Buffy trudged up the steps of the house on Revello Drive, barely registering that her auto-pilot had steered her home. She turned the bronze doorknob and walked into the entry hall, leaving the door wide open. Willow and Dawn, watching television in the living room, shared a worried glance as Buffy remained frozen in the entry hall, the breeze swinging the door wide-open behind her. “Buffy?” Willow called.
Buffy didn’t register the sound and instead headed into the dining room, walking through to duck into the kitchen for a moment, grabbing the cordless phone off the receiver.
“Buffy?” Dawn asked worriedly.
Buffy turned from them, gazing at the phone.
“Your head!” Willow gasped and pushed past her friend into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a damp rag. Buffy allowed her to blot at the blood on the back of her skull and took a seat at the table.
“Buffy…what happened?” Dawn’s voice wobbled. “What’s going on?” She took a seat next to her sister as Willow continued to try and clean the wound.
Buffy stared at the phone before breaking contact and moving her eyes to her sister’s. “I know who the girls are.”
Over Buffy’s head, Dawn’s eyes met Willow’s. “What girls?”
“The ones in my dreams.”
Dawn’s eyes grew round. “What? Who?”
Her sister took a deep breath and swallowed. “They’re Slayers…or potential Slayers,” she rasped, then cleared her throat. “I…another one’s dead.”
Willow stopped cold. “Dead? How do you know?”
“I saw her. I fell and hit my head…And I dreamed of her.” It was all she could do not to double over and cry…or possibly vomit.
Dawn reached for her sister’s hand and, noting its icy temperature, began to rub it with her own. “Are you okay?”
Buffy shook her head, burying her face in her hands. “Another one’s dead, Dawn…”
Willow took a seat, forgoing the medical treatment for the moment. “Buffy, how do you know they’re Slayers? What happened? In the dream, I mean.”
Buffy closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath. Her face was ashen as she saw in her mind Faith’s hollow eyes, as she watched the blood bubble at the fallen girls’ throat. “They ambushed her. She didn’t even have a chance to fight…to scream. Three of them ganged up on her and one came from behind, slit her throat,” she whispered.
Willow put a hand to her lips, paling visibly. “Oh God…”
“How do you know they were Slayers?” Dawn wanted to know.
Buffy met her eyes with haunted sorrow. “Because the girl that they killed was Faith.”
Dawn’s eyes flew open and Willow gasped. “Buffy…are you sure?” the witch asked.
Buffy’s gaze, glazed over, fell to the floor. “I saw her,” she mumbled. “I saw them attack her on the street.”
Willow’s forehead crinkled in confusion. “On the—Buffy…isn’t Faith still in jail?”
“They would have let us know if she’d gotten out…someone would have, right? The police? Or the Watchers?” Dawn nodded, wanting to believe that.
“I—I don’t know,” Buffy moaned as a tear slid down her face.
“Buffy…Buffy,” Willow knelt in front of her friend and took both her hands, squeezing them. “We’ll call the prison. We’ll call Giles. The Council had to let us know if Faith got out. They’re obligated to. They let us know when she escaped from the hospital that time…let’s call Giles.” She eased the phone from the Slayer’s frigid hand. “He’ll look into it.”
“Yeah…right,” Dawn agreed, rising and moving to stand behind her sister, looking at the nasty gash on her head. “Willow’ll call Giles, and I’ll clean this up, and then we’ll start looking up dead girls on the ‘Net. You have to be wrong…it couldn’t have been Faith.”
Buffy stared stubbornly at the floor.
“Tell us what you saw, Buffy,” Dawn ordered. Willow grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and began to scribble.
“I--” Her mouth opened with the single sound, then closed again as the memory came rushing back, the horror and the pain like new.
“You can do this,” her sister encouraged.
Buffy nodded and swallowed. “I was tracking a vampire by the school. I went around the south wall by the gym but it turned out to be a dead-end. When I turned around again I saw something at the end of the street…two people, a man and a woman, carrying someone. It was Spike.”
“Spike?” Willow repeated. “Why would someone take Spike?”
Buffy took a deep breath, her thoughts seemingly clearer. “I don’t know. I went to find out, the guy tried to make trouble. I think I broke his arm.” She gave them a small smile. “I would have taken care of it, but the woman pulled a gun on me. I stood there while they took him,” she announced bitterly, her eyes downcast.
