Author's Notes: This chapter makes me a little nervous, because it's based on one of my (and I'm sure most other Spuffy fans') favorite episodes. Obviously because we're experiencing this from Buffy's POV, we're not going to get the lovely flashbacks to what actually happened, we're only going to have the word of a not-always-entirely-honest vampire. Filling in the blanks of what he might have told her was both fun and challenging, and I'm a little nervous as to how well you all will accept the results of my game of mad libs with canon dialogue. Still, this was one of the most fun chapters to write, and I hope you like it.

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.

Credits: This chapter contains dialogue from the episode "Fool For Love" written by Douglas Petrie.

Betaed by Phuriedae

Banner by Phuriedae

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Chapter 7

Ask Me No Questions

Pain.

Hot, blinding pain.

I grip the stake in my hand and it's slippery with blood.

My blood.

Oh.

God.

My blood.

Teeth grinding, I manage to pull it out. Stuff my hand against the wound to slow the blood flow.

Blood.

Vampire.

God.

I run.

Things are a blur then. Pain. Fear.

It's been so long since I felt this that I can't process it.

Then... arms. Familiar.

Riley.

Helping me stand. Helping me home.

Only, it's too much.

And there's only black.

***

I wake up in the dream room, and the pain is still there, but muted now. Not as strong.

I can't see to check it, but when I carefully touch the wound I feel stitches and bandages. I lay very, very still.

When Mr. Gordo arrives, I tense.

He growls.

Blood. He can smell the blood.

I hear him climb on the bed, then feel him move closer. Oh, this is sooo not of the good.

"Stop," I say. He does.

"Please, please stay over there."

After a moment's hesitation, he backs up.

"I know you can smell it," I say, because it's obvious. "But I'd really, really appreciate it if you'd just... try very hard to ignore it?"

There's a lengthy pause, then cool fingers brush my hair away from my forehead. It's gentle. Surprisingly gentle for a vampire. His fingers lay against my cheek for a moment.

"I'm okay," I say, because I need to believe it. "I'm going to be fine. I've had worse."

Hey, technically drowning is worse, right?

He draws back, and I feel him settle down, facing me.

It's a very long night, or at least it seems that way.

***

I must eventually fall asleep, because the next thing I know I'm waking up on my bed in my room, and Riley is checking my bandages.

It's not quite dawn yet.

"How long was I out?" I ask.

"Forty minutes," Riley says. "Figured it'd be better to let you stay unconscious while I patched you up. Think you feel well enough to get to the doctor?"

"No doctor," I say, wincing as I prod at it. "How bad is it?"

"I've seen worse, but Buffy—"

"No doctor. I'm fine. Any major organ damage?"

"Not that I could see, but—"

"No doctor." He's not happy about it, but he helps me get up and change clothes. The blood soaked ones from earlier go in a plastic bag that will later get burnt. By the time we're done, I've reopened the wound and he makes me sit back down while he pulls off the bandages and checks the stitches. It doesn't take long to disinfect it again and re-bandage it.

"I can't believe I passed out," I say as he's finishing. "Do you think I'm a total wuss now?"

He smiles wryly. Wryly. Riley. Huh.

"Oh, yeah. I like a girl who can go a few hard sets of tennis with a major stab wound," he says.

"You said it wasn't that bad!"

"I said I'd seen worse. There's a difference."

I pout and let him help me zip up my blouse.

"Well," I say, looking on the bright side. "At least no major organs got kebab-ed."

"I still think you should see a real doctor," he says. I sigh.

"That would put me in a real hospital which would get my real mom real freaked out. I can't do it," I try to explain. "Don't worry. Accelerated healing powers come with the Slayer package. And the boyfriend who comes complete with combat medical training? That's just a Buffy Summers bonus."

He's not looking convinced, but I don't need him to be. Day or two and I'll be un-holey Buffy... I mean... not with the giant stake shaped hole in me. I used to think pointy sticks were kind of lame weapons, but I'm finding I've got a new found appreciation for them.

"So, tell me about the bad guy... or guys? What do you think they were?"

