Why does it feel like
night today?
Something in
here’s not right today
Why am I so uptight
today?
Paranoia’s all
I got left…
-
Linkin Park, “Papercut”
Chapter Four:
Something in Here’s Not Right Today
November 15th,
2008; Sunnydale, California
Willow’s face is
pale as she pushes her chair back and stands. Oz’s hand is on her arm; he
looks up at her, the picture of the caring boyfriend: “Willow,
what’s wrong?”
The look she gives him
is pure venom. “Let go of me,” she says, her voice steely.
Oz does not let go; he
stands too. “Willow—"
And then her arm is by
her side, as if he had never held it in the first place. Spike glances around
the table to see if anyone else has noticed. Buffy is confused, but that is
nothing new; Xander is worried; Anya is calculating. Perhaps Anya noticed
Willow’s unnatural display of speed. Dawn looks as confused as Buffy
does, and Giles looks hurt, maybe because Willow has not been very receptive to
their eager attentions.
Cordelia and Gunn are
stiffened, ready to stand and defend Willow; Wesley and Fred look nervous, as
neither of them possesses much knowledge of the group’s history. Angel is
growling and tense just as Spike is; only Faith, who sits between them with a
hand on both their arms, keeps them from pouncing on Oz.
“Don’t touch
me,” Willow says. She tosses a glance over her shoulder towards the bar.
Lorne sits on a stool, nursing a margarita, still an unnatural shade of pastel
green. He manages a weak smile in her direction, and his eyes dart nervously
over the assembled group.
“I—I’ve
got to go,” Willow mutters, and in a flash she is at the stairs, her coat
in hand. Spike wrenches his arm from Faith’s steady grip and dashes after
her quickly retreating figure.
She is waiting for him
in the alley, but as he steps closer she holds up hand. “Stay there,” she begs, and
the pure helplessness in her voice is enough to freeze him in his place.
“Willow,”
Spike says softly. “What happened?”
She forces a giggle. It
is tinny, unnatural, and it chills Spike to the bone. “I just
wasn’t ready to see all of them yet,” Willow answers. There is
truth in that, at least.
“No, not
that,” Spike says. “The Host—what did he see, that made that
all happen?”
Her heart rate picks up
ever-so-slightly. It is barely noticeable, but Spike is nothing if not
attentive. The girl had control, though, to hardly flinch.
“J-just a powerful
reading, I guess,” Willow says; she does not meet his eyes.
“Powerful,
nothing,” Spike says, taking a step forward. Willow mimics him perfectly,
backwards. “He doesn’t get visions, he just sees. What did he see,
Willow?”
Willow takes another
step back; Spike takes another step forward. He does not realize how he’s
been stalking her until Willow’s back is pressed against the wall of the
alley.
“It’s none
of your business what he saw,” Willow snaps. Spike grins and moves
forward again, and this time Willow has nowhere to go. “Stop,
Spike.”
Spike cocks his head to
one side, bending a little to stare straight into her unwilling eyes.
“Why did you leave, Willow?”
There is an unmistakable
flash of fear in her eyes, and a muscle in her jaw twitches, but she
doesn’t say anything.
“What did Oz do to
you?”
Willow whimpers and her
knees buckle. She leans against the wall as she slides to the ground.
Spike kneels before her
and places a light hand on her shoulder. Her whole body stiffens. “What
happened to you?”
She draws her knees up
to her chest and hugs her arms around her body. “No,” she whispers.
Spike’s brow
furrows, and a telltale note of worry creeps into his voice.
“Willow—"
“I-I
can’t,” she mumbles hoarsely. “I can’t tell
you.” She tilts her head up
to look into his eyes. “You can hardly look at me now, Spike…
you’ll be running to get away from me if you…”
“No!” Spike
says loudly; Willow shrinks away from his outburst and he lowers his voice.
“No, Willow. Nothing could make me leave you.”
The surprise in her eyes
in honest enough, Spike reflects; how can he expect her to take his word for
truth when she has no idea how he’s missed her? “Nothing,” he repeats
earnestly.
Willow’s breath
catches at the look in his eyes, and she very nearly tells him. “You
wouldn’t believe me,” she finds herself saying. “You’d
never—"
“I’d believe
anything you say,” Spike swears.
Willow tucks a stray
wisp of black hair behind her ears; her hair in itself is enough to remind her
how much has gone wrong. “Spike…”
They stay there in
silence for a long moment, Willow a shrinking form against the hard brick,
Spike crouching beseechingly before her. And then the silence is broken,
completely by accident.
“You are the most
beautiful woman in the world.”
Spike doesn’t even
realize he’s spoken until the words hang suspended in the air. He does
not dare to look away from Willow’s piercing dark stare, and her response
breaks his heart.
“When you say it,
I almost believe it,” Willow says wonderingly, tears glinting behind her
eyes.
Spike moves his hand
from her shoulder to move his thumb along her cheekbone, and Willow almost
imperceptibly leans into the gentle touch.
The door to Caritas is
thrown open with a bang, and Faith runs out, her face tense. She freezes as she
sees them: Willow backed against the wall, a single tear rolling down her
cheek, an indecipherable look on her face, and Spike, looming above her.
A fierce loyalty to
Willow has taken root somewhere deep within Faith’s soul, and it wrenches
painfully at her as she sees her friend helpless. “Willow!”
Spike is pushed aside
and Willow gathered into unthreatening arms. Willow clutches Faith like a
lifeline, and Faith stands, pulling her friend with her. Spike unfolds his wiry
frame as he stands as well.
All Faith can do is
glare at him. “Look, Slayer, I didn’t do anything wrong!” he
protests. Spike looks to Willow for help. “Tell her!”
“He
didn’t,” Willow says in answer to Faith’s questioning look.
Faith looks doubtful,
but shrugs. “Fine. But we’ve gotta get gone,
Wills—Wolfboy’s coming to look for you.”
