“I believe that history is capable of anything. There exists no folly that men have not tried out.” - C. G. Jung

Edo, Japan: Genroku Year 4

Takeshi sat in a small food stand in the Nihonbashi, the merchant district of Edo, watching his cup of sake cool. It was quickly becoming obvious that Ichiro’s contact, Hideaki, was going to be late, and he did not want to be caught out after dark with too much rice wine running in his veins.

With his chopsticks, he poked disinterestedly at the cooling pile of noodles and vegetables that had been set in front of him. The wait was becoming interminable. All he wanted was to return home to Kaede, maybe join her on a patrol, and retire for the evening. Well, maybe not retire. Kaede had yet to come home from a night of slaying tired in three months of marriage. Takeshi smiled to himself at the thought. He was a lucky, lucky man.

His pleasant thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of a reed-thin man in dirty clothes, obviously fresh from the road. His shaved pate marked him as a fellow samurai, but his weak frame and furtive manner led Takeshi to believe that the man could not be a warrior of much repute. He watched the newcomer glance around the noodle-shop nervously before his eyes finally came to rest on Takeshi himself. The man, who could only be Hideaki if Ichiro’s description held true, slipped through the crowd and joined him in the booth with a timid greeting.

Takeshi decided to try to hurry the conversation along and cut straight to the point. “Ichiro sends his regrets, but planning for the battle has kept him occupied.” When Hideaki glanced around the room in horror, Takeshi pointed at the lantern hanging over the table. It glowed with an eerie light, slightly greener than the candle-lit ones that were scattered throughout the rest of the restaurant. “Relax. There is a spell on this booth that keeps anyone from hearing what we’re saying. You can speak freely. My name is Takeshi.”

“You are the slayer’s husband?” When Takeshi nodded, the man continued. “My name is Hideaki, but you already knew that. I wish I had better news for you.” Takeshi suppressed his impatience when the man leaned over and helped himself to a cup of sake. After sipping cautiously at the liquid and pinning Takeshi with an appraising stare, Hideaki finally spoke. “My patroness says that the slayer will not survive the fight against Orochi unless she comes to Ise.”

“What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?” he growled, worried and defensive all at once.

Hideaki’s calming gestures did little to comfort the young warrior. “I am not insulting your wife’s prowess. From how I hear it, she is one of the best warriors in many generations. What I meant is that Orochi cannot be harmed without certain potions or spells. My patroness is a priestess and can provide such things.”

Takeshi thought for the moment. Many demons did have strange immunities, and it would make sense that a demon-lord as powerful as Orochi would have many such protections. It was just one more thing that Ichiro’s “infallible” books had not told them. Takeshi could appreciate the values of research, but he often felt that Kaede’s watcher put too much stock in his own knowledge and value. The world was much larger and more complex than the older scholar seemed to want to admit. “I can pass that message along to the slayer easily enough. Does this patroness of yours have a name?”

Hideaki turned a few shades paler, if that was even possible. “She told me that she would make herself known to the slayer when the time was right.”

Takeshi’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but he would not ask a fellow samurai to disobey his lady. “Fair enough. If that is all, I must return to the slayer and give her the message so that Ise can be worked into her plans.” With a slight bow, Takeshi took his leave and retreated to the streets.

He had not made it three blocks when a commotion in one of the dingy allies caught his attention. He thought he could see figures, a man and a woman, struggling in the darkness. A muffled “Help!” sent him running between the buildings.

And into a trap.

Takeshi skidded to a halt, sword drawn, when he recognized the “victim” as one of Sano’s followers, a vampiress named Akane. He cursed his rash behavior when her “attacker” turned, revealing the familiar face of Katsuo, her mate. Takeshi had crossed blades with the pair before, and he knew them to be a powerful and crafty duo. It was not until other figures started appearing out of the shadows that Takeshi really started to fear. As skilled as he was, he could not take on this many vampires alone. He glanced around the alley, frantically searching for an escape route.