"Vampire," I say, feeling embarrassed.

"How many?"

"One." Now I'm really embarrassed, and Riley is looking really surprised.

"So... what? He was like a super-vampire or something?"

"No, he was just the regular kind. He just beat me." And how weird is that? I mean, he wasn't even that old. He'd probably died less than twenty years ago (and still had the hair to prove it). I always figured if I was going to go out at the hands of a vampire it'd be a powerful one. An old one.

The only vampires that have ever even come close to besting me were Lothos and the Master—and then only because of their mind tricks—and they're both dust. In a physical fight with no tricks, the only vampire who's ever come close to besting me before is...

...Spike.

"That ever happen before?" Riley asks, looking concerned.

"I'm in the best physical shape of my life," I say, instead of answering his question. "If you're asking how it happened, I don't know." I shake my head. I need to go talk to Giles.

There's a quick knock on the door and Mom pokes her head in just as Riley drops the bloody cotton balls out of sight.

"Buffy?" she says. "Oh, hi Riley."

"Hi, Mrs. Summers. How're you feeling?" I really have the sweetest boyfriend.

"I'm fine, bordering on chipper and tomorrow planning on being obnoxious," she smiles, which makes me feel a little better. Her headaches keep coming and going, but the doctors haven't given us any idea what's causing them.

Stupid doctors.

"Glad to hear it," Riley says.

"Buffy, when you have a minute I'd like to go over the grocery list for next week."

"You got it," I say.

She sniffs. "Are you... disinfecting something?"

"Just a scratch," I say. "No big. Still, better safe, right?"

"Right," she says, looking worried. "Just... be careful honey." She leaves, partially shutting the door behind her.

Yeah... careful.

I need to figure out where I went wrong last night. How I screwed up. Suddenly I'm thinking of all the other Slayers who came before me. All the other dead Slayers.

Maybe there's a clue there.

"I'll take patrol tonight," Riley says, interrupting my thoughts.

Wait... I'm the Slayer and if I can get injured on the job, he definitely can. I don't like that idea at all.

"By yourself?" I ask. He gives me the Look. The one that says he can handle himself and he doesn't need me to protect him. Hello? Did he not see the giant gaping wound in my stomach?

"Just a sweep," he promises.

"Do me a favor? Take the group along?"

I can see that he only agrees because he's worried about worrying me.

Which worries me even more.

***

I'm totally not book girl. All those big, dusty books give me a headache. But tonight I'm determined and if I have to beat the answers out of those old pages, so help me, I will.

Giles was, at first, thrilled that I wanted to read the Watcher's diaries. Until I told him why.

"Good lord," was his first response. Then there was some glasses polishing, and a few more "good lord"s and "are you sure you're quite alright?"s.

Since then we've managed to cover the entire counter of the magic shop reading up on Slayer lore. I started with everything American, he went with everything non. It was a system. Still, most of the books? Not of the helpful.

Giles is flipping through pages, looking tired. "Here's another one. Early eighteenth century Slayer..."

I shut my book and sigh. "Good. Let's hope she'll be more helpful than this last one."

"Why?" he asks, looking up. "What does it say?"

"Same as all the others. Slayer called... blah, blah... great protector... blah, blah...scary battles... blah, blah... Ooops! She's dead." I frown. "Where are the details?"

"Details? Well... it says that this Slayer forged her own weapons."

He hands the book over, but I can see at a glance it's about as useful as the last.

"Gotta love a gal with an anvil," I say dryly, trying to imagine myself making a sword. Nah. I have enough trouble whittling stakes. "But where are the details of the Slayer's last battle? You know, what made that fight special? Why did she lose?"

Giles is polishing again. "You didn't lose last night, Buffy. You just..."

"Got really close," I sigh. "I slipped up, Giles. I've been training harder than ever, even..." I catch myself before I say 'in my sleep'. I'm still not willing to share that little bit of crazy. With a shake I continue. "There's nothing in any of these books to help me understand why. I mean, look, I realize that every Slayer comes with an expiration date on the package. But I want mine to be a loooong time from now. Like a Cheeto."

