Ashes
It didn’t take long to decide that there were a few missing principles to be satisfied before something even as rudimentary as a phone call could be accomplished. Two seconds after the vampire’s announcement, Wesley made the obligatory observation that maintaining a separation from Angel Investigations was imperative to the success of their endeavor, and that Wolfram and Hart would certainly have the means to deduce that Spike’s phone call came from the Hyperion. Being that the Cockney lacked a cell phone of his own, it took several minutes of persuasion and finally a concession from Zack Wright that his own could be forfeited. He did not like the idea of Darla being that close to recognizing his name—for reasons he still refused to disclose—but conceded that it was likely more important for this Slayer person to be apprehended than to keep his continued ambiguity maintained.
That wasn’t to say his personal feelings on the matter had alleviated any. While the trip to Angel Investigations had definitely made him more personable, there was a suspicious leer in his eyes that clearly established his discontent in being centered in such negotiations. His objective was Darla’s death—that much was all he would release. And true, it was obvious that he felt a string of curiosity where Buffy Summers was concerned.
The fact that she was something connected to the higher influence in worldly apprehension and perpetual fight against demons helped considerably. And, though he refused to comment in one way or another, Spike suspected that he was also tempted by human curiosity. To see this person that could bring the notorious William the Bloody to his knees with no additive influence other than her being. Her goodness.
“Remember,” Wesley said cautiously, “he might have been instructed to lead you on in a certain way. Don’t take anything to heart. We’ll have Detective Lockley phone him immediately following—”
“Yeh, yeh,” Spike said dismissively, hoping his tone masked how anxious he was. With as much as he wanted to have this over with, there was a certain measure of safety in the imprecision. As long as he remained ignorant, Buffy could still be rescued. She was still waiting for him. Still there, if only a trip across town from reach.
If he received word that the worst had already happened, that safety net was robbed from him. He couldn’t imagine it. A world without the Slayer. Without her.
Funny. With as often as he had tried to kill her in the past, he had never thought through to conclusion the effect of her death. He would have mourned even then. To see the pass of such a formidable foe. There had been Slayers in the past and, however he wished to deny it, there would be Slayers in the future. But there was only one Buffy. Only one worthy of the title mortal enemy. The others had not the chance to come halfway as close as she had to delving beyond the protective walls he had put up, even without realizing it. Those established when he died. When he abolished humanity from his system. When he discovered the trophy of Slayer blood. When Drusilla left him.
Buffy Summers had broken through all of them. She had, in essence, made him human all over again. A terrifying realization. One he resented with every fiber of his being. He hated her for it. He worshipped her for it. He had wished her dead more times than he could count, but love betrayed him with more power than he could credit. His love for her was the most frightening enterprise he had ever undertaken; he knew it had the power to consume him, break him, destroy him. He had already crossed more boundaries than he ever thought possible. And there were others ahead.
He wouldn’t stop until she was back. Until he had her home.
Even if she never returned anything of what he wanted to offer.
He would have sworn his heart started beating again as the phone rang. While he had not requested it, he almost wished the others had left him in peace for this. It was Wesley’s observation that at least one person needed to be present in case he looked to lose it with whatever Lindsey related, but a group audience seemed on the side of overkill.
Spike chuckled inwardly in spite of himself. He never thought he would see the day when he complained about overkill. There was definitely a first for everything.
The phone was answered on the fifth ring. A sharp and disinterested call into the receiver. “McDonald.”
And just like that, every reservation the vampire had carried dissolved just as easily. He was pacing, but more to keep moving than out of anxiety. “The very same…oh, how’d she put it…‘charmingly ignorant personal association’ that Darla mentioned when she dropped by?”
There was a pause. He could almost smell the air heating with awareness.
Then the man cleared his throat and dropped something that sounded like a pen. “William the Bloody, I presume?”
“’S Spike, mate. Jus’ Spike. I’m not interested in a bunch of bollocks made to up my rep. Do that enough on my own.” The vampire glanced briefly to Cordelia, finding solace in her presence for a random, unidentified courtesy. “I know I’m a li’l late for the party, but you see, I ‘ave this problem. Last year, a group of government—”
“Yes, the chip. We have the information on you. More than you likely realize.” There was a heady pause. “Darla, however, related that you had declined her offer, and all the benefits that came with it. I don’t suppose this call is to reverse the implications of that status. Certainly, you have been informed that Wolfram and Hart contracts are structured on a one-time-only basis.”
