PRINCES TO THE NOIR

By Dreamhunter and Rogiari
Sequel to “The tale to the noir”


“The children of the night, what sweet music they make”

Once upon a time two beautiful princes, as dark as a moonless night, reigned over a country made of darkness and blood. But one day love’s lightning hit them, and corrupted them, enlightening them with the bloody gift of a soul. Since then they have been travelling, searching for the light at the end of the tunnel of redemption….

Authors: Dreamhunter (Franca Bersanetti) and Rogiari (Roberta).
Translators from Italian: Rogiari and Laura Laghi.
Beta: Our dearest Pat
Rating: An extreme NC – 17. You read this story, you’re responsible for that! It’s dark, it has a lot of sex (including unconventional), bad language, slash acts, violence and some moderate Buffy- bashing). If this is not your kind of pie, don’t read it. This is not a classical Spuffy story, either, nor a Spangel one. You’ll see what we meanJ
Warning: the first half of this story develops on two parallel storylines every other chapter: be careful to follow both, since this is crucial for the understanding of the second part of the fic.
Shippers: lots of them!J
The way we were: After the events described in “The tale to the noir” Angel and Spike need to find a new reason to un-live. Two years have passed since “Destiny” (Chapter 20 of The tale to the noir): the two princes to the noir are now slouching on a difficult path to redemption, not without falls….New and old allies and enemies again overturn their existence….
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Joss Whedon, to Mutant Enemy, to Fox, to whoever own them. We just like to play with themJ
Timeline: The beginning of BTVS fourth season/ATS first season, but this is intended to be loose. This is a total AU, where Angelus got his soul in 1998 and did not arrive in Sunnydale to help Buffy, but to seduce and defeat her….Many characters from later seasons of both BTVS and ATS appear in this fanfic, for artistic reasons. This is the sequel to “The tale to the noir”, that can be found here www.rogiari.altervista.org and here www.dreamhunter.altervista.org, with beautiful fan art, and on many other sites.
Note: this fanfic is the second instalment of a quadrilogy, already written and in the course of translation.
Feed back: always, please, to rogiari@fastwebnet.it and frankab@tin.it
Special warning: very bad things happen in chapters 9 and 13, be careful to avoid them just in case!



1. Happy anniversary.


Two years. Surrounded by the silence of the LA Library, Spike turned the pen in his long fingers, scribbling on the half–filled paper.
Two years had passed since the soul. And since Angelus’ soul. Two years since the events in Sunnydale. Two years without Buffy Summers.
He had to be honest with himself: he still thought of her. The young slayer, on duty on the Hellmouth. After all, her naïve and stubborn love for his grandsire had led to their souls…and to their new lives.
New lives?
A very simplistic definition. For more than a year, Angelus and he had wandered across the States, keeping in touch by cell. Whistler, the weird, annoying demon who had talked about “the Powers That Be” had appeared to them both a couple of times, insisting on his theory that both had been chosen to fight for the forces of good…

Chosen, yeah. Spike knew only this: a sort of instinct drove him towards innocents needing to be rescued, and more or less the same happened to Angelus. He had to admit it: there was some beauty in it, to preserve lives instead of extinguishing them was unbelievably extraordinary, something intimate, personal, something which warmed him more than the hunt had.
He didn’t often discuss this with Angelus, but it wasn’t difficult to understand that he felt the same. It was impossible to deny, the vampire who had been named Europe’s Scourge had changed a lot, even on the physical plane. His impossible dark eyes, which had been an abyss of perdition and sinful terror, were now so deep and sweet it hurt.
For ten months, Angelus had been established in Los Angeles. Spike met him there, now and then. Not too often. Los Angeles was too close to Sunnydale. A vibrating temptation…
Sure. That was oh–so-typical of Angelus. Holding his most blinding passion at arm’s reach and resisting it stoically. The soul hadn’t changed that. He still loved the pleasure of torture, he just used it on himself.
But I’m not like that, Spike told himself: I’m different. If the flame is near, I allow myself to burn…
Bedazzled, he crumpled the half written piece of paper and stood up, looking for his lighter and cigarettes in the duster’s pockets.
Exiting the readers’ room, he collided with someone and apologized absentmindedly.
Two years.
He absolutely needed to meet Angelus.


This was typical of the former Europe’s Scourge, too: big spaces.
He had bought an old, abandoned hotel and had it restored, and now he lived there all alone, surrounded by a hundred and more empty rooms. Stunning.
Spike crossed the Hyperion’s large hall, shadowed and gloomy, and climbed the stairs to the first floor, stopping in front of door no. 217.
Angelus invited him in even before he knocked.
The dark vampire was comfortably seated in an armchair, his long legs crossed, a block of paper on his lap, brooding.
“God knows why, but I was sure I’d find you like this,” Spike berated him “The same, identical position you were in last time I went out of that door…fuck, Angelus, are you glued to that leather?”
”Don’t call me that”
“What? Oh…yeah” Spike rolled his eyes. “My bad…Angel. I can understand your desire to change your name, but why you chose that name, which reminds you continuously that you killed your sister, well, it’s beyond me.”
“My sister, indeed,” Angel replied, closing the block and putting it in a drawer. “The reason.”
“I don’t know any more how to tell you that. You were just following your nature. You didn’t have a choice”
“But now I do” Angel crossed his arms, a grim look about him. “I want to be certain not to forget it”
“…And they say I’m the stubborn one” Spike complained. He kept walking, the duster billowing around his ankles. “Let me understand, your way of not forgetting consists of sitting there like an old country squire in a tweed suit? By the way, what happened to the black leather trousers? I hate to admit it, but they became you…”
“Women…look at me…when I wear those…” Angel stared awkwardly at his nails. “And I don’t sit here. I go out every single night, saving people, and…”
Spike stopped, feigning surprise. “God, yes! I can see you…sliding catlike along the alleys like a Vietkong in the jungle…the dark avenger without a face…who is that guy?”
The blonde vampire chirruped. “Bollocks” He leaned over to the other, with a smirk. “Please, don’t be a pansy, now! Women would look at you even if you were wearing flowered bermudas…”He stopped, batting his eyelashes. “ Anyway, don’t wear them”
Angel ran his hands through his hair, with a tired gesture. “Spike…make it short, please. I don’t know how it works for you, but for me it is difficult, ok? I struggle to maintain control…especially with women.” He touched his chest. “The darkness…here…doesn’t leave. And it’s as strong as the soul. I’m afraid, right? I’m afraid to lose control…”
Spike’s frown eased. “Don’t think it’s any easier for me. But I can relate to your problem. You’re older than me…and, fuck, eviler. But I’m sure about this: staying away from humans won’t help. I think it could even make it worse…” He crouched in front of him. “Two years have passed, Angel. It’s time to go forward. To take a chance. You’re strong…God forbid, you have always been the toughest one…the one nobody could subdue…don’t disappoint me, please!”
A smile shadowed Angel’s mouth. Gaining confidence, Spike insisted. “Two years. It’s an anniversary we deserve to celebrate, if only because we survived, right?” He stood up. “Get out of that comfy chair and come out with me for a drink. And I’m not talking about blood”
“Mmm….if I accept, what do I get?” Angel taunted him, now bemused.
“Six months” Spike replied. “I stay out of your hair for six months”
“It’s not enough. Let’s make it a year”
“What?! A bloody year? Not even in your wildest dreams. If I come back in a year, I’ll find you mummified. My best offer is seven and a half months” Spike replied, with a resolute expression.
“As you like” Angel sighed, stretching. “Let’s go. I only hope I don’t regret it…”


2. First impressions.

Angel looked about, uncertain. “This is a singles bar …”
Spike nodded. “You got it. That’s what we are, aren’t we?” He adjusted the duster on his shoulders and switched on the sex appeal, with his patented smirk. “Let’s go, honey…you have got it all. Broad shoulders, big dark eyes…if you can conjure up a smile, it’s done”
“I don’t need a woman…” Angel protested.
“What’s your problem, mate? I can see a lot of hunky guys, too. That one there…Ouch!”
Spike stopped, massaging his shoulder. Fuck, Angel still got in those lethal shots…”Damn, can’t I tease you a bit?”
“I’m already regretting this…” Angel complained. “Have you heard a single word I told you?”
“I got them all. One by one. And I didn’t miss the way you hid that block. It was her portrait, wasn’t it?” Spike stared at him.
Angel’s deep eyes couldn’t escape him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
“Oh, please, you understood me perfectly! You were drawing Buffy…two years down the line, and you still think of her…”
“And you…don’t?” Angel replied.
Spike hardened his jaw. ”That’s why we need a woman”
Hastily, Spike fished out a cigarette. “I’m tired of discussing this with your brooding face. With your permission I’m going to circulate. Alone”
Angel watched him go, blonde and sure, with his usual self confident stride, and leaned downheartedly on the bar counter.
He didn’t expect Spike to get his point of view: emotions had always stemmed from the human side of his grandchilde, which – somehow – he had kept, but he was different. His passions were born from his darkest, most uncontrollable impulses. From his malaise. Letting go could mean losing himself. And becoming, again, the monster he wanted to rein in. A monster who was still alive and kicking, a monster who clawed its way through the walls of his soul, looking for a way to resurface.
He swore, massaging his brow.
“Are you okay?”
A feminine voice, uncertain, to his left.
Angel jumped. “What?”
“Uh…sorry. Nothing” The woman war fair haired, elegantly dressed in a light dress with spaghetti straps. She slowly rotated the straw in her glass, and on the whole she was so luminous it hurt his eyes.
“Do – does it seem to you…I don’t look well?” Angel asked. He was irritated by his own stutter. What an idiot he was!
“Yeah” she admitted, and then she reddened. “I mean…no…you look fine…you look…great…I mean…” She kept silent, widening her big, clear blue eyes, and for a while the straw swirled furiously in her drink.
God, is she beautiful, Angel thought And she’s blushing.. “Thanks” he said.
“For what? For having told you you look well…or bad?”
“You choose. I’m Angel”
She relaxed. “I’m Kate. Then…do you come here often?”
“No…this place is…”Angel smiled, guessing what would be the correct answer. Hell, he had been an unstoppable speaker, and he knew all about motivational tools…in the past…he was famous for hypnotizing his victims with his savoir faire…
But this isn’t a potential victim, you idiot, this is just a young woman who thinks you’re cute. She is delicious. And very sweet indeed…
Get out of here, jerk. Get out of here now!
His unexpected, fleeting smile had hit the target, and now Kate’s heart was speeding up every minute more so. She liked him and, God, this was a sort of miracle. Since when had a man caught her attention like that, from the first look? Kate didn’t remember such an event. Ok. She had to stay in control and if possible avoid stuttering. She took a deep breath, and she sank in those deep, warm, dark eyes, feeling caressed, embraced by them.
She started talking. About herself, her issues about trusting people. About trusting men. About the hiding people do, with the help of some carefully crafted mask. She talked and talked, forgetting about the drink she had ordered out of habit, exposing herself, and that was a first, since she usually only opened up in front of her mirror. The stranger with the black leather jacket, the man with a most beautiful name and enchanting eyes, listened to her. He really listened.
He heard what she said, feeling ashamed. That woman, with that doll’s face and white nervous hands, was telling him she was looking for someone to trust, someone who was what he seemed. And she was saying it to him, a vampire feigning to be a man, looking alive and being dead since two centuries…He would have tried to stop her, to suggest to her that she give those precious confidences to a deserving man, but he had walked this earth a long time and he knew he was already too late.
“I look for…a connection” she ended, examining him. “And you?”
“Me?” Angel shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll know what I want when I find it”
Kate’s breath broke. Oh, that sentence…”Would you like to…” She leaned absentmindedly over to him, her cheeks blushing as far as her neck.
“To…”
“To end this night somewhere quieter? Do you like the idea?” She asked hastily, eating some syllables. Angel looked at her. She was splendid. Gold, cream and clear water.
Hell, no.
On the opposite side of the room, above the crowd, Spike saw them leaving, hand in hand not to lose each other, his grandsire dark and gloomy, the fair haired girl sparkling with life and tremulous energy.
“You got the moves, Scourge” he thought, breathing out some smoke. But his mind wandered in another direction. That hair, so golden and soft, caressing the black leather of Angel’s jacket, looked so much like another woman’s…


They had talked of nothing in particular, just touching lightly on different topics, such as books, travel, movies…innocent tales over several cups of coffee, in a small, discreet bar, exchanging glances, sometimes touching, casually, or maybe not…a long, slow dance around each other, the vague sensuality of which inebriated both.
When they were out in the warm night of Los Angeles, Angel noticed he had a hand on her back. And she wasn’t preventing him from doing that. She turned and almost leaned on his chest.
“Did I give you my number?”
“Yeah. I got it in my cell” he reassured her.
“You…you don’t have to call me” Now she was adorably reddening again.
“I’ll call you”
Angel smiled, while a cab stopped in front of them. “I think it’s yours…”
“Yeah” Kate whispered. God…yes…she was in danger of falling in love, this time, of falling seriously in love. Dangerously.
Get out of here, Kate, you’re not ready for such a man.
But she leaned over and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “See you soon”
Three words blown on his cool skin, words that stayed on his lips when she left. Bedazzled, Angel touched where she had kissed him. Two hundred and fifty years and that was the first time he had experienced such a simple evening: words, some glances, light smiles, some unexpected sweetness running between strangers…he had only known sex, perversion, violence, death. That could be magic.
Obviously, he had lied. He hadn’t memorized Kate’s number. He didn’t intend to call her. He didn’t want to see her again. She was pure. She didn’t deserve to be soiled.
But…hell…that light kiss…God, it burnt.
He kept on walking, his large hands deep in the leather jacket’s pockets, his head down.
The screams reached him, muted at first, and then sharp. And very near. The alley on the right. A woman shrieked. God, it was high time. A bit of violence and an innocent to rescue. That was exactly what he needed.
In the gloomy alley he found a grotesque horned and nondescript demon. He was smashing a girl on the dirty floor and looked bent on breaking her neck.
But Angel broke his, first. The monster went down without a moan, and the vampire leaned down over the young girl, panting and shocked.
She was…hell, she had a familiar face. With her sassy beauty, her long dark hair, her large dark eyes, her perfect nose….and she gaped at him amazed. Yes. It was…
“Cordelia?”
”Angelus?”
They talked at the same time. And then they laughed.
“Are you all right?” Angel asked, helping her to get up. Cordelia leaned on his arm, shaky on her long legs, shown generously by her miniskirt. She had laddered hose and a broken heel. “Yeah…I think…uh?” She jumped out of her skin, her mouth open from pain and fear. “I’m bleeding…”
Angel moved her under the streetlamp, making her sit on a bench. A deep gash crossed her palm and her blood…it smelled like spice, but it was easier than he had thought to resist it. Good.
Excellent.
“It’s just a superficial cut” he explained. “You’ll need some disinfectant and a plaster”
“It itches..” she protested with a grimace.
“The demon was bleeding, too. Maybe your blood mixed. You have to clean the cut carefully”
He looked at her. She was shaking. “May I call you a cab?”
She swung on her broken heel. “I don’t live far from here…you could take me. You did it in Sunnydale, do you remember?”
Did he remember?
God, she knew she did. A lot. She had often thought about it. She had thought of that most beautiful, damaged man who had saved her and taken her home. She had thought of that vampire with the soul who, according to Willow, had broken the heart of little Miss Slutty Summers. She had thought about those burning black eyes that pierced you like arrows…and here he was, two years and he hadn’t changed a bit, except for the clothes. He had taste…and he was even hotter, now.
“Sure…” He was saying.
“Uh?”
“I said I remember” Angel offered her his arm and together they crossed the sidewalk. “Are you living here, now?”
“Yes. I graduated, and then I moved to LA. You get it…I wanna be an actress”
“With good results, I guess”
She exhibited the patented star’s smile she practised every morning in front of her mirror.
“You can say so. It couldn’t be otherwise. I’m Queen C, after all”
“I’m glad” he commented.
She stole a glance towards him. “And you? Still …grr argh…?”
Angel smirked. “Well, yeah…they still haven’t found a cure for that”
“But you have still your soul, haven’t you’”
“I don’t think there’s a cure for that, either…”
“And that’s what you do now?” Cordelia asked, holding to his leather jacket. “Do you rescue…people?”
“I try”
“It worked…with me”
They laughed again and notwithstanding her ruined favourite pair of shoes and that damn cut oh–so-itchy, Cordelia was amazed to feel strangely at peace, leaning on his solid body. She didn’t feel alone anymore. She didn’t feel sad, or angry, like every other single day.
“I hated Sunnydale…”she murmured suddenly. “Its anonymous inhabitants, and those horrible events nobody talked about. Even graduation day ended in a blood bath because of the Mayor’s Ascension…I fled, Angelus. For my career, of course, but mostly to leave that madness…”She leaned heavily on him, dumbfounded. “But Los Angeles is even worse, a hunting place for demons…and people are just their daily food…”
Angel covered one of her hands with his. “Exactly. You have to avoid dark alleys and passageways during the night” He lightly caressed the hurt hand. “And call me Angel…please”
He smiled and Cordelia did the same, wrinkling her nose. Angel...yes…an angel. Without wings, maybe, but beautiful and sweet as one. A balsam of strength and certainty in her hollow existence. Regretfully, she threw a glance at the elegant building on the other side of the street.
“I’m home. You see …there’s a porter in the hall. There’s no danger”
“Ok…then” Angel stepped back, loosing himself from her. “Good luck with your career, Cordelia Chase”
Fighting inopportune tears, Cordelia nodded. “Good luck to you for your…rescues…Angel”
A nod, and then she saw his broad back vanishing in the dark. Cordelia sighed and ran her hands through her dishevelled hair, limping towards the glass entrance door. She hoped they would allow her to call for a cab. She couldn’t afford a cellphone, and the taxi itself would be an expensive extra.
She knocked on the glass and the janitor opened the door a bit, looking coldly down on her.
“Sorry, lady. Your type of girl uses the phone booth on the corner”
Cordy squinted, threateningly. “And your type of men should get sterilized so they don’t reproduce. Go hang yourself”
Angry and frustrated, she was back at square one. She didn’t have coins for the public phone: she had to walk the whole way home. Four damn blocks. She hoped it was too late for demons’ dinnertime.


“What time is this to come back?” Spike reproached, laid on the bed, his bed, with an open book on his naked chest.
Angel discarded his jacket on a chain. “I had a mother, once” he replied “I killed her”
“Ooookay….I get the message” Spike drummed with his fingers on the book’s cover. “But I saw you”
Angel ignored him, undressing slowly.
“With the blonde…” Spike insisted. “You took her away. With you. What a sly, sly man”
Angel flexed his shoulder muscles. The tattoo shone. “First, I didn’t take her away. Second, we just talked”
“Lovebirds…” Spike smirked. “No, seriously, this is a huge improvement. Once upon a time you fucked them and then tortured them and maimed them….Now you talk with them. You’re evolving”
Angel threw his trousers over his face.
“What’s her name?” Spike asked, discarding them.
“Kate”
“Mmm….Katherine…like your sister…is this an omen?” The blonde vampire frowned. “She is really cute. What about the next date?”
“There won’t be a next date” Angel replied, naked, picking up some towels and clean underwear. “Now, listen to me. While I’m in the shower, you make up my bed, empty my ashtray, vanish into one of the hundreds of other rooms in this hotel, and stay there until sunset. Did I make myself clear? Do you want a written note?”
Spike growled. “Grrr…bau bau….I like it when you use your lash! For Christmas I’ll send you a leather suit and…”
This time a bar of soap hit him on the brow.
Hard as a stone.


