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Empty as Houses
Giles could not ever remember sneaking up on Spike. It simply did not happen. No matter the circumstance, any time
Giles walked into a room occupied by sleeping Spike, the vampire would roll his head in the Watcher’s direction, give
him a look of disdain and immediately dismiss his presence.
Of course, that had been many years and, as it happened, many incarnations ago. And now it was William who slept
in stony silence in the chair beside his unmade bed. When Giles entered the bedroom, William did not stir.
Giles took a moment to look at him. Despair hung on William like a rumpled suit of clothes. He didn’t look wholly out of
place in the bedroom so obviously decorated by Buffy. The honey colored duvet, sheets and pillows cases in shades
of off-whites and beige, the amber-toned table lamp that filled the room with a soft-luminescence akin to candlelight
– all of this seemed to match and compliment William’s still platinum hair and colorless skin. And when did the man
start wearing earth tones? Giles was sure that had been Dawn’s influence, but it was a far cry from the black
and red that once dominated William the Bloody’s wardrobe. Giles felt a deep, almost paralyzing bolt of sadness,
seeing him like this. Seeing him perched at Buffy’s bedside, as though she might materialize right there while he was
sleeping.
And though he slept, Giles didn’t think he rested. Not judging by the heavy furrows in his brow, or by the droplets
of dried blood on his jeans. How could he rest, with her gone? How could any of them rest? How had they managed
before?
Giles backtracked mentally. Before, she had been dead. They had managed because grieving was a natural part of
death. This time, she had been taken. Nothing natural about it. And he had to hold it together if they meant to find
her.
William woke suddenly, giving Giles a start.
“Dear Lord,” he whispered.
William craned his neck, but instead of his patented annoyance, he looked achingly lost.
“Rupert,” he said hollowly. “Didn’t hear you come in,” He scrubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands.
“There was a spell,” Giles said, not wasting any time.
William sat up, eyes brightly alert.
Giles nodded. “Yes. One of great power. But,” he paused to underscore the importance of the next words, “not
cast on this plane.”
“Not on this…plane?” William echoed. He sat up straighter.
Giles came over to the bed and sat on its edge, careful not to disturb the sheets and blankets. He took a place
opposite William and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “It seems someone very powerful was able to punch a hole
in this dimension and take our Buffy out,” he explained.
William grew still as he puzzled things together. “Well, narrows the field, dunnit?” he asked. “Only a few powerful
someones could throw that kind of juice around.”
“Willow did it. Once,” Giles said evenly.
William opened his mouth to speak, but shut it again.
“Spike,” Giles said. “If another version of Willow were to… meddle with that level of magics it is possible…”
“She was in heaven,” William said distantly. His voice sounded bruised.
“Er, yes,” Giles said. “But um, comparatively speaking, this dimension could seem...”
“There was no baby,” William said, more with urgency now. “Buffy came back to us un… pregnant, Rupert!”
“I’m not saying it is our Willow. Or was,” Giles said, trying with much effort to remain calm. “There is precedence
for other Willows, other witches for that matter, who might wield such magics. According to the Coven in
Westbury, the previous attempts to, erm, capture Buffy may account for the bouts of sleepwalking...”
William flung himself back against the chair. “Bugger it,” he swore. “Why can’t those bitches leave us the hell
alone!” He raked his hands through his hair, then clenched his fists at his temples. Giles moved instinctively away,
remembering Spike’s penchant for unexpected physical aggression.
But William seemed to curl in on himself, withering within with his grief.
“She was happy, Giles,” William said in a struggling and choked voice. He rubbed at his eyes with trembling fingers.
The Watcher looked away.
“I know it,” Giles said. He gave William a few moments to regain his composure before attempting to continue the
conversation.
William blew out a shaky sigh and sat forward, his posture mirroring Giles’.
“So, what now?” he said. “Can we get her back?”
Giles lifted his chin, surprised at how quickly William had recovered. “I intend to try,” he said firmly. “I have to go
away for a while. I want to work closely with the Coven to find a way to get our Buffy back.”
William’s eyes were wild, but his tone was even. “Yes,” he said. “Fine. Good.”
“Understand such things are exceedingly dangerous,” Giles said.
“No need to read me the warning label, Rupert. We’ve weathered such things before.”
“Dangerous to her. And the child,” Giles put in, making sure that his tone conveyed all of its proper gravity. “Spike,
physically crossing between worlds can be a complicated undertaking, and the price is always very high.”
William raised his eyes to meet the Watcher’s. “What is it you need?” he asked.
Giles cleared his throat, not knowing how Spike might take his request. He said, “I need you to watch over Dawn
and Andrew while I’m gone. And the school, of course.”
William’s lips curved. A second later, he chuckled darkly. He settled against the chair. “Bet this was never how you
pictured me: Fatherly type, holding down a 9 to 5. Me. The Black Menace. William the Bloody.”
Giles uttered a surprised gasp of laughter. “You can’t still want to lug that moniker around, can you?” he said.
