AUTHOR: Rabid/Raeann
RATING: NC-17 overall, this part PG
PAIRING: B/S, S/Wes, B/T friendship
SPOILERS: To As You Were, S6 and Angel S3 - Couplet
BETA BABES: Zyrya and Caia
DISCLAIMERS: So Buffy came to me (in a dream) and she
was really upset about being half-baked.
I told her not to worry. It
wasn’t her fault. She was a victim of
circumstance. The circumstance being I
have nothing to say about how she is written on the show because I don’t own the
BtVS characters. They belong to Joss Whedon,
Mutant Enemy, Fox TV, the WB and UPN. So
what I am saying is Buffy is like Jessica Rabbit (with tiny boobs and no slinky
dress) she’s not bad she’s just drawn that way.
OUR STORY SO FAR: Spike is a woman and pregnant and
he (or she depending on your P.O.V.) left Sunnydale vowing never to
return. Riley you might remember acted
similarly…but oddly enough is back, even though nobody really wants him around
anymore. Buffy, in a fit of masculinity,
fathered Spike’s child. She plans to go
to
PART SEVEN
There was a bank of pay phones just outside the cemetery’s
south gate.
“Which goes to show I was right about WesCommCal all along,” Buffy told
She had suspected the telecommunications company was a front
for demonic activity ever since she’d perused her phone bill. During the detailed study she’d noticed they
were charging her ten dollars a month for something called a line inspection
fee. Like inspecting phone lines wasn’t
an essential part of phone companyage.
A light rain was falling as she exited the car and trotted
across the dirt road to the row of WesCommCal red and gold phones. Up close
they weren’t so much red and gold as bruised and battered. Buffy turned the collar of Spike’s coat up
around her throat and surveyed the damage to the five smashed, graffiti painted
kiosks. Not one of the phones had a
functional coin box. Would her line
inspection fees be so high, Buffy wondered, if the damned
vampires could be trained to use 1-800-Collect?
She composed a mental letter to the editor of the Sunnydale Gazette
suggesting funeral directors start burying people with a roll of quarters. It was almost a given you would need change
in the afterlife.
The first receiver she gingerly plucked from its cradle had
a severed cord. She tossed the useless
handset over her shoulder and moved to the next phone in line. Pushing up the
duster’s sleeves, she made her way from kiosk to kiosk until, in the last one,
she got a dial tone. She asked the operator to place her call after noticing
the number pad had a few dead keys. Her
coins rattled through the machinery as she listened to the ringing on the
line. The burring sound tickled her ear
four times and then the receiver clicked.
Buffy started talking before anyone spoke on the other end
of the line. “Xander, I…”
Xander’s sleepy baritone “Hello?” didn’t slow Buffy’s
forward momentum.
“It’s me,” she announced and then went on, taking no more time
for pleasantries, “I need…”
“You have reached the answering machine of Xander Harris,”
the disembodied Xander continued after what was supposed to be a humorous
pause.
“And his fiancée, Anya Jenkins,” Anya stage whispered in the
background of the message.
“And his fiancée, Anya Jenkins,” mechanized Xander repeated
dutifully. “Could be we aren’t home but my guess is it’s just really, really
late. Is the sun down? Are the streets
deserted? Are normal people with normal
jobs sleeping the sleep of the normal?”
“Or having sex?” Anya put in.
“Ask yourself if you really know what time it is and then…if
you really care at all…please leave your name, number
and the nature of your world-ending crisis after the beep.”
“Very funny with the coup de quippage,” Buffy said as soon
as the machine cued her, “So, there’s a demon on his way to your house and a
bunch of eggs that could wipe out life as we know it but if you two are busy
having sex then I guess we’ll just let the world end. Tara and I are going to L.A….big problem
there. Clem will fill you in on the details re: eggs. Stop that truck, Xander, and don’t tell Will.
No
Message delivered, Buffy rang off and replaced the receiver
in its hook. Her two quarters clattered
into the change slot and she scooped them up, happy with whichever enterprising
vamp had doctored the coin return. He was her kind of night-crawling fiend. Tossing
the quarters jauntily she caught them with one hand as she headed back to the
car. She hadn’t taken two steps before
she stopped, thinking about Dawn, left out of the loop again. Before Buffy took off for
On her way back to the working phone she noticed a block of
graffiti to the right of the receiver.
Something familiar in the writing arrested her gaze. Earlier, the jagged script had been facing her and her mind hadn’t processed it as words but now as she glanced casually at the seemingly random scratches they shifted, forming into a name, her name. Someone had used a knife blade to etch her
name repeatedly into the bright red paint, exposing blue metal underneath.
BUFFYBUFFYBUFFY
BUFFY SUMMERS
Buffy the bitch Summers
Buffy soddin’ Summers can take it
and the horse it rode in on up her tight little arse for all I care…BUFFY slag
shag SUMMERS
Buffy Anne Summers
Buffy Summers-Winslow
Winslow? His name is William Winslow?
Grinning at the alliteration and Spike’s use of the socially
progressive hyphen, Buffy traced the tip of her finger over the last entry. It warmed her heart and caused her to reflect
briefly on Spike’s sweet streak. Just
when she had every intention of dusting him he would do something
uncharacteristically endearing, ice the back of her neck or croon
giggle-inducing love songs into her navel.
His charm pleased her; he pleased her in so many ways.
