A/N: See? I haven't given up on this. Hope you guys haven't given up on me either. I promise this one is winding down. Thanks as usual to Athenewolfe for helping knock the rough edges off.

“Save me from that god who steals souls, who laps up corruption, who lives on what is putrid, who is in charge of darkness, who is immersed in gloom, of whom those who are among the languid ones are afraid.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day

"I know you, Slayer," Spike said as the two of them left for the Summers' residence after picking up weapons for their little war.

A scowl flickered across Buffy's face. Maybe she was purposefully ignoring him. Maybe she was too fixated on the battle at hand to hit him with her usual denials. Either way, Spike plowed on. This was something that needed to be said.

"You like to play with your food," he continued.

That earned a response. Buffy snapped around, glaring at him. "I do not-" she started, righteous indignation on her face.

Spike balled his fists at his sides, and just snarled right back. "You do! Part of your style, part of why I… Doesn't matter. You need to hear this."

She was in his face now, eyes glittering and dangerous, a mother bear who, incapable of protecting her kin, was by God going to maim the first thing she could. "Go ahead Spike," she said in a low, dangerous voice. "Tell me what it is I need to hear."

Not the most receptive of openings, but there it was. "There are times when a good round of gloating over an opponent can be good for the soul, metaphorically speaking of course, but tonight is not one of them." His word, or maybe the vehemence behind them, made Buffy blink in surprise and back off a little. Taking that as a good sign, Spike tried to push his point home. "We're running on a tight schedule here if we're gonna be able to save the Bit, so if you need to say something to cut the bitch down, you do it while you're swinging. Don't stop to play, it'll only give her time to recover and drag the fight out. Trust me on this one, I've been there." Visions of Prague arose unwanted to his mind. Yes, he'd certainly been there.

There, he'd said it. And she hadn't punched him for it, even though the expression on her face made him think she was seriously considering it. Now the question was whether she'd follow his rather blunt advice or not.

Only time would tell.

~*~*~*~*~

Day 73

Tap, tap…

Something was jabbing into Spike's back, irritating him. He rolled to one side, grumbling. That sound, whatever it was, didn't help much either.

Tap, tap, tap…

"I'm sorry sir, but you're going to have to move along." A voice penetrated Spike's subconscious, nagging. "This is a public park, you can't sleep here."

Tap, tap, tap, tap, TAP!

"Mwhaa!" The far from coherent exclamation burst from his lips and he sat straight up, nearly taking out the DeSoto's rear view mirror with his forehead.

"Aii!" A high-pitched scream jerked him even further into wakefulness.

Spike scrambled around, awkward and contorted in the car's front seats, just in time to see a young police officer running as fast as he could in the opposite direction. His black Mag-Lite was slowly rolling away from the vampire's driver's side door, dropped in the man's haste.

He fell back in the seat, sleep borne muzziness returning as the adrenaline dump faded away. He brought a hand to his face to rub his eyes and came into contact with ridged brows. He snorted in amused ire. He must have shifted into game face when he had awakened. The cop had to be a newbie if he hadn't learned to avoid bothering people in cars with boot-blacked windows. A newbie whose co-workers didn't like him much, if he pulled window tapping duty in deserted parks after dark.

Grumbling with irritation, both at the rude awakening and at the fact that he had let a human get so close without waking him, Spike managed to twist around and kick the passenger door open. He dragged himself out into the open, glaring vaguely around the abandoned parking lot. It wasn't the first time he had slept in his car, but usually his survival instincts kept him in a semi-aware state, ready to wake, and fight, at the slightest provocation. A summer of apathy and unasked for invulnerability was making him sloppy and careless.

Well, that was part of why he was here, wasn't it?

The sun must have just set. There was a sliver of light hovering over the ocean. Spike stretched in the gray dusk, hearing joints pop in complaint. He caught a brief whiff of himself and grimaced. Leaning against the door of his car, Spike dredged up memories of the previous night from his sleep-fogged brain.

He hadn't been expecting to find a human with Ammut. Truth be told, he hadn't expected to see Ammut at all, having gone so long without a hint of her, but Ammut in the company of a ratty beach bum had definitely not been on the agenda either. Some vampire on a power high, looking for true immortality, he had been expecting. Maybe some weird demonic cult or mummy raising bridge club, but not a kid.

A kid who looked more world weary than power hungry.

A kid who he couldn't hurt, one way or the other.

This was going to take finesse, which had never been Spike's strong suit, but he was pretty certain that showing up at the kid's door smelling like stale whiskey and seawater probably wasn't the way to go. Luckily, the good people of the state of California had given up their hard-earned tax dollars to provide their scenic beachfronts with reasonably functional showerheads and public bathrooms. He couldn't bring himself to care that he might give the odd passerby an eyeful, especially when it meant expediting the search for his new beach-combing friend.

Later, dressed, kind of dry, and fully awake, Spike took off down the beach in a dead run. One way or the other, he'd have this mystery under wraps by dawn.

~*~*~*~*~

It didn't look like much. The house was small by its neighbors' standards, in need of some upkeep and decidedly dated. There was a definite 1950s blockiness to the design, and the peeling paint might have been original. It was the kind of house that simply begged to be overlooked, as it certainly would have been by anyone but a vampire with a nose full of demigod musk.

Spike was standing in the deeper shadows of an old tree in the front yard, watching the house with a dark scowl on his face. This was the place. He knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. What he did not know was what to do now.

He had run through all the possible scenarios he could imagine during his trot down the beach.

