CHAPTER 16

The cellar was extraordinarily cold. Like a death pit. Or a grave. Buffy’s eyes were so open that they were like magnifying glasses on dark, blurry silhouettes. He was so heavy… And so not of any help at all. Besides, the long train of the dress did nothing to collaborate and kept on entangling in her ankles as another demon trying to stop her pace. She bumped into a hard surface. Hard and soft in some places. Maybe a big sofa of some kind… Rounding it, she managed to hide them both behind it.

Patting his face, Buffy reached his closed eyelids. Still out… But she had to do something! She couldn’t stay down there waiting for Angelus to find them. Maybe her blood still held some kind of super fast healing powers in spite of the lack of Slayer’s strength… She pushed her wrist against his swollen lips but he didn’t move. Never knew when she started to cry again. Her tears fell on his eyebrows and glided along his nose. One, two, three as rain drops in a winter night. Taking one of the pins that held her hair out of her face, she cut a little gash and pushed the wound hastily.

“Come on, come on.” A constant, pleading murmur. “Please, Spike. Please…”

She didn’t know if he had heard her but his tongue licked her wrist making her jolt. God, how she missed him! How she missed the soft and hot feeling of his mouth on her skin… A sudden racket made her raise her head. Footsteps were coming down… She hugged the limp figure in her arms like an orphan child who had found a new doll on the streets.

“Hiding Willie?” Buffy felt she had no tongue but a new heart pounding against her palate. How in hell he was on his feet so quick? “Never thought you’re such a coward. Come on, - he ran into something and his insult cut the air, - I know you’re here. I can smell you… Your blood, mmm. Really tasty, boy.”

Buffy’s hands flew to her chest as if she’d be able to cup her own heart to prevent the beats from being heard. Her rapid gasps slowed to those of a dying bird. But… if that fiend had smelt Spike’s blood… The gash in her wrist screamed with fear.

Another loud bump and an awful odour mixed with another swearing. Something tickling and intense filled the enclosed space. Paraffin…

“Okay, play hide and sick, - Angelus giggled, - as long as you want. Dru and I are going to have some fun out there. Without you, of course. There’s that place I always wanted to visit… Hope you’ll be healed when we return… Dru can’t stand weak and feeble boys, Willie. Take it as a friend’s tip.”

Her ears had grown. Either that or her hearing powers had achieved vampiric levels. That silly, sinister giggle was Dru’s. Buffy’s guts jumped with disgust and jealousy. For Christ sake! She could still feel something so absurd as that in this hideous situation! The front door slammed sharply. The air in her lungs escaped in a long stream as though she were nothing but now flat tyres. Minutes passed without further sounds. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Her legs were a numb spot. Grabbing the back of the sofa, Buffy got to her feet. The light that came down from the ground floor traced a yellowish path along dirty pieces of furniture and stopped on the springs that pointed at the ceiling through the torn flowered upholstery.

She stomped the floor a few seconds just to regain the normal flood of blood. A moan came from the lying figure at her feet. “Sp… William. William, please open your eyes.” She begged with a strangled throat. “I need your help. Just a little at least.” She mumbled helping him to a standing position.

Going upstairs had never taken so long to any person. Two steps left and it seemed as far as her home. With a final effort they both collided on the hall carpet. Buffy didn’t stop to check on him. Rushing to the door, she ran to the corner just to get a carriage of any sort. She was going to get as far as she could away from that fucking house even if she had to steal it, which it would probably be the case with her current bad luck…

“Oh, come on! Where the fuck are you when somebody needs you?” She shouted at the long street ahead as if she were waiting for a taxi in some city. “Past year this damned place was crowded with… Oh! STOP!” She waved her arms to the black carriage that turned round the corner. And froze in that position. What if they were coming back in that carriage? How more stupid she could be? Too late now. The driver managed to bring the horses to a halt just a few inches from her dress.

“So, are ya getting in or wha’?” The man asked her from above. His hatched-face was outlined by a lamp hanging from a hook by his side.

“Oh, sir! Yes! But I must… I have to…” The gears in her mind looked for a good excuse. That not too gentle guy would never let her get into his carriage dragging a fainted man. And last thing she wanted was facing the police again.

“I’m here.” A weak, rough voice sputtered behind her. Buffy swirled around and her shocked gaze ran along a long, dark overcoat. Something in his eyes was pleading her to stop gaping and start moving. He didn’t know how much time he was going to be able to fake a normal posture. Buffy seized his arm and they both got into the carriage. The house was soon a distant black speck in a black canvas.



