Spike knew he'd been busted when his cell phone
started ringing. Everyone who had the number was at the party,
so when that phone rang, he knew he'd been missed. The aggressively
cheerful ring-tone informed him that whoever was calling was using
Dawn's cell, but right at that moment he was more preoccupied
with the blood that was splattering its way into and around the
drain by his feet, painting pretty Rorschach
pictures, than answering the device, not to mention the fact that
said blood was actually spilling from his mouth in waves, so that
answering was sort of impossible. The fact that he was bent nearly
double and using both hands to brace himself against the wall
so that the blood wouldn't get on his clothing, and also just
to stop him sliding to his knees, could also have been a slight
hindrance.
He sighed and hit the speed dial button for Dawn's
phone. He could make a good guess at Buffy's reaction to what
was happening, and he really didn't think it was a brilliant idea for
her to dive off the deep end, or ruin the party for anyone else.
Vampires simply don't get sick, not in the normal run of things.
They can be injured, starvation can have all sorts of nasty side-effects
as when Dru had been weakened, but one thing Spike knew from nearly
a century and a quarter of first-hand experience was vampires
as a rule do not get sick.
Once upon a time, Spike had known two people
who could work this sort of magic, but the last one had died more
than thirty years ago. He'd thought the workings had been lost.
These weren't the prim note takers of the Watcher's Council, these
were the priests, the oungans, guys who 'served with both hands'
as they put it down south in areas where, unofficially at least,
vaudun was as much a religion as orthodox Christianity.
If the artist formerly known as Red was
playing with that sort of magic, even after what Anya's little
playmate had pulled off, it was a Hail Mary. It would age her
into the ground. It might just take him out first though, and it
wasn't like they didn't know she was capable of it. It was exactly
the same as she'd done the last time she had thought that Tara
had slipped beyond her reach. She'd gone all out to get the person
she thought was responsible, even if it killed her. That time,
Buffy had gone in to pull her out. This time, he had a suspicion
that, if she got in the way, Buffy would be the one who needed
help.
To stop her, they were going to need someone
as skilled and powerful in the vaudun as she was, or, more likely,
given her recklessness, as skilled and powerful as the loa riding
her. They were going to need someone who worked only for good.
Despite vaudun's depiction on the silver screen, this wasn't the
hard part. Most sorcerers worked only in white magic. More importantly,
they needed someone who worked for good but would help to save
a soulless vampire. Add to this that those practitioners who had
an affinity for working with the dead almost invariably were drawn
to the darker side sooner or later, and Spike didn't know if the
person they were looking for even existed. He did know that the
place to start looking was New Orleans. First though, he had to
get Buffy to accept that simply trying to kick the shit out of
the bad guys wasn't going to cut it. Best of all he had to try
to sort all this out with Buffy without Niblet finding out 'cause
she'd more than her fair share of problems already, and without
telling Buffy who he thought was behind it. Not without proof.
All this had been running round his head for
longer than he cared to think. At first, his idea had simply been
to weather the attack and try to push it from his mind before
he went back to the party in the hope that neither Buffy nor Lily
would pick up on his worries, at least until he and Buffy had
a chance to discuss it in private at home, but he had been gone
too long and now he was going to have to face the music.
"Spike?" Buffy answered the phone and the vampire
didn't know if this was good or bad.
"Yeah. Sorry I couldn't answer before... love."
"I'm fine, pet. You haven't got everybody all
worked up lookin' for me have you?"
"Pet, I can hear you worryin' from here. Now,
tell them I just went to the liquor store because I fancied some
bourbon an' I couldn't answer because I was in the middle of bein'
served an' I'll be back in a bit, okay?"
"Look, love, I need to talk to you, but other
than you an' maybe the watcher boys, it's somethin' as there's
no need to go spreadin' around and there's definitely no need
for gettin' Niblet excited, okay? You with me?"
"Spike, promise you're okay. I felt something
before."
"So did I, love, but it's gone now. When you
get a chance to slip away, come out the main door of the building,
turn left and keep walking. I'll meet you."
"Because the two of us need to discuss this together
before it ends up being open for debate and as soon as I get in
that door Lily is gonna start wantin' to know what's happenin'."
