickedly when the watcher groaned.

The vampire reached for the green feather, but Giles’ voice stopped him. “I would like to look at those. They might be important.” Spike looked at the feather in his hand and shook off the nagging feeling that he was supposed to hold onto the plume. Reluctantly, he handed it over to the watcher. After all, if he needed it, Giles would have it safe and sound in the Magic Box anyway. Buffy gave up her feather with similar reluctance. “Thank you. I will tell you if I found anything of interest tomorrow. You two are patrolling the warehouse district and the docks tonight?”

Buffy nodded. Word on the demon underground held that a new vampire was making a power play in Sunnydale, bringing together fledglings and calling for the death of the slayer. Nothing new or particularly creative, but certainly important enough to merit attention.

While Buffy discussed the specifics of their post-Bronze plans with her watcher, Spike picked up Meret. The little serpent was still coiled up in the box of crystals, and he didn’t want to listen to Anya complain about merchandise abuse. She looked up at him and the vampire could feel an edge of hunger underlying her thoughts. He fished a piece of beef jerky out of a bag in his pocket and handed over a few bites of the tough stuff. She was growing like a weed, and had taken to hunting on her own. Not that anyone would know it from the way she begged, but Spike really didn’t mind. He sent her a mental image of the Bronze with a promise of leftover blooming onion.

Appeased, the little serpent took wing and started circling the room, more than ready to leave. She had found a vent in the roof of the club that led to the rafters. The loud music and bright lights had upset her at first, but after a while, she seemed to start enjoying the atmosphere. She kept an eye out for amusing or demonic scenes in the Bronze while Spike played pool, drank, and snuck her food from the bar. There had been a few incidents, especially after Meret had decided to take matters into her own fangs when she had seen a girl steal someone else’s purse, but in the end the only repercussions were the thief’s eviction and a few amusing rumors about bats living in the roof. The coatl could be discreet if she wanted to be.

Anya, with Xander in tow, came storming though the practice room door. “I require beer,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Sorting the scales, fangs, oozes, and various other saleable demonic parts into sections according to their uses and phyla was stressful. I still don’t know where to put the unicorn bacula, and Xander tells me that I cannot resort to sex for relaxation, because we already promised to go to the Bronze. Can we leave now?”

Xander was stuttering and Giles had turned a horrified shade of purple. Buffy shared a look with the bemused vampire, but Spike only shrugged. “Not the best delivery, but I can’t fault the sentiment. Who’s up for gettin’ pissed?”

“Eight ball, corner pocket,” Spike drawled around his cigarette. A carefully aligned cue and a flicker of golden irises later, and he suited words with actions. The vampire straightened and took a long drag off of his cigarette. Xander’s woeful face made Spike chuckle at the young man’s dilemma. “Tell you what, one more game. Double or nothing. You win and the slate’s clean.”

Xander twirled block of chalk in his hands, staining his fingers with blue. “I win this game, and I don’t owe you squat?” At the vampire’s lazy nod, he grinned widely. “Alright! My luck’s gotta change some time!”

The boy didn’t even notice the predatory gleam to Spike’s eyes as the vampire ground his cigarette into the glass ash tray he had balanced on the side of the table. “Since I seem to be in a generous mood, I’ll even let you break.”

In all fairness, Xander’s abilities had been steadily improving, but the game of pool had been around for a very long time, and Spike had decades of experience on the boy. After this game, and assuming the boy ever paid up, maybe the vampire could afford those concert tickets Dawn had been sighing over. Some hideous boy band or another, but it would be worth it to see the Bit smile.

Xander broke, rather poorly, and Spike found himself sinking two solids in his next turn. As he lined up his next shot, a familiar cleavage appeared right above the corner pocket. The next thing he knew, the cue ball was spinning off wildly to the right.

“Hey guys, how’s it going?” Buffy asked in a perky voice, but when Spike met her eyes, they held an evil glimmer. She knew exactly what she had done.

“Better now, Buffster.” After jabbing the vampire impatiently in the ribs, Xander took his place at the table. After sending a striped ball careening into one of the side pockets, he paced around the table, looking for another shot. “Spike here’s agreed to ditch my debt if I win this game.”

“Oh, really?” the slayer asked, arching an eyebrow at the vampire over her girly umbrella drink. It only took one look at the slayer’s flushed face for Spike to know that the game had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. A drunken Buffy was a wily and unpredictable Buffy. He wondered if he was being punished for the unspeakable crime of sneaking a drink to a minor, but she had looked like she needed a pick-me-up, especially since they had not had the kind of privacy required for him to talk to her more about the dream.

Xander missed his next shot, opening the table for the vampire’s perusal. He walked around it slowly, but to his consternation, Buffy mirrored him, always remaining in his direct line of vision. Spike lined up his next shot, but at the last second, he couldn’t help himself and looked up at Buffy’s face…

And drove the tip of his cue into the felt, leaving a long tear in his wake. Buffy grinned and finally popped the cherry from her drink into his mouth and licked her fingers clean. “That’s not fair,” he growled.

Buffy batted her eyes innocently. “What?”

Xander, as clueless as ever, kept on playing in his usual manner: sinking a ball here, scratching there, but every time Spike tried to line up a shot, Buffy was there, laughing, teasing, saying things that sounded innocuous to the boy, but held double meanings for the besieged vampire. Sometimes he still managed to make his shot, more often not, and beneath it all, the silent laughter of his serpentine watcher added insult to injury. Meret, who was coiled in the rafters, seemed to be finding the whole scene quite amusing.

Finally able to marshal his concentration, Spike sank the remaining solids. “Eight ball, side pocket,” he announced. Again, Buffy took up her position opposite him, but he would not look up and blocked out her voice. He would show her.

The cue slid back effortlessly in his hands, but as the stick started forward, a detailed image of Buffy taking a shower was inserted into his mind. The end of the cue snapped off in his suddenly fisted hands, sending splinters into the green felt and his exposed palm. He watched in disbelief as the white cue ball swerved drunkenly around the table before teetering into the far corner pocket.

You deceitful little minx!

“I won,” cried Xander. “No money for you, Fang Face!”

Spike scowled fiercely, but nodded. He took some consolation in the dark red color staining Buffy’s cheeks. Apparently Meret’s little message had not been on a private line. Maybe that would convince her to respect the sanctity of a fair bet. He was willing to bet that the dark set of the slayer’s mouth translated into a mental tongue lashing for the little serpent. Sure enough, he soon felt a trickle of contrition through the bond.

In the meantime, Xander was either having a particularly strange seizure, or was performing a victory dance around the table. When he finally stopped strutting, he turned to the sulking vampire and embarrassed slayer. “I’m gonna take my newly safe moolah and get some nachos. You guys good?”

“I’m just peachy,” Buffy said, but her voice had lost some of its bouncy edge.

Spike simply glowered in response.

Xander shrugged and made for the bar behind them.

The slayer and the vampire stood in uncomfortable silence for a second. Spike finally looked at Buffy, waiting for an explosion. “No, I didn’t send her to spy on you,” he muttered.

She looked up from her drink and shrugged, eyes too bright. There was no way the slayer was this sloshed from the one drink he had brought her. She must have gone back for another, and maybe another. The bar tenders must have been getting lax with their carding, or maybe she had pouted her way into the extra alcohol. “I don’t think she’ll do it again, since I just threatened her with wallethood. I guess turn about’s fair play, for all the inside info I’ve been getting.” She smirked knowingly, swirling the yellowy drink in her glass. “Remind me to never borrow your lotion.”

Spike balked. He didn’t even want to think of the various implications of that statement. Wallethood wasn’t sounding like such a bad idea.

What’ve you been tellin’ her?!

It didn’t take him long to find the twin pinpricks of red light up in the rafters, but the little coatl shrank behind a support beam under his angry scrutiny. He knew, even without the flash of feathers against the dance floor’s strobe lights, that Meret had fled, and the last thing he “saw” was a flash of her little bed back in the crypt. Part of him was terrified. He’d never really been angry at her before and had no idea how she might react. But part of him was glad too. He was furious, damn it! Between the others’ knowing looks, freakish shared dreams, and Meret’s interesting take on tact, he was about to rip out his own hair.

Xander chose that moment to reappear with chips in hand. “Whoa! What just freaked Meret out?”

“Gah!” Spike slammed the already broken pool cue down on the table, hard enough that the splintering of wood could be clearly heard under the felt covering. Without another word to either the confused carpenter or the slayer, he stormed into the night.

Xander’s surprised “What’s eating him?” followed the vampire out into the alley.

Surprisingly, it was not the slayer who eventually followed him out. He was well into his fourth cigarette, muttering and pacing furiously when Xander appeared in the alley. The vampire turned and faced him, waiting for the questions, waiting for the censure, waiting for whatever reason it was that the young man had seen fit to join him in the alley.

Xander tossed him something silver. Spike caught it midair, and immediately recognized it as his own lighter. He looked at the boy in surprise.

“You left that next to the ash tray. Thought you might want it back,” Xander said by way of explanation. After Spike’s grunt of thanks, the boy gave him a funny look. “Can I ask what just happened?”

There it was. Spike could almost hear the accusations coming. He had wondered how long their truce would last. Before he could give voice to the defensive, insulting responses that came to mind, Xander continued, “Because Anya’s in there giving Buffy the kind of piece of her mind that makes me feel safer running into a dark alley to find a not-so-fangless, pissed-off vampire.”

Spike was blind-sided by Xander’s comment, so much so that he found himself answering the boy’s question before he had time to stop himself. “Look Harris, how would you feel if Anyanka and the rest of your little Scooby gang could know anything you had ever thought, done, or said on a whim? Think that’d put you in a fantastic mood?”

The boy looked at him awkwardly, and ran a hand through his curly mop of hair. “Well, I guess if I had something I didn’t…” he hemmed. “I mean, I’m sure she… Okay, that does kind of suck.”

“’Kind of suck,’” Spike repeated, voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s bad enough that you lot can peek in on what I’m doin’ at any given moment, but you’ve got no idea the kind of stuff I did… before, do you?”

“Sure. Giles read up on you back when you first crashed town with little Miss Loony McNuts. We got all the gory details, complete with replays and side-line commentary.”

“Read up on my dirty little secrets around the campfire, did you? Think that makes you an expert on me? You didn’t see it though.” Spike’s voice dropped to a low growl. “What do you have to be ashamed of? Those Penthouses you’ve got under your bed? Bet the little lady would actually get a kick out of those.”

“One, I don’t want to know what you were doing under my bed…” Xander started counted off on his fingers, before Spike interrupted him.

“Evil. Bored. You do the math.”

“Two,” the boy said more loudly at the interruption, “Meret won’t tell most of us squat. And three, since when are you ashamed of anything?”

“I didn’t say…” the vampire started, angry and indignant. Wait, did I? “I’m a vampire, you stupid ponce,” he finally growled at Xander, eyes flashing gold. “Not ashamed of what I am and what I did. Damn good times.” The words flowed out, like they always did, but they tasted like ashes in his mouth. The idea of Dawn, Buffy, Tara, hell, even the irritating whelp that currently shared the alley with him, seeing him feed, or sport with Drusilla amongst the dead, or any of the thousand other things that had occupied his nights before Sunnydale made Spike’s stomach lurch.

Xander had put his hands up in a calming, or was it defensive, posture, “Hey, all I meant was…”

“Can it, Whelp. I’m leaving.”

“What about Buffy? Weren’t you two going to patrol together?”

“Slayer’s piss drunk, and if I don’t kill something right fucking now it’s going to get very ugly around here,” and with that, Spike threw his smoldering cigarette butt at his feet and stormed off into the night.

*****

The alley was dark, damp, and completely silent now that the two T’kinian drones were dead. He would have to return later, search for the hive and their queen, but for the moment he was sated. For the moment, he needed to be alone with his thoughts.

For a surrogate clan, the Scoobies were a confusing lot. Even before Meret, they had attacked him when he was attempting to make peace and forgiven easily when he had betrayed them all. They could be silly and frivolous, and often were, but they could also present a front of strength, a formidable force to be reckoned with. His own plans had come crashing against that wall enough times for him to understand that well.

Now that it seemed that the Scoobies had truly taken the wayward vampire in, he found himself expecting them to react as a vampiric family might, using their connection with Meret to search for and exploit his weaknesses. Intellectually, he knew that the Scoobies were very different than the demons with whom he had spent the last century, but on a gut level, he was still confused. It was proving hard to disregard the lessons of a century.

And now his own mind was betraying him as well. Looking back, he was shocked at the changes he had undergone in the past couple of years, but particularly in the last few months. If he got any more chock full of the milk of human kindness, he’d be in competition with Angelus for Poof of the Year. He found himself flinching when he was reminded of past kills and, while the scent of fresh blood still commanded his attention, he hadn’t seriously considered feeding from anyone in what felt like ages.

Why?

When had it all started? Had these feelings always been inside of him? Was it the chip? Buffy? Meret? Something about the Hellmouth itself that shot everything he thought he knew to hell?

It was funny. He had embraced his new role, more or less, when he had thrown himself on his alter of love and guilt a month before. And mixed up in all of it, Meret. The vampire wondered what that had felt like to the others. If Spike himself couldn’t figure out what was going on in his own head, he at least had the pleasure of knowing that any eavesdroppers would get to share in his headache.

The simple fact of it was that Spike didn’t really know what the Scoobies could hear through their link with Meret, or what the little coatl had been telling them. He assumed the worse, of course, but come to think of it, if Meret had been doling out information on all of the skeletons in his closet, even his newly minted status among the Scoobies wouldn’t save him from the stake, of that he was certain.

Another thing of which he was certain: there was a mourning serpent back in his crypt that was owed an apology.

And maybe some hot wings.

Before heading back to his crypt, Spike stopped to burn the T’kinians’ bodies, their oily bodies taking to the flame like dry kindling. Before torching the last one, he noticed something sticking out of the demon’s back pocket: a stuffed wallet. He took it and lit the hem of the demon’s shirt. While the last of the bodies burned, he flipped through the folded scrap of leather.

Well, at least the Bit will still get those tickets.

“Thanks Clem. I owe you one.” Spike slid the envelope into his coat pocket.

The floppy-skinned demon shrugged. “Manny’s always got a free ticket or two for his pit-mates. Just, you know, don’t be such a stranger. Poker night’s not the same without ya.”

“What? The others won’t sell their winnings back to you?” The vampire couldn’t help needling his old friend. Truth be told, he had started missing more of their weekly games as his job at the Magic Box and his growing relationship with the Scoobies consumed more and more of his time. He missed the camaraderie.

“Well yeah, but that’s not the point.” Clem looked at him, his drooping face all openness and earnestness. “Your friends are cool and all, but well, they are humans and sometimes a guy just needs to kick back with a few likeminded demons.” Suddenly the jovial demon’s face split into a toothy grin. “And Carl is an even worse winner than you.”

Spike chuckled. He could well believe that the moody Qorsian would enjoy flaunting his success in the vampire’s absence. “Well, I’ll try to make an appearance sometime soon. Put everyone in their place and restock your kitten collection.” He clapped Clem across the shoulder, which only made the larger demon smile wider. Any more and his face would split open and reveal his brow palps, a disconcerting sight, even after Spike’s long association.

Spike heard a crash from the kitchen and winced. “Right then, gotta run. Places to be, asses to kick.”

Meret, time to go!

The little coatl glided through the door which led to Clem’s kitchen. The two were about to make a hasty retreat, before their host found the mess the feathered menace had created in his sink, when the floppy-skinned demon’s voice stopped them both in their tracks.

“Uh, I was wondering if I could have my copy of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ back.” At the vampire’s flat gaze, he continued. “Tuesday’s date night and Marcy’s been wanting to see it. You know how women can be when they get their mind set on something.”

Spike looked down at the coatl who was hovering just out of reach. Meret returned his look with flat, unreadable eyes. Yes, he knew how women could be.

*****

The envelope slid through the vampire’s hands. Down the long side, tap tap on the sarcophagus. Down the short side, tap tap on the sarcophagus. Slide, tap tap. Slide, tap tap.

Likeminded demons.

Clem’s statement drifted through Spike’s mind, teasing the vampire. He wasn’t sure he knew any “likeminded” demons anymore. When had a vampire, except for the unmentionable, souled kind, ever taken up arms with, instead of against, a slayer? Loved one? Felt remorse for his kills? And really, how could Clem, or any other usually peaceful demon, really understand what Spike was going through?

In his less than sober moments, he sometimes wondered if his head would crack wide open from overpopulation. There were so many things floating around in his skull, he was starting to lose count. The chip. Meret. The Scoobies. Even Clem had started “hearing” an echo from the coatl. It was maddening. Now he had potentially prophetic dreams, the first slayer, and maybe a few gods to add into the mix. His mind was turning into a veritable peep show, and he wasn’t even able to charge admission.

He was becoming more and more distracted, worrying about who might be listening in on his thoughts and actions. Watching Meret and wondering if she was talking to one of the others. Sulking and brooding when he had once been prone to action. The only really calming influence in his life, Tara, was miles and continents away, beyond his ability to contact, not that his pride would have allowed such a thing. She always had seemed to come to him when stress was leading him to do something stupid. But now she was gone, and the vampire was about to explode.

Maybe Clem was right. Maybe Spike needed to spend some time with a likeminded demon. Maybe Spike needed some time with Spike.

A soft hiss accompanied the thought.

You too, little one.

The vampire suppressed a sigh from his perch on the sarcophagus. Apparently his period of groveling had not quite restored the vampire to her good graces. Or the coatl was milking the situation for all it was worth. Either way, Spike would play along.

Oh, he was still pretty brassed off over the fiasco the night before, but long years with Drusilla had conditioned him to suppress his ire at irritating, even infuriating behavior from the ones he loved. He might scream, rant and rave, maybe even throw a punch or two, but the storm would soon pass. He rarely kept grudges when his heart was involved, and especially not if he believed his feelings were reciprocated.

Spike’s residual anger and embarrassment at the coatl’s “discussions” with the slayer were more than overpowered by his bone-deep fear of alienating the feathered serpent. Meret loved him with the unpolluted simplicity of a child and the loyalty of her kind. On the most basic level, Spike dearly wanted to be worthy of that love.

He was a vampire, a monster in the most classic sense of the word, but the idealistic heart of a poet and the fierce passion of a demon had combined in Spike, melting together into a creature that was truly governed by his emotions, for better or worse. He loved like he did everything else: with his entire being, but that ability didn’t mean a damn if he couldn’t earn another’s love in return.

Slide, tap tap. Slide, tap tap.

But what to do about his current dilemma? If he didn’t get a break, a minute to stop and catch his mental breath, Spike was sure that he would go insane, but he had obligations. Things he had promised to do. Duties that tied him to the Scoobies. That made him belong.

The envelope came to a rest in his hands, and the sudden silence drew Meret’s attention. Spike looked at the paper in his hands and looked up at the inquisitive, if still imperious, eyes of his feathered companion.

Maybe there was a way.

*****

Dawn answered the door in sweats and a rumpled t-shirt. Spike took one look at her disheveled hair and bleary eyes and grinned apologetically. He really should have checked the time, but he never stopped to think of such things. Action. That was the order of the evening. “No rest for the wicked, Bit.”

The girl mumbled something that even vampiric hearing couldn’t pick up clearly and waved in the general direction of the living room. He swept into the house, Meret winging in his wake, nearly bouncing with energy and enthusiasm. Spike with a mission was an entirely different vampire than Spike without, and he was on the hunt for a challenge.

Dawn had other plans though. When the vampire opened his mouth to speak, the teenager threw a hand in his face and grumbled out some nonsense that might have made sense to a caveman, but really needed no literal translation. Wry grin still in place, Spike sat on the couch and propped his feet on the table while the girl wandered towards the kitchen and reappeared with an oddly thin can of some energy drink or another: the kind that had enough caffeine in it to give a vamp a buzz, much less a half-grown human. It was gone in a few gulps and the girl sank onto the far side of the couch with a loud, if partially dramatized, groan.

The vampire waited patiently, if constant finger drumming, foot shuffling, and half started sentences could really be described as patient, but his every action was cut short. After a few moments, the can-o-spaz, as Buffy called it, seemed to have taken effect and the teenager met the vampire’s gaze with clear, if irritable eyes.

“What d’you want,” she grumbled, ever the gracious hostess.

“Need your best file. Somethin’ concrete and covered in those glittery what’s its you love so much.”

Dawn blinked slowly. “You woke me up at,” she looked at the clock on the mantle, “two in the morning to talk about hunting another mystical doo-hicky?”

Before the famed Summers temper could really ignite, Spike removed the envelope from his pocket and tossed it on the couch between them.

Dawn glared at it. “What’s that?”

The vampire shrugged. “Bribery. Late birthday present. Payment. Insurance to keep you from setting me on fire for disruptin’ your kip. Open it.”

“This had better be good.” Her voice was still angry, but her eyes were glittering with interest. Spike only hoped that two tickets to see Justin What’s-His-Name were as good a present as he had thought, or else the fire scenario might not be too far off the mark.

Apparently it was. Even in her groggy state, Dawn gasped when she opened the envelope and saw the tickets, which had been sold out for weeks, much to every teenager from Sunnydale to Seattle’s distress. The vampire braced for the high pitched squeal and the onslaught of hugs, casually brushing them aside as if the gift in the girls hands wasn’t worth the obscenely large pile of cash, or human soul if you were trading in such circles, that the tickets could have garnered.

Dawn was awake, which was of course good. Dawn was also ecstatic, which was even better. Spike basked in the glow for a second before going in for the kill. “So, are those worth a file in the wee hours of the morning?”

The younger Summers struck a more serious pose. “You can live,” she tried to deadpan, but ended up giggling with delight despite her best intentions. “One sec.” Dawn dashed up the stairs to return moments later with a few folders in hand. They were hot pink, much to the vampire’s horror.

Dawn had taken to color coding anything she found for Buffy and Spike’s tomb raiding endeavors. Yellow stood for money, gold, or gems: anything that was valuable but presented little magical or physical danger. Blue folders stood for weapons, red for armor and purple denoted treasure troves that could contain any combination of the other groups. Green meant magical artifacts and colored stars denoted the type of magic: red for fire, blue for water, orange for earth, and so on. The number of stars indicated the artifact’s strength. Similarly, colored smiley faces with a carefully drawn X over each sticker denoted wards, guardians, or other hazards that could be expected. The system was convoluted and confusing in a way only the teenager really understood, but Spike could at least discern that more stars equaled better and more marked smileys equaled worse.

Spike had been expecting a purple folder. Then again, the pink monstrosities in the girl’s hands seemed to be bristling with stickers.

Dawn settled on the floor and started spreading the folders around her. “So, what kind of ooglies or widgets are you looking for?” she asked.

“Anything that involves some mean and nasties that’ll put up one hell of a fight. Don’t much care for the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but a'course, the bigger the better. Also, I’m looking to get out of town for a bit of a holiday, so distance it not an issue.”

“Hmm.” Dawn picked up one folder, glanced over the stickers and titles before tossing it aside and moving to another. “Aha!” She brandished a pink folder with a green backing and a whole host of silver stars, the symbol of spiritual magic, covering the front. When Dawn opened the folder, Spike caught a glimpse of the back. It was covered with black smiley faces.

Undead guardians?

“How does this sound? There’s this cave out in Nevada. You’ll have to hike a bit, but it shouldn’t be hard to find, what with the bioluminescent moss and zombie guards and all…” The more Dawn talked, the wider Spike’s grin became. It sounded perfect.

Spike left the Summers residence with a bounce in his step, his favorite axe from the slayer’s weapons chest over one shoulder, the hideous folder under the other arm, and a scrap of paper that Dawn had given him as an afterthought shoved in his pocket. He had two more stops to make before leaving, and the approaching dawn was going to make travel iffy.

After dragging Dawn from her bed, Spike had even less compulsion against waking the watcher, but much to his surprise, the lights were on at the flat and his insistent knocking was met with a very awake Giles, still dressed and apparently working in the wee hours of the morning. Also, surprisingly, Meret took one look at the watcher, hissed in rage and flew away as if a flight of wyverns were on her tail. Spike tried to reach out to her, the coatl’s actions were confusing to say the least, but her thoughts were a wall of anger and fright.

The watcher’s voice drew the vampire’s attention back to the matter at hand. “Good evening, or is it morning, Spike. I do not know what to ask first: what you are doing here at this time of night or what I did to scare it off.”

Spike scowled. He thought they had settled that issue months before. “It’s ‘she,’ Rupert. I’m really not in the mood to discuss semantics and biology right now.” As for the “she” in question, Meret was high-tailing it back to the crypt, tail between her metaphorical legs. The vampire would talk the problem out of her as soon as he got back, but he had business to attend to first.

Giles looked at him with oddly bright eyes set in a haggard face. If not for the lack of aromatic evidence, Spike would have sworn that the man had been drinking. “Yes, my apologies. A slip of the tongue, I assure you.” The watcher turned his attention to the weapon slung over the vampire’s shoulder. “Have you been patrolling?”

“Nah. Goin’ on a trip soon. You know me,” he gave the axe a little twist before swinging it to rest on the ground next to his foot. “Don’t leave home without one.” After an uncommonly long period of silence, Spike arched an eyebrow. “You gonna let me in or what?”

The watcher looked surprised for a moment before standing away from the door and gesturing to the living room beyond. Spike sauntered into the apartment, dumping the axe next to the coat rack. After tossing Dawn’s pink monstrosity on the table, the vampire spun one of the chairs around and straddled it, arms folded over its straight back. Scuff marks marring the wood marked the chair as one of the participants in his captivity, two years ago. Spike smiled, remembering the various idiocies of that particular year, but he couldn’t be too angry. Those misadventures hadn’t all been bad, and every moment was worth the movie nights with Dawn and the rare occasions when he could coax a real smile out of the slayer. It was funny how even the most twisted of trees could still bear fruit under the right circumstances.

Giles closed the door behind them. “Scotch?”

The vampire’s grin was blinding. “When have I ever turned down a nip of your private stash?”

The watcher snorted. “More times than of which I am aware, no doubt.”

“Bought you that last bottle, didn’t I?”

“Hmm, yes. I never did thank you for that.”

Spike chuckled, mentally noting the careful omission. “Fair enough.” The faintest of smiles touched the watcher’s lips in return.

When Giles placed the two glasses on the table, Spike caught a quick glimpse of white gauze, previously hidden under starched cotton and brown tweed. “Just couldn’t take the pain of bachelorhood anymore, or did someone record over another of your World Cup videos?”

At the watcher’s quizzical look, Spike stared pointedly at the man’s left wrist. Giles smiled tersely and tugged on his sleeve, covering the bandages from prying eyes once again. “It seems that someone spilled one of the more caustic spell components on the counter at the Magic Box. Unfortunately, I leaned into the puddle before Anya could warn me of its presence. The doctors said that the worst of the burn would be healed in a week or two.”

Spike winced in sympathy before toasting the watcher sardonically and downing the glass. It was hard to remember how long injuries took to heal before being turned, but to a vampire, two weeks was a long, long time. “So yeah, business. Leavin’ town for a bit and I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything brewin.’ Don’t want to miss out on the fun if there’s a big party on the calendar.”

The watcher didn’t even wait to think about his answer. “Nothing of which I am aware.”

“What about Pandora’s jar? Turned up anything on that yet?”

“No. The inscriptions are proving more difficult to translate than I expected, and I will not risk opening it until I have some idea of what I might find.”

Spike was a little surprised. Usually when the watcher sank his teeth into a new research project, answers were quickly forthcoming. “Alright then. Nothing else that might need my particular attention?”

“There are, of course, your usual patrols with Buffy, both as part of her slaying and for the Magic Box. However, I believe that we could spare you for a few days if the trip is worthwhile.” Giles’ eyes glittered with interest, or was it anticipation? “May I ask what it is you’re after?”

Spike waved his hand dismissively. “Some trinket or another from Dawn’s basket of goodies. Ever heard of Vianne’s Mirror?”

“No. Will you be gone long?”

No curiosity. No inquisition. “Are you feeling alright, Rupes?”

“Fine, I suppose. Why do you ask?”

“Never mind.” Spike retrieved his folder and rose from his seat. There were a few more hours until he could get his last chore out of the way and hit the road, but this particular engagement had taken much less time than he had expected. Showing unusual solicitude, Spike paused before he walked out of the door. “Get some sleep. You look like hell.”

The watcher snorted. “And you would know.”

Spike grinned. “Damn right.”

*****

“So, Anyanka. You know that thing you’ve been tryin’ to saddle me with for the last month?”

“Mmm?” Anya asked, barely raising her voice in question over the rest of her endless humming. The former vengeance demon was waltzing around the Magic Box with a broom and a new pair of white heels. She had airily mentioned something about breaking them in for the wedding when Spike had arrived, fresh from trying to talk some sense out of Meret.

He had been unsuccessful. The little serpent had buried herself under the tattered remains of an old shirt and her many treasures in her hanging nest and nothing short of physical force would get her down. Maybe she needed to get out of town as much as he did.

“God damn it Anya. Just give it to me.”

She continued dancing, twirling her broom around her. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to be a bit more specific. This store specializes in a wide variety of goods and services.”

Spike just snarled.

Anya finally twirled to a stop, skirt settling around her legs as she lifted one foot to inspect the shoes. “In all my centuries of vengeance, I’ve never had someone beg me for something they truly despised.” She turned a prim smile on the vampire. “You’d think it would have come up at some point. I mean, there are only so many wishes out there and a thousand years is more than enough to get through them all.” Anya’s eyes brightened and she crossed her arms.

The sound of grinding teeth was clearly audible in every corner of the Magic Box. Spike finally managed to force the words past his lips. “May I please have a cell phone.”

Anya grinned as she walked to the counter and stretched to reach into the drawer under the register. She tossed the vampire a little silver and black phone, the same kind she had managed to force on the rest of the Scoobies. Spike proceeded to stare at it as if it were a crucifix while Anya slid off her strappy torture devices and tossed them behind the counter. “You know, I think I remember something about Khymryl granting the wish that created these shoes. Too bad they caught on.” She flexed her toes. “Boy did she feel silly afterwards.”

Spike held the phone up between two fingers. “That’s all fine and good, but…”

“Yes, I know. Numbers! Here’s yours.” She handed over a post-it with a seven digit number scrawled on it. “Everyone else’s are programmed into the phone. Not that I think it will be an issue, because you’re, well, you, but if you run over five hundred minutes a month, I’m taking the overage charges out of your paycheck. Just so you know.”

“Um, right. So I guess I’m off.”

The former demon turned a speculative eye on Spike. “You said you’re going after Vianne’s Mirror?”

“Yeah, got any more info to pass along before I head out?”

“No,” she grinned. “Just tell Dawn that I expect her to share. Have a fruitful trip!”

What the hell is the Bit sending me after?

*****

As a rule, vampires didn’t feel cold, but the crisp California air still bit deep at eighty-five miles-per-hour. Spike’s helmet was tied behind him on the motorcycle, a miniature shelter for Meret. Over the coatl’s hiding hole was a bag holding a few jars of blood, human for once from Willy’s, Dawn’s pink folder, and the accursed cell phone. With Buffy’s battleaxe strapped across his back, he had everything he needed for a vampire’s perverse idea of a lost weekend.