Spike’s eyes narrowed, and he felt his patience begin to ebb. “This contract isn’t with Wolfram an’ Bloody Hart, you enormous ponce. ‘S with—” There was a loud cough. Cordelia’s gaze had pointed warningly and forced him to calm without a word in the affirmative. “’m callin’ ‘cause I changed my mind.”
“The contract the standing members of the Order established is connected to the Senior Partners.” Another pompous pause. The vampire decided without any incentive in either direction that he did not like this wanker one bit. “Either way, I was told you might be in contact. Something about your family being in possession of something you want. The message I am to give you is as follows…” McDonald cleared his throat again. “‘Tell my dearest that Angelus has already given me my treat, and that mummy fixed all that was wrong. It’s over now. We made a banquet of her heart.’ It was done shortly after they arrived, I believe. Truthfully, Mister—oh I’m sorry— Spike, we haven’t kept much contact with them for the past few days. But I was instructed to tell you that if it’s the Slayer you seek, it’s too late in that regard. She has already been taken care of.”
In all honesty, Spike wasn’t sure how he stopped his legs from collapsing. How his brain continued to function. How his motor skills didn’t abandon him. How he failed to crumple to his knees and scream his pain. Somewhere secluded, his mind switched to autopilot as the rest of him bowed with the infliction of every holy relic he had ever thought to encounter. An inward mantra initiated immediately, reassuring him that it was a rouse. That McDonald was acting under orders. That he had been told to relate the same. That Buffy was dead. But he found no comfort in empty promises. From here, from where he stood, all was lost. He couldn’t see her. Couldn’t feel or taste her. If it were true, if she was dead, blood would run in the streets. There would be anger, then vengeance, then sorrow. Tears purchased with crimson tidings.
Right now, though, there was nothing. A big, empty nothing.
“Well, then ‘s a bloody good thing I’m not callin’ about the sodding Slayer, isn’t it?!” he heard himself shout. Distant. As though watching his form on a screen with no say as to what came out of his mouth. What lie conjured that could be spread with any degree of persuasion. “Tell that wanker Angelus that I have a piece to speak with him, an’ to be at Caritas tomorrow. Sunset. You got me?”
“I will relate the message,” Lindsey replied conversationally. There was no evidence of the slightest intimidation. That something he would never get used to. Being a vampire that didn’t invoke fear. “My apologies for the misunderstanding. I’m sure he will be most interested to hear what you have to say.”
Spike muttered some form of a begrudging farewell and disconnected the call.
Then dropped the phone. The small instrument landed haphazardly, and the otherwise still reverberation sounded through the lobby with the brunt of a minute strike of lightening.
The vampire’s eyes remained studiously on the ground. He was not going to break down in front of these wankers. He was not going to let them know how the very thought—the threat of her being gone affected him. How he felt like dying a thousand times over. Like kissing the sun to have it all fade from tangibility.
How he could feel the world for someone who would never feel the same.
The first voice that dared perturb the air was Cordelia’s—the sympathy crashing from her aura nearly perceptible. “Spike…” she said softly. “Maybe you should…sit down or something. You’re…well, you’re pale. Well, obviously you’re pale. You’re dead. But you’re even…paler than usual. And I think it’d be a good idea if—”
He held up a hand. “There are rooms upstairs? Empty ones?”
The brunette nodded emphatically. “Totally. I mean, it’s a hotel, right? And there’s only Angel here…mostly…but he’s gone, so you can take his—”
He was not going to Angel’s room.
And, to her credit, Cordelia seemed to catch on to that with no hindrance. “Or there’s another room. There are…well, hundreds…literally. I think there’s one with an old bed…I haven’t gone up there all that much, but Angel had some telekinetic chick staying with him a while back. Try room 308. Okay?”
Spike nodded and moved for the staircase wordlessly.
He needed to be away from them before he broke down.
It was still in the lobby until the definitive click of a door locking rang through the dead air. Cordelia glanced to Wright for a minute, who was surprised that such a small note could carry that far. She murmured something about acoustics. The hotel was large and eerie, and most certainly not without its surprises.
“He gonna be all right?” Gunn asked, gracing the upper level with an arched brow.
“As long as she is,” Wesley replied. He had remained diligently quiet throughout the exchange, watching the Cockney’s alteration of manner and mood with more than a note of fascination. It was enough of a marvel to work around a vampire trying to repent for two hundred years’ worth of evildoings, but for a demon to develop such a whim of redemption out of love…it sounded as though it were plucked out of a fairytale.
