Serious Moonlight

Sequel to The Heart's Filthy Lesson
Rating: Remember the last story?  Like that.
Summary: Nah.  But bad things happen to
chairs.

Authors' note: It's possible we've invented a 
new genre: SpikeTorture.  Didn't mean to do 
it; it just happened that way.

Serious Moonlight 1/26

"I don't have plans and schemes /And I don't 
have hopes and dreams /Baby, I just don't 
have anything, anything/Since I don't have 
you /I don't have you."

The jazz swirled through the bar like the 
haze of cigarette smoke.

It was Tuesday night at Lovecraft's and the 
usual congregation of male losers of the 
undead, dead, demon, and assorted 
supernatural worlds were lurking in the 
shadows, drinking, playing cards and 
generally being uninspiring. It looked like a 
cross between the Cantina scene in the 
original Star Wars and the movie poster for 
The Usual Suspects, even down to crap fashion 
sense.  Spike was perched on his favorite 
barstool, drinking Stoli and A positive, 
indulging in a bout of self-pity.  There had 
to be some way that he could get out of the 
funk that surrounded him like an eight-week 
wet afternoon.

"I don't have fond desires /And I don't have 
happy hours /Baby, I don't have anything, 
anything /Since I don't have you /I don't 
have you."

He wondered if Prozac worked on vampires.

"I don't have Happiness and I guess /I never 
will ever again /When you walked out on me 
/In walked old misery /And he's been here 
since then," the jukebox continued, despite 
the fact that the Chaos demon was growling at 
the aged Wurlitzer.

Small chance that the Chaos demon was going 
to be able to get the latest Britney Spears 
any time soon.  Spike had shoveled ten dollars 

in quarters into it and told it to keep playing 

his song.  Sometimes the only thing a 

vampire could do was drink a lot of booze, 

listen to depressing music and then stagger 

back to his hiding place at the crack of dawn.  

What no one appreciated was that vampires 

had hearts, too -- undead, unbeating hearts, 

right enough, but they could be macerated 

by a woman's meat-grinder treatment as 

easily as a human's.

"I don't have love to share /And I don't have 
one who cares /Baby I don't just have 
anything /Since I don't have you /I don't 
have you."

He was starting to think that women were just 
placed in the Universe to make men miserable.  
He lit another cigarette and chased the 
olives around in his drink.  Blood and 
alcohol swirled like a barber's pole.  Women 
existed only to shag and play games with 
men's hearts and minds, regardless of the 
life signs connected to those organs.  Dru 
had played him for a fool and dropped him 
like a crucifix, and the Slayer had done the 
same.  Maybe a spot of celibacy was in order.  

A spot of being dragged through boiling lead 
while wearing an aluminum thong might be 
slightly more enjoyable.  Was there something 
in the bar that he could shag, or kill, or 
shag than kill? 

He smelled perfume and looked up.

She was stacked, she was familiar, and she 
was a pain in the ass.

"Hullo Anya," Spike said as the former 
vengeance demon sidled up to the bar next to 
him.

"Bourbon, straight, no ice," she told the 
barman.

"Havin' a bad hair day?" he asked.

"Why would you think that?  Just because I'm 
going to a demon bar to kill as many brain 
cells as possible, why would you think that I 
was having a bad day?" She paused and caught 
a breath.  "What's wrong with my hair?"

"Noth--"

"I asked him if he liked the dress and he 
failed to look up from the television." Her 
voice had become even higher and more 
machinegun than usual.  "Survivor was 
obviously more important to him than I was.  
So I left.  I took his car and I left. And he 
still failed to look up from the television."

"You took his car?" Spike echoed, horror-
struck.

The barman slapped a glass in front of her, 
and the twenty-(centuries)-something pretty 
girl threw a shot back like John Wayne, wiped 
the back of her hand across her mouth and 
nodded for another.  

"I borrowed it.  I told him and he continued 
to stare at the bikini bimbos on television. 
I didn't steal it."

"A fine point there," he agreed and took a 
deep gulp of his Bloody Charlie.  "But you 
shouldn't be here, since you aren't actually 
a demon anymore."

"So?"

Girl-logic.  If he lived to be a thousand, he 
would never understand girl-logic.  The 
problem was that it wasn't logic as such, it 
was moving from point X to point A by way of 
the shoe store and a couple dozen make-up 
counters.  Anya wiggled on the barstool, 
fluffed her hair and gave Spike one of her 
more frighteningly intense looks, one that 
crawled around the back of his skull and 
looked for change under the cushions.

"I don't have love to share /And I don't have 
one who cares /Baby I don't just have 
anything /Since I don't have you," the singer 
ambled off into a sad coda.  A moment later, 
the music started again and the Chaos demon 
kicked the jukebox.

"Giles is gone," she said after the third 
shot.  "In England having sex with his 
girlfriend.  He said it was 'for a variety of 
business reasons' but I heard him on the 
phone with her and this is definitely sex 
tourism.  So I have to run the shop all 
alone, and all I do is smile at customers and 
take their money, and at night it's all scary 
and Xander won't come to pick me up because 
he says he's too tired from hauling bricks 
around all day -" she stopped to hiccup - 
"and all I want is someone to pay attention 
to *me*."

She was doing fine without him, but he nodded 
anyway.

"I mean it's all changed, its not the way 
that it used to be. He comes home and we eat 
dinner and then he gets in front of the 
television and turns into a couch radish." 

"Potato. Couch potato."    

"Well, some kind of starchy food.  And we 
don't talk and we never have sex anymore."

Anya's voice was loud enough to make the 
Calansis demons look up from their eternal 
poker game near the jukebox.  Spike gave them 
a good glower and turned his attention back 
to Anya.  The former demon was red around the 
face and nose and Spike wondered if she was 
going to explode or just break down and cry.  
Either one was an ugly proposition.

"Because he's too tired from hauling bricks 
all day- And I want to have sex, sex is good 
and I really like having sex with him and I 
always -"

"I get the picture," Spike cut her off.

"This long-term relationship stuff really 
sucks."

"And you're just figurin' this out now?"

Which was just enough to push Anya over the 
edge.  Her eyes filled up with tears and she 
began shredding the cocktail napkin between 
her shaking fingers. "But I just love him so 
much-"

"Right, that was your last call. C'mon, let's 
get you home." He took Anya's arm and began 
to propel her towards the door. 

"But I don't want to go.  I want to stay here 
with the demons.  I belong here, not with 
Xander," she whined, and balked.

"No, no more demons," he ordered.

"But-"

"Dude," a surprisingly un-supernatural voice 
demanded from right behind Spike, "she 
doesn't want to go."  

"Yes she does, she just hasn't realized it 
yet," Spike said and dragged Anya a foot or 
two closer to the door.

Chaos demons, fucking Chaos demons, the 
horniest thing in the Malleus Malleficarum, 
why was he pursued by Chaos demons?  And this 
one's horns were oozing with lust as he 
looked at the tidbit that was Anya.  It was 
tempting to leave Anya to the devices of the 
Chaos demon, and she'd probably had more than 
one when she was a demon herself, but they 
tended to leave marks on humans and this 
would doubtless end with him being banned 
from the Magic Shop, which would be a Bad 
Thing.

"I don't have love to share /And I don't have 
one who cares /Baby I don't just have 
anything /Since I don't have you /I don't 
have you."

"Dude," the Hawaiian-shirt-sporting demon 
repeated, "she doesn't want to go."

Since he really wasn't in the mood for a 
fight, Spike caught up a barstool and brought 
it down on the Chaos demon's head with the 
full force of his vampire strength.  The 
demon snarled and grabbed at him with hands 
the size of Christmas geese.  Spike ducked 
behind another vampire, who ended up on the 
wrong side of the Chaos demon.  The vampire 
fang-faced at the demon and snarled.  

Anya let out a very humanly girlish scream 
and skittered away, knocking over the 
Calansis poker table.  Four fucked-off 
Calansis demons advanced into the fight, 
where the Chaos demon and the extra vampire 
were alternately pounding on one another and 
trying to pound Spike.  For his part, Spike 
made a beeline over the assorted tables, 
leaping from one to the other, breaking 
glasses and spilling drinks as he went.  He 
dodged around the Calansis demons and headed 
for Anya near the jukebox.  This, he thought 
as he kicked the nearest Calansis in the 
head, was more trouble than it was worth.  
Anya gaped at him with her eyes round as 

manhole covers.  Spike grabbed her arm just 

as the Chaos demon went down in a puddle 

of slime underneath a dog pile of Calansis.

"Spike," the bartender shouted from where he 
was hiding beneath the bar, "Don't come back 
here!"

"Put the stool on my tab," Spike instructed 
and hauled Anya out the back door, just as 
chairs began to fly through the air and 
Lovecraft's degenerated into a supernatural 
bar brawl.  

"When you walked out on me /In walked old 
misery /And he's been here since then," the 
jukebox continued over the mayhem.

"I hope you don't think that this is going to 
mean I'll have sex with you-" Anya stated as 
he pulled her into the night.

Serious Moonlight 2/26

 
Buffy bounced into the lecture hall, swinging 
her bookbag with cheerful, decapitating 
force.  Willow was already waving from the 
fourth row, her bag blocking off a seat for 
Buffy.

"So what's today's topic?" she asked Willow, 
sprawling into the bag-held seat and busily 
rifling through her notebook to find an empty 
page.

"Guest lecturer.  Some mummies are here in 
Sunnydale on loan from a museum in Cairo, and 
the curator of the traveling exhibit is here 
to talk about them."

"Mummies again?"

"These are Egyptian mummies, the regular 
Boris Karloff kind, not the strange and 
little-known Inca kind ... Buffy? Buffy?"

"Who is that vision of male beauty?" Buffy 
breathed, just as he approached the podium 
and began to speak into the microphone.

"Tie, real adult, survey says - guest 
lecturer Dr. Peter Talbot."

"Temptation Island eat your heart out."

"Be less tempted and more attentive," Willow 
joked.

The professor blathered on about Egyptology, 
and hieroglyphics, and something called the 
Rosetta Stone - all things the regular 
professor had covered for this segment of the 
World History survey, but admittedly not 
nearly as attractively.  Buffy was glad she 
didn't need to take notes.  It left her more 
time to contemplate the natural wonder in 
front of her.  Was his hair really so black 
that it had blue highlights?  She was looking 
for a dark guy these days.  Not dark 
personality-wise, but dark hair, dark eyes, 
even a little brooding would not be out of 
place.  No bleach, no nail polish - she'd got 
those covered on her own.  One hundred 
percent normal, un-augmented, genuine, 
factory-warranty human guy was what she had 
in mind. 

"Incredibly, the bodies were *not* mummified, 
despite the luxurious setting of the tomb, 
which was reserved for mummies from the 
highest classes.  Time worked its ravages, of 
course."  He smiled out at the audience, blue 
eyes twinkling mischievously.  

"Are those dimples, even though they're 
long?" Buffy whispered to Willow.  "'Smile 
creases' sounds so ... non-yummy."

"Shhh."  Willow bent over her notes.

"Adding to the mystery, the bodies were 
locked together in an eternal embrace."

Buffy shifted in her seat, her mind doing a 
Beavis "he said 'embrace'" riff.  He was 
wearing a blue dress shirt with a stripy red 
tie, the top button of the shirt undone and 
the tie a bit loose.  The suit jacket was 
draped over a vacant chair in the front row, 
and the dark pants fit so well they had to 
have been tailored.

"The bodies have been identified as those of 
two women."

Willow looked up, her mouth dropping open.

"Sisters without the skin," Buffy suggested, 
and Willow frowned.

"Of course, the posture was not necessarily ... 
sexual," the lecturer said, his voice 
dropping on the last word as if he were 
saying it just for Buffy's benefit.  "They 
could have been fighting.  Even more 
bizarrely, carbon dating places the age of 
one body at over three thousand years, but 
the other tests as recent - from within the 
last century.  There are signs that the tomb 
was entered within that period, but no 
explanation for how the younger body could 
have wasted away to the same condition as the 
older body, or how they could have become 
entangled without completely destroying the 
older one."

The screen flashed on some hieroglyphics, 
reminding Buffy of some of her less 
successful attempts to use an iMac.  Within 
the squiggles and other indefinable symbols, 
she recognized a few from spell books.

"The paintings in the tomb are primarily 
related to the worship of Sekhmet, the 
goddess of bloody vengeance and battle.  This 
is highly unusual since traditionally most 
tomb art revolves around the rising of Osiris 
from the dead. Sekhmet is a fiery and 
destructive Egyptian goddess associated with 
war and divine vengeance. Her name means 'the 
Mighty One.' One of her primary temples was 
located in Luxor, a few miles from the Valley 
of the Kings." 
  
He smiled. "Which is where King 
Tutankhamun was buried, one pharaoh I'm sure 
everyone has heard of."

Buffy remembered Giles saying once that the 
legend of Osiris being brought back from the 
dead was a metaphor for vampire ontogeny.  At 
the time she hadn't understood what he had 
meant, since that was before she had done the 
cram course for the SAT's.  But Giles had 
never mentioned anything about Sekhmet, and 
it wasn't like him to leave something out if 
he thought it was important.  He was more 

inclined to add an awful lot of excess 

information.

The guest lecturer smiled out into the 
audience, his voice wrapping warmly into 
Buffy's head.

"According to a tale known as 'The 
Destruction of Mankind,' Sekhmet was the 'Eye 
of Re,' a vengeful aspect of the usually 
benevolent goddess Hathor. The sun god Re 
sent Sekhmet to slay mortals who were 
plotting against him. Sekhmet became so 
enthusiastic about her task that she nearly 
slew all of humanity. Re prevented this by 
tricking her into drinking vast quantities of 
beer, which had been colored to look like 
blood. The intoxicated goddess had to abandon 
the slaughter and humanity was saved."

Okay, so Sekhmet was a bloodthirsty bitch, 
and two chicks trying to kill each other had 
been left in a tomb covered with pro-Sekhmet 
graffiti. Willow was writing away at 60 mph, 
and Buffy frowned at her.  What was the 

point of taking notes if there wasn't going to 

be a test?

"As goddess of war, Sekhmet was often said to 
accompany Pharaoh into battle. She was also 
the 'Lady of Pestilence' who could send 
plague and disease. She was also revered as a 
healer of these ailments, a role that seems 
paradoxical in such a bloodthirsty deity.  Go 
figure." The professor looked at his watch 
and beamed his grin around the hall again. 
"They said I had a minimum of one hour, and 
since I remember what it was like to be you 
guys, I'm going to stop now."  There was a 
ragged smattering of applause from around the 
hall.

"Yeah, well thanks," he said and tapped his 
notes into a tidy pile of cards. "But you 
could do me a favor by coming to the exhibit 
- in Murphy Hall between now and the endd 
of the month - and filling out one of those 

comment cards saying how great it was."

The lights came up and the students filed out 
of the auditorium.  The guest lecturer strode 
off the stage without a backward look. 
Buffy was disappointed.  She had wanted to 

ask him if the mummies had been part of 

some sort of Sekhmet Sisters gang.

"That was interesting. Lesbian mummies, 
bloodthirsty goddesses, don't hear that in 
class all that often," Willow said and 
stopped.  "At the Magic Shop, yes, in class, 
no."

"Still," Buffy said, popping the top of her 
Diet Coke, "Creepy mummies aside, he is 
pretty cute, in an Indiana Jones kind of 
way."

"You're totally talking to the wrong person 
about that.  But I can see a certain scruffy 
charm."

"Scruffy charm has its charms.  And anyway, 
if Tara weren't in the picture, are you 
telling me that you wouldn't even *consider* 
a guy who possessed such wasabi hotness?  Not 
even if he smiled at you like he was smiling 
in the lecture hall?"

"I think this is the point where I invoke 
don't ask, don't tell.  Speaking of guys in 
the general segue kind of way and not meaning 
to pry closer than is really necessarily, 
have you talked to---" Willow mimed fangs.

"No." Buffy said, a little nastier than she 
had planned. "Not going to.  Over and done 
with."

"Heard that before," Willow said to herself, 
and Buffy decided that she could pretend that 
she herself hadn't quite heard.

"I'm totally and completely serious.  Living 
guy-free right now is pretty good, quiet, and 
I kind of like that." They rounded a corner 
of the classroom building and walked straight 
into what was either the football team or a 
group of trolls with unusually good personal 
hygiene. "Not that I would want to take it up 
as a permanent kind of thing."

Surrounded by the valley walls of man-flesh, 
Buffy felt a little wavery around the edges; 
the humid California afternoon was thick with 
yummy boy-smell.  Eye-level with buff chests, 
shoulders, rippling 6-pack abs, every little 
bit of muscle primed and ready for athletic 
prowess on the artificial turf and towel 
snapping in the locker room afterwards.  
Buffy wasn't sure if she was having an 
anxiety attack or some kind of lust seizure, 
but her heart was pounding faster in her 
chest than a Eurodance track, and she turned 
a reddened face to Willow.  

"So when's Giles getting back from England?" 
she asked in a helium-esque voice, trotting 
through the hallway at breakneck speed to get 
away from the fug of man-ness.

"Next Wednesday." Willow broke into a half-
canter trying to keep up, her backpack 
bumping against her shoulders.  "I don't 
think that he's going to be happy with the 
bill from the electronic alarm company.  You 
know they charge three hundred dollars each 
time the alarm gets tripped by accident?"

"I always thought Anya was a little quicker 
on the uptake than that."

"But seven times in three days?   And why are 
we running?"

Buffy pushed open the heavy steel and glass 
door as though it was made of paper and took 
a deep breath of fresh air. "Not running.  
Just crowded, too many guy-people breathing 
the air."

"Ri-ight.  You know, Anya only seems to set 
off the alarm while she's closing up for the 
night.  You might want to cruise by when 
you're on patrol, just to let her know you're 
keeping an eye on her."

"Will, there are about seven zillion 
protection spells on that building. She 
doesn't need me."

Willow stopped dead in her tracks and 
shuffled the gravel between her feet for a 
moment. "You don't have to avoid the store 
for the rest of your life.  I think two 
months might be long enough, don't you?"

"I haven't been avoiding the store, I've been 
busy, I have really hard classes this 
semester and when I'm not patrolling I'm 
reading or doing homework.  I have Ancient 
Civ and English Lit and even you would get 
bleeding eyeballs from the reading that you 
have to do with them!"

"And this would have nothing to do with the 
fact that certain people of the undead 
persuasion have been known to frequent 
aforementioned place."

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Hello?  I said nothing and I mean nothing." 
Buffy frowned and qualified herself.   "I 
mean something which is I mean that I'm not 
avoiding the Magic Shop because certain 
people of the undead persuasion have been 
known to frequent aforementioned place."

Willow blinked.

"Cross my heart," Buffy lied.


Serious Moonlight 3/26

 
Getting Anya home turned out to be a far more 
complex event than Spike had imagined.  There 
was Xander's car to deal with, for one thing, 
and the fact that Anya absolutely refused to 
stop crying just cast a pall over an 
otherwise annoying series of events.  

The moon was fat and full, which explained a 
lot of things, including the dog/man shaped 
thing that Spike almost hit a few blocks from 
Lovecraft's.  Damn werewolves completely 
forgot the rules of the road when they 
changed.  The most staid businessman turned 
into a yipping idiot, leaping in front of 
cars.  Made you wonder how the police 
explained all the naked hit and runs in and 
around SunnyD. Then again, the SunnyHell 
police were hired by weight rather than IQ.

Finally, with the car parked in the 
appropriate place at Xander's apartment 
building, Spike escorted Anya up into the 
hallway. His motivation was strictly 
mercenary; he had the idea that at some point 
this would earn him a few brownie points in 
the eyes of that ridiculous blonde creature.  
Anya tottered along in her fashionably stupid 
shoes and Spike let her, not offering support 
since he didn't need the brownie points that 
badly.

Anya was blubbering too hard to get the key 
in the door, which seemed somehow symbolic to 
Spike.  Finally he claimed her keyring and 
did it himself, turning the knob and giving 
the door a kick to open it up since he 
couldn't enter.

Xander had responded to the commotion by 
leaving the couch; Spike could see, over his 
shoulder, the bowl of Doritos he'd abandoned 
on the coffee table.  "Where have you been?" 
he demanded as Anya brushed past Spike and 
stumbled into the apartment.  Then Xander 
deigned to notice Spike, and Anya's 
questionable emotional state.  "What have you 
done to her?"

"I don't want to talk to you," Anya wailed, 
and ran into the depths of the apartment, 
presumably to the bathroom (holy ground for 
females).

"If you've hurt her -"

"Oh, dispense with the soap opera, you can't 
act that well," Spike growled from the 
doorway, the threshold between him and Xander 
like an invisible force field in a Classic 
Star Trek episode.  "Your girl wanted a bit 
o' sexual satisfaction and had to accept 
alcohol as a substitute.  Speakin' for 
m'self, I can see why she's upset, though not 
why she's so particular about getting her 
man-love from *you*."

Anya was back now, shorter without the 
dangerous shoes.  Her eyeshadow was smeared 
from where she'd washed her face, like a 
clumsy child playing with mother's makeup.

"I don't need your advice," she snapped.

"Oh, sure, complain to me for hours on end 
and then take *his* side."  Spike didn't know 
why he was surprised.  Anya was just as much 
a human girl as if she'd skipped a thousand 
years of inflicting misery on men.  Or maybe 
that aided her presentation.

"This is none of your business, Spike."  
Xander had stepped forward and was poking his 
finger into Spike's silk shirt.

"Come out into the hall and say that, floppy 
boy," Spike said and gave Xander malevolent 
smile #4.

Xander stepped back into the apartment a 
couple of feet, well out of arm's reach.  
Anya velcroed herself to his side and settled 
for glaring at Spike as though he'd started 
the whole thing to begin with.

"Just leave us alone," Xander warned.

This was really beginning to get tiresome, 
this doing someone a good turn and having it 
blow up in your face like a kitten in a 
microwave.

"Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't let your girl wrap 
your car around a tree.  Look, she's back 
unharmed, just somewhat th' worse for 
alcohol.  So be a good pair of dimwits and 
have a nice shag, right?"

Xander and Anya blinked at him like owls 
caught in broad daylight before he spun away, 
wishing he could have reached inside the 
apartment to slam the door.

As he stomped down the steps of Xander's 
apartment building, Spike found himself 
wondering why males and females ever really 
bothered with one another. Masturbation was 
never this complicated.

Serious Moonlight 4/26
 
"Wow, talk about sun damage.  Didn't they 
have moisturizers back then?" Buffy breathed 
and stared up at the intertwined figures in 
the glass case.

The bodies looked as though they had been 
formed out of chopsticks covered with several 
large corn flakes, and then deep-fried. She 
wondered if Full Ho Luk was still open and if 
she could talk Willow into some fried won ton 
before heading home.

"Crispity-crunchity," Willow agreed.  "And 
it's kind of rare because the Egyptians 
actually had to do a lot of stuff to their 
mummies to make them mummies.  I mean it just 
doesn't happen every day."  

"What kind of stuff?"

"Icky kind of invasive stuff," Willow hedged, 
circling around the glass, looking up at the 
mummies.  "These are natural - people 
raisins."

Buffy looked again at the entwined figures.  
Something about them was twinging her Slayer 
sense, setting her brain vibrating like a 
plucked guitar string.  The faces, if you 
could call them faces, were nearly touching; 
lips peeled back from snarling teeth and 
eroded gums. 

"During the Old Kingdom, from 2750 to 2250 
BC, only royalty was mummified, but during 
the New Kingdom, 1539-1070 BC, it spread to 
the other classes."  A voice floated out of 
the darkness behind one of the paper-mache 
mummy cases which served as set dressing in 
the University museum.

Willow jumped away from the case when she 
heard the voice, and Buffy automatically 
jammed her hand in her bookbag and grabbed a 
stake.  Anything talking to you after sundown 
wasn't necessarily a friend in Sunnydale.  

The voice belonged to the jalapeno-flavored 
guest lecturer, who was hanging out in the 
gloom of the museum.  He must have been 
keeping an eye on his priceless display, 
making sure that the jocks and other things 
that went bump in the night didn't bother his 
crispy ladies.  Buffy let go of the stake, 
since staking a guest lecturer was probably 
going to reflect badly on her GPA.  He was 
even cuter up close, in the dim light of the 
museum.

"To make a true Egyptian mummy, all the 
internal organs were removed, except for the 
heart.  The liver, the intestines, and the 
kidneys were all preserved in canopic jars 
because they were necessary for the body to 
regain life in the afterworld.  The only 
organ discarded was the brain, because they 
had no idea what it was for.  The body was 
packed and covered with natron, which is a 
natural salt, and left to dry for forty or 
fifty days.  Then the body was packed with 
sawdust and spices before it was finally 
wrapped in linen covered with spells and full 
of amulets wrapped between the layers.  Of 
course nothing like that happened here, hence 
the mystery." His voice was as silky as sand.

"Extreme mystery," Buffy agreed.

"Were you two at the lecture?" he asked, 
coming a little closer into the light 
spilling over from the beams shining down 
into the mummy case.

"We were. I'm Willow Rosenberg and this is 
Buffy Summers."

"Hiya," Buffy muttered.  Dr. Talbot was still 
wearing his suit.  She was used to sussing 
out physical characteristics on minimal 
clues, and he looked skinny but strong.  
Think Billy Baldwin, not Charles Atlas.  She 
swallowed and looked at the mummies again.

"Are you two interested in Egyptology?" he 
asked, looking pretty much at Buffy only.

"Dead things." Buffy blurted.  "I'm really 
interested in dead things."

Willow flashed her friend a panicky look. 
"Mortuary science.  Buffy's studying Mortuary 
Science."

That earned her an "ew, yuk" look.

"I'm afraid I'm closing up for the night, but 
you're welcome to return tomorrow.  I'll be 
giving - personal - tours throughout the 
week."

"Oh," Buffy breathed, wondering when she'd 
fallen into the plot of a cheesy porn film 
and hoping that Willow's involvement was not 
further required.  "I'd love to take your 
tour."  She wondered if she were really 
blushing over every square inch of visible 
skin, or only felt as if she were.

"Tomorrow then." He indicated the path to the 
door, and Willow grabbed Buffy's arm to tug 
her away from the mummies.

"I'm revising my opinion," Willow said, and 
this time Buffy had to force her strangely 
sticky feet to keep up with the other girl.  
"I'm pretty much thinking that the creepiness 
outweighs the hitting-on-the-girl-young-
enough-to-be-his-daughter-type charm."

"Please," she scoffed.  "I'm *way* over the 
age of consent, and he'd have to have been a 
father at, like, twelve, in a weird Mary Kay 
Letorneau scenario.  But, I don't know, 
there's something about those mummies ... I 
definitely think we should research and 
return.  Potential acolytes of creepy death 
goddesses near the Hellmouth.  I would feel 
very un-Slayerly if we didn't keep an eye on 
this place."

Without discussing it, they were headed off-
campus and toward the Magic Shop.  "I'm sure 
Tara would be happy to help research," Willow 
said brightly.  "She's handy with those 
crutches, you know! ... Not at all in a sexual 
way."

"*So* did not want to go there," Buffy said, 
but without heat.

"Tara was asking about Spike the other day, 
why he wasn't hanging around the gang like 
before ...?"

"You didn't *tell* her, did you?"

"No," Willow was hurt, and the pout showed in 
her voice, "and I don't like that, but I 
respect your feelings.  It's just that 
unresolved boy-girl issues have a way of 
showing up and demanding resolution at highly 
inconvenient times, and maybe you ought to 
schedule some dealing-with-it time so that it 
doesn't interfere with the next crisis."

"You know what, I'm going to let you and Tara 
do the book-learning thing," Buffy said 
abruptly.  "Too much studying in one day, 
there's nasty rash potential.  I'm just going to
pick up some Chinese and head home.  If 

you're so convinced that Doctor Tasty is up 

to no good, why don't you look up Sex-met 

or whatever her name is."

She left Willow standing on the sidewalk, 
looking woefully in Buffy's direction.  Damn 
Spike anyway.

Which was what she was thinking half an hour 
later, when she had to duck into the alley 
beside Xander's apartment to avoid Spike as 
he half-carried, half-dragged a wobbly Anya 
up the steps.

How dare he swagger like that, with his coat 
flapping around his legs like a gunslinger, 
his over-bleached hair standing out like 
white shoes after Labor Day, and a cigarette 
hanging out of his mouth?  Didn't he know 
that the eighties were OVER? Didn't he know 
that the Sid Vicious thing was passé?  All 
she could do was chew on her thumbnail and 
hope that he left before he realized that she 
was there.  Hiding from a vampire was an iffy 
thing at best, but with any luck he wouldn't 
be able to smell her (or the Chinese food 
cooling under her arm) through the cigarette 
smoke.  And what was he doing dropping Anya 
off at Xander's anyway?  Was Anya now hanging 
out with Spike because he was the only one 
willing to come around the Magic Shop after 

closing time?  Come to think of it, where had 

Xander been lately?  Didn't Anya or Xander 

like her anymore?  More importantly, did 

they now like Spike better? 

When he disappeared into the building, she 
considered her options.  The Magic Shop was 
out: Willow was undergoing major sulkage by 
now.  Xander and Anya were Spike-infested.  
Dawn was at home - she shuddered with horror 
at the thought - and the only viable option 
was to return to the museum and poke around.  
She rummaged around in the take-out bag and 
pulled out a fortune cookie.  

"People say you have sharp sense and superb 
intellect."

Yeah, that cookie had been meant for someone 
else.

Buffy cracked the next cookie while chewing 
on the remains of the first one. She was 
holding out for something good about finding 
romance, riches and fame, great shoes at a 
low-low price, or a promise of travel to 
exotic destinations.

What is the distance between the eyes and the 
soul?

Apparently this entire package of fortune 
cookies was meant for someone else and 
possibly she'd even been given the wrong 
dinner.  If it was sweet and sour pork she 
was going to be really pissed.

"Kung Pao chicken." the familiar slimy voice 
commented. "If you really want to hide, 
carryin' Kung Pao chicken isn't the best 
thing to do." 

"It's not Kung Pao chicken.  It's Szechuan 
Eggplant and Tofu," she corrected him, 
wanting to kick herself for being so wrapped 
up in reading fortunes that she hadn't heard 
one annoying, psychotic, and evil vampire 
lumber up next to her.
 
 "It's true, Chinese do all taste the same 
and half an hour after eatin' one you're 
hungry again."

"I did not need to know this," she snapped 
and crinkled the bag shut. "What are you 
doing here?  Lurking around Xander's place?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing," he 
said and smirked a Spiky smirk at her.

"I'm not lurking, I was going to see if they 
wanted to eat Chinese food."

"They're busy makin' the beast w'two backs. 
What's next on the agenda, Blondie?"

Bad mental image, Xander and Anya, not gross 
but Buffy wasn't sure that she wanted to be 
thinking about anybody having sex while she 
was standing within ten feet of the Vampire 
From Hell. Yes, the Vampire from Hell, not 
because he was evil, which he was, not 
because he'd threatened her a zillion times, 
and he had, but because she'd made the major 
mistake of having sex with him.  And the sex 
had been pretty much amazing and thinking 
about it had taken up entirely too much of 
her time lately.  So she stood there and 
tried to keep her thinking hard, clear and 
focused, which wasn't really easy since his 
midnight eyes were taste-testing her even as 
they spoke.

"Patrol.  I'm doing the college campus 
tonight.  You might want to find someplace 
else to be, since I wouldn't want to stake 
you by accident."

"No, you'd do it on purpose," he smirked at 
her again and dangled something shiny and 
silver in front of her nose.  "Fancy a lift?  
I don't think Xander's goin' to be usin' the 
car in the next five minutes."

Reflexively, Buffy looked up at Xander's 
apartment in time to see the lights go out.

"The Uni's a long ways away, long walk for 
those stubby little legs a'yours." He jingled 
the keys again. 

"My legs are not stubby," she said and looked 
at the car, thought about the distance, "but 
it's a ride, that's all."

"I wasn't imaginin' it was anythin' but."

Naturally, Spike had tuned the radio to the 
greatest hits of the '80's station and Buffy 
had to endure an assortment of Duran Duran, 
Culture Club, and the B-52's while they made 
their way to the university campus in 
Xander's Cherry Apple Primer Corvair. Since 
she didn't have anything better to do, Buffy 
opened the rest of the fortune cookies and 
couldn't read the fortunes in the dark of the 
car so the fortunes weren't binding.

"If you should fall, into my arms, tremble 
like a flower," a man sang from the radio.

"So how are you doin', Slayer?" he asked, 
lighting a cigarette.

"I was fine before the secondhand smoke 
thing started," she grumped around a mouthful 
of cookie.

"And how have you been over the past two 
months?" he asked.

"Fine, just fine, great even.  None of your 
business as well."

"Glad to hear it," he snarled and turned the 
car into the entrance of the university with 
a jerk that sent Buffy into the passenger 
door even with her seatbelt on.

"Oh I'm sorry, was I supposed to follow you 
around or something?  You thought I was going 
to get all mushy over you, Spike?  Get. A. 
Clue.  A soul is not an automatic upgrade 
into boyfriend-class." She caught an angry 
breath and tried to bring her voice down to a 
pitch that would be heard by something other 
than dogs.  "You're a liar, you're a cheat, 
and a sneak.  The list of people you've 
killed looks like the LA white pages.  You'd 
sell your grandmother up the river if the 
price was good enough and you're about as 
dependable as -- as - an undependable thing.  
Besides, I really don't like you."

"Right, your stop." He slammed on the brakes 
with personal-injury inducing fervor.

"Fine!" she shouted and started to fumble 
with the catch of the seatbelt, which was 
sticking like a bad curse.

"Bloody Hell," Spike muttered and reached 
over to grab at the catch.

"Don't!" she hissed and grabbed his hands, " 
I can do it myself."

"I expect you can."  The acid in his voice 
should have burned through the seatbelt 
strap.

She hit him, somewhere between a punch and a 
slap, since she really didn't have enough 
room to build up velocity.  A normal guy 
would have been reeling, but Spike's head 
barely turned and all she could do was steam 
in frustration for a split second before he 
leaned over and kissed her.  Anger's gas 
flame flared up again. How dare he? How dare 
he think that she-And her little coherent 
train of thought derailed and crashed into 
the toy scenery under the Christmas tree of 
her senses.  It was wrong, entirely wrong, 
crazy wrong and just plain old good.  He 
kissed her long and hard, enough to make her 
almost forget that she was mad at him, that 
she had sworn to herself after the last time 
that the last time would be the last time.  
Head pressed back into the seat, she felt 
herself getting all tingly, warm, and stupid, 
tilting her head up and kissing him back even 
though she knew better.  Kind of like looking 
over the edge of a building and wondering 
what it would be like to jump.

She'd jumped before and gotten away almost 
unscathed.

Somehow, he'd managed to get his hands out of 
her grip and was holding her face, drawing 
his thumbs over her cheekbones in a way that 
was making it hard to breathe.  Equally 
inexplicable was the fact that she had her 
hands on the cool hardness of his chest, 
feeling the muscles move and feeling the non-
existent beat of a vampire heart. It hadn't 
taken much for him to slither over the 
emergency brake until he was straddling her 
on the passenger seat, his thighs capturing 
her hips on either side.  His mouth slid, 
cool and thrilling. down past her jawbone to 
here he could kiss her throat, right over her 
carotid artery.  Buffy found herself gasping 
and wasn't sure if she was moving her hands 
against his chest to get a better spot to 
push him away with or because he felt so 
good.  The cool palms of his hands dipped 
inside her shirt and bra to make contact with 
her breasts and she felt herself arching up 
against him from the car seat.

"Hey!" someone said and there was a tap 
somewhere, a tap that sounded sharp and 
official.

Bright light burned her eyes.

"What the F-" Spike began.

"You two, out of the car."

Serious Moonlight 5/26

Campus Security, Buffy realized, was shining 
a flashlight into the car and the man in the 
ugly polyester uniform jerked the passenger 
door open.  Spike looked at Buffy for a brief 
second and the expression was a simple 
question: 'You want me to kill this asshole?' 
As tempted as she was, Buffy pushed at Spike, 
realizing that she had just been saved from 
making yet another Major Mistake.

Spike slid out of the car and Buffy followed 
suit, the seatbelt causing no problem this 
time. The Security officer seemed bent and 
determined to blind both of them with his 
flashlight which he held in the goofy way 
that all police did.

"This ain't a hotel," the man warned.

"No sir," Buffy said in her meekest tone.

For his part, Spike leaned against the side 
of the car and looked like every parent's 
nightmare, which was doing nothing to endear 
him to the rent-a-cop.  The cop looked from 
Buffy to Spike and made a quick judgment.

"I'm gonna need to see some ID," he warned. 
"This is private property.  If you ain't 
students, you're trespassing."

Buffy hauled her University ID out of her 
wallet and showed the officer, who gave it a 
cursory look before handing it back to her.

"What about you?" he asked Spike.

To Buffy's surprise, Spike passed the man a 
laminated card, which the Security Office 
looked over as though he was examining it for 
DNA.  Finally, he looked up at Spike with 
infinite skepticism.

"Little old for a student?" he asked.

"Grad student,"  Spike said and folded his 
arms over his chest and gave the man a 'fuck 
you' look.

"What department?"

"Parapsychology."

Flicking the card back to Spike, the guard 
adjusted his flashlight belt and looked 
officious. "Get a room, this ain't a hotel," 
he repeated, apparently only possessed of one 
lame line, and waddled off into the night.

"Doughnut-biter," Spike scoffed and dug his 
cigarettes out of an interior pocket of his 
duster.

"Well thanks much," Buffy snapped and pulled 
her shirt straight.

"My pleasure," he smirked and lit a 
cigarette.  "And what demands your attention 
here, at SunnyHell U?"

Pulling tight on her attention's leash, Buffy 
brought it to heel.

"Lesbian mummy vampires."

"This I have to see."

The lock on the back door to the museum 
yielded to Buffy's gentle persuasion, her 
debating skills exercised in the form of a 
quick kick.  She didn't see red lights 
blinking or hear any alarm, so she'd just 
have to hope that the U was as budget-
deprived as the administration always whined.  
Spike flitted alongside her, doing the 
silent-vampire routine.

The hallways were dim and silent, boxes and 
crates stacked against the walls with labels 
from Faraway. Operating on a Slayer-enhanced 
sense of spatial relations, she headed 
towards the Egyptology exhibit.  As she drew 
closer, she began to feel the floor 
vibrating, a sub-earthquake-level shaking 
that left her queasy.  Damn mummies anyway; 
why would a sane person even bring them near 
the Hellmouth?

Now she could hear chanting, gobbledegook in 
some Mummylicious dialect.  If the cute guy 
is involved in this, she thought darkly, 
we're going to have words.

Annoyingly, Spike grabbed her arm; she 
frowned at him and jerked away.  He made a 
two-fingered gesture that Buffy had never 
understood, but always assumed was obscene, 
and then pointed.  Over near the grouping of 
fake mummy cases the U had dragged in for set 
dressing, candles flickered.  In the faint 
light, she could make out a figure moving 
around the sarcophagus where the lady mummies 
lay.  She peered around the edge of the fake 
mummy case.

"I have come to be a protector unto thee. My 
strength shall be near thee; my strength 
shall be near thee, forever. Ra hath heard 
thy cry, and the gods have made thy word to 
be truth. Thou art raised up. Thy word is 
truth in respect of what hath been done unto 
thee. I hath overthrown thy foes, and thou 
art Sekhmet, Lady Destruction."

The candlelight did amazing things for the 
highlights in Dr. Talbot's hair.  Buffy was 
almost distracted from the gallon jug of dark 
fluid he was about to pour into the 
sarcophagus.

She cleared her throat, and he spun around.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she 
warned.  He snarled, a perfect curl of upper 
lip that made his blue eyes flash like pilot 
lights, and edged around the sarcophagus, 
putting it between them.  Then he tilted the 
jug and the first red drops arced through the 
air.

