 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
This chapter is dedicated to Corey Holbrook. 1977-2006
Innocents Lost
“Yeah, babe… but, all of them?” Lorne paced on his muppet skin rug, his Hot Lips phone in hand to facilitate his
pacing. He had been on the phone, wearing down bits of this of rug for three hours, and the reports had gone from
‘hey that’s a bummer’ to ‘holy Robot Chicken, it’s full-on apocalyptic!’
“Okay. Look. I know we can’t get dancers in on such short notice, but we can pick up busboys from the Fat Duck.
I know a guy,” Lorne said. He paused, listening to the Brevnar demon on the other end fume and cry Mary.
“I know, big guy… I know,” Lorne soothed. “All I’m saying is that Triumvirate can survive a demon boycott…”
The Brevnar kicked it up a notch, shrilling into the phone on the other end like a cat in a meat grinder. “Hey!”
Lorne shouted. “Yes. Yes, I realize our clientele is down by a third since the Vampire Cleansing, but… No, this is not
the first demon strike in human history.”
The Brevnar objected. Lorne said, “No, it is not the largest demon strike in history. You’re forgetting the Troll
Wars of 300 B. C. Well, I realize it’s hardly the same…”
The demon on the other end raved and sobbed. Lorne heard the thing blow its nose-hole and continue to bawl
unintelligibly over the connection.
“Look,” Lorne said calmly. “Nighna entrusted the place to me, and where I come from, that kind of offering isn’t a
mere trifle, I can tell you. Now you don’t think I’m gonna let it just topple over like a tiered wedding cake in the
Alabama sun? Not this green-faced Pylean…”
But the Brevnar was beyond reason. Thankfully, the call-waiting tone beeped in, letting Lorne off the hook. So to
speak.
“Hey, Jeb…” Lorne bit in, trying to talk over the Brevnar’s incessant hysteria. “I, uh, got another call.”
Lorne clicked from one near-mad demon to another. “Well,” Lorne said softly when he recognized the voice of the
demon on the other line. “I didn’t expect to hear from you since…”
The second demon was talking, though, in a hard yet hushed way that made Lorne’s blood turn to ice.
Lorne reached through the bar into the kitchen, where he had a notepad and a pencil.
“All right,” Lorne said, scribbling. “Got it.” Pause. “You spell that with two Cs?” Lorne asked. “And a silent… Q?”
Lorne glanced at the three lines he’d written on the page. On the other end of the line, the demon informant was
silent.
“You’re sure?” Lorne asked, feeling his heart beat in the back of his throat. And for him, that was a quite a climb.
Then, “I got it. I’ll tell them.”
Lorne hung up the phone and stared at the circles his feet tread into his bright red shag rug. “Well,” he said,
steeling himself with a thorough sigh. “Looks like the end all over again.”
“I like rice,” Buffy said.
Spike looked over his shoulder at her, but continued to walk. Buffy was nervous chatty. And also hungry. Wiggin’
hungry. She began to wonder if Spike was planning on a drive-thru before this… whatever it was he planned to show
her.
“I actually like it plain, with butter,” she went on. “It’s like popcorn. Which I also love.”
She saw Spike smirk with the slight turn of his head. Any attempts she made at small talk Teflon-ed right off of him.
He was a big non-stick frying pan of not talking.
Which reminded her… “I like fried rice, too,” she said. “With soy sauce. Or that yummy pink sauce at General
Wok’s.”
Spike led the way down familiar back streets, walking slowly yet putting distance between them.
They were bound for the downtown area, sticking to the back streets she knew and disliked so well. Sunnydale by
night was lit up like a carnival. Something big was going down, like a street fair or a block party. Maybe there would
be food.
“Right this way, pet. Not much further now,” he said.
“Could we maybe pick up snacks? I’m feeling a bit rice-y,” Buffy said.
Spike drew up short of the street and turned his serious eyes to meet hers. “You may want to save it for after,” he
told her.
“After what?”
Spike pursed his lips and watched her – really watched her. She hadn’t seen him eye her with such intensity since
her return. Whatever it was he meant to show her, he was having second thoughts about it.
“Spike,” she said. “While it’s sweet that you’re concerned, I’ve slain all manner of goopy, gross monsters – large
ones, small ones, some as big as your head…”
“Your point is…?”
“I don’t slay well on an empty stomach,” Buffy said. Her belly grumbled to underscore the statement.
Spike drew up on the corner, scanning the busy street around them. “Well, you’re in luck. No slaying in order. None
of my kind will be rearing their bumpy heads tonight.”
