"I'm just saying," Buffy told him, "You don't have to prove anything. Normal is looking a little weird to me right now, anyway." She grunted as the pink demon--what had Spike called it, a Goulash?--got in a swipe across her ribs, ripping her favorite jean jacket to ribbons. "Damn," she complained, and kneecapped it. Which didn't work too well as revenge went; it seemed to be double-jointed. "I mean, the carnival and that whole perky out-of-Buffy experience--ouch, watch my shoes, Mary Kay Hellbeast!--kinda left a sour aftertaste." She was trying to make him feel better, of course; she hoped it sounded convincing.

Spike looked up at her from the ground where he was busy staving off the Goulash's color-coordinated pal. "Yeah? You're not just sayin' that?" He sounded hopeful.

Yeah, I am just saying that, she thought, whacking the demon in the chops. "No," she replied, some of that residual perkiness lightening her voice. And okay, so what if she was lying, she had the whole Cosmo girl thing down, didn't she. Even vampires appreciated an old-fashioned ego stroke now and then. Male ones, anyway.

The demon roared and knocked Buffy's legs out from under her, then fell on top of her with arms outstretched like a professional wrestler, oof!, like the damn thing meant to body-slam her to a mat.

"Still," said Spike, rolling over on top of his demon and punching it repeatedly in the face. "Mean to take you out, good and proper. Never been on a real date, not in all this time. 'S wrong."

"That's not true! We had that moonlight picnic in the graveyard last year." Date, date, date. He was nothing if not obsessive.

"Oh yeah." Spike paused in his punching, looked over at her reflectively. His opponent coughed lavender goo and struggled to free itself. "Doesn't count, though," he decided. "Didn't get all togged and tarted up. Not like Dru and I used to. We painted many a town red." He cocked his head and smiled down at his demon almost fondly as memories carried him back, then made a double-handed fist and smashed it down on the creature's nose.

Buffy shoved off Mary Kay, yanked its arm up behind its back and straddled it, pulling until she heard bones break. "That type of red I can do without, thanks." The demon barked savagely as it wriggled face-down on the grass, and Buffy drew out a knife and thrust it through the back of the neck. It expired, motionless. "Need some help?" she asked, looking over at Spike.

He caught the knife she tossed him and drove it through the demon's eye. It made a wet pulpy sound going in and a sucking sound coming out, and then he thrust it in again, twisting the blade. Buffy watched his white hand tighten on the hilt, working the weapon around the orbital socket, and she felt a tickling clench between her legs. She could blame it on adrenaline, but even so. God, it was sick. Sometimes she thought in another life, not so different from this one, she'd have been Mallory to his Mickey. It was a good thing demons existed, when you thought about it. Where would all her slayerness go otherwise?

Spike wiped the dripping blade off on the demon's tunic and handed it back to her, hilt first. She almost said, thanks, honey, stopping herself just in time. They both sat there a silent moment, perched on their cooling demon corpses. Spike was staring down at his with a slight twist of frown. "Who d'you suppose'll be cleaning these buggers up?" he wondered.

Buffy paused for thought. "Frank," she said after a moment's calculations. "I'm pretty sure he's back on grounds maintenance this week."

"Over his surgery then? Good man. Better than the rest of them put together, I'll tell you--keeps the place extra tidy, always has a friendly word. Must remember to get him a fresh bottle of Glenfiddich." Spike stood and she followed suit. "An' somethin' extra nice for Christmas," he added.

"I was thinking that too." She stepped over the second corpse, allowing herself to take his outstretched hand as she did; he guided her across like Sir Walter Somebody, that guy who draped his cloak in the mud so the queen could pass. An unnecessary gesture, but she liked it.

They wandered to a clean patch of ground, near a crypt that was a smaller and fancier version of Spike's own. Spike's thumb was rubbing slowly across her palm in a suggestive way, its hard smooth edge teasing a rising heat from her. Her breath hitched a little, and she cut a glance his way. His own gaze dipped down in quick response, slanted, almost coy, burning through heavy lashes. As they reached the crypt he stopped and pushed her up against its surface, then leaned close and began deliberately tracing her body with his fingertips. She arched, curling against the marble like ivy on its vine, tilting her face to him in a wordless plea. He kissed her the way a lover should kiss; slow and thorough. He knew how to match his kisses to her moods. When he shoved a thumb hard across one of her nipples, timed to the stab of his tongue, Buffy cried into his mouth and nearly came.

She felt voluptuous, melty, good. Fight sweat was cooling on her body, but he was heating her up again. She took his shoulders in her hands and abruptly reversed their positions, forcing him hard against the wall. He laughed when his head banged the cold stone. She sucked his neck where no pulse beat and shoved her hands up under his shirt, raking him with her fingernails. It was a toss-up what to do next; what she wanted was to go down on him, but teasing him to a merciless assault could be even better. He'd lifted his face up toward the moon, skin white as lunar dust, stark and beautiful; he was breathing for her, moved by desire.

He moved her, and right now she couldn't even remember why that was wrong.

Buffy slid a hand between his legs and worked her touch there. Spike groaned and opened darkly glittering eyes. He stared at her, lips parted, eyelids heavy. Sometimes when he was feeling pleasure he looked faintly astonished, like now, as if he were receiving gifts from her he'd never expected. It bothered her, which was just two syllables for saying it hurt; if she'd given her heart to him, such moments might have broken it.

She tightened her grip to provoke a different look from him, got a wince and a wary sharpening gaze. "Watch the jewels, love." She squeezed harder and he caught his tongue between his teeth and growled; but he was liking it. He knew what she wanted. Buffy upped the ante, tightening her grip like a vise, and he began flexing his back against the marble in serpentine motion, pain and ecstasy driving him to writhe. His face was growing more animated, wilder, his eyes flaring with dark lust. He was determined to hold out until the pain became unbearable; that was the game. Not a vampire thing so much as a macho showdown--

--at least until he vamped out, snarling, the bumps curling from his face in bas-relief, one of maybe half a dozen words she remembered from Art History class.

Gothic, still life, romanticism, chiaroscuro.

Spike bared his fangs playfully and flipped her back against the wall again, and Buffy's heart and breath widened in her chest, as if birds had just spread their wings inside her.

Renaissance.

He bowed his head tantalizingly to her neck and ran his teeth lightly down the blood-red river beneath the skin, and she stretched out for him in a parody of surrender. And then he gasped and lifted his head and stared at her in shock, demon sliding away from his face. Wide-eyed she met his confusion, mirroring the movement of his head as he slowly looked down to where the bolt of a crossbow protruded from his chest.

Spike sank to the ground, sliding right out of her hands, but he wasn't dust. He was groaning and spitting out curses, and Buffy--for a moment paralyzed in ice--recovered from her panic enough to search the darkness for their attacker. She saw him striding unhurriedly their way through the graves, sliding another bolt into his weapon. Buffy tensed with recognition.

"Alex," she said.

"Oh bloody hell," said Spike, leaning on one hand, the other cupped around the dripping bolt-point. "Not some ex-boyfriend of yours, is it?" He glowered up at her darkly, eyes almost more wounded than chest. He hadn't been around when Alex first hit Sunnydale, which was all to the good.

More sure of Spike's survival, Buffy ignored him for now, but moved between him and Alex with arms folded against the intrusion. She looked the demon hunter over. He hadn't changed much, still dressed in the guise of a sleek yuppie who'd wandered away from his Bimmer and gotten lost in the big, bad cemetery: lightweight leather coat over a tailored suit, inappropriate shoes, thin calfskin gloves. He'd grown his dark hair into a ponytail since she'd last seen him, though. Now he looked less like a corporate headhunter, more like a famous designer, except for those assassin-sharp eyes which said he was neither.

"I told you to leave and not to come back," she said coldly by way of greeting. "The not-coming-back part wasn't optional. This is still my territory."

Alex's smooth face showed no surprise. "I have business in town. This is me looking you up, as a courtesy." He saluted with his crossbow, before lowering it to point more or less groundward. Not low enough for her liking, but no immediate threat.

"As a damn smart move." Buffy spoke curtly. "'Cause if I saw you first, you'd be just another mess for the groundskeeper to clear away."  She paused, eyes narrowing. "No, wait--my bad. Make that a damn stupid move, since you shot my lover in the back."

Score, she thought in fascination, watching his face as he reacted. That got to him. "Wow, you actually made an expression," she said. It was like watching a stone dropped in a lake, shock rippling out. "That's a first. Did it hurt?"

"Your...lover," Alex repeated, glancing down to where Spike sprawled in all his injured glory on the crypt step. He gathered himself together, looked at her with a chill to match her own. "My vision is excellent. Even if he wasn't attacking you, he is a vampire." Contempt rolled smoothly into his voice. "So this is where your sympathies have brought you."

Buffy saw the crossbow lift, his finger edge toward the trigger of the bow. "I really wouldn't do that if I were you," she said. "I'm already a quarter past cranky."

"You sleep with the devil's own breed. I should kill you on principle, don't you think?" Alex smiled faintly, but without humor, and Buffy realized that under the shell of contempt boiled a very real rage.

"Slayer'll tear your knobs off, more like." She could hear Spike shifting behind her as he began pulling himself to his feet. "Should be a giggle."

"He doesn't feed off humans," said Buffy quickly, already regretting what she'd revealed. She'd meant to push Alex's buttons, but she'd forgotten just how ruthless he was. Vengeance was his religion, it was what fed him. There was no room in his philosophy for shades of grey. "In fact," she said, taking Spike's arm as he staggered upright, "he has a soul." She squeezed his arm to preemptively silence him, and felt him stiffen.

Alex raised one brow. "So this is the famous Angel. Your supposed 'proof' that a vampire can be redeemed."

Spike made a choking sound of protest, which Buffy cut short by applying more pressure. "Yes," she said firmly.

"I understand now why you did not want me to meet him, given your relationship." Alex studied Spike. "Or perhaps it was that as proof goes, he isn't very persuasive."

"He has a big arrow through his chest. You try being polite when you have a big arrow through your chest."

"Yeah," said Spike in a soft voice. "Let's give that a test, shall we?" The effect of his menace was undermined by the whole slumping and bleeding thing, but Buffy was strangely cheered by evidence that his heart would go on. So to speak. Robust and rude, he leaned close, accepting her strength, and why she liked him a hell of a lot more than she liked the living human standing in front of her was quite possibly a defining mystery of her life. Both were dangerous, but Alex, with every moral justice on his side--dead wife, mission to dust vamps--chilled her blood while Spike warmed it.

As Alex's gaze moved assessingly to the wound he'd inflicted, Buffy said with a sliver of renewed fear: "Tell me there was no poison on that bolt." The fear made a blade of her voice.

"None. As you know, I don't usually miss."

Self-consciously Buffy felt Alex's eyes rake over her, knew he'd read her fear and the weakness it represented; was judging her now and finding her wanting. And he was in the right, wasn't he. That was the bitch of it. His moral certainty seemed more certain than ever, while hers was...well, she'd had it once. She'd also had a cross of gold to protect her, a claddagh ring to claim her, a mother to love her. Life stole and lost the things you'd thought safely pocketed. And life had stolen from Alex, too. Or death had.

She sure as hell wasn't going to take it easy on him, though. Give an inch and he'd take a mile, and then he'd take a milepost and hit you over the head with it when your back was turned. "Why are you here?" she asked, impatient to end the strained scene and get Spike away. "And when are you leaving?"

"I'm tracking a demon for a client of mine. A Phadean. Very dangerous."

Buffy raised her brows, diverted despite her best intentions. "Client? You getting paid now? What happened to the purity of your mission, not to mention that independently wealthy lifestyle? Your dry-cleaning bills start hitting boxcar zeroes?"

