Woo Hoo! Nominated for Best Fluffy Spuffy and Best Romance at Spuffy Awards and Spark and Burn Awards! Now, that’s just awesome!
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Love those reviews!
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Bummer, the characters belong to Joss and I wish he'd make me a nice Spike movie. No copyright infringement intended.
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Last week on WWHH? Buffybot got damaged and Spikebot had to save her. Pastries dipped in hot grease were discussed. *** Buffy located her new pink leather skirt. *** Spike located some more of Buffy's panties. *** Dawn invited a stranger in the house and I thought she knew better after the whole Harmony thing. *** Doris ruminated over the musical culture divide between persons of taste, like herself and youngsters like Dawn. *** The Council sent Buffy a way awesome sword.
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Chapter 18 - Does It Involve Bark and Roots?



Giles drove his spiffy red convertible up to the front door of the Golden Desert of the Dead Healing Spa. “I say, do you think they have valet parking? I don’t like to leave my new car standing in a no parking zone.”

The Golden Desert Spa was a two-story building shaped like an octagon, with faux Pueblo architecture, yellow ochre colored adobe walls, red-tiled roof and a center solarium of clear glass. A large ruby stone, placed in the center of the glass, sparkled in the sun. Palm trees looped around the building and the building was couched with desert plants – cacti, saguaro, flowering yucca, sage plants and brittlebush. Buffy could not identify any of these plants except the palm trees and thought of them in a single botanical group – plant things with scratchy stickers.

From the east, a sickly green and black cloud swarmed down from the mountains and wrapped itself around the building. As the clouds enclosed the building, the ruby center stone emitted black bolts of electricity.

Buffy got out of the car and slammed the door. “There’s something you don’t see everyday, black thunderbolts. Unless you’re me.”

Xander drove up behind Giles in the ice cream van with the rest of the gang. The van belonged to the Sunnydale Ice Cream Novelties & Pastry Company, Xander’s current employer. The truck smelled of vanilla cake frosting and other sugary treats. Willow and Tara tumbled out of the back of the truck with their bags of magic supplies.

“Are you sure about this, Willow?” Buffy asked as she looked up at the cut ruby knob on the top of the building that was spinning and spurting out multi-colored sparks of red and pea green. “It looks evil, but is it the evil we’re looking for?”

Willow held up a white silk scarf with a map of Sunnydale magically inked on one side. The scarf showed Glory’s location in livid, throbbing red. “Yep. There she is. I think she’s getting the hot stone massage, which is why it’s so pulsating.”

A stream of women, wearing pink smocks stampeded out the front doors, screaming.

“What about Spike?”

“Spike is Evil,” Buffybot said as she climbed out of the back seat of Giles’ car. “It’s my duty to kill Evil. No, it’s my duty to be nice to Spike. But, you should see him naked. I mean really.”

Spike had programmed the Buffybot to be nice to him. How lame-o was that? Buffy felt a momentary wave of guilt that perhaps if she had been nice to him once in a while, he might not have had to program an overwired toaster to be his friend. She reminded herself that Spike was more interested in the ninety-two sex positions that Buffybot no doubt featured than in being Buffy’s friend.

Willow held up the black tee shirt Buffy had given her to find Spike. It had red smudges in various places. “Can’t tell. Vampires aren’t easy to locate. Where did you say you got this tee shirt?”

No way she was going to tell Willow where she got Spike’s tee shirt. She drew Caladcholg out of its sheath and pointed it over her head. The sword sucked in energy from the black lightening bolts and sizzled.



Glorificus lounged in the whirlpool at the Golden Desert of the Dead Healing Spa and held out her hand to Slook.

The spiral-shaped whirlpool was lined with aqua blue cement, patterned with rust colored mosaics of Kokopelli, the Pueblo trickster god, playing his flute, or blowing his poison blow dart, depending on the minutiae of one’s religious persuasion. It was one of three pools in the building placed in a large circle. In the middle of the configuration of whirlpools and connected to them by gutters of water, was a reflecting pool, brightly lit by a shaft of sunlight that pierced the storm clouds and entered the glass solarium.

