Buffy Fanfic: News Of My Death (Part 1)
Buffy Fanfic: News Of My Death (Part 1)
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Summary: After Buffy sends Angel off to Hell, she boards a bus. This story (speculative at the time, AU now) follows Buffy as she gets off that bus ... and into much bigger trouble.
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine. Don't I wish!
Warnings: Language and violence.
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Drusilla screamed.
The sound went through Spike like a hot knife, and he curled over her, trying to protect her from the shafts of sunlight that pushed through the wooden slats of the roof. Bloody cesspit of a place, not fit for a rat, much less Dru. Spike focused on hate to keep the pain away, because the pain was terrible, truly terrible, as if he was being flayed alive --
He said, with as much nonchalance as he could muster, "Y’know, pet, I think I liked it better at the Hellmouth. Bloody stupid idea, leaving the place. It did have its - charms." His voice broke on the last word, betraying him. Bloody hell. He felt a scream building in his throat but swallowed it, swallowed it like a mouthful of razors, tasting his own ashen mortality with it.
"Spike?" Dru’s voice quivered. "Spike, it hurts. Make it stop."
"I will, luv. I will. Just - hang on a tick."
The sun would set soon. Any moment now, it would slide past the horizon and the burning would stop and he would stop smelling the charring stench of his own flesh -
And then it did stop. Quite suddenly. No more sun drilling into him, no more fire. The pain of the blistering wounds was so minor it felt like a gnatbite by comparison, and he slowly straightened up, staring at the darkening sky.
"Spike?"
"Yes, pet?" he asked absently.
"What is it?"
"Clouds." He pulled her into the circle of his arms and drew her back into the farthest corner of the shack, the one they hadn’t been able to reach before the sun pinned them to the ground. Shadowed, dark, rife with things that scuttled away. He settled Dru comfortably against his chest, her frail cool body against his. She smelled of charring, too, and the familiar perfume of old blood. Her hair smelled of hot fruit, some sort of new shampoo she’d taken to using that she said reminded her of her herb garden back home. What was the name of the stuff? He’d have to shop again, now that they were on the move. Dru was very particular about such things.
"The clouds ate the sun," Drusilla said, and giggled. A lunatic giggle, with an edge of hysteria. She was always sliding over the edge, his Dru, never quite on the right side of sanity. "Vampire clouds." He stroked her hair.
"Where’s my Angel?" she murmured.
He closed his eyes and wished, very earnestly, that he could kill Angelus over and over again, tear him to little scraps of flesh, the hell with the Slayer and all her petty problems, the hell with the world. It’ll never be right between the two of us. Never again. Bloody Angel had seen to that. He’d taken Dru’s heart just the way he’d taken her life, a hundred years before.
Dru stirred against him. Her fingers trembled cool on his lips, and he opened his eyes and looked at her, his fragile beauty, his one true love. Fate was, as his mum had always told him, a hard and black-humored bitch.
"Angel’s gone, Dru." He said it more gently than he meant. Her eyes clouded over, not with tears but confusion. "I’m here now. We’re together. Everything’s ducky."
"No," she murmured. "No, my Angel needs me. The Slayer - "
The Slayer slayed him, ducks. With any luck at all, she sent him screaming to Hell where he belonged. And I didn’t lift a finger to stop it. An unexpected instant of remorse. Ah, well.
"Don’t you worry about him," he said instead. "What chance has a Slayer got against him? And we’ve got all the world to gad about in now. Something to look forward to, eh?"
She trailed those cold fingers over his lips again, and this time he felt the razor tips of her nails. She could be cruel with those nails, childishly, wantonly cruel. It was one of the things he loved best about her.
"I can see demons," she said. "Dancing. Dancing in the fire."
That would be Angel, he thought. With any luck, they’d have him doing an eternity of the Macarena.
"Lines of demons, all in a row like pretty black flowers -- " She was fading out on him, off into her own strange world. His interest sharpened.
"Where is this, pet?"
"Close." She giggled, a bright child’s giggle. "Can’t you smell it?"
"Can’t smell a thing except the bloody dust." Probably the dust that had gotten to the car, in the end. Clogged up an air filter or something of the sort. Spike was not in the least mechanical. It was, he believed, what mortals were good for, building things. Destroying things was more his line of work. "Not to worry, I’m sure the natives are friendly, and if they’re not, well, that’ll be their problem. I’m in no mood to put up with some jumped-up cloven-hoofed minor imp with delusions of grandeur."
"I’m hungry," she said. "Take me out to dinner."
Clouds slipped sidewise. Sunlight glistened and gleamed on the dirt floor, making ghosts of dust motes. He watched the glimmer idly, rubbing at a blister on the back of his hand that itched like the devil.
"In a while, pet," he said. "Fancy something ethnic this evening? Chinese? You used to like Chinese."
"I want a Slayer."
He looked down at her, startled. Her eyes glowed with passion and lunacy, and he felt a small cold stab in the pit of his stomach.
"I killed one, you know," she murmured, and rubbed her lips with a forefinger. "Sweet. I just had a taste, just what was on my fingers, but she was different than the others. Stronger. I want another. I need another."
"There isn’t another. One in every generation, that’s what they say."
"There is." She wasn’t going to be led around with word games, not this time. "At the Hellmouth. That’s where she is. The Slayer."
"Can’t do it, luv. We just left there. We can’t go back." Drusilla pulled free of him and brushed dirt from her long wine-red gown. He made no move to get up. When she was like this, it did no good to grab at her. But one thing about Dru, she was rarely singleminded.
"Dance for me," he said. She stopped, turned and looked at him, a smile drifting on and off her lips. "Come on, Dru. I love it when you dance."
"Sweet Spike," she breathed, and bent to him. She kissed him hard enough that he felt the sharp sting of her fangs.
And then she started to dance, supple as a snake, mad as a moonchild, humming a nonsense tune that children had hummed a hundred years ago. She waltzed, feet stirring up dust, and he clapped at appropriate moments. He did like watching her dance. He liked watching her sleep, and feed, and torment small helpless victims. He liked watching her do anything.
She stopped suddenly, arms outstretched. It was an odd posture, awkward, very unlike her. She tilted her head to look at him.
"Spike?"
"Yes, pet?"
"Angel’s dead. I know he’s dead."
She got rational at the damnedest times. He leaned his head back against the wooden wall of the shack and closed his eyes a moment.
"Yes, I expect he is," he said.
"My Angel. My … sweetest … Angel."
He didn’t care for the tone in her voice this time, and opened his eyes to see her lower her arms to her sides, as eerily calm as a marble saint. She stepped into a hot band of sunlight.
"Dru!" He lunged up and tackled her out into the shadows again, choking on the smell of charring flesh. She was trembling underneath him with pain, but she fought free and staggered for the shack’s door. "Dru, no! No!"
She lunged outside.
###
Bus stations, Buffy thought, are the most frightening places in the world. And she should know, she was an expert on it. Maybe she’d write a book someday, The World’s Most Frightening Places, A Visitor’s Guide To Sunnydale. Giles would dig on that. He could lecture. She could do guided tours. Here’s where I killed the Master. Here’s where I shut the doorway to Hell.
Here’s where I killed Angel.
Just when she thought she was getting better with it … here it came. Something as simple as thinking his name. Remembering his face. Touching his skin.
Here’s where I killed Angel.
She knew she’d always measure her life that way. Before Angel, With Angel, After Angel. She was four days after Angel, on a bus headed for nowhere in particular, and the only thing she could feel was this aching, bitter cold inside.
She looked up as the bus braked to a stop, wondering vaguely where she was. Didn’t matter. Anyplace, noplace - she’d left everyone behind. Everything. The old Buffy had wanted things, loved people, owned cool shoes. The current Buffy wore clothes still caked with sweat and dirt and splashes of blood. She tried not to think too much about where the blood had come from. She didn’t even remember what shoes she had on. Oh. Those. She stared at them in total disinterest. Cordelia would have been shocked. Losing fashion sense, to Cordelia, would have been worse than losing love.
