Chapter Text
The Vampire walk wasn't actually Spike's favorite. He preferred the Bloomsbury Pub Crawl, because he got a free pint in each pub he introduced to his tourist-walkers. The Literary London Walk was a good one too, as he ended up in Marylebone, close to his flat, and he got to quote Keats, always a pleasure on a drizzly night. But the Vampires of London Walk had its moments of excitement, like the one eighteen months ago when a sharp-faced blonde had lingered afterwards, pulled out a card– just like in the bleeding films– and thrust it at him, saying in a New York accent, "You ever think of writing a book, kid?"
It was the kid that won him over. That and the big advance she swore she could get him, and the film deal that would naturally follow, if he could just commit some of his very cool vampire stories to paper. "It's almost as if you were there," she marvelled, and of course he had to quirk his scarred eyebrow and murmur, "But baby, I was."
She was way too New York smart to believe him.
Tonight it was the usual sort of crew gathered around him, mostly American tourists carrying mini-brollies though the October sky was clear, an elderly German couple, and three of his regulars: a slayerette who pretended every evening he wasn't the same instructor who trained her to fight every morning, a young grad student from the university folklore department, and a boy who played in a neo-Goth string quartet.
But tonight there was also Angel somewhere around, and that provided a bit of a frisson.
Spike sensed his grandsire while the Americans were still fumbling in their wallets, asking each other worriedly which was the fiver and which was the tenner. He felt the tingle of warning without immediately recognizing what it signified. He wasn't expecting him– Angel? Here in London? And seeking him out? Something must be wrong. So there in front of the Tower Hill Tube station, Spike got on his cell phone, speed-dialing Giles.
"Rupert. Turn down the stereo, will ya, mate? Listen. Angel's about somewhere. Can feel him. You haven't heard anything's wrong, have you?"
Giles was slightly distracted– Spike suspected Olivia was sitting on his lap and unknotting his woolly tie– but answered readily enough, "Haven't heard anything. I got an email from Willow yesterday, a call from Buffy last week, all perfectly normal. They didn't say anything about Angel coming out here. You're sure you--"
Spike sighed. "Yeah. Look, don't worrit it. But I'm going to cancel out on supper, all right? Just in case I need to take him off somewhere and deal with him."
"Spike–"
"Not that sort of deal with him. Like I want the Slayer here with a crossbow aimed at me and incentive enough to finally dust me. I mean, take him out for a drink or twelve."
"You might think about meeting us for that drink– backup, as it were."
"Nah. I'll be fine. Kiss Olivia for me. Lots of tongue, remember. She likes that." He hung up before Giles could get the curse all the way out, and looked over at his group. No Angel, but he wasn't far– lurking down in the tube station. The Americans were getting restless, so he raised his finger towards the slayerette and jerked his head, and she, forgetting that she didn't know him at all and wasn't sworn to follow his every command, implied or actual, jumped to it, collecting the five-pound fee from each tourist with a bright comment and smile.
He hesitated a moment, then dialed Dawn's number. "Hey, bit," he said when she answered. "What do you hear from your sis this week?"
"Nada. Nothing. And you're supposed to like be way over her anyway. Remember? I'm going to fix you up with my Sumerian teacher."
"I don't think I'm mature enough to be dating a teacher, niblet. Or a Sumerian. So 'sfar as you know, Buffy's all right."
"Yeah. Why?"
He didn't want to worry her. "No reason. Just wonderin'."
"Spike, if you don't tell me right now, I'm going to call Katie Couric and tell her you wrote that book and you're a for-real vampire and not-bad-looking besides."
He surrendered. Best do it quick and save the time. "Angel's about somewhere. Figured it might be about Buffy. But you and Giles both say no prob, so maybe he's just turned back into Angelus and come to stake me or something."
"Spike– let me come over."
"I got a slayerette here, pet. She'll protect me."
"You have a slayerette there with you?" Dawn, the one who loved him best of all, still didn't trust him. So much for the hard-won soul. "Where are you? I thought you--"
"Doing my tourist walk, idiot." He stepped a few feet away so as not to embarrass young Kelly. "She comes out every now and again to hear the vampire tales. You know I'm saving myself for your Sumerian lady. Got to go, bit. I'll call you later."
The slayerette was poised by the Tube entrance, her hands full of bills. He gestured her over with a tilt of his head, and she handed him the money. He shoved it all into his backpack without counting and slung the pack over one shoulder. In a low voice, he said, "Need you to watch my back. Subtle-like. Y'know?"