“But…”
Spike lifted a finger to quiet her. Normally, this type of gesture would annoy the hell out of Buffy, but she soon saw
the source of the distraction.
Ahead of them, a woman had pulled a stroller to the curb. Buffy beheld the chubby waving arms of an infant, and her
ability to focus on anything else slid off the face of the planet.
Buffy went immediately to the stroller and peered down at the wiggling child all swaddled up in a green gingham
blanket.
“Aw,” she gushed. “She’s beautiful.”
The mom, a thirties-ish woman in a long dress with sneakers and ankle socks, grinned knowingly.
“He, actually,” she corrected gently.
“Oh – I’m sorry. The color’s all gender ambiguous. I didn’t mean to. I mean…” Buffy fumbled.
The mom set about to the task of unswaddling in order to re-diaper him. “It’s okay. It’s the eyelashes. He’s got the
longest on record,” she said. “At least, I think so…”
Buffy now marveled inwardly at the prospect of future diaperings and the showering of eyelash praise from random
pedestrians. She stared down into the little boy’s radiant grey-blue eyes.
“I’ll say,” Buffy agreed. “He could lasso the moon with those things. H-how old is he?”
“Twenty-two weeks,” she said. The mom unfastened the baby’s diaper. At which point, Buffy turned prudently
away.
“Spike,” she said excitedly. “He’s so young he’s measured in weeks…”
“Let’s go, pet,” he said.
Buffy took this abruptness as an unwillingness to witness baby wiping. But once they dipped back off the street, she
saw and understood too well when she saw Spike tuck several bills into his hip pocket.
“You robbed her?” she asked, all belligerent and rage-y. “You robbed that woman while she was changing her infant?
Just when I think you can’t sink any lower.”
Spike whirled on her. “Come off it, will you? Don’t get your virtue in a twist.”
“You disgust me…”
Spike cocked his head to the side and glared down at her. “Please,” he drawled. “With instincts like that, I give her
three weeks. Tops. And that darling little cherub will be just another Sunnydale statistic.”
“No thanks to you,” Buffy bit out. She squared with him, mood swing fully swung.
“Where do you think it comes from? Hmm?” Spike asked.
“What?”
Spike said, “The cameo apples Dawn so adored last week. The bread. The milk. The weekly showers at the motor inn.
Someone pays the Culligan Man for the water you both drink. And the clothes you’re wearing…”
“Sack cloths, you mean,” Buffy interrupted.
Spike’s forehead knotted up in frustration. “Dawn doesn’t like restrictive clothing. Makes her itch…”
And for that, Buffy was silently grateful. Loose clothing had so far saved her the need for growing bumpiness of her
tummy.
Spike stepped forward, continuing in a steady, reasoning tone. “It costs money, Buffy. How did you think we
managed?”
“Late shift at the Double Meat?” she put in, hopefully.
“Rot. A month you’ve been here. Years before that, I’ve been here…”
“I’ve been here a month?”
Spike heaved a frustrated sigh. He turned and headed up the street, toward the main part of town. Buffy followed,
trying now to piece together how it was possible she’d already spent thirty days in Sunnydale.
“My petty larceny’s the least of our worries, Slayer. I’m a vampire. Not exactly suited for your standard 9 to 5,” he
said. He came to a stop in the center of an abandoned street and looked up. “We’re here.”
“Here?” Buffy said, glancing around, confused. “Where’s here?”
Spike leapt up, caught the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder and pulled it down. “After you,” he said.
Buffy climbed over the brick ledge and onto the rooftop. It was dark and vaguely romantic, which made her feel a
bit exposed and insecure in light of their most recent confrontation. She felt a stab of longing for William. He could
piss her off just as royally as Spike, but at least she knew where they stood. Which was together, and that was nice
and comfortable. But Spike was so un-any-of-those-things.
“This way,” he said, guiding her almost tenderly to the corner of the rooftop. The angle and shadow from the
building adjacent provided adequate cover while giving her the perfect vantage of the downtown square below. She
could see the marquee of the Sun Theatre, the Magic Box, the bookshop, the bank annex and several other, familiar
storefronts.
New here was the wooden stage set up at the intersection of Main Street and Wilkins Avenue. Police barricades
cordoned off the downtown, enabling vendors to set up along the square. She saw face painting booths, booths with
balloons and toys and neon glowy necklaces, and food… roasted ears of corn, shrimp and sausages on sticks, bread
bowls full of chili, hot dogs, funnel cakes, ice cream in waffle cones. The smell of it drove her to sensory overload.