He gives me a look.

"If there were just a few good descriptions of what took out the other Slayers," I say, pretending I didn't see it, "maybe it would help me to understand my mistake, to keep it from happening again."

God, I need to keep it from happening again. I'm so not ready to die. It's totally unfair that not only do I not get a choice about this, but that it also means I have to die young. I don't think about it. I try not to think about it.

But when you're yanking a stake out of your gut it's harder not to. And maybe it's time I did.

Giles has his uncomfortable British face on. "Yes, well," he says, "the problem is after a final battle, it's difficult to get any... well, the Slayer's not... she's rather..."

"It's okay to use the D-word, Giles." Believe me. I've been thinking it non-stop.

"Dead," he says, and suddenly it sounds a lot more final. "And hence not very forthcoming."

"Why didn't the Watchers keep fuller accounts of it? The journals just stop." Aren't Watchers supposed to... you know, watch?

"Well, I suppose if they're anything like me, they just find the whole subject too..." he trails off, looking anywhere but at me.

"Unseemly?" I roll my eyes. "Damn. Love ya, but you Watchers are such prigs sometimes." Probably a British thing.

"Painful," he says, surprising me. "I was going to say."

Oh.

Right.

He sighs. "But you're right. Accounts of the final battles would be very helpful. But there's no one left to tell the tales... What?"

He's looking at me funny, but I barely notice.

No one left... no. There's at least one no one left, and I know just how to get him to talk.

"Spike," I say.

Giles blinks. "Oh," he says. "He... has killed at least two Slayers. But, are you sure you want to discuss the subject with Spike? It's likely to be unpleasant."

"I have to know," I say, because I do.

***

When I barge into his crypt a little while later, he's sitting in his armchair scribbling in a battered up book.

"Oi! How about knocking?" he says, glancing up. I don't give him a chance to get any further. Instead I grab him by the shoulder and slam him up against a column.

"OW!... Wait, not ow. You feeling alright, Slayer? This stuff usually hurts."

When I spin him around he's got an odd look on his face. The smirk I get, the look in his eyes, however is disturbing.

"Don't even start, Spike," I warn.

"What do you want?" he says.

"Slayers. You killed two of them."

He's suddenly on guard. Wary. "I did," he says slowly, and I can see the thought cross his mind that I'm about to deliver payback.

"You're gonna show me how," I tell him.

He pushes me off of him. "Oh, I am?" He's got that narrow eyed look now, calculating, trying to figure out how to turn this to his advantage. Whatever, I just want the information.

"You are," I say.

He smirks, reading me easily. "Say 'pretty please, Spike.'"

I roll my eyes. So not in the mood.

"What do you want, Spike?"

"Ambiance," he says. "'S not a short story. Might as well get comfy, yeah?"

***

Thirty minutes later we're sitting at a small table, tucked under the stairs at the Bronze, and he's downing his first beer. For a creature that's always running at the mouth, he can be stubbornly silent when he wants to be.

"You know, there's quite a few American beers that are highly underrated," he scowls into his mug. "This, unfortunately, isn't one of them."

That's it.

"Update, Spike. We're not here to discuss the fine choice of hops. It's about two Slayers. One in China during the Boxer Rebellion. One in New York. Both got killed by you."

I fish out a thick wad of cash. My shopping money for the next two weeks, but this is more important, and I know how to grease up Spike.

Ew.

Did I really just think that?

He tries to snatch the cash from my hand but I tuck it away before he can. He's pissed now.

"Tell the tale, you get the cash,"

"Right," he says, leaning back. "You want to learn all about how I bested the Slayers and you want to learn fast. Right then: We fought. I won. The End. Pay up." Oh, yeah. Pissed.

God he's a jerk.

"That's not what I—"

"What do you want, eh?" He interrupts. "A quick demo? A blow-for-blow description you can map out and memorize?"

Well, it would be nice...

"It's not about the moves, luv. And since I agreed to your little proposition, we can do this my way." He's got that look again. "Wings."

"What?"

He wants wings?