Spike had obeyed and moved, thank God, and he had vanished completely. He hadn’t seen him in the last three days. As usual. Months of silence and then a long long week drilling your mind with chatter like a woodworm.
Angel laughed, strolling through one of the most dangerous Los Angeles districts. It was very easy to bump into something inhuman, there.
He had to admit it. Spike could be a pest, but he was rarely wrong. Especially about him. And he was right this time, too.
It had been too pleasant to spend that evening with Kate, and saving Cordy, too. That had been…great! He had eventually felt his soul, not only in terms of suffering and atoning, but as you feel an asset, a source of blinding and warm energy to tap into, in order to fight and overcome the darkness.
This was hope, wasn’t it? The hope he had never dared to believe in. That minimal spark which for two years had been trying to ignite.
His cell rang in the pocket of his long coat.
Spike. It was him. Of course.
“What do you want?” He answered, absentmindedly.
“I’m sorry…maybe this is not a good time…”
Angel stopped in his tracks. It wasn’t Spike. “Kate?”
He heard her breathing. “Yes…yeah…hey….I know you were going to call me, but…am I disturbing you?”
“No! No…How…how are you doing?”
“Me? Fine. And you?”
“Me too. Thanks. I was thinking about calling you tomorrow. You were faster” What a disgusting liar….
She laughed a bit, with relief. “I’ll sound bare-faced, now…let’s have dinner together, right? Friday?”
Angel stared at the pavement. Some trash rustled in the wind. The vampire closed his eyes and saw in his mind hers, two round sapphires, like cloves of a springtime sky in which emotions ran like clouds. No…no…no…no…
“Angel? Are you still there?”
“Uh? Yeah. Ok” he nodded, as soon as possible, before the hugeness of the mistake he was doing suffocated him. “Let’s meet at our bar, right?”
God, did he say “our”?
She confirmed, repeating it. “At our bar. On Friday. Goodnight, Angel”
“Goodnight” he sighed, switching off the cellphone with a dry gesture. He would rather have crushed it, but just the idea of entering again into a department store…
“You’re fired, bitch!”
The male voice, heavy with booze, sounded in the night, while the dirty door of a coffee bar slammed a few meters from the vampire. A girl in a waitress uniform came flying out of it. No compliments. The owner, fat and bald, threw after her her jacket and her purse. The coins and make up rang on the pavement.
Angel approached her, really missing the old good times when you could kill a human. Cordelia was shocked to see him, but then she sobered. Her chin trembled, but she didn’t want to cry in front of him. All this was enough of an embarrassment.
“You busted me, didn’t you, hero?” she laughed, a false, unsure laugh, her hands busy picking up her belongings. “Yeah, right. Queen C. isn’t an actress. Her career stopped even before it started. And the cherry on the top is that she doesn’t live in the building you took her to, but in a disgusting hotel, a block and a half from this stinking hole”
She refused his hand and rose, swallowing tears of frustration. “Queen C. isn’t all that, after all, not even as a waitress…”
Once she started to cry, it was impossible to stop. She was blinded by her tears, and hiccups shook her. Only the broad, strong chest of Angel could be a refuge for her. He held her close, rocking her gently.
“I’m sorry” she whispered, against his pullover. He smelt good. He smelt musky. “What…”
“Sssshhh” he interrupted her, raising her face. “I’m the last to judge…” He gave her one of his rarest smiles, seductive as a ray of light in the fog. “I don’t think you’re not all that”
She quietly stopped crying, blowing her nose on his handkerchief. “Yeah…well…I know that. But these moments happen to the strongest people, too. Why are you staring at me like that?”
Yeah, Angel was looking at her, his dark head bowed, his eyes sparkling with amused interest.
Wait a moment….Interest ?
Cordelia straightened, unconsciously caressing her waitress uniform. He was interested in her. Sure as gold.
“What about a job?” he proposed.
“With…you?”
“Uh – huh…I’ve got so much money, conjuring up an adequate wage for you won’t cause me any trouble”
Money.
The magic word. Cordy’s beauty, dampened with tiredness and disappointment, sparkled back. “Go on. I’m listening”
“I…it seems to me you…know about money. How to invest it, and…”
“God, yes!” she exclaimed. “That’s a mathematical truth! Money is for me what silicon is for Pamela Anderson!”
Angel coughed. What a girl…”Exactly. I’d need someone who could take care of my investments, contacting the banks…dealing with a lot of questions I’ve always considered boring and…”
“I’m in!” She was hurting him with her enthusiasm. “You won’t regret it. I’ll make you a real vampire tycoon!”
“I get it…obviously, you’ll be my guest. At least until you get a new place to live. It’s an old hotel, with a lot of empty rooms…no privacy problems…” Cordelia hung on his shoulders. She was looking at him like he was an idol.
“There is an old hotel to furnish?” She asked, impatient. “May I do it?”
“Well…yes….if you want to…”
She gave him a big wet baby kiss on the cheek.
”Angel is not just your name! You are an angel!”
Angel feigned indifference, but now Miss Cordelia Chase, a.k.a. Queen C., was again at the top of her game: she linked his arm in her own and pushed him forward.
“Let’s go, boss. We have to move into the hotel”




Thank God, it was dawn, at last. Angel flexed his shoulder muscles. It felt as if he had moved the whole of Olympus.
Olympus…and it was just Cordelia’s luggage.
He opened her door a crack and looked inside. She had fallen asleep still fully clothed, on her side, her long dark hair across the blanket, her thumb in her mouth…Beautiful. A most beautiful woman. Ripe with life. Colourful. Unstoppable.
Kate had talked about finding a connection. He noticed that his absentminded answer had become reality. He needed a connection. He had realized it in the moment he had found it. A connection. To good, to light. To hope.
And that connection was Cordelia Chase, in her disquieting, oh–so–human splendour.
Angel closed the door quietly, keeping on smiling, like an idiot.
He caught the call at the first ring.
“Hey, you” Spike greeted him.
“Uh…glad to see the other vampire with the soul still exists…I had my doubts”
“Well, you know me. I’m like a weed: I can survive anything”
“Where are you?” Angel asked, frowning. “You sound far away…”
“I’m on a highway. Don’t ask me which. I never take notice of signs”
A beat. “I just wanted to say hallo. Seven and a half months, my dear. Make them worth it. If I come back and find you in a chair, I’ll stake you”
“You’ll try, you mean” Angel replied. Spike’s voice was sending him a sort of subliminal message, he had to think about that…his grandchilde wanted to tell him something…but he didn’t know how and so he avoided the topic…
“Hey” he whispered. “Wherever you are…be careful”
”Dad, you know I have condoms in my purse, don’t you?” Spike smirked, toying with his lighter.
“Fuck you” Angel answered, closing the call.
The blonde vampire laughed. He was sure Angel was laughing too. And he was right, of course.
Yeah….right…I’ll get myself properly fucked…
The sky was clearing and dawn was approaching.
Spike saluted the sign.
“Welcome to Sunnydale”
“Home, sweet home” he murmured to himself, getting into the car for the last few meters of his trip.

3. The harsh light of day.

Menstrual blood…yadda yadda…Big Mother Wicca…yadda yadda…moon phases…Willow yawned surreptitiously behind the ad with the details for the yearly Ostara gathering, the winter equinox predating Easter. On the other side of the magical circle Tara gazed at her with sweet, seductive eyes. Willow batted her eyelashes and smiled. The night, at least, would be a pleasant one, in such delightful company.
“Well, that’s all!” the President of the local Wiccan group was satisfied with the activity held at Sunnydale University. “Don’t forget your propitious rituals for Beltane!”
Willow yawned again.
“It’s not that bad, really” Tara whispered, taking her by the arm and leading her outside, into the springtime evening and its perfumes. “It’s a question of…perspective. A real witch makes spells…a Wiccan prays, prepares a ritual…and then she uses her hands, like everybody else”
“That’s the point!” Willow exclaimed. “I know how to make spells. The real deal…the terrible ones. Why in the world should I pray to a goddess I don’t believe in…by the way I’m Jewish…and… work hard? Did I tell you about that time I gave the two most dangerous vampires their souls back…”
“Only a thousand times” Tara teased her sweetly. “Didn’t you think maybe a higher power than yours was in action, then, and it wanted you to succeed?”
“No” Willow replied
“They’re acting for the good, now”
“That’s all because of me”
“Willow…”
“All right” the redhead nodded. “I paid for it. My relationship with Buffy…it has changed. The story with Oz ended, I met you…hey, as you see, it all ended well, after all”
Tara stared at her. Her sweet grey eyes sometimes looked sad.
“Just the same, sometimes I miss you”
“What do you mean?”
“A part of you doesn’t belong to me, Will. And it doesn’t belong to your friends, either. I think it’s part of the reason Oz left. You need to understand whether…”
“Stay with me tonight” Willow asked abruptly.
“I can’t. Tomorrow I have an English paper, and I’m depending on it for my scholarship. I’m sorry…”
“You don’t know how sorry I am” Willow replied. “Walk me back to my dorm, at least. Buffy isn’t there. She is at her mother’s. We’ll meet her tonight, at the Bronze”
“All right” Tara agreed, embracing her. Willow raised her head and allowed Tara’s full lips to wander on hers.
Tara laughed.
“You kiss weird”
“What do you mean?” Willow frowned.
“You don’t kiss…like a lesbian does. You’re waiting for me to possess you…you want to be dominated, sexually. You want me to be the man. Darling, I’m a woman”
“I know”
“No, you don’t” Tara smiled. “Your lips don’t know it” Tara lowered her voice: they were next to the dorm’s entrance and she didn’t want to wake anybody. “And your sex doesn’t know it, either. You’ve never come, not even once”
“That’s not true!” Willow lied. “I always come. I just need you to touch me, and…”
“It’s not enough for you” Tara rushed. “There’s nothing bad about it. You’re heterosexual. I guess you prefer a man’s sex to all the petting in the world”
“That doesn’t explain why I stay with you, mmm?”
“That’s because I love you so much. You can’t help loving me back. Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona1… And I’m the only one you can do spells with, nowadays.”
“Mr. Giles has locked all his books away” Willow complained. “And Buffy doesn’t want to hear the least mention of magic”
“Buffy is a wise girl. A bit cold, self–centred…but wise”
“She wasn’t always like that. She used to be happy, merry, full of life”
“Then she fell in love with two vampires…and she restored their souls. And they left her”
Willow pouted.
“How in the world did we end up talking about this? We were discussing my orgasms…”
Tara laughed. “I got it! I’ll buy you a vibrator”
Willow laughed too, as her girlfriend…lover?….left. She recalled an old episode of “Sex and the city” where one of the girls, the brunette, flirted with a group of lesbians, attracted by their obvious power and glamour. At a certain point, they had been blunt: “Either you eat pussy, or you don’t”. And she had left. Kyle Mc Lachlan was waiting for her at home.
Sighing, Willow mounted the stairs. She wondered why she had always been so easy to read. What was her power for if even Tara, shy Tara, could see through her like an open book?
As she toyed with her keys, long, cool fingers circled her wrist. A cool mouth slid over her bare neck, sharp teeth grazing her skin, causing her a long shiver.
Willow relaxed against his chest, until he spoke. His deep baritone voice caressed her ears.
“You tell your wishes to the stars, pet, and they come true…because I’m back”


Los Angeles library wasn’t the most fun place in the world for a twenty–four year old girl to be on a Saturday night.
But Winifred Burkle of Austin, Texas, usually called Fred, spent all her nights there, in the Science and Technology Department, studying for her Ph. D. in Physics and earning her living…and her bus fare.
She didn’t have any fun in her small apartment, either. At all. Fred knew how to use her pencil. She was a gold medallist in sharpening it, so she could fill pages and pages with numbers and symbols. The green lamp reflected back her image: a slim girl, a bit taller than average, with long, wavy curls and dark eyes, made softer by her glasses. Her aunt in Houston described her as an “Audrey Hepburn wannabe, without her pros and with all of her cons”. Kind of her.
”God, yes!” she said, glancing at her watch. Five minutes to ten. It was closing time.
Now she was alone. Nobody else around, on a Saturday night, in the Library’s Science and Technology Department.
She opened the drawer with shaking hands. She had the only key. She kept in there some notes, her pencils, her sharpener…and the piece of poetry.
But the real prize was something else.
Fred slid her nimble fingers to the bottom of the drawer. The reader’s card was there.
She examined it carefully in the soft light.
“William Shelby” was written there boldly, in an odd looking calligraphy, like that of a dead poet. It looked like an item from the nineteenth century. But it wasn’t. The photo attached was the essence of modernity. A young Caucasian man, very pale, with a well chiselled face, deep eyes under dark eyebrows, eyes that looked a dark shade of blue, and bleached hair, like an 80’s punk.
Fred closed her eyes.
Those cheekbones…her bloody poet.
A few days before he had absentmindedly bumped into her. She knew him: he sometimes came into the library. The poems had fallen to the floor and she had picked them, and kept them. They were wonderful.
All right, she knew nothing about poetry. She was a scientist, it was not her cup of tea. But the lyrics had caught her attention. They talked about lost loves, and souls, and she had wandered through the perfect metre. Doing her first illegal act in three years of hard work in that library, she had spent a whole day browsing through the membership files looking for his reader card.
And she had taken it. They could fire her for that.
And now she had it in front of her. The card. And the lyrics.
When would he be back?
Fred put the poems and the card in her pocket, switched off the PC, then the lights, and went out into the night.
Soon, she hoped, he will be here again.
She took a cab to her professor’s house for the beginning-of-semester party. She had her doctorate thesis to discuss with him. Unfortunately, that endless day hadn’t ended yet.


“So…you’re back”
“You got it right” Spike nodded, relaxing back in the armchair and stretching his legs. “God, Red, show me some enthusiasm”
“Buffy will have a stroke, when she knows” Willow observed, pacing nervously up and down the room.
“There’s no need for her to know. Not for now, at least”
“And…your intentions?”
Spike fished cigarettes and lighter out of the duster. Willow reproached him with her eyes, and he rolled his eyes at her. He contented himself with playing with his lighter.
“To fight Evil. To save innocents. Yadda Yadda”
“Really?”
“Really. Cross my heart. And now come here”
Pouting, Willow sat down on his knee, arms around his neck. With her slim fingers she caressed his hair ….and her golden eyes probed the vampire’s blue ones. “You’re still in love with her”
“Yeah” he admitted. “Tell me something I don’t know”
“And…Angelus….”
“Him, too, I guess. But now he goes by the name of Angel. If only that was enough to forget who we are…”
“And….you are…who?”
“The most important question is what we are. We are not human, Willow. We dress like them, we walk through the world, but we are creatures of the night…bad teeth, bad instincts. Bad blood” Willow moved on his lap, and smiled as she sensed his unmistakable reaction. “But now you’re on the way to sainthood…”
“Who told you that?” Spike whispered, toying with his fangs on the soft skin of her long, graceful neck.
“Spike…” she moaned.
“Shh…we’re not doing anything, now. Nowadays you’re more attracted by ladies…I see”
Willow stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
“That sweet piece of pastry with large, beautiful eyes and creamy skin. A perfect choice. I bet she’s still a virgin”
“You win. She discovered at fourteen she was attracted to women”
“Do you love her?”
“Do you care?”
Spike leaned over to her and whispered something in her ear.
Willow burst into a bout of laugher.
“You’re mad”
“Maybe. Will you think about it?”
“No, I won’t. I must have got something wrong the day I gave you your soul back”
“Darling, I haven’t thanked you properly, yet”
“Do it …now”
“You know you’re turning me on, don’t you? Tell me instead what’s been happening in Sunnydale. Big Bad, Faith the trashy slayer and Slutty the vampire lover included”
“Wilkins, the Mayor, tried to ascend to a pure demonic form. Faith was his ally…but Buffy was hell bent on preventing it. She was astounding”
“My slayer” Spike murmured, proudly. “No one like her, against the big bad wannabe. And Faithy?”
“There was an OK Corral moment between the two of them…Faith fled, but with a knife deep in her gut. Now she is a free agent”
“You mean a danger. Wilkins?”
“Destroyed. With good old dynamite”
“Your boyfriend? Wolfy guy?”
“Ex”
“He never got over the shock of finding you on your knees in front of Xander Harris, uh?”
“Something like that” Willow admitted, already regretting having told him that during that endless night before…he got his soul back.
“He got the short end of it. What a dickhead!”
“Spike!”
“Com’on! You walk the wild walk, and a bad word frightens you?”
“Don’t be impertinent, Sir William”
“The watcher?”
“You can give him your greetings personally. He lives in a small condo a short walk from here…he’s still Buffy’s watcher but…obviously, their relationship is strained. After he discovered her…well, our role in Jenny’s death and in the soul spell, he resigned. The Council gave Buffy a new watcher, Wesley Wyndam–Pryce….and he lasted no more than three months. Buffy threw a tantrum and demanded Giles back…”
“And ole Rupie came back”
“Right. They didn’t exchange a word for a couple of months…but now they work together just fine. Not with the old flair, of course. A lot of things have changed”
“And…the other Watcher?”
“For a bit he tried to dominate Faith”
“And …then?”
“She tortured him almost to death. And now he’s chasing her across the States”
“Wily Coyote and Beep Beep?”
“Something like that”
“I see in your eyes dear Faith is not your best pal. What did she do to you?” Spike noticed, staring at her.
Willow pouted again.
“She took Xander’s cherry”
Spike laughed heartily.
Willow aimed his fist at his face, very weakly, and Spike embraced her. Looking down at her, he smiled.
“Do you want me….to go?”
“No” she whispered.
“Well. I’ll stay, then”
“Good. It’s still early, after all. In a couple of hours we’ll be meeting up at the Bronze. Buffy will be there”
Spike froze.
“What’s up?”
“I don’t think I’m ready for that”
“She’s always talking about you”
“I don’t believe that” Spike smiled sadly.
“You have to. She only talks about you with me, obviously…but she does. I’m sure she misses you. There’s been nobody else in her life, since you left. Only one high school fling, and that didn’t last more than a few days”
“And…Angel?”
“She never talks about him”
Spike smiled again. Quietly, he slid her off his lap and straightened up. “I’ve changed my mind. It’s time I left”
“You’ll come, won’t you? To the Bronze, I mean”
“I’ll come. But I’ll be in the shadows. For now, I just want to see her…to know she is all right”
Willow sat on the bed, one leg bent under her, her large eyes staring at him, her teeth sunk deep in her pouting lip, enough to draw blood.
“Spike…”
“Yeah?” He asked, his hand on the handle of the open door, his eyes hypnotized by that crimson drop.
It had been more than two years…more than two years without human blood. Two years! Two years without his natural nourishment…Oh God, how he missed the smell, the taste!
“Stay” she insisted, her eyes dripping with promises.
Spike kicked the door closed, and jumped over to Willow, stretched out on her tight, narrow bed.
“You’re a witch, indeed” he whispered, before vamping out, almost without noticing.


