AU, continues from The Blood Is the Life. As Spike and Buffy try to hold onto their partnership and their love, recently unsouled Spike tries to secure his position as self-proclaimed Master Vampire of Sunnydale...against the wishes of The Powers That Be and the Slayer's ancient mandate. Magic, new arrivals, old friends (and enemies), dreams, visions, e-Bay, tribute blood, and cookies all play a part in the tense give and take between vampire priorities and human necessities.

Disclaimer: All is Joss's. None is mine. No profit. Just more Spikejoy for everyone.

Chapter 1: Good Order

Since Buffy was at work and Dawn at school, that Monday, Spike had taken on the chore of setting up the going-away party for Rupert Giles for that evening. It might be years before the Council of Watchers was fully functional again, building back from its destruction and the death of nearly all its senior members. So it might be years before the responsibilities Giles had taken on would free him for a visit to Casa Summers. Party had to be a total blowout, therefore, to be proportional to Buffy’s loss and, to a lesser degree, Rupert’s.

They’d surely meet again, but never again as Slayer and assigned Watcher. Buffy was in no more need of such, and what need did remain, Spike performed under his self-chosen mandate of “watching her back.” So as Giles’ de facto successor, Spike felt it important that it all be planned and seen to properly. He could plan, when he had to. He could make an agenda and keep to it, stage by stage. If that meant thinking everything out, setting it all going, and checking that it all was accomplished, he could do that.

The new-minted Master Vampire of Sunnydale putting together a proper send-off for Sunnydale’s last serving Watcher. There seemed a symmetry to it.

Somnambulating through the morning, Kennedy at his shoulder as help and correction, Spike made lists and made calls, ordering up the necessary and the whimsical, alerting the people…and others…who should be there, arranging deliveries through his crew, through the sewers and tunnels, when no other means could be found. The three SITs--Kennedy, Amanda, and Rona--collected the belowground deliveries, hauled them indoors, and Kennedy checked them off the lists. No Slayer strength there, but they were willing, able, and young. Good enough.

By noon, Spike was asleep, leaned back in the door arch of the front room. Still on his feet, available to sort whatever hang-ups Kennedy needed a ruling on, braced enough to hold. Returning from her morning classes at the university, Willow poked cautiously at his shoulder until he roused and blinked at her.

“You’re food,” he told her.

“What?”

“You’re in charge of the food. What gets made, what’s delivered. Ken.”

“Yeah, Spike.”

Looking around, Spike found Kennedy seated crossways on the stairs, bent over the clipboard, inspecting the contents of a box.

“Give Red a list of all that’s still to do by way of food,” Spike directed. Looking back to Willow, Spike went on, “See if I’ve forgot anything. Remembered ice, that’s coming. Mostly take-out or catered, but I put you down for cookies. Thought that’d be a good thing. That OK by you?”

Letting her dangling purse and bookbag slide to the floor, Willow nodded. “I have a class at two, but I can take over here until then. Why don’t you get some rest?”

“I’ll do.”

“But you don’t have to,” Willow persisted--eyebrows wrinkling, smiling. “Yesterday, let’s see: you were under a deathwish curse, got yourself blind drunk, nearly got caught by sunrise, made a foul wreck of my bedroom, had…how many fights? three? four? And I guess no sleep since. At least sit down before you fall down.”

Kennedy came then, clipboard tucked under her arm, holding out the list for Willow to take. Some way, Willow didn’t want to: stood looking at her feet, then at the list, and only last and reluctantly at the SIT’s impassive face. For a moment Spike didn’t get what the hold-up was. But before he’d said anything dumb, he recalled that they’d been an item and now weren’t, and people found that kind of history an awkwardness afterward and didn’t know how to behave anymore. He knew such things if he stopped to think them out. Even without the soul, he could still puzzle out what he needed to. That was all right then, he thought, reassured.

“Sorry,” Willow was saying to her former lover, uncomfortably. “About Isadora.”

Offering condolences on account of the SIT’s new playmate getting dusted last night. He understood that. Was still tracking all right.

“Yeah,” Kennedy responded flatly, eyes downcast, still holding the list. Finally, Willow took it, and Kennedy went back to the stairs and the chore of ticking off the paper plates and plastic cups and tableware in the box.

Child was doing fine, Spike thought. Not demanding to be let off work for personal things that didn’t signify. Seeing to the task at hand. She was shaping into a good second: he made a mental note to remember to tell her so. People needed praise, not just correction--more important to them than to vamps. So he needed to remember.

Nothing like as good as Bit, of course, but that wasn’t to be helped. Dawn had her own concerns: keeping up with her classes and her homework, having sister-time with Buffy. That had to take precedence. Couldn’t just expect her to be hanging about to help him, even though that was what they both liked, and missed when her proper priorities kept them apart. Had to get rid of the habit of looking for her to be there. Wasn’t fair to Kennedy, to always feel she was second choice, even though she was. Had to be sensible, responsible about such things, not just want what he wanted.

Willow’s presence reminded Spike of an unaddressed agenda item. “Red,” he said, and waited until she looked up from the list. “Something I need you to do.”

“What?”

“It’s about Bit. Dawn. Need you to get together with her, figure out some different way to keep her here. Anchor her, like.” Spike rubbed his eyes, trying to think how to put it. “She’s anchored down to this dimension with a piece of my soul.”

No need going into the fact that said soul was magically contained inside a suitable Orb, wherever Dawn had hidden it, at his request. Shouldn’t signify, he thought. No need for the witch to know, even though Buffy now did--not where it was, just that he’d set it aside to free him for what he had to do. Or maybe not. Maybe that would matter. Couldn’t be sure, the one way or the other. Was for the witch to decide. Have to remember to tell Bit, then, that it was OK to admit that much. Not like it was a particular secret anymore, since Buffy knew. He made a mental note.

“Anyway,” he continued, “s’not right, her being tied to me that way. If I was to go, she’d be gone too, and that’s not right. So you two get together, figure out some different way, some different anchor that’s more reliable. Instead of me. Have I said it right, that you know what I mean?”

Willow continued to regard him with wrinkle-browed friendly concern. “Are you figuring to go poof, then?”

“Just want Bit clear of it, if it happens, is all. Clear of me. Dunno how to do that myself because I expect it would have to be magic. So I hoped you could take that on. Not tonight, necessarily. What with the party and all. Only soon. First chance you get, to talk it out with her.”

“You do realize,” Willow countered, “there’s more than Dawn gonna be pretty upset if you manage to get yourself dusted, right? You should be talking to Buffy about this.”

“She knows. Can’t be helped. Gonna be a target awhile yet. That’s the risk of starting this, and she knows. Trying to be sensible about it, is all. So you see to that, all right? And the cookies.”

“Yeah. And the cookies. Sure, Spike.” Willow pushed him, not very hard, nodding toward the far side of the room. “Take the chair. Have a nap while I get lunch. I’ll call you before I leave for class: promise.”

Spike set his back harder against the door arch. “’M fine. Keeping track of everything.”

“Sure you are. No pills, even.”

Spike shook his head. “They don’t help. Just make everything worse, after. Not doing that no more.”

“Right. That’s probably best.” She waved the list. “I’ll take care of the cookies and double-check all this. Consider it deputized.”

That was fine: Spike allowed himself to forget about everything to do with food, accepting it as seen to, handed off in proper fashion. Willow would take care of it. She was reliable. He trusted her.

He was days behind on the translation now. There’d been no time, no chance. And tonight, after they got the Watcher out the door and to the airport in good order, there’d be the downtown sweep to be attended to, though the Slayer would probably let the usual Monday patrol slide on account of the party and all. So he wouldn’t have to back her on that. Still, he couldn’t see any way to get caught up on the translation before week’s end, at the soonest, without dropping some other necessary chore like checking that Digger wasn’t up to any new tricks or that some other District Master, of the new ordering, wasn’t aiming something at the enormous target Spike now had on his chest, like the scars of the runes with which the First’s Bringers had marked him.

Not enough hands. Not enough time to attend to everything. But couldn’t let anything go. Had to keep the Slayer as clear as possible: this was his to see to. Vamp business. And Michael wasn’t ready yet to take on much more than his own little patch, the district Spike had assigned him. And Spike’s own crew, up at the factory, still needed considerable supervision. Needed training, like he’d trained the SITs, to come and go and do to his word, reliably, with minimal losses and dumb fuck-ups.

Spike missed Dalton. Useless in a fight, half blind, but a good scholar and translator, Dalton had been. Pity he’d got himself dusted. Spike had no help at all with the Council of Watchers translation, though the pay for that funded all the rest. Couldn’t let it get behind.

Put the word out, he thought. Shop for a replacement for Dalton, offer a finder’s reward. Yeah, that needed doing. Other specialists he needed. Time he set about ordering a court like the one he’d inherited, years back, from the Master-that-was, that Buffy had done for. All scattered or dusted now, have to begin fresh; and anyway, his needs were different from those of a standard vampire court. Should make up a whole agenda for that by itself, get it started.

Comfortably braced against the arch, eyes drifting shut, Spike made a note.

**********

Having private business, they’d withdrawn to the kitchen, leaving the party to proceed for awhile without them in the front room and the den. Buffy set about making a fresh pot of tea, talking over her shoulder to Giles--listening to him, mostly--about his immediate plans, trying to pretend the prospect of his going didn’t scare her down to the bones.

She was trying hard not to let the desertion scenario kick in. Trying not to feel young and overwhelmed and abandoned. Trying to at least act grown-up and sensible no matter how she felt.

Spike helped. Just by being there. By knowing perfectly well all her reflexive emotional hang-ups and reminding her with a word or a touch to her arm that it wasn’t abandonment, that she wasn’t facing the scary future all alone, that Spike never truly left and always had her back. That Giles leaving was now and necessary but wasn’t forever. That he’d left before and would again, and she’d managed. Survived. Endured.

That she therefore should and could be upbeat to Giles about his own anxieties, the challenges and opportunities of reestablishing the council and setting it on a better, truer path. Be encouraging, not needy. Give, not take. Be supportive, not a black hole of suckage. Not start an argument just to vent, ease the emotional tension, or let Spike do it either. Nor Giles, for that matter. They were all three of them wound up about doing the good-bye thing and trying not to let that matter.

Buffy alternately babbled and had gulping intervals of silence. Giles polished his glasses every five seconds. Spike leaned on the refrigerator, blinked sardonically, and tried to pretend he wasn’t smugly aware that when Giles was gone, he’d still be here, so nothing Giles said was worth getting upset about. Coping mechanisms.

She knew perfectly well: it was time. In some ways, it would even be a relief when Giles was gone. Not have to explain and defend her choices and decisions anymore. Not have to know that some of those choices--like her decision against college, like her partnership with Spike--were things Giles would never fully accept or be reconciled to, despite his seldom voicing actual criticism or opposition anymore.

They all knew it was time.

Pouring hot water into the teapot, Buffy asked, “When you get it all put back together, when there really is a council again, what do you think they’ll make…of us? Of what we’re doing now?”

Spike drawled, “Not like there was a whole lot of love to be lost there, pet. On either side.”

Giles commented, “Well, you’ve been very rash, Spike, and the council’s bound to take notice,” in a tone somewhere between annoyed, exasperated, and resigned. He already had his glasses off and produced a handkerchief to clean them.

“Gonna peach on me, are you, Rupert?” Spike inquired, amused.

