Banner by the very talented always_jbj

I wake up with a start.

I’m still on the plane, but everyone is stowing their carry-on items in preparation for landing.

As I hurry to do the same, my brain is stuck on the last image from my dream: William Dafoe costumed as Nosferatu, telling John Malkovich’s mad director Murneau character: The script girl? I’ll eat her later.

There’s a churning in my stomach, and I can’t tell if it is from the descent, or from anxiety about what I’ll find on the ground.

***

Somehow, I always imagined the English would be classy.

Instead, the landlord looks like the inspiration for Eliza Doolittle’s dad in My Fair Lady, but with none of the charm. Plus drunker. And stinky.

It’s okay, though. The flat in Notting Hill is teensy-tinsy, but I only had a carry on. I normally travel light, but this is extreme even for me. Because I hadn’t imagined coming to London when I hopped on the flight to LA, I’d stowed most of my stuff in our storage locker, including most of my heavy clothing.

Which reminds me – my lawyer says that Owen has asked to stay in the apartment until the end of June. Sixteen weeks or so. He claims this is to allow him to finish teaching the spring semester uninterrupted, but in my brain, I think that sixteen weeks is less than Hugo lived. Eleven weeks during which Owen traveled three times, even though we knew …

The landlord interrupts. “You got all that, miss?”

“Sure,” I reply. Of course I haven’t heard a word.

As soon as he goes, I hang up my few pieces of clothing and balance my toothbrush and make-up kit on the tiny ledge in the equally tiny bathroom.

My time zones are all screwed up and I still feel nauseous, but I decide that shopping is bound to cheer me up, so I head out onto the city streets.

***

“G’morning, boss.”

“Harris.” Unlocking the door in my leather gloves takes a bit of grace, and this morning I fumble, the keys clattering to the walk.

“Lemme get that.”

My employee – that’s right, it wasn’t just an affectionate nickname – deftly grabs the keys and twists.

I manage to disarm the security system, then we’re inside and Harris flicks on the lights.

“Got anything good for me today?”

“Coupla crates in the back. Bought it from some hausfrau getting rid of her late husband’s things. Hoping you could sort through it, see if I got my money’s worth.”

He nods, and heads for the boxes I’ve stacked on the worktable.

I hire staff here, from time to time, not so much to man the store. I can handle that. It isn’t like I’ve got to have a Saturday free for my cousin’s wedding out in Chorleywood.

If you must hire employees for a second-hand record store, slacker Americans are a safe bet. Their knowledge of music tends towards the encyclopedic, and they’re perfectly willing to spend hours on eBay shopping for comps or posting your own wares. Minus Zero sells punk rock, which I know cold, having been present at the creation, but also lots of things that never held my attention. Enter the pup.

I call him a pup and a whelp and a boy, but he’s actually a fully grown adult on an extended teenage rebellion from, I gather, extravagantly wealthy parents somewhere in the U.S. He has a little Slavic girlfriend called Anyanka, a slim girl with big eyes and a pretty face. Anyanka doesn’t much like me, but I hired Harris and my generous paycheck funds at least some of those nights out in trendy clubs and decent restaurants of which the girl is so fond.

In fact, Xander Harris has far more of a social life than I do. He thinks I’m just closed-mouthed about my private life, but the truth is that I plain haven’t got one these days.

Unless Buffy stumbles into my shop, the Dove or the Ladbroke Grove tube station, she could already be in London and I’d be none the wiser.

Harris has a better chance of spotting Buffy than I do.

I’m wondering whether to take him into my confidence when I hear a whoop of delight from the back room, and I head back there to learn what mint condition Beach Boys disc he’s uncovered.

***

Things that are reasonably easy to do: divorce your husband. Move to a foreign country. Buy a ton of new, season-appropriate clothing at Question Air, a fashion forward little shop just blocks from my temporary home. Anglomania and Ella Moss and Kitson, oh my.

Things that are difficult to do: track down your former vampire lover. Wait, your former lover who was then, and is still now, a vampire.

And then, as I sit in my rented digs among someone else’s furniture, it hits me.

Maybe Spike is in the phone book.

