[Reviews - 89]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 2378 times

- Text Size +




chapter 9: mary magdalene – part I

Dawn nearly fell out of her bed—better known as the living room sofa—when her cell phone rang. Rolling over awkwardly, and in somewhat of a daze, she tried to snatch the phone off the end table before it rang a second time. She didn't want to risk waking up Buffy in case her big sister had already returned from patrolling.

“Hello,” she whispered. It was Carlo, but she'd known that before she flipped open the phone. He was the only person who called her at 4 a.m. outside of Buffy, and Buffy never called her at 4 a.m. on her cell phone because she was supposed to be at home in the bed sound asleep.

“Need to see you, Dawn.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. That okay?”

“Yeah, it's okay.”

They said a few more words to each other, mapped out the signals he'd use for getting into the building, the apartment and past Buffy. When they finished, Dawn snapped the phone shut, rolled out of bed and shuffled over to Buffy's closed bedroom door. Opening it slowly, she peered in. Good, she sighed. Buffy was still out and hopefully she'd stay out a while longer. Carlo had sounded bad. His voice even broke once. When he said he had to see her, he meant he really had to see her. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and he said—actually said—he needed her. Wow! She took a deep breath and tried to steady her galloping heartbeat. Carlo was her first boyfriend. The first boy she wanted to kiss, like all the time, and hold so close neither one of them could breathe. She loved staring at him until her eyes tired out and talking to him until her voice was raw. It was the strangest, most wonderful, most frightening feeling she'd ever had, ever. And she knew she'd do anything to keep it.

Dawn hopped back over to her sofa bed, and plopped down on the tight cushion springs. Here she was not quite 17 years old and this guy, this beautiful, strong, great guy really, really liked her. He liked her enough to call her when he felt bad. He'd sounded all vulnerable, like he might cry even. She'd never seen a man cry except for Spike the night Buffy jumped off the tower. She'd been scared silly by that sight—Spike crying, head in hands, body quaking with grief. If she hadn't been, well, so busy staring at Buffy's body lying on top of a pile of rocks, all quiet and not moving, she'd have freaked out. On second thought, she was lucky she hadn't lost her freaking mind; it had been such a crazy year. Mom dead, Buffy dead, Mom still dead, Buffy back and alive. Then a monster gives her headaches, visions and more pain and agony than she'd ever imagined possible.

Let's not forget finding out you're a key. A mystical glowing green thing that's ancient, powerful, and existed long before giving you a face, a voice or a reason to breathe.

Dawn pulled her fingers through her hair, trying to erase the images flooding into her head. Suddenly, she felt dirty, hot and sticky, which didn't make sense since it was mid-December and she was in New York City in a small apartment in the Bronx that might have heat but most likely did not—never could really tell these days. She jumped up from the couch and made her way over to the weapons chest, which also served as her dresser drawer. A pair of jeans, a t-shirt and underwear. She needed to slip into some clothes before Carlo got there—she had to have on more than the flimsy nightshirt she was wearing now. True, her body always felt like it wanted to be touched when he was around, but that wasn't going to happen, not tonight. Dawn shot a nervous glance around the room, taking in the floral rose print of the wallpaper (truly old-fashioned, most likely late fifties design), the dirty kitchenette, and the large Dali posters that had fascinated Buffy since they arrived in New York. They were plastered all over the walls to cover the flowery paper, Dawn assumed.

She turned suddenly toward the window as a pebble struck the pane. Carlo was downstairs, and that was the first signal. The walls creaked and heaved as beasts with tiny legs ran along the pipes. Okay, not monsters, exactly, but a horde of rats scampering through the open spaces in between the walls more than qualified as big bad nasties as far as Dawn was concerned. Another rock skittered over the window ledge. She walked over to the doorway and pressed the buzzer, letting Carlo into the building. Then she unlocked the door before returning to her seat on the sofa. This was the first time she'd been alone with Carlo, at night, in the dark.

The next sound she heard was at the door. Three light raps, two steady knocks then Carlo opened the door and was standing in the entranceway, waiting.

“Come in. But be quiet, and sit in the corner. Never know when Buffy's gonna show up.” Dawn pointed to the end of the sofa.

“She's not home?” He looked tired. His eyes weren't as bright and his brow was wrinkled and sad. “Tommy's dead. Serial killer got him.”

The man did get to the point.

“God. Tommy dead?” Dawn said, dazed and suddenly very worried. “You sure it was a serial killer?”

“What do you mean?” Carlo had walked into the room and, pushing the covers aside, sat down next to her on the sofa. "Darnell said it was this guy they've been chasing for the past few weeks, a serial killer that cuts off the heads and leaves the bodies behind." Carlo was shaking as he spoke. Dawn placed her arm around his shoulder.