“I bloody well don’t know what to do,” William said weakly. “Without her, I’m losing my mind a bit. Can’t drink it off.
Can’t fight it off. I just feel… empty.” His voice broke on the last word and he turned his head to look out the
window. The November air frosted the windows with a chilly scrim of ice, obscuring his view of the street outside.
Giles nodded, knowing exactly how William felt. With a spark of inspiration, he said, “There is evil left to fight in the
world. Shall I leave you a demon compendium? You can start with Abaddon and work your way through to Zuul.”
William pondered the merits of the idea for a moment. Then he remembered Lorne.
“Speaking of demons,” he said. “Found out a bit from my visit to Triumvirate.”
“Did you?”
“Turns out your thoughts of a demon coup may have teeth in it,” William said. He explained everything Lorne had
told him, right down to Nighna’s unforeseen move to join the Hellbound party. But he omitted the hitting Lorne for
no good reason bit.
“That’s an unexpected move from her,” Giles said. “Kimaris are not known for simply lending hands to help a cause.”
“Yeah, figured that,” William said with a shrug.
Giles gripped William’s shoulder as he got to his feet. “Yes, well, I’ll… make a note,” he said. “In the meantime, the
house is in your hands.”
William looked up at him. “Find her, will you?”
“I’ll do all I can,” Giles said. It felt like a vacant declaration, considering. He was a Watcher, not a witch. He wasn’t
sure how much good he would be able to do.
But William seemed to take it as reassurance. He stood, stretched, and followed Giles out of the empty room.
“See, Margot. Kali Yantra marks the spot.”
Ariadne Hughes beamed at the older witch, who nodded her approval. Margot Ludston stepped forward from the
scorched circle burned into the alley floor. She examined the rough trident-within-a-circle-mark painted across the
bricks of the wall.
“Yes. You’re spot on, Ariadne. All your practicing has paid off,” Margot said. She sniffed the air and grimaced as
she took in their surroundings. It was a grimy place, plainly American, with more than a dash of pure, ancient evil.
“It has, ma’am,” Ariadne said, puffing up. “Thanks for noticing.”
“So the Slayer’s been here?” Margot asked. She put her nose almost to the surface of the bricks to have an even
closer look.
“Oh, yes. Of course, yes. The Yantra don’t lie,” Ariadne said.
“Doesn’t lie,” Margot corrected. “Can you track her?”
“Well,” Ariadne said. She took the canister out of the pocket of her overcoat and began to vigorously shake it.
“The spell got us this far. The rest is up to us. We’ll have to Sherlock it from here.”
“Honestly, Ariadne,” Margot said. “Your habit of turning nouns into verbs… It’s really quite appalling.”
The beam of an electric torch swept across them, and both women froze. A lean, terribly young figure in a blue
uniform stepped into the mouth of the alley.
“Oh heavens to Devon, you frightened us,” Ariadne said, still rattling the canister in her hand. “It’s a police
officer, Margot. Maybe he can help us locate the Slayer.”
The officer came further into the alley. “Hey!” he shouted “What are you planning to do with that?”
“What? This?” Ariadne asked.
“Put the canister away,” Margot said through a tight-lipped grin.
Ariadne looked from the policeman to the canister and back. “Oh. That’s… It’s not what you think.”
The officer advanced. He kept one hand on the torch, which he trained on the two peculiar looking women – one
with choppy white hair and a haughty expression, the other a lithe youthful girl with stringy black hair tucked into
a gray fedora. He bounced the beam from them to the spot on the wall onto which it seemed they’d painted an odd
occultish looking mark.
“Not what I think, eh? I think the ladies of Ab/Fab need a ticket for vandalism,” the officer said.
“Ticket?” Ariadne balked.
“Vandals? Now see here…” Margot said. Margot moved toward the policeman, and it looked as though the man was
about to take a swing at her with his torch. Ariadne raised the canister. A light burst later, the man lay face down
on the pavement. His torch spun into a scummy puddle, the sputtered out.
Margot opened first one eye, then the other. “Oh, now look what you’ve done,” she said. She clicked her tongue.
“Oops,” Ariadne said. She bent to touch the officer’s neck. The pulse drummed steadily beneath the skin. “No harm
done. Just… resting. In a few years, he’ll be fit as a fiddlehead.”
“He’ll be fine,” Margot said. “Give me that.” She whisked the canister from Ariadne’s hands and pointed it at the
Kali Yantra. With it, she sucked the mark and a little bit of the brick right off the wall.
“Now,” Margot said, passing the canister back to Ariadne. “It’s time we found our Slayer.”
Time was slipperier here.
Buffy didn’t know how to explain it any other way. What she felt was unlike anything she had felt before, but it was
like she was a loose pebble bumping along a riverbed, with a raging torrent somewhere way above her.
Dawn – this Dawn – wasn’t much help. She slept most of the time, and when she didn’t sleep, she burbled like an
infant. Spike kept his distance, too. He was ever-present, but made with the lurking like any self-respecting
vampire should.