"I sometimes work pro bono," Alex said calmly. "For tax purposes."

"Fine." Buffy resigned herself, but kept her voice hard. "You can stay until you kill it. Then you'll go. And while you're here, you play by home rules. If I hear any hint that you're using real live people to bait your monster traps, I'll put you in the hospital."

After a long moment of considering her, Alex finally lowered his crossbow fully and nodded. "It's a deal."

Tara was knitting, a little pinched frown between her brows as she counted stitches, and Buffy found the soft clicking movement of her needles mesmerizing, their looping, sliding movements like the arms of an insect building a nest of blue yarn. Plus, she couldn't help but notice, knitting needles would make handy weapons, the kind you could carry in your sleeve or boot. Good for eye-stabbing and body-piercing--the deadly, non-trendy kind, that is. If you could find wooden ones, you could even dust vamps.

Buffy blinked and forced her attention away from the scarf growing from Tara's needles, to rest her gaze instead on Spike, who was pacing back and forth along the nearest set of shelves, one hand absently spidered across his chest, stroking his wound the way a living man might tongue a toothache. His mood hadn't improved since the previous night; he'd kicked her out of the crypt after she'd bandaged him, nursing a drunken sulk. He wasn't thrilled to be posed as Angel, even if saved him from an untimely end at the hands of a fanatic. And though she'd explained in detail who Alex was, he seemed bent on imagining a past romantic liaison between them.

She noticed now that he'd painted his nails black for the first time in months--sloppy work too, only to be expected when you downed an entire bottle of bourbon--and was wearing his trashiest, gaudiest rings, the kind of junk affected by fifteen-year-old metalheads who'd just rediscovered Metallica. Buffy rolled her eyes.

The bell on the front door tinkled and Xander finally arrived, still covered with the dust of a hard day's work. "Sorry I'm late," he said. "Had to rework some crew assignments at the last minute for a job tomorr--hey, are those Thin Mints?" Face lit with reverence, he took one and laid it on his tongue like a communion wafer. He closed his eyes and issued a tiny groan, then crunched into it vigorously.

"Mrs Dudley had them in her freezer," said Tara, smiling. "She's trying to diet. They're not too bad for seven months on ice."

Xander nodded in passionate agreement around a mouthful of more cookies, then swallowed. "Man, the Girl Scouts of America rock," he said.

"I was only ever a Brownie," Buffy said wistfully. "I kicked Mindy Kumar and took her beanie. They said I was a bad influence."

The entry bell jingled again and Willow breezed in breathlessly to join them. "Sorry I'm late," she said, dropping her bookbag and taking a seat. She swept a strand of hair from her face. "I got caught up talking after my media culture class with Doctor Magill. He wants me to help facilitate some workshops, and then he asked how my paper was coming. He had some great insights on how the nostalgia industry allows capitalism to create surplus value from the simulation of authentic cultural experiences. That man is the coolest--using the term as a non-ironical signifier, of course."

She broke off and smiled crookedly around the table. This seemed to be a joke. "Of course," said Buffy brightly. She scrutinized her friend, wondering if anyone else thought Willow seemed more tense lately, or if it was just her. The Willow-babble came off a bit forced to her ears, and everything familiar appeared a little off: the set of her face sharper, the dips of her head dippier, the erratic flicker of her glances...well, sometimes Buffy would look up to find Willow watching her, but then her friend would smile and say something perfectly ordinary like, You want to go out for burgers tonight? and Buffy would feel silly.

"You left your cell phone at my place this morning," said Tara, taking it from her bag and pushing it across the table to Willow. "I would have called to tell you, but--" She grinned and shrugged, and Willow grinned back and Buffy decided her worries were all in her head; and even if they weren't, maybe it was none of her business. Willow had a life--more of a life than the rest of them. Olympic-class academics and magic, and some sort of Internet jobby on the side, and Tara, and with all of this going on, she was still trying to translate an ancient demon scroll that would save them from a great and terrible darkness. She was bound to have plenty on her mind, some of which she wouldn't share.

"So what's the big news, Buff?" Xander leaned forward on the table, hands clasped together.

Tara looked up from her resumed knitting and said mildly, "Maybe we should wait until Anya's done helping that lady."

"That's Lucinda," said Buffy, craning her neck to verify the owner of the nasal, high-pitched voice. "She's high-maintenance. A good hour, easy."

"I'm surprised Anya puts up with it," Willow said.

"Well, she spends a lot of money. I mean, buckets. Anya says it a high ROI. That's return on investment," Buffy added, proud that she could toss off a catchy business buzzword, even if it was borrowed knowledge. She noticed everyone smiling at her, and felt her cheeks pink. Yes, I am the wacky college drop-out with a heart of gold, she thought. Moving on.
 
"So. The news." She glanced at Spike, who was playing with a dried snake. He caught her eye and put the snake back on its shelf. She didn't really need his attention since he'd heard it once already and was likely to weigh in with snark at every turn, but it was too late now. "We have an old friend in town."

"Oh," said Tara, laying her knitting aside. "'Old friend' as in old friend, or 'old friend' as in--"

"Person none of us want to see who'll try to kill us," finished Xander.

"Well, he probably won't try to kill us." She tried to sound upbeat, but somehow it came out as irony. "It's Alex." Everyone's faces turned various shades of wry and worried.

"So haven't been missing him," said Xander, jaw clenching in instant resentment. "And what makes him think he can just waltz back into Sunnydale after you chucked him out on his Hugo Boss?"

"He's tracking a demon." Connections wired into her brain did their own thing. "And it's funny you should mention," she said, instinctively turning to her fellow females, "but he had this brill Hugo Boss car-coat, buttery black Italian leather and besom pockets, and--" She broke off at their blank expressions. Damn, sometimes she almost missed Cordelia. "And that's really not important."

"Oh," said Spike, lip curling, head tilting slightly. "Pray, do go on. Wouldn't want to skip any detail of his poncey get-up. After all, not like there's anythin' else bears mention, like how he shot a bleedin' arrow through my back. Oh--wait." He gave a tch of disgust.

Buffy tried not to wilt with guilt. This was Spike, after all. And damn it, she'd tried a little Florence Nightingale tenderness last night, and he'd been having none of it.

"He shot you?" Tara said, startled. Willow and Xander looked Spike over and said an eloquent nothing.

"Missed the heart," Spike sniffed casually. "But yeah."

"That's too bad," said Willow in a cool voice. After a second, when heads began to swivel her way, she added, "That he shot you, I mean."

Spike's eyes narrowed at her, but he looked more bemused than angry. Buffy, though, suddenly remembered why she'd been so concerned about Willow lately--it was the touchiness and overt antagonism like this, which seemed new. Or at least, re-new. She didn't know whether to say something or just keep ignoring it.

"Lucky for you he had bad aim, innit, Red?"

Willow's hands tensed on the table, as if she were restraining herself from a spell cast. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she asked, uncharacteristically savage.

No one was prepared for her reaction; even Spike looked momentarily taken aback, but rallied to retort: "No more handy puppy to kick when I'm dust."

Breathing deeply, Willow's shoulders lowered. She looked like a cat coming down off battle-fur. Xander exchanged a glance with Buffy, then said, "Get over yourself, Spike. There are plenty of other puppies in the sea, equally pathetic and--" He hesitated and glanced at Buffy again as if realizing he'd crossed the unspoken line in front of her.

When Xander didn't finish, Spike's face tightened. He looked at Buffy, then drew himself up at her silence. "Bugger this." She ducked her head as he turned and stalked off. The door to the basement banged a few moments later, and she thought about standing, going after him. It was to that point, the point where she thought about possibilities like that seriously, and for a second life caught up with her--lightning split her down the middle, illumination and heartwood cracking, and she remembered his face last night as the bolt hit, when for a heartbeat--hers--he'd been expecting death. And her own beaten heart as she watched him fall, thinking he might crumble out of her hands, her chained monster. Her killer, her nightstalker, her cross. For a moment he'd meant no less to her than Angel, the shock of memory carrying her back to that night when Faith struck, then shooting her forward again into Spike's arms.
 
She stood, and everyone looked at her. She stood and she stood, brain as static as her undecided body, her body tensing to follow, and then slowly, carefully, she sat back down.

"So," Xander said, breaking the momentary pause. "Tracking a demon. Did anyone else hope that our man Alex might have reconsidered this whole mission-in-life business, maybe gone into accountancy, or opened up an ice cream parlor?" He looked around.

"The way I remember, the mundane world doesn't rate very high with him," Willow said. "He's the kind of guy who probably spends his free time making bullets and polishing his piece." Her face changed slightly. "You, uh, know what I mean. I mean, it's like grief has burned out every vestige of humanity and left him this shell, built only for one thing. To kill."

Someone moved into Buffy's field of vision, distracting her from the grim note Willow struck, and as her gaze snapped into focus she registered Alex, smiling sardonically down at them.

"Don't mind me," he said, holding up a pink paper bag. "I'm just out shopping."

Xander eyeballed their visitor. "So, Alex." His smile came out unfriendly, without him even having to try. "What brings you loping inter? Demon, I hear? Gee, I hope it's not a big, scary, invincible one with a sweet tooth for Armani." He knew he shouldn't loathe someone with a genuinely tragic past, who worked on the side of the angels and killed vamps as if the world was his personal PlayStation, but hey. Xander Harris was flexible.

"Harris." He sneered at Xander's plaid workshirt, but without any change of expression--how the hell did he do that? "I see you're still in the construction business. How fortunate that our latest recession hasn't impacted your source of income."

"Is that your idea of an insult?" Xander issued a short laugh. Whadd'ya know, man had gone soft.

"Well, no. I'd intended to restrain myself from pointing out that if you went looking for a job in today's market, you might actually have to exercise something above your neck, the end result of which would be cerebral hemorrhage and death." Alex turned to Anya, who'd just arrived at his shoulder. "Hello, yes." He handed her a slip of paper. "I need all these ingredients in the bulk quantities indicated. Dried will do. As I recall your stock tends to move slowly, and you rarely carry fresh."

Anya held the paper possessively between both hands as she read it; her face betrayed a cruel struggle between dislike of Alex and ingrained appreciation for a big spender. Xander thought she might jitter herself to pieces as the pressure built, until finally she gave a whoosh of breath and found speech. "I'll just be over here filling a very big box," she said at last. She turned away, then turned back briefly. "I'll enjoy taking your cash," she said in a politely rude voice.

With sweeping arrogance worthy of Spike, Alex drew out a chair and sat down, smoothing his coat (which was damn suave, Xander had to admit) around him, in a way that was not so much fastidious as paranoid. He looked like a man checking to make sure his weapons were still in his pockets. God, the man creeped him out.

"Have a seat," said Buffy sarcastically, still standing. She'd folded her arms and seemed disinclined to let her guard down. Xander couldn't blame her; the guy was a stone-cold psycho who'd embraced the whole Dark Knight fantasy too well. Shot her pet vampire, too. And as much as Xander would have liked to shake the hand of anyone else with that notch on his belt, the fact that it was Alex's fine Gucci leather soured his joy.

"I thought I'd do you the favor of briefing you on the demon I'm looking for. In case you should come across it." He lifted one brow, as if this were a prospect rich in irony.

"Fine," Buffy said. "Brief away." She raised her own brows, waved a finger to clarify, "Those are separate commands, just so you know: Be brief. And then go away."

"A Phadean, as I mentioned." Alex looked to Willow, whose gaze sharpened with interest. "You probably won't have heard of its race. They're indigenous to a lower hell with very few means of egress, and usually appear in Northern Asia when they do manage to get across. This one was apparently carried across in unhatched form for use in yao'mo dou, the equivalent of cockfighting, but with demons."

"Lovely," said Willow.