Willow breaks free of
Faith’s embrace and nods, tense once again. “Fine.” She looks
to Spike, suddenly unsure of herself. “See you later.” She takes
Faith’s hand and turns, and Spike is left in the alley with only a short
gust of wind to signal their departure.
April 21st,
2007; Sunnydale, California
The evening is cool and
still, the house dark and empty. In a dank corner of the unusually clean
basement, the manhole is pushed up and to the side and Spike draws himself up
out of it.
When the manhole is
securely back in place, Spike unbends his lanky frame from its tense crouch and
stands. He makes his way to the stairs and swiftly climbs them; the basement
door opens onto the kitchen, which is immaculate with polished chrome and shiny
tiles.
Spike pauses by the
doorway in the kitchen before he dares to venture further into the house; if he
is caught, then this all has been pointless, and he’ll never know. And he
will also quite possibly end up as filler in a DustBuster.
There are no telltale
heartbeats, no creaking floorboards or warm breathing flesh. Oz has gone out.
Spike exhales unnecessarily and steps out into the foyer, tense with
anticipation. The stairs at the end of the hall are quickly ascended, the
hallway on the second floor leads straight to Willow’s room. Spike tries
to turn the knob and finds it locked. He has suspected something of the sort
and produces from a pocket in his duster a long metal pin.
The door swings open
silently, and Spike steps in.
“If I were leaving
home,” Spike contemplates under his breath, “What would I bring
with me?”
He pauses. “If I
were *Willow*
and I were leaving home, what would I bring?”
He turns around slowly,
his black-clad figure oddly out of place in the softly toned bedroom. “Laptop,”
he says contemplatively; “Knapsack, duffle; Clothes—denims,
knickers, shirts—A spellbook, perhaps?”
Spike crosses the room
and opens her closet doors. It is filled with clothing; he has never seen her
closet before, but there doesn’t seem to be anything missing. However, if
he knows the girls of the Scooby Gang—and he disgusts himself by
admitting that yes, he knows them quite well, in fact, thank you very
much—they all seem to accumulate gratuitous amounts of clothes, and it
would be hard to judge how much is less than normal unless there was nothing
there.
Spike growls in
frustration and turns to close the closet door when a flash of something on the
floor of the closet catches his eye. He bends, his duster spreading out on the
floor behind him like some sort of perverse bird, and pushes away the dresses
and skirts that hang to the floor away and pulls out his find: Willow’s
laptop. It’s about a third of an inch thick and weighs almost nothing in
his hands. It’s a chrome-plated Mac G8 Powerbook, the latest
edition—Spike knows because Willow brought it to the Magic Box the day
she got it, brimming with excitement. If there was anything in the world she
loved more than that scumbag Wolfboy of hers, it had to be this laptop.
Something is wrong.
Spike stands swiftly,
decisively, and then stoops again to replace the laptop carefully. He closes
her closet door carefully, and her bedroom door too; no need to give the Wolf
undue suspicions. All this is probably pointless, Spike reflects absently, as what
he’s about to do will almost certainly be noticed.
He unlocks the door to
the guest room—Oz’s room—and enters.
Spike nearly falls over
with shock at the scents that bombard his senses.
Fear. Anger. Hatred.
Blood. And something else—something that smells of death-but-not-death,
something vaguely familiar if he could only define it…
He prowls the edges of
the small room, sniffing almost delicately at the sickly-smelling air. The
table in the center of the room will certainly have stronger smells, but Spike
is too caught up in his fear for Willow to really want to investigate.
The dresser catches his
eye, and Spike latches onto that as a thankful distraction. Before he goes over
to the bloodstained table, he can search the dresser. He can search the dresser
and gather his thoughts, and then he can think about that deadly-looking table.
Unfortunately, this plan
is shot all to Hell when Spike opens the top drawer of the dresser first.
Spike chokes in shock.
<The stuff in this drawer…> He pulls out a blood-encrusted knife,
agonizingly dull, and holds it as if it’s a dead rat. He hasn’t
seen torture implements this precise since his days with Angelus.
Spike gingerly lifts the
knife to his nose and sniffs, though he knows what he will smell. The blood is
undeniably Willow’s—sweet and spicy, run through with magic.
<What have you
done to her, you psychotic puppy?> Spike rifles, panicked, through the stained,
rusty, bloody contents of the drawer. They’re not limited to
‘professional’ objects—there’s wire, too, and bloody
twine, and shards of what was most likely a wine glass, and a belt. Spike can
just make out the L.L. Bean logo on the worn and dirty leather.
Spike doesn’t
realize he’s crying until the tears cloud his eyes. He’d known Oz
was… hurting her… but this…? He’s angry at himself, for
being so bloody fucking soft, crying over a mortal, but so angry at the Wolf
that he could rip him to shreds.
<Bloody
bastard’s so fucking confident, he knows no one will suspect…
Doesn’t even fucking
clean the place…!>
Spike chokes again, a
harsh, angry cough, and the sound brings him to his senses enough to glance at
his watch and realize how late it’s gotten. The Wolf could be home
anytime.
<Shit! >
Spike shoves the stuff
back in the drawer and closes it roughly. If he’s lucky, the Wolf
won’t notice the intrusion until Spike’s had a chance to tell
somebody about what he’s found.
The door is closed
quickly, the pin produced again from a duster pocket and fiddled with until the
lock clicks; Spike runs like mad down the stairs and dives through the door to
the basement and closes it behind him just as the front door opens.
July 3rd, 2008;
Los Angeles, California
It is hot in Los
Angeles, unusually hot for July. The air is heavy and damp enough that even the
resident vampires are sweltering.
Muttering
expletives at the weather, Spike sits in the shade in the back courtyard of the
Hyperion, nursing a sweating glass of iced lemonade. Though he himself does not
perspire, Spike can smell the sweat of Cordelia, Gunn, Fred and Wesley; they
shower often, both to relieve themselves as well as spare Spike and Angel, with
their acute senses, but in weather like this it is no use.