Tingling from remembered pleasure, Buffy let her eyes trail
over the rest of the graffiti, looking for her name. When she found another reference in the
scrawling script her indulgent smile melted away, leaving behind a hostile
grimace. The rat bastard had been
keeping score. There, before her
unbelieving eyes, was a record of the times and an account of the ways she
could “take it” etched into the paint of a public phone bank.
It was a humiliatingly prodigious accounting and Buffy’s
mind went straight to vengeance even as she used the tip of a stake augmented
by her Slayer strength to obliterate the documentation of her sins. To think that every newly risen vamp had this
catalog to entertain them. No wonder she was losing the respect due her
calling; Spike was playing her for a fool.
Sweeping her hurt under a rug of justifiable anger, Buffy stomped back
to the car. He’d sweet-talked her into looking the other way while he stole
Fine. Let
him. They can marry for all I care. Wesley and William
Winslow-Wyndam-Pryce. But
they aren’t going to raise my baby at La Cage Aux Fools.
Buffy was too livid to
notice Tara's distress. Leather flapped furiously as she rid herself of Spike’s
duster. Using overly dramatic gestures,
she yanked the sleeves from her shoulders, her haste spilling the coat onto the
wet ground. Spitting out an oath she bent
to retrieve the garment. It came up
covered in oily grit. Showing no respect for the leather, she wadded the damp duster
into a compact ball and hurled it into the back seat. A stream of muttering accompanied this flurry
of activity but
“Let’s go,” Buffy said curtly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spike wasn’t waiting quietly. He argued his case for a good hour and a half.
But in the end Wesley remained unconvinced. “I’m sorry,” he said, gathering up his coat and keys. He shrugged into the former as he continued, “I
just can’t believe you.”
“But…I…”
Holding up a forestalling hand, Wes interrupted before Spike
could launch into another long-winded story, “Enough! You may or may not be on
the run from an international terrorist cartel.
The baby you are carrying may or may not be the Antichrist. But one thing is certain: The Slayer isn’t
the villain of this piece. I know Buffy.
I was her Watcher for a time. When
the Council fired Giles, I took over in Sunnydale. She has her faults, Lord knows she can’t
manage to put together a coherent sentence, but she is hardly a cold-blooded
child killer. Either you’re lying or there is more to this tale.”
Spike opened his mouth to deny the charge but a tiny spark
of loyalty kept him silent as his capricious mood took a nosedive into
despair. Defeat swept over him. He lowered his chin and Wes, after considering him for a moment, hooked a hand into his elbow to lever him to his feet.
“There’s more,” Spike mumbled eyes downcast. His shoulders
sagged so he wilted in Wes’ grasp like a fading lily.
This
wasn’t a winnable fight, Spike realized. Buffy had every advantage.
Not only was she expected, even duty bound, to kick his ass, people trusted her. Hell, even he believed in her. He was a
smooth-tongued prevaricator, and furious with the vicious bint besides, but he
still couldn’t paint her as a merciless fiend.
She was his ideal woman. Despite the manhandling she’d given his heart
and more functional body parts, Spike
knew she would never harm their child.
“Tell me,” Wes
urged, with sultry confidence. He used
his free hand to brush silken curls aside, clearing Spike’s vision. When Spike
peered at him owlishly, he cautioned, “But I want the truth this time.”
The truth, Spike growled mentally, grimacing as he cataloged
the obstacles to honesty. Oh, yes, I’m Buffy’s dirty little secret,
her blood sucking boy toy only not just at present you see because there was
this comical weevil. It was on the
tip of his tongue to quote Jack Nicholson on the subject of truth but he couldn't muster the sarcasm. Too much had
happened in the last three days. Like a
boxer facing a split decision in the final round, Spike was barely keeping his feet. He didn’t have enough fight
left in him to land another punch.
Taking stock, Spike wasn’t impressed with
his current situation. He was a woman, pregnant and alone, chained up in a dangerous stranger’s apartment. His true love had betrayed him but she wasn’t
about to let him move on without her.
She was coming to collect her straying pet. He had no more say in his future than a
debutante’s French poodle would have in picking out its diamond studded collar. Exhausted, he had just enough strength to
jerk free of Wes’ grasp and stumble to the sofa. Sinking
into the cushions, he wrapped his arms around his knees, curling into a
kittenish ball.
“I need something to eat,” he said wearily, “Blood.”
“Oh,” Wes said, taken aback.
Switching to his host role, he looked toward the kitchen. “I’m afraid I
don’t have any at the moment. I generally
keep a pint on hand for Angel but he drank the last one a few weeks ago, and
with Connor’s birth and…”
Spike cut into the prattle. “We could go,” he said resigned
to his fate.
“What, just like that? No more arguing?”
“Angel probably has a bottle of Chateau Babe in the pantry.”
“You won’t try to run away?”
“Run where?” Spike replied, giving his depressive train of
thought voice. “She’d hunt me down no matter where I went and collect what’s hers. Whether you believe me or not, I’m
pregnant. I can’t have this baby alone
and it may surprise you to learn the homes for unwed mothers don’t take in
vampires as a general rule.”
“If this hypothetical child of yours is…”
“Look, stop calling her hypothetical,” Spike said,
crossly. Handicapped by his shackles, he
pushed awkwardly up off the couch and tottered a few steps. His demeanor was confrontational
as he contended the insult and Wes braced for trouble. Spike’s petulant
expression softened, however, when he glanced down at his belly. He fondly considered it, absently stroking
tender fingers over the place he sensed his child to be growing, as he added, “You’ll
give her a complex.”
“Her?” Wes inquired, relaxing out of his fighting pose. “You
seem certain of the gender.”
