Invite Me In by Spikez_tart

Chapter #1 - I Know Who You Are

DISCLAIMER: Josh owns the characters and makes the money. I worship from afar and right all the Evils invented by the Buffy team. ***Nominated at Fang Fetish Awards for Best Fluff *** NOTE: Response to Challenge 182 –Some dialog modified from Yoko Factor. Cubanol info taken from Rogue Warrior: Detachment Bravo by Richard Marcinko and John Weisman Characters: Buffy, Spike, Joyce, Giles, Professor Walsh, Riley, Clem, Willy the Snitch, Willow, Xander plus some minor new characters. ********************************** Chapter 1 – I Know Who You Are At 2:00 a.m., Thomas Lasker left the U of C Sunnydale temporary computer lab. The lab, cobbled together after the computer building burned down, was always overcrowded. After midnight was the only time he could use the computer’s mainframe for his class. He didn’t like leaving Aspen, his girlfriend, alone at night, especially since the apartment they’d rented was two blocks away from Dantesco Street, but they couldn’t afford a place in a safer neighborhood. He smiled. Aspen said she’d be studying late tonight while he was out. He hoped she’d be awake when he got home. He slung his backpack over his shoulders and jumped on his bicycle and pedaled towards home. His route forced him to go past the lot where the old computer building stood before the fire. The lot was creepy and dark with the blackened iron skeleton remains of the building stabbing the night sky. Someone busted out the street lights and a dry wind blew the soot and ashes around making the place look even more evil and murky. He’d ridden past the dead lot, when a military truck with blinding lights pulled up behind him. The soldier riding in the front passenger seat waved him down. “Hey, buddy. Can you stop a minute? We need directions.” Thomas didn’t want to stop. He wanted to get home to Aspen, but he was a polite guy and his older brother was in the Army, so he skidded his bike to a stop along the curb. The soldier, a clean-cut white guy, with the name tag Finn on his army blouse, got out of the truck, holding a clip board. Three more soldiers jumped out of the back of the truck. One soldier held a rifle. The rifle and the menacing looks of the four soldiers made Thomas nervous. He was sorry he’d stopped. He gripped the handles of his bike, ready to race away at the first sign of trouble. “Are you Lasker?” Finn asked. “What’s this about?” How did the soldier know his name? Why would he care? “We’re looking for a guy named Thomas Lasker. Need to ask him a few questions.” “What questions? Who are you? I don’t have to talk to you.” Thomas got back on his bike, but not fast enough. Two of the soldiers grabbed his arms and held him while Finn searched his back pack. Finn flipped through his wallet for identification. He found Thomas’s student ID. “Thomas Lasker, male, Cauc, five ten, 160, brown and brown. It’s him.” Finn tucked the ID in his own shirt pocket. “Are you robbing me? I’m a student. I don’t have any money. Take what you want and let me go.” Thomas struggled, but he was no match for the beefy soldiers who were holding him. Finn nodded and the two soldiers handcuffed Thomas. “You’re what we want, Romeo. Throw him in the truck. His junk, too.” The soldiers held Thomas up straight while the third soldier, the one carrying the rifle, shot him with a tranquilizer dart. After he passed out, they dragged him to the back of the truck and threw him in. They tossed his backpack and bicycle in after him. “Hurry up, you assholes,” Finn said. “We’ve got three more college boys to pick up tonight. Our boy out at Fuego is hungry.” Finn examined the street to make sure they hadn’t left any evidence Thomas had been there. The soldiers climbed back in the truck and drove away. *** “Ms. Rosenberg – may I call you Willow? I’ll get to the point. I know who you are, and, what you are.” Professor Walsh gestured to the orange plastic molded chair in front of her desk for Willow to sit down. Walsh remained standing, hovering over Willow. “Your student?” Willow asked. She picked at the wooly aqua, peach and pink embroidery on her cocoa-brown, Peruvian alpaca vest. Walsh made her very nervous since the whole Buffy/Spike Control Box, Sex Marathon, Baby-Making Experiment. Who knew what horrifying new project she was cooking up? Walsh obviously had a lot more on her mind today than Freshman Pysch. “Don’t bullshit me,” Walsh lifted a black-covered report from her desk marked Top Secret and tossed it to Willow’s side of the desk. Willow picked up the report and opened it to the first page. The inside page was entitled Security Breach of Information Technology System, Department of HST Development on 10/16/99. She read the beginning of the report. ‘On October 16, 1999, from 1310 to 1548, a security breach was committed at the Department of HST Development’s computer installation in Sunnydale, California by an operative(s) using equipment located in the University of California - Sunnydale computer department. The building housing the equipment was destroyed by what was believed to be an event of arson. The commencement of the combustion emergency began at 1546. A fire alarm was initiated at 1547 by a person or persons unknown. Despite prompt response by the local authorities, the fire could not be contained and the building was declared a total loss by officials from the Sunnydale Fire Department. ‘The cause of the fire remains unknown, but investigators believe it to be of suspicious origin. Discussion of possible causes is contained in Addendum 34.578, Section … Willow flipped the page. She didn’t have to speculate about the cause of the fire. It was that damn missing black cat’s claw. She really should be more careful about skipping ingredients. ‘Subsequent investigation determined the following individuals requested permission to use the computer facility on that date and were believed to be present immediately prior to the conflagration: Rameriz, Brett – Faculty member Nestor, Jahidran– Graduate assistant Lasker, Thomas – Sophomore student Selden, Kaitlin – Senior student … McClay, Tara – Freshman student Rosenberg, Willow – Freshman student … Willow read how, shortly after the fire alarm was pulled, or the Commencement of the Combustion Emergency as the report described it, certain documents were feloniously copied from the Initiative’s government computer, including a Top Secret program called DNA Enhancement Program for Hematophagous Non-Reproductive Beings. The DEPMNB would be the same Top Secret program Spike convinced Willow to hack into using some stupid magic spell he found. Three months ago, Willow’s best friend, Buffy, tangled herself up in a nefarious government program. Professor Walsh told Buffy the purpose of the program was to give vampires – Spike, actually – positive reinforcement to train him how to behave better and become a semi-useful member of society. Every time Spike did something nice, well something at least not too awful, Buffy gave Spike a pleasure zap to the chip in his brain with a control box supplied by the professor. As it turned out, when Buffy zapped Spike’s chip, the control box did a lot more than give Spike’s brain a wave of pleasure. Willow and Tara hacked into the Initiative’s mainframe super secure computer using a magic spell and found out the control box program was designed to make Buffy and Spike have sex, pretty much continually, and to get Buffy pregnant with Spike’s baby. A Spike baby should have been impossible, Spike being a vampire, but apparently was possible with the miracle of modern science. The box was successful in getting Buffy and Spike to have sex, but Willow did not note much improvement in Spike’s behavior. Willow flipped through another dozen pages of the security report and skimmed the complete background investigations on the persons who were using the UCSD computer at the time of the hacking incident. Her own report included an extremely ugly picture culled from the California Secretary of State, Department of Motor Vehicles. These people were thorough. Feeling nauseous, Willow closed the cover of the report and placed it on Professor Walsh’s desktop at precise right angles to the edge of the desk. She had a bad feeling Walsh knew exactly who was responsible for the Conflagration Crisis. “May I assume you and Ms. McClay do not wish to find yourselves residing for the next twenty years in the maximum security wing of Leavenworth Prison?” Walsh asked. Willow’s mouth was too dry to speak. How had she gotten herself and Tara into so much trouble and how in the universe was she going to get them out of it? Spike. Spike talked her into hacking into the Initiative’s computer. That’s how she got into trouble. Note to self, never go along with Spike plans. “No,” she croaked. “I mean, no, we don’t want to go to prison.” “Good. You’re prepared to cooperate. I need your assistance in the program you were so anxious to learn about.” Willow was confused. Hadn’t Buffy told Professor Walsh she was terminating her involvement with the Vampire Baby Hatching Program? “I don’t understand.” “Your friend Buffy found out about the goals and directives of the program through your interference. She’s thwarting our efforts to bring this program to fruition.” “Huh?” Professor Walsh grimaced. Geniuses were all alike. In a matter of minutes, they hacked into a computer system protected by a multi-million dollar encryption program that took thousands of man-hours to write, but couldn’t understand the most mundane of personal human activities. “Buffy took measures to prevent herself from becoming impregnated with Hostile 17’s sperm.” “Oh.” It made sense that Buffy would take precautions, but the Buffy and Spike thing was history, wasn’t it? She hoped their romance was history. Buffy had a bad habit of falling head over heelish with unsuitable bad boy types who also happened to be vampires. Spike was as bad boy and as vampire as they came. Spike was not only a vampire, but he was an untrustworthy, sneaky, know-it-all who’d left his cup with dried-up pig’s blood lying around Giles’ apartment when he was staying there. He probably gnawed on the furniture to keep his fangs sharp. Also, not to put too much of a pointy on it, Spike was dead. Buffy was so secretive these days. She rarely came home before dawn and never had a good story to tell about how many vampires or demons she’d killed. She also looked, well, relaxed. “What’s that got to do with me?” She could have kicked herself for asking that dumb question. Walsh retrieved the security report and filed it away and locked the cabinet. She pulled a large, black cardboard box out of her desk drawer. She placed the box in front of Willow. “You will make certain your friend uses these exclusively when she is having relations with Hostile 17.” Willow picked up the box. The box displayed a cheesy cartoon of Count Dracula and was printed with lurid red, yellow and sickly green letters on a black background announcing itself to be Vampyro Condoms – Because Vampires Always Get Invited In. The picture was sort of an insult to Count Dracula, who Buffy claimed was an attractive, if greasy, vampire with a dumb accent. It was a big box. Back in her hetero days, Willow and Oz wouldn’t have used this many condoms in a year. She recalled her conversation with Spike a few months ago on the subject of Vampire-Slayer sex and considered asking Professor Walsh for another box. “How am I supposed to get her to use these? She’s not going to ask for my advice about birth control.” “I’m certain, when you consider how unpleasant life can be in prison, you’ll be quite persuasive. If necessary, you can convince Buffy with one of those magic stunts you’re so fond of performing.” Willow considered using one of her magic stunts to levitate Professor Walsh into the nearest open sewer so the nest of campus vampires could eat her for dinner, but she was so shaken she could only think of the Latin word for sewer, cloaca, and not the word for vampire. Was it sanguis or would cruor be the better root? Bibere? No sorbere is better, more of the sucking connotation. There was always suctus. She never had her palm Latin language translator with her when she needed it. Not that it would do any good to get rid of Walsh. From the looks of that report, half the Initiative knew Willow hacked into their computer. The professor no doubt had assistants who would take up the project if Walsh disappeared mysteriously. Willow put the box in her backpack and went back to the dorm room she shared with Buffy. *** ‘So, Buffy, I got these for free. The Safe Sex University Campus Committee was handing them out … No good. So, Buffy, the campus nurse was giving these away … No. So, Buffy, maybe you and Spike would like to try out a couple hundred … Definitely no. So, Spike … Oh my goddess, no.’ Willow turned away from the mirror and plopped onto her bed in the dorm room she shared with Buffy. Willow had rehearsed endless scenarios in her head for half the afternoon, trying to think of a way to persuade Buffy she needed to use Vampyro Condoms when she had sex with Spike. Buffy hadn’t confided to Willow she was still sleeping with Spike after the end of the Positive Reinforcement Program, which would also lead to an upsetting conversation about vampire sex, bad boy boyfriends and why Buffy got involved with Spike, of all the vampires she could have picked. She studied the box carefully, looking for something clever and persuasive to say and only came up with the information that the condoms were the black, lubricated, French tickler, Model No. 666. She could tell Buffy or Spike that Walsh was pursuing them again, but rejected that idea as a one-way ticket to life as a prison librarian. She could talk to Giles, but he didn’t know the whole story about the control box and how the box made Buffy jump Spike’s bones every time she zapped his chip. Willow was positive Buffy wouldn’t want Giles to know she was getting mingly-tingly with another vampire, no matter how the whole mess got started. Telling Xander or Anya was pointless. Anya had lost her demon powers and Xander - there was no point telling Xander – he’d only yell at Buffy because he was jealous. Tara would be terrified if she knew the government was casting its evil criminal prosecution eye in her direction. Willow would have to deal by herself. Magic was a possibility. She could put a spell on Buffy to make her want to use the condoms, but what about Spike? Vampires were hard to bewitch because their brains were kinda mushy. Willow put a spell on Spike once before and as a result he became romantically interested in Buffy. She didn’t want to reinforce Spike’s interest in Buffy. Who knew what that psycho bloodsucker might do if he fell in love with her? Goofy vampire might want to marry her again. Willow tired of racking her prosencephalon for a solution. She levitated the box onto Buffy’s nightstand and crawled into her bed to take a Power Nap. She wanted to be fresh for an all night session of homework, magic, Tara and convincing Buffy vampires should always get invited in. *** Buffy returned from class late that afternoon, and found Willow in their room, asleep in her bed and snoring. Class had been dull beyond the telling and a nap looked attractive to Buffy, too. She was getting into her own bed when she saw a large, black box sitting on her nightstand. Neat, free condoms. Wonder where they came from? Vampires always get invited in. She giggled. Especially if the vampire happens to be named Spike. Black Vampyro Condoms might be sufficiently cool to persuade Spike to use them instead of all the other yucky stuff she’d been using. The expense of having wild, monkey sex with Spike was prohibitive. She’d asked Spike to take care of the problem. First, he insisted he was a vampire and there was no problem because he was all Dead Sperm Boy. When she put her foot down, he stole some junk she didn’t like and was afraid wouldn’t work. He got sidetracked into stealing sex toys and slutty outfits and adult videos and forgot all about what he was supposed to be steal – er – buying. Any money she saved by leaving matters up to Spike got spent later on pregnancy tests. She’d had two scares already because she couldn’t control herself around Spike. She didn’t want any more scares. Buffy ended up paying for a bunch of funky sprays and gels and squirty, reeky stuff and ewww. Staying away from Spike was in the Not An Option Category. A free jumbo box of condoms was a windfall. She wouldn’t need to buy anything for a few weeks. She shoved the box into her patrol bag and headed to the cemetery to take her ‘nap’ in Spike’s crypt. *** “I’m not wearing any damn galoshes.” Buffy pouted. She hadn’t brought anything else with her and Spike’s crypt was not located near any excellent shopping opportunities. Spike had been teasing her and licking her and touching her everywhere for what seemed like hours. He tricked her into taking her clothes off and putting on a studded, dog collar and a black bustier, garter belt, black stockings and do-me pumps, too. She wanted sex. Now. “Why not? Aren’t they any good?” “Don’t know.” Spike had no idea if these condoms – or any condoms - were good or not, because he’d never had occasion to wear one before becoming, theoretically speaking, dead. He’d heard condoms were terrible from the male point of view and he didn’t want anything to come between him and Buffy. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll pull out.” He tugged on the little leash attached to her collar to make her lean closer and kiss him some more. How could he think about this poncey Brat Prevention Crap when her sweet pink tongue was in his mouth? Buffy strained against her collar. “Like you did the last time?” Spike did not care for the accusing tone in Buffy’s voice. Slayer was being very argumentative about the birth control subject. He didn’t want to worry about wearing condoms or any of the rest of it. He was a vampire. Being a vampire meant never having to say you were worried. How hard could he spank the minx without setting off his chip? “A spanking would go perfectly with that outfit, kitten.” He nibbled and licked the bite scars on her neck where he’d bitten her. Licking her scars usually brought her around to a white heat. If she hadn’t busted up that control box, he could bite her again, then she’d be so hot, she’d quit ragging him about the damn condoms. When she pushed him away, he decided a soothing lie might be in order. “I got a little excited last time, pet, and I forgot. It won’t happen again.” “Won’t you use them once for me?” Buffy worked her way up to a sulk. Spike was very good at the Let’s Have Mind Boggling Sex part and very bad at the Let’s Not Get Buffy Pregnant part. When his tactic of licking her bite marks to make her squirm didn’t work like he’d hoped, he tried another dodge. “Give me a blowjob, luv, and you won’t have to worry.” “I gave you a blowjob already and I want to have normal sex with you, Spike.” She pouted some more. He might give in if she pouted enough. Spike picked up a thin whip that he kept close by for such occasions and stroked Buffy’s thigh with the tip. “And, what would normal sex be, luv?” Buffy pushed the whip away. “Don’t distract me. What did you do about sex and protection stuff when you were alive? Did they have condoms back in the old days?” Spike flopped back on his pillow. The old days. She talked like he was as old as that wanker, Angelus. To hell with Angelus. Angelus was history. Spike had the Slayer in his arms and he was going to everything in his power to make her forget all about his sire. He raised the whip and gave her a tiny sting on her rump. His chip gave him a tiny shock. Buffy frowned, something she didn’t usually do when Spike had the whip in his hand. From the stern look on her face, he saw he was not going to get laid until he resolved this business with the condoms. “Yes, we had condoms.” He didn’t want to say any more on the subject of what he did about sex when he was alive. The answer was exactly nothing because he’d been a virgin when Drusilla turned him. Virgin William did not fit in with his image of himself as the Big Bad. “Did you use them? Back then, I mean?” Exasperating female. “No, I didn’t use them, back then.” Human William, the old days, sex and no condom using. “You were a virgin, weren’t you?” “Bloody hell! Can’t a bloke get shagged without the Spanish Inquisition?” Satisfied she was correct, that pre-bloody William had been totally lame in the sex department, she concluded Spike’s real problem was he didn’t know how to put a condom on. She considered herself an expert after all those demonstrations with long, pointy vegetables she received in high school health class. She tore open one of the packets with her teeth. “I’ll put it on for you, Spike,” she whispered in his ear and slid her hand around his hard cock. Spike forgot what he was arguing about when she stroked him with her warm, little hand. She made him so hard, he hurt. “It’s a French tickler,” she said. “I heard they’re the best kind.” “Bugger the French.” He peeled back one of the cups on her bustier and sucked on her taut, rosy-pink nipple. If he could sink his fangs into that tender pillow of flesh, he’d self-combust. He barely noticed when Buffy rolled the condom down his cock and he couldn’t feel the thing, except for a pleasant tingle, when she pushed him on his back and slid herself onto him. She was warm and tight as ever. He bit her neck with his blunt teeth, a poor substitute for his sharp fangs, and jerked hard when he spilled his seed inside her. When he regained something resembling rational thought, he decided he’d been making a fuss over nothing, not that he was about to admit any such thing to his girl. Buffy was having very different thoughts. French ticklers were – Wow – they were beyond hot with those little ridges and the tickly parts and the whole tingly thing. She came so fast, she hardly had enough time to enjoy the whole Spike experience. She blamed Spike for teasing her and arguing when he could have been giving her what she wanted. Condoms were kind of messy, but better than all the gross stuff she’d been using. She rewarded Spike with another blowjob. Positive Reinforcement. *** The sun had set when Willow woke up from her nap and switched on her lamp. There was no sign of Buffy, which was a relief. If Willow left soon, she might miss Buffy altogether that evening and not be forced to initiate the Condom Encouragement Conversation until tomorrow. Willow didn’t know whether to be relieved or afraid when she saw the box of condoms was gone.

Chapter #2 - Tough Love

Chapter 2 – Tough Love Several weeks later… She ran home as fast as she could, but her mother was sorting through the mail when Buffy banged through the front door. “Don’t bother looking through the mail, Buffy. It’s right here,” Joyce said. She held up a slip of paper with a computer printout of Buffy’s college grades. “Mom, I was really busy this term, what with the extra vampire slayage at the campus and then I cleared out a ryzark demon nest and you know how mean they are, and Giles wanted me to learn about …” “Please, Buffy. I’m not interested in hearing your excuses. The only vampire you’ve been chasing is Spike.” Buffy stuck out her lip. She hated when her mother was wise to her. She’d spent way too much time this term at Spike’s crypt, minimum time slaying and no time whatsoever doing homework. Spike was a lot more fun than homework. Spike was a lot more necessary than homework, too, or patrolling or even seeing her friends. When had that happened? At first, after the whole control box incident, she saw him once in a while, catching up with him in the cemetery when she went on patrol, which always included a stroll by his crypt. Or, she saw him at the Bronze where he persuaded her to join him in the alley for some tantalizing kissing and groping. She would have danced with him at the Bronze, but Xander always put up a big stink and Willow watched her like a hawk for any signs that the control box experiment had revived itself. Before long, she found herself going to his crypt to find him and not just for the sex. Spike talked to her, fussed over her, took her fun places and never nagged her for all the things that she was neglecting, like homework or slayage. Her mother still appeared to be in the mood to discuss Buffy’s grades. “I thought you liked Spike, Mom.” “I do like him. He’s a lot more polite than that Angel character and not nearly as old. What I don’t like is paying a huge amount of money for college tuition and getting results like these.” Joyce waved the paper at Buffy. Buffy went into the kitchen. If she whined about being hungry, her mother might make her something to eat and forget to bark about her lousy grades. She opened the refrigerator and swung on the door while she stared at the contents. Ugh. Nothing but healthy stuff like fruits and vegetables and meat and plain yogurt. “Isn’t there any pizza, Mom? I’m hungry.” Buffy found a can of Cheezee Whizee in the back of the refrigerator and squirted a gob into her mouth when her mother wasn’t looking. Mmmm, tasty chemical goodness suspended in a protein base and delivered with aerosol propulsion. “Close the refrigerator, Buffy, and it won’t work. We’re going to have the Unhappy Mommy Conversation and you’re going to pay attention.” Buffy sighed. Her mother had been listening to those damn parenting tapes again. “I’m giving you one chance, young lady, to bring your grades up. I’m not going to pay tuition while you flunk and hang around with your boyfriend. Your school has a new Internet site, so I can review your progress every day, in case you think you can fool around for another six weeks.” “M-o-o-o-o-m! How am I going to do homework and slay? You know how much time that takes. Slaying, I mean.” Making time to see Spike was what she really meant. “Spike will have to manage without you for a few weeks and you’ll have to ask Mr. Giles to handle any pesky ryzark problems that pop up until you improve your grades. Quit squirting Cheezee Whizee in your mouth and help me make dinner. I bought you chocolate cake to eat while you’re studying.” Buffy kissed her mother’s cheek. “You’re the bestest, Mom.” *** “Are you sure no one has seen him? What about the hospitals and places like that?” Aspen Bleuette sat at Detective Halkeran’s desk for the third time that week trying to goad the detective into taking some action about her missing boyfriend. By ‘places like that’ she meant the morgue, a word she couldn’t bring herself to say. “I’m sorry, Miss, I’ve checked the school, the computer department people, the hospitals and the county morgue. No one saw him after he left the computer lab.” She bit her lip to keep from crying. Something happened to him, but what? Halkeran glanced down at his file so he could remember the kid’s name. “Thomas is an adult. The pressure of school gets to people. He went off somewhere to blow off steam and he’ll be back.” Or, not. “You’ll call me if you hear anything, won’t you?” “I’ll let you know the minute I hear something. You keep checking back.” She picked up her school bag and left the police station. After she was gone, Detective Halkeran tossed the Thomas Lasker file on a stack with the fourteen other missing person cases from the past two weeks, none of whom he expected to find. *** That evening at Willy’s Place … “See you one alley and raise you three Siamese short-hairs,” Clem said. He pushed four squirming kittens to the middle of the poker table and sat back looking satisfied. “Bloody hell.” Spike pitched his cards down in disgust. He’d lost another two kittens to Clem, the arse end of card players in Sunnydale. They were only a couple of orange-striped alley cats, not even decent black ones, but he shouldn’t have lost them at all. Wouldn’t have lost those damn cats if his mind hadn’t been stuck on Buffy. “Too rich for me,” Burt, the newtle demon, said. He rubbed his retractable right horn until it glowed bright orange. Burt’s twin brother, Jurt, who had also been playing with Spike and Clem, tossed his cards over to Clem. “Guess Burt and me better call it a night. You cleaned us out, Clem.” They paid off their losings to Clem with three over-the-hill grey and white kittens they’d acquired from the City Pound and snuck out the back door. There was no real need to sneak out of Willy’s, but, as Jurt telepathically reminded his brother, you can’t be too careful in the Slayer’s town. And, there was that rumor about Spike and the Slayer. It seemed impossible, but … Clem gathered up Burt and Jurt’s grey and whites and Spike’s two orange stripes and tucked his kitten winnings into his basket and secured the lid. “What’s up, Spike? You never let me beat you at cards. You didn’t even cheat tonight. Are you feeling okay?” Spike hadn’t been feeling okay for weeks. He hadn’t been feeling okay since Buffy came sashaying into Giles’ bathroom with that bleeding control box and crawled in the bathtub with him. Christ, it didn’t bear thinking about what she’d done that particular afternoon. He dreamed about Buffy night and day. Without quite realizing what was happening, he’d come to depend on her visits to his crypt, and not only for sex. Buffy could be a pleasant companion, fought like a hellion and didn’t, like most women, talk all the time. Best of all, she never drank up his booze. All of which made him wonder if he wasn’t a little in love with the bint. Spike leaned back in his chair and balanced on two chair legs. “Clem, did you ever love a girl?” “I love my mom and my thirty-two sisters and forty-six first cousins, the female ones, and …” Spike squeezed his eyes shut. Conversations with Clem often drifted astray. “Not your relatives. Did you ever love a female flapsera demon?” “Oh, you mean, like my mate. Sure. I love Clarna.” Clarna. Only a mother flapsera could love the mug on Clem’s wife. But, if Clem said he loved his mate, maybe he could help. Wasn’t like he had any number of male companions he could talk over his current predicament. Spike gritted his teeth and accidentally cut the inside of his mouth with his fangs. “Owww. I think I’m in love.” “That’s excellent, Spike. When are you getting married? Am I invited?” “Who said anything about getting married? Did I say married?” The abyss of marriage yawned in front of him, darker and more frightening than the Hellmouth. Spike remembered the time he’d been engaged to the Slayer and how stupidly happy he’d been. Well, he wasn’t under any bleeding spell now and not even Buffy was going to put a great wanking ball and chain on him. He shivered. “I’m the Big Bad in this town and I’m Evil. Can’t be getting married.” He almost said marriage was for wankers, but he didn’t want to hurt Clem’s feelings. Clem had married Clarna two years ago and already spawned fourteen demon brats of his own. He seemed happy enough, although his ears had lengthened a good two inches from having his spawn hang on them. Clem chuckled and sipped on his cream soda. “This cream soda is not as bubbly as I like. I’ll have to ask Willy to stock a different brand. Who’s the girl?” All he needed was for word to get out that he was mooning around over the Slayer and he wouldn’t be able to flash a fang in this damned town. His hard-earned reputation would be destroyed forever. “You won’t tell anybody?” “Won’t tell an unsouled.” Spike checked around the bar to make sure no cheeky vampires were eavesdropping and thumped his chair back to the floor. He leaned forward and lowered his voice so the other vampires in the bar couldn’t hear him. “You know Buffy?” “Buffy? The Slayer?” Clem spoke loud enough for everyone in the Hellmouth to hear him. Willy picked that moment to wipe off their table with his filthy bar rag. Spike vamped his face at Willy and sent him scurrying away. “Shhhh! Don’t talk so loud. Yeah, the Slayer. She’s the one.” “I suppose she’s nice enough looking for a human. Her skin’s awfully tight. It must hurt.” What the hell did Clem know about skin? Buffy’s skin was gold from the sun and hot and smooth under his fingers. Thinking about her skin made his cock stiff. She had him so knotted up, he couldn’t even hold a conversation without wanting to have sex with her. He had to do something about her, besides getting drunk and brawling with a demon or two to work off his frustrations. But, what? “What should I do about her?” “I’d take her to a plastic surgeon and see if they could loosen up her skin, put in a few expansion flaps. She’ll need those when she breeds your young. Might improve her mood if her skin wasn’t so shrunk up, too.” “Young? What are you on about you daft bastard? I’m a vampire.” “You said you loved her, so there have to be young. You really should look into fixing her skin before she gets in the family way.” “Forget the skin. What should I do about being in love with her?” “Oh, sorry. You should get married. That’s what you should do.” “Hello! Vampire! I can’t get married.” “Why not?” Why not! What a bleeding stupid question. Everybody knows vampires don’t get married. Vamps do whatever they want. On the other hand, vampires do whatever the hell they want, so why couldn’t he marry the Slayer, if he wanted to? Nobody could stop him if he decided to hitch up with the Slayer. He slapped his forehead. What was he thinking? Stick to your principles, man. “Because - because - it just isn’t done. Vampires never get married. Besides, I can’t exactly set up the little woman in my crypt then, can I?” “No, I guess you couldn’t.” Clem thought for a minute. “You should get an apartment, then get married.” This talk with Clem was not going at all the way he’d anticipated. Clem should be giving him some good bachelor advice, like bang her silly until you get tired of her, then blow town. The problem was he wasn’t tired of her at all. Instead, he needed her more every day – needed to touch her, talk to her, make love to her, bite her, play cards with her. He needed her to be with him all the time and … Balls. No, it couldn’t be done. His honor was at stake. His personal code as a Bad Ass Vampire was on the line here. His reputation as the Biggest of the Baddest would be chucked in a victim’s heartbeat if let himself get glued to his girl. No matter what he felt about her, he had to protect his reputation and those of his bloodsucking kind. He would stand firm. He raised his chin to show his resolve. “Getting married to the Slayer would ruin my reputation.” “Your reputation is already in tatters. I wouldn’t worry about it.” “What? What the hell are you saying? I’m the Enormous Evil in this town and everybody knows it.” His rep was still solid, even though his fangs had been clipped by the damn buzzkill chip. He’d thrash any vamp in town that said different. “Everybody knows you have the chip in your head and you can’t bite humans anymore and everybody’s talking about you sleeping with the Slayer.” A deathly hush fell over the room. Every vamp and demon in the bar turned to stare at Spike. He snarled at Cleotus, a beefy vamp from New York and showed his fangs to the rest before turning back to Clem. Spike hissed at Clem, “If you knew I was having it off with the Slayer, why’d you act surprised?” “I had a bet with Willy and some of the boys about whether or not the rumor was true. I got excited because I won.” “What bet?” “I bet you would be sleeping with the Slayer before Walpurgisnacht. Jurt and Burt said she’d rip your head off first. Nobody wanted to pay up until they got confirmation from you or the Slayer. Now, I can collect.” Spike banged his forehead on the sticky table. His unlife was ruined.