His eyes were rimmed with red as he looked up into her face. Then he dropped his head to her chest, and started to cry. Softly, almost in silence, Carlo cried. Dawn wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him to her breast as close as she could manage.

She knew there was something he wasn't telling her. But she'd wait. As long as Buffy didn't come home any time soon, she'd hold him and wait for as long as it took.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Buffy pushed open the apartment door and paused, her hand fisting the knob as she mulled over her next words carefully.

“Come in, Spike,” she said quickly. “Follow me and be quiet. Dawn's asleep.”

She grabbed his hand and led him through the living room toward her bedroom, but stopped outside the door, gesturing for him to go into the room without her. “I'll get some bandages and things. Be right back, okay?” She had offered to take care of his cuts and bruises, the jagged slash across his cheek, the torn skin around his throat and the (at least) three broken ribs under his bloodied shirt. Sure, he'd heal in a day or two. She knew he didn't really need first aid. He was a vampire after all. Nevertheless, she couldn't just let him go off alone, so badly injured, into the cold night. Not after he'd come all the way to New York City to see about her and Dawn. Besides, he'd explained why he hadn't mentioned Jacob or the little he knew about the portal jumper sooner. He really hadn't had enough time to say much of anything before Jacob and his gang attacked. Buffy shook her head as she rummaged through the bathroom cabinet, searching for the gauze and antiseptics she'd sworn she'd left there.

A few minutes later, she tiptoed out of the bathroom into the kitchenette empty-handed, and looked around. The breakfast dishes, crusted with dried egg and half-eaten pancakes, were stacked in the sink and an empty wine bottle rested on the countertop. She glanced at Dawn. Her arms and legs were sprawled across the sofa bed, a mass of long brown curls cascading over the sheets, her face smashed into the pillow. She appeared very much the ‘dead to the world' teenager. Buffy didn't buy it though. But she wasn't going to start a mini-war with her sister at 6 a.m. Not with Spike in the other room of their two-room apartment.

Buffy stood in front of the counter and massaged her temples as a dull pain began to throb behind her eyes. She'd deal with Dawn—and the dishes—in the morning.

She continued to open and close cabinet doors, hunting for medical supplies and thinking about the vampire in her bedroom. Spike showing up, well, actually, dropping down from the sky, had completely surprised her. Spike and New York 's version of a 'big bad' being all friendly to each other and then almost killing each other had given her quite the jolt, too. Then there was her reaction to seeing Spike for the first time in months. After being pissed off at first, she'd practically leaped into his arms. In fact, she had put her arms around him. Buffy chewed her lower lip. She'd been, well, honestly, glad to see Spike—or was she just glad to get a message from Giles or hear any news that meant she and Dawn were closer to heading home to Sunnydale. Could be Spike had simply benefited from being the messenger.

“Maybe that was it. I'm just homesick,” she mumbled, still rifling through kitchen drawers and cupboards.

She pulled open the door to the cabinet under the sink and pushed aside a large box of extra-strength powdered detergent and a pile of garbage bags. The first aid kit she hadn't thought about since arriving in New York City sat in the corner. She grabbed the kit and a two-gallon pot and hurried back to the bathroom, filled the pot with hot water, and dropped in a bar of soap and a wash cloth. With her arms full of the supplies needed to clean and mend Spike's wounds, she walked into the bedroom.

Spike was lying on the bed on his back, his arms crossed behind his head. He'd taken off his duster and shirt; from across the room, she could see the black bruises circling his ribcage and the blood still seeping from the largest cut in his side. His face was swollen and his left eye puffy, the lid closing shut. For an instant, all Buffy could think was at least Spike had left Jacob in pretty much the same condition. She'd make certain to tell him that later.

“This is not the way we used to be together, is it?”

“No, pet, it's not,” he said. “Not complaining, mind you. But you never treated me—“

“Like a person?” She finished the sentence for him, emptied her arms onto the nightstand and taking the wet cloth out of the basin of warm water, began carefully wiping the dried blood from his throat and chest. He was looking into her eyes, staring, studying every move she made as if she were some kind of ghost. “I don't know why I'm different, Spike. Didn't know I was different until—well, until I saw you.”

Spike grimaced slightly as she dug the cloth deeper into the cut, cleaning out the blood from the wound on his side. “Sorry,” she said and smiled at him.

“Said that twice in one day, love,” he winced as Buffy poured mercurochrome over his ribcage.

“What's that?”

“You saying sorry—to me.”

As he looked into her face, his eyes seemed to shine from the intensity of his gaze. It made her slightly nervous, but not in a bad way. She smiled at him again, and leaning forward, touched his lips with her mouth.

“Yep—sure is different,” he whispered.

