Thanks: To my beta, Melissa. I’d be lost without her!

CHAPTER 20

Déjà vu… The gas lamp light, soft and orange, bathed the dark spread bed. A fire was crackling nearby. Buffy snuggled down enjoying the warmth. She thought she could have died from cold in that Spartan room… She jumped on the mattress. This room… Where was she? Panic crept on her heart as she clutched the velvet bed spread to her chin.

“What’s wrong love?”

Buffy shifted hastily. His shape was outlined with a soft yellow aura. She hadn’t felt his presence. As if he had been a ghost or some hallucination… Maybe it was. Maybe she had been trapped in a nightmare and now she was awoke in her bed and he was… Moving forward, she hugged him and hid her face on the crook of his neck. He dithered for a moment before encircling her with his strong arms. “You’re here.” The soft mumbling caressed his neck like a feather. All his body shivered in response.

“’Course I’m here. Wouldn’t leave you…” But that was half true. He would have. If Dru hadn’t… He shoved the image aside.

“Turn the light up.” As he did it, the look in her eyes flickered from a happy one to a bewildered green. He frowned at the sight. There was that grief again. As if she had expected something else. Somebody else. She stared at the lamp as though she hadn’t seen one in her entire life. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she looked around. “Where are we?”

She could feel his vacillation. Fleeting. A pause like those Spike made when he was trying to convince her about something he was sure she wasn’t going to like.

“Some friends’ house…” His eyes ran to the door. Her slightly frowned forehead told him she didn’t quite believe him. Never knew why it bothered him that much. He didn’t need her approval or her understanding. He found himself explaining a little bit, though. A bunch of lies that seared in his gullet. “ Okay, so not that friends but they’re out and it’s better than that slum. I mean, there’s food and fireplaces… You’re starting to catch a cold… Want some tea?” Whatever to escape from those green depths that were clawed to his guts. As though she was desperate to find in him something she had lost. Pain and… love? glittered in them.

Buffy hugged herself tighter. Her hand suddenly leapt to her neck to check for the pendant. Still there. A washing relieved tide cleansed her blood. Her dress… Perhaps she shouldn’t be worried about it. Had only brought tears and suffering. As if somebody had put a jinx on it. But the little paper attached to her underwear… Her underwear… A sudden flush coloured her cheeks. Naked Buffy meant William’s hands undressing her. Not Spike. Spike had done that so many times. Well, not quite. She could count with the fingers of only one hand the times they had been naked. Too much to worry about. Friends, schedules, mother, Watcher…

The china clattering happily on a silver tray brought her back from painful memories. William put it on the bedside table. “Here you are...” He tilted his head to a side. Buffy’s heart skipped ten beats. “It’s funny but… I don’t know your name. I’ve never known… Unless your memory is…”

“I’ve remembered a name…” Jump into the pool and see if there’s any water, little Buffy. Maybe he knew something… “Badminton…” His eyebrows flied, amused. “Sorry, Carrington Giles…”

“Is that a relative or…?”

“No! I mean, I don’t know…” She had completely forgotten about that lack of memory issue. She really felt as if little midgets were playing badminton inside her stomach. Having him so near, under the soft light, his lips as kissable as ever…

“And what about your name? Do you remember that?” It didn’t matter how much he commanded to his eyes to stay on the same spot. And that meant her face. They kept on sliding along her mouth to the exposed neck and the round, golden shoulders…

“Anne…” It was the first thing that jumped to her mouth. Not a lie but a plain truth.

“It’s okay, love. Anne is enough for me.” He had assumed her pause had to do with a lack of a surname? “So, what about eating something, Anne? Bet only a cup of tea won’t ease those little maggots that are shouting inside you.”

Buffy blushed a little. Her stomach had always had the commanding voice. She smiled back. “It’d be great, Sp… William.”



Angelus stood by the heavy deep red curtain, peeping to the sunset. The last threads of the dying sun sparkled on the roofs. It had a hypnotizing gleam, as shining drops of blood dripping from the roof tiles.

“He hasn’t come back…” Drusilla came into the room holding a porcelain figure. “Are you going for him? You have been mean…” She raised her head at the intense glare of Angelus. “He’s a poet. You can’t mistreat a poet…”

“I mistreated him…” He snorted and clutched a crystal bottle taking a big gulp. “You were there, me darling. Don’t worry. He’ll come back. He needs us…”

“He needs me. I know how to treat him. Stars are so strange, though. They don’t answer my questions…” She pouted and her chin trembled.

“Maybe ‘cause it’s still daylight…” He scoffed.

“Bring him back to me!” Her satin white shoe stomped the floor.

“Dru…” Such an impatient ring in his voice. He just wanted his own sire back. Was fed up of being surrounded by jumpy, moody brats who didn’t understand the greatness of this life they had been given. Darla understood… Had taught him and he had learnt. Why in hell they didn’t want to learn? They were both still too human. That ‘poet’… He didn’t give a thing about him. He didn’t give a thing whether he came back or not. In fact, he’d be extremely happy if he didn’t show his face again.