"Love you, too, even if you do cause massive
dramas, not telling people where you're going." Buffy's tone was
light but he could hear the underlying tension and he knew that
she was trying to reassure those around her.
Spike clicked the phone closed and started
to walk slowly back toward Lily's apartment, stopping when he
was half a block away to wait for Buffy to meet him.
If Spike could have blushed at the way just
seeing Buffy made him feel better, he would have done. 'Gettin'
near as bad as the Bloody Poof,' he thought to himself.
Her walk-jog pace, the eternal mark of a high-heeled woman in
a hurry, betrayed her own eagerness to reach him, and Spike
let instinct take over, breaking into a jog of his own to meet
her half way.
"Wha—" Buffy tried to question him about his
disappearance, but his lips mashed against hers in a greedy
welcome. His touch, as always, echoed his love and desire, but
also fear and uncertainty and yet beneath them was an underlying
determination.
Faced with a multitude of questions she wanted
answers to, Buffy chose one at random when she finally pulled
back enough to let her read his face, even as his hands on her
bare arms let her read his emotions. "Why do you taste like
you just ate a whole pack of breath mints?"
"Probably because I did just eat a whole pack
of breath mints. Look, love, you know that vampires don't get
ill, right?"
"Yeah, part of the whole undead deal. So?"
"So, if last night's stitch wasn't a stitch
and it came back worse so that I just spent half an hour pukin'
my guts up, it's because someone's makin' me ill, and
the only people I've ever known who could pull that sort of
stunt were hardcore voodoo priests."
"Wood. It's that Wood guy! Gotta be. So, we
get Wes and Giles and Tara and we find out where he's staying
and we—"
"We what, love? I'm not goin' to be up for
much for a while and I don't see as any of the rest of you are
goin' to be killin' a human. An' besides, I've pissed off a
lot of people in my time. No guarantee that it is him."
"It has to be. Look we can do the magic sand
thing. Giles will be okay with us getting the stuff and we can—"
"Get the Niblet all upset again?
Leave it for tonight, love. Seems to me like
it probably takes it out of them near as much as it's takin'
it out of me. Don't reckon as they'll try it again tonight,
whoever it is, an' you can get your stuff an' do your thing
tomorrow without getting' everybody all worked up."
"At least let me get Tara to do a protection
spell."
"After Niblet's in bed asleep. Not as it's
like to help much."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean voodoo doesn't work like normal magic
an' it's, like as not, gonna take another voodoo priest to break
the spell."
"But we don't know any voodoo priests."
"Then, come tomorrow, maybe it's time we widened
our circle of acquaintances, but, for tonight, how's about we see
how much we can distract each other from worryin' about it and
head back to Lil's before they send out search parties?"
"Problem. Weren't you supposed to be buying
bourbon?"
"There's a bottle in the trunk of the car,
under the jack."
"The car that Brandon has the keys for."
"Just the one set. There's a spare in one of
those little magnetic boxes tucked under the sill. We're covered.
All we've got to do is make sure we're thinkin' about nothin'
but each other by the time we're close enough for Lily to pick
up on anything. If, of course, you think you're up to the challenge
of distracting me that much." Spike's eyebrow swept upward and
the tip of his tongue swept across his upper teeth.
"Huh, I thought the problem was keeping your
mind on anything other than sex? Heck, you probably get
turned on watching the nature programs on the Discovery channel."
"I do not!" the vampire protested. "I never
watch the Discovery channel... And I am not constantly
horny. just semi-constantly horny... and only when you're around."
Buffy's eyes drifted down and her reply was
husky. "I noticed."
"Have I told you how incredible you look in
that dress, how it brings out the green in your eyes and makes
you look like a golden goddess?"
"You do realise, Wordsworth, that while we're
alone out here, Dawn and Brandon are alone back there, unsupervised."
Spike considered this fact for a millisecond.
"I hope you're wearin' knickers under that thing, pet."
Before Buffy could even ask why, he had her
hoisted over his shoulder and was running for the car. When
they got there he spun round a couple of times, till Buffy's
protests turned to giggles before he set her back on her feet.
"You are a positive Neanderthal," Buffy
told him.
"I just take my fun where I can find it, love.
And there's not much I like better than hearin' you laugh. Actually,
no, I think I might even rate that higher than seein' you come,
feelin' it, whatever..." He paused and licked his lips, his eyes
twinkling with mischief. "Damn close run thing though."
"You are a sex addict, you know that?"
"Nope. I'm a Buffy addict. Wouldn't look twice
if Liv Tyler climbed into my bed." This time it was Buffy who
raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Oh, alright, I might just sneak
a peak but I'd never touch."
"So, it's just coincidence that you were moaning
'Liv' in your sleep the other morning while you were groping
me."
"I did... not," Spike's denial stalled midway
as Buffy's face creased into laughter once more. "You know fine
well I was saying 'love'."
"Yeah," Buffy admitted. "But you're so cute
when you get all flustered, kinda like a cooler baby Giles."
"You are so gonna suffer for that comparison
later, missy," Spike replied even as he pulled the spare key
from its hiding place and opened up the trunk. He pulled out
a full bottle of bourbon and passed it to her before shutting
the trunk and sliding the key back where it came from.
"How are you going to do that?" Buffy teased.
"I'm going to take you home and make you come
in ways the librarian's only seen in his damn books until you
scream for mercy."
"Actually, I have it on good authority that
Giles is like a stevedore in bed and you wouldn't believe where
he's done it."
Spike's arm slid around her shoulders and he
reclaimed the bottle of bourbon. "I knew there was something
goin' on between the pair of you... Lolita." His eyes danced with
laughter as he teased her. "Maybe you really were thinking
about Giles that time in the Bronze."
"Eugh, and still gross. You really think I
could look into your eyes and ever think of anyone else?"
"You tell me, pet."
"Well, for one thing, you have the bluest eyes
I've ever seen, and you can read your every thought, your every
feeling in them. No guy has ever made it so obvious, just with
a glance, that he is absolutely and completely in love with
me, so, no I could never think about anyone else while I'm with
you." She stretched to put her arms around his neck, nibbling
gently at his earlobe as he opened the apartment door. "And
I'd never want to," she whispered.
He just managed to drop the bottle of bourbon
into a pocket rather than letting it fall to the ground before
he picked Buffy up, with one hand on either side of her waist.
He kissed her with all the tenderness and devotion she had claimed
to read in his eyes as he carried her through the entrance hall
and out toward the rear door, only putting her down as they
reached the yard itself.
Spike and Buffy watched from where they lounged
on the grass, using Spike's duster as a blanket while Dawn and
Brandon danced to a pounding electro beat. Rogue and Rupert
were still curled up in a heap just a couple of feet away.
"Feeling your age?" Buffy asked as Spike screwed
up his face at the inhuman noise.
"Music should be about playin' not programmin'.
That's where the energy comes from, not uppin' the beats per
minute till women wobble like jellies tryin' to keep up."
"I'll take that as a yes, shall I?"
"Unker Will," Rosa threw herself into his arms.
"Mommy says that if I want you to do our song I have to get
you to do it now so I can get ready for bed."
"Alright, munchkin. Where's the guitar?"
"Mommy's got it inside."
"Don't suppose I can talk you into stayin'
out here an' keepin' an eye on Romeo an' Juliet?" he asked Buffy.
"And miss this? I'll get them to come and watch,
too."
The vampire tilted his head to the side and
pursed his lips. "Thanks ever so," he grated sarcastically as
he got to his feet and helped Buffy up.
"So, what is it we're about to be treated to?
Puff the Magic Dragon?"
"Credit me with some taste, love."
"I just don't know what could possibly fit
in your repertoire and still be suitable for kiddies."
"You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?"
Spike smirked and swept his coat from the ground and tossed
it to Buffy.
Buffy fetched Dawn and Brandon inside just
in time to see Spike check the tuning on an acoustic guitar
before he started playing a vaguely country sounding tune, nodding
to Rosa to give her her cue to start singing along with him.
"You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.
Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you."
Buffy couldn't help but notice how the pair
seemed to lose track of everyone else in the room, or so she
thought until Spike looked up and seemed to catch Wes's eye.
Buffy would swear that the watcher shifted awkwardly under the
vampire's gaze.
