Spike had three dreams, knotted together at the edges:

In the first, he was sitting on a beach, under a cloudless sky.  A huge yellow sun was warming his face and chest, and the deep song of the tides soothed him like a mother’s touch.

Out in the swells, he saw a silhouette bobbing up and down and wiggling its arm.  At first, Spike thought the wanker was just saying hello, but the little shape kept dipping under the waves, and each time it resurfaced the arm wagged faster and more frantically.

So, he swam out to save the stupid git, cursing his rotten luck with every stroke.  The boy’s face looked strangely familiar, with his twinkling blue eyes and sandy curls.  When he put his arm around the lad’s back it shifted sharply, fangs plunging down.  The monster clamped its jaws around Spike’s neck, and they tumbled into the briny depths together.  As they sank, Spike peered down into the void and suddenly realized that it had no bottom, and that the two of them would fall forever.

In the second dream, he awoke in a windowless New York hotel room.  Everything – the walls and floor, the bed sheets, even the ceiling – was soaked in gallons and gallons of fresh, steaming blood.  Spike was coated in blood, too, and he began to lick it off his wrists and fingers, laughing as the sweet, wonderful warmth drained down his throat. 

When he’d finished licking his arms clean, he got down on all fours and started lapping it off the floorboards.  He’d almost mopped a clear path to the bathroom door when he was gripped with a feeling of sudden horror.  He stared at the crimson beddings, and then at the red slick smeared down his chest, and in a moment of bright agony he knew who it belonged to.

The last dream – the one he actually remembered upon waking – was as bewildering as it was short:

He was back at the factory, out on Sunnydale’s rusting industrial edge.  He knew he was building something, but he wasn’t quite sure what.  Sparks flew up at his face as his blowtorch welded together two hunks of steel.  Buffy walked into the room.  She was smiling, and had a leather sack slung over her shoulder.  He turned off the torch and asked her what it was.

“It’s the last piece,” she told him, gently opening the bag.

He looked inside and saw a beating heart.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

And then he woke up.

 

~*~*~

 

He sat bolt upright.  She was gone, of course.  The bedclothes were a ripe mess, tangled and streaked with mud.

Dollar a wash, he thought.

He wandered out to the sitting room.  She wasn’t there either, and he knew that before looking, but it still stung a bit.  He tried to imagine her leaving a note, and immediately scribbled one in his head:

Dear Brainless Poof,

Thanks for the giggles!  Sorry about drinking all your booze and sodding the place up, even though you richly deserve it.  See you next time the battery runs out on my feminine massage wand.

Sincerely,
Heartless Bitch

Spike grabbed a carafe of blood out of the fridge.  It hadn’t gone all the way south quite yet, but it was still ripe enough that he had to sort of choke it down.

He circled the room a few times like a dazed buzzard before finally switching on the telly and settling into the chair.  She’d left the top sheet there, so he wrapped it around his shoulders, bathing himself in the wonderful and terrible scents she’d left behind.

He’d slept a bit late, so he was only able to nick the very end of Passions.  They’d put Rebecca Blackstone in a coma, again – her second one in seventeen years.  Spike imagined her shooting a roll of silent film in the hospital bed and then jetting off to Monte Carlo, or wherever actresses holidayed while they were comatose or had lost their memory or were jammed down bloody wells.  Meanwhile, Billy was setting himself up for yet another heartbreak with that conniving bint, Jessica.  Poor bugger would never learn.

Up next was The Winnie Ramirez Show.  The theme today was “I’ve Got a Secret.”  Spike lit a smoke and watched the inevitable tragedy play out.  A woman would be carted into the studio under false pretenses.  Winnie would hit her with a bunch of sly questions about her love life, while slack-jawed morons in the audience tittered nervously.

After a bit of this dance, they’d drop the bombshell.  They’d call her precious loverboy out, and reveal that he was a crossdressing queen, or he’d been shagging her sister, or he was married to a bloody horse, or all three.

This episode turned out to be somewhat less dramatic – buggering the babysitter – but the crowd did their best to gasp and jeer and throw their little imaginary stones regardless.  The producers doubtless thought their formula was very modern and unique, but none of this was novel to William the Bloody.  People had always put on these sorts of shows, he knew.  The only difference was, the stones used to be real.

Spike sat there for what felt like an eternity, smoking cigarettes and staring into the bland, glowing square of the telly screen.  After a few hours, all the programs began to blend together.  The news became a cop-and-robber show.  A cartoon about Martian cat-people seemed to co-star Dr. Phil.  He began pacing in triangles: into the bedroom and then to the fridge and then back to the chair.

When the sun finally sank to a red line on the horizon, he hosed himself off and got dressed.  He gave the stained beddings a resentful glare, then balled them up, stuffed them in the big blue laundry bag.  Next, he grabbed a wad of bills out of the dresser and booted out the door.

The rickety shopping cart was still parked around the other side of the crypt, so he tossed the sack into it, lit another smoke and started pushing it up the path.  After he crossed the threshold of the boneyard’s east gates, as he merged the cart into the bustling foot traffic of Williamson Street, it occurred to him how dodgy he must’ve looked, like a half-wit beggar.

Normally, Spike took advantage of the Suds-R-Us twenty-four hour policy, but for some reason it felt good to get this particular chore out of the way early tonight.  Happily, the place was still mostly empty.  He jammed the blankets and sheets in one washer and the pillows and covers in the other, and then started feeding the same crumpled bill into the change machine, over and over, cursing every time it spit it back out.

“Come bloody on,” he snarled.

“Oh, perfect.”  The wanker’s nasal whine skewered Spike’s ears like an arrow.  “Laundry of the Living Dead.”

He turned to watch Xander saunter up the aisle, wearing that familiar half-smirk Spike so desperately wished he could chew away.

“Goody,” he muttered.  “You got any fresh bills?”

“Hmmm… Me handing you my hard-earned money.  What’s wrong with this picture?”

“Your prattling, manky gob is in it?”

“I’m gonna pretend I don’t know what any of that meant,” the todger replied.  “Because, I don’t.”   He started eyeing the contents of Spike’s washers suspiciously.  “What happened, O Prince of Dorkness.  Did somebody wet his wittle bed?”

Spike fed the dollar in again.  It hit pay-dirt this time, and the change rattled out.  “S’none of your business, ponce.”

“Oh, but you are my business,” Xander said.  “I’m in the monster biz.  Remember?  And, hey look!  A monster washing dark stains out of stuff.”

“It’s mud, you git.”

“What a relief!  Muddy bed sheets.  Because that’s way less weird and disturbing…”

Spike shoved past him and began feeding quarters into the machines.  “And here I’m wondering, ‘What kind of nancy goes ‘round narrating the contents of another bloke’s washing?’”  He shot Xander a bitter sneer.  “For instance, you don’t see me talkin’ about how every stitch you wear smells like Johnson & Johnson baby powder.”

Xander laughed, but deliciously nervous.  “You… you can’t,” he stammered.  His eyes shot wide.  “You can smell that?”

“Should call it Mary & Mary…”

“What?”

“Nothing.  Look, could you please piss off now?”

Xander finally turned away, and started sifting through his own pile.  After Spike plunked the last quarter down the robot banker’s throat, he gave the shop a cursory survey.  At the bottom of a laundry tram, beside a stack of dryers, was an orphaned bottle of Tide.  He wove through the maze of folding tables, grabbed it, and upended it over the little soap ducts.

“Hey!” Xander barked.

“What?”

“Evil!”  After a moment, the boy’s outrage melted to a disgusted scowl.  “Holy crap… even your laundry is evil.”

Spike dumped out the last sticky drops of blue goo, and then casually tossed the bottle over a shoulder.  He punched the little buttons to get things going.

“Well, duh,” he said.

 

 

~*~*~

 

Spike stomped up Main, filled with irrational hatred and the busted, sparking circuitry of devil logic.

Why’s the boy always got to act so high and bloody-mighty, he thought.  Okay, yeah, sure, Spike might’ve tried to murder him, six or seven dozen times.  But that was years ago. 

Couldn’t bygones-be-bloody-bygones already?

He had about forty-five minutes to kill, so he just stuffed his hands in his pockets and let his feet carry him for a while.

