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The Ostara Project - Hidden Cards -- by Kismet
Rating: PG-13
Series Description: The Ostara Project (La Femme Nikita crossover): A dark fic which examines serious issues focusing on the whole Buffy/spike Slayer/Vampire relationship.
Description: Buffy comes home for the hols to find an unexpected but not totally unwelcome visitor. However, far far away, an extremely powerful hidden government organisation is moving in for the capture.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, but author retains rights over story, which can only be used with author's permission. A work of amateur fiction and no copyright infringement is intended.
Buffy walked through the front door of her home to hear voices coming from the kitchen. She wasn't completely sure, but one of them was definitely her mother's, and the other was indistinct, low and definitely male. She grinned to herself. So this is what she gets up to when I'm not in the house.
Letting the heels of her sandals clack loudly on the floor, she headed for the kitchen. "Mom, I'm home !!!!"
She rounded the corner, then stopped stock still, her jaw dropping.
Joyce Summers turned with a smile from her conversation partner, whose black eyebrows, scarred and otherwise, nearly hit the ceiling. Then he smiled at her. A perfectly white, wolfish smile.
"Hi honey !" her mother greeted her with a hug and a kiss. "What are you doing home ? I thought you had other plans."
She could only stand rooted to the floor. "M..mmom ! What are you doing with Spike ?!"
Vampire bad, vampire very very bad, ran the voice through her head. Vampire and Mom, doubly triply bad.
"What does it look like, Slayer ?" the peroxide blond smirked at her. "Having coffee and a nice chit chat. Hello to you too."
"Spike didn't have anywhere to go for the break," Joyce Summers went to fix a cup of coffee for her daughter. "So he came back to Sunnydale. Naturally he visits every so often to talk to this lonely old woman." She flashed her daughter a wink. "Unlike some people I know."
"Can't bite, remember, love ?" he said sardonically. "Implant. Oh, and by the way, should I remind you that we've been dusting my own kindred side by side for the past couple of months, pet ?"
"That's, that's WORK !" Buffy burst out. "This is my MOM !"
Joyce rolled her eyes, sharing a smile with the blond vampire that made Buffy's teeth grind. "Sometimes I like to remember that I'm more than a mom, happy as that makes me. You sent word saying that you were going lake-side camping with Willow, Oz, Xander and Anya, remember ?"
"Oz's band got a gig in San Francisco. So Willow tagged along. I didn't feel like being the third wheel on Xander and Anya, so I came home," Buffy spluttered.
"Well, in my book three's company." Spike leaned back against the wall with his feet on the second stool and one arm resting on the counter. "So welcome back, Slayer. What are our plans for the hols ?"
"It's good that you have one of your friends to be with during the break, hon." Joyce pushed a cup of coffee into Buffy's hand. "Do sit down, dear. You look kind of pale. Was the bus ride bad ?"
The building was many feet below ground. An entire complex with its own power and water supply, completely undetectable from aboveground unless one knew where to look. Banks of machines hummed, keeping the computers and databases running, performing duties that could mean the difference between life and death for the people who worked there and quite possibly the world. In other areas, on other levels, the machines kept the high security systems up 24-hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. In these areas the corridors were silent, unlike the mass-access areas of the central complex, offices and briefing rooms where people moved. All of these people were as varied as race, background and gender could be, but there was one similarity to all of them. They moved with the spare, unhurried gait of killers, their eyes shuttered except on rare occasions.
Up above the main level, in a pleasantly decorated office with banks of orchids growing on pinewood frames, two of the most important people in the entire complex were having afternoon tea. They were old friends and workmates and the link of shared power and responsibility bound them even closer together. It was necessary to work in tandem, even for them, for the work was dangerous and full of traps and pitfalls, the politics Machiavellian and the secrets numerous.
"The tea is wonderful," the white-haired man said with a smile over the rim of his thin porcelain cup. He was middle-aged, his mouth wry and his eyes cool behind thin glasses, yet there was not a spare ounce of fat on his body and he could move with the ease and power of a much younger man. Indeed, he could have beaten most, for experience was what he had, but none of those who worked for him would have ever dreamed going physically up against the man they knew only as Operations. "But I know you did not ask me here to compliment your food, Madeleine."
The dark-haired woman smiled. Hers was a mature beauty of assurance, intelligence and expressive eyes, but in some ways she was even more dangerous than the man sitting before her. "We do this often enough to enjoy each other's company. Why question me now ?"