Funny.
"End of the line," the driver said. "Everybody out."
She shouldered her bag and shuffled down the aisle. The heat settled around her like a sheath of hot metal. The mother of all hotness. She swallowed hard, squinted up at the hard bright ball of the sun, and took her bearings. Pretty dismal. Not even a Starbucks. Gas station, couple of ancient creaking buildings, a diner that made the Bronze look five-star. Not a local in sight.
The driver, still sitting in the bus, stared straight ahead. Nobody else got off the bus. Oh. That was right, there hadn’t been anybody else on it. Buffy made for the diner. Any air conditioner in a firestorm.
She had a weird, bad feeling, stepping inside. It smelled like a tomb, raw and moldy; the shelves looked like shadowed crypts. It was cool all right, cool enough to raise goosebumps on her arms, and she was suddenly glad she’d gone with the Slayer ensemble of cross and easy-to-access stake.
"Help you?"
She whirled on the voice and almost creamed an old guy. Old? Carbon dated. Even his clothes looked dusty, his eyes faded almost white. What hair he had left stuck out in all directions under a grimy, greasy gimme cap. He smelled like mothballs and Mentholatum.
"Uh - yeah. Water. Bottled water."
"Back there in the cooler. Hot enough for you?"
"Yeah, pretty hot." She escaped to the back, where a big cooler hummed and whined. It looked just about the right size to hold a body. She swung up the lid and hoped dear departed Uncle Fred wouldn’t be mixed in with the ice cream bars and Pepsi.
No dead guys. She fished out a bottled water and cracked the seal, drinking thirstily on her way back to the register. She contemplated food. Contemplated not. The vision of corpses and popsicles had pretty much taken care of the hunger thing.
"That all?" the old man asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. "Seventy-five cents."
She handed him a dollar and told him to keep the change. As she reached for the water again, her cross swung free and caught the light. The old man made some sound, not quite pain, not quite surprise. Maybe it was just gas.
"Nice necklace," he said, and smacked his lips. "Handy, you betcha."
"Oh," she said. This whole zombie scene was giving her the serious wiggins. "Great. I’ll hang on to it."
"Won’t do any good," he said, and ducked down under the counter.
She watched all the way to the door, afraid he was going to creep up on her like some late-night movie, but he never came up. Probably had a stroke. Probably crawled back in his coffin. Morbid much?
Buffy swung open the door to the diner, put on her sunglasses, and stepped outside on to the empty, heat-twisted street. And stopped. She knew she hadn’t been in the diner for more than two minutes, tops. And there hadn’t been any noise at all.
But the bus was gone.
Perfect.
###
In four days, it had all gone to hell, metaphorically, at least. Giles sat at his desk in the library, surrounded by stacks of books waiting to be shelved, surrounded by work waiting to be done.
He ignored it all.
Call, he begged the silent telephone. Call, damn you. Let us know you’re alive. Unless, of course, she wasn’t. Unless while Xander had been saving his life Buffy had been dragged off by other vampires, fed on in the dark, her corpse rising to walk again -
He ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. It was the Watcher’s nightmare, that a Slayer would be lost that way. It had happened. When it did, it was the duty of the Watcher to finish it. Did he have the strength? The will? He didn’t know and he earnestly prayed not to have to find out.
Call. Please, child, please call.
"That’s pretty pathetic."
He didn’t know the voice, and the surprise of it wheeled him around in his chair to stare at the stranger in his doorway. He hadn’t heard him enter - and his ears were honed to hear such things - and he hadn’t seen this particular man before, either. Not an impressive specimen - short, thin, poorly dressed, with a porkpie hat long out of fashion. And yet - something about him. Something in the sardonic, sharp-boned face. "She’s gone four days and nobody’s even thought to check the bus stations."
"Bus stations?" Giles repeated.
The man cleared a chair of books, dumped them on the floor, and sat down. Crossed his legs. "Yeah. You know, places where people get on buses. Maybe you’ve heard of them."
"Who are you?"
"Whistler." He offered his hand and shrugged when Giles didn’t reach to take it. "Whatever. Man, I was in your house. You got to hijack yourself a life. I never seen so much bland food in one place."
"Whistler." Giles slowly rose to his feet. "I’ve heard of you."
"Yeah, well, Gilesy, I heard of you, too. Mutual friends. You’re damn lucky the Slayer came through when she did, or you and me, we’d be sucking flames together in the great beyond. Been there, done that." Whistler contemplated his fingernails. "Sit. We gotta talk."
"About what?"
"Your Slayer." Whistler offered him a wide, carnivorous smile. "What else?"
Giles slowly sank into his chair. Whistler leaned forward, eyes glittering in the shadow of his hat brim.
"So what’d you hear about me? I’m always curious. You know, a man’s reputation is all he’s got."
"You’re not -- human." Giles wet his lips, tried desperately to remember what he knew about killing demons.
"Ding ding ding. I’d give you a kewpie doll, but I’m fresh out. Look, man, I ain’t here to give you grief. I’m here to tell you, you’d better get a leash on this problem before it bites you in the ass. That girl of yours - " Whistler shook his head. "She’s wild, that one. I figured Angel for the white knight, but I never saw her coming with that whole big hearts-and-flowers thing. I mean, come on, he’s a vampire. What was she thinking? The hell with that, what were you thinking? Are you supposed to guide her, or what?"
"I -- " Giles wet his lips, swallowed all the protests. They none of them mattered anymore. "Yes. I was supposed to."
"Your bright idea to give Angel his soul back? I mean, I’ll give you this, it was a hell of a job -- and by the way, you better keep an eye on the red-headed girl, what’s her name, ‘cause she’s got a real talent for this beyond-the-veil stuff. I didn’t think she could do it." Whistler’s good humor faded. The bleak power it left sent a cold bolt down Giles’ spine. "Better for your Slayer if she hadn’t. Couldn’t have made it any easier for her to kill Angel instead of Angelus."
"Are you saying - Buffy killed Angel after his soul was restored?"
"I told her, she still had something to lose."
Oh God, Giles thought. He didn’t dare think about it further. His imagination was too good, his empathy too well developed. "Where is she?"
Whistler studied him. Shook his head. "Not yet. She’s got stuff to do. Time for the Slayer to get out and see the world."
"But she’s - alive?"
Whistler checked his watch.
"Yeah," he said. "For another - two and a half hours."
###
Two and a half hours until sundown. Buffy drank her water slowly and watched tumbleweeds shiver by, the only movement on the road. Nobody inside the store, either. The creepy old coot was long gone. Probably hopped the bus for Vegas to take in a show. Yeah, sure. What bus would that have been? The four-o-clock Twilight Zone express?
Giles had always nagged her about developing her Slayer instincts. She wished right now they weren’t so well developed, because they were telling her to get the hell out of this town, at any cost, before sundown.
"Might as well take in the sights," she said aloud, stood up, and hefted her bag. "Gee. Maybe Neiman Marcus is open."
No Neiman Marcus. For that matter, no Wal-Mart. Past the abandoned gas station, the road stretched on like a thick black tongue. On the other side of the street squatted something that had once been a post office, the windows hollow, half the wall gone. Not a sound anywhere, except for winds and creaking dry boards.
"Okay, fine. I need a car." Oh, yeah, likely. There was a rusted hulk sitting behind the gas station, the hood up, no wheels on it. Down the cross street -- not really a street, more of a dirt path -- she glimpsed something shining. Hot sun on metal.
Parked haphazardly at the next corner, half-hidden by a tumbledown shack, sat a vintage black Dodge, fins and all. Both doors were wide open. But that wasn’t what was interesting.
What was interesting was that the windows had all been spray-painted black. And the back and front windows had been smashed out.