They brought him by the Butcher Shop, of course.  The aproned git there snapped into action as soon as he swung through the door, grabbing the bucket out of the fridge and pouring a pint into a little plastic To-Go tub.  Spike tossed a few crumpled bills on the counter and studied him through the slots of his eyes.

The bastard knew, of course.  It was an unspoken knowledge, the sort of quiet agreement two boxers sometimes make in the ring when one of them is old and half-dead and doomed.  For the first couple of weeks, the poor bugger was terrified, his shaking hands spilling more blood on the floor than into the little tubby.  But eventually that scent of fear had faded away, and turned into something far less delightful.

Now, when he snapped the lid on and plopped the tub down on the counter, his lips were curled, all smirky-smirky.

“Wanna straw with that, pal?” he said, his clever eyes gleaming.

For a few moments, Spike toyed with the idea of flashing some fang.  Instead, he just sneered the word yeah, and gave the bloke a look like he was composed of lovely steaks.  He recoiled a bit, the curl fading from his lips, and gave him the sodding straw.

Back out in the street, Spike took three laps around the Magic Box.  On the last of these, he stood slurping and staring, his horrible brain wrestling with the notion of strolling inside to grab some burba.  The hag squad was in there holding down the shop; he obtained this fact with a wolfish little snort.  That was fine, in his book.  He hated them nearly as much as he hated Xander, but at least they treated him with some modicum of respect.  Didn’t point and shout, “Evil!” whenever he was about, anyway.

But there was another scent in there, tangled in the stew of doe-eyed patrons and mystical whatnots.

He stamped back to the launderette, where he sat and brooded and counted the final watery flips of his wash.  The beddings were jammed in a cart and then in a dryer.  He fought a few more rounds with the bloody change machine, paid the dryer its due and then he was out again, back to the butcher shop for another drink.  The bartender was quick, this time, and not at all smarmy.  They had reached a second understanding.

He circled the Box again, veins tingling like there was an invisible fence of red hot atoms circling the place.

Bloody, buggering bollocks, shit and fucking hell, is what he thought.

He barged in, the chimes jangling their irritable welcome, and headed straight for the counter.

Anya.

“Why, hello, paying customer,” she chirped.  “Can I help you purchase some moderately priced mystical paraphernalia, preferably with cash?”

“Might want to work on your sales pitch, poppet.  The change machine was warmer.”

“Let’s try this again.  Buy something.”

“Burba,” he said, furtively nosing the air.  Trails of her scent were all around him, strung like garlands.  But she was nowhere in sight, and probably already left and probably that was for the best.

Probably…

“It’s downstairs.”

They stood staring for a long moment.  “Well, go an’ fetch it.”

“You go and fetch it!”

“Fine!”

He stomped off.  “And you better pay for it this time,” he heard her say, the words tossing after him like tiny darts.

His foot had just barely grazed the second step when he heard another, somewhat more pleasant sound.

“…it’s just lame.  I don’t even know how the managers can stand her.  Her Indian name would be Runs At Mouth…”

“Native Americans, Buffy…”

Spike froze, his boot bickering with gravity.

“…and she’s always talking about herself.  Always me, me, me.  But, of course, who gets the raise?”

“Uh... Oh!  Spike.”

“No, she does.”  Buffy flinched.  “Why would you say… oh.”

They were stocking cardboard boxes on shelves, Buffy tossing up two and three at a time, one-handed.  She turned, her green eyes already throwing up their barbed wire walls.  He didn’t want her to see how deep her bite wound had gone, so he loaded his own with cannonballs. 

“Hell-oh,” he said.  “Forgot to stick the hell in there, lamb.”

“When you’re around, I thought that was implied.” 

Balls!

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered and stamped off to grab the weed.  “Where’s my bleeding gear?”

“Burba?” said Willow.  “Oh, yeah I think we’re out.  Next week.”

“Out?  How could you be out?”

She crossed her arms and cocked her head accusingly.  “You know, it’s hard to say.  It keeps mysteriously disappearing.”

“Now, hang on a bloody minute–”

Suddenly, there came a shrieking, yammering sound, like a tortured monkey.  It was Anya, probably going ballistic on some poor sot who sampled the Newt’s Eye.

“Uh, yeah,” said Willow.  “I should probably check in on that.  Buffy would you mind finishing up?”

Before she could protest, Lady Morgana went zipping up the steps.  Buffy blew out a long breath, and then went back to stacking.  Spike lit a smoke and went picking through the shelves for a burba substitute.

Or maybe for something to turn them all to stone, he thought.

Although, in her case…

“Is this fun for you?” she asked.  “Do you seriously have nothing better to do?”

“Well, you can relax,” he said.  “Didn’t hunt you down, love.  Just out runnin’ a few errands.”

“Errands?  Vampire errands?”

He shot her an indignant look.  “Yeah, well some thoughtless bird sodded up my sheets last night,” he growled.

“You’re doing laundry?”

“Why the bloody hell does everyone say it like that?” he snapped.  “Yes I’m doing laundry.  What, you think magic elves do my wash?  Or, my legion of maids and butlers?”

She snorted out a tiny laugh.  It wasn’t cruel this time, just indecipherable and fleeting.  Then her smile faded to the same old cool line.

“What?” he asked.

“You’re still here.”

“So are you.”

Cue uncomfortable silence.  Cue bewitched, longing gazes.  Cue smart lip.

“Not anymore,” she said, hoisting the last parcel onto the shelf.  She brushed past him and headed for the stairs.

“You patrollin’ tonight?”

“I patrol every night,” she sighed.  He noticed her shoulders slump just a bit when she said it, perhaps realizing this wasn’t exactly true.  Not lately.  “And, no, you can’t come with.”

Her footsteps gradually thinned to nothing.  He cursed under his breath and went back to fiddling with the tiny jars.  Didn’t ask to, bitc–

“Meet me back here at midnight,” she said, as flat and monotone as a nun.

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

And then she was gone.

 

 

~*~*~

 

“Because I said so,” he spat.  “Queen of the bloody castle!”

A narrow-nosed lass with mousy hair stared at him from her little plastic chair across the way, trying to suss out whether the vampire was mad or…

Well, ‘mad.’   He figured he was probably both, thanks to her.

“Aye, aye, Your Royal Highness!” he thundered, not caring what his audience thought.  “Your wish is my command, Your Sodding Grace!”

The dryer was still going, his bed-things tossing around like a tongue in an iron bum-hole.  It made him think of the Bot, again.  He thought the android would have been a welcome relief, right about now.  He could spend a pleasant evening diddling it, and then shut it the Hell off – put her out of his bloody mind.

When the clothes stopped tumbling, he skipped the folding bit and stuffed them all directly in his sack.  Sadly, some derelict had wandered off with the shopping cart while he was away, so he just slung the sack over his shoulder and marched mechanically back to his lair.

He booted through the door, fangs akimbo and gnashing. 

Dumped the bag out on the mattress. 

Smoothed and straightened with his hands. 

Climbed in.

Watched the bloody clock.

    

 

 

 

10:38 PM, read the clock.

That was a bit of a fib.  He’d wound it ten minutes fast, once, and for some mysterious reason had never bothered to fix it.

He shot up, jammed on his boots, then up the ladder and out the door he went, scratching all manner of wicked blueprints in his rotten old brain.

He had some time to kill, so he decided to kill it at a bar.  The place was pretty dead, even for a place that catered to The Dead.  He sidled up to his old stool at the end, and scowled at the stooped little barman as he waddled over with a bottle of liquid gold.

“Uh, hey, Spike,” said Willy, filling a tall water glass to the brim with booze.  “I didn’t know you were.  You know.  Allowed.  In here.  Anymore.”

“I go where I please, ponce.”

“Sure, sure, yeah, sure….”

The juke was banging out some awful trash: some cheeky cow with a robot voice bleating on and on about the secret weaponry of her tiny, tinfoil heart.

‘I think I did it again
I made you believe
we're more than just friends’

Just as Willy turned to leave, Spike tipped the glass and drained it in one go.

“Fill.”

‘Oh baby, it might seem like a crush
But it doesn't mean
that I'm serious'


“Turn this rot off,” he said.