His mouth crooked in a smile. "Because I know you. Today's tea wasn't for companionship. So what is it ?"
Madeleine set down her cup, leaning back as she looked at her old friend. "Do you remember The Initiative ?"
The man's brow furrowed slightly. "That little, privately funded organisation ? If I remember correctly we have data and surveillance on them, but they were never of any concern or likely to be since the results our last team brought back."
She nodded her assent. "Their...containment leaked some time ago."
The man's smile had a trace of contempt in it. "They never had the expertise or the training to deal with such unpredictable variables. No good will come of the whole program."
"Not quite." She stood and went to her desk, picking up the tiny remote control. When she flicked a button a panel in the wall slid back to reveal a flat-screen which pushed forward. A video-feed began playing. And as the scenes played, the man sat up, a look of concentration on his face.
When the video ended, Madeleine pushed the pause button, freezing the frame on a blurry close-up of a face.
Operations let out a little sigh of regret. "It always amazes me every time I see it. They are beautiful killers." His mouth quirked. "It is...unfortunate that our own little project had to be abandoned. Section One could use a few of them, if the wild instincts are sufficiently curbed."
"Which is what I wanted to talk to you about." Madeleine leaned against the desk. "Our surveillance team has gone in a few times, as you know. They were able to pick up data from the databases. It seems this little effort has managed to go further than we thought."
"In what manner ?"
"The subject you see before you was the subject of a new experiment. One which obviously works." She explained.
"And you're suggesting we use this technology to..."
"No. It's too risky and too soon. I was suggesting that perhaps we have found a way to reopen our own little project." She flipped another button on the remote and a new face appeared onscreen, complete with bio. "This, is the new variable. Do you remember the legends of the Chosen One ?"
"Myth."
"Reality. You are looking at the girl of this generation, born for the sole purpose of protecting us from evil of the arcane and supernatural nature. Her abilities and limits you can see from the fact sheet, but that is not what concerns me. I took the liberty of putting a red flag on the girl, and at one point we were able to acquire samples from the local hospitals. The results of our tests were the foundations of a major breakthrough. However, until now we lacked the opportunity or means to begin. Now, with the new information the surveillance has provided, I think we can think of something." And she told him what she had planned.
As he listened to her, Operations began to smile.
The vampire crashed into the bins at the end of the alley, making a noise enough to wake the dead. Or undead. As it was, he barely had time to look up dazedly before one of his pack came flying down the alley to crash on top of him.
Buffy ducked a high-kick and dropped, spinning on one heel to take out her attacker's feet from under him. Before he could react she had one knee on his chest, stake raised high. "Say goodnight, asshole."
There was a thud of flesh against flesh and someone or something grunted behind her, breath flooding out over her neck. She thrust the stake in and rolled away, coming up on her feet only to see Spike twist the female's neck viciously with a sharp snap. For good measure the knife went in, then there was nothing but ash.
The remaining two looked at each other, then turned tail and ran.
With a snarl that reminded her forcibly of a beast of prey, Spike went after them. She watched as he brought them down as easily as a tiger bringing down deer. A little scuffling, one scream, and it was over.
"You needn't have done that," she said as he got up, brushing down his duster.
"Then they'd go back and spread the word, and the next thing I know I'm the one with the bloody bounty on my head." He shifted back to human face. Evidently, the control of the implant did not extend to demons or the undead.
Buffy feigned amazement. "Are you admitting that you're not the best there is around, or are my ears deceiving me ?"
"You were probably hit on the head, though how that penetrated your thick skull I can't friggin' guess." He scowled at her. "There are worse things than other vampires, you know. Like bounty hunters. I'm not saying I can't bloody handle them, I would just prefer not to have to skulk around like some fugitive."
"You couldn't possibly, not with the size of your ego."
"And you couldn't possibly, not with the size of your chest," he said crudely.
Buffy flushed, and Spike laughed inside. Really, all those curves on that slender frame….. it was just too much ! And so good to look at….he mentally slapped himself. Get a grip, mate. Remember who she is ? If she didn't need the help so bad she'd probably stake you. Remember how she made you beg at the door ? If Giles hadn't been there you would probably have roasted to a crisp…
The old, familiar diatribe. He had been using it for the last few months, and seemed to be developing an immunity to it. Either that, or she was growing even more damn beautiful.
"Pervert !"
