TEN


The sky was still bright, long streaks of pink and yellow, over the treetops when the SITs arranged themselves in the grass in the back yard in front of Spike lounging on the porch steps and smoking, seeming not to notice them at all.

Dawn took a place by the lilac bush, to the side. She clutched the tube of the taser Buffy had given her, its power-pack hung from a belt at her hip. Buffy herself was conspicuously absent. It was just Spike, Dawn, and the SITs in the darkening yard.

When the whispering and the adjustments all had quieted, Spike looked around, remarking, "Well now. You all know me, know what I do for a livin'." He watched them stir and whisper, then said, "Rona, you know that, don't you, lass."

Rona nodded hesitantly.

"Tell them then, pet."

"Quint's opening line from Jaws."

"Good on you, Rona," Spike commended in his warmest voice, looking straight at the girl: like being drowned in butter and deep-fried. Dawn couldn't help grinning, how good he was at it. Rona couldn't help a shy, uncertain smile, either. Spike said, "I know your names, but not yet how they all connect. And I guess you know mine. Tell me."

From all sides, it came: Spike, ending on a kind of breathless hush.

"And what do I do for a living, my pets?"

Everybody saying something different, confusion, then finally all looking to him warily to find what answer he expected.

Spike said, "I keep you alive. That's what I'm for, pets. That's why I'm here. Oh, and for the Slayer, o'course."

That got startled snorts and giggles fading to a deeper silence. They were settling now, less frightened, listening to him. Andrew had been all freakazoid at not being allowed to even try to videocam this. Dawn found herself agreeing with Andrew. Watching Spike charm about twenty terrified teenagers who, this morning, had been intent, with a Slayer's terrible single-mindedness, on tearing him apart was just awesome.

"I belong to the Slayer. You all heard her say so: I'm her dog now. But what you maybe don't know yet is that you belong to me. She's put you into my hand, to do whatever I please with you." He looked around as if idly. "No Slayer here. Just you, and me, and what a treat this would have been a few years back! Ah, children, I got myself a vampire's dream come true here an' no mistake. I can smell you all, and what you had to eat at your suppers, and who's had sunburn, and who wears what perfume, and who's on the rag.... I can smell your blood, children. I can hear it, the pitty-pats of all your hearts drivin' it around. S'pose I was standin' away off there in the street, in the big shadow of that pear tree, I'd still know it as clear as now. It shouts at me. What am I, children?"

They all knew that answer: Vampire.

"Amanda." Spike pointed, the glowing cigarette tip marking the swing of his hand. "Run to the street, girl--quick as you can."

Startled, Amanda got her feet under her, impeded by the girls sitting around her, and had no more than risen and turned when Spike was already standing where he'd pointed, arms folded, waiting. Dawn hadn't even seen him move and therefore neither had anybody else.

But Dawn didn't need a demonstration of Spike being scary. That was something she felt she'd known forever.

"Well, what's keepin' you, child?" Spike called impatiently. "Did I tell you to stand there like a lump, goin' from foot to foot, need to use the loo, d'you?"

Driven to it, probably angry now, Amanda started moving, head going down, longer strides, until she was charging full-tilt across the dark grass, that always felt like almost-flying, running at night as hard as you could.

Spike picked her up in flight, swung her clear into the air and around, black silhouettes against the brighter street. Setting Amanda on her feet, he pulled her in close, spun her to be before him, and bent his head into her neck. There was no sound anywhere.

"Kim," said Spike, straightening. "Come to me. Quick as you can, girl."

He caught Kim and spun her and bent to her, just the same. Then, with Kim and Amanda still standing there, he somehow was in a different part of the yard, calling Cho Anh to him in unhesitating lilting Mandarin, and the girl was smiling as she rose and began running, to be spun, embraced, and set in place.

Dawn got goosebumps as each of the Potentials was called and gone, the remainder risen and standing now, bent and poised, intent for their turn, to be away instantly at the sound of their names.

When the last Potential was gone, Dawn was unready and surprised to hear Spike call her from over by the big maple in the corner. Jamming the taser wand into its clip, Dawn bounced up and took off. Before she'd reached the maple, in the middle of the yard, she was caught around the shoulders in mid-stride and flung into the air but not falling, could feel herself held and swinging, tethered, safe, and unafraid. Suddenly on her feet, with no chance to find her balance, she felt Spike's arms come around her from behind. He murmured in her ear, "Dawn, you're mine. I'll keep you from death."

"Dumbass," she whispered back, and he pinched her arm. She felt him flinch when the chip fired.

"Now see what you made me do. Naughty Dawn. C'mon, then."

He took her hand. Arms swinging like children, they strolled among the SITs back into the light from the back porch lantern. Dawn took a step toward the lilac bush, but Spike didn't release her. He sat on the patch of bare ground in front of the steps, and Dawn dropped beside him. He said, "Come to me, children."

From all sides of the yard, the Potentials returned and made a circle about two deep around them. The brightness in the sky was now gone. By the porch light, Dawn could distinguish the lifted faces.

