Chapter 7: Show and Tell
Horse hooves trotting on a stone road is the first thing to enter Buffy's senses. Warm lantern light and the quiet hum of voices in the distance come next, then the petulant smell of city life sans a sewer system. The 1880 version of London comes into view and Buffy recognizes it from the street she wandered on to much earlier when she was still searching for Spike. This memory, however, is far more real to her then the last time she had been here. It had seemed perfectly real then, but now as Buffy looks back she can see how dream-like that moment really was.
The features of this moment are almost too vibrant to be real, and none too pleasant. This memory, for whatever reason, has been well kept in Spike's mind, preserved down to the last detail. The wind that blows through her hair and licks across her skin is wickedly violent and cold, the smell of horse manure, dirt, and smoke invades her senses with vengeance, and her eyes dilate adjusting to the dark London alleyway.
Gold flickers through Spike's cerulean orbs and he stares down into her with powerful eyes.
"Know how I got my name pet?" Spike asks with a low raspy voice. Buffy's mind races, and at first all it digs up is nothingness, then something comes back to her. Giles voice, he was reading from some Watcher diary, Spike had just come to town and they needed to know more about him. Spike, got his name from…
"Railroad spikes," Buffy says in a whisper.
"That's right pet."
Spike backs up from her and Buffy looks down to his hands. Resting in his right palm is a long, thick square shaped nail, a railroad spike. Buffy's breath catches in her throat. Her eyes fly back up to his face and she watches as it transforms. As the bones beneath his skin shift and his eye blaze orange other parts of his appearance change as well. His hair falls out of its slicked back form into a mess of curls and darkens into a natural tone. Buffy looks Spike up and down and sees that his outfit has changed from the black on black to a tweed suit circa 1880. He looks dirty and wild. For a moment Buffy is reminded of when she saw Spike dig his way out of his grave, and that thought scares her more then she'd like.
Spike's head jerks to the side as the sound of footsteps is heard in the distance. Buffy's eyes are wide as saucers and she backs up until her back comes in contact with the brick wall. She looks down the thin alleyway and sees a man walking toward them. His eyes are cast to the ground and the wobble in his step tells Buffy that he's had one too many drinks. Curly black hair rests under a black hat. Dark clothes cover his body in all his short stature, and then he hiccups and looks up to see Spike. Except he's not Spike yet, he's William the bloody and he's looking for revenge.
"Good God, what thing are you!" The man howls into the night as he stumbles and braces himself against the wall. Spike grips the metal stake in his hand tightly. The vampire storms up to the bewildered man and as he tries to run Spike grabs him by the back of his collar and tosses him to the ground. He looks up at Spike, eyes bulging and fingers clawing at the dirt. Spike looms over him and then lets his face shift back to its human visage.
"What? Don' remember me?" Spike asks.
"William," the man stutters with surprise, "my God... what has become of you, you're... you're..."
"A demon," Spike calls out as he grabs the man by the lapels of his jacket, yanking him up from the ground and slamming him against the wall just beside where Buffy watches in horror. She jumps startled as his back is slammed against the brick. "M' gonna give the phrase William the bloody whole new meaning mate," He says then thrusts the railroad spike upward hitting the man beneath his jaw and using enough force to drive the object clear through the top of his skull.
Buffy flinches at the sound of his skull fracturing, that crunch, and the last gasp of breath that escapes his lips. Spike steps back and the man slides to the ground with a defeated thump. Blood pools out of his head and the Slayer finds herself nauseous for the first time in her career. Buffy stands frozen in shock for a moment. Her skin is cold and her eyes are watering in the weather of this all too real dream. Then her eyes flicker back to Spike and she watches as his form transforms back into the Spike she is accustomed to, the one in a black tight smoky tee, roughed Doc Martins and bleach blonde hair.
He looks down at the memory of his victim watching idly as the blood begins to run in tiny streams toward his feet. Then his eyes look back to Buffy and he can tell that he's frightened her.
