"...needles as long as your arm, I swear." Evie leaned forward in the variegated light of the massed ranks of candles, dramatic I-have-you-now-Adama shadows blotting out all but the gleam of her eyes. "Worst thing? It was never dark. Ever. Lights glaring down at you like a million suns, 24/7." She paused for effect, and her audience obliged with a shiver of gruesome relish. "There were twenty of us to begin with. Vamps, demons, all kinds. Spike, he was captured near last, but he didn't stay there more than a week. He and this other vampire, Tom, they trashed one of the lab coats and escaped--Spike threw Tom to the guards and got away, Tom ended up dust." Approving murmurs. "And the rest of them? They went crazy. One by one. You couldn't see them, but you could hear--they'd stop feeding, stop talking, just sit in their cells all quiet and shit for a few days...and then they'd start to scream. They'd scream, and scream, and scream, till the soldados came...and then the screaming would stop," she raked a finger across her throat, "just like that." "Staked?" Denny whispered, pushing a lock of fair hair off his forehead. It was the first word she'd heard him say all evening. Evie grinned, the same grin she used on victims who thought they were going to get away. "Oh, no. 'Cause that'd be a waste of all that government money, right? They'd take 'em away, to analyze. Take 'em apart piece by piece and see what made them tick." She made a drilling motion against her forehead with an index finger. "See, they had plans. Just putting a chip in our heads to shock us when we tried to hurt anything, that was just the beginning." "Yeah?" Nadia asked. She should have been a raven-haired femme fatale, with that name, but she was dishwater blonde and freckled like her brother. Vampires with freckles were just wrong. "What was the end?" Evie had no idea, but that was no reason to derail a good story. "Whatcha think? If you could control a vamp's every move, what would you do? But the Slayer and her pals attacked the compound before they could go that far. The electrical grid went down, and we were free. Christ, the expressions on the guards' faces! Bodies everywhere, corridors running an inch deep in blood, and the smell? I'll never forget it! We were ripping the soldier boys to shreds and playing jump-rope with their entrails!" She hugged herself, eyes slitting in bliss. "I just wish I coulda killed a few of them myself." "That bites," Nadia agreed. "No pun intended." She took several blood packets from the mini-fridge and snipped the corners off, pouring two into mugs and handing one to her silent brother. Denny didn't use cups. Evie leaned back and touched the tip of her tongue to her blood--it tasted as good as you could expect days-dead animal blood to taste, which wasn't saying much. Still, she couldn't deny that a good feed and twelve hours of sleep had done wonders. The empty socket of her missing canine still ached, but the swelling in her jaw had disappeared, and the deep itch of mending tissue had set in. Spike's gang had a pretty choice lair. They'd tapped into cables and conduits from here to hell and gone; electricity, running water--all the comforts of human existence. Evie was all for that. The lower level of the crypt was devoted to storage, piled high with crates, boxes, and freezer units containing inventory, while the winding, irregular tunnel excavated between the crypt proper and the nearest sewer main served as a barracks for the gang, outfitted with TV, mini-fridge, dining table and several dilapidated armchairs. Overlapping carpets in various shades of threadbare covered the floor and unearthed coffins had been pressed into service as benches and table supports. Small alcoves off the main room housed spartan cots and a small dresser each. On investigating hers, Evie'd found a selection of used clothing in various sizes--in any other gang, they'd have been scavenged from victims, but with this lot of fucking teetotalers, they might have come from the Salvation Army. Though the Salvation Army probably wasn't big on 'Eat The Rich (The Poor Are Too Stringy)' t-shirts. It was a damn sight better than most of the places she'd woken up in recently, which was a pretty sad commentary on her unlife. The only thing missing was a snack or two chained to the walls. She'd never realized how weird and empty a lair could feel when entirely devoid of the whimper of lunch. The selection of blood bags and crimson-tinted milk cartons in the fridge didn't cut it. She watched Nadia fuss over Denny, who was playing with his food, squishing the plastic between his fingers. "So..." Evie waved a hand at the surrounding cavern. "You're... I mean, you can kill, can't you?" "Of course I can!" Nadia snapped, broken-glass brittle and defensive at this slur on her competence. She patted her brother's head, and Denny grinned up at her, red-fanged. "But Denny's not right. He'll wander off and play in the sun if I don't watch him, and he's no good on a hunt. Gangs won't take me if it means taking him too, and it does. It's worth the shitty food to have someplace safe to stash him." Her narrow horsy face took on a look of half suspicion and half curiosity. "You're one of them, right? An Aurelian? We tried to get in with the old Master's gang once, but they gave me some bullpucky about pure blood. That Luke wouldn't even let us into the caverns." Evie toyed with her blood, temporizing. "I guess." The Order of Aurelius wasn't much more than a name these days, but it was a name to conjure or curse with. Claiming family connections could put her on Nadia's shit list as easily as win points. "Dalton never told me who his sire was." That was true, though it had to have been someone in the Order, since the Master, and the Anointed One after him, had been a stickler for bloodlines--it wasn't until Spike took over that first time that he'd opened up the gang to any vampire competent enough to make his cut. "Huh. You ever see him? The old Master?" Fascination laced Nadia's voice, and the tension knotting Evie's shoulders together loosened a notch. There was an art to fitting into a new gang. It wasn't enough to suck up to the master--you had to get in good with a few of the other members, or risk being torn apart from behind. "Was he really so old he'd lost his human face?" "Do bones count? I saw when they dug him up. From what Dalton told me, I didn't miss a lot." Nadia's expression grew avid. "They say he killed more of his own minions than the Slayer did." "Jesus, tell me about it! Spike, though..." Evie dropped to a confidential whisper. "After he took over, he stopped that freakazoid girlfriend of his from putting out my sire's eyes once." You could never go wrong with gossip about the boss. Nadia looked suitably impressed and scandalized. "Well, paint my toenails and call me Nelly. I thought it was sniffing after the Slayer that made Spike go soft. Or that chip he had." Had? Evie was about to pounce on that when David slithered down the ladder from the upper level. His smile was a bare millimeter's twist at the corner of his mouth, cool and vicious. "If you're that curious about the precise reason Spike hasn't seen fit to kill you yet, I suggest you ask him. He's upstairs." Nadia shrank a little, and Evie took note; OK, so this wasn't entirely some touchy-feely vampire summer camp. David continued with a nod at Evie, "He wants to see you." "I'll bet he does," Evie muttered. David's unnerving olive-green eyes studied her. He had a stare like a fucking snake or something--maybe he could do thrall. "Have you fed sufficiently? His orders are to see you healed and put to work as quickly as possible. We're not a charity." Evie looked at her blood in distaste. No point in being all principled and shit now. The time to spurn the disgusting reheated slop and declare she'd never be that hungry had been last night. But they'd handed her the cup, the scent of it took a warm red baseball bat to her hindbrain, and fuck, she was that hungry. Two seconds later she'd been sucking the stuff down like it was El Tesoro. All three of them were watching her to see if she'd repeat the surrender when she wasn't half-starved and high as a kite on master's blood. Evie raised the mug to her lips and tilted her head back, draining the contents in one long pull. David nodded, the lines of his face sketching prissy satisfaction, like she'd passed some test and he was weighing the merits of giving her an A- or a B+. She got it. She was no better than they were. Except she