"The blood of Isis, the spells of Isis, the 
magical powers of Isis, shall make this great 
one strong, and shall be an amulet of 
protection against She that would do to her 
the things which she abominates," he 
continued to chant.

"Freeze!  Campus Security!"

Which didn't quite have the threat of 
"Freeze, Police!"

Dr. Talbot swore and ducked and rolled under 
a display case, leaving a splatter of black 
blood under the case from his tipped jug.  
She could hear him scuttling away as she 
raised her hands, having no desire to see how 
well Slayers healed from being beaten by 
flashlights and doughnuts. 

"You!  Over there!  Drop it!"

Buffy dropped her stake and squinted; the 
sudden red alarm lights weren't helpful, 
making everyone look like a Paratin demon 
only without the warts.  There might be three 
or four rent-a-cops.  Maybe.  Dr. Talbot had 
probably made it to Tijuana by now, and Spike 
was nowhere in sight.  No doubt he had 
slithered off to his crypt like the snake 
that he was, ditching her when the going got 
rough.

"Okay Missy, what's going on here? This some 
dumb sorority prank?"  Rent-A-Cop  #1 asked.

"Dumb prank?  Prankish. Dumb.  Very, very 
dumb," she chattered, as blonde as possible.

As quickly as they had gone on, the red 
lights and the sirens went out, leaving 
blackness and silence for about two seconds, 
and then a droning male voice began, backed 
by squealing, distorted guitars, blaring over 
the speakers loud enough to make Buffy's ears 
buzz with pain.

"She had an 'orror of rooms, she was tired 
you can't hide beat/When I looked in her eyes 
they were blue but nobody home," the voice 
droned, "She could've been a killer if she 
didn't walk the way she do, and she do/She 
opened strange doors that we'd never close 
again!"

Buffy heard cops howling in pain at the 
discordant assault and she jammed her 
fingers in her ears to block some of the 
sound.  Her Slayer-sense alerted her to 
Spike's presence before he grabbed her arm.  
She knew it was him by his ashtray and 
leather smell and fought her natural instinct 
to pull away.  Instead, she followed him 
through the darkness of the museums.  
Vampires could see better in the dark than 
humans, and she had a good idea that Spike 
wasn't about to turn her over to the fake 
cops, but she didn't like feeling helpless in 
the dark while His Spikiness was in control.

"She asked me to stay and I stole her 
room/She asked for my love and I gave her a 
dangerous mind."

The screaming guitar music continued.

"Now she's stupid in the street and she can't 
socialize/Well I love the little girl and 
I'll love her 'till the day she dies."

Finally, Spike pulled a fire door open with 
vampiric strength and they were outside, and 
they were in the back parking lot, complete 
with both of Campus Security's golf carts and 
Xander's Corvair.  The very first security 
guy from earlier - witness to Buffy's near-
humiliation - was waiting outside the door 
they'd initially entered, talking on his 
walkie-talkie and looking nervous.  Going 
back for the car was not a good idea.

"Spike, what did you-"

"Plugged the old Discman into the PA system.  
Discman and CD I fully expect you to replace.  
That's a classic album."

"There has been music recorded since 1989."

"Usin' the widest definition of the word 
music."

"Quick recap, guest lecturer is chanting and 
pouring blood into a sarcophagus with unusual 
mummies inside.  This can't be good," Buffy 
hissed as they picked their way through the 
shrubbery and away from the museum.

"Where'd he get the big bottle of blood?  I 
get those stupid little bags and he gets a 
whackin' great jar of it."

"Hello?  Creepy Egypt guy more important than 
your grocery issues."

"No he's not," Spike muttered as they crept 
along.  "Where we goin' now?"

"Willow and Tara.  They're looking up Sekhmet 
for me."

"That should be a laugh riot."


Serious Moonlight 6/26

Buffy banged on the dorm room door.  A moment 
later, Willow opened up and goggled at Buffy 
with Spike lurking behind. Spike was tempted 
to vamp-face at her but realized that the 
subsequent ruckus would slow matters down 
somewhat.  Instead he composed his face into 
something like a bland expression.

"Did you find that Sex-met stuff I asked you 
about?" Buffy asked as she barged past her 
friend into the room proper.

Spike loitered in the doorway while Willow 
stared back at him like a squirrel not sure 
if there really was a glass pane between her 
and the cat.

"May I come in?" Spike asked with a double-
shot of sarcasm.

"Buff?"

"Yah, spell him out later.  This is 
important," she instructed as she crossed to 
where Tara was propped up on the bed with a 
flurry of books and paper around her.

"All right, come in," Willow instructed 
Spike.

Spike stepped over the threshold as though it 
were made if unstable gelginite and went 
straight to the window where he could lurk, 
lean and look over Buffy's shoulder.  Tara's 
eyes followed him across the room.  While 
Tara could be downright friendly when he was 
alone with her, the moment Willow entered the 
scene, Tara treated Spike like he was an asp 
in a basket of dates.

"Further research has disclosed that Sekhmet 
was thought to be embodied in an avatar," 
Tara explained from the bed.

"What's an avatar?" Buffy asked.

"A being who embodies a god," Tara said, 
in her not-quite-duh! voice.

"Remember about the blood-drinking?" Willow 
asked, shifting her weight to stand between 
Tara and Spike.  "The creation of Sekhmet's 
avatar involved a lot of blood-drinking."

Spike backed away, moving towards the room's 
single desk, putting as much room between the 
two witches and himself as possible.  He 
didn't much relish the thought of them 
sprinkling fairy dust on him and turning him 
into a frog or something.  Buffy looked up at 
him for a moment with a big question mark 
hanging over her head before turning her 
attention back to the matter at hand.

"Can you say 'vampire'?" Buffy asked 
rhetorically.  "But he was pouring the blood 
into the coffin.  So are these mummies some 
sort of freeze-dried avatars?"

"There's no mention in the texts of that," 
Tara said.  "But observed behavior would 
suggest some type of resurrection scenario."

"She wasn't moving yet, last I saw before the 
cops so rudely interrupted," Buffy offered.

Tara looked down at the book she'd propped on 
her lap.  With her legs splayed to 
accommodate both plaster casts, she looked 
like a human gingerbread woman.  

"According to these records, the ritual to 
resurrect Sekhmet's avatar requires several 
nights to take full effect.  First the blood 
of a man, then the blood of a woman.  There 
are some references to repeating the process, 
but I couldn't make sense of them."

Spike cleared his throat like a were-tiger 
having a hairball, making Willow's face go as 
red as her hair.  This earned him a Slayer-
glare.

"I didn't say anythin'," he protested and 
turned his attention down to the schoolbooks 
and papers scattered over the desktop while 
Buffy and the witches went back to their 
yipping.

His eyes scanned down the page of a notebook, 
between loopy notes about the end of the 
Elizabethan Era and the changes that 
Shakespeare had caused in writing in general, 
someone had jotted down a few lines from one 
of Donne's Holy Sonnets.  The words in a 
childish scrawl jumped out at him.

"Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved 
fain, /But am betroth'd unto your enemy: 
/Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again, 
/Take me to you, imprison me, for I /Except 
you enthrall me, never shall be free, /Nor 
ever chaste, except you ravish me."

"Spike?" Buffy's voice snapped him out of his 
cold horror.  "Why do you think The Formerly 
Cute Dr. Talbot would want to raise Sekhmet?" 
she repeated.

"Oh well," he slid onto the desktop and 
looked across the room at the women, "I'm 
thinkin' the usual reasons any mortal goes 
muckin' about with ancient vampires.  Money, 
power, sex, eternal life, dead borin', 
really."

A thought surfaced.

"Formerly cute?" he asked.

The women, inevitably, ignored him.

"He wants to have sex with an ancient dried-
up vampire chickie?" Willow wondered aloud, 
and then caught herself, and blushed. "It's 
the dried-up thingy. Like ouch.  But if 
that's what you're into, fine with me!"

The accidental double-entendres of Willow's 
speech struck Buffy first and she glanced 
over at her friend as if Willow had been 
sucking blotter acid.  Tara merely sighed and 
closed her book. Clueless, Willow looked from 
one to the other and frowned.  Spike thought 
this was all very cute, but a waste of time.

"Hang about, what if it's th'other way 
around?  What if Sekhmet is usin' the good 
doctor to resurrect her, not intendin' to 
keep whatever part of the bargain she'd made 
with him to begin with?"

"Wouldn't be the first time a vampire broke a 
promise," Buffy remarked in a tone as dry as 
Sekhmet.

"I guess going to the school authorities is 
out of the question?  I mean the mummies 
don't belong to him, they belong to the 
museum in Cairo," Tara offered in her mild 

way.

"Are you volunteering to explain?  That won't 
go over really well," Buffy pointed out.

"The place was crawlin' with Sunnydale's 
Finest last we saw, I doubt if he'll get much 
raisin' of the dead done the rest of the 
night.  It's safe as houses."



It was late afternoon by the time Buffy made 
it to the crypt.  She pulled open the trap 
door and barreled into Spike's inner sanctum.  
Naturally, he was sleeping through the 
daylight, a bleach-blonde lump under his 
retro tacky red and black velvet bedspread.

"Get up!" she demanded and kicked the bed 
frame.

It took three repetitions before Spike 
emerged from the covers and gave her a bleary 
glower.

"For Hell's sake, it's the middle of the 
bleeding afternoon," he groaned and pulled 
the covers over his head.

"Talbot stole the mummies.  The mummies are 
missing from the museum," she explained in a 
not-patient voice.  "The mummies are gone."

Only by concentrating on the mummies was 

she able to look at the bed without thinking 

about what had happened on it - much.

"Spike!" she kicked the bed again, not 
wanting to touch any more of it than was 
necessary. "He's taken the mummies and can 
complete his ritual tonight."

"Right, wake me when it starts."

"And they took Xander in for questioning 
because his car was found on campus.  It 
didn't matter that he'd already reported it 
missing."

"Xander's in the slammer?" the muffled voice 
from under the covers sounded amused.  "He'll 
make somebody a nice bitch."

"He was questioned and sent home.  Willow 
says that Sekhmet can only be banished if her 
physical avatar is destroyed.  Stake through 
the heart, decapitation, and then burning.  
And if you don't get up in the next thirty 
seconds, I'm going to practice on you," she 
warned.

"Why don't you come here and practice 
something else on me?" The beckoning hand 
left something to be desired in the erotic 
category.  

"Twenty seconds," Buffy said.

"It'll take longer than that, I promise."

"Fifteen-"

"All-bloody-right." Spike finally surfaced 
and the covers sliding down his body made him 
look thinner and whiter than usual.  He had 
raging bed-head, and grumpy morning-face.  
"Look, why don't you go get some coffee, 
drink it, and let me bite you, all right?"

"Willow was able to track down the house that 
Talbot rented for the month in the college 
computer system.  He's probably taken them 
there."

"If this bloke's the mummy freak, I bet you 
a fiver that he's got his house all tricked 
out like a tomb or a temple," Spike remarked 
and got out of bed.

Naturally, he was naked.  Buffy should have 
seen that one coming a mile away. She also 
should have realized that he had a truly 
amazing ass.

"Oh God," she muttered and looked down at the 
scuffmaks on the toes of her boots.  There 
was no doubt in her mind that her face was 
matching the red squares on the bedspread.

"I'm thinkin' that this little jaunt to 
SunnyD is the first time he's been able to be 
alone with his dried-up babes.  A proper 
little honeymoon, don't you think?"  She 
could hear him moving around, doing things.

She just knew that he was making his naked 
and proud way around the crypt, like that fat 
gay guy in the first Survivor, trying to 
freak her out, trying to get the upper hand, 
and trying to get her to look at him.   She 
wasn't going to. He could walk around with - 
it- flapping in the breeze the whole night 
for all she cared.

"Those fat blokes you laughingly refer to as 
Campus Security are probably nothin' compared 
to what they got at his regular museum. It 
must have been a walk in the bloody park for 
him.  Are you listenin' to me?"

"I'm not talking to you until you put on some 
pants. I will not speak to you while you are 
pant-less."  She caved like a tunnel dug in 
sand.

"Bit late for the maidenly modesty, Slayer." 
period he sounded amused and then rustled 
around for a moment.  "Fine. You can talk to 
me now."

Since he was actually buttoning up his fly, 
it didn't count as actually lying, even 
though  it did give her a very clear view of 
the fact that he had, like, zero body fat and 
his abs tended to twitch alluringly when he 
moved. But he was leering at her while he did 
so. All Buffy could really do was wait while 
he pulled aside the black drape that hid a 
pipe hung with a limited variety of clothes.  
Yes there was the half-dozen pair of black 
pants, red shirts, black t-shirts, and a few 
other things besides.  Spike stared at the 
clothes for a moment before turning to her.

"Do you ever have those days where you just 
don't know what to wear?" he asked in an 
exaggeratedly feminine voice.

"Here's an idea," she said with brittle 
brightness. period "Black pants, black T-
shirt and a red silk shirt. It's a novel and 
unusual look, one you don't see *every day*."

Just to spite her, she was sure, he varied 
his normal routine by wearing a gray T-shirt.  
A moment later, he combed some gel through 
his hair and shrugged into his duster.

"Right, let's go."

As far as surveillance was concerned, theirs 
was both lame and amateurish.  Xander's car 
was about as inconspicuous as a hippo in a 
pink tutu, and having a vampire in the back 
seat under a gray Army blanket was just plain 
weird.  Stuffed next to the scratchy wool of 
Spike's blanket, Buffy fought the urge to 
start poking him through the fabric until he 
begged for mercy.  She found herself 
wondering if he was ticklish and quickly beat 
back the thought.  Xander and Anya were in 
the front seat, clearly more enthralled with 
each other than anything that was happening 
in the nondescript white ranch house across 
the street. It was like a bad double date at 
the drive-in.  Not that Buffy had ever been 
to a drive-in, but she had watched Happy Days 
reruns.  Worst of all, the car smelled foul.  

Campus Security must have eaten the 
confiscated Szechuan eggplant and then farted 
in the car.

"How long is this going to last?" Xander 
asked, glancing at his watch in what he must 
have thought was an inconspicuous way.

"Yes, not long I hope, we have some 
reconciliation sex planned. Which, I might 
add, we interrupted for you," Anya added.

"Thanks for interrupting.  Since Sekhmet is a 
vampire entity, I don't think he'll do 
anything until after dark.  That's about a half an
hour from now."

"Wonderful.  I get to do the Claude Rains 
imitation 'til then?" Spike asked.

"Try Helen Keller. She was mute," Buffy 
suggested.   

"Hey, Evil Dead, I bet you can't stay quiet 
until sundown," Xander challenged.

"How much you want to put on that, Floppy-
Boy?"

"Sawbuck," Xander brandished the twenty. "Put 
your money where your fangs are, Dead Guy."

Buffy held the money and sipped at her 
coffee.  Across the street, nothing continued 
to happen.

"Anya, if you could be anywhere else right 
now, somewhere else entirely, where would you 
want to be?" Xander asked.  In Tirely? Buffy 
wondered, until she figured it out 

"Monaco," Anya said, "I'd want to be Grace 
Kelly in Monaco with Cary Grant.  Did you 
ever see that movie, Buffy?"

"To Catch a Thief?  That's one of my mother's 
favorite old and moldy movies."

 "Xander? What about you?" Anya asked.

"A tropical beach, you in one hand and a cold 
Corona in the other."

"That's so sweet!" Anya simpered and leaned 
over to kiss Xander.

Unexpectedly, Buffy felt a pain in the center 
of her chest, envying them their couple-ness.  
Next to her the blanket heaved in 
frustration.  

"What about you, Buff?" Xander asked.

Without warning, the black and red bed rose 
and waved hello to her consciousness.  She 
chewed on her lower lip, intensely aware that 
Spike was next to her, and that he was 
sitting in a state of deathlike rigor, 
waiting to hear what she said.

"Oh, anywhere but here, really."  her laugh 
sounded fake even to herself. "Maybe in a big 
hot tub with Brad Pitt or something." 

"What's your man look like?" Xander asked, 
suddenly sitting at attention in the driver's 
seat.

Buffy's lie evaporated in an instant.

"Dark hair, kind of yummy."

"Yummy? What kind of description is that, 
then?" Spike demanded, just as Anya's voice 
rang out. 

"Sundown!  And a yummy dark haired guy just 
pulled the blinds in the front room," Anya 
reported.

"Bloody Hell," Spike muttered, obviously 
realizing that everyone was going to say he 
lost the bet by jumping the gun.

Buffy shoved the twenties at Xander.  "You 
guys wait here.  If we run into something we 
can't handle, we'll let you know," she 
instructed, getting out of the back seat.

"How will you let us know?" Anya asked.

Sticking his head in the passenger's side 
window, Spike gave them one of his more smug 
looks. "When the house shoots flame, blows 
up, or vanishes into a parallel universe, 
that may be a bit of a hint."

"Gee thanks, never would have occurred to 
me," Xander sniped back.

"Today would be nice," Buffy called from the 
sidewalk, and Spike loped up alongside her.

"So what's the plan?" he asked, eager as a 
snake that had seen the dinner-mouse through 
the side of its aquarium.

"Stake it, decapitate it, and set it on 
fire."

"I love a woman who knows her own mind."


Serious Moonlight 7/26

What Dr.-Bloody-Talbot obviously did not 
understand about Southern California 
decorating was that you could pull the 
blinds, but that didn't stop your neighbors 
from seeing in.  Especially when they walked 
up to the windows and peered through the 
cracks.

Sure enough, the man's living room looked 
more like Ancient Egypt than the sets for The 
Ten Commandments.  The mummyquins had pride 
of place, on a bed of blindingly-white sand 
that looked as if it was contained in a 
child's sandbox.  Papyrus scrolls were 
scattered across every available surface, 
rolled, unrolled, and in-between: absent-
minded professor as evil genius.

Buffy scurried over to the entrance.  She 
grabbed the knob and shoved her shoulder 
against the door with controlled violence.  
There was a low groan as the hinges popped 
loose and she carefully moved the door out of 
the way.  "It's quieter than kicking," she 
explained as he looked at her in amazement.  
"Come on in," she suggested, and he did.

There was only a bit of hallway between them 
and the good doctor's living/resurrecting 
room, and they were quickly watching him 
chant and sprinkle something that smelled 
like oregano, but not in a good way, on the 
mummies.

"My heart, my mother; my heart, my mother! My 
heart whereby I came into being! May no one 
stand up to oppose me at my judgment, may 
there be no opposition to me in the presence 
of the Tchatchau; may there be no parting of 
thee from me in the presence of she who keeps 
the Balance of Justice!"

Talbot took another enormous jug of blood - 
Spike was desperate to know where he shopped 
- from a side table and uncapped it.

Buffy unshipped the stake from the small of 
her back and arrowed it towards him.  It hit 
the jug, puncturing it and sending it 
spinning away from the Egyptologist.  More 
blood slopped onto the mummies, but the 
majority was lost with the jug.

"Bitch!" he yelped. 

"What is it with you guys anyway? Show a 
little athleticism or a will of your own, and 
you go running like lemmings!" she accused.

"'Scuse me?!" Spike asked, punching through a 
glass case to pick up a zillion year old 
dagger.  "Absent me from that lot a'wankers."

Suddenly Spike experienced a sudden change in 
verticality.  He'd been picked up and thrown 
across the room, bouncing off the wall and 
onto a stone bench.  Looking back, he could 
see four mummies advancing on Buffy - real, 
Scooby-Doo mummies, frayed bandages and red 
glowing eyes and all, not just desiccated 
corpses.  Dr. Talbot had his hands raised, 
controlling them somehow.

Spike crossed the room in four bounds, 
grabbing the nearest mummy.  With one arm 
around its neck, he hooked his fingers into 
the eyeholes, feeling his fingers buzz with 
the reanimation magic coursing through the 
thing, and reached until he found the dried 
skull.  He pulled until the skull separated 
from the rest of the skeleton.  The mummy's 
body twitched within the bandages, then 
collapsed.

Talbot had retrieved the remains of the jug, 
and Spike's keenly honed ear for blood could 
hear it gurgle onto the entwined bodies.

Buffy was still showing off her Giles-Kwon-Do 
moves, as if she could kick the mummies into 
submission.  "Got to take their heads," he 
suggested, just as one of her kicks sent a 
mummy against a mirror so hard that skeleton 
fragments poked out of the wrappings.  Well, 
that would do it too.

The ground beneath them began to shake, as it 
had in the museum.  Spike didn't think it was 
an earthquake.  Talbot's chanting was 
beginning to annoy him.

"Hail, thou One, who shines from the moon. 
Grant that Sekhmet may come forth among thy 
multitudes at the portal. Let the Tuat be 
opened to her. Behold, Sekhmet shall come 
forth by night to perform everything which 
she wishes upon the earth among those who are 
living."

Spike detached a mummy's arm from the rest of 
the body and used it to beat the thing's 
skull into powder.  Buffy was ignoring the 
final mummy, heading for Talbot again, so 
Spike took it and impaled it on a 
conveniently placed mini-obelisk.  It waved 
its arms and legs feebly, like some obscene 
spider, but he ignored it in favor of the 
gathering magical storm in the room.

As he watched, a mini-tornado began to form, 
whirling above their heads, blue-black with 
pink and yellow sparks flashing through it 
like demented Tinkerbells.  A funnel formed, 
tail homing in on the dried-out girl mummies 
on the sand.  With a sound like the slap of a 
tidal wave on shore, it sucked the top body 
into its cloudy embrace.  The remaining mummy 
shuddered, and he could see it twitch.  Jolts 
of electricity bounced around the room, 
frying lamps and making papyrus scrolls dance 
with blue fire.

Dr. Talbot whooped (somehow evil self-
celebration could always be heard, no matter 
how loud the other noises) and threw himself 
into the funnel, which was still hovering in 
the center of the room.  Spike could see the 
funnel begin to shake and throw off streamers 
of smoke, beginning to dissipate.  Looked 
like victory for the good doctor.

But Buffy never let anyone else have the last 
word.  She ran after them, leaving a hole in 
the disintegrating smoke like a reverse 
contrail.  

"Bugger!"  Spike followed, and managed to get 
a hand on her shoulder as her body was sucked 
further into the blackness.  He wasn't going 
to let her out of his sight until they'd had 
a bit of a discussion, or sex anyway.



Serious Moonlight 8/26

She was falling through a shower of sparks 
and waves of light, fuzzy electric feelings 
crawling over her skin, the sound of a 
million electric guitars playing Led Zeppelin 
in a tin can, cold air rushing by her, 
sucking the breath out of her lungs and 
everything smelled like burnt popcorn.  
Buffy screamed and didn't hear a thing.

And she landed with a thump on her side and 
rolled, trying to get her feet underneath her 
to face any real threat, but she was dizzy-
woozy and her arms and legs seemed to be out 
of her coverage area.  Rubbery, she managed 
to raise herself up onto her hands and knees, 
and shook her head to try to shake the sparks 
out of it.  Her backpack was still on her 
shoulders, which meant she was still armed.

"Fuck," a small and shaky version of Spike's 
voice interrupted her spark-thickened 
thoughts.

"What the hell was that?" she asked and 
looked around in total darkness, but was it 
dark or was she blind?

"Dunno, some teleportation spell thing.  
Brutal, though.  Feel like I've been through 
a mangle."  She heard him moving around 
somewhere to her left.  "Wonder where we are.  
If I've gone through this just to end up in 
Encino, I am goin' to be really fucked off."

Something big and pale was beginning to come 
into focus.  Really big and really pale, 
bright even.  Buffy squinted and blinked, and 
even if it didn't help, it made her feel 
better.

"Oh my God," Buffy breathed as the world swam 
into focus.

Sand, miles and miles of sand, stretching 
from horizon to horizon.  More sand than 
there should be in the entire world, making 
hills and valleys out of dunes, all silver 
and black and white under the light of a moon 
that seemed close enough to touch.  Buffy 
stood up and the cool wind moved through her 
hair.

"What?" Spike demanded and leapt to his feet.

"Spike, it smells funny."

He looked around, a silver and black thing 
himself.  Spinning in a slow circle, he 
looked around the entire horizon, and finally 
tipped his head back to look at the big, 
black night sky overhead.

"What you smell is actual clean air.  No 
smog.  An' th' stars are all wrong, I mean 
that bit there, should be there, and that bit 
there, well I dunno what that is."  He 
pointed up into the night sky.

"So now you're an astronomer?" she asked in 
sharp tones, hitching her fists onto her hips 
and cocking her head to the side to indicate 
sarcasm.

"I'm thinkin' by the mis-alignment above, 
that we're somewhere in Africa.  The 
continent.  Ever heard of it?  Your guy and 
his Mummy, sand, catch my mental?"

"Is it contagious?"

Spike whirled, kicking up a wave of sand with 
his boots. "Egypt."

"No. Super-octane no.  Not Egypt.  Vegas 
maybe, not Egypt."

"No, of course not. Ignore everything I say." 
He squared his shoulders and began marching 
down the sand dune, leaving her alone.

"Spike? Spike! Where are you going?!" she 
shouted after him.

He continued to stomp along and in a matter 
of moments disappeared from view between the 
dunes.  Since there was no way that he was 
responding to her shouts, Buffy cursed and 
began hurrying after him.

"Where are you going?" she panted after 
catching up with him.

"Get some cover.  Sun comes up and you go all 
red and peely.  I experience spontaneous 
Spike combustion."

"You're serious about this Egypt thing."

"Very."

"So I guess we walk, but where do we go?"

He shrugged, looked up at the moon as though 
he didn't quite trust it.

"North Star over there.  So that's East.  We 
go East."

"Why?

"If we go on long enough, we'll hit the Nile 
or the Red Sea," he said and began to walk.  
"I think."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Buffy 
sighed and shouldered her backpack.

****

Night's candles were burnt out, and jocund 
day was standing tiptoe on the misty dune-
tops. The prickle of fear began dancing along 
Spike's spine as he looked around the sand 
bowl, which afforded no cover.

Abruptly, he stopped, knelt, and began to 
scoop sand from one sandy place on the ground 
to another.

"What are you doing?"  She was bouncing from 
foot to foot with impatience, sand scurrying 
around her feet.

"I don't see any shelter 'round here, do you?  
Best I can do is dig a hole in the ground and 
try to cover up."

Buffy glanced toward the east, and he was 
gratified to see concern flit across her 
face, even though it disappeared into her 
blank Maybelline expression.  Without saying 
more, she knelt and began to scoop.  

Ten minutes later, there was a band of yellow 
in the sky, sun reflecting off clouds, and 
they were only about four inches down.  He 
tried to increase the pace, but his hands 
wouldn't cooperate.  For some reason he was 
tiring rapidly, his arms beginning to spasm 
with the repetitive motion.  He twitched and 
Buffy's hands brushed across his, gritty with 
sand.

"I always knew you'd be the death of me," he 
muttered.

"So now this is *my* fault?"  To her credit, 
Buffy didn't slow her pace at all.

"We'd best stop and try to cover me up," he 
said.

He huddled in the shallow sandy depression, 
curling himself into his coat, as she piled 
sand on him.  The sand was still cold from 
the night, and he found himself shivering, 
wishing he'd had one last meal before he 
went.

She was dumping sand on him, the slow 
increasing weight his only hope of survival, 
and he remembered being trapped in a cellar 
while fifty angry Alsatian villagers advanced 
on him and Dru.  Tasty, they'd been, but 
before matters had turned in his favor there 
had been a long period in which the dank and 
dirty cellar walls had seemed to close on him 
like the maw of some dark beast.  Now, the 
pressure of the sand was like being 
swallowed, individual grains worming 
underneath his coat and biting like fleas.  

Spike thought he could feel the hot breath of 
the dawning sun, searching him out to light 
him like a match.  How many thousands of 
matches had he lit over the years?  Watching 
the flare, always risking self-immolation, 
but drawn to the ritual of smoking and the 
little death of the match as if it would ward 
off his own.

Finally she stopped.  He could hear her 
panting.  "Sun's up," she said, her voice 
roughened through sand.  "I can feel it on my 
skin."

All he could feel was the great hand of the 
desert, curled around him.

He tried to breathe, waiting for the end, and 
found himself choking on stale air.  
Reflexively, he tried again, a great gulp 
that filled his mouth with sand but no 
oxygen.  Helplessly, knowing he was killing 
himself, he began to thrash, trying to burst 
a hole in his sand blanket so he could 
breathe.  Above him, he heard Buffy exclaim, 
but he couldn't waste time trying to 
communicate.  With one last desperate punch, 
he broke through, and wriggled as best he 
could to get air underneath his coat, drawing 
his hand back before it could feel the sun's 
wrath.

"Spike!"  She had the sound of one who'd 
repeated herself too often for comfort.  
"What is it?"

"Couldn't..." gasp, cough, "breathe."

Pause.  "Vampires don't breathe."

"Don't *have* ... to breathe," he corrected.  
"Do it ... out of habit."

"You nearly killed yourself for a bad 
*habit*?"

"You knew I smoked," he volleyed, but the 
mental flywheels were spinning too fast to 
see.  A habit, yes, maybe aided and abetted 
by the claustrophobia.  But he shouldn't be 
choking like this, feeling the welcome burn 
of air in his undead lungs.

What in Zandru's hell had that transport 
spell done?

Spike gathered himself and called the 
bloodlust to spark the Change.  He felt his 
face contort into the familiar sneer, but no 
burn of magically transformed muscle and 
skin, and when he ran his tongue across his 
teeth he encountered nothing but dull edges.

"Buffy?"  He was amazed by the steadiness of 
his own voice.

"Still here."

"Pull me out.."

"What?"

Summoning his unnaturally-reduced-to-natural 
strength, Spike pushed more sand out of the 
way and emerged, a baby snake from an egg.  
He blinked into the dawn.  The sun, brighter 
than any artificial light he'd seen in over a 
century, brought tears to his eyes.  God, had 
the sun always been that big? The heat and 
light licked his face, his hands, and his 
hair like an aggressive but friendly lion.  
Was it any wonder that older minds had 
worshipped the sun as a god?

"Oh my god," Buffy said, shocked out of 
California-ese and into making each word a 
separate explosion of disbelief.

Eyes wide open, Spike tipped his head back 
into the burning light of the morning, 
feeling the burn move through his eyes and 
into his brain.  His arms were out to his 
sides, feeling the light and the heat, while 
the warming desert wind flapped his coat 
around him.  Years fell away, he smelled 
fresh air, felt his heart beat in his chest, 
felt the living blood run through his veins, 
felt his stomach gurgle and his arms ache 
from digging in the sand.  He wanted to 
laugh, wanted to sing, wanted to explode.

"O SUN of real peace!/ O hastening light!/ O 
free and ecstatic!/ O what I here, preparing, 
warble for!/ O the sun of the world will 
ascend, dazzling, and take his height-and you 
too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend!/ O so 
amazing and broad-up there resplendent, 
darting and burning!/ . . . O purged and 
luminous!/ you threaten me more than I can 
stand."

The morning light absorbed into his cells, 
zipped electric through his nerves, set his 
brain bubbling.  The sun was burning his 
eyes, that's why his face was wet with tears.  
He mopped his face with the back of his hand 
and turned to face the silent and transfixed 
Buffy behind him.  All he could manage was a 
weak smile.

She just stared at him, which under different 
circumstances might have been flattering.  He 
shrugged, scrabbled around in his mind for 
some cool, found a melting ice cube somewhere 
between ego and sarcasm, and gave up as the 
reality of the situation hit him like a 
cricket bat on the back of the head.

"I'm human.  I'm alive."

The look that she gave him was perfectly 
blank, the painted eyes of a Barbie doll 
staring back at him in the Slayer's pointed 
little face.

"Hello?  C'mon Blondie, experiencin' mental 
vapor lock more'n usual?" 

"Oh that's wrong.  That's just totally and 
completely wrong.  You can't be alive!" her 
voice started spiraling upwards with rage, 
"You're Spike, you're --" she began to 
splutter as her hands worked the air as 
though she were squeezing his throat.  
"You're rotten, nasty, self-centered, you're 
got awful hair, and you're bad." 

"I recall you sayin' somethin' different last 
we-"

He never got to finish the sentence.  Yes, he 
saw the telltale movement in her right 
shoulder, knew the punch was coming, and 
threw up a hand to grab her incoming fist-
which promptly smashed into his nose and sent 
him rolling like Wesley from the Princess 

Bride down the dune they stood atop.  When 

he reached the bottom of the incline, blind 

with pain and sand, he grabbed at his face and 

found that it was bleeding.  Not the showy 

gusher from vampire veins, but a slow, 

painful, and human leak.  He flopped back 

into the sand and howled with pain.  God, 

he was dying, his entire skull was crushed, 

his face was smashed into a pulp, and he was 

blind and disfigured forever.  

"Fuggin' 'itch!" he raged.

"Spike, don't be a wuss." 

She was kneeling in the sand next to him, her 
face folded into a frown while she dabbed at 
his blood with a grubby cocktail napkin from 
the Bronze.  Her fingers were warm, but not 
the burning heat that he remembered.  Of 
course, their body temperatures were about 
the same now.  Unexpectedly, he felt very 
warm and it had nothing to do with the sun or 
the desert.  Snatching the napkin out of her 
hands, he rubbed at his face.  The smell of 
his own blood was faint and made his stomach 
churn unpleasantly.

"I'm sorry," she said ungraciously, "I 
forgot.  Slayer strength."

"Yeah, you Slayer, me mortal.  Do that again 
an' you're likely to drive a bone fragment 
straight into the brain."

"Brain? What brain?"

"That would kill me.  You'd best think of 
another method of foreplay."

She put her hands on her hips and regarded 
him as coolly as a vulture watching a rabbit 
dying of thirst.

"Oh this sucks," he grumbled and spit out a 
combination of sand and blood.

Shaking the sand out of his clothes and hair, 
he stood up, closed his eyes against the new 
sun-brightness of the sand and thought for a 
moment.  When he opened them, he saw the 
uncertainty in her eyes.  "Here you go," he 
said, slipping off his leather duster and 
shoving it at her.

"What's this for?"  She didn't take it.  Sand 
was still running out of the sleeves as if 
from a broken hourglass.

"'Less you brought your industrial-strength 
sunblock, I suggest you cover up," he said, 
looking at her bare arms, practically bare 
chest, and bare midriff with a gaze that was 
nearly not lecherous.

Snorting, she took the jacket and shrugged 
into it.  The cuffs draped to her fingertips 
and the hem nearly hit her ankles, but she 
wore it as if it were the latest in Paris 
fashions.

They walked for hours.  Spike could feel the 
sunburn begin to rise out of his shocked, 
unprotected flesh, a slower burn than he'd 
expected but likely to hurt like Hell's own 
hounds in any event.  

"Did you miss it?" Buffy asked from behind 
him, her voice strangely gentle.

"What?"

"The sun."

He tilted his head, considering.  "No," he 
finally admitted.  Coco Chanel's elevation of 
the suntan to fashion happened long after 
he'd become a vampire.  And three days in the 
English sunshine did not a tan make.  
Besides, as an aspiring poet, he preferred to 
do his moping indoors.  "It never bothered 
me, livin' at night, and then not long after 
I was turned the movin' pictures came along, 
so if I did get lonely for it ... There are 
vamps that treat movies set in daytime the 
way human men treat a girlie film, but that 
was never my bag."


Serious Moonlight 9/26


"Stop," Buffy instructed.

No difficulty there.  Spike wasn't used to 
being human, he wasn't used to walking hours 
in the hot sun, and he certainly wasn't used 
to keeping up with a Slayer using human 
stamina.  He used his hands to brace against 
his thighs and leaned over as discreetly as 
possible, which wasn't very.  He tried not to 
suck in deep breaths that would only 
dehydrate him more.

"I hear something," she said.  "There are 
people working, over there," she indicated a 
hill of sand that looked to him much like any 
other hill of sand.

She turned and began walking.

"Wait!"

"What?  Spike, we have to get out of this 
sun."

"Don't I know it.  But listen, you an' I 
ended up in the same place.  Stands 
to reason that Talbot and his beauty queen 
also came down somewhere about us.  We 

ought not go in with banners blazin', is all 
I mean." 

She thought about it, which caused a charming 
little frown line to appear on her forehead 
but had no other apparent results.  "If 
anything gets in our way, I'll slay it.  Will 
that make you feel safer?"

"Oh I wish," he said and followed.

Creeping like cartoon villains, they 
approached the source of the noises.  Metal 
chewing against sand, shouts -- orders -- 
called down.  It could have been English, or 
!Kung, according to Spike's newly dulled 
hearing.  They scuttled past half-dug-out 
houses, ancient steles scratched with shovel 
marks.  "This is kind o' destructive," he 
whispered.  "Might not be legit.  A real, 
official dig would have to do all sorts of 
preservation stuff, along w' the bribes."

"Who's there!"  The shout turned them round.  
As if transported into place, a circle of 
goons surrounded them, looking like 
gladiators on the sand.  Half looked Arab, 
dressed traditionally.  The other half were 
sunburnt like Spike was about to be, dressed 
in the kind of Great White Hunter clothes 
that should have gone out with Rudyard 
Kipling.  The non-Arabs were carrying big, 
nasty-looking revolvers.

"Who are you?" one of them asked, pasty-
looking underneath his peeling skin.

"Tourists?" Buffy offered.

The goons looked at one another.  "You're ... 
American?" their interlocutor asked in plummy 
English tones.  He said it like "syphilitic," 
only with slightly more disdain.

"It's worse than that, mate," Spike told him.  
"She's a natural blonde."  Buffy's hand moved 
as if to whack him, and then stopped.

Another volley of uncertain looks.  "We'd 
best take them to Isobel," the talker said 
unhappily.

"What are you waiting for?" Spike asked with 
outrage.  "Kill 'em!"

Buffy's head whipped back and forth, 
assessing the situation.  "I don't kill 
humans.  Not without a better reason anyway."

The goons began to advance.  "How's this for 
a reason: They aren't dressed normal-like.  
Those trousers went out with the Charleston, 
and those guns are antiques.  There's 
somethin' very wrong here."

Hard hands closed around his upper arms, 
marching him towards an unknown fate.  Beside 
him, Buffy submitted; she'd obey anyone but 
him, apparently.  "Antiques are sold in 
quaint little shops," she informed him, 
struggling free from their captors' hands but 
otherwise following their lead.  "A gun in 
someone's hand is, definitionally, a non-
antique."

****

Deeper into the dig, they were surrounded by 
tents and camels and people, mostly people 
swaddled head to toe in unflattering brownish 
fabric running on unfathomable errands, often 
shouldering loads that Buffy would have 
thought more suited for strapping on top of 
an SUV.  The only car they passed, though, 
was a brown hulk that looked like a refugee 
from an Indiana Jones movie, all metal and 
sharp angles, the kind of car you needed to 
wear a cap to drive.  Only someone had 
obviously carried out a powerful restoration 
spell, because it looked shiny and new enough 
to carry around a starlet.  But there were no 
pyramids.  Buffy was disappointed.

Mr. I'm-afraid-of-Americans stopped in front 
of one of the larger tents, relieved Buffy of 
her handy backpack, and disappeared into a 
flap of brown fabric.

"Buffy," Spike said, despite the jostling of 
the nervous large men surrounding them, "I 
think those are telegraph lines goin' into 
that tent over there."

"Hunh?"  She'd heard of the telegraph -- it 
was sort of like a fax machine, only with 
worse typing.  And maybe it involved Morse 
code; she was none too clear on technical 
stuff.

"Excuse me, sir," he addressed one of their 
captors, a brown-haired man with smile lines 
who was not smiling, "could you tell me the 
date?"

"It's October sixth," the man said.

"Of what year?"

Buffy gave Spike the same look as the man -- 
obviously she'd punched him too hard earlier, 
and the blooming black eyes weren't the worst 
of the damage.