"Got you." Slayers had a slayer visage, just as Spike had a vamp visage, and Kelly's slayer face descended. It was a subtle difference, but Spike couldn't see the pert gymnast anymore– just the grim guardian.
"Open up the senses a bit, love. He's around close. Feel him?"
She did now, he could tell, and her hand went automatically to her jacket pocket.
"No staking."
"A friend?"
"Not hardly. My grandsire. We got a mutually assured destruction treaty going. But parta the treaty is, he stays out of my territory without permission. And he didn't get permission. But... he's still my grandsire. So no stakes."
She nodded once, sharp, and then drifted back into the group. Spike gestured everyone closer, thanked them for being patient, and went into his routine.
"London's always been a favorite spot of vampires. People mind their own business here, and are used to eccentrics, so they don't make a fuss when the lodger actually wants the basement bedsit and keeps odd hours. Not much sun here, so not so dangerous to the sensitive skin. Blood pudding in every butcher shop. And great nightlife. Vampires love the nightlife, you know. Love to mingle with the crowds at the opera and the theatre. Love to dress up and go dancing. Love to drag their dance partner into an alley and drink deep. Adrenaline and absinthe make a great mixer for blood."
Now, if he were the exhibitionist Rupert called him, he'd flash the vampface and the fangs and give them all a thrill. But instead he just smiled as evil as he could. He could feel the slayerette tensing beside him. She always did that, like she alone was in on the secret that Spike wasn't just talking the talk.
"The great times for vamps were the Victorian era– all that repression, see, kept people from seeing the truth– and the time between the wars. There was so much death in the Great War, you know, that everyone stopped counting. So no one much noticed when a neighbor disappeared some night–"
He saw Angel now, stalking up the tube steps and stopping at the edge of the group, looming over the little German lady. The slayerette noticed too, her eyes flicking over at him once, then back at Spike. He gave her a nod and, still talking, held up his right hand, rubbing his thumb and index finger together.
Kelly slipped around the edge of the group and, brave as can be, went up to the Big Broad and murmured something. Angel must have sensed her slayer powers because he straightened and stared at her, his hand going automatically for his wallet. Then he turned his disbelieving gaze on Spike.
Spike smiled back at him, and started leading the group down the road towards the Tower. "One way to kill a vampire is by cutting off his head. That was a specialty here at the Tower. Yeah, the famous were executed here– Mary Queen of Scotts, Walter Raleigh– but the axemen kept in training with vampires." The beefeater guard on the other side of the iron railing knew him, and in return for the occasional pint after hours, moved on cue– gripping his pike and thrusting it forward, then swinging the head down towards the ground. A couple of the tourists gasped.
"Much neater than beheading humans, you know. Cut off a vamp's head, and everything dissolves into dust. Don't even need to clean the blood off your blade. But it took a good clean stroke– no hesitation. I remember one pretty girl, just as sweet as she could be, enticed who knows how many young blades to their deaths. Well, they caught her and chained her– ropes ain't much use with a vamp, you know– face down on that stone over there." He trained his torchlight on the old block, letting the light play off the iron hoops bolted on the side. "Just as the axeman started to strike, she flipped up her skirt a bit, and he got an eyeful of dainty leg, and his blow went awry. A couple of her kin leaped the wall and broke the chains– and the axeman– and she lived to kill another day."
It was true, or as true as any vamp tale traded over a late-night dessert. Darla had been the girl, and Angelus had been in on the rescue– long before Spike was turned, so he could legitimately make up the details. He could sense that Angel didn't like this, him talking out of turn. That made it all the more pleasurable.
The walk took an hour, through old vamp haunts down under Tower Bridge, past the old London Hospital and the Jewish cemetery. Every alley, every dark courtyard, held its secrets. He told different stories every time, from a wealth of memories and a bit of conjecture and some downright confabulation. Occasionally he pointed out a shadowy figure and identified it as a possible vampire, but most of the vamps nowadays hung out further west, near the Brompton and Kensal Green cemeteries. In fact, tonight the only vamps in residence were Spike and his grandsire.
They'd walked all through the soft night and were back at the Tower when Spike started answering questions. "No, Jack the Ripper wasn't a vampire. A vampire wouldn't waste so much blood. But an old vamp I knew told me how Jack died. Killed by a vamp council, in punishment for bringing the law down into Whitechapel and spoiling their hunting grounds for years. So at least a few back then knew who he really was– and remember, the murders stopped abruptly after a year, because the Ripper was gone forever."