"Spicy buffalo wings. Order me up a plate, I'm feeling peckish."

God. He's a vampire. Angel never ate, but Spike is forever shoving stuff in his mouth. Maybe the inability to bite has given him an oral fixation. Would explain the nasty cigarette habit... except, no, he smoked before he was chipped.

Fine. I'll feed him, if it'll get him to talk. But it's coming out of his pay.

Only, when I turn to signal the waitress, pain erupts in my stomach. With a wince, I touch it to see if I opened it up again, forgetting...

"As I thought," Spike practically purrs. "Some nasty thing got a taste of you."

"Don't get all excited," I tell him, no longer in the mood to order anything for him. "I'm fine."

His eyes in the dim lighting are very, very dark blue and way too perceptive.

"Oh, right. Stuck in a dark corner with a creature you loathe, diggin' up past uglies... 'cause you're fine," he says.

Two way street, Spike. We both know that if it weren't for his chip, he wouldn't be here either. Goody for me, he is. Otherwise I might not get my answers.

"Just tell me what I want to know."

"I told you," he says. "No one's narrating on an empty stomach here."

"Were you born this big a pain in the ass?" His poor mother must have been a saint.

He leans in, a slow, seductive little smile playing across his face. "What can I tell you, baby? I've always been bad."

Ewww. Did I seriously just think of Spike as seductive? Yeeech.

"Whatever," I say, and snag the waitress as she goes by. She jots down the order and hurries off. "Satisfied?"

"Hardly," he says, leering a little and curling his tongue behind his teeth.

"Talk," I say. "Or I eat all your wings."

"Bitch," he says, but it's friendly now, more relaxed. He leans back in his chair, gets comfortable. "Fine then. It starts, as all good stories do, with a girl—"

Oh, god. "Spike—"

"Shut it, Slayer. You wanted to know, I'm telling. But I'll do it my way, and in my own time. So shut your gob, and listen."

I shut up and wait.

"As I was saying, it starts with a girl. Year was... 1880 or so, place was London. She was the daughter of family friends and I was madly in love." He raises his eyebrows at this pronouncement, as if daring me to contradict him.

"You were human then?"

"Yeah," he says. "I was human then, and stop interruptin'. She was beautiful, classy, and I was going to ask her to marry me."

The idea of Spike wanting to get married almost makes me laugh, but I hold back, not willing to lose the chance that he'll talk. The waitress deposits another beer on the table. When she wanders off, Spike starts up again.

"'Course, back then, if you wanted to get married, you had to bring somethin' to it, didn't you? Nobody just married for love. Had to have a title. Fortune. Connections. All of the above. Wasn't titled, of course. And as for fortune, whatever I had didn' even compare to what her other beaus had. No real connections to speak of, either. But I tried, because I was in love, and a bleedin' fool." He pauses and takes a swig of his beer. "She turned me down, of course. I was expectin' it, but it still hurt."

Something flashes across his face then, and I can see that he's not telling everything. God, more than a hundred years ago and he's still able to remember it that clearly? Whatever it was that actually happened, it must have cut the human William deep if the vampire still remembered it.

For a moment, I feel bad for William, whoever he was.

Then I remember that this has nothing to do with two dead Slayers.

"I ran out," he says, lost in the story now. "Was furious, hurt. Thought my life was over. It was. I just didn't know it yet."

"Drusilla," I say. I know she was his sire, but I have no idea how it happened. He nods.

"Drusilla. Found me in the mews—"

"Mews?"

He waves a hand. "Sort of like an alley, ran behind townhouses, connected to the stables. Not a good place to be, after dark. I wasn't thinkin' too clear. Anyway, thought she was a pickpocket at first. Turns out she was after more than my dosh. She was beautiful and exotic, and I was... enchanted. Wanted her almost immediately, an' she wanted me. She turned me right there, in a stinking alleyway with people walking past not fifteen yards off. It hurt, for a bit, and when I couldn't see anymore, she opened up a vein in her wrist and made me drink. Never tasted anything like it, before that. It was... life. Thick and rich. Was the last thing I knew, before I died."

The wings arrive, and he flirts with the waitress while she sets the plate in front of him and fiddles with the blue cheese dip. I roll my eyes, waiting, caught up in the story despite myself. When she's gone, I prod him.

"What then?"

He makes a show of picking up a chicken wing and tearing into it with his small, white teeth that somehow always manage to look a little fangy, even though they're as blunt as mine. He chews, swallows. Licks buffalo sauce off his lips.

"Not nice to talk with your mouth full," he says, then gestures at the plate. "Tuck in, Slayer. Wouldn't hurt you to put some meat on your bones."

I'm about to argue, but my stomach growls, reminding me of how little I've eaten all day. Blushing, I pick up a wing and take a bite. It's not bad. I eat four more before I realize he's not talking.

"What then, Spike?"

He shrugs, picking up his beer and taking a long swallow, and I watch the muscles in his throat work. He sets the beer down, then smirks. "I died. Then I got better."

I snort.

He snags the last wing and strips it neatly in two bites. How he manages it without getting buffalo sauce all over his face must be one of those vampiric secrets, because I've been wiping my fingers and face on my napkin almost constantly. After he drops the bones on the plate he sucks his fingers, one by one, licking off the last of the sauce. It's one of the dirtiest things I've ever seen, and he clearly knows it's affecting me, because he repeats the performance on his other hand even slower.

"C'mon," he says, when he's finished trying to get himself punched in the face. "Need to move."

He stands and heads for the pool tables, leaving me no choice but to follow. It's a slow night, there's no band playing tonight, so the tables are mostly empty. Just a few college kids and some high-schoolers fooling around. Spike picks up a triangle thingy and racks the balls on the table with the efficiency of a born pool-shark. Xander would be jealous.

When he tosses me a cue, I catch it easily. "Want to break, Slayer?" he asks. "Ladies first."

There's a challenge in his eyes. I've never backed down from him yet, and I'm not about to now. "Fine, but then you start singing again, Spikey."

He curls his tongue. "Could," he says, doing that growly thing again. "But then you'd have to protect me when all the women start throwing themselves at me. Want to be my bodyguard, Betty?"

What? Are stuck back in Jonathan's delusional glory days? Then the pop-culture reference clicks. Spike thinks he can out-pop-culture me?

"You're a pig, Al." I put a little too much Slayer strength into the break, and the balls fly across the table with a loud crack. Takes a minute for them to stop ricocheting... and somehow I never manage to sink even one. So not fair.

He picks up his cue and lines up his first shot.

"So you traded up on the food chain," I say. "Then what?"

His look is disgusted. "Oh, please. Don't make it sound like something you'd flip past on the Discovery Channel. Becoming a vampire is a profound and powerful experience. I could feel this new strength coursing through me. Getting killed made me feel alive for the very first time. I was through living by society's rules." He shoots, and watches the ball roll into the pocket. "Decided to make a few of my own. Of course, in order to do that... I had to get myself a gang."

"A gang?"

He shrugs, lighting a cigarette and letting it dangle from his mouth as he lines up his next shot. "Wasn't nearly as hard as it could have been. Dru and I met up with Angelus and Darla a few weeks after I rose. Couldn't do better than a trio of the most powerful vampires to ever walk the earth, now could I? I was itching for something, something bigger than me, better. Suddenly I had no one to answer to. No human law could hold me. No human could touch me. I was stronger, faster. All the power in the world in my hands and nothing to hold me back, you know? Started picking fights, wherever we went. I'd take on two, three men at a time at first, lovin' the challenge. After awhile it got easy, so I went out and found bigger fights. Almost took on a mob up in Yorkshire, 'cept Angelus was too cowardly to face them and made us all hide in a bloody mine shaft."

I wince at the name. Even now I hate thinking of him as Angelus. It brings back all the old memory, all the pain. All the ways in which I failed that year. If Spike notices it, he doesn't call me on it, for once.