Willy cast a few nervous glances around the room.  “Sorry, can’t do it.  Not my dime.”

‘Cause to lose all my senses
‘That is just so typically me
Oh baby, baby…’


Spike grabbed the barman hard by the lapels.  The chip gave him a tiny buzz, just to remind him it was still in there.

“Whose, then?” he asked.  “I’d like to compliment him on his taste in art.”  

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Just then, the bathroom door swung wide.  The bastard who swaggered out was instantly recognizable.  He was tall and swathed in muscle, topped with a pair of craggy horns.

He was also alone, this time.  The demon closed the distance with a half dozen slow, heavy strides.  Spike tossed down the second drink and smeared his mouth with his sleeve, as loose and cool as a caged snake.

“I thought I told you,” the demon snarled, “you aren’t welcome here.”

“Yeah, I remember.  ‘Cept, there’s only one of you, now.  It hardly seems fair.”

“What hardly seems fair?”

A trigger snapped in his shoulder.  He fired off an uppercut that sent the wanker sprawling to the ground.

“Guys!” Willy pleaded.  “Guys, guys, c’mon.”


‘Oops!...I did it again
I played with your heart,
got lost in the game
Oh baby, baby…’


Spike stalked across the tiles. The rage was a force of gravity inside him.  Spring-loaded tendons in his neck and arms stood out like cords of iron, threatening to break the skin. 

His prey was halfway to his feet and he was trying to shake out the cobwebs when Spike rammed a knee into his scaly chin.


‘Oops!  You think I'm in love
That I'm sent from above
I'm not that innocent’


Spike picked the demon up and tossed him at the juke.  The monster’s weight shattered the glass top and put a merciful stop to the song.  He started pouring punches into the helpless git like a machine-gun.  The blows cracked iron ribs, and shattered every bone of his ugly face.

‘Meet me at midnight,’ she says.

Because she SAID so.

“I TURN INTO A BLOODY PUMPKIN AT MIDNIGHT,” he roared.

Willy squinted at him, mouth agape.  Even the crippled wreck of the demon squirming in his grasp stopped sniveling, and handed him a puzzled look.

Spike blinked back at them, as baffled as anyone by the words.  He took a moment to regain his wits, then he sent the horned plonker down to Dreamland with a crisp right cross and stomped the hell out of there.

He felt savagely real and alive when he got back on the street, slashing and weaving through the slow parade of weekend foot traffic with warm blood on his knuckles.  He licked his lips and stroked his hair.  Lit the night up with a sinister leer.

The vampire circled like a vulture for almost an hour, cooking up all manner of post-chip schemes.  He could turn all the inmates in Sunnydale’s loony bin, perhaps, unleashing a half-wit army upon the masses.  Or maybe something with a mummy, this time.  Spike had always wanted to do mummies.

 

 

~*~*~

 

The booze wore down quickly, alongside his supply of borrowed blood.  When he finally stopped moving, he was slumped on a park bench across the way from the Magic Bollocks.

A clock in a window read 11:43.

He slipped into the alley that ran behind the shop, and broke open the back door with a grunting shove.

The inside was inviting.  Still and quiet and amber-lit, it could’ve almost been romantic.  He’d toyed with the idea of being fashionably late, but earlier was better.  He could think things through.  Lurk in shadow.

He ran his fingers along a row of books.  They felt like dry leaves to him, and the sensation immediately made him think of the Watcher.  He realized that the blighter had left his mark in the dump, after all.  Every stone and stitch and leathery spine was soaked in his starched buggery.

When the clock ticked to twelve, Spike wandered down into the stockroom, not wanting to be caught waiting around like a whipped doggy.  Her scent was still lingering down there, somehow.  He wove through long trains of it, past the boxes she stacked, trying to pretend he was there for another reason.  For any other reason, really.

He prowled down an aisle of musty knickknacks.  There was a trio of grim little statuettes carved from onyx, a wreath of silver thorns, a bejeweled goblet, a horned wolf skull.  He took care not to touch any of them.  Spike well knew the pitfalls of mucking around with mystical rubbish, even if the rest of Buffy’s Wanker Brigade didn’t.  To say the Witch was playing with fire would be a spectacular understatement.  She was playing with bloody atom bombs, and when one of them finally went off, Spike doubted she’d be the only one to get burned.

He fixed his gaze to one particularly curious item.  It seemed to be sculpted from ancient wood, the kind that becomes as smooth and solid as marble after a few centuries of marsh water. Intersecting rings surrounded a small brass gasket of some sort, with chambers that reminded Spike of a mechanical heart.  In the center of it was a keyhole, surrounded by tiny scribbles of writing he didn’t recognize.   The heart itself was glowing and hissing – just slightly, but enough to stand up the hairs on the back of his neck.

Why?

Why now, you stupid bauble?

He took a step back, and tried his best to diagnose the problem.  An iron candlestick had fallen against one of the rings, and the hissing noise came from the vibration where metal kissed wood.  There even seemed to be a tiny plume of steam forming there, like the cracked seam of a radiator cap.

He had a panicked thought about a fire burning the whole shop down, and all of them blaming him for it, and how that would be just his bloody luck.  So, he made his move, slow and certain, his arm like a serpent tenderly winding through the grass towards the kill.  With a gentle tap of his finger, he tipped the candlestick upright.

The hissing sound cut off immediately, but the little metal engine in the middle kept glowing, even brighter than before.  He stood there for a few moments, eyeing it warily.

Suddenly, he heard the jingle of tiny chimes, and a door slamming shut.

Bugger, he thought.

That’ll be Her Royal Highness.  Prompt as a Sunday liturgy.

And probably just as warm.

He listened to her footsteps creak slowly across the floorboards.  She didn’t say jack, and eventually the sound just stopped altogether.  He lit a smoke.

It was maddening.  She was up there, alright; probably propped on a table, swinging her little legs.  Not anxious.   Not pacing, nor checking the clock every ten seconds.  If only once, he’d like to see her burn, the way he burned.  Just once he’d like to…

A scream rang out.

Spike flew up the stairs.

The girl was a shrieking fireball.  She whirled sideways, smoke and flame leaping off a photo negative of her beloved body, her burning arms painting the world in sharp red shadows.

The instant he saw it, Spike went shagging mad.  The memory of that night at the Bronze skewered him like a pair of swords, because he was too slow again, too late again.

And so, without a plan in his brain, he ran to her, and threw his arms around her, and buried his face in the bonfire of her hair, thinking he was ready – that this was the end and that he was ready now.

But, as soon as he touched her, it stopped.  The blaze vanished, like a wish blown on a birthday candle.

They held each other tight for a long moment and then slowly unwound.  Her face fell into view, and he gasped out a tear because it was still her beautiful face.  There was soot on her cheeks – just as there was soot and ash all over her arms and caking the tatters of her scorched, black clothes – but they were otherwise unspoiled by the flames.

“What?” he said, still shell-shocked and grasping for words.  “What?”

She was shaking her head, tears beading in her eyes.

“Are you?” He started patting her arms and shoulders, and felt so ridiculous doing it that he coughed out a laugh.  “I mean… are you okay?”

“Fabulous.  Next dumb question?”

He led her to the checkout counter and popped her up there.  “What the sodding hell happened, Slayer?”

“I don’t know.  I was just sitting there and… poof.”

“Poof?”

Her kit was a truly unsalvageable mess.  Patches of her skin peeked out through ragged, smoking holes.  He started taking the blouse off, and felt her stiffen under it.

“Are you for real?!” she squealed.

“Well, you can’t wear them!  What if they go up like bloody New Year’s again?”

Her eyes shot wide.  She hadn’t thought of it this way – or any way, yet, he imagined – and now that she had she hopped down behind the checkout counter and started ripping the rags off like they were coated in poison.

When she was done she stood, naked as a jay and clutching her tender, blushing bits tight.  He scoffed at the pageant of false modesty.

“Shut up,” she said, “and just give me something.”

Spike yanked off the coat, muttering curses, then balled it up and threw it at her.  He turned away while she pulled it on – not for her sake but for his own.  In a way, Buffy Summers was more cuckoo than Drusilla, and learning how to play along with all her Jekyll-Hyde games was driving him to his wit’s end.