One young man asked how one could identify a vampire. His eyes were gleaming, like he had plans to do some slaying of his own. Spike could just imagine him going out and grabbing some pale Londoner and trying to behead him. Spike said, "Well, now, there's this tattoo they all have. On their necks over the bite scar. To commemorate their turning. It's a stylized X. Bright green and blue. Sort of Gothic lettering. X marks the spot, you know." The slayerette was looking scandalized at this taradiddle, as well she should. Tats didn't last on vamps, unless they soaked them in vinegar for weeks. Spike had suffered through a fortnight of Angelus smelling like a pickle after a tattooing, and gave up any notion of marking himself that way. But now the slayer-wannabe would spend his holiday gazing hard at people's necks, maybe even earn a cuff or two for his pains.
"Whatever the race, a vampire is going to be paler than average. Black vampires are ashier in tone than when they were alive. Asians tend to lose most color, like whites. But it's hard to tell here in London. Lots of pale people here. We don't get much sun, you probably noticed. And genetics plays its part. See how pale I am," he said, pulling back his sleeve to reveal his forearm. "Any Californians here? From the land of constant sun?"
Angel stiffened but did not speak. One woman came forward and obligingly put her arm against Spike's– taking hold of his wrist and sliding her fingers up and back just a bit and giving him a not-so-secret smile. He waited until she finished her little hand job, and then shone the torch on the join. Her arm was burnished bronze next to his marble. "English skin. English climate. Vampire pale. Thanks, lamb, for the demo."
She gave his wrist another squeeze and went back to her boyfriend, who had somehow managed to ignore all the subtext. "So," Spike said, "not so easy here in London. Could be one among us and you wouldn't know." He let the torchlight dance flirtatiously over each tourist, stopping at Angel. "See, that's the sort of color you might see on a vamp– then again, you might see it on a native Londoner, or an Irishman also. You English or Irish, mate?"
Everyone turned expectantly to hear the reply. "Irish," Angel growled in his flat California accent.
"So can't really go on complexion, as you can tell by me and Irish here."
"What about the game-face?" the Goth boy asked. He'd heard all the answers already, but liked to show off he knew the terminology.
"You'll see the game-face mostly on fledglings, those just turned. Most new vamps don't know how to vamp in and out– that's going from the vamp face, the one with the ridged forehead and golden eyes, back to the human face. They're stuck in vamp all the time, so they're easy to identify and dust." Not Spike however. He recalled Darla's displeasure (of course, Darla disapproved of him on principle), when he'd first turned, at his near-constant human face– came naturally to him to stay looking human, and Dru petted him for it, his face being the primary reason she turned him. Even then, he supposed, he was tainted with humanity, just as the Judge had claimed. "But a master vampire, he changes only if he wants to. Well, sometimes when he feeds, or if he's in pain. Dracula– you'll never see him in game face. Be like going to an opera in sweats. Not formal enough for him. Very elegant fellow, is Drac."
Angel closed his eyes as if in great suffering. He hated Dracula. But then, he hated any vamp more distinguished than the Great Himself.
The German man was frowning. "You are saying Dracula exists? Is still alive?"
"Well, still undead. Remember, vamps are immortal, so they're with us unless they're dusted. And some vamps, well, they even survive dusting. Only the very best, of course. And Drac's the very best."
"I hear he owes you eleven pounds." The slayerette, having guarded his back all night, apparently decided she knew him after all.
"That he does, pet. Lent it to him back in '91." He saw her sweet lips shape the words eighteen-ninety-one, that is, and decided to promote her to squad leader. Didn't have the best weapons skills, but the girl had moxie. And she had a nice little glare on her, which she kept aimed at Angel. Couldn't fault her.
He finished up by inviting them to come to his other walks, and dealt pleasantly with the lingerers– discreetly pocketed the California woman's card, not that he was ever going to call her; explained to the German that his wealth of vampire lore came from "my misspent youth in the Bodleian Library and my feverish imagination"; promised to come to the Goth-quartet's recital next week; gravely agreed to review the grad student's monograph on Dracula in folkfiction for accuracy of vamp terminology and traditions.
They all melted away then, except for Angel. But Spike felt the slayerette in the shadow of the closed postcard kiosk, and smiled to himself. Between her and Dawn, he had his own secret service.
Angel didn't waste any time. He grabbed Spike by the shirt and shoved him hard against the stone wall of the tube station. Spike sucked in a mouthful of good London air and said, "Careful, mate. Don't back up. My guard is packing wood, and it's pointed just the place I taught her. Best let me go now."
