LAST WEEK on WWHH? Spike got kidnapped. *** Dawn got a nasty visitor. *** Buffybot got her head knocked around backwards, but not before she acquired some very important info. *** Buffy located her new pink leather skirt and got a gift.
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Chapter 17 - Some Seriously Weird Shit


Dawn held the front door open a crack. “What are you doing here?” Dawn asked. “Buffy’s not here. I’m doing my homework.”

“May I come in?” Doris pushed her way past Dawn and entered the living room.

“Buffy doesn’t like me to have visitors when she’s not home.” There must be some kind of law or something to keep busybodies like Doris out of her house when her sister wasn’t home. Dawn watched all the police shows. She knew her rights.

Doris brushed aside a stack of Elle and Marieclaire magazines on the coffee table, and dropped her large, orange, patent pleatherette bag on the table. “I’m sure your sister won’t mind under the circumstances.”

Dawn had an uneasy feeling about Doris. Not just the exasperated, irritated feeling she normally got around teachers, principals, parents and other adults. More of an edgy, weird feeling like the one she got around Glory. Maybe even a Freaked To The Point Of Wetting Her Pants Kind Of Feeling. Perhaps she could placate Doris and get her out of the house. “I went to school today and studied and everything. I’m not going to give Buffy any more trouble. I don’t want you to take me away. I want to stay with my sister.”

“You aren’t going to be giving anyone any trouble any more. As for staying with your sister, that’s no longer possible.” Doris opened her bag and took out a golden glass orb. “Have you ever seen one of these before?”

Dawn’s eyes grew wide. It was the same kind of magical orb Buffy brought home the night she found the dead monk. Not that Buffy told Dawn about the monk or the orb, because Buffy was, as usual big with the secrets. Dawn found out about the orb and how the monks conjured her into human form by listening behind the door while Buffy and her friends were talking.

Dawn looked around the room for a weapon. Most of Buffy’s weapons were too heavy or difficult for Dawn to use and Buffy would be pissed off if Dawn injured this stupid woman from Social Services and it turned out she was just a natural flesh-crawling human. Dawn picked up a bottle of holy water and tossed it in Doris’s face.

Skin peeled off her face, leaving behind the veiny, charred visage of a vengeance demon. The water evaporated with a hiss and the demon’s face returned to her human mask.

Doris held up the orb and touched it to Dawn’s hand. Her skin blistered where the orb touched her and she screamed. Doris took a small vial out of the side zipped pocket of her bag and scattered black dust over Dawn’s head and tossed the vial into the fireplace, where it flashed and disappeared.

Dawn’s head swam. The room spun around and Dawn could no longer feel the burn on her arm. She passed out.



Spike paced around Glory’s bedroom. Glory had let him off the steel hook and took the iron cuffs off his wrists so he could appreciate the sincerity of her offer. She’d locked him in her bedroom with only two scabby little demons to keep him from jumping through the plate-glass window to freedom.

He was supposed to be thinking over Glory’s offer. Give up the Key and get the chip out. Yeah, get the chip out. The moment he’d been waiting for, wishing for, wanking for the past two years. “Get the chip out. Feed on something fresh and dainty. Smash and bite and kill and do all the things I’ve been missing since the Initiative cut my balls off. Won’t have to put up with any more lip from the Slayer, either. I’ll be my own man again. If I want to help the Slayer out with some little demon problem now and again, I could do that, but there’ll be no more interfering with my biting the neck of some tasty trollop behind the Bronze of a Saturday night.” Buffy would never have to know.

Still, probably best to escape if he could, in case Glory wasn’t sincere about her offer. He fingered the contents of his leather coat hoping for something to help him escape – two pair of Buffy’s panties, cigarettes, a lighter and one third of a can of vampire strength suntan spray. Not much to work with there. Nothing for it but to accept Glory’s offer and see what happened.