A heavy breeze
passes through, bringing with it the smell of more lemonade, courtesy of Fred;
Victoria’s Secret perfume and Tommy Hilfiger cologne from Cordelia and
Gunn, respectively; ancient dust, stirred up from rotting books—Wesley;
cinnamon and mothballs from Angel; and something else, something unfamiliar:
mint?
Yes, mint and
furniture polish, with a slight scent of meticulously groomed animals; a hint
of fear and of organic shampoo and ammonia… nail polish. Spike
half-shrugs: it must be a customer. He’s far too hot to move. Better to
let Fred deal with it.
But the smells
come closer to him, and now he smells leather and foreign sweat, and he hears
footsteps of feet clad in slides. They keep coming: someone to see him? Spike
turns half-heartedly, twisting around on the cool cement. Faith stands in the
doorway, smelling strongly of mint, her hair just washed and falling in
still-wet curls around her shoulders, her fingernails newly manicured with a
sparkling black coat; and her feet, in their Birkenstocks, shift uneasily.
Spike nods to
her and considers taking out his cigarettes.
“Hey,
Junior,” she greets him, and moves out into the back courtyard.
She’s dressed neatly today, unusually squeaky-clean for a girl as
flamboyant as she is. Faith smiles hesitantly and bends long tanned legs to
lower herself to the ground beside Spike. “Hot, huh?”
“Yeah,”
Spike says. He lifts his glass of lemonade. “Want?”
“You’re
unusually monosyllabic,” Faith notes, taking the glass. She tosses her
head slightly to move her hair and sips slightly at the cool drink.
“Thanks.”
“You look
preppy,” Spike says, ignoring her comment. “Any reason?”
Faith swallows
and puts the lemonade down. “Yeah, actually.” She casts a sly
glance towards him under her long thick lashes. “I was wondering if
you’d help me out.”
Spike’s interest
is piqued: is the redeemed bad girl going to fall off the wagon? “Yeah?
What’d you want?”
Faith sighs and
picks at her cuticles. “I found an apartment to move to, like me and
Angel agreed.”
<Damn.> “Yeah? Good for you,
then.”
“But…”
There’s always
a but. Spike smiles
slightly. “But…?”
“Well, the
apartment comes with a roommate. And she’s great—real nice,
responsible, doesn’t mind about the whole parole thing—but, uh,
she’s vampire-aware, doesn’t like them much.”
Spike can’t
see where this is going. He looks to Faith, who is now chipping the polish off
of her newly styled nails. He’s never seen her look so neatly tailored
before—the black leather is traded for denim shorts of a modest length
and a thin long-sleeved white cotton peasant shirt. She’s got a new
anklet on, some kind of colored thread, tightly knotted. She’s never worn
jewelry before, except the silver ring on her pinky that she never seems to
remove. It’s a gift from Angel.
“So?”
Spike prompts unsubtly.
“The point
is, you and Angel can’t come meet her or see the apartment. She’s
speciesist.”
Spike
doesn’t much care—if this roommate is as responsible as Faith says
she is, Faith would be fine. “I still don’t see…”
“Angel’s
gonna want to approve the apartment! And he can’t, because she
won’t let a vampire in.”
Ah. It’s a
conflict of trust. Spike shrugs. “I don’t see what you want me to
do, ducks. Sorry.”
“Can you
talk to Angel for me? Gunn told me Angel moved back here and everything
‘cause of you…”
Spike is shaking
his head before Faith can finish. “No way.” Spike picks up the
still-sweating lemonade glass and stands. “Sorry, again.”
Faith’s
brow is furrowed, her expression bewildered. “But—Why not?”
She stands, too, her hands on her flat hips. “He *listens* to you!”
Spike shakes his
head again and heads into the Hyperion. “One, that’s not
true,” he says. And then: “Second, if I do this for you,” he
finds himself explaining, “You’ll keep depending on me to help you
out; and the Pouf won’t believe you without a representative.”
Faith’s
expression is defiant, even though a trickle of sweat has cut through her light
eye shadow. “But…”
“Look,”
Spike says, “If you think he’ll say no, don’t ask. Just tell.
Tell him you need to be trusted, that you’ll check in with him every
night before patrol—something like that. He’ll probably pout, but
it’s not his decision, and if you don’t let him argue, he’ll
eventually have to give in. He doesn’t distrust you so much that
he’d kidnap you in the middle of the night.”
Faith looks
thoughtful. “Hmm.”
“Yeah,
‘hmm.’” Spike rolls his eyes and digs in his back pocket for
a cigarette. “Want?” He holds the Marlboros out to her generously.
She makes a face and he shrugs. <Whatever tickles your fancy.> “Well. Good luck, then.” He
heads into the hotel, leaving Faith standing contemplatively in the back
courtyard.
The air
conditioner is broken, so the inside of the hotel, despite all of the standing
fans whirring furiously in every bit of empty floor, is nearly as hot as the
outside. Spike goes to the kitchen to exchange his lemonade—now watery
with melted ice—for a nearly frozen Guinness and then mounts the stairs
to the second floor just as Faith reenters the lobby.
She catches his
eye and he smiles. “Don’t forget to write!” he calls,
mockingly, and she scowls good-naturedly and flashes her middle finger at him.
Spike expected
no less; his smile doesn’t waver as he returns the favor and continues up
the stairs to his suite.
Once he’s
entered and kicked off his boots, Spike turns each of the six fans in his room
to face the bed and switches them on. He regrets doing this—it means that
he can’t hear the confrontation between Faith and Angel—but
it’s too hot for anything else, and Spike would bet any one of these fans
on the fact that once Faith leaves triumphantly—and she will—Angel
will come upstairs and rant.
Spike smiles
confidently and waits.
April 21st,
2007; Sunnydale, California
It is a fidgety
and nervous Spike who pushes the sewer entry of Angel’s new place of
residence open and clambers clumsily into the basement. Spike’s hands are
shaking slightly, and there is a treacherous sore redness to his eyes that
alludes to the times in his journey through the tunnels below Sunnydale where
he had to stop and wipe the eyes that wouldn’t stop crying.
