The Blood Is the Life
by Nan Dibble

Chapter 14: Challenge and Reply

The watch said 3:37 a.m. Late or early, the way people counted the time. Past midnight, supposed to let them be: in the dark time, when they were all busy sleeping like they did. Hell with it. Spike hit the speed dial anyway.

Made it to four rings. Then Bit’s voice saying angrily, “Whoever this is, it better be--!”

“Bit.”

“Yeah, Spike. What’s wrong? Or are you just drunk?”

“Bit, you got to get yourself a different anchor some way. Not be tied to me. That won’t do.”

“But I don’t want a different anchor,” she said, all calm and gentle, like she could be sometimes when you got past all that other, that she defended herself with and hid behind. When it was just true talking between them, as if soul to soul. “It’s what I’m for. Why I came back.”

“No. Won’t do. ‘Cause I’m not gonna last here, Bit. An’ I can’t…. I dunno how to do, if that takes you with me.”

“Then you have to last.”

“Can’t promise that, Bit. It’s all gonna go smash, and if that’s just me, that’s one thing. Just as well, maybe. But you got to get yourself tied to something else, instead of me.”

“Spike, that’s just the curse affecting you, and tomorrow, Willow will get--”

“Tisn’t just the curse, Bit. It’s me. I’m wrong. You shouldn’t be tied to such a thing as me. Always wanted you to be your own. And that can’t be now, with what’s happened. Now I’ve set a mark on you.”

“Oh.” Long silence.

“Didn’t mean for that to happen. Didn’t want that.”

“But it was my fault! It was me--!”

“Doesn’t change it, Bit. I’m as sorry as can be.”

Dawn asked in her very smallest voice, “Have I spoiled it all, then?”

“Not your fault. You don’t know how these things are. Tried to tell you, about Michael, what it meant, but…”

“I wouldn’t take it seriously. Yeah. Spike…come home. We’ll talk this out when we’re both thinking a little clearer, and--”

“Can’t do that, Bit. Can never come back. Can’t talk to you except like this. Wouldn’t be the same, if I was there. Bet you never thought you’d hear me say nothing good about the cell phone.”

“Spike--”

“Hush, now I’ve upset you, an’ I didn’t mean to do that. Didn’t mean none of this. Love you, sweetheart, but can’t be safe for you no more. On account of the mark. So like I said, you got to find some way to be your own an’ not tied to me no more. You ask the witch, ask Willow. Maybe she can think up some way. Will you do that, love?”

“You come home, Spike,” Dawn insisted. “I promise I won’t bother you. You won’t even see me. But you need them. Need us. You do. You get all crazy on your own, you know you do. You freak, and then do something uber-dumb…. You’re freaking now: I can tell. Come home. You have to get the curse lifted, for one thing. You have to come back for the you-know-what, that I hid for you.”

“Not gonna do that, Bit. Best it stays wherever it is. With what’s happened, it would never give me no peace. Worse than before. Can’t do that again. Even without it, I-- You just think on what I said. About getting yourself free of me. You ask the witch: maybe she’ll know. Even ask Lady Gates, instead of that other--to get you something stronger to fix yourself to.”

“Spike, you knew it might happen. You warned me. You said you’d go ahead anyway.”

“Feel different about it now. Didn’t realize what a total waste of the space I was then. You do like I say.”

On her voice again desperately calling his name, he pushed the button to close the connection. When it buzzed, the next second, he turned it off.

**********

At 3:58 a.m. by Spike’s watch, Huey came from behind the bar to shut off the jukebox, then undertook the delicate job of getting Spike to leave, even though the bar didn’t close until 4:30. Spike could tell Huey intended to be persistent, if he planned to spend a whole half hour on that job if he had to.

Spike was about the only patron left. As the bar had emptied, Spike had sent his crew of bodyguards off to take care of their nighttime business. Nothing left to stay for. Since Huey had tactfully not brought up the cost of the breakage, Spike didn’t give him much of a hard time about chucking him out. Got himself upright, resumed the duster, and paused only to light a smoke on the way out.

Problem was, there was noplace Spike wanted to be.

Plenty of time, though, before first light to decide where to lair up. If nothing else appealed, he could open the nearest sewer cover and tuck up in some alcove until he’d slept himself sober and as ready as he was apt to get to face the new day.

He turned left and started walking slowly in the direction of the school. As good a way as any.

He’d gotten as far as the dock area of Willy’s when Mike complained from behind him, “I don’t understand.”

Spike stopped and carefully wheeled around.

Arms folded, the neck of a bottle in one fist, hair flopped over his forehead in an untidy dark wing, Mike was scowling at the ground. “I mean, you none of you make sense. I take a few piddley potshots at you, and you ain’t mad at me but Dawn is, that I never done nothing to except what she wanted. Where’s the sense in that? You set your mark on the girl, over mine, then tell her you ain’t coming near her again. Why’d you do such a thing if you don’t want her? Why not leave her to me, that did? You blow hot and cold, approve me one minute, hammer me into the ground the next. Half the time, for the same damn thing! You tell me not to see her, and give as a reason she’s some Power and older than electricity, that’s such foolishness nobody would believe. And then she tells me it’s so, and a big secret. Says she’s not talking to me. While she’s talking to me! Can’t make it out. Doesn’t make no sense whatever.”

“Never will, neither.” Because it was easier, Spike dropped down to sitting, the duster puddled into folds roundabout. “On account of they think different. Hit A and it’s B that yells ouch. Got connections and disconnections all mixed up--can’t even guess at ‘em. It all blends, blurs. Never anything simple. Can’t help but hurt ‘em. Try an’ wait and listen, hold off, wait for a sign, and it’s still like a rock trying to cozy up to an egg. T’isn’t the rock that’s gonna break.” He whacked himself in the chest: where the healed hole was, that hurt so bad, all twisted up and aching. “They’re so damn. Fucking. Fragile. An’ still they wear you down to nothing. Between ‘em, grind you right down to powder.”

Mike came a couple of steps forward and sank to one knee. “Then why bother about them? Already got all we need. Can’t never be like them, that’s gone. Why even try? This is better. Complete. Fuck ‘em all.”

“’S’not like I didn’t try. Never get it right or how they want. Never figure out how to do ‘cause what they want the one day, that’s wrong the next. What one likes, other won’t have at any price. No two the same. All different. Can’t suss it out. Have to bloody know. And I don’t. Never will. Soul or not, no difference--wrong regardless.”

“Ain’t worth it, trying to be friends with the food. Want everything, don’t give nothing back but grudged little sips. Fuck ‘em all.”

Mike offered the bottle and it seemed like a good idea. Spike took it and put some down. Wishing for some other place to be, no matter, so long as it wasn’t here and was empty for miles and miles around. Nothing to touch or to touch him. All dark, all quiet, no wind stirring. Night unchanging.

He vaguely noticed something coming in from behind. Vamp, or a couple. Both hands conveniently free, Mike picked the attacker out of the air, flung him down, stomped him. Attended to the other, acquiring in the process a baseball bat that came in handy for dusting the first one. Spike didn’t take much notice. Nothing to do with him, and the boy seemed to be managing all right. Used to get off on that too: getting angry, busting things up. Didn’t care enough to bother anymore. Let the lad enjoy himself.

