Chapter Thirteen

Willow woke up to unrelieved darkness and the feeling of being buried alive. She had had a nightmare that she was trapped in a crypt, and that she couldn’t move. Her heart pounded and she felt a scream gathering in her throat. It escaped in a yelp of surprise when she heard Spike say, “Your heart is beating like a fucking drum. You think you could take it down a notch?”

Being startled out of her skin didn’t help. It was so dark. She couldn’t see anything. “Why is it so dark?” she managed to say, trying to cover her heart with her hands to muffled the sound.

He saw what she was doing and rolled his eyes, one corner of his mouth turning up in an exasperated smile. He lit a candle. “Better?” he asked.

Willow looked around. She was in a crypt. There was blood red marble on the walls and black marble columns with silver leaf capstones. She was open mouthed in astonishment at the small glimpses. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Wow,” she breathed. “This is one fancy crypt.”

Coming from a girl who actually knew her crypts, Spike thought. “If there was more light you could see the ceiling. It’s painted,” he elaborated.

“Really?” she looked impressed. “Like Sistine Chapel painted?”

“It’s a copy of ‘Les Tres Riches Heures. Twelve vignettes representing the months of the year. The center of which is a representation of a calendar. That’s not a copy. That’s an interpretation of the arch motif from the original.”

‘The very rich hours’ Willow translated in her head. ‘Les Tres Riches Heures’. It sounded familiar. “I should know that,” she said, trying to place the reference in her head. She felt thick and tired, and she no longer knew what day it was. The computer made her lazy in a lot of ways. She didn’t have to remember things. She just had to remember how to look them up. She didn’t have a computer here. She just had herself. She sat up, wrapping her arms around herself. It was cold. After being in the un-air conditioned motel, it was too cold.

“Cold?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He shrugged out of his leather coat and dropped it in her lap. Willow picked it up, feeling the soft, broken-in leather in her hands. She settled it around her shoulders and looked up at him curiously. He was looming over her, holding a white candle. It was a particular type of candle, though that eluded her too. Her father used to get them at the hardware store and keep them in a drawer in the small entry from the garage to the house to be used in the event of a storm. Willow had used them last year to illuminate the walk to her parents' house on Halloween, putting them in paper bags that had been cut with various jack o’ lantern patterns. That was the Halloween after Spike had hunted them when their costumes changed. Her parents had let her have a party that year, and had looked so surprised at the number of people who came.

It felt a little strange to be wrapped up in his coat. It smelled like him. Leather, and tobacco, and something else that she couldn’t name but recognized as a Spike smell. She felt around in an inside pocket and found a wallet. She wondered if he had pictures in it. She continued her surreptitious investigation of the inside pockets and found a pair of handcuffs. She made a face. Her lips were still sore and dry from the duct tape, but at least she didn’t have a new set of handcuff bruises.

“Thanks for not using the handcuffs again,” she said after a moment.

“Figured your wrists were banged up enough,” he admitted, hunkering down in front of her. “As soon as it is safe to move, we’ll be out of here. Colin is finding us a new place. Crypt lacks a bit in the way of creature comforts.”

“Such as?”

“Television?” he suggested. “And a bathroom, for you,” he added, lifting her chin with fingers that bit into her skin. He ran his thumb over the slightly sticky, roughened skin the duct tape had covered and she flinched.

“Please don’t,” she tried not to cower.

“Don’t what, pet?” he asked.

“Don’t touch me like that,” she said. “It’s confusing,” she went on, and then gave herself a mental smack. “Les Tres Houres Riche?”

“Les Tres Riche Heures” he corrected, but he didn’t let loose of her chin. He could feel her humid breath flutter against his skin. Ah, more conversational sleight of hand?

“What is that?” she asked.

“Part of an illuminated manuscript, a famous example of a book of hours,” he said softly. “It’s in a museum in France. They have museums in France,” he said with a crooked smile, reminding her of her conversation with Harmony the night Harmony had almost killed her.

She felt a bubble of mirth well up. “And shops,” she added, her voice cracking.

He let go of her chin and patted his coat, which was on her, so it felt like he was roughly exploring her for a scary moment. He fished something out of a pocket and held it up for her to see. It was a small tin of lip balm. “Want some of this?”

She heaved a relieved sigh. “Yes, please,” she let go of the coat, to take it from him. The top slid back under her exploring fingers and she coated the tip of her index finger and started applying it to her lips with a small sound of relief at the soothing sensation. “Where are the others?”

“Colin and Georgia are doing the pretty with the local grand poobahs,” Spike surprised her a little by answering.

“San Francisco doesn’t have a master. They have what amounts to a council, the heads of the bigger, more powerful vampire clans in the area,” he explained. “They are checking in and making it known that we are only visiting, not planning on staying. The others are under guard. If the clans decide they don’t want them here,” he shrugged. “They won’t have to make a hunt out of it.”

“Why are we here?”

