“Go! Be drowned in the Lake of Primordial Water… Your face is turned back by the gods. Your heart is cut out by Mefdet.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


“Come on Doc. Let’s you and me have a go.” Spike edged down the platform, keeping his eyes trained on the demon in front of him. He couldn’t look at Dawn, wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted by anything that might take his focus off of the demon, who by all rights should have already been dead and rotting in hell.

Doc blinked, and said in his disconcertingly gentle voice, “I do have a prior appointment.” He nodded towards the girl, a move that went far to enrage the vampire.

Spike stopped, muscles tensing for attack. “This won’t take long.”

The demon hiding behind the old man’s face just blinked his black eyes and smiled slightly. “No, I don’t imagine it will.”

Suddenly, the demon wasn’t in front of him, but behind, sinking a blade through skin, muscle and bone. The pain was so sudden and sharp that his knees buckled, plunging the weapon even deeper. The knife lodged in one of his ribs, grinding against bone, sticking fast. The vampire stumbled sideways, taking Doc’s knife with him. He managed to put himself squarely between the old demon and Dawn.

“You don’t come near the girl, Doc.”

Doc looked down at his hand, as if confused that it was empty. He blinked again slowly, no hint of a smile remaining on his lined features. With another lightning-fast move, he was on Spike, hand grasping for the knife. They grappled briefly, but the motion sent the pain in his back sky-rocketing.

Spike stumbled sideways and suddenly he was in the air, falling.

Right before his body hit the ground, Spike caught a glimpse of Buffy racing up the tower. Without his knife, Doc was going to have a hard time cutting Dawn before facing a very angry slayer.

The pain of the impact drove all but one thought out of his mind: that he had kept his promise.

*****

Day 2

Spike woke, and for about two seconds the dream was real. The brief flash of hope catapulted him into wakefulness.

Awareness ushered him into his own personal hell.

It was difficult to tell the difference between the physical pain of his battered body and the psychological pain of knowing the full extent of his failure. Each fed the other until the cacophony of self recriminations and damaged nerves was deafening.

He had promised to keep Dawn safe.

He had not.

That failure had forced Buffy to pay the ultimate price. She had died. The math was simple. Spike had killed the woman he loved as surely as if he had sunk his fangs into her throat and drained her dry.

Spike lay on his bed, still as the corpse that he was. Moving hurt... even thinking hurt. Part of him wished that the earth would open up and swallow him whole: anything to make the pain stop. The rest of him bitterly decided that it was no more than he deserved.

He had killed Buffy. He deserved all of the agony he felt and more. The math was simple.

Spike didn’t know how long he lay there, unbreathing, unblinking, a willing victim of the voices within, when he heard the sound of footsteps upstairs. A traitorous spark of hope wondered if one of the others had finally come with a stake to finish him.

The vampire hadn’t been able to walk after the fall from the tower. The body might have been able, but the rest was unwilling. He had simply shut down, ragged sobs fading into rasping gasps, and then nothing. He had curled on his side and just let the sun come. It had been his sudden silence that had drawn the attention of the stricken Scoobies. Either that or it was the smell. Burning human flesh, living or not, wasn’t a pleasant odor.

He had found himself covered in a worn tarp from the construction site and bundled into a car. Giles and Xander had returned the vampire to his crypt and dropped him on the bed. The grieving watcher had even removed Spike’s coat and draped it across the dresser. They had talked most of the way, sometimes to him, sometimes to each other. He hadn’t really heard them. Listening would have taken caring, and he was otherwise occupied.

He also hadn’t moved since the two had left yesterday. Hadn’t left the bed…Hadn’t changed his clothes…Hadn’t eaten. Moving would have taken caring, and he was otherwise occupied.

The footsteps made it to the ladder that lead into his sleeping quarters and started down. Spike was facing the opposite wall. All it would take to identify his visitor was to turn his head, but he didn’t. He could have inhaled, tasting the scent of the air to get the same answer, but he didn’t do that either. He couldn’t completely close his ears though, and the sound of a rapid heartbeat was deafening.

Human, then. Maybe he or she had brought a stake.

“Spike?” The voice was timid, but familiar - Willow. “I came to see how you were.”

Not a stake then. The vampire lost interest.

Willow walked closer, booted heels padding softly over the carpeted, earthen floor.

“Dawnie said you were stabbed before…” she trailed off, obviously veering away from the painful topic.

Spike could sympathize.

“Uh, I brought a first aid kit,” she said lamely. When he continued to just lie there, Willow walked around and into his line of sight. That earned a slight response. Blue eyes, flecked with angry gold sparks glared miserably at the witch. Spike couldn’t understand why she was pretending to care instead of leaving him to his misery.

Willow squatted down, coming face to face with the prone vampire. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her hair was a lanky mess. She didn’t look as bad as Spike himself, but it was close. “Spike, we’re going to have a… ceremony,” she blinked back the moisture that had suddenly risen in her eyes, “tonight. Dawnie… Well, she really wants you to be there.”

That elicited a spark of interest, though probably not in the way Willow intended. The redhead took his change of mood as an improvement. Spike allowed himself to be helped up into a sitting position. He didn’t even offer a word of complaint when she pulled a small pair of scissors out of her first aid kit and started cutting away the ruined pieces of his shirt from where they had started to heal into the knife wound. She tried to talk to him at first, but it seemed that Willow’s gregariousness was yet another victim of Glory’s tower.

The ensuing silence was a welcome relief.

She had to use tweezers to remove the pieces of fabric that were trapped in the healing tissue. Her hands faltered a little when she rested her knuckles on his back to get a better angle with the tweezers and the pressure made the broken edge of a shattered rib grind under her hand. Spike didn’t even flinch. After a long moment, Willow started working again, cleaning the wound and pulling the ragged edges together with waterproof butterfly bandages and medical glue.

The twinge of the broken bone ached, but it was just one more pain amongst many. Spike ignored it, and focused instead on the first threads of a plan that was quickly outlining itself in his mind.

When Willow told him that he might want to clean up his other wounds; he actually managed to dredge up the motivation to nod. Clean, yes. He would need to be as clean as possible with another slayer’s blood still staining his hands. He owed it to Buffy to not reek of burned flesh and stale blood at her funeral.

Afterwards, it wouldn’t really matter.

*****

In times past, when a samurai had shamed himself beyond all redemption, he would take his own life in order to atone for his failure. To die with their honor intact, the warrior caste of Japan developed rituals and methods designed to ensure that the act was not a coward’s way out. This was no quick, painless death, even when a second was tapped to help end the shamed warrior’s life. It was the poetry and pain of the act that earned a samurai’s redemption.

Spike found the concept appealing.

He watched the silvery casket being lowered into the earth. The generator controlling the straps that held the coffin suspended above the hole that would be its final resting place hummed quietly.

The Scoobies all looked shell-shocked.

There had been little talking, even from the start. Dawn had hugged the vampire briefly when she had first arrived. He had mechanically returned the gesture, holding her close. That had earned a few sharp looks, but he was too numb to care. Dawn had favored him with a watery smile before retreating to the side of the open grave closest to the casket and the ceremony had begun.

Giles appeared to have aged years in one day, but true to form, his face was dry. Spike had no doubt that the watcher would shed his tears over the privacy of his personal stock of scotch. Willow had lost the fragile composure that had sustained her during her visit to his crypt. Silent tears were running unchecked down her expressive face. Tara, looking lost and haunted, held her girlfriend in gentle arms, trying her best to ease the redhead’s sorrow. Xander’s face held a kind of horrified fascination and disbelief, as if he fully expected Buffy to spring out of the casket and announce that it had all been a terrible joke. Anya, who was probably the least equipped to deal with human mortality, sniffled into a tissue: the only sound other than the creaking machinery that was slowly lowering the slayer’s earthly remains into the ground.

And then there was Dawn.

She was stiff-backed, eyes wet with unshed tears. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth, pressed white under her effort to keep from crying. She was brave, his Little Bit. It was her display of inner strength that finalized Spike’s decision. She was made of tough stuff and didn’t need a vampire, who carried only death in his wake, further mucking up her life.

The coffin settled at the bottom of the hole with a dull thud. The sound struck like a sword through Spike, but he wouldn’t look away. He would pay his penance and bear witness to the totality of his failure.

Without a word, two men stepped forward from the shadows and started disassembling the machinery. Giles had paid them off to help keep the burial a secret, a common enough practice in a town with Sunnydale’s dark reputation. There had even been a minister, who, while uncomfortable with the cloak and dagger nature of the burial, had at least spouted the appropriate platitudes in the correct order. He had left soon after, offering condolences that fell on deaf ears.

This ceremony had to be a secret, for as long as the charade could be maintained. Buffy’s mere presence in Sunnydale had kept down the influx of demons that other Hellmouths attracted. The longer they could keep her death from the demonic community, the better for the citizens of southern California. Spike understood the necessity of this precaution, but it still rankled.

To die unremarked seemed the greatest injustice to a slayer who had been so remarkable in life. There wasn’t even a headstone to mark her passing, though he had heard Giles mention to Dawn that one had been ordered. In its place was a smooth river rock from the Summers’ garden decked with such small flowers and trinkets that the Scoobies had seen fit to bring as a final gift to their friend and champion. Spike intended to add his own memento to the burial, but not quite yet.

Taking shovels in hand, the two men, Spike hadn’t cared enough to catch their names, started shoveling dirt into the open grave. The clods of soil struck the casket below, echoing hollowly in the vampire’s ears. Willow leaned closer into Tara’s arms, wincing in time with the sound. When the men finished their solemn task, they mumbled hasty goodbyes and empty regrets, loaded their machinery and shovels into a cart, and disappeared into the shadows, following the minister’s path.

The lump of disturbed soil, covered with loosely arranged patches of sod, stood like an ugly scar across the cemetery’s perfectly manicured grass. The disturbed dirt would not settle until after the next rain or two.

The Scoobies were starting to shuffle around, knowing that even though they wished otherwise, there was nothing left for them to do here. Tara quietly took charge of her girlfriend and Dawn, ushering them away from the fresh grave. Spike was glad to see Dawn go; there were some things the girl did not need to witness. Giles was the next to start to turn away, probably hearing the call of his liquor and the hated task of filling out his final record in the Council’s records of Buffy Summers’ life.

Spike had waited long enough. It was time.

He stepped forward. That drew the remaining humans’ eyes, especially when he pulled his battered, silver flask out of the pocket of his duster. The incensed watcher balled his fists, rage saturating his features. Xander looked ready to kill, and took a threatening step towards the silent vampire. Their instinctive anger only proved that they didn’t really know what was inside the container. This wasn’t disrespect, this was penance. Not that their actions or opinions really mattered. They’d never reach him in time to stop what was coming.

Here’s to you, Buffy.

Without a word, Spike opened the flask and downed its entire contents: holy water.

“I come in order that I deal harm. You shall not deal harm against me. I am your protector.” – The Book of Going Forth By Day


Spike looked up from the singed box just in time to see Xander wipe Doc’s blood off of his face. Too bad he hadn’t been the one to run the old demon through, but at least the box, whatever it held, was safe. He picked it up, trying to ignore the smoke that was still curling off of its surface.

“What d’we got?” Xander asked, eyeing the vampire’s burden with equal parts curiosity and trepidation.

Spike glanced at Doc’s body. The fact that he had been so foolhardy as to bring Dawn here after her mother’s death tainted whatever pleasure he felt in their unexpected find.

“Something worth dying for,” he conceded darkly.

Xander started for the door, but Spike continued looking at the fallen demon.

“C’mon,” the boy called from the doorway. “If that thing’s important, then Giles’ll want it stat.”

“Wait a tick,” Spike said tightly. He put the box down on the floor and yanked the sword from Doc’s body. Before Xander could protest, the vampire swept the blade across the demon’s throat, neatly severing his head and leaving another spray of blue blood across the floor.

Both vampire and human jumped back in surprise as Doc’s headless body convulsed. Huh, not dead then.

Xander laughed nervously, a high pitched sound that nevertheless diffused the situation. “Decapitation, for when impalement just won’t get the message across,” he quipped.

Spike snorted at what was, admittedly, a very bad joke. He honestly hadn’t known if Doc was dead or not, but now was not the time to take sloppy chances, and some demons were harder to kill than others. Taking that as a mantra worth embracing, he stooped low and picked up the severed head. It hit the fire with a wet sizzle, catching quickly and sending stinking smoke rolling out of the fireplace.

“Right then,” Spike said as he scooped up the mystery box again, “Let’s get this back to the watcher.”

*****

Day 31

One more week.

Seven more days that he wasn’t able to look for Ammut. Seven more nights that he was only undead on borrowed time.

Seven more ways that Willow’s grand robotic plan had gone up in smoke, quite literally two nights ago.

She had tried to insist that Spike come along, again, but no matter how seriously she seemed to be taking that tacky ‘Boss of Us’ plaque the Whelp had knocked together, he wasn’t having any of it. Informing all of the Scoobies as to exactly what kinds of physical impossibilities they should perform upon one another had ended with some impressive special effects; a lingering tingle down his left arm; shocked sensibilities on Tara’s part; and a new post for the vampire: Dawn-sitting.

That was fine, he’d much rather be with her anyway.

“Queso dip?” Dawn tipped the bowl of congealed goo towards him.

Spike eyed the mess dubiously, there were bluish chunks of… something, only the gods and Dawn Summers knew what, floating in the yellowish mix. “Not much of an appetite tonight, ‘Bit.”

She rotated the bowl in her hands, letting the viscous gloop coat the inside of the Corningware. She scooped a bit out with a corn chip and chewed it disinterestedly. “Yeah…” her voice was full of the kind of weariness that had no right to exist in a girl her age. She slid the bowl onto the coffee table and stared at the television. “Think they’ll get it to work tonight?” she asked without making eye contact.

By some unspoken agreement, they had both settled on pronouns with regard to the BuffyBot. It made these discussions a little less painful.

“Maybe,” he grunted noncommittally. Spike hoped like hell that the damned thing would explode. He never wanted to see it again, but he also knew that all it would take was another guilt trip from Giles to drag him back out in the cemeteries with it.

“You need anything?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

Dawn shrugged apathetically. “Tara takes care of groceries, and Willow finally managed to figure out how to get mom’s insurance money out of Buffy’s bank account without casting glamours on herself, so bills are okay too.” She poked listlessly at the remote on her armrest, changing the channels from sappy Romcom to mindless Sitcom. Another poke turned the television off, and the girl sank back further into the couch. “Food, shelter, cable TV… See? I’ve got the basic needs of life covered.” The light tone of her voice was tainted by an underlying note of bitterness.

Spike, slumped on his end of the couch, scowled to himself. Considering that his promise to Buffy had been to take care of Dawn, it had more often seemed that the opposite was true. He needed to do something about that.

“Thought shoes, irritatin’ music, and shiny baubles were amongst that list at your age.”

Dawn favored him with a forced smile. “Nah, I’m good,” she said with a long sigh.

“Liar.”

Instead of denying his charge, she just shrugged. “Not gonna ask Willow for anything when money’s still so tight.”

“So, ask me,” Spike said bluntly.

Dawn was pretending to look at the blank television screen, but Spike could see blue glittering at him from the corner of her eyes.

“You keep bein’ this mature and responsible, you’re head’s gonna explode. ‘S unnatural. Surely there’s some bit of frippery that you want.”

