Chapter 24: Thicker Than Water

It was a peaceful night – the first one of those in a long time. And from the smell of things, maybe the last one of those for a long time, too. Frank decided to take advantage of it, and began to type.

As a fresh-faced young officer in the sixties, this particular duty had been an onerous one. The electric typewriters of that era were unforgiving hunks of chattering steel, built for men of deliberate words and thoughts who hardly ever made mistakes. In 21st century, letter writing had become a fairly painless exercise in hunting and pecking, tugging and tweaking. There were no more crumpled pages filling up wastebaskets and ticking off treehuggers. Now, it was just the white phantom blaze of the monitor, and that old painstaking debate between thought and ink had been replaced by a small plastic button called “BACKSPACE.”

Dear Mrs. Finn,

On behalf of a grateful nation, I regret to inform you that your son, Colonel Riley Finn, was killed in the line of duty, October 28 2008.

Colonel Finn was on patrol in the town of Taji, 30 miles North of Baghdad when insurgent forces exploded a roadside bomb beside a convoy that included Colonel Finn’s Humvee. The blast caused massive damage to the side of the vehicle where Colonel Finn was seated, and the resulting shrapnel seriously wounded your son and two junior officers.

Combat medics were deployed immediately to the your son’s position, but Colonel Finn ordered them to stand down when he detected a sniper team of insurgents firing from local rooftops. Colonel Finn died returning fire at the snipers. His heroic actions saved the lives of Corporals John Maddox and Juan Lopez as well as that of combat medic Captain Jeffery Bell, who would have walked directly into the ambush.

Due to the extraordinary heroism of his actions in the service of his country, I will be nominating Colonel Finn for the Congressional Medal of Honor…

There was a knock at the door, soft and familiar, and, since Frank Grange never, ever locked his door, he just ordered her to come on in. The Summers girl appeared, once again looking young and full of doubts. As far as he was concerned, those were two character flaws that didn’t blend well.

“Have a seat.” She obeyed, but did so with a loosey-goosey cadence that irked him; swatting a hair out of her eyes and filling the seat with all the moody slouch of a teenage drama queen. If the Agency project was still military, he’d have dropkicked her little butt straight out of his office, and probably kept booting it until it was out of the service altogether. But there was nothing “military” about the work these days. That old dream was as discarded as congressional war powers, or the jetpack.

Besides which, truth be told, Frank Grange found there was less and less Army left in him all the time. It was an occupational hazard, he guessed. Or maybe he was finally just old. But he still insisted on typing the letters. He’d be goddamned if he let anyone else do that.

“Drink?” he asked, already pouring one.

“No, thanks.”

“I understand you had a chat with Mr. Harris.”

“Yes. I understand you did too.”

"Bright young man. Hard to believe he never served.”

She threw him a defiant glare. “He served, sir. All of us served.”

Grange stifled a chuckle, mostly on account of Dawn Summers might take that the wrong way. He took a long sip of the brandy, waiting for the inevitable words to arrive. When they didn’t , he said them for her, as plainly and politely as he could manage. “You’re having regrets.”

The girl turned to stone before his eyes; her palms flat on the arms of the chair, gaze fixed like a falcon. This was a gambler’s front, the way spies looked at you when they were caught red-handed.

“You,” he continued, “made a biiiiiiig mistaaaaaake. And now you wish you could take it all back. Maybe, turn into everyone’s favorite little puppy-eyed sweetheart again.” None of these were questions, so he didn’t expect an answer.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Don’t let ‘em tell ya anything is, Summers,” Frank drawled. “'Cause they’re lyin’ to ya.”

He felt inspired, suddenly – whether by the lateness of the hour or by the drink he did not know – and found his hand digging into the second drawer of his new desk, pushing past a jumble of ridiculous old medals to find it.  When he did, he plopped the damned thing on the table with a grunt and an old tiger’s toothy grin. After a few seconds Dawn gave in, peering at a framed black and white photo that was taken a million lifetimes ago.

“Handsome little devil, huh?,” he asked. “Know who that is?”

