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Chapter 35: She Belongs To Me
Author’s Note:
A quick note on Spike's history: Most of what I used is straight from canon. To fill in blanks however, I've occasionally included nods to some of the novels or comics that aren't considered canon. The rest of it is just shit I made up. If you see something that may appear to be a discrepancy it’s me picking and choosing which of the non-canon elements to include.
This chapter covers the same time period as Chapter 2, for those of you who want to go back and compare perspectives.
Also, just as a matter of trivia—chapter titles in Part II are borrowed from the titles of various punk/rock/metal songs.
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.
Betaed by Phuriedae*
*because Spike is English, I’ve made a rather anal retentive attempt to spell things “properly.” My beta (who IS British), has asked that I include the following disclaimer: “Any Britpicking mistakes are my beta's, because she reads too much fic written by you bloody Americans and is used to your bizarre ways by now."
Chapter 35
She Belongs To Me
27 September 2000
Dracula.
Fucking poofter is in town and if the boy soldier is to be believed, he's hunting my Slayer. Owes me eleven quid, and now he wants to owe me a Slayer?
She's not sleeping well. Came to bed late last night, slept fitfully the whole time. With Drac in town it's not so surprising. He’s all show, though. Almost as bad as Angelus about dragging out the hunt and never getting round to the business of actually killing. It’s pathetic is what it is.
Wonder what happens to me if she dies out there? Hadn’t thought of that before.
Will the hell bitch take me, even though I didn't break the deal? Or does it nullify it? Make it all void? Can't satisfy the terms of the challenge so…
Guess I'm going back to Rupert's to look up challenges and rules.
If he's moved all the books about again, I'm gonna start gluing the pages together.
***
Bloody buggering fuck. Can buy alcohol no problem but they fucking card you to buy glue? Like sniffing it would do me any good.
Thank the Powers for five-finger-discounts.
***
[Note: four pages between the last text entry and this are covered in surprisingly well done, if graphic, drawings of a cartoon vampire resembling Dracula, being tormented in a variety of imaginative and painful ways.]
28 September 2000
She fucking tasted him.
And he bit her.
One day I'm going to find a way to kill that overbearing ponce. Him with his nancy-boy, ridiculous fucking gypsy powers. I'll bottle him up like a goddamn genie and pour in holy water. I'll nail him face first to a cross with railroad spikes through his hands and balls, then watch him burn. I'll seal him up in his coffin then ship him to the middle of the Sahara with instructions to open it just before high noon. We'll see how Mr. Dead and Loving It loves that.
[Note: the next three paragraphs have been omitted since they contain little of substance aside from a rather fluent grasp of profanity in nearly a dozen languages, some of which are clearly demonic in origin.]
She came to bed late last night. So late that I was there and waiting when she showed.
For that first half an hour I thought she was dead. Imagined that wanker holding her broken corpse, draining all that lovely blood out of her for himself.
He'd have turned her, thinking she'd make a lovely vampire.
He'd have been wrong.
You don't turn Slayers. Whatever it is in them that makes them Slayers… it'd be right nasty if it were turned. Especially her. Probably end the whole sodding world. As I've said a time or two, I like this world. Would be pure stupidity to turn a Slayer. Only good thing about it would be her tearing him to shreds, bare-handed, the minute her eyes shot open.
When she showed, I nearly broke from relief. And that's not really an experience I want to repeat.
She's mine.
I've known it since I first laid eyes on her. This Slayer, more than the other two ever were, is mine. Only thing that could make it more official would be a stamped and notarised certificate from the Powers That Be, registering one authentic Buffy Summers, Slayer to Yours Truly.
Normally, she doesn't talk to me. At first there were warnings and the usual empty threats, but she's gotten it into her head that I'm just a dream so she rarely speaks any more. Makes it easy to keep my own trap shut. Last night, though, she was feeling chatty.
"It'd be really nice if I could go one night without any vampires," she said when she came in, pouting a little. God, that little lip—made especially for sinking your teeth into. Shame it's wasted on such a bitch.
"I staked Dracula tonight. Three or four times. Didn't take, of course, and he's long gone by now… You ever meet Dracula?" she looked straight at where she thought I was, and it's uncanny how close she actually got. Her eyes focused somewhere near my mouth, which got me hard and horny.
