FIC: Perfect Vengeance - Chapter Four
Apr. 5th, 2005 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxThe Kink: Time travel, specifically S6 Spike and Buffy in 1880s London.
Three other requests: Spike has "replaced" William, but only he and Buffy know; Buffy acknowledges real feelings for Spike (happily or reluctantly; it's your call); and Cecily eats her heart out when she realizes what she could have had.
Previous Chapters Archived Here
Rating: Currently PG, Eventually NC-17
They careened down the hallway, which was too narrow and too crowded for running, but they did it anyway. Hands stretched out in front of them, Buffy and Spike burst through a pair of oversized doors to skid to a halt in the grand entry hallway.
The room was long and higher than it was wide. It was stark in its monochromatic color palette, though the intricate black and white tile floor was marble, and the pale gray wainscot and frieze were carved with Greek keys, amphora, and swirls of acanthus leaves. It was very refined and elegant. And Buffy caught her breath in horror as the restrained architecture threw the tableau in front of them into lurid relief.
The strawberry-blonde that Buffy had seen with Halfrek on her first night in London lay sprawled on the floor. Her throat, or at least the left side of it, gone. Her collar bone lay exposed and broken-— a fatal contrast of white and red -- as a pool of blood spread slowly outward, seeping into the hairline cracks between the tiles.
A tearful, well-dressed woman pushed past Buffy and through the entrance doors. Seconds later the woman could be heard retching.
Buffy shifted on her feet, wondering what to do as Irving, the man who had made a pass at Buffy, stood at the front door yelling, “Coachman! Fetch the constable!”
Several guests hastily departed, averting their eyes from the body as they pushed past those who stood transfixed, unable to tear their gazes away from the horror. A few guests blanched and looked faint, quickly disappearing to other rooms inside the house.
Spike circled the blood-spattered corpse. “Those are bite marks,” he said as frown lines appeared between his brows. “But I dunno what did the biting.”
Buffy saw Desmond curled up in the corner, gibbering and crying. “Isobel.”
She approached the man cautiously. People didn’t like to be cornered when they were in distress. She knelt in front of him.
He closed his eyes and turned away, pressing his left temple against the wall. “Monster,” he muttered. “It was a monster. It killed my. . . ” He opened his eyes and gazed over at the mangled corpse on the floor. “Isobel. . . ” Desmond whimpered and laid his head against his knees.
Isobel’s eyes remained open. Her pupils fixed, staring blindly, forever, at the horror that had killed her. Buffy untied her apron and tossed it to Spike, who lay it over the body, covering Isobel’s face. In seconds, blood soaked through the linen, forming a scarlet stain.
“What kind of monster?” Buffy asked. She tried to will Desmond to look at her. “What was it?”
He did look at her -- angrily. “It was a monster. What more do you need to know? It was an animal and it ripped . . . it tore . . .” Desmond pushed against the wall and rose unsteadily to his feet.
Step by agonizing step, he made his way across the room until he stood over the body, unaware that he stood in a pool of Isobel’s blood. Tears tracked down his face. “It was a devil. . . ”
“A devil, how, precisely?” Spike asked. Buffy glared at him. “What? There are different kinds.”
Buffy sighed and approached Desmond once more. “What kind of devil?”
“Folderol,” Irving scoffed from the doorway. “There’s no devil, no monster. She was here with her cher ami, Richard Bruenig.”
“No!” Desmond charged toward Irving, but Buffy and Spike caught him, preventing him from tackling the other man.
Buffy looked to Spike for an explanation. “Cher ami?”
“Dear friend.”
“Oh.”
“Friend as in 'The Bronze' balcony or demolishing dilapidated houses.”
Buffy’s gaze widened with understanding. “Oh!”
“William, what are you prattling about? As if you know anything about. . . well. . . anything. And do not bother explaining our business to a servant." Turning away from Spike and Buffy, Irving looked haughtily at Desmond. "The truth is, Desmond, your wife was a trollop--”
“Bastard!” Desmond roared as Irving deftly stepped away.
“You probably killed her yourself.”
“Lay off!” Buffy snapped.
Spike growled, “He could hardly have ripped out her throat with his teeth.”
Irving snorted. “If William the Bloody Fool says it’s so, then it must be so.”
Spike let go of Desmond and charged Irving himself, grabbing the man and slamming him into the wall. “You are a rat-hearted, green pustule of a man, aren’t you?”
Irving swallowed. “Suddenly discovered your bollocks?”
Spike lifted the man off the floor.
“Spike. . . ” Buffy said nervously.
Spike glanced over his shoulder at her, then dropped Irving, sneering, “You aren’t worth it.”
Irving straightened his jacket. “And you’ve bloody well gone insane. When did you metamorphose from poncy git?”
Spike grabbed the sword, which stood wired into the gloved hands of a polished suit of armor.
Unsure of what Spike intended to do, Buffy stepped forward. She was willing to bet the Initiative’s chip hadn’t come back in time with Spike Version 2.0.
A cacophony of sound -- loud, metallic clattering -- echoed in the room as the suit of armor tumbled to the floor, the hilt of the weapon still firmly clasped in Spike’s left hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Discovering that the weapon was still wired to the armor, Spike yanked and twisted the blade, not bothering to look back at her. “Gonna hunt down a devil.”
“You think that --“ Irving gestured to the mangled mess of armor on the floor “-- will help? You are an idiot.”
“Stifle it,” Spike warned.
“And do not say ‘make me,’ “ Buffy added, directing an impatient glare in Irving’s direction. “He just might.”
A wicked smirk tilted the corners of Spike’s mouth as he glanced at her before yanking the gleaming sword free.
“Useless toff,” Spike sneered at Irving as he strode to the front door, only to come face-to-face with a breathless night watchman. The policeman blanched at the sight of the body on the floor.
“See here!” The bobbie protested as Spike pushed by him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Flushed, angry, and resentful, Irving said petulantly, “Thinks he’s off to save the ‘lady fair.’ ”
Buffy frowned. “What?”
“William has delusions of grandeur.”
“No. The lady. What lady?”
The woman who had passed Buffy -- to vomit -- said from just outside the door. “It took Cecily. That. . . that thing took Cecily.”
“Last thing it’ll do,“ Spike muttered as he departed.
“Hey!” Buffy protested, climbing clumsily to her feet. =Damn long skirts.=
Desmond suddenly said, “Its teeth! It had fearsome teeth and blood-red eyes.”
Right. So she might need a weapon. Buffy looked at the collapsed suit of armor. Typical. Spike had taken the best one. She picked up the knobby, iron mace. “Next time, I get the sword.”
Just then she saw Gorbach or, rather, ‘Mr. Addams’, slip up the stairs. With the mace in hand, Buffy went after him, catching him at the top of the stairs. “No, you don’t,” she said under her breath as she grabbed his sleeve. “You’re coming with me.”
She dragged the demon into Halfrek’s bedroom and slammed the door behind them. “What was it?” she demanded.
His eyes grew huge. “I don’t know! Why would I know?”
“Shut it, Gorbach. I know what you are. I know what Halfrek is. And just so you’re up to speed, I’m the Slayer. Now, if you want to live, tell me what the killing thing was.”
He awkwardly waddled backwards. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t know. Don’t know.”
She advanced on him. “Yeah, you do. Was it vengeance?” She pointed to the door. “Was that murder vengeance?”
Gorbach shook his head as he morphed from human to blue. “Not like that. Wasn’t supposed to be like that. She wasn’t supposed to die.”
“Someone wanted her injured?”
“When people die, there’s trouble. There’s always trouble.” As he walked in circles, muttering to himself, Gorbach looked like Rainman with obsessive-compulsive disorder. . . if Rainman had somehow become a member of Blue Man Group.
“Her wish. Hers. Vengeance was hers.” Gorbach looked up. “He was blackmailing her, and she wanted vengeance.”
“He who and her Isobel?”
“He was supposed to turn into a satyr. “ The demon shook his head. “I don’t understand. Satyrs aren't stronger than vengeance demons, but it handily beat Cecily. And satyrs don’t kill. They rut. They drink. They debauch. They don’t kill.”
“Isobel wished for the guy, who was blackmailing her, to be turned into a satyr?”
Gorbach shifted his weight from foot to foot in an almost hopping motion. “Wanted him to be seen for what he was.” He blinked and paled to a lighter shade of blue. “He was a killer?”
“Do you care?” Buffy asked in disbelief.
“What? Me? No.” He looked nervous, going from sky blue to teal. “This has nothing to do with me. Not me. Nope. Certainly, not me. I’m just here to observe.”
“Uh-huh.”
Gorbach was nodding now, flushing teal and cyan as he walked faster. “It’s Cecily’s job. Not mine. Uncle Hoff will see that it is not my responsibility. I will make him see. He will see.” Gorbach paused and lifted his head. “Maybe I should contact Mother.”
Buffy sighed. This was going nowhere fast.