was, damn it. This was temporary. If Spike's chip wasn't working any longer, there had to be a way to disable hers. Once she figured out what it was, she'd be out of Sunnydale so fast her tracks wouldn't leave a scent. She slammed the mug down and followed David upstairs. The upper level was bustling. A Sharpesi demon she vaguely remembered having seen around the Alibi Room a few times was seated at one of the desks, talking earnestly on the phone. Spike was attacking a keyboard at another desk. He'd done a sartorial 180 since last night, rumpled and bookish with the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled to the elbow and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles sliding down his nose. He looked like a different guy altogether...at least, until you got a look at the eyes behind the winking lenses. He whipped the glasses off the instant Evie's head poked through the floor, and the woman--human, by her scent, though there was a subtle strangeness about it--kibitzing over his shoulder rolled her eyes. "Oh, for goodness sake, Spike, everyone knows by now." A speculative look honed her sharp features further. "Does Lasik work on vampires, or would your corneas just regenerate in the same poor shape they're in now?" Spike slid the glasses back on and gave her a look over the rims. "You're just not happy unless you're contemplating slicing a bloke's parts off somehow, are you?" The phone on the desk rang. "Spike. Yeh. No, they're expected. Show them in, but keep an eye out." The Sharpesi demon gave Evie a cheerful grin and a wave of one wrinkled paw. Evie waved back, confused. What was he, part of the inventory? She could understand vampires wanting in on a demon-hunting operation; most demons despised vampires as half-breed mongrels, and the idea of taking some of your own back out of their hides had a lot of appeal. The humans wouldn't care. But what was in it for this guy? Spike banged the enter key with the gleeful finality of someone launching a ground-to-air missile, and one of the printers burst into chattering life. He raked a hand through the crisply gelled waves of his hair, tore the printout from the feeder tray, and skimmed it across the desk towards Evie. She made an automatic grab for the paper before it could flutter to the floor. It was a list of camping equipment, along with a few more exotic items. Spike settled back and dipped a hand into the pocket of the leather jacket draping the back of his chair. He extracted a heavy silver lighter, tapped a cigarette free of the crumpled pack of Marlboros lying on his desk, and took his sweet time puffing it to brilliant orange life. He jabbed the cigarette at each of them in turn. "Clem, Anya, this is Evie. Clem's customer relations and Anya's our retailer. Now." He took a deep drag and blew a smoke ring over her head. "We're not a gang, we're not a clan, we're not the Order of bloody Aurelius reborn. We're a business. We hunt non-intelligent demons--only non-intelligent demons, mind--chop them to messes, and sell their short and curlies to the Magic Box and a selection of private clients. Your job is to do the boring parts so I don't have to. Normally there's a probationary period, but you've worked for me before, and your sire before you, and I know you've more than two brain cells to rub together. I'm putting you in charge of supplies. See David about your budget, and get me this stuff by the end of the week. Buy it, don't nick it, but deal as sharp as you like." Evie nodded, taking it all in. In the last seven years she'd been in and out of half a dozen gangs. The trick to survival was to do your job without ever calling attention to yourself--to blend in, whether that meant joining in on meaningless rituals and ancient chants, turning tricks, or drinking pig's blood. "And what's all this get me?" "Not dusted," Spike replied. "Also a safe lair, the protection of numbers, and a salary, enough to keep you in blood and cigs if your taste's not fancy." He sprang to his feet and began that loose-limbed predatory pacing, the length of the crypt and back again, leaving contrails of tobacco smoke in his wake. "More to the point, I keep the Slayer off your back. Long as you follow a few simple rules. Rule number one, no hunting. Only reason you're here to begin with is I've got reason to think you can handle that. Catch you even thinking about it, and the Slayer won't have time to draw a stake 'cause I'll rip your head off myself. Got it?" Evie nodded. "Rule number two, you look out for your mates. Goes against the grain for some of us, but it's tit for tat: they'll look after you. What's the biggest killer of vampires in the world?" A nod seemed insufficient. "The Slayer?" "Wrong." Spike stubbed his cigarette out on the lid of a sarcophagus. "Other vampires. One Slayer--well, three at the moment--and thousands of vamps. Do the maths. If we didn't off each other with giddy abandon nightly, we'd've eaten ourselves out of house and home by now. Which brings us to rule number three: no siring. Last thing we need is more idiot fledges cluttering up the middle ground. You want to keep turning tricks or blow your earnings on the good stuff at Willy's, go to it; I don't give a piss. Kill a human, I'll kill you, and I won't be quick about it. All clear?" At a loss for any other response, Evie nodded again. A vampire she didn't recognize appeared in the crypt doorway and tossed Spike a casual salute. "They're here." Every individual hair on the back of Evie's neck leaped up and raced its neighbors to the ceiling as she realized who 'they' were. The Slayer stood in the doorway, a tiny golden figure framed in indigo night. At her side, a sullen dark-haired girl gripped a stake, flaying each vamp and demon in the crypt with a look of utter all-business hatred. Any minute now someone would be yelling Look well, O wolves! Spike broke into a wicked, radiant grin, and offered the Slayer an arm. Buffy advanced into the crypt and tucked a hand through the crook of his elbow. Slayer and vampire flowed together, river to the ocean, shadow fused with sunlight. Spike's brow rippled into demon-ridges and his fangs extended, a change as calculated as everything else about this performance, and Buffy's mouth took brief possession of his. Oh, gah, there was spit. Evie's stomach revolted, and she wished she hadn't chugged all that blood. Queen and consort turned on her as one, cheek to cheek and forehead to forehead; Evie's chin went up and she clenched her jaw on the churning in her belly. From the lowered eyes and foot-shuffling going on around her, none of the other vamps in the room were any easier with Spike's pervy yen for Slayers than she was, but none of them said a word. This was a test, as much as the pig's blood had been. Evie took a step forward, thumbs tucked in the waistband of her jeans in half-unconscious imitation of Spike. "Hey." The Slayer pursed her lips, looking Evie over like she expected the odometer to have been tampered with. "Spike's told you the deal? You don't kill, we--" The dark-haired girl (was this the rumored third Slayer?), still lingering in the doorway, made a contemptuous noise, and Evie felt an unexpected surge of kinship. Not all tonight's tests were for her, it seemed. The two Slayers locked gazes, and after a moment, the dark girl's eyes skidded off sideways--not submission by any means, but an agreement to drop the argument. "We," Buffy repeated, "don't kill you. You fall off the wagon, you'll be dust before you hit the ground." Evie nodded. She was going to wear out her nodding muscles. Spike hitched one hip up on the nearest desk and began cleaning his close-bitten nails with a penknife. He was human again--he'd never gone game-faced often, even in the old days, but he was almost always human now, even when there was no one around but other vampires. It was more than a little freaky. "Right then. I'm not paying you to imitate the statuary. Get to work." And that was that; the high melodrama dissipated and the tableau dissolved into the organized chaos she'd walked in on. The two vamps who'd escorted the Slayers in escorted them out, and Spike went back to arguing with Anya about one of her orders. After an indecisive moment, Evie took the list and headed downstairs to find David. She had no doubt that if she'd failed a single one of those tests, someone would be sweeping her off the crypt floor about now, and there would probably be more to come. No probationary period my ass. Still, Spike had been a reasonable