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Fated Series - Prelude -- by Kismet
Rating: NC-17
Description: The news reaches town - Drucilla is dead. Anger and pain needs an outlet, and when Buffy makes the mistake of spying, Spike takes things into his own hands with startling results only to be seen by the wrong people.
Disclaimer: This is a work of amateur fiction. All characters etc. are the property of their respective creators and no copyright infringement is intended. The author reserves rights over her work and storyline. Feel free to read and enjoy, though ! (Song lyrics by David Bowie for the movie soundtrack 'The Labyrinth')
"Are you OK, Will ?" a worried Slayer helped her friend back inside the dorm room they shared as smoke cleared in the hallways outside. The sirens were ringing but could have been nightingales singing for all she cared.
Willow coughed, trying to get her breath back as she nodded. "As OK as a person who has had a vampire try to bite them three times can be. And that was before the masked people came out. Who were they, Buffy?"
"I don't know." Buffy settled her friend onto the bed, automatically noting the smashed lamp and the mess in the room. Impatiently she pushed the 'stop' button on the Cd player, cutting off the racket. "Thank God !" Then it registered in her brain. "A vampire ?! Here ?"
Willow nodded again. "Spike. He's back." And then she flushed, remembering the conversation they had shared. *Weird much !*
Buffy didn't notice; she was too busy trying to sort out the night's crazy events. "Spike's back ? And you invited him in ? Why ?!"
"I didn't know, I was just...mooning, and I thought it was you or Riley; he just knocked so normally on the door like an ordinary person you know and I just called out and then he was there!" The strain was suddenly too much for her on top of the whole business with Oz leaving, and Willow dissolved into tears.
Buffy clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified at herself for tearing into Willow. She immediately dropped down and put her arms around her friend. "I'm sorry Will, I'm so sorry. My big mouth running away with me again. Sshhh," she stroked her friend's red hair. "Everything will be all right Will, I promise!"
And all the time her brain was whirring. Who were those commando guys ? And what did Willow mean Spike had tried to bite her three times ?
TIME FRAME : TWO MONTHS LATER
LOCATION : LOS ANGELES, ANGEL INVESTIGATIONS MAIN OFFICE
"Cover the phones for me, I'm going out for a cappuccino," Cordelia said as she threw down the magazine she had been reading and took up her purse.
Angel glanced up from his book. "Why can't you take the coffee here ?"
Cordelia made a face and rolled her eyes. "That gunk doesn't even qualify as coffee !"
"More like a direct caffeine shot to the brain," put in Doyle's rolling Irish lilt. "What do you say you and me make it a double cappuccino ?" He waggled his eyebrows hopefully.
Cordelia grimaced. "If I want everyone on the street to think I'm a dork I think I'll just have a sign made and hang it on my back, thank you very much. See you guys."
"But you make the coffee!" Angel was saying when the door closed behind her. He looked to Doyle for affirmation.
Doyle shrugged his shoulders. "Women; don't ask me because I haven't got a clue."
The two non-human males shared a look of understanding and were just settling back into their respective chairs when the phone rang. Both reached out at the same time and were rewarded for their efforts when their knuckles cracked against each other painfully above the receiver.
Doyle bit back an oath and put his injured hand to his mouth. "You bloody vampires have bones made of cement!"
Manfully disguising the fact that his knuckles were throbbing rhythmically, Angel picked up the receiver. "Hello, Angel Investigations, we.." he hesitated, trying to remember Cordelia's opening spiel. "We hope you're hopeless." In the background Doyle snorted. Angel listened for a while then looked up. "It's for you."
Doyle's brows drew together as he took the receiver. "Hello!"
Angel tried to go back to his book, but paused when Doyle's frown grew ever deeper. The conversation lasted about two minutes before Doyle reached over and smacked the receiver back down.
"We've got news, Angel. That was one of my sources." Doyle looked meaningfully at Angel.
Angel merely stared back at him.
"He thought we might find this interesting, you being head P.I. and all. Does the name of a dame called Drucilla ring a bell?"
Angel folded forwards immediately, sleek as a panther, all attention now. "What about her ?"
"Well, she's dead."
The silence had a stunned quality to it. "How ?"
"She and her latest boyfriend had a big argument. From what you told me I remember she didn't have quite all the lights on upstairs, and the word is he got fed up after a while. Fought over something small, and he ended up shoving her onto some steel rods sticking out of a wall at a construction site, but not before she tore his throat out."
Another silence as Angel digested the information. "How many know ?"
"The word's the headline on the vampire grapevine, bud."