Now was not the time for such regard. Sharply, the former Watcher pivoted to Lockley and delivered a short, sharp nod. “You better phone Lindsey,” he said. “Tell him everything you can, save, of course, that Spike is here with us. Find out what happened to Buffy.”
She looked at him blankly. “Why would I care what happened to Buffy?” she retorted. “I’m not even supposed to know she’s there. Or that she exists at all.”
“Tell him that a man named Rupert Giles called the Hyperion and told us everything.”
“Why would McDonald disclose any of that information to me? He’d only be incriminating himself more.”
Gunn stared at her blankly. “Never thought I’d see the day when you’d be hesitant to uphold the law.”
“I’m not here as an officer. I’m here—”
“So? Big whup. That doesn’t mean that you aren’t one.”
Wesley sighed. “You’re here. Period. That is all that matters. You’re here because he called you. Right now, Detective, that makes you one of us. That makes you the enemy. He chose to speak through you once.” There was a heady pause. “In any case, the girl is an innocent. She’s being tortured and worse by the very being that you hate. Not Angel. Not the nice version. She’s in the hands of the creature that warrants your aversion. We need to know what happened to her.” He glanced upward once more to the empty corridor. It was silent. “Spike deserves to know. He’s come this far.”
“Did you see the look on his face?” Cordelia demanded. “He’s completely in love with her!”
“So it would seem,” Wright commented.
“All the more reason for us to find out what truly happened.” Wesley stepped away, shaking his head. “The last thing we need is an enraged, heartbroken vampire on our hands.”
“He can’t hurt us, though,” Gunn observed. “We’ve all seen it.”
“I haven’t,” Kate volunteered, reaching for her phone all the same.
“Well, take my word for it.”
“I’m not worried about us,” Wesley said. His eyes were fixed on the upper level.
He would not elaborate.
Spike sat on the edge of a barren mattress, staring at the blank wall as though he expected it to speak.
Somewhere deep within himself, he had already made solace with the understanding that whatever Lindsey told him was untrue. There was no way the Slayer would have been killed already, even if such were Angelus’s ultimate intention.
But hearing it. Hearing it from someone who was there. Who had the potential to be there for her; see her, touch her, feel her every day…it was enough to make the false truth realer than the best kill in his colored, flawed past.
The truth—the authentic truth—was more terrifying than that. Because the day would ultimately come when the same call would not be a lie. When he would lose her. When she would slip away from him without ever having been his at all. And it made him wonder. The ponderous strains of mortality, and all its terrible pragmatism. Was it better to lose her like this? When he didn’t know the warmth of her touch except for what she offered in the fantasies she visited? The dreams she starred in? Or would his will collapse for the knowledge of what had never been. The loss of an idea—of something that would have been perfection if he had been, just for one second, allowed within the protective boundaries of her —so distant. So rare. So…Buffy.
His face was wet and his eyes were raw. Bloody wanker.
“She’s alive.”
The voice came from the door. He had sensed Zack there for a minute or so.
Spike sighed and wiped his face free of tears. “I know.”
Evidently, that was all the invitation the demon hunter felt he needed. He stepped into the room and moved quietly to the mattress, studying his vampire foe curiously. Spike made no move to acknowledge him otherwise, though as all good prey, he knew to keep alert. The man was one who killed his kind for sport, and even in the hindsight of their unlikely truce, he might find flaw in the vampire’s being.
Once more, he was surprised.
“‘I know’?” Wright asked, arching a brow. He assumed a seat on the mattress, preserving a good foot between them. “I half expected you to get up and dance.”
“I don’ dance.”
“Yeah, and you don’t sing. It seems you’ve made all kinds of exceptions tonight.”
There was an appreciative snicker. “’ve been makin’ exceptions for the past year.”
Wright nodded his agreement. “I’d say falling in love with your mortal enemy checks as a big one.”
“So you’re gonna admit that that’s what it is, then?”
“What?”
“Figured a big vamp-hatin’ demon hunter like you’d be one of the firs’ to contest the idea that vampires can feel anythin’ at all.” Spike turned to look at him, eyes expressive but distant. “That love where we’re concerned is possible.”
He shrugged. “I was skeptical at first.”
“I’ve known you for the better of two hours. You’ve had enough time to change your mind?”
“You’ve given me enough to change it on.” Zack sighed heavily and turned to mimic the vampire’s pose, even if it was subconscious. “I don’t think in all the years that I’ve been hunting demons that I’ve ever seen one react to bad news the way you did downstairs.”
“I don’ reckon you’ve met many demons with implants in their noggins.”
“It’s more than that.”
But he did not explain how.