"1925," he said as a tall blonde woman -- 
Isobel, Buffy guessed -- emerged from the 
tent.

"Young lady, I hope you have a perfectly good 
explanation for wandering around our campsite 
after an anomalous temporal vortex carrying a 
variety of unorthodox items," Isobel said, 
looking over her half glasses at Buffy.

"There are non-anomalous temporal vortices?" 
Spike asked and was ignored.

"Specifically, a large crucifix, several 
wooden stakes, brass knuckles, several 
knives, a small bottle of holy water.  Am I 
to assume from this collection of items that 
you are hunting vampires?"

"Y'know what they say about assumin'," Spike 
muttered under his breath.

"It's a long story," Buffy said, feeling that 
hope was gone beyond gone-ness.  1925?

 "Miss, your enthusiasm is commendable, but 
business such as this must really be left to 
those with a certain, shall we say, 
expertise," Isobel fussed with the large tie 
hanging around the neck of her broad-collared 
blouse.

"Been there, done that, got the spellbook.  
Ever heard of a Slayer?  Chosen One, born 
into every generation?"

"And you think you are the Chosen One."  The 
woman's voice was indulgent.

"Buffy don't do much thinkin'," Spike 
interjected.  "She's a lot better at the 
*bein'* a Slayer part."

"I'm afraid, my dear, that it is quite 
impossible that you should be the Slayer.  
Jane?"

From out of the darkness emerged a young 
woman, nearly as slight as Buffy.  She moved 
liquidly, like something that had only 
detached from the air for a moment.  She too, 
was dressed in a long skirt, heels and a 
floppy-necked blouse.  Not what Buffy would 
have considered sensible Slaywear. Buffy's 
eyes locked with Jane's.  Jane was confused, 
but the idea of a second Chosen One was much 
easier for Buffy.  Jane had a frightened 
wildness in her dark eyes that reminded Buffy 
far too much of Faith.

"Okay, this may be hard for all of you to 
understand, but the thing about the 'into 
every generation' business -"

Jane, for one, had heard enough - she lunged 
for Buffy, despite the tall woman's cry and 
the feeble attempts of the goons around them 
to stop her.  Buffy ducked and grabbed Jane's 
outstretched arm, flipping her neatly onto 
the ground.  Jane bounced up like a jill-in-
the-box and took a more careful stance.  
Skirt or no skirt, the other Slayer was 
strong as Buffy and almost as limber.  At 
least she was compensating for her stupid 
clothes.

"I'm actually from a different generation -" 
Buffy stopped to kick at Jane's stomach; Jane 
grabbed her foot, but she twisted in the air 
and used Jane's grip as leverage to vault 
over Jane and land on the sand behind her.

"There was this spell, which obviously moved 
us through time -" Jane landed a fierce kick 
on her left shoulder, and Buffy just knew 
she'd bruise unattractively, so she responded 
with an uppercut that staggered Jane back a 
few steps.  "And how much of this is required 
before you guys admit that either I'm not a 
wannabe -"  

Jane was keening now, a warcry that sent 
shivers down Buffy's spine and threatened to 
drown out her dialogue, and she leapt at 
Buffy with enough force to knock them both to 
the ground.  Buffy was occupied trying to 
wriggle to the top, and she had to use a 
particularly subtle move Giles had spent 
nearly a week drilling her on before she was 
able to pin Jane's hands as she straddled the 
other Slayer like a rocking horse.  "-Or your 
Slayer's training is dangerously deficient."

She stared up at the woman who was obviously 
the leader of this bunch.  "I assume you're 
Jane's Watcher.  I'd call her off if I were 
you."

"Good job, that, " Spike said, not without 
admiration.

The tall blonde looked from Spike to Buffy 
and then back again, before settling on 
Buffy.

"Jane-" she said.

The brunette shrugged out of Buffy's loosened 
grip and stalked over to stand behind her 
Watcher and glare at Buffy.  Isobel ignored 
her, smoothing a hand over her own blonde 
hair before continuing.

"So you're a Slayer.  That's good.  We've 
been sent by the Council to destroy a 
particularly nasty vampire."

"Us too.  We followed a bad guy who took this 
strange mummy, possibly the avatar of Sex-
met, back in time," Buffy said, leaving out 
the part where the Council knew nothing about 
it.  "This is Sp -- William," she said.

To her disgust, Spike turned on the charm 
with an audible click.

"Shankly.  William Shankly," he said and 
shook Isobel's hand, his face moving into a 
friendly smile that Buffy had never seen 
before.  "Ever so pleased to meet you."

"Isobel Throckmorton.  The Lancaster 
Shanklys?"

"Essex, actually." 

"He's ... my Watcher," Buffy stammered, not 
knowing what else to say.  

"Really?"  But Isobel wasn't going to let a little 

thing like a bleached blonde Watcher get 

between her and her mission at hand.

"The crux of the matter is this.  Someone has 
released a very old and very dangerous 
vampire."

Buffy's head hurt.  "Why would someone from 
our time bring a mummy back here?  I mean, 
why go back in time when in 2001 we have 
indoor plumbing and TV and stuff?  He could 
have resurrected Sekhmet and stayed around to 
slaughter *now*, I mean *then*."

"Indoor plumbing is not unknown to this day 
and age," Isobel said stiffly.  "But as for 
your broader point, our researches have 
disclosed that a major thaumatological 
turning point is upon us.  Within the next 
ten days, the stars will align in a 
configuration that will not be seen again for 
a thousand years.  According to ancient 
prophecy, at that point Sekhmet will have the 
power to rule the world.  And the people she 
bleeds to death will outnumber the grains of 
sand in the desert.  But if she sleeps 
entombed, her chance will be lost."

"So," Buffy agreed, "What's the plan?"

"We had wondered how Sekhmet escaped from her 
tomb, as it is heavily guarded.  We are going 
to lure this incarnation of Sekhmet to a 
different tomb and seal her inside."

"Why don't you just stake her?" Buffy asked.  
Did these people not have any idea what they 
were doing?

"My dear, Sekhmet is an avatar of a goddess.  
It's far more complicated than that."

"Well, I was told that all you need to do is 
stake and bake."

"You forgot the head bit," Spike corrected.  
"Stake, cut off her head, then burn her.  
Stake, cut, and bake."

"We are binding her in the tomb."  Isobel 
assumed the expression of a substitute 
teacher in charge of a study hall.  "We would 
appreciate your help in this matter.  Then we 
will attempt to return you from whence you 
came."

Whence?  Buffy wondered.  Had she really said 
whence?  Was whence really a word?

Serious Moonlight 10/26

They stared at each other until the real 
Watcher shook her head briskly.  "Jane, take 
them to your tent, you can bunk with me." 

"This way," Jane sulked.  The black-haired 
Slayer led them to a tent about ten feet 
square and fitted out like a proper bedroom 
with a wardrobe, dressing table/desk, bed, 
bedside table and a few kerosene lamps. The 
floor was covered in an elaborate rug that 
would become a priceless antique in eighty 
years.  Buffy stared openmouthed at the 
paucity of the accommodations.  Spike 

found himself smiling internally at Buffy's 

discomfiture.  Primitive conditions in 

Southern California meant no cable.

Jane did have a jug of water and a mismatched 
set of cups.  Spike poured himself some, 
thirsty after all that walking, and took his 
first sip of water in over a hundred years.  
He recoiled from the old-paper taste and the 
unsettled grit.  The memory had been much 
better.  

"D'you think you'll go mano a mano with Jane 
again anytime soon? That was a fabulous 
fight.  Only thing missin' was baby oil and 
music," he asked and arranged a leer on his 
face.

"Shut up."

"And you promotin' me to be your Watcher.  Am 
I goin' to get to watch everythin'?"

"Don't make me hurt you."

"Don't tease."

"Give me some of that.  I need to re-hydrate.  
It's good for the skin."  Spike complied and 
then snickered at Buffy's expression as she 
choked down the water, which had been boiled 
but not de-sedimented. 

"Your Doctor Yummy and his Mummy have really 
gone and gotten us in a right mess."

"I don't see where we can do anything but 
help these people out.  They're our only way 
home."

Spike, with his flexible sense of loyalty, 
found himself missing his cool, dark, and 
comforting crypt.  "I trust that Isobel about 
as far as I could comfortably spit out a 
rat."

"Bad picture.  But we're choiceless here," 
she said in a voice as barren as the desert 
outside.  "Willow and Xander are gone - my 
mother and Giles, they're not even alive yet.  
Their parents probably haven't gotten to 
first base.  We're alone."

Something twisted in his gut and he wanted 
very much to have a cigarette, but leaving 
her alone right now wasn't the best thing to 
do.  Instead, he went and sat next to her 
where she was sitting on the bed, trying very 
hard not to touch her, even though every cell 
in his body was telling him that now would be 
a good time.

"Where are the pyramids?" she asked with a 
frown.  With her dirty face she looked like 
an unhappy child.

"Not here. Down the Nile a piece, I expect."

"Great.  I go to Egypt and I don't even get 
to see the pyramids.  That sucks."

"Just drink your water."

To his surprise, she did.

****

Dressed in borrowed clothes gathered from the 
Watchers and Jane respectively, Spike and 
Buffy made their way through the camp to 
dinner.  Spike felt downright naked without 
his duster but he didn't need to stand out
amongst the Watchers and he'd managed to 

fight his way into the trousers, shirt, and 

jacket that had been gathered up for him.  He 

couldn't remember how to tie a tie so he left 

it off.  The clothes felt strange, rough against 

his living skin, and he'd forgotten the way 

that braces rubbed on his shoulders.  Had he 
really spent years and years bundled up in 
cotton and linen like this?  The boots 
pinched his toes and he worried about 
blisters.  On the other hand, Buffy managed 
to look cool and collected in her mango-
colored silk dress.  He noticed that she'd 
neglected to put on stockings and he didn't 
know if it was by choice or out of ignorance.  
He wasn't about to say anything because he 
had the suspicion that any comment he made 
was going to be answered with a smack or two.

Jane stalked over to them.  Her dress was 
cobalt blue, which set off her dark hair and 
the three ropes of real pearls around her 
neck.  She stopped about six inches from 
Spike's face, so that he was staring into her 
eyes.

Deliberately, she leaned forward and sniffed 
Spike's collar.  He tried to stand as if 
women checked him out like fruit in the 
grocery store on a regular basis.  "There's 
something about you," she accused.  Her human 
breath brushed his cheek and knocked his 
already-racing heart up another twenty beats 
per minute.

Beside him, in her bright, filmy dress, Buffy 
tightened her hand on his arm and it hurt 
like hell.  "Yes," she said, stepping forward 
so that Jane had to retreat or bump chests, 
"he's *my* Watcher."

"Share and share alike," Spike said, trying 
hard not to sound eager.

Buffy looked at him as though he smelled like 
dead fish.  For a moment he thought she was 
going to hit him again, but instead she 
stalked past him to the dinner table, leaving 
him alone with Jane.  Jane's pale eyes burned 
into his face and recognition sent lightning-
shocks down his spine.  It wasn't so much 
that she looked like Dru, she looked at him 
the way Dru had.  A cold feeling, possibly 
not human, began in the pit of his hungry 
stomach. He found himself wishing that Buffy 
hadn't walked away from him.

Jane raised an elegant eyebrow under the dark 
canopy of her fringe and considered him 
again.  The Council members, archaeologists, 
and assorted flunkies passed by on their way 
to the dinner table.  

"You're surrounded by death," she said as 
casually as any vampire.

"Well, you know, spendin' all that time with 
Slayers and whatnot," he hedged.  "A bit's 
bound to rub off eventually."

Hell, he sounded like a complete pratt, and 
not unlike Giles, which amounted to the same 
thing.  Jane did the burning eyes thing at 
him for another few moments and then took 
herself off to the dinner table.  Nearly 
sweating with relief, Spike waited a few 
moments and then followed.

The table was set with fine linen and gold-
banded china, which was slightly surreal with 
the desert sand surrounding them and the 
stars burning down like a thousand faraway 
chandeliers.  "Looking at you now, dressed 
properly," Isobel managed to make it sound 
like an insult, "you seem familiar to me.  
Are you certain we haven't met before?"

"You may have met one of my grandparents, I 
suppose."

"Hmm.  Perhaps when your injuries heal I'll 
see a closer resemblance.  How were you 
hurt?"  Her tone implied that Buffy had 
neglected to protect her Watcher, and 
simultaneously that her Watcher had wrongly 
attempted to ignore his job description and 
intervene.   

He tried very hard to avoid looking at Buffy.  
"I'm not entirely sure.  Perhaps it was a 
side effect of the transport spell.  
California to Egypt across eighty years is a 
hard journey, and I don't have the Slayer's 
immunities."  He heard Buffy shift in her 
seat, relaxing.

"So, how did you come to be in California?"

"Turned left at Cleveland," Spike joked, 
looked around and realized that no one at the 
table had seen A Hard Day's Night but him and 
the joke was lost.

He cleared his throat.  "Actually, there's a 
Hellmouth there.  Been there since the 
Spanish settled in the late 1700's.  It's a 
veritable phantasmacopia of demons, vampires, 
ghosts, hauntings, and poltergeists, as well 
as a few things less easily categorized."

Dinner, refreshingly stuffy, began.  He 
hadn't dressed for dinner since Dru's fetish 
for evening dress had dissipated.  And Dru 
hadn't been picky about demitasse spoons and 
fish forks, though she did scold Miss Edith 
for spilling her tea. Of course herself had 
given Spike the task of dressing the dinner 
for dinner.  Getting a woman into an evening 
gown was infinitely more difficult than 
getting her out of one, especially when she 
realized that she wasn't going to live 
through to dessert.

Buffy viewed the silver set before her with 
stunned horror.  It might have been the first 
time he'd ever seen her afraid.

Broth was served in delicate two-handled 
bowls.  Spike picked his up and brought it to 
his lips.  Buffy looked at him 
disbelievingly, then hastily imitated him.  
This had possibilities.

The possibilities escaped him as soon as he 
tasted the broth.  It was fatty, salty, 
exploding on his tongue like concentrated 
sunlight.  He gulped it down, ignoring 
Buffy's increasingly frantic faces, and 
signaled for more.

His dinner companions disappeared into a haze 
of crackling fat and tinned vegetables, all 
hitting his taste buds like cluster bombs.  
He slowed only when his stomach threatened 
not just rebellion, but all-out, George-Bush-
in-Japanese-Prime-Minister's-lap style 
guerrilla warfare.  He relaxed into his camp 
chair and tried diligently not to belch.

"So," Jane said, accepting another gin and 
tonic.  "How long have you been a Slayer?"  
Her stare was as dark as her hair.

Buffy stopped chasing a chunk of maybe-meat 
around her plate.  "Coming up on six years 
now.  And you?"  Her tone was dulcet, 
evidence that she was engaged in a serious 
dominance struggle.

Jane looked down.

"The prior Slayer was lost eight months ago," 
Isobel said.  "Jane was identified at age 
three and has been in training ever since."

"Wow," Buffy said.  "I'm sorry," and she 
sounded genuinely so.

The servants were spiriting plates away, 
rather more from Spike's end of the table 
than elsewhere, and Spike settled back to 
adjust his belt.  Who would ever imagined 
that English food would be that good? The 
secret was that you had to be dead for a 
century to appreciate it.  If he continued to 
eat like this, he was going to need to steal 
some bigger jeans when he got back.

Jane's curiosity had yet to be satisfied.  
"And you've been Buffy's Watcher all that 
time?"  Her eyes were like searchlights under 
the pale moon of her forehead.

Buffy and Spike exchanged glances.  "The 
Council and I ... have had our differences in 
the past," he said, trying to channel Giles.  
"But I've been with Buffy for some years 
now."

There were cream cakes for dessert, and 
trifle, which Buffy turned up her nose at, so 
Spike ate her portion.

After the dessert had been cleared, and after 
Spike had gotten the strength to stand, he 
headed towards their borrowed tent, leaving 
the deserted table behind.  The alcohol was 
beginning to overwhelm the caloric onslaught, 
and he was glad that the tent was only a 
hundred yards away.

Jane appeared on the path before him.  "You 
shouldn't be out alone, after dark," she 
crooned, her voice raising goosebumps on 
flesh that hadn't moved in decades.  
"Something might happen to you."

"I think it already has," he admitted.  

Her skin was the exact color of the risen 
moon, her hair like the night between the 
stars.  Why were all Slayers beautiful?  Was 
it some kind of adaptation to keep vampires 
off balance?  Anyone could be fooled into 
thinking that a delicate beauty like Jane was 
harmless.  Her perfume was lilies of the 
valley and it wrapped around him like smoke.

She was circling him now, her dress rustling 
over the sand like a cobra.  "What's eating 
you, Sweet William?"

His back was totally exposed.  She could 
stake him before his next heartbeat.

"Jane!"  Isobel's voice from across the 
compound made his head ring.  "Come to bed!"

Jane sniffed, a well-bred English sound, and 
disappeared in a hiss of cotton and lace.

She didn't say 'eating', he realized as he 
hurried toward the relative safety of the 
tent.

She said 'eaten'.


Serious Moonlight 11/26


Buffy thought she was drunk.  It was 
possible, given the fact that the only 
beverages on the table at dinner had been 
alcoholic in one form or another.  She had 
never seen adults put away so much booze in 
her life.  They had been drinking like frat 
boys, only with food, so their speech had 
slurred somewhat, but no one had started 
cracking dirty jokes or brought a goat to the 
table.  Even Jane, who couldn't have been 
more than eighteen, was putting it away with 
the rest of them.

Sitting at the tiny dressing table in her 
tent, Buffy ran a brush through her hair and 
considered her face.  With the heavy eyeliner 
washed off and the lipstick now on a napkin 
left at the dinner table, she looked more 
like herself than she had earlier that 
evening when the dark-eyed stranger had 
stared back at her from the same mirror. 

Hard to believe that the morning before she 
had been trying to get Spike out of bed in 
his crypt, and he'd been wandering around all 
naked and arrogant.  That thought percolated 
through her brain for a moment before she 
continued thinking.  Was Human!Spike a good 
thing or a bad thing?  The jury was still 
ordering chicken salad sandwiches on that 
one. Human!Spike was Subdued!Spike, which had 
a couple of advantages.  He was more polite, 
not quite as foul-mouthed, and seemed to be 
refraining from his customary Spiky 
snarkiness.  On the other hand, he hadn't 
tried to paw her for many, many hours and 
this made her wonder if he was sad.  He 
looked like he was suffering pain somewhere, 
like his shoes were too tight.  Grinchy-face, 
with blackened-blue circles from the nose-
punch clashing with his cornflower-blue eyes.

Speak of the vampire, or ex-vampire - the 
flap of her tent pulled back and Spike 
wobbled in.

"What are you doing here?"

He smiled at her, and she noticed that from 
somewhere he'd acquired glasses, a tiny gold-
rimmed pair that, with the suit, made him 
look as cute as a teddy bear holding a bunch 
of heart-shaped helium balloons.  "Sent me 
here, they did.  Figured you and I would want 
to stick together, the way a Watcher and a 
Slayer should."  He moved towards her, then 
tripped on a stool and she only saved him 
from smashing into the floor by moving 
Slayer-fast to grab him.

"Something else I forgot.  Tolerance to 
alcohol.  Not only have I gone blind as a 
proverbial bat, I can't drink anymore."  He 
blinked up at her and his human eyelashes 
were still really long.

"Why was there so much alcohol?"  She was 
aware that her tone was vaguely whiny, but it 
was only Spike after all.

"Drinkin' the water's a good way to get 
yourself killed out here if you didn't grow 
up with girardia and all those other nice 
invisible little bugs.  No such thing as 
chlorination out here.  Alcohol tends to ward 
off the worst of the bacteria."

She was still holding him, and her stomach 
was wobbly, so she eased him onto the bench 
and sat with him.  He was warm, warmer than 
he'd ever been, and she was suddenly cold.

"I had forgotten how the world gets when 
you're drunk," he said, leaning companionably 
against her shoulder.  "All sparkly, like bad 
TV reception, only feelin' it instead of 
seein'."

Spike was probably as surprised as Buffy was 
when she turned her head and kissed him.  The 
gin on his lips tasted different,  bitter, 
dark purple, and she felt his tongue invade 
her drink-numbed mouth with a vague 
satisfaction.  Clumsy, lumbering, he shifted 
on the bench until he was straddling it, his 
hands on her shoulders to keep from falling 
away, and his fingers traced her collarbones 
and fumbled open the buttons on the thick 
cotton shirt.  

Spike's human kisses were different, rougher.  
It might be the alcohol or it might be the 
realization that there was almost nothing he 
could do to hurt her now.  He tugged at her 
lower lip with his fangless, even teeth and 
she sighed as his hands found her breasts.  
Where his fingers crossed her skin she felt 
electric sparks, travelling through her body 
slowly, like rubbing up against a thick fur 
coat.  His teeth scraped at her jawline and 
she threw her head back, watching the shadows 
dance on the top of the tent.  His shirt 
refused her attempts at removing it, and 
finally she growled and pushed him away.

"Take off your clothes and get in the bed," 
she ordered, pushing away from the bench, and 
he grinned up at her until she felt herself 
blush.

Spike managed to undress himself and lay back 
on the bed, his white body nearly glowing in 
the lamplight amidst the dark exotic 
blankets.  She'd never really let herself 
look at him before; the sex had been hurried 
and shameful, and while it was still shameful 
she had the feeling that this was going to be 
slow.  Anyway, she was seventy-five years 
away from anyone who knew what a big ball of 
wrong sex with Spike was.  His body seemed 
milk-white even without the vampirism, thin 
but muscled like a statue in a museum, smooth 
and lithe, thinner than Riley and Angel, with 
dark nipples standing out from his chest.  
There were a variety of whiter than white 
scars crossing his skin at different points, 
and she wondered how many of those she had 
inflicted.  Buffy could see his ribs through 
the blood-pink flesh.  He was unembarrassed 
by her frank scrutiny.  His cock jaunted up 
to meet her, purpling with his very own 
blood, and she felt a guilty thrill -- she 
was the big strong one in the situation; she 
could make him do anything she wanted, and 
he'd want it too.

The dress and step-ins came off fairly 
easily.  The cool night air against her skin 
-- or maybe it was Spike's waiting gaze  -- 
made her shiver.  He hadn't taken off his 
glasses, which seemed more decadent than the 
rest of it. 

When she straddled him, he groaned in pained 
pleasure. His skin was smooth against hers, 
proving all the stories about sun damage.  
She dragged her fingers down his ribs and he 
shuddered underneath her.  She felt buzzing 
arousal between her legs, pressed against his 
chest, and he bent his head to nip at her 
stomach right above her bikini line.  "I'm 
not sure I got enough to eat, Slayer, how 
about some dessert?" he growled, and she 
silenced him in exactly the manner he'd 
requested, covering his face with her body, 
capturing his cheeks between her thighs.  
Behind the gold frames, his darkened eyes 
burned her skin.  Here, too, he was rougher, 
using the flat edges of his teeth on the 
delicate skin, tugging at her, sucking in the 
only way he could now.  She could feel the 
blood rushing beneath the surface of her 
skin, right up against him but no further, 
and his hands were cupping her bottom now, 
his fingers sliding in where his mouth 
couldn't reach, warm fingers, warm tongue 
lashing at her.  The red-brown-gold bed shook 
underneath her; she was pumping up and down 
on him like he was a hobby horse.  The 
lamplight thrashed against the ceiling in 
rhythm with her movements, hot and liquid 
golden like he was making her feel.

The orgasm swept her up, more powerful than 
any transportation spell, mixing with the 
alcohol in her blood and the remnants of 
dehydration to make her collapse on top of 
Spike, panting, while he held her waist as if 
she were going to float away.

After a bit, his grip relaxed, and then he 
began to push against her.  "Slayer!" he 
said, muffled and wheezing, "... can't 
breathe!"

Laughing, her head still buzzing with 
starlight, Buffy moved down his body like he 
was one of her workout toys, stopping only 
when she encountered his still-bobbing cock.  
It throbbed against her wet thigh, warm and 
dry and seeming so lonely, she had to give it 
a home.

Spike sighed as she slid down on him, and the 
sound was so human-normal that it made 
something in her chest do a back-flip, with a 
twist.  His glasses had gone askew while he 
had other things to worry about, and she 
reached down to adjust them so that he could 
see her face.  He blinked up at her as she 
moved, slow and careful.  He was human now 
after all, and delicate, and deserved to have 
the work done by someone who had the stamina 
for it.

"I didn't remember," he sighed, his face 
smooth with wonder and pleasure.  She dragged 
her palm down his cheek and was shocked to 
find a hint of stubble.  

"What didn't you remember?" she asked, 
displeased that he was still capable of 
thought.

"It's not the same thing at all," he mumbled.  
"The only way..." he trailed off, his head 
twisting against the thick pillows as he 
groaned.  His hips pumped, overtaking her 
rhythm, and she felt him surge within her, 
then subside.  Human Spike apparently lacked 
the extensive control of his vampire self, 
but since he'd already ensured her 
satisfaction, she'd allow him some time to 
get up to speed, or to slow down, or 
whatever.

She slid off of him and threw her arm over 
his nearly hairless chest, shaking with his 
attempts to get his breathing under control.  
His hair was mussed and his glasses still 
weren't right, and this close to him she 
could smell his sweat.  Deodorant was a thing 
of the past, or of the future really, and she 
was glad that Spike turned out to have a good 
solid boy-smell, nothing sour or overly 
pungent.

Words said during sex couldn't be trusted, 
this she knew.  But Spike's had seemed 
uncharacteristically meaningful.  Maybe Riley 
had been right, in a twisted not-right way: 
sex for vampires wasn't at the pinnacle of 
experience; it wasn't the only way they could 
get inside someone else.  Here, human, Spike 
was limited to human senses.    

Much later, after they'd both dozed and the 
lamp had burned down to the wick, they 
talked.

"Where'd you get the glasses?" Buffy asked, 
running a finger down the side of his face.

"They have an extra supply.  Watcherdom bein' 
an invitation to myopia an' all, and then 
considerin' the constant hazards of fightin' 
evil, it's only sensible to have some 
backups.  I'd forgotten how nasty it is to 
have the world all fuzzy, like your 
thinkin'."

Spitefully, she dug her fingers into the thin 
skin covering his ribs and he twitched away.

"We'll have none of that, young lady," he 
warned, but the threat was lost due to the 
fact that the glasses had slid down his nose 
and his post-tryst hair looked as though 
someone had run an eggbeater through it.

She tried very hard and managed not to 
snicker.

"I think I know why I'm human."  She stared 
at him, and he sighed.   "Unlike you, *I* had 
a physical presence in 1925.  I was undead 
then -- now -- just like I'm undead in 2001." 

Details, details, she thought and began 
examining his skin a little more closely.  
There was a scar on his shoulder and she bent 
her head to taste it.

He fussily pushed the glasses back up his 
nose before continuing, "I'm in Paris about 
now, I think, but point is that if I'd gone 
through as a vamp there would be two of me in 
the same time."

The scars definitely hadn't been there when 
he was a vampire.  Maybe the rush of real 
blood under his skin had brought them out. 
She followed the shoulder-scar down to where 
it dead-ended on his left nipple, and he 
caught his breath when she raked her teeth 
over it.

"If the two of us met, it might be enough to 
destroy the universe, or at least be some 
sort of magical Chernobyl," he continued, but 
sounded somewhat less self-assured.  It might 
have been the fact that she held the 
twitching weight of his cock in her hand.

"Chernobyl," she agreed and tasted the other 
nipple.  No, the scar didn't make a 
difference in taste, only texture.

"But if the laws of magic don't want that to 
happen, puttin' me through as a human while 
filtering out the demon soul means that even 
if we meet, there'd be no duplication and 
therefore no explosion."

"'Cause the real Spike doesn't have a human 
soul at all," Buffy said slowly, as the 
explanation penetrated and she bent down to 
run her tongue around the edge of his navel.

Hard to believe that he had been born - that 
a woman had given birth to him.  It was 
easier to imagine that Spike had been hatched 
like an infant snake from an egg in some 
foul-smelling nest somewhere.

"Blondie, I *am* the real Spike, fangs or 
no," he said and his voice caught even as he 
reached for her breast.  "But that other 
fellow tearin' up the catacombs is the real 
deal too, and at least this way there's no 
risk we'll make like matter and antimatter 
even if we do meet."

"How do you know so much about time travel, 
anyway?"

"I've been watchin' late-late night TV since 
it started.  Star Trek, the Outer Limits, 
Doctor Who, the Twilight Zone. Couple a'years 
of that and you're an expert."

She narrowed her eyes, "But if we were to 
leave here and go to Paris, and run into you, 
would you kill you?"

"Would I kill me?" he asked and he was full-
blown hard again in her hand.

"Yes.  Would you kill you or would you?" she 
asked and twitched her hips so she could 
guide him into her.

"Yes," he gasped without hesitation.  "There 
would be screamin' an' carryin' on and then 
I'd probably rip myself into bite-sized 
bits."

"Cross Paris off the list of fun places to 
go," she said and pulled him deep inside her.

"But it was fun," he said in a thin voice,  
punctuating his words with thrusts of his 
slim hips.  "Montmartre, Follies Bergere, 
Gertrude Stein's parties, summers at the Cap 
d'Antibes, Scotty and Zelda getting drunk and 
fighting, artist's models, American Jazz, and 
French wine." 

Somewhere after Gertrude Stein, Scotty and 
Zelda, and a brain-wrecking orgasm, Buffy put 
her head down to his shoulder and heard only 
the rumbling of his breathing in his chest, 
which gradually faded into a distant tide as 
she fell asleep.

Serious Moonlight 12/26


The following morning, Buffy was bright-eyed 
and bushy-tailed and Spike found himself 
plotting her death as he was exposed to evil 
morning perkiness.  His hair still retained 
vestiges of gel -- that stuff really did 
stand up to most anything, even sudden
humanity -- so he washed his face in the 
small basin on the dresser and ran wet 
fingers through his hair to keep it in line.  
He hoped they didn't stay here long; his 
roots would begin to show. He was glad that 
he'd taken off his black nail polish the day 
before on a whim.  It would have been hard to 
explain to Jane and her uptight Watcher.

After the culinary glories of breakfast, 
which was a slightly less formal affair than 
dinner, Buffy went off somewhere with Jane to 
do Slayer things and Spike found himself 
alone at the table with Isobel.  He sipped at 
his coffee and found it disappointing until 
he remembered that coffee always smelled 
better than it tasted and a half-dozen 
spoonfuls of sugar made it bearable.

"This must be very difficult for you," Isobel 
said, squinting out across the blowing desert 
sand between the camp and the workmen working 
at the tomb.

"You have no idea," Spike said, in a voice 
that registered a 7 on the pH scale.

Naturally, Isobel had no idea what he was 
talking about and explaining it was out of 
the question so he drank a little more coffee 
and squinted into the sun as well.  The white 
robes of the Arabs blew in the hot wind and 
somewhere voices were chanting the morning 
Salat: Allâhu Akbar. Allâhu Akbar.  Ash-hadu 
an-lâ ilâha illal-Lâh.  Ash-hadu anna 
Muhammadar-Rasûlul-Lâh.  Hayya `alas-Salâ.  
Hayya `alal-Falâh.  In 2001, on this very 
same spot, they would still be chanting the 
same words.  Barring apocalypse, people like 
them would be chanting when Buffy's bones had 
crumbled like vampire dust.  Spike felt old, 
and small.

"I understand that things may be quite 
different in eighty years, but you seem very 
young to be a Watcher," Isobel tested him, 
like a kung-fu master assessing the defenses 
of her opponent.

"I'm older than I look," he said and showed 
her his unfamiliar teeth in something almost 
like a smile. "Look, love, why don't we just 
cut the bull and go at it straight-like.  You 
don't like me and you don't trust me. Right 
back at you babe.  But we got a deal goin' on 
here.  Buffy and I help you get Sekhmet 
locked up in her condo for one and you get us 
back to where we belong and out of your 
hair."

"What I don't like, Mister Shankly, is your 
attitude."

"Wouldn't be the first time I heard that.  
Now is there somethin' I can do or do you 
want to sit 'round and take shots at me all 
day?"

Still as and stiff as an Egyptian statue, she 
stared at him for a long moment, and the wind 
moved the pale blonde hairs that had escaped 
from her smooth uptwist.

"If you go down to the tomb, I'm sure Albert 
will find something for you to do."

"Right."

Albert turned out to be a young man with an 
intelligent face and a floppy haircut.  He 
was directing the local workmen in fluent 
Arabic, where they were reinforcing the walls 
of the tomb with steel girders.  The workmen 
were wearing "bloody foreigner" faces and 
working slower than teamsters.

"The real problem is that the locals don't 
understand what will happen if we don't get 
Sekhmet under lock and key," Albert 
complained when Spike commented on the 
workers' lack of enthusiasm for the project.

"I don't suppose offerin' them more money 
would help?"

"Please, we've already got Howard Carter 
working on the other side of the Valley, and 
he's paying more than we are.  All the 
enthusiastic workers are over there.  I'm 
afraid that the budget doesn't stretch much 
further."

"You have a budget?  Savin' the world's got a 
budget?"

"You know what the bloody Council's like."

Spike nodded as though he did and tried on 
one of Giles' long-suffering looks.

"You want to be a mate and help me setting 
out some wards around the perimeter?"

"Right."

Setting wards turned out to be digging holes 
in the unbelievably rocky soil and burying 
metal boxes the size of a shoebox every ten 
feet.  By midday, Spike's hands were covered 
with blisters, his back was screaming in 
pain, and his sunburn had sunburn. How any 
human could work in the heat was nothing 
short of amazing, since Spike had sweated 
through his shirt in the first ten minutes.  
It was only frequent breaks for the vile tea-
water that kept him from doing the 
dehydration nose-dive.  While they worked, 
Albert let loose with a long string of 
complaints about Isobel, most of which seemed 
to center around the fact that she was a 
woman, and that Albert should have been put 
in charge of the expedition. None of this 
surprised Spike very much, since the woman in 
charge issue was still going on in Sunnydale 
almost eighty years in the future. 

Despite the complaining, Albert was a gabby 
goldmine of information.  He outlined all the 
precautions that the Watchers were taking to 
make sure that Sekhmet didn't get out of her 
prison.  There were anti-vampire devices, 
such as the wards, that Spike had never heard 
of or encountered in his long and illustrious 
career as one of the evil dead.

"The trick is, you have to match the 
pervading culture and religion of the 
vampire," Albert grunted as he shifted a 
fairly large rock. "Christian symbols work on 
vampires from a Christian culture. You wave a 
cross at a Chinese vampire and he's just 
going to look at you like you've lost your 
tiny mind.  You need a yin/yang or a Buddha."  
Spike actually knew this was untrue, at least 
where the vamp in question was aware of the 
religious tradition at issue.  He'd seen 
vamps with the sidecurls that marked them as 
formerly Orthodox Jews cringe from crosses, 
not because of Christian superiority but 
because they'd recognized the symbols that 
continued to persecute them in undeath.  But 
there was no sense relieving Albert of his 
potentially useful misconception. 

Spike dragged one of the surprisingly heavy 
wards over to the hole and dropped it in.  
Despite what Albert had said about magical 
elements, Spike was convinced that the boxes 
were made of solid lead.  There were 
hieroglyphics incised on the surface, 
spelling spells of binding or some other 
Watcher-like thing.

"Knew one guy who went after a vamp in Nepal.  
The vamp ripped the crucifix out of his hand 
and snapped it in half before he put the big 
bite on him.  Now what we've got here is 
completely accurate to 1353 BC Armana-centric 
Egyptian religion.  You see, the pharaoh 
Amenophis makes this dramatic turn into a 
sun-based religion.  The disc of Aten.  Aten 
was a minor god until Amenophis picks him up 
and he changed his name to Ankhenaten.  It 
means Beloved of Aten.  Re was the sun god 
before that.  Suddenly, Ankhenaten moves the 
capital to Armana and makes everyone worship 
Aten.  Makes you wonder, since Aten was 
depicted as a solar disc with sunrays coming 
down off it. "

"Vampires and the sun."

"Exactly.  We think that's when Sekhmet made 
her appearance and the whole country turns to 
sun worship to combat her.  That would have 
been the time that the priests of Aten would 
have locked her up in her first tomb, but 
there aren't any documents to support this."

Albert straightened up, took off his fedora 
and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.

"D'you think this is gonna work?" Spike 
nodded at the tomb, the wards, and the desert 
in general.

"I hope to God it does." Albert's face 
settled into an expression of dread.  
"Otherwise we're fucked."

If the situation hadn't been so serious Spike 
might have laughed.  The sands blew around 
their ankles for a long moment before Albert 
jammed his hat back on his head.

"See the tomb?" he asked.

"Sure." 

The tomb was three small rooms carved into 
the solid rock of the hillside.  Workmen were 
smoothing three of the walls of the main room 
while the fourth wall was being painted with 
an elaborate mural that looked like something 
Spike vaguely remembered seeing at the 
British Museum a few decades earlier.  He 
should have gone with Dru the night that she 
broke into the Metropolitan Museum of Art to 
see the King Tut exhibit back in '79. What 
had he done instead?  He suspected that it 

involved going to CBGB, drinking a beer, 

seeing a band, and then drinking a patron.  

But there had been a lot of nights like that.

"We're putting this gate with ankhs on it 
across the doorway.  The ankh is the Egyptian 
symbol for life, almost analogous to the 
Christian cross."

Spike stared at the gate, wrought in 
something the color of gold, saw the touching 
arms of the loop-topped crosses and 
remembered a crucifix pressed into his 
outstretched hand, one of Angelus' little 
jokes.  It had taken almost five years for 
the burn to heal properly.  Without thinking, 
he stepped back from the gate, and bumped 
into something soft and feminine.

Unfortunately, it was Isobel.

"Albert, I need you to place an international 
phone call back to headquarters.  I need to 
have a file couriered over.  Can you drive to 
the American Express office this afternoon?"  
She was staring straight at Spike.  He put a 
hand up to check whether there was something 
nasty on his face, and winced when his 
fingers encountered the bruises remaining 
from Buffy's domestic violence episode.

"I need to get the rest of the wards set and 
I -"

"Albert." Isobel tightened the leash with her 
voice and a cold look.

"Right after lunch."  Albert looked at Isobel 
with a mixture of rebellion and irritation 
that Spike thoroughly understood.

Turning again to Spike, Isobel composed her 
face in a smooth façade of calm friendliness.

"I hope this is educational for you, Mister 
Shankly."

"Extremely."

With her dress shimmering in the torchlight 
of the tomb, Isobel made her way out.  Both 
men watched her go.

"Bitch," Albert breathed.

Spike made a non-committal sound.

"She hasn't got the slightest fucking idea 
what we're dealing with, thinks it's some 
kind of Council Holiday or some fucking 
foolishness," Albert said.

Spike grinned at him.

"Best let her make a hash of it herself."

"She never should have been put in charge.  

And that bloody Jane. You ask me, the girl's 

a walking cock-up."

"Fancy a smoke?" Spike asked.

"Ta ever so."

****

When Buffy returned to the tent, Spike 
attacked her, but not in the usual way.

"There is a common courtesy of puttin' things 
back when you're done wiv 'em," he snarled 
and kicked a pile of clothes off the chair.

"Excuse me?" she asked in a stake-pointed 
voice.  "I'm sorry, is part of being human 
turning into my mother?"

"Wardrobe, that's where the hangin' things 
live."  He pointed at the furniture as he 
spoke, as though Buffy had grown up in the 
jungle instead of Southern California.  
"Chest of drawers, which is where the frilly 
girlish bits live, not all over the floor."

Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared 
at him.  "So what's got your frilly bits in a 
twist?"

He stopped flinging clothes around long 
enough to give her a snarl almost as ugly as 
a fang-face.