I couldn't respond, of course. Not that that stopped her from nattering on. Funny, how she clams up round her mates, but give her a silent and captive audience and she lets slip all sorts of things.
"He's really annoying. Full of himself. I thought he was kind of pretty, at first, for a vampire. No bumpies for Dracula. He probably thinks they'd ruin his image. I wonder if vampires get plastic surgery?"
I choked on a laugh. Mocking Dracula is an old past time for me, and hearing the Slayer do it made it even better. Plastic surgery. Going to remember that one. To my eternal delight, she laughed, too, and kept on.
"Well it is California. They'll plastic up anybody. He looks like vampire Barbie."
I snickered silently.
"So I guess you're not him, then."
That got my full attention. She thought I might be Dracula? Thought I was that poncy wanker? Doesn't she have any fucking sense?
"Well, I figure if you were Dracula, you wouldn't be laughing at yourself. He doesn't strike me as the self-deprecating type."
Oh. Right. Well, that was all right then.
Also, I'm a little stunned that her vocabulary includes words like 'self-deprecating'. Sometimes she comes off as such a valley girl it's hard to remember that there're brains in there, somewhere. Love to crack her skull open and poke about in them a bit, see what turns up.
"The thing is… he said some stuff to me… tonight. I… you know I'm the Slayer, right?" Her face was screwed up with uncertainty, like it had just occurred to her that I might not. Like any vampire could enter a room with her in it and not sense that she was the Slayer. Even fledges can tell, though they don't know what that hum of danger and power means, why it's warning them away.
I shifted, not sure how to let her know, or whether I ought to let her know, but she's a clever girl and got it anyway.
"Right. So, he said that … my power comes from darkness. And… it kind of wigged me, you know? Well, maybe you don't cause you're all about the darkness but… I'm not supposed to be. I'm supposed to be the good guy, the white hat. I didn't believe him. But then he made me drink some of his blood—"
I fell off the bed.
Not proud of that. But I'll admit it. Knocked me back flat, hearing her say that she'd tasted that wanker. I started to swear, then remembered in time that I couldn't.
All of a sudden I had this mad idea that he’d thralled her so he could shag her. That that supreme arsehole had shagged my Slayer. Could smell him on her and there were fresh fang tracks on her pretty little throat. I saw red, the demon roaring back to the surface, eager for blood.
Still, despite her clearly execrable taste in men, I couldn’t imagine her fucking that wanker. She might have let Angel have a poke, but no way was she going to let another vamp that near her again.
But he'd had a taste.
There have been far too many fangs in my Slayer. Next pair are going to be mine, and I'm going to erase all their marks when I tear her throat open. Getting bloody tired of being last in line.
"Are you okay?" she asked, all concerned-like. I lifted my head, shocked all over again. Slayer's concerned about me? Not possible.
And it wasn't, of course, because a second later she frowned so hard I could see it in her face she was remembering that I'm a vamp and she's the Slayer and she should be trying to kill me, not coddle me. Funny that it was her first instinct, though.
Slowly I picked myself up and dusted off my trousers, then climbed back in bed. Haven't slept naked since that first night. Little too vulnerable, laying next to the Slayer with all my bits within her easy reach. Helps keep the demon in check, too. I could probably shag her bloody myself, but since I can't kill her I'm fairly certain she'd want to suss out who I was, after, which would cock up everything. So for now I'll keep my prick to myself.
We stared at each other for a while.
Well, I stared at her. She stared in my general direction. She was looking at my mouth again, which wasn’t helping my erection in the least.
When I couldn't take it anymore I gestured for her to hurry it up and finish her story, then winced.
"I can't see you, you know that, right?"
Irritated with myself, I tapped on the bed.
"Is that a yes?"
For a moment I wondered if doing the whole séance gig would constitute speaking, but the Frost Bitch had been pretty specific about the not saying a word thing. I decided to take her literally. Most demons aren't too good with grey areas and mostly ignore them.
I tapped again.
"You're a very weird vampire, and this is a very weird dream."
She wasn't wrong. Not about the first bit, anyway. Only thing wrong with the second bit is her assuming it was a dream. Couldn't correct her, so I didn't.
"I guess you were a little surprised about me drinking Dracula's blood?"
Clearly. I tapped again.
