Author’s Note: Before you kill me, know that from this point on we are definitely still on a quest to rescue Spike, and moving progressively forward. But like Whistler says—getting to Louhi’s hell isn’t going to be like finding Narnia. There will be twists and turns and Buffy will have to face whatever challenges the Powers That Be set in her path. She screwed up, she’s going to have to fix it.

You may still want to kill me when this chapter is over, though. I wouldn’t blame you.

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all recognizable characters, locations, and dialogue belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the various writers. Show writers and any other quoted authors have been credited in individual chapters. I'm making no money from this—it is purely in the name of fun.

Betaed by Phuriedae and Science

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Chapter 54

The East Wind

I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it.

It's raining. And it's warm. Humid enough that I'm already sweating in my winter gear.

And the smell. It's not like L.A., which is busy and full of people, but you can still breathe even with the smog. This is... this is what it smells like when you pack thousands and thousands of people inside of a concrete cage. I don't even want to think about what some of those smells are.

With a frown I stick the journal in my backpack, slip out of my coat and sweater while I'm at it and tuck them in there, too. Then I spin in a circle to look at where I am.

I'm standing still on a sidewalk crowded with people hurrying in all directions. Ahead of me a stairwell descends beneath the sidewalk level. To my left is a street crowded with cars and taxi-cabs and on either side of it tall buildings claw at the sky. It's still light out, but there are storm clouds overhead and the sidewalks are wet. With the sun so low, and the cloud cover, it might as well be after sunset down here in the valley between the enormous buildings. The streetlights are already on, even though it's not quite eight according to the old-fashioned looking clock in the store window over there.

It looks like New York. At least... it looks like the New York I've seen in movies and on TV.

Only there's something off, and it doesn't take me long to figure out what it is.

Okay, this is New York back when bellbottoms were in fashion. And platforms. And big poofy hair. And weird stinky old cars that don't look old at all, except for the fact that the cabs all have that weary taxicab grime that seems to come with the yellow paint job. People pass me wearing variations of brown and cream and orange and yellow polyester. Everyone is smoking, juggling their umbrellas and cigarettes and briefcases and rushing to get wherever it is they need to go.

Somehow, though, no one seems to notice that Millenium Buffy is totally out of place. In fact they all move past me as if I'm not even here. I frown. I don't remember activating the pendant, but maybe it's better this way.

I'm not sure where to go or what to do, until Whistler's words come back to me. Follow the tinglies.

My Slayer sense is on full alert, prickles dancing up the back of my neck like marching ants. These aren't like the usual Spike tinglies, which are strong and easily identifiable. These are more like Mr. Gordo tingles, an echo of an echo of what Spike feels like.

They're coming from the subway entrance up ahead.

Beside me, someone slams past hard enough to jostle everyone but me, as if I don't really exist here. Maybe I don't. I don't see much of the rude person, but what I do see is enough to have me moving after them, down into the subway station below.

A long, black leather coat.

A very familiar, long, black leather coat.

Somehow people move aside for me as I hurry to keep the tails of that coat in view. I can't tell for sure if it's Spike, but since it's going in the same direction as the tinglies, I think I'm probably supposed to follow.

The crowd thins as we get down to the subway station, which seems weird until I hear some of the conversations as I'm pushing past them.

"Boss man made me stay late," says one guy. "Told him I needed to get home before dark. Annie, she don't like it when I'm out late. Not with that killer on the loose, man."

That startles me a little, but I push on, hearing dribblets of conversations: people out of work, people tired from work, people wanting to be home before dark, murders in Queens, dark-haired girls in danger, satanic cults, blood drinkers... then someone says something that clicks and makes some sense: Son of Sam.

Okay... so I'm in New York, in the late seventies, and it's the summer of Sam. Either that or a Spike Lee movie.

Great.

What the hell does this have to do with Spike? Aside from the strangely coincidental name thing.

The coat keeps moving through the crowd, slipping through the turnstiles. I don't have a subway pass or ticket or even much money, but no one is paying attention to me, so I chance it and hop over with ease. There aren't any shouts, no one tells me to stop. With a shrug, I settle my backpack across my shoulders and follow the coat.