"Well, well, well," she said, and fished in her bag for a stake. "It’s a small world after all."
She circled the car carefully, watching the shadows. Nothing there but dust and the faint corroded reek of blood. She eased into the front seat, wincing at the touch of vinyl hot enough to leave tattoos, and tried the key that still dangled from the ignition. Metal chewed. A blurt of smoke from the back, a hacking cough, and the car was deader than its previous owners. Trust vampires to drive something high-maintenance.
She stared at the broken-out windshield for a few seconds, wiped sweat from her forehead, and tried to think what to do. Giles would expect that. He was always telling her to think, like she hadn’t come equipped. She was fond of him, but he could be such a teacher sometimes.
"Well, Giles?" she said. "Looks like thinking isn’t going to get me anywhere. How about some tunes?"
She flicked the radio button. She’d been expecting silence, static, something like that, but what she got was a song she’d never heard before, a melody like a whisper in her ears, lyrics like a sword in her heart.
It sounded so much like it was about Angel that it hurt.
She sat frozen for the entire song, listening as it drifted gently into silence, and it wasn’t until the song faded into the grease-pop of static that she even thought to wonder how the hell she’d picked up a station, any station, this far in the middle of nowhere. She closed her eyes and saw him again, reaching out to her one last time, so much in his eyes, so much love, so much pain.
She hoped he hadn’t remembered all of what he’d done to her.
Buffy.
"Angel?" It wasn’t even a whisper. She waited for something else, anything. Static, silence, and the creak of the wind. But he was there, somewhere.
She knew, in her heart, that he always would be.
She switched off the ignition, killing the static hiss of the radio, and stepped out into the breathless late afternoon, bent to pick up her bag.
She heard a metallic click behind her, spun, and found herself looking down the barrel of a gun. There was a stake in her hand, raised to strike, but rock-crushes-scissors, and didn’t she feel stupid.
The old man from the convenience store was standing there, staring at her. Looking into his eyes was like looking into a grave, but what truly spooked her was the boy standing next to him - tall, strong, black leather and bad attitude. Something vulnerable about him, except for the big gun he held.
"Nice stick," the boy said. "Guess this isn’t your day."
"Nice gun. Tell you what, I’ll just take my stick and - "
The old man smiled. A slow, eerie, somehow ultimately gross expression that made her tighten her grip on the stake. The boy looked sidewise at the old man, then met her eyes again.
"Sorry," the kid said. "Hey, really. You seem nice enough, but we’ve really got to get out of here."
And then he shot her.
###
It sounded as if somebody outside was doing target practice. If there was one thing Spike genuinely could not abide, it was guns. He had a romantic streak in him, one that whispered you ought to kill people the old-fashioned way, close enough to see the life run out. Nothing like a good bloodletting to put spring back in your step, but this shooting stuff - too neat. Too far away. Besides, it was a terrible waste of blood.
"What is it?" Dru whispered, and lifted her head.
He tugged his coat closer around his ears and moodily contemplated the sunset. Another few minutes, and they’d be free of the shack, at least, but not the desert. God, he hated the desert. He’d picked it because he’d wanted to get Dru as far away from Sunnydale and the memory of Angel, but he’d intended to drive through it, not take the bloody walking tour. No way either of them could make it to another town during the night, and sunrise in the open was certain barbecue.
"Just the locals having a bit of fun, pet. Nothing to bother about." He’d done this to her. He could barely bring himself to look at her now, knowing how close she was to death, how much pain he’d caused her. Although he was becoming more and more convinced, now that he thought about it, that it was all Angel’s fault. Angel’s, and the Slayer’s, though he couldn’t seem to work up a really good hate for her, all things considered. He’d become almost sentimental at the last, not that he’d ever admit it to anyone.
She reminded him of -- well, himself. At that age.
And she had such a talent for killing.
"Spike?" Dru’s voice was a dry rasp. He smoothed her hair back gently, avoiding the raw skin where the sun had eaten at her. "I don’t feel at all well."
She was hardly alone in that, but no point on dwelling. "I know, luv. Hang on a little more. We’re almost safe." His own voice wasn’t much better, weaker than American beer. "Sunset’s coming, we’ll be all better."
She said, as if the connection made sense, "The Slayer’s here."
He turned to look at her, even though it pulled open raw burns. There was that tone in her threadbare voice, and in her sun-scarred face, her eyes were wide and dark and eerily blind.
"She’s here. I can feel her like little pricklings on my skin. Am I bleeding, Spike?"
He cleared his throat and averted his eyes from hers. "No, pet. Not anymore." She hardly had any blood left to lose. She had to feed, soon, or there’s be nothing left of her. Not that there was much in this hole for either of them to feed on, not even rats. A few snakes, maybe. And Dru’s mythical dancing demons.
"Oh," Dru whispered. "Then it’s her blood. She’s bleeding. Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Amer-ican."
Dru was never wrong about the smell of blood. Spike stood up, checking the angle of the sun, and braced himself against the wall for a moment. Not good, seeing spots. Not a good sign at all.
"Up you go," he said, and managed to get her to her feet, braced against his side. "Let’s go walkies. Nice night for a stroll."
"Nice," she repeated. "Spike -- "
"Shhh." He sealed her lips with a kiss. "Let’s find you something fresh."
###
They were almost a hundred seventy miles from Sunnydale, and Giles was frankly terrified that any moment now the long arm of the law would reach out and, as they said in America, make his day. He was driving well over the legal limit, but didn’t dare slow down - over the legal limit? This would have been over the limit on the Autobahn.
Whistler had dropped off into a peaceful, snoring nap a hundred miles back, and didn’t look likely to wake soon. Interesting that a demon slept, but then Giles supposed even the wicked needed rest from time to time.
Whistler suddenly sat up, adjusted the angle of his hat, and said, "Oops."
Giles almost ran off the road. "Oops? What do you mean, oops?"
Whistler was wide awake now, but that was not terribly comforting.
"It’s what people usually say when something doesn’t go exactly the way they planned. Oops."
"Were you -- " Giles stopped when he realized he had no idea how to phrase the question. "Were you -- dreaming?"
Whistler raised his eyebrows, something in those shadowed eyes amused. "No, I was visiting my home planet. What did it look like I was doing?"
"Never mind that, what -- what did you -- "
"Oh." He settled back in the seat, pulled his hat low again to shade his eyes, and checked his watch. "That. Nothing to worry about. How fast we going, anyway?"
"Ninety -- " Giles glanced down at the speedometer and shivered. "One hundred fifteen miles an hour."
"Faster," Whistler said.
"This is not a rally car. I doubt it can go any faster"
Whistler sighed. He did nothing Giles could see, but that didn’t matter. Giles’ whole attention was shortly focused on the rapidly darkening road.
The speedometer pegged itself out at one hundred forty, but he was coldly, terrifyingly sure that they were still accelerating.
###
Buffy woke up being dragged by her collar, and the first thought she had was, hey, put me down! The second was more along the lines of Owwww! Even though, as the Slayer, she was better able to handle injuries, even though she healed faster, a bullet in the leg still hurt like hell. So did the healing process. Gee, why couldn’t I be asleep for this part? The obvious answer was, because I need to be awake.
She was being dragged into a church. No. It had once been a church, but whatever this was now, it wouldn’t qualify. Definitely a non-church. The smell alone made her want to be unconscious -- decay, death, blood. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw that the pews had been splintered and piled in the corners, and the floor was littered with skeletons. Well, mostly skeletons. A few in the skeleton-planning stages, which was a wiggins she really didn’t need right now.
The kid in leather was dragging her, and standing at the end of the church, where the cross had been ripped down, stood the old man. He didn’t look like a greasy old convenience store guy anymore. He looked an awful lot like things she saw in the worst of Giles’ books. Collected Horrors, volume 347. Definitely not what she had in mind to do today. Or tomorrow. Or ever.
