You'd think a blood-reliant species would recognise its distant relations, but the sodding mosquitoes still bit him whenever he'd fed. Gods he hated Brazil at times. Beautiful place, plenty of scantily dressed snacks and the heat made them smell so much ​more​ intoxicating. But the bugs left something to be desired, and Dru was more distant than the moon. The last time she’d touched him in her right mind had been that night she’d slapped him for saving her. Things you do for the woman, an’ half the time she won’t even look at you without screamin’ ‘bout the fucking sunshine. He’d half a mind to walk outside of a morning just to show her why he’d taste of ashes if he played with sunlight.

 

He flicked his lighter on and off, watching the flint striker spark and catch at the tiny stream of butane to create light and heat. Such a small thing to be so deadly to his kind. Beautiful. It danced like sunlight through leaves, and how he remembered that but not his middle names from his human years was beyond him. Grinning idly he thought about other dances he’d had over the years. When he’d been first turned, the violence fresh and the blood scalding, a dance with Drusilla down a corpse-strewn room in their blood-soaked finery was the height of exhilaration. Later, when Angelus had taken him in hand, it had been learning the joys (and boredoms, God, the Forehead could drag it out to the bitterest most dull extremity) of the hunt. The thrill of adrenaline pumping down his throat with the blood of his victims. Too hasty, he was deemed, and the bog-trotting poofter would take to beating him to a bloody pulp time and time again. Torturing him when this failed to instil the proper caution and finesse of an apex hunter. Ha! Give him a pint of blood, a bottle of whisky, and a stand-up knock-down and he was in paradise. The bigger the challenge, the more his blood heated.

 

All that had led him to seeking the biggest game his kind could aspire to. The Slayer. One girl in all the world, et cetera. What started as a threat to curb him after his latest mob brawl, instead whetted a craving for the biggest challenge of them all. Find the Light’s one flame and snuff it out in a glorious confrontation. These warrior-maids, and have no doubt, even the least among them was a formidable opponent, were Called up one by one to do battle against the Dark in a neverending cycle of noble sacrifice. The instant one died, another, somewhere in the world, was Called to her duty. It was poetry.

 

He could dance for eternity with these bright valkyries and barring the universe going down in flames he’d always have another partner at the end. If he made it past the current one that is. Christ, the amount of times he’d nearly dusted to one. He’d only truly won two- no, three now, of these epic clashes, but he’d fought a fair few more. Usually the circumstances weren’t right for one reason or another. Either the Slayer was too new and thus not enough of a challenge, so he’d back off to let her grow, only to have her felled by another, or he’d only catch up with her when she was too injured to take him on. Those often died from other agencies before they could heal, if they were hurt that badly in the field chances were that they never made it home. The others were wrong some other way, either he wouldn’t find them in time, or there’d be something off about them and he’d back off sight unseen. Hell, some of them just didn’t have that readiness to die about them. He left those alone. All except one. The last one. The one who died to save his Dark Princess. Gods she’d been fucking effulgent, simply exuding life and goodness. And he’d doused the spark before it had truly ignited. What a blaze she’d have been. If a demon could feel regret… No. His face twisted in a sneer. What was he, fucking Peaches?! Some brooding, soul-up-arse ponce? He’d saved his lover, his ripe wicked plum and nothing would make him regret that. He’d kill a hundred, a thousand just like her to save his immortal goddess.

 

Shaking off his oddly introspective mood, he stalked back into the mansion he’d cleared for his princess when they’d arrived in Salvador. Snatching his keys from the side-table near the entrance Spike left the residence without bothering to inform Dru. He just wasn’t up to listening to her moan about white queens or sodding sunshine or any-bloody-thing right now. He was disgruntled, hungry, and if he were anyone else but the Slayer of Slayers you’d be right to call him a little petulant.

