Spike tried to steady himself as he wrenched open the door. It was dark inside; someone had smashed his one lamp and it was still sparking. Spike kicked the ruined pieces out his path. There were books and knick knacks scattered across the floor. His breath was jagged and his heart felt like it was going to crack his ribs. His boots crunched on the rubble scattered everywhere.
“Billy?”
Tara was hiding in the corner of the room, behind his overturned black bookshelf. He stumbled over to her and knelt beside his sister, taking her into his arms. She was shaking beside him like a wet cat.
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“I had to see Toy, tell me what happened here.”
“Mrs. Plissey, s,s,she exploded. Well, first s,s,she knocked and I answered the door and I invited her in and t,t,then she got monstery and poof, exploded. I'm s,s,s,sorry I knocked over s,s,s,stuff,” Tara said.
Spike held her tighter as he let out a dry laugh.
“Don't give a fuck about the lamp, love. Just glad you're alright. So what kind of monstery?”
“Bumpy forehead and a mouth full of fangs. I t,t,think s,s,she—“
“You think she was a vampire.”
Tara looked up at him with surprise. Normally when she discussed the supernatural, Spike played the skeptic. He’d looked at her like she was daft when he found a bottle of holy water in her purse next to her canister of pepper spray.
“Yeah.”
“Did you stab her or whatever?”
“No, the s,s,s,s,spell I put on your apartment s,s,s,topped her. S,s,s,she asked for you, Billy. It was you s,s,she was t,t,t,trying—“
Tara broke down in sobs again, much to Spike’s frustration.
“Will the spell protect us the rest of the night, love, or do we need to get out of here?”
She didn’t speak and Spike shook her by the shoulders until she looked at him, her long, silver hair sticking to her flushed, wet cheeks.
“It will,” Tara said in a whisper.
Spike let her go and stood up. Tara crawled after him until she saw that he was locking the door. Spike went back to his sister and knelt beside her.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“We need to get out of here, love,” Spike said.
“But the s,s,spell--”
“Not tonight, not this apartment. We need to get out of Pittsburgh, maybe the States altogether,” Spike said.
“Why?”
Spike couldn't hold her while he explained what was happening; he felt ashamed of what he'd done to Toy and was humiliated the vamp was able to control his mind so easily. Tara's face crumpled as he spoke. Spike found it ironic that they were sitting on the gritty, hardwood floor in his dark apartment as though they were having a lovely picnic. Tara adopted the lotus position; he wondered if she was trying to yoga out her anxieties or something.
“You want me to leave University? I'll lose my s,s,s,scholarship, t,t,t,there won't be another chance, Billy,” Tara said.
“There will never be another chance if you're dead, Tara,” Spike said.
“But, Penny,” Tara said, sadly. Spike wasn’t strong enough to look in her eyes anymore; she telegraphed her pain there so loudly.
“What about her?” Spike asked, but he could already guess.
“We got t,t,together a few nights ago. S,s,she left her boyfriend for me. S,s,she introduced me t,t,to her mum,” Tara said.
Spike sighed and fiddled with a piece of broken crockery on the floor.
“I'm sorry, love,” Spike said.
“I can't just leave her, no goodbye. I love her,” Tara said.
“It could put her in danger. This Angel has a real scorched earth policy, I'm told,” Spike said.
“Damn it, Billy,” Tara said.
She stood up, her long, red skirt swaying with her movements. Spike sprang to his feet and put his hands on her shoulders. He dared looking into her wet eyes.
“Look, I'm sorry that I fucked up your life, I'm sorry that I'm a touch perverted and that now you have to know all about it. I'm sorry that all you've got by way of family is me, because I'm worthless, I know it. But I love you and I won't be able to live with myself if something happens to you. Hate me forever, but come with me,” he said.
They looked at one another a long moment, then Tara sighed.
“You're not worthless and I couldn't hate you. But you have t,t,to know you’re getting me a really expensive birthday gift t,t,t,this year,” she said.
“If we survive, it's Tiffany's all the way,” Spike said.