He didn't say another word and neither did Buffy as she finished scrubbing away the blood, sewing the torn flesh, dousing the wounds with antiseptic and covering the deeper cuts with bandages and gauze. Then she stood up, placed the unused bandages, gauze and scissors into the kit and picked up the pot of blood-stained water.

“Stay here today and get some sleep. Tonight we'll figure out how to kill the portal jumper.”

She walked out of the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her without giving Spike a chance to protest, just in case that thought had crossed his mind.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jacob knocked the candelabra, which he'd placed on the large dining table as a lark, onto the floor as he stalked through the basement, alternating between curses and recitations of bible verse. He hadn't liked what he'd witnessed that night. How was it that one of the most natural killers he'd ever seen, and had proudly once claimed as his best mate and blood kin, was defending a Slayer? Damn it all to bloody hell. Was there an Aurelian curse or something? First, there were the stories about the vampire Angel, the bloodsucker with a soul and now this. Jacob raised an angry fist to the ceiling.

For fifty years, he had dismissed the rumors that Angel was indeed Angelus until he saw the sorry bastard with his own eyes one night in an alley in Chinatown chasing rats. Jacob had to turn his back on the sight, and literally run away. A cowardly act for sure, but he couldn't help himself. He'd worshipped Angelus. He'd served him for nearly twenty years on his knees, stomach or ass at the whim of the vampire. Whatever the fiend had desired, it had been his duty to fulfill. So seeing Angelus chase rats in Chinatown was truly more than a demon of Jacob's lineage could bear.

And now, there was Spike. Again, he'd ignored the tales of the blond Brit in southern California that was fighting along side the Slayer. He'd refused to believe any of that treason. He and William had been blood brothers. Both fledglings in the house of Angelus and Darla. They'd formed a bond. Even though Jacob was the lowest order of fledgling—a ship's slave turned by Darla as a cruel joke to get back at Angelus, he imagined. She never even acknowledged that she'd turned him, just kept the dark-skinned animal around to “clean up” after their feasts and fuck on occasion. But William treated him like a comrade. Whenever they could sneak away from the insane trio, they'd scamper off and create their own havoc. Feeding with glee and speed, feast and run, teeth glistening and tongues dripping thick red drops from the joy of killing—that was their way. Jacob missed that. The 20th century was far too civilized for vampires like Jacob the Preacher's Son and William the Bloody—oh, excuse me, he thought sarcastically—he wants to be called Spike. He spat the name out aloud.

Grabbing his throat, he felt the dried sticky blood there and recalled being beaten nearly to dust by his so-called comrade less than two hours before. He collapsed in the over-stuffed chair he kept in the corner near his bookshelf.

Raising his legs, he dropped them onto the dark-chocolate leather ottoman, and slid his body down into the cushions. His arms drooped over the sides of the armrests, and his head lopped forward, bopping on his chest. He glanced up at the small holes that served as windows to his basement abode and smelled the advancing daylight. He hoped he had a least a few hours to rest, and maybe heal. He had to prepare for the arrival of the Portal Jumper. Then he could convince Spike to change his evil ways and return to appreciating the nature of things.

Jacob sniggered to himself as he fell into a dreamless sleep.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Willow trotted ahead of Tara on the crowded sidewalk, her dark red high-heeled boots clicking rhythmically on the pavement as her short tweed skirt swirled around her hips. Tara couldn't help but glare at the passersby, enticed to stare at Willow's fleeting wool-covered thighs. Then the redhead pulled the blue fur collar of her waist-length jacket snugly around her throat and shook her short-bobbed hair flirtatiously from side to side. Tara increased her pace to keep Willow within arms reach.

A gust of cold, crisp wind blew over them and Tara hugged her own full-length cloth coat around her body. Willow wiggled slightly, suppressing a shiver Tara presumed, as she continued to dance through the crowd, looking very much like a born and bred New Yorker. To think they'd only been in the city ten hours, Tara thought as she strained to keep up with the darting figure.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tara caught sight of a street sign. Eighth Avenue and 14th Street to be exact. The building they were looking for was on 13th Street. “Willow!” she called. Tara had to skip through the throng of rushing bodies to catch up with her. “We passed it. The address we're looking for—it's back there.”

They turned and walked quickly down the avenue toward the block where Willow had said they'd find a red-brick building.

“Willow, don't' you think we should tell someone where we're at in case something goes wrong?” said Tara. “We could call Giles, you know.”

“No,” said Willow, her voice hard. “We don't need him. Not now. We're good here.”

She led Tara up the steps of the red brick building and pushed open the door. Willow didn't seem surprised to find that it wasn't chained shut. She simply turned and grabbed Tara's hand, pulling her through the doorway. She looked excited, anxious for whatever was about to happen, thought Tara.

“You ready for this, my darling?”

“Yes,” said Tara. “Always.”

to be continued…


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





You must login (register) to review.