“Oh, Buffy…no…what were you supposed to do?” Dawn asked.
Willow joined in. “Dawn’s right, Buffy…especially after…last year…” She trailed off sadly.
Dawn removed one of her hands from Buffy’s and put it in Willow’s squeezing both. “It wouldn’t have made any sense for you to get shot, Buffy. You’re not super-human…well, okay, you are,” she corrected hastily. “But bullets can still hurt you. We’ll find Spike and whoever did this.”
Willow nodded encouragingly. “What happened then?”
Buffy sighed. “I backed off. The woman rode away in the van and I chased them, but the pavement was wet and I took a turn too fast. Slipped. Hit my head…and then I had the dream.”
Dawn’s chin set. “Tell us.”
“She was in Canada. Alberta. She walked out of a movie theater, alone. I didn’t see her face. She was going home, it was getting cold. I could feel how cold it was. She kept pulling a jacket around her to block the wind. And then…there they were.”
Look out…
“Three of them came from behind, quietly, and I guess she sensed them. She turned and was taken by surprise. She backed up…into the fourth guy who just grabbed her and slit her throat.”
Somebody…help her…
Willow paused and put the pen to her lips. “You said you never saw her face?”
“Not until she fell to the ground.” Buffy flexed her fingers. “She hit the ground and the hood of her coat fell away. I knew the minute I saw her hair.”
Dark, curly…no…
“Then her head rolled. Faced me. I saw her eyes.”
Dark eyes, almost as black as the hair…oh God…no…
“It was her. No mistake. She…she was dead. And I couldn’t stop it. They stood there, watching until she was gone, until the blood stopped. I saw it. I saw her die. I watched the life leave her eyes.” Buffy shuddered and stood up abruptly, hugging her body. She paced the room, quickly shedding the unshaky feeling and moving into new and more familiar territory—anger.
Dawn and Willow stood with her, ready to offer any support. “Buffy…we’ll figure this out. We’ll take it again, go over the details. Search for clues,” Willow told her firmly. “There’s some things here that don’t add up…her being in Canada, for one thing.”
“We’ll call Giles, too,” Dawn chimed in, just as matter-of-fact. “He’ll talk to the Watcher’s and make them tell him what’s going on.”
Buffy turned back to them, no longer trembling. “I know we will. And we’re going to find out why Spike’s missing. I don’t know what that means…who would take him, but it can’t be good.”
The girls nodded together in agreement.
*~*~*
“Can’t make it work!”
Spike’s voice reverberated around the room, causing Lilah to jump. He’d been thrashing around for a bit now, mumbling to himself for hours in his sleep, but this was the first clear, and loud, thing he’d had to say.
Spike blinked his eyes against the white-blue glare of florescent lighting and groaned. What the hell happened? This didn’t feel like the effects of a night devoted to some single-malt. And he didn’t remember getting into a rough and tumble with any demons…or a lady, for that matter. His head was pounding and he moved to cradle it only to find himself restrained. Perhaps his dreams of the Slayer finally playing the dominatrix had come true? He really was going to kill himself if the memories of that didn’t come back.
Opening his eyes completely his hope was dashed. He stared dumbly at the leggy brunette in front of him, who smelled vaguely of sweat, sex, and expensive perfume. She was seated in a chair, glasses on, reading, and didn’t spare him a glance as she spoke.
“I thought vampires only slept during the day.”
He blinked at her, clearing the haze from his eyes, and eased his head back to take a gander at the chains around his suspended wrists. Two more on his ankles, another around his waist, binding him to the cement wall. And all looking fairly sturdy. He sniffed the air and vaguely noted that it was just before dawn.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he retorted evenly, returning his gaze to her. “Something I can do for you?”
Now she looked up and smiled, a grin that he recognized…completely self-serving and evil. “I should introduce myself. I’m Lilah Morgan, with Wolfram and Hart Law Firm.”
He cocked an eyebrow and noted that even that hurt. “I’ll let you know when you impress me.”
Nonplussed, she continued. “And you…are William the Bloody, aka, Spike.”
He sighed deeply and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, uninterested. “Points all around. Now how’s about you tell me why I’m here?”