Things were supposed to get easier in the wake of killing a Slayer. They always had before. Dru would fawn over him for months afterwards, treating him to her voluptuous affections, untrammelled by her visions, or flash-backs. Sometimes she’d be almost entirely lucid, the only indications of her affliction being her tendency to speak to her dollies as if they were responding to her. And then the pixies would eventually return to plague her. This time she’d disappeared for a night and he’d had to hunt her down. She’d been almost catatonic when he’d found her, and hadn’t responded to much beyond blood until he’d gotten them to Brazil. It’d been worth it to freight his beloved DeSoto instead of abandoning or storing it. With luck they wouldn’t be returning to California for at least a year.

 

With the windows rolled down and some Latin American punk station making his ears throb, Spike pulled up a few streets from some hot joint he’d sussed out the other night. There weren’t all that many clubs in Salvador, surprisingly; it was a city that ran more to massive street parties. Great come-as-you-are affairs, wall-to-wall people and noise that was almost tangible. He loved it. The feeling of great masses of humanity casually crowding around him, brushing past, getting caught up in the pulsating life and exuberance of a city-wide celebration. But sometimes he liked the relative peace and quiet of one of the dance-bars. He just wanted a quiet meal and maybe a drink or two.

 

He wasn’t really choosy tonight, but this one bird pricked his demons' interest. Petite, brunette, and a hell of a dancer. He caught her eye and winked with an enticing smirk. She laughed and danced toward him, arms up in the air twining sinuously, hips writhing sinfully as she strutted over. He coaxed her to the bar and bought her a drink, gradually herding her towards the back exit that opened into an alley. Once there he lost no time, vamping out and slicing into her throat. Her initial struggles slowed as she gave a throaty moan, the terror adding spice to his supper.

 

He sealed her wounds and released the woman without processing it, and she dropped unconscious to the alley floor. He wiped his mouth on his hand, licking up the residue, before propping his victim against the wall, right beside the service entrance to the club. Lighting a cigarette Spike sauntered back within the pulsing semi-dark, duster swirling in his wake. Hunger still prickled through his veins, making the demon within restless. He barely registered that he’d left his meal half-finished, and thought nothing of topping up on a pretty young blonde as he passed back through the venue. He left her slumped insensible in a darkened booth along the wall. She’d be assumed to be drunk and shouldn’t come to too much grief there. Shaking his head irritably, he was left confused by that thought; since when did he care about the well-being of cattle?

As he drove back to where he and Dru had nested, the raucous strains of Release the Bats drove all thoughts of dinner from his mind.

 

---

 

‘I-is Buffy around? She was supposed to go over her maths assignment with me last night and she never showed up. I th-thought maybe she had a long patrol or something, but she didn’t come to school today either, and now I’m all with the worry girl and maybe she’s sick, o-or did something happen is she hurt maybe? Sh-she isn’t hurt is she?’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry, didn’t she tell you? That girl is so scatterbrained at times! Giles came over about some sort of Slayer Retreat thing. A Vision Quest I think he said? Apparently when a Slayer is called who wasn’t tutored by Watchers as a Potential, they often send her to a training camp. Unfortunately while she is there we can’t contact her personally, but it’s only for a month or so, so she’ll be back before you know it. I do wish she’d called you beforehand though, this is entirely like her to forget I’m afraid.’

Anyone who knew Joyce would have seen immediately through her thin excuses and strained voice to the distraught woman beneath the facade, but Willow was too concerned about the perceived slight of her friend to notice that Joyce wasn’t being entirely honest. *At least I can still fool a teenager. Go me!* she thought bitterly. ‘If you would be a dear and perhaps let Xander know for me? I simply must get organised for this purchasing trip. I’ll be gone a few weeks myself.’

‘O-ok Mrs Summers. I think I can do that. I’m all with the information now. A-are you going to be ok? You sound kinda funny… not that you are! I mean-’

‘I’m fine dear, thank you for asking. I’m just a little under the weather and pre-occupied is all.’

‘Ok! I’ll just hang up now cuz I gotta call Xander, so I’ll say bye now Mrs Summers! Bye.’

*Oh baby, please don’t be truly gone! I hope this is going to work, I can’t bear to lose my precious girl like this.*

---

Chapter End Notes:
Release the Bats is a song by Nick Cave's punk band The Birthday Party. Well worth a listen if you like raucous loud punky yelling.