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47 Pieces
 
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Chapter 47 - Pieces

“I must say, you’re doing wonderfully, Buffy.” Giles sat down, wiping his face with a handkerchief. “Quite—quite extraordinary.”

Buffy picked up the staffs, which they had only switched to doing for the last half hour. “Yeah, but you’re really on top of that fencing stuff.”

She put the weapons up and glanced around the cleaned up back room. The excess stock for the store had been removed, and the training items had been set up by Xander, as promised (though Buffy had lifted up the punching bag while he fixed the chain into the ceiling).

“Well, I made quite a study of it,” he said. “One does not necessarily need great strength. Fencing polishes technique and reflexes. However, a sharpened technique combined with power will be quite formidable.”

“Sharpening, here.”

“You’re improving. Perhaps not on the finer points yet, but your reaction time and general skills are progressing quite nicely, especially factoring in your recent calling.”

“Think I could take a couple mats home?” she asked. “I was gonna put them in the basement for sparring. Well, obviously not sparring, but practicing and stuff. Since Mom knows, I can at least work out at the house.”

“It’s quite all right. Do you want them now, or—”

“Nah, I’ll get them after patrol, tie them to the top of the car or something.”

He nodded, and they both went out into the store. Still somewhat exhausted, Giles left dealing with the customers to Willow, and went to do some less strenuous cataloguing himself.

Buffy hung out behind the counter as Willow stuffed charm bags with different talismans and gems that had just arrived. After a moment, she glanced to the table where Xander was sitting with Anya.

“Why is she still here?” Buffy whispered.

“I think she likes him.” Willow grinned.

“She met him two days ago and she’s barely let go.”

“Yeah, it’s like she commandeered him or something. But it’s kinda cute.”

A customer came up, and Willow stopped to ring up his purchases. A moment later, she turned back to Buffy. “Besides, I think he likes her. It’s nice to see Xander happy. He hasn’t had the best luck.” She leaned in. “I’ve got this theory, that Xander is some sort of demon magnet. I mean, one of his girlfriends tried to eat him. Then there was this mummy girl, and the evil sacrament girl—”

“Hey! I know you two are talking about me over there,” he called pleasantly. “Better come do it to my face.”

Buffy smiled and followed Willow out to the front.

“Just saying how you’re a demon magnet,” Willow said.

“He is quite attractive,” Anya said. She turned to him, appraisal in her eye. “Pleasingly shaped.”

“Um, yeah?” Xander stammered.

“I’m pretty sure the others wanted to kill him,” Willow said.

Anya nodded, looking back at Xander. “I could see the appeal for using you ritually.”

“Um…”

“But once you eviscerate someone, that’s it!” She threw her hands up. “No chance for anything satisfying. No, I like Xander intact. Besides, it’s not like I have my powers anymore.”

Giles paused from his bookshelf, turning toward the group. “And you’ve, er, given up on regaining said powers?”

“I suppose so. Nothing produced the desired results. After I lost my pendant, I did all types of incantations. I even considered temporal folds.”

He frowned. “Aren’t those rather dangerous and unpredictable?”

“Oh, yes. I couldn’t find anyone to do one with me, though I could get the necessary ingredients between this store and ebay. You’re woefully unequipped for the blacker of the arts here, by the way.”

“Yes, there was rather a point to that, actually.”

“Anyway,” Anya continued, undaunted, “It was probably for the best. The last time I did a temporal fold, I had my powers, and Hallie was with me. And the wrong person still ended up dying. We started some war.”

“Really, which one?” he asked, academic interest piqued.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a dismissive wave. “It was centuries ago. Anyway, I’ve reconciled myself to being human. It was my own fault. That will teach me to put my career first. Personal safety is my new number one priority. It’s much more difficult as a human, so it’s been quite time consuming.”

“Yeah,” Willow offered. “Must be, um, an adjustment.”

“Exactly! I see all these people in desperate need of vengeance, but no, can’t help them anymore. And some of them used to come up with the best things—things even I wouldn’t have thought of. Like Faith— I mean, I’m upset that I lost my powers, but I really wish I’d gotten to grant that wish. It was going to be an excellent wish, I could tell.” She nodded sagely. “She was the inventive type.”

“So why keep hanging around here all the time?” Xander asked.

“Well, at first I came to look for items to retrieve my pendant. But clearly, you people are the only ones that have any clue what goes on in this town. Even if your shelves are severely under stocked.” She pointed to Buffy. “I mean, you’ve even got the Slayer here now. Definitely the right sort to put my cards in with. Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be about to patrol? Keep us safe, go deadness for the vampires!”

