The Blood Is the Life
by Nan Dibble

Chapter 12: The Action of the Tiger


It was the cell phone that woke him and the cell phone that gave him away.

Trying to process the information that Willow and, unexpectedly, Harris were up at the factory, not knowing where he was except it was close and dark and safe, Spike rolled onto his back to put the cell away. Brighter light flooded the space when a curtain was lifted.

“Spike, what the hell you doing under my bed?”

Oh.

Rona backed as Spike put his fingers in the bed spring to shove himself out. He pushed to his feet, feeling creaky and dim. Blinking and rubbing the back of his neck, he asked, “You got any coffee?”

“The hell with coffee, what is this shit? You never named this morning’s mark, I didn’t know where to take nothing, and I hear this phone going off, and here’s a vampire under my bed!”

Spike lifted the bedspread and bent to look. Yeah: the plastic husks of three empty blood bags under there. Well, it had apparently seemed a good idea at the time.

“What’s the time?”

Rona checked her wristwatch. “Going for four thirty.”

"Gonna have to break down and get one of those," Spike reflected. "No coffee, then?" He read her face: puzzled and irritated. Clearly no current prospect of coffee. "Bring the whole day's blood ration up to the factory. Soon as you can collect it and get there."

As he started out of the drab little room, Rona demanded, “I still want to know what you were doing there!”

“Sleeping. All peaceable. And you can count your blessings I didn’t take it into my head to do it the old-fashioned way--top of the bed and a live snack in the bargain.”

“That ain’t funny, Spike!” she shouted after him.

What Rona hadn’t grasped was that it wasn’t meant to be.

Descending the stairs at a loose-kneed arrhythmic shamble, Spike decided he was swearing off amphetamines. Kept you going, as advertised, but the price was too high. Couldn’t recall but snatches of his sweep of Restfield. Coming to the boarding house to get the blood at the end of the sweep had been the last agenda item. Seemed as if that’s what he’d done but he had no memory of it whatever. Totally bugfuck bonkers. Around the bend so far the zipcode had a different prefix. Couldn’t afford that. Things could go irretrievably pear-shaped in record time if he was careless or too blanked out to track.

Probably meant he couldn’t allow himself to get more than a little drunk, either. Pathetic. Couldn’t hunt or have a nice quiet drunk; couldn’t shag till this was done except very circumspectly and all thought out beforehand, and he was pretty certain Buffy wouldn’t be open-minded about the vamp custom of indifferently fucking the nearest available orifice.

Being responsible sucked. Almost worse than the soul.

Nothing left but the cigarettes between him and the compleat bloody nancified prat.

Moodily he went from window to window on the ground floor, cautiously shifting curtains and peering out, to figure the best route to the nearest sewer cover.

When he hauled out of the pipe back by his office at the factory, he saw Willow and Mike inside, and it was bright: the electric was hooked up. Shrugging his clothes straight and trying to slick back his overlong hair with two hands, he faced the belated start of his day. He opened the door and entered the overpowering smell of lilies. “Hullo, Red. Sorry to keep you waiting. Michael been seeing to you all right?”

Smiling wryly, Willow lifted foil from a plate with three cookies on it. “I made sure some were left for you. Crashed?” she asked knowingly.

“Splat,” Spike admitted, around a mouthful of cookie. “Didn’t even bounce. Not gonna do that no more.” He thought a minute, then decided it was a good story even if it was on him. “Woke up under Rona’s bed. Gave her a bit of a turn. Hell, gave me a bit of a turn.”

“You’re not staying here, then?”

Spike shook his head, reaching for another cookie. “Can’t. Moving target’s harder to hit. Won’t be the first time I slept rough. Miss the amenities, though.” He waved the remainder of the cookie.

“If I ask why under Rona’s bed, are we gonna have to do the whole ‘elephant in your pajamas’ routine?” Willow asked, setting the empty plate back on the table.

“No clue, except that’s where the blood is.” He considered, chewing. “That didn’t come out exactly the way I thought. I meant like Willie Sutton and the banks. Rona’s all right--only surprised and not all that pleased.” He caught Mike’s eye. “Got the electric going, and took up the slack with Red and all. Good on you.”

Visibly pleased, Mike ducked his head, smiling small. Would be bad, telling him, Spike thought. He decided to do it while Red was here as a buffer. But not just yet. See to the rest of the agenda first.

“So what’s the bad news about the computer?”

“You’re gonna want it in here?” Willow asked, gesturing at the office.

“By preference, yeah. Not if that’s an issue, though.”

“It should be do-able. Not a cable modem: no lines have been strung out this far. Eventually the best bet should be a satellite phone connection: Ethernet. But for now, dial-up broadband should be good enough. You need the broadband because of the international data exchanges with Watcher Central. Take months, otherwise--uploading, downloading. You still with me?”

“Barely. I got do-able. Go on.”

Willow glanced aside, and through the surrounding windows Spike saw Xander Harris pacing toward the office with Isadora drifting along behind like a hungry kite. Assigned as a minder, Spike figured. Whelp looked in one piece, though, as far as Spike could see, so good enough.

Coming in the door, Xander asked Mike, “Can we lose the hotpants bloodsucker now? It’s like being stalked by Brittany Spears.” As Spike waved Isadora off with a minimal gesture, Xander continued, “Which I wouldn’t actually mind, except for the sucked dry factor. Or…let me rephrase that.”

Before Spike could comment, Willow explained rapidly, “I asked Xander to come with because he’s the practical construction expert. Sub-sub-contractor, all right?”

Staring at Spike, Xander cut in viciously, “And the memories are so great here. No way was I letting Will come out here alone. We’re not an item anymore and shouldn’t have been then, what with the getting caught in the clinch and kissage and the assorted badness of your kidnapping us and having to listen to you whine about that bitch Drusilla dumping you, which was actually worse than your threats of mayhem to be committed on our tender, semi-innocent young persons.”