"Here she is," the boy said. He kept hold of her collar; she tried to get up, but her leg felt like it belonged to one of the corpses, and crawling didn’t seem too Slayerish. "She’ll last long enough to open the gate."
"Gate?" She really didn’t like demons talking about gates. "Um, can I ask, gate to what? Because -- "
"To the world beyond. Your blood must paint a path."
Nice image she didn’t need. "Ever heard of Sherwin Williams?"
"No," the thing said. "Kill her."
Oh, man, perfect end to a perfect day. She was starting to get sentimental about vampires, at least you knew where you stood with them, they liked a little conversation with their meal. This geezer-demon was definitely not the chatty type.
The kid pulled out a knife that had to be at least as long as her arm. She flung up an arm to block his first slash, got her left foot under her and hopped upright. One leg or not, she could still take down this Lost Boy poser.
"Why me?" She blocked another slash and followed up with a solid punch to his stomach that doubled him over. Behind them, Geezer Demon rolled his eyes. "What’s so special about me?"
"We need the blood of a virgin," the demon said in a completely bored tone, as if he’d answered this question a million times and it was written on his forehead to begin with.
She blocked a stab, expertly trapped the kid’s arm between her left wrist and right forearm, and heaved. He went flying. The knife clattered to the floor.
"Can I point out a problem?" she asked.
"It will not avail you." That was a stumper for a few seconds, but it sounded very Giles-ian, and she figured it meant something like in your dreams or don’t even think about it. She tried touching her right foot to the floor. It was a definite owie, but do-able.
She said, "Bad news. I’m not a virgin," and ran for the door as fast as her leg would carry her.
She made it all the way outside before a hand closed around the back of her neck - Leatherboy had gotten over his fall. She used his grip for balance, spun into it, and gave him an open-palm strike that snapped his head back so fast his eyes glazed over.
"That wasn’t an invitation," she finished, and escaped into the shadows.
Behind her, from the church, the demon howled.
###
"A bit farther, luv. That’s it, one foot - one foot in front of the other - "
Wasn’t possible for a vampire to be winded, but this was, Spike thought, as close as one would ever want to come. Exhaustion dragged at him, and even the strength the night lent him only made him clumsy. His burns were healing, but very slowly.
Drusilla’s were not. He took more of her slight weight on his arm, then grabbed her by the waist as her knees collapsed. She was horribly light, even weak as he was. She curled in toward him, her arms around his neck, and he staggered on.
"There," she whispered, and raised her head. In the moonlight, her face gleamed pale and hard as glass. An empty Drusilla bottle. "In there."
"That’s a church."
"Spike - so tired - "
"Stay awake, pet. Come on. For me."
"Hungry."
"I know."
It was a desperate thing to do, but he was desperate; he stopped, slid down with his back to a creaky wooden wall, and bit into his own wrist. The trickle of blood was pale and slow, but enough to rouse Dru to drink.
"Gently, Dru. Not - too - much - " He ripped free of her when the pressure got too much, and even then he was sure he’d gone too far. She was starving, and he was dying. They couldn’t keep each other alive for long.
"In there," she repeated. Her voice was a bit stronger now, her body a bit heavier. "Take me in there, Spike. There’s a surprise inside."
The last thing he needed was a bloody surprise, but he staggered to his feet and carried her over to the blasted hulk that had clearly once been a church. Immediately he caught the rich, vital scent of fresh blood and eased Dru to a standing position. She dropped to her knees - not from weakness this time, but starvation. She bent and licked dribbles of blood from the rough wood floor. Another minute, and I’m likely to join her. Not the most pleasant thought he’d had all day. I’d be all day picking splinters out of my tongue.
"Slayer," Dru said dreamily. She smeared her fingers in the crimson mess and rose to trail them over his lips. He licked first, then sucked greedily as the hunger brought out his teeth and the pain of change. When she tried to pull away, he held her tight and concentrated on gathering every drop, the hot mortal taste of the Slayer lingering with Drusilla’s cool, heavy scent.
"Spike," she murmured. He kissed her fingers in apology, still tasting red, and her palm curved cold on his cheek. "Sweet Spike. More where that came from."
"I know," he said. The trail led off into the darkness, a neon sign that led to an all-you-can-eat walking buffet. Well, not quite all he could eat -- he was feeling a bit peckish, and there was Dru to think of. He leaned forward and kissed her, felt the scrape of her fangs against his lips.
"Get inside, Dru. I’ll bring you some take-away, shall I?"
"Yes," she sighed. She licked her lips, a greedy, thorough, sexual gesture that made him lightheaded as a schoolboy. "I’d like some more Slayer, yes, please."
He smiled. "I’ll order her to go."
###
"Slow down," Whistler said.
Golden words to Giles’ ear; he applied the brakes, ever so carefully. It was rather like landing an airplane, requiring skill, patience and a very long runway. They coasted to a shuddering stop right at the rust-eaten sign that proclaimed the town beyond to be NEW HOPE.
"Yeah. This is good."
Giles waited. Whistler stared straight ahead. Seconds ticked.
"And?" Giles asked.
Whistler raised his eyebrows. "And what?"
"I assume we didn’t drive all this way to stare at a sign. Aren’t we going in?"
Whistler pushed his hat back to a rakish angle. "Let me tell you a little story, Giles. Sort of a what-if story. What if there was this Greater Demon, Azrhael -- "
"Azrhael of the Endless Torments?"
"Yeah, that’s his street name. He’s got some long, drawn-out title, Lord of the Outer Darkness, Master of the Hellborn, that kind of stuff. So this Azrhael is supposed to come up through the Hellmouth, about forty years ago, but because some really nice fancy footwork, if I may say so myself, he got misdirected."
"How precisely do you misdirect the Lord of the Outer Darkness?"
Whistler shrugged. "Easy when you know how. Anyway, instead of turning up at the Hellmouth, throwing open the gates of Hell, party all night and every day, here’s Azrhael popping up in the middle of New Hope, California, which is about a hundred miles from anybody who’s ever seen a map. We -- not me personally, you understand, this is sort of the group we -- throw another little spell, kind of like a big bubble. Well, more like a roach motel. Things go in, nothing comes out. Azrhael ain’t coming out, and there’s no way for him to go back down. So he’s stuck, like a roach on that sticky paper."
"What -- what about the people in the town?"
Whistler said nothing. Giles looked at the sign again. POP. 15.
"My God," he whispered. "I suppose none of you thought that was important enough to bother about."
"Excuse me for unliving, but I don’t notice anybody on your side getting off your asses and battling Greater Demons, so I guess you’ll just have to bill us. Fifteen ain’t bad. Well, fifteen plus a few unlucky tourists; good thing New Hope ain’t on any major roads. Things would have gone on just fine except for one little thing."
"And that was?"
"Azrhael needs to despoil and sacrifice a virgin to break the spell and enter the world. Sort of your standard contractual thing., like a universal form letter. No problem, the fifteen people in town weren’t going to qualify, and none of the tourists have been nuns, either. But now he’s got what he needs, right there in town."
"Buffy?" Giles blinked. "But she’s not -- I mean -- she and Angel -- "
"Not Buffy." Whistler stared moodily at the dark landscape of the town. Dust swirled in the white glow of the headlights. "Though I figure that won’t stop him if he can get his claws on her. I mean, he’s been bored a long time. No, Buffy hasn’t got what he needs, but he’s close; he ain’t the brightest light bulb in the box, but he’ll figure it out. And when he does -- "
The hesitation was agonizing. Giles prodded. "When he does?"
"Boom," Whistler said. He got out of the car and walked out into the darkness. Giles stared after him for a few seconds, then rested his head against the seat and took in two deep, steadying breaths.
"Boom?" he repeated. "Yes. Of course. Boom."
And then he followed.