So Buffy hung around the house. More rightly, around the basement. It wasn’t so bad as Buffy originally thought. In
one of Dawn’s few lucid periods, she explained that Xander had been the one to install the cleverly concealed mini-
bath and fully-stocked kitchenette in what had once been the Summers’ laundry room. Buffy learned from her own
snooping that someone, probably Spike, had tapped into the neighbor’s electricity grid and water main.
So they had really, truly gone underground.
Now, about the why… Buffy had questions, and no one was exactly handing out a crib sheet with the answers.
And time was all slippy. She had no idea how long she’d been here, which: Frustration. To compound matters, Buffy
couldn’t stop crying. She remembered reading once, a really long time ago – probably in a doctor’s waiting room
when her Mom had been sick – that mood-swinginess was all part of pregnancy. She had no idea she had so many
tears in her. It was like her body had tapped into an internal tear dimension and they just poured forth at random
moments. Translation: all the time.
It amounted to a feeling of slowly unraveling. Unraveling and unstuck in time were two very bad things. Without
Willow and Giles, she didn’t even know who she could talk to about getting back home. She needed to get out into
Sunnydale proper to seek an outsider to help, but with Spike’s aloofness, she didn’t feel right leaving Dawn alone in
her present state.
She had just resolved hunt up Spike (who was “hiding” out back, near the arbor) for a vamp-to-Slayer chat when a
shabby homeless type shambled up the front walk.
The guy hesitated when he saw her, but continued up the path at a purposeful limp. Figuring, perhaps, that he
wouldn’t have trouble with an equally vagrant petite blonde girl.
Buffy leaned against the column of her front porch and crossed her arms.
“Looking for something?” she asked.
The guy shuffled forward until his face fell under the shadow of the overhang. “A place to stay,” he said. Buffy
winced at the pungent waft of cheap wine that seeped from the man’s pores. “Thought the house was empty.”
“Well, it’s not,” Buffy said. She gestured with her fingers. “Run along.”
The guy took another groveling step forward. “At least,” he said. “Maybe a bite to eat?”
He morphed into vamp face.
“Oh, thank God!” Buffy said. The vampire sailed at her. She grabbed him by the flannel overshirt and slammed his
head into the column. It felt so good, she did it again. And again. The guy finally lost his demon mask and begged
between poundings for her to stop.
Spike flew in, right in the middle of the first decent slay Buffy’d had in weeks, and twisted the guy’s head the wrong
way around.
Buffy whirled on him. “Why did you do that?”
“He was a vampire,” Spike said, adjusting his shoulders within the sleeves of his duster.
Buffy waved her hand, “Slayer here.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Forgot.”
Buffy had been working on a theory regarding Spike. She took a step toward him to test it. Sure enough, he took an
equal measure back. Preferred arm’s length, she noticed. And seemed not to fixate on her eyes like before, but
instead settled on the scar that ran the length of her face.
And maybe it was best he keep his distance. She didn’t know why Mr. Irritatingly Perceptive hadn’t noticed the
extra beating heart in her body, but so far, she was glad that he hadn’t. She remembered coldly that Angel could
hear it. And he had wanted to hurt them both.
“Look, I…” Buffy began.
“It’s Sunday,” Spike interrupted.
“Sunday?” Buffy asked.
“That’s right,” he said, going all defensive and glowery.
Buffy frowned. Spike had made it his habit to keep her on the wrong foot with him since she’d arrived. “And that’s
the day you and the little missus get all gussied up for church?” she asked.
“Gussied?”
“Spike…” Buffy said. So awkward.
He shook his head. “It’s bath day,” he said, as if that would dispel all of her confusion.
“Come again?”
When he spoke, his words came out in a rushed tumble of syllables. He said, “Every Sunday I take Dawn to the
Sunnydale Motor Inn so that she can take a proper shower, wash her hair and have some take out Chinese food. She
knows the place now and almost never slips. You’re welcome to come along, but you’ll have to meet us. Bike’s not
built for three.”
Buffy gaped at him. She didn’t know which part disturbed her most. No, wait. She did. She said, “You take my blind
sister on a motorcycle?”
He glared at her.
“Do you at least wear helmets?” she asked.
“’Course we do,” he said. He rolled his eyes, which half-infuriated Buffy for no good reason.
“And… you don’t… help?” Buffy said. Which sounded innocently enough in her head, but came out all wrong and Spike
was aghast.
“Of course not,” he protested. “There are girlie… parts under there.”
“Right,” Buffy said, smiling. “Mr. Chaste.”
“It’s not like that,” Spike said, not sharing the smile. “It’s never been like that, Buffy. I promise.”
Buffy leaned toward him. It felt so natural to her to reach for him, but this Spike retreated from her touch.
“Sunnydale Motor Inn,” Buffy said. “That’s the one off Highway 8?”
“S’right,” said Spike.
He stalked away, leaving her on the porch to go get Dawn ready for their weekly bathly ritual. Tears welled again in
her eyes. She was so disconnected here, so lost. Achingly… lost.