The fiercely hot water soothed Glorificus as it boiled and swirled around her. She leaned her head against a cream-colored satin cushion. She hadn’t felt this relaxed in weeks. Everything was coming together – the Ceremony, the Key, that pestiferous vampire. Better still, the pesky Slayer had no idea where she was or that her vampire pal snitched out the Key.

Slook knelt by the side of the whirlpool in an uncomfortable position that made her thong ride up. She shaped one nail on Glory’s hand with a diamond emery board. “Would your Magnificent Muskiness care for an Abhyanga massage? The masseuse is tied up in the back room awaiting your pleasure.”

“Does it involve bark and roots?”

Slook rubbed her hands together and slicked the excess grease on her skanky locks. “It’s a deep penetrating herbal oil massage that relaxes your mind and body, removes impurities and heightens awareness –.”

“Removes impurities? Are you insinuating I have impurities?”

Slook bowed and knocked her forehead on the tile floor. “A thousand million apologies, Your Radiant Randiness, but the Handsome And Hunkiferous Ben, with whom you share your Oh So Dulciferous body, might have impurities.” When no slap was forthcoming, Slook lifted her head and resumed her crouched position of pain. She dipped a brush into a bottle of fingernail polish and lapped a streak of Chaos Cactus Rose on Glory's fingernail. "There, you'll look just lovely for the ceremony, your Fantastic Floweriness."

"That was lame. You're going to have to get up to speed on the toadying once we get back home."

"Yes, your Mellow Moistness. Home. It seems like forever since we've been home." Slook finished another nail and blew on Glory's fingers.

"Don't blow on me you repulsive slug. Give me the hot stone massage."

Glory stepped out of the whirlpool and accepted the fluffy pink towel sarong Slook held out, while averting her gaze from Glory's pearly and perfect body. Glory flopped herself on a nearby massage table. Droop, Krust and Mange brought in Carmelita, a dark-haired, dark-eyed Mexican girl who specialized in hot stone therapy. They stumbled several times, being blindfolded, before getting Carmelita into place. The girl was rigid with terror and stood by the massage table in a stupor. After Glory threw a massage stone at her forehead to knock her out of her trance, the girl slathered Glory’s skin with massage oil made of bitter orange, sandalwood, neroli and lavender, combined in a base of beeswax and shea butter. She plumped and stroked Glory’s back with hot and cool stones. Mange, Krust and Droop stood nearby with their hands folded in front of them and their white blindfolds neatly tied behind their ears.



Giles caught Buffy’s arm and dragged her away from the building. He removed the sporty new Ray Ban knockoff sunglasses he’d purchased to wear while driving his new car and tucked them in his pocket. “We need to finesse this a bit, Buffy. Glory is not going to harm Dawn until the precise hour of the ceremony, which I calculate to be,” he held up his wrist and admired his tungsten and platinum watch which was an excellent knockoff of a Rollex, “in twelve minutes and fifteen seconds.”

Buffy renewed her grip on Caladcholg. “You and Xander go in the front door and take out as many minions as you can.” She opened the trunk of Giles car and tossed them some inferior swords. She handed the troll hammer to Buffybot. “Buffybot and I will clear the solarium. Willow and Tara, as soon as the minions are out of the way, you set up your magic circle. After that, I’m going to find Dawn and deal with Spike.”

“I’m going to deal with Spike,” Buffybot said. She swung the hammer and destroyed a column supporting the building.

Buffy had a pretty good idea what Buffybot’s idea of dealing with Spike was. She planned to keep the two of them as far apart as possible. “Come on, Sack of Silicon. You can help me.”