“You know better than that. But eventually, they will know. In the present muddle of reconstitution, it may be some while before they both have the knowledge and act upon it. And I and others spent some considerable effort enlisting your services. Rewarding your exemplary behavior in regard to closing the Hellmouth. The council made a good faith attempt to reach an accommodation which you’ve now implicitly thrown back in their faces by this new move. Master of Sunnydale, indeed. You might have waited until I’d actually left before rendering it all a complete mockery. Then I’d have at least been able to claim ignorance.”

“Events dictate, Watcher. Couldn’t wait.”

“Well, I’ll provide you with what warning I can. Before the blood delivery is stopped. There’s no longer any point, of course, in my pressing for your appointment as Buffy’s de facto Watcher: that would, I’m afraid, only affect Buffy’s own position adversely. In fact, these present developments virtually eliminate any chance there might have been for arranging a stipend for her.”

“Why?” Spike shot back, finally touched, stung. “S’got nothing to do with her. Put it together all on my own. Kept it clear of her. Why--”

“Spike,” said Giles wearily, “we’re not children here. You’re in residence. You’re her acknowledged…”

As Giles tried to choose a sufficiently sexless word, Buffy put in, “Consort.” Then she lifted her chin. “Lover.” She stuck her right hand back and felt Spike clasp it in both of his. Glancing around, she saw him settling his temper, retreating again to his aloof distance. Turning back to Giles, Buffy made a sharp, dismissive gesture with her free hand. “There never was much chance anyway. It’d set a bad precedent, actually admitting Slayers were worth anything. I wasn’t holding my breath, Giles. We’ll manage.”

“It’s not right,” Giles declared, unreconciled.

“It matters that you tried, and I love you for trying. Don’t give up. It’s groundwork. Maybe a few Slayers down the line, without my awkward attachments…” She didn’t look at Spike. “Or my refusal to take the Boogey Man Credo as gospel or my dislike of being dictated to by a bunch of…dictators. Somebody who’s died a few less times performing her goddam sacred duty. Somebody who hasn’t saved the world a few too many times to expect any thanks for it, much less a salary. Maybe there’ll be a better chance then to push it through.”

“But not in my time. Nor in yours. I’m truly sorry, Buffy.”

“We’ll manage,” Buffy said again, squeezing Spike’s hand because she knew it galled him to have anything denied her, withheld from her, on his account. She wasn’t all that happy about it herself. But as Giles had said, they were none of them children, to expect life to be fair. Everything had a price. Or a cost. Consequences.

“And the translation?” Spike inquired, as if it didn’t matter or he didn’t care.

Pouring tea into his cup and then sipping it, Giles allowed himself a small, pursed smile. “Oh, I expect that will survive the revelation. That’s something they actually do need, after all. I don’t imagine they’ll let their principles impede the practicalities. In that one regard, your being a vampire, and a linguist, gives you the leverage of the unique. Your new title might even impart a certain cachet, like that of obscure expatriate Russian nobility in the age of the Euro. No, I imagine they’ll still be clamoring for results long after you’re sick of spells in otherwise forgotten demon languages, filtered through Babylonian cuneiform and assorted glyphs.”

Spike nodded sharply. “That’s all right, then. That, I can do. Whatever else gets cut off, if that stays, we can manage.”

“So,” said Giles, and brought a thick envelope from an inner pocket of his jacket. He slid the envelope toward Spike along the kitchen island. When Spike made no move to take it, his hands still occupied with holding Buffy’s, Giles explained, “The last of your paperwork.” Opening the envelope, Giles enumerated each of the papers as he laid them out. “Passport, suitably stamped. Birth certificate, with joint nationality, and please note your parents’ names and your birthdate: 5th November, 1976.”

Spike was startled into an abrupt bark of laughter.

“Yes,” said Giles, without glancing up, “you’ve been made one with gunpowder and treason. A little anarchy for the Guy. You wouldn’t specify, so I assigned you a memorable date and a bicentennial you have yet to earn, also memorable.”

“What?” asked Buffy, looking between them.

Spike hitched a shoulder, mouth wryly downturned. “He’s assigned me a holiday, pet: Guy Fawkes’ day. Notable traitor, burned in effigy each year.”

The date was less than two weeks away. Buffy had never given any thought to a vamp’s birthday. “What’s your real birthday, then?” she asked.

Spike shook his head, releasing her hand to fold his arms across his chest--a stubborn, defensive stance.

“Why?” Buffy persisted.

When Spike continued silent, Giles commented, “Public records, I expect. A means of identifying his actual antecedents. Spike, I’ve wondered: are members of your family still alive?”

“Did I leave any alive, you mean. ‘Course not. What all vamps do, innit?”

Giles sighed. “Spike, your reputation for being the worst liar extant is in no danger. What possible difference--”

Spike put his arms around Buffy from behind--folding her into his refusal to provide details. “What’s mine, I keep.”

Buffy leaned into him just enough so he’d feel it, and Giles looked away.

“Yes, quite.” Giles resumed enumerating the papers. “Social Security card. Driver’s license. Transcripts of your purported schooling: please memorize the dates. Copies of various diplomas. A verifiable resume. Medical records establishing a severe allergy to sunlight, possibly even fatal, in case you’re ever thrown in jail.” Gathering up the papers, Giles squared them tidily, then returned them to the envelope. “Nothing as wholesale as the creation of Dawn, but this should survive even intense scrutiny. Should anything else be required, let me know. The council may be decimated, but we still have the resources to produce quite a cast-iron false identity. As much as I could, I dealt with different departments, reliable outside suppliers. Various pretexts. So even the council itself would find it difficult to retrace my path in creating these.” Tapping the envelope, Giles gave Spike a level, sober look. “Don’t rely on them any more than you must.”

“Yeah. I know. Should do for awhile, though. Thanks, Rupert.”

Giles attended to his tea. “Spike, we’ve had our differences, but I’d like to think we’ve come to an understanding. Unless you force it, I will never willingly be your enemy, or act to harm you. And not only for Buffy’s sake. Should either of you--”

Leaning in from the hall, Amanda blurted, “Spike. You have to come.”

As Spike let Buffy go and slid behind Giles, responding to the summons, Buffy followed right behind.

Counting Spike, six people stood in a tense group in the front hall. Dawn, the three SITs…no, four SITs. Buffy recognized the fair-haired girl standing just inside the open doorway as Suzanne.

Standing at the foot of the stairs, Dawn was saying tightly to Spike, “I let her in. I didn’t realize--” She had her taser in her hand, as did Amanda. They were all staring at Suzanne for no reason Buffy could see: in jeans, thick hiking shoes, a blue sweatshirt, and a yellow down vest, dusty-blonde hair in a braid down her back, a rucksack slung over her shoulder, she was looking around comfortably, no different than when she’d left, barely a month ago.

Suzanne said, “Hi, Spike. I’m back.”

Then her face changed. Went golden-eyed and fanged. With no change of pose, no change of expression.

Fingers lifting to touch her forehead, Suzanne said softly, “Oops. Guess I did it again, huh?”

**********

Spike took it all in: the SITs waiting for him to call it, appalled, horrified. And Bit the same, except she was still wound up over having let the fledge in. And Buffy was gone back to the kitchen. Didn’t take thought to know she’d be back in a second with a stake.

Would ruin the party.

Spike was perplexed and annoyed.

With no hesitation he went at the fledge and boosted her back through the open door, hard enough that she cleared the steps and half the front yard before she hit. Spike paused in the doorway long enough to level a finger at Dawn. “Tell Red to do a disinvite. Right now.” Without waiting for an answer he spun, took the steps at a bound, and was off after the fledge, fleeing away down the dark street.

She was going a good clip, straight ahead. It would take him a while to overtake her if she didn’t jink, if he couldn’t cut an angle, cut her off. Seeing where she was headed, he waited to see if she’d go inside. Could corner her there, no problem. But she barely slowed, realizing Casa Mike was empty now, and kept racing in long, easy strides.

Couldn’t be above two weeks turned and could already shed game face, though she couldn’t maintain human countenance very long. Already had enough control of her senses that she could pass a house, know if a vamp was inside or not. Though Spike was running quiet, she’d know he wasn’t but about six strides back and except for the running, he got no sense of fear from her. That was confirmed when she glanced around at him, grinning, and commented, “How come you never said how much fun this was? Did you figure if you didn’t tell, nobody would guess?”

“Something like. What you doing here, Sue?”

She faced front again but kept talking. “Did you know something like 90% of female fledges don’t make it through their first year?”

“Never counted, pet. Though that seems a fair enough figure.”

“You’re going to help me beat the odds.”

“I am, am I? Now why would I bother about what a fledge wants?”

“What do you want, Spike?”

Spike had been scanning driveways, looking for something suitable. Spotting it, he bent to scoop up a baseball-sized rock and threw, all in the one motion. Didn’t try for her legs, knew his aim wasn’t that good. Went for the broadest target, caught her right between the shoulder blades, knocked her tumbling. She was up the next minute, but he was there and backhanded her across the face. The second time she sprang up and he put her down, she had the sense to stay down, crouched, watching him.

Strolling up and down a driveway, he kept between her and Casa Summers. If she bolted, she’d have to head away. And though she’d be hard to take in a foot race, there were other stones to hand and he’d just bring her down again. And no way was she gonna outfight him--with weapons or without. He took his time, lighting a cigarette.

“Got better things to do tonight than chase you across the landscape, moron.”

“Then why did you?” she shot back. “And why’d you call me a moron?”

“Well, that’s plain, innit?” He tipped a hand at her, crouched on somebody’s lawn, against a hedge. “You did this on purpose. That makes you a moron.”

“Then you’re a moron, too--right?”

“That I am, pet. But I’m a bigger, stronger, older moron than you, and I could rip your head off just like that. An’ you know it. So what’s this all in aid of, tell me?”

“I thought….” she began, then shook her head hard, shutting herself up. When she lifted her head again, she’d forced game face away. Looked almost like the child he’d known, except for the preternatural stillness. No pulse. No sweet girl bloodsmell. Except for the being dead. “I didn’t think you’d be like this,” she said softly, as if to herself.

“Oh, is that so. How’d you expect me to be, then? Figure I’d be all concerned, little SIT gone and made herself a monster, want to look out for you, like? Teach you the error of your ways?” Fast, he was down on his knees, shouting in her face. “It’s too late for that! That child is dead, and you’re what murdered her! Are you so stupid you don’t even know that?”

She turned her face away, pulling fretfully at her braid, fallen across her shoulder. “It’s hard to know what I’m showing. It wants to change. It’s like trying to hold my breath. Like it used to be, anyway. Because, well, don’t need to breathe anymore. Except to talk. It’s so strange, Spike. Like I thought it would be…and yet not. But…I still want it. Want the power and the speed and everything so bright. The smells….”

She moved slightly, changing balance, reacting to what Spike had caught at least a minute before: slow, unhurried footsteps, and the quicker patter of a dog. About a block away, approaching, opposite side of the street.

Spike said, “You budge an inch, I will put you down.”

“But I want….”

“Don’t give a damn what your demon wants. All demons want the same. You make it mind or I will.”

She was trying to hold herself still. Trying to obey. He could tell. But she wasn’t but a fledge, and as the dog-walking woman came level, the fledge lunged upright and forward. So Spike hammered her. Caved in her cheekbone, likely broke her jaw. Still had to close a hand around her wrist to lock her down and hit her twice more before her demon quit fighting to get free, get at the oblivious food.

