Chapter Nine

A little after ten in the evening there was a knock on Rupert Giles' apartment door. He went to answer it, expecting Angel or a pizza delivery. He found both. The pizza delivery girl was first, with Angel entering the courtyard behind her. The delivery girl knew Xander and they exchanged hellos as Giles paid her with a twenty. She turned to leave, and sidestepped Angel, glancing back at him curiously.

“Rupert,” Angel greeted him.

“Come in, please,” Giles extended the invite. “I hadn’t given it much thought, but you are welcome to stay here if you like while you are in town.”

Angel could have reoccupied the Crawford Street mansion, but he was reluctant to. He had driven by it on the way through town with the mixed feelings that he associated with the mansion. It was haunted for him, full of memories. The months he had lived there after he had returned from hell had been penance.

“I may take you up on that,” he said as he entered the apartment.

Xander was on the couch, bent over a book, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He stirred old feelings in Angel. He was so awkward and resentful, reminding Angel of himself at the same age. Xander’s rebellion had been channeled into helping Buffy. He was grounded by his devotion to Buffy and Willow, which was unwavering despite some miscues with both girls. He looked up, craning around to see, dislike flattening his expression. He looked away as Buffy uncurled from the floor where she was hunched over another book.

She was still for a moment. Lamplight turned her hair to antique gold. Her lips tightened in an expression that was part pleasure, part pain, and then she moved, launching herself at him.

Giles took the pizzas into the kitchen to get plates and a pizza wheel. Xander followed him after a moment, leaving the two of them alone, which was more graceful and generous than Giles expected. He studied Xander’s face as the boy opened the refrigerator to retrieve a two-liter bottle of soda. He had the closed look that hinted of frustration and confusion. Giles almost expected some kind of unpardonable teenage cruelty to spill from his lips. A snipping comment about how it was good of Willow to get kidnapped so Buffy could have some handholding time with Angel would have been par for the course. For once, Xander kept his mouth shut, moving woodenly to the cabinet for glasses.

“We need him,” Giles told him, keeping his voice down. “I would not have brought him into this if it wasn’t necessary.”

Xander had figured that out already. No one had more reason than Giles to be less than forgiving where Angel was concerned. His own feelings were more complex than he liked. Before Angel had left, they had worked together to organize the defense that allowed Buffy to lead the Mayor into the trap she had set for him. He had done his part and walked away from it, as he promised. Xander had been impressed.

“I’m good,” he told Giles.


Angel rested his cheek against her hair, feeling her arms around his waist. He swallowed hard, stroking her back. There was a teenage girl in her that he hardly understood half the time no matter how beguiling he found her. She was wearing some artlessly uncomplicated scent . . . Anais Anais, perhaps, girlish and warm from her skin. Her forehead was pressed into his chest and she was fisting her hands into his coat. She would leave dampened wrinkles he suspected.

Her head lifted. Their eyes met. She tried to smile and failed miserably. She started to thank him, and he gave a spare shake of his head. “We’ll find her,” he promised.

Something flared in her sherry colored eyes. He recognized it. It was the streak of tough mindedness in her that he loved. She looked small and pretty, and ordinary. There were a million girls in the world that she could have been, leading a life that was indifferent to the hazards that loomed. When her jaw tightened, and she got a certain look in her eye, she became something more. He thought that her duty had simply honed it, sharpening her focus. She would have, in time, discovered that she was a person of deep convictions. He was sure that, left to her own devises, she would have spent her life doing something meaningful, probably helping people.

“Spike’s gone too far this time.”

She was angry, and determined. So was he. “You’ll stop him,” he said. “You always do.”



Spike returned to the room after dawn and found the witch pretending to be asleep. She was lying on the bed, under a blanket, her hands crossed under her breasts and over the blanket. Possibly pretending to be a corpse, he thought with a grin. She was not a tidy or restful sleeper. She hogged the blankets and tended to sleep on her side after a lot of careful wriggling around to settle in.

One of the more reliable female minions had been left to guard her while they hunted. He had a bag of crap that Georgia had gotten for the girl at a twenty-four hour drug store. Tomorrow’s robbery and murder story. They had cleaned out the cash registers, destroyed the security tapes, and fed on the employees and a couple of unfortunate customers. Georgia had thoughtfully bagged cough medicine, some kind of allergy medicine, nail polish, bath gel, a box of chocolate, a notebook and pen, and a couple of books for Red.

He left her alone. With any luck, she would actually fall asleep. He took a shower and got in bed next to her. They had slept in the same bed since the night he had taken her. At first she had been too sick and frightened to lend much significance to the arrangement. After they had taken up residence in the motel she had looked troubled about it, but she seemed to work out that she was probably safest in his presence or Georgia’s. He guessed that after he had taken his belt to her ass she had re-thought that, which accounted for her wakefulness now. Still safer with me, pet, he thought.

