Chp 11 Food for thought


France:


Buffy Summers lay on her stomach and wriggled through the long grass, trying to keep her head down so the lower branches of the bushes didn’t tangle in her hair. Insects were stinging any of her flesh they could reach and she could feel sweat running down her face even in the chilly night. It was pitch black here, deep in the undergrowth where the moonshine didn’t reach, a fact that obviously didn’t worry Spike at all. She could just make out the patterns on the soles of his boots as he crawled along in front of her.

Suddenly he stopped and she eased herself alongside him, trying to ignore the signals her body was valiantly sending to her brain Spike – body – Spike – touch – now! “What is it?” she muttered, her mouth close to his ear.

He turned his head, his mouth only centimetres from hers. “Could you possibly shout any louder, Slayer? I don’t think they heard you in Berlin!”

She glared at him and whispered, “I very much doubt the Nazis have vampire hearing! What have you seen?”

Carefully he pushed back a branch and Buffy stared out into the darkness. At first she could see nothing, then realised that only yards away at the bottom of a steep slope, a jeep with swastikas painted on the side was parked on a narrow track. Two German soldiers were standing by the side of it, talking, the rank smoke from their cigarettes curling up in the still night air.

“Two there – and another wanker inside the jeep.”

“Which way is the plane? Can’t we cut across the track behind them?”

She felt Spike shrug and instinctively knew he was about to lie to her. “If we use the track it’ll cut miles off the trip, Slayer. Sun’ll be up in a couple of hours. I’ll need shelter by then.”

Buffy sighed. Fighting alongside a vampire was great, but jeez, the “not in the sunshine” bit didn’t help. “We can take all three,” she whispered. She knew exactly what Spike was capable of in her own time. And this one was unchipped and far more desperate.

Spike turned his head once more and this time she could see what she was sure was amusement glinting in his eyes. “Three humans, Slayer? With guns? Fine by me, but not if you’re going to get squeamish! Still, I suppose being a Yank, you’re used to guns. Mind you, I’ve seen hundreds of Westerns. Dru and me, we sit in the back row of the Circle in the cinema - do you get those little cardboard tubs of ice cream in the States? I like those – and snacking on whoever’s sitting next to us, of course. Yes, Westerns are great: Billy the Kid, Jesse James, hey, do you know Roy Rogers?”

Buffy wondered if she’d gone mad. She was lying in a French wood, being bitten by French insects that seemed to have vampire tendencies the way they were after her blood, watching German soldiers with guns, listening to William the Bloody talking about cowboys and eating people!

Guns! She hesitated. The demons and vampires of Sunnydale used various weapons. She’d fought spears, axes, swords, magic of all kinds but with similar weapons and stakes, of course. The only gun she’d ever used had been the one Xander had liberated from the Army a couple of years ago. Well, sixty years in the future, give or take a year. Guns didn’t come into her life in Sunnydale and hopefully never would.

“Stop the cowboy chat and stick to the problem,” she hissed under her breath. “I say we go round the jeep.”

“I’m out of fags!” Spike replied and before she could stop him, the vampire was hurtling out of the bushes and had the first soldier by the throat before he could move.

Buffy shouted a word she didn’t even know she knew and launched herself after him. Her foot connected with the second soldier’s jaw with all the frustration she was feeling behind the kick. He dropped like a stone, his gun clattering to the ground. The man in the jeep was shouting now, trying to get out of the vehicle. Buffy swung her fist at him, then jerked it back. He wasn’t a soldier! This man was in civilian clothes, wearing a long black raincoat. She could fight German soldiers, but not a bystander – she was the Slayer, not a murderer.

“Slayer! Watch out!” Even as she dodged to one side, she saw the man trying to drag a pistol from his raincoat pocket. But the barrel got caught in the material just as Spike’s body crashed into him and they rolled on the ground in a tangle of arms, legs and vicious swearing.

Buffy flinched as she heard three muffled shots ring out, the man grunted and lay still as Spike rolled to one side, muttering under his breath. Buffy checked on the two soldiers – the one she had hit was unconscious and the one Spike had first attacked – had a ragged wound in his neck and was very dead. She squared her shoulders and turned back to the other man, her stomach heaving as she realised Spike was bent over the man, his eyes yellow, his fangs buried in the man’s neck.

“Spike! Stop! He’s dead!”

The vampire looked up, his mouth and teeth dripping with a liquid that the moon had bleached from red to black. Buffy fought back the nausea that was fighting in her throat. This wasn’t her Spike crouching here, this was William the Bloody and once again, she had managed to forget that.

He stood up, wiped his hand across his mouth and grinned at her as his eyes returned to normal and his fangs vanished. “You don’t have to tell me that, Slayer. I hate dead blood, but his was still pumping for a moment or two. Stopped now.” He stared down regretfully at the body at his feet and nudged it with his boot. “Bollocks! I’m hungry. Have both the soldier boys snuffed it?”

“Yes,” Buffy lied. There was no way she was going to let him feed off the unconscious German.

He tilted his head slightly and looked at her with an expression that she could have believed was concern, if she’d believed he had any feelings like that for her. “Aren’t you hungry, Slayer? You haven’t eaten.”

Buffy shook her head. She was bone weary, cold – even wearing his leather flying-jacket – and worried sick about Dawn. Was the same amount of time passing here as then? Had Quentin Travers stayed around to explain where she’d gone? Somehow she doubted it. She had a sudden urge to cry as she realised the one person she could rely on to help and support her sister back in Sunnydale was the man with blood smeared across his face, now kneeling beside a dead body, rummaging through his pockets!