The interruption dealt with, Mike held out a hand. Spike absently passed the bottle back.

“Light’s coming,” Mike said after awhile. “Best get in.”

“Yeah.”

“You picked someplace?”

That was the boy’s good manners again: you never asked another vamp where he laired up. Unless he volunteered that information.

“Could break into Willy’s, use the cool locker,” Spike responded eventually. Subject didn’t interest him. “Might do that.”

“Could come back with me. There’s space enough.”

“Feel like being on my own. Another time, maybe.”

“All right. See you tonight, then.” Mike dropped the bat, carefully placed the bottle on the ground, and went off.

Birds waking roundabout, starting their noise. Nothing to do with him, birds. He collected the bottle and there was still some left. Likely enough to last. He was in no hurry and didn’t feel like moving.

Noise of wheels, an engine. Then quiet again. Except for footsteps crunching on gravel. Wandering about, then quieter on dirt, weeds.

Spike didn’t bother looking up. No need: he could smell her plain enough. Only the Slayer, and he didn’t want to know more about that.

“You turned your phone off,” she accused.

It was always something.

She said, “Dawn says you freaked. About feeding from her. She says it’s something bad.”

“No matter. Done is done.”

“How are we supposed to know these things if you never tell us?”

Spike shook his head. No point trying to explain because that was the point. No way to convey the differences because it was all difference. No way to translate. No way to understand or be understood. He got that now.

He finished the bottle and pitched it away.

She came and knelt down by him. Reached out and touched his arm. Duster was protection: he didn’t have to feel the touch. All the same, he pulled the arm away. Wrapped both arms tight around himself to hold everything back, hold it in.

“You look terrible,” she said next. “Don’t smell that great, either. Bet a shower would feel good. Really hot. Get--”

“No.”

“Spike--”

“No.” Finally he lifted his head, looked at her. She had colors, and that offended him. Wasn’t of the dark, had never been of the dark, didn’t belong anyplace he was, where it was monochrome and still, unchanging. Always simple and what it was. “’M not some damn dog you’re trying to coax inside. Let be.”

“No, you’re an insane drunk vampire without the goddam sense to get out of the daylight and I’m not gonna let that happen! Get in the van. We’re going home.”

She was angry at him. Normal. He knew how to do that. He unwound and slugged her. She went away. Wasn’t good, but better. Didn’t like her colors. Didn’t like her eyes, that wanted something from him and saw deep and didn’t see at all. Better dark. He shut his eyes to make it all go away. Couldn’t do nothing about the birds, though.

“You still have the locket,” her voice said from a little way off. “I can see it. So this isn’t the curse: this is you.”

He pulled his knees up and bent his head onto them, arms wrapped around to shut her words out. If he listened, if he heard, it would all start again: wanting things. No use to that.

Closer, her voice said, “I took Dawn to Janice’s. She’ll stay there today until we get this figured out. Anya’s opened the Magic Box early so Willow can get what she needs for the counterspell. There’s nobody there, Spike. Just us. It’s all protected. All safe.”

He held onto himself harder but couldn’t keep her voice out. Never had been able to do that. And she smelled just like herself, as she always had. Didn’t want to want her even though that was allowed. Not like Bit. It was all one and he didn’t belong to it. Was something else. Always had been, always would be. “Don’t have the soul,” he threw at her, because that was what would do it. It was easier the second time.

“I know. You said that. But that won’t do it, Spike. I love you back before that.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do. I love you back before Harmony and back before Drusilla. All the way back. All the times you couldn’t see any way ahead, and went ahead anyway, that was me, loving you.”

“No.” He shook his head. That was impossible. Made no sense whatever.

“All right, I wasn’t very good at it, at first. Had to practice. But once you start, it goes all the way back. I love all the you there is. From now, backward. From now, forward. Never a you without me loving you.”

He shook his head again. “Don’t understand.”

“Can’t understand. Just how it is. Don’t have to understand it. Only believe it. Three impossible things before breakfast, right? And what’s more impossible than us?” She waited but it was too hard to think of answers, arguments. “Spike, your hands are smoking. We have to go. Now.”

Couldn’t take it in. Couldn’t open up to it or allow it to get through or everything would shake to pieces, burst apart.

For a moment, she hugged him tight and said in his ear, “If you go, Dawn goes. She told me. You’re not just you. You’re us. Now deal.”

Then she flung him into the shadow of the building and stomped off to bring up the SUV.

**********

Leaning in Willow’s doorway, Buffy remarked, “If somebody told me a year ago that I’d be frustrated because a vamp wouldn’t bite me, I would have known they shopped at Walgreen’s for the bargains.”

Willow glanced up from drawing a design on the floor of her room in different colored chalks, checking it about every two seconds against a picture in a large book open on the floor. “It really doesn’t hurt?”

Buffy scuffed one foot back and forth on the pulled-aside throw rug. “Not enough to…make me give it a pass.”

“Really sexy?”

“Are you channeling Vamp Willow?”

“No, because then I’d know, wouldn’t I?” Willow countered, checking the book again, then changed chalks to fill in the present section with rounded green symbols. Everything curved and connected. “There,” said Willow, sitting back.

“Should I…?” Buffy asked, leaning farther toward the hall side and looking toward the shut door of her own room.

Willow shook her head briskly enough to make her auburn hair fly. “I have the outer ring yet to go, and the candles to place…. Another half hour or so. Time enough to order lattes,” she hinted. “Order out, like the big people do. Only we are the big people now, aren’t we? That’s scary….”

“Yeah. He’s gonna need coffee. Lots of coffee.”

Inscribing runes with yellow chalk, Willow said, “Double espresso, extra sugar. At least two.”

“Since when do you like espresso?”

“Not for me: for him!”

Buffy looked at her. “How come you know that and I don’t?”

“Well, you haven’t had the tour of the new and improved factory, have you? Where he orders out for certain favored guests. The barracks, as I now think of it. Xander’s holding out for the Fortress of Solitude. But I prefer barracks. Because there’s a whole lot going on up there other than solitude, if you see what I mean.”

“With Spike?”

“Well, no-- At least not from what Ken said. For one thing, he’s the boss. For another, he’s been run off his feet pretty much since we got back from Oregon. No time for hankying or pankying, even if he were so inclined. And I have Spike pegged as preferring quality over quantity. And if we’re gonna get that espresso….”

“Right you are. I’m on it.”

Buffy opened her bedroom door very cautiously and quietly. Though it was past noon, drawn curtains and towels hung from the rods preserved an early morning dimness. Spike was still asleep and had barely moved: hadn’t thrown the covers off yet. On his back, your basic Crusader on a tomb position rather than his usual facedown starfish sprawl. Arms still wrapped around himself although the wounds were all sealed--on the surface, anyway. Still hurt, though, she thought.

