Chapter 7 - Information and Blood

The Watcher’s Journal of Sir Arthur Gosnard-Tisklin.

Skelton on Ure, October 12, 1900 – Lady Victorine must be the most uncooperative Slayer in history. This evening, she perched on a headstone next to a fresh gravesite, kicking her heels and amusing herself, as usual, by singing ridiculous and highly annoying ditties that one would expect to hear at the local pub. Tonight’s selections included I Do Like To Be By the Seaside and a particularly revolting specimen from the States called Barney Google.

Once the vampire clawed his way out of his grave, she waited until the last possible moment to strike. The vampire evaded her initial attack, a too common occurrence, I confess, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that I was able to rouse her to chase after the devil.

I’ve been forced to kill several of her foes with my crossbow due her lackadaisical attitude.

≈§ ≈ § ≈

Skelton on Ure, November 1, 1900 – Lady Victorine’s nonchalance with regard to her chosen duties pales in comparison to her refusal to receive instruction from me. Not for the first time, or one presumes for the last, her lady’s maid fetched round with a curt note stating that her Ladyship would, under no circumstances, appear for her ‘riding lessons’ this afternoon. The maid advised me that Lady V. had a pressing social engagement involving a young scamp from the neighborhood, Alferic Blackson, the local vicar’s son. One might have thought this pressing engagement could have been discharged yesterday on Halloween, when vampires make themselves scarce.

If this continues, I will speak to the Earl regarding his daughter’s willful behavior and if necessary, address the Council once again to reconsider their selection.

***

Willow was the first to arrive at Giles’ apartment.

Big mistake.

She waited for an opportune moment, when Giles was distracted with pouring himself a large glass of scotch, to return the book to its place. When she turned around, Giles was standing right behind her, sipping his drink and watching, which was a pretty Watcherly thing to do, now that it occurred to her. The watching, not the drinking, or maybe the drinking, too?

“What are you and Buffy up to, Willow?”

“Up to? Nothing. Nothing at all. I was checking out your Vampyr book. You know, to pass the time.”

“Lying is not your forte, Willow. You and Buffy stole the book yesterday. I’d like to know why your sudden interest in a book I’ve been unable to get Buffy to so much as glance at for the past three years.”

“Buffy wanted to brush up on her vampire lore. Kinda surprise you.” That sounded good for an Off The Cuff Lie Of A Desperate Kind.

“Don’t insult me, Willow. Why did Buffy want the book?”

Guess that Off The Cuff wasn’t so convincing. What should she do? Maintain the Face of Conspiracy, or go all Girl Brain Interrupted like Winona Ryder in that movie where she acted all frontal lobotomy or tell Giles what happened? She’d promised Buffy that she wouldn’t tell, but she hadn’t found any way to break the claim.

“Buffy’s kinda in trouble.”

Giles sat down and took a long drink of scotch. “What kind of trouble?”

“Spike trouble.”

“I hope I’m not going to have to drag every word out of you. It’s quite tedious.”

Willow crossed her arms and clasped her elbows and wrapped her legs together until she saw Giles studying her body language. She unraveled herself and talked.

“The other night after Buffy ran off, she went back to the bar and had some more beer with the magick potion in it. She ran into Spike and they … and then … actually, they sort of …”

“Willow, please get to the point.”

“Okay, pointiness. Spike put a vampire mating claim on Buffy while they were … while she was … she was sleeping! That’s it!” She plopped back on one of the sofa cushions which whooshed out air.

Giles took a large swig of scotch. Unbelievable. His Slayer consorting with one of the most notorious vampires in history and becoming the object of William the Bloody’s vampire mating claim. This surpassed any of her previous behavior for pigheadedness.

“That’s not it. Spike and Buffy had sexual relations. Is that what you two have been avoiding telling me?”

Willow nodded. “Buffy made me promise not to tell you, but I couldn’t figure out how to break the claim.”

“I have private resources that may help us. See if you can obtain more details about the ‘event’ from Buffy. In view of your promise, it will be best not to mention our conversation to Buffy just yet.”

“More details? Ewww.”

***

After a most tiresome meeting, Giles poured himself another glass of Scotch, his third – or was it his fourth? These get-togethers with Buffy and her friends seemed to require more and more Glenfiddich for him to get through.

This meeting was particularly irksome in view of Buffy’s pretense that nothing had occurred, when he knew bloody well that she was in deep trouble. He’d very nearly lost his temper when she recruited Xander to help her take out Spike’s new lair of vampires, without once mentioning her own entanglement with Spike.

The mating claim must be broken, and soon. The longer the claim existed, the more difficult its extinguishment would be for Buffy. He wasn’t overly concerned about the ramifications of breaking the claim for Spike. Drastic measures were required.

He went into the kitchen and opened a disguised cabinet under the sink and pulled out a package, wrapped in brown paper. The package was sealed twice with old-fashioned red sealing wax and stamped with the Council’s official seal and the personal seal of the Head of Council.