“You're going to work?” Dawn asked. The shrillness of her voice grated his eardrums. The place seemed hushed as
the convalescent home it once was, what with Harris and his wispy bint gone off to cattle country, and with the
others… He trailed off in his thinking, realizing that Dawn had asked him a question and was expecting him to
respond.
“Well, yeah Niblet,” William said, stirring honey into his tea. “Someone’s got to run that school. MK can't run it.” He
paused, considering. “Pretty sure there are laws against it.”
Dawn appeared at his elbow. “But what about Buffy?”
William gripped the handle of his mug, seeming for a moment to be mentally and emotionally sinking. But he buoyed
back up and turned to her.
“I need to act, Dawn,” he told her. “’m not much for research and bollocks at books. This is what I can do to hang
on till she gets back.”
“What if she…?”
“Don’t,” William said, more severe than he intended. She blinked, suddenly teary. “Don’t say it. And don’t cry. We
will get her back.”
“How?” Dawn cried.
“Rupert’s got himself a lead,” William told her.
Dawn wiped at her eyes like a tantrumy child. “He does?”
“Yeah. Left for Westbury this morning. Said there was a spell…”
“A spell?” Dawn’s eyes went from weary to hyper-excited in about two seconds.
William forced a smile. “S’right, pet. We’ll have Buffy back by Christmas.”
“Promise,” Dawn said.
Carried away on the wave of infectious Dawn enthusiasm, William spoke before he could stop himself. “All right,” he
said, pulling her into his arms. “I promise.”
Buffy welcomed the chance to get out of the house. She navigated her former patrol route by memory, making a few
course corrections according to new developments in Sunnydale. As she had noticed before, the suburban
population had moved away from the once quaint and peaceful Revello Drive. A distinctly urban populace had taken
its place, and this was true for most of the neighborhoods surrounding Buffy’s old stomping ground.
Buffy made mental notes along the way. Hole In The Wall Donuts, where Xander made many a late night coffee run,
had become Ginello’s Pawn Shop, complete with a lovely ring of shiny razor wire and a stack of dead TV sets out
front. The QuikEE Lube on Redson and Palmer had transformed into a rowdy roadhouse called The High Dive. And the
lovely granite-faced Methodist Church on Fifth Street and Canal had burned to the ground.
Buffy didn’t see the most disturbing change to the Sunnydale skyline until she crested the ridge at Lookout Point.
There, seated like a fat, black creeping slug, was a series of slick office buildings behind a high iron fence and
heavily guarded gate. Right where Sunnydale High used to be. Right on top of the Hellmouth.
Buffy arrived at the Sunnydale Motor Inn fully revved up to grill Spike on the new, powerful presence squatting on
the Hellmouth. She burst in and staggered to a halt.
Dawn sat amid paper napkins and empty Chinese food cartons on the bed with her back to Spike. With a wide-
toothed comb in hand, Spike tenderly unraveled knots from her sister’s badly tangled hair.
“Come in, Buffy,” Dawn said, without turning to the door. “Pull up some debris. I have lots. And lots and lots and
lots…”
Buffy stared at them, feeling oddly excluded by this tradition they shared. Disconnected. She came over and joined
them on the bed, careful not to look at Dawn’s frightfully scaly eyes.
“Saved you an egg roll,” Spike said, flicking a nod to one of the containers.
“Um, thanks,” Buffy said. She went straight for it. She seemed to be in permanent ravenous mode, and eating the
dry rations at the house didn’t quite cut it.
“So,” Spike said, focusing his attention on a particularly bad snarl. “Get a chance to have a look around?”
Buffy chewed and swallowed hard. “Yep. Sunnydale’s come a long way.”
Dawn groped blindly in Buffy’s direction, her white hands searching across the bedspread.
“You saw the Compound,” Spike said.
Buffy had crammed the last of the egg roll in her mouth. “The Romroud?” she asked.
“That’s right, Scooby,” Spike said, parting Dawn’s hair around the knot so that he could really get at it. “World
Headquarters of TriadCorp.”
Dawn’s hand settled on Buffy’s stomach. The girl chirped happily as a nightingale. Buffy looked down and hurriedly
brushed her sister’s hand away.
“TriadCorp?” Buffy asked. She wiped a dribble of soy sauce from her chin.
“Some kind of military contractor,” Spike said absently. “Set up shop few years back. Guess you noted its special
geographic significance.”
“9021-Hellmouth?”
“Girl’s got it…” Spike sang. He settled with the tangle, pulling the comb through Dawn’s hair with ease. He
sectioned out another parcel of hair to disentangle.
Dawn reached across the bed again. This time, Buffy linked her fingers with Dawn’s before the girl could make
contact. Dawn turned her blank eyes to Buffy and flashed a sparkly smile.
Which meant that even if Spike couldn’t sense the baby, Dawn did.
Buffy didn’t get why, but the idea made her shivery cold.
A frantic thought flew up at her again. Buffy had to get out of Sunnydale. She had to get back home.