Lights and bodies and sweat at the Bronze. People danced, others stayed on the sidelines, others went to the rest room, some flirted. Buffy danced with her new boyfriend wannabe. Medium height and build, black hair, big blue eyes. Not even a bit like them. So sensitive…so human.
Buffy danced on the floor as she had always danced, her miniskirt riding up against her thighs, her hair falling down her back to the waist, blonde shining hair. Her eyes closed, waiting for the cool caress of a lost lover…
“Hey, Buff!” Xander called after her, passing through the crowd with his beautiful, slim girlfriend.
“Xan! Anya!” she smiled, touching her companion lightly on the shoulder. “My friends are here”
He smiled, politely, and Buffy introduced him to them. “This is Parker. We go to the same canteen, what a coincidence, uh? Parker, this is Xander, a friend from High School, and his girlfriend Anya”
They all exchanged pleasantries.
“Have you seen Willow?” Xander asked.
“I haven’t yet. But she’ll come”
Parker took Buffy’s hand and led her to one of the more secluded couches. “You’re such a beautiful girl” he whispered, shyly, caressing her hand lightly. “You’re amazing. Were you this cute in High School, too?”
“My hair was shorter…and I was overweight” she smiled. “Well, sort of, but…”
“I’m honoured to know you, Buffy Summers. You really enrich my inner journey”
She smiled, uncertainly, gaping at him, seduced by his evident interest. And then, God, she was a freshman, after all!
And he wasn’t.
“I’d like this night to be timeless” he whispered, leaning over to her. Buffy closed her eyes a moment too late, but nevertheless their lips met. He was very sweet, and chaste, and he didn’t use his tongue.
Frustrated, Buffy thought of the desert her love life had been in the last two years.
Enforced chastity. A single boyfriend, Scott Hope, who had broken with her scornfully after the third date.
Between studies, her mother’s grievances, not to mention those of her Watcher, her friends, the fight against Faith and Mayor Wilkins…well, she hadn’t had a lot of time for love. Not to mention for sex.
She really didn’t even desire it. She just wanted…what she couldn’t have.
But things were changing. She was in College, now, new semester, new life, and maybe she could leave her memories to the past. Maybe Parker Abrams could be a good new beginning.
“Chinese Burn” started to resonate on the dance floor, and Buffy smiled. It was the song she had danced to with Faith, causing more than one heart attack in the Bronze. Old times, B.
“Do you want to dance?” Parker asked her, suavely. “It seems to me you can’t stop your feet from moving”
“Why not?” she smiled, and they both returned to the dance floor.



The predator stared at her from afar, his eyes on her, full of wonder.
She was the same.
Only more beautiful, all grown up, more a woman than a girl. Her hair was longer, there was something sour in the line of her lips, notwithstanding the cute smile she dedicated to her partner, and he was oh – so – inadequate…so unworthy of her…Oh, Buffy…
His heart, his soul, who knew…all of his essence hurt in seeing her again. Even the fresh human blood, vibrating with magic, on his lips called to her…He wanted only one thing: to bury himself, all of himself, into her, fangs and member, hands and mouth, to take and partake, to give, to possess, to be possessed…to put himself again, dangerously, wonderfully, in her hands, asking for her mercy, beholding her dark power…
No one better than the three of them had danced that dance, ever. That of vampires and slayer.
Angel was right. He could only stay away from her. They had to stay away from her.
Fuck Angel.



Willow arrived out of breath on the dance floor, a silk scarf on her neck and a colourful dress, which balanced the paleness of her cheeks. Buffy had never seen her like that, and that contrast became her in a mysterious way. “I have to talk with you” Willow whispered, and the slayer tried to disengage her attention from Parker.
“I’m sorry” she mouthed.
“Don’t worry” he smiled. “I’ll get a diet coke”
Buffy followed Willow to the edge of the room.
“What’s up?” she asked. “Apocalypse coming my way?”
“No” Willow replied. “But some trouble anyway. An old friend of you has just arrived…”Willow turned her head, sensing his presence. She knew it now: blood was a link. She noticed him, at last: the vampire, in the shadows, was looking at them. Ha had to know she was revealing his arrival. He saw Buffy moving her eyes around her. Was she looking for him?
“Faith? Is she back?” The Slayer’s eyes hardened.
“No. But you…do you really have to stay glued to that Parker? I heard stories, about him. They say he is a womaniser. Especially with the youngest girls…I’d be careful, if you know what I mean”
“No problem. We’ll give him back his soul. Ha-ha” Buffy joked.
Willow froze.
“You’re in a bad mood, tonight” Buffy noticed. “Let’s go, I’m having fun! Don’t I deserve it, after all of the problems I ‘ve had in the last two years?”
“Yeah, but…I’d advise you to…”
“Buffy!” Parker intruded. “It’s getting late. They close the doors at eleven at my dorm”
“Well, let’s go, then” she smiled.
Dazed, Willow stepped back.
Buffy smiled again, and put her arm around Parker’s waist. He leaned over to her, and kissed her.
This time, openly, brazenly, opening her lips, toying with them. She smiled and deepened the kiss. She smiled even more when his fingers slid on her breast.
Spike looked at them, from his hiding place, his jaw set, trying to digest this umpteenth disappointment.
“What a bitch”


Bedazzled and confused by the noisy crowd, Fred acted like the wallflower she was thought to be and sat quietly in a corner of the party. She didn’t feel at ease, as usual, in this type of gathering: her nondescript shoes and her plain pullover had nothing on the Prada accessories flying around. What am I doing here? She asked herself. Professor Seidel wandered like a bee through flowers, satisfied with his successful party. Glamour and big brains, what more could you ask from a social occasion? That was not bad for the West Coast…all right, not a lot of Ivy League material all around, but the mix could work well enough.
Apart from Fred…
He really couldn’t stand such shows of intellectual over-confidence…
“Fred, my dear” he stepped over to her, showing his teeth in a broad smile which warred with his cold, snakelike eyes.
She smiled back, shyly, and put down the drink, adjusting her glasses.
“I’d like to talk to you. Could you follow me for a moment into my office?”
She nodded, happier. The sooner they talked, the sooner she could leave that horrible party where everybody looked like models, not scientists.
The Professor’s room opened on the sparkling Los Angeles skyline. On the wall opposite the window there was a sort of ancient drawing. It seemed to be a carving of three stylised animals: they looked like a wolf, a ram and a hart.
Wolf, Ram and Hart.
Yep, that was it.
“I’m very…”
“…Satisfied?” Fred asked nervously, with a giggle.
“Not nearly” the Professor replied. “I think the word I was looking for is irritated”
“Ah”
“I don’t like ambitious students who try to shine at the expense of their teachers. And that’s exactly what you did, my dear, during last week’s seminar. I had asked you not to quote our latest theories about spatial – temporal continuum density…hadn’t I?”
“Yes, Professor Seidel, but I just wanted to…strengthen your thesis, which…otherwise…”
“I didn’t provide enough support for my thesis? That’s what you mean? You could have done it better?”
Fred stuttered. “That’s not what I meant. I just thought that…”
Professor Seidel raised a hand. “There are places, missy, where people like you find answers. Please pick up that book”
The volume was ancient, its leather cover burnt. On the cover there was a carving of a wolf. The same wolf as the drawing on the wall.
“Open it. Any page will do. Read a sentence”
Fred was too shocked from the reprimand to think clearly. She obeyed.
She opened the heavy volume.
It was written in a strange language, devoid of vowels.
“Please” He insisted, glancing nervously at his watch. His guests were waiting for him.
She read, stuttering on the strange, apparently meaningless words.
. “hjhklwrtqtbnmnwrtykl”
A violent lightning sparkled around her.
And then she opened her eyes, dazed, after an endless moment of oblivion.
The light of the suns hurt her eyes. So harsh, so real.
Hey, wait a second.
Suns? Three?
Fred let herself fall to the floor, on the soft grassy round in a green green world lit by three suns.
A world which couldn’t be hers.



To make love.
Nobody relished that thought more than Buffy Summers.
The idea of a male body between her hands, her thighs, after all that time, had made her blood run hastily in her veins, together with the two Corona beers drunk all of a sudden during the dancing. Parker was handsome, a gentleman, sensitive, clean: she liked the idea of loving him. Sexually. A lot.
It was quite a sterilized idea of sex for a woman who had fucked up against a crypt wall, on the floor, like animals, in the dust of a warehouse. But, after two years, that could be a good start.
They were alone in the small room in Stevenson Dorm, and Parker put on some good music, Sarah McLachlan. His fingers slid deftly on her back, to undress her with a sensual, slow gesture. She had a matching slip and bra in some blue lace, very elegant and discreet. He appreciated her good taste and the honeyed colour of her skin under the light of the broken lamp.
“I’m sorry” he said, kindly. “The furniture is horrible”
“Don’t worry” she laughed. “It’s the same in Willow’s and my room. Don’t stop, please”
He grazed her shoulder with his lips. “You’re so beautiful, my heart is trembling”
Buffy smiled, and she took the initiative. She opened his lips with hers, and invaded his mouth with her tongue. He retired a bit, fixing her gaze with his crystal blue eyes.
“If I’m hurting you…let me know”
Buffy smiled.
“I’m not a virgin, don’t worry”
“I can’t believe it” he whispering, affecting shock. “Did you really have a guy?”
“A couple” she answered, biting her lips.
“Recently?”
“Two years ago. I was still in High School”
“I’m sorry”
“About what?”
“About not being…the first”
(I’m not sorry about that, Buffy thought, but she kept that for herself)
“I’d like to discover you as you discover a continent” He kept on and on, seducing her with his voice. “If you don’t like something…if you’re inhibited by something…”
Buffy almost had a bout of laughter. Almost.
Things that inhibited her?
Such as a ménage à trois with two soulless vampires ?
The thought, as usual, aroused her. And, then, it depressed the hell out of her.
This time, she didn’t want to rely on her memories to get excited. Parker had to be enough. Wasn’t it wonderful to be with a real man, once in a lifetime? Ok, more of a boy, but it was something, wasn’t it?
Alive! Human!
Parker took her silence for puzzlement, and he decided on the tenderness strategy. He caressed her shoulders longingly, and then he kissed her lightly, on the face, on the neck. For a moment, Buffy closed her eyes and thought of those lips on her neck….lips that opened in fangs, drawing blood…
But he was already switching his attention to more pressing matters.
“Let me undress” Buffy said.
“No, please…let me undress you” he replied, fighting with her bra clasp. After a lot of fruitless attempts, Buffy raised a hand and made the nasty bra click. Parker pushed her on the bedside and closed their distance, kissing her hotly. He was warm. And he was a good kisser.
Just not enough.
Bored, Buffy lay on the bed, showing him her naked breasts, hoping he caught the drift.
But he was toying with unimportant parts of her body, until Buffy took his hands and, with them, covered her breasts.
Nothing.
He grazed her nipples for a moment, and then he loosed his belt, taking off his pants. He was now wearing a white t – shirt, white boxers and dark socks.
“Get undressed” she insisted, moving restlessly on the crimson sheets of seduction (bought at Wal – Mart, 10% discount for students).
He smiled, and obliged, slowly…until he was naked but for his socks.
Buffy tried to ignore the unfortunate circumstance, and tried to concentrate on the erection she had in front of her.
She opened her mouth, shocked.
She had never seen one so….so…..
…small.
But size doesn’t count, right? It was written in Cosmo, it had to be true. Samantha said that on “Sex and the city”, right? Or maybe she got it wrong, and the show was “Seventh Heaven”?
Anyway. Glad about her (mistaken) reaction, which confirmed his virility, Parker scooted next to her. His hands eventually reached the top of her tights …and rested there.
For a five/ten second span of time.
“Maybe, if you take off my slip…”Buffy suggested.
“Good idea” He said, and made her slip slide along her hips. Good, Buffy thought, that’s all right. Even better, she was amazed when he lowered his head to reach her with his mouth there.
I’m surprised he thought about that, she reflected. He gets better and better.
Parker was very satisfied with her obviously pleased reaction. He would give her a cunnilingus she would never forget…what about ten seconds?
Furious, Buffy thinned her lips in order not to explode. She didn’t want to ruin the only chance of a sexual encounter she had had in two years.
Parker raised himself and fished in the drawer. Buffy had never had sex before with a condom, obviously, and she wasn’t too excited about it, but nothing was worse than a sexual infection to ruin your mood.
With its latex suit on, his member looked like some sort of sci – fi prop. Not a big one, either.
“Do you want me to…”
She thought he was asking if she wanted more foreplay. Usually, no, but considering she was still dry, maybe…she smiled, and he interpreted it as an open “go ahead”. Parker rubbed his member against her opening and that was pleasant. Buffy’s mood rose a notch or two. Spike could go on with that game for hours, and it was so exciting and….just the thought made her wet, in a way that all of his ministrations hadn’t been able to do until then….
She had him inside of her all of a sudden.
Small, and with a plastic feel to it, because of the condom. Extraneous.
He closed his eyes, enjoying the moment. For a moment, grateful, he played with her breasts, and Buffy closed her eyes, too, going back to her memories, for the umpteenth time, to Angelus’ embrace, his possession, Spike’s kisses, the way it had been with both of them, at the same time and in the same bed.
At the thought, she almost came.
Almost.
This encounter was going on too long, and suddenly she noticed she didn’t like his smell. It wasn’t unpleasant, but the beer he had drunk, the sandwich with mustard he had eaten, the coffee…so human.
Suddenly Buffy realised she needed another type of intimacy to accept this, that making love with a stranger couldn’t satisfy her. What she had found in the two vampires had been deeper than this, more than a quickie between students.
At the same time, she couldn’t stand any more the weight of her loneliness. Their distance. Her heart cried.
And Parker weighed on her more than the heavier by far Angelus had.
A question of perspectives. And of heart. Her heart.
She turned her face, and tried to recreate in her mind the nights she had passed with her vampire lovers.
She didn’t succeed. And so she waited for Parker to finish, feeling disappointed and deluded by her evident incapacity to love again.


“You’re wonderful” Parker whispered, against her neck, after the sex. “It was fantastic. I hope it was the same for you. Did I hurt you?”
“It was good” she replied. “I’m grateful for that”
“For what?” he smiled, and now he looked handsome again, in the shadow, lightly sweating after the sex.
“I had forgotten about love…Parker, please….don’t leave me”
He smiled. “Sleep well, sweetie. I’m here”
She relaxed. She wanted to love again. She needed to open her heart, to forget about consequences. Oookay, the sex wasn’t that good, now…not so sweeping. Ok. Time had passed. That night sex hadn’t even been acceptably good. But it would change, as soon as they knew each other better. What mattered was he was a good guy, a real one, alive, caring, close to her.
She had to forget all about the past. From tomorrow on, all of that would change. She would have a boyfriend. She wouldn’t be alone.
Buffy scooted next to him and closed her eyes.
She was looking forward to sunrise.



As Buffy hid her face against Parker’s sweating and hairless chest, Spike wandered through the Sunnydale cemeteries like a weapon of war.
Damn it! He had never seen so few demons on the Hellmouth. Where the hell had they gone? He had a tremendous rage inside, and only one way to assuage it: to kill something, and to kill it a lot.
Once upon the time it had been humans, now demons and vampires…was it so utterly different, after all?
Yes, it was, Spike admitted, with gritted teeth, while he destroyed a bizarre couple of demons. I’m a beast no more. I’ve the body, the strength and the endurance of a vampire…but the heart and the soul of a man. My soul. William has grown up, indeed. He is no more the bloody awful poet who cried for Cecily, since then he had been William the Bloody, the vampire, the slayers’ slayer, and now he is again a man.
A man who won’t cry for her. I knew it. I always knew she would never be mine. What the hell did I expect? To be welcomed by her with open arms? After a couple of bloody years of silence?
The demons fell. And Spike took the bloodied sword and trailed it in the grass, bent on finding himself, as soon as possible, a new adversary.
Told, done.
Four big guys in military camouflage, with laser weapons in their hands, blocked him in a clearing, not far from the campus.
Humans. He caught their heartbeat, their breath.
What the hell did they want?
”Surround the hostile” the taller of them cried. Spike got it: he was the leader. His eyes narrowed, while he estimated the situation.
They wouldn’t take him. That was for sure. Did they want to unleash Hell? Well, go ahead, boys! He was ready! The men aimed the rifles but their sensors missed him: Spike put his unnatural speed to good use, and he did it smiling: Slutty had never seen him fight like this, but maybe one day…how delusional was he?
“Shoot him!” The leader shouted. Spike got behind one of the soldiers and put his fangs less than a inch from his jugular.
“Stop!” the leader screamed.
“Drop you weapons, otherwise I suck him dry” Spike exclaimed. “I’m not joking”
All of them obeyed the tall man’s gesture.
Spike vanished into the night.
“Damn it!”
The man pulled off his balaclava. He was a young handsome man, very tall indeed, with grey eyes made icy by rage.
“I swear we’ll take down that hostile. I want patrols all around!”
“Details: blonde and British” his lieutenant - a young black man - commented in the microphone. “Damn it!” the leader repeated, his eyes fixed on the alley the Hostile had fled into, before going back with his men to their headquarters.
Nothing frustrated him more than an escaping prey.


Sunlight flooded the small room, sliding over Buffy’s sleepy face. She opened her eyes, and observed with keen eyes the poor dorm room, the dirty clothes in the laundry basket, the worn books.
She was still naked.
She put on an old one of Parker’s t – shirts and got out of bed. On the bed table, next to the broken lamp whose light had shed on their unoriginal and unsatisfying sex, Buffy saw the note.
She took it with joy: she needed more than ever some words of affection.
“Buffy, I’m busy all day long. Don’t look for me. My mother is coming. Thanks for everything. I’ll call ya. P.”
Buffy froze.
That was the tender, even if goofy, lover of that night?
The coldness of his message hit her. “Thanks for everything?” She had given him her body, her trust, after so much time…and that was worth a “Thanks for everything”?
In another moment of her life, this detachment would have scandalized her. Now, it only hurt her. She was alone.
Alone.
And incapable of finding for herself a minimum of human warmth. She would soon die fighting, and then? Who would cry for her? Her mother…her Watcher…maybe her friends. Spike. Angelus. Scott. Now Parker? She doubted it.
Everybody left her.
Something broke inside her and, for the first time in years, she cried.



The sunlight was no harsher for Fred, trapped maybe forever in a foreign world from which there was possibly no return.
She looked around, desolate: green men with small red horns had found her in the clearing where she had landed and had taken her to a farm. Nothing fancy: the whole place reeked of low Middle Ages. They had taken her clothes and given her in exchange a sort of rough tunic. They had fixed around her neck a metal collar (similar to silver) and told her that she would have to wear it forever…unless she wanted to explode. She didn’t feel like testing that theory.
After all those humiliating antics, they had told her she was just a cow, a tool for them. She hated all of the farm jobs, and most of all tending the pigs. Obviously, that was what she was destined to do.
Just a few moments before losing all of her possessions, Fred had understood some truths about that place. Its existence proved that parallel dimensions, well, existed. This fact, in these conditions, didn’t give her more than a fraction of the scientific satisfaction she had expected. Indeed, the most interesting observation came to her from her small watch: time had stopped. She deduced time there moved very slowly. It seemed an hour there was worth almost a year in her own world.
Her speculative mind was already at work. She studied the night and daytime skies endlessly: three suns, seven moons, with an opposite movement to that of her own Moon.
But the most important thing at that moment was to stay alive. And to find a possible way out.
After some weeks had passed, Fred didn’t think about escaping any more. If she was able to flee her warders, what future waited for her in that foreign world? Better to wait and learn more about that reality. She was under the tutelage of the matronly lady of a male clan named Deathwok. It was a family of powerful warriors, the best example of which was Landok, universally considered a noble fighter.
And the worst, the sensitive Krevlornswoth.
Obviously, this was the one Fred liked best, who was neither loved nor respected by his bearded mother.
Usually, the green demon (were they demons? Or was she the demon, the foreign element?) found her in the fields and watched her work. When nobody else was around, he helped her. He was kind.
And he spoke English.
“How did you learn my language?” she asked, on a day she had just finished ploughing a wide field, and both were resting, sitting on a fence. It was a green, fruitful land, very luminous thanks to the three shining suns in the blue sky. But for Fred it was Hell, nevertheless.
“Sugar, I’m not talking your language. You just feel as if I am. I’m sending back to you the emotions I feel from you”
“Uh?”
The green creature smiled. “I’m empathic. It’s typical of my race. I understand everything and everybody…even things I’d do better to ignore. And I make it possible for other races to understand me. I’m the king of translators”
“All of you have this…gift?”
“This world is full of different races…not all of them agreeable. We ….the green ones…are empathic. But this is considered a fault, not a gift”
“That’s why they ignore me when I speak English”
“What’s English?”
“My language. In my world there are hundreds of them, all of them different”
“You’re missing it, aren’t you?” Krevlornswoth asked her.
“A lot. Don’t you know any way to get back there?”
“Slaves never go back to their original worlds” He explained, sadly. He looked all in all like a man. Apart from the green skin, red eyes and horns.
“They come here from other realities. This land is called Pylea, and there are several dimensional tunnels which link it to other worlds. There are very powerful books, whose words work like keys to open these tunnels. The one you read is only one of them”
“Why would a teacher do this to one of his students?” Fred asked, sourly.
“You had overshadowed him…he could do it, and he did. Your world isn’t perfect, either”
“You got it right” she admitted. “I’m glad to have known you. I feel so lonely…sometimes, I feel desperate. I can’t think about never seeing my world again, my parents…about never eating my favourite food, never hearing my songs, never reading…”
“Songs? What are songs?” Krevlonswoth asked.
Fred sighed. “Music”
“What’s music?”
“Is there no music, here? Don’t people sing? Don’t they play instruments?”
“Uh?” the demon exclaimed.
“Oh…like this “she opened her mouth and started to sing with a thin, well toned voice.
“Yesterday…I’m not half the man I used to be…there’s a shadow hanging over me…”
As soon as the first sounds escaped her mouth, Krevlornswoth fell from the fence, head first in the thick grass.