Spike stands in
the dusty basement for a long moment, trying to compose himself, before heading
up the stairs into the kitchen. Hoping that the Slayer isn’t
home—because if she is, who will believe him?—Spike leans on the
counter and shouts a “Halloo?” to the house.
There is a vague
shout in response, and soon enough Angel’s heavy footsteps can be heard
on the stairs, and then Spike’s former grandsire is in the kitchen
doorway. He doesn’t look particularly thrilled to see Spike, but then,
that’s not surprising.
They try to
stare each other down for a long moment before Spike abruptly decides the
posturing isn’t worth the time it’ll take away from finding Willow.
“I need your help,” he says frankly.
Angel has the
grace to look caught off-guard. “What?”
“I…
Uh…”
Is there a
graceful way to say that he just broke into Willow’s home and went
rooting through her things? No; but it doesn’t matter. What he found
there matters.
“Oz hurt
Willow, you know,” Spike says. “A lot.”
Angel shakes his
head. “That was years ago, Spike,” Angel informs him.
“No, I
don’t mean when he left,” Spike says impatiently. “I mean
now. Before Willow disappeared. The wolf *hurt* her.”
Angel raises his
eyebrows dubiously. “Hurt her.” He sits at one of the stools by the
island in the middle of the kitchen. “What do you mean?”
The grand
Pouf’s going to grant him an audience, at least. Spike sighs. “I
could tell she was losing blood every night,” he begins, “sometimes
a lot of it.” Spike gives Angel a look, daring him to contradict.
“And she was very weak… Pale. Tell me you noticed.”
Angel frowns. He
*had* noticed, then. Spike takes mental note of this.
“And I
could smell that Oz was sleeping around,” Spike continues bluntly.
“I’m sure Willow knew, but you saw her fawning over him.” He
stares at Angel. “Willow wasn’t much like that before, was she?
Terrified of every little shadow, totally submissive to everyone, clutching the
wolf like a lifeline? I was there, before *he* came back. You know what she was
like. Vibrant girl, all extroverted, yeah?”
Spike starts
pacing, aware that Angel is watching his every move. He doesn’t know
where to go from here—how can he make the jump, logically, so the idiot
can get it, to the fact that it is Oz’s fault Willow withdrew, that it is
Oz’s fault she left, that it is Oz’s work that coats that horrible
little room in Willow’s house?
Perhaps direct
is the best approach.
Spike turns to
look Angel in the eye. “Come with me, to Willow’s house,” he
says. “You’ll only believe me when you see it—”
Angel’s
cro-magnon brow is furrowed, his dark eyes worried. “I still don’t
understand,” he says. Spike restrains a growl of frustration.
“I
don’t know what you want me to see,” Angel says, “but it can
wait until we discuss this with the whole gang, or at least until Oz gets
home.”
Spike was
banking on *not* telling the whole gang or waiting until Oz gets home. The
latter is unavoidable, as Spike had just managed on diving out of sight as the
wolf had come in; but perhaps, maybe, Oz hadn’t noticed an
intruder’s scent. If Spike can just get Angel to come *look*--he
can’t deny the blood, the sweat, the pain, the acrid scent of fear. Even
a human would have to recognize the sickly-sweet smell of death in Oz’s
little torture chamber.
Especially a
human like Angel.
“*Please*,”
Spike begs. He’s ready to get on his knees, now, to plead for
Angel’s cooperation. “Come with me, just look there.”
Angel’s
getting ready to completely ready to refuse, Spike can see: getting completely
ready to dismiss him.
So Spike gets on
his knees and clasps his hands, a mockery of prayer. “Please.
Please.” He’ll have to do something drastic, swear on something
believable: anything so that Angel will agree. “In the name of—of
the bond, that we used to have, grandsire and childe.” Spike gestures,
indicating an invisible line connecting their hearts. “I’ll do
anything, but you have to come.”
If Angel
won’t come, there isn’t anyone who’ll believe him. Xander
mistrusts Spike too greatly, and Anya will side with Xander. Buffy will side
with Oz, and Giles will side with Buffy, and Angel will be there to egg them
on. Dawn might believe him, but she doesn’t have any influence in the
group, yet; or not enough. She’s too young and inexperienced compared to
the rest of them.
Angel’s
looking pensive, something not unusual on his square features. “Spike, I
get that you’re worried about Willow. We all are. But you can’t
just—”
“Yes I
*can* bloody ‘just’!” Spike yells. “You say you care,
but if you did you’d be coming with me! Think about how much anger and
violence the wolf’s got to have tied up inside! You used to know what it
was like, demon and soul raging at each other all the time! He tells everyone
it’s fine that he keeps the werewolf in at full moon, but it can’t
be. He *hurts* her!” Spike’s voice is growing hoarse. “He
*hurts* her, it’s an outlet for him, and she could be dead and
you’re just sitting there!”
“I
can’t believe that Oz would hurt Willow,” Angel says stubbornly,
but he looks more like he’s willing to be unconvinced.
“This
isn’t Oz,” Spike says certainly, and something shifts.
Angel moves
slightly on the stool. There is a long pause, and then: “All right. We
can go, if you do this quickly.”
Spike is frozen
in place. He’s won?
Angel takes a
breath. “Don’t make me regret this, boy,” he says, and Spike
swears he can hear the menace of Angelus in that statement, though the bastard
is long gone.
“I trust
these people, and it has taken fire and brimstone for them to trust me,”
Angel continues. “I’m taking a lot on faith here.”
“I
know,” Spike says solemnly, and then adds, sincerely, “Thank
you.”
July 5th, 2007;
Los Angeles, California
Vaughn has known
Charlie Gunn for years, since they were *this* high. They cut school together,
dodged the cops out looking for kids playing hooky; they tried a cigarette
together, from Vaughn’s aunt’s stash hidden in her desk drawer,
collapsed into the rough carpet of her bedroom coughing, and neither Vaughn nor
Charlie ever smoked again.
