Stunning banner by xaphania


Chapter 28


It had been two days since she last saw him. And she wasn’t worried at all. Nope. Not even after the doubt wheedled its way into her brain. Had he simply been playing her and was now tired of the games? Was she just making a big deal out of him not seeking her in two days? Or worse, did something happen?


“Buffy,” Giles said after he approached with newspapers clutched in his hand.


Maybe the distraction was just what she needed. “Yes?”


“Have you seen Spike?”


She almost jumped from the couch and managed to squeak out very eloquently, “What? Why? I mean… huh?”


Giles fixed her with a suspicious look and took off his glasses with a sigh. “Am I supposed to take that as a yes?”


She cringed. “I-I might have… but it was only a couple of times!”


“A couple… Buffy, you cannot possibly be serious!” He sat down in the armchair opposite her and tossed a copy of Daily Mail at the table between them. “Read.”


Her gaze flickered between him and the newspaper before she gathered her courage and picked it up. The head title read: BRUTAL HOMICIDES SWEEP THROUGH OUR COUNTRY. Buffy skimmed the intro, her heart hammering at the further information on the manner and circumstances of the recent murders. New victims surface in the area of Bath. Brutal maiming with a sharp object. Possibly a spike of some sort. The newspaper slipped from her fingers to land on her lap as she raised her gaze to meet Giles’.


“Do you think it was-”


“It’s his trademark, is it not? He’s just a vampire, a demon, Buffy. You’ll be doing this world a favour when you do your duty and end his existence. I warned you to not let him fool you.”


“B-but he was so… he promised-”

“He lied to you. Isn’t that what vampires do?”


She looked away, shame of her gullibility burning a path up her throat. So this was how he’d been keeping himself busy. Making her trust him just to go tear a rampage through her town without anyone to hinder him.


A tiny voice inside her whispered it wasn’t true and that there had to be an explanation, as she marched to her room and grabbed a stake from her weapon chest. It followed her all the way to the building he lived in, no matter how hard she tried to squash it.


*******


So here she was, in front of his door, the palm of her hand sweating as she tightened her hold on the stake. The back of her neck shivered with a vampire’s presence, and she knew it was him. Spike was inside, and she was finally going to end this.


Buffy braced herself and kicked the door down. It smashed against the ground so loudly it would wake the dead, which probably meant half the residents of the building. There was only one vampire whose dusty demise she was interested in though. She had expected him to come running, leering around his fangs as he mocked her naïveté, but there was nothing but silence.


She carefully stepped over the debris and entered the flat. The sun wouldn’t be going down for another hour, and the rays pilfered through the thick curtains to illuminate the room, the swirls of dust dancing in the thin line streaming above the curtain rod.


As soon as she turned her gaze to the left, her whole body froze. The clatter of her stake falling to the floor jerked her out of the shock, and she hastily stumbled towards the bed.


So much blood.


Bile rose to the back of her throat as she forcibly swallowed the nausea down and knelt on the mattress. She could feel the blood seep into her jeans, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was how icy cold his skin was as she clasped his bare shoulder. The memory of William bleeding to death bombarded her every thought, and she started to tremble as she shook him.


He didn’t stir, didn’t breathe, gave no sign of life at all.


Coldness gripped her insides, as if transferring from his skin. She screamed his name.


It took her more than a minute to realize he was a vampire and as long as he wasn’t dust, he’d be all right.


She leaned back and stared at Spike’s unconscious form. His arms and legs were tied to the iron headboards in a mockery of a human sacrifice, the skin beneath the thick ropes seeping blood. There were deep lash marks and scratches all over his naked body and the sheet beneath him was soaked through with brown where the blood had already dried and crimson that had recently trickled from his open wounds.


She hastened to undo the bindings and let his limbs fall to the mattress then reached out to touch his skin, terrified of how frail he looked. How sickly pale and dead. He had to have been tied here for a long time. It couldn’t have been him, the article she’d read. It had to be someone else. Probably the same someone who did this to him.


Buffy leant her cheek against his chest and let the tears fall, watching as they mingled with the blood on his skin.


*******


Something had changed. Her subconscious nudged her into a dreamless state as she struggled to wake up. Then all came rushing back and she snapped her eyes open. She’d fallen asleep! In a dangerous vampire’s arms. The sun had already set and…


Spike was awake.


Despite the injuries, he smiled at her crookedly then winced as it caused his split lip to reopen.


“Buffy?”


She sat up and pushed him to lie down when he tried to follow her.


“Spike, you’re… what happened?”


“Nothing to… fret… about. I’ll be… fine.”


“Are you kidding? You look like a vampire shish kebab!”


Spike frowned. “Get… out.”


He might as well have stabbed her in her heart. “What?”


“Go!” he yelled, the strain making him gasp and cough. A ribbon of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. “Not… safe… here.”


“Not safe? You think that whoever did this to you is going to come back and you want me to leave you here? Are you crazy? And maybe you forgot, but hello… Slayer here. I can take care of myself.”