Spike didn’t look up from his contemplation but he twitched
an apathetic shoulder. “Just a figure of speech. Can’t tell much at this
stage.”
“Which brings us to another question: How far along are
you?”
There was an occasional table on the far side of the
room. On the tabletop, next to a vase
full of red poppies, a mahogany and glass clock ticked like a metronome. Spike
glanced up, squinting at the clock’s oversized Roman numerals as he calculated
how long it had been since he’d left Sunnydale. It seemed like a lifetime.
“At the outside?” he mused, “Might be three days. But realistically, I’d say more like fifty,
maybe fifty-two, hours.”
“Hours?” Wes exclaimed and then
said it again for good measure, “Hours? But you can’t possibly…you
couldn’t even…” Wes tugged at his brown
hair with both hands, completely overcome. “You don’t expect me to believe that
you knew you were pregnant less than a week after conception?”
“Knew straight after it happened,” Spike said.
“That’s ridiculous. A fetus would take time to develop.”
Too late, Spike realized he was giving away details that would
lead to full disclosure of his embarrassing situation. Breaking eye contact with Wes, he covered his
lapse with sarcasm.
“What? You think I can’t feel this life growing inside
me? Let me tell you so you’ll know, being
something other than dead makes a bit of an impression.”
“The life is that apparent to you?” Wes asked. He stepped closer to Spike, rapt by this new
chapter in vampire physiology. He
thought of Darla and the changes in her personality. Connor’s soul had influenced
her, diluted her demonic impulses.
“You think all this,” Spike gestured broadly up and down his
torso, “Breathing? Pulse? Nausea?
Is normal for my kind?”
“But that’s extraordinary,” Wes said. Visions of academic
papers cementing his place in Watcher history danced through his head. Dazed as
a sleepwalker, he made his way to Spike’s side. “If what you say is true…”
“If it’s true?” Spike interrupted
angrily. He gaped, not sure he’d heard right, and then threw up his hands in
defeat. “You know what? Suit yourself. Don’t believe me. Can’t see it makes a bit of
difference.”
“I didn’t say I…” Wes stopped and started over. “You must
understand this is all so…remarkable. I
don’t know what to think.”
Spike’s resentment boiled over. He was sick of explaining, sick of arguing
against a foregone conclusion and most of all sick of dealing with Buffy’s
entourage of gits. If it wasn’t bloody
Xander making snide remarks or
“I need a vampire expert.
One who won’t try to off me. And you don’t exactly fit the bill. So why don’t you just put
on your service cap and deliver me to the little woman? Sooner you do the sooner you can go back to
your musty parchments and poncey prophecies.”
A notion struck Wesley and he voiced it, “Does Buffy know?”
he asked. “About your child?”
Bravado slinking off like a whipped pup, Spike dropped his
eyes to stare at the floor. “Yeah, she knows,” he mumbled. “That’s why she’s
coming, innit?”
“Is it?”
Rolling his head to the left until his neck cracked, Spike sighed,
eyes closed. “She wouldn’t cross the street for me,” he said, simply. His chest felt hollow, his belly empty around
the kernel of life at his core.
“She seemed genuinely concerned for your safety when I
phoned,” Wes countered.
“I figure she must have reconsidered her responsi…” Spike started
to explain. He bit down on the sentence,
cutting it off abruptly, when he noticed the spark of interest in Wesley’s
eyes.
Unfortunately, Wes had already caught the slip. “Buffy has
some responsibility in all of this?”
“That’s none of your concern,” Spike said primly. “My body, my baby, my problem. Shouldn’t we be going?” He started shuffling
for the door. “We leave now maybe we can pick up my clothes. Got
them stashed in a bus station locker.”
“I think you made all of this my concern when you came
here,” Wes said as he strode past Spike to the apartment door. Yanking a
raincoat off a hook to the left of the entryway, he returned to the vampire and
draped the long garment around his shoulders.
The coat reached to the floor, covering Spike’s bare legs. “If you want
my help you’d better break the habit of a century and start being honest with
me.”
“A century?” Spike squeaked,
flinching out from under Wes’ guiding arm. “Exactly how old do you think I am?”
he asked, raincoat tumbling from his shoulders.
Putting on airs any Botox-injected socialite would have
envied, Spike glared down the length of his delicate nose. Chin tilted aristocratically, he smoothed a
hand along his throat as he said, “You know before
this, everyone put my Becoming in the Seventies. I can’t believe you…”
“Stop trying to change the subject,” Wes said. He retrieved the raincoat and, with a great
show of hand whisking, dusted it off.
“Am I Nosferatu-ing?” Spike asked with apparent
earnestness. “Is there a bat-like
suggestion to my ears?” He pulled a lobe tentatively.
Holding the coat up like a butler offering it to the Laird, Wes
couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. “Nosferatu-ing?”
“All fangs and creases and Dawn of the Dead,” Spike
explained, passing his hand in front of his face to illustrate. “It happens as
we mature.”
“Yes, I understand the demon begins to dominate the flesh,
overshadowing the memory of the person you were. The Master was quite hideous I
believe.”
“Hideous is in the eye of the beholder, pet,” Spike said as
he graciously presented his back, allowing Wes to drape him again. “But I won’t
deny it’s easier to get a bint to open her legs and offer up her neck if you’ve
got a pretty face. You can say what you
will about the thrall but all of that ‘look into my eyes’ drivel is draining.” Sticking
out his lower lip, he turned pensive as he sulked, “Never had to worry about my
bumpies before.”