And I'd really like to be a pervert with you, pet. "As opposed to old maid ?" he taunted. "What are you doing on Slayer patrol on Saturday night, love ? Can't get a date ?"
With a growl Buffy snapped her stake in half and stomped off out of the alley.
I'm starting to enjoy this too much, he thought, shaking his head as he headed off after her.
"This mission is somewhat dissimilar from what you all have previously been doing," Operations was saying.
They were in the briefing room. And strangely enough, both Madeleine and Operations were present.
Nikita looked around the table. Birkoff and Walter were there, of course, but there were two teams present. Herself, Michael, Lindon and Forrest made one team and Graham, Martin, Louis and Vichauski the other. She knew only Michael well, and Graham and Lindon from previous missions. The others she only knew in passing, but it was obvious that the two teams had been made up of some of Section's favoured operatives. There were two Level 5s present, and Nikita narrowed her eyes as she waited for Operations to begin.
He tapped a few keys, and the holograph-screen rose up in the air in the centre of the long table. "There are two targets this time. The first," he gestured to the blurry picture of the young man, "Goes by the name of Lansen Fitzgerald. His true name is unknown. Age uncertain. Nationality, British."
He couldn't be more than twenty-five, Nikita thought as she looked at the picture. Eyes of a dark, indeterminate colour under dark brows which contrasted starkly with white blond hair. Tall, slender of build. She couldn't make out much else because for some reason this was not the normal headshot. The target was half-turning, his long coat whirling around, with just a glimmer of his face over his shoulder.
Graham voiced her opinion. "We can't tell much from that."
"This is the only image we have," said Operations with a twist of his mouth. "From a video feed. The target has, effectively, no identity."
"Why ?" asked Michael quietly.
"Only about six months ago the target escaped from the holdings of a group who call themselves The Initiative, where he was a participant in an ongoing experimentation and observation program."
Nikita felt a chill in the pit of her belly at those words. An unwilling participant, Operations had neglected to say.
"As a result there is not much information with which to work. However, be warned that the target is psychotic, with an ingrained urge to kill and an extremely high skill level in hand to hand combat as well as great strength. Do NOT underestimate him. Locating the target was extremely difficult and might not have succeeded if not for his one link to the second target." Operations tapped the keys again, and the display changed, this time to the picture of a young girl.
Why, thought Nikita, she can't even be out of high school yet ! Long, honey coloured, sun-streaked hair and a sweetly rounded face with large hazel eyes. The set of the chin showed stubborn strength.
"Name: Buffy Anne Summers. An undergraduate at the University of - - -. At present her location is in the small town of Sunnydale, a few hours drive from Los Angeles. We believe that she might be an earlier subject of The Initiative's program, re-inserted into society. Again do NOT underestimate her. The target has shown no signs of psychosis, but is also highly skilled in combat with unnatural strength, traits she shares with the first target, whom we believe is keeping regular contact with her." With the tap of a key, Operations closed the console.
"The mission: take both targets alive and if possible, unharmed. This must be a clean sweep; it is imperative that no one be able to trace them. And a last, very important condition. Both targets must not be, in any situation, exposed to direct sunlight."
"Michael," said Madeleine, "Create a mission profile. Birkoff has already run simulations which you may find useful. Both teams will meet back at 0600 hours. The plane for Los Angeles leaves at 0830 hours."
Dismissed, the agents left the room in ones and twos. Nikita was last, behind Birkoff, and she followed him to his workstation, sinking down into a chair. Her pale blue eyes stared into space as she thought.
He was the first to break the silence. "This one is hard, Nikita. I know, but Section has done worse." His eyes peered out at her anxiously from behind his modern, tinted glasses, his smooth young face worried.
"I know, Birkoff....but, they're so young ! What could Section possibly want with them when they have no terrorist ties ?" It was as if she was seeing her own youth, wasted away in the wallow of drugs and poverty, then in jail and in the cold, luxurious, deadly clutch of the Section.
"The program," the young man reminded her. "The info says that The Initiative may have been researching gene manipulation, and you heard what Operations said. It sounds as if they have managed to create the perfect soldier, and with the man, the perfect killing machine. And as you know the way it is with new weapons..."
"The terrorists are the first buyers," Nikita finished, flashing a small smile at him. "Thanks, Birkoff. I needed that."
"Don't become too relaxed," Birkoff said in a low tone. "Madeleine wants you."
Nikita turned to see the woman beckoning to her.
