Sunset, viewed from the doorstep of Cabin 5 of the Coronado Del Sol Motor Hotel, smog-tainted gold etched with contrails in purple and silver. Tanner stared upwards, trying to wrest meaning from the runic lines before the wind smudged them to illegibility. A shadow fell between him and the cryptic sky: a woman, thirty-five or so, tall and hunch-shouldered over the armload of packages clutched to her thin chest. Not beautiful, and her mud-brown, stubby-lashed eyes would never benefit from coming out from behind her glasses. But they were kind, as was her voice when she walked over and looked at him--at him, not past him, as so many people did--and said Edith Keeler's three most important words. Tanner smiled and shook his head. She returned the smile (a little nervous, as much relieved as not) and moved on. He lurched to his feet, reached out, whispered the right words in the right order, and plunged his fingers into the back of her skull, through the thin straight mouse-brown hair. She sank to her knees with a wounded sigh, and the packages tumbled to the sidewalk. The outer skin of her mind was taut with longing and long-abandoned desire, the interior bursting with emotions sweet and warm as sun-ripened nectarines. He thought about taking her with him, making her one of them. But she had looked at him, not through him, and so he left her drooling in the doorway, propped against the peeling turquoise door. The Coronado Del Sol charged by the hour; hopefully no one would mistake her for one of the regulars, but if they did, he told himself cynically, perhaps it wouldn't be entirely unwelcome. He shuffled over to the newspaper kiosk on the curb, bending to squint at the date on the headlines. Monday, December 10th. Fourteen shopping days until Christmas. Twelve days since the eyeless man had promised him healing for his charges, eleven days since he'd passed the slippery black burden he'd carried on to the Red Witch. Eleven days since he'd been dropped like a jilted lover. Across the street, a seven-foot man with skin the color of verdigris and hair and beard of winter-brown oak leaves strode past the line of storefronts, passing windows full of fake snow and Christmas sale signs. The leaf-shaped bronze head of his spear clove through Gordian knots of shoppers, who stepped back, and stared, and decided it was a promotional stunt. Gods stalked the streets of Sunnydale. In such times, a mortal madman could plot revenge against a force of nature with some chance of success. Tanner watched the Green Man disappear into the twilight and pulled a grimy spiral notebook from his coat pocket. He started walking, feet placed just so on the cracked old sidewalk, in time with the syncopated blink of Christmas lights. He filled page upon page with cabalistic scrawls as he walked, jotting down portents in the random territorial scrawls on dumpsters, the secret patterns gleaned from decaying brickwork in the alleyways. The spider's web of electrical lines overhead intersected at angles mirroring the message of the contrails, and he recorded it all painstakingly. He halted at the corner of Main and Wilkins, where spray-painted symbols ringed the manhole cover in the center of the intersection, hieroglyphs in neon orange and electric blue revealing the paths of municipal ley lines: electricity and gas, sewer and telephone lines. They could tell other stories for those who knew how to listen. Tanner dropped to his hands and knees on the oil-slick asphalt, palms splayed across the gritty-greasy composite, and squinted, shifting position until the dashes and arrows aligned. Concentration was key. A thousand one, a thousand two, counting off the seconds as the traffic lights overhead flashed from green to yellow, from yellow to red. He counted through five reds to be sure, averaging them out in his head. Twenty-three. Twenty-three now. Twenty- one last week. Tanner huddled over his notebook pocket and scribbled down the times, along with a few scrawled sketches. Constellations of neon signs, Christmas decorations and traffic lights swung into alignment, and his shoulders trembled under the weight of the knowledge thus vouchsafed. Last night he'd collapsed screaming in the 24-hour Denny's up on Sixth, clutching his head and rolling under table as light poured into this brain. The waitress with the mole on her chin had called 911, but he'd dragged himself to his feet and staggered laughing into the night before the police could arrive, into a darkness vibrating with anticipation, every piece of steel and concrete eager to whisper its secrets in his ear. Sunnydale was the event horizon surrounding the singularity of the Hellmouth. Last night, that singularity had briefly inverted itself, radiating light instead of hoarding darkness. That light had revealed to him the shape of his vengeance. All he needed was the right time, and the means to draw his enemy into the trap. It would happen again. Before the New Year, definitely. Christmas? Or would the older nexus of power around the solstice draw events to it? Tanner clambered to his feet, wincing at the gravel-pocks in his knees and elbows. He stood on the curb, chafing his arms with his hands. A week, two weeks--more observations were needed. Precision was essential. In the meantime, he had other responsibilities. He sighed. Lizzie was dead, and the drifter they'd found under the park bench to replace the vampire and his friend had never emerged from his stupor. One caretaker gone, one more helpless mouth to feed. He ticked off the names in his mind: Dana, Blondie and Blue were rebuilding the circle in Weatherly Park. Ramon and Jim and Matches and Carmel were meeting him near the Wal-Mart, where they'd pool the money they'd panhandled earlier in the day and buy supplies for the encampment. Tanner turned left on Inverarity and headed for the Wal-Mart, passing the alley that sometimes led to Rack's place. Half a dozen pairs of eyes even more desperate and hollow than his own followed him. He'd have given them the oblivion they paid for free, but they had nothing left that even he would want. No, he needed fresh meat. Two, three minds if they could manage it, strong ones who might hold on to a few scraps of reason afterwards. Maybe that would be enough to get The Rabbit Guy and the others back at the encampment on their feet for awhile. And then... then a little trip down to
the caverns, to pay a visit to the eyeless men. Being invisible might give you a feeling of power and freedom. Dawn didn't know, never having been invisible. Being unnoticeable was just plain creepy. The hurried spell Willow'd cast on her had involved a clipboard, a spider's web, and her yearbook photo. Willow clipped the photo to the board, detached the web carefully from between the rungs of the broken chair in the garage and laid it across the photo, and chanted a few lines from "The Waste Land" while applying a thick layer of hairspray which affixed the web to the photo and blurred the photo into unrecognizeability. "Carry it," she said, thrusting the sticky board into Dawn's arms, "and look busy. If anything happens and you need to be the center of attention, just drop the clipboard. That'll end the spell, so be extra sure you want the noticement before you do it." So Dawn held on to the clipboard, feeling like a complete idiot, and edged through the front door and out onto the lawn along with everyone else. Buffy and Tara stepped around her on the way to the driveway with vague murmured apologies: Excuse me, please , and that was it. She piled into the back seat of the SUV with Willow, and Tara didn't even ask why