The smell is worse down here. Like old stinky cigarettes and rotting things and hot metal. There's trash along the walls, piled next to half empty garbage cans. A few homeless people who look like they could be transplanted right into modern times huddle near a wall. Graffiti covers most of the flat surfaces, as well as old posters and advertisements, most faded beyond recognition.

As we move down the platform, the crowd thins. I wonder what this place would be like at rush hour? The people down at this end huddle close together while still eying one another suspiciously.

Now I can see the owner of the coat definitely isn't Spike. She's a little taller than me, but that might be the boots she's wearing. She's also black, with a stylish afro. So, yeah, definitely not Spike. Something about the way she moves is familiar, though. Bad ass, confident, in a era when being a black woman wasn't really synonymous with bad ass and confident. Vampire?

No. No demon sense from her. She's human.

Still...

As she pivots to face the subway train that's pulling into the station, I put it together. The realization halts me in my tracks.

Faith. She moves like Faith.

This girl is a Slayer.

New York. Seventies. Slayer. Spike.

Crap.

I manage to put on a burst of speed that lets me slip through the doors of the nearest subway car before they close. It's empty. The next car forward has a few passengers. The tingles are coming from the other direction.

The subway lurches into motion with a demonic shriek of metal on metal as it heads down the tracks. The seats are battered, a couple of them clearly broken. The windows are scratched and dingy like no one has cleaned in here in months. Cigarette butts and trash litter the floor. The lights flicker eerily and some of them are out.

Just like my dream. I half-expect Giles to show up in his sombrero at any moment.

When I get to the other car, the other Slayer is just visible through the door. She's in the next car which is also empty, still moving, headed further down the train. I hurry to catch up, almost sprinting.

Which means when I find the body, I trip over it.

It's not the Slayer; it's just a girl. Some poor dark-haired girl with love beads around her neck that are getting sticky with blood. Her eyes stare up at the flickering lights, sightless and blind. I don't have to check to see what killed her. The fang marks on her throat are fresh. I wonder if she'll rise tomorrow? I doubt I'll be around to find out.

I get up carefully, so as not to disturb the body any more than I have. She's wearing jeans and a Bay City Rollers t-shirt that's now spotted with blood. Pink sandals. Maybe my age, maybe a little younger.

Somehow I know without being told... Spike killed her.

I want to help her. Want to do something for her. The Slayer part of me is angry, itching for a stake. But there's nothing I can do for this girl. Not now. She's been dead for more than twenty years.

I close her eyes. It's the best I can do.

Not gonna be easy, I can practically hear Whistler say. Wish he'd mentioned this little blast from the past detour.

With a sigh I head off after the other Slayer, hopelessly behind now. At least she's probably still on the train, right?

Up ahead, just visible through the little window in the connecting doors, I see a flash of white hair, a swirl of black leather. When I slide the door open, they don't even notice me. Instinctively I move to dump my bag and join in the fight, but the minute I do, I hit an invisible barrier. No matter how I push against it, I can’t get through. Trapped, I'm helpless to do anything but watch.

This Slayer is good. Better than good. She knows what she's doing. She doesn't bother with quips or trying to distract him with words. She's all fight and fists, all business.

Vaguely I remember her name: Nikki.

Spike, on the other hand, is enjoying himself. I'm surprised to recognize his outfit from my dream. This is vamp Spike in all his punked out glory. His white hair is spiked straight up, his jeans are torn and his sleeveless shirt is covered in studs and safety pins. I'm pretty sure he's even got on eyeliner. You'd think it'd make him look fruity but instead it just makes him look more dangerous. Billy Idol before Billy Idol—if Billy Idol was a brutal killer.

Nikki grabs Spike by the back of his belt and slams him headfirst through a window. Glass shatters, but Spike holds on, roaring with laughter into the howling blackness of the subway tunnel. Things pick up after that. I recognize the moves from that night in the alley. When she knocks him into the hand pole and he viciously breaks it off, twirling it expertly in front of him, I can almost see him striding down the alley with the pool cue in his hand.