Chapter #3 - Pesterment

Chapter 3 - Pesterment One week later … Buffy sat in a private, glassed-in carrel at the university library and leafed through her psychology textbook. She felt like a bloated fish in an aquarium where all the real students could stare at her, a Studying Loafer. This studying business was nothing like her Movie Montage Fantasy – sharpened pencils, tremendously neat class notes and brainiac glasses. Studying was way like work. Maybe she should buy some glasses to help her concentrate? She was seriously behind in psychology, hence her unaccustomed visit to the library. Professor Walsh gave her an A last term as a blackmail payment when Buffy discovered the hidden goal of the Positive Reinforcement program. Walsh was back to real grading this term. Buffy stopped reading the material last term after she blackmailed Walsh into giving her a good grade. She despaired of making anything like a good grade in Psychology 102 without some scholarly help. Buffy slumped in her chair, daydreamed about Spike and how intelligent she’d look in a pair of slim, black glasses and considered how unlikely she was to receive a good grade. While Buffy was daydreaming, she was being studied by Professor Walsh’s graduate assistant, Riley Finn. Riley lusted for Buffy from the moment she dropped a stack of books on his head in the campus bookstore. He considered trying to score with her, maybe even take her out a couple of times if she proved cooperative in the sack, until Professor Walsh messed up his chances when she mixed Buffy up in that damn Positive Reinforcement program. After he’d found out about the program and confronted Walsh, he’d been sternly warned by the professor to keep his distance from Buffy. Walsh didn’t want Riley interfering with her stupid research program which manipulated Buffy into having sex with a hostile. And, not just any hostile either. Walsh picked Hostile 17, who was as obnoxious as the night was long and a psycho killer to boot, to be Buffy’s playmate. Riley tracked down Hostile 17 to protect Buffy from him. He was about to dust Seventeen, when Buffy surprised him and kicked his butt. Getting his butt kicked by a tiny girl like Buffy was beyond embarrassing. It was even more embarrassing considering how little Riley appreciated Buffy’s fighting abilities. Her talents as the so-called Slayer were over-rated. She couldn’t possibly be as strong as a well-trained male soldier. She’d been lucky that night. She’d punched him in the gut after Seventeen delivered a male-strength kick and cracked Riley’s skull against the crypt wall. Buffy wouldn’t have been able to lay a finger on him in a fair fight. Riley still wanted to have sex with Buffy, but after he found out she’d slept with vampire scum Seventeen, he abandoned any serious romantic intentions. He couldn’t allow himself to fall in love with a slut who slept around with vampires, even if the sleeping around with part wasn’t her idea. No, she was only good enough for a toss in the rack after consorting with vampire filth. Buffy was still mad at him for trying to dust Seventeen and Walsh ordered him to stay away from Buffy except to talk to her in his capacity as Walsh’s graduate assistant, which prevented him from approaching her. Walsh, by giving Buffy a lousy grade in freshman psych, gave him the opportunity he needed. Riley tapped on the glass of Buffy’s study cell and came in without an invitation. “Buffy?” Riley said. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” “What’s the what?” she said. Exactly what she needed, pesterment by Special Agent Riley Finn. Hadn’t he got the message when she beat him up in Spike’s crypt? Too bad humans didn’t have to be invited in like vampires. Riley sat down in the chair across from her. He didn’t want to arouse her suspicions by sitting too close. “I wanted to talk to you about Hostile 17.” “What about him?” Riley had so better not be planning on messing with Spike. Not unless he wanted to find out what it was like to be a Slayer Punching Bag. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for beating him up. I thought his chip wasn’t working and he was going to hurt you. I hope you can forgive me. I forgot you can take care of yourself.” Riley was sorry Buffy intervened before he slammed a sharp stake through Seventeen’s dead heart. Buffy sniffed. Riley never came close to beating up Spike. Spike figured out the secret of the control box – it could neutralize his chip. If Buffy hadn’t taken over the Riley ass-kicking chore herself, Riley would have been Demon-Roni by the time Spike finished with him. But, since Riley seemed sorry, and Giles was always nagging her to forgive people for screwing up, Buffy accepted his apology. Besides, Riley might be useful in the studying department. “Yeah, I can take care of myself.” That went pretty good. Should he pull the Innocent Farm Boy act and ask her for a date? Some girls really go for that shit. Of course, she’d already proved herself a slut, and not just with Seventeen. Maybe he should invite her out to the parking lot to check out the back seat of his car? Buffy saw Riley was wallowing in an awkward male Don’t Know What To Say To A Pretty Girl Type Moment, so she changed the subject. “Could you help me, Riley? I got a little behind in my studying last term what with tracking down a kiss of vampires on campus and clearing out a ryzark nest. I could use some graduate level tutoring in brain manipulating, if you’re not too busy.” Buffy fed Riley the same lies she’d used on her mother about the campus vampires, who were still doing a brisk business in spite of Buffy’s efforts, and the ryzarks which weren’t living within three hundred miles of Sunnydale, but Riley was stupid enough to believe her. “Sure, Buffy,” he said. Boy, that had been easy. He hadn’t even had to suggest the tutoring scam himself. Studying was perfect. He could get laid without spending any money. “We can set up a schedule and go over the material you missed.” And, she could show her gratitude for his tutoring by using her tongue on his dick. Three study sessions ought to be enough to establish her role in their relationship. Her role on her knees. “How about tomorrow? I’m patrolling tonight.” Patrol. Here was a chance to get Buffy alone and give her an opportunity to show her gratitude before he went to the trouble of tutoring the little idiot. If he got her alone in the cemetery, she’d put out. She’d dropped her panties quick enough for that freshman jerk, Parker. She’d do the same for him. “Would you like me to come with you? I’m good at taking out ryzarks. I killed a couple down in Belize a few months ago.” Buffy had no intention of taking any trips through the cemetery tonight or anyplace alone in the dark with Riley. He was bound to be with the exploring hands. Besides, she was meeting Spike to patrol the Bronze and she did not want Riley tagging along on her date with Spike. “I’m just making a quick pass. Through the cemetery, I mean. I have a lot of homework to catch up on.” Riley accepted her excuse, partly because he’d never seen a ryzark in his life and didn’t want to take the chance of meeting up with one without proper preparation and his back up team. They set a time to meet the following day. *** Spike and Buffy stood under the stairs at the Bronze where her friends couldn’t see them making out. “Come back to my crypt, pet. You’re driving me dozy. I’ll take you to the Demolition Derby later. They’re having Amateur Night.” He wrapped her into the flaps of his coat so he could slide his hands onto her ass. He could always think more clearly when his hands were on her ass. “Demo Derby is tempting, but no way. My mom had a goat about my grades this afternoon. I have to study.” She also had an errand to run that wouldn’t wait. Spike was not on a need to know basis about this errand, either. She hoped she’d be able to dodge him long enough to get it taken care of. “I have a subject you could study,” he said. He nuzzled her neck and pressed her hand on his crotch. He was definitely not interested in Buffy leaving him in this condition while she flounced off to her dorm room to read some boring text book. He’d missed her this afternoon when she didn’t come by for her kip. He didn’t like sharing her with her friends and school and slaying and the chuff-all she involved herself in. He liked sharing her even less now that he’d half made up his mind he was in love with her. She should concentrate on him. “I’m pretty familiar with this material,” she said as she stroked him and forced herself not to pull his zipper down. “I think I could pass the test.” “You could, luv, but you might need to cram. Let’s go out in the alley and you can get hands-on experience.” He gave her a toe-curling kiss to convince her. She broke the kiss. “I’m leaving, perv. You can come by my room later. Willow is staying someplace else tonight. Don’t forget to bring the things.” Just in case we need them after all. Spike snorted in exasperation. Buffy obsessed over those damn condoms. He wanted to run an errand on campus himself. He could pick up the bloody condoms and take care of his errand while Buffy was studying. *** The Psych Department hallway was dimly lit by an emergency exit light. Spike paused to listen for the sound of any late-night visitors, and, hearing nothing, walked down the hall to Professor Walsh’s door. The door didn’t appear to be wired with an alarm, so he jerked the handle and broke the lock. After another moment, when no alarm sounded, he eased the door open and went inside the office and turned on the light. He busted open some locked file cabinets and flipped through some of the files, but they weren’t interesting, just some crap about computer security breaches. He tossed the files on the floor. “Think you can nag me like I’m your lawfully wedded, do you, about those damn condoms? Being damn petty about it, if you ask me.” He jimmied open the professor’s desk drawers with a metal letter opener which she left lying on top of her desk. The middle drawer contained a few dried up pens, some pencil stumps and a clump of desiccated rubber bands. In the top left-hand drawer, he found the standard tools of the vampire killer trade – stakes, bottles of holy water, a couple of crosses and some heads of garlic “So much for modern methods of vampire control.” He pulled off a clove of garlic and popped it in his mouth and chewed on it and left the rest of the garlic on top of Walsh’s desk. He shoved the stakes and bottles of holy water into his coat pocket. He flipped over the professor’s keyboard. There were two series of letters written on a slip of paper taped to the bottom of the keyboard. He copied the words on a piece of paper he found in the desk and put the paper in his coat pocket with the rest of the junk. To his surprise, he found a large box of Vampyro Condoms in the bottom drawer. They appeared to be the same kind that Buffy fetched over to his crypt a few weeks ago. “Vampires Always Get Invited In. Get begged to come in is more like it.” He smirked at the picture of Dracula. The box was too big to squeeze into his pocket, so he tucked it under his arm. These ought to keep Buffy from nagging him about this birth control business for a few weeks. In one of the side drawers, he found what he was looking for – a control box identical to the one Buffy brought to his crypt. He didn’t find a wristband, but Buffy didn’t need encouragement to have sex with him these days. The box would come in handy for other purposes. He pocketed the box and continued searching the drawers. He tossed a few papers and books on the floor and overturned a couple of chairs. He flipped off the light and was about to leave when he heard voices. He put his ear to the glass panel in the door and listened. “She’s mattressable,” a male voice said. “Yeah,” another man said. “I bet she’s a wildcat in bed, if that Little Miss Slayer business isn’t all a fairy tale. And, I’m the man who is going to find out.” The voices receded as the men continued down the hall. Spike peeked out the door to see who’d been talking. Finn. The same git who’d tried to stake Spike in his own crypt. The same one Buffy thrashed. Had Buffy been up to something with GI Joe? Bloody hell. If he could only get rid of his chip, he’d thrash the berk himself for talking about her that way. “Bitch, better not be two-timing me. I won’t have you running around on me with that knuckle dragger. Pushed Angel out, I’ll push Soldier Boy out of my way, too. He doesn’t have a chance once Spike turns on the charm.” Spike saw from the faint change of light in the sky that he was late for his meeting with Buffy and hurried away.

Chapter #4 - Ease Himself In

Chapter 4 – Ease Himself In Breaking into Professor Walsh’s office took longer than he expected, what with lurking around half the night for the students to leave so he could break in without being disturbed, then snooping on Soldier Boy. It was dawn by the time Spike arrived at Buffy’s dorm and picked the outer door lock to let himself into the building. Spike rapped on her door softly, but she didn’t answer. She must be sleeping, which suited him fine, because he liked to wake her up for sex. She was always hot and ready when he did that, like she was dreaming about sex and he could ease himself into her dream. “Not going to do you a bit of good, sleeping all cozy and warm and sexy and trying to distract me. You and me are going to have a confrontation once and for all about this Soldier Git you’ve been running about with.” He picked the lock and peeked in the door. Red’s twin bed was empty. She must be out carousing with her lezzer friend. Buffy was sleeping on top of her bed in her fish pajamas and her swollen eyes told him she’d been crying. He forgot all about the soldier. “What’s this, then?” He let himself in and tossed his coat and the box of condoms on Red’s bed. He noticed a faint, out of place scent – chemicals and Buffy-pee? Buffy’s study desk was littered with white and pink cardboard boxes containing complicated pages of instructions. Spike picked up one of the boxes. Home Pregnancy Test. Five flat, white sticks were lined up in a neat row on the edge of Buffy’s desk. In the faint light seeping in around the curtains, he could see each of the sticks had a pink tip. He’d watched the telly enough to know what the pink tips on the sticks meant, although he didn’t understand why Buffy took the test five different times. He adjusted the control box to override his chip, in case Buffy should be in a cooperative mood to let him have a tasty bite and pulled off his clothes and boots. He got into bed next to Buffy and turned her around so she was nestled in his arms. “Spike?” Buffy yawned and snuggled closer. She opened her eyes and he could see them green and glinting with tears in the half light. “I’ve got you, pet. Why’ve you been crying?” As if he didn’t know. She was crying because she was cooking up a baby. His baby, although how in flaming hell they’d managed it, he’d be damned if he knew. “I’m pregnant,” she said. Her lower lip trembled as she waited for his reaction. “I know,” he said. He brushed his mouth across hers. What he didn’t know was how he felt about impending fatherhood. Did he want to be a dad? He’d avoided it for over a hundred years. William would have pleased as hell to assume the patriarchal cloak with that blazing bitch Cecily, but he wasn’t William. He hadn’t been for a long time. And, what about Buffy? Did his girl want to have his baby? The baby of a vampire? She propped herself up on her elbows and studied him. “You aren’t mad?” No, he wasn’t all that upset. In fact, he wasn’t upset at all. Buffy was warm and sweet to him, when he wasn’t ruffling her feathers. She’d treated him nicely considering he’d tried to murder her on several occasions. Drusilla left a long time ago, and he’d been lonely without a woman until Buffy stormed into his unlife. If she wanted to have a baby, that was all right with him. “I’m not mad. Having babies, that’s what girls do.” Buffy relaxed in his arms. Yes, making babies was what normal girls did. Making babies made normal girls happy. Of course, normal girls didn’t have vampires as the fathers of their babies. It was way too late to worry about that. Buffy’s next thought was even less pleasant. Spike might be okay with a baby and she was okay with a baby, now that she knew Spike was okay, but others, starting with her mother, were going to be un-okay. Practically everyone she knew was going to be un-okay. “My mom’s head is going to explode.” “Don’t worry. We’ll talk her around. She can’t resist me.” Buffy giggled. If anyone could talk around her mother, Spike could. “She likes you.” The rest of them could pound sand in the Hellmouth for all she cared. Giles, Xander and maybe even Willow would squawk, but that’s all they ever did. Spike smoothed her rumpled hair and tucked a golden lock behind her ear. “What about you? Do you like me?” Here was a scary topic. Did she like Spike, besides the awesome sex? Yes, she did. He broke into her dorm room and stole her underwear and left her rosebuds and slightly mashed up chocolates wrapped in silver and gold foil. He could be sweet and romantic and he could make her feel better when she was sad, like tonight, and he didn’t keep a list of all the important things she wasn’t doing that she ought to be doing. “I like you, too, Spike.” He unbuttoned her pajama top so she could show him. *** That evening … The lights inside the house at Revello Drive glowed into the purple-blue twilight, welcoming visitors with their cheery warmth. Buffy didn’t feel cheery. She stood outside her mother’s house, shuffling from one foot to another and whispering to Spike. “Mom’s going to be furious. Let’s tell her some other time.” Spike took advantage of Buffy’s stall tactics to sneak in a few kisses on her neck and lick the place where he’d bit her last night. He was getting hard remembering how she wriggled with pleasure when he slipped his fangs into her neck. “Joyce will blow her stack a bit, but we might as well get it over with. Do you want me to tell her?” “Would you?” Spike had no idea of how mad her mother was going to be. Joyce might not act as mad around Spike, but madness was going to happen, along with crying, yelling and Joyce blaming herself for being a bad mother. Buffy didn’t think Joyce would be violent, but she did hit Spike in the head with a fire ax once. “I’ll have her eating out of the palm of my hand,” Spike said. He rang the doorbell. Buffy walked into the house, without waiting for her mother to answer the door and saw that telling her mother she’d gotten pregnant with a vampire was not her only worry. Giles was sitting on the living room sofa having a cozy chat with Buffy’s mom. Buffy did not want Giles associating with her mother when Buffy wasn’t around to chaperone. Not after the Contaminated Candy Event when Giles and her mother … ick. Buffy couldn’t think about what those two did. Giles better not be starting up with Buffy’s mother again. Joyce was flustered, but acted pleased to see them, or at least, she put on a semi-convincing act. “Buffy, what a nice surprise. And, you’ve brought Spike. Come in and join us. I was about to make tea. Why are you wearing those dreadful overalls, honey? I thought you got rid of those. You’re always wearing them when something happens.” “M-o-o-o-o-m,” Buffy said. She was wearing her fashion-free overalls for a very good reason. Her other pants were too tight. They were too tight before Spike’s swimmer hit the target, and now, she couldn’t get them zipped up. Buffy was in no hurry to share with her mother the news she needed a new wardrobe. Giles frowned. “Joyce, I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with Spike.” “I met Spike the night Buffy ran away from home. No, that’s not right. I hit him in the head with an ax before that, some school night thing we were all attending. Since Spike and Buffy started dating, I see him quite a bit.” Joyce sounded pleased that Buffy was dating Spike and she hadn’t dwelled too long on the Running Away From Home Incident. That’s of the good. What wasn’t good was the look on Giles’ face. His eyes bulged out and he looked mad enough to spin his head around in a Linda Blair Free-Style Event. He looked like he might hurl some green vomit for fifteen or twenty feet, too. “Dating?” Giles gave Spike a stern look before grilling Buffy on how the dating activity came about. “Buffy, the last time I saw you with Spike, you told me you were performing a positive reinforcement experiment on him for your psychology class.” Buffy skirted the edge of the room, dragging Spike with her, so she could sit in a chair as far as possible from her Watcher. She jerked her tee shirt higher on her neck so Giles wouldn’t see Spike’s latest bite mark. Spike must have a hell of a headache today after that bite. “Yeah, the experiment.” Giles peered at Buffy over the frames of his glasses. “Is that a bite mark on your neck, Buffy?” The tea kettle whistled and Joyce headed for the kitchen. “I’ll get the tea, Rupert, while you and Buffy catch up.” Spike followed Buffy’s mother. “Let me give you a hand, Joyce.” He winked at Buffy as he left the room. Buffy signaled Spike to keep his mouth shut. This was the worst possible time for Spike to inform her mother that Buffy was about to become an unwed teenage mother of a vampire’s baby, with Giles loitering in the living room. Spike ignored her. She slumped in her chair. She was about to hear intense crankiness from her Watcher and yelling from her mother. Her red underpants with the black lace were scratchy and her Wonderbra was too tight. She couldn’t believe having a baby would make you get fat so fast. Giles removed his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief and looked at her expectantly. “The experiment?” Buffy talked fast. “There-was-a-problem-with-the-experiment-and-the-control-box-thingie-didn’t-exactly-work-as-advertised-and-it-sort-of-made-Spike-and-me-have-sex-sometimes-so-Willow-hacked-into-the-government-computer-and-found-out-they-had-this-Vampire-Baby-Having-Experiment-to-make-little-half-human-half-vampires-and-Spike-and-I-were-kinda-like-the-experimentees.” Giles continued to polish his glasses while he digested Buffy’s explanation. He made her repeat the story of the control box and the government and Spike and the experiment two more times before he was satisfied. “When were you planning to inform me of all this?” Buffy escaped answering by the sound of a crash in the kitchen – the sound of a large ceramic dish hitting the floor. Or somebody’s head. Then, there was the sound of flesh hitting flesh and Buffy heard Spike groan. So much for parenting tapes and Palm-Hand Ingestion Techniques. “Buffy?” Giles didn’t permit the sound of disaster from the kitchen prevent him from questioning his Slayer. Spike being in the kitchen was sufficient explanation for any untoward noises, such as Joyce tossing dishes about. He’d often desired to heave a large dish or two at Spike’s head. “You were busy with the Council that week and …” “You brought the control box to my house and unchained Spike in October. I haven’t been busy with Council business every minute for the past four months.” Joyce returned to the living room, followed by Spike. Spike was carrying a tray with a tea pot, cups and cookies and sporting a swollen eye that was blooming purple and black. “Please set the tray on the table, Spike,” Joyce said. “I apologize for using this old teapot, Rupert. There was an accident in the kitchen.” Joyce looked pointedly at Spike, then Buffy. “I’d better get Spike some ice,” Buffy said. Mom shouldn’t be hitting Spike. Buffy should be the one hitting Spike, if any hitting needed to be done. She was Spike’s official girlfriend, after all. When a guy knocked you up, that made girlfriendliness official, didn’t it? “Spike can wait,” Joyce said. “Giles, Spike and Buffy have some news. Buffy is pregnant.” Giles didn’t say anything for several minutes. He held his glasses in his hand without polishing them. “Joyce, the tea looks lovely, but I don’t suppose you have any Scotch?” Joyce fetched a large bottle of Glenfiddich that Buffy never saw before and poured two large glasses, one for Giles and one for herself.

Chapter #5 - Hell to Pay

Chapter 5 – Hell to Pay Aspen left the computer lab at midnight. The lab was the last place Thomas was seen alive. She’d come there every night during the past weeks to question people who showed up, hoping to find someone who’d seen him or talked to him the night he’d disappeared. Every night, she talked to someone new and every night she was disappointed. She headed down the dark street, past the burnt-out computer building. It was a long walk home from the university to her apartment. Thomas would have been upset if he’d known she was walking alone at this time of night. Thomas was right to worry. Sunnydale was full of spooky-looking people and mysterious happenings. She’d shrugged them off – the disappearances, the deaths by weird causes like neck punctures and traumatic anemia – until Thomas disappeared. Now, walking in the dark terrified her. She jumped at every noise and scurried by every shadow. When she finally arrived at her apartment building, she fumbled for her keys at the outside door. She berated herself for not having her keys ready like Thomas asked her to do. She was scrabbling her keys at the deadbolt when an Army truck drove up and parked on the street in front of her building. She hurried to unlock the door, although she told herself she shouldn’t be frightened of some soldiers, and dropped her bag in her rush. A soldier jumped out of the passenger seat of the truck. “Miss? I’m sorry to disturb you. We need directions.” Three more soldiers got out of the back of the truck. One of them was holding a rifle. She shook with fear, but ignored the soldiers. She struggled to turn the key. The lock always jammed when she was in a hurry. As the deadbolt turned and the door swung open, she felt a sharp sting between her shoulder blades. A wave of dizziness overwhelmed her and she slumped to the sidewalk, unconscious. “Damn it, Raul,” Finn said. “I told you not to shoot until I verified her identity. Give Gates your rifle. You can’t be trusted. If she’s the wrong broad, you’re on latrine duty for a week.” “Jeez, Finn,” Private First Class Raul said, “It’s her.” Finn picked up her bag and fished out her wallet. “Aspen Bleuette. You got lucky asshole. Put her in the truck.” Forrest Gates, Agent Second Class, slung the rifle over his shoulder. “How much longer are we going to be doing this shit, Finn? I didn’t sign up to be doping and kidnapping college girls. We’re a fighting unit. We’re supposed to be killing demons and vampires, not fucking around with crazy-ass experiments.” “Shut up. Help Raul get her into the truck.” Finn tossed Aspen’s bag into the back of the truck where several other college girls were sleeping off the effects of tranquilizer darts. “Hey, Finn,” Private First Class Fred snickered, “When do I get to volunteer for college girl duty?” “When you grow a set of fangs, shit head. Move out. We’ve got something else to take care of before we go back to base.” *** Willow snuggled deeper into Tara’s large, soft bed, crammed her face into a pillow so she wouldn’t have to confess to Tara what she’d done. At least, not right away. Tara sat next to Willow and stroked her back with her delicate fingers. “You have to tell me sometime, Willow. I won’t be angry or upset. I promise.” “I can’t. I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anybody.” Willow intended to tell Tara, but she wanted to soften her up first and get her to make stupid promises, like the promise she’d just made about not being upset. “Is it someone else? Oz? Did Oz come back and you want to break up with me?” Tara held back her tears, but her voice broke. Since Willow wouldn’t talk, she imagined the worst. Willow sat up straight and wrapped her arms around Tara. “No, baby. There isn’t anyone else. You’re my girl. Don’t. Don’t ever think that.” If only Buffy had someone to love her the way Tara loved Willow. Tara pushed Willow away and folded her arms. “What am I supposed to think? You won’t tell me what’s wrong. You’ve been sad for days and crying when you think I don’t hear you. You don’t trust me.” Willow dragged her fingers through her hair. Her idea of softening up Tara went too far, not unlike some of the spells she’d cast lately. “Okay. I’ll tell you. Don’t bother to promise you’ll not be upset, because that’s not possible.” Willow drew in a long breath as if she needed an extra supply of oxygen to expel the whole sordid story. Tara took Willow’s hand and held it both of her own. She waited for Willow to begin. “You know how vampires always get invited in?” Willow asked. Tara shook her head and her face looked blank. “Okay. You remember a few months ago, when Spike asked me to hack into the Initiative computer?” *** Buffy perched on the arm of Spike’s chair and pressed an ice pack to his eye. Considering her new girlfriendly status, she pecked Spike on the cheek in front of Giles and her mother. Cheek pecking was a lame reward after Mom popped Spike in the eye and cracked a teapot over his head, so she kissed him on the mouth and slipped him a little tongue when Mom and Giles weren’t paying attention. “Are you okay?” “I see how you came to be the Slayer. Your mum has a good left hook.” He eased his fingers under the front of her overalls and pinched her nipple. Joyce glared at Spike to make him stop fondling Buffy. “Before you two came in, Rupert was telling me about his new research project that the Watcher’s Council is funding. You’ll be interested in this, honey. Rupert is studying ryzark demons.” Buffy raised an eyebrow. Ryzark demons? What was her mother talking about? Less than five minutes ago, Joyce found out she was going to be a grandmother and all she could talk about was ryzarks? Buffy felt her news deserved a little more interest from Mom – some yelling and crying and sulking and pouting. The very least her mother could do was throw up her hands and say she didn’t give a damn what all the parenting tapes said and make an appropriately noisy fit. Instead, her mother wanted to talk about some stupid demons nobody ever saw before. And, what did Joyce know about ryzark demons? Other than the tiny, minute, inconsequential, miniscule, insignificant white lie she’d told her mother concerning homework and taking out a nest of ryzark demons. “Buffy cleared out a nest of ryzark demons, here in Sunnydale,” Joyce informed Giles. Joyce held refilled Giles’ glass and her own. Spike held out a teacup, hoping for a slosh of booze to ease the pain in his black eye. Joyce ignored him and placed the bottle on the coffee table out of his reach. Giles drained his second glass of scotch. “You didn’t mention any ryzarks, Buffy. I’d like to examine their nest. Where is it?” Spike picked this moment to contribute to the conversation. “What are you on about, Watcher? There are no ryzarks within three hundred miles of Sunnydale.” Buffy gouged Spike in the ribs to shut him up. “Strays. Stray ryzarks. Cleaned them out. Ryzarks all gone. Nothing to see.” Buffy said. Spike looked at her like she’d grown a second head with fungus-coated antlers. This would be a good moment to get Spike some more ice for his black eye. If she was in the kitchen, she wouldn’t have to answer any more questions about ryzarks. She opened the refrigerator, fished out the Cheezee Whizee and gave herself two squirts before tucking the can in the pocket of her overalls. I’m eating for two.

Chapter #6 - Shall I Come In?