Or avoiding highway interruptions. A cop had pulled up behind him on the outskirts of Sunnydale, and yeah, stopping to manually topple the “Welcome to Sunnydale” sign had perhaps not been the best of ideas, but tradition was tradition. However, the glint of red and blue lights off of the axe on his back, not to mention the flash of his demonic face, had sent the patrolling officer scurrying in the opposite direction.

Spike wondered if the cop knew how lucky he was. A scant few years ago, the man would have ended up as a snack. The thought started with a grin and ended with a grimace. There it was again. That nagging feeling that twisted his insides and made thinking of the present much more pleasant than recalling the past.

And that was fine, because the present called for thinking. He still didn’t know what had frightened Meret or what, if anything, he needed to do about it. He needed a place to stay during the day and time to go over Dawn’s notes. However, there was one topic that Spike studiously avoided. Buffy. Even if he didn’t like admitting it to himself, the vampire was running away, if only for a little while. He needed a break, from within and without, so the slayer stayed buried in the back of his mind.

As for Meret, she made the trip in silence.

Purple shag carpet wasn’t really Spike’s thing, and he had carefully refrained from smelling the sheets, but even rent-by-the-hour shelter was better than no shelter at all now that the sun was up. Not that he was actually paying. The vampire had jimmied the locks with a stolen credit card, long since cancelled by its real owner, but saved for its other uses. It wasn’t the best set up, but it had a bed and heavy curtains, which was more than he could say for the occasional gas station and fast food joint he had passed after leaving Vegas in his wake.

The television was humming low in the background, but Spike’s attention was riveted on the stack of papers in his lap. The convoluted key that Dawn wrote on the inside cover of her folders had not shed any light on the nature of Vianne’s Mirror. Pink was marked “BBP,” whatever that meant.

The notes themselves contained an odd jumble of old newspaper clippings, photocopied maps scrawled with loopy script, and hand written snippets written on abortive school notes. In between quadratic equations, Spike was able to piece together enough information about the mirror to know that once he got past the zombies, there weren’t any wards, false doors, trip wires, or other assorted irritants to worry with. However, the rest of the story did little to set his mind at ease.

Vianne Deauprix had been a rising star in the silent film industry. She had cut a deal with a law firm in Los Angeles, maybe not as infamous as Wolfram and Hart, but still insidious in its own right. Morganston, Horton, and Yule had provided everything the young starlet had desired, be it occult or commonplace in origin, but when her nasal voice had failed to make the transition to movies with sound, the firm had seized her holdings and finally, when she missed one payment too many, her soul.

Morganston, Horton, and Yule had gone under in the late eighties. Most of their assets, especially in L.A., had been subsumed by larger firms, but the caves in Nevada where the lawyers had stored some of their more volatile unmentionables went untouched, at least officially. Looters, covert operatives, and enterprising magic users, anyone able to go toe to toe with the defunct firm’s small army of zombies, had picked away at the cave’s contents until only a few object remained.

Dawn seemed convinced that the actress’ mirror was among them. The entire story confused Spike. The younger Summers had implied that the mirror was a powerful artifact, but why then was it among the dregs of the old cache? It didn’t make sense, but what the Nibblet wanted, the Nibblet received.

Finally, when the vampire decided that he had gleaned every last detail he could from Dawn’s notes, he tossed them back in the hideous folder, a color only Harmony could love, and reached to rifle through his coat pockets. He lit the first of what was probably going to be a long chain of cigarettes. While replacing the pack and lighter, he came across the loose sheaf Dawn had given him. Spike’s eyebrows knitted in curiosity as he unfolded the paper.

It was a letter from Tara, forwarded through Willow and Dawn’s e-mail accounts. The vampire took a long drag off of his cigarette and started reading.

Dear Spike,

Sorry you missed our call earlier. Willow and I are both fine, if busy. Between classes at school and with the coven, we’ve hardly had time to check out the places you recommended. Don’t worry, we’ll get to them all, even if The Ninth Circle Pub sounds more to your tastes than ours.

If you need anything, Dawn says we can use her address. I know that you’re more of a writer than you let on, and Dawn promised to leave you in peace if you wanted to send me a letter. I miss our conversations.

I didn’t realize that I would still be able to hear Meret from here in Bath. Send her my love. She’s been sounding upset lately. Take care of yourself too. If you decide to try burning off stress by finding the biggest fight you can, at least take Buffy with you. You know that you always get into trouble when you fly off on your own.

Tara

A small smile curved the corner of Spike’s lips. It was hard to tell if Tara had spent hours composing the letter, deciding how hard to push and what to ask, or if she was instinctively that circumspect. The vampire suspected the latter. Tara was empathic enough that he sometimes wondered if she didn’t have a little demon in her, despite his little demonstration the previous year. It would certainly explain her preternatural ability to see straight through him.

He tossed the letter aside. Tara might be a true friend and trusted confidant, but she was wrong this time. The fewer people around to muck up Spike’s head, the better. He didn’t want any of the Scoobies with him on this, especially the slayer.

The thought drew the vampire’s attention to the coatl, asleep on the room’s ratty couch. He had tried talking to her during the ride, but she had refused to answer, even if muted waves of confusion, anger, and fear coursed through her tiny frame. After Spike had broken into the hotel room and fed both himself and the serpent, she had finally opened up a little, even if her response had left the vampire just as confused as before.

In his mind, Spike had seen Giles, except that the watcher had no mouth.

He pondered the mystery. Had Giles refused to talk to Meret or had he somehow shut her out of his mind? Was he ignoring her? Was it a serpentine version of a nightmare after Dawn’s late night viewings of The Matrix?

Spike scowled and pointedly shoved that line of reasoning to the back of his head. No Scoobies. No thoughts about Scoobies. No plotting, pondering, or planning involving the Scoobies.

The vampire stood and grabbed his chair. After firmly wedging it under the door handle, he walked to the bed. He grabbed the trailing edge of the faux-satin comforter and ripped it from the bed. Two pillows followed and were soon arranged on the floor next to the bed on the far side from the door. An unfortunate incident in Morocco had impressed the unreliability of “Do Not Disturb” signs on hotels with external doors to the UV challenged. All it would take was a conscientious maid and a manager unwilling to let a few bucks slide, and Spike’s flimsy barricade would mean next to nothing.

However, he trusted that the sound of shattering glass or the chair catching in the shag carpet and breaking under the force of a determined landlord would wake him and his position behind the bed would afford him the time and shelter to avoid a serious burning. At least, that was the plan. In more cautious times, he would have placed his makeshift nest in the bathroom, but he had experienced enough days in a bathtub to last the rest of his unlife, and if he was going to be worth a damn, he needed a good day’s rest.

As the vampire drifted into an uneasy sleep, he felt the brush of feathers as Meret settled against the back of his neck, warming his dead flesh with her presence.

*****

“Stop clawin!’”

Spike’s axe bit deep into the shoulder of one zombie, temporarily incapacitating the shambling creature.

“On my bleedin!’”

The weapon came loose in his hands and the hilt led the way back into the face of another attacker.

“Coat!”

The irritating thing about zombies was that they were animated and controlled, to some extent, by a power source. This meant that as long as the talisman existed, so did its creations. Dawn’s notes had described the object, a chunk of rough hewn corundum, too ugly and dangerous to steal, because the zombies would follow the stone, too warded to be broken by magic, and too hard to be physically broken with ease. He only hoped that vampiric strength would be the tipping point.

Okay yeah, that was the weak point of his plan.

With a roar and a wild swing of his axe, Spike swept another rotting body out of his way and ran headlong down the corridor, severed head rolling behind him. Meret had flown ahead, skimming the ceiling in order to avoid the zombies’ grasping hands. In the coatl’s mind, Spike could see his path. While he had left more than a few zombies in his wake, the muffled sound of moaning ahead let the vampire know that following his serpentine companion would be no easy task.

But he hadn’t been looking for an easy task, had he?

A vivid image of a round chamber, filled to bursting with milling, rotting bodies blossomed in the vampire’s mind. Spike responded to Meret’s warning with a battle cry that was half growl, half wild laugh. Moments later he burst into the room, momentum broken as his twirling axe crashed head-long into the sea of zombies.

He spun, he parried, he lashed out with axe and feet, and dead flesh started to fall. Here an arm, there a chunk of scalp or shoulder, and everywhere the sickly green ichor that was all that remained of the animated bodies’ blood. Spike managed to carve out a corner of the room as his own, kept and held within the cutting diameter of his weapon’s reach.

Even though they were strong, impressively so if the vampire was honest with himself, the zombies were unarmed and deeply stupid. In between attacks and counter attacks, Spike managed to divide enough of his attention to look around the room. The ceiling rose far above him, barely visible even to his vampiric senses. A single walkway spiraled up the chamber’s walls, marked at regular intervals with rough hewn doorways and patches of glowing moss. In the center of the room rose a thin spire, too delicate and regular in form to be natural, and half way up: a pulsing chunk of maroon rock.

Aha!

Meret was wrapped around the glowing stone, trying to pull it free of its moorings, but her legless body and small size made finding a purchase nearly impossible. Spike pushed the closest zombies back with a wild arching swing and took off for the winding ramp. He took a few hits for his trouble, including a painful blow to the ribs, but he soon found himself sprinting up the narrow walkway. He was so intent on his goal that when the decomposing corpse of a middle aged man stepped out of one of the side rooms and into his path, the vampire plowed into the creature. They hit the floor and rolled a ways back down the walkway, effectively burying Spike in dead, clawing flesh. The distant clang of metal and wood announced his axe’s new location, namely two feet to the left and twenty feet down.

Spike tried to curse, but it seemed that the best, if not only, way to effectively silence the vampire was to bury his head under a few hundred pounds of putrid middle aged flesh. He kicked blindly, but his body was twisted into an awkward pretzel that made physically ridding himself of the hefty zombie nearly impossible. Taking the first course of action that popped into his head, the vampire sank his rapidly emerging fangs into the expanse of dead flesh.

The zombie’s groaning voice took on a vaguely bleating edge as it rolled away, but Spike could have cared less. His stomach was doing its level best to invert in response to the taste of zombie flesh on his tongue. It was worse than cold, coagulated pig blood. It was worse than the horse piss that passed for beer in the States. It was even worse than Buffy’s last attempt at Chicken Parmesan, which was really saying something. The vampire staggered to his feet and started spitting desperately, trying to get the horrific flavor out of his mouth.

The fat zombie chose that moment to charge, but Spike was in no mood to play. He captured the corpse’s flailing punch in his left hand and jammed his right, fingers splayed wide to grab, into the folds of chins. He added his own strength to the zombie’s momentum and pivoted abruptly, sending the putrid monster spinning down the pathway, toppling the group of advancing zombies that were shambling after the vampire.

Spike stumbled into a jog again, fumbling for his hip flask as he ran. A quick swig and another gagging spit later, and the vampire decided that he might not dust from sheer disgust after all. His skin was crawling and there was a lingering sour flavor under the taste of jack, but it was nothing a celebratory bottle couldn’t fix once his night’s work was done.

Check. Never but never bite a zombie.

Spike hazarded a glance over his shoulder, and saw that the pile of zombies had regained their feet, but the bottleneck of the narrow walkway was slowing their pursuit. Not that they had ever been known as great sprinters. The vampire shot them a smirk and an offensive gesture he knew they had no way of understanding.

When he thought he was high enough up the winding ramp, Spike poked his head into the nearest side room. There were a few battered boxes, upturned and empty, and a chair, barely standing on awkwardly bent legs. He kicked the listing piece of furniture aside and backed himself against the far wall. He looked back outside; the glowing rock was slightly below eye level.

Here goes nothing.

The fastest of his pursuers stumbled back and fell from the ledge when the vampire reemerged at a dead run. At the last second, he kicked away from the walkway and launched himself into the air, arms spread and coat flaring like leathery wings. Meret hissed in alarm and dove away from the rock, seconds before the vampire crashed into the spire. He slithered badly, but his flailing boots finally found purchase on the slick column. With a mad grin plastered on his face, the vampire started to climb.

When he reached the piece of corundum, he scowled at what he saw. The stone wasn’t really set into the spire as he had originally thought. It was more like the surrounding rock had grown around the talisman, sealing it into place. Spike eyed the glowing crystal with irritation. There wasn’t an obvious way to remove it that would leave a gaping hole in the spire, and thus a gaping hole in his perch’s structural stability.

Not that that really mattered three seconds later when one of the more enterprising zombies took a swing at the base of the spire. With a strangled “Fuck!” Spike clung to the narrow column of stone. When a few more blows didn’t manage to shake him loose, the vampire breathed a sigh of relief. The fall wouldn’t kill him, but the idea of bouncing off of the stone below, which suddenly seemed a lot farther away, just didn’t appeal.

Content that he wasn’t going to splatter all over the cavern’s floor any time soon, Spike looked back up at the stone and came eye to eye with Meret, who was wrapped around the narrow spire again. She tilted her head and Spike could suddenly see the fractures forming at the top of the carved stalactite. The message was clear. He would remove the stone and himself from the spire, or be removed.

“Right.”

A strong, cold hand wrapped around the red stone, which pulsated with heat, and tore it loose from its moorings. It flared brighter, a call that was answered with louder moans from the zombies that now lined the walls of the room, but Spike was more concerned with the gaping hole left in the column and the loud crack he could hear far above him. He shoved the fist sized lump of rough crystal into his coat pocket and looked back up at his serpentine shadow.

“Time to go!”

Meret hissed in agreement. She took off with a flourish of red feathers and spiraled wide around the vampire as he half climbed, half slid down the unstable spire, keeping an eye out for the both of them.

He was within kicking distance of the reaching zombies when pieces of stone the size of his head started falling like rain. He never saw the one that sent him spinning into the waiting arms of the corpses below.

A/N I'm still in the field doing my thesis research, but I'm almost done and I think I can get back to my regular posting schedule now. Also, for whoever's going to WriterCon, see you guys in a few days!

Spike was barricaded in one of the cave’s many storage rooms, keeping company with Meret and an armless, headless corpse.

The door leading out was blocked with a dusty, upturned desk and an old fashioned chest freezer which seemed to be packed with some kind of gravel. Spike hadn’t bothered to wonder at the contents, he had simply been grateful that the room held something heavy enough to keep the moaning, decaying masses at bay while he thought through his situation.

The vampire was perched on the freezer, rolling the maroon crystal between his hands, trying to figure out his next move. The badly damaged zombie staggered towards him, and Spike casually kicked it back over with his booted heel. It crashed against the far wall and left another reeking smear of putrid blood on the stone. As a vampire, Spike understood that life and death weren’t absolutes, but existed on a gradient, like most other things in the world. And while this particular zombie wasn’t entirely dead, it was certainly dead enough, and it’s endless rising, ‘attacking,’ and subsequent falling gave the vampire something to do with his pent up energy. Meret didn’t seem to agree with his assessment and had taken refuge in a nook on the far wall. She was alternating baleful glares between the zombie and her slightly more lively undead companion. The little serpent had made one abortive attempt on the zombie’s unlife, but after her flight feathers had been fouled by reeking ooze, she had made it plain that the corpse was solely Spike’s problem.

If pressed, Spike would have guessed that they had been sitting in the room for a couple of hours, ever since he had fallen into the rotting throng at the base of the collapsing spire. He wasn’t sure how many rocks had hit him when the column came crashing down, one had struck him hard on the head, and the next few moments were a little fuzzy. By the time he reached the tiny cell that was currently serving as his haven, he had a dislocated jaw, a swollen right eye, a few cracked ribs, if the grinding sound was to be believed, and one of his legs was twisted to the side at an angle that nature never intended. In addition to his worse injuries, his body was covered with numerous bruises, bites, cuts, aches, and pains. In short, he had just been on the receiving end of a pretty comprehensive ass kicking.

Oh, he had given as good as he had got. The thrashing half-a-zombie on the floor was actually in a little better shape than many of its brethren on the other side of the barricade. Somehow that didn’t comfort the vampire much. He had managed to reset his jaw, and the swelling in his leg and eye was fading, but he still felt like unadulterated crap.

Spike held up the glowing crystal and glared at it. He had already tried hitting it against the wall, the solid metal desk, and the zombie, which, while even less effective than the other surfaces, at least made an amusing squishing sound. Hell, he’d even tried biting the stupid thing, which had resulted in a chipped fang and his current sullen mood. Nothing was working, as the struggling body on the floor and the army of moaning masses on the other side of the desk told him.

He had come up with the idea of trying to crush the rock in the hinge of the chest freezer when a tiny sound caught his attention. It sounded like… but it couldn’t be… but yes it was. Spike’s eyebrows rose in surprise as he recognized the muffled strains of “Come On You Reds.” After a moment of confusion, he located its source: his back pocket. Out came the cell phone, and the vampire snorted in disbelieving humor. The little screen on the front said “Dawn” in blocky letters.

Spike flipped open the phone and drawled into the receiver, “Is the world about to end?”

Dawn’s voice sounded tiny through the phone. “Um, hi, and no, but I really need to…”

“Because I only took this thing on an apocalypse-only calling plan and the demon bird has threatened me with overage charges. You ‘Bit-napped again?”

“No Spike, but listen…”

“Look, I’m in a bit of a situation, so unless you can send the cavalry, or this is an emergency…” His eyes trained back on the zombie again. It was flailing around in another attempt to rise.

“It IS an emergency you dork-wad!” she yelled across the digital miles. Spike held the phone away from his sensitive ears. He had to give it to the cell phone company, not only could he get service in the middle of the desert, at the bottom of a cave system no less, but Dawn’s voice was just as piercing through the phone as it was in person. “What were you thinking?!” she shrieked.

Okay, that was unexpected. “What?”

“You just left? Without talking to her?!”

She didn’t really need to explain who “her” was. Spike had the sinking feeling that he had broken some unknown rule held sacred in female circles.

“Um, why would I need to…”

“Look, you just do. It’s like bylaw four in appendix six of the dating code. ‘Thou shalt tell your girlfriend when you leave town unexpectedly.’”

“You know we’re not, I mean I don’t think she…” He was sputtering now, confusion making an even worse tangle of his ability to defend against an irritated Summers. And had Dawn just called Buffy his…

“But you want to be, right? So you should have checked in with her. God, you can be so dumb.” Dawn’s tone of voice made it plain that she thought he was roughly one step above club moss in terms of intelligence.

“Hey, I never had to check in with Dru!” Spike eyed the other undead occupant of the room, who had finally regained its feet and was staggering in his general direction again.

“One, never let Buffy hear you compare her to Vampirella. Two, Dru was psychic. Which leads me to three, Dru was psychotic! But I see your point.” Spike could hear the girl tapping her fingernail thoughtfully against the phone receiver. “You weren’t ever house trained.”

Spike’s eyes flared yellow and he slammed the glowing rock down on the freezer lid. “Oi! I am not some kind of mangy…”

“No problem!” Spike’s mouth was left hanging at the girl’s interruption. “I’ve got you covered. Just make sure you come to the house before you run into Buffy. Okay, gotta run!”

“Wait! What?!” Spike sputtered into the suddenly dead line. He wanted to throw it against the wall, but Anya’s half angry, half calculating eyes seemed to glare back at him from the device’s blank screen. He took solace in punting the almost-zombie back to the other side of the room again instead.

He shrieked an incoherent sound of disgust before letting his head sink into his hands. As usual, he had managed to bollocks everything up. Apparently Buffy was angry at him.

Again.

Not that it would matter in the long run if he couldn’t figure a way out of his current predicament. He glared at the rock that was the source of his more immediate concerns.

He knew that it was directing the zombie guards. He knew it controlled or held the spirits of the people who once inhabited those bodies. Or was it souls? And what the hell difference was there between a spirit and a soul anyway? Spike grabbed the offending crystal and brought it before his eyes. He snarled and wished he knew of some way that he could just pull out those souls, like lancing puss from a wound.

The tingling started in his fingertips.

Alarmed, he tried to cast the crystal away, but his hands wouldn’t seem to obey his commands. The strange, itching tickle swept up his arms, followed by a bright, white light. He threw his head back, maybe to cry out, maybe to curse, he didn’t know, but instead of sound, light erupted from his mouth. The last thing he saw before the blinding cascade took over his eyesight as well was Meret flying towards him, her thoughts tinged with surprise and fear. The muffled moaning of angry zombies followed him into the white.

*****

Spike didn’t know where he was, or really, if he was.

There was nothing around him: no cave, no Meret, no hint of the serpent’s mental touch, no floors or walls. He was simply a dark spot of dyed leather and cotton floating in an endless sea of white light. He looked around, curious at first, but then with a rising panic, at the painfully silent, white wasteland. If Spike could imagine a true hell for someone with his boundless energy and gregarious nature, it was something like this: the total lack of anything. Awareness without any stimuli. No one to talk to, no one to fight, and nothing to amuse him during the long years that made up an eternity.

Right before a panicked shout ripped its way from his throat; a light grey blur appeared in periphery of his vision. It grew, or maybe it drew closer, but within seconds the shapeless mass had coalesced into the pale grey form of a woman. She would have been beautiful once, but she looked worn, as if years of strain had leeched all the life from her features. She was dressed in an ill-fitting business suit and her blond hair was done up in an over-tall chignon that had been popular during World War II. Spike opened his mouth to ask her what was going on, but the woman reached up and touched his face. Her hand was ice cold, but her smile was warm right until the moment she disappeared.

Other forms appeared.

Some darker, some lighter, but every one distinct and whole. One man had been dressed in the ratty layers of the chronically homeless, while the next had a hand tailored suit set off with diamond cufflinks and a crisply starched white shirt. Another girl appeared in a flapper dress, followed by a woman in Navy dress whites. There were so many, dozens, maybe hundreds of people, and each one brushed a hand over his arm or his cheek before disappearing. Spike lost count of the endless parade, but he gave up jerking away from their cold touch after the first half dozen or so. He also seemed to have lost his voice as well, even as a portly man who looked disturbing like the zombie he had bitten shook his hand and faded into nothingness. No one in the crowd moved to attack him, or even speak. It felt like the volume had been turned down in his mind, every move and thought was made as if through molasses, so he found himself an almost passive observer of the strange drama.

After a while, the crowd dwindled. The last people to pass him seemed to be the darkest grey of the lot, but even the whip-thin man in a leisure suit who simply radiated darkness, smiled tremulously when he neared the unusually silent vampire and rested his hand on Spike’s shoulder. A tiny thread of emotion, maybe regret, followed each of the spirits. At last, they were gone and Spike was alone again, but not for long.

“You did good work here, son of mine.”

Spike turned his head and found the old man in green standing next to him. Somehow he wasn’t surprised. “Who were they?” he asked, finding his voice again. The dreamlike detachment started to fade.

“Souls who have waited a long time to cross over.” Mictlantechutli rested a gnarled hand on the vampire’s shoulder. “They have gone to their fates now, one way or the other.”

Spike looked back into the white nothingness. “What did I do?”

“You freed them,” the god said, as if that explained everything. “It’s what you were chosen to do.”

Spike eyed him cautiously. “Why me?”

The man in green smiled, a comforting expression even in his wizened features. “If you need to carry water, do you take a full jar to the well?” At Spike’s disconcerted expression, Mictlantechutli continued. “No. You use an empty vessel. I just happen to need a sentient and willing empty vessel.”

Spike scowled fiercely. He didn’t like the idea of being used by anyone. “What do you want of me?”

“Nothing you wouldn’t already do if left to your own devices.” Mictlantechutli looked every part the frail, old human on the outside, but Spike had to marshal every bit of his hard won control to keep from flinching back from the power in the god’s green, lidless eyes. “Every time you kill a vampire, and release the last shreds of its humanity into the ether, every time you kill a demon and prevent the premature death of a single human, you are doing my work. The ability to channel souls is just another weapon in your arsenal.” The god turned to the vampire with a serious expression on his face. “You aren’t my slave, William. You are my son.” The god rested a withered hand on Spike’s shoulder. “And right now, my brother’s child needs you. I believe you will find your next piece of business a little closer to home.”

*****

Spike’s eyes opened and found the worried gaze of a crimson serpent millimeters from his nose. The vampire smiled ruefully. “Not rid of me yet, little one,” he croaked.

Meret tilted her head this way and that before something in her mind seemed to appease her. She brushed her scaled jaw against his cheek and managed to coil herself around his neck as he struggled to sit back up from his sprawled position on the freezer. No sounds came from behind the overturned desk; the cavern was as silent as a tomb. The vampire’s eyes were immediately drawn to the remains of the zombie on the floor. It was still finally, truly dead.

When he looked closer, the zombie took on a slightly more familiar appearance: that of an older man dressed in slacks and a polo shirt, grey and tearful, if smiling, as he brushed age gnarled knuckles against the vampire’s elbow in that sea of white light.

Spike shivered. He didn’t know how to feel about the corpse at his feet. Regretful? Not really, except for in the most abstract, unexplainable way. Proud? In a way. He had never had so many people look on him with thanks. It was hard not to be affected. Uncomfortable? Certainly, but he couldn’t decide if it was because he thought he had seen the soul of the man whose body had been hijacked by a law firm in need of cannon fodder, or because he was empty again. He hadn’t been dreaming any more than Buffy’s visions were mere fancies. For a moment, he had held those people’s souls in himself, but now he was just Spike again. Just a vampire. He wasn’t sure what he thought about that.

Twitchy, maybe.

Spike slid off of the freezer, coatl wrapped tightly around his throat. He ran a finger down the delicate ridge of her spine feathers. She virtually hummed with love and support, reminding him that no matter what, he was not alone.

“What d’ya say, little one? Want to collect our prize and go home?”

Meret’s happy puffs brought a smile to the vampire’s face.

No, certainly not alone.

Spike’s motorcycle rumbled into the driveway at 1630 Revello Drive early the next evening. Even he wasn’t crazy enough to try riding a motorcycle around town during the day, and besides, the vampire had needed a little time to get his thoughts in order.

Not that the intervening hours had really helped. He had left town to get a few days by himself, without people prying into his life and thoughts on a whim, and returned to face who knows what kind of deranged Summers plot to make him even more insane. Then again, Dawn had mentioned the oh-so-human, oh-so-intimidating G word.

Girlfriend.

It sounded so... mortal. And silly. And frivolous. And it made him nervous just thinking about it.

He had barely swivelled out the kick stand when he was grabbed by the teenager and drug into the house, line of thought effectively broken. Dawn must have heard him pull up, or been waiting for him, or been possessed by a time warping demon, because nothing else could explain how she managed to sneak up and abduct a century old vampire before he realized what was happening. The next thing he knew, he was seated at the counter in the kitchen with a piece of stationary paper in front of him and a pen in his hand.

“’Bit, what the hell...”

Dawn scowled fiercely at him. “No time, Buffy’ll be here any second. Just write what I say.” She cleared her throat and waited until the pen touched the paper’s surface. “Dear Buffy, I’m going out of town to get you a birthday present...”

Spike’s hand stopped dead in its tracks. “What?!”

“Just shush and keep writing!” Dawn squealed, casting alarmed glances towards the front of the house. “Ask Anya for my cell phone number,” she nudged him pointedly when he didn’t start writing immediately. “Cell. Phone. Number if you need anything. I’ll be back in a few days. Love, Spike.” She looked over his shoulder and snorted when she saw his defiant name scrawled alone at the bottom of the paper. “Like you’re fooling anyone even if you don’t write it. Here, g’me that.” She snatched the paper. “Where’s Meret?”

“Asleep back at the crypt.”

“Good, she always gives you away when you’re lying,” Dawn continued, blithely unaware of, or blatantly ignoring, his angry scowl. “Did you bring the mirror?” When he produced the little silver compact from his pocket, she grabbed it unceremoniously and looked it over. Apparently satisfied, she opened her mouth to comment, but a pair of headlights flashed through the kitchen’s window from the driveway. “Crap, she’s here.” She looked at him critically with her hands on her hips for a moment before making that high pitched squeeing sound that only teenage girls can achieve, twirling around, and running for the front of the house. She popped her head back around the corner for a moment. “Just, you know, play it cool until I get back,” and with that she was gone, fleeing up the stairs and into her room. Spike sat at the kitchen counter, pen dangling forgotten in his hand.

The tingle that told every vampire “Slayer!” but was honed in Spike to say “Buffy!” ran feather light fingers up the back of his neck. He heard her call a farewell back to the driver, probably Harris, as the car backed out of the driveway. Once the headlights were gone, the front door opened and Buffy slogged into the house, dropping a coat and stuffed bag on the dining room table wearily. She made it as far as the kitchen before she realized that she had company.

Spike winced when her lips narrowed into a thin line. “So you’re back,” she said, tone flat, unreadable.

He ran an awkward hand through his hair. “Yeah, uh. See I was just gonna...”

“Buffy!” Dawn’s voice called from the second floor. The slayer turned towards the sound of her sister’s voice, the delinquent vampire obviously forgotten for a moment. Pounding footsteps heralded the younger Summers’ arrival in the kitchen moments later. “Hey, I just remembered,” she paused and looked at Spike with feigned surprise. “Oh, hi Spike. Gee, I guess this isn’t important anymore.”

She started to turn around to leave again, but Buffy’s voice stopped her in her tracks. “What’s not important anymore?”

“Oh, um.” Dawn shuffled her feet and managed to look very embarrassed. “Well, Spike asked me to give you this a couple of days ago,” she brandished the paper, fresh ink glistening under the kitchen’s fluorescent lights, “but I stuck it in my algebra folder and forgot about it.” She flipped her hair and looked innocently back and forth between the slayer and vampire. “But, you know, he’s back now, so never mind.”

She tossed the sheet of paper into the waste basket and flounced back out of the room, followed by two sets of disbelieving eyes. After a moment, Buffy fished the paper out of the trash can and looked at it critically. “She made you write this.”

Spike tried to look affronted while discreetly slipping the incriminating pen into his pocket. “No, it must’ve just slipped the Nibblet’s...”

“The ink is still wet.” Buffy held up a stained index finger and arched an eyebrow at the vampire.

Spike deflated. “Um, yeah. About that...” he started, but trailed off. His well of clever defences seemed to be running dry. Slow drying ink didn’t sound terribly plausible, even on the Hellmouth.

Buffy dropped the paper back into the trash can and walked to the sink. The silence stretched out as she washed her hands and dried them on a ragged kitchen towel. Spike watched her warily. She leaned against the counter and her shoulders slumped a little. She looked so defeated, and it was heartbreaking.

Spike panicked. “I’m sorry!” he blurted, and was even more surprised when he heard the slayer say the same words over his own.

She turned around and looked at him, lips twitching for a moment. Spike smiled his lopsided grin and they both lapsed into rueful laughter. “Hot chocolate?” she offered.

“God, yes.” The vampire relaxed with another self deprecating laugh. Maybe he’d make it out of the house alive, or you know, undead, after all.

Buffy pulled a mason jar out of one of the cupboards. It was half-full of a light brown powder, and a little card was stuck in the side bearing the list of ingredients. Joyce had apparently spent years mixing and matching different hot chocolate recipes until she had found a blend that met with her approval. Set to simmer with a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips and served with some of those tiny marshmallows: to the vampire, it tasted like a little piece of heaven.

When Buffy reached for a bottle of skim milk, Spike had a sudden flash of memory. “Wait, use the half and half.”