She should send out for extra blood, too. He’d had only the ordinary evening tribute ration yesterday, and even that was an assumption. He’d lost so much. The maybe two minutes he’d fed from Dawn before yanking himself away wouldn’t have been anything like enough to replace it, to say nothing of the healing. And it was a mystery known only to Rona where today’s morning ration had gone…. When Buffy had pulled into Casa Summers’ graveled parking area, he’d been passed out under the Official Designated Tatty Emergency Blanket. Only nominally awake, he hadn’t even tried to get anything started with her in the shower: kept drifting off, sagging against the tiles. She’d had to shake him to keep him upright long enough to sluice off the worst of the streaked, dried bloody mess. He probably would have curled up and slept in the shower, if she'd let him. Definitely not running at anything like full capacity.

He’d been asleep about seven hours. Five was generally enough. After that, he got antsy, wanted to play or at least be up and doing. Not now, though. Just unmoving Crusader imitations.

She regarded Spike fondly but also thoughtfully. No soul there. She’d have to think about that. Think it through.

She tiptoed to the dressing table, collected her cell from its charger stand, and backed out again, pulling slowly on the door until the latch caught.

The Espresso Pump was one of her speed dials. Strolling back down the hall, she placed the order, knowing what Willow liked. Also two double espressos with triple sugar. So who knew? Then she hit another speed dial and left voicemail on the lab machine about the extra blood. She specified ASAP, but since she didn’t know how often Rona checked the messages, that could be anytime up to sundown….

She returned to watching Willow, who was now working on the outer ring. The symbols there were in white chalk and forked outward. What looked like pointy V’s and W’s, all attached. The outer ring didn’t look friendly.

“So how’s Kennedy these days?” Buffy asked presently, continuing the previous conversation.

Willow flashed up a quick, rather wry glance before comparing her design to the book again. “All right, I guess. She has a new interest in life: Spike’s made her his bookkeeper.”

“His what?”

“Shhhh. Bookkeeper. Clerk. Something like that. Power!” Willow flexed biceps over her head. “You remember Giles used to say vamps were a whole big sucking thing?”

“Wasn’t Giles, it was me, but yeah.”

“Well, apparently that’s not the half of it. Shall I go on?”

“Do I want to hear this?”

“Part of a well-rounded education. So, yeah. You do. It seems Ken has found there’s life beyond tongue-studs. Shall I go on?”

“What’s her name?”

“Isadora, and she’s about a million years old, bangs, brunette, maybe ninety pounds soaking wet, like an evil Barbie with these enormous dark eyes.” Willow made an eyeglass circle with thumb and finger, showing how large. “So ultra-vamp, it’s camp. Camp vamp. And she has (and I quote) ‘A tongue like flame’ (unquote).”

“Ick does not begin-- Aren’t you worried? For her, I mean?”

Willow glanced up again. “After Kim? She couldn’t be safer at Nieman-Marcus in the maternity aisle. ‘No turning without authorization.’ Also quoting. No vamp under a reasonably credible hundred is allowed. Identified violators of same to be reserved for the legitimate fledges’ torture practice. Which sounds real shiver-inducing to me. So I don’t think Ken is in any danger whatsoever of getting fangy anytime soon, no.”

“But if Isadora is like, a million, that’s more than a hundred, right?”

Willow quirked a smile. “Well, I exaggerated a little. Maybe closer to eighty-something. And Spike’s assured me Dora will not be authorized. As long as Ken’s there, anyway. Sets a bad precedent for the SITs, don’t’cha know. It would freak Amanda out of her sweet little mediocrity-loving mind, for one. So we do not turn the SITs, that’s a major no-no. All serene and copasetic in that department.”

“Again, how come you know this and I don’t?”

“Buffy, really. Have you asked? Have you watched Spike trying to think out the districts, how many vamps each can reasonably support? That’s the red notebook. Have you watched him surf for sources of fresh whole blood, like the tribute blood, trying to compare prices, volume discounts, and what would be lost in spoilage during transport? He wants to have his whole crew, as he calls them, independent in under a month. They’ll get enough fighting to keep ‘em happy enforcing the new rules. Won’t have much time for hunting anyway. So their rations will be provided. Courtesy of the Council, though the Council won’t know that. Out of Spike’s pay. Won’t be 100% hunt-free. But a fraction of what it is now. Take a lot of the pressure off. ‘Cause, after all, vamps like to hunt. And they’ll only switch to pigs’ blood and such if you shut ‘em in cages. Or the equivalent. That’s the green notebook and a couple of computer files. He still prefers writing by hand. He’ll get over it.”

“Will.”

“Yeah?”

“How come you know this stuff and I don’t?”

“Because you’re the Slayer, I guess. Not his de facto partner in Spells & Smells.”

“Spells-- You’re kidding!”

“Nope. Name’s mine, but the operation is real. I’ll have production set up in maybe another week. Vamp repellent. By fiat, not fact. But it should work.”

“The little sample bottles. Lily-of-the-valley.”

“The very same. Or not the very same: I’ve come up with a different formula. A lot less lily, a lot more valley, so to speak. Never had any idea before how hard it is to come up with civet, this time of year.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “Civet: isn’t that like skunk?”

“Sort of, for strength. But when you add it to other things, it’s sort of like the bass line, in music. The steady bottom notes that carry the rest along. What Oz, wearing his RenFaire hat, would call a ‘ground.’" She paused a moment with a private, wistful smile. "Hence, valley. And there are things I can do to it to make it pretty darn hot, if you know what I mean.” She waggled her non-chalk-holding hand, hanging from her wrist, expressively. “Might have to support the unplanned pregnancy clinic instead of the Y, but it’s an acceptable tradeoff. More life, not less. It’s always something.” Again, she sat back, surveying her handiwork. She leaned and smudged one line, then thickened another. Unfolding herself, she walked all the way around the circle, inspecting it intently.

“Good?” Buffy inquired.

“Good. I think. I had to adapt it because it’s basically for repelling demons. Not for repelling spellcasting from a demon. And done by a demon. Amazing that deathwish worked at all,” Willow remarked meditatively. “Must have had to chant a whole day and a night before letting it loose. And probably kick in a blood sacrifice to power it. Vamps and magic, pretty non-mixy. No natural aptitude, but no natural susceptibility, either.” She skidded one hand against the other. “Mostly slide right off."

“You know who did it?”

Her face pursed and judicious, Willow shrugged. “I know who bought the ingredients. Not a big demand in Sunnydale for malintente blossoms. Anya keeps a log of the more…outré purchases. Of course she wouldn’t show it to me. But something was making a racket out in the back alley, and it conveniently took her quite a long time to investigate it.” She bent to thicken a blue dot with precise strokes. “The curse had to be custom, to be cast against a vamp. Off the shelf would be no good. My guess is Amy. She does that kind of thing now…. But she didn’t cast it. A vamp did. At least one human involved. Bought the ingredients from a list, didn’t know how to pronounce half of ‘em. No mage there.” She tweaked another curlicue. “Give me another day, I’ll have a name, a description, or an image. But first things first here.”

The doorbell rang, and Buffy dashed downstairs to take care of the delivery. Yay, plastic. In the kitchen, she set the tall styrofoam cups on a tray for stability, then carried them back upstairs.

Willow accepted hers, still studying her design. “Wicked thing,” she remarked absently, “that deathwish. Lucky Spike’s paranoid. Or I wouldn’t have had a disc on me.”

“The locket,” Buffy deduced, uncapping her cup because she liked hers all mixed together, not layered. “That was Spike’s idea?”