"It's not like I had a choice!"
Like that's an excuse. There's always a choice.
"Stupid thrall," she muttered. Bugger that. Girl's strong enough now that I don't think even Dru could thrall her. Count Wankula couldn't have been that difficult to overcome, if she'd put her will to it.
"Okay, so it was a dumb move. And it didn't really show me much of anything. Just me fighting. And that crazy rasta-mama first slayer chick that tried to kill me in my dreams once… and blood, only all in close up, which… ewwww."
She paused, her face scrunching up adorably. "Probably not from your perspective, I guess."
Shocked, I couldn't help but stare. Probably not from your perspective, I suppose, I'd said to her, just after finding out that Dru had bagged that unimpressive little Jamaican Slayer. She's quoting me. Possibly unconsciously, but still.
After a pause she continued, "It's just… there's so much about being the Slayer that I don't understand. You'd think that I would. I've been doing this for five years now. But I don't really know anything about… where my powers come from or even the extent of them. Which I should. I totally should. I know I'm not all book-girl but… maybe I should, like, look it up… If for no other reason than to keep from having to drink icky vamp blood in order to figure it out."
Sometimes I wonder how this one managed to stay alive so long.
I've seen plenty of Slayers, killed two, but fought more than that—some of them were so weak it wasn't really a let down when something else beat me to them. No glory in fighting them when they're still all trembley and dewy and newly called. The two I killed had both been at the top of their form, real prize-winners both. They'd made names for themselves among my kind and taking them down had been a challenge.
Angelus once suggested I had a death wish, going after Slayers. Darla thought it was for sport. Dru saw it as an obsession.
They're all wrong.
It's like trying to find your equal. Your match. Knowing that out there is someone as good as you. As strong, as fast, as fierce. I'm a predator, top of the food chain (or I would be without this sodding chip in my head). A hundred plus years of studying, fighting, learning… you get to be good at what you do.
The fight was never it for Angelus. When I was a fledge, yeah, he kicked my arse more times than I care to remember and made sure it hurt like hell every time. Then he spent a hundred years wallowing in the sodding gutter and feeding off rats like an Anne Rice cliché. Me? I travelled round the world. Learnt (and ate) the best there were, trying on fighting styles as often as Dru changed her dresses. I know now that I got lucky against that Chinese girl, but by the time I got to Nikki I was more than her match.
You dance with a Slayer, though, and there's only one way to end it. One of you has to die eventually, and it wasn't going to be me.
This one, though… this little blonde girl with her big eyes and pouty lip and her little gang of Scoobies, she's been different from the first. I've never gotten such a rush as when I'm fighting her. First time I laid a fist on her and she barrelled right back at me, I knew it'd be a long, long time before I found an adversary like this again. Someday she might even be the dust of me, but it won't be until I can go out fighting.
She won't admit it, but she wants the dance as much as I do. There's no glory in taking out the weak, no honour in it. Not that I give a fuck about honour, exactly. We've stalemated so many times, left openings wide when the timing wasn't right—someday we'll meet on the battlefield again, me and her, and it'll be so bloody fantastic that it'll rock the whole world. Clash of the Titans. Epic. A duel for the ages.
The Watchers are going to write reams about the two of us. We'll be legend.
And whichever one of us walks away…
Don't like thinking that far, somehow. There won't be another like her, even if I live until the sun explodes and takes this planet with it.
In the meantime, though, I can't help but ponder the mystery that is Buffy Summers. She's barely scratched the surface of what she is. Doesn't even know what she's capable of yet. What's to come for her.
And she's already better than Nikki.
Not killing her isn't such a trial, at the moment.
Give her another year. See what she becomes.
When I came out of my thoughts, she was starting to drift off to sleep and I'd missed whatever she'd said after that last bit. Her head was turned into the pillow, showing off the healing fang marks Dracula had left her. I squinted at the scar in the low light.
I knew the Master bit her. Knew Angel had torn into her at least once. Their marks were layered, one over the other, building a single scar. I leaned forward and traced it with one hand. Vaguely 'Y' shaped, it was. Familiar.
Like the scar that mars my left brow.
Can't see it in a mirror, but I've seen it in photos, and had Dru sketch it a time or two. I know it well enough after a hundred years.
Interesting.
