Three for a Secret by Lilachigh



Chapter 6 The Truth is Close



Xander and Anya were sitting in a coffee shop having a latte and a violent argument. He wasn’t quite sure why – it had something to do with commitment or lack of commitment or perhaps too much commitment. And Willow. Yes, he grabbed at a few phrases as they flew past his ears – his helping Willow the other evening had definitely been wrong, apparently. Then she started on his relationship with Buffy and things got very rough.

He sat, stirring his coffee, waiting for the storm to pass. Eventually Anya pushed back her chair and stormed out, leaving him feeling bruised and unhappy. He felt so unappreciated; he tried his very best but nothing was ever good enough.

“Excuse me, would you mind if I sat with you?”

He looked up and fell into two deep blue pools of molten sapphire. The most beautiful woman he’d ever met was asking if she could sit opposite him.

“What? Oh, er, - ” He gazed round apprehensively. Was this a set-up? A big joke played by the other Scoobies. Watch Xander wriggle and stammer when this gorgeous creature spoke to him. But there was no one in the coffee shop he recognised.

The woman sat down and smiled at him. Her long brown curls were tied back from her face with a length of blue velvet ribbon and the white lacy top she wore revealed perfect shoulders and breasts that were enough to make any guy, engaged or not, have lustful thoughts.

“It’s so crowded in here,” she was saying softly, “and there are some very odd people around. You looked so nice and strong, I thought you wouldn’t mind if I shared your table.”

“No, of course not,” Xander burst out. “And, yes, very odd people around, but then most of them quite harmless, but sometimes not and if you need protecting in any shape or form, then, hey, just ask and I’ll – ”

“I knew you were different to all these others in here,” she said stopping his ramblings by laying a small delicate hand on his wrist.

Xander felt a shudder run through him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the envious looks he was getting from guys who wouldn’t normally have noticed if he’d been sitting there stark naked. Well, maybe one would, but then Jeremy was like that!

“Would you like a coffee?” he managed.

“I’d rather just sit and talk,” the woman said. “I’m English – I expect you can tell from my accent. It’s rare that I get the opportunity to meet an interesting American man.”

Interesting? Xander felt some of his Anya-dented pride inflate. This beautiful woman thought he was interesting.

“I’m ashamed to say, I overheard you talking to that stern faced girl earlier. She was being really mean to you, going on and on about your friendship with – who was it now, a strange name – Buffy?”

“Buffy Summers. My best friend,” Xander said. “Anya can’t believe that a man and a woman can just be friends without being – well, you know.”

The woman leaned forward and tightened her fingers across his. “Oh, I do know. Look, tell me all about it and then perhaps I can confide in you.”

“I can’t imagine you have any problems.”

The girl raised fine dark eyebrows and smiled at him. “I have a husband who – well – let’s just say, if he was like you, I’d be a far happier woman.”

Xander felt his head spinning. What an incredible girl! He could feel every nerve in his body responding to her touch and it was odd because she reminded him of someone, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on who that could be.

The girl got up and moved round to sit next to him, her brown curls falling across his shoulder as she bent her head to listen to his complaints about the women in his life.

Outside in the dark, an even darker shadow slid across the window. A seven foot green demon bent his cow-like head and glared through the glass to where his wife was sitting, acting in a far too friendly fashion with a human male whom he’d earlier watched being nasty to a very sweet looking girl who he sensed had been a demon at some time. And a deep growl vibrated through his emerald body.

At midday the next morning, Buffy, Willow and Anya sat round the table in the Magic Box, waiting for Spike and his cousin to appear.

Under great protest, Anya had put the Closed notice on the shop door. She seemed to be in an even snarkier mood than usual, Buffy thought, and hoped the ex-demon hadn’t had another row with Xander.

Willow was still in a state of shock over Buffy’s revelations about Spike’s sister. “Buffy, this is amazing,” she said now, flicking through pages of a huge, ancient book. “Does Spike really think this Hope child could still be alive after all this time?”

Buffy shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense to me, Will. But then I’ve never been big on dimensions and alternative universes and demon worlds. I leave all that to you and Giles usually.”

“And we’re helping Spike because?” Anya asked with painful accuracy.
“I mean, I can sympathise with little girl lost in demon world – although to be fair, I expect she’s had a really good time in all these years – but she isn’t going to be the same, now is she? I mean, what’s Spike going to do if he finds a wrinkled old lady demon, over a hundred years old, who turns out to be his little sister!”