Mentally Angel groaned as a face flashed into his mind. "I think you'd better place a call to Sunnydale fast, Doyle. If the word's out, my guess is the shit's about to hit the fan, and we're going to have trouble on our hands."
TIME FRAME : SAME NIGHT, 2200 HOURS.
LOCATION : THE INITIATIVE, HOME BASE
It was another normal night for the people at the Initiative. Patrol, zapping a few vamps, more experiments on the latest casualties of feeding time.
The rows of containment cells were cold, pristine and silent. The newest inmate woke to see white everywhere, all around him.
With a low growl he rose painfully to his feet and looked wildly around. Walls around him, but there was nothing in front. He walked up to it cautiously and raised a finger, then shot back hissing with pain as the electric field came to life.
Another noise, a mechanical one this time, made him look up just as a compartment in the ceiling opened and dropped a bloodbag on the ground before him.
Game face snarling, he scooped it up and tore the neck open, raising it to his lips.
"Don't drink it !" a voice echoed out from somewhere near him, the echoes making it hard to pinpoint exactly where the speaker was.
He dropped the bag in shock and the blood sloshed onto the floor. He swore. "Whoever you are, you'd better have good explanation for that!"
"It's drugged," explained the voice. "That's how they do it here. They starve you, then drop those bags down from time to time. It knocks you out, and then that's the last anyone is going to see of you."
He considered this information for a moment. "Who are you ?" The voice was definitely vampiric. There was a smell of humans here, but it was faint and almost masked by the antiseptic smell of the place. Probably the smell of those fuckers who had ambushed him.
"Someone who's been in here too long." The voice laughed harshly at this, and for the first time he realised the rasp was the sound of weakening, the sound of someone who had not fed for some time.
He felt the hunger pulling in his veins, and ice settled into the bottom of his stomach. "Isn't there any way to get out of here ?"
"There was one guy who got out, two months ago. Faked dead and killed the guys in the lab coats. Since then security has been so tight not even a louse could get out. Those armed men come in with the docs now, and anyone who tries to get past gets fried." The voice coughed, then said, "So, any news from outside ? They don't give us a copy of the Daily Mail here, so we're kind of out of date. Practically bouncing off the walls with boredom, man."
"I hear you." The newcomer crouched warily in a corner of his cell, frantically thinking of how to get out of this mess. "Latest news is really big, and I mean really big."
"What ?" said the voice eagerly, and the newcomer felt a chill to hear the desperate, almost pitiful anticipation in it.
"You know William the Bloody ? Well, his long-time queen dropped him and hooked up with this demon a while ago. He's dusted her, and she's killed him too."
A long whistle ensued from the other. "William the child of Angelus himself ? Shit, I thought him and the queen were glued together, man."
"As the story goes he still thinks it should be that way. We're all waiting for him to come out of the woodwork and pick the word up. There'll be bloody hell to pay then, and those outside better watch their step. Knowing his reputation, he's going to go on a tear."
"Lucky for us we're stuck in here then." Again that hollow laugh. "William the Bloody wouldn't be stuck in here like us, no sir."
That was the very sentiment that was rankling in the woman's mind as she sat at her metal desk, irritably grading a stack of papers. By night, the head of the Initiative. By day, Professor Walsh to her students.
She dropped her pen as the intercom crackled to life. "He's here as requested, ma'am."
"Good. Send him to the briefing room." She got up decisively and jabbed at the numbered panel in the wall, then strode out as the door swished back, her lab coat swirling around her shins.
Riley and team were waiting in the white-walled, grey-carpeted room, sitting on the chairs which stood in neat rows as if in a tutorial class. The only other pieces of furniture were a desk and a wheeled stand, on which stood a television set.
"I'm sure all of you remember our escapee, number 11," she began without preamble. "It seems he was even more important than we thought."
"What!" the tall, broad-shouldered young man with the sun-streaked hair began, but a glance from her cut him off.
"These are a few of the most recent episodes of that series which we have been monitoring."
One of the team groaned. "Not that cheesy, cash-in-on-the-bandwagon flick again ! Vampire slayers my arse, we're the ones doing all the work here."
"I'm sure you'll find this less than cheesy, Agent, so sit in your chair and glue your mouth shut," the woman said briskly, used to dealing with a lifetime's worth of obnoxious students. Picking up the remote, she flicked a few buttons.
The sound of the theme song filled the room, and in spite of himself Riley began to tap his foot. It really was rather catchy. And the girl in the role of the vampire slayer was cute, though she wasn't as cute as Buffy. A small smile pulled up the corner of his mouth. Buffy. He could melt in her eyes, kiss her little upturned nose and tangle his fingers in her silky hair.