Master in the old days, especially compared to the nutballs preceding and following him. He almost never killed his minions without a reason, and if he made a promise, he kept it: always to the letter, and usually to the spirit. Slayer-love or the chip had fucked him up, for certain--it didn't take an Einstein to see Spike had taken on Nadia and Denny, and probably her as well because he saw his own past in them. That could be an advantage, especially if Spike didn't realize what he was doing. Evie looked over the list he'd given her--a lot of this stuff could be picked up on the cheap at the army surplus outlet over on Levitt, and some of the more outre items looked eBayable. She'd see about getting some computer time once David gave her an idea of how much she had to spend. "At least this isn't some cheap-ass pity assignment like finding Rack's place," she muttered, as David acquainted her with the ins and outs of petty cash. Nadia whooped with laughter, and even David cracked something resembling a smile. "Man, don't you know?" Nadia said with a conspiratorial grin. "Spike can't find Rack's place anymore. He won't admit it, but I've seen him hunt half an hour for the damned door when it's right under his nose. He always brings one of us along." Evie gaped at her. "You're joking." To fall under the sway of the spell that kept Rack's operation safe from the prying eyes of normal humanity, a vampire would have to be...not just crazy, but... "Fuck! He doesn't have a soul too, does he? 'Cause I'm not working for for anyone who's got a fucking soul!" "Nah, nothing like that, hon," Nadia assured her. "Soul doesn't matter for Rack's, anyway, lots of humans can find it. He's just..." She stalled out on an appropriate word to describe Spike. "Different." "You'd best get started," David said. Evie bit her lip and went over to the big map of the Sunnydale sewer system on the wall, plotting out the best way to get over to Main and Levitt. Obviously the two of them didn't want to think about the implications of Spike's little handicap, and she couldn't blame them. If it could happen to the Slayer of Slayers, it could happen to any of them. The waning moon tore a hole of light in the hazy web of stars overhead as Kennedy stalked the straggling lines of tombstones. The tightly-held stake in her hand provided none of its usual comfort. The night was conspiring to piss her off. Shadows raced across the uneven ground to trip her up, and tiny itch-demons of foxtails clung to her socks and nipped at her ankles. She wanted to kill something, but Restfield was as dead as its inhabitants, and everything in killing distance, apparently, was off-limits. The creeping ick of the crypt was still with her. The clear, cold night air couldn't slice through the odors of dust and blood and burning wax which still clogged her nose, and the distant twinkle of street lights recalled constellations of candle flames guttering in the darkness, and a million tiny bug feet skittering up and down her spine as the flames resolved into unblinking golden eyes. And Buffy, yellow flames reflecting in her eyes, cheek to cheek with the demon. I'm not like that. The witches said so. Her new mantra. She wished the witches had stuck around longer to talk about the results of the aura spell, but Willow had rushed off to some evening class, leaving her with vague assurances that she was going to talk to this Giles person about it, and Tara had returned home to cook dinner. The promised sparring session with Buffy hadn't improved Kennedy's mood any--she knew she was good; even before she'd been Called she'd been fast and strong and resourceful. Someday she'd be able to take Buffy down. That didn't make getting the crap beaten out of her by the Summers School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts any easier in the meantime. Evening brought them back to Buffy's place for dinner: meatloaf and Smallville. ("Poof." "He is not! Shut up!" "Spike's right, Dawn. All those lustful subtext-y glances..." "He's totally in love with Lana!" "Yeh? Has he shagged her?" "Of course not!" "Poof.") All too lullingly mundane for words, as long as you counted the sight of a vampire pouring blood over meatloaf as mundane. Buffy sashayed through the graves ahead of her, having traded in the skate bunny ambiance for a wine-red leather bolero jacket, skin-tight black denim jeans and kicky black leather ankle boots. Apparently the full set of Slayer powers included the ability to unerringly navigate untended hummocks of grass and the occasional fallen tombstone while wearing four-inch heels. Buffy was chattering on about the habits and habitats of Sunnydale's much-reduced vampire population. "...used to concentrate patrols on the cemeteries, but there's twelve besides Restfield, and hitting each one once every week and a half? Not efficient. I haven't cut out regular patrols altogether, but now I'm targeting the older vamps who're siring all these guys. It's like the trickle-down theory of slaying..." Summers might be the undisputed ruler of Sunnydale's night, but she'd bought that sovereignty with counterfeit coin. Anger boiled up through fissures in Kennedy's self-control, met cool reason and subsided with a hiss. She still needed Buffy's help. She wasn't supposed to blow her cover. She couldn't take Buffy even if she wanted to--but that was a stupid argument, because since when could Slayers pick and choose their battles? Kennedy realized that the pain in her head stemmed from the iron-bound rigidity of her jaw muscles, and forced herself to relax. "...two main gangs when I got here, the Order of Aurelius and the Mayor's hirelings. Or is it henchmen?" Buffy hopped the myrtle hedge surrounding a husband-and-wife monument dripping with bas-relief grapevines, weighing the relative merits of each term. "I'm never sure which is which. Anyway, ancient history. The biggest stable family nest right now is in a warehouse over on West Palchet, but the ones I'm really after are three or four upscale types over on the east side who're passing for human. They hire on a lot of the lone wolves as minions, and they've still got all kinds of connections with the police force, so they're tricky to go after--" "Go after? What, there's vampires we actually get to kill?" The brittle crust of reason shattered, and rage flooded out, magma-hot and seething. Kennedy grabbed Buffy's shoulder and whirled her around. "What the hell was that back there?" Buffy's muscles--she definitely had muscles beneath that girly exterior--tensed, just to the point that it was clear that the whirling was something she allowed rather than submitted to. "That was Spike's night job, when he's not helping me with the slaying." Kennedy set both palms to Buffy's shoulders and shoved, hard. "It's not enough you're fucking them and feeding them?" Buffy took a startled step back. "You gotta play Queen of the Damned too? Slayers don't make deals with vam--!" Fingers cinched her wrist, cutting off both words and circulation before she could get to the 'pires.' "Your Watcher ever fill you in on a cutie-pie called Acathla?" Buffy demanded. "If I didn't make deals with vampires, you wouldn't be here today to bitch about it. Look, demons? Mostly I just kill them. One day Spike gave me a reason not to kill him. And then he gave me another one, and another one, and pretty soon not killing him got to be a habit, and then...well, that part's not actually any of your business." She released Kennedy's hand and stepped back, her eyes as grey and hard as the granite slabs surrounding them. "Every night I patrol the campus is a night I don't patrol downtown. Every night I dust a vampire in Sunnydale is a night I'm not dusting a vampire in Spokane. People die with every decision I make." The words were razors, and all the blades turned inwards. Kennedy glared into those eyes without sympathy. "Boo fucking hoo. Every Slayer in history's got the same problem. Doesn't mean we give up and start playing pattycake with the monsters. What's the wrinkly guy's out? Does he do your dry cleaning?" "Clem's harmless! Mostly!" Buffy stabbed the air with her stake. "Have you been listening to anything I've said? The vampires in Restfield aren't fluffy bunnies, but right now they're not killing anyone. Every night I'm not taking out the vampires in Restfield is a night that I am taking out the vampires somewhere else. The ones that are killing people." Kennedy's lip curled. "They all kill people! If not right now, then later! What makes you think