she was being scrunched into a corner. Even when they came to an unexpected stop in the middle of an intersection in the wake of her sister's split- second decision not to run the yellow after all, and she thumped against the back of the driver's seat, her presence remained a non-event. Xander and Anya were already at the Magic Box when they got there, along with Giles, who was still poring over a two-foot stack of Watcher’s journals and treatises on the Balance. He got to his feet as they came in and adjusted his glasses, and took Buffy aside to show her something in one of the books. Buffy nodded her terse little Scarlett O'Hara I'll-deal-with-that-later nod and took up her station in front of the ladder to the restricted section of the Magic Box's library, one fist cocked against her hip. Dawn gripped her clipboard and weighed her odds of grabbing a seat at the research table--would someone try to sit on her? Probably not, but... Buffy glanced around the room, looking right at Dawn, and right past her. Xander and Anya and Tara, taking their own seats at the research table, ditto. They knew she was here. She just didn't matter. In a spirit of perversity, she reached over Giles's shoulder, in plain sight of everyone, and closed the book in front of him. If she'd been invisible, there'd have been whooping and hollering and who-did-thats. As it was, Giles just made a little noise of annoyance and opened the book up again. Dawn backed away from the table and hugged herself, digging her fingers into the muscle of her arm to reassure herself she was still real. She'd had nightmares like this, where she bobbed through the world like a balloon, unable to touch anything, or dissolved slowly into green light. An encouraging little smile from Willow was all that kept her from dropping the clipboard and giving it up right then. "OK, gameplan," Buffy said. She really ought to have had a blackboard full of circles and arrows and a pointer, but she was making do with the Fun In Sunnydale map put out by the Chamber of Commerce (Brought to you by the Espresso Pump and Aunt Nettie's Antique Boutique!) and a wooden yardstick. "All the attack locations Willow was able to track down in the newspaper archives and the hospital files are here." She tapped the off-center scattering of red push-pins with the tip of the yardstick. All within a mile or so of Weatherly Park, which is where they've got their little Picnic Table of Doom set up. Their main base is here--" she waved at an area a foot or so to the left of the map, "--at the dump. We could try to catch them there, but not loving the idea of taking them on their home ground." Or the idea of garbage-related booby-traps, Dawn thought. Buffy had changed into low-heeled boots, but was otherwise still wearing her interview clothes. But Buffy was probably right to avoid the dump--she knew from the times she'd accompanied Spike on his scavenging expeditions over the summer that it was a maze of trash-hills and valleys, way too easy to disappear in. She cleared her throat loudly and Anya looked around, then turned back to Buffy. Don't say 'disappear.' "None of the newspaper stories mention the victims being ganged upon," Buffy continued, "and we know Tanner was alone when he slurped on Willow's head. It looks like it's strictly table for one when he's just recharging his own batteries. It's only when he needs to juice up the whole commune that they all Junkyard Commando and take prisoners." She clasped the yardstick behind her back. "Tanner's the only really dangerous one in the bunch--once he's out of the picture we can turn the rest of them over to the authorities. So what we're going to do is try to catch him and neutralize his powers." A gesture at the door to the alley. "Spike’s out moving the dumpsters to block off the alley. Will, you and Tara set up your spells there." "We're good to go," Willow said, patting her bag with a witchy grin. She'd already gotten some of the stuff out, Dawn noticed; in her other hand she held a sprig of some prickly purple thistle-looking herb, rolling it back and forth between her thumb and forefinger. “And nobody’s eaten anything since lunch, right? Because if you cheated on the fasting part, you will be sorry.” She gave Xander a meaningful look, which he studiously ignored. Dawn wondered if Spike’s rat buffet counted against him, and then frowned. Rats? Where had that thought come from? Spike couldn’t eat rats; the chip wouldn’t let him. Buffy nodded without returning Willow’s
grin. "Giles, you’ll be helping Willow?” Subtle difference there,
Dawn noted; the others got ordered; Giles got asked. He nodded confirmation
and Buffy plowed forward. “Xander, you and Anya will take your car
and cruise Lincoln." She thwapped the street leading to the dump with the
tip of the yardstick. "Spike and I will go on foot and scope out the
side streets, maybe do a little standard patrolling. Anya, you've
got your cell, right?" Anya held up the sleek black device and nodded.
"If you catch sight of any of the crazies, give me a call. If we sight
them, we'll call you." Buffy patted her purse; one of the money-saving strategies
of The Budget had been cancelling their long-distance service and getting
a pay-per-call cell phone plan. Dawn stifled a sigh of relief that
she hadn't picked today to borrow it to keep up with the Shanias and Tiffanys
at school. With all the excitement of the afternoon she'd've totally
forgotten to put it back. "--we round up the rest of them so Willow can do her mass cure thing. Any questions?" Buffy asked, turning expectant eyes on everyone in turn. "Comments? Lavish praise?" "What if we don't find them?" Anya asked. Buffy grimaced. "Next step, braving the Sunnydale landfill. That it? Then let's rumble." "Don't forget you're not yourself tonight," Tara said, holding up a small make-up mirror with a photo of a non-descript woman taped to it. Buffy grimaced again; one-two punch in the old vanity, Dawn thought with a snicker, but Buffy submitted to Tara's casting the glamor without further argument. Disguise in place, she caught Spike's eye and beckoned him after with a lift of her chin, the imperious gesture looking very odd on the illusory middle-aged face she was wearing. Whatever they were fighting about, Buffy wasn't going to let it interfere with slaying business. Spike unfolded himself and followed her, but he still looked troubled. Dawn rested her chin on the top of her clipboard and frowned. The exchange reeked of eau de peculiar. A day that went by without Buffy and Spike arguing about something was as rare as snowfall in Sunnydale, so why should this squabble in particular bother him? She felt like there was something she was forgetting... "Hey, Dawnie." Willow's fingers caught Dawn's sleeve as she started after the others. "Maybe it would be better if you hung with me and Giles and Tara," she whispered. "All the action's going to go down right here in our very own alley." Dawn thought about it--real serious thought; she didn't have weapon, and she had to hold onto the dorky clipboard or the spell would fade. Not an ideal setup for self-defense. Still, if she'd wanted to spend the night sitting in an alley waiting for something to happen, she could have stayed home and hoped Mrs. Andrevich's tomcat would get caught by the automatic sprinklers again. And what was the point of a don't-notice-me spell if she stayed where no one would notice her anyway? "I thought the idea was for me to observe a patrol. They're just going after ordinary guys," she whispered back. "Ordinary guys I already outsmarted once. It's not like we're up against