“Stick a cork in it, whelp.”

“Fine: then see if you get your phone lines connected!”

“I got people who know things too, you know.”

Xander leveled a finger. “No, you don’t have people, Spike: that’s a delusion. One of many. You have pre-industrial monsters who think the internal combustion engine is run by teeny tiny imps sprinting on treadmills.”

“Boys,” Willow interjected in a quelling voice.

Unquelled, Xander continued with his rant. Spike counted to ten. Then made it twenty before opening his mouth. “Harris. Xander. SHUT THE HELL UP!” The moment of startled silence that followed gave him time to say, “I already apologized to Red for that, and we’re square about it, right?”

“Right,” said Willow, putting on a face of determination.

“So I’ll apologize to you too if that’s what will get you back on track here. Sorry I interrupted your pizza deliveries, or whatever it was you were wasting your life on back then. Sorry the cheerleader got hurt, though that wasn’t none of my doing. Sorry that you got scared--”

“I wasn’t--!”

“Bad choice. Pace, puer.”

Xander asked Willow, “Is that dirty? Is he talking dirty to me in foreign?”

Spike rubbed his forehead. He needed coffee. Badly. “I appreciate your coming out to look over the doings. Even might pay you for it, if my associate approves. Can we get past the sins and stupidities of youth and come back to today?”

Xander glowered. “It wasn’t your youth, Spike. What’s your excuse?”

Spike appealed to Willow, “Do I need one? If so, we’ll never be done here. I was dumb. Also drunk off my ass. It happened. I’m sorry, won’t do it again. Would take it back if I could but life’s not like that. End of story.”

Willow’s eyes were quiet and sympathetic. Looking to Xander, she said, “He’s apologized. What else do you want, Xander?”

“You shouldn’t ask that or we will be here all day. Where’s a Vengeance demon when you need one?”

Spike went halfway through the door, saying over his shoulder, “When he’s done venting, let me know.” He walked as far as the barricade. Leaning against one of the machines, he phoned the Espresso Pump and ordered coffee delivered. Then added donuts and some pastry. Even thought, before he ended the call, to check that he could pay with the plastic. Then he strolled out to the entry and alerted Emil, who was on guard, to expect a delivery in about fifteen minutes and cautioned him that the delivery person was not part of the order regardless of what he/she/it smelled like. He remembered Rona was also due, and warned about that, too.

He felt a headache winding itself up behind his eyes like a snake about to strike.

Heading slowly back toward the barricade, getting a cigarette lit, he saw Willow waiting for him there.

“The bottom line,” she said, “is yes, the existing phone connection can be replaced with a fiber optic line and then run out to the pole at the end of the drive and connected there. Take about two hours. The equipment would run something like a hundred dollars, not counting labor.”

“Thank you.” He meant for giving him the summary version, not requiring him to pry the information out of Harris a detail at a time. He thought she took his meaning. He rubbed his forehead again. “Got any painkillers?”

“Nope, not on me. Sorry.”

“Got a couple bottles of something or other, but I don’t know which is which and I think I’ve done all the experimenting I want to, just now.”

“Headache?”

“Yeah. Coming on.”

Willow held up a hand, silently asking permission. When Spike nodded, she set her palm on his forehead, just across the bridge of his nose, covering his eyes. Felt warm. Felt good. Then there was a whoosh sensation: like a sudden gust of wind that blew the gathering headache away.

“Help any?” Willow asked, lifting her hand.

“You have now convinced me to keep you chained up in the basement.” Spike took a deep drag on the cigarette. “When can he do it?”

“Now. He’ll have to go get the parts first, of course.”

“I got coffee coming. Ten minutes or so. Stick around for that, yeah? Thanks for the cookies, by the way. Expect the crew liked them.”

“I figured it would be a distraction. Throw the lions meat, they’ll leave the Christians alone. Speaking figuratively, of course.”

“You been real good about this, Red. I appreciate it.”

She regarded him soberly. “When you asked for the lockets, I knew something was up. Last night, and burning down Casa Spike, that was a wake-up call.”

“Right. It was.”

“You’re playing with the Powers again. And that’s taking the proverbial tiger by the proverbial tail. All you can do is hang on and hope to survive the ride. And hope the tiger doesn’t turn on you. I know some of what you’re trying to do now. And it seems like a good thing to do.”

“Wish you’d tell Buffy that,” said Spike, and wasn’t able to keep all the sourness out of his voice.

“Buffy’s real good at not hearing what she doesn’t want to hear. If we gang up on her, it will only make her dig her feet in harder. Better if I keep mum.”

“Maybe. I expect you’d know best about that. Appreciate the support, though. Yours, I mean.”

Willow smiled: a good little smile. Friendly. “You’ve learned to ask for help. That’s kind of a big deal for you, I think. You want this, and not for yourself. Also a pretty big deal. So yeah, I guess I’m in. I’ll try real hard not to let you down.”

Willow offered her hand. Spike batted it away. “Already done that part. And you didn’t like how I shake hands: all personal like.”

Hearing his name called, Spike swung around. Emil, and inside the entry were Rona with the cool box and a skinny, scared looking boy wearing an Espresso Pump T-shirt, holding two large sacks.

Fishing for the card, Spike thought that whatever the Powers were, this once he was prepared to be grateful to them for at least small mercies.

**********

After Harris, reduced for some time to muffled monosyllables by donuts and Danish, had left to get the phone line components, Willow said, “Oh!” and pulled a paper from her carryall. When Spike unfolded it, he found a roughly handwritten calendar: the patrol schedule for the next two weeks. Days and locations.

As he thoughtfully refolded it, Willow asked, “Are you gonna do with that what I think you’re gonna do with it?”

Spike put the paper away in his pocket. “Any vamps she finds, she’s welcome to.”

“And your people will keep well clear.”