“Wow,” she marveled, her mouth watering in sloppy, dog-like fashion. “A street festival. Looks like something’s
been good for business.”
Spike sat down against the ledge, his body turned away from the activity below. He took a cigarette between his
lips and lit it with practiced flair. Buffy hunkered down beside him.
She watched droves of Sunnydale folk strolling along the streets in packs of threes and fours. It was agreeable night
for a party. The weather was pleasant and balmy. There was music and food and laughter. If she squinted and forgot
about her action-packed tenure on the Hellmouth, it seemed like a perfectly normal place to live.
“You know,” Buffy said. “This is what I never understood. This place is so evil and Hellmouthy. Don’t they keep
death rate and violent crime statistics on record at City Hall?”
Spike chuckled, waving swirls into the smoke that curled from his cigarette. “Yeah, sure. But it’s all one spin away
from ‘slice of heaven,’ innit?”
“I guess,” Buffy said. “It’s an excellent place to live for retirees, vamps or people who want their kids devoured by
giant snakes. I mean, really. Why do people keep coming here?”
Spike patted the recently nicked cash in his pocket. “It’s the American dream, luv. Buy some land. Build a house.
Pop out some kiddies and grub an existence till you die. Some can’t afford the more ritzy digs, so they take their
chances here. Meanwhile, big business and demons alike know a ripe plum when they see it. Population’s more than
doubled since TriadCorp and the military base…”
Buffy snapped to attention. “Sunnydale’s not on a military base,” she said.
“Is now, Princess.”
Buffy let out a sigh. “Yay for evil big government. We both know how extra-creepified things get when those guys
pair up with demons.”
Spike lifted his eyes skyward. “Match made in hell,” he said.
“You were right to turn this place into a roadside attraction…” Buffy muttered.
“Beg pardon?”
She caught herself at the beginning of explanation, but just waved it away. “It’s nothing,” she said. She leaned
onto the ledge, resting her chin on her folded hands. “Oh. A crowd’s gathering.”
Without so much as a twitch, Spike said, “Time for the show.”
Buffy perked. “There’s entertainment? Like a speech? Or, oh! A gymnastics exhibition?”
Spike groaned softly. “Just watch, Slayer.”
“This is me. I’m Watchin’ Girl,” Buffy told him.
As if on some unseen signal, the carnival-goers drifted toward the stage. The mood shifted from convivial to
downright somber.
“Okay. Watchin’ Girl’s now Concerned Girl,” she said. She glanced at Spike, who sat all noncommittal with his wrists
resting on his knees and his cigarette turning to ash between his fingers. “Who called for scene change?”
“Guess it would be them,” Spike said.
Buffy leaned on the ledge. Her pulse quickened at the sound of chanting ruffling around the edges of the
congregation. As the noise rose, the people below quieted. And after a moment, several torch-bearing, robed and
hooded figures appeared behind the platform. The crowd parted, allowing the figures wide berth. Buffy tried very
hard to understand the expressions on the audience member’s faces. She read awe, reverence, fear, hate – but all
humor had bled from them. The robed figures, still chanting their discordant plainsong, mounted the platform before
a rapt and terrified audience.
Matters worsened when the last figure took the stage: an executioner, clad in black brigandine, complete with an
enormous double-headed axe.
Buffy took that as her cue to move. But Spike caught her around the waist.
“Wait…” he said.
She stared down into his face, trying for all that was sane to read him. But he was so impassive he’d give Angel a
decent run.
So she waited.
And she counted. Nine robed figures. One executioner. And a mass of people struck suddenly dumb in their
presence. She could take them. If she had to, Buffy knew she could take them down.
One of the robed figures stepped forward. With a wave of her arms, the crescendoing chants cut off. The people,
their faces upturned, their eyes wide with fear, took a collective step backward.
The figure took down her cowl, revealing the soft face of a regular looking woman. The illusion was ruined when she
brought her hands together and an orange orb of crackling energy coalesced between her fingers.
“The witches,” Buffy breathed.
“Wait,” Spike said again.
The head witch spoke. “We are gathered here tonight in the name of justice,” she said, letting the orb swell and
flow above her palms. “For us, it is swift. It is fair. It is flawless…”
Behind her, the executioner had set aside his axe and had begun to string up nooses from the upper bar of the
platform. The other witches ringed the stage, their whispered chants like raven’s wings on the night breeze.
“Oh,” Buffy said, feeling deeply chilled. “I think it’s a gallows, Spike.”