Buffy swirled her fork unwillingly in the purée: she wasn’t hungry. She turned her head and saw from afar the black hair and blue eyes of Parker, his cute smile directed at a redheaded hottie. Another freshman. The new woman in his life.
Idiot, idiot, idiot….I’m an idiot, Buffy thought. Instead of going around by night, fighting evil forces (more than dwindling forces, by the way) she was suffering like an idiot and losing an umpteenth couple of pounds over a sly student with a tiny penis, incapable of giving her an orgasm even by accident! And he preferred other girls to her! He had promised her intimacy! And now he was looking for it elsewhere!
Buffy had never felt so dirty, not even when she had lain with Europe’s Scourge and William the Bloody. After all, they had loved her. Parker had only used her.
She feared she was drowning in self–pity.
“Hallo, Buffy” Willow greeted her, sitting down next to her. Buffy smiled wanly, and pushed away her untouched food. “That jerk is in action again, uh?”
“Right” Buffy looked at her, suddenly noticing: she was shining. After her long mourning for Oz, Willow seemed to have reached a new level of contentment. She was happy for her friend.
”I’m a pathetic slut” she said. “Suffering for such a dickhead. But it hurts. This time I really believed that…”
“I know” Willow replied. “Maybe you couldn’t forget your past. You can’t forget that type of encounter. Maybe not even in a couple of years. I told him the same thing, the other night”
Buffy was puzzled. “Who is he?”
Willow feigned indifference.
“Well, Spike, obviously”
“EH?!”
“Spike. William the Bloody. The other vampire with a soul. Back, here in Sunnydale. A couple of night ago he was at the Bronze. I thought you had met, and talked”
“Spike is here? Did he see me at the Bronze with Parker?”
“Yeah” Willow nodded. “I tried to warn you, but all of your attention was taken by Mr. Sensitivity”
“What an idiot! Spike was there and I wanted to rush into bed with Parker! What a stupid!”
“Buffy, he’ll understand It’s not like you could have waited eternally for them…”
“I’ll make him pay, instead!” Buffy exclaimed, furious. “He had the nerve to come to Sunnydale and not to tell me! Bastard!”
Willow kept silent.
“Did he tell you anything about Angelus?” Buffy asked, after a bit, with a broken voice.


Giles opened the door, not caring about his domestic attire: anything was all right for a Watcher nowadays.
He regretted it immediately.
“Hi, Rupert” Spike smiled.
Giles stood open – mouthed.
“Won’t you invite me in? As you well know …I don’t bite anymore”
“Right” Giles said, still. “Stalin didn’t bite, either. But he sent thousands of people to Siberia to die”
“I’m not that mean” Spike replied.
“Come in”
Spike entered the small flat, all painted in quite a sad shade of green. “They don’t pay you enough, Rupert. As Buffy’s watcher you should be able to afford better than this”
”Did you come back…for her?”
“Have you got anything to say against that?”
“Just a whole word of NO”
“I’m not bad anymore” Spike observed, putting himself at ease on the couch.
“I don’t have the slightest idea what you are now. But I’m quite certain my Slayer can aspire to somebody better”
“Such as the frat boys she picks up at the Bronze?”
“Buffy is not that kind of girl”
“You’re even more delusional than I remembered” Spike replied. “Open your eyes, Rupert. She did it under your nose when she was seventeen, go figure now…”
“It ‘s been a very pleasant meeting. Now, if you don’t mind…”
“Rupert, you’re underestimating me. As usual. I’m not here to discuss Buffy…or Willow…with you. I’m here to discuss your job. Here in town there’s a new player, and I don’t like him at all”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Last night a commando cornered me. Crafty people…”
“Not enough to stop you”
Spike smiled. “Oooh… was that sarcasm? Anyway, I smell trouble. The fight between good and evil forces has always been…well, kind of ancient. Vampires, demons….slayer. Spells. Magicks. Those people used laser rifles and were wearing camouflage marked U.S. Army. And since when do the authorities….wait a moment”
“What?” Rupert inquired, intrigued.
Spike tried to recall his memories. “During the Second World War I was on a U.S. Submarine which had been captured by Germans. The Third Reich was conducting experiments on vamps hoping to conjure a demon army. And the Americans…well, they were doing something similar…They had an organization which was called…Enterprise…no…something similar…I’ve got it: Initiative”
“You’re teasing me” Rupert commented.
“Why should I?” Spike asked, smiling. “Believe it or not, I’ve got a soul, now…just like yours”
“This doesn’t make a person of you…let alone a deserving one”
“Don’t be a racist, Rupert, you’re not honouring our Country, cradle of civilisation”
“Let’s go back to this Initiative. What’s its aim?”
“To experiment on demons? To investigate occult forces? To use them for their own goals?”
“Mmm….what you’re telling me could be interesting, indeed. Some months ago Buffy crossed on patrol with a group of men in a similar attire. It was Halloween, and she believed that…”
Spike laughed. “Did she believe they were wearing a costume? Do you ever eliminate vampires, once in a while?”
“When we don’t succeed, we give them back their soul”
“Very amusing indeed”
“We’ll work on this topic. Could you…ok, this is painful for me, but….could you help us? And now, if you don’t mind…”
“I’m not here to seduce Buffy back”
“I don’t believe you”
“It’s true” Spike insisted.
“And your…deserving partner?”
“He’s in Los Angeles. He’s atoning for his past by fighting for Good. Yawn”
Giles pursed his lips. He couldn’t forget that Angelus was the monster who had killed his Jenny. And he couldn’t forget that he had missed his chance when the demon, shocked by his soul, had put himself at his mercy: that was his sourest failure, both as a man and as a watcher.
That, and discovering how low his slayer had fallen.
Spike understood at once what the man was thinking. He felt for him, sincerely.
“I’m sorry” he said. “I…can’t deny that I think about Buffy, still. You probably don’t believe me, but I’ve always had very strong feelings for her…even then. I know I can’t offer her anything…you’re right. I’ve got my soul back, but I’m still a demon. I don’t even want to try. I don’t expect anything from her. I just want to know she’s all right. She’s protected.”
“I do my best for…”
“I know. I’m not afraid for her as a slayer. I’m afraid for her as a woman”
”She has nothing to learn from you”
“You’re right, maybe” Spike smiled. “Not any more”
The bell rang.
“Mr. Giles? Are you at home?”
“I don’t want her to see me” Spike said quickly. “May I hide in your bathroom?”
“Please” Giles smiled, ironically, while he opened the door to Buffy.
She entered like lightning.
“Don’t lie to me. Was Spike here?”
“Sp…Spike?” Giles badly affected ignorance.
“He’s here” Buffy understood it immediately.
“No…well…I haven’t seen him since the night Willow and I…”
“Damn it! I know he is in Sunnydale! And I have to talk to him”
“Why?” Giles inquired. “I believed all that was over. Two years has passed since he and the Scourge left. What can you want from them, now? You defeated Faith, the Mayor, you’re going to College, you have a normal life…they can only bring pain to you, Buffy…”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Giles. I have to know. I always think about him…not a day passes without his memories. I can’t carry on as if he didn’t exist. My heart can’t forget”
Spike, from the bathroom, heard those words and felt something icy melting in his chest. A mad hope, something he had never even dared to touch…
She was confessing her thoughts to him. He was in her heart. Oh, Buffy, love, wait for me…I wasn’t wrong, then. I knew I had to come back to you….
“What are you saying? Do you love him?” Giles whispered, scandalized.
Buffy didn’t answer.
Spike, so near to her, held his unneeded breath.
And then, she spoke.
“Mr. Giles…I have to see him…to talk to him…I’m not living anymore…I’m not breathing…I have to know what happened to Angelus…”
Spike’s heart, which had stopped one hundred and twenty years ago, broke.



Fred was trying to get to sleep on her straw mattress next to the cattle–yard, when Krevlornswoth arrived. He had in his hands a small carved wooden box.
“Shhh” he said, sitting next to her. “If they knew I was here…they would skin me…literally. Apparently Pylean jackets are all the rage in your dimension. But I wanted you to have this”
Fred sat up, excited. Her things! She opened the box with trembling fingers and caressed her poor possessions: her watch (only a few minutes had passed since her arrival, in her true world….a few eternal minutes), a small notepad …and William Shelby’s reader card, along with his lyrics.
Fred cried quietly. All was lost.
“Now, sweetie, don’t do that” Krevlorsnwoth comforted her in his sweet voice. “I know how you feel…”
“No, you just can’t…”
“Darling, I really know how you feel. Empathic, remember? The other day, when you sang, I got it. All of your pain, loneliness, puzzlement, all of them hit me like a blow in the stomach. That was weird! It seems that when you sing my empathy gets stronger”
”That was why you collapsed?”
Krevlornswoth smiled. “That…and the song. That was the most wonderful thing I had ever heard in my whole life. I…believe I was born for this. For music. I’d give my life to hear it again”
Fred smiled too. “I can sing till I’m exhausted, and I’d do that for you…but this is not music, believe me. In my world there are people with wonderful voices, people who can play like angels. There are instruments I don’t even know the name of, that create wonderful melodies”
“That’s fantastic” he said sadly. “But I’ll never hear it”
Fred stared at him.
“Why don’t you create your own music?”
“It’s not allowed here, in Pylea. And now I know why. It would make us mad”
“Or…simply human”
The man looked at her. And then he noticed the small photo from the library. “Who’s that, sugar? Your boyfriend?”
Fred laughed, reddening. “I wish! No, he’s just a reader in the library I work at. I don’t even know him. Once we bumped into each other…and he dropped this” Fred gave the lyrics to the man, who read them seemingly without problems.
“Whoa!” he smiled, touching the paper. “I don’t even need to hear him to feel the world of passion which inhabits his blue blue eyes. Do you like him?”
“Yes, I do but…what does it matter?” she commented, melancholic again. “I’m here. And even if I were there…nothing would change. I’m a nothing , Lorne. A girl who’s not pretty enough, not ugly enough, not perky enough to be noticed. A zero. And the confirmation of that is my being here, now. And he’s so handsome, and mysterious, and romantic…he would never notice me. Never”
“What did you call me? Lorne?”
“It’s a play on words” she smiled. “Since you’re green…Lorne Greene…Bonanza…well, it doesn’t matter. The alternative was Hulk, and I frankly prefer Lorne. Your real name is so difficult…”
“I like it” Lorne was happy about it. “Let’s talk some more about music. But don’t let’s forget your friend with weird hair. He doesn’t strike me as the type who gives in. He could help you”
“How?” she laughed, bitterly. “How in this world do I get in touch with him?”
“With this telephone number” Lorne said, indicating the cell number on the reader card. “It’s a telephone, right? A cow had one of those, once…”
“Uh?”



Buffy slipped through the grounds of the campus. Tonight, this was more than a patrol: it was an unmerciful hunt.
She had to find Spike.
Notwithstanding all of his denials, she was sure Giles had met him, like Willow. Why in the world doesn’t he come to me, she asked herself. Furious (she had already visited all seven of Sunnydale’s cemeteries without noticing even the shadow of his bloody duster), she rested for a while behind Lowell House, a frat dorm. It was a place she had never explored before and something told her that, maybe, she would be luckier here.
She was wrong.
Not even the least vampire…not to talk about that particular vampire. She had only one chance, left: Willy the Snitch and his lurid bar.
Her thoughts moved away a little from Spike to rest, painfully, on Parker. She really knew it was a question of pride, more than of the heart, but it hurt just the same. Anxious to get back to her hunt, she bumped against a wall.
“Ouch” two voices exclaimed at once…hers…and the wall’s.
Which turned out to be a tall guy with a familiar face and the build of a basketball player.
“I’m….I’m sorry” he stuttered, rubbing the spot where she had collided with him.
“Were you looking for mushrooms?” she smirked, noting his very professional torch.
“No…no. I was looking for my library badge, and…”
“It always happens to me,” Buffy smiled. “This has to be some kind of destiny. When we met the first time, I buried you under a pile of books”
“Buffy? Willow’s friend?” he finally recognized her. “Oh, God, I’m sorry…”
“About me hitting you…again?”
“No…I was intending to call you…to ask you …on a date…and instead…we meet in the dark and bump into each other…you know what I mean. Not a good beginning”
“I had worse” she smiled. “Riley Finn, right? Professor Walsh’s assistant”
“Yep. If I survive”
“It was kind of you to think about me”
“To be honest, Iwas afraid I had got my timing wrong. Somebody told me you’re dating Parker Abrams”
“Parker…who?” she laughed bitterly.
“Ah…it’s over, then”
“Yes. It seems his relationships don’t last.” She was sad, now.
“Well…no…I mean….I’m sorry…but not that much” he laughed. “If you are free…and willing…tonight there’s a party here at our dorm. You’d be welcome”
“Thanks, I’ll think about it.” She smiled. “An old acquaintance of mine arrived in town and if I meet up with him, I have to greet him as he deserves. But if I can…I’ll come”
“I’ll count on it” Riley smirked. “Good night, Buffy”
“Good night, Riley”
They went off in opposite directions, he with his torch, she with her stake.
None of them asked themselves what the other was really doing in a garden, at night.


When Nicole undressed and Tom offered her the joint, Willow leaned against Spike’s shoulder, letting her head fall on his chest.
Spike smiled.
There had to be a reason in the world why he and the redhead had ended up at the Sunnydale Sun cinema to see that Kubrick festival, but in that moment he couldn’t recall it. The only important thing was the perfume of her skin, the blood pulsing under it and the power she radiated, even in that moment, when she was totally relaxed against him like the nineteen years young woman she was.
Seemingly.
Indeed, Willow was anything but normal, and he knew it. Since the beginning.
So, when she had called him on his cell and asked him on a date, he had accepted. He didn’t feel like waiting to bump into Buffy, and he could always go patrolling after the cinema.
They had spent the whole afternoon in the dark seeing “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “The Shining” and now “Eyes wide shut”. Spike had already seen it at its launch and he had liked it. Baroque, yes, but interesting. But even more interesting was to follow the vivid face of Willow get more animated at the thickening of the plot, her big eyes (oh – so – innocent, so they seemed!) widening with incredulity.
When the lights went on during the interval, Willow’s cheeks were pink and her eyes sparkled.
“I can’t believe those things. I can’t believe people dress up like that and get naked in public…orgies…”
Spike had a bout of laugher and fought against the temptation to light a cigarette. “Obviously they exist. For ever, I’d say”
“Did you ever….take part in one?”
Spike closed their distance, an arm around her shoulders. “When I was alive…no, clearly. I was very naïve. But later…that’s another story”
“Tell me” she insisted, most curious.
“Honestly, Angelus, Darla, Dru and I were too hungry to waste our time in that kind of …well, social events. Mostly, when we were around, a blood bath ensued. But….I have to admit that once in Venice, during the Carnival…Angelus got us an invitation to one of those parties2, it was always him who made this type of contact. But later we got away with our party into a private room….”
”Go ahead” she invited him.
“You don’t seem to me to be too scandalized, Miss Rosenberg”
“How do I seem to you?” she asked, biting her lip with her small white teeth.
“Aroused” he whispered, leaning over her and kissing her briefly, passing his tongue over the crimson drop of blood she had provoked with her gesture. Willow deepened the embrace, putting her hand behind his head, and Spike slid his tongue down into her mouth.
She moaned, and the kiss deepened.
“And …then?” she said, breathless, after a few long minutes.
“Dru had picked up a seminarist on the way. His name was Ferrante. A cute guy. That was his last night…we liked him so much that Angelus and I sired him. I haven’t seen him again”
“Do you think….he’s still around?”
“Who knows? Maybe”
“Are you sorry about that?”
“Would it change anything? Anyway, yes, I’m very sorry. I always believed I didn’t care, but now I’m not so convinced about that. Yes, I’m sorry. I’d give everything to turn time back. But I can’t. Angel can’t live with this awareness. I have to.”
“But…the idea still excites you, doesn’t it?” she insisted. Willow was ever the scientist, always dedicated to testing and questioning.
“Yes” he admitted.
“And the soul?”
“It hasn’t anything to do with sex, don’t you know that?”
“I guess. Buffy would be happy to know”
“A fat lot she cares…” Spike bitterly replied.
“Don’t say that. I know she always thinks about you”
“She thinks about Angelus…”
“Probably, yes, but you’re not that far behind. I know it for certain. She misses you both, and she’s never been happy in the last two years, she had to fight all and everybody. Don’t be another obstacle for her. Why don’t you look for her?”
Spike sighed. “I came here hoping to see her…hoping she had waited for me, after all. I get it now: it wasn’t like that. Buffy got herself another life and she doesn’t love me, anyway. Please, I don’t even want to talk about it”
“As you like” she pouted.
The lights went down again.
Willow crouched against him, the vampire’s cool hands between hers, and watched the movie with new eyes.
From time to time, he delicately kissed her brow, and caressed her hands. Willow didn’t want to ask herself about the whys and hows of that strange afternoon. When the film was over, they got up – still entwined – and slowly went out. Outside the cinema door, Spike leaned against her and kissed her briefly.
“Thank you for this most pleasant afternoon”
“Thanks to you…especially for your sincerity”
“You made me so”
“You made me do so” she smiled.
They were still looking at each other, and talking, and kissing, when somebody called Willow.
She raised her head and froze.
Tara.
”Hi…Will. I thought you were going out…with me. But I see…you’re busy”
In a very natural way, Spike loosed his embrace and straightened. He didn’t want to hurt the fair – haired girl.
“I’m glad to meet you” he said, extending his hand to her. “I know you’re Tara, Willow’s girlfriend. I’m Spike”
“Sp..Spike…The vampire” she whispered.
“Yeah…back in Sunnyhell. I felt like coming back for a while”
Willow left Spike’s side and linked her arm into Tara’s. “We went to the cinema. I knew you had to study”
“Yes, but…”
“And now I have to go. Fighting against Evil is a full time job” Spike smiled. “And I’ve still got to put on my tight superhero suit”
The two girls followed him with their eyes. And then they stared at each other.
“I get it now…it’s him” Tara observed, watching him with knowing eyes.
“Right. What do you think about it?” Willow murmured, feeling guilty…and full of expectations, too.
Tara smiled at her, shyly.
“It could be done”


Spike drifted back slowly to his room. He would drink some pig’s blood heated in the microwave oven….when he was hunting, he preferred to do so with a full stomach. There were always human casualties, often bleeding, and he wanted to avoid temptation. And then he would go out. Night was coming.
He had rented a couple of rooms in a stylish residence. Spending Angel’s money always gave him some satisfaction.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t that satisfied with the evening (his traitor body had expected better from sweet, dangerous Willow and her O neg) but he forced himself to feel at peace. There were no misunderstandings with her. Willow had a girlfriend, and she was falling in love with Tara. Spike accepted that, since he had to.
But he didn’t have any time for his snack.
Whistler was waiting for him in his sitting room.
“You’re always leaving your cell at home. What kind of bloody superhero are you?”
“What do you want?” Spike asked, feigning indifference to the Powers that Be’s emissary and opening his fridge.
”Sweetie, there’s a call for you” Whistler smiled. “Take it, before I vomit. I can tell you that interdimensional calls cost a hell of a lot”
Amazed, Spike took the cell.
“Hallo?” a voice croaked, far far away. “William Shelby?”
Even more bedazzled, Spike stared at the phone, as if watching it could provide him with answers.
“Yes…well…kind of…let’s say I’m him
“Well” the voice exclaimed. “And now sing me something”
Spike stared at Whistler with a death stare. When the demon encouraged him, Spike threw away the remnants of his good sense and intoned the last verse of “My way”.