Then as the flicker of images proceeded, he lost his smile and sat up. A murmur rose from his teammates.
All in all they sat through three or four episodes back to back, without interruption.
A lot of it was junk that had no connection at all, but a sufficient amount of it was familiar enough to be disturbing. And the last episode was the worst of all. He watched in baffled disbelief as Number 11's escape was re-enacted in near perfect detail, down to the beating they had received at the hands of a mysterious figure, who turned out ridiculously enough to be the little Slayer.
The room was dead silent when Professor Walsh switched off the set. "I think you gentlemen will agree with me that it is imperative that we find Subject 11 as soon as possible."
"No kidding," said one of the guys, stunned. "I wish our serum was as neat as the implants on the show, it would make the whole thing easier. All we can manage is a five hour effect triggered by violent brain-impulses before the vamp's system destroys the enzyme. And no tracker either."
"In order for us to advance that far we need at least five decades more with ample subjects for research," replied the Professor grimly. "And I want to find out more about this series. It would be very interesting to find out just how much is truth and how much is fiction."
"Only one person could have given the producers this information," Riley spoke up. "Number 11."
"I agree with you there," the woman nodded her head.
"Can we trace him through the film company ? Find out who the scriptwriters are or something. There must be a definite trail there!"
"Give me more credit, young man," she snapped. "Those leads were covered long before I called you. The Initiative is still in relative infancy, and is in no shape to go after global super-companies with close-mouth policies. As far as we've gone all we know is that they're stone-faced about it, and it's further proof that people out there know. What we need to find out is why they're keeping their mouths shut. But if the series is to be believed, Number 11 is not only a special catch because of his blabbermouthed tendencies. He is also, in short, the most powerful and most volatile master vampire in this region, and possibly at the front ranks of the world hierarchy."
"Yeah," someone muttered. "He just broke Johnson's arm that night and nearly disembowelled me in five seconds even though the enzyme was kicking in, no problem we can't handle."
Riley caught the Professor's eye. "I think," he said quietly, "That we should begin questioning our subjects first before using them."
"We've been over this before, Riley. Torture is unethical. If we use direct methods we can count ourselves as no better than the vampires!"
"We don't need to use torture," he replied slowly, the idea flowering in his mind. " I was thinking a system of question and reward would be best. Our record was one who survived almost four months without feeding before going insane, and though this is relative to age, I think if a little blood incentive was offered we might even get volunteers to talk."
The Professor stared long and hard at him.
He was hyper as he walked down the street, and he bloody well knew it. Yet he had to be careful. Sunnyhell wasn't too big a place, and he had no desire to end up in a white cell again.
Thinking of it the blonde man growled softly, moving fast through the neon-lit streets of the lower side of town, his long leather duster swinging in his wake. Even so, he wasn't afraid. Angry, and excited was more like it. This added spice to life, and hell, he needed a distraction from the savaged remains of his love life. Unbidden, Drucilla's face floated up in his mind and he winced, immediately drowning it in the lowest pit he could find. She was his mortal weakness, he had given too much for too long and made himself vulnerable and in the end she had been the one who betrayed him. Even with Angel, it hadn't been so bad, after all Angelus was his sire and he supposed he had always put him on a sort of pedestal, the bloody stupid sod ! But that fungus demon had been the last straw.
All he wanted was to take care of her, to love her, curse her crazy, twisted little heart!
Love always seem to run out on him the moment he began feeling secure.
He forced his mind away from the topic as the pain lanced through him and his fists clenched. He was out for blood tonight, but he had to get a hold and not change to game face in the middle of the street.
To calm himself, he thought of the series.
The latest episode had been a little triumph, a calling card to the bastards out there in their lab coats, telling them they couldn't play Ring-Around-The-Rosie with William the Bloody just like that. He chuckled without humour. The series had been a grand idea, and not because of the money. In the space of a life that had spanned nearly two centuries one inevitably acquired too much money. No, it was the thrill of splashing your life out for millions to see and yet not to see. It was to slap your enemies on the tush and get away with it, or to issue a challenge as he was doing now. The fellow who had invented the telly should be given an award.
Of course, they had informed him that some unidentified person had been trying to trace him. He had to smile at his own ingenuity in covering the trail. Plain brown packages which turned up mysteriously in a laundry down the street from the offices, no postmark, no stamps, no address, just lying in a pile of fluffy white towels in the eighth container. From there they passed through the hands of the laundry owner to the script-writers and assorted personnel among their laundry. No one knew where they came from, so even under questioning no one would be able to say anything.
