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THE TALE TO THE NOIR

Written by Dreamhunter and Rogiari

“I don’t watch pornography, I write about pornography”
Joss Whedon





Written by: Dreamhunter and Rogiari.
Translated by: Laghi Laura (for any info and contact email me to babylaurina@libero.it).
Rating: This story is absolutely prohibited to under 18 years old! And, if we have not said it yet: PROHIBITED TO UNDER 18 YEARS OLD!! Everyone who reads this story will take the responsibility for it. We will not accept any kind of complaint about that: this is a NC-17 story, really dark; it contains extremely explicit sex scenes (also non conventional sex), bad words, slash acts, violence and we don’t treat Buffy in a gentle way. So, if you are not very keen on this genre, it is better if YOU KEEP FROM READING IT.
Summary: In an alternative universe in which Angelus has never regained his soul, Buffy tries to be a good girl with her boyfriend Xander and, simultaneously, she has to carry out her mission of being a slayer...and with her attraction for the “dark side of the strength”….
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon and to the Mutant Enemy, and to everyone else who owns them. These writings are non-profit-making.
Timeline: Beginning of BTVS, season 2. We want remember to the reader that is an alternative universe in which Angelus has never moved to Sunnydale with the intention of helping Buffy. Despite of the different storyline of the series, a lot of characters from season 3 will take part in this fanfic due to our narrative reasons.
Note: this fanfic is the first part of a trilogy: we are now writing the second one, named “The Princes to the Noir”.
Distribution: please, we ask you to not publish this fanfiction without our consent.
Feed - back: always, and always well accepted to rogiari@fastwebnet.it (Rogiari) and to frankab@tin.it (Dreamhunter).




Once upon a time there was a pretty princess, but a group of nasty men bound her with a spell. Only the kiss of a prince could awaken her…or plunk her down in the deepest darkness. Nobody can tell it for sure.
The princess aspired to reach the light, but the darkness used to invite her, with its long, slim and seductive fingers. Nevertheless, she struggled to resist it, going through reality as she was living a dream. Until the day when someone invites her to awake from her long, deep sleep...


I. Innocence.

“Buffy…Buffy, wake up!”
She heard her mother’s voice as it came from a far and mysterious universe, a universe made of spells cried with raucous shouts around the fire in the savannah, a universe plenty of mysterious and powerful creatures, of the exaltation for hunting...in the night, bare-footed, with a background of rolling, deep and imperious drums…
Buffy woke up and looked the clock desperately... it was horribly late! She had to hurry up, or she had missed the first lesson, and she couldn’t miss Spanish, not that year!
Oh God, Xander! They’ve fixed a meeting at the Espresso Pump before school!
“Buffy…it seems you’ve seen a ghost,” stated Joyce with a smile. “Wake up, you lazy! Breakfast is ready and so am I: as soon as you’re dressed up we go.”
“No, mom, I’ll take the bus today. I have to meet a friend before school.”
“A friend?” smiled Joyce. “Your boyfriend?”
Buffy nodded. “Yes, mom. Xander, you know him”
Joyce was happy. She knew that Xander was a good boy and he doted on her Buffy. Although he hadn’t a properly balanced family- as far as she knew his parents used to drink too much- he was a polite, funny and gentle guy. Besides that, what rights have they to judge him? Joyce could still feel the bruises of her divorce, of all the unfaithful affairs of her husband, of his disregard as a partner and as a father. Xander wasn’t the school football-team quarterback, nor an IT genius, but he loved Buffy, Joyce was sure about that.
“Well, don’t make him wait!”
Buffy rushed into the shower. No, she hadn’t made him wait.
But she could still hear in her ears the imperious noise of the drums, so far, but still present...


