The manifest spirits were too fixated on self-pity to care. The disgruntled dead were brought back to seek vengeance. They were corporeal and capable of inflicting physical harm. He had forgotten about them, but they had not forgotten about the Slayer.
“Buffy—” Spike placed his hand on the Slayer’s cheek. She felt real. “Duck.”
“What?” She melted into his touch for a fleeting second. “Duck? There’s a duck?”
The grumpy manifest man clobbered Buffy with a pipe, and she crumpled to the ground like a rag doll.
Hurt the girl. A jolt of painful self-recrimination instantly threw Spike’s unstable emotional equilibrium off kilter. He backed away from the fallen Slayer, retreating into deranged denial. “No visitors today. Terribly busy.”
“That rotting one’s got the spine to kill her,” Dru said when the spirit-man hit Buffy again. “But you were supposed to kill the Slayer, Spike.”
“Told you to get out,” the younger male spirit said, meaning Buffy.
The Slayer hadn’t lost her touch, Spike noticed. She countered a pipe to the arm with a kick to zombieman’s ankle, and the decomposing wanker fell outside the doorway. Served him right. The manifest dead people said they wanted Buffy to leave, but that was a lie. They wanted to kill her.
“You promised to kill her for princess,” Dru pouted.
“He promised to take me to France,” Harmony huffed, crossing her arms over hot pink cashmere. “Spike kill the Slayer? That’s a joke.”
“Spike killed a slayer once”—Darla began.
Twice! Spike’s battered identity flared in objection.
—“while Angelus was saving missionaries from me.” Darla wore red, her favorite color, with bustle and hat. “What happened to that Spike?”
He’s not here, Spike thought, clinging to the numbing fog that muddled truth in his mind.
Buffy slammed the heavy door against manifest man’s head to shove him out of the way.
“I’ll tell you what happened.” Darla seethed with revulsion. “He went and got himself a filthy soul. Now he’s nothing, just like Angelus. What a waste.”
“Not really—a waste, I mean.” Harmony shrugged. “Spike couldn’t kill Buffy before he got the chip. He had plenty of chances.”
“But he failed,” Dru said, “over and over again, like a broken record stuck in a groove. Couldn’t kill her, couldn’t kill her . . .”
Not true! Spike squeezed his eyes closed and covered his ears. He couldn’t block the sound of Buffy trying to kick the corpse out the door, and he couldn’t block the truth he’d been hiding from himself for five years.
He hadn’t failed. . . .
Sunnydale
September 1997
Spike swept through the side streets and back alleys of Sunnydale. It was only Thursday, two days before the Night of St. Vigeous, but he couldn’t resist crashing a party and catching the Slayer off guard. Shelia, the tart he had picked up outside The Bronze the night before, had been a treasure trove of interesting facts about Buffy before Dru drank her dry.
Tonight was Parent-Teacher Night at Sunnydale High, and Buffy was in charge. Punch and cookies meets blood and fang, Spike thought, amused. The cultural symbolism depicting both sides of the imminent clash had a depraved appeal.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jack—short for lumberjack—grumbled. The vampire was a tall bumpkin with a lower-than-average IQ and a childish attachment to his blue plaid shirt.
“Then why’d you sign on, mate?” Spike asked.
“ ’Cause the Anointed One said it was okay,” Jack admitted, “and everyone else did.”
“There you go, then.” Spike gave the big oaf a hearty pat on the back. Jack wasn’t very bright, but he was brawny and wanted to rampage.
The Anointed One hadn’t been keen on speeding up the schedule when Spike first mentioned it either. Spike could tackle the Slayer on his own, so he went to the boy for help to pull off a decent massacre at the school. And truth be told, Spike could only chant “St. Vigeous, you who murdered so many, we beseech you, cleanse us of our weaknesses” for a couple minutes without gagging. He certainly wasn’t about to stand round for three days begging some long-dead crusader for a power he already had. The baby boss and crew had needed a bit of convincing, especially after they found out that he had blabbed the plan.
