He returned to Sunnydale triumphant, his motorcycle flattening the Welcome sign all over again. A sound between a shout and a howl tore from his throat, and he imagined the town shivering in its sleep as it anticipated its ravaging.
Did the Slayer toss and tremble, caught in dreams of blood and pain? She should, for he was chipless once more and stronger than he’d ever been after a summer of nights spent training under a hot African moon with one goal in mind, that of teaching her a final, permanent lesson. There would be no pity this time, no quarter, no soft feelings making him weak.
Spike had considered taking his time, watching, stalking, perhaps engaging in a few torments before the end, but that was Angelus’ style not his. Besides he couldn’t wait. There’d been too much of that already.
He didn’t go to the back – no more sneaking through kitchen doors for him. Instead, he swaggered up the sidewalk toward the dark house.
“Hope you’re prepared for a rude awakening, Pet,” he grinned.
A stumble caused him to scowl down at his feet then come to a halt as his surroundings penetrated his consciousness, particularly the grass, which was above his knees, heavier weeds straggling across the walk. While the Summers’ yard had never been mistaken for the garden spot of Sunnydale, it had always been neat enough. This had been neglected for months.
Studying the house more closely, Spike saw leaves and other debris scattered across the porch and mail piled up beneath the overflowing post box. He mounted the steps and disbelievingly picked up an envelope marked with a red ‘Service to be Disconnected’ warning.
Anger filled him, not the heady mixture of glee and cruelty he’d felt as he approached the town, but frustrated fury. Not again. The bitch couldn’t have evaded him again. He was entitled. He was *owed*. How dared she not wait his pleasure?
With a snarl, he shoved the front door open, the lock no match for his strength. Spike stepped into the hallway, suddenly realizing that if the Slayer had put the disinvite back up, his plans for revenge would have been summarily dealt with. Shaking his head at that lack of forethought, he moved farther into the house.
The inside was as empty as the outside had promised. Although he stretched every sense, Spike could detect no sign of life. He drew a finger across the coffee table and tilted it to the moonlight, frowning at the dust. Empty for some time then. She was no housekeeper, but this surface should have been clear from use alone.
In the kitchen, he noted the roach-covered dishes in the sink, the solidified milk in the refrigerator and something like dread began to replace his anger.
The faintest whiff of blood and death reached his nostrils as he began to climb the stairs, and Spike took the rest at a run. He tracked the scent to Willow’s room and opened the door with hands that shook. However, the room only baffled him further. He knelt and traced the dark stain on the carpet, lifted his gaze to a hole in the window then to a burn mark on the ceiling and swallowed hard. What had happened here?
A further search of the room offered no answer to his question. Willow’s closet contained all the clothes he could remember her wearing. Her suitcases lay undisturbed under the bed.
Dawn’s room was equally unforthcoming with schoolbooks piled haphazardly on the desk, and trinkets, lip gloss, and comb covering the dresser. The last made his mouth tighten. Niblet travel without her supplies? Not if she could avoid it.
He stuck his head grimly into the bathroom, counting the three toothbrushes ranged on the sink. After a moment, Spike set his jaw and looked deliberately at the tub. The shower curtain was back up. Whatever had happened had happened after that night.
There was only one more place to look, a place where previously he’d anticipated completing his revenge, now a place where he was frightened to go.
“Don’t be a fool,” he muttered as he eyed her bedroom door.
What did it matter, after all, what had happened to them? They were nothing to him anymore. The chip was out, and he was Spike, William the Bloody, who didn’t give a damn about the Slayer or her friends and family.
Braced against…whatever…he opened the door, but after all the mental preparation, her bedroom mocked him with its lack of impact. There were no messages written in blood or anything else that spoke of past horrors. It looked as it always had, and if not for the dust covering everything, he could have believed she’d just stepped out. He rifled the closet and dresser, seeing the garments he was all too familiar with. She hadn’t taken anything, including, he noted with furious disinterest, any of the weapons from her chest.
At last, he stood in the center of the room and acknowledged the truth. Buffy hadn’t left. She’d fled.
“I don’t care,” he said firmly to the reflectionless mirror. “Too bad I can’t kill her tonight, but…”
He ground to a halt noticing a shimmer in the mirror as the moonlight glistened off something under her bed. Something black.
Oh, God.
Spike dropped down by her bed and pulled out his duster, staring at it in wonder as he shook out the leather folds. She’d kept it, and not put away in an attic but stored under her bed within easy reach, as if she were keeping him close to her. He blinked furiously. It didn’t matter. There was no reason for it to matter. He’d come back to Sunnydale to put paid to her and the Scoobies at last. He shouldn’t be feeling this…terror.
But despite the voices of reason and good sense that told him to go on his merry way and never mind about the Slayer, Spike settled the duster around his shoulders and went in search of answers.
There were none for him at the Magic Box, although the boarded-over windows whispered of tales he didn’t want to hear. The locked door proved no more an obstacle than the one on the Summers’ house, and soon Spike was standing in the ruin of the shop, an ache he didn’t want to acknowledge growing steadily in his chest.
The walls were scorched and blackened, the floor a mess of wood and glass. Torn and burned books, spilled powders, and jewels were scattered everywhere. There were old blood stains here too. A lot of them.
Something caught at his awareness and Spike forced himself to look more carefully. The place was a wreck, but it looked as if there had been some effort at tidying. Piles of things were ranged along one wall too symmetrically to have been done by accident, then other bits scattered over the top.