“Here I am!” told she, raising her head through him quietly, for their usual greeting kiss. Xander, gratified by her docility, smiled to her, kissing her lips with rapture. On the other side of the road he noticed the Porsche of Cameron, that dandy from University who tried to flirt with Buffy: his masculine pride was exceedingly exalted for the reason why she chose him, a guy with working class origins who lived in the basement bearing in silence his parents’ continuous rows.
“Please, stop now!” whispered her, blushing as she felt his tongue trying to find a way into her demurely closed mouth. His smile became bigger. His experience told him that, in the shades of the night, she couldn’t deny him a more passionate kiss. He had just to wait.
“I missed you” he told her. “So much that I’ve been forced to eat a peanut butter sandwich! And you perfectly know that doing this in my home is like an exploration mission of a Viet Cong tunnel.”
Buffy laughed. “Food as a compensation, uh? Lucky you for that! Since my father has left us, my mom insists that is better doing aerobics - and eating carrots – to fight loneliness. Believe me, this tricks cannot give me the merely half of your satisfaction.
“I could satisfy you, if you only let me show you how!” whispered him, rapidly kissing her neck. Buffy stifled a chuckle and hit his arm. He almost buckled because of the strong punch. He knew well that even the most casual Buffy’s move could be lethal.
But Buffy didn’t realize anything and she began to express him, once again, her point of view. “I have already told you that I’m against underage sex, with an end in itself. When we’ll grow up a bit and if we continue to get along, we’ll naturally try to better know ourselves. But until that moment you should be patient. It’s not so much we’re together…”
“It seems an eternity to me” he smiled “eight months, three weeks and two days. Since May the 24 of last year, to be precise.” She smiled too and caresses his face. When she was with Xander, she tended to forget her true life. She died on May the 24.
Xander brought her to life with the mouth - to - mouth respiration in the undergrounds which led to the Master’s crypt and Buffy, thanks to her stronger body and spirit, finally defeated the ancient vampire, making him fall from the library’s roof.
Since then, Buffy had understood that she had to love him, because he was worthy of her love, much more than anyone else. He was the only one who knew her life and her mission; and he shared it.
But eight months - thought she, while they were taking their place in the classroom – wasn’t enough for two 17 year old boys. To be honest, Buffy had to turn 17 in a few days.
Their affair began sweetly, without pressure. They started to hold the other’s hand, then they kissed each other with tenderness and, finally, their meetings became more and more frequent, at school and also outside. When they went to the Bronze with their friends, Willow and her boyfriend Oz, Buffy and Xander usually danced together. During the dance she forgot all her inhibition; as if by magic, when she was on the dance floor she turned into a sensual and vibrant creature, full of obscure and ancient power that clouded men’s hearts. Xander felt he could have her only in those moments. In all the other occasions she was a quite demure girl, and she rarely gave him more than some kisses.
But they were really very young, they had plenty of time; he will always be next to her, both in her diurnal and nocturnal life. She would come to him, when she was ready for more.
When the lesson was finished, Xander came next to her, took her bag and he put his arm round her shoulder. When he tried to kiss her smooth lips which invited him with thousands of sill not kept promises, he was stopped by a sarcastic laugh.
“Oh, my God I feel sick” said the beautiful dark haired girl who looked at them from upstairs, with the hands on her hips and a disgusted grimace. “Buffy, I knew about you and this…this loser…but be gentle and don’t force us to see you both!
“Hi, Cordelia” smiled Buffy. “You’re well today.”
“And you’re not” answered the girl, raising the shoulders. “When you arrived, I believed in you, I certainly do. And now, you chose in a so bad way… yeah, but we all know that you’re not really normal, isn’t it?
“Not, really” laughed Xander. “She’s clever, actually!”
Cordelia didn’t bat an eyelid. The high school quarterback was coming, and she had much better to do than spend her time with that loser with deep eyes and her freaky girlfriend who believed to have the mission of being a vampire slayer.
“She’s always so annoying” stated Willow next to them. Her boyfriend was taking her hand. “Maybe she misses …”
“Love?” advised Oz, laconically.
“Sex” commented Xander.
“A Prada handbag” said Buffy. “The same daddy promised me if I get more than C in Spanish and Maths. So, let’s run, ‘cause the lesson’s starting! Oz, Willow…see you later in the library!”
The two guys smiled, walking along the school corridors holding each other by the hand.
Xander came next to Buffy with a melodramatic expression on his face.
“My dear…the events divide us. Where we’ll go there won’t be love and sweetness but only war and sorrow...give me the last kiss, my love, and then, adieu!” Buffy laughed and kissed him.
And then she walked through the math’s’ classroom with a light heart. In her pastel colored dream she could feel at least serene, even if not satisfied.