Guess the Powers sent me that certificate after all.
I growled and moved back before she could sit up, her heart racing a little and fear leaking from her pores. Only one word, pounding in my brain, throbbing through me with every beat of her heart…
Mine.
***
1 October 2000
Research is starting to pay off. Watcher never bothered to disinvite me, so accessing his collection is usually just a matter of waiting for the old fool to fall asleep, then snatching a book or two and putting back whichever I’d borrowed the night before. Never suspects that evil is afoot in his very own home, all tucked away in his beddy-bye and snuggled up to his bottles of scotch. Plonker. Scoobies might think I'm useless, but I never let them see even half of what I'm capable of. I’ve got an invite into most of their homes, be so easy to take them out, if I wanted, chip be damned. Set a little fire, muck with their brake lines… They're always so willing to underestimate me.
Doesn't help that the Council of Wankers seem to dismiss the idea that vampires without souls might be more than just fangy graveyard pests. Oh, they keep track of our exploits and all. Found my little nothing of an entry in the Watcher's book the other night. Angelus they have a whole sodding book on (including a whole bleeding chapter on his hair. It grows straight up. That's it. End of story. Also, he likes Herbal Essences cause it's the only way he can get a happy without losing his nancy little soul.)
I get a measly seven paragraphs.
[Note: the following bit has been torn from another book and taped into the journal.]
WILLIAM (the Bloody)
William the Bloody, (approx. 1880, sired by Drusilla, Aurelian line but not a member), also known as "Spike," "Slayer of Slayers," and member of the "Scourge of Europe" (not to be confused with Scourge, The, see index) and "The Whirlwind".
His human life is largely unknown. William speaks with a working class London accent. His love of brawling and distaste for the upper-class have led to postulation that he may have been a gang member, pimp, or lower class worker before his turning. Of medium height and athletic build, William's "human" face has blue eyes, a roman nose, and dark brows. His natural hair colour is recorded, historically, as medium brown, although he has been known to go so far as to dye his hair in order to change his appearance—an unusual resource among vampires—and since the mid 1970's has preferred variations of pale blond to white hair. At various times, however it has been dyed black. He can be identified otherwise by his prominent cheekbones, and a scar that trisects his left eyebrow and seems to be immune to his vampiric healing abilities. How this scar was obtained is unknown, and should the information be stumbled upon, it would be of great interest to the Council.
In his early years, he obtained his nickname "Spike" through the use of railroad spikes as torture devices, even going so far as to drive them through the heads of several victims.
William the Bloody is the only known vampire currently in existence to have killed two Slayers within the span of a century. The first, Xin Rong (b. 1883. c. 1898, d. 1900), was stationed in China, and met William during the Boxer Rebellion. Her Watcher's diary indicates that she never met William prior to their final, fatal battle. The second, Nikki Wood (b. 1955, c. 1970, d. 1977), stationed in New York, fought against William several times, before their final battle sometime during the New York Blackout of '77. This death was initially unconnected to William, as her body was discovered in a subway car, beaten, with her neck broken and with no signs of vampiric trauma. It was only through William's penchant for boasting that his culpability in her death was discovered, and later confirmed by his wearing of her leather coat as a trophy.
William, along with his sire, Drusilla, is also suspected of being directly responsible for the deaths of an untold number of Potentials during World War II. Several other Slayers at various times have reported encounters or fights with this creature, though his reasons for backing down or fleeing from battles he might have easily won are unknown.
He is highly skilled with weapons, despite a preference for unarmed combat, and has been known to test Slayers several times, retreating, then approaching again when they are off guard. He is not known to have a thrall, but as with all vampires this should not be taken as a rule. Considered highly unpredictable, volatile, and extremely dangerous, William the Bloody should be approached with all due caution.
William is also considered something of an anomaly among vampires in that it is unknown if he has ever sired another vampire. Also unusual is his intense loyalty and commitment to his sire, the insane vampire Drusilla. The two are rarely seen separately and he has been known to slaughter entire mobs in retaliation for harm done to her.