I know how it's going to end.

"Every Slayer has a death wish," he says in my memory. I can't help but look for it in her. It wouldn't be obvious, I think. Not if you weren't me. Not if you hadn't been doing this for years.

She's tired.

Older than me by a few years, she's got this look on her face like she's seen it all. Done it all. She's lost whatever it is that makes being the Slayer bearable for her, but she's still giving it her all.

Unfortunately, her all isn't nearly enough anymore.

When she pins him to the train floor by the throat, straddling him, I can see it: that little hesitation as she reaches for her stake. Then the lights go out. For a moment we hurtle through the darkness, with nothing but the shrill noise of the train going over the track. When the lights flicker back on, Spike is on top of her, one big hand wrapped around her throat. He's grinning.

I expect him to vamp, but he doesn't. He just stares into her eyes for several long minutes while she struggles under him, pulling futilely at his hand. Then, she stills, just holding on to his wrist. From this angle I can't see her face, but I can see Spike's. The mirth drains out of his eyes, the exhilaration. For a second the look on his face is almost ... tender?

Then he reaches out and, just like that, snaps her neck.

It's over.

"Don't cry for me, baby girl," says a voice. Startled, I turn too fast and almost trip over the edge of the nearest seat. Nikki stands beside me. Up close I can see that she's pretty, just a little taller than me, a little older. I glance from her to the body lying on the floor of the subway car. Yep, definitely her. I fight the tears that burn my eyes and watch as Spike drags himself up and saunters down to the other door, reaching for the emergency brake. He yanks it, and the train screams to a halt. Almost as an afterthought, he glances over at the body on the floor, then turns back to her fully. With his head tilted a little to the side he studies her, then unceremoniously drops to one knee and starts to strip the coat off of her.

"Always liked this coat," she says beside me, fingering the duplicate copy of it she's still wearing. "Even on a muggy day like today it didn't feel too hot. Kept me warm during winter patrols. Great for stashing weapons and stakes."

"And he took it as a trophy," I say, watching Spike shrug into it for the first time. Weird, since it's such a familiar gesture. It looks good on him, which is Wrong with a capital W.

"He won it. He earned it," she says simply. That surprises me enough that I turn to look at her again, tearing my eyes away from Spike adjusting his cuffs, sucking in his cheeks, preening even though he has no reflection in the glass windows. The Big Bad at his biggest and baddest. "I knew it was gonna be him. First time he and I squared off in Central Park, I knew. That pasty-assed dead boy had my ticket. Was only a matter of time before I decided to punch it. Glad he did it that way. I went seven years without getting a fang mark on me. Pretty much was the only thing I was scared of, being turned." A strange look crosses her face—sadness, maybe, a little guilt. "Almost, anyway."

"What is this?" I ask. "The vampire version of 'This is Your Life'?"

Spike strolls down to the door at the end of the car and opens it, jumping out into the dark subway tunnel. His new coat flares behind him like wings. The barrier keeps me from following. That, and knowing that he's just a ghost.

The lights go out again. This time, they stay out.

"Up there," the Slayer says out of the darkness, "they're just starting to panic. Gonna be hours before the lights come back, and the sun will get there first. Not in time, though. Not nearly in time. He's gonna go celebrate, you know. Pick up a few girls he finds wandering the streets, join in on some of the looting. Over on Fifth Avenue he's going to beat a man to death with his own briefcase. Then when some gang members decide to join in on his fun, he'll suck 'em all dry. The youngest one he'll let go, because he cried for his mama."

I can picture it way too clearly. A shiver goes down my spine.

Light comes back, through the windows this time, and I realize the train is moving again. Or maybe the world is moving and we're standing still. She turns to me.

"You're looking for him," she says, not really asking. "That dead boy."

"Yes," I say.

