chapter 22: bittersweet – part III

Buffy stood in the archway between the kitchenette and the living room, her fingers wrapped tightly around a large wooden spoon.

The utensil had been snatched from the kitchen counter instinctively. The blond vampire facing the bay window in her living room had told her once that a Slayer had to keep her weapon handy. Then he'd shifted into his demon face and whispered menacingly into her ear that a vampire always had his.

She hadn't forgotten the lesson.

“Are you okay?” Buffy took a cautious step forward, clutching the spoon at her side.

While waiting for Spike to answer, she examined the room quickly. The way Dawn had sounded she'd expected the living room to look like a tornado had struck. But there was nothing alarming or unusual about the small space. Except for the vampire standing at the window in the sunlight, everything looked normal.

She looked at him.

His naked back heaved up and down rapidly and she wondered if he was having trouble breathing. Whatever had changed him into an oxygen-needy, capable of surviving in the sunlight vampire, might be taking the gift away. Perhaps that was why he was so agitated. The reason he had yelled at Dawn and ordered her to get her big sister to come to him right away and help him.

Buffy moved closer to Spike. He still hadn't answered her.

“Dawn said you wanted to see me?” She hoped her voice sounded calm. Certainly, he'd heard every word Dawn had said in the hallway about his bad moodiness. Buffy didn't want him to suspect that she was worried about him. Neither did she want him to know that she was prepared to do what she was born to do if the conversation didn't go well.

She stepped further into the room and stopped when she found a good spot, kitty-cornered from him. Now, she stood near the sofa, almost in the middle of the room. She'd have enough space to counter an attack if he suddenly spun and charged. Precise strategic angle was what she needed and that was what she had, a spot from which she could see his face and peer over his shoulder while staying out of his reach.

Jutting her chin forward, she looked past him down into the street. She wanted to see what Spike was watching so intently. She wasn't surprised when she saw there was nothing to see. The street was empty. She'd expected that. They'd just traveled through a portal to get back to New York City in December and it was a hundred degrees, as hot as August in Sunnydale. This wasn't the city they'd left.

“The wiser mind mourns less for what age takes away, than what it leaves behind.”

Buffy jumped and let out a small squeal. Spike's voice had startled her. “The what leaves the… huh …behind?”

“William Wordsworth. Bit of a poem called The Fountain, pet,” explained Spike as he rested his forehead on the glass. “He was talking about loss.”

“You…lose…I mean…you've lost something?” She clutched the wooden spoon in her hand. “Is that what you're doing staring out the window… looking for something you've…lost?”

“No, Buffy. I've found what I'm looking for…”

He smashed his palms through the window up to his elbows, breaking the glass and slicing his skin. The small cuts dripping blood formed a jagged red pattern on his arms. Buffy stepped back and pulled her hand up, fisting the wooden spoon and pointing it at Spike's back, ready to strike.

As she stood frozen, waiting breathlessly for whatever might happen next, Spike stepped onto the ledge of the window in one smooth motion.

“I've got to...got to go...to Willow." Spike's voice shook as he spoke. Then he glanced over his shoulder and gave her a look she couldn't describe, his eyes were moist and his lips trembled.

Then he turned and jumped out the window of the fifth floor apartment.

Buffy rushed forward and leaned over the windowsill in time to see a streak of bleached hair, pale white skin and black jeans zigzagging from the sidewalk to the street and back until the body grew smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared around a corner.

The spoon dropped from her hand as she remembered he'd mentioned Willow. There was something else, too. He'd been breathing fast, like he couldn't find any oxygen, just before he jumped. He'd also looked—frightened. Very un-Spike like.

She thought about whether or not to go after him for a second and then shouted. "“Dawn!”

Buffy ran to her bedroom and pulled open the door. “Spike has run off to find Willow and I've got to follow him.” She grabbed a shirt from the bed, tied it around her hips and sprinted to her closet. Dropping to her knees, she rummaged through the clothes and bags on the floor. She found an axe and two stakes. She tested the weight of the axe in one hand and shoved the stakes into the waistband of her shorts.

“We'll go with you,” said Carlo.