“You don’t love me anymore!” The porcelain figure crashed on the wall behind his back. “You’re bad! Bad, bad, bad!”



Buffy put on her underwear after reciting the spell for more than twenty minutes. The tiny paper was thrown to the fireplace where it burnt like a moth. The house was so silent. It kept her in a distressful pacing that went from the bed to the door. Back and forth, back and forth till she couldn’t stand it anymore and dared into the carpeted corridor. Three doors later she finally reached the one that, she was sure, was his. There still was a reddish gleam in the fireplace. A huge four-posted bed faced it like an inciting oasis. The purple velvet curtains were tied to each of them by a golden tassel.

Buffy put the candlestick on a desk near the door. The yellow flame lighted the magazine that lay there. Maybe she’d borrow it for a while. Never expected to find a magazine and it would be extraordinarily funny and enlightening, Giles would have said, to know what people in that century read about. The magazine name wasn’t a hook, really. “Punch”, as if they wanted to give you a blow just from the beginning. Perhaps it was a kids’ magazine… Skimming through it, her slight smile froze in her lips as if Mr. Punch had appeared from nowhere and hit her in her face with his stick. There was a drawing there… A satiric drawing of a social meeting. Buffy got near the candlelight. Two of the drawn figures had a red dot on the heads as made with a tool. Something chilling ran along her spine without any reason. They were just spots… She left the magazine on the desk grabbing the candlestick with a shaking hand. The book that was beside the magazine fell to the floor. Baudelaire. Les fleurs du mal. She had never been very good at French but… didn’t it mean something like… evil? Bad, at least by the poems titles. The destruction. The Vampire. Nice reading! Not the style William had kept by his bedside table. She remembered pretty well finding a book of poems by Rossetti. She had bought it in one of those long, painful nights she had stayed in LA. Had learnt some of them by heart.

Uneasy, she went back to her room. She had never understood, at full length, how much William had changed. What it had taken to give birth to such a different creature as Spike. Had she ever looked at his eyes without looking for William? Had she ever accepted the complex and intriguing being he had turned out to be? What had she been doing? Hunting a ghost? She didn’t want to think about it in that very moment. Needed something to keep her mind away from thinking. Fumble inside the closet treasures. Take out each dress from it. Rest them on your chest, one by one, while looking in the mirror. Don’t think. Don’t. Pace, that’s it. Back and forth. Back and forth… From the bed to the drawn curtains. From the door to the opened curtains that faced the gas-lit streets. Those cold streets were the night was darker. Real. Gas lamps weren’t as modern ones. Modern ones were harsh and icy. They lit every single corner with white bluish glow, slackening the natural brightness of the stars. Gas lamps allowed the sky to be the night master. Gas lamps didn’t light the sordid corridors of those rabbit warrens she had been in, where any kind of threat remained hidden like cockroaches under the furniture. Darkness glued to the windows like a merciful cloak for good eyes. Just to avoid them the evil show; the evil carnival of the streets where night took advantage of those less luckier; of those not loved, not cared.

He was out there. Prowling. Feeding maybe. And yet, he wasn’t the evilest thing on the loose. Worse things happened shielded by filthy brick walls. Children being abused in ways she didn’t want to consider; opium slums where people went to lay oblivious to reality. Not the poor, though. They had to survive. Rich people who didn’t give a damn about their luck. People who didn’t give a damn about the rabble they’d helped to create.

He had been shaped by that night. By the evil night and the good, starry night. Had given him the wisdom, the strength, the knowledge and the infinite grace of a nocturnal feline. He belonged to it ‘cause it had shaped him. He had died and reborn all the time. One night after the other.

She belonged to the night as well. She had always wanted to believe that she had been shaped only by the good night. By the beautiful symphony of the moon and the stars shining brightly above her head. That wasn’t true. The nasty and horrible creatures that she fought had shaped her too. Had turned her into a different girl. A resourceful one. A powerful one. There was something she had, though. The sun and the warmth of daylight. When she came back to life after dying every night. After rows of tombstones and cold grass. After bloodshed and sick slime and opened guts.

But most of all, she belonged to him. She was his sun as he was her night. The good one. He brought those stars and the moon with him and left all the horrible things out. They didn’t dare to follow him. She was safe in his arms. The most dangerous place on earth. Here and there her soul screamed for him. Her eyes dug into the shadows crying for his known shape. And if she failed, there wasn’t going to be any good nights anymore. Only a void with no laughs. He made her laugh. In spite of everything. In spite of the tears and grief and sore flesh. In spite of nightmares. He was her shelter. And now that shelter had been torn to pieces by two… “Slayers don’t kill humans…” “Don’t be so sure…” Faith would pay. She was going to rip each and every finger of her hands starting with her nails. Buffy shook her head and went back to the bed. Something awful was creeping inside her blood. Something scary. Something that enjoyed planning torturing sessions for a particular human.