I check the table under the telephone, and sure enough, there’s a big ol’ British Telecom directory.

P, P, P … Pratt.

Wouldn’t you know it? There are bunches.

And more than one Wm. More than one W.

So much for the phone book.

***

I take up jogging.

Actually, I take up running, and once I’m confident that I can hit a fleeing speed in my Nikes, I start running through shady neighborhoods.

The problem is that I can’t bring myself to run at dusk and I know from past experience that expecting Spike to be mixed in with the morning commuters is ridiculous.

I keep running anyway.

***

I think I’ve made it clear that I am friendless, and that this is both a professional necessity and a deliberate choice.

I’m out for my evening meal – draining a pair of tourists who strayed too far off the beaten. They’re not American, and they’re not blonde. After my dining preferences attracted the glare of local media, I’ve opted for a more varied diet. These two are dark-haired and spoke one of those harsh-sounding Slavic languages.

Maybe they’re Anyanka’s cousins.

After I’ve drained the last drop out of both these poor souls, I kick their mortal remains into an abandoned building.

What? I just did double murder. Not as if I’m fussed about where I leave the bones.

***

I quit the cheerleading squad when my Mom got sick, and I’ll admit that my social life never really bounced back. There’s Wil, and now her family. And there are professional contacts – agent, editors, clients. Owen was the one with the big network of colleagues and confidantes. They’d call me Buffy Thurman, even though I never took his name.

And when Hugo died, they were the ones who sent the fruit baskets and flowers that overwhelmed our little apartment.

I hear a young woman cursing in a foreign tongue as she hauls groceries up the steps, and mostly think that I should stay out of her way. But I also feel relief that she isn’t a little old lady likely to invite me over for tea, or a fellow American ready to ask question after question.

Anonymity is the name of the game here. There’s only one stranger I want to meet.

***

“Anyanka wants you to come for dinner.”

“Anyanka can’t stand me, Harris.”

“No, really. She’s discovered Nigella Lawson.”

“Harris, I don’t need to eat.”

He goes silent for a minute. I haven’t told him what I am, but I don’t hide it, either.

“Not ever?”

I roll my eyes, but suspect that I’m about to lose this one.

***

My luck runs out.

Actually, this isn’t true. I’m very lucky. My agent, after grousing about the lower rates and higher competition for photography gigs in Europe, lands me a fat commission for work in central London.

I accept, even though I wouldn’t go hungry if I skipped the assignment.

Not too long after my last Spike sighting, I was commissioned to do a whole series of photographs in support of a new ad campaign for Jeep. It was commercial, and I made noises about not wanting to sell out. But Owen and I had met while he finished his PhD at UCLA, and he was moving to New York. I wanted to go with him, and the paycheck meant a roof over our heads.

Not only was the initial campaign a huge success – showcasing Jeeps in a gritty, urban environment – it spawned a whole series of ads, many of which became posters and even a calendar.

Brand licensing. Gotta love it, right?

Anyway, the popularity of the campaign faded, but it ratcheted up my visibility. Now not only can I charge oodles of dollars for assignments, but I’m still earning residuals from every sale of a poster. Since college kids buy about a gajillion posters every year, some are going to skip the Monet and the Klimt reproductions and go for one of my Jeep pics. This translates into a lot of money.

As I’m on my way out the door, loaded down with equipment and hoping I can navigate the Underground or hail a taxi, my neighbor pops his head out the door. Not the foreign girl with the potty mouth, but a guy with shaggy dark hair and a ready smile.

“Hey! You must be the new girl.”

“Hi.”

“American, right?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Let me help you with that.” He takes the bag I was juggling while trying to lock my door.

“So are you a door-to-door camera salesman?”

“Photographer, actually.”

“That would’ve been my next guess. I’m Xander Harris,” he says, as he hands my bag back.

“Buffy. Buffy Summers.”

“You headed for the tube?”

“The tube? Oh, the subway. Right. I am.”

“Me, too. Come on, I’ll get the front door.”

***

By the time I reach my assignment, I have spoken more words than I usually do in an entire day.