“No.” she snapped. “Stay here. And I mean here. No portals, no coming after me. No leaving this apartment. No place but here. Understood?” She searched the faces of the two teenagers staring at her, making certain—or as certain as possible— that they had gotten the message.

“Okay,” said Dawn.

Buffy spun on her heels and sped out of the apartment. But as soon as her feet hit the pavement on the sidewalk in front of her building, she froze. Her emotions were bouncing around in her chest and she needed a moment to gather her wits. Silly to be afraid for Spike. Wasn't something she was used to or had expected. Just like she hadn't expected him to leave. That hadn't crossed her mind, even with his new powers and the whole daylight vampire thing. It hadn't occurred to her that he'd jump out a window and run away. Sure, she'd been ready to stake him. But he was getting used to being a super-strong vampire that could walk in the daylight and jump through portals. Yeah, he'd given in to his bloodlust in the alley and had bitten Dawn. He'd been out of control for a few seconds. But he hadn't drained her and he hadn't tried to bite any of them since. When the final confrontation came with the portal jumper, he'd be fighting at her side. No where else and she had to believe that because she needed him.

Then the memory of kissing Spike came into her head and her hand flew to her lips. But she couldn't think about him that way right now.

Buffy whirled in the direction she'd last seen Spike. She had to trust her instincts and head where she thought he'd go.

She ran as fast as she could toward the alley behind Mom's Restaurant.


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It wasn't a tall building. Only five stories high, a typical New York City walk-up. Well, that is if climbing steps was the way you had to travel. The surrounding buildings were postcard duplicates of the one in front of them. Broken stoop with five concrete steps, black iron railing, and about six feet from the edge of the curb to the keyhole to unlock the front door. Typical New York City in every way, except for one thing.

The silence was unearthly. The block was as still as a tomb. Here she was on a big street in a big city and no big crowds or noises. And, it was god-awful hot, too, especially considering it was the middle of December.

Anya frowned, agitated with this latest twist. They weren't in New York City. They had followed Spike to some new world, a place he had decided they needed to be.

Luke suddenly leapt to the top of the stairs of the apartment building. In one swift movement, he plunged his fist through the thick wood in front of him and ripped the door from its hinges.

“Look out,” he shouted as he threw the broken door over his shoulder. Anya obliged him quickly and stepped to the side as the door splintered into pieces on the ground next to her.

“Why are we here?” she asked.

She stepped daintily around the debris and climbed the stairs to Luke's side. She stood in the entranceway he'd created and waited a beat, giving him a chance to answer before she asked him again.

“Spike's not here.” Her impatience forced the words from her mouth. “He would not stay here. There is no place to fight unless we lure him into the street or sneak up on him in this apartment building. But that is not likely since we have announced our presence rather loudly.” She eyed the mangled door in the street and then glared meaningfully at the gapping hole where the door had resided only moments before.

Anya glowered at Luke. “Why are we here?”

“Simple,” he grinned without a touch of humor in his maddeningly blue eyes. “We follow them until they can't jump anymore.”

He extended his hand toward Anya. “And you'll come with me because you have no choice.”

Luke had answered a question she hadn't dared ask. But she wasn't going to give him the pleasure of watching her squirm. “If we're just going to jump, why tear down the door, and make so much noise?”

“Entrances,” he said, the grin still painted on his pale face. “Jumping is so quiet and boring. I wanted to announce my coming with a bang.”

She swallowed nervously and placed her hand in his. Instantly, she felt the now familiar sensation, the spinning, and the gliding as they moved through dimensions.

All of this travel to go up five flights of stairs, thought Anya. Damn, self-indulgent portal jumper.


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The streets were bathed in bright white sunlight. Buffy looked up at the skyscrapers, at the tall brick and steel buildings surrounding her, and at the shining cement stretched out in front of her. Amazing, she thought. In this world the sun didn't cast any shadows. Nothing but endless pools of light covered this New York City. Sure, it still had all the subway entrances popping up at the end of each block. Gigantic buildings reached into the sky and grotesquely large smiling faces stared down at her from meteor-sized billboards. It was the usual cluttered New York landscape. But racing through the deathly silent streets, straining to hear the distant footsteps of the vampire she was chasing had a powerful effect on her feelings about city life.