“What the heck are you doing? He’s dead, Spike. Let’s just get out of here before any more soldiers come along.”

Spike had pocketed a packet of cigarettes and a lighter than looked suspiciously familiar to Buffy. He thrust his hand into the man’s inside jacket pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers and a passport. For a second he froze, then, without a word, handed them to Buffy. “Well, well, well, no wonder he tasted good. This guy’s a Yank like you, Miss Summers. Was a Yank, I mean. Thought there was no sausage and sauerkraut in that pint of red.”

Buffy took the passport and papers. She couldn’t bear to look at them. They’d killed an American! But what on earth was he doing out here in the middle of France with a German escort? She pushed the papers into her jacket pocket. There was no time to work it out now. They needed to move and fast. Suddenly she realised Spike was no longer searching the body; he was inside the jeep and with a roar, the engine started.

“Hop in, Slayer. We’ve got ourselves a ride.”

“Are you mad?” Buffy shouted over the noise of the engine being revved very noisily under Spike’s enthusiastic boot. “We can’t steal a German jeep.”

Spike grinned at her. “Oh come on, Slayer! Don’t start having scruples again. We’ve just killed three people. Stealing their jeep isn’t going to bother them much. Now – get in.”

He watched the indecision flit across her face and wondered suddenly why he didn’t just drive off. What the bloody hell was he doing? Why was he bothered about leaving her on her own or if she was hungry? He’d forgotten for a couple of minutes just who this girl was. The Slayer – well, one of them because that bitch Joy who he’d risked life and limb, OK limb, to rescue from the chateau was still alive and kicking which made nonsense of all the old vampire tales of One Slayer being Chosen and Another One arriving when the first one popped her clogs. And he couldn’t wait to tell Liam that!

But he had to admit this one was a great fighter. Even as he’d been killing his soldier boy – sodding hell, he hated men in uniform! - he’d seen the way her foot had connected with the other guy’s jaw. She’d fought as she moved - as if to music, as if she’d been dancing. And boy, would he like to dance with her! And the kick had dropped the poor squaddie like a stone – although he hadn’t been killed. No, little Miss Slayer had lied to him about that. Hey, vampire here, he’d almost said to her. Quite capable of knowing when there’s still life in a body.

And he was still sitting here, his foot on the clutch, waiting for her to make up her mind! “Get in!” he shouted impatiently. He wouldn’t leave her. No, he’d keep her where he could see her. Yes, that was why he was hesitating of course. He felt a wave of relief sweep over him. He wasn’t getting weak, just cunning; a Slayer at your back out of sight was not a good plan!

Reluctantly, Buffy swung herself into the seat next to him as the jeep rocketed away down the track, the headlights burning into the dark. She’d so wanted to let this vampire drive off on his own: taking the jeep was so bad an idea. But if Spike found the plane, she had to be there to insist that he took her back to England with him. She needed the Watchers’ Council if she stood any chance at all of ever getting home. And anyway, it was, she reckoned, always the best thing to know where Spike was all the time. An unchipped vampire at her back – not a good plan!

They drove in silence for a while; Spike eased up on the reckless speed as the track twisted and turned through the woods. Buffy caught sight of eyes in the dark, lit up for split seconds by the lights, little animals out hunting even smaller animals and being hunted in their turn. She huddled deeper inside the leather flying-jacket, glad of its protection from the wind whistling through the open windows.

The jeep veered wildly across the road as Spike bent over and rummaged under his seat. “What the hell are you doing?” Buffy yelped.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Slayer. I can drive this one-handed.”

“Look, you’re dead already, crashing won’t worry you! Me, not so dead and it will worry me.”

He sat up straight again and waved a thick, brown parcel at her that looked sticky and stained. “Here!”

Buffy stared at him in disgust. “Uggh! What the heck is that? And no, I don’t want to touch it.”

Spike shrugged and tossed it into her lap. “Blimey, Slayer, you’re the most squeamish girl I’ve ever met. It’s food. I reckoned those soldiers would have something in their jeep to eat. Sausage and cheese and black bread by the smell of it. Still, if you’re not hungry, I’ll throw it away.” He reached over to grab the packet, his fingers brushing her thighs and making her shudder, remembering the last time she and Spike had driven out into the desert in a car he’d stolen and what those fingers had done to her.

She snatched the parcel up and unwrapped it, trying to forget the future. Suddenly she was ravenously hungry and even the sweating cheese and stale bread looked and smelt miraculous. Buffy took a large bite of spicy sausage and sat back with a little sigh of pleasure. She decided she could relax for a few seconds: she could forget the men who had died, forget Dawn, forget the missing Joy and her baby, forget the mission that had gone so wrong. She would eat and regain her energy for whatever lay ahead. She pulled off the band that was holding her hair so tightly back from her face, enjoying the feel of the wind soothing the skin where her temples ached. Just five minutes…that was what she would give herself…just five minutes…

The jeep droned on through the woods, Spike fighting to keep it on the rough track that led uphill through the trees. He was heading east, towards where the first faint glimmers of dawn were changing the sky from midnight black to darker blue. Spike was puzzled. OK, weird to be driving through France in a German jeep with a Slayer at his side. Even weirder was that now the Yank had fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder. He didn’t think Liam would bloody well believe him.

tbc