Minutes later she was sitting in the pleasant office with the orchids, staring at the pen and ink sketches on the table in front of her. At the file reports. At the black and white photographs of the dead. "What is this ?" she whispered in horror.
"The impossible," answered Madeleine with a nod of her neat head. "The Initiative's program has birthed monsters, monsters whose work you see here, whose true faces you see in the sketches. No photographs have ever been taken. Imagine what would happen if the results of this research were to fall into the wrong hands."
Nikita's fingers fanned out over the pictures as though to shut them out of her sight, then clenched together. "Why are you telling me this ? Does Michael know ?"
"No," answered the older woman with perfect composure. "Did you notice that you were the only woman on the mission ?" She smiled at the blond agent's nod. "And I know you wondered why. In the length of your time with us you have shown surprising insight into human nature, Nikita. You can read people and anticipate their reactions, what they will do. In fact I was telling Operations that we should give you training in the field of Psychology; it can be very helpful in this line of work as I can attest to myself." She sounded friendly, confidential, but Nikita knew better than to believe the illusion. She had grown since she first came to Section, and after Adrian there had been no turning back.
"I want you to get close to the girl," Madeleine continued. "Talk to her, gain her confidence if possible. If not, merely softening her towards you will be sufficient; as long as she views you as less of a threat than the others. We have reason to believe that Hostile 17, as the male target was known as, is the key to a net pattern of these monsters spread out through the country, and may have terrorist ties. She is his weak link." She nodded her head, and recognising the silent dismissal, the blond operative stood to leave before Madeleine added, "And Nikita ? Don't tell Michael. No operative of ours has ever worked with such a case before, and I have reason to believe that he may have difficulties resigning himself to this, particularly when he sees you approaching the girl. He might do something...inadvisable..."
"......and you will not speak a word of this to anyone," Operations was saying in his office high above the central complex, from which he could view the processing and intel center.
"Of course," Michael said in his slightly accented voice ,with the barest touch of contempt for such an obvious reminder.
"Not even Nikita." Operations smiled. He knew more than Michael would have liked to discover. "Knowledge of this sort can be a danger, especially considering Nikita's flaw. If she should develop an attachment to the girl it could result in disaster. These are not ordinary people we are dealing with here. Remember that."
Nikita saw Michael in the corridor after that, and fell in step with him. "What do you think of this mission ?"
He looked straight ahead with his customary expression of guileless calm. "What is there to think about it ?"
Upstairs, Madeleine and Operations stood together at the wall composed completely of bullet-proof glass.
"Do you think she is capable of doing it ?" Operations furrowed his brow. "Nikita is one of our best operatives, I know, even as a lower-level op, but she is...unpredictable."
"She will do it, Paul." The slender woman folded her hands behind her back with supreme confidence. "I spoke the truth; I think that Nikita may be one of those few who will reach full potential. She's not a cold-blooded killer or someone who separates their lives into the part that kills on order and the part that is untouched. She experiences each, with full awareness and full regret and perhaps it is that very humanity which can make her more ruthless than anyone else even though she isn't aware of it."
"What do you really think, Madeleine, about this 'Chosen One' ? Very young to be a killer."
"They come into the work young, and by all accounts they die young. This one is an anomaly simply because she has outlived most, and I think perhaps there is some similarity between her and Nikita."
"Should we try taking her ? After."
Madeleine smiled. "Perhaps."
"This is going to hurt," Buffy warned as she braced her leg against the side of the tub.
Spike gritted his teeth, sitting bent over on the edge of the tub and naked to his waist. The bruises and more superficial cuts had already healed, but there was a bad slash across his chest, from collarbone down slanting across his chest to where the lean ridges of muscle began on his belly. It gaped open, already crusted with blood as his body tried to heal itself. Nasty, that one, having been inflicted with a knife freshly dipped in holy water.
"Just get on with it, would you Slayer ? I'm not going to scream like some bloody poofter if that's what you're worried about, not being Angel and all."
"If you say so." Buffy clutched hard and twisted, popping the dislocated arm back into its socket, not sparing the force. She was absurdly satisfied to see the muscles jump in his back and the hollows of his cheeks clench starkly even though he gave out nothing but a grunt.
"That little bit extra was for Angel, wasn't it ?" he let out when he could trust himself to speak without it coming out suspiciously high-pitched.
"I'm more healed than all of you think," she snapped, picking up needle and thread. "Sit up and let's see about that gash."