Spike turned right, heading down Waterloo Place toward Westminster Abbey, following a trail of blood droplets which lay diluted on pavement still damp from a late afternoon rain. The evening was cold, but more clear than usual since the rain had cleaned most of the acrid smoke from the air. Still, when clouds passed in front of the full moon, the city became almost oppressively dark, darker than Sunnydale could ever be with its glow of electric lights. Here dim gaslight, in tints of carmine and amber, glinted off the blade he carried.
As he reached Horse Guard’s Road, Spike glimpsed the hulking figure dragging Cecily behind it.
“Unhand me, you brute!” she yelled at the creature. “Do you not understand? You cannot do this to me!”
The monster growled.
“I can help you,” she cajoled. “I am the only one who can.”
Turning up the collar of his coat, to cover his white shirt, Spike kept to the shadows. Better to suss out the situation and strategically attack when he had the advantage.
The creature veered toward Westminster School, entering a grassed yard, dotted with large, old trees, which stood as skeletal outlines against the moonlit sky.
Spike tested the weight of the sword in his hand and tried to judge his chances. With a running start, he might skewer the monster. But the creature would retaliate and there was no place to retreat. Unfortunately, unless he could physically overpower Cecily's captor, the yard was too wide and too exposed to suit his purposes.
Spike noticed a square tower looming high to his right, which, when he turned, became dead ahead. He guessed that it belonged to the Westminster Abbey. After giving it a millisecond of thought, Spike decided that the cathedral's high stone walls would provide an effective bullwark if the creature were to cut between the school and the Abbey. . .
Spike sped up, keeping to the darkest of the shadows while watching Cecily as she alternately badgered and pleaded with the devil.
Spike caught a clear view of the creature. Its hindquarters were those of a hoofed animal -- complete with exposed genitals and a tail -- while its chest and arms were that of a man. . . a very hairy man. Then it moved into the moonlight, and Spike saw that its face was somewhat human, though perhaps more closely resembling a Neanderthal than a modern man. And its eyes glowed red.
Spike cut between the Medieval church and the lower brick buildings of the school. Up close, the Abbey's walls were gray and white, made from square stones, and articulated with arches and corbelled ledges that made little sense to Spike’s eyes.
In a small, three-sided courtyard, facing the towering side façade of the church, Spike found a set of stone steps leading up to a second-story entry into the school.
=There,= he thought as he dashed up the steps. =An attack from above. =
He stood on the landing, watching as the devil pulled Cecily through the alley. “I know it is difficult for you to understand in your current condition, but you are cursed." She frantically pulled at its arm. “It can be undone. I can undo it."
The creature bared gruesome teeth, causing Cecily to shrink back. "Please. . . do not hurt me.”
Spike leapt, coming down on top of the creature, grabbing its shoulder. It turned and staggered, momentarily knocked off balance as Spike landed cat-like on his feet before striking out with a slice of his sword. The creature reacted with a wounded howl, releasing Cecily, who fell on the cobblestones.
Angry and cornered, the monster struck at Spike, who ducked and retreated. The devil had strength on its side. Spike had agility and speed.
“Move!” he commanded Cecily.
The creature looked torn between recapturing Cecily and defending itself against Spike.
Spike spun on his heel, slashing the blade through a wide arc, connecting and slicing into the monster’s arm. It howled like a wounded Wookie, mindlessly attacking Spike while leaving Cecily free to crawl away.
Its red-eyed gaze narrowed and glowed as it put Spike on the defensive, backhanding him with its tree-trunk-sized arm. Suddenly, Spike became keenly aware that he was dwarfed by the devil. He wasn't even as tall as its shoulder.
Seeing that he was about to be cornered, Spike jumped over the balustrade and retreated up the stairs. “You are an ugly bugger,” he taunted.
The creature scowled, though Spike couldn’t tell whether that was its general expression or whether it had understood the insult. It drooled and shook its shaggy head. And Spike grinned with a predator’s glee, his inner demon giddy with the possibility of a kill.
“Come on,” he called. “You know you wanna. Catch me if you can.”
It charged, and Spike jumped, flying through the air to land in a crouch on the cobblestones. He grabbed Cecily’s hand. “Come on!”
He pulled her behind him, all but dragging her as they charged down the alley, leading them away from the courtyard and taking them toward the river.
They rounded the corner as the creature’s roar echoed in the manmade cavern of brick and stone. Once they reached St. Margaret Street, Cecily pulled free of his hand, gazing at him breathlessly.
“You’re not human,” Cecily gasped.
“Not precisely.” Spike cautiously looked back down the alley to see whether the creature had followed.
“You saved me.” There was a note of admiration in her voice.
The corner of Spike’s mouth tilted up in a bitter smile. “Not precisely.”
Looking uncannily like a demure young lady, Cecily touched his sleeve. “It would have killed me. You saved me.” She lifted her eyes, and there was nothing demure in them as she raised her right hand to her décolletage, deliberately drawing attention to her bosom. “And you aren’t human.”
Spike stepped back, mildly surprised by her sudden interest in him.
“I am impressed,” she said softly.
Spike snorted. “Should be. Not every day I’d save you.”
She pressed close and fluttered her eyelashes. ”You are most intriguing.”
“Hey!” Buffy skidded around the corner nearest Parliament Square. “Where did it go?”
Spike pointed to the alley and Buffy took off.
Spike looked down at Cecily. He was amused that he, who was ‘so far beneath her,’ had rescued Cecily from crawling in the muck. Not only that, but she was coming onto him. Spike smiled with bitter mirth as she preened -- as much as someone dressed in silk and horse shit could preen -- and attempted to look sweet and inviting.
In the shadows of the gothic cathedral, Buffy searched for the satyr. . . or rather, the satyr that wasn’t a satyr but should have been. It charged from beneath a flying buttress, coming at her like an offensive lineman. Buffy swung the mace, releasing it to spiral through the air. Her aim was off and it missed the creature, hitting the brick wall like a small wrecking ball. Brick dust scattered on the cobblestones as the naked not-a-satyr ran from the alley.
“Damn it!” Buffy groused, picking up the mace and running after the monster.
The thing looked like a half-man/half-goat. Could it be a weregoat? There were werewolves, and she’d heard of werepanthers. But weregoats? That sounded ridiculous.
Then again, it looked ridiculous. . . and like a weregoat.
The moon emerged from behind the clouds and she got a clear view of it. Yeah, definitely looked like a weregoat. And couldn’t Halfrek have cursed it with underwear? Buffy would have preferred to have been spared the sight of its stumpy, dangly parts.
Its gait was awkward, but the length of its stride was huge. And Buffy had to run to keep it in sight.
And it felt...
Great.
For the first time in what seemed like forever, Buffy felt like herself again. She felt like she had before... before death, before Glory, before... a lot of things. Everything was clear and comprehensible.
See monster. Monster bad. Kill monster.
There was no inner debate, no turmoil, no nasty unanswerable questions. It was direct and straightforward. She didn’t have to wonder who she was or what she was doing. There was no doubt. And she wasn’t wearing an apron or a chicken hat.
It wasn’t that this was the first beast that she had encountered since her return from the dead. It wasn’t the hunt and the kill. It was more. She had her purpose. She was accomplishing it, and it was. . . simple. This, she could do and do well. And there was no-one looking on, no-one standing by judging, no-one to disappoint. There were no expectations she had to fulfill, and no-one to fail. She was free -- free to run, fight, kick, and feel whatever it was she was feeling. . . without guilt. She was out of her time and place, no consequence felt real. It was like a free vacation from her life.
Buffy followed the creature down an avenue bordered by bulbous gas lamps, that looked like glowing orange Tootsie-pops on black iron sticks. And, catching her second wind, she started to sprint, wondering whether her lightened mood was a runner's high.
The ‘weregoat’ cut into a park that ran alongside the river. To her left, a low, moss-covered stone wall guarded the bank of the Thames as Halfrek’s monster doubled back.
It barreled toward her, and Buffy brandished her mace.
“Smackdown time,” she said under her breath. “Gotta warn you, I’m good at this.” Timing was everything and the mace came down just as it reached her, knocking it in the chest.
The creature roared as it staggered back, then came at her again. She blocked its huge right arm, which looked like it belonged to a hairy behemoth body builder on steroids. And, turning swiftly, she tried to twist its arm behind its back. But it was easier thought than done.
=Damn big biceps.=
The creature jerked its elbow, sending Buffy flying. She flipped and landed in a roll, so that she almost instantly came to her feet--which, considering that she was still in the stupid maid's outfit, was an acrobatic move so improbable that Buffy impressed herself. There was no time to gloat before the 'weregoat' hit her in the back, driving her into the ground.
Remembering its stumpy, dangly bits, Buffy suddenly became frightened of what might happen.
She clawed at the dirt, unable to find purchase as the creature's beefy body weighed her down. It grabbed her hair.
“Ow!” Hair pulling was so not allowed.
Giving up on crawling away, she pressed her hand down and, shoving as hard as she could, she threw both herself and the ‘weregoat’ over. Pulling her knees up to her chest, Buffy vaulted back to her feet, turning quickly on her heel to face the monster once again.