"There's nobody," said Spike, "knows as much about Slayers as I do. Killed two, haven't I? Glorious dances, those were. I'll never forget 'em. But not so fine as the dance I have now. And there's never in the world been such a thing as this. No Slayer has ever been trained by a vampire. Pushed and taught beyond anything she imagined she could do, to be a pack quick and deadly as the first vampire pack that came together and ran their prey down like wolves. School like fish. Fly like birds. Change in a breath, to take down anything that stands before you. Now I've touched you and breathed you. I could find any of you a mile away at midnight. I have a line to you all now. From each of you to my hand." Spike held up his spread left hand, looking around at them, willing them to imagine cords stretching out. Dawn could imagine. "You come and go to my hand. I will never let you fall. I'll keep you from death. I swear it. I will also knock you about, and throw you down, so you'll be creaking and lame and purple in patches for days afterward because none of you is the Chosen and you don't have the healing yet or the strength that's the gift to the Slayer, to do what she must, night after night. To me, you are all Slayers and I'll teach you how to dance with me, with Death, if you will be Slayers to me. Pretend the healing. Pretend the strength. No whining. No complaints. I'll teach you what you were meant for because I know what that is. I'll never hurt you beyond what you can bear.

"Now you all know my Bit: Dawn. Wave to the nice Slayers, Bit. Lately, she ain't been trainin' with you no more, like she used. That's changed. I need her, and the Slayer says I can have her, so long as I see she keeps her homework caught up. Couldn't manage, without. Dawn, she's my runner and my minder and my recorder--whatever she needs to be. Where we go, she goes. The first rule is, I look after you. The second rule is, You look after Dawn. Anything comes at us from any side, I want you between it and Dawn. Your first job is to mind me, learn what I'm showin' you. Your second job is to see to Dawn, whether I'm there to say or not. You just see it an' do it.

"Now you divide yourselves into two parts--at...Meagan, there. Just as you are. Look who's around you. Remember. You're the two packs. This lot, to the left, they're the lucky ones: they get to stick with me tonight. You other lot, you're the Slayer's, and she'll come for you presently. My pack, onto the porch an' get your weapons."

Dawn handed out weapons laid out ready on the porch: stakes, two apiece. Spike didn't want them all weighted down and fumble-fingered, he said. Simplest was best. If they couldn't handle a stake, he didn't want them whacking about with edge-weapons in the dark. For himself he'd picked his usual favorite, a short-hafted hand axe, this one with a leather thong he could loop around his wrist, leaving both hands free.

He sent them racing for the first mark, the streetlight at the corner of Morris, and was waiting for them when they swept up, all grinning and eager. Dawn, among the last-comers, couldn't help noticing that the first to reach the mark mimicked his arms-folded, hipshot pose, trying to cover that they were breathing hard. He, of course, wasn't breathing at all.

"That's fine, my doves. Now you don't move till I say Ready, go like Simon says, right? Next mark is Auburn Park, by the swings. By way of Anderson. And this time, it's not a race. You watch to the sides, you move together, and whoever sees anything off, you remember it to tell me at the mark. Anything off, you come straight to me, you don't go look at it, poke it with a sharp stick. Nobody first, nobody left behind. You're boomerangs: I throw you now and you come back to my hand. Haven't yet had reason to choose the goat for this evening. What's the goat?" He looked around, waiting, until Amanda put up a timid hand. "So what is it, then, do you think?"

"The one who messes up?"

"Exactly right. And who wants to be the goat, tell me?"

All hands remained down, with a majority of Aw, come on! expressions.

"Well, somebody does, because she's gonna do it, now isn't she? I got something special for the goat, when we get back. For tonight, that's a great (his eyes went golden) big (his face shifted) kiss!" And he was grinning at them in full, fanged game face. Dead silence. Wide-eyed recoil. "Ready, go!"

Watching them go, Spike shed game face, waiting until they rounded the next corner and were gone. Then he called Dawn to him with a tilt of his head. They started off at an easy jog she could maintain, following a shortcut to the next mark.

Dawn spoke the realization that had come to her: "You've done this before. Or something like it. When?"

"Oh, that would be telling." After a few more strides, Spike added, "Bit...don't ask me about such things anymore. All the stories are sad."

And end in, "And then we ate them,"; thought Dawn. She decided not to try out any "Mr. Chips" jokes on him tonight, after all.


Dawn was left sitting on what Spike called the roundabout while he circled back to intercept and pace the pack, watch how they moved, maybe give them a bit of a scare. She made sure she had the business end of the taser wand right-way around and the cord clear of her shirt.

This unit was one of a pair: a parting gift from Riley Finn, that jackass. One jolt would stop a vampire dead in its tracks and likely drop it--long enough for Dawn to get the stake taped to the battery pack. If she spotted any of the larger non-humanoid demons wandering through the park, she was under strict orders to run and yell, and Spike would be there, quick as that. But that wasn't what the taser was for. It was for Spike. That was the condition he'd required to take the SITs out alone, without the Slayer along to be minder.