“You,” she said flatly, feigning disinterest. But the look on her face told otherwise, whispered a whole graveyard full of ghosts. “Where was this taken?”

“Cambodia. Nineteen sixty two,” he bellowed. “This was a few years before the commies took over, back when they were still calling it a “constitutional monarchy.’ Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean…”

The girl kept goggling at it, mesmerized. “I don’t believe it. It looks just like…”

“Sunnydale,” he agreed. “Well, Sunnydale afterwards, that is. But then again, so does the damn Grand Canyon.”

She shook her head skeptically. “It was a Hellmouth?”

“I was only twenty nine back then, and spoilin’ for a fight. Wanted to do something great.” He drizzled the last drop of sweet brown booze into his glass, fighting back a tough old memory. “I was too young to enlist in the Big One. But I remember watching all those great reels at the movie house. I remember I used to watch them and imagine my father there. Storming hills and castles, spearing godless krouts on his bayonet three and four at a time.”

“He sounds pretty brave.”

“Hell if I know,” Frank shrugged. “Turned out those newsreels would be my only memories of him. Daring, dashing superman, reeling at Nazi windmills on the other side of the world. Glories of war.  All that gunk.”

Dawn nodded in mysterious agreement. She fingered the picture gingerly, and Frank watched her pale eyes narrow sharply, zero in on the band of figures gathered at the chasm’s edge. “Who's that?”

Frank chuckled, knowing exactly who she meant. “That,” he boomed, “is Gular G’Rith, Grand Arbiter of Nob. Me and the boys all used to call him “Ghoulie.” Boy, he hated that, lemme tell ya!”

She shook her head, disoriented by the notion. “Wait, he was a demon?”

“Yeah, that’s right. From a dimension called ‘Arashmahaar.’ Maybe you’ve heard of it. Lovely in the summers, if you’re a fan of molten lava.”

“He worked for you.”

“Well, more like a partnership,” he chuckled. “That’s the way he'd put it, anyway. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” He grinned wearily at the faded image, tracing the swoop of the old fiend’s horn. “But he was a decent enough fellow, once you got to know him. One hell of a poker player, too.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I’m old, Dawn. I get sentimental, I suppose.  Fight enough wars and you’ll get that way too. I guess it's a defense against gettin’ too damned hopeful.”

She kept looking at the picture, couldn’t tear herself away from it. Sometimes, there was an almost bottomless anger in her, he realized.  She was jealous of jealousy itself. “He’s dead,” she said.

“Dead,” Frank agreed, astonished by the waning bitterness of this particular fact, the taste of bone-dry cereal. “All those guys. Dead and gone, now.”

There didn’t seem to be much more to say. So they sat for a long time like that, the remorseful Judas-ette and the mean old fox who lured her down to Hell. He took the time to examine his brand new office. Mister Giles had himself a rustic streak.  Battered brass, old maps scribbled with red fountain ink. Ancient scrolls sheathed in leather tubes lined a boxframe, arranged alphabetically, like things he might eventually grade. Meanwhile, the white box of the computer screen glared blindly at him, the twelve point font of a fake obituary giggling and daring him to “Save.”

“I’m not sure,” admitted the girl, finally. “If anyone really trusts me anymore, I mean. I don’t think I even trust myself. How can someone like that lead?”

“Real leaders makes the tough choices, Ms. Summers,” he said. “We may regret them later. But if we don’t look back, then it’s damn unlikely anyone else will either. You said it yourself, after all. Ten thousand Kennedy eggs, just waitin’ to hatch. And that old scroll, the one they made your sister dig up. You know what it said, knew what was coming. And you used that knowledge, the best you could.”

“She’s not my sister, you know,” said Dawn. “I don’t have one.” She kept staring, straining hard at that old photo, as if an answer lay somewhere at the bottom of that dreary old hellmouth. “Or a father. I dreamt of a mother, once. But I’m not sure if she was even real. All I know is, I’m not.”

“Key,” he murmured, rattling his brandy just to feel it lap the glass. “Mr. Giles wrote quite a bit about that. He was obsessed with it.”