Knock, knock, knock. 'Hi, I'm Spike, also known as William the Bloody. You may have heard of me. No, I'm not here to eat you, I just want to sic some deities on you and your new pet. Then I can die in peace, only I'm not sure I really want that anymore. This might take a while, do you have any hot chocolate?'

Knock, knock, knock. 'Hi, I'm Spike, also known as William the Bloody. You may have heard of me. You've fucked over the cosmic order and some chuckle heads with a taste for irony have decided to appoint me as your bounty hunter. Before I turn you in, I just wanted to know, what the bleeding hell were you thinking?'

Knock, knock, knock. 'Hi, I'm Spike, also known as William the Bloody. You may have heard of me. You have to be a pretty powerful sorcerer if you can summon and hold a demigod, but I was wondering if you could refrain from zapping me into a smoldering pile of ashes until I explain why I, a vampire of some infamy, would like to talk civilly about theology instead of eating you on the spot.'

Knock, knock, knock…

None of these scenarios ended well. At least he couldn't technically be killed at the moment, but that was not terribly comforting. Spending the rest of eternity as a steaming puddle of goo was even less appealing than drifting through the half-life he had been enduring all summer. At least this way he could get pissed and play cards. Being conjured into a greasy smear on the stoop of a run-down bungalow and discovering the hard way if he retained a sense of self was not high on his list of things to experience.

Then again, hiding in the shadows of a tree in someone's front yard had yet to get him what he wanted in other areas, so Spike strongly doubted that it would do any good here.

He walked up onto the house's front porch, still without the first clue as to what he was going to say. Whatever, he could fly by the seat of his pants when the situation demanded it.

Knock, knock, knock.

The seconds ticked by. Nothing.

Knock, Knock, Knock!

Still nothing. The echoing void he could sense beyond the house's walls hinted at a powerful shielding spell, so there was no way for Spike to know if the man and his goddess-dog were inside and ignoring him, or actually gone and conveniently leaving no scent for him to follow.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!!!

"Young man?" a voice called from behind the vampire. Spike turned to find an old woman on the sidewalk, walking a toy poodle on a pink leash. The dog was eyeing him and growling in its high pitched way, proving once and for all which species had the better sense. The woman smiled at him myopically. "I'm afraid you just missed Kurt."

Bleeding fuck, piss, and hell!!!

"That so?" Spike asked, trying to keep the hostility out of his voice.

He must have succeeded, because while the dog's soprano growl rose in volume, the old woman just kept rattling on and smiling. "I think he's working tonight. Such a nice boy. Are you a friend of his?"

Spike stepped off the porch and walked towards the old lady, trying to summon up enough charm to get the job done. "Acquaintance, actually, but I do need to talk to him." That generally seemed to work. Knock off a little of the rougher slang, dredge up some of his human accent, and voila: charmed old biddy. "Do you know when he will be back?"

"Well, no," she said, wrinkled brow creasing further in thought. The expression sent alarming ripples through layers and layers of caked-on makeup. The dog finally gave up its incessant barking and hid behind the old woman's legs, glaring at Spike balefully. "Late, I suppose. He always gets home after I've gone to bed, but Erma says he… you know, why don't you leave him a note?"

Spike blinked in surprise. A note. More banal than a dramatic showdown, but also more likely to results in a non-greasy end. Why the bloody hell hadn't he thought of that? He cracked his most winning smile. "I don't suppose I could borrow a pen and paper? My name is William, by the way."

She squinted at him for a moment, and then smiled herself. "I think I could do that. Any friend of Kurt's is a friend of mine. Such a nice boy…"

~*~*~*~*~

It had taken Spike a while to extricate himself from the old woman's house. Her name was Pearl and while she made an excellent cup of hot chocolate, her conversation skills left a lot to be desired. However, since he had decided to use her as a character witness in his letter, he figured he should at least stick around until he could think up a decent excuse for leaving, like checking on his 'sister,' Dawn. That had done the trick.

Two pages, crammed to bursting with text, were now crammed under 'Kurt's' front door. And, perversely true to his word, Spike really did find himself at 1630 Revello Drive, checking up on Dawn.

As it turned out, that had been a pretty good idea, considering the expression on her face when she answered the door.

"Spike, how did you know? Nevermind, Tara's in the kitchen." Dawn's words came out in a rush, worry plain on her expressive face.

"Wait a tick, Bit," he said, managing to grab her by the arm and stop her hasty flight. "What happened?"

Dawn was twisting her hands together into painful looking contortions. "Xander was driving everybody out to dinner and took a shortcut past the hospital. Tara started screaming something about ghosts, and her eyes rolled up, and I don't know what to do!" It was basically a wail.

Okay that was… unexpected. "'Ey Bit, it'll be okay. Let's go check on the witch."

Spike managed to slip into the kitchen unnoticed. Everyone else was too focused on the trembling Wiccan to pay him much heed. Tara was cradling a mug of herbal tea in her shaking hands, stuttering apologies over and over while Willow stroked her hair, gentle gesture belied by the dangerous look in the redhead’s eyes.

Spike hung to the back, listening. Just listening. It didn't take him long to figure out what had happened. Tara had always been the sensitive one, the one in tune with the world around her. And what had set her off?

Two months. More than that. Seventy-three days. Seventy-three days of Sunnydale's normal death rate, plus the activities of all of the vampires that suddenly found themselves truly immortal. Seventy-three days of bodies piling up all over town, and as a general rule, ghosts followed their bodies, at least in the beginning.

Seventy-three days of lost souls, spilling out of the morgues, soaking into their surroundings, disturbing the natural order of things. And Harris had driven the gentle witch straight through that.

No wonder she had broken down.

Now the Bit was upset, and so was Glinda.

This needed to end.