I learn that Xander Harris is from New Jersey, that he dropped out of Yale, and that he now lives in London with his Budapest-born girlfriend Anyanka. He mentioned that he works in a record shop, a shrine to vinyl, he called it.

Something in this last bit of information strikes a chord. Vintage vinyl seems like a Spike-haunt. But I dismiss it. After all, it turns out that my tube ride is longer than I guesstimated and requires a transfer. So mostly I’m focused on not missing my stop.

***

I check the papers. It’s a good morning. None of my victims has surfaced.

It’s Saturday, and Harris is here, along with my other part-timer, Andrew Wells. Wells is even more of a wanker than Harris, but he knows dance and electronica inside out, and, much to my amusement, he also knows Motown better than Berry Gordie himself.

Between the three of us we do a tidy day’s business, selling plastic to a mix of nostalgic old codgers and young-uns born after discs were already obsolete. I even have a chat with a fellow about the Buzzcocks and he tells me how great it is that younger people are still into the greats.

I’m in a surprisingly good mood as we lock up. Andrew doesn’t linger, but wouldn’t you know it? Harris does.

“Anyanka’s still after me to have you around for dinner, boss man.”

“Can’t keep your bird on a tether, Harris?”

“Come on, Spike. It’s one dinner. Couple of hours. Won’t kill you.”

“I don’t know. Can your girl cook?”

“Actually, yeah, she’s pretty handy with a skillet.”

I know I’ll regret it later, but I agree and settle on Tuesday.

“So, should I tell her no garlic, or …”

“I like garlic.”

“Okay,” he says, a little too quickly.

I smile. This could be fun.

***

On Tuesday afternoon, I run into Xander. He’s loaded down with shopping.

“Let me get the door.”

“Thanks. Sometimes I miss the suburbs,” he says with a smile. I know what he means – when I first moved to New York, a trip to Gristedes could set me off on a serious rant. Owen, native New Yorker that he was, would stare at me blankly as I mourned the lack of adjacent parking lots and attached garages.

“Yeah.”

“Hey, I know it’s late notice, but we’re cooking up a feast tonight. You want to stop by?”

“Um …” I stammer something about an early morning and thanks, maybe some other time.

“Okay, well, I don’t think it’ll be a late night, but ring the bell if we’re too loud. Or, you know, if you change your mind.”

I decide that tonight is a good time for one of my twilight runs and escape behind my door.

***

Before arriving at Harris’ on Tuesday, I make two stops. First, I polish off a teenage runaway. No point in showing up hungry and restless and making this ordeal even more unendurable.

Once I’ve gorged on the blood of the innocent, I find myself a nice little corner flower shop and pick up an arrangement for the dreaded Anyanka.

I resist the urge to steal the blooms, offering up cash to cover my purchase.

After all, that little runaway had a lot of money in her pockets.

***

I’m lacing up my sneakers when a strange feeling washes over me. It’s like the time that I knew the doctors were going to tell me that Mom wouldn’t recover, or the time that I knew I was finally pregnant and that there wouldn’t be a miscarriage this time.

The feeling takes me down the stairs, and right out to the front steps.

***

The other night, it hit me that biting someone is supposed to form a bond. What that means is anybody’s guess. Isn’t like we covered it in vampire school.

But something tells me that what I’m feeling is Buffy, and I’ve slowed down my pace to a crawl as I head toward Xander’s Notting Hill address.

‘Course I don’t know what to do about it, though the idea of taking Harris into my confidence crosses my mind again.

And then I’m at his door, or the door to his apartment building. I’m about to ring the buzzer when every dead nerve in my body begins to jangle.

I turn. And there’s a petite woman in jogging clothes, running towards me.

With a sharp intake of breath, I find myself stepping up against the doorframe, leaning a little as surprise washes over me.

Just like that, here she is.

I should see fate casting its tangled net for me, because just as I’ve decided to fade into the stonework and track her, maybe stalk her for a few days before making myself known, she jogs right up.

Right up to the steps she runs, and it is her surprised gasp that I hear.

Just then, Xander appears at the front door.

“Spike, you made it. Oh, have you met my neighbor, Buffy?”