Two events, then? The shop had seen quite a bit of action while he’d been gone.
His boot knocked against something that clanked, and he looked down to see the remnants of a sword, just the hilt and six inches of twisted, charred blade. The reality he’d been trying to block crashed in on him like a tidal wave.
Had she been frightened as her weapon shattered? Had she wished he was with her or thought of him at all? Could he have stopped it if he’d been there?
“No,” he choked, anger, dreams of vengeance, everything forgotten in the face of the knowledge that something had come for Buffy and that he hadn’t been there to help her. “Please. No.”
Willie’s fell silent as he entered, then the talk started up again, a new undercurrent of excitement in the low-pitched buzz. Spike scanned the room, then headed toward the back where the poker games were held.
“Look who it is,” drawled a scruffy-looking vamp he vaguely recognized. “The Slayer’s pet demon’s back in town.”
“Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places,” another sang in an off-key voice. “Lookin’ for love in too many faces…”
The song cut off as Spike slammed the singer’s head into the table with enough force to crack the wood.
“Well, well,” the first one grinned. “Somebody thinks he’s the Big Bad again!”
“Guess you’ll have to prove me wrong,” Spike smiled as his fangs extended.
After a summer of training for a final battle with the Slayer, the drunken inhabitants at Willie’s just weren’t a problem. It was over almost too quickly – he’d enjoyed the surge of adrenaline and the release of violence too long denied him.
“All right, all right!” Willie shouted, grabbing him by the shoulder. “Break it…”
He gagged as Spike's fist closed around his throat and clawed at the vampire’s hand desperately. Spike maintained his hold, just loose enough for the human to get bit of air in, and grinned around the once-more silent bar.
“Yeah,” he drawled. “Things have changed ‘round here.”
His eye finally fell on the one he sought, the poker players having emerged from the back to see what the noise was about. Clem’s wrinkled face was twisted in a worried frown that eased only slightly when Spike set Willie down with a thump.
“Clement!” Spike said expansively, still euphoric from the fight. “It’s been too long.”
“I guess,” Clem said cautiously as, muttering, the other patrons returned to their activities and Willie crept back behind the bar, one hand on his bruised throat. “You’re looking…uh…better. Happier at least.”
“Right as rain,” Spike keeping his grin locked in place. He threw an arm around his friend’s shoulders “Why don’t we take a walk?”
“The game’s not over,” Clem frowned.
“Look, I’ll buy you some bloody kitt…” Spike trailed off as Clem shrugged him away.
“I don’t feel like taking a walk,” Clem said stiffly and headed towards the poker room.
Spike’s hand clenched back into a fist, but he forced it to relax. He didn’t want to hit Clem even if he was officially the Big Bad again. Still, he needed to know about Buffy. Now. With a sigh, he headed for the back room.
“So, can we talk now?” he asked exasperatedly half an hour later as he followed Clem out of the bar.
Dazedly, his friend looked down at the large mewing box. “Are you sure you want to give me all these? I’ve never seen anyone clean out a room so fast. This has to be some kind of record.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Because I’m such a good guy and a true friend. Which is why you’re gong to tell me what the hell’s happened to the Slayer.”
Abruptly, Clem halted and shoved the box back at him. “Why? So you can hurt her? Isn’t that why you came back?”
Lovely. She’s made another conquest.
“Yeah, it’s why I came back,” he said levelly then acknowledged the truth with a sigh. “But let’s face it, mate. We both know it wouldn’t have gone down that way. She’d have either kicked my ass right off or gotten all teary-eyed which would have sent me down on my knees and then she’d have kicked my ass. Either way my ass would have lost. So what happened? Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Clem muttered, shaking his head when Spike began to protest. “I don’t.” His eyes were grave. “It…it was really bad.”
He turned cold inside. “I figured that. What was it?”
Clem sighed, then proceeded to spin a tale of murder and a witch gone mad that had Spike’s head whirling at the end. Buffy and Tara shot? Willow trying to destroy the world? Xander stopping it?
He shuddered at the thought of the bullet slamming into Buffy’s flesh and felt an unexpected pang at Tara’s death. She’d always been nice to him in her shy, awkward way and hadn’t deserved to fall at the hands of someone like Warren.
“But if that got all sorted out,” Spike pointed out when Clem fell silent once more, “What sent them all scurrying?”
“They didn’t all scurry,” Clem said, looking down. “A bunch of them died. I don’t know exactly what happened.…”
He hummed to himself as he threaded the alleys of Sunnydale on his way home from returning the movie that Stanley, who could pass for human as long as he wore a hat, had saved for him at the video store. Serendipity had been a sweet story, Stan had promised him Moulin Rouge for next time, and there was nothing Clem loved more than a musical.
All in all, he was feeling pretty cheerful when the sound of pounding feet reached his ears. His first impulse was to hide, but he thought of the humans he’d met and decided to see what was going on. At least, he could go get the Slayer if it was necessary.
Clem followed the sounds until he heard the feet stumble to a halt. Then, he cautiously peeked from the mouth of the alley and his jaw dropped at the scene, lit brightly as day by the streetlight.
Xander trying to unlock the back door of his car, cursing as he dropped the keys.
Dawn scanning the streets behind them, tears pouring down her face.
“Hurry,” she sobbed. “Hurry!”
“I’m trying,” Xander said tightly, shifting the Slayer’s unconscious body to his other shoulder so he could pick the keys up.
“What’s wrong?” Clem called, starting forward.
