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***Once again this story has been nominated for best Spuffy Fic and I am grateful to all of the wonderful readers who are trying to get my work recognized. It means a lot that you enjoy my stories as much as I do, so win or lose I’m happy. But now to the point, as you might recall this story is a little more than a thousand years in the future. You might have noticed by now how nifty the cell phones of the future are. Well the actual telephones are even cooler than that. They can work just like our phones but at the push of a button a live broadcast image can appear on the vid screen allowing you to talk face to face or face to faces. Vid screens are like flat screen TV’s that can display regular programs but also work as two way live cams, broadcasting information back and forth without a ground line connection. Meaning they work off the same invisible transmissions as our cell phones or some technical nonsense that isn’t really important to the story. I think the future references are self explanatory but incase they aren’t this was just a little clarification. But hey if Bill Gates is reading this…give me a call and a few million and I’ll let you buy my idea :)***


She had always known this day would come but she had never expected it to happen like this. It wasn’t something you heard from a phone call, it was something that jumped out of the shadows and pulled you into the dark while you screamed away your last breath. She didn’t have to ask Hank what he was talking about…she had heard enough to know what was hunting her. “Conference in Giles while I go get Spike…I don’t want to tell this story twice.”

Without waiting for an answer, Buffy pushed all of her emotions away. If she wanted to survive this, she needed to let her instinct guide her…not her fear, not the pain…nothing but the need to fight. Going with her emotions had been what had gotten her in this in the first place.

Spike sensed her approach and spoke without looking up from the piles of papers he had spread out across the rug. “This isn’t making a sodden bit of sense. Gunn sent over all the files on your attacker and either our mysterious bad’um doesn’t know he sent a complete ponce after you or he was desperate enough to place his faith on the local talent. Neither scenario makes any sense and no matter how many times I read this I can’t connect the two. If something is after you, it knows you…it knows your strength and your reputation and it even had the element of surprise. So if it wants you dead, it should have sent one of the best hitters in the biz after you but it didn’t. So that means it was suppose to be a message but then the demon didn’t say anything particularly helpful that can’t really be the case either.”

“It’s not…I know what’s after me and it will want to take me on itself. We just assumed the attacks were related but now I know their not. But we don‘t have time to deal with that now.” Buffy said dully, unconcerned about whoever else might be hoping to take her down. Whoever it was couldn’t be as bad as the first one in line, so focusing on anything else was just a waste of energy, she decided knowing full well that Spike wouldn’t see it that way.

He looked up at her fully intending to argue but one look at her face silenced him. A mask of grim determination covered the soft natural lines of her face and she was nearly as pale as him. But it was the look in her eyes that concerned him the most, it was like she was an entirely different person. The lively spark that he had come to expect was no longer dancing in her mossy green eyes…nothing was there. It was like her humanity had gone on vacation and all that was left was an empty house.

People killed, coldly and without mercy while wearing that look on their face. He couldn’t believe she had mastered that look, let alone the intent behind it. Even more terrifying was the fact that it seemed completely natural, like this wasn’t the first time she had worn the face of the reaper.

It scared him down to his toes, stole away every ounce of warmth but not even it could affect his love for her. He was soulless, but he had worn that same look more times than he could count and seeing it on her made him realize that no matter how pretty her life looked on the outside…the swank club, the posh home or even the carefree smiles, her life was anything but a charmed existence. “What is it luv?” He asked getting to his feet and crossing over to take her in his arms.

She let him hold her, knowing that it could be their last embrace but she didn’t try to respond. “Hank and Giles are waiting on the phone for us in my office. I have a few things to say and if you want to leave me after you hear them…I’ll understand.”

“Bugger that pet. I knew before I came here with you that you weren’t like other girls so I’m not about to cry foul and run away because it’s not something that will change. Your past and your present are what define who you are and who you will become and I don’t want to miss a moment of it. You’re special Buffy Summers or Buffy Giles or any other damn name you chose to call yourself….nothing can change that or the way I feel about you.”

