Chapter Five

He awoke long after dawn, to find that Buffy was already up and putting on her bathing suit. He admired all the bare flesh she was slathering with sun block; flesh that, in this normally chilly climate, she rarely displayed outside of the privacy of their bedroom.

“Been planning for this all along, have you?” he asked, laughing at the caught expression on her face.

“I just thought I should be prepared for anything,” she sniffed, pulling a loose pair of sweatpants and a shirt over the bikini. “You’re just jealous because I’m going to be getting a suntan and you aren’t.”

“Right you are, pet,” he said with a yawn. “You’ll be out there getting your knickers full of sand and I’ll be up here snoozing away. That’s me – jealous.”

He rolled over and put the pillow over his head, mumbling, “Have fun, love. Don’t get sunburned,” as she went out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Buffy grabbed a bagel and a banana from the breakfast bar in the lobby and ventured out into the unusually warm and sunny day. The incongruity of being in a town called Shadyside while heading out to enjoy the sun made her giggle.

I wonder if Spike would mind if we moved here, she mused, enjoying the warmth soaking into her scalp and the soft breeze on her face. For the first time in months, she felt a spasm of homesickness – not just for the people she’d left behind, but for the sunny weather and warmth that she’d taken for granted the first sixteen years of her life.

She walked along the concrete ‘boardwalk’ for some distance, lost in thoughts of Sunnydale, her mother and her high school friends -- so wrapped up in her thoughts that she never noticed the small group of boys trailing her at a distance that made them all but invisible. Even when she turned and began walking back towards the hotel and its inviting sandy beach, she didn’t notice the tiny figures in the distance as they ducked behind buildings and into walkways between hotels.

Waving at the girl selling drinks and snacks near the sand’s edge, Buffy walked out until she found a stretch of beach with no one nearby. She spread the towel she’d taken from the room and settled herself comfortably on the warm sand. Within minutes, she’d drifted off to sleep, unaware of the change in personnel going on behind her at the drink stand.

An hour of napping, a quick dip in the still-too-cold water, and Buffy was ready for something to eat and drink. She left her towel where it was, pulled her sweatshirt over her head and walked to the refreshment stand, showing her empty hands as she approached.

“I didn’t bring any money with me,” she explained with a smile, indicating her pocket-less sweatshirt. “Can I just bill it to my room?”

“Sure. No problem, miss,” the young man behind the stand said. “What would you like?”

Buffy gave him her order, turning to gaze at the rapidly clouding sky while he poured her soft drink and placed her sandwich on a napkin. The dropping temperatures made her shiver, and she attributed the chill on the back of her neck to the sudden lack of warm sun.

“There goes my sunny day,” she grumbled, smiling her thanks and taking a long swallow of the drink. She’d eaten two bites from the sandwich and had several more swallows of her drink before she began to notice that the world was spinning.

“Oh shit! Spike is going to be so pissed at me…” was all she had time for before the drink fell from her hand and she collapsed into the waiting arms of several young ‘helpers’. While the boy manning the stand assured onlookers that she’d just had too much sun and would be fine, his friends pretended to be carrying her into the hotel, only turning to dash down the side walkway when they were out of sight.

They threw the unconscious slayer into the back of a car and sped off, congratulating themselves on their own cleverness and anticipating the praise from their “Master”.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spike awoke the first time an hour or so after Buffy had slipped out the door; he forced himself out of bed to cautiously pull back the edge of the curtain, flinching as the sunlight streamed in. Shading his eyes against the brightness, he could just make out Buffy’s bright green bikini and blonde hair as she dozed on her towel. He smiled to himself as he let the curtain fall, hoping that she would remember she no longer had her southern California tan and couldn’t afford to spend all day in that kind of sunlight.

When he awoke again several hours later, he could tell that the bright sunshine had already gone away. As he drank his blood, he wandered over to the window and peered out again, only to find nothing but Buffy’s towel and sweatpants lying forlornly on the mostly empty beach. The lack of sunbathers and swimmers told him that the clouds had moved in long enough ago to have sent most of the tourists indoors. Where was Buffy?

Spike threw his clothes on and flew out the door barely bothering to pull it closed behind him. He arrived in the lobby just in time to see the EMTs rolling an unconscious girl out of the building. A glimpse of long dark hair assured him it wasn’t Buffy, and he rounded on the newly arrived night manager.

“What happened?” he demanded, his voice more snarl than question. “And where’s Bu—the Slayer?”

The man wrung his hands and shook his head. “I haven’t seen Ms Summers. I just arrived and found that the girl who runs our beachside refreshment cart has been injured in some way.”

“Was she bit?”

The man shook his head. “I didn’t see any blood. But she’s unconscious and they said they don’t know if she’ll be all right or not. One of her co-workers found her stuffed into a storage closet.”

“That the cart that was right out there?” Spike gestured towards the beach where he’d last seen Buffy. Without waiting for an answer, he headed for the dormitory where he expected to find Johnny, only to find the much-recovered boy on his way out.