He grinned at her until she smiled.
They talked most of the night, coming up with a plan of escape as they packed up Spike's clothes. Spike had a few thousand dollars saved, which would be enough to get out of the country, but little more. They decided to go get Tara's things in the morning, then head to the airport. With the state of homeland security, they wouldn't be able to buy any tickets without a credit card, but Tara was fairly certain vampires were more into the feral hunting rather than the painstaking detective work.
They watched the sunrise and drank coffee. The only food Spike had in the house was powdered weight gainer shake with pulverized shark cartilage, so Tara passed on breakfast. They went downstairs dragging most of Spike's worldly possessions and loaded up her car before they headed over to her dorm. The cylindrical building looked like a shampoo bottle.
They got in easily with Tara's I.D. Card, though Spike had to sign in, and then rode the elevator up in silence.
As they approached Tara's door through the beige hallway, Spike tensed. There was a small girl huddled on the floor at the entrance to Tara's room; her rust colored bob was covering her pale face. She was wearing red, plaid pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt with a kitten on the front.
“Oh no,” Tara said.
Her voice was a wounded whisper.She started to run toward the girl and Spike caught her arm. They looked like dervishes with his long, leather coat flaring out and her skirt billowing.
“Don't,” Spike said.
“It's Penny,” Tara said.
The girl lifted her head, her chubby cheeks dappled with freckles and her brown eyes going wide.
“Tara, I waited for you all night--” Penny said.
Penny stood up and dashed over to Tara. The girl threw her arms around Tara, shoving Spike in the process. Spike grabbed Penny around the throat and she squeaked. When he felt her pulse pressing against his fingers and the warmth of her skin, he let her go.
“What the fuck, pal!?” Penny shouted.
Tara put her hand on Penny's shoulder.
“He's my brother, he's just checking t,t,to make s,s,sure you're not a vamp,” Tara said.
“You passed, good on you,” Spike said, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head menacingly.
“Billy, Penny and I need a minute, or s,s,s,everal in a row,” Tara said.
“I hear you loud and clear, love,” Spike said.
The girls went into Tara's room and shut the door, leaving Spike to dawdle awkwardly in the hall. A young woman in a bathrobe who was padding to the communal bathroom started when she saw him and he felt like some sort of pervert. He sank to the floor and rested his head on his knees, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Hey, you got a light, cutie?”
Spike looked up. There was a skinny brunette with a thick fringe of bangs touching her thinly plucked eyebrows. Her brown eyes sparkled down at him.
“Sorry, love, I don't smoke,” he said.
“That's cool; I don't think you can smoke in here anyway. Wanna see something neat?” she asked.
Suddenly, her features shifted into a grotesque mask, her eyes going amber and her teeth becoming spindly.
“I can totally kick your ass, isn't that something?”
Spike hadn't recognized her at first without her tortoise shell glasses. He backed away from the vampire. He was a sprawling ball, all arms and legs, but she was faster, catching his shoulder with sharp fingernails.
“Your little red-haired friend--”
“She was more than a friend, cutie, she was more like a mother to me.”
The creature flipped him around and got him in a head lock from behind, her elbow pressing down on the artery delivering oxygen to his brain. Spike felt himself going limp, but he could hear that the vampire was still talking.
“No more getting picked last in gym class for me, huh? Just try to ease into it and relax, it'll hurt less,” she said. The last thing he remembered was her giving him a chilly kiss on the side of his face.
***
When Spike woke up it was dark and he was lying on cold concrete; his entire body was a misery every time he tried to breathe. His head was pillowed on something. Spike touched it and felt leather. He opened his eyes to see he was facing a gray, cinder block wall and he was resting on his bunched up leather coat. He was in a basement probably; it had that musty smell that dark, forgotten places get. Spike tried to sit up but was flattened by the pain in his chest like an enormous hand pressing him to the ground.
“Wow, I really rang your bells, huh Spike?”