She believe him but as much as she loved the image of herself reflected back at her from his eyes, he didn’t know the real truth about her. Until he knew everything, the good the bad and the very bloody, she wouldn’t be able to accept him or all that he was offering her. After watching Angel evolve into a person she couldn’t understand or love she wasn’t going to put Spike through the same thing. She wouldn’t let him love a lie or a vague misconception of the real her. He may dress and act like a big bad but in his heart and words she could see he was a romantic. He wanted moonbeams and lightning bolts and an eternal unyielding love that defied the fates and time itself. She had understood long ago that she wasn’t a simple girl traveling down the yellow brick road trying to find her way home to a white picket fence in a black and white reality where people loved her unconditionally. Her path was built on blood and broken bones and the macabre world that was her home was painstakingly highlighted in vivid Technicolor.

She wouldn’t drag him down into the darkness with her but if he loved her enough to stay…then she would do whatever it took to live in his world. Thinking about him, the way he made her feel broke the lock on the box holding her emotions and like Pandora she couldn’t force it closed again. She might not make it to see another sunrise and he could walk out of her door before then, so she wanted to say the words…no she had to say the words while she still had the chance. “I love you.”

He had been waiting for those words and more than anything he wanted to say them back…but he couldn’t. Not when they sounded like goodbye. Without knowing how it had happened he had somehow become the girl in their relationship. He wanted moonbeams and lightning bolts and right now she content to be trapped in minutiae of death threats and demons. Granted those were big concerns, for normal people but for the daughter of a Fallen One and a Vampire it was just another part of their lives. It pinched his masculine pride but he wasn’t some nancy boy who didn’t know his own worth. He was love’s bitch but atleast he was man enough to admit it…atleast to himself he rationalized. “Tell me again when this is all over, luv. Because when you say it, I want to know that your only thinking about me and not about everything else that is going on at the time.”

That alone said he loved her more than his earlier poetic vows of adoration, she decided. If the situation had been reversed, it was the same thing she would have told him. There might be something to this soul mate thing after all, she thought with a grin. Because right now Spike suited her down to the ground, wicked eyes and hands, the body of an Adonis and enough strength to do what had to be done. So far he possessed all the qualities she desired in her ideal mate, heartbeats and souls being optional of course, but it was time to see how he handled another bit of her past. If he couldn’t deal…well then soul mates were just an idea cooked up by the hologreeting and chocolate companies after all.

“There’s something else you need to know before we go in there.” She began, before telling him about her job with the Initiative. He may have heard her tell Angel she was a slayer but being a fly-by-night, government backed demon exterminator was an entirely different matter. Every demon and half demon knew they existed but just like the Pentagon handled humans claming to see UFO’s and little green men from Mars, the US government denied their existence. They were nothing more than a rumor, plausible deniability at it’s finest. A group of vicious demons end up in little pieces overnight, it was vigilantes, nothing more and so on and so forth. But since Demons trusted the government about as much as those strange men with Tellurium foil over their heads to block out telepathic alien transmissions, they knew the truth was indeed out there and that it would come for them some dark night.

He watched her chew her bottom lip anxiously awaiting his reaction and he shot her a quick wink to put her at ease. “Don’t fret pet, it’s sounds pretty much like my line of work.”

“You protect people Spike, I hunt them down and take them out. Those are entirely different things.”

Since that was exactly the opening he had been looking for, he decided to let her in on another one of his secrets. “I recon you killed things that needed killing pet, but I’m not actually a bodyguard. Gunn roped me into this hoping that Har’tuh would send more clients our way. I’m actually an authorized slayer but unlike you I don’t work for free. Gunn handles the legal angles while I’m the guy you call to hunt down the big bad wolf who forgot they were suppose to be domesticated these days.”

The words of the demon that attacked her, floated through the cloud of shock that had permeated her brain at his announcement. “William the Bloody, lycanthrope slayer…Spike…it all makes sense. I can’t believe I didn’t catch it before, I mean Spike isn’t really a common name but I just thought that it meant your…” Without meaning to her eyes traveled down to his crotch.

Since she no longer looked like a serial killer, he gave a little wiggle just to keep the look at bay a little longer. “Careful there luv, you’ll give a man a complex with talk like that. The name may have come from my much talked about proclivity for taking out werewolves with silver plated railroad spikes but after our spin in the shower, you know the other fits as well.”