Especially when I always get to play with sodding Hyde, he thought.

She circled back into view, latching the final button.  “Okay, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Tunnels.  Back to your place.”   He gave her a hopeful look.  “To get some clothes,” she added.

“Forget it, Slayer!  I’m not giving you any more sodding loaners!”

She groaned and rolled her eyes.  “Spike…”

“No, none of this ‘Spike’ rot!  You sod my sheets, you steal my bloody tee-shirt–”

“You had, like, nine of them–”

“–you say, ‘Meet me at midnight,’ and then you come here and burst into sodding flames!  Do I even exist to you, pet?!”

He took a step back, realizing he was roaring at her now.  She was staring at him with that strange, guarded look in her eyes, the one that was impossible to read, even for him. 

“Never mind,” he said.  “Drop it, let’s just go.”

He started to walk in the direction of the stairs, but he bumped into something.  Something big.  He looked up.

And up.

In the next moment he was airborne.  A punch sent him crashing into a bookshelf, and then to the floor, where the tomes rained down on him like miniature boulders.

He shook out the cobwebs as quick as he could, but by the time he got to his feet the dance party was going full steam, the Slayer slashing at her unexpected partner with balletic kicks.  The beastie swept her aside with an arm like a tree trunk, and she came skidding across the floor towards him.

“Friend of yours, love?!”

“Was about to ask you the same thing,” she said, panting out the words.

During this brief respite, Spike got a better look at the bugger.  Blokes often slung around the term, “Ten-feet tall,” in reference to demons, but the fiend was that plus change.  Its body was armored like a beetle – thick, interlocking black plates seemed sewn directly to skin the color of overcooked steak.  The head was a nightmare of cruel biology.  Red eyes like fired coal overlooked a big frog’s jaw full of butcher knives.  The eyes themselves were mechanical and empty, added as an afterthought to help the mouth seek out its gruesome fortunes.

Talking was out, he decided.

The Slayer bounded to her feet.  “You ready?” she asked.

He nodded grimly.  As they closed in on the giant prat, Spike got that odd sensation again – the one he always felt whenever they fought side-by-side.  It was as though there were a secret conversation going on between their bodies, carved in particles of air.  When she circled left to draw the monster’s attention, he automatically leapt in, stabbing a kick at its kneecap and following it with a perfect, steaming uppercut to the boy bubbles.

Unfortunately, Big Boy’s bubbles were more like cannonballs.

“Ow,” he said, shaking out his wrist.

The giant roared and sent a fist the size of a butterball turkey slamming down.  Spike whirled out of range at the last possible moment, and watched the blow smash through the floorboards.

Buffy sprang from the left with wild looping punch, but it fell just shy of the monster’s chin.  Of all the most devilish defenses, being too bloody tall suddenly seemed like the best.  It batted her away like a fly, and then resumed its plan of smashing the vampire into a quivering slurry.

Spike ducked and weaved under its attacks, searching in vain for a weak spot.  In the corner of his eye, he saw the Slayer lurch back to her feet.  He jived Big Boy into missing wide with a punch near a wall.  Its fist dug deep into the brickwork, and while the beast struggled to get it out, Spike beat a hasty retreat back to Buffy’s side.

“What’s the plan, love?” he asked. “You hit him low, and I’ll hit’em lower?”

“Just keep him busy for awhile,” she said.  “I’ll be right back.”

He was about to tell her where to stick that plan when she dashed off into the recesses of the shop, vanishing into shadow.

Keep him busy for awhile, he thought.

Shall I sing him a diddy, perhaps?  Read him a bloody bedtime story?

He scotched the scenery for a weapon, finding only broken boards and musty books and tangles of crystal jewelry.  He went for one of the boards: a broad plank splintered to a point at one end.  As he charged at the fiend it suddenly occurred to Spike that he should probably be more terrified of his arsenal than his foe.

A second before he reached it, the big monkey finally got his paw out of the jar.  Spike began a futile duel, dodging and weaving and firing the occasional cricket swat at a mammoth shin.

By the time it boxed him into a corner, he was fresh out of ideas.  He felt almost thankful when it scooped him up in one paw, and plucked the oversized stake from his grasp with the other.

At least it’ll be quick, he thought.

As though in reply, the demon pinned him against the wall, and hoisted the wooden shaft like a Roman’s spear.  An unmistakable look of glee crossed its alien features.

Time cooled and slowed.  Spike spied the girl running across the second floor rampart, a blade flashing in her hand.  The part of him that was very old and wry smiled at the joke.  No matter how fast she ran, no matter how clever her scheme, she was gonna be too late.  She would lose the race.

Then maybe she would know the secret of the dream.  Not like William the Bloody Fool, not every night.  But once or twice.  Every now and then, she would save him.

Suddenly, this seemed like more than enough.  He sneered into Death’s sharp fangs.

Yeah, yeah.  Do it, England...

The wood slammed through his chest.  He closed his eyes and waited for his body to go the way of all things, and for the wretched world to shatter forever.

A second passed.  Then another.

When he looked again, the creature’s head was wobbling like a loose doorknob, and a rattling sound was pouring out of its throat.  Buffy sat astride the monster’s thick neck, her sword plunged neatly between its eyes.  As Spike watched, the hellish fire inside them gradually faded, but her own were blazing hot lakes.

The monster didn’t drop him.  Instead, the arm itself crumbled to bits, like a sand castle in a storm wind.  He sank to the floor.

The Slayer was on him in a flash.  She grabbed at his face and neck, tested the stake with a shaking hand.  She was stuttering a bunch of nonsense words at him, but he could barely hear her over the rumbling tide of his stolen pig’s blood.   He started tugging feebly at the stake.

No, not stolen.

You bought it mate.  Bought and paid and stamped and signed.

“Don’t,” she said.  “Don’t touch it.”

The sound of a choked tear in her voice laced into him like a fang.  It snapped him out of a very heavy orbit, and when he looked down he saw that the wood had gone in a bit high.  Instinctively, he yanked at it with both hands.

He fought for words.  “What… you plannin’ on… fetchin’ the surgeon, love?”

He kept pulling.  When it slid out a couple of inches, he screamed.  That snapped her out of it, it seemed, because she suddenly shifted gears and decided to help with the chore, tucking the board’s base against one shoulder like a rifle butt.  There was a flash of white agony when it tore free, then the pain faded to a misty drizzle.

Buffy tossed the stave aside.  When she knelt in close to touch the wound, he flinched away.

“Let me see it,” she said.  Hard voice.  Like iron.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Let me see.”

She peeled open his shirt like something precious was beneath it. Their gazes met for a blistering moment, and he thought he saw something in her green eyes.  It was sharp and soft at the same time, like a lighthouse beacon painting a black wave white.  And even as the look scalded him, he thought:

She didn’t forget it.  She said she wouldn’t and she didn’t.

Not even in the grave.

She kept at it.  That wet look that was almost love.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and for a flash he thought that maybe he really had dusted, but that the Devil somehow misspelled his name.

Ain’t you sweet?

AIN’T YOU PRECIOUS, TOSSER?

“Said I’m fine,” he growled, jerking himself free.  “I’m–”

He glared down at his chest.

There was nothing there.  No hole, no scar.

“–fine?  Bloody hell.”

They traded a chary look.

“Buffy…”

“Yeah,” she said.  “Let’s just… Go.  Okay?”

“Yeah.  Brilliant plan.  Let’s.”

They eased to their feet and prowled catlike to the front door, taking care to inspect every creak and shadow along the way.  When they reached the threshold, Spike gave the handle a sharp pull.  After the initial crack it blew wide with a great gust of wind.

He stood looking at what was on the other side for what felt like a very long time, his brain trying to calculate it for future reference.  But it was no use.  The current madness had no number. 

The hot swathe of Main was gone.  There were no slightly boozy processions of spotty youth.  No electric lamps or cars idling at red lights.  No sound or scent at all.

Instead, there was a field of pristine snow.  Miles and miles of it, as far as the eye could see.

They sat together in prickly silence at the Watcher's old roundtable.  The Slayer tapped one foot like an angry cat's tail, while poor, old Spike contemplated a crack in a floorboard, along with his paltry, perhaps even non-existent options.  The phone was out, apparently.  Instead of a proper dial tone, they'd been treated to a less-than-stirring rendition of "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?"  Spike had the answer to that one:

Ain't no bloody road out there, that's why.

Nor autos, nor destinations to coax them towards. 

"Thoughts?" the girl said, sounding utterly defeated.

Spike glanced at the clock above the checkout counter again.  The hands were still frozen at a minute to midnight.  "Yeah.  Think I should have stayed in my sodding bed."

The Slayer shot him an embittered scowl.  "See, that's why.  Right there!"

"That's why what?"

"Forget it."  The girl blew out a sharp breath and paced towards the door again.

"Buffy..."

Spike reached his hand out after her.  Only, it wasn't his hand.  It was different somehow,  plumper and pinker.  He stared at it in curious wonder.  "What the hell?" asked a stranger's voice.  After a beat, Spike realized it had come from his own mouth.

Buffy turned in slow motion to face him, her eyes wet with horror.

"Oh.  Oh, God, no."

"What?" said Spike, the voice still coming out all wrong –  a spongy, Yankee tenor he didn't recognize.

When initial shock had worn off, Buffy tilted her head in wonder at him.  "I thought it.  I thought it and it happened," she whispered.

"Thought what?"  Spike felt the wave of panic crawling up his spine.  "Soddin' hell did you do to me, Slayer?!"

She shook her head.  "I don't know.  I just thought…"

Before she could say another word, the effect snapped off, as quick as it had arrived.  Spike waved his regular old hand before his face a few times, and cleared his throat cautiously.

It was magical rubbish of the worst kind, of course.   He'd learned early on that Hocus Pocus was a dangerous game to play and, just like bloody Vegas, the house always won. Spike tried his best to never touch the stuff, or let it touch him.

Hang on a minute, he thought.

'Touch the stuff?'

"Bauble," he said.

"Bubble?"

He ignored her and made his way towards the stairs, grumbling low curses.

"Where are you going?"  He felt her little bare feet beating after him.  "If you know something…"

"I don't.  I mean, not really.  There's just.  Something downstairs."

"Spike, what the Hell did you do?"

"It was an accident, alright!  Like a bleeding Cambodian minefield, this shop."

"Fine.  Show me."

When the reached the shelf, the trinket was still where he'd left it.  He felt his hackles raise again while they studied it.  The tiny tin heart was still pulsing, casting off waves of hypnotic red light.

"Well, that's just great," the Slayer said.  "Smooth move, Ex-lax!"

"Very mature.  Do you recognize the widget or not?"

They took a few timid steps forward, Buffy's eyes narrowing to slits.  "Looks like some kinda magic doohickey."

"Oh, ya think?"

The girl scowled at him again, then headed back up the stairs.

"And where are you going?"

"Well, I guess I'm just gonna have to do some research, aren't I?"

"Yeah, not exactly your strong suit, pet."

"Oh, like it's yours?"

"Hello?  The Judge?  The Gem of Amara?  Ring any bells?"

"Hello?  And how did all all that turn out for ya?"  the Slayer's voice teased, just as her leathery shape vanished from sight.

Spike gave it a moment's thought, then blew out a sigh.  He dug in his pocket for a smoke, then realized that he'd left the pack in Nikki's coat, along with the lighter, and every last teaspoon of his pride.

" And I would've gotten away with it, too," he grumbled, "if it weren't for you meddling kids..."


~*~*~


"What's it say?"

Buffy shushed him, and kept reading, her eyes darting sharply under a furrowed brow.  Then, "Hard to tell.  Something about allusion and meter..."

Spike felt the tiniest pin-prick jab the mustiest corner of his brain.  "You mean, like in poems?" he said, his voice cracking just a bit on the last word.  He cleared his throat.  "Poncy limericks and whatnot?"

"I guess," Buffy said, distractedly, then began to read aloud.  "'The Fool's Heart draws its power from the inflamed passions of those in its thrall...'

"Passions, eh?"

"Shut up, '...converting metaphor into physical manifestation  This resulting matter is dangerously unstable, and the stream of somatic effects itself cannot be terminated except through ritualistic means.'"

"Fair enough.  Just give us the shopping list and I'll go round up the..."  

"No," Buffy said suddenly, her voice an octave lower than usual.   "Oh, no, no, no, no, no."

"What is it?" Spike said, sensing her alarm.  "Is it bears?!  What's it say?"

The Slayer shot him an accusing scowl.  "You!  You demented little psycho," she barked.  "You did this on purpose!"

"Oh, right.  'Cause this has all been so bloody pleasant so far."

"I swear to God, Spike, I didn't think even you could sink this low."

He gave up on parlay and just made a run at the book itself, wresting it from her grip.  The tome was big and musty, with wide square leaves yellowed by age.  On the leaf beside the text, a triptych of illustrations burned back at him like the world's raunchiest comic strip.

"Oh my, my," he murmured, trying and failing to stanch the wicked leer from his lips.  "Now that's what I call 'magical', love."

"Oink away, jackass.  But it will be a cold day in Hell before I ever…"

Spike jabbed a finger at the Winter Wonderland outside.  "In case you didn't notice," he said.  "And unless you want spend your life transforming into 'wandering clouds 'and snarling people in the 'loops of your hair' and whatnot, we bloody well better do it."

"Wait, what?"  Buffy shot him a cockeyed look, like he'd grown a second head.

"What?  Why?" he said, then instinctively pawed at his shoulder.  "I didn't grow one, did I?"

"Grow what?   No, it's just... 'wandering clouds?'"

"Yeah.  What about them?"

"That's Wordsworth, right?" she asked, totally incredulous.  "How the heck did you know that?"

Spike sniffed and brushed a scrap of lint from his jeans.  "Well, I... I mean... I... when you're over a hundred years old, you pick up a few things, alright?  The real question is, how did you know that?  Some wanker print it on the back of a shampoo bottle?"

"No!  It doesn't... It's just, in college, I–" she began to say.  Then, "Point is, Spike, we are not doing that."  Her eyes were sparking with a barrister's outrage now, and the slightest flicker of shame.  "And I mean… come on.  I'm, pretty sure that isn't even, you know... possible."

Spike slid the book back on the table, then planted himself on a seat alongside her.   Together, they stared at the pages, their eyes drawn over and over to the anatomic puzzle pictured in the final image.  He felt the girl's blood begin to cool to its usual glacial drip.  This was to be expected, of course.  Now that Her Majesty had finished making her big show, expounding upon the many affronts to her tender virginal honor, the pragmatic side of her reemerged.  He could almost hear the ticking clockwork behind the walls of her skull as she studied the dirty doodles.  She could be very smart when the situation required it, and sometimes ruthlessly so.  For the first time in a long time, he wondered what kind of vampire she might have made.


~*~*~


Minutes later, they were combing up and down the aisles, collecting all the less tawdry ingredients.  There weren't many, thankfully; with this brand of sex magick, 'twas mostly about the main course, and in this case the meat was served very, very rare.

As they sorted through the elements strewn about the table, he found it harder and harder to squeeze the pictures out of his brain.  She was right, unfortunately; confident as he was in his prowess, that last one seemed a bit beyond his reach, anatomically speaking.  The mind was willing, but the flesh still was bloody well human, in that particular department.  There was no plan for a workaround, as such; Buffy just mumbled something about crossing bridges when they come to them – a reckless verse which, of course, immediately split the shop floor in twain and sent a river surging through the gap.  Luckily, it also conjured a bridge to cross, when they came to it.

They both went about dressing the stage in a state of hypnotic silence, chary to say or even think anything for fear of sending the whole works arse-end.  When they were finished laying out the preparations – the oils and tinctures and root-of-What-have-you – Spike went about lighting the candles himself with his Zippo.  He found it took all his willpower to resist one final smoke before the big show started.

"Okay," Buffy said, clapping down a mason jar filled with with purple pigment in the center of the seal, and popping the lid.  "That's it, I guess."

"Right."

"Right."

"So, em... How do you want to, uh..."