Both humans jumped around, the Slayer’s head lolling lifelessly with the movement, and he saw that Xander was crying too. “Get out of here!” Dawn wailed as Xander turned back to the car and finally got the door open, throwing Buffy roughly into the back. “They’ll kill you too!”
“Who?” he gasped, already fading back into the shadows.
Dawn ran for the passenger’s side and Xander dived behind the wheel. “No time,” he called in a broken voice. “Run, Clem. Far away from us.”
And the car roared away into the night.
He could picture it all too clearly in 3-bloody-D. Dawn crying. Xander terrified. Buffy...“What was wrong with Buffy?” he whispered. “Could you tell?”
“I couldn’t see her very well,” Clem said sadly. “Something looked off about her shoulder. Like it was burned, maybe.” He put a gentle hand on Spike’s arm. “There’s more.”
“Yeah,” Spike nodded. “I thought there might be.”
He took Dawn and Xander’s advice and disappeared into the hidden world of the sewers, the way most demons traveled. They were empty than usual as if everyone had gone to ground. Clem wanted to do the same, telling himself that whatever had happened wasn’t his business, but he couldn’t quite manage it. The Slayer had been nice to him and so had her sister even if she was a little bossy. The Slayer had even replaced his snacks that she’d frightened him into spilling – the good stuff, real Fritos, not generic.
For the sake of those real Fritos, he ended up peering out of the sewer opening across the street from The Magic Box, seeing the glass that covered the street from the shop’s blown out windows. Despite the sirens coming closer he’d clambered out and looked inside.
“And?” Spike asked both impatient to hear and dreading the answer.
“Dead,” Clem said. “Willow, the Watcher, and Anyanka, all three. They looked…fried. I didn’t see anything about what did it. There wasn’t time to look. The police were almost there.”
Spike fought nausea. While he plotted his triumph in Africa, something killed Willow, Giles, and Anya and sent Xander, Dawn and a possibly mortally injured Slayer on the run. He saw her again, walking away from him up the stairs to her death.
No.
He looked at Clem. “Which way did they go?”
“Now what?” Clem asked respectfully.
That was damn good question.
Spike stared down the street where Xander had vanished, but it didn’t provide him with any insight – not terribly surprising since the events Clem had described had occurred almost three months ago. Buffy and the others could be anywhere by now, either hiding out or living under assumed names. If of course, they weren’t dead.
He squelched the last thought firmly. It wouldn’t do any good to dwell on that or on the fact that she had faced whatever-it-had-been alone because he had been off being a complete wanker…
Spike shook that thought away as well. He would find her because there was no other option. Now, he just had to figure out a way to look.
There was always the grapevine. Otherworldly types talked among themselves as much as humans did, and the appearance of a Slayer, or at least of someone who knew what they were about as regarded demon-slaying would generate comment. However, that would take time since he had no idea where to start asking. Xander might have headed south to begin with, but roads turned and branched and split away.
He didn’t have the money to pay an oracle or the time to go questing for an Orb of Ultimate Power or some such, and someone powerful enough to give him what he wanted to know was probably too powerful for him to intimidate.
What he really needed was access to the electronic trail that almost no one could avoid generating in this day and age - credit card transactions, ATM withdrawals, hospital records, and so on. He’d used the same system to locate Buffy in the dorms once, but he had a feeling the data he needed would be sealed up more tightly. Although Spike didn’t regret Warren’s demise (except for not getting the chance to watch and/or participate), having a hacker about would be handy at this point. The type of information he was looking for was locked up in computers and could only be freed by their owners or the police.
Or a private detective.
“What is it?” Clem asked when, after five minutes, Spike was still pacing back and forth and swearing viciously, now in Fyarl since he'd run through every human curse that he knew several times.
“Nothing,” Spike said through his teeth. “Just that I figured out where they are.”
Clem paused, trying to reconcile Spike’s words with his current state. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Absolutely. Especially since I don’t have to worry anymore. They’re safe as houses.” He glared into his friend’s uncomprehending face. “She’s with Angel, Clem. You know, tall, dark and brooding? The love of her bloody life? The one she trusts above all else? It’s the only thing that makes sense. Where else would Xander go? On the run from some major nasty and the Slayer too hurt to fight? You mark my words,” he lit a cigarette with angry, jerky movements, “She and Angel are staring into each other’s eyes right now.”
“Well,” Clem said hesitantly. “That’s good that she’s safe, at least.”
“Yeah, peachy,” Spike growled, dragging on his cigarette. “What?” he added curtly as the other looked away with a troubled expression.
“It’s just…would she have left the house like that? Wouldn’t they have at least got some of their stuff out? Sorry,” he said as Spike started cursing again.
Bugger this. I don’t care if Clem is right and maybe they aren’t safe and that even if she isn’t there, Angel could help to find her. Buffy is just going to have to look out for herself. I’ve got my limits. There are things I will NOT do even for her, and that’s one of them. There is no bloody way that I would ever ever go to…
“Welcome to Angel Investigations. Can I help you?”
Spike blinked in surprise at the sight of the tiny woman who had moved from behind the counter at his entrance.
This isn’t Cordelia unless she shrank in the wash.
Not that she was the only change in his grandsire’s enterprise. It had moved for one thing from the small office he’d visited before to this large, mostly empty hotel. More brooding room, no doubt.
God, he hated this. Going to Angel, hat in hand. He couldn’t imagine how life could get worse. Oh, wait. Yes, he could. Buffy and Angel could point and laugh at him before returning to the shag-a-thon he’d obviously interrupted.