There was a brief silence. Oddly comfortable. The settlings between two people who had no reason to greet each other with anything resembling amiability. Mixed and matched among a sea of others just like them. In any other context, Spike would have second-guessed himself and his motives; it was hardly as though this was the first time he had sided with the enemy.
The voice that was becoming not-so-little whispered another prettied lie about how the conventional enemy had reversed sides in the past year. He was the only vampire in the vicinity, unsouled and very blood-happy…yet in a hotel room managed by people who went out of their way to do good, preparing to battle his own kind to save the Slayer. Selflessly. Without motive or cause. Without aspirations of achieving something higher. Of convincing her of anything that would tally one mark under his name. While his mind had entertained certain fantasies involving Buffy, a tall tower, and a stylishly wankerish version of himself saving her for the sort of ending the people of those breeding enjoyed, he knew it could never be so. Because she was far above him. She was the light that could never be touched, lest he crumple to dust.
Spike took a deep breath. Comfortable or not, he hated silences. “So…” he began, cautious but conversational. Despite their standing, he would never allow himself to forget that this was the same man that had greeted him with many a-crossbow arrows. He would never deny himself on a thirst for knowledge or—better yet—really amusing tales, but he wouldn’t go out of the way to get on a pulser’s bad side. It wasn’t as though he had numerous means of protecting himself. “Wha’s the story?”
Wright spared him a glance but complied. “Kate called that Lindsey person…is he a guy?”
“Either that, or a very butch chit.”
“Well, in a nutshell, he told her that the Slayer was alive. Not fine, but alive.” There was a sigh. “Neither mentioned you. She told him that someone named Giles had contacted Wes and—”
The vampire nodded. “Thanks,” he said softly.
“Don’t mention it.”
“But that wasn’ the story I was askin’ about.” He grinned when the other man frowned his displacement. It always was fun catching them at ends. “Oh, come on, Zangy. How do you expect us to become the very best of friends ‘f you don’ share a tale or two?”
Wright blinked. Once. Twice. “The very best of what?”
Spike snickered and waved dismissively.
That wasn’t the end of it. His humor failed to register as appropriate, or funny in the slightest. Instead, a dark scowl befell Zack’s face, and an unrepentant glare commanded the stormy seas of his eyes. It was amazing how quickly a man’s temperament could alter. The flick of wrist. The snap of a finger. This was no different. Any sense of amity evaporated. “Let’s get one thing very straight,” he snapped. “We’re never going to be friends. Ever. I’m here to get something that was wronged fixed again. My helping you is an unfortunate consequence. I don’t give a damn about you or your kind, and I fucking pity this Slayer—whoever she is—if you’re what she has waiting for her. Jesus Christ…”
There were moments when Spike reckoned he was older fashioned than he cared to concede. While his temper was hardly difficult to offset, it took more than a personal remark to get his bloody boiling in the most metaphoric of senses. Say a word against him, he got irritated. Utter a syllable that could be construed as negative against those he loved—Buffy Summers, for example—earned punishment that would put God’s wrath to shame.
But he couldn’t do anything beyond anger. He couldn’t resort to the violence he craved. All he could do was watch from the sidelines.
“Look, mate,” he growled. “You’re the one who came up here to chat. Leave the bird—”
“I came up here to tell you that your girlfriend is all right.”
“She’s not my…” The Cockney trailed off longingly before snapping back to the present. “Why even bother ‘f ‘s such a bloody inconvenience? You hate me, remember? Say what you want—do whatever you sodding please—but leave her outta this. She’s done nothin’ but save the world an’ kill all the nasties that get your knickers perpetually twisted. She’s a bloody hero, ‘s what she is. An’ I’m jus’ tryin’ to get her back from some fairly nasty blokes—one of whom I know you’ve met—to save her from a fucking clichéd fate worse than death. Am I a vampire? Well, yeh, last I checked. Don’ believe I’ve sported a pulse an’ a heartbeat since. Am I evil? Bloody right. I’m not tryin’ to score points here, you git. I jus’ want to get her home.”
At that, Zack was quieted. There was nothing for several beats.
Then Spike exhaled in concession, reaching for his cigarettes.
“Come on,” he urged. “’F you’re gonna be up here enjoyin’ the dark with a beastie, you might as well tell a tale or two. I know it was Darla. Wasn’ difficult to piece that together. What’d she do?”
There was another lengthy silence. The same that spoke for everything that Wright refused to relate. It was that and more. The comprehension that, despite notable differences, the man had been molded into the form he was in now because of consequences. Severe consequences. Darla had the ability to turn anyone into a drunkard.