Unable to help herself, she blushed like a schoolgirl. She had sucked and licked her tongue over every inch of his cock while the warm water beat down over them and she had, had a lot to work with. Adding that tasty tidbit and the fact that someone called William the Bloody by other slayers no less, would never accuse her of being too vicious in the line of duty or otherwise, it turned out that he might just be the perfect man for her after all. But until he knew everything, she would just have to wait and see.

Realizing that she wanted to get back to business, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her the rest of the way back to her office. Pausing in the doorway he leaned down and whispered in her ear, as her face began to slide back into it’s somber lines and her earlier amusement evaporated like steam. “But if you want, you can tell your mates which ever reason you prefer.”

Since she knew which one he would prefer, she didn’t bother to answer and walked back over to her desk where her phone was still sitting off the hook. She pressed a button and watched as two familiar faces appeared on the vid screen attached to the wall. She introduced both men to Spike and then took a deep breath before beginning her story and going back to that day in her mind.

“We had been chasing a pack of demons through South America. They were your standard hostiles, tearing through impoverished villages and munching on the locals but they were adapt at evading capture or a confrontation with us. After about a week we caught up with them at some ruins in Peru and it seemed like all of the fight had gone out of them. We took them down without so much as breaking stride. It wasn’t until later that we found out they were offering themselves as a sacrifice to their god Muerte Viva or Living Death.”

Out of all the people in the room, Spike also the living dead, didn’t really see why everyone else was still flinching as the sound of the name faded from the room. “So it’s a vampire then…stake to the heart, cut off the head, a little holy water or sunlight and poof big pile of ash. Not exactly the harbinger of fear, in any book even if it‘s a so called god. I mean no offence Har’tuh but not everyone gets all trembly at the mention of someone claiming to have been given his godhead.”

“He wasn’t just a god, he was worshiped as one but in truth he had much more power…he was the head of the vampire bloodline.” Giles explained, whipping off his glasses impatiently. “He was one of the Ancient, the ones that ruled the earth after eons of darkness. They lost their purchase on the land at the time of creation, the dawn of man. The lesser demons were destroyed during the first days of light but the stronger ones, like Living Death, retreated back into the underworld or fled this dimension entirely. Living death, wished to one day rule this world again so he infected humanity with his blood to ensure that when he gathered enough strength to return, an army of his bloodline would be waiting for him.”

“He wasn’t the only pure blooded vampire,” Hank interrupted. “But he was the consort of the First and he was given his godhead as a blessing. He used that power to build his temple of resurrection near what would become Chavín de Huantar sometime around 950 BC. At the time the Kingdom of Chavin believed that their temple was the center of the world and it was revered as a holy Mecca. Every known religion flocked to this place seeking their god after the rumors of strange creatures with inhuman power could be found in there. For centuries demons of every kind tried to restore Living Death to power hoping that they in turn would be blessed by the First for their service. I myself went there many times hoping for the same thing, but I could not call the demon forth.” Hank explained looking at his daughter sheepishly.

“Is that how you knew he was back?” Buffy asked hoping that it was something like that. “You felt his energy return or something?”

“No, he sought me out. I thought it had been because the First had been the one to bless me with my powers but he came to me, looking for you.”

Buffy caught the flare of pride dancing in his eyes and decided to cut short his happy little delusion of her following in his footsteps. “Sorry Hank but I wasn’t the one who let him free. The demons had used their deaths to call him forth thinking that it would inhabit one of their bodies but he chose someone else. The fresh blood called him out but he needed a living host. The body of the man you met with had cut his leg during the chase. It was tiny, barely more than a scratch but there had been just enough blood to drip a few drops onto the ground during the fight. After being locked away below the ground in his sarcophagus for a few thousand millennia he was nothing more than vapor. I and the rest of the team watched helplessly as he was surrounded by the green smoke rising out of the ground and I held his hand while Living Death consumed him from the inside out.”

“Why didn’t you destroy him before the change could become permanent?” Spike asked softly, knowing that something was missing out of the story. He had seen Buffy at the club and she had even admitted that she always went for the kill. So what stopped her that day, he wondered. He searched her face as she gathered her thoughts and he knew whatever it was, it was going to be bad.





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