She smiled again and stood. “My firm, Mr….ah, Spike, may I call you Spike?”
Piercing blue eyes didn’t even flicker.
“Right…Spike…we deal with…the darker elements of society. Humans, non-humans…non-beings even. And let me say, your case has certainly been a page-turner for me this evening.” She picked up a book and began leafing through it. “Turned by Drusilla, the childe of Angelus, a part of the Order of Aurelius.” She glanced up. “That last little ditty alone makes you very interesting to me.”
“Writing a report for teacher?” His eyes followed her as she paced and read, chewing thoughtfully on her glasses.
“Something like that,” she retorted wryly. “You and Drusilla, along with Darla and Angelus, roamed Europe for decades, wreaking havoc wherever you went, and you, in the process, took out two Slayers.”
He blinked slowly and cocked his head, bored.
“Then Angelus regains his soul, and you and Drusilla part ways with Darla. The two of you are sited all around the world but Darla all but disappeared.”
“Yeah,” he said loudly, “me and Dru weren’t much for subtly.”
She noted the sound of pride in his voice. “And then…nothing. It’s the strangest thing. All reports of you, Drusilla, Angelus and Darla just stop. Until suddenly, one day, you all appear again, in the same place. Sunnydale, California.”
He smirked. “Didn’t quite happen like that, luv. Wasn’t the big family reunion like you make it sound.”
“No…Darla was there for quite a bit before you, or even Angel, arrived. With…” she consulted her notes, “The Master.”
Spike snorted but said nothing.
“Then the current Slayer moves there, a Ms. Summers, and Angel shows up at almost the same time,” she noted the hardening of Spike’s eyes with glee, “and about a year later…you and Drusilla arrive on the scene.”
He raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “What can I say? The Hellmouth has a pull to it. Anyway, I’m the only one still there…so let’s just be good friends and share ulterior motives now.”
Lilah sat her book on the table and crossed to Spike, staring him in the eye, unafraid. “My firm is interested in you, Spike…your history, yes…but more about your recent…acquisition?” She traced a finger down his bare chest, circling his heart. “There isn’t anything we don’t know about, for long, anyway, as you’ll come to find out…and I have to say, being what you are…we could do great things together.”
Spike stared at her, completely surprised, but recovered quickly at her touch. “Spies everywhere…flies on walls…” He could feel himself slipping as the voices reached out for him, beginning to cloud his train of thought. “And…and you…”
Lilah took a step back, gracing Spike with a curious glance. “I what?”
Inside, Spike cried out in anguish as he felt the last of his rational slip away. “You work and you work and you take and you give and in the end it’s all the same.”
Confusion flickered across the lawyer’s face. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“They’re all talking to me…it’s impossible to understand,” he informed her with a crazy grin. “All the voices in my head, pick pick picking away at Spike’s brain. Slayer thinks he’s lost it. Slayer doesn’t know he never had it. Never had it in him.”
“Who?” she demanded.
“Spike!” he roared, angrily. “Spike never had it in him to be this way, to take all this. William couldn’t handle it without the demon, Spike can’t handle it with.”
“You talk like you’re two different people,” she observed.
He chuckled. “Everyone’s two different people. Sides of the coin. Flip it.”
Lilah gave him a wide-eyed nod of disbelief and backed up a few more steps though the chains holding him were more than adequate. “Spike…come back to reality for a minute, okay? This reality. You have a soul now.”
“Itches.”
“Great. It itches. The whole point in bringing you here is this: There are prophecies out there about the vampire with a soul.”
“Riddles. Fiction. Prose. Poetry. I write poetry,” he babbled.
She breezed past that. “They say that this vampire will be a major player in the destruction of the world…but we don’t know what side he’ll be on. So we’ve chased down Angel for years thinking he might be the grand poo-bah. And then suddenly you come along.” She approached him again, aware that some part of him was now paying attention to her. “Another vampire with a soul. The prophecies never mentioned there could be more than one, and I hate to say that we never considered it. I mean, why would we? One was unbelievable as it was.”
Clarity flooded his eyes for a moment. “Feels like there’s a hundred people in here lately,” he said, tapping the side of his head with a finger. “All talkin’ to me, all wantin’ a piece of me…yellin’, screamin’ for mercy. And I can’t give it to ‘em.”