He had the nagging feeling that she had done more than simply kill someone that Zachary Wright had cared for. And in that regard, despite all the mutual aversion between them, he could understand. Even relate.
Relate.
With humans.
The heart of his final corruption. He was within a breath of being one of them.
Silence grew and waned, and the vampire’s suspicion became more belligerent. He decided that not only had Darla hurt this man by robbing him of whatever joy he had previously had in the world, that she had take his own Buffy. The one that made him—made and broke him in one fell swoop. The one that was his reason. His oxygen. His blood. His life, in essence.
In Spike’s eyes, that was unforgivable.
He decided to go for broke. After that, if nothing came of it, he would let it lie.
It was Xander’s fault. This sudden urge to chat up every past ugly an analyze it. Though that standing had no support, he knew it was always better to blame the whelp if doubt was ever on the prowl.
“Was it your honey?” he ventured speculatively, lighting up.
A sigh at that. Distant and elusive, but not as tempered as before. One of concession. He knew well that sound.
“It happened…” Wright began softly, nearly unaware that he was speaking. A pain he had forfeited and swallowed. Too long ignored, too soon refreshed. One of nature’s delightfully excruciating ploys. “It happened so long ago. I don’t even…most people…those I’ve come across…they remember every last detail of what happened to them. I can’t tell you how many men I’ve talked to who lost wives or children. Sisters, brothers…that sort of thing. I guess you could call me a profiteer, but I don’t like to think about it like that. I’ve never been in this for the pay. Not once. I’ve done too many freebies and the like…no. To me, it’s all about the leads. It’s always been the kill.”
Spike gave him a very long look, then nodded with astute precision. “Good to know,” he decided.
“The people, though, the others…they remember every detail.” Wright exhaled deeply and shook his head. “I don’t. Seven years have passed and I’ve spent every day trying to forget. Trying to get… I’ve heard too many stories. Eventually, the details start to mesh and everything becomes one long, bloody drama with the same people killed again and again. It wasn’t easy. Forgetting. I’ve worked at it so hard for so long. It took forty-seven states, and god knows how many kills. I’ve forgotten now.”
The vampire’s brows perked. “Forty-seven, eh?”
“I go anywhere. Everywhere. And I’ve forgotten how I met Darla. Where she was. Why I was there. Why we spoke to each other. Why I didn’t kill her on the spot.” Another lengthy break. Spike waited with not much patience but more perceptiveness than any demon should think to relate. “She hunted me. I remember that much. She sought me out. After I read up on her, I figured that she was looking for a replacement-Angelus. Guess I was the best candidate.”
The peroxide Cockney snickered at that. “She wanted you to fill in King Forehead’s space? Bloody hell. Either she’s risen her standards or stopped carin’.” He grinned in spite of himself, but Zack didn’t reply. He was too lost in his own words, however brief.
“There was a problem, of course. A complication.”
Spike nodded and exhaled a pillar of smoke. “Always is.” He paused and tossed the hunter speculative glance, sensing the next without any difficulty at all. “What was her name?”
It was amazing, watching the seasons of human emotion change. From cold to warm in two seconds flat. The soft glow that warmed the ice behind Zack’s eyes. The winter storm’s upheaval in light of the first day of summer. Melting all that painful residue. He wondered briefly if he looked like that whenever Buffy was mentioned, and sincerely hoped not. If his eyes revealed half as much, it was a wonder the entire Scooby clan hadn’t made his chest a haven for all sorts of stakes.
Like everything else, Zack put his everything behind the utterance of one word. Breathing it as though its existence would determine his own. “Amber.”
“She was your bird?”
A blink at that. The spell broke without ceremony. “My…what?”
Spike rolled his eyes and indulged another puff. “Your girl, mate. She was—”
“Oh. No. More than that. She was my wife.”
At that, the vampire’s gaze widened. He hadn’t expected that sort of revelation. Though time and anger had worn the man’s features, giving him the appearance of several years older than his likely age, he hadn’t reckoned the bloke to having been hitched.
“We got married when we were freshmen in college, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Wright noted off Spike’s skeptical look. “Very young and stupid. We thought it was all so romantic. It felt right, and that was all that mattered. I had loved her since the moment I saw her. I went through…everything just to earn a look from her. A smile. A laugh. She had the most…I can’t even think of a word…her laugh was just…musical. Her eyes…” He broke then, realizing he had been rambling with a flush as he coughed and turned away. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”
Spike quirked a brow. “’Cause I’m listenin’?”