Georgia was starting to develop a bit of a fixation on her. The vampire equivalent of a crush. Red, tending to drift towards the naïve, seemed to mistake Georgia’s attention as maternal without getting that a vampire’s maternal interests were centered around sex and blood, not cuddles and hot cocoa.

He rolled over on his side to watch her, wondering how long it would take her to break. She talked a lot. So did Harmony. Willow’s verbal excesses were infinitely more interesting though.

It was odd to think that they were the same age and had grown up in the same town. Harmony, daft bint that she was, had grown up on the Hellmouth and remained oblivious to it. She thought it was hilarious that anyone, any vampire, was wary of Buffy Summers. To her the Slayer was a teenage girl who had been a part of the high school nerd patrol that Willow belonged to. She was too stupid to figure out that the Slayer was dangerous and that Willow, by virtue of the fact that she was still alive, without the benefit of Slayerly abilities, had demonstrated that she was either extraordinarily lucky or had some hidden depths.

He smelled tears. She had been crying recently. He wondered if it was from his relatively mild retaliation—she really did not seem to have any appreciation of how badly she could be treated in comparison to how she was actually treated.

If Angelus had taken her, he would have left her chained up in a hole, kept alive on a diet of bread and water, and tortured within an inch of her life. If she had dared to strike him in front of a minion, he would have taken a body part in payment for it. Spike wasn’t bored enough to indulge in that kind of play, nor did he have Angelus’ uncanny instinct for the limits of human tolerance.

Accidentally killing her was too high a probability, he concluded. There was also his lamentable fair fight ethic. The cards were stacked against her doing any real harm to him, and he met her on that level. The belt had stung, he was sure, but he hadn’t done any permanent damage to her. Just got her attention and scared her. In her case, a little fear was a good thing. It would make her tread a bit more warily.

It worked out pretty well. The Watcher had gotten an earful, and that would get his attention better than cutting her ear off and sending it with a blood stained note. He needed to keep the Slayer and the Watcher focused on finding the Gem of Amara and not dividing their efforts between that goal and trying to find and rescue the girl. If they believed that she was being seriously harmed, they might concentrate their efforts in the wrong direction. It was all about pressure. Applying the right kind of pressure at the right time. That was where Angelus went wrong with them. Killing that teacher and threatening Willow and Joyce had gotten them past any reservations they had harbored about destroying him.

He fingered a lock of her hair, diverted by the color against his skin. In the dark, it was blood red, with a shine to it. The texture was finer than it appeared. You expected thick hair to be a little coarse, but her hair was like corn silk, heavy enough to hang straight, though there was a little bit of a wave to it. He watched her face in profile, seeing a muscle near her mouth twitch. Being so still was an effort for her.

She was a pretty little thing. Lingering baby fat softened her features, but didn’t entirely obscure the underlying bone structure. She had a widow’s peak that appeared like a demure arrow, drawing an imaginary line down her smooth forehead to her straight, slightly upturned nose, to her soft, slightly full lips, to her firm chin. The height of her brow and the soft rise of her cheekbones built a nice little theater for her eyes. It was a trick of sumptuous bone structure that made her eyes appear big but proportional. She had fantastic coloring. Red hair, creamy skin, and green eyes. Luscious, luminous green eyes.

He took the bit of hair he was playing with and used it to tickle her nose. Her eyes flew open, uneasy and alarmed. She started to smack his hand away from her and hesitated at the last minute. Smart girl. Learned that lesson. Instead, her lips tightened and her eyes narrowed.

“You have got to be kidding,” she spat at him. “Is beating someone your version of hair pulling? Oh, I forgot, hair pulling is part of your repertoire.”

He grinned. Actually, it was, though he hadn’t been thinking along those lines, it was interesting that she was. “Waited up for me, Red?” he teased.

She was reduced to an impotent glare. “What do you want?”

He shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “Just marveling over the novelty of not being kneed in the back or having to fight you for the blankets,” he commented. “You do a pretty good imitation of a corpse when you are pretending to be asleep. Here’s a tip. You snore,” he told her. “You also talk in your sleep, and you like to cuddle.”

She looked outraged. “I do not snore!”

He laughed. “Yeah, you do,” he did a fair imitation of her snuffling, snoring sounds and pawed at the blankets until they were balled up against his chest and then squished down between them.

“That’s about right,” he said. “Minus the knee in the back and the cuddling,” he added. He had woken up more than once with her arm across his back, her knee resting on his ass, and her drool coating his shoulder like he was some kind of vampire body pillow. “I’m not complaining, though I could un-live without the drool.”