brain-eating zombies or even vampires. And anyway I'm just going to watch." Willow's eyes shifted to the back of Tara's head and back again. "Yeah, but--" The tail of Spike's duster was fast disappearing out the front door; if she didn't hurry, it'd be impossible to catch up. She might not have been on a real patrol before, but she'd been on the periphery of several of Spike's impromptu demon-killings over the summer, and she'd held her own last week. It wasn't like she was crippled or anything. "Don't worry. I'll be careful. You and Xander used to patrol all the time before you put on the pointy hat. And hey, maybe I can bonk someone over the head with the clipboard." Dawn waved and scooted after Spike and her sister. The bright breezy day had ushered in a cold damp evening. The streetlamps were burning sodium-pink holes in the darkness and the chill had fangs enough to bite through thin California sweaters. Out on the sidewalk in front of the Magic Box, Dawn looked right and left, her long hair whipping around her face. She caught sight of Spike's white-blond head, already half-way down the block, tucked the clipboard under one arm and took off running. It was impossible that Spike and Buffy didn't hear her coming, but she didn't even draw an incurious look. Dawn slowed and caught her breath, hanging back as they turned and headed south on Laramie, parallel to Lincoln. This was one of the oldest parts of town. Shops alternated with old-fashioned apartments and the occasional revenant house, single-story, palm-shaded bungalows dating back to the twenties. Dawn could feel the tiny hard nuts of queen palms rolling under the soles of her sneakers. Disadvantages to the plan were becoming evident. There had to be tricks to patrolling, things she should be learning. Signs of demonic activity, likely vampire hideouts--clues! The problem was, Spike and Buffy weren't obligingly narrating their adventures. As far as slaying went, they'd gone all Quest for Fire the minute they were out the Magic Box door, communicating via grunts and significant glances. Buffy touched Spike's elbow, he nodded, and the two of them dissolved into the shadows so quickly and completely that Dawn could have sworn it was magic. She stood there on the dark street in heart-thudding panic for a minute, until the sounds of an off-stage scuffle reassured her that no random dimensional portals were involved. In another minute the two of them strolled out of the bushes, brushing vamp dust from their sleeves while Buffy grumbled about grass stains, and continued down the street as if nothing had happened. Another time Spike nudged Buffy, who shook her head. They moved on, kicking palm nuts off into the grass and leaving Dawn mystified as to what they'd noticed and why it wasn't worth checking out further. Worse, in between alarms, the two of them were deep in a Serious Couple Talk--or maybe a Serious Couple Lecture was a better description. Buffy was delivering an impassioned rant, and Spike was prowling alongside with frustration pouring off him in waves. "...fine for you to be all rebel without a pulse, but I've got to play by the rules or I lose Dawn. And showing up to lure me into the basement for a quickie, not helpful. In fact--" There was a brief flare of light, followed by the nose-twitching scent of burning tobacco. Oh, great, Dawn thought with disgust, on top of everything else she was going to be trailing along breathing Spike's smoke. Gah. She dropped back another pace. Spike broke into Buffy's monologue with an exasperated jab of his cigarette. "May be hard for you to credit, but I don't spend every waking moment plotting to get into your knickers. Not exactly the mystery of the ages what you keep in 'em any longer." Dawn couldn't see her sister's face, but she recognized the twitch of Buffy's shoulders, the little flinch that said someone had gotten in a body blow. "Oh. Really," she said, perfectly flat. Spike turned on his heel as casually as that, and put a fist through the plate glass window of Funkadelic Threads. Dawn jumped back with a startled yip as cracks spiderwebbed out to the corners of the window and a glittering shower of glass rained to the sidewalk, leaving a cantaloupe- sized hole right between Big BigBIG Christmas Savings! and 25% Off Selected Sweater Sets. "Sod it, Buffy," he snarled, "I didn't mean it that way and you know it!" Buffy folded her arms across her chest and curled her lip, her tone as bitter as the alum a five-year-old Dawn had once mistaken for powdered sugar. "That's right, I forgot--women fascinate you for their minds. Like Drusilla--oh, wait, she lost hers. Or Harmony--oh, wait, she never had one to begin with." "Or Buffy Summers, who smothered hers beneath the weight of her massive throbbing insecurity." Spike's cigarette arced through the night, hit the concrete and exploded into orange sparks. He grabbed Buffy's shoulders and slammed her up against the stucco. "Look, you stupid bint, I fucking adore you, I'd take you against the sodding wall this very minute, and if you can't get that through your solid ivory skull I'll pound it in with Maxwell's silver bloody hammer, but I didn't come over this afternoon for a shag! I needed to tell you--" His words cut off in a pained grimace--chip
shock, from the push? It didn't matter, because in two seconds flat Buffy'd
grabbed him right back, pulled him down, and started sucking his face hard
enough to strip chrome off a bumper. Spike vamped out and ground his
hips into Buffy's hard enough to make the window rattle in its frame and
then the two of them were writhing and moaning and slobbering all over each
other. Behind her Spike gasped, "Who was that,
pet?" and Buffy's voice, muffled, answered, "There was a who?" She absolutely hadn’t intended it to get this far, Buffy reminded herself. This wasn’t just some routine patrol, it was a Mission. And it wasn’t some dark alley or deserted rest stop, it was right in the middle of a very public street. And her period was still in full swing, which made for a logistical problem, or had until Spike disposed of it along with her underwear (and we are not adding that to the permanent collection, are we, Mr. The Bloody?) and besides, it was cold. But there he was, all snarly and ravenous for her, and all of a sudden she’d gone from stepping up to the plate to sliding for home without passing any intervening bases. 46 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the time and temperature sign over by the bank, which meant Spike was hovering somewhere around 50, if he kept moving. And he was moving, oh God was he moving, driving into her over and over, let’s hear it for friction, people! Her thighs scissored his flanks, her heels drummed against the small of his back. Stucco bits dug poky fingers into her shoulders, snagging her hair with each thrust while Spike growled ecstatic, half-intelligible filth into her ear. She wanted to whisper to him, too, tell him how he made her feel--wanton, liberated, terrified. Tell him he was beautiful. Tell him what she wanted to do to him, wanted him to do to her. All that came out was "Uhn, uhn, uhn, UHN!" Luckily Spike had a Ph.D. in translating incoherent Buffy-noises. Vision dissolved into white haze, pressure built to volcanic levels: Harder, faster, deeper, harder, harder, harder... The world exploded in a colorless blaze. Buffy’s body went bow-taut, slamming into the wall and clenching around him; Spike threw his head back and came with a triumphant howl, emptying himself into her in long wringing spasms. They slumped against the wall, bodies twitching and shivering like