“Well,” she hedged, “I’m almost out of lip gloss.”

“That’s not even a challenge, what do you really want?” Spike quirked his brow at her, making his intentions plain. Dawn arched her own eyebrow in return, letting Spike know without words that she knew exactly how he was planning to obtain her present. Plausible deniability was a very useful thing. The others would not approve, but Spike had pretty much settled on a ‘screw them all’ mentality with regards to the Scoobies at the moment.

“Davidson’s Boutique, center display, purple blouse with draw strings lacing up the front, small,” she finally listed in an arch voice.

Spike grinned wickedly; it felt good.

“Done,” he said. A little uncivil disobedience, especially on Dawn’s behalf, had the potential to go far in improving both their moods.

“Now give me that remote, there’s gotta be somethin’ on tonight.”

*****

Dawn was tucked in her bed, sleeping the sleep of the completely exhausted. She looked so innocent, so vulnerable lying there with one hand curled under her cheek and dark hair splayed across her pale sheets. Spike stood in the doorway of her bedroom, watching over her and trying to put a name to the roiling emotion in the pit of his stomach. There was something very wrong about this girl trusting a vampire so much, but ironically, he knew that trust to be well placed.

He would do anything, shed every drop of borrowed blood in his veins and then set fire to himself, or promise to refrain from doing so, to keep her from pain, in spite of how terribly unnatural that was as well. His heart had been dragging him against the grain of what was ‘natural’ for a vampire for so long that he was starting to feel a certain empathy for the first wolves drawn in by human fires and companionship. If he didn’t keep a sharp eye out, Dawn would be carrying him around in a customized purse and feeding him beef flavored heart worm treats soon.

The fact that a scant few years earlier, this same sight would have evoked a very different reaction made Spike wince and softly swing Dawn’s door shut. In his mind’s eye, he could see himself grabbing Dawn by the hair and dragging her back to Dru as a special midnight stack. The imagined scene wasn’t hard to conjure; he had done similar things so many times throughout the years. Spike shoved his dark thoughts aside, trying to ignore the tight, crawling sensation under his skin.

He started towards the stairs, but a low thrumming sound coming from Buffy’s room caught his attention. Willow had been storing the ‘Bot in there, charging it up night after night. He had been looking for something to distract him from reminiscing about his past, and thinking of the robotic imposter ‘sleeping’ in the slayer’s bed was more than adequate fodder. Before he really thought it through, Spike stormed through the fading scent of Buffy and found himself standing over the whirring device.

Blocking out his surroundings, Spike grabbed the box and jerked the trailing cords free. He immediately decided that smashing it to bits was too easy for a witch and techie of Willow’s caliber to fix. He stomped downstairs, box in tow, and made his way to the kitchen. The charging device just barely fit in the microwave, but the door did shut and Spike found himself facing a blinking row of zeroes.

His finger paused half-way to the key pad. As much as he hated the ‘Bot, and as much as it caused both he and Dawn pain to see it, it was helping with the vampiric situation around town… kind of. Was sabotaging the ‘Bot actually the greater of two evils?

Spike snarled and punched a random quick-start button. Willow’s scheme for the ‘Bot wasn’t any more effective than chopping the fledglings to bits and hiding the pieces. Cleaner maybe, but the ‘Bot tended to get in the way with her less than stellar fighting skills and every patrol that included it ended early due either to some new mechanical mishap or to magical failure. Plus, her programmed fighting skills were pathetic.

No, for once, Spike’s heart and head were in the same place.

The rotating plate squealed under the weight of the device and it didn’t take long for sparks to start shooting from the thing. It was strangely fascinating, but he couldn’t let the show go on for too long without destroying the microwave as well.

When a little smoke started trickling out of the front of the appliance, Spike opened the door and retrieved the fried charger. Still running on anger alone, he took the thing upstairs and reattached all of the chords. It made a weak buzzing sound before coughing and sputtering into silence.

Spike bared his teeth in an expression that fell somewhere between a grin and a snarl.

Let Red try to figure that one out.

Upon retreating downstairs, he opened the kitchen window to let the smell of burned electronics waft out before retiring to the TV and wait for the witches’ return. No reason to leave any hints behind for them.

He was almost cheerful when the Scoobies returned from their patrol with the badly charred BuffyBot in tow.

“Thus said the gods when they lamented the past. ‘On your faces! He has come to you while the dawn lacks you, and there is none who will protect you.’ My faults are in my belly, and I will not declare them.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


The tower listed drunkenly as Spike ran up its spiraling ramps. There was a good reason why the clinically insane weren’t generally hired as engineers.

He had picked up a spiked bat, dropped by one of Glory’s minions in the concussive wave from Willow’s last spell. His mad dash was tempered by the structure’s instability, forcing each step to be a little more careful than would have otherwise been the case.

So it was that Spike scaled the monument to Glory’s psychosis in relative silence.

He came to an abrupt halt at the top, surprised to find Doc standing there. The well-dressed demon hadn’t heard him, so intent was he on the girl tied in front of him. Despite his shock at seeing a demon he though he had already killed, there were more important things to worry about, like how to get Dawn away from said demon and safely to the ground.

For once, the vampire suppressed his natural urge to make a sarcastic comment. He had the element of surprise and intended to use it. Dawn’s frightened eyes caught his over Doc’s shoulder, but she quickly hid the hope he saw reflected there. Nibblet was a clever one and her dissembled fear blended so well with the real thing that she didn’t give him away.

Spike’s club slammed into Doc’s head without the demon ever knowing he was there.

*****

Day 3

Spike woke to the feel of fire eating at his insides.

I’m not dust. Why am I not dust?

He distinctly remembered the burn of the holy water when it had hit his stomach, sizzling and burning like acid. No vampire should have been able to survive that, which had been the elegance of the plan. Self-staking was a lot harder to pull off than it sounded. The same went for decapitation. Burning in the sun ran the risk of someone rescuing him with a well-placed tarp or blanket, something that the Scoobies had proved willing to do, shockingly enough.

And that left holy water. It should have been foolproof, so why in the nine hells was he still amongst the undead? Short of divine intervention, there was only one answer, magic. But he had waited until the witches were out of sight, and the watcher hadn’t lifted a mystical finger before Spike had quaffed the blessed draught and lost consciousness.

It didn’t make any sense.

Blue eyes, as cold and dead as the heart of a glacier, opened and took in Spike’s surroundings. He was lying in the slayer’s basement, laid out like the corpse he was on a rickety cot. He could hear voices above, murmuring and toneless until he forced himself to focus. Maybe the others knew why he wasn’t completely dead.

Hell, maybe they’d even help me finish the job.

The first voice he heard was the watcher’s, rambling and distracted. “… unexpected to say the least.”

“I don’t know Giles.” Willow’s usually bright voice held a soft rasp as if from prolonged crying or lack of sleep. Probably both. “He’s tried to do it before.”

“But that was over the chip,” Xander chimed in, sounding honestly confused. “And this, uh, isn’t. It’s not like demons…”

“Alexander Harris, if you finish that sentence, I will go back to the apartment and throw every last collectible plate I find out of the window.” Anya’s voice, which usually grew shrill when she was angry, was instead low and venomous. “I do not care what kind of value they have accrued.”

“But Ahn…” The boy’s voice trailed off in a whine, but he didn’t continue. Not that he needed to; Spike had heard it all before when the others thought he wasn’t listening.

‘It’s not like demons can feel anything real.’ ‘He can’t really love.’ ‘It’s just some kind of sick obsession.’

The echoes tore into him and the aching void in his chest, which was slowly filling up with anger and self-destructive despair, begged to differ.

Spike’s feet felt like lead as he swung them over the edge of the cot. The others had left him fully clothed, jacket, boots, and all. Doc Holiday had a point; there was a certain appeal to dying with your boots on.

The conversation continued, even as he dragged his battered body up the staircase.

“What if he tries again?” Tara asked quietly, ever the perceptive one.

It was Xander, of course, who answered first. “Well, I am not vamp sitting again.”

“Then don’t.” Spike’s voice, flat and dispassionate, never the less made everyone start in alarm. He limped forward from the basement door, slowly looking around the room. Willow and Tara were seated at the island, faces frozen is guilty shock. Giles and Anya were across from the witches, wordless and wary, even though he saw more sympathy in the former demon’s eyes than anything else. That left Xander, who was in front of the refrigerator, the closest of them to the vampire. Spike stepped forward, opening the lapels of his coat to expose his chest.

The invitation was clear.

Much to his disappointment, the boy backed away, eyes wide.

“Don’t back out on me now, Harris,” Spike said quietly, stepping forward again. “How many times did you try to get…” he couldn’t say her name, “her to stick a stake between my ribs? Here’s your chance.” No change in tone, no inflection, emotion, or sarcasm. Nothing. “Do it,” his voice echoes hollowly.

No one moved, including Xander.

The rising despair crested, remolding Spike’s face into hard lines and ridges. Fangs bared, he moved stepped forward, hemming in the young man in the corner of the counters.

“Do it!” The growl was partnered with a lunging feint.

That finally prompted a response. Xander scrambled blindly for one of the wooden spoons that stood in a stand next to the sink. The others stumbled back, taken completely by surprise by the vampire’s sudden assault.

“Do it!” he repeated a third time, full throated roar ragged and deafening. He didn’t even notice the wetness that was staining his cheeks.

Up came the impromptu weapon, but before it could sink home, a thin form dove between Spike and Xander, knocking the attack wide. The spoon clattered on the floor. Spike watched it fall dully before turning golden eyes on the person whose misguided actions had spared his unlife.

Dawn.

She must have run into the room after he had started yelling. Stupid that. If he hadn’t shouted it would all be over, but it seemed like he always did something to guarantee that even his most meticulously planned schemes went up in smoke.

“Get out.” Dawn’s voice only trembled a little, but it was with white hot rage, not fear or grief. It was the kind of tone of voice that made the others sit up and take notice, no matter her age. Favoring everyone in the room with the same, tear streaked glare, fists clenched with rage, she was a tiny, glorious shadow of her sister.

Spike slumped against the refrigerator, numb hands releasing his jacket lapels and dropping to his sides. Suddenly, everyone was talking all at once, but Spike was no longer listening. Something had snapped inside, and his knees were suddenly weak. He slid down the appliance until he found himself in a loose ball; legs sprawled in front of him, sobbing like a child.

He wanted to stop, God he wanted to, but once the dam was broken, there was no fixing it until the flood passed.

And just like that, they did leave, filing out of the kitchen one by one until none were left but a cold-eyed Dawn. After a long moment, she collapsed next to him, wrapping her spindly arms around his shoulders. He leaned into the embrace, unconsciously seeking the comfort she offered. One hand grabbed the girl’s shoulder, fisting in the sleeve of the t-shirt hard enough to rend fabric.

Instead of pulling away, Dawn hugged him closer, burying her head in his shoulder. Hot tears fell against his neck, smelling of salt and Summers.

Spike didn’t know how long they crouched there with only their muffled sobs between them, but after a while he managed to get himself under control. He straightened, releasing her torn sleeve and shrinking away from her loose hug.

Dawn settled next to him, thin arms encircling her bony knees instead. He started to ask why she hadn’t just let him die, but when he looked at her face, he knew the answer. The pain he saw reflected there was as acute as his own, and his actions had only added to it. Only God and Dawn Summers herself knew why she cared so much about a broken down, farce of a monster like himself, but she apparently did.

“Don’t do that again.” How she could imbue so much demand and so much pleading into so few words, he did not know.

“I told her I’d protect you.” his voice was hoarse and quiet. “Wasn’t strong enough, smart enough. She died because of me.” He choked on the last word and fell silent.

He didn’t know what reaction he was expecting with that admission, maybe a tithe of the contempt he felt for himself, but Dawn had always been full of surprises. She just smiled at him, a weak, trembling one, but a smile nonetheless.

“Funny, I was just upstairs telling myself the same thing.”

His golden eyes melted into blue. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said under his breath, quietly but vehemently.

Dawn rocked back against the fridge, leaning slightly against his shoulder. “That’s what they all say, too.” She didn’t seem to put much stock in ‘their’ words.

“Want me to eat them?” The half joke was out of his mouth before he could stop it, but at least it drew a half-smile from the girl.

“No. But thanks.” And like that, her smile was gone again, chased away by guilt and a slew of memories no teenager should have to shoulder. “Spike, I don’t want… Please don’t try that again.” She didn’t look up, hair tumbling across her face, hiding her features from view.

The new guilt mingled with the old, tying them together into one. Spike could only nod in resignation.

He owed her. He owed her more than he could ever repay.

“‘Til the end of the world,” he had said. Spike grabbed those words like a life raft and held on with all the strength he had left.

He had promised. He would do everything he could to protect her.

“‘Til the end of the world,” even though a part of him wished that it would happen to be that night.

"I died yesterday, I returned today, and a path has been made for me by the doorkeeper of the great arena." – The Book of Going Forth by Day.

Hiding from a small army of crazy humans was ignominious to say the least. Spike knew that without the chip, he would be through that throng and up the stairs in no time at all, but here, now, he was about as weak and powerless as a kitten.

It was galling.

And once he saw the figure on the tower with Dawn, it was terrifying as well.

“Someone’s up there,” he said, back to the others, where they were discussion the progress, or lack thereof, of the battle.

Xander and Anya were bickering. Marvelous. Then a voice cut through the din and gave him the answer he needed, Willow. “Spike, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he said into the air, knowing she would hear him anyway. “Loud and clear.”

“Is someone up there with Dawn?” Her voice was set, resolved. He could almost see the witch’s green eyes flashing.

Spike craned up to look again. He caught another glimpse of the figure, probably human if his luck held. “Yeah, can’t tell who.”

The response was instantaneous. “Get up there. Go, now!”

The vampire peeked over the wall again at the herd of chip-protected crazies, but beyond them, on the other side of the tower, something else caught his eye. Buffy was there, pummeling Glory into mush with her hammer. “Better idea, get me through to the slayer.”

There was a pause. Xander was asking him some inane question, but Spike steadfastly ignored him, focusing instead on Willow’s response.

“Okay,” she finally said. “Go!”

Spike leapt up, blindly running towards the tower. He felt a wash of tingling power speed past him, and all of the humans and scabby demons were swept wide in a raw display of Willow’s magical power. He vaulted over some wreckage and threw himself headlong into a bloody and weakened Glory.

A solid punch to her over-powdered nose knocked the hell goddess backwards, staggering into a pile of twisted metal. He spared a brief glance at Buffy, who was looking at him incredulously.

“Get to the Bit. Someone’s up there with her.” That got her attention. Hazel eyes flashed with determination and she nodded in mute thanks before turning and darting up the tower. Glory’s minions, still reeling from Willow’s spell, didn’t hinder her.

Spike looked back at the goddess who had tortured him for hours. “Looks like the slayer softened you up a little for me.” His smirk was nasty. Glory straightened, face lit with surprised indignation. The punch she threw sent Spike spinning away, but it held only a fraction of the strength she had previously brought to bear. And what was better, she was completely focused on him, Buffy and Dawn forgotten in the heat of the moment.

He straightened and threw himself back into the fray. These were the fights he lived for, real danger and uncertainty adding that extra spice that made the whole dance worthwhile.

Buffy would save Dawn, and he’d get the fight, and maybe even the revenge, he deserved.