"It is unlovely, I'm afraid." Alex reached into an inner suit pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. He unfolded it and handed it to Willow.

"Okay, yuch." Willow handed the paper to Xander, who studied it as Alex spoke.

"The entire head is covered in eyes, giving it three-hundred-and-sixty degree vision, and the hind legs and tail are similar to a kangaroo's in design, allowing for high speed, extended leaps, and powerful kicks. The illustration of the right foreleg shows its claws extended to full, proportional length."

"Looks fun," said Buffy when the paper passed to her.

"It is unfun," replied Alex icily, eyes darkening. "It's intelligent, a big eater, and prefers vulnerable targets. Like children."

A silence settled briefly on the table, broken finally by Tara, who asked for all of them, "How do you kill it?"

"It has three hearts, one on each side of the chest and another in the lower belly. Blows to all three are necessary. Decapitation should also be effective."

"We'll keep our eyes out," promised Buffy, and Xander could tell she was serious. A million-eyed kangaroo demon with a taste for kids, loose in Sunnydale--that was enough to make them all set aside grudges, at least to the extent of helping Batman here kill it.

Alex re-pocketed his sketch. "That would be wise of you," he said. "I will of course tender you a finder's fee, and a more significant commission if you take it out."

"You're killing for money now?" said Willow in surprise. "What happened to 'vengeance is a noble cause'?"

"You misremember my words. Revenge is pointless against demons. I exterminate them." He blinked with precise, cyborgian punctuation. "And I'm doing some pro bono work for a friend."

"You have friends?" said Xander, blandly mimicking curiosity. "Doesn't that interfere with your programming?"

Alex ignored him and looked at Buffy. "How is Angel? He'll live, I take it?"

"Wait, Angel's in town?" Xander swept the table with an accusing gape, but Willow and Tara looked as flummoxed as he felt. "When did he get here?" he asked Buffy. "And why, and also--what the hell?!"

"He's great," she said quickly. "That bolt through the chest, just a scratch. He's up and walking and he'll be back to brooding in no time. Brooding and fighting evil. His soul's rarin' to go."  She gave Xander a meaningful look that pretended to be apologetic. "I forgot to tell you--he just got in last night." She laughed awkwardly. "Soon as he hits the town limits, bang, he's already getting near fatal injuries. 'That's Sunnydale,' he said to me. 'Good old Sunnydale.'"

"Forgot my smokes," said Spike brusquely, making everyone jump as he materialized around a corner of the bookcase. He stopped short as he spotted Alex, rearing back unhurriedly in an affected, cobra-like pose of hipster disdain. "Hello. Come back to play poke-the-pinata again?"

"Angel!" said Buffy, leaping up and moving to take Spike's arm. "You should be resting." She grabbed his cigarettes from the table and smacked them into his hand. "Here. Go. Now."

"He walks abroad in daylight?" Alex's forehead creased in a frown, and then he fixed on the cigarettes being pocketed. "And was here earlier."

"They, they just got here," Buffy said, waving at the table. It felt like every muscle in Xander's face was straining to reveal his exaggerated amazement, but he kept it in check.

"It's good to see you, Angel." Tara smiled mischievously. "You dyed your hair."

"Yeah," said Spike, frowning and then arching his brows lightly as he awoke to the opportunity, face lighting with earnestness. "Got sick of that nancy-boy hair gel, thought I'd try somethin' new. Disguise, to throw off my enemies. Always one step ahead of the game, that's me--and fashion conscious, too." His face was settling into even more fatuous lines. "Gotta live up to the rep, y'know. Unlive, should say. After all, justice demands sacrifice. An' of course my fans expect me to stay au courant. Can't skank it around good old L of A, even when you're fightin' evil like a great flamin' poof--oww!" Outraged, he gasped and clutched his chest where Buffy had patted him a little too hard.

"Sorry," said Buffy, with bright falseness. "Are you hurting? You should go lie down."

"You're not what I expected," Alex said, standing and inspecting Spike.

"Yeah? Well, I didn't expect you at all, mate. So call it even."

"Your order's ready." Anya swished up gracefully in her flowered dress, anticipatory of money in hand. "Shall I ring you up?"

There was a silence that went on too long, as Spike and Alex faced off. "Yes," Alex said finally. "Let's do that." He stepped around Spike, clearly taking pains not to brush against him. Spike gave an unimpressed grunt.

Xander clapped his hands sharply and rubbed them together, wiping the slate clean for yet another informative, civilized, and perfectly concluded team meeting. "So, Angel," he said with interest. "When you headed back to L.A.?"

The office, though drab and cramped and decorated only with file cabinets, had that Glade-fresh smell. Lalethki had lived on Earth his entire life, and found the sharp, chemical smells of humans to be one of their few redeeming accomplishments. If he ever did get to visit one of the Hell dimensions, he hoped it smelled of Glade.

He looked at the wall clock. "Avery's late," he noted in satisfaction. No infraction on the human's part went by unremarked.

Clude glanced up from the computer, peering with black eyes over the glasses he affected for close reading. His mottled grey face lengthened in a frown. "He'll be here, Lal," he said with relative mildness.

"When the New Reich takes power, he will find that tardiness is not tolerated." Lalethki picked up a red yo-yo from the desktop, printed with the logo 'Templar Trucking Inc.' He pried apart the two halves and watched the string fall free. No mysteries or magic there, and yet he couldn't figure out how to duplicate the tricks he'd seen children do on the street.

"Yes, yes," murmured Clude.

"You want a grape soda?" asked Lalethki, going to the tiny fridge. No reply. "Working on your report?" He wandered over to stand behind Clude, slurping his soda. He read aloud from over Clude's shoulder: "'...and while at the carnival, this agent observed the Slayer and an unidentified Human or Human-Appearing Demon. Height, approximately six foot; curly wheat-colored hair; wire-rimmed spectacles. Possibly boyfriend.'" He paused. "Wheat-colored?"

"I try for accuracy."

"Do you think General Nilec knows what wheat is?"

"Terran Studies is required of all officers." Clude scratched his cheek in thought, however, then backspaced over 'wheat-colored' and typed in 'blond.'

Lalethki suddenly saw a way to get a leg up on Avery. "Hey, you want I should find out who the wheat guy is?"

"It's irrelevant."

"But if he's with the slayer--"

"I've made note of him," Clude said more firmly. "Anyone found with the slayer will be taken in custody and eliminated. Besides, he poses no threat. He was quite mild-mannered."

"Oww! Ow! Ow! Son of a--" Spike vamped and snapped at the air with almost childish spite as he arched up from the sheets, but with so little real force in his rebellion that Tara was easily able to hold him down.

"Behave."

He devamped, still grimacing with what she suspected to be an affectation of pain. "What the hell did you use in that stuff, witch--crushed red pepper and a nice rough sea salt? I'm not a sodding mackerel here."

"Don't be a baby," she scolded. "You're healing up nicely." She smeared another fingerful of the unguent on his wound. "And you shouldn't feel this at all. It's just a mix of calendula and comfrey, with a little mallow and gingko thrown in--oh, and some gotu kola and croton lechleri."

"Dragon's blood?" Spike translated suspiciously.

"Well, not from real dragons. It's an Amazonian herb."

"If anything sprouts from my chest and grows blossoms--"

"You can always stick it in one of the pots, expand your greenhouse." She dimpled a sly smile at him.

"Conservatory," he corrected, offering a grudging half-smile in return, then moved his head on the pillow to gaze at the nearest array of plants. Something in his sharp face softened, and Tara wondered how often anyone got to see such an unguarded expression there. If Buffy did. Surely she must, though. She'd seen Spike look at Buffy from across a room when he thought no one was paying attention, and imagined those looks were a hundred times brighter in private.

"They're really coming along," she observed. If she hadn't known better, she might have worried about the profusion of greenery, in a vampiric, Audreylike, Little-Shop-of-Horrors way. But on previous inspections, the water bottles and jugs of plant food had reassured her that no creepy magicks were being used to enhance the growth.

"Doin' all right," he said, pretending indifference. His gaze panned absently across the rocky ceiling that blocked all sun. "Not much joy for them down here."

"What about you?" Tara asked, screwing the lid back on her jar of salve and wiping her fingers on her skirt. It was a facile question, but he'd cued it himself, in that grandiose way of his. She thought it might be the poet lingering in him, always speaking in metaphors even when he didn't quite realize it.

"Me?" He looked down at his chest, then sat up against the headboard. "I take my joy where I find it, pet." Spike's face was pensive, then he smirked and extended his arms slightly along the pillows. Raised his eyebrows invitingly at her. "And sometimes I find it here."

"Uh huh." I'll bet you do, Tara thought dryly. She stood, and he crossed his long, black-clad legs at the ankles and flirted up at her. She wondered what he'd do if she really took him up on any of his teasing offers. Well, she knew what, didn't she? If he'd come to the farm when her gran was living, she'd have taken one look at him and nodded wisely, That one'll plow your field, empty your cookie jar, and run off with the chickens.

Tara liked her chickens, and Spike for all his badness loved Buffy. And there was Willow and the fact of complete and utter lesbianism, happy lesbianism, and...well, Spike's badness again. It wasn't a badness she could embrace. Last year, she'd poured all her efforts into finding a means for his redemption, but he'd spurned what few possibilities she came up with.

"Not going to stay a while?" Spike was asking, sitting up now with legs crossed, arms resting loosely on his knees.
 
She repacked her medicine bag. "I have to get home." Distractedly she sifted the contents of the soft, patchworked sack and touched something cool. It was as if her thoughts had called it to her. Threading her fingers through familiar links, she withdrew the chain. Its small silver cross dangled and swung, and Tara looked over at Spike, couldn't help herself. He was staring at the crucifix as if hypnotized, but tension bunched the muscles in his face and shoulders. Tension and perhaps anger.

"Ulterior motives," he said in a low voice. "Don't suppose I can fault you. Everyone has them, no matter what they say otherwise." But his dark eyes were accusing, even hurt.

"That's not why I came--I just." Tara took a small breath. "Have you ever thought about it?" she asked softly. "What we talked about?"

"Thought about becoming a sainted barbecue? No, can't say it crossed my mind recently." He was as dismissive as she'd expected, retreating under the dark carapace of habit. A century-old, well worn habit. She could only guess how hard it would be to shrug that off.

"Take it," she said suddenly, firmly, holding the cross out. Spike gazed up at her askance, one brow aloft, as if she astounded him with her boldness.

"No, don't think so. But thanks much. Thought that counts, and all that."

"You don't have to wear it. Just...keep it. Put it in a box, toss it in a corner. Whatever." She moved a step closer, hand still outstretched, and saw him give the barest flinch as proximity increased. "I have my own. This is the one I bought for you. So it's yours, unless you want to refuse a gift," she challenged. Politeness and gallantry could strike him at odd times, and were always worth a gamble.

Spike scowled up at her. "Already did, if memory serves." But when she obdurately said nothing, he sighed and gave in. "Just put it on the table."

Tara almost obeyed, but steeled herself to resist the reflex and shook her head. "Take it. It can only burn you if you let it."

He cracked a dark, bitter laugh. "You're still completely off your nut, Sister Mary Mercy." His face tightened. "But fine, you want me to take it?" He grabbed the cross before she could react, wrapped his hand around it. His expression flickered, all his hard edges working, as the smoke rolled from between his clenched fingers. "There." Spike's lips twisted against the pain and his eyes burned into her, the way the metal must be burning his skin. "Mmm, yeah. Feelin' full of the holy spirit already. Must go...save some orphans now. Drowning Baptists. Baby seals." He grit his teeth and then held his hand over the bedside table and shook the cross loose. It clinked on the wood, still smoking, and before Tara averted her eyes she thought she saw singed flesh adhering to the surface.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"Don't be." Spike picked up a liquor bottle with his burnt hand and knocked back enough of its contents to make Tara feel vicariously queasy. He resurfaced with a brittle smile, eyes that had been dark now glowing with inhuman spirit. "I feel positively incandescent, love."