Buffy looked at him quizzically. “Huh?”

“It’s how your mum used to make it,” he said in a quiet voice.

Buffy looked at him for a moment, face perfectly still, before a tremulous smile graced her face. “You can remember that?”

“Well yeah, but she also, uh, told me,” he said in a rush. He looked down at his fidgeting hands at her disbelieving stare. “The dream?” he finally said, voice uncertain.

“Oh.”

When massive water works didn’t seem to be immediately following, Spike continued. “She said you were skimpin’ on the cream and that’s why it’s too thin.”

“You had a slayer dream about my mom’s hot chocolate recipe?” Her voice held, but it was brittle and small.

Spike looked up and met Buffy’s eyes, glistening with unshed tears, but twinkling as well. “Um. Yes?”

“Okay then,” she said briskly, turning and wiping a hand over her eyes when her back was turned away from him. “Fattening goodness it is.”

When she finally joined him at the counter, cups cradled in their hands, the drink was as good as he remembered.

Buffy spoke first. “So what’re you sorry about?”

Spike cringed into his drink. Buffy apparently hadn’t figured out that apologizing in the face of imminent female tears was an ingrained response, drilled into the male mind from the moment of birth. “For not telling you I was leaving,” he said hopefully.

“Liar,” Buffy said, but the weak smile on her face took away the word’s sting.

“And I suppose you can do better?” the vampire asked harshly, irritated at her reaction.

It was Buffy’s turn to cringe. “Maybe.” She buried her nose in her mug, hiding behind the cocoa for a moment. “I crossed the line at The Bronze, and I’ve been told,” there was another wince, “that I owe you an explanation.”

She looked as if she was expecting him to say something. Maybe a smart assed rejoinder. Maybe a gloating, haughty demand for grovelling. He didn’t know... Hell, this was such uncharted territory that Spike was just barely managing to maintain his passive mien when the slayer finally continued.

“So yeah, um, making with the ‘splainy now. See, um, it’s kind of a not-so-secret girl secret that if we could figure out a way to learn a guy’s deepest, darkest secrets, especially a guy who, you know, seems interested, we’d jump on it like triple mochachinos.” Her eyes were focused on the mug in her hands, and was she blushing?

“Tried that once, thanks to a minor case of telepathy.” That at least earned a tiny, nostalgic smile. Spike wondered what the story was behind those words. “As Willow would say, that went all kerplewy. I should’ve known that clever Buffy plans involving stealth and espionage always end with badness.”

Spike couldn’t help himself, and his amused snort was met with a baleful glare.

“Do you want to hear this or not? ‘Cause these whole soul baring slayer confessions are usually a one-shot chance,” she snapped in irritation.

He loved it when her eyes flashed like that, full of anger and life. Spike swept an over dramatic hand gesture for her to continue and hid his own smile in another gulp of hot chocolate.

Buffy grumbled something that sounded like “Stupid vampire” before taking an exaggerated breath and continuing. “So yeah. Kerplewy. Again. And then you ran off, and Anya started treating me like a social leper and lecturing me on the etiquette of mind reading, and Dawn started acting like I killed her puppy. Like I had this whole thing planned out in my Big Book of Nefarious Slayer Plots. Except this time I wasn’t really trying at first, and Meret was so open, and that was something I really needed at first, and bleh! This is all coming out wrong!” The slayer slouched over the counter, the very picture of frustrated dejection. “I’m making you sound like a crutch. Or, you know, not a crutch because I can walk on my own, so more of a cane. You know, one of those fancy ones that everyone seems to carry around in their music videos, and oh God, stop me. I’m babbling.” She dropped her head on her arm, golden hair splaying across the counter and hiding her rising blush.

The vampire couldn’t help himself. “Slayer?”

“What?” she asked, even if her voice sounded a little squished from where she had her face pressed against the faux marble.

“Are you callin’ me your pimp cane?”

Buffy snarled, but her soprano rumble was made even less threatening by the fact that she still hadn’t raised her head from the island.

“Because I think you would look simply smashing in nothing but a big fur coat and a bolero hat with a feather.” That got her to look up at him, hazel eyes glittering like an angry jungle cat's through the mane of her mussed hair. Spike grinned in return, and pushed a little farther. “Oh, and stilettos. But not the gold teeth. Those’d just make you look like a...”

“Spike!”

“Sorry, just a sec. I’m trying to get a good mental image here.”

“Gah!” she shrieked. “Why do you have to be such a pig when I’m trying to be all serious and honest and stuff?”

Somewhat chastened, the vampire relented. “Sorry, ‘s not like serious conversations have ever been a staple of our relationship in the past.”

“See, and that’s another thing. Maybe they should be, seeing as how you’re going to be swooping into my dreams, or I’ll be swooping into yours, or whatever. Mutual swoopage.” She abruptly stopped shouting and bit a corner of her lip, suddenly nervous again. “Are you okay with that?”

The vampire blinked, caught off guard by her quicksilver mood changes. “Are you?” he asked, turning the question around on her.

She looked back down at her cocoa and fiddled with the mug’s handle. “I don’t think that’ll be the last time it happens. Not from what the wonder twins were saying. And there’s the feather-gram.”

Spike eyed her warily, remembering his more recent run in with his half of the plumed pair. “That’s not an answer,” he said, but his voice was a little softer, a little less confrontational. He sighed in resignation. “How ‘bout this, I’m a little thrown by wakin’ up and findin’ a memento on my pillow. I don’t like being played, ‘specially when it involves crammin’ stuff in my brain, and the conversation with the deadite, I coulda done without.” Spike paused for an unneeded breath, watching the slayer’s downcast face. Her restless fidgeting had stopped, and the stillness of her posture let him know she was listening to every word. “But maybe the fringe benefits aren’t so bad, and I’m not sorry ‘bout the other stuff.” There, that was comfortably vague.

When he finished, Buffy looked up at him, hazel eyes ancient in her young face. “Why are you so good at this stuff?”

“Took rhetoric in university. Makes me good at pullin’ flowery crap out of my arse.” At Buffy’s disbelieving stare, he grinned wickedly. “What, a vampire can’t have layers?”

The slayer quirked a little smile in return. “Like an onion.”

“Maybe onions of the beer fried variety.”

“Yuh huh.” Buffy took another sip of her hot chocolate. “So we’re good, right? I’ll stop prying and/or blurting out your personal secrets.”

Spike raised his mug in a toast. “And I’ll try to not assume that you’re the raging bitch I know you to be,” he ducked away from the slayer’s half-hearted slap. “And if I do decide to skip state for a few days to get away from your wicked ways, I’ll tell you first.”

She glared at him, but her scowl was undermined by the amused slant to her lips. She raised her glass. “Deal.” The rims of their mugs met with a dull tink and they drank the rest of their cooling cocoa, sealing the bargain.

After they had both wiped the remnants of their foamy drinks away, Buffy on a towel, Spike on his sleeve, the slayer looked up at him and batted long lashes at the vampire. “So, what’d’ya get me for my birthday?”

Point to the slayer. He was well on the way to going bug shagging nuts.

“Anya calls Valentine’s Day a construct of big business.” Xander looked up from the tuxedo catalog; Anya had shoved it into his hands with a pointed, thin-lipped smile. “She says it’s a pagan fertility rite that has been hijacked by capitalism and encourages consumers to spend money on frivolous tokens of love in order to give the economy a post Christmas boost. Of course, coming from her, that’s a good thing.” The Magic Box was quiet, except for the occasional rattle from where the former vengeance demon had retreated downstairs to go through the perishable inventory. “What d’ya think of this one?” Xander flipped the catalog around and pointed at one of the pictures.

“It’ll make you look fat…” Spike, whose attempts at ignoring the boy’s constant prattle were being soundly thwarted, eyed the carpenter critically, “er.”

Xander leaned back and slapped his stomach, which jiggled a little under his Hawaiian shirt. “What’re you talking about? This is a gas tank for a loooove machine.”

The vampire looked at the human and smirked. “Too bad the axle’s shot and the hydraulics are a little off, huh?”

“Pfft. You’re just jealous.” Xander started flipping through the catalog again. “What about this one?”

“Not unless you’ll be parkin’ the guests’ cars. Go for something classic. This modern crap’ll make you look like a complete and total wanker.”

The carpenter looked back at the picture and shrugged. “So, you have some barbed beauty who’s gonna get a bouquet of roses this year? Or a posy of Fyarl tongues? Or whatever it is the fanged masses give one another?”

In a manner of speaking.

Harris, despite his recent improvements, was still as clueless about some matters as ever. Spike glared at him for a second, but soon resumed his own reading: an 1860s tax register. Dawn had this idea that some of the early gold miners had stashed some of their finds north of Sunnydale before California’s burgeoning government was entrenched enough to get its fair share. He was looking for any miners whose taxed incomes didn’t quite match with their standard of living. The work was kind of mindless, which was fine. At least gold didn’t screw with his concept of death and the afterlife.

That was apparently reserved for Buffy’s birthday presents.

When it became obvious that the vampire was pointedly ignoring his question, Xander turned back to his tuxedos. “Fine. Whatever. This one?”

If it was possible, the Whelp’s choices were getting exponentially worse. Pretty soon he’d be pointing at powder blue, frilly numbers with neon pink cumberbunds. Spike charitably doubted that the boy was even looking at the pictures anymore. It was the only plausible excuse the vampire could think of. “Those neck things make you look like Dracula. Who is a Eurotrash ponce. And still owes me money. Next.”

The boy grumbled.

Buffy stuck her head out of the practice room, and Meret’s crimson countenance soon followed. “Giles here yet?”

“No!” the vampire and carpenter yelled in unison. As they had the last three times Buffy had asked. And then they glared at one another, as if the idea of mimicking one another’s responses was a moral offense. As they had the last three times Buffy had asked.

Xander, of course, broke the silence again. “Wonder where the Watcher-man has gotten to.”

Spike maintained his scowl and kept flipping through his ledger. “Don’t know, don’t care. Probably got distracted cross referencing Zvirtan mating rituals.”

“What about this one?”

“No!”

*****

Giles never did show.

Not to be denied their weekly sparring sessions, Spike and Buffy had taken matters into their own hands. Theoretically, they were supposed to have chosen weapons for each other that evening, but when Spike presented his suggestion, a riding crop, matters had quickly dissolved into a flurry of fists and laughter.

Spike’s laughter and Buffy’s fists, to be exact.

The vampire discovered that it was very difficult to mount an effective defense when he was too busy holding his own sides to throw a decent block. It felt good. Okay, the slayer’s bony elbow sinking into his solar plexus didn’t feel so great, but the rest? That felt wonderful. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed so hard.

When Anya stormed into the practice room, that was how she found them: Spike rolling on the floor, clutching his ribs from the effects of the slayer’s attacks and his own laughter, with Buffy standing over him, riding crop brandished above her head, shrieking a litany of her G rated insults at the cackling vampire. Meret, the traitorous chit that she was, had retreated with all haste to the top of the pommel horse, her mind an even swirl of amusement and watchfulness in the face of wildly waving woven leather.

Buffy noticed that they had company first, and her ensuing silence drew Spike’s attention.

The former demon looked at them both with her hands on her hips. “If you’re quite done scaring the customers away with your extremely loud and apparently ineffective sex games,” Anya paused, while Buffy whisked the offending item behind her back and turned the same color as Meret’s flight feathers, “I need to talk to you about Giles,” she finished on a more serious note.

“What’s up, other than his extreme case of tardiness?” Buffy asked, while digging the heel of her sneaker into Spike’s ribs in an attempt to quiet his latest round of laughter.

Anya tapped a toe until Spike managed to get himself under control and propped himself up on much abused elbows. “He just called with another private order.” The former demon handed a slip of paper to Buffy.

The slayer looked it over before handing it back. “Uh huh.”

Anya looked at her expectantly for a beat. “Wormwood? Imp hearts? Soil from unconsecrated graves?” With every word, her voice rose another step in pitch. Spike sat upright, attention focused on Anya’s litany, even as Buffy remained seemingly unconcerned. “Rabbit amniotic fluid?” she finally squeaked.

When the slayer looked down to her suddenly sober sparring partner for an explaination, Spike simply shook his head. “Not good, Slayer.”

“Okay, I get that imp hearts equal gross, but what’s the big deal? I mean, we’re talking about Giles here.” Buffy looked honestly confused. It would take an act on Congress, maybe a hand written missive from God himself, to shake the slayer’s confidence in her watcher, that much was obvious. “What’s the big?”

Anya took a deep breath and refolded the paper in nervous hands. “By themselves, these could be used for any number of benign spells, but together, we’re talking big time dark magic! The kind of stuff that I haven’t touched since my vengeance days.”

Spike sat up and wrinkled his brow in thought. “She’s right, love. Those ingredients? That’s getting into reanimations and the like. Nasty stuff.”

Buffy looked back and forth between the two. “Maybe he’s doing some kind of research thingy.”

Anya looked desperately towards the vampire. “Maybe,” he said to appease the slayer, but his dark glance told Anya something different.

Something else was going on.

*****

Giles’ apartment was dark and apparently empty. As a first order of business, Spike made a point to thoroughly search the liquor cabinet. After all, if he was hiding in the watcher’s flat, that’s where he’d be. No Rupert, but the vampire did find an unmarked flask in the back. Being the conscientious sort, he took a swig of the fiery liquid, just to make sure that no one had tampered with it.

Thus fortified, and after noting a few new additions to the watcher’s private stash, Spike joined Meret, who was nosing around the watcher’s shelves. There were a few noticeable holes in the rows of books. The vampire hadn’t spent much time perusing Giles’ personal collection, but it was obvious that many, if not all, of the missing books were rare and powerful magical texts. Spike tried to call the missing titles to mind, but none were forthcoming. Knowing the watcher, they were probably doing time on the back of his toilet or stacked on his night stand. After a while he gave up and turned his attention to the rest of the flat.

To the casual observer, the watcher’s apartment seemed normal, relatively speaking. A few dirty glasses in the kitchen sink, towels in the hamper, letters stacked neatly on the desk, a treatise on vampiric clans resting on the coffee table.

But Spike was not a casual observer.

In addition to his normally heightened senses, he had spent the last few years in and around this very apartment, as a refugee, a prisoner, and lately, a guest. Rupert might know the nooks and crannies of this flat better than anyone, but he was the only one who knew them better than Spike. There were little things, subtle clues, that something wasn’t right. The wrinkles in the couch’s afghan were a little too set, as if they had not been touched in days. There was a faint scent of blood mixed with something else, sharp and astringent, in the bathroom. There was a thin layer of dust on the dishes on the counter, and Giles’ scent, while still present, was fainter than it should have been had the watcher been spending his nights in the apartment.

And in case Spike needed another clue that something was definitely rotten in the state of Sunnydale, Meret had been sending him rapid-fire images: Giles pacing, Giles reading, Giles writing in a book, and in every single flash, the watcher had no mouth or eyes. It was distracting to say the least. Especially when she added words to her warning.

He fades.

Well, that didn’t make much sense, and Meret was steadfast in her refusal to contact the watcher or explain her own behavior, but there was only one place in the flat left to search. Spike scaled the stairs to the watcher’s bedroom.

He wasn’t expecting what he found.

The bedroom looked like a war zone. Drawers were hanging askew and clothing was strewn about the room haphazardly. The closet door hung on a twisted hinge. Spike stood for a moment, head cocked and blinking at the unreality of the scene, but Meret proved to be a little more proactive. She dove into the pile that covered the watcher’s dresser and started tugging on one of the shirts with her mouth, wings beating frantically.

“What’re you on about, little one?” Spike walked over to the mess and started helping her toss the piled clothing into the floor. He finally pulled a starched, white shirt aside and froze at what he saw. The jar, the one he and Buffy had found clutched in the hands of a skeleton and handed over to Giles, so many days ago.

The one that had been sealed up in an underground vault, reeking of dark magic and even darker dreams. The one that was now torn open, its lid dangling precariously from a strip of blackened wax. The contents had been some kind of grayish powder, but they were now spilled across the dresser with drag marks, the kind that might be left by curious fingers, marring the dusty pile.

But even more unsettling, at least to the vampire, was the feel of the jar. The magic that had made his skin crawl from the second he had entered the Crawford Street mansion was completely gone, as if it had evaporated into thin air.

Or taken up residence somewhere else.

Meret hissed deep in her throat, and Spike jerked his hands away with a curse. What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Ripper?

He glared at the jar for a moment, but he trusted in his instinct and the signals of his vampiric senses. No matter what the jar had once contained, it was inert now.

Spike dug around in the watcher’s closet, upending the already chaotic piles of clothing and half open boxes until he found something that would suit his purposes. After some careful maneuvering, the jar and most of the dust had found its way into a shoe box along with the cable bill with which he had shoveled them. Even without the stink of magic, there was no way in hell that he would voluntarily touch the stuff.

After putting the box on the stairs for safe keeping, Spike started an enthusiastic, somewhat systematic, search of the room.

First he tore everything off of the bed, sheets and all.

Nothing.

Then he shook out the bedclothes and piled them back on the bare mattress, after he had flipped it over and checked the box springs as well. Meret followed behind, poking through the things he had already searched.

Nothing.

Clothing from the floor soon followed.

Nothing.

Then he turned to the piles covering the bedside tables, dresser, and chairs.

Nothing.

Even though the pile on the bed was growing precariously tall, Spike continued. Anything left in the dresser and the closet came out next. Knick knacks, baubles, books, and boxes followed, all to no avail. There simply wasn’t anything to find. It was eerie, and more than a little irritating.

Well, maybe the letters from someone named Olivia stashed in the back of one of the drawers counted as something, but they didn’t appear to have anything to do with the problem at hand. The vampire pocketed them anyway: future blackmail material.

Meret hissed her disapproval.

Spike’s only reply was a shrug and a wicked grin. When it came down to brass tacks, he was still a demon and reformation only went so far. The coatl fluffed her feathers in a serpentine approximation of a snort and went back to burrowing in and out of the pile on the bed.

He searched, and re-searched, and okay, thoroughly trashing the watcher’s bedroom did have some perverse pleasure to it, but when no other clues seemed to be forthcoming, Spike rapidly started to loose patience. This was obviously pointless, and besides, he needed to get that jar back to the Scoobies. Research would be a right bitch, sans the witches and the watcher, but something had to be done. He didn’t know exactly what had happened here, but he could make a few guesses, none of them good. He suddenly regretted keeping the evening's search secret from Buffy. Another perspective might have been enlightening. Maybe Anyanka would know something.

The vampire turned to leave, and nearly jumped out of his skin, face rippling and fangs descending in defensive instinct, when a disembodied voice echoed through the empty room.

“Spike!”

Realization hit and a rueful chuckle chased the ridges from his face.

It was Glinda, of course.

“… So after the dream, Melia tried to help us scry, but whatever it is that’s upsetting Meret is also blocking us. Willow tried to force her way through the barrier, but her spell rebounded and fried all of the electronics in the house.” Tara’s voice was worried and rushed, words crowding their way out of the usually quiet witch’s mouth. Or mind. Or whatever. The mechanics of telepathy spells weren’t all that clear to the vampire, despite his experience with the coatl. Either method of communication seemed to work just fine.

Spike quirked his lips while he jogged. Concentrating on the conversation with Tara, much less Meret’s continuing stream of emotions and images was more than a little disorienting. “Including Red’s precious laptop?” he panted, more from muscle memory than any physical connection between his lungs and legs. He had started his run at full tilt, but the first bombshell Tara dropped on him was partnered with a particularly vivid flash of warning and the smell of roses from Meret. That hadn’t ended well. It had taken him a while to extricate himself from the mangled rosebush without shredding his coat, thus the slower pace. The coatl had snickered in her airy way and started scouting a little further ahead.

“She’s been doing so much better, but sometimes…” Tara’s voice wavered with a different kind of worry, and the vampire instantaneously regretted his sarcasm. “I think the computer made more of an impression than Althanea’s lecture and the nosebleed.”

“Look, Glinda. Didn’t mean to…”

“Spike, it’s okay. Things are still kind of hard sometimes.” The sound of a steadying breath whispered through the vampire’s mind before she continued. “I remembered your hair after we figured out that the phones were dead. Yvonne is helping me with the spell, and everyone agreed that this couldn’t wait until we could drive into town and find a payphone. Whatever is going on, it’s going to happen soon.” Tara paused for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and scared. “I don’t know what it is we touched, it felt oily and dead. But it was strong, Spike. I know I’m not explaining it well, but it’s bad. Buffy and Mr. Giles need to know.”

Spike’s hand tightened around the shoebox that was tucked under his arm. “Don’t know if that’s possible, pet. Don’t know what, but something’s gone seriously pear shaped with the watcher.”

“What d…d…do you mean?” her voice cracked, and she stuttered over the question.

“Well, he’s been acting right strange as of late, Meret won’t have anything to do with him, and he’s been ordering the kind of spell components that make our resident vengeance practitioner a mite twitchy. Went to check him out tonight and found his room trashed and a nasty artifact we dug up sitting in the middle of it. ‘Cept it doesn’t reek of dark mojo like it used to.” Spike’s jaw clenched, indulging for a moment in the frustration that seemed to be characterizing the evening. “Don’t know if Rupes is even Rupes anymore. Won’t lie, least not to you,” his voice was heavy with foreboding. “A little mystical help wouldn’t go astray right about now.”

“Oh no.” The witch’s voice was tiny, but filled with worry. “You don’t think…?”

“Don’t know, Glinda. Don’t know bugger all ‘bout what’s goin’ on, but I’ve lived too long to believe in coincidence.”

Tara was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet, but even. Determined. “I need to talk to the rest of the coven. We might be able to do something. I’ll get back in touch in an hour or so.”

“Glinda?” Spike asked into the night. “Glinda?” Nothing. “Tara? Damn.” She was gone again.

He put his head down and ran for all he was worth.

*****

“Slayer!” The vampire burst into the foyer of the Summers’ residence, and Meret flew over his shoulder, making a bee line up the stairs. When her disappearance was soon followed by a piercing scream, Spike dropped the shoebox, completely forgetting why he had come in the first place, and flew up the stairs.

He knew the Bit’s voice when he heard it.

The little serpent’s touch was colored by surprise that had turned into overwhelming amusement by the time the vampire had reached the second floor and thrown Dawn’s door open.

He gawked at what he saw.

Meret was collapsed on the bed, wings sprawled and whole body shuddering with airy laughter. Dawn was gaping at herself in the mirror, and her face was somewhere between horror and laughter. But her hair! Spike found himself completely at a loss to explain what he was seeing. The girl’s hair was literally standing on end, not in the badly backcombed, fashion victim way, but in the literal, gravity defying sense.

“Nibblet?” he choked.

“Spike! Crap, crap, crap.” She started fumbling with something silver on her dresser. When the vampire finally started snickering, she whipped around a scowled fiercely, her hair swaying drunkenly in the air. “Gawd, don’t look at me!”

The vampire had to lean against the wall in the hallway for support while he continued laughing. Dawn glared for a moment longer before lifting the silvery thing in her hand, a compact, and wrinkling her nose in concentration at her reflection. Spike’s wheezing laughter stopped short when her hair abruptly fell back down, arranged itself into three tendrils, and started braiding itself. That was just… weird.

“’Bit, what the hell is going on?”

After tying off her hair with a purple, glittery band, Dawn clicked the compact shut and showed it to the vampire. It was Vianne’s Mirror.

Spike glared at it. “You’ve fucking got to be kiddin’ me.”

“What? I said you were getting Buffy a present.” She flipped the braid over one shoulder and looked at the vampire disparagingly.

Spike snorted. “Thought that was just an attempt to get big sis off my case.”

“Nah, check it out,” Dawn dug another folder out of one of her dresser drawers and tossed it to the vampire where he was slouching against the door frame. “Look at the key.”

Spike made a play of eyeing her.

“You suck!” she rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth was losing a battle against a smile. “The color key, stupid. What does pink say?”

Spike flipped the folder open and looked. “BBP?”

“Buffy’s Birthday Present.” When the vampire made a disgruntled sound deep in his chest, the girl scowled. “What?”

“L’me get this straight. You sent me up against an army of extras from a Romero flick for,” he gestured, “that?” He filled the word with so much disbelief and venom that Dawn bit her lower lip and started fiddling with the compact in her lap.

“Um, yes?” she said with a hopeful grin. At Spike’s disbelieving stare, she continued. “You said you didn’t care what you went after, as long as you got to fight a lot. And… And Buffy’s the slayer, and I thought she might want something girly for once, and you know how she gets about her hair. So big fight, personal hair dresser, problems solved!” She dropped her eyes in what looked like contrition, but Spike could see blue glittering at him from beneath the lowered lashes.

The vampire sighed. Even if she was playing him, she was also right. “Just ignore me, Little Bit. Been a rough night, didn’t mean to take it out on you.” He flicked a finger in the general direction of the mirror. “You sure that thing’s safe?”

Dawn sniffed and shrugged, trying to play it cool again. “Duh, I’ve been e-mailing Willow and Tara about it. Tara thinks it’s kind of frivolous, but both of them agree it’s safe. The spell is barely stronger than a glamour.”

Spike tended to agree with the blonde Wicca, but then again, a pampered Buffy tended to be a happier Buffy. He had no argument against that. And hey, that meant he was off the hook as far as an expensive gift went. “How’s it work?”

Dawn shrugged. “You think about a hairdo, and the mirror styles your hair. It’s way fast, and you don’t have to use hair gel or spray or anything. Just accessorize and go. Neat, huh?”

“So that Bride of Frankenstein thing you had going…?” he couldn’t help teasing a little.

The girl glared at the coatl, who had regained some of her dignity and was coiled neatly on the edge of the mattress. “Look, I was kinda startled, okay?”

Spike quirked an eyebrow at her, and Dawn turned her nose up in a show of brittle teenage dignity.

“Fair enough.” He finally relented. The not-another-Dawn-disaster and magical weirdness firmly under control, the vampire suddenly remembered why he was standing in the Summers’ house in the first place. “Any ideas where I might find big sis?”

“Oh, she’ll be home soon. She went to some kind of poetry thing for extra credit, but it was over a half hour ago.” The girl eyed him slyly. “Unless she’s found some hottie who has swept her off her feet with the promise of prose.”

The vampire scowled, but quickly schooled his features to his normal, bored expression. He wouldn’t give the manipulative teen the pleasure. Dawn had started making similar throwaway statements recently. It was maddening not knowing if she knew more about his past than she let on. He wondered if she had found one of his stashed journals in the crypt, or if she was just getting exceptionally good at throwing barbs blindly.

Dawn slipped the mirror back into one of the dresser drawers, under a stack of hair scrunchies and makeup cases. “Why didn’t you call her?” she asked over her shoulder.

The vampire blinked for a second before remembering the cell phone in his back pocket. He had completely forgotten about it. Oops. “Battery’s dead.”

“Yeah, right.”

Well he certainly couldn’t use it now, not while maintaining any face whatsoever. “’S kind of important. Can you…?”

“Whatever,” she picked up her purse and started shuffling around in it. Out came the phone, a replica of Spike’s own except for the little glittering heart stickers. “One bossy sister coming…”

The front door burst open. “Spike!” Buffy’s voice called from below.

“Right up,” Dawn finished flatly.

From the sound, the slayer was taking the steps two or three at a time before nearly bowling into the vampire when she rounded the corner towards Dawn’s room. “What’s wrong?” she panted, out of breath.

Spike glanced from the hallway back into Dawn’s room. The girl shrugged and pointed at the coatl. Meret flexed her wings and started preening. Her disparaging thoughts translated pretty obviously to, ‘Moron.’ The vampire refrained from banging his head against the door frame.

“Get the others over here. Something tells me we’ll be needin’ the cavalry once all’s said and done.”

Inside the living room, silence reigned.

Outside, the thud of booted footsteps echoed back and forth, back and forth on the other side of the open double doors.

“I could try again,” Anya’s voice was uncharacteristically meek. The charred remnants of her last attempt at a locator spell rested on the coffee table next to the shoebox holding the mystery jar.

“Ahn, it’s okay. I think the inlay has been flambéed enough,” Xander scooted across the couch and gave his fiancé’s shoulder a quick squeeze of reassurance before resting his hand on the small of her back.

“We could search Giles’ apartment again,” suggested Dawn from her perch on the armrest of the couch.

Spike’s voice called from the doorway, harsh and clipped, “Nothing there, but what you’ve got in front of you. Watcher hasn’t been in his flat in days.”

“Dawn, what else was in that file?” Buffy asked. Her voice was businesslike, but her eyes were flat, and she was leaning weakly against the wall, arms crossed across her chest. Meret had taken a protective position on the mantle, announcing to the vampire, at least, how brittle the slayer’s mood really was.

The flustered girl flipped through her papers as if something helpful would fall out in the shuffling. “This is it, Buffy. You should have found some cash, maybe some old jewelry. Maybe a sword or something. I didn’t find anything about freaky soul-jars or skeletons in nets, or whatever.” Dawn gave the folder a look of wounded betrayal.

“I brought books,” Anya suggested hopefully. She picked up the top two titles: Doppelgangers and Changelings and Reliquaries: A Full Color Manual. “Giles had most of the more relevant texts in his apartment. I have a list of the ones he obtained after acquiring the Magic Box in my inventory. He set up a lending policy with some of the larger L.A. distributors, but it will take many business days to get new copies.” The former vengeance demon let the books drop back into her lap after her comments were met with uncomfortable silence.

Spike spoke without breaking stride. “Books’re most likely gone too. Shelves were pretty much picked over.”

Buffy let her arms drop to her sides. “So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Giles is missing. Maybe he’s been possessed, maybe he’s dead in a ditch and we’re dealing with his evil twin, we don’t know,” her voice cracked with badly concealed emotion. “Either way, some of his old witchy friends just used dial-a-vamp to tell us that something really, really bad is about to rain on our man hunt, which may or may not actually be related to the Giles situation at all.” It didn’t take vampiric senses to see the way the slayer’s lower lip was starting to tremble, how her hands, no longer hidden from their tucked position at her sides, were clenched on the hem of her lacy blouse, worrying the delicate fabric to the edge of ripping. She took a deep breath and forged onwards, “Doesn’t matter though, because everyone and everything that could help us figure it out is missing or on the other side of the planet.”

Meret’s head went up like a shot, and twin images of white eyes, one framed with red hair and one with yellow, flared in Spike’s mind. The vampire stopped in the foyer, and put a hand to his head. Something didn’t feel right. In fact, the connection didn’t feel like Meret at all. “Slayer, that might not be…”

“Spike!” The voice, or was it voices, flooded his mind with much more force than before. It felt like he was holding a live wire.

“That you, Glinda?”

The others were looking at him like he was crazy. He only had the time to roll his eyes before the connection was back, cascading through his mind with little electric tingles of energy.

“Kinda.” The voice’s pitch rose upwards, taking on a lighter, teasing tone that he also recognized. “I’m in here too,” Willow said. “Not to just cut to the chase, but where are you right now?”

“Slayer’s house,” the vampire started blinking rapidly and he was starting to feel light headed. The waves of power coming from the witches were changing, growing or coming closer, it was impossible to tell. Either way, he was surprised his long-dead synapses weren’t misfiring from the mystical flood. “What’re you two trying to...”