racehorses after a match. Spike's breathing grew shallow and irregular again as he remembered it wasn't really required of him, and Buffy's legs unwound from his waist and reluctantly took up the task of bearing her own weight. Thank God for oversized dusters and unseemly haste; they’d neither of them peeled off more than the absolute minimum amount of clothing necessary to get Tab A into Slot B. Anyone passing by would see a disheveled but not obviously indecent pair. Buffy blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. “So... uh... that was you, seducing me from my duty with your sinister attraction, right?” Spike chuckled. “Don’t think you gave me much seducing time, pet. What say I give it a try now?” Slowly, he withdrew and sank to his knees before her, cool fingers trailing down her belly, across the trembling muscles of her thighs. His lips, still warm from their initial frantic kisses, moved over her sex-flushed skin, and then his long agile tongue flicked out, teasing shivers from her. Tentative licks at first, then long sure muscular strokes alternating with butterfly-touches and little blunt-toothed nips, following the tributaries of crimson and silver up her thighs to the source, until it plunged into the welling heart of her personal Nile. She thought he came again when she did, just from the taste of her, but it was impossible to be sure, what with the near-blacking-out with pleasure and all. She had the dim sense that she really ought to be a lot more shocked and horrified at herself, but Bad Buffy had seized temporary control of Buffy-Brain Central and Good Buffy appeared to be locked in the supply closet. Spike was still kneeling, arms locked around her hips, cheek pillowed against her belly so that her whole body thrummed with his boneshaking absolutely-not-a-purr. “Oh, love, love, going to be the second death of me, but I'll go a happy man...” Buffy ran her fingers along the curve of his skull, ruffling the short plushy hair at the nape of his neck. Considering the Jello-y condition of her skeletal system, when would it be safe to leave off leaning against the wall and stand on her own? A week or so, yeah, that should do it...except--Attack of the Mundane Annoyances--she really needed to put in another tampon now or she'd be all icky again soon. Not that Spike would mind, but... "We can't keep doing this." His hands slid along the arches of her hips, up under the rumpled folds of her skirt and down again to clasp the curve of her ass with an approving rumble. The little leaps and twitches of the muscles beneath the ivory-satin skin as his fingers moved were mesmerizing. "Doing what?" "Having sex to make ourselves feel better every time we have an argument." Spike looked up, tongue-tip protruding wickedly from a sharp-toothed grin. He cocked an eyebrow. "Why not? Works, dunnit? I feel better." "Yeah, but...doesn't it bother you even the slightest bit that for us a shoving match counts as foreplay?" His shoulders quivered with laughter. "Perfectly normal for me, pet." Spike's voice had dropped to a ragged whisper, but as usual, he still had something to say. Unlike this afternoon, when he'd stood gaping like a goldfish on the stairs, unable even to come up with one of his implausible lies... Something went click in the Deductive Reasoning Department of Buffy-Brain Central. Since when is Spike ever speechless? Something funny's going-- "Whossat buzzing?" Spike mumbled, lips nuzzling the damp curls at her crotch. "Didn't bring a few toys with you, did you, Slayer?" Buffy groped blindly for her purse, which had somehow wrenched itself around to dangle behind her. "Phone," she said intelligently. She disentangled herself with a groan and Spike, with vast reluctance, pulled away. He stood and tucked himself back into his jeans, stepping back far enough to allow her to move, while keeping the voluminous sweep of his duster interposed between her and the rest of the world--one of those bizarrely gentlemanly gestures he was prone to now and then. Buffy tugged her skirt (its pristine interview-quality innocence compromised hopelessly for all time) back down over her hips and fumbled with the cell for a moment. She jabbed the 'talk' button, and said in her best 'I have not just had one of the top ten orgasms of my life, thank you for asking!' voice, "Hello?" Anya's sharp voice crackled over the staticky connection. "Buffy? We're on Lincoln and Devonshire, and we just spotted Tanner heading south, back towards the dump. There are four or five men with him. I'd be careful. They're carrying Wal-mart shopping bags." Buffy's spine went cold, and Good Buffy stuck out her tongue at Bad Buffy and booted her out of the captain’s chair. "Erk. On it." She thumbed the phone off, stuffed it back into her purse and pulled out her compact and the hygienic necessaries to effect quick repairs. "We'd better make them ditch the goods before Willow sees them, or they'll be little piles of ash." Spike's other eyebrow did the honors this time. "Lock her in an abandoned factory, no problem, but do not tell Willow you shop at Wal-Mart." Spike snorted. “Glad to see her social conscience is alive and well, even if the other sort’s on holiday--though I say it as shouldn’t.” Buffy decided she didn’t have time to ask for an explanation of what he meant by that. She tilted her compact to catch the light of the streetlamp and examined her reflection for lipstick smudges; Spike lounged back against the nearest telephone pole, watching her with a smug grin. Damn men, all they had to do to hide the evidence was zip up. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the broken window. "That's coming out of your allowance." "Ah? I'm a kept man now, am I?" Spike blinked, stunned. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her a puzzled look. "Knew I was good, love, but I didn't think I was that good." Buffy paid great attention to de-wrinkling her skirt and maintained a straight face with some effort. Note to self: Sudden unexpected capitulation excellent move for putting smarmy vampires off-balance. "Giles pointed out that it could be a useful cover. Besides, anything to keep you from hanging around on street corners and propositioning loose women." Spike sucked on his teeth for a moment, looking as if he were considering further comment and wisely deciding against it. There: blouse buttoned, hair straightened, lipstick touched up--ready to kick ass. "That's half a mile from here; we should be able to catch up to them and turn them around. They're used to dodging vamps, so if you flash the lumpies and give them a grrr or two maybe we can keep them on the run without having to fight them." Spike's eyes gleamed gold for a second. "Fun and games, pet, but they know me by sight. Not likely to run from the bloke who..." He broke off and continued a little awkwardly, "...they think can't bite 'em." That was a small problem. "Can't recognize you if they never get a good look. It's dark. Try to look mysterious." Buffy set off at an easy lope, and Spike followed, matching his longer stride to hers. The night air rushed past her, cold and invigorating. Such a relief--no, such a joy--she never had to worry about leaving him behind. Slayers don't do joy. The peevish voice of Good Buffy, prim in a skirt that wasn't slit up to anywhere, hair no doubt pulled back in a headache-inducing bun. Countered by the Says who? of Bad Buffy, snapping her gum. You don't even know what a Slayer is anymore--not really. Maybe she didn’t. Giles's revelation, incomplete as it was, explained so much, and at the same time it explained nothing at all. She’d