Let the new players in the game know what they were in for, he thought savagely as the hunger pulled at him. And as for the Slayer, this was a score that he intended to settle. His fingers twitched at the thought; he guessed that he would kill at least three tonight. He wanted carnage.
And he got it, but not in the form that he had expected.
He had scented other vampires. Minions or cubs, young, silly, gossiping. Ordinarily he wouldn't have bothered, but by chance he overheard the conversation that was carrying on by the back exit of a dingy nightclub, and was over the fence in the blink of an eye.
The three young vampires never had a chance. The first two were dead even before they knew what hit them, and the third one turned to flee but was yanked bodily off his feet by his collar and whirled around to face mad yellow eyes in a blood-spattered face. "What did you say ?"
The humans in the vicinity heard the demented howls that went up and ricocheted through the back alleys that night and cursed the municipal council. They really HAD to do something about all those stray dogs. Rabid, by the sound of it.
**And then there was a Beginning!**
"Spike being back in town is like, so not good news," said Xander over a beer at the Bronze. "I'd hoped that Peroxide Boy would schtick around in LA to bother that bugger Ange! Ow !" he stopped when Willow kicked him in the shin under the table. "Sorry, Buffster."
"I'm fine with it, Xander." Buffy smiled.
"She's going to have coffee with Riley tomorrow after patrol," Willow said in the subdued tone they had come to expect over the last few months. "Like most couples would on a nice summer night."
"We aren't a couple, Will," Buffy said, blushing. "He's just fun to talk to, and he's not Parker."
"Yeah, Will. You and me, we're in the same boat. Washed up, lonely for ever losers! Ouch !" Xander turned an aggrieved look at Giles, who merely pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "S-so, Buffy, I take it you will be going to ensure that Spike is not going to invade your rooms again ? This is a worrying development; he has never attempted to actually attack you right in your rooms before. There must have been another reason!.something that would have caused him to act like he did." Her Watcher frowned in concentration.
"Like the military-freak types who cut out the electricity then smoke-bombed the dorm ?" Buffy offered grimly. "I'm going to have a little talk with our old friend Spike about why he's on their hit list, preferably at the other end of a sharp stake!"
"Because he's aggressive-much and a bloodsucking monster with no soul ?" Xander offered. "Because he's been dumped by crazy-doll-girl and is suffering a relationship crises...?" His voice petered off as Willow's lower lip began to tremble and the other two turned to glare at him. "OK, major foot in the mouth. I'll kick myself this time."
"N.n..nno, it's OK, Xander, really." With superhuman effort Willow pulled her face together.
"Whatever it is, no punk-type vampire with a bad Brit accent is going to be allowed to go around and beat up on my friends," Buffy said darkly.
Surprisingly, Willow's head came up and she spoke a little more vehemently than normal. "He didn't try to beat me up, well, not really....and I think his British accent is pretty genuine."
The others stared at her.
"Uh, Will, correct me if I'm wrong, but did you just defend SPIKE?" Xander said in disbelief.
"Well, well, I uhh...." Willow fumbled, red-faced.
At that moment Giles' mobile beeped shrilly, much to Willow's relief. "Hello?"
"He was actually pretty nice, this time," Willow muttered.
"Spike, nice ?" Buffy wrinkled her nose in astonishment. "That's like saying chocolate tastes sour."
"Yeah, weird-much, Will," Xander commented. "And how come he didn't bite you?"
Willow flushed even redder. "He...he...couldn't get it....going."
"What ?" said Giles into the phone.
Xander's shoulders began to shake and he covered his mouth with his hand. And instant later a giggle burst out of Buffy, and in moments they were roaring in their seats.
"Shhh !" admonished Giles, straining to hear his call.
Buffy clutched her friend's arm, trembling with laughter. "Y..y..you're saying that Spike was having trouble performing?" Her words came out all funny because she was laughing so hard.
"You can't tell anyone !" Willow said in distress. "He'd be mad if he knew.."
"Right, Will. We're just dying to go out and tell the first bloodsucking demon we come across that Spike needs the vamp version of Viagra," choked out Xander.
"Hey !" Willow gave him a dirty look, then frowned. I'm feeling guilty because I told them about a vampire's little secret?
"People !" barked Giles, snapping his mobile shut. "We've got news of great import."
"Oh please, G-man, we're dying to know. Any more skeletons in the vampire closet?" Xander took a mouthful of his beer to choke off his mirth.
"It was a call from Los Angeles."
Immediately the laughter disappeared like frost in the summer. Buffy sat up.