... continued in News Of My Death, Part 2 ...
---------------------------------------------
Summary: After Buffy sends Angel off to Hell, she boards a bus. This story (speculative at the time, AU now) follows Buffy as she gets off that bus ... and into much bigger trouble.
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine. Don't I wish!
Warnings: Language and violence.
---------------------------------------------
Drusilla screamed.
The sound went through Spike like a hot knife, and he curled over her, trying to protect her from the shafts of sunlight that pushed through the wooden slats of the roof. Bloody cesspit of a place, not fit for a rat, much less Dru. Spike focused on hate to keep the pain away, because the pain was terrible, truly terrible, as if he was being flayed alive --
He said, with as much nonchalance as he could muster, "Y’know, pet, I think I liked it better at the Hellmouth. Bloody stupid idea, leaving the place. It did have its - charms." His voice broke on the last word, betraying him. Bloody hell. He felt a scream building in his throat but swallowed it, swallowed it like a mouthful of razors, tasting his own ashen mortality with it.
"Spike?" Dru’s voice quivered. "Spike, it hurts. Make it stop."
"I will, luv. I will. Just - hang on a tick."
The sun would set soon. Any moment now, it would slide past the horizon and the burning would stop and he would stop smelling the charring stench of his own flesh -
And then it did stop. Quite suddenly. No more sun drilling into him, no more fire. The pain of the blistering wounds was so minor it felt like a gnatbite by comparison, and he slowly straightened up, staring at the darkening sky.
"Spike?"
"Yes, pet?" he asked absently.
"What is it?"
"Clouds." He pulled her into the circle of his arms and drew her back into the farthest corner of the shack, the one they hadn’t been able to reach before the sun pinned them to the ground. Shadowed, dark, rife with things that scuttled away. He settled Dru comfortably against his chest, her frail cool body against his. She smelled of charring, too, and the familiar perfume of old blood. Her hair smelled of hot fruit, some sort of new shampoo she’d taken to using that she said reminded her of her herb garden back home. What was the name of the stuff? He’d have to shop again, now that they were on the move. Dru was very particular about such things.
"The clouds ate the sun," Drusilla said, and giggled. A lunatic giggle, with an edge of hysteria. She was always sliding over the edge, his Dru, never quite on the right side of sanity. "Vampire clouds." He stroked her hair.
"Where’s my Angel?" she murmured.
He closed his eyes and wished, very earnestly, that he could kill Angelus over and over again, tear him to little scraps of flesh, the hell with the Slayer and all her petty problems, the hell with the world. It’ll never be right between the two of us. Never again. Bloody Angel had seen to that. He’d taken Dru’s heart just the way he’d taken her life, a hundred years before.
Dru stirred against him. Her fingers trembled cool on his lips, and he opened his eyes and looked at her, his fragile beauty, his one true love. Fate was, as his mum had always told him, a hard and black-humored bitch.
"Angel’s gone, Dru." He said it more gently than he meant. Her eyes clouded over, not with tears but confusion. "I’m here now. We’re together. Everything’s ducky."
"No," she murmured. "No, my Angel needs me. The Slayer - "
The Slayer slayed him, ducks. With any luck at all, she sent him screaming to Hell where he belonged. And I didn’t lift a finger to stop it. An unexpected instant of remorse. Ah, well.
"Don’t you worry about him," he said instead. "What chance has a Slayer got against him? And we’ve got all the world to gad about in now. Something to look forward to, eh?"
She trailed those cold fingers over his lips again, and this time he felt the razor tips of her nails. She could be cruel with those nails, childishly, wantonly cruel. It was one of the things he loved best about her.
"I can see demons," she said. "Dancing. Dancing in the fire."
That would be Angel, he thought. With any luck, they’d have him doing an eternity of the Macarena.
"Lines of demons, all in a row like pretty black flowers -- " She was fading out on him, off into her own strange world. His interest sharpened.
"Where is this, pet?"
"Close." She giggled, a bright child’s giggle. "Can’t you smell it?"
"Can’t smell a thing except the bloody dust." Probably the dust that had gotten to the car, in the end. Clogged up an air filter or something of the sort. Spike was not in the least mechanical. It was, he believed, what mortals were good for, building things. Destroying things was more his line of work. "Not to worry, I’m sure the natives are friendly, and if they’re not, well, that’ll be their problem. I’m in no mood to put up with some jumped-up cloven-hoofed minor imp with delusions of grandeur."
"I’m hungry," she said. "Take me out to dinner."
Clouds slipped sidewise. Sunlight glistened and gleamed on the dirt floor, making ghosts of dust motes. He watched the glimmer idly, rubbing at a blister on the back of his hand that itched like the devil.
"In a while, pet," he said. "Fancy something ethnic this evening? Chinese? You used to like Chinese."
"I want a Slayer."
He looked down at her, startled. Her eyes glowed with passion and lunacy, and he felt a small cold stab in the pit of his stomach.
"I killed one, you know," she murmured, and rubbed her lips with a forefinger. "Sweet. I just had a taste, just what was on my fingers, but she was different than the others. Stronger. I want another. I need another."
"There isn’t another. One in every generation, that’s what they say."
"There is." She wasn’t going to be led around with word games, not this time. "At the Hellmouth. That’s where she is. The Slayer."
"Can’t do it, luv. We just left there. We can’t go back." Drusilla pulled free of him and brushed dirt from her long wine-red gown. He made no move to get up. When she was like this, it did no good to grab at her. But one thing about Dru, she was rarely singleminded.
"Dance for me," he said. She stopped, turned and looked at him, a smile drifting on and off her lips. "Come on, Dru. I love it when you dance."
"Sweet Spike," she breathed, and bent to him. She kissed him hard enough that he felt the sharp sting of her fangs.
And then she started to dance, supple as a snake, mad as a moonchild, humming a nonsense tune that children had hummed a hundred years ago. She waltzed, feet stirring up dust, and he clapped at appropriate moments. He did like watching her dance. He liked watching her sleep, and feed, and torment small helpless victims. He liked watching her do anything.
She stopped suddenly, arms outstretched. It was an odd posture, awkward, very unlike her. She tilted her head to look at him.
"Spike?"
"Yes, pet?"
"Angel’s dead. I know he’s dead."
She got rational at the damnedest times. He leaned his head back against the wooden wall of the shack and closed his eyes a moment.
"Yes, I expect he is," he said.
"My Angel. My … sweetest … Angel."
He didn’t care for the tone in her voice this time, and opened his eyes to see her lower her arms to her sides, as eerily calm as a marble saint. She stepped into a hot band of sunlight.
"Dru!" He lunged up and tackled her out into the shadows again, choking on the smell of charring flesh. She was trembling underneath him with pain, but she fought free and staggered for the shack’s door. "Dru, no! No!"
She lunged outside.
###
Bus stations, Buffy thought, are the most frightening places in the world. And she should know, she was an expert on it. Maybe she’d write a book someday, The World’s Most Frightening Places, A Visitor’s Guide To Sunnydale. Giles would dig on that. He could lecture. She could do guided tours. Here’s where I killed the Master. Here’s where I shut the doorway to Hell.
Here’s where I killed Angel.
Just when she thought she was getting better with it … here it came. Something as simple as thinking his name. Remembering his face. Touching his skin.
Here’s where I killed Angel.
She knew she’d always measure her life that way. Before Angel, With Angel, After Angel. She was four days after Angel, on a bus headed for nowhere in particular, and the only thing she could feel was this aching, bitter cold inside.
She looked up as the bus braked to a stop, wondering vaguely where she was. Didn’t matter. Anyplace, noplace - she’d left everyone behind. Everything. The old Buffy had wanted things, loved people, owned cool shoes. The current Buffy wore clothes still caked with sweat and dirt and splashes of blood. She tried not to think too much about where the blood had come from. She didn’t even remember what shoes she had on. Oh. Those. She stared at them in total disinterest. Cordelia would have been shocked. Losing fashion sense, to Cordelia, would have been worse than losing love.