She nodded. “Those monks changed everything.  Brainwashed everyone. They twisted the entire world to make me happen. I’m not a person, Frank. I’m a more like a disguise, made to hide something terrible.”

“And that bothers you? Knowing what you are?” He screwed the cap off another bottle, set it on the desk alongside a fresh glass. “It’s funny, when you think about it. The rest of us poor bastards spend our entire lives trying to figure out the one thing you wish you never knew."

“And what about you? Do you know what you are?”

“No, not exactly,” he laughed. “But I know it doesn’t matter. There’s the work. Work matters. My philosophy is, you fight the good fight and leave the philosophy to the navel-gazers.”

“That’s it, Frank? Fight the good fight?  No matter who we hurt, what we destroy. The ends justifies the meanies?”

Frank kicked back in his chair, satisfied and brandy warm. He was an old man, and not so long for the world. He realized this truth so suddenly that it bit him. But it was okay, because he suddenly knew she would be good enough. She would do. “Dawn Summers,” he sighed, “that part’s up to you. Either way, you are still you. You may not be a person, but you sure as hell ain’t no vampire. You still gotta look at yourself in the mirror every morning, just like the rest of us mutts.” 

"Frank," she whispered, “I’ll have that drink now.”

***

“Stop!” the vampire howled. “Stuh-Stop! You’re killing me!”

Nick scribbled down a small note, checked his watch again. It was half past two, and London still twinkled outside the long picture window, still breathed hot.  “Am I?” he asked.

Mum's blond dog kept on snickering, maddeningly amused. “Muh-Mate, mate,” he managed. “I mean, s’not like I don’t think she needs it. It’s just… well, don’t you think it’s about a hundred years too late?”

Nick wanted to punch the damned fucker, tear its fucking balls off, rip its fucking lungs out, bathe himself in blood and dust. But he smiled instead; the same neutered little smile he practiced for manic chartered accountants and their depressed housewives, and scribbled down another note. “Believe it or not, she’s found our sessions quite therapeutic," he said, "and I believe you will, too.”

“God, you’re serious.” His captive flinched again, visibly testing the restraints. “Good luck with that. Better cooks than you have tried to scramble my egg, doc. Stuck chips and souls and bloody magic rocks in there. No result.”

Nick eased deeper into his chair, stretched the toes of one foot. The gesture was automatic, left over from the days when he still breathed. “You’re afraid.”

Another peppery laugh came, like a hard slap. He was beginning to hate the sound of it. “Of you, piker?” Spike asked. “Not bloody likely.”

“Prove it.”

“No," he sneered.  "Not unless you answer my question. Then you can show me as many soddin’ ink blots as you like.”

“The Slayer’s alive. I’ve given her to my secretary for the time being, to watch over until mother gets here. What happens to her next depends entirely on how cooperative you are willing to be, Mr. Pratt.  Do you understand?”  Spike’s eyes narrowed, showing he did.  The monster’s slim body was still vibrating, almost invisibly, testing the binds for weaknesses.  There was power there.  He would be a handful if he got loose, Nick realized, and he groped the wooden shaft in his pocket for comfort.  It would be easier to finish him now, get it done with.  But mother would know.   If he killed the blond and lied about it, she would know and she would destroy him and forever would be over just like that.  He would have to be clever.

The clever boy lets others do,

the what and how and where and who.

“First off,” Nick chided,  “no ink blots.   That sort of rubbish went out the window with electric shock, penis envy and that dreadful, dreadful past life regression. I personally find our modern therapeutic techniques to be far more practical and permanent.”

“Yeh? An’ what are those?”

“Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Oh, and I hope you won’t mind if I switch on my tape recorder…. I find it useful for my notes.”

Spike sighed, exasperated. “Yeah, sure thing. Whatever knocks yer rocks. Doc...”

***

DR FINEMAN:  Excellent. Are you comfortable?

SPIKE:  I’m stapled to a bloody cot. (A sigh.) Been worse off.

DR. FINEMAN:  Good. Let’s start with your childhood. What can you tell me about it?

SPIKE:  (Laughter.)

DR. FINEMAN:  Would you describe it as happy?