*****

Day 10

There was some comfort in routine. You could slip into autopilot, shut down your brain, and just go through the motions. It was nice.

Spike’s routine was simple. Wake up, eat something, shadow Dawn until she was safely tucked in her bed for the night, patrol, return to his crypt, drink in order to stave off the dreams he knew were coming, pass out, relive the worst night of his unlife in some new variation, wake up, and start all over again.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Only someone kept throwing monkey wrenches into the plan.

Patrols had been dead, an unfortunate metaphor, but true. A few demons here and there, one obviously magical circle drawn in Restfield’s small parking lot, but nothing else. It was starting to look like every horned, scaled, or fanged denizen of Sunnydale had gone to ground. Not that Spike could really blame them. It was a truly stupid demon who carelessly poked his nose out so soon after the death of a hell goddess. But their natural caution had the side-effect of leaving Spike frustrated and feeling useless at the end of his nights.

And then there were the dreams. To say that the alcohol wasn’t working was a massive understatement. The worst part, the part that made everything an even bigger sadistic dose of karma, was that he was happy when he was asleep. Every night he felt hope, pride, relief, all of the things that could have been if he had just been able to stop Doc. So every time he woke, his real memories were just that much worse. The dreams were a constant reminder of his failure, countering time’s subtle attempts to dull the pain.

To compound matters further, the banal necessities of unlife were rearing their ugly heads. Spike needed blood. He had run out of the human variety, which was so chalk-full of anticoagulants and other chemicals that it lasted damned-near forever in his ancient, rickety refrigerator, four days ago. That left him with two jars of pigs’ blood from the butchers, but nothing about it was appetizing enough to tempt him to drink more than was absolutely necessary. The mason jars didn’t come with expiration dates, but he got the feeling that they had been tucked away next to the baking soda for a long, long time. Long experience and common sense told him that when the liquid started to separate into layers of stinking red and yellow, it was well past time to restock.

He could have gone to Willy, added a few more strikes against his tab, and been fine, but he was cautious of going there. One slip of the tongue, one demon who took a little too much interest in the dark circles under Spike’s eyes and his unusually withdrawn demeanor, and the game would be up. The demonic community still thought the slayer was alive, but one wrong step in The Alibi Room and that would all be over.

That left the butchers, who wouldn’t take an IOU.

And Spike was broke.

And taking time to scare up cash wasn’t part of the routine.

But tonight, Dawn had pointedly asked him about his diet, worry obvious in her drawn, pale face. Without a reflection, it was hard to keep track of his own appearance, but even he had noticed that his collar bones were sticking out a little further, that his stomach was taking on a concave profile, and that his skin was a sickly grey instead of its usual off-white.

To her, he must look absolutely terrible.

He couldn’t have his Nibblet worrying about him, not when she was having to deal with so much else. On top of the loss of her sister, the continuing absence of her other family members in the wake of her mother’s recent death, and a whole boatload of guilt to go along with her misery, Dawn was having to attending summer school in order to make up all the finals she had missed. Apparently ‘kidnapped and almost sacrificed by a hell god’ wasn’t on the school’s list of excused absences. Willow had done some of her more metaphorical magic on the school’s records, so summer school it was.

Not that scholastic aptitude was high on Dawn’s list of priorities, but she had the Scoobies for that kind of support.

Spike was around for the Untoile demon who had done its level best to wreck Dawn’s after school study session at the Espresso Pump. Well, that and the cigarette she had wanted to try afterwards. Thankfully she had hated it, so Spike had been able to remain in her good graces while not completely betraying what her older sister would have wanted.

Small blessings.

He was taking care of Dawn as best he could, and it looked like she had taken a similar task upon herself. No one else seemed terribly concerned about his wellbeing, especially after the Scoobies had figured out that he wasn’t going to try to kill himself again. It was an odd dance, him trying to play big brother to a teenaged human, her trying to play mother hen a century old vampire, him trying to find ways to keep her from worrying about him, her doing the same. For the moment, it seemed to be working.

Present situation excluded.

Three vampires, the first he had seen since Buffy’s fall, had taken exception to Spike interrupting their raid on St. Maria’s General’s biohazard shipment. The easy way out, stocking up on the hospital’s old blood, was taking a serious downward dive. He had missed out on chasing off the truck drivers and hospital staff, but at least the abandoned truck wasn’t already picked clean.

“We were here first,” the scrawny one whined. He couldn’t be more than a few weeks old, dead skin still tan and freckled.

The biggest of the lot, muscled like only professional football players and wrestlers had any right to be, chuckled darkly. “What’s wrong, Spike? Did the Slayer take you off your feed?"

“He does look pretty starved.” The sultry voice belonged to the last, and if Spike’s senses were right, oldest of the lot. Not that she looked it. She was all leg and revealing leather. She was also carrying a long stake, which was of significantly greater interest to Spike in that moment than her delicate Asian features. “It doesn’t look like playing traitor pays well.”

Spike just watched them, running calloused fingers over the stake in his left hand. He found he just wasn’t in the mood for trading witty ripostes anymore. The comment about Buffy had earned a wince, but everything else they said was falling flat. And they said quite a lot.

“I bet I could crush your head like a melon,” said the big one. He flexed one meaty paw as if to provide a pre-show.

The skinny fledgling edged towards the back of the truck where it was butted against the loading dock. “Elisa, can we just do this? I’m starving.” The vampiress rolled her eyes and started to reply, but that was a good enough invitation for Spike.

He lashed out with one booted foot and had the brief satisfaction of hearing bone crack. Scrawny went down with a surprised cry against the side of the delivery truck. Spike dove to the side, more slowly than usual, but still fast enough to avoid the lumbering attack from Meat Slab.

Perhaps he should find room for at least a little exercise in the routine. Spike turned just in time to see a stake, held in one huge fist, descend unerringly towards his chest. That earned some hasty scrambling and some fancy footwork, but in the end, he found himself rolling onto the loading dock, dust free.

Spike kicked Elisa’s last ambulatory minion across the face when he tried to vault up onto the ledge. Scrawny was down for the count, screams still managing to sound whiney. Elisa herself had vaulted onto the other end of the dock, and was advancing purposefully towards him, stake at the ready. Taking the lesser of two evils, Spike leapt on the reeling vampire’s back and away from the approaching vampiress.

Meat Slab shook him off, but Spike was expecting it. His feet hit the ground, and before the larger vampire could turn, Spike slammed his stake into the wide expanse of back, driving the piece of wood home.

He knew without looking that he had hit the heart.

Two down, one to go.

Spike spun, allowing himself to feel the rush of the fight. Sure enough, Elisa was there, face twisted with rage. She tensed to leap, stake held at the ready, but her angry eyes turned triumphant and her weapon hand dropped. Spike cocked his head to the side, caught off guard and thoroughly confused.

Until the stake slammed into his own back.

He staggered forward, gasping in shocked pain, body instinctively curling in agony. He had felt this before, thanks to the slayer’s unlamented ex. But this wasn’t a plastic stake, this was the real deal. Any second now, he would crumble to dust in this god forsaken alley.

Any second now.

“Why aren’t you dust?”

That was an excellent question. Spike looked at the speaker and his attacker, Meat Slab.

“Why aren’t you?” he retorted, snarling against the burning pain in his back.

The three vampires traded surprised looks that were quickly hidden behind guarded, calculating masks. Scrawny didn’t join in, having passed out from the pain of a busted knee cap. Spike spared him the briefest of glances and snorted in disgust.

Minions these days.

Elisa stuck the stake in the back of her waistband and hopped to the ground. Spike slumped against the concrete ledge, watching the vampiress warily. She tossed him a disparaging look, but continued past him. Firm hands turned Meat Slab around and probed the wound where the stake was still embedded. She grabbed the piece of wood and pulled it free, which earned a rumbling growl from the huge vampire. Elisa just swatted the back of his head and looked more closely at the gaping wound.

“Thomas, can you carry Mouse?” Her voice was strangely gentle. Meat Slab, who was apparently named Thomas, nodded. She gave him a little shove in the right direction before turning to face Spike. There was a question there, but he didn’t know the answer. Suddenly it seemed less likely that his gravesite suicide attempt hadn’t been foiled by an insufficient dose of holy water. Something else was afoot.

Something big.

But he wasn’t going to share anything. Elise shrugged and lashed out, lightning fast fist slamming into Spike’s jaw. He hit the concrete, further jarring the length of rough wood lodged in his back. The pain was as debilitating as it was humiliating. He slumped with a groan against the front wheel well of the truck.

“Don’t touch anyone in my family again.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, giving the threat even more weight. Even through the haze of pain, Spike could respect that. He wondered if the two male vampires knew how lucky they were to have a sire who gave half a damn about their well being.

The trio ignored him after that. Thomas shouldered Mouse with more than a little wincing and stumbling of his own. Elisa dragged two crates out of the back of the truck and shouldered them easily. The alley wasn’t that long, and they were soon gone.

Spike, biting back an endless litany of profanities, manage to lever himself up. It took some interesting contortions, but he managed to get the stake out of his back. The perverse relief that he hadn’t been wearing his coat formed in his mind, quickly forgotten in the aching pull of a sucking chest wound.

He should have been dead. Again. One time he could dismiss as good, or bad depending on the point of view, luck, but two? Two was starting to smack of higher powers, a disturbance in the Force, cats and dogs living together, and all of the other fun things that made unlife in Sunnydale so unpredictable.

Spike needed to call in the cavalry.

He also needed someone with a deft hand and a pair of tweezers to remove the splinters from his back and bandage the wound. The process of elimination didn’t take long; his list of options was pretty short. Soon the vampire found himself slowly making his way towards Giles’ flat.

“I am the weighty one of striking power, the one who makes his own way. I have traversed, so make a path for me. May you allow that I pass and rescue.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


“I do not deal with your kind, vampire.” The Mriatryna’s thin grey lips pulled back in a sneer that revealed rows upon rows of black, serrated teeth.

Usually, that kind of talk was a good way to earn a swift ass kicking, but tonight was different. Spike had arranged this meeting in Willy’s back room, and had come with hat, or at least briefcase, in hand. His ego could take the abuse this one time; the night’s business was too important.

“Not even for this?” He popped the latch on the briefcase, which had previously been doing time as an elbow rest. Inside, wrapped in protective folds of fabric, was a carved statue of a demonic warrior, dark stone worn and stained by the passage of time.

That certainly got the haughty demon’s attention. “The Imbrikai!” He reached a taloned finger forward, running it down the smooth line of the statue’s amazingly detailed armor.

Spike smirked. Now we’re getting somewhere. “That’s just a down payment, mate.” He plucked a Polaroid out of his jacket and tossed it across the table. In the little image was another statue, the mirror image of the first, carved of pale grey stone. “What’s somethin’ like that worth to you?”

The mriatryna tried unsuccessfully to hide its keen interest. “Where is it?”

“Keep your pants on.” The vampire held up a hand when the demon’s red eyes started to blaze with anger. “You’ll get it, and all you have to do it kill one lousy human. Think that’s fair don’t you? These being such… important artifacts to your race?”

The demon looked back and forth between the statue and the photograph. In the end, the decision wasn’t a hard one, as Spike had predicted. “To have the Imbrikai and the Imbrikao united in Mriatrynan hands once again is worth any price. Tell me of this human.”

More pictures slid across the table, snapshots of a brown haired medical intern. “Name’s Ben. Should be an easy kill if you take him unawares. Only problem’s he’s got this, ah, thing. Livin’ in him. If he turns into her, you’ll be shit outta luck. Kill him quick ‘n clean, and everything should be fine.

The demon nodded. “A rider. I will be cautious, but this should not unduly complicate matters.” He ran his hands over the statue one more time before closing the briefcase and taking it in hand. “And the rest of my payment?”

Spike leaned back in the rickety chair, satisfied smile well in place. “I get proof he’s dead, I’ll arrange another meeting here. You have my word.” The Mriatryna nodded. Members of his species included the most renowned assassins in any dimension, and even the weakest of them knew ways to kill that defied reason and at least one law of thermodynamics. It would be stupid indeed to try to double cross one of them in a fair deal, and one thing was for sure, Spike was not stupid. The demon knew he would get the second of the sacred statues, and Spike knew that it wouldn’t take very long for Ben, and through him Glory, to end up in the ground.

All the vampire really needed to worry about was what to do when Anyanka found the pieces missing from the Magic Box’s inventory.

*****

Day 11

Spike was spitting mad.

Yes, the watcher had stitched up his back, expertly closing the gaping wound. He’d even given the vampire enough scotch to knock him out for the duration. But when Spike had awakened the next day and brought up the idea that something had kept both his opponent and himself from dusting, the man had scoffed in his face.

Being kicked to the curb with a curt, “You were lucky. I have real work to do,” was all the impetus his dormant pride needed to rekindle and blaze with indignation.

And all it took to quench it again was finding Dawn on the back porch, face streaked from crying. Quick as thought, he was beside her, hunkered low to try to meet her gaze. “Bit, what is it?” Spike asked, trying to keep the panic he felt out of his voice.

“They brought it back,” the girl was shaking, tears escaping from the corners of her eyes again. “Willow and Tara and Xander. I found it in a chest in the basement.”

Spike managed to lever the girl’s chin up with a gentle finger. “What’s ‘it’, Bite Size?”

“The ‘Bot,” she said brokenly.

The vampire rocked back on his heels and ended up sitting abruptly against the porch’s railing. That machine had never seemed like more of an abomination that it did in that moment. For Dawn to have found the broken bits and shredded pieces of the wire and silicon Buffy replica, shoved in a storage room like a pile of spare parts or an old vacuum… Well, it was an ugly mental image, one that Spike was desperately trying to erase from his own mind.

“Bitlet, I’m sorry,” his voice cracked on the last word, broken by his own strong emotions. “So, so sorry.” Sorry he had ever had the thing made, sorry it hadn’t been completely destroyed during the fight with Glory; sorry that anything he had done could cause the kind of pain he was seeing in Dawn’s eyes. Sorry for a lot of things, enough to bow his shoulders under their weight.

He had to do something, but what? Spike started running through a list of things he did to try to get his mind off his troubles. Killing demons was definitely up there, but he didn’t think Dawn was up for that kind of therapy. Drinking was out too, thanks to the killjoy that was the human legal system. As was gambling, petty theft, breaking and entering, and vandalism.

Thinking outside of the box, he came up with the one thing he thought might help cheer up a teenage girl: copious amounts of sugar and/or caffeine.

“Want to get out of here?” he asked.

The girl just nodded, sniffling and dragging one sleeve across her nose. He glanced towards the back door, but she deflected his unspoken question. “Willow left for L.A. to tell him, and Tara thinks I’m in bed.”

“Right then,” Spike’s voice was aiming for upbeat, but fell flat. The last thing any of them needed right now was Angelus showing up and casting even darker clouds over everyone’s lives. He hoped Willow agreed with that assessment. “Sounds like a plan.” At least he could actually fund the evening’s exploits. Palming the watcher’s platinum Visa was the least he could do to repay the man for treating him like a half-wit.