“You’re still stunning,” Wes said being more truthful than
gentlemanly. “Not a trace of tropomorphism.”
Spike would have mocked the long word had he been listening.
But his mind had, more out of habit than anything, focused on its favorite
subject. Nearly losing the coat again, he swished through a tight turn,
pounding one small fist into the other palm, as he snarled, “This is all her fault.
Might have known she’d age me prematurely, the abrasive
bitch.”
“Your hypoth…uh…the baby?” Wes
guessed.
“Buffy,” Spike corrected with a barbed glare, “The bane of
my eternal existence.” His chains clanked when he stabbed a finger in the general
direction of Sunnydale and Wes had to lunge for the inexorably sliding coat.
“Buffy? What does she have to do with…?”
“Everything! Oh, you have no idea
what it has been like,” Spike ranted as he tried again to pace in shackles.
“Loving her has been.... You know what? Hell on earth doesn’t do it justice. She’s
hollowed me out. Made me a shell of the demon I was.”
“Loving her? You’re in love with Buffy?” Wesley’s expression
spoke volumes. “Summers? The
Slayer?”
“Don’t think I don’t see the black comedy,” Spike growled,
too angry to care if he was giving away his secrets. “You’re not the first one
to point it out.”
“I should think not,” Wes said, his eyebrows climbing toward
his hairline as he struggled not to guffaw. “I imagine the Slayer herself
would have a thing or two to say about…”
“Oh, yeah, she goes on and on about it,” Spike said, shaking
his head. He put on a superfluous
falsetto as he quoted Buffy, “‘You’re evil. I hate you.
You disgust me.’” He snorted derisively. “Course, once I get her clothes
off she sings a different tune.”
Wes’ good humor took a sharp turn toward alarm. “You…excuse
me…got her clothes off?”
“Don’t sound so shocked, mate. Wasn’t like she put up a
fight. There was kissing and singing and some more kissing and then the
bloody house comes down on my head…should’ve taken that as a soddin’ sign. You
know the more I think on it the less I take the blame. She can’t pretend this isn’t as much her
fault as mine. More her actually! All she’s got to do is run a stake through my
heart, but no. I ask you: What kind of
Slayer lusts after a vampire?”
“Well, Angel has a soul.
Technically, Angelus is…”
“I’m talking about me, you twonk,” Spike snarled, slapping
himself in the chest and immediately regretting it as his breasts bounced
painfully. “Don’t talk to me about soddin’ Angel’s soddin’ soul. I was there when he got the cursed thing. There when he lost it, too. And if you think Angelus would put up with one
tenth of what I’ve tolerated from the little biter you’re off your bookish nut. But I keep going back for more. She ran off Drusilla and let a
load of military types hijack my brain.
She’s taken every shred of my self-respect, ruined my reputation and
undermined my ruddy manhood. And now,” he cupped a hand under one breast to
jiggle it, “I got these bleedin’ Manchesters and a bun in the oven.”
“Manhood?” Wes said distractedly.
His thoughts were tumbling over each other like fallen leaves stirred by an Autumn breeze. He was being swept along by the invisible current. “I don’t quite
understand,” he began but he did and comprehension struck him dumb before he
could complete his denial. His
manga-eyed gaze dipped to the dark band of the Obreo weevil on Spike’s
wrist.
Spike saw him swallow
convulsively. “Sussing it out, are you? Aren’t you head
boy for a reason?”
“I,” Wes croaked breathlessly. “Is that…? I mean, of course, it can’t be.”
Steady gaze full of moxie, Spike extended his arm, offering
Wes a better view of his altered wrist. The weevil was a dark bracelet against his pale skin. Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, Wes
wrestled with a plethora of emotions until his curiosity won over all opposition. Moving
like a rheumatism patient, he adjusted his glasses and shuffled stiffly in for
a closer look at what he had assumed was a tattoo. After a careful perusal, his line of sight
drifted up to Spike’s face. He tried to force a comment out through
uncooperative vocal cords.
“Genetic anomaly got your tongue?” Spike asked. He couldn’t
help gloating over the reaction his outburst had engendered even if the truth
exposed him to ridicule. Going down in a blaze of glory suited him.
A restorative gulp of air allowed Wes to speak. “Obreonic
Pregnancy,” he said, his voice tinged with equal measures of awe and horror.
“All hail the soddin’ miracle of life!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Your body is a wonderland,” John Mayer sang somewhere under
a snowy blanket of white noise.
Buffy scooted to the edge of her seat, snapped off the radio
and slouched back into her sulky pose. A
moment later, changing her mind and hoping to recapture the signal, she hit the
on button with a knuckle. A gentle
twiddle of the controls teased out some of the static but when
Buffy grew increasingly frustrated by the preprogrammed
tuner buttons as
When the truck had moved a safe distance down the road,
“I like that Wonderland song,”
“It’s ridiculous,” Buffy said. “Stupid
bubblegum tongue.”
“
“Spike sings it sometimes,” Buffy mumbled, too depressed to
concern herself with facing
Her breath fogged the window. The dark world flying past mesmerized her
with its suddenly distinct objects starkly contrasted against the velvety night.
Life seemed like that to her now, mostly murky but with sharply defined moments
materializing out of the gloom. She was
remembering how Spike had laughed at her for absently humming John Mayer’s song
during slayage. Later that night he’d created
a sex game using the lyrics, kissing his way down her bare torso, his voice low
and husky as he sang.
Your skin like
porcelain...