Giles could not ever remember sneaking up on Spike. It simply did not happen. No matter the circumstance, any time
Giles walked into a room occupied by sleeping Spike, the vampire would roll his head in the Watcher’s direction, give
him a look of disdain and immediately dismiss his presence.
Of course, that had been many years and, as it happened, many incarnations ago. And now it was William who slept
in stony silence in the chair beside his unmade bed. When Giles entered the bedroom, William did not stir.
Giles took a moment to look at him. Despair hung on William like a rumpled suit of clothes. He didn’t look wholly out of
place in the bedroom so obviously decorated by Buffy. The honey colored duvet, sheets and pillows cases in shades
of off-whites and beige, the amber-toned table lamp that filled the room with a soft-luminescence akin to candlelight
– all of this seemed to match and compliment William’s still platinum hair and colorless skin. And when did the man
start wearing earth tones? Giles was sure that had been Dawn’s influence, but it was a far cry from the black
and red that once dominated William the Bloody’s wardrobe. Giles felt a deep, almost paralyzing bolt of sadness,
seeing him like this. Seeing him perched at Buffy’s bedside, as though she might materialize right there while he was
sleeping.
And though he slept, Giles didn’t think he rested. Not judging by the heavy furrows in his brow, or by the droplets
of dried blood on his jeans. How could he rest, with her gone? How could any of them rest? How had they managed
before?
Giles backtracked mentally. Before, she had been dead. They had managed because grieving was a natural part of
death. This time, she had been taken. Nothing natural about it. And he had to hold it together if they meant to find
her.
William woke suddenly, giving Giles a start.
“Dear Lord,” he whispered.
William craned his neck, but instead of his patented annoyance, he looked achingly lost.
“Rupert,” he said hollowly. “Didn’t hear you come in,” He scrubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands.
“There was a spell,” Giles said, not wasting any time.
William sat up, eyes brightly alert.
Giles nodded. “Yes. One of great power. But,” he paused to underscore the importance of the next words, “not
cast on this plane.”
“Not on this…plane?” William echoed. He sat up straighter.
Giles came over to the bed and sat on its edge, careful not to disturb the sheets and blankets. He took a place
opposite William and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “It seems someone very powerful was able to punch a hole
in this dimension and take our Buffy out,” he explained.
William grew still as he puzzled things together. “Well, narrows the field, dunnit?” he asked. “Only a few powerful
someones could throw that kind of juice around.”
“Willow did it. Once,” Giles said evenly.
William opened his mouth to speak, but shut it again.
“Spike,” Giles said. “If another version of Willow were to… meddle with that level of magics it is possible…”
“She was in heaven,” William said distantly. His voice sounded bruised.
“Er, yes,” Giles said. “But um, comparatively speaking, this dimension could seem...”
“There was no baby,” William said, more with urgency now. “Buffy came back to us un… pregnant, Rupert!”
“I’m not saying it is our Willow. Or was,” Giles said, trying with much effort to remain calm. “There is precedence
for other Willows, other witches for that matter, who might wield such magics. According to the Coven in
Westbury, the previous attempts to, erm, capture Buffy may account for the bouts of sleepwalking...”
William flung himself back against the chair. “Bugger it,” he swore. “Why can’t those bitches leave us the hell
alone!” He raked his hands through his hair, then clenched his fists at his temples. Giles moved instinctively away,
remembering Spike’s penchant for unexpected physical aggression.
But William seemed to curl in on himself, withering within with his grief.
“She was happy, Giles,” William said in a struggling and choked voice. He rubbed at his eyes with trembling fingers.
The Watcher looked away.
“I know it,” Giles said. He gave William a few moments to regain his composure before attempting to continue the
conversation.
William blew out a shaky sigh and sat forward, his posture mirroring Giles’.
“So, what now?” he said. “Can we get her back?”
Giles lifted his chin, surprised at how quickly William had recovered. “I intend to try,” he said firmly. “I have to go
away for a while. I want to work closely with the Coven to find a way to get our Buffy back.”
William’s eyes were wild, but his tone was even. “Yes,” he said. “Fine. Good.”
“Understand such things are exceedingly dangerous,” Giles said.
“No need to read me the warning label, Rupert. We’ve weathered such things before.”
“Dangerous to her. And the child,” Giles put in, making sure that his tone conveyed all of its proper gravity. “Spike,
physically crossing between worlds can be a complicated undertaking, and the price is always very high.”
William raised his eyes to meet the Watcher’s. “What is it you need?” he asked.
Giles cleared his throat, not knowing how Spike might take his request. He said, “I need you to watch over Dawn
and Andrew while I’m gone. And the school, of course.”
William’s lips curved. A second later, he chuckled darkly. He settled against the chair. “Bet this was never how you
pictured me: Fatherly type, holding down a 9 to 5. Me. The Black Menace. William the Bloody.”
Giles uttered a surprised gasp of laughter. “You can’t still want to lug that moniker around, can you?” he said.