Willow’s eyes grew round and large. “Or someone who’s grown lots of tentacles, or more eyes, or – ”

“Enough tentacle talk,” Buffy broke in. “You’re both forgetting, Spike helped look after Dawn when I was dead. I feel I owe him at least the chance for you two to take a look at this locket thingy and see if you can make it work.”

“Will the rich husband be coming, too?” Anya said, suddenly enthusiastic.

“Div’vid? No, Arabella swears he’s in L.A. I don’t know who it could have been that Xander saw the other evening. Another Frovlax, I suppose. And where is Xander? Didn’t you tell him about the meeting?”

Anya tossed her head. “Xander didn’t get home until three this morning. And I could smell perfume all over him. Horrible gardenia perfume. He slept on the kitchen floor! I didn’t even want him on the couch, impregnating it with that scent. It was impossible to wake him. I really do think you did a bad job with Xander, Willow ”

“Me?” Willow said, her voice raising a pitch in tone. “So not responsible for your boyfriend’s – ”

“Buffy!”

The three girls at the table jumped as Spike’s voice rang out. Buffy stood up, hoping her expression was completely neutral, the way she’d practised in front of the bathroom mirror this morning.

He was standing in the doorway to the basement steps, his arm around his cousin’s slim shoulders, as if protecting her from all comers. Buffy pushed back the surge of irritation this sight gave her. Arabella managed to look small and vulnerable – like a small vulnerable rattlesnake, Buffy thought angrily.

“This is my cousin, Arabella,” he said to Willow and Anya. “Bella, you know Buffy, of course. That’s Willow, the witch, and Anya, who used to be a Vengeance Demon.”

Arabella moved out of the shelter of his body and walked demurely to greet the other girls. Buffy was amazed at how she looked; where had the sexy, man-eating vampire gone? Her dark curly hair was tamed, swept up in a neat pleat; big round spectacles shielded her eyes, making her look like a rather anxious, cuddly owl. A cute fluffy white sweater over a dark green skirt and black boots. And hanging around her neck, a heavily embossed silver locket.

She looked very feminine but completely non-threatening, the sort of girl you would happily let talk to your guy at a party while you went to the bathroom. Buffy glanced down at her own worn jeans and old red T-shirt. She knew she’d washed and conditioned her hair that morning, but at the sight of Arabella she felt grubby and dull.

Buffy could sense Willow and Anya’s puzzled stares in her direction. This girl was nothing like the predator Buffy had described to them.

“I really appreciate all you people trying to help William and I in our quest,” Arabella said huskily, sitting down at the tale next to Willow. “I know that working with another vampire must be difficult for you, especially as I’m not chipped like my cousin, but I can assure you, I am completely harmless. I’ve lived a very quiet life. I eat pig’s blood and Cornflakes.”

She smiled across at Anya. “Can I say how much I admire the way you’ve coped with your new life as a human? Spike told me all about it. He’s been so impressed and I was when he gave me the details.”

Anya’s expression changed from suspicious to friendly in a blind. “Oh, oh, well, that’s very nice of you. It has been difficult and not a lot of people realise that.” And she glared at Willow.

“And you’re Buffy’s best friend, aren’t you?” Arabella said, turning the blazing blue eyes on Willow. “She’s so lucky to have the backing of someone as pretty and clever as you!” The vampire girl sighed. “I never had a best friend, except Cousin William, of course, and I don’t think we could call him pretty, could we!” And she laughed and reached up to pat Spike’s arm where he stood behind her.

Buffy wondered if it would go unnoticed if she threw up in the middle of the table.

“We’d better get to work,” she said briefly. “Let Willow see the locket, Arabella.”

The vampire tried to slide the chain over her head, then turned and smiled warmly at Spike, indicating that the clasp was trapped in her hair.

Buffy found she was digging her fingernails into her palms so hard she was sure there would be bloody marks if she looked. Spike’s blond head was bent so close to the brown curls, his mouth centimetres from her cheek as he carefully untangled the chain and lifted it clear.

One of the oldest tricks in the book and Spike fell for it, as if, as if he were a seventeen-year-old virgin, Buffy raged silently.

Willow took the locket and laying it on the table, stared at it for a long time. She ran her finger down the seam and tried to prise it open, but it stayed solid. “Darla said there was something inside it?”