"Then you gotta look," she says, gesturing at the windows. I pick up my bag and sling it back over my shoulder, then take a step forward. The barrier is gone. Kinda figured it would be. I slide into a seat next to the window. Nikki sits in one facing me, leaning back on one arm, studying me curiously. "I never met another Slayer before," she says. "Not when I was alive, anyhow."

"You're a ghost now?" I ask. She grins, showing a quick flash of white teeth.

"Something like that," she says. Her eyes go to the windows and stay there. I turn to look, too.

It's like watching a scrolling TV. Only this is the kind of movie they never show on television and you have to be over twenty-one to watch in theaters. It's pretty obvious who the leading man is.

Spike.

Spike hunting. Spike feeding. Spike doing things that make the Slayer in me tense and angry and on edge. Spike doing things that make the girl in me horrified. My hand clenches around the hilt of the dagger on my thigh as I watch him prowl through a club of punk kids. Two young girls cling to his arms while he stares down the bouncer, then grabs a cab. The view follows him to an apartment, shows the girls flirting, smiling, never realizing what it is they've brought home.

Not until he vamps while necking with the first girl, draining her fast even as his hand shoots out to grab the second girl's wrist, locking her in place as she screams and pulls at him. She says it, when he turns to look at her through gold eyes, his fangs red with her friend's blood.

"Vampire."

"Yeah," Nikki says. "Vampire."

I realize then that I said it aloud at the same time as the girl mouthed it. Thankfully the pictures I'm seeing are silent. I only imagined hearing her screams. Wiggy.

"Why are you showing me this?" I ask, a little angry. "What's the point?"

"You gotta know what you're dealing with, baby girl," Nikki says.

"I already do," I say.

"You sure about that?" she asks. "You really want to bring that dead white boy back into your world? Look at what he is, girl. That's a monster. A demon. He's everything you're made to destroy."

A monster.

Looking back through the window I watch Spike as he strolls down a New York sidewalk, following something up ahead, out of view. People eye him warily as they pass. Pretty obvious that he knows how he's affecting them, too. All I can see there is the Big Bad. Spike in his prime. Top of the food chain. A predator, stalking his prey.

I'd forgotten this.

I'm not sure I ever even knew it.

The first time we met, yeah, he scared me—but no more than any other vampire I'd ever faced. Not until our first fight. But even then... maybe I'd been too young to understand. Too cocky and sure of myself. I'd beaten the Master, after all. What was one bleached punk of a vampire compared to that? I'd been so sure I was better than him. I'd dropped my weapon...

The windows ripple as time passes. We're going backwards, I think. Memento moments.

Spike and Drusilla are dancing together down the middle of a street somewhere. He holds her in his arms, twirls her to music I can't hear. She's in a long pale dress, hippie style, bare feet. Her hair is bone straight, with a wreath of white daisies in it. Spike's in a black jacket, torn jeans, untucked red shirt, his hair a halo of blond curls in the moonlight. A van pulls up, covered in painted flowers and peace signs. Drusilla looks delighted by it. Spike looks bored and a little irritated. Then he smiles at the girl who opens the door and leans out, clearly asking if they need a ride.

Of course they do. Spike hands Drusilla into the van as if she's a princess. She settles in among all the flower children, right at home. Spike lounges back against the van wall, watching her, watching all of them with keen eyes that don't miss a thing. He takes a hit off the joint the others pass around, and none of them notice when he holds it far longer than a human should. When he finally exhales, his heavy lidded gaze is as lazy as a cat's. Then the windows flicker, skipping time. When it stops, the kids are handing around cookies and chips and other junk, everyone happy, giggling.

Except Spike. He's just smiling lazily, hungrily.

A girl climbs in his lap and offers him a bite of her cookie. He snuggles her in, nuzzles her throat, and then vamps, biting hard into her neck, draining her. She squirms, pushing on his chest, but he doesn't let her go. The others notice and start giggling harder, thinking it's a game. They can't see his face under her long hair. He feasts on her leisurely, as if he's got all the time in the world.