She sighed. “I suppose after several hundred years of mass murder and destruction, yeah, you might have some issues to work out.”
“Angel…he tried. He tried to be a killer. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t kill for Darla…although he could kill her. Never had it in him for the other.”
She thought back to the night Angel had locked Darla and Drusilla in the wine cellar with half the Wolfram and Hart senior staff. “I’d have to disagree.”
He snorted, hanging from his chains and gave her a completely lucid stare. “Didn’t say he had a problem killing evil things.”
She stopped herself from shuddering at the mind-reading quality he seemed to possess and stared back at him evenly before Spike swung away from her, eyes closing.
“The point is, Spike,” she began again, “now there are two vampires with souls. And Wolfram and Hart have a delicious offer for you…something you won’t want to refuse. It promises glory, power, and all the human blood you can stand. Unlike some folks, we don’t have such a problem with you taking out the weaker of our species. As long as you don’t snack on your coworkers…without my permission.”
His head hung down, eyes at the ground, when he asked, “What do these prophecies say? Everything I touch’ll turn to gold? I’ll lead all the rats out of the city with a tune from my magical flute?”
She bent down until she was face to face with him. “It says you’ll rule the darkness and help demons take over the earth. It says you’ll see an end to the human domination of this dimension.”
He glanced up at her. “Why would you want that? Don’t smell a bit of demon on you.”
“I get paid very well to see that this happens,” she replied simply. Rising to her feet she crossed the room again and leaned back on the desk, pressing a button on the phone. “I know this is a bit much to hit you with all at once. I assure you, we would have preferred that you come willingly…but we couldn’t risk having you say no. It was imperative that we bring you here to ensure that all of the details of your importance are made abundantly clear.” She paused for a moment, licking her lips. “And you are important, Spike. Angel isn’t the key anymore. Not the only key. This changes everything.”
As she spoke the door opened and in filed two men and a woman, all dressed in suits and lab coats…each carrying boxes. They sat the boxes down without a glance at him and stood before Lilah, awaiting instruction.
Lilah smiled and took from one of the boxes a wrapped object. Setting it down onto the table she unwrapped it to reveal several deadly looking pieces of what might have been weaponry.
Spike regarded them warily.
Noticing his expression, Lilah stood and crossed to her chair once more, sitting back. “Now…there’s just one little matter we need to determine before we can proceed.”
“And that would be?” Spike asked, hating the nervousness churning in his belly.
She grinned as her companions began to unpack and unwrap several more devices and mystical-looking objects. “Why…we have to determine if you really are ensouled.” She cast an eye to a clamp-like apparatus outfitted with several razor-sharp prongs. “This might sting.”
*~*~*
“What did Giles say?” Dawn wanted to know as Buffy clicked off the phone and sat it on the dining room table. Xander had arrived a short time earlier and he and Willow were deeply involved in a search on the internet for any details of a woman’s death in Alberta.
Buffy pulled her hair out of its messy ponytail, brushed it with her fingers, and retied her hair. “He hasn’t heard a word about Faith being released, and given her state of mind last time she was free, he assures me that the Watcher’s wouldn’t hide it.”
“Yeah, they’re always such a truthful, helpful bunch of…prigs,” Xander snorted.
“My sentiments exactly,” Buffy agreed. “So, we keep looking. Giles is worked up about my dreams and says he’ll nose around in England, see what he can come up with. Something about this seemed to make him…I don’t know…twitchy.”
“Giles? Twitchy?” Willow teased with mock-astonishment.
Buffy smiled slightly. “Tough to picture, I know. What did you guys come up with?”
“Nada, so far,” Xander began. “If this just happened tonight, chances are they might not find her, or identify the body, until later.”
Buffy’s blood ran cold at the mention of “the body.” “Keep looking, okay?”
Willow nodded. “We will. And if this doesn’t work, we can try a spell or something…”
“For what?” Dawn asked warily.
Willow was typing furiously. “To let us see Faith now, wherever she is. Even if she’s…well…you know.”
The phone rang again suddenly and Buffy answered it. “Hello?” She looked up at her friends. “It’s Giles,” she mouthed, and walked into the entry hall.