“No time,” Willow/Tara cut him off, voices echoing in harmony with each other and the power behind them. “Where in the house, are you standing next to any furniture or anything?”

“Foyer and no, but…”

“Good. Hold still, you’re our focus.”

“Wait, what?!” Spike yelled, but he held still otherwise, even as his hands clenched at his sides. Willow’s magic was iffy enough without him intentionally undermining her efforts.

Twin points of white light appeared in front of the vampire. In the den, Spike could see Buffy drop instinctively into a fighting stance. Xander leapt to his feet in surprise and Dawn just gaped. Anya, on the other hand, seemed wholly unconcerned. Her hands were folded primly on the two books in her lap, and an expectant expression was painted on her face.

The sparks pulsed in tandem, rapidly growing in size and brilliance, until they finally flared with blinding intensity. After a fair amount of blinking and various surprised noises from the gathered Scoobies, the dancing lights behind Spike’s eyes faded and he could see what had happened.

Willow and Tara were standing in front of him, looking a little dazed themselves.

“Now, that was an interesting way to get around the usual human teleportation issues.” Anya spoke while everyone else in the room was still gaping. “Kind of an astral projection, anthromagnetism combo. I haven’t seen that trick in a while. Did the coven give you the final boost?”

“How did you know?” Willow slurred, still staggering a little from the spell.

The former demon shrugged. “Oh, the light gave you away. You sent your spirits ahead, and someone else pushed the rest of you along. Everyone knows that was how Samthann got out of her wedding.” Anya’s face took on a wistful, nostalgic expression. “She was a little before my time, but after I was elevated, she was really popular with some of the women who summoned me. I got to hear all about her.” She sighed dramatically. “Arranged marriages are so iffy.”

Xander wore the kind of pinched, uncomfortable expression that just made him look constipated. Spike forwent commenting on the boy’s obvious discomfort with his fiancé, in favor of steadying a wobbly Tara. The boy was really going to have to get over wanting Anya to pretend that she had always been an upstanding member of the human race, and soon what with the wedding looming, but the witch’s grateful expression more than made up for the missed opportunity.

Meret took the opportunity to flutter to a delicate landing on Spike’s shoulder. She extended a cautious nose towards Tara, who managed to smile and reach out a hand in welcome before her knees tried to buckle again, and only the vampire’s quick responses kept her from falling.

Willow looked like she would have liked to continue the conversation with the former demon, but the others had finally managed to shake themselves out of their stupor. Dawn was the first, babbling and exuberant as she ran across the room to hug the two witches. Buffy’s and Xander’s reactions were a little more restrained, but only just. Anya remained on the couch, as if uncertain of her welcome into the Scooby reunion. Xander unknowingly earned back a few of his lost points with the vampire by reaching a hand out to her, unconsciously inviting her into the rest of the group.

There was more babbling, and more than a little tottering and stuttering on the part of the two disoriented witches, but when Tara rested her hand delicately on Willow’s shoulder, the two Wiccas’ shared a look that quieted the others.

Buffy stepped a little forward, instinctively taking the lead. At her hopeful expression, Tara spoke. “We think we know what happened to Giles.” She shared another look with her girlfriend, whose elfin face was lined with worry.

Even Dawn’s usual animation was stilled in the ensuing silence.

It was Willow who finally spoke. “We think he’s being possessed.”

*****

The back door swung open soundlessly, and Spike was confronted with a familiar sight on the back porch. It was a different night and he wasn’t holding a shotgun, but the similarities were there. Buffy was huddled against the same railing on the same step, knees propping up her elbows and hands cupping her tear streaked face, illuminated in profile by the porch lights.

The others were still at work tearing through the few books they did have and searching through the endless waste of the internet. Xander had left and returned, bearing pizzas and caffeine. Anya had gone with him and spent the time it took her fiancé to pick up the food raiding the watcher’s apartment for any books that looked helpful.

There hadn’t been many.

The slayer had shut her book and slipped out of the dining room fifteen minutes ago. When she hadn’t returned, Spike had left Willow talking on the phone with someone named Yvonne, Dawn and Tara pouring through the girl’s original folder on the Crawford Street mansion, and Xander hovering over Anya while she wrote down details of various exorcisms.

The vampire’s lips quirked into the barest of smiles, when he spotted a scaled tip of a crimson tail poking out from under the kitchen curtains. Even Spike could recognize that some battles simply weren’t worth fighting. The serpentine spy could stay.

The slayer didn’t look up when he sat down on the step next to her, but she didn’t flinch away as she once had when an awkward, comforting hand came to rest on her shoulder.

They sat in silence, Buffy staring into the clear night sky, Spike watching the equally unfathomable planes of her face. Finally, the slayer wiped a hand across her eyes and looked at him. “Have they found anything else about Giles?” she asked in a small, weary voice.

“It wasn’t too hard to put two and two together after Red made her little announcement. Looks like we’re dealing with a not-so-dead necromancer.”

“Elaine,” Buffy whispered.

That had been Spike’s guess too.

“Looks like. I ran the others through the dream and the Bit is up to her eyeballs in the Morelock family tree as we speak,” he tried to sound upbeat for the slayer’s sake, but her expression didn’t change. “Red says she’s pretty certain she can put things right when we find him.”

“If,” Buffy whispered.

She had spoken so softly that he wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. “What?”

She looked at him, her eyes dull and defeated. “You meant if. If we find him.”

“No,” Spike started. And then more firmly, “No, slayer. You are not giving up.” He couldn’t even believe that he was having this conversation with her. “You’ll ride in on your white horse and save the day. It’s what you do.”

“Because I’m a hero,” Buffy’s voice was bitter, derisive.

The vampire hooked a knuckle under her chin and forced her to look him in the eye. “Yes, you really are.”

The slayer’s eyes softened a little and she leaned into his hand. It was only sheer shock that kept him from pulling away in surprise. The vampire’s fingers uncurled unconsciously and ran along the soft line of her jaw in a feather-light caress. His eyes focused on her lips and everything else faded to black. It was the same tunnel vision that had characterized so many hunts in his long years as a predator, but this was another kind of chase. No less vital, no less important, but the rewards could be so much sweeter.

Neither spoke, but inside the vampire was screaming in exultation. He leaned towards her, testing the waters. Her heartbeat skipped and took off, and her skin flushed and warmed under his fingertips.

This can’t be real.

But it was.

This was really happening.

When Buffy tilted her head into Spike’s palm, sending her hair cascading against the vampire’s wrist…that was real. And when her breath hitched and her eyes met his, glittering with green and gold flecks…that was real too.

And when the back door burst open and Dawn came rushing through? That was definitely real.

Buffy jerked back and Spike froze like a deer in headlights.

“Buffy!” Dawn started before skidding to a halt. Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh! Oooooh,” she finished with a knowing smirk. The girl started to snicker when a red streak flew out of the kitchen.

Meret was a flurry of flapping wings and irritated hisses while she chased the younger Summers back into the house. The door shut behind them again with a resounding thud. Too bad the glass and wood of the door couldn’t muffle the frustrated indignation coming from the coatl or the excited chatter from the teenager.

The moment thoroughly killed, Spike looked back at the slayer. “Well, at least we know where those two stand,” he tried to joke. In truth, he was flailing around in deep water, trying to figure out how he should react. The entire situation had blindsided him.

Buffy’s face fell back into her hands, but at least she wasn’t crying this time. What she was doing was blushing. The red stain was creeping out from beneath the shield of her hands and tousled hair.

“Look, slayer, I…”

She stood up abruptly, effectively cutting off the vampire’s uncertain words. “I… I can’t do this right now.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, lips pressed thin in the attempt to regain control of the situation. “I need to find Giles.”

Spike looked up at her from the step, heart in his eyes. “Buffy…”

The use of her real name must have made an impression, or maybe she was teetering on the same knife’s edge as the vampire, but she dropped her hands and offered one to Spike. He allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, but it was only when Buffy pointedly kept a hold on his hand that the vampire met her eyes again.

“We’re not done with this, Spike.” Heat still colored her face, but she stubbornly maintained eye contact. “Later,” she squeezed his hand before letting go. “I promise.”

He nodded in resignation before tilting his head, a weak attempt at his usual confident mask back in place. “I came out to see if you wanted to raid granddad’s old digs. Beats the hell out of readin’ old burial records.”

The slayer’s smile was light, the teasing weak, but still there. “It’s a date.”

I almost kissed her.

She almost kissed me.

But she stopped.

Well yeah, but it was because of the Bit.

What if it wasn’t?

She said we’d talk about it later.

That’s a convenient way out.

I bet she still tastes like raspberries.

I might never know.

“Spike.”

What if it was all cold comfort? She’s worried about the watcher, and she still has the recently dead thing goin’ on.

No, I saw it. In her eyes. She was there with me.

How would I know? In over a century, I’ve only ever played second fiddle.

No, it was different. She was different. I could tell.

With my amazing powers of deduction? Face it, I’ll never figure her out. It’s half her charm.

She let me touch her. She didn’t flinch away like I had the plague.

Until someone saw us. Then she was right quick to get my hands off her.

She was just protecting her little sis.

Maybe.

Even so, she’s the slayer, and I don’t even have a soul to sugar-coat the sun allergy.

As if I would want one. Damn thing’s like to turn me into the prancing nit, redux.

“Spike!”

What if she was thinkin’ about him?

Not going there.

Dru did.

Dru’s crazy.

And the slayer’s known for her cool rationality.

Not the same, like comparin’ Byron to Brandi.

Gotta stop letting Bite Size pick the radio station.

“Spike!!!”

Bet I could make her scream like that if she gave me half a chance. Wait…

“Huh?” the vampire shook himself back into the present.

“The light’s been green for, like, ever,” Buffy glared at him from the passenger’s seat until he stomped on the gas and sent them careening down Saratoga Avenue. “And are you sure Xander’s okay with us borrowing his car?”

Spike glanced down at the coatl, coiled in the slayer’s lap, but for once the little terror held her tongue. Then again, maybe Buffy really was sticking to her no-prying promise. “Carpenter’s settled for the evening, and more than willing to help the cause,” he smirked. Assumin’ I had asked him before swiping the keys. “Why?”

“Never mind,” she looked out of the window. “You were off in Spike-land there for a sec. What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing important,” the vampire replied casually, but his knuckles stretched bone-white from where he was gripping the steering wheel.

I almost kissed her…

*****

“Okay, that?” Buffy gestured broadly with the working end of her flashlight. “Is of the bad.”

Spike’s dark scowl seconded her appraisal of the situation. In general, a trashed room full of open, empty coffins could only be described as ‘of the bad.’

“How the bloody hell did we miss this?” Spike growled, more in disgust with himself than with any irritation at the slayer.

She shrugged. “Dunno. How thick d’you think those walls were?” She stopped fiddling with her flashlight and kicked a football sized chunk of rubble. It went skittering across the floor.

The vampire looked around the room, trying to mentally fit the broken chunks of stone back together into a complete picture. “Two, three feet. No excuse though. Still should’ve smelled ‘em.” His hands were thrust deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched forward in a defensive sulk.

“Hey,” Buffy poked him in the arm with the butt-end of her flashlight. When he glared at her out of the corner of his eyes, she gave him a little half-smile. “I thought you said this place reeked of magic gone wonky and hair gel. Don’t worry about it.”

Spike snorted in amusement before he could catch himself. Buffy’s eyebrow crept a little higher, and she quirked her lips in a crooked smile as Spike looked on in disbelief. There was no way she had just made a joke at the Great Poof’s expense. Was there?

“C’mon,” she tossed her hair over her shoulder and nodded towards the far side of the room. “Let’s see what Meret’s been trying to pry off that coffin.”

Spike let his muscles relax and glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough, the coatl was twisting herself in knots, trying to find purchase on the smooth, hanging lid of one of the coffins. Buffy turned the flashlight beam on the floor and picked her way through the rubble to the coatl. When she neared, the serpent turned unblinking eyes on her and rustled her wings in impatience.

The slayer coaxed Meret into her hand. “Hey, Spike, look at this.”

The vampire took the final steps to join the slayer and glanced over her shoulder. Across the coffin’s shiny, black lid was a silver plaque. Buffy managed to convince Meret to scale her arm and coil across her shoulders. Unencumbered again, she brushed cautious fingers across the metal, revealing a name. Marcus Morelock. The three of them shared a long, silent look before moving on to the next coffin, and the next. Each had a similar plaque, some engraved with decorative scrollwork, some stark and plain. Each with a name. Opal Morelock. Calvin Morelock. Xavier Morelock. Each darkening the trio’s mood just that much more. Matthew Morelock. Alice Morelock. Nathaniel Morelock. Thomas Morelock. They kept looking. Mary Morelock. Alexandria Morelock. Christopher Morelock. Jonathan Morelock.

“She’s not here,” Buffy whispered, saying aloud what Spike had been thinking.

Elaine Morelock.

“Didn’t the Bit say that the Morelocks were all necromancers?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

Buffy nodded wordlessly.

“And didn’t Anya say that our resident possessed watcher was stockin’ up on crap to run some major resurrection spells?” his voice continued on, flat and emotionless.

The slayer just nodded again, looking dejected.

Spike couldn’t blame her.

One necromancer was bad enough, but thirteen?

Spike’s skin was crawling with the thought, and even if his nose told him they were still alone. His senses had betrayed him before in this very room. The vampire allowed his demonic features to come to the fore, golden eyes piercing the darkness. The wrecked walls, the other coffins, their rope hanging from the hole in the ceiling, nothing was out of place. Well, in so much as that could be said about anything in the room. It was only when Spike’s eyes fell on the patch of floor near the excess coils of rope that he stiffened.

He nudged Buffy, who was staring into the last open coffin they had searched. “Slayer, look at the floor.” When she didn’t respond, he looked back at her, golden eyes flashing in the semi-darkness. “Slayer?”

She plucked at the dingy lining of the coffin, it’s once white color stained yellow by time and decay. “Is this what mine looked like? I couldn’t see…” she trailed off quietly.

It took the vampire a moment to figure out what she was asking, and when he did, he was at her side before he consciously thought of moving, his features shifting and realigning until he looked human again. His hand hovered over hers before settling on the rim of the coffin. “No,” his voice was soft, more cautious that usual. “Yours was silver.” He knew how important his words were; even if he wasn’t sure he was saying the right thing. “Dawn picked it out.”

Buffy nodded, slender fingers skimming over the fabric. “And yours?”

Spike blinked in surprise. “Pine,” he said abruptly. “I think Drusilla stole it and buried me herself.” He wasn’t about to elaborate further. His own experience, waking up in the pitch black darkness of his own grave, was not something he thought the slayer needed to hear just then.

In the ensuing silence, the vampire thought about the night he had risen.

The transition from death to unlife had been abrupt. In the flash of an eye, he had exploded back into his own body with no memory of where he was or how he had gotten there. His lungs hadn’t worked, at least not like they had before. They had burned, and his nose was filled with the scent of things long dead. He had panicked, clawing frantically at the bare, rough wood above him.

Something had changed, he would learn later that it was his demonic nature pushing its way to the surface, and suddenly the wood gave way beneath his pounding fists. Soil had poured into the simple pine box, filling his mouth and nose, forcing its way into his ears and under his eyelids. The snarl had risen in his throat, primal and defiant. Pure terror had turned into unadulterated rage, and he had lashed out as he never had in life. In a way, he had met himself that night, six feet under the ground. For the very first time, William the Bloody Awful Poet had stood his ground and fought back.

He had torn his way out of his grave, growling and struggling with every gained inch, and collapsed on his back upon reaching the surface, clothed in the torn remnants of his best brown suit and smeared with the dirt of his own grave. He had known then, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that everything had changed. The old William would have still been trapped in the coffin below, lacking the strength necessary to free himself from such a prison. The old William would have probably fainted from fright, and he certainly wouldn’t have sprawled on the cold ground of a graveyard, gasping unneeded breaths and awestruck by the way the stars above him seemed brighter than they ever had before. His eyes had drunk in every aspect of the night sky, details fascinating him with their beauty in the same way water tasted uniquely exquisite to a man who was dying of thirst.

William really hadn’t known what Drusilla had offered him that night in the alley, hadn’t even known that she was a vampire. Perhaps if he had truly understood, he would have been better prepared. Perhaps not, but the fledgling that would become Spike was less than concerned with the ifs and maybes of his situation in that moment. All that mattered was the torn grass beneath him, which bore next to no resemblance to the hard pine boards below, and the feel of the crisp night air on his face.

The hunger had come a short time later, when Drusilla had arrived with Charles Montgomery, one of his many tormentors, in tow. She had tossed the battered man at his feet and teasingly whispered broken, disjointed endearments and instructions while her creation had made his first kill. That had been a revelation as well. The rich, fear and adrenaline-laced flavor, sweetened further still by the taste of revenge, temporarily drove all other thoughts from his mind.

Of course, Buffy didn’t need to hear any of those things.

They had both dug their ways out of their own graves, and the additional burdens on the slayer: her memory of heaven, her still very human psyche, even basic things like her need to breathe, had ensured that the horror they had both felt upon awakening had persisted in Buffy for months. Spike hadn’t been completely immune either. Being buried alive, trapped and helpless, seemed to be a shared horror for almost every sentient species, good or evil, souled or not.

Some fledglings shook off the experience as soon as they reached the surface, others, like Spike, didn’t. The first few months of his unlife, nightmares had plagued his days, dreams in which he hadn’t been strong enough to free himself from the coffin, trapped and starving in darkness that even his demonically enhanced vision could not pierce. He had hidden them away from his new family, having quickly learned the price of any perceived weakness, behind layers of bravado and reckless behavior.

They had faded with time, but the dreams would occasionally resurface, once during his imprisonment on that damned sub during World War II, a few times in his cell at the Initiative. Hell, even once or twice in Giles’ bathtub and Xander’s basement. If there was something that Spike simply could not abide, it was a cage.

Buffy’s voice shook him from his dark thoughts. “Spike, are you okay?” Meret, though still draped across the slayer’s shoulders, was stretched towards him, feathers folded tight against her neck, tongue flickering in worry.

He snorted. “Should be askin’ you that.”

His rueful smirk met her hesitant smile. She quickly opened her mouth to answer, but apparently changed her mind and instead said quietly, “I will be.” She looked over her shoulder. “What did you see?”

“Right,” his words were brisk again, plowing back into the present. “Look at the floor, near the rope.”

The slayer turned the flashlight beam where he indicated and hissed through her teeth at what she saw. In the yellow circle of light, they could both see an arcane symbol, black and partially hidden by the rubble.

Spike walked to the far side of the symbol, skirting the edge carefully even though they had been walking over it for the last hour to no ill effect. Buffy stepped up to the near side, cocking her head to the side in an attempt to figure out which way was up. “It looks burned,” she commented.

The vampire crouched low and brushed aside some of the debris covering the pattern. The symbol did indeed look like it had been charred into the floor. “Red and Glinda need to see this,” he mumbled to himself. He fished around in his pocket and came up with an old receipt, a lengthy bar tab from Willy’s. “Hey, slayer, you got a pencil or something stashed somewhere in those pants?”

Buffy pursed her lips and eyed him in irritation, standing with her arms crossed and one hip kicked out to the side. It was a petulant stance that he had seen many different times, from two, or okay, three, different sources before. He grinned. She and Dawn had their differences, but when it came down to brass tacks, they were more similar than either would have ever admitted.

The Summers attitude was in their blood.

Finally discarding her imperious glare, the slayer fished around in her pocket and came up with a lip gloss wand. Spike caught her underhand toss and looked at it dubiously before unscrewing the cap and setting to work. After a moment, he had sketched out a pretty decent replica of the symbol. No magic prickled his fingertips from the drawing, but the vampire wasn’t really expecting it. No mystical powers worth their weight in spit would respond to a summons using Very Berry Glitter Gloss.

Buffy had been poking around the perimeter of the symbol while he worked. When he straightened with the little drawing in hand, she held up a burned sprig of some kind of plant. “Think this is important?”

Spike walked over to her and took the twig between two careful fingers. It was charred and brittle, but when he held it to his nose, he caught a familiar smell. Juniper. “Maybe.”

Buffy nodded distractedly and glanced around the room one more time.

Nothing leapt out of the shadows at them, no hidden attacker or spiritual guide. With a final gusty sigh, she stepped forward onto the symbol and grabbed the rope. “Let’s go.”

He had no argument to that.

Sometimes it was too easy.

Park Harris’ car back on the curb. Gallantly open the door for Buffy. Earn a little smile in return. Follow her in and take off the trench coat. Hang it on the banister next to the carpenter’s ratty blue jean number. Palm the car keys into the right jacket pocket when the slayer’s back was turned. Act casual. Walk into the kitchen.

Squelch the strange, guilty feeling over the whole affair. Make a note to buy the first round the next time Harris wanted to play pool. Scowl at Meret, ignore her arch looks, and try not to pace in front of the sink. Alter mental note to include two rounds, a blooming onion, and one thrown game. Grab a beer from the back of the fridge. Join the others at the dining room table for research.

See?

Easy…

*****

“Well, it looks kinda proto-Germanic, but there’s these funky lines that just screw everything up.” Willow turned Spike’s drawing this way and that, seeing if it made any more sense from a different angle. “Tara, honey, what do you think?”

The blond Wiccan leaned over, her chin almost resting on her partner’s shoulder and brushed her long hair back over one ear. “It’s smeared.”

“What?”

Tara pointed at the irregular squiggles of lip gloss.

Willow cocked her head to the side again, rotated the drawing one more time, and finally burst into a wide grin. “Oh. Oh! Okay, that makes things way easier.” The redhead dropped the receipt back on the table and started flipping through the book in front of her. In short order, she was writing line after line of notes, clicking her multi-colored pen back and forth between green, blue, red, and black, in a manic, irritating fashion. She nodded whenever Tara made a suggestion, but was otherwise deaf to the world, or at least the vampire across from her.

Spike watched the proceedings with great interest.

Tara was standing a little taller, offering suggestions a little quicker, and generally looking much more comfortable in her own skin than Spike had ever seen. Her time in England had agreed with her.

The vampire hid his smile by downing another third of his beer. Good on her.

His own book, some junior watcher’s thesis on necromantic theory, was open, but ignored, on the table. Control over the dead… blah, blah… volatile spells… blah, blah… really naughty... etc. etc. Bloody waste of time. It was the kind of basic twaddle that anyone with even the most passing acquaintance with the dark arts would take for granted. Spike had checked the references for Rowling, J.K. Surprisingly, she hadn’t been there.

The others had long since retired. Dawn had school the next day, and so did Buffy. Xander and Anya had finally left after the former demon had fallen asleep on one of the older, more valuable scrolls. Upon waking, she had been so horrified at the crumpled parchment and potential property damage that her fiancé had finally taken her home to ‘console’ her. Even Meret had slipped into one of the deep pockets of Spike’s jacket, red tipped tail visible in the folds of the leather.

That left the two witches, whose bodies still thought they were in Bath, and the vampire, the consummate night owl, to burn the midnight oil.

“Okay, listen to this!” The incessant clicking finally stopped, and Willow turned her notes so that Tara could see. “I think I have it translated.” She pointed at the middle of the sketched circle. “See, the center sigil stands for protection. These around the edges are modifiers for health, love, conjuration, and the prevention of decay. Pretty basic stuff, even if the touchy-feeliness is kinda weird.”

Spike snorted. “How’s that?”

Willow looked up as if she had only just noticed him. “Well, I mean, necromancers? Not so much with the lovey-dovey protection stuff.” Still the same old Willow. She looked a little confused, but Spike noted with dark humor that Tara was worrying her lower lip between her teeth, probably following the same line of thought as the vampire.

“She’s got her hands on all the members of her family, Red. Hell, I bet even the Bentons loved each other. So did most of the Aurelians, in our own way.” Spike swirled the final swig of beer in his latest bottle, but his eyes were fixed and steady on the redheaded witch. “White hats don’t have a corner market on the emotion, much as you’d like to deny that.”

Willow’s eyebrows scrunched together in a defensive scowl, and the clicky pen started up again. She couldn’t have picked a more irritating nervous habit. “Hey, I just thought it was odd. What’s your problem?”

“Just think takin’ off the blinders might help with the research, but never mind,” Spike tossed his book on the table and stood up. “You’re obviously the expert on necromancers, bein’ the only one of us who’s ever raised the dead.”

He had the distinct satisfaction of seeing all the color drain out of the redhead’s face as he stormed out of the room. Two more beers joined the half-full bottle on his way through the kitchen and out onto the back yard. They wouldn’t get him drunk, not when the last six hadn’t, but they gave him something to do with his mouth other than grind his teeth.

He didn’t know why Willow’s words had struck a nerve. If he was honest, the last four hours of fruitless research probably had at least a little to do with it, but that wasn’t the only reason.

Her words had hit a little too close to home.

Spike had come so far.

Patrolling partner, with hopes of becoming more, to Buffy. Confidant and lit. tutor to Dawn. A reluctant but skilled translator to Giles. Pool buddy to Xander and prized cash cow to Anya. A shoulder to cry on and a favorite project to Tara.

But to Willow?

He had no way of telling. She was all over the map, unpredictable in the same way cornered wild animals and junkies between fixes could be. Cheerful smiles and teasing jokes were paired with dark, darting eyes. Wariness masked as oblivious distraction. She was curious and inquisitive one second, cold and aloof the next. And everywhere, the old rallying cry of Scoobies good, demons evil, when even Xander was slowly starting to see the shades of grey around him. It was confusing, not to mention unsettling. But that was just Willow; power harnessed with precious little restraint.

Spike cursed himself for losing his temper inside. She wasn’t the same girl whose shy wit and fuzzy pink numbers had drawn his interest. She wasn’t even the same, inexperienced witch who had kept him from dusting himself because it was ooky or shoved a cookie in his mouth so that he’d stop teasing Buffy about leaving an aftertaste. No, this Willow was powerful and unpredictable. He knew from personal and repeated experience that it was in his best interests to tread lightly around the redhead.

Maybe Tara was right, maybe Willow was learning control, but the vampire would believe it when he saw it.

Spike walked into the yard and dropped tiredly into one of the plastic folding chairs. He lined up the three bottles, one after the other on the little table next to him, leaned back, and stretched his legs out in front of him. Clouds obscured his view of the stars, just one more cosmic slight.

The last of the first beer went down quickly, and the second as well, before the twisting threads of guilt and worry settled in firmly enough to make their presence known. He should be trying to find out what had happened to Giles, hitting the books or pounding the pavement. He should be in there, trying to smooth things over, if only for Tara’s sake. He should be trying to figure out when he had turned into such a mother hen, but that at least could be shoved to the backburner. In his heart, Spike already knew the answer. It was rooted in his own powerful affections and a coiled bundle of borrowed conscience, happily sleeping in his coat pocket. And that was okay. He wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Spike had finally settled on going back inside once he finished his last beer when the door opened, and Tara slipped out. She looked around, human eyes night blinded by the porch lights.

“Over here, Glinda,” he called from the darkness.

She didn’t jump, only nodded and made her way down the steps and into the yard. She smiled a little as she took the seat on the other side of the little table, and he couldn’t help but return the favor. Spike was convinced that an hour with Tara would make even the most hardboiled bastard smile. She simply had that effect on people.

They sat in silence, Spike occasionally taking a swig of his beer, Tara watching the swirling clouds overhead after her eyes adjusted. “Red still readin’?”

Tara shook her head and sighed. “No, she’s on the phone with Althanea again.”

The vampire nodded. “Found something worth the bill?”

“No,” Tara said. “Willow just needed to talk some stuff out.” At Spike quizzical look, she continued. “She really is getting better. With the magics, I mean. She’s starting to understand how the energy works and why she needs to be more careful.”

“So, Earth Mother off in England is what? Her therapist?” Spike rolled the bottle of beer between his hands and shot a glance at Tara out of the corner of his eye.

“Sort of,” Tara said quietly. “I’m not sure what we were expecting, but Willow has spent most of her time in meditation. Neither one of us could cast a thing at first, some kind of humility shield. We had to accept the limitation before it would let us go. Willow couldn’t even read an aura for two weeks.” Tara favored the vampire with a wan smile. “She kind of latched on to the coven’s leader, Althanea, after that.”

“Huh.” Spike brought the bottle to his mouth and tilted it back, unwilling or unable to elaborate further on the thought.

“Spike,” her voice was hesitant again. The vampire glanced at her from under heavy lids. “You’re owed an explanation, and I don’t know if Willow can give it to you yet.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “Everyone else? They can act like everything’s okay, you know? And it’s easier that way for her because it helps her to pretend that it is. Okay. She can forget. But not with you.”

Spike took another sip from his beer, ears wide open even if his eyes were not.

Tara twisted her hands into little knots, but she continued. “With you, she always knows that you don’t trust her. And even though she hasn’t really admitted out loud that she was ever in the wrong, I think she knows that you’re right.” The witch stopped wringing her hands and spread them flat on her thighs. “That we shouldn’t trust her.”

Spike looked at the blonde in surprise.

Tara met his shocked gaze. “Yet,” she amended. “Willow’s got to figure out that some things are completely out of her control, and you and Meret, thanks to her own spell, are beyond her power to win over through magic.”

“Hard lesson,” Spike grunted before throwing back the rest of his beer. He couldn’t bring himself to feel anything other than relief and savage amusement that he had at least that scrap of defense against the redhead. The bottle joined the others, three dead soldiers all in a row.

Tara reached out and touched his hand where it was still wrapped around the empty container. He looked at her clear eyes, so wise for one so young. “Spike, I need to ask you a favor.”

The vampire softened. “Told you once, you only need to ask.” He just hoped she wouldn’t ask for something he couldn’t give. Like instant forgiveness.

“Just don’t write her off,” her solemn eyes pleaded with him. “Maybe a little distrust is good, because it might help her admit she has a problem, but…”

“But I should keep an open mind,” Spike interrupted, a sardonic twist to his lips. Like you did with me. “Think I can manage that.”

He was surprised when her fingers laced into his own. “Thank you.” She gave his hand a little squeeze before folding her own back in her lap.

They sat in companionable silence. For the moment, Spike was at peace, Tara’s calming presence a balm over his mind.

But the world intruded, as it always did, in the form of Willow. She slipped quietly onto the back porch; Spike could hear her heartbeat and smell her even if she didn’t speak for a long time. Then, when he started to be convinced that she was going to hover behind them all night, she cleared her throat tentatively.

When Spike and Tara turned around, she spoke. “I think I’ve found…” she trailed off and shuffled her feet nervously, making her look surprisingly young and timid. “I mean, could you two come look at something?”

Spike could feel Tara’s eyes on him. What other answer was there?

*****

“Thought you said this didn’t make shit for sense.” Spike scowled at the pages of lists Anya had compiled.

“Well yeah, but that was before I looked at this,” Willow pulled another sheet out of the mess of papers on the table and dropped it on top of the stack Spike held. Tara leaned over and looked at the new page.

Spike’s brow furrowed. “What’s this?”

The redhead’s eyes twinkled, “Anya’s list of shoplifted goods. See anything that wouldn’t fit in a pocket?” excitement overwhelmed her earlier uncertainty, and she spoke quickly, words tumbling out of her mouth.