"I know that girls nowadays aren't too good with needles, but try not to make me look like a patchwork quilt." He didn't even flinch when the needle went in now. As an older vampire, you acquired a high threshold of pain tolerance. "Drucilla now, she was good with the needle."
Buffy's fingers stilled for a moment before she remembered and continued with her gory task. He had never spoken about the vampiress to her before, not since the break-up.
"Must have come from bein' a little convent girl an' all," a little of his Cockney slipped through as the needle continued pulling through his flesh, drawing the edges together. "She'd actually sit down with a bleedin' embroidery hoop, making roses bleeding drops of blood an' the loike. Not that I cared much, I suppose. Kept her quiet when I needed space. Cor, I miss those quiet nights sometimes, you know ? Just sitting there reading or watching the telly, and her in her chair surrounded by all those skeins of coloured silks. Done ?" He looked down at the neat railroad-tracks holding the line of the wound together, and with his finger he collected the few drops of blood that had escaped and licked them up. "Your turn, Slayer."
"No needles," she warned as she sat beside him, pulling up the back of her t-shirt. "Acriflavin will do."
This had come to be routine now. Since they fought together, killed together and guarded each others backs, it only seemed right that they patched each other up after. Buffy actually found that she enjoyed this routine. After the adrenaline and uncurbed violence of the hunt, this quiet, reflective time in the bathroom was pleasant, calming. She also found that, surprisingly, Spike was a good person to spend time with, his brand of sarcastic humour and witticism a match for hers, his mood swings uncannily matching her emotions.
Like two women living together whose menstruation aligns. She bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud at the thought.
He dabbed carefully at the half-healing cuts with the cotton bud, fingers gently passing over the bruises, their cool seeming to draw out the ache.
"Don't get the stuff on my shirt," she warned. "It's new and I like it."
"Then it would help if you took the shirt off, pet," he said sardonically. "After all I've taken mine off for you, and more."
She felt herself blushing strangely as she remembered that. His legs were smoothly muscled like those of a statue carved out of marble, his form like something made by a sculptor with slim hips and waist broadening smoothly as the lines rose upwards. A contrast to Angel, who, though none the less superbly formed, was larger, heavier with defined musculature, dwarfing her already tiny frame. Spike's was a lean hard body with only the suggestion of muscle which did not become evident till he moved and the rippling patterns rose under his skin.
Why were all the cute ones all bloodsucking vamps, she wondered crossly. Wait, had she just thought of Spike as cute ?
"Well ? Are we going to stay here all night ?" the man in question demanded, folding his arms across his chest. "This is not maidenly virtue you're treating me to, are you, love ?"
"Don't you dare get cheap thrills from this," she warned as she stood and took hold of the bottom of the baby tee before pulling it up over her head.
Despite himself Spike swallowed. The grace of the gesture had been unconsciously sensual, and the act of raising her arms had lengthened the muscles of her waist and narrowed it further in contrast to the curve of hip and bust. Mentally, he smacked himself and got down on one knee, concentrating on the nasty fingernail scrapes across her abdomen.
"Oooh, a proposal," she said dryly as he contemplated the minor injuries. "My first."
"Don't put your hopes on it, pet." He angled his head closer, frowning as if in concentration. "These don't need anything," he said. "Maybe just a little soothing." Before she knew what he was doing his tongue flicked out and licked across the healing raw flesh.
Buffy squealed at the cool wet and slapped at him as he darted back, laughing, the quick burn of the residue of blood on his tongue. It was a true laugh, coming up from in him as he danced out of her reach, softening the sharp planes and angles of his face as mirth took over for a few precious moments.
"You are so dead !" Buffy growled in mock threat as she grabbed a wet towel and snapped it menacingly.
"I'm already dead, love. Nothing you can improve on." He just managed to evade the flick of the towel and backed out of the doorway, turning to dart out onto the landing and down the stairs.
The watchers outside could see most of the horseplay as Slayer chased Vampire through the otherwise empty house, both shrieking with laughter. The one in slacks and a plain black brassiere and the other in black jeans, both shirtless and barefoot and finding pure childish enjoyment in the game.
Afterwards they collapsed in the den with a bowl of honeyed popcorn and hot chocolate, watching 'The Matrix' for the third time. Spike enjoyed the high-tech fairytale and its visions of the future, but thought Keanu Reeves was a wuss. The translation of biblical characters into Generation-Y context made him double up with laughter. The fight scenes they watched closely, commenting on the moves and absorbing what they could.