Note - due to popular outcry, I added back in Tara's response to Willow's bad behavior, which makes this somewhat of an uber-chapter. Thanks to all who clamored. Tart ********************************** Chapter 6 - Shall I Come In? Would Giles never leave? He was harder to root out than a burrowing crotnef demon. An hour ago, he’d launched into the whole boring run down on ryzarks in the Western hemisphere. How mean they were, how they ate small pets and the occasional human, how they attacked anything that moved, how they hurled poison spit, how they grew spare heads if you didn’t lop the first head off just right and hurled even more poison spit, how their skin had green and cream-colored striped scales. Big snore. Spike gave up hope of getting any share of Joyce’s Glenfiddich and fell asleep halfway through the lecture, so he was no help in relieving the boredom that was Giles. No matter how boring Giles was, Buffy wasn’t about to leave before he did. She didn’t want any repeat of the Band Candy Episode, especially the handcuffs part. And, she didn’t want Giles having any private conversations with her mother about this baby-haveage. Not to mention, she felt she deserved some quality sniffling and crying time alone with Mom and Spike over the baby and how much money her mother was going to let her have for a whole new wardrobe. After an interminable hour and nineteen minutes, Giles got up to leave. “Thank you again for your charming hospitality, Joyce. I appreciate you going to the trouble to make tea for me the old-fashioned way.” Worse and worse, Giles had her mother fussing about the kitchen with that medieval tea routine he insisted on performing even though he had a perfectly good microwave. Joyce smiled and held out her hand. “It was my pleasure, Rupert. It’s so nice to spend time with someone who appreciates the finer things.” “Like that scotch Giles was lapping up like a cat,” Buffy said. After another five minutes, Giles discovered he hadn’t brought an overcoat, which was no surprise to Buffy since it was 85 degrees outside. He spent another ten minutes giving Buffy instructions. “Buffy, I’ll expect you to report to the Magic Box tomorrow afternoon immediately after school so we can discuss your situation.” Buffy frowned. “It’s not a situation, it’s a baby.” “Er, of course, a baby. We need to research a number of issues - Spike, the Initiative, vampires, babies, Slayers, prophecies and a couple dozen other related topics. Then, we can discuss that bite mark on your neck and how I’m going to explain to Quentin Travers that my Slayer is pregnant with a vampire.” For a Watcher, who was supposedly all up on the what’s the what about vampires and their bitey habits, Giles could be remarkably obtuse about bite marks. Buffy yawned and Giles finally got the hint. Spike enjoyed his pleasant nap while Buffy was getting rid of Giles. His fingers twitched, his fangs were out and he had a hard-on, which meant he was dreaming about hunting, sucking blood and having sex. As soon as Joyce closed the door behind Giles, Buffy grabbed Spike’s hand and jerked him out of his chair. Buffy didn’t think her mother was quite ready to witness a full-blown vampire dream. Especially the part where Spike woke up and wanted to play Big Bad Bites Goldilocks. “It’s late, Mom. We’ve got to patrol.” Joyce stepped in front of the door and blocked their exit. “Not so fast, Buffy. We have a few things to talk about. Into the kitchen. Both of you.” Buffy sat down at the island and propped her head in her hands and waited for the blow up. This was more like it. Mom fixed hot chocolate with little marshmallows. She was not smiling, not even at Spike who was a guest and Mom’s favorite. “I’m disappointed, Buffy. You’ve acted in a very immature way. I’d hoped going to college and assuming some adult responsibilities would help you grow up, but it hasn’t.” Buffy pouted. This wasn’t going the way she’d planned. Where was the crying? Where was the shouting? She didn’t want to hear Calm In-Control Mom. She wanted hysteria and blubbering. “Mom, I was careful. The Initiative had this control box that made me and Spike …” “I don’t want to hear any of your fantastic stories. This is nothing but a replay of the time you burned down the gymnasium at your high school in Los Angeles. Lies and evasions and make believe.” “Did you really burn down two high schools?” Spike asked. His voice was filled with admiration for his girl. “No, I blew up the second one and it burned down on its own.” Spike hugged Buffy and kissed her lips with a loud smack. Buffy giggled. Joyce glared at the two of them. “Spike, don’t think for a minute I don’t hold you equally responsible,” Joyce said firmly. “But, this is no time for recriminations and finger pointing. You and Buffy have to decide what you’re going to do about raising your baby.” Spike cringed under the glare of Mum Aggro and went back to stirring around the marshmallow goo in his cup. “Do?” Buffy asked. What was there to do? You went to the doctor a few times and got fat and then the baby came and it hurt like hell. Oh, and you mega-shopped for cute outfits and stuff for the baby. Oh, yes. And, talked Mom into babysitting whenever Spike wanted to take her out dancing. “You know how I feel about unwed mothers, Buffy. Babies need two parents. You should understand better than anyone, considering the way your father behaved. I expect you and Spike to get married, Spike to go to work and for you both to raise my grandchild in a proper home.” Spike opened and closed his mouth like words were caught in his throat and couldn’t escape. He fainted. *** “You remember a few months ago,” Willow said, “when Spike asked me to hack into the Initiative computer?” “I’ll never forget that. It was our first big spell together,” Tara said. She smiled her sweet lopsided smile that always made Willow feel loved no matter what trouble she’d gotten into. “More like the latest spell Willow messed up, only this time I had help from Spike. Wait till I get my hands on him. I’m going to choke him with my own witchy fingers, without even any magics to help me.” Tara looked at Willow expectantly. “Sorry, Spike has a way of distracting people. Buffy especially. Professor Walsh found out that we hacked into the government’s computer and threatened to send you and me to prison until the next Ice Age if I didn’t help her.” “Okay, you found my Total Panic Button. A twenty-year prison term. No wonder you didn’t want to talk about it. What did Walsh want you to do?” Willow hung her head. Tara was not going to approve of what she did or her lies by omission to Buffy. “Walsh gave me this weird box of Vampyro condoms. They’re black, French ticklers and their motto is Vampires Always Get Invited In.” Tara curled her lip. “You mean invited in … ewww?” “Yeah. Walsh said I had to get Buffy to use the condoms when she was having sex with Spike. Which by the way, I didn’t even know that Buffy was having sex with Spike again, or still, or whatever, until Professor Walsh told me. Walsh said if I didn’t cooperate and get Buffy to use the condoms, she’d have us arrested and sent to prison.” “Not getting the problem, sweetie. So what if Buffy used condoms when she was having sex with Spike as long as she wanted to? Have sex I mean.” “Not just any condoms. Buffy had to use the Vampyro Always Invited In, Blah Blah Blah condoms. Or, technically, Spike had to use them. I guess Spike was the User and Buffy was the Usee.” “Willow?” “There had to be something wrong or weird about them. I knew there was something wrong with the condoms, but I left them on Buffy’s nightstand. I fell asleep. When I woke up, the box was gone. Buffy must have taken them.” Tara crumpled up her forehead. “Did you talk to Buffy later? Did you explain what happened?” Willow shook her head. How could she admit out loud she’d failed her best friend? “I won’t say this wasn’t bad, Willow. It was. You need to talk to Buffy right away.” How much could she stand? First, she betrayed her best friend, then Tara was all understanding and sympathetic, which only made Willow feel more guilty. Tara should have been angry. Then, Willow could have worked up some self-righteous defense and pretended the whole thing wasn’t entirely her fault. “I can’t talk to Buffy.” “Why not?” “It’s too late. She took the box of condoms three weeks ago. And, I think she’s pregnant. She took five pregnancy tests this morning. I saw the junk in the trash tonight when I went back to our room to pick up some books. All the tips on the sticks were pink.” “Five?” “Buffy obsesses sometimes,” Willow said. Tara folded her hands together and put on her Disappointed in My Girlfriend Face. “It’s not too late for one thing.” “What? Buffy’s pregnant. She’s fulfilled Walsh’s vampire mating program. Baby vampire is on the way. It’s too late to prevent that.” Tara squeezed Willow’s hand. “It’s not too late to tell Buffy the truth.” *** A cool wind blew storm clouds over the moon and left the streets of Sunnydale dark. The rumble of thunder sounded closer. Buffy held Spike’s hand as they walked back to her dorm room. She needed the reassuring comfort of his hand around hers. Spike, for once, was not talking. He’d been lost in thought since Buffy revived him from his faint on her mother’s kitchen floor. This was not of the good. Non-talky Spike was unnatural. He was figuring out a way to dump her. It’s what men always did, although the others – her Dad, Angel, Scott and Parker – hadn’t worried about dumping her. They just dumped away. Spike thinking about leaving before he ran off was a tribute to his attraction for her – other than the fact he’d had sex with her a whole bunch and got her pregnant. Even if Spike wasn’t calculating on ripping her heart out and running off because he was tired of her, there was still her mother’s demand for Marriage and Job. Joyce’s words made Buffy uncomfortable. Buffy didn’t like to be reminded that her father had been too busy having an affair with his secretary to stick around for Buffy’s teen years. She felt her abandonment by her father as bright and sharp as though it was yesterday. She didn’t want anything like that to happen to her own baby. She wanted a nice, normal home for her baby and for herself. Buffy couldn’t imagine Spike living in a three-bedroom suburban house with an eat-in kitchen, an attached garage and a Buffy-wife and Buffy-baby, or two. Spike was a vampire. Vampires were wild and carefree, doing what they wanted, who they wanted, when they wanted – hunting, killing, having sex, drinking booze, and, if Spike was any example, stealing and gambling, too. The government’s chip curtailed Spikes’ hunting and killing, and he’d only shown interest in having sex with her lately and not killing her like before, but his vampire nature was the same. Wasn’t it? It wasn’t as if she didn’t like Spike. She’d told him so this morning, and she did like him, most of the time. When he wasn’t annoying the daylights out of her, or pointing out some flaw in her character (all the more irritating for being true), he could be a good companion and a not-so-bad boyfriend. Being fun to hang with and scorching hot in bed didn’t make Spike into husband material. Which meant she was either going to be a single mom, yuck, or find another husband. If her baby’s Daddy in Residence wasn’t going to be Spike, who could she pick? Buffy didn’t exactly have a horde of men chasing after her she could tag with the honor of being her husband and baby’s father. The whole situation made her head hurt. *** Aspen woke up with a splitting headache. She found herself lying on a bed in a strange, dark room. The room was plain and decorated like a cheap hotel room. Bed, veneer dresser, nightstand with an ugly lamp and thin speckled carpet. The room had no window. She groped around and switched on the lamp next to the bed. To her astonishment, Thomas was standing on the other side of the room, staring at her with a menacing glower. He looked sick and creepy. He stood stiffly, his face and hands deadly pale and his eyes rimmed with red. He was wearing all black clothes she had never seen before. “Thomas? Thomas? I’ve been so worried. Where are we? What’s going on?” Thomas paced the floor on the other side of the room and muttered to himself. When he stopped pacing and turned to face Aspen, his teeth elongated, his brow crumpled and his eyes flared harsh yellow. He roared and leaped on the bed, pinning her down. Aspen screamed as he lowered his head to her neck and sank his fangs into her vein. *** When they arrived at Buffy’s dorm, they stopped outside the building. Spike wanted to come in, but the way Buffy acted the entire time they were walking home, made him think she didn’t want him hanging about tonight. She’d been subdued and sulky and wrapped up in her own thoughts, although she’d held his hand the entire way, something she’d never before done in public. Maybe it was her hormones, or the scene at her mother’s house, but Buffy was not her usual happy self. He wasn’t exactly feeling so happy himself, what with Joyce’s ultimatum and his faint from the shock of those terrifying words - Marriage and Job. Joyce’s words made him uncomfortable. As much as he didn’t want to do anything poncey like getting married, he knew she was right. Little Nibbles needed a dad around. It had taken him some time, and struggling through more than one difficult conversation with Clem, but he’d realized he loved Buffy. She was everything a woman ought to be. Well, everything his woman ought to be. He imagined himself, after a night of guzzling booze and blood, fighting and cheating at kitten poker, coming home to Buffy and his brat. Buffy would meet him at the door in a slutty night gown, ready to bang his eyes crooked. She’d take care of the baby and never nag him about staying out all night with the boys. Keeping Buffy around full time might be a bit of all right. He was only signing on for shacking up with her. None of this marriage nonsense Clem and Joyce were spouting. He’d put his foot down on that, give Goldilocks the old It’s Only A Piece Of Paper Runaround. Wished he could meet the bloke that invented that dodge. He remembered the night they’d been engaged to be married as a result of Red’s spell and how she’d perched on the arm of his chair and kissed him. They’d both been as happy as if they had good sense. Brassed everybody else off, too. It’d almost be worth it to marry Buffy and piss off her Watcher and Monkey Boy. What he couldn’t feature was going to work every day like some sodding human. He was a vampire. He had a duty to himself and his kind to remain aloof from any gainful activity such as work. Buffy might be able to lash him into getting married – it was only a piece of paper, after all - but there was no way in the deepest pits of Gehenna she was going to trick him into getting a job. Shacking up and no job. That was all he’d go along with. Buffy would bust his nose proper for not going along with her mother’s plan to make a House Wanker out of him, but he’d hold fast to his principles. They stood in front of the dorm, not talking, still holding hands. Spike stroked her hair and imagined what his unlife was going to be like now that he was in love with Buffy and, he was pretty certain, she was in love with him. He liked being in love, even if he made a big fool out of himself on a regular basis. “Shall I come in?” Spike asked, hoping for an invitation and feeling like a ponce for asking instead of assuming he was welcome. *** “Shall I come in?” Buffy chewed her lip. This didn’t sound like the sort of thing Spike would be saying if he was getting ready to dump her. Maybe he wanted to get in more mind-bursting sex before he said Hasta la vista, baby. Buffy wanted to invite Spike to spend the night, but it didn’t seem fair if she was going to break up with him and find a new normal father for her baby and husband for herself. Not that she’d be breaking his heart or anything. Being a vampire, he didn’t exactly have a heart, did he? Still, she wasn’t ready to deliver the Can’t We Be Friends Speech. “We’ve got a lot to process,” she said. “Maybe, we shouldn’t see each other for a few days.” The furious look on Spike’s face made her immediately regret her words. “Right, then, Slayer. See you around,” Spike said and walked off. Buffy called out his name, but he was already gone. Should she run after him? What good would it do, if she was going to be looking for a normal guy to marry and be her baby’s father? It was better this way. A clean break and no explanations. A bolt of lightening seared through the night sky. The clouds opened and cold rain dumped down on Sunnydale, and on Buffy, who was standing in front of her dorm, looking into the night where Spike had disappeared. When she was thoroughly soaked with cold rain, she trudged upstairs to her room and cried herself to sleep.

Chapter #7 - Leave it to Me

Chapter 7 – Leave It To Me Spike banged through the door of the Kwik LiQ All You Can Drink wearing his meanest vamp face and slammed his fist on counter. The clerk shook with fear as Spike approached. “What can I get you, Sir?” “Jack and a carton of Morleys.” The clerk fetched a bottle of Jack Daniels and the carton of cigarettes and placed it in a paper bag. “Will that be all?” “That will not be all, not by a bleeding long shot. If little Miss Tiny thinks she can give me the brush off, just because I got her preggers, she’s got another think.” The clerk looked confused, but said nothing. Spike stormed out of the store without paying, since the clerk had been too scared to ask for money. The late night butcher handed him a bag of blood without asking, too. Getting his blood and booze and smokes without paying did not put Spike in a better mood. He stalked home through the rain to his crypt taking the long way around the university campus, talking to himself, and yelling at an imaginary Buffy and drinking from his bottle of whiskey. He was too distracted and busy talking to himself to pay much attention to his surroundings. As he walked past the burned-over field where the university’s computer department once stood, an Army truck’s engine turned over and followed him at a distance, with its lights out. “So much for falling in love with the Slayer, you stupid blighter. She’s mad at you for putting a bun in her oven. She only wanted to have sex with you, not fall in love, you big poof. You were ready to throw your heart at her feet and instead, she gave you the mitten.” Right after he’d climbed over the cemetery wall and jumped down, the soldier boys snuck up behind him. He’d been too busy arguing with himself and Buffy to hear them stomping around in the bushes. A thick net billowed over him and thumped down on his head. He slipped on the wet grass, crashed to the ground and fought against the net while a big Army boot kicked him in the ribs. Four soldiers, headed up by Buffy’s favorite bleeder, stood around him. Escape was hopeless, but Spike kept thrashing around. What he wouldn’t give to have his chip turned off for an hour or so while he ripped Finn’s head off his shoulders. Instead, he let himself get caught again by that pack of gits from the Initiative. If he hadn’t been brassed off at the Slayer, it would never have happened. Finn leaned over Spike holding his stun gun. “Got you again, Ass Face,” Finn said. He zapped Spike lightly with his stun gun, not full strength, but enough to hurt a great deal. Spike moaned. Finn planted his boot solidly on Spike’s chest and forced him to stop writhing and tearing at the net with his fangs. “Bite me, Captain Cardboard,” Spike said, gripping Finn’s boot through the net so he could throw him off. Finn lifted his boot and zapped Spike with a stronger bolt this time, enough to make him scream. “Listen up Hostile 17,” he said when Spike stopped screaming, “I’m giving you a present. I’m deactivating your chip.” A thrill of excitement leaped through Spike’s mind when he heard Finn’s words. A deactivated chip meant he could return to his old life. The life he’d enjoyed before the government put the chip in his head and Buffy grabbed his short hairs and yanked. Feeding and hunting and biting. Maybe he’d take a bite out of Buffy while he ravaged her. And, not a lovey dovey bite like the one he’d given her this morning when she was all soft and teary. No a real bite this time. A bite that would make her toes curl for a week. Yeah, that’s what he’d do. What was he saying? Not Buffy. He’d bite some other delectable blonde college girl. That would show her. The thrill turned to cold horror. If he lost the chip, Buffy would stake him as soon as she found out, and nothing as trivial as the fact he was the father of her unborn child would stop her. She’d sent her first lover, Angelus, sailing into a hell dimension without a blink of her eye. “No!” “Yeah. I know what you’re thinking Seventeen. You’re thinking the Slayer will dust you the minute she finds out. She will, too. This is the end of your sniffing around after Buffy and humping her like a dog every time Walsh gives you a hard on. Buffy’s going to find out what kind of psycho killer vampire scum you are, when there’s no chip controlling your every move. Then, she’s going to kill you.” Not all the soldiers agreed with Finn’s plan. A black soldier grabbed Finn’s arm. “What are you doing, Finn? You can’t take his chip out. He’s a killer. You said we were taking him back to base.” “Shut up, Gates,” Finn answered. Finn reached into his combat vest and pulled out a black control box. He played with the digital display for a minute, tuning the box to the frequency of the chip inside Spike’s brain. Once satisfied, he tested for contact by firing the chip. Spike bellowed and grabbed his head, further tangling himself in the net. “Good. Got you on the screen. This is the fun part. Don’t forget to wake up before sunrise. I wouldn’t want you to torch before Buffy finds out you’re no longer defanged.” Finn set the controls to send a deactivation wave to Spike’s chip and mashed the button. Spike shrieked from intense pain as the chip fired, then passed out as the arcs of electricity scorched his brain. Rays of sun were striking the headstones when Spike drifted back to consciousness. The soldiers had dragged him under the dappled shade of a tree before they left to keep him from being fried by the first rays of the sun. The net was gone and so were the soldier boys. Had he dreamed what happened? No, his head ached too much for this to be a dream. The bloody bastard deactivated his chip, or, he said he did. Spike got to his feet and collected his crushed carton of cigarettes from the ground where he dropped them when he was attacked. His bag of pig’s blood had been stomped open and had gushed onto the ground. The soldiers nicked his bottle of whiskey, too. Pricks. He needed a drink. Spike stumbled home to his crypt, dodging under the shadows of the trees, his brain on fire. *** Buffy ditched class that morning to avoid sitting under Professor Walsh’s evil eye. She was sure Walsh knew Buffy was expecting a Spike baby and would find some way to gloat over her success. Walsh Gloating seemed infinitely worse than Giles Nagging. She picked up a box of Crispy Creamy jelly donuts and reported to the Magic Box for research duty about ryzark demons and Slayer pregnancies. Her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t want to spend hours digging through musty old books and listening to Giles gassing on and on and berating her for getting involved with Spike. She missed Spike. She missed him and she didn’t want to hear a bunch of stuff from Giles about how wicked Spike had been in the past and would be still if he had half the chance, and how she should have known better after Angel and blah blah blah. She was upset about her fight with Spike, but it was pointless to patch things up now that she planned to find a normal guy to marry. Giles was buried in a pile of books and papers. Willow was sitting next to him, flipping pages furiously and avoiding looking at Buffy. Tara was helping, too. Tara blushed as she leafed through the pages of a thick book on demon-human mating. Buffy had scoped out that book herself once, when she was a teenager and Giles hid the book from her. She learned a lot of things from the demon-human mating book that were not covered in Health Class. “Find anything?” Buffy asked. She dropped the donuts on the research table. She didn’t even want to eat a jelly donut. She was too upset. “Nothing,” Giles said. “I’m afraid our work here is useless. The Initiative is not playing by the old books as far as I can tell. I haven’t found any prophecies or predictions about your, er, predicament. We need more information about the program they’re running. I may need to fly to Washington to check the resources at the Library of Congress.” “It’s not a predicament. It’s a baby. Does Congress have a library?” Everyone, except Tara, looked at her like she was a nitwit. She hated when they did that. “Joking,” she said. Buffy picked up the loose papers Willow printed out when she hacked into the government computer a few months earlier. “Did you read through the stuff Willow got before?” “Yes,” Giles said, “but there are a number of other referenced documents Willow didn’t obtain. Willow, we need you to break into the government’s computer again and get more information.” Willow’s face blanched at his words and she exchanged nervous glances with Tara. “I can’t. It’s too dangerous,” Willow said. Tara pressed Willow’s hand and nodded to her. “Go ahead.” “Buffy, I … I want to tell you something,” Willow said. “I did a bad thing.” “What, Will? You helped before with the computers and stuff. That wasn’t bad.” “Did you use the condoms, the Vampires Always Get Invited In condoms?” Buffy did not want to discuss black, French-tickler condoms in front of Giles. She studied her fingernails so she could ignore his penetrating stare. “Yeah. Those were great … I mean useful … I mean ….” Her voice trailed off. How did Willow know about the condoms, any way? Had Willow done another stupid spell that screwed up? “Professor Walsh gave them to me. The government caught me when I hacked their computer before. Walsh said if I didn’t convince you to use the condoms, she’d throw Tara and me into prison for twenty years. I think there was something wrong with them. You can yell now, if you want.” “Oh.” Buffy said. She ought to be upset, but she wasn’t. She touched her belly. She was getting used to the idea of being a mom, now the initial surprise was over. “That’s alright. I’m kinda getting used to the baby idea.” She wasn’t just getting used to the baby idea, she was looking forward to having her baby, especially since Spike had been so nice about the whole thing. There would be problems – balancing slaying and being a Mom and adjusting to a new husband, whoever that might be – but altogether she was not unhappy that motherhood had been sprung upon her. She hoped she would be a good Mom. That worried her, but if Spike helped out…. But, he wouldn’t help out. Not if she went through with her plan to find a Normal Husband. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Isn’t anybody going to yell so I can stop feeling guilty?” Willow asked. “I think it would be more productive for you to obtain more information about this vampire mating program,” Giles said. “You can indulge in your … oh yes … Guiltapalooza later.” “I can’t hack into the government computer again,” Willow said. “They’re on to me. The only reason they aren’t arresting Tara and me is because Buffy is pregnant.” Buffy excused herself and went to the restroom. She pulled a Vampyro condom out of her pocket, tore open the packet and filled the condom with water. The condom spurted water from a dozen holes. The work of the Initiative. Did they have a whole department of white-coated lab technicians poking these things with pins? Vampires got invited in and, with the help of the Initiative, so did their swimmers. She threw the condom out and returned to the group. Willow and Giles were arguing about whether she could safely hack into the government’s computers. Buffy didn’t much care if Willow found more stuff or not, but she supposed she should keep tabs on the Initiative to make sure they didn’t mess with Spike. “What if you signed on with a real user name and password from someone in the Initiative?” Buffy asked. “They wouldn’t be able to catch me if I was using a legitimate sign-on. But, how could you get that?” “Leave it to me. I’ve got to run. Riley is tutoring me in psychology this afternoon.” Buffy grabbed her patrol bag and headed for the door, ignoring Giles’ protests that he wanted to hear about that bite on her neck. *** Buffy hurried to the Psychology Building so she could arrive early for her tutoring session with Riley. Riley hadn’t shown up yet. She glanced through the glass pane in his door and confirmed his tiny office was dark and empty. She broke the lock by gripping the handle and twisting hard, ripped the whole handle out of the door, which was what usually happened when she did this trick. She tossed the handle on the floor. She switched on the fluorescent ceiling lights and began searching his desk drawers, the calendar on his desk, and the precisely organized papers sitting on the desk top. She replaced everything as she found it. Riley must be a neat freak to keep all his papers so carefully lined up on his desk. Was being a neat freak worse than being a bloodsucking killer vampire? Oh, yeah. She flipped over the keyboard of Riley’s computer and saw his sign-on name and password taped to the bottom. What a moron he was, leaving his password out where anybody could find it. She whipped out the notebook she used for their tutoring sessions, turned to a page in the back and scribbled down Riley’s password information. Riley came into the office and tripped over the door handle she’d left lying on the floor. “Hey,” Riley said. “What happened to the door?” She banged his keyboard back down on the desk. She leafed through the pages of her notebook to the last place she’d written some notes. She pretended to read her notes. If only she had a pair of Intellectual Girl glasses. “The door was like that when I got here, so I came in. Hope you don’t mind,” Buffy said, her eyes wide with assumed innocence. She’d practiced what she was going to say on the way over, because she was certain she’d get caught. You always got caught on the Hellmouth, if you happened to be named Buffy. “No problem. I’d better call and get it fixed. I’ve got some sensitive stuff in here.” While Riley was calling the university’s maintenance department, Buffy occupied herself by pretending to study her psychology book and sneaking looks at the papers on Riley’s desk. Riley hung up the phone. “The engineers will be right over to fix the door, but I don’t think we’ll be able to study with the racket they’re going to make.” Buffy never minded abandoning a study opportunity, especially when she could be doing something useful, like shopping or visiting Spike. Shopping would have to wait until she negotiated credit card access for her new wardrobe from her mother. Spike was mad at her, so visiting Spike was out for the moment, too. What good would visiting him do anyway? Seeing him would only make it harder to do what she had to do. She had to get on with finding Normal Guy to marry and be a father to her baby. A normal guy, like Riley. Riley was a cute guy and totally, completely and absolutely normal in ways Buffy was certain she couldn’t begin to imagine. Riley was the North Star of Normal. He was the Square Root of Normal Guy. How would a Normal Guy, like Riley for instance, feel about being the stepfather of a vampire’s baby? Buffy’s belly seemed to be expanding by the hour. She was going to have to work fast if she wanted to trick, er, persuade a normal guy to marry her. “Would you like to go for coffee?” she asked. Riley couldn’t believe his luck. He’d figured he would have to endure two or three stupid study sessions before he could break the ice on a personal basis, and here she was, the little slut, breaking the ice for him. His face broke into a big, Iowa-sized smile. “That’d be great.” Wow. That was easy. I should have asked guys out for dates sooner. She imagined herself, Technicolor Movie Montage Girl, wearing a floor-length white satin dress, with fingertip sleeves and a couple hundred of those tiny pearl buttons up the back and gobs of lace everywhere. Her shoes were – she didn’t know what kind of shoes she should wear. Well, plenty of time to shop for shoes. She saw herself walking up the aisle to where Spike – no Riley - was waiting. Her dream bubble burst, when she saw herself perching a bouquet of white roses on her huge belly. Ugh. The building engineer appeared to fix the door and Buffy whisked Riley off on their first official date-like activity.

Chapter #8 - We're Both Free

Chapter 8 – We’re Both Free Buffy sat across from Riley in a wooden booth with cushioned seats at the Webby Internet Café. The café opened up across the street from the university computer department about two weeks after a mysterious fire burned down the building. It featured coffee in thirty different flavors, cookies and lots of computers hooked up to the Internet. It had once been a bookstore and the new owners brightened up the space with pastel stripes on the walls, ferns and brass rails. She sipped her iced latte with double whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles and munched on an oatmeal cookie with raisins and toasted macadamia nuts. “So, tell me about yourself, Riley. I’ve been so busy slaying and whatever that I haven’t had a chance to get to know you,” Buffy said. Smooth Buffy. Casual But Interested Buffy. Not sounding at all like Trolling Desperately For a Normal Husband Buffy. Riley smiled. She was making it damn easy for him. He shouldn’t have been surprised. That’s what whores do isn’t it? Make it easy for guys? No wonder Walsh picked her for her Vampire Mating Scheme. “Born in Iowa. Joined the Army to see the world. Saw Belize instead.” That was it? He’d been half way around the world and all he could come up with was two sentences? She couldn’t help comparing Riley’s yawn-provoking statement with Spike’s stories about his last visit to Prague and all the scrapes he’d gotten into while he was there. “Lot of demon action in Belize?” she asked. “Yeah. Demons like the hot climate. Mostly you see the lower intelligence species of demons – ryzarks, crotnefs, fyarls, the occasional magbeak - critters like that. You don’t see too many of the smarter demons, like the regurgitating frolaxes. The lower hostiles make up for their lack of brains by being mean.” Riley felt safe mentioning ryzarks and crotnefs and the rest, although he’d never seen live specimens of any of them in his life. Buffy was a studying slacker, in demonology as well as college work. She hadn’t caught him the other day when he lied about killing ryzarks. He had seen a regurgitating frolax. The bastard ran a White Chick All Night grocery in Keokuk, Iowa. Mr. Regurgitating Frolax couldn’t run a Seven-Eleven or a White Hen like the rest of the damn frolaxes. No, he operated his own dumb-ass franchise. “While I was in Belize, the Army transferred me into the Initiative,” he said dropping his voice in case an international spy from the Society for the Protection of Indigenous Terrestrials was listening to their conversation in the Webby Café. Buffy drank some more latte to fill up the uncomfortable lack of conversation. It was Riley’s turn to ask her about herself. She felt weird struggling for conversation. Spike talked all the time, or he did when he was with her. She suspected he talked to himself quite a bit, too. No lack of interesting conversation when Spike was around. Riley didn’t say anything more after a few minutes and only drummed his fingers on the table. She plunged ahead. “How’d you get to Sunnydale?” “Professor Walsh brought my unit to Sunnydale. She set me up as her graduate assistant as a cover.” “You’re a phony psych grad student?” Was this guy a tutoring fraud? Not that it mattered. She was with this guy for one reason and one only. Normal Husband Entrapment. “I’m a real grad student,” he lied. He didn’t know anything about psychology except what he read in his copy of Buffy’s textbook. “I just came at it backwards.” Buffy took inventory. Good job and career potential? Check. Nice looking? Check. Knows about vampires and demons and stuff? Check. Boring and not all that polite? Check. Good in bed? Not likely. He’d never be as exciting as Spike in the bedroom department. Okay, you can’t be a chooser when you get yourself knocked up by a Vampire Sex God and have to find yourself a human husband on the double quick to keep your mother happy. He went back to the counter and bought another package of cookies for Buffy. She’d scarfed up the first cookies in record time. College girls never got enough to eat because they were too lazy to cook or were starving themselves to look good. When they got some sucker to pick up the tab, they ate like truck drivers. “Can I ask you a personal question?” Buffy asked when he came back with cookies. “Sure,” he said. Buffy hesitated. She might seem desperate, but she didn’t have a lot of time if she was going to hook an eligible bachelor. If he was eligible and bachelor-like. No wedding ring, but you couldn’t be certain from that. She needed to clear the eligible point up before she wasted any more time with this doof. “Are you seeing anybody?” It doesn’t get any better than this. I’ll be banging this babe in no time. “You mean a girlfriend? No girlfriend. I dated a lot, but I didn’t meeting anybody special. I’m so busy with patrolling at night with my men and teaching during the day, I haven’t spent much time thinking about a serious girlfriend.” He found plenty of time to visit Carmelita, his favorite vamp ho with the jet-black hair and scarlet nails who skulked around Dantesco Street. Carmelita was a different matter. “Great. I mean, me either. I’m not seeing anybody,” Buffy said. Today. She hadn’t seen Spike so far today, had she? So, she was almost telling the truth. Besides, Spike was mad at her. “Terrific,” Riley said. “Since we’re both free, would you like to take in a movie with me tomorrow night?” “Movie? I love movies. I made plans for tomorrow night, but I think I can break them,” Buffy lied. A movie. How lame. Spike would never ask her to do anything as lame as going to a movie, especially on their first date. They hadn’t exactly gone on a first date, thanks to Professor Walsh. Buffy blushed. The first night she’d spent with Spike, no lameness there. Spike took Buffy exciting places like the horse races in La Jolla and Ladies Mud Wrestling, where he’d arranged for her to wrestle with the pros, and the Demolition Derby, where she drove a junk heap and everybody cheered when she got in a big wreck, and dancing at TanzGotik, the new Goth club on Dantesco Street. When it was raining too hard to go on patrol, he played cards with her and cheated so she won. When he was feeling romantic, he took her for a long drive along the coast or to the night ride on the Ferris wheel at Isla Vista. He always arranged for them to get stuck at the top for an hour while he pointed out the stars and told her romantic vampire love stories and nibbled on her neck and sang her some old song about blue blankets. If you want nice and normal, you can’t expect exciting, too. “Great. I’ll pick you up at seven.” She didn’t hold out for a Saturday night date. Dumb blonde bitch. “Oh, look at the time,” Buffy said, glancing at her bare arm. “Got to run.” It wouldn’t be a good idea to spend too much time with her prospective husband. She might clunk his skull with her psychology book for being a selfish, boring bonehead. Riley took her hand in his. He couldn’t let her make all the moves. She’d think he was a fag. “I wanted to tell you before, Buffy, but we were enjoying such a nice talk, I didn’t want to bring up anything unpleasant. It’s about Hostile 17.” “What about Spike?” She couldn’t keep the edge of anxiety out of her voice. Had something bad happened to him? The news could only be bad if Riley knew before she did. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this. I know you’re friends with Seventeen. His chip failed. He’s not under the Initiative’s control. When we stopped getting the signal from his implant, we searched for him to bring him back to replace his chip, but we haven’t located him. I’m afraid he’s feeding again.” Buffy’s face felt clammy and her fingers ice cold. Spike, without a chip. That could only mean trouble. “I’d better go look for him.” They made plans to meet the following evening and Buffy excused herself and hurried out of the café. *** Aspen screamed as Thomas lowered his head to her neck and sank his fangs into her vein. Pain jagged through her body as fangs ripped into her neck. Pain and something else. Desire? As suddenly as he had attacked her, Thomas screamed and sprang off the bed and lunged to the floor. He gripped his head and rolled back and forth, cursing and clutching his head. Aspen stared without moving even to staunch the blood coursing down her neck. What was wrong with him? Why had he attacked her? What had happened to his teeth and his face? He had looked normal when she woke up, and now – now he looked like a monster. He stopped screaming and lay on the floor, silent as death. “Thomas?” Before Thomas could speak, the door to the room opened and a man wearing a white lab coat and carrying a hypodermic stepped in. A soldier stood in the door behind him, the bright light of the hall blocking out his features. He was carrying a formidable rifle. “Ms. Bleuette? I’m Dr. Ekl. I’ll be assisting you and Thomas during his transition.” She eyed the hypodermic and grabbed her elbows to keep herself from becoming hysterical. “Transition? Who are you? What have you done to Thomas?” “May I trust you to be calm while we talk?” Aspen nodded. She doubted very much if she’d be able to stay calm, but the terrifying sight of that hypo needle and the soldier’s rifle, helped her remain in control for the moment. The doctor sat down in a chair not far from the bed. “I’m certain you’ll have many questions, but I’ll give you a brief explanation. You’re in a government facility that controls and breeds what we refer to as hematophagous non-reproductive beings. You know them as vampires.” Aspen looked at Thomas. His face was contorted into a mask of ugliness, his eyes glowed a nasty greenish yellow and his dog teeth were elongated into fearsome fangs. His skin was deathly white, almost grey, and his eyes were rimmed with red. She screamed and screamed and screamed until Dr. Ekl found it necessary to use the hypodermic.