Spike took a drag from his cigarette. “Of course it’s a bloody gallows…”
“We’re in a public place,” Buffy interrupted. “With many on-lookers. All those people…”
“Are gonna watch like good sodding citizens.”
Buffy returned her attention to the stage. The executioner had led three bound and gagged prisoners – two women
and a man - onto the platform. Another one of the witches stepped forward, unrolled an archaic scroll and began to
read a list of charges: theft, deceit, indecency, debauchery. As the accuser spoke, the orb of energy stretched
into a nebulous cloud of heavy orange smoke. It divided into three separate veils that settled above the heads of
the condemned.
The executioner positioned each prisoner on a wooden block beneath a noose. Buffy watched the prisoners,
watched their dejected downcast eyes for signs of hope. Perhaps a signal for a daring escape attempt. Something.
Anything.
“Why don’t they do something?” Buffy asked desperately. Her stomach rolled.
Spike moved close to her. When he spoke, she felt his lips brush her ear.
“What can they do, Slayer? They’re just people…”
Buffy’s pulse raced. She jumped to her feet.
“I’m not…” she said, but faltered. She had no idea what she was all ‘not’ about.
Spike pushed her backward, away from the ledge.
She was crying now. Or rather, crying again. “Why? Why did you even bring me here?” she hissed at him.
He merely inclined his head, giving her the stubborn resolve face she had come to know so well.
Buffy turned back, compelled as the crowd beneath her to observe the fate of the prisoners. She watched
breathlessly as the executioner cinched the knots tight around the first woman’s neck. Another sound rippled
through the crowd, spreading chills down Buffy’s arms. The audience had joined the witches’ chanting, suffusing it
with an unnerving tonelessness.
She couldn’t just watch… and yet she couldn’t tear herself away. “When?” she wept. “When did Sunnydale go
completely Nathaniel Hawthorne?”
Without warning, the executioner knocked down the first block and the prisoner dropped.
Buffy fell to her knees, retching, sputtering and sobbing uncontrollably. Spike looped an arm over her shoulder; she
shoved him away.
“This!” she screamed. “How can they let this happen? How can they just watch?”
“They’re humans, Buffy. Weak. Scared. Stupid. It’s what they are…”
“Then they’re part of it. All of them. They…” Buffy caught herself. Not they, she amended inwardly. We. And then
another realization struck. One that sent her reeling.
“Oh God. These are the witches who hurt Dawn. They did this? Put her up in public like this? They put out her eyes
and people just watched? And where were you? Why didn’t you stop them? She deserves better than this…”
Spike gripped her shoulders and gave her body a violent shake. He bore down on her, fangs bared, his lumpy
forehead almost touching hers. His voracious yellow eyes glinted as he stared hard into hers.
“I was here,” he growled, his claws digging into her skin. “I was here, Buffy. Bound, gagged and down a bloody well…
but I was here. And you were not. Dawn’s on-stage tragedy was damaging, but it was merely the second act. Our
lives – our whole world – came crashing down the night you jumped off that tower.”
“So this is somehow my fault?” she bit out.
“Not somehow,” he said, morphing out of his vampire face. “Is. How could you think any of us would ever be safe
without you?”
Buffy wiped her eyes with a shaking hand. “But I died. Another Slayer was called to take my place. It’s our built-in
Plan B.”
“Your Plan B is locked up tight in the San Bernardino State Correctional Facility,” Spike said. He shoved her away
and spread his arms wide. “You keep saying you don’t belong here. Keep sayin’ it, but you’re wrong. You are here
for a reason, pet. Just take a look down there.”
Buffy turned. Three bodies swung from a gallows in beautiful downtown Sunnydale. The Witches were gone; the
crowd was dispersing. But the bodies remained, a pall of sickly orange vapor obscuring their faces. Spike stood
behind her, his sharp, cold cheekbone less than an inch from her skin.
“The how and why of it doesn’t matter. You’re here now. What’s important is… what are you going to do about it?”
Buffy smeared the tears away with the heels of her hands. She turned within the cage of his arms. One look at
Spike’s pseudo-serene façade and she realized, again, what she really, really hated about him. No matter what his
current incarnation, he had a way of showing her exactly what she needed to see. Even if she really, really did not
want to see it.
“I truly hate you,” she said.
She could tell by the pleased yet hopeful look in his faded blue eyes that he already knew he’d won. Point made. Point
scored. Cheers to old Spike.
“I know it, baby,” Spike said as he lit another cigarette. He took a deep drag and blew out the smoke in a satisfied
stream. “I know.”