Funny.
"End of the line," the driver said. "Everybody out."
She shouldered her bag and shuffled down the aisle. The heat settled around her like a sheath of hot metal. The mother of all hotness. She swallowed hard, squinted up at the hard bright ball of the sun, and took her bearings. Pretty dismal. Not even a Starbucks. Gas station, couple of ancient creaking buildings, a diner that made the Bronze look five-star. Not a local in sight.
The driver, still sitting in the bus, stared straight ahead. Nobody else got off the bus. Oh. That was right, there hadn’t been anybody else on it. Buffy made for the diner. Any air conditioner in a firestorm.
She had a weird, bad feeling, stepping inside. It smelled like a tomb, raw and moldy; the shelves looked like shadowed crypts. It was cool all right, cool enough to raise goosebumps on her arms, and she was suddenly glad she’d gone with the Slayer ensemble of cross and easy-to-access stake.
"Help you?"
She whirled on the voice and almost creamed an old guy. Old? Carbon dated. Even his clothes looked dusty, his eyes faded almost white. What hair he had left stuck out in all directions under a grimy, greasy gimme cap. He smelled like mothballs and Mentholatum.
"Uh - yeah. Water. Bottled water."
"Back there in the cooler. Hot enough for you?"
"Yeah, pretty hot." She escaped to the back, where a big cooler hummed and whined. It looked just about the right size to hold a body. She swung up the lid and hoped dear departed Uncle Fred wouldn’t be mixed in with the ice cream bars and Pepsi.
No dead guys. She fished out a bottled water and cracked the seal, drinking thirstily on her way back to the register. She contemplated food. Contemplated not. The vision of corpses and popsicles had pretty much taken care of the hunger thing.
"That all?" the old man asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. "Seventy-five cents."
She handed him a dollar and told him to keep the change. As she reached for the water again, her cross swung free and caught the light. The old man made some sound, not quite pain, not quite surprise. Maybe it was just gas.
"Nice necklace," he said, and smacked his lips. "Handy, you betcha."
"Oh," she said. This whole zombie scene was giving her the serious wiggins. "Great. I’ll hang on to it."
"Won’t do any good," he said, and ducked down under the counter.
She watched all the way to the door, afraid he was going to creep up on her like some late-night movie, but he never came up. Probably had a stroke. Probably crawled back in his coffin. Morbid much?
Buffy swung open the door to the diner, put on her sunglasses, and stepped outside on to the empty, heat-twisted street. And stopped. She knew she hadn’t been in the diner for more than two minutes, tops. And there hadn’t been any noise at all.
But the bus was gone.
Perfect.
###
In four days, it had all gone to hell, metaphorically, at least. Giles sat at his desk in the library, surrounded by stacks of books waiting to be shelved, surrounded by work waiting to be done.
He ignored it all.
Call, he begged the silent telephone. Call, damn you. Let us know you’re alive. Unless, of course, she wasn’t. Unless while Xander had been saving his life Buffy had been dragged off by other vampires, fed on in the dark, her corpse rising to walk again -
He ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. It was the Watcher’s nightmare, that a Slayer would be lost that way. It had happened. When it did, it was the duty of the Watcher to finish it. Did he have the strength? The will? He didn’t know and he earnestly prayed not to have to find out.
Call. Please, child, please call.
"That’s pretty pathetic."
He didn’t know the voice, and the surprise of it wheeled him around in his chair to stare at the stranger in his doorway. He hadn’t heard him enter - and his ears were honed to hear such things - and he hadn’t seen this particular man before, either. Not an impressive specimen - short, thin, poorly dressed, with a porkpie hat long out of fashion. And yet - something about him. Something in the sardonic, sharp-boned face. "She’s gone four days and nobody’s even thought to check the bus stations."
"Bus stations?" Giles repeated.
The man cleared a chair of books, dumped them on the floor, and sat down. Crossed his legs. "Yeah. You know, places where people get on buses. Maybe you’ve heard of them."
"Who are you?"
"Whistler." He offered his hand and shrugged when Giles didn’t reach to take it. "Whatever. Man, I was in your house. You got to hijack yourself a life. I never seen so much bland food in one place."
"Whistler." Giles slowly rose to his feet. "I’ve heard of you."
"Yeah, well, Gilesy, I heard of you, too. Mutual friends. You’re damn lucky the Slayer came through when she did, or you and me, we’d be sucking flames together in the great beyond. Been there, done that." Whistler contemplated his fingernails. "Sit. We gotta talk."
"About what?"
"Your Slayer." Whistler offered him a wide, carnivorous smile. "What else?"
Giles slowly sank into his chair. Whistler leaned forward, eyes glittering in the shadow of his hat brim.
"So what’d you hear about me? I’m always curious. You know, a man’s reputation is all he’s got."
"You’re not -- human." Giles wet his lips, tried desperately to remember what he knew about killing demons.
"Ding ding ding. I’d give you a kewpie doll, but I’m fresh out. Look, man, I ain’t here to give you grief. I’m here to tell you, you’d better get a leash on this problem before it bites you in the ass. That girl of yours - " Whistler shook his head. "She’s wild, that one. I figured Angel for the white knight, but I never saw her coming with that whole big hearts-and-flowers thing. I mean, come on, he’s a vampire. What was she thinking? The hell with that, what were you thinking? Are you supposed to guide her, or what?"
"I -- " Giles wet his lips, swallowed all the protests. They none of them mattered anymore. "Yes. I was supposed to."
"Your bright idea to give Angel his soul back? I mean, I’ll give you this, it was a hell of a job -- and by the way, you better keep an eye on the red-headed girl, what’s her name, ‘cause she’s got a real talent for this beyond-the-veil stuff. I didn’t think she could do it." Whistler’s good humor faded. The bleak power it left sent a cold bolt down Giles’ spine. "Better for your Slayer if she hadn’t. Couldn’t have made it any easier for her to kill Angel instead of Angelus."
"Are you saying - Buffy killed Angel after his soul was restored?"
"I told her, she still had something to lose."
Oh God, Giles thought. He didn’t dare think about it further. His imagination was too good, his empathy too well developed. "Where is she?"
Whistler studied him. Shook his head. "Not yet. She’s got stuff to do. Time for the Slayer to get out and see the world."
"But she’s - alive?"
Whistler checked his watch.
"Yeah," he said. "For another - two and a half hours."
###
Two and a half hours until sundown. Buffy drank her water slowly and watched tumbleweeds shiver by, the only movement on the road. Nobody inside the store, either. The creepy old coot was long gone. Probably hopped the bus for Vegas to take in a show. Yeah, sure. What bus would that have been? The four-o-clock Twilight Zone express?
Giles had always nagged her about developing her Slayer instincts. She wished right now they weren’t so well developed, because they were telling her to get the hell out of this town, at any cost, before sundown.
"Might as well take in the sights," she said aloud, stood up, and hefted her bag. "Gee. Maybe Neiman Marcus is open."
No Neiman Marcus. For that matter, no Wal-Mart. Past the abandoned gas station, the road stretched on like a thick black tongue. On the other side of the street squatted something that had once been a post office, the windows hollow, half the wall gone. Not a sound anywhere, except for winds and creaking dry boards.
"Okay, fine. I need a car." Oh, yeah, likely. There was a rusted hulk sitting behind the gas station, the hood up, no wheels on it. Down the cross street -- not really a street, more of a dirt path -- she glimpsed something shining. Hot sun on metal.
Parked haphazardly at the next corner, half-hidden by a tumbledown shack, sat a vintage black Dodge, fins and all. Both doors were wide open. But that wasn’t what was interesting.
What was interesting was that the windows had all been spray-painted black. And the back and front windows had been smashed out.