The mental image made her squeeze her eyes shut. “God. I hate you,” she said bitterly.

She knew what he was saying was true. She had woken up yesterday with her head on his chest and her legs tangled up with the linens and his legs. When she had untangled herself and moved as far away from him as she could and he hadn’t moved, she figured that he was still asleep and oblivious. Apparently not. This was more humiliating than being smacked around.

“I can’t help it. I probably thought you were Oz.”

He chuckled at that. “Right, pet. You and the wolf boy have been having lots of cozy sleepovers.”

She couldn’t quite hide her wince. What was that about? He nudged her hip with his knee. “Come on, Red. This is where you tell me that the wolf boy is an animal in the sack, thank you very much,” he prompted. “You have to keep up this end of it. Don’t spare me my blushes. It's pretty much expected. Or is this a teenage ‘we have to shag in the backseat of the family car’ deal?” He looked amused. “Can’t quite see you giving it up in a car, but hormones and true love are powerful incentives.”

“Gross much?” she sniped.

He chuckled. “Now, see, pet, you aren’t getting it,” he mocked. “Gross much isn’t going to make your wolf boy feel all manly. Makes it sound like he wasn’t getting the job done,” he explained, relishing her discomfort. She was more fun than a sack of kittens.

“He’s not here,” she pointed out.

“True,” Spike agreed, “but given your tendency to spew out whatever you are thinking, you ought to practice. That way when one of your mates says something like, ‘was it good?’ you can slag ‘em off with something wicked.”

“My friends don’t say stuff like that.”

“You and the Slayer don’t swap stories about your girlish conquests?” he sounded dubious.

She turned her head to look at him. “You mean like Buffy telling me that she had sex with Angel and it was so great that he lost his soul. Yea!” she was scornful. “Or me telling Buffy, who can’t ever be with the man she loves—“ Spike rolled his eyes at the dramatic phrasing, but she ignored him, “stuff about me and Oz having sex?”

“I guess not,” he conceded with a small smile at her vehemence. “Kind of rubbing her nose in it, huh?”

Actually, Willow thought it was more like rubbing her own nose in it. Oz hadn’t lost his soul, his mind, or his heart to her efforts to show him how much he meant to her. It had been in the back of his van, not in a bed, and there was cuddling, but the cuddling was the best part, which had felt vaguely wrong coupled with her sense of relief at getting it over with and her inadequacy. Could her life suck any worse than this?

“We talk,” she said. “About the important things. Feelings, and stuff,” she frowned at the water stained ceiling. She knew it was true. The things that she valued in her relationship with Oz, the feelings that she fought for, no matter how ineptly, were more important than sex. She had never had anyone think and care about her the way Oz did. He was the one that kept putting the brakes on their relationship, not because he didn’t want her, but because he recognized that what she wanted was tangled up in her fears about being abandoned or found unworthy, and he had been so gentle and caring about explaining that to her.

She kept pushing him, almost demanding that he push her away. She had taken his decision to spend the summer touring with the Dingoes as a rejection of her even though he had insisted that it wasn’t. What he had said was that they needed some time apart, and that he would be back in the fall when school started. She was the one who had wavered on the brittle edge of fear that it was a milder, gentler prelude to breaking up when maybe it really was exactly what he said. He said he was uncomfortable with her insistence on having sex when they really weren’t ready for that.

Spike watched her frown and chew on her lower lip. She looked like she was working something out in her head. The lower lip she was worrying with her blunt white teeth was wet and swollen. He understood what Georgia saw in her. She was a teenager. A potent little stew of innocence and carnality just wanting to be warmed up and tasted. Too small, skinny, and fragile for his tastes. His preferences ran to tall, dark, ripe and wicked women who could match him in and out of bed. He frowned. Fuck. She was human and female. Eventually she’d start her cycle and he’d have hell’s own time keeping the minions off of her, he realized. Unless, of course, he got there first. None of them was stupid enough to start playing with a master vampire’s toys.

He grimaced at the thought. He had nothing but contempt for vampires with human pets. The stupid slave collar affectation and the cringing humans that wore them disgusted him. Used for feeding and fucking until they were too weak and useless to turn, most of them blank eyed from thrall and over use. No real challenge in it. On a certain level, he liked Red. She was smart, interesting, and she had a plucky sense of humor that kept her from being annoying, even when she was scared. He’d taken a belt to her ass, and she was pissed about it, no doubt about that, but she wasn’t whining and crying about it either, and she seemed to be taking his advice about keeping their confrontations on a playing field she could compete on.