In the library, Mr. Giles was showing Miss Calendar an ancient text dated back to 400 year before, called The Manuscript of du Lac.
Bored, Buffy was rapidly looking at Cosmopolitan; the Backstreet Boys music in the walkman was filling her ears.
“Could it interest anybody? It is dangerous to keep it in here?” was asking the charming Jenny, and, doing this, she was approaching more and more to the watcher’s shoulder. He was obviously nervous and everyone could notice that from his constant movement of putting his glasses on and off his face. Buffy smiled in a know-it-all way and yawned.
“It is very dangerous. It contains some precious pages which show the ritual to cure weak or sick vampires. The order is that nobody from the beyond knows that we have it. Buffy…have you heard me? Buffy, won’t you shut that bloody walkman down?”
She obeyed quite surly.
“I’ve understood everything. I have to protect the Manuscript of Du Latt. And I have to avoid that everyone knows that it’s here.”
“Du Lac, not Du Latt”. Tonight you’ll go on patrol checking all the cemeteries and the schools surroundings. I’ve known that someone is looking for that book, someone who has no problems concerning money.”
Buffy yawned again and picked up her stakes. She went out from the library while her friends were passing by and she said hello to them.
Xander wasn’t with them, but she knew it; they had to meet later at the Restfield cemetery. He was waiting for her at the cemetery’s entrance, and as soon as he saw her, he fell immediately head over her feet.
“Oh, wonderful creature in black miniskirt…just give me your glance, and I’ll die happily!”
Buffy laughed and picked him up. “Stop fooling around and let’s go. I wanna come back home early and study.”
“Study…on and on…why don’t we watch one of the romantic comedies with Julia Roberts you like so much and after we make love on the sofa?
“No.” said her giving him a spare stake.
“Is it a kind of phallic symbol?” asked him.
“No, it’s just for your safety, you fool.” Buffy gave him a little kiss and pushed him straight on. Xander stopped suddenly when a neo-vampire came out from a just-dug tomb.
Quite regardless to Xander, Buffy pushed him away and dusted the vampire after a short series of blows. When the dust touched the ground, he whistled. “You’re well tonight baby!”
But Buffy wasn’t listening to him anymore.
She was in the night, and she knew it very well. The night was like a lover, she felt as if someone was waiting for her with open arms, as if something was penetrating in her veins and melted down as dark honey.
The night was the reason why, the first time she followed Merrik, her first watcher, everything went to its place, with a click. Everything that, during her adolescence, used to keep her awakened at night with an absurd and intense desire of going into the dark and slay.
She called Xander, smelling the air mechanically. “Go to my mom’s house. We’ve done here.”
“Why don’t you come with me then?”
“I wanna stay alone for a moment. Please.”
He knew her quite well to know he had to respect her will, especially at night. The joyful blonde haired girl with green eyes, which could give happiness and joy to everyone who knew her during the day, became a new, different and private person. And Xander loved her also for that reason.
“So I’ll wait for you at home”, told him, quite unsure, “Do you come immediately?”
“Yeah”, answered her without smiling.
Xander could only swallow his disappointment and walk trough Revello Drive.
Buffy had lied.
She didn’t wanna stay “alone for a moment”.
On the contrary, she felt that the current situation was becoming the most dangerous she ever faced.
She didn’t want that Xander got involved in it, but it wasn’t concerning only his safety, it wasn’t just that.
The reason was deeper and much more obscure.
As an ancient priestess she raised her head to the moon and closed her eyes.
When she re-opened them, he was there.

“I’m really depressed”, said Xander to his best friend.
“Did Buffy stand you up again?” asked Willow, while she was checking her history notes.
“Something like that. We were patrolling and she sent me back home. She says she wanna stay alone for a bit.
“Does she have her period?” suggested Willow.
“Uh? How should I know?”
Willow smiled secretly. That phone call was becoming interesting. Xander wasn’t such in intimate terms with Buffy to don’t know her period frequency. Oh well…
“You should respect her decisions”.
“That’s what I’ve done. But I feel miserable. And alone.”
“Do you wanna come here to make homework together?”
“No, I promised Buffy that I’ve waited for her to her mother’s house. Willow, sometimes she’s so reserved. When she acts like that I don’t know what she’s thinking about.”
“She is a slayer,” stated Willow “It’s normal that she has some shadows in her life.”
“I wanna belong to them too.”
“Maybe you can’t.” stated Willow wisely.
“Yeah, you’re right. Goodnight Will.”
“Night, Xander.” whispered her sweetly.
Feeling like a perfect looser, Xander left the phone box and started to walk.