"I think he's attractive," Buffy concluded, watching Keanu Reeves dodge flying bullets in black shades and a very dramatic black trench-coat. "In a mature, yet smooth faced way."
"He's a pansy," Spike said decisively, lying on his stomach on the rug. "A poseur. The girl, though, I wouldn't mind biting."
"She'd probably whip your arse."
"You haven't managed to yet."
Buffy was still wondering whether this was a roundabout means of complimenting her when he reached back and his cold fingers fastened lightly around her ankle. Her breath stilled.
"Hmmm," Spike remarked after a few seconds. "Do I detect a raise in pulse-rate, love ? We're sexually attracted to the wuss onscreen, are we ?"
She smacked his hand lightly. "At least I don't have wet dreams. Men are disgustingly obvious." Then she heaved a sigh. "It's not that I'm lucky in love, at any rate. Just look at my track record."
It took a moment to register in his head. Was she actually talking about Angel ? To him ?!
"My first love became a monster after we made love, then he went to Hell by my hand. Then I get conned into bed by the Campus Casanova like some inexperienced idiot, and my next would-be suitor is a creep who works for a covert agency." She stared at the screen stonily. "There won't be any heroes in white, or black for that matter." She looked at him with a brave little smile. "It hurt, you know ? Losing Angel and then having him back, close but never in reach. In the fairy-tales love never hurt."
She was telling him her heart, he realised. In return for his frankness about Drucilla, or was it because she trusted him ?
She gave a little, awkward laugh. "I've never told this to anyone, not even Willow."
The admission touched him in a way he had thought impossible. Rising smoothly, he settled into a cross-legged position beside her and took her hand, turning it palm up and spreading the slender fingers. He ran his fingertips lightly over the skin, tracing the fine lines running over it.
"Do you see this ?" His finger stopped. "Love line. You have a strong, unbroken mark here that says you will find love, even if the journey to get it is arduous."
Buffy stared at his bowed blond head, mesmerised. That was before he looked up with serious blue eyes at her. "Not that I like Angel, the wanker, but what you had with him was real. Real love burns, love, it hurts. It sweeps you away like the tide and makes you powerless and powerful at the same time. It makes sacrifices possible, and when it is time to stop, you stop with no regrets, taking it to hold to your heart like a sacred flame as something to remember." He stopped then, dropping his gaze to her hand again which he still held in his strong fingers, and she knew that he was speaking as much of Drucilla and himself as her and Angel. "For you, love, there is no need for heroes."
She had never heard anything as beautiful in her life, and from him of all people. "You're a poet, and I never knew."
"Well," he said, letting go of her hand. "You can't hang around Angel for a century and not pick up some bleedin' bad habits." He turned back to the television, settling himself against the couch. "Your favourite part, love, where pretty-boy beats the heck out of a computer virus."
But flippancy could not erase that moment, or the dimension of warmth it added to their growing camaraderie.
The movie ended in the early hours of the morning. In companionable silence they cleaned up and dressed, Buffy in her nightshirt and robe and Spike in his shirt and duster.
"I'll call it a night, love," he said to her at the door. "Where to tomorrow ?"
"Well," she hesitated. It had been on her mind for the past few days and she had not had the courage to say it for fear of being misunderstood. That had been before this night. "This really great band is playing at the Bronze tomorrow, and we've done so much slaying lately I thought we could take a night off. Do you dance ?"
He looked up in something like surprise before the usual cocky assurance came back. "As long as it isn't some cheesy girly band, love."
"Ever heard of Delirium ?" She laughed when he shook his head. "Figures. You're stuck in the days of the Sex Pistols and Metallica."
"And you wouldn't know Verdi's Four Seasons from Orff's Carmina Burana."
"You know classical ?" Buffy was stunned.
He grinned at her from the dark outside. A coldly beautiful predator's smile, with a dangerous charm that was palpable. "I was turned before some of those composers were even born, love."
She shook her head in wonder as she closed the door. He really was the weirdest person, but nice.
Nice. She savoured the word on her tongue, then shook her head.
"Bed, Buffy, bed."
Spike discovered, much to his chagrin, that he was bouncing on his feet.
He couldn't help it. He felt relaxed, at ease, almost...happy.
"And next you'll be singing 'We are the World'. Snap out of it, mate. Just because your fangs have been 'drawn' doesn't mean you become a nancy-boy."