“And more…much more than this…I did it my waaaaay……”
Lorne – shocked – covered his ears with his hands.
Fred was even more terrified, and she was waiting for a word from him. The sound was coming from a type of tube that the old wise man Lorne had consulted held in his hands, and which had nothing in common with a phone. But it worked. Her mysterious poet, in her world, was on the other end of that magic line. Unbelievable!
Lorne reacted, eventually “A lot of unresolved issues, honey. That’s for sure” he explained to Fred.
“Who the hell are you? What do you want from me?” the vampire’s irritated voice intruded.
“William Shelby” Lorne answered. “What the hell are you? Pure demon, pure soul…what kind of creature are you?”
“A creature who will fuck you dry if you don’t hurry up and explain what you want from me and why you got me singing”
“Do you believe in magic? Do you believe in mythical creatures? Do you believe in things you can’t see with your eyes and…” Lorne asked.
“More than you’d guess. Go ahead” Spike insisted, very moodily.
“There’s a damsel in distress”
“Describe her”
“Beautiful and innocent” Lorne whispered, looking at Fred with warm sympathy.
“I don’t know any like that” Spike replied sourly.
“But she knows you…and she has nobody else in this world”
“How the hell do I get to her?” Spike asked, looking at Whistler pouring his bourbon generously. “Something tells me you’re far away”
“Your friend will tell you how” Lorne abruptly ended and made a gesture to the old man.
The communication stopped with a click. When Lorne had explained to her that the old man of the mountain was one of the few in that dimension to understand something about spatial – temporal tunnels, she hadn’t believed him. Now, she had to admit it had worked. William Shelby had been contacted somehow….and it seemed he was not the type of guy to be too shocked by such a bizarre circumstance.
“Your handsome knight is coming for you, sugar” Lorne comforted her. “I warn you: his iron armour isn’t shining, but it’s solid as a rock”
“How do you know?” Fred asked, sadly. It all seemed so impossible…
“He almost broke my eardrums” Lorne admitted. “Now I know what you meant when you told me there are good sing

5. Intervention.

”Why….the HELL… didn’t you come TO ME….right away?!”
Spike gazed at her without speaking, then downed his bourbon….all that Whistler had left him. Buffy was trembling with rage. Unmoving, she stared at him. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.
Beautiful. A most beautiful man. She hadn’t remembered him so….Spike. Slim, elegant, his chiseled face, unforgettable. Those blue eyes sparkling with life, in a way she had never seen before. That soft mouth that had taught her to kiss. Oh, how she had missed him! She hadn’t realized it until then.
She asked herself, now that she was trembling from sheer emotion, what it would be like meeting Angelus again.
“I’m sorry, baby” he replied, quietly. “If I had known you missed me so…I wouldn’t have stayed away so long” Spike looked at her, with steely eyes. “But, go figure…I guess that’s not really the case”
“You’re an idiot!” she shouted, hitting him across the face. Spike stopped her hand, as fast as lightning, and spoke to her firmly. “I’m an idiot because I don’t expect anything from you, Slayer? I wouldn’t say so”
He left her and sat down on his couch, leaving her alone, standing frustrated in the middle of the room.
“What the hell are you saying?” she shouted, still shocked that she had tried to hit him…without success.
“I mean, I saw you last night at the Bronze with that boy. A very bad choice, indeed”
“You could have stopped me”
“From making your mistakes? Since when? And don’t tell me I didn’t try, either”
“Do you think it was a mistake to give Angelus his soul back?” she replied “I lost him, but the world got the better deal. I killed the monster”
“You see, you’ve been here for what…two minutes? And we are already talking about him”
“We are talking about you, too…what have you become, Spike?”
“Do you care?”
“A lot”
“I don’t” Spike stood up and looked at her. Slowly, up and down. “Now - I’m busy. I have a rescue to complete, if you don’t mind…” He picked up Whistler’s book and caressed its cover.
Buffy covered his hand with hers.
He raised his eyes to meet her green, crystal clear ones. Both recalled the same gesture…two years ago. The other way round, obviously.
But that universe didn’t even exist anymore.
“Spike…” she said, the warm touch of her fingers on his cool ones. “Save me”
He looked at her, clueless.


“Yes….in Pylea…it’s another dimension. Whistler, I told you. No…obviously, no guarantee of return. You should be glad! Damn it, Angel, you’re insatiable!”
Buffy gazed at him as Spike paced the sitting room with long strides, the cellphone in his hand. Angel? Who the hell was he talking to?
“I know it. I’ll be careful. No, nothing about her. I swear to you. What? Go to hell! Ok, I’ll call you when I’m back. If I come back. No, I’m sure I’ll come back. Do you doubt it? Who would torment you then?”
With a neat click, Spike ended the communication.
“Oops” He smiled. “I forgot to give him your regards. How rude of me!”
“Who are you talking about?”
“About Angel. Your love”
“Angel?”
“You’re dense, Slayer. Angelus with the soul equals Angel. He’s too good and remorseful to keep the same nefarious name. It’s better, don’t you think? A bright finish on it, et voilà, the dark avenger, the enemy of demons, vampires, smugglers, Angel, the Helper.”
“Angelus changed his name?”
“Who knows? Maybe he doesn’t want anything to remind him…of you?” Spike smirked. “Isn’t it sad?”
Buffy let herself fall on the couch. Angelus, the Angelus she had loved didn’t exist anymore. A tear ran down her cheek. He was lost forever…and it was all her fault. She straightened.
Spike didn’t deserve this. Hell, Spike had been taught to expect only this from her, and she was fully confirming his expectations. “Tell me…something about you, Spike”
“Go to hell” he replied, hurt and bored. “I was at your Watcher’s, a few days ago. I heard it all. You only care about him, Buffy…and Angelus doesn’t even exist anymore. I’m sorry. Everybody hurts, we all lose, what do you want from me…”
“That’s not true! I…” Buffy bit her lip. “You, on the contrary. What mind games are you playing? Don’t you know that I thought about you, I missed you?”
“I’m not playing this game” He repeated, coldly. “I was deluded enough to think I could be important to you, but I was obviously wrong”
“No, it’s not like that…I mean…”
“Forgive me, but I have to go. I’ve a mission to accomplish”
“Let me come with you” she implored. “We’ll talk on the way”
“You wish!” he replied. “Give me that book”
“No! What the hell is this book for, then?” Buffy took it and opened it. She tried to read that strange language without vowels.
”Buffy, stop it - now! I…”
It was too late. With a terrible light, the dimensional portal opened.
Spike extended his hand, and she took it.
For a moment, they stayed entwined.
For a moment.
Then, the light went out and all was darkness.



Spike opened his eyes on a shining green and sunny world. Instinctively, he screamed and covered himself with his duster.
But it made no difference.
Meaning he wasn’t burning.
The sun caressed his skin, making it warm. His eyes had to adjust to the bright light of that blue sky….coming from the three suns.
Spike smiled and shrugged (knowing Angel, he would put money on it that, in his place, he would have stayed for hours dancing in the sun) and wandered away through the wood.

Buffy found herself in the court of an ancient, medieval-looking castle. She had landed on a stony pavement, among pebbles and dust. And people around her, people in a market, buying, selling, chatting.
A tall tower shadowed the square, protecting the fortress’s inhabitants. Buffy smiled. Welcome to Disneyworld.
But her smile soon vanished.
Oh, shit…


Spike saw a green creature running towards him, with a couple of little red horns on top of his head: apart from those, and the hooked nose, he looked much like a man. And he was smiling amiably.
“I’m glad you’ve arrived, William Shelby” the green man said. “You can call me Lorne”
“My name is Spike” the vampire replied abruptly. “And I intend to make this adventure in wonderland as short and painless as possible…here where the suns don’t burn…I’ve got things to do back in Sunnyhell”
Lorne stared at him, confused.
“Do the suns in your world burn? Since when?”
Spike sighed. “Mate, do you know what I am? You appealed to the Powers that Be to make me come here to rescue the girl…but I’m not a bloody spotless knight. Not one bit. I’m not really a person, in a way”
“Aren’t you human?”
“Not really” Spike laughed. “I can stand sunlight, here, but in my world I walk through darkness. To cut a long story short, I’m a vampire, a bloodsucker. I burn under the sun, I’m pretty immortal and I don’t love crosses. Entiende?”
Lorne smiled. “I knew you weren’t your run of the mill type. I got it when you sang. But anyway you’re the right man…ok, the vampire for this mission. You have a soul”
“Right. Life is weird, isn’t it?”
“More than you could guess, William”
“Spike”
“Ok, Spike. But let’s get away from this passageway, it would be better if nobody sees you now. I’ll take you to a cave, and we’ll wait for nightfall there. I’ll introduce you to Fred, my dearest cow, and we’ll discuss how to save her”
“Cow?” Spike investigated, raising a brow.
“Human, I meant”
“Ha – Ha”
“Did you arrive alone? The old wise man says there were two of you…”
“She’ll take care of herself” Spike muttered. “She’s a bloody Slayer”
“Uh?”
“She slays vampires…those like me”
“Did she follow you here to Pylea to kill you?”
“No. She followed me because she’s a bloody woman, obnoxious and incapable of using her brain!” Spike replied, still irritated with Buffy. “And anyway, why should we wait for the night? Take me to this Fred immediately, and let’s get it over. I’m in a hurry to go back home”
“Fred is a slave, here” Lorne explained. “If she leaves the fields, they would notice. Believe me, it’s better to wait for the night. In the meantime, could you sing again? Please!”
Spike gazed at him, more and more amazed.
“No” He replied, obstinately, following the green creature up the very green hill.


”Catch that cow!” a farmer screamed, and Buffy turned, in time to understand she was the cow, and that armed soldiers were trying to capture her. She jumped swiftly on to a haystack and then, catlike, to a roof. But she was still dazed by the interdimensional journey…and she fainted. She fell into the arms of a muscular green soldier, who laughed, securing her hands with rudimentary manacles and putting something cold and metallic around her neck.
Buffy felt like crying tears of frustration. They had taken her. Those middle age yokels , all horned and green, had captured her. Like a…well, cow.
All the people in the market laughed and clapped.
”Take her to the castle dungeon!” A fat notable screamed, while she felt like vanishing from sheer humiliation. They put her on a cart, and took her up the cobbled road to the entrance of the Manor.
“Let me go!” she shouted. The only reassuring thing was that everybody around was speaking English. “I want to go back home”
They didn’t listen to her.
Some bearded creatures, looking vaguely like women, ripped off her clothes.
Naked and trembling, Buffy waited to know her destiny.
“Oh, Spike!” she thought, almost desperately, her cold naked skin hurting from the contact with the icy stone. “Come and rescue me…Damn it! Do one thing right and save me!”



Spike lit a fire in the wide cave whose walls were covered in symbols: at first glance, they looked like mathematical equations. Bored, irritated from staying cooped up there, and even a bit worried about Buffy’s fate in that strange world, he waited for Lorne.
When darkness fell, after having captured a couple of squirrels and sucked them dry, he went out of the cave and stared at the sky, entranced with the totally foreign constellations.
That was really another world.
Another reality, profoundly different from his own and possibly hostile. Where the hell had Buffy gone? He had to find her before he could leave. Damn it! What if she had landed on the other side of the planet? What if this planet was immense?
Lorne arrived with a very shy Fred. The girl was skinny, shocked, dirty and raw, with long dirty curls and broken glasses.
Spike felt tremendous pity for her. He understood she was terrified, exhausted, on the brink of madness.
It was time to take her home.
“Please” he said, kindly, taking her hands between his and making her sit next to the fire. “I came here for you. We’re going back home, you’ll see. Back to Earth”
“Your hands are cold” she replied, looking at him entranced. It was him. Her kind knight with bleached hair, her romantic poet. “A handsome man came to save her. Isn’t it weird?”
Spike gazed at Lorne, asking with his eyes whether the girl had lost her mind. The Pylean shook his head.
“Listen to me, pet” he explained. “My hands are cold because I come from Earth, but I’m not human. I’m a vampire, but a good one…I’ve got a soul. I won’t hurt you. I’m here to help you…and I swear I’ll do that…We’ll do it, together. We’ll soon be back home”
She nodded. She believed in him. She couldn’t believe that smile. That kind smile, that of William, the one Buffy had never seen.
Now, after Pylea, she could believe anything. Even vampires.
She would ask herself, later, when she was alone, what all of this meant.
For now, it just mattered that he was there, kind, handsome…and bent on helping her.
Lorne crouched next to the fire, warming his hands. “I’ve discussed with the old wise man. He has contacts with your world, Spike. There’s a book with a hart on the cover, and that’s the passageway we need to get back to the Earth. We have to find it. But there’s a problem. It’s under the ownership of the powerful priests of Pylea, down in the Manor”
“Whatever” Spike replied. ”We go in and we take it. I don’t see a problem”. The vampire stared at him. “Wait a moment. You said ‘We need’. Are you coming back home with us?”
“Yes” Lorne asserted, sternly. “This world suffocates me. I hate it. I want music. I want life. I want to come with you”
“Is it possible?” Spike asked. “I don’t have any objection, as long as it doesn’t bother…the girl. Fred?”
“Winifred Burkle” she introduced herself, hiding her mouth with her hand, with a shy gesture. “Please, call me Fred”
“I don’t think so” Lorne insisted. “We won’t be alone. There’s your friend, too”
“Uh?” Fred asked.
“You’ve arrived with a woman in tow” Lorne continued. “The old man told me so. He told me she is a fighter for Good, too…and that she’s very powerful. But, now and then, she loses her way. He feels her contradictions”
“Good for him” Spike replied, coldly. “I gave up trying to understand her long ago. I hope she gets out of here, somehow”
“I sent my cousin Landok to the Manor, to try to find out her whereabouts. If anything has happened to her, we’ll know it”
”Who is she?” Fred asked. “Your girlfriend?”
Spike laughed. “No, sweetie, she’s not my girlfriend. I’m too inferior to her to be that”
“I can’t believe that” Fred replied. She just couldn’t get around the idea any woman could refuse him.
“It’s like that, anyway” he added, bitterly. “But that’s not a problem anymore”
“What are you going to do?” Lorne asked.
“I’ll go to the Castle, as soon as you tell me the way. And I’ll look for the book. I’ll try to be as polite as possible…but I could be obliged to use violence. I’m sure Buffy will be ok, and we’ll meet here, somehow”
”She could need help…” Fred intruded.
Spike rolled his eyes. He just missed this type of woman in his life…
“I’ll need weapons. I might have to use them”
“I know,” Lorne admitted. “But I know you won’t abuse them”
A strange smirk appeared on Spike’s sensuous lips. Fred caught her breath.
“You really don’t know me, don’t you? Not at all. But I like your trust, it honors you”
“Be careful, please. In Pylea they are very cruel with humans…or with creatures looking like them. And you’re our only chance. Ah - Landok is coming. Let’s hear the news”
Landok was a well built bearded warrior who gazed at the two cows with a certain disdain.
”I don’t know why I spend my time with you and your slaves, Krevlornswoth…but here is the news you were waiting for. The cow has been captured, at the Manor, and they have decided on her fate”
“And that would be?” Spike yawned.
“She will be beheaded. At dawn. That’s the standard punishment for disobedient cows.”
“Uh?”



“It’s all his fault!” Buffy exclaimed, hugging herself and fighting the cold in the thin robes the bearded women had given her. “I’m here, cold, terrorized, half naked, chained…and they’ll kill me in a few hours! Spike! He’ll pay for this!”
Nobody answered. She was alone in the tiny, smelly cubicle beneath the castle. Nobody had hurt her, yet, but she didn’t delude herself about her future. They would behead her.
Damn it!
Buffy cried. That was too much. That was simply too much.
What had possessed her to join Spike’s mission? God knew she had had her share of heroism in her nineteen years of life. She had died! It had to matter, didn’t it? It was unacceptable that her life had to end there, in that absurd otherworld reality.
“But I couldn’t let him go…like that” she said to herself, crouching in a corner, chin on her knees. She couldn’t accept the idea of him leaving angry with her, disappointed about her feelings, hurt, frustrated.
Buffy tried to understand herself. What she had felt in seeing him again had been really strong, it had been a sort of shock. In a heartbeat, she had forgotten Parker, she immediately knew with Spike it was something on a whole different level. She had understood she couldn’t forget him. She didn’t want to forget him, either. What she felt for Spike was strong, primeval, original. She desired him, without doubt, he had been her first man, the idea f of lying with him was like coming back home…but it wasn’t just a matter of sex, either, it had never been like that. He had been more grown up than her and he had understood it immediately. That was what had separated them, truly…that, and Angelus.
To know that Angelus had changed his name had hurt her, but it hadn’t surprised her. Not too much.
She had always known that it would be painful, for him, Spike himself had warned her about it: Angelus’ heart had dark depths you couldn’t possibly fathom, while William brought his in his expressive blue eyes. Two men…two vampires…so different.
Both were as necessary as oxygen to Buffy. How had she lived without them for the last two years? She just didn’t get it. And she loved Angelus, sure (she had never had doubts about that: she had reached her limits for him, she had given him body, soul, blood, she had destroyed herself and her relationships with the people she loved most), but she couldn’t deny either feeling some very strong feelings for Spike. She couldn’t deny this truth to herself any more.
She knew she had disappointed him. He hadn’t misunderstood her words to Giles: that was true, she couldn’t live without Angelus, without knowing what had become of him…but she couldn’t live without Spike either.
But it was too late. She had seen it in his gaze.
And now she was dead.
“I miss you” she whispered. “Spike, I miss you so much. Come back to me. Don’t let the disappointment, or any other grievance keep us apart. I beg you…save me”
She knew he would have saved her. If only he hadn’t forgotten her.
In a moment of deep self – consciousness, Buffy swore to herself she would be true to him….if only destiny would let her find him again.
If only she could survive the dawn.



Spike stared at the castle, at the light of the seven moons, all in different phases. What about darkness around here, he thought. There was more light than in Las Vegas! The vampire took his cigarettes from the duster and lit one.
He studied the manor. Impenetrable. Well, that was not the way.
It was time to study another way in. One such as….the main entrance.
During the night a couple of sentinels patrolled halfheartedly at the main access to the castle. Spike stunned one of them and took the other out from behind. He took the double bladed knife Landok had given him and with that he threatened the soldier’s throat.
“I need to talk to the priests. Now!”
The soldier opened the gate with trembling hands. As soon as they were in, a group of soldiers surrounded them.
“I cut his throat if you don’t take me to the priests! Immediately”
“A threatening cow? What a shame!” the captain replied. “Get him!”
“You try!” Spike laughed, stunning the second soldier and jumping around at a speed even superior to what he had at his disposal on Earth. It seemed his strength and agility were far enhanced here. He felt strong, confident…and that was a great way to start the night. He guessed things could only get better.
He succeeded in taking the captain’s back and putting his knife a mere inch from his heart. “What about those priests?”
The captain was shocked. This creature looked like a useless cow and instead it moved like a demon. The captain waved vaguely.
In a few minutes Spike was introduced into the throne room, in front of the Chief Priest.