"Well, well, well," she said, and fished in her bag for a stake. "It’s a small world after all."
She circled the car carefully, watching the shadows. Nothing there but dust and the faint corroded reek of blood. She eased into the front seat, wincing at the touch of vinyl hot enough to leave tattoos, and tried the key that still dangled from the ignition. Metal chewed. A blurt of smoke from the back, a hacking cough, and the car was deader than its previous owners. Trust vampires to drive something high-maintenance.
She stared at the broken-out windshield for a few seconds, wiped sweat from her forehead, and tried to think what to do. Giles would expect that. He was always telling her to think, like she hadn’t come equipped. She was fond of him, but he could be such a teacher sometimes.
"Well, Giles?" she said. "Looks like thinking isn’t going to get me anywhere. How about some tunes?"
She flicked the radio button. She’d been expecting silence, static, something like that, but what she got was a song she’d never heard before, a melody like a whisper in her ears, lyrics like a sword in her heart.
It sounded so much like it was about Angel that it hurt.
She sat frozen for the entire song, listening as it drifted gently into silence, and it wasn’t until the song faded into the grease-pop of static that she even thought to wonder how the hell she’d picked up a station, any station, this far in the middle of nowhere. She closed her eyes and saw him again, reaching out to her one last time, so much in his eyes, so much love, so much pain.
She hoped he hadn’t remembered all of what he’d done to her.
Buffy.
"Angel?" It wasn’t even a whisper. She waited for something else, anything. Static, silence, and the creak of the wind. But he was there, somewhere.
She knew, in her heart, that he always would be.
She switched off the ignition, killing the static hiss of the radio, and stepped out into the breathless late afternoon, bent to pick up her bag.
She heard a metallic click behind her, spun, and found herself looking down the barrel of a gun. There was a stake in her hand, raised to strike, but rock-crushes-scissors, and didn’t she feel stupid.
The old man from the convenience store was standing there, staring at her. Looking into his eyes was like looking into a grave, but what truly spooked her was the boy standing next to him - tall, strong, black leather and bad attitude. Something vulnerable about him, except for the big gun he held.
"Nice stick," the boy said. "Guess this isn’t your day."
"Nice gun. Tell you what, I’ll just take my stick and - "
The old man smiled. A slow, eerie, somehow ultimately gross expression that made her tighten her grip on the stake. The boy looked sidewise at the old man, then met her eyes again.
"Sorry," the kid said. "Hey, really. You seem nice enough, but we’ve really got to get out of here."
And then he shot her.
###
It sounded as if somebody outside was doing target practice. If there was one thing Spike genuinely could not abide, it was guns. He had a romantic streak in him, one that whispered you ought to kill people the old-fashioned way, close enough to see the life run out. Nothing like a good bloodletting to put spring back in your step, but this shooting stuff - too neat. Too far away. Besides, it was a terrible waste of blood.
"What is it?" Dru whispered, and lifted her head.
He tugged his coat closer around his ears and moodily contemplated the sunset. Another few minutes, and they’d be free of the shack, at least, but not the desert. God, he hated the desert. He’d picked it because he’d wanted to get Dru as far away from Sunnydale and the memory of Angel, but he’d intended to drive through it, not take the bloody walking tour. No way either of them could make it to another town during the night, and sunrise in the open was certain barbecue.
"Just the locals having a bit of fun, pet. Nothing to bother about." He’d done this to her. He could barely bring himself to look at her now, knowing how close she was to death, how much pain he’d caused her. Although he was becoming more and more convinced, now that he thought about it, that it was all Angel’s fault. Angel’s, and the Slayer’s, though he couldn’t seem to work up a really good hate for her, all things considered. He’d become almost sentimental at the last, not that he’d ever admit it to anyone.
She reminded him of -- well, himself. At that age.
And she had such a talent for killing.
"Spike?" Dru’s voice was a dry rasp. He smoothed her hair back gently, avoiding the raw skin where the sun had eaten at her. "I don’t feel at all well."
She was hardly alone in that, but no point on dwelling. "I know, luv. Hang on a little more. We’re almost safe." His own voice wasn’t much better, weaker than American beer. "Sunset’s coming, we’ll be all better."
She said, as if the connection made sense, "The Slayer’s here."
He turned to look at her, even though it pulled open raw burns. There was that tone in her threadbare voice, and in her sun-scarred face, her eyes were wide and dark and eerily blind.
"She’s here. I can feel her like little pricklings on my skin. Am I bleeding, Spike?"
He cleared his throat and averted his eyes from hers. "No, pet. Not anymore." She hardly had any blood left to lose. She had to feed, soon, or there’s be nothing left of her. Not that there was much in this hole for either of them to feed on, not even rats. A few snakes, maybe. And Dru’s mythical dancing demons.
"Oh," Dru whispered. "Then it’s her blood. She’s bleeding. Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Amer-ican."
Dru was never wrong about the smell of blood. Spike stood up, checking the angle of the sun, and braced himself against the wall for a moment. Not good, seeing spots. Not a good sign at all.
"Up you go," he said, and managed to get her to her feet, braced against his side. "Let’s go walkies. Nice night for a stroll."
"Nice," she repeated. "Spike -- "
"Shhh." He sealed her lips with a kiss. "Let’s find you something fresh."
###
They were almost a hundred seventy miles from Sunnydale, and Giles was frankly terrified that any moment now the long arm of the law would reach out and, as they said in America, make his day. He was driving well over the legal limit, but didn’t dare slow down - over the legal limit? This would have been over the limit on the Autobahn.
Whistler had dropped off into a peaceful, snoring nap a hundred miles back, and didn’t look likely to wake soon. Interesting that a demon slept, but then Giles supposed even the wicked needed rest from time to time.
Whistler suddenly sat up, adjusted the angle of his hat, and said, "Oops."
Giles almost ran off the road. "Oops? What do you mean, oops?"
Whistler was wide awake now, but that was not terribly comforting.
"It’s what people usually say when something doesn’t go exactly the way they planned. Oops."
"Were you -- " Giles stopped when he realized he had no idea how to phrase the question. "Were you -- dreaming?"
Whistler raised his eyebrows, something in those shadowed eyes amused. "No, I was visiting my home planet. What did it look like I was doing?"
"Never mind that, what -- what did you -- "
"Oh." He settled back in the seat, pulled his hat low again to shade his eyes, and checked his watch. "That. Nothing to worry about. How fast we going, anyway?"
"Ninety -- " Giles glanced down at the speedometer and shivered. "One hundred fifteen miles an hour."
"Faster," Whistler said.
"This is not a rally car. I doubt it can go any faster"
Whistler sighed. He did nothing Giles could see, but that didn’t matter. Giles’ whole attention was shortly focused on the rapidly darkening road.
The speedometer pegged itself out at one hundred forty, but he was coldly, terrifyingly sure that they were still accelerating.
###
Buffy woke up being dragged by her collar, and the first thought she had was, hey, put me down! The second was more along the lines of Owwww! Even though, as the Slayer, she was better able to handle injuries, even though she healed faster, a bullet in the leg still hurt like hell. So did the healing process. Gee, why couldn’t I be asleep for this part? The obvious answer was, because I need to be awake.
She was being dragged into a church. No. It had once been a church, but whatever this was now, it wouldn’t qualify. Definitely a non-church. The smell alone made her want to be unconscious -- decay, death, blood. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw that the pews had been splintered and piled in the corners, and the floor was littered with skeletons. Well, mostly skeletons. A few in the skeleton-planning stages, which was a wiggins she really didn’t need right now.
The kid in leather was dragging her, and standing at the end of the church, where the cross had been ripped down, stood the old man. He didn’t look like a greasy old convenience store guy anymore. He looked an awful lot like things she saw in the worst of Giles’ books. Collected Horrors, volume 347. Definitely not what she had in mind to do today. Or tomorrow. Or ever.