The outside of the package read:

Open only in case of Dire Emergency and with the
Express and written permission of the Council Minister
Lady Blodeuwedd Ronwen Giles, Norton Juxton Twycross
Watcher to Miss Aletha Ravensthorpe
Her Majesty’s Watcher’s Council
April 8, 1902

Giles held the package in his hand, examining his great-grandmother’s handwriting. He wished Lady Blodeuwedd or his own father were alive to provide him guidance, although it seemed impossible that any previous Slayer had so willfully involved herself with vampires or permitted herself to become the claimed mate of a creature like Spike. Still, there was comfort in knowing that a prior Watcher had faced a moment of extreme emergency with his Slayer and that his own great-grandmother had preserved some words she felt might be helpful in a time of danger and confusion.

He hadn’t called the Council and he didn’t plan to request their permission to open this package. He and Buffy had both been on the outs with the Council for some time. He might have informed them, if he hadn’t been afraid of what they might do. Sending a team to exterminate Buffy, along with her dead lover, was not out of the question for the Council.

He broke the seals and unwrapped the package, releasing an odd wisp of green dust. He held The Watcher’s Journal of Sir Arthur Gosnard-Tisklin in his hands, and paused a moment to reflect before opening the cover.

He’d heard many rumors about this journal while still in Watcher School. Some said the journal contained an account of a Slayer gone rogue, others that her Watcher had been driven insane. Alone, among all the Watcher’s journals that had been preserved for centuries, this volume had been declared classified and forbidden to all but those whom Head considered on a need to peruse basis.

Giles opened the first page and began to read.

***

Rosamund peered into the dirt-streaked diamond window in the door of Willy’s Place.

“What a shithole.”

She kicked the door open, startling the patrons. A scabby, wrinkly-skinned flapsera demon sneaked into the back room. A couple of pitiful vampire specimens looked at her, then returned to their glasses of blood.

She went up to the bar, picked up a dirty glass and dropped it on the floor to get the bartender’s attention.

Willy stopped polishing the dirty glass in his hand and placed a finger over his twitching eye. “Sunday? The Slayer dusted you. I thought you were dead – deader. I mean, gosh it’s good to see you again. That’s what I heard anyway, that you got slayed. You know how demons gossip and …”

“Shut up, Willy. The Slayer dusted Sunday. I’m Rosamund, her sister.”

“Gee, I should have known. Course, you’re much prettier than Sunday.”

“We’re twins, asshole. I want information and blood.”

Willy reached under the bar for the stake he kept handy for rowdy vampires. Not that he’d ever gotten to use it, because they always beat him up and took away his stake before he had the chance.

“What kind of information?” Information was easy, especially if he didn’t get beat up before he gave it out. He could give out real info if there was money involved, or make stuff up if cash was low.

The Slayer always agreed to pretend to beat him up for information, then really did beat him, which was not, in his opinion, a Slayerly thing to do. She’d punched him in the nose the last time she was in here, much harder than was required for pretence, which put Willy out of sorts with her.

“The Slayer. What’s her name? Where can I find her?” Rosamund drummed her pointed nails on the bar.

This was not a good question. Not the kind he liked to answer without a black eye to support any story he had to tell later to the Slayer that he’d been forced to talk. He should stall a bit. It was all very well to be out of sorts with the Slayer, but something else altogether to have the Slayer out of sorts with him.

“The Slayer? You don’t want to know about her. She has a nasty temper. You should leave town, Rosie, that’d be best …”

Rosamund reached across the bar, slapped the stake out of Willy’s hand and jerked up on his shirt collar until he gagged. She backhanded him once to make sure he was listening.

“If I want your opinion, Willy, I’ll suck it out of you. And, don’t call me Rosie. I don’t like it. Let’s try again. The Slayer 4 -1-1?”

Vampires could sure slap hard. He could feel a bruise swelling up on his cheek. One good slug ought to be enough abuse to keep the Slayer happy.

“Buffy – er- Summers, yeah that’s it. That’s her name. She goes to school over at the university. She comes in here sometimes. I could take a message.”

She smacked him again. “On the other hand, you could keep your mouth shut.”

“Yeah, sure. I could do that. I could keep my mouth shut.”

Rosamund released his shirt collar and smoothed his shirt front. “I need a gallon and a half of blood – AB negative – and, it better be fresh.”

Willy stepped back so she couldn’t grab him again. “Sure thing. I just got a new supply this afternoon. It’s going to cost you. AB neg is hard to come by.” He reached under the counter and pulled out a couple of quart bags from the refrigerator.

She shoved the two bags inside her vest where they’d stay cool. “I need more. At least another gallon.”

“That’s a lot of blood. You having a party? I’ve got another gallon back in the store room. I’ll just step back there and get it and bring it right out to you.”

“I’ll tag along to make sure you don’t get lost, Willy.” Rosamund grabbed a bottle of booze off the bar and slung her free arm around his neck in a choke hold as he came out from behind the bar and frog-marched him into the storage room.

No sooner had Willy pulled a gallon of AB neg out of the deep freezer, than Rosamund vamped out and slugged him over the head with the bottle of booze. He was going to be another lousy drink, old and stringy, but she was thirsty from running all over town.