But once he’d done what she couldn’t, deflected her demon, she stayed down, making no noise at all. Not whining or complaining. She’d always been good that way, he recalled.

“Now you listen,” he said finally. “This is my town now, and you can’t hunt without leave. Mine…or somebody’s.” He thought a while more--the time it took to smoke another cigarette, since the first got lost before he’d barely finished half of it. “You don’t go within a five block range of Casa Summers again. You got that?”

She bobbed her head. Likely couldn’t talk all that well at the moment.

Spike considered and discarded two more alternatives. “All right, the mark is the theater downtown. You be there before midnight. I’ll tell you where to go from there. You see any other vamps, you keep still, keep hid, till they’re gone. Situation’s…touchy right now. Setting borders, setting limits. If I don’t find you at the mark, you’re on your own. None of my concern. Not anymore. There’s a reason most vamp bints don’t survive their first year. First month, even. If you don’t want to be a statistic, you do what I say. You fucking mind.”

Again, she nodded.

Pitching the butt, Spike turned on his heel and started pacing back toward Casa Summers. At least wasn’t likely she’d hunt, not with her jaw like that.

He’d settle her later. Too tired to think about any non-agenda problems at the moment. The important thing was seeing Rupert had a proper send-off, getting him gone. Then he’d deal with the rest.

**********

Coming back from the airport, everybody was yawning and subdued. Well, nearly everybody, Dawn corrected: although Spike had managed to stay intermittently awake on the outward leg, as soon as Giles’ luggage was pulled out of the back, Spike tumbled over the bench seat into the vacated space and totally conked.

Inside the uncomfortably bright terminal, after the baggage was taken care of, Dawn pulled out of the group hug and the goodbyes as soon as she decently could and went outside where she could keep an eye on the SUV, parked in the yellow-striped pick-up/drop-off stretch near the doors. Pulling off the silly cardboard party hat, she pitched it in a convenient bin.

The past two days, at least four attempts had been made on Spike’s life. Dawn wanted to be uber-vigilant against another. Nobody had appointed her to sentry duty. Nobody had forbidden it, either. Hand in the pocket that held her taser, elbows pulled tight against her sides in the chilly air, Dawn paced the curb and watched.

Eventually everybody came out--Xander and Anya splitting off from Willow and going to Xander’s truck, Buffy and the SITs visibly dragging. They hadn’t gotten any sleep last night either and probably none through the day.

Noticing Dawn, Buffy said, “You shouldn’t go off like that.”

Falling in behind Willow, Dawn shrugged. “I’m not a Scooby or a SIT.”

“Then why did you come?” Buffy asked crossly, triggering the door locks.

Dawn only shrugged again. She slid the back door open and climbed in. She felt cranky, guilty, and anxious, all of the feelings combining as a sulky withdrawal she didn’t want to inflict on Buffy, who was enough on edge already.

Dawn was supposed to have planned the party but had blown it off in the upset of Spike’s marking her and refusing afterward to be anywhere around her. So Spike’d had to do the party set-up himself on top of all the rest of the crowbars, anvils, and knives he was juggling. All her fault--just like everything else.

That the mark had been...invalidated by another set over it, by a vamp who’d then been dusted, meant that things were supposedly back to normal now. Only they weren’t. Although present, Spike was more distant than ever. Shutting himself off, shutting her away. She'd barely been able to exchange two words with him since returning home from school or during the party and she doubted he'd really heard even them. Too distracted. Too focused on Buffy or Giles or all the invisible spinning hardware. And then Sue showing up, on top of everything: another concern added. Another piece of phantom hardware. Dawn could feel a crash coming.

Maybe, she thought hopefully, it was only that he was so totally wiped out in the aftermath of all that had happened. That hope lasted about two seconds because this hadn’t begun last night or even last week.

He didn’t move except when a turn rolled him to one side or the other. Facing backward, chin on arms folded on the bench seat, Dawn watched him worriedly, feeling a smothered, sad anxiety.

They dropped off Amanda at home, then Kennedy and Rona together at the boarding house. Finally Buffy pulled up in front of the theater marquee, turned off the engine, and twisted around in her seat, looking for Spike.

“He’s out of it,” Dawn reported quietly, pointing with a thumb.

In the front seat Willow asked Buffy, “What d’you think: just go home?”

Dawn shook her head. “He has the sweep still to do.” Not waiting for any more discussion, Dawn leaned over the seat back and poked and shook him a few times. “Spike. Spike, wake up. We’re at the mark.”

He went tight and startled for a second. Then he pushed up on an elbow, looking around, rubbing his eyes. “Right. Next to last on the agenda.” Abruptly unwinding, he popped the rear hatch and slid out, holding a sack of stakes. As he shut the hatch solidly, Dawn was down on the curb and back beside him.

“What’s this, then?”

“I’m staying. At least until it’s time to start the sweep.”

“You and whose great aunt? None of that nonsense, Bit. Back in the van.” He pushed, trying to turn and steer her, but she set her feet and grasped the curve of the SUV’s rear corner. And of course he wasn’t gonna outright shove her.

“I was good about last night,” she argued. “Played good soldier, stayed home like you said. But we have to talk.”

“And get home how? I’ll be out here till nearly sunup.”

“Buffy will come back,” Dawn proposed indifferently.

“Buffy will go home and have her beauty sleep. And so will you. School day, work day tomorrow, Bit.”

Willow lowered her window enough to lean out. “What’s the problem?”

Spike came up onto the sidewalk. “No problem. Just saying goodbye to Bit.” Looking around but past Dawn, not meeting her eyes, Spike added softly, “Don’t want to have a thing about this here. You go home now.”

“Spike, please. It’s important.”

“No. Got no head for more chat anyway. We’ll talk. Tomorrow…or the next day, maybe. Soon. Call you, maybe. Something.”

She was making it worse. She could see him trying to sort through the descending hardware, all the concerns backed up and overdue, trying to find a gap to slot her into and not finding any. She could imagine and feel his frustration. And she hadn’t the heart to push or insist anymore.

She patted his arm. “Be careful. Take a pill.”

“Trying not to do that no more.” He lifted his head, looking blankly at the sky. “Maybe. If I have to. Gonna be all right here, nothing for you to worry about.”

Willow called, “Dawn?”

“All right, all right!” Dawn yanked the rear door and flung herself inside far enough to draw it shut. The locks clicked. She watched Spike turn and head slowly toward the alley as the SUV pulled away.

From the front, Buffy directed, “Seat belt,” and Willow inquired, “What was that all about?” Neither of them sounded angry or impatient.

Facing forward, Dawn did up her seat belt.

Willow persisted, “Dawnie?”

They waited out a red light. When the SUV went forward again, Dawn said abruptly, “I don’t like this. I’m worried about him. He’s not connecting well or right anymore. No matter how he tries, or I do. I’m afraid it’s the soul: setting it aside. Afraid he’s coming unstuck and drifting and I can’t reach….” The image in her mind was of helplessly watching an untethered boat moving slowly farther from shore with the pull of the tide.

Which didn’t matter because Willow’s remarking to Buffy something about the Devon coven told Dawn nobody had heard her anyway.

**********

Finishing a cigarette and pacing the alley to stay alert, Spike checked his watch: 11:16. Watcher would be off, then. So that was done and hadn’t gone off too badly except for Clem startling Red considerable by showing some bumpies, wrinklies, and sudden visual nastiness as the punchline of an interminable joke. Doing a Beetlejuice, Dawn had called it, when she could stop laughing.

Important to have a few of the more harmless demon types present, party like that. Remind Rupert not all demons had nothing on their minds except eating the citizenry and trying to end the world from some combination of malice and boredom.

Snacks Clem had brought had been popular too. And the Angharan had been fine in the charades. Didn’t think anybody had noticed anything off about the punch or twigged to the actual nature of the crisp meat on skewers, with various dipping sauces. Spike had never been partial to kitten himself, but most kinds of demon liked it. Not as if it’d been human, after all: Spike had checked and slid the other away before anybody else had a chance to try it, had a word with Gregor afterward. Actually, several words, a shove, and poke in the eye.

Cookies had been good, though. Went well with the punch.

So that was accomplished and all right. He could forget about it now.

Vamp approaching. Several. He watched as they came into range of the streetlights: Emil, Mary, Kehoe, Strait. All in the colors, the black and the scarlet. All walking in the open as though they owned this town, which they did, when the sun was gone. Proudly game-faced, looking purposeful and dangerous. And from behind him, up the alley, another group coming: Bitter, Liz, Carlos, and then Huey, leading off from behind.

As the latter group came into talking distance, Spike directed, “Huey--coffee.”

Not like Spike didn’t have the pills, had some right in the duster pocket, but didn’t want to be relying on them so much. He’d be frazzled and flying all night and his judgment wasn’t the best at such times. And then the crash afterward, when the strangest of the dreams got in and occupied him like a conquered territory with no hope of escape. If coffee would do, he’d stick to that.

As Huey sent Carlos, the current junior, running the errand, the squad gathered around Spike to get their directions for the night.

Spike leaned his shoulders against the alley wall beside a dumpster, lighting a fresh cigarette. “All right, looking tonight for anybody trolling for druggies. One squad. After last night, whoever’s defying the schedule will likely be out in packs of three or four so as not to get caught on their own. So you stay together too. Anything you run across that’s out of your league, too many or too well armed, whatever, fall back, send a runner to the mark to tell me, and I’ll call it. Don’t want to get in a pitched territorial battle yet. All clear so far?

Strait raised his hand, and Spike nodded. “Who leads off?” the young vamp wanted to know. Had about twenty visible piercings: currently fascinated with pain and vamp healing.

“Huey. And Mary to second.” Huey wasn’t even close to the best fighter, but he kept a cool head, wasn’t easily rattled, and right now, Spike considered that the most important consideration. He stopped, reviewing what he’d said and what therefore remained to say. “Right. Druggies. Start at Sycamore, work around from there, east to west. Dust any vamps you find. Dealers are fair game too, if they’re not too wasted. Share ‘em around if you do, though. Don’t want nobody incapable on a sweep.” Not much of the designated protective scent yet in circulation: do as many of the dealers as possible until it was, when feeding on ‘em would have to be regretfully prohibited. “Let the druggies be. And drunks and so forth that you come across. Pass ‘em by. Stick to vamps and the odd dealer for now. Any questions.”

Again, Strait lifted a hesitant hand.

Spike said, “What.”

“Haven’t fed.”

“Then you’ll have to go hungry, won’t you?” Spike flicked a glance to Huey, who nodded. Huey would see that the lad had sufficient chance at the night’s first prey. Otherwise, underfed and desperate, the boy’s demon might push him into doing something dumb.

“Keeping Carlos as a runner for awhile,” Spike said. “So go on. Back here to report at five.”

He distributed stakes from the bag, and the squad headed out in good order. So that was sorted and all right. Presently Carlos came with the coffee--double espresso, triple sugar, Spike’s current favorite. Uncapping the cup, Spike sent the boy to mind the back of the alley, to warn of anything coming up from behind. In a couple of days, Spike would have to change the gather mark from the theater--any point, used too often, was asking for an ambush. But for now it was convenient and handy to the Espresso Pump, that now kept all-night hours because of the recent increase in nighttime business. Mainly Spike’s doing. He ran a tab there now for himself and those of his crew who had a taste for the stuff.

The concentrated caffeine hit his system almost like the first gulp of good whiskey but with opposite effect: awakening prickles everywhere and a wash of stronger alertness, jumping the reach of his perceptions almost to those of sight.

