Chapter 19 – Morning After



The full moon changed from silver to gold, then blood red as it slipped lower into the western sky.

Spike, having pleasantly tormented Buffy with payback for a couple of hours, left her sleeping in his rumpled bed and went outside to smoke one last cigarette before dawn.

He heard them immediately – their heartbeats ramping up as their adrenaline soared. Two crouched under a hedge in the yard next door. One stood on the opposite side of a beat-up grey van parked a half block from the apartment building’s front door. Spike could see that ninny’s spit-polished boots. Number Four was sprawled flat behind a bush in the lawn across the street, holding a rifle with a night scope. Captain Cardboard himself lurked around the corner of the building.

Shame to waste a beautiful moonlit night like this one, especially this night, when he’d persuaded Buffy to come and live with him. Everything had come together, just like he’d planned. He’d exposed Finn’s extracurricular activities with his vampire girlfriend, dissuaded Buffy from launching a war on the Initiative for a few days, got her to agree to move in to his new apartment, dodged the marriage bullet and enjoyed a fabulous night of shagging, topped off with a tasty sip of Slayer blood. He’d only forgotten to take care of one thing.

He’d forgotten to kill Soldier Boy when he had the chance.

He lit up a cigarette and considered who he should take out first. A rifle bolt snapped into place and Spike decided he’d want to take out the sniper git across the street first. He took another puff on his cigarette and ran across the street, straight towards the rifle barrel.

The soldier shot and missed by a fraction of an inch. Spike leaped over the bush and landed on top of the soldier. He grabbed the rifle and slammed the butt into the soldier’s head and knocked him to the ground. Spike slammed two brutal kicks into the soldier’s ribs, which broke with a satisfying crunch. The soldier was tough. He rolled to one side and jumped to his feet. Spike shot him in the chest with the rifle. The soldier clutched his neck and jerked out the tranquilizer dart, but he was too late. The drug was already racing through his blood stream. He staggered and fell into the bushes.

Spike ripped into his vamp face. Now, for that piece of shit, Finn.

While Spike was playing with the sniper, Finn followed him across the street. He was carrying his fully charged taser.

Spike got in a couple of good punches on Finn’s face before the taser probes bit through his tee shirt and into his chest.

***

The sound of the front door banging open woke Buffy up out of deep sleep. The door and the fact she was no longer sprawled on Spike’s cool body. Her hands were cuffed to the headboard of the bed.

Damn, he hadn’t covered her up with the sheet.

“I’m so going to punish him,” she said, tugging on the handcuffs. “Spike! Open these cuffs!”

Riley, dressed in battle fatigues and carrying a rifle loaded with tranquilizer darts, stepped into the room. His face was cut up and his left eye was swelling shut. “Shut up, whore, or I’ll put you down. Vampire Scum is gone.”

“Riley? What are you doing here? Let me loose!”

“I came to pick up Hostile 17,” he said. “I’ll drop the keys off with the landlord after we’re clear and you won’t be able to try something dumb like trying to rescue your favorite corpse.”

Buffy yanked hard on the cuffs. These weren’t Spike’s play handcuffs that he’d stolen from some cop. They were carbon steel, tactical hinge cuffs. She couldn’t break the cuffs without destroying the metal frame of the bed. While she was busting loose, Riley would incapacitate her with a tranquilizer dart. She didn’t want to be knocked out cold. She wanted to find Spike and kick some Riley ass, which she wouldn’t be able to do if she was knocked out.

She also didn’t want Riley to continue staring at her naked body.

“What did you do with Spike?”

“Hostile 17 drained a girl last night after he got through boning you. You didn’t stake him after his chip stopped working, so I’m taking him in for a re-tread.”

“No, you’re wrong. He didn’t. Please, Riley. Let him go.” He wouldn’t kill some girl. Not now. She had to believe that.

He touched the barrel of his gun to her bare foot. Her naked body looked damn good. What did it matter if he’d be getting sloppy seconds?

“I’d like to help you out, but I’ve got orders to bring him in. But, if you’re feeling lonely, I could stick around for a few minutes. You owe me a little fun. More than a little fun after chasing me around while you were humping the bloodsucker.”

His free hand rubbed the front of his trousers and he fingered the pull on his zipper. An invitation from Blondie would be good, but not entirely necessary.

Agent Gates limped into the room. Gates had also received a beating, which included a large bump on his head from contact with a rifle butt and two broken ribs. He attributed his injuries to the raging stupidity of his superior officer. Stupidity that was about to be compounded with interest. Finn was playing with his fly and the little blonde Finn had been chasing after was lying naked on the bed. No telling what Walsh would do if Finn messed around with this girl again.

He flipped the sheet over Buffy.

Gates and Riley glared at each other.

“We’re ready to go, Special Agent Finn. Hostile 17 is secure.”

Buffy struggled to sit up without letting the sheet slide off. “Where are you taking him?”

“They don’t have visiting hours where he’s going. Don’t wait up, Buffy. Seventeen won’t be home tonight.” Riley left the apartment followed by Gates.