Only it’s not, is it? Dru’s
was, but yours, luv…it’s more like toffee, all golden and creamy smooth. Sweet and sticky…melts in my mouth and my
hands and…oh, yeah, right there…
“Really?”
“He has a nice voice.”
We’ve got the
afternoon.
“And why was he singing?”
“He was…” Buffy hesitated and then swiveled in her seat so
“Did it work?”
“For a little while,” Buffy said, dropping her gaze to hands
folded primly in her lap.
She spoke gently to keep the conversation going, “I would
have thought he’d prefer…I don’t know…Korn or maybe the Clash.”
“He was into the safetypinhead music. Pierced, pale faced
geeks wearing so much rogue and mascara you’d think Wallace’s Funeral Parlor
was giving makeovers. The Raymonds, the
Chicken Rubbers, assorted sex pistoly types like Pink…but now he likes…other
things.”
“There’s this bar on 318, near Abbotville,” Buffy said
distantly. Her words seemed to be coming
from some other person as if she wondered why she was answering the question at
all. Did she really want to relive her disgusting affair? “We went there once
or twice…on the motorcycle.”
Spike parked the bike
on a scenic overlook. I was hanging head down, halfway off the edge of the
world, when I came. I could hardly breathe with the screaming.
“He likes to dance,” she added, “Anything full contact.”
I bet,
“No monsters,” Buffy said.
She waved a dismissive hand. Clearly, a truckload of armed military men
offered no challenge as far as she was concerned. “All he has to do is find the truck and destroy those
eggs. And Clem said he knew some people who could help.”
“You mean demons?”
“Probably. His people.”
“And we trust Clem?”
“We don’t not trust him,” Buffy
said, suddenly recalling the floppy-skinned demon frequently cheated at kitten
poker. Maybe he owed Spike a favor.
Maybe she’d picked the wrong night to start delegating. She shook her
head, erasing doubt from her mind like the picture from an etch-a-sketch.
“I suppose Anya knows enough about demons to be safe,”
“Right,” Buffy agreed.
She flashed an uberconfident smile. “Besides, this kind of thing is
right up Xander’s alley…truck disappearing.
Did you know when he was a little Xander he wanted to be a magician? He used to have this big ol’ hetero crush on
David Copperfield.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I kid not!
“Waving his wand and flourishing his cape?”
“I’m not saying there was an endless rope of knotted scarves
up his sleeve but there may very well have been.”
“How cute.”
“
The mention of
“I was big with the no Willow-usage in my message,” Buffy
said. She quoted back what she said on Xander’s machine, “’Help, stop. Stop
truck, stop. Break eggs, etc,. stop.
Clem will help, stop. Don’t call
“Did you bring up Riley?”
“I got the beep,” Buffy said, a tad defensively. “Clem can
fill in the details.”
“My boyfriend’s back, stop,”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the tender age of seven, Xander, having settled
crossed-legged in front of the family television, stared in mute wonder as a
darkly charismatic man performed astounding feats of legerdemain. By the time David Copperfield successfully
completed the Great Bermuda Triangle Illusion, disappearing from one ocean platform
and traveling in the blink of an eye to another, Xander was enthralled. The mastery and grace of the rangy
Copperfield infatuated him. He could
talk of nothing else for weeks after the show aired and he dreamed of one day
becoming the All-Seeing, All-Knowing Xandoni—Master Illusionist.
He still treasured this childhood ambition. He might work as
a mild mannered construction foreman by day but under the cover of night, in
the arms of Morpheus, Xander Harris dreamed of mastering the mysterious realm
of illusion, confounding demon and Slayer alike. Generally in these dreams,
Her dream applause became a thunderous knocking on Xander’s
apartment door. The din jerked him into
reality where he tottered on the edge of consciousness until he decided to
eliminate the knocker. Too befuddled to untangle his limbs from Anya’s, he
slithered free of her embrace, shimmying under her arm like the world's laziest limbo contestant. He
spilled off the edge of the bed, trailing blankets and sheets behind him and landed in a heap on the floor.
The room wobbled and then righted itself. Pawing at the
sticky drool on his cheek, Xander peered groggily at the blue glow of his bedside
clock. By all rights he had three more
hours of blissful slumber coming before anyone asked him to think clearly. It was just after two in the morning.
Slayer time!
“And this is why they call it the Hellmouth,” he muttered as
he swiveled his sock-clad feet around under him.
He pushed to his feet, tottering slightly when his knees
refused to believe he’d gotten out of bed. Once stabilized, he reached back to
pat around on the bedding for his robe.
Fuzzy slippers were out of the question unless he turned on a
light. And lights were a commitment to
staying awake. Xander had no more intention of giving up his remaining hours of
rest then of exposing his magical secret identity. Nearly sleepwalking, eyes
partially closed, he blindly fumbled his way down the hall.
At moments like this, Xander reflected, he was profoundly
grateful he’d never managed to hook up with Buffy Summers. He loved her. Admired her and knew her to be
kindhearted in her own twisted way. She
could show concern, even vulnerability, on those rare occasions when the doings
of mortal men penetrated the energy shield around her invisible Slayer plane but
most of the time she was oblivious to other people’s needs.
Xander was proud of himself for maturing enough to let go of
his Slayer fantasy. He’d come to
understand that the future Mr. Slayer would be even more of an afterthought to
Buffy than her powerless construction-worker buddy. He would be at her beck and call, her sexual
play thing, expected to keep up and shut-up, and all kidding aside that wasn’t
a job for your average guy. Even super-soldier Riley Finn hadn’t been up for it.