Chapter #9 - Tuesday Evening at the Hellmouth

Chapter 9 - Tuesday Evening at the Hellmouth Buffy didn’t look far. Spike was skulking across the street from the café, squatting on top of a newspaper box, staring a hole through her and smoking a cigarette. The tip flared red. Buffy ran across the street, causing the drivers of a maroon SUV and a 1989 Plymouth ragtop to slam on their brakes and swerve to avoid hitting her and each other. They crashed into a mailbox and a traffic light. The drivers jumped out of their cars and yelled at Buffy, until they saw her talking to a scary guy in a black leather coat. They decided to yell at each other instead. She’d been worried sick about Spike for the past five minutes, since Riley informed her that his chip was disabled. Here Spike was, perched all vulturey vampirey on a newspaper machine, checking up on her, instead of cowering in the sewers under his crypt or behind the nearest dumpster until she calmed down. He had his nerve scaring her like that, not to mention stalking her while she was nailing down a normal husband. “What do you think you’re doing?” Buffy said. “Spying on you and your new honey bear,” Spike said. He flicked away the ash and took another puff. He wasn’t about to let the Slayer give him a hard time under the circumstances. “Must say, Goldilocks, you don’t waste any time.” He stood up and jumped off the news box in that creepy straight-leg way vampires plunged off everything. Buffy boxed Spike’s ear and followed up with a half-assed kick to the ribs. “He’s not my honey and how dare you spy on me?” Spike danced away, dodging her punches and kicks. “You’re as bad as your mother, you know that? I’m the injured party here.” Buffy dropped her fists. “You’re the injured party? You’re spying on me and you’re the injured party? I’m pregnant and you’re the injured party?” “You’re the one who gave me the toss last night. You should be ashamed of yourself. After I told your mother about the baby and got a black eye and a lump on my head for my trouble, too.” She felt ashamed. He had been pretty nice about the baby and telling her mother. That was no excuse for Spike spying on her date with Riley. And, she had other grievances. “You’re the one who fainted when you heard the “M” word and the “J” word as in Marriage And Job.” Spike sucked on his cigarette. The Slayer was a hard woman, holding that fainting spell against him. Her mother’s house was overheated. The heat made him pass out. Vampires can’t stand heat. Buffy ought to know that. Vampires can’t stand working, either. She ought to know that, too. He made a sour face. “Vampires don’t work.” Buffy noted with interest he hadn’t said anything about vampires not getting married. Not that Spike’s thoughts on getting married mattered to her in the slightest, now she had a Normal Guy Husband Possibility in her radar. “What about the chip? Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Why didn’t you come and tell me?” “Come and tell you so you could dust me? Please pretty Slayer, I’m sorry I got you up the spout and my sodding chip doesn’t work, so won’t you please terminate my unlife?” Up the spout? What was he talking about? Spike code. Spike possessed an endless supply of words and phrases that made no sense. She wished he’d speak plain English. He did have a point about one thing. She was duty bound to dust him now that he was unleashed. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten herself in this situation again – in love - no, in Serious Like, with an Out Of Control Vampire. She was in worse trouble this time than when Angel reverted to killing people and biting things. Her current Out Of Control Vampire Lover also happened to be her baby’s father. She sank down on the curb and put her head on her knees. Her life sucked. Another Tuesday evening at the Hellmouth. “I won’t dust you. You know that.” Buffy sighed. The thought of dusting Spike made her sag like a dead puff devil. “Sent Angelus packing off to the Twilight Zone quick enough, didn’t you?” He would bring that up. “Angel was different. He opened a hell dimension. I ran him through with the sword to close Acathla and save the world.” Spike crooked an eyebrow and said nothing. “Like I had any choice. Let’s see - save my psycho former vampire lover so he can kill me and let loose a couple thousand demons and hell beasties and generally destroy the world or the universe or whatever it was he was destroying or shove Angel down the hellhole and save the world.” And, she hadn’t really killed Angel. Mr. Broody popped right back on her doorstep before two months were out, whining about being in hell for two hundred years. Like whose fault was that? “Yeah. Killing Angel was different. You keep telling yourself that.” Seeing Buffy was no longer in the mood to be violent, he sat down next to her on the curb. “Is it true? Your chip doesn’t work anymore?” “Is that what the Cub Scout told you while he was pawing you?” Her anger flared again. Why wouldn’t he answer her question? She slammed her fist into his arm hard, hard enough to leave a bruise for him to think about tomorrow when he was lolling about in his crypt when he should be looking for a job so he could take care of her and the baby. “He was not pawing me! The Cub Scout, er, Riley respects me. He knows you and I are friends. He held my hand because he wanted to comfort me.” “Friends are we?” “Don’t interrupt. Riley wanted to comfort me when he told me your chip wasn’t working and you were feeding again.” Buffy sniffed. Riley could have tracked Spike down and dusted him, but he knew she would be upset if Spike disappeared. Riley acted very nicely under the circumstances. Spike laughed. “How would he know if I was feeding? Not hanging about all day and changing my nappies, is he? I haven’t seen the wanker since he burned out my chip.” “Riley burned out your chip?” Why would Riley do that? Spike was Big and Bad and Evil and Sexy and Dangerous and Sexy. Riley wouldn’t unchain him so he could resume Biteage, would he? No, it couldn’t be true. Riley was reliable and normal and he knew better than to release Spike from his electronic cage. This sounded like one of Spike’s wild stories, although she couldn’t figure out how Spike managed to burn out his chip. “I guess he forgot to mention that part. I don’t think you should count on the idea he respects you so bleeding much, either. There’s a vamp girl named Carmelita lurks over on Dantesco Street …” “I so do not want to hear about your girlfriend on Dantesco Street. Riley is a nice guy. He’s normal and he has a career and he’s nice and he knows about killing demons and vampires. And, he’s nice.” Riley was as exciting as watching Fyarl mucus evaporate. “Boring, isn’t he?” Spike always knew what she was thinking. He infuriated her. Spike pulled out his flask and offered her a sip. She never wanted a drink, so he didn’t mind offering to share. Whiskey was tempting, but Buffy shook her head. “I can’t. The baby. And, don’t change the subject.” “What subject are we on at the moment?” He swallowed a gulp of whiskey. “The subject is ‘chip’ and the answer is ‘It’s not working.’ For five hundred dollars and a free trip to the Hellmouth, what’s the question?” Spike wiped the mouth of his whiskey flask, recapped it and returned it to his coat pocket. “I don’t know.” “You don’t know if you can go all bitey and kill people without having lightening bolts zapping through your brain?” “I haven’t tried it out,” Spike said in his sexy I Can Get Buffy To Do Anything I Want Voice. He slid his hand around the back of her neck and nibbled her ear. “Come back to my crypt, pet, and I’ll test it on your neck. You haven’t let me have a bite in days.” It was impossible to be mad at Spike when he was licking the bite mark on her neck. Or when he was licking the bite mark that wasn’t on her neck, either. Buffy melted into Spike’s arms. She was melting into a pool of Buffy-goo. Giles could put the final entry in his Watcher’s Diary: Slayer, Buffy Anne Summers, met her fate in Sunnydale, California, at the Lips of Spike, also known as William the Bloody, who reduced her to a puddle of Slayer goo. Her lips were a nano-inch away from his when she turned her head to avoid his kiss. “Cut it out.” “Let’s kiss and make up, luv. You know you don’t want to be mad at me.” She didn’t want to be mad at Spike. She wanted to go to his crypt and have cosmic, star-bursting sex to make up for their fight last night, but she couldn’t. “I can’t go to your crypt. I can’t be with you any more.” She’d made up her mind. Normal Guy for her. Spike and Spike Smoochies and Spike Touchies and Spike-induced Cumming and, considering her choice of husbands, possibly cumming altogether, would just have to be history. She hoped she wouldn’t have to go through withdrawal. Spike pressed his advantage. He lifted the stray strands of hair from the back of her neck and kissed the ridge of bones from her shoulder up her neck. “Going to make a play for Soldier Boy? Slip a cuckoo in his nest? If you weren’t my girl and he wasn’t my kid, I’d enjoy watching you do it.” “Cuckoo? What are you talking about? I hate when you talk in code.” Spike stood up and dusted off his coat. “If that’s the way you want it, Slayer. You go play with your Enormous Hall Monitor, but if he touches you, I’ll kill him.” Spike walked away, leaving Buffy sitting on the curb.

Chapter #10 - Secrets Revealed, Secrets Kept

Chapter 10 – Secret Revealed, Secret Kept Buffy went to the Magic Box to give Willow the password for Riley’s computer. Her mind whirled from her conversations with Spike and Riley. Who should she believe? Riley was all Normal Government Square Man who didn’t seem to be the lying type. If he was telling the truth and Spike was hunting again, she’d have to do something. Spike, on the other hand, would lie about the moon coming up at night if he saw some gain for himself. She supposed he couldn’t help it, being a vampire. Was he lying now? Willow was holed up in the shop’s tiny office working on Giles’ computer. Unlike the rest of the shop which Anya kept neat and organized, the office was cluttered with stacks of loose papers and busted up books that Giles had been promising to send to the bookbinders. “This is bad, Buffy,” Willow said. “Giles’ computer is slower than an ectoplasm slurpee. He’s too cheap to pay for cable and I can’t surf and hack into the Initiative computers on a modem. I wish I hadn’t … I wish the school’s computer department hadn’t burned down. We could go over to the temporary lab, but there’ll be too many people now. I don’t want to hack where no one has hacked before with a lot of snoops looking over my shoulder.” “No hurry. You can look it up later.” Initiative doings were fast taking a back seat and Spike problems were rushing to the front. “We could go over to the Webby. They have pretty fast computers.” “I was there a little while ago. It’s packed.” The Webby hadn’t been all that busy, but Buffy didn’t want to go back on the off chance Riley was still sitting around. She was mad at him for burning out Spike’s chip, if he had burned out Spike’s chip and Spike wasn’t making up a lie. Maybe Riley wasn’t lying? Maybe they both were lying? And, just because she was planning to marry Riley, didn’t mean she wanted to spend time with him. “What’s wrong, Buffy? You’re all Pensive Girl tonight.” She wasn’t quite ready to spring her Riley Marriage Plan on her best friend. She didn’t have a clue what she could do about Spike and she’d feel stupid explaining to Willow how she found out she was pregnant with Spike’s baby one day and dumped him for Boring Riley Normal Guy the next. “Mom wants Spike and me to get married.” “That’s good, isn’t it? Married with baby?” “When my mother told Spike we should get married and he should get a job, he sort of fainted.” “Oh.” Buffy didn’t want Willow to think Spike didn’t want to marry her. She didn’t know if Spike wanted to marry her or not, but she’d had more than enough of being Sunnydale’s Most Rejected. Admitting Big Bad hadn’t asked her to marry him was more embarrassing than confessing she was setting out to trap Riley into wedded bliss. “He wants to marry me. The work part upset him.” “Yeah, it would. Vampires aren’t so big on work. They’re more the Lay Around An Abandoned House And Wait For A Warm Victim To Pass By types.” Buffy nodded. “Mom’s house was kinda hot. You don’t suppose it was the heat that made him faint? Do vampires faint?” “I guess they do. Do you mind if I ask you something? You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want, like if it’s mortifying or humiliating in a terminal way. Are you and Spike in love?” Buffy didn’t exactly know how she felt about Spike. She hardly wanted to admit she’d been having sex with Spike for months without totally loving him. She didn’t want to say she loved Spike either, because if she did love Spike, then where did that put her plan to marry Riley? “I’ve worked my way up to Serious Liking. I don’t think I’m on the Love Train, yet. Our relationship is kinda backwards because of the whole control box mess.” “Serious Liking is good.” Trying to figure out how she felt about Spike and being embarrassed about trapping Riley into a wedding were teeny weeny problems. Spike without a chip was a Planet Bizzaro sized problem. What was she going to do about him if he started feeding again? Feeding on girls? Girls with sexy, thin bodies who hadn’t gotten themselves in a Baby-Having Condition. “Can I tell you something, Willow? You won’t tell Giles or anybody?” “Tu secreto es mi secreto.” Buffy sighed. First Spike, now Willow. Was everyone conspiring to make her feel stupid today? “It’s about Spike. Someone told me his chip is burned out and he can be all bitey vampire again.” “Someone? Who?” Willow asked. She saw Buffy didn’t want to reveal her source. “Did you ask Spike? What did he say?” Yeah, she’d asked and he been all kissy and evasive and not at all forthcoming. She was going to have to find out for herself. “He claims he doesn’t know if the chip’s working or not. When you’re hacking around tonight, could you check the paper and the coroner’s office to see if there were any suspicious deaths the past couple of days?” “Sure, Buffy.” Buffy picked at the buttons on her top, while she made up her mind about what she was going to say next. She didn’t want this to get out, especially to Giles, but she needed to tell somebody. “Will?” “Yeah?” “Promise?” “Sure.” Willow drew a cross over her heart with her finger. A spray of fairy dust sparkled in the air behind her finger. “Giles?” “No way.” Tears welled up in Buffy’s eyes. She’d made up her mind about one Spike-related problem. Not what she was going to do about Spike. She had no idea what she was going to do about him. But, she knew for certain what she wasn’t going to do. “I can’t do it again. I can’t dust Spike if he’s gone back to Big Bad and Bitey Vampire. I have feelings for Spike and he’s the father of my baby. I can’t kill somebody I care about. Does that make me a terrible Slayer?” Buffy brushed the tears from her eyes before they dripped down her face and she embarrassed herself even more. Willow squeezed Buffy’s hand. “I haven’t read all 289 chapters of ”The Official Slayer Handbook”, so I can’t say how you rate on the Terrible Slayer Scale, but I think not killing your boyfriend makes you a pretty nice person.” “Thanks, Will.” Her tears dripped down her face. It was a great relief to know she had Willow’s support. “Don’t worry, Buff. We’ll find a way to make your Big Bad and Bitey Vampire behave.” It was of the good to have a friend who didn’t mind much that she had a vampire boyfriend and didn’t blame her for not wanting to kill him. Willow shut down the computer. “Let’s grab some sugary rings of dough, deep fried in hot oil and go over to the temporary computer lab. We can look up the newspaper articles while we’re waiting for the place to clear out. I can hack into the coroner’s office later.” At the computer lab, Buffy ate a heroic four jelly donuts, two for herself and two for Spike Baby, while Willow surfed through the recent articles from The Sunnydale Sunset. To their amazement, they found no suspicious vampire-type deaths in over two weeks, even before Spike’s chip had gone kerblooey. If Spike was planning on taking a walk on the bad side, he hadn’t started yet. Buffy sighed with relief. How long would her luck hold? *** Spike stamped down the street, shoving into people and knocking them off the sidewalk to see if his chip would fire. It didn’t go off, but pushing people wasn’t much of a test. He hadn’t planned on testing out his chip any time soon, unless it was on his girl’s sweet, drinkable neck. He hadn’t planned on it, but his Slayer brassed him off beyond all endurance tonight with her play for G.I. Joe. Tonight was as good a time as any to find out if he could wreak violence and mayhem. “I’m a fighter,” he shouted. “My whole body is a lethal weapon. This whole chip thing is smothering me, trapping me like an animal. A beast this powerful cannot be contained. The beast will break free and savage the land again. If I want to.” He headed for the Bronze. “Slayer had no right to give me twenty bleeding questions on what I’ve been up to. I’ve changed and she doesn’t give me any credit for behaving myself. Doesn’t trust me, that’s what it is. She thinks I’m going to go all psycho killer like that wanker, Angel.” “Course, I could go psycho killer if I wanted. Not like I’ve turned Nancy Boy like the Big Poof or anything. Taking a break from hunting and killing, that’s all. Enjoying my fling with the Slayer and sex is better than feeding any day of the week. Unless you’re peckish.” Before going inside, he checked out the alley. A couple of biteable college girls dressed in clingy, slutty outfits were standing by themselves, smoking joints. He morphed into his vamp face. The girls shrieked with laughter. Spike’s vamp face dissolved. He’d been unable to keep up his vamp face! What was happening to him and why weren’t these two birds quivering in fear? The blonde girl wearing cornrows and pigtails strung with clumps of pink beads laughed and elbowed her friend. “Get those teeth, Ashley. They’re so long and pointy. Hey, hottie, do the face thing again.” “What else can you make hard and scary, baby?” Ashley said. She made kissy-smacking noises with her mouth. The two girls giggled, turned their backs on him and went back to smoking. Like he was some poufter human! “Bloody hell! Slayer’s ruined me.” He went inside and looked around the bar for a victim to test his chip on. “What do I spy with my little eye? The Whelp.” He shouldered his way through the crowd and knocked a couple of frat boys on their arses. To his satisfaction, he felt no pain. He vamped a college boy who was sitting on the bar stool next to the Nit and shoved the kid off his barstool. “Jeez, buddy. You can have the seat. You don’t have to get all snippy,” College Boy said. He didn’t look at all scared at Spike’s fiercest vamp face. This wasn’t going the way he’d anticipated. “I’ve gotten soft, that’s what it is. All those months of lazing around Watcher’s bathtub watching the soaps destroyed my edge, not to mention lazing around the Slayer’s bed.” He nicked Xander’s dosh which was lying on the bar and ordered a beer. “I’m still tough enough to do that.” “Hey, Blood Breath,” Xander said, “Quit stealing my money.” “Thinks she can rein me in with her golden hair and her cute titties. I won’t stand for it.” “And, definitely quit talking to yourself.” “What are you going to do about it, Poof?” Spike stared Harris down for good measure. “Overbite, have I mentioned lately I detest you?” Xander pulled a stake out of his jacket pocket, showed it to Spike and returned to the deep meditative contemplation of his drink. When his beer arrived, Spike sucked a drink from the bottle and tucked his boot under lackbrain’s barstool. Spike jerked his foot, sending the stool crashing to the floor, and the Whelp with it. Spike held out his hand to help Harris up and elbowed him in the gut. Xander collapsed on the floor, wheezing. Spike was about to test his dead chip further and even the score for various insults he’d endured from Harris for the past months, when Anya walked up. “Spike? What are you doing to Xander? I hope you’re not getting him upset. We won’t be able to have sex later if he gets upset.” “Poufter can’t hold his liquor. He fell off the stool.” Spike put an innocent look on his face. He was not completely successful. “I think you’re lying,” Anya said. “Xander never falls off his bar stool until he’s consumed three alcoholic beverages and he’s only had two. I counted them.” Xander recuperated sufficiently to talk. “Fang Face pushed me over and elbowed me when I was down. And, why didn’t you get a screaming migraine headache for doing that?” No point in letting the whole gang know about his chip. Buffy might not get around to telling them right away, or ever. “It was an accident. Chip doesn’t fire unless I hurt someone on purpose.” “What’s wrong with this bitmap? Maybe we can send you back to the Initiative for the 7.1 upgrade?” “Fag off, Whelp.” Spike killed his beer and left the bar.

Chapter #11 - Cruel and Stupid

Chapter 11 – Cruel and Stupid Buffy swung on her mother’s refrigerator door, enjoying the blast of frigid air on her face. Nobody told her about the hot part. She was hot, all the time. Also, she was hungry, when she wasn’t throwing up. The refrigerator was her favorite place. Cold air and food, together. Joyce came home from food shopping. “Buffy, close the refrigerator door and help me with the groceries. I bought you everything you like.” Buffy grabbed a couple of bags and rooted past the milk and eggs and vegetables for real food. “What did you get me? Chocolate Carmel Pop Tarts?” “Yep.” “Twinkies and Snoballs?” “Yep.” “Cracker Jacks? Barbequed Ranch Dip Fritos? Pizza bagels? M&M’s with Peanuts? Root beer? Cheezee Whizee?” “You should eat some healthy food, Buffy. Junk food isn’t good for you or for the baby.” “I ate a donut with buttercream carob icing and carrot spice tofu pulp in the middle for breakfast. Tofu is healthy.” Joyce sighed. Buffy couldn’t control her junk food jones. She hadn’t seen Spike for weeks, although the tingling on the back of her neck told her Spike was creeping around and watching her 24/7. That is, when he could take time off from stalking girls over at the mall and trying to scare them by making faces. She was flunking out of school except for Psychology 102, she was living at home with her mother, she was dating Riley, who was even more boring once you got to know him and she was fat, fat, fat. And, hot. Her life currently sucked beyond the telling. M&M’s and Cheezee Whizee were the only things keeping her from diving head first into the Hellmouth in the hopes something icky would eat her and put her out of her misery. Her mother refused to acknowledge the fact Buffy had broken up with Spike. She talked about him non-stop, every day. Today was no different. “I have a showing at the gallery tonight and I won’t be home until late. Why don’t you invite Spike to keep you company?” Inviting Spike was how she got in this mess in the first place. “Spike doesn’t want to see me.” He was mad at her for dumping him and for dating Riley. He stalked her every night, popping up whenever Riley was around and disappearing when she was alone. “I don’t believe that, honey. Why don’t you go see him? I don’t think he fell out of love with you quite that fast.” “Spike doesn’t love me,” Buffy said. He’d never said he loved her, had he? He just acted like a big idiot, following her all over town and making her nervous whenever she was with Riley, which was an improvement over being bored. Also, he left cigarette butts all over her mother’s lawn. She popped some M&M’s in her mouth and squirted a liberal dose of Cheezee Whizee onto her tongue on top of the candies. Mmmm. Joyce made a face, but said nothing. She’d given up on asking Buffy not to squirt Cheezee Whizee in her mouth from the can. She said the prayer all mothers wish on their own offspring, that Buffy would be similarly visited by bad behavior from her own child. “No, Spike doesn’t love you, which is why he slept with you for months and came over to tell me you were having a baby, instead of letting you face the Wrath of Mother by yourself. He doesn’t love you, which is why he visits me two or three times a week to tell me he misses you and why he was standing under the tree in our front yard for hours last night and every other night I’ve looked.” Spike’s been visiting my mother behind her back? The nerve. If he loves me, as Mom claims, he would come to see me instead of skulking around in the yard. Why didn’t he climb up and come in her window? Buffy had not yet told her mother about dating Riley. She’d been sneaking around and pretending her dates with Riley were study sessions. It was time to put an end to Mom’s Spike as Son-in-Law Dream and start getting her used to the idea of Riley Husband Material. “I’m dating someone else.” Joyce dropped the tutti-frutti popsicles she was holding and placed her hands flat on the counter. “You’re what?” Mom looked mad. Way mad. Buffy didn’t understand why, except her mother liked Spike and was always taking up for him, which was why Buffy hadn’t gotten around to telling her mother about Riley before this. “I’m dating a grad student from the university. His name is Riley Finn, and he’s a soldier and he’s nice and normal and he knows all about demons and vampires.” And, he has a pulse. “Does Mr. Nice and Normal know you’re pregnant with Spike’s baby?” “Not exactly?” Buffy had kept Riley from finding out about the baby. She’d been forced to wear baggy dresses borrowed from Tara and not let him touch her below the neck. She didn’t want him to touch her below the neck, or above the neck, either, so no problema. At the rate the baby was growing, she’d be able keep up the deception for another three days. Joyce went back to putting groceries away. “Buffy, you did some dumb things when you were in high school, but I told myself you were young and needed to make mistakes in order to grow up. This is an entirely different category of mistake. It’s cruel and stupid.” This conversation was not going at all well. Her mother was going to dig in her heels over Riley, Buffy could tell. “Mom! You haven’t met Riley. You might like him if you gave him a chance.” Of course, she could be overestimating the possibility that her mother would like Riley. She didn’t exactly like Riley herself. “Besides, Spike’s a vampire.” “Perhaps you should have given some thought to Spike’s being a vampire, before you got pregnant.” As if Buffy could think about anything when Spike had his hands on her except giving him exactly what he wanted. “You said I should get married so I could take care of the baby and I’m working on it.” Nice normal guy husband and father was what her mother wanted for the baby, wasn’t it? Spike didn’t begin to fit into that category. “I said you and Spike should get married and give my grandchild a proper home. Marrying someone who isn’t the father of your child is not what I had in mind. I’m deeply disappointed, Buffy. I don’t think I’ll be willing to welcome this Riley person into my home.” “Mom!” Joyce gave Buffy her The Discussion is Closed look and took some meat and vegetables out of the refrigerator. This stressful conversation was giving Buffy a powerful sugar craving. “Can I have a pudding pop?” “No. You can eat steak and vegetables for dinner when I get through making it.” Joyce was still miffed. Who knew she would become so fond of Spike? Mom would have to get over it, like Buffy had. In the meantime, Buffy had to do whatever she could to make a normal home for her baby. “Don’t be mad at me, Mom. I want to do what’s best for my baby.” Joyce softened and gave Buffy a hug. Hugging did not translate to giving up on Spike. “If you mean that, you’ll go talk to Spike and work things out. Spike loves you. He’s waiting for you to come and see him.” *** Kaitlin knocked on the door. “Hey, Aspen. You awake? They’re letting the girls out into the yard.” Aspen opened the door. “They’re letting us out? It’s the middle of the day.” This was surprising. Usually, the guards only let the captives out at night when the vampires could go as well. The guards said the women were too much trouble to let out during the day. “Yeah. Let’s go before they change their minds.” Aspen followed Kaitlin down the hall and out into the compound yard. “Hey, look at this. They made a party for us,” Kaitlin said. Instead of the usual bare concrete yard, the guards had set up a table with cake and cookies and punch. The other women from the compound were gathered around the table, nibbling on cookies and sipping punch. Aspen approached the table cautiously. Usually, there were six guards in the yard when they let the women and their vampires out. Today, there were no guards around. She picked up a cookie and a cup of punch and brought the punch to her lips. A faint musty order came from the punch. Something was wrong with it. She turned the cup up and pretended to drink, then brought the cup down to her side and spilt the contents onto the concrete. “This is great,” Kaitlin said. She downed a cup of punch and refilled her cup. “They should throw a party more often.” “They should let us go home and we could throw our own party,” Aspen said. Kaitlin frowned. “I feel funny.” She stumbled then curled to the pavement. Aspen knelt at her side. “Kaitlin, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” She felt Kaitlin’s wrist for a pulse. Still alive. She jumped up to find a guard to get help for Kaitlin and saw several of the other women staggering and dropping to the ground. What was going on? The punch must be doctored with some kind of sleeping potion. Within moments, all the women except Aspen passed out. Several guards armed with tranquilizer guns ran out of the building towards the women. Aspen didn’t want to get shot with a tranquilizer dart, so she feigned sleepiness and plopped down on the concrete next to Kaitlin. She kept her eyes shut and her limbs loose as a soldier picked her up and loaded her into a small truck with the rest of the women. “That’s all of them. Take them to the dock,” one of the soldiers said. “Shit, Finn. I’ve had it with college girl duty. When are we going back to Sunnydale?” “Day after never if you don’t get these broads onto the boat.” “This is your damn fault. If you hadn’t messed with that little blond, we’d all be back in Sunnydale chasing demons instead of stuck on this island.” “Shut up, Gates.” Aspen peeked out from under her eyelashes as the truck drove through the compound. She didn’t know where they were, since the women were always restricted to their rooms, a small cafeteria and the compound yard. The truck pulled into an open space that had a boat dock. She continued to feign sleep as the women were placed into a large boat. The boat pulled away from the island and headed for the mainland. After a tedious trip across the bay to Isla Vista and another truck ride to Sunnydale, the soldiers let themselves into her apartment building, unlocked her apartment door and left her in her own bed, still pretending to sleep.

Chapter #12 - The Important Thing

Chapter 12 – The Important Thing Before she’d been back in her apartment for an hour, Aspen raced to the police department to see Detective Halkeran. She hadn’t combed her hair and she was wearing the same wrinkled blue dress she’d worn for the trip back to Sunnydale in the bottom of a boat and the back of a truck. She gripped her elbows with her hands as if she could keep herself from flying to pieces by holding on tight. “Aspen. You’re back.” Halkeran said. He pulled her folder off the growing stack of folders for missing university students. What the billy blue hell was the government up to now? First, they snatch a bunch of college girls, then they send them back. Four missing girls showed up this week. Was Aspen in the same condition as the rest? “Did you call your Mom? She’s frantic.” “Yes, yes, I called. I know where Thomas is, where he’s been taken. I know where all the missing students are. You have to do something.” Halkeran sipped his sour coffee which had turned cold an hour ago. He sat back and waited. He wasn’t going to like what this girl had to say. He wasn’t going to like it, because he knew where Aspen and the other college girls had been taken and he knew about certain things that went on in Sunnydale. Things the Commissioner warned them never to mention to civilians. “Thomas and the others – they were captured by some weird government soldiers. I was, too, and a bunch of women from the university. We were kidnapped and held captive out on this island a few miles from Isla Vista. The men are still being held there. You have to do something.” She gripped her elbows harder and made her fingers turned white. Be calm, be calm or he won’t believe you. Your story is too fantastic for anybody to believe, but if you’re calm and reasonable, he might listen. He might let you explain. He might not think you’re crazy and he might check it out. Then, he’d have to do something. “Isla Vista is outside my jurisdiction.” He had to be careful here. He didn’t want to get her excited, give her hope that anyone could help, that anything could be done. At least, by anyone official. “Call someone. You must know someone. Call the FBI or the CIA or some government alphabet place. The soldiers – the Initiative is what they call themselves – they’re turning the men into … I mean, they’re hurting the men and they’re kidnapping people and keeping them captive. Somebody has to rescue them.” Halkeran got up and closed the door. Aspen was a nice, pretty girl, like a hundred college girls he saw on the street every day. He wanted to help her, but he couldn’t. Helping meant saying the forbidden words out loud. Helping meant admitting what he’d known – what the department had known - for years. “Aspen, your boyfriend, and the other men. Did something happen to them? Something that changed them?” “Yes! You know? You know about vamp …” He held up his hand to cut off her words. “Don’t say that word. Not in here. Not where anyone can hear you.” Aspen nodded. Tears dripped from her eyes. He knew. He knew and he believed her. “What can I do? I have to get Thomas back. Please, please help me.” Halkeran sat back down in his beat up chair. “I can’t help you. I can’t even say the word that describes your boyfriend’s … condition.” “There must be someone who can help, someone you can call.” It pissed him off. He’d sworn to serve and protect. He’d become a cop to help people and keep them safe and he was stuck in this hell hole where couldn’t even same the name of the monsters that were ravaging the town. He might not be able to say the word, but he could send Aspen to someone who could. Halkeran picked up a pencil and a scrap of paper. He wrote down an address and a name. “Go here. Ask for Willy. Tell him you want to find her.” He handed her the paper. Aspen looked at the scrap. “She can help? But, it says she’s a slayer. She slays them.” Aspen whispered. “Yeah, she does, but her boyfriend? He’s got a condition, too.” *** Willow pulled out a seemingly endless stack of printouts from her backpack and dropped them on the Magic Box’s reading table in front of Giles. “Here’s what I’ve got. There’s a lot more.” Buffy looked at the huge stack of papers. It was times like these that she was grateful she was the Slayer. Kicking, jumping, boxing, staking and free-form eye gouging and ear pulling were much better than getting eye strain. Giles eyed the formidable stack of papers, too. “Perhaps you could summarize, Willow?” “There’s something else you need to see first. Here’s the Sunnydale Coroners’ report for the past year on deaths by unnatural causes, with a graph comparing death rates. You see the death rates dropped by over fifty percent in the past four months. The category showing the biggest drop was ‘Death by Misadventure.’ That’s where they stick the vampire neck punctures, demon maulings and icky deaths they don’t want to explain.” Giles studied the chart for a moment and handed it to Buffy. “This is remarkable.” Buffy stared at the chart. It was especially remarkable since she’d neglected patrolling in favor of visiting Spike and she hadn’t completely cleared out the nest of campus vampires. If this chart was correct, there had been only a few vampire deaths in the past four months. “I could be on the Slayer unemployment line if this keeps up. What gives, Will?” “Buffy and Spike weren’t the only participants in the Positive Reinforcement program. The government chipped fifteen recently turned male vampires. These vamps were all in the 20-25 year age range when they were turned. None of their names showed up in the obituary pages, but most of them were reported missing.” “Color me duh,” Buffy said. “I never thought about any other vampires being chipped. It doesn’t make sense the Initiative would go to all that trouble for Spike.” “I certainly should have considered this possibility before,” Giles said. “Why would the government go to the expense and trouble of chipping any vampires? The Initiative soldiers are capable of dusting the vampires. Capturing them is a lot more difficult and costly, one would think. They must have some ulterior plan.” Buffy shivered at the thought of the Initiative dusting Spike. “How did all those vampires get turned, if none of them showed up dead?” she asked. Willow interrupted. “There’s more. These are articles I printed out from The Sunnydale Sunset. Fifteen college girls from USC Sunnydale disappeared in the past three months. All of them were athletes. The weirdest part is some of the girls showed up a few days ago. They told the police they couldn’t remember where they’d been or what happened to them.” Fifteen newly turned and chipped male vampires and fifteen missing, then returned, college girls. What Buffy was thinking was too weird to be true, which, this being the Hellmouth, meant what she was thinking was probably true. “Okay. I’m making a leap. Are any of those college girls pregnant? Is the Initiative creating a whole group of vampire-human babies? And, why?” Willow nodded. “I hacked into their medical records with the University clinic. They’re all expecting within the next six or seven months. I think the Initiative hopes to grow themselves a group of super soldiers with the strength of their athlete mothers and their vampire fathers. I hope you didn’t want a girl, Buffy, because all the babies are going to be boys.” Finally, Willow found out something useful. “Awesome, I’m going to have a baby boy. Spike Summers, Jr. What a dumb name.” What was Spike’s last name, anyway? “The notion of a miniature Spike is quite possibly the most frightening thing I’ve ever encountered in all my years of researching the occult,” Giles said. Buffy stuck her tongue out at him. Giles had been positively hurtful since she announced the baby was on the way. Her baby boy was going to be beautiful and perfect and normal and not at all frightening. “Wait a minute,” Buffy said. “What about the chipped vampires? What happened to them? Am I going to have to interview every vamp I come across to see if he’s Violence Impaired before I dust him?” “Nope,” Willow said, “The government’s holding them all, except Spike, who escaped. Since Spike was out loose and we were protecting him, they had to go to more trouble to get the two of you together with the whole control box scenario.” Giles snorted and commented under his breath that it didn’t appear much trouble had been required at all. Buffy pretended she hadn’t heard. “The control box is dangerous since it can neutralize the chip. Why would the government want the ability to do that?” “Neutralize the chip?” Giles asked. “You didn’t mention that the box could neutralize the chip. Is that how you came to have that bite mark on your neck?” Buffy had forgotten she and Willow hadn’t mentioned that aspect of the control box’s features to Giles. “That wasn’t a bite. That was a poke. Yes, it was a poke in the neck from a branch.” Giles gave Buffy his I Am Seriously Annoyed Face for leaving out important details and lying to boot. He polished his glasses so hard, the lenses appeared in imminent danger of breakage. “The important thing is vampires,” Buffy said. The important thing was to get Giles to think about something besides her lies and the bite on her neck. “Why would the government want its own kiss of vampires?” Giles left off polishing his glasses now that he had a question to ponder. “Vampires could be extremely effective soldiers if they could be controlled – hard to kill, stronger than humans, capable of stealth. If the chip could be turned on and off at will, the vampires could be starved into submission, then released on an opposing human force with devastating effect.” “Oh boy,” Buffy said.