*****

Spike tore a path through the cemetery. He’d held it together until Dawn was snug in her bed, stuffed to the gills with enough ice cream sundaes to choke a horse. Once he was out of sight, the walls had come crumbling down. He had fled through the streets of Sunnydale, unaware of his surroundings until some spoiled brat had laid on his horn when Spike took a little too long to get out of the crosswalk. Maybe sticking the metal pole of a Yield sign through the kid’s radiator hadn’t been the most civically responsible act, but damn it had felt good.

Anger, hot and seething, hummed just beneath the surface of his skin. Much of it was aimed at himself, but most was just undirected rage. He needed an outlet before the fire in his veins burned him from the inside out. With no demons in sight, he took it out on whatever pieces of property presented him with real or imagined slights, the most notable probably being the twisted hood of an Escalade sticking out of the front display window of the Bike Emporium. When nothing else worth hitting presented itself, Spike finally turned for home and the last bottle of Jack he had waiting there.

What he wasn’t expecting was to find was a pair of oddly dressed humans, a man and a woman, standing in the center of his crypt.

They had olive complexions and blue-black hair that would fit perfectly in any number of countries framing the Mediterranean. Both were dressed in loose fitting linen, sheer kilts and tunics cut oddly and offset with layers of gold jewelry that covered their wrists and throats. They could have been siblings, with the same willowy build and angular features.

Throwing caution to the wind, because he honestly didn’t care what happened to him anymore, Spike let the crypt door slam closed behind him with a resounding thud. “And just who the fuck are you?” he growled.

The woman ignored him, her sharp features set in aloof disdain, and looked at the man on her right. There was power in them, magical energy that crackled and hissed in the air. “You are sure that this is he?” she asked with obvious distaste.

The man nodded. “He is one of them, but he follows his own path and longs for death. He will help us.”

Spike felt the rough edge of a fingernail slice through the flesh in his palm from where he had clenched his fists into white-knuckled balls. “He’s also standin’ right here.”

The man’s dark eyes sparkled with silent humor, and even the woman seemed to soften. “Indeed you are, William who is known as Spike.” She inclined her head fractionally. “I know you and I know your names. Know mine. I am Ma’at.”

Spike snorted disbelievingly, but the involuntary inhalation brought the pair’s scent to his nose. Despite their appearances, they weren’t human. The tingling feel of raw magical force that was sending the vampire’s senses humming was overtaking anything he had experienced before. He had no idea what they really were, but surely they couldn’t really be…

“And I am Anubis,” said the man, contradicting Spike’s thoughts.

He knew those names, had actually aced a Classics test on them in grade school in another life, and every fiber of his being was screaming that these were not human, or even demonic, imposters. These were gods. Gods seemingly unhindered by binding spells and entrapped in human bodies. The real McCoy.

Bleeding fuck…

Spike managed to stop staring and wrap the shreds of his dignity back around himself. “Think I’ve had enough of gods and the like lately.” His words were harsh and threatening, an act of empty bravado. He was far outclassed, and he knew it.

Ma’at tilted her head to one side, dark eyes unfathomable. “You speak of Glorificus.”

“Would it comfort you to know that her heart was one of the last Ammut ate?” Anubis asked with the smallest of smiles.

Spike had to think for a second to remember who, or what, Ammut was. A faint memory rose to the surface: Ammut, the Devourer, who ate the hearts of the damned. The Victorian fascination with all things Egyptian was serving him well over a hundred years later, and in the strangest of ways.

However, nothing from his education or past life would have predicted that particular brand of gallows humor from the Egyptian god of the dead. Then again, making any assumptions at that point seemed an exercise in futility.

And yes, the news was darkly pleasing. The vampire allowed himself a moment to savor the idea.

The expectant expression on Anubis’ face snapped Spike back into the present.

“Uh, yeah…” he replied lamely. Bloodthirsty, diverting thoughts aside, he still didn’t know why the two deities were standing in his crypt, trying in a backwards, alien way to make small talk. The vinegar tack seemed a good way to get vaporized, and he had promised Dawn to stop with the suicide attempts, so honey it was. “So, booze? Blood? Not exactly prepared to entertain.” Okay more like mead. He just couldn’t seem to keep the sarcastic sneer off of his face.

Ma’at looked around the crypt and seemed to notice the dust, beer bottles, and rickety furniture for the first time. If possible, her nose crept even higher into the air. She looked like a queen. A very unimpressed, stone-cold bitch of a queen. Apparently being the goddess of order and balance robbed the deity of any claim she might have had to a sense of humor.

Anubis, on the other hand, quirked a tiny smirk of his own. “Have you noticed anything… unusual of late?”

“Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t.” Caution held Spike’s words, even though he was pretty sure he knew where this conversation was leading.

“We do not have the time to be coy, abomination,” Ma’at snapped. The goddess’ façade cracked for a moment, and Spike could see fear behind the smooth, calm mask. A dark sense of anticipation settled over him. Anything that could scare a goddess couldn’t bode well for the merely undead.

Anubis held up a calming hand and the emotion faded from Ma’at’s dark eyes, leaving her cool and serene again. “We wish to strike a deal. We need your help, and we are in the position to grant you a boon.”

“Wrapped up nicely with a load of strings, no doubt,” Spike retorted, sarcasm thinly veiling caution and he was willing to admit, fear. “You’re supposed to be all powerful, go fix your little problem yourself.”

Ma’at looked fit to be tied, but Anubis seemed more amused than anything else. The two exchanged a weighted glance, and the goddess finally nodded with a soft sigh of disgust. “The Gates into the West are closed. We are unable to manifest in this realm for long without experiencing… problems.” Anubis’ voice was a low rumble, surprising Spike with the open honestly it held. “I will explain the situation in full, if you are willing to listen. I truly believe that a discussion would prove to be mutually beneficial.”

Spike narrowed his eyes, searching for some hint of deceit in either of their faces, but found none. “Think I’m gonna need a drink for this,” he muttered.

Anubis gestured expansively towards the worn cabinet along the left wall. “Feel free.”

Soon, Spike found himself leaning against his television, facing a god who was managing to make his battered armchair look like a throne. Ma’at had retreated to the far corner of the crypt and seemed absorbed in ignoring her surroundings.

Anubis stared at the vampire, eyes dark and unblinking. After a long silence, he finally spoke. “Ammut is missing.”

Spike’s whiskey bottle clinked down on the TV with some force, sending the amber liquid sloshing. “Missing…” he repeated. This was just getting better and better.

“The Gods of the Tribunal suspect theft, but Thoth’s texts and Isis’ Sight have given us no solid information. Others are being contacted even now, but Ma’at and I chose this place and time to initiate a search, she for the order, I for the irony.” Anubis leaned back in the armchair, hands steepled in front of him. “Fate is like cruel poetry, and its patterns can sometimes be read as such, but you already knew that.”

“Your point, if there is one.” Spike’s voice was tense, his words terse.

“The point,” Anubis drawled, ignoring the vampire’s hostility, “is that the judgment of hearts has ground to a halt. The Gates into the West will remain closed until Ammut has returned and the threat has passed. None save the gods themselves may cross over.”

That earned a long thought. “So, what you’re sayin’ is that no one can die,” Spike asked with a deceptively collected voice. Inside he was mulling over the dark irony that true immortality seemed less than appealing of late.

“No, mortals may still die, but their souls are splintered into their component parts, and their way into the next world is blocked. Their Bas wander lost, their Kas remain trapped in their rotting flesh.” Anubis’ expression made it clear that all theology and understanding of the nature of souls aside, such was not a pleasant fate. “The undead are already splintered. For example, your Ka has crossed over and there it waits, but your Ba is tied to your remains, bound with the Ka of a demon. Until the Gates are open again, no power can separate your demon-Ka from your body.”

“The world is slipping into chaos. For the balance to be restored, we must find Ammut. When that happens, all who should have crossed over, will cross over. All who should have died, will die.” Anubis’ hands dropped across the arms of the chair, curling around the rests, but his eyes never moved.

The revelation deserved a long pull from Spike’s bottle of Jack and a moment of consideration. “So you want me to hunt a demi-god, or whatever. As I recall, you also mentioned payment. Other than the obvious,” Spike’s injured back twinged painfully with the promise of release in time, “what did you mean?” Dawn would hate him, he had promised to stop actively seeking death, but Death had found him, and he wasn’t about to cast him aside.

Ma’at reappeared behind Anubis, walking silently through the crypt, and placed a hand on the god’s shoulder. “It will not matter unless you find Ammut. We will discuss your reward if and when you find her.”

Anubis’ black eyes glittered with dark humor and unspoken secrets before the two figures glimmered and faded into nothing.

“I am the guardian of this great being who separates the earth from the sky. If I live, she will live.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


Spike’s eyes focused on his intended prey, the old demon he had thought dead.

“This won’t take long.” Dawn strained against her bonds at the end of the tower’s walkway, frightened and desperate.

Doc’s deceptively gentle face creased with the slightest of smiles. “No, I don’t imagine it will.”

Suddenly, the demon wasn’t in front of Spike, but behind, tearing through flesh and bone with the long knife he held in his hands. The pain blossomed like fire in his back and an agonized cry burst from his lips before he could stop it. Dawn cried out too, surprised as he was by Doc’s sudden attack.

Spike managed to stumble around, putting himself between the demon and Dawn.

“You don’t come near the girl, Doc,” his voice rasped, but defiance gave them strength.

The old demon looked slightly confused. “Why do you even care?” he asked, face a disconcerting mask of earnestness. “I don’t smell a soul anywhere on you.”

Despite the pain, there was a certainty in Spike’s mind that let him pull himself up straight. “I made a promise to a lady,” he said simply.

“Well, give the lady my regrets.” Suddenly Doc was attacking Spike with his tongue of all things, striking out with surprising force. Spike instinctively dodged the first attack, but the second caught him by surprise. He felt himself loosing his balance and grabbed at the first thing he could, the demon’s whip-like tongue.

When Spike plummeted from the tower, he took Doc with him.

*****

Day 13

Spike wasn’t going crazy. Crazy people talk to themselves, mumble and jibber and live inside their own heads. He’d seen enough of Glory’s unfortunate byproducts to know that. So, no, he wasn’t going crazy. He was thinking out loud and absorbed in the problem at hand. Not crazy. Focused.

Yeah right.

“Hearts. Eats hearts,” he said under his breath. “Specialty meat stores?” A new note made its way onto the margins of an annotated Egyptian Book of the Dead that he had found in the touristy book display in the Magic Box’s front window. He had taken it and retreated to the far corner of the store, escaping Anya’s over-enthusiastic bustle and Giles’ suspicious glances, to read.

“What’re you grumbling about?” Dawn asked, looking up from her homework. Well, glancing up from the American history textbook that she had been dully flipping through for the past half hour. Homework implied that some variety of ‘work’ was being done, and that was far from the case.

“Nothing.” Spike replied distractedly. There were various allusions in the book to a slayer. He had underlined every one he found in the text, sometimes multiple times. It might be important, even though he wasn’t sure if the word meant the same thing in translation, especially since there were no mentions of vampires. Unless some of the passages about preserved corpses referred to the undead instead of mummies. There was no way of knowing what the original hieroglyphics had said, especially in a copy whose cover sported gold glitter. “Esses. Slayer with an S, slayer with an s. Patterns in patterns.”

Dawn just looked at him, eyes wide and worried. A small corner of his mind noted her expression with some concern, but the lack of food and sleep was really starting to tell. Spike was still in the driver’s seat, but only just.

He reached towards the book, meaning to turn the page, but stopped when he caught sight of himself. His hand was thin, almost skeletal, and so pale against the red, red pen hooked between his fingers. He barely recognized it. Shaking off his distraction, but not the odd tremor that seemed to be overtaking his arm, he flipped to the next plate, repeating to himself, “Can’t die, can’t die, can’t die…”

“Spike?” Dawn again, voice measured and oddly calm. He ignored her.

His face tingled, and the page seemed crisper, the colors brighter suddenly. That was interesting. He leaned in for a closer look. “Tryin’ to tell me something, love?”

“Spike?”

That voice again, higher pitched and louder, but this might be important. There she was, the missing demigod, picked out in paint on papyrus. “Heart, feather, scale… Scales. Lion fur and hippo hide. Hungry chimera. Where are you?”

The voice in the back of Spike’s mind commented that for someone who claimed to not be crazy, he was sure doing a damned good impression. He blinked, realizing that he had been circling the picture of Ammut over and over again with his red pen.

“Spike, look at me.”

Noise again… unimportant… not like the picture. Means something, but what? Spike looked at the caption: The Weighing of the Heart. His heart had been weighed. And found wanting. ‘The only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious,’ Buffy had said. Funny, maybe that was why he dreamed of her every night.

“Giles, something’s wrong with Spike!”

The picture was fading, black eating along the edges of the page, closing in on the strange picture there. Ammut, blending crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus, all the animals the ancient Egyptians feared most. She ate the hearts of the damned, but the darkness was eating her. How strange.

His mind slipped under when she winked out of sight.

*****

The taste in Spike’s mouth was heavenly. Warm, rich, and smooth. He swallowed greedily, liquid spilling from the corner of his mouth, leaving a sticky trail down his chin. When it was gone, he heard a plaintive sound, which he was surprised to realize came from his own throat.

“You can’t Spike.” Dawn’s voice, gentle but pleading, made him open his eyes. Her face was drawn and pale, she must have been crying again.

Spike tried to lift a hand to brush away the loose strand of brown hair that had dropped across the girl’s face, but his arm shook so much that he had to give up. It had been a silly, sentimental move anyway.

His look of confusion prompted Dawn to explain, “Giles says that you can’t eat too much, or you might get sick.”

Eat. How long had it been since he had last eaten? Spike thought back, struggling to remember. Four days, and another week since he had swallowed more than a gulp or two during any given night. Just enough to keep flesh and demon together. And those last couple times had involved rancid pig plasma.

Spike glanced around, noting that he was propped against the pommel horse in the workout room. The scent of slayer and Buffy’s floral perfume coated everything, a fact that was both comforting and intensely painful. He couldn’t for the unlife of him remember what he was doing in the Magic Box.

“What happened?” he finally asked, surprised at how hoarse he sounded.

Dawn smiled in obvious relief, and the fact that his weak condition still earned that kind of response was almost as disturbing as the evidence of her tears. “You kept scribbling in some book. Then you started mumbling weird stuff, vamped out, and passed out. Giles says he didn’t know vampires could get malnutrition.”

Spike shut his eyes. Not malnutrition. Self-starvation. How utterly pathetic. Then again, he should have seen this coming. He could eat and drink human foods, but the only thing that could really sustain him was blood. The alcohol he had turned to in lieu of blood had filled his belly, taken an edge off of the pain, but nothing else.

He felt so weak. Prolonged starvation did funny things to a vampire. He was lucky that he hadn’t attacked anyone.

He opened his eyes again and found himself confronted with Dawn’s fear, Dawn’s worry, and Dawn’s accusation. It was well hidden, but still there.

“Don’t have any money,” he blurted out by way of an explanation, or maybe an apology. He hadn’t meant to scare her, but after his failed raid on the hospital shipment, the problem had slipped his mind again. After all, blocked near-undeath experiences and visits from powerful and demanding gods tended to supersede less significant matters, such as feeding, in the best of situations.

The non-sequitor didn’t seem to faze the girl. She understood. It was funny how often she understood.

“Giles went and got you the blood. There’s more in that bag,” she nodded towards the brown paper grocery sack at her side.

“Why the hell would he do that?” The question was out of Spike’s mouth before he could stop it.