"That was Cordelia on the phone, from Angel's." Giles took off his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose, a habit of his when he was worried or nervous. "Drucilla is dead. Angel thought we might need a warning in case Spike hears about it and gets....violent."
All in a night's work, Slayer. All in a night's work. Or so Buffy told herself as she scratched at her lower shins. Finding a vampire among the night's stakings who knew where Spike was holed up had been the easy part. The difficult part now was the itchy grass and vicious little bugs in the overgrown garden which almost obscured the large house itself.
Spike was definitely home. There were faint sounds coming from inside the building, but she couldn't identify what they were. Damn windows must be shut tight.
As she lay in the grass, considering her next move, she thought.
Drucilla was actually dead. Did Spike know ? She thought not. Knowing what little of him that she did, she would expect something more than performance trouble. Like a bloody trail of disembowelled corpses, maybe, or blowing up the hospital or something. One thing was for certain, Willow certainly would not have survived. And the masked watchers didn't fit into that picture however she rearranged the pieces in her head. Yet there was a connection, somehow, she could sense it.
Willow had said Spike had been nice. Buffy thought about that for a while.
She had to admit she had not been telling the whole truth about Spike's British accent. He had a perfectly yummy accent. And to be fair, he was also really cute in a dangerous, bad-boy kind of way. Funny to think of him having problems in THAT department, he'd always given her the impression of...
"Bad Buffy," she muttered, mentally slapping herself. "Why am I thinking in that direction of all things?"
She never got the answer, for at that moment one of the great windows shattered in the moonlight and a large sofa came sailing out, crashing to the ground a good distance from the window and rolling a few times as its legs came off before shuddering to a stop. The roar that followed it raised the hairs on her skin as it bellowed out into the night, a cry full of rage, pain and loss.
"Well, if he didn't know before, he definitely knows now. Get your ass off the ground, Slayer."
Taking a stake out of her shirt at the ready, she cautiously scuttled across the overgrown lawn without stopping till her shoulder-blades were pressed up against the wall that was at an angle to the broken window.
This is a really good time to drop in for a visit, she said silently to herself as a tirade of curses so colorful she blushed came streaming out the window. It was Spike, all right.
Then there was nothing but the sound of pacing. Up, down and round and round, with no fixed number of steps or pauses. She was wondering whether to jump in right then when she heard something she would never have expected to hear in a million years. The shock nearly killed her.
There was a screech of chair legs as Spike flung himself onto some piece of remaining furniture, then,
"Why ? Oh God in Heaven or the Devil in Hell, why her?" The broken, choked voice was nearly unrecognisable. "Why not me ? Damn you all to Hell, why not me instead?"
Then the sobs began, racking and harsh, the sound of a man crying who has not done it for a long time, and likely never will again.
Pressed up against the wall, Buffy felt as if she had been electrocuted. Her most dangerous, most vicious nemesis was sitting in there, sobbing his heart out in a way that made her heart clench in pity. Which was the last thing she had expected to feel.
Cautiously, she slunk down close to the ground so that the low stone sill sheltered her, and cautiously took a swift peek.
The large room was a mess.
There was broken furniture, shredded cloth, papers and shards of glass and porcelain everywhere as if a tornado had torn through the house. Holes had been punched into the plaster walls and the television set in the corner had had its screen smashed and its wires torn out. The curtains on half the windows were in shreds and one of the curtain rods had been bent into a twisted half-circle in a manner that made her gulp imagining the extent of strength that had shaped it. The only thing untouched was a shiny black grand piano and a matching seat.
In the middle of the chaos was Spike, sprawled half on, half off an old-fashioned recliner that had stuffing protruding from the rips in its velvet upholstery. He was still in his leather duster and boots, both of which were caked with mud and grass and something dark which she could have bet her life was blood. His short, white blond hair was wild and his face was hidden in his arms though his shoulders heaved with the force of the raw, torn cries that came from him, like an animal in pain.
It was the perfect set-up. He was distracted, his back to her, his guard completely down. She could have staked him right then and there.
She was defeated then not by his strength, but by the force of his pain. He was suffering as much as any living, or undead, creature could suffer. The keening wails and growls; the whole scene was intensely private. Buffy felt absurdly like an intruder.
When he stood up suddenly she hit the ground flat, heart thumping, thinking she would be caught for sure as she frantically tried to decide whether there was any breeze that would waft her scent to him.
There were a few steps then nothing for some time.
She was wondering whether it would be safe to get up and go home when the music started.
She had always thought of the piano as a boring, staid old instrument played by old men with tailcoats in front of other rich, old people. Never in her wildest dreams had she ever imagined that it was capable of making music of such clear beauty, such expressiveness and such pain.