When he finishes he licks his lips clean and reverts to his human face under cover of her hair. The girl slumps in his arms, dead. He grins at the others, then snuggles the corpse against him lovingly, arranging her on his lap like some giant doll. Playing with her hair. Must've passed out, I see him mouth silently. The others all giggle and pretend to shush each other. Drusilla, delighted, presses a finger to her lips, smiling at Spike, not giving away the game.

I turn away.

Nikki's watching me.

"You sure you want him back?" she asks me again. I don't answer immediately. My stomach is kinda pretzely after watching that. "That's what he is, baby-girl. That's what he does. I know you got a thing for dead boys but you gotta remember that, soul or no soul, that's what's underneath. Your boy, he don't even bother with the sheep's clothing. He's a wolf. He always will be."

I've heard this argument before, though. I think of the journal in my backpack, the words in it.

If I hadn't read them, I wouldn't know that there was anything more to Spike than what I'm seeing now. Wouldn't know that somewhere under that there's a poet hiding. The kind of guy who, despite appearances, puts the needs of the person he loves ahead of his own. A monster, yes, but... more.

Seeing isn't always believing. Sometimes what we see blinds us to what is.

Isn't that the lesson I was supposed to learn?

"He's changed," I tell her.

"Demons don't change," she says. God, she could be quoting me, or Giles. I know the argument so well.

"He's changed," I insist. "I mean... yes, he's a vampire. A monster. But... that's not all he is. I know it's not."

Her eyebrows raise. "Maybe not," she says. "But it's part of it. Part of him. It always will be. This can't be erased, you dig? This is always going to be what he craves."

I glance back at the window. Spike and Drusilla weave among a massive crowd of people. It's dark, and half of them are asleep, tumbled all over each other like bodies in some of those pictures of hell Giles' books are so down with. Most of them are muddy, dressed like hippies. Dru seems more weird than usual, like maybe she's stoned. Spike has a strange trippy expression, too. Suddenly something seems to catch his attention and he jerks to a halt, staring off into the distance. Dru comes to a stop, then spins, flopping gracefully on top of a sleeping couple who wake up and snuggle her between them. Spike just stands stock still, staring at something I can't see or hear.

"Who is he watching?" I ask.

Nikki looks at the window, then sound begins to trickle through. Heavy drumbeats and guitars and a voice wailing into the darkness full of sleeping people who are starting to wake up and watch along with Spike.

"...And down in the ground is a place where you go if you've been a bad boy,
If you've been a bad boy.
Why can't we have eternal life,
And never die,
Never die?..."

A grin stretches across Spike's face. A huge, boyish grin that doesn't belong on a monster at all. Then he throws back his head and roars with laughter.

The sound fades back out, but not entirely. "Lucky bastard," Nikki says with no trace of bitterness. "I was too young to go."

"Go?"

She shrugs. "We're getting off track."

The windows flicker again and now a Spike with black hair is standing in an alleyway, watching men march past. He yells something at them and even though the sound is low it's obvious it's not in English, and probably not on the approved list of things to yell at marching soldiers.

Marching Nazi soldiers.

The all turn on their well-polished boot heels and take off after Spike who isn't running very fast at all. He lets them corner him in a dead end alley, his back up against the wall as they advance on him, six on one. One of the soldiers says something and Spike gives him a two-fingered salute. His mouth moves and I barely hear him say, "Piss off, nancy-boy." The lead soldier pulls out his gun and points it at Spike, who merely smirks. There's a bang loud enough to be clearly audible, and Spike looks down at the hole in his shirt, right over his heart. He grins. "Tickles," I hear him say to the astonished soldiers just before he vamps out.

The soldiers don't run; they fight. First to try to capture him, then to get away from him. By the end of it, Spike is laughing as he chases down the last soldier, the one who shot him. He hits him over the head with the leg he tore off of one of the other men, then grabs the guy's gun, turning it on him. He says something I don't quite hear and the Nazi starts to plead with him. Spike motions with the gun again, and the soldier strips out of his shirt and coat, placing them on some stacked crates nearby. Then Spike grabs him by the throat and sinks in his fangs.