Buffy's eyes flickered downwards, and she shifted her feet.  Then, without another word, she shrugged off Nikki's coat and tossed it aside.  She didn't play coy this time.  She just stepped gingerly into the circle and sank to her knees, naked as a (No, you wanker!  No bloody similes, either).

Spike ditched his own gear at top speed, then got down there with her.  He set the open book next to the anointing jar, then he began to mechanically read the incantation like it were a set of stereo instructions. When the little ditty reached it's rip-roaring climax, Spike dunked his thumb in the jar of purple stuff, and smeared it in a little semi-circle on the center of the girl's throat.  Their eyes met when he did it, and he saw that her features had acquired that familiar countenance of barely lidded concupiscence it usually did when she offered her body to him.  In reply, he took her hand in his and pressed the palm to his cock, which she proceeded to stroke softly to life.  It didn't take long, and it never did.  She could have done it with a whisper.  A smile.

She kissed him; not a desperate kiss this time, but a long one, and composed half of breath.  A second kiss arrived much lower on his frame.  She took his length slowly into her mouth, pausing to baste each inch with her tart and talented tongue. And when she could take no more, she fell into an delightful rhythm of tugging and suckling.  The small, wet sounds her mouth made were like (No, no...), and when she began to pepper them with muffled groans of pleasure, he feared he might finish far, far ahead of schedule.   This Olympic sport of theirs, after all, had more than one event, so he'd have to wrestle his passions down til the final...

Uh-oh, he thought.

Oh,  bugger...

And, of course, bugger indeed, because suddenly the Magic Box was no longer the Magic Box at all.

Buffy froze mid-suckle, her eyes bugging at the spectacle that swirled around them: a massive, modern arena, filled to capacity with wankers of every nation, creed and color.  The noises they made reminded Spike of a thousand misspent nights at the dog track – the sort of buzzing, whistling, chattering cacophony of a crowd who is slightly impatient for the next race to begin. When he looked down he saw the boards beneath their knees had been replaced by a blue plastic mat that reeked of old sweat, and the circle of candles by a big bullseye of red and yellow, and Spike's sanity by a twisting maze of nonsense.  An officious plonker in zebra-striped shirt hovered about them nearby, a whistle jammed in his mouth.

Spike shook another allusion from his head and tried to focus.  His eyes instinctively found Buffy's, but he could only answer the horror there with an apologetic shrug.

She spat out his hard-on with a sharp cry and, for the second time that night, used her hands to cover what she could.  This time he couldn't really argue with it, though – even William the Bloody Shameless  was feeling a might exposed.

"Spike!"

"Sorry!"

"Make it go away!"

"I'm trying!"  But the fact was, he wasn't really so sure how to make it go away, and was positively terrified of what would happen if he screwed it up.  After a moment's deliberation, he gave up. "Look.  Let's just... keep going."

The crowd seemed to like this idea.  They sent up a cheer, and somewhere he could hear a segment of drunkards begin to chant:  "KEEP IT (clap-clap) GO-ING (clap-clap).  KEEP IT (clap-clap)  GO-ING (clap-clap) ..."

"What?!" she shrieked, straining to be heard above the din.  Are you completely crazy!"

"They're not real, pet," Spike said.  "'Sides, maybe if we ignore them, they'll... uh, go away."

Buffy shot him a bewildered, exasperated look, but he could see she was also considering it.  She craned her head about to take in the crowd, squinting and gritting her teeth as though trying to picture it actually happening.  After a few moments of this, her hands slowly withdrew from their defensive posts, giving the grateful crowd an unobstructed look at the goodies.  Another cheer erupted when she bent – so slowly, so falteringly – and drew him back between her lips.  The referee blew his whistle, as if to indicate the start of play.

While she tried to locate that lovely rhythm again, Spike did his best to help her along.  He knotted his fingers in her hair with one hand, rubbed her back with the other.  Her body was like a taught coil of electric (Don't think it, mate!).  It shivered in his grasp; even her tongue was shivering.  He relaxed his grip, and began to pet and smooth her hair, in a way he prayed was reassuring.  After a minute or so of this he sensed it was even starting to work.  He could feel her confidence gradually reasserting itself, first causing her body to relax to a state of equilibrium, then, once that line was breached, moving her in another direction entirely.  Soon enough she set herself a galloping pace, sucking his cock like she wanted to choke on it, grunting, pawing and squeezing and tweaking his balls, hungry and thirsty and brilliant.  When the crowd next cheered her, she acknowledged them with a dramatic flourish, rocking her hips like a big showoff, really putting her heart and spine and soul into it.

Spike was rather impressed by it himself, so he worked his hand down to her bum, gave it hard squeeze before his fingers went about their usual duties.  He worked them inside her quim, one and then two, and she pushed herself onto them, fucking herself with them while she worked his todger like a pro.  Without warning, the sound of the crowd died down to a whisper, then disappeared, replaced by low chatter, and some kind of seedy guitar groove.  

Whoa.

"Uh, Buffy."

She ignored him at first, but after a few more taps on the shoulder she came up for breath.  The purple sigil he'd scrawled on her throat was glowing gold, now.  It burned brightly for a few moments, and then vanished in a puff of theatrical sparkles – which, Spike hoped, signified it was time to move on to the spell's next step.  Yet this fact, pertinent as it was, paled in comparison to their latest change in scenery.

Thanks to some unknown bit of verse, the roaring stadium had been replaced with the rather less grandiose accommodations of a motel room.  The mat was now a burgundy carpet covered in mysterious, mossy stains and cigarette burns, and the circle was blocked out in blue painter's tape.  Instead of crowds of jubilant sports fanatics, their company of spectators had been reduced to a small huddle of half a dozen men – sullen blokes, with pocked, booze-bloated faces that were mostly hidden behind mustaches and sideburns and huge, dark sunglasses.  One cad with a greasy ponytail manned a small camera on a tripod,  while another dangled a microphone over them at the end of a long black staff.  The air reeked of tobacco, hashish, cheap perfume and desperation.

Buffy shot him a distressed look, eyes round and jaw hung agape.

"Hey, don't look at me," he said.  "This one ain't mine."

She didn't argue with this.  Instead she just peered sheepishly at the throng of degenerate "artistes", one of whom aimed a big, hot shop light at her in reply.  It rendered her form with a palette of horribly bright and garish colours, the cheap ink stains of Andy Warhol wedded to the bland degradation of a department store window display.  For a brief moment, even his memory of Warren's mannequin looked warmer, and more real.

Is this how you see it? Spike thought, and the idea stabbed him with a shard of grief.

Is this all you think is left?

"Okay, my beautiful babies," sang a fat, goateed sleazeball, whom Spike twigged as the director of the this sordid little set.  His yellow polyester shirt was unbuttoned halfway to the navel, framing a bush of simian chest hair so thick it looked like he was wearing a black sweater underneath.  "Let's get a little more makeup on Princess here and put this one in the can."

After a few quiet, confused seconds Spike got the hint, and began to draw the second sigil on Buffy's forehead.

"Beautiful, baby, just beautiful, that's perfect, you're an artist, baby, an artist."  The director clapped his hands together once, the motion filled with all the sultry smugness of pimps and smack peddlars and war profiteers.  The Slayer regarded him through lidded, almost sleepy eyes.  It was a look Spike knew well, and it meant she was about to play a game.  He blew out a little wasted breath, wondering what the latest rules would be.

Unlike in the wrestler's pitch, there was no adjustment period this time.  While Spike looked on, Buffy grabbed stood up and started smoothing and fondling her breasts.

"How are my tits?" she asked the director.  "Do my tits look good?"

"Oh yeah, baby, yeah, they look just fine."

She turned next to the bloke with the camera.  "What about you, Larry?  You think they look okay?"

'Larry' (she was giving them bloody names now) offered her a lazy shrug, then took a drag on his smoke.  "They're too fucking small," he finally said, prompting a wave of low chuckles.

Buffy's cheeks flushed pink, but she kept right on rubbing and stroking and tweaking her nipples.  When she turned to Spike, her eyes were narrowed to thin slots, more lash than pupil, like she was trying to camouflage her soul with sex.  "What about you?" she said.  "What do you think of my tits?"