Innocents Lost
“Yeah, babe… but, all of them?” Lorne paced on his muppet skin rug, his Hot Lips phone in hand to facilitate his
pacing. He had been on the phone, wearing down bits of this of rug for three hours, and the reports had gone from
‘hey that’s a bummer’ to ‘holy Robot Chicken, it’s full-on apocalyptic!’
“Okay. Look. I know we can’t get dancers in on such short notice, but we can pick up busboys from the Fat Duck.
I know a guy,” Lorne said. He paused, listening to the Brevnar demon on the other end fume and cry Mary.
“I know, big guy… I know,” Lorne soothed. “All I’m saying is that Triumvirate can survive a demon boycott…”
The Brevnar kicked it up a notch, shrilling into the phone on the other end like a cat in a meat grinder. “Hey!”
Lorne shouted. “Yes. Yes, I realize our clientele is down by a third since the Vampire Cleansing, but… No, this is not
the first demon strike in human history.”
The Brevnar objected. Lorne said, “No, it is not the largest demon strike in history. You’re forgetting the Troll
Wars of 300 B. C. Well, I realize it’s hardly the same…”
The demon on the other end raved and sobbed. Lorne heard the thing blow its nose-hole and continue to bawl
unintelligibly over the connection.
“Look,” Lorne said calmly. “Nighna entrusted the place to me, and where I come from, that kind of offering isn’t a
mere trifle, I can tell you. Now you don’t think I’m gonna let it just topple over like a tiered wedding cake in the
Alabama sun? Not this green-faced Pylean…”
But the Brevnar was beyond reason. Thankfully, the call-waiting tone beeped in, letting Lorne off the hook. So to
speak.
“Hey, Jeb…” Lorne bit in, trying to talk over the Brevnar’s incessant hysteria. “I, uh, got another call.”
Lorne clicked from one near-mad demon to another. “Well,” Lorne said softly when he recognized the voice of the
demon on the other line. “I didn’t expect to hear from you since…”
The second demon was talking, though, in a hard yet hushed way that made Lorne’s blood turn to ice.
Lorne reached through the bar into the kitchen, where he had a notepad and a pencil.
“All right,” Lorne said, scribbling. “Got it.” Pause. “You spell that with two Cs?” Lorne asked. “And a silent… Q?”
Lorne glanced at the three lines he’d written on the page. On the other end of the line, the demon informant was
silent.
“You’re sure?” Lorne asked, feeling his heart beat in the back of his throat. And for him, that was a quite a climb.
Then, “I got it. I’ll tell them.”
Lorne hung up the phone and stared at the circles his feet tread into his bright red shag rug. “Well,” he said,
steeling himself with a thorough sigh. “Looks like the end all over again.”
“I like rice,” Buffy said.
Spike looked over his shoulder at her, but continued to walk. Buffy was nervous chatty. And also hungry. Wiggin’
hungry. She began to wonder if Spike was planning on a drive-thru before this… whatever it was he planned to show
her.
“I actually like it plain, with butter,” she went on. “It’s like popcorn. Which I also love.”
She saw Spike smirk with the slight turn of his head. Any attempts she made at small talk Teflon-ed right off of him.
He was a big non-stick frying pan of not talking.
Which reminded her… “I like fried rice, too,” she said. “With soy sauce. Or that yummy pink sauce at General
Wok’s.”
Spike led the way down familiar back streets, walking slowly yet putting distance between them.
They were bound for the downtown area, sticking to the back streets she knew and disliked so well. Sunnydale by
night was lit up like a carnival. Something big was going down, like a street fair or a block party. Maybe there would
be food.
“Right this way, pet. Not much further now,” he said.
“Could we maybe pick up snacks? I’m feeling a bit rice-y,” Buffy said.
Spike drew up short of the street and turned his serious eyes to meet hers. “You may want to save it for after,” he
told her.
“After what?”
Spike pursed his lips and watched her – really watched her. She hadn’t seen him eye her with such intensity since
her return. Whatever it was he meant to show her, he was having second thoughts about it.
“Spike,” she said. “While it’s sweet that you’re concerned, I’ve slain all manner of goopy, gross monsters – large
ones, small ones, some as big as your head…”
“Your point is…?”
“I don’t slay well on an empty stomach,” Buffy said. Her belly grumbled to underscore the statement.
Spike drew up on the corner, scanning the busy street around them. “Well, you’re in luck. No slaying in order. None
of my kind will be rearing their bumpy heads tonight.”
“But…”
Spike lifted a finger to quiet her. Normally, this type of gesture would annoy the hell out of Buffy, but she soon saw
the source of the distraction.
Ahead of them, a woman had pulled a stroller to the curb. Buffy beheld the chubby waving arms of an infant, and her
ability to focus on anything else slid off the face of the planet.
Buffy went immediately to the stroller and peered down at the wiggling child all swaddled up in a green gingham
blanket.
“Aw,” she gushed. “She’s beautiful.”
The mom, a thirties-ish woman in a long dress with sneakers and ankle socks, grinned knowingly.
“He, actually,” she corrected gently.
“Oh – I’m sorry. The color’s all gender ambiguous. I didn’t mean to. I mean…” Buffy fumbled.
The mom set about to the task of unswaddling in order to re-diaper him. “It’s okay. It’s the eyelashes. He’s got the
longest on record,” she said. “At least, I think so…”
Buffy now marveled inwardly at the prospect of future diaperings and the showering of eyelash praise from random
pedestrians. She stared down into the little boy’s radiant grey-blue eyes.
“I’ll say,” Buffy agreed. “He could lasso the moon with those things. H-how old is he?”
“Twenty-two weeks,” she said. The mom unfastened the baby’s diaper. At which point, Buffy turned prudently
away.
“Spike,” she said excitedly. “He’s so young he’s measured in weeks…”
“Let’s go, pet,” he said.
Buffy took this abruptness as an unwillingness to witness baby wiping. But once they dipped back off the street, she
saw and understood too well when she saw Spike tuck several bills into his hip pocket.
“You robbed her?” she asked, all belligerent and rage-y. “You robbed that woman while she was changing her infant?
Just when I think you can’t sink any lower.”
Spike whirled on her. “Come off it, will you? Don’t get your virtue in a twist.”
“You disgust me…”
Spike cocked his head to the side and glared down at her. “Please,” he drawled. “With instincts like that, I give her
three weeks. Tops. And that darling little cherub will be just another Sunnydale statistic.”
“No thanks to you,” Buffy bit out. She squared with him, mood swing fully swung.
“Where do you think it comes from? Hmm?” Spike asked.
“What?”
Spike said, “The cameo apples Dawn so adored last week. The bread. The milk. The weekly showers at the motor inn.
Someone pays the Culligan Man for the water you both drink. And the clothes you’re wearing…”
“Sack cloths, you mean,” Buffy interrupted.
Spike’s forehead knotted up in frustration. “Dawn doesn’t like restrictive clothing. Makes her itch…”
And for that, Buffy was silently grateful. Loose clothing had so far saved her the need for growing bumpiness of her
tummy.
Spike stepped forward, continuing in a steady, reasoning tone. “It costs money, Buffy. How did you think we
managed?”
“Late shift at the Double Meat?” she put in, hopefully.
“Rot. A month you’ve been here. Years before that, I’ve been here…”
“I’ve been here a month?”
Spike heaved a frustrated sigh. He turned and headed up the street, toward the main part of town. Buffy followed,
trying now to piece together how it was possible she’d already spent thirty days in Sunnydale.
“My petty larceny’s the least of our worries, Slayer. I’m a vampire. Not exactly suited for your standard 9 to 5,” he
said. He came to a stop in the center of an abandoned street and looked up. “We’re here.”
“Here?” Buffy said, glancing around, confused. “Where’s here?”
Spike leapt up, caught the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder and pulled it down. “After you,” he said.
Buffy climbed over the brick ledge and onto the rooftop. It was dark and vaguely romantic, which made her feel a
bit exposed and insecure in light of their most recent confrontation. She felt a stab of longing for William. He could
piss her off just as royally as Spike, but at least she knew where they stood. Which was together, and that was nice
and comfortable. But Spike was so un-any-of-those-things.
“This way,” he said, guiding her almost tenderly to the corner of the rooftop. The angle and shadow from the
building adjacent provided adequate cover while giving her the perfect vantage of the downtown square below. She
could see the marquee of the Sun Theatre, the Magic Box, the bookshop, the bank annex and several other, familiar
storefronts.
New here was the wooden stage set up at the intersection of Main Street and Wilkins Avenue. Police barricades
cordoned off the downtown, enabling vendors to set up along the square. She saw face painting booths, booths with
balloons and toys and neon glowy necklaces, and food… roasted ears of corn, shrimp and sausages on sticks, bread
bowls full of chili, hot dogs, funnel cakes, ice cream in waffle cones. The smell of it drove her to sensory overload.
“Wow,” she marveled, her mouth watering in sloppy, dog-like fashion. “A street festival. Looks like something’s
been good for business.”
Spike sat down against the ledge, his body turned away from the activity below. He took a cigarette between his
lips and lit it with practiced flair. Buffy hunkered down beside him.
She watched droves of Sunnydale folk strolling along the streets in packs of threes and fours. It was agreeable night
for a party. The weather was pleasant and balmy. There was music and food and laughter. If she squinted and forgot
about her action-packed tenure on the Hellmouth, it seemed like a perfectly normal place to live.
“You know,” Buffy said. “This is what I never understood. This place is so evil and Hellmouthy. Don’t they keep
death rate and violent crime statistics on record at City Hall?”
Spike chuckled, waving swirls into the smoke that curled from his cigarette. “Yeah, sure. But it’s all one spin away
from ‘slice of heaven,’ innit?”
“I guess,” Buffy said. “It’s an excellent place to live for retirees, vamps or people who want their kids devoured by
giant snakes. I mean, really. Why do people keep coming here?”
Spike patted the recently nicked cash in his pocket. “It’s the American dream, luv. Buy some land. Build a house.
Pop out some kiddies and grub an existence till you die. Some can’t afford the more ritzy digs, so they take their
chances here. Meanwhile, big business and demons alike know a ripe plum when they see it. Population’s more than
doubled since TriadCorp and the military base…”
Buffy snapped to attention. “Sunnydale’s not on a military base,” she said.
“Is now, Princess.”
Buffy let out a sigh. “Yay for evil big government. We both know how extra-creepified things get when those guys
pair up with demons.”
Spike lifted his eyes skyward. “Match made in hell,” he said.
“You were right to turn this place into a roadside attraction…” Buffy muttered.
“Beg pardon?”
She caught herself at the beginning of explanation, but just waved it away. “It’s nothing,” she said. She leaned
onto the ledge, resting her chin on her folded hands. “Oh. A crowd’s gathering.”
Without so much as a twitch, Spike said, “Time for the show.”
Buffy perked. “There’s entertainment? Like a speech? Or, oh! A gymnastics exhibition?”
Spike groaned softly. “Just watch, Slayer.”
“This is me. I’m Watchin’ Girl,” Buffy told him.
As if on some unseen signal, the carnival-goers drifted toward the stage. The mood shifted from convivial to
downright somber.
“Okay. Watchin’ Girl’s now Concerned Girl,” she said. She glanced at Spike, who sat all noncommittal with his wrists
resting on his knees and his cigarette turning to ash between his fingers. “Who called for scene change?”
“Guess it would be them,” Spike said.
Buffy leaned on the ledge. Her pulse quickened at the sound of chanting ruffling around the edges of the
congregation. As the noise rose, the people below quieted. And after a moment, several torch-bearing, robed and
hooded figures appeared behind the platform. The crowd parted, allowing the figures wide berth. Buffy tried very
hard to understand the expressions on the audience member’s faces. She read awe, reverence, fear, hate – but all
humor had bled from them. The robed figures, still chanting their discordant plainsong, mounted the platform before
a rapt and terrified audience.
Matters worsened when the last figure took the stage: an executioner, clad in black brigandine, complete with an
enormous double-headed axe.
Buffy took that as her cue to move. But Spike caught her around the waist.
“Wait…” he said.
She stared down into his face, trying for all that was sane to read him. But he was so impassive he’d give Angel a
decent run.
So she waited.
And she counted. Nine robed figures. One executioner. And a mass of people struck suddenly dumb in their
presence. She could take them. If she had to, Buffy knew she could take them down.
One of the robed figures stepped forward. With a wave of her arms, the crescendoing chants cut off. The people,
their faces upturned, their eyes wide with fear, took a collective step backward.
The figure took down her cowl, revealing the soft face of a regular looking woman. The illusion was ruined when she
brought her hands together and an orange orb of crackling energy coalesced between her fingers.
“The witches,” Buffy breathed.
“Wait,” Spike said again.
The head witch spoke. “We are gathered here tonight in the name of justice,” she said, letting the orb swell and
flow above her palms. “For us, it is swift. It is fair. It is flawless…”
Behind her, the executioner had set aside his axe and had begun to string up nooses from the upper bar of the
platform. The other witches ringed the stage, their whispered chants like raven’s wings on the night breeze.
“Oh,” Buffy said, feeling deeply chilled. “I think it’s a gallows, Spike.”