assumed that her willingness to accept Spike into her bed and her life meant that there was something wrong with her, some dark glorious flaw that accounted for her attraction to vampires and her world-saving malaise and Ghede’s assertion that she was responsible for the teetering of the Balance. If Slayers were part evil demon, and the Balance was out of whack because of her, then obviously she’d come back from the dead messed up, the dark Slayer-y killer instinct inside magnified somehow--by the resurrection spell, by hanging out with Spike too much--who knew, who cared? There it was, and the Summers’ mantra for the new millennium was deal with it. But when she put all that together with Xander and Spike’s encounter with the Harrier, it didn’t add up. The Harrier had been a good demon, and if the Balance was out of whack on the side of good, but it was still her fault, then what did that mean? That she’d come back as Saint Buffy? Ha so very ha. She didn’t know many saints whose idea of a fun night out was screwing the undead on a street corner. If she felt herself any kind of a better person these days, it was due to the glow of physical well-being. Buffy Summers’s recipe for enlightenment: Eat, sleep, have lots of sex, and be nicer to people. Ooh, yeah, that’s going to cut into ticket sales on the Dalai Lama’s next lecture tour. Besides, some stubborn part of her didn't want an explanation for the connection she felt to Spike. The effervescent warmth those cold hands could rouse in her was its own justification. She was tired of destiny, sick of things she was born to do. Spike had, from the first, been a wild card, and damn it, she wanted him to remain so. Someone in her world had to live unburdened by prophecies. She might not know what a Slayer was, but she knew what one could do. Buffy shoved thought aside and ran. Together they sped across a steeplechase of yards and parking lots, taking hedges and parking dividers in stride (there truly were practical reasons for wearing skirts slit up to there). A six-foot fence loomed up out of the darkness in front of them, encircling the back lot of a Circle K. Beyond it she could hear the desultory hum of traffic on Lincoln. A look at Spike, and both of them sprang up, grabbing the top rail of the fence and vaulting with effortless athletic grace into the parking lot beyond. Spike landed in a billow of leather and shot upright, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. His night-sighted eyes roved around the lot, searching the inky shadows. There was nothing there but piles of milk crates stacked up against the chain-link, but he was clearly spoiling for a fight, all hopped up on Slayer's blood and testosterone. He wouldn’t get one against human foes, but maybe they’d get lucky and run into a few more vamps. Buffy left the close-up reconnaissance to his keener senses and concentrated on communications. She flipped her hair out of her eyes, pulled out her cell again and punched Anya up on the speed dial. "We're behind the Circle K. How far have they gotten?" Anya's voice faded, then strengthened again. "Not far. They're carrying an excess of consumer goods, so they can't move very fast. They're crossing Alameda now." She didn't have to relay the information to Spike; his vampiric hearing easily picked up Anya's half of the conversation, and he was already in motion, duster swirling behind him. Buffy caught up in a few paces and they ran in silence for a moment. "Split up at Devonshire?" Spike asked. Buffy nodded, envying his ability to use
all his breath for talking. At the next corner she kept to the main
thoroughfare and Spike sheared off, disappearing into the alley. She
took a quick look for traffic and cut across Lincoln kitty-corner.
It would be easier to sneak up on Tanner & Co. if she didn't trample
right past them on her way to cutting them off at the pass. There
was a metallic clang behind her as Spike found a rain pipe, and when she
looked back for a second she saw him silhouetted between the air-conditioning
vents on the roof of the dry-cleaning shop. Then he was gone--from
her sight, anyway. The pins-and-needles tingle between her shoulderblades
told her exactly how close he was, always. Tanner trudged along the sidewalk, the others trailing behind him like a line of demented ducklings following their mother. A lithe figure darted across his peripheral vision, disappearing behind the blocky blue shape of a mailbox. One of Rack's cast-offs? When he turned there was nothing. Tanner increased his pace and began sorting through the scraps and tag-ends of spells that littered the bottom of his mind, and his fingers closed around the talismans in his pocket. The yellow rubber dog gave a muted squeak in his grasp. Again the flash of movement almost too quick for his eyes to catch, and a nerve-rasping growl from the shadows. Sweat began to bead on his forehead despite the chill. They were being stalked. Driven. Tanner's head retracted turtle-like between his shoulders. "Follow me," he said, and cut across the street, hurrying from one pool of streetlight to another. The others followed, giving vent to uneasy moans and whimpers. Panic showed in Ramon's white-ringed eyes and he clutched his bag of Band-Aids and rubbing alcohol to his chest. He recognized that sound, the sound most residents of Sunnydale heard only once before their deaths. Vampires had almost gotten Ramon last week, but the Slayer had interfered. They couldn't bank on that kind of luck tonight. The one spell he could count on casting reliably was useless against the undead, and the last impromptu spell he'd tried had had spectacularly bad results. Somewhere in the dregs of his memory there was some charm or cantrip... White light flooded from windows a block off the main street, illuminating half the corner, a fluorescent beacon in the night. Sacred Heart Fellowship Church, Rummage Sale Weds. Salvation. "This way!" Tanner snapped. There was nothing about sacred ground that would harm a vampire; only the cross itself, a symbol of life long predating the religion which had claimed it, would do that. But most vampires didn't know that--creatures of the night had their own fears and superstitions. Tanner dropped back and took Carmel's arm, urging him onwards. If they could all get inside... A spark flared in the shadows beside the front door, illuminating the sharp, inhuman planes and angles of the creature's face for a heartbeat. They'd reached sanctuary too late. The slim dark figure separated itself from the wall and started towards them at a leisurely walk. The baleful vermillion eye of his lit cigarette bobbed, an evil will-o-wisp. "Run!" Tanner yelled. "Split up!" He turned and broke into a clumsy weaving trot, searching for something, anything, he could fashion into a cross. Two sticks, a lug wrench, anything at all-- Another figure, smaller but moving with equally deadly grace, materialized from behind an oleander hedge, cutting off Carmel as he stumbled for the alley. It was too late to catch all of them; Ramon hurled his bags at the shadowy figure and it flung up its arms to defend against the rain of Crest and cotton swabs and beef jerky strips. Tanner whimpered and changed course again. He had no idea if there were more than two, though it hardly mattered--the things were terrifyingly fast, circling their prey like sheepdogs with an unruly flock. In every direction he turned, yellow eyes and mocking fang-filled smiles blocked his path. In every direction but one. Tanner ran, and Carmel and Matches and
Jim ran with him. Ramon was nowhere in sight; maybe he'd gotten away.