“I bloody well don’t know what to do,” William said weakly. “Without her, I’m losing my mind a bit. Can’t drink it off.
Can’t fight it off. I just feel… empty.” His voice broke on the last word and he turned his head to look out the
window. The November air frosted the windows with a chilly scrim of ice, obscuring his view of the street outside.
Giles nodded, knowing exactly how William felt. With a spark of inspiration, he said, “There is evil left to fight in the
world. Shall I leave you a demon compendium? You can start with Abaddon and work your way through to Zuul.”
William pondered the merits of the idea for a moment. Then he remembered Lorne.
“Speaking of demons,” he said. “Found out a bit from my visit to Triumvirate.”
“Did you?”
“Turns out your thoughts of a demon coup may have teeth in it,” William said. He explained everything Lorne had
told him, right down to Nighna’s unforeseen move to join the Hellbound party. But he omitted the hitting Lorne for
no good reason bit.
“That’s an unexpected move from her,” Giles said. “Kimaris are not known for simply lending hands to help a cause.”
“Yeah, figured that,” William said with a shrug.
Giles gripped William’s shoulder as he got to his feet. “Yes, well, I’ll… make a note,” he said. “In the meantime, the
house is in your hands.”
William looked up at him. “Find her, will you?”
“I’ll do all I can,” Giles said. It felt like a vacant declaration, considering. He was a Watcher, not a witch. He wasn’t
sure how much good he would be able to do.
But William seemed to take it as reassurance. He stood, stretched, and followed Giles out of the empty room.
“See, Margot. Kali Yantra marks the spot.”
Ariadne Hughes beamed at the older witch, who nodded her approval. Margot Ludston stepped forward from the
scorched circle burned into the alley floor. She examined the rough trident-within-a-circle-mark painted across the
bricks of the wall.
“Yes. You’re spot on, Ariadne. All your practicing has paid off,” Margot said. She sniffed the air and grimaced as
she took in their surroundings. It was a grimy place, plainly American, with more than a dash of pure, ancient evil.
“It has, ma’am,” Ariadne said, puffing up. “Thanks for noticing.”
“So the Slayer’s been here?” Margot asked. She put her nose almost to the surface of the bricks to have an even
closer look.
“Oh, yes. Of course, yes. The Yantra don’t lie,” Ariadne said.
“Doesn’t lie,” Margot corrected. “Can you track her?”
“Well,” Ariadne said. She took the canister out of the pocket of her overcoat and began to vigorously shake it.
“The spell got us this far. The rest is up to us. We’ll have to Sherlock it from here.”
“Honestly, Ariadne,” Margot said. “Your habit of turning nouns into verbs… It’s really quite appalling.”
The beam of an electric torch swept across them, and both women froze. A lean, terribly young figure in a blue
uniform stepped into the mouth of the alley.
“Oh heavens to Devon, you frightened us,” Ariadne said, still rattling the canister in her hand. “It’s a police
officer, Margot. Maybe he can help us locate the Slayer.”
The officer came further into the alley. “Hey!” he shouted “What are you planning to do with that?”
“What? This?” Ariadne asked.
“Put the canister away,” Margot said through a tight-lipped grin.
Ariadne looked from the policeman to the canister and back. “Oh. That’s… It’s not what you think.”
The officer advanced. He kept one hand on the torch, which he trained on the two peculiar looking women – one
with choppy white hair and a haughty expression, the other a lithe youthful girl with stringy black hair tucked into
a gray fedora. He bounced the beam from them to the spot on the wall onto which it seemed they’d painted an odd
occultish looking mark.
“Not what I think, eh? I think the ladies of Ab/Fab need a ticket for vandalism,” the officer said.
“Ticket?” Ariadne balked.
“Vandals? Now see here…” Margot said. Margot moved toward the policeman, and it looked as though the man was
about to take a swing at her with his torch. Ariadne raised the canister. A light burst later, the man lay face down
on the pavement. His torch spun into a scummy puddle, the sputtered out.
Margot opened first one eye, then the other. “Oh, now look what you’ve done,” she said. She clicked her tongue.
“Oops,” Ariadne said. She bent to touch the officer’s neck. The pulse drummed steadily beneath the skin. “No harm
done. Just… resting. In a few years, he’ll be fit as a fiddlehead.”
“He’ll be fine,” Margot said. “Give me that.” She whisked the canister from Ariadne’s hands and pointed it at the
Kali Yantra. With it, she sucked the mark and a little bit of the brick right off the wall.
“Now,” Margot said, passing the canister back to Ariadne. “It’s time we found our Slayer.”
Time was slipperier here.
Buffy didn’t know how to explain it any other way. What she felt was unlike anything she had felt before, but it was
like she was a loose pebble bumping along a riverbed, with a raging torrent somewhere way above her.
Dawn – this Dawn – wasn’t much help. She slept most of the time, and when she didn’t sleep, she burbled like an
infant. Spike kept his distance, too. He was ever-present, but made with the lurking like any self-respecting
vampire should.