Buffy let the predator surrounded her with slow and calculated steps to sound her out; all his senses were centered on her.
He was a vampire of medium height; he had the hunting face on, he was dressed in black and his hairs were absurdly platinum blonde, like Billy Idol, the rocker of the 80s.
She had never seen him before, but her instinct suggested her that he was not a rookie. He should have passed a lot of decades, maybe more. Despite of the extreme modernity of his look, of his long black leather coat, an ancient courtesy came naturally to him; she could feel that inside.
She knew for sure that he would have killed her kindly.
“The slayer, I suppose”.
“As your fellows use to call me,” replied her, completely on the alert.
“I have to make a proposal”.
Buffy smiled, showing her teeth.
“What? Kill me softly?”
“Don’t be disrespectful little girl,” smiled he. “I will kill you. But after, when everything will be done. But now I need you, and I’m ready to come to terms with the slayer.”
“I’m already bored, but talk.”
“Let’s sit near the lake.”
She looked at him surprised: if that was just a complicated plan to overtake and kill her, it won’t work. Her attention was on the alert, and he wouldn’t have found easy to underrate her. Despite herself, she followed him till the small lake, asking to herself why she wasn’t grabbing the chance of stake him on the back. Well, bloody hell, she wasn’t coward and she never stab on the back.
They sat on a bench. That place had his peculiar, macabre charm: the small artificial lake was surrounded by graves, whose tombstones were shining in the dark. Anyone who had seen them would have mistaken them for two lovers: he read in her mind and abandoned his demoniac masque.
When she saw him, Buffy almost jumped.
He had an unforgettable face, perhaps it wasn’t perfect, but it was full of obscure charm that she couldn’t deny. His lips were maybe a bit too full for a man, his cheekbones were prominent, and he had a broad forehead; his eyes seemed really dark in the darkness, but she guessed they were pale and he had a scar that cut in two halves his left eyebrow. He was a young man, his face wasn’t showing the signs of time.
A monster.
Who was looking at her hinting at a smile.
“So, Little Red Riding Hood has no fear of the wolf.”
“Talk and let’s have this thing over with.”
“I want to propose you a trade,” smiled him, getting briefly to the point. “I know your watcher has got the Manuscript of du Lac. I want to borrow it”
Buffy looked at him surprised. Then she got over the shock.
“Which…manuscript?”
He raised his eyes to Heaven. “C’mon, I’ not born yesterday. And I’m not dead yesterday neither. I know you have it…and you also know that. You want protect it, but I don’t want it for a wicked use. Unless you consider a wicked act cure an ill vampire, I owe her everything that I am…
“I can kill you both, and finally have it over with.”
“But I guess you’ll miss something much more important, which is the possibility of stake the Scourge of Europe on his back. He’s the most powerful and wicked vampire who had ever walked on the five continents.”
Buffy looked at him.
“Which are you?”
“I’ve already said that…ah, never mind. You’re a bit thick, slayer. I’m offering you Angelus’ head on a
silver plate.
“Angelus?” repeated she, feeling a bit silly. Despite of Mr. Giles persistence, she never finished The History of the Worst Vampires for the Humanity.
The vampire made a sign with his hand. “Go, look for your watcher, and check it out. You’ll find facts, dates, and names. And finally you’ll wish to kill that bastard as much as me…”
“So for you it’s like “I win-or I win”, isn’t it?” asked her. “If I give you the Manuscript, you cure your friend and I kill your enemy.”
“I’ve never told I’m a stupid. But neither your watcher is a stupid. He knows that this is the only one opportunity he has to get Angelus. And I will give the book back. I swear.”
Buffy laughed. “And do you think I bite it?”
“I always keep my promises”, replied him, offended.
He stood up and Buffy looked at him. “We see here tomorrow night, at 10.00 o’clock. If you answer no…”
“We’ll fight to the death”, finished her. “Ok, I think it’s a good plan. But how can I be sure that you won’t beat it?”
“This”, he said and, quick as a flash, he take her shoulders crouching to her. Instinctively, Buffy raised the hand that was still clutching the stake, preparing herself to the pain of his bite. But he took her lips.
And she, feeling stunned, put the stake on his chest, fixing its point at a few centimeters near his heart.
Buffy felt that kiss was everlasting.
He was fresh on the touch, not cold, and his mouth smelled of whisky, tobacco and dressed leather and of something else. Thinking that probably it was blood, didn’t cause to her senses the disgusting feeling she expected. When their tongues meet, the shock caused by that delightfully sweet and salty contact brought her back. She pushed with more decision the stake against the red shirt he wore and she gazed at him.
“You can kill me”, whispered him, his mouth a few millimeters to hers. “I gave you both the occasion and…the reason. I did it intentionally: I wanted you knew you can trust me. I won’t run off and I won’t play dirty with you. Tomorrow I’ll be here at ten o’clock pm and if you don’t bring the book we’ll have a duel to the death.”
“Should I trust you cause you kissed me?” asked her with eyes wide opened.
“For that reason and cause you’re too lovely to extinguish you.” The vampire moved away from her, still smiling. He licked his lips, enjoying her taste. Buffy shook looking at that intentionally lewd gesture.
“So, see ya tomorrow. Oh, my name’s Spike…but perhaps you’ll find about my exploits if you’ll look for William The Bloody. Good research, luv!”
Buffy started. Did he call her luv? Did he kiss her? Did she kiss him?
The vampire went away in the night and Buffy began to shake.
With too many emotions to understand in her body, she slowly walked home, through the clean, warm and sunny comfort that only Xander could give her.