After dozing the whole trip, William woke up in Buffy’s arms. Her head had rolled to one side and bumped slightly against the frame of the window. Still a little dizzy, he drew the small, dark curtain but he couldn’t work out where they were. Tapping the ceiling with an amazingly strong fist, he waited for the driver to stop.

“Where are we?” His face was like a moon showing through the drapes.

“Your missus back there told me to get ya as far as I could. Crossing the river, she said. Never told me where.”

“I’m asking you now.” His fingers nails sank on his palm. For all the…! He could feel the strength slowly filling them as warm ants.

“Tooley St.”

“What???” William jumped out of the carriage. His knees buckled a little. “Where were you planning to take us, mate? All the bloody way to Dover? Thanks God horses don’t swim. Would be in Calais right now.” He put a note in the man’s stretched hand. Could have snapped his neck in a second but a pair of sleepy hazel eyes were staring at him from the window. A dream. He was so beaten that probably he was dreaming it all. Her warm hand felt real enough, though. And the funny noise of her skirt. Or the shiver that ran along her body and stopped in his palm. Even the soft and insistent rain that fell from the sky.
As he walked along the streets, he couldn’t but think the driver fellow had done a good thing. Angelus would never trace them so far. In case, the bastard would plan such a thing. He’d have time to heal and to find out certain things as why in hell, she, of all the women in the world, was there again. With the same borrowed dress, and he was not going to think of his mother in that moment; spotless as if that damned party had been only hours ago. The same pendant, the same earrings, the same round, full heaving breasts threatening to burst the seams…

“Want a room, mate? Can’t have that lovely missy all drenched, now can you?” A man he hadn’t seen. Or sensed. The rain was a heavy curtain now, blurring the tall buildings and fading the poor lights of the gas lamps.

William turned round. Her hair was a dark, soaked cloak, half hiding her eyes. She was shivering. That wasn’t a dress for being out in the cold. William followed the man into a long corridor that smelt of old wax and old leaking ceilings. The stairs squealed under their steps as if it were full of invisible rats. He stopped in front of a bad painted door. Some woman was singing a lullaby in the next room. A man was shouting in the upper floor to a bunch of noisy kids. A ship siren pierced the air.

“It’s not the Queen’s Palace but it’s clean. And has a big bed…” The man joked but all he got back was a steel blue gaze. “Fifteen shillings a week. And the fireplace doesn’t work.”

William dug in his pocket. After she had run away to the street, leaving him on that carpet, he had decided it wasn’t a good idea to stay in the house. As he’d said to himself before, he needed to get his strength back to face Angelus again. He had grabbed the first coat he had found hanging in the coat stand in the parlour. Couldn’t wander along the streets only dressed with black boots. And then, he had seen her. Again. Like a ghost. Standing in that corner, waving her hands at the approaching carriage, filling him again with the strange feeling of a never-ending dream. He was still wrapped in it. While he gave the coins to the man, when she walked into the room, inviting him in with a weak voice. While they both stood still in the middle of the small space, her eyes jumping from the ceiling to the floor, never reaching his face. The wounds in his body still ached and shed tiny drops.

“You should…” …take that dress off… He was going to say that. His former William had stopped his tongue as though he were still a gentleman. Facing her, he felt like that. As if he hadn’t died and reborn into a new life. As inhibited and shy as he used to be.

Listening to the unspoken words her eyes finally met his and something in her heart broke like a porcelain cup. All the way inside that carriage she had tried so hard to steel her heart. Just to face his eyes. Just to look into them and didn’t sink in a desperate whirlpool of thinking she had Spike again. ‘Cause he wasn’t. He wasn’t even human William. And yet… His eyes told otherwise. The same blue, the same tenderness they held when Spike thought she wasn’t looking at him. The same beautiful features caressed intensely by the warm orange light of the candles. Outlined as if they were in some crypt, hiding from the world to shout and scream in perfect and utter satisfaction. There was something missing, though. The scar on his eyebrow. That she sketched with her fingers when she was straddling him on her couch. She had to focus on that, then. Just for her guts to stay calm. Just for the tears not to flood her. Yet… it was such a thin rope… It would snap in frayed halves. Sooner or later. She knew it with all the hot, clinking nerve endings of her being.

tbc...