Chapter #13 - A Very Good Friend of Mine

Chapter 13 – A Very Good Friend of Mine Spike stalked Buffy home, as he did every night, to make sure Soldier Boy left her house with nothing more than a goodnight kiss, no tongue, before heading off to find Clem. Clem gave him lousy advice the last time he asked, but there was no one else to ask. Couldn’t ask her Watcher or that wanker, Peaches, and he definitely couldn’t ask the Whelp, not after Spike gave him a semi-harsh ass kicking the other night. Which left Clem. Spike banged through the door at Willy’s and ordered his usual, O neg, which didn’t have the kick it once had. Not compared to Slayer blood. “I’m drinking to un-live, that’s all. And, does Miss Petite Vampire Duster care? Not a bit.” Clem sat at the bar, reading The Demon Daily and drinking root beer. He offered Spike some of his spicy chicken wings, but Spike waved them away. “What’s up Spike? You look glum,” Clem said. “Slayer, what else?” The buzzing of conversation stopped in the bar at Spike’s mention of the Slayer. Spike vamped out to make the other customers return to their drinks and mind their own business. “Pack of gossips, the whole bleeding lot of you.” “Really? Are you two still an item? I have two hundred bucks on you and the Slayer to get married before next spring.” Couldn’t a vamp get any privacy in this town? “Wasted your dosh there, Clem. We broke up.” Jurt and Burt, who had been playing pinball and eavesdropping on Spike and Clem’s conversation with their sensitive retractable horns, stopped their game long enough to go up to the bar and hand Willy some cash. “Oh, that’s too bad,” Clem said. “About you and Buffy, too. Of course, if you got back together after word got out that you and the Slayer broke up, it could really increase the odds.” Clem got out his wallet and checked his supply of cash. Spike ordered a bottle of Jack to chase his blood. He drank two shots, decided that wasn’t enough and downed two more. “Haven’t seen the little bint, except for stalking her every night. She’s got me so tangled up, I can’t bite straight.” “Won’t she let you see her or talk to her?” “Suppose she would, but she’s got herself snagged up with some poufter soldier from the Initiative and she won’t let me kill the ponce.” “Hmmm. That is a complication. Could you go see her without killing the soldier?” “I guess I could. Never thought of it.” He’d thought about it twenty times a night for the past five weeks, but always lost his nerve. It was up to her to make the first move, since she was the one who kicked him to the curb, but the way things were going, she’d run off and marry the footslogger one day while his back was turned if he didn’t do something soon. Yeah, he could sneak through her window after Joyce went to sleep. Worst that would happen was Slayer would bounce his ass back out again. Probably wouldn’t stake him. Probably. Course, going to see her wouldn’t solve the problem of Soldier Git. He had to figure some way to cut him out of the picture. Short of killing him, which would be easier all around. She was running around with Crew Cut in order to punish him for not offering to marry her. Or, maybe she just liked giving him a hard time. She couldn’t possibly love that berk, Finn. “Before you married Clarna, when you were dating and all, did she give you a hard time? Chasing after other flapseras?” “Oh my, Spike, Clarna lead me a merry chase. Yes, she did. My thirty-third cousin, twice – no - once removed, Clurfa’s his name, started sniffing around, bringing her dried skewered lizards and ailes grillées de batte and other delicacies. I had to move pretty fast to keep Clurfa from cutting me out.” Spike gagged. Grilled bat wings and dried lizards. And, Buffy got all dainty at the sight of a little warm blood. If she only knew. “What’d you do?” “Clarna made soup out of the dried lizards. They make a nice, thick broth. Very tasty.” Spike squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the overwhelming frustration of talking to Clem to pass. Bloody hell. He should have known he wouldn’t get a straight answer out of Clem. “Don’t want to know about the lizards, or the bat wings either. What’d you do about Clarna?” “I bought her a ring and proposed right away. I knew old Clurfa wasn’t good for any real jewelry and he wasn’t the marrying kind, either. Love ‘em and leave ‘em, that’s Clurfa. Anyway, I bought the ring and went to see Clarna. Put it right on the line. We’re getting married, Clarna, I said, and no guff.” Clem sipped his root beer. He could steal a nice big diamond, or maybe a blood-red ruby, for Buffy from the pawn shop on Center Street. Might have to steal two or three to make sure he got one she liked. She ought to be happy with that silver Death’s Head Skull ring he gave her the last time they were engaged. Goldilocks never gave that back for all her protests about Lips of Spike. He imagined himself wearing a fish-and-soup and getting married and slipping his skull ring on her finger forever. Pinpoint flames flared in the skull ring’s empty eye sockets, then the damn thing winked at him. Spike shook with fear. “Don’t want to get married. I told you that. Just want Buffy to be my girl, and shack up with me and for her to quit playing around with that soldier.” Clem shook his head. “Won’t work, Spike. You’re going to have to make a serious commitment if you want to get the soldier off your territory.” Commitment! Flapseras had no pride. “What do you mean, it won’t work? Did your plan with Clarna work?” “Not exactly.” “Not exactly?” Clem hung his head and stared sadly into his root beer. He drained the glass and ordered another. “Clarna agreed to marry me all right. Then, she made me get a job. I’ve been working at her father’s bowling alley ever since.” Spike drained his glass and threw it at the juke box which was playing Frank’s version of That Old Black Magic. He took a long pull from his bottle. “It’s a trap, that’s what it is, Clem. A trap and a vicious circle. They wag their tail feathers at you, then they get a bun in their oven and the next thing you know, you’re married and working your claws to the bone.” “I’m afraid so, Spike. What’s a bun in their oven?” “You know, preggers?” Clem wrinkled his face and looked confused. “Up the spout?’ Clem shook his head. “Pregnant!” Spike shouted. Spike tipped the bottle of Jack up to his mouth and chugged the rest of the bottle. He wiped his mouth and fell off the bar stool. Clem scratched some figures on a cocktail napkin. He signaled to Willy and passed him the note with a large wad of cash. *** Aspen peered through the small diamond window set into the front door of Willy’s Place. The bar was the sleaziest place she’d ever seen in her life, but it was her only hope for helping Thomas. She went in. Three ghostly pale creatures studied her and flared their nostrils as she walked up to the bar. They were sniffing her. It made her skin crawl. Another one, with white hair and wearing a black leather coat, was so drunk, he fell off his barstool. He lay on the floor, cursing and muttering to himself about the perfidies of women. At least he wasn’t sniffing her. A few months ago, she would have mistaken them for Goth punks or gang members. She couldn’t mistake what they were now. And, these vampires weren’t reined in by a silicone chip in their brains. She trembled. Aspen pulled her necklace out of her blouse and touched the gold cross suspended around her neck. The vampires snarled and returned their attention to their drinks. Some tall, thin grey-skinned creatures with stubby orange horns fiddled with the juke box, which didn’t seem to be working. They had the names Burt and Jurt embroidered on their bowling shirt pockets. Their horns twitched when she touched her cross. The bartender was polishing the bar with a filthy rag. “What’ll you have, little lady? Got a special on AB negative today.” Aspen puckered her mouth. She hadn’t adjusted to the idea of drinking blood, even when it came in a nice, neat plastic bag. She wasn’t sure she wanted to adjust. “Are you Willy the Snitch? I’m looking for the Slayer.” The white-haired vampire looked in her direction and tried to focus his eyes. He gave up and emptied his whiskey bottle down his throat. “You looking for the Slayer, missy?” the vampire said. “Threw my heart at her feet and she gave me the sack. Might as well have staked me, the heartless bitch. You can’t trust her. She’s tricky. And, apartments are expensive.” A strange looking creature with loose skin and floppy ears handed the blonde vampire a bottle of beer. Apartments? Aspen turned her attention back to Willy. “The Slayer? Do you know her?” “Shhhhh!” Willy said. “Don’t say that name so loud. Look, you’re upsetting the customers.” Three of the vampires she’d identified earlier slid off their barstools at the mention of the Slayer, and slithered out the back door. The white-haired vampire on the floor sucked on his beer bottle. “Look what you’ve done,” Willy said. “Those three were good for another bag of blood apiece. What do you want the Slayer for?” “Is it true? She exists?” “Yeah, she exists all right. She’s damn near ruined my business coming in here. She comes in here for information. I’m the Info Maven in this town.” Willy puffed out his chest and poked himself with his thumb. Aspen placed a few worn dollar bills on the bar. “I need to find her. I need her help.” “You’re in luck. So happens the Slayer is a very good friend of mine.” Willy tucked the bills in his shirt pocket. *** It was almost dawn, when Buffy awoke to a tap on her window. The window was open, so she didn’t bother to get up. Jumping out of bed first thing in the morning these days was not the bestest idea. “Awake, luv?” Spike asked as he crawled in the window and tripped over the window sill and landed on the floor. Buffy wriggled in anticipation of the feel of his hands on her body. She was so happy to see Spike it took her a minute to remember she was aggravated at him. She remembered fast enough when she got a smell of his breath. “Stating the obvious, Mr. Vampire, you’re drunk. And, why didn’t you come last night and visit my mother? She’s the one you want to see.” Spike tossed his coat on a chair and sprawled on top of the bed next to Buffy wearing all his clothes. “I don’t mind a nice visit with your Mum. She treats me a lot better than you do.” “What do you want?” Buffy asked. He hadn’t taken off his clothes so apparently, he didn’t want that. He might have at least taken off his boots before he came crawling into her bed. “I wanted to see my girl,” he said. He held her face in his hands and kissed her softly. Buffy kissed him back, entirely against her will. Hormones. She didn’t protest when his hands slipped up the front of her pajamas with the peppermint candies printed on them and stroked her breasts. “I’m not your girl, Whiskey Breath,” she said in a vague, not entirely believable way. “I’m dating Riley and he’s nice and …” Spike looked disgusted and stopped fondling her breasts under her pajamas and sat up in the bed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s nice and normal and he has a job and he knows about demons and vampires. Got the drill.” Buffy wanted to scream. Why’d he stop? “He’s got a pulse, too,” she said. “You forgot that part.” “Big deal. I had a pulse once.” Spike patted his shirt pocket for cigarettes and booze. He’d left his smokes and flask in his coat pocket across the room and he didn’t want to get up after he’d wangled his way into Buffy’s bed without getting a broken nose. Buffy flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Couldn’t he tell she wanted sex? Couldn’t he smell her or something gross like that? What did she have to do? Invite him in? Spike sniffed Buffy appreciatively. “What’s the matter, pet? Frustrated?” “Shut up.” She squeezed her thighs together to keep from jumping him. She wanted to brag that Riley was keeping her fulfilled, but stopped herself when she remembered Spike’s promise to kill Riley if he touched her. Besides, Spike skulked after the two of them continually and he knew exactly how far Buffy permitted Riley to go. “Been meaning to ask you, how’ve you managed to keep Soldier Boy at arm’s length? Let me guess. I've been hurt before and want to take my time and make sure you're the right one?” Spike delivered that last part in his imitation Buffy voice. “None of your business.” That was exactly the line she’d fed Riley to keep him from getting in her pants. Spike could be so annoying. “Want to go to Tanzgotik tonight? Been a while since we went dancing.” Buffy huffed. He had his gall asking her for a date at the last minute, especially after not talking to her for five weeks, one day and thirteen hours. “I have a previous engagement.” Another movie with Mr. Boring and a follow-up round of My Father Always Says. Sometimes she wasn’t sure if she was dating Riley Snore, Jr. or Riley Snore, Sr. Spike relented and tweaked her nipple through the fabric of her pajamas. “What happened to your pajamas with the little fish bits on them? I liked those. They were nice and thin.” Buffy abandoned her Yummy Sushi pajamas weeks ago. The mere thought of raw fish made her gag these days. “Don’t mention raw fish. Ugh, I’m gonna be sick.” She ran to the bathroom and banged up the toilet seat in time for her first barf of the day. Spike was right behind her. He rubbed her back while she threw up and handed her a glass of water when she got to the dry heave part. He waited while she brushed her teeth. She held her head low over the sink while she brushed, so she could ignore the little green and black spots spiraling in front of her eyes. “Okay, luv?” he asked. He smoothed her hair back behind her ears. “Fine.” Awful. Why was he being nice? She wanted to be in a snit and he was making it very difficult. Buffy jerked her head up too fast, which made the green and black spots spin around faster. She reached out to replace her toothbrush in its ceramic holder and crumpled to the floor. Spike caught her before she hit her head. When she woke up, she was in her bed with her knees propped up on a pillow and a cold cloth on her forehead. There was a glass of water and a couple of soda crackers on her nightstand, that hadn’t been there before. The sun was up and Spike was gone.

Chapter #14 - Someplace Fun Tonight

Chapter 14 – Someplace Fun Tonight Buffy could have kicked herself. This morning Spike asked her if she wanted to go to TanzGotik, the new club on Dantesco Street. Buffy, like a moron, said no because she’d agreed to go with Riley to the movies. She was miffed at herself and miffed at Spike for not asking her sooner and even more miffed that she agreed to go to the movies tonight with Riley. Again. She didn’t like going to the movies all the time, but with Riley, the movies were perfect. She didn’t have to struggle to make conversation with him while they sat in the darkened theater and she didn’t have to pretend she was interested in anything he said about himself. Riley was only interested in talking about himself and he had exhausted everything he could say and was repeating himself. Or worse, repeating his father. Nice and normal came with a downside. She wasn’t going to stand for boring movies tonight, she told herself as she tugged on the zipper of her black leather mini-skirt for the third time. The skirt was too tight because Spike, Jr. was growing like a little pig. She got the skirt zipped by shimmying it up so the waist band was riding her rib cage. Her skirt was now micro short. No, she was going to make Riley take her someplace fun tonight. That fun place was TanzGotik. She hoped Spike would show up. She could hardly wait to tell him the baby was a boy. She’d been too busy rolling on the bed and kissing Spike this morning to remember to tell him. Not to mention yakking and passing out like a ninny. She snapped on her studded dog collar, pulled on her black lace-up ankle boots, stuck a half dozen silver earrings in her earlobes and put on her black eyeliner and platelet-red lipstick. Gotho-nuclear. Her cleavage, which was spilling out of her leather bustier, looked especially sexy, thanks to Baby Boy Spike. She ran down the stairs to answer the doorbell. Her mother was away for a few days on an art-buying trip for the gallery, so Buffy could once again avoid introducing her to Riley. Her mother refused to have anything to do with Riley, and Buffy had kept him from coming to the house and creating a scene. Riley’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw Buffy. “You look hot,” he said. “Aren’t we going to a movie tonight? Did I get my signals crossed?” “Signals are uncrossed,” Buffy said. “I thought you’d like to take me to TanzGotik to dance, instead.” “Great. Let’s go.” She looked sluttier and plumper than before. He didn’t remember Buffy having such a great set of tits. He was going to get lucky. There was no way Buffy was going to put him off tonight, the way she looked in that outfit. A tall, thin blonde woman stopped her mountain bike on the sidewalk and stared when Buffy and Riley walked out to the car. Buffy was busy checking her bag for stakes, lipstick and other important items and didn’t notice the woman. She jumped into Riley’s jeep and they drove away. The woman got on the bicycle and pedaled after them. *** TanzGotik was black as the pits of the Hellmouth, with only strobe lights, mirror balls and a few dim, icy-blue neon fluorescent tubes over the bar to light up the place. The fixtures were recycled from a 1980’s discotheque. The band was recycling too, tunes by Alien Sex Fiends, Deviltalia, Hypnodeath and Vampire Buzz Kill. The club swarmed with humans dressed in leather and lace and Goth costumes, and from the way Buffy’s neck hairs were springing up, a fair share of vampires, too. She hoped nobody was stupid enough to take a trip out to the alley with their new vampire friend, because she wanted to enjoy herself tonight, not get dust all over her clothes. While Riley pushed his way to the bar to buy her a Coke, she scanned the crowd for Spike, but didn’t see him. Damn. He was never around when she wanted to see him and always dogging her heels when she wanted to be left alone. Buffy shoved her way to a table with a couple of empty chairs and sat down. A few feet away, a tall girl with shoulder-length, dishwater blonde hair and wearing a loose, grey dress sat down at the next table and stared at Buffy. The girl turned her head away when Buffy stared back. The girl’s face was scrubbed clean, unlike the extreme makeup favored by the other female patrons. She looked out of place and appeared to be sitting alone. Buffy caught the girl looking at her again. The girl looked too healthy and pink to be a vampire, so Buffy put the girl out of her mind. She was probably admiring Buffy’s outfit. When Riley returned, she swigged her coke and dragged him out to the dance floor. Riley was a bad dancer. He always looked self conscious and uncomfortable like he was afraid someone was looking at him, which no one, including Buffy was. Well, some of the other dancers were looking at him, because he was dressed like a total square. I’m being unfair. I didn’t warn him I wanted to come here and Total Squareness is his major redeeming quality. I’m forgiving Riley for Total Squareness and concentrating on having a good time. Besides, I’m going to have to get used to Unconditional Cubeitude. All during the dance, Riley kept putting his hands on her waist and pulling her close to his body. She shook free and danced further away, but he kept cornering her. “Buffy, did I tell you how hot you look tonight? Sexy. How about a drive up to Lookout Point later?” Lookout Point was the last place Buffy wanted to go with Riley, but she felt she ought to make an excuse. “I don’t want to go there, if you don’t mind. It’s a big vampire hangout and I’d like to take a night off.” She was going to have to show some romantic interest soon or he was going to get discouraged. She’d kiss him with some tongue tonight and let him feel up her boobs, in Spike wasn’t lurking around. French kissing and boob touchies should keep Riley happy for another few days. Buffy danced with her back to Riley so she wouldn’t see the look of frustration - or was it irritation? – on his face. Okay, so putting off the inevitable wasn’t going to work. She was going to have to show romantic interest now. The band switched to a slow, romantic song – Vampire Bit My Heart - so she used the opportunity to snuggle into Riley’s arms. He did have nice arms and he was warmer than room temperature. Both good points. If only he wasn’t so boring. She stretched herself up on tiptoe and kissed Riley’s cheek. He smiled and kissed her mouth, shoving his tongue halfway down her throat in a very gagging manner. Maybe it was a good thing Spike wasn’t here. She whirled around so Riley couldn’t choke her anymore with his tongue and saw Spike standing at the bar, smoking a cigarette and handing a drink to a slim, pretty girl with dark eyes and hair. Buffy stopped dancing. Spike? With a date? Spike leaned over to whisper to the girl and smiled. She put her hand on Spike’s chest. “Riley, I need to go to the Ladies’ Room. Would you get me another Coke?” She pointed to a bartender half way across the room from where Spike was standing, hoping Riley would head in the direction she was pointing and not notice Spike. As Riley headed toward the bartender, Buffy marched over to where Spike was standing. “I see you showed up after all, Spike,” Buffy said, forgetting she’d refused a date with Spike and come here with Riley. She eyed the girl. “Who’s your friend?” “This is Carmelita,” Spike said. “I mentioned her the other day.” “Did you? Slipped my mind.” This was the girl he’d been bragging about. She was a vampire, too. Carmelita would never do anything inconvenient like get herself knocked up. How dare Spike flaunt this ho-bag in front of her? Buffy reached around to the back of her skirt to pull out a stake and send this little Carmelita tramp to vampire heaven. She blanched when she realized she didn’t have a stake with her. She hadn’t been able to shove a stake in her waistband because her skirt was too tight, and she’d left her patrol bag with her pointy sticks and other implements of destruction back in Riley’s truck. Spike saw her searching for her stake and smirked. “None of that, luv,” Spike said. “You and Carmelita have an acquaintance in common. She’s great friends with your Soldier …” Spike was interrupted by Carmelita, who was smiling at something behind Buffy’s back. “Riley. I didn’t think you liked this place,” Carmelita said. Buffy spun around, surprise plastered on her face. Riley stood behind her, holding a drink in each hand. He stared at Carmelita and his face colored bright red. “You two know each other?” Buffy asked. “I can explain,” Riley said. Buffy looked from Riley to the vampire girl, who was giving Buffy a nasty grin. The girl put her arm around Spike and leaned against him in an entirely unnecessary way. Carmelita was one of those vampires Giles told her about. She got paid for sucking blood and for sex. She’d stolen Riley away and now she was trying to steal Spike away, too. Or, was Spike orchestrating this whole thing? “Buffy,” Riley said. “It’s not like you think.” “How is it?” Like she couldn’t figure out what he was up to. Riley, Mr. Nice and Normal, was Carmelita’s customer. While Riley was pretending to be interested in Buffy and feeding her stupid fantasy they might have a romantic relationship, he was trotting down to Dantesco Street to visit his real girlfriend. Now, he was standing here, red-faced, attempting to think up some lie to cover up what he’d been doing. Buffy smacked Riley’s face hard. She loosened one of his teeth and sent the drinks in his hands flying. A hard hand with pointed, maroon nails gripped Buffy’s shoulder and whipped her around. “Don’t touch him,” Carmelita said. She slapped Buffy in the face and yanked a fistful of blonde hair. Buffy screeched with fury and slugged Carmelita back. “Stay away from my Spike!” They launched to the floor, kicking, scratching, pulling hair and biting. Spike and Riley sat down at the bar. They each drank a beer while Buffy and Carmelita wrestled and rolled around on the wet, sticky floor. Riley shoved his loose tooth back in his gums. Riley drank down half his bottle of beer. “What do you think of Man U’s new wingback, Seventeen?” “Who, Brian Lerkie? He’s not half bad. He’s not Bobbie Charlton, but hell, who is? They could do with some better midfielders.” Carmelita screamed and punched Buffy in the ribs. Buffy growled and ripped out a hank of Carmelita’s hair. Buffy kicked her in the shin and got a slug in the gut in return. She rolled on top of Carmelita and bitch slapped her a couple of times. It wasn’t really a good fighting technique, but it was a lot of fun. Carmelita flipped Buffy over her head and tackled her as she slid across the floor. Over the loud pulse of the music, Spike heard the faint sound of an approaching police siren. “I think the girls have had enough fun,” Spike said. He finished off his bottle of beer and signaled the bartender. “Hey, Kevin, give us a pitcher of water.” He sloshed the water on the two girls. He lifted Buffy off Carmelita, catching her fist in time to prevent her from doing any further damage, and set her on her feet. “I’m not done beating the crap out of that little vamp ho!” Buffy shouted and stamped her foot. “Time to go, kitten. The police are on their way.” He wiped her nose blood off her face and licked his fingers. Mmmm. Buffy remembered she’d stashed her weapons in Riley’s truck and ran out of the bar to get them. Spike hurried after her. A moment later, the blond with the dishwater hair left the bar.

Chapter #15 - You're The Girl

Chapter 15 – You’re the Girl Buffy marched as fast as she could to Riley’s truck. She was dripping water, her nose was bleeding and she couldn’t walk as fast as usual, because her boobs jiggled, which they never did before she got pregnant, and jiggling made them hurt. When she reached Riley’s truck, she bashed in the passenger side window with her fist, making the alarm shriek, and hauled out her bag with her stakes and other weapons. She whipped a stake out of her bag and headed back to the bar to kick some ass, whose ass she hadn’t quite determined, although Spike figured high on the list for slopping water all over her. Spike caught up with her and took her arm. “You don’t want to go back there. Come on, let’s go.” She jerked her arm away, but, seeing five police cars pull up in front of the bar with their lights flashing, she walked away from the bar. “You did that on purpose to get me to break up with Riley.” Spike took out a cigarette and lit it before answering. “Yeah.” Buffy was surprised he told the truth. In some weird way, his telling the truth mollified her. He wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of dragging Carmelita to Tanzgotik to bust up her relationship with Riley, if he hadn’t cared about her a little. Nevertheless, she couldn’t let him think his ploy had worked. “It won’t work. Riley and I are really interested in each other. Every couple has problems. We’ll work this out. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation why he knows that Carmelita girl.” Spike grinned. “It did work. You’re not going to be seeing any more of Lieutenant Lunkhead now you know about his vamp trull.” “Shut up.” What was a trull? Spike was right about one thing, in his typical, all too exasperating way. She couldn’t bring Riley home to meet her Mom after finding out he paid a vampire girl to suck his blood and whatever else he let her suck. Spike put his arm around her. “He’s no good for you, pet. He’s normal. You need an exciting guy like me, with some monster in him.” Riley wasn’t so normal, as it turned out. Buffy felt embarrassed, but relieved. She had no feelings for Riley. In fact, she’d come to dislike him and was ashamed of herself for seeing him after she knew she didn’t care. She wasn’t about to tell Spike she was happy to see the last of Riley or that Spike was right - normal wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Her anger at Spike melted away. It was getting harder and harder to be mad at Spike for any length of time. When did that happen? She used to be mad at Spike for hours, days, weeks at a time. The outside limit on Spike Infuriation these days was about five minutes. She remembered she had important news. “Spike? Willow hacked into the Initiative and found out our baby’s a boy.” “I know.” Buffy jabbed his arm. He had his nerve blowing off her announcement like that. She might not be able to be angry at Spike for long, but she was making up for it in frequency. “You did not either know. Willow only told me yesterday and you haven’t seen her. Have you?” “I didn’t see Red. Didn’t have to.” “Don’t tell me you smelled the baby because I will stake you.” “Okay, I won’t tell you.” Spike laughed when she pummeled his chest. Spike caught her in his arms and pressed her close. “There is something you can tell me.” Spike kissed her long and hard, hoping she’d forget whatever it was she wanted to ask. She could only want to know something he didn’t want to tell. “Don’t distract me,” Buffy said when Spike let her come up for air. What was it she wanted to ask him? It was so hard to think when Spike was holding her. Oh, yes. “What’s your name? Your last name?” Spike swallowed hard. “Vampires don’t have last names. We’re like movie stars – yeah, I’m like Arnold or Bruce or Sly or …” “Cher?” Buffy said with a smirk. Spike swiped the air over her head. “Nothing like Cher, bint.” “So, what was your name when you were alive, William?” “I forgot.” “Liar. Tell me!” She tickled his ribs, which never worked, but made him smile anyway. It was good to be back with Spike and laughing together. When they were together like this, she didn’t worry about being normal or what her friends thought about her vampire lover or whether the next apocalypse was going to keep her from signing up for Aitutaki Tribal Drum Appreciation class or even whether she was going to be a good mom to her baby or any of the stupid things that clouded her days. When she was with Spike, she could just be Buffy. Happy Buffy. They walked down the sidewalk, hand in hand, jostling each other and giggling. She twirled her stake. Buffy heard the soft scrape of footsteps behind them. Spike heard it, too. They exchanged glances and kept walking. The footsteps came closer. She snapped her stake into her fist and whirled to face their follower. Buffy grabbed the girl’s throat and slammed her against a nearby building, the stake pressed against the girl’s ribs, ready to plunge into her heart. It was the blonde girl who’d stared at her earlier in the bar. “What do you want? Why are you following me?” The girl’s eyes widened with terror and she gasped for breath. “You’re Buffy, aren’t you? You’re the girl who kills vampires?” “Why?” “My boyfriend, Thomas. The Initiative caught him. A detective with the police department told me to find you. He told me you could help.” *** Riley stood at attention in front of Walsh’s desk. She’d summoned him in the middle of the night on his pager, interrupting his tender reconciliation with Carmelita. Walsh loved to do that – send out a call when she suspected he might be having sex. Old Bat. Professor Walsh sat at her desk for several minutes without speaking or looking in his direction. Another thing she liked to do. Intimidate people by pretending they weren’t there. She was looking at some damn report which he wasn’t able to read upside down. “Special Agent Finn, you recall our conversation a few months ago concerning Buffy Summers?” Riley’s face exhibited surprise and sneaking guilt. “Yes.” “And, what were my instructions concerning Ms. Summers?” “I was not to see Ms. Summers outside my capacity as your teaching assistant.” “You purposely disobeyed my direct orders, didn’t you?” “Ms. Summers requested my assistance with her studies,” he said. “You aren’t my commanding officer. I’m not required to obey orders from you, Professor.” She’d said so herself not three months ago. “I think you’ll find you are mistaken. You’ve been seeing Ms. Summers on a social basis. Since Ms. Summers is pregnant and she’s accomplished the current goal of my program, I’m willing to overlook your interference. What I’m not willing to overlook is your abuse of your security clearance to …” “She’s pregnant? With that vampire trash, Hostile 17?” Little bitch strung him along the whole time. He didn’t know who he was madder at, Buffy for pretending she was going to have sex with him and be his human girlfriend or that jackass vampire for getting her knocked up. “Do not interrupt me again, Agent Finn. You abused your security clearance to obtain information about the Positive Reinforcement program that Ms. Summers was participating in with Hostile 17.” “I didn’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “If you didn’t look up that information, you are guilty of an amazing breach of security protocols in failing to secure your passwords for computer access.” Riley said nothing. Buffy. She’d been sitting in his office at the Psych Building the day ‘someone’ broke in. She must have broken the door herself and stolen his passwords. She’d been leading him on with promises of sex and used him to get information. She’d pay for that. She’d pay and so would that bastard Seventeen. “You’re not arguing, so I will take your silence as an affirmative. I’m also aware you tampered with Hostile 17’s security implant. Fortunately for you, it suits my purposes for Hostile 17 to be reactivated and fully functional. I’m reassigning you to the high security installation at Fuego.” Finn’s face, once she mentioned Fuego displayed precisely the look of disgust and mortification Walsh hoped to achieve. “Unless you’d prefer to be reassigned to Diego Garcia? I hear the Indian Ocean is refreshing.” Diego Garcia was worse than the Cleveland Hellmouth. Wind, dust, 140 degrees every day, reruns of ten year old movies, no beer and no women. Fuego sounded like a tropical paradise by comparison. “Fuego will be fine, Professor.” Walsh shoved a piece of paper across the top of her desk. “You will take your team to this address and follow orders. I don’t expect any more acts of insubordination on your part. Is that clear?” He picked up the paper, glanced at the instructions, smiled, folded the paper and placed it in his pocket. Here was one order from Walsh he wouldn’t mind following. Finn saluted and left.