Glory’s High Poonlarp Priest entered the massage room and bowed, touching his nose to his knees, which was no easy feat at his advanced age, and despite the fact Glorificus couldn’t see him and wouldn’t have looked at him in any case. Some poonlarps felt toadying when no one could see you accomplished nothing, but Molt believed toadying was an end in itself. He was thinking of making a spiritual tape The Weltanschauung of Toady. "Your Effervescent Excellence of Evil, It is I, Molt, Your Extremely Elevated Priest and Chauffeur. I greet you."

"What do you want, Molt? Can't you see I'm busy here?" Glory held out her hand for Slook to continue painting her nails.

“Since I have donned the ritual blindfold, not really.”

“Get on with it.”

"I merely wished to remind Your Dazzling Divineness the ceremony must commence in twelve minutes and fifteen seconds. The sun will be in exactly the right position to suck the Key dry like an aluminum beer can and open the dimensions."

"Maybe you forgot the part where I'm a hellgod and I know everything, like when the ceremony is supposed to take place, hmmm?"

Molt dropped to the ground and banged his crusty forehead on the ceramic tile floor. "Please seize my worthless life, eradicate my head from my loathsome shoulders with a butter knife, extract my fingernails with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, peel the blistered skin off my skull and use it to make a handbag, boil my blood for your afternoon cocktail, string my finger bones on my spinal cord to make a necklace, torment me as you will, Your Most Distinctive Demiurginess of Divine Demonifity, as atonement for my presumption ..." Molt's voice drifted off. It wouldn't do to continue because she just might take him up on one of his suggestions. He lamented he had been so effusive in his recommendations. Still, Glory always appreciated enthusiastic groveling. Groveling and praiseworthy toadying had led him to his exalted position of High Priest. He prided himself especially on his superlative toadying.

"Put a sock in it, Molt," she said. "Is everything ready for the ceremony?"

"Not precisely. There's still the matter of the Key. We can hardly proceed without the Pea-green Piquant Pit of Purly Puissance."

Glory tapped her teeth with her fingernail and made a tiny chip in the glossy red enamel. "The Energizer Bunny is on the way. My vampire finally told me where to find her."

"I obsequiously request your permission to withdraw to commence my spiritual preparations so I may be worthy to greet the Key."

"Whatever, just make sure everything's ready so I don't have to boil your eyeballs in oil. Slook! Look at my nail! Do you expect me to descend to my hell dimension looking like this?”

Glory rolled off the massage table scattering rocks everywhere and grabbed Slook by the hair. Molt crept out while Glory was smacking Slook around the ears, grateful for the distraction and relieved he’d managed an interview with Glorificus without losing one or more of his body parts.



Buffy clutched Caladcholg in her right fist and used her left hand to climb a palm tree on the side of the building. The blade of her sword glittered in the single ray of the sun that pierced the storm clouds. She climbed further up into the top of the tree and peered into the solarium. She couldn’t see a thing because the sun was glaring off the glass and the ruby red knob was flashing like the mirror ball in Xander’s basement pad.



“Where’s my Key? Why isn’t she here?” Glory asked. She cradled the head of Carmelita the Hot Stone Massage Girl on the tips of her fingers.

“Your key?” Carmelita said as she struggled to get out of Glory’s grasp. “I don’t think I know where your key is. Did you leave it in your locker?”

Glory stabbed her fingers into Carmelita’s head. “Not you, Massage Maven.” Rays of light burst from Carmelita’s head as Glory sucked the energy out of her brain. “Oh, that feels much better. Droop! Mange! Krust! Where’s my key where’s my key where’s my key!” She screamed with frustration and tossed Carmelita into the whirlpool, sending a fountain of spray over her three poonlarp servants.

Before Glory could finish her tantrum, Jinx crawled into the whirlpool room, with his forehead scraping the tiles.

“Well?”

“It appears that the vampire lied, your Cursed Comeliness. We went to the crypt and examined all the coffins, but the girl, Dawn, was not there.”

Glorificus stomped her foot and cracked the floor. “Get out of my sight, you worthless worm eating bootlicker.”