Buffy grabbed the sheet in her teeth, slid off the side of the bed and dragged the bed to the window, in the hopes she could at least see where Riley was going. She glimpsed the army truck driving away. She couldn’t tell what direction it went after it turned the first corner.

She got back in bed and scrounged around rearranging the sheet to cover herself. She waited for five minutes, hoping Riley left the keys with the landlord so she wouldn’t have to wreck the bed. She was about to rip the handcuffs free when she heard a tap on the front door and a male voice called out.

“Anybody home?”

The man’s grating nasal voice sounded unpleasantly familiar. It couldn’t be. How could Spike rent an apartment from him?

“In the bedroom. Did they leave you the key?”

Willy the Snitch walked into the bedroom.

“Slayer! My Vampire Friend, Spike, said he had a new missus when he rented the apartment, but he didn’t say a word about his new missus being you. Course everybody already knew about the two of you being romantically inclined.”

Ugh. This is unbearable. Willy the Snitch is my landlord and I’m the Chosen Gossip Topic at a skuzzy demon bar.

“Can you unlock the handcuffs, Willy?”

Willy ignored her and poked his head in the baby’s room. “Spike has been holding out all around. He didn’t tell me he got the Slayer knocked up. Wait till the boys down at the bar hear about Spike knocking up the Slayer. Lot of money changing hands tonight. Heh, heh. You wouldn’t care to give me a hot tip on your due date?”

Buffy gritted her teeth and reminded herself she needed Willy’s help if she was going to get out of the handcuffs without destroying their bed.

Willy fished the tiny key out of his shirt pocket and approached the bed. “Say Slayer, what were you doing messing around with those soldier boys? Spike isn’t going to like that. I happen to know he’s a jealous kind of guy. Besides, there’ve been rumors.”

“Willy, the handcuffs?”

“I heard from a good demon friend of mine, Sharkey, you know him? Sharkey has it on good authority from his ex-mother-in-law, that the Initiative soldiers have been capturing humans and feeding them to some big vampire so he can turn them. I hate to mention it, seeing as how you used to like the guy, but I heard it was my good Vampire Friend, Angel, who was working for the soldiers and feeding from the federal trough, so to speak.”

Just what she needed. Independent confirmation of Angel’s latest bad deeds from the ex-mother-in-law of a demon loan shark buddy of a totally unreliable source, Willy the Snitch. She didn’t even have the pleasure of beating the information out of him.

“Willy?” She rattled the cuffs to get his attention.

“Oh yeah.” Willy unlocked the handcuffs and gave Buffy the key. “You know you should keep the key handy if Spike’s going to get into the kinky stuff. I might not always be around to let you loose.”

“I’ll mention it to Spike,” Buffy said, rubbing her wrists.

Willy was no doubt the very person who told Riley and his buddies where to find Spike. She ought to give him a good thrashing for that, but if she did he’d never fix the sink or do whatever landlords did for you when things got busted. Living with Spike for one day had already developed ramifications.

Willy continued snooping around the apartment. He opened the refrigerator door. “You wouldn’t happen to have a beer?”

“Do you mind, Willy? Not dressed here?” Buffy wrapped the sheet tighter around herself.

“Sure, Slayer. Anything else I can do for you while I’m up here? Apartment okay?”

“It’s great, Willy. Thanks for rescuing me.”

“Anything for my good Vampire Friend, Spike and his girl.” Willy shuffled out and closed the front door behind him.

Buffy leaped out of bed and threw on the new outfit Spike left for her in the closet. Maternity pants. These were a lot better.

Keys, keys, keys. I have to find Spike’s keys. Duh, I should have asked Willy for an extra set.

She ran into the living room and saw Spike’s leather coat draped over his chair. The sight of his coat lying abandoned made her want to curl up in the chair and cry. They took him without his coat. What if he got cold?

What if he killed some girl last night, like Riley said?

What if the Initiative was dragging Spike off to turn vampires, like Angel was doing? Giles would want her to kill Spike, kill both of them. He’d insist.

She’d killed Angel, sort of, once before. It might not be as hard the second time.

But, Spike?

She loved Spike. After last night, she couldn’t pretend anymore that she liked him or cared about him or had feelings about him or anything stupid like that. She loved him. Plain and simple. Not that anything was ever simple with her crazy bleachhead vampire.

And, even if what Riley said was true, she couldn’t kill Spike. Not if he drank half of Sunnydale. She’d have to think of something else to make sure he behaved.

She searched through his pockets – his cigarettes, booze and lighter were missing, so he wasn’t completely bereft. She found some stakes and holy water and a slip of paper with some writing on it. And, a control box like the one Professor Walsh gave her months ago. Where had he gotten that? And, yes! The keys to the apartment.

Buffy examined the scrap of paper. The words didn’t make any sense, but looked familiar. It must be some kind of code. She stuffed the paper in her patrol bag along with the handcuffs and the other junk from Spike’s pockets and ran out.