Buffy bit back a smile. “So patrol, who’s coming with?”

“Friday night patrol? I’m in,” Xander said. “Will?”

“Sure.”

He turned to Anya with a smile on his face. “Wanna come?”

“Oh, absolutely not.”

-----

Spike shadowed Buffy on an uneventful patrol, and then set out on a hunt of his own.

Sunnydale was not that large a town, so it shouldn’t take him long to find her. He knew her haunts, knew her ways. Hopefully he could find her alone; he needed to talk to her, at least once.

After several hours of stalking through the town in search of Drusilla, he spotted her as he was coming out of a cemetery.

Only on the Hellmouth would there be a playground next to a cemetery.

She was walking through the deserted park in a long black dress, making a slow dance of it as she wove through the swings. She pulled at the chains as she passed, leaving them swaying in the night behind her. Slowly, in her own time, she came to where he waited.

Without pause or hesitation, Drusilla moved to kiss him full on the mouth, pressing her body up against his and pulling his head down to her. She kissed as she had twenty years ago, as though they were still lovers.

He didn’t.

Dru stepped back and looked at him with a sad expression. But she didn’t seem particularly surprised.

“You taste like ashes.”

“Sorry, kitten.”

“She’s hovering, even now, floating all round in your head.” Drusilla brought her hand up to his cheek. “My Spike’s in love with the sunshine.” Her expression shifted and she hissed, clawing at his face. “It burns, wicked and twisted. Get the sunshine out!”

Spike jerked back, catching her hands in his.

Subdued after a moment, she merely stood.

“Dru, listen to me, all right?” He pulled her along with him, leading her as he walked backward. She followed meekly; it was a dance they’d done many times before. “I want you out of here.”

She said nothing, just scowled and looked at the ground.

“C’mon, pet, you used to listen to me. Listen to me now. This Slayer’s good. And she’s gonna be better.”

“Yes, you’re seeing to that, aren’t you, my lovely?”

“Look Dru, just go. Please, pet. Sod Angelus and get outta here. Think about your own skin for once.”

“I wonder,” she said, pulling one of her hands free.

“What?”

“If my skin is the same on the inside as the outside. White in the moonlight.” She twisted her hand around in front of her face, mesmerized in the movement.

As she spoke, Spike realized it was futile. Dru had never taken charge, never been on her own for any extended period. Still, he continued. “You liked South America, yeah? Brazil? Colombia? I’ll get you on a ship, a plane, whatever you want. I’ve got some cash, and I can get more. Just leave. Things here—sometime things are gonna go down.”

She laughed, drawing away.

“You may like to play in the sunshine, but you’re still my dark prince, Spike. Always mine, just a little piece. You won’t hurt your princess.”

Spike sucked his cheeks in. “No.”

Drusilla smiled.

“But I won’t stop her from it, either. She’ll hurt you if you’re here, pet.”

“Where else would I be?” she asked, looking at the sky.

“Dru.”

She wouldn’t look back at him.

“Drusilla!”

He knew the conversation was over when she craned her neck to the stars. She could stand like that for hours sometimes.

She was still, except for a slight sway as she whispered to the night with her eyes closed. It was something he had seen a thousand times before, something he knew he would never see again.

He’d tried. Tried to get her to leave, to go—to go anywhere but here. Anywhere that she wouldn’t be in the Slayer’s path.

But once Dru got it in her head to do something, there was no persuading her. The only other possibility that he could see was if Angelus and Darla were taken out and he was able to send Dru on her way afterward. But it was unlikely that things would work out so neatly. Fights were unpredictable, and if she persisted in staying she’d most likely end up dust in the wind.

Spike watched her for almost a full ten minutes.

Then he turned and walked away without another word.

Exiting the park, he practically ran into teenaged couple who were heading in. They were whispering and hanging all over each other, obviously excited from escaping their houses after midnight. On instinct Spike appraised them in less than a second, registering that both were nervous and unaccustomed to being out late. Another time, a different day, he would have congratulated himself on his good luck. Easy prey delivered on a silver platter.

He would have killed the boy first, and then the girl as she was running and screaming. He didn’t usually give them time for that, but they always ran and screamed if they saw it happen to another first.

He thought of Drusilla standing in the park, waiting.

“Go the other fucking way,” he barked at them, pushing past. “Do you know what comes out at night?”

“Dude, watch it!”

Spike didn’t respond, or look back. They could take his advice or not. It wasn’t his problem.
 
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