Seth was the Chief Priest of Pylea and he had traveled enough across the worlds to have quite a clear idea about who William the Bloody was, and what.
The Pylea dimension gave terrestrial vampires particular strength, and even without that detail Seth didn’t feel the need to test personally that strange creature with weird hair and steely eyes.
Did he want the female cow? He would give her to him.
At a small price, obviously, one which would satisfy fully Seth and his acolytes.
“I know what you want, vampire” he said, his red eyes sparkling from behind the hood of his tunic. “You’ll have it. If you defeat the ten champions from Pylea, obviously. In that case, both of you will get out of here alive…or undead, as you please. Let the cow enter!”
One of the richly embroidered entrances opened and Buffy was introduced. She had chains at both her hands and feet. And a silver collar on her neck.
And she was almost naked: a few lavender veils covered her body strategically.
Buffy was both furious and exhilarated, a feeling she had learnt long ago to associate with Spike. He smirked when she raised her eyes to meet his. He was still man enough to appreciate the show.
She reddened under that explicit gaze, and she swore to dust him…after embracing him and loving and discovering him back, obviously…
“It seems the cow pleases you”
“You don’t know how much” Spike smiled. “But she’s too thin. I have to fatten her up” He ignored Buffy’s scandalized stare, which amused him enormously.
“I fear there won’t be time for that. You’ll fight the ten Champions at dawn”
“Ha - ha” Spike replied. “On one condition”
“Let’s hear it. I feel generous today” Seth laughed, knowing that all chances of success were in his field. A lone vampire against the ten strongest and wildest champions in the whole of Pylea…go figure.
Spike crossed the room and came close to Buffy, searching her eyes. She reddened again, feeling her body, even in these horrible circumstances, reacting to him. Spike raised a hand, caressed her burning cheek lightly. And then he took her chin in his fingers and sweetly, sensually, kissed her mouth.
Buffy moaned and opened instinctively to that burning assault.
Oh, how she had missed him…please, God, don’t let him stop that…ever.
But Spike let her loose. She still had her eyes closed, lost in the sensation.
“She fights with me”
Set and his men laughed. Big fat laughs.
“At the end, my love, we’re fighting together. On the same side” Spike smiled. She nodded. Yes, they’d be together. There wouldn’t be doors again to separate them, good from evil.
“As you please” Seth replied. “I don’t know what you’ll do with a feeble cow…it’ll just hasten your death ”
“We’ll see” Spike smiled. “When are we meeting your ten champions?”
“At dawn. You have time to rest”
“Well. After you, my dear” Spike laughed, pushing Buffy toward one of the exits. “Let’s get out of here”
“Not at all” Seth intruded. “Nobody will leave this manor before the match is over! Lock both of them in the mirror room!”
Spike sighed and followed Buffy.
It would be a long and uncomfortable night.



“Where are they?” Fred asked Lorne, sitting in the cave, next to the fire. She had been writing down her equations on the stony walls for hours, and usually this gave her some relief…but now she was exhausted. She had worked restlessly in the fields all day long, and then all those emotions…
“Do you believe Spike will save her…and find the book?”
“I’m sure about that” Lorne comforted her.
“Will they be together?”
“I believe so. I feel a magnetic force in action” Lorne confessed. “I’ll tell you what we’ll be doing. Tomorrow they’ll be back, I’m sure about that…and I’ll get them singing. In that way, I’ll get it”
“And…you ‘ll tell me?”
“Yes…sweetie. I’ll tell you”
Fred scooted next to him. She already loved this sweet green maternal creature.
What would she have done without him? How long would she have resisted?
Suddenly the idea of going back to Earth with him and Spike didn’t terrify her any more. She felt she wouldn’t be really alone again.
Notwithstanding Buffy.



“Well, here we are, together again. What about the furniture?”
Spike observed the almost empty room critically and kicked the wide four-poster bed with its little golden columns, observing the row of mirrors on the north wall.
“Don’t care about the furniture” she whispered. “Do you really want to spend the time sleeping?”
“I need my beauty rest, Slayer” he smirked. “In a few hours we’ll fight…or had you forgotten?”
”Aren’t you afraid? They’re ten, we are two”
“I never fear anything. And the same goes for you, admit it. At least about fighting”
“Weird, because you seem like a big fat coward to me, now”
“You mean?”
“Old Spike would have jumped my bones, now, and I’d be halfway to Heaven” she replied, her body moving under her thin veils.
“Stop that, pet” he replied coldly. “It’s over. The Spike who bedded you with a grateful smile doesn’t exist anymore. We’ll fight together, we’ll find the book and we’ll go back to Sunnyhell. Nothing more than that. And then sayonara, darling, I’m leaving”
“You’re not serious about that crap”
“I’ve never been more serious”
“I can’t believe you feel nothing for me….the kiss! A few moments ago you kissed me, in front of the priest. That’s evidence”
Spike faltered under her eyes.
“That was just a momentary weakness. Just evidence, as you say, for the priest that you’re just a female, a mere object for a man’s desire…if that jerk believes that, he’ll deserve what he gets at dawn”
“I don’t believe you!” she replied, closing her fists.
“You have to, sweetie”
She pushed him violently to the other side of the room. Shocked, Spike found himself sprawled against the embroidered wall on the south side of the room.
“I don’t believe you” She repeated, taking possession of his mouth. She had discovered that with Angelus. Vampires reacted to the only language they knew: violence, blood, sex. Better not to waste long speeches on them: they were more stubborn than donkeys.
Oh, God…
The love he had always felt for her drowned Spike in a sea of passion. He knew he couldn’t resist her, even if this was deeply wrong, even if, the day after, in the harsh light of day, all of her scorn, of her refusal, of her love for Angelus would burn him again.
She let his mouth slide down on her neck while her hands went to his jeans. The noise of the pitilessly opening zip shook Spike to the core. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t believe it. He held her almost against his will by her buttocks, raising her to him, forcing her to open her legs. He took off her veils with a swift gesture and she sank down on him, taking him to the hilt. Buffy never stopped looking at him, eyes sunk deep in eyes, a mute, endless connection between them. He returned her stare, for a time void of all of his arrogance, of all of his self–confidence. The man who looked at her while she was unpityingly riding him, was William the Poet, all that was left of him once Spike had lost all of his defenses, built over years and years of violence and massacres. That gaze seemed eternal to both.
There was wonder, confusion, incredulity, surrender. They were just a man who was giving all of himself, who was baring his soul, and a woman who needed in that moment to communicate with her body all the confused feelings she felt.
There would be time after that to understand what it meant.
That eternal moment went by and Spike, without exiting her, pushed her against the wall, to find support, to possess her better. She moaned and wrapped herself around him. Playtime was over. It was time to fuck.
Incapable of holding her stare, Spike closed his eyes and hid his face in her neck, while she screamed her pleasure.
They were back home.


Spike opened his eyes and the moons’ light embraced him. He turned around: they were still in the big room, laying on the bed. He was still embedded in her. Still. They had fallen asleep like that, after several frenzied love–making sessions. He had stayed silent, incapable of confessing to her what he felt, the strength of which, after all that time, still scared him to death.
On the other side of the room, the mirrors reflected their naked bodies.
Their?
Since when could he see himself in a mirror? He was a vampire, damn it! But there he was, his taut, slim body, muscled and pale, entwined with hers, her long, elegant legs still surrounding his hips.
Something violent burst in him at that sight. Together. They were really together, this time.
But this couldn’t be just sex, although sex was a big part of it.
Spike bit his lips to stop him crying her name.
Something, maybe the violent emotions that were swirling in him, woke her.
“Look!” she exclaimed, full of wonder like a child. “You’re in the mirror! You’re reflecting!”
He nodded, caressing her shoulders, her small, tender breasts.
Buffy yielded all control to him, happy and contented. What had happened with Parker had just been a pale parody of this. For once, after so much time, Buffy tasted happiness.
Her sated body sang.
It didn’t matter that in a few hours she had to put her life at risk again. That was her existence, and she accepted it.
But she wasn’t alone anymore.
Stretching her arms above her head, she relaxed, feeling pampered, and smiled.
“I really needed this. You can’t guess how much”
Darkly, Spike loosed himself, got up and dressed.
Night was over and, eventually, it hadn’t led to anything new. It was just sex, to her.
Spike shook his head, lighting a cigarette: it was high time to fight.



Fred, Lorne and Landok joined the crowd in the Castle’s court, where soon the vampire, the cow and the ten Champions of Pylea would fight. The whole city had been informed about the event a few hours before dawn, and nobody loved a good bloodbath more than your run of the mill Pylean.
Bets kept running, and all of them were in favor of the home team. People laughed openly about the idea of a female cow fighting. That was just ridiculous!
“Your friend is an idiot” Landok commented politely. “That cow will slow him down”
Fred raised a worried stare to Lorne, who tried to reassure her. Should Buffy be as strong as Spike had told her, she would give the Pyleans a run for their money.
The fighters were ready to go. Buffy had asked for and obtained a pair of trousers and a blouse (she wasn’t keen on amusing the whole city fighting in her transparent veils) and she had put up her hair. She was quite aware that Spike, the same vampire who had loved her tenderly and wildly that night, was now very angry. This wasn’t the moment for long speeches, he would not have even listened to her. Buffy decided to postpone any type of debriefing on that subject.
“Are you ok?” Spike asked her, briskly, handing her a sword and a dagger.
“Yeah. And you?” she enquired.
“I couldn’t be better” he answered, admiring her sober attire and her stern face. This was really not the moment either to recall the vivid memories of that night, or to muse on the consequences. If there were any.
For her, that could just mean the ultimate sexual escapade, and he had to accept it.
Spike raised a heavy ax, bent on giving their enemy hell.
Trumpets announced their entrance. Buffy seemed small and fragile next to the wide and mighty Pylean champions, but Spike knew he couldn’t find himself a better ally. The idea of fighting together, without restraints, excited him obscenely. Could it be that she arrived at his essence so easily, both in love and in war?
”It’s…that girl?” Fred exclaimed, surprised, while she observed the small, thin blonde warrior. “I thought she would be….bigger. In a Xena way bigger”
“Really” Lorne agreed “That’s Buffy, the vampire slayer”
Pylea’s Champions were of different races and from different worlds, since that reality was a sort of interdimensional bus station. Spike and Buffy took a defensive stance, back to back, sliding effortlessly into tactical schemes as powerful as they were instinctive. They had been created for that: fighting together. Vampire and slayer, lovers and allies.
But could that be enough for them, Spike asked himself.
It had to be enough now, Buffy told herself.
When the attack started, the Pylean crowd roared. The vampire was moving gracefully, with an impressive speed, far superior to that of his opponents. The slayer, far from slowing him down, was revealing herself almost as much a power of nature - nature running spectacularly wild.
Each taking on five, Spike and Buffy stayed head to head with their enemies. But when she took a wound to the leg, something strange happened.
The smell of her blood reached Spike and woke something primal in him, something different from bloodlust. He went into game face, hell bent on saving his mate.
His strength and speed gained momentum from that.
Buffy was lying on the ground and Pylea’s people had to watch, still, while the horrible monster Spike had changed into, with spikes and weird protuberances, slew the three remaining champions.
At the end, only dead bodies lay around them.
And the slayer.
The vampire moved towards her, his fangs bloodied and exposed, unaware of his monstrous appearance, totally different from his usual game face. He was only aware of her, her blood, her power.
Buffy got up, dazed. That wasn’t William. That wasn’t Spike.
That was a nightmarish creature she didn’t know.
Not even in Sunnydale, when they made love and he had gone into game face, had she felt the depths of his demonic nature as she felt them now. Here, in Pylea, pure demon and pure soul emerged, just as Lorne had said.
“Buffy” he roared.
Breathless, the crowded waited for that last coup de theatre. Fred clenched Lorne’s hand: that monstrous creature was the kind man who had helped her when hope was dead? How was that possible?
Buffy limped to the vampire, seeing though him and his demonic attire.
She raised a hand and caressed his bumps and ridges.
And then she kissed him, accepting him for what he was.
They had won.

Buffy’s sweet kiss acted as a balm on Spike’s soul and he succeeded somehow in taking back control over the demon, which he had let loose in the attempt to save the girl once she was hurt.
When he came to his senses, returned to his handsome human face, she had already left. She had jumped on the authorities’ stage and was pushing a dagger against the chest of Seth, the Chief Priest.
“I want the book with the Hart on the cover” she smiled “Now. And then we’re leaving.”
Seth waved.
Spike smiled. Buffy was extraordinary, although he could easily have killed her for having the nerve to run that risk while she was hurt.
The book appeared in the clearing suddenly, and Buffy took it, jumping into the sand next to Spike, an arm around his waist, while the delirious crowd greeted its new champions.
“Let’s go” Lorne said, taking Fred out of the crowd. “We’ll use tomorrow’s dimensional alignment and we’ll leave. I have to see my family for the last time”
“She is a warrior” Fred whispered. “And I’m nothing”
“Then, you’ll learn to be something as well” Lorne goaded her. “A new life will start tomorrow for all of us. I promise this to you, Fred”
She nodded.
If she had an ounce of the courage Buffy had shown…she would succeed.
Spike didn’t deserve anything less, after taking so many risks to save her.
Fred smiled. Lorne was right.
Life was just starting.


Lorne left his home followed by his bearded mother’s and brothers’ reprimands, while Numfar, his cousin, danced the Dance of Shame.
Notwithstanding this, he was happy. In this way, he had even less resistance to leave that world he had never felt at ease in, in which he didn’t belong.
When he got to his friends in the cave, darkness was again falling. Spike was tending to Buffy’s hurt leg, and she was gritting her teeth with the pain. Fred was preparing a herbal tea out of a weeping–willow wannabe wood, to bring her fever down. All of them seemed, on the whole, sad and embarassed.
“C’mon, people, we have won! Let’s go party!”
“I’ve got a high temperature” Buffy admitted. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel too good. When I get home I’ll take some antibiotics – otherwise I might develop an infection, courtesy of those rusty daggers they used …”
“We’ll leave tomorrow morning…with my family’s curses”
“They haven’t been too kind?” Fred guessed. “Landok said he would come by to say goodbye later. He’s a bit grumpy, but he loves you”
“We grew up together…and he has always accepted me. Not like them” Lorne explained.
“I can relate” Buffy intruded, sighing while Spike’s nimble fingers massaged her painful thighs, still tense after the fighting. “I tried all my life to be a normal girl, with a normal boyfriend, a normal family, normal friends. Obviously, it didn’t work out that well”
“You don’t seem to me such a failure” Lorne laughed. “I’ve never seen anybody fight like you” he complimented her.
“The true hero today was Spike” she admitted. The vampire turned his angry face away, and Fred noticed he wasn’t at ease with her. She asked herself idly if they had had a quarrel.
“Well, it’s time to start” Lorne said, clapping his hands. “There’s an old tradition, here in Pylea. A guest sings something around the fire”
Fred stared at Lorne under her eyelashes, shocked and amused by his cheekiness.
“I sang, mate” Spike grumbled.
“C’mon, just a tune” the gentle green creature insisted.
“As you like” Spike surrendered, still in a very bad mood since the morning. Post coitum, all living beings are sad, it was said…and Spike seemed no exception to that rule.
He sang in his rich baritone voice an old English ballad, “Early one Morning”: How could you use a poor maiden so…”
Lorne choked. Let’s talk about unresolved feelings…
“Buffy, please…sing us something”
She cleared her voice. And tried Britney. “Oops, I did it again, I played with your heart…”
“Did you organize this?” Lorne asked, frustrated in his interpretational skills. “I could say just the words say it all”
Buffy and Spike exchanged stares, clueless. Lorne changed topic abruptly and the musical event was over, as swiftly as it had begun.
When Lorne and Fred were alone, on their way back to the farm, Lorne let silence fall between them, enjoying the crickets’ music.
“And so?” she asked, in her childish voice.
“What they sang. There wasn’t any need for big empathy, sugar, just a bit of intuition. He is mad with love for her, for ever, but he doesn’t know yet if what she feels for him is a true feeling, and now he fears being hurt again. She likes him, this is true, a lot. But she still doesn’t know whether she’ll be able to change her life for him. She doesn’t know whether she’ll be able to do that…and maybe she’ll never find out”
“That’s unfair!” Fred rose. “He fought to save her! He faced his inner demon for her. How can she use him so?”
“I don’t think it’s that easy” Lorne admitted. “Sometimes we meet in the wrong moment of our life. Buffy isn’t mature enough for a feeling like the one Spike feels for her. That’s not a star crossed love, the forever she waits for. He wants from her real feelings, feelings that are not void of quarrels, disagreements, daily problems. I’m afraid the slayer isn’t ready for that. I ask myself if she’ll ever be”
Fred stayed still for a moment. “How is it you’re so wise, Lorne? I bet you know what I feel”
“That’s my damnation, isn’t it?” He smiled. “Don’t be sad, beautiful Winifred. Do you want me to tell you what you feel?”
“No” Fred admitted. “It’s enough to have seen them fight together, the way she kissed him despite his monstrous face. They belong to each other”
“Maybe yes…or not. Who knows?” Lorne replied. “Don’t be sad, you’ll find your knight. And he’ll be all shining and yours”
“Yeah, whatever” she sighed. “But you’re right. Tomorrow we’ll be home, Lorne…and I want to let Spike know that we’ll be there for him, if things with Buffy go all to hell. Like he was here for us…”
“Yeah. We’ll be there for him. For sure, he deserves it.”
Both fell in a deep silence, reaching the farm for their last night under Pylea’s stars.


Buffy crouched on the floor of the cave, laying on the pallet Fred used when she escaped the farm looking for some privacy. Her leg hurt, she had a fever, and she heard Spike moving in the cave, nervously.
“Come here” she said. “Let’s sleep a bit”
He obeyed: he took his duster and put it over her. She smiled, grateful for the warmth. Spike stayed with his shirt on, laying next to her without touching, still, sulking in the dark with open eyes and his arms crossed behind his head.
“Go figure” she said, breaking the silence “Yesterday night I should have been at a frat party at Lowell House. It seems so far away, now…but it’s not that bad, here. There’s nature, silence and…”
“Buffy?”
“Yeah?”
”I’d like to sleep. Have a good night”
She tightened her lips, furious and hurt by his blunt coldness.
“Goodnight” she whispered, in a tearful voice.
“Oh, bloody hell!” he exploded, discomfited, and he turned and took her in her arms. They just slept together, her head against his still chest.
Neither of them knew what the return to reality would lead to.