Over the pounding of his own heart he could hear metallic laughter from
the scatter of cars in the parking lot, their grilles stretched into gleaming,
chrome-toothed grins at his panic. And behind him, never slowing,
never speeding, the sound of pursuing feet. Somehow the walk back to the Magic Box seemed a lot longer than the walk out had been. Dawn had to stop herself several times from uneasy backwards glances, and remind herself that it didn't matter if the things in the night were going bump, because none of them would give her a second look. Any more than Spike and Buffy had. I need to wash my brain out with soap now. Overall, this had been a really dumb idea. She'd wanted to recapture the feeling she'd had last week in the park, when despite the nerves and the fear and the running away, she'd had the sense that she was doing something that mattered--that she was really truly helping. And that, she told herself with disgust, is because then you were helping, not just sneaking along to spy on your sister's makeout sessions. She aimed a dispirited kick at a fallen palm frond. Why’d she let Willow talk her into this? It was such a little-kid thing to do, almost as dorky as daring Harmony to come inside the house. No wonder Buffy didn't want her patrolling. Well, this was the last time. Tomorrow there'd be a new Dawn Summers. Mature, responsible, fully-qualified-for-world-saveage Dawn Summers. She was passing the last (or the first) of the apartment complexes on Laramie, only a couple of blocks from Main, when she heard the sound of racing feet behind her. She jumped off the sidewalk--caution, right, because she had no need to get scared as long as she had the clipboard in hand, but what if whoever it was ran her over? The man came tearing into sight a second later, legs pumping, arms flailing, running as if the devil were after him--in Sunnydale, a distinct possibility. Dawn debated stepping further back into the bushes...just in case. The guy was only a few hundred feet away and getting closer every minute--medium height, dark hair, a little heavy-set, Dodgers T-shirt... Ramon. Dawn backed up, caught the heel of her sneaker on a sprinkler head, and fell flat on her butt. "Ooof!" The breath went out of her, but she managed to keep hold of the magic clipboard. She got one hand under her and crab-walked backwards a few feet before scrambling to her feet. He wouldn't notice. He couldn't notice. Ramon's headlong careen came to a staggering halt two houses away. Dawn took another couple of steps back, bumping up against a thevetia bush. He kept coming, a few uncertain steps at a time, and oh, no, no, he was starting to angle across the laws straight towards her. He lifted both hands over his head, waving them to the sound of cheers or wails only he could hear, and cried out, "!la muchacha verde del sol, brillando intensamente y hermosa, me da por favor ligero!" Was the spell not working any longer?
The man moaned, reaching out to her, and in the fugitive light of passing
headlights his face was twisted with fear and longing, all for her.
"!Venido dime ligero!" he cried, fingers crooked in supplication. His
need, his pain, were overwhelming--worse, somehow, than any physical threat.
Blind terror overtook her, and Dawn ripped her eyes away from that tormented
face and sprinted off across the darkened lawn for the bright lights of Main
Street. The censer was set up on the loading dock of the store across the alley from the Magic Box, and the dusty, open-sky scent of burning sage perfumed the cold air. Translucent coils of smoke wreathed her as Willow prepared for the rituals to come. Willow inscribed the last stroke of Malkuth on the rough concrete, and sat back on her heels to inspect her work. In lieu of the usual ritual circle, she'd decided to call on a tradition a little closer to home--she was hardly an observant Jew these days, but there was power in these symbols that resonated in her bones. She'd need all the help she could get tonight. The Tree Of Life covered most of the free space in the alley: three triangles in blue and red chalk, balanced one upon the other, with Hebrew letters in yellow and black at the nodes. Malkuth was inscribed below the bottom-most triangle. "That's just amazing," Tara said, squatting down to trace one of the symbols with a fingertip--not touching the chalked lines, but the air above them. "No material components at all. It's like you just reach down under the skin and find the bones that magic has in common..." Willow flushed with pleasure. "Oh, well, it's all modular. Just call me Henry Ford. A Jewish lesbian witch Henry Ford, but hey." She got to her feet and looked around. No sign of Dawn. Maybe she could pull this spell off with the power her invisible friend had lent her, but one of the conditions of her getting to keep that power was that she draw on Dawn's energies to cast it, and this spell had been crafted specifically to do just that. If Dawn was following Buffy still, she'd return eventually--but what if Buffy and Spike had managed to ditch her? Willow knew from experience how hard it was to keep up with Buffy if she took off at full speed, and Spike wouldn't hold her up any. Dawn could be anywhere. Maybe a summoning spell-- Tara's hand fell on her shoulder and Willow all but leaped out of her skin. "Hon, I know you're nervous, but you've set this up really well. If it doesn't work, you tried your best." Forcing herself to relax, Willow laid her head on Tara's shoulder and slipped an arm around her waist. Tara, warm and soft and smelling of lilacs. "You always know just what to say. It's just the hurry up and wait." The door to the shop opened and Giles walked out into the alley. He glanced up at the strip of city-pale night sky visible overhead. “Tara’s correct, Willow. You’ve done exceptionally well.” Praise from Giles was always extra-special. Willow gave him a grateful smile, and couldn’t help but notice the weary droop to his shoulders and the dark circles under his eyes. A pang of guilt pricked her; she knew better than any of them just how exhausting research could be, and Giles had been knocking himself out for them lately, at the expense of his own affairs. “Are you sure you’re up to this? You look wasted.” Giles sat down on the loading dock with a rueful snort. “Nothing a week’s retreat in the Cotswolds wouldn’t cure.” He looked down at the network of lines. “We’re short two people, I assume you know?” Willow grimaced. No, only one. “I know. I’m hoping we can use Tanner. He is a wizard, he’s kinda sane most of the time, and I think he wants to help the rest of them. I’ve got something else in mind for Kether.” Don’t ask what, OK? “Tara’s spell will short-circuit his magic, but he’ll still have the knowledge of how to work it.” “If it works.” Tara fingered the length of silver chain essential to her own part in the ceremony, letting it pour from one hand to the other. "And if we can convince him to cooperate. I