She longed to be back in Sunnydale.

As she reached the mouth of the entrance to the alley behind Mom's Restaurant, she collapsed against the building wall, exhausted and struggling for air. She could barely stay on her feet. Slayer strength didn't mean she could run a marathon at full speed in less than five minutes.

Her breaths, coming in short bursts, gushed through her empty lungs and burned her throat on their tortuous path out of her body. Her desperation for oxygen was intense, but couldn't compare with her lungs' overwhelming need to constrict. Buffy had run herself nearly to death between the fear she didn't want to admit to and the relentless sun. But she had been compelled to come after Spike.

She pushed herself away from the wall and, finally able to take a pain free breath, inhaled deeply. Untying the shirt she'd wrapped around her waist, she wiped the sweat from her face and throat and then sopped up the water running down her arms and chest.

God, she hoped Spike was in the alley.

“Why'd you come after me, Buffy?”

“God, Spike!” She squealed. “Scare me to death or what?”

He had stepped from behind a dumpster she hadn't even noticed when she'd first entered the alley. He was shirtless and his skin was covered with sweat. His hair was drenched and had spiraled into a mass of soaked curls. She couldn't remember seeing his hair without the gel that plastered it to his head. He looked younger and his face had a gentleness she hadn't suspected.

“Sorry, pet,” he said. “You shouldn't have come here.”

"Well, you said you needed to find Willow, so I thought I'd give you a hand." She forced her voice to sound light, not tense.

"No,” Spike said. “I said I had to go to Willow …I know where she is."

"Oh, so she's coming here?"

“No.” His voice was brusque as he walked into the middle of the alley. “She's already here.”

Suddenly, Buffy was having a hard time staying on her feet. A gust of wind whipped through the alley, knocking her to the ground. She choked as the current rushed into her lungs, drowning them in debris and dust. She grabbed hold of the a dumpster's leg to keep from blowing away. Then, as quickly as the wind had come it was gone.

She blinked to clear the grit from her eyes and then squinted as she tried to make out the three figures floating into the alley.

She thought she saw Willow standing between Spike and the black vampire, Jacob. The last time Buffy had seen her, she'd been trapped in a cylinder of wind in this very same alley.

Buffy rubbed the heel of her hands across her eyes.

It was Willow.

She started to run to her and tell her how glad she was to see her. How thrilled she was that she was okay. But Buffy hesitated. The threesome looked odd. They were standing too close to each other as if they were best friends—really close best friends. They had a familiar way with their bodies as if they were intertwined. Their shoulders touched and their hips leaned into each other's personal space. They looked like they'd been together—you know, sexually, which would be icky, thought Buffy. But when Willow moved toward her, the way Spike and Jacob hung back, watching Willow's ass with chins up and shoulders squared, and their eyes glowing with blatant, shameless—lust, well, it made Buffy shudder.

“Oh Buffy,” Willow's outstretched arms surrounded her quickly and she was suddenly gathered up into a smothering embrace.

Buffy's arms remained pinned to her side as she allowed the sweaty bear hug.

“There's so much I've got to tell you. But you know, fortunately, we've got to fight Shemhazi first. But I promise. We'll talk. Later. Okay?”

Buffy shimmied out of Willow’s arms.

“What's going on Will? And who the hell is Shemhazi?” demanded Buffy. Willow's behavior was out-of-sync with standing in the middle of an alley in another dimension's version of New York City with two vampires acting like she was the queen of Sheba. Okay, Buffy had stolen the 'Sheba' expression from Giles as far as the queen business, but this was too strange.

"Calm down, Buffy. You sound like Anya," teased Willow. "Questions, questions, questions. None of them matter, really, except the one about Shemhazi. You wanna know who he is? Well, he'll be here soon, and you can ask him."

Then Willow laughed as the ground shook and the pavement quaked, and the two vampires behind her leaped into the air and out of sight.

Guess Shemhazi had arrived, thought Buffy.

to be continued...