“If they can remember more than ten minutes at a time, yeah. If they can’t, she’s welcome to them too. I’ll take ‘em out myself if I come across them. Somebody that dumb, I don’t need. Better weeded out.”

“And she just gave it to you?”

Spike shrugged, with a smile that faded fast. “I asked.”

Willow sipped her double mocha, lips pursed around the straw, eyebrows wrinkled and serious. “She’ll go ballistic when she realizes what you’re doing with it. And I can’t believe she didn’t--”

“Slayer’s pretty much like me: doesn’t think past step one unless forced to it. It won’t be for long. City will be divided into districts. And there’ll be a schedule of who’s allowed to hunt on what ground, which nights. Who picks the Queen of Spades, that’ll be just their bad luck. Like it is now.”

“Who makes the divisions, if that’s not one of those ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill you’ deals?”

Spike met her eyes calmly. “I do.”

“And who makes the schedule?”

“Me.”

“And who enforces it?” Her eyes said she already knew.

“Yeah. Me and my…people. Who get four days out of the seven in the best hunting district--downtown--as a reward. Any vamps they run into not authorized to be there get dusted. It’ll cut down the poaching real fast. Vamps are stupid but they’re not dumb. Not in that way. Except for fledges, of course. Cut down fledges wherever we find ‘em.”

“That’s gonna be a bloodbath,” said Willow in a low voice.

“Yes. It is. Short, if I can manage that. And as bloody as it comes. Mostly dust, but the principle’s the same.”

Willow glanced up just for a second. “Is this the part where you have to kill me?”

“There’s things you still don’t know. But short of that, whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. You said you were in. That’s good enough for me.” Spike downed the last of his double espresso, extra sugar, and reached into the bag for another.

“Not sure I want to be that in,” Willow commented shakily, picking up a tall plastic spoon to dab into her drink.

“All right. Won’t tell you unless I need you to do something or it affects you. Safer for you that way. Once it starts, it has to go fast. Won’t be no secrets soon, so no need to find ‘em out.”

“Who knows now?”

“Us three.” Spike nodded at Mike, watching silently, seated a little back from the table. “Dawn, most of it. And that’s all. Except for the Powers, of course. Not blocking ‘em anymore. Whatever they want to know, all they got to do is look. So far, I’m doing what they got laid out.”

“So far,” Willow repeated warily.

“Just so.”

“Ahuh. Goddess, you’re giving me the shivers.”

Spike went on, “Can’t say somebody hasn’t guessed--the shape, if not the details.”

“Torching Casa Spike.”

“Seems likely. There’s a few vamps around who aren’t fools. But before they can organize, they’ll be too busy with internal fights to put much of anything together.”

“You gonna kill ‘em?”

“Hell, no: tie ‘em up with bows, if I could. The ones levelheaded enough to make a good fight of it are the ones who’ll keep to the schedule once things have settled. And see that their people do, too. Any that don’t, yeah, I’ll cut ‘em all down, assign that territory to somebody else who’ll fucking mind.”

“That’s really cold-blooded, Spike,” said Willow, attending to her straw.

“Vamps are cold-blooded, Red. How d’you think the Master sorted this place to begin with?”

“I don’t think I want to know. Can you…can you actually do that?”

Spike understood perfectly. She didn’t mean was it possible; she meant was he capable of going through with it.

He considered telling her about setting the soul aside. But that knowledge would be a daily burden on her, living with Buffy. And she hadn’t asked. So he kept it as it was, only between himself and Bit.

Instead, the next time she raised her eyes, she was looking into his vamp features, that some called “true face.” He said, “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we.”

“And on that note…” she said, setting her cup aside, but settled when he put fingers on her arm, asking her to stay put.

“Michael. Got some bad news for you. Dawn’s off-limits, from now. You don’t go to the house. You don’t slide off and meet her someplace else. You leave her 100% alone.”

Spike took his time lighting a cigarette--ready every second for Mike to come at him.

Mike had gone vamp-faced too, staring at him. Considering. Holding himself in check. Spike hadn’t been sure the lad could. Was prepared for damn near anything. After several minutes, Mike said, “It’s on account of the fight, right? To make me mad.”

Spike shook his head slowly. “Nothing whatever to do with the fight. Only to do with you, and with Dawn. The Slayer will tell Dawn presently, in her own time. I’m telling you now. It’s ended. As of now.”

“It ain’t,” Mike growled. “I won’t. And you can’t make me.”

“Yes. I can. And I will. I got a lot of fondness for you, Michael. Vamps don’t much have friends, but I consider you as one. But if you make me choose between Bit and you, you don’t even come into the account. For awhile, I thought Bit was OK to look after herself. Decide for herself what she wanted and didn’t. And thought you’d abide whatever she decided and not try to force her. Let her be, if that was what she wanted. I changed my mind about that. ‘Snot against you: it’s for Dawn. You don’t begin to know what she is. She looks like a child, but she’s not. She ever tell you how old she is?”

“Sixteen an’ a half!”

“She’s older than the oldest vamp that ever walked. Thousands of years. She’s trimmed herself down to what can be in this space. Be like a person. But she’s not. She’s part of the gate between whole universes, Michael. And she has a choice to make, that you know nothing about. She has to be left clear to make that choice. Nobody putting pressure on her. Not me, and not you. Till she makes it, she’s not for you, lad. And once she chooses, won’t me or anybody else be able to control what she does. Then, it’s up to her. But till then, we both respect her need to decide on her own. Me and you both.”

Flatly, Mike said, “That’s horse shit. That’s a goddam lie.”

“No,” said Willow carefully, not looking at either of them, “it isn’t. So she still has her keyness, Spike?”

“She’s a piece of a Power. I don’t know precisely what that means. No need I should. They took her back. You recall.”