Dawn’s young face looked at him seriously. Her rite of passage had been more brutal than most. There was a steely glint in her eyes that had not been there before Buffy’s fall.

“I asked him to.”

At Spike’s skeptical look, she rolled her eyes. “Okay, I told him that if he didn’t help take care of you, I’d tell my school guidance councilor that I was thinking about dropping out of school and becoming a porn star.” That earned a flare of golden eyes and a snarl, but Dawn just waved away his angry complaint. “Get a grip. I don’t think he believed me, but he did turn purple and run out of here pretty fast. Anything to shut me up, I guess.” Her eyes twinkled in a muted mimic of her former exuberance.

The vampire snorted in amusement. Hers was a kind of backwards, underhanded logic that couldn’t help but tug at his heartstrings.

“Can you walk?” she asked.

Spike nodded without really stopping to deliberate, but the blood really had helped, so he managed to lever himself up without falling. It was something.

“C’mon. Let’s get out of here.” Dawn’s voice sounded normal, but to a practiced ear, to the ear of a friend, something was wrong. She was too tense.

“Slow down, Platelet.” He leaned back against the pommel horse, trying to conceal that fact that he really did need its support for the moment. “What’s got your knickers in a twist?”

Dawn pursed her lips, and looked ready to argue, but contented herself with dropping the cup she had used to feed him into the bag and looking him directly in the eye.

“The only reason why Giles isn’t in her interrogating you is because he’s out there,” she nodded towards the door into the shop, “talking on the phone with Willow. She and Angel will be here in an hour.”

“Oh.” Spike had to admit, that sounded like as good a reason to leave as any. He didn’t have the heart, or the energy, for that particular confrontation yet. Especially since neither one of them could be killed.

He closed his eyes and took a long, steadying breath, stretching out with his senses. “Sun’s still up. Don’t see you as much of a sewer rat,” he said after a moment.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and looked down her button nose at him. Well, more like up her button nose, even though the difference in their heights was lessening day by day. “Mom always said I was supposed to try new things.”

Oh god, Joyce. Her death was another knife in his heart. Dawn’s barb, tossed aimlessly into the conversation, had drawn heart’s blood.

Spike jerked his head in an abrupt nod, instantly regretting the sudden motion. The fresh blood might have helped, but he still felt light headed. Instead of commenting further, he just turned to go. Dawn’s soft footpads following close behind him.

*****

They weren’t five minutes underground when the complaining started.

“This stinks.” Dawn’s voice was sharp, petulant.

“Well yeah, it’s a sewer,” Spike drawled. “Your place or mine, Bite Size?” The words and tone were familiar, even if his heart wasn’t in the banter. He had started forcing himself to fake it for her sake, and the learning curve was steep.

“Yours. Giles and Willow are the dumbest smart people I know.” She paused, and he could almost hear the bitter smile in her voice. “They’ll never look for me there.”

“Whatever you say, Bit.” He took the next winding tunnel to the left, turning further away from Revello Drive, and aiming instead for Restfield. “Just don’t make a habit of this. Gotta keep up my reputation.”

Dawn’s voice was a mocking shadow of his own. “Whatever you say, Spike.”

“Oh Mistress of Knives, Lady of the Two Lands, the one who smashes the enemies of the Weary-Hearted One, the one who does what is wise, the one free of wrong.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


Spike crouched behind the scanty cover, tucked away from the flying bricks and other thrown debris from Glory’s less than sane defenders. Stifling his irritation at having to hide from such a motley band, he craned his neck around, looking to the tower and the young girl he knew was tied there. At the top, another figure caught his eye, filling him with fear.

“Someone’s up there,” he said, almost to himself, but Xander and Anya must have heard him too.

“Okay, we gotta charge or something,” said the boy, ever helpful.

Anya’s voice reflected Spike’s opinion. “We tried that,” she said sarcastically.

Spike almost fired back with some sarcastic rejoinders of his own when Willow’s voice inserted itself into his mind. Spike, can you hear me?

“Yeah,” he said into the air, ignoring the odd looks from the others. “Loud and clear.”

Is someone up there with Dawn? Her voice was harsh and determined.

Spike looked again, eyes straining to see through the twisted rig of metal and debris. The figure had stepped closer to Dawn, intentions unknown. “Yeah, can’t tell who.”

Xander was talking again, but Spike ignored him.

Willow’s voice crackled with command and power. Get up there. Go, now!

The vampire peeked over the wall again at the mass of crazy human defenders. There was no way he could make it through the throng without frying himself from the inside out. “Yeah, but…” he started to protest.

Go! Willow’s mental backlash was deafening, galvanizing Spike’s limbs.

He almost fell over himself when instead of crashing headfirst into a wall of human bodies and chip induced agony, the people were swept aside, and his path was laid clear.

He looked up to the top of the tower and saw the figure with Dawn. The menace there was palpable, but it was the glint of silver that really caught his eye.

“Red, you still with me?” he spoke into the air as he scaled the winding tower.

Instantly, he felt the mental touch again. Yeah.

Spike kept running, getting closer and closer to the top. “He’s got a knife. Don’t know if I can get there in time.” The admission was galling, but saving Dawn was more important that his ego.

On it, the witch sent telepathically before severing their connection again.

A shocked cry drew Spike’s attention back up to the figure, who was suddenly flying through the air, trailing smoke as he fell. The sight drew a grim smile from the vampire. Nothing like having a brassed off witch on your side.

When he reached the top, Dawn’s tearful gratitude came as a relief. No blood, no portal, and best of all, no enemies between them and a hasty escape. Spike managed to get her bonds untied and carried the crying girl back down the ramps to the ground below.

He was met halfway down by a bloodied, but triumphant slayer.

*****

Day 14

“You’re sure he’s not in there?” Dawn’s voice was cold.

Spike couldn’t help but be amused at her tone of voice. It was strangely gratifying to know that she hated his grandsire as much as he did. “Don’t worry, Bit. The coast is clear.”

“Good,” she huffed. Dawn had told him last night, before she had fallen asleep on his bed, leaving him to the easy chair upstairs, that Angel had always ‘creeped her out,’ which was funny since her memories of him were completely fabricated. The girl had said that she sometimes wondered if the monks had been trying to tell her something.

Voices filtered to his sensitive ears from inside of the house as they neared the back porch. “Well, maybe not completely clear.”

Dawn fell silent at his comment, and he tapped his ear in explanation before scaling the steps onto the back porch. She nodded and followed, quiet as a mouse, completely trusting in his motivations.

Spike leaned against the wall between the kitchen door and window, and just listened.

“Well, he took it okay… Ish.” Willow’s voice was unsteady. Spike wasn’t one hundred percent certain who she was talking about, but he had a pretty good guess.

“Why was he not answering his phone?” Giles’ voice was quiet, but Spike could detect the jagged ice beneath those still waters.

“He was in another dimension; I didn’t really get all of the details… Something about cows.” Willow spoke in a distracted rush, probably not realizing how odd that statement sounded. “Then Cordelia got that vision, and the explanations kinda went out the window after that. He wanted to leave right away.”

Spike couldn’t help but sneer. The Scoobies always talked about Angel like this, in weighted pronouns and hushed voices. He, with a capital H, as if he was a god. The once and future high poobah of the slayer’s heart, whose name they avoided to spare her pain.

But Buffy was dead, and they still danced around the topic as if the souled prick was the Emperor’s bleeding clothes.

The entire exchange made him absolutely furious.

Dawn tossed him a questioning glance, so he made the effort to smooth his features out, not wanting to alarm her. She stepped a little closer anyway and tried to peek in the back door.

“Yes, I wonder how long it will take him to find Spike.” Giles’ comment made the vampire’s blood run cold. “Xander is still out looking, but I won’t be surprised to find Dawn with him as well.” The note of disapproval in his voice was clear.

Apparently Dawn heard that as well, and her face turned a livid shade of red. She reached for the door handle, probably intending to run into the house and give the watcher a piece of her mind. Not that he didn’t appreciate the sentiment, but Spike was hoping to learn a little more about the situation before tearing into the house. Spying was the only way he ever learned anything from the Scoobies, thanks to their amazing ability to clam up tighter than Anyanka’s budget whenever they knew he was around.

The entire internal debate became moot when the warning tingle up the back of his neck, that had been itching on the edges of his consciousness for the last few seconds, screamed to life with warning. Spike spun, shoving Dawn aside, just in time to catch Angel’s snarling form head on.

The kitchen door gave way under the attack, splintering and sending glass shards everywhere. Spike landed heavily on his back, fangs descending, snarling and struggling against the older vampire above him. The blood Dawn had basically forced him to drink a scant few minutes before had helped, but Spike still wasn’t anywhere near full form, whereas Angel was his usual, well-fed, hulking self. Taking that thought as inspiration, Spike sank his fangs into his grandsire’s shoulder and tore a chunk of flesh free.

Angel snarled, which turned into a shocked howl of pain, and jerked to the side far enough for Spike to see the long handle of a kitchen knife sticking out of his back.

Spike looked up in surprise at Dawn, who had slipped into the kitchen in the wake of their destructive entrance. “Get off of him!” The second knife held ready in her hand added gravity to her soprano snarl.

“Dawnie!” Willow’s voice drew everyone’s attention to the two figures who had appeared in the kitchen doorway. “You’re alright! What…?” The redhead looked at the two vampires, one bleeding amidst the wood splinters and glass shards from the destroyed door, one oozing from a ragged bite mark and sporting a black knife handle sticking out of the back of his leather jacket, before turning her eyes back to the girl hovering over them both with another blade in hand. “What’s going on?”

Giles, on the other hand, looked almost amused at Angel’s predicament, but one way or the other, he certainly seemed to have momentarily lost the ability to comment on the surreal scene in front of him.

Dawn ignored them both, raising the paring knife higher. “I said, get off of him,” she repeated.

Angel looked like he was about to argue, but when she started to lunge forward again, he rolled to the side, hissing when the motion jostled the blade already embedded in his back. “Giles said Spike kidnapped you,” he said, favoring the room, and Dawn in particular, with a dark glower.

Spike struggled into a sitting position, mindful of the pieces of shattered door surrounding him. “You’re the one with the yen for hurtin’ little girls, Angelus.”

“That’s not exactly what I…” Giles started indignantly at the same time, but his words were lost in the Angel’s furious snarl.

Spike tensed, seeing the attack coming, but in no position to defend himself. Perhaps his comment hadn’t been the best of ideas, but he wasn’t about to sit there and listen to the bastard accuse him of harming Dawn. He grabbed a bit of wood from the pieces of broken door and instinctively raised it to strike, but right before they collided, the air around them both seemed to thicken and gel. Angel slowed to a stop inches from Spike, who realized that his own arm, makeshift stake in hand, had frozen as well.

Willow’s voice took on an odd intonation, an echo of power when she spoke. “I think that is just about enough. Angel, you’re coming with me.” The older vampire couldn’t move, but he apparently offered some kind of protest, because the redhead’s eyes glittered with dark, angry sparks. “Now, Angel.”

The spell suddenly dissipated, leaving both vampires to teeter precariously for a second at the abrupt release. After a brief pissing contest of stares, the older vampire rose unsteadily and walked towards the witch. Willow glared at him, at Spike… at everyone in the room really, before grabbing Angel’s arm and tugging him into the dining room, mumbling something about stitches.

“Here,” Giles said mildly as the pair passed him. “I believe that I can be of some assistance with that.” The watcher grabbed the handle of the kitchen knife and ripped it free with perhaps a little too much force. Angel winced and glared, but wisely held his tongue while Willow continued dragging him away.

Giles contemplated the knife for a long moment before glancing back at Spike and Dawn over the rims of his glasses. “Dawn, could you please put the knife down and leave us for a moment. I need to speak with Spike.”

The girl waved the knife wildly, making the blond vampire, who had only just managed to get to his feet, duck awkwardly away. “Why, so you can dust him for ‘kidnapping’ me?” Her voice was shrill, but the sentiment apparently had some merit if the expression on Giles’ face was any indication. He scowled fiercely, but she continued before he could speak. “He at least cares what I think. He wouldn’t have invited Angel into my house for a big old slumber party without asking me… as if I wasn’t even there!”

That took Giles completely off guard, and he gaped wordlessly at her.

Spike had no such problem. “You had that wanker stay here?” he snarled, grabbing the edge of the counter with a white-knuckled hand. He had wondered why Dawn didn’t want to go home last night, and hadn’t bothered to ask because he respected her privacy, but now it made a lot more sense.

“I didn’t think…” Giles started.

“No, you didn’t,” Dawn declared frostily. “You were all, ‘come on over, Angel. You can stay at Buffy’s house. It’s not like anyone important lives there anymore.’” Her venomous tone of voice became more and more brittle until it cracked on that last word. In the ensuing, shocked silence, tears started running unchecked down her face. The knife clattered to the floor, and she followed after it, sobbing in a crumpled heap.

Giles made a move to come to her aid, but Spike’s angry snarl stopped him in his tracks. The vampire crouched next to the girl. He started to rest a hand on her shoulder, but when he saw the blood and glass shards covering his arm, he thought better of it.

“Bit, you’re sitting in my dinner.” The joke was pretty pathetic, but it earned a hiccupping laugh in between sobs. That was at least something. He wiped the worst of the blood off of his hands. “C’mon, let’s get you out of this mess.”

She allowed herself to be picked up, cradled easily in his arms and wholly unconcerned with the nearness of his still-demonic features. With one last, hate-filled glare at the watcher, Spike left the room, taking the more circuitous route to the stairs in order to avoid Willow and Angel.

He got her settled in the bathroom, tears slowing to a manageable level, rinsing blood and pieces of door into the sink. She had promised to be careful and take a shower afterwards in order to make sure she got all of the glass in exchange for his solemn vow to not leave until Angel was gone. Well, that and to eat again. He didn’t want to leave her to cry alone, but she finally shooed him out of the room after shoving an old rag in his hand to help him wash himself off downstairs.

That was why he found himself back in the kitchen, picking shards of glass out of his jacket sleeves and scrubbing his arms under the faucet. Giles hadn’t moved, but he also didn’t address the vampire right away, seemingly lost in thought. Spike walked outside long enough to drape his wet coat over the railings before returning, stepping carefully through the remnants of the door, and watching the man through angry, yellow eyes.

He finally decided that the silence had stretched on long enough. “She wants the bastard gone. ‘M not leavin’ until she’s happy.”

Giles looked up, as if surprised that Spike had spoken. The two men regarded each other, one contemplative behind wire rimmed glasses, the other angry behind flinty gold, for a long moment before the watcher finally responded. “Why are you doing this?”

Spike scowled at what struck him as an incredibly stupid question. “Someone has to,” he snapped.

Giles winced slightly at the accusation in Spike’s tone, but forged on. “Why you?”

“Because I made a promise.”

And strangely, that simple statement seemed to appease the man. He nodded wearily. “I will go speak to Angel.”

“No need,” the low voice came from behind the watcher. Angel loomed there, brown eyes liquid and tragically sad. Spike wanted to tear them out of his head. “I heard.”

Willow appeared behind him, shifting her weight from foot to foot. It was almost funny how quickly the girl could swap from powerful spell-slinger to nervous hand-wringer. “I could go talk to her…”

It was Angel, strangely enough, who raised a calming hand when Spike looked ready to explode. “No, I can get a hotel room.” He turned to face Giles, “But we still need to discuss Cordy’s vision, and I need to know where I can visit…” he trailed off, face set in tragic lines again.