Willow nodded. “To avoid having little tête à têtes with the Powers every time he took a nap. Kind of an all-purpose influence repellent. Can’t really block a full-blown spell, but it at least gave us some breathing space to get something more heavy-duty industrial strength ready.”

“But he didn’t have the locket--you did.”

Willow removed the straw from her pucker long enough to say neutrally, “It seemed prudent.”

“Who else has lockets?” Buffy’s tone made plain it was not a casual question.

“Well, it’s not the locket--it’s the contents.”

Buffy knew she was being finessed, which meant she had to know. She demanded, “Who, Will?” with Slayer severity.

“Well, I have one. Probably I’ll add it to my medicine bag, just on general principles.”

“And who else?”

“Well, Dawn of course. The poor girl deserves some privacy, after all.”

Buffy noted that for later pursuit. “And who else?”

“Well, Spike wanted Mike to have one.”

“In a locket?”

“In a watch. Pocket watch, to be precise. Spike contributed it.” Willow was watching her over the top rim of her cup.

And Buffy knew why. She’d seen that watch. In Spike’s treasure box. She’d even read the inscription. And he’d given it to Mike. She had an ooooh moment that Willow had plainly been watching for--to see if any penny dropped, and if it made a significant noise when it did.

“I understand things,” Buffy declared belligerently. “I can understand things! When anybody bothers to tell me, that is!”

“I just work here,” said Willow. “Not my fault if certain people have communication issues.”

“Any more?”

“No, that’s about it.”

“You mean Xander didn’t get one?” Buffy asked, mock incredulous.

“Well, wait, yes he did. But that was later. After he did the equivalent of dumping the lead Shark in the middle of Jets territory. I realized he needed a little buffering after that.”

“Everybody but me, in other words.”

“Yes, Buffy. Everybody but you. Correction: not Oz. Oz...was only visiting.”

Buffy pouted. “Why didn’t I get one? How come I got left out? Don’t I need buffering?”

“Because Spike forbade it, that’s why.”

“‘Forbade’: that’s strong.”

“Yeah, pretty strong, I’d say: I could hear the fangs over the phone line. On the grounds that you have your own arrangement with the Powers and this was not to be interfered with. He reminded me, rather sternly too, I might add, that your limits were to be respected.”

“I have limits?”

“Only in the best sense. Like personal space.”

“Huh. And this was Spike.”

“Or the best impersonation I’ve ever heard. The espressos are getting cold,” Willow mentioned.

Before going to wake Spike, Buffy had one last question: “What’s a Power?”

*********

Where your Slayer dreams come from. Huh.

Buffy had never thought dreams “came” from anyplace. They just were. But apparently not. They came, were sent, by these Power thingamajobbies. She was in communication with Powers…that wanted Sunnydale 100% vamp free. They’d been cool with the disruption Spike had set going by claiming the mantle of being the Master’s successor; but they were trying to block what Spike was doing now to settle things down again.

And Dawn was a part of them and also the possessor of a piece of Spike’s set-aside soul. So their unlives/lives were locked together—hers dependent on his. Buffy had known they were close, but not that close.

Very strange. Powers.

She pushed at Spike’s shoulders. “It’s time. Wakey wakey.”

His eyes blinked open. Blank. Orientation phase: figuring out where he was and why. That normally didn’t take long because their bed, their room, was the norm. Today, it took longer. Then everything just sagged. He showed no reaction to her being stripped from the waist up or to her neck decoratively bleeding. Nothing gross, just a little cut at the mark by way of encouragement.

Buffy ruffled his hair, which almost always made him scowl and flatten it down again. No reaction to that either. “You remember this morning?”

Slow thinking. “Yeah.”

“The curse is still getting at you,” Buffy told him. “The locket isn’t enough to deflect all of it. That’s why it feels like this. If I’d known that, I would never have let you go off by yourself last night. So it’s not you, Spike. It was the spell that had you sitting there, waiting for the sunrise.”

“Oh.” Finally, a little more animation: rubbing both palms down his face. And then jerk and still, yellow-eyed, as a very hungry vampire noticed the blood. He rolled onto his side, turning his face away into the pillow--likely wanting to conceal the full change.

From Buffy’s perspective, he’d presented his back to be rubbed. So cool and smooth, and the strong muscles under the skin. “This isn’t about souls,” she said. “This is about hurt, and healing, and us. About bodies, not souls. I know, no soul at the moment. It’s still OK.”

He muttered something into the pillow. Buffy thought it was, “Don’t want it to be about bodies.”

“But it is. That’s part of it. Sort of like sex. It’s what we make it. Each time. Love, or a roundhouse free-for-all. Or anything in between. It’s what we live on, what keeps us going. Keeps us together. It’s only life, Spike. And you’re letting it go to waste here.”

He rolled fast the other way. Face pressed against her belly, arms tight around the small of her back. Still hiding what he felt she couldn’t accept. She stroked fingers through his hair--crisp and freshly cut, although still two-toned.

“Want to see your demon.” Buffy let her weight descend, gradually dropping onto her knees at the side of the bed. His altered face slid up against her until it was pressed into the hollow between her breasts. “It’s OK: we have an ‘arrangement.’ Which sounds sooo dirty! Let it out. Let it come. I--”

In a flash he was higher, at her neck, biting down. Words, or the impulse to say them, went away. It felt so great, his feeding from her. Strongly pulling from her what he needed, what she had in endless abundance. The near-desperate hunger in how he held her in position, thumbs pressed hard into her upper arms. Not letting her move or pull away until he was done--like the penultimate stage of sex, when you were on the edge and absolutely positively had to finish now. And he was aroused, they both were. Panting between gulps, not letting go but having to breathe, interrupting the rhythmic suction. The urges becoming confused, the rhythm changing. Then he jerked his head away and down as suddenly as he’d claimed her: again butting at her chest, holding himself there, breathing hard.

She didn’t argue, just kept steadily petting the back of his neck and stroking down his spine as far as she could reach. He needed more, but that was all he was gonna allow himself to take. He knew where his limits were and Buffy accepted that. She could give herself up to it utterly because she trusted him to know. And he did: even without the soul.

“It’s freefall,” Buffy told him softly. “Like I could jump off anything, the highest tree, off a mountain, fly and float, and it’s never falling because you’ll always catch me. You let me fly with it. That’s so good. Out of the sky, even.”

He hadn’t come back to words yet. Sometimes it took him the longest time to settle. She’d tried to imagine what it was like, feeling what to you was the hot essence and perfection of life working in you everywhere. Maybe like being born. But she didn’t know. He wouldn’t even try to put it into words for her.

“Willow’s ready,” she said after awhile, after she’d felt some of his locked tension ease. “There’s coffee." She patted his back twice, briskly. "Get some pants on.”

“Yeah.” He released her and swung his legs around, sitting on the edge of the bed. Still slumped, head bent. Still muzzy and slow and probably still depressed as hell underneath it all. But one of the perks of being a vamp was being able to put down an amazing amount of alcohol and never be hung over afterward. Burned it all off or something. “Damn. Didn’t last even a day.”