you can trust them to keep their side of your little deal?" "Spike." "Uh huh. What the hell do you think slaying's about, anyway?" "Protecting people," Buffy shot back. "Some of whom turn out to be not entirely human." Tara's torn throat flashed before Kennedy's eyes, and for a second, she had no trouble at all believing that Buffy Summers was part demon. The back of her neck crawled, Slayer sense going nuts, and all those years of training came together in one moment of perfect synergy. Her fist was in motion before her brain could engage, arrowing straight for Buffy's chin. Taken by surprise, Buffy went down, and the two of them crashed backwards into the prickly embrace of the myrtle, toppling right over the bowed back of the scruffy-looking young man--no, vampire--in shabby Birkenstocks and Hawaiian shirt hiding behind the bushes. Well, that explained the Slayer sense going nuts. The vampire crab-scuttled behind a nearby mausoleum, whooping "Whoa! Chick fight! Awesome!" as the two of them cartwheeled into the open. Buffy's kicky black boot made close personal acquaintance with Kennedy's solar plexus, and before the course of her graceful arc intercepted the myrtle once more, Kennedy caught a brief mid-flight glimpse of a pretty blonde girl in an Ed Wood cashmere sweater and heels even more impractical than Buffy's, cringing with wide-eyed dismay behind Hawaiian Shirt. Buffy flipped herself to her feet, swung Tarzan-style around the pillar at the corner of the mausoleum, and slammed heels-first into the vampire's ill-trimmed goatee. His head snapped back, and Buffy locked both legs around his neck, riding him down to the ground. Her stake descended, and she fell the last foot to the to the dewy grass through a gritty cloud of Hawaiian Shirt's dust. She rubbed her backside gingerly, and brushed powdered vampire off her palms. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, going after them is tricky. Not the dusting of, but the avoiding prosecution afterwards. Plus any time they're up to something, they sire a few Rhodes Scholars like this to keep me busy." She wiped a trickle of blood from a scrape on her temple and glared at Kennedy. "And while we're asking, what the hell was that?" Kennedy slumped back against a faux-Egyptian obelisk and pressed a hand to her ribs. This was a pain that would linger. She couldn't feel the warning tingle of vampire presence any longer. "You get the girl, too?" "Girl?" Buffy frowned, suspicious. "There was girl? All I saw was Randy of the Redwoods." "There was girl. Believe me, I notice girls." One perfectly-arched eyebrow lifted. "I notice changes of subject." "I'm not a goddamned demon, got it?" Kennedy folded her arms across her bruises and scowled. "Demons aren't people, I don't make deals with them, and I don't care what excuses you have for sleeping with the enemy, or what my stupid aura looks like. I'm not like you." "Probably not," Buffy replied composedly. "And not demons. Invested with demonic attributes, including but not limited to mostly useless prophetic visions, vampire-specific spidey-sense, and the strength of ten because our hearts are pure. Or something like that." She inspected her knuckles, made an irritated moue at the condition of her nails, and sat down on a tombstone to ransack her purse for an emery board. "I've never actually read the whole report, 'cause Giles in full research mode? Sure cure for insomnia. I generally conk out by page six." Kennedy's lips tightened. "So what's the point of making me read the damned thing?" "Because the more we know about who and what we are, the better we can stay ourselves." Satisfied with her repairs, Buffy extended a hand overhead to admire it, but her gaze passed through her spread fingers to Orion and the Big Dipper, wheeling opposite one another about the hub of the winter sky. "You gave pounding me into hamburger the ol' college try just now. Did you do that kind of thing before you were called?" Heat rose in Kennedy's cheeks. "I can take care of myself." "That's not the question." There was no accusation in Buffy's voice; for whatever reason, she was trying hard to sell this. "A year ago, would you have wanted to go after me like that?" A cold little worm of doubt squirmed to life in Kennedy's belly. She'd always known what she wanted and stopped at nothing to get it, but... she'd kind of lost it just now, and no mistake. Looking back over the last fifteen minutes she couldn't quite figure out just how everything had slipped out of her control. Just knowing you could punch through a wall changed the way you looked at things--what you were willing to say, and what you were willing to do. "So according to you, every time I lose my temper it's the fault of this demon crap?" "It's not that simple." All earnest now, Buffy wrapped her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth on the cold stone. "It's not like you've got a shoulder devil whispering 'Punch Buffy in the nose!' in your ear. It's all you in there. But whatever gives us power is old, and dark, and strong. If you live long enough, it'll get stronger. You'll get stronger. Giving in to your own strength is... glorious. But it can eat you from the inside out if you let it, till there's nothing left of you but the power. If that doesn't scare you a little, you're stupid." "Well, lucky me, I'm not gonna have to worry about that for a good long time, am I?" Kennedy peeled off the obelisk and shook herself, shedding dead grass. "I got myself a room at the Sun Dancer Lodge over on Lincoln. Maybe I'll hunt down the one that got away, if she's not on the endangered demons list too?" Buffy accepted this change of subject without complaint. "We should hear back from Giles by tomorrow if he's got anything useful for us." She hesitated. "If you need anything, stop by. And you're welcome to come to dinner any time if you..." She hovered delicately around run short on cash, and Kennedy felt a shamed twinge at the con she was pulling--she could have put a down payment on Buffy's house with the money she had at her disposal. Buffy settled on, "...get tired of McMeals." "Thanks." But no thanks. Cash aside, she wasn't sure if she could take another dinner at the Summers house; it was a little too enticing watching Willow's pretty pink lips wrap themselves around a Crazy Straw and suck. "That report thing you gave me," Kennedy said. "You mind if I send a copy to my Watcher? 'Cause it occurs to me that someone who's an expert on Council history and demons and stuff might possibly have a different take on it than li'l ol' me." Buffy didn't faze. "You want hard copy, Word, or PDF?" Spike changed clothes before he left the crypt, ditching the poncewear for his usual basic black. If Buffy pouted he could point out very reasonably that it made no sense wearing his Sunday best on the hunt, for all she did it on a regular basis. He was halfway out the crypt door, axe in hand and assorted stakes concealed about his person, when David appeared at his shoulder with a dry little cough. Spike suppressed a groan; the last time that cough had gotten an airing, they'd failed to meet payroll and he'd had to kill someone to make up the shortfall. "Yeh?" There was obviously a bug making its way up David's arse, destination brain, at record speed. "That slaughter at DeCosta's last week. There's talk down at Willy's that the Slayer's behind it." "Now is that any business of yours?" Spike stroked the haft of the axe with a reminiscent grin. He trusted David as far as he ever trusted another vampire, but that was about as far as Dawn could punt a Ghora demon. "Don't tell me you care who she kills so long as it's not you." David rubbed a hand over his balding pate--nervous, but he'd never been afraid to speak up when he thought it necessary. "She's going after Wilkins's old guard, isn't she?" Spike settled his weight on one hip and regarded his second with increasing impatience to be off. "What if she is? No skin off your nose." David made a frustrated noise. "It could be skin off a great deal more than my nose. Everyone knows that where she goes, you go. We're your minions--" Trouble was always around the corner when someone started flinging that word about. "Employees." "Semantics. You and the Slayer come as a set. What the Slayer does comes back on you--and us." David drew a hand down his cheek. "It hasn't mattered till now, since she's always taken out vampires at random. But lately--she's got a plan, and you've helped put it together. Amherst, Corvini, Nguyen...they