Chapter 16 – Things I Don’t Want To Know



The Cozy Cup Café was the only all night place open on Dantesco Street. Its red leatherette booths had been preserved with strips of grey duct tape and the red and grey linoleum tiles hadn’t been mopped in months.

Buffy and Spike both sat with their backs to the door after having an argument on who was going to sit on the inside seat of the booth. Spike won the argument by guilt tripping Buffy over putting the baby in danger. Once she relented, he blocked her in and sprawled on the seat with his legs sticking out.

Aspen sat across on the other side of the booth in the dingy café and hugged her tea cup in her hands to transfer the warmth to her fingers.

“I don’t know how to begin,” she said.

“Is your boyfriend a vampire?” Buffy asked. In the Cup’s harsh fluorescent lights, Buffy recognized Aspen’s picture from a news articles in The Sunnydale Sunset. She’d been reported missing three months ago.

Aspen nodded. “We were high school sweethearts. We wanted to stay together, so we both went to college here in Sunnydale. I got an athletic scholarship for track and Thomas was in business school. We got an apartment together off-campus. We couldn’t afford much, so we were living in this neighborhood. It’s kind of rough, you know?”

Dantesco Street was a seething hive of vampire nests and demon hangouts. Buffy was cautious herself about coming to this neighborhood at night.

“What happened to Thomas?”

Aspen told them how Thomas disappeared and how she’d been kidnapped by some soldiers and brought to him. “When I woke up, I was in this room – it was like a hotel room - and Thomas was there.”

“Thomas was crazy. He … he attacked me. Then, he screamed and grabbed his head. A doctor, Dr. Ekl, he said his name was, told me Thomas had been turned into a vampire. Thomas paced around the room, all the time, and his eyes and his whole face kept changing back and forth, from his regular face to his vampire face. He could smell my blood and it made him want to bite me, but Dr. Ekl said he couldn’t because he had this computer chip in his head.”

Tears formed in Aspen’s eyes. She brushed them away roughly. She wasn’t going to cry. Not now. Not when she’d found someone to believe her. Not when she’d found someone to help.

“What else?”

“This is embarrassing. Once Thomas adjusted a little, to drinking blood and everything, we had sex, a lot. A lot more than we did before, when Thomas was human.”

Spike smirked. “Something positive about being a vampire after all, right pet?”

“Been there, done that, flunked the home pregnancy test,” Buffy said.

“One night the door unlocked, like electronically, and we heard it. We opened the door and there were other couples in the hall. We got to go outside. There was a concrete yard inside the walls. We couldn’t see where we were, but we could talk. All the other couples were like us. The man was a vampire and the woman was a regular person – human.”

“All the women were athletes, weren’t they?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“And, I used to think you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the paper.”

Spike was being quiet, too quiet. Buffy squeezed his hand.

“How did you get back to Sunnydale?”

“The guards let the women out into the recreation yard. It was too bright out for the vampires to come. The guards gave the women punch to drink. I didn’t drink any because it smelled funny. The other women drank the punch and passed out. I was scared, so I pretended to pass out, too. The soldiers carried us to boats, then took us to shore. We were on an island near Isla Vista. I sneaked a look and saw the Ferris wheel. The soldiers put us in trucks and took us back to Sunnydale. They left me inside my apartment.”

“Have you seen any of the other women that were on the island since you got back?”

“I saw one of the other girls. Kaitlin didn’t remember me though we’d talked every day for three months. I think it was the punch. It must have been drugged with something to wipe out memories.”

Buffy looked at Aspen’s shapeless dress. She’d gotten pretty good at telling in the past few weeks. “Are you pregnant, Aspen?” Buffy asked.

“Yes. Kaitlin’s pregnant, too.”

Spike got out his cigarettes and looked at the two pregnant girls. He sighed and stuck his fags back in his pocket. “The Initiative has them on Fuego. It’s an island about three miles off the coast from Isla Vista.”

“How did you know about …? No, don’t tell me. I don’t what to hear how you learned all about what the Initiative was up to from your skeevy poker buddies and didn’t tell me.”