At the thought, Spike felt his expression…shift. When the woman before him turned pale and started backing away, he reined in his galloping imagination and did his best to manage a smile.
“Yeah,” he said as pleasantly as he could. “I’m an old mate of Angel’s. Thought I’d look him up while I was in town. He somewhere about?”
“No. I’m…I’m afraid he’s not around right now.” She looked away, biting her lip, worry obvious in her eyes.
Well, well, what have we here?
“He planning to be back anytime soon?” Spike pressed. “I’ll be in town for a bit.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t really know when…” her voice died away, and she moved back towards the counter. “If you’d like to leave your name…”
Although Spike didn’t hear the crossbow cock, he heard the whiz as the bolt shot through the air, and his newly-honed reflexes sent him to the floor. He rolled, coming up behind the woman, his arm around her waist holding her against him.
“Name’s Spike,” he said to her through his fangs. He looked up at the shadowy figure standing on the gallery above. “Hello, Harris.”
“Oh, my,” the woman said faintly.
“What the hell….Fred!” A large young Black man charged from the opposite side of the gallery, skidding to a halt at the top of the stairs as he took in the situation. “Let her go. Now.”
“I’m all right, Charles,” Fred said calmly, and Spike released her with a yelp as pain seared through his thigh.
She stepped away, brandishing the cross she’d tugged from her pocket. He backed up, hands raised.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he said, shaking his fangs away. “I just wanted to have a word without having to dodge arrows. As soon as you tell me if Buffy’s all right, I’ll leave.”
“Buffy?” Fred’s head tilted to the side, curiosity filling her face. “You know Buffy?”
“In that good old Biblical sense,” Xander sneered still half concealed by shadow. “Let me guess, Spike. You got your chip out and went back to Sunnydale to kill Buffy, only she was gone, so now you’re filled with concern?”
“Well…yeah,” Spike said then trailed away as Xander stepped more fully into the light. The human looked horrible, rail thin with deep shadows under his hollow eyes. The look of grief, absolute and unconsolable. Spike knew it well. Without realizing it, his voice gentled. “What’s happened, Xander? Where are Buffy and Dawn?”
There was a long pause. Xander’s face twisted to hold back tears and the crossbow began to tremble violently, until Charles finally took it from him.
“Nobody knows where Buffy is.” Dawn moved out of the lower level hallway and flopped onto the circular couch in the center of the front room. Her face was hard, mouth set and tight. “She left. She was the only one they were chasing, so she left. We haven’t heard from her in a couple of months. Don’t touch me!” she snapped, and Spike hastily withdrew the hand that had reached towards her. “I know what you did to her. We’re not friends.” She looked up toward the gallery. “But don’t kill him unless you have too. There’s been enough dying.”
“No don’t kill him. For the love of all that’s color-coordinated, don’t kill him. I don’t need any more ghosts.”
In the midst of all the angst, no one had noticed the door open silently to admit one of the more colorful figures Spike had seen in his existence.
What is this, the guardian spirit of GQ?
A mauve silk suit set off green skin, the matching fedora perched jauntily atop flame-red hair, neither serving to mitigate the worried expression on the demon’s face.
Spike lifted an eyebrow at Dawn who shrugged, obviously not familiar with this particular example of extreme poufdom.
“Lorne!” Fred squealed and darted past Spike to throw her arms around the new arrival. “Have you heard something about Angel or Cordelia?”
“Sorry, sweetie,” Lorne said, returning the hug while his gaze slid past her to fasten on Spike. “The Powers are keeping quiet about their whereabouts.”
“What you doing here then?” Charles asked. He and Xander had descended the stairs and joined the rapidly growing crowd in the lobby. “Not that we aren’t glad to see you, but I thought you’d given us up for the good life in Vegas.”
“And what’s all this about ghosts?” Fred added as she stepped back.
“I had,” Lorne said. Still watching Spike, he traversed the short flight of steps that led to the lobby. “Or at least I tried to. Let’s face it, kids, I didn’t have much to offer and I wasn’t exactly the Cherub’s favorite person.” Before Spike could react, Lorne poked him in the chest. “Near as I can tell, I’m back because of you, Blondie. You and the Slayer you’re hunting.”
“Hey,” Spike said sharply, knocking his hand away. “Hands to yourself, mate. I never heard of you before.”
“Buffy’s never mentioned you,” Dawn agreed. “And I don’t remember seeing you either.”
“I know,” Lorne answered gently. “That doesn’t seem to matter in the bigger scheme of things. You got to Sunnydale about four days ago, right?” he asked Spike.
“Yeah,” Spike said. “Took me a bit to get down here and then find the place.”
Lorne sighed, “Thought so. That’s when he showed up.”
He looked expectantly at Spike who shrugged.
“Other shoe’s not dropping, sorry,” he drawled. “Why don’t you just clear it all up for us instead of playing Mystic?”
“British guy sub two,” Lorne grimaced. “Dark hair, glasses, very penetrating voice?”
“That’s not funny!” Dawn shouted, jumping to her feet. “Giles was our friend and he died, and…”
Spike automatically moved closer to Dawn, stopping when he realized that Xander was doing the same thing. Xander caught his movement and scowled, halting as well. Spike scowled back. Lorne’s eyes flickered from one to the other, but he addressed the angry girl.
“Sorry, Daybreak. I know he’s your friend. He must be. He still cares about you so much that he’s haunting me.”