The journey back home was even faster, this time. Lorne, Fred, Spike and Buffy gathered with the old wise mean in a clearing outside the cave, and Spike read from the Hart’s book.
In a flash they were back in Sunnydale, in Spike’s small apartment.
“Oh my God!” Buffy screamed, devastated at finding herself in front of a mirror in the ragged, dirty country rags she had worn to fight in. “I’ll die of shame if anybody sees me on campus in these…”
Fred wasn’t faring any better. Now that they were out of reach of the Pyleans, they took off her collar. That and her dirty clothes ended in the trash bin, with Lorne’s dress. Spike took the phone in one hand and Angel’s Platinum Visa in the other, and in a few minutes brand new jeans, shirts, shoes, make–up products and a beautician arrived at their door.
Fred and Buffy shut themselves in the bathroom and emerged only a few hours after, all remade. Spike took Fred’s hands and studied her from head to toes with a smile: her dark hair was now shining and clean, and it was falling in waves down her back. “I knew there was a woman in there, somewhere…”
“I feel like Eliza Doolittle” she smiled, shyly. “You’ll teach me to speak, Professor Spike?”
“Some lessons wouldn’t hurt, with that pesky Texan accent” he suggested, sincerely although rather bluntly. “We’ll take care of that”
“Do I look nice?” Buffy intruded, quite disturbed by those pleasantries.
“You do” Spike nodded briefly, ignoring her.
Sighing, Buffy put on the new tennis shoes and decided to get back to her dorm. Willow had to be crazy with worry.
“Don’t hurry, baby, in this dimension only a few seconds have passed”
“Uh?” she asked.
“You’re still in time to go to your next ex – boyfriend’s party, whoever he is. Time runs differently in Pylea”
Buffy gaped, more at Spike’s words than for the question of the time, about which she couldn’t care less. Did he want her to go to Lowell House?!
“That’s exactly what I’m doing” she said, briskly, and she left the apartment, banging the door, and limping with her sore leg.
“You treated her badly” Fred observed. “Are you sure you don’t want to discuss that with us?”
“Yeah” he sighed. “Let’s take care of your dinner. What are we ordering?”
“Tacos” Fred smiles. “I dreamt about them in Pylea”
“Let’s have Tacos, then” she smiled. “And you, Lorne?”
Lorne didn’t answer. He was watching “The Blues Brothers” on TV, and he had just discovered a new reason to live.
“Oh, my God!” the Pylean exclaimed. “God exists, and his name is Aretha!”


As soon as she got outside Spike’s residence, Buffy understood she didn’t care at all about Lowell House and Riley Finn. She was tired, hurting, disappointed, her leg was still sore and in dire need of an antibiotic. And she was hot again with high temperature.
She took a cab and paid for it with Spike’s money. Then, she climbed the stairs to her room in the dorm. Willow was studying.
“Buffy!” she greeted him. “Your friend Riley called. He said the party has been postponed”
“Great” Buffy sighed, laying on her bed and getting out of her jeans. Willow frowned on seeing her thick bandage.
“Buffy, you’re hurt! When did this happen?”
Buffy laughed. “You’ll never believe me”
Willow put on her resolute face. “Hey, you’re talking to me, Willow Rosenberg. There’s nothing in this world, and beyond, I couldn’t believe, coming from you. Get it out”
“I went to Spike’s apartment…Willy told me where he lives. I read a sentence from an old book and we found ourselves in another dimension, where we saved a Texan girl sent there to be used as a slave to green masters by her professor. And we say Dr. Walsh is evil…”
“All of this…in how much time?”
“A couple of days. Which amount to few minutes, here”
“Good Lord. How did you get hurt? And the girl? Did she come back safe and sound? And Spike?”
“Spike and I fought against ten local champions to win the book that allowed us to come back. And they wanted to cut off my head: Spike was so nice to try to save me. The girl is ok, she’s at the residence with Spike and a friend she made in that reality, named Lorne. Spike is fine. And he loathes me”
“Buffy” Willow whispered, running a hand over her brow. “You’re hot. You need an aspirin”
“And antibiotics” Buffy laughed, bitterly “And a Band-aid on my heart, Will”
“What on earth happened?” her friend asked her.
“We made love. And now he treats me like a rag to wipe his floor” Buffy let herself fall on the couch. “What is it about my effect on men? As soon as they bang me, they become monsters”
Willow didn’t answer. She had too much of a clear idea about Spike’s real feelings for Buffy to stop at that superficial imagining.
“Maybe you should be honest with him…you could have told him you care…”
“I tried” Buffy admitted. “I really tried. But he didn’t listen to me. He didn’t even want to touch me. I had almost to force him”
“I’m sorry” Willow said, but she didn’t look it. At all.
Buffy was just too tired and hurting to notice.
Willow smiled, and went out to go to the Infirmary.
Worried, Buffy went to the phone. She took it in her hands, heavy in her fingers, real, and she fished out of her pockets a note on which she had written a number. She had stolen it from Spike’s cell, without him noticing.
She pondered a little…and then she dialed, with shaking hands.
It rang and rang…and eventually someone answered. A woman’s voice.
“Hallo?”
“Cordy?” Buffy astonished. “Cordelia…is that you? Why in the world are you at…Angelus’?”
“Angel Investigations” she corrected. “Hallo, Buffy. I work here. How are you?”
“Tired and hurting. I’d like to talk with Angel”
“Angel is out, now” Cordy answered, not too warmly. “With a girl”
“Ah”
“Wish to leave a message?”
“No, don’t worry. It’s not important”
“Well, then…goodbye, Buffy”
Buffy greeted her and closed the communication, swearing.
She had better forget it.


Lorne and Fred got acquainted with their new apartment in the same residence as Spike’s, only on the southern side to take advantage of the sunlight. Lorne was amazed: this world was an incredible cacophony of sounds and colors to make him dizzy, but, God, how he liked it!
Fred was blossoming. Spike had given her his VISA and she had bought clothes, adoring the kind vampire blindly. Lorne was tasting this world with a massive exposure to music and TV and listening to humans. When anybody questioned his appearance, he replied he was a circus freak, as Spike had told him to do. Nobody in Sunnydale wondered about anything, after all.
Nevertheless, both Lorne and Fred were discussing moving to Los Angeles. She had what was left of her life there, and a big score to settle with Professor Seidel. Lorne would find it easier to blend into the demonic underground of the big town.
Lorne understood his destiny the night Fred took him to the Bronze for the weekly night dedicated to Karaoke, while Spike resumed patrolling.
Shocked and moved by the continuous revelations of the Bronze’s patrons, and the happier for that, Lorne understood he wanted a place like that of his own, where he could always sing, and he wanted it now. That could be his personal way to do the right thing. Spike commented - when they discussed the matter – that Angel would gladly finance such an initiative. A place like that could prove useful in his fight for good. Lorne could gather some useful information, about evildoers’ intentions, thanks to his gift.
“Angel?” Fred asked, while they talked in Spike’s cozy sitting room.
“My dear grandsire” Spike explained. “AKA Angelus, Scourge of Europe. Probably, the worst vampire to walk across the continent. At least, until a certain Miss Buffy Summers that you had the privilege to meet, gave him a soul”
None of them knew the details of where and why Spike had had his soul back. But this confidence confirmed their suspicions that dear Buffy was in the mix.
“He is….like you?” Fred asked.
“Not at all” Spike said resentfully. “We have very different coloring and he’s as dull as a table lamp”
“Come on, he can’t be that bad” Lorne smiled. “I feel from here affection and consideration on your part”
Spike shot him a glance.
“Does he save the…innocents?”
“There are no innocents in L.A.” he answered. “Yeah, he goes to the rescue of helpless victims of Evil. And he’s great at that, I have to admit it”
“And Buffy loves him” Fred sensed with some gall. Spike gaped at her…and then closed his mouth. “As you do”
“She’s his bloody star crossed lover” he admitted, briskly.
“Why in the world, then, are they apart?”
“What could we offer to her?” Spike mused. “Angel knows this even better than I do. He’s the one with the good sense…I’ll admit that, too”
“Spike, I like your….scarce good sense” Fred smiled in return. “That was what saved me”
“Happy about that. About Angel….the more evil he was, the more repentant he is now. A terrible bore, I say”
Spike took his duster, his stakes, and retired to his bedroom.
“What a couple!” Lorne smiled, while he went back with Fred to their apartment. “Two vampires with a soul, sharing a slayer’s love. I’d bet studios would get a hell of a movie from that. Pitt and Cruise, maybe. I’d die to meet him”
Fred smiled again. “Buffy Summers is one lucky girl”


The lucky girl was bitching under her breath, limping around with her hurt leg and looking for trouble in the fields near to the campus. Spike, Spike, Spike…where the hell had he gone? Oh, she knew he was still living at the residence, she had placed a discreet call to Reception.
The other two were there, too, in another apartment. She felt his presence at night, in the empty warehouses, across the usual paths. He was working for good. He was avoiding her. Fuck him.
To discuss the matter with Willow was no help, either. She underrated her feelings, and her problems relating to Spike. Willow was quite sure Spike still loved her friend, and the only fault was Buffy’s. Buffy was tired of feeling guilty. What about him? He had the nerve to get back to her after two years….what was he waiting for? A bloody declaration of eternal love? Uh?
But she couldn’t ignore him, either. The night spent together in Pylea was simply unforgettable. There was no need of a Psych Mayor to understand that Spike had been disappointed by her apparent lack of feelings. What a stupid I was, Buffy thought. I could have said some sweet word, after all….
The sound of fighting broke her train of thought. Relieved by the distraction, Buffy ran as best as she could with her hurt leg.
Her evening threatened to move from nasty to downright horrible as soon as she caught sight of Spike’s unmistakable form and duster.
In front of him Riley Finn towered in camouflage, complete with laser rifle. Uh? Riley? The quiet professor Walsh’s TA? What the f….
The two were fighting. A lot.
Oh, shit….
“Hey, hey!” she shouted, jumping in the groove. Spike was at his fastest, not as much as he had been in Pylea, but enough to top Riley, who was rather effective too.
“Riley?”
In a camouflage? With weapons?
“I’ll send you both to hospital. Just stop”
“He started it” Spike protested. “The toy soldier!”
“Buffy, I…”
“Riley…are you gonna to explain to me what the hell you are doing here, in camouflage? Are you a kind of…vigilante? Is it a game?”
“No, but….”
“Haven’t you got it yet, Slayer?” Spike intruded. “He’s working with Uncle Sam. They’re a special force which deals with Evil…he’s doing our job”
“Our?” Riley mused.
“Mine?” Buffy repeated.
“Do you know each other?” Spike replied. “If that’s the case, I’ll just go. I’d hate to be held responsible for having destroyed your only shot at socializing with adequate human companions of your age, even if this spells disaster”
“What the hell he’s talking about, Buffy?” Riley exclaimed.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she replied.
“He’s ….what to you?” the boy insisted.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter anymore”
Spike, bitter and disappointed, shook his head and went away. Exactly, what was he waiting for her to do? Hadn’t she proved herself yet as unfaithful?
Buffy swallowed her rage and disappointment for the umpteenth time at her unquenchable stupidity, and took a new course of action. She tried to concentrate her rage on Riley.
“Why were you attacking him? What does all of this mean? The camouflage, the rifles…who are you…and what do you represent?”
“That’s really funny!” Riley laughed. “I was attacking him because he’s a vampire. Wait a moment” Riley stopped, getting a sudden clue about her strange behavior and her indifference. “Why in the world am I getting the impression this doesn’t surprise you…well, at all? Why aren’t you looking at me as if I were a madman to discuss…vampires? Why….Buffy, what the hell is happening here?”
“I know he is a vampire” she spat. “I know vampires, demons, evil creatures exist. I’ve known it since…well, quite a long time… longer than you know, I bet. And he’s not your average vampire. Not by a long shot. He’s William the Bloody, aka Spike. And he has a soul, sergeant”
“I’m not a sergeant, I’m a…”
“I don’t care!” Buffy replied, furious. “Spike has a soul. He fights for Good. I guess better than you and your soldiers could do. If you eliminate him, you’d eliminate a wonderful force, which can fight against Evil as you could never do”
“Do you love him?” Riley asked suddenly.
Buffy didn’t answer.
“You know him, right? Since when?”
“I’ve known him for two years. And…I know what he’s capable of. In any sense. Riley, listen to me, Spike is no enemy! Quite the contrary!”
“Were you his girlfriend?”
Buffy nodded.
“How could you? Christ, Buffy, he’s not even a person”
“No, but he is more than a man…so much more I doubt our race could be”
“Were you…his lover?”
“Yes!” she shouted. “I’m not ashamed of that. Truth is I really am not ashamed at all”
“Buffy…I was seriously interested in you, but now…”
“Don’t say a word. Don’t, you just don’t get it” she replied. “Stay away from me. I’m the slayer. It’s me who fights against Darkness. Your weapons are useless. You simply don’t get it: this is not your mission, it is mine”
Riley gaped at her, incapable of reacting to that new devastating revelation.
“You’re…what? You, a girl, fight against vampires? Come on, I’m not buying this…”
Buffy turned, one last time.
“Believe what pleases you, Riley, but this is my mission. And his. Spike knows his game. What about you?”
With that last question, she left Riley Finn and his toys.
The man looked at her, going away, incapable of believing any one of her words.
And specially that one.
That she had been that monster’s lover.

It was raining.
Spike ran, wishing only to be in his cozy apartment, drinking some old booze and some blood. God, now boys played soldiers. What the fuck! Exactly what you need in Sunnydale.
Buffy had some sort of infallible taste for men. She always chose for herself the troublesome ones. She was never wrong at that.
Spike laughed bitterly, shaking his wet head and opening the door with his key. That big, muscled Ken doll was even bigger than Angel. That had to be her type.
I’m totally out of her league then, he smiled, with my height and weight. Better like this, who cares…
He warmed the blood in the microwave oven, and poured himself a brandy. He went to the hi – fi and put on some music. Lorne had just arrived on Earth and had already showed an insane passion for divas: Gaynor, Franklin, Streisand, Houston, Cher, Dion. Spike felt like puking but put Mariah and her “Hero” on.
He felt exactly like Bridget Jones, a male, vampire Bridget: English, single, desperate.
Alone.
And he listened under the rain to horrible music, which hurt him.
That was simply too much. Stop with the self – pity. Thank God, the telephone was ringing.
“It’s me” Fred whispered. “We’re back from the theater and Lorne is on a high. I decided to make him stop drinking cappuccinos. That stuff excites him too much”
“What a guy!” Spike admitted. “He’s quite weird, uh?”
“Totally. What are you doing? Are you coming over?”
“I’m a bit down. I’d better stay alone”
“You said you never get blue”
“Maybe once a year…it’s a thing. Angel does it non stop”
“Are you blue about …Buffy? Is it…over?”
Spike laughed, with some bitterness. “Over? It was never on, to start with. Don’t worry, really. I’ll be fine very soon”
“As you like. We’re here. You’ve just to knock” she replied kindly, but with a touch of shyness.
“Thanks, good. Have a good night, Fred”
“You too, Spike” she smiled, hanging up.
Now the room was gloomy. Spike’s eyes could see the furniture’s contours, and their long shadows, but the night had already begun. Darkness became his mood, then, more than light.
When the brandy was gone and Mariah still sang, somebody knocked. The vampire opened the door, with jeans, bare feet and nothing else on. Fred had to learn not to disturb him when he was like that…
It wasn’t Fred.
On the threshold, wet and dripping, Buffy Summers stood . She had her huge green eyes fixed on him.
“Spike” she whispered. “I can’t lie to myself anymore”
“Let’s hear the truth, then” he said, not drunk enough to show his indifference at its best.
“I beg you…let me in. Into your life. I can’t live without you”
Buffy closed the gap between them and water slid from her shoulders to the mat.
“Spike…I love you”
Mariah shrieked and rain fell in the early dusk.
Spike, going against his best instincts, opened his arms and took her in.

6. Who are you?

“Detective Kate Lockley” said the grey-haired man sitting behind the elegant desk. “She is a real pain in the ass. We have to remove her and close the wound”.
He had gentle blue eyes and he smiled often. Even a not very careful observer could see that about Holland Manners.
But after a second and more precise examination, it was all too evident that his good manners were fake. The polite mask of a snake ready to bite . And he too was full of poison. And indeed, he had not become CEO of Wolfram & Hart due to his good qualities. The worst ones had been fundamental to his promotion.
And the two co-partners standing in front of him, in his wide and sunny office, probably had the same career path.
“Should I arrange an accident? A helpful and providential shooting?” Lindsey Mac Donald asked. “Or should we initiate legal proceedings?”
Holland looked at him, delighted. Lindsey was always so willing…a tomcat who wanted to be the pack leader. But he still had to grow.
“Mhm…no, for the moment I would avoid drastic solutions…she’s a rational girl, our blameless Kate…I’m curious to see how she will deal with something completely illogical…let’s scare her, play with her” Holland turned the pen in his hands. “Send Darla”
Hearing that name, Lindsey’s dark blue eyes changed their colour. “Of course. It will be done immediately” and with a nod he left the office, already stressed by the prospect of meeting with the vampire who used to trouble his days and nights.
“You forgot to mention that Kate Lockley is dating Angelus” Lilah Morgan stated. She was tall, dark haired: a real beauty, with an angular, feline face that revealed her dirty sensuality. She really had class.
Manners smiled at her. “No, I didn’t forget. I just left it out…”
Lilah crossed the office and gently sat down on a corner of Manners’ desk, crossing her long legs. “Kate Lockley is just an excuse…you want Darla to meet Angelus”
“Good. You’re smart” Holland replied, delighted. “A quality that Lindsey has lost, due to the teenage crush he has on our pluri-centennial partner…Darla doesn’t know Angelus lives here, and I really want her to discover that…” he shook his shoulders. “And if in the meantime she can kill that annoying policewoman, well…tant mieux. We will get the classical and evergreen two birds with one stone”
“Sir, what do we want from the two souled vampires?” Lilah asked, closing her catlike eyes. “I personally took care of Angelus, and I also sent some guys to Sunnydale to watch over William the Bloody…but I still don’t understand why…”
“What do we want? We don’t want, we watch, wait and evaluate. And we try to guarantee a place in the front row for us for each consequence. We thrive on chaos. And this, thanks to human nature, is a common prerogative for both Good and Evil. So we sit in the middle, ready to catch every opportunity” Holland stared at her. “Angelus and William the Bloody are two fundamental pawns in the game of cosmic balance. They can determine the victory of Good and the defeat of Evil, or vice-versa. We can’t impose on them what side of the field to choose, obviously…”
“But we can show them the right path…” Lilah ended. “Do you believe that meeting Darla will worry Angelus? Are we sure? He has a soul now…”
“And so?” Holland smiled, swaying in his leather chair. “So do we…”
Lilah knitted her eyebrows, pursing her lips “Have we, Sir?”


Going down the stairs, Angel saw Cordelia’s rear sticking out from under one of the hall sofas.
“Lost something?” he asked.
She stood up, her jogging suit covered with spider-webs. “This is the kingdom of dust…No, I’m wrong. Down here is the seed of dust. Generations and generations of dust. And you…” She pointed at him with her finger. “You don’t help at all! I begged you not to eat in bed. It was so difficult to clean that peanut butter off your sheets”
“I don’t eat. Especially in bed” Angel replied. “It’s surely Spike’s fault, from last time he stayed here…ah, about Spike, his mission to Pylea was…”
Cordelia wanted nothing of that, interrupting him. “Yeah, yeah right…And by the way, you don’t have to tell me what you do with peanut butter…” she widened her eyes. “To be honest, I don’t wanna know anything about it!”
Angel clenched his fists, putting them in his pockets. Ok. He refused. It was impossible to win some battles.
“I’m going out”
“With Kate?” Cordelia turned, suddenly serious. “Do you want to talk to her?”
He bent his head, looking at his shoes. “I have to”
She was immediately close to him, a hand on his arm. “Hey…everything’s gonna be alright. She seemed smart. She will understand”
And if she doesn’t, she thought, looking at his perfect profile, well…fuck her!
Angel looked at her, doubtful. “Do you believe that?”
She smiled, leaving a dusty mark on his sleeve. “I’m Queen C, darling. I don’t believe. I know!”