don't like this. My mother showed me some things before she died, how to hex a rival--she didn't want me to be doing it, but she said I should know the signs and how to protect myself." She jounced the medallion in her palm, making the links jingle. "I know this isn't the same thing, but..." "Hey, don’t you get all self-doubty on me,” Willow said, chucking Tara’s chin. “Sometimes you have to break omelettes to cast spells." She pulled away from her lover's side and paced down the length of the alley, careful to avoid stepping on anything important. She had here what amounted to a giant magical hopscotch grid, and she was woefully short on stones. "The crazies’ll go in the middle, on Tiphereth. I want you two on Bineh and Chokmah, and I’m going to put Spike and Anya on Geburah and Chesed--” Giles straightened and took notice. “Anya? On Chesed? That’s an... unusual choice.” “Tell me about it.” Willow stuck out her tongue. “But I figured she’s an ex-vengeance demon, maybe she’ll have the whole opposites thing going for her. Besides, options? Limited. So Mercy it is. Then Xander and I get Netzach and Hod, and knock wood Tanner gets Yesod, and Buffy gets Malkuth--because of having been dead and all? I coulda put Spike there, I guess, but I think he’s better at Geburah, and then you get the whole demon thing going with him and Anya in the second triad. Or maybe I should take Yesod... it’s associated with witchcraft and all, right? But Tanner on Intellect? Really not of the good right now. You know what? I should have cast a location spell on Buffy so we could tell how far away she is. Either that, or we need to get a cell phone too." Giles held up a hand for quiet. “I don’t believe that’s necessary quite yet.” "Are they gone?" asked voice from the street. A man's voice, pitched low and harsh with strain. Both witches froze, recognizing it as the voice of the man in the cemetery--Daniel Tanner. Willow and Tara exchanged looks, and faded back behind the stack of half-broken-down cardboard boxes beside the delivery entrance. A figure slunk around the corner and halted in the mouth of the alley, pressed up against the wall. The chaser lights from the window of the café across the street limned him in a garish series of flashes in red, green and gold. Shabby clothes, less well-cared-for than Willow remembered, face more deeply lined--but unmistakably Daniel Tanner. Willow hunched her shoulders against the crawling sensation working its way up her spine, and fought back the urge to run. He can't hurt you now, said the black voice within her. Soon nothing will be able to hurt you. "There, there, there, over the hill
and far away," another voice--also male, also cracking with anxiety--broke
in, shuffling up behind Tanner and clutching his sleeve. Heartbeats
later two more men appeared, huddling together like children, and Willow's
fear dissolved in a rush of pity. She'd been there, after all, if
only for a few short hours, chasing through the labyrinth of her own mind
for words that dissolved in her grasp, searching in vain for an escape from
the crawling rot that was herself. She'd felt what these wrecks of
humanity felt, known what they knew. And now she was going to fix it. It was just on nine; most of the shops were closing or already closed, lights going out in one glowing commercial shrine after another, but people still straggled along Main, heading for their cars, or the late movie at the Sun, or to one of Sunnydale’s scattering of downtown restaurants. Spike loomed over the eaves of Gotta Book, motionless, breathless, still as stone, watching the swirls and eddies of humanity on the darkening sidewalks. Red, green, blue flashed in the unblinking gold of his eyes, limned each in their turn the savage ridges of his brow. The night was alive in his nose and on his tongue--exhaust fumes and dust, the piney smell of resin from the Christmas tree lot a block away, Columbian roast from the Espresso Pump and hot grease from the competing grills of McDonald’s, the In-and-Out Burger, and the Doublemeat Palace. And permeating all, the heady scent of living human sweat and blood, insufficiently masked beneath perfume and deodorant. Spike probed the points of his fangs with the tip of his tongue and shook the thought out of his head. Work to do. The crowds weren’t as thick as they had been earlier--it was a Monday night, after all, and keeping track of the four men making their way down Main was child’s play. He’d have taken after the fifth if Buffy hadn’t bid him let the tosser go. Thirty feet behind them, Buffy looked up, her gaze going unerringly to his perch, and gestured, pointing out the man in the windbreaker--Jim, if Spike remembered right from the night in the park. Spike studied him, observing the direction of his nervous glances and the jerking of his limbs with a century and a quarter of predator’s cunning. Oh, yeah, planning a break, all right--that way. Spike noted the speed and trajectory of his prey, the other pedestrians, and the approaching Impala said prey obviously intended to use as a cover, shifted his weight forward, and dropped over the edge of the roof into the darkness. When you were eight, and you didn’t realize there was anything different about girls except the petticoats, you tried to impress her by standing on your head, which experiment generally resulted in a cracked skull and ignominious tears. When you were sixteen, and you knew there was all the difference in the world, you blushed and stammered, and she turned up her nose at your offer to escort her home when there were handsomer boys from wealthier families she could walk with. When you were twenty-eight, and you prided yourself on your sensitivity, you wrote her dreadful poetry, and got yourself killed when she rejected both it and you. And when you were a hundred and forty-nine and possessed of reflexes a cat would kill for and a body of whipcord and steel which could finally stand up to your own grandiose expectations of it, and you were so in love it was like to un-kill you, you more or less reverted to eight. Look at me, Buffy, look, look, look! Only one hand! Spike landed on all fours in front of the bookstore, uncoiled into a running leap and landed on the Impala’s hood as the sedan whooshed under him, kicked off and launched himself into the air before the startled driver had time to react. He hit the opposite sidewalk in a perfect shoulder-roll and sprang to his feet in the middle of the side street. A flash of fangs and a snarl and good ol’ Jim blanched and skittered back to the others. Buffy nailed him with a killer eye-roll at fifty yards, and he broke into a mad grin--not the most reassuring expression in game face, apparently, since the crazies broke into an immediate trot. They were headed in the right direction, so Spike leaned back against the corner of the store and waited for Buffy. She jogged up within seconds, tawny hair in fetching disarray around pink cheeks and bright