Spike’s hands were balled into fists with the effort of trying to refrain from attacking his grandsire where he stood.

Thankfully, Angel left quickly after that in a show of mournful farewells and fluttering coat tails. He spared one angry glance at Spike, as if wordlessly warning him off of something, though what, the younger vampire could not guess. Spike had only sneered in return.

“What vision was that nit on about?” he asked when the sound of a shutting door signaled that Angel was well and truly gone.

Giles seemed chagrined of all things, and it was Willow who answered, voice rushed and worried. “Cordelia thinks something’s gone all wonky and vampires can’t die, or something like that.”

Spike’s eyes never left the watcher’s embarrassed face. “Yeah, and?” he drawled.

His non-reaction sent Willow babbling in surprise. “And, and that’s bad, and we need to look into it, and… and… why aren’t you all, ‘oooh?’”

“Ask Rupes here,” Spike replied in a bored tone of voice.

Willow looked completely flustered, but before Giles could add his own input, a voice behind Spike drew everyone’s attention.

“Is everything okay?” Tara, grocery bags clutched against her chest, stared at them worriedly from the other side of the ruined door.

What a question.

Spike couldn’t help it. He laughed.

It was either that or sob hysterically.

“I was with the men who lamented and the women who mourned.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


The crossbow was an elegant invention: easily reloaded, powerful, accurate, effective. Spike’s eyes had been drawn to it amongst the other weapons in Buffy’s storage chest after their little tableau on the stairs. Thinking that he might need some ranged weapons, especially since he had little interest in being plowed by that bitch of a hell goddess again, the device had been casually slung over one shoulder and carried into battle, full quiver hanging off of his belt.

He blessed his foresight when, trapped at the bottom of the tower by an angry mob of crazy human minions, he noticed someone at the top of the rickety construction with Dawn. He sighted carefully, noting that the chip did not fire when he aimed, and let the first quarrel fly. It was a long shot, but his eyes were keen and his arms steady. The figure jerked, but remained standing. At least until the second arrow hammered home.

No one else approached the girl until Buffy herself scaled the tower and found Doc’s bleeding body sprawled there.

*****

Day 15

Spike had been putting off this moment.

Ever since Giles had mentioned in passing that Buffy’s tombstone was being erected today, he had known that his evening rounds would end here.

That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t drag his feet beforehand.

After spending a solid hour deciphering his rambling, sometimes incoherent notes in the paperback copy of The Book of the Dead, he had spent most of the afternoon discreetly pouring through Anya’s inventory. He had listed every reference to potential spell components that were listed in the book, and cross referenced his findings against the Magic Box’s records of recent sales.

It had been a good idea, which didn’t make it any less unhelpful.

He had a short list of buyers, at least the ones who hadn’t used cash, but no one on the list had purchased more than one or two items, and they were fairly innocuous herbs or trinkets.

Scratch one for the good ideas.

Then he had decided that visiting stores that catered in unusual meats might be a good place to look. It seemed like Ammut’s diet of hearts was a requirement instead of a strange metaphor. Spiritual hearts… physical hearts… the exact theology and metaphysics escaped him, but it seemed a good guess that the demigod might seek out her favored food in whatever form she took. Since there hadn’t been an abrupt spike in ‘chest rupture’ reports on the news to go along with Sunnydale’s unusual neck problems, that meant that if she was in town, she was feeding some other way. Or that someone was providing her with more discreet meals. Either way, he must have visited every butcher’s shop and fresh market in the city limits by nine o’clock.

This plan was a little more problematic. He couldn’t exactly waltz into a store and ask the guy stocking steaks if a part crocodile, part lioness, part hippopotamus demigod had broken into the store and absconded with large quantities of hearts. The same went for asking about a representative of said goddess. His more circumspect questions had been met with blank stares, rude refusals, followed by offers to call up Sunnydale’s finest, and one overly helpful employee who was either a Moran demon or a wanna-be Satanist. The two were often hard to tell apart.

Either way, this good idea was also a bust. Ammut 2, Spike 0.

The set time to meet at the Magic Box crept closer, and Spike’s reluctant feet finally carried him to the tiny plot of land that marked Buffy Summers’ final resting place.

There was a moment of disorientation before the words on the stone swam into focus. Tara had found a glamour that would obscure the text on the tombstone from anyone who did not already know what was inscribed there; it was another little attempt to keep Buffy’s death a secret.

The final ripples of the illusion faded and Spike dully read the epitaph of the woman he had loved, still loved, above all others.

Buffy Anne Summers
1981-2001

Beloved Sister
Devoted Friend

She Saved The World
A Lot

Short and to the point, even humorous, he thought bitterly that she would have heartily approved. He instinctively sought any remaining trace of her scent in the air, but all he caught on the breeze was soil and decay. His mind rebelled against the idea of her rotting, just beneath the soil. He wanted to imagine her preserved, like Bernadette of Lourdes, whose body Dru had insisted they visit so many years ago.

Logic insisted otherwise.

Buffy had not been embalmed, another layer of secrecy over her death, and while she had been many things, she had never been a saint. Her flaws had only made her more real, more beautiful in his eyes.

The others had obviously been here earlier; there was a bouquet of daisies resting against the freshly carved marble. They looked forlorn, rapidly wilting in the muggy California heat.

Spike didn’t know how long he had been standing there, motionless as a statue, when the prickling sensation drew him out of his lethargy.

“If you came to finish the job, don’t bother. Someone beat you there.” Spike looked over his shoulder at his grandsire. “It didn’t take.” The admission sounded flat, as if he was reading from a grocery list.

“I heard.” Angel’s voice was equally toneless, and his eyes were trained on the marble marker as he stepped forward to stand next to the younger vampire.

Some unspoken truce, either because of their mutual respect for the slayer or the knowledge that neither could actually dust, stayed both their hands, even though it was obvious that neither wanted the other there. They had known each other too long to not immediately understand the tension in the hard line of Spike’s jaw and the dark creases on Angelus’ brow.

Every muscle in Spike’s body was held taut, tense and ready like a bowstring. It didn’t matter if a hundred more years passed; some lessons learned would never fade, such as what kinds of things tended to happen when Angelus smelled blood in the water. Spike had never really bought the whole ‘Angel’ persona. Oh, the soul definitely made a difference, but his grandsire was still there, lurking beneath the surface like a whisper of constant threat.

Standing there, six feet above the woman he loved, next to the man she had loved, was eating away at Spike’s control. Everything from the past two weeks was bubbling to the surface, threatening to destroy the brittle façade of indifference he had thrown in the face of Angelus’ interruption. Much as he wanted to pound his grandsire into the ground, Spike would not disturb the peace of Buffy’s grave, but he couldn’t retreat either. That tasted of surrender as much as tears would have smacked of weakness. So he was stuck in place, hands fisted deep inside the pockets of his jacket, actively ignoring the pain reflected in the silent vampire beside him.

Spike had never been so relieved to hear a scream in his entire unlife.

Before he really knew what had happened, Spike was running, though whether it was towards the sound or away from the grave, he couldn’t have honestly said.

He quickly found the cause of the commotion: four fledges who were playing with their dinner, tossing a pretty brunette who had lungs like bellows back and forth between them. With a snarl, he was on them, releasing his pent-up emotions with every bone shattering strike.

Spike was so absorbed in the distraction that it took the first un-staking to remind him of his other problems. Perversely, the tiniest corner of his mind was thankful when Angelus joined him in the fray.

*****

“Why did you help that girl?” Angel slid the lid of the first sarcophagus back into place with a grunt of exertion.

‘That girl’ had gone screaming into the distance, leaving her two rescuers to deal with the cleanup.

And a nasty cleanup it had turned out to be.

Spike dropped a severed arm into the neighboring stone sarcophagus. “Gotta hand it to you, Gramps,” he gestured with another limb, which flopped loosely around a broken elbow, “This plan kind of reminds me of the old days.”

Angelus grimaced, it has been his suggestion to cut up the young vampires and hide their ‘remains’ in separate placed to prevent them from healing and rising again. Spike hadn’t been terribly concerned with the ethics of the move, but it was a bloody, filthy job, which he could have done without. Besides, it wasn’t like the not-quite-dead vampires were going to wake up in their dismembered state.

Probably.

Angelus picked up the last head and dropped it in the second sarcophagus with the others with an angry scowl. “You didn’t answer the question.”

Spike wiped his hands on his jeans, leaving long smears of muddy red against the faded black fabric. “Keep your shirt on, Nancy. Just did is all.”

“Not good enough, Spike,” that baritone rumble seemed lifted from another time, another place. “I want to know what your game is before I go back to L.A.”

Apparently, away from Buffy’s grave, all bets were off. “Well, that’s all you’re getting’, so piss off.” Spike was in no mood for posturing and empty threats. He’d already been staked, what more could Angelus really do to him? He glanced at the contents of the blood-stained sarcophagus, and let that line of thought die a rapid death.

The response earned a threatening growl. “If Mr. Giles hadn’t made me swear to bring you back in one piece, I’d be paying you back right now for that little game of twenty questions with rebar you played the last time I saw you.”

The lid of the second sarcophagus slid into place, hiding its gory contents from view. Spike snorted in derision. “Nothing you haven’t done to me before.”

One meaty fist slammed down on the stone. “That wasn’t me,” Angelus said.

“Bullshit. Maybe the pulsers believe that line of crap, but I know you, Angelus.” Spike turned and stalked towards the crypt door. He picked up his jacket from where he had draped it on a concrete urn. “Better accent, worse taste in clothes, but you’re still you.”

That earned a prolonged silence. In fact, they were more than half way to the Magic Box before either spoke again.

“You loved her, didn’t you? That’s why.” the elder vampire asked.

Yup, still Angelus. The old bastard always had known exactly where to stick a knife to make it hurt the worst.

*****

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Willow said plaintively. “Now there’re ghosts all over town too?”

Giles, who was searching through the books along the back wall of the Magic Box, said distractedly, “It certainly seems that way.”

“But,” Tara interjected, ducking her head when all the eyes in the room turned to her. “They don’t seem dangerous. Just, you know, confused.” Willow laced her fingers through Tara’s and squeezed in silent support. The scrying spell that had revealed this new development had taken a lot out of both of them.

Spike, from his position on the loft ladder, opened his mouth to finally spill the beans about Ammut, when something caught his eye. There, in the glass display case holding an array of hand-carved scarabs, was a reflection. Not his own though, walking-undead or not, he was still a vampire. No, it was Anubis himself who was staring back at him, dark eyes grave as he shook his head in silent warning.

He had to admit, that was more than a little disconcerting.

“Do you have something useful to add, Spike?” Angel’s unwelcome voice rumbled from his post in front of the shop’s counter, jerking him out of his preoccupation.

And just like that, the vision was gone. Spike couldn’t tell if it had been real, a hallucination, or something else, so he decided to play it safe. “Yeah, I do,” he snapped, dragging another thought he had been having to the surface. “Just thinkin’ that the only thing that keeps fledglings from overrunning the world is the fact that they’re usually so stupid they get themselves killed pretty quick after rising.” That certainly drew speculative glances from the others. “Unless we find a way to deal with them, we’re gonna be up to our ears in my distant relations before we ever start dealing with the big problem.”

In the ensuing silence, Giles removed his glasses, face drawn in grave lines. “That is actually a very valid point.”

Angel mumbled something unintelligible, but probably not complimentary. Spike bristled defensively. “Don’t you have your precious SoCal fiefdom to get back to?”

“Don’t push me, Spike.” The elder vampire’s brown eyes glittered with gold. “You don’t have any little girls to defend you this time.”

“That ‘little girl’ is the slayer’s sister, and you’re right, she’s not here.” Spike dropped from the ladder, angry and ready to take this conversation in whatever direction Angelus was suggesting. “She’s at home, helping the Whelp and his bird hang a new kitchen door… Why’s that again?”

“Stop it!” Raw energy crackled in the air, driving the gold from both vampires eyes. Willow’s own eyes, dilated beyond recognition, seemed ready to drown them both in their red-black depths. “Stop it right now!”

Spike ducked his head, embarrassed in spite of himself. Angelus always had brought out the worst in him. Probably always would. “Sorry, Red.”

Seemingly appeased, the witch turned darkened eyes on Angelus, who looked like a vein in his forehead was about to burst. Under her unblinking, unwavering glare, he seemed to wilt. Spike could almost see the black, brooding clouds gathering around his grandsire.

Tara, her face hesitant and nervous, brushed a soft hand against her girlfriend’s arm. Her touch seemed to draw the girl out of her magical rage. Spike could still feel the power humming in the air; it seemed like Willow’s control had been slipping ever since Buffy had died. Grief did strange things to a person, especially one of a more supernatural persuasion. The redhead slid back into her chair, trembling in the aftermath of her outburst.

“Angel,” Giles said, trying to diffuse the situation further with a deep breath. “Didn’t you say that Cordelia called earlier?”

Angelus looked plaintive, of all things. “But what about…” his eyes slid across the room to Spike, glittering with confusion and more than a little well-concealed anger.

In the face of that weighted stare, Spike had an unwelcome flash of insight.

Angelus had missed it.

Buffy was dead and he had missed it, the lead up, the fight, the chance to do anything about it. And now he was grasping at straws, trying to make himself useful, as if it would retroactively make some kind of difference.

Which it didn’t. Nothing would ever make a difference again. Not for Buffy, and not for Spike.

He could almost pity the old bastard. Maybe he would have, if he hadn’t hated him so much.

Giles continued blandly, “Spike isn’t your problem, Angel. He’s ours.”

“Gee, thanks,” Spike mumbled.

“Spike,” the watcher’s voice was deceptively smooth and calm.

“Yeah?” Spike asked wearily.

“Do shut up.”

With a wry expression, not really a smile, but close, Spike just nodded and slipped away into the practice room. When it came to getting what he wanted, Giles could be as underhanded as Angelus. Spike would play along, for a while at least. He could swallow his pride for the greater good. Or, you know, the greater benefit. Whatever.

Angelus was gone within the hour.

I was in the house of He who is upon his Mountain, Anubis… and I have seen the secrets which are therein.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


They were bickering again, dancing around the topic that no one wanted to address. Spike could almost hear the words on the tip of Giles’ tongue – ‘Kill Dawn.’

Well, that wasn’t going to happen. He cared about the Bit too much, and her death would take all the fire out of the slayer’s eyes. He couldn’t have that either. They’d find some other way. They always did.

But that didn’t mean that he was going to sit here and listen to the Scoobies make pointless quips and sidetracked comments. It wasn’t like anything he said was going to keep them from wasting time, so when he heard the scuffle behind the store, the distraction was almost a relief.

He slipped off of the ladder, ignoring the desperate edge in Willow’s arguments and Giles’ poorly concealed anger. He was much more interested in Buffy, whose eyes had followed his own to the back door. Did she feel the same prickling buzz that he did down the back of his neck whenever another vampire was near, or did her slayer senses work differently?

“Back in a second, guys,” she said quickly, more to herself than to the Scoobies. Which was good, because the others didn’t even pause in their back and forth byplay.

Spike caught her shoulder right before she opened the back door. “Let me,” he said, when she whipped around, violence in her eyes.

“I need…” she started, every line of her slight body tense with the need to lash out at something. Anything.

“You need,” he stressed, “to make your sidekicks stop avoiding the issue and come up with a plan to save the Bit.” His eyes softened at the cornered, indecisive look in her eyes. “I’ll take care of this, stretch my legs a little, yeah?”

She nodded then, an emotion in her eyes that he had never seen there before. It wasn’t love, it was more like the faith a captain put in a trusted lieutenant, but he would take what he could get.

The fledgling wasn’t much of a challenge. Sending its hapless victim packing with a gruff warning hidden under layers of insult wasn’t either, but by the time Spike wandered back into the Magic Box, brushing vamp dust off his shoulders, the others were packing up and getting ready to go. It looked like he’d saved them a few minutes, and maybe that was something.

After all, a minute could mean everything.

A minute could mean the world.

*****

Day 16

There were plenty of people who worked in the Sunnydale Zoo, and times were when Spike would have simply found a cute one, turned up the charm, and wheedled all the information he needed out of her or him, in a pinch.

Not any more. It was silly, but the idea felt too much like cheating. The irony was that he had never quailed from using that tactic while Buffy was alive, so it made even less sense to shy away from it now. Nevertheless, the gut reaction remained. Besides, he doubted that he could muster enough enthusiasm to stage a believable flirt at this stage. He also still looked and felt like a half-starved addict, and his heart certainly wouldn’t have been in it.

So instead of doing things the easy way, he found himself poking around the zoo after dark, alone, looking for any hint of Ammut. Among other things. He didn’t really expect to find the goddess squirreled away in a secret paddock, but it was remotely possible. No, he was more interested in seeing the kinds of setups one might need to contain a large, angry animal against its will. He hoped that he would find something that would help limit his search, because the gods knew he had been grasping at straws so far.

Probably still was.

Still, it wasn’t that bad as midnight errands went, and it got his mind off of other, more painful subjects. However, part of him was remembering the cages of the Initiative, and he had briefly considered opening some of the enclosures for transferred spite if nothing else, but soon thought better of it. He didn’t need the distraction, no matter how amusing the move might have been.

He wasn’t long inside the zoo before his nose and ears told him that nothing major was amiss. And that he should avoid the primate house if he valued his sense of smell.

The natural and the supernatural had never blended well, and something as large and powerful as Ammut would have sent the earthly animals into fits of terror. Even cloaking spells were iffy when it came to animals, and only the most powerful of demons and spirits could make themselves pass unnoticed by members of the natural world. From what he knew of the demigod, she didn’t strike him as one for subtle magicks and elaborate facades. If she was at the zoo, the animals would have known it, and nothing short of tranquilizers would have quieted them.

Spike, on the other hand, existed on the edge of the natural and supernatural world. There was a reason why many demons referred to vampires as half-breeds, but if used correctly, the so-called taint of humanity could be used to a clever hunter’s benefit. Oh, humans felt the same muted warning in the presence of demons as animals, but they paid less attention. Vampires set off fewer of their natural warnings as, say, an Old One would have. The fact came in useful for a hunting vampire. To an unwary victim, the instinctive signals, warning of a nearby vampire, were nearly indistinguishable from the intuitive caution-attraction to any bad boy, or girl, in the crowd. To an animal, vampires were things to avoid, the source of enough fear to elicit extreme caution, but not outright terror. So, unless someone had tapped a cloaking spell that could shield both Ammut from the animals and its own energies from a vampire’s extra senses, which was doubtful, simply nervous animals meant no penned up demigods.

Still, there might be something to find, so Spike kept looking around, searching through the vet and feeding lab servicing the reptile house, past the local fauna exhibit and the aviary, into the infamous hyena enclosure, and towards the large mammal section of the park. He’d keep an eye out in the paper for his handiwork tomorrow, because he was leaving more than enough rifled papers and broken locks to draw even the dumbest security guard’s attention. Not for the first time, he thanked his lucky stars that the Sunnydale police force was so incredibly inept.

Walking further into the zoo, the glowing eyes of the big cats, reflecting yellowy green in the low lighting, pulled at some dark corner of Spike’s mind, but it wasn’t until he reached the African wild dog enclosure that he saw something that made him stop.

The patchy canids were awake, yipping and cowering in the far corner of the enclosure. At first he thought they were reacting to him, he had already sent the parrots screeching by lingering too long near their cages, but he soon realized that he was mistaken. While some of the dogs were tossing fearful glances in his direction, the bulk of their attention was centered on another animal in the cage.

At first glance, it looked like the others, only larger and charcoal gray instead of blotchy browns and tans. But if he squinted, it looked kind of like a jackal.

A jackal wearing eye makeup.

“Very funny,” he snarled into the darkness. “You gonna come over here and talk, or are you gonna spy on me all night?”

The jackal turned its snout towards Spike, head tilted regally and rose in one fluid motion. If that wasn’t enough to convince Spike that he had guessed correctly, the animal stood up on its hind legs and started walking towards him. In a shimmer of twisting muscles and a shower of dark fur, the animal’s body started to change.

While the creature had completely shifted forms into a man by the time he reached the bars, it was still a fairly disconcerting thing to see, and sure enough, in that eternal moment between the god’s assumed forms, the animals around them went wild with fright. The lions across the way roared and in the distance, Spike could hear the monkeys chittering and the birds screaming. He winced a little at the furor, hoping that the racket wouldn’t pull down a night guard or something of the like. He wasn’t in the mood for dodging bystanders.

The last thing to change was Anubis’ head, shedding fur and collapsing inwards, but the change was reminiscent of the paintings of the jackal headed god so common in Egyptian tombs. Anubis passed a bejeweled hand in front of his face, leaving a shimmer like a mirage in its wake. And just like that, the panic amongst the animals seemed to calm and only a glimmer of residual energy remained to tingle along the edges of Spike’s senses. Subtle, powerful magic indeed.

“You have a sharp eye,” the god said by way of a greeting. His new, human face was lined with poorly hidden amusement.

Spike kept up his mask of nonchalance as Anubis waved a hand, parting the bars of the cage like a curtain before him, before stepping through and allowing the metal shafts to swing back into place with the ear splitting squeal of abused metal.

“The eyeliner gave you away,” the vampire said blandly, digging in his pocket for a cigarette.

One long drag filled his dead lungs with nicotine, and Spike used the pause to size up the god. Anubis was dressed in a long linen kilt, and his eyes were lined in enough makeup to make Tammy Faye Baker stand up and take notice. A few amulets lay across the god’s bare chest and gold tooled sandals were on his feet. Anubis wasn’t even making a nominal effort to hide who and what he was, save for the glamour that kept the racket down in the surrounding cages, but on the perfectly groomed pathways of the Sunnydale zoo, Spike guessed that it didn’t really matter.

“I shall remember that the next time I actually care to hide amongst my earthly children.” Anubis sounded bored, and Spike had given up translating intentionally oblique comments when Dru had sent him packing for the last time, so he opted for ignoring the maybe-sarcasm, maybe-serious statement instead, especially when the god didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.

Spike turned on his heel and made for the staff area behind the big cats’ pens. Divine visitations or not, he was going to finish his search. Anubis strode, it would have seemed silly to describe that particular motion as merely a walk, after him, smiling with a cold glint in his eye when one of the lions bristled at his passing.

“That you in the chintz cabinet last night?” Spike finally asked, breaking the silence when he reached the locked door. The knob was flimsy, and there didn’t seem to be an alarm system, so he just grabbed it tried the brute force method. The entire locking mechanism bucked and tore free in his hand. He tossed it, and the half-smoked cigarette butt, into the flowerpot flanking the door.

The god was watching the proceedings, dark alien eyes inscrutable. “Yes,” he finally replied. “I had to stop you from telling the humans without causing a scene. I am afraid that the dramatics were unavoidable, given the circumstances.”

Spike let the broken door swing open and stepped inside. “Not that I’m singin’ their praises and all, but that crew of humans, well, this kind of stuff is what they do.”

“I understand that, but Isis has reported human magicks cutting into the edges of our domain.” Anubis followed Spike into the room, eyes gleaming green in the semi-darkness. The color, reflective like an animal’s instead of actually glowing, disappeared when the vampire found and flipped the light switch. The god blinked lazily, taking in the sterile, white lab area. “None can be trusted until we determine if this latest incursion is related to Ammut’s disappearance.”

Spike lifted the top papers of a clipboard which was hanging on the far wall: medication records. “That’s a little…”

“Over-cautious? I can promise, vampire, the situation warrants it.”

“I was going to say ‘paranoid.’” Spike replied sarcastically, letting the papers fall back into place before moving on to the paperwork hanging on the freezer door.

“Perhaps,” the god conceded, “but the condition stands. The humans must not be told.”

Spike passed the freezer inventory, and bent to read through the phone records instead. “Fine, no humans it is, any other changes to the deal you’re gonna make midstream?”

“None for now, though I can make no promises. The situation is… fluid.” Anubis smiled slightly in the face of the vampire’s hateful glare.

Turning back to the task at hand, Spike flipped through the most recent pages, skimming past the vague scrawls and innocuous messages for family members. One caught his eye on the fourth page:

Sanderson – tranq dosage ~800 lbs? Will call

The date at the top of the page was right, one day after… he stopped that thought short and amended: one day before his first abortive suicide attempt. Well, that’s interesting.

“So, how much would you say your AWOL beastie weighs?”

When he was answered with nothing but the hum of fluorescent lights, Spike looked over his shoulder again and found nothing. Anubis had disappeared into thin air.

“Yeah, right, thanks for all your help…” Spike grumbled while tearing out the page in the notebook. It disappeared into his pocket with the four other slips of paper that had caught his eye in previous buildings around the zoo.

Tossing one last sneer of contempt into the empty room, Spike went back out into the night. He could finish the entire park before the first shift of keepers and janitors appeared in the early predawn. Even so, he doubted he would find anything more useful. All of the papers in his pocket were long shots in the extreme, but one wild goose chase was as good as any other.

At least this one had interesting scenery.

“I have collected this magic in every place where it was, from the possession of anyone who possessed it, more speedily than a hound, more swiftly than a shadow.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


Spike had never seen such wretched workmanship. Glory’s tower listed and groaned, shuddered and creaked as the vampire ran towards his ultimate goal, Dawn.

He rounded the first corner, and the tower leaned with him. He tripped on a twisted bit of metal and staggered while the structure shook with sympathetic quakes. He bounced off a supporting strut when he swung a corner wide, and the metal screamed in protest.

So when Spike was nearing the top, he had a good idea what the tower’s various sounds meant. And what they were telling him was that the long platform leading to Dawn would fall if given the slightest provocation. Killing Doc, because Doc it was who was flashing a knife at the Bit, wouldn’t solve anything if the fight sent them all plummeting to the ground below.

A rusty chain, hanging suspended from a wrought iron support strut, grabbed the vampire’s attention. Thinking quickly, he grabbed at the rusty links, pulling them free. He took up the heavy pulley that was attached to one end and heaved it as hard as he could at the back of Doc’s head.

Metal contacting bone made a dull cracking sound, muted only slightly by Dawn’s surprised cry. The demon slumped to the side, tumbling from the tower headfirst. The sight earned a snide smile.

Spike started running again, taking the last lap around the spiraling ramp. The rickety platform had held two before, surely it would again.

At least until he got Dawn free.

After that, he hoped the whole damned thing fell into rubble.

*****

Day 23

It was her hair that had done it.

It was spun gold and styled to perfection, despite the blood that stained the tips.

The dead girl didn’t really look like Buffy. She was too tall for one, long and rangy like a volleyball player or a long distance runner. Her face was all wrong as well, with sharp angles and no deceptively soft curves. Her clothes, her scent, nothing else had reminded Spike of the slayer.

Nothing except for her hair.

Spike thought he had been getting a handle on himself, at least enough to fake it in front of the Scoobies. He had shoved down his emotions, bottled them up in the darkest recesses of his mind, so that when Dawn needed a friendly ear after bombing another quiz in summer school or if another Grrychla demon decided to set up camp in the Bronze’s kitchen, he was able to do what needed doing.

Then again, things hadn’t turned out so well when Mount Saint Helens had clamped down on the pressure in his heart either.

The crypt was a mess.

Willow swore she was working on some better way to deal with their unslayable vampire issue, but until she produced something other than a fizzled flash-bang in the Magic Box’s storeroom, Spike was left to Angelus’ less than tidy solution.

Not that he had minded, especially in this case. Spike was soaked to the elbows in blood, covered in its wet, viscous spray. He fingers gummed together, sticky from the quickly cooling liquid, and the walls of the tiny mausoleum looked like someone had thrown buckets of red paint on every available surface. Some of it was his, most not, but it was impossible to differentiate. One kind of blood looks much like any other half-lit and splattered across carved blocks of weathered marble.

He had found the two vampires, clawed hands clutching the dead girl in a perversion of an embrace, drinking the last dregs of blood from her cold corpse. Her head had lolled at an odd angle, neck torn open from two sets of fangs. Her dead, blue eyes had glared at Spike accusingly when he had stepped through the crypt door, sword at the ready in his left hand.

And the girl had had Buffy’s hair.

Spike had flung his weapon aside, forgotten in his white-hot rage, and had proceeded to literally tear the vampires limb from limb with his bare hands. He had never felt anything like the rage that had infused his every move, not at the mob in Prague, not when he had first awakened in the Initiative’s cell, not even when Angelus had made a point to make sure his scent, mingled with Dru’s, had covered every available sleeping surface in the run down Factory or at any point during the entire Glory debacle.

Never.

Spike didn’t know how long he sat there in the blood spattered crypt, staring at the body of the nameless dead girl. That was the catch, wasn’t it? She had a name, and friends, and a family. Somewhere. People who would mourn her passing, people who would miss her.

He watched the play of the moonlight across the golden hair and was vaguely relieved to see that there wasn’t any blood on her pale lips. She wouldn’t be rising then, and he wouldn’t have to cut her up as well. It was a small relief.

The sound of dripping blood brought Spike out of his dark thoughts. He looked out of the crypt’s barred window and noticed that the moon was drifting at a much higher angle than it had when he had first heard the sounds of struggle inside the small McGowan crypt.

Snapped back into the present and knowing full well that he looked like a stunt double for Carrie, Spike staggered listlessly to his feet. He had just enough time to wash the worst of the gore away before the meeting at the Summers’… now only Dawn’s, house.

The vampire bent low to gently close the girl’s staring eyes before walking into the night.

*****

Dawn had answered the front door with a wan smile and a critical eye. Spike was suddenly very glad that he had scrapped his first round of clothes and went for a clean set after his literal bloodbath. He doubted he would have passed muster otherwise.

The others were waiting in the living room. The group dynamic had shifted ever since the vampire’s abortive suicide-by-Xander attempt. The boy still made his ham-handed jokes, but few of them were actually aimed at Spike. They also tended to be followed by long stretches of silence and troubled looks from the boy. It was a welcome reprieve, even if Spike would never have admitted it out loud.

Anya brightened when Dawn reentered the room and flopped on the couch, but her natural blunt exuberance had been muted over the last few weeks, which was probably for the best.

“Hey Spike,” Willow’s welcome was tentative to say the least, but despite the lack of strength in her voice, her position in the room was obvious. Spike wondered if the others had even noticed how they were gravitating around the redhead.

The witch stood at the mantle, Tara seated in the easy chair on her left. Giles was standing in the far corner, leaning wearily against the desk there. The others were lined up down the couch, and all of their eyes, after briefly glancing over Spike upon his entrance, were turned towards the girl.

Even if he understood the instinctive logic, after all, Willow was the strongest one amongst them, the polarization of the group sent Spike’s spirits even lower, if that was possible. The new leader she might be, but Willow made a piss poor Buffy.

Spike stepped up to the couch, sitting on the armrest nearest the door.

Willow nodded to herself and started talking.

“So, now that we’re all here, I… uh, I mean we… We asked everyone to come here because I think I… We,” she winced and looked down at Tara, who gave her a little encouraging smile. “We think we’ve figured out how we can deal with the vampires. At least, you know, until we figure out what’s making them all unkillable.” She smiled apologetically before continuing, “It’s kinda complicated though.”

Spike couldn’t help himself, he chuckled in dark amusement. “Damn near anything’s better than ripping them into bits and hidin’ the pieces, Red.”

That earned a wry snort from the Watcher, which come to think of it, was the most emphatic sign of life from the man that Spike had heard in days.

Willow looked a little taken aback, as if she had forgotten the ‘solution’ Spike had been using over the last few days. But Anya’s curt, “Can we move this along? I have places to be,” seemed to get things rolling.

“Well, I found a way to make kind of a holding cell. But more like a dimension.” Once she got started, it was hard for Willow to contain her enthusiasm. “It’s really flexible, so it expands to fit the occupancy, and we can stock it with whatever we want. I was thinking, like, cow blood and cots or something… maybe a TV because we don’t want to be cruel and unusual…” She trailed off at the watcher’s scowl. “I’m just trying to be humane about it, even John Wayne Gacy got a last meal,” she added defensively.

“I’m sure the vampires will thank you for your thoughtfulness, but I believe I am familiar with the spell,” the watcher removed his glasses and stared through the lenses dully. “It is connected to an inanimate object, such as a door, is it not?”

“Yeah, and a specific motion, like the door opening, triggers the portal,” Willow nodded, her green eyes too bright by far for Spike’s mood. He wondered what mystical bomb she was getting ready to drop on them.

“But the inscriptions?” Giles protested weakly, heart obviously absent from the argument. “That requires a great deal of surface area to work with, which would make the object prohibitively large to take on patrol…” he trailed off at the shared glances the younger humans were sharing.

“That’s the other thing we wanted to talk to everyone about,” Willow glanced nervously at Dawn. “Remember my little, uh, run in with Moloch?”

Giles nodded, interest coloring his eyes in spite of himself. Spike glanced around the room, noticing that only Dawn and Anya seemed to be out of the know, which was… interesting.

“Well, that got me thinking about entering spells into a digital format,” Willow said quickly.

Spike glanced down, wondering why Dawn had suddenly stiffened against his leg from her perch on the couch. He didn’t have long to wait.

“So I programmed the pocket dimension spell into the ‘Bot,” Willow concluded in a rush.

Silence.

“You what?” Giles asked slowly.

Willow’s voice was a little firmer, a little more sure of herself. ““I programmed the Buffy ‘Bot to be a portable portal generator.”

More silence.

Xander and Tara were studiously looking at their feet, avoiding all eye contact. So, of course, it was Anya who broke the silence. “Other than the obvious awkwardness, I actually think that is an admirable, efficient use of our limited assets.” She seemed to genuinely mull over the idea before continuing. “That is, if you can convince Spike…”

The rest of her comment was lost to the vampire, cut off as it was by the slamming door and his own rapid departure.

“I have struck down those who are wakeful within their shrines.” – The Book of Going Forth By Day


“Are you human enough?” Spike asked from the shadows behind the dumpster.

He had no idea why the young man was walking through this particular alley, especially without his scabby handlers, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not when so much was on the line.

Ben, who had been pacing in aimless, wandering patterns, stopped dead in his tracks. He turned, boyish face surprised and instinctively fearful.

“Excuse me?” he asked, brows knit in confusion.

“See,” Spike stayed to the shadows, sliding closer while still keeping his face hidden so as to avoid being recognized. “I’ve got this issue, keeps me from… acting on certain impulses.” He continued walking towards the man, who was backing away slowly, eyes wide.

“I, uh… I’m not a psychiatrist…” Ben started uncertainly.

Spike’s bitter bark of laughter cut the young man short. “Too far gone for that anyway.” Another step forward, dark menace sending Ben stumbling back a little more quickly. The thrill of the hunt felt good. Unfamiliar with its side-note of righteousness, but still good.

“But see, I’m starting to think you might not fully meet the criteria. And if you’re not completely human…” Bone slid against bone, realigning and dropping sharp fangs into Spike’s snarling mouth.

Before Ben could cry out, before his own inner demon could make an appearance, Spike was on him. There was no time for a bite, not when Glory could burst to the surface at any second. Iron strong hands grabbed either side of the young man’s head, twisting sharply up and to the right.

The crack of broken vertebrae sounded like a shot in the dark parking lot.

Spike’s muscles bunched, taking up the strain of the suddenly limp body. He had tensed, wincing against the electric punishment that never came.

“Guess I was right,” he mumbled, shifting awkwardly under the dead weight in his hands.

Ben’s sneakered toes twitched feebly, nerves firing in dying complaint. When the body went perfectly still at last, Spike looked into the corpse’s flat eyes, searching for any glimmer of the hell goddess who had made this murder possible. There was nothing there other than a faint look of surprise and the hazy glaze that so quickly overtook the eyes of the newly dead.

The expression on the young man’s sad, boyish face effectively ruined whatever high the kill had brought him. He realized that Buffy could never know about this. He would have to look as surprised as she when Glory didn’t make an appearance for the big night.

Spike shrugged uncomfortably, but this was a burden that he was more than happy to shoulder. What was one more among all the others anyway. It only mattered was that Dawn was safe for the moment. There wasn’t anyone to stand between her rescue and the Scoobies, except a motley crew of sycophantic, leaderless demons who would keep the girl safe until their goddess gave them orders to the contrary.

Orders that would never come.

Spike dragged the body back to the dumpster and chucked it inside. The others were meeting at the Magic Box in half an hour to plan their attack. The irony did not escape him. He just hoped that he could keep his big mouth shut, so as to avoid a dusty end.

*****

Day 24

This wasn’t a nightmare.

Spike had survived enough of those, and crafted enough others, to recognize a nightmare when he saw one.

No, this was a sadist’s parody of a nightmare.

The Buffy ‘Bot was walking next to him, happy bounce in her, no its, step. It kept edging closer to him, defying Willow’s insistences that all of that programming had been erased.

The witch herself, Tara and Giles in tow, was following about twenty feet behind him. Spike knew that they were trying to be quiet, but three humans tromping around in the dark could only keep it to a distracting din on the best of nights. He just thanked whatever gods happened to be listening that Xander and Anya were on Dawn duty, because those two tended to raise the clamor ten-fold.

Spike hunched his shoulders miserably, thrusting clenched fists deep inside his jacket pockets. Bitterness coated the back of his throat and the memory of Xander’s sneering face and cutting words was playing on repeat in the back of his mind.

“You had that thing made, and now that it might be kinda useful, you what? Can’t stand the sight of it? More like you’re upset that Willow reprogrammed your little toy…”

Whoever said that the brain itself cannot feel pain obviously had never experienced the persistent throbbing of fried brain cells. That ache, and the livid purple swelling spreading across the carpenter’s face were tangible testimony to Spike’s opinion of the boy’s statement. Strangely enough, the others hadn’t tried blasting him into next week after the attack. Willow had just pulled him gently, but firmly away with what could only have been magically enhanced strength while Tara and Anya dithered over the boy’s bleeding nose. Giles had only looked on, glancing dully between the two combatants, if that was even the right word, before leveling flinty eyes at the vampire.

“It might help keep Dawn safe,” he had said mildly, knowing damned well what effect his words would have.

And that was why he found himself in the midst of this freakishly painful farce.

“Spike, I think I hear something.” Its voice, her voice framed by its lips, grabbed Spike’s attention with both hands and shook.

He grunted his acknowledgement of her, no its, words. After all, how exactly does one treat one’s robotic ex who happened to be modeled after one’s recently deceased love of one’s unlife? Mrs. Manners must to have overlooked that one, so Spike had settled on channeling the seething hatred he felt for himself whenever he laid eyes on the damned ‘Bot.

“No, really,” she, no, it…It said again in the loudest stage whisper he had ever heard. “Over there.” It pointed with one perfectly manicured fingertip and looked like a puppy, begging for attention.

Sure enough, there was a fledgling, newly risen and dusting the clinging soil from his tacky burial suit. Spike had to wonder at that. It had been his understanding that most people’s clothes were split up the back when they were dressed for burial, something about helping the mortician dress the corpse more easily. Seeing as how none of the newly risen denizens of this town seemed to be running around, wearing ritzed up hospital gowns, he guessed that the locals were just suckers for punishment.

My kind of people.

Spike glanced over his shoulder, making sure that the Scooby contingent had caught the ‘Bot’s words. They had, and were huddled together, wide eyed and expectant like the spectators in the Coliseum must have looked.

Caesar, we who aren’t about to die salute you.

Bitterly pondering the possibility of charging for admission for future patrols, Spike turned just in time to see the Buffy ‘Bot launch herself inexpertly at the distracted fledge. Warren’s programming had been top flight, but no mere construction of wires and polymers, no matter how technologically advanced, could really match a living, breathing slayer, especially not Buffy.

The newly risen vampire turned at the approaching sound and snapped a careless backhand across the ‘Bot’s face. It went flying, surprised gasp cut short when it hit a tree.

Something inside of Spike snapped.

The next thing he knew, his fangs were buried in the younger vampire’s throat, tearing deeply rather than feeding. Taloned fingers fisted in the fledgling’s hair, tearing in the opposite direction, audibly ripping flesh and bone. Spike barely noticed the gurgling screaming until it abruptly stopped. He spat the blood and torn tissue in his mouth out on the grass, unwilling to partake of any part of this reanimated piece of refuse. The fledgling’s neck was torn wide open, attached to his body by a ragged length of tendon and the twisted remnants of his spinal column. Spike couldn’t deny the primal satisfaction the gaping wound evoked in him, sending his golden eyes glittering maliciously.

He sauntered over to the fallen figure who was struggling to rise back to her feet. “Slayer, you alright?” he asked, voice full of solicitude.

At his words, she looked up at him, eyes shining with gratitude, and reality came crashing back down to Earth. The ‘Bot’s skin had torn during the fall, peeling latex back across its cheek to reveal the copper wires, blinking lights, and titanium support structure within.

It took his proffered hand and allowed itself to be pulled to its feet. “You called me ‘Slayer,’” it said brightly, and Spike jerked his hand away as if scalded by holy water.

It looked so hurt, so confused, and his own feelings were in enough of a snarl, that Spike found himself backing away, bile, or whatever passed for it in vampiric physiology, coating the back of his throat. Slamming the lid down firmly on the emotions that were threatening to boil over, Spike turned to face the carnage, and the Scoobies who he had all but forgotten in the heat of the moment.

Tara looked a few shades paler, and seemed transfixed in turns by the blood seeping into the grass around the fledgling and the gore staining his own face. Under the blond witch’s horrified gaze, Spike self consciously wiped a sleeve across his face. The move smeared the mess further across his cheek and accomplished little else. Tara quickly averted her eyes, and he felt an unaccustomed stab of shame.

Willow seemed completely unaffected. Giles too, but then again, the Watcher didn’t seem to react to much of anything anymore. He was watching Spike with hooded eyes, seeming to stare through, rather than at, him. It was more than a little disconcerting.

“Spike, what did I say?” the ‘Bot asked uncertainly.

He winced, but steadfastly ignored its words.

“Red,” he snapped, nerved frayed to the breaking point. The girl looked up from the mangled not-a-corpse, green eyes switching from clinical and curious to wide and guileless in the space between heartbeats.

“Vampire… portal… no more vampire…” he prompted sarcastically.

Willow’s pale face seemed cold and forbidding in the moonlight, but her voice was as light as ever.

“Yeah, no time like the present,” she said before raising her voice to the ‘Bot. “Buffy, run program Hotel California.”

Spike would have liked to protest the use of the Slayer’s name, but the sudden surge in mystical energies behind him served as more than ample distraction. He turned to see the Buffy ‘Bot’s hair rippling on magical currents and crackling with eldritch energy, inscribing a wide circle in the air with her painted nails. Its face was eerily blank and its body ramrod stiff.

It had never looked more artificial than it did in that exact moment.

Yellow-white light trailed behind its fingertips, flowing liquidly and flaring into searing brightness when the circle was closed.

Spike rapidly backpedaled when there was a ripping sound coming from the glowing portal, and suddenly the circle wasn’t filled with light, but with an oddly domestic scene. The room was large and cots lined one wall. There was a huge TV in one corner, flanked by couches, and a small kitchenette was visible in the other corner. It could have been a very poorly designed dormitory, but for the obvious lack of windows or doors.

“Spike, you’re up,” Willow said in a commanding voice. “Don’t forget that the portal’s one way, so don’t, you know, touch it.”

He bristled at her tone, but complied nevertheless.

He hooked one hand in the fledgling’s jacket collar and another in the waistband of his pants. He noted with dark amusement that the others were retreating to safer positions behind larger trees and tombstones. A traitorous voice in the back of his mind wondered if another famed Rosenberg magical meltdown could propel him where stakes could not, but he silenced the thoughts, reminding himself forcibly of his promise to Dawn.

After a preparatory swing, Spike sent the fledgling flying through the portal. No explosion, it was actually pretty anticlimactic. The vampire’s body hit the floor on the other side with a wet thud and lay still, sluggish blood leaking out on the bare concrete floor.

“Buffy, end program,” Willow said firmly, and the portal winked out of sight.

The ‘Bot, visible again now that the mystical doorway was gone, cocked her head to one side. “That was a knitted dust-buster,” it said happily.

The others just looked on in confusion.

“I, uh,” Willow tittered nervously, “I guess the spell fried some of her conversation protocols. I outta check it out. But hey, otherwise flawless!” She shot a triumphant smile to the still-queasy witch and distracted watcher.

A hissing crackle gave Spike enough warning to leap away from the Buffy ‘Bot before a stream of sparks, some mystical, some electrical, shot from the machine’s mouth. He backed away, eyes as wide as the others,’ when the mock-slayer bent double and started dry heaving, crackling energy escaping its gasping lips.

Willow’s face melted in disappointment.

Spike’s too.

His hopes that this trial run would prove so successful that he wouldn’t have to accompany the Scoobies and ‘Bot on future patrols died in the sparking shower.

When the light show ended, the ‘Bot looked up from her miserable crouch, face uncharacteristically lined with distress. “I don’t feel so good,” she whimpered to no one in particular.

None of them seemed to know how to react to that, but after a long beat, Willow stepped forward and helped the robot to its feet.

“Don’t worry Buffy.” Spike ground his teeth at the continued use of the slayer’s name, noting distantly that the Watcher was doing the same, but when the redhead continued, he felt a stab of empathy for her instead.

“I’ll take care of you. Next time will be different. Next time I’ll be perfect.”