How long’s
it been? Long enough; long enough that Vaughn has some cheap Polaroids of
himself and Charlie and Alonna, long before the vamps got her. Vaughn was among
the few who never turned against Charlie Gunn when he went to work for that
vampire, and among the even smaller group who still watched Charlie’s
back after he picked up that Chase girl.
They—Vaughn
and Charlie—don’t see each other too often because of their jobs.
Both of ‘em fighting evil, it takes up a lot of time. But Vaughn has time
for a beer or two with his oldest friend on evenings when the supernatural lies
low; and once in a while Vaughn will drop in for dinner with Charlie and Cordy,
who’s not so bad once you get to know her, and the kids, who call him Unca
Vah.
Once in a while
Charlie and Vaughn exchange favors, nothing too big: you don’t want to
push it. But it was okay when Charlie called him up and asked if Vaughn would
just take an afternoon, get the scoop on some chick used to work for the
vampire.
So Vaughn gets
in his truck, just like Charlie’s except without the huge stakes strapped
in front, and drives down West Hollywood to a little shop with a handmade sign,
and this is what happens to him:
The bell rings
as he pushes the door open, sounding a low, melancholy note. The girl whose
picture he has looks up from where she’s indicating something on a shelf
to another customer and mouths “Just a second!” to him. He nods and
looks around, hands on his hips under his denim jacket.
The shop is
larger than it looks from outside, much larger. There’s a wide space in
the center before the counter, with comfortable-looking chairs; behind the
chairs are neatly arranged display shelves, and against the walls are cabinets.
It takes Vaughn a moment to realize that there is glass in front of the items
on the shelves in the cabinets, because the glass is polished until it’s
nearly invisible.
All sorts of
things are in the display cases—multi-faceted bottles full of colored
sand or suspicious-looking liquids; uneven folded bits of cloth; carefully
blown glass spheres; bunches of feathers tied together with lace or twine or
thread; little china bowls with lumps of gold; broken crystal of all different
colors; smooth rocks with pulsing lights inside; candles of all shapes, sizes,
colors and scents. On the shelves is a huge selection of hemp and wool,
chenille and cotton, dyed in every possible color, and generous piles of neatly
folded clothes: linen, cotton, wool, silk, velvet, cashmere. A rack of knitting
needles is placed discreetly to the side, and an extra bookshelf nudged into a
corner holds various soaps, washes, and gels.
Another
girl—woman—sits behind the counter, next to the cash register,
which is old-fashioned and heavy-looking. She has long, thick hair that Vaughn
thinks is black. It is tied back in a loose half-ponytail, and several small
braids fall amidst the smooth mass of hair, run through with gold thread. She
sits in front of a small wooden belt-loom, and her slender hands move
delicately across it. Something about her suggests that she is going unbearably
slowly, but that’s impossible; if anything, her concentrated weaving is
unusually fast. Heavy dark lashes frame her eyes, hiding them from view, but
suddenly she is looking up, looking directly at Vaughn, and he realizes
he’s been staring. He nods to her and just before he turns his attention
elsewhere, she shifts and the sunlight streaming through the front windows
falls on her hair.
Her hair
isn’t black, it’s a dark, shiny red. Dark like blood.
The girl
Vaughn’s here to check up on steps up to him, dusting her hands on her
jeans. She’s dressed strangely for the heat outside: long pants, neatly
creased, and a shirt with sleeves that are a little too long, falling to her
knuckles. She’s cute though, with her chocolate-colored hair in careless
wide ringlets lying on her shoulders, and a quirky smile. She fiddles with the
clumsily knotted hemp necklace she wears, and Vaughn sees that her fingernails
are black and sparkly.
Her lips curve
upward. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah,”
Vaughn says. “I need a cleansing spell for ridding a place of negative
energy.” This is his alibi that Gunn’s girl made up for him. She
said that cleansing spells were all-purpose, so they might use the stuff
he’d buy some time, and also they were relatively inexpensive.
She’d given him fifteen dollars, clapped him on the shoulder, smiled, and
said she expected change.
The girl nods.
“That’s pretty simple. I’m new, though, and not so much the
magic girl, so I think Wi—” She pauses. “—Salix might
be able to help you better.” She gestures towards the blood-red girl
behind the counter, and then looks embarrassed. “Sorry! I’m
Faith.” She holds out a strong-looking hand for Vaughn to shake. He takes
it and is proved right: her grip is firm and confident. “I’m
supposed to introduce myself right away,” Faith explains, “But like
I said, new.”
Vaughn chuckles.
“’S all good.” He goes to the counter, and the blood-red girl
looks up. Her eyes are shadowed and serious, but a small welcoming smile
touches her mouth, and it’s something of a relief to know that she can
smile at all. She, too, is dressed warmly, in a bell-sleeved linen shirt and
layered linen skirts. “Cleansing spell,” she says, and slides a
notepad towards her from the other end of the counter. “White linen
packet, small,” she mutters, writing this down in a tiny, neat script.
“Sage, two pinches, dried, not fresh; lavender scent, a couple of drops;
six bits of melted silver; one spray of lilac flowers.”
She looks up at
Vaughn and winks. “I like my spells to smell nice, but I guarantee that
there’s nothing in here that’s unnecessary.”
Vaughn shakes
his head, smiling. “I know next to nothing about spells. You could put
dragon scales in there and I’d believe you.”
She frowns.
“No, dragon scales are used for way more complicated stuff. Not for
beginners.” Then she shakes her head a little. “Sorry,” she
says apologetically, “I’ve been meaning to develop a sense of
humor, but it just hasn’t worked.” Vaughn laughs. She looks a
little sheepish, and then adds, “It’s hot out, and you’ve got
that big jacket on—do you want some iced tea?” Off Vaughn’s
pause and doubtful glance she says, “Oh, it’s a courtesy; it
doesn’t cost anything extra.”