"That's when I first heard about the Slayer. The Great Forehead told me all about her. One girl in all the world, chosen to fight our kind. Couldn't wrap my head around it, at first. One little girl was supposed to take on all the vampires and demons in the world? Made no soddin' sense. Then he told me that she was special. Strong. Fast. Made to be our match and then some. The perfect warrior. And the best part was, if one got killed, another rose. Like a bottomless bloody Pez dispenser."

Ugh. Good thing Spike wasn't a writer. His analogies left a lot to be desired. He should stick with pool, he'd already cleared half the table.

"After that," he says, "I was obsessed. I mean, to most vampires the Slayer was the subject of cold sweats and frightened whispers. But I never hid. Hell, I sought her out. I mean, if you're looking for fun, there's death, there's glory, and sod all else, right?" He gives a shrug. "I was young."

Fun. He thought it was fun, hunting someone down for the challenge of trying to kill them? He moves around behind me where I stand at the table.

"So, how'd you kill her?" I ask.

"Funny you should ask," he says, and I realize he's still behind me. He grabs my neck and I act on instinct, bringing up the cue in my hands, ready to stake him. He catches it, his strength matching mine until we're canceling each other out.

"Lesson the first," he says. "A Slayer must always reach for her weapon." With a crunch of shifting cartilage, he slips into game face, studying me through the demon's golden eyes. "I've already got mine." He smiles, showing his fangs, reminding me that this is what he really is. Then he shakes it off, slipping that too handsome, boyish face back on with ease.

I'd never thought of it that way before. He was right. I could kill a vampire without a weapon, but it was harder. Much harder.

Spike didn't need a weapon.

A sudden flash of memory. 'Do we really need weapons for this?' I asked. The demon before me leered, sucking his teeth, his platinum blond hair glowing white under the emergency lights. I watched as he ran a hand down his torso. 'I just like them,' he said, cupping himself through his jeans. 'They make me feel all manly.'

Oh, god. I'd been so stupid. So young. I'd tossed that axe down and went after him with my fists. If it hadn't been for mom, I'd have been dead. Spike would have killed me years ago.

He plucks the cue out of my stunned hand and releases my neck, leaving me standing there like a statue. He lines up another shot and continues as if I hadn't just realized how close I'd come to death at his hands before.

"A good thing, too. Become a vampire, you've got nothing to fear. Nothing but one girl. That's you, honey. Back then, it was her. Gotta understand, it took me awhile to track one down. Like mayflies, most Slayers. Some of you live a few years after you're called, some, only a few days. Had to keep my ears open, listen to the rumors in the demon world, follow up on them. Wasn't until Darla decided we needed a little trip to China that I got lucky. You know about the Boxer Rebellion, pet?"

I blink, trying to catch up with his words.

"Um... it happened in China? We hadn't gotten that far in my history classes before I had to drop."

"Soddin' American universities probably don't teach it anyway. Too busy gettin' a hardon over Europe to pay much attention to the rest of the world. Was a religious war, Darla's favorite kind. Chinese decided they'd had enough of the foreign missionaries and decided to kick them out. Called them 'foreign demons'... and they weren't wrong. Not just missionaries were taking advantage of all the Eastern travel back then. Lots of demons looking for new feeding grounds had gone over. Europe and the Americas were industrializing, science was winning out over superstition. China was the bloody promised land: lots of people, not a lot of crosses. The Boxers were Chinese fighters, martial arts experts."

"Why were they called Boxers?" I ask, interested again in spite of myself. I'd really liked history in school, but I'd always suspected that the textbooks didn't know the whole truth. Here was Spike, with the truth, and it was fascinating.

"Because the English have a superiority complex, and have to impose their ideas on the rest of the world," he says dryly, perching on the edge of the table to light another cigarette. "In merry old, a man who fought with his fists was a pugilist. A boxer. Since the Chinese fought with their fists, and the British missionaries wouldn't dirty their ears by speaking anything but God's tongue, their fighters were called boxers, too."

"Hello, Spike, you're British," I point out.

"Bloody hell, Slayer," he mocks. "How'd you guess? I'm a vampire, too, pet, and clearly more intelligent than you gits ever bother to give me credit for. Makes my perspective a bit different, don't it?"