“The cave area. Take me there, now,” Spike ordered, not knowing or caring if Johnny had recovered enough to point the way, let alone drive. “They have Buffy,” he explained as he followed the obedient young man out of the lobby and to the covered garage.

Spike insisted on taking the wheel, leaving Johnny clinging to his seat belt as the car burst out of the garage and onto the, fortunately, not yet busy street. Between the heavy clouds, tinted windshield, and Spike’s duster, he was able to drive through town with no more sun damage than an occasional puff of smoke from a hand too long exposed. Following the boy’s directions, Spike sped to the north, searching for some sign that the ground under their feet was not as solid as it seemed. A slight swelling in the terrain here and there indicated that they might no longer be on a sandy plain, and he quirked an inquiring eyebrow at Johnny, who nodded back.

“Anywhere around here would be over the caverns. But like I told you, I don’t know of any way in. I know there have to be some, because I’ve seen film of the interiors, but if there are any ways in or down, they must be inside a building.”

Spike pounded the steering wheel in frustration, staring around at the bland landscape with its mix of homes and businesses. There was no way to tell which of the innocent-seeming buildings might have a cave entrance in the basement and walking around hoping to catch a whiff of Buffy’s scent would take much longer than he was willing to wait.

“Damn, I hate to do this,” he muttered, spinning the wheel and heading back to the hotel.

Johnny had enough sense not to ask what “this” was, he just clutched his seat belt and hoped that Spike didn’t wreck his car. In no time, they were back in the garage and sprinting for the elevators. Johnny waved weakly as Spike, with an impatient grimace, indicated he was not waiting. The vampire threw open the door to the fire stairs and raced to their floor, arriving well before Johnny emerged from the elevator. Spike had left the room door ajar, allowing the puzzled bellboy to walk in.

He found the vampire rummaging through one of the duffle bags he’d carried to the room, growling in frustration until he found the book and bag he’d been searching for. He pulled the bag out and emptied the contents on the floor, searching the room with his eyes until he located the “Welcome to our city” materials on the desk.

“Grab that folder for me, will you?” he demanded, opening the book and turning to a dog-eared page. Flipping through the folder until he located the map of the city, he quickly spread it out on the floor. Gesturing to Johnny to help him hold down the edges, he pulled some herbs from his pile of strange objects, and threw them onto the map with a few hairs he’d found on Buffy’s pillow. He began murmuring a spell from the book in front of him, grateful that the small amount of magical ability he’d had in their own dimension seemed to be much greater in this one. A simple locator spell was well within the realm of his abilities and it worked quickly.

While Johnny stared with amazement, a small light appeared over the blonde hairs on the map; then it began to move until it hovered over an area that, according to the map, was on the edge of a residential neighborhood, but well over the area containing the underground caverns.

“What do you think that is there?” Spike demanded. Unlike most of the businesses, which were clearly identified on the tourist guide, the residential areas had only street names to indicate where they were. There was no indication what sort of buildings might be found where the light was indicating Buffy’s presence.

Johnny shrugged. “There used to be a community college around there. It moved to newer buildings over here…” He pointed to an area several blocks away from where the light still hovered. “It could be pointing to the old building. It’s probably empty.”

“And it probably has a big basement,” Spike concluded. “Easy enough to hide a cave entrance.”

He stood up and shook off the map, sighing as the light vanished.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“To get Buffy out of there,” Spike explained with what he felt was admirable patience, unaware that his face had changed and he was speaking around his fangs. “You’re up for that, aren’t you?”

“Um…I…uh…are you sure you want me? I can’t…I mean I sort of can, but…vampires?”

Spike shook his head. “Thought you said you could take care of yourself,” he muttered, digging around in Buffy’s bag. He pulled out a water pistol, holding it gingerly as he handed it to Johnny. “Here, put this in your pocket and be bloody careful where you point it if you have to use it.” He rummaged a bit more and handed over a stake and knife.

“Maybe…” Johnny said timidly…”maybe I could do some magic? That is what you did here, isn’t it? Magic?”

“You can’t just do magic, you git. You have to study it, learn the spells…and it doesn’t hurt to have some talent for it. Nobody in this world even knows it exists.”

“The vamps do,” John said stubbornly. “That guy last night said so. He said their boss uses magic to keep them alive.”

“Maybe. Maybe the wanker just wants to keep them thinking that. Point is, you don’t know any magic, and I don’t have time to teach it to you. Not that I would, anyway. Bloody well hate the stuff, myself.”

“But you just used it!”

“This is an emergency,” Spike said gruffly. “And, anyway, I’m Buffy’s watcher – it’s my job to know how to do locator spells and such. Had to learn it whether I wanted to or not. Now, let’s go! Move your bloomin’ arse.”

With a whimper, Johnny followed Spike out of the room, once again taking the elevator while the impatient vampire ran down the stairs. By the time the elevator deposited him in the garage, Spike was waiting just outside the door, engine running and fingers tapping impatiently. The boy was barely in the car when it leapt forward, tires squealing, and headed out into the dusk.