He nodded off their surprised looks. “Oh, yeah. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing, singing, sleeping, betting it all on red, anything, he’s right there, yelling for me to, as he put it, ‘get my useless green hide back to Los Angeles and take that whinging pillock with me.’
“That’s Giles all right,” Xander said thoughtfully. “I should know, he yelled at me enough.”
Dawn frowned. “What’s a ‘whinging pillock’?”
“I believe that I am the ‘whinging pillock’,” a new voice said, or rather declaimed in ringing, clarion tones.
A large young man strode into the room, trailing suitcases in his wake. For a moment, Spike thought Angel had returned, then noticed the unnaturally blue eyes, and the dazzlingly white teeth bared in a blinding smile. Angel hadn’t smiled like that in more than a century.
“Ang…!” Dawn started forward, then stopped in confusion. “You’re not Angel.”
The smile vanished. “No, alas, I am not Angel, a fact that has distressed many.”
“Now, now, none of that kind of talk,” Lorne said kindly. “That’s why he called you a whinging pillock.”
“My apologies. It is true that I have dwelt too long on my troubles.” He clapped his hands together bracingly. “After all, there is work for us, and I see that we have gained many noble comrades! Well met!”
Spike’s knees buckled as the man clapped a huge hand onto his shoulder and extended the other, all the while beaming like a light house.
Despite himself, something inside Spike responded. He had a sudden memory of a book about King Arthur he’d read as a child and realized that this was the sort of man his human self had wanted to be. A hero, plain and uncomplicated, simple in the best sense of the word, where good and evil were easy to spot and the right always triumphed with flags and trumpets. Where what you did was more important than what you were. He took refuge from this insight with ingrained sarcasm, shrugging out from under the massive grip with an exertion of his own strength that made the other look startled. “Hail to you too,” he sneered. “Anyone else out there preparing to make a dramatic entrance?”
“Yeah,” Charles agreed. “We’re going to start violating fire codes we get too many more in here.”
“I know one we can get rid of,” Xander snarled, jerking his head towards Spike. “There’s nothing noble about him unless you like vampires and rapists.”
Thick silence fell, broken only by an indrawn breath from the Angel-clone.
“Don’t like either one of those,” Charles said at last. “Especially when they threaten my girl.”
“Oh, I don’t really think he was threatening me,” Fred protested, a statement Spike would have found vastly insulting in any other circumstances.
“I didn’t rape her,” he said woodenly, not knowing what else to say, how to explain the meltdown he’d experienced that night, the absolute driving need to make her hear him once and for all. Knowing that even if he could explain it, he couldn’t begin to excuse it, even to himself.
…Spike don’t. I’m hurt…
“No, because she fought you off,” Xander snorted. “I saw where you bruised her. She’s the Slayer. You had to hit her pretty hard for that to happen.”
“We hit each other pretty hard!” Spike shouted. “The whole bloody time we were together, what we did was hit each other pretty hard! You weren’t there, Harris, so you don’t know how it was, and you weren’t there because Buffy didn’t feel she could come to you!” He strode forward furiously until he was nose to nose with Xander. “That’s what’s really chapping you, isn’t it?” he hissed. “That Buffy came to me, not you. Her and Anya.”
He saw the swing coming and almost welcomed it because he wasn’t chipped now, and blocked it easily, red haze clouding his vision. Shouts broke out as his own punch landed, a punch he’d wanted to deliver for three years or so. Xander sailed backwards and fell, head cracking against the marble floor. He started after the human, but hands grabbed him by the shoulders, wrenching him backwards and to the side.
Spike fought fiercely against the large young man who had to be at least part demon given his strength. He finally shook clear and started moving again, but this time Charles was there, stake and cross in hand, and Fred had a crossbow up and aimed unerringly at his heart.
Well, this was going to hell.
“STOP IT!” Dawn screamed and leaped between him and Charles. “Just stop it!” She scrubbed furiously at the tears standing in her eyes. “Why did you come here?” she demanded, “Just to make trouble? Haven’t you done enough?”
“Make trouble? I defended myself. I came here to help, but I’m through taking punches from you lot!”
“Don’t you understand?” she said despairingly. “Anya’s dead, and you show up and pick on Xander about her when he can’t ever make things right between them. What did you think would happen? And you did try to rape Buffy, so don’t deny it!”
“I’m not denying it,” he said quietly, the rage deflating. “But I did stop, Dawn, when she kicked me back to my senses. I didn’t have to. And I want to help her now.”
“I’m pretty sure we can do without your help,” Charles said tightly, his grip on the stake never faltering.
“Sorry, but I’m pretty sure we can’t,” Lorne put in from where he’d taken shelter behind the counter. “We’re going to need him. At least, don’t kill him.”
“No, don’t kill him,” Dawn said, adding softly. “Buffy wouldn’t want you to.” She turned back to Spike, “She still trusted you, you know. Even after what happened. When Willow wigged, I wanted to stay with you and she took me to your crypt.”
Her words rocked him to his foundations. Clem had said Buffy and Dawn had showed up, but he hadn’t made the connection. Buffy had brought Dawn to him for protection. While he’d heading for Africa to get de-chipped to kill her, she’d trusted him with her sister. He wanted to throw himself onto Charles’ stake, but Lorne said he might be needed. Maybe he could still help.
Spike’s guilt-ridden reverie was interrupted by the young man bowing deeply to Dawn. “Do not distress yourself, valiant maiden,” he said earnestly. “We will heed your words and those of your sister. Although,” he added to Spike, “Should you again offer insult to a lady, I will see to your ending myself.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Spike muttered. “Join the line.”