“Well, if that’s the same as saying I remember that I didn’t remember, and still don’t--”

“Yeah. And I made such a nuisance of myself, they gave her back. Because she wanted to come. We made them let her go. But if she hadn’t wanted to come, nothing I could have done would have changed it. She’s still a part of a Power. She can’t be forced. And she’s coming to a point where she’ll have to choose the one side or the other. Change, and mortality…or what she is. And she’s got to be let alone to do that.”

Bolting out of his chair, Mike said, “You two discuss it. Spin your tales. I know what she is. I tasted her. She has my mark. That’s all I need to know about it.”

“Michael. You cross me in this, I will kill you dead.”

“Then you better start practicing. ‘Cause you cross me like this, I can bring this whole thing down on you.”

“See you Saturday, then, Michael. You’re off the rest of the week. If I can’t depend on you, I don’t want you here.”

“Fine,” Mike responded, and stormed out.

Spike sat stirring his coffee. Willow sat very still. After awhile, she said, “Buffy?” Spike nodded. Willow asked, “Does she realize what’s involved?”

“No reason she should. It’s her call to make. Not gonna blame it on her: if Michael has to fly out, better he flies out at me. He goes up against the Slayer, she’ll kill him.” Spike smacked his hand on the table like smacking a fly. “I always got choices, that she don’t--right up to the last, anyways. Can kill him a little, so to speak. Bust him up so bad, he’ll be six months in healing. Like when I got hit with that organ. Time to think over a lot of things, stuck that way. Not that I made any good use of the time.”

“Why’d you want me here?” Willow asked.

“Just made the best use of what was to hand. Boy has good manners. A lot better than mine. T’isn’t good manners to try to rip somebody’s throat out in front of a guest, and a woman at that. I thought maybe he’d come at me and I’d have to kill him on the spot. But you being here, he had to think about it first. So he decided to wait.”

“You told me once I wasn’t fit for vampire conversations. During the Supplice d’Allégance. Too squeamish, basically. I think you were right.”

“That’s what makes you human, sweet. Be glad of it. It’s a cold, cold place, outside the limits. You don’t want to be there. But it’s where I live. It don’t do to forget that.”

“All right, Spike--you creeped me out enough for one day. I’m going home, unless you need me to stay to keep Xander from going postal on you.”

“Oh, I can handle the whelp. Been meaning to get him sorted a long while now. Maybe now’s a good chance.”

Willow gave him a look. “If you hurt him, I’d be very displeased. Extremely displeased. Furious, in fact.”

“Yeah, I heard something of what you do when you’re furious. Pity I wasn’t here to see it. Sounded to be quite the thing. Busted up whole city blocks, the way I hear it. Really scary.”

They traded impenetrable looks. Then they both broke the stare and laughed together at the posturing.

“Don’t kill him, all right? Not even a little.”

“Intending no such thing. And won’t do no such thing. I know he’s precious to you, Red. An’ I don’t want to be forever on the outs with him, on that account. Time and past time I attended to that lad. Won’t hurt him even a little. Scout’s honor.”

Willow shot back incredulously, “You were never a scout!”

“Now, you don’t know half of what I’ve been. Even patchwork Adam was a scout. At least part of him….” Spike gave her a sly smile. Then he sobered. “You recall I told you never to get in my head no more. I know you do, because you’ve abided by it. If something should come up with Michael, and it’s past what you feel good about handling yourself, or if the Slayer’s not there…anything like that, you tell me right off. And any way you can.”

“Understood.”

“That’s good, then.”

After Willow left, Spike found it a great relief to finally get at the blood. His manners weren’t as good as Michael’s, but he did have some. When he thought about it.

**********

Trailing along behind Harris or roving in front like a ball on a tether, Spike could find nothing that worked. Nothing that would get through or around the settled hostility to common ground. He tried the time he’d spent in the git’s basement, with the parent war raging overhead, sometimes soft, mostly loud and hateful; he tried the time he’d spent, mostly crazy and drifting, in the closet of Harris’ apartment: sleeping small on the floor, wishing to disappear, the soul so heavy in him then it didn’t seem he could contain it. Got him nothing but nasty looks and a few dismissive remarks but mostly silence.

Tried common interests, but that was mostly Scooby-related and Harris grudged that they had those things in common--that Spike had “wormed his way” into Willow’s tolerance, Anya’s pants, Buffy’s bed. Maybe Dawn’s heart, but they somehow avoided mentioning Dawn.

Harris needed to get at the old phone connection that was high on the wall, up by where the power came in; and there was no ladder. Git looked at the rope, then up at the wall, back and forth. Muttering, “Bloody hell,” Spike yanked a loop in the bottom of the rope, swarmed up to the girder, got Harris to step into the loop, and drew him up like Venus rising from the sea. Once standing, Harris could walk the girder competently enough, and the phone box was within his reach. So Spike backed off and sat sullenly on the beam for a minute or so: as long as it took for Harris to drop the first component and direct Spike to fetch it for him. The first three times, Spike went along with it, letting the boy have his fun. Then he whistled and had Isadora take over as minder. Nothing got dropped after that.

Going by smell, heart rate, and breathing, the lad was terrified of Dora. And he fancied her. Maybe fancied her because he was terrified: seemed to take some blokes that way. Spike had seen it happen. Or could be no more than that she had the right number of tits and openings. And was a demon: Harris seemed to have a surprising affinity for demons, given how much and how indiscriminately he claimed to hate them.

Like nearly all vamps, Dora didn’t care two beans what she fucked, or how. Spike gave serious thought to turning her loose on the lad, but that would mean standing right over them to keep her from feeding or others from joining in--not an appealing prospect. Besides, Red didn’t want him broken and at the best, the boy would be wandering around in a daze for a week or worse, hanging around here for more, and that would get awkward real fast. Likely end up getting him dead, since Spike couldn’t always be here to see things didn’t get out of hand. And that would mean losing Dora, who was shaping nicely into a useful second and was getting on really well with Kennedy. So Spike gave that idea a pass.