Spike paused on the edge of the campus, scanning the front of the brick high school. There would be no sneaking in and sneaking up on their victims on his watch. When he arrived on the scene, he wanted the Slayer to know he was there.
Carmen, a female with long black hair, stepped up beside him. “Why are you so sure the Slayer will be surprised?”
“Was I talking to myself last night?” Spike asked. The Anointed One’s motley horde confirmed his theory that there was an unlimited supply of vampire minions because lazy, moronic vampires fed on the easiest prey they could find—other not-too-swift slackers. They never risked anything. “I told her I’d kill her on Saturday.”
“What if she doesn’t believe you?” Jack asked.
“She will,” Spike insisted, losing patience, “when she finds out that Saturday is the Night of St. Vigeous. I’m sure her Watcher has the book that explains about unholy ones getting all worked up into a fury that culminates in a savage attack. The brainy ones all do.”
“But it’s Thursday.” Jack frowned.
“Exactly. Surprise!” Spike dispersed most of the vampires to vantage points around the school and at the exits. Then, with Carmen, Jack, a vampire he had nicknamed Goatee, and another male, he set his sights on the large, multi-paned cafeteria window. The lights were on, and he could see people milling about inside. Chances were that Buffy, the principal’s designated hostess for the bash, would be there or nearby.
As Spike crossed the grass, he wondered again how the Watchers’ journals portrayed him. Since he had done in two slayers, he had no doubt that someone had written something. Did they refer to him as Spike? Did they know that the name William the Bloody had nothing to do with being a ruthless killer? Someday he’d have to check it out. Tonight he had more urgent business.
As Spike leaped toward the window, the cafeteria alcove went dark. Glass and wood splintered as he crashed into the room, and people scattered, screaming. He landed in a crouch and as he stood up flipped a table over. His four henchmen were arrayed behind him.
The Slayer, Spike was pleased to note, was shocked to see him. She stood paralyzed on the far side of the cafeteria, looking Miss America, peaches-and-cream wholesome in a green top, white skirt, and blue sweater. Was it possible, he wondered, that her Achilles’ heel was slayer denial? She wouldn’t be the first to reject her destiny. Or the last, he thought. Tomorrow morning another girl would call herself Slayer.
“What can I say?” Vamped out and feeling cocky, Spike smirked. “I couldn’t wait.”
Spike saw Buffy’s gaze dart to the chair, and he charged as she lunged to grab it. The girl was quicker, flinging the chair and taking him down before she took the hand of an older woman and ran.
Irritated, Spike grabbed a man with glasses who had the misfortune of being within reach. “Nobody gets out! Especially the girl.”
The Slayer called out from somewhere down the hall. “Everybody this way! Come on! Come on!”
The minions fanned out to kill and feed.
Spike hauled his catch into the hall to take stock of the initial chaos.
A girl shrieked, and another girl yelled, “Hey!”
Although Spike’s hearing was acute, it was difficult to differentiate and pinpoint the location of specific voices. There was much running, garbled exclamations, and screams throughout the building.
The goateed vampire, who resented the hell out of Spike’s takeover tactics, ran up to Spike in the corridor. “We cut the power. Nobody got out.”
“And the Slayer?” Spike asked, still holding the terrified black man by the front of his shirt.
“She either
went that way”—Goatee pointed down the hall past Spike, then in the opposite direction—“or that way. I saw two others.”
This time Spike couldn’t hold his temper. He swung his hostage around and glared at the vampire messenger. “You don’t know?”
Goatee didn’t answer.
Spike wasn’t as angry with the subordinate as he was with himself. The Slayer had been surprised when he popped in unannounced, but she hadn’t been intimidated. She had taken quick, definitive action and escaped his opening gambit. He, on the other hand, had misread her initial reaction and underestimated her resourcefulness, fatal mistakes if he made them again. He wouldn’t, but he still had a major mad to vent.
He turned on his hostage.
“I’m a veal kind of guy. You’re too old to eat.” Spike released the man’s shirt and promptly broke his neck, adding, “But not to kill.”
Goatee stared, yellow eyes wide, his jaw slack with disbelief. Apparently, Spike noted with satisfaction, being mean and ornery had finally made the proper impression. Good, he thought, because one of these days, the local undead dolts will be taking orders from me or dusting Sunnydale windowsills.
“I feel better,” Spike said. And he did. Not as good as he felt when he used railroad spikes, but better than a minute ago. The black man’s senseless death had been quick, perhaps even painless. A railroad spike produced a rhapsody of terror and agony—and made him think of Cecily, which always made him peckish.
Many times since killing Cecily’s gentleman friend for the unkind, public critique of his poetry, Spike had regretted not killing her. He had been too infatuated with Dru to bother, but Cecily’s end might have erased the cruel words she had used to devastate him.
“You’re nothing to me, William. You’re beneath me.”
The words had burrowed deep into his psyche, and lay there like a dormant disease waiting to ravage the bits of William he had salvaged and woven into Spike. Killing girls who killed vampires took some of the sting out. He didn’t know or care why.
With Goatee following a respectful ten paces behind, Spike strolled the corridors. He would find the Slayer or she would find him. There was no way out of the building.
“Slayer!” Spike called. His tone was deliberately condescending, the words a verbal slap. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
The halls were eerily quiet, with no power and everyone hiding, holding their breath, trying so hard not to make a sound a vampire might hear. That was pathetically amusing, but Spike had come to fight and he quickly bored of the cat and mouse game.
“I find one of your friends first, I’m gonna suck ’em dry.” His tone hardened as he trawled to draw the Slayer out. “And use their bones to bash your head in.”
He hesitated, wondering if he had heard a thump or if his mind was playing tricks.
“Are you getting a word picture here?” Spike asked as he walked toward the library. No one answered.
“Spike!” Goatee shouted, then added in a whisper, “Listen.”
Spike took a few steps back, his gaze drawn to the soft thudding noises above. “Someone’s in the ceiling,” he sing-songed. Another thump sounded behind him. Spotting Jack ramming his shoulder into a closed classroom door, he ambled over and fixed the dimwit vampire with a questioning stare.
“Uh—the door is solid,” Jack stammered.
“Use your head,” Spike suggested. Suddenly fed up with incompetence, he grabbed the back of Jack’s neck and slammed him face-first into the firebox on the wall, breaking the glass. Spike yanked an axe free and shoved it at the startled vampire. Jack immediately set about hacking through the classroom door.
Goatee was down the hall, trying to break through a second door into the classroom.
Spike stormed by him and shouted at Carmen as she entered the hall. “You! Come with me.” The female vampire dutifully fell into step behind him.
Back in the cafeteria, Spike heard the Slayer’s telltale thuds overhead, but he couldn’t lock onto her exact location. The girl had freedom of movement unencumbered by walls in the open ceiling crawl space. He picked up two struts from the broken table, tossed one to Carmen, and then jammed the end of the makeshift pike through the ceiling. Carmen followed his lead, but the struts went through the ceiling panels into air.
A familiar throaty roar brought Spike up short. When he turned to identify the source, he couldn’t contain his surprise. “Angelus!”
“Spike!” The grinning Angelus had the Slayer’s lanky boy follower in a headlock.
“I’ll be damned!” Tossing the strut aside, Spike rushed to embrace his old friend and mentor. Decades had passed since they’d last met.
“I taught you always to guard your perimeter.” Angelus shook his head, chiding Spike with a tsk-tsk. “You should have someone out there.”
“I did,” Spike said. “I’m surrounded by idiots. What’s new with you?”
“Everything.” Angelus tightened his hold on the boy struggling under his arm.
“Come up against the Slayer yet?” Spike asked.
“She’s cute,” Angelus said. “Not too bright, though. Gave her the puppy-dog, ‘I’m all tortured’ act. Keeps her off my back when I’m trying to feed.”
Spike laughed. “People still fall for that Anne Rice routine? What a world.”
“I knew you were lying,” the boy said. “Undead liar guy.”
Angelus grabbed the boy’s hair and pulled his collar back to expose his neck. “Wanna bite before we kill her? Hmm?”
Something isn’t right, Spike thought as he stared into Angelus’s eyes. “Haven’t seen you in the killing fields for an age.”
Since China, to be exact.
Beijing
1900
Killing the Slayer incited Spike’s hunger for more than blood. He took Dru on the temple floor, heedless of the flames, serenaded by screams, aroused by the tang of the dead girl’s drying blood in the air. Though they were twined in reckless ardor when the walls crumpled, they scrambled clear. Smeared with soot and reeking of smoke, they were flush with the glory of his deeds and their epic passion.
“My lit’le Spike just killed himself a slayer,” Drusilla bragged when she and Spike caught up with Darla and Angelus.
“Did you hear that?” Darla glanced at Angelus.
“Congratulations,” Angelus said, looking none too pleased to hear the news. “I guess that makes you one of us.”
Angelus’s lack of enthusiasm didn’t surprise Spike. Being outdone by Drusilla’s impulsive playmate had to hurt. The Slayer kill threw the whole bloody pecking order into turmoil. Even Darla was visibly subdued. He was no longer a nuisance she had to tolerate for Dru’s sake. That made it easier for him to be magnanimous, especially since Angelus was only barely back in Darla’s favor.
“Don’t look so glum, mate,” Spike said sincerely. “Way you tell it, one slayer snuffs, another one rises. I figure there’s a new Chosen One getting all Chosen as we speak.”
Angelus couldn’t even look him in the eye.
“I’ll tell you what,” Spike went on. “When and if this new bird shows up, I’ll give you first crack at her.”
Dru scowled, drawn to an alley. “I smell fear.”
“This whole place reeks of it,” Angelus said.
“It’s intoxicating.” Dru’s body sagged as Spike came up behind her. He steadied her with both hands, until she laughed and pulled away from him.
“Let’s get out of here.” Angelus turned away. “This rebellion is starting to bore me.”
Spike wasn’t bored. He was worried. Several times in the past few months Dru had suffered swooning spells for no apparent reason. He wasn’t certain, but he thought they were happening more often.
Drusilla walked beside him now, a lioness playing peasant in her red tunic and flowing pants. He cast her a jaunty grin and winked. Her gaze smoldered with a desire that never seemed to wane. Then she faltered.
Spike had Dru in his arms before she fell. Lifting her up, he kissed
her and carried her through the war-torn city.
When they reached the hotel, Dru insisted on being put down to walk back to their room. Since her reality wasn’t always grounded in fact, Spike wasn’t sure she knew the extent of her mysterious condition. He certainly didn’t want Darla to suspect anything. Angelus had the soft spot of a sire for Dru, but Darla loathed weakness of any kind. Predators weeded out the old and the sick, but he would not sacrifice Dru to the primal needs of the pack.
Relieved when the other couple left to be alone, Spike hurried Dru back to their rooms. She fell into a deep slumber before dawn and slept peacefully through the battles raging outside. Despite the night’s exertions, he dozed fitfully and rose often to check on her. When she awoke feeling faint and too tired to go out, he knew his mounting concern was not without merit. She had never languished like this before.
“It’s just a silly case of the vapors, Spike.” Propped on a lounge with pillows and a shawl, Dru smiled to assure him. “Ladies have always feigned such ailments so gentlemen will worry and wait on their every whim.”
Spike smiled too, but only to hide how deeply troubled he felt. “I’ll worry and wait on you forever, Dru. You don’t have to pretend to be sick.”
“Please, play the game,” Dru cajoled. “Surprise me with something special. I like surprises, lit’le ones with ten toes and rosy cheeks.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” Spike promised.
Before leaving the hotel, Spike went to Darla’s rooms. He didn’t want her or Angelus to find Dru feeling poorly and abed. If he mentioned that Dru was in a playful mood, they would avoid her rather than risk being drawn into one of her insane scenarios.
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