know the Slayer's on their tails now. We can't match their numbers or their firepower if they decide to organize and come after us first." Spike tested the blade of his axe with one thumb, and David inched back; apparently him fidgeting with weapons was more nerve-wracking than the ordinary kind. That David would fear the firepower available to a handful of moderately wealthy vampires was a genuine surprise, but just possibly, Spike thought, two or three apocalypses in a row had jaded him. "Not intending you to do so," he replied. "This wouldn't be the gang I'd build to go head to head with anyone, not by a long chalk." David grimaced, acknowledging the truth of it. "And that's the problem. Whoever sent Cain won't stop with him, and that doesn't worry me--but we're not prepared for a war on two fronts. We're not prepared for a war at all." He added with a smile so dry it was shaken, not stirred, "Your death would interfere with the signing of my paycheck, but my death would interfere with my cashing it." He hadn't considered this angle, but David was right; however stringently he separated his business killing from his recreational killing, other vampires wouldn't be so nice in their distinctions. It was tempting to blame his lapse on living too long among humans, but he'd never had much of a head for politics to begin with. This was what one had subordinates for, after all, to notice such things and report them. "Bugger. I take your point. We'll have to do something about that." Spike did a quick calculation; Amherst and Nguyen had seven and six minions respectively, Corvini four. "EVIE!" he bellowed. The new girl's head appeared at the top of the ladder a second later, equal parts apprehension and belligerence in her dark eyes. "Yeah?" "Forget the supply run for now. Got a job for you." Spike dug into a pocket and pulled out his wallet, repository of one green card (fake), one driver's licence (legit), and several credit cards (legit, but seldom used because Spike preferred to avoid leaving data trails when possible) in the name of one William 'Spike' Williams--not exactly his first choice of a nom de guerre, but as that was what Buffy had blurted out to Dawn's social worker in a moment of panic, he was more or less stuck with it. He peeled off a couple of bills. "Here. Go out and have yourself a time. Anyone you run into tonight, let drop casual-like that a bloke name of Kite offered you a job and you want to know if he's on the up and up. They get curious, tell 'em that the job was to be cozying up to another bloke name of Corvini. Make 'em feel like they're digging for it. Got that?" Evie took the money with a grin and stuffed it into her decolletage. "Loud and clear. I'm not gonna be mentioning I work for you, am I?" "Smart girl. Off with you." Spike grinned in the happy consciousness of a dirty deed done dirt cheap. Kite was Amherst's most trusted and senior minion; rumors that he was trying to infiltrate another gang ought to divert attention from them very nicely, and with luck would set Corvini and Amherst at one another's throats, weakening them both while Buffy attended to Nguyen. David watched the exchange, python-eyed. "You could take Corvini down yourself. Co-opt his minions. Bring them under your protection. Take the others one by one." "Could," Spike agreed. He shouldered the axe and turned to go. "And you're not going to." "Knew I didn't keep you around just for your looks." "You're the eldest scion of the Order left sane and unsouled. You could--" Spike stopped a pace or two outside the door and sighed. If David weren't so good with the books... "Look. What I do comes back on you, you said--that goes both ways, yeh? Master's responsible for his minions. Any one of mine kills on my watch, it's on my head, so pardon me if I'm choosy about who I take on. If I'm going queer my deal with the Slayer, it's bloody well going to be for the pleasure of killing someone myself, not having it done by proxy." This was a piece of moral algebra beyond most vampires, and Spike was quite proud of himself for working it out. "Spike, that's bullshit." David wasn't so much accusing as puzzled. "You're Master of Sunnydale in everything but name--why not make it official? It can't be the fight that scares you. The chip's gone. You don't need the Slayer's good will any longer. I know they say down at Willy's that she leads you around by a little pink bow on your--" WHOK! The axe swung in a blinding-swift reverse arc. Spike completed his turn and appraised his handiwork: axe-bit lodged two inches deep in the wood, and David spreadeagled against the door, nails digging splintered furrows in the rough boards. The blade neatly bisected the angle where neck met shoulder, and tiny droplets of ruby seeped from the hairline incision in David's pale scrawny throat. Sloppy work, that; he'd have to get a little more practice in. "It's a very big bow, mate," Spike said mildly. He levered the axe free of the new gash in the door, and examined the blade for nicks. "And what do you say?" David's lips compressed to a line sharper than the blade. "Nothing I'm not paid to say, apparently." Which wasn't true, and one of the reasons Spike paid him. "I hope she's worth it. You're wasting yourself." Spike clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to jar teeth. "I'll be the judge of that. You've done well enough to tell me about the problem. I'll think on it. Tell Elise and Fernando to keep watch extra sharp, and make sure Evie's shown the back way out." He did think on it, lounging astride the gleaming ebony bulk of the Triumph outside the front gates of the cemetery, but not for long. Spike had no doubt that he could take Sunnydale if he wanted it, but there'd be a price: his crew of misfits aside, Sunnydale's vampires wouldn't accept the Slayer's lover as their leader, nor willingly subsist on pig's blood and hospital leavings. Buffy, on the other hand, wouldn't stand for him looking the other way while his minions killed, even if he kept his own fangs clean. Being an effective Master meant withdrawing the foot he kept in the door of humanity, and going back to celebrating life only in the taking of it. No choice at all, really. That was a skin long since shed, and there was no squeezing back into it now. Besides, when you'd gone up against hellgods, lording it over a few dozen vampires lost some of its allure. With a glance up at the westering moon, Spike took a last draw on his cigarette and added another butt to the growing pile on the sidewalk. The bloodshot eye winked and closed forever as he ground it out beneath one heel. Buffy was late. He was beginning to wonder if he should have a recce when the delight of his unlife materialized in the shadows between the tombstones, leaf-flecked and tousled. She was wearing the squinchy expression that presaged either bark in her eye or a budding moral crisis. Buffy trudged out to the curb and butted her forehead against his shoulder like a disconsolate sheep. Spike ringed her in one arm, nuzzling into her disheveled hair and taking a deep proprietary whuff. "Ivy League get your back up?" Dropped eyes and a gnawed-on lip were all he needed to confirm his suspicions. "I'm a sell-out," Buffy said with a shrug that failed to convey the intended indifference. "I'm--oh, never mind. You're all melancholy Dane yourself." "Ah, me? I'm pussywhipped. Here, kitty kitty..." There was that smile; that was better. "We're slackers." Buffy intercepted his hand and wrapped it in hers. "Letting the home team down." Spike chucked her under the chin. "Yeh, but if my home team gets stroppy, I just kill them. Superior arrangement, to my mind." "The not tempting of me? Still in effect." Buffy shook off her funk, dug into her purse and produced a left stiletto-heel pump in an exceedingly tacky silver. "Behold, I come bearing clue." Spike cocked his head, less than impressed. "I was going to brag about finding those step-ins you hid, but I see you've got me beat." Buffy flipped the shoe under his nose. "My heart-to-heart with Kennedy suffered vampus interruptus." She grimaced. "Actually it was more of a fist-to-fist. Anyway, I staked the party of the first part--party of the only part I saw, but Kennedy insisted there was a party of the second, so I did a little scouting, and voila. Party of the second is solid enough to shop at Payless. Look familiar?" "Not hardly, but even odds she worked for one of the toffs we're after. Vamp in the street knows better than to plant their get in my back yard." Spike sniffed, but the shoe was brand new and didn't hold enough of a scent to identify. "Wish you hadn't staked the first bloke; we might have found out whether he was working for Amherst or Nguyen. If they decide to take out their frustrations on the lot at the crypt, we need to--" "We do, do we?" Buffy pulled away and snatched her helmet off its hook. "These are vampires, right? Super strength, super speed, half-way invulnerable?" "Yeh, but they're our vampires." "Your vampires," Buffy corrected. "Newsflash! I've got priorities here, and killing the bad vampires before they eat the humans is still number one. Babysitting the not-quite-so-bad vampires is somewhere around number six." That settled the moral crisis/bark in the eye question, then. Spike suppressed a growl; he'd love her till he was dust, but if Buffy ever went through an ethical menopause, he just might throw a party. He considered the options: knock-down drag-out fight followed by spectacular makeup sex, or keeping his yap shut and taking care of patrol first. A year ago it would have been the former, no contest, but it occurred to him now that if he put off the fight till after patrol, they could have the spectacular makeup sex at home in bed. He was either getting smarter in his old age, or just getting older. Oblivious to his scheming, Buffy strapped her helmet on with an adamant glare and swung onto the seat behind him, snuggling up close and wrapping both arms around his waist--but only, her posture implied, because she had to. Spike opened the throttle and bike's growl echoed his own as they tore away from the tangle of quiet streets surrounding Restfield and pulled out into the heavier traffic on Wilkins Boulevard. One thing about the Triumph, it wasn't a vehicle for encouraging chit-chat, which was probably a plus at this juncture. Their bodies were always on speaking terms, even then they weren't. After a few blocks Buffy leaned into him, laying her head against his shoulders and cradling his spine in the curve of breasts and belly, offering a truce in warm soft womanflesh. They'd have a reckoning later, but for now the vibration of the engine knit them together into one creature. Spike grinned, threw his head back and yowled, well you tried it just for once, found it all right for kicks... The wind tore the words away and flung them over his shoulder. No great loss there--his singing voice wasn't exactly American Idol material, and the words didn't matter as long as the two of them were on the hunt again. The lance of the headlight cleaved the night ahead, and the blended howl of wind and engine sealed it up behind. Spike swerved from lane to lane for the sheer hell of it, grazing the orbits of semis as they rumbled their ponderous way towards their early-morning deliveries. They roared up the stately curves of Crawford Street as it rose out of the modest residential neighborhoods where the Harrises and Summerses and Rosenbergs of the world lived, up into the swanky suburbs flanking Kingman's Bluff. Here were the semi-palatial homes of Sunnydale's old money: Wilkinses and Chases and Kendalls. Two stories, three baths, four-car garages, and five bedrooms, sequestered behind acres of exquisitely manicured jewel-green lawn and shaded by huge overhanging Aleppo pines and magnolias. Some of Sunnydale's money was older than the rest. The Master had come to Sunnydale in the late thirties, intending to open the Hellmouth, but the then-Mayor Wilkins-of-indeterminate-generation was already in residence with his own vampire minions and his own long-simmering plans, none of which included the Old Ones being unleashed untimely. The earthquake which banished the Master to dimensional limbo in '37 might not have been entirely coincidental; Darla had written Spike several strident letters on the subject, demanding his assistance. Spike had found them useful for rolling fags. Pissing around a tiny California town on the arse-end of nowhere, trying to pull old Bat-nose out of the rabbit hole when there was a bloody brilliant European war brewing wasn't Spike's idea of fun; he had places to go and people to eat. Dru always did love a man in uniform. In retrospect, however moronic Wilkins's goals had been (what the fuck would a giant snake do of a Saturday night, anyhow?) he'd left his followers in better shape than the Master had left his. No ancient chants and dingy sewers for them; the vamps who'd survived the Graduation Day slaughter, the smart ones, anyway, had six-figure incomes and posh lairs with sound-proofed basements. Hunting the docks or trolling for dinner at the Bronze wasn't their style; they had their meals delivered. The Slayer was no threat to them. Until now. The Triumph's headlight bounced off metal, and Spike slowed to a crawl as they cruised past Angel's old mansion. Stopping at the neighborhood eyesore wasn't in the plan; tonight was recon, scouting the perimeter of Sammy Nguyen's lair, marking the entrances and exits and changes of the watch, and taking out stray minions as the opportunity presented itself. Which meant following Crawford all the way up to the foot of the bluff, ditching the bike in Granville Park, and slipping past Nguyen's sentries on foot. He rolled to a stop at the foot of the leaf-strewn driveway. A shiny new rent-a-fence surrounded the property, cutting off further access. Buffy hopped off the bike, twined her fingers into the chain-link and peered up the drive. "Looks like someone got a stern letter from the zoning commission." Spike cut the engine, booted the kickstand into place and got off the bike, staring up at the mansion with feet planted shoulder-wide and both thumbs hooking his belt. The windows, which had been gaping, glass-toothed maws a week ago, were now tidily boarded up, the chest-high weeds had been cropped to a golden-brown stubble, and a Dumpster full of trash and scrap lumber squatted in the barren front garden. The front door sported a sturdy new lock. "Timing's a bit suspicious, innit?" Buffy craned her neck up at the blank-eyed facade of the mansion. "Someone planning a fallback? Does this place connect to the sewers?" "Didn't when Angelus had us parked here, but it wouldn't be hard to tunnel into the basement. Feel anything, pet?" Buffy shook her head. "Maybe... go stand over there, all I can feel is you. I wish I didn't suck so much at the vamp-sense-y thing. Kennedy--" She broke off with a frown, concentrating. Spike returned to the Triumph, rummaged through the various useful items in the saddlebag, and produced a pair of wire-cutters. Two or three expert snips and the fence parted like a chain-mail theater curtain. Spike wheeled the bike through, looking warily around the yard, and Buffy followed. There were no white stars of jasmine at this time of year, but a wiry scrollwork of winter-killed vines etched the low stone walls of the garden, dark in the failing moonlight. Buffy touched his arm and jerked her chin in silent indication of her intention to check out the front of the house. She sheered off up the front walk, and Spike rolled the Triumph further up the drive. The place had an air of utter abandonment despite the recent improvements. Loath though he was to admit it, the mansion flat-out gave Spike the creeps, not least because it gave Buffy the creeps--not that she'd admit it, either. Too many bad memories here, for both of them, too much pain and betrayal and love ill-lost. It wasn't the dead that haunted this place, but memories of the living. Something caught his eye as he unhitched his axe from the motorcycle. Spike knelt and touched the faint marks on the concrete--mud and leaf mould, still damp, still compacted into interlocking chevrons by a boot-sole. He measured the mark with an outstretched hand, then tried to match strides and came up considerably short. Who or whatever had made it was a largish beastie. He'd stopped breathing for reasons of stealth; now he inhaled, and immediately went into a coughing fit as the overpowering scents of garlic flowers and anise assaulted his nose. Someone knew their business--most unread idiots thought it was garlic bulbs that repelled vampires. "Spike!" Buffy didn't sound urgent, but he swiped the garlic-induced tears from his eyes and hastened to her side anyway. He found her crouched on the front steps, peering in through an intact and unboarded French window. Spike dropped down beside her, wrists on knees and hands loose between. "There's been someone other than us here, and recent-like," he said, low-voiced. "There's fresh tracks on the drive. They've masked their scent, but p'raps inside..." Buffy beckoned him over to the window. "There's at least one more vampire around here somewhere," she whispered back. "I've definitely got the tinglies, and looky." Spike pressed his nose to the windowpane and cupped his hands to his eyes for a better view. Sheet-shrouded furniture rose like spectres from rubbishy graves: drifts of newspapers, old Doublemeat Place wrappers, the pathetic crumples of used condoms, and...there, in the thin stripe of moonlight--a silver stiletto-heel pump. Right in the spot where he'd sat six years ago, wheelchair-bound and fuming, while Dru urged that sodding puppy on him--could have brought him a nice toddler, but no, it had suited Angelus's idea of a joke to feed the invalid on the next step up from rats. And nowadays live dog's a treat, so suck up the irony, mate. What coals of scorn his former self would heap upon his head would make David's veiled criticism look like a Stuart Smalley special. Spike ran a hand around underside of the nearest windowsill. Would the current owners have the place wired? Or hooked up with something more advanced--one of those motion-sensitive things? Likely not; all that would do would ensure that some fool minion would set the alarm off by mistake every other day. Still, all the earmarks of a trap. He caught Buffy's eye and arched a brow. "Do we spring it?" Buffy bit a knuckle. "Come on." She rose lithely to her feet, vaulted up onto the porch railing, chinned herself on the edge of the verandah, and was up and over like a seal sliding onto the ice. Spike took a few backwards steps off the porch, got a good grip on his axe, and cleared the roof with one soaring leap. Buffy punched his arm and mouthed Showoff, and the two of them cat-footed across the rippled expanse of red clay to the nearest second-story window. Thirty years of dead pine needles crunched beneath their feet, packed so densely into the ruts of the tiles that in places the roof looked as if it had been thatched. Spike could see the drive from here, and part of the back garden, stretching away in a tangle of dead rose bushes and bare, whippy branches to the six-foot cinder-block fence which obscured the service road at the rear of the property. The moon was almost down, hanging low above the western horizon, and nothing moved beneath its half-closed eye but vagrant leaves. Mindful of loose tiles and rotting beams, the two of them nestled close to the sill squatted down beside the window. Through the cracked and dusty panes the upstairs hall was empty. "Footprints," Spike breathed, millimeters from Buffy's ear, pointing to scuffmarks her human eyes couldn't distinguish in the uncertain light. Buffy nodded and made a going-in gesture. She dug a hand into the interstices of the ancient casing, and Spike followed suit. Paint chips flaked away under his fingers. The warped wood groaned; the window inched open under the pressure--jammed, and lurched upwards again with a screech. After a long, frozen moment in which she was almost as unbreathing as he was, Buffy slid one leg and then the other over the sill, limboed through the gap and eased herself down into the hall. Spike found it a slightly tighter fit, but he encountered no resistance; whoever was in there either wasn't human, or didn't consider it a permanent residence. The first bedroom they investigated was adrift with cobwebby beer bottles, half of them shattered. A set of manacles lay tumbled in the corner, fastened to the headboard of the grim old hospital-style metal bedstead. Old blood crusted the dark metal. Spike scraped a flake or two of desiccated hemoglobin up with a fingernail and gave it an experimental taste. Nothing left of it, no scent, no savor--no telling how old it was. He licked it off his finger anyway. Buffy wrinkled her nose, and he gave her a shrug and a smirk in return. The voices came clear as they moved back into the hall--male and female, low and strained and obviously unhappy with one another. Spike touched Buffy's shoulder and pointed--master bedroom, the one Angelus had commandeered during his residence here. She nodded, pulled out a stake, and together they slunk down the corridor towards the open door at the end of the corridor. "...lay off, you're dust. I'm sick and tired of--" The male voice was hoarse, low, unrecognizable with strain. The woman's, shrill and angry and strangely familiar, broke in with, "You can't do that! Mr. Amherst will--" Buffy shot him a look; they were close enough now for her to catch most of it. So Miss Twinkletoes was one of Amherst's minions--must be a new fledge. Who was the man? Another of Amherst's? Or one of Nguyen's? They didn't sound any too chummy, but vampires would fight over card tricks just to relieve boredom. Spike tried again to pick up a scent, but the hallway stank of garlic, even worse in the confined space than it had been outside. He held his breath and prowled after Buffy, keeping close to the wall to avoid creaky boards, beset by sniffles and deja vu. How often had he lain abed up here and listened for another pair of voices, imagining creeping down the hall and wreaking violent revenge on sire and grandsire both? Six years and an entire ocean under the bridge hadn't served to blunt that old humiliation entirely, or dull the infuriating memory of the wanton screams and wild laughter that echoed down the hall from bloody fucking Angelus's room. His knuckles whitened on the axe-haft. The blade jerked minutely with the movement, scraping against the wall, and a long ragged strip of wallpaper ripped free in its wake. The voices in the master bedroom cut off as if he'd sliced them short. Bloody fucking hell! "Who's there?" The woman's voice was squeaky with apprehension. Buffy was in motion before she finished the 'there,' and Spike, cursing himself, was right behind her. A huge dark shape hurtled towards the bedroom window as they rounded the corner, and a small dark shape hurtled straight towards them. Spike heard the aerosol hiss, almost lost in the crash of breaking glass, and put two and two together just a second too late. "Gas, pet! Don't breathe!" The cannister hit the doorframe and bounced off, expelling a choking fog as it rolled to the floor. In the artificial murk, a small light-haired figure broke from the rear of the room, collided with Buffy, fell on its ass with a terrified wail and dove between Spike's legs for the door. Buffy inhaled reflexively at the blow and immediately doubled over coughing, tears streaming down her cheeks. Spike risked a sniff; vampires were susceptible to injected and ingested toxins, but generally immune to inhaled ones...as long as they didn't inhale too deeply. Ordinary tear gas, seemed like, but the garlic was doing a number on him almost as bad. He swooped down, grabbed the cannister and sent it spinning it out the window, scorching fast and hard. A gratifying thunk gave notice that he'd hit his mark, and the figure fleeing across the lawn staggered, rolled, and took off again, limping badly. Spike grabbed the helplessly retching Slayer, tossed her over one shoulder, and dove out the window after their first assailant, wreathed in a cloak of acrid white smoke. He somersaulted in mid-air and landed hard in the weed-choked back garden, folding in on himself to take the impact in his knees. Buffy was pounding not-so-weakly on his shoulder, trying to make him put her down; he hadn't been in a good riot since Watts (Prague had definitely been a bad riot) but if he remembered right, the effects of tear gas on humans didn't last for more than a few minutes once they stopped breathing the stuff. He swung Buffy to her feet and gave himself over to his own gagging fit. She was dripping tears and snot, and both of them were hatchmarked with tiny scratches and glittering shards of broken glass, but she was already reviving. Spike got his stomach under control and snorted, trying to get the lingering tang of o-chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile out of his nose; he still couldn't identify the scent of their prey, but he could bloody well smell the garlic. An engine roared to life on the service road. Spike whipped round with a snarl. The look in Buffy's eyes was a perfect match for his: No way in hell, buster. They could jump the fence, but if their quarry made it to the open street, neither of them could keep up with a moving car indefinitely. As one they broke for the motorcycle, racing across the scraggly lawn. Spike flung himself across the saddle and was tearing out almost before Buffy could grab pillion. Helmetless, they rocketed towards the tear in the fence. Buffy held tight, shielding herself behind his back, and Spike gunned the engine, ducked his head, hunched his shoulders, and shot through the opening with a rattle and a clang of mistreated aluminum. One of the cut ends of wire snagged the sleeve of his jacket, and the bike slewed crazily to one side before the leather gave. For an instant they wavered on the edge of wiping out--Spike wrestled the handlebars with every ounce of supernatural muscle he possessed, and Buffy thrust one foot out to push off the concrete with all of her considerable strength. Sparks flew, one pair of kicky ankle boots was toast, and they were upright, more or less, cornering so tightly that leather scraped asphalt on the turn. Buffy was half-standing as they skidded around the block towards the mouth of the alley, her lips pressed close to his ear so that he heard her via bone conduction more than anything else: Come on, faster, faster! The car in the alley had a head start on them, and it was running blind, headlights doused to discourage pursuit. Spike expected it to burst out of the service road ahead of them, but it didn't; once the driver had decoyed them in towards the east end of the block, he'd thrown it into reverse and was bumping down the unpaved road at fifty miles an hour in the opposite direction. Spike turned into the mouth of the road, spitting gravel in his wake, barrel-racing past the cheery blue bulks of recycling bins and the solemn black of trash cans. The car jolted to a halt at the end of the alley, and the headlights flashed on, foglights blazing their full glory. Spike threw an arm up to shield his night-sensitive eyes--no use; his vision blanked out in lurid violet-edged splotches. Utterly blind, he struggled to keep the bike on course. "Left!" Buffy yelled. Without question Spike swerved. "Straighten up!" He felt a jolt and a bang, and the ground rose beneath them. The timbre of the car's engine changed and intensified, and Spike realized that it was headed straight towards them. Buffy's fingers were digging through the heavy leather of his coat, straight down to bone, but there was no panic in her. "Wheelie! NOW!" Spike hauled back on the handlebars and the bike reared, bellowing its challenge to the onrushing behemoth. They soared into the air, free-falling towards infinity, and then the rear wheel slammed into metal, the bike's nose came down with a crash, and momentum carried them screaming down to earth again. The streaks in front of his eyes were fading, and the engine-noise was receding behind them. Bloody fucking brilliant, they'd jumped the sodding thing! "We need to turn!" Buffy shrieked in his ear. Spike shook his head. "Garlic!" he yelled back, pointing. Behind them, there was an earthshaking crash and half the lights on the block went out as the car rammed into an electric pole. Every car alarm within a quarter of a mile went off at once, a banshee cacophony that bid fair to drive him mad. The Triumph bounced out onto the pavement and Spike's nostrils flared, hunting the loathsome scent of garlic flowers. "There!" Buffy pointed, and Spike hauled the bike around and took off. Their quarry was running now, limping noticeably. It lunged for the top of the nearest fence, grabbed the top, and scrambled over. Spike braked and slewed to a stop in a flurry of dead leaves, going from bike to wall in one quicksilver leap. Buffy was right behind him, handicapped by the state of her boots, but keeping up gamely. They were over the fence, racing across the close-mown winter rye towards a line of upscale condos. A whistling howl arose from the parking lot, and as they crested the top of an artificial rise, Spike saw them: two figures locked in a wrestling match in the Visitors Only slot. One was noticeably larger than the other, and in the sickly yellow of the parking lot lights, the row of spines along its back that marked it as other than human were plainly visible. For a second it looked as if it had the upper hand, and then the smaller figure jammed something into its ribs. The demon convulsed with an inhuman shriek and collapsed to the ground. The smaller figure, obviously human now, fell with it, and the two writhed together on the ground. Buffy put on a burst of speed and flew at the demon, launching a spinning kick at its long-muzzled jaw. "My name is Buffy Summers. You killed my footwear. Prepare to die!" The demon surged to its feet with a snarl and sliced at her face with one taloned paw as she came down, while attempting to choke the man on the ground with the other--three? Four arms, grey, elephantine hide, crocodilian head ringed in a shaggy ruff of coarse iron-grey fur--what the hell was this thing? Spike caught the flailing wrist in both hands, wrenching it round behind its spiny back. Bending that mass of muscle and bone was like trying to macrame a treetrunk--some sort of Sunnydale curse in effect, that even when he brought a weapon along, he'd end up fighting bare-handed. Better that way. Spike vamped out and sank his fangs into the nearest piece of grey flesh. Buffy aimed another punishing kick at the thing's left kneecap and followed up with a series of savage blows to its midsection. The demon staggered, but ignored her to tear at the prostrate man with mindless ferocity,. "You'll not take me alive, puny human!" it roared. "Sorry, neither!" Spike caroled. The man on the ground was wearing a Kevlar vest, and so far the thing's claws had failed to penetrate. Buffy continued to deal out scientific whup-ass, kick-punch-kick, to the sweet tune of crunching ribs. The lower left arm swept back for a swing, and Spike hooked his legs around the creature's middle, pinning the arm with his thighs. The demon slammed backwards into a light-pole, and Spike narrowly escaped the loss of extremely important body parts as its dorsal spines tore into his side. He kept twisting the upper right arm, his own muscles screaming in protest, until ligament by ligament, things started to tear. The shoulder dislocated with a pop! as Buffy wrapped both arms around the demon's toothy muzzle, locking its jaws together like an alligator wrestler, and heaved it into the air, cracking the enormous body like a bullwhip. Spike leaped free in mid-crack, landing on all fours beside the human chew-toy, which stirred with a groan. There was an audible crunch of disintegrating vertebrae, and the demon crashed to the ground, limp and motionless, its long purple tongue lolling out of blood-flecked jaws. Buffy lifted one foot to examine the shredded wreck of her boot. "You have been avenged." Spike got to his feet, panting, and stared at the thing--no species he'd ever seen, and that was saying something. It was wearing a tattered assortment of old fatigues, and Army boots with the toes cut off to accommodate its formidable claws. He knelt beside the body and parted the coarse mane. Around its neck was a set of dog tags, and amongst the jingling metal was a lumpy, cloth-wrapped bundle from which emanated the worst of the garlic-stink. So... was this who they'd been chasing? It wasn't impossible--he'd assumed human or vampire, but this was largish and bipedal, more or less, and the pattern on the soles of the boots matched the tracks in the driveway. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. The garlic was giving him a headache. Buffy came up behind him, resting her hand on the small of his back, and Spike let the amulet fall. He straightened and draped an arm around her shoulders. The subject of the demon's fury rose unsteadily and backed away, running a shaky hand through his blood-matted hair. "Are you OK?" Buffy asked. "That was a--" The man turned. Tall, broad-shouldered bloke, kitted out in vaguely military-looking gear, all black doubleknit and Kevlar and an assortment of mysterious belts and pouches. Brown hair, brown eyes, open, honest-looking features. Good-looking in a deadly dull way, save for the large scar tracking across the left side of his face. His eyes went to Buffy, then to Spike, and back to Buffy again, taking in the easy placement of hands on bodies. He half-smiled, wry and pained and unsurprised. "What was that again about not needing a boyfriend with superpowers?" The rest of Buffy's sentence vanished in a startled puff of air, and her arm tightened around Spike's waist. "Well, well, well, as I don't live and breathe," Spike drawled. "Riley Finn."