“Ah, you’re back”, stated Xander, the mouth full of nuts, zapping on the cable telly. Joyce was in the kitchen and she distractively greeted her daughter.
“Yeah”, said Buffy simply, taking off her jeans coat and sitting next to Xander. He reached out his hand drawing up her head for a kiss, but her looked on the other side. Xander thought Willow was right: Buffy probably had her period.
“Okay”, admitted him. “I can see it’s time to go to bed. I’m a bit sad for the cable TV: at home it’s so bad!”
She smiled for his joke and caressed his smooth dark hair. “Sorry Xan. I don’t know what’s up. Tomorrow I’ll be well, you’ll see.”
“Sure”, he smiled. He kissed her forehead and went away, greeting her mom.
Buffy was alone. Still confused, with the taste of the other one still on her lips, she was glad to be free from her boyfriend’s tender company, just to stay alone for a bit.
Alone with herself and with the dusty volume about the history of worst vampires of humanity.


At nine o’clock in the morning Buffy arrived in the library quick as a flash and slammed the volume on Mr. Giles’ table.
“Good morning Buffy!” said the watcher composed, sipping his tea.
“Why haven’t you ever spoke to me ‘bout that?” she attacked him. “Angelus. William the Bloody. They are the progeny of the Aurelius Order, they were created with the Master’s blood and they are the two most dangerous and cruel vampires the humanity had ever known!”
“I’m glad that you read the books I suggested to you, but I don’t understand why you’re in a such hurry. Since decades we haven’t news about Angelus, maybe he’s even died, and concerning William the Bloody…”
“He’s here! Spike he’s here in Sunnydale!”
“Spike? How do you know that…”
“He came to me. Last night. He offered me Angelus’ head if I give him that damn manuscript. And if we don’t lend it to him, tonight we’ll fight to the death.”
Giles became deadly serious.
“You won’t go Buffy. In the past Spike killed two slayers and I won’t permit you become the third one. And, besides that, we have no guaranties at all that he can really give us Angelus…if he’s still alive of course. Vampires are amoral creatures: they lie, they mislead, the swindle…”
That sentence echoed in Buffy’s mind. A trick. That filthy kiss was studied as a smart trick to weaken her defenses, to convince her about the goodness of his words. Her rage became stronger.
“Do you really believe he could beat me?”
“You are a middle-experienced slayer”, said Giles. “Yes, you defeated the Master…but you paid such a high price for it! If Xander wasn’t there, probably you wouldn’t be here now, and I cannot bear it. On the contrary, Spike in his one hundred and thirty years of age has committed a lot of crimes and misdeeds and he has two expert slayers on his conscience. Yes, I’m really worried for you Buffy, and I suggest you to don’t accept the challenge.”
“So let’s give him the book.” Stated her. “Is that your solution?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I can’t run away”, laughed Buffy bitterly. “Do you remember? I’m the chosen one. My duty is fight against the forces of evil…or die trying to do it.”
“Buffy I…”
“And also if we give him the book we’ll probably get Angelus’ head, a bastard much more dreadful than William the Bloody. He’s also more ancient. Then, I probably have to loosen the grip on Spike again, and I could kill him after. I won’t solve the problem running away now.”
“That’s true. But are we sure that Spike will keep his promise?”
“I think so”, said Buffy, firstly overtaking herself with her statement. “Call it slayer instinct.”
Giles remained silent for a bit. He wondered his Buffy had never to meet monsters such as Angelus or William the Bloody, but that was the essence of her mission. And he couldn’t do anything to avoid it, just like he couldn’t avoid her fight with the Master.
“At ten o’clock we have to meet at Renstfield cemetery. I’ll go to the Bronze with my friends and then I’ll come here to take the book. And I’ll bring it to him. And I hope God will look after me.”
“Are you sure? Nobody obliges you to…”
“Everything obliges me to face him. And that will happen”, stated Buffy, smiling sadly. “But first I’ll slay and kill Angelus, The Scourge of Europe.”
Buffy went away and the heels of her boots marked the rhythm of her escape. Giles remained alone with his thoughts. Since the most ancient time, the slayer remained alone with her mission.
And he couldn’t do anything to stop it, just trust his instinct and hope for the well.