He was thinking of the black leather strutting pants. Hooking her bra, Buffy reached for her top. “Looked absolutely fantabulous while they lasted, though. Maybe Will can do something. She may not like being the laundry fallback, but hey, when you have a resident witch, it’s all of the good.”

“Good. Yeah.”

Since he still wasn’t moving, Buffy went to the dresser, pulled out a pair of jeans, and tossed them onto the middle of the bed. Slowly he drew them in, got them on, and stood to fasten the necessary. Then they went down the hall to Willow’s room.

Collecting and presenting one of the espressos, that he immediately lifted and started chugging, Buffy told him, “I left word for Rona to bring all the tribute blood here ASAP. With some extra. Because, healing. I don’t know when she’ll get the message, though.”

Spike nodded, having finished the whole cup in one uninterrupted pour. “I’ll do for now,” he said, with a sly sidewise glance.

When he crossed the room, carefully keeping wide of Willow’s design, Buffy assumed he was headed for the roll-top desk, where the tray was. Instead, he went directly to Willow, who was studying the book, now laid on her bed. He set his hands at her waist and lifted her arm’s reach high while she eeked in surprise and batted him about the head and shoulders with soft, ineffectual hands. Setting her lightly down, he kissed her, and not on the forehead either. A full-contact, head crooked, holding on hard, mouth kiss, possibly even with tongue. Buffy looked on benevolently as he let Willow go and stood back while Willow made faces and noises and wiped the back of a hand across her mouth.

“I know,” he said, “guy germs. But in a severely weakened condition here, Red--have to humor me.” Over his shoulder, as he went after more coffee, he continued, “That thing blindsided me completely. Took me right off my feet. Hadn’t the slightest, what’d hit me. Drowning, like.” He got the cap off the cup and drank about half of it, eyes shut in caffeine overload rapture. “Wasn’t for the friendly neighborhood witch that makes house calls, I’d have been gone, no question. Owe you a big one for that.”

Willow had finished wiping away the kiss and was ruefully smiling. “Hey, on retainer here, remember? No separate line item charges. And don’t forget, it’s the uber-suspicious vamp that’s the reason I’d spelled the wafers and had one handy in the first place. So, team effort here. Rah, team! Except, watch the promiscuous kissage, mister. Completely professional here. Consider yourself warned!”

“Oh, come on, you liked it, you know you did. You're gay, not dead. You just don’t want to get accustomed to it, that’s all. Change the parameters.”

“I like my parameters just fine the way they are, thanks! Did Buffy tell you, something like 20% of the spell is still getting through to you?”

“I told him,” Buffy protested. “Not the percentage, but--”

Finishing the second cup, Spike confirmed quietly, “Yeah, she told me. Hard to feel what’s me and what’s not.”

“More like impossible,” Willow replied. “It just takes over. That’s what makes it magic. And a really superior magic worker wouldn’t have let you run off, last night. I mean, with the black mojo still working on you. I was all spinning theories, spell components, what modifications would have to be made to hit a vamp like that,” (Willow flung hands around her head, illustrating the spinning.) “who could make them, and the fact is, I wasn’t thinking about you at all. Only tech stuff. Objective. And after we located you, Buffy was going, and I figured she’d tell you. Except…I hadn’t told her. So my bad. Sorry.”

Spike set the empty cup back on the tray. “’M still here. On account of…I have people that take good care of me. No complaints about the service from yours truly. Have to try harder, pissing you Scoobies off, seems like. Gone all soft on me. Even that Harris, Xander, giving me wrecked old telleys an’ Morris chairs. Not doin’ my proper job here.” He folded his arms. “Where d’you want me?”

Willow pointed. “In the middle. Don’t touch any of the lines. Sit.”

“Gonna take awhile?”

“Little while, yes. Why?”

“Had the coffee, very good. Had…other things. Also very good.” Again, a glance, only his eyes flicking momentarily aside. “Now I really really really want a fag. Do more for me than getting this crap out of my head. Got time for that? Please? Make a poor vamp happy?”

“Go ahead,” Willow decided abruptly, holding out a saucer. Instead, he sprinted into the hall to collect the necessary.

“Will!” Buffy protested.

“There’s gonna be incense. Smells. A little smoke, more or less, won’t make the least difference. For once, give the guy a break.”

“But…in the house!”

Willow showed her a stern not budging face and Buffy had to admit the earth would not be doomed by one indoors cigarette. She allowed the basement, after all, and it was the same air. But she had the unhappy feeling of letting her mother down.

Returning, just as though he’d read her mind, Spike said at once, “Joyce let me.”

“She never!” Buffy denied hotly.

“Certainly did. Knew a chap needed his little vices, keep things all even. Fine sensible lady, your Mum. Knew there were exceptions to everything. Something her daughter knows full well. ‘Bout souls an’ all….” Cigarette in mouth, lighter poised but not yet lit, Spike gave her one final chance to forbid. Then he lit up and turned about a third of the cigarette into ash in one long draw. He reached and took the saucer Willow was still holding and neatly tapped off the ash. Still hadn’t exhaled. Apparently that was optional. Finally, a small and slightly smoky sigh of contentment. “All right then.” He stepped carefully over the design and sat crosslegged in the unmarked middle, saucer in his lap. “Do your worst, I’m ready.”

As Willow struck a kitchen match against its box and started lighting the pillar candles spaced around the circle, Buffy asked her, “Will it be a problem if there’s talking?”

“Not if you keep it down. Once I get going, I’m in my own little world. Sometimes a problem, sometimes an advantage. A problem advantage. If I say Shhhh real loud, that will be a hint.”

Buffy sat down, likewise crosslegged, outside the circle, facing Spike. He lifted an eyebrow. Buffy folded her hands primly. “If we’re gonna be here for awhile, and if all the important cats have now escaped their respective bags…. Tell me. Explain to me what you’re doing.”

“You sure you want to know, pet?” Spike responded quietly. “Because you might feel obliged to do something. Slayer and all. Could be awkward.”

“I’m sure. Explain it to me, and about the Powers. I want to understand.”

**********

Spike felt it stop. Couldn’t identify, separate its presence but certainly felt it go.

Had been trying to compensate, be all chirpy and brisk for the Slayer and the witch, not let on. But when the curse’s awful undertow faded, he broke off in the middle of what he’d been trying to tell the Slayer and sagged in a puddle, arms across his knees and head bent onto them, breathing. Not even relief, because all the reasons were still left. Still unsorted, unresolved. Some, like Bit, still acutely painful. But the certainty of failure, the helplessness, and the self-loathing no longer fed into them, bloating them to insurmountable proportions. They backed off a little, leaving him a place to be.

“Spike--?” Buffy asked anxiously.

Spike patted at the air meaning it was OK, just let it alone. After awhile he steadied down a little and could try to fake normality again.

“It should be better now,” said the witch inquiringly from behind him.

“Some better. Yeah,” Spike agreed mechanically.

“How do you feel?” Buffy asked, all concerned, checking first with Willow with a glance, then leaning to reach across the chalked symbols to set a hand on his knee.

The next second he was eight feet back, crouched on the bed, game-faced and like to shake himself apart with rage.

He started hurling things at them, taking no notice of what he grabbed and flung. Snarling, shouting, “Get out! Out of here!”