"That bloody Isobel. Set me out diggin' holes 
with Albert all mornin'."

"Albert?  Who's Albert?"

"The point is--" he would have had far more 
authority if he hadn't been holding an 
underslip, "-- she knows that something isn't 
quite pukka about you an' me.  Havin' Jane 
sniffin' around me isn't helpin' matters 
either. I'm thinkin' that her Slayer sense is 
pickin' something up."

"Jane's not making my top ten list of 
favorite people, either.  She's totally 
weird.  I thought maybe we could trade Slayer 
tips or something but all she wanted to do 
was play cards," Buffy flopped down on the 
bed and took off her shoes.  "And this skirt 
and heels routine is totally lame."

"Dunno, got its advantages," he said and his 
hand was on her leg, sliding quickly up the 
length of her skin.  "Easy access, for one."

Breath caught in her throat, Buffy let him 
push her back into the bed, and welcomed the 
hot hardness of his kisses.  God, he had the 
kissing thing down cold.  Guess it took a 
hundred years or so for complete proficiency.  
She gave herself up into it, since it was 
only kissing, after all, and his heart was 
beating in his chest.  She could feel it 
banging against her hand like something 
trying to get out of a cage.  His hand was 
working its way around her underwear, headed 
for home plate, and part of her brain was 
doing the "it's wrong" tap-dance while the 
other was all ready for a slow grind.

"It's the middle of the afternoon," she 
hissed when he finally broke for breath.

"So it's a rare opportunity. You wouldn't 
deny me a rare opportunity, would you?" he 
murmured into her throat.

She wanted to die, wanted to swoon (whatever 
that was, exactly), and couldn't quite work 
up the energy to fight him off.  She knew she 
could. With his human body, she could put a 
massive hurt on him.  The knowledge made her 
thighs tremble underneath his hand.  He 
tasted familiarly of cigarettes and smelled 
nicely sweaty, and she couldn't ignore the 
fact that he was pressing the hardness of his 
cock against her belly.  This was definitely 
a situation.  He was now human, which meant 
that it was okay, but on the other hand, he 
was a vampire and had been for an unknown 
amount of time, which was a complication.  
She refused to take into account that she'd 
virtually molested him the night before.  His 
lips moved against the skin on her neck and 
she felt the hardness of teeth.  She 
shuddered at the feeling and the memory of 
fangs.

"I can deny you plenty," she said and it came 
out in a breathless sigh.

"Can you, really?" he asked while his hand 
cupped her where she was hotter than the 
desert and wetter than the Nile.

Clever fingers slid past the layer of satin 
and lace and slid inside her, making Buffy 
gasp in the hot stillness of the tent.   In 
the filtered daylight, Spike's eyes sparkled 
with uncontained mischief.

"Hello? Anyone in there?" a voice called.

In a split second, Buffy was upright, pulling 
her skirt down over her thighs and trying to 
gain some composure.  Spike lounged back 
against the bed, his hand covering his eyes.

"What the bleedin' hell do you want?" he 
demanded.

"Uh . . ." the voice behind the tent flaps 
hedged, "It's Albert.  You want to come with 
me into Luxor?"

"Who's Albert?" Buffy hissed.

"One of the Watchers.  Seems alright, despite 
that." Spike hissed back, and then raised his 
voice, "Half a mo'."

Slowly, Spike got up and pointedly re-
arranged the folds of his khaki trousers 
around what must have been a painful bulge in 
his crotch.  Buffy felt the heat rise to her 
face and looked away.  She could hear him 
chuckle at her discomfort at his discomfort.

"I'm supposin' that we'll finish this 
discussion later, right?" he asked in a 
normal sounding voice.

"I'll take it under consideration," she said, 
far squeakier than she would have liked.

Spike parted the flaps of the tent; standing 
in the sunlight was Mr. I'm Afraid of 
Americans, complete with a floppy dirty 
blonde Hugh Grant haircut and Masterpiece 
Theatre accent.  Buffy gave him her best 
pissed-off girl look.

"Sorry if I was interrupting, but I wondered 
if Shankly wanted to take a jaunt over to 
Luxor with me," he said, looking at 
everything in the tent except Buffy.

"Sounds like fun," Buffy said and bounced up 
from the bed.  "I really hate these shoes.  I 
need to get some other shoes."

"Oh," Albert said and gave Spike a look that 
was coded for boys only.

"'S all right," Spike explained, "She's a 
Yank, and they raise up their women 
different-like.  Add in eighty years and . . 
. well, you've almost got a man."

Buffy didn't know if she was supposed to be 
offended or not, and settled for putting on 
her shoes.

"Let's go see Luxor.  I'm all about seeing 
Luxor."

Serious Moonlight 13/26


Albert's car turned out to be a convertible, 
which was a good thing.  Buffy sat in the 
back seat and let the hot desert wind tear 
through her hair, while the boys sat up front 
and smoked cigarettes.  She was still 
throbbing wherever Spike had touched her and 
felt vaguely drunk.  But since the desert 
zipping by was anything but calm, she didn't 
think about it.  Instead she watched the 
camels and the funny fabric-wrapped Arabs 
plod along the side of the road as they sped 
past.

"Y'see, everything alive is on the East of 
the Nile.  Everything dead is on the West.  
The Egyptians buried their dead under the 
setting sun." Albert explained.

"How come you know so much about Egypt?" she 
asked over the roar of the engine.

"Studied it at Oxford.  The Watchers recruited 
me right out of school.  Must have known that 
this was coming," Albert yelled back.

"They're funny that way," Spike agreed.

It was hard to believe that he had been a 
vampire two days before, Buffy realized.  No 
wonder the Watchers had been fooled.  The sun 
had darkened his skin to a living hue and he 
looked about as comfortable as possible in 
the pale beige and khaki that all the 
Watchers wore in the desert heat. Somewhere 
in the Fall 1925 Watcher Collection, he'd 
managed to find a long coat made out of 
something pale and light that substituted for 
his favorite duster.  Even his hair was 
different, springier, less plastic than 
usual.  She sensed curls lurking somewhere 
underneath.  For a moment, she could almost 
believe that he'd always been warm and alive.  
If he had, things might have been different.  
Maybe she wouldn't have the heavy feeling in 
her chest.

Luxor was a low collection of sunbaked 
buildings huddled against the water of the 
Nile.  Even Buffy knew that any big river 
running through Egypt had to be the Nile.  

"The American Express office is just off the 
souk.  If you two want to take a look around, 
you know." Albert said as they pulled up 
beside one of the many sunbaked buildings.

"Brilliant," Spike agreed and helped Buffy 
out of the back of the car, which she really 
didn't need but was nice anyway.

"Meet you back here in half an hour," Albert 
said and adjusted his hat and promptly 
vanished into the American Express office.

Buffy looked around at the stalls, looked at 
the women in their black masks and stepped 
back.

"Are you sure?" she asked Spike.

"Don't worry, they're Muslim, can't show 
their faces to anyone but husbands and 
family."

"That's just wrong."

"Come on," he said, and pulled at her arm 
with his living warm hand, "You can educate 
'bout women's rights later."

Buffy couldn't believe the smell of the souk.  
It was a combination of spices, sweat, smoke, 
baking mud, horrible rotting things and dirty 
animals.  She tried to breathe through her 
mouth and not think about it too much.  

A snake charmer was making a cobra dance out 
of a basket as they passed.  Feeling 
unusually shy, Buffy decided that hanging 
onto Spike was a good thing.  At least he 
seemed to know what he was doing.  The smell 
crawled up her nose and tried to strangle her 
brain with its horrible tentacles. It smelled 
like someone was trying to barbeque a 
trashcan that cats had peed in. They strolled 
through the stalls and stands of the souk, 
and Buffy only caught flashes of fabric, 
food, unidentifiable brass things, and even 
more unidentifiable glass things.  Finally, a 
place where she could go shopping and he was 
dragging her through at the speed of light.

"I need shoes."

He wasn't listening to her, not that he ever 
seemed to anyway, but this time he wasn't 
listening because he was staring across the 
souk with an expression she'd seen before - 
when he was hunting.

"Small world, innit?"

Following his eyeline, Buffy watched a dark-
haired European guy surrounded with some 
fabric-wrapped Arabs cross the far side of 
the square.  Even without the museum and 
lecture hall surroundings, she recognized Dr. 
Talbot.  Case in point, men were just bad.  
Dr. Talbot had started out cute and 
flirtatious and then he turned into an 
ancient vampire mummy goddess re-animating 
creep.  

"So Doctor Yummy is here, his mummy can't be 
very far away, right?"

"Don't call him that, he is so not yummy 
anymore," she said and began to slip around 
the edge of the crowd, trying to put less 
space between her and Dr. Talbot.  

She was lying.  Talbot was still fairly 
yummy.  He was decked out in the same Banana 
Republic looks as Spike and the Watchers: 
khakis, pale shirt, boots and suntan 
highlighted with peeling pink spots.  But 
Talbot had incurred the wrath of the fashion 
gods by deciding to accessorize with an 
Indiana Jones fedora.  At least Spike had 
refrained from that, though his weird little 
blue-tinted 1920s sunglasses were hard to 
look at without laughing.  Despite the silly 
hat, Talbot looked like the star of an old 
black and white adventure movie.  Talbot 
should have been the hero with his rugged 
good looks and flashing blue eyes.  Spike 
should have been sneering and slinking his 
way around in the shadows as the lead 
villain.  Everyone knew that thin guys with 
English accents were always the villains, 
unless they were Sting, and even then it was 
a toss-up.  

Reading her mind like a magazine, Spike 
looked over to her and made a face.

"Hat like that an' he was supposed to be 
yummy?" Spike murmured. "Looks a right pratt 
to me."

"Come on."

For once, he didn't argue and followed her.  
They worked their way around the square until 
Dr. Talbot and his flunkies disappeared down 
an alleyway.

Luckily Talbot and his crew were entirely too 
caught up in walking down the street and 
conversing in Arabic to pay any attention to 
the following Slayer and soi-disant Watcher.  
The streets narrowed to alleys and the alleys 
narrowed even further, the buildings blocking 
out the brilliant blue desert sky.  The 
alleys were cooler, darker and, if possible, 
smellier.  Talbot and his Arabs disappeared 
into a large, low building with a sign written 

in squiggly Arabic.

"I guess you can't read that?" she asked.

"You'd be right there, Blondie."

"A window would be good right about now."

And windows they found, along the side of the 
building where there was barely three feet to 
walk between the walls.  They were barred 
with wood.  Buffy motioned to Spike and, 
after rolling his eyes, he laced his fingers 
together and hoisted her up.  Buffy held onto 
the windowsill and stepped up onto Spike's 
shoulders, even though he groaned and wiggled 
unhappily underneath. She supposed he was 
looking up her skirt, but dismissed the 
thought as she pulled the wooden grill free 
with as little noise as possible.  Pulling 
herself through the window, she found herself 
on an upper level to the building, like a 

balcony that looked down on a main area 

underneath.  There were desiccated piles of 

straw around and the whole place smelled 
like it hadn't been used in ages. It must 
have been a stable at one point and the upper 
level was the hayloft.  Buffy could even 
smell the ghosts of horses - or horse pee and 
manure, to be honest. She leaned out through 
the window and helped Spike pull himself up.  
They crawled to the edge of the balcony and 
looked down.  

Talbot was there, having removed the 
offensive hat, and was arguing with one of 
the Arabs.  At the far side of the floor 
stood a glimmering golden sarcophagus, 
throwing back the light from some lamps that 
were scattered around the stable.  That had to 

be where Sekhmet was being stored like out 

of season clothes.  The Arab was in a high 

state of excitement, pointing at the 

sarcophagus and then at the door, rolling 

his eyes and carrying on like a PTA member 

who had found the Kama Sutra in the junior 

high library.

"Looks like he's havin' some trouble with the 
rank an' file. Just can't get good thugs 
anymore," Spike breathed.

"Maybe world-destroying goddesses are against 
the Thug Union by-laws or something."

"Right then, Slayer, what's your cunnin' 
plan?"

"Sekhmet's in the sarcophagus, and she's 
resting, so if we got her in the sunlight and 
opened it, toasted evil mummy goddess." Buffy 
pointed at the windows on the far side of the 
stable, "Get those open and the sunlight 
should fall on her."

"Should bein' the operative word.  Still have 
to stake and decapitate w' the materials on 
hand."

"If you have a better plan, I'm taking 
suggestions!"

"A crap plan is better than none, I suppose."

They crawled along the hayloft, the dry 
floorboards threatening to creak at every 
movement.  The boards were splintering and 
powdering with dry rot, and Buffy wondered 
exactly how sturdy they were.  Not that she 
and Spike were heavyweights, but the 
vibrating boards made her hands sweat with 
nervousness even in the desert air.  To her 
right, Spike was moving at the same slow 
pace, his brow wrinkled with concentration 
and his sweat-damp hair flopping into his 
face.  For a moment, a feeling of unreality 
threatened to suck her under like dry 
quicksand.  Part of her was refusing to 
believe that this actually was Spike, with a 
dirty face and his shirt sticking to his back 
with perspiration.  Vampires didn't sweat, 
vampires didn't have peeling sunburn on their 
noses, and vampires had no reason to wear 
funny sunglasses because they couldn't see 
without them.    

Spike reached the first window and began 
pulling at the wooden frame.  Buffy reached 
the second one and popped the frame out as 
quietly as she could, and sunlight streamed 
into the stable.  Underneath, someone shouted 
in Arabic.  Spike swore and heaved at the 
boards, but the increased pressure was no 
match for the dry wood underneath and Spike's 
foot went through the floor as though it was 
thin ice.  Yelping with alarm, Buffy felt the 
whole hayloft shudder and pitch before the 
planks underneath her feet suddenly weren't 
there anymore and the whole side of the 
hayloft collapsed like a toothpick model.  
Buffy landed flat on her ass on the ground in 
a billow of dry hay, wood fragments, and 
dust. She started to sneeze, eye-watering 
nose-burning sneezes.  It felt like every bit 
of hay, dust, and wood had gone straight up 
her nose and filled her sinuses like pins and 
needles.

"What the hell is going on?" Talbot demanded, 
as the Arabs began scattering around the 
stable.

Talbot reached down and grabbed Buffy by the 
arm, hauling her to her feet.  Blinded with 
dust and sneeze-tears, all she could do was 
stare at him between sneezes.

"What are-" he began and realization crept 
over his face like the sunset in the desert.

Well, he really was cute.  Life was just 
totally unfair.

"What are *you* doing here?" Talbot demanded.

"Just droppin' in," Spike sniped and landed a 
right hook square to Talbot's jaw. 

Trust Spike to make a dramatic entrance.

Talbot dropped Buffy's arm and reeled back.  
Apparently archaeology wasn't a physical 
field of study.  Whirling, Spike kicked him 
flat in the chest and Talbot bounced off the 
nearby wall.  Roaring with pain, Talbot 
rushed at Spike.

"Buffy, Sekhmet!" Spike shouted and moved in 
on Talbot.

The sun wasn't hitting the sarcophagus. That 
much was clear. The square of vampire-deadly 
light fell a yard short of the golden box.  
Wiping her eyes as she ran, Buffy hit the 
sarcophagus with a running tackle.  It was 
like hitting a brick wall, only smaller.  The 
box shifted a couple of inches.  She heaved 
at the box until the muscles in her arms and 
legs burned.  It slid a few more inches 
towards the light.  At the rate she was 
going, she would have the box in the sunlight 
by the time the miniskirt was invented.  
While she was on the verge of tearing muscles 
she didn't know the names for, Spike and 
Talbot were pounding on one another.  She 
could see that Spike still had the skill he'd 
had as a vampire, but with his reduced human 
strength, he was only bruising Talbot where 
he normally could have shattered bones.

Hearing breaking glass, Buffy turned her head 
and saw that one of the oil lanterns had 
fallen and shattered, oil spilling onto the 
dry wood and hay.  The place would go up like 
a rocket once the flames got underway.  The 
Arabs decided that now was the time to act 
and swarmed over her like flies.  She 
kicked and punched at whatever living flesh 
was nearby, but they had no interest in her.  
They were grabbing at the sarcophagus and 
hauling it towards the door, away from the 
square of light and away from the fire.  
Buffy swore and held onto the sculptured 
surface of the box, digging her fingers into 
the gilded wood, and refusing to let go even 
as hot hands grabbed at her.  An order 
was barked and the dozen or so men suddenly 
hoisted the box onto their shoulders with 
Buffy still atop it, her fingers tearing and 
bleeding on the wood.  She reached for the 
seam separating top from bottom as they 
crossed the threshold into the burning 
Egyptian daylight.  The top didn't budge. She 
felt along the seam, her flingers slippery 
with blood, and she touched a bar that 
bridged the gap.

The sarcophagus was latched from the inside, 
Sekhmet had locked herself in and short of an 
axe, which she didn't have, there was no way 
that Buffy was going to be able to open the 
box. Vision red with frustration, she banged 
on the lid, cursing Sekhmet, Talbot, the 
flunkies, and Egypt in general.  Just as the 
Arabs were sliding the box onto the back of a 
truck, Buffy leapt free, punching at anything 
that touched her, and turned back to the 
stable.  Flames were making short work of the 
dry wood building.  Smoke was billowing out 
of the entrance like the open door of a 
designated smoking area.

"Spike?!" she shouted.
 
After a moment, when he failed to give a 
smart-ass answer, Buffy put her hand over her 
mouth and ran into the burning building.

With typical male tunnel vision, Spike and 
Talbot were still trying to beat the snot out 
of each other while the building burned 
around them.  Spike had Talbot by the throat, 
and Talbot was trying to pull Spike's hands 
free.

"Fire!" Buffy shouted.  "Fire Bad!  Macho 
really, really stupid!"

Spike's head snapped around to look at her 
and Talbot took the opportunity to drive his 
knee into Spike's stomach.  Grip broken, 
Spike doubled over in pain as Talbot escaped 
up through the ladder leading to the hayloft.  
Buffy rushed over to Spike and grabbed him.

"Playing hero all of a sudden?" she demanded.

"Thought I was one of the good guys now," he 
said and coughed, "Dunno what I was 
thinkin'."

A wall of flame from the burning hay 
blossomed between them and the doorway.

"Right. Where'd Doctor Yummy get to?" Spike 
choked.

They followed Talbot up the ladder, through 
the hayloft, which was now black with smoke, 
and onto the roof of the next building over. 
Buffy could see Talbot running across the 
next rooftop. Breathing fresh smoke-free air, 
Buffy broke into a run, with Spike hot on her 
heels.  Talbot ran through a laundry line, 
his panache lessened somewhat by what looked 
like a large pair of ladies' bloomers wrapped 
around his neck.  He threw the bloomers aside 
and reached the edge of the rooftop. 

"This isn't over," he shouted.

"You can bet on it, asshole!" Buffy yelled 
back.

"That was pithy and erudite," Spike commented 
and coughed again.

How someone - or something - who smoked as 
much as Spike would cough after being in a 
fire amazed Buffy in a bitter kind of way.

Talbot leapt over the edge of the building.

Letting out a yell, Buffy ran to pick up 
speed and followed, Spike right after her.
 
But something went wrong.  The fall was 
longer than she had expected and ended in 
crackling and pointy things.  Things that 
squawked and screamed.  She opened her eyes 
and saw the back of the truck as it pulled 
away, Talbot smirking at her from where he 
sat atop the sarcophagus.  He waved. She 
wanted to give him the finger but she didn't 
have the strength to raise her arm.

"Bloody hell, chickens!" Spike complained.

More chickens than she had eaten in her 
entire life.  Enough chickens for a voodoo 
priestess to raise every single dead rock 
star on VH1's Behind the Music.  A chicken 
was pecking at her leg and Spike seemed to be 
engulfed.  Broken cages lay around them like 
buildings after Godzilla had come to town.  
It rained feathers.  There was something 
squishy underneath her and Buffy assumed, 
feeling a little ill, that there had been 
chicken collateral damage.

An Egyptian, presumably the owner of the 
chickens, ran over and proceeded to give them 
hell in Arabic.  Spike brushed chickens from 
himself and scrabbled to his feet. Screaming 
back at the chicken-man, Spike was trying to 
look threatening, which didn't work too well 
since he had more feathers in his hair than a 
girl at a slumber-party pillow fight.

The chickens squawked loud enough to be heard 
in Pittsburgh and fluttered nervously around, 
shedding feathers and clucking hysterically.   
More Arabs joined the argument, making a 
threatening circle around Spike.  Buffy 
slowly climbed to her feet, hurting over most 
of her body.  While she pulled feathers out 
of her hair and pushed futilely at the 
chicken blood and feathers on her now-ruined 
dress, the chicken-man pulled a meat cleaver 
out of his robes and took a swipe at Spike.

This really was a time for a tactical 
retreat.  She thrust her way into the circle 
of angry men and pulled Spike away.

Pursued by chickens and Arabs, Buffy and 
Spike sprinted down the alley.  As they 
reached the mouth of the alley, an open cart 
piled high with an assortment of fruit 
blocked their way; the fruit vendor shouted 
something incomprehensible but unfriendly at 
them.  Spike wasn't taking no for an answer.  
He scrambled over the fruit piled on the cart 
and Buffy followed suit.  On the other side a 
wicked look crossed his face and he grabbed 
the side of the cart.

"Can't ruin a perfectly good cliché," he said 
and upended the cart.

Melons, oranges, and other round and tasty 
things cascaded into the alleyway, rolling 
like bowling balls and plowing into the feet 
and shins of the pursuing Arabs.  Buffy 
wondered if the guys were going to be knocked 
over like tenpins, but didn't get to see the 
outcome since Spike was pulling on her arm, 
dragging her into the thick of the souk.  
Whatever the fruit had done, it had slowed 
the Arabs up enough that Buffy and Spike were 
clambering over a very surprised Albert in 
the car by the time the angry mini-mob, led 
now by the enraged fruit vendor, emerged from 
the alley.

"What the devil's going on?' Albert demanded,

"Drive," Buffy ordered, "Drive now, drive 
fast."

"Do it!" Spike added, when Talbot looked to 
him for confirmation.

"Right then," Albert agreed and they sped 
off.  "What did you do?  Sneak a peek under 
some bird's yashmak?"

"Not quite, we ran into Dr. Talbot," Buffy 
explained, since Spike was peeling some 
citrusy fruit shaped like a football, 
throwing peels out of the car and shoving 
sections into his mouth.  He must have swiped 
it from the fruit vendor while the vendor had 
other things on his mind.

Albert grunted stoically and drove, weaving 
past people who wandered like targets in a 
video game into his path.  In a matter of 
moments, they were outside the city walls and 
speeding along the edge of the Nile.  
Feathers dropped off Buffy and Spike at 
irregular intervals.

"Bloody Hell," Spike winced and rubbed at his 
shoulder, "I think I've done something 
'orrible to myself."

"Now, now, you have to remember that you're 
not immortal," Buffy said in her sweetest of 
voices and patted him on the sore shoulder.

He glowered at her all the way back to camp, 
eating his purloined fruit.

****

Back at camp, Buffy headed straight for the 
tent, which was fine with Spike as fighting 
always made him horny too.

The ruined dress pooled at her feet and she 
stood in stockings and step-ins, rummaging 
through Jane's closet.  He was glad she 
hadn't bothered with the compressing elastic 
that passed for a brassiere in these 
benighted times.  With that cute modesty that 
still surfaced from time to time, she crossed 
her arms over her chest like one of the 
mummies, her hands at her shoulders, when he 
entered.

"You can't get dressed again w'out cleanin' 
up a bit," he pointed out.  Dismayed, Buffy 
looked down at her still-feathery arms.  
Spike went over to the basin and dipped a 
cloth into the tepid water left over from his 
morning shave.  "C'mere."

Blinking like a newly awakened cat, she 
stepped over to him.  Carefully, he ran the 
cloth down and around her arm, pulling it 
gently away from her body and closing his 
hand over her wrist for a moment just to feel 
how thin it was.  Then he repeated the 
process on her other arm and wrung the cloth 
out before dipping it again and turning his 
attentions to her chest.

"I'm not dirty there," she complained softly.  
He chuckled and bent his mouth to the space 
between her breasts, returning with a white 
feather caught in his teeth.  He blew it up 
at her face and she squeaked.  Soon he'd 
tossed the cloth to the side, running his 
hands in great circles around her body, 
loosening garters one by one.

Sucking his lower lip into her mouth, her 
hands dug into his shoulders.  This was 
almost worth being alive for, the way that 
she seemed to flow through his skin and 
straight into his bloodstream.  He nuzzled 
behind her ear and down the slope of her 
throat.  She tasted sweaty and rich, her 
flavor going straight to what remained of his 
brain.  She tasted better than anything that 
the Watchers' cook put on the table.

"Somebody might see-" she hissed as his lips 
worked their way over his throat.

"'S all your fault," he murmured, taking her 
bleeding fingers up to his lips.  "Can't help 
m'self."

Her blood tasted like rust, a faint shadow of 
what it should have been, but it still made 
him shudder against her.  Warm breath whisked 
over his face, ruffled his hair, made his 
skin dance and sing.  He could have sold the 
feeling of her on street corners and been a 
rich man.  Her fingernails hissed over the 
cotton of his shirt, sounding like distant 
birds as she loosened his buttons.  Dipping 
her head down to his she kissed him with the 
athletic ferocity that made his bones turn 
into jam.  His fingers traced over the thin 
bones in her skull, the funny bumps on her 
nose, the too-large orbits of her eyes, and 
memorized each angle and curve.

"Stupid," she mumbled against his mouth, 
"stupid, stupid, stupid."

He didn't know if she meant her, him, the 
situation, or the chicken feathers 
everywhere.  He quit worrying when her hands 
slid inside his shirt, strong fingers tracing 
down his torso, nimbly working his belt and 
flies loose.  When he tried to do likewise 
with her cute satin underpants, she made a 
noise and wiggled free, only to unstick her 
mouth from his and began down the center of 
his chest to follow the route her hands had 
taken.  Her hot and wet mouth burned at him 
and the damp trail of saliva evaporated 
cooled his skin in the desert air. She eased 
his trousers down from his hips until they 
wadded up in bedroom farce fashion around his 
calves.

Spike knew his eyes must be round as the 
moon, more in shock than arousal though the 
latter was considerable.  Strands of Buffy's 
hair caught on his thighs as he felt the tip 
of her nose brush against his groin.  Why 
would you do this? he thought, but 

fortunately it came out as "Urk."

She snickered, tickling his stomach.

Unsteadily, he leaned against the wardrobe, 
hoping it was sturdy enough to bear his 
weight.

The skin of her face felt like velvet against 
his cock, her hair silk under his hands. He 
was afraid to move, afraid that she'd change 
her mind, afraid that she wouldn't change her 
mind. Afraid of teeth - he'd been fang-nipped 
in the past.  No fangs here, he thought as 
her soft mouth closed around him.  Oh this 
was just wrong, it was just entirely too 
good.  She had her hand around most of his 
shaft while her tongue and lips moved over 
the head of his cock.  His balls felt like 
they were filled with lead and he was torn 
between trying to make himself last as long 
as possible and giving in.  The adrenaline 
from the fight (he now had adrenaline) and 
the 

sheer fact that the Slayer was kneeling before 

him with her mouth on his formerly undead 

dick was just a little too much for his 

substandard human body to bear.  With an 

unmanly gasp, he exploded into her mouth.  

He wobbled, he wavered, and grabbed at the 
wardrobe again.  For her part, Buffy just 
stood up and discreetly wiped her chin on the 
back of her hand.

"If that's part of Slayer trainin', Giles is 
a dead man."

"Very funny," she said in a pseudo-prim 
voice, "But at least I got you back for all 
the times you've made me stupid."

"Paybacks are a bitch," he muttered as he 
collapsed onto Jane's bed, hitching his pants 
back up with arms like wet string, "I'll just 
be lyin' here dead 'til dinner."

"And this is different for you how?" she 
asked and went back to rummaging in the 
wardrobe.

Spike just looked up at the canvas of the 
tent and felt the unfamiliar throb of his 
heart echo down into his insanely sensitive 
groin.


Serious Moonlight 14/26


"The good news is that we saw Talbot," Buffy 
said over the dinner table.

"Yeah, and he saw us," Spike corrected her 
around a mouthful of dinner, "which is not 
good news."  The tinned beans and onions 
tasted really good, salty like blood but 
richer, full of nuance and greenness.

"Maybe he didn't recognize us," Buffy said 
with painfully false hope.

"You two are fairly distinctive."  Isobel 
pointedly glanced at Spike's hair.  "Still, 
we have only three days until the stars align 
to fulfill the ancient prophecy and Sekhmet 
can be raised in all her destructiveness.  
Albert tells me that the tomb should be 
finished tomorrow.  Isn't that right, 
Albert?"

Albert, who was working his way through his 
dinner, paused with fork in mid-air and 
blinked at her.

"Uh, quite.  The only snag is that I was 
really planning to go into Luxor tomorrow 
night.  Carter's having a reception at the 
Winter Palace to celebrate getting the inner 
coffins open at the Tutankhamun site."  The 
Watcher slash Archaeologist put down his fork 
as though his food had suddenly become alive 
with worms.

"And this benefits our situation in what 
way?"  Isobel asked in her ground glass and 
sugar way.

"It doesn't.  Save that Talbot might come, 
if he's the scholar that Mr. Shankly says he 
is.  Everyone who's anyone in Egyptology is 
on the guest list.   Carter's going to show 
some photographs that haven't been out of his 
collection."  He caught an angry breath.  
"Anyone with any sense would see that Talbot 
would be drawn to such an event."

To Spike's ears, Albert sounded as though his 
disgust at Isobel was going to burst forth 
like an ugly case of projectile vomiting.

Albert and Isobel locked glares over the 
silver candelabra.

"Why don't we nab him after the party and 
torture him 'til he tells us where the mummy 
is?" Spike asked, and sawed again at his 
steak.  The cooked fibers were a revelation 
to his tongue, and he grabbed a piece of 
bread to mop up the juices left on the plate.

A trio of appalled faces stared back at him.  
Jane, however, had an unhealthy sparkle in 
her eye.

"That would be wrong," Buffy said, tres 
California.

"I don't hear any other ideas," he said and 
it was his turn to cross his arms over his 
chest.

"If there was something we could do instead 
of  . . . you know, hurting him." Buffy 
looked around for a reaction. "If we could 
find Sekhmet before he activated her, we 
could just stuff her in the tomb and it would 
be over. Right?" 

"And what are we gonna do? Scold him? 'You're 
been a very naughty Egyptologist, young 
Talbot.  Tell us where the mummy is or you 
won't get any dessert'," he said and leaned 
back from the table.  "That'll work."

Jane laughed and flicked her hair away from 
her face.  "I think it's a good idea.  Even 
if we can't get him to tell us where the 
mummy is, she can't be raised without a high 
priest.  No high priest, no raising."

"Kidnapping Talbot would be against Watcher 
code," Albert protested, but a small smile 
twisted his mouth.  "Not that anybody would 
have to know . . ."

"Ah, bugger the code.  Do you think that 
vampires and the rest of the nasties are 
workin' with a rulebook?  If you ever wonder 
why you lot never seem to get ahead, it's 
because of the bloody code.  You spend more 
time debatin' about what you should do than 
doin' it."  He threw down his napkin and got 
up from the table.  "I say we get in and get 
rid of the dried-up bitch before she 
manifests."

"Gee, why don't you tell us how you really 
feel," Buffy said to the tablecloth.

Feeling that he'd pretty much said his piece 
and adding anything would only be overkill in 
the annoyance department, Spike left the 
group sitting at the table and went out to 
where the camp looked out over the desert.  
The moon was up, not quite full, and he felt 
far more comfortable than he did under the 
hard eye of the sun.  This damned sitting 
around and waiting was making his brain itch.  
Did they really think that Sekhmet was going 
to let them lead her into a tomb that was 
thick with magical binding spells?  She might 
be old but that was no guarantee she was 
stupid.  He lit a cigarette and continued to 
think, since there was fuck all else he could 
do.

A three thousand plus year old vampire, now 
that was an interesting problem.  Was she 
going to have the powers she would have if 
she'd been awake for three thousand years?  
Or would she just have the accumulated powers 
for the amount of time before she was 
entombed by the whoever they weres way back?  
With any luck, she'd only have a couple 
centuries worth of abilities, and Buffy would 
be able to take her, with or without Jane. 
Otherwise, Sekhmet would be something like a 
thermonuclear bomb with fangs.  

Screaming from the camp behind him made Spike 
drop his cigarette.

"Bloody Hell," he grumbled and set off at a 
dead run.

Watchers or not, they hadn't done much about 
protecting the camp, that much was evident as 
a wave of robe-clad figures swarmed over the 
camp, like ants, but less cute.  There were 
bodies on the ground, blood darkening the 
sand.  He scanned the chaos for Buffy and 
spotted her breaking a chair over a head with 
her usual style and grace.  A form rushed at 
him, and he caught a flash of fangs within 
the darkness of the hood.  Without thinking, 
he lashed out with his fist and caught the 
vamp square in the face.  It hurt like hell; 
the shock of the impact jumped up his arm and 
tried to scramble his brain.  Fucking human 
body.  He cursed to himself and picked up the 
nearest rock and hit the vamp again.  It 
still hurt like a son of a bitch, but the 
vamp went over and Spike kicked it in the 
head.

"Fuckin' amateurs," he muttered.

But another green vamp was coming after him.

"Stake?  Anyone got a stake?" he shouted.

What looked like it had once been a chair leg 
came flying in his direction.  He caught it, 
wincing as it slammed into his sore hand, and 
jammed it in the vamp's back.  The vamp 
exploded into a shower of dust.  Even as the 
dust was settling, Spike moved through the 
dark robed vamps, staking whenever the 
opportunity arose.  It was three to nothing 
by the time he reached the side of the car 
where Isobel was trying to hold off a vampire 
with the remains of a chair. 

"I guess they skipped the bit in the rulebook 
'bout not attackin' during the dinner hour."

"If you hadn't attracted their attention 
earlier-"

Spike shrugged and dusted the vamp giving 
Isobel a hard time.  "Shit happens."

"Humans!" somebody shouted, "we've got humans 
too!"

"Well color me surprised," Spike said and 
kicked the nearest Arab who fang-faced him 
and rushed.

Ducking, Spike drove the stake up while the 
vampire sailed overhead.  Clumsy newbie.  The 
majority of the Arab vamps seemed so inept 
that they had to have a fairly recent 
manufacture date, he realized as it rained 
vampire dust into the desert sand for a 
moment. 

"Vampires don't work with humans," Isobel 
protested.

"Stranger things have happened."

He could hear Buffy and Jane exchanging bon 
mots over the rest of the affray, with 
occasional pauses for slaughter.  He made as 
if to go back into the battle, but Isobel's 
hand stopped him.  

"Your duty is to *watch*," she ordered, and 
he would have made a nasty crack if she 
hadn't been as white as if she'd been bled 
dry.  If he guessed right, Isobel was the 
only string keeping the helium balloon inside 
Jane's head anywhere near the ground, and he 
couldn't leave her to be chewed up by 
Talbot's groupies.  

A baddie dashed by, and Isobel stuck a neatly 
stockinged foot out, sending him to chew sand 
while Spike stabbed him.  Instead of dust, he 
got blood, and had to pull the stake out 
against the suction of human flesh.  The 
human Arab yelled out in pain and drew back, 
blood fountaining from his living flesh.  
Isobel turned and retched, and in deference 
to her delicate sensibilities he knelt and 
tried to wipe the worst of the blood off the 
stake with sand.

"Given that Sekhmet's little band o'groupies 
has apparently found us out, I'd say the 
lurin' to the tomb plan needs some re-
thinkin'."

He paused and jammed a chair-stick into a 
questing arm.  There was a very human cry, 
and the arm pulled back.

"Luxor," Isobel said, her voice small but her 
face as composed as if she were in a lecture 
hall.  Then she cringed as Jane howled like a 
werewolf.  Nearby, a body thudded to the 
ground.  She swallowed and continued to 
speak.  "Albert thinks Talbot will show up, 
and even if his ambitions outstrip his 
talent, his Egyptology is impeccable.  If 
Albert believes that this show is worthy of 
scholarly attention, then we shall find our 
scholar there."

The Arab assortment (alive and undead) seemed 
to decide en-masse that attacking the camp 
hadn't been the cakewalk that they'd expected 
and streamed back into the desert.

"Hey, Council-types!"  Buffy's bray cut 
through the noise of retreating feet.  "We 
have an all-clear, let's have a head-count."

Bodies littered the moonlit sand, not all of 
them friendlies. In the end, the dead 
included three Arabs, an unknown number of 
dusted vamp Arabs, and one of the nameless 
Watcher flunkies.  Others on staff were 
sporting assorted bites and injuries.  Spike 
watched Isobel search the mayhem for Jane and 
saw the unguarded relief when she found her 
Slayer.  Both Slayers were covered with vamp 
dust and seemed more ruffled than injured.  
Jane's eyes were bright with fight-fever.  
Spike didn't like this much.

Isobel examined one of the formerly hostile 
bodies, which sported a large ragged hole in 
his chest, proof that humans were messier 
than vamps in almost any situation.  "Humans 
..." she whispered.

Jane was beside her as if materialized from a 
puff of desert air.  "Not any more," she 
said, and there was a stippling of blood on 
her milky-white cheek, black in the 
moonlight.  Her hands sought out her Watcher, 
caressing Isobel as a child would caress a 
favorite doll after some trauma.

"Jane, you didn't --"  Isobel began, but her 
hands were already sneaking around Jane's 
shoulders, holding the girl close, and she 
didn't want to hear the answer enough to 
finish the question.

Spike's scarred eyebrow tried to crawl up and 
hide in his hairline.

Buffy strode up and kicked her shoes into the 
darkness beyond the camp's lights.

"I hate those shoes," she announced.  "No 
traction and they hurt my toes."

Realizing he ought to say something 
Watcherly, Spike straightened his shirt and 
tapped the stake against his hand as though 
it was a pointer and he was teaching a class.

"I suppose that accounts for your poor 
performance?"

He thought for a moment that she was going to 
hit him, but, just to keep him off balance, 
she settled for a sweet smile.

"*My* poor performance?" she asked and Spike 
decided to let the subject die right where it 
had been staked.

"Right," Isobel ran a hand over her hair to 
smooth it and looked around the wreckage of 
the camp.  Reluctantly, she loosened her grip 
on Jane, but kept one hand on the girl's 
elbow.  "Albert, let's get some wards around 
the perimeter, and set up a watch rota with 
the hired hands, please?"

It was getting on to midnight by the time 
Spike and Albert had enclosed the camp with 
another set of the damned heavy wards.  
Albert was thin-lipped and sullen during the 
operation, and Spike could see the young 
man's hands shaking in the weak light from 
the torches.

"She's going to get us all killed," Albert 
bitched.  "Stupid bloody bitch.  I wasn't 
plannin' on getting killed out here."

"No, the Watcher code is goin' to get you 
all killed.  Her imperial coldness is just 
followin' the rules, and out here, the rules 
ain't worth shit.  An' it doesn't matter if 
the person givin' orders is concave or 
convex, if you get my meanin'."

The truth of the matter was that Spike had 
seen enough to know that the female of the 
species was deadlier than the male.  In a fair 

fight, he would have picked Darla over 

Angelus any night of the week - not that 
Darla would have fought fair, which really 
was the point.  The thought of Darla kicking 
the undead shit out of Angelus warmed him 
somewhat as they finished placing the wards 
in the cool desert night.

With the spring in his step and the song in 
his heart that generally came from being in a 
good fight, Spike headed back to the tent and 
found Buffy clad in a white lawn night-dress 
sitting at the dressing table. She had her 
head in her hands and her fine shoulders were 
bowed as though she carried all the camp's 
wards on her back.  