A vamp hiding under a parked van, opposite side of the street. With a little concentration, he could smell her, though vamps didn’t have much scent.

Having downed about half the remaining coffee, Spike said quietly, “Coast’s clear now. Come on.”

As Sue emerged from under the van, dragging her carryall, Spike checked his watch: ten to midnight.

“All right,” he said as she stood in front of the dumpster, “let’s see the damage.” He set thumb and finger on her chin and turned her head, inspecting. Looked to be about halfway healed, still plenty showing. Good enough. “Here,” he said, fishing in a duster pocket, and produced the two bags of tribute blood delivered for his evening meal. He figured he was fed up good enough not to need them and anyway he was used to going quite awhile without. Not as if he was a fledge, needed feeding every night. He watched her tear into the bags and gulp the blood with ravenous haste.

“It’s cold,” she complained, but pitched the empty bags into the dumpster, obedient to his nod.

“Ain’t got the time,” Spike said, “to be lumbered with a fledge. So I’m sending you off to somebody who has. District Master, old enough to have trained up a thousand fledges, knows what he’s about. Long as you mind him as best you can, he won’t just lose patience and dust you, on account of he’s a bit short-handed at the moment. He’ll have other fledges around, most likely. Train you all. Name of Digger.”

“Want you,” Sue objected. “Came back here for you.”

Ignoring the comment, Spike went on, “Digger wants me gone real bad. Had a couple of tries at it and I don’t expect he’ll quit now. You take notice of what you can. He won’t know you, doesn’t know you were a SIT. You see it stays that way. You’re just a local fledge, got turned here, just before the Hellmouth was closed. He’s not apt to ask you much--nobody cares where a fledge came from, who they used to be, nothing like that. You just sing small, do what you’re told, keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll set up some way to check on you, swap news and like that. You come on something interesting, you pass it along.”

“Spy,” Sue remarked, liking that.

Finishing the coffee, Spike nodded. “Digger’s current fuck is a bint calls herself ‘Star.’ You stay wide of her. Don’t give her a reason to dust you. ‘Cause she will if she thinks you’re a threat, getting too cozy with Digger. You pick somebody else, somebody you figure is a good fighter, to get cozy with. Fledge needs a protector, a partner, specially bints. Digger’s not for you, though he’ll likely fuck you from time to time. Try you out, keep you in line. When--”

“Didn’t come back for that,” Sue interrupted sullenly.

“Well, that’s just your bad luck and bad judgment, innit? Told you, I ain’t got the time. An’ I’m not the toy surprise in your box of sweets, just reach in and take. Part of what you gave up in letting yourself get turned. S’not up to you anymore, you’re not the queen of the May, you’re maybe one step up from a dog bitch in heat and a bloody liability till you can get your damn demon under some sort of control, and nobody’s gonna give you any slack whatever until that happens. Until you can mind. Until you can choose and not just let yourself get flung around by whatever wind that blows. Might be years. Might be never.” He pitched the coffee container into the dumpster.

“I’ll learn,” Sue declared. “Didn’t pick the first vamp I bumped into, to turn me. The plane had a layover at O’Hare and I got my gear and left--big city, lots to choose from. I hunted every night. Quizzed ‘em, dusted all that didn’t suit, until I found one who remembered the First World War. Nearly a century. Bribed him to turn me and keep watch till I rose, not just become another forgotten meal. Jeffrey. Dusted him after, of course. Chicago’s OK, easy hunting there, but I always planned to come back here. To you. So you’d teach me how to survive. Like before.”

“And I’m passing you along to Digger,” Spike replied, mildly annoyed by her ignorant arrogance, thinking he’d give a fraction of a damn about her history, her stupid choices. Thinking her priorities were all that mattered. “Where maybe you can be some use to me, but likely not. At least you’ll be out of my hair.”

She fiddled with her braid, frowning. “Send me to Mike, then.”

“No. Michael’s hardly past a fledge himself, you know that. He’s got enough on his plate without you. And you’d be no use to me there.”

She didn’t argue, which meant she was planning to go hunt Michael anyway. And therefore would be blundering into some other District Master’s territory, trespassing, and likely gone before daybreak. Feeling his eyes go yellow, Spike was tempted to dust her himself, except he was too tired to bother.

“Michael won’t take you on.”

“Maybe he would.”

“Not if I tell him No. Unlike you, Michael knows how to mind.”

That finally got through to her. She bent her head, lowered her eyes--at last assuming a submissive pose.

Spike said, “When you can shed game face ten minutes at a go, maybe I’ll listen to what you want. Until then, you’re just a nuisance and a chore. Better Digger’s than mine. You do what I say or I’m done with you, right here.”

“All right, Spike,” Sue said softly. “I’ll be good. You’ll see.”

“You better be, or else you’ll be gone. Digger won’t put up with your nonsense any more than I would. Except he needs numbers and has a reason to want to keep you standing, which is more than I have.”

She sniffled, which made him look at her. Tears were rolling down her ridged, fanged face. “Why are you being so mean to me?”

“Fuck off,” said Spike, and whistled up Carlos from the far end of the alley. “She’s one of Digger’s,” Spike explained. “Only a fledge, ain’t quite caught on to the new rules. Gonna give her a pass, this once. See her to the edge of his territory, point her toward the lair. Don’t touch her--don’t want Digger to smell us on her or we might as well not bother. Come back here after.”

Carlos nodded smartly and led her away. Carlos was fairly reliable. Should go all right unless she decided to feed along the way. Well, that was gonna happen, Spike knew. Had to expect it. Nothing he could do about it. Couldn’t control everything and it’d be stupid even to try. Maybe could moderate the numbers, night by night, but only an idiot would try to alter or suppress fundamental vamp nature. Had to work within what was possible, accept the limits.

Spike didn’t expect much. Figured about an 80% chance Suzanne would get all caught up in the new place, new way of thinking and being, get caught up in the always-shifting interlace of allegiances and enmities that was life in a vampire pack, and forget the rest. Forget whatever tie she’d imagined she had to him. Likely sell him out, if the chance came, to win favor from her new master. He didn’t intend to trust her. But she might survive. He’d done the best for her he could think of. And she’d known enough to choose a vamp of some age to turn her. Inherited an old, experienced demon. The results were plain: still only a fledge, but more control and awareness than most who were many times her age. She might have a chance. No going back now to what had been before.

Last agenda item for tonight was deciding where he’d lair up to sleep, come sunup. Still be awhile before he’d risk returning to Casa Summers or his factory, either one, on anything like a regular basis. Be the same as extending the invisible target on his chest to cover those places, each of them, like a tent. An invitation to mass attack and firebombs--the sort that had reduced Casa Spike to smoking rubble. Nor was Spike stupid enough to believe Digger, and a few others, didn’t have or couldn’t get minions who could be abroad during the day, poking and looking. He could consider nothing safe until he’d made it safe, shut out all avenues of attack. Until he’d done that, he had to stay unpredictable, elusive. And thoroughly wipe out whatever came at him, till the opposition left off trying.

Last he’d heard, the bounty Digger had set on him was $ 10,000; after last night, it was likely up at least by half. Doing Spike had become a valuable commodity, ripe for speculation. The bounty, and the current odds, were up on the board at Willy’s, quoted for all to see. Were he not involved, Spike would have liked the odds and taken a chance on collecting. Only natural.

A vamp was most vulnerable asleep. So Spike had to make himself scarce and hard to find. Never the same place twice. Anyplace would do so long as it was away from the sun, away from anybody he cared about or wanted to protect, and big enough to curl up in.

Sorting among the alternatives, he jerked, realizing he’d been dozing on his feet again. He smacked a fist hard against the edge of the dumpster. The pain brought him back to alertness, but that would fade fast. Even the dumpster was starting to look good to him: enclosed dark space once the lid was shut. Quiet. Smell didn’t matter. Great way to find yourself falling toward an incinerator at high noon, out at the rubbish tip. Stupid even to consider it.

No more coffee until Carlos got back to fetch it.

Reluctantly, resignedly, Spike reached into the duster pocket for the vial of pills.

Chapter 2: Components, Influences

At breakfast Tuesday morning, Willow woke up enough to notice Dawn and they spun together, each gripping the other’s arms, both saying, “We have to--” and then shutting up. Willow realized Dawn must have had a blinking-strange incoherent early morning phone call from Spike too.

So they both said simultaneously, “Later.”

“Espresso Pump?” Dawn asked.

“Magic Box,” Willow counter proposed, and Dawn considered, then bobbed a nod.

Then they whirled away into their separate preparations for the day.

There was no need to set a time because Willow know Dawn got out of school at three. So they convened at the big table at the Magic Box in the familiar nose-twitching mélange of smells, with the implicit consent of Anya, busy with customers since it was only two days to Halloween.

Setting down a cappuccino and a cold can of Dr. Pepper, Willow commented, “Guess he’s taking those pills again.”

“He can handle it,” Dawn defended, sliding her backpack off and depositing it on a chair. Then she settled and popped the top of her soda.

“Sure,” Willow responded skeptically. “Like Dr. Franklin and the stims. Maybe he’ll go walkabout soon.”

Dawn shook her head hard enough to make her hair fly. “Not on the agenda. Too much backed up to take a break.”

“Yeah. That’s what Dr. Franklin said. Before he freaked, collapsed, and admitted to Sheridan there was a problem.”

“It’s not like that, and anyway, Franklin wasn’t a vamp.”

“You think? So.” Willow poked the straw into her cup and bent it at exactly the right angle. “About the soul.”

Dawn shook her head again. “That’s his agenda, not mine. Sure, he called to say I could talk about it--everything except where it is. At least I think that’s what it was about. A call like that at six in the morning, from Loopy Land, some interpretation is required. No, that can wait. What I’m worried about is Digger’s Plan B.”

While Willow sipped her cappuccino, Dawn explained that when Digger had taken her as a pax bond, a kind of formal hostage to secure a meeting, and Spike had come for her, Digger had ended up throwing a big handful of sparkly powder at Spike. It had kind of sizzled, gone into a glowy field at contact, and then vanished.

“Spike said it was nothing,” Dawn commented, elbows on the table and head low, hair falling curved onto its surface, “but I don’t like it. Plan A, the deathwish, was pretty bad. I’m not gonna assume Plan B was just a bust and a waste of whatever Digger paid for it just because Spike says so.”

“Everything seems pretty normal. New normal. Never would have thought Spike would need chemical help to get even more hyper.” Willow rolled her eyes expressively. “He seemed OK yesterday. For Spike.”

“He didn’t drink the tribute blood: there were no empty bags in the trash.”

“It was a party. Everybody around. He’s shy.”

“I checked the basement trash too.”

“Oh.”

“I think he gave it to Sue. I don’t think he dusted her. He wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”

Willow thought about that, drawing small circles on the table with a fingertip. They both knew he’d dusted Kim, another SIT who’d been turned. “Why wouldn’t he?” Willow asked finally.

“Don’t know. It’s not as if he answers his frelling cell phone. Or will stand still long enough for me to actually ask him something anymore. I tried to get him to talk to me about Plan B last night but oh no, it’s a school day, have to stuff the Bit back in the van, no time for idle chit-chat.” Dawn’s mimicking of Spike’s accent and cadences was deliberately bad and sour.

So that had been what the little drop-off hiccup had been about, Willow thought. “It wasn’t a good time. He was busy.”