The vampire started scanning the list. Two Chinese coins and an Etrevian sundial necklace. A set of turquoise hair clips that sounded an awful lot like the new barrettes he had seen in Dawn’s hair the day before. He’d have to talk to her about that. A feather fountain pen. Three quartz crystals… A cauldron.

A bloody cauldron?

Tara must have seen the same thing he had, because she gasped in surprise.

“Think our body hopper’s gonna be brewin’ a potion or cookin’ a nice stew?” Spike’s voice was tinged with sarcastic humor. He wasn’t really expecting an answer, but he got one anyway.

“Um, maybe.” Willow flipped through the pages of a fabric bound book, much newer than the others on the table. When she found what she was looking for, she flipped the book around in front of the vampire. It was a story book. The header leapt off of the page and into his memory.

The Brothers Grimm.

The Juniper Tree.

Spike woke in warmth.

It surrounded him, soaked into his bones. Usually, waking up to something unfamiliar would have set his predatory instincts screaming in warning, but the enveloping heat felt safe… comfortable. He drifted somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, content to remain as he was.

“Spike, wake up,” a soft, insistent voice dragged him a little closer to the surface.

A grumble echoed deep in his throat, pride would have called it a growl, but even so, it was a weak and whiney one. He could hear chuckling before the voice started needling at him again. “C’mon Spike, get up. No rest for the kinda wicked.”

Buffy?

Blue eyes slit open, and the vampire took in his surroundings with a little surprise. He was in the Summers’ house, stretched out on the couch in the living room. The slayer was standing over him, hands hovering near his arm, as if she couldn’t decide if poking a sleeping vamp was a good idea or not.

“’M up,” his voice creaked. “Thought you had school?” He managed to escape the worst of the tangled blue blanket, the source of the soporific heat if the power cord running out of the hem was any clue, and sat up.

Buffy straightened and grimaced at him. “Been, back, have the head cramp from the quiz to prove it. I swear they only give those when I really, really need to cut class.”

Spike smirked at her petulant tone of voice and rolled his head to one side, then the other, trying to work out the kinks in his neck. All night sessions in the war room were only cool in Bruckheimer movies. Research just wasn’t Spike’s thing; that was what minions were for. I miss Dalton…

The vampire ran a hand through his unruly hair and winced at the curls he found there. He’d have to do something about that. He caught sight of Buffy’s amused half-smile and jerked his hand away from his scalp. “Where’s the others,” he asked by way of a distraction.

“Tara just finished cooking breakfast, and now she’s off trying to wake Willow up so I can hear the skinny on the Giles sitch.” She looked down at her watch. “Dawn’s got one more hour of school, Xander’s at work, and Anya’s holding down the fort from the Magic Box. She’s gonna look for more stuff there and call later.”

Spike’s stomach made it clear which part of that statement it thought was the most interesting. “Breakfast?”

Buffy’s eyebrow crept a little higher, but she flipped her hair over her shoulder and nodded towards the kitchen. “Okay, more like a late lunch, but who’s counting? C’mon. It’s getting cold.”

The vampire, still a little fuzzy from sleep, shuffled into the kitchen. He noted gratefully that all the curtains were pulled, so he didn’t have to do his usual bob and weave to avoid getting fried.

To his surprise, he found Meret waiting for him on the counter, nibbling at her own little platter of bacon and orange slices. She rustled her feathers in happy greeting. Next to her, a huge stack of pancakes, buttermilk batter dripped into whimsical patterns, dominated the center of the island. He plopped down onto one of the tall stools in front of a waiting dish and pulled a couple of them onto the plate.

He started to rise again and make his way to the fridge for the more important aspect of his meal, when Buffy dropped a little syrup pitcher in front of him. It didn’t hold syrup though. He looked up at the slayer, surprised.

She looked shy, of all things. “Dawn said you, uh, dunk stuff or whatever,” she said haltingly, as if fishing for some kind of reaction.

Spike blinked, before trying on a ghost of a smile, “I do at that.” He picked up the pitcher and poured the warm pig’s blood over his stack. He fiddled a little with his silverware before adding a quiet, but sincere, “Thanks.”

That earned an honest smile, and soon Buffy had settled across from him, anointing her own pancakes with the more traditional maple syrup. What was more surprising was the ease of their chatter. A little bit of everything seemed to come up: patrolling, Dawn’s penchant for stealing her sister’s clothes, Xander and Anya’s upcoming wedding. Buffy started talking about her poetry classes, and feigned surprise when Spike weighed in, passionately in some cases.

And throughout the entire exchange, Meret seemed to radiate contentment and an underlying thread of pride, as if she had engineered the entire morning all on her own.

When Tara appeared some time later, with a still groggy Willow in tow, the two blondes were debating the relative merits of Tennyson, Browning, and Yeats. Or Spike was arguing towards Buffy, who was apparently playing dumb in order to spur him into even more vociferous insults of American higher education. Either way, it was a pretty entertaining way to spend a breakfast.

“Morning guys,” Willow said, smothering a yawn behind her hand. She took a seat next to the slayer, and Tara, after favoring Buffy and Spike with a quick nod and smile, perched on the stool next to the vampire. Willow didn’t seem to notice when Meret repositioned herself so that she could keep an eye on the witch, but Spike did. Buffy fell quiet, while the two Wiccans started their meals. She kept scooting the last bite of her own food around her plate with the tines of her fork, making high pitched screeches when the metal dragged against the white china.

Tara, of course, noticed Buffy’s unease first, and grazed a hand over Willow’s arm to get her attention. The redhead, looked up questioningly, and when her partner glanced pointedly at the fidgeting slayer, dropped her fork. “Oh, sorry Buffy. I’m not really awake yet.” She picked her fork back up, and started twirling the cut stack of pancakes around and around. “I think we might have found the spell last night. It fits with the circumstances and the materials Giles has been collecting. It’s easy to stop, if we can catch him,” she paused. “Her… Whatever. What was I talking about?”

“The spell,” prompted Tara quietly.

“Oh! So yeah, um, fairy tales!” She smirked impishly at Buffy’s baffled expression. “Most of the old fairy tales have some basis in truth. Remember the Gentlemen? And that whole fiasco with MOO and the demony Hansel and Gretel?” When the slayer nodded, Willow continued. “This time around, I think we might have found something in The Juniper Tree.”

“Huh?” was Buffy’s response.

Willow nodded enthusiastically. “It’s by the Brothers Grimm. There’s this evil stepmother, because pfft,” she rolled her eyes, “there’s always an evil stepmother in these things. So anyway, she kills her stepson because she wants all her husband’s money for herself and her daughter,” she was talking faster, caught up in her own excitement. “Then she convinces her daughter that it was her fault her brother was dead and hides the murder by cooking up the boy and serving him as dinner.”

Buffy carefully sat her fork back down on her plate and looked a little queasy. Meret rubbed her cheek against the slayer’s hand, a gesture that earned a grateful head scratch from the slayer.

Willow continued on, oblivious. “The sister felt so bad about her brother that she collected his bones in a silk scarf and put them under a juniper tree. Cue the funky special effects and poof!” she gestured excitedly with her fork, dripping syrup on the counter. “The bones are gone and this phoenixy bird shows up. It flies around town, sings a bunch, and finally ends up back at the house where it kills the evil stepmother. After that, the bird turned back into the little boy, alive and well, and they all lived happily ever after.”

“So spell wise, you can raise a murdered person by eating some of their flesh, placing them under some juniper, performing the requisite ritual, and then killing the murderer,” Willow concluded her tale of academic success by popping her pancake laden fork into her mouth and chewing enthusiastically. When the rest of the table didn’t share in her exuberance, she swallowed quickly, and asked, “What?”

Spike, who was the only other one still eating, swallowed his last bite, and answered when Buffy and Tara did not. “Not that I care, but I’m told that cannibalism isn’t the best table talk.”

The redhead flushed in embarrassment. “Oh, right.” Down went her fork again. “Um, I remembered coming across a spell, last summer.” She swallowed nervously and flicked a glance in Buffy’s direction. “It was all there: juniper, silk, uh, eating… stuff,” she winced a little at the others, but forged onward. “And a bunch of the other things that Giles has been collecting like cemetery dirt and bird skins. I think it’s the right one.”

Buffy had started pushing the little stack of pancakes back around her plate, her good mood well and truly gone. “So, how do we stop him? Her,” she rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Well, the spell needs a lot of energy. I don’t care how powerful Elaine was or Giles is; it’s going to take energy from something else to raise thirteen people. Tara made a list of all the places around Sunnydale that might work.” Willow smiled encouragingly at her girlfriend.

Tara took a deep breath and picked up the narration. “There’s a lot of mystical hot spots around town. Some of them, like the natural springs on the north side of town, and the caverns near the ocean, were consecrated to gods and goddesses that wouldn’t look kindly on necromantic spells. Also, this kind of spell needs a lot of space and privacy for preparation. Some of the spots are too public, like the old lodestone mines under the holistic medicine center.” She looked at the vampire before continuing. “Spike told me that some of the others were too close to demon hangouts. We got the list down to five, including the Hellmouth.”

Buffy nodded, the corner of her lower lip caught between her teeth. “And when we find him?”

Willow answered, “The spell is pretty sensitive. Any little thing can mess it up. Trashing the room should do it. Worse comes to worse, just keep Giles alive and Tara and I can take care of the rest.”

“Wait, I thought Giles was just possessed,” Buffy asked suddenly, voice full of fear. “Young priest, old priest, maybe some pea soup, but then he’s fine. What’s all this about him dying?”

“The sacrifice at the end,” Willow said cautiously. “The dead won’t rise unless their murderer, or an acceptable stand in, is sacrificed. This is kind of a revenge/reanimation combo.”

Buffy looked back and forth between the witches and the vampire. “Um, so?”

Spike thought he knew the answer, but he was preempted by an unexpected voice from the kitchen door.

“Do you even read those folders I give you? Or am I huffing stinky old book fumes for my health?” Dawn’s snarky comment startled everyone in the room, including the vampire, who had been so focused on the conversation around him that her entrance had slipped under even his heightened senses.

“I skimmed the highlights,” the Slayer said defensively.

Dawn rolled her eyes and dropped her purple backpack on the floor and flounced into the room. “Yeah right. You’ve totally been making Spike pick the folders.” She dropped onto the last stool next to the vampire and glared at her sister.

“Dawn, this is important!” Buffy snapped at her sister’s dramatic sulk.

The younger Summers rolled her eyes. “Apparently the Council kept an eye on the Hellmouth, even without a slayer here. A small group of watchers had been sent to mess up the Morelock’s bid for more power.” Dawn reached for another plate and started piling the remaining pancakes on it. “The necromancers tried to cast some major league enchantment, the watchers countered it. Spell go boom. The Morelocks were wiped out, and most of the watchers died too. I guess one of the necromancers lasted long enough to set up the basement surprise.”

She reached for the pitcher in front of Spike, but the vampire caught her hand. “Wouldn’t do that Nibblet.”

The girl took a closer look at the liquid and wrinkled her nose, “Yeah, ew. Thanks.” She looked back at her sister. “Does that sum it up, or are you going to hold the non-pig topping hostage?”

Buffy scooted the maple syrup across the counter, but her pinched expression didn’t change. Meret tried nosing her hand again, but this time it earned no response. The slayer turned cold eyes on the two witches. “I need that list.”

*****

“Just wait two more hours, and I can go with you,” Spike tried reasoning with her.

Buffy picked up her favorite sword before setting it aside and digging further into her weapons chest. Out came a set of short staves, defensive weapons that could more easily wound than kill. She didn’t speak as she tucked the sticks into her bag, along with a long dagger, a flashlight, and some rope. She was already dressed in grey sweats and a black tank, her usual workout clothes turned battle gear. On her right hand glittered the Sangre de Cristo ruby, a sure sign that she was expecting the worst kind of trouble.

She shouldered the bag and went to the door, Spike following behind, trying to figure out how he might change her mind. At that point, he was seriously considering throwing himself at her feet, dignity be damned. Buffy swung the door wide, letting the afternoon sunlight flood across the floor. The vampire jumped back with a curse of surprise. She started to walk through the door, but Meret flew in front of her, wings spread wide in a crimson, flimsy shield.

“Get out of my way,” she growled at the little serpent.

Meret hissed in defiance.

“Buffy,” he pleaded.

She turned and looked at him, her eyes dark and dangerous. “And what if Elaine is already casting the spell? What if Giles dies because I sat around here, waiting longer than I already have?” her voice cracked like a whip, but Spike could hear the bone-deep fear for her watcher as well.

Spike had no answer for that, but Meret did.

Take me.

Buffy looked at Spike in surprise.

The vampire was torn.

On one hand, Meret could be a huge asset, keeping the others informed and lending what help she could. On the other hand, this whole argument had started because he didn’t like seeing one of his girls head into danger alone. ‘Alone’ of course meaning without him.

“I’ll take care of her,” Buffy whispered.

Spike nodded, shoulders sagging in defeat. “I know. I’ll catch up as soon as I can.” He was trapped, as surely as if caught in a spell: too much sun on one side, and too much logic on the other.

“I know,” she said softly.

He couldn’t seem to convince his eyes to leave the floor, so it was a complete surprise when her lips pressed against his, as sweet as he remembered. Just as suddenly, she was gone, running full tilt out of the door and down the street, Meret a red blur behind her.

It was a long time before he moved.

Spike sat on the couch in the living room. As the saying went, the lights were on, but nobody was home. Even Dawn had finally given up talking to him when nothing she said or did managed to drag him out of the dark corners of his mind.

The dark corners where Meret’s mind overlapped with his.

She was in a grove at the moment, circling the clearing in Breaker’s Woods from above while Buffy searched the perimeter from the ground. He had never before stayed in this kind of contact with Meret for so long. He could feel the wind against his skin and the dizzying dip between thermals. He could feel the sun on his back, warming him. The longer he stayed with her, the more he could feel.

The flex of the muscles along her spine, moving the wing joints.

The shivery tingle of air moving around feathers.

The odd taste/scent of the air on a forked tongue.

Even with the sun riding lower and lower in the sky, it was easy to see that is was still too early for the vampire to join them. The woods around the clearing were dappled with sunlight, and the breeze made sure the shadows shifted unexpectedly and often, exposing everything to the light.

Buffy was poking around an old fire pit, probably the remnants of some teenage camping trip or maybe even a small-time ritual, that is if the local amateurs even knew the history of the area: druids, wyverns, and everything in between.

He could hear, as if through cotton, Buffy’s voice calling to Meret. Down, down he went, plummeting at speeds that sent the vampire reeling back into his own body. He sat up with a shout, fully back in the Summers’ house again. The room tilted and spun. Spike’s head dropped into his hands as he tried to regain his own equilibrium.

The vampire looked up to find Dawn shoving a mug of blood into his face. He quirked an unsteady smile at her and accepted it gratefully. He shakily fished his hip flask out of his jacket pocket and splashed a little of the liquid into the blood. That would help settle his stomach if anything would.

“That was kind of creepy. What were you doing?” She plopped down on the edge of the coffee table.

The flask ended up on the table when replacing it in his pocket proved to take more motor skills than he seemed to have at the moment. Half of the mug went down in one, unsteady gulp. “Seein’ with Meret.” Spike knew that he sounded a little crazy, but with the room still lurching drunkenly, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“So what, you can, like, totally be in her head?” Dawn’s excited face bled through his vision. “That’s so cool! What’s she doing right now?”

“Droppin’ out of the sky like a stone.” At Dawn’s worried gasp, he continued sardonically. “A highly controlled, perfectly safe stone.”

“Oh. Well that’s good,” the girl said in relief. “What’s it like?”

“What?” the vampire mumbled distractedly.

The girl clapped her hands on her knees and leaned forward. “Hearing her all the time. Being able to see what she sees and hear what she hears. I just get flashes.”

“Dunno.” Spike was muzzy enough from the extended link with the coatl that his guard was down. “Sometimes s’like I’m her and she’s me. If I had multiple personalities and enjoyed tormentin’ myself.” His face took on a wistful expression, he really knew how to pick ‘em. He looked up and caught Dawn watching him with wide, expectant eyes. The mask was up in a flash, smooth lines and an uncaring cant to his lips firmly in place again.

Tara poked her head in the door. “Spike?”

The vampire looked up, thankful for the distraction. “Yeah?”

“Any news?” The witch looked hopeful.

Spike pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Breaker’s Woods are a bust. Think they’re headin’ to the ruins of the mission next.” He dropped his hands, and rose unsteadily. “I can meet up with them there.”

“Hey! Curious teenager here!” Dawn spun around on the table and watched as Spike stumbled to the weapons chest.

“No time, Bit,” he mumbled. “Gotta get goin.’ Sun’s about down.”

“Dawnie, you can grill Galahad when he gets back,” said Tara. Her voice was quiet, but her eyes were twinkling.

Spike eyed the witch with some amusement. He was too bemused with the girl’s teasing to take offense. “Galahad, huh?”

Tara had the temerity to wink and disappeared back into the dining room where Willow was giving Anya a list of spell components, rapid-fire over the phone.

Spike snorted to himself, the bridge of his nose pinched between two fingers as his vision finally cleared. Then he dug around in the chest, pulling out a set of brass knuckles. “Got a tarp or something I can snag?” he called back to Dawn.

“Whatever.” She got up and stomped into the kitchen. When she returned, she was carrying a cheap red and white checked tablecloth. She tossed it at him. “And for the record, eyes rolled up in your head is not a good look on you.”

“Right fond of you too, Bit.” That earned an almost smile hastily covered with a disparaging sniff. Spike just grinned while he palmed his flask back into his coat pocket.

The girl stomped into the dining room, followed by the amused vampire. Tara and Willow looked up when Dawn flopped down into one of the empty chairs. Willow nodded distractedly and returned to her notebook.

“Got a date with a necromancer,” Spike said lightly, trying to smooth over the worry he saw in the blond witch’s eyes.

Tara tried, and failed, to look optimistic. “Please be careful.”

Willow added an unexpected, “Good luck,” before hastily sticking her nose back into her books. He had to give it to the redhead, she could do awkward to the T.

He nodded and ducked back into the foyer. It took a second to shake out the tablecloth, and a few more to shake his head at how stupid he knew he was about to look. Still, donning a ridiculous pizzeria cape was better than turning extra crispy on his way to the sewers.

He was still arranging his impromptu armor when Dawn slipped around the corner. He stopped, feeling a little silly in his red and white checks, but the girl just tugged the vinyl lower over his face.

“Hey, Spike,” she said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Dying? So not allowed.” The words were followed by a little grin, but there was real emotion behind them too.

“Already dead,” he returned, eyebrow arching.

She slugged him in the arm, not that it hurt, but it got her point across. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know.” He wanted to reach out and ruffle her hair, but his Little Bit wasn’t so little anymore and would more than likely take offense. “Gotta run. I’ll tell Meret to keep an ear out for you.”

With what he hoped was a reassuring smile, he took off into the dying rays of the sun. His demonic nature screamed inside him, wanting nothing but to escape from the dangerous light, but Spike liked the fear. He liked the rush of the dizzying uncertainty he felt in the mad dash or the fight he wasn’t sure he could win. Whatever the demonic version of adrenaline was, it was surging through his body, making his movements a little faster, his senses a little sharper. He was drunk on the sensation, running on muscle memory until he dropped into the open sewer grate.

He crammed the tablecloth behind the unused ladder and opened his mind again to the coatl. Moments later he was running for the far side of town, visions of sunset over Sunnydale guiding his steps.

*****

Buffy and Meret hadn’t gone to the mission. Spike found himself wandering around in the sewers, turned around by the coatl’s perspective of the wet, stinking tunnels. He knew he was getting close. He also knew he was somewhere under the warehouse district, but he wasn’t entirely sure where. As for the slayer and her feathered shadow, the various odors wafting through the sewers had covered their tracks well.

The vampire slogged through the icy water, looking for any sign of Buffy’s passage. He stopped to run his hand over a long scuff on the wall when he heard it: a wisp of sound down one of the winding tunnels. It sounded like a low hum, rising and falling at irregular intervals.

Spike crept down the passageway, wary of disturbing whatever was making the sound. As he got closer, his senses started humming with something else. That was why he wasn’t surprised when he rounded a corner and found Buffy with Meret firmly wrapped around her neck.

“Took you long enough,” she whispered teasingly.

Spike hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and smirked. “Thought absence made the heart grow fonder?” Even with his exceptional night vision, it was hard to tell if she was blushing, but her heart rate certainly picked up. His thoughts turned immediately to her little goodbye present, and he clenched his fists and focused back on the matter at hand.

Talk about snogging later. Find Giles now.

She finally rolled her eyes and turned around, slipping further down the tunnel towards the source of the noise. Meret’s crimson head peeked out of her hair, unblinking eyes meeting the vampire’s with amusement.

The tunnel soon opened into a larger room, lit with a sickly yellow glow. The walls were covered in dripping, waxy constructions, which hung stiffly like the folds in a honey comb. Slayer and vampire hid in the shadow of a particularly large waxen drapery, Spike watching the activity before them with some surprise.

“What are they?” the slayer whispered.

Spike shook his head ruefully, remembering when he had last seen similar demons. “T’kinians,” he muttered. “Fought some a little while ago. Ill tempered bastards, but stupid. And flammable.”

The slayer nodded. “Tara says this is one of the mystical hot spots.”

The vampire nodded, unsurprised. T’kinians often congregated on magical convergence points. He cursed himself silently, wishing he had remembered that little detail when he had been going over the lists with Tara. Giles wasn’t here.

Buffy had apparently come to the same conclusion. “I can’t just leave them all here.”

Spike nodded in resignation. Duty. Always duty with her. “C’mon. We’ll figure somethin’ out.”

They crept closer, slipping from drape to drape until they could see the demons clearly. T’kinian workers dotted the chamber. It was hard to tell, what with the mandibles and facial plates, but it looked like the demons were pulling some kind of goo out of their mouths and smearing it on the chamber’s walls, adding new layers to their yellowish creations.

Buffy nudged Spike’s shoulder and made comic gagging faces until the closest worker pulled a slab of fatty flesh, probably human if the hairless, pink color of the remaining skin was to be believed, out of a fold in its crude robes, chewed it up, and started pasting more yellow drool on the growing lump in front of it. Then her choking took a more realistic turn.

As for Spike, he grimaced and wiped his hand off on his pants leg from where it had been resting on the wall of their waxy hiding place. He pulled the slayer up next to him, effectively distracting her from her focus on the worker-demon and back to the source of the sounds that had led them here in the first place: the humming chant.

A circle of taller, more heavily armored, if also better dressed, drones sat in the center of the room, clicking and droning away in their strange dialect to an even larger, if more delicate, figure on a raised throne in the center of their ring.

The hive queen was draped in a white, translucent shroud held in place by a spindly, sharp-edged crown. Her attention seemed riveted on her chanting mates, and she trilled a note of approval, or maybe entreaty, to the loudest of the group.

Spike strained to hear, but it was hard to understand a language that often fell outside of human, and even vampiric, hearing range. He couldn’t make out a word, or whistle, of their rite, and he didn’t recognize the ritual, or ceremony, or whatever it was, they were performing. Not that it was important at that point. The slayer needed, he needed, to clean shop and run. Maybe this wasn’t about saving the world for truth, justice, and the Bronze’s delectable blooming onions, but it would save this little corner of it. That was important to Buffy, and God help him, Spike was starting to care too.

He leaned in close and whispered into the slayer’s ear. “Can you spare any part of that get up for the cause?” A disbelieving flash of hazel prompted him to elaborate by fishing his lighter and flask out of his pocket. The dangerous glint left Buffy’s eyes and understanding replaced it.

Buffy pulled her knife out of her bag, and reluctantly started cutting on the hem of her shirt. Her face was drawn into tragic lines at the sacrifice of her treasured shirt. Spike managed to distract himself from the tanned width of torso visible above the slayer’s waistband by taking the strip of cloth and doused it with bourbon from his flask. He winced at the blatant alcohol abuse.

Spike started looking around for something to add weight to the little ball of fabric. Buffy poked him in the arm and took the piece of shirt. In a flash it was wound around one of her stakes. The vampire nodded and fired up his lighter. Buffy held the stake over the flame until it flared up, blue from the alcohol. She stepped into the open and hurled it with superhuman precision at the T’kinian queen’s feet.

The demoness barely had enough time to utter a click of surprise before she went up like a torch. Buffy paused long enough for the pair to see the drones, trilling and whistling their surprise and dismay, throw themselves at their mate and ruler in a futile attempt to put out the flames before grabbing the vampire and running full tilt down the watery corridor.

It was a sad truth that the warriors of light didn’t seem to take much joy in their war-making. It was bleeding tragic.

Spike finally managed to wrest his arm free from the slayer’s iron grip. He started to complain, to joke about the manhandling, but the vampire suddenly noticed that her neck was short one feathered choker. The light mental touch that marked his connection with Meret registered only one sensation: heat.

His wild eyed shout caught the slayer completely by surprise, and he hurtled headlong back down the hallway towards the T’kinian hive. He could hear Buffy taking up the chase behind him.

The frantic vampire pulled up short, the fire had spread more quickly than he could have imagined. He instinctively cringed away from the wall of flame that blocked his path, but his desperation quickly overcame his natural fear of fire, and the vampire started to throw himself through the flames.

Spike’s feet had barely left the floor when a solid weight slammed into him from behind, sending him face first into the brackish water. He managed to wrestle himself around, clawing desperately at the figure that was holding him down, keeping him away from Meret. The weight above him pressed his body into the muck, but panic overrode all other thought and instinct took over. He lashed out blindly, frantic to reach the coatl before it was too late.

Spike thrashed violently against the figure on top of him.

The water was just deep enough that his face was completely submerged. Water leaked into his nose and mouth, leaving behind a foul coating. He couldn’t see, and the dank liquid stung his eyes. He got one arm free long enough to rip away the strong hand pinning his right shoulder. He twisted violently and his head finally cleared the rank water. Spike’s eyes cleared and he finally saw his attacker. The vampire snarled in betrayal, demonic features springing to the surface, teeth bared in rage.

“Get off me!” he roared in the slayer’s face. He was so angry that he could no longer feel the coatl’s mental touch at all. The vampire took a swing at Buffy, but between the chip’s weakened zap and his awkward angle, she was able to easily bat his fist away.

Buffy’s response was jerky, broken as she attempted to maintain her hold on the struggling vampire. “Spike! Stop it! What are you…”

“Meret!” he bellowed, suiting his words with even greater efforts to escape.

Despite his best efforts to escape her, Buffy managed to keep a hold on him, even as flaming drips of fatty ooze started raining around them. “Spike!” she screamed in his face. “Look above you!”

The frantic vampire, still fighting against the slayer’s grip, finally threw a glance over Buffy’s shoulder and saw what she had been trying to tell him. Meret fluttered, safe and sound, if a little singed, just above them. His muscles relaxed in sudden relief, face melting into smooth lines again. With the subsidence of his panicked rage, he could feel her thoughts again. The little coatl dropped her burden, the demon queen’s still steaming crown. Her voice was meek and apologetic.

Hot.

Spike’s disbelieving bark of laughter split the air. He had trained her too well. Lootin’s in that one’s blood for sure. Buffy finally let go of his arms, and the vampire would have reached out to his feathered companion if he hadn’t been engulfed by a grip of another kind.

Buffy’s wiry arms wrapped around the vampire’s chest in a rib cracking hug, one that would have broken the bones of a human. Spike froze, unsure of what exactly was going on, and what he was supposed to do with his arms, which were dripping and soaked from the slime of the sewer. When he heard the first sniffle, he decided to hell with it. They were both covered in filth; there wasn’t any helping that. In seconds he had one arm wrapped around the slayer’s waist and another running tentative fingers through the girl’s soaked and matted hair.

“What’s all this about?” Spike asked, honestly confused. He would have more easily understood a ranting tirade, maybe even a busted nose.

“Don’t scare me like that,” Buffy whispered, her voice harsh and shaky.

It slowly sank in that the slayer had been scared for him, terrified that he might have died if he had succeeded in throwing himself into the flames. “Uh, sorry?” There was a weird lump in his throat that he couldn’t seem to swallow.

Buffy smiled tremulously and sat up, straddling the supine vampire. She poked him in the chest, hard. “You better be, mister.” She scrambled to her feet and wiped a hand across her face, which did little to dislodge the grime marring her features. “Get up blood breath, we need to…” She stopped dead in her tracks, staring at her hand.

Spike pulled himself up out of the muck and looked at the slayer, curious to see what had distracted her.

A long string of yellow slime connected Buffy’s suspended knuckles to her cheek. The slayer’s eyes were wild and horrified. Spike just chuckled and wiped some of the fatty goo off of his own sleeve. Meret fluttered above, refusing to light on either of their soiled shoulders.

The vampire scooped low and fished the now cooling crown out of the water. Behind him, the fire continued to rage.

“Come on slayer. My place isn’t too far away. We can clean up there.”

*****

The sound of running water from the lower level of the crypt felt like drops of electricity on Spike’s frayed nerves. He couldn’t sit, because he was still dripping with filth and slime. As tattered as it was, he was kind of fond of his set up, and he had no interest in getting stinky plaster of cellulite all over the place. He couldn’t drink anything for the same reason. He was pretty sure he had already swallowed enough of the water during his pseudo-fight with the slayer to make him feel queasy. Jack with a waxy goo chaser just didn’t sound very appetizing. He couldn’t even go downstairs, because Buffy was down there.

Taking a bath.

Naked.

And soapy.

And had he already mention naked?

“Gah!” The vampire’s pacing picked up, back and forth across the front of the crypt. The slayer had made him promise to stay upstairs with the coatl. It was just his luck that the second the slayer started throwing some slightly less mixed signals his way, his hands get tied with his new white hat tendencies.

Spike wanted to curse the Watcher for getting them all into this mess, but he couldn’t. He knew that if he could just stop thinking about the slayer’s recent actions and focus on the matter at hand, they’d be out killing things soon enough. But he couldn’t do that either.

It was maddening.

Meret just laughed at him from her perch around Dave’s base. She had stolen the T’kinian queen’s crown back upon reaching the crypt and had dropped it around the little stone figure’s neck soon after. Spike didn’t think the saint would approve.

“You’re a bloody menace to society!” he finally snarled at the coatl, but even in high dudgeon, the vampire couldn’t keep his all encompassing relief at her safety from thoroughly soaking his thoughts. The serpent flattened her feathers in contrition, but her thoughts were a mix of amusement and speculation.

The vampire heard sounds from below: the soft pad of bare feet, opening and closing drawers, and the slide of fabric. It was the scent that really captured his attention though, even before she appeared at the top of the ladder.

She smells like me.

The floral undertone and confection topping of her usual perfumes were absent, but in their place was something new. His shower, his soap, and when she came into view, his clothes. She had grabbed one of his black t-shirts, small enough to maybe be a survivor of Xander’s house of pain slash laundromat. She also wore a pair of his jeans slung low across her hips. She had cuffed them to free her feet, which were decked out in her soggy but clean sneakers, but otherwise the fit was hopeless.

Spike didn’t care. He thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Gods above, her scent…

He blinked, and realized that she had been talking. “… another t-shirt. Xander sent this chain letter around about making a ninja mask that way.” She tugged at the hem of the t-shirt. “It’d definitely fit with the rest of the ensemble.”