He turned toward the sound. The brunette was standing by a window covered in brown paper; she was hugging herself with one arm and bringing a cigarette to her purplish lips with the other. Her skin was nearly as pale as the smoke pluming around her silhouette. Then she looked back at him with her human features in place. She had a sharp, pinched nose that looked like the product of an unskilled plastic surgeon. Her cheeks and chin were too broad for the nose now, as though they’d been drawn in charcoal as opposed to dainty pastels.
“It was so hard to wait for you to wake up. Your blood smells like ambrosia, it's been singing to me for hours. I bet you taste way better than that gross salad with the marshmallows and the canned fruit. Who thought to call that shit ambrosia salad? Something tells me they don't have Cool Whip in heaven, or at least they shouldn't. Not like I'll ever find out, now,” she said, musing at the burning point of her ciggy.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Isn't that obvious?”
“Why am I still alive, then?”
She smiled wistfully, an expression touched with sadness. How funny, Spike thought, a melancholy monster.
“You're part of something bigger. Isn't it exciting? You're slayer bait. She's the one who killed my Willow, right? We were going to keep you as a little veal cow, me and Willow. It would've been really, really special. But then the slayer got all involved and now Willow's consigned to the dust bin. And you. I don't get to keep you, either. The big man wants you, or big daddy, whatever the fuck he's calling himself these days. Swear to goddess he's like Prince or Sean Combs or something with the wacky name changes. Anyway, I'm not much on ceremony or titles. I was just in this for the eternal life with my lover and the wicked cool Kung Fu powers. Now that first part's shot to shit. When the sun sets I'm going to take you to him. But what he doesn't know is that I'm planning on screwing up his plans. See I don't blame the slayer for what happened to Willow; I'd of done the same thing, protect what's mine plus slayer's gotta slay. I blame him for sending us in blind,” she said.
“You could let me go, that would really throw an old monkey wrench in the sodding engine, wouldn’t it?” Spike asked, even though he was certain that thought had never entered her mind.
“Sorry sweetheart, I'm gonna need a taste of heaven before I shuffle off to hell,” she said. The vampire dropped her cigarette and prowled toward him.
“You stay the fuck away from me,” Spike said, crab walking backwards despite the agony in his chest.
“Calm down, baby, I'll warm you up first, it won't hurt at all. You've got an intense magical aura, did you know that? I'm going to tap into it, make it feel really good,” she said.
“Fuck you--” he spat. His back was against the wall and she was closing on him.
“Willow was into the rough stuff, but I'm more of an illusion of consent kind of girl. Now stop this,” she said, holding out her hand. Spike stopped backing away.
More accurately, Spike was stopped.
“Look into my eyes and show me what you want the most,” she said.
He was compelled to meet her dark, brown eyes. Then, everything went black.
**
Spike woke up to find Toy leaning over him. His head was resting on his balled-up, leather coat and he was lying on the concrete floor.
“You're safe, Spike,” Toy said.
She brushed her hand against his face; it was wonderfully warm despite the surrounding chill. He smiled up at her; the sight of her green eyes and her smile flooded him with a sense of well-being. It almost felt like the first warming sip of whiskey. Something began nagging at the back of his mind, like when he'd forget to do an assignment at school. Then the misplaced assignment began to take on definite shape in his memory. It was Toy's smile, so loving, so genuine. She'd only smiled at him like that once and he'd fucked it all up a second later because he'd been too much of a coward to tell her how he felt. That smile was a treasure, a crumb of gold in a river of silt. He'd done nothing to deserve that smile but sprawl helplessly on a basement floor.
“What is it?” she asked.
Her hair was tickling his face; in the dim light it looked brown. She followed the outline of his lips with shaking fingers. This was wrong; everything was shifting around him and felt bitterly cold. She was moving closer. The girl kissed the soft flesh of his neck. He realized his head was positioned to elongate his throat, the better to give her access. She rested her head against his chest and listened to the steady thrum of his heart.
“Stop using her face,” Spike said.
His voice sounded far away to him. The girl looked up at him, her ear still resting against him. Her skin had turned from peachy cream to brown, her eyes from spring leaves to milk chocolate and her lips became fuller. Nikki was looking at him through her thick lashes, a sexy half-smile sweetening her mouth.