“When isn’t he busy? Back to topic: what do you think the sparkles were? A spell, sure--but what kind of spell?”

“No good answer to that. That was just the delivery method. It would be like looking at smoke and trying to know what kind of wood was burning. Or paper, or….” Willow frowned, considering, and Dawn kept still and watched, letting her. “He was wearing my locket by that time. That would block most kinds of…. No, he wasn’t: he’d given it to Buffy. So, no: he didn’t have any magical protection when he went in. And the dust reacted.”

“Bad sign?”

“Could be. No immediate, obvious effect…. Was Digger wearing gloves, handling it?”

Dawn looked for the answer in the ceiling. “Nope.”

“And no kind of chanting or visible preparation?”

“Nothing. Just grab and fling.”

“And it reacted on contact.” Willow paused to sip. “I don’t like the sound of that either. There’s two things I can do, Dawn. One is test him for magical influence. See if anybody has…handled him, magically, in the last few days in a way that still has effects. The other is to go to the source and find out.”

Dawn’s eyebrows arched high. “You expect Digger to be chatty?”

“Not Digger. The one who made the spell. My sometime roommate cum pet: Amy the Rat. Or at least that’s my first guess. She’s gone into the spells-for-hire line lately. And she’s not too particular about what she whips up. Or for who. If I test Spike, I can try to get a magical signature off him in the process. All magic has…the flavor of its maker. Because nothing’s mass produced. Each spell is individual, hand-crafted. Full of the will and intent of its maker, that shaped it. I think I know the work of all the resident mages and witches in the area. Aren’t that many. Most left when the Hellmouth started to get all rumbly, flare-y. Contrary to popular belief, there is such a thing as too much power.” Making a wry face, Willow sipped and swallowed. “But the Hellmouth is shut now, so it’s possible somebody’s come back and has been laying low, or some stranger has come on the strength of Sunnydale’s reputation as a power well, power just for the reaching out and grabbing. It’s not just vamps that are attracted. Or were.” Willow twisted around in her chair. “Anya?”

At the register, inserting a purchase in one of the new Harry Potter themed bags, Anya said to the customer, with bright enthusiasm, “Thanks for spending your money here!” Waiting until the customer left, Anya cast a suspicious glance toward two teenagers fumbling with the candle display, then hustled within talking distance of the table. “What is it? I’m really very busy.”

“I can help out until five,” Dawn volunteered, and got a surprised look and a wide grin from Anya.

“For free?”

“Usual rates.”

“Oh, all right. Very well. Go watch the candles, then.” Anya settled on the edge of the chair Dawn vacated, still watching the store.

Willow said, “I need some spell components. I’ll make up a list, but since you’re so busy, I’ll collect them myself. Will that be OK?”

Anya considered, then said, “Go ahead. You haven’t stolen anything in several months. Perhaps I should consider you reformed. Like Dawn.”

“Thanks a lot. Actually, it will be charged to Spike’s account.”

“Then fine--I always add a 10% service charge. For carrying the account. I want to see the list, though. Any component over $ 10, I want to see and verify.”

Willow sighed. You had to take Anya as you found her or not at all. Anya didn’t especially mean to be rude--she just was. As rain wasn’t intentionally wet. It just came that way.

“Nobody’s yet met the reserve on the Chaos Stone,” Anya mentioned. “But the bidding’s come within $ 10,000.”

“Better than last time,” Willow responded. “Maybe e-Bay’s not the best place.”

“To sell it, no. Of course not. But nothing like it to spread the word that a rare artifact like that is on offer. I’ve had much more interest from the major European dealers since the first time I put it up. And raised the price accordingly.”

“Oh? What are you asking now?”

“It’s at sixty thousand dollars at the moment. But that the bidding is even coming close makes me think it’s still underpriced. I don’t think I’ll let it go for less than a hundred thousand.”

Willow whistled silently. “Major moolah. Aren’t you worried about burglary?”

Anya shook her head--a brisk, tight little motion. Her hair at the moment was a burnished chestnut. Willow thought last week it had been champagne blonde, but it was easy to lose track. Generally, the dark colors were expressions of Anya’s confidence; the lighter colors were demands for attention, reassurance, brittle and hesitant.

Anya said, “I’ve given it to Olaf to guard. Few burglars can do a dimensional jump. And then, well, Olaf.” She spread her hands, indicating the matter was self-evident. Which maybe it was, since Olaf was a troll, about eight feet high and broad in proportion, and Anya’s ex.

Willow winced. “You sure that’s a good idea? I mean…Olaf.”

“Once I’ve had my vengence, it’s redundant to carry a grudge.”

“But are you sure that’s the way Olaf looks at it?” After all, Olaf hadn’t been a troll residing in another dimension until Anya had made him that way--the start of her career as a Vengeance Demon. “I mean, he wasn’t all that happy, the last time you saw him.”

“Oh, piffle. That doesn’t mean anything. And I’ve seen him since. Popped over for an afternoon. To make sure there were no hard feelings. Besides, Olaf gives excellent orgasms. He’s quite large, you know. If he’d just been content to confine himself to giving them to me, we never would have had any problem. Not that orgasms are everything, I don’t mean that. Pretty close, but not everything. After all, there’s also money. And in that department, Olaf leaves a lot to be desired. Zip,” Anya reported smugly, then followed with a sad headshake. “He never would save and has no concept of compound interest. To say nothing of high-yield bonds. However, that means I can pay him a pittance and have him think it’s a fortune. So it all comes right in the end.” Birdlike and sudden, Anya looked at Willow directly. “What are the components for: more smells?”

“I’ll need more of that soon, but no. Magical influence check-up. On Spike.”

“Good! Because I thought yesterday he didn’t look at all well. Allowing for his being dead, of course. Vampire, naturally. But beyond that.”

“Well, there’s that deathwish, of course: really takes it out of somebody, that does. You don’t just bounce back in a day, afterward.” Willow frowned, reflecting that shrugging off Anya’s remarks probably wasn’t wise: Anya saw a lot. Anya was the first to notice Spike’s soul, when nobody else had a clue. “Did you notice anything in particular?”

But it was too late: reacting to the dismissal, Anya had gone all stiff and huffy. “If there’s nothing else, I’m very busy, as I said.”

As Anya stood, Willow set a hand on her wrist. “Anya, I’m sorry. I always want to assume everything’s OK. But if it’s not, I need to know. And, after all, well…Spike,” she said, in the same tone as Anya had invoked the surly awfulness of Olaf. Calling up the whole gestalt of a person, and all their history and nuances of relationship.

Willow knew Anya had a soft spot for Spike, even if she did charge him an extra 10%.

Anya settled back, allowing herself to be mollified. “Of course he was tired, and radically overpeopled, and ready to punch out any interference with the smooth unfolding of the party, and twitchy toward Buffy and prickly to Giles, and blah, blah, blah. Just what you’d expect, of course. But…he seemed abstracted. Not completely there somehow. Like somebody with headphones, and you’re talking to them, and they’re not hearing you at all or barely because they’re actually listening to something completely different. Not music, because he likes music. Whatever he was hearing was something he didn’t like. And it’s not like Spike not to be present. Except when he’s drunk, of course. Which he wasn’t. Not last night. And it wasn’t like that, anyway. More like headphones, as I said.” Describing her impressions, Anya had been frowning, thoughtful. Concluding, she brightened, pleased to have chosen an apt analogy. Then her expression changed completely: closed, blank, secretive. She shot Willow a sly, assessing glance.

“We know,” Willow said quietly, uncapping her cup to get at the last of its contents. “About the soul. That he’s shut it away someplace.”

The tightness in Anya’s face relaxed. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell. This time.” She shrugged. “His business, after all. How has Buffy….”

“Under negotiations. Nobody’s happy. He claims it’s necessary.”

“Well, of course. Dealing with vamps, opposing the Powers, how’s he to do that tripping over a soul every two minutes? There’s a reason vamps don’t come equipped with souls, after all, just as there’s a reason vultures don’t have feathers on their necks. Why, they’d collect decay, all kinds of diseases, no good way to get them clean. Vultures, not vamps.”

Willow nodded to show she’d understood.

Turning thoughtful again, Anya remarked, “That’s not the problem, if there is a problem. I’ve known Spike soulless for years and years. That’s just normal. This was different…and possibly magical. I hadn’t considered that. You think of vampires as pretty impenetrable, magically speaking. But they’re not. Quite a lot of spells involve vampires…as part of the components. Because they’re intrinsically magical, I suppose. Their innate magic, just being what they are, generally sheds any outside magic that tries to affect them. So I don’t like the sound of that deathwish. Not at all. Somebody’s found the right angle, the right deflection to hit him. So it’s good you’re going to check him out. Get your components, Willow. This time, this once--it’s on the house.”

**********

Parking at the foot of the weedy, potholed drive, Buffy checked nervously that everything was straight and tucked in. Patted carefully at her hair. Then she lifted her chin and marched up toward the factory that wasn’t as abandoned as it looked. All the windows were blackened and the doors boarded over with plywood that would have looked suspiciously fresh if she hadn’t already known why it hadn’t yet had time to become weathered. Taking her best guess, she veered toward an annex, stomped up to the door and yanked it open, surprising what was almost certainly a vamp sitting at a desk, reading a magazine.

Confronting the woman, Buffy started tightly, “I’m coming in, and I don’t want--”

Rising, the woman had a definite oh, shit! expression. Turning only her head, the she-vamp elbowed open the inner door and shouted, “Emil! Get Spike. Now!”

From inside, a male voice replied, “He said--”

“Slayer’s here!”

Faintly, the voice responded, “Oh, shit.”

Well, that was one way to make an entrance. Buffy stomped past the sentry, through the door. She was looking at a vast dim open space, part of which was set up as a training area with weapons on the wall, pads on the concrete floor. Three vamps in motion there, turning to stare at her like cows watching a passing car. In the other direction, to her right, she saw the back of a big vamp disappearing through a gap in a barricade wall of dead machinery. Figuring that was probably the oh, shit! guy, she followed him, watching in all directions. Any vamp that so much as looked at her crosseyed, she’d put down, hard and fast.

Beyond the barricade, no problem figuring where to go. The whole space was bare, floor to high ceiling, with a bright, glassed-in cubicle freestanding in the middle. The big vamp was leaning in the doorway but he turned and backed off as Buffy approached. Buffy didn’t bother to notice where he went, intent on Spike, standing up behind a computer desk filled with things she didn’t understand.

“’Lo, love. Thought you weren’t coming up here.”

He looked really terrible, Buffy thought. Slow and awkward and used-up. He wasn’t looking exactly at her, only in her general direction--as though his eyes weren’t focusing but he hoped she wouldn’t notice. Which made her feel even more nervous, considering the favor she’d come to ask him.

He was pushing papers off an ugly pink molded plastic chair, to clear it for her. Then he changed his mind and started working at the strewn cushions of a Morris chair, pitching off a pizza box, some beer bottles that clanged on the cement. In the middle of that, he just ran down, bent with his forehead against the top of the back cushion.

“’M fine,” he insisted automatically, when she clasped him around the chest and laid her cheek against the back of his head. “Jus’ come over a bit dizzy, it’ll pass, always does.”

He sounded in the last fading stages of drunk, but she could tell he wasn’t: the smell was wrong. She asked him softly, “Didn’t you get any sleep at all?”