Hard and frustrating to think everything through to consequences, and more consequences still. Especially with no clear plan to follow at the end of it. Spike wished Bit were here, to put the matter to her and have her advice. He was coming up dry: maybe one of the blind spots he’d figured to run into. Then he accused and convicted himself of nineteenth-century thinking and got out the cell phone. He thought of it readily enough to order coffee or leave instructions, but when it came to making contact with a person, it was the last thing he thought of.

Dawn’s sleepy voice said, “Hello, Janice?”

“No, Bit. Just me.”

“Spike! Is something wrong?”

He slid down the side of the office glass to sit on the floor. Something tight in his chest unwound. “Guess this is like telegrams used to be--never but bad news and emergencies. No, nothing wrong, Bit. Except the usual, of course.”

“You never call!”

“Yeah, well. Calling now.”

“And nothing’s wrong?”

“I’ve waked you up. Sorry. What time’s it got to be?”

He heard what he thought was a yawn, and the sounds of her turning over in bed. “About eleven.”

“Gonna buy me a watch. Bet you thought you’d never hear me say that. Friday, at the mall. Ain’t been out there for awhile, you an’ me. Interested?”

“Oooh! Sure! Willow says you have money now! There’s this top, it’s sort of a buttercup yellow--”

She was certainly all waked up now, with the prospect of a raid on the mall, armed with money. “’Course you can, Bit. Might get myself togged out, too. Most of what I had extra went with Casa Spike. That scare you any? The fire?”

“I knew you were out on patrol. Not there. So no, it was exciting. I never saw anything so big, burning. And all the fire engines and lights and the big hoses….”

Spike chuckled at her enthusiasm. “I think sometimes you’d have made a proper vamp. You like seeing things busted up near as much as I do. Without the downside of it….” He wasn’t gonna mention Michael. It was clear Buffy hadn’t spoken to her about that yet. So he told her instead about Rona and the bed, with a few more details than he’d let out before, and was happy with her giggling through the tale at the other end of the line.

Then she quit giggling and turned serious. “Whatever you’ve been taking to stay awake, I think you should quit. If you’re blanking out, you’re letting the demon steer. Like your demon, mostly. When it’s fed up, it’s no trouble, anyway. But I don’t trust its judgment.”

Spike hadn’t thought about it quite that way and said so. “Got to agree with you there, pet. Willing to try most anything once. Some things, even twice. But those pills don’t help the focus. They only seem to, for a time.”

He paused, changing hands on the phone, and Dawn’s voice in his ear observed, “You’re lighting a cigarette. I can hear you.”

“Right you are, pet.”

“Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“You sound like you again. You didn’t sound like you, yesterday. I…. It was strange. And making fun of Mike, that was just plain mean. I don’t like it when you do that.”

Spike sighed out smoke. “’S a hard time, Bit. Not at my best, trying to do what I have to, be responsible. Gets old real fast. Seems like all I done today is tell people I’m sorry. Don’t like that much.”

“Then quit doing things you have to be sorry for.”

Spike burst out laughing.

Dawn, slightly indignant: “I don’t see what’s so funny about that!”

“Well, if you don’t know, good on you, pet. Expect you’ll learn and be the sadder for it.”

“Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me a story. If I don’t say anything when you finish, I’m asleep, and you can hang up then. All right?”

Leaning his head back against the glass, Spike shut his eyes and tried to think of what might be a good going-to-sleep story. He’d quit telling Bit stories awhile back--at the moment, he forgot why. “All right, this was in Aberdeen, in the winter. That’s in Scotland, love, and winters there are pure misery. Not exactly a pleasure spot the rest of the year, neither. Herself had set her mind on getting into the prison, eating the prisoners there, so we all traipsed up on the railway….”

About halfway through he stopped and thought about what came next, how he’d got his tongue frozen to a lock and Angelus and Herself too busy fucking to take any notice, wondering if this was the best story to be telling, and heard the silence. So Bit was asleep and he didn’t have to decide after all.

He told the phone softly, “G’night, love,” and closed the connection.

When he looked up, there was Harris glaring at him: about five feet away. He’d got so caught up in the story, and feeling connected to Bit, he hadn’t even noticed.

“Were you talking to Buffy?” Harris demanded, both fists clenched.

“No, Bit. Dawn. Not that it’s any of your--”

Harris said, “Oh,” looking suddenly deflated and puzzled, and walked away. Grabbed up a big spool of phone line and kept walking, out past the barricade.

Spike wondered what that’d been about. Then he recalled he’d meant to ask Bit about dealing with the git and had completely forgotten about it. Forgotten to ask how she liked planning the going-away do for the Watcher, too. Had to focus better, keep all the agenda straight, or this would never come out well.

********

When Harris finished running the line, it was about midnight, and the factory was deserted except for Emil and Dora, who had guard duty. The rest were out hunting or doing whatever they pleased. Spike begged a ride in Harris’ truck as far as downtown, to choose a fresh place to lair up.

As word got around, as it inevitably would, that he wasn’t sleeping at any set location, the chances of attack on either Casa Summers or the factory should be minimal for the time being. Since the torching of Casa Spike, Willow had extended the protections around Casa Summers into virtual lockdown, once everybody was home and accounted for: pretty much a force field nothing could get through until she opened it at daybreak, as Spike understood it. Sounded secure enough.

He hadn’t asked any magical protection for the factory. This was still vamp business: he wanted to face the opposition on an even footing, not provoke a standoff between dueling sorcerers with magic he couldn’t control and didn’t understand. Vamps and magic never had mixed well, and he was pretty sure if he didn’t begin it, the opposition wouldn’t resort to it either.

He was thinking about places he could lie up where nobody would be likely to look for him (other than under Rona’s bed), when Harris asked suddenly, fiercely, “So what’s with Dawn? Why do you bother? What’s in it for you?”