(cross reference with Angelus; Aurelians; Boxer Rebellion; British Vampires; China; Crowley, Bernard; Darla; Drusilla; Master, The; New York; Potentials; Scourge of Europe; Slayers; Vampires; Whirlwind; Wood, Nikki; World War II; Xin Rong)
(see also: Centennial Vampires, List of Known Slayer Killers, Master Vampires)
No mention of the fact that I speak over two dozen languages (including several demon languages) or (unlike my antique sires) that I actually like technology—both nuggets of information that would have been useful to the Scoobies.
I spent nearly an hour laughing over their theories on what I was before turning. If they only knew. Watcher would cack himself if he knew I was almost as educated as he is. More so, if you figure I’ve got better than a hundred years of learning on him. Got a claptrap memory, too. Haven't forgotten a lick of all those bloody years at Eton and Cambridge.
Morons, the lot of them.
Found the hell bitch last night, buried in a book on Finnish deities. Old Norse isn't one of my languages, but this was a French translation, thank the Powers for small favours.
Her name is Louhi, and according to the Fins she's the witch goddess of Pohjola, some mythical land they thought of as the Far North, but which is probably a hell dimension. Seems she got a bit too big for her knickers and somehow they banished her from this world a few thousand years ago. Other than that there's not much in the way of details on her.
Which of course doesn’t do me a lick of good.
Tonight I'm going after specifics on this sodding deal I've made. Figure there's a chance my hunch is correct, and killing the Slayer while she's awake will break the bargain. Right now that's about all I've got to go on.
Though if I can’t be the one to do it myself… not sure what I’ll do.
***
3 October 2000
Harmony has a gang.
Said she was going to take out the Slayer with that bunch of namby-pamby, wet-behind-the-fangs litter of minions. If they were any more wriggly and panting I'd have to put newspaper down behind the gravestones to keep them from piddling everywhere.
Slayer's barely going to break a sweat on that lot.
Be almost funny if it didn't leave me feeling so fucking pathetic.
I'm the oldest vamp in Sunnyhell. I'm supposed to be running my own gang and gunning for the Slayer—but, oh, no, not old Spike. Instead I've got a bug zapper in my noggin and spend my time with the Slayer practically having a cuddle.
I hate this town.
Someday I want to watch it burn to the ground. Or maybe collapse into a giant hole or something. Suck it right into the mouth of hell.
Wouldn't that be neat?
***
4 October 2000
Should have figured the Slayer would find some way to pin Harmony's stupidity on me. What is it with her and my nose?
After she showed up last night and used my face for a punching bag, she then had the nerve to drop into dreamland feeling all chatty again. Started telling me all about Harmony kidnapping the carpenter, but I was more interested in dreaming up various ways of draining her dry through her stupid, pugnacious little nose than paying attention to her prattle.
Be so easy to kill her there, too. Haven't tried it yet, but I don't think the chip works in that place. Not sure how I know that, but if I couldn't possibly kill her in the dream dimension then why make it one of the rules that I can't?
Not that I'm going to. Not yet, anyway.
I've got to find a way out of the Snow Queen's grasp first.
But I can entertain myself by imagining it. Over, and over, and over.
She'd been nattering on for awhile before she said something that caught my attention.
"I wonder if it's Spike?" she said, and I froze.
Witch didn't say anything about what happens if she guesses it’s me. Just said that the Slayer couldn't look at my face (which in this light wasn't going to happen anyway), and that I couldn't speak (and if I have to stuff my fist in my fangs to keep from doing that, I will). But if the Slayer guessed it was me, she'd want to check somehow, and then I'd be buggered.
I didn't move. Didn't make a sound. Didn't want her to think she'd guessed right.
"I mean, we don't know when she was vamped. He could have done it just before that whole fiasco with the Gem of Amara…" she said, and I realised she'd been pacing for awhile. Couldn’t suss out what the fuck she was talking about. When who was vamped?
"Oh, wait. No. She said she was going to Paris for the summer, after graduation, but couldn't after she was turned. I remember Willow mentioning it. And Spike didn't come back ‘til after the fall semester started."
Paris. Sodding Paris. She was talking about Harmony.
Then it hit me: hold on, wait a tick. She thinks I would sire Harmony? Is she completely daft?
"Crap," she said. "I was kind of looking forward to locking them up together. He'd probably kill her and that'd be one less vamp I'd need to dust. Besides, they dated or something. That had to be torture. For both of them."