His shoulders hitched. “The odd minute, here and there. Couldn’t. Wasn’t time. An’ by then, might as well come back here, take a run at the translation. Nearly got a piece done. But noplace near caught up, noplace….”

Spotting a cot, she turned away from him to fling off trash until she’d uncovered a pillow and a threadbare blue blanket. She walked him over to it and made him lie down. Not hard, considering he was weaving and unsteady on his feet--in no shape to resist effectively. It took no more than a spread hand on his chest to keep him flat.

He pulled an arm up across his eyes: what he did when he was hiding. “Can’t do this, love. It’s all way behind.”

Buffy paid no attention. He was always cool to the touch. But his lifted arm, when she touched it, felt ice-cold. She pulled the blanket up, then knew that wouldn’t be much help: blankets only kept warmth in. They were no help in generating it in the first place. And from experience she knew cots tended to collapse when asked to support two.

She wanted to get him home. Get him into a really hot shower for awhile, then tumble him into bed. Get him to feed from her: what he needed. What he wouldn’t willingly do anymore. Put it in a cup, then. Not as good, but if he didn’t take it, it would be wasted. That was a lever she hadn’t used yet….

Except it was 3:30 in the afternoon on a bright, sunny day…and the SUV wasn’t sun-proofed and had no trunk.

While she considered, Buffy heard running feet. Straightening, turning, she found Kennedy leaning in at the door, wide-eyed and wary. Chosen, obviously, as the go-between, between a bunch of nervous vamps and the Slayer.

Buffy asked curtly, “Does this place have hot water?”

“For tea, yeah, or--”

“In quantity? Like a shower?”

The SIT shook her head quick, like a shudder. “No. No heater. Buffy, he’s OK. He said--”

“I don’t give a damn what he said. Is there….” Buffy paused, thinking some more. “You said tea. Is there any cocoa?”

“Yeah. Willow brought it, for housewarming.”

Buffy remembered saying to Willow, How come you know, when I don’t? And Willow had replied, with awkward gentleness, I ask. Or something along those lines.

Housewarming. Right.

“Fix some, then. Kennedy,” Buffy added, calling the SIT back. “I’m sure there’s something around by way of liquor. Bring that, too.”

“Not a good idea, pet,” Spike slurred, from the cot. “Don’t sit all that well with the pills. I try not to do ‘em both at the same time. Mostly.” Scraping the blanket aside, he pushed to sitting: leaned forward, forearms on thighs, hands loosely clasped, head bent. “’F I knew you were gonna come calling, I’d have straightened up the place. And myself. Sorry. What was it, you were looking for?”

Buffy dragged the ugly chair around, so they were sitting knee to knee. “I tried calling,” she mentioned. “Phone--”

“--was turned off. Yeah. Hard to skulk, pet, with this loud buzzing thing in your pocket. Rather spoils the mood.”

“And after skulking?” Buffy asked pointedly.

His shoulders sagged a little more. “Yeah. Forgot. Didn’t expect you. Said you wouldn’t set foot here. To train, or anything.”

“I lied.”

“Yeah, right.” That got a chuckle.

“I wanted--” Buffy changed her mind. “I want to ask a favor. Notice the hat in hand.”

He was enough out of it that he actually looked. “No hat.”

“Figurative hat.”

“Yeah. Got that now. So what could be so dire to make you fetch your figurative hat up to the Forbidden Fanged Menagerie, then?”

“If it’s something you can do on maybe four hours of sleep. Assuming you get started right away.”

Spike finally lifted his head and shut his eyes. “Get right started. ‘F I don’t die of the suspense. Name it.”

“You remember Principal Doty approved my self-defense class.”

Spike was quiet a moment. “Yeah. Recall you said that. Now that you remind me.”

“The first class is tonight. Eight o’ clock. In the gym. For an hour. Fourteen people have signed up. And I’m supposed to show them exercises when what I want to show them is how to dust vamps. I was OK, mostly, with the SITs. They knew what the score was. But what am I gonna do, facing Ms. Happy Homemaker, Chatty Cheerleader, Nora Nerd, and at least one guy, and babble about the benefits of regular exercise?”

Spike thought some more. “You’re not scared, are you, Slayer?”

“Frickin’ terrified. And I want you there so bad my teeth started aching. It will be fine, if you’re there. Everybody will be looking at you. Nobody looking at me. And we could show them a few simple throws, and make touching your toes look sexy, and nobody there will even know you’re a vamp, and please come, please. I know it’s an imposition, I’m taking advantage, but I don’t care. I can’t face it otherwise. Please.”

Still with his eyes shut, he opened up his hands, and she set hers in them. “Yeah. All right.”

“You don’t have to. I mean, if you just can’t. I can always--”

Buffy’s babbling cut off when Spike opened his eyes and she fell into them.

“You don’t get how it goes, pet. After three ‘pleases,’ you’re not allowed to argue me out of it again. I got your back. Even facing Chatty Cheerleader and her chums. Maybe I could roust out some SITs for the demos. Ken!”

“Yeah, Spike. Coming!” came the reply from out of the dim, big space. A moment later, Kennedy came hustling into view at a flat-footed glide, balancing a very full mug of cocoa. She watched the floor, coming from the door. Holding out the mug, she warned, “Careful. It’s hot, and it’s full.”

The transfer was made. Spike inhaled the steam with apparent rapture. “Ken, get hold of ‘Manda and Rona. What time’s it got to be?”

“You have a watch now, Spike,” responded the SIT, with a small, knowing smile.

“Tell me anyway. Not convenient to look.”

“If you mean, is ‘Manda home from school yet, the answer is probably. Post school, pre tribute delivery.”

“Right then. Get onto them, tell them the mark’s the school gym, eight o’clock. Doin’ demos for Buffy’s new class. Not optional.”

“Me too?”

“You too. New thing. Have to back her up. Lots of flourishes, so nobody notices when I fall down.”

“Ha! Got to see this!” The SIT ran out.

“You know what?” Buffy remarked thoughtfully, looking after her.

“No: what?”

“Sometimes, she’s almost human. I nearly liked her, there for a minute.”

“You can’t have her: you’re taken.”

Buffy felt herself blushing. “Not like that, you idiot!” She almost shoved him but remembered in time about the cocoa. Which, she realized, was already gone: Spike handed over the empty mug, then let himself tip back onto the pillow.

“You see Red and Bit get their suppers all right. You, too, of course. An’ I’ll have a bit of a kip here. Tell Mary, wake me up seven thirty, even if she has to use a cannon. Have a car ready. An’ we’ll all come together at the appointed place.”

Buffy didn’t ask how she’d know Mary from the other vamps. She’d work it out. Some things, she could manage just fine on her own. Just not the really scary ones not involving the supernatural.

When she took his lax hand, she thought it was a little warmer. Less chill. Better, anyway. And she decided she wasn’t gonna push the feeding issue now: he needed the sleep more. She sat, quietly holding his hand, until she was certain he was asleep, which didn’t take very long. Then she kissed him, let go, and steeled herself for the challenge of identifying Mary.

**********

Sitting beside Willow about midway up the otherwise empty indoor bleachers, Dawn leaned a little to grab popcorn from the bag and catch Willow’s explanation of shadenfreude: unholy glee at someone else’s misfortune.

“That’s not French?” Dawn whispered, trying not to spit popcorn. Willow was taking French.

“Nope. German. And universal.”

“Huh.” Trying to keep a straight face, Dawn thought a moment, swallowed the rest of the popcorn, then whispered, “It’s a very vamp concept.”

Willow nodded noncommittally: she was having a hard time keeping a straight face, too. Holding off the giggles by biting her lip and looking anyplace except where Buffy was doing a terrible job of cajoling a dozen or so assorted townies, most of them teenaged, female, and overweight, into doing jumping jacks. About every two minutes, Buffy would forget herself and go all sergeant major on them, single out some slacker and chew her out, as though they were SITs, to the conspicuous non-improvement of either morale or performance. One had already run off, red-faced and crying. Afterward Buffy tried to make it up to the rest with insincere compliments and perky wheedling that didn’t improve things either.

And that was only the newest misfortune.

To start off with, there’d been no lights on in the gym and everybody poking and groping around near the door trying to find the light switch. That was how Dawn had found them, arriving with Willow. When somebody at last located the lighting control panel, cleverly concealed in its shut box on the wall where no sensible person would ever look for it, much less recognize it when they found it, Dawn had winced aside with a protesting whisper of, “My eyes! My eyes!” because the attendees were revealed in all their ragbag day-glo glory. Outfits ranged from extreme denim through unremarkable baggy sweats to shorts and halter tops and, at the pinnacle of bad taste, bulging skin-tight lycra aerobic togs with what appeared to be thongs and bras worn on the outside, in a variety of vomit-inducing colors, all satin-finished and shiny.

Even Buffy had stared and gulped. Then she’d launched abruptly into her opening greeting speech, introducing herself, glaring steadily at the shut doors that led to the corridor as though she’d presently remove them by bodily attack and meanwhile declaring that personal fitness was the necessary first step to self defense, and Dawn had settled onto the bleacher seat with a happy sigh, feeling herself recompensed for every Friday night Slayer State of the First harangue she’d had to suffer through.

Because the attendees weren’t terrified SITs and didn’t have to be polite. Dawn thought a girl’s interrupting, “Can we just get to the sweating part?” was about the best.

The two guys present had plainly come to check out the chicks and couldn’t decide whether to stay in back, with the best view of the ample assets, or to move in front to put their own assets on display. So they wandered tidally, back to front, then back again, doing about five jumping jacks to every one the girls performed, so nobody could get into or maintain a rhythm.

Then the double doors whacked back and Spike and his entourage made their entrance, checking out everybody’s assets. Three flanked out to either side: the three SITs to the left, and Emil, Mary, and Mike on a mirroring diagonal to the right. All in the colors. All doing the slo-mo-looking power walk thing with just the hint of a catch and hang between strides, that really only vamps could do right but the SITs were making a respectable try at imitating, all of them in stride, anyway. And Spike, with controlled energy, grace, and arrogant amusement absolutely crackling off him like rug static, with a slight, speculative smile that was pure predator as he surveyed the attendees as if deciding which was first up on the menu, half a step in front of the others, duster swinging to his stride.

Gazing raptly, Dawn whispered, “I think the one in the puke green, with the outside underwear, is gonna have an aneurysm.”

Willow whispered back, “Redefines making an exhibition of yourself. Long time since I saw that. Not since the chip.”

“Never saw that,” Dawn replied. “Always knew he could if he wanted to, though. Just never wanted to, I guess, when I could see him. So that’s the Big Bad.”

Then they concluded together, “Pills,” and Willow added, “Lots and lots of pills. Hate to think of the crash.”

“Worth it,” Dawn decided. “At least, he won’t get a heart attack.”

Perversely she was a little peeved that Mike paid her not the least attention. Sure, she was still furiousfuckingmad at him for taking pot-shots at Spike as a rough vamp prank, and sure, she still wasn’t speaking to him. That didn’t alter her disappointed surprise at being ignored altogether when she positively knew he’d have recognized her smell right away. The gentlemanly thing would have been to show her some sign so she could loftily ignore him.

Then she froze because Spike noticed her. The blazing blue eyes locked a second and a nod acknowledged her. And because Spike had looked, everybody else looked, all the eyes on Dawn, and to her chagrin, she Eeped, swallowed hard, and tried to hide behind Willow.