“Now that you’re back, what are you and Gru supposed to do, Lorne?” Fred asked from where she was helping Xander stand up.
“This is going to sound crazy…which won’t be a big change from most of what goes on around here…but I think I’m supposed to re-open Caritas.”
“Again?”
“Third time’s the charm I hear.”
As everyone else began to talk about Lorne reopening his club, Spike caught Dawn’s eye and tilted his head towards the rear of the lobby. She hesitated, then nodded and they moved to the back of the room. Spike was aware of both Xander and Gru’s eyes drilling holes in his back and was careful to keep a respectful distance between himself and Dawn.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “About the others dying and me not being there. I would have tried to help.”
She nodded jerkily. “I know.”
“I know about Will, but what happened after? What killed them and sent you on the run?”
Dawn took a long breath. “It was fast,” she whispered brokenly. “So fast.”
She flipped through another book and decided it could go on the ‘savable’ pile, the other two book piles being ‘blank because Willow absorbed them’ and ‘too burned/torn to do anything with’.
“We need something to wrap this in, so it won’t undergo further damage,” Anya said critically, and Dawn looked up to see her standing at the front of the store carefully holding a large urn that was only slightly chipped.
Buffy deposited her pile of charred embers against the wall and said, “I’ll get a blanket out of the training room.” She smiled at Dawn as she passed and vanished through the door at the back of the shop.
Nearby, Xander bent back to his own wood hauling, determinedly not looking at his former fiancée.
With a dispirited jangle of its bell, the door opened and Giles entered, Willow a pale and silent shadow behind.
“I just wanted to let you all know that I’ve gotten the tickets and Willow and I will be leaving for England in three days,” Giles said.
“So soon?” Xander asked ignoring Anya’s loud accompanying snort.
“It’s imperative that we begin her rehabilitation as soon as possible.”
Willow looked down, biting her lip, and Dawn felt a pang. She almost got up to give her friend a hug, but then remembered that same friend threatening to turn her back into the key, and stayed where she was.
Yes, because no doubt it will take a long time,” Anya sniffed. “Get out of my way, please,” She brushed by Willow to set the vase down by the wall.
“Now, look, Anya…” Xander said beginning to rise.
Anya staggered and pressed a hand to her head. “Vengeance,” she gasped. “It’s coming! Oh, my G…”
Before Dawn could draw breath, clouds boiled across the ceiling, turning the store an eerie grayish-black, then formed into a glaring face, blazing eyes fixed on Willow…and on Anya and Giles who stood next to her.
“No!” Willow shrieked. “It was me! Just me! Don’t…”
A gout of energy shot out of its mouth, blowing out the boarded up windows, the newly repaired door, and engulfing Willow, Anya, and Giles.
Dawn knew they were dead even as they fell, even before she saw their charred, blackened bodies. Nothing could survive that. It would be like surviving a nuclear bomb. Everything seemed to stop. Her heartbeat. The world’s rotation. Time.
Then, something shot past her, and after a stunned second she realized that it was her sister, running flat out, sword in hand. Even as the thing began to withdraw, the Slayer leaped forward and up, plunging her sword into its face.
The clouds writhed and twisted and the mouth howled with an indescribable noise. Buffy screamed back her own fury and defiance, and even as it swung her back and forth, she twisted her sword deeper into the darkness. For a moment, Dawn thought it would die, but then it bent around on itself, engulfing Buffy’s sword arm, and her scream changed to one of pain.
Galvanized, Dawn and Xander ran for her, but even as they grabbed at her ankles the blade snapped, and Buffy fell into their arms, the remains of her sword dropping to the floor.
With a noise like a crack of thunder, the face vanished.
“Buffy?” Dawn cried as Xander lowered the Slayer to the floor. “Buffy, please…”
“She’s still breathing,” Xander said in a dead voice. “Which is more than I can say for the rest.”
“Oh, God.” She reeled under the enormity of what had happened, the fact that she’d lost her chance to hug Willow.
Xander crawled to the bodies and smoothed Anya’s hair, brushed a gentle finger across Willow’s hand. He sat back on his knees a moment, then doubled over, hands over his face.
Dawn followed and huddled beside him, staring down at what had been their dearest friends. She remembered wanting to see Mom in the morgue and wondered why. Why want to see dead bodies?
He straightened after a moment and said dully, “We’ve got to get Buffy to a hospital. She’s hurt. Look at her arm.”
Dawn had noticed that her sister’s hand looked bruised, but now she saw that the discoloration ran up her arm until vanishing under her sleeve. She touched it lightly and Buffy moaned.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Don’t know, but…what the hell….”
She followed Xander’s horrified stare and saw a grey cloud beginning to form in the back of the shop. Instead of a face, it was resolving into two hooded figures.
“C’mon,” Xander said, scooping Buffy up and heading for the door. “Run!”
She followed blindly. “But…the others?”
He didn’t even pause. “We can’t help them.”
“And so we got in the car and drove,” Dawn finished tiredly. “Buffy woke up a little while later but her arm really hurt, so we stopped at a hotel, but the things followed us.”
“They showed up every time we stayed in one place for more than a couple of hours,” Xander said, for the others had gathered around listening to Dawn’s tale. “They could track Buffy, but she could feel them coming. She was the only one they wanted, and she tried to make us leave her but we wouldn’t.”
Of course she had. What else could she have done?