"What's troublin' your flighty brain?" he 
asked, sliding his hands around the edges of 
her gown.  He still couldn't get used to the 
temperature equivalence, or the way the sweat 
of her body made him instantly, 
uncontrollably hard.

"Jane -- she -- she *staked* a man, Spike.  A 
human."

"That's Mr. Shankly to you," he whispered 
into her shell-pink ear, reaching out to 
taste its curves with his tongue, and she 
trembled beneath his fingers.  Even his bones 
ached for her.  

Her head lolled back as his mouth worked down 
her neck and his hands worked at the laces of 
her dress.  "I was with Faith when she," 
Buffy paused to moan, a sound that floated 
through the room like clouds of incense, "she 
accidentally staked a man to death.  That was 
when she decided that she was bad."  The fine 
fabric, less fine than her skin, slid away 
like a dream and she was naked from the waist 
up.

"Not meanin' to talk about other women at an 
inappropriate time," he said and took her 
breasts into his hands, rubbing her hard 
little nipples with his thumbs and biting 
down on the sword-curve of her shoulder, 
"Jane hasn't decided that she's bad."

Her hand twined in his hair, sending electric 
thrills through him where her fingernails 
raked his scalp.  "That's what I'm afraid 
of."  She twisted on the bench, and he had to 
move quickly to keep up with her breasts.  
Her mouth was warm and wet.  She'd never 
seemed so liquid before.  As a vampire, 
nothing but blood had felt just right, but he 
could drink from her mouth for hours now.  He 
could feel the muscles twitching underneath 
her skin, still heated from the evening's 
battle, and taste the wine from dinner on her 
breath.  

Spike's back was beginning to ache, so he 
urged Buffy up, their mouths still superglued 
together, and they tottered over to the bed, 
where the soft blankets nearly cushioned 
Spike from losing his breath as Buffy landed 
atop him.  "No weight jokes," she warned as 
he panted up at her.

"Not a pound of you's wasted, Blondie," he 
said and used the opportunity to push the 
nightgown down over her hips, getting a good 
handful of flesh in the process.  She 
wriggled like a mermaid on top of him to rid 
herself entirely of it as he nibbled at her 
collarbone.  She wasn't wearing underwear, 
and he thought again that the rumors about 
Slayers and sexual desire must be true.

"Careful, that's borrowed," he warned her as 
she attacked the buttons of his shirt like 
they were tiny, annoying vampires that she 
could stake with her fingers.

Buffy only grunted and twisted until the 
shirt surrendered and flapped around his 
shoulders like ghost wings.  He took her head 
in one hand - so small she was, his hand 
seemed to span her skull - and dragged her 
down to kiss and kiss again.  To his 
unacknowledged shame, Spike could have stayed 
like that indefinitely, kissing her sweet 
slick lips, tasting the fight-sweat that 
shone on her body.  Buffy had other ideas.  
Her hands freed his belt and then his 
trousers, sliding down his trembling thighs 
and tangling among the bedsheets.

He gasped when he felt the thick leather of 
the belt twist around his wrists.  "What are 
you doin'?" he asked and barely noticed the 
break in his voice.  Buffy's breasts hung 
above him and he lunged for them like 
Tantalus, grazing a pink nipple with his 
tongue as she secured his hands to the 
headboard.

"You need to learn to behave," she purred 
into his ear and he groaned, his erection 
burning in the dry air of the tent.

"I am have," he said, and she looked at him 
as if he'd been hit too hard during the 
fight.  But she was grinding her pelvis into 
his stomach, and if she'd just shift a little 
downwards everything would be cricket.

Buffy blinked and her hand slithered around 
to cup his balls.  "What's the matter, 
Spike?"  Her fingers combed through the 
sparse hair there, and he felt the hard edges 
of her nails like the promise of scars.  
"Don't you trust me?"  Her voice was thick 
honey and it coated all his synapses.  But 
even through the haze of lust, he could 
reckon that, for GI Joe and tender Angel, 
female superior had been pretty exotic, and 
Buffy might never have had anyone to explore 
her darkness with before.  That was easy 
enough for him.

Her fingers were sliding up the shaft of his 
cock now, the pressure just too-hard enough 
to make him grunt and close his eyes in 
rapture.  Spike could feel her breasts 
swaying millimeters above his mouth, and he 
levered his head enough to take the biggest 
mouthful he could.  Her skin was almost 
chilly with sweat and she hissed and fumbled 
so that the head of his cock slipped inside 
her.  He thrust his hips like the last days 
of disco, but Buffy was ready and rolled like 
a wave, keeping her wet warmth almost out of 
reach and tearing her breast from his mouth 
with a liquid smack.

"Can't kill me the regular way, Slayer?" he 
gasped as she settled herself more carefully 
on him, a little further but nowhere near 
enough.  Buffy smiled and flicked her hair 
back from her shoulders, which did 
interesting things to her breasts.

She eased up and down on him, setting her own 
rhythm with absolutely no consideration for 
his needs.  He would have cursed her, but she 
might have smacked him, and he bruised easily 
now.  Besides, she was using her hands to 
touch herself and it would be a shame to 
interrupt that task.  Blonde and bronzed in 
the lamplight, her skin glowing from battle 
and sex, she was the wet dream of a thousand 
million men, and she had his cock inside her 
making her sigh and gasp.  Her thighs were 
hot against his flanks, grinding into his 
hipbones.

His brain swirled away.  

"O! she doth teach the torches to burn 
bright. It seems she hangs upon the cheek of 
night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear; 
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!" 

He might have thought it or said it, he 
wasn't sure.

And she stiffened and cried out, then 
collapsed onto his chest, blonde hairs 
brushing his face like spider silk.  Spike's 
panting moved them both up and down; she was 
limp as a new-drained body on him.  "Untie 
me," he growled, something of his vampire 
voice surviving, and her eyes were wide and 
stunned as she complied, still half-impaled 
on his cock.

The moment the belt slid free from the 
headboard, he had her flipped over, the 
buckle now wrapped around his wrist and 
painful but irrelevant.  Her wrists were 
caught in his hands, thin wrists he could 
span together with his thumb and forefinger, 
like fucking a skeleton with a thin coating 
of flesh and muscle.  But no skeleton could 
be warm and wet and tight around him as he 
pounded into her like a carpenter behind 
schedule and nearly out of daylight.  Beneath 
him, Buffy counterthrust with a force that 
lifted them off the bed and then back.  Spike 
could hear the groan of metal.

Maybe that was him.  She wasn't a Slayer, she 
was a succubus.  He was so close to orgasm, 
had been holding it back by force of will and 
fear of humiliation since she'd tied him up.  
When he came it was going to blow out his 
spine.  His mouth sought out her carotid, 
gave a little proprietary nip not hard enough 
to leave a mark, and moved down to where he 
could mark her in a less public place.  Buffy 
moaned a little with every bite and he sped 
up his thrusts.  When he buried his teeth in 
her shoulder, finally drawing a hint of blood 
that tasted thin and strange to his human 
tongue, she screeched and jerked again.

Oh thank heaven, he thought and the orgasm 
ripped through him like a bolt of lightning.  
It felt like every bone and ligament in his 
body was shaking apart, each with its own 
happy destination.  He could feel his fingers 
clench and flex against Buffy's slick skin, 
and smell the sex in the air.  Even as the 

euphoria drenched every atom of his body, 

the smell was the best part.  It seemed 
like proof.

He rolled off of her, hissing as his 
oversensitive human flesh parted from her.  
Buffy sighed and let her hand drift onto his 
chest.  He felt his heartbeat starting to 
slow, and watched her hand rise and fall with 
his breath.  It was too much.  It made him 
wish that things were different.

William, he thought with near-resignation, 
you're a bleedin' romantic and that's the 
honest truth.



Serious Moonlight 15/26

Sunlight was burning through his eyelids, 
seeking him out to destroy him, to grind him 
under the wheels of the chariot of the sun.  
His chest was tight, he was burning, choked 
and burnt by the all powerful Eye of Heaven.  
He fought against the bonds holding him down, 
holding him out to die in the pitiless light.  

"Urk?" the bonds asked, and Spike opened his 
eyes to see a single blue eye staring back at 
him.

It took him a few moments to review current 
events and realize that the bond in question 
was the Slayer's bare arm over his chest and 
her equally bare leg wrapped over his. There 
was an awful lot of bare Slayer pressed up 
against him, pinning him down to the lumpy 
mattress.  As far as bonds were concerned, 
this was acceptable, and he remembered that, 
since the freakish trip through Talbot's Time 

Tornado, he was human and the worst 
thing the sun could do was give him sunburn.  
The terror subsided somewhat.  For her part, 

Buffy made a sniffling noise and burrowed 

into her pillow, arm and leg still pinning him 
down as if he were a teddy bear prone to 

wander.

The sun was brightening the tent around them 
like a paper lantern.  He lay on his side and 
watched the canvas glow.  How many sunrises 
had he missed anyway?  The actual figure was 
something in the order of forty thousand, and 
since sunrises in England weren't as much an 
event as a vague sort of occurrence  . . . 
maybe less.  A new wrinkle, or rather 
something that he'd forgotten from his living 
days, was the existence of the morning 
erection. It seemed a pity to squander the 
opportunity, not to mention that he was awake 

before Buffy.

As for the Slayer, she was warm and soft, 
smelling like sex and skin pressed up against 
him.  With the hot sheets pushed down around 
her thighs, she was bare and lovely in the 
morning sunlight.   He hadn't lied the night 
before, there was barely any of her to hold, 
her skin and muscles stretched over bones 

like the canvas and wire of a biplane, flexible, 

strong, but easily damaged.  Bruises dotted 

her ribcage, and for once he was reasonably 

certain that he hadn't caused them.  With his 

tongue, he followed the breadcrumb trail of 
bruises down her torso to her thighs.  He 
wished that he could taste the blood 

beneath the skin, tantalized by the broken 

vessels underneath his tongue.  


He could hear her sigh, feel her breath move 
his hair, and her fingers wrap around his 
shoulder, digging nails into his skin.  She 
pushed his head down between her thighs, 
where she was musky and sticky from last 
night's activities.  He traced patterns on 
her with his tongue, Latin and Greek that 
he'd learned fifty years ago or a hundred and 
twenty-five, back when they still taught such 
things to bright young boys.  She sighed 
above him, her hands twisting in his hair 
signaling what worked best.

Her morning orgasm was sharp and swift, and 
he felt no compunction in entering her with 
the same haste, the sweat making their bodies 
slip-slide against one another and the light 
from outside the tent nearly as bright as the 
light behind his eyes.  Quiet they were, with 
the morning sounds of the camp starting 
behind the canvas.  Her hands skimmed 
whatever body parts she could reach, 
smoothing, stroking, soft for a change.   
There was almost no friction, she was so wet, 
their skins were so wet and the light was 
washing over everything.  Spike started to 
wonder if he really had awakened or this was 
just another dream.  But when he finally 
climaxed, it was an endless slow motion 
shudder of ecstasy like the sunlight itself.

Afterwards, he slept again, her limbs still 
wrapped around his.

He woke up with a yell, just as the bed 
shook.

"Spike!" Buffy said and kicked the bed again.

This was getting old.

"You know, there are far more pleasant ways 
of wakin' up a bloke."

"We've got work to do.  The tomb has to be 
finished up and after yesterday's herd-
thinning you're apparently a vital part of 
the operation."

"We?  So you'll be haulin' wards with the 
rest of us blokes?"

Today she was in trousers, slim and light, a 
refugee from a Polo ad with her gold-gleaming 
hair and dazzlingly white shirt, messing with 
her face at the dressing table mirror.  "No, 
I'm going to be updating Jane on the finest  
in next-century hand-to-hand.  Have you seen 
any sort of, of, I don't know, keep hair in 
place kind of stuff?"

"Jane'd make quite the vampire," he said, 
leaving the bed to pad over to the washstand 
and splash lukewarm water on his face.

"You probably think that's a compliment."  
She looked over at him and blushed.

It took him a moment to figure out why she'd 
reddened, but Spike realized it was because 
he was naked.  Somehow she could shag him 
senseless and still manage embarrassment 
afterwards.  Actually, it was kind of cute.  
Trying to keep a straight face, he lathered 
up a face flannel and proceeded to scrub the 
sweat and sex-stickiness off his skin.

"I know hair gel is totally not now, but how 
can there not be conditioner? Hair 
moisturizing goo? Pomade or something?" Buffy 
muttered and rummaged around in the dressing-
table drawers.  "Aqua Net.  I would even 
settle for Aqua Net."

"Slayer, seer and vampire," he mused.  "It 
would be the trifecta of evil."

"Scary."

"Good thing it's impossible."  Bent over the 
washstand, he poured lukewarm water onto his 
hair and rubbed at it, not quite as effective 
as a shower but it was going to have to do 
for the time being.

"What?"

"Slayers can't become vampires.," he said and 
wiped water out of his eyes, "What *has* 
Giles been teaching you?  Or does he just 
stand around lookin' British?"

Still dripping, he went to get his trousers 
out of the press.  If they stayed here much 
longer, he'd need laundry done.  He'd 
forgotten how inconvenient sweat could be.

She didn't respond except to take up the 
heavy silver brush on the nightstand and 
begin attacking her hair.  

"Why d'you think vamps try to kill you?  If 
we --"

"We?"

"Shh, I'm explainin'.  If we could turn a 
Slayer, the destruction she'd create would be 
incalculable.  I always figured that's why 
the Powers just take 'em away when they die." 

"All those nightmares," she said softly.

"Forget that."  Standing behind her, he could 
see his face and hers reflected in the 
dressing mirror.  The black eyes were only 
faintly gray now.  But more to the point, the 
man in the mirror above the pretty girl was 
someone he hadn't seen in decades.  "Plenty 
of real horrors to have nightmares about."

Almost unwillingly, he reached out and 
touched her hair, pulling it forward over her 
shoulder where it gleamed fluffy gold against 
her white shirt.   In the mirror reflection, 
her eyes flicked up and met his, and 
something dark crossed below the surface of 
her stormy Atlantic blue eyes.  The dark 
thing chewed at his chest for a moment until 
he broke the spell by poking an obnoxious 
finger into her ear.

"Like Sekhmet, for example."

"Ow! Yes," she said and rubbed at her ear, 
"like Sekhmet.  And Talbot."

Fortunately, the only razor Spike had ever 
shaved with had been a straight razor, and 
after lathering his face he started scraping 
away bristles with the sharp, silver edge.  
Buffy watched with horrified fascination.  

"How come you don't cut your own throat?"

"'Cause I'm careful.  Now why don't you 
toddle off and quit distractin' me."

"I am totally out of here," she snorted and 
stomped off.

Jane's young French-speaking servant had left 
him new shirts, and he put on the clean 
cotton with a shudder of pleasure. But Buffy 
had been right, there was nothing in any way 
shape or form of hair product in the tent.  
So even though he was clean, shaved and 
wearing a fresh shirt, the only thing he 
could do was give his wet hair a few hopeless 
pokes with his fingers before he headed out 
into the baking morning sunlight.

****

Isobel was about to get on Spike's last 
nerve, but he steeled himself into a false 
smile when he found her at the breakfast 
table.  There was toast with orange 
marmalade, and this made him happy.

"Good morning, Mr. Shankly."

"Good morning."

Isobel put the journal she'd been reading 
down on the table.  "I wish to speak with 
you."

"And aren't you doing that?"  

Her face seemed to tighten even further, as 
if she were getting a face-lift by pinning 
the skin back.  "It's obvious that you have 
an inappropriate relationship with your 
Slayer."

"*I* do?"  He let that comment hang in the 
air for just long enough for Isobel to look 
away.  

What was obvious was that both he and 

Buffy had forgotten that tent walls weren't 

as good at blocking sound as brick and 

mortar.  Oddly enough, he was slightly 

embarrassed at the thought that they must 

have been entertaining the entire camp 
with their sex sounds the past couple of 
rounds.  He wasn't used to having living 
neighbors.

"She's four years over the age of consent," 
Spike pointed out.  "An' gentlemen have been 
marrying their tasty young wards since before 
Ethelred the Unready bollixed things."

"Do you intend to marry her, then?"

Spike almost choked on his own tongue.  Then 
he considered telling her that Buffy had 
already released him from his promise, a 
phrase outdated even in 1925. 

"I never intended any of this," he said and 
it was too true to continue, so he changed to 
aggression instead.  It was more comforting.

"You know as well as I do, the Slayer doesn't 
get to go home to a hubby and kids at the end 
of the day.  Death does its parting soon 
enough for her, it does.  If she's lucky she 
dies savin' the world, if she's not lucky she 
dies instead of savin' it.  If I can make one 
day of what she's got a little better for 
her, then the Council and the Powers That Be 
and all the rest can go hang."

Isobel flushed at his words, but held her 
ground.  "That's all very well, but what 
happens when protecting you conflicts with 
the greater good?"

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of 
the few, or the one," he said automatically, 
but it meant nothing to her.  Spike sighed.  
"Buffy knows her duty.  Even if she loved 
me," and the words burnt his throat like 
acid, not that he'd ever thought different 
but he'd tried not to think it at all, "our 
girl is exceedin' brave.  If I were you, I'd 
worry a tad more about Jane.  The girl's 
cracked in the center."

Isobel's lips compressed in a line tighter 
than a tourniquet.

"She's got the Sight," Spike insisted, 
pressing his advantage.  "That's not 
compatible with slaying."

"We hardly have a choice in the matter," 
Isobel burst out.  "Should we have -- there 
was discussion on the Council -- it would 
have been insupportable!"

"Killing her and hoping the next one had a 
better head on her shoulders?"

She looked away.

"Same old Council," he said cheerfully.  
"They still think the girls exist for their 
benefit."

"This isn't the nineteenth century anymore," 
she murmured, looking at him with the first 
friendly expression she'd deigned to produce.

"No, it isn't," he agreed.

"Do you ever think about what you will do 
when your Buffy is gone?"

Ice dropped into his stomach.

"I know she'll leave me behind eventually," 
he admitted.

"They always leave," Isobel said.  "And we 
turn them into words, pages in a Chronicle.  
The only consolation is that the work must be 
done."


Serious Moonlight 16/26


They'd taken hotel rooms at the Winter Palace 
in order to have a base of operations nearby.  
If all went well, they'd take Talbot back to 
a room surrounded by other Council-rented 
rooms - not that anyone was likely to 
investigate screams in an anything-goes 
country and an anything-goes decade, but it 
would cut down on the necessary bribes - 
and request him to assist the Watchers with 

their inquiries. 

Buffy had an elaborate ice blue beaded 
dress borrowed from 

Jane, and Albert had produced a rather well 

cut white dinner jacket and black trousers 

for Spike.

"Damn," Buffy cursed as the second garter 
went flying off into the corners of the room.

"What's wrong now?" Spike's tone was 
indulgent, and she wanted to strangle him but 
her hands were too full with garters and 
stockings.

"These -" she waved her hands at him.  He 
moved over to the chair where she was 
attempting to assemble her outfit and knelt 
on the carpet.  

"Here," he said, and his fingers were deft 
with the buttons and elastic.  She just knew 
they were going to dig into her skin; Buffy 
had the feeling that garter-leg was as much 
of an affliction as waffle-butt from sitting 
on a deckchair.  Still, having his hands 
trail up and down her legs, smoothing the 
stockings, was not unpleasant.

"There you are," he said and lightly slapped 
her outer thigh.  "A very model of the modern 
Slayer.  Next time you might put the 
stockings on first, easier access."

She gave him hmmph-face and he grinned back 
up at her.  The knot on his bowtie looked 
like it had swollen to twice natural size and 
then been squeezed.  "Stand up," she ordered, 
and she rose from the chair so that they were 
not six inches apart.  He looked into her 
eyes and she felt a current running between 
them, pooling golden and thick in her 
stomach.  She felt for his tie without 
looking, then had to look down to untangle 
it.  "I can't go to a party with a guy 
looking like *this*," she explained to his 
chest as she fixed and neatened the knot.

"Stupid things, ties," he admitted.

"Why anybody would walk around with a noose 
around their neck is plain old stupid," she 
said and stepped back to check her handiwork.

"You wanna do the stockin' thing again?  That 
was fun," he suggested.

Instead she turned back to the wardrobe.  She 
still needed to figure out how to get into 
the dress.

****

The long crystals of Jane's earrings were 
chiming around Buffy's head as she made her 
way down the staircase. The Winter Palace had 
been all decked out in white roses and gold 
ribbons for the reception, but Buffy wasn't 
too concerned with what the Arab Martha 
Stewarts had been up to.  She still wasn't 
sure that she had everything on right, and 
the soles of the new shoes were worry time on 
the slickness of the red rugs.  The hairpins 
were digging into her skull in a zillion 
uncomfortable places and she was sure that 
Jane's bright red lipstick was making her 
look like a bimbo from an old Poison video.  

Somewhere there was music, a stringy-thing 
that would have been uncool even for Mom, but 
nice in an old-fashioned kind of way.  
Gripping the lacy metal handrail, Buffy 
picked her way down the stairs and hoped that 
she wouldn't fall on her ass in front of too 
many people. If it hadn't been for the 
dangerous shoes, she could have let herself 
feel like Scarlett O'Hara gliding down the 
stairs in the first couple of scenes of Gone 
With the Wind.  Except Scarlett would have 
had Red Butler - Rhett Butler - waiting at 
the bottom of the stairs smiling at her.  

She got Spike, wearing a Spiky smirk walking 
alongside her and not looking uncomfortable.

"You're easier to kill now, I just wanted to 
remind you," she hissed as he held out a hand 
to help her make the change from slippy 
carpet to slippy wood floor.

"Thanks for the remindin'," he muttered back 
at her. "I was goin' to tell you how lovely 
you looked, now you've got me fearin' for my 
mortal life."

"If you don't, the fear thing can start."

"You look nice," he said and somehow managed 
to sound as fake as his haircolor.

"Thank you," she said and let herself look at 
him, realizing that he was about as dressed 
up and unusual as she was.

Spike in a white dinner jacket, who would 
have thunk it?  He really did have suit body 
- broad across the shoulders and narrowiing 
down from that.  She touched her hair to make 
sure that it was still where it was supposed 
to be and tottered along with him into what 
they were calling the 'Salon'.  Instead of 
what Buffy would have considered a salon, the 
room was pretty and elegant in a stuffy kind 
of way.  There were some gold and red chairs, 
bunches of flowers on any flat surface and 
some that tilted, and a fish-faced man in a 
turban behind a table making drinks.  
Scattered around this was an assortment of 
stuffy and unfriendly-looking people in fancy 
clothes bunching around little tables of 
little food things.

Buffy froze in the doorway like an uninvited 
vampire.  She could smell all the people, and 
except for the sick-making swirl of perfumes 
they smelled just like everyone else in this 
time - sweaty and harsh.

"What?" Spike demanded.

"Not my - thing.  Fancy manners thing.  Just 
altogether badness for Buffy."

"Right," he agreed and quickly looked around 
the room, at the people and what was on the 
tables, "Finger food, no problem with the 
flatware.  Smile much, talk little and faux 
pas should be avoided."

"Mr. Spike teaches etiquette, period this 
isn't the past, it's a freaking parallel 
universe," she muttered as he tugged her 
through the doorway.

A swarthy-type in a red server's jacket 
passed by with a tray of champagne flutes.  
Spike liberated a pair and passed one to 
Buffy.  She took the cool glass and sipped 
it.  The bubbles stung her nose but it was a 
million, million times better than beer.

"And we just stand around and wait for Talbot 
to show up?" she asked.

"Smile, drink champagne, try not to stake the 
guests . . . Even though the Tutankhamun dig 
is old news to Yummy, there's no way he goes 
back in time and then skips this unveilin'.  
Nutter with mummy stuff all around his 
place."

"You live in a mausoleum.  There are skulls 
on your floor. Pot, kettle, you know the 
rest."

"It's a crypt."

"Hello? Stone box, dead stuff, same 
difference."

Albert rolled up, looking polished and cool 
in his tuxedo.  "Greetin's all.  D'ja see 
Isobel and Jane yet?"

"I suppose they're still dressin'," Spike 
said and gave Albert some kind of significant 
boy look that made Buffy's hairpins dig 
harder into her head.

"Howard Carter's here, Lady Carnarvon, and 
the rest of the digging and preservation 
people," he yammered. "And would you believe 
that Pierre Lacau, the Director-General of 
the Antiquities Service, and the Minister of 
Public Works, Morcos Bey Hanna, came as well?  
Last I heard Lacau and Bey Hanna were 
threatening to throw Carter out of Egypt 
altogether."

"Guess they forgot that when they started 
seein' gold."

"It's amazing what people will do for money." 
Buffy flashed Spike a deadly look, 
remembering too many times when he would have 
sold his grandmother for a couple hundred in 
hard cash.

"Those people make up the Who's Who of 
Archaeology.  This is the most important find 
in Egyptology to date," Albert enthused like 
a Trekkie seeing the previews for a new 
movie.

"No," Spike corrected, "the biggest find 
ever."

Giving a strained laugh, Albert rubbed at his 
shiny forehead with a linen handkerchief, 
"You know I keep forgetting that you're ahead 
of us . . ."

"So do we," Buffy said and gave him a smile.

From all appearances, Albert seemed to be an 
okay guy, a little chauvinistic, but nice.  

"Do you think that as many days have passed 
at home as they have here?" she asked Spike.  
"Because Giles and the rest of them are going 
to think that I'm dead and my mother---"

"We can get you back before you left, if you 
know when that was.  I mean the spells are 
pretty specific," Albert offered and proved 
that he had been paying attention at Watcher 
school after all.

"There's a saying old says that love is 
blind/Still we're often told, 'Seek and ye 
shall find' /So I'm going to seek a certain 
boy I've had in mind. . ." a woman started 
singing along with the band, sad and sweet.  
Buffy didn't know the song.  The tune had to 
be so old that even Giles might not have 
heard it.

"See, told you," Spike said and she was sure 
that he was lying, just pretending the whole 
Watcher thing.  "Want to dance?" he asked.

This had potential.  There was no way that 
Spike was going to be able to mosh or slam-
dance with the music that the band was 
playing, and there were a few stuffy couples 
shuffling around the shiny floor with the 
enthusiasm of drugged turtles.  On the other 
hand, Spike moved as though his joints had 
been liberally lubricated, when he wasn't 
galumphing around like a cartoon character.  
The boy did know that his hips were for 
something other than just connecting his legs 
to his body.

"Okay," she said.

Spike passed his glass to Albert, and Buffy 
followed suit.  They crossed to the dance 
floor.  Standing there with a glass in either 
hand, Albert watched them go. Spike's hand 
was warm in hers and his other hand rested 
demurely on her waist.  She wondered how long 
that was going to last.

"Now this isn't your Sunnydale Sway, which is 
basically shaggin' standin' up," he 
instructed.  "There's a proper manners thing 
goin' on here."

"And I was really looking forward to upright 
sex in front of all these people."

"Now the upright sex bit has some potential," 
he murmured into her ear.

An agreeable tingle ran down from her ear to 
her hand, making tiny goosebumps along the 
line.

"Only man I ever think of with regret/I'd 
like to add his initial to my monogram/Tell 
me, where is the shepherd for this lost 
lamb?"

"I saw that," he said.

"What?"

"That 'Spike's a Big Bad' thought followed by 
the 'I shouldn't be doin' this' one."

"I wasn't thinking 'Big'."

"Now you're insultin' me," he said and gave 
her one of his here and gone smiles.

"There's a somebody I'm longing to see/I hope 
that he turns out to be/Someone who'll watch 
over me."

Insults were pretty much the way that they 
communicated, Buffy realized.  Quip trading, 
smacking around, and then giving into 
whatever perverse thing that made her crash 
into him like a television dropped from a 
rooftop.  At least here she could be seen 
dancing with him, was allowed to laugh when 
he cracked jokes, and didn't have all her 
friends wondering if she had finally lost her 
sanity.  

He smelled good, like soap and aftershave and 
whatever he had used to slick down his hair, 
and they could shuffle demurely around the 
dance floor and no one stared.  The dance 
floor was filling with more couples now, and 
they were just two young blondes on the town.  
Had they danced in Sunnydale, Spike would 
have been surrounded by angry Scoobies 
carrying stakes for him and a straightjacket 
for her.

"You're thinkin', I can smell somethin' 
burnin'."

"I'm thinking 'is my life weird or what?'  I 
don't want to be here slow dancing with you 
fifty years before I was born."

"Fifty-five years."

"Whatever. I don't want to be here slow 
dancing with you and liking it."

"You got it wrong, love, this is the bit 
where you're supposed to say that I'm really 
not a bad guy at all and both of us bein' 
human changes everythin'."

"You are a bad guy."

A strange expression crossed his face, 
something like hurt, something not like hurt.  
It was hard to tell.

"So why do you bother with me, then?"

"I have no idea," she admitted.

Another expression replaced maybe hurt - it 
was vintage pissed-off vampire Spike.

"I can't be somethin' I'm not."

"You're pretending pretty well, aren't you?"

"You just don't give up, do you?" he snapped 
and turned on his heel to leave her alone on 
the dance floor.

Humiliation crawled up her neck and stained 
her face red, and the room started to swim 
while her eyes stung.  It had to be the 
roses; she was having an allergic reaction to 
all the roses.  She hung there for a moment 
and realized that everyone was staring. 

"Although he may not be the man some/girls 
think of as handsome/To my heart he carries 
the key/Won't you tell Him please to put on 
some speed/Follow my lead, oh, how I 
need/Someone to watch over me."

In a heartbeat, Albert had stepped up to the 
plate and wrapped his arm around her waist.

"That was rude," he remarked.

"Spi- Shankly is a little emotional.  I upset 
him."

"I don't quite understand how any woman as 
beautiful as you are could upset anyone."

That should have made her feel better.  She 
smiled and leaned into his shoulder.  
Everyone who told her she was beautiful 
wanted to use her, or worse to leave her, in 
the end.  It was better than being ugly, for 
sure, but it was a bad way to attract boys.  
Which was a point in Spike's favor.  He'd 
never told her she was beautiful.  In fact, 
he usually insulted her or her clothes.  She 
could count the times he'd ever said anything 
nice to her on one hand. That couldn't be 
good, either.

"What are you thinking?" Albert asked gently.

Buffy blinked.  "I'm thinking ... that's 
Talbot, right over there.  And who is that 
with him?"

Albert put his cheek to hers and followed her 
sightline.   "I don't know, but I'd wager 
that she's wearing authentic Pharaonic 
jewelry.  Say Seventeenth or Eighteenth 
Dynasty."

The woman was stunning in a Catherine Zeta-
Jones way: black hair like a waterfall, skin 

like the moon reflected in water, kohl-lined 

eyes that looked exotic rather than gothic or 

raccoon-y the way Buffy would have.  "So 

I'm thinking Miss Egypt over there might be 

pre-manifestation Sekhmet."  


Pre-manifestation Sekhmet was decked out in 
something pale yellow and filmy, shining in 
the electric lights and teasing the eye with 
the promise of transparency.  Not 
surprisingly, she had the kind of curvy 
swervy body that made boys go all 
Neanderthal. 

Albert swallowed.  "We'd best be careful, 
then."

"You can roll your tongue back into your 
mouth while you're at it," Buffy said and 
this time *she* was the one to walk away from 
her dance partner.  Between her and Talbot, 
couples swirled, the women's skirts flaring 
like pansies as their men moved them across 
the floor, following elaborate unmarked 
paths.  Blondes with short marcelled hair and 
strings of pearls dripping down their backs 
obscured her view of the demonic couple, then 
revealed them again.  Talbot's partner was 
watching the dancers like a cat in front of a 
bowl of goldfish.

"Hey," she said, tapping Talbot on his free 
arm, keeping him between herself and the not-
quite-woman, "what do you think you're doing, 
unleashing a goddess who wants to eat the 
entire world?"

"Miss Summers, it's a shame your tenacity 
doesn't extend to your coursework," Talbot 
said in a patronizing teacher voice.

"You looked up my grades?" she asked.

"I like to know who I'm dealing with.  And 
your GPA doesn't exactly identify you as a 
threat."

Buffy's face heated up.

"Look, buddy, I did not come here for 
academic counseling.  You are about to 
unleash a very dangerous thing on a world 
that doesn't deserve it!"

Talbot let out a stream of Arabic out of the 
side of his mouth, and his companion froze 
like a mannequin.  Her eyes still moved, 
though, tracking the paths of humans in the 
room.  Then he grabbed Buffy's arm and pulled 
her in the direction of the French doors 
opening into the garden courtyard.  Buffy 
decided to let him do so, since she was 
moderately interested in Talbot's version of 
the Evil Overlord speech.  There were so many 
variations, kind of like your crazy power-
hungry maniac's nightly top ten list.

As if he knew he had to keep her attention, 
he began talking as they headed out.  
"Terrible things happen during this century.  
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki, not to mention the wholesale 
slaughter of species, the poisoning of our 
rivers and seas, and the chemical emissions 
that will destroy the ozone and raise the 
global temperature past the boiling point."

"And you think that if vampires take over the 
world, they'll kill us all and none of that 
will happen?  I'm as big a fan of the panda 
as anyone, but your plan, like, defines the 
word 'overkill.'"  They were out onto the 
flagstones now, and Buffy had to adjust again 
to keep her balance on the hateful shoes.

Talbot steadied her with a hand at her elbow 
and smiled, as if all he could see was a cute 
co-ed.  "Sekhmet is not a vampire; she's a 
god."  He said "god" with the shuddery 
breathlessness of Dawn disclosing her crush 
on Keanu Reeves.  "She should have arisen in 
3000 B.C. and rule for a thousand 
generations.  She would have unified the 
West, and ultimately the world, under the 
orderly rules of Egyptian society rather than 
the chaos that came out of the mess of 
Christianity, the Dark Ages, the Black Death, 
even the ravings of the Renaissance."  Buffy 
couldn't quite understand what he was talking 
about, but then history geeks were often 
confusing.

"What no one today understands is that 
Sekhmet was the culmination of a long line of 
gods and living gods, the Pharaohs.  Her 
powers, her - unique - needs, they were 
widespread among the rulers of the time.  It 
was only rebellion and treachery by 
Amenophis, brazenly calling himself

Ankhenaten, that prevented her from succeeding 
to the throne and ruling in glory."  Talbot 
paused and snagged a flute of champagne from 
a roving butler, who melted back into the 
night.

"So, with this ruling and throne thingy, I 
guess the humans just get to sweep out the 
throne room and occasionally offer themselves 
as tasty snacks?"

Talbot ignored her, as Evil Overlords are 
wont to do.  "You're obviously a woman of 
some kind of power.  There is a place for you 
in the order of things as they should be.  
When Sekhmet rises in truth, when she crushes 
the unrest even now brewing in Europe, events 
will resume their proper course.  You could 
help guide them."

Buffy took a step backward, and the heels let 
her.  "That's just *so* sweet of you.  But 
you're only trading one form of horrible 
death for another.  Vampires running the 
world are going to be like Nazis squared.  
You so do not want to go there."

Naturally, a gun materialized in Talbot's 
hand.  Why was it that egghead weaklings who 
couldn't take a punch could somehow outdraw 
any gunslinger?  "It was worth a try," he 
said and smiled his sunny, dimpled smile.  
Buffy wanted to sigh but watched his gun hand 
instead.  As his finger began to tighten on 
the trigger, she dropped and, balanced on one 
hand, swept her legs in a vicious kick that 
hit Talbot right in the knees.  She heard the 
crack of cartilage, and then the gunshot, 
which kicked up stone fragments around her 
ears.

Back on her feet again, she ground a spiked 
heel into Talbot's hand, the first use she'd 
gotten out of the damn shoes, and forced him 
to relinquish the gun.  Another kick sent it 
off into the garden, to appall the 
groundskeepers later.  Talbot, weeping from 
the pain, nonetheless managed to gargle out 
something that sounded different from regular 
Arab-speak.  She kicked him in the head, 
because she hadn't before, and he fell 
silent.

But the noise from the party was just 
starting.  Screams, and meatier sounds.  
Sonofabitch must have turned Sekhmet back on 
in some remote-control way.  She ran back 
into the salon, hitching her skirt up.

The room was almost deserted when she 
reentered.  A small pile of bodies, stacked 
like a teetering pile of Christmas presents, 
was back against one wall, behind the vampire 
woman who was surely Sekhmet.  She turned and 
looked over her shoulder at Buffy, mouth 
shockingly red, and Buffy had the feeling that 
she hadn't borrowed Jane's lipstick to create 
the effect.

Albert, waving his own gun, came charging 
into the room.  

"What part of Watcher didn't you understand?" 
she sniped at him, angry that she had another 
human to protect.

"Can't find Jane," he gasped, the gun 
wavering in his hands as he looked at the 
pile of bodies. "That's Bey Hanna's 
assistant."

"Used to be," Buffy corrected.  "Find Jane, 
find Isobel, and find Spike."

"Spi-"

"Shankly.  Nickname, long ugly story," she 
stopped herself before she yammered again.  
"Just do it now!"

But no, Albert had to try to be a hero and 
shot at the woman.  She stepped back as the 
bullet impacted the front of her dress, 
leaving a small black hole.  Albert, who 
could NOT have been paying attention in 
Watcher School as well as she'd thought, 

actually gaped in shock as Sekhmet 

advanced on him.  Buffy grabbed one of 

the nearby serving tables - hors d'oeuvres 

cascaded to the floor - and broke the table 

legs over her knees into makeshift, but still 

pointy, stakes.

"Albert, stake!" she shouted and threw one to 
him.

Albert was never even going to make it into 
the minor league.  The stake bounced off his 
fingers and clattered to the floor even as 
Sekhmet was reaching for him.  Groaning with 
frustration, Buffy charged the undead 
Egyptian chick.  Sekhmet wrapped her fingers 
around the barrel of Albert's gun and crushed 
it in her grip like uncooked manicotti.  
Chunks of metal clattered to the floor and 
Albert gave out a little moan of fear as 
Sekhmet's bloodstained fingers reached for 
his throat.  By the time Buffy reached 
Sekhmet, Albert's feet were dangling a few 
inches off the ground at Sekhmet was looking 
up into his face as though she was trying to 
decide if he had a caramel or nut filling.

"Put the archaeologist down!" Buffy ordered.

Sekhmet turned her head and stared at Buffy.  
There wasn't anything remotely like human-
ness in her dark eyes.  In her time, Buffy 
had seen plenty of scary demons and vampires, 
but almost all of them had manifested some 
kind of emotion on their faces.  Even Angel.  
Sekhmet's stare was as blank as copier paper.  
Fear nagged at her like a torn cuticle.

"Did you have Slayers back in the mummy 
days?" Buffy asked. "Girls whose sole purpose 
in life was to turn nasty vampires like you 
into ashes?"

"Doesn't speak English," Albert choked.

"So much for my witty repartee," Buffy 
decided and kicked the hand that Sekhmet was 
using to hold Albert aloft.

Albert fell to the ground like a discarded 
sock monkey.

Sekhmet's face didn't change at all but she 
began to move towards Buffy. 



Serious Moonlight 17/26


Spike was having a food-gasam.

The caviar was to die for.  The potent black 
spheres of salt and sea crushed against his 
taste buds like a divine sacrifice.  Just a 
touch of lemon juice and he was in heaven.  
He'd eaten his way through the pate de fois 
gras, the proscuitto-wrapped cantaloupe, the 
cheeses, the puff pastry with Stilton cheese 
and quince jam, the stuffed grape leaves, the 
Gruyere walnut wafers, the lamb balls with 
dill, the salmon mousse on new potato halves.  
This was better than sex - almost.  This was 
food that he could write a poem about, if he 
still did such things.

"You eat like a starving dog," Jane said.

He turned to her, mouth and hands full.  She 
stared at him, which made it rather difficult 
to chew.  He finally managed to swallow.  
"Food's different in th' next century," he 
hedged, since she wouldn't live long enough 
to contradict him."It's healthy."