So Buffy hung around the house. More rightly, around the basement. It wasn’t so bad as Buffy originally thought. In
one of Dawn’s few lucid periods, she explained that Xander had been the one to install the cleverly concealed mini-
bath and fully-stocked kitchenette in what had once been the Summers’ laundry room. Buffy learned from her own
snooping that someone, probably Spike, had tapped into the neighbor’s electricity grid and water main.
So they had really, truly gone underground.
Now, about the why… Buffy had questions, and no one was exactly handing out a crib sheet with the answers.
And time was all slippy. She had no idea how long she’d been here, which: Frustration. To compound matters, Buffy
couldn’t stop crying. She remembered reading once, a really long time ago – probably in a doctor’s waiting room
when her Mom had been sick – that mood-swinginess was all part of pregnancy. She had no idea she had so many
tears in her. It was like her body had tapped into an internal tear dimension and they just poured forth at random
moments. Translation: all the time.
It amounted to a feeling of slowly unraveling. Unraveling and unstuck in time were two very bad things. Without
Willow and Giles, she didn’t even know who she could talk to about getting back home. She needed to get out into
Sunnydale proper to seek an outsider to help, but with Spike’s aloofness, she didn’t feel right leaving Dawn alone in
her present state.
She had just resolved hunt up Spike (who was “hiding” out back, near the arbor) for a vamp-to-Slayer chat when a
shabby homeless type shambled up the front walk.
The guy hesitated when he saw her, but continued up the path at a purposeful limp. Figuring, perhaps, that he
wouldn’t have trouble with an equally vagrant petite blonde girl.
Buffy leaned against the column of her front porch and crossed her arms.
“Looking for something?” she asked.
The guy shuffled forward until his face fell under the shadow of the overhang. “A place to stay,” he said. Buffy
winced at the pungent waft of cheap wine that seeped from the man’s pores. “Thought the house was empty.”
“Well, it’s not,” Buffy said. She gestured with her fingers. “Run along.”
The guy took another groveling step forward. “At least,” he said. “Maybe a bite to eat?”
He morphed into vamp face.
“Oh, thank God!” Buffy said. The vampire sailed at her. She grabbed him by the flannel overshirt and slammed his
head into the column. It felt so good, she did it again. And again. The guy finally lost his demon mask and begged
between poundings for her to stop.
Spike flew in, right in the middle of the first decent slay Buffy’d had in weeks, and twisted the guy’s head the wrong
way around.
Buffy whirled on him. “Why did you do that?”
“He was a vampire,” Spike said, adjusting his shoulders within the sleeves of his duster.
Buffy waved her hand, “Slayer here.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Forgot.”
Buffy had been working on a theory regarding Spike. She took a step toward him to test it. Sure enough, he took an
equal measure back. Preferred arm’s length, she noticed. And seemed not to fixate on her eyes like before, but
instead settled on the scar that ran the length of her face.
And maybe it was best he keep his distance. She didn’t know why Mr. Irritatingly Perceptive hadn’t noticed the
extra beating heart in her body, but so far, she was glad that he hadn’t. She remembered coldly that Angel could
hear it. And he had wanted to hurt them both.
“Look, I…” Buffy began.
“It’s Sunday,” Spike interrupted.
“Sunday?” Buffy asked.
“That’s right,” he said, going all defensive and glowery.
Buffy frowned. Spike had made it his habit to keep her on the wrong foot with him since she’d arrived. “And that’s
the day you and the little missus get all gussied up for church?” she asked.
“Gussied?”
“Spike…” Buffy said. So awkward.
He shook his head. “It’s bath day,” he said, as if that would dispel all of her confusion.
“Come again?”
When he spoke, his words came out in a rushed tumble of syllables. He said, “Every Sunday I take Dawn to the
Sunnydale Motor Inn so that she can take a proper shower, wash her hair and have some take out Chinese food. She
knows the place now and almost never slips. You’re welcome to come along, but you’ll have to meet us. Bike’s not
built for three.”
Buffy gaped at him. She didn’t know which part disturbed her most. No, wait. She did. She said, “You take my blind
sister on a motorcycle?”
He glared at her.
“Do you at least wear helmets?” she asked.
“’Course we do,” he said. He rolled his eyes, which half-infuriated Buffy for no good reason.
“And… you don’t… help?” Buffy said. Which sounded innocently enough in her head, but came out all wrong and Spike
was aghast.
“Of course not,” he protested. “There are girlie… parts under there.”
“Right,” Buffy said, smiling. “Mr. Chaste.”
“It’s not like that,” Spike said, not sharing the smile. “It’s never been like that, Buffy. I promise.”
Buffy leaned toward him. It felt so natural to her to reach for him, but this Spike retreated from her touch.
“Sunnydale Motor Inn,” Buffy said. “That’s the one off Highway 8?”
“S’right,” said Spike.
He stalked away, leaving her on the porch to go get Dawn ready for their weekly bathly ritual. Tears welled again in
her eyes. She was so disconnected here, so lost. Achingly… lost.