“I don’t see why you care.”
“I don’t, to be truthful. Jus’ the same as I reckon you don’ care for rot either way ‘f I get Buffy back safe an’ sound. But you’re here, aren’t you? Might as well take you up on it.” He paused and pursed his lips. “An’ I asked. You’re an odd fellow, Zangy. Bit more like myself than I wager you’d wanna admit.”
At that, the other man instantly drew into himself, his eyes going stony. “I’m nothing like you.”
Spike snickered. “Right. ‘Course. You’re too good for it.”
“I sure as hell am.”
“Tha’s why you went outta your way to chat me up about a bird you’re not supposed to care two sods about, right?” The vampire rumbled a humorless chuckle, shaking his head incredulously. “You’re a piece of work. Y’know that, right?”
“I—”
“You ‘ave a wicked grudge. I get that. The story prolly goes that Darla reasoned you were out of the runnin’ as her next-best mate when she discovered you already had a honey warmin’ your bed. She decides to narrow out the competition.” Spike emitted a sigh of irritation, tapping cigarette debris to the floor before reclaiming the bud with his mouth. “You’d think four bloody centuries’d be enough to inspire a li’l originality.”
If possible, the air surrounding Wright chilled even further. And he was silent.
As if this confirmed everything, Spike nodded, even if it was more to himself. Then he grew somber. There were many things he knew about Darla, but none struck quite as true as her affinity for destruction. It didn’t matter at whose expense—she was a vampire, after all, and didn’t care a lick for who she was hurt. Never had. If rejection had spawned her warpath against Zack’s wife, there were several truths guaranteed. It had been bloody, prolonged, and about as painful as three consecutive Pauly Shore movies.
Like what she was doing to Buffy. Somewhere out there. Right now.
Without realizing it, his hands had fisted and his jaw had tightened.
And he felt a sudden rush of furthered empathy for the demon hunter. Something he definitely did not need.
“You ruined lives just like mine,” Zack said coldly, breaking the silence.
There was no sense denying that. “I have.”
“And you don’t care.”
“I am what I am, mate. I was made this way.”
Wright inhaled deeply. His entire being was trembling. “I oughta rip you to pieces,” he decided. “Simply for being here when others aren’t. For being…for ruining what you’ve ruined. For—”
Spike quirked a brow, knowing inherently that he wasn’t in any real danger. If the hunter wanted to kill him, he had been granted more than enough chances. This discussion was nothing outside diplomacy. Two people that were curious about each other by nature, even if that curiosity led down a path that resulted in a dead end. “Vamps kill, Zangy. ‘S what we do. What we’re made to do, an’ we’ve been here an’ doin’ it a lot longer than you humanly types ‘ave been wanderin’ the horizon in search of truth an’ meanin’ an’ all that other bloody rot.”
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop calling me that.”
The vampire paused before grinning broadly. “Well, now you’ve gone an’ done it,” he informed him pristinely. “’F it annoys you, it sticks. One of my many charms.” When all he earned was an irritated glance in turn, he sighed and looked down once more. “Would it make you feel any better ‘f I told you I’m losin’ it?”
There was a long pause. Wright made no attempt to even verify the comment had registered, but finally caved to intrinsic inquisitiveness. “Losing what?”
“Whatever made me the way I am. The mojo that all vamps feed off of.” Spike grumbled lightly and snubbed out his cigarette against the floor. “’m not proud of it. Hell, I bloody well hate what this fucking chip has done to me. Made me more like you. Made me feel.” A pause at that. “Can’t blame everythin’ on it, though. Even ‘f I’d never realized it, I’ve had a yen for the Slayer for longer than I’d like to admit. An’ it’s bloody ruined me.”
“Oh yes,” Zack snapped bitterly. “That must’ve been terrible.”
Spike’s gaze glimmered with anger. “Jus’ about as terrible as it’d be for you to fall head over for one of us. Your enemy. I’m a vampire. She’s a Slayer. She’s everythin’ I’m s’posed to be against. It’s sick an’ wrong, an’ ‘f I could rid myself of these feelings, I’d gladly do it. But I can’t.” He paused and shook his head, waving dismissively. “Never mind. Understanding’s not in your sodding vocab, is it? Right there alongside miss. What I am…what she’s made me…’s somethin’ perverse. But she’s…” His eyes softened. “She’s Buffy.”
The air that settled between them fell on an oddly cordial note. As though some peace could be discovered through all the animosity. Without a word—without a breath—ground that resembled something similar to what either man had spent the last few years looking for. A mutual understanding. Something that burst into the limelight of what was versus what had been.
It was frightening; the way the smallest thing could alter one’s entire universe.
Nothing for several minutes. Nothing, then something. Wright drew in a deep breath and raked his fingers through his chestnut locks. “You really love her?”
Spike nodded. “With everythin’ that I am. She’s a bloody disease. A disease, an’ its cure. She poisons me an’ brings me back all with one breath. All in one glorious package.”
Another lapse into nothing. Comfortable. Familiar.
Then Wright spoke. He spoke freely, holding onto reservation, but with a higher levity for all things around with. He spoke in a manner that forewarned all boundaries had been forfeited. “Amber was different than anyone I’d ever met,” he stated softly, eyes glossing over even if he didn’t realize it. “She was…God, I don’t even know where to begin. Intelligent, beautiful, funny…she probably had more boyfriends in high school than I had zits.” The vampire cracked a smile but didn’t comment. “She was an over-achiever. One of those rare people who make it to the top without becoming so full of themselves that they turn into only a shadow of the person they were. I was…I guess I was as enchanted with her as everyone else. It shocked the hell out of me when she finally agreed to give me a chance. I never got over that, I don’t think. Never got over her. And when she said she’d marry me…God, I was on Cloud Nine for…well, the three of marriage. For the entire ride.”
He broke then in unspoken offer for commentary. Spike made none. Just sat in silence and waited for the man to continue.
It took a minute to find his footing, and by the cracking in his voice, it was perceptible that they were nearing dangerous territory. “We were poor but happy. My job was…well; it was for shit, to be blunt. Somewhere along the way I met Darla. I had no idea who she was. I had no idea that vampires existed, and certainly didn’t think they’d live around me were that the case. Darla…she was…I don’t have a word for it. All I remember for sure was that she was captivated. She spoke of things I’d never heard of. Told me things I could have if I’d accept her offer. I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
There was an emotional pause—Wright’s voice cracking. The vampire had the vague feeling that he no longer existed in the room. That the hunter had long ago consigned to speaking to the wall as soon as he would relate so openly to his enemy. Then again, perhaps he hadn’t measured the man as well as he thought he had. The night had only introduced them. Tied their paths with a common objective for a reason. Something that remained yet to be seen, even if the root screamed its obviousness. There was always something beyond the obvious.
“Of everything I’ve forgotten, there are two things that I can’t make go away. The smell. I’d gotten a whiff of blood before, but never like that. So thick. So… everywhere. It was everywhere. Practically running down the walls.” At that, Zack lurched forward as if to vomit, and instinctually, Spike grasped his forearm in wordless offer of support. He froze when he realized what he had done before bidding his lingering reservation away. If he wasn’t buggered before this, he certainly was, now. The hunter’s voice clouded with tears; his face glistening with the taste of unburdened sin. Releasing that weight into a world that didn’t want it. And for all the vampire had seen, all he had done, it took seeing that to understand the tools of his own trade.
“And she…she was…Oh God…” Wright drew an arm across his eyes as his body trembled. “She was…hanging. She had…she had been nailed…that monstrous bitch had nailed her to the wall. To look like Jesus, I guess. Just there…waiting for me. Her arms…she…and her stomach. Her sweet stomach…she…” He held up a hand, shielding his face and shaking his head. “Darla had taken a…I don’t even know what she used…but she had carved my Amber’s stomach open…to kill my child. My son. She…s-sh-she put him in the bassinette we had from Ro…from earlier…and suffocated him.”
Spike was stunned. There was no other word for it. Of everything he had ever heard, of everything he knew of Darla, he had never known her to do something so atrocious. So callous. She was a creature who relished the kill more than any he had encountered before. Any save one. His own grandsire.
Point of fact…
“Angelus,” he murmured. “It was Angelus.”
“No, it most definitely was not Angelus,” Zack snapped, wiping his eyes irately. “She had transcribed ‘with love’ on the wall next to my…my son. In blood. It wasn’t—”
“That’s not what I meant. She was recreatin’ somethin’ Angelus did back in the day.” He shook his head. “I wasn’ around for it—bit before my time—but I remember them laughin’ about it. Reminiscin’ an’ the like. Guess after a bloody century of bein’ without her boy, she began to lose it. When was this?”
Wright closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “Like I said, seven years ago.”
“Be right before she came to SunnyD, then.”
“Where she was supposed to have been killed.”
