Chapter Two: Shadow Dancing

"Say, it's only a paper moon,
Sailing over a cardboard sea,
But it wouldn't be make believe
If you believed in me."
-Harold Arlen, It's Only A Paper Moon


Darla was a bitch from hell, but she knew how to make up for it. Spike spent the rest of the night wandering in and out of the bars and cabarets with the girls on either arm, smirking at the envious stares he got from men and women alike.

They mingled with the crowd coming out of the Winter Garden, and Darla pulled briefly away from his side to separate a broad-shouldered young man in immaculate evening-wear from his companions. Spike looked on in amusement as the two fortunate lads who hadn't caught Darla's eye cursed their luck, watching their doomed friend with envious faces.

“Turning and turning,” Drusilla murmured in his ear. “None of the falcons shall ever come home again, you know.”

“If you say so, pet, I believe it,” he told her, and stopped under a street-lamp to kiss her, one hand in her hair, pressing her back against the pillar until Darla came up from behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

“That didn't take long,” Spike commented, pulling away from Drusilla with reluctance.

“He wasn't anything special,” Darla shrugged.

“He didn't taste like Daddy,” Dru confided, sounding a little distressed. Darla glared daggers at her. Spike hid his smirk and offered both of them an arm, putting himself between them once again.

“Don't trouble your head over it, pet,” he told Dru. “Come on. We'll go and find you someone to eat.”

***

Darla left them in an alley off of the Unter der Linden an hour before dawn, after making it clear that she expected to see Spike at her hotel the next evening.

“What about Dru?” he asked.

“Bring her, if you think she'll be useful,” Darla shrugged, and slipped into the shadows.

“If you think she'll be useful?” Spike echoed. “Bitch!” He kicked viciously at a loose bit of paving-stone and sent it flying into the side of a parked car. The resultant damage to the car's paint made him feel a little better, but he was still in a foul mood.

“Plots and intricacies,” Drusilla told him. “Don't trouble your head over it, my Spike. It all comes down to dust in the end.”

“Does it, love?” he asked.

“Oh, yes.” Her eyes were wide and luminous, her mouth curved into a smile. “Down to ashes,” she whispered, “and the violins in the charnel house shall play and play and play.” She took a few dancing steps, humming the opening bars of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Spike followed her and took her hands in his before twirling her and dipping her low over his arm. She laughed in delight, then screamed in mock-terror as he pretended to drop her. He scooped her up into his arms and spun them both around while she pounded her fists on his back, shrieking with laughter.

“Bad dog,” she scolded, giggling. “Put me down!”

“You heard the fraulein,” a man said behind them, in German. “Put her down, saukerl.”

Spike understood more of the language than he let on, and even if he hadn't, the tone of the man's voice was clear enough to get his meaning across. Drusilla's laughter stopped abruptly. Spike turned around slowly. When he saw the three brown-shirted men standing between him and the street, his eyes narrowed.

“I,” he said, not bothering with German, “am getting bloody tired of having my evening interrupted.”

“Put the girl down,” the smallest of the three insisted again. “Now, schweinhund!”

“I'd be glad to,” Spike told him. To Dru he said: “Will you excuse me for a moment, love?”

“Of course, my prince,” she answered, and pressed her hand briefly over his heart as he let her go. Spike gave her a long, leisurely kiss, then turned to face his foes. His expression sent all three of them half a step backwards; then they overruled their instincts and came at him.

The littlest one hung back a bit, obviously waiting for his companions to do any fighting required. The two larger ones rushed directly at Spike, who danced backwards a few steps before lashing out with his fists, pulling his blows more than a little. He struck the closest of the pair directly on the chin; the man staggered backwards but did not fall. The second man got punched square in the nose, and Spike grinned as he felt bones and cartilage crunch beneath his knuckles.

When he realized that his compatriots had both been struck, the littlest one rushed in, pulling a baton from his belt as he did so. He swung it hard at Spike's head, and the vampire caught the blow as it fell, then twisted the baton easily out of his grasp. Flipping it mid-air, Spike took it by the grip and swung it up and back, directly into the face of his first assailant, who had shaken off the first blow and was coming back for more. The baton hit him directly in the jaw, breaking it nearly in half, and the pain of the injury dropped him to the ground. Spike stepped backwards, crushing the man's throat beneath his boot-heel, then turned back to the little one, who was shrieking curses and threats at him.

“Oh, shut up,” Spike said. The man ignored him, so Spike reached over and tore his larynx out with a quick twist of one hand, then tossed it aside. The dying man grabbed instinctively for his ruined throat, but it did no good; blood fountained from between his fingers, staining his shirt-front and spattering onto Spike's boots.

The last surviving member of the goon squad looked at the scene in front of him in growing horror. Spike smiled gently at him and he turned to run, but his boots slipped in the growing puddle of blood on the cobblestones and he staggered and fell.

Spike was on him in an instant, catching him by the collar before his hands could touch the ground and jerking him hard to his feet. The man was taller than Spike, but vampiric strength more than made up for the difference in height. Spike pulled the man's head down level with his own and twisted the man's shirt hard around his neck, choking him.

“Are you still hungry, Dru?” he asked, and glanced out of the corner of his eye to watch as the fear on the man's face reached new levels.

“No,” Drusilla said, coming a few steps closer. “This one's all yours, sweet William. Eat him up quickly, now; none of that sort will be fresh for long.”

“Don't mind if I do, then,” Spike told her, and slipped into his fangs. The man in his grip convulsed in terror and tried to scream. Half-strangled as he was, the only thing that came out was a sort of choking squeak.

“He sounds just like a little mouse,” Drusilla observed. “Too late, little mousie. The cheese was a cat; too late, too late!”

“Too right,” Spike said, and grabbed a fistful of the man's hair, pulling his head back to expose the long line of his throat.

“How perfectly lovely,” Drusilla said.

Spike bit down.


***


They made it back to the house with just minutes to spare. It was going to be a clear day, and the ambient light was prickling warning over Spike's skin as they pelted up the front steps.. He slammed the door shut against the coming sun, then whirled and pressed Dru against it, bringing his mouth down on hers. They kissed for a long, frantic moment, his hands blindly seeking the buttons of her dress, her hands threading through his hair, cupping his face, pulling him closer still.

“My beautiful Spike,” she said, when they broke apart. “You're my dark knight, sweet William.”

“I'll be whatever you want me to be, love, as long as I can be yours,” he promised her, and kissed his way from the corner of her mouth to the curve of her neck.

“Of course you're my knight,” she answered. “You'll never be anyone else's.”

“Good,” he said, and turned his full attention to the matter at hand.

***

Notes: Much gratitude to debris4spike for beta-help and encouragement. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

The quote at the beginning is from a jazz piece that was published in 1933 and made popular in 1938 by the great Ella Fitzgerald. (I'm listening to period music while I work on this story, and am enjoying it immensely.)

If anyone notices any historical inaccuracies, please let me know. As always, feedback is love.