The melody was complex, rippling and wild and powerful. It wrapped around her heart and invaded her soul, singing to her of a whirl of emotions too strong to express in words, of other worlds and other lives. It told her of love and loss, of mourning. He played with an astounding, inhuman virtuosity like an idiot savant, the music transcending notes and cords and simply becoming one giant voice stemming straight from the heart.
It swept her away on its tide and made images dance in her mind, images coming straight from his dark heart where no soul was supposed to reside. A communion between two people who had nothing in common except mutual hate. And in the grass yards away from the Vampire, the Slayer wept, stake dropped from her hand and forgotten, the both of them made equal for a moment by the unshakeable bridge of shared loss and an understanding of pain.
And later when the strains had softened, she somehow managed to crawl away into the shadows and walk blindly to the gate and away from the house. She forgot the stake.
And it was this which gave her away two nights later when Spike stumbled across it in the grass. The grain of the wood still held a faint scent, enough to tell him who had been there.
Buffy was sitting in front of her dressing table in her nightshirt, turning a silver claddagh ring over and over in her fingers.
She had not thought of Angel for some time, but now... Love found and love lost, a love never meant to be. She had paid a high price for that love, they all had.
Patrols had been relatively quiet, and the other members of the Scooby Gang had not pressed her on the issue of Spike when she had made it clear she did not want to talk about it. Willow and Giles were now concentrating on the mystery of the Mad Marines, as they jokingly called the camouflaged crazies who were running around campus at night.
Personally, if it wasn't for the 'no killing humans' rule, she would have staked the next one that she came across. They were getting too much in the way now, and after that attack in the dorm she had decided that there were some lines even humans shouldn't push.
Sighing, she picked up her brush and ran it through her hair. Willow was out at the library, trying to dig up information from the computers about stalkers at night. She was a little worried about her friend. Oz's leaving had hit her hard, and recovery was slow.
"All victims of The Heart's Wild Surf." She made a face at herself in the mirror. "Talking bookish now, are we ? Careful, Buffy, Giles is beginning to wear off on you. Soon you'll be wearing tweed pajamas." She cocked her head. "Actually, I think Giles is revamping his wardrobe now. Major midlife crises here."
She stuck her tongue out at her reflection then scrambled into bed, reaching to turn off the bedside lamp. It was a warm night, so she left the window open.
She dreamed. If she had been asked what she dreamed, she would not have been able to say.
Willow's knocking on the door made her grunt and roll over to bury her head under the pillow. "Don't be such a lazybones !" she groaned loud enough for the red-haired witch to hear. "Get out your keys if it's locked and come in already, because I'm not getting up."
She smiled sleepily and slipped back when she heard the doorknob rattle and the faint creak of hinges. The door shut and she heard Willow walking around, putting her books away.
"Don't you dare switch on the light, Will," she mumbled sleepily. Then she frowned as the side of her bed sank. With her foot, she found the outline of Willow's thigh and prodded it.
"Mmmmfff, get on your own bed to take off your shoes, will you ? I've got morning classes tomorrow."
"Sorry, Slayer, but morning appointments don't fit well into my schedule, seeing as how I'm rather flammable at that time of day."
"Target spotted to the North-East, over," crackled the transmission from another one of the team as the co-ordinates were given. "Last seen entering building through main door."
Riley looked down and cursed. The coordinates marked out a certain dorm where a certain girl lived. Number 11 was a creature of habit, it seemed. The last encounter had happened there too, and the Professor had not been too happy about the exposure that little fight had cost them. He took a deep breath. Buffy was safe, safe and sound. She wouldn't invite him in.
"Hold position," he gritted out. "No entry till the main lights have gone out. Is that clear?"
"Roger." The transmission died down.
Riley looked at his watch. 10.30. The hallway lights only went out at 11.15. He hoped that nothing would happen before then.
Waking up to find that you're being held by the throat by a vamped-out vampire in the middle of the night is not a pleasant experience. As Buffy found out.
The light from the window shone full on most of Spike's game face. Her wrists were pinioned above her head and his other hand had a choke-hold on her throat as he straddled her, trapping her legs under the sheets. He was furious, a tic making one of his eyebrow ridges jump. She swallowed, a hard thing to do with his fingers clamping down on her neck.
"Surprised to see me, love ?" he bit out. "You left too early that night, ducks, so I thought I'd be polite and pay you a return visit."
She felt her heart sink into the soles of her feet. "I...um...was just passing through. No point disturbing you."