“Miss me?” she asked.
And he had, for years. He'd worn her leather coat because it had been against her body. He'd missed her so badly that he would've given anything to touch her again, so he'd tried to forget her with a dozen other girls. Spike had gotten further away from the man Nikki had loved with each one in order to erase the memory of her. Seeing her staring back at him, he realized that it had worked.
This Nikki wasn't real; more than that, he didn't even wish she was.
Suddenly, Nikki's face was gone, and the vampire with the thick tuft of hair covering her forehead and pinched nose was gazing up at him with her dark, dark eyes. Her freezing fingers were toying with his hair, repeatedly smoothing the strands behind his ear.
“So, you don't want redemption and you're not falling for the sentimental favorite. What do you want, Spike?” she asked.
“To kill you,” he said.
She smiled at him and chuckled softly, more like a sigh than a laugh. It reminded him of the sound his body had made when it landed in the snow.
“You first,” she said.
Spike couldn't move as she slithered up to kiss him. She trailed her frigid tongue down his jaw, to the pulse point in his neck. Her mouth was like an icicle, but her teeth weren’t; they felt like hot needles sinking into his skin. He could hear vile slurping noises as she sucked at the wound she’d made. With each intake, his vision seemed to blur. She kissed him again, this time tasting of copper and leaving his lips wet. He couldn’t see anything anymore.
“Make a little noise for me, baby, let me know you’re still there,” she said, against his ear.
**
Thirst, thirst like nothing he’d ever known coupled with hunger, lust and rage. The thirst was so compelling it woke him. Spike opened his eyes to an onslaught of dust; when he tried to scream, his mouth filled with loose earth. He couldn’t breathe, but like a dream of being underwater, somehow that didn’t matter. Spike clawed at the dirt all around him until he started to gain traction. Finally his hand came up without resistance and he felt cool air. Spike struggled his way out of the darkness, led by high, shrill screams. He could smell something delicious; something he knew would slake his thirst. It was like honey and so tortuously close.
He was crawling out, able to see for the first time. Spike was in a basement with an earthen floor. In the corner of the room was a light-haired girl in a long, purple skirt. She was screaming. Spike figured he was probably the reason. He couldn’t help it, the sounds she was making were turning him on, bringing the thirst to a boil. He could use her to satisfy all the needs; drink her and fuck her and pound her into the ground. Spike got to his feet. He wasn’t in pain anymore and he felt lighter, stronger. He stalked over to her quickly; something happened to his face as he did. Something sharp sliced his gums and his vision became more concise in the dark. It felt as though someone had turned on a light, he could see everything crisply. He could finally see the identity of his prey.
The realization stopped him.
“Tara?” he asked.
She ceased screaming and looked up at him. He touched his grimy cheeks and tried to will the horrible change away. His features smoothed out, but she was still terrified.
“Billy?”
The enormity of what he had been about to do to his sister sent Spike into a heap on the ground. He was going to kill her, eat her and worse; why the other was worse, he didn’t know, it just was.
She inched toward him slowly, until she was at his side. Tara put her arms around him and Spike began to weep.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Well, Billy,” Tara said, before pausing to take in a shaky breath,“ you died.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Said I'd post Friday, but got done a day early, hope that's o.k.
Chapter End Notes:
I rewrote this chapter many, many times. Initially the scene where Spike is turned was essentially a rape scene, but instead of being scary, it came off kind of porn-like, which I totally didn't want.
Is the final product frightening? Also, the last line in this chapter was the first line that came to me for this story. What do you guys think? One reader already saw it coming, was this twist surprising or no?
Sorry for all the questions, but your comments matter a lot to me. Thanks for reading and if you choose to comment, double thanks.
Is the final product frightening? Also, the last line in this chapter was the first line that came to me for this story. What do you guys think? One reader already saw it coming, was this twist surprising or no?
Sorry for all the questions, but your comments matter a lot to me. Thanks for reading and if you choose to comment, double thanks.