“Don’t particularly want it known that I’m in San Francisco,” his fingers traced her jaw. “Or you, mistaken for snack food or a gift. Safer this way. We’ll be gone before anyone notices me, or has time to do anything about it,” he added with a slight smile. “Gives us an opportunity to have a nice little moment alone. You, me. Candlelit crypt.”

She coated her lower lip, frowning. That didn’t sound good. His arm settled around her shoulders. She went absolutely still as he combed his fingers through her hair, settling in behind her ear. His finger traced the outer edge of her ear to the earlobe, rubbing it between his index finger and thumb. Oh, boy. This was bad. Don’t panic, Rosenberg. He’s probably just doing this to unnerve you. Points to Spike. It was completely working, reminding her of the way he had smelled her neck when he kidnapped her the first time.

She had backed him down before, she reminded herself. She shook his hand off, glaring at him. “Okay. Now you are scaring the crap out of me. Happy?” she asked. “Knock it off.” He wasn’t drunk this time. Was that important? People acted differently when they were drunk. Spike had been all psycho stalker ex-boyfriend with the ‘do a love spell, make her crawl’ business over Dru, threatening her with a broken bottle, and then he had been weepy and sad, and then just lechy and eeeew. When she called him on it, he had shrugged off the more demon-y impulses and was more or less reasonable in a terrifying way.

“I’ve thought about you a lot since then,” he admitted, unwittingly echoing her thoughts as he set the candle down on the marble floor.

She had thought about the night in the burnt out factory a lot. She had some bad dreams about it. She also thought about it in the revisionist sense of how she might have improved on her performance. She so lacked Buffy’s quippy ease with the snappy comeback. Her best retorts sprang to mind hours after the fact. She had thought through variations that had her wielding a stake, a vial of holy water, or a cool spell that made a ball of light appear that she had read about in a D&D spell book that had been left out while she waited for Oz to wrap up band practice. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Spike wringing his hands about his actions, unless he had some issues about not getting around to killing them.

“Leaving survivors must make you feel out of sorts,” Willow said tartly.

He laughed at that. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he played with her hair. “Wasn’t just thinking about killing you,” his voice teased.

“Torture, then killing,” Willow nodded. “Right. An off night for you?”

“I thought about you,” he grinned at her efforts to distract him. “You were wearing a lilac sweater with a little pink number underneath it, and you smelled delicious. I remember that,” he said reminiscently.

“It was probably Xander,” she almost enjoyed the opportunity to needle him. “He was the one who was bleeding.”

He remembered what she was wearing that night? It was months ago. She barely remembered what she was wearing and she had almost died in it.

“I’m not telling him. He’d have nightmares for the rest of his life.” she said.

He tugged on her hair, hard enough to make her frown at him reprovingly. “More hair pulling?” she asked.

He wound the lock of her hair around his finger. “I like your hair,” he said. “At night, under a streetlight, it’s the color of blood,” his tone was caressing. “Pet . . .”

“You’re ruining this for me,” she told him abruptly. “The only thing I’ve ever liked about you was that you were loyal to how you felt about Drusilla. This is just . . . icky,” her lip curled. “You’re no better than . . . Larry,” she said with a hint of loathing that was checked as she remembered that Larry was dead.

Poor Larry. Once he came out of the closet, he was really nice, she recalled.

“He’s dead now, since the Mayor kind of ate him during graduation, so I guess that wasn’t very nice,” she admitted, moving her hands in the air in a gesture of impatience. “Off topic, but still, you know, the whole lech-y demon guy is . . . beneath you, isn’t it? Especially with me. I’m so not the kind of girl vamps go for.”

That surprised him. The conviction in her voice. The idea that she liked anything at all about him was a little off-putting. Willow Rosenberg liked something about him? Christ on a crutch, she was an idiot. He wasn’t exactly proud of the ass he had made out of himself over Dru. Was she inferring that he was some less soulful version of the Great Poof, or just delivering a version of insecurity about herself? That was ludicrous. Granted, he had seen her looking better now and again, but she was a pretty girl, any idiot could see that.

“You have got to be kidding,” he said, distracted from the game of seducing her.

“What? About Larry? The Mayor really did eat him,” she confirmed. “He turned into a—no, wait. You don’t know Larry. You don’t care about that,” she told herself.

“Dru? What happened?” she asked, sensing that she had a chance to get him on the ropes. “You were going to go get her back,” she reminded him. “Did you just give up?” there was a wealth of scorn in that.

“No!” he glared at her. “I didn’t give up. I did get her back.”

It wasn’t the same. They were not the same together. There was too much between them that couldn’t be washed away in blood, though they had tried. In Mexico Dru had caught up with the bloody Chaos demon again. Same song, second verse, and he was bloody tired of it.

“You can’t make someone love you,” he said roughly. “That’s all I ever wanted. Love, and a little fucking loyalty. Is that too much to ask for? I planned my whole un-life around that ungrateful bitch, and she couldn’t plan past her breakfast around anything but her damned dolls,” he said bitterly.