Chapter #16 - Things I Don’t Want To Know

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.”

Chapter #17 - All of the Above

Chapter 17 – All of the Above She slipped her hand into his and they walked for a mile in companionable silence. Buffy loved these moments with Spike, when they were walking home after midnight, usually after a good fight with some vamps or demons. There was no need to talk. They could just be together, enjoying each other’s company without saying a word. At a small brick apartment building, not far from the university, Spike stopped and pulled some keys out of his coat pocket and opened the door. Buffy followed him up a flight of stairs where he opened another door to an apartment and reached in and flipped on a light. Spike’s green stuffed chair and his television were sitting in the living room. A stack of beat-up books sat on the floor next to the chair. Some book called Oliver Twist sat on top. Spike busied himself with the apartment keys and searching for his cigarettes, which were plainly inside his coat pocket and taking a drink of booze and anything else he could think of to avoid her gaze. She walked around the apartment. There was a tiny kitchen area, with black and white ceramic tiles and a bar where you could sit and eat a Pop Tart for breakfast. Spike’s microwave was sitting on the counter. Figuring Spike’s invitation included snooping rights, Buffy opened the cabinets – a box of Weetabix – yuck - a plate, two glasses and two mugs. Hmmm, Spike doesn’t need a plate. Next, she went into the bedroom. Spike’s big, comfy bed was there, made up with lots of pillows. A red satin nightgown was lying on top of the bed. She checked the closet. Spike’s red shirts – so he did own more than one – and a shirt and some new pants in her size and the powder-blue angora sweater he stole from her on one of his raids on her bedroom, hung in the closet. The bathroom had older style white porcelain fixtures and a huge tub where you could take a bubble bath and a sink you could sit on while you did your makeup. She recognized a few towels, which once belonged to her mother, hanging on the racks. There was another, smaller bedroom. It was furnished with an old-fashioned wooden crib and a chest of drawers decorated with dancing lambs and kittens and baby ducks. A mobile of butterflies hung over the crib and made tinkling sounds when Buffy touched it with her hand. Buffy felt a lump in her throat. No man had ever gone to so much trouble for her. Serious Like was not sufficient for what she felt about Spike at the moment. Did she love him? She hadn’t felt this way when she’d been in stupid mode over Angel. It wasn’t like that at all. Her feelings for Spike were quiet and strong, like when they walked together tonight. She went back to the living room where Spike was standing with his hands in the pockets of his coat and gnawing on his lower lip. “It’s perfect, Spike. I love … it.” Okay, she was a coward. She wanted him to say the L word first. Buffy put her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. “Buffy, would you… Damn it, woman, would you come and live with me?” Buffy tipped her head back so she could look in his eyes. He had a pained expression like he’d been enduring a stomachache from drinking vampire blood. She should take advantage of Spike’s current miserable state. It was only right after all the times he’d annoyed her about Riley. “We could go to Las Vegas and get married,” she said. She’d never seen Spike look so frightened. Spike swallowed hard and stalled while he tried to think up some way to weasel out of getting married. How had this subject come up again? Every time he turned around, somebody wanted him to get married – first Joyce, then Clem and now Goldilocks. Didn’t anyone understand that vampires had a code? Yeah, that’s what it was. The Vampire Code for Wicked Behavior. He couldn’t just be going around doing the right thing, even if he wanted to. He had to do something, well, Evil, preferably. If he couldn’t do something evil, like say kidnap Buffy and drag her off to his secret lair for ravishing, the least he could expect of himself was to shack up with her and annoy her mother and friends. “Unless you don’t want to marry me?” She stuck her lip out in a pout. She was not playing fair, pulling a pout like that. She knew he couldn’t hold up against that kind of trick. He blurted out the first excuse he could think of. “I want to marry you, pet. It’s just, being a vamp so long and all, I don’t exactly exist, you know, on paper. I don’t see how we can get married what with me being dead.” There. She wouldn’t be able to get around that, would she? He was dead and there was nothing she could do about it. “I could see how that could be a problem, you not being able to remember your last name.” She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “I’ll take a bath while you think it over.” *** “Will, can you hear me?” Buffy whispered into her cell phone. She turned up the water splashing into the bathtub so Spike wouldn’t overhear her conversation and dribbled in some bubble bath. Her favorite kind. Willow, awakened from a deep sleep, answered. “Buffy? Why are you calling at three in the morning? Is there an apocalypse I should know about?” “No, way more wiggins than that.” “Would it still be as wiggins tomorrow at ten o’clock in the morning? I’m not operating on Slayer Standard Time.” “I’m sorry, but I need your advice post hasty. Spike got an apartment for us and he wants me to move in with him.” “You’re right. It’s way too wiggins, Buffy. I have to sleep on it for two or three days. What’s your Mom gonna say? Didn’t she say it was time for you two to cut the big white cake?” Buffy skipped right over the part where Spike choked up when she mentioned getting married and fast forwarded to the ridiculous excuse he made up to try to squirm out of tying the knot. “Yeah, but Spike doesn’t have any i.d. I think we need some papers to get married, with his picture and stuff.” “I guess I could fix up something. Tomorrow.” “Thanks, but I didn’t call about that.” “What did you call me about?” “Will, I don’t know if I want to get married because I’m a girl and girls always want to get married or if I want to get married because it’s Spike and I want to get married to him or maybe I want to get married so Baby Spike can have a daddy or maybe all of the above. Also, it’s a cute apartment. Comfy.” “I’ll pretend I understood that. Did you get on board the Love Train, yet?” Buffy took a deep breath. Had she? Did she really love Spike? Or was it sex or hormones or the cute apartment or the throws of impending Momhood? She liked being with him and laughing with him and talking with him and having him around when she was fighting. Was this love? And, if this was love, what was that angsty, panting, face-sucking, crying, moping, guiltapalooza stuff she went through with Angel? It was all so confusing. “I don’t know. Sort of?” “I’ll take a five or six hour nap while you figure it out. Take two talismans and call me in the afternoon.” After she hung up her phone, Buffy stripped and stepped into the tub. She slid all the way under the steaming hot water, until the bubbles were tickling her nose. She was going to like it here.

Chapter #18 - Would You Hold It Against Me?

Chapter 18 - Would You Hold It Against Me? Buffy got out of the tub and dried her hair with her own hair dryer which had mysteriously appeared in the bathroom of Spike’s – their – new apartment. She put on her new red satin gown and went into the bedroom. The lights were out and Spike was standing, naked, in front of the west-facing window, absorbing the rays of the silver moon. Buffy slipped into his arms and basked in the moon with him. “Did I ever tell you how the full moon affects vampires?” He pushed his erection against her hip to remind her. Buffy giggled. “Only every time there is one.” Spike pulled up her gown to expose her belly to the moon’s light. “Baby needs some moonlight, too.” They stood together in the moonlight for a long time while Spike rubbed the moonlight into Buffy’s tummy. She could feel the baby fluttering in her belly. Maybe he did like the moonlight. “Pet?” Spike’s hands wandered further down her body, stroking the insides of her thighs. “Mmmm.” “You wouldn’t hold it against a bloke, because he tried to kill you half a dozen times?” Why’d he have to bring that up? He had tried to kill her, but he’d always been so lame and incompetent that she didn’t feel any particular unhappiness about it, especially since he’d been on pretty good behavior lately. Besides, she hadn’t always been so nice herself. “I guess not, but you’d better behave in the future. You wouldn’t hold it against a girl for breaking your nose every time she saw you, would you?” “Might, if she broke my heart.” “Would I do that?” She turned in his arms so she could snuggle closer. Had she ever been happier than this moment – standing in the beams of moonlight with her vampire? “Yeah, if you didn’t come live with me.” He brushed back her hair and tipped her chin up so she would like into the wide black pupils of his eyes that swallowed up the sparkling blue. “Spike, I …” “Don’t say anything if it isn’t yes.” “I want to say yes …” “Shhh.” Spike abandoned the window and carried Buffy to bed. He settled her tenderly on the sheets he’d turned down while she was bathing and giggling with Red on her cell phone. He’d heard every word of their conversation. Buffy hadn’t made up her mind, but he was going to do everything he could to persuade her to see things his way. He crawled into bed after her and rolled her into his arms and sprinkled soft kisses on her face, her neck, her collarbone and the curve of her breast. “My turn tonight.” Buffy said. She wanted to show him with her fingers and her mouth and her body, how happy he’d made her tonight. She massaged his scalp until his curls sprang free then traced her fingertips down his ears and across his face and his cheeks and his lips. She dipped her tongue into his mouth, one, two, three laps. He grasped her arms, trying to lengthen the kiss, but she turned her face. “None, of that naughty boy, or I’ll get out the handcuffs.” She resumed sketching the ripples of his muscles with her fingers – the sharp angle of his jaw, the thick vein of his neck, the cords of muscles in his shoulders and his biceps and his lower arms. She stretched her hands against his – palm to palm – fingers to fingers – stroking gently, allowing sparkles of electricity to build between them. “How long are you going to tease me?” “As long as I like. Could be hours.” Spike groaned. “Got no one to blame but myself for teaching you these tricks.” “I’m a good student.” Her palms skimmed the muscles of his chest, his nipples, the ridges of his rib bones, the bone that joined them together, then slowly, she slid her hands down his abdomen, barely touching him, avoiding his hardness. She removed her hands and waited. Spike lifted his head. “Hey! You stopped. I was enjoying that.” “I see.” “Right, then. Hop to it.” Buffy scooted down the bed and massaged his feet. “Pet?” “Hmmm?” “That, uh, that feels really good, but there’s another part of me that is in desperate need of massaging.” “Oh? Your legs?” “Not my legs.” Her hands were strong now, no longer light touching, but deeply kneading his calves, then his thighs, working her way up, inching her way closer and closer to his erection. When she was nearly there, she delicately brushed the back of her hand against his balls. She removed her hands again. “Buffy, please.” “Please?” “Please, sweet slayer. Sit on me.” Buffy straddled him, cradling his cock between her legs, letting him feel her warm, wet place. “Like that?” “Yeah, like that sweet pea.” He seized her hips and dug in his fingers and rocked her body against his. “You’re ready for me. Invite me in.” Buffy rolled off. “I don’t think you’re ready.” “Come back here or there’s going to be hell to pay, Slayer.” She giggled and started all over, this time with her tongue. His ears, his cheekbones, his jaw, his neck. No time for his arms, except to suck his fingers one by one. A quick lick across his lowest rib, a puff of air in his bellybutton, then slowly, slowly, slowly, one lap at a time, lower and lower, closer and closer, while he panted and tangled his fingers in her hair. “Stop panting, you know you don’t breathe.” “You keep this up, I may start.” “Big baby, is this what you want?” She circled her tongue over his tip, taking in his first drops of cum before dragging her tongue up and down his length. “Yessssss.” “I don’t think you’re ready.” Spike tugged gently on her hair. “Don’t even think about sucking on my toes.” Buffy stuck out her lip. “You said I could do anything I wanted. You said I should never be shy about what I wanted to do to you.” “Bugger! I didn’t mean you could do it all in one go.” He could see her pretend pouting in the moonlight, her lips wet and dark. “Give me a proper kiss and you can proceed. But, I warn you, there’s going to be payback.” Buffy smiled and kissed him deep and hard, tongue and teeth, breaking off the kiss way too soon in Spike’s opinion. He rolled on top of her and flashed into vamp face. He slid his fangs into neck, and sucked the ribbon of blood slowly. Buffy panted and wrapped her legs around his back, rocking her pelvis against his in time to his mouth. When he finished feeding, she pushed him back flat on the bed. “I get my own way tonight. Now, where was I? Oh, yes.” She nibbled her way down his body – ears, face, neck, shoulder, stopping now and then to suck a dark spot of blood onto his pale skin. She bit harder now – belly, hip bones, thighs and legs, all the way down and back up the inside. She bit hard enough to draw a faint line of blood inside his thigh. “Buffy?” “Hmmm?” She made tiny nips with her teeth inside one thigh, then the other. “Don’t suppose you could finish me off about now?” “Do you want to cum?” “Created a monster’s what I’ve done. Yes, luv, I want to cum.” “Are you ready to cum for me?” Spike gritted his teeth. “Yes, luv. All ready for you.” “Where do you want to cum?” “Anywhere!” “Do you want to cum in my hand?” She stroked her palm up and down his cock. “Yes! Cum in your hand.” “I don’t know. Maybe you’d rather cum inside my puss.” She straddled him again, riding him without letting him enter. “Yes! Your sweet little cunny. You’re so tight and warm and wet, baby. I want to cum in your pussy.” “I don’t think that’s what you really want. I think you want to cum in my mouth.” “No! Don’t stop, don’t …” She pulled herself off him, ignoring his groans and incoherent begging and cursing, and took him in her mouth. No teasing this time. She sucked him hard and squeezed him in her hand. “Yes, baby your mouth your mouth your mouth.” She lowered her hand to fondle his balls, while she took him deeper into her throat. He didn’t, couldn’t, last long after her torments. He spasmed and spurted into her mouth. After, he drew her up into his arms and crushed her hard to his chest. “Buffybuffybuffybuffy, I love you. Invite me into your heart. Say you’ll stay. Stay with me forever.” She settled into his arms, contented, loved. “I’ll stay.” *** The army truck doused its lights and pulled up to the curb on Corazon Street, two blocks from the apartment building. Riley and his crew got out of the truck and fanned out as they approached the building. Riley checked a scrap of paper and pointed to the building. They were working silent. The target had sensitive hearing and they didn’t want to tip him off. He pointed at the various members of the crew, indicating where he wanted them to station themselves while they waited. Gates was closest to the building and carrying the tranquilizer dart gun. He checked his optimized Taser X82 with shaped pulse and maximum penetration probes. He hoped he’d get in a blast before the dart took effect. A couple thousand volts wouldn’t begin to payback Hostile 17 for the trouble he’d caused Riley, but it would be a small beginning. It was hard to pinpoint which of the vampire’s many misdeeds pissed Riley off most. Was it fucking Buffy? Was it keeping Buffy from fucking him? Was it getting her knocked up? Or, was it ruining his relationship with Carmelita, who was now not speaking to him, let alone sucking his dick. The mere fact of Seventeen’s existence was sufficient for Riley to want to shove a tree trunk through the vampire’s black, dead heart. And, the best part? Walsh gave him written orders to subdue this hostile using whatever force was necessary short of using that tree trunk. They settled down behind trees and bushes to wait. It wouldn’t be long before that jackass vampire came out to creature around. He’d want to get in a last snoop around the neighborhood before the sun came up in two hours, smoke a cigarette maybe, or track down a quick kill at the nearby Bronze. All Riley had to do was wait.

Chapter #19 - Morning After

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.

Chapter #20 - Thwarted

Chapter 20 – Thwarted A fierce headache from the tranquilizer drugs ripped Spike from unconsciousness. Before opening his eyes, he listened and heard voices, waves, heartbeats and a motor. He cracked open his eyes. He was in the hold of a boat, along with five drugged or sleeping humans. The hatch to the deck was closed, so he rolled over to the side of the boat and peeked out a porthole. He’d gone outside the apartment to smoke a fag and catch some more moonlight while Buffy was sleeping. The soldiers were waiting for him. They nailed him with a tranquilizer dart , but not before he got in a few licks on Captain Cardboard’s face. Damn Willy. Willy had been bribed or beaten into telling the soldiers where to find him. Should have known better than to rent an apartment from that worm. Wasn’t like he had much choice though, being dead. By the light of the setting moon, he could see the coast, and the twinkling yellow, aqua, pink and green electric lights of the Ferris wheel at Isla Vista and the dark water of the bay. He was on the way to Fuego. “I’m up the sodding creek now.” He shook his head to fight off dizziness from the drugs and staggered up to examine the hold for some way to escape. The only way out was the deck hatch and he had no weapon. Hearing the rasp of the hatch being lifted, he dropped back to the deck and feigned unconsciousness. The boat banged against a pier and the soldiers shouted and secured the boat. More soldiers poured onto the boat and hauled Spike and the sleeping humans out of the hold and dumped them into the back of a small truck. “Gates!” Finn shouted. “Give them another dose of tranquilizers. I don’t want anybody waking up.” “Shit, Finn. They’re sleeping like babies. They don’t need another dose.” Gates was in no mood to obey his commanding agent. Dumb Butt Finn chased after that Slayer girl when the Professor waved him off then, burned out Hostile 17’s behavior implant. As a result, the whole team ended up on this god-forsaken island with nothing but crazy-ass newbie vampires and their knocked up girlfriends for company. To top it off, Gates had to stop Finn from committing sexual assault on the Slayer when they went to pick up Hostile 17. They’d be chasing frost demons in Antarctica if Finn had banged the Slayer against her will. If Finn had lived to tell about it, that is. “Did I ask you? If Hostile 17 wakes up, you’ll wish you’d given him three doses. Do it.” Gates shook his head and moved to the back of the truck. He shot each of the humans with another dose of tranquilizers. He was reloading darts in his rifle, when Spike jumped up and leaped out of the truck and smashed his fist into the closest soldier. He tossed another soldier off the pier into the ocean. Gates shot Hostile 17 twice. No use taking chances with that one. Finn was an asshole, but he knew a thing or two about vampires. Spike fell to the pier. The soldiers tossed him back into the truck. *** Buffy didn’t greet her mother or Joyce’s guest when she arrived home. She rushed up the stairs to grab weapons from her trunk. She didn’t want to talk to her mother. Talking meant telling and telling meant crying and she had no time for crying. Not when her vampire was in danger. She changed into her baggiest break-and-enterish black clothes, her favorite fighting boots and a black cloth cap. She smeared black grease paint on her face to complete her scary commando look and threw crossbows, arrows, handcuffs and knives into her patrol bag, along with a couple of stakes. She would have to get other weapons if she was going to go against humans. She ran back down the stairs and saw her mother setting up a bunch of signs and boxes of leaflets in the dining room. The room looked much as it had when her mother started her stupid MOO group when Buffy was in high school. An older woman, older than Buffy’s mother even, was sitting in the dining room, drawing more signs. The woman was plump with huge breasts, long grey hair braided down her back and no makeup. She wore a baggy red, purple and green, sleeveless dress that looked like it was woven out of shredded bark. On her feet, she wore Birkenstocks. Brown Birkenstocks. She wasn’t wearing a brassiere either. There must be some government program to rehabilitate people like her. She probably doesn’t shave her armpits. Hope she doesn’t raise her arms. She raised her arms. Ewww. Buffy picked up a sign. The sign was printed with large green letters and attached to a wooden stick. The sign said ‘SPIT.’ “Mom? You didn’t get involved in another group, did you?” “Buffy, I’m glad you’re home. Did Spike show you the apartment? How did you like it?” “Yes, he showed me. It’s great.” Should she mention Spike’s capture to her mother? Mom would be upset and she’d make Buffy even more upset than she already was. Mom would not like what Buffy planned to do about getting him back, either. There’d be crying and arguing, exactly what Buffy didn’t need. “What’s this group, Mom?” “Buffy, this is Sunglow Panger. Sunglow, my daughter Buffy. I met Sunglow at a crafting fair in San Francisco while I was on my buying trip. She’s the founder of the Society for the Protection of Indigenous Terrestrials. She told me all about how the government was experimenting on terrestrials and how we need to stop them. The government, I mean. I couldn’t stop thinking about the ryzark demon nest you cleared out the other day. I’m opening a new SPIT chapter here in Sunnydale to help preserve the terrestrials. Sunglow came to help me.” She was never going to live down that ryzark lie. “Mom, I don’t think this SPIT thing is a good idea.” “I know, honey, but you didn’t think MOO was a very good idea either, and look how well that turned out.” Buffy rolled her eyes. Her mother enjoyed a selective memory when she was enjoying a nostalgic about MOO. Mom and her MOO friends nearly got Buffy and Willow and Amy burnt at the stake. Amy was still doing rat aerobics on a wheel thingie in Willow’s room, because of MOO. “It’s so nice to meet you, Buffy,” Sunglow said. “Your mother tells me you work with demons.” Buffy frowned. What had her mother been saying about her? “Actually, I kill …” Joyce interrupted. “I told Sunglow all about Spike and how the two of you are expecting.” “Mom?” What had Mom been telling this Total Stranger Reject From A Commune Female Person? Why couldn’t she gossip about her own love affairs, like that time she dated a psycho robot, or when she boinked Giles on the hood of a police car? “I think it’s wonderful, dear,” Sunglow said. She patted Buffy’s hand. “It’s lovely you’re settling down after you ran away from home and had that affair with that other vampire who turned all nasty and killed your school teacher. Is your baby going to be a vampire like its father?” “Mom!” “What do you think?” Sunglow held up a sign with a crude drawing of a face with vampire fangs. “I have to find Giles, Mom.” She had to get out of the house before she found out what else her mother had been saying to this Freakazoid Old Flower Child. “Okay, honey. You run along. I need to make phone calls for SPIT. Will you be back for dinner?” No time for dinner. I’ll be taking down a heavily guarded, high-tech government military installation with a crossbow and two one-half ounce bottles of Eau de Holy Water. “I’ll pick up something later. Don’t wait up.” Buffy kissed her mother and rushed out the door. *** Buffy brought Aspen to the Scoobie meeting that evening at the Magic Box so Aspen could tell Giles how the Initiative captured Thomas and turned him into a vampire. “Don’t worry Mr. Giles,” Aspen said. “Buffy told me you were going to make me explain everything three times.” Xander held up a stake he’d finished sharpening and admired his handiwork. He tossed it to Buffy. “Yes,” said Xander. “And, I am going to make Buffy the Vampire Slayer explain three times how she came to be pregnant and shacking up with William the Bloody Vampire.” Buffy twirled the stake overhand, then underhand to test its balance and dropped it on the floor. She tossed it back to Xander for further whittling. “Give it a nap, Xander,” Buffy said. “We need to concentrate on getting Spike and Aspen’s boyfriend, Thomas, and the rest of the vampires out of Fuego.” “Why, exactly do we need to do that? Fuego is a fine place to keep a bunch of bloodthirsty killers. You won’t have to stake them if they get out of line or their chips stop working, because, hey, they’re in prison.” Tears floated up in Buffy’s eyes and dripped down her cheeks leaving pink trails through her black combat makeup. She couldn’t believe Xander was saying these things about her Spike. Yeah, Spike was annoying, but that was no excuse to leave him in the hands of evil Professor Walsh and her Scalpel Squad. Xander always claimed he loved Buffy, but when it came to helping her have the one thing that she wanted and loved, the most, he was nothing but smart remarks and bad jokes. “We have to get Spike back.” “And, Thomas,” Aspen said. She sniffled, too. “Children, children, please stop,” Giles said. “Buffy and, er, Aspen, we’re going to get Spike and Thomas and the others back, but you must refrain from these emotional displays.” Giles examined Buffy’s combat clothes and black face paint and cleared his throat. He’d meant to say something when she first came in, but had been distracted by Aspen’s fascinating story and the necessity of taking notes for his Watcher’s Journal. “Buffy, please tell me you’re not going to attempt to rescue Spike and the others by yourself.” Buffy’s heart cried out to race to Fuego and free Spike. Her first plan had been to get somebody to drive her to Isla Vista and steal the first boat she could find to chase after Spike and his captors. But, she couldn’t rescue anyone by herself from a military stronghold like the one on Fuego was bound to be. She didn’t know where Fuego was, she didn’t know the layout of the place or where Spike and the others were being held. She wouldn’t even be able to get inside without some Major Planning and possibly some Major Mojo. She’d need the resources of the entire gang and a plan of action to take on a couple hundred soldiers on an isolated island. A plan that required no killing of anyone. Well, maybe Angel. “No, I just felt like getting dressed up like a ninja and putting shoe polish on my face.” She snuffled and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and smeared her commando makeup around until she looked like a raccoon. Giles tisked. “There’s something Aspen didn’t tell you, Giles,” Buffy said. “It’s about Angel.” Xander smiled. “I knew it. I knew that guy would come to no good. Can we stake him?” “Do be quiet, Xander. What about Angel?” Giles asked. Buffy hesitated. If there was one thing that would make Xander happier than Spike being in trouble, it was Angel returning to his murderous ways. “The government captured Angel, too. He turned all the new vampires on the island. Angel’s eating people like Pringles.” “At least,” Giles said, “we don’t have to worry about Spike feeding on people. His chip will keep him in line until we can arrive.” Buffy and Willow exchanged nervous glances. No one but Willow knew that Spike’s chip was deactivated. Buffy hadn’t informed Giles of Spike’s current no-chip status. She didn’t intend to give Giles that bit of news and receive a whole big Your Duty As the Chosen Slayer Lecture as long as there was the slightest chance that Spike might be behaving. Up until last night, Spike fed on bags of blood from the butcher and the occasional sip from her own neck, or at least, he’d snuck out of town and kept her from finding out. Although, he’d always been hanging around to see what she was up to with Riley, no maybe no sneaking had occurred. Riley claimed Spike killed somebody last night, but nobody reported tripping over a dead body with its throat ripped out yet. Maybe Riley was lying. There was another thing she didn’t plan on telling Giles. She had no intention of staking Spike no matter what he’d done. She loved Spike. Xander smacked his hands together. “Count me in, Buffster for the Big Gov takedown. I’ll bring sharp, pointy wooden objects and tasty snacking cakes.” Buffy glared at Xander. Xander was going to do some major gloating now that he knew what Angel had been up to lately. He’d hated Angel for years and now he’d been proven right. Xander was going to be an insufferable pig about this whole thing. “Why don’t you go ahead and say I told you so?” “I was relishing the moment, Buff. I was working up a witty remark to go with my I-told-you-so, but I think I can savor being correct about Angel in its pure, unwitty form. I told you so.” “Are you going to help me or not, Mr. Witty?” “Sure, Buffster, what’s the plan?” “Willow, I need you to steal the blueprints for the Fuego Island installation.” “I can try, Buff, but the password you gave me doesn’t have high enough clearance.” Buffy pulled out the paper she’d found in Spike’s coat. The pattern of the writing looked similar to the passwords she’d stolen from Riley. She handed Willow the scrap of paper. “I found this in Spike’s coat. While you’re snooping, see if you can print some blank military orders and information about the personnel on the island – troop numbers, weapons, security. And, get me the file on Special Agent Riley Finn.” Willow grabbed the password and headed for the school computer lab. “Giles, I want you to get a boat, a big, fast one. Xander, you and I are going to visit the army base north of town and liberate supplies. Aspen and Anya, I want you to go see my mother. You’re going to create a diversion.”