"Here she is," the boy said. He kept hold of her collar; she tried to get up, but her leg felt like it belonged to one of the corpses, and crawling didn’t seem too Slayerish. "She’ll last long enough to open the gate."
"Gate?" She really didn’t like demons talking about gates. "Um, can I ask, gate to what? Because -- "
"To the world beyond. Your blood must paint a path."
Nice image she didn’t need. "Ever heard of Sherwin Williams?"
"No," the thing said. "Kill her."
Oh, man, perfect end to a perfect day. She was starting to get sentimental about vampires, at least you knew where you stood with them, they liked a little conversation with their meal. This geezer-demon was definitely not the chatty type.
The kid pulled out a knife that had to be at least as long as her arm. She flung up an arm to block his first slash, got her left foot under her and hopped upright. One leg or not, she could still take down this Lost Boy poser.
"Why me?" She blocked another slash and followed up with a solid punch to his stomach that doubled him over. Behind them, Geezer Demon rolled his eyes. "What’s so special about me?"
"We need the blood of a virgin," the demon said in a completely bored tone, as if he’d answered this question a million times and it was written on his forehead to begin with.
She blocked a stab, expertly trapped the kid’s arm between her left wrist and right forearm, and heaved. He went flying. The knife clattered to the floor.
"Can I point out a problem?" she asked.
"It will not avail you." That was a stumper for a few seconds, but it sounded very Giles-ian, and she figured it meant something like in your dreams or don’t even think about it. She tried touching her right foot to the floor. It was a definite owie, but do-able.
She said, "Bad news. I’m not a virgin," and ran for the door as fast as her leg would carry her.
She made it all the way outside before a hand closed around the back of her neck - Leatherboy had gotten over his fall. She used his grip for balance, spun into it, and gave him an open-palm strike that snapped his head back so fast his eyes glazed over.
"That wasn’t an invitation," she finished, and escaped into the shadows.
Behind her, from the church, the demon howled.
###
"A bit farther, luv. That’s it, one foot - one foot in front of the other - "
Wasn’t possible for a vampire to be winded, but this was, Spike thought, as close as one would ever want to come. Exhaustion dragged at him, and even the strength the night lent him only made him clumsy. His burns were healing, but very slowly.
Drusilla’s were not. He took more of her slight weight on his arm, then grabbed her by the waist as her knees collapsed. She was horribly light, even weak as he was. She curled in toward him, her arms around his neck, and he staggered on.
"There," she whispered, and raised her head. In the moonlight, her face gleamed pale and hard as glass. An empty Drusilla bottle. "In there."
"That’s a church."
"Spike - so tired - "
"Stay awake, pet. Come on. For me."
"Hungry."
"I know."
It was a desperate thing to do, but he was desperate; he stopped, slid down with his back to a creaky wooden wall, and bit into his own wrist. The trickle of blood was pale and slow, but enough to rouse Dru to drink.
"Gently, Dru. Not - too - much - " He ripped free of her when the pressure got too much, and even then he was sure he’d gone too far. She was starving, and he was dying. They couldn’t keep each other alive for long.
"In there," she repeated. Her voice was a bit stronger now, her body a bit heavier. "Take me in there, Spike. There’s a surprise inside."
The last thing he needed was a bloody surprise, but he staggered to his feet and carried her over to the blasted hulk that had clearly once been a church. Immediately he caught the rich, vital scent of fresh blood and eased Dru to a standing position. She dropped to her knees - not from weakness this time, but starvation. She bent and licked dribbles of blood from the rough wood floor. Another minute, and I’m likely to join her. Not the most pleasant thought he’d had all day. I’d be all day picking splinters out of my tongue.
"Slayer," Dru said dreamily. She smeared her fingers in the crimson mess and rose to trail them over his lips. He licked first, then sucked greedily as the hunger brought out his teeth and the pain of change. When she tried to pull away, he held her tight and concentrated on gathering every drop, the hot mortal taste of the Slayer lingering with Drusilla’s cool, heavy scent.
"Spike," she murmured. He kissed her fingers in apology, still tasting red, and her palm curved cold on his cheek. "Sweet Spike. More where that came from."
"I know," he said. The trail led off into the darkness, a neon sign that led to an all-you-can-eat walking buffet. Well, not quite all he could eat -- he was feeling a bit peckish, and there was Dru to think of. He leaned forward and kissed her, felt the scrape of her fangs against his lips.
"Get inside, Dru. I’ll bring you some take-away, shall I?"
"Yes," she sighed. She licked her lips, a greedy, thorough, sexual gesture that made him lightheaded as a schoolboy. "I’d like some more Slayer, yes, please."
He smiled. "I’ll order her to go."
###
"Slow down," Whistler said.
Golden words to Giles’ ear; he applied the brakes, ever so carefully. It was rather like landing an airplane, requiring skill, patience and a very long runway. They coasted to a shuddering stop right at the rust-eaten sign that proclaimed the town beyond to be NEW HOPE.
"Yeah. This is good."
Giles waited. Whistler stared straight ahead. Seconds ticked.
"And?" Giles asked.
Whistler raised his eyebrows. "And what?"
"I assume we didn’t drive all this way to stare at a sign. Aren’t we going in?"
Whistler pushed his hat back to a rakish angle. "Let me tell you a little story, Giles. Sort of a what-if story. What if there was this Greater Demon, Azrhael -- "
"Azrhael of the Endless Torments?"
"Yeah, that’s his street name. He’s got some long, drawn-out title, Lord of the Outer Darkness, Master of the Hellborn, that kind of stuff. So this Azrhael is supposed to come up through the Hellmouth, about forty years ago, but because some really nice fancy footwork, if I may say so myself, he got misdirected."
"How precisely do you misdirect the Lord of the Outer Darkness?"
Whistler shrugged. "Easy when you know how. Anyway, instead of turning up at the Hellmouth, throwing open the gates of Hell, party all night and every day, here’s Azrhael popping up in the middle of New Hope, California, which is about a hundred miles from anybody who’s ever seen a map. We -- not me personally, you understand, this is sort of the group we -- throw another little spell, kind of like a big bubble. Well, more like a roach motel. Things go in, nothing comes out. Azrhael ain’t coming out, and there’s no way for him to go back down. So he’s stuck, like a roach on that sticky paper."
"What -- what about the people in the town?"
Whistler said nothing. Giles looked at the sign again. POP. 15.
"My God," he whispered. "I suppose none of you thought that was important enough to bother about."
"Excuse me for unliving, but I don’t notice anybody on your side getting off your asses and battling Greater Demons, so I guess you’ll just have to bill us. Fifteen ain’t bad. Well, fifteen plus a few unlucky tourists; good thing New Hope ain’t on any major roads. Things would have gone on just fine except for one little thing."
"And that was?"
"Azrhael needs to despoil and sacrifice a virgin to break the spell and enter the world. Sort of your standard contractual thing., like a universal form letter. No problem, the fifteen people in town weren’t going to qualify, and none of the tourists have been nuns, either. But now he’s got what he needs, right there in town."
"Buffy?" Giles blinked. "But she’s not -- I mean -- she and Angel -- "
"Not Buffy." Whistler stared moodily at the dark landscape of the town. Dust swirled in the white glow of the headlights. "Though I figure that won’t stop him if he can get his claws on her. I mean, he’s been bored a long time. No, Buffy hasn’t got what he needs, but he’s close; he ain’t the brightest light bulb in the box, but he’ll figure it out. And when he does -- "
The hesitation was agonizing. Giles prodded. "When he does?"
"Boom," Whistler said. He got out of the car and walked out into the darkness. Giles stared after him for a few seconds, then rested his head against the seat and took in two deep, steadying breaths.
"Boom?" he repeated. "Yes. Of course. Boom."
And then he followed.
... continued in News Of My Death, Part 2 ...