SPIKE:  I’d describe it as short!

DR. FINEMAN:  Why is that?

SPIKE:  It was just… I dunno. Look we’re talking over a hundred and thirty years, mate! I can’t be expected to remember every little thing.

DR. FINEMAN:  Come now, you must remember something? Your old schoolmates? A favorite pet, perhaps?

SPIKE:  My childhood. (a long pause) I remember, the house.

DR. FINEMAN:  The house. Your mother’s house?

SPIKE:  What? No. No.

DR. FINEMAN:  What house then?

SPIKE:  Just a house. On the waterfront. Big place. Had these old green sea grasses growin’ up one side.

DR. FINEMAN:  Who lived there?

SPIKE:  No one. Lots of blokes.

DR. FINEMAN:  It was a rooming house, then?

SPIKE:  Yeh. Sailors and whatnot.

DR. FINEMAN:  What happened there? Why do you remember this house? Did one of the sailors put his hands on you?

SPIKE:  Listen, don’t get cheeky mate! I’m not in a mood.

DR. FINEMAN:  Sorry. (papers rustling) Go on.

SPIKE:  There are other little things like that. You haven’t been dead very long, everything probably still feels fresh for a bugger like you. But you’ll see. In the end you just get… flashes.  Never the big picture.

DR FINEMAN:  And what other flashes do you get?

SPIKE:  It’s like I said. Just rubbish. (a pause) I do remember a schoolmate, almost. I think his name was Bigby. And no, I didn’t shag him, so don’t bother…

DR. FINEMAN: Tell me about him. Whatever you remember.

SPIKE:  He was taller than me. I remember I didn’t like that much. We were only about six or seven, and it didn’t seem bloody fair! (laughter) He taught me to play rounders in a very green park.  Also remember a man named Frank Sully. Made applejuice ale and used to sell it for a penny a pint down on York and Essex.

DR FINEMAN:  You drank it?

SPIKE:  Well a bit yeah. It remember it made me sick. (laughter) I remember Sully’s smile. He had the sort of gamy grin where you could see all his teeth. Yellow, rotten, tobacco smirk.

DR. FINEMAN:  Well, dentistry was more of an art than a science back then, I suppose. (mixed laughter).

SPIKE:  As opposed to now, mate? (more mixed laughter) I mean, we conquered half the bloody planet, you’d think we could conquer flossing.

DR. FINEMAN:  You still think of yourself as an Englishman, then?

SPIKE:  (a long pause)  Been everywhere that mattered, more or less.  But, still, there’s nothing like a good pint and a footie match. (a long pause)  Ain’t my home, though.

DR. FINEMAN:  Do you think that’s because of your travels?

SPIKE:  No.

DR. FINEMAN: What then?

SPIKE: (exasperated sigh)

DR. FINEMAN:  I noticed you do that quite a bit.

SPIKE:  What?

DR. FINEMAN:  Breathe.

SPIKE:  Oh.  That.

DR. FINEMAN:  And why do you think that is?

SPIKE:  Dunno, doc. It’s sort of like being British, I s’pose.  Just one more nasty little habit.

DR. FINEMAN:  And Darla and Angelus? Mother? Did they breathe too?

SPIKE:  Hardly, hah!  Well… every so often, maybe. When they were feelin’ out a kill.

DR. FINEMAN:  It was a way to get close. Without being noticed?

SPIKE:  (A long pause.) Something like that.

DR. FINEMAN:  So, tell me more about this house.

SPIKE:  What house?

DR. FINEMAN:  The rooming house. You mentioned it first, but you never told me why.

SPIKE:  Maybe I don’t remember anything else. Maybe I don’t feel like talking about it.

DR. FINEMAN:  (papers rustling) Well, which is it?

SPIKE:  ‘Scuse me?

DR. FINEMAN:  Do you not remember or do you not feel like talking about it?

SPIKE:  Both! Can we move on please?

DR. FINEMAN:  What would you like to talk about?

SPIKE:  Oh, I dunno.  The weather.  Arsenal’s chances at cup.  Bloody hell!  I don’t want to talk about anything!  You’re forcing me to.  Remember?

DR. FINEMAN:  I forced you to mention the rooming house?

SPIKE:  No! (exasperated sigh) I... Look you know what I mean!

DR. FINEMAN:  Right. Again, forgive me. I don’t mean to upset you. That’s not my intention. Let’s talk about something else. What can you tell me about your family?

SPIKE:  What. Dru and them?

DR. FINEMAN:  No. Let’s talk about your other family. Your human one.

SPIKE:  Not much to say.

DR. FINEMAN:  Any brothers? Sisters?

SPIKE:  No.  Well, I had a sister once.  But she died, in her crib.  (A long pause.)  I didn’t eat her!

DR. FINEMAN:  I never said you did.

SPIKE:  Well, it's just your lookin’ at me with those gog-eyes… I wasn't turned yet…. Was barely knee high… 

DR. FINEMAN:  And how did you feel about that?

SPIKE: I didn’t, really.  Like I said I was quite young myself. Didn’t really get death yet. It was hard on mum, though.  I noticed that.

DR. FINEMAN:  (papers rustling) (scribbling) Go on.

SPIKE:  Well those were hard times. Not like now, with all the hospitals and vitamins and that rot. It happened. Bein’ born was a sort of crapshoot.

DR. FINEMAN:  And your father? How did he feel? ( a long silence)

DR. FINEMAN:  Did you hear the question?

SPIKE:  Yes.

DR. FINEMAN:  How did he take it?  Was he as sad as your mum? ( a  long silence)

SPIKE:  You think you’re clever.  You think you’re a clever little cunt, don’t you?

DR. FINEMAN:  No, I don’t think that at all.

SPIKE:  Where is Dru?

DR. FINEMAN:  Mr. Pratt.

SPIKE:  Bugger this Mr. Pratt rot!  Is she here?  I can smell ‘er on you, you know.

DR. FINEMAN:  Perhaps she doesn’t want to see you quite yet.

SPIKE: Why?!

DR. FINEMAN:  Perhaps she’s not ready. Perhaps she’s frightened of you.

SPIKE:  (laughter) Oh that’s rich! That’s very rich, mate.

DR. FINEMAN:  She’s knows about the things you’ve done, William.  And what you might still do.  She has the sight.

SPIKE:   An’ she wants you to cure me first? Of my soul? (laughter) Bit late for that, doc.

DR. FINEMAN:  I know. You gave it up, yes?

SPIKE:  Well that’s one way of puttin’ it.

DR. FINEMAN:  How did that feel? After all the… sacrifices.

SPIKE:  Yeah, well.  Hard come easy go, mate.  That’s the song.

DR. FINEMAN:  Like your sister, you mean.

DR. FINEMAN:   Mr. Pratt?

SPIKE:  Yes.   Like her.

DR. FINEMAN:  Mr. Pratt…. William.  I wonder if we could talk a bit more about that house…

***

Faboo.

She inched forward into the frozen blank, shivering, pupils stretched the size of two golf balls. Something that wasn’t quite ‘fear’ rattled its way up her spine. It felt like making that very first solo pee-trip in the dead of night; little-kid fingers groping the invisible geometry of a hallway for a light switch, only to recoil when they found it, afraid of what sort of monsters the light might suddenly, horribly reveal. Except tonight, Buffy’s fists did all the groping. They hung in the middle-guard position a foot in front of her, a taut bow of flesh ready to seek and destroy.

(Destroyer. Liar. Slayer.)

About ten yards in, she passed through a plume of moist air. The electric droning she’d heard since the door shut seemed to suddenly get louder, become a rumbling tin roar. It reminded her of the radiator in their old L.A. house, the one she once warned her baby sister that Dracula slept inside of.

Except, she didn’t have a baby sister.

(Liar…)

Suddenly, her fist bumped something hard and smooth, like a pane of curved glass. She leapt back with a yelp, muscles reorganizing themsleves into a catlike crouch. The electric hum snapped off, died with a hiss. In the same instant the freezing air seem to leap five degrees, melting the frost on her nose into a teardrop. Somewhere in the distance, a constellation of pale light swam slowly into view.