“She was.” Spike’s brows flickered. “Jus’ not well. Peaches staked her to save the Slayer, way I hear it. That sentiment din’t last long. An’ God, does that prat ever go on? Aside from him shaggin’ Dru, I don’ think I heard more garbage than his woes about slayin’ his sire.” He caught himself before his digression got too carried away, cleared his throat, and retuned himself to the present. “So ‘m guessin’ after…you became a lean, mean, demon-huntin’ machine?”
“It wasn’t just demons,” Wright said coldly. “It was vampires. I wanted Darla dead. I wanted all vampires dead. There were a thousand leads to follow…most of them stayed within the family. I contacted an old friend from high school who came from a military household. He taught me things I’d…he taught me things that I’d never have even dreamt of knowing. I practiced. I killed. I’ve killed so many vampires I’ve lost count, but it was never enough. It was never her. I read so many books that my eyes started to bleed. Memorized every single detail about her. Her past. Her associates. Those she’d sired. Those most noted in her Order. Angelus. Drusilla. You. Some random vampire named Penn, who I lost track of—”
“One of Angel’s,” Spike confirmed. “Think he kicked it.”
“—and then word came that she was dead. She was dead, I hadn’t killed her, but that was enough. It was more than enough for me. But by that time, I was too far into what I was doing to stop. It had only been months, and I had lost myself. Never staying in the same place. Always following some lead. Then I met Wes. Nice enough guy, but didn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘rogue.’” A shadow of a grin, in spite of himself. “He told me who he was and that he was more acquainted with otherworldly phenomena than he cared to disclose. I helped him a bit, I guess. He came on a couple kills with me before he proved to be a liability.” He turned to the vampire with a longwinded sigh. “Then Darla was alive again. Back. That was…when I heard; I was out the door. There were no questions asked. I had to get to where she was. Had to kill her. It was…God, it was as though…”
Spike nodded, capped. “I get it, mate.”
Wright snickered and turned to him, eyes wide with incredulity. “Do you? Do you really? How could you? You’re just like them, right? A fucking vampire who’d just as soon—”
“Look, as much as it might pain me to admit, I was never anywhere to the degree of nasty that Darla an’ Angelus strove for. All right? ‘F you’ve read up on me, you’d know it.” The vampire chuckled humorlessly and shook his head. “I get why you’re here. I…what she did…I guess I’ll never understand it completely. I can’t. I don’ have the wirin’ for it. But that kind of…as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to her.” He scoffed. “Never did care for the old bat, anyway.”
Zack smiled without feeling. “You make her sound like an unkempt relative.”
“From where I’m sittin’, she is.” Spike rose to his feet at that, as some sort of deranged pun, and made for the door without acknowledgement. He paused before he could leave the room completely, turning to glance at the man who remained ambiguous. Still not friends. They would never be that. But something more than just associates. People with a common enemy. People fighting a fight for the same purpose. A reason for being. “I’m not makin’ light,” he said seriously. “Not a one of ‘em. I loved Dru. Loved her for a long time. But that won’ stop me from killin’ her ‘f she stands between me an’ the Slayer. It’ll hurt like hell, but ‘f that’s what it takes, I’m up to it. What’s worse, she knows it. The lot of ‘em do. Guess that’s why you’re here, then, mate. The bloody Powers needed someone who had a cause worth dyin’ for.”
“I have a cause,” Wright said without turning, voice soft. “Guess you do, too.”
“Bloody right, I do.”
There was a moment’s pause followed by a sigh of concession. The man’s head dropped. “Your girl,” he said. “She’s worth this? To you?”
The question was getting unspeakably redundant, but Spike figured the reassurance was needed amongst enemies. He knew he would be doing the same if the tables were turned. “She’s worth everything. An’ not jus’ to me. She’s not for me. She’s for the world.” He stopped and cocked his head curiously. “Wasn’ yours?”
A long, unwavering beat at that. “Then,” he said quietly, “we’ll get her back.”
Spike smiled. Perhaps he had been wrong. After all, as was becoming the motto for this town, stranger things had happened. “You know what, Zangy?” he asked rhetorically. “I think this is the beginnin’ of a beautiful—”
“Shut up.”
Or maybe not. Better not to push it.
“Right then,” he agreed, grasping the handle of the door to pull it shut. “G’night.”
A room sealed with a defiant click. Something else encompassed with so much more. The vampire didn’t know what to make of it. If he should regard the new with a smile and a nod, or resent it with every fiber of his being.
Somewhere, it had stopped mattering. And in the midst of all, he still hadn’t decided which fate was worse.
To be continued in Chapter Sixteen: Tourniquet…