"But you left a calling card, love. Did you forget ?" His fingers, which had been so light on the piano, squeezed down for an instant and she choked before he loosed his hold on her throat to reach under his leather duster to pull out one of her own stakes. Great, she thought. I'm going to die by one of my own weapons. What a way to go. And to invite him in. Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid Slayer. Also very dead Slayer in a few minutes.
Spike stared down at her, trying to keep his temper in check. One of his hands was more than enough to trap both wrists, and she felt very slight under all the sheets. He was keeping half his weight off her chest because he just might crush her ribcage if he didn't . She would die too fast if that happened, and he wanted her to suffer.
He had checked beforehand to knock out the redhead at the library. Since that night when he had attacked her and the following conversation, he had felt a grudging liking for her and he didn't particularly want to have to kill her. The Slayer, though...... The third one.
Three's luck.
She had watched him at his weakest. She had bloody watched him grovel on the floor and cry that night like a little boy. Maybe she had compared him with Angel. Had that bloody sot let her watch him cry after she had drawn his fangs ? The idea of being compared to Angel incensed him further, making his breath come hard. Funny how breathing, however unnecessary, still happened just as it had when he was human.
And now as he held her pinned down on the bed, one thing was making itself clear to him.
Angel's, hissed the voice in his ear. She belongs to Angel. He had seen her play with that silver ring, seen her look into the mirror that way as if it was magic and could show her his face. He even fancied he could smell his sire's scent on her.
The red mist of rage that rose obscured everything. She was Angel's. She was the Slayer. She had watched him cry and slunk away like a weasel into the night. She was Angel's. He had someone to love and someone who loved him while he, Spike, had nothing now and no one. And Drucilla's leaving had been caused by Angelus. It was why she had betrayed him the first time, and the disenchantment had caused her to run off the second time to her death.
He looked down at the Slayer, lying with her eyes tightly shut and her head turned to one side and he could think only of Angel with her. His scent on her. His. And Spike knew that nothing would hurt more than desecration. He had felt it first-hand.
The stake went flying out the window.
Buffy stiffened when Spike's weight lifted off her, and in shock she felt the sheets stripped off before his weight came down again full-length. Her eyes flew open and she stared directly into his human face and into his raging blue eyes under their dark brows. The scar stood out whitely even against the pale, cold skin, and in that instant she knew.
She shouted, but his mouth came down on hers with such force she gasped and the sound was lost between them. Thrashing, she tried desperately to dislodge him, but Slayer strength or no Spike was furious and at his strongest, his weight crushing her down like stone. She clenched her teeth together but with one vicious jab of his knee he drove her legs apart forcefully, bruising her so she gasped and immediately his tongue forced itself between her teeth, invading and attacking.
Her body was warm from sleep and her scent rose up around him from this soft nest of bedding. Her struggling did nothing but force her body against his and her mouth tasted like apples. The scent and the thrum of the blood through her veins as her pulse rate accelerated drove him over the edge.
Savagely he ripped the fragile skin of clothing off her, nails raking into her skin as his grip on her wrists tightened into a cruel vise. The scent of blood, blood which he leant over and licked from her side above her ribs, and the taste of her skin made him continue upwards to her breast.
Warm in his arms. Soft. Not cold against cold, resilient flesh. Fragrant to suck, to taste, like the sweet foods he remembered dimly from mortal years long lost in the past, like sunlight and ripe peaches. And so very small, so very fragile, tempting him to exert just the smallest extra pressure and crush.
She bit into her lip to keep from groaning as his tongue and lips traced tender trails after the brutal strength of his hands, feeling the silk of his shirt and the cold leather of his pants and coat, then his skin, finer and softer than the leather. Not him, she thought as her head tossed on the pillows, for God's sake, not him...
And the smell rose like heady perfume around him, a warmly human, sweet female scent, directing him to the heart of warmth.
When he kissed her he tasted the blood of her bitten lip, and deliberately he cut his tongue on his teeth, letting the blood mingle in her mouth as he entered her in one smooth motion, eliciting a sob from her.
Mine, he thought in triumph and sudden, searing joy. Not Angel's any more. Mine, mine, mine, mine as the rhythm overtook everything and they danced the age old dance.
Buffy felt the piano as he moved within her. She saw the piano, his fingers playing the keys so expertly, coaxing the music from the humming strings. She was the piano, and this time the music was joyous and free and so very, very beautiful, so beautiful it made her want to cry out to the world.
Mine ! said his mind.
Yours ! hers answered him. For this one beautiful night, yours.
And then time stood still as they found what their bodies had been striving for. Spike's whole body tensed, straining until it trembled as he growled with his face buried in her neck, until he felt the shudders from her as she came, then he spent himself in her.