He glared at her and hissed past his clenched teeth, “No… can’t. Not… them.”


“Them? Who? Who did this to you?” Her voice turned deadly, the need for revenge burning hot through her veins. “Tell me!”


He glanced away from her and shut his eyes from the pain, and Buffy felt ashamed for pushing him to talk when it so obviously hurt him. She stood up and strode into the bathroom to search the cabinets for anything resembling a first aid kit. Feeling slightly relieved when she spotted one, she put aside bottles of shower gel and shampoo in order to reach it. It was battered; the colour on the edges of the lid scraped off and its position in the back of the cabinet told her Spike didn’t use it at all. It had probably been there when he rented the place.


She brought it to his bed and sat down again. He peered at her from beneath heavy lashes, struggling to stay conscious. Rummaging through the box didn’t prove to be very helpful since it was full of antibiotics that had expired long time ago and wouldn’t be of any use to a vampire anyway. Then she found gauze sticking out from beneath a half empty tub of healing cream. She had just closed her fingers around the gauze when a sharp pain raced up her forefinger. Buffy cursed and dropped it on the bed before she looked at her finger for closer inspection.


Her forefinger was bleeding and she watched the blood well on her skin before she sucked the digit into her mouth. The edge of scissors stuck out from the place the gauze had been and Buffy scowled at it. She hoped it wasn’t rusty because getting a tetanus shot wasn’t her idea of a good time.


Then she noticed Spike had gone completely still, his whole body tensed as he stared at her finger. His eyes melted from yellow to blue to yellow again before he completely shifted into game face. Buffy stood up from the bed, putting distance between them when he growled, his hungry gaze still fixed on her wound.


“Spike?”


No response, if she didn’t count snarls as the usual means of communication. Her eyes widened when he rose from the bed and before she could blink, he was seizing her forearms with an unyielding grip. Buffy froze, expecting him to attack her throat. She had no doubt she could stop him easily, especially since he barely stood on his feet but she shivered nonetheless.


Then Spike sank to his knees and for a moment she thought the fatigue had overwhelmed him despite the demon’s craving to taste her blood. It turned out she was wrong. Spike took her hand in his and nuzzled her palm before he slowly drew her cut finger between his lips. He moaned as the taste of her blood hit his tongue. When he started to suckle her finger, his cool tongue caressing her skin, Buffy was a bit embarrassed to admit it made her blood rush faster through her veins, and it wasn’t from fear.


'Wow, am I kinky or what?'


She glanced down at him and had to squirm at the look of utter reverence and ardor flickering across his face. Spike held her gaze as he nicked the tip of her finger with his fang and continued drawing out the droplets of her blood. Her breathing quickened and her legs started to tremble when he trailed his hands up her thighs. Then he let her finger slip out of his mouth and buried his still vampiric face into her belly.


He looked crazed from the loss of blood and many injuries littering his body, but as he stared up at her with those yellow eyes, the last thing she felt was disgust. The part of her she felt in tune with the most when she was on a hunt sparked to life, and the sudden need to tackle him swept over her.


Buffy shook her head and bent slightly to help him stand up.


“Okay, that was enough excitement for the day… umm… night. To the bed with you.” She helped him settle down and averted her eyes from his nudity. Well, not before she caught a glimpse of his not so much limp state. Strangely, she didn’t feel as embarrassed as she probably should.


“Buffy.” He growled and the sound reverberated all the way to her core.


She leaned closer to brush the hair away from his forehead and watched in fascination as his demon façade melted to reveal his human face. He purred as she stroked his hair and curled into a fetal position.


He needed to eat to heal, but where could she get human blood? And if whoever did this to him came back, he couldn’t stay here. Buffy sighed.


She almost jumped out of her skin when her cell phone vibrated inside the pocket of her jeans and she drew it out. Faith’s ID lit across the screen.


Buffy accepted the call and lifted it to her ear. “Yes?”


Someone giggled on the other side and the sound chilled Buffy to the bone. She’d heard it before. “Faith?”


“She’s been a very naughty doll. I don’t like it when they speak out of turn.”


“Who are you and where’s Faith?”


“Oh, the Slayer is angry with me. Nasty, nasty Slayer that stole my Spike away.”


Pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, and Buffy realized where she’d heard the voice before. In her dream two years ago. It was Drusilla. And she had Faith.


“Where are you?” Buffy hissed.


“We’re playing. Making the Watcher watch, but she won’t scream. It makes my tummy upset.”


They had to be at Giles’ apartment then. In her home.


Buffy shut off the phone and tossed a quick glance in Spike’s direction. He seemed to be asleep, or unconscious. Now she was pretty sure who did this to him and who killed all those people in the last two days. It was bait. For her. The need to stay and watch over him was strong, but if she stayed here, Faith and Giles would die.


Knowing she made the right decision, Buffy ran, hoping against hope she wouldn’t be too late.


TBC