Reluctantly, Angel's hand opened, and Spike shoved past him. "No worry, pet," he said, holding out his hand to Kelly, who stood poised behind Angel with her fist around a nice Mr. Pointy. "That's just his way of expressing affection." Then, before Angel got his hands back up, Spike had the stake at his heart and a knee at his balls. "Whose territory are you in, Angelus?"
"Yours." The word came grudgingly, but clear.
"Right you are, mate. You're here on sufferance. I'll forgive your lapse this once, you being my grandsire and me owing you the filial fealty and such. But you don't come onto my turf and threaten me."
"You wouldn't stake me." Back to the growl.
"No. Love you way too much for that, don't I? But I can't speak for the slayer here, can I, Kelly girl?"
"No, sir. Can't speak for me, or the other twenty slayers-in-training here in London. We're vampire-killing machines, sir." She was doing a nice parody of a Riley Finn, not that she'd ever had the pleasure of meeting the third point of the Buffy-ex triangle. "Wind us up, and we stake."
"I get the point, Spike."
"You run along now, pet. Thanks for the backup."
Kelly hesitated, but he put on his drill sergeant face, the one he used when ordering the slayettes to do more pushups, and she sketched a wave and disappeared down the steps to the tube station.
"Buy you a pint?" Spike said.
Angel was silent until they were settled with their glasses in a scarred booth in the backroom of the Jack of Hearts. Then, without preliminaries, he demanded, "Where's Buffy?"
Spike put down his glass, feeling a chill start up in his chest. "Not here."
"You expect me to believe that?"
Spike forced himself calm. "Don't care. I'm not in contact with her. You know that. Christ, you monitor her phone calls, don't you?"
"I do not–"
"When I saw you. Tonight. I thought something might be wrong. Called Giles and Dawn, and neither of them heard anything amiss. So wherever she is, she's not here."
Angel dropped his head onto his arms. "She said she was coming to you."
There was that feeling again. The wind knocked out of him. Couldn't speak. He could drink, however, and downed the pint in a single long swallow. Then he could speak, though only what was likely to cause trouble. "So you're saying she's waiting back at my flat, curled up naked on my bed like always?"
When Angel didn't react, Spike started worrying. "Hey, you're supposed to curse me for that."
"She took her passport."
"So maybe she couldn't get a flight. Or maybe she thought twice–" Spike paused, remembering his Slayer. "Okay, not likely. You have a row or something? She probably checked into some expensive spa, said that thing about me to punish you. Worked, didn't it?"
"She wouldn't do that."
Hmm. Sometimes Spike wondered how well Angel knew the woman they both loved. Then again, Spike thought, Angel had always done his damnedest to avoid knowing the ruthless part of Buffy. Spike loved that part of her, but then, he loved every part of her, even though it ended up killing him– and even though it meant he lost her to Angel, who loved only the girl and not the Slayer. "So why'd she say she was coming here?"
"Because of this." Angel withdrew something big from his capacious coat pocket and slammed it on the table, making the glasses jump.
It was a copy of Bloody Hell: the Memoirs of Macarias, Master Vampire. The dust jacket's black background soaked up the light. The blood-red letters of the title and his penname Macarias Devlin glistened wetly. Foil. His agent Leah had insisted on that.
"That's not supposed to be on sale till Monday."
"Well, someone sent Buffy an advance copy."
Spike was tired from working all day and half into the night, and worried now about Buffy, and consequently slow on the uptake. But finally it sunk in. He flipped the book over, and there on the back was his nice anonymous author photo, him all in black against a black wall, his face in shadow, just a bit of light outlining him. Macarias Devlin, The Master was printed underneath. "No one's supposed to know I wrote it. Got it put in the contract."
"Yeah, like she couldn't figure out that was you in the photo."
He supposed it was true. The face was mostly hidden, but she knew his body all too well. He took a look at Angel's stricken face, and decided not to say that out loud. "I guess the title's a giveaway too. Didn't want it, but the agent and the editor both insisted on Bloody Hell." He considered the photo, thought about Buffy, of her powerful fury and the damage it had inflicted on him already . "So how angry is she? Planning to stake me before I dare to write again?"
"The world should be so lucky." Angel flipped the book open at random, glowering at the text on page 106.
Spike couldn't help himself– he read it upside down, counted four semi-colons on one page, and realized immediately, involuntarily, Rupert had been right all along. Semi-colons were old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy, and yes, they might have been good enough for Trollope, but this was the 21st Century, and maybe it wasn't too late to order a recall of all the extant copies and edit it one more time. Replace all the semi-colons with dashes. Dashes were modern. Post-modern, even.