Her teasing sparkle turned into a baffled huff when Spike just walked past her.

Cold shower. Now.

Not that it would help much. Being room temperature did occasionally have its downfalls.

*****

Spike felt like a fool.

Buffy had broken her own command and come down stairs to find him digging out his comb and tube of gel. She had thrown a huge fit, citing her own sloppy twist held up with a pencil. So Spike had found himself being dragged out of his crypt and across town, drying hair twisting into ridiculous curls.

To add insult to injury, Meret kept playing with the springy mess. She was wrapped around his neck, the vampire couldn’t help than notice that it took a few more coils now than it had used to. She kept poking her snout into his hair, nosing the loose curls. It tickled, but he forced himself not react. He refused to add any more provocation to the coatl’s teasing thoughts.

Buffy was talking rapid fire with Willow on her cell phone. The vampire was trailing a little behind, half listening to the slayer’s one sided conversation. A human would have noticed it earlier; he didn’t have to breathe after all, so it took a little longer to feel the slow tightening of Meret’s coils around his neck. The mind burning vision from the little serpent more than made up for his distraction, grabbing his mind by the lapels and shaking it ragged.

He could see rough, familiar hands stitching up the stomach of a dead Starling. A little dirt escaped the seam, but the fingers were deft and the gaping hole in the skin was soon closed and tied off. The hands cradled the bird, almost lovingly, and placed it on top of a fabric wrapped bundle.

The vision swam, panning across the room. The walls were earthen and rocky, but the chamber was brightly lit with candles. Long tables, the cheap, folding kind, were arranged in a circle with similar bundles of fabric, most topped with stuffed, dead birds, spaced evenly.

As quickly as it had come, the vision broke.

Spike found himself on the ground. Buffy was struggling to sit up a short ways from him. Meret was above them, flying in wide circles, hissing and projecting her anger and worry. She barely gave them time to regain their feet before swooping at them.

Follow! Her mental tone was imperious.

Spike and Buffy shared a look.

“Think the watcher’s driver has dropped her guard?” the vampire asked. The only reason he could think for the slip was if Elaine was too busy concentrating on another spell to maintain her previous ones.

The slayer nodded and grabbed her bag and cell phone from the grass, Tara’s tiny voice calling desperately from the device. “Tara. Giles. Locator spell. Call back.” The phone clicked shut.

Follow now!

They ran.

“Okay.” Spike looked at their destination. “As the lone representative for evil, I would just like to point out that this is an insult to everything we stand for.”

“It’s a…” Buffy paused for a moment, blinking. She looked back at Spike, as if asking for some kind of explanation. An explanation he could not offer. “It’s a Build-A-Bear Store.”

The vampire just nodded, trying to keep his face in sober, sympathetic lines, and failing miserably. Meret’s thoughts were still impatient, but humor at the irony was slipping into her mind as well.

“But, but…” the slayer stuttered. “That’s just so… wrong,” she concluded lamely.

Spike just looked at the cutesy rows of smiling bear faces in the display window, decked out in banal stitched grins and nauseatingly adorable coordinated outfits. He couldn’t have agreed more. “What did Tara have to say?” he finally asked.

Buffy just rolled her eyes. “Something about convergence points, whatever that means.”

Spike ran a hand through his hair, fingers catching in the curls there. “Don’t see this goin’ down in front of the kiddies. Basement?”

The slayer nodded, adjusting her equipment bag on her shoulder. “Basement.”

A little broken glass, a little swearing when it shattered sharply across his bare elbow, and Spike had the store’s front door open. Buffy slipped past the vampire, who was busy pulling a sharp sliver of glass from his forearm. He whole heartedly wished that he hadn’t left his coat back in the crypt, ooze or no ooze.

He followed her in, stepping into a world of chintz so saccharine it made his teeth ache. Harmony would have loved it. Buffy poked around the stylized machines and walls of stuffed animal parts around the room. One door revealed a janitor’s closet. Spike slipped behind the counter and found the business office, which was painted in the same creepy pinks and smiling faces as the display room floor.

They picked their way to the back of the store, methodically checking each and every door, until they found Meret coiled around a door knob. She couldn’t seem to get a grasp on the handle, sleek scales slipping against the brushed silver. Buffy looked at the little serpent with some trepidation, met the vampire’s eyes, and nodded towards the door.

Spike tilted his head to the side and just listened. Sounds separated themselves from the underlying din that Spike, as a vampire, had to sort through every night of his unlife. Buffy’s heartbeat, steady and deep. Meret’s, rapid and fast. The low hum of the refrigerator’s compressor in the break room. Insects buzzing around the streetlight out front. The whispering brush of the wind and the random roar of a passing car.

Beyond the door he could hear more machinery, maybe a generator or four. The sporadic scratching sound he associated with rats, even the drip of water from a leaky faucet or damp basement wall.

If Giles was below, he wasn’t close.

Before he could tell Buffy that the coast was clear, Meret finally wrapped the end of her tail around the flat edge of the doorframe and wrenched the handle around. The Slayer gasped and reached for the doorknob, but it swung gently open, impatient coatl along for the ride.

They were met with stairs.

The crimson snake let herself uncoil from her perch, and with a powerful down stroke, sent herself sailing down the staircase. At the bottom, she banked sharply to the right and disappeared from sight. Spike cursed under his breath and took off after her, caution thrown to the wind in his wild chase. Her last solo jaunt still had him on edge.

Buffy followed him, muttering invectives into the darkness.

The bottom of the staircase opened up into a huge warehouse space, filled with all the stuffing and widgets for the store above. There was something indefinably obscene about the row after row of disembodied googly eyes and deflated stuffed animal limbs. Spike ignored them, plunging further into the darkness after the darting shadow that was Meret. When the gloom grew so thick that even Spike’s enhanced vision couldn’t keep up, he allowed his other face to come to the surface.

After two more turns down rows of shelves and overflowing boxes, he heard a dull thud and a startled cry behind him. Skidding to a halt, he turned just in time to see Buffy sit up from her position on the floor, sprawled next to her equipment bag. “What’re you playin’ at?” he hissed into the darkness. Meret, wait up! He only hoped that the coatl heeded his mental command.

The slayer looked up, wide eyes unfocused and searching. “Spike, where are you?”

“Right in front of…” he paused. “Oh.” He walked over and grasped the hand Buffy had thrust ahead of her, searchingly. “You can’t see, can you?”

Buffy allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, but she was scowling angrily, as if he was insulting her, before relenting and nodding.

“Think you can keep up if I keep a hold on to you?” he asked, voice low and urgent.

She seemed to think on it for a second before answering. “I’ll just slow you down. Haven’t you seen a light switch or something?” she asked irritably.

The vampire looked around, but they were surrounded on all sides by shelving. “Nope, and even if there was, the light might give us away.” Spike’s impish smirk was totally lost on the sightless slayer. “Do you trust me?” he asked as he stooped to pick up the bag for her.

Buffy pouted. “It depends,” she said, sulkily.

The words stung, wiping the grin off of his face. “On what?”

Had there been any light whatsoever to reflect in her wide, dilated eyes, they would have twinkled mischievously. “On the situation. With my back in a fight? Um, duh. But with my wardrobe? Pfft,” she made a dismissive gesture.

The vampire blinked. The slayer was teasing him. And had admitted in a roundabout way that she did trust him. Spike cleared his throat shakily and settled the bag with fidgeting fingers over his left shoulder. “Right then.” Without waiting for a response, he slid an arm around her shoulders and stooped low to hook her knees with his other arm. Buffy squealed in surprise, an amusingly girlish sound to come out of one of the greatest warriors he had ever known. “Stop squirmin’,” he grumbled, and she instantly froze.

The slayer wasn’t heavy, just a wisp of weight to his demonically enhanced strength, and Spike was soon jogging down the hallway again. He almost veered into a wall himself when the girl in his arms curled tightly against him, pressing her face against the bend of his neck. Her breathing was deep and even, her heartbeat only slightly elevated. If he was reading her correctly, he would have said that she seemed wholly unconcerned with her current vulnerability. The vampire’s hands tightened unconsciously, pulling her even closer against his chest.

It didn’t take long to catch up with the steaming serpent, whose imperious thoughts and darting motions lead them further into the darkness. They passed rows of old, clanking generators that lined the far side of the underground warehouse. Spike finally gave up on trying to hear anything other than the whoosh-bang of archaic machinery. He placed his faith in his feathered companion and just ran.

They soon came to a side room that housed a few battered lockers and a big grate in the floor. Meret hissed and puffed, diving wildly at the grate before pulling up at the last possible minute to circle and dive again. Spike gently dropped the slayer back on her own feet and went to take a closer look.

“What is it?” Buffy whispered.

“Grate or something.” He ran his hands along the shiny scratches around the hinge. “Looks like it’s been forced.” He leaned forward and inhaled deeply through his nose. A myriad of scents registered, but the two foremost were stagnant water and mildew. Damn. Sewers again. “Looks like we’re goin’ underground again, Slayer.”

Buffy only nodded.

Spike pulled the grate open, wincing as the rusty metal screamed in complaint. Buffy jumped a little at the noise, but soon relaxed again. She seemed to be looking at him, even if her eyes were unfocused when he neared. The vampire wondered if it had something to do with her slayer’s intuition, or ‘spidey sense’ as he had once heard Harris call it. He wondered what he felt like to her. Was he just another vampire, or could she pick him out, even without sight or sound? It was a question for another night.

Meret dove into the Stygian blackness and flashed a mental image of solid concrete, maybe ten feet below. Spike scooped up the slayer, and walked to the edge of the hole. “Ready love?”

She tightened her grip a little, and nodded silently against his neck. He jumped into the inky blackness below, a slight gasp from the girl in his arms following him down.

He landed, cushioning Buffy against his chest, and tried to get his bearings. These weren’t Sunnydale’s usual sewers, which had service lights and grates to the world above so as to let at least a little light into the world below. These were old, and blacker than a Vrexi’s heart. They stank of old magic and ancient, primordial earth. It set the vampire on edge.

Even his heightened eyesight couldn’t pierce very far into the darkness, so he started picking his way cautiously down the tunnel. Meret far outstripped him, her night vision apparently better than his own, but the flashes and snippets of thought kept him on the right path, twisting and turning after his winged guide.

The tunnels were damp and lined with plain, unchanging rows of grey, stone blocks. The scent was unrelieved mildew and soil. Even the clanking of the few weapons they had brought seemed to drone into the background, continuous and predictable. Nothing changed, except the direction of his turns as the coatl lead them further into the labyrinth. Spike knew that without Meret, there was a good chance that they would have wandered, hopelessly lost, for hours.

The tingling started a couple of minutes later. Spike didn’t really notice it at first, what with his senses already humming from the slayer in his arms, but it soon expanded until he was certain his fangs were going to be shaken loose. When Meret projected an image of a closed door around the next bend, Spike slowed to a stop.

“Think we’re here,” he whispered.

Buffy nodded against him, and he dropped her lightly on the concrete floor. Her hands ghosted against the bend of his neck for a moment, leaving behind a trace of heat in their wake. The vampire clenched his hands into fists to keep from returning the gesture.

Spike peered around the corner and was relieved to see a little light leaking out around the doorframe. It was enough for the slayer, who had unconsciously mimicked his own actions, to make it safely, and silently, to the door. She pressed a bare hand against the barrier; it was made of old wood, standing out in sharp contrast to the almost industrial blocks that had paved the way to it.

Meret, who had been fluttering above the doorway, glided to a landing across the vampire’s shoulders. He ghosted an unsteady hand down her back, but the rest of his attention was squared firmly on the slayer and the door she was inspecting.

The force of the magicks being marshaled in the room beyond the ancient wood, were more than a little jarring. Spike ground his teeth and had to concentrate to keep from going cross-eyed or worse. At Buffy’s silent, questioning look, he only nodded. If this wasn’t the right place, then he was Bob Marley.

He bent low and settled their bag as quietly as he could. Buffy joined him, kneeling next to the bag and pulling her escrima sticks out with only a few wince-worthy clanks of shifting metal and wood. Spike dipped into his own pocket and retrieved the set of brass knuckles he had pilfered from the slayer’s home. She quirked an eyebrow at that, but he grinned irrepressibly in return, momentarily breaking the tense situation with a little flash of good-humored fang. Buffy just grinned back and shook her head.

They rose as one, and Buffy took a couple of steps forward. She bounced for a moment on the balls of her feet, hands flexing instinctively over the polished rods in her hands.

The vampire tensed in anticipation, trying to steel himself against whatever they were about to find.

Right, direct approach it is.

He guessed right. In a flash, the slayer’s right foot lashed out and struck the door next to the handle and rusting locking mechanism. The old wood gave way, cracking planks and splinters flying inward.

Buffy threw herself through the open portal, Spike following only a hair’s breadth behind her. Spike’s eyes swept the room, instinctively taking stock of the battlefield, small though it was. The walls of the room were rough and earthen, protruding roots giving the area the impression of having been torn from the living earth. Tables ringed the room, covered in bundle after bundle of white silk. There were fetid liquids staining the cloth, and Spike didn’t have much problem guessing what the folds of fabric concealed. Between Willow’s description and the smell, these could only be the long rotten bodies of thirteen dead necromancers.

The limp bodies of little black birds, stitched and obscene, lay atop each wrapped body.

Bunches of juniper surrounding the bundles, dingy candles stuck in every available nook, dirty shovel propped against the back wall. Buffy had positioned herself slightly in front and to the left of the vampire. The ceiling was low, and the tables looked flimsy. All of these details were noted and passed in a flash, weighed on a subconscious level for potential danger or gain.

Even as the vampire’s mind registered the lay of the land, he was more actively concerned with the figure in the center of the circle of tables. Buffy too had skidded to a halt, balking under the weight of uncertainty and indecision. It was one thing to know who they were coming to fight. Actually being faced with the situation was another thing altogether.

Giles stood behind a cauldron, its reeking contents heavily tainting the air with the scent of decay. Tendrils of steam floated up and around the watcher, catching the light from the many candles lining the room. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes sunken, adding to his already unsettling appearance.

Buffy’s weapons dipped low, mute testimony to her conflicting emotions. As for Spike himself, the situation was a little more cut and dry. Everything about the watcher simply screamed ‘wrong’ to his senses. The way Giles stood, weight shifted slightly to the side, arms crossed lightly across his chest, was just off. So was his scent: a blend of Giles, more cologne than the watcher had ever worn before, and a cloying odor that was reminiscent of decay and open graves. The cant of his head, the rumpled appearance of his clothes, the way his face seemed to flush with fever: nothing seemed to fit. The vampire could look at the figure in front of him and immediately tell that while the lights were on, Rupert simply wasn’t home.

Elaine, in the watcher’s body, stepped to the side of the cauldron, revealing a clay chalice in his right hand. “You’re too late,” she said in a voice pitched too high, delivered in too clipped a tone to ever be mistaken for Rupert Giles. Elaine dropped the cup, the crude pottery shattering at her feet, clay damp but otherwise empty. A sinking feeling settled in the vampire’s stomach. The necromancer must have already drunk from her unholy concoction. With an oddly graceful twist that lacked all of the watcher’s usual efficiency of movement, Elaine stretched her hands to her sides and tilted her head back, face slack in an obscene parody of rapture.

Meret hissed against Spike’s neck. Words filtered through their bond and enraged emotions clogging the vampire’s own thoughts. Mine. The feathers along the serpent’s spine stood up in quivering rows, puffing up as if to make the little serpent seem larger in her rage. My family. Mine! She reared back, wings flexed and poised for flight. Defiler!

Spike couldn’t have agreed more. He stepped forward, slipping easily into a fighting stance. “Slayer,” he said, his voice a tight rumble of barely controlled anger, a seething echo of his scaled companion’s emotions. “Pull it together. That is not your watcher!”

“No,” responded Elaine with Giles’ mouth, looking at the two fighters again. “I’m really not.”

On the tables, the first of the birds began to stir.

Spike was used to his plans going to hell in a hand basket, but this really had to take the cake.

Elaine, wearing her watcher-skin suit, had already cast her spell. The steel in Buffy’s spine was starting to return. But the slayer was still a little too pale, a little too shaky to really be counted on to pull a miracle out of her hip pocket. Meret was spitting mad, but the vampire thought they might need a little more than sheer rage to penetrate the necromancer’s defenses.

Spike wracked his brain, trying to remember what Willow and Tara had said to do if Elaine had already drunk her elixir and set the spell in motion. Somethin’ ‘bout keepin’ the watcher alive? Well, there his body was, host personality contemptuous, yet complacent, on the other side of the room.

And very much alive.

So that was a point in their favor.

The vampire glanced at the nearest table where the first of the birds had righted itself, jerkily flapping its wings, its feathers crackling from disuse and from the embalming liquids that had kept it preserved. The undead Starlings were smelly and off-putting, but not really life threatening to a slayer and one who was already dead. He hoped.

Another point to Team Scooby.

Willow had also said that the spell required a huge amount of power and was extremely unstable. Spike only hoped that meant Elaine couldn’t pull out the big guns until everything had come to completion. The fact that the necromancer was only watching them, eyes bored but still vigilant, seemed to support that theory.

Point the third. So far, so good.

The animated bird to Spike’s right managed to get its feet under itself and launched, not at the vampire or the slayer, but unerringly towards the necromancer. It screamed, sounding far too human for comfort, and dived towards the watcher’s face, leaving a long, bloody scratch across one cheek. Meret took flight in shocked rage, diving towards the banking Starling.

Buffy’s shout of surprise was coupled by Spike’s own sardonic Or not.

Elaine started to laugh, high and hysterical. The awful sound didn’t waver even as another bird took flight and cut another scratch down the watcher’s neck.

Spike dove forward, intending to tackle the necromancer. Hell, he would have done almost anything to make the crackling laughter end, but he was also consumed with fear for the watcher. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t possible to die from a thousand paper cuts. Well placed slices were another matter though, and humans could be so fragile. Spike had empirical data to support that, Angelus had been creative when he got bored.

Right before the vampire hit the cackling doppelganger his trajectory took an abrupt turn. Elaine flicked a finger at him, and off he flew, his body slamming into the far wall, next to one of the tables. His grunt of surprise and pain was muffled by the fact that he couldn’t seem to move his mouth.

“Idiot,” Elaine said with Giles’ voice. “You’re dead. I can make you dance like a marionette.” Spike felt his arms start to drift up over his head. “In point of fact…” Another bird cut across the necromancer’s face and her concentration broke for a second, long enough for Spike to fall out of her grasp and hit the floor.

The vampire jerked his head up, golden eyes blazing with anger. Spike saw Buffy edging around the other side of the cauldron and decided that he could definitely afford to keep Elaine’s attention centered fully on himself if it bought the slayer enough time to get into position.

He rose, sneer firmly set over bared fangs. “That so?”

Before Elaine could react, he reached out and grabbed a Starling who hadn’t managed to take wing yet. He felt himself being slung back into the wall, but not before he had torn the head of the undead bird.

“Marcus!” The necromancer’s sharp cry was filled with anger and shocked grief.

The vampire felt a twinge, remembering abruptly that they were, in fact, killing Elaine’s family. He almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Something about the sharp shard of rock jabbing into the back of his head as he was pressed into the earth and the sight of blood running down the watcher’s face just made him unreasonably uncharitable.

Meret finally caught up with the smaller, more maneuverable Starling and followed the vampire’s lead. While she didn’t have hands, her tiny fangs and implacable coils proved to be more than enough to rend the dingy brown bird into its component parts. Elaine shrieked again and made some kind of hand gesture at the coatl, probably a spell, but Meret remained unconcerned. Spike silently blessed Willow and Tara once again for the little serpent’s magical immunity.

Elaine lashed out once more, grinding the battered vampire further against the room’s earthen wall, and stepped forward as if to attack the serpent by hand. Buffy, faced with Giles’ back, moved even closer, fists clenched around her sticks, ready to strike.

Spike tried to make his mouth form the word “Bitch,” but all that came out was a gurgling growl. Whatever, it got the point across, and Elaine’s wild eyes were once again riveted on the vampire instead of the slayer, who was quietly closing in behind her back.

That oversight ended abruptly when one of Buffy’s escrima sticks slammed into the watcher’s temple. Spike was ready this time, and dropped lightly to his feet when the necromancer’s control over him wavered.

Elaine, on the other hand, dropped like a stone.

“Crap, crap, crap!” The slayer dropped to her knees next to Giles’ crumpled form. She dropped her weapons and reached towards the man’s neck, feeling in the completely wrong spot for a pulse.

The vampire listened for, and immediately found, the watcher’s steady heartbeat. “Stop faffin,’ he’s fine.”

Buffy looked up at him. “But…” she started to argue.

Spike just tapped his right ear and smirked at her. “Watcher’s got a hard head. Think he’s proved that enough in the past.”

The slayer snickered at that, but then looked ashamed again. “He’s gonna have a knot… again.”

The vampire started to comment that a knot was far preferable to death when another Starling dropped off of the nearest table and started pecking at Giles’ neck. Buffy snarled, grabbed the offending bird and threw it against the far wall. It hit with a sickening splat and fell to the floor, motionless again.

“Looks like killin’ the feather brigade would be a good place to start.” Spike said, ducking under Meret as she dove low, chasing yet another Starling to the floor.

Buffy grabbed up one of her sticks, and swung it bat-like at another bird, but hitting the flitting animals was more difficult than it sounded. Meret was having more luck than the vampire or the slayer, but all told, there were still five birds circling the room and diving at the watcher’s prone form when the necromancer regained consciousness with a wailing scream.

Spike, who had almost managed to corner one of the undead pests, suddenly felt something rip inside of his chest. The pain tore through him like fire and he curled up on himself, coughing up blood.

Meret turned from her latest kill, hissing and enraged.

She dove towards Elaine, but the necromancer had learned from her previous mistake. One of the bundled bags shivered and tore open, erupting fragments of broken ribs and slivers of long bones. The coatl was pelted with the shards, some leaving long scratches down her body and wings. She fluttered back, crashing into one of the tables, injured, but more angry than anything else. The little serpent beat her damaged wings, shuddering into flight again, but also showering the white cloth of the bundled skeleton next to her with blood as red as her scales.

Spike, struggled to his feet just in time to see Buffy take a swing at the necromancer with one of her sticks. Elaine held up a hand and the slayer’s attack seemed to bounce off of an invisible wall.

Managing to ignore the pain and the blood that still dripped from the edge of his mouth, Spike vaulted over the table, but just when he looked up to press an attack, he came face to face with the watcher’s callused hand, fingers surrounded with tongues of flame.

The vampire had just enough time for the words Oh shit! to form in his mind when the slayer slammed into him. He fell to the side, twisting so that he saw the flames that had been meant for him engulf Buffy instead.

The ring on her right hand flared with brilliant red light, and the fire seemed to run off her like water, but all that really registered in Spike’s mind was the slayer’s startled yelp. In his rage, the vampire had a moment of clarity.

He knew what he needed to do.

Reacting on the edge of thought and reason, the vampire rolled forward and grabbed the watcher’s leg, wanting nothing more than to grab Elaine by the soul and shred her very being. When the light overtook him this time, he was unsurprised.

*****

The White, as he had come to think of it, was murkier this time, pristine color streaked with faint grays and reds, but still silent, still scentless. Spike looked around, still pissed as hell, but also uncertain as to what would happen next. The whole soul channeling thing was basically uncharted territory for the angry vampire.

A hazy figure started to form in his peripheral vision. Quick as thought, he was in front of it, fist raised to strike. His hand halted at the last second when his blazing golden eyes recognized the pale, weathered face in front of him.

“Watcher?” he asked, his voice a harsh growl. He kept his distance, eyeing the man warily.

Giles blinked in confusion. “Spike? How are you…Where are…” Spike’s face split into a wry grin. And it definitely was Giles; Spike could tell from his stuttering, stuffy demeanor and his immediate game of Twenty Questions. Giles looked irritated for a moment, but then let his head drop wearily. “Right. I’ll be asking you all of that again once we are out of this predicament.”

“Whatever you say, Rupes.” Spike looked around, but he and Giles were apparently alone. Elaine was nowhere to be found. Satisfied, the vampire turned his attention back to the watcher. He blinked in surprise when he noticed faint glowing threads wrapped around the other man’s entire body.

“What’s the deal with those?” Spike gestured with his right hand, careful to keep from touching Giles. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he laid hands on the soul of a living man in the White, and wasn’t interested in experimenting on someone he counted as an ally and, dare he say, friend.

Giles looked down, and tried to pluck at one of the threads. They stretched, allowing for some movement, but not much. He finally dropped his arms again and scowled. “I haven’t the slightest. I have not exactly been…” he paused for a moment in thought, “In this form; I suppose is the best way to put it. I’ve mostly been watching while someone else wore my body around like a cheap suit.”

Spike grimaced in disgusted sympathy, but the gears in his brain were starting to churn furiously. “Hold out your arm again.”

The watcher scowled a little at the vampire’s commanding tone, but complied.

Spike looked, tilted his head to the side, and quirked a still-ridged brow at the fine web. “Gonna try somethin’. Just don’t touch me.”

Giles narrowed his eyes calculatingly, but nodded his understanding.

“Well, here goes nothin’,” and with that the vampire grabbed a hold of the fine threads. To his surprise, they melted like water.

Giles grunted at that development, a sound that could have meant anything from shock to gratitude.

“How did you,” he stopped at the expression on Spike’s face. “Right, yes. Later. My sincere apologies.”

The retort on the vampire’s lips died abruptly when a pair of rotting, putrid hands materialized out of the White and sent him reeling with a shove that was far more than physical. Giles’ shouted warning faded quickly, as if disappearing into the distance. Spike hurtled through the air, if it could be called air.

The White faded, turning from white to grey and into black.

Another set of hands caught him.

Spike grabbed one, ready to attack, but for all their gnarled appearance, these hands were strong as iron bands. The vampire looked up at the face of this new threat and choked back a bark of laughter.

Mictlantechutli’s lidless green eyes gazed back at him. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, son of mine, but that was deeply stupid.”

“Anyone ever tell you god-types that cryptic gets your prophets good and dead?” Spike scowled darkly at Mictlantechutli. Metaphysical rescue aside, the situation was damned irritating.

To the vampire’s horrified indignation, the god cuffed him affectionately across the jaw, as if he was a child. “Yes, you are most likely right.” He released Spike completely, opaque eyes unreadable. “Balance, son of mine. You traffic in the souls of the dead, but the one who watches, he still lives. You need your mirror.”

Spike, who was still trying to decide whether the god’s manhandling or continued roundabout explanations was more irritating. “Cryptic,” he repeated pointedly, picking his poison.

Mictlantechutli chuckled, a dry and rippling sound. “Come now, you’ve heard this all before. ‘Blooded warriors tied with serpents’ feathers.’” The god’s lined face took on a more serious expression. “Get my brother’s daughter, bring your feathered shadow, and then you will prevail. Your meddlesome witch will show you the way.” His tone took on a derisive edge.

“Who? Red? What’s she done?” Spike asked, blinking in surprise, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he knew the answer. As usual, all roads led to Buffy.

The god nodded in apparent agreement. “She’s lucky she called on Osiris and not me for that particular spell. I would not have settled for a fawn.” At Spike’s confused look, Mictlantechutli waved a gnarled hand dismissively. “Bygones. There are politics among gods, the same as among mortals. Only our stakes much are higher.”

The vampire could well believe that. “So get Buffy, get Meret, and let Red do her thing?”

“And your tokens.” Mictlantechutli pulled another feather from his hair and held it up for a moment. It dissolved, green motes swirling up and settling on the sleeve of the god’s robes.

Spike quirked his lips in dark amusement. His ancient companion could have taught Dracula a few things about flashy theatrics. “Right, then. Once more unto the breach, and all that rot,” he grumbled half-heartedly.

Mictlantechutli folded his hands into the sleeves of his green robe. “When all this is said and done, I believe I will owe you a drink.”

The vampire almost choked on his own surprised laughter. The idea of getting four sheets to the wind with the god of the dead was just a little too much for him to reasonably consider at the moment. At the feathered deity’s bemused expression, he managed to get himself under control. “Sorry, just don’t see you as the drinkin’ type.”

“Hmm, yes. You speak of beer.” The god’s thin lips twitched in amusement. “The Chosen One’s mother tells me you like to drink beverages made from the cocoa plant. I know of one you have not tried. We shall share Xocolatl.”

Spike felt like he had been pole-axed, and he was sure that his face was displaying that fact. “What? She said… What?”

Not the most eloquent of statements, but it got the point across. Mictlantechutli grinned, exposing a white row of needle-sharp teeth. “After, William.”

He would have liked to argue, to question further, but Spike suddenly felt like he was falling. The smug god was going to owe him more than drinks at this rate.

*****

“Spike!” The slayer’s panicked voice dragged the vampire back into consciousness.

“’M all right.” He opened his eyes and found Buffy hovering over him, worry obvious on her face. Definitely all right.

“Oh, thank God.” Her hands fluttered over his face. “What the hell was that all about?”

The vampire found himself leaning into the warmth of her hand, still a little disoriented and wholly distracted by her touch. “Huh?”

She pulled her hands away and poked him, hard, in the chest. “You and Giles, making with the fainting. What’s the what?” Her forehead was wrinkled with worry.

He started to answer, but a groan from behind the slayer cut them both short. Buffy whipped around.

Spike half sat up, propping himself on his elbows. The watcher’s eyes were moving rapidly from underneath closed lids. “Knock him back out, and I’ll explain on the way out.”

Buffy looked at him disbelievingly, but when the watcher started to stir, she dropped a solid thwack to the man’s temple with her knuckles. “This sucks,” she said with a pout.

He snorted. “Yeah, a little.”

Meret chose that moment to dive past Spike’s face, chasing the last of the Starlings to the floor. When she struck, looped coils twisted around the bird. It was soon very thoroughly, and very messily, dead. She dropped the mangled mess and started shaking her head, spitting being rather difficult for a lipless being, and projecting her disgust for all who could hear. Spike couldn’t help but snicker at the little serpent’s predicament.

She hissed in angry indignation at him, so the vampire quickly stifled his humor. “I’ll get the watcher,” he said to Buffy. “Getting’ you out in the dark’s gonna be a treat though.” He rolled over and staggered to his feet.

Buffy shrugged. “Maybe.” She bent low and yanked a log out from under the cauldron. The end flared with flame, small but probably adequate for their purpose. “Maybe not.”

Spike replied with a grin and a shrug. He stooped low and grabbed the watcher’s arm, but when he started to drag the man’s limp body up off the floor, he noticed something sticking out of the Giles’ hip pocket: two feathers, one green and one red. He slipped them into his own pocket and slung the limp man across one shoulder.

“Well, lead the way, slayer. And while you’re at it, torch the place.” He patted the feathers to make sure they were safe. “We’ve got all we need here.”

*****

“Okay, even with the,” Willow crooked a finger at the feathers, “uh, fluffy god parts. And on that note, can I just say, whoa! This is still going to take a little creativity.”

Tara, who was smearing antibacterial ointment on Meret’s various injuries, spoke up. “What about the enjoining spell?” She glanced around the Summers’ dining room. “The one you used when you fought against Adam.”