Spike clamped down on the first three responses that came to mind. “We get on.”

“Are you into corrupting children now?”

Spike looked around at him, feeling very still and cold. “Let me off here.”

“I want an answer!”

Spike opened the door and dropped, rolling. The truck’s brake lights flashed for a second. Then the truck speeded up without having stopped. Spike rose and brushed himself off. One knee banged. No worse than a spill on the bike.

A good way of being unpredictable, he thought, was to be unpredictable. Retreating to an alley, he looked around, getting his bearings. McFarland and 10^th: the west margin of downtown. Good enough. A generalized awareness of vamps in the area, but that would be true anyplace downtown, the favored hunting district.

He was easing down the alley when he heard a whistle pitched at the edge of human hearing. It came from above him: spotters on the roofs. And it was answered. He moved faster, grabbing a broom handle from a trashcan as he passed. It took only another minute for him to reach the nearest sewer lid and slide through, but he didn’t wait to replace the cover. The hunt was up.

He hadn’t expected anything this organized this soon. Michael, he thought grimly. Running his mouth off in some bar, full of his own sense of injury. Had a bad habit of doing that and was all sorry later about the fallout he hadn’t the sense to see coming. Have to lesson the boy about that, Spike thought, and put it on the agenda.

Eastward, this line ran for six blocks before there was an intersection. Back toward the factory, westward, there was also a long uninterrupted stretch. After that, though, it fanned into multiple branches laid to service the whole industrial park, many of them with curved storm drains set high, that looped back into the main pipe and were only filled in times of high runoff. Spike resisted the temptation to head east into the heart of the hunt. Since there were sentries posted here, there’d be more on the line between here and the factory: his known starting point. But he had a better chance of taking them out than facing many opponents at once.

Spike wasn’t interested in escaping. He wanted to decimate the opposition.

When they didn’t find him eastward, they’d mass and come in behind. So he had to move fast to stay ahead of them for the time being. He saw two vamps in the main pipe ahead and went right at them, diving low at the last minute, quicker than they could jump and clear him. Both went down. He dusted one immediately with the broom handle. Jammed the other one in the throat, then did a whip kick to his head that quieted him down nicely, sprawled against the walkway. Since the time of the Turok-Han, Spike had the habit of carrying a length of piano wire in a back pocket. No handles, but it would do. He looped the second vamp’s neck cross-handed, yanked, and that one was gone. He’d noted the faces. One was a fledge: nobody. The other mostly hung around with a loose group that laired in what he now thought of as District 7: next over from Restfield.

He listened, attended. Running, but still far away. Nothing close. Good.

The first vamp he’d taken out had been armed with a nice pool cue. The very thing Spike would have chosen himself. He cracked the broomstick to be handles for the garrote and looped the wire in a half hitch around his right arm. He jumped to the walkway, to be level with or above whatever he ran into next. Still hearing nothing close, he stopped to pull off his boots, then ran on, light-footed and silent.

Through the balance of the straight stretch, he found no one. That likely meant guarded at both ends. Approaching the first junction, he smelled tobacco smoke. Moron. Flat against the wall, he listened. A couple of words: at least two of ‘em unless the moron was in the habit of talking to himself. Figure on two, anyway. He dropped back into the main channel, down on all fours with the pool cue tucked into his armpit. On fingertips and toetips, in a way no human could have moved, he scuttled just far enough to get his eyes past the corner for a second and then back again.

Five.

He choreographed it in his mind, how to take two of them out at once, left and right, and then sweep the legs out from under at least two of those remaining. Because there’d likely be no chance later, he took another quick look, noting faces. Two more District 7’s, a stranger, and two anonymous fledges. Only the fledges in game face because they couldn’t help it. The mature vamps, the stranger-smoker and the two others, standing casually, the smoker even with his back turned. One of the others a woman. Spike rearranged the order and placement, and changed the choreography to take out the two blokes, leaving the bint and the fledges. Ran through the sequence once in his mind. Then he went.

The smoker and one of the male vamps were gone before they’d even seen him. The woman had time to move, so he impaled her shoulder instead of her heart. She started coming up the wood at him as one of the fledges caught him low in the back with a knife before he could fully turn. So much for choreography. Freestyle. He yanked in the fledge with the knife and head-butted him to the face, then followed with a braced elbow to the bridge of his nose, already turned away, knowing that fledge would be down a good minute or two with part of the skull driven into the brain. The bint with the cue was coming at him, and the other fledge was to his right. He drop-kicked the fledge in the ribs, catching the point of the cue on the way down. Sent the thick end back, better aimed. That was the bint, gone. Just the two fledges left, both of them down. And he had the knife, once he’d braced a moment and removed it from his back. Hurt like hell, but a good thin blade: cut would seal reasonably fast. He listened a moment, decided he had time, and decapitated both fledges. A sword would have been better, but a knife was what he had. He made do. Didn't have to get the whole head off, just cut the spinal cord at the neck, separate the brain from the body.

It took him less than an hour to locate and dispatch the other seven vamps posted on this stretch, all spaced at junctions along the main tunnel. They hadn’t bothered covering the branches or didn’t have the numbers available to get them in place fast enough. Or some had simply gotten bored and wandered away, as nothing seemed to be happening. Went like that, a good part of the time. No discipline and hardly any organization.

Total of five District 7’s. Only vamp worth anything he knew of active there was called Digger. Spike filed that. Maybe worth holding onto, or maybe just the quickest to be scared, figuring Spike would move on him next. Might be just another idiot. Leave that as pending. No other districts notable yet as fielding substantial opposition.