She stood transfixed as the thing drifted forward, moving with the grim certainty of a fog rolling onto nightmare shores. A tangle of horrible shapes twittered and convulsed, revealing tidbits of something big and alarmingly bug-like, like a long, anemic lobster on steroids. There was still no light source to speak of, and as the creature arrived at the surface of its giant fishbowl, Buffy realized it needed none. It was glowing, the light bleeding through its translucent armor like neon moonbeams. It made her think of fish who lived at the very bottom of the deepest ocean trench. But the Dauphin was several times more unearthly then any of those Discovery Channel mutants. It’s bananna-shaped body seemed fringed by hundreds of horrible dangling legs, and antennae as thick as sail rope. The tail was a fossilized flower of overlapping ridges and iron veins. For one terrible, inexplicable moment, she thought of…

Sea Monkeys.

“Mmmmmmmmmm,” purred a deep and arctic voice. The creature pressed two pincers to the glass, drummed it like a polite but impatient gentleman. “Been a long time, Summers.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s been, what? A whole never?” She felt another gust of ice blow through her, and soft needles drilling down into her skull. Horrible laughter bubbled back at her from the void, the Dauphin swatting its shriveled old appendages like a round of applause. The sound was hollow and indistinct, dribbling in from everywhere and nowhere at once. It could have come from inside her head. She almost prayed it had.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” it continued. “You don’t remember me, do you.”

“Third grade,” she cracked. “Miss Mendoza’s class, right?”

“Many years from now,” the Dauphin purred, “Off the shoals of Nuuk. In the Baffin Sea.”  It wriggled horribly, shaking out the last word. Framed in absolute black, the movement shook loose a storm of glittering particles, like white fireworks. A foot from the Dauphin, the particles themselves wiggled to life and swam off into the black waters. She was pondering whether they could be some form of horrible children when the beast did it again, sent a hundred thousand microscopic little monsters rocketing away in a second shimmering wave. It was hypnotic, a sort of slow, glittering breath.

Buffy slowly batted a eyelash. The invisible needles were still worming deep into her mind, lulling her into a kind of sleep that reminded her of the Dragon’s embrace, only much, much colder. “And just how am I supposed to remember the future, mister?” she murmured.

“Oh, right, right, people” the Dauphin groaned, barely disguising its contempt. “I keep forgetting. You’re half person.”

She frowned, squinting into the mollusk’s hypnotic glow. “Full,” she insisted, dreamily. “I’m a full, um… person.”

“Whatever you say, Vampire Slayer,” it replied. “You’ve waited a long time to remember this moment. You all have.”

“All… we?” Drowsy. she thought. Getting drowsy. Too cold

“Yes, all of you,” it soothed knowingly. “You’re a lovely bunch of kids, but you’ve always been my favorite. The Turtle’s too, though I’m sure he’d never admit it.”

…cold...

“Turtle…?”

“And Nancy Summers has waited a long time as well,” he interrupted. “Or Buffy Stark, maybe. Whichever way that cookie crumbles. It’s so hard to remember… Stark. Stake. A stark stake…”

“Stop…. Your not making any suh-sense.”

“Your name. The name you lost. You will remember a new name, but it doesn’t belong to you. Or to him.”

Her legs felt like poured concrete, nerves going numb. The Dauphin’s shape flittered like a kite in a stew of warm mist, mocking her. “Pratt,” she droned, staring into the creature's bright and terrible core. The word had just popped into her head, but was so meaningless that she had to say it again. “Pratt?”

“Well, well, well, now” the Daupin scoffed. “That is very optimistic, isn’t it.”

Another soundless wave crashed over her, shoving her further out of her skin, bathing her mind in warm milk.  Mom milk.

Mom.

Pick up the phone.

She felt a glob of clotted blood scratch and crawl its way up a vein. In the back of her brain, something was screaming the word “hypothermia,” but she she was having trouble remember what that word meant. She only knew she her lips felt dry, and that she was dying.

Pick up the phone…

“Nevermind,” sighed the creature, casually, as though changing some imaginary subject. “What do you wish to remember, Buffy? The past?” Trembling, she managed to shake her head. “No, no, no… the present. The most distant memory of all. You wanna remember the Now. Want to know about Jazzercise and Turtles.  Doctors and Gardens and whatnot.”

“Juh-jazzercise. Wuh-want to know juh-juh….”

“It’s aerobic, Buffy. Air is a second death for the dead. Oxygen feeds the flesh one day, eats it the next...”

“Not that, you fruh-freak,” she whispered, white knuckling through the pain. “Wuh-wuh-wuh.”

”Witch!” he exclaimed. “Aha! Your murderer, you mean?”

“Nuh-no… fruh-friend…. Suh-saved me.”

 “Too much person in you, Slayer,” the Dauphin scolded. Buffy could barely hear the voice any more. The low notes of the Great Fishy’s old voice were bleeding into the spectral hum of the radiator. It was all a trap, she finally realized. She would die down here, and, somewhere very nearby, Xander would pay his own gruesome price. Visions of old ghosts tumbled through her mind. They were singing.

Mom’s milk. White blood in the Tetons.

Not strong enough… not strong….

SLAAAAAAYYYYYERRRR! The Dauphin's roar shattered Buffy, brought her blinking back to life.   The ground felt hard again where she knelt. The monster pressed its entire bulk against the glass, pulsing like a blue flame. Do pay attention please, added the sea beast, almost lovingly.  Or you’ll be more right then you know. You will do what I ask, won’t you?

“Yuh-yuh-yuh,” Buffy stammered, then just nodded in reply.

Don’t try to speak, girl. You waste so much effort, butchering air.  We can hear you fine without it.

She closed her eyes, drew in a long breath. Whatever you say, she thought.

And don’t question me again.  I have all the time there ever was, but you and your friends have precious little.

I said I’ll do it, goddamn you!

Then swim with me little girl, the Dauphin said. And I will tell you about the world.

***

Move. Now

Skaya slid down the lip of the bar, blood thundering. Across the floor, Anya Jenkins was tearing the leg off a table. The demon leered at her as she splintered the wood, a white skull’s grin. “Remember this trick Buffy?” she beamed. “The ol’ stake in the heart routine. Kinda fitting, doncha think?”

She glanced in ten directions. The bar had an uber-shitty design. Lots of ways in, but only one way out. And that was through a mighty pissed off vengeance demon who was just aching to make herself a Slayer shish kabob. She yanked the knife from her boot. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this thing.”

They met in the center of the dance floor. Shingles of Technicolor light wove patterns over Anya’s face, somehow amplifying the hatred there. They circled one another cautiously like that; Skaya jiving and feigning with her blade, the demon brandishing her makeshift stake like a Roman Hoplite’s spear. Hot little curses were peeling out of Anya like breaths, but Skaya knew better than to listen. When she delivered a short sharp kick to the ribs to start things off, the demon buckled but held her ground. The reply came too fast, a thunderous backfist to the Slayer's jaw that sent her flying.

“You know the funny thing about revenge, Buffy?” Anya sneered. “It’s a talent. Just like fighting. Or love. Sure it slows down over the years, gets rusty. But it never really leaves you.”

Skaya flattened herself to the ground, waiting for her enemy to get close before she found her feet. “That what this is all about? Revenge?”

“Isn’t everything?”

“Maybe you’re right,” she hissed, eyes finding their range. “But it’s not like fighting.”

She charged, then, on all fours at first. A yard away she pulled the trigger, bowling herself into Anya’s legs like a fullback. They tumbled over and over, the crazy disco lights spinning in their eyes. Four seconds of pure violence passed, the two women thrashing and stabbing like wolverines. Finally Anya bucked, sent Skaya sailing overhead. The exit was in sight,. Skaya made a break for it, saw the small square of darkness growing larger and more real. A promise.

Like old times.

As she crossed the threshold, she allowed herself one fleeting glimpse backwards. A bloodied Anya Jenkins knelt in the middle of wreckage, her eyes as white and cold as distant moons.

“In fighting,” Skaya gasped, “speed kills.”