The lights were out, and figures dressed in black with weapons in hand prowled the corridors as the awake, the asleep and the unknowing stayed safe within their rooms.
"Nothing," whispered Riley in disgust. "Are you sure you saw him come in here ?"
"Affirmative."
Just then there was a soft call and another figure lifted its hand. As silent as a cat, Riley moved down the hall and followed the figure round a corner.
Where he stopped in rage and disgust.
The window was open.
"Move out. We're calling it a night. The bastard has flown the coop. Keep a scout posted outside though, in case he comes back."
Before he went, he paused outside the door he knew was Buffy's. She was asleep inside on her bed beside Willow, and even through his irritation the image made him smile.
"Sweet dreams."
He had never intended to spend the night.
It had been a fever that sapped him of sense. That's what his mind tried to tell him, but his dead heart told him differently. Coming into her had been like coming home after a long and exhausting journey.
And after that first time, she had opened her arms to him.
His greatest enemy.
They had done it again. And once more after that.
And now he held her in his arms, cradling her as he watched her sleep. There was one more hour left before dawn.
There were more ramifications to this than his brain wanted to acknowledge. What a bloody rotten tangle ! Why couldn't things be simple for once ? The Fates must really have it in for him for some reason or other.
Yet, as he buried his nose in her hair, he felt it was worth it. One night. One night was not too much to ask.
She stirred in his arms.
"Good morning, pet."
How wonderful, Buffy thought as she climbed out of sleep, to wake up to that husky, amused tone. She nuzzled the cool, smooth skin of his chest. "It's not yet morning."
"In one hour it will be, love."
"I don't want it to be morning." She turned, wrinkling her nose in disapproval. Spike wanted to laugh suddenly.
"I would promise you the moon and the stars," he said wryly, "But that's the one thing you can't ask of a vampire: stop the sun from rising."
She opened large eyes still bleary with sleep on him. "Don't be facetious."
"My, my, that's a big word, Slayer. I think I'm good for you."
She nipped him on the collarbone for that, and he sucked in his breath sharply.
"Slayer, I suggest that if you don't want me to combust leaving here late, you had better not do that." Bloody hell she smelled wonderful ! She smelled of him, and of love.
She wanted to turn around and go back into the night. Morning meant waking up. But she tilted her head up to look at him long and hard, tracing the lines of his face and touching that scar above his eyebrow. The kiss that followed was one of leave-taking, and they both knew it as they savoured the tenderness one last time.
It was awkward the moment he got out of the bed, picking up his clothes which were scattered around the bed along with the remnants of her nightshirt. She watched him move, all clean fluid lines, as he pulled on the leather and silk. The coming day made all the things they had been able to ignore or forget in the night come back, and when he turned to face her the transformation was complete. He was the predator again.
Even so, they stepped hand in hand out of the door into the cold morning air, Buffy wrapped up in her fluffy robe. As always, Spike's internal clock had been right. The sky was light enough for her to see well.
They walked together a little way down the path and into the trees, where they stopped.
"Where...where is Willow?" Buffy hugged herself in the chill, acutely aware of the awkwardness now.
"I left her asleep in the library on top of the keyboard," Spike said with a small grin. "She's not going to thank me for it."
They both knew the meaning of his words. They were not going to tell anyone what had happened.
She looked up at the lightening sky. "I guess you'll have to go."
"I think so, love."
"Are you," she began, then took a deep breath. "Are you staying in Sunnydale ?"
"No, pet, I don't think so. Sunnyhell's grown too small for a fiend like me. Maybe New York, San Francisco, or even back to Britain, Ireland."
"Good," she said, her mouth beginning to tremble. "Because you realise even though we made beautiful, passionate love I'm still going to have to stake you."
The admission was a gift she gave to him, which he accepted gratefully. "Goodbye, Buffy." He put out his hand to push a heavy lock of honey hair behind her ear, caressing her cheek. Then it only seemed right to take one last kiss, an exchange of breath so that each could have a little of the other to hold.
Then, whirling around as if he was afraid he might do something, Spike strode away into the trees.
Buffy put her hand over her mouth as she stood for a moment or two. Then she too turned, back towards the dorm.
In the trees, the tiny camera began to automatically roll its film. The man clad in black looked down uneasily at the potential bomb he was holding in his hands. This was going to be a hellish ride. By right, he should turn over the film dutifully, but then its contents would become common knowledge. Maybe he should just keep quiet about this little incident, and just pass the film to Riley himself. Maybe that way the damage wouldn't be so great. He hoped.
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