He pulled his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket and Buffy’s panties floated to the floor. He picked them up and sniffed them. “Damn. Banging the Slayer in her own bed was a bit of all right. Not much chance of getting another piece of Slayer cunny. Not that I’d want it, because Big Bad here. Fuck ‘em and Forget ‘em. That’s my motto.” He held the panties up to the light.

Suddenly, he felt a little uncertain about his plan.

Glory came into the bedroom and pushed Spike onto her goddess-sized round bed and straddled him. “Thinking time’s over, Dead Man Lurking. What’s it going to be? Get your chip out or get your head twisted off?”

Spike grabbed her hips and dug his fingers in. He gave her his best, tongue rolled behind his teeth, smoldering look. “Maybe I need a little sweetener.”

“Sex with a Goddess? You think big, vampire. I like that. No, wait, no, I don’t like that. I prefer toadying and fear.”

“Okay, you got me. Take the chip out and I’ll tell you where the Key is.”

“Not the way it works, Precious.” Glory ground her pelvis against Spike’s crotch. “First you tell and I find the Key. Then, I take the chip out if it happens you’re telling the truth.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you.” He lit a cigarette and took a puff.

“Anytime today would be fine.”

“I’m coming to it. Not easy going against the Slayer, you know. This is going to right brass her off and what with this chip in my head, I can’t exactly defend myself.”

Glory reached in his pocket and snatched out Buffy’s panties. “I can see you and the Slayer don’t get along at all.” She waved the panties in the air.

“Stole those – uh – stole them for a spell, that’s what. Me and the Slayer, mortal enemies. Grrrr. Arrggh.” Spike curled his fingers into claws.

“Uh huh. The Slayer always lets her mortal enemies go through her underwear drawer. Spill, vampire. I’m feeling PMSie.”

“Doris Kroeger. She works down at the Social Services office making life a living hell for the Slayer. Take out the chip and I’m on my way.”

“Not so fast, Blondie. I know Doris. She’s as old as the pyramids. She goes to Tom Jones concerts and throws her Size 52 panties at him. She is not the Key.”

“Right.” Think, think, think. “Oh! Right! She isn’t the Key, but she knows who the Key is. It’s one of her little kiddies, er, Rupert Giles is the kid’s name.”

“I know who Rupert Giles is and he isn’t a little kiddie. He runs that lame-o magic shop on Center Street.” Glory folded her arms and sing-songed. “Somebody’s making me angry.”

Spike sighed. The time had come. He’d hope to stall her off, hoped he’d never have to do this, but there was no use waiting. “Dawn. The Slayer’s kid sister is the Key. She’s hiding in the basement of my lair. Now, about that chip, luv?”

“If you’re lying to me, vampire, I’ll have to cut your head off, starting with your big toe,” Glory said.

“Fine with me. If I don’t get this chip out, Slayer will do it for you.”

Glory ran her hands over Spike’s chest. “Tell me again, cutie, where I can find my Key? I love hearing it.”

“Uh, like I said, Dawn, the Slayer’s kid sister is the Key. Now, about getting my chip out, do you think you could take it out before the Slayer shows up to kick my ass?”

“Oh, sugar, I’m beginning to think you aren’t listening. First, I send out my minions to find the Key, then they bring her back here. If Little Miss Sassy is the Key, I take the chip out and if you’re lying to me, I rip out your liver and feed it to Dank. He loves fried liver.”

Spike gulped. “You’re a right hard bargainer, Your Toss Pot Trullness, I’ll take your scabby bootlicker to find the Key and bring her back.”

“Aren’t you just full of clever suggestions? So clever, I’m beginning to think you’re lying to me. You wouldn’t lie to me would you? Because I might not stop with just your liver.”

“In my crypt. In the basement. She’s hiding in a coffin.”

Glory clapped her hands. “Minions! I found the Key. No thanks to you.” She opened the bedroom door to find Jinx listening at the keyhole. “Get over to Spike’s crypt and bring her back.”

