full 3/4 1/2   skin light dark       
 
Business as usual by Lilachigh
 
Chp 15 Dust to Dust
 
<<     >>
 


Chapter 15

Dust to Dust


Agnes Pringle was shutting up her tearoom in the Sunnydale garbage dump. It had been a long night and dawn was just breaking over the mounds of rubbish, casting strangely beautiful pink, rose and golden beams across the cast aside remnants of Sunnydale society.

She sighed wearily and rubbed at her eyes. She was tired to the very depths of her being. It was all very well having vampire healing ability – it did come in useful every time she burnt herself on the little oven she used to make her cakes – but it did nothing for physical exhaustion apparently.

Although Agnes knew a lot of her problem wasn’t physical. She had lost a friend. That nice woman, Joyce, had died, almost in front of her! Now Agnes had a close and personal knowledge of death. She had seen a lot of it over the years, and experienced her own, of course. But she was never prepared for it.

And tonight she was feeling guilty as well as sad. Had she contributed to Joyce’s demise in some way? Perhaps some little thing she had said or done had made the other woman realise that the quiet, plump lady making tea in her kitchen was not just a friend, but an evil vampire!

Joyce would have been terrified, not having any knowledge or experience of such things. Could that have caused her to have some sort of attack and die?

There was also a fine moral dilemma that wouldn’t stop buzzing around the English spinster’s brain.

If she hadn’t been in the kitchen, if she had been in the same room and seen Joyce dying, should she have tried to turn her?

Was a life as a vampire better than no life at all? She just couldn’t decide. Compared to her previous existence, this life was hard, dirty and unfulfilling. But – she struggled with herself, trying to be honest – would she prefer to be dead?

She wondered if there had ever been any books written that covered this knotty subject. Perhaps she would visit the Library and see. She knew that most people looked up such things on the Internet but her knowledge of that was hazy, to say the least, and she knew she would never have the courage to enter the Internet Café in town and ask for help.

Anyway, even if she did, it would be so embarrassing if someone wanted to know why she was interested in vampires!

Agnes sighed and packed the remaining rock cakes back into their tin. They hadn’t sold – well, they were perhaps a little hard, but she hadn’t been in the mood for fine cooking and really, with some of the fangs and teeth she had seen around here tonight, complaining about hard rock cakes being inedible struck her as being particularly unnecessary!

She was just about to set off for home when she heard the sound of something smashing its way through the dump.

Alarmed, Agnes drew back into the shadows. Whatever it was, it was obviously not in a good mood, destroying whatever was in its way.

Then she heard a violent English voice swearing and, shutting her ears to the words, which she didn’t completely understand, she called out, “Spike! Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me! Who the sodding hell else would it be?”

The black-coated vampire flung himself through the gap in the cardboard boxes that made the entrance to the tearoom and stood, swaying gently, glaring at Agnes.

He was holding a bottle of Scotch whisky which, Agnes regretted to see, only had a mouthful left inside it.

“You’re intoxicated, Spike!”

“Absholutely. Completely and utterly. I couldn’t be more intox – intoxsh - sloshed than I am, but bloody hell, I’m going to try!”

He lifted the bottle to his lips, swallowed, then hurled it out across the dump. Agnes heard it smash somewhere and hoped it wasn’t on the path because there were often little feral cats around at this time of day. She had been feeding –

“Joyshe Shummers is dead.”

The words fell on her ears like nails being driven home.

“Joyce – “

“Oh, you wouldn’t have known her. She was the Slayer’s Mum. A really nishe lady. Really nishe.”

His legs suddenly gave way and he staggered. Agnes pushed forward the little chair she used behind her serving area and Spike collapsed onto it. He looked up at her and his eyes were dark with a grief that mirrored Agnes’. Suddenly he sounded sober once more, as if all the Scotch in the world couldn’t kill his pain.

“She’s dead and the bastards wouldn’t even let me leave her some poxy flowers. I never wanted to see Buffy or Dawn, just leave flowers for Joyce. Bloody Xander Harris. I’d like to tear out his throat and – “

“Mrs Summers is the Slayer’s mother?” Agnes knew she sounded astonished but Spike was too wrapped up in his own misery to notice.

“She was, yes. Buffy Summers is the Slayer. You know that, Agnes,” he finished impatiently. “She was Dawn’s mother, too. Oh God, Niblet! What the bloody hell are you going to do now?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, digging his nails against his scalp, pulling at the tight curls until they loosened, making him look younger, more vulnerable, which, Agnes thought, was a strange word to use when thinking of Spike.

“You were fond of her,” Agnes said softly. Working out what she thought about Joyce Summers and her daughters would have to wait.

Spike raised his head, pushing the emotions he felt to the back of his mind. Strong feelings made you weak. He’d learnt that lesson a long time ago.

Shrugging his shoulders, he replied, “Fond? I liked her, but then I’ve liked a lot of people over the years and they’ve all gone as well.”

He laughed suddenly and the sound was bitter. “That comes with the territory, being undead and everything! How many of your friends are still around, Agnes? No point in people like us keeping an address book, is there?”

He stood up and walked to the entrance. He paused, gazing out at the dump, the rich stench rising up around him.

“There’ll be a funeral and I won’t be allowed to go to that, either.” He was silent for a few seconds, then, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Perhaps that’s what those words meant, even all those years ago when they were written. Earth for humans, dust for vampires.”

“Then it’s the same ceremony and perhaps the same salvation,” Agnes murmured.

Spike turned and gazed at her. “Do you really believe we’ll be saved, after all we’ve done? Joyce, yes, I can believe that. She’ll have gone somewhere good, some nice cosy heaven, I reckon. But me, you – well, sorry – I don’t hold out much hope of that.”

He lifted a hand in farewell. “Go straight home. Be safe, Agnes,” and vanished into the gloom that was growing lighter with every passing second.

Agnes watched him go and blinked away the stupid tears she always shed when someone, some animal, some thing, was in pain. She would have to hurry to get indoors by sun up.

Poor Joyce, poor Spike and even poor Slayer, she thought. Agnes knew she wasn’t very old, although there was never a good age to lose your mother.

She pushed her supermarket trolley back through the lanes that cut through the dump. There was no time to feed the cats tonight; she would have to give them extra tomorrow.

There was Willy’s Bar, with her little room at the back. She was home! Safe! It was lovely to get indoors, kick off her shoes and make a nice cup of tea before going to bed.

As she undressed, she wondered, would she go to Hell for being a vampire? Spike seemed to think so, but then she wasn’t stupid enough to realise that he had probably done a lot of bad things in his life that she hadn’t.

Agnes had to admit the thought of what would happen – afterwards – had cross her mind on occasion. Especially if she was extra tired or sad and feeling sorry for herself.

She got into bed, picked up her prayer book from the table next to it and flicked through it to find something suitable to say for Joyce Summers.

And as she fell asleep, Agnes realised she was humming a childhood hymn that she found oddly comforting, because surely she and Spike could be included somewhere in this list.

“All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”


tbc






 
<<     >>