"But you weren't you in the next century," 
she said with deadly precision and stepped 
closer.  Spike reached back and put a handful 
of nuts back on the table so he could grip it 
for balance.  "You were only you before now.  
How can that be?"

"The Sight speaks in metaphors. Maybe you 
don't understand what you see."

Her eyes were like the bluest heart of a gas 
flame.  "The Seer speaks in metaphors.  The 
Sight is true.  You never came home.  Your 
mother thought you were dead and she cried.  
She was right."

The pate turned into cement in his stomach.

When the screams came from the salon, Spike 
almost sagged to the ground with relief.  
Then he hurried after Jane, one hand still 
full of apples and Stilton.

They passed Albert on the way.  He seemed 
perturbed, but they didn't stop to listen.

Buffy was circling a gorgeous vampire, trying 
to learn her moves.  The vampire was somewhat 
awkward, as if she'd just been raised, but 
she was lightning-swift which indicated 
significant age.  Sekhmet's avatar, Spike 
realized, old yet sleepy.  Buffy had a stake 
in each hand.  Jane darted over to the side, 
where chairs for vanished wallflowers were 
scattered.  She performed an emergency 

chairectomy and returned, armed like Buffy.  

She skittered around the Slayer/vampire pair, 
trying to get behind Sekhmet's back.

There was an explosion off to his right, by 
the doors to the garden, and Jane staggered 
and put her hand to her forearm.  It came 
away bloody.  Spike turned to see Dr. Yummy 
pointing a tiny derringer, now trying to get 
a better shot at Buffy.

Spike advanced on him.  Poofter wasn't even 
watching.  "Hey," he said, coming up beside 
Talbot, "that's a *girl's* gun," and hit him 
in the stomach when Talbot turned to confront 
him.  Talbot staggered and Spike kneed him in 
the balls.  The good doctor folded like the 
Playmate of the Month when mom comes in the 
door.

Spike could have kept kicking, but he really 
wanted to get up close and personal with the 
man.  Make sure no tasty young Slayer would 
ever think of him as "yummy" again.  With a 
knee on Talbot's stomach to make sure he 
couldn't catch his breath, Spike lifted his 
fist to pummel the man, and realized that he 
was still holding the Stilton.

Waste not, want not.  As Talbot tried to suck 
in a breath, Spike slammed a fistful of the 
pungent dirty-sock flavored cheese between his 
teeth like a gag.  

Talbot's eyes nearly bugged out of their 
sockets.  "Yah, you Yanks can't take an 
*English* cheese, can you now?"

Talbot choked and spat a chunk of Stilton on 
the marble floor.  "Oh now you've done it," 
Spike warned.  "Wastin' good Stilton's a 
crime against 'umanity, and you ain't the 
proper class a'criminal for that."  Hands 
laced into a double fist, he walloped 
Talbot's pretty cheek, sending his face 
slamming into stone for a second impact.

Talbot was still scrabbling for the gun, but 
Spike had a decent grip on him, so he turned 
to look at the battle of the Slayers - which 
had departed.  He could hear things breaking 
in the main hallway, over the noise of the 
fountains there.  A kick to the jaw 
redirected his attention to his own 
situation.  Four men, presumably Talbot's 
flunkies, were advancing on him, and one was 
drawing back his leg for another blow.  Spike 
launched himself away from Talbot and towards 
the main hall.

He slammed the salon door on the men - they 
could get around, but it would take precious 

seconds - and turned to see Buffy and Jane 

dodging swipes from Sekhmet.  Her hands were 

so white and so fast that when she moved she 

seemed to leave streaks in the air.  They were 

circling one of the fountains; the merry arcs of 

water danced like diamonds around them.

Now Buffy was feinting, drawing closer to 
keep Sekhmet's attention, while Jane tried to 
get around her back.  Buffy dared too close 
and Spike screamed "No!" just as Sekhmet's 
hand settled around her throat.  Sekhmet held 
Buffy out like a cat with a kitten by the 
scruff of its neck.  Buffy's hands flailed 
wildly, attempting to dislodge the vampire's 
grip.  Sekhmet turned in circles, using Buffy 
as a shield from Jane's stake.

Spike didn't remember leaving the doorway; he 
was on Sekhmet's back, pulling her hair like 
the reins of a horse.  He heard Buffy break 
free, gasping, and then Sekhmet bucked him 
off and picked Buffy up again.  Spike landed 
hard on his back as Sekhmet grabbed Buffy by 
the shoulders and pushed her head into the 
fountain.  Jane finally stuck her stake into 
the kneeling Sekhmet, but she must have been 
off because Sekhmet merely twitched her 
shoulders and Jane fell back, the stake 
crumbling to toothpicks in her hand.  Buffy 
was still underwater and Spike thought it had 
been hours already.  

"Get her throat!" he yelled to Jane.  "Won't 
kill her but she'll have to let go!"

Even the undead retained human body memories, 
and with her throat pierced Sekhmet's 
priority would be to remove the obstruction.  
At least he hoped that a three thousand year 
old vampires would behave like the rest of them.

Jane complied, and it worked halfway.  The 
stake slid into the back of Sekhmet's neck 
with a wet pop.  The goddess stilled for a 
moment before one hand went to her throat to 
pull out the stake.  She pulled it *through* 
her throat like a girl threading a needle - 
and Spike nearly gave up the hors d'oeuvres 
he'd eaten at the sight of the shard of wood, 
black with vampire blood, emerge from 
Sekhmet's white throat. With her free hand, 
she smacked Jane halfway across the floor.  
Buffy flopped out of the fountain like a 
landed fish and hit the floor with a sodden 
plop.

Sekhmet rose to her feet, shuddering like an 
oak in a hurricane, and turned to face Jane.  
Spike wondered whether there was a sword or a 
fire within reach; staking without cutting 
and baking was obviously useless.  Jane 
squared her shoulders and raised another 
chair-part like a javelin.

From one side, Talbot and his minions burst 
into the room just as a passel of civilians, 
lured by the relative quiet of the last few 
minutes, came through the main doors.  
Sekhmet, the focus of everyone's stares, 
seemed to preen and raised her hands as if 
blessing a worshipful crowd.  Talbot said 
something in angry whatever-it-was, and she 
lowered her arms and came to him.  Already, 
her movements were smoother.  Spike couldn't 
begin to imagine what she'd be at full 
strength.

Talbot took Sekhmet and his companions back 
the way he'd come.

Buffy vomited water onto the clean marble 
floor, and was immediately swallowed by a 
flock of women in their bright dresses.  He 
could leave her for a few moments.  Not even 
the freshest vamp would attack her in that 
size of a crowd.

In his peripheral vision, Spike saw a robed 
figure detach himself from the crowd, as if 
he'd learned what he'd stayed for.  Jane was 
watching him, a linen napkin wrapped around 
her bloody arm; he jerked his head towards 
the departing man, and they followed him out 
into the hallway, and then into the alley 
right next to the Winter Palace.

"Let's not go all the way back to HQ with 
him," he suggested to Jane as she hurried 
down the steps of the palace beside him.  
Keeping up with her easy strides made him 
pant, but he was there.  "I'm all out of 
patience for bein' outnumbered."

Jane just nodded and sped up.

She caught the Arab just at the end of the 
alleyway.

The unlucky man somersaulted into the wall 
with the thudding of uncomfortable bones.  
Spike ran a hand through his hair and 
tightened his grip on the bit of board he'd 
purloined from a packing crate.

"Where's Sekhmet?"

 "Sekhmet will arise and clean our country of 
you foreign infidels!"

"Religious rhetoric really gets on my wick, 
you know?"  

The broken board smashed into the side of the 
Arab's head, sending drops of blood in a 
beautiful splatter pattern over the dirty 
wall.  Spike stepped back and looked down at 
his shirt.  There were matching blood 
droplets on it.  This was good, this was 
almost like the old days, and he could feel 
himself smile.  The man gargled on blood and 
turned his face away.

"You have raped our country."

"Changin' your tune to anti-imperialist 
dogma?  Not gonna' work, you tell me where 
Sekhmet went and I'll let you limp out of 
here."

"She will live again and the blood will rise 
like the Nile, drowning the nonbelievers and 
those who have enslaved us," the flunky 
chanted like a mullet-headed groupie at a 
Megadeth concert.

"This is me not carin' about any of that."  
He slapped the man, just for the humiliation 
factor.  "Where's Talbot's fuckin' mummy?!"

The Arab pressed his lips shut and Spike hit 
him again, this time in the kidneys, so he 
groaned and huddled to grab at his injured 
parts.

"William?" Jane asked in a voice like 
chiffon, "What are you doing?"

"Questionin' the witness," Spike said and 
looked over to where she was standing in some 
stray light like a ghost in her white dress.

"Can I watch?" she asked.

"Suit yourself."

Making a gesture that Spike assumed was the 
Ancient Egyptian equivalent of making the 
sign of the cross, the Arab began to pray.

"Hail, Father of the Gods! Hail, Mother of 
the Gods! Deliver Sekhmet from every evil 
obstruction, from every dire attack of an 

enemy.  Deliver her from that deadly slayer 

with knife-like words, from men, gods, 

Spirit-souls, and the damned."

"No need to get personal, mate," Spike 
muttered and aimed a kick at the man's 
midsection.

The Arab cried out and Jane floated a little 
closer, her dress hissing around her legs as 
she moved.  Even with the thickness of human 
senses, Spike could smell her excitement, and 
the blood of the Arab.  He knew that he had 
broken some ribs and was disappointed that 
was all he could manage.  How was it that now 
he had the ability to kill again, and didn't 
have the ways or means?  Fate was a complete 
bitch, and probably looked quite a bit like 
Darla.

"He's stubborn," Jane said in a breezy voice 
that wrapped nicely around Spike's brain.

"Want a crack at it?" Spike asked and offered 
her the board.

Instead, Jane knelt in the dirt next to the 
Arab, and her light-whitened hand stroked his 
flushed, dark skin, leaving finger-trails of 
blood.  Even warmed by a living heart, 
Spike's mouth watered at the sight.

"Just tell us where Sekhmet is hiding and 
this will all go away," she crooned.

"She protects us from your evil," the Arab 
whispered.

"She is evil."

"Sekhmet, Hathor, Lady of Amentet, the 
Dweller in the Great Land, the Lady of Ta-
Tchesert, the Eye of Ra, the Dweller in his 
breast, the beautiful Face in the Boat of 
Millions of Years...." the Arab retreated 
into prayer once again.

"This is not working," Jane said and rose to 
stand behind Spike.  "Kill him."

Spike cracked the Arab across the head again 
and noticed gray matter splatter against the 
wall with the blood.  The Arab jerked in 
death throes for a few moments and then grew 
still as a foul stench filled the air, voided 
bowels a consequence of messy death.  Slow 
bloodloss usually didn't do that, which was 
one more thing that was good about being a 
vampire.  He had to admit that he admired the 
man's dedication.  Spike would have given up 
every bit of information somewhere between 
blows two and three - he hadn't yet found 
anything worth dying for.

"That was utterly useless," he said and 
dropped the board on the dead body. "I could 
have spent better time peelin' the old 
tangerine."

He rummaged in his pockets for a moment, and 
came up with his fake Sunnydale University 
ID.  He dropped the ID in the middle of the 
body, in case Talbot's flunkies came for it.  
He wanted Talbot to know who had been 
responsible, even if the picture was 

computer-generated crap.

"Is he dead?" Jane asked and stepped over to 
the body.  She stared down at it as though 
she were examining a rare flower.

"Yeah, that's good guys four, bad guys one."  
The realization that he really was working 
for the forces of goodness and light stuck in 
Spike's throat like a blood clot.

"Really dead?"

"He's an ex-Arab," Spike joked.

Rising from where she had been crouching, 
Jane advanced on him, and her eyes shone with 
feral light.  Somewhere in the back of his 
head, where the sensible bits were locked in 
a closet, something began screaming a 
warning.  He ignored it, as usual.

"That was a good trick with the throat," she 
commented.  "You have experience."

"Watchers learn some shortcuts," he said 
and shifted a few inches back.

"You and your Slayer.  You have a special 
kind of friendship, don't you?"

"You need no tellin' about that."  Even 
though he was trying to keep his face as 
blank as possible, Spike's human heart was 
throbbing in his chest, a half-remembered 
feeling.  Something not unlike fear and 

desire wrapped in a wrestling hold.

Trying to cover, Spike reached for his 
cigarettes and lit one, the flame dancing 
light around the alley and the dead body.

She undulated a little closer, light from 

the top floors of the Winter Palace making 

the fabric of her dress flicker in and out of 

reality.  Jane smiled in a smooth curve of 

lip and cheek.

"You make love to her, don't you?"

"Isobel taught you that?  I expect she 
teaches you lots of things."  He was trying 

to ignore it, but his breath was catching in 

his throat, thick with tobacco smoke.

He coughed and was faced with the 
uncomfortable knowledge that he wasn't quite 
as cool as he had always imagined.  The silky 

flow of her body, graceful with the Slayer's 

predatory training, wrapped around his baser 

nature like a spiderweb.  He could smell her 

and the dead Arab at the same time, and he 

was drowning in it.  His body might have 

become mortal, but there was no force in any 
of the dimensions that could erase the years 

of memory in his mind.  The red coal at the 

end of his cigarette jittered in his hand.

Small wonder mortals were such terrible poker 
players; their entire bodies gave their 
thoughts away.  Was this what being mortal 

was?  Being aroused by the body of every 

woman who walked near?  Good thing this 

was a mostly Muslim country.  

Cocking her head to the side, Jane was only 
an arm's length away.

"She can't teach me everything."

"Suppose not," he said as she closed the gap.

Her mouth was almost vampire-cool from the 
desert night, with the underlying human 
warmth.  Her arms slithered up and around his 
neck, pulling his blisteringly hot body down 
against her.  She tasted different from 
Buffy, bitter and dizzy, like the bite of a 
lime on the heels of a tequila shot.  Buffy?  
Buffy who?  By nature, vampires weren't 
enthralled with the idea of monogamy, and 
he'd been dead longer than he'd been alive.  
Against his chest, her breasts were small and 
hard, digging into him with bullet-point 
nipples, and he wanted to feel them, taste 
them, and see what they were like. 

His cigarette fell to the ground and was 
forgotten.

"And I have known the arms already, known 
them all- /Arms that are braceleted and white 
and bare/ [But in the lamplight, downed with 
light brown hair!]/It is perfume from a dress 
/That makes me so digress? Arms that lie 
along a table, or wrap about a shawl./ And 
should I then presume? /And how should I 
begin?"  Under his hands, her skin was as hot 
as a rock baked in the sun.  Her bones as dry 
as tinder and her mouth as warm as melting 
honey.  Without thinking, he pulled her 
closer, feeling her body against his, her 
soft flesh against him.  He homed in on her 
throat, smelling her there.

Her tongue circled his ear like a hungry 
shark.  "William . . . " she breathed.

He was thrown back into a different time, 
thick with lace and red roses, of dark hair 
spilled on a satin pillow and loving, mad 
eyes.  Her cool hands were burrowing 
underneath his shirt, smoothing over the skin 
of his chest, making him catch a painful 
living breath. 

"Shall I part my hair behind? /Do I dare to 
eat a peach?/ I shall wear white flannel 
trousers, and walk upon the beach./ I have 
heard the mermaids singing, each to each..."

She was methadone to Buffy's heroin, but 
beggars couldn't be choosers.  She tasted 
like smoke and blood, the skin on her throat 
dark and sweet at the same time.  His dull 
teeth barely skimmed the surface when she 
moaned like one of the desert winds.  Yes, 
her breasts were small and hard, but he had 
no reason to complain when she writhed 
against him and stuck her tongue into his 
ear.  Honestly, this human sex thing was 
pretty interesting, since he'd been mighty 
short of it way back when.

Jane's hands went over the waistband of his 
trousers, quick as a cobra, and seized his 
favorite remaining body part in a grip too 
strong for comfort.

"Ack," he choked.  "Mind that, would you?"

"Sorry," she mumbled into his mouth and 
touched him again.

Obviously, the human organism wasn't 
particularly discerning since he was hard as 
a board in her grasp.

"I want to-" she began and her voice trailed 
off into a moan.

"Yeah, I-"

In a Slayer-quick movement, she was kneeling 
in the dirt of the alleyway, and her hot 
mouth was closing around him like the perfect 
porno video priestess.  He groaned when her 
tongue swirled around him. Okay, and she had 
learned this - where?  His suspicions about 
Isobel weren't adding up.  He lost the power 
of coherent thought as her cheeks hollowed 
and she sucked harder.

"Holy Hell," he whispered.

"Jane!" Isobel's voice rang out like the 
school bell at the end of recess.

Reality hit Spike like a barrelful of ice 
water.  If Isobel didn't kill him, Buffy 
would, and he did have the definite idea that 
shagging Jane up against a wall over the body 
of a dead Arab was something other than 
chivalrous, not to mention colossally stupid.  
Whatever blown-glass understanding he'd 
managed to make with Buffy was far more 
important than a mad Slayer with her hormones 
in an uproar.

"Baby, let go," he suggested.

Jane gave a little moan of frustration, and 
her mouth stilled

"Maybe this isn't a good idea," he said, 
unclamping her lips from his cock and pushing 
her away, "As a matter a'fact, I'm sure it's 
a real bad one."

"But you-"

"Changed my mind," he said and stepped 
quickly back from her and tucked himself back 
into his trousers, "And I was a cad and led 
you on and the rest of that rubbish.  You're 
not ruined, as the case may be. And you can 
go ahead an' be your regular virginal Slayer 
self, right?"

It must have been something that was taught 
as part of Slayer training, because she 
caught him across the face with a slap that 
made most of his skin numb.  At least she 
didn't punch him, but that was eighty years 
of progress for you.

"I know who you are," she hissed between 
teeth that flashed white in the light from 
the hotel.  "I know what you are."

"I'm a complete bastard, " he agreed.  "Now 
toddle off to bed like a good girl."

Stalking off back towards Isobel, Jane's 
dress hissed around her legs.

A cold feeling settled around Spike's spine.  
This was going to get ugly.  That was a 
given.

Slayers were too thin, too muscular and 
sinewy.  As soon as he was able, Spike 
planned to stick his dick and his fangs into 
a fat girl with a giving body and a warm 
nature.  He stomped up the stairs to the 
second floor and found his way into the right 
suite by luck rather than design.

How could she know who and what he was when 
it was still a mystery to Spike himself?

Of course, it looked like he was turning into 
quite the Slayer magnet these days, which he 
found profoundly disturbing.


Serious Moonlight 18/26



The patchy electric light wavered in the wall 
sconces as if she were still underwater.  
Isobel had given her something thick and 
sweet, and now her arms and legs felt like 
bags of lead and she could feel the bed 
spinning underneath her, slowly, like a lazy 
susan in a Chinese restaurant.  It hurt to 
breathe, hurt with the sogginess of too much 
swallowed water, but she didn't mind terribly.

Spike opened the door and lurched in.  Over 
his shoulder, she could see red flocked 
wallpaper, the kind that old ladies still 
used in their parlors, only the design was 
shifting slowly as she watched, like amoebas 
mating.

Spike watched her for a minute, then 
approached the bed.  He bent as if to kiss 
her, and she turned her head, but he caught 
her chin and sniffed at her mouth like a 
stray dog.  

"Laudanum," he said, and his voice had that 
lost-in-the-past tone she hated.  To pay him 
back, she sniffed as theatrically as he had, 
and caught blood and florals.

"Where have you been?" she demanded as she 
struggled to sit up, or at least to get her 
elbows under her so she could be halfway in 
charge.

"Killin' an Arab," he said and went into the 
bathroom, where she could hear water 
splashing and then silence, as if he were 
taking the chance to look himself in the 
mirror.

When he came out he was pinker than he'd been 
with sunburn, scrubbed like a child with a 
fed-up mother.

"Did you learn anything?"

He sat down on the bed, his weight making her 
shift on the soft squishy mattress.  "Yeah, 
these folks are absolute fanatics.  No 
reasonin' with them whatsoever.  You all 
right?"  He asked the question quickly, so 
they could both pretend he hadn't.

"Near drowning equals majorly freaked Buffy.  
The second serious vamp I killed -- the 
Master -- he kinda drowned me.  That's not 
something you get over, and it's not like I 
haven't tried."  After that speech, she let 
her head loll back onto the comforter, which 
was plump and warm.

"Yeah, I heard a bit about that, from the 
losin' side."  His fingertips traced patterns 
through her hair, caressing her scalp in a 
way that made her shiver.  "Still an' all, 
you didn't stay dead, and the rest of 'em 
did."

"The unsinkable Buffy Summers..." He looked 
blank; Estrogen TV probably did not register 
on the Spikeometer.

"Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'," he 
teased, tracing the line of her cheek with a 
finger, and she smiled up at him, wondering 
if she'd ever done that before.  From the 
look on his face, she probably hadn't.

"Albert says that Sekhmet has human form, but 
she doesn't have the avatar's full powers.  
That has to wait on the ritual."  Spike 
nodded and looked away, as if he were 
thinking hard.

Then he was back and his face swam closer, 
his lips brushing hers as if she were a 
fragile thing.  Unblinking, she noticed that 
as a human he had pores, though they were 
small.  Vampires always looked poreless; it 
was their one characteristic worth envy.  But 
Spike was human in her eyes and against her 
mouth.  His lips were chapping in the dry 
desert air and his five-o-clock shadow had 
forgotten about Daylight Savings Time, but he 
was gentle and the scrape of his skin against 
her face made her tingle. She could kiss him 
for hours, this she knew, no matter what.

She sighed and arched her back to allow him 
easier access to the complicated ribbons and 
buttons that held her nightgown together.  
Spike's hands were careful, brushing against 
her only gently.  She didn't want their usual 
clawing and moaning -- and the fact that they 
had a usual style was terrifying in and of 
itself -- but she was vaguely troubled by the 
prospect of something different.  Still her 
limbs were loose and liquid underneath him, 
and he was doing all the work so she could 
hardly complain.

Buffy watched Spike as he freed her from the 
cotton nightgown.  His face was intent, 
almost studious.  His fingers took her pulse 
at her wrists, then her neck, then lower 
down.  The rough pads of his fingers 
skittered over her erect nipples, writing 
invisible poems on her skin.  The room 
wobbled in her sight as his fingers dove 
between her thighs, seeking the place where 
she was as wet as the fountain downstairs.

He stroked her for what seemed like hours, 
inside and out until she didn't quite know 
the difference, his eyes dark in the 
flickering light, intent on her face.  As her 
arousal built, she couldn't look at him and 
turned her face into the comforter, welcoming 
the scrape of threads on skin.  Her hands 
were stretched out over her head, her fists 
unclenching and clenching as the tension 
built in her belly and spine.

"I'm sorry," he hissed into her hair.

"'Sokay," she whispered,  not quite sure what 
he was talking about.

When Spike took a mouthful of her breast, his 
eyes finally closed, she lost it and came, 
feeling the waves roll through her as if she 
were floating on the sea, just out of sight 
of the shore.

"Mmmm," she hummed.  That laudanum was 

pretty heavy stuff.  She was surprised she'd 

never heard about it being sold on the streets.  
"You're still dressed."

Spike brought his slick fingers up to his 
lips and sucked on them, making her blush.  
Then he unbuttoned his beautiful white cotton 
shirt and shucked his pants and laid next to 
her on the bed.  His hands covered her 
breasts as if he didn't want anyone else to 
see them.

"Don't forget this. Right?" he asked.  "Don't 
forget it's me. "

"No."

"Buffy?" he asked, poised above her, and she 
nodded.  

The feeling of him sliding into her was 
muffled some from the drugs, but that allowed 
her to watch how his face got tighter and his 
eyes scraped her face, and how the muscles in 
his arms bulged as he moved on her.  She 
could fall into his eyes.

After only a few minutes, he stiffened and 
thrust hard, then collapsed.  She could feel 
his weight, warm and comforting, keeping her 
from spinning off the bed, and as the wetness 
from her thighs seeped into the bedspread.  
Under her hand his back was as smooth as new 
paper.  Gradually she let herself be carried 
out to dreamland. 

****

In the morning, they drove back to camp, 
courtesy of one of the interchangeable 
Watcher types who'd come back to the hotel to 
pick them up.  Spike could tell that Buffy's head 

was still aching from the laudanum and he had 
the feeling that he was wearing not enough 
coffee face.  They hadn't had the cash for 

breakfast at the hotel, so as soon as Buffy had 

changed into a clean shirt and khakis they went 

in search of sustenance.  

Isobel was waiting at the table, the remains 
of toast and marmalade in front of her.  She 
was sipping amber tea and reading what looked 
like a dossier, which she carefully placed on 
the table as they approached.  Spike drank 
his first cup of coffee as if it would save 
his life and began tucking into breakfast as 
though he'd been in a refugee camp in 
Ethiopia.   Isobel watched him for a moment 
while Buffy rummaged around the table for a 
really good piece of fruit.

She didn't look at Buffy.  "Your black eyes 
have healed rather nicely."

"Even humans heal eventually," he joked 
weakly around a mouthful of eggs.

"Really.  I wasn't sure you'd remember."

"Excuse me?" he stammered, feeling more human 
than he had since they'd come through the 
whirlwind.

"I know where I've seen you before.  You were 
in Paris, last spring.  Your hair was 
different, as was your manner," Isobel looked 
up from the dossier.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," he 
lied and felt the fear-sweat come out all 
over his body.

"You were in Shakespeare and Company, getting 
a copy of Ulysses. You were with a young 
woman with red hair.  After you bought the 
book you went to an alley just beyond the 
Luxembourg Gardens, where you drank her blood 
and killed her.  Didn't you, Mr. Shankly?  Or 
would you prefer your more garish sobriquet, 
William the Bloody?"

"Oh shit," Buffy groaned.

Something stirred underneath his thoughts, 
something black and strong as Turkish coffee.

"When I'm in Paris I generally stay in 
Montparnasse.  Maybe I know you from Chez 
Suzy or Le Panier Fleuri," he named the two 
most infamous brothels in the Latin Quarter 
and Isobel went as red as the desert sunset.

"Nigel, Henri," and there were two bulky 
gentlemen flanking him, their steak-sized 
hands like iron bands around his upper arms.

"He's *human*," Buffy said with the desperate 
air of someone who's in the air before she 
realizes that her parachute lacks a ripcord.

"And we are certainly interested in how that 
occurred.  But Jane has yet to be wrong about 
a vampire identification, and she isn't now, 
is she, Mr. Shankly?"

Why was it that, whether you shagged a girl 
or failed to shag her, she always turned so 
bitter afterwards?

"And I would have gotten away with it too if 
it hadn't been for you meddlin' Watchers and 
your stupid Slayer," Spike sneered, then 
broke character and chuckled to himself.

"Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this is not amusing at 
all," Isobel warned and turned to Buffy, "Do 
you find this amusing?"

"No," as a matter of fact, she sounded like 
she wanted to cry.  But that was impossible, 
more impossible than him gaining a soul and 
then becoming human.

"Lock him in the tomb, that should hold him."

At least he'd gotten breakfast.

****

Holding himself like a rock star being taken 
off by the local police, Spike let the 
Watcher goons haul him away.  Buffy looked at 
the sand around her feet and watched it blur.

"What are you going to do with him?" she 
asked.

"We don't know.  This hasn't happened 
before."

"You can't lock him in the tomb forever.  You 
can't kill him because he's human now; even 
I know the rules good enough to know that.  

If you take him back to Council Headquarters 

and experiment on him or dissect him, you're 

no better than demons yourselves."

Looking up from the thick document file on 
the table before her, Isobel took off her 
glasses and regarded Buffy for a long moment, 
while Buffy tried not to fidget or put her 
hands around the Watcher's neck.  Of course 
beating up a Watcher was a serious faux pas, 
but Isobel was really just asking to get her 
ass kicked. 

"You've put me in a very awkward position."

"It's going to be more awkward when I shove 
my foot up your-" Buffy caught herself in 
time (her vocabulary seemed to go downhill 
with prolonged Spike exposure).  "Spike is 
bad, we know that, and he's proud of it, who 
knows why.  He did a lot of bad things 

before, and he's doing them now, but the 

Spike that I know is just kind of bad.  He's 

about thirty percent bad.  He's got a soul, 

he hasn't been able to kill anyone for a 
couple of years, and he's actually been 
helpful . . . occasionally . . . when it's 
convenient for him."

"My dear, although he may be human for 
whatever reason, he's still a vampire, and 
has a vampire's thoughts and lack of 
morality.  He killed a human, albeit an Arab, 
in Luxor, and he almost killed others when 

the camp was attacked."

"And those Arabs would have killed any of us 
given the chance. He also saved your ass from 
those vamps, and the whole bunch of us from 
Sekhmet at the Winter Palace.  An all-around 
bad guy wouldn't do that!  Spike's not the 
enemy, Talbot and Sekhmet are!"

"How much do you really know about him?  
You've taken him into your. .  confidence.  
Do you really know what he's done?"

Buffy ground her teeth.

"When Spike came along-"

"Spike? Is that what he's calling himself 
now?"

"When he came along, the records were majorly 
incomplete.  Thanks to you guys.  We knew he 
wasn't two hundred yet, and that he'd hung 
out with Darla and her little family-"

"Darla, Angelus, and Drusilla?"

"Yeah.  They put the fun in dysfunctional."  
Buffy realized that now was really not the 
time to get into the subject of Angel.  "We 
knew about the railroad spike thing, too.  We 
also knew that he killed two slayers.  One in 
China during the Boxer Rebellion, and another 
one in New York in the 1970s."

"You're associating with a vampire that 
killed two Slayers?  I would have thought 
that girls in the future with the advantages 
of education and a more enlightened society 
would be more sensible."

"Isobel, you know that some things aren't - 
sensible."

Isobel stood up, her face gone as white as 
any vampire's.

"He also attempted to interfere with Jane 
last night. Are you aware of that?"

"That is totally bogus."

Isobel's face reddened, and then she took a 
deep breath.  "You must think I'm very 
cruel," she said.

"That might not have been my word for it."

"Every one of us sacrifices for the work of 

the Council.  When emotions enter into a 

Slayer's consideration ... more innocents die.  

A certain hardness is our only defense.  Your 

... feelings for the vampire are only an 
extreme example of the wisdom of that 

policy."  She  pushed the document folder 
towards Buffy.  "I suggest that you become 
acquainted with what your paramour has 
managed to accomplish."

Her feet kicking up angry waves of sand, 
Isobel stalked back to her tent.  Buffy 
looked at the file on the table, beckoning to 
her like a sale sign in a shoe store.  She 
wished that Giles was there to tell her what 
she should do.  Giles and Willow would have 
wanted her to read the file.  Xander would have 

suggested that they just stake Spike to see what 

happened.  Feeling very much alone, Buffy sat 

down at the table and opened the folder.


Serious Moonlight 19/26

"Spike?" Buffy asked, between the golden cage 
bars, glimmering with intertwined ankhs in 
the sunlight.

"Oh fuck off, would you," he said with the 
venom she remembered from when they had first 
met.

"I've been talking to Isobel."

"She's done what I couldn't -- convinced you 
I'm the Big Bad?" he asked with gritty 
malice.

She couldn't make out much more than a dark 
shape in the gloom of the tomb.  He was 
leaning against a wall, arms crossed over his 
chest and smoking.  They could have been 
talking outside the Bronze, Spike wrapped in 
shadow and refusing to show his face.  A 
glimmer of whatever Jane had sensed crept 
over Buffy's skin.  Even in the human body, 
there was something not right here, still 
something dark and dead.

"They don't know what to do with me," he 
remarked and managed to sound almost bored.  
"This place has been set up for Sekhmet, and 
it's overkill for poor little me these days."

Buffy swallowed, tried to keep her voice calm 
and level, tried to keep the pictures out of 
her head.  "She showed me the pictures that 
the Watchers took in Yorkshire."

He didn't need to pause to check his memory; 
if he did she thought she might have vomited.  
"Horton-in-Ribblesdale.  Havin' a name like 
that is just beggin' for destruction." 

"Spike, there were four hundred people in 
that village.  Families, old people, 
children-"

"Not as I was alone there, mind you.  It was 
Darla, Dru, me, an' precious Angelus - while 
he was Angelus."  He managed to make Angel's 
former name sound like a curse.  "An' a grand 
time we did have."

"Four hundred people.  In one night."

Something rustled in the tomb.  He might have 
shrugged, or one of the many snakes may have 
slithered out of the walls.

"It was, as they say, a night to remember."

"That just wasn't being hungry.  There was no 
way that the four of you could have drained a 
hundred people each in one night.  Killing 
out of hunger is one thing, killing just for 
fun is evil."

"Just like your hunters wiped out all those - 
what the Hell are they called - buffalo, way 
back.  Humans kill for fun.  Don't even try 
to mess me about with that."  His voice came 
out as sharp as the broken stones littering 
the ground outside.

"You kill," he added a moment later.

"I slay."

"Yeah, and you never feel good the moment 
when you see in their eyes that they know 
that they're gonna die, do you?  The 
screamin' and the beggin' and knowin' that it 
all lies on you.  Do I kill or don't I?  
You're a God then." His voice pounded into 
her head like the power chords in a Heavy 
Metal song, and her hands dropped away from 
the bars.

Hearing him, seeing him, seeing the broken, 
twisted and torn bodies on the TV screen in 
her head intercut with pictures of Spike, 
smirking at her, sleeping, snarling in 
vampface and in human face, the way his 
eyelashes looked against his skin when he 
kissed her . . . Buffy stepped back from the 
bars and wanted to clamp her hands over her 
ears not to hear any more.  

"Killin' is watchin' their whole life run by 
like a bad movie and they catch their very 
last breath," he said and caught a breath of 
his own.

"Stop it!" she warned.

He rustled again inside the darkness, cloth 
on stone, cloth on skin in the hotel bedroom, 
the warm light from the lamps in the tent.  
Gritting her teeth, she tried to stop the 
shaking that was threatening to throw her to 
the ground.

"You've seen it with demons, that last split 
second when they finally die, when the pulse 
finally stops beatin' against your lips.  
They just go out like a match.  And that's 
it.  Gone."

"Shut up."  Her voice wasn't as strong as she 
would have liked.

"I've done what I've done.  You don't think I 
was drinkin' blood out of beer bottles for 
over a century, did you?  I'm a vampire, I 
kill people.  It's what we do.  And I was 
very, very good at it.  I ain't goin' to 
stand here and tell you that I'm not goin' to 
kill again. And I ain't goin' to winge and 
moan about what I've done.  Those Angelus 
killed are just as dead as mine, for all his 
sad talk."

The sudden flare of his lighter as he lit 
another cigarette bathed his face in orange 
light for a moment, making Buffy jump even 
though the bars separated them.  He looked up 
at her over the flame and gave her his best 
smirk.

"Je suis sans regret. I am without regret.  
Sounds better in French, doesn't it?"

"I thought that you were - changing --"

"Oh come on, you're a fang-hag!  Don't even 
try it now.  You've known what I am."

"You're a fucking asshole, a fucking smug, 
fucking vampire, fucking asshole! And you 
dress like shit!" she snapped and stomped 
away from the tomb.

"'As flies to wanton boys, are we to the 
gods; They kill us for their sport,'" he 
shouted after her.  "That's Shakespeare, you 
illiterate bitch!"


Time passed slowly in the tomb, and Spike 
could easily imagine spending whatever 
remaining time he had alive watching the 
spiders spin webs in the corners.  He was 
carefully hoarding his cigarettes, not sure 
when he'd be able to get more.  As a human, 
his craving for nicotine was nearly as strong 
as his craving for blood had been as a 
vampire.  



The look on Buffy's face when they'd dragged 

him away had almost been worth it.  She'd 

worn the same expression of blind hurt when 

Angel had gone Angelus on her.  In 
retrospect, he should have killed Angelus 
when he had the chance.  But apparently he 
now rated higher in her emotional pantheon 
than he had before.  The sun crawled into the 
sky.  He could see it through the intertwined 
ankhs on the bars.  It really was a shame. 
Egypt had potential.  Being alive with Buffy 
had potential as well, even though he felt 
shamefully inept half the time.

What the hell was he supposed to do?  The 
bars across the door would have been nothing 
to kick through when he was in his natural 
state - undead.  He could even have kicked 
through them with little danger of any 
inconvenient burns from the ankhs, not 
because of Albert's misguided notion that the 
vampire had to match the holy symbol, but 
because his favorite pair of DM's had steel 
toes that knew no religion.  Now he had 
only one option - sit and wait.

It didn't take long after sundown for the 
hissing of skirts to approach the barred 
entrance.  He thought of snakes.  A lock 
clanked and the door opened.  Jane entered, 
as ceremoniously as an ancient priestess.    
There was no way that this was going to be 
good.

Jane carefully lit a lamp on the wall.  "What 

shall I call you?  Buffy called you Spike - 

why?"  Without having to look at the lock, 

she produced a key and entered his cell.

"Short, ugly story," he said and climbed 

to his feet, human joints creaking in the 

coolness of the tomb.  

Jane kept her face as enigmatic as one of the 
faces painted on the walls around her. Her 

shadow blotted out the gold-and-black 

pattern created by the bars.

"Why are you human now?" Jane asked.

"I dunno.  I was perfectly happy bein' a 
vampire until the time travel thing put a 
serious cramp in m'style."  He let his face 
lapse into a smirk.  "An' now it looks like 
I'm headin' for death again, sans afterlife."

Jane met his eyes without a trace of 
embarrassment or nervousness.

"If I'd shagged you senseless would this be 
happenin' now?"

The Slayer merely blinked, her green eyes 
clear of any emotion.

"I don't supposed you told Isobel the whole 
story. About who was the molest-er and the 
molest-ee." 

"I can kill you," Jane said in a chillingly 
nonchalant tone.  "I can kill you and let the 
vultures pick the meat from your bones."

"That ain't exactly cricket, you know," Spike 
pointed out.  "Beatin' on a helpless mortal."

Jane backhanded him, and Spike went sprawling 
on the stone floor.  Maybe Jane was stronger 
than Buffy, maybe it just seemed worse 
because he was human, or maybe Buffy had been 
pulling her punches for the better part of a 
year.  He preferred to believe the latter.  
But his bitten lip was bleeding and his face 
was moving from numbness to howling pain.  He 
rolled onto his back and wiped blood away 
from his mouth. Under other circumstances 
this might have been fun.

"That's a girl.  Bash the vampire," he said 
around the blood.

This time, the girl kicked him square in the 
stomach. 

For an embarrassing moment, Spike thought he 
was going to throw up. The breath rushed out 
of his lungs and a hideous wave of nausea 
swamped his mind.  While the pain and the 
nausea incapacitated him, Jane darted closer, 
placing one satin-slipper on his outstretched 
right hand.

"Isobel's not goin' to like this much.  An' 
the council will see it as further evidence 
of instability," Spike choked, "You know what 
they do with Slayers who step out a' line?  
They kill 'em."

He heard the bones in his fingers crunch and 
break under Jane's foot.  Writhing in pain, 
it was all he could do to keep from 
screaming. He wasn't about to give her the 
satisfaction.

"What in the hell is goin' on here?" a male 
voice demanded from the doorway.

"Albert," Jane cooed, "you shouldn't be 
here."

"The hell I shouldn't," Albert warned and 
reached to his waist, which was when Spike 
saw the gun resting there.

"Slayers aren't immune to bullets."

"Oh but they only slow us down," she said and 
began moving on the sandy floor, with her 
easy, athletic Slayer walk, still within the 
cell but she could have her hands around 
Albert's neck in under a second.  If Spike 
could have breathed, he would have told 
Albert to get the Hell out.

"Use your brain.  It may not work properly, 
but I know it exists.  We have to focus on 
Sekhmet," Albert snapped.

"I'll tell Isobel," Jane pouted, and stopped 
moving.  Spike saw Albert's finger relax on 
the trigger, and wished the Watcher weren't 
so trusting.