Xander figured Buffy needed to find a life partner with an ego as overbearing
as her own.
But where in the world
was there in the world a man so extraordinaire?
Humming a snatch of Camelot
score, Xander neared his tiny foyer.
He put his hands out like the mummy, lurching forward until his stocking-clad
feet skidded on tile. Then, he slowed,
patting around for the door knob. When he found it, he leaned heavily against
the door and addressed the pest still pounding on the other side of the panel.
“What is it?” he groaned. “And why does it have to be now?”
“Uhm, hello?” Clem hallooed. “It’s
Clem. Clement.
We met at Buffy’s birthday party.”
The bright male voice was so unexpected that Xander gave his
head a shake before putting his eye to the peephole. On the other side of the door, Clem, all nose
and grinning teeth in the distorted view, waved cheerily and hallooed
again. Xander twisted his neck to see beyond
Clem. Flanking him to the rear were two
other somewhat blurry figures. One of
these was a boy of about ten, frail and sallow, with a thatch of dark brown
hair apparently coifed by the demon barber of Fleet Street. The kid wore a short dress of rodent skins stitched
together with twine and what looked like a necklace made of human teeth. Xander considered the other figure, a huge
blue-horned, aardvark-nosed creature dressed like an extra from Pigs in Space, the more normal looking
of the pair.
Exhaling on a moan Xander clonked the side
of his head against the doorframe.
Why him? Why them? Why now? The sensible thing to do was go back to bed
but his fingers, acting on their own, crawled up to the dead bolt. The massive device was the first of his three
locks. He pulled back the catch and went
on slipping bolts and turning knobs until he could open the door. He kept a chain on as a precaution.
“What do you want?” he said through the narrow gap.
“Buffy sent me,” Clem announced happily. His companions
nodded vigorously, heads bobbling up and down. “We’re on a mission…but not from
god.”
“From the Slayer,” the boy said.
“See, there’s this truck and…”
“Truck? What truck?”
“Oh, I just thought what this reminds me of,” Clem chirped,
turning his back on Xander to address the boy. “It’s Raiders of the Lost
“…Or a horse,” the boy added.
I’m dreaming, Xander thought. He remembered having an extra dish of ice
cream before bed. It could have been
evil ice cream, he reasoned. It’d had green
and red Gummi worms in it. His head
swiveled as he looked from Clem to the boy and from the boy to the blue-horned
monster. Clem was beaming at his young
friend and patting his shoulder to indicate hearty agreement with the horse
comment.
Sweeping the bright light of his smile in an arc, he
targeted Xander again and thrust an extremely crumpled blue and orange bag in
through the space between door and jamb with a questioning, “Cheetoh?”
Xander shook himself. “What truck?” he repeated, waving away
the offered snack. “Who are you?”
“I’m Clement and this is…” Clem started introductions.
“Why are you here?” Xander interrupted angrily.
“Oh, sorry, my bad as you people say,” Clem declared.
He stuck his arm through the crack in the door, snapping the
chain as he fumbled for the light switch on the inside wall. Finding it, he
smacked on the living room light. When the hundred-watt bulb flared overhead, Xander
gave a startled bleat. He tried to slam
the door closed but Clem was already pushing in like the tide. Xander’s sock clad feet slipped and skidded
on the tile floor. Helpless, he was
carried backward, partnering the door in a short pair’s skate as Clem and
company surged into the room.
‘This is the Slayer’s friend,” Clem said, grabbing Xander by
his pajama top collar and hauling him out from behind the door. “Nobody eat him
or turn him into an ass or anything ‘cause you do not want to see her angry.”
After the others nodded their understanding of this point, Clem said, “Xander,
this is the Krksslsh,” he indicated the hulking blue demon with a bob of his
head and then nodded at the boy and said, “And Prick.”
“Prick?” Xander managed around a
gag. His fingers tugged at Clem’s hand and Clem thoughtfully switched his grip
from throat to elbow.
Retracting ebony claws, the blue demon had stuck out a hand in
friendly greeting but Xander ignored it.
His attention was on the boy, Prick, dancing through a courtly series of
gestures Xander vaguely identified as a bow.
When the boy finished this ritual he pronounced,
“Prickalittle Gorseblossom, sir, your servant I’m sure.”
“One of the lost boys,” Clem said, proudly beaming at the
tike.
“Like Kiefer Sutherland?” Xander asked as he knuckled the
glare from his eyes. A few rapid blinks faded out the purple spots sudden
brightness had cast in his vision.
“Fairy folk,” Clem corrected in a hiss. “Not that there’s
anything wrong with that,” he amended quickly, shoot a
sideways look at Prick, who smiled tightly.
Xander couldn’t help noticing the little lost boy had a mouth full of
very sharp teeth.
“Why are you here?” Xander demanded again.
“Buffy was going to call.”
“Well she didn’t,” Xander snapped but then he glanced across
at the phone and its attendant answering machine. Noticing the pulsing red message light, he
amended, “Or maybe she did. We were
asleep.”
“Ah,” Clem declared, nodding and grinning vacantly as if
Xander had said something extremely sagacious. When Xander spread his hands
wide in a prompt for more information, Clem came out of his reverie. “There’s
this truck full of demon eggs heading for the airport and we have to stop it. You and me and my friends.”
Clem smiled at his companions. Xander
could swear he heard the martial swell of a John Williams score building in the
distance. “It’s a matter of national
security. Krksslsh, show him the
map.”