The darkness was closer than usual where they walked, and fragrant with garbage. A grey rat scuttled across the cement in front of them. Xander wondered about rats more than he used to, like how many might be ex-schoolmates or cheating husbands who'd gotten caught. Odds were that some of these scampering wee beasties were Amy's ex-minions. She'd been wand-wacky and fond of crude irony.

Xander's boot kicked something that rolled a few squishy inches, and he grimaced. Yes, folks, come see Sunnydale after sundown. Just fifty cents a tour, and a free souvenir stake to every survivor. We got your filthy bricks, your inadequate dumpsters, your possibly anthropomorphic vermin. But the strange thing was...it was familiar to him and even kind of beautiful. Moonlight filtered down through the rooftops and gleamed in dark puddles; the debris of the alley stirred in a breeze, and the chainlink fencing that stretched across a side lot...well, that was just chainlink fencing. But satisfying, and well hung.

That thought was not about sex, Xander assured himself.

"You ever notice there are a lot of alleys in Sunnydale?" He glanced up the shadowed walls on either side of them musingly. "And an alley, by its nature, has to exist between two buildings. So what the hell are all these buildings?"

Buffy looked up to her right, gestured casually. "Sunnydale Arms. Transient hotel." Looked to her left. "Offices."

"You have a map of the entire town in the Buffy brain, don't you?"

"Part of the slayer accessory pack." Buffy twirled her stake like a miniature baton across her fingers, then regripped it smartly.

"All these alleys look alike to me." He glanced at his watch as they passed near the wan glow of a security lamp. "Hey. We're officially walking after midnight."

"Just like we used to do."

"Walking after midnight, searching for...a big scary demon with a thousand eyes."

"I don't remember that line from the song." He could feel Buffy's smile in the dark, even without looking over at her profile.

"Well, I took liberties," Xander said diffidently. And for some reason he thought of Anya, who was probably safely at home in bed, or maybe curled up on the couch watching late-night TV. Eating strawberry yogurt in those little cups, licking off the spoon, wearing lacy pajamas. While he was out here walking after midnight in the moonlight, with Buffy. The way we used to do. For a minute it was hard to believe it had been five whole years since high school, a time when he'd have given his left nut for just one night with her; even during his temporary insanity with Willow. During Cordelia, ditto. During Anya, in the early days--no question.

He thought he might still commit infidelity for her, with her. If she asked.

"Did you hear something?" Buffy asked, stopping with stake in hand, hand raised. Yanked from his guilty thoughts, Xander stopped with her and listened hard. "Shh," said Buffy, though he'd made no sound. After a half-minute, the line of her shoulders relaxed a notch. "Guess I imagined it," she murmured. They continued walking, choosing their steps more carefully by shared, unspoken instinct. "I really want to get this thing. I want Mister Alex No-Last-Name gone."

"He doesn't seem to have changed much. Tall, dark, and sociopathic."

"Sociopath is such a strong word--but accurate." Buffy sighed, peered into a recessed doorway where no demon lurked. "He's driven, that's for sure. And he's not going to slow down until he hits that big wall."

"Or busts an axle, or takes someone out in a fatal hit-and-run accident, or--"

"Or until this metaphor runs out of gas."

"Or that," Xander conceded amiably.

Buffy halted again, lowered her voice: "Okay, I know I heard something." She crept forward, Xander on her heels, and together they sidled up along one wall of the alley. Crouching slightly as they reached the edge of the bricks, she peered around, and Xander braced himself with one hand and leaned forward over her.

There was a loading dock. Because there was always a loading dock. But there were no idling trucks or mysterious crates or vampires, just a lone figure standing under a small blue light. The man, or maybe demon, wore a trenchcoat and a fedora and was lighting a cigarette. He was no Humphrey Bogart, though.

Buffy drew her head back. "I know that guy. He was watching me in the graveyard, and oh, damn it!" Her groan was as fierce as it could be when issued at whisper level. She smacked herself in the forehead like a buttercup version of Homer Simpson.

"What?" Xander whispered back anxiously. "What?"

"I am so pathetic, so utterly lame. I saw his pal at the carnival--demon with trenchcoat, taking notes. And clever Buffy-bot me accused him of having a crush and then sent him on his merry way. God, I think I gave him skin-care advice and--ohhhh--his notebook."

That was actually pretty sad, but Xander held his tongue from saying so. "You couldn't help it," he reassured her. "You were bewitched."

"Well, now I'm bothered," Buffy said with a little growl. "And over bewildered. I say we grab this guy and play twenty questions." And without waiting for an answer she darted around the corner at slayer-speed, leaving Xander to catch up. He was only a few seconds behind her, but the loading dock was now deserted.

"Where'd he go?" he asked, climbing the steps after her and looking around.

"Maybe inside." She tried the door handle, then gave it a sharp jerk which dislodged its lock. Xander shook his head in respect as he followed her in. He let her scout, while sweeping his own gaze up and down the narrow hall; every few moments he refixed his attention on her ponytail and jacketed back, not wanting to be taken by surprise if she were jumped, wanting to be there for her, to help. He tried to keep his step light on the floorboards, and breathed with measured care. The hall smelled of astringent cleaning products, dirty water, buffed wax.

It had once been fun to trespass, years ago when slaying was fresh and new, and having the run of the town made him feel special. Part of a club, a rebel with a secret identity. Now it was old hat. He missed those days sometimes; he was squeaking across the line into adulthood at last and suspected he now understood how Giles felt about his Ripper years: halcyon days of great stupidity and yore; danger, violence, and tragedy. Fucked thing was, they were the good old days, his golden youth. Memory yielded a weird nostalgia; it made Xander want to find some pip-squeak, freckle-faced youngster and say of Angelus, I knew him when. Come to think of it, when would there be Slayer and Scoobies: The Next Generation? Would they ever get to retire, mentor the youth of tomorrow?

God, what if he had a kid? Would that be the next generation?

Xander pulled the plug on his distracting thoughts and went to his auxiliary back-up brain, happy to discover that it was still monitoring the situation at hand.

All the doors in the hall were white and bore brass numbers; near most doors were small signs or plaques identifying the business within. Massage therapy, licensed CPA, exports, computer repair, Sunnydale Free Press.

We have a free press?

Buffy looked back over her shoulder and pointed ahead to a door from under which a bar of light shone. Xander nodded. It seemed the thing to do. Nod. She moved closer and pressed her ear up against the door. Good way to get a sharp pointy thing through your cranium. He'd seen that in a movie. After half a minute she hastened back to his side, took his arm, and drew him (broken lock number two) into an adjacent office.

"I heard them say something about the municipal water supply," she said in a hushed voice. "And about 'when the New Reich rises,' whatever that means."

"New Reich," he echoed, thinking with almost equal alarm: municipal water supply. Bottled water from here on out, check.

Buffy glanced up the nearest wall and climbed up on a desk. She pressed her ear against a small air vent and stood poised there a minute, listening, then jumped back to the carpeted floor on little cat feet. She pressed her finger to her lips. Lurking silently inside the office, they heard footsteps pass by in the hall. When they'd faded, Buffy opened the door and slipped out.

I'm pretty much Following Guy here, thought Xander. He wasn't sure on what plan or principle of timing she operated, but Buffy caught up to Fedora Man as he was leaving the building.

"Hi there," she said, just before she punched him and slammed him up against the wall of the loading dock. "I've been wanting a chat with you. You--you're human?" Surprise mingled with doubt, distracting her from whatever she'd meant to say.

"What else would I be?" The man's voice was guttural, rough.

Caught off guard, Buffy hesitated, then knocked his hat off and studied his face. Even in the dim blue light, Xander could see there was something weird in the greyish tones and bumpy patches. "Looks like your pal's skin condition is catching, though." She squared her shoulders, assurance re-entering her voice. "So hey, I thought since you seem so awfully curious about me, we could share some quality time. Bonding." He twitched as if to run and she shoved him back against the bricks. "Just you and me, slayer to lurker."

She didn't even glance at Xander as she said that; the unnamed supporting cast, that was him--rhubarb, rhubarb--but he spoke up anyway: "Slayer to lurker to guy who'll pop you one if you don't settle down, bub." See, he told himself, even dysfunctional parenting had its uses; it gave you helpful scripts for interrogating guys in dark alleys.

The man's gaze darted between them. "I don't know who you people are," he said. "Here--my wallet's in my pocket. Take it." He began to make a gesture that Buffy interrupted by placing her stake against his wrist.

"Xander, get his wallet."

This reminded him of the fantasy where Buffy said take me away from all this and they went on the lam, conning rich suckers and spending their nightly take in gin joints, before returning to their seedy hotel dive for sweet, sweet love. Feeling his golden youth flex its muscles, Xander dug the wallet out, flipped it open. "Avery Foss. Driver's license, credit card, gym club membership. That's it."

"What do you want with me, Mister Foss? You and your demon friend."

"Demon? What is that, some kind of teen slang?"

"Yeah," said Buffy. "Right now it means 'thing not of this world, with bumpy grey skin.'" She patted him down, dug into his coat and pulled out a notebook. "What's this?" She held it up a moment then tucked it in her back pocket when he didn't answer. "Bet it's a real page-turner. Will I like it? Go ahead, you can give away the ending."

"That's private property."

"You wrote about me," she said, flipping her hair. "Now it's Buffy property." She stepped back, stake slightly lowered. "Who are you?" she asked impatiently. "And what's all this about our water supply and a 'New Reich'?" Foss remained silent, and Buffy grew visibly angrier. "Don't wanna talk? Okay. Let's see how you handle a truth spell. I'll bet--"

But she bet nothing, because at that moment there was a roar and a shudder as something leapt on the loading dock. Buffy spun and Xander's jaw dropped, because zoinks, that was one ugly sonofabitch of a demon. Body a blend of rubbery-looking skin and dirty fur, a head shaped like a hot-air balloon, a thousand sticky little eyes, like, like, like--

A really gross pin-cushion, he thought, as the demon hissed and bounced on its big legs; and you know, he'd always felt there was something inherently funny about kangaroos, which had apparently been lost in translation, because this creature was no joke. Rich fodder for new nightmares, yes. Laughable, no.

Buffy preemptively struck, spinning and landing a kick dead center to the chest. The demon fell back on its tail and sprung its own kick that slammed her back across the planks. Foss brushed by Xander as he fled, and Xander spun half-heartedly for a grab at him, then let him go, turning again to see Buffy ducking a whip of the demon's tail. He didn't remember roos doing that; but more importantly, he didn't remember Alex mentioning it. Asshole.

Though surprised, Buffy was already recovering, and as she struck and danced and rolled, he quickly unslung and loaded his crossbow.

When he glanced up, he could see by her face she was regretting her choice of weapon; kicks and giant claws prevented her from getting in range to deliver a heart-blow, and attacks from the rear were thwarted by tail-strikes. She flung the stake aside, and Xander raised the weapon and waited for the right moment, knowing she'd see him. She feinted his way while keeping the Phadean's attention, and the demon turned, presenting him with a clear shot. A whump, a wail, and even if he'd missed the heart, the thing was in pain. Xander reloaded as Buffy followed up with kicks, but the demon leapt away into the darkness.

"Go after it?" he said, bow ready.

"No." She was catching her breath and looked frustrated. "We need bigger weapons. Longer weapons."

"Well, toting javelins in downtown Sunnydale--I'm thinking that wouldn't go unnoticed by the citizenry. Damn shame, too."