"And I'm quaking with fear. Get the hell 
out."

Jane made her elegant way out of the tomb; 
Albert wisely backed up to give her plenty of 
room.  Spike would have applauded under other 
circumstances. Albert hurried over and 
hoisted Spike to his feet.

"She's done it now. The nine gates of Hell 
are going to open when we get back. Are you 
all right?"

"I think she broke the fingers on my wankin' 
hand," Spike admitted.

"I shouldn't be here," Albert said and 
grinned at Spike.  "But anything to annoy 
Isobel, right?"

"Gotta have an aim in life," Spike muttered 
and tried to raise a little flame of 
nonchalance from the ashes of his cool.  
"How's Buffy?"

"Unharmed but sulking.  I expect Isobel's 
trying to figure out how she's going to 
explain that she was harboring a vampire for 
the better part of a week when she has to 
face the Council.  Fancy a smoke?"

"Thanks," Spike said as Albert passed him a 
cigarette.  "It's a fine point, but I'm not 
exactly a vampire at the present moment."

"Precisely," Albert grinned again.  "Which 
makes me think that you really ought not to 
be in here."

Albert flung the door to the tomb wide open 
and Spike limped through without fanfare.

"Now I feel like I can ask why you're doin' 
this, an' it's got to be more than gettin' 
Isobel's knickers in a twist."

"Does it?" Albert repeated his grin. "Let's 
just say that the Council of Watchers is like 
any other organization with different 
factions inside, right?  What hurts Isobel 
helps me."

"So a bit o'sabotage wouldn't be out of your 
line, then?"

Albert pulled a tattered map out of his 
pocket and handed it to Spike, using his 
finger to trace along the squiggly lines that 
indicated the rocky hills around the Valley.

"What you're going to want to do is head 
northwest around the outer edge of the 
Valley.  You'll pass by Carter's dig.  That 
should be the only light that you see.  Then 
there's a kind of peninsula right below the 
tomb of Siptah."

"Oh yeah, Siptah.  Knew 'im well."

"Sorry," Albert cleared his throat and 
continued.  "Up on the peninsula is Siptah's 
funerary temple.  My guess is that is the 
place where Talbot will manifest Sekhmet.  
It's isolated, you can see the rest of the 
valley below and it's almost impossible to 
get to from the Valley floor.  I know that's 
where I would go if I were Talbot, and I was 
right about the reception, right?"

"Right, know your enemy an' all that.  So 
what'll you be doin' while I'm sweatin' my 
balls off in the desert?"

"Isobel will listen to me.  She hasn't any 
choice.  We'll meet you there tomorrow just 

after sundown, which is when Talbot has 

to make the final sacrifice."

"We better start now, right guys?"

So intent they had been on the map that 
neither Albert nor Spike had heard Buffy 
creep up on them. Spike inwardly cursed his 
thick human ears and tried to pretend that he 
wasn't glad to see her.

"Not we, me," he corrected her.

"Is now really the time you want me to point 
out how your plans always get screwed up?" 
she asked, fastening her backpack a little 
tighter around her shoulders.  "What happened 
to you?"

"Had an unpleasant run-in wiv' Jane's fists."

"Wuss." 

Buffy held out her arm.  Spike's duster lay 
black as death across it. His throat 
tightened when he took it, but he said 
nothing as he shrugged into the comforting 
leather, donning it like armor.

Something strange and wonderful wrapped 
around Spike and Buffy for a moment, like the 
faint echo of music or the shadow of a 
perfume.

Looking from one to the other, Albert's face 
registered incomprehension.

"I only planned on one . . ." Albert's voice 
broke, "I only stole one horse."

"Horse, oh bloody hell," Spike muttered and 
the spell broke like a soap bubble.

"Don't animals like vampires?" Buffy asked.  
"That would have made it impossible back in 
the no car days."

"Animals don't like Spike.  Spike don't like 
animals.  It's a mutual thing."

Albert looked from Buffy to Spike, again, and 
didn't like what he saw.

"Right. One more horse, coming right up." 
Albert blurted and bolted.


Serious Moonlight 20/26


Given a choice between the tomb and the 
horses, Spike would have chosen the tomb.  
The smelly, stupid creatures seemed to be 
perfectly charmed by Buffy and but the one he 
was doomed to ride had rolled its eyes and 
showed him its horrible teeth before he even 
managed to get within five feet of it. When 
he tried to climb up in the saddle, it 
maliciously shifted its feet so that he 
nearly fell on his face and snorted like an 
annoyed woman when he managed to swing a leg 
over.  His hand and his stomach hurt like 
nobody's business and it was all he could do 
to keep upright in the saddle.  Thank Hell 
that Jane hadn't bothered to notice that he 
was left-handed.  Each of the horses' steps 
sent new waves of pain along his bones.  This 
was obviously going to be a rough trip.  The 
horse's gait was not unlike bobbing along on 
a rowboat, but less rhythmic and Spike began 
to feel slightly queasy after about ten 
minutes.

"You came back for me," he observed.

"So?" she had the horse reins in her hands 
and looked like she knew what she was doing.

"Even after what Isobel told you?"

"If you think I came back because I like you 
or approve of you, you're thinking a 
truckload of wrong."

"Puh-lease.  The thought never crossed my 
mind," he lied.

They continued along until the horse's tracks 
stretched back to the horizon before Buffy 
broke the silence.  

"Spike, you didn't try anything with Jane the 
other night, did you."

Halfway through his cigarette, Spike choked 
on the smoke and went off into a fit of 
coughing that left his eyes tearing and his 
sore chest sorer.

"Not bloody likely! Other way around, she 
came at me like a freight train an' I barely 
got away with my virtue intact!"

"With your track record for telling the truth 
I should believe you?"

"I spent a century with one madwoman and that 
was enough, thank you."

She was silent for another couple of miles 
and Spike hoped that the subject was 
officially dropped, but when she opened her 
mouth again, he cringed.

"You know I think maybe Isobel and Jane . . . 
not that I have a problem with that or 
anything, but-"

"Like you say in SunnyD - Duh.  Goes a bit 
towards explain' why Isobel's so eager to 
keep all a'this as far away from the Council 
as she can.  Don't want too many noses pryin' 
into her business."

As they spoke, Spike noticed that clouds were 
starting to move into the inverted bowl of 
the sky, clustering over and around the moon 
like milk poured in water.  The clouds 
outside the moon's reach were dark against 
the cobalt sky, almost black, and the wind 
began to blow hard and cold, sending sand 
skittering over the ripples of the desert 
beneath.  An unpleasant thrill of dark magic 
and gathering power set his skin to standing 
in goosebumps.  The horses shuddered and 
shook their heads in a pas de cheval of 
nervousness.  Spike's horse stumbled on the 
rocks underneath, and nearly pitched him from 
the saddle.  Buffy looked around as though 
she were catching a whiff of a foul odor.

Down in the Valley of the Kings, the warm 
gold lights of the encampment around the tomb 
of Tutankhamun flickered in the darkness.  
Spike consulted the map.  Carter's camp was 
the halfway mark to the funeral temple of 
Siptah.

"I can tell by the pricking in my thumbs, 
something wicked this way comes," he recited 
and looked over to Buffy.

"It must be that thamato thingy that Isobel 
was talking about, the stars lining up so 
Sekhmet can manifest."

"We should stop now," Spike said again, after 
his horse stumbled for the third time.  "If 
this bloody creature sticks its foot in a 
hole, we'll be fucked.  And I doubt you want 
to break a horse's neck to put it out of its 
misery."

"Where do you suggest we spend the night?" 
Buffy asked in her sweetest, bitchiest voice.

"Caves all over the place, right?  One o' 
those will hide us an' the evil beasts, and 
keep us from the worst o' the sand an' the 
cold."

In fact, the third cave they checked had a 
circle from a burnt-out fire and a stack of 
brush in the back.  Buffy tied the horses 
together and wrapped the rope around a two-
hundred pound rock at the front, then gave 
them some of the oats from her saddlebag.  
Spike, with Buffy's attention elsewhere, 
moved like a hundred-and-fifty-year-old 
human, laboriously dragging sticks into the 
firepit with his left hand and trying not to 
bend.  His lighter was extremely helpful and 
the fire burned with marshmallow-roasting 
merriness.

Spike's stomach still hurt from Jane's tender 
attentions and the thought of food made him, 
for the first time since he'd been re-alive, 
feel sick.  He palmed his share of the rations 
as Buffy ate.  The girl had an appetite for 
food that matched his for blood.  He thought 
it must be going to feed her supernatural 
powers, because he saw no evidence that any 
calories ever visited her physical body for 
more than a nanosecond.  

"So what are we gonna' do if the Watchers 
don't show up?" he asked.

"Stake, bake, decapitate," she muttered 
around a mouthful of bread and cheese.

"Albert was tellin' me that the Ancient 
Egyptians turned her back with Aten's solar 
disk.  It's got the sun an' it's rays on it, 
an' the sun's rays end with ankhs - the 
symbol of life.  We should get our hands on 
one a'those."

"Right.  We'll just run down to the Quicky 
Mart and see if they have them with the 
Doritos and Ring Dings!" she snapped and then 
looked down at the bread in hand.  "I would 
kill for a Ring Ding right about now."

"I would kill for a kill," he admitted and 
dug in the pockets of his duster for a pack 
of cigarettes. 

Most were crushed, but there were a few that 
were still smokeable.

"You're still thinking about killing? You've 
been human for how long?"

"Six days," Spike said and exhaled smoke, 
"And they stick druggies in rehab for at 
least a month so don't go suggestin' I've 
changed my ways."

"Do you have to smoke in here?"

He blew a smoke ring and smirked at her.

"What are you gonna' do?  Beat me up?"

Instead, she ignored him and continued 
eating.  When Buffy finished, she went out to 
do girlish and other unmentionable things.  
That was another advantage of not eating: he 
could just lie down by the fire and try to 
sleep.

But when Buffy returned, she didn't lie down 
on the other side of the fire.  She snuggled 
up against him, pulling his duster around her 
with a force that made him wince.  Then she 
started to wiggle her behind against his 
groin.  He wasn't in much shape for slap-and-
tickle, but on the other (unbroken) hand 
there was no telling how long it would take 
Buffy to wise up and stake him.  If he turned 
her down now he'd be turning down a 
significant percentage of the sex they were 
likely to have.

Thinking of it that way, he felt the 
lightning crackling through his bruised ribs 
and his hand drop into a background hum.  And 
it wasn't as if he were unused to fucking 
through pain.  Buffy's scent, intensified by 
days without a shower, filled his nostrils 
and dropped his IQ.

He caught her hip and stilled it, pressed 
tight against him.  "Are you tryin' to kill 
me?"

"It's a thought," she said, and rolled around 
so they were chest to chest.  "But first ..."  
Her busy hands pushed the leather jacket off 
his shoulders and slipped down to his belt, 
working at the buckle with confidence.  Spike 
closed his eyes and tried to get his 
breathing under control.  "Killing was like 
sex for you, wasn't it?"

"No."

She pinched him through his shirt.  "Don't 
lie to me."

"Sex isn't like breathin', breathin's not 
like eatin', killin's still another thing.  
Different pleasures all."  

Buffy slapped him lightly, on the cheek Jane 
had bruised.  She was breathing hard and her 
eyes were strange, lit from within with 
moonlight.  Trust Buffy never to make it 
easy.  But he could.

"C'mon, Slayer, I'm bad, punish me.  I know 
that's what you want," he taunted her.

"You don't know anything about me," she said 
uncertainly, but she was running his belt 
through her fingers, back and forth like a 
slithering snake.  

"You don't know anything about yourself."

He slid a hand up her thigh, inches away from 
her lovely quim.  Quick as a sneak attack, 
she pushed him onto his back.  He winced as 
he thudded into the floor; he hadn't exactly 
told her about the ribs yet.

"Take off your pants," she ordered.  He 
hurried to comply, and when he finished he 
started on his shirt, only to have his hands 
slapped away from the buttons with careless 
violence.  "I didn't tell you to do anything 
else."

He nodded, and hoped she'd seen it in the 
flickering light.  For a moment, Spike wished 
they were part of the world of political 
correctness, seventy years in the future, 
with its safe words and padded restraints, 
but he'd never had that before and he 
wouldn't know to miss it now.  At least, he 
thought, goosebumps rising over his body, 
mimicking his growing erection, Buffy was 
unlikely to cut him the way Dru sometimes 
had.  Lucky for him, he was extremely 
adaptable, and had been playing in the dark 
halls of sex before her grandparents were 
born.

"Turn over."

He did, adjusting himself so that he was 
pressing into the leather jacket, over a 
layer of sand.  He had a good idea what was 
coming next, and he was grateful that he felt 
the belt on his buttocks and not his neck.  
Buffy had no idea how to use her strength in 
sex-play, probably because her lovers had 
been too timid to try, and she was perfectly 
capable of strangling him blue without fully 
intending to do so.  Still the leather stung 
like, well, like being beaten with a belt, 
and it took him back to childhood and to 
Angelus, with Dru standing by and covering 
Miss Edith's eyes while telling him that he'd 
been a bad boy.  The pain brought tears to 
his eyes, and still she kept bringing it 
down, now on his upper thighs, now back to 
his ass.  The sound of his gasping, heaving 
breaths was the only thing he could hear, 
echoing through the cave like a hundred 
victims.

Abruptly she stopped, and reached around to 
check his cock.  "You like that," Buffy said, 
and he could hear the smirk.

"I like you, Blondie," he gasped.  "You got a 
nasty mind," he added, in case he'd been 
misunderstood.  Or understood.

She made a "hmmph" noise and flipped him over 
with one superstrong hand at his shoulder.  
The leather ground into his ass like a 
starfield of agony, each shimmering point its 
own pain.  Spike bit his lip so as not to cry 
out.  He heard Buffy's clothes rustle in the 
darkness, and then she was on him, grinding 
her crotch against him like another 
punishment.  Spike reached up to put his 
hands on her arms, but she shook them away.  
"Not yet," she instructed, and crab-walked up 
his body, making his ribs sing like a 
xylophone, until his mouth was buried in her 
cunt, salty and rich like the sea.  

It didn't take long.  She was high on 
adrenaline and anticipation of the battle 
they'd nearly reached, he thought.  When she 
shuddered and sagged over him, he used his 
good hand to flip her on her back.  The belt 
was still in her limp, sweaty hands and it 
was the work of a moment to wrap it around 
her wrists.  She was as warm and soft as 
pancakes against him.

"Hey!"  Pleasure and alarm warred in her 
tone.

"Turnabout, fair play, et cetera," he said, 
keeping his voice playful.  "You're not 
scared of a human, are you?"

He could hear her breath catch and feel her 
trembling underneath him.  She couldn't 
resist a dare any more than she could resist 
a sample sale.

"I'm not scared of you," Buffy sniffed, and 
he tightened the belt so that the buckle 
would scrape against her wrist, right where 
the knob of bone protruded.  She bucked 
against him and he smiled, his face turned 
away from the fire. 

"You should be," he warned.

Spike let his bad hand rest on hers and 
pressed his body into her.  With his 
fingernails, he scored lines down her torso 
and she squirmed underneath him.

"Still unimpressed," she scoffed.  He bent 
his head and set his teeth into her earlobe, 
increasing the pressure until he felt her 
hips twitch and she made a noise deep in her 
throat.

Spike moved down, scored her throat with his 
teeth, bracing his weight on his unbroken 
hand.

"Stay there," he ordered and she chuffed 
laughter.  In retaliation, he pinched her 
nipple, hard.  Moving further down, he pushed 
her right leg up over his shoulder, opening 
her wider and giving him better access.  She 
was salty, sweaty, and she groaned when he 
scraped sand against her labia with his 
tongue.  He brushed a stubbled cheek over her 
thigh to increase the friction.  Buffy quaked 
above him and he bit at the crease of her 
thigh to remind her to behave.

"You see, this is just the beginnin'," he 
pitched his voice low and tried to keep it 
from shaking.  "Trainin' wheels.  You 
thinkin' you've gone all tough."

She couldn't look away from his eyes, even 
when he licked her again, letting his dull 
teeth scratch where nerves were the closest 
under her hot, wet skin. He jabbed his tongue 
against her clit and she jumped.  He 
could feel the muscles in her leg shaking 
against his shoulder.

"When we get back, I'm gonna' show you things 
that would send Clive Barker runnin' from the 
room." 

She was close, he could feel it.  Back when 
he was human they'd called it the crisis, 
euphemism being more acceptable than the 
clinical terms that newfangled girls threw 
around these days.  With Buffy trembling 
underneath him and his own erection a burning 
ache, he thought the old name was truer.  
Trying not to jog his wounded parts, he 
settled himself between her legs.

"Always havin' to be so careful with your 
men.  Fragile bodies, fragile egos.  You 
don't have to be careful with me."

She tried to snort, he could tell, but it 
came out a sigh.

"Say it, Slayer."

He could hear her hands writhing against the 
belt.  She could have broken free at any 
time.  But he knew she wouldn't.  He moved 
his hand to cover her breast, soft and heavy, 
and her teeth clicked together.  

"Please."

"Please what?"

"Please, Spike."  

He slid into her, a bullet into the chamber 
of a well-made gun.  She was hotter than 
blood and more potent.  She moaned when he 
finally hit home, arching her back to meet 
him.  Grabbing her hips and making his broken 
fingers sing with pain, he sat up on his 
knees and pulled her closer, until she was 
wrapped around him, her legs clamped hard 
around his hips while her torso stretched 
long against the floor of the cave.  She had 
never been so hot, wet and tight around him 
before and her ragged breathing was a 
counterpoint to his.  By all the demons in 
hell, if he didn't come soon, he was going to 
die.  Sweat plastered her hair to her 
forehead, and her eyes were rolling back in 
her head like a woman having a seizure.  In 
mid-thrash, she pulled her shoulders up from 
the floor and somehow managed to hook her 
forearms around his neck, her fists bound by 
the belt, hard against the back of his skull.  
Their combined weight ground his knees into 
the sand, making his ribs and back pain him 
more than Jane's beating had.  

Nose to nose, eyeball to eyeball, they stared 
at each other with fierce and glazed stares.  
They breathed in each other's breath, thin 
and dizzy-making and the sound of breathing 
and the wet slap of skin on skin drowned out 
the noise of the winds outside. She kissed 
him, hard and hungry and mad, he had an arm 
around her waist and it was all he could do 
to keep them from tumbling over into rock and 
sand.  Finally, Buffy clamped down around him 
like the proverbial iron hand in a velvet 
glove and she let out a scream that would 
have impressed a banshee.  That was just 
enough for Spike's human nerves to send him 
into a crisis of his own that threatened to 
melt his brain and most of his nerves.  She 
shook against him and he against her until 
they sagged wet and weak back into the 
unlikely bed of sand, leather and stone 
underneath.  Her head slid to his shoulder 
and he lay his injured hand on her belly, 
where the blood from his shattered nails 
pooled in her navel.

Being, after all, only a mere human male, 
Spike was half-asleep in a matter of moments, 
while Buffy, being a human female, wanted to 
talk.

"I don't like the way you make me feel," she 
told his shoulder blade while she slipped the 
belt from around her wrists.

"And how is that?" he managed, and watched 
the dying fire flicker on the uneven rock 
overhead.

"Ever ride the Tower of Terror?  Two stories 
straight down.  I feel like that."

"S'allright.  I can't keep my fuckin' hands 
off you.   It's like a junkie thing, and I 
don't like it much m'self."

"And kinky sex bothers me."  

He tried not to snort, but failed.  

"I mean, kinky sex with you seems pretty 
natural all things considered, but that just 
goes to show that Sex With Spike is creepy 
and wrong."

Let her rationalize all she liked, if it kept 
her in his bed.  He hadn't lied, for once.  
Every time he touched her, every kiss, 

every shag, every time he looked into the 

shallow chlorine-blue pools of her eyes, he 

just wanted more.  Part of his sensible mind 

wondered if Angelus had felt the same.  But 

his bruised and broken body told his brain 

to shut the fuck up.  Sleep, with her soft 

arms and even softer garments, was 
managing to seduce him away.  He fell asleep 
smelling Buffy's hair.


Serious Moonlight 21/26



In the morning, they split the remainder of 
the meager rations Albert had concealed in 
Spike's saddlebag and resumed the trek.  The 
ache in his ribs was lessening already, but 
his hand burned like it had been coated in 
napalm.  He was worried about infection; he 
hadn't kept up with medical science after 
being turned, but he had a bad feeling about 
the chance of finding antibiotics in the 
desert.  Still, he didn't tell her all the 
things that Jane had managed to do to him in 
the tomb.  He also didn't tell her what Jane 
had tried to do in the alleyway behind the 
Winter Palace.  She didn't need to know.  

The sun beat down on them like that one-armed 
drummer from Def Leppard.  Spike's head ached 
from the dryness and the light.  Once or 
twice the hot and evil sun made Spike 
hallucinate: palaces, bridges, even the World 
Trade Center.  Buffy held up much better, 
since she was the only superhuman between the 
two of them.

They traveled nearly the entire day on 
horseback, watching the valley from above.  
It was as if there was no one left in the 
world, and he and Buffy were a perverse Adam 
and Eve. It was like the end of Planet of the 
Apes, only without the ocean.   Spike dozed 
in the saddle and Buffy was shockingly 
silent.  He would have worried if he hadn't 
needed the rest.

She woke him with an exclamation.

"Look!"  Blinking, he followed her pointing 
finger to a point right above the bottom of 
the valley, where a caravan of trucks was 
winding its way towards their destination.

Spike shook his head to clear it; being human 
just kept surprising him with its 
inconveniences.  "What do you bet that's 
Yummy and Mummy?"

"Can't you give that a rest?"

"No more 'n you an' your friends can give up 
on the Scooby Gang lingo.  Is Xander Shaggy 
or Scooby?"

Buffy frowned, her eyes tracking the trucks.  
"Let's go.  They won't be expecting an 
attack."

"An' I suppose you're Daphne, right?"

"Oh shut the fuck up, just for once."

She kicked her horse and it went galloping 
down.  With a grade like that, there wasn't 
much chance for a non-gallop, so he sighed 
and followed suit.

Cavalry assault was pretty noticeable under 
the circumstances, and the Arabs surrounding 
Sekhmet's entourage quickly began to point, 
shout, and unlimber their carbines.  Spike 
kept his head down, pressed against the 
horse's smelly mane, and tried not to hear 
the whine of the bullets passing by.

"Good idea!" he yelled to Buffy.

"It works in the movies!" she screamed back, 
and knocked an Arab off of his horse with a 
fast-moving uppercut.  Then she vaulted into 
the cab of the first truck and began pounding 
at something he couldn't see.

Spike figured Buffy could take care of a 
truckload on her own, so he went for the 
second truck, clotheslining another armed 
horseman as he approached the window.  "Good 
riddance," he sniped at the horse as he 
launched himself into the passenger seat.

The driver was fumbling at his belt, but it 
was difficult to draw a weapon while you were 
trying not to steer into a gully.  

"Dr. Yummy, I presume?" Spike said and 
punched him in the jaw, which would have been 
pleasant if he hadn't had to do it too many 
times already during this adventure.  The 
truck lurched and Spike clutched at the 
dashboard.  Talbot was cursing and attempting 
to keep the wheel under control, but power 
suspensions and brakes - and seatbelts, for 
that matter - were a thing of the future and 
he couldn't keep control.  As they hurtled 
down a rocky incline, Spike managed to get 
his feet up to kick at Talbot while he braced 
his shoulders against the door.  The last 
kick before impact snapped Talbot's head back 
into the metal doorframe of the truck.

And then they were tumbling ass over 
teakettle.  Spike was bounced around inside 
the truck like a basketball at a Harlem 
Globetrotters game, and Talbot's limp body 
sharing the limited space didn't make it any 
easier.

When the truck stopped and settled in an 
agonized metal groan, it was on its side, and 
Spike was underneath a human blanket.  His 
ribs were singing the song of agony, and 
Talbot's weight on him made him cough.  When 
he managed to shift Talbot off enough to wipe 
his mouth, his hand came away bloody.

Bloody, right enough.  Wiggling some more, 
and ignoring all the signals that told him he 
wasn't in any shape for this, he managed to 
push the groaning Talbot against the bottom 
door, where Spike used him as a footstool.

Cautiously poking his head out the window, 
Spike noticed something very bad.

Sundown.

Above him, he could hear the cries and moans 
of Buffy's victims.  But Talbot had been 
driving this truck, and Talbot didn't seem 
like the type to let others take care of his 
pride and joy.  Spike put his good hand on 
the outside of the truck and prepared to 
lever himself up.

A hand like rock clamped around his wrist and 
picked him up like a girl examining an 
earring to see if it went with her outfit.  
He couldn't see the thing holding him out 
above the truck, ten feet above the ground, 
but he could see Buffy, heading down the 
incline towards them, stake in one hand and a 
scimitar she must have picked up just then in 
the other.

"Let him go!" she yelled.

"Do what you want wiv' the girl, just don't 
hurt me," he echoed weakly.  His arm felt 
like it was stretching like Silly Putty, only 
at some point there was going to be a 
disconnection.  He was pulled back - he could 
no longer feel his arm - and pressed against 
a cold feminine torso.  Sekhmet's other hand 
snaked around his throat and closed his 
windpipe like a pinched straw.

The truck shuddered as Talbot, still 
wheezing, climbed up, said something sharp to 
Sekhmet in Ancient Egyptian, and put a gun to 
his head as Sekhmet relaxed her hold.

"Surrender now and live longer," he called 
down to Buffy.  Behind her, at the top of the 
gully, more Arabs were gathering, and they 
didn't look happy.  Buffy glanced back, then 
glared at the trio on top of the truck.

Slowly, she lowered her weapons.  Spike gaped 
at her, opening his mouth to tell her to get 
her shapely ass out of there, but Talbot 
clouted him on the back of the head with the 
gun and his lecture went undelivered.


Serious Moonlight 22/26


"My hiding place is opened, my hiding place 
is opened. The Spirits fall headlong in the 
darkness, but the Eye of Horus hath made me 
holy, and Upuati hath nursed me. I will hide 
myself among you, O ye stars which are 
imperishable!"

Talbot had a very annoying voice, enough 
reason in itself to kill him, Spike thought 
as he meandered towards consciousness.

"In very truth I am Ra himself. I am not a 
man of no account. I am not a man to whom 
violence can be done."

"Buffy?"   He was twisting on the ropes 
around his wrists like a carcass in a 
slaughterhouse.  The rope chewed into his 
wrists as he wriggled until he could see her, 
trussed just as he was only, intelligently 
enough on the bad guys' part, she was wearing 
chains.  His hand and his ribs and his head 
all screamed for attention - feel my pain, 
they said - but the adrenaline managed to 
fend off their demands.  

Buffy's head was hanging down, hair covering 
her face, and he started to sweat, a 
humiliating side effect of the human 
condition.  If Talbot had whacked her proper, 
the thing hanging next to him was a carrot in 
a Buffy-suit.  Of course, brain damage would 
actually require a brain.

"C'mon, Buffy. Planet earth to Buffy," he 
pleaded.

"I am thy son, O great one, I have seen the 
hidden things which are thine. I am crowned 
upon my throne like the king of the gods. I 
shall not die a second time in Khert-Neter."

Up at the altar, Dr. Talbot was going through 
his ancient Egyptian priest routine and 
looked nothing short of daft in full eye-make 
up and linen kilt.  Men in skirts, it just 
wasn't right.  Spike's arms were stretching 
out of their sockets and he figured that by 
the time he got let down, his knuckles would 
be scraping the ground.  In her throne on the 
dais, Sekhmet was looking lovely and deadly 
at the same time.  If he'd only been his 
vampire self, he'd give the bloody bitch a 
brawl she'd never seen the likes of.  He was 
grinding his useless teeth and only succeeded 
in making his jaw hurt on top of everything 
else.

"My heart is with me, I have life by my word, 
and my heart hath being," Talbot droned and 
did something complicated involving waving a 
knife over an alabaster drink-cup, which Spike 
suspected contained blood.  "My heart-case 
shall not be snatched away from me, it shall 
not be wounded, and it shall not be put in 
restraint if wounds are inflicted upon me."

Talbot tossed something into the drink cup 
and flames jumped from the cup's rim with a 
loud crack.  On his left, Spike heard Buffy 
moan.  Thank Hell for Slayer healing powers, 
he thought and leaned as close to her as he 
could.

"Wakey wakey.  Mummy's got a nasty surprise 
for you," he hissed.

Buffy tossed her hair back and stared around 
with incomprehension before her thoughts 
visibly clicked into place.  Gaze tracking 
around the temple, Buffy finally looked over 
at Spike.

"Final manifestation?" she asked.

"Well it's not a bloody tea party now is it?" 
he answered and realized that he'd gone 
shrill with panic.

"Why are we-"

"Blood of a man, blood of a woman.  Weren't 
you paying attention? We're the fucking 
entrée."

"Your karma just bit you in the ass," she 
observed and began pulling on the chains 
tying her to the hook overhead.

The hook seemed to wobble a bit and stone 
dust rained down.

"I think I can wiggle this out-" she said and 
pulled again.

Sekhmet rose from her carved throne and made 
her majestic way down the short stone steps 
to the main temple floor.

"Wiggle faster," he instructed.

In all his years meeting older undead, Spike 
had never seen anything with the grace of 
Sekhmet.  She didn't walk as much as flow 
towards him.  She was beautiful with her 
gleaming gold jewelry, moonlit skin, midnight 
hair, and inhumanly perfect body clearly 
visible through the thin white stuff of her 
gown.  If he hadn't felt quite as much like 
the blue-plate special, Spike might have been 
attracted.  As things were, his human senses 
were telling him to run, hide, and leave his 

hands behind if that was required to get 

away from this deadly beauty.  In a moment 

she was close enough to smell, even with 

his dull human senses, and she smelled like 

a million spices he didn't have names for.

Next to him, Buffy froze.

Sekhmet ignored Buffy, turning her dark eyes 
on Spike.

Oh God, he thought to a deity he hadn't 
bothered with in a century, help me.

Her eyes ate the flesh from his bones.  He 
was shaking, caught up in her stare, his 
chest tightened with unbearable pain and he 
couldn't breathe.  One of her perfect white 
hands reached out and touched the side of his 
face with a feeling of frost.  Had he been so 
cold as a vampire?  Swallowing hard, he 
fought through her thrall.

"Here now," he croaked, "Give us a fightin' 
chance, love."

For a moment, she didn't move, and Spike 
could hear Buffy's quick breathing in the 
desert night.  Slowly, Sekhmet reached out 
her perfect claw-tipped hand and touched the 
rope loops binding Spike's raw wrists to the 
hook in the temple wall.  The rope broke like 
cotton thread and in an instant; Spike was on 
his knees on the dusty floor, clutching his 
aching arms to his achier body.  Sekhmet 
watched him without altering her expression.  
Plan, plan, he needed a plan and he needed it 
more than any other plan he had ever needed.  
And it had to be a good plan, since he was 
pretty sure he wasn't going to get a second 
chance with this.  Okay, draw Sekhmet away 
from Buffy, Buffy would get loose and keep 
Sekhmet from killing him.  Killing him?  He 
couldn't honestly remember ever worrying 
about that before.

This divine retribution stuff really blew.

He managed to stand up, throw his shoulders 
back and summon up some of the old Spike-a-
tude.  It wasn't much, but it made him feel 
better.

"I don't usually go for older women, but I 
could make an exception."

She smiled and showed fangs. He'd never seen 
a vamp with enough control to just bring out 
fangs without the face going as well.  Looked 
good, felt really bad.  Somehow he brought up 
a smile.

"What do you say we ditch the Yanks an' you 
an' me take off?"

Her arm flashed out, cobra-quick, and all he 
could do was drop to the ground and roll out 
of her reach, ribs screaming and shifting 
inside.  Sekhmet's fingers left an inches-
deep gouge in the stones of the floor. 
Regaining his footing, he bounced out of 
reach of the next swipe. 

"I'm not takin' no for an answer, love."  
Unfortunately his cough broke up the 
coolness, and tiny drops of blood spattered 
the floor.  Sekhmet's eyes lit up like star 
sapphires.  Teasing her with an appetizer was 
not a good idea.

She glided closer, her eyes flashing in the 
torchlight. Up at the altar, Talbot continued 
with his annoying chanting and over against 
the wall, Buffy continued to wiggle at the 
hook.

"Three thousand years?  You look good, Babe.  
I would have figured you for about a 
hundred."

Continuing to circle him, Sekhmet favored 
Spike with a fang-filled smile. He backed 
toward the altar, drawing her away from 
Buffy.

"Don't talk much, do you?  I kinda like that 
in a woman."

On the next blow, her fingers brushed his 
flailing arm and it was like being hit by a 
Mack truck.  Spike was slammed into one of 
the pillars near the altar and his human 
breath was knocked out of him, making him 
feel queasy in addition to the pain.  He 
wasn't going to be able to keep this up for 
very long.  Buffy really needed to get a move 
on with the chains.  Stepping back, Sekhmet 
paused and considered him for a moment, and 
the realization hit Spike like a second 18-
wheeler.  She was toying with him like a cat 
with a cricket.  She was smacking him around 
to get the maximum amusement from her prey 
until he lost play value.  He'd done it more 
than once himself.  The torchlight flickered 
over the scene, hotter than moonlight and 
making the entire world shudder and jump like 
a hand-cranked movie.

Once more she advanced.  Spike's back was up 
against the pillar, and he could feel the 
coldness of the stone seep into his sweat-
drenched shirt.  Sekhmet was close enough for 
him to see the gold flecks in her dark eyes.  
He willed her to look into his eyes, 
wondering if he was able to pull that little 
trick off by sheer force of desperation. She 
looked back into his eyes as he tried to keep 
his mind blank. His arm stretched up and 
back, the movement not registering on her 
face at all.  The wood of the torch was 
reassuringly solid in his hand as he pulled 
it from the holder bolted to the pillar and 
brought it down on Sekhmet's Cleopatra 
hairdo. Sparks flew and Spike smelled burnt 
hair.  Sekhmet's mouth opened like a desert 
cave and she shrieked like a cat with a 
trodden-on tail. Stepping sideways, Spike 
jabbed the lit end of the torch into 
Sekhmet's torso.  More sparks, more smell, 
and she backed up enough for Spike to get 
clear of the pillar and out into the open.

He twirled the torch like a pool cue as she 
advanced on him.  Her face and her body had 
become wary.

"Now that I've had a think 'bout it, maybe it 
ain't right for an old bitch like you to be 
goin' after a tender sweet young thing like 
me," he advised and slammed the torch into 
the side of her head like Babe Ruth hitting 
one into the stands.

Another vampire would have been stunned by 
the blow and should have gone up like a 
kerosene-soaked Christmas tree, but Sekhmet 
merely reached out and grabbed Spike's wrist 
with a grip that was like being crushed by 
two stones.  The torch slipped from his 
suddenly numb hand and fell to the floor in a 
wave of sparks and flame.  For a long moment, 
she didn't move, and all Spike could hear was 
the Ska rhythm of his heart and the desert 
air rasping in his lungs.  He drove his knee 
into her stomach and might have fared better 
if he'd tried it with one of the pyramids.  
He pulled against her grip and realized that 
he'd have to gnaw off his own arm to get 
away.

But he wasn't going down without resistance.  
She whipped him around until he was trapped 
between her body and her immobile arm.  He 
stomped on her feet, wiggled and wormed in 
her arms, thrashed and pushed away from her 
like a fish with a hook in its mouth.  The 
pressure on his broken ribs increased and he 
could have wept with pain.  He could feel the 
softness of hair against the side of his face 
as she pushed her face down to where collar 
met neck.  He yelled, he yowled and screamed 
as her teeth sunk through his skin.

It hurt like a sonofabitch.  It had hurt like 
that when Dru had-

His vision started to gray out.

Some unconscious drive clicked in as he felt 
his own blood start to run down his neck, hot 
and wet, onto his chest.  Without thinking, 
he turned his head until his lips were 
against the silky skin of her forearm and he 
drove his disappointing human teeth into her.  
He tasted the blood, felt it against his 
lips, felt it run down his throat like a rare 
wine, and then the blackness carried him 
away.


Serious Moonlight 23/26


"Spike!" Buffy screamed.

In the background, Talbot continued chanting.

"Thy father liveth for thee, O son of Nut. I 
am thy son, O great one, I have seen the 
hidden things which are thine. I am crowned 
upon my throne like the king of the gods. I 
shall not die a second time in Khert-Neter."

Yards away, Spike was swooning in Sekhbitch's 
arms, his face turned to her like he was --

"Yaaah!" she howled, or something to that 
effect, and the chains parted like cheap 
shoelaces.  Sekhmet raised her face and 
smiled at Buffy.  Even through the blood, the 
smile was pure and beautiful.  Spike sagged 
onto her like a discarded suit.  

Buffy was still wearing half-length chain 
bracelets.  She decided to put them to use, 
and ran towards the oblivious Talbot.  He 
didn't look up until the chain shattered one 
perfect cheekbone, and then he went down like 
Monica Lewinsky.  Sekhmet made a gobbling, 
groaning noise and dropped Spike.

"Tit for tat," Buffy said and prepared to 
fight, braced like an action figure on the 
sandy floor.

Sekhmet growled, a low noise that seemed to 
fill the temple with wall-to-wall sound.  She 
stretched out a hand -- and suddenly was in 
front of Buffy, who hadn't seen her move.  
Buffy whirled a chain at Sekhmet and she 
grabbed it out of the air, held it between 
her hands, and tore it apart.

Buffy swallowed and kicked out, landing a 
solid blow to Sekhmet's abdomen, which felt 
like iron-reinforced concrete.

Sekhmet was craning her swanlike neck to look 
for Spike and Talbot; she wasn't even 
watching as she blocked Buffy's blows 
practically before they started.  Buffy would 
have been insulted if she'd had the energy.  
Spike's blood gleamed on her mouth, and as 
Buffy kicked and whirled, Sekhmet used an 
obscenely long tongue to lick it off.

Buffy was apparently an annoyance to her on 
the level of a gnat.  Sekhmet turned and 
headed toward Talbot, lying crumpled a few 
yards away.  Buffy took the opportunity to 
wrap her remaining chain around Sekhmet's 
neck, wrapping her legs around the vampire 
and attempting to bring her to the ground.

Sekhmet lurched, then brought a hand up to 
her throat.  Buffy heard the tinkle of metal 
turning to powder, and then she'd lost her 
hold and was falling back onto the ground.  
Sekhmet reached Talbot and pulled him 
upright.  His eyes opened briefly and then 
horror blanked them as she ripped into his 
neck.

Buffy didn't see any way she could stop 
Sekhmet from killing Talbot, so she backed up 
and went to Spike, also doing a good 
impression of a crumpled napkin.  Spike still 
had a pulse, which was weird in and of itself 
and was probably why Sekhmet had decided to 
de-accessorize Talbot; she still needed to 
drain a man to complete the manifestation.  

At least Spike was alive - for the time being 
anyway, because there was no telling how much 
blood Sekhmet had gotten out of him before he 
bit her back.  Maybe Isobel was right, once a 
vampire, always a vampire.  If he vamped out, 
wouldn't he be soul-negative again?  This was 
way too complicated.  "That does it," Buffy 
announced, "the bitch is toast."

Unfortunately she wasn't entirely sure she 
was the right brave little toaster for the 
job.  

From outside, she heard shouting and screams.  
Sekhmet continued to suck at Talbot's throat, 
greedy slurping sounds that made Buffy sick 
to her stomach.  Spike was wheezing in 
unconscious distress; she'd get no help from 
him.

Just as Sekhmet looked up from her meal, 
drained like a cold Diet Coke on a hot day, 
Jane burst into the room, covered with dust 
and blood.  Isobel was only a few paces 
behind, and Albert and the other Watchers 
after that.  