That night Buffy was so beautiful.
Xander literally devoured her with his eyes, and he wasn’t the only one. His girl was wearing a black minidress that picked out her slim figure, her honey-colored skin and her sun-kissed hair; she was on the dance floor, sensually dancing to the rhythm of a particular music unknown to everybody except her, as she was preparing herself for an ancient ritual sacrifice.
Willow was sipping a cappuccino, following the music rhythm of his boyfriend’s band with her head.
“The Dingoes are wading in tonight.”
“Also Buffy, isn’t it? Don’t you go with her?”
“Nah” stated Xander. “Not now. I enjoy myself more watching her. I’m so clumsy that I will probably spoil everything.”
“Look at her and wonder Xander,” pointed out Cordelia, who was moving around there. “Ask yourself what have you ever done to deserve a girl like her…nothing I suppose, except giving her plenty of rope about her psychotic belief of being the Slayer…”
“Maybe if you just cry a little louder everyone can hear you” stated Xander growling.
“Look there”, answered Cordelia. “That’s a well-matched couple, finally. Weird and a bit macabre, but really effective.”
Everybody looked at them. They were both young, of the same height and the girl, beautiful and delicate in her long white dress was holding on the arm of his boy, completely dressed in black.
“Uh oh” said Willow. “I’m not a slayer but all my senses are tinkling. I think we should call Buffy.”
Cordelia raised her eyes to Heaven and went away. Xander walked firmly to Buffy, but she didn’t hear him and she continued to dance.
From the edge of the dance floor someone looked at them. The white dressed women with long brown hair and violet eyes heartsick realized that her partner’s eyes were fixated on the small black-dressed creature who was dancing careless of everything and everybody.
“William”, whispered her softly, “She will lead you to death.”
But Spike wasn’t listening to her. He ignored the clumsy dark-haired guy who danced around her and he focused on her. He still didn’t know if in a half an hour they would have fought to the death or if they would have become alleys. To be honest, he didn’t really care about that.
But he knew that he could still perceive the taste of her kisses and he was also sure–just as he knew for sure that the day always followed dawn- that he would have kissed her again.

“North-west: a suspicious couple!” Xander cried finally. Buffy woke up and looked right and left, but Spike and Dru had already left.
“Xander, what time is it?”
“It’s half past nine, why?”
“Oh gosh…” Buffy kissed him rapidly and ran away. “Tomorrow I’ll tell you everything!”
Xander remained alone. Cordelia came next to him from behind. “The world is ending? A zombie invasion is coming? Or, more simply, did she find another guy? I don’t know why, but I’m not so surprised…”
“Shut up Cordy” replied Xander with a gloomy face. It was really ridiculous. That was the first time that Buffy had left him alone for two nights.
But he had no choice and so he came next to Willow.
Buffy ran as fast as she could to the library. Giles was waiting for her with a glass of whisky in one hand and the Manuscript of du Lac in the other one.
“As far as you care for it, I’m still resistant.”
“We have no choice”, she wheezed and she took the book. And then she ran to the Sunnydale main cemetery.