Without warning, a tsunami of poetry assailed the shoals of Spike's rotten old brain.  He fought against it with all his unholy might, dammed off every causeway and bricked up every breach (and, given how badly this effort began, he was bloody well surprised not to find himself sopping wet with a bricklayer's trowel in hand).

What do I think of your tits?
They're are the (no) of (no),
The (no) in (No's) own (no),
(No)ing in the (no) like (nononos),
Wicked (nos) loose their (nos) for them,
Whilst saints lose their ((No!  Come on, you stupid git),
I hold within my hand but cannot (no),
I (no) between my lips but cannot (no)
I (no) (nono) (nono) but cannot (no)
(No) (no) (nono) (nono) (no) (no no) (NO)
NO.  NO.  NO.  NO.

"I think they're... good," he said.

The director started clapping his fat, greasy hands again.  "How romantic.  Okay people, c'mon.  What is this, a skin flick or fucking Donahue?"  Without warning, the blighter strolled into the center of the circle.  He grabbed Buffy by the elbow and marched her aside, with all the casual intensity of a farmer leading a calf to slaughter.  "Now, honey, we're gonna need a few more positions out of you this time.  Last time it was like watching a goddamned corpse getting diddled at the morgue, you dig what I'm saying?"

The implication made Spike hungry to chew on the fat bastard's slimy jowels, but Buffy didn't seem fazed by it in the slightest.

"Okay Bill.  More positions.  Got it."

Bill gave her a couple of light slaps on the cheek and smiled.  "That's my baby girl," he said.  "Okay, okay, why don't we start out with a little reverse cowgirl, and then see where it goes from there. Okay."

If he says 'okay' one more time, Spike thought.

"Okay, you," Bill said, snapping his fingers at Spike like he were a dog.  "You, you, you, whatever-your-name-is.  You lay just, lay down and let her get you in shape, and we'll get rolling right away, okay?  We don't want to waste anymore fucking time on this, okay?"

It was maddening, but the wanker was right.  Neither Buffy nor he could claim great honors in the sanity department at this point.  Who knew what horrors might spew forth from their brains if this bollocks dragged on much longer?

Buffy seemed to realize this too, so she straddled his thighs and got to work with her little hands again, molding the flesh down there solid.  When Bill said "Action," she flipped front-to-back and then eased herself down onto his cock, squeezing the final inch in with saucy little wiggle.  At first he thought it was a merciful change, considering the near catastrophe of his Ode to Dirty Pillows minutes before.  The problem was, she was all poetry, tip-to-tails poetry.  Every inch of her body was glorious, perfect meter, and every inch of her mind was stirring verse.  She worked him harder than usual (Was there a "usual" now?), twisting and grinding her hips down like she was trying to screw him into the floor.  And all the time her hands kept exploring her own tawdrily lit flesh: petting her thighs and breasts and her hot little pussy, and pulling at her hair like she might tear it out.

She accompanied this performance with a soundtrack of dubious groans, but it wasn't enough for Director Billy.  "Louder," the director said, his voice a harsh whisper.  "Louder, dollface.  And more intense, okay?"

She tried to oblige, blowing out low grunts that sharpened to high-pitched squeals at each end. 

"Come on, dummy," Bill said.  "You can sell it better than that, sweet cheeks."

And sure enough, on command, the grunts graduated, transformed into breathy yelps and warbling, falsetto cries.  Her body kept hammering down at him like a factory machine, her soft, round ass clapping and clopping against the skin of his belly.  He took a moment to thank all Gods and Devils that he couldn't see the girl's face, and be thereby be forced to review her acting talents as well.

"Oohbaby yeahbaby," she said.  "Yessstbaby, feels sogood, ohyeahohgodyeahunhuh."

Bill was prowling along the edge of the circle again, playing like he was Steven Sodding Spielberg.  "Okay, that's enough of that one.  Let's change up to a...uh...um..."

"Tijuana Jellyfish?"  Larry helpfully proposed.

"Yeah, okay. Tijuana Jellyfish. Okay."

Spike thumbed through the dirty diary in his brain at top speed.  "Oh," he finally said, "Right."  Assembling the Sutra of this particular Kama in his mind's eye, he spun Buffy to face him and slid her onto his lap.  Her gorgeous doll's legs splayed instinctively and wrapped themselve around his waist, but William the Bloody Cheeky Bastard peeled them off, and guided her feet onto the ground with his wrists.  Then he raised himself to a squat and surprised her with an agile thrust, sliding his cock back home.  She rewarded him with a hard gasp and a delicious laugh, and whether she was acting or not the sound drove him mad with something very much like love, but less expensive.  This glimpse of her face was all she allowed before it was gone again, before she was pressing her neck to his and gifting Larry the Camera Cunt with a closeup that rightfully, FUCKING RIGHTFULLY belonged to Spike, because he fought for it, because he was owed, because every night he saved her.

'I can help you.'

'You had your chance.  You all did.'

He shook the thought away and tried to focus on the motions instead.  The previous hammer blows quickly gave way to slinky gyrations and dainty thrusts.   A million happy distractions engulfed him: the soft frictions of her chest brushing his, her blood-warm arms draped down his back, the soft bows of their thighs kissing.  Her hot cheek stood firmly against his, and he was dizzied by the halo of tantalizing scents about her hair and neck, a middle class potion of citric perfumes and skin creams.  He tried to imagine her dabbing it all on, then the discount makeup, then combing her hair in the mirror, a dead woman quietly trying to care about these things again.  But who knew?  Who could know for sure what she was really like?  If they were only actors in a cheap stag picture, then who was writing the script?

Or was that the point; actors without a script, characters without a story?

Fairies without a tale?

Concentrate, poof.

The maddening questions kept arriving anyway, and Buffy kept yowling and cooing her tawdry,  ad-libbed lines, either spurred on by the sniggering commentary of the stag film crew or pretending to be.  Spike suddenly felt a shard of shame slash through him, biting him harder and deeper than the chip ever did.  He began to cry and gnash his teeth, fighting against the threat of tears and against the Face – his Real Face beneath the mask, which was now growling and snarling its way to the surface.

What verse was this, my love?  Which canto and stanza and line?

What scrap of black poetry did your heart recite, to summon this obscene barn dressed up like a romantic play?

As Spike thought it, the world reshaped itself around once more.  The stained carpet turning to  muddy cedar planks strewn with hay.  In the yard outside, the erstwhile film crew completed their devolution in fast-forward, morphing sharply into pigs and sheep and strutting, clucking hens.  While Buffy continued rocking her body onto him, the barn's wood creaked like old boats beneath Spike's knees.  When turned her face towards him her eyes were shut tight, and tears were squeezing out from the edges.  He wasn't certain she'd noticed the shift, but she had stopped her fake cussing and moaning, and just as the sigil on her forehead began to shimmer and fade away she kissed him.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"No," Spike said, bewildered by both her words and his.  I'm sorry wasn't remotely a question, so why did he answer?

Luckily, she dropped the bad business right there.  Even the rocking motion stopped, and for a while they just held each other: she still sitting on his lap, he still planted deep, both of them delivering gentle thrusts every so often, just to keep the wick lit.  He assumed they were both  thinking strategically again, or at least thinking about how to think.

For Spike's part, he was still utterly boggled at the puzzle posed by the final picture.  The doodle in the spellbook was anatomically possible, of course... if the anatomy in question happened to be that of a Selb'u'du demon, or a Beast of Antithraxis, or some other such vile, Lovecraftian underworld mutant.  Not only could Spike not think of anything particular "poetic" to say about those monstrosities, but there were practical considerations as well.  Spike didn't relish the thought of transforming into a giant, man-eating Satanic squid for any length of time, nor did he think Buffy would would be able to reach the proverbial finish line being rogered by said squid.

Think, damn you.

But before he could, he felt something strange happening to him.  Buffy's eyes were closed, and she had a look of peace about her, like she'd entered a state of Tantric concentration.  Moments later William the Bloody felt a sensation like sail ropes were pulling taut the edges of his mind, threatening to tear it apart along hidden seams.

What are you doing to me, love?