Chapter #21 - Merry Pincers

Chapter 21 - Merry Pincers “Waking up from a drug-induced blackout is wearing a bit thin.” Spike woke up on the floor of a white-tiled cell, with a single glass wall, like the cell he’d found he was first captured by the Initiative. This cell was located within a grey laboratory, lots of stainless steel knives and merry pincers and saws, all fitted up for surgery and other demon torments. A human in a white coat was sitting on the other side of the room fooling around with a computer. He was dizzy from the drugs in the multiple tranquilizer darts they’d shot him with, but he struggled to his feet. They weren’t taking any chances with him this time. Poxy bastards not only drugged him, they chained him up, too. He was confronted with another unpleasant sight. His grandsire, Angelus. Spike knew that Angelus was being held on Fuego, but he hadn’t expected his luck to run so bad that he’d be chained up in the same cell with the bastard. “Bugger all, Peaches. Heard you were here. How the hell did they catch you?” Same way they’d caught him no doubt. Sneaky cowards. Angel relaxed on the floor of the cell. He, too, was chained to the walls, which kept him from thrashing Spike for showing up here. Too bad, he could use some exercise. He wasn’t a bit happier to see Spike, than Spike was to see him. He couldn’t remember a single time he’d been happy to see Spike in the past hundred and twenty odd years. “Soldiers came all the way to Los Angeles to get me. They needed a Master Vampire for their latest project. Guess I was the closest one.” Spike snarled. Angelus was still playing the big shot, just because he was a century older than Spike. Since the Big Poof was chained up and his chains were too short to reach Spike to deliver one of his muscular blows to Spike’s head, Spike decided to have a little fun and inquire about his property. “You had the bleeding ring. Why didn’t you kill the blighters?” Angel wasn’t about to give Spike any ideas about retrieving the Gem of Amara. Or, tell Spike how the soldiers had caught him off guard and nabbed him without a fight. “I destroyed the ring,” Angel lied. He’d pretended to destroy the ring so Doyle, his now-deceased associate demon and nursemaid from the Powers That Be, would think he was on the straight and narrow Twelve-Step Program to Vampire Recovery. As if he’d ever destroy a ring that could protect him from flaming death let him feed to his dead heart’s content without interference. It would be a handy item to have if he got tired of do-gooding, or if he had to deal with a less understanding Slayer than Buffy. He hadn’t been able to use it much with Cordy and Wesley spying on him every moment of the day and night, but the day would come. Spike didn’t believe Angelus’ lie for a second. There was no way the ponce would get rid of a ring that would allow him free rein to bite and pillage and walk in the sun. Even Buffy might not be able to take Angel out with the ring. Pillock probably had the damn thing in his coat pocket. “Christ, you’re even stupider than I thought. I’d give my right fang to have my ring back.” Spike tested the chains. The cuffs and wall fasteners held firm. He sniffed the cuffs and smelled something foul, like rotted weeds. It seemed the Initiative wasn’t above deploying a bit of magic to keep cuffs securely locked on their Master vampires. Mr. Broody had been here for a while, maybe he’d had a chance to figure out a way to escape in between broodings and bloodings. “How do we get out? I don’t fancy waiting for the Slayer to come around to fetch me.” No telling how long it would take Buffy and those lackbrain friends of hers to figure out where he was. “Buffy? Why the hell would Buffy come to save your sorry ass?” He’d heard rumors about Buffy and Spike, but he’d dismissed them. He, Angel, was the love of Buffy’s life. She couldn’t possibly give up her eternal love to associate with riff raff like Spike. Spike puffed up his chest. He couldn’t help bragging a bit to his grandsire. “Little chit loves me, that’s why. And, I’m going to be a Dad. I got Buffy sprogged, and its going to be a boy.” Angel stared at his grandchilde in disbelief. Buffy in love with Spike? Pregnant with Spike’s baby? He might be sick. No, this wild tale was just another link in the incredible chain of lies and boasts Spike had been telling since the day Drusilla turned him. Lies, which had an annoying way of coming true. He slumped to the floor and stared at the chute the doctors used to drop blood down into the cell when there wasn’t anything – anyone - better to eat. Now, he’d have to share with Spike. He hoped the soldiers would increase the number of volunteers. A steady diet had tweaked his appetite for fresh human blood. The idea of Spike drinking from a fresh human cheered Angel up considerably. Spike had never been good at controlling his voracious appetite. He wouldn’t last ten minutes after they shoved the first hot body into the cell before his fangs sprang out and he was howling for blood. Angel would be lucky to get the last slurp once Spike got hungry. When Buffy found out that Spike was drinking again, she’d slam a stake through the heart of Spike’s romantic dream. She’d stake Spike, too. Then, she’d forget about this pain in the ass, wet behind the ears fledgling and remember her true love. Girls never stop loving their Daddy. “So, how’s the chow around this place, Yoda? You look like you’re putting on a few stone. Are they giving out drugged-up blood like they did in Sunnydale?” He knew what Angelus had been up to – having a Bite-And-Turn Fest. He wanted to hear Mr. Soulier than Thou admit he’d been up to no good. Spike wanted to hear from the oaf’s own gob that he’d been feeding and turning humans. “Blood’s fresh and on the hoof,” Angel said. “What are you on about? Are they going to toss a pig in here?” As if Forehead would ever lower himself to wrestle a live pig, not even if he was starving. “Nope, human and delivered in the original package. Blood’s warm, pumping and gushing right into your mouth.” Spike licked his lips. He wished Angel would shut up. Before Spike could question Angel further, a doctor wearing a white laboratory coat punched a code in the cell security pad and the glass wall slid open. Two soldiers frog-marched a young man into the cell and tossed him in Angel’s direction. “You boys share and don’t forget to do a good turn after you’re finished.” The doctor laughed at his own little joke. He stepped out of the cell and punched in the locking code. Angel grabbed the young man and slapped him a couple of times to soften him up. He vamped out and bit the youth’s neck. He sucked down a half-dozen large gulps of blood and shoved the kid in Spike’s direction. “All yours, William. Don’t forget to turn him when you’re finished.” The young man was awake to the deadly danger he was in now. He fought, kicking and punching at Spike wildly, until Spike slugged his jaw to get him to stop. The young man slid to the floor nursing his bruised face and trembling. “Sorry kid,” Spike said. “Stay on this side of the cell. I won’t let the big wanker over there kill you.” How long could he protect the kid from Angelus? How long could he protect the kid from himself? *** “Hi Joyce. Hi Fashion-Impaired Person from the Backwaters of the Sixties,” Anya said as she entered Buffy’s house with Aspen in tow. “Buffy said you were tacky, but she didn’t mention you wore Birkenstocks. This is much worse than I thought. Maybe we should go right to the mall. Marsalette at the Cut Me Salon might take you on an emergency basis.” “Come in, girls,” Joyce said. “This is Sunglow, she’s a demon activist. Would you girls care for some herbal tea?” Anya and Aspen made sour faces. “This is Aspen,” Anya said, “Her boyfriend’s a vampire and we have to rescue him. And, Spike.” Sunglow sniffed. “Fashion is just another way the Patriarchal Society keeps women in bonds and keeps them from realizing their full potential as powerful humans.” “If women want to be powerful, they should become Justice Demons. Then, they can be powerful and still get a bikini wax,” Anya sniffed. “Rescue Spike?” Joyce asked. “Buffy didn’t mention anything. Where is she?” “She’s still at the Magic Box getting the Sacred Duty Lecture from Giles. I hope Giles doesn’t disturb the customers. His lectures can be so off putting.” Joyce sighed. As usual, she had no idea what Buffy was up to or why. “Sacred Duty to do what?” Anya sat down at the table and helped herself to a cookie. “Ugh, these are awful. Are they made of pine twigs?” Sunglow looked a bit put out. “They’re health cookies. I made them myself out of organic soy flour, unfiltered honey and carob bark with sassafras root for flavoring.” “No wonder they're so bad. Sacred Duty to kill Spike, of course.” *** Xander waited outside the Magic Box in his car to drive Buffy to the Army base to liberate supplies, while Buffy sat patiently through Giles’ Primo Slayer-Duty Lecture. Xander honked the horn. Giles paced around the store, polishing his glasses, and looking Serious. “Buffy, I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, but if Angel is killing people and turning them into vampires, it’s only logical that the Initiative has similar plans for Spike.” “You said earlier that we didn’t have to worry because Spike had the chip in his head.” Which Spike didn’t. Have a chip in his head. Well, a working chip, anyway. But, that didn’t mean he was killing people or that she shouldn’t use Giles’ false assumption against him since he was puffing himself up to give her a good talking to. “Yes. I said that because I didn’t want the others to be concerned or to argue about the best course of action. As your Watcher, I have an obligation to be completely honest with you. You knew the dangers of becoming involved with a vampire and you went ahead. If Spike is killing again, whether the Initiative is allowing him to do it or not, you know what you must do. You cannot allow personal considerations to interfere with your duty.” “Nope. Wouldn’t want the fact that I’m in love and Spike is the father of my baby to interfere with Slayer Duty.” “This is no time to be flip, Buffy.” She made Serious Buffy face to appease him. “I know what you want me to do,” she said. Which is precisely what I’m not going to do. She’d already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to kill Spike no matter what he’d been doing and she was only listening to Giles’ lecture so that he wouldn’t get wise and thwart her plans. “Good. We’re in agreement. We’ll break into the Initiative and rescue the chipped vampires. If Angel and Spike have been feeding and killing again, you will eliminate them.” Xander honked his horn again, and Buffy ran out to avoid answering Giles.

Chapter #22 - He Knows

Chapter 22 – He Knows Angel kicked Spike’s boot. Before Spike had been locked in the same cell with Angel for two hours, Angel had discovered it was possible to kick Spike if he laid on the floor at the maximum length of his chains and stretched his arms out as far from the wall as possible. That hadn’t worked out for Angel the first week or so, because Spike could reach Angel, too, but now he could kick Spike with impunity. “Wakey, wakey, Spike boy.” Spike didn’t move. He was too tired and weak. He’d never thought he’d sink so low that he’d let that bastard Angelus kick him without some kind of response, but he had. “Piss off.” “I feel like talking, Spikey. You know, what you said when you first got here – about Buffy coming to rescue you? That’s been weighing on my mind.” “Has it then? Your brain must be flatter than a sodding pancake by this time.” Buffy’s failure to rescue him had been weighing on Spike’s mind, too. She must not have been able to figure out where he was. Or, she hadn’t been able to bust in yet. Not that it would make much difference in another day or so. Angel ignored Spike’s insult. “Yes, I’ve been worried about my childe. All this time, you’ve been lying around the old cell, waiting for Buffy to come rescue you and she still hasn’t shown up. What’s it been? Two weeks since you got here? Yeah. You know, Billy, I’m beginning to think that she’s not coming for you.” Spike grunted. She’ll come for me. “Why didn’t she come? Could it be she doesn’t know where you are? No, I don’t think that’s the problem. Well, let me ask you what you think. Could it be that Buffy doesn’t love you? Could it be that she doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about you and that’s the reason she hasn’t hustled over here for the Great Prison Break?” Angel kicked Spike in the ribs to keep him from drifting off. “Don’t see the Slayer hurrying to your rescue.” Angel smirked. “Buffy doesn’t know where I am, or I’m sure she would have been here months ago.” Spike sighed. He would have smirked at that, but it took too much effort. “I seem to remember that Buffy killed you once before for peeing on the carpet. What do you think she’s going to do to you this time?” “Buffy’s going to be forgiving and loving, like always. I can count on Buffy.” Spike curled his legs closer to his chest, partly to get away from the insistent prodding of Angel’s boots and partly to relieve the insistent leg cramps that had developed in the last day. It wouldn’t be much longer. “There’s something else, Spike Boy. I really hate to see you being so delusional. About Buffy, being pregnant. You really haven’t had much experience with women, so I have to tell you these things. Women say things they don’t really mean. Tell you they love you. Tell you they’re pregnant with your kid, when the kid really belongs to somebody else. And, since you’re not exactly prophecy material, I think Buffy was just stringing you along.” Spike said nothing. It wasn’t possible that Buffy’s baby belonged to anyone but him. He didn’t understand how it happened. He was a vampire and that sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen. No, he didn’t understand. But, he knew one thing. Buffy and the little nibs were his. “Not talking, Spikey? I know how you feel. Betrayed. Buffy played you, let you fall in love with her, let you think the two of you had a future. Then, she let you down. No, she’s not coming for you. You might as well admit it. Under the circumstances, you might as well have a bite to eat and save yourself.” She’ll come for me. *** The island of Fuego, three miles off the coast, southwest of Isla Vista, hunkered on the evening horizon. The walls surrounding the facility appeared inky black with an occasional red blinking light to show the walls were not part of the rocky island themselves and to warn off visitors. Giles navigated the Boa Sorte, a seventy-foot, Princess Flybridge yacht, toward the island, throttling back the twin 1200 horsepower engines so the other boats could keep up. He’d borrowed the Boa Sorte from a fellow member of the Council and wangled a fuel supply from his Watcher’s black item fund. A flotilla of speed boats, cabin cruisers and smaller boats followed Giles’ yacht toward the island, carrying a group of people holding signs, laughing and drinking out of coolers. The boats contained Sunglow Panger and Joyce’s other new friends from SPIT and some of Aspen’s friends to fill out the crowd. Another boat, containing a news reporter and camera crew from Isla Vista, cut ahead so they could set up on the island’s pier and take shots of the incoming group. Joyce, Buffy, Xander and Willow sat in the Boa Sorte’s comfortable cabin and finished their final preparations for their assault on the Initiative fortress. Buffy checked and rearranged the equipment in her combat vest. Willow mixed some foul-smelling ingredients for a spell. Xander studied plans of the fortress layout. Buffy had thrown up three times already on the short trip to Fuego and another heave was on the way. Between the bouncing waves and the smell of the nasty concoction Willow was stirring up, Buffy felt miserable. Boating, Witchy Brewing and Baby Hatching, not mixy. Don’t think about throwing up. The past two weeks had been the longest of Buffy’s not very long life. Stealing weapons, assembling magic supplies and ripping off useful Initiative information had been a snap. Putting together a diversion so Buffy, Xander and Willow could break into the compound without taking on a couple hundred armed soldiers had been a nightmare. Everyone bickered. Joyce argued with Giles about staking Spike. Giles reminded Buffy three times a day that she would probably have to kill Spike and Angel. Anya argued with Sunglow about patriarchal repression of orgasms in women and establishing a Demon Homeland in Utah. Anya preferred New York City and orgasm self help. Xander lectured Buffy on vampire evil, in general, and Spike evil, in particular, and crabbed because Buffy wouldn’t let him bring along a rocket-propelled grenade launcher they’d stolen from the Army base. She could have ignored the complaining and lecturing and fighting, if only Willow could have found out something – anything – about Spike. But, the Initiative’s information on Spike and Angel required three high level passwords. Passwords they didn’t have. Even Willow’s magic spell hadn’t been able to break the code. The only peaceful moments Buffy enjoyed were when she was chatting with Aspen about baby plans. Through all the planning and preparations, Buffy worried. Every day that passed made it more likely that Spike had succumbed and killed someone. She didn’t think there was much chance Spike would turn anyone into a vampire, considering his general attitude to other people, but how long could she expect him to hold out if he was starving? And, if he refused, what would the Initiative do? Buffy finished tucking equipment into her combat vest, and went outside and sat down on the deck of the Boa Sorte and gazed up at the twilight sky. Joyce returned from fetching Giles a cup of coffee and sat down next to Buffy. “We’re almost there, Buffy,” Joyce said, rubbing Buffy’s hand between hers. “We’ll get him out.” Yeah, if it’s not too late. If he hasn’t been biting people. If the Initiative hasn’t traded in him for parts or done something else terrible to him. If Spike isn’t a big pile of dust. “It’s been two weeks since they took him,” Buffy said. “Willow couldn’t find out what they’d done with him. There wasn’t anything on their computers. What if they killed him? If they dusted him, I’d never know he was gone.” She bit her lip to keep from crying. It would be too unbearable to lose Spike, just when she’d realized she loved him. “Shhhh,” Joyce said. “They kidnapped him because he was useful to them. You’ll find him. We’ll get him back.” Sure, Spike was useful. He was useful for making more vampires. “Mom? I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell him I loved him.” She bit her lip to hold back her tears. I was selfish and stupid. I ran around with that bonehead Riley, when I could have been spending all those weeks with Spike, the vampire I love. The vampire who loves me, who waited for me to come to my senses. Well, he didn’t wait exactly. He stalked me all over town, stole my underwear, threatened to kill Riley and made a nuisance of himself. All because I had some dumb idea that my life ought to be normal. Joyce tucked a strand of hair back under Buffy’s black combat cap. “He knows you love him, honey. He knows.” Giles steered into a huge wave and the yacht bounced hard. Buffy leaped up and lunged to the side of the boat and threw up again. If hurling wasn’t sufficient misery, the baby kicked her. Buffy rinsed her mouth out with water from her canteen and spat. I feel like kicking some Initiative ass tonight. Not. Their boat pulled up to a pier on the east side of the island, followed by the other boats in their company. The Fuego guards watched the group and talked on their radios to their superiors inside the facility. As the boats approached the pier, the guards sounded an alarm and jogged forward with their rifles to seal off the pier and prevent the SPIT group from getting onto the island. More soldiers poured out of the compound. “Ready, Buffy? Xander?” Willow asked. She turned the page of her fat book of spells and handed Buffy a carved copper conjuring bowl from Tokelau. Buffy, Xander and Willow stepped into the middle of the groups of SPIT members getting off. The three were wearing uniforms similar to those worn by the Initiative soldiers – cross-draw combat vests in woodland green, camouflage battle dress uniform pants and shirts and spit-polished combat boots. The girls tucked their hair into knitted camo caps. Xander wanted to wear a balaclava for the coolness factor, but Buffy squashed that idea, so he settled for an idiotic floppy hat in urban camo black and white. They picked up SPIT signs and mixed with members who were disembarking on the pier. “How do I look in my hat? Combat ready? Cool, Deadly Nerves of Steel Guy?” Xander asked. He adjusted the brim four or five times before Buffy threatened to swat him. “You look more like Squishy Nerves of Wet Pasta Guy,” Willow said, “but the spell should remedy that. No one but Buffy, me and the two million viewers in the Southern California television audience will know your secret.” Willow muttered the first words of her spell. “Mist obscure so friends may hide. Fog be thick where enemies lie …” “Flamma,” Willow said. A tiny flame sparked the contents in the copper bowl. She chanted the glamour spell and conjured a thin, lime-green concealing mist. The mist thickened and swirled around them until they were barely visible to each other. The soldiers shouted, waved their rifles around and backed away from the billowing green cloud. “You said it was going to be gray,” Buffy said. “Gray mist. I’m positive I heard gray mentioned.” “I was missing the gray ingredient. So, what if it’s lime green? It’s working.” Willow fanned the fire to increase the density of the sparkling green fog that poured from her magic bowl. Inside their cloak of green cloudiness, the trio drifted towards the entrance to the Initiative stronghold, infiltrated the group of guards and entered the fortress unobserved. Several soldiers stormed into the mist and fell off the pier.

Chapter #23 - I Hate it When That Happens

Chapter 23 – I Hate it When That Happens Riley hung over the side of the Initiative boat that was carrying him and the rest of his team back to Fuego from three days of shore leave. Carmelita had forgiven him for associating with the Slayer and come over to Isla Vista to make up for lost time. Riley had the hangover to prove it. To his surprise, a large group of civilian boats surrounded the dock at the main entrance to the compound, which was used for offloading big shots and vampires. He grabbed some binoculars from the private who was navigating the boat and focused on the dock. A bunch of civilians and a television camera crew and a bunch of soldiers holding them at bay with rifles. What the hell was going on? He directed the private to navigate the boat to the west side of the island, away from the civilians, and enter the base there. He didn’t know exactly what was going on, but he was going to be ready. This might just be the chance he’d been waiting for. The chance to show his stuff and get off this retched island full of vampire filth. *** Joyce signaled to the SPIT group to light their candles and hold up their signs. Joyce held up her own sign. ‘Demons are People, Too,’ it said. The reporter stood with her back to the compound, and preened in a mirror, while the crew from the Isla Vista television station recorded a video clip of soldiers from the Initiative running out of the compound to confront the group. “This is Perqui Thimmig-Rounce from KISS-TV in Isla Vista. Tonight, the Society for the Protection of Indigeneous Terrestials is picketing the military installation at Fuego. With us is Joyce Summers, the head of the Sunnydale chapter of SPIT. Joyce, what is SPIT?” “SPIT is a new organization,” Joyce said, “dedicated to the preservation of demon life and their native habitats. Demons, or terrestrials, as we prefer to call them, are persecuted because people don’t understand their importance to the ecosystem and the natural, global balance. We’re holding a candlelight vigil here at the Initiative installation in Fuego tonight to bring this important issue to the attention of the public.” Perqui shifted to the center of the camera viewing area and nudged Joyce to the edge. “Joyce, why Fuego? What’s so important about this site?” Joyce held her candle close to Perqui’s bleached blonde hair, forcing her to step back to avoid having her hair go up in flames on television. “The Initiative is holding terrestrials in this facility and performing inhumane laboratory experiments on them. We’re here to ask the government to release the demons and return them to their natural territory. Demons are a terrible thing to waste.” *** The halls inside the Initiative fortress were uniformly gray and uniformly confusing. Xander led the way as they shuffled past the soldiers guarding the door and left the green mist behind. Xander studied a blueprint of the Initiative compound, turned it upside down, then sideways. Finally, he pointed. “Vampires this way.” He folded the drawing and tucked it into his combat vest. Buffy took a deep breath. Dry, non-moving land was much better than bobbling around in a boat. “Let’s find Thomas. Walk slow. We’re being watched on the security cameras and we don’t want to arouse their suspicion.” An internal security alarm blasted an ear-splitting siren. “Warning – Intruders in Sector Eight – Warning …. Warning ….” “Sector Eight would be us. Suspicion aroused, let’s run,” Xander said. They raced down a long hall. Buffy saw a security camera homing in on them. She chucked a wooden stake at the camera. The camera shattered and the red light went out. Once Buffy disabled the electronic eye, they ducked into a utility closet, moments before they heard the pounding of boots in the hall. Buffy pulled out a walkie-talkie liberated from Sunnydale’s Army base and fooled around with the dials until she found the frequency used by the Initiative soldiers. She handed the walkie-talkie to Xander. Xander hit the open line button. “Intruders heading to the loading dock in the west wing,” he said. He hoped there was a loading dock or a west wing. The blueprints were confusing. They listened as the soldiers responded and left the area, their boots stamping. Buffy peaked out of the closet door. The hall was clear. They ran to the vampire holding area. The holding area was carpeted and contained numerous doors, like a hotel. They located Room No. 12, the room Aspen had shared with Thomas, and Buffy tapped on the door. “Thomas?” she said in a soft voice, hoping his vampire hearing would let him hear her without alerting the soldiers or any of their high-tech snooping devices. “I’m Buffy. Aspen sent me.” “I can’t open the door. Can you get it from the outside?” Buffy opened the door with a rough twist of the knob. The knob broke off taking a large chunk of the solid wood door with the handle. The door swung open. “I hate it when that happens,” she said. She dropped the handle on the floor. Thomas peered out. “Is Aspen all right? Can you help us get out?” “I’m here to take you home and she’s fine. Let’s go. We’re going to round up the others. There are boats outside the compound to take everyone off the island.” Buffy went to the next door and grabbed the handle to destroy that door, too, when Xander stopped her. He located the security pad for all the doors in the hall, punched in an access code and flipped a switch and unlocked all the doors. “Presto Change-o. Nothing up my sleeve, or under my Urban Camo Hat.” The vampires came out of their rooms and milled around. Their vampire faces all popped out at the smell of fresh humans, but none of them made a move to attack. “Their kind of pathetic looking,” Willow said. “Like Spike when he was living with Xander in the basement.” “Yeah, let’s feel sorry for Spike and a bunch of bloodsuckers,” Xander said. Willow motioned to the vampires. “Let’s go, vamps. Pick a buddy, hold hands and let’s go. The boat back to Isla Vista leaves in fifteen minutes.” Several vampires growled at the buddy notion, but allowed Willow to herd them down the hall to the dock. “Who are you?” Thomas asked Buffy as they hurried back to the entrance. “Vampire Slayer, The. Look it up sometime,” Buffy said.

Chapter #24 - An Ugly Truth

Chapter 24 - An Ugly Truth Once Willow left the area with the vampires, Xander closed and locked the hall that led to the vampires’ empty rooms using a nearby control pad. He placed a gum-sized wad of grey stuff next to the pad and inserted a detonator charge and lit it. “Run!” Buffy and Xander raced down the hall and around the corner and hit the floor as a small explosion blew up the control pad, spewing wires, chips, plastic shards and glass everywhere. The explosion knocked out the lights and security cameras in the entire sector. “Wow! What is that stuff? Double Bubble for soldiers?” Buffy asked as she got up and dusted herself off. “Octanitrocubane known to civilians, such as yourself little lady, as cubanol. Twenty-five percent more blasting power than plastique, biodegradable, non-toxic, environmentally friendly and comes in a fresh pine scent. Destroying the local security circuits might keep the soldiers from figuring out we stole their vampires for a few minutes.” They ran after the others. Willow leafed through her packet of papers printed out from the Initiative’s website, tapped in the security code and unlocked the exit door. As the huge door began to slide open, she shoved vampires out into the green mist to safety. Buffy caught Thomas’s sleeve before he could duck through the door. “Do you know where they’re keeping the vampire who turned you?” She hoped they were keeping Spike near the place where Angel was being held. She didn’t want to have to search the entire place to find him. “He’s in the laboratory. They keep him in a special cell. Him and the vampire with the white hair.” “Spike? Is he alive? Is he okay?” Buffy danced on her toes, anxious to hear about Spike and more anxious to run and find him. She wanted to ask if he’d eaten any humans, but she didn’t dare ask that question with Xander jogging beside her. She could count on Spike to lie to her if necessary, but who knew what this Thomas vampire might say? He might blurt out an ugly truth. “I don’t know. I never saw him. I heard the guards talking.” “Xander,” Buffy said, “I’m going to find Spike and Angel. You get the others out.” “Nope, Willow and Thomas can take care of them. I’m coming with you. One item to finish up before we go.” Buffy took one last look to make sure Willow and the vampires were heading to the pier, and raced down the hall to the laboratory in the direction Xander pointed. *** As soon as the Initiative boat landed, Riley leaped to the dock and ran to the security center to check out the video cameras. The center was a madhouse – soldiers shouting at orders at groups patrolled the base looking for the intruders – others monitoring the activities of the group at the front entrance. “What’s the sitch?” he asked, Ramirez, the security center commanding officer. “Finn. Thank God you’re back. We’ve got a pack of fruitcakes from SPIT at the front gate. We think some of them got into the compound, but we can’t find them. All surveillance in Section 8 has gone down, so I sent some soldiers there to find out what happened.” Riley scanned the wall of monitors. After studying the monitor showing the front entrance, Riley flipped the channel to broadcast television. A reporter was standing on Fuego’s front dock, interviewing someone named Joyce Summers. Joyce was complaining about demons being mistreated. Joyce Summers. She must be Buffy’s mother. What the hell was she doing here and why was the mother of the Slayer running an organization to save demons? “Finn. We’ve got a visual on the intruders,” Ramirez said. “Show me.” His monitor flipped to another channel. Two people dressed in soldier uniforms were running down the hall that led to the laboratory. One of them was small and slight, the other larger and clumsy. Riley would bet his next paycheck that the small one with the dark cap jammed over her hair was Buffy, come to retrieve her vampire lover. The other was probably that moron, Xander, she hung around with. Riley summoned Gates and the rest of his team to assist with the operations in Sector Eight. He grabbed a remote control and a tranquilizer rifle and headed for the laboratory where Bleach Head was being held. He wanted to deal with Buffy and her sidekick himself. *** Buffy peered through the glass inserts in the laboratory doors. A man in a white coat sat in the laboratory studying medical charts on a computer. The name tag on his coat said Dr. Ekl. There was a glass cell on one side of the room. Angel paced inside the cell, walking back and forth at the ends of his chains. He slapped his hands against the glass to make it shoot off arcs of blue electricity. He kept up a running conversation with someone who was lying on the floor of the cell. He was also in chains. She walked into the laboratory, followed by Xander, and greeted the doctor. “Dr. Ekl? I’m Captain Summers. Dr. Walsh sent me.” The doctor fumbled with his keyboard and shut down the program that was displayed on his computer. He stacked up some papers on his desk and turned over files marked Top Secret so she couldn’t read them. “Dr. Walsh didn’t tell me to expect anyone. This is most irregular. May I see your orders?” Buffy handed the doctor a set of papers that Willow had cooked up with stolen forms and printed out in triplicate on three-part carbonless forms. They looked very official. “I’d like to examine a prisoner,” she said. “Hostile 31?” Buffy hoped Hostile 31 meant Angel. The information about Angel and Spike had been so highly classified, Willow had been unable to hack into those files, even with the passwords Buffy found in Spike’s coat and some magic spell that she worked up. “Yes, and I’d like to see Hostile 17, as well.” “They’re both here,” Dr. Ekl said, waving his hand in the direction of Angel’s cell. He entered his security code into the pad beside the glass cell. “I’ve got them restrained. You can go in, but I wouldn’t get too close. The big vampire, Hostile 31 is especially vicious when he’s hungry. I’ll close the cell after you’ve gone in. Security rules, you know. I don’t think we’ll have to tranquilize them, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful with unsecured vampires.” Buffy couldn’t argue with that sentiment. *** Riley peered through the glass inserts in the laboratory doors. He could see that pussy Harris and Doctor Ekl, but he didn’t see Buffy. Oh, there she was, in the cage with the two animals. She’d come to rescue Hostile 17, and possibly Hostile 31, as well. Dandy. As soon as she figured out some way to get Q-tip Hair out of the laboratory, Riley could capture her and Harris and deliver them up for a one-way trip to the scenic part of Kansas that was no where near the Land of Oz – Leavenworth Prison. As for Seventeen, it would be a damn shame if he happened to get damaged or dusted during the scuffle. He took out his walkie-talkie and started to call his team for assistance, but changed his mind. Gates and the rest had been nothing but trouble. Riley would capture Buffy and her minions himself and get all the credit. Grabbing Buffy was at least good for a return to Sunnydale, if not a weekend pass and a promotion. Riley opened a wall panel with his remote control, stepped into the next hall, and closed the wall behind him.

Chapter #25 - I'm Not Leaving

Chapter 25 – I’m Not Leaving “Wait outside, Private Harris,” Buffy said. She marched into the cell and the glass wall slid closed behind her. “Buffy,” Angel whispered, “Thank God you came. I’ve been a prisoner here for months.” Angel sniffed the air and listened for her heartbeat. Buffy smelled moist and delicious, slightly different than in the past, more milky. She looked different – plumper, her skin was rosy and glowing. There was something wrong with Buffy’s heart, though. It sounded muffled or racing or something. Probably from running to break him out. He struggled to keep his vamp face under wraps. It wasn’t so easy after a steady human diet, but he didn’t want to tip her off to his prison activities and how very little control he had over his demon these days. Buffy examined her former lover. For a dead person, he looked positively robust. “You look good for a prisoner, Hostile 31. In fact, you looked flushed with blood. Can vampires get fat? Cause, I’m thinking you need some Sweating with the Extremely Oldies.” “Damn it, Buffy. You don’t know what I’ve been going through.” He hissed to emphasize the unpleasantness of being an Initiative captive. “Let’s see, hot, fresh meals delivered right to your door? No messy clean up? Just drink and turn? Sounds like Vampire Heaven on Earth.” Okay, Buffy found out about the drinking and turning thing and she was moderately pissed off. She’d get over it if he came up with a good explanation and sounded sufficiently penitent. He wrapped his fingers around her arm. “Buffy. It wasn’t my fault. I wish I could undo what I’ve done, but I can’t. They starved me. Then, they threw fresh humans in here, and they broke me.” Buffy peeled his fingers off her arm and snapped his fingers backwards until the bones snapped. “Sure, Angel. It’s never your fault. Keep your hands off me and shut up.” “Owww! Buffy that hurt!” “It hurts when you bite people in the neck, too. I should know.” Angel stopping talking, and now that he wasn’t talking, he was able to hear. There was nothing wrong with her heartbeat. There were two heartbeats. One beat was a slow and deep thud, the other heartbeat pattered light and racing. Her milky scent. The extra heartbeat. That bastard Spike had been telling the truth. Buffy was pregnant. Buffy approached the prisoner who was lying on the floor of the cell. It was Spike. She wanted to scream her heart out when she saw him. He was pitifully thin, his face little more than a skull, his arm muscles emaciated and stringy. His skin had faded to transparent white and she could see his finger bones moving through his skin as he stretched his hands. She knelt beside him and spoke in a low voice. He looked so brittle, she was afraid to touch him. “Spike. I’m here.” With agonizing effort, he opened his eyes. “I didn’t...” “Hush.” She placed her fingers over his mouth. “I know.” Spike’s condition told her the whole story. Angel glutted on humans fed to him by the Initiative and turned them into evil creatures of the night. Evil creatures like himself. Creatures that might try to kill her. Creatures that she might end up being forced to kill some day. While Angel was stuffing himself, Spike starved. It would have been easy enough for him to feed. He could have fed and lied to her and told her that they gave him bags of blood. But, he didn’t. Spike starved himself to the verge of dusting so she wouldn’t be disappointed. So she wouldn’t have to kill him. He did it because he loved her. He starved himself, he forced aside his demon nature to live up to her standards. “We need to get out of here. Can you get up?” He could barely move. He couldn’t even lift his hand to touch hers. It was too late. His bones were scorching. In moments, he would burst into flames and disappear. He had to make her leave before that happened and she was forced to witness his death. “Leave,” he said. “Leave before they catch you. I can’t make it.” There was no way she was going to leave him. If she had to carry him or drag him and fight every soldier in this place, Spike was coming home with her tonight. “Yes, you can,” she said. She pulled up her pants leg and unstrapped her K-bar knife from its hidden holster on her leg. She sliced a cut in her hand and held the ribbon of blood to his mouth. “Drink.” “No. Our baby needs your blood. Can’t let the nibbles go hungry.” “He’ll be fine. Drink enough to get out of here. I’m not leaving without you.” Spike didn’t answer. He turned his head away. If only she’d leave, so he could combust in peace and she wouldn’t see him die. He didn’t think he could hold back the consuming fire for another minute. Baby Spike gave Buffy a kick. Buffy took Spike’s emaciated hand and placed it on her belly. “I need you, William. Our baby boy needs you, too.” The baby cooperated by delivering another kick. Spike smiled and pressed his hand against her belly so he could feel the tiny foot flutter against his mother’s belly. Buffy made another cut in her hand. This time, Spike sucked at the wound. A slight flush of pink appeared in his face and hands. The blood streamed through his body, sucked into his dust bones, reviving his dried flesh. His skin soaked up liquid and his brain cleared. His bones cooled and his cramped muscles relaxed. Slayer’s blood. The best blood in the world. With Buffy’s help, he was able to stand up. “Damn it, Slayer, your blood gave me a hard-on.” Buffy tapped on the glass. “Open the door, Doctor, and give me the keys for the chains. I’m taking this one with me. Private Harris, hand the doctor the orders releasing this hostile to my custody.” Xander handed the doctor the set of orders that would free Spike. Dr. Ekl examined the orders and he didn’t like what he read in the orders. Many vampires came into the Fuego facility, many more vampires were created here, but none had ever come out before. “Captain, it’s highly unusual to take out a vampire that’s been captured. This one’s implant has been burned out. He’s extremely dangerous. Let me replace the implant before you take him out.” Xander stared wide-eyed at Buffy. She could feel Xander getting ready to blurt out something that she was going to make him regret. She paused as if she was considering replacing Spike’s chip, while she racked her brain for an excuse that would satisfy the Initiative doctor and keep Xander from talking. “Walsh wants to do some more experiments on this vampire before the implant gets replaced. He’s in no condition to do any damage anyway.” She glared at Xander. The doctor accepted Buffy’s answer and countersigned the order. “Okay, but it’s on your head if he escapes.” He opened the cell and handed Buffy the keys and gave her the magic word to open Spike’s chains. Buffy whispered the word, unlocked the chains and she and helped Spike walk out. The glass wall slid shut behind them, leaving Angel imprisoned. “What are you doing?” Angel shouted. “Take me with you!” “I brought some orders for Hostile 31, too, Doctor Ekl,” Buffy said. Buffy took the next set of orders from Xander and pretended to review them. Reviewing the orders was not necessary, since she wrote them herself, but she wanted to put on a good show for Dr. Ekl. She faced Angel. “You’ve outlived your usefulness, Hostile 31. Dr. Walsh has ordered you to be … neutered.” Angel leaped after Buffy and lunged against his chains. “Buffy!” he howled. “Hostile 31 seems to know you, Captain,” the doctor said. “Vampire trick. Part of their thralling ability. They pretend to know their victims so they can get something out of them. Blood, sex, whatever. Works really well on teenage girls.” Buffy paused to glower at Angel. “Dr. Walsh wants him fixed as soon as possible. He’s dangerous. After you’re done, you can drop him back where you captured him. Walsh has no further need for him.” Neither do I. “He’s a clever one,” Doctor Ekl said. “Claims he has a soul.” “Hasn’t helped him much.” The doctor pressed a switch on the cell’s control box. A bag of blood dropped into the cell. Angel grabbed the bag, ripped it open and squirted the blood down his throat. The drugs in the blood acted quickly. Angel crashed to the floor, and began to snore.