Vaughn nods. A
cold drink would be nice. The blood-red girl bends and reaches under the
counter; as she bends away from her belt loom, Vaughn takes a closer look at
what she’s making. The belt is about an inch and a half wide, made of
tightly and neatly woven intricate patterns of black and red wool. At intervals
a silver or gold bead is knotted subtly in. The belt looks to be a little less
than half finished, but Vaughn can tell it’ll be great once it’s
done.
The blood-red
girl straightens, bringing with her a brightly polished cut-crystal jug of mint
iced tea and a ceramic mug. She pours quickly and slides the mug across the
counter towards Vaughn, who takes the drink eagerly.
When he’s
done, she takes the mug back and tears the list out of the notepad, handing it
to Vaughn. “Here. Faith should be able to put this together for you; if
you need anything, just ask.” She turns back to her belt loom, squinting
at it.
Vaughn shrugs
and swivels. Faith is kneeling over by the door. Vaughn saunters over, scanning
the list that the blood-red girl has given him, and is about to speak when he
sees that Faith is stroking the head of a rabbit.
She looks up and
ducks her head again to indicate the rabbit: “This is Timpani. He’s
Wil—Salix’s.”
The rabbit is
unusually large, with thick purple-silver velvety fur and wary eyes that remind
Vaughn eerily of the blood-red girl. He can believe this rabbit belongs to her
easily.
Vaughn nods.
“Cool.” He pauses, and then holds out the little list the blood-red
girl gave to him. “Um…”
Faith jumps to
her feet. “Of course.” She takes the list and scans it. “I
think I know where everything is,” she says softly, and then smiles.
“This’ll be quick. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Great,”
Vaughn says, and Faith moves off among the display cases. Vaughn turns to look
slowly around the shop again, and freezes when he sees the blood-red girl
sipping at a clean mug of iced tea, the belt loom moved to the side and her
beautifully finished belt draped elegantly across the counter.
April 21st,
2007; Sunnydale, California
Spike stands like
a naughty child in front of the assembled Scooby Gang, hands thrust deep into
the cluttered pockets of his duster, jaw clenched, trying to endure his
chastisement without going mad.
“But I
don’t understand,” Oz is saying helplessly. “Why would he
think that I would ever do anything to hurt Willow?” His voice escalates
annoyingly towards the end of the sentence. Spike has to resist rolling his
eyes at the melodramatics.
“Hey, hey,
are we forgetting something?” Xander interrupts. “Spike’s
*evil*. The evil dead. Does he really need a reason to—”
“—Oh,
please!” Spike really does roll his eyes now as he cuts in. “Must I
remind you, Chubs, of the countless times I’ve saved your worthless
behind on patrols? I’ve fought beside you stupid White Hats for seven years.
If I were plotting to sabotage you once and for all, do you really think this
is how I’d do it?”
“I
don’t know, Spike,” Buffy says caustically. “Why don’t
you tell us?”
Seven pairs of
self-righteous eyes are all trained on him accusingly. Spike can’t
believe this. “Come *on*!” he groans. “Willow’s been
missing a day and you pathetic lot haven’t done anything to look for her!
If I’m so evil, how come I’m the only one who cares?”
“That’s not
true, Spike,” Xander hisses, spitting Spike’s name out like
it’s something disgusting. “We all care about Willow. We’ve
been out searching every night, but there’s no trail.”
“I’m telling
you, it’s *him*!” Spike yells, pointing at Oz. “If
you’re so bloody concerned and you’ve been out all bloody night
like you say, then how come you’re here now, looking like you’ve
had a good healthy beauty sleep? How come you’re not crying, huh,
Xander?”
Xander flinches
slightly, though it might simply be in surprise at Spike’s use of his
name.
“That’s
quite enough,” Giles protests sternly, but Spike ignores him.
“How come you
don’t have bags under your eyes? How come you don’t look scared
sick as to where Willow might be? How come you aren’t wondering why a
girl as straightforward and constant as Willow is just up and left in the
middle of the bloody night?” Spike’s voice is going hoarse.
He straightens and looks
around at the blank faces of the White Hats until his gaze levels with Oz. The
wolf doesn’t back down but stares straight at Spike, some kind of
alpha-male posturing thing. Oz’s throat ripples in a silent growl, but
it’s not so much a warning as a triumph. Spike sees Oz’s upper lip
twitch slightly in what might be a smile, and then he has an inkling of
what’s going on.
Oz has them all wrapped
around his little finger. Spike doesn’t know what could be causing
it—a control spell? A wish? Some demon the wolf has bent to his
will?—It doesn’t matter.
They won’t help
Spike, ever, at all, because they’re blinded by something intangible and
because Spike has no evidence. Willow’s laptop has disappeared from the
floor of her closet as if it were never there, and Oz’s little torture
chamber is clean—the table moved away, the top drawer of the dresser
filled with clothes, a neatly-made cot rolled into the corner of the room. The
whole place stinks of Lysol.
It had so nearly worked.
Angel had come willingly enough, had believed Spike to the point of trekking
back through the sewers to Willow and Oz’s, had crept up the stairs and
obligingly waited while Spike picked the locks anew; but he’d quickly
become skeptical as Spike became more and more bewildered and angry, and Angel
had refused to admit that he could at least smell the crisp lemony scent of
cleaning fluid permeating the shirts hastily shoved into the top dresser drawer.
The group is
stony-faced, staring resolutely at Spike, and then Buffy speaks. “Get
out,” she says coldly, evenly, and then as Spike hesitates she yells,
“Out!”
A muscle twitches in
Spike’s jaw. “All right, then,” he says. “I’ll
get out.” He walks stiffly to the door to the Magic Box’s basement,
and pauses with his hand on the doorknob. “But remember this: I’m
your enemy. I’m evil, just like your macho man there loves to point out.
I was never friends with Willow, I never knew her well; but while you’re sitting
here feeling self-righteous, I’m out there looking for her. And I’m
going to find her. And I will never, *ever* let you take her back again.”
He lets a significant silence fall as he glared at Oz, and then he turns his
attention to one man in particular.