eyes. Tara's glamor was starting to fade. “We’re almost there,” she said, all business. “Get ahead of them again, cut them off, and we’ll force them into the alley.” “Right, love.” She learned quickly, his lioness. “Oh, and Nemov? The Olympics were last year.” God, he loved that tone, the bossy one with the smile underneath. Spike tossed her a smirk and a salute and sprinted off. They hadn’t seen him yet. Of course not. He didn’t want to be seen. Slipping from parked car to mailbox to doorway while the little group stopped at the mouth of the alley behind the Magic Box and engaged in a whispered debate about what to do next. Ten feet behind them he put on a burst of vampiric speed--from his perspective, the humans’ movements slowed to a crawl while he tore past them and came to a stop across the street from the alley. From their perspective, had they been watching, he would have simply disappeared and re-appeared elsewhere, still grinning. He could see down half the length of the alley from this vantage point, and recognize elements of the demon’s cats-cradle Will had scrawled across the oil-spotted pavement. As he watched, Tara stepped out from behind the heap of half-crushed boxes, wheat-colored hair swinging loose about her shoulders. Soft and quiet and unassuming, Tara, yet with an unconscious dignity that caught the eye. She stretched out both hands in front of her, palms upturned. "Mr. Tanner?" she asked, every movement, every shading of her voice calculated to soothe--no magic, just Tara. In spite of that, the little gang of men clustered in the mouth of the alley cried out at the sight of her. The acrid scent of fear lent piquancy to the pervading odor of unwashed humanity. He sensed Buffy’s approach before he saw her, a lithe shape skulking along behind a row of parked cars across the street. She gave him a thumbs up, and he rose from the shadows and started across the street at a deliberate walk. Buffy slipped between two of the parked cars and together they converged on the alleyway, leaving their quarry no option but to back into the trap. Tara held up a hand as they got closer; Buffy halted some fifteen feet from the alley and Spike followed her lead. "Mr. Tanner?" Tara repeated, all sincerity and calm. "I'm here to help you, if you'll let me. We're here to help all of you." Spike held his breath, distantly amused at himself for doing so. For a second it looked as if her plea would work, but whether it was a synapse misfiring in Tanner's frazzled brain, or the perfectly logical fear that Tara was a vampire too, panic flared in his faded brown eyes. His lanky frame tensed and his gaze went to Buffy. “Slayer?” he whispered, panic turning to confusion. “I thought--” He turned and saw the vampire's face clearly for the first time, and the confusion dispersed, replaced by grim resolve. "It’s him! He's harmless! Come on!" Spike stood his ground as Tanner charged straight at him with a wild yell. The others followed, albeit with less enthusiasm, a pack of waving fists and insane determination. As Buffy lunged after the crazy in the blue baseball cap, Spike got a vague impression of a young girl with long brown hair who came running down the street out of nowhere. The girl swung wide, collided with the crazy, and Buffy’s swing met empty air as the man's feet flew out from under him and he dropped to the ground with a surprised grunt. Buffy swore and dove after the nameless man on the ground. The girl fell in the opposite direction, picked herself up and dashed into the alley, wide-eyed and panting. Spike immediately forgot about her and braced himself for the onslaught--stood his ground, thumbs tucked into his belt, watching his oncoming foes with an evil little grin which would have worried any sane attacker. Tanner and the other two flung themselves at him. Spike sidestepped Windbreaker Jim--the old coot had to be sixty if he were a day; no threat there. Tanner’s desperate strained face was three feet from his own, Tanner’s bony fist was flying towards his jaw. Spike raised his right hand (lazily, from his perspective, lightning-quick, from Tanner’s) and caught the onrushing fist in a bone-crushing grip, absorbing the momentum of the blow with barely a grunt of effort. Tanner paled with shock and Spike’s left fist shot out in a carefully pulled punch. He lived through a dozen eternities as his fist arced towards its target, because rats were one thing, but human beings (Your natural prey , Angelus’s voice pointed out) were something else again, and who knew what would happen when his knuckles connected solidly with the other man's jaw... Crack of bone on bone, a wail of pain (hallefuckinlujah, not his!) and Daniel Tanner flew fifteen or twenty feet back and slammed into the alley wall, instantly unconscious--forgotten how sodding fragile the average human being was when you could really let go and hit them. Spike stood staring with incredulous joy at his clenched fist, which twinged just the slightest bit across the knuckles (already healing) and which was the only thing about him that did. He threw back his head and roared for sheer bloody-minded joy, whirling on his next victim, who came staggering into him reeling from Buffy’s blow. Spike grabbed Blue Cap by the shirtfront and hoisted him into the air, shaking him as a terrier would a rat. He rammed his nose into the man’s fear-convulsed face and bared his fangs, and the bastard all but pissed himself then and there. “Yeah! That's right! Quiver in your bleeding boots, chum, ‘cause Spike’s back and he’s a bloody--!” The boast died in his throat as fingers gripped his arm, digging into his biceps hard enough to hurt. He looked down. Eyes confronted him, boring into his own--those gorgeous Sarah Crewe eyes, grey-green, flecked with golden brown, rimmed with impossibly thick dark lashes. Enormous. Horrified. Buffy stood beside him on the pavement, her lower lip just this side of trembling, her hand on his arm rock-steady, pulling Blue Cap back to earth. Her other hand hovered an inch away from her purse, where among other useful items, she always carried, as Spike knew very well, the well-worn length of oak which had served two Slayers in its time--just the thing for a vampire who'd killed two. The look of betrayal in her eyes was worse than any stake. He lost his hold on game face without even realizing it, tossed Blue Cap after Tanner, and dropped to his knees before her for the second time that night. “Oh, Christ, Buffy--my heart, my love, I tried to tell you, I really did!” His voice had gone husky and pleading. If she believed nothing else of him ever again, she had to believe this. “I know--I know I’m a monster. But I’ll do my damnedest to be a good monster--for you, love.” He spread his arms wide, baring his chest to that length of sharpened oak which had been polished on the bones of a thousand of his kind before him. He closed his eyes--because it was traditional.
And he waited. |
Part 26 |
Part 28 |