No sooner had he thought this, the seams gave way.  Predicting agony, Spike shut his eyes, but the pain never arrived.  When he opened them again, he realized why.

The strange world of the spell had become stranger still.  This latest "Green Acres" version of Magic Box was still there, as was the open book and the circle of candles. There were still two people there too, squatting nude in the center of the barn, listening to the sounds of the chickadees and the whippoorwills and all that rot.  The man was still him, and the woman was still Buffy, but there was something off about the whole scene now.  It was all somehow bigger, or Spike was somehow "all smaller", reduced to a spectral sheet of consciousness hanging just above the surface of a dream.

While this paper-thin layer of him watched from its impossible perspective, a figure appeared in the frame of the open barn door.  The monster was slim and pale, dressed in a pair of black leather pants and motorcyle boots, with platinum hair that stood straight up on end, like the sight of something just scared him witless.  And, based on his savage, yellow eyes and that mouth full of sharpened daggers, that "something" could have easily have been a mirror.

The bloke sneered devilishly as if he heard the thought.

(Or, thought it himself?)

Bollocks, a familiar voice chided.

The mirror can't see us.  Remember?

The monster stalked into the circle and took up a position straight behind the girl.  Buffy's eyes were still glued shut, but with hints of movement behind them, like they were trying to trace some shape in the blackness.  When she gently pushed on his chest (yes, it was still his chest somehow) he ordered the first man there to follow the cue, til he lay with his back flat on the gritty floorboards.  She bent over and started fucking him again, arching her back and rolling her hips, trying to hit a certain angle just right.  As she did so, the fanged villain behind her dropped to its knees, smirking as he unzipped his fly.

The mirror can't see us...

While Buffy gasped and squeezed and ground her pussy onto him, the bastard behind her began smearing her backside with the scented oil Spike had pilfered from Willow's lock-box.  Hands that were somehow his own lathered and massaged and probed her nethers, greasing the gears for the big ride home.

While this unsteady narration unfurled, the two shattered pieces of Spike became aware of a third shard joining the fray; this time a mincing tosser with a head of sandy curls.  The nancy-boy crept forth bashfully from the shadows beneath the hayloft, eyes shimmering with daft, virginal wonder.  He was dressed well enough but also strangely, like a son whose mother dressed him in his father's former clothes.  The sum affect lent the boy an air of someone who was slightly out of fashion, even for his time...

Our time.

(Times?)

The mirror can't see...

Everything that next transpired did so as though according to script: automatically yet with complete, almost godlike control.  For a few moments the boy stood trembling before the scrum of flesh, a look of awe plastered across his face.  When he finally worked up the nerve, he tugged his trousers and knickers down till they formed a single bunched and ruffled collar around his trembling calves.  Then he sank to his knees as well, his todger dangling uselessly, as limp as the rest of him.  Buffy reached out blindly for the sad member, her fingers stumbling their way up one thigh before taken it expertly into hand.  A few gentle tugs later and the boy's sail was as full as those of the monster and the man. Realizing this, the tiny, self-aware scrap of Spike's mind that was floating in the ether of this current madness thought: "She did it."  Somehow, some way, Buffy Summers had solved the riddle.

The thought echoed through the halls of his rotten old brain as she invited the whole of him inside: the boy between lips, the man between thighs, the monster between cheeks.

Muffled cries and wet, slippery sounds escaped from the various, imperfect seals.  While the clone army went about the happy chore of fucking Buffy senseless, Spike suddenly found he could taste her secrets all at once, warm and pink and sweet and black and bitter and cold.  The four bodies in the barn were like explorers discovering some dark reach of Heaven.  Her beloved tongue lapped greedily along his shaft, like it were a treat that might melt in the sun.  Her miraculous pussy warmed him like a mother's hands in winter.  Her pert and prim ass battled backwards against his advances, as though guarding the gates of Hades itself.

The sensation of having all three at once was that of delight and brutal agony, since Spike had to guard his own gates as well.  According to the spell, Buffy had to finish first, or the entire business would all have been for naught.

As per usual, he thought.

Luckily, it didn't feel like it would take very long. Within the first minute, the surging breaths she took through her nostrils had already become uneven and savage.  Ever since their first, glorious night together in that condemned flophouse, her body had become a known quantity to him.  He could detect her approaching climax by the oddly panicked reaction she always had to it, like it were some sort of enemy to vanquish.  Deciding to fulfill the role, he galloped three identical sets of hips, riding hard into the Valley of Death.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd.

And, at this, the wond'ring world turned bright and loud.  Ranks of Russian cannon spat their iron children into the sky above the valley walls.  The high arcs sent them screaming overhead, and when added to the drum of the Dragoons hoof-beats, the clamor drowned all reason left inside Spike's sliced up mind.

He ravaged her body from all sides, not knowing nor caring if he was hurting her, if she liked it, if she hated it, if she hated him and herself and all that remained of life on Earth.  Even the curly-headed boy set his musty manners aside, and began shagging her mouth like it owed him dosh.  The man lying beneath fought defiantly against gravity, meeting her rapid thrusts and driving his cock as far inside as it would go.  The monster in charge of her flanks grinned like Satan himself as he hammered her personal Sodom to dust.

And it worked, it worked so well and fast, blowing electrical storms through her body from the center out.  The instant he felt it happen, Spike surrendered as well.  He squeezed his eyes shut and loosed his own barrage of reckless bombs into the sky within her.  She gripped him the same way she always did when he came, in three places now, like she was devouring him and didn't want a single drop to go to waste.  He tried to grip something too, though not physically and not for long.  Holding on to that moment of perfect ending was like holding a fistful of water.  It bled out at the same hopeless pace no matter how strong your grasp.

The sounds of battle faded in direct proportion to their soothing passions.  The cannon fire was eventually reduced to the slamming of distant car doors, and the pounding hoofs of the fated six hundred dwindled to raindrops on a window pane.  Spike felt himself dwindling too, becoming smaller and sharper as the trio of clones blurred into the mists of a half-remembered dream.  And once all of his broken pieces were collected and welded whole, when all was quiet and solid, he opened his eyes.

They were standing on the shop floor of Magic Box again, locked once more in a fearful embrace.  There was no sign left that anything untoward had happened; even the little candles and the spellbook were gone.  They were fully clothed, too; Spike in Nikki Wood's old leather war frock, and Buffy in a lemon-colored tank top and a pair of snug white slacks (neither of which, it should be noted, bore any sign they had ever burst into roaring flames.)

When they released each other, he saw that Buffy's eyes were wide open too.  So was her jaw.

So's yours, he suddenly realized, and snapped it shut.  He tried to think of something to say, but it was simply no use.  Whatever else this evening might have given rise to, it seemed no words would ever come of it.

The look on Buffy's face suggested she realized this too.  Still, after a twenty-or-so-second eternity of astounded silence, she decided to give it the old college try.

"Well," she said.  "That was... uh...."

"Yeah," Spike said, and barked out a single, awestruck laugh.  "It was... um..."

"Yeah.  It was... Totally."

"I mean... are you?"

"No, I'm... I mean...uh-huh.  Are you?"

"Oh, yeah.  It's... you know.  Fine."

"Good!  Good.  It's good that your... fine.  I'm fine too."

"Great.  That's just... So, I...uh..."  Spike craned his head around, looking for an escape hatch to stuff himself into.  Finally his eyes settled on the cellar stairs.  The darkness down there looked more inviting than ever.  "So, you know... might as well.  I guess."

"Sure, yeah," Buffy said, jerking her thumb at the front door.  "I think I'm just gonna... you know... me too..."

Spike nodded and scratched the back of his neck, then stalked off towards the basement.  On a sudden whim he turned to say something, and so did Buffy, and the thing they said was each other's names.

"Sorry," said Spike.  "You first."

"No, go ahead," said Buffy, her expression freezing back into that unreadable mask.

"I was just gonna say... Good night."

"Oh.  Uh, yeah.  Okay."  With that she turned and drifted towards the door, looking slightly dizzy, wobbling on newborn legs.  A few moments later it was open, then she was out and then it was closed.  "Good night" rang a voice from the other side, followed by little footsteps that Spike stood listening to until they vanished back into the void of her own mysterious life.

Then, so did he.