The blue-horned demon hooted and lumbered toward the dining
table. Xander, following cautiously
behind the beast, saw it sweep Anya’s beautiful centerpiece onto the floor with
an arm. Surface cleared, the Krksslsh tugged
what appeared to be an ordinary street plan of Sunnydale from one of its spacesuit
pockets. The map was a multifold
rectangle which, when opened out, showed roadways and byways and fast food
establishments. There was a gasoline
company logo around the map’s edges, indicating the convenience store where it had
been purchased for a dollar with a fill-up.
But unlike the twin Xander carried in his glove compartment, this map created
its own weather.
As the Krksslsh unfolded it a mystical fog rolled in,
obscuring large sections of paper Sunnydale.
The haze flickered with blue and green and yellow sparks. Neon-bright
arrows floated in the mist above the map surface. A blue curling arrow danced in a mad
circle. Jagged red lightning and a sunny
yellow shaft traveled a repeating route from the cemetery to the airport.
“They should go this way,” Prick said. Kneeling on a chair to reach the table, he
used a grimy finger to follow the red indicator as it blipped along behind the
yellow one. “The yellow one has the highest probability.”
“Probability?” Xander asked in
surprise. The table squeaked
metallically, shifting as he leaned his knuckles on it, positioning for a
closer study of the fog phenomenon. “This thing isn’t accurate?”
“It’s a divination spell,” Anya said from the far side of
the room, her words melting on a yawn.
“They’re notoriously unreliable.”
The others turned to see her leaning against the doorframe
leading into the hallway. She looked charmingly disheveled. Her sleep mask was pushed into her hair like
a headband and her short red robe showed her legs to advantage. Xander felt a stir of affection in the pit of
his stomach as he remembered her greeting him at the door yesterday afternoon,
wearing the g-string teddy that matched the robe, high heels and nothing else.
“
“
“A locator spell would have been better,” Anya said, joining
the group. “
“Anya, honey, he’s a guest.”
“A pest,” she corrected as if Xander had the word wrong.
“They are very unsanitary, Xander. We
don’t know where it’s been.”
“Aw, I’m as clean as you are,” Prick argued. “Washed in the river last Wednesday week.”
“Anya, would you mind putting the coffee on? We’re going to
be here a while.”
“No, we’re not,” Clem said. “We have to go. You should be putting
on pants.”
“What? Now? Shouldn’t we wait for
Buffy and
“They had to go to
“
“There’s a damsel in distress.”
“A damsel?” Xander’s eyebrows rose to
meet his bangs as he hustled Anya around the bar and into the kitchen. He spoke
softly intending his comments for her ears only, saying, “Who do we know in
“It’s Spi…” Clem started to say only to double over with a
grunt when Prick flicked his fingers, releasing a silvery sparkle.
“It’s spying,” Prick called over Clem’s sputtering and the
click of falling Cheetohs cascading from their bag to the tabletop. “They
caught a spy in
"Get her back," Clem coughed. His reassuring smile was more of a grimace as
he straightened out of his pain induced crouch. "You know…make the trade?”
“What? Now we’re Sector Seven?” Xander said exchanging a
look with Anya. “And who were we spying on? Angel?”
Clem shrugged. “I'm just…helping with the truck."
Xander considered this as he wandered back into the dining
area. He let his gaze drift across the
map. "Buffy wants us to stop a truck?"
"Full of demon eggs," Prick added, nodding.
“Without actually having Buffy to help us," Xander finished. He stepped around Clem, crossed to the answering
machine and tapped the playback button with a middle finger.
Anya poured a full measure of water into the
coffee-maker. After setting the empty
carafe under the drip spout, she wiped her hands on a towel as she asked, "What
kind of demon?"
Caught off-guard by Anya’s question, Clem cocked his head at
her. Eyes wide and questioning, she repeated, "Kind of demon? There are
many different kinds that lay eggs…"
Buffy’s message played in the background as the coffee
started brewing noisily. “Stop that truck, Xander and don’t tell Will. It’s too
soon for the magic.” Water burbled in the reservoir and a rich brown stream trickled
into the glass pot. The air grew
fragrant with the heady scent reminiscent of South American jungle plantations
and the mall food court.
“No Buffy and no Will,” Xander said as the message ended. “So much for plan B.
Also plans C through F.”
Clem was still struggling with Anya’s question.
"Uh-huh…it sounded foreign...like a car brand,” He tried to shake the name
out of his head, failed and sought help from his companions but since neither
of them had been present at Spike’s crypt they could only stare back at him,
baffled.
“How can you not know the name of the demon?” Xander asked.
“It was a demon, right? Like you?”
“Obviously, not like him, Xander,” Anya said, rolling her
eyes. “He’s a furitarian and the Krsslsh is a carapace eater. You can see the acid glands,” she added,
wafting her hand at the blue demon. “They’re mostly harmless. I thought you
said you were studying the seventy forms.
The wedding isn’t that far off…”
“Subaruvolvot?” Clem interjected
suddenly, taking a stab at the name.
Anya forgot all about the wedding. "Suvolte?” She asked on a hushed breath. Clem nodded, happy she’d figured it out from
his clue.
His grin disappeared when Anya came around the bar out of
the kitchenette in a furious rush, thrusting her dish towel at him like some
mad jouster. "A hulking grey butcher with teeth and
fangs and a nasty temper?”
Her flaccid lance flicked Clem in a sensitive spot and he stuttered
an affirmative as he shrank away.