Even with the reviews Leah had been forwarding, and the exacting Rupert's final approval, Spike had been living in an agony of dread the last few weeks, imagining real people really reading his book and really hating it. He was just too bloody vulnerable to be a writer, he'd told Leah in their last phone call, and she had cooed and promised to post five five-star reviews for each one-star review on amazon.com.
"She stayed up all night reading it."
"Buffy? She did?" That sounded good. Didn't it? "Course, it's probably only the third novel she's read in three years, so it's not like she has much basis for comparison."
Angel glared at him. Don't criticize my girl.
She's mine too, Spike glared back. And in the weird way they'd found to live with the impossible, Angel growled a bit more then looked back at the book jacket and muttered, "Macarias. Master Vampire."
"Needed a penname. Always go for the alliterative."
"She cried at the end."
Whoa. Dawn cried too, but then she cried when they had to clap for Tinkerbell. (So did Spike, but that was beside the point.) Rupert didn't cry when he read the last page– Spike had been watching close– but he had taken off his specs and polished them especially hard. Faith didn't cry either; she was too mad at him for dusting a good-looking vamp to save "that stupid archaeology whore." The real prize was Leah, the self-proclaimed Brooklyn bitch, who called him demanding a sequel so poor darling Macarias (aka the Bloodbane of Iberia, Egypt, and the British Isles) could get his reward for sacrificing his unlife to restore the soul of the woman he loved.
"Tell her there's a sequel. Happy ending. Just finishing it up now."
"Let me guess. Master Macarias gets the girl, right?"
"Not that simple. I got to go with the holistic shape of the narrative, the character arc, the psychological and moral journey. So... yeah, he gets the girl." Spike had written the sequel's final scene yesterday, and it still hurt. He got up and went to the bar for another pint, and this time drank it slowly as he resumed his seat, letting the ale soothe away the ache in his throat.
"But you didn't. Get the girl."
"It's not about me, Angel. Just a story. I made it up." He traced the foil letters of the title with his finger. "You know what Mark Twain said? He said, Of course truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense."
"She said." Angel stopped, took another swig. Swallowed. "That she realized. You loved her more. That you always loved her more."
Spike's hand started trembling. Just a bit. Only he would notice. Like only he noticed he had a broken heart, one that hurt as much as any that beat. He pressed his finger hard against the slick bookjacket. "She knew that. You knew that. I proved that a dozen times, a dozen ways. Three years, I stayed with her, even when she wouldn't give me a moment's encouragement. When I think what I gave up for her– never mind. Doesn't bear recounting. But this was never about who loved her more. Or she'd have gone with me."
Angel didn't protest, and for just a second Spike sensed him– sensed the inside of him, the self of him, the grim grayness that was Angel's fortress soul. And he didn't want it. Didn't want to feel it, because it brought only despair, to remember that Buffy had chosen that, the calm dim unchanging eternal, over all Spike wanted to give her– the brightness and the sharpness and the passion of the now. "She chose you," he said flatly. "That's what counted. Not who loved her more, or she'd be with me. But the one she loved more. And that would be you."
It still hurt. It still killed him. But he did love her more, he did. And he proved it forever. He let her go. He let her go and never came near her again– put a continent and an ocean and five thousand miles between them, erased her email from his address book and her number from his cellphone memory. "I want her to be happy. Don't know why that means she has to be with you, but if that's what she wants, that's what I want."
"The book–"
"Fiction. A story. I– I draw from my own experience. Sure. But it's not about me." After a moment, he added, "Much."
"Just so happens Macarias looks like you."
"He's taller." Despite his utter despair, Spike laughed. "Scar's on the other eyebrow."
"And Susanna–"
"Nothing like Buffy. For cripes' sake. The whole book takes place in 1890. Susanna's a prim Victorian egyptologist with auburn hair who gets turned into a vampire."
"By the master vampire who is obsessed with her."
"Uh, wake up, Peaches. Was with Buffy for years. Kissed her a thousand times. Never thought of turning her. Never even bit her. Can you say the same?"
Angel sucked in the breath he didn't need. "She's mine."
"I told you this two years ago. I would abide by her decision. I have. It's killed me. But I kept my promise. I never once– never once contacted her. Now if you're having trouble keeping her, I suggest you take it up with the bleeding gypsies, not with me."
That stake hit home. Angel's face twisted, and Spike realized that he and Buffy had never managed it, never challenged the soul clause, never undid the curse that kept them from making love. Whatever physical relationship they had, it must not be anywhere near a full one.