Spike took a drag from his cigarette. “Of course it’s a bloody gallows…”
“We’re in a public place,” Buffy interrupted. “With many on-lookers. All those people…”
“Are gonna watch like good sodding citizens.”
Buffy returned her attention to the stage. The executioner had led three bound and gagged prisoners – two women
and a man - onto the platform. Another one of the witches stepped forward, unrolled an archaic scroll and began to
read a list of charges: theft, deceit, indecency, debauchery. As the accuser spoke, the orb of energy stretched
into a nebulous cloud of heavy orange smoke. It divided into three separate veils that settled above the heads of
the condemned.
The executioner positioned each prisoner on a wooden block beneath a noose. Buffy watched the prisoners,
watched their dejected downcast eyes for signs of hope. Perhaps a signal for a daring escape attempt. Something.
Anything.
“Why don’t they do something?” Buffy asked desperately. Her stomach rolled.
Spike moved close to her. When he spoke, she felt his lips brush her ear.
“What can they do, Slayer? They’re just people…”
Buffy’s pulse raced. She jumped to her feet.
“I’m not…” she said, but faltered. She had no idea what she was all ‘not’ about.
Spike pushed her backward, away from the ledge.
She was crying now. Or rather, crying again. “Why? Why did you even bring me here?” she hissed at him.
He merely inclined his head, giving her the stubborn resolve face she had come to know so well.
Buffy turned back, compelled as the crowd beneath her to observe the fate of the prisoners. She watched
breathlessly as the executioner cinched the knots tight around the first woman’s neck. Another sound rippled
through the crowd, spreading chills down Buffy’s arms. The audience had joined the witches’ chanting, suffusing it
with an unnerving tonelessness.
She couldn’t just watch… and yet she couldn’t tear herself away. “When?” she wept. “When did Sunnydale go
completely Nathaniel Hawthorne?”
Without warning, the executioner knocked down the first block and the prisoner dropped.
Buffy fell to her knees, retching, sputtering and sobbing uncontrollably. Spike looped an arm over her shoulder; she
shoved him away.
“This!” she screamed. “How can they let this happen? How can they just watch?”
“They’re humans, Buffy. Weak. Scared. Stupid. It’s what they are…”
“Then they’re part of it. All of them. They…” Buffy caught herself. Not they, she amended inwardly. We. And then
another realization struck. One that sent her reeling.
“Oh God. These are the witches who hurt Dawn. They did this? Put her up in public like this? They put out her eyes
and people just watched? And where were you? Why didn’t you stop them? She deserves better than this…”
Spike gripped her shoulders and gave her body a violent shake. He bore down on her, fangs bared, his lumpy
forehead almost touching hers. His voracious yellow eyes glinted as he stared hard into hers.
“I was here,” he growled, his claws digging into her skin. “I was here, Buffy. Bound, gagged and down a bloody well…
but I was here. And you were not. Dawn’s on-stage tragedy was damaging, but it was merely the second act. Our
lives – our whole world – came crashing down the night you jumped off that tower.”
“So this is somehow my fault?” she bit out.
“Not somehow,” he said, morphing out of his vampire face. “Is. How could you think any of us would ever be safe
without you?”
Buffy wiped her eyes with a shaking hand. “But I died. Another Slayer was called to take my place. It’s our built-in
Plan B.”
“Your Plan B is locked up tight in the San Bernardino State Correctional Facility,” Spike said. He shoved her away
and spread his arms wide. “You keep saying you don’t belong here. Keep sayin’ it, but you’re wrong. You are here
for a reason, pet. Just take a look down there.”
Buffy turned. Three bodies swung from a gallows in beautiful downtown Sunnydale. The Witches were gone; the
crowd was dispersing. But the bodies remained, a pall of sickly orange vapor obscuring their faces. Spike stood
behind her, his sharp, cold cheekbone less than an inch from her skin.
“The how and why of it doesn’t matter. You’re here now. What’s important is… what are you going to do about it?”
Buffy smeared the tears away with the heels of her hands. She turned within the cage of his arms. One look at
Spike’s pseudo-serene façade and she realized, again, what she really, really hated about him. No matter what his
current incarnation, he had a way of showing her exactly what she needed to see. Even if she really, really did not
want to see it.
“I truly hate you,” she said.
She could tell by the pleased yet hopeful look in his faded blue eyes that he already knew he’d won. Point made. Point
scored. Cheers to old Spike.
“I know it, baby,” Spike said as he lit another cigarette. He took a deep drag and blew out the smoke in a satisfied
stream. “I know.”
.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