“She’s freaking out,” Dawn noted, taking a seat.
“Yeah,” Xander agreed, “but things with Faith have always been love-hate where Buffy’s concerned…and most of the world, now that I think about it.”
“She tried to kill me,” Willow reminded him.
“But she turned herself into the police,” he pointed out.
Willow gave him a withering glance. “After torturing Wesley, beating up on Cordelia, and trying to kill Angel.”
“All true,” he conceded. “I dunno…maybe it’s a Slayer thing. Buffy’s always felt this responsibility when it comes to Faith.”
“I don’t like her,” Dawn admitted with wrinkled nose. “There was always something…trashy about her.”
Xander shifted in his chair. “She wasn’t that bad.”
Dawn treated him to rolled eyes. “Puh-lease. I bet she slept her way through high school. I bet that’s why she didn’t finish…they kicked her out for being too skeezy.”
Willow hid a smile as Xander squirmed. “I think she dropped out on her own, Dawn. And…her past isn’t really our concern.”
Dawn wasn’t listening. “There’s this guy at school, Dave Wolff. He’s creepy and smelly, and he goes to the docks a lot to smoke with the janitors. His hair looks like he pours motor oil on it every day instead of shampoo. I bet she’d sleep with guys like that.”
Willow snorted and tried, unsuccessfully, to cover it up when Buffy returned.
“What did you find out?” Xander pounced, gratefully changing the subject.
“That as of this moment Faith is incarcerated in the Los Angeles Women’s Correctional Facility, and was as of 9:00 this evening at bed-check,” the Slayer replied, sinking into a chair.
“So…she’s okay. It wasn’t her,” Willow said, half-happily.
Buffy didn’t look convinced. “It was her. It was. I’d never mistake her for someone else.”
“You said earlier that these girls in your dreams are potential Slayers…why do you think that?” Willow wanted to know.
Buffy looked up suddenly. “I—I don’t know. Something about seeing Faith there…dead…and then realizing that some of the girls fought back…it made me think…I don’t know,” she admitted finally. “Slayer-instinct. I know that’s what it is. Someone’s ordered that all the potential Slayers in the world be taken out.”
Dawn was wide-eyed. “Why? Why would someone want to do that?”
Buffy shared a meaningful glance with Willow and Xander. “Not someone,” Xander corrected her, warming up to the idea. “Something. So they can take out Buffy--”
“And Faith,” Willow interjected.
“…without fear of a replacement Slayer anytime soon,” he concluded soberly. Sitting back he ran a hand through his hair. “Woah.”
Buffy nodded. “That’s what I think, too. If they get far enough down the list the Council will be without a Slayer for a while.”
“I don’t get it. What list?” Dawn demanded.
“There’s a list of sorts,” Willow explained. “Giles told me a lot about it when I was in England this summer. Certain girls, when they’re born, have a…quality, I guess you could call it. A different energy than the rest of us. A Slayer-spark. The Council knows about them from the beginning and keeps an eye on them until they reach the right age. They get put on a list. I don’t know if there’s an order or anything. And then they get Called off the list when one Slayer dies until the Council determines that they’re too old to be trained.”
Dawn wrinkled her nose. “That’s why Slayers are different ages when they’re Called? Because it goes off a Slayer-Waiting List?”
“Something like that. When Buffy got Called she was only fifteen, but when Faith got Called she was more like seventeen. She couldn’t be brought in until…until after Kendra.”
“So all these girls that Buffy’s seeing in her dreams are girls on the waiting list, so to speak,” Xander chimed in thoughtfully. “Get far enough down the list and…”
“You get ten-year-olds who can’t possibly be asked to defend the world,” Buffy concluded angrily.
Willow raised her hand. “Who would do this? Who’s got that much power?”
The Slayer raised her eyes and set her jaw. “I don’t know. But I mean to find out.” She rose and grabbed the phone again. “If Faith is still alive, I have to keep her that way.”
“And you,” Xander added meaningfully.
“Who are you calling?” Dawn wanted to know as the Slayer headed out of the room again.
Buffy turned back. “I’m going to share our theory with Giles…our long-distance bill is going to mean we don’t eat next month,” she tried to joke. “And then…I’m calling some friends in LA.”