Arabella nodded. “It was at my leaving party before I went home to get married. She was very tipsy, laughing at Spike. He was drunk and being obnoxious – sorry William, but you were – then she turned to me and said, ‘He wouldn’t be so cocky if he knew where I’d sent Hope, his little sister.’ Then she tapped on this locket round her neck and said, “It amuses me to think the truth is so close to him and he’ll never know.”

The vampire girl took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. “I asked her what she meant, because I’d never known William had a sister. She kept saying it was a big secret and that I must never tell him because if he tried to follow her, he’d die.”

“And you kept the secret from him all these years?” Buffy broke in bitterly and was aware of Spike throwing her a startled glance. “Jeez, that must have been really hard. All those conversations and you never thought of telling him he had a half sister who might still be alive!”

Arabella turned with a reproachful look on her face. “Oh, don’t you think I wanted to tell him? I’ve explained all this to dear William. But I was so scared. For all I knew the locket had been charmed in some magical way and William would die if he managed to even open it. ”

A lone tear trickled down her face and Buffy wondered why it was that some girls could cry and still look beautiful? When she cried she got red eyes and an even redder nose. She ended up looking like a squashed tomato.

Arabella sighed and went on, her voice thick with anguish. “I know I was wrong, but William was the only relation I had in the whole world. I – I admit I was selfish. I didn‘t want him to die, and he was so happy with Dru, and I was with Div’vid, I just kept the secret. But now I know just how wrong I was and I’m trying my best to make amends.”

Buffy turned away in disgust, as she listened to Willow and Anya making sympathetic noises.

“Well, Red, can you open it?” Spike asked, his whole body tense.

Willow was busy turning the pages of a smelly leather bound book. “You were right in thinking this book would give you the answer, Spike,” she said. “But you would still have needed a witch to do the charm. Ah, here it is!”

She and Anya banged heads as they both bent over the page together. Willow glared at the ex-demon who sat back huffily and only looked happier when Arabella surreptitiously patted her hand.

“It’s a very old charm,” Willow said. “I’ve never heard of it before. The locket is a key to another dimension.”

“What?” Buffy said. “You mean Dru sent Hope to the same place Glory came from?”

“No, of course, not,” Anya said impatiently. “We’ve been through all this before, Buffy. There are hundreds of different demon dimensions. They all have doorways from this world and there have to be keys to unlock the doors. There’s no way of knowing what the dimension was like that Hope was sent to, but as the locket isn’t a green shiny light, I’m sure it isn’t Glory’s.”

Spike, who was concentrating on standing still when all he wanted to do was yell and run and punch something, said, “Red, can you open the soddin’ locket or not?”

Willow glanced up at her best friend. “Well, yes, I can, but Buffy, do you want an open portal into a demon dimension here in Sunnydale?”

Buffy blinked as four pair of eyes gazed at her. Willow’s anxious, Anya’s curious, Arabella’s hidden behind her glasses and Spike’s – blue and brave, trying not to plead.

This wasn’t fair, she thought. She shouldn’t have to make this sort of decision. Would she be putting everyone in Sunnydale in danger if they opened this portal? What if a whole horde of demons came pouring out and she couldn’t contain them?

She could imagine what Giles would say; that she must consider the bigger picture and not worry about Spike’s feelings. And surely he was right. She had to push aside all her memories of asking Spike to take care of Dawn and her mom over the years, of knowing how he’d cared for her sister, been tortured by Glory to keep the Key’s identity a secret, then watched over the teenager while Buffy had been dead and gone.

None of that had to matter because you had to look at the bigger picture.

She opened her mouth to say, “I’m so sorry, Spike – ” and then Arabella moved her hand slightly and Buffy could see her face. She was smiling! A little curved smile that made her look like a cat who has just spotted a very tasty mouse. She knew what Buffy was going to say and she was glad! This was exactly what Spike‘s cousin wanted – for Hope to be left where she was and for it all to be Buffy’s fault.

And in that instant Buffy knew that Arabella knew far more about the demon dimension than she was telling. She wasn’t worried about the portal being opened. She wanted it left shut for a totally different reason. She wanted to be the one to tell Spike about his sister, but didn’t want the sister back in his life.

Spike had turned away, his shoulders drooping in despair. Buffy felt her heart ache. OK, he was a soulless vampire, but he was her soulless vampire. She had the right to make his life miserable, but not anyone else! She was tired of the big picture, tired of always doing what was right for everyone else. Spike had helped Dawn. She would help Hope.

“Open the locket, Will,” she said and felt herself smile as Spike turned and shot her a look of blazing thanks.

To be continued