"Sword, maybe. I'll have to take a better look over our stores." She scanned the empty alley. "Foss got away?" She shrugged it off at his nod. "Well, we've got his notebook. Maybe it'll tell us something."

Xander cleared his throat, tipped a crooked smile. "Actually I, uh, still have his wallet too."

Buffy's eyes widened a fraction. Breaking and entering, assault, threat of bodily harm, sure, he could sense her thinking. But this? A tiny wince of anxiety escaped her. "Ohhh." Her lower lip jutted out. "We're muggers."

The wallet landed in the middle of the table with a soft, padded thump. "--and then we stole his shoes and pushed his body in a dumpster," Buffy finished on an upbeat note, taking a seat at the dining room table.

Tara and Willow exchanged careful glances while her accomplice in crime slid pizza into his mouth with an expression of sincere gratitude for late-night delivery.

"Y-you are joking, right?" asked Tara. "I mean, of course you are." But her face continued to beg the nervous question.

After another short silence, Buffy slumped and admitted: "We are post-irony, aren't we?"

Tara tilted her head and lifted one shoulder in a sort of apology. "You know about a year ago, when Evil Giles told us to 'eat your hearts out' and it turned out not to be a figure of speech? I've never looked at a metaphor the same way since."

Willow glanced up from Foss's notebook and nodded, regretful and wry. "We have to face it. An era has passed. The quip is dead, the witty turn of phrase has become passe."

"You're right," said Buffy, taking some pizza. "I'm throwing in the towel. It's all artless sincerity and strict literalism from here on out."

"Yeah, but let's not fly off the handle." Xander glanced around, tone serious. "We might want to let our hair down once in a while--keep our hand in." He waved his hand flatly across the table to echo his sentiment. "Maybe we could find a happy medium."

"No," said Tara firmly, shaking her head, equally earnest. "I think this is just what the doctor ordered. No more figurative language. Except for similes, which aren't really like metaphors--different as night and day, when you think about it." She looked around for confirmation, brows raised.

"You took the words right out of my mouth," said Buffy, nodding smartly. She raised her soda in a toast, and the others echoed her gesture. "To the end of an era. Death to, uh--" She looked to Willow for help.

"Death to the idiom," finished Willow.

"Death to the idiom," everyone chorused, glasses clinking.

There was pizza-chewing all around, and Xander said thoughtfully, "You don't think we're going overboard, do you?" which was either about pizza or literalism, Buffy wasn't precisely sure, but she put back the wedge she'd reached for and sighed; one slice and she was already feeling full. And dangerously cheesy. Better to leave the rest for Dawn, who liked pizza for breakfast.

"So, what do you think?" she asked Willow, wiping her hands on a napkin. "Is it a code?"

Willow, frowning and flipping through the notebook again, didn't look up. The ceiling lamp drew glossy highlights from the crown of her flame-red hair, turned her hands white. "Not sure yet. First I'll need to check some books at the shop, see if I can match it up against any of the known demon languages." She finally met Buffy's eyes. "If it is a code in another language, it may take a while to figure this out."

A small frown of her own appeared. "Sure," Buffy said, forcing down her natural inclination to impatience. "Of course. But speaking of translations--" She watched Willow's face closely, and this time saw the moment when it closed, like one of those rolling things on a store-front banging down. Buffy took a deep breath. "How's our prophecy coming?" Am I asking that too often? she wondered. Does she think I'm disappointed in her? Willow seemed extra-sensitive on the subject.

"It's coming," said Willow. "Slowly." She broke the last word off, offered it like a piece of brittle candy--so grudgingly that Buffy felt ashamed without knowing why.

Even Xander seemed to sense something; he smiled slightly at Willow. "Must be a killer. Usually you're all, 'Ooh, cool verb--pronouns yay.'"

"It's a bit more complicated than that." And Willow's voice was still hard, making Buffy uneasy. "I have to translate the language and decipher any numeric codes overlaying the passage; cross-reference against likely contemporaneous sources the Naciran author might have used; then rule out any other exegetical interpretations--it's not like I can just go to Amazon.com and order a handy Naciran-English dictionary. Nine ninety-five, here's your portents, guys. Evil solved."

Xander's jaw had dropped enough to show him biting his tongue in a very literal way. When she finished he said: "Will, relax. No one's saying it's easy."
 
"It's not. But if anyone else wants to take a crack, be my guest."
 
"I'm not trying to put any pressure on you, Will." Buffy tried to hold her friend's restless eye and communicate her good faith, but Willow kept fidgeting, looking away. Buffy sensed her tension rising, needle into the red, and kept her voice level. "But after tonight, I'm wondering if there's a connection between the prophecy and these black hat guys--demons and humans don't socialize without a common cause, and I don't think theirs is 'save the children'. I told you the kind of stuff they were talking about. This whole 'New Reich' thing, and the water supply--there's no way that's good. If something big is coming, I want as much advance warning as possible, so we can get ready."

"I want that too." Willow's voice was nearly a whisper, and she stared dully out across the table. Her lower lip suddenly trembled, and tears spilled. Crying, she leaned forward to hide her face.

Shocked, Buffy came around the table to hover, as Tara leaned close on Willow's other side, running a hand soothingly over her back. Their eyes met over Willow's bowed head, and Tara seemed less surprised by the outburst, but no less confused. Buffy knelt and touched Willow's hunched shoulder. "Will, it's okay. It'll be all right. You've been working yourself too hard, that's all. God, you probably need a break, not me pushing you. You didn't say anything, but I should have known--I'm sorry--"

"Stop!" cried Willow, looking up at Buffy sniffle-faced, her cheeks patchy and pink, eyes wetly miserable. "Don't apologize, Buffy! I'm a, a horrible--I should have had this for you by now."

"No, don't say that." Buffy was firm. "You're doing the best you can. And that's so much better than any of us could do."

"No," Willow said in a whisper, face threatening to crumple again. "It's really not."

The Bronze was throbbing with some kind of techno-funk beat, the mating of a synthesizer and a drum machine, synchronized to the flashing ceiling lights. The music wasn't as loud as it might have been but it still made Willow vaguely nauseated, sloshing around in her head along with the two Champagne Flamingos she'd had so far. She held the stem of her third drink, and wished she'd been able to make herself decline a night of clubbing.

"How's your flamingo?" asked Buffy, leaning in unnecessarily to be heard. "You tucked those first two away pretty quickly."

"I'm managing it." Willow took a sip to prove she was, and set the glass back down. It kind of annoyed her to be invited out and then have Buffy try to supervise her alcohol intake. You could read everything on Buffy's face; her worry, her guilt, her super-charged cheer. And here was the quintessential problem of Buffy: she was either not all there, or way too much there. Tonight she was Buffy to the max, a heavy presence at Willow's side of wide-eyed looks and fruity perfume and jingling bracelets. On the other side, Tara: too, too solid Tara. Rock and a hard place. And in no way figurative, Willow was trapped, blocked in by their chairs and thighs at the crowded table.

"This is fun," said Buffy, as if trying to convince them or herself. "A new day, a new night. Get away from things for a while--a few hours, anyway. Forget about the worries on your mind, leave them all behind, feel the beat of the rhythm of the...." She trailed off apologetically.

Have fun, get away from things, Buffy said, but she was drinking soda, because she'd be out there patrolling later. It was all a sham, thought Willow. Liven up the Willow. And how could you have any real fun when everyone was there merely for your benefit, to shore you up, to be audience and chaperones and...friends. She looked at her friends' faces and wanted to cry again, weepy Willow, but she didn't. Wouldn't.

Xander and Anya came tripping happily back from the dance floor at the same moment Spike returned from the bar with his beer, and suddenly the table was even more densely crowded. A crush, a circle of life, life, life, closing in on Willow, reminding her of everything she put at risk by not sharing her visions. And amidst all the life, there was one wrong note. Her hands trembled on her cocktail glass, and she saw--flash--Spike staring at her from across the table, wearing an elegant black uniform and a cold little smile and--flash--he was himself again, frowning at her, bemused.

"Got something on my face, do I?" he asked sardonically, but maybe self-consciously too. She'd put him off balance lately; she'd tried to play it cool, but suspected she'd failed.

If he saw her as a threat, maybe that was for the best.

When she said nothing, Tara answered, "Just a lot of face." And smiled at him. As if he were their friend. Willow felt sick. But more sickening still was the vision of Tara torn from her, blood flowing from her mouth at the moment of death. This was the lesser of two evils. What would be, would be.

"I think we're getting too old for this crowd," said Xander, shiny and limp from his exertions on the dance floor.

"That's ridiculous," said Anya. "You're only twenty-three. And so am I. My driver's license says so. Of course, if you add us together we're forty-six. That's nearly Giles's age." Struck by angst, she exclaimed: "Oh my god, Xander--together we're old!"

"I feel forty-six," said Xander. "Compared to these," he waved a hand, "kids."

"Babies, the lot of you," said Spike, snorting dismissively before taking a pull of his beer. Willow watched the sliding movement of his throat and thought of blood. The lights above them strobed wildly, then half cut out, darkening the club; the music changed to a slower beat. Spike stared at Buffy, a charged look, and out of the corner of her eye, Willow could sense Buffy gazing back. And then Spike tipped his head almost imperceptibly toward the dance floor, an invitation.

And no, no, Willow didn't want to see them dance, she really didn't; she could imagine them moving sinuously together in a language that pre-dated writing or speech, and if she saw what their bodies said, everything that went unspoken would be out there. She wouldn't be able to deny her fears any longer, that Buffy might feel something for Spike that wasn't just sex.

Abruptly she rocked in her chair, trying to dislodge herself, prompting Tara and Buffy to scooch their own chairs aside for her. "I have to, uh, go to the bathroom," she said, but the strap of her purse was caught, and she couldn't get her other leg out from between the tight chairs, and she hated when everyone looked at her, and--

"So this is how the brave band prepares itself for the hunt. Getting liquored up and libidinous."  Alex's gaze drifted across the table littered with drinks, and then up to their startled faces. "Amateurish, but it seems to do the trick. You do kill your share of beasts." He turned his head an ironic fraction to greet Spike: "Angel."

Spike rolled his eyes, clearly over his masquerade.

"You're here too," said Buffy pointedly to Alex.

"I was looking for you. Your sister said I would find you here."

"What do you want?" Short, hard, wary. As usual, Buffy was their spokesperson.

"To congratulate you on the wound you inflicted last night." Alex pulled out a pack of cigarettes and poked one into his mouth, as Spike considered him with fresh interest, perhaps feeling brief kinship for a fellow smoker. Alex flicked open his lighter and paused to ignite. Buffy sighed and kicked her feet against her chair rungs, made restless by the dramatic pause. "I tracked down the Phadean in the early morning hours," he said, snapping his lighter shut. "I took out its second heart. It will be weaker now."

"Great," said Buffy. "Thanks for letting us know. Bye."

Anya frowned at Buffy, then looked to Alex. "It was Xander who made the shot," she informed him. "He had the cross-bow."

Xander hunched. "An," he said.

"No," said Anya defensively. "You should get the credit."

"It's no big deal," he said tightly, to her; to all of them. "We both did our part. That's what we do. It's called teamwork." He stared at Alex, lip curling, as he said this.

Blowing smoke, Alex feigned a smile. "Teamwork is overly prized in this corporate, football society of ours. A team is like a chain, only as strong as its weakest link." His slow gaze slid like a clock hand around the table--Tara, Willow, Buffy, Xander, Anya, Spike--as if he were trying to decide who among them was the weakest. When his eyes passed across her, Willow flushed.

His gaze ended on Spike, who seemed as ticked as Willow felt, looking askance at the demon hunter, a frown etched between his brows as if he were seriously wondering how to eradicate something he couldn't kill. "You've done made your speech," said Spike. "Pretty sentiment, and another time I'd buy you a drink, one misanthrope to another an' all that." He straightened from his slouch against the table, body a warning. "But you're botherin' our uncynical kiddies here, so why don't you run along now."