The witch was minded to stay, stop him, scowling and indignant. But when he put a fist into the wall and just kept hammering at it, beating the plaster back to the laths and then hauling at them too, long splinters driving deep into his hands and forearms, but not enough, not nearly enough, the Slayer backed off and took the witch with her. The two bints withdrew, well out of the way.

He proceeded to take the room apart. Hurled books through the windows so the light blazed in through the slumping curtains, went back and forth through the beams heedlessly and that pain was nearly enough. Snatched up the pillar candles and pitched them out the windows, too. Tore the closet door off its hinges, broke it to scrap, veered away sharply from all the Willow-smelling clothes hanging inside and yanked the bed apart instead. Then another pass through the shifting sunbeams, smoking, and yes, that was the ticket, take on the strip of wall between the windows, pound hell out of it. The floorboards were no good, couldn’t get a good grip on any of them, so he dumped the dresser drawers and broke their sides off, cracking the precise dovetailing because it was all trim and fitting and competent, like it made sense. Attacked the roll-top desk next, yanked it to bloody flinders, right. Chairs came apart easy.

When he could find nothing else to break, he whirled between the smashed windows, barefoot in the glass, in and out of the light and spinning too fast for any part of him to actually catch fire. That at last was enough. He flung himself down in the mound of crooked broken wood and blood-spattered fabric that had been the bed, closed in on himself, and began sobbing.

After awhile Buffy slid back in with a tray, blood bags stacked on it. Set it on a clear piece of floor, looked at him a minute, then eased out again.

At first he didn’t want it. Wanted to kill something for himself. Have the blood hot and seasoned with fear from the hunt and the acceptance that was the last of it as the struggling slowly let off and stopped. But this was how it was now. Had to surrender that pleasure for others that maybe weren’t a match but good enough in their own way.

He waited, attending to the sufficient hurt, until the impulse to bust open the bags and throw the contents against the walls faded of itself. Could do that but it wouldn’t really be any improvement. Still sobbing with the tight, hitching breaths that went with that, he finally crawled to the tray and opened a bag. Waited until his demon grudgingly wanted this tame blood, since that was all there was. Life within the limits. Then he ripped into one bag after another and gorged himself on it till it was gone.

The splinters wanted to come out, sliding upward on the blood as the healing ejected them. He picked at them. Buffy returned, looking around at the wreckage, then came and silently started helping him work loose and discard the larger impalements.

He found he was about done with the crying, and very tired. He let himself slump into Buffy’s care and protection, content to have her do anything with him that she pleased. He was done fighting now. Whatever came after would come.

Presently he said, “Joyce, it would have been OK with her. She knew.”

Before this room had been Willow’s, it had belonged to Buffy’s Mum. He could still smell the ghost of her presence. In a dim way, he felt Joyce’s room had given its consent to the destruction. Not approved, but allowed. He folded an arm across his eyes.

Buffy picked splinters. She commented quietly, “You would now take over the title of most totally whacko boyfriend except nobody died. You gonna tell me what this was about?”

“Needed to. Needed to a long while. Maybe always. Dunno.”

The witch stepped inside, wary and angry: he could smell it on her. Surveying the Great No he’d made of the place, she snapped, “Well, that was real mature!”

Buffy said, “He confined it to one room. Unlike you.”

“Oh.”

“Only things, Will. It’ll be fixed.”

“My things!” Willow protested.

“Your turn, this time,” Buffy responded calmly. “If it makes you feel any better, you can count it as part of your penance.”

“Penance for what?” the witch demanded, angry again.

Buffy paused, biting her bottom lip against what she otherwise would have said. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Or just figure it’s unintended consequences from lifting the deathwish. Collateral damage.” Buffy pulled a long splinter from his wrist. There was a little blood. Then the skin sealed behind it. “Demons break things up. It’s what they do. Their métier…. Sometimes, you can’t get at what you really want to hit. So whatever’s between takes the damage.”

“Yeah,” Spike sighed. Buffy understood.

**********

After the blowout, Spike slept the rest of the afternoon.

Because he still had the locket it couldn’t have been real, only a dream, but it felt real: walking up a long aisle with pillars ranked to either side and beyond the pillars, darkness. Herself, enthroned, all armed with breastplate, helmet, and spear, on a dais waiting for him at the end of it with blind white eyes like a statue’s eyes. But she saw him well enough. He was in no doubt of that.

He said, “Lady, all respect but you’re wrong. We also serve a purpose, even if it’s not yours. We have a right to be, and we are what we are. All your power won’t make it otherwise. You chose me for this, and this is what I do. Do what you must, or what suits you. Either way, I’m done being played.”

She replied, “You are not a Power. Yet we also are constrained to do what is in us to do. What we must and what we can. You have power only over yourself. We shall see if that is enough. You are still a pawn in play while the game lasts. It cannot be otherwise.”

Then he bowed in respect and walked away down the aisle into the dark and a different dream. But that was the one he remembered when he woke at sundown, and checked that the locket chain was still around his neck, and the locket still on it. So it couldn’t have been but a dream, and his purposes still kept within him and his own to know. And he was back in Buffy’s room, in her bed, confirming a vague memory.

Folded at the foot of the bed were the new pants, supple again and cleaned of all the blood. So he guessed the witch must be over her mad, or at least willing to set it aside.

He had a proper shower, as hot as it would go, washing the smaller splinters and the embedded glass shards down the drain, standing in the heat until the water ran clear. When he was dressed and set, he went downstairs.

Buffy and Willow were in the kitchen, just about to eat dinner. It bothered him that Dawn wasn’t there. He propped himself, stiff armed, at the middle counter as they slid onto tall chairs to either side.

Buffy asked him, “Well, what’s on the agenda for tonight?”

It was strange, realizing she didn’t know about the challenge fight. But things would converge again, after this. Some way. When he’d had time to think it out, not all stupefied by the curse.

“Got a fight to see to. Up to Willy’s. Then confirm the District Masters in the territories they’ve laid claim to. After, I’ll be back at the factory. Lost a whole day on the translation. Can’t get too far behind--money’s already spoken for. You go fetch Bit home. She and Janice don’t actually get on that well. Best get them shut of each other while they’re still friends.”

Poking a fork into her rice-and-peas, without looking up, Willow said, “A little later, I may know who set that spell on you. I’m about halfway back along the chain of evidence.”

“Oh, don’t trouble about that. I know.”

“You know?” Willow repeated blankly, and did look at him then.

“Yeah. Vamp name of Digger. Had his territory from the Master. Been here quite some time.” Spike scratched the scarred eyebrow meditatively. “When he saw me still standing--in a manner of speaking, that is--at Willy’s last night, that was it: we both knew an’ he ducked out fast. He’d set everything on the one toss, and lost. Had a really fine chance of catching me with that. Just his bad luck he didn’t. Has half a brain, Digger…which is more than can be said for most.”

“Did he admit it?” Willow wanted to know.

“Like I said, he ducked out.”

“Then how can you know?” Willow challenged.