He could just close his eyes and think of England. Alternatively, think of Peaches going batshit when he realized that Spike had sampled the goods. That was a thought with definite appeal. Angel would have a complete fucking melt down over one of his love’s innocent little mates being corrupted, and Angelus would howl in his souly prison at being denied the opportunity to be the one to do it.

Spike grinned at his success at setting the table for his appetite for mayhem. How to do it? He could just over power her and have his way with her tender little body, but that would hardly impress Angel. In fact, he probably would expect it. That was Angelus’ game. Rape, torture, push ‘em right over the edge to madness and toss them away like so much refuse. Willow was too useful now to risk damaging her too much.

Seduction. Make her want it. Make her love it. Then send her back to her mates all guilty and confused. She was the conscientious sort. In love with some moron too stupid to lap it all up and treat her like a woman.

The on again off again nature of Dru’s devotion had made him appreciate the thrill of having someone passionately devoted to him. This poor little girl wanted to love someone so bad it practically shouted at him. He could feel her pain and confusion radiating off her in waves. She was too young, too inexperienced to grasp that loving someone like that was an act of will, that it was a reflection of her own need to be loved.

Yeah, he decided. He could do this. Even enjoy it, though he would have to be careful. He laid his finger on her lower lip, getting her startled attention. “Are you trying to draw blood?” he asked.

She looked frightened by the intimacy. “What?”

He rubbed her lower lip, extracting it from the grip of her teeth. “You were biting your lip, pet,” he pointed out. “Doesn’t that hurt?” he asked.

“Uh . . . no,” she mumbled. Confusion, a nice spot of fear, and concern flashed in her eyes.

He levered himself up on his elbow, pretending to examine her lower lip. He could feel her tensing up, prepared to push him away, but holding off. The memory of him hitting her was fresh enough to keep her still. Her breathing shallowed out as her heart beat sped up. He tapped the end of her small upturned nose. “Red?”

She didn’t trust herself to speak. He was so close that she could smell his skin. He smelled like leather, tobacco, the humid California night air that still clung to him, and something dry and delicious that she couldn’t quite identify.

“There are certain conventions that you need to observe,” he told her. Back to business. “This is more important to you than me, so listen carefully. Don’t challenge me in front of the others. Got that? No back talk. No fighting. It will get you nothing but hurt,” he said. “I can’t have them thinking that I’m not in charge. Got it?”

She nodded slowly.

“Good girl,” he said. “Now, close your pretty eyes and go to sleep, love.”

A confused flash of pleasure filled her eyes before her eyelids obediently fell. He smirked, hanging over her an extra second. Praise. The ego craved it. “That’s my good little girl,” he cooed, feeling his demon cringe at his softness.

One eye opened to gaze at him with a combination of patent disbelief and annoyance. “I’m not a little girl,” she informed him. “And I’m not yours.”




Willow’s Email (Unopened)

To: Rosenw@clangeek.com
From: drswooffices2@aol.com

Re:

Willow,

Your father has his acid reflux face on tonight. He ate too much of the lamb stew that was served for dinner. It was spicy, but quite good, and your father can never resist rich food.

I spent the day in Oroszlany. My grandfather was born here. His father was a baker, and I found the bakery, which is still in operation. The people who own it have been there since the sixties—no relation to my grandfather, but it was still exciting to find a landmark from his childhood intact. I didn’t expect to get that lucky. We had a nice time talking between my barely passable Hungarian and their much better grasp of English. I took some pictures and made a rubbing of the cornerstone of the building with the date it was built. I spent some more time just walking around to get some impressions of the place.

Tomorrow, I plan to take a tour of a glassworks. Your father thinks that we have compromised on our itinerary. He’s quite pleased with himself over that, but he doesn’t last long before he hints that he would be willing to accept a suggestion about something to do. He stayed at the hotel to read while I went out today, so I imagine that he will want to join me tomorrow.

I wish that you had come with us. I know we didn’t talk about it. You had your internship plans, and it is a wonderful idea. It struck me today, that you are going to college this fall. All the trips that you have missed because we didn’t want you to miss school suddenly felt like lost opportunities. You are growing up so fast. Correction. You have grown up so fast. I never wanted to be a managing parent. I firmly believe that people in my generation spend entirely too much time directing and vicariously enjoying their children's' lives. Even now, I know that I would like to have you here to see things through your eyes.

You probably don’t want to spend your break time with your parents—and we don’t expect you to give up your well earned time to entertain us. You are your own person, with your own interests and friends. Your father and I are planning to spend the last half of December in Chicago. You are welcome to join us for however long you like, though don’t feel like you have to if you have other plans.

I’m sending some things I bought for you in Greece by mail. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed picking them out.

Love,

Mom