"I don't take direction from vampires."

"Then I'll tell you," said Xander. "Sod off."

Alex looked at him, faintly pitying, an expression trapped under a foot of ice. "You still have no strong male role models, do you? You could have been so much more than an effete hanger-on, with the right guidance."

Xander lurched up, hampered as Willow had been by the constricting arrangement of seats. Anya tried to grab his arm, but he pulled away and came around the table. Spike stepped back to let him pass. Briefly fixing on his face, Willow saw in his parted lips and gleaming eyes the fascination at possible violence; knew he welcomed the diversion, the appearance of someone who cast his own flaws into shade. And then Xander closed with Alex, and her worry focused there. Next to her, Buffy shoved back her seat and hesitated, poised to help.

"You're not as smart as you think you are," said Xander, smiling through rigid calm. "You have zero insight. Your barbs keep missing the mark and you don't even realize it. I hope your aim is more accurate when it comes to demons. But you know what? Your stupidity doesn't excuse you and neither does your dead wife. We didn't ask to guest star in your Sunnydale sequel. So get the hell out of here. Go back to your team of one, and try a little harder to get yourself killed this time."

Alex's jaw moved as if he were tasting something bitter he couldn't spit out, and he turned and left without another word. Stiffly, Xander watched him go.

Spike, whose brows had climbed ceilingward, relaxed his incredulous expression and said with dry respect, or a parody of caution: "Stand down, soldier."

"Oh god," said Xander, turning to the table. "Tell me I didn't just face off with a sociopath who likes to use casual acquaintances as demon bait?"

"Very mannish of you," said Spike, clapping him on the shoulder and picking up a full shot glass with his other hand. "Have a drink."

Oblivious to Spike's subtle jibe, Xander took the glass by instinct and tossed it back in one gulp. "Hwahhhh," he breathed, glassy-eyed. "I'm fine, I'm fine."

And Willow just watched and listened to the warm congratulations of Anya and Tara and Buffy, their voices and gestures surrounding her like a brightly colored bubble, while the light above the small table shone down on the litter of their revelry, the half-empty glasses, the ashtray, the plate of picked hot-wings; but she said nothing. Because the real villain was still standing among them, and their bright world was ending.

Flickering shadows grew from flickering candles, from drafts that slid across the cool dusty surface of the cave floor, trailing them to the bed where they lay.

"Ohh," protested Buffy, as he lazily kissed her breasts through her shirt. "This was supposed to be a quickie. You're not being...quick."

"You got somewhere to be?" Spike asked, pushing her shirt up along her ribs. The silky material was nearly the color of her skin, and smelled of her. He was getting harder; he darted his tongue across her flesh and rubbed his hips on the bedsheets.

"You know I...oh. I have to...demon."

Spike scoffed against her belly. "Think this mighty demon hunter might have been embellishing just a tad. Your Argus-eyed monster's done nothin' but snack on dogs so far. Maybe a vagrant or two. Not exactly the ultimate prey."

"Hey," Buffy slapped his head, "I care about the homeless."

Ears ringing, Spike propped himself up and scowled, pretending to impatience. No need to let her know how delicious she was, even being all moralistic and whiny. "Just sayin', whatever it's eaten hasn't made the evening news, has it? And no news means no reason for you to wallow in sticky slayer guilt. If you're bent on brooding, take it out of my bed." Issuing ultimatums. Very satisfying. At least when she was too worked up to flounce off.

She leaned on her elbows and tried to look disapproving, as if she was giving serious thought to his suggestion, then she sighed and slid back, stretching her arms prettily above her head, which moved like a golden cat settling on his pillow.

"One hour," Buffy said, and looked down through her lashes at the curve of his skull, the sleek white-blond cap of his hair. He'd bent his head again, was doing things to her with his soft lips, right around where the halves of her body divided, touches descending to the lower half where she felt like a mermaid, salty and slippery. She felt quite the girl, ready to lap up his attentions, ready to be lapped. And then he rose gracefully to his knees on the decadent sheets and pulled off his shirt, and Buffy's gaze was drawn to the healing wound in his chest. Already closed over, no more than a reddened patch of skin, but he'd be vulnerable there while his insides knitted themselves together.

She sat up and saw surprise flash across his face, a moment of faint worry that she might have reconsidered, before she deliberately drew off her own shirt. The crypt's cool air chafed her nipples. He was motionless but his gaze roved across her skin, and then his lips parted silently and ever so slightly, and she couldn't tell if he was scared or aroused, or feeling the fangs of love in his body, like she imagined love must feel. For him.

She touched his chest. "Does it still hurt?"

"Not much," he said softly, gazing at her from a distance of mere inches, as if she mesmerized him. "Nice clean wound. In and out." He raised one hand to take her fingers between his own, stroked them. Cool fingers, messy black nail polish, ugly rings. Painted jealousy, but gentleness in his hands. He'd been jealous of Alex, who'd shot him. And what must it be like for him, to be shot by a guy and then to worry that his--girlfriend, beloved? she didn't have a name really, and 'lover' was just a word she'd thrown in Alex's face to shock him--but to worry that his lover might have a thing for a man who'd tried to kill him? He'd really feared that, it was irrational and stupid and crazy, but he'd feared that, just because he was a vampire and Alex was human.

Buffy believed she understood what he was thinking, feeling. When they were this close, barely a whisper between them, no barriers but skin, his fears were obvious.

"When I thought you--" she said, and took a breath. "I thought you were going to die. And I--"

"You what," he murmured hopefully, eyes bright, fingers tightening on hers.

"I this," she said. And Buffy kissed his lips, neck, shoulder. And up again to his cheek, his forehead, his nose. She took his head between both her hands and kissed his mouth, and he opened for her with a little groan like a sob. She pushed him onto his back, raked her hands through his hair until it curled around her fingers. Spike's arms laced around her back; his own hands caressing the slope of her body. His cock was rigid, a solid bar of heat in his jeans that teased her own ache where she moved against him. She snapped the top button, freed him from the zipper, took him in her hand. He gasped, blue eyes flying open wide, desperation etched on his face. Soft and hard in her hand, he pulsed. Buffy could feel it, and it had to be magic, didn't it? Nothing made sense otherwise.

She had to let him go to remove her own jeans, and Spike flung an arm over his eyes while she did, as if he couldn't bear to watch anymore. And god, he was such a romantic sometimes, so besotted and beautiful, taking his pleasure like a woman, which maybe made her a really strange breed of lesbian, and she didn't know where she got these ideas, but she liked him on his back, trembling and waiting. Her pussy tightened into a wet, sore clench even before she sank down astride him.

Spike cried out when she did, his throat corded with anguish, and he uncovered his eyes and took her hips in his strong hands. He was snarling, animal wild as he surged under her. But Buffy could tame him. Only in moments like this could she tame him, but that was something. She pinned his wrists above his head, leaning down--breasts brushing against his chest, which made him groan--and rode him, telegraphing with her eyes that she wanted him still. He quieted obediently for a moment, gazing up at her with yearning, but choked back sounds of pleasure as she worked herself around his hardness, and she watched his face growing more focused, more human in need and longing, and he, he--

"Buffy," he gasped. "I love you. Oh god, I love you!"

And she released his wrists and arched upright, stroking herself frantically as he came, as her body clutched him.

And he was softening. She could feel it. He was.

Buffy left Spike sprawled asleep on top of his covers, melted like cheese on toast and still clad in his jeans, which she'd primly rezipped for him after he'd conked out. He wasn't usually toast-guy after one round, but she attributed that to his recent injury.

Outside, the night was quiet, no breeze rustling the oleander, no dogs barking. She walked with a relaxed, unhurried gait across the graveyard, daring any monster to mess with her afterglow. It was an almost happy glow. Orgasms good, she thought in contentment. Orgasms powerful. And she idly wondered if she could train Spike to good behavior through sex alone--wondered if she already had. But it was more than that, for him. It was--

Avery Foss.

"You again," she said. They were face to face at the graveyard gate, both of them having stopped short in surprise, Buffy on the verge of leaving, Foss entering. "We have to stop meeting like this."

Whoever or whatever Foss was looking for, Buffy clearly wasn't it. Startled, he whirled to make his escape, but she grabbed his arm. "Oh no you don't." She walloped him and he crumpled, his fedora knocked to the ground.

"Bitch," he said.

"Since I've reclaimed that word in the name of girl power, I won't thump you." Buffy hauled him up by his collar, then reconsidered and punched him in the gut. "Sorry! Woo! Unpredictable me." Foss straightened up with another curse, but she was used to ignoring cranky punching bags. "I still have one or two--oh, let's just say a lot of questions for you."

"Look, girl. I think you've got the wrong idea about me. I'm only doing a job. I'm trying to find out how some young fella got whacked. It happened a few months ago, right around here. I'm a private investigator."

"And I'm a fairy princess," Buffy said brightly, before starching her face again. "Now come on." He stumbled alongside her as she retraced her steps to the crypt, but dug in his heels and halted when he saw their destination. Buffy geared up for a fight. "Don't make me drag you."

"Why are we going in there?" The man licked his lips, a fast swipe of nervousness.

Buffy tipped her head and said straight-faced, "I'm going to chain you up and feed you to my vampire. And then we'll have a nice long talk."

Foss bolted. Buffy rolled her eyes and recaptured him. A nifty chokehold drained the fight from him, and she lugged his heavy body inside. "Spike," she called from the head of the ladder. He appeared after a few moments, pale face tilting up at her from the shadows in squinty confusion as he pulled on a loose shirt.

"Who's that?" he asked, looking at her captive.

"Help me," she complained.

He came halfway up the ladder and Buffy lowered Foss into his grasp, climbing down as she did. "This is one of those guys who's been spying on me."

"Oh yeah?" Spike glared at his armful of slumped human, in the resentful way he had when he couldn't inflict damage.

"Want some wall art?" Buffy asked.

Spike raised a brow, but helped her manacle Foss to the rock wall. When he was secured, Buffy slapped him awake. Spike stood off to one side, watching with keen interest.

"Wakey wakey." Buffy took Foss's jaw in her hand and commanded his gaze. Foss's eyes slid immediately to Spike though, and he stiffened.

"Spike, meet Avery Foss. Foss, Spike. Make him angry and you're his chew toy. Got that?"

Playing along, Spike cozied up to her and slid an arm around her waist. She glanced up to find him inspecting their captive, eyes deeply hooded and a small, dangerous smile ghosting his lips. Buffy thought if she were the one chained up, she might even be alarmed. If she didn't know he was fangless. And that he watched Passions and liked onion rings and had stolen Xander's entire collection of Sandman graphic novels for bedtime reading, years ago.

"Looks juicy," he said, poking a finger into the padded flesh under Foss's jaw before sliding his fingers down the man's jugular in a disturbingly familiar way. It took Buffy a moment to identify the intimacy in his touch--it was not unlike how he caressed her when they made love.

She shook off her inner ugh of distaste. "I'm going to get Will. A truth spell is the quickest way to find out what we need to know. Watch him, okay? And only light snacking. We need him coherent." She kissed him lightly and slipped away.

Spike watched her go, feeling all gooey-centered and tender. Just a charade, no way he could really snack, but it stirred his fantasies, this hint of how they could have been together. If she'd been the kind of girl who'd let a vamp feed on the wicked, as was proper. He turned to Foss and leered. Not much to look at, this fellow who could have been his evening meal, if not for a pin's worth of metal lodged in his own skull. Pale puffy skin, unshaven cheeks, and hair like the ass-end of a mutt. He smelled sweaty and sharp, not at all tasty, but Spike sidled up nonetheless, thinking he might soften the blighter for Red's spells.

