5.

Only half an hour passed before the door to the suite swung open again. Spike was pouring himself a cup of blood as General Cordova strode into the room as if she owned the place – well, she did, technically, he realized grudgingly, but still resented the invasion of his space.

She walked over to him, her pleasant expression hardening a bit at his failure to acknowledge her presence at all. Still she spoke in a very calm voice when she began, “You gave Sergeant Conners a bit of a scare.”

“Vampire, here. Bloke can’t handle that, might wanna find another bloody job!” he snarled, putting the cup in the microwave, not turning to face her.

A lot had changed during the past year. Gradually the general had developed a somewhat grudging respect for the experience and intelligence of the master vampire, and because of it was tolerant of his often volatile moods – to a point, and only in private. Oh, if there was anyone else there, the speak-when-spoken-to, come-to-attention, absolute obedience rules still applied, and the few times he had forgotten himself had resulted in swift, savage, and usually public punishment. After all, she told him, if he was allowed to disrespect her, the other vamps would follow suit. Usually, when they were alone, however, she allowed him to speak freely to her, provided he maintained a certain level of respect.

He knew that tonight he was in serious danger of crossing that line.

“Might I ask what he did to offend you?” General Cordova asked, her voice softening, with a hint of a threat that he would have noticed had he not been so bloody furious.

Spike was silent. He didn’t know how to explain to the general in a way she would find acceptable how the soldier’s mere look at his childe had set him off. He shook his head, still fuming, and took a sip from the cup in his hand.

“Let me rephrase that,” the general went on. “*What* did he do to offend you?” A direct question. That meant he had to come up with an answer.

“I’m just bloody sick to death of these soldier boys looking at her like she’s a soddin’ piece of meat is all!” he finally exploded, slamming his fist down on the counter. He turned to face her, eyes blazing with fury. Pointing an accusing finger to emphasize his point he declared, “If they tried to treat a bloody human like they treat her, they’d be in prison for the rest of their miserable lives!”

The general was silent for a moment. Then she replied in that same calm, even voice, “But she’s not a human.”

As if that settled it.

Frustrated rage surging through him, he struggled to maintain his temper, and just barely failed. Starting off low and intense, but his voice rising with each word, he said, “Well I’m not going to tolerate it anymore, I’m her sire, and it’s my duty to protect her, and the next git that so much as looks at her wrong’s gonna get his soddin’ throat ripped out!”

The general’s eyes were hard with anger, but she still did not retaliate against him. She merely pointed out calmly, “And you know where that would leave you. Don’t you?”

“I don’t care,” he muttered, looking away.

“You really should, Hostile,” General Cordova’s voice was suddenly as hard as her eyes, and he looked up at her quickly, thinking that maybe he should try to gain some control of himself.

But this little rant just felt too bloody good.

The general continued, “I realize that you are her sire, and that carries a relationship I really can’t comprehend.” Her tone was slightly derisive, feeding his anger. “As much as you would like for it to be, Diana’s fate is not in your hands. You will accomplish nothing by making a rash mistake like that.”

“Not in my hands,” he repeated scornfully. “What bloody well is? My childe’s fate is in the hands of that wanker, Finn, who’s just using her as a soddin’ stand-in to work out his personal issues about not being man enough to handle a real woman!”

General Cordova’s voice was sharp when she interrupted, “Diana’s fate is in *my* hands, Hostile, and it would be to your benefit to remember your place before you…”

“Your hands, eh?” he interrupted, turning toward her furiously. “Well I’ll say this, if you expect me to even *show up* for that bloody training session in the morning, you’d better bloody well…”

That was as far as he got before the chip fired, hard, dropping him to his knees, doubled over in agony, though he still maintained enough pride to force back the scream that rose to his lips. She kept the punishment going for a couple of minutes before making it stop.

He was taking deep unnecessary breaths, trying to recover from the pain, as she stepped closer, standing over him, glaring down impassively. “Get up,” she ordered.

He knew he had to obey, and awkwardly used the counter behind him to pull himself back to his feet. He stood as straight as he could through the remnants of the pain, trying to at least appear as if he was paying attention to her.

Drawing herself very close to him, her eyes flashing flames, she said slowly, pointedly, “As I was saying about your *place*, Hostile. Is it your place to tell *me* what I’d ‘better’ do?”

Swallowing hard, he said softly, “No, Ma’am.”

“Is it your place to tell me what *you* are going to do?” The cold smile on her lips told him that she was enjoying his humiliation.

He swallowed back the fury that would have had him lunge for her throat then and there – and would have cost him his life – and replied again through gritted teeth, “No, Ma’am.”

“And is it your place, Hostile, to insult an officer of this operation, my second-in-command, because you don’t like what he does with his property?” Her eyebrows raised in anticipation of his response.

His jaw worked with his anger at hearing Diana once again referred to as Finn’s “property”, and being forced to acknowledge it. But his year among these army types had if nothing else taught him a measure of self-control, and he knew he would accomplish nothing by refusing to give her the answer she required. His voice very low and full of hatred he replied, “No. Ma’am.”

The general’s smile widened at her triumph. “Good. Just so long as we’re clear. I’ll see you in the morning,” she said pointedly, and turned and walked out, leaving him to his cooling mug of blood and his enthusiastic planning of the various ways in which he could painfully kill her.


When the doorbell rang, Buffy nearly jumped out of her skin. “Oh, God. They’re here,” she said to Willow, her eyes wide with apprehension.

Taking her hands and looking at her seriously in an attempt to help calm her, Willow said earnestly, “It’s ok, Buffy. You can do this. You are Buffy Summers, vampire slayer and super-spy!”

“Shh!” Buffy said in an agonized whisper, looking toward the door as if they could hear her friend from the front porch.

“Buffy,” Willow gently said, giving her a look.

“I know, I know. Ok. Calming down now,” Buffy assured her with a nod. “Ok, I’d better answer that, hadn’t I? Now that I’m – calm, and all.”

Willow nodded apologetically.

“Go on down to the basement and be sure Darian stays there,” Buffy told her, and Willow did as she asked.

Buffy had had a difficult time deciding what to do with the chipped vampire whom she had promised would not be turned back over to the Initiative. She couldn’t just let him go, because if the Initiative *did* catch him again and found out about her connection to him, it could ruin her plan. Also, though she hated to admit it, she felt a certain compassion for the helpless creature, and knew that on his own in Sunnydale, with that chip in his head, he wouldn’t last a day.

Fortunately, Willow had told her about a spell she had recently perfected that was sort of like the opposite of a de-invite spell. It was a sort of a vampire containment spell that kept Darian *in* the house. When Willow had informed her months before of the idea, Buffy had secretly wondered what use that sort of thing could ever be; who would want to keep a vampire *in* their home? Now, however, she was grateful to not have to watch him every moment.

Taking a deep breath to prepare herself, Buffy opened the door. There was Riley, flanked by two uniformed soldiers.

He looked at her for a long moment before saying softly, “Hey, Buffy.”

She looked back, stunned by the emotion she saw in his eyes – stunned and a little disconcerted. Shouldn’t *she* feel something, too? But oddly enough, she found that she didn’t, not really. God, had he meant that little to her? “Hey, Riley,” she finally thought to reply, stepping aside to wordlessly invite him in.

“Are you ready?” he asked, looking a little uncomfortable, and suddenly she felt very uncomfortable as well. “Cause I mean, your appointment with the general is at…”

“I’m ready. Of course,” Buffy assured him, stepping outside and closing the door behind her. She was actually relieved that he had refused her offer to come in; it spared her extra awkward small talk. “Let’s go,” she said, stepping toward the dark blue SUV parked in her driveway.

She noticed the two soldiers accompanying Riley talking quietly together. They seemed to be arguing about something. Then the one who apparently had lost the argument stepped toward her, clearing his throat nervously.

She raised her eyebrows in a question.

“Uh, Ma’am, obviously our operation is strictly classified, and its location has to be a complete secret, so…usually anytime someone visits from outside, they…they wear a blindfold on the way there and back s-so that the location stays a secret,” the young soldier managed to stammer out.

Buffy’s lips twitched upward in a smirk as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m *not* putting on a blindfold,” she declared.

“It’s policy, Ma’am,” the soldier argued, sounding more uncomfortable.

“You’re welcome to *try* to put it on me,” Buffy flashed him a huge, deceptively bright smile, and beside her Riley suppressed a laugh, before stepping in to rescue the hapless soldier.

“I think we can bypass that particular policy in this case, soldier,” he said with a tone of quiet authority that surprised Buffy. He sounded so much more sure of himself than he had last time they’d seen each other. Of course, the last time they had seen each other, everything he’d built his life on had just fallen apart and he’d been struggling to pick up the broken pieces…but still, he seemed to have developed a firm self-assurance that Buffy found a little unsettling, for some reason.

“Yes, Sir,” the soldier replied with obvious relief, and got into the SUV in the back with the other young man. Buffy sat in the passenger seat next to Riley. The silence during the ride was deafening. *Awkward,* Buffy thought for the thousandth time since her call to Riley the day before. *Well, here goes nothing.*


Spike had just drifted off into an uneasy sleep when the alarms in the hall outside his suite drew him back to wakefulness. He jumped up and went to look out the windows into the hallway. Several armed soldiers were hurrying through the halls, looking very serious and upset.

Suddenly his door burst open, and the general herself stood there before him, an extremely displeased expression on her face.

Cautiously, unsure of what the situation was, Spike took a step backward.

The general allowed herself a small smile at that. “Please, Hostile,” she sneered, her fingers in her pocket obviously running over the device she kept there. “Like that would do you any good…*if* that was why I was here.”

For the hundredth time that day, Spike fought back his anger at her condescending tone, while still realizing that she was right. Distance was no defense against the circuitry in his head. “What’s happened?” he asked her quietly, when he realized that it was nothing he had done.

Her smile was sarcastic as she replied, “It seems your beloved childe…our little miss Diana…took a cue from her brother and has decided to attempt escape.”