It hit her, shoving her into a tree, and Buffy grunted as the air rushed out of her lungs. It glared at her, and its red eyes glowed, causing Buffy to feel her heart flutter with a surge of adrenaline and fear.
She turned her head away from the stench of its breath. Although Buffy didn’t know what a goat’s teeth looked like, this creature’s teeth were sharp and menacing.
This was so not good.
She brought up her knee, jamming it into its crotch, and causing the creature to howl as it backhanded her.
She suddenly found herself on her hands and knees in the dirt as the monster abandoned the fight. It ran ponderously down the sidewalk which bisected the small park as it headed toward buildings that even Buffy recognized as the Houses of Parliament.
Well, at least now she felt like she was actually on a trip to London -- an unplanned, unwanted trip -- but still, something.
“Oh, no you don’t!” she called out, climbing to her feet to take off after him.
The creature, for all its awkward gait, possessed a bizarre kind of agility as it scaled a wrought-iron fence to drop into the narrow space running between Parliament and the river. Buffy followed, landing on the terrace and shoving benches and tables out of her way as she ran.
The terrace was bordered by the towering government building on her left and the wide expanse of the Thames on her right, and it was a dead end. The building jutted out at a right angle, leaving no-where to go, as the terrace ran out and the building itself began to abut the wall guarding the river.
“Now I’ve got you.”
The creature turned and faced her. She braced herself for another assault. "There's no where to go," she said.
The creature snorted, shook its head, and pawed at the ground with its hooves, leaving Buffy feeling like a matador... facing a deadly man-goat.
=Here it comes,= she thought. Only it didn’t. It jumped over the wall and into the river.
“Hey!” Buffy ran to the wall. “No fair!”
It splashed as it hit the water, the current swiftly sweeping it away. She considered diving after it. She really did. Except, in the darkness, the water looked black, and it smelled rank and...
=Ew.=
No, she wasn’t going into the river.
Suddenly, Spike came through an archway to her left.
“It gone?” he asked.
“How did you do that?” She pointed to the archway where he had entered the terrace.
Spike shrugged. “Had to break down a gate... and a door.” He paused for a moment before adding, “And maybe a window.” He walked onto the terrace to look over the wall running beside the river. “You kill it? Or did it get away?”
“Swam away.”
Spike arched a brow. “Swam?” He looked down at the black water. “Didn’t know it could swim.”
The clouds parted, allowing cool, blue-white light to fall over the city. The reflection of the full moon glittered across the water, and suddenly, it all felt like a dream, lovely and antiquated.
“This way,” Spike said quietly, leading her through the archway to a short tunnel that came out virtually below Big Ben.
“Cool,” she said.
“Huh?”
She pointed to the clock tower and smiled. “Going to take me sightseeing?”
Spike smiled in return. “Thought that was what you were doing. Already hit Westminster Abbey, Victoria Gardens, and the Houses of Parliament.”
She pointed to the bridge crossing the river on long, low iron arches. “And this?”
“Is not London Bridge.”
“Isn’t that in Texas?”
Spike chuckled lowly. It was a disturbingly pleasant sound that tied knots in her stomach and made her shiver in a tingly way. “Dunno. Lost track.”
“We’ll agree on Texas, then. Even if it isn’t true, neither of us would know the difference.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked beside her and, once again, Buffy was haunted by a vague cognitive dissonance by how familiar and how foreign Spike seemed at the same time. He moved like Spike. The smoothly timbred voice was Spike’s and yet, it was now packaged with sandy brown hair, stark white shirt, waistcoat, and tie.
=Don’t focus on Spike,= Buffy lectured herself. “What happened to the purple princess?”
“Who?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. Like Spike had rescued some other damsel demon in distress tonight.
“Oh, her,” he belatedly responded. “Hailed a hack and sent Cecily home. Didn’t want to miss all the fun.”
“Right, 'cause goat-hunting is fun.”
“Not when you put it like that.” He cast a sidelong glance at her. “Come on, admit it—“
“Don’t call me ‘love,’ “ she preemptively warned.
“Slayer, you’ve got to admit that a little demon-hunting by moonlight is a sight better than mincing through the quadrille and sipping warm lemonade.”
She shook out her dirty, damaged black skirt. “I wouldn’t know. I was the one carrying the warm lemonade up from the kitchen and the chamber pots.”
“Not at the same time, I hope.”
“Not funny. So not funny.” They had reached the bridge.
Laying her hands on the railing, she looked back at the view, which in this case happened to be the Houses of Parliament limned in moonlight.
Spike leaned against the rail beside her. “Least I can see the humor of the situation.”
“Maybe I could too if I wasn’t—-“
He crossed his arms. “You really should expand your conversation beyond chamber pots.”
“If I wasn’t playing Cinderella.” There. =You can’t anticipate everything I do and say.=
She realized that river was quite pretty with silver-light dancing across it.
“I take it you were Cinderella before the bippity-boppidy-boo.”
Buffy looked at him in disbelief. “You’ve watched Disney?”
Spike looked caught out. “What? Me? You’re off your nut. ‘course not.”
He was lying. It was written all over his far-too-expressive face.
Buffy couldn’t help but smile and ruefully shake her head. “You are the weirdest vampire ever. “
“Pfft,” Spike dismissed.
“No, really. It’s disturbing.”
“Dawn was in a vulnerable place.”
Buffy squelched her desire to smirk at his discomfort and said archly, “Yeah, Dawn. I’m sure.”
“She’d lost her Mum, and y—“ Spike abruptly pushed away from the railing, then redirected the conversation. “So, I take it you’ve been scrubbing floors and the like instead of being invited to the ball.”
“You got it. Looks like fate also screwed me over with Prince Charming and sent you instead.”
“Right.” Spike sounded peeved.
“I mean, why couldn’t fate deliver with the tall, dark, and handsome? That too much to ask?”
Spike turned on his heel and began walking away. Only, after a few steps, he stopped and turned. Walking up to her, he said, “If I’m not your idea of 'knight to the rescue', you can go find Angelus. He’s wandering around the city somewhere.”
“He is?” Even she could hear the slightly pathetic note of hope in her voice.
He looked heavenward and cursed. “Shit, fuck, and bollocks.” He glared at her. “Do the math.”
Momentarily non-plussed, Buffy gazed at Spike blankly. Then it hit her. “Oh.”
He'd turn his back on her was walking off the bridge. “Yes, ‘oh’. Don’t go seekin’ him out unless you’ve got a sudden yen to stake him. Not that it isn’t a brilliant idea.”
Angel had no soul.
If 1880 predated Spike’s vamping, it predated the gypsy curse. It predated Angel the good guy and Angel the hero. He was 'Angel the soulless thing'.
An unwanted memory surfaced in Buffy’s head. Her fists striking out, hitting, pummeling, pouring out all her rage with the world, with her friends, and with herself. =There’s nothing good or clean inside you.=
Buffy flinched. A question came to her, urging her to catch up to Spike as he angrily strode away. “Do you have a soul?”
“What?”
“You’re human now," she said. "Sorta. So do you have a soul?”
Spike's dumbstruck expression showed that the question had never crossed his mind.
“Oh come on!" she said. "How can you not know?”
Spike stepped away from her. “How do you know? Can you feel your soul?”
“Well, I—“ She didn’t have an answer. “I don’t think it works that way.”
Spike fidgeted. With his hands in his pockets, he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “What? Something so bloody important, and it doesn't come with neon blinkers? Can't see it. Can you even define it? Do you have any idea--” He stopped short, and, as if he could no longer contain all the fractious energy insde him, he began to pace. “Would a soul make me all bright, shiny, and new? Would I be ‘acceptable’ then?”
She didn’t like the squirmy feeling inside her. She didn’t want questions. Buffy pushed past him and made her way down the street. “Guess you don’t have a soul. You’d be a nicer person if you did.”
“Hah!” Spike scooted around her and began walking backwards so that they remained face-to-face. “You’re telling me you haven’t noticed that there are a hell of a lot of people with souls who are bloody awful?”
He had a point, but there was no need to tell him.
She crossed her arms and cocked her head. “Guess it would make sense that you’re one of them."
Spike frowned, crinkling his brow. “Didn’t say that.”
“Well, what did you say?”
Spike ducked his head, and, laying his hand on the back of his neck, he shook his head and sighed. “Said it wasn’t simple.” He looked at her with hauntingly expressive eyes -- eyes which sometimes seemed to see straight through her. Where Spike was concerned, Buffy sometimes felt like she was made out of glass.
“How do you know?” he asked, and, God help her, he sounded sincere. “Really, how do you know?”
“I don’t.” And it was as honest as she'd been with him-- or herself-- in a very long time. “I’m not sure. I just always thought... ”
She had always thought that it would be like Angel. With soul, Angel was one person. Without it, he was someone else, a monster without a heart who wanted to destroy her.
She shook off her doubts. “Shouldn't it be obvious? What were you like before?”
Spike looked away. “No point going into that.”
She remembered Irving’s insults in the Addam's entry hallway. “So you were like... way different, right?”
“I’m not him,” Spike said, maybe a little too strongly. “But things feel...” Clearly, he was struggling with something. “Things feel like they felt then. There’s no difference.”
What did that mean? “So are you Spike or William?”
He looked at her but gave no answer.
“Do you want to kill people?” she asked.
“Often. But so do you. What does that prove?”
Buffy stepped closer. “So, how do you feel about it? That would be different, wouldn’t it? I mean, you weren’t a killer before, were you?”
Spike snorted and shook his head as if the question was absurd. “No. As you may have guessed, William was...” Spike clenched his jaw. She could see the muscle jump in his cheek. “William was no nascent serial killer.”
“And now?”
He tilted his head and looked at her. “Buffy, I’ve killed for more than a century. What does that make me?”
She looked away and took a deep breath before saying softly, “That century hasn’t happened yet.” She looked up at him. “And I meant, now now. What are you now?”
Spike considered her question.
“Hunger is still there,” he conceded, and he looked back down the street toward the river where the monster she had chased had escaped. “And the thrill of the hunt, the chase still feels bloody wonderful. But to actually kill? To kill someone innocent...”
His eyes grew wide as he paled with horror. “Bloody hell. I’ve got a soul.”
Buffy smirked.
Spiked snapped peevishy, “Stop laughing.”
“Who? Me? Laugh?”
They silently walked back to the Addams’ townhouse while Spike digested this new information.
Companionable silence stretched between them, easy, familiar and it reminded Buffy of the days after she had come back, days when she had needed his presence, his implacable strength. Spike was like the buildings that were around them, having lived through decades and wars, persevering through time, he seemed as permanent and unchanging as the architecture. She had needed his implacability as a refuge from a world that had changed. In the stillness of his crypt, he had sat with her for hours, just being with her, content to simply let her be. She didn’t have to fit any one idea of who she was. There was no expectation that she could fail or disappoint. Spike accepted her, all of her, exactly as she was.
They turned the corner and saw carriages lined in front of the Addams’ door. Spike touched her sleeve and tilted his head to the left. “Go around back,” he said. “Slip in there.”
Buffy nodded, and they entered through a small, tight alley at the back of the townhouse. Buffy led Spike through the servants' entrance next to the kitchen.
Heading up the back stairs, Buffy said, “We’ll find Halfrek, and you’ll unwish whatever it was you wished that got us here.”
“Don’t suppose I have any say in the matter.”
“No”
“Didn’t think so.”
They opened the doors to the gallery only to find Gorbach -- in human face -- pacing the length of the room, muttering to himself.
Spike’s brows drew down sharply. He looked doubtful as he cautiously addressed the agitated ‘man’. “Mr. Addams?”
Gorbach’s head snapped up. “He took Cecily.”
Spikes brows rose up sharply. “What? Again? Just saved the stupid bint from the beastie once.”
Gorbach looked offended. “How dare you call my Uncle a monster.”
“What?”
“D’Hoffryn,” Buffy said.
“D’who?” Spike asked.
Buffy ignored Spike and focused on Gorbach. “Where’s Halfrek?”
Gorbach waved his hands in a somewhat fey, 'jazz hands' manner that, while inarticulate, conveyed that the demon Master had taken Halfrek to the demon dimension—“Arash Mahar,” he said in a hushed whisper.
Gorbach’s eyes were huge and his long, narrow hands shook. “What do you think Uncle will do to her? He incinerates demons for mistakes. There was this one demon who turned the vengeance wisher into a dung beetle instead of the... “ He frowned. “What do you call the human the vengeance has been wished upon?”
“Unfortunate sap,” Spike supplied.
Gorbach wrung his hands. “I hate to displease Uncle on my very first assignment.”
Buffy didn’t care about that. “If he incinerates her, I’m totally screwed!”
Spike demanded. “Who the hell is D’Hoffryn? And am I right in thinkin’ that it’s Cecily you’re calling Halfrek?”
“Of course it is, and of course you remember,” Buffy snapped, suddenly in a very, very bad mood.
“If I remembered, I bloody well wouldn’t be askin’ now, would I?”
Buffy gave an exasperated sigh. “You remember Xander, the demon magnet? Giles going blind, the . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Their eyes met and Spike finished the sentence for her. “The love spell.”
Something seemed to grab hold inside Buffy and twist. “Yeah.”
“Red did that.”
“But D’Hoffryn was impressed. He offered to make Willow a vengeance demon. D’Hoffryn was Anya’s boss.”
“And he made Cecily a vengeance demon?”
Gorbach blinked. “Cecily was always a vengeance demon. Well, always as long as she was Cecily. But she was someone else before she was Cecily.”
“What?” Spike and Buffy asked in unison.
“Uncle turned her into a demon in 79 A.D. Her father ran off with a slave girl leaving Halfrek stranded in Pompeii when the volcano blew. She called down the wrath of the gods from the Villa of the Mysteries. Uncle said she was quite impressive. Very bright. Very bright, indeed.”
Spike suddenly looked far more attentive. . . and aggressive. “Uncle Hoff? So you’re a demon too?”
The eager excitement in Gorbach’s eyes revealed the youthful demon beneath the elderly human exterior as he nodded vigorously.
“Sonofabitch!” Spike pulled back, angry. “Both of you? Your whole life here? All this is nothing ut a twisted joke on the humans?”
Gorbach looked befuddled. “Why are you angry? We haven’t done anything to you.”
“Not done anything to me?” Spike seemed to vibrate with anger. “Why you and that... that bint pretending to be your daughter—“
Buffy's interest piqued, and she leaned forward just as Spike glanced at her and suddenly stopped speaking.
=What?= she wanted to demand.
There was a perfunctory knock on the door, and Desmond, still pale and
distraught, stuck his head into the room. “William, we’ve been searching for you.”
Spike said impatiently, "Not now.
Desmond opened the door further. “Your mother has collapsed.”
Spike left the room like a shot.
Feeling as if she'd suddenly been thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool, she struggled to make sense of it all and followed Spike back out to the foyer.
“Mother?” she asked. =Wha-huh?=
He ignored her and grabbed Desmond's arm. “Where?” he demanded.
Desmond said, “Upstairs. Second door to the left.”
Spike bounded up the stairs.
Buffy said to Gorbach, “Don’t move.” And she followed Spike upstairs.
She entered the guest bedroom to find Spike kneeling by the side of a chaise where a pale woman with graying blonde hair reclined. He took the woman’s hand gently between both of his own.
His mother opened her eyes and gave him a tired smile. “You are all right, dearest?”
“Me?” Spike asked in surprise. “Why would you ask such a thing when you are the one having a difficult time of it?”
She squeezed his hand. “No one could find you. I worried.”
Spike bowed his head. “Ah, that. Just stepped out for a bit of air.”
The woman nodded and, visibly exhausted, closed her eyes again.
Spike looked over his shoulder, but not at Buffy. His gaze settled on Desmond. “Did you send round for our carriage?”
“Yes, of course. “ The red-headed man, so ravaged by the night's events, crossed the room to sit on the bed. “It is waiting out front. No one could find you.” Then Desmond lay down, curling into a fetal position on the bed, reminding Buffy that Desmond’s wife had been killed this night, killed by the monster she and Spike had failed to catch.
A knot of unresolved feeling settled into the pit of her stomach.
Spike didn’t say anything as he gently lifted his mother into his arms, the woman’s head resting against his shoulder.
Buffy wanted to claim that she had never seen Spike so caring and kind, only it would be a lie. A familiar lie, one she liked to tell herself often, but she knew that it was a lie. She remembered sitting on her back porch, crying in helplessness and fear over her own mother’s health. Concern had replaced Spike's formerly murderous expression and he had asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She remembered the night Glory had intended to open the door to hell. Spike had stood at the foot of her stairs with his hair askew and his expression painfully open. He'd made a promise to protect her sister “To the end of the world... even if that happens to be tonight.”
And, on the night of the resurrection she tried not to remember, Spike had taken her hands in his, sitting with her silently, patiently. She had felt confused and lost. The world had been unbearably bright and harsh and yet, somehow, she had felt suffocated by darkness. Spike's hands had been her lifeline. He had tended her scraps and bruises so gently that she had felt no pain, and when her friends had arrived, he'd slipped away without a word.
Spike could be earnest and devoted. It was there, in him, when everything she had been taught as a Slayer said that it shouldn’t be.
Spike held his mother with the same care that he'd once tended to Buffy's ravaged hands. He glanced at Buffy. “Could you find something to keep her warm?”
Buffy nodded and hurried down the hall to Halfrek's room. When she returned, she carried a violet cashmere shawl, which she carefully wrapped around Spike’s mother.
“I have to take her home,” he said quietly. “I’ll return when I can.” Before he left, he added, “And, for God’s sake, toss the maid’s uniform. Filch one of Cecily’s dresses if you have to.”
And then he was gone, leaving Buffy to worry whether there was any way to fix the mess they were in.
Chapter Five
Three other requests: Spike has "replaced" William, but only he and Buffy know; Buffy acknowledges real feelings for Spike (happily or reluctantly; it's your call); and Cecily eats her heart out when she realizes what she could have had.
Previous Chapters Archived Here
Rating: Currently PG, Eventually NC-17
CHAPTER FOUR
They careened down the hallway, which was too narrow and too crowded for running, but they did it anyway. Hands stretched out in front of them, Buffy and Spike burst through a pair of oversized doors to skid to a halt in the grand entry hallway.
The room was long and higher than it was wide. It was stark in its monochromatic color palette, though the intricate black and white tile floor was marble, and the pale gray wainscot and frieze were carved with Greek keys, amphora, and swirls of acanthus leaves. It was very refined and elegant. And Buffy caught her breath in horror as the restrained architecture threw the tableau in front of them into lurid relief.
The strawberry-blonde that Buffy had seen with Halfrek on her first night in London lay sprawled on the floor. Her throat, or at least the left side of it, gone. Her collar bone lay exposed and broken-— a fatal contrast of white and red -- as a pool of blood spread slowly outward, seeping into the hairline cracks between the tiles.
A tearful, well-dressed woman pushed past Buffy and through the entrance doors. Seconds later the woman could be heard retching.
Buffy shifted on her feet, wondering what to do as Irving, the man who had made a pass at Buffy, stood at the front door yelling, “Coachman! Fetch the constable!”
Several guests hastily departed, averting their eyes from the body as they pushed past those who stood transfixed, unable to tear their gazes away from the horror. A few guests blanched and looked faint, quickly disappearing to other rooms inside the house.
Spike circled the blood-spattered corpse. “Those are bite marks,” he said as frown lines appeared between his brows. “But I dunno what did the biting.”
Buffy saw Desmond curled up in the corner, gibbering and crying. “Isobel.”
She approached the man cautiously. People didn’t like to be cornered when they were in distress. She knelt in front of him.
He closed his eyes and turned away, pressing his left temple against the wall. “Monster,” he muttered. “It was a monster. It killed my. . . ” He opened his eyes and gazed over at the mangled corpse on the floor. “Isobel. . . ” Desmond whimpered and laid his head against his knees.
Isobel’s eyes remained open. Her pupils fixed, staring blindly, forever, at the horror that had killed her. Buffy untied her apron and tossed it to Spike, who lay it over the body, covering Isobel’s face. In seconds, blood soaked through the linen, forming a scarlet stain.
“What kind of monster?” Buffy asked. She tried to will Desmond to look at her. “What was it?”
He did look at her -- angrily. “It was a monster. What more do you need to know? It was an animal and it ripped . . . it tore . . .” Desmond pushed against the wall and rose unsteadily to his feet.
Step by agonizing step, he made his way across the room until he stood over the body, unaware that he stood in a pool of Isobel’s blood. Tears tracked down his face. “It was a devil. . . ”
“A devil, how, precisely?” Spike asked. Buffy glared at him. “What? There are different kinds.”
Buffy sighed and approached Desmond once more. “What kind of devil?”
“Folderol,” Irving scoffed from the doorway. “There’s no devil, no monster. She was here with her cher ami, Richard Bruenig.”
“No!” Desmond charged toward Irving, but Buffy and Spike caught him, preventing him from tackling the other man.
Buffy looked to Spike for an explanation. “Cher ami?”
“Dear friend.”
“Oh.”
“Friend as in 'The Bronze' balcony or demolishing dilapidated houses.”
Buffy’s gaze widened with understanding. “Oh!”
“William, what are you prattling about? As if you know anything about. . . well. . . anything. And do not bother explaining our business to a servant." Turning away from Spike and Buffy, Irving looked haughtily at Desmond. "The truth is, Desmond, your wife was a trollop--”
“Bastard!” Desmond roared as Irving deftly stepped away.
“You probably killed her yourself.”
“Lay off!” Buffy snapped.
Spike growled, “He could hardly have ripped out her throat with his teeth.”
Irving snorted. “If William the Bloody Fool says it’s so, then it must be so.”
Spike let go of Desmond and charged Irving himself, grabbing the man and slamming him into the wall. “You are a rat-hearted, green pustule of a man, aren’t you?”
Irving swallowed. “Suddenly discovered your bollocks?”
Spike lifted the man off the floor.
“Spike. . . ” Buffy said nervously.
Spike glanced over his shoulder at her, then dropped Irving, sneering, “You aren’t worth it.”
Irving straightened his jacket. “And you’ve bloody well gone insane. When did you metamorphose from poncy git?”
Spike grabbed the sword, which stood wired into the gloved hands of a polished suit of armor.
Unsure of what Spike intended to do, Buffy stepped forward. She was willing to bet the Initiative’s chip hadn’t come back in time with Spike Version 2.0.
A cacophony of sound -- loud, metallic clattering -- echoed in the room as the suit of armor tumbled to the floor, the hilt of the weapon still firmly clasped in Spike’s left hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Discovering that the weapon was still wired to the armor, Spike yanked and twisted the blade, not bothering to look back at her. “Gonna hunt down a devil.”
“You think that --“ Irving gestured to the mangled mess of armor on the floor “-- will help? You are an idiot.”
“Stifle it,” Spike warned.
“And do not say ‘make me,’ “ Buffy added, directing an impatient glare in Irving’s direction. “He just might.”
A wicked smirk tilted the corners of Spike’s mouth as he glanced at her before yanking the gleaming sword free.
“Useless toff,” Spike sneered at Irving as he strode to the front door, only to come face-to-face with a breathless night watchman. The policeman blanched at the sight of the body on the floor.
“See here!” The bobbie protested as Spike pushed by him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Flushed, angry, and resentful, Irving said petulantly, “Thinks he’s off to save the ‘lady fair.’ ”
Buffy frowned. “What?”
“William has delusions of grandeur.”
“No. The lady. What lady?”
The woman who had passed Buffy -- to vomit -- said from just outside the door. “It took Cecily. That. . . that thing took Cecily.”
“Last thing it’ll do,“ Spike muttered as he departed.
“Hey!” Buffy protested, climbing clumsily to her feet. =Damn long skirts.=
Desmond suddenly said, “Its teeth! It had fearsome teeth and blood-red eyes.”
Right. So she might need a weapon. Buffy looked at the collapsed suit of armor. Typical. Spike had taken the best one. She picked up the knobby, iron mace. “Next time, I get the sword.”
Just then she saw Gorbach or, rather, ‘Mr. Addams’, slip up the stairs. With the mace in hand, Buffy went after him, catching him at the top of the stairs. “No, you don’t,” she said under her breath as she grabbed his sleeve. “You’re coming with me.”
She dragged the demon into Halfrek’s bedroom and slammed the door behind them. “What was it?” she demanded.
His eyes grew huge. “I don’t know! Why would I know?”
“Shut it, Gorbach. I know what you are. I know what Halfrek is. And just so you’re up to speed, I’m the Slayer. Now, if you want to live, tell me what the killing thing was.”
He awkwardly waddled backwards. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t know. Don’t know.”
She advanced on him. “Yeah, you do. Was it vengeance?” She pointed to the door. “Was that murder vengeance?”
Gorbach shook his head as he morphed from human to blue. “Not like that. Wasn’t supposed to be like that. She wasn’t supposed to die.”
“Someone wanted her injured?”
“When people die, there’s trouble. There’s always trouble.” As he walked in circles, muttering to himself, Gorbach looked like Rainman with obsessive-compulsive disorder. . . if Rainman had somehow become a member of Blue Man Group.
“Her wish. Hers. Vengeance was hers.” Gorbach looked up. “He was blackmailing her, and she wanted vengeance.”
“He who and her Isobel?”
“He was supposed to turn into a satyr. “ The demon shook his head. “I don’t understand. Satyrs aren't stronger than vengeance demons, but it handily beat Cecily. And satyrs don’t kill. They rut. They drink. They debauch. They don’t kill.”
“Isobel wished for the guy, who was blackmailing her, to be turned into a satyr?”
Gorbach shifted his weight from foot to foot in an almost hopping motion. “Wanted him to be seen for what he was.” He blinked and paled to a lighter shade of blue. “He was a killer?”
“Do you care?” Buffy asked in disbelief.
“What? Me? No.” He looked nervous, going from sky blue to teal. “This has nothing to do with me. Not me. Nope. Certainly, not me. I’m just here to observe.”
“Uh-huh.”
Gorbach was nodding now, flushing teal and cyan as he walked faster. “It’s Cecily’s job. Not mine. Uncle Hoff will see that it is not my responsibility. I will make him see. He will see.” Gorbach paused and lifted his head. “Maybe I should contact Mother.”
Buffy sighed. This was going nowhere fast.
Spike turned right, heading down Waterloo Place toward Westminster Abbey, following a trail of blood droplets which lay diluted on pavement still damp from a late afternoon rain. The evening was cold, but more clear than usual since the rain had cleaned most of the acrid smoke from the air. Still, when clouds passed in front of the full moon, the city became almost oppressively dark, darker than Sunnydale could ever be with its glow of electric lights. Here dim gaslight, in tints of carmine and amber, glinted off the blade he carried.
As he reached Horse Guard’s Road, Spike glimpsed the hulking figure dragging Cecily behind it.
“Unhand me, you brute!” she yelled at the creature. “Do you not understand? You cannot do this to me!”
The monster growled.
“I can help you,” she cajoled. “I am the only one who can.”
Turning up the collar of his coat, to cover his white shirt, Spike kept to the shadows. Better to suss out the situation and strategically attack when he had the advantage.
The creature veered toward Westminster School, entering a grassed yard, dotted with large, old trees, which stood as skeletal outlines against the moonlit sky.
Spike tested the weight of the sword in his hand and tried to judge his chances. With a running start, he might skewer the monster. But the creature would retaliate and there was no place to retreat. Unfortunately, unless he could physically overpower Cecily's captor, the yard was too wide and too exposed to suit his purposes.
Spike noticed a square tower looming high to his right, which, when he turned, became dead ahead. He guessed that it belonged to the Westminster Abbey. After giving it a millisecond of thought, Spike decided that the cathedral's high stone walls would provide an effective bullwark if the creature were to cut between the school and the Abbey. . .
Spike sped up, keeping to the darkest of the shadows while watching Cecily as she alternately badgered and pleaded with the devil.
Spike caught a clear view of the creature. Its hindquarters were those of a hoofed animal -- complete with exposed genitals and a tail -- while its chest and arms were that of a man. . . a very hairy man. Then it moved into the moonlight, and Spike saw that its face was somewhat human, though perhaps more closely resembling a Neanderthal than a modern man. And its eyes glowed red.
Spike cut between the Medieval church and the lower brick buildings of the school. Up close, the Abbey's walls were gray and white, made from square stones, and articulated with arches and corbelled ledges that made little sense to Spike’s eyes.
In a small, three-sided courtyard, facing the towering side façade of the church, Spike found a set of stone steps leading up to a second-story entry into the school.
=There,= he thought as he dashed up the steps. =An attack from above. =
He stood on the landing, watching as the devil pulled Cecily through the alley. “I know it is difficult for you to understand in your current condition, but you are cursed." She frantically pulled at its arm. “It can be undone. I can undo it."
The creature bared gruesome teeth, causing Cecily to shrink back. "Please. . . do not hurt me.”
Spike leapt, coming down on top of the creature, grabbing its shoulder. It turned and staggered, momentarily knocked off balance as Spike landed cat-like on his feet before striking out with a slice of his sword. The creature reacted with a wounded howl, releasing Cecily, who fell on the cobblestones.
Angry and cornered, the monster struck at Spike, who ducked and retreated. The devil had strength on its side. Spike had agility and speed.
“Move!” he commanded Cecily.
The creature looked torn between recapturing Cecily and defending itself against Spike.
Spike spun on his heel, slashing the blade through a wide arc, connecting and slicing into the monster’s arm. It howled like a wounded Wookie, mindlessly attacking Spike while leaving Cecily free to crawl away.
Its red-eyed gaze narrowed and glowed as it put Spike on the defensive, backhanding him with its tree-trunk-sized arm. Suddenly, Spike became keenly aware that he was dwarfed by the devil. He wasn't even as tall as its shoulder.
Seeing that he was about to be cornered, Spike jumped over the balustrade and retreated up the stairs. “You are an ugly bugger,” he taunted.
The creature scowled, though Spike couldn’t tell whether that was its general expression or whether it had understood the insult. It drooled and shook its shaggy head. And Spike grinned with a predator’s glee, his inner demon giddy with the possibility of a kill.
“Come on,” he called. “You know you wanna. Catch me if you can.”
It charged, and Spike jumped, flying through the air to land in a crouch on the cobblestones. He grabbed Cecily’s hand. “Come on!”
He pulled her behind him, all but dragging her as they charged down the alley, leading them away from the courtyard and taking them toward the river.
They rounded the corner as the creature’s roar echoed in the manmade cavern of brick and stone. Once they reached St. Margaret Street, Cecily pulled free of his hand, gazing at him breathlessly.
“You’re not human,” Cecily gasped.
“Not precisely.” Spike cautiously looked back down the alley to see whether the creature had followed.
“You saved me.” There was a note of admiration in her voice.
The corner of Spike’s mouth tilted up in a bitter smile. “Not precisely.”
Looking uncannily like a demure young lady, Cecily touched his sleeve. “It would have killed me. You saved me.” She lifted her eyes, and there was nothing demure in them as she raised her right hand to her décolletage, deliberately drawing attention to her bosom. “And you aren’t human.”
Spike stepped back, mildly surprised by her sudden interest in him.
“I am impressed,” she said softly.
Spike snorted. “Should be. Not every day I’d save you.”
She pressed close and fluttered her eyelashes. ”You are most intriguing.”
“Hey!” Buffy skidded around the corner nearest Parliament Square. “Where did it go?”
Spike pointed to the alley and Buffy took off.
Spike looked down at Cecily. He was amused that he, who was ‘so far beneath her,’ had rescued Cecily from crawling in the muck. Not only that, but she was coming onto him. Spike smiled with bitter mirth as she preened -- as much as someone dressed in silk and horse shit could preen -- and attempted to look sweet and inviting.
In the shadows of the gothic cathedral, Buffy searched for the satyr. . . or rather, the satyr that wasn’t a satyr but should have been. It charged from beneath a flying buttress, coming at her like an offensive lineman. Buffy swung the mace, releasing it to spiral through the air. Her aim was off and it missed the creature, hitting the brick wall like a small wrecking ball. Brick dust scattered on the cobblestones as the naked not-a-satyr ran from the alley.
“Damn it!” Buffy groused, picking up the mace and running after the monster.
The thing looked like a half-man/half-goat. Could it be a weregoat? There were werewolves, and she’d heard of werepanthers. But weregoats? That sounded ridiculous.
Then again, it looked ridiculous. . . and like a weregoat.
The moon emerged from behind the clouds and she got a clear view of it. Yeah, definitely looked like a weregoat. And couldn’t Halfrek have cursed it with underwear? Buffy would have preferred to have been spared the sight of its stumpy, dangly parts.
Its gait was awkward, but the length of its stride was huge. And Buffy had to run to keep it in sight.
And it felt...
Great.
For the first time in what seemed like forever, Buffy felt like herself again. She felt like she had before... before death, before Glory, before... a lot of things. Everything was clear and comprehensible.
See monster. Monster bad. Kill monster.
There was no inner debate, no turmoil, no nasty unanswerable questions. It was direct and straightforward. She didn’t have to wonder who she was or what she was doing. There was no doubt. And she wasn’t wearing an apron or a chicken hat.
It wasn’t that this was the first beast that she had encountered since her return from the dead. It wasn’t the hunt and the kill. It was more. She had her purpose. She was accomplishing it, and it was. . . simple. This, she could do and do well. And there was no-one looking on, no-one standing by judging, no-one to disappoint. There were no expectations she had to fulfill, and no-one to fail. She was free -- free to run, fight, kick, and feel whatever it was she was feeling. . . without guilt. She was out of her time and place, no consequence felt real. It was like a free vacation from her life.
Buffy followed the creature down an avenue bordered by bulbous gas lamps, that looked like glowing orange Tootsie-pops on black iron sticks. And, catching her second wind, she started to sprint, wondering whether her lightened mood was a runner's high.
The ‘weregoat’ cut into a park that ran alongside the river. To her left, a low, moss-covered stone wall guarded the bank of the Thames as Halfrek’s monster doubled back.
It barreled toward her, and Buffy brandished her mace.
“Smackdown time,” she said under her breath. “Gotta warn you, I’m good at this.” Timing was everything and the mace came down just as it reached her, knocking it in the chest.
The creature roared as it staggered back, then came at her again. She blocked its huge right arm, which looked like it belonged to a hairy behemoth body builder on steroids. And, turning swiftly, she tried to twist its arm behind its back. But it was easier thought than done.
=Damn big biceps.=
The creature jerked its elbow, sending Buffy flying. She flipped and landed in a roll, so that she almost instantly came to her feet--which, considering that she was still in the stupid maid's outfit, was an acrobatic move so improbable that Buffy impressed herself. There was no time to gloat before the 'weregoat' hit her in the back, driving her into the ground.
Remembering its stumpy, dangly bits, Buffy suddenly became frightened of what might happen.
She clawed at the dirt, unable to find purchase as the creature's beefy body weighed her down. It grabbed her hair.
“Ow!” Hair pulling was so not allowed.
Giving up on crawling away, she pressed her hand down and, shoving as hard as she could, she threw both herself and the ‘weregoat’ over. Pulling her knees up to her chest, Buffy vaulted back to her feet, turning quickly on her heel to face the monster once again.
It hit her, shoving her into a tree, and Buffy grunted as the air rushed out of her lungs. It glared at her, and its red eyes glowed, causing Buffy to feel her heart flutter with a surge of adrenaline and fear.
She turned her head away from the stench of its breath. Although Buffy didn’t know what a goat’s teeth looked like, this creature’s teeth were sharp and menacing.
This was so not good.
She brought up her knee, jamming it into its crotch, and causing the creature to howl as it backhanded her.
She suddenly found herself on her hands and knees in the dirt as the monster abandoned the fight. It ran ponderously down the sidewalk which bisected the small park as it headed toward buildings that even Buffy recognized as the Houses of Parliament.
Well, at least now she felt like she was actually on a trip to London -- an unplanned, unwanted trip -- but still, something.
“Oh, no you don’t!” she called out, climbing to her feet to take off after him.
The creature, for all its awkward gait, possessed a bizarre kind of agility as it scaled a wrought-iron fence to drop into the narrow space running between Parliament and the river. Buffy followed, landing on the terrace and shoving benches and tables out of her way as she ran.
The terrace was bordered by the towering government building on her left and the wide expanse of the Thames on her right, and it was a dead end. The building jutted out at a right angle, leaving no-where to go, as the terrace ran out and the building itself began to abut the wall guarding the river.
“Now I’ve got you.”
The creature turned and faced her. She braced herself for another assault. "There's no where to go," she said.
The creature snorted, shook its head, and pawed at the ground with its hooves, leaving Buffy feeling like a matador... facing a deadly man-goat.
=Here it comes,= she thought. Only it didn’t. It jumped over the wall and into the river.
“Hey!” Buffy ran to the wall. “No fair!”
It splashed as it hit the water, the current swiftly sweeping it away. She considered diving after it. She really did. Except, in the darkness, the water looked black, and it smelled rank and...
=Ew.=
No, she wasn’t going into the river.
Suddenly, Spike came through an archway to her left.
“It gone?” he asked.
“How did you do that?” She pointed to the archway where he had entered the terrace.
Spike shrugged. “Had to break down a gate... and a door.” He paused for a moment before adding, “And maybe a window.” He walked onto the terrace to look over the wall running beside the river. “You kill it? Or did it get away?”
“Swam away.”
Spike arched a brow. “Swam?” He looked down at the black water. “Didn’t know it could swim.”
The clouds parted, allowing cool, blue-white light to fall over the city. The reflection of the full moon glittered across the water, and suddenly, it all felt like a dream, lovely and antiquated.
“This way,” Spike said quietly, leading her through the archway to a short tunnel that came out virtually below Big Ben.
“Cool,” she said.
“Huh?”
She pointed to the clock tower and smiled. “Going to take me sightseeing?”
Spike smiled in return. “Thought that was what you were doing. Already hit Westminster Abbey, Victoria Gardens, and the Houses of Parliament.”
She pointed to the bridge crossing the river on long, low iron arches. “And this?”
“Is not London Bridge.”
“Isn’t that in Texas?”
Spike chuckled lowly. It was a disturbingly pleasant sound that tied knots in her stomach and made her shiver in a tingly way. “Dunno. Lost track.”
“We’ll agree on Texas, then. Even if it isn’t true, neither of us would know the difference.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked beside her and, once again, Buffy was haunted by a vague cognitive dissonance by how familiar and how foreign Spike seemed at the same time. He moved like Spike. The smoothly timbred voice was Spike’s and yet, it was now packaged with sandy brown hair, stark white shirt, waistcoat, and tie.
=Don’t focus on Spike,= Buffy lectured herself. “What happened to the purple princess?”
“Who?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. Like Spike had rescued some other damsel demon in distress tonight.
“Oh, her,” he belatedly responded. “Hailed a hack and sent Cecily home. Didn’t want to miss all the fun.”
“Right, 'cause goat-hunting is fun.”
“Not when you put it like that.” He cast a sidelong glance at her. “Come on, admit it—“
“Don’t call me ‘love,’ “ she preemptively warned.
“Slayer, you’ve got to admit that a little demon-hunting by moonlight is a sight better than mincing through the quadrille and sipping warm lemonade.”
She shook out her dirty, damaged black skirt. “I wouldn’t know. I was the one carrying the warm lemonade up from the kitchen and the chamber pots.”
“Not at the same time, I hope.”
“Not funny. So not funny.” They had reached the bridge.
Laying her hands on the railing, she looked back at the view, which in this case happened to be the Houses of Parliament limned in moonlight.
Spike leaned against the rail beside her. “Least I can see the humor of the situation.”
“Maybe I could too if I wasn’t—-“
He crossed his arms. “You really should expand your conversation beyond chamber pots.”
“If I wasn’t playing Cinderella.” There. =You can’t anticipate everything I do and say.=
She realized that river was quite pretty with silver-light dancing across it.
“I take it you were Cinderella before the bippity-boppidy-boo.”
Buffy looked at him in disbelief. “You’ve watched Disney?”
Spike looked caught out. “What? Me? You’re off your nut. ‘course not.”
He was lying. It was written all over his far-too-expressive face.
Buffy couldn’t help but smile and ruefully shake her head. “You are the weirdest vampire ever. “
“Pfft,” Spike dismissed.
“No, really. It’s disturbing.”
“Dawn was in a vulnerable place.”
Buffy squelched her desire to smirk at his discomfort and said archly, “Yeah, Dawn. I’m sure.”
“She’d lost her Mum, and y—“ Spike abruptly pushed away from the railing, then redirected the conversation. “So, I take it you’ve been scrubbing floors and the like instead of being invited to the ball.”
“You got it. Looks like fate also screwed me over with Prince Charming and sent you instead.”
“Right.” Spike sounded peeved.
“I mean, why couldn’t fate deliver with the tall, dark, and handsome? That too much to ask?”
Spike turned on his heel and began walking away. Only, after a few steps, he stopped and turned. Walking up to her, he said, “If I’m not your idea of 'knight to the rescue', you can go find Angelus. He’s wandering around the city somewhere.”
“He is?” Even she could hear the slightly pathetic note of hope in her voice.
He looked heavenward and cursed. “Shit, fuck, and bollocks.” He glared at her. “Do the math.”
Momentarily non-plussed, Buffy gazed at Spike blankly. Then it hit her. “Oh.”
He'd turn his back on her was walking off the bridge. “Yes, ‘oh’. Don’t go seekin’ him out unless you’ve got a sudden yen to stake him. Not that it isn’t a brilliant idea.”
Angel had no soul.
If 1880 predated Spike’s vamping, it predated the gypsy curse. It predated Angel the good guy and Angel the hero. He was 'Angel the soulless thing'.
An unwanted memory surfaced in Buffy’s head. Her fists striking out, hitting, pummeling, pouring out all her rage with the world, with her friends, and with herself. =There’s nothing good or clean inside you.=
Buffy flinched. A question came to her, urging her to catch up to Spike as he angrily strode away. “Do you have a soul?”
“What?”
“You’re human now," she said. "Sorta. So do you have a soul?”
Spike's dumbstruck expression showed that the question had never crossed his mind.
“Oh come on!" she said. "How can you not know?”
Spike stepped away from her. “How do you know? Can you feel your soul?”
“Well, I—“ She didn’t have an answer. “I don’t think it works that way.”
Spike fidgeted. With his hands in his pockets, he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “What? Something so bloody important, and it doesn't come with neon blinkers? Can't see it. Can you even define it? Do you have any idea--” He stopped short, and, as if he could no longer contain all the fractious energy insde him, he began to pace. “Would a soul make me all bright, shiny, and new? Would I be ‘acceptable’ then?”
She didn’t like the squirmy feeling inside her. She didn’t want questions. Buffy pushed past him and made her way down the street. “Guess you don’t have a soul. You’d be a nicer person if you did.”
“Hah!” Spike scooted around her and began walking backwards so that they remained face-to-face. “You’re telling me you haven’t noticed that there are a hell of a lot of people with souls who are bloody awful?”
He had a point, but there was no need to tell him.
She crossed her arms and cocked her head. “Guess it would make sense that you’re one of them."
Spike frowned, crinkling his brow. “Didn’t say that.”
“Well, what did you say?”
Spike ducked his head, and, laying his hand on the back of his neck, he shook his head and sighed. “Said it wasn’t simple.” He looked at her with hauntingly expressive eyes -- eyes which sometimes seemed to see straight through her. Where Spike was concerned, Buffy sometimes felt like she was made out of glass.
“How do you know?” he asked, and, God help her, he sounded sincere. “Really, how do you know?”
“I don’t.” And it was as honest as she'd been with him-- or herself-- in a very long time. “I’m not sure. I just always thought... ”
She had always thought that it would be like Angel. With soul, Angel was one person. Without it, he was someone else, a monster without a heart who wanted to destroy her.
She shook off her doubts. “Shouldn't it be obvious? What were you like before?”
Spike looked away. “No point going into that.”
She remembered Irving’s insults in the Addam's entry hallway. “So you were like... way different, right?”
“I’m not him,” Spike said, maybe a little too strongly. “But things feel...” Clearly, he was struggling with something. “Things feel like they felt then. There’s no difference.”
What did that mean? “So are you Spike or William?”
He looked at her but gave no answer.
“Do you want to kill people?” she asked.
“Often. But so do you. What does that prove?”
Buffy stepped closer. “So, how do you feel about it? That would be different, wouldn’t it? I mean, you weren’t a killer before, were you?”
Spike snorted and shook his head as if the question was absurd. “No. As you may have guessed, William was...” Spike clenched his jaw. She could see the muscle jump in his cheek. “William was no nascent serial killer.”
“And now?”
He tilted his head and looked at her. “Buffy, I’ve killed for more than a century. What does that make me?”
She looked away and took a deep breath before saying softly, “That century hasn’t happened yet.” She looked up at him. “And I meant, now now. What are you now?”
Spike considered her question.
“Hunger is still there,” he conceded, and he looked back down the street toward the river where the monster she had chased had escaped. “And the thrill of the hunt, the chase still feels bloody wonderful. But to actually kill? To kill someone innocent...”
His eyes grew wide as he paled with horror. “Bloody hell. I’ve got a soul.”
Buffy smirked.
Spiked snapped peevishy, “Stop laughing.”
“Who? Me? Laugh?”
They silently walked back to the Addams’ townhouse while Spike digested this new information.
Companionable silence stretched between them, easy, familiar and it reminded Buffy of the days after she had come back, days when she had needed his presence, his implacable strength. Spike was like the buildings that were around them, having lived through decades and wars, persevering through time, he seemed as permanent and unchanging as the architecture. She had needed his implacability as a refuge from a world that had changed. In the stillness of his crypt, he had sat with her for hours, just being with her, content to simply let her be. She didn’t have to fit any one idea of who she was. There was no expectation that she could fail or disappoint. Spike accepted her, all of her, exactly as she was.
They turned the corner and saw carriages lined in front of the Addams’ door. Spike touched her sleeve and tilted his head to the left. “Go around back,” he said. “Slip in there.”
Buffy nodded, and they entered through a small, tight alley at the back of the townhouse. Buffy led Spike through the servants' entrance next to the kitchen.
Heading up the back stairs, Buffy said, “We’ll find Halfrek, and you’ll unwish whatever it was you wished that got us here.”
“Don’t suppose I have any say in the matter.”
“No”
“Didn’t think so.”
They opened the doors to the gallery only to find Gorbach -- in human face -- pacing the length of the room, muttering to himself.
Spike’s brows drew down sharply. He looked doubtful as he cautiously addressed the agitated ‘man’. “Mr. Addams?”
Gorbach’s head snapped up. “He took Cecily.”
Spikes brows rose up sharply. “What? Again? Just saved the stupid bint from the beastie once.”
Gorbach looked offended. “How dare you call my Uncle a monster.”
“What?”
“D’Hoffryn,” Buffy said.
“D’who?” Spike asked.
Buffy ignored Spike and focused on Gorbach. “Where’s Halfrek?”
Gorbach waved his hands in a somewhat fey, 'jazz hands' manner that, while inarticulate, conveyed that the demon Master had taken Halfrek to the demon dimension—“Arash Mahar,” he said in a hushed whisper.
Gorbach’s eyes were huge and his long, narrow hands shook. “What do you think Uncle will do to her? He incinerates demons for mistakes. There was this one demon who turned the vengeance wisher into a dung beetle instead of the... “ He frowned. “What do you call the human the vengeance has been wished upon?”
“Unfortunate sap,” Spike supplied.
Gorbach wrung his hands. “I hate to displease Uncle on my very first assignment.”
Buffy didn’t care about that. “If he incinerates her, I’m totally screwed!”
Spike demanded. “Who the hell is D’Hoffryn? And am I right in thinkin’ that it’s Cecily you’re calling Halfrek?”
“Of course it is, and of course you remember,” Buffy snapped, suddenly in a very, very bad mood.
“If I remembered, I bloody well wouldn’t be askin’ now, would I?”
Buffy gave an exasperated sigh. “You remember Xander, the demon magnet? Giles going blind, the . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Their eyes met and Spike finished the sentence for her. “The love spell.”
Something seemed to grab hold inside Buffy and twist. “Yeah.”
“Red did that.”
“But D’Hoffryn was impressed. He offered to make Willow a vengeance demon. D’Hoffryn was Anya’s boss.”
“And he made Cecily a vengeance demon?”
Gorbach blinked. “Cecily was always a vengeance demon. Well, always as long as she was Cecily. But she was someone else before she was Cecily.”
“What?” Spike and Buffy asked in unison.
“Uncle turned her into a demon in 79 A.D. Her father ran off with a slave girl leaving Halfrek stranded in Pompeii when the volcano blew. She called down the wrath of the gods from the Villa of the Mysteries. Uncle said she was quite impressive. Very bright. Very bright, indeed.”
Spike suddenly looked far more attentive. . . and aggressive. “Uncle Hoff? So you’re a demon too?”
The eager excitement in Gorbach’s eyes revealed the youthful demon beneath the elderly human exterior as he nodded vigorously.
“Sonofabitch!” Spike pulled back, angry. “Both of you? Your whole life here? All this is nothing ut a twisted joke on the humans?”
Gorbach looked befuddled. “Why are you angry? We haven’t done anything to you.”
“Not done anything to me?” Spike seemed to vibrate with anger. “Why you and that... that bint pretending to be your daughter—“
Buffy's interest piqued, and she leaned forward just as Spike glanced at her and suddenly stopped speaking.
=What?= she wanted to demand.
There was a perfunctory knock on the door, and Desmond, still pale and
distraught, stuck his head into the room. “William, we’ve been searching for you.”
Spike said impatiently, "Not now.
Desmond opened the door further. “Your mother has collapsed.”
Spike left the room like a shot.
Feeling as if she'd suddenly been thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool, she struggled to make sense of it all and followed Spike back out to the foyer.
“Mother?” she asked. =Wha-huh?=
He ignored her and grabbed Desmond's arm. “Where?” he demanded.
Desmond said, “Upstairs. Second door to the left.”
Spike bounded up the stairs.
Buffy said to Gorbach, “Don’t move.” And she followed Spike upstairs.
She entered the guest bedroom to find Spike kneeling by the side of a chaise where a pale woman with graying blonde hair reclined. He took the woman’s hand gently between both of his own.
His mother opened her eyes and gave him a tired smile. “You are all right, dearest?”
“Me?” Spike asked in surprise. “Why would you ask such a thing when you are the one having a difficult time of it?”
She squeezed his hand. “No one could find you. I worried.”
Spike bowed his head. “Ah, that. Just stepped out for a bit of air.”
The woman nodded and, visibly exhausted, closed her eyes again.
Spike looked over his shoulder, but not at Buffy. His gaze settled on Desmond. “Did you send round for our carriage?”
“Yes, of course. “ The red-headed man, so ravaged by the night's events, crossed the room to sit on the bed. “It is waiting out front. No one could find you.” Then Desmond lay down, curling into a fetal position on the bed, reminding Buffy that Desmond’s wife had been killed this night, killed by the monster she and Spike had failed to catch.
A knot of unresolved feeling settled into the pit of her stomach.
Spike didn’t say anything as he gently lifted his mother into his arms, the woman’s head resting against his shoulder.
Buffy wanted to claim that she had never seen Spike so caring and kind, only it would be a lie. A familiar lie, one she liked to tell herself often, but she knew that it was a lie. She remembered sitting on her back porch, crying in helplessness and fear over her own mother’s health. Concern had replaced Spike's formerly murderous expression and he had asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She remembered the night Glory had intended to open the door to hell. Spike had stood at the foot of her stairs with his hair askew and his expression painfully open. He'd made a promise to protect her sister “To the end of the world... even if that happens to be tonight.”
And, on the night of the resurrection she tried not to remember, Spike had taken her hands in his, sitting with her silently, patiently. She had felt confused and lost. The world had been unbearably bright and harsh and yet, somehow, she had felt suffocated by darkness. Spike's hands had been her lifeline. He had tended her scraps and bruises so gently that she had felt no pain, and when her friends had arrived, he'd slipped away without a word.
Spike could be earnest and devoted. It was there, in him, when everything she had been taught as a Slayer said that it shouldn’t be.
Spike held his mother with the same care that he'd once tended to Buffy's ravaged hands. He glanced at Buffy. “Could you find something to keep her warm?”
Buffy nodded and hurried down the hall to Halfrek's room. When she returned, she carried a violet cashmere shawl, which she carefully wrapped around Spike’s mother.
“I have to take her home,” he said quietly. “I’ll return when I can.” Before he left, he added, “And, for God’s sake, toss the maid’s uniform. Filch one of Cecily’s dresses if you have to.”
And then he was gone, leaving Buffy to worry whether there was any way to fix the mess they were in.
Chapter Five