Buffy and her group would be taking the station wagon to check out the approaches to the airport, where Giles and the new potentials would be arriving sometime tomorrow. The patrol route Spike had chosen for his pack wasn't currently the usual one for Saturdays, but it hadn't been swept in awhile and contained only one active cemetery. Not particularly dangerous, therefore, it would seem. But just north and east of this park, Dawn's research had found a pattern of recent deaths and disappearances over the past month: mostly at the edge of open country beyond the town limits. The deaths, in the usual Sunnydale euphemism, were attributed to animal attack: in other words, they'd been bitten. Foolhardy hikers or backpackers, lone motorists with car problems, people walking dogs: suddenly gone. And then, this last week, no more deaths in that area at all. Five disappearances, total. The pattern of a new vamp nest systematically clearing out the competition from their chosen hunting territory, then collecting enough bloodcows to keep the need for active hunting to a minimum.

Shrewd. Deliberate. Forethoughtful. Quite different from the chaotic rampage of the usual fledgling; and in the unclaimed territory that Sunnydale had become since the Master's death, mature vampires typically hunted alone, far more likely to dispatch any vamp they met than to join forces. Vamps weren't too big on trust or cooperation without being decisively hammered down first.

Dawn thought when she went to college, she'd like to do a study on vampire domination hierarchies. Maybe Giles would help, with the remaining Watcher records.

In the pattern and its interpretation, Dawn thought she'd found one or more of Spike's missing fledges, the clever monsters--possibly with a minion or two drawn to any purposeful action that promised food and willing to subordinate themselves to get it.

No reason not to choose this area to patrol. Only Dawn and Spike knew the reason for singling it out.

She'd been sitting long enough that the crickets had recovered from her intrusion, with Spike, into their range of awareness. So she noticed at once when their steady sawing stopped. She thumbed the taser switch, squeezed the safety, and swung her feet as though idly for a second before rising, taking her time. Standing the way she'd been taught: lead foot and back foot, balanced, ready to move in any direction.

By a picnic table a woman stood watching her.

Dawn's eyes were fully acclimated now, and though nothing like as sharp as vampire vision, she could see the woman quite plainly by the light of the risen moon. Could have been a waitress or a shop clerk, something like that. Vaguely rumpled and just short of dirty: hard to get proper dry-cleaning when you were living in a cave or a crypt or the basement of the sporadic Sunnydale tract housing constantly being started up and then abandoned when the first occupants unaccountably vanished. Otherwise perfectly human looking.

"Hi," Dawn said, wiggling fingers in a small wave. "Waiting for my Dad, when the Little League game lets out." She knew there was a lighted ballfield a couple of blocks away, at the other side of the park.

"Hi," said the woman, pushing off the table, sauntering closer. No least resemblance to Spike of course: why would there be? But she sort of fit one of the descriptions in Spike's green notebook. "Always walk my dog here. Surprised me to see anybody out here at night, specially a kid. Your brother playing?"

"Yeah. Billy." Dawn figured the woman could hear her heart going. Dawn certainly could. "What's your dog's name?" Dawn found herself asking idiotically.

The woman stared at her like she was crazy. Dawn had a second's impression of yellow eyes, then impact and she was down on her back. Dawn jammed the taser-tip right under the woman's chin and released the safety. The woman spasmed back. Dawn got knees up and kicked her the rest of the way off. Dawn ripped the stake out of the tape but held it, standing over the stunned vampire woman out of reach of a sudden grab.

"Spike!"


It seemed Spike could have been no more than a pace or two away, he was there so fast. But the crickets had said different.

Dawn didn't ask him where the SITs were. She just got out of his way while he knelt and pinned the vamp (still in game face) with a hand on her chest, leaning all his weight on it.

Dawn passed the stake to his free hand, behind his back. No sign of the axe.

"Nasty surprise for you, love." He was talking to the vamp. "This here one's mine. We come to an arrangement. You know how those things go. But there's a whole lot more just off a ways there, and I could be persuaded to share. More'n I need, since I got this one to do me awhile, all friendly-like." He looked around to smile at Dawn, and he'd gone to game face, too.

He'd warned Dawn: it was when his demon surfaced she'd need to watch him specially hard, see if he seemed to be doing anything off and act accordingly. So far, she'd seen nothing she'd classify as off. She was scared she wouldn't know off before it bit her. What scared her was the responsibility to judge and do, all in a second--the fear of judging wrong.

The vampire woman didn't say anything, looking up with a sly, amused expression. Spike suddenly punched out and dusted her, grabbed Dawn's arm, and yanked her into a full-out run back toward the nearest trees. Dawn concentrated on holding down the safety, so as not to hit him by accident.

"Here!" Spike shouted, and the SITs burst out of the trees. The thing that flashed in the moonlight was the axe, that he caught out of its spin and whirled with, the SITs fanning out to either side, stakes in hand. Spike shoved Dawn behind him. The next instant, they were surrounded by Bringers.