When it's over, he casually drops the body, strips off his own shirt and wipes the blood off his face and hands. When he's reasonably clean, he changes into the Nazi officer's discarded shirt and jacket, tucking everything in neatly. He mockingly salutes the corpses before he leaves the alley.

The windows flicker again, time moving backwards I guess.

Spike, bleached blond again, with Drusilla at his side, is standing in front of a small house in some farm village from the looks of it. A man is coming down the lane, carrying a small sack over his shoulder. I can't hear the conversation, but it's clear the man figures out what Spike is. He drops the sack and pulls out a cross, shoving it at the two of them and backing toward the house. Drusilla recoils, but Spike just smiles and moves faster than the guy possibly can, kicking the cross clean out of his hand. There's not much struggle before Spike has the guy by the throat.

The door to the house opens and a woman peers out into the darkness. She screams when she sees Spike holding the guy by the throat. With a smirk, Spike hauls the guy up to the front door, stopping just outside. He says something to the woman, then shakes the guy for good measure. Her face is pale, but she steps back and whispers something that looks like "come in."

Everything happens pretty fast then. The guy dies first, half of his throat torn out. Then the two teenage boys who rush at Spike with makeshift weapons. He breaks their necks. The woman he takes a little more time with, backing her up against the wall and feeding on her while he yanks up her dress.

I turn away, unable to watch.

Nikki's eyes are grave as she gazes at me steadily.

"This is what a vampire is," she says. "You know this."

"Yes," I say, trying not to listen to the barely audible screams.

"Don't be blind, baby-girl," she says. "You gotta look."

Something about her tone makes me sit up straight. I turn back to the windows, frowning.

The woman is dead now, propped up in a chair like a doll. Spike, however, isn't done. He's standing in the middle of the room, very, very still. His head tilts to one side. Listening. Then his head whips around to stare at an iron box against the wall. Silently he stalks toward it, his head still tilted, still listening.

For a moment, he just stares at the box.

Then, without warning, he rips the lid off and reaches in, pulling out a little girl who is maybe five or six. She's screaming, kicking, clutching a doll to her chest. Spike simply switches his hold, then strides toward the door.

Drusilla waits on the stoop, staring in the open doorway with delight. He sets the little girl down in front of Dru who kneels, staring into the crying girl's face, whispering to her until their eyes meet. Immediately, the little girl calms down and Dru scoops her up on her hip, whispering and giggling. Spike puts his arm around Dru's waist and they wander off down the lane, into the dark like a twisted little family out for a late night stroll.

Angry now, I turn to face Nikki.

"Are we done now?" I ask. "I get the picture. Monster. Demon. Major badness."

"You sure? Then you look out those windows, and you don't flinch away," she says.

The windows clear, and through them I can see the subway tunnels rattling past, and then we're rolling into a station, slowing but not stopping, and it's full of people. Hundreds of people, crowded along the edge, their faces watching as the train goes by. Some of them are old, some of them are young. There are men and women and children. Their clothes look like something out of a costume party gone wrong with old-fashioned dresses and modern clothes all mixed together. Some of them are even naked.

But they all have one thing in common.

They're all dead.

Some of them have had their throats torn out. Most of them, really. There are broken necks and other... worse things. But they stand there, staring, their eyes dark and angry.

There's so many. They're packed all the way back to the graffiti covered walls, and the station seems like it stretches on for miles. There must be thousands here, crowded together into a vast, morbid mob.

Spike's victims. Every last one.

But I knew this. I've known this all along. Isn't this what I've reminded myself of for years? This is what a monster is. What it does.

Until something changes.

And while the Slayer part of me hates it, loathes it, sees all this death as some kind of challenge, the Buffy part of me knows better. Still, I make myself watch, make myself take in every last angry, bloodless face. It feels like it goes on forever.

Finally, the subway car pulls away from the station, plunging us back into blissfully still darkness, except for the lights overhead. Nikki crosses her arms and studies me.

"You still want to look for him?" she asks, leaning back.