“Do you have an appointment with him?”
Lily had finished her shift, but, for God’s sake, this fabulous guy who could melt her stoic friend was begging to be seen!
Kate nodded, tempted to bite her nails. God, she hadn’t done that for ten years…luckily she had never smoked…
She made a nervous gesture with her head. “You know, under my jacket I have my badge and my gun, and near here is the Police Department…Even if I wanted I couldn’t hide it from him now…and the time has come to tell him the truth” She sighed. “A relationship based on lies can’t last …”
Kate shut up when she heard the doorbell ringing, and Lily followed her glance, curious.
At the entrance a man was standing. A young man. Young and attractive. No, not attractive…Handsome. He was surrounded by the deepest dark, and dark were his clothes and eyes. He looked like he was wearing the night. A clouded night with no stars…
“Darling…” Lily stated. “I admit I haven’t known many veterinarians in my life, but I assure you they weren’t…like this!”
Angel stood for a moment, hesitating. Kate was not alone and that woman built like a wardrobe with the home permanent was staring at him like he was a pastry…but Kate…she looked fantastic, in jeans and a jacket, the long blonde hair on her shoulders shining under the lights…I would gladly make love with her until dawn comes, he thought. But…
He had a bad premonition. A sad, bitter, gloomy premonition tingling at the nape of his neck. And he was Irish: His people never took one of these feelings for granted.
He waited till the huge woman went away and then he came closer to Kate, sitting down in front of her.
Silence grew around them, like a clashing of emotions.
“Hi”
“Hi”
“I…”
“I…”
His right hand and her left touched spontaneously, in the middle of the table, and they twined fingers. With her thumb Kate caressed the smooth surface of the Claddagh. “I like this ring…I’ve always liked it from the beginning” she bit her lip. “Better, I’ve liked you since the beginning. Angel…”
“Kate…I’ve got to tell you something”
“Me too, I have to tell you the truth”
Truth. Here it comes, the magic word.
The sword of Damocles.
Angel took Kate’s hands. Touched her. He had to touch her now. To taste again her fresh skin for a moment. Because the feeling he had didn’t leave him, whispering in his ear that was the last time he could touch her.
“Angel?” She looked worried now. “The thing you have to say…is it very bad?”
He beckoned with a finger. “Kiss me. First, kiss me”
They stretched over the table and it was an uncomfortable kiss. Delicious.
And, to Angel, it felt like a stolen one. On the razor-edge of never. The edge he had walked for centuries, in a magic, selfish balancing act.
Kate hesitated against his mouth. No, she wasn’t worried, not at all…Not when kissing him was making her feel so good, at peace. Everything could be fixed and sorted. Everything.
She noticed that Lily was staring at them, glowing. God, how could she have invited him to such an indiscreet place?
“Let’s go” she said. “It’s too crowded in here”
Holding him by the hand, she led him out and when they were on the street, she kissed him again, holding him tight this time. He let her do that, surrendering to her naivety, full of hope.
“My car is parked in that alley. We could…” she said.
“In the car?” Angel moved away. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Don’t be nervous” she laughed, amused by his embarrassment. “I won’t rape you…if you don’t want me to…”
Oh God…she was provoking him…and she was succeeding.
They kissed again and walked towards the car. “Talk…we have to talk…” he stuttered, his lips on hers.
“Yeah, sure, in the car…” And they laughed, like lovers do, avoiding thinking.
Or trying to, at least.
A sweet, wasted, useless try…
It happened in a second, and Angel paused to listen.
Something was different around them.
Danger. They were surrounded by danger.
And it wasn’t human.

“Kate, jump in the car and drive away. As fast as you can”
She looked at him, amazed. Angel was a bunch of tensed muscles ready to jump, and his dark eyes were looking everywhere in the dark alley. “I don’t understand…What’s up?”
And then she saw them. There were four, apparently insignificant, coming from nowhere. And with clear intentions.
Kate’s reaction was sudden and professional; her hand grasped the gun under her jacket. “Guys, this is not the right evening…” she ordered in her usual authoritative tone.
Angel knitted his brow.
“Are you a cop?”
“Uhm…yes” she answered staring at the men. “This was the thing I had to tell you….” she looked at him. “It’s…is it a problem?”
He caressed her hip, a reassuring gesture. “No…of course not…” he whispered. He didn’t know if it was better to laugh or cry…crazy things…he had been tormenting himself for days and days about revealing to her his demon nature and Kate was scared that her job could be a problem…two hundred and fifty years and he still couldn’t understand women.
In the meantime the four men came closer.
“The gun won’t work…” Angel whispered.
Kate had taken it out and now she was pointing it at the four, with an iron glance. “In this place it does. Really.”
“In my places it doesn’t…”he mumbled, getting ready for the fight.
Then, in the silence full of stress, applause.
A malicious laugh.
And in the air, a special scent. A rose-scented cologne, hand made for decades in one shop in Paris.
Oh, no…
He had hoped, prayed that in that immense city their ways would never cross…that she had gone somewhere else…
Yes, but a vampire has no right at all to pray or hope…
Angel turned around. “Darla…”
There she was. Black leather and red silk. No underwear. And her incomparable predator eyes that were literally devouring him. “Angelus? Is that really you? What a surprise…!”
Darla had also smelled his scent, that peculiar musky scent mixed with other mysterious fragrances that belonged only to her gorgeous childe. And, in the end, after nights and nights of wet dreams and repressed anger she had turned on to Lindsey and Dru, after thousands of good resolutions to forget him and change her life…she had found him again.
With another girl.
An insipid porcelain doll…who had had him inside her. Hell, she smelled that.
Unbearable.
Her high heels ticked on the ground. “Hi love…so? No kiss?”
Kate pointed the gun with more decision. “Do you know her?” she asked him, softly.
Ignoring her, Angel talked to Darla. “Ok, this is something between me and you. Let the girl go”
“And if not, what will you do? Will you bite me?” she smiled, showing her little white teeth. “My little boy, all you have to do is choose the right point…”
He stood up, showing her how tall he was. “I’m not little. And I’m not yours, either.”
Laughing, Darla looked at Kate with satisfaction. “We’ll see…and, to be honest, I’m here for her”
“You’re from Wolfram & Hart…”
“Wolfram & Hart?” Kate stated, putting down the gun. “What’s this? An intimidation act? With a slut and four thugs?” She shook her head. “You’re not scaring me…”
Darla, with a single move of the neck, turned. “Sure?”
Ah-ah…touché. The super cop had no words, white as snow.
Enough. She had lost too much time already. She touched her and Kate flew across the alley, hitting the wall.
“Kate!” with a fist, Angel knocked Darla yards away and ran to Kate. “Kate! Are you ok?”
She blinked twice, with a wince of pain. “Yes…yes…the gun…I dropped it…”
He took her face in his palms, forcing her to look into his eyes. “Katie…you have to listen to me, now. Do you trust me? Do you trust me, Katie?”
“Yes…I trust you, Angel…”
“Forget the gun, then” He took out a stake from a slit in his boot, hidden by the trouser leg. “Use this”
“What’s that?”
“It doesn’t matter. Push it into the heart”
Kate weighed the tool, confused, while somebody attacked Angel from the back.
“Katie. Straight to the heart!” he shouted, then Darla was on him, throwing him on the floor, straddling him.
“You hurt me!” she reproached him, licking the blood on her fangs. “Mmm… I liked it…”
“Do you like it rough?” Angel took her by the throat, twisted her body and kicked her in the stomach, crashing away between the trash cans. “You’ve just got to ask, darling!”
Still groggy, Kate was trying to order her thoughts. The face of that woman…she couldn’t see anything else…it was sharp, neat, fathomless….and the four men…two of them were attacking her. And they too had long, sharp fangs, monstrous faces, yellow eyes…one of them jumped. The gun!
Where had the gun ended up? Where?
Her reflexes, sharpened through the long years at the Academy and her long working career, were more efficient than reason and panic: her arm lifted, the stake was in her aggressor’s chest. A shout. And then ashes, ashes that blinded her and made her cough.
Ashes.
Then she saw the second monster, his terrifying fangs next to her neck. Again with the horror, with irrational denial playing with her mind. Again instinct, and the stake to guide her through darkness and save her.
Devastated, tears running down her dirty cheeks, Kate tried to stand and fell again on her knees, discomfited by her spinning head. Maybe she had a broken rib. Dazzled, she saw Angel eliminating the third …being…and starting over with the blonde female.
Fighting?
Yes, that was the right word. They exchanged blows, sending the other flying powerfully, breaking walls. The female growled, like a beast.
No…the growling doubled…she stared at Angel, in disbelief.
His face had changed, too.
He looked at her, in a heartbeat. So different, but still recognizable, his feral eyes full of…regret?
She couldn’t quite understand it, because something inconceivable happened: with a powerful jump the blonde vanished to the building’s roof.
And Angel followed her.

“Let me guess” Darla hinted with a devilish grin, provocatively swaying her hips in and out between the maze of dishes and antennas on the roof. “Little Red Riding Hood didn’t know she was making out with the Wolf, uh?”
Angel didn’t reply, approaching, dark, boiling with rage. At his most beautiful.
Yes, beautiful, the female vampire thought, his fury always becomes him. Nobody knows that better than I. “Soul or no soul, you’re always the same liar and deceiver I created…”She insisted, letting him come closer. “My boy still exists…”
His push came unexpectedly. Darla almost didn’t notice it. Bewildered, she glanced down at the antenna pole protruding from her stomach.
“I’ve never ceased to exist” Angel hissed, twisting the pole.
Darla spat blood and reverted to her human face, her gaze foggy. “Angelus? What’s happening?” She whispered in a thin, naïve tone. “Are you killing me, love?”
He stared at her, dazed by her beauty and by the unforgettable memory of their common past.
Just a moment of dizziness, nothing more.
It was enough.
The fourth vampire caught him off guard with a crossbar, and threw him down from the roof.
Fuck!
He hated falling.
He landed on his stomach and for a while sounds and lights were muffled in a shrill pain. He shook his head, the blood running in rivulets over his forehead and eyes.
Darla…bloody, damned Darla. It was so simple to deny her when he was soulless. Why in the world did he feel so powerless now?
He noticed Kate, leaning against her car. Dirty with ash, her arms crossed, her face shocked.
“Katie? Are you hurt?”
She jumped out of her skin. “I found my gun ….”she frowned. “What were they?”
Angel swallowed. “Vampires”
“Vampires…? You mean…like Dracula?”
“More or less. But we don’t have anything romantic about us”
“We?” Kate studied him. She stared at his face, now normal.
“You have seen my true face” he said, knowing her train of thought. “You saw me fighting. I’m a vampire, too”
“And….” The girl opened her mouth, and then closed it. “And that means….what?”
“I’m dead, Katie. I’m more than 200 years old. I fear sunlight, crosses, holy water” He paused. “And I drink blood”
She backed away. Her skin was as white as ice.
“Not human blood” Angel nitpicked.
“No…no…please…wait a minute…”She hadn’t listened to him. Not at all. “Dead? What do you mean you’re dead?”
Her breath caught. “You’re here! You talk to me. We…”she barred her eyes. “We made love!” She was on the brink of a hysterical crisis.
“I don’t breathe” he whispered. “My heart doesn’t beat”
“Yes, it does!” Kate exclaimed. “I heard it! I heard it thumping”
Angel took her hand and put it on his chest. “No, Katie…you heard yours. It beat enough for both…”
Nothing.
“Nothing…” Kate felt like puking. “In your chest there’s nothing…” she pulled her hand back all of a sudden. “Who are you? What are you?”
“Katie…” he didn’t try to hold her, as she jumped into her car and fled.
She fled. From him.
In her eyes, just terror. Shame. Pain.
Alone, the vampire touched his dead heart.
Nothing, yes.
But it hurt, nevertheless.


Suddenly she opened the bedroom door and found them both naked in the tangled sheets.
“Don’t move, honey…stay comfortable…” she muttered to Lindsey, seeing him trying to stand.
Straddling him, Dru was swaying back and forth, pale and disheveled, as if powered by a secret underlying current. She held a hand on his chest, like a caress, but Darla sensed she was holding him still.
The brunette vampire stared at her while she was taking off her jacket, coming closer to them. “Mmmm…you smell like wondrous woods…like musk…”Dru whispered, sucking a finger.
Darla knelt behind her, between Lindsey’s thighs, and captured her small breasts, resting her chin in the curve of her neck. “Yeah…musk…I eventually found your daddy out…our Angelus…” She stared at the young executive, blocked by their bodies, and fed cruelly on his surprised, pissed off expression.
Dru moaned. “Has the Dark Angel landed in the city of Angels?”
“Right” Darla whispered, working on her nipples. “With his great wings and all the rest…”
Those words excited Dru. She moved faster, letting her head fall back, and Lindsey came painfully, jerking against the two vampires’ thighs and then shouting with disappointment when Dru left him abruptly to turn towards her grandsire.
“The Dark Angel is back, then. Will he make us fly again?” she asked, still shaking from her orgasm.
“We’ll have to convince him…” Darla muttered, raising her silken dress and showing off the bloody tear left by the antenna.
Dru’s violet eyes widened. “Did Daddy do …that?”
“Yes, he did. He still excels at penetration…” Darla laughed, as Dru bent to suck her wound clean, in the meanwhile trading cold stares with Lindsey.
He was staring at her with a mixture of repulsion and attraction and his chest, shiny with sweat, heaved. He was vibrating from jealousy and possessiveness, disgust and desire.
He was funny, although oh – so- human. And irritating, sometimes. Intrusive.
“We need to be alone” she informed him. “Get out”
“This is my apartment” he reminded them.
“Sure. And it has lots of rooms” Darla caressed Dru’s hair. “We have important topics to discuss. Family topics.” She smiled at him with a smile as sharp as a knife blade. “You’re not part of it”
Lindsey swallowed, thinning his lips. God, she knew where and how to hit him…he rolled out of bed, naked, without dressing, and went out, banging the door closed.
“Poor little boy…” Dru chanted, raising her mouth dirty with blood. “He’s poisoned by you …and feels better only when I hurt him….” She batted her eyelashes, perplexed. “Why?”
Darla made her lie on her back and traced signs on her breasts with her fingertips. “Because he’s alive, of course. Living people are like that. Hypocrites and masochists. Let’s forget about him…”Her finger dipped into her navel. “We have plans to forge…we have to take back our dark, beautiful, powerful…” she tickled Dru’s stomach with her sharp red nails “…only true black…” and then she buried them in her sex “…angel….”
“….black angel…black angel…” Dru moaned.
From the bathroom, Lindsey heard them laugh and whisper, like monstrous little bad girls.


“You have to go. Now” Angel ordered her, entering the Hyperion’s hall like a fury.
Cordelia almost fell from the ladder, neglecting her new paintings.
“What? Why are you at home at this hour? And…oh!” the ladder swung dangerously, while she turned and noticed the blood on the vampire’s face. “You’re hurt…what the hell…hey!”
He took her by the hips. “Get out of here. I’ll help you to collect your things” Notwithstanding his pissed-off tone, he placed her back on the ground delicately. “Don’t worry. We’ll find a good hotel and I’ll pay the bill”
“Hey, hey!” Cordelia exclaimed, wriggling in his arms. “Get a grip! Tell me what’s happened! Why in the world should I go?”
She saw him gnashing his teeth, trembling with rage. She finally sensed how furious he was. And terrified. Following her instincts, she took him in her arms.
“Angel…please, talk to me” she whispered, with her cheek against his jacket. “What’s up?”
She felt his surrender, and his arms gripping her.
They sat on the stairs. Angel seemed terribly tired. And empty.
“You have to go” he insisted.
“Tell me why”
“Her. She’ll find this place. And she’ll find you. And she’ll hurt you. Because you live here”
“Her who?”
“Darla. My sire” he passed a hand tiredly across his eyes, staining them with blood. “Do you remember the two vampires in the High School Library?”
“How could I forget them?” Cordy replied with a grimace.
“Darla is the blonde…” Angel explained, sheepishly.
I would have bet on it, Cordy thought. “Ok. Now I know who Darla is…but I’m still not getting what…”
“Now she knows I’m in Los Angeles. She’ll be hunting me high and low. Destroying everything on her path”
“To…kill you?”
Angel laughed, bitterly, shaking his head. “To have me back”
“How do you do it?” Cordy was bewildered. “Wherever you go, you end up with a trail of women crazy with desire…”
“Don’t joke. This is not funny” He took her by the shoulders. “Cordy…you don’t know her. And you don’t know me. You don’t know…how I was. You don’t know the depths Darla can drag me to…It’s bad enough she already knows about Kate, and…”
“Just a moment….please. Kate?” Cordelia paled. “Oh my God, Angel…you were with Kate when…”
“Yeah”
“She found out the truth, then…”
“In the worst possible way, too” Angel confirmed.
“And…”
“She didn’t take it well”
“I’m so sorry” Cordelia sighed, sitting next to him. “You were in love with her, weren’t you?”
He smiled, a sad, confused smile. “Is it that easy to fall in love? I’m no expert…I loved just once…”
“Buffy…”
“Yes…Buffy…and …I don’t want to sound cynical but…” he looked at her. “I refuse to accept the idea that was love…or maybe, who knows, the wrong one is me. I’ve always thought so, after all. Maybe I’m not cut out for love, and maybe the soul has nothing to do with it…maybe it’s the heart that counts…and as Kate noticed…here, inside…” he pointed to his chest “There’s nothing”
Cordelia dried an inopportune tear, springing from her eyelashes. Her empathy for somebody who wasn’t her precious little self was an empowering novelty. She wasn’t used to it. To stay like that next to him was so natural…she felt angry towards both Buffy and Kate, and she felt relieved that she hadn’t told Angel about the slayer’s call.
He had enough to deal with without those new doubts.
She touched him delicately on the chest. “You heart isn’t beating, true…but it could break. And if it breaks, it is able to love, as well. It’s a living thing . More alive than a lot of beating hearts”
Angel stared at her for a long moment, in silence, and then he caressed her face with a finger. “I’ll miss you, Cordy…”
She stood. “You won’t miss me. I’m not going anywhere!”
In a split second, the sweet girl who had comforted him had been overtaken by Queen C., her hair loose, her eyes determined and her chin set, her hands on her hips. Angel massaged his brow.
“Yes, you are. I gave you hospitality to help you, not to put you in danger…”
“Now listen to me, you big dumb boy. And listen carefully, too” Cordy shouted. “My parents call me only at Thanksgiving and Christmas. My friends…well, they don’t call at all…Cordelia Chase is like a piece of fake jewelry: you can’t make it shine, it just gets tarnished. Believe me, this is hard to stand…that night, when that demon attacked me, I told myself that was the end of it, and a fitting end too: torn to pieces in the dark, forgotten like trash…then you came. You, the same vampire who two years ago held me by the hand and took me home, notwithstanding your pain and desperation…and you did it again! And again!”
She searched out his dark, attentive eyes. “Don’t you get it, Angel? I fall, you are there. To catch me”
Her rage loosed in a long, intense bout of crying. “Nobody caught me, before…when I was falling…Never…”
She stopped, the blood leaving her cheeks, her legs not supporting her anymore. “Angel…”
A moment, and she fell senseless into the vampire’s strong arms.
“Cordy…what’s wrong?”
Angel made her lie on the sofa and his worried expression got to her heart. “He cares” she thought. “He won’t let me go…”
“See?” she whispered, while the malaise gradually receded. “You caught me…”
“What was that, Cordy?” he insisted.
“Nothing…Usually, it gets better after a bit…”
“Usually?”
“It happens, sometimes…I think it’s stress…”she tried to play it down.
“Mmm….”Angel didn’t seem convinced. “I’d be happier if you see a doctor…”
Cordelia nodded, toying with his shirt collar. “Yes, Sir. I’ll go, but only if you don’t send me away…”
She wrinkled her nose, widening her dark eyes. “You can't abandon me, Angel. You really can’t”
“I’m getting it” Angel nodded, surrendering.
Some battles are lost from the beginning.