'Great. Good job. Piss him off some more, why don’t you,' Willow thought, wincing at the rage in his voice.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t have any right to pry into . . . your personal stuff. You were scaring me, so I—“ Why was she apologizing? He had been touching her in an all too personal way.

“You don’t even like me,” she said slowly. “You’ve told me that if I wasn’t useful, you’d kill me. So, what’s with the nice, cuddling vampire act all of a sudden?” she demanded. “It’s a joke, isn’t it? Like, later on, when you are hanging out with the other vampires, it will be, ‘you won’t believe she fell for this’ won’t it?” she accused.

He frowned at her. “What the hell are you ranting about?”

She snapped the tin of lip balm shut, squeezing it in her hand. “Just stop it, okay? I’m not falling for it. You may be bored, or whatever, but I’m just the kidnapee here. I’m not some kind of ninny that thinks you’re misunderstood or romantic. You’re dangerous and scary and evil, and you want me like you want your next meal,” she scoffed.

“Dru’s crazy? What’s your excuse, mister?” she was working up a pretty good mad. “So, no cuddles and smoochies. We are keeping this on a strictly kidnapper to kidnapee basis.”

“You duct taped my mouth shut,” she reminded him. “Hello! What’s the encore? You beat me half to death and expect me to have a crush on you? Candlelit crypt?” she rolled her eyes. “I may date a musician, and make out in the back of a van that smells kind of . . . yucky, but I’ve got standards,” she exclaimed indignantly.

“Worked with Dru,” he pointed out, amused. His lips twitched. “A van, huh?”

“I’m not Drusilla,” she muttered. She refrained from pointing out that the torture route didn’t exactly take. “An Econoline,” she added with relish. No cushy, comfortable family van, but a real, honest to goodness metal floor, bare bones van, suitable for packing band equipment, band mates, or making out.

“No, you aren’t,” he agreed. “Okay,” he sounded grudging. “Maybe I am playing with you a bit,” he turned toward her. “No television, nothing better to do. I’m bored. You tend to be amusing when you’re all riled up about something,” he noted.

'Sheesh. Blame it all on me,' Willow thought.

“The fear is nice,” he added, watching her grimace. He bumped her shoulder, “I like you. Told you that, already. I like you,” he reminded her.

“Right, and you’ll still like me while you drain me dry,” she shot back. “Wow. I feel all warm inside. Does this mean that you’re going to leave presents on my doorstep for Valentine’s Day?”

'I’ll just bet you are warm inside,' Spike thought, but he kept that to himself. “So, Red,” he drawled. “Kidnapper to kidnappee, you really don’t have choices here,” he told her. “I am evil. I don’t care if I hurt you—“he chuckled. “Well, that isn’t entirely true. I might enjoy hurting you. You’re more or less at my mercy,” he dragged it out. “So, if I wanted to . . . kiss you. There’s not a lot you could do about it.”

Her nose wrinkled. “You want to kiss me? Why?”

“Pass the time,” he said, grinning.

She looked confused. He was teasing her? Was that it? He was just teasing her? If he wasn’t just teasing her, he was right. There wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

“It’s your funeral,” she said, stalling. “Bad things tend to happen after kissing me,” she explained. “Take Xander, for example. He got a concussion and Cordelia broke up with him. Not good.”

“Your wolf boy seems to have survived,” he noted. “You have kissed him? Right?” he goaded.

“That’s different,” she exclaimed. “We’re in love,” she said softly, looking down at her hands.

“Ah . . .” Spike rolled his eyes. She was a Hallmark greeting card of treacled sentiment. “In love.” What did she know about love?

“In love . . . or in a lot of like,” she admitted slowly, frowning. “I’ve never really been in love before. I thought I was in love. I love Xander. He’s my best friend, so when we got older, and . . . I thought it was like being in love. But, it wasn’t. Just because you feel jealous, or you want to kiss someone, doesn’t mean you are in love. It’s confusing, but I think with Oz it really is being in love. He’s not very emote-y, but I think, maybe he loves me.”

“Your wolf is looking for you,” he told her, moving closer. “Cheer up, Red. He won’t find you,” Spike said. “But, he’s trying. That’s something, isn’t it?”

She sat up straighter. “Really?”

“Really. Don’t be ridiculous. You didn’t think he wouldn’t look for you, did you?”

“I didn’t know.”

Oz was looking for her. That was a nice feeling. Except that if Spike knew he was looking for her, then that meant he was in danger.

“Is that why we moved so fast? You didn’t do anything to him?” she was alarmed. “You didn’t, did you? Because if you did . . . I’ll . . . figure out some way to make you pay,” she said, her voice surprisingly low and fierce.

He laughed. “I didn’t do anything to your wolf, Red, and don’t make empty threats,” he advised. “It makes you sound weak.”

“It isn’t an empty threat,” she muttered. “I’d figure out something. You do it all the time.”

She meant it. If she survived, someday she might even be able to back it up. “No, I don’t,” he said. “I’ve just got a helluva lot more time to make good on my threats.”