Jinx, followed by his fellow poonlarps, skittered out of the room before Glory could change her mind and rip off the heads of one or more of her devoted servants.

While Glory was still tapping her fingernail on her teeth and trying to think of a way to locate the Key in the next eleven minutes and fifty-two seconds, Doris Kroger emerged from the locker room, pulling the floating Dawn along by the ear. “Your Gory Gumptiousness, I, Doris Kroeger, your Most Unworthy Servant, have brought your Key.” Doris released the binding spell and pushed Dawn forward.

Dawn screamed and kicked Doris in the leg and stomped on her toes.

“Oh, sweety. You’re just the feistiest little thing. Where’s my vampire? Bring him in.”



Spike hadn’t been this close to chucking up down the front of his shirt since the alcohol saturated night he arrived in Sunnydale with the brilliant plan of using the Slayer’s guts to floss his fangs. Another plan shot to hell.

Bad enough the damn demons, poonlarps or some such, strung him up to a ceiling fan which spun around, but they’d trussed him up in the damn aromatherapy room where the stench of roots and twigs and flowers and bark would have overwhelmed any mere man. The smells were positively abusive to the refined nose of a vampire.

“Hey,” he yelled. “Get me down!” He hoped if he made enough noise one of the demons would cut him down to get him to shut up, or Buffy would arrive.

Two of Glory’s scabby demons came into the aromatherapy room. Dreg and Murk unhooked Spike from the ceiling fan where he’d been spinning for the past half hour and cut the rope tying his hands. They hauled him into the next room and tossed him in the whirlpool along with the babbling massage girl. He splashed to the surface and stood up. The Dawnbot was here. His plan was working just as, well, planned.

“Prezzie for you, vampire,” Glory said. “For telling me where to find my Key. It was swell of you. Have a drink.” She folded her arms and gave him a pissy look that didn’t seem exactly right for someone who’d just got what she wanted, but Spike brushed the thought aside. Who could figure out hellgods, after all?

Spike quivered at the thought of a drink of hot, young, toothsome, fresh blood, of sinking his fangs into her warm neck and quenching his two-year drought with a gush of the hard stuff, but restrained himself from doing something utterly foolish and painful. “Don’t want a drink. I want this bleeding chip out of my head.” Spike gripped the girl by the arms to keep her from hurting herself as she flailed around. Glory might decide to kill her and there was no use wasting good food.

Carmelita struggled and pointed to Dawn. “Nothing there nothing there nothing there.”

Spike cut a look at the Dawnbot who’d broken loose from Doris, but was now being held in the firm grasp of the poonlarp High Priest. No, it couldn’t be. “What the f --”

“You told them where to find me,” Dawn said. Her voice was pitched to High Screech which was very painful to Spike’s ears. She pointed her bony index finger at Spike. “Buffy is going to grind your dusty ass up for kitty litter. Right after she rips your skull loose and uses it to play football. BUFFY!”

Spike covered his ears. This wasn’t right at all. He’d told the demons to go to his crypt. They must have stumbled on the real Dawn. And, this ugly woman with the brown hair. He recognized her from someplace. Where, where? Oh yeah. Buffy’s house. The woman from Social Services. None of this was making sense. “Clotlet? Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me. Who did you think it was?” She broke loose from Molt’s grip and picked up a cactus filled, decorative ceramic planter and aimed for Spike’s head.

Warren strolled into the atrium with his two sidekicks and the Spikebot who was holding another Dawn’s hand. “Glory, babe. Got your Key. Let’s talk money. I’ve already got $50K on the table from her sister.”

“Who the hell are you?” Spike said to the Spikebot.

The Dawnbot smiled, showing her neat rows of polished, porcelain teeth. “I am Dawn. I am the Key.” Dawnbot walked over to Real Dawn. “Say, look at you. You look just like me! We're very pretty.”

KRASH! Dawn dropped the ceramic planter on the floor and stared at her robot twin. “Spike,” Really Real Dawn said. “What. Have. You. Done?”