“Well, what have we caught in our net?” a sibilant voice called from the shadows. Takeshi’s heart froze. He knew that voice. The vampires directly in front of him parted to allow the speaker through. When Sano stepped into the circle, Takeshi felt the final shred of hope leave him. At this point, he could only try to take as many of his opponents as he could with him into death. “The slayer’s little play thing.” Laughter erupted among the other vampires, and Sano waited for it to quiet before he continued. “You know, I still owe her for this,” he gestured to his empty eye socket. Sano’s smile twisted into a fierce grimace. “I think killing you might just be the message she needs.”

With that, the other vampires fell silent. They started circling Takeshi, watching him with glowing golden eyes. The young warrior gripped his sword in front of him, and waited for the first attack. The knowledge that Kaede would die without the information he carried guided his hands. He lasted a full five minutes and felt the dust of as many vampires before Sano’s teeth sank into his neck. The other vampires grabbed him, pinning him to the ground and adding bites of their own.

Takeshi opened his mouth, but if he meant to curse his attackers or ask the gods’ forgiveness, he was not sure. It did not matter though, because suddenly his mouth was filled with a thick, cloying liquid. As darkness overtook him, Takeshi realized that Sano had slit his own wrist and shoved the bleeding wound into his mouth. He struggled against the grip of the other vampires, against the fluid that was running down his throat, but all of his strength had left him.

I’m so sorry Kaede.

*****

The first thing Takeshi noticed was the hunger. It writhed and tore inside him like a living thing. The next thing he noticed was the burning drive to hunt, to kill. His body stirred at the prospect, desperate to wake and satisfy the powerful drives that were pulling at him. He instinctively knew that he had been reborn, that he was a human no longer. He was a demon, a vampire.

As he clawed towards consciousness, his hand closed around the familiar hilt of his sword. His grip tightened in anticipation of the violence he would reap with this blade, but suddenly his being was flooded with brilliant light. Heat and warmth flowed from the sword and into his body, bringing with it everything Takeshi had been before his death, bringing with it his soul.

Kaede!

Takeshi jerked awake, confused and disoriented. His unneeded gasps broke through the silence of the room. A wild survey of his surroundings revealed that he was in what appeared to be an abandoned boat house. Racks where boats had once been stored lined the walls, a few broken oars stood in the corner, and the smell of fish permeated the air. In that moment, the sharp edge of Takeshi’s hunger chose to return to him.

The newly risen vampire gripped his head, at war with himself. His newborn demon was screaming for blood, but his soul fought against the prospect, telling him that he needed to escape and find his wife. In the end the rational part of Takeshi overtook his primal, demonic urges and he managed to calm himself enough to truly study his surroundings.

He could hear boisterous voices in the next room. He recognized some of them: Akane, Katsuo, Naoki, Cho, Sano, all of his murderers in one place. Unless he was too much mistaken, the voices were all raised in amusement and revelry. He could guess what they were celebrating, their perfect gift for the slayer: him.

They expect me to wake craving violence and blood. Kaede’s blood.

The demon in him reached for the voices, recognizing them as kin, but Takeshi was too overwhelmed by rage to let that tiny voice sway him. He moved to the door and took a moment to listen to the demons in the adjoining room. Without meaning to, his face shifted and his own demonic visage emerged.

Let’s see how much they like their new toy.

*****

Sunnydale, California: 1999

When Giles asked Willow to go to the local magic shop to pick up some of the ingredients for the potion, Spike surprised everyone, including himself, by volunteering to accompany her. He needed to escape the watcher’s house, even if just for a little while, and he figured any escape route would suit him just fine. He hadn’t expected to be allowed to go.

The vampire had actually woken up in the middle of Buffy’s “be nice to Spike” lecture, but had feigned unconsciousness in order to see what would come of her little speech. Then, when she had scooped him up and carried him into the living room, well, he wasn’t about to miss out on being pressed against the slayer’s chest. Amusing diversions aside, the conversation with the undead samurai, the memories that seemed to have been shoved into his head, and the slayer’s odd behavior had all conspired to make for one very confused vampire. He needed to get away and feel the night air on his skin before he went mad.