“Grandsire,”
Spike says formally to Angel, and then gives up the good manners. “You
made a bloody awful vampire, but you make a worse human. You know I’m
right, and you hate it, because you like your sunlight and your crosses and your
vulnerability. But I swear I never thought I’d see any vampire, even if
he’s Shanshu’d like you’ve gone and done, believe a *Slayer*
before his own childer.”
Spike grimaces and opens
the basement door. “Good riddance to the lot of you.”
August 11th,
2008; Los Angeles, California
“So!” Angel
says cheerfully. “What have we got?” This question is directed
towards Wesley, who is bent intently over an antiquated demon encyclopedia.
“Ahem,”
Wesley begins, pushing his glasses up his nose. It’s a very Giles-like
gesture. Spike rolls his eyes.
“So far?”
Wesley says. Uncertainty taints his voice. “Er… Whirling Dirvesh,
Whurlegyg, Tombelweid, Sugarplum Fairy, Tasmanian Cyclone Demon, and
Spinning-Top.”
Spike and Gunn exchange
glances from the corners of their eyes and begin to crack up.
“Whirling
Dervish—!” Spike hoots.
“Tumbleweed…”
Gunn gasps.
“Spinning-Top?”
Spike adds incredulously.
Gunn is laughing so hard
that he can barely manage to echo “Sugarplum Fairy!” before he
doubles over.
“Whirligig,”
Spike groans.
“ ‘Tasmanian
Cyclone Demon,’ my ass! That’s the Tasmanian Devil!” Gunn
hollers. “Don’t knock Taz!”
Wesley sits up straight
and glares at them sternly over the tops of his glasses. “I assure you,
Gunn,” he says, “That ‘Taz,’ as you so flippantly call
it, is a force to be reckoned with—”
“Taz is a
*cartoon*!” Gunn retorts. “Come on, Wes. It ain’t that
serious. Look at the list you just read.”
Wesley putters but does
as he is told, and his mouth curves reluctantly upward. “Yes,” he
says. “I do see how this could be seen to be amusing…”
Angel sighs loudly.
“It’s not funny, guys,” he says stubbornly. “This is
important—nobody knows what this thing is, and I’m worried about
Faith.” This last part is said in a lower tone, just in case she happens
to walk in at that time and hear this affront to her powers of self-defense.
“She’s
managed to avoid every other big bad that’s graced the streets of L.A.
for a month,” Gunn points out nonchalantly. “No big. She’ll
be fine.”
“But…”
Angel runs a hand through his haphazardly spiked hair. “This isn’t
anything anyone’s ever heard of—it moves to quickly to see!
It’s powerful, and it’s been staking vampires left and right and I
don’t know whether it’s on our side or not! I don’t want
Faith getting stuck in a fight with something she can’t handle.”
“I don’t
know what to tell you, Angel,” Wesley says apologetically.
Gunn shrugs.
“Sorry, man. And I gotta go pick up Peanut Butter and Jelly from
preschool—catch you later.”
Angel nods tiredly.
“Go ahead, Gunn. And say hi to Cordy and the kids for me.”
Gunn smiles.
“Yeah. Good luck,” he says, and Wesley, Spike and Angel shrug in
thanks.
* * *
“What’s up,
guys?” Faith bounces into the lobby enthusiastically at 7:30 PM, the time
she and Angel have agreed upon for her to check in.
She doesn’t see
the bustle of Angel Investigations that she usually encounters during her
visits to the hotel. Instead, the lobby is dimly lit, the main light coming
from the glow of the computers that Spike, Wesley and Angel each squint at.
Angel looks up.
“Oh, hi, Faith.” He peers at the computer for a moment, and then
back at Faith. “Just a second.”
Faith skips down the
steps. “Whatcha doin’?” She walks around to look over the
men’s shoulders at the computer screens. Spike’s gives her pause.
“What’s this?”
“Gunn just sent me
an email saying that he got word from some of his boys,” Spike says.
“A big vampire territorial thing is going down night after
tomorrow.”
“Where?”
Angel asks, and gets up, pushing his chair back. Faith twirls a damp curl
around and finger and frowns a little.
“I can probably
take care of it, guys,” she offers, and is unprepared for Angel’s
outburst.
“No!” he
says, and crosses his arms in that particularly stubborn way of his. “I
think you should back off from patrol, actually,” he adds.
“What?”
Faith is incredulous. What on earth is he smoking? “Have you gone
nuts?”
“There’s
something very dangerous out there, Faith,” Angel informs her as though
she’s five. “We can’t figure out what it is, but we’ve
been getting different reports on it all day and it’s sounding worse and
worse.”
Faith rolled her eyes.
“Look, I appreciate your concern, Angel, but hey: I’m a Slayer. And
people *always* exaggerate. There was this little demon once, size of a
puffball, people called it ten feet high.”
“Faith…”
Angel sighs, and then picks up some sheaves of paper and hands them to her.
“This is what we’ve got so far.”
Faith sighs dubiously
but scans the papers. “ ‘Whurlegyg’?” she says,
chuckling, but stops at Angel’s hurt glance. “Sorry.”
Angel goes back to his
computer as Faith sits, cross-legged, on the floor to read. Finally she says,
“So… There’s this unidentified thing out there that stakes
vampires.”
“Right,”
Angel says, reading over Spike’s shoulder again. “Would you print
that out?” he asks Spike.
“… And
it’s really fast,” Faith continues.
“So fast you
can’t anticipate its moves,” Angel confirms nervously.
“So it’s,
like, a blur,” Faith says. She gets a nod from Angel.
“Okay…” she says, and has to refrain from chuckling.
“It’s alone?” she asks. “Or does it have
friends?”
“There are
actually reports of other things like it,” Wesley pipes up. “A
great deal smaller than this thing, strangely. But they move just as quickly.”
“How many?”
Faith asks, sure she knows, now.
“It’s hard
to tell, due to their enormous speed,” Wesley says, managing to convey a
great deal of fear and respect for these things as he mentions them.