And then, as it always did when he tried to hit Angel, the shot ricocheted. How could it be– how could it be, that she would have chosen such a limited love over what Spike offered? He gave her all the passion, epic lovemaking, sexual worship– oh, the nights they'd had... didn't he bring her back to life, if only for stolen moments? Didn't she know his love in every fiber of her being? Didn't she feel her own beauty, her own glory, in his desire?
But she had all that, and chose Angel and whatever he could give her instead, and Spike felt his dead heart break right in two, and thought, quite plainly, I have to be careful. This could actually kill me.
He'd given her up so she could be happy. It's the only thing that kept him sane and relatively reasonable these last two years. He didn't have to understand why Angel made her happy– he just had to accept it. But now... now he didn't even have that to sustain him.
He wanted to reach across the table and grab Angel by the throat and kill him for failing, for taking Buffy and relegating her to the shadows of love. For living under a curse for a century and accepting it as his lot. Yeah, it plunged him into the gray despair that went so well with his guilt. Yeah, it punished him real good for all the bad he'd done. Fine. Wasn't Spike's path to redemption. (Spike's way had worked better, as it happened.) But it was Angel's choice.
But not Buffy's– it wasn't fair to her. Just wasn't.
Unless that was what Buffy wanted. Unless passion scared her so much now–
And that, he thought, staring down, would be his fault. Passion. Obsession. Love. They were all the same to Spike. He didn't know any other way to love than full out-- plunge in, give all, take all. But finally he realized, maybe that wasn't her way to be loved. So he'd tried to hold back that last year. Tried to think of her, what she needed. What she wanted. What sort of love would sustain her. Held her all one night without a single kiss... a holy and reverent love. But it couldn't last. It wasn't him. The next night, and the next, they'd faced death, and he wanted to give her life– and all the passion that was life to him. That was all he had left of life. Gave it to her. Too much. It must have been too much. So much that in the last moment before he burned, she made her little declaration of love, screwed up her courage and took her deep breath and said what she knew he wanted to hear, and it was half-true, at least, maybe two-thirds true, and that would have been enough for anyone but him. But not enough for him. He had to deny what she tried so hard to feel. It wasn't what he felt, so it wasn't love at all.
He looked down at the book, almost blind with the pain. No, Macarias wasn't him. And Macarias's sacrifice wasn't his. But it was all in there, of course it was, all the anguish, all the passion, all the need. And she read it, and it told her again what he'd told her that last day– she didn't feel right. She didn't feel enough. She didn't know passion. She didn't know love.
Angel would never deny what she called love. He would never doubt that what she gave him was everything love could be. Angel's love, so limited but so eternal, must have seemed safe to her. Until she remembered Spike's love– or what he called love, anyway. He didn't know anymore what it was. Pain. That's all it was. Fire and pain. Burning him from within, and her too.
It wasn't Angel's fault.
Impulsively, he reached across the table and touched his grandsire's hand. "I'm sorry. Come on back to my flat. Maybe she's waiting there. And we can call Dawn again."
Angel was made suspicious by the apology, as well he might be. But Spike couldn't find the words, or the strength, to explain. He just took Angel into the Underground, paid for their tickets, and guided him deep down into the earth, to the Circle Line platform. "It's a long way," he said in apology. "But quicker than a taxi. Pick up the Bakerloo line at Embankment."
They were both silent all the way back to Spike's flat, but when they got there and found no Buffy, no note from Buffy, no message from Buffy, Angel started muttering. "Where is she, what's she doing, why–"
Spike was worried himself, but said reasonably, "Well, it's not like she can't take care of herself."
"But she's never done a trip like this, on impulse. Never had to deal alone with customs and immigration and security. She only got a passport because she thought she might visit Dawn at some point."
Spike envisioned the Slayer approaching airport security and winced. "You know, if she tried to pack any weapons..."
"Can I use your phone?" Angel picked up the receiver before Spike could answer.
"Sure. I'm going to call Dawn, see if she's heard from her sister."
Dawn, it turned out, had left six increasingly frantic messages on his machine. None contained information about Buffy. As he called her back on his cellphone, he rummaged through the desk drawer for the cigarettes he kept for emergencies. Then he walked out into the garden and lit up. "Yeah, babe, I'm intact. Angel too. We're okay for the moment. I guess he's going to bunk here for the night."
"Where's Buffy? Why doesn't he know?"
At some point, he'd have to explain about the book. But now he just said, "I guess she just said she was coming here, and left."
"Coming here? Coming to see you, not me?" Dawn sounded bewildered, not hurt.