“We came here hoping Angel or somebody could find a way to fix her arm,” Dawn continued, “But he was missing too. Buffy wanted to see this guy who used to be a Watcher, but Gunn said…”
“That he’d turned bad,” Charles – apparently also Gunn – said. “There’s no way he’d help.”
Spike's gaze sharpened as something in the crowd surrounding him caught his attention. Not a movement, but a sudden increase in stillness. Fred blushed faintly and looked away.
“Uh-huh,” he said neutrally. “So she just took off then?”
“Yeah,” Gunn nodded. “We warded the place and it helped a little, but she felt those dudes coming after about half a day. We were going to fight them, but she locked us in a back room and ran.”
With rare self-discipline Spike forced himself to calm. He wanted to run through the city, screaming Buffy’s name and beating information out of people, but that wouldn’t help, and there was no room for mistakes. This wasn’t some nonsense like taking over the world or finding the Gem of Amarra. This was serious business, the way curing Drusilla had been. He’d managed that. He intended to manage this as well.
“That’s one stray hero explained,” he said. “So, how about the other one? What happened to Angel?”
That turned out to be another long involved story, involving Darla, an evil law firm, a vengeful vampire hunter from the past, and Angel’s son, a concept that made Spike’s jaw drop. He was extremely grateful that Buffy hadn’t found out about that while they were lovers. She’d have panicked…and to be honest, so would he.
At the end of it all, it was close enough for sunrise for him to be grateful for the hotel room Gunn escorted him to, even though along with the room, his escort provided a detailed explanation of the torture Spike would suffer should he attempt to attack any member of this particular Scooby gang. He ignored most of it, although he had to grant some of the ideas points for inventiveness, stretched out on the bed, and closed his eyes.
Every nerve was strung high with the need to find the injured, hunted Slayer, and the last thing he wanted was to sleep, but Spike laid still and tried to relax. If he was going to be as sharp enough to help Buffy, he had to rest.
Besides, if he read the signs right, he was due a visitor.
“Yeah,” he said fuzzily, six hours later, as a scratching at his door that sounded like an agitated mouse awakened him from a troubled sleep that was populated by dreams of Giles glaring at him and saying, “It seems you’re the best I’ve got.”
Fred sidled into the room, burdened with a large roll of paper, and quickly closed the door behind her. Anticipating her arrival, he’d only removed boots and duster, but she still didn’t look at him directly as she held out another piece of paper, containing a name and address.
“Wesley Windham-Price,” he read. “This the ex-Watcher chap?”
She nodded.
“And you sent Buffy to him.”
Another nod.
“So, he’s not as bad as the others think?”
Fred stared down at her feet, then at the walls. “He did a very bad thing,” she said at last. “About Connor and all. You heard what happened. But he isn’t bad, himself. At least, he wasn’t.”
“But you lot not listening or taking him back might have tipped the scales,” Spike said coolly. “That what you think?”
“I hope not,” she murmured.
“You think he’d hurt Buffy?”
“No.”
The strength of her belief startled him. “If you’re that sure, he can’t be as bad as all that, can he? I mean us evil types could get up to anything.”
“He’s not evil,” she sighed. “We probably shouldn’t have turned away from him, but we were all angry. Haven’t you ever done anything when you were angry that you wish you hadn’t later?”
…Spike, don’t. I’m hurt….
He willed the image away. “Yeah,” he said briefly. “I have.” He stood and headed for his boots. “I’ll see him as soon as it gets dark.”
Fred shook her head and offered him the roll of paper. “Sewer map,” she explained. “I’ve marked the path to Wesley’s.”
“And what might a vampire be doing outside my door?”
Spike sighed, looking down at the crossbow that was pointed at his chest in a startlingly unwavering fashion given the drunkenness of its aimer.
“Told you,” he said as patiently as he could, while damning the occult sensor he’d tripped while walking down the hallway. At least the human hadn’t simply fired through the door. “Fred sent me. I’m a…friend of the Slayer’s.”
“A vampire friend of the Slayer’s,” Wesley repeated. He stared at the top of Spike’s head. “I’m sorry, but you’re far too short and your hair doesn’t stick up nearly enough.”
“Very funny. Look, have you seen her? Is she all right?”
Something of the desperation he was feeling came through in his voice and the man frowned a little. Then, his eyes suddenly focused and the drunken anger drained from his expression.
“What’s your name?” he demanded.
He bit back the automatic clever remark, sensing this might be important. “Spike.”
The arm with the crossbow dropped abruptly to the side and Wesley leaned back against the wall by the door, rubbing at his forehead with his free hand. “My God. You did come.” He straightened, gesturing Spike to enter the apartment.
“It was Osiris,” he went on, sitting opposite the battered table from Spike, who had already given his story from his arrival in Sunnydale through Fred’s handing over the address. “From what Buffy told me, I believe that Willow summoned him in an attempt to bring back her lover. When he refused her, as he would, Tara’s death having been natural, Willow struck back, hard enough to injure him. Which is extremely startling given Osiris’ power. When he healed, he returned for revenge, killing Willow and the others who were near her at the time of the attack.”
“Only Buffy hit him again,” Spike said.
“Right. Again hard enough to injure which, again, I’d never heard of. Osiris is Lord of the Dead. Neither Buffy nor Willow, especially Buffy should have been able to touch him.”
“She’s fought gods before,” he said with a surge of pride. “Gave them a right beating too.”