Willow seemed to think about it for a second before shaking her head. “Who would be the focus? Are vampires’ and humans’ essences even compatible? Not to mention coatls.”

Spike shared a surprised look with the slayer across the table. The old, pre-England Willow would have just jammed them all together, consequences be damned.

“Plus,” Xander spoke up, “I bet the first slayer would go even more postal about a vamp in Buffy’s head than she did with us.” Willow nodded in agreement, her expressive face mournful. “Reenacting Apocalypse Now with a side of Boris Karloff and cheddar isn’t half as fun as it sounds.” He stretched an arm across the back of the empty chair next to him; Anya was downstairs with Dawn, keeping an eye, not to mention a spray bottle of sleeping potion, trained on the watcher.

Spike’s sharp laugh drew everyone’s attention. “You mean the bird dressed like a mummy with dreads? What’s her name, Sineya?” Willow nodded in surprise. “We’ve met. Don’t think she’ll have a problem with me.”

Xander raised his hand.

“Long, long story, Xan,” Buffy said by way of an explanation. “I promise a full explanation over pizza and movies after we get Giles back.” When the boy responded with a nod and a half-smile, she continued. “The three of us have already done some mind meldy stuff. Can you two work with that?” she asked the witches.

Willow nodded. “I think so, but what about the getting Elaine out of Giles part?”

“I’ve got that covered,” Spike said. When Xander started to raise his hand again, the vampire cut him off. “What the slayer said, only with beer and pool.”

Down went the hand, but not without a little grumbling.

“Well then,” Willow’s voice was cheery and eager. “Let’s get to it.”

Anya stuck her head around the corner in the kitchen. “Before you start anything new, could you brew up some more sleeping potion? Dawn got a little spray-happy when Giles started snoring.” She rolled her eyes. “Human teenagers are so flighty.”

“I heard that!” Dawn’s voice, floating upstairs from the basement, was still piercing.

Tara patted her girlfriend’s hand. “I’ll take care of it.” She slid the coatl onto the table and joined the former vengeance demon. Meret just melted into a happy pile of gooey coils, high on the attention her wounds had earned her.

Buffy chose that moment to let out a jaw cracking yawn. She looked surprised and a little embarrassed, but Willow just waved away her stumbling explanation. “Go to bed Buffy. You’ve been running around town all night. Tara and I are still stuck on Bath time.” Spike snickered at that, and it was the witch’s turn to blush.

“I think that’s my cue too,” said Xander. “I’ll go fetch Ahn and take her home.” With a stretch and a gaping yawn of his own, the carpenter ambled into the kitchen.

“Guess I can stick around, maybe keep an eye on the watcher so the ‘Bit can go to bed too.” Spike pushed his own chair away from the table.

When he followed Xander’s path around the table, Buffy stopped him with a soft hand. “Thanks.”

Spike watched the slayer trudge wearily towards the staircase. When he turned around, he came eye to eye with Willow’s twinkling gaze. “What’re you lookin’ at, Red?” he said with half-hearted coldness.

“Oh, nothing,” she replied, sticking her nose back into her books, but her impish face was wreathed with a knowing smile.

Spike glared at her for a moment longer before stalking through the kitchen and into the basement below.

*****

Dawn and Dawn arrived at roughly the same time.

Spike watched the girl skitter recklessly down the staircase, dark blue blanket trailing behind her. Her bright face didn’t even dim in the face of an exhausted vampire sitting on the dryer with a pile of ransacked boxes around his feet, and his loot, Joyce’s old copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, in hand.

“Hey, Spike!” The perky tone of her voice was criminal.

Meret, who had finally fallen asleep on one of the piles of clean laundry, didn’t even stir.

The vampire set the book aside and slid off of the old appliance wearily. “Morning, Bit,” he slurred tiredly. She winced in sympathy, but her grin barely wavered.

“Here,” she shoved the blanket towards him. “Get some sleep. You look like deader death.”

“Thanks ever so,” he grumbled, but she was right. He felt like he had spent the evening crawling through sewers, being slimed and nearly fried, getting thrashed from the inside and out by an irate necromancer, and then jerked across metaphysical dimensions.

Oh wait, he had.

The girl shrugged. “No problem. Buffy’s making sure the drapes in the living room are pulled tight.” She shoved the blanket in his hands and prodded at him playfully until she had managed to herd the bemused vampire to the stairs. “Go on… get.” She made shooing gestures with her hands. “We’ll wake you up if anything goes wonky.” Dawn took up her post, spray bottle in hand, as Spike scaled the basement steps.

For the second time in as many days, Spike soon found himself dozing on the slayer’s couch. This time, however, he had the memory of Buffy spreading the electric blanket over him to lull him to sleep.

“Are you sure about this?” Spike asked Willow, who was fussing over what few spell components they had found after searching the Summers’ house.

The redhead met Spike’s gaze with serious eyes. “I am absolutely, positively sure that this spell is fifty percent likely to work.” She smiled weakly in the face of the vampire’s fierce scowl. “Tara’s gonna be my backup, so if something goes wrong, she can channel the magicks off. The spell’ll just fizzle.”

“Fizzle,” he repeated dubiously.

“Yuh huh. And fizzle like flat Pepsi, not, you know, like Chernobyl.” Willow carefully placed the last of the candles on the coffee table. Even though her face was averted, he could still see her chewing on her lower lip. Her fingers flickered nervously over the candles, feathers, and a ball of velvet cloth, checking and rechecking as if to make sure everything was in its place.

Spike was torn between his deep rooted dislike of magic and his promise to Tara to give the redheaded witch a chance to regain his trust. He finally grunted in what could have been interpreted as acceptance. The tension in Willow’s shoulders seemed to lessen just a little bit with that marginal vote of confidence.

When Buffy appeared in the foyer, arm looped awkwardly around a still-unconscious Giles, Spike leapt to her aid, taking up some of the dead weight of the watcher’s body. Willow darted forward as well, but the slayer waved her away. The witch stepped aside and gestured furtively.

“Could you put him on the couch? The three of you will need to be in contact for the spell, and that’ll probably be the most comfy.” She started wringing her hands again, and went back to rearranging the candles. Spike wondered what in particular was setting the young with off – Giles’ condition, excitement over the spell, nervousness about the magic – none of the options were good.

Buffy nodded to herself, and Spike helped her manhandle the watcher’s slack form onto the couch. They propped him up on the sofa and sat on either side of him: Spike on his left, Buffy on his right. Free from their grip, the watcher slumped limply, head coming to rest of the vampire’s shoulder. They had tried cleaning the angry cuts left by the Starlings’ attack, but the watcher still looked torn and ragged, even with his face slack in sleep. Spike tried to discreetly nudge the watcher back up, but when his attempts proved to be futile and his efforts increased, the movement attracted Buffy’s attention.

She arched an eyebrow and rolled her eyes at him.

Least someone’s findin’ some humor in this whole mess.

Feeling thoroughly ridiculous, Spike slouched further down into the sofa, sulking when the motion made the watcher’s head loll further against the side of his neck. His breath smelled like the rancid soup from the cauldron. The vampire scowled fiercely and made a point to stop inhaling.

Obviously oblivious to the mini-drama unfolding on the couch, Willow picked up a notepad and started reading feverishly, making notes and mouthing incantations to herself. Neither slayer nor vampire spoke, and both studiously avoided looking at the figure slumped between them. The whole situation was just too awkward, but it did leave the witch to her research in peace. The minutes crawled past like hours.

Spike was about half a heartbeat away from shoving Giles right over into the slayer’s lap when the others finally arrived. Anya burst through the front door, cradling an obsidian dagger, wrapped handle brown and flaking with age, as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Tara, Xander, Dawn, and Meret followed. The first three were lugging a carved piece of limestone, and the latter was riding on the stone like a lounging queen.

Willow leapt to her feet. “Oh! Put that next to the table,” she gestured to the three struggling to carry the rough-hewn block.

Meret took flight, fluttering skyward when the block was brought into the foyer. Buffy tried to get up to help, but her movement almost sent the limp watcher sliding into the floor. She caught him at the last second, stammering apologies to the others. Spike managed to get a glimpse of the block as the two of them settled Giles back on the sofa. It was a cube: roughly two feet along all its edges. In all honesty, it looked suspiciously like the blocks that Harris’ construction crew had just installed as a decorative wall around the Sunnydale federal court house. Between the petty theft and the black (or at least grayish) magic, Spike decided that he was having an impressively positive effect on the Scoobies.

After making sure Giles wasn’t going to keel over again, Buffy darted around the table and deftly moved the block closer to the table. Anya circled wide to avoid the group crowding the slayer and the stone. She handed the dagger to Willow and said in what was probably meant to be a gracious tone, “This has a roughly equivalent resale value, so just return it after the spell and we won’t even have to worry about cooking the books.” Spike caught Tara smiling with good-natured amusement at the former vengeance demon and winked.

Once the stone was settled, the den became a flurry of activity. Despite their preparations, Spike couldn’t help but notice that no one mentioned the unconscious subject of their labor. If there was any unifying coping mechanism amongst the Scoobies, it was their amazing ability to pretend that nothing was wrong when the walls were falling down around their ears. They looked though, darting glances from lowered eyes and averted faces. Despite their industry and outward good cheer, a dark pall descended over the group. Spike himself found it hard to avoid thinking about Giles’ condition, what with the watcher’s body sprawling against him.

Meret swooped to Spike’s shoulder, almost sending him cross-eyed with rapid-fire flashes of the discreet ‘borrowing’ of the limestone block and the drive back to 1630 Revello Drive. He shook his head slightly to clear his vision, but the light touch of encouragement and affection that always laced the coatl’s thoughts stayed. He ruffled the tuft of feathers between the serpent’s wings, a gesture that was soothing to them both.

Tara disappeared upstairs, and returned moments later with a coil of hemp rope and a pack of sidewalk chalk. She set the cord aside and set to work sketching on the top surface of the stone, working in green and red with touches of yellow and blue until the forms of two mirrored serpents started to take shape.

Buffy, who had been eyeing the twine nervously, finally spoke up. “Um, Tara?”

The blond witch looked up from her chalk drawing. “Yes?”

“We’re not going to have to, you know,” she paused, forehead crinkling in worry, “Run that rope through our tongues, are we?”

“What?!” Tara looked horrified. “W…w…why would you think that?”

Spike couldn’t keep from snickering. The look on the Wiccan’s face was priceless.

Buffy blushed bright red, but managed to get a slayer-worthy scowl in place for the chortling vampire. Tara looked so flustered that she just stared at the both of them as if they had lost their minds.

Dawn cut in. “Nah. That was a Mayan thing.”

Buffy nodded in apparent understanding, “And this is more Aztec stuff. Gotcha!” She seemed well pleased with herself until she noticed the surprised looks from the rest of the Scoobies. Even Willow, who had been so very distracted with the obsidian dagger just moments before, stopped to gawk at the slayer. She favored them with a defensive pout. “What? We just covered sacrifices in Dr. Alvarez’s class.”

“Go Buffster, with the collegiate success!” congratulated Xander, grin doing much to distract from his still raised eyebrows.

Willow finally shook her head with a smile and retreated to a chair with her knife.

Anya just shrugged at the proceedings, and shooed her fiancé and Dawn into the kitchen. Buffy started to follow the trio into the kitchen, but seemingly changed her mind and dashed upstairs instead. The younger Summers quickly returned with a bowl of water and a towel thrown over one arm. Willow accepted the bowl with a grateful smile and started chanting over the dagger. She took the towel from Dawn without missing a beat, and dipped the blade into the water, cleaning it slowly with the proffered towel, accompanying each swipe of the fabric with another line of spell. Spike could feel the tendrils of magic starting to gather around the young witch.

Free of her burden, Dawn plopped down on the couch next to the vampire. “So, that promise to Xander stands double for me, right?” Her wide, blue eyes dialed up the puppy-factor, and even though Spike knew that the wounded look was mostly contrived, he melted.

“No beer,” he smirked at her playful sulk, “but yeah. There’s just been so much goin’ on that I lost track of keepin’ you up on matters, Nibblet.” Her grin lit up her face, and Spike couldn’t help but smile genuinely in return. “How’s the pre-looting research goin’?”

Dawn looked like she was about to start bouncing in excitement. “Everything’s a go for that gold stash, but I think I might have found something even better.” She darted a glance over the vampire’s shoulder, at the sleeping figure who shared the couch with them. In one of her lighting-fast mood swings, her previous excitement turned to obvious worry. “I kinda wanted to run it past Giles before I said anything.” Dawn started twisting her hands in her lap and managed to look everywhere but at the watcher.

“Hey, Bit.” Spike managed to turn towards Dawn without dumping Giles unceremoniously in the floor. “He’s gonna be okay, yeah?” She nodded, but still looked a little doubtful. “When has your big sis ever failed when it really mattered?”

She smiled tremulously. “Does freshman algebra count?”

Spike grinned. A snarking Dawn was a coping Dawn. “No.”

“Okay, like, hardly ever. Especially when she’s got you fighting beside her.” No matter how many times he saw that utter faith in him shining in her eyes, Spike was always astounded. He wasn’t going to argue in the face of so obvious a sop to his ego, even if long-held doubts and insecurities were gnawing at the corners of his mind.

The slayer in question appeared at the base of the stairs, a particularly worn and twisted stake clutched in her hand. When she noticed Spike’s startled expression, she smiled apologetically and slipped the weapon into the back of her waistband.

Dawn had noticed too, and when Buffy retook her place on the couch, the girl whispered conspiratorially in the vampire’s ear, “She only brings out Mr. Pointy when she’s seriously damage-bound. Elaine better look out!”

Slayer would bring a pet stake instead of a rabbit’s foot for luck. Despite his amused thoughts, Spike couldn’t find it in himself to tease the slayer about her little foible. Not when he was feeling the lack of his trench coat so very keenly.

Anya and Xander reappeared with a few small bowls and a worn book of matches that had obviously been harvested from the kitchen cabinets. Tara took the dishes, placed them next to the stone block, and knelt to light the various candles on the coffee table. The former vengeance demon stared worriedly at Giles as her fiancé lead her to the corner desk and out of the two witches’ way. Trust Anya to blatantly ignore everyone else’s tacit agreement to pretend that everything was just peachy.

“Guys?” Willow’s voice was uncertain, drawing everyone’s attention. Spike couldn’t decide if that particular tone of voice was more or less comforting than her old strident self-confidence. “I think we’re ready to go.”

Dawn gave him a discreet pat on the knee before joining the others on the far side of the coffee table.

“What do we do?” Buffy asked, general’s mask firmly in place.

Willow traded an unreadable look with Tara, who nodded encouragingly. The redhead let out a long breath. “I’ll, uh, need a little blood from each of you,” she said in a rush. “I’ll be using it to paint a symbol on the altar and to coat the rope to start the binding spell. Then there’ll be some chanting and some fancy knot-work. Meret’s already connected to both of you, and any other spell of mine will just bounce, but contact will probably help. She can wrap around your hands or something. That’s when you’ll do your thing, Spike.” The Wiccan was fidgeting with the knife in her hands by the end of her litany.

The vampire shrugged, it certainly sounded easy enough. “Do your worst, Red.”

Willow smiled in nervous relief and scooted around the table. She took his cold left hand in her own. The redhead kept her eyes on her task, and the blade didn’t falter once as she drew it across his open palm with a steady hand. Spike managed not to flinch, but he couldn’t help but stare with the unique fascination of a creature steeped in blood lore at the thick liquid dripping out of his hand and into one of Joyce’s old custard dishes. The wound stopped seeping almost immediately, sluggish from his lack of pulse.

Willow dipped the blade back in the bowl of water and wiped it clean. Tara traded the first bowl for a clean one. Buffy’s donation to the spell followed, her rich blood staining the air with the taste of power. Spike closed his eyes against the subtle call of that scent, only opening them again when Meret brushed her face against his jaw.

Tara took the second bowl and arranged them along one side of the makeshift stone altar. Willow moved to kneel beside her and picked up Buffy’s red feather, the talisman from Quetzalcoatl, first. She dipped the soft tip in the slayer’s blood and painted a circle around the head of the red serpent drawn on the rock. As Willow worked, Tara laced her fingers in her lover’s left hand.

Together, they started to chant quietly.

Next Willow picked up Spike’s token, Mictlantechutli’s green feather, and made a similar mark on the other serpent with the vampire’s darker blood. Then she poured the two bowls together, mixed them with both feathers, and swept the impromptu pens as one to create a third, larger circle, linking the first two together. A few added swipes crossed the three circles, lines and swirls that created an intricate pattern of interwoven parts. The chanted duet came to an end and Willow breathed a long sigh of relief. Tara gave her hand a little squeeze before letting go.

Willow smiled, but quickly turned her attention to the altar again. She coated the hemp cord with what little blood remained, making sure to soak up every possible drop. “Ready?” she asked the waiting pair.

Spike found his bloody fingers interlaced with Buffy’s own. Even though it wasn’t the normal way the liquid entered his body, a warm tingling started in his palm and was soon radiating up his arm as tiny amounts of their blood mixed. His hand closed spasmodically over Buffy’s, but she only squeezed back.

Willow leaned across the table, careful not to upset the many candles, and looped the wet rope around their hands, binding them together with intricate knots. Buffy wrinkled her nose in disgust at the sticky, itchy slide of the soaked cord, but held her tongue. When the Wiccan was done, Meret wound her way down Spike’s arm and coiled herself tightly around their bound hands, locking them even more tightly together.

Spike spoke around the dry tightness of his mouth. “’S that all?”

Tara answered when Willow hesitated. “No, while you’re inside, we’ll be using this,” she unwrapped a glass sphere from the velvet cloth on the coffee table, “To anchor Mr. Giles’ soul in case something goes wrong.”

Buffy visibly winced, and Spike did the same, though probably for a different reason. “That what I think it is?” he asked the blonde witch.

“It’s an Orb of Thesuslah.” Her voice was quiet, but firm.

Spike felt every eye on him. To say that he was uncomfortable was an understatement, the smooth crystal ball made his skin crawl, and not just from its inherent magic. A thousand thousand thoughts rushed through his mind. Angel. Angelus. More Angel. More Angelus. Those damned gypsies who had planted the seeds of so much pain with their ill conceived, fatally flawed curse. Angel. Darla. Angelus. Dru. Angel. Acathla. Angelus… All the while, a little voice in the back of his mind was asking why the Scoobies had one of the Orbs at hand anyway, seeing as how the sanctimonious bastard was in L.A., but he shoved that nagging idea aside.

“Just watch where you point that thing,” he said roughly.

Xander snorted. “No thanks. One brooding drama vamp in the world is more than enough.”

Wry chuckles and quickly suppressed smiles swept around the room.

Spike could only stare. He couldn’t help it, not in the face of such an unexpected vote of confidence. And coming from Harris of all people? There was no other way to describe it, the vampire was floored.

A pressure on his hand pulled Spike out of his shock. He looked over to find Buffy smiling at him around her watcher. She picked up Giles’ limp hand with her free one. “Ready to wake Sleeping Beauty?” she asked, giving his hand one last squeeze.

Spike smirked. “You can snog the watcher; he’s really not my type.” Before she could retort, he quirked an eyebrow and grabbed the watcher’s left hand, completing the circle.

Contact catalyzed his desire and the Summers’ living room faded to white.

White above, white below, white all around.

The White was certainly, well, white.

Spike listed to one side, he felt like his vision would be swimming if there was anything to see. Dimension jumping, astral projection, or whatever the hell this was, it took a lot out of a vamp. After a moment, Spike realized that he was holding hands with someone. When he looked over his shoulder, he amended the thought. Make that two someones.

Buffy was gaping, wide-eyed at the endless sea of nothingness. Next to her, connecting the circle between himself and the slayer was Meret, her projected self once again taking human form. Her face was striped with red and black pigment under her right eye and along the left side of her forehead. The war paint gave her a fearsome look, made all the more so by the steely glint in her lidless, scarlet eyes.

Where is She?

Spike started to answer Meret’s cold question, but the slayer chose that second to look over her own shoulder. With a surprised cry, she dropped both of their hands and spun around. “Who is that?” she squeaked. “And why is she naked?”

The vampire’s eyes dropped and immediately flew open wide. Maybe ‘naked’ was an unfair assessment. After all, Meret was wearing a loincloth, a paired set of leather and feather armbands, and a plethora of bone and obsidian bead necklaces that looped low to barely cover her…

Spike jerked his eyes away, embarrassed and feeling vaguely like he had just seen his little sister completely starkers.

The girl-coatl took matters into her own hands. She stepped forward and reached out a hand, palm up, to the slayer, a move that sent her necklaces swinging even more indecently. Buffy balked. Meret cocked her head to one side, red hair and feathers cascading over her bare shoulder. I am me, she said, as if that explained it all.

Spike sighed. “Buffy, meet Meret. Meret, Buffy,” his voice was a bemused drawl.

Understanding dawned in the slayer’s eyes, but before she could do anything about the coatl’s outstretched hand, Meret reached behind her and whipped an obsidian blade out of the back of her skimpy, buckskin attire.

Behind you!

Spike and Buffy spun around as one, coming face to face with the tendrils of grey that had polluted the White during Spike last, abortive visit.

“Spike, what is going on?” Buffy’s voice was tight, nervous but still battle ready. At least she was focused on the spreading grayness ahead instead of Meret, who had stepped up on Spike’s left. She held a stake in her own hand, conjured again from the gods only knew where.

“They’ll show up, over there,” he pointed towards the darker mist, gesture drawing his attention to the fact that he was once again wearing his trench coat.

Well, least my subconscious knows how to dress for a party.

He gave himself a quick pat down, looking for weapons. He quirked his lips when he found his own pockets empty. Apparently his astral self also liked fighting with only fists and fangs as much as he did.

The fog started to solidify into two figures, locked together in apparent combat. Before Spike could form a coherent word of explanation, the slayer proved that it wasn’t needed. With the speed of thought, she and Meret were gone, leaving behind vague trails of color to the points where they reappeared on either side of the distant pair. A second later, Spike was with them, but he held back, concern for the watcher staying his usual reckless abandon.

Meret had no such compulsion. Even before Elaine and Giles’ shadowy forms were distinguishable, she leapt on the necromancer, stone blade leading the way. Telepathy did have some very obvious advantages.

When Elaine finally came into view, she was dressed in the same tattered black dress Spike had seen in his prophetic dream. Shock at the unexpected attack slowed her responses, but she still managed to free one decaying hand from where it had been locked around the watcher’s throat to bat away the furious girl.

Giles, who gasped hoarsely at the temporary reprieve, balled a fist and slammed it into the necromancer’s gut. His movements were hindered by new glowing threads, twisting insidiously around his chest and arms. Hindered, but not rendered completely ineffective.

Elaine bent double, wheezing wetly and sending Meret rolling to the side.

Her way free now that coatl had been thrown wide, Buffy lunged with her stake, aiming for the stumbling woman’s back, but her angle was off and she only landed a raking blow across Elaine’s ribs, tearing old black fabric and rotting flesh alike.

Spike had rather she hadn’t. A fetid odor, like something dead and too long left in the sun filled his nostrils. The smell shouldn’t have hit him as hard as it did; he had lived in and amongst death for over one hundred years. It suddenly dawned on the vampire that this was the only scent he had ever encountered in the White. Buffy staggered away from the woman, gagging on the smell and instinctively moving to cover her nose with her left hand.

The necromancer shrieked with pain and rage, and the sound seemed to take on a power of its own. It echoed and amplified, sending waves of pain through her attackers. Giles managed to rip himself free of the dead woman’s grasp, only to fall to the ground, wheezing with exertion and the pain of the aural attack. Meret got her bare feet under her, but she too winced away from the piercing sound. Buffy was out of range, and with the watcher sprawled well to the side, Spike saw his opening.

Wobbly from the sound, he still managed to slam his fist into Elaine’s jaw, mercifully cutting short her magically enhanced scream. Maybe it wasn’t subtle, but there were only so many things he could do against magic. Beating the sorcerer to distraction was one of those things. The crunch of bone was gratifying, as was the fact that the chip, weakened as it was, didn’t even give him a twinge. Apparently Elaine had signed off any rights to claim her humanity the first time she had died.

Spike followed through with another punch, and another, snarling a litany of insults with each landed punch. The blows, and his verbal barrage, which touched on Elaine’s smell, her second-rate spell-casting, and everything in between, kept the necromancer too stunned to mount much of a defense. He was vaguely aware that Buffy had scuttled past him and was helping Giles to his feet.

“Get him out of here!” he yelled at the slayer, still slamming his fist into decayed, green-tinged flesh. Pieces of tissue were coming loose, and he didn’t want to spend too much time deliberating on the nature of the ooze that was starting to coat his knuckles.

“How?” she shouted back, frustration obvious in her voice.

He growled in frustration and glanced over his shoulder. The slayer was struggling ineffectually with the remaining glowing threads that bound Giles to his captor. His distraction proved a long enough hesitation for Elaine to regain some of her wits. Suddenly Spike felt his left arm rip free of its socket, seemingly of its own accord. The pain was excruciating. His roar of surprised agony was cut short when he was flung away, tumbling like a rag doll across the empty whiteness.

Despite her damaged jaw, which was broken in at least three places, Elaine somehow managed to force hysterical words past her lips. “You killed them!” She raised her rotting hands, skeletal and sharp like claws. “All of them! You killed my family!” Each word was infused with raw hatred, and more than a little insanity.

And you tried to kill mine.

Meret’s dagger sank into Elaine’s back all the way to the hilt. The coatl yanked her weapon free and struck again, tearing deeply into rotten flesh and tattered cloth.

The necromancer jerked spasmodically and coughed, black blood rising to her lips. When Meret’s hand rose to strike again, Elaine lashed out with her magically enhanced strength, sending the girl sprawling towards the slayer and her watcher.

Buffy shoved Giles behind her, leaving the man to stumble back, still bound and off balance. In a flash, she was on Elaine, booted feet capturing and keeping the dead woman’s attention in the most painful of manners.

While the slayer kept their prey wholly occupied, Spike dragged himself to his feet. His left arm hung limply, and he grabbed it with his right hand, growling and yellow-eyed in pain when the motion sent sparks of agony shooting through his body.

Gentle hands grasped his shoulder. He snarled defensively, but his mind was flooded with reassurance and calming thoughts.

Meret.

Her fingers gripped tighter.

This will hurt.

And it did. But she moved her hands with assurance and it was soon over. Spike’s arm slid back into its socket under her firm grasp, and the pain receded to a dull ache.

They come. Let us finish this.

“Who?” Spike scrambled to his feet, but her movements were a red blur against the White, even to his enhanced eyesight. “Meret, who’s coming?”

The coatl threw herself into the fray, moving in tandem with Buffy against the necromancer as if she had always been fighting with hands and feet instead of wings and fangs. They! was her only response, but Spike could hear the capital in that word. He had a good idea who ‘They’ were.

“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me,” he grumbled, even as he took off in Giles’ direction.

The watcher was twisting and turning, looking for all the world like a tweedy Houdini in an invisible straight jacket. Well, maybe not so invisible… “Hold still,” he barked, drawing Giles’ instant and irritated attention.

The man thrust his arms forward, clenched fists stretching the glowing lines of power to their limit. “Get this net off of me.” Each word was pronounced slowly and distinctly, and each was saturated with barely controlled anger.

“Your wish is my command, Ripper.” Spike’s hands melted through the threads, their light winking out in his wake. Giles flexed his wrists, and started to step forward, jaw set in furious determination.

That done, it was back into the fight.

Spike caught Buffy’s eye and jerked his head towards the watcher. She nodded, added one last slug into the necromancer’s much abused face, and spun away, letting Spike slid into her place in their violent dance. Meret slashed her blade across Elaine’s face, missing, but still holding the necromancer’s attention during the brief interchange.

Elaine looked ready to drop, but she was apparently much harder to kill than she looked. Maybe it was the fact that she was already dead, or maybe it was the madness Spike could see lurking in her eyes. Either way, he and Meret had their hands full wearing the unhinged, decaying husk of a woman down.

On the plus side, the effects of Elaine’s wounds were starting to show, her movements getting sloppier and sloppier. Also, the necromancer seemed to have determined that Meret and her stone dagger were the main threats in the fight, but all of her magic seemed to slide past the coatl. Willow’s spell still held, even across time and dimensions: a fact for which the vampire was deeply thankful.

When a sharp blow from Meret sent Elaine sprawling across the formless ground, Spike grabbed the woman by the arm and a handful of hair, driving her further still into the unseen surface. At the prolonged contact, the vampire felt something odd, almost like a pressure against his mind. When the force spiked in tandem with a particularly vicious snarl from the dead thing beneath him, Spike finally understood.

The trapped souls he had released before in the cave had gone willingly. This one wasn’t going to be so obliging. Not that he blamed her. Hell wouldn’t be his preferred vacation spot either.

Spike pushed back, in much the same way he nudged at Meret when she was being particularly irritating, and slammed into a wall. Undead and crazy-angry apparently equaled more psychic fortitude than undead and ADHD. In the time it took to reassess the intelligence of the plan, Elaine forced the offensive, tearing through the vampire’s mind.

Spike reeled. In his confused state, it was hard to tell if the sudden breeze he felt against his back was from a real disturbance in the White, or a physical manifestation of the mental whiplash he was experiencing. When a shroud of green feathers descended over him, he altered his assessment to divine intervention or hallucination. Either one rated a slightly hysterical laugh.

Elaine’s mental assault came to an abrupt halt, lifting the mental fog just in time for Spike to see a gaunt, serpentine face lower next to his own.

Hello, my son.

“Hi, dad,” Spike said facetiously, still pressing the suddenly motionless necromancer down into the nothingness. Mictlantechutli tilted his toothy snout towards him and curled one gaunt lip back in a reptilian semblance of a smile.

Spike nodded towards Elaine’s frozen, terrified face. “Think she recognizes you.”

The green serpent slid closer, reptilian mouth curling into a chilling smile.

Indeed.

Spike took in the god’s altered appearance. He could well see why the necromancer was frozen in fright. Coiled erect, Mictlantechutli stood as tall as a man. The rustling tail behind him was whip-lean and scarred, and a great ruff of feathers fanned out around the god’s head like a mane. Needle sharp fangs poked out of his mouth at all angles, bristling like a crocodile’s. Even the protruding bones that jutted from under the withered scales added a hard, jagged appearance to the god of death.

Feeling more than a little intimidated himself, and irritated by that, even though he was facing a god, Spike dropped his eyes and looked to his fighting partner. Much to his surprise, Meret had her head bowed, weapon hand pressed against her chest in a gesture of supplication. Spike couldn’t help but smirk. Humility was an odd look on the usually irreverent coatl.

Mictlantechutli followed his gaze. After a moment, Meret jerked her head in a brief nod as if answering some silent command, and darted past Spike. He turned to watch her go and found himself staring into the eyes of a red mirror image of Mictlantechutli’s green form.

Quetzalcoatl.

His spread wings sheltered the tired slayer, who had one arm slung around her watcher, supporting him since his abused body had apparently made its opinion known over the anger that had been fuelling Giles’ actions. Spike could sympathize.

Buffy seemed to be in deep thought, but considering her company, that probably indicated a silent conversation with the god of life. They turned as one when the coatl neared. Quetzalcoatl swept a wing wide to encompass Meret, and with a flash, the group was gone, red light fading in their wake.