"I reckon that's what she said. He called my business line and gotten the recording about where and when my walks start, and showed up thinking she'd be with me, I guess. Listen. Don't worry. Buffy probably missed a connection and will be arriving on the red eye in the morning."
He rang off, dialed Giles, got Olivia. Giles was in the kitchen opening another bottle of wine. "Tell him we're sure Buffy's all right, but not where she's being all right right at the moment."
"Not to worry, you mean," Olivia said. "And you and Angel are –"
"All right also."
Jet lag hit Angel suddenly, and he fell asleep sitting up on the couch. Spike eased him over, covered him with a blanket, and wrote a note. O-neg in the freezer; help yourself. Coffee and tea makings on the counter. Checking the airports. Will call back by morning. After a moment, he went back and erased the semi-colon. Replaced it with a dash.
Heathrow was closest, so he went there first. It was probably a futile quest that would take him half the night, but Spike had to keep busy. He parked his car in a rental car slot, as close as he could to Terminal 3, where the flights from the States came in. No way, anymore, to get through to the gates without a ticket. So he stood near the ticket counter and opened up his sense channel the way he was teaching the slayerettes. Closed his eyes, opened everything else. Reached out his left hand, palm down, fingers splayed. Sorted through the still-tempting cascade of human smell, vibrations of pulse everywhere, and linked on to one source.
He opened his eyes and walked through the mall of shops to the customs exit. A flood of people emerged, and he drew in a breath as he felt her closer. Then he saw her, walking across the dirty linoleum in her stupid high heels, her bright head down, her shoulders slumped, the very picture of the weary traveller. "Buffy," he said softly. And she looked up and saw him, and ran into his arms.
He'd dreamed, all these months, of a moment like this, imagined her warm and wiggling against him, heard her urgent voice and felt her hair under his chin. Dreams so real he'd wake up in a black mood and with a craving to call her so strong he'd destroyed five phones so far. It was almost midnight and he was tired and jangly with nerves, and he considered that this was likely another dream, but for just a moment, he let himself hold her. Then, sternly, he put her away from him, picked up her discarded bag, and took her hand. "Car's outside. Let's go."
But they didn't get far before she started crying, and it was so un-Buffy that he couldn't bear it, and drew her over to the wall and sat down on the floor and took her back in his arms. "Tell me about it, pet."
"It was so awful," she said, pressing her wet face against his shirt. "I ended up in Ontario. Did you know there's a London there too? I didn't. I just went online– at the library, because I didn't want Angel to track me– and I put in London and I bought a ticket." She sniffled. "I thought it seemed like an awfully cheap flight. I feel so ... so incompetent and stupid and–"
"That's okay, love. We've all got our stupid travel trick stories." He held her close and let her talk about how it ended up costing more than a thousand extra and she maxed out her credit card and had nothing left and....
"It's all right, don't fret so, this is Sunnydale East, Giles here, Dawn, me– not to worry."
She gave a watery laugh, and looked up at him, her eyes shining. "You mean you've got my back."
"Always, Slayer."
She was calmer now, and let him get up, and followed him with unprecedented docility out to the car park. "Where do you live?"
"Marylebone," he said. "But I'm going to take you to Dawn's. That's in Knightsbridge."
She was quiet as he set her bag in the back seat of the Jaguar and opened the passenger side for her. When she was settled, and he'd started the car, she said, "Why not your place?"
"Because Angel is sleeping on my couch."
"He chased me here?" she was still demanding as they headed east on the M4.
"Well, since he got here first, I don't know that he was really chasing you."
"I can't stand it," she muttered. "I just wanted to get away–"
"To visit the old flame." He didn't know why he said that. Sympathy for Angel didn't come easy. He was scared, however. Scared of what this all meant. Scared of what she'd say if she kept talking.
"I couldn't help it. I read your book– oh, Spike, I can't believe you wrote a book! And it's really good!"
"Go online and write that up on amazon.com then," he suggested. "But Buffy, it's just a book. Fiction. Not true."
"I've heard you tell those old vampire stories to Dawn."
"Yeah, those are true– as true as vamp stories ever are. But the rest. Macarias. Susanna. Just made up." He was ready to get huffy about it, demand to know if she really thought he had no imagination, that he was some sort of narcissist who could only write about himself. But she didn't give him the chance.
"I should have known." She slumped down into her seat and looked away from him, out into the darkness. "Susanna's nothing like me."