Jinx fell on the floor and bowed with his butt in the air. “Your Pearly Scrumptiousness. As your words are spoken, your commands are fulfilled.”

“Fine, fine, fine. Go get her. Oh, I forgot something. Slook! Bring me those chains.”

Slook, the only female poonlarp demon among Glory’s minions, fetched in the chains. After a certain amount of chasing Spike around the room, she tripped him, knocked him unconscious with a blow to the back of his head, delivered with the blunt edge of a small axe she wore tucked into her waist rope, and chained him up.

“He is a very fine and manly specimen, your Sexy Slitheriness,” Slook said. “Perhaps you should keep this one.”

Glory tapped her finger on her chin. “That’s a thought, Slook. Do you think he can learn to toady?”



After Doris checked to see if Dawn was comfortably floating in space, encircled by a green binding force, she made a call on her cell phone.

Dawn woke up and struggled against the magic binding spell, but only entangled herself further in the black web of power strands that wove through the green energy band.

“Quit struggling, Dawn,” Doris said. “You’re just making it worse.” Her cell phone toned out the speed dial number. “Slook? It’s Doris. I’ve got the Key. Can I bring her over?”

“You have the Key! How marvelous! But wait. Glorificus wants to go to the spa before she starts the ceremony. She needs a punta mita tequila and sage massage to relax before the big event.”

“Oh, yes, the spa would be much better,” Doris fluffed her hair. “I could use a piranha pedicure myself.” She hung up the phone.

“Let’s go Teen Queen. Maybe Glory will buy you a cream and sugar scrub before she guts you.” Doris pinched Dawn by the ear and dragged her out to the car.



A few minutes after Doris drove away, Spikebot drove up in the black Lincoln Crown Victoria automobile belonging to Warren’s mother, with Warren, Jonathan/Short
Stuff and Whatshisname/Penis Breath/Metrosexual riding in the back.

“Pull up close to the house,” Warren said. “I don’t want the neighbors to see me and call the cops. My picture will be all over the news, after I broke out of the Big House. The cops won’t be taking any chances with a dangerous criminal like me.”

“Your mom bailed you out, Little Caesar,” Jonathan said.

“This is Buffy and Dawn’s house,” Spikebot said. “Can I see Buffy?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Warren and the others slid out of the car and onto the porch. “Hey, the door is open. Great!” They slunk into the house.

Andrew and Jonathan headed for the refrigerator. “Hey,” Andrew said. “Look at this, frozen pudding pops and Eskimos. The Slayer really knows how to eat.”

“Gimme,” Jonathan said. He snatched a chocolate pudding pop out of Andrew’s hand.

Warren came into the kitchen and smacked Andrew and pulled Jonathan’s nose. “Cretins. We’re looking for Dawn. You know? The Key? The person we get huge sums of cash for when we deliver her to Glory?”

Jonathan rubbed his nose. “Dawn isn’t here, Brain Trust.” He rubbed the pudding pop on his nose to reduce the swelling.

The phone rang. The three ran and shoved each other trying to reach the phone. Spikebot picked up the phone. “I am Spike. Where is Buffy?”

“Spike?” Buffy said. “What are you doing in my house? Never mind. Put Dawn on the phone.”

“Dawn is not here. We are looking for her.”

“Huh?”

Warren grabbed the phone. “Slayer! It’s Warren, you know, from the Trio. Your Arch Nemesises. Sees.”

“Warren, you ass. Where is my sister? If you’ve done anything to her, I’m going to pull your greasy chest hair out by the roots.”

“I think not, Slayer. I have your sister and I know who – and what – she is. She’s the Key and Glorificus is looking for her.”

“You little pr--!”

“Language, Slayer. That’s no way to talk to the man who’s holding your sister hostage. I have your sister. You give me money. Let’s say ten – no fifty thousand dollars and I’ll return her completely unharmed. You don’t give me the money and I sell her to the highest bidder.”