He drove fast, the cold wind lashing at him, cleansing his head and heightening his senses as the De Soto purred down the streets. Life was certainly strange; he was actually going dancing with the Slayer. He hadn't danced since....the good times with Dru. He wasn't even sure if he knew all there was to know about modern dancing, but then vampires were powerful mimics. He'd learn, as he learnt everything else.
He still didn't know where he would go from here, but he had a purpose. Hyperactive both in body and mind, he needed a purpose, a cause to work at to keep him from going around the bend. He had always been the one to go looking for trouble, the one who wanted to break things just to see how much noise they would make. The first one to jump into a fight. That had been what attracted Angelus to him all those years ago, that impetuousness. Later it had irritated the hell out of him. Even back in the days when he had no soul, Angel had always been more quiet, more reticent even though he controlled with a firm and punishing hand.
"Should have seen the seeds in you then, sire of mine." He took as last puff of his cigarette and deliberately pinched out the ember at the end. Angel irritated the hell out of him in turn, but sometimes.....it was good to know that he wasn't in Hell. Good to know he was still around, even though he didn't want him in the same town.
The De Soto's tires took the bump gently as he eased down the drive, slipping his key-tag into the slot to open the entrance of the underground garage. He lived, for now, in the penthouse suite in a six-floor building. Luxurious enough, private enough, but low enough so he could leap down in case of an emergency without breaking anything in his undead body.
He switched off the engine, whistling a disjointed little tune as he vaulted over the door, Doc Martens hitting the floor with characteristic lightness in a way a human would find impossible to duplicate. The keys jingled in his hands as he walked towards the lifts. He was in such a good mood that he was not on full alertness.
He sensed them too late. The sensation of eyes watching, presences in the shadows. In a swirl of black duster he whirled. Nothing moved, but his vampire senses tingled.
With a curse he dashed for the car, but it was already too late. They were here, they had found him again. The panic that crashed through him was coloured by fear as much as rage as memories of captivity and starvation came back to him. Not powerlessness, never again.
The first dart that smacked into his neck made him growl as he turned the key in the ignition. The second one gave him only enough time to clap his hand to his neck before he was out cold.
"OK, Spike, this is not funny," Buffy grumbled as she got blearily up out of bed. The insistent ringing of the doorbell reverberated in her head and dissipated down into her very feet as she stumbled out onto the landing. "I'm going to rip your undead heart out if this is not because your house burnt down or some big, slimy monster just bust up your car." Her mother was out of town for two days on business, and there was no one else who would be at the door at this time of night.
"Coming already !" She hopped off the last two steps and stubbed her toe. Grumbling darkly, she made her way to the door and unlatched the chain, turning the locks before she swung it open. "Look, there are some of us who like to sleep at night you...."
Her words trailed off as her sleep-fuzzed mind registered the fact that the black-suited figure on the step was not Spike. She had seen suits and equipment like that before only in the hands of certain people.
Whirling, she swung the door desperately, but the butt of a gun jammed into the crack, stopping it from closing. She tore up the steps, taking them two, three at a time as she raced for the bedroom. She could get out the window there. They musn't...she must....
It was on the landing that the first dart hit her in the thigh. It stung, and almost immediately the numbness began spreading, making her knee buckle under her. She hit the floor with a thud, plucking out the dart as the two black-clad figures with their masked faces approached. With deadly aim she threw the dart, and was rewarded with a grunt from the taller figure even as her vision blurred.
The first figure stopped, looking carefully at the blacked-out girl as it spoke into the comm. "Target acquired. Graham down."
"Good, Josephine," came the familiar voice. Only Michael ever called her that. "Team Two, in. Retrieval."
The operatives sat together in silence in their cars. Graham was not completely blacked out, most of the tranquillisers having been absorbed into the girl's bloodstream, but his arm dangled, numbed, and he slurred his speech. Whatever had been on those darts had been powerful.
Looking over at Michael's impassive face, Nikita felt a twinge of doubt. This had been too easy. Yet things might just become more difficult. They had just received new orders. There had been difficulty arranging for a windowless private plane to land and depart without remark or notice at the international airport. A small complication, nothing they couldn't fix, but it did mean they would have to hold the targets in Los Angeles for two days.
She closed her eyes as she leaned back and in so doing missed Michael's glance.
In the sealed off rear of the second silver van two figures lay slumped on the floor. Though unconscious they were in heavy restraints, feet and hands cuffed to rings in sides of the van as it travelled steadily through the night, heading for the City of Angels.
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