She slackened her pace suddenly, too much aware of the big trouble she was facing.
Suddenly she felt that she wasn’t in her territory anymore: Spike and his companion Angelus weren’t the habitual weak vampires she normally fought in Sunnydale. Yes, she won against the Master, but if Xander hadn’t been there…
Her emotions ran fast into her veins, just like she got flames in the blood. Suddenly too many things had come into play: her slayer reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend…
Wait a minute. Buffy stopped, short-winded. What had Xander to do with all of that? “You left him alone for two consecutive nights” answered she to herself. And she didn’t feel guilty but…free.
What the hell, she corrected herself trying to work out with her too short dress. Xander and his feelings for me are not locking me up at all. I freely chose to be with him and I have to live my relationship day by day with commitment, devotion, tenderness…
“You’re here slayer” welcomed the blonde vampire throwing away the fug-end he was smoking and, smiling ironically, he added: “You are a bit up in the clouds…have you changed the nappy to your snotty?”
“The snap…what the hell you’re talkin’ about?” said her. “How do you…”
“I was at the Bronze. I almost felt sick looking at you”, confessed Spike. “But tonight I can forgive you everything: you have brought the Manuscript.”
Nervously, she tightened the volume with much more strength.
“And what about our deal?”
“Alive and well. Give me the book and I assure you that in five days Angelus will be here in Sunnydale. And you’ll now exactly where and when.”
“Five days?”
“When I’ll tell Angelus that Drusilla’s health depends on his involvement in the ritual showed in the Manuscript he will come straightaway in Sunnyhell. Believe me he’s a truly bastard, but he puts our family before everything…”
She laughed. “Who are you? The Corleones’? And who is Drusilla?”
Spike became serious. “She is the reason of my existence.”
“Is she a vampire?”
“Yes.”
“Your girlfriend?”
Spike smiled again. “Are you jealous?”
She chocked. “Me…jealous of…a vampire? Are you crazy…or what?”
He was amazed. From the clumsy way she formulated the sentence, it seemed that she didn’t deny of being jealous of him, but only that it wouldn’t be possible for her to fear a female vampire. He shook his head. That night his thoughts were less reasonable than those of a fool.
“Give me the book”, he insisted, tightening his lips.
“Call Angelus”, replied her, even if inside she didn’t show signs of impatience for her fight with the Scourge of Europe.
He took a mobile phone out of his leather-coat pocket.
“I’m born in 1852, but I like to be up-to-date.”
Buffy waited patiently that he dialed the number. And then she listened quite amused to the conversation.
“Angelus? Yeah, it’s me. As usual. The Master? I’ll tell you after. Listen, Dru is getting worse. Yeah, it’s Prague’s fault. I know you told me that, but it has already happened. I’ve found a cure. What? No, not Lurky, I don’t trust him. And, besides that, Dru can’t bear such a long trip. Let me speak. There’s a Manuscript…of du Lac. Yes you’ve got it, right. It contains a ritual…”
Buffy went few paces away from him. She had kept her promise, but Angelus’ arrival appeared as…
“Angelus will be here in three days” Spike informed her ending his call. “I’ve told you that.”
“Right” smiled her. She gave him the book holding it with both her hands.
He covered them with his.