She vamped out and lowered her fangs to Willy’s neck, when the flapsera demon stepped out of the shadows. His red eyes glowed in the half-lit room.

“You can’t do that. Only the Slayer gets to beat up Willy.”

“Get lost, Scabby.”

“I’m not getting lost. I’m staying right here until Buffy arrives and slays you. She’s on her way right now.” Clem raised an old cross he’d found in Willy’s storeroom and grimaced in what he hoped was a threatening manner.

“Is she?” He was probably lying to protect his own scabby hide. She dropped Willy to the floor and faced the flapsera.

She could kill the demon, but he wouldn’t taste good. Demons never did.

Before she could smack the cross out of his hand, two more demons, newtle demons, shuffled in the back door. They were wearing baby blue bowling shirts with their names embroidered on the pockets in orange satin stitch – Burt and Jurt – and they held makeshift stakes that they’d broken off some crates in the alley in their long, rubbery fingers.

“Having trouble, Clem?” Jurt asked.

“The vampire lady was just leaving,” Clem said.

She didn’t want to mess with newtles. Touching their skin was worse than eating a head of garlic. She’d be poisoned for a week and break out in a nasty rash.

And, if the flapsera was telling the truth, that he’d managed to summon the Slayer, she should cut her visit short and leave. She wasn’t ready to meet up with the Slayer. Not until Sunday had been revived. She wanted Sunday to join the fun when Rosamund killed the Slayer.

Besides, it was getting late. She needed to find a place to sleep before dawn, which was fast approaching. She didn’t have time to waste on a flapsera demon that she couldn’t drink and a couple of toxic newtles.

She slugged the pasty-faced demon, to remind him of his place in the vampire-demon pecking order, picked up the gallon of frozen blood and ran out the back door, hissing her displeasure.

***

Buffy trudged into Restfield Cemetery and consulted a scrap of paper with a new gravesite marked on it. Lennie, the former assistant manager at the local Pigwish Butcher Shop met an untimely death by neck punctures three nights ago and she was here to make sure he stayed dead.

She found the grave and sat down to wait. Lennie, it appeared, wasn’t in a hurry. She waited for a couple of minutes, then got restless, jumped up and paced around the grave in a circle.

“Hurry up, Lennie. I’ve got stuff to do.”

Behind her a lighter rasped and flared. Buffy jumped and whirled around, thrusting her stake into the dark.

Spike lit his cigarette and snapped his lighter closed. “Damn right you do. Sex with your mate for one thing.”

“Spike. Don’t sneak up on me like that. You could get staked. I’d hate to kill myself by accident, although if I got rid of you, it might be worth it.”

Spike put his arm around his mate. His hand wandered down her back and rested on her butt cheek. “Wouldn’t want that, Slayer. I’m tired of waiting. Let’s go get pissed. Then, I’ll take you back to the mansion and we can continue the honeymoon.”

“A Planet Weirdy of No.” Her mind blanked for a second and she found herself kissing Spike. She kissed him a little more, just to make sure that kissing him was as good as she remembered, which it was, before pushing him away. “Cut it out.”

Lennie shoved his hand out of the grave and wiggled his fingers. Buffy grabbed his hand, jerked him out of his grave and staked him in one smooth motion.

“That’s it?” Spike asked. “That’s all the poor sod gets? Sticks his paw out and the Slayer stakes him before he can even claw his way out of the grave?”

“You threw me off my game. I didn’t get in a witty quip.”

Spike ran his fingers through his hair to slick it back down where Buffy had messed it up when she was kissing him. He was deeply disturbed. “Where’s the fighting? Where’s the challenge? Where’s the fight you aren’t sure you can win?”

Buffy made an Aggravated Face. “What do you want, Spike?”

“You, obviously. Didn’t you get my message?”

“I did.”

“So, why are you here, instead of over at the mansion where you belong?”

Buffy headed out of the cemetery. “I’ve got a job you know. Standing against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness.”

Spike swaggered along beside her. “Yeah, yeah. The one girl and all that rot. That’s going to have to end. I’ve made a decision.”

“Wow. Don’t let your brain get all flamey.”

“I’m serious here, Slayer. Mating you has enhanced my rep in the demon community, so I’ve decided to spend maximum time with you. Until I get tired of you, that is. Besides, the sex is good and you are sane most of the time. We’ll make a good team.”

The sex was good. “I think Drusilla is rubbing off on you. That vampire brain of yours has gone all squishy.”

Spike looked unhappy. This was not going the way he intended. His mate was supposed to go along with his plan, no matter how stupid it was. Maybe he needed to make things a little more romantic for her. “I want you to move in with me.”

Buffy stopped in her tracks. “I’m not moving in with you. I’m not dating you. I’m not having sex with you. I’m not kissing you. I’m not anything with you. I am breaking the claim as soon as possible. And, as soon as the claim is broken, I am staking you.”

Spike nodded. His mate was very stubborn. He expected that. It was nice how she thought of killing him right away. Showed that she cared. Bird was in love with him already. “How about a drink, then?”

Buffy rolled her eyes and ran down the street to get away from Spike. She detoured to the pay phone at the front entrance when she heard it ring.