“Some have reported sixty, at least, and others just one; but a demon
acquaintance with particularly sharp eyesight claims there were three smaller
ones and just the one larger.”
“Oh,” Faith
says, and appreciates the dim lighting of the hotel that does its best to
conceal her smile.
This isn’t any
demon. It’s Willow and her familiars.
“So,” Angel
says distractedly. “Can you put off patrols? Spike and I can take over
for you.”
“Like Hell we
will,” Spike mutters, but Faith knows he will probably acquiesce later.
“I’m not
promising anything, Angel,” Faith says, “But I’ll see what I
can do.” She gets up to hand the papers on Willow back to Angel, and
leans inconspicuously on the printer. “How’s your day been?”
she asks, shifting slightly. “Like this since morning?”
“Pretty
much,” Spike groans, rolling his neck.
“I’ve found
another reference to our mysterious speed demon!” Wesley cries, and as
Angel and Spike both divert their attention to his computer, Faith nicks the
printouts on the upcoming vampiric activity from the printer’s bin.
“So…”
Faith says, folding the papers quickly and stuffing them into the woven
shoulder-bag Willow gave her, “Is that all for tonight?”
Angel nods absently, and
Faith sighs. “Okay,” she says, keeping her hand on her purse.
“G-night.”
There are vague grunts
in response from all of the men. Faith smiles faintly, again, and leaves.
* * *
Angel doesn’t
realize the printouts are gone until the night after tomorrow, and then he
doesn’t think much of it until he realizes that nobody from the office
has taken them.
Spike doesn’t have
the printouts; Wes doesn’t have them; Gunn doesn’t need them; Fred
and Cordelia don’t know they exist. The twins, Paul and Thea (or Peanut
Butter and Jelly, as they prefer to be called), haven’t been at the office
in over a week, so they couldn’t have taken them for any of their games
of pretend.
The only other person
who could have them is Faith.
It’s not that
Angel particularly needs those printouts; to get them again all he needs to do
is get Spike to log into his account and re-print them. But the only reason
Faith would have taken them is for her own purposes, and Faith’s only
purpose having to do with those printouts is patrol.
Damn it.
“Shit!”
Angel exclaims, and runs to load up on weapons.
Spike saunters
disinterestedly into the lobby with a glass of Fred’s lemonade.
“What’s the matter?”
“Faith’s
gone to try and massacre that territorial dispute tonight,” Angel says,
frustrated. He can’t find his favorite sword, the one with the pink hippo
sticker that PB&J stuck on it. “Where’s my hippo sword?”
“Are you joking?
The girl’s going to get herself killed!”
Angel pauses to favor
Spike with his best disdainful look. “I know. Where’s my
*sword*?”
“Probably up in
your room.” Spike grins. “I thought I told you to put your sharp,
pointy weapons away after you play with them?”
“Spike, shut
up,” Angel says, dropping Gunn’s homemade battleaxe and bolting up
the stairs. “Get ready, would you?” he yells.
Spike sighs but starts
strapping on wristblades.
He’s practicing
the wrist-flick that looses the blades when Angel stomps down the stairs again,
waving the sword. It’d look menacing enough, Spike thinks, if there
weren’t a pink hippo sticker on the hilt.
“Ready?”
Angel asks tensely.
“Let’s go,”
Spike replies.
On the ride over to
midtown, Angel says, “What if the Speed Demon shows up?”
“Unlikely,
isn’t it?” Spike says. “That this thing shows up when
we’re there?”
“*Un*likely?”
Angel snorts. “Please.”
They park and get out,
pausing for a moment in the night to listen and smell for a battle. The sounds
and scents come to them soon enough, a couple of twisting alleys down. Angel
breaks into a panicked run. Spike rolls his eyes but follows, flexing his
wrists under his sleeves.
There is a crowd of
vampires in a relatively small dead end—twenty or thirty at
least—all snarling viciously, and of course, Faith is fighting gleefully
in the middle of them. Spike is surprised that she’s held her own this
long before there’s a peculiar whirring sound and something so fast
it’s a blur whizzes by his head.
“Shit!”
Spike yells to Angel. “Back down, the Speed Demon’s here!”
Angel shakes his head
and is about to dive into the fray, but Spike grabs his arm. “It’ll
kill you,” he informs his grandsire, pulling him back, “And you
can’t help the Slayer if you’re a smelly pile of dust.”
Angel grits his teeth
and is about to yell a reply when something blurry shoots over *his* head and
he ducks. “Christ!” he yells, and presses himself against the wall.
“Exactly,”
Spike agrees.
They are forced to watch
the fight, unable to participate. Fortunately, the Speed Demon and its three
mini demons seem to be fighting the vampires and not Faith, but it’s
clear that Angel is doubtful as to how long it’ll stay that way.
As the vampire
population quickly diminishes to fifteen, and then ten, and then three, the
demon whooshes by with enough force to create a sizable breeze, and Spike
freezes.
What is that smell? It
comes from the demon, and it’s something familiar and sweet, but alien at
the same time. Faith stakes another vampire and the demons dispose of the last
two, and then all at once the four blurs are closing in on Faith in spirals.
Angel lets out a hoarse
shout as he leaps to his feet and hefts his sword; Faith screams a high-pitched
protest, but her exact words are lost in the buzzing from the demons and
it’s unclear what she’s saying no to; and as Angel swoops in,
swinging his heavy sharp blade with a flash of pink hippo and the blood spurts,
Spike scrambles to stand and stop him, because at last he’s recognized
that smell.
“Damn
it!” Faith yells, and pushes a bewildered Angel away. Spike runs into the
cleared space and is splattered with bright blood as the largest demon’s
blurry spirals grow slower and slower. The three smaller ones drop just before
their master does; and finally, lying stretched on the ground, pressing her
hands to the blood pumping from
her abdomen, surrounded by three bristling animals and a further bristling
Faith—changed, skinnier, with inexplicably black hair—is Willow.