Witch seemed to expect proof, human rules of evidence. Reasonable doubt. Courts, lawyers and suchlike. Didn’t work like that. Vamp societies were not democracies, not interested in protecting the innocent. Subordinate vamps lived on the Master’s sufferance, had no rights at all except what he granted them. Spike shook his head and tried to explain.

“Because it was magic. Too…abstract for most vamps. Indirect. Had to plan it out way in advance, find somebody to adapt a spell so’s it would work on a vamp. All…stages; complications. Most vamps wouldn’t think of it, much less do it.”

Buffy paused in sipping coffee to intone, “’Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.’”

“Just so,” Spike agreed. “And wouldn’t nobody expect a vamp to have a witch handy, able to figure it was a spell to begin with and then block and reverse it, fast enough to matter. Not hardly the usual arrangement.” Then he added, giving Willow her due, “Except for you, he’d have done me, no question. Should have worked. So it was just my good fortune, not bad planning. ‘F somebody’d tried to drop a rock on me, I’d have lots of candidates. Not magic, though. That’s Digger.”

Buffy asked, “So it’s Digger you’re fighting tonight.”

“Well, no: Michael. Been set awhile, but I wasn’t free to see to it.”

Buffy nodded: not like she agreed, but like she was thinking. She set down her cup. “I’ll drive you.”

“No, love. You see to Bit. She’s the one needs rescue.”

“I will drive you,” Buffy insisted, looking him in the eyes.

“Now, I explained about--”

“Are the SITs gonna be there?”

“Yeah, but--”

“So it’s not just the bumpy forehead contingent.”

He’d explained to her why he’d insisted on some human presence, demonstrating that his dominion spanned both, wasn’t just the usual agreement of predators on how to divide the food. “T’isn’t the same, love. You’re--”

“--the Slayer, yada yada, I know. I’ll wear pink. Grubbies. Ugly shoes. They’ll never know it’s me.”

“Know your smell, though,” Spike pointed out.

“That can be adjusted,” Willow mentioned, mild but steely. “Custom smells department, here. Oh, and I’m coming, too.”

“No, you’re not.”

“What if this Digger has a Plan B?” Willow argued. “In case Plan A went kaboom? I have a certain investment in you to protect now, Spike: replacement of a bed, two windows, a closet door--” She enumerated the damage off on her fingers.

Buffy observed, “You’re not winning here, Spike. Deal.”

They were ganging up on him. Not a whole lot he could do about that.

**********

They bypassed the line outside Willy’s, but Buffy and Willow were stopped just inside the door. A vaguely familiar vamp--one of the bartenders, Buffy thought--required ten dollars a head before he’d let them by.

Spike hadn’t been stopped, had kept going. Buffy grabbed his arm, asking indignantly, “They expect to be paid?”

“’Course, love. Space is limited. That makes it worth something. Now turn loose and cough up…and let me alone, since you’re trying to be inconspicuous an’ all.”

Buffy grumped, but she paid, while Willow gazed blithely into space, like it didn’t have anything to do with her. Buffy silently vowed to get it out of her later. Fortunately, they were equipped to take plastic. The bartender vamp stamped their hands to show they were legal, then let them pass.

As Spike had said, space was at a premium. Buffy spotted the SITs, in a tight little cluster with three vamps in Spike’s colors. Wanting to dissociate herself from them, Buffy put her head down, used her elbows, and pushed through the crowd to a place at the back between two shut doors--one, she knew, led to the back room where kitten poker was sometimes played; the other, at a right angle, led to the storage area. Always good to secure your exit, she thought.

She’d had the vague expectation she’d see fight fans departing her presence in all directions, holding their noses. What Willow chose as a camouflage scent, from one of her failed batches, left them both (to Buffy’s nose) smelling like very ancient fruitcakes that had died and had a funeral. With lots of lilies. Not to mince words, they reeked. But nobody around seemed to take any notice. Buffy could at least be confident that whatever she smelled like, it was not the Slayer. In fact, if anybody had recognized her smelling like this, wearing the abominable lilac sweats she reserved for floor mopping, toilet cleaning and the like, she’d have been seriously perturbed.

Willow, who’d drifted serenely in Buffy’s sometimes troubled wake, continued to look around interestedly. “I’ve heard about these fights,” she remarked. “I’ve even sometimes seen the aftermath. But I’ve never actually seen one.”

“Me neither,” Buffy admitted, rather keyed up to be in the middle of so many demons her every instinct told her she should be trying to kill. She used her elbow with perhaps more enthusiasm than necessary when a blue-skinned Navcoombe demon tried to push in between them. It backed off, muttering obscenities (presumably) through its mouth tentacles.

The far side of the room had been cleared and roped off. Nobody there except Spike and Mike, both stripped to the waist and game-faced, engaged in what looked like a heated conversation. Spike looked furious; Mike looked sullen. Evidently no gloves, head protection, or weapons were involved. No referee, either.

Mike was taller, broader, and had at least a thirty or forty pound advantage. Didn’t matter, Buffy thought: this was one of those situations where age and cunning would prevail over youth and strength. She’d sparred and patrolled enough with Spike to know that if presented with a choice between fighting Spike and a buzzsaw, any opponent would do well to choose the buzzsaw.

Willow remarked, “It couldn’t be any more packed: what’s holding things up?”

“Final betting, I think,” Buffy responded.

Still looking furious, Spike broke off the apparent argument and stormed away…for about three steps. Buffy knew to watch his feet and his balance and wasn’t surprised when he whirled and whip-kicked Mike in the groin hard enough to loft him against the front wall. She nudged Willow, who was raised on tiptoes, trying to see something in the other direction, past the crowd in front of the bar. “It’s started.”

“Oooh. Ouch!” Willow responded with a sympathetic wince as Mike answered with a fast series of body blows, not all of which Spike managed to avoid. He went down…and into a back roll that put him on his feet at the right distance to spin a roundhouse kick at Mike’s head. When that was intercepted and his ankle grabbed and twisted, he used the leverage of Mike’s hold to leave the floor and kick with the other leg directly into Mike’s diaphragm: not a disabling a blow with a vamp, what with the not having to breathe. But it hurt enough that it made Mike let go and bend forward, an opening Spike wasn’t in a position to take advantage of, having hit the floor on his back when his leg was released. He bounced into another backward roll, again on his feet, and barreled into Michael before the younger vamp could fully straighten or take a strong enough stance to hold against the impact. Again, Michael was driven against the wall. But this time, he’d seized hold of Spike’s left arm and was twisting, trying to dislocate it at the shoulder. Spike let him, using the opportunity to hammer at Michael’s face, particularly his eyes. When the strain on his shoulder became acute, he went airborne, unkinking the arm in a backflip and using Mike’s face to kick off against, driving them apart.

By this point, Willow had both hands to her face, peeking through her fingers. Buffy watched steadily, appraising the fighting styles. Mike, stronger but less agile and marginally slower, wanted to get close and pound away with fists and knees. Spike, the compleat acrobat, wanted distance for kicks and aerial work, compensating for Mike’s longer reach. Toe-to-toe, the advantage was Mike’s; apart, Spike could inflict damage while taking the least punishment in return. Following that strategy, Spike would only close when Mike was off balance. Whenever Mike could catch hold and they went into wrestling moves, Spike was at a disadvantage and fought clear as soon as he could.