“Are you all crazy? Is Buffy finally showing that Slayer lunacy
everyone is afraid to mention? Sending you three after
Suvolte eggs…risking my Xander. He'll
be sliced and diced into little Xander cubes. Xander cubes can’t marry me in
April.”
“No…no…they’re just eggs,” Clem soothed. Scooting further away from her, he busied his
hands, scooping up his spilled cheese snacks. “In boxes.”
“Where's the parent?"
"Dead."
"Are you sure?"
"There were pieces," Clem said. “Sliced, diced and
almost cube…well…julienned.” He liked to be accurate. “The Slayer was great,”
he swung an imaginary blade in great arcs to illustrate, “Like a Ronco Suvolte
shooter."
“That’s our Buffy,” Xander said with pride. “You should see
her juicing attachment.” Off the mix of
horrified and blank looks, he mumbled, “Okay…dropping the loaded metaphor…now.”
Slightly mollified, Anya let her appraising gaze stray to
the map. “She is the Slayer. Sometimes
it’s easy to forget with the bungling and babbling…. Are they in suspension of
some kind?”
Clem looked up, confused, “Huh?”
“The eggs. Temporally sealed?
Enchanted? Frozen?”
“Frozen,” Clem said. “Or cold, anyway. Buffy said we should keep them that way.”
Anya nodded tersely. Her face was pinched as she calculated
nervously. “Okay, we need a walk-in freezer. I know someone.” She cut her eyes
toward Xander and apologetically explained, “We dated one or two millennia ago.
Unless…can we put them back where they came from?”
“The Army is camped out there. See? They sort of belong to…Spike.”
“Spike?” Xander said, brightening.
“What was Spike doing with dangerous demon eggs? No wait…don’t tell me…selling
them? Finally showed his true colors,
huh? I told Buffy it was a mistake keeping him around. Knew he couldn’t be trusted. Didn’t I say
that?” he asked Anya rhetorically. “We should have dusted him as soon as she
came back…”
The chilled atmosphere in the room caused Xander to sputter
into silence when he noticed the three demons and his fiancée all glaring at
him.
“You got something against Spike?” Prick hissed, his
cat-like pupils narrowing.
Xander mumbled his
usual reason for loathing Spike, “Vampire?”
“Yeah, well you’re all buddy buddy with the Slayer,” Prick pointed
out accusingly.
“At least Buffy isn’t a carrion eater,” Anya told the fairy,
apparently landing a telling jab.
“It’s a service,” Prick countered. “You want dead things
lying around rotting in the street?
Imagine what that would do to property values in this town.”
“Eeehk,” Xander cried as he pulled the chair Prick was
perched on away from the table.
“Xander, focus,” Anya said, stamping an impatient foot. “Now
is not the time to indulge in your Imperially-sanctioned bigotry against the
disenfranchised.” She offered her excuse to the Krsslsh not the lost boy. “He
doesn’t mean anything by it, really. As an American blue collar worker he is
expected to look down on and taunt others but some of our best friends are
demons”
“Hey, I’m not prejudiced,” Xander said. “I’m marrying you
aren’t I? And you’re the one who said he ate carrion. And…and…
“Excuse me,” Clem said, pointing at the clock. “We have to
go. We can’t let those eggs get on that
plane or hatch either. We don’t want five hundred little Suvaroos scampering
around unsupervised.”
“Even the hatchlings are remarkably carnivorous,” Anya
agreed. “Xander put on some pants and your very masculine work boots.”
“Fine,” Xander sighed, heading for the bedroom. “But could
someone please tell me how we’re going to stop a truck full of demon eggs with
no Buffy and no
“Haven’t you been listening?” Clem exclaimed. “Spike doesn’t
have the eggs. Captain Underpants has them.”
“Captain…who?” Xander mumbled as he disappeared into his
room.
Clem raised his voice. “Uh…maybe it’s not Underpants. Buffy’s
old blow? The army guy? I don’t know his real name but
Spike calls him Captain…uhm…something or other.”
“Cardboard?” Xander asked, his voice cracking in delight, as
he stuck his head back into the room. “You mean Riley? Riley Finn? He’s back?”
Clem’s ears bobbed wildly.
“That’s him. Public enemy number one.”
“What? He’s the enemy?” Xander swallowed hard and then held
up a palm as if he could put a halt to the proceedings. “No…sorry…I have to
work in the morning. I make a living
with my hands, building stuff. I'm not
mission-leading guy. There is a long
list of people ahead of me on the mission-leading list. Riley, for example. The super-soldier. You expect me to stop him? I can’t do that! He’s like this Initiative
secret agent demon killer and I’m…I’m Corky Romano.”
“You are very
humorous,” Anya said, stepping close to pat his shoulder.
“Why can’t Spike do this?
He does stuff for Buffy all the time.
And if they’re his eggs…I’m thinking whatever goes wrong is his fault.”
“Spike is…gone.”
“Gone?”
“Left town, moved, vamoosed.”
Xander processed this and then said, “Okay, so there’s some
good news in the otherwise dark and stormy.”
“Buffy said if you seemed upset I should remind you that you
are the Great Xanderoni,” Clem said.
Xander stared at him. No witch. No Slayer. No Spike. The
fate of the world rested on his handyman shoulders. This was his chance to show his value to Team
Slayer. How hard could it be to stop a
military transport truck? He had his carpentry
skills, a junior magician kit, a former vengeance demon, a fairy child, a
carapace eater and a floppy-eared creature of the night. The other side had a few dozen demon eggs, Xander’s
hero and a platoon of well-trained, gun-toting soldiers.
What would David
Copperfield do?
End this Part