She hoped Spike hadn’t seen, because he’d halted before Buffy, who had her arms folded and was glaring up at him the way she’d glared at the shut doors.

“You’re late,” Buffy accused.

“Oh, are we? Thought we were right on time.” Gazing around again, he said, “Introduce me to these fine folk, pet.”

Caught flat-footed, Buffy dove for a sheet of printout and began reading names. Spike went and greeted each one as he detected a reaction to the name. But it looked as though hearing the name, he knew at once who it belonged to by some magic of recognition. He took and clasped their hands, even the guys (who were welcome to consider it a handshake if they liked, although Spike did them all exactly the same), then paced back to Buffy, waiting for her to do the honors.

Buffy said, “Everybody, this…is my boyfriend: William.”

Willow made a fizzing noise, choked off almost instantly. And Kennedy twitched.

“Well, thank you Elizabeth Anne, for inviting us,” Spike drawled, lingering over the name. “What’s the first order of the evening? Warm-ups, or go right to the attacks?” He rubbed his hands together briskly, a gesture of anticipation.

Dawn confronted the awful prospect that Spike was gonna do something. In a fey mood with the brakes off and the clutch released, he had a fairly gruesome sense of what was funny. His own personal version of schadenfreude, except he got to cause the misfortune, not just gloat from the sidelines.

Apparently Buffy had the same misgivings because she went up on her toes to whisper something fierce directly into his ear. Spike spread both hands slightly, protesting innocence of any such dire intent. There was a moment of locked glances: Buffy tense and mistrustful, Spike all happy affability. Except for the second his eyes flashed gold, which none of the Desperate Dozen plus behind him could see.

Sort of like a wink, Dawn decided. Except one just short of showing fangs.

First order of the evening was, predictably, exercise. More jumping jacks, the vamps and SITs just like clockwork so the whole of the group actually managed to achieve something like a unanimous rhythm in imitation. Except a pair in the back: standing leaned forward, gaping in forlorn adoration at Spike, who’d lit a cigarette over Buffy’s hissed protests, showing her his boot soles in turn and clearly making the point that the gym-shoes-only rule wasn’t one he was honoring either so why all the fuss about a sodding smoke? (Dawn made out the final phrase by lip-reading.) But he was only being provoking because the next minute, he’d pitched the smoke and stepped on it, then made a bee-line to the yearning pair in back, taking them by the shoulders and walking them away, chatting them up, then giving them private instruction in how jumping jacks were properly done, the three of them off everybody else’s pace, but in gradual synch with each other because Spike patiently kept to a slower rhythm they could match. And they would obviously rather have died now than give up or stop and thereby cease to be the focus of his attention.

Dawn sniped to Willow, “And he claims he can’t do thrall. He’s just mocking them. Making them look even sillier.”

Willow leaned close. “The one on the left. In the stupid pink print. Remind you of anybody?”

Dawn looked, but it was just a chubby, badly-dressed girl, maybe sixteen, in droopy sweats: dark hair flopping as she panted open-mouthed, flinging her arms wildly up and down as she jumped with her feet apart, then together, eyes riveted on Spike. “I don’t--” she began, and then saw it and said softly, “Oh.” Because if the girl were a SIT, she’d have been Kim. And what Dawn had taken for mockery was therefore a kind of wistful courtesy, and sincere. There was more to Spike than snark. She should have known better.

Dawn deducted points from herself because Willow had seen it--the resemblance and what it meant--and she hadn’t.

Dawn asked, “How’s his aura?” In response, Willow’s eyes went unfocused and distant.

“About what you’d expect,” Willow reported calmly, after a minute or two. “Ginormous and blazing white. Putting out energy like a blast furnace.”

“Oh.” Dawn had never been able to make herself see an aura but could imagine them, from Willow’s descriptions, just fine. “So--no sign of magical tampering?”

Willow shook her head, but it wasn’t No. “Can’t make out anything through that. No use trying until he settles. A lot.”

They’d gone to the factory in Willow’s second-hand chugging green Fiat, seen the parked SUV, and met Buffy partway up the drive. Buffy had listened to their concerns but forbade their waking Spike for anything short of actual apocalypse, and they’d trailed the SUV obediently home. But over supper, Buffy had explained about the class, and asking Spike to come, so Dawn and Willow had decided to tag along and do the testing afterward. Willow still had the spell components in her bag. The one that didn’t contain popcorn.

After the jumping jacks there were toe touches: first straight down, then fingers to opposite feet, each arm reaching high, then down, in turn. At that point, Buffy decreed everybody sufficiently warm and waved Spike in to enact a mugging scenario. He left the two thoroughly enthralled girls with a small bow and a twinkle, then came sauntering across the floor, shedding his duster and collecting it in a bundle. Bypassing Buffy, he stepped up the tiers of bleachers, six rows in two steps, and held the duster out to Dawn.

“Keep this for me, will you, Bit? Don’t trust one of those yobs not to nick it when I’m not looking, except it’s guarded.”

“Sure, Spike,” Dawn gulped, uncomfortable again to have everybody looking at her. As she gathered the bunched duster into her lap, Spike drew a knuckle down her cheek.

He murmured, “Missed you, Bit.”

“Missed you too, Spike.”

“Red, you havin’ a good time?”

“So far,” Willow agreed. “Want to talk to you awhile, after.”

“That’s all right, then. Ta.”

He wide-stepped back down the tiers of seats, landing on the floor with a bounce. He was in the full mall regalia: the black shiny kidskin pants, studded belt, broad studded watchband, skin-tight black T and scarlet button-down loose over it, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. At a distance, with the duster over it all, Dawn hadn’t been sure. On his left forearm she could see part of the spiraling green tattoo he'd gotten for her: a line of poetry that meant "Dawn."

“So,” he said, and got the first syllable of Slayer out before he caught himself and corrected to, “Elizabeth. Who’s to be the mugger, and who’s the muggee?” Another brisk rubbing of palms.

“I’ll mug you, the poor helpless creature that doesn’t know how to defend himself,” Buffy declared in a tone that suggested she thought he was having entirely too much fun.

Apparently Spike took mugging literally because he made dire faces of fear and dismay when, strolling peaceably, he was accosted by the short pony-tailed blond in white halter top and satin-finished, slinky black slacks and moderate heels, who blocked his way demanding his money or his life. When he attempted to hit her, a slow, telegraphed blow that a crippled grandma would have had no trouble dodging, she grabbed his wrist and flung him over her back. The gym wasn’t padded. Sprawled on the floor, Spike made a horrible fuss, declaring himself ruined for life, refusing to budge until Buffy consented to come give him a hand. Grimacing, she did, and he allowed himself to be pulled up. Dawn had suspected he’d throw Buffy in turn but he didn’t, standing clear and working his shoulders, gentling and bending his back, checking for plainly non-existent damage.

When the giggling and laughter from the audience finally died down, Spike said hopefully, “My turn to be the mugger, pet?”

There was an exchange of suspicious and blandly innocent gazes. Then Buffy said, “Oh, all right. Your turn.”

Buffy became the incautious pedestrian, whistling and kicking away imaginary stones until confronted by the Big Bad, jumping into her way with a loud thud of boots. For the sake of variety, Spike demanded her virtue and proceeded to try to steal a kiss, breaking off in the middle and ignoring Buffy’s feebly slapping hands to explain to the audience, “Kiss mugger. Run into ‘em all the time, where I come from.” Then he reacted as one of Buffy’s hands apparently did something much less feeble. He stood on the toes of her shoes with the toes of his boots and she couldn’t get him off. She smacked him, hands and then elbows, and he smacked her back, leaning in to plant quick, chaste kisses on whatever part of her face he could get at, in between swats. Then she gave him a good one and he went into a back handspring and onto his feet again, pointing to the laughing audience and warning, “Stunt being performed by professional molesters. Do not try this at home.” When charging Buffy spun into a roundhouse kick at his chest, he wasn’t there, clapping and exclaiming, “Oi, good one! That would’ve hurt!”

Then they got into it, at speed. Almost too fast to see. Dawn had seen them spar a few times, and this wasn’t it. This was something else. Every time she caught sight of Spike’s face, he was grinning, generally with his tongue showing. Every time she could see Buffy’s face, it was grim and intent. Most of the time, neither was actually touching the floor.

After a few minutes, Spike called, “These are the paying customers, love: let ‘em see the moves.”

Pausing, Buffy shook her head hard, shaking off the fighting trance, or whatever it’d been. And they began the slo-mo sparring--every blow prolonged, every kick impossibly slow, barely poised on the toe of the other foot; every fall a gymnastic demonstration of how long it could take to actually touch the floor and then fold into a flip or extend into a handstand or cartwheel.

The audience had started in laughter, then fallen silent when things went fast and scary. When Spike consented to take a tumble, every individual joint striking the floor separately, ending in the same unlikely, artistic sprawl as before, the civilians erupted in applause as Buffy scuffed over and assisted him back to his feet, consenting finally to smile and let him drape a casual arm across her shoulders.

Making a winding gesture overhead with his left hand, Spike called, “By pairs. My lot, find yourself a partner, simple wrist throws. You don’t throw them, they throw you. Warn you: this floor is fu-- very hard. Not like that fine, bouncy concrete you’re used to. All right, have at it. Ten minutes.” Then he stabbed a finger at each of the two guys, who eyed each other and him nervously. Disengaging from Buffy, Spike said to them, “Come on, nobody’s gonna hurt you here. Fine strong blokes like yourselves, no mugger in his right mind would come at you, right? So a little practice footwork here. See if you can put me down. All good sport.”

Then he proceeded to trip them, over and over, no matter what they did or tried to do. He’d hook a knee or an ankle, from the front, behind, or either side, and dump them again. “Soccer moves,” he explained, and dumped them some more with sudden sweep kicks and scissors clamps, balanced on the palm of one hand, his body parallel to the floor. The few attendees not practicing throws with a vamp or SIT partner were watching and giggling.

When Spike felt he’d frustrated los guys sufficiently, he stopped and started showing them moves. How to hook a heel. How to go after the rear foot, the balance foot unless your opponent was really stupid, and push it aside so the body couldn’t help but fall, losing that key support. The beginnings, Dawn recognized, of the fine and subtle art of stance.

She’d seen him drilling the SITs on that.

When Buffy ended the first round of practice by observing each pair and making suggestions, corrections, and adjustments, Spike still instructing in stance by the far wall, was when the vamps burst in.

**********

Immediately Dawn’s taser was in her hand and she was thinking how to get it to somebody who could do more damage with it than she could. Because, no stakes. No weapons of any kind.

But before she could come up with any sort of plan, she heard Spike call, “Here!” and “Bit--Lights!”

And Dawn knew where the lighting box was: directly in front of her, at the other end of the gym. Since the lights were on, that must mean Spike wanted them off. She didn’t try to work out the sense, just sprang to her feet and started running, paying no attention to anything except her footing on the narrow boards. Not even when they reverberated and bounced, warning of someone in pursuit. She’d visualized it in her mind: the instant she reached the wall, she banged the box open and started pushing the switches (or breakers or whatever they were called) efficiently with the side of her hand, clicking them down by rows. The next second, the gym was pitch black.

But not to vamps.

The boards were still bouncing under her. Visualizing the structure of the bleachers, she dropped flat and slipped through the space between rows, wriggled around until she was swinging by her hands, then let herself fall. She had the distance pretty much right: she landed prepared and started retreating, one arm sweeping behind her and the taser in front, intending to put her back against a wall or better, in a corner, to limit the ways a vamp could come at her. But the back of her head banging into a riser told her she’d turned in the drop or the landing and was in fact backing toward the small end of the wedge, the lowest tiers, not toward the wall. Discarding Plan A, she went to Plan B: curl up small and put a good shock into the first touch she felt.