So the fight was a chase, with Mike trying to close and Spike trying not to be caught. And each, of course, trying to disable the other.

Human opponents would have been in the care of paramedics, or dead, by this time. Given vamp endurance and quick recovery from any injury short of broken bones, Buffy knew this was still the beginning and unless one of the combatants made a serious mistake, the end could be hours away. There didn’t seem to be any rounds or any rules, in terms of exempting any part of the body from attack.

At the half hour mark, neither had even slowed. Spike was slightly favoring his left side: Mike had again gotten a chance to wrench the shoulder nearly to the point of bursting the joint and stomped the hip a couple of times when Spike hadn’t been able to roll out of the way fast enough. The only damage Mike showed was around his eyes, that Spike got an elbow into every chance he got. Both Mike’s eyes were swollen and sometimes bleeding when the healing couldn’t keep pace with the injury.

Presenting his right side, Spike braced with the left/back foot to swing a right-footed kick into Mike’s ribs. It didn’t have much force and Spike had to hop to get his lead foot down to retreat from Mike’s answering flurry of blows. And that was the second time Spike had pulled that move. Buffy jerked Willow’s arm to make her watch this because it was really good. Either Spike was careless enough to let himself get into a pattern (which Buffy considered extremely unlikely) or he was setting Mike up for a devastating follow-up. Making him expect that off-balance hop as he changed feet.

Spike flowed into what Buffy thought was a diversion, an interval that was mostly boxing, trading punches, circling up and down the room. Spike was keeping the weaker left as the lead foot, pushing off and balancing on the right, braced behind. Which set him crooked: leading with the left, yet trying to present the right, with the right the forward hand. Then, again the set-up: a quick turn-away, left leg braced back, then spinning into a right footed roundhouse kick to the head. And Michael bought it and came in, head butted forward, to take Spike down in the off-balance hop. Except Spike wasn’t there anymore. He’d gone down on his hands and flipped, locking knees around Mike’s neck. As Mike was pulled forward, Spike switched his grip to Mike’s ankles, momentarily immobilizing them, as though Mike were a bow and Spike, the taut string. Contracting, he flipped Mike completely over into the wall upside down--feet nearly at head-height, shoulders and head on the floor, neck bent…and Spike sitting on Mike’s chest, his knees immobilizing Mike’s arms, his hands locked in neck-breaking position--one on Mike’s face, the other behind Mike’s head.

They appeared to have a short conversation. Then Mike thumped the floor twice with his fist: capitulation.

The noise that followed was something else: Willow hunched her shoulders and covered her ears. Buffy muttered inaudibly, “And the crowd goes wild.”

Somebody unfastened the rope, opening the area, and the wild crowd immediately started moving into the space, probably to congratulate the winner (if they’d bet on him) and berate the loser. With Willow in tow, Buffy moved with them because crowds plus confusion equaled vulnerability and difficulty getting clear. But Spike wasn’t waiting to be congratulated: yanking his T-shirt straight, scarlet button-down in hand, duster caped across his shoulders, he was using the barge-with-elbows method of extricating himself from the crush, headed straight for the door, whistling up his people as he moved. He’d dropped game-face, but his human features were no friendlier--grim and set. He was mad and moving fast.

Dragging Willow, Buffy used her elbows to follow, hampered by big demons obliviously in her path. As she pushed outside, she saw Spike instructing the attentive SITs a few yards out into the parking area, absently rolling and rubbing the sore left shoulder. The parking area was almost as crowded as inside the bar and nearly as noisy. Humans and demons with bets on the fight, arriving too late to get inside but still waiting out the result and now either angry or elated, depending on which way they’d bet. Spike kept shoving them aside, whether well-wishers or complainers, concentrating on the SITs. Buffy saw only two of the trio of vamps, a female and a male at Spike’s back, both looking off into the dark like hounds impatient to be released into action; the other one had probably gone for a car, Buffy thought. Something happening, she thought. Something happening NOW.

As Buffy got close, the male vamp of the pair got in her way. She knocked him flat without breaking stride and grabbed Spike’s arm, demanding, “What?”

As Spike said, “Nothing,” Amanda burst out, “They’ve got Dawn!”

Spike and Buffy had a considerable silent conversation with their eyes. He didn’t want her involved. She was going to be involved no matter what he wanted. None of that needed actual saying.

Spike broke into words first: “She won’t come to no harm. Digger wants a meeting and he’s collected Bit for a pax bond, is all.”

“Some renegade vamp has my sister and you think you can make me stay out of it,” Buffy clarified with a million-watt glare.

“It will be worse if you’re there. It’s because of you, you and me, that he picked Bit to begin with: some damn fool with a big mouth made him figure Bit’s of value to both of us. Got my mark on her; and he thinks you hold my leash. If you come along, no way I’ll convince him otherwise.”

“Do you have any idea how much I do not care about what he thinks or wants?” Buffy shouted into his face.

Spike shouted back, “She is a pax bond, Slayer! She won’t be hurt if I meet with the fucker, hear what he has to say. After, she’ll be let go! If you don’t fuck it up!”

Buffy had no idea what a pax bond was and never wanted to, either. Hands on hips, she retorted, “Can we say ‘set-up’? Can we say ‘ambush’? What on earth makes you think this vamp wants to negotiate? He wants you dead, Spike! We know that!”

“If you show up, there will be nothing to negotiate because he won’t believe a word I say. You seriously think I’m gonna let Bit get hurt here?”

“You seriously think you’re gonna slug me, or set your vamps on me, and that will keep me from staying right at your heels, every step? I am not leaving my sister in the middle of a vamp free-for-all, not for any reason. And if that jeopardizes your wonderful plan for the vamps of Sunnydale, that’s just tough, Spike!”

Every syllable an effort at patience, Spike stated, “Your way will get her hurt. My way won’t.”

“Your way,” Buffy shot back, “has every prospect of getting you both killed because you are walking into an ambush, Spike! How can you not know that?”

For a second, Buffy thought he’d do it--slug her and try to impede her with vamps and maybe even SITs long enough to get clear himself.

Then Willow mentioned coolly, “Wherever you go, we’ll know. And show up about two minutes later.”

Realizing it was so, Buffy seconded fiercely, “Yeah!”

Spike still almost slugged her out of frustration: watching him work his fists at his sides, she could tell. Not the ten megaton blast that had wrecked Willow’s bedroom, but the same rage in search of a target. But he held himself still. “All right. Do this, then: I go in first, make the running. If there’s no trouble, I bring Bit out. If it goes bad like you think, you come in, sort it however you have to. Leave me to call it.”

He waited while Buffy thought it out, trying to weigh his priorities against her own complete indifference to vamp protocols and customs. Her distaste and distrust for all things demonic. But she knew it mattered to him. Mattered a lot. He’d kept it all away from her, not involved her. Not asked for her blessing. Refused her help. But she’d demanded to be told. To understand. She no longer had the luxury of ignorance that he’d granted her.

She trusted Spike implicitly. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was how far did she dare trust his judgment in a volatile situation, knowing no soul was guiding it? With, almost certainly, Dawn’s life depending on it?

Buffy said only, “There are weapons in the van.”