“You're going to work?” Dawn asked. The shrillness of her voice grated his eardrums. The place seemed hushed as
the convalescent home it once was, what with Harris and his wispy bint gone off to cattle country, and with the
others… He trailed off in his thinking, realizing that Dawn had asked him a question and was expecting him to
respond.
“Well, yeah Niblet,” William said, stirring honey into his tea. “Someone’s got to run that school. MK can't run it.” He
paused, considering. “Pretty sure there are laws against it.”
Dawn appeared at his elbow. “But what about Buffy?”
William gripped the handle of his mug, seeming for a moment to be mentally and emotionally sinking. But he buoyed
back up and turned to her.
“I need to act, Dawn,” he told her. “’m not much for research and bollocks at books. This is what I can do to hang
on till she gets back.”
“What if she…?”
“Don’t,” William said, more severe than he intended. She blinked, suddenly teary. “Don’t say it. And don’t cry. We
will get her back.”
“How?” Dawn cried.
“Rupert’s got himself a lead,” William told her.
Dawn wiped at her eyes like a tantrumy child. “He does?”
“Yeah. Left for Westbury this morning. Said there was a spell…”
“A spell?” Dawn’s eyes went from weary to hyper-excited in about two seconds.
William forced a smile. “S’right, pet. We’ll have Buffy back by Christmas.”
“Promise,” Dawn said.
Carried away on the wave of infectious Dawn enthusiasm, William spoke before he could stop himself. “All right,” he
said, pulling her into his arms. “I promise.”
Buffy welcomed the chance to get out of the house. She navigated her former patrol route by memory, making a few
course corrections according to new developments in Sunnydale. As she had noticed before, the suburban
population had moved away from the once quaint and peaceful Revello Drive. A distinctly urban populace had taken
its place, and this was true for most of the neighborhoods surrounding Buffy’s old stomping ground.
Buffy made mental notes along the way. Hole In The Wall Donuts, where Xander made many a late night coffee run,
had become Ginello’s Pawn Shop, complete with a lovely ring of shiny razor wire and a stack of dead TV sets out
front. The QuikEE Lube on Redson and Palmer had transformed into a rowdy roadhouse called The High Dive. And the
lovely granite-faced Methodist Church on Fifth Street and Canal had burned to the ground.
Buffy didn’t see the most disturbing change to the Sunnydale skyline until she crested the ridge at Lookout Point.
There, seated like a fat, black creeping slug, was a series of slick office buildings behind a high iron fence and
heavily guarded gate. Right where Sunnydale High used to be. Right on top of the Hellmouth.
Buffy arrived at the Sunnydale Motor Inn fully revved up to grill Spike on the new, powerful presence squatting on
the Hellmouth. She burst in and staggered to a halt.
Dawn sat amid paper napkins and empty Chinese food cartons on the bed with her back to Spike. With a wide-
toothed comb in hand, Spike tenderly unraveled knots from her sister’s badly tangled hair.
“Come in, Buffy,” Dawn said, without turning to the door. “Pull up some debris. I have lots. And lots and lots and
lots…”
Buffy stared at them, feeling oddly excluded by this tradition they shared. Disconnected. She came over and joined
them on the bed, careful not to look at Dawn’s frightfully scaly eyes.
“Saved you an egg roll,” Spike said, flicking a nod to one of the containers.
“Um, thanks,” Buffy said. She went straight for it. She seemed to be in permanent ravenous mode, and eating the
dry rations at the house didn’t quite cut it.
“So,” Spike said, focusing his attention on a particularly bad snarl. “Get a chance to have a look around?”
Buffy chewed and swallowed hard. “Yep. Sunnydale’s come a long way.”
Dawn groped blindly in Buffy’s direction, her white hands searching across the bedspread.
“You saw the Compound,” Spike said.
Buffy had crammed the last of the egg roll in her mouth. “The Romroud?” she asked.
“That’s right, Scooby,” Spike said, parting Dawn’s hair around the knot so that he could really get at it. “World
Headquarters of TriadCorp.”
Dawn’s hand settled on Buffy’s stomach. The girl chirped happily as a nightingale. Buffy looked down and hurriedly
brushed her sister’s hand away.
“TriadCorp?” Buffy asked. She wiped a dribble of soy sauce from her chin.
“Some kind of military contractor,” Spike said absently. “Set up shop few years back. Guess you noted its special
geographic significance.”
“9021-Hellmouth?”
“Girl’s got it…” Spike sang. He settled with the tangle, pulling the comb through Dawn’s hair with ease. He
sectioned out another parcel of hair to disentangle.
Dawn reached across the bed again. This time, Buffy linked her fingers with Dawn’s before the girl could make
contact. Dawn turned her blank eyes to Buffy and flashed a sparkly smile.
Which meant that even if Spike couldn’t sense the baby, Dawn did.
Buffy didn’t get why, but the idea made her shivery cold.
A frantic thought flew up at her again. Buffy had to get out of Sunnydale. She had to get back home.
.Chapter Index.
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends