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Chapter 4: Buffy

It’s been three weeks since I left Sam and came to England. Long enough to get over the jet lag and to fall into a routine. If there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that whether you’re fighting the forces of darkness while trying to graduate high school, working at the Doublemeat Palace, or teaching the next generation of slayers while trying to get a divorce, life always becomes routine.

Not that I’m complaining. Life is actually good, if a bit uncomfortable at times, those times being when someone brings up Sam or I have to deal with details of the divorce. But those have been rather few and far between so far.

Every morning I get up earlier than I like to, so that I can hit the practice room before anyone else. There’s nothing like getting your ass handed to you by your biggest rival to make you rededicate yourself to training. And the more I practice the more I realize how really out of shape and sloppy I’ve become. But little by little I’m becoming me again.

Luckily I’m not teaching any combat classes. I’m actually teaching English, which makes Giles nearly faint every time he’s reminded of it. I think Faith did it just to watch him sputter and clean his glasses. It’s fun though. At least most of the time. Most of the girls are happy to be here, but you still do get the “what do a bunch of dead white males have to do with us” complaint.

I’ve even learned the names of most of the girls here. It scared me at first. I kind of tried not to learn the names of the slayerettes in Sunnydale. But then I knew that many of them were going to die. The whole point of this school is to make sure these girls live long and healthy lives.

That’s why I’m rather proud when I enter the living room and know right away that the three girls who seem to have Giles cornered are Indrani, Saada, and Patricia.

“But there could be demon activity,” Patricia argues.

“I highly doubt that,” Giles says in an all too familiar tone that makes me smile.

“What could be demon activity?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Giles says before the girls can speak up. “They are just trying to find an excuse to go to a concert in London.”

I can’t help thinking Good for them. They’re still teenage girls.

“But, you should really hear his lyrics,” Indrani insists. “He obviously knows about the supernatural. Some of his songs are clearly about vampires, and he’s got this one song called, The One, and I think it might be about a slayer.”

“Yes, because there has never been a fictional reference to a vampire in popular culture before,” Giles says sarcastically.

“To be fair, Dracula was real,” I point out. I can’t help it, this is kind of nostalgic.

“Really?” the girls say almost in unison.

“That’s hardly the point,” Giles interjects.

By this point Saada has pulled out her iPod and is hooking it up to the stereo system.

“Listen, this is definitely about a vampire,” she insists as she hits play.

Giles rolls his eyes, and there’s a moments silence before an all too familiar voice croons from the speakers.

I died
So many years ago,
But you can make me feel,
Like it isn’t so.

It’s like being slapped across the face with a two-by-four. It’s not just that it’s Spike’s voice echoing from the past, or the humiliating memory of Sunnydale the musical. It’s the idea that someone is exploiting a deeply personal (and best forgotten) moment of my life for personal gain.

As the song continues I’m dimly aware of Giles arguing that the song has nothing to do with real vampires, not to mention that it’s clichéd. But I’m not really paying attention.

My mind is replaying the image off the Rolling Stone cover. It’s not Spike, I know that more now than ever. It doesn’t matter if it sounds like him, it can’t be. He was even more embarrassed by that song than me, and even if he wasn’t, there was no way he would ever share something that private with the world.

Except for that one time with Xander and the axe, Spike was always discreet.

There’s only one explanation. It’s a trap. The magazine cover, the song, obviously it’s the work of some demon or other bad guy who’s trying to lure me out of retirement. In a world full of slayers, trying to end the world is less of a big deal for me, but pretending to be a dead ex-lover, well, I have to admit that got me out of the rock I’ve been under for the last five years.

“I’ll take them,” I pipe up.

Everyone stops talking to look at me, and I’m suddenly grateful that they weren’t paying attention a few moments ago. Giles doesn’t recognize the voice, (thank god) and no one saw me looking like I’d seen, or rather heard, a ghost.

“Buffy, really,” Giles starts to argue. “You know as well as I do there’s nothing demonic about this, and we can hardly bow to every hormonal whim of teenage girls.”

Actually, Giles is pretty wrong here. Not that it’s the first time. Sure there may be a lot of teenage hormones involved, Spike does tend to do that girls, but they are slayers, and that gives them a certain sense about these things. I can’t remember how many times I had to convince Giles and the others that something supernatural was going on when they just saw the mundane.

But sometimes the best way to win an argument is to agree, especially when you don’t want your ex-Watcher to know that someone is impersonating the vampire who he always thought you behaved irrationally around.

“Yeah, no demons here,” I agree. “But you know teenage girls, especially slayers. If you tell them they can’t go, they’ll just lie, sneak out, and next thing you know they’re being sacrificed by a fraternity to a giant snake. At least this way they have a chaperone.”

It kind of funny seeing the girls try to follow my logic, but Giles gets it, and I have to admit I’m glad that not all of my exploits have made it into the Slayer 101 class.

“I’m not sure. . .” Giles starts.

“This concert is on the weekend right?” I ask the girls.

“Yes,” “Definitely,” “Saturday night,” they all chime in.

“See,” I say. “They won’t miss any class, and if they use their own money to pay for the tickets. . .”

Who knew when I insisted that the new Council start paying slayers a salary that it would help me take a bunch of girls to a concert in London?

The girls are practically tripping over themselves trying to agree, and it’s too late for Giles, he’s lost.

I feel a little guilty. Not because I’m bringing these girls dangerously near a trap meant for me, after all they are slayers, but because after I find out who is behind this, I’m going to kill their idol.





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