Giles had hemmed and hawed until Buffy had fixed him with a withering glare, and so Spike was stuck with a nervous witch, walking the streets of Sunnydale. There was one thing about Willow that the vampire noticed very, very quickly. When she was nervous, she babbled.

“So I guess we need to pick up the eel’s bane, tree bark, and dove feathers at the magic store, but I bet we could find the seaweed, sea salt, and dried mushrooms at the grocery store for a better price. I mean, if you’re okay with walking the extra distance. Not to say that you’re out of shape because, duh, vampire, but I was just thinking…”

“Red!” Spike cut the girl off. She clammed up immediately and gave him a nervous glance.

“Yes?” she asked meekly.

“I’m not going to eat you, or stab you with a bottle, or any of the other things I’m sure are runnin’ through that head of yours. I just needed to get out of that flat, yeah? So cut with the chatter. You’re drivin’ me ‘round the bend.”

“Oh, okay.” The witch fell silent, and Spike breathed a sigh of relief.

They walked in peace and quiet for the next couple of blocks, the witch fidgeting with her shopping list and the vampire trying to make sense of the tangle in his head. At length, Willow broke the silence again. “Um, Spike?”

“What?” he snapped.

Willow took a deep breath and plowed on in the face of his irritation. “Don’t take this the wrong way, or as a suggestion or whatever, but, um, why aren’t you running off right about now?”

The question, asked in so earnest a manner, caught the vampire completely by surprise.

Because I’m apparently in love with the slayer.

“Because how else am I supposed to get my revenge on the army boys? Don’t worry, Red, I’m not gonna bolt at the nearest cemetery.” He smirked at the expression on Willow’s face, a mixture of disappointment and relief. After that, they continued their walk in relative peace.

The stop by the magic shop was fairly uneventful. Spike even managed to refrain from commenting on the change in décor from the year before. At the grocery store, however, things got interesting. Willow had already found the sea salt in the seasonings section, and the two were standing in the ethnic foods aisle where Willow was looking at bags of nori seaweed and dried shiitake mushrooms.

Not that the moment of quiet wasn’t doing wonders for his need to mull over the day’s events, but Spike had always hated the bright fluorescent lights and mirrors common to most grocery stores. They made him feel exposed.

The vampire was considering telling Willow that he would wait for her to finish outside, when he spotted the trio of men on the other end of the aisle. All three were well-built and dressed in ordinary college-student clothes, but something was very familiar about them. Spike studied them as discreetly as he could out of the corner of his eye. Two were white with light brown, short hair and the third was black with a shaved head. It was the combat boots the shortest man wore that finally fit the pieces together in the vampire’s mind.

“Grab what you need Red. We’re leaving.” When the witch looked ready to argue, he pinned her with an angry glare. “Now!” he growled.

She gulped, and nodded before finally selecting a bag of mushrooms. “All ready.” She glanced down the aisle and her face lit up. “Hey, that’s Riley!” When she started to wave at the three men, Spike grabbed her by the arm, chip tingling a warning at his rough handling, and led her out of their line of sight and to the nearest cash register.

“Spike, what’s the big deal? I was just going to go say hi to Buffy’s boyfriend.”

Well doesn’t this just get better and better.

“I don’t care if he was the pope. We’re gettin’ outta here.”

Spike shifted his weight from foot to foot, watching the aisles nervously. He half-expected the three to come running around the corner at any second, armed to the teeth with tasers and electrified nets. When the witch finally handed the cashier the money and picked up her bag to leave, he thanked the stars that had guided Drusilla all those years and fled the store with the witch in tow.

After he had dragged her for three blocks, Willow finally decided to protest. “Spike, stop it.” When she struggled against his grip on her wrist, Spike instinctively tightened his hand, which made the chip fire. With a cry of agony, the vampire dropped her arm and moved to clutch his aching temples instead. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what is going on.” She crossed her arms and put on the sternest expression her doll-like features could manage.

“You know the commando group you’ve been huntin’? The ones that put this damned chip in my head?” When Willow nodded reluctantly, he continued. “Well, Mr. Perfect and his merry band back there are all card-carryin’ members.”