Although the knife wound had quit bleeding, it was stiffening up. Lowering himself a bit gingerly to a seat on the walkway, Spike had a cigarette while debating whether to retreat to the factory or lie up in one of the storm drains, wait for the pursuit to pass, then see what kind of wholesale mayhem he could inflict on them. Drive as many as possible into the side-passages, scatter them, then pick them off at leisure. He now had nearly all the weaponry he could want, including two shotguns, four pistols, and sufficient ammunition for one of the shotguns to successfully face a fair number at once. The impact of a .45 could knock a vamp off his feet; but a shotgun blast to the head or chest would blow them utterly away. Although they lacked the up close and personal satisfaction of doing someone with a stake, a pool cue, or a garrote, Spike liked shotguns for their sheer bloody destructiveness combined with noise that would leave your ears ringing for minutes afterward.

True, there was the risk of getting boxed; but he was confident none of the opposition knew this system of drains as well as he did. The idea of none of the vamps who’d come after him reporting back was very tempting. Or maybe one: a witness that he’d done this alone, without any of the crew as backup. That pleased him more.

He threaded all the handguns onto the wire by their trigger guards and attached them to a belt loop. No need to leave useful weaponry to be found. He bent the barrel of the shotgun that had only one shell left and shouldered the other, hiking toward the storm drain he’d chosen.

Most of the day had been a waste, and he’d started late; but he figured by sunup, he’d have accomplished a lot. Pity about the boots, though: he’d send one of the crew to look for them in the morning.

**********

The next evening, it was back to Willy’s--this time in force, with crossbows. Including Rona, Kennedy (she and Dora dressed like improbable twins, like savage Barbie dolls), and Amanda, whom Spike had finagled into attending yet again on the promise that there wouldn’t be any fighting. All three stank of lilies. So did the whole room: Spike had had every table anointed with one of the tiny sample bottles. The smell would last for months. Spike wanted it memorable.

All the crew were well turned out. Spike had paid for all of them to get fresh kit: anything they wanted, so long as the colors were black or red. Spike himself stayed with the black, his feet encased in much-resented new boots, the old ones having gone missing. Pity, that: he’d had the others the best part of thirty years. It annoyed him to think somebody else had a piece of him. No help for it. Nothing he wouldn’t shed at need. No hostages.

He wore every piece of jewelry he owned, collected from Casa Summers in the early evening, when he’d gone with Huey, in Huey’s car, to collect the computer. Red was back at the factory now, hooking it up, making sure it all worked right and could access the online accounts. Huey would take her home when she was done.

For his own people, the only permitted liquor was on Spike’s table, and he doled it out sparingly. None at all for himself. Soda for the children, of course, except he suspected Dora of sharing her ration. Frankly, he didn’t care. Wasn’t gonna try to control things down to the least detail. Knew he hadn’t the inclination or the aptitude and it was probably impossible anyway.

As word got around, vamps drifted in to see what kind of do he was gonna stage. By general agreement, Willy’s bar, human-owned, was neutral ground except for whatever fights erupted privately and were promptly shunted outside and those scheduled by the management: vamps knew they were safe from open, general attack here.

The other demonic breeds, rightly feeling unloved and outnumbered, made themselves scarce. Presently the place was nicely packed (Spike hoped Willy appreciated the custom he’d brought in), and Amanda reported an overflow crowd out in the parking area.

Spike stood up, and no more than that was needed to get silence and attention. He nodded to Kennedy, who began passing out flyers--photocopies of the map and the rules that Spike held a laminated version of. Crossing the room (the crowd cleared away from him), he held the laminated paper up against the wall, under the odds board, with the flat of his hand. Surveying the crowd, he pointed at those nearest the bar, remarking, “You might want to stand clear.” The instant they’d edged away, Amanda and Dora impaled the top corners of the map, above his hand, with impeccably aimed crossbow bolts.

Spike faced around, hands on hips. Separated from his own people by maybe a hundred vamps--few if any of them wishing him well. He let on he hadn’t noticed that, didn’t care. Well, the fact was, he didn’t. And anyway, it was all style, all face--the way it was in most vamp power games. Spectacle and demonstration…backed up with the eager willingness to answer opposition with force.

Behind him, the map had a red circle drawn around the whole of Sunnydale. Fifteen districts were outlined in black and identified by numbers. District 1 enclosed the old industrial park--depopulated and therefore bare of vamp nests until Spike’s renovation of the factory.

To the side of the map was the schedule of which districts were allowed to hunt District 15 (downtown) and District 3 (an area including the mall) between Thursday and Saturday midnight.

Spike knew he couldn’t control hunting over the whole of the town. Let the districts police their Spike-imposed borders from poaching themselves. A whole lot of vamps would get dusted in the process. Fine with Spike. He’d determined to concentrate on the prime hunting areas. Limit the number of vamps allowed there on any given night and he’d have as much control as he thought would be needed to regulate and limit vamp predation in Sunnydale.

Simple was best. Especially when dealing with vampires.

Most of the vamps now had flyers and were frowning at them, trying to make out what they meant. Likely most of them could read, but you never knew. Backed by Dora, Kennedy had gone outside with the rest of the supply, distributing them there.

“Let me tell you what this means,” Spike said casually, making no attempt to raise his voice: they were all vamps here, or all that needed informing. “It means the end of the sloppy, disorganized, confusing mess this town has been since the passing of the Master. If some of you are too young to remember that, ask around. This town used to be run right. You knew where you stood, who you answered to, who you could beat up or dust with impunity. Whose orders you had to take, or take the consequences, and who had no business telling you to do anything. Fledges were made only in reasonable numbers, what the food would support, and only with authorization from the top. Only by Masters capable of siring anything but doomed, stupid animals, few of them lasting out their first week or two, risen. Brought up right, sire and childe, acknowledged. Protected and taught till they were fit to hunt on their own, with some chance of surviving immortality longer than a year. Learning how to do, how to be. Learning the lore of our kind and why we are the way we are.