"Whatever," I say. He gestures at the table and the game I've forgotten to follow. With a sigh, I drop in a couple of balls, then miss my third. "Okay, so lots of fighting, Chinese rebelling, missionaries fleeing, demons everywhere. That about sum it up?"

"You're missing the point," he says. "Slayers go where the demons are, and there were a lot of demons in China back then—not to mention a lot of Chinese fighting them. Including one little girl who'd become something of a legend in her village. Didn't take too long to find her, once we were there. The war got there first, though. Half the city was on fire, and the other half was in a rush. Hurrying to live, hurrying to die, and there she was in the middle of it, like this calm in the eye of the storm. Tiny, of course. For some reason most Slayers are. Delicate. Pretty as a bird."

His eyes get a far away look.

"Didn't know what to expect, did I? Thought I'd just walk in and the fists would start flying. I was wrong. She danced. Had this sword, long and shiny and blessed. The way she moved with it... poetry. I was young, like I said. Was used to European styles of fighting, all fists. She fought with her whole body, with that sword as an extension of her little arm, moving so fast I could barely follow it. Still... I was good. Fighting her was a rush. I landed a few hits, she landed a few more. Cut me with that bloody sword only once."

He touches his left eyebrow, and the scar there. God... that's been healing for over a hundred years? I think I need to find myself a blessed sword.

"Thought she had me, at one point, 'til I got the sword off her. She was still good, but I could tell she relied on it. Without it, she was crippled. She went for her stake, managed to pin me up against a column, but an explosion outside broke us apart. She lost her stake, went after it... and I grabbed her. Sank my fangs in and drank deep."

He groans a little at the memory, and I realize that he's turned on by it. Oh, ewwww.

"That's when I found out what Slayer blood is. Fuckin' ambrosia. Nectar of the Gods. An aphrodisiac, and I was high off it. Dru found me just after that. Impressed her, it did, my killing a Slayer. Shagged her rotten right there in the temple, while the city burned around us... That was the best night of my life. And I've had some sweet ones."

He finally glances over at me.

"What are you looking at?" he says.

"You got off on it," I say, disgusted.

"Well, yeah," he says, as if that should be obvious. "I suppose you're telling me you don't?"

I'm not even going to dignify that with a response, even though somewhere in the back of my head Faith is whispering 'Isn't it crazy how slaying just always makes you hungry and horny?' I tell her to shut up.

"How many of my kind you reckon you've done?" Spike asks.

"Not enough," I tell him. It'll never be enough. Especially as long as he's still around. He nods, smirking, stalking toward me.

"And we just keep coming. But you can kill a hundred, a thousand, a thousand thousand and the enemies of Hell besides, and all we need is for one of us—just one—sooner or later, to have the thing we're all hoping for."

He pauses, inches away. He's so close, but I'm not going to back down. The tingles are electrifying now, his power washing over me, making the hair all over my body stand on end.

"And that would be?" I manage somehow.

He leans in close, cold breath washing against my ear and sending shivers down my spine. When he speaks, his voice is low, rough, gravely and wicked.

"One. Good. Day."

UGH! I push him away, furious to find him laughing at me. It's too easy for him to get under my skin.

"Hey," he says. "You asked, and I'm tellin'. The problem with you, Summers, is you've gotten so good, you're startin' to think you're immortal."

"Not really," I assure him. "I just know I can handle myself."

"Oh," he says, stepping up again. "How do you explain this?" Before I realize what he's about to do, he's dug his hand into my stomach, jabbing the wound there hard enough that I cry out in pain. It's not much consolation when his chip fires and he roars, reeling back and clutching at his head.

For a moment we just stand there, panting and staring each other down. Then we realize everyone's staring. That's right, everyone stare at the freak couple maiming each other at the pool tables. Spike shoots them a glare that quickly has people turning back around.

"So that's it? Lesson over?" I ask, trying not to gasp.

"Not even close," he says, grabbing a pool cue and heading for the alley out back. "Come on."

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