“Dawn,” said a voice right beside her, and she jabbed reflexively. Didn’t make contact, which probably was just as well, because it was Mike. He’d seen the strike coming and dodged.

She blindly offered the taser on a palm. “Here.”

She felt a brief touch on her palm, but the taser wasn’t collected. “Just watching out for you,” Mike murmured. “Wasn’t but six of ‘em. Two, maybe, left. Nothing we can’t handle. You just sit tight. Better, come around behind me.” A hand closed over her arm and guided her, duck-walking, then let go. “I can’t get into a tiny little space like that, like you can. But somebody could reach through, grab.” Something in his voice told her the words were pushed through fangs. Game-faced: a no-brainer, really, in the dark. They all would have shifted aspect immediately, to see.

There’d been a lot of confused, frightened yelling, at first. Now it was so quiet that Dawn caught the distinctive crackle/hiss of a vamp dusting. A moment later, it was repeated.

“Spike,” Mike whispered, “he’s got his garrote. All tidy. Nothing left to see. That the light box, up there on the wall?”

“Yeah,” Dawn whispered back. “But you can’t slide through the risers. Boost me through.”

Although she waited, crouched with her hands gripping the inside of the long bench seat, Mike made no move to touch her until somebody gave a very high-pitched whistle. Then he helped her align herself horizontally and skinny through the gap. She swung her feet around, stood, and groped forward until she found the wall. Patting until she found the lighting box, she reversed all the switches: bang, bang, bang. All the lights were restored.

Blinking in the sudden stark brilliance, Dawn looked at once for Spike and Buffy and found them: Buffy with the SITs in a semicircle, the civilians herded into the corner behind them--relaxing now, breaking the protective formation--and Spike walking toward Buffy at a deliberate pace across the open floor, stowing something away in a pocket. Mary and Emil together near the doors, talking together idly as though nothing at all had happened. Mike appearing from between two assemblages of bleachers and converging with Spike, merely waiting but claiming pride of place at Spike’s right hand as Buffy and Spike exchanged a few words. Nothing but human faces showing now, of course.

The finesse of particular position was also claimable by Willow: still sitting calmly exactly where she’d been, munching popcorn, quite untroubled. Which brought home to Dawn that Willow was now a powerful enough witch that not even a vamp attack constituted a particular threat.

Willow’s taking no action also implicitly stated her confidence in the people on the floor to handle it without her intervention, which struck Dawn as a hair optimistic. But the determining factor was that not a single sign of the intruding vamps remained. All tidy, as Mike had remarked.

Laughing unconvincingly, Buffy was offering the explanation that it was a stupid pre-Halloween prank staged by a few students in masks, trying to frighten them by turning the lights out. Then she offered the more paranoid explanation that certain unspecified persons didn’t want this new class to succeed, and she hoped she’d see them all back on Thursday.

On that note, the attendees grabbed jackets and left, chatting, nobody seeming much alarmed. The two guys at the rear were trying to trip each other up as the doors closed behind them.

Everybody that remained drifted together, most perching on the first and second rows of bleachers--some with legs dangling, some with feet on the bench below and knees tucked up tight. The atmosphere changed, now that the ignorant civilians were gone.

“Well,” said Buffy, leaning wearily back, “to what do we owe that little visitation?”

“Parked cars,” commented Spike, dropping crosslegged onto the floor and lighting a cigarette--this time without anybody objecting. “Lot’s generally empty this time of night. Bunch of cars, and then the building standing open, unlocked. So a few vamps figured they’d come up lucky--meeting or something. Big empty building. Easy feed.” Putting his lighter away, he added, “Not 100% certain but best guess.”

“Not aimed at you,” Buffy interpreted, still half a question.

“Don’t think so, no. Just the usual Sunnydale nightlife on the hunt. Feed and get gone before midnight, before the sweep. Their bad luck that they run into us. Most of them fledges. Hardly a shred of a brain among ‘em. No.”

“Just a fluke,” said Buffy.

“Yeah. I think so,” Spike responded, and Buffy nodded, accepting it.

“Then put it to the test,” she proposed. “Come back Thursday for the next class.”

Spike sighed, hung his head, and didn’t answer. The fight in the dark seemed to have used up all the manic energy and exuberance. Pills wearing off, Dawn thought: exhaustion washing back in fast. Sliding toward an awesome crash.

“Tell you what,” Buffy said. “I’ll offer you a swap. You help me with the class and you can have all the training gear from the Magic Box, that you wanted.” When there was again no response, Buffy added, “And I’ll come train there. And help train your people. Run them through the drills. We trained the SITs to dust vamps, kill demons, stay alive. As best I can see, that’s what your sweeps are about. No difference. So I’ll help. If you want.”

From the way Buffy’s offer slowed and backed, she was puzzled and disappointed by the lack of rah rah reaction at the concessions she was prepared to make for a repeat of the Buffy-and-Spike show.

Dawn remarked, “I don’t think there’s much rah rah left, Buffy. The show and the fight burned it all off. He’s crashing now.”

“Oh.”

“Not a real great time for negotiations. Or linear thought. You got all there was.”

“Oh,” Buffy said again blankly.

Willow came stepping down the rows, clasping the bag and Spike’s duster. Declining Dawn’s silent offer to take something, she continued down to the floor and knelt by Spike. She said to him, “Don’t want to do anything unwanted or high-handed, here. There’s a little test I’d like to run. Is that OK?”

Spike was concentrating on stubbing out the cigarette against his boot sole. “Cold,” was his blurred response. He wrapped his arms around himself.

“All right,” Willow muttered, “not a great time for informed consent, either. Spike.” She waited until she got some minimal reaction. “Want to rest?”

“Oh, yes, please.” The voice didn’t sound like Spike at all. Startling. Creepy. As if he was channeling Giles.

Placing a hand on his forehead, Willow said, “Sie schlafen,” and Spike toppled over with the duster as a pillow. “Don’t know why German’s best for boring someone senseless, but there it is. One of the lesser mysteries.” Willow looked up at Buffy. “I think it’s time for everybody to go home.”

The SITs left without fuss; the vamps, not so much, until Mike dismissed them. Arms calmly folded, Mike then made wordlessly plain he was staying unless somebody wanted to dispute it with him and probably after, too. Considering Mike’s size, that would have been a major dispute.

“It’s OK,” Dawn told Willow. “Spike wouldn’t mind.” From Willow’s dubious glance and Buffy’s completely ignoring him, Dawn was startled to realize neither of them had the vaguest idea of who Mike was, except another vamp in the colors. He just didn’t register with either of them as a person. Whereas to Dawn, he was completely, unmistakably himself--just as Spike was. Or Mary. Or Huey. Or the little odd guy with all the piercings, whose name she hadn’t been told.

Sue, they might have recognized, she thought…for a minute at least, before the mind-blinds came down.

Mike commented, “Not hunting no trouble. Know he’s safe with you.”

Nobody but Dawn took any notice whatever. She was embarrassed for them and lifted her eyes to his in mute apology.

He came and sat beside her on the bottom bench. Looking straight ahead, he asked, “You talking to me again? Don’t care whether or no. Just want to know where I stand, what I’m s’posed to do.”

“I trusted you with my taser, didn’t I?” Dawn responded crossly.

“Don’t know what that means and didn’t take it anyway.”

“Means I trust you. Doesn’t mean I like you much, but I guess I trust you. So I suppose I’m talking to you, anytime it would be real dumb not to. Like in the middle of a fight.”

“Not in a fight now,” Mike pointed out. “Still talking, sounds like to me.”

Dawn ignored him. But in a personal, specific sort of way. Quite different from what Buffy did.

Mike was breathing. Ostentatiously. Smelling, actually. Back when they were still talking, he’d ride miles just to smell her. Bask in it, claiming no more was needed to be perfectly content. And how fucking freakazoid was that?

Dawn ignored him harder.

While the non-conversation and the non-breathing had been going on, Willow had been earnestly explaining to Buffy about Digger’s sparkly powder and the influence test. Buffy looked appropriately frowny and concerned. She’d settled on the floor, holding Spike’s hand and absently playing with his fingers.

“I’d ask him,” Willow went on, “but now he won’t be awake for at least a day, and he’s turned real hard to catch up with or get hold of.”

“Yeah. I’ve noticed,” Buffy commented dryly. “Really, really noticed.”

“And it’s already been two days. So I don’t think it’s a good idea to wait. I’d do it on your OK. On a scale of risky, it’s about a minus three. Not even the juice of a locator spell. Still kind of nosy, though, so consent is required. Somebody’s. Not really apt to ask Angel. Nor Dru, may she already be dust. So that leaves you.”

Immediate family. Next of kin.

“Yeah,” Buffy responded, very softly. Then she looked around. “Dawnie, you have any problem with it?”

Dawn colored, surprised and uber-pleased to be consulted. “My idea in the first place.”

“Then fire away,” said Buffy. “We seem to have a quorum.” Fondly, she ruffled Spike’s hair, adding, “One abstaining.”

Nobody consulted Mike. As was right. Mike had no say. He didn’t seem to mind, just watching placidly. And breathing, of course.

Willow laid out the spell components with her usual meticulous fussiness. Most, ground to powder, she poured out of a zip bag into a small stone bowl with indecipherable symbols carved around the outside. Adding a thick, glurping liquid from a squeeze bottle, Willow stirred the mixture vigorously with the point-end of a feather. Then she dipped the feather end, using it to dab the runny paste onto Spike’s wrists and throat.

“Pulse points?” Dawn asked.

Willow shrugged. “Like I’ve said before, there’s almost no magic designed for vamps. And mostly it doesn’t work. This may not, either. I’ve made what adaptations on the fly I could. So I may get a false negative. But I don’t think there’s any chance whatever of a false positive.” She dabbed Spike’s forehead and, with a soft “S’cuse me, Spike,” opened the scarlet overshirt and pulled up the black T to add a final splotch over his heart. Setting the soppy feather back in the bowl, Willow looked up. “It’s not required for the spell, but there’s always extra mojo for any sort of Earth magic in threes. So maybe if we held hands…?”

Buffy offered her hands, but Dawn didn’t, her fingers knotting together. “What…if one of the three isn’t…precisely human?”

“Oh, right: the scary blood magic, that went all wildfire. Good catch, Dawnie. I’d almost forgotten that. Better not, then.” Holding spread fingers over Spike’s forehead and heart, not quite touching, Willow began muttering. Once, she winced, commented, “Later,” and went on.

Spike greyed out. A foggy haze rose slowly from him and enclosed him. It gradually turned black and opaque. It tried to climb up Willow’s arms but she shooed it off with a couple of snapped words. As if angered, it curdled--thick, heavy, and roiling--then dissipated with a sudden flash and pop.

Willow pulled her arms in, rubbing them as if she’d been stung.

Buffy started patting Spike all over--reflexively checking for damage. “I think I speak for us all when I say ‘What in hell?’”

Wringing her hands, Willow commented, “No false positive there, no siree!”

“What is it?” Dawn asked anxiously.

“No clue, except it obviously wasn’t intended for his well-being. The next step is an intimate tête à tête with our skanky but stylish rat witch, Amy Madison.”

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