"Killed nearly a dozen people like that within a week of bein' a vampire, not to mention the dozens of others I ate… that was just one week. There's a hundred years of destruction caused with my hands." His words are solemn, voice low and dark, and just as Buffy is beginning to think that maybe she should just kill him his eyes dart to hers and she sees how the guilt that swarms in his soul creates creases in his brow and between his eyes. This man before her who will forever be frozen in his late twenties seems to have aged a thousand years simply from the sorrow and remorse that so obviously encompass his being.
"You're not that person anymore Spike…" The muscles in Spike's jaw flex and he storms toward her slamming his hands against the brick on either side of the Slayer. Buffy flinches as she hears the cracking of brick beneath Spike's palms on either side of her head. A growl rumbles in his chest as he glares at her mere inches from her face, gold flickering by in his eyes.
"That evil will always be inside me," He says then pushes himself away from the wall.
Spike shakes his head and his face transforms into its vampire visage, a snarling mashed image of the human face. The bleach drains from his hair turning his slicked locks jet black and making his skin look whiter than ever before. A red swastika appears on his arm across a band as his outfit transforms into an olive Nazi uniform structured to fit a body not his own.
"Not only have I been a part of some of the bloodiest times in modern history, but I reveled in every bit of them."
"And I can see that you hate yourself for it, you can make amends!"
"Amends!" Spike yells incredulous of the notion. "Think anything I do now can make up for this," Spike shouts and reaches his arms forward.
A woman with muted brown hair appears in his arms, her white blouse slashed and bloodied; her head and limbs hanging unnaturally from his grasp and her vacant eyes staring into Buffy's soul. "For all the lives… the women… the children." Spike's body jerks and the woman in his arms disappears as if it were a flame dissolving into a cloud of smoke, Spike's Nazi costume does the same. Now he looks like William again, a dirtied evil William, and beside him a large metal bin appears. He rips the lid off its hinges and it crashes against the brick wall cracking bricks and letting out a loud echoing thud.
Spike reaches into the coal bin and pulls out with one arm a terrified young girl. She has curly brown hair and seems to be no older than four or five. A shrilling scream escapes her tiny lips as Spike grabs her violently with his other hand and pulls her to him then drives his fangs deep into her throat burying himself in the warmth of her blood causing her screams to fade away with her life. He drops her body to the ground and turns back to Buffy. "Or maybe I should show you something more relatable."
The bleach blonde returns to his hair which lifts into a punk spiked style. Eyeliner is traced around his blue orbs and a tattered white tee shows off his bare arms. A metal pipe appears in his hand and he swings it at her, as Buffy ducks the scenery changes and she finds herself on a subway car stumbling to find her footing. Quickly though she falls into the dance. He swings and she ducks, they dodge around the metal car rails meant for passengers to hold on to and Buffy grabs the pipe in his hands.
This dance feels all too familiar as she's trotted its steps once before, years ago when he told her of the Slayer's he'd killed. As Buffy throws a punch at the vampire before her she realizes that she's wearing leather, a coat, his coat, except it isn't yet his in this memory. More punches are thrown and dodged, more kicks and more dancing. Then she knocks him to the ground and straddles his waist finally gaining the upper hand. He smirks at her. After a moment though she feels his hands at her hips and as the lights flicker on the train their roles reverse. Spike pins her to the ground and quickly confines her hands above her head with one hand bringing his other to her throat. This is it, Buffy thinks, this is how he killed her. This is the last thing she saw before she died.
"I wonder pet, if I killed you in a dream would you die in real life?"
"You won't," Buffy says with determination.
"Killed her didn't I, killed them all, what's to stop me from killing you now?"
"Because it's not who you are anymore." Spike's lips thin.
"Still don't get it." Spike growls then drops down to her moving his hand from her neck to her breast and suddenly she's no longer in his coat on a subway. Now she's in her bathrobe in her bathroom and she can feel the cold tile beneath her bare legs.
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