"Yeah," Spike said in some relief. "Way whinier. Weaker right cross. Not nearly as tough. Not as pretty either." Nowhere near as good in bed, but maybe he shouldn't say that. He'd had to tone down the love scenes before he sent them to the editor– she was more cynical even than Leah, and would never believe the truth.
"But she was like me. To you. Hating Macarias."
"Well, he did turn her."
"To save her life. Whatever. I mean, she would be dead forever if he hadn't done that."
"That's not the only reason he did it." He'd been scrupulous to keep Macarias bad– giving him the occasional mixed motive, yes, but mostly he acted for the usual vamp reasons of self-interest, bloodlust, and a love of chaos. Whenever Master Macarias got too good, Spike could count on Rupert writing "Saint M" in the manuscript margin. "He didn't want her to die, because then he'd never get her into bed. And he thought it would be cool to have a good churchgoing girl like her lose her soul." That was Angelus's reason for turning poor Dru, the convent girl, but he doubted Buffy knew that.
"Well, okay, but she punished him for it. For years. And then he went and battled Satan and won back her soul, and restored her to life, and he went to hell–" she was crying again, quietly now. "And she woke up not knowing him anymore. She'd lost all memory of him, and her time with him. And yet he remembered every moment."
"Always a price to pay for magic. Got to make sure the children understand that." He added, "Not that children should be reading this book."
"And he was lost forever...."
"Well, until the sequel starts, three years later."
She turned to him, the tears glistening in the light from the dash. "A sequel? Oh, thank God. Do they –"
"Don't want to spoil it for you, pet."
"Spoil it," she said, grimly seizing the hand he had on the gearshift. "I have to know."
Spike couldn't help himself. He smiled. Leah and Dawn had demanded the same thing. Rupert, of course, was of the opinion that Macarias needed a few more millennia in hell, but Olivia called him a sadist. Faith just shook her head and said Macarias deserved better. Faith was hard to please. Fictionally, at least. "Happy ending. For Macarias, at least. Verdict still out on whether what he wants most is best for Susanna."
"I'm glad." She sighed, gathered her feet up, and said, "I'm so tired. Couldn't sleep on the plane. I was worried I was headed to yet another London I didn't know about." She leaned her head against his arm, and he drew in a breath. "You're always there when I need you. I don't know how you knew to come get me. But I had this stupid hope that somehow– and I looked up, and there you were."
"I wouldn't have known if Angel hadn't come looking for you," he pointed out. "He's the big hero."
She slid a confiding hand under his arm, against his ribs. "Don't start being humble, Spike. Doesn't suit you." Then she yawned and slid a little farther down him, and he knew she was asleep.
A half hour later, he pulled up in the mews behind Dawn's row of flats. He maneuvered his arm free of Buffy– she murmuring a sleepy protest– and called Dawn to warn her to come down and open the door. Then he got out and picked Buffy up, carrying her and her bag around to the front.
She woke up briefly to greet her sister, then curled up on Dawn's bed. Spike looked down at her for a minute, then said, "Maybe I'll nip down to the all-night market. Get her some of that Vienetta ice cream cake. She'd like that." He started towards the door, but felt Dawn's gaze on him and turned. "What?"
"Remember Obsesso Spike?"
"I'm just getting her some ice cream."
"At 1 am. After driving halfway around London on the off-chance you might run into her. With her official boyfriend asleep on your couch at this very minute."
Spike snarled at her and left. Five minutes later he was back with the ice cream. He went to Dawn's battered desk, found a sticky note, and wrote FOR BUFFY in big letters and stuck it onto the cardboard box. "Don't even think of eating it," he warned Dawn, shoving it into her freezer. "And call Rupert and tell him Buffy's here. If I interrupt him and Olivia once more tonight, he's going to fire me. Stake me first, then fire me."
She followed him down the steps, and stood with him in the doorway, with the night cooling around them. She was going to say what she had to say, so he might as well wait for it. Finally she seized his head and pulled it down and bumped it with her own– the sort of rough affectionate gesture he'd accept only from Dawn. "Don't get hurt, you stupid vampire," she said. "Just don't get hurt."
"Too late for that, bit," he said, kissing her forehead and letting her go.
He started towards his flat, and then just couldn't. Couldn't do any more time with Angel. Not tonight. So he called and woke the bugger up and told him Buffy was safe and at Dawn's. He was careful not to say where Dawn's was, and Angel was too befuddled to ask. "So I got a couple things to do yet tonight. See you in the morning."
And he drove to Bloomsbury, to the Slayer Academy, and parked in front of the little mews flat in back. There was no light in the window above. Good. He felt in his pocket for the key, and hoped it still worked.