"Light snacking, she said." Spike pretended to muse. "Lucky for you I've just had din-dins." He rubbed his stomach, made a satisfied face. "Full as a tick, I am. Still, if she doesn't hurry back, I might come over peckish for dessert." He sniffed Foss's neck where the pulse was beating more rapidly. A sharp pain gripped his head, and he winced. Fine. Hell. So he was hungry. So what? Wasn't like he could do anything about it. Bloody stupid chip.

"You smell like curry, mate." Spike straightened. "Always did like a good curry," he lied. Angry, his violent impulses thwarted by human technology, he wandered off to find his cigarettes. Came back with one lit and puffed smoke in Foss's face, then took the cigarette and ran its burning tip with slow, careful attention down the man's neck, not quite brushing his clammy skin. Took self-control not to buckle at the strain, but he meant no harm, did he?

"Listen," said Foss. "I don't know why you're helping the slayer, but I can help you."

"Can you now?" Spike projected boredom, stuck the cigarette back between his lips. Privately he was unsurprised. Chess. Everyone played it. Slide your pawn across the board and hope for the best. A hundred odd years of gaming, maneuvering in the darkness: such was his unlife. He waited to hear the play, and in the grey tunnels of his mind, his thoughts twisted and darted: was he bored? Could he be interested in anything, could he be played, could he play this to his own advantage, and what was it, really, that he wanted--would he know it if he heard it? Questions that swirled in him every day and night like phosphorus on restless waves.

"There's a new order coming to Sunnydale. The righteous will inherit the earth, and all that is their due. You could be one of the elect, vampire. There is a place for you and your kind."

"That so?" Spike had heard this all before. Everyone had a big plan, take over the earth, enslave humanity, yadda bleedin' yadda.

"When the Reich rises, humans will bow down before their masters. And those who have been cast out will reclaim the riches of this plane."

Spike blinked, reluctantly intrigued by the man's fanaticism. "Ri-i-i-i-ght," he drawled, frowning. "So, pardon my gaucherie for stating the obvious, but you are human."

"I will be given new form in the master race."

"Hope you got that in writing."

"My transformation already begins," said Foss proudly, lifting his chin and showing off to best advantage the rough patchwork of his face.

"Oh, yeah? Didn't want to say nothin'. Thought it was a rash." It dawned on Spike that his chew toy here was singing canary-like in Buffy's absence, and he wondered how many encores he could squeeze out. "What do I have to do then? Can't sell my soul, already lost that."

"You need only swear your allegiance to--" But Foss hesitated, looking over Spike's shoulder, and Spike, alerted, jerked away just in time to avoid a nasty whump of arrow in the back again. The bolt hit the wall, sending shards of rock flying, and another bolt streaked by his arm as he spun away, to embed itself in the cave's shadows.

"Damn!" Spike barked aggrievedly, darting behind a potted palm. Two out of three shots, all counting; no better than Harmony when she had him in her sights, but this mad bugger had more under the cranium than Harm, and was reloading. "Hey--private residence here! D'you mind?"

Alex bloody what's-his-name drew back his bow and looked up. "I had my suspicions," he said with admirable calm. Ice water in those veins. "But the disappointment is still very real. I thought the slayer better than this."

Spike's jaw tightened in suppressed anger. He considered his options. To the left, an arch in the rocks led to subtunnels; to the right was his lair, which lacked any cover. He'd have to pass well-dressed Vigilante Boy here to get up the ladder, and light-footed though he may be, Spike didn't reckon his odds of getting by unventilated. Of course, a bloody houseplant wasn't exactly solid cover and he'd be twice-damned if he'd cower in his own home. Not when he'd so handily repelled every ambush to date and just stolen a new rug. Braving himself to foolishness, Spike stepped out from behind the plant and stood poised to dodge.

"What's your beef, anyw--Christ!" The man's arm came up unhesitatingly to loose another bolt, and only vampire-quick reflexes drove Spike from its path. He gave up his bravado in favor of safety, taxing flesh to its supernatural limits by springing away into the tunnel mouth. "Wanker," he muttered, picking his way quietly among the strewn rubble that backed his cave. Rock crumbled damp and loose from the alcove in which they'd chained Foss, creating a rough window which Spike carefully stepped up to peep through.

He found himself face to face with Alex over Foss's shoulder, and leapt back at once, keeping himself flattened to the side. No more missiles came at him, though. Instead he heard the rattling of manacles. Spike swore beneath his breath, and looked around the dripping tunnel, grimacing in frustration at his own helplessness. He could maybe lob a few rocks at Alex but he didn't think that'd get him very far except to the next headache.

"Slayer's not going to be too happy with you if you let him go," he said, projecting his voice to carry through the opening in the rocks.
 
"Perhaps you can get carry-out instead of delivery," came the fellow's snide voice.

Spike frowned. "What the hell are you on about?"

"If I don't kill you, tell the slayer that my own happiness is less than robust. I don't appreciate being lied to."

"Oh, right," said Spike. "Now--I admit this looks bad, but 's not what you think. He's just a prisoner. I'm keeping an eye on him till the slayer returns."

"You lie as unconvincingly as she does, Angelus."

"I'm not--" Angelus, he thought in utter disgust. "Not lying. Look, I know I probably sound dubious to your soft, pink ears, mate. I spent a solid century deceitful of tongue, and that takes a toll. Doesn't matter what I say now." Clink, clink, rattle went the chains. "Could tell you I'm a vampire, still sounds like I'm lying. Point is, I'm not. That's not dinner, but a very important, er--" Annoyed, he realized that he had no idea who their prisoner was, really, and that his hesitation made him sound that much less credible. "Spy-type person," he finished with a sigh, waving an unseen hand. "In a fedora."

"He's not wearing a fedora."

"Huh. Must have fallen off then."

"She said she was going to feed me to her vampire," said Foss. "He said he was going to snack on me like a curry."

"Shut up," said Spike and Alex simultaneously. Spike shook his head in disgust at hearing himself misrepresented. He'd merely implied curry snacking.  "I heard what she said," Alex continued, speaking to Foss. "That's why I'm here. You're lucky I was passing by. And that I pick locks. Not everyone does."

"He sniffed me," Foss said in a low, vindictive voice, then added at a higher pitch: "Can't you hurry with those chains?"

"I'm risking my life to free you," said Alex, finally betraying a hint of feeling that sounded suspiciously like annoyance. "If you can't be grateful, at least try not to snivel."

"No fun being the hero, is it?" asked Spike, pulling his cigarettes out of his pocket and lighting one. "Never a bloody thank-you. It's always, 'Oh, Angel, did you behead that Huasca demon yet?' and 'Oh, Angel, the homicidal shaman came back and killed another priest!' And once you take 'em out, no time to brood or shag the trussed and tearful blonde, it's grab a mop, Angel, and clear out the guts. No rest for the used-to-be-wicked, let me tell you."

I am an amazing actor, thought Spike idly. Could have earned my living on the stage.

"Who's Angel?" asked Foss.

Oh, bloody...

"He would be that toothy creature lurking behind you," Alex answered dryly.

"I thought his name was Spike."

...hell, thought Spike.

Heavy, slithery clanking--and a quick peek around the rocks--revealed that one of Foss's arms had been freed. At this rate, thought Spike, Buffy might return. But at the same rate, she'd be as cranky with him as she was with Alex. Well. Wasn't entirely his fault, was it. Alex had kicked off with the name-calling.

Spike leaned back against the stone, resting one foot on a pile of rubble, and blew a thoughtful coil of smoke ceilingward. Pointless to try and recover any ground, but how else was he to pass the time? "Spike's just a cover name, y'know. Sobriquet as it were." He flicked ash from his fag, lips curving in irony. "So many plots to kill me, got to be careful. Travel incognito. Never make reservations on the company card, that sort of thing."

Clink, slither, clatter. Crap, Spike thought, face melting into a scowl. "Come on," he heard Alex say impatiently, and then their footsteps retreating. Spike skimmed in barefoot haste over rough rocks toward another exit he knew of, further down the tunnel. In the semi-darkness, he kicked a rat inadvertently, stepped on something that made him bleed, and splashed in gritty water until he found the steps, makeshift and decaying, which led to a cunningly designed grave marker. It was hinged like a door, relic of some clever old vamp of yesteryear, or maybe rum runners. He climbed up and popped out a few hundred yards from his crypt, right away spotting Foss and Fashion Plate footing it across the grass.

He levered himself out of the ground and padded stealthily from tree to tree, shadowing them from a few dozen yards' distance. They'd diverge any moment now. He'd track Foss to where the bastard lived, then report back to Buffy to collect a hero's thanks. Or, if he was lucky, one of those cherry-mouthed kisses she seemed more inclined to bestow of late.

Skulking, his thoughts dwelling fondly on ripe cherries, Spike was as startled as the humans he followed when the giant demon hopped onto the scene.

Argus, yeah. Not inappropriate for the critter, which was looking every which way at once but zeroing in on dinner as if it saw nothing else. Even as Spike was scrutinizing its anatomical peculiarities its lope lengthened and it sprang for the nearest human, who happened to be Foss. It did, Spike observed, a terribly interesting thing when attacking, bouncing off its tail to scissor the human between its legs and rolling to one side, sort of like a croc diving with its prey, except here it was thighs not jaws, and the fellow's neck was being snapped. There was a scream and a loud celery-like crunch, and then an unmoving body.

Well, there's a development, thought Spike. He stepped out from behind a tree and leaned on it to watch, resting one arm on a low-hanging branch. Thought about lighting a cigarette, because violence was always enhanced by nicotine, at least when spectating. Decided to leave his hands free, just in case. Hotshot had some moves on him, though. Spike thought he might actually take down the beastie. He was quite a loop-de-loop artist, ninja-kicking and flinging himself among the tombstones. Every time he got some distance he tried to fire off his cross-bow. Sometimes managed to, sometimes didn't.

"I could watch this all night," Spike mused aloud to himself, then straightened up as he saw Buffy racing toward the action like an Amazon, Willow on her heels. "Hell," he muttered, sparing a glance down at his bare feet before dashing out to assist. Barefoot, empty-handed, recovering from a serious wound courtesy of the prat he was about to help--really, he asked himself, when you stopped to think about it, what sort of humans actually did this sort of thing? Only movie heroes and madmen. So what was his own excuse--over-compensation? When did William the Bloody become Prince Sodding Valiant?

Spike leapt on the demon's back and wrapped an arm around its neck. "Shoot me now," he growled to Alex, "and I'll feed you face-first to this eyesore if it's the last thing I bloody do." Self-righteous git, he added mentally, as he was bucked off to land ten feet away, on his back, to look briefly at the stars. He sat up game-faced with irritation just as Buffy skidded into sight and twirled out a fierce side-kick to the demon's unprotected flank. It whipped its tail around and she rose off the ground, knees tucked like a schoolgirl playing skip-rope, letting it sweep under her.

For a half-second Spike was filled to distraction with mad love, then he shoved himself off his elbows, grabbed a fallen tree branch, and charged back into battle. He whacked the thing as Buffy punched, while in the background Red manifested stingers that buried themselves in the creature's flesh. Alex yanked out a tiny stick that gave Spike pause to smirk (nearly resulting in a nasty case of headlessness), until the demon hunter snapped it out to its full length and revealed a handy six-foot pole with a pointy bit on the end. He began stabbing at the demon, aiming for the heart.

"Hey, watch it!" Spike warned, as the pointy end passed the demon and flicked in his direction, but a moment later he was caught up again in the fight, anger dissolving into the heat of violence. He loved to dance, even with things this nasty. In his head a soundtrack of rage thrashed, in his veins blood hummed again. He'd lived a hundred odd years, and when he fought, he could feel his life race by in a flickering reel of his own motion or a train in the darkness, carrying him from then to now, from the moment his teeth first extended to scythe down into a girl's neck, to this moment's wild leaping kick against leathery skin, and everything in between, the electric lights and the flappers and stupid soldiers, Dru's white scarf flying in the wind as they drove a stolen car across France, the ocean waves at night and the palm trees and Mardi Gras cries, and the New York skyline as it grew taller and brighter in a wild fast-motion blur, and Casablanca and the Eiffel tower and every drunken fight, every neck broken, every tinkling piano song, some of which he'd played, and the rude bright-haired punks he'd arse-fucked in grimy alleys and sometimes let go, nihilists released back into the night, fish cut free from the hook. All of it delivered in kick after brilliant kick until he remembered that he was--until he forgot that he wasn't--

And Alex sank his weapon into the demon's heart and it roared and fell, and Spike watched, deflating along with it, enthralled by its ugliness, unredeemed by any grace, until it died there on the grass by his bare feet.

"Whoo," said Willow, and sucked on her magic-burnt fingers. The tip of one was still alight, but she blew it out like a birthday cake candle and grinned at him, a witch with wild red hair. Spike, faintly dazed in the aftermath, just stared back at her, trying to reconcile this sudden cheerfulness with the mood she'd inflicted on him these past weeks. But even as he watched, her light faded. She was remembering him again, he could see it happening. Was remembering whatever it was about him she'd briefly forgotten.

Spike felt...he felt something. And he wondered if he wanted to put a name to it.

I'm not a man, he thought--and felt his whole raging life, his glorious century, pinwheel through him and give the lie to that. He could feel like a man. It only took remembering how.

And he could feel like a monster. With one look his mirror.

"Maybe we should chop it up," Buffy was saying doubtfully, staring down at the dead thing in the grass. "Make it more portable...for disposal. Oh, forget it." She sighed and lifted her gaze, then spotted Foss's body with its sightless eyes and twisted neck. "What," she gasped, looking to Spike, to Alex. "How?" Her anger was massing, Spike could feel it. Knew the warning signs, the clenched hands, the stiff stance. The guilt and horror threatening to surface in her eyes made it worse.

"Mister Clever-Pants here paid me a visit," Spike said, making sure to get the first word in. No way he was going to be chaff to the Buffy storm. "Thought he'd kill me and liberate our prisoner. Managed the latter." He gave Alex a heavily lidded look of dislike, not even bothering to sneer. "Managed to get the bloke killed too," he added, in case that wasn't obvious.

Alex wiped a smear of green blood from his cheek with the back of one hand, the drag of his knuckles mixing his own red blood with it. "I was saving him," he grit out, speaking wholly to Buffy, dark eyes fixed on her. "From you, and from this." He spat at Spike's feet.

"Are you crazy?" she asked. "He was spying on me, and had some plan to do I-don't-know-what to the water supply, and maybe to take over the town. And know I may never know what until it's too late because you dragged him out here to be demon food." She'd stepped up to him as if ready to bump chests, a fury, tiny, blonde and terrible, and if Alex here was as smart as he dressed, he'd be quaking in his shiny loafers about now.

Alex didn't flinch. "He was demon food if I left him. I heard what you had planned, and I heard him." A sharp wave in Spike's direction. "Your Angel isn't such a noble beast after all. Oh, I'm sure that you try to justify it by feeding him criminals rather than innocents. I can't believe it salves your conscience for very long, though."

"God, are you listening?" railed Buffy. "We wanted to question Foss. I brought Willow here to work a truth spell. That's all. Spi--Angel was just playing the heavy."

In response, Alex smiled. "He isn't even Angel, is he."

Buffy glanced at Spike, and Spike's guts tightened at the brief flash of regret in her eyes, as if that accusation had been a bow briefly laid to violin: cue heart-strings, cue pang of what might have been. They were all looking at him--Buffy, Alex, Willow. And he realized with a lurch of shock that he was still in game face; and though it was his shield, the source of power coursing through him, for a moment it felt filthy to Spike, a private part of him exposed, as if he had his willy hanging out and gave a shit that he did.

"He's not Angel," Buffy said, turning back to face Alex. "I knew if I told you anything else, you'd kill him. But it doesn't make any difference who he is. You still--"

"You know, Slayer. You don't get to do that. Not with me." Alex lit a cigarette, then began wrapping his bleeding hand with a handkerchief as he spoke. "You've enjoyed telling me how to play by the rules. I find that you aren't playing by your own. Enough said, don't you think?" He took a drag on his cigarette. "You have an interesting psychodrama here, but I've done what I came to do."

He was angry, noted Spike. Curious, that. Angry and maybe even injured, not in a bodily way but still visible in how his hand trembled and his face worked under the skin. Poor boy thought he'd had his illusions shattered. And maybe he had.

"I wouldn't mind making a few more kills before I go, of course." Alex let his cigarette drop to smolder on the ground. "But I'm willing to call this stalemate."

"Oh, that's big of you," said Buffy. "Leave your corpses for us to clean up and drive off into the sunrise to collect your check."

"Speaking of which, I'll send you a commission for your efforts. I think half is fair."

"Don't bother."

Hello, thought Spike in annoyance. Not as if they couldn't dine out on the proceeds. Or keep the Niblet in sparkly nail polish for a few weeks. He really didn't get her sometimes. Except that an instant later he did. He could feel his own pride stirring reluctantly, a sluggish thing yanking its head out of the muck where Spike tried to keep it penned. A useless thing, pride, that kept you from taking perfectly good hand-outs from wankers you loathed.

"I'll be going then." He nodded to Willow but didn't spare a glance at Spike before turning and walking off. He skirted Foss's corpse, his retreating shoulders rigid, and then wove away into the trees and tombstones.

"Damn it," said Buffy. She stared across the grass, and her face took on the little-girl-lost aspect which always wrenched at Spike's heart.

His own face felt frozen, but he forced himself to devamp, and looked at Willow. She met his eyes steadily, and he met hers meaningfully. "Look," he said. "Why don't you two run along. I'll clear up here."

Willow moved to take Buffy's arm, but Buffy remained rooted in place. "Last time you tried to get rid of a body...remind me how that turned out." Her words might have been callous, a taunt, if her tone hadn't been so dull.

Spike flinched inwardly even so, but didn't show it except by a tightness of jaw she didn't see, because she wasn't looking at him. "Aberration, that. Interference, probably. I've a century's practice getting rid of the evidence, love. This one won't surface." Damn well right it wouldn't. Because he was going to drag it deep underground and pitch it down a crevasse.

And now she did look at him. "I'm the kind of person who gets rid of bodies now." Tears were brimming, her mouth spasming in an attempt at cocksure irony. "I've come a long way."

"No," Spike said sharply, stepping close to loom over her. "I'm the sort gets rid of bodies. You--you'll never be that sort. So just let me do what I'm made for." He would have taken her arms, tried to be tender, but he intuited she wouldn't want a Hallmark moment, what with a human mortifying on the grass.
 
"Come on, Buffy." Willow tugged at her arm. Spike waited for the usual platitudes: there's nothing we could have done, it's no one's fault. But Red offered no more than her touch. He thought that of all the Scoobies, the witch had grown the hardest, the most cynical, though she usually tried to hide it. He couldn't say he didn't appreciate it now.

They walked off, Willow's arm around her shoulders. Spike's gaze followed them until he lost sight of blonde hair in moonlight, its gold swallowed by shadows. Then he sighed and rolled up his sleeves and played undertaker.

In smaller hours, in small rooms....

"This is unfortunate," said Clude, pacing the apartment nervously. "Nilec will not be pleased." He glanced at the rondure on the coffee table, clearly dreading the imperative glow it would soon emit.

Lalethki rubbed his dyspeptic stomach, swigged some bismuth, and grunted. "Working with humans. What did I tell you--"

"Spare me." Clude sat down heavily across from him, leaning forward to rest head in hands. "Every cell must have a human," he said tiredly. "They are useful and will have their place in the new order."

The rondure's glow filled the darkened room, its mists flickering ominously before parting to reveal Nilec's cold stare. Lalethki and Clude rose and saluted, then sat back down.

"Report," said the general succinctly, before sliding between his thin lips what appeared to be a roasted mouse on a skewer. Officers were certainly well-fed on delicacies, thought Lalethki. It must be nice.

As the general's teeth ground, Clude picked up a thick binder from beside him on the couch. "Sir, before we begin with reports from the cells, there is a piece of unhappy news I must impart." He took a deep breath. "Avery Foss has gone missing. We think the slayer has taken him. Our surveillance camera caught footage of her following him into one of our offices with a male accomplice, and then accosting him afterwards. There was an attack by a Phadean demon which allowed Foss to escape, but since then he has not reported in."

"Sloppy work, Lieutenant."

"Sir," acknowledged Clude with a bowed head.

"Another tray of mice," the general mused aphoristically, or so it sounded to Lalethki, until he realized Nilec was addressing a servant. He nibbled a crackled tail. "Make sure this does not compromise your position."

"Of course, sir," Clude said fervently. "I mean, of course not. We will take immediate steps to counter any breach of security that could interfere with our efforts, or with the rise of the New Reich."

Nilec's lips curved in a faint smile that sent wrinkles fanning across his cheeks. "Nothing can deter the rise of the New Reich, Lieutenant. The era of humanity's dominance over the earth is coming to a close, and its rightful owners will resume their primacy and walk freely across its lands. Our time is near."

"Our time is near," Clude and Lalethki echoed, exchanging a glance.

"Er, how near, sir?" Lalethki asked, raising one hand. "We haven't been told--"

"And now you see why," Nilec snarled, his face abruptly filling the rondure with fish-eyed rage. "You receive only the information you need, no more."

"Sir." Lalethki swallowed, lowering his eyes.

Face clearing, Nilec leaned back in his unseen chair and steepled his hands together. "But hold steady, men. You are doing an important job, sowing the seeds for the harvest to come. When our readiness is at hand, you'll receive the call. And you will not have much longer to wait. So come," he picked up another skewered mouse and held it consideringly, "tell me first--how long until the water supply is prepared?"
 
 

Or, this is where 'Previously on Buffy' would go, if I were more ambitious. 'Until the Axle Break' references about four or five other unwritten episodes (or arcs) from past virtual seasons that currently reside only in my head and in jotted notes; some are only small, passing references, some very significant. I'd like to write them someday, but it should be noted that I'm clinically insane. (At least occasionally, in some alternate reality.) I hope that the allusions and backstory work for now without being too frustrating. I've tried to flesh out in a semi-expository way anything really significant, just as the show would, so that there's some context.

I've also started trying to note approximate 'air' dates, at least for my own crude mental timeline, so I'll mention that this falls approximately around Oct 16, 2003.

Please do not archive; feel free to include links on rec pages, however. This is not beta-read. It's probably worth noting by now that I don't lay claim to Mutant Enemy's dangly bits, and that the rest is my own. Feel free to send feedback, excluding rants on how Spike/Buffy is evil. This is the fourth episode in an alternative season 8, with an AU season 7 in between; everything branches off from "Gone." The title is from Yeats. I hate titles.

There's a little backstory here and here on the season noir concept. It has a few broad, spoilery things for stories to come.

The main page for season noir is here.

My e-mail is eliade@drizzle.com. I am slow to return e-mail. I'm saying this now. Caveat something something, and think of me what you will. Rude, ungrateful, ego-driven bitch, or feeble neurasthenic with inbox issues, which somehow sounds very Freudian, and we'll just stop talking about that now. I'm grateful to everyone who has sent me feedback so far. It makes me happy.

Blah blah blah...blooper reel and outtakes: