“Oh Mistress of Knives, Lady of the Two Lands, the one who smashes the enemies of the Weary-Hearted One, the one who does what is wise, the one free of wrong.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


Spike crouched behind the scanty cover, tucked away from the flying bricks and other thrown debris from Glory’s less than sane defenders. Stifling his irritation at having to hide from such a motley band, he craned his neck around, looking to the tower and the young girl he knew was tied there. At the top, another figure caught his eye, filling him with fear.

“Someone’s up there,” he said, almost to himself, but Xander and Anya must have heard him too.

“Okay, we gotta charge or something,” said the boy, ever helpful.

Anya’s voice reflected Spike’s opinion. “We tried that,” she said sarcastically.

Spike almost fired back with some sarcastic rejoinders of his own when Willow’s voice inserted itself into his mind. Spike, can you hear me?

“Yeah,” he said into the air, ignoring the odd looks from the others. “Loud and clear.”

Is someone up there with Dawn? Her voice was harsh and determined.

Spike looked again, eyes straining to see through the twisted rig of metal and debris. The figure had stepped closer to Dawn, intentions unknown. “Yeah, can’t tell who.”

Xander was talking again, but Spike ignored him.

Willow’s voice crackled with command and power. Get up there. Go, now!

The vampire peeked over the wall again at the mass of crazy human defenders. There was no way he could make it through the throng without frying himself from the inside out. “Yeah, but…” he started to protest.

Go! Willow’s mental backlash was deafening, galvanizing Spike’s limbs.

He almost fell over himself when instead of crashing headfirst into a wall of human bodies and chip induced agony, the people were swept aside, and his path was laid clear.

He looked up to the top of the tower and saw the figure with Dawn. The menace there was palpable, but it was the glint of silver that really caught his eye.

“Red, you still with me?” he spoke into the air as he scaled the winding tower.

Instantly, he felt the mental touch again. Yeah.

Spike kept running, getting closer and closer to the top. “He’s got a knife. Don’t know if I can get there in time.” The admission was galling, but saving Dawn was more important that his ego.

On it, the witch sent telepathically before severing their connection again.

A shocked cry drew Spike’s attention back up to the figure, who was suddenly flying through the air, trailing smoke as he fell. The sight drew a grim smile from the vampire. Nothing like having a brassed off witch on your side.

When he reached the top, Dawn’s tearful gratitude came as a relief. No blood, no portal, and best of all, no enemies between them and a hasty escape. Spike managed to get her bonds untied and carried the crying girl back down the ramps to the ground below.

He was met halfway down by a bloodied, but triumphant slayer.

*****

Day 14

“You’re sure he’s not in there?” Dawn’s voice was cold.

Spike couldn’t help but be amused at her tone of voice. It was strangely gratifying to know that she hated his grandsire as much as he did. “Don’t worry, Bit. The coast is clear.”

“Good,” she huffed. Dawn had told him last night, before she had fallen asleep on his bed, leaving him to the easy chair upstairs, that Angel had always ‘creeped her out,’ which was funny since her memories of him were completely fabricated. The girl had said that she sometimes wondered if the monks had been trying to tell her something.

Voices filtered to his sensitive ears from inside of the house as they neared the back porch. “Well, maybe not completely clear.”

Dawn fell silent at his comment, and he tapped his ear in explanation before scaling the steps onto the back porch. She nodded and followed, quiet as a mouse, completely trusting in his motivations.

Spike leaned against the wall between the kitchen door and window, and just listened.

“Well, he took it okay… Ish.” Willow’s voice was unsteady. Spike wasn’t one hundred percent certain who she was talking about, but he had a pretty good guess.

“Why was he not answering his phone?” Giles’ voice was quiet, but Spike could detect the jagged ice beneath those still waters.

“He was in another dimension; I didn’t really get all of the details… Something about cows.” Willow spoke in a distracted rush, probably not realizing how odd that statement sounded. “Then Cordelia got that vision, and the explanations kinda went out the window after that. He wanted to leave right away.”

Spike couldn’t help but sneer. The Scoobies always talked about Angel like this, in weighted pronouns and hushed voices. He, with a capital H, as if he was a god. The once and future high poobah of the slayer’s heart, whose name they avoided to spare her pain.

But Buffy was dead, and they still danced around the topic as if the souled prick was the Emperor’s bleeding clothes.

The entire exchange made him absolutely furious.

Dawn tossed him a questioning glance, so he made the effort to smooth his features out, not wanting to alarm her. She stepped a little closer anyway and tried to peek in the back door.

“Yes, I wonder how long it will take him to find Spike.” Giles’ comment made the vampire’s blood run cold. “Xander is still out looking, but I won’t be surprised to find Dawn with him as well.” The note of disapproval in his voice was clear.

Apparently Dawn heard that as well, and her face turned a livid shade of red. She reached for the door handle, probably intending to run into the house and give the watcher a piece of her mind. Not that he didn’t appreciate the sentiment, but Spike was hoping to learn a little more about the situation before tearing into the house. Spying was the only way he ever learned anything from the Scoobies, thanks to their amazing ability to clam up tighter than Anyanka’s budget whenever they knew he was around.

The entire internal debate became moot when the warning tingle up the back of his neck, that had been itching on the edges of his consciousness for the last few seconds, screamed to life with warning. Spike spun, shoving Dawn aside, just in time to catch Angel’s snarling form head on.

The kitchen door gave way under the attack, splintering and sending glass shards everywhere. Spike landed heavily on his back, fangs descending, snarling and struggling against the older vampire above him. The blood Dawn had basically forced him to drink a scant few minutes before had helped, but Spike still wasn’t anywhere near full form, whereas Angel was his usual, well-fed, hulking self. Taking that thought as inspiration, Spike sank his fangs into his grandsire’s shoulder and tore a chunk of flesh free.

Angel snarled, which turned into a shocked howl of pain, and jerked to the side far enough for Spike to see the long handle of a kitchen knife sticking out of his back.

Spike looked up in surprise at Dawn, who had slipped into the kitchen in the wake of their destructive entrance. “Get off of him!” The second knife held ready in her hand added gravity to her soprano snarl.

“Dawnie!” Willow’s voice drew everyone’s attention to the two figures who had appeared in the kitchen doorway. “You’re alright! What…?” The redhead looked at the two vampires, one bleeding amidst the wood splinters and glass shards from the destroyed door, one oozing from a ragged bite mark and sporting a black knife handle sticking out of the back of his leather jacket, before turning her eyes back to the girl hovering over them both with another blade in hand. “What’s going on?”

Giles, on the other hand, looked almost amused at Angel’s predicament, but one way or the other, he certainly seemed to have momentarily lost the ability to comment on the surreal scene in front of him.

Dawn ignored them both, raising the paring knife higher. “I said, get off of him,” she repeated.

Angel looked like he was about to argue, but when she started to lunge forward again, he rolled to the side, hissing when the motion jostled the blade already embedded in his back. “Giles said Spike kidnapped you,” he said, favoring the room, and Dawn in particular, with a dark glower.

Spike struggled into a sitting position, mindful of the pieces of shattered door surrounding him. “You’re the one with the yen for hurtin’ little girls, Angelus.”

“That’s not exactly what I…” Giles started indignantly at the same time, but his words were lost in the Angel’s furious snarl.

Spike tensed, seeing the attack coming, but in no position to defend himself. Perhaps his comment hadn’t been the best of ideas, but he wasn’t about to sit there and listen to the bastard accuse him of harming Dawn. He grabbed a bit of wood from the pieces of broken door and instinctively raised it to strike, but right before they collided, the air around them both seemed to thicken and gel. Angel slowed to a stop inches from Spike, who realized that his own arm, makeshift stake in hand, had frozen as well.

Willow’s voice took on an odd intonation, an echo of power when she spoke. “I think that is just about enough. Angel, you’re coming with me.” The older vampire couldn’t move, but he apparently offered some kind of protest, because the redhead’s eyes glittered with dark, angry sparks. “Now, Angel.”

The spell suddenly dissipated, leaving both vampires to teeter precariously for a second at the abrupt release. After a brief pissing contest of stares, the older vampire rose unsteadily and walked towards the witch. Willow glared at him, at Spike… at everyone in the room really, before grabbing Angel’s arm and tugging him into the dining room, mumbling something about stitches.

“Here,” Giles said mildly as the pair passed him. “I believe that I can be of some assistance with that.” The watcher grabbed the handle of the kitchen knife and ripped it free with perhaps a little too much force. Angel winced and glared, but wisely held his tongue while Willow continued dragging him away.

Giles contemplated the knife for a long moment before glancing back at Spike and Dawn over the rims of his glasses. “Dawn, could you please put the knife down and leave us for a moment. I need to speak with Spike.”

The girl waved the knife wildly, making the blond vampire, who had only just managed to get to his feet, duck awkwardly away. “Why, so you can dust him for ‘kidnapping’ me?” Her voice was shrill, but the sentiment apparently had some merit if the expression on Giles’ face was any indication. He scowled fiercely, but she continued before he could speak. “He at least cares what I think. He wouldn’t have invited Angel into my house for a big old slumber party without asking me… as if I wasn’t even there!”

That took Giles completely off guard, and he gaped wordlessly at her.

Spike had no such problem. “You had that wanker stay here?” he snarled, grabbing the edge of the counter with a white-knuckled hand. He had wondered why Dawn didn’t want to go home last night, and hadn’t bothered to ask because he respected her privacy, but now it made a lot more sense.

“I didn’t think…” Giles started.

“No, you didn’t,” Dawn declared frostily. “You were all, ‘come on over, Angel. You can stay at Buffy’s house. It’s not like anyone important lives there anymore.’” Her venomous tone of voice became more and more brittle until it cracked on that last word. In the ensuing, shocked silence, tears started running unchecked down her face. The knife clattered to the floor, and she followed after it, sobbing in a crumpled heap.

Giles made a move to come to her aid, but Spike’s angry snarl stopped him in his tracks. The vampire crouched next to the girl. He started to rest a hand on her shoulder, but when he saw the blood and glass shards covering his arm, he thought better of it.

“Bit, you’re sitting in my dinner.” The joke was pretty pathetic, but it earned a hiccupping laugh in between sobs. That was at least something. He wiped the worst of the blood off of his hands. “C’mon, let’s get you out of this mess.”

She allowed herself to be picked up, cradled easily in his arms and wholly unconcerned with the nearness of his still-demonic features. With one last, hate-filled glare at the watcher, Spike left the room, taking the more circuitous route to the stairs in order to avoid Willow and Angel.

He got her settled in the bathroom, tears slowing to a manageable level, rinsing blood and pieces of door into the sink. She had promised to be careful and take a shower afterwards in order to make sure she got all of the glass in exchange for his solemn vow to not leave until Angel was gone. Well, that and to eat again. He didn’t want to leave her to cry alone, but she finally shooed him out of the room after shoving an old rag in his hand to help him wash himself off downstairs.

That was why he found himself back in the kitchen, picking shards of glass out of his jacket sleeves and scrubbing his arms under the faucet. Giles hadn’t moved, but he also didn’t address the vampire right away, seemingly lost in thought. Spike walked outside long enough to drape his wet coat over the railings before returning, stepping carefully through the remnants of the door, and watching the man through angry, yellow eyes.

He finally decided that the silence had stretched on long enough. “She wants the bastard gone. ‘M not leavin’ until she’s happy.”

Giles looked up, as if surprised that Spike had spoken. The two men regarded each other, one contemplative behind wire rimmed glasses, the other angry behind flinty gold, for a long moment before the watcher finally responded. “Why are you doing this?”

Spike scowled at what struck him as an incredibly stupid question. “Someone has to,” he snapped.

Giles winced slightly at the accusation in Spike’s tone, but forged on. “Why you?”

“Because I made a promise.”

And strangely, that simple statement seemed to appease the man. He nodded wearily. “I will go speak to Angel.”

“No need,” the low voice came from behind the watcher. Angel loomed there, brown eyes liquid and tragically sad. Spike wanted to tear them out of his head. “I heard.”

Willow appeared behind him, shifting her weight from foot to foot. It was almost funny how quickly the girl could swap from powerful spell-slinger to nervous hand-wringer. “I could go talk to her…”

It was Angel, strangely enough, who raised a calming hand when Spike looked ready to explode. “No, I can get a hotel room.” He turned to face Giles, “But we still need to discuss Cordy’s vision, and I need to know where I can visit…” he trailed off, face set in tragic lines again.

Spike’s hands were balled into fists with the effort of trying to refrain from attacking his grandsire where he stood.

Thankfully, Angel left quickly after that in a show of mournful farewells and fluttering coat tails. He spared one angry glance at Spike, as if wordlessly warning him off of something, though what, the younger vampire could not guess. Spike had only sneered in return.

“What vision was that nit on about?” he asked when the sound of a shutting door signaled that Angel was well and truly gone.

Giles seemed chagrined of all things, and it was Willow who answered, voice rushed and worried. “Cordelia thinks something’s gone all wonky and vampires can’t die, or something like that.”

Spike’s eyes never left the watcher’s embarrassed face. “Yeah, and?” he drawled.

His non-reaction sent Willow babbling in surprise. “And, and that’s bad, and we need to look into it, and… and… why aren’t you all, ‘oooh?’”

“Ask Rupes here,” Spike replied in a bored tone of voice.

Willow looked completely flustered, but before Giles could add his own input, a voice behind Spike drew everyone’s attention.

“Is everything okay?” Tara, grocery bags clutched against her chest, stared at them worriedly from the other side of the ruined door.

What a question.

Spike couldn’t help it. He laughed.

It was either that or sob hysterically.