Wesley snorted, “Osiris is on a much higher level than Glory. She ruled a hell dimension. Osiris is Lord of the Dead. I have no idea how Buffy managed to cause any damage with a non-magical sword. In any case, Osiris marked her through his attack which allows his minions to track her unless she keeps moving.”
“So that’s what happened,” Spike finished impatiently. “And she came to you looking for help. Did you give it to her?”
He smiled painfully. “I wasn’t going to. She called on me as Watcher, and I just laughed. I was only a joke to her before, her and Giles and everyone….”
Wesley had expected her to berate him for his lack of caring or plead for his help, but Buffy didn’t speak or even react that he could tell. She only stood, bracing against what had to be debilitating pain, and headed for the door.
He’d forgotten how small she was. He remembered he and Cordelia demonstrating Buffy’s relationship with Angel for Fred’s benefit.
Fred. Who’d sent the Slayer to him for help.
“Wait,” he said as she reached for the knob and she looked back over her shoulder.
“For what? I’ve got to go. They’ll find me soon.”
The bleakness in her voice found a chink in the wall he’d constructed and slid through. “I can give you a charm to help make it harder to track you. It won’t stop them, but it’ll buy you a little more time before you have to move again.”
Buffy nodded, the effort almost toppling her. “Thanks.”
He started moving then, digging out his stash of money and forcing it into her good hand. “Take it. You’ll need to eat until I can find a way to remove Osiris’ mark from your arm, and I don’t know how long that will be.”
“Thank you, Wesley,” she whispered.
“Don’t thank me. I haven’t done it yet.”
Unbelievably she smiled. “Even if you don’t, thanks anyway.”
“Right,” he said with more hoarseness than he’d intended. “There’s a shelter where you can stay for a bit. Shower and so on. I’ll call Anne, let her know to expect you. I’ve not got a cell phone, but call in every few days and I’ll tell you how I’m doing. As soon as I get things ready, come in and I’ll remove the mark.”
“How will that help?” she asked, “W...Willow wasn’t marked and he found her.”
“Willow summoned Osiris and deliberately attacked on his refusal. That made her a priority. It’s all rather murky, but you more or less injured him in combat. That’s considered honorable, but with the mark, you’re just too tempting for him to leave alone.”
“That was two months ago,” Wesley said. “I’ve been working on the cure ever since while Buffy kept moving around the town.”
“But you’ve had no luck on the cure?” Spike asked grimly, trying to think if he knew any occult types to badger.
“I developed it three weeks ago. What I don’t have is Buffy. She hasn’t called in or been to the shelter in a month. I’ve tried to track her both physically and magically. She’s vanished.”
Spike stared at his grim face. “Where would she go? She can’t be dead or her Watcher’s ghost wouldn’t be giving orders.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps when Lorne reopens Caritas, we'll learn more.”
“That’s too long,” Spike said. “Anything could happen.”
“I agree, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“I’ll bloody well find something.”
Wesley nodded. “I imagine you will.” He smiled. “She mentioned you, you know.”
He felt like he’d taken a punch to the gut, remembering Wesley recognizing his name. “What…what did she say?”
“I asked if anyone would come looking for her or her sister. Father, Council, or some such, and what would I say if they did. Buffy said no one would come, then she got an odd look on her face and said. ‘There’s somebody who would have shown up once, but he’s been gone a while.’ Then she laughed and said ‘He still might. I never could get rid of him for long. If Spike does come - you’ll know him, vamp, blond, thinks he’s a bad ass – tell him, tell him…I don’t know, I never knew what to say. Tell him I wish I’d let him help redecorate my room.’”
Tears stung the back of his eyes as he stared at the other man helplessly. “Where the hell is she?”
[two weeks ago]
Voices. Beeping.
She didn’t want to leave where she was. Here was darkness and warmth and quiet. There was pain and hunger and weariness and sorrow that threatened to crush her.
Unfortunately, no matter how determinedly she burrowed into the velvet blackness, she kept rising back toward the surface.
“She’s coming around.”
No, I don’t want to.
Finally, reluctantly, she surrendered and drifted upward. When she opened her eyes, there was no pain which somehow felt strange although she didn’t know why she would be in pain. She wasn’t in a box…a box…? either but in a hospital bed with filtered sunshine coming in through the windows. Two people stood by the bed, a doctor and a dark haired woman with tears in her eyes.
“Joan? Honey?”
From very far away in her head, she thought she heard a voice shout a denial, but then it vanished and there was only the doctor, smiling as he took her pulse and the woman pressing a hand against her lips as if to hold in sobs.
“She’ll be fine,” the doctor beamed. “It was touch and go, but she’s out of the woods now.”
“Oh, thank God. Joanie, did you hear? It’s going to be all right.”
“I’m sorry,” she said vaguely. “What? I don’t know…Joan? Is that my name?”
The woman gasped and the doctor patted her arm soothingly. “We knew this might happen with what she went through. Rest, quiet, familiar surroundings. Love. Those will help.”
“And she’ll have them.” The woman took her hand in a strong clasp. “I’m going to take such good care of you, Joan. You’ll see. We’ll forget all this ever happened.”
She was bewildered. Taken care of? Didn’t she do the caring? This was wrong…but getting less so all the time. She tried to sit up, and the doctor and the woman gently pushed her back, the doctor cranking her bed up so she was sitting.
“You have to be careful,” the woman said. “You’re still weak and no wonder.” At her confused expression, the woman added sadly. “You didn’t know your name, so you don’t know me do you? Poor Joan. I’m your sister. Your sister Lilah.”