 "Glad you could join us!" Buffy yelled.  
"She's got the guy, make Isobel stay far 
back."  Several Watchers deployed in front of 
Isobel while Jane strode toward Sekhmet, who 
rose gracefully like a cobra emerging from a 
snakecharmer's basket.

Buffy left Spike on the stone floor and 
joined Jane.  She nodded at the other Slayer, 
who nodded back unhesitatingly.  Crazy or 
not, Jane knew her duty.

She felt warm wetness on her skin.  It was 
raining blood inside the tomb.  Sekhmet must 
be awfully close to full strength.  The 
spatters made Jane look even more psychotic.  
On Sekhmet it kind of looked natural.  The 
vampire goddess turned her face upwards, 
towards the hidden moon, and let out a cry 
like a wolf being gutted.

Two Slayers was only about four Slayers shy 
of the strength necessary to deal with 
Sekhmet.  With Jane lunging at her legs, 
Buffy's jump onto Sekhmet's back actually 
managed to unbalance the vampire, who went 
tumbling over Jane with a sound like the 
Titanic going down.

"Jane!" Isobel screamed.  "The disk of Aten!"  
She threw something golden toward them - she 
had a good arm, for a woman wearing a blouse 
with leg-of-mutton sleeves, Buffy realized - 
and Jane scurried out from under Sekhmet's 
legs to catch it.

Or tried to.  Sekhmet twisted like an adder 
on the ground and grabbed Jane between 
scissoring legs.  Jane screamed defiance as 
Buffy stomped on Sekhmet's face.  She broke 
the vampire's nose, she thought, but it 
didn't make her let Jane go.  Now Sekhmet was 
distracted enough to go full vamp-face. That, 
with the broken nose was going to keep her 
from winning Miss World 1925.

Stake, cut and bake, she remembered, and 
darted to where a wooden torch still 
guttered, not yet doused by the occult 
weather.  Sekhmet was swiping at Jane, still 
pinioned between her legs, her caresses 
raising lines of blood on Jane's face and 
shoulders.  Buffy grabbed the torch and 
slammed the bottom end into Sekhmet's heart 
with all her might.  She looked like a 
birthday cupcake with one candle.

Sekhmet merely blinked up at her and pulled 
it out.  The fire singed her moon white hand 
and she dropped it onto the sand, where it 
rolled away.  Then she relaxed her legs just 
enough to pull Jane across her torso, within 
biting range.  Jane's eyes rolled in her face 
like a frightened cartoon character.

Sekhmet had pulled the stake from her heart 
like Buffy would pluck a stray eyebrow hair, 
as if it were a simple matter of staying 
fashionable.

The disk, Buffy remembered.  She saw it, half 
buried in sand, and quickly scooped it up.  
Holding it in front of her like a cross, she 
advanced on the Jane-Sekhmet sandwich.  
Sekhmet raised her mouth from Jane's neck and 
snarled.

"Force her back into the inner sanctum!" 
Isobel screamed from somewhere behind.

Buffy hoped the inner sanctum was the dark 
place between the two gold-leafed pillars, 
and waggled the disk of Aten as threateningly 
as she could, forcing Sekhmet back step by 
step.  Jane was struggling, kicking and 
thrashing, but Sekhmet's arm around her waist 
was immovable.  Buffy saw the red rivulets 
running down Jane's throat.  If Sekhmet 
drained her before the Watchers could seal up 
the sanctum, they were all doomed.  With cold 
clarity, she realized that it would be best 
to shoot Jane now, to deny Sekhmet her kill.  
But she didn't have a gun; all she had was a 
fancy plate.

Ten steps away from the sanctum now.  Jane 
was looking beyond Buffy.  "Let me go!" she 
yelled and Buffy thought she was not talking 
to Sekhmet.

Buffy hurried her pace.  The blood was making 
the stone floor slippery, and she wished 
again she'd had time to get better shoes.  
"Prepare the spells!" Isobel's voice cut 
through her brain.  Sekhmet had stopped her 
snacking now, and she almost seemed mad 
enough to drop Jane and come after Buffy.  
But the disk of Aten had begun to glow in 
Buffy's hand, throwing off warm, yellow light 
-- magical sunlight, Buffy thought -- annd 
Sekhmet could do nothing but cringe away and 
pull Jane's body up to shield herself from 
the worst of it.  Where the light hit her 
face, Sekhmet's milky skin darkened and 
smoked but did not burst into good old-
fashioned flame.  This godhood stuff was a 
total drag.

Now Sekhmet was underneath the lintel.  The 
room behind was dark, but Buffy could see 
carvings on the stone doorway.  A man with 
the head of a dog, what looked like scales 
like the ones at the supermarket, and other 
strange figures that seemed to squirm when 
Sekhmet came near.  The bloody rain had 
stopped, and the Watchers' chanting was 
louder.  Sekhmet looked beyond Buffy, and her 
yellowed eyes widened in her vamped face.  
She bent her head again to Jane, as if 
finally realizing that she was about to be 
defeated.  The ground underneath Buffy's feet 
began to shake, and she heard stone fall 
behind and around her.

Jane screamed again as Sekhmet sank her fangs 
into the fresh wound.  Buffy, still waving 
the disk of Aten like a pom-pom, knelt and 
scooped up a fallen chunk of rock.  It 
weighed at least twenty pounds, which would 
have to do.  She wound up, just as Giles had 
shown her, and pitched.

The stone smashed into Sekhmet's newly 
crooked nose, snapping her head back. Jane's 
neck, now shredded from the tracks of 
Sekhmet's fangs, was pouring blood down her 
proper white blouse, a new rain of blood.  
Sekhmet staggered back two steps, into the 
inner sanctum, still clutching Jane.  Jane's 
eyes were glassy but determined.

The doorway came down with a demolition 
crash, dust and sand and gravel spewing 
everywhere.  She could feel the rumble of the 
rocks and the chanting merging, that 
soundless hum of magic that always raised the 
hairs at the back of her neck.  Buffy risked 
a glance back at the Watchers and saw Isobel 
sagged against a wall, unseeing, her fingers 
clutching and releasing at the rough rock, 
fingertips already torn and bloody.  

It was time to be the Slayer since 
no one else was around to do the job anymore.

"You!" she shouted and pointed her entire arm 
at the Watchers who were clucking amongst 
themselves like nervous chickens, "Start with 
the binding spell thing."

Numbly, she looked on as the Watchers began 
their part of the evening's entertainment, 
casting spells to seal the sanctum extra-tight 

and prevent any exploring humans from 

noticing its existence.  They were all bloody, 

white eyes staring out of their faces like bones 

poking out of meat.  Blood soaked through 

their beige clothes and it seemed that a few 

were weeping through the blood on their faces, 

leaving clean tracks that gave her a painful 

pang of sympathy in the pit of her stomach.  

Isobel was still clinging to the wall, staring at 

the pile of stones that would encase Jane and 
Sekhmet for the next half-century.

Serious Moonlight 24/26


Buffy knelt by Spike.  He was still 
breathing, though it didn't sound quite 
right.  "Spike?"  She'd heard somewhere that 
pinching someone's ear could wake them up 
really easily, so she tried it.

"Ahhhh...." he groaned and blinked up at her.  
"Slayer!"  He smiled, which disconcerted her 
no end.  "We did it, right?  We won."

"What do you mean we," she said softly.  "How 
bad did she hurt you?"

"'So, 't is not so deep as a well, nor so 
wide as a church-door; but 't is enough, 't 
will serve,'" he said and raised a hand to 
dab ineffectually at the blood flowing from 
his neck.

"Did you swallow her blood?" she asked.

"Matter of fact I did."  Spike made a face 
before turning his face to the side and 
sticking his finger down his throat like a 
frat boy making room for more beer.

The blood stained the sand and was absorbed 
in an instant.  Spike coughed a couple of 
times, spit out more blood, wiped his mouth 
on the back of his hand and turned back to 
her. Buffy's face wrinkled as though she had 
been chewing on a lemon.

"You will so understand that I won't be 
kissing you for like weeks now."

Through the bruised wreckage of his face, he 
smirked at her.

"As if you could last that long."

"Jane!"  Isobel's cry of anguish should have 
been enough to split the rock into sand.

The Watcher had come out of her trance and 
terror twisted her face and body as she ran 
at the collapsed entrance, scrabbling at 
rocks, tossing them out of her way as if she 
could dig into the tomb.  

The disk of Aten rolled across the stone 
floor. Albert reached to pick it up, but 
Isobel's keening cry froze him in mid-
movement.

"It wasn't supposed to end this way.  I knew 
what I was doing!"

Buffy, still panting, hurried over and 
grabbed her wrists.  "Isobel, you have to 
stop!"

"I killed her," Isobel insisted.  "She wasn't 
ready, she never should have been a Slayer... 
she just wanted it so badly.  And now I've 
killed her." The tears running down her dirty 
face made her look nearly as young as Jane 
had been.

"Isobel," Buffy paused, "she *was* the 
Slayer.  Ready or not, you never get a 
choice."  She pulled Isobel close, the 
woman's hands beating feebly at Buffy's 
chest.  "I'm so sorry," she said, as Isobel 
wept into her neck, wept as if the world were 
ending instead of just having been saved. 

Somewhere behind them, Spike was speaking in 
a voice that didn't quite sound familiar.  He 
sounded like one of the tapes high school 
English teachers played of fancy actors 
reciting Shakespeare.

"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look 
on my works, ye mighty, and despair!  Nothing 
beside remains: round the decay of that 
colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone 
and level sands stretch far away.'"

****

Albert was out assembling the necessary 
materials for the return spell.  Isobel had 
yet to emerge from her tent, and none of the 
Watchers were man enough to see how she was 
doing.  Inside what had been Jane's tent, 
Buffy was watching Spike sleep and trying to 
clean up.  It didn't seem entirely necessary, 
and yet she couldn't imagine leaving the dead 
girl's clothes strewn around.

Spike's breath had slowly grown more labored 
throughout the night.  Occasionally he would 
cough, and sometimes there was blood.  The 
sun had risen outside and she had no idea 
what to do.

Human Spike was vulnerable.  But human Spike 
still had the vampire in his head.  She was 
disgusted by him, and, this was the scary 
part, she wanted him too.  She wanted the 
Spike who could stand at her back, but if she 
let him do that, he was going to want to do 
other things.  Cave-sex things, sex that was 
like fighting.  Would it make her dark too, 
or was it like a pressure valve?  Buffy had 
the bad feeling that only experience could 
tell.

With a particularly vicious cough, he woke.  

"How are you?" she asked, feeling stupid.

"'M dyin', Slayer," he said.  "Never thought 
it would be like this ...Not with a punctured 
lung, busted hand, an' low a quart of blood.  
All I ever wanted was a high body count and 

a glorious death.  Dyin' mortal, without even 

a good-lookin' corpse, ain't glorious."

"You are *not* dying!"  He made her so angry.  
She turned away and got him some water, then 
propped up the pillows so that he could 
drink.  He managed a few sips and then shook 
his head.

"You get to bring death on.  Don't believe it 
says in the rulebook that you can reverse the 
call."

"There are doctors, medicine ..."

"Not here an' not now.  You think I could be 
airlifted out, maybe?"  He took another 
shallow breath.  "Figured you'd kill me.  
Dyin' for you, that wasn't the plan.  How's 
that mopey bitch say it, innit ironic?"

"We're going to get out of here.  You'll be 
fine," she said and reached out to brush some 
stray, sticky hairs off his forehead.

"If I do die, do me th' courtesy of not 
forgettin'?  Right?"

Her throat felt as though Sekhmet had her 
hard hand around it.  She did not want to 
feel bad that Spike was hurt, possibly dying.  
For crying out loud, he was one of the 

things that she was supposed to slay.  He 

was a bad thing.  A Big Bad, not that he 

should know it.  Without really thinking, 

she leaned down and gave him a quick kiss 

on his red-stained lips.  She was kissing 

him and tasting his own, living blood, 

something that she wouldn't have done when 

he was a vampire.  Tired and hurt as he was, 

the kiss melted into something far sweeter 

than he had ever managed before.

"Buffy?"  They both looked at Albert, who let 
the tent flap fall down.  "We have some 
choices to make."

"No choices.  He's got to get back now."  
Buffy wiped her mouth with the back of her 

hand nervously and then had to wipe her hand 

on her dark pants.

"And become a vampire again?  Is that really 
what's best for him?  Is that right? Actually," 

Albert said, "I was thinking it would be useful 

if you stayed here.  With us.  With your 

knowledge of the future -"

"Wrong girl, mate," Spike cautioned.  "What 
Buffy knows about twentieth century history 
is prolly less than you know about high-
energy physics."

Buffy didn't like the fixed look on Albert's 
face.  Now that she thought about it, the 
bulge in his pocket was decidedly not a 
happy-to-see-her bulge.  Albert wouldn't 
shoot her, she thought, but she wasn't alone.  
Tracking her gaze, Spike's eye lit on the gun 
stuffed in Albert's pocket and he sucked in 
his cheeks with annoyance.  Somehow the 
effect wasn't as sinister with him prone and 
the white bandage stuck on his neck, but he 
did tense up, as though he could actually do 
something other than cough on the suddenly-
evil Watcher.

"I think you've got the wrong idea about me," 
Buffy said, using the calm tone she'd use to 
talk Dawn out of a snit.

Albert arched a blond brow.  "Do you mean to 
say that you led me on?"  Well, that tone 
never worked on Dawn either.

"If you think you can get my cooperation by 
keeping me here against my will --"  Her 
hands clenched on empty air.  Obviously 
Council treachery was not a recent 
development.  So much for the decline and 
fall theory of history Willow had been 
promoting.

"That's the horrid thing about a destiny, you 
have to fulfill it even if you don't like the 
company.  And I've got other methods of 
persuasion.  I could get a healer here for 
*him*," he pointed at Spike, "in a matter of 
minutes.  You could live out your human 
lives, both of you.  Or," now the gun made 
its appearance, "I could shoot him." 

"Uh huh, Watchers good, vampires evil.  Shove 
it up your ass," Spike said with pure 
bitterness.  "An' you were actin' like you 
was my mate."

"You're never mates with the Council, right, 
Albert?" she said hollowly.  "Your interests 
intersect, and then they diverge."

"Well said, Buffy," Albert inclined his head 
to her.  "I believe Spike doesn't give you 
nearly enough credit for intelligence."

"No, but she is really flexible," Spike said 
and coughed, his mouth fresh bright red as if 
he were still a vamp.

"Albert!"

Everyone pivoted to Isobel, like satellite 
dishes swerving to catch a new signal.  Buffy 
took the opportunity to sidle closer to 
Albert, blocking his line of fire to Spike 
and putting her within neck-snapping range.

Isobel stood in the early morning sunlight 
spilling through the open tentflap.  Her eyes 
were holes in her strained white face, and 
she'd missed a button on her blouse.  Anguish 
steamed off of her.

"Put the gun down, Albert."

"What do you want, Isobel?" Albert asked 
patiently, as if to a small child.

"To fulfill our bargain and send these 
adventurers home," she said.  Her eyes glowed 
like a cat's in the light spilling in from 
outside.

"Your bargain," Albert said, tossing his 
head.  Suddenly, Isobel's rigid devotion to 
duty seemed like a better idea than Albert's 
panache.

"You never understood a thing," she said, and 
turned to face the others.  "Buffy, if you 
would be so kind?"

Buffy closed the distance and drove her fist 
into Albert's stomach and her knee into his 
groin.  He accordioned like a paper straw.  
She caught the gun in midair and turned it on 
the crumpled Watcher/archaeologist.

"Go ahead, make my day," Buffy warned.

"That was more satisfying than is quite 
proper," Isobel said, and her face softened 
for a second.

"My pleasure entirely," Buffy told her.

"Ah," Spike complained, "You should kill 'im.  
Treacherous weasel like him, they just breed 
an' make more."

Buffy looked at him, sighed, and picked him 
up in her arms like a combination of a baby 
and a heavy carpet.  Spike snarled up at her.  
"You tell anyone about this," he warned.

"No worries."

Isobel led them to a circle of black stones 
in the sand.  Outside the circle, four 
equidistant braziers were smoking and 
emitting a smell like that of the rowdier 
fraternities back at school.

Spike curled up inside the circle, a human 
comma wrapped in a leather duster.  Buffy 
stopped and looked again at Isobel.  She felt 
as if she were jumping on a lifeboat, leaving 
the Watcher to drown.

Isobel pressed a sheaf of papers into her 
hand.  "Think about this," she whispered.  
Frowning, Buffy stuffed the papers into a 
pocket and backed into the circle.

Isobel began an eerie, wordless chant.  Buffy 
saw men emerging from tents, English and Arab 
alike, staring at the spectacle.  At some 
point, her chant began to include words, 
though they didn't sound like any language 
Buffy had ever heard.  The sound made her 
think of a sunset when summer was dying.

As the sand rose mist-like around the circle, 
she knelt and looked at Spike.  He was 
staring at Isobel, and he looked very young.  
His face was open, tender even, and she 
realized that he pitied Isobel, left alone 
with her duty and the smug men of the 
Council.

"You're not really part of them-" he said, 
and grabbed at her hand. 

For a heartbreaking moment she realized that 
was the last time that they were ever going 
to touch living flesh to living flesh.

And then the whirlwind swept them up.  The 
last thing she saw in Egypt was a red-faced 
Albert, advancing on Isobel.  Isobel ignored 
him and looked into the spell she had 
created,  her beige skirt whipping around her 
legs and her eyes like a whirlpool down into 
nothing.

Serious Moonlight 25/26

The first thing he was aware of was feeling 
different.  His body itched with healing 
magic.  He was cold-cast steel, hard as iron, 
tough as leather, and he could hear the mice 
conspiring in the grass nearby.  He was back, 
big and bad and larger than life.  The 
bloodlust turned in his veins, and his teeth 
were sharp as razors.  He stood up, felt the 
leather of his coat swirl around him like a 
sandstorm, and howled with pleasure at it.

Alongside him, Buffy groaned and wobbled.  He 
caught her arm and held her upright. Once 
again, the spell had disoriented her more 
that it had Spike himself, which gave him a 
jolt of superiority that he hadn't had in 
days.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Hate hate hate time travel," Buffy muttered 
and shook her head.

Movement in the corner of the room sent a 
cold chill down his nicely dead spine.

The second mummy, the one embraced by 
Sekhmet, was starting to stir.  Where he had 
seen nothing but beef-jerky flesh and time-
yellowed teeth, he could now make out 
features, and his imagination filled in the 
rest of the details

"Jane?" he asked.

He didn't expect the mummy to twist and shake 
in response.  The blood from Talbot's 
abandoned jug stained the white sand, but as 
he watched the blood began to seep out of the 
sand, like a reverse-time effect in a cheap 
movie.  The liquid was pulling in on itself, 
a shrinking target underneath Jane's dried-up 
husk.  The crumpled flesh began to smooth out 
as muscle plumped on long-dry bone, and the 
body writhed in apparent agony as the long-
dead Slayer began to rise.

Spike could only gawp.

Jane's lustrous black hair had reappeared, 
along with her milky-white skin.  And a face 
full of fangs to rival Drusilla.  

"Oh shit," he groaned.

"I thought you said a Slayer couldn't be 
turned!" Buffy complained.  

"I guess there's an exception in the rulebook 
for *gods*!" he snapped.
 
"Ssspike," she hissed, and he could see the 
girl still within her, trapped and horrified; 
the soul-magic hadn't quite worked on her 
Slayer's soul, but the demon was in full 
control.  "Darling ..."

"No means no," he reminded her.

She easily dodged his first blows, and kicked 
out, sending him windmilling across the room 
to lie on the remains of one of the earlier 
mummies.  Jane and Buffy dodged one another 
in the crowded living roon, Buffy almost en 

pointe as she skipped past Jane's clawed hands.  

Spike scuttled into the dining room, where he 
eviscerated a chair.  He returned to the fray, 

brandishing the chair back, with its four 

spindles sticking out like a handleless pitchfork.  

Jane was beating Buffy like a redheaded 

stepchild, demon cunning giving her the edge 

she'd lacked in life.  Buffy had been forced 

back against the wall, unable to retreat further.  

Jane's back was to him as she raised her hand 

for another stunning blow.

Spike shoved the jagged wood deep into her 

back.  Jane jerked like a line-caught fish.  Her 

arms flailed about, trying to get off, but Spike 

kept pushing forward.

"You missed the heart," Buffy accused, 
panting.

Spike was still pushing the Jane-vamp around 
the room, feeling a bit as if he'd got a cat 
on a leash.  "Don't think so," he said, and 
kicked her knees out so that she stopped 
trying to escape and tumbled to the floor.  
If the chair back was made of tough wood, 
he'd have tried to pin her to the ground, but 
it was already splintering and he couldn't 
risk losing his advantage.  With the floor to 
brace against, the vamp was almost able to 
rise, but he had her for another minute.

"Stake, decapitate, bake. There's a dagger 
over there on the floor."  He didn't mention 
that he planned to pawn it at the end of the 
adventure; in the meantime it could get him 
to the pawnshop with his undeath intact.

"I thought we only needed to do this to 
Sekhmet," Buffy grumbled as she knelt by the 
scrabbling vampire and raised the dagger over 
her head.

"You've got a better idea, I suggest you 
speak up quick," he said and she brought the 
dagger down, using it like a short sword.  
Jane's head separated from her body with a 
meaty, squishy sound.  Blackened blood dotted 
the cut but didn't gush out as the head 
rolled a few feet away and stopped, staring 
at them.  Jane's eyes were still green, still 
thickly lashed.  The head snapped at Buffy, 
trying to get a bite, while the body's hands 
clawed at Spike.

"If the flambe part doesn't work we may have 
a real problem."

"Yeah, well, I got a lighter in my pocket.  I 
suggest we give it the old college try."

Buffy waited.

"I can't get it out m'self, love.  This is 
somethin' of a two-handed business."  Indeed, 
headlessness had not slowed the vamp's body 
down much, if at all.  Her arms were as 
flexible as snakes, reaching through his 
clothes to hurt whatever she could.  One of 
the chair's spindles disintegrated, leaving 
only three thin pieces of wood to hold her 
down.

"Front jacket pocket," he said to Buffy's 
suspicious glare.  She retrieved it and 
flicked the wheel just as Jane managed to get 
her arm firmly wrapped around Spike's elbow.  
She pulled and flipped Spike over, onto his 
back.  Only Buffy's foot on the shaking chair 
back kept Jane in place.  Jane's claws felt 
like they were branded into his skin.  If she 
caught fire, he'd catch fire as well.  Vamps 
burned like magnesium flares.

Buffy looked down at him, at the place where 
his arm was joined to Jane's.

Shrugging, Buffy dropped the lighter onto 
Jane's neck, where decapitation had exposed 
the moon-white fineness of her skin.  The 
head screamed as the headless body convulsed 
with fire.  Runnels of flame darted down her 
back, her legs, her arms.  

The fire leapt at him, hungry for its long-
denied feast, and he struggled.  He could 
feel the heat through his duster, could smell 
the leather as it began to carbonize.  
Through the flames from Jane's body he could 
see the malicious grin of her head, watching 
his demise.

Then Buffy put her boot down on Jane's 
disintegrating arm, and he rolled free, 
crushing the flames against Talbot's ugly 
carpet.  In his peripheral vision he saw 
Buffy kick Jane's head into the bonfire of 
her body, where it flared like a new coal.  
Vamps usually burned hot and fast, not unlike 
the victims of spontaneous human combustion, 
but Jane's unusual lineage seemed to include 
some flame-retardant.

Some, but not enough.  As they watched, her 
flailing ceased, and her limbs finally turned 
to crackling ash and exploded apart.  

Buffy kicked sand onto the remaining embers, 
and Spike began to look around for additional 
loot.

"Spike?"  Buffy's voice was stretched tight 
as her favorite spandex pants.

He smiled, full of fangs, and was miffed when 
a stake materialized in her hand.  "What, 
Slayer, now I'm annoyin' you more'n usual?"

She gripped the stake more tightly.  "You 
were human on the other end.  How do I know 
there's still a human soul in there?"

"I don't suppose my word of honor would do?"

Never a patient girl, Buffy was unable to 
tolerate such smart-mouthing.  She lunged 
toward him, but this time he could see her 
move, honey-slow compared to how she'd seemed 
with his human perceptions.  He brought his 
arm up to block the stake, then spun and 
landed a kick on the hard muscle of her thigh 
that sent her into the wall, near the 
collapsed husk of a mummy.

Even without years of intense Buffy-watching, 
he could tell she was off her game.  Now 
would be a propitious time to finish his 
Slayer trilogy.  Or quartet, if you counted 
Jane.

The right time, the wrong Spike.  He 
unfangfaced and threw himself at her, careful 
to avoid the stake as he thudded atop her.  

"See?" he said, not panting with effort, as 
he wrenched her arms over her head.  "No 
problem fightin'.  Chip's not workin', ergo 
soul is percolatin' along nicely, right?"

She blinked up at him.  As usual, her eyes 
were beautiful.  Something inside him rolled 
over and gave up.

"Buffy?  You need some help?"  Xander's voice 
was braver than the boy himself since he and 
Anya were peeking around the wreckage of what 
had been Talbot's front door.

"I'm okay," she said in a small voice.  

Spike flexed his hips against her, just 
because he could, and her mouth opened and 
closed, making about as much sense as her 
words usually did.  Then she kneed him in the 
stomach and he rolled off, staring at the 
torn-up ceiling and grinning until he rose to 
join the night.  He pushed past Xander and 
Anya on the front step.

He stopped on the threshold and looked over 
his shoulder at Buffy.

"By the way, thanks for everythin'," he said 
in his best snotty and mysterious voice.

Knowing that Buffy would understand, and 
Xander and Anya would be perishing with 
curiosity, he made a dramatic exit, giving 
his duster a flick for maximum billowing. He 
could feel their stares pinned to his back.

The moon outside was further away than it had 
been in Egypt.  Spike settled his duster more 
attractively around his shoulders and 
smoothed his hair back into place.  It was 
good to be undead.
 

Serious Moonlight 26/26

"'Ancient mummies stolen from University 
Museum, Sorority prank suspected,'" Willow 
read from the Sunnydale Weekly. "'Doctor 
Peter Talbot unable to be reached for 
comment.' At least they didn't genderize and 
assume it was a fraternity prank."

"I kinda gave them the sorority idea," Buffy 
admitted, twisting her face.

"Well go Girl Power!  Not that I would want 
anybody to blame the innocent, but it would 
be nice if Delta Delta Delta was called in 
for questioning.  They're such snobs.... So how 
was Egypt?" Willow asked, and Buffy knew 
she'd kept the question in for as long as she 
humanly could.

"Egyptian.  Dusty, sandy and hot.  Kind of 
primitive.  I couldn't find anything decent to 

use on my hair and I don't even want to talk 

about how complicated the underwear was.  

No TV either.  I'm just glad to be back with 

pantyhose and MTV."

"So much for the grass being greener."

"There was no grass."

"Right.  But was there sex?  Unchaperoned 
time with His Spikiness . . . And it was days 
- and nights, even though Anya and Xandeer say 
you were only in there an hour."

"I don't think I should answer that."

"Which would be a big old 'yes.'"

They were in Buffy's room, with the stereo 
playing a little too loudly to block their 
conversation from prying Dawn ears.  Buffy 
was rummaging through her closet looking for 
something to wear to the Magic Shop that 
night, and Willow was looking through Buffy's 
jewelry to see if there was something that 
she wanted to borrow.  It was supposed to be 
a "Hey Giles is back and Buffy didn't get 
killed in Egypt" get-together and no one had 
invited Spike.  Standing in her underwear, 
Buffy considered a black dress, deemed it too 
sexy, and then shoved it back in the closet.

Picking up a necklace that was silver with 
little green stones, Willow held it up to the 
light.  "That would go really well with your 
blouse," Buffy advised.

"Was there sex in Egypt?" Willow repeated.

All Buffy could do was chew her lip and try 
to concentrate on her wardrobe.  But she 
could hear Willow waiting like a bus idling 
its diesel engine at the curb.

"You know, human Spike, strange country, all 
that sand and heat.  Kind of feels like the 
ol' Harlequin Moonlight Love collection."

"Human Spike is not unappealing."

"And sex with Human Spike is not un-fun."

"It was - intense.  Sex with Angel was 
romantic. Sex with Riley was fun," Buffy 
thought for a moment while Willow waited with 
her mouth hanging limply open.  "This is - 
intense.  I mean, not just the body thing, 
but the mind thing as well."

Gritting her teeth with frustration, Buffy 
balled up the sweater she was holding and 
tossed it into the closet with enough force 
to send hangers clattering to the pile of 
shoes underneath.

"I'm all scraped afterwards, I mean like in 
my head. You know?  And I don't like what I 
think and feel during and after,"  she 
hurried on before her mouth could run out of 
nerve. "It's just so icky and dirty and 
nasty. And he's a vampire, and he's Spike!" 

"You're worrying me here. Is he making you - 
you know, do stuff that you don't want to?" 
Willow asked in a soft voice.

"No, more like, he's making me want to do 
stuff I never thought I wanted."

"There's nothing wrong with that! That 
happens in relationships.  You learn about 
yourself and your partner.... But of course 
you're not having a relationship with Spike."

"Some things aren't right to want.  They're 
too dangerous."

"So you're going to do what now?"

"I've narrowed my options down to binge 
eating or melting my credit card from 
overuse."

"That's healthy." Willow frowned.  "Why don't 
you just suck it up and *have* a relationship 
with him?  Sorry, bad word choice there.  I'm 
sure everybody would forgive you."  She 
paused.  "Eventually.  It's  got to be better 
than sneaking around and feeling guilty. I 
know I felt a lot better when I admitted that 
I loved Tara - in that way."

"Are you telling me to come out?"

Willow blushed.  "Can we just rewind over 
that last part and tape over?"  She took a 
deep breath.  "Are you in love with him now?  
Does he love you?"

Buffy's head was an empty room.

"I don't know," was all she could say, but 
she reached for the black dress anyway.

****

Xander didn't know Buffy could hear him as he 
whispered to Anya near the shop entrance; the 
acoustics of the place were just as strange 
as its magical contents.  

"I have to say I'm not too upset that there's 
no new guy around here to hate.  Seems 
like any time I despise a guy with total gut-
wrenching intensity, that's who Buffy falls 
for."  He took another swig of beer as the 
door opened.  "Hey, Dead Boy, this is a party 
not a massacre, and you're not invited."

Spike stepped in anyway, the shop being a 
public place, and shoved a six-pack of 
imported beer into Xander's stomach.  

"I was gonna crash the cool kids' party but 
instead you got lucky."

"Remind me to throw out my lucky rabbit's 
foot."

"Wasn't lucky for the rabbit now, was it?"

Anya turned to Buffy and gave her a 
Significant Look.  She shuddered to think 
what Anya would say if she became confident 
enough in her suspicions.  Actually, Anya was 
likely to be nicer than anyone else about the 
whole mess.  Anya did understand the 
complications of dating outside your species.

"So," Giles began looking around the little 
group in the Magic Shop, "what exactly 
happened while I was away?"

"The visiting lecturer re-animated the avatar 
of an Ancient Egyptian goddess," Willow 
offered.

"And I went back in time and prevented her 
from destroying the world," Buffy added, 
wanting to get credit for being able to 
handle herself while he was away.

"With Spike and they killed a Slayer," Anya 
piped up.

Slowly, carefully, everyone else looked from 
Anya to Buffy and then back to Anya.  Anya 
frowned.  Xander turned his expression of 
horror from Anya to Buffy.

"Buff?" he asked.

"She had been turned into a vampire, so it 
wasn't - like - bad, you know?" she frowned 
at Anya.  "Justifiable Slayage."

"Actually," Giles said and cleared his 
throat, "I was referring to the bill from the 
electronic alarm company."

Now it was Anya's turn on the hot seat.

"Three hundred dollars a visit? That's 
highway robbery. We shouldn't pay them.  We 
should set a spell on them so they all get 
genital warts."

"Where's the boom box, I just got the coolest 
new CD," Willow jabbered and the tension 
relaxed like a deflating balloon.

The CD was fairly cool, but Buffy only had a 
tiny part of her attention on the music.  Most 
of her was conducting Spike Surveillance.  
Spike hung back, watching the festivities and 
sipping occasionally at his beer.  Even when 
she had her back to him, she could feel his 
eyes on her.  But he was never looking when 
she glanced his way.  This was like being 
back in junior high again, Salem's Lot junior 
high.  At least Spike wasn't trying to pull 
her pigtails. 

"Giles, can you find out what happened to a 
Watcher for me?" Buffy asked.

"Your friend from Egypt?"

"Yeah, Albert.  Albert---" she looked over to 
Spike.  "What was Albert's last name?"

He had been paying attention, because he 
responded immediately.  "MacGuffin. I think 
it's Scots for 'fuckface'."

Giles disappeared into the back.  Spike came 
and sat beside her.  "Hullo, Slayer, long 
time no hit."

"That can be fixed," she snipped and stared 

into her ginger ale, since no way was she 

drinking around the friends who'd witnessed 

the beer debacle, and the snake-god-fraternity 
sacrifice before that.  She missed the gin and 

tonic of Egypt, a little bit.

"MacGuffin, comma Albert.  Born 1899, died 
1936," Giles came back, looking down at the 
list in one of his many heavy-duty 
Watcherbooks.  "Was the Watcher for Kathryn 
Eikenbourg.  She was killed in 1930 by a 
Fromogian Demon in Switzerland, apparently. 
Looks as though he was head of the Watchers 
Council from 1931 to 1936."

"Wow," Buffy breathed.  "He did get to be an 
old man."

"Old man?" Giles demanded.  "Not only is your 
perspective wrong, your calculations are as 
well. He was thirty-seven.  That's hardly 
old." Giles scanned down the page.  "Oh, and 
he was killed in Berlin by a vampire."

Buffy sensed what was coming from the look of 
Dire Truth in Giles' eyes as he looked over 
at Spike.

"Apparently by you."

"Really?" Spike pulled the look of surprise 
off his face and replaced it with smug self-
satisfaction.  "Am I good or what?" 

It was such classic asshole Spike that 
Buffy's fists itched to hit him.

Giles managed to look more sour than usual.

"I suspect you don't even remember."

"One way or another, he didn't do us a good 
turn in Egypt," Spike finally said.  "If he'd 
'ad is way, Buffy would still be awaitin' the 
invention of the blow dryer. An' with his 
charmin' sense of loyalty I wouldn't be 
surprised if he had somethin' to do with the 
fuckin' Schutzstaffel-Totenkopfverbande."

She noticed that Spike didn't mention that 
Albert had been perfectly willing to threaten 
him to get her to comply.  Of course that 
would involve revealing that Buffy would do 
something other than applaud if he were hurt.

"Well, that's convenient," she said.  "But 
it's in the past with the rest of it."  She 
was thinking about the file on Spike that had 
disappeared because Isobel sent it into 2001, 
where Buffy had no idea what to do with it.  
It was in the past, but it was right there 
with her, too, the Spike dossier that she had 
hidden between the mattress and box spring of 
her bed, the one that she hadn't wanted to 
ever read again.

"And Isobel Throckmorton?" Spike asked.  
Buffy started; she hadn't thought to ask 
about Isobel.

Giles flipped through the book.  "There's no 
mention of her here," he said.

"They wrote her out, the bastards," Spike 
said, wistful and angry.  "They covered it 
all up, and it's like she never existed.  You 
put her back in, right?  She's in Buffy's 
Chronicle now and they won't get rid of her 
this time."

"I hesitate to speculate on her fate," Giles 
said in a mildly sad tone.  "When a Watcher 
loses a Slayer, it tends to have an ill 
effect on the mental health."

"Yeah, and the Council's ever so 
understandin' about the mental health of the 
little girls they use."

Giles was staring at Spike as if he'd grown a 
second head (or another soul).  Spike snorted 
and looked away.  Buffy concentrated on her 
drink.  Maybe if she stared at the bubbles 
long enough, they'd give her some answers.

Finally she heard Spike get up and leave.  
Giles was observing her like a scientist with 
a microscope, so she smiled and raised her 
glass.  "To safe returns from foreign 
places," she said, and he smiled back 
tentatively.

"Exactly," he agreed and drank.

The wise eyes considered her from behind his 
glasses and she flashed back to Spike with 
his crooked glasses naked and grinning up at 
her in the tent in Egypt.  The falling 
sensation filled her stomach again and she 
had to gulp at her soda to quell it.

"Buffy," Giles began in his best Dad-
substitute voice, "I don't mean to pry, but 
there does seem to be something troubling 
you."

"I can't ... I can't tell you yet.  I'll tell 
you - soon.  When it's over."

"Buffy -"  

She rose, aware that "soon" and "when it's 
over" were not necessarily synonyms.  She 
couldn't hide forever.  She needed to make a 
choice.

****

Buffy found him outside.  He was standing in 
the alleyway, hair plastered flatter than 
usual from the rare southern California rain.

"What do you want from me?" she demanded.

The rain ran into her eyes.

"The usual.  Nothin' and everythin'."

"Don't do this to me," she choked.  "I don't 
like this. I don't like the Tower of Terror 
feeling. It's not right.  You know it, I know 
it. God, I know it!"

"I'm gonna impart a few decades o'wisdom 
here, Slayer," he said and for a change he 
wasn't smirking.  "Fate has its own plans for 
you.  Kick and scream all you like, in the 
end you're stuck, just as you're stuck bein' 
the Slayer."

"You're not my fate," she said sullenly, 
crossing her arms over her chest.

"Maybe not," he said, and pushed her up 
against the damp brick wall.  She could feel 
the rough edges digging into her back.  "But 
I paid the price of admission an'  I got to 
ride the Tower of Terror as long as I can."  
His mouth tasted of beer and cigarettes and 
her whole body trembled beneath him, advising 
fight or flight.  They were thigh to thigh in 
the rain, and his skin was refreshingly cool 
and vampire under her hands.  

He was staring at her face as though he were 
reading subtitles.

"You know I could, I mean, any man would-" he 
pulled up short, a man caught in a hangman's 
noose.

Spike took a deep, not-needed breath.

"Come home with me, Slayer," he whispered in 
her ear as her untrustworthy hands stroked 
his leather lapels.

"You don't have a home," she corrected him.  
"You lurk in a mausoleum."

"Mausoleum above the ground, crypt below," 
his hands illustrated on her body, cupping a 
breast and slipping a hand underneath the 
minimal hem of her dress.  She caught her 
breath and hardly heard him finish.  "How 
many times do I have to tell you?"

She let him take her wrist and lead her out 
into the night.

**** 


Compulsive Academia:

Groveling to Jordan for mega-quick beta at a 
moment's notice. And who also announced that we 
"skipped more periods than an entire inner-city 
high school."

* All Egyptian curses and spells are highly 
modified forms of THE PAPYRUS OF ANI: THE 
EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD (240 BC) Translated 
by E.A. Wallis Budge

* Spike's French (most of which, sadly, was 
cut) came first from Babelfish and was then 
cleaned up by Liz~Queen of Lizonia 

*Except for what is fiction, the Egyptian 
lore comes courtesy of: 
Dr. Ken Matthews (ret.) Arcadia University 
D.L. Conrad 
The Complete Tutankhamun - Nicholas Reeves 
Egyptian Religion- E.A. Wallis Budge 
Tutankhamun: Life and Death of A Pharaoh - 
Christiane Desroches-Noblecroft
Discovering Tutankhamun's Tomb- Glubok
Treasures of Tutankhamun - I.E.S. Edwards
The Mummy's Tale - Ed: Dr. A.R. David & Dr. 
E. Trapp
Journals - Howard Carter
Ancient Egypt- Guardian's Egypt - 
www.guardians.net/Egypt
serious.txt

serious.txt

    Source: geocities.com/mustangsally78