“You are in for a world of orthopedic surgery.” Buffy hung up.

Warren replaced the kitchen phone on its hook. “The Slayer has a bad temper. I never knew that about her. Did you know that?”

Jonathan flipped his naked pudding pop stick onto the kitchen counter. “Jackass. We don’t have the Slayer’s sister. She’s going to pound your butt into the ground and plant daisies in your ears when she catches up with you.”

“Me? When she catches up with us, don’t you mean? We have to find Dawn before the Slayer finds us. Spikebot, do you know what Dawn smells like?”

“Yes. She smells like strawberry poptarts with creamy icing.”

“Good. Sniff her out my man.”

Spikebot sniffed the air with his Logic Compatible Output Sinks, compared the scent analysis with his Ultrasonic Ping Sensor and headed out the door.



Buffy got back in Giles’s Middle Age Crisis red sports car. The car was sitting outside Glory’s fabulous and abandoned bachelorette pad, parked next to an ice cream delivery van. Buffy closed the lid on Giles’s cell phone, which was not nearly as satisfying as banging a phone receiver down.

She couldn’t believe Spike would sink so low. After all he’d done to protect Dawn from Glory, he’d given her sister up to Warren. He claimed he loved her, swore he’d do anything to keep her from being hurt, even let himself nearly get killed to protect Dawn so Buffy wouldn’t be heartbroken. He made her care about him, when she didn’t want to. He took her on the swings and stole a bag of Cheetos for her. He said he loved her and it meant nothing. He told that Doris woman he wanted to marry her and that meant less than nothing. He’d betrayed her. He was just like all the rest.

Warren must have promised Spike something – money or blood or no -- the chip. Warren must have promised to help Spike get rid of the chip. Spike wanted to go back to biting and killing and being a bad ass vampire. He’d never stopped wanted to be a killer for a single moment. Being a killer was more important to him than loving Buffy. He hadn’t changed a bit.

She wiped away a couple of tears and handed Giles his phone.

“Warren has Dawn.”

“Who the bloody hell is Warren?” Giles said. He took off his Ray Bans and cleaned them on his handkerchief.

“Creator of the Buffybot,” Buffy said. “And, thorn in my butt.”

Willow came out of Glory’s building holding a bag with some of Glory’s clothes. She came up to the car. “What now?”

“Can you do a locator spell on the fly, Will? We need to find Dawn and Glory. Spike, too.”

“Easy peasie for Glory,” she held up the bag. “I’ll need something that belongs to Spike.”

Buffy reached into her patrol bag and took out a torn black tee shirt. She gave Willow a steady look that said with no mistake Willow should not under any circumstance short of the onset of the next Ice Age, ask how this shirt came to be in her possession.

Buffybot was sitting in the back seat of Giles’s car and getting restless. She tapped Buffy on the shoulder. “We must save Spike,” Buffybot said. “My voice sounds whiny.”

“Spike crossed the line. He joined up with Warren to snatch my sister and give her to Glory. He’s Evil. There will be no saving of Spike.”

“Spike is Evil?” Buffybot’s brain whirred with dangerous intention.



Spikebot pointed to a wooden coffin stored next to Spike’s bed in the basement of his crypt.

“I should have known,” Warren said. “Where else would Spike keep her? Dawn, baby. Come out, come out.” He looked around. He saw a row of tiny panties lined up on Spike’s bed. “Man, Spike is into some seriously weird shit.”

Andrew shuffled behind Warren and bumped into him. “Does Spike wear women’s panties?” His face looked hopeful.

“Sure he does. Just like you and Short Stuff.” He kicked the lid off a spare coffin leaning against the wall. “Here’s our beauty. Dawn, rise and shine, kid.”

A perfect robotic replica of Dawn stepped out of the coffin and flipped her long, brown hair over her shoulder.

“I Am Not A Kid.”