“What the hell…what does it mean?” she burst on, drawing them back.
“It’s simply an admired gesture. I wanted touch you.” He drew the book back, this time without touching her, and he smiled. “I’m a nasty vampire, don’t you remember? I find so easy to break the rules.”
“To break the…what do you mean?” asked she with wide-opened and amazed eyes.
“Well, for a vampire with such a reputation as mine, being seen with the slayer is a great misdemeanor to the rules that wanted us as mortal enemies.”
“But nobody can see us” she tried to be ironical, but actually she was still shaking for his touch. “There isn’t a soul round here, literally…”
“Well done, good joke” he laughed. “Also the one about the Corleones’ wasn’t bad”
“Well, now that you’ve found out that I’ve got sense of humor I think we can go.”
“How can I contact you?” he asked. “To tell you where you can find Angelus, of course.”
She squinted at him. Why was he provoking her with such a brazen face?
“So? Are you spellbound?”
“The mobile phone…I guess I’ll give you my number.”
“Yeah, it’s a good idea. So?”
She gave it to him quite nervously. It should be a simple business compromise, between two expert killers, but she couldn’t ignore the impression that it was a part of their particular and dangerous courtship.
Wait a minute! Encore! And where had she taken the word courtship? How was it possible that…
She was still thinking about that when he took her by the hand, the book kept strongly under his arm. Buffy gazed at the vampire, shocked to the bone by that apparently innocent gesture.
It was forbidden to flirt with the vampires. No matter haw much they were…attractive.
“Where are we going?” she whispered softly.
“Inside that chapel. Some people are coming.”
She turned round. A group of middle-school kids was coming. It should be a sort of courage contest between adolescents.
“Come on!” he insisted.
Buffy surrendered. The kids were coming.
Spike pushed her inside a chapel enlighten by a soft candle light. There were also some wood tables.
She gazed at him surprised.
“The crosses?”
He laughed. “They aren’t crosses. That’s a non-sectarian chapel. Very politically correct.”
She looked around. He was wrong. Closed to the apsis, in which some tabernacles were missed, there was a big Crucified. In case of need she only had to run behind it…
“Do you still fear me?” asked him. “I’m amazed. You, a slayer…”
“I don’t fear you.” Answered she, and she was honest.
“And so, why are you shaking?”
C’m on, laughed Buffy inside her mind, don’t you want that a vampire seduces you in a church. It can’t happen. It shouldn’t happen. I, he and seduction are words that don’t match at all.
“I’m cold” lied she.
“If you want my coat…you know I took it from a woman like you. A slayer, I mean.”
She looked at him with abrupt repulsion. He was a slayer murderer. She shouldn’t forget that.
“Maybe it wasn’t the most diplomatic thing to say to you” he admitted. “But I never lie. I’m a vampire. I have no idea of what goodness and rightness are: I fight, I kill, I eat, and I have fun. And my sport is kill the slayers. And I’ve never said that maybe one day I would kill you .” Spike went closed to her and look at her. She could notice, in the halflight enlighten by the candles, that his eyes were blue. “ But I ‘ll never betray you honey, never. When we’ll fight, it will be a loyal clash, on equal terms. You don’t have anything else to fear from me.”
Buffy flinched. She realized that he was looking at her full mouth and she fought against the instinct of closing the eyes, resigning herself to the inevitable…
“You should be as honest as me, luv”
“I’ve told you…”
“Admit it. You’re a slayer, but you don’t know at all what the meaning of that. Yeah, you train yourself, you have a watcher, you kill the vampires…and occasionally you face some threat bigger than you and you win. But what do you really know about the mission of the slayers, about their origins, about their real power?” Spike stopped talking and then he caressed her cheek. She couldn’t hold back his touch as she wanted to, too fascinated by his words which raised doubts, questions that for such a long time were tormenting her in the dark of the night. “You are only a little girl. I bet that you still aren’t seventeen. You stay with that milk-teeth pet and you play the sweethearts without knowing anything ‘bout life, love, sex and about what you really are…”
“And who am I?” she asked him, with a hard glance.
He smiled. “A young passionate woman”
Buffy stood up, enraged.
“What bis that? A quite extravagant and complicated way to make love with me?”
“Yeah, something like that” he admitted “Did it work?”
Yes. Oh my God, yes.
“Why?” she asked. “Don’t you have your lover, who is all your life?”
“Yes” he admitted. “But it’s such a long time that she’s ill”
“I can’t believe that for you it’s so difficult to find a lover…”
“You…do you mean the vampires? And why should we be so different from you humans concerning that?”
Buffy blushed.
“You haven’t already answered to my question. Did it work?”
“No” she replied and she begun to walk away.
“Buffy!” he called her and she stopped, amazed, as she heard he calling her by the name .
“You will really learn something from me. I mean, about your real strength, your power and your darkness.
Something you still don’t know, but that you wanna know. I can feel it.”
She gazed at him.
“I would teach you to dance” added the vampire with a smile.
“Is that a metaphor for…something else?” She asked with a sudden small voice.
“Yeah, but it’s not just that.”
She looked at him with her crystal look.
“Go on then…teach me to dance”.





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