William shut his bedroom door, leaning against it. A thought had been teasing him along the cold streets. She’s alone. She’s alone in that huge, empty house and the damned place is so near. Why didn’t you stay where nobody could find you? But there he was, trying to please a human, trying to grab a human life in his slippery hands when he wasn’t human anymore. Why? Why couldn’t he steel his heart? Why did he always have to be a sentimental bloke when he had no heart left? Why did he care?

He was about to pull the spikes out from his pocket when the noise reached his ears. His hands stopped inside it and his fingers squeezed a roll of paper that had been left there by the previous owner of the expensive coat. There it was again. Slight and imperceptible as if a band of goblins had entered into the lounge. He torn the drawing off the magazine, shoved it in his pocket and ran towards her room. Didn’t stop to knock but rushed inside catching her half-sitting on the edge of the bed. Still had time to close the door behind him. So stupid!

“Come on.” His hand looked for hers. “We must go.”

There was such urgency in his voice… “Go where? Why?”

“Shhhh… Come on…” He murmured while his eyes flew to the wooden surface.

Buffy jumped from the soft mattress. Angelus had found them. There was no doubt in her running heart.

“Forget the clothes.” William urged when she tried to pick up a dress. “We’ve no time…”

His fingers had barely clutched the doorknob when the door was kicked wildly. Angelus looming figure didn’t stop on the threshold but grabbed William by the lapels of his coat and sent him flying to the opposite wall.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat has found…”

The speed at which he moved turned him into a wavering line. She couldn’t even hold the iron poker she had left next to the bedside table. Angelus twisted her arm to her back and stepped back with a human shield between him and his grandson. Long fingers pressed Buffy’s throat.

“A human?” He scoffed. “Now you like humans, Willie?” His other hand looked for the front of her camisole ripping it easily. One breast pointed at William. “Yes, I can understand that. They are warm…” His big hand cupped the breast; his thumb circled the nipple and then slipped on her stomach towards her bloomers. Buffy wriggled against him but the hand in his throat became a steel rope when the invading fingers sneaked inside her underwear and glided to her inner folds.

William leapt forward. The damned bastard dared to touch her! That beautiful, innocent girl his own mother had saved! Those round, shocked eyes had been the last thing he’d seen when he was dying. He had even tasted the salty flavour of her tears. The memory of it came back like a hitting tide. His blue gaze desperately tried to avoid the sight of those fingers moving under the transparent linen. His ears shut down her sickened gasp when Angelus sank one of them inside her core.

“Now come here.” The gold in Angelus’s eyes was like another gas lamp. But with a sinister glow. Having no reply to his command he squeezed Buffy’s throat tighter raising her from the floor. William finally complied. “You see, you do what I say. It isn’t that hard… Now, bite her.” His own fangs went near the crazy pulse of her veins but stopped sharply. She had been bitten. By… William? That was his scent and yet it wasn’t. How on earth he might smell like a master vampire when he was nothing but a new worm? And what was that other scent? Power. Of her own. As if she were more than a weak human.

Angelus blinked and whiffed deeply. It was like holding a riddle. Everything was there and yet it wasn’t. One way of finding it out. His head dashed forward completely oblivious to William’s running shape. The sharp pain in his forearm relaxed the strong grip on Buffy’s neck. His growl filled all the corridors of her ears as she fell to the floor and crawled towards the bed, gasping for air.

William ducked to avoid Angelus’s raging blow and kicked his knee. The big vampire fell on the carpet with a curse, still trying to get the spike out from his arm. William booted his face but didn’t jump backwards soon enough. His ankle was twisted in such a way that he heard the bones cracking. With great effort he got free and rolled back to a standing position. Angelus lunged to his midriff with an echoing howl. William jumped and flipped over in the air, landing on the opposite side of the bed. Rage fuelled inside his grandsire chest. It sounded so deeply that it seemed as if the walls were shaking with fury. His large figure leapt onto the bed with a triumphal snarl. Stupid boy! He was going to smash his sorry brain on that green paper wall. How he dared to face him and only for this human? How he dared to fight him after what he had said nights ago? Why in hell did he listen to Dru’s pleas in the first place? He was going to drag that childe of hers straight to her feet. Let her know what kind of treacherous slug she had created.

He had taken only one step on the mattress when something hit his back. The soft material waved under his weight and didn’t allow him a quick turn. Half swirling he caught the glimpse of golden naked skin. Fool girl! She’d have to wait. Facing William again, he’d resumed his path when a crystal globe shattered on his back. The fuel quickly spread on the velvet blankets as flames danced around his legs licking the sleeves of his shirt.

Buffy threw the iron poker to William and he stroke Angelus’s forehead with it. He could have stayed all night hitting that very spot. Had to go, though. Didn’t fancy to crisp in a luxurious bonfire. He hastily rounded the bed grabbing Buffy’s wrists, pulling her to the door.

“My dress!” She cried trying to get back to the room.

“Bloody hell, woman!” William picked up a dress at random. “What now?” Shoes. For Christ’s sake! Women could be so annoying sometimes! In a middle of an emergency they still had time for trivial things!

tbc...