“Hey! My friends are not skeevy, well, yeah they are, but I’ve been busy following you around to keep you out of trouble.”

“Oh, is that what you call it? Keeping me out of trouble? I’ll have you know, Mr. Know It All Vampire, that I didn’t need your help …”

Aspen cleared her throat. She hoped these two weren’t going to bicker all night.

Buffy turned pink. Spike could be so embarrassing. “Sorry. Who’s turning all these vampires? Vampires don’t make other vampires very often, do they?”

“No,” Spike said. “Don’t want to over hunt the herd. Too many vamps create too much hunting competition. Humans get nervous and start sharpening stakes. Most masters limit how many vampires can get turned. No stopping independents from doing what they want, of course.”

“Ewwww,” Buffy said. Spike had a talent for bringing up things about vampires that she didn’t want to think about. Like vampire hos and referring to people as herds and independent vampires running around eating and turning anyone they wanted.

“Ewwww,” Aspen said. The more she learned about vampires, the less she liked it. Was Thomas going to end up like this weirdo vampire with peroxide hair?

“So who made Thomas and the others into vampires?” Buffy asked, “The Initiative hasn’t figured out some way to techno-turn vamps, have they?”

“I know about the vampire who turned them,” Aspen said. “Thomas and the other vampires talked about him. He was a big guy, with brown hair that stuck up stiff and funky, and he had this big tattoo of an angel on his back. He was in a special glass cell on the island. He turned them all.”

Buffy looked into her empty tea cup. All she could see of her fortune tonight were muddy dregs.

***

Buffy and Spike watched from the street as Aspen ran inside her apartment building, and waved out her window to let them know she was safe.

Buffy sighed. “I’m going to have to do something, aren’t I? Something like kill Angel again, rescue a bunch of chipped vampires and fight Riley and all his friends. And, I’m going to have to do it before I get too fat.”

“Don’t much like the idea of you taking on Angelus and a pack of soldiers by yourself. You’re only one girl, even if you are the Slayer.”

What Spike said was well, nice. Concerned, but not bossy like everybody else. Giles and the gang were always telling her what she should and shouldn’t do. Spike hadn’t even made any snooty comments about Angel, who he hated. Except for calling him Angelus, and for all she knew Angel was back to being Angelus if he was eating people again.

“Okay, you can help me. Let’s go.” Not that she’d let Spike get within a mile of any party the Initiative was throwing.

“You don’t have to do anything tonight.” He tapped his cigarette on its pack turning it over and over.

“I am kinda tired. I’ll take on Angel and the Initiative tomorrow.” Or, in a week or two.

Spike was acting twitchy. He took his cigarettes out of his coat and put them back three times without lighting one. He fidgeted with something in his pockets and avoided looking at her. He appeared to be making up his mind about something.

He might be upset about the story Aspen told them about the chipped vampires on Fuego, but he hadn’t acted excited while Aspen was telling the story. He could be upset because Angel was involved or maybe it was something entirely different. Buffy hoped he hadn’t eaten anybody on one of his mall romps and was working his way up to confessing. She definitely wanted to avoid hearing any Girls I Ate Last Night confessions.

“I ought to go home, Spike. I’m a mess and it’s getting late.”

Buffy hadn’t felt this nasty since she beheaded a stoner eggwert demon. Her hair was half-dried in messy waves and every inch of her was covered with the sticky beer she’d rolled around in at the club while she was having her cat fight with Carmelita. Her skirt was too tight and beyond uncomfortable. She tugged on the waistband so she could breathe better.

“Turn around,” Spike said. He unzipped her skirt. “Better?”

“Yes,” she said. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She popped open a couple of snaps on her bustier, too. Whew. Now that she was comfortable, she might be able to take on whatever Spike was rolling around in that mushy vampire brain. “What is it you want to tell me that you don’t want to tell me? You didn’t drink anybody I know, did you?”

“I didn’t drink anybody. Want to show you something.”

“I don’t want to see any more Riley is Evil stuff.” She felt pretty solid on the Riley is Evil idea. She also felt more than relieved to hear that Spike hadn’t eaten anybody.

“It’s got nothing to do with that wanker. Come on.”