“That’s all been lost. I’m bringing it back. They were good days, under the Master. Won’t say he kept the peace because what do vamps want with peace? Vamps want stability--not everybody getting in everybody’s way, vamps dusting each other in disputes over the food, raw ignorant fledges blundering around underfoot everywhere you look, ruining the hunt, putting the food on its guard. Vamps want things to make sense.

“The Order of Aurelius has ordered this town for as long as it’s existed. And we were here before, on account of the Hellmouth. Those of you who know me know I’m of that bloodline: sired by Drusilla, who was sired by Angelus, sired by Darla, who was sired by the Master himself. The oldest blood there is and one of the few ancient bloodlines still intact, sire and childe, acknowledged.

“Sunnydale is mine, and I’m claiming it. All of it. Gonna make things work here the way they ought to, and the way they used to, despite the Hellmouth being gone now. That just takes the pressure off. Fewer tourists.

“You look at that map and figure out where you belong on it. Which district. Then you’ll know when your turn is at the best hunting territories. Everybody gets a turn. Not gonna deal with individuals here--just districts. You sort out for yourselves who runs your district and let me know, and I’ll deal with him. Or her. I’ll settle disputes between districts. After this is sorted, no more wholesale feuds that go on for decades. No more poaching: each District Master has the territory intact, nobody lairing or hunting there except with permission, and I’ll help enforce it as needed. I’ll keep order. Won’t say I won’t play favorites: loyalty and obedience deserve rewards, and I’ll see that they get them.

“If you don’t like it, don’t like your District Master’s way of running things, get out. Nobody’s making you stay. In his own territory, a District Master can run things any way he pleases, so long as that doesn’t cross me or my rules. If you’re still here, it’s a sign you agree to abide by the rules, accept the order. Anybody out of order will be summarily dusted as I see fit.

“Starting Sunday midnight, anybody hunting District 3 or District 15, like you see on the map, except my own people, will be dusted on sight. That lasts till Wednesday midnight, when District 4 and 6 have their turns. My people will still be abroad, but only enforcing, not hunting.

“Last of all: you smell what it smells like, in here. That’s what’s mine: my protection. Any food you come on that smells like that, you leave absolutely alone. No matter what night it is or what your hunting rights are. You don’t eat it or touch it. Anybody who does is marked from that moment. Won’t dust ‘em. Keep ‘em for instructing the fledges in torture. Vamp can last nearly indefinitely like that, except the fledges get careless. That smell, it’ll mark you if you touch it, and I’ll know. A few of you will test that out, I know that. Need you for stock. For the fledges, like I said. Weed out the stupidest ones that way: always a good thing. So you go ahead, be dumb. Be on the wrong ground on the wrong day. You’re a waste of the space and the feed, and I’ll see you’re attended to.

“Now get yourselves sorted into your districts, decide who you’re gonna answer to. Sooner this gets organized, the sooner things will go back to making sense around here. That’s all.”

As Spike started back to his people, there was a stir by the doorway that made him stop and turn, ready to dive if he had to. But it was the last thing he expected: the Slayer, in full gear, with her favorite sword and a big department store plastic sack with handles. Kennedy and Dora went ahead, to left and right, clearing the way for her, but she took no notice of them or of the vamps, coming straight to Spike.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said casually, setting the sack down. Looking him in the eyes all the while. “But it’s starting to get cool, and I was reorganizing the closets, getting the jackets out. I came across this. And I thought you might want it.”

Then she looked down and stooped and drew from the sack his old duster, that he’d thought long gone. Assumed it’d been pitched into the trash, after that night he’d left it at her place, when he’d thought about it at all. Never asked about it, of course. Didn’t want to know. Shied away from anything connected with that night he’d fled and taken himself off to Africa to become something more nearly like a man for her because the alternative was unendurable.

She laid it across her arms and held it out to him.

He was caught totally wrong-footed. Major flabbergast. “Dunno what to say, Slayer.”

“Don’t say anything, Spike. Just take it. It’s yours.”

So he did that: took the familiar weight. Shook it out--all supple, no permanent folds. Leather was like that. Swung it around behind and shrugged into it, the good familiar feel of it. He couldn’t help grinning in plain delight. He felt at least a foot taller, and invincible. Like he’d truly live forever and want to.

No way the Slayer could know it was the trophy of another Slayer, but she knew what it meant, right enough. And her return of it signified her acceptance of that. Not approval, maybe, but understanding and consent that he be what he was.

Except his vampire existence itself, and her love, he didn’t think he’d ever been presented with a greater gift.

His throat was all tight. Took him a minute to pull in enough air, swallowing a few times, to feel it would work right for him. Looking around at the crowd, he said, “This is my Lady--the Slayer. She killed the Master-that-was. But we have an arrangement. She’s got no part in this. You look at her hard, and know her. Stay well clear of her because if she had her way, there’d be no vamps in Sunnydale whatever. Except me, of course. If you don’t answer to me, you’ll answer to her, soon or late. I am, from this night, Master Vampire of Sunnydale. Because I say so, and I’ll make it so, and cut down anybody who disputes it. But she’s Death to our kind, absolute, and always has been, and always will be. So you stay clear of her, and of me, when I’m running with her. Because on such nights as that, there are no exceptions. We see you, you’re gone. Now get out of here.”

The place cleared in record time.

Spike said quietly to Buffy, “You done me proud, love.”

“That was the general effect I had in mind. I heard about last night. You had the cell. You could have called. You didn’t. If you won’t let me back you, if I can’t be there, I want something strong between you and harm.” Her hands, the sword hand and the other, smoothed the front of the duster down his chest. “Everything you’ll let me give you. The Slayer loves the Master Vampire of Sunnydale in all his peroxided glory. Buffy loves Spike. We don’t always agree about everything, but whatever. Some way, we’ll make this work for us.”

For a little while, Spike allowed himself to hope and almost believe that. In this moment, at least, it was true.