"Yes," I tell her with conviction. "I do."

She looks surprised.

"That isn't him. Not anymore. Yes, he's a killer, and a vampire. A monster. But that's not all he is. And why do I get the feeling that you're handpicking these little Oscar clips just to piss me off? Doesn't he deserve a fair trial? Show me the other stuff."

"Other stuff?" she says, tilting her head.

"Yeah," I say. "There's more to Spike than his fangs. Show me."

She smiles. "Not my job, baby," she says, standing up.

I get to my feet, too, shouldering my bag. "So what was your job? To give me Spike's rapsheet? Try to make me hate him again?"

"Among other things," she says, vaguely.

"Yeah, well, I can't change the past, can I?" I say. "Neither can he. But that's not what he is anymore."

"You don't think he deserves to die?" she asks. "Didn’t you see how high that boy's body count is? Nearly fifty-thousand people have died because of that boy."

"Nobody deserves to die," I tell her. "Not the people he killed. Not even him. He asked me once for a chance to prove he's changed. I think he's earned it. And maybe it'll take another hundred years to make up for all the bloodshed, but I think he can do it. He's not..."

I sigh, lost for words. It's just this feeling in my gut, this instinct that tells me that I'm right. That despite what I've just seen there's more here, more to Spike, more to... all of this. I've learned to trust my instincts a little better.

"You go looking for that dead boy," she warns me, "you find him, he's gonna be yours. You're gonna have to keep him on the straight and narrow. Your responsibility, you dig?"

"Yeah," I tell her, meeting her eyes. "I dig. But it's not a responsibility. Not like you mean. It's what you do when someone falls down. You help them up. And yeah, Spike fell a long, long way down. That just means he's going to need a little extra help getting up.

"You do the right thing," she says, smiling again. She leans back a little, studying me. "You're something else, girl. And you still got a long, long way to go. But this is as far as I can take you."

The subway stops moving. Or maybe the world outside does.

Nikki shrugs out of her coat—Spike's coat—and holds it out to me. "Here," she says. "From one Slayer to another. You're gonna need this."

I take it from her, feeling the smooth leather. I pull it on. It's a little big on me, falling nearly to the floor. Even though it just came off of Nikki, somehow it still smells like Spike.

She walks with me to the door at the end, opens it. Beyond is nothing but blackness. "Trust your instincts," she tells me. "Understand his, but trust yours." I nod.

For a moment she looks torn, then she makes up her mind. "One more thing. Someday you're gonna run into man who won't care that your boy has changed. He's out for that dead boy's dust. You'll know him, when you meet him. You tell him his mama said she loved him and that the only thing she ever regretted in her life was that she wasn't ever going to live to see him be a man. You tell him that... she chose when to go. How to go. You tell him that your boy showed her mercy, at the end, and for that she'll always be grateful. Even if he is a skinny white vamp with bad taste in music."

The expression on her face makes me smile.

"Hot, though," she says with a grin.

I choke on a laugh.

"What?" she says, winking. "That dead boy had it goin' on. I'm not the one who was blind, baby."

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Author’s (Non-Spoilery) Postscript:

There are a couple of nods in this chapter to at least one episode of Angel, as well as the Buffy novel Blackout. The scene with the little girl in the coal bin you might recognize from the Buffy episode “Crush.” The concert Spike and Dru attend is, of course, Woodstock, and the song Spike is laughing at is The Who’s “Heaven and Hell”, which they opened with at 4 am on the third day of the concert.

In regards to Spike’s varying hair colors—I decided that because some comics show him as a bottle blond as far back as the early 1900’s (which is technically possible, mind you) that his hair color would vary depending on the scene and where I drew the inspiration for it from.

Trivia: If Spike ONLY killed one person a day from the time that he was turned until he got the chip, he would have killed over 43,000 people. That's enough people to fill more than 215 modern NY City subway cars, or around 43 subway trains (I'm rounding a bit). But we know better than to think that Spike only ever stopped at just ONE per day.

Yes, I researched like mad to write this story, why do you ask?

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