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Chapter One

Buffy walked into the Magic Box, raised an eyebrow to see just Willow sitting at the large centre table.

"I'm helping out with the new late opening hours," Willow answered her friend's unspoken question. "As you can see I don't think Anya will be recouping my wages, but so far no-one's come to kill me, so way-hay."

Buffy dumped her bag on an empty seat and headed for the bookcase.

"Does that mean Giles isn't here? Cause I got bit by something and it's starting to swell."

"Ooh, research," said Willow, rubbing her hands together in mock glee. "Was it furry or scaly?"

"Kinda armoured," answered Buffy absently, pulling out a book of demon mug shots at random. "Dark green plates. Imagine a ninja turtle with a whole lot more teeth. Looked like it could have been a human once."

"Could be a sort of Manx," suggested Willow, "A kind of demon created by a curse. Giles has a book on them up there somewhere. Did it dissolve when it died?"

"Dunno. It jumped me outside Westhall Memorial then legged it while I was checking I still had two arms. Ah, 'A Compendium of Manx Demons and Living Curses'. How thrilling."

Willow had pulled open her laptop and was clicking furiously. "They're not in the Watchers' database. Ah, here we are. 'Derived from the name of the Egyptian mage thought to have been the first to create a Manx demon around 400 BC. When he discovered his wife had been conducting an affair with his brother he ordered him to be encased in a hideously spiked armour made from pure emerald, which became a living skin and filled the man inside with a fearful rage.' " She paused and scanned the rest of the web page. "It reproduces by biting, infecting the victim like poison and eating them inside out. It can take weeks, then when the person's dead, they grow their own armour and become a new demon."

Buffy, still flicking through the compendium, frowned. "Not liking the sound of that, Will."

"There's always an antidote, that's kind of the point of the curse. This Egyptian guy cursed his brother's teeth to get his own back on his wife too. When the demon bit the woman the only way she could stop from becoming like him was to sleep with him. The demon not the magician. Oh. She refused and he cut her head off. But it does say if she'd had sex with him she would have been cured."

"Willow!" Buffy squeaked. "You're not making it sound any better. I'm not having sex with that..." she broke off and shuddered.

"But that was just the original demon, and we know it's not one of those cause it was slain by the mage. But other people used his spells to create different kinds, you'd have to be really powerful to do it, but you only need one to start a race and over a couple of millennia there've been quite a few. We just need to find which one bit you and what its antidote is."

"You're starting to babble, Will. What are the chances of the antidote being something doable?"

Willow frowned, wrinkling up her nose. "That depends on who did the original curse and why. There's one here that cursed the victim to ride naked through the streets of Lincoln. Did yours have four horns? You might be in for a free holiday."

"Nah, no such luck. Hey, this one looks like it," said Buffy, nearly at the end of her compendium. "'Known as a Grekkon in vampire lore, the first was created by a master vampire in Russia in the late 5th century.' Oh!" She fell silent, engrossed in her reading.

"You okay, Buffy?" asked Willow, coming to read over her shoulder. "Hey, looks like Spike's not the only dead person with problems getting laid... Oh."

Buffy shut the book with a snap. "It's not in here," she said firmly. "Maybe it was just a regular kind of demon with bad teeth."

"Oo-kay," agreed Willow slowly. "D'you think we should call Giles, just to be sure?"

Buffy was silent, apparently lost in thought. Then she shook herself out of her reverie and shook her head. "Maybe later," she said breezily. "I'm gonna patrol, see if I can't find it and kill it. I can catch Giles later if it still looks infected." She picked up her bag and a stake off the counter and headed for the door.

"Don't you think... I should come with you," Willow finished to an empty shop.

Buffy did indeed patrol, needing time to think and something to kill but it was a quiet night and her feet took her to Spike's crypt much sooner than she'd intended. Maybe it was a big demon conspiracy, they'd all got together to stay out of her way just when she needed something big and scaly to lay into. Then the inevitable phonecall to LA, and a most unsatisfactory answer, and Buffy'd had enough thinking.

She opened the crypt door less violently than was her habit, allowing it to swing back without its usual thud. The Slayer could sense a vampire inside, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could make out Spike on the bed in the far corner. He pulled a sheet around himself, ran a hand through sleep tousled hair and eyed her warily.

"You wanna be shutting that door, Slayer, or do you feel safer with an exit route?"

With her foot Buffy kicked the door gently, it swung half closed and she stepped further into the crypt. There seemed to be a different atmosphere tonight, leftover sensory memories from the last time she'd been inside, or maybe just nervous anticipation. The Buffy shrine had thankfully disappeared but knowing he'd had a Buffy shrine wasn't helping any, the Slayer had an uneasy feeling there were whole new levels of creepiness to be reached and she was about to start a big ugly ball rolling.

"I need your help," she said blandly.

"Well I bet that gets stuck in your throat, bitch. What's in it for me?"

"Sex," said Buffy, her expression never changing.

Spike snorted. "With whom?"

Buffy stared blankly for a second. "Right. Mistake. Okay." She turned on her heel and headed outside but Spike was quicker, slamming the door and standing in front of it, his bed sheet held loosely round his waist. The banks of candles flickered in the draught. Stupid vampire must order them by the truckload, as if he knew how the dancing shadows hightlighted the toned white planes of his body.

"No you don't, Slayer. You've got my attention and you know how I love to help."

Buffy scowled at his feet, carefully keeping her eyes away from any naked Spike parts. "Get out of my way."

"Hey!" he said indignantly, "You let yourself in, didn't you? And I'm warning you, if I have to defend myself this sheet's not going to stay up long." He cocked his head on one side and looked at her for a second. "Are you shaking?"

"I've got to go." Buffy tried to push past him, head resolutely down, but he caught her arm.

"Don't be daft, Slayer, if something's got you this rattled then I think it's something I need to know about."

Buffy shook his arm off, sure she was blushing and angry with herself. "This isn't end of the world stuff," she mumbled.

"Buffy, you're shaking," he emphasized slowly. "Just pretend we're friends for a minute and sit down and tell me what's wrong."

She was shaking. Trembling. Shivering. Was it cold in here? Cause Slayers weren't supposed to tremble, there was no way she could be scared.

She'd been worried, the other week, when he'd chained her up. Had a bit of time to question his chip's definition of pain and Spike's definition of love and wonder if he intended to rape her. But she hadn't been scared, cause she was the Slayer and looked death and worse in the face on a regular basis and had conquered all but her personal demons. The solid, hittable kind she could face down with a quip and an insult, even psychotic impotent vampires who chained her up to prove their affection. And he wanted her, that was a good place to start in this peculiar set of circumstances, right?

Buffy's main enemy now was herself and she knew it. Every Slayer sense was rebelling against this situation, and even her baser instincts were all telling her to run or fight, and Buffy was used to trusting her instincts. She didn't know if she could fight them, didn't know how to say it. He'd do it, right? If she just said 'Spike, take me now', it would be over in minutes and she wouldn't have to explain. But even the short version was more than she could articulate.





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