Chapter #26 - What Are You Going to Do?

Chapter 26 - What Are You Going to Do? The Initiative’s fledgling vampires slipped through the main gate and mingled with the SPIT crowd waiting outside. The vampires mixed with the crowd and were handed signs to carry. The sky was still dark, but the first faint glow of light was beginning to change the eastern horizon into velvety navy blue. The SPIT group shouted slogans and waved their candles. The candles kept being blown out by the wind and the Spitsters had to keep flicking their lighters to rekindle them. “Careful with those lighters,” Willow said as she approached Joyce. “Vampires are highly combustible.” Joyce waved to the people behind her to shout louder. “Save the demons! Restore the Ryzarks! Equal Rights for Terrestrials!” The protestors, who had been fortifying themselves with adult beverages, shouted enthusiastically. Some of them began to sing Kumbaya. “Do they have to sing?” Willow asked. “They’re not going to sing Blowing in the Wind next, are they?” “Where’s Buffy?” Joyce shouted over the crowd. “She went to get Spike,” Willow said. “He was being held in another place. We should get the vampires on the boats. The soldiers are bound to find out they’ve escaped soon.” Thomas spotted Aspen in the crowd, waving a sign with a cartoon of Count Dracula on it. He walked over to her and she leaped into his arms and wrapped her legs around him and cried on his shoulder. Sunglow chatted with the reporterette. “Tell us about the history of SPIT, Sunglow,” Perqui Thimmig-Rounce said. She’d had more than enough of dealing with prissy camera hog, Joyce Summers. Who was the star here, anyway? This Sunglow person could hog the camera all she wanted, but the viewers would still rather look at young, attractive, well-groomed Perqui rather than an old hippy bag lady with a grey hair braid down her back. “In 1995, I broke off from the Haight Asbury Vegetarian-Vegan Ovum-Eschewers Committee. I felt they were too involved in developing whole bean tofu marketing strategies and ignoring important environmental issues. Then, I heard about a demon nest in New Mexico – right down the road from Roswell. The nest was being dislodged for the expansion of Area 51. That’s the secret government agency that is keeping information about outer space beings from the public.” “The government doesn’t appear to be doing a very good job of keeping it secret,” Perqui said. Did this woman wrap aluminum foil around her head on a regular basis? “Thanks to the efforts of concerned citizens like myself and Joyce Summers, Big Brother’s tricks are being exposed.” Once the green mist had blown away, the soldiers were able to form up and contain the SPIT group and keep any more of them from getting into the fortress. Agent Gates lowered his rifle and took off the safety. He pointed it at Joyce. “You and your group will have to leave the island immediately,” Gates said. He’d had more than enough of these looney tunies for one night. “I don’t think so, young man,” Joyce said, “and, don’t point that thing at me. It’s not safe. Someone could get hurt.” “You have to leave, ma’am.” He raised the gun and attempting to look intimidating. Joyce waved to the nearest camera man. “Are you going to shoot me on national television? I don’t think your commanding officer would approve. And, neither would your mother.” Gates lowered the gun. Maggie Walsh would definitely not approve of him shooting a civilian on television and his mother would tear a strip off his hide. “It’s not national TV, it’s only local. And, don’t you know how dangerous demons and vampires are? They’re not cute and fuzzy.” “My daughter’s boyfriend is a vampire and I happen to think he’s very cute. Not fuzzy, though. Except his hair, but he keeps that gelled down.” Willow turned on her walkie-talkie to see if she could hear any news from Buffy, but she only heard the soldiers talking among themselves. They were searching for some intruders, presumably Buffy and Xander, but didn’t yet know their vampires had escaped. A siren blared. “Attention all personnel. Hostiles have escaped the holding areas. This is not a drill. Attention …” Willow tapped Thomas on his shoulder. He was busy kissing Aspen and growled at Willow in a very vampirey way and snapped his fangs. Apparently chips didn’t prevent growling and snapping. “That’s our cue,” Willow said from a safer distance. She asked Thomas to get the fledges on the boats. The vampires filtered through the crowds and got into the boats. Thomas and Aspen boarded the Boa Suerte and locked themselves in one of the luxurious private cabins for their reunion. Willow raised another glamour spell to prevent the soldiers from noticing the vampires as they got into the boats. This time the mist was rosy pink. When they were all on board, Willow called ‘Captain Summers’ on her walkie-talkie and gave Buffy the clear word. She hoped Buffy could hear her. “Spit,” she said and cut off the speak button. *** The effects of the sip of Slayer’s blood he’d allowed himself wore off. His knees buckled and Spike sank to the floor. “Doctor,” Buffy said, “what did you do to this vampire? He’s a valuable specimen. Walsh will cut off your balls if anything happens to this one.” If you have any left after I get through with you. “It’s not my fault, Captain. He refused to drink. We offered him several vict … bags of blood, but he refused to drink any of them. He claimed they were all drugged.” Huh? Had they offered Spike bags of blood and he refused to take them? Plenty of time to worry about how boneheaded Spike had been when she got him out of here. Play along for now. “Were they drugged?” “Yes, we keep most unaltered vampires sedated. We can’t take any chances with them. Hostile 17 escaped from the Initiative’s control once before and managed to disable his implant. He fought with several soldiers on his arrival and had to be tranquilized.” Buffy had a hard time masking her smile. “Do you have any blood that hasn’t been drugged?” Buffy asked, edging her voice with the demanding, petulant tone of an officer confronting a stupid subordinate. It was the same voice she used on Xander when he was being goofy. “Yes, but …” “Get some. It’s getting late. I want him off the island before the sun comes up.” The doctor scurried away and returned with two bags of fresh, human blood. Xander had been using this time to consider the idea of Spike without a chip and how he’d ended up on the floor of the Bronze a few weeks ago. He also considered how he’d been rubbing Spike’s fur the wrong way for months and how Spike might decide to revenge himself. He handed Buffy the last set of orders. “Captain, what about the third set of orders?” Buffy wanted to crack Xander’s skull open. It would be wrong to crack his head open, wouldn’t it? She flipped through the third set of orders and examined them. She glowered at Xander and dared him to contradict her. “They’ve expired, Private Harris.” Xander realized his mistake and that he might be in more danger from Buffy than he was from Spike, and mouthed the word, “Sorry.” “We could use a gurney to get this hostile to the loading dock,” Xander said to the doctor. “Evil Dead, er, this specimen is too heavy to carry and he doesn’t appear able to walk.” “Thank you, Private Harris,” Buffy said. “An excellent idea. See to it, doctor.” The doctor hurried to provide a gurney. He helped Xander lift Spike onto the gurney. Buffy ripped open the first bag of blood and held it to Spike’s mouth until he regained sufficient strength to hold it himself. Xander wheeled the stretcher out of the laboratory with Buffy following. Spike closed his eyes. *** While he was waiting, Riley checked the video cameras at an auxiliary security station. He flipped one of the monitors to the laboratory. Buffy had already managed to get Hostile 17 out of his cell. Dr. Ekl was helping Harris put Seventeen up on a gurney. Good, he wouldn’t have to worry about fighting Seventeen; he was too weak to walk. Buffy was nearly in his grasp. Buffy and that bloodsucking scum, Hostile 17.

Chapter #27 - You Got a Better Plan?

Chapter 27 - You Got a Better Plan? They’d been walking down grey-paneled halls with only an occasional locked door and no signs of human life for five minutes. All they came across were more empty halls crossing their path. “We’re lost,” Buffy said. She opened the second bag of blood and held it to Spike’s mouth. His appetite was beginning to return and he sucked hard on the bag. His skin pinked and turned opaque. He’d never looked more handsome to Buffy than right now, painfully thin, hair rumpled and completely hers. She touched his skeletal hand, but was afraid to squeeze his fingers, they looked so delicate. “Let’s pull over at the nearest gas station and ask for directions.” Xander took out his Initiative blueprint again. He turned it upside down, then sideways, held it up to the light, then folded it neatly and returned it to his vest pocket. “We passed that door three times. I’m sure of it.” “I’m not. All the doors look alike. Let’s try this direction.” He pointed to the left. Buffy fumbled around in her combat jacket until she found what she was looking for – her constant companion – an aerosol can of Cheezee Whizee. She sprayed a dot on the nearest door. The dot slid down the metal door, leaving a greasy cheese trail, then stuck half way down. “You brought a can of Cheezee Whizee.” “Sure.” Buffy squirted a small gob in her mouth. She had to be sparing. She didn’t want to run out before they escaped. She offered a squirt to Spike, but he was sleeping after finishing off the bag of blood she’d given him. Xander’s mouth hung open in Incredulous Face. He crooked his index finger and pointed at her. “Let me rephrase, Captain Summers. We’re on a dangerous mission to steal a herd of vampires from a fortified federal military installation, not to mention absconding with Evil Dead here, their pet highly-classified vampire, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer brought a can of Cheezee Whizee.” Buffy pushed the gurney and walked ahead. “It’s a kiss of vampires, not a herd, and I don’t see you dropping any breadcrumbs, Private Hansel.” “I was a normal teenager before I met you. I had pimples, hormones and nerdy clothes. I got beat up for my lunch money. Now, look at me. I’m in the company of a female who squirts Cheezee Whizee in her mouth, I’m rescuing bloodthirsty killer vampires and saving the only vampire in the world I hate more than Angel, and I still have pimples, hormones and nerdy clothes. And, could I just mention, there is a deep flowing vein of insanity running in the Summers’ family line?” “What’s your point?” Buffy asked. They walked down the hall to the left and in a few minutes returned to the door with the dot of Cheezee Whizee on it. The dot was crusty. “Told you so,” Buffy said. “We’re walking in a circle.” “Fine, Danielle Boone. Which way would you like to go?” “Let’s try the hall to the right.” They walked to the right, circled around and again arrived at the door Buffy had decorated with the blob of Cheezee Whizee. “I take it back,” Buffy said. “We’re not lost. We’re trapped.” *** The first faded morning light appeared behind the mountains behind Isla Vista and the sky lightened. “We can’t wait any longer for Buffy and Xander and Spike, assuming they’ve found Spike,” Giles said. “The sun will be up in less than an hour. Some of the boats are open and there’s no cover for the vampires. They’ll be fried to ashes in the morning sun.” Joyce twisted her fingers. “We can’t leave them.” “Let’s get the other boats on the way,” Willow said. “We’ll sail out with the others, then circle back. We can listen for Buffy on the walkie-talkies from a distance and swoop back in when they show up.” Giles did the tisking thing with his tongue. “You can’t swoop in a yacht, even one this large, Willow. The boat won’t go that fast and the Initiative will certainly be watching for any further intrusions. We need to be as close in as possible to have any chance to rescue Buffy and the others. Also, the radios may not work.” “What’s your brilliant idea, Mr. Tongue Tisker?” Giles sighed. “Sail out with the others and swoop back when Buffy calls us. Joyce, get Thomas and the other vampires inside the cabin and close up the portholes.” Joyce signaled the other SPIT members to leave. The boats sped back to the docks at Isla Vista, filled with vampires and drunk SPITsters. *** Buffy poked the crusted spot of Cheezee Whizee. It popped off the wall and landed on the floor, flat side down. She checked to see if Spike was comfortable and snuck in a quick kiss on his ear while Xander played with his walkie-talkie. She kicked a couple walls and succeeded in denting, but not opening them. She checked out the air vents in the ceiling, but they were too far up to reach, even standing on the gurney or getting a boost from Xander. Damn being short. Having nothing better to do, she slid down the wall and sat down. “Can’t hear anything on the radio,” Xander said. “The walls must be blocking the sound.” Xander sat down beside her and fished a package of Twinkies out of his combat vest. Buffy swatted Xander on the arm. “You’ve got your nerve questioning your Commanding Officer’s Cheezee Whizee rations. Give.” “No way. I can’t help it if you came on this mission unprepared.” He held the Twinkies over her head and crinkled the package. “I seem to remember you volunteered to supply the Tasty Snacking Cakes on this mission. I need creamy vanilla filling to keep my strength up. The baby needs sugar.” She pouted. It was much easier getting her way with Spike. He always let her have her way. Xander sighed and handed over one of his Twinkies. Buffy was harder to deal with than ever, now that she was pregnant. He almost felt sorry for Blood Breath. Nah. Spike deserved whatever he got. “Don’t even think about breaking America’s Favorite Snack Cake in half and sticking your finger in there to goop out the filling.” “Okay, I won’t.” Buffy broke the Twinkie in half and sucked the white, puffy filling out of the center of one of the halves in a single slurp. “Have I mentioned lately your table manners are atrocious? Everyone knows Twinkies are consumed whole, like this.” He stuffed a whole Twinkie in his mouth and chewed for several minutes. “Gross me out, Xander. How are we going to get out of here?” Buffy squirted some Cheezee Whizee into the empty center of her Twinkie and ate it with dainty bites. Xander stared at her in horror. “Somebody kill me. I’m feeling sorry for Evil Dead. He’s saddled himself with a woman who puts Cheezee Whizee in a Twinkie. It’s more than any mortal man could be expected to bear. Good thing he’s dead. God knows what you’d do with a Little Debbie Spice Cake.” “Pineapple salsa and yellow mustard might be good.” She finished her Twinkie, tucked her Cheezee Whizee back in her vest and wiped her hands on the gurney sheet. Xander swallowed hard. “Speaking of Evil Dead, you got some esplaning to do. How long did you know about his chip being burned out?” She licked her fingers. “A month or so. Riley burned it out.” “And, you didn’t mention to anyone that your Evil Serial Killer Boyfriend was footloose and fang-free?” “I love him, Xander. I wanted to give him a chance.” “A chance to do what? Kill more people?” “A chance to be a good guy. That would be the same chance I gave you after your Hyena Episode. You remember, felony sexual assault?” Before Xander could respond, one of the walls began to move, then another, blocking their path and boxing them into a smaller and smaller space. They jumped up and raced back and forth trying to get through the open walls before they slid closed, but couldn’t push Spike’s gurney through any of the gaps fast enough to escape, even if they had known which panel blocked them from getting free. Within moments they were confined to a small cube of space. They sat down again. “Do you think someone knows where we are and is trapping us in an unusually small room to see if we’re claustrophobic?” Xander asked. “Either that, or they’re planning to capture us.” Buffy said. “Got any more Twinkies?” “Nope.” “Ding Dongs?” “Nope.” He refused to look Buffy in the eyes. Buffy suspected he was hoarding Ding Dongs. They wouldn’t taste all that good with Cheezee Whizee, so she didn’t insist on searching his vest pockets. “Guess I’ll have to get us out of here since we’ve run out of Snacks Ready to Eat. Got any more Big Bang Bubble Gum?” Xander smacked himself on the forehead. “What was I thinking? Let’s randomly blow a few walls apart in a closely confined space with no protective cover and see what happens?” Xander could be so snooty about his Soldier Boy knowledge. Next time she dressed up for Halloween, she was going to dress up like a rocket scientist or Bill Gates or Oprah or somebody smart. Then, she’d be smarter than the whole gang, Giles even, for months, maybe years. That would show Mr. Xander Manly Soldier. “You got a better plan?” she asked. One of the walls slid open. Riley walked into the cube of space, holding a rifle on them with one hand and a wooden stake in the other. He used his remote control to slide the wall back in place behind him. “I do.”

Chapter #28 - Wait for Someone

Chapter 28 – Wait for Someone Just the person Buffy wanted to see on the other end of a rifle. She could hardly wait to beat him up, take away his rifle and shoot him with it. She hoped it wasn’t loaded with real bullets because she might feel bad after she shot him. Or, she might not feel bad which would make her feel really bad, that she didn’t. Feel bad, that is. Buffy inched her hand towards a pocket of her combat vest. “Don’t,” Riley said. “I’ll shoot you.” “I just wanted to get out my Cheezee Whizee. See?” Buffy unzipped her vest slowly and opened it so he could see the aerosol can tucked in an inside pocket. “Women. You won’t need any Cheezee Whizee where you’re going, which is to Leavenworth for stealing valuable government property.” Riley stepped between Buffy and the gurney where Spike was lying. He thumbed Spike’s eyelids open to see if he was sleeping and saw nothing but white eyeballs. “Good. I don’t want to waste another tranq dart on Ass Face. Besides, I want him to be wide awake when I stake him when he attempts to escape. Let’s go.” He turned his back on Spike and pointed his remote control device at the ceiling. A wall slid open, exposing the hallway back to the laboratory. Buffy gripped the front of her combat vest. While Riley played with his remote control, she slid her hands down the front of the vest, feeling for the plastic box she had tucked in her lower, front pocket with the Velcro flap. Xander, hoping Buffy was getting ready to do something that involved hitting, kicking, head butting and other types of assorted and extreme violence, started talking. “So, Ri, where the hell are we? Buffy and I were pushing Dead Boy down the hall and the next thing we knew the walls were closing in and we were going in a circle …” “Shut up,” Riley slashed his rifle butt at Xander’s head and cracked his skull. Xander dropped to the floor, dazed. Riley hit him again, and Xander passed out. Xander’s distraction gave Buffy the opportunity she needed. She ripped open the Velcro strip on her pocket and whipped out the control box. The box wasn’t tuned to the exact frequency, but she hoped - she prayed - it would work. She pointed the box at Riley. With any luck, she would deliver the same flaming zap to Riley’s skull that he’d given to Spike. “Put the rifle on the floor and back away,” she said. Riley laughed. “What are you going to do? Screw me to death with the Happy Vampire Ray Box? That thing only works on bloodsuckers like your boyfriend.” “No, the box only works on people with chips in their heads. People like you.” Riley lifted the barrel of his rifle and pointed it directly at Buffy. “What the hell are you talking about?” “I checked your file, Riley. Vampires aren’t the only ones getting behavior modification implants.” Vampires aren’t the only ones that need chips, either. Behind Riley, Spike, who had been feigning sleep, shifted off the cart and raised it above his head. With his last ounce of strength, he heaved the gurney and crashed the metal wheels on Riley’s head. Spike wavered for a moment, exhausted by his effort, and crumpled to the floor. Riley stumbled forward and stepped on the hardened glob of Cheezee Whizee. His foot skated out from under him and he slammed down. While Spike and Riley were fooling around, Buffy fine-tuned the box and gave Riley a full-strength blast. The box did not work the way she anticipated. “Buffy, please baby, how about a little action? You’ve been teasing me for weeks, babe,” Riley said. He crawled across the floor and kissed the polished toe of her boot and her leg and licked her knee cap through her combat pants. “Ewww,” Buffy said. She shook Riley off her combat boot, which he was humping, and kicked him against the wall. “That’s what’s wrong with this mission. It’s been way too Fisticuffs Free.” She jerked Riley up to a standing position and gave him a left-right-left to his gut, a left hook that broke his jaw and a sharp, right punch in his nose, which made a satisfying crunch under her knuckles. Riley fell to the floor, dazed, but not knocked out. He got on his hands and knees and crawled towards her. “Come on, Buffy, give me a little sugar.” She grabbed his rifle as he crept toward her again. She checked to make sure the rifle was loaded with darts and not bullets, then blasted Riley in the butt. He wobbled and crashed and his eyes rolled up into the back of his head. Buffy looked around the walled-in room at the three unconscious males. She handcuffed Riley’s hands behind his back with the excellent carbon steel, tactical hinge cuffs he’d used on her the night he vamp-napped Spike. Then, she splashed a couple of bottles of holy water on Xander’s face and sat down to wait for somebody to wake up. *** The sun was edging up red and gold behind the mountains and glittering the white caps with color. As the regatta of smaller boats neared the Isla Vista docks, Giles turned the Boa Sorte back to Fuego, making a long arc back to the island. Willow continued to signal Buffy on the walkie-talkie, though they were too far away. At a mile-and-a half out from the island, she received a responding squawk. “Will, is that you?” “Yes, Captain. What’s your situation? Are you at the pickup point? Do you need some more fog? I’ve got some of the lime green left.” “Negative on the fog. We aren’t anywhere near the originally scheduled pickup point. We’re headed to the west loading dock. Estimated time of arrival two minutes. Can you intercept there?” Willow checked with Giles. He nodded and steered the boat towards the west side of the island. “That’s a go, Captain, but we might need longer than two minutes. Did you locate the, er, targets?” “Yes, both targets secured.” “Thank you, Hecate,” Willow said. “See you in three.” Buffy hit the squelch button. Xander revived first, after Buffy splashed his face again with her last bottle of holy water. Together they lifted Spike back onto the gurney, which now rolled sideways on only three wheels. The front left wheel was bent flat from its contact with Riley’s skull. Using Riley’s remote control, Buffy closed the hall back to the laboratory, opened a new aisle to the loading dock and closed all the panels to trap Riley into the same small cube they’d occupied. They raced to the loading dock, pushing and dragging the gurney, dodging soldiers and using the remote to block off their path behind them and disable the shrieking sirens and security cameras. They reached the dock as the boat’s lights blinked into view. Buffy closed off the dock access door right before the batteries in the remote died. A security camera whirred into motion and pointed in their direction. Xander boosted Buffy up on his shoulders and she squirted the last glob of her Cheezee Whizee over the lens. Xander patched spots of cubanol over the control panels to the dock. He blew up the controls, destroying access to the dock from inside the compound. Soldiers banged and pounded on the steel door, but couldn’t get in. By the time Xander and Buffy lifted Spike into the boat, daylight was approaching fast. The first rays of the sun streaked from behind the mountains behind Isla Vista as Willow cooked up one last fog to obscure their exit – golden-yellow this time – as the Boa Sorte sped for towards the coast. They laid Spike down on one of the cabin bunks. Buffy sat down beside him and peeled off her combat cap. Her golden waves fell down in tangled, messy waves. “I have hat hair, don’t I?” She ran her fingers through her hair to give herself something to do besides have Serious Romantic Discussion with Spike. “Sorry it took so long. I mean for us to come and get you.” Spike smiled weakly and curled a strand of her hair around his finger. “I knew you’d come, luv. Told that wanker, Angelus you’d come for me.” “I couldn’t leave my favorite vampire in the hands of the Initiative, could I?” “Couldn’t leave me any longer with that magnificent poof, Angelus, you mean. He was getting cranky without his Nancy Boy hair gel.” “He’s going to have something else to be cranky about. The doctor’s putting a chip in his head. Angel’s going on a Homo-Sapiens free diet.” Spike laughed. “It was almost worth the trouble of being captured to get Peaches fixed.” Buffy reached into her combat vest and brought out a set of military orders, the set she hadn’t used. “Speaking of chips, I have a present for you.” She handed him a set of orders authorizing Dr. Ekl to implant a new chip in Spike’s head. Spike felt too tired to read the entire order, but he saw the important part. He was pleased she trusted him without his electronic leash, but wasn’t so sure he trusted himself. “Why didn’t you?” “You earned it. Not eating people for two weeks when you could have. That’s the second nicest thing that you did for me that anybody’s every done for me. Thank you.” Spike turned his face away so Buffy wouldn’t catch him doing some poufter thing like crying. She stroked his fingers, tenderly. “I love you, William.” Whew. What a relief to have that off her chest. Telling Spike she loved him was tougher than busting him and fifteen other vampires out of the Initiative fortress. At least, telling him the first time was tough. Telling him the next two hundred times was bound to be easier. He tugged the lock of hair entwined around his finger to bring her lips closer. “Give us a kiss, then. I’m starved.” “Not so fast. Isn’t there something you want to tell me?” He wasn’t getting off that easy just because she was crazy in love with him. She wanted to know and he was going to have to tell her sometime. “I love you? Told you already.” He was looking forward to telling her again, every day for the next fifty or sixty years. “That, too. I meant your last name. What is it?” It wasn’t possible for Spike to get any paler, but he did look worried. “Not a chance. You’ll have to marry me to get that information. If you’ll have me.” Buffy didn’t want to wait quite that long, so she gave her bestest vampire a kiss. =============================== Readers - There's one more chapter to go. Spikez_tart

Chapter #29 - We Don't Need No Stinking Bitches (Epilogue)

This is the last chapter of Invite Me In. Thanks to all the kind readers who left so many wonderful reviews and who prodded me into adding some pieces about their favorite characters. ********************************************************************************** Chapter 29 – We Don't Need No Stinking Bitches Angel woke up in one of the scummier alleys in Los Angeles. He was lying next to a ripe dumpster overflowing with rotten food, paper wrappers and, from the smell, a large pool of burnt grease. A rat was sitting on his chest, sniffing to see if he was really dead, or just pretending. He flung the rat against the nearest wall. His days of drinking rats were over a long time ago. So were his days of sustaining himself with pigs, puppies, cats and sheep. He was a vampire – his kind thirsted, craved, hungered for human blood. To pretend that he could get by was no longer an option. His stay at the Initiative prison had taught him that. He’d been reminded who he was. What he was. There was no turning back. He stumbled to his feet. As he raised his aching head, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his skull. God, his head hurt so bad. He touched the back of his head. Part of his hair had been shaved away and the skin was wet and sticky. He brought away his hand covered with blood. Who had hit him on the head. And, how had he gotten from the Initiative prison to this alley? The last thing he remembered was that bitch, Buffy, rescuing Spike and leaving him behind at the mercy of those quacks with their poisoned blood. Worse, Buffy, the love of his life, was pregnant and having sex with Spike. The baby couldn’t really be Spike’s kid. That was some comfort. But, Spike was convinced it was his baby and he’d be just as obnoxious as if it was true. True or not, she was having sex with Spike. Spike was touching her, loving her, biting her, banging her – everything that Angel had been prevented from doing. Except the biting part. After she slammed the prison cell door in his face, he’d been in a rage. So, he drank some packaged blood they’d dropped in his cell. The drugs in his blood bag knocked him out. He knew the blood was doped up, but he was so royally pissed off at Buffy that he couldn’t stand the thought of depriving himself of rich, human blood. What happened after that was a mystery. He’d been in prison, and now, he was in an alley. He might as well head back to the hotel. The hotel was some distance away, so he’d have time to cook up some story to explain away whatever Buffy had told them. He staggered down the alley and spotted a bar a half block down the street. The bar was blasting loud disco oldies music into the street. He hated disco. He hated it the first time it was popular and he hated it even more now. They were playing Donna Summers. He hated her. He hated all women named Summers. They were all sisters under the skin - heartless bitches. He walked towards the bar. He was starving. He needed a pick me up, preferably small and blond to take away his headache and serve as an outlet for the anger he was feeling. A couple of tasty young females came out of the bar, giggling and shoving each other. And, yes. One of them had wavy, long hair as blond as the sun. Bleached sun, but good enough for his purposes. He strode across the street and approached the girls. His face crumpled into a hideous mask of vampire greed and blood lust. He lunged at the blonde girl and grabbed her hai and smacked his hand across her mouth to muffle her screams. He had just gripped his fangs into her neck when a bolt of lightening crackled through his skull and drove him to his knees screaming. *** Six months later … Lieutenant Riley Finn stood at attention in front of Professor Walsh’s desk. He held his face in rigid neutrality. Even the slightest relaxation in his body posture or expression would bring down a torrent of wrath from Maggie the Hag. “I have a job for you, Riley,” she said pleasantly. “I think it’s one that even you can’t screw up.” “Yes, ma’am.” Riley and his entire team had been firmly ensconced in the doghouse for the past six months after letting Hostile 17 and Walsh’s other vampires escape. He hadn’t even been on duty when Buffy arrived and sprung them out, but Walsh didn’t care. She only needed a handy scapegoat and that goat was Riley Finn. The scene after Buffy’s daring theft had not been pretty. Walsh had visited the compound personally to deliver a tongue lashing to everyone, from the Colonel to the lowest private. Riley had come in for some special torture. The Fuego fortress was temporarily mothballed due to the notoriety received at the hands of Joyce Summers and her idiot friends and Riley and his team had been returned to Sunnydale, but it was no improvement on being trapped out at Fuego. He was constantly under Walsh’s thumb and under her scrutiny. The ways in which his life currently sucked were numerous. Buffy had broken his jaw and he’d only recently got his mouth unwired. His team wasn’t speaking to him. Walsh had refuse to authorize leave for any of his team since the latest Buffy-created disaster. Carmelita had forgotten about him by now and moved on to some other moist and delicious human. Since they’d returned to Sunnydale, Walsh amused herself by giving him and his team the crappiest assignments available. The smirk on her face told him this assignment was going to be bad, too. She handed him the orders without looking up. He read them and steeled himself from letting a look of disgust appear on his face. This was the worst yet. “Are you still here, Finn? Move out,” Walsh said. Riley saluted and left the office. *** A full moon glowered murky orange over the Nevada desert, 346 miles from Sunnydale. A female ryzark dug her way out of the sand pit where she slept during the heat of the day and shuffled to her nest of eggs. The female was sage green and cream striped. Her striping was muted and less noticeable than the brilliant emerald and white coloring of her mate. Her skin was dry and smooth with millions of transparent scales and she had retractable fangs and claws on her dainty padded feet. Being fully mature, she was the size of a water buffalo, could run as fast as an antelope and hurl her poisonous saliva fifteen or twenty feet. She’d never been in a fight with any other demon or animal besides her own mate during spring mating rituals, so she only sported one head. Three days before, she dug a deep pit for her clutch of eggs in the direct sunlight so the sun’s heat would bake and incubate the hatchlings until they cracked free from their shells. As she approached the nest, she understood something was wrong. One of the eggs was broken. She paused to smell the sulphur reek of the ruined egg that had broiled all day in the sun. The rest of her eggs were gone. She circled the empty pit, following the smell of the eggs. A few feet from the pit, she picked up the sulphur scent where a large truck ran through the rotting yolk as it drove away with her young. The rzyark abandoned the corpse of her mate she’d been feeding on for the past few days and followed the scent of the rotting yolk. She had to find her hatchlings. To be continued... ****************************** Challenge: 182 BTL, AD & I came up with a Spuffy Challenge... so to you all we challenge you to do this: Go to the website www.vampirecondoms.com. Ok. Now that you’re done having a hell of a laugh, write a spuffy based comedy/smut ficlet. Must Haves: 1. Must use slogan from www.vampirecondoms.com, “Because Vampires Always Get Invited In” 2. Bitey, Bitey, Bitey 3. Smut,Smut, Smut 4. May be either Season 2 or Season 5 Buffy/Spike setting or Season 5. Goth Buffy 6. Buffy wearing a spiked dog collar 7. The random appearance of cheesewiz 8. Spike gets tied up – with a phone cord