Spike gaped in surprise, but he dared not release his hold on Elaine. Mictlantechutli responded before he could form a question or complaint.

This is a matter for the dead. Now, only the dead remain.

The god’s mouth opened wide, needle-sharp teeth inching nearer and nearer to Elaine’s terrified face. A weak spell, a mere whisper of pain, floated across the surface of Spike’s skin, but the necromancer was beat. And what was more, she knew it. He could see it in her sunken, mad eyes.

With a motion too fast to track, Mictlantechutli struck. Spike braced for the impact, but none came. Instead, Elaine’s form simply melted under his hands. He fell forward, sprawling suddenly without the necromancer’s supporting weight. Quick as thought, he rolled aside, expecting some trick. Instead, he found himself looking at the bemused expression on Mictlantechutli’s toothy face.

A soul such as hers must be willing before it will cross over. I do not believe that she realizes that I will be waiting for her on the other side as well.

Spike wasn’t quite sure he was hearing the god correctly. “Wait, you mean she’s gone?”

Mictlantechutli inclined his gaunt head.

The vampire laughed. “You mean, she turned yellow,” he wheezed around his mirth, “And served herself right up on your platter? That’s bleedin’ priceless!”

It was amazing how expressive such a stiff, scaly face could be. Mictlantechutli’s had dark amusement, a little confusion, and some disappointment painted in obvious strokes.

I had wished to get at least one good bite in.

That earned a falsely sympathetic grin. “Yeah, well. Maybe you won’t take so long to show up next time. Besides, I bet she would’ve tasted worse than zombie meat.”

Indeed.

Spike dropped his head back. As the White started to fade to gray, and then black, it took his many aches and pains with it.

In a perfect world, Spike would have woken up to find a certain slayer, maybe topless, wiping his brow with a cool towel. Peeled grapes and a palm frond would have been nice too. Instead, the first thing he saw was Giles’ torn face, looking like a flock of butterfly bandages had taken up residence on it.

His hand shot out reflexively, before he remembered that Elaine was well and truly dead. Fortunately, his arm didn’t seem to want to obey his command right away, and Giles managed to duck away from the weak attack. “That you, Rupes? Took you for some kind of exploding paper demon.”

The watcher snorted wryly. “Yes, I believe that Dawn got a little carried away with the bandages. How are you feeling?” His voice was uncharacteristically soft.

The question took some consideration. Sore? Wounded? Not really, but even thinking about it took an effort of will. “Tired,” he finally said, but that wasn’t it either.

Giles seemed to understand, though. “Psychic wounds often manifest as mental fatigue. It will pass in a few days.” He offered a callused hand to the supine vampire. Spike noticed that under his other arm, he held a small pink bag.

Spike allowed himself to be pulled into a sitting position. He found that he was on a canvas cot in a dark corner of the Summers’ basement. Meret was fast asleep on the corner of the stretched fabric, curled into a knot of scales and feathers. He really envied her. Spike started to raise a hand to wipe across his eyes, but it shook and he finally let it drop in his lap. “A few days, huh? Why’re you so spry then?”

“I believe that after you and Buffy destroyed her body, Elaine needed me contained, not hurt. Buffy and Meret were somewhat protected by Willow’s previous spells and the… ah, ruby apparently. You, on the other hand, seem to have taken the full brunt of her assault. And,” he paused to fish something out of his jacket pocket with his free hand. “I took two of these.” He tossed the bottle to the vampire, who barely managed to catch it. Caffeine pills.

Spike stared at them. Human medicines didn’t always affect him the way they should. He’d taken enough bites out of allergy sufferers, diet pill users, and junkies to know that. Then again, he remembered the night Dawn had convinced him to drink eight triple shot espressos. That had been… amusing. A small handful of little white tablets, bitter and chalky, went down his throat, and he handed the bottle back to the watcher.

“Buffy?” he asked, grimacing around the pills’ bitter taste.

The watcher smiled, even though the expression had to cause him some pain. “She woke up an hour ago, and has been running circles around the rest of us ever since.” At the vampire’s weary smile, Giles continued. “She wanted to make sure you got all the sleep you needed, but Dawn asked me to bring you this.” He handed over the pink bag, a toiletries case. On the outside, there was a note written in Dawn’s loopy script.

Here’s some stuff to make you feel a little more ‘human.’

Inside were a toothbrush and toothpaste, a comb and gel, some soap and a washcloth. The vampire couldn’t help but smile. Between the contents of the bag and the sink in the corner, he might well be back to his old self in no time at all.

Giles’ voice drew back his wandering attention. “On that note, I believe that I will go tell the others that you are awake.”

That brought a small glimmer of warmth to his tired mind. Spike leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes as the man walked away. He could hear the heavy tread of footsteps, retreating to the far side of the room, but there they stopped. He cracked an eye again.

Giles’ hand was resting on the banister, his head bowed in thought. After a long moment of silence, he half turned back towards the cot. “Spike?”

“Yeah?”

Giles looked straight at him, face serious under its veil of bandages. “Thank you.”

“Good to have you back in the driver’s seat. You make a piss poor bird.” That earned a brief laugh and a wry look. The vampire smirked along with him. Nothing more was said. Nothing more needed to be said. It was a silent understanding between comrades-in-arms – between friends. Spike coughed, trying to shake loose the odd pressure squeezing tight inside of his chest. Pro’bly the damned pills.

Giles nodded to himself, and started up the stairs. Spike shut his eyes again, and listened to the retreating footsteps. The soft click of the door’s latch left him to his thoughts, and the odd sensation of half a bottle of concentrated caffeine melting slowly into his dead system.

When he started to feel a little more alive, metaphorically speaking, he eyes the sink in the corner. He might as well make himself presentable before facing the world above.

*****

“Buffy, I appreciate your concern, but I really am fine.” Giles sounded more embarrassed than irritated, at least from Spike’s side of the door.
“No you’re not.” Buffy, on the other hand, sounded like a mother hen. “You’re bleeding all over your stiff upper lip.”

“Very funny.” The man sighed in resignation. “Now please tell me again, when and how did you realize that I had been possessed?”

“Well, we knew something was up when you baked everyone a bunch of brownies and then pinched Xander on the butt.”

Apparently missing the sarcasm in his ward’s voice, Giles started to stutter. “I… I what?”

“Giles, get a grip. I’m teasing you.” The vampire could almost hear her roll her eyes. “Meret kept hitting us with weird pictures of you with no eyes and stuff, and then you ran off with a bunch of oogly things from the Magic Box. Spike checked your apartment and found your boudoir had exploded all over the place and the jar we found at the mansion dumped out on your dresser. By the time Willow and Tara used dial-a-vamp to tell us about a disturbance in the Force, we had pretty much figured it out on our own.”

“I would thank you to not remind me of the state of my flat. Now, what do you mean by, ah, ‘dial a vamp?’ And what kinds of, um, ‘oogly’ things?” Giles was certainly back in old form.

But then again, so was Buffy. “Less bleeding now, more grilling later.”

On that note, Spike slid the door open and walked into the kitchen. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the floor; diffuse enough to pose no threat. True to the slayer’s word, Giles was in fact bleeding again. The coppery smell fell flat across the minty flavor of the toothpaste. Some things just didn’t go together, like Oreos and orange juice, or blood and super whitening Winterfresh with fluoride. However, Dawn had been right. A little soap and a fraternity shower could do wonders for a vamp’s outlook on life.

Meret, who had woken up soon after Spike had finished taming his unruly hair, winged into the room after him, and immediately dove on a plate of sliced fruit. No ephemeral hello, no flash of emotions or images, just a hot flash of need. That effectively caught everyone’s attention.

Someone’s hungry.

Meret just hissed and lashed her tail over the mixed plate of apples, kiwis, and oranges before gulping down another slice. Maybe ravenous would have been a better word. He had never seen her eat something that didn’t have at least a little meat in it, so at the watcher’s questioning look, Spike just shrugged.

Giles started to pick up a ball point pen again, but at Buffy’s scolding look, he relented. The pen and a little notebook, cheap and spiral bound, made their way into his pocket instead. Thank the gods for small mercies. Leaning heavily on the counter, the watcher took a sip of the hot, aromatic tea that had been resting by his elbow.

Buffy, who had been rinsing off a washcloth in the sink, was watching the vampire with a worried half-smile. “Hey, Spike. Did you get enough sleep?”

“All I’m gonna, for now.” Truth be told, he was starting to feel a little twitchy. Maybe half a bottle of spaz-in-a-can had been a bit too much. “How long was I out?”

“Long enough to avoid all the heavy lifting,” she said jokingly. “All the spell gunk has been cleared away, Xander and I tossed the big rock in the garden out back, and Dawn has put stain stick on the carpet.” She grimaced. “We dripped blood on the floor.”

“Ah. Speakin’ of which…” Spike dipped into the refrigerator and started rummaging around. He needed something to cover the flavor in his mouth so that the bland pig’s blood would be palatable. He didn’t care what the crime dramas said; pig was a long way off from human.

A light tap on his shoulder drew his attention, and he found himself looking at a cup of tea, the same as the one in front of the watcher, cradled in Buffy’s hands.

“Giles said it might help.” She seemed shy, and when he took the cup, their hands met briefly. She dropped her eyes at the touch.

Behind them, Giles reached across the counter and retrieved the wet cloth Buffy had abandoned there. “I believe that I will be in the living room. The others should be back soon with dinner, or whatever Xander decides passes for a balanced evening meal.” He rose and patted the towel gently against his right cheek, retrieving his own tea with his other hand.

Spike watched the man leave, feeling vaguely as if he had missed something important in that one-sided conversation. Silence, broken only by the rustling sound of Meret’s feathers as she continued to eat with single-minded intensity, held sway for a long time in the man’s wake.

After a long while, Spike took a sip of the tea. It was good, even if he could feel it slowly growing cold against his fingers as the minutes ticked by. Or maybe it was his cold fingers, drawing away the drink’s heat. Maybe no time had passed at all.

“Hey, Spike.” The vampire turned at Buffy’s suddenly timid tone. “I was just wondering… I mean, before the night of the living school marm, I said…” The slayer was fidgeting and looking everywhere except at Spike himself. He wondered if she had also taken a hit off of Giles’ pep pills.

“Said a lot of things… Any one bit in particular?” There was a certain conversation Spike remembered, and the almost-kiss, cut short by Dawn’s incredibly bad timing, that had preceded it.

She wrung her hands, twisting the ring holding the Sangre de Cristo ruby around and around her right ring finger. Her mouth opened, as if to speak, but she was cut short by the back door swinging open.

“Hey Buffy!” Xander appeared in the kitchen, juggling a tall stack of pizza boxes. “Spike. I come bearing tidings of great joy! Otherwise known as four of Gino’s finest pizza pies.” His grin never faltered, even though Spike could have sworn that the room’s temperature had dropped a good ten degrees.

Willow appeared behind him, carrying a Blockbuster Video bag. Her bright eyes lit on Buffy first, but quickly slid to Spike’s. Her lips twitched, as if she was trying to suppress a smile.

Xander had continued talking, unaware that no one but Meret was really paying attention. However, even the little coatl seemed more interested with the boxes in his hands than the words coming out of his mouth. “…and we rented Invasion of the Body Snatchers, because irony always goes well with Coca Cola.”

“C’mon Xander,” Willow nudged the boy in the ribs with her elbow, trying to herd him along.

Buffy stuttered, finally finding her voice. “Everybody’s in with the TV. We’ll be there in a sec.”

Xander looked confused, but Willow’s persistent prods got him moving again. The redhead had the temerity to wink at Spike before she too disappeared. That earned a scowl and a flash of consternation. Did everyone else in the house know something he didn’t? When an eruption of giggles drifted in from the living room, he decided that the answer was an unequivocal “Yes.” Meret took off after them, hunger still at the front of her mind, leaving a scene of fruit devastation behind her. Soon, slayer and vampire found themselves completely alone.

Spike started spinning the little china cup around and around in its saucer. It needed lemon, or maybe some Jack, depending on where their interrupted conversation had been heading.

“So, uh, you know,” Buffy hedged.

Avoidance, thy name is Buffy. He smiled bitterly to himself. Pot, kettle.

Spike would have preferred a little time to collect his thoughts, to sleep until he was fairly certain he could keep his foot out of his mouth, before having this conversation. If it was even the conversation he thought it was.

The first glimmer of hope, fragile as a butterfly, fluttered inside of his chest. He ruthlessly squelched it. Buffy had started this little chat, and only Buffy knew where it would lead. The badly tattered rag that was his heart couldn’t afford for him to make any assumptions. Not now.

He took a sip from his tea, wishing that it was something stronger. “No, I don’t.” He could do monosyllables, even when suffering from psychic backlash.

Spike stole a glance at the slayer, keeping his expression bland. She was pursing her lips, pinching her face tight in frustration. After taking a deep breath, she stepped closer, green flecked eyes searching for and catching his own. “Did you mean what you said?”

Spike’s voice was husky in his throat. “’S been a long couple of days. P’haps you could jog my memory.” The line between coyness and cowardice was as thin as a razor.

Warm hands wrapped around his fingers, guiding the cup back to the counter. She licked her lips nervously, a motion that Spike found intimately fascinating. She kept her hands on his when he released the china. “That,” she paused, seemingly gathering her courage.

Least one of us is feelin’ brave. Spike’s silent sarcasm was biting.

“That I’m a hero,” she finished breathlessly.

“Yes.” The word was little more than a hiss.

Her fingers laced through his own, connected as they had been hours earlier by Willow’s magic. “That I can totally handle whatever mean nasty that gets sent my way.” Her voice was a little stronger, more confident.

Spike blinked, utterly transfixed with her mouth. “Seem to recall something like that.”

Suddenly she smiled, teasing and beautiful. “And that I make Audrey Hepburn look like a trashy skank.”

“Uh…”

“And that you bow before my superior fighting skills.”

Hot indignation flashed over the cold fear that had settled in his veins. “Oi! I don’t think…”

“And that you love me,” she whispered, but the quiet, uncertain words were more than enough to cut the blustering vampire short.

So there it was, the moment of truth. Even though this particular cat had long been out of the bag, he had never told her like this, when she was so close, holding onto his hand as if it was a lifeline.

Doubt gnawed at him.

Doubt in her motivations.

Doubt in himself and his ability to withstand another rejection.

Finally, Spike took a deep breath and a leap of faith. “You know I do.”

She was quiet for a long time. Every second that passed felt like the scrape of a blade over his frayed nerves. When she finally spoke, he was surprised that his heart didn’t roll out to be squashed in the toe of his boot.

“I’m not so great with the descriptors, so I thought maybe I could show you something instead,” she babbled.

Spike wanted to curl up on himself, shrivel up and crumple like a dying spider. What the hell could she have to show me after I said that? None of the ideas that sprung to mind were good. Probably some shockingly revealing passage that the watcher had found after waking. Hell, it could be a new pair of shoes, or even the fastest route to the back door. Whatever it was, he didn’t care. If she changed the subject now, started backpedaling or ignoring his words, well, his tab at Willy’s was going to grow exponentially over the course of a few short hours.

Soft fingers brushed against his jaw, clenched tight from the effort to control himself. “Spike?”

His indifferent façade cracked, twisting and bending his face, turning his eyes from icy blue to angry gold. “What?” he snapped, jerking away from her touch. It was too hard to think with her so near, and he needed to lash out at whatever was at hand. Even if it happened to be her.

When she didn’t flinch away, Spike got the sinking feeling that he had misjudged the situation again. He was fast loosing his objectivity, finding her harder and harder to read. Too much had been happening too fast, and he was still trying to catch up. Stubborn, even in his confusion, he let his demonic visage remain. Whatever this was leading, she could say it to that face.

“What?” he repeated, all anger bleeding out of his voice, leaving only resignation behind.

Her hand returned, cupping the contours of his cheek. He leaned into her; he couldn’t help himself. He was tired, strung out on too much worry and too little sleep, and loving her was the easiest thing he had done in a long time. Sometimes painful, always nerve wracking, but still easy.

And surprising too. Spike could honestly say that he was caught completely flat footed when she stepped forward and pressed her soft lips against his own.

Spike froze, not really believing what was happening. She was holding back, careful of his fangs, but not wary though. There was no tension in her lips, no fear. Only tender exploration. One hand trailed along his face, tracing the scar where it was pulled taut across one ridged brow. The touch broke down all his defenses. His hands bypassed his brain altogether and somehow found their way around the slayer’s thin waist, deepening the kiss when his features melted back into smooth lines.

In that moment, he could forget about Elaine and her merry band of the undead, the watcher’s upcoming questions, and even the traditional couch potato Scooby party that awaited them in the den. Nothing mattered, except him and her and the sparking, living thing that was between them.

In his heart, Spike knew he would have questioned the words, had she voiced them aloud. Her actions couldn’t be denied. He cursed himself for doubting her.

Words could wait. Forever, for all he cared.

And yes, she did still taste like raspberries.

This was definitely not a slayer dream.

Spike had experienced another one of those a few days before. Slayer dreams were more mysterious, full of cryptic symbolism and the kind of dizzying unpredictability that made his fangs itch. There was an ambience to them that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else, and upon waking, they left a sense of import behind. The last one had been full of flowers, white streamers, and a circle of faceless bridesmaids chanting a supplication to D’Hoffryn.

Well, that had certainly kept everyone vigilant for gatecrashers at Xander and Anya’s wedding yesterday. Not too hard when one of the groomsmen was a vampire, two of the bridesmaids were witches, and another was the slayer. It was funny, finding the former Mr. Stewart Burns trying to slip through in an aged Xander suit had ended up being a surprising boon.

As it turned out, the dream had actually been foretelling D’Hoffryn’s wedding present. After exchanging their vows, Xander had been a little dumbfounded when he watched the blue-skinned, horned demon hang a new power center around his wife’s throat, no strings attached. Anyanka had been thrilled, and truth be told, Xander had taken to the idea with a great deal more aplomb than anyone had expected. Meaning, of course, that he only gaped like a fish for the first hour or so. Only time would tell how that lead zeppelin would fly over. Spike, for one, couldn’t have been happier for the once former, now current vengeance demon.

Maybe they weren’t getting any better at interpreting the slayer dreams, but Spike was fairly confident he could identify them.

And this was definitely not a slayer dream.

This was a scene from the past.

A gravelly voice drew Spike’s attention. “Why do you look so uncomfortable, son of mine? I had believed this would be a welcome haven for you.” Mictlantechutli was leaning against a stone outcrop that young William had discovered while on vacation in the Lake District with his mother. The stone was smooth from the actions of wind and water, with many dips and nooks worn into comfortable seats. It overlooked, surprise – surprise, a lake, which was framed on all sides by trees, leaves burnished in the oranges and reds of fall. The spot had special significance to him, and he had returned many times during his life.

William had written his first poem here.

After he had been turned, Spike had never come back.

Looking around the calming beauty of the scene, he couldn’t for the unlife of him remember why.

“I…” he cleared his throat. “Yeah, it’ll do.”

The god smiled and gestured towards one of the broader, flatter sections of weathered limestone. He took his own seat, movements strangely fluid and sure for so aged a body. Spike joined him on the ledge.

“So,” the vampire looked at Mictlantechutli out of the corner of his eye, “To what do I owe the pleasure?” The question wasn’t as sarcastic at it would have once been. Spike hadn’t seen the god in pushing two months.

Two pottery cups, smooth and glazed a glossy black, appeared in the god’s hands. They both held a steaming, dark liquid that gave off an odd, strong smell. He handed one to Spike. “I believe that I promised you xocolatl.”

Spike looked at it doubtfully. He gingerly took a sip, and almost choked on the bitter liquid. It wasn’t bad, kind of like weirdly spiced, incredibly strong coffee, just not at all what he was expecting. He set the cup down next to him.

Mictlantechutli’s aged eyes crinkled with amusement. “I am told that it is an acquired taste, perhaps made more palatable by its other effects.”

“Which are?” asked the nonplussed vampire.

“It is believed to be a particularly effective aphrodisiac.” The god’s words were bland, but the amusement was there in his flat, green eyes when Spike eyed the cup again. After all, he vividly remembered where his real body was resting, away from this dream, or visitation, or whatever it was. Mictlantechutli took a sip of his own drink. “What news of the Hellmouth? I have been rather… distracted of late.”

“Yeah?” Spike snorted. “And how is Elaine?” he asked archly.

The god grimaced, lining his aged face even further. “She gave me indigestion.”

The vampire’s mouth hung open for a moment before deciding that vengeance aside, he really didn’t want the details. “Nothin’ much rumbling of late,” he admitted. “Anyanka’s rejoined the ranks of the not quite human.”

“Not surprising. Though I am willing to bet that her recent experiences as a mortal will temper her… enthusiasm.” Mictlantechutli nodded to himself.

“Rupes finally sent that letter to the coroner, but we’d torched the bodies pretty decently. The eggheads down at the morgue couldn’t tell much about them.” Spike snorted to himself in amusement and took another sip of the xocolatl. The second taste wasn’t half as bad as the first. “I’ll give Red that, she can sure hack a treat. She and Glinda put some kind of binding spell on the Morelocks’ graves before they flew back to Merry Old. Won’t be seein’ any more of that lot any time soon.”

The god only nodded. His silence prompted the vampire to continue. “The watcher claims he can’t remember anything, but I think he’s holdin’ out on us. Gets real sour when the subject comes up. And he keeps lettin’ stuff slip.” He took a third sip. The xocolatl wasn’t half bad if you just let it kill off the first round of taste buds. “Don’t really blame him, ‘s gotta be embarrassing as hell.”

During the lull in the conversation, Mictlantechutli’s eyes glazed slightly and he tilted his head to the side as if listening to a voice only he could hear. He held the pose, eerie and motionless for a long moment. Spike paused in his narration to watch the god with a healthy combination of curiosity and wariness. When Mictlantechutli finally opened his eyes, he looked at the vampire with an oddly cheerful look on his face. “Tell my little sister congratulations.”

That caught Spike off guard. “Oi! How did you know about that?”

Mictlantechutli tapped a finger against the side of his temple. “My brother and I can always hear our little brothers and sisters. They were our earthbound messengers since time immemorial.” He smiled sadly. “Some things should not end, even if their worship does.”

It was a side of the god that hadn’t really occurred to Spike. Mictlantechutli wasn’t just some strange fairy godmother to stray vampires. He had been feared and worshipped for hundreds of years before the first European set foot in the Americas. He was a god, for God’s sake.

“Do you miss it?”

Even though the vampire was playing fast and loose with his pronouns, the god seemed to understand with perfect clarity. “Not the sacrifices. Well,” he amended with a flash of sharp, white teeth, “Not all of the sacrifices. People are entertaining, even when they are flinging hearts on ceremonial pyres. I ask you, what would I want with a charred human heart?”

Spike grimaced to himself when the thought that Drusilla had preferred hers fresh came to mind unbidden.

“See?” The god continued as if the vampire’s words had been spoken aloud. “Nothing. Idiotic practice. My brother worked hard to convince them to stop, little good it did.” He waved a gnarled hand dismissively. “Bygones. I believe we were discussing my little sister. She and I agree, the Child of Life should get one. More xocolatl?”

The conversation was fast leaving Spike in the dust. “I thought you didn’t know what had been going on in Sunnyhell?” he asked with irritation.

“No, I was merely attempting to make polite conversation.”

That only earned a flat, irritated glare.

Mictlantechutli was unperturbed. “Yes, well. Enough of that. I believe our company is here.”

“What?” Spike looked around, and saw a woman walking towards them. She was hazy at first, translucent and ghostly. As she neared, the wispy form solidified into a familiar face. “Joyce?” His voice was disbelieving.

Her smile warm was motherly, even though her face was unlined and young. “Hello, Spike.” She sat down next to him, letting her bare feet hang over the side of the rock ledge. She smoothed her yellow sundress over her legs and gave the god a pointed look.

Mictlantechutli stood up and brushed off his long, green robes with an amused sigh. “I will leave you now, but I will be around, son of mine.”

“Yeah, uh, see you… around.” Spike didn’t turn, even when the god started laughing behind his back, a sound that soon faded into the sound of the wind in the trees. “It’s good to see you, mum.”

“I was a bit cryptic the last time we talked, wasn’t I?” When Spike just snorted, she smiled as well. “Those dreams really do a number on us.”

“How are you even here? And who’s ‘us?’” he asked, truly confused.

“Oh, I’ve been earning some favors from friends in high places.” She swung her feet slowly in the air. He had never seen her look so young. “But I really think that we should get to the important questions.”

Spike raised his cup to his mouth again. Nope, he had been kidding himself. It still tasted like crap. “What questions would those be?” He took a swig anyway.

She tilted her head at him, eyes still young and sparkling with good humor, but there was a thread of steel there too. “What are your intentions towards my daughter?”

*****

Spike woke in a cold sweat. No… a warm sweat. No…

“Damn it,” he whispered, careful not to wake his bed partner. He had xocolatl all over his chest. “Very funny, mum.”

He quietly slipped out of bed and spread the sheets smooth behind him. He could sense the daylight above. If he hurried, he could get clean before she woke.

The water felt colder than usual. He rinsed off the soapy lather as fast as he could, scrubbing the burnt coffee and spice cabinet smell off of himself. Clean, thoroughly awake, and wrapped in a towel, he padded back down the tunnel and into the crypt’s sleeping area.

Spike had tossed the torn remains of his tuxedo in the floor in search of a presentable pair of pants when the first groan came from under the sheets on his bed. He glanced over, impish grin substituting for his usual smirk. “Mornin’ love.”

That earned another, louder groan. One perfectly manicured hand appeared long enough to drag the sheets over the last hint of blonde hair. “Come back to bed,” Buffy mumbled, face buried in pillows.

Spike’s smile turned wicked. “As you wish.” He drawled before launching himself at the bed, towel forgotten.

Buffy squealed, grabbing at the blankets, but her heart didn’t appear to be in it. Before long he had a very awake, very naked slayer curled up in his lap. She squeaked indignantly when he pulled her hair aside and started nibbling at the base of her throat.

“Spike, stop it!” she squealed, but her slaps were half-hearted at best and she was giggling so much that her words were garbled.

“Sorry,” he mumbled against her neck, “there’s just this spot.” Blunt teeth sank into the corded muscles of her shoulder, just hard enough to elicit a surprised gasp. He kissed the mark to take away the sting, then looked up and glared at her with mock-annoyance.

“What?” she asked, pouting.

“This,” Spike held up a lock of her hair, letting it slide through his hand to fall in one perfect barrel curl. “S’not natural.” There was something incredibly frustrating about the fact that he could reduce that monstrosity of a bridesmaid’s dress into its component parts, but nothing he did, and he had done a lot, could muss her hair.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t’a given me that mirror for my birthday,” she teased, nestling further against him. Delicate fingers traced the webwork of faint scars that covered his chest and arms. Spike pressed a kiss against the offendingly perfect hair before tucking her head beneath his chin.

There were a lot of times, like this one, when Spike thought that maybe he had never awakened after killing Maclin, and that his body was lying in withering stasis somewhere, dreaming away. Buffy was more relaxed, dare he say more happy, than she had been since her resurrection. Even with their rough patches, Spike was completely enthralled by the open, playful passion she had brought into his unlife. She had ensnared him, body and absent soul, so thoroughly that it seemed impossible that this wasn’t a dream. Then again, he seriously doubted his subconscious mind’s ability to come up with the ridiculous events of the last few months. Even he wasn’t that insane.

“Speakin’ of which,” Spike grabbed her hand from where it was dipping lower and threatening to kill all rational thought, “I’ve got something for you.” He kissed her captured fingertips.

She squirmed around to look him directly in the eye. “Ooh, what?”

She smelled good enough to eat, a fact that he fully planned to capitalize on very soon, but first things first. It had taken some effort to get a night to themselves, with even Meret agreeing to stay behind with Dawn, and Spike wasn’t about to muck up this window of opportunity. “Do you trust me?” he asked, his voice suddenly serious.

“What kind of stupid question is that?” Buffy slipped her hands free and scowled fiercely, stiffening in his arms.

Spike winced, but this was important. “Do you?”

Firm fingers forced his face down to hers. The kiss was searing. “Of course I trust you, you, you, idiot.” She kissed him again, just a quick peck on the cheek. “Now, are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

At his torn look, he knew he needed to get up but he didn’t want to move, Buffy rolled her eyes and slid out of the circle of his arms.

Spike stood up and walked to his dresser. He and Meret had taken over one of the lower drawers for this very purpose. He had to toss aside some of the battered remains of Buffy’s green dress to get to it, but he soon had his surprise in hand.

Buffy sat up, pulling the topmost sheet with her. Her eyes opened wide and she gasped when she saw what he was holding.

An egg, swirled in shades of green. Meret’s egg.

He sat on the edge of the bed, cradling the little orb in his hands. Buffy reached out and ran a careful finger across the shell. She jerked back when its leathery surface gave way slightly under her touch.

“It’ll toughen up soon enough. Meret’s been eyein’ the ‘Bit and Glinda for the other two.” He smiled ruefully at Buffy’s disbelieving expression. “’S why she’s been hidin’ out here for the last little bit. Pro’bly worried about her figure or some such rot.”

And there it was.

And Buffy wasn’t talking.

“Didn’t think this’d happen for a few more months…” Spike trailed off. It hadn’t even occurred to him until that moment that telepathy and trust issues aside, she might not want a coatl of her own. He had gone through enough stress of his own with worrying about Meret, but not once had he ever wished that she hadn’t come into his unlife.

He was about to start panicking in earnest when Buffy wrapped her arms around his waist. “What should I name her?” she whispered, as if worried about disturbing the baby coatl inside of the egg.

Spike relaxed with a relieved smile. “Dunno. Got a while yet to figure that out.” When he offered her the egg again, Buffy took it in her hands. After a second, her face split into a wide, delighted smile.

Cradling it in her right hand, she scooted herself to the edge of the bed. Her eyes lit on his mangled tuxedo, thrown across a battered wooden chair. There was that lower lip again. “You looked good in that suit,” she said while carefully winding the sheet, one handed, around herself.

“Yeah, you gonna like it as much when you’re coverin’ the security deposit?”

“I’ll cover yours if you cover mine,” she said lightly, rising and sashaying towards his pile of clothes.

Spike grimaced, but fair was fair, and they had both had a hand or two in the garments’ destruction.

Buffy fished his shirt out of the mess and arranged it on the top of the dresser in a kind of nest. The egg made its way safely into the circle of starched cotton. She fussed over it until she was finally satisfied. Then, without any warning past a playful flash of hazel eyes, Spike suddenly found himself with an armful of enthusiastic slayer.

That was all the evidence he needed to know how she felt about his and Meret’s little surprise, even though the whispered words of love against his neck were certainly a nice bonus.

With three more scaled menaces on the way, unlife was undoubtedly going to get even more interesting for the vampire. He didn’t care. One way or the other, this was definitely marking the beginning of a beautiful… something.

Words failed him.

After all, English got to be pretty difficult when she insisted on doing that with her mouth.


A/N Here endeth the story. Yes, I am planning on revisiting this 'verse before you guys stone me to death. Huge thanks to my betas, Schehrezade and Pamp3rs, and to all of the people who have been reading and reviewing!