I repressed a shudder and settled for a glare—that she couldn't see, of course. Yeah, sure, I'll shag Harmony until she can't walk straight, but I’ll rip her head clear off her shoulders the minute she gets annoying. Which, let's be honest, is the minute when having to put up with her is more trouble than shagging her is worth.
The idea that I would have turned her, however, is utterly repulsive. Slayer was barmy even to consider it.
She finally dropped off to sleep, but I must have stared at her for another hour or so, watching her chest rise and fall and listening to her heartbeat.
As fun as our little chats are I know the minute she figures out that it’s me she’s opening up to, it won’t just be my nose she'll be going after.
Although, if she staked me, that'd be one way of getting out of the White Witch's clutches, wouldn't it?
A quick note on Spike's history: Most of what I used is straight from canon. To fill in blanks however, I've occasionally included nods to some of the novels or comics that aren't considered canon. The rest of it is just shit I made up. If you see something that may appear to be a discrepancy it’s me picking and choosing which of the non-canon elements to include.
This chapter covers the same time period as Chapter 2, for those of you who want to go back and compare perspectives.
Also, just as a matter of trivia—chapter titles in Part II are borrowed from the titles of various punk/rock/metal songs.
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.
Betaed by Phuriedae*
*because Spike is English, I’ve made a rather anal retentive attempt to spell things “properly.” My beta (who IS British), has asked that I include the following disclaimer: “Any Britpicking mistakes are my beta's, because she reads too much fic written by you bloody Americans and is used to your bizarre ways by now."
Chapter 35
She Belongs To Me
27 September 2000
Dracula.
Fucking poofter is in town and if the boy soldier is to be believed, he's hunting my Slayer. Owes me eleven quid, and now he wants to owe me a Slayer?
She's not sleeping well. Came to bed late last night, slept fitfully the whole time. With Drac in town it's not so surprising. He’s all show, though. Almost as bad as Angelus about dragging out the hunt and never getting round to the business of actually killing. It’s pathetic is what it is.
Wonder what happens to me if she dies out there? Hadn’t thought of that before.
Will the hell bitch take me, even though I didn't break the deal? Or does it nullify it? Make it all void? Can't satisfy the terms of the challenge so…
Guess I'm going back to Rupert's to look up challenges and rules.
If he's moved all the books about again, I'm gonna start gluing the pages together.
Bloody buggering fuck. Can buy alcohol no problem but they fucking card you to buy glue? Like sniffing it would do me any good.
Thank the Powers for five-finger-discounts.
[Note: four pages between the last text entry and this are covered in surprisingly well done, if graphic, drawings of a cartoon vampire resembling Dracula, being tormented in a variety of imaginative and painful ways.]
28 September 2000
She fucking tasted him.
And he bit her.
One day I'm going to find a way to kill that overbearing ponce. Him with his nancy-boy, ridiculous fucking gypsy powers. I'll bottle him up like a goddamn genie and pour in holy water. I'll nail him face first to a cross with railroad spikes through his hands and balls, then watch him burn. I'll seal him up in his coffin then ship him to the middle of the Sahara with instructions to open it just before high noon. We'll see how Mr. Dead and Loving It loves that.
[Note: the next three paragraphs have been omitted since they contain little of substance aside from a rather fluent grasp of profanity in nearly a dozen languages, some of which are clearly demonic in origin.]
She came to bed late last night. So late that I was there and waiting when she showed.
For that first half an hour I thought she was dead. Imagined that wanker holding her broken corpse, draining all that lovely blood out of her for himself.
He'd have turned her, thinking she'd make a lovely vampire.
He'd have been wrong.
You don't turn Slayers. Whatever it is in them that makes them Slayers… it'd be right nasty if it were turned. Especially her. Probably end the whole sodding world. As I've said a time or two, I like this world. Would be pure stupidity to turn a Slayer. Only good thing about it would be her tearing him to shreds, bare-handed, the minute her eyes shot open.
When she showed, I nearly broke from relief. And that's not really an experience I want to repeat.
She's mine.
I've known it since I first laid eyes on her. This Slayer, more than the other two ever were, is mine. Only thing that could make it more official would be a stamped and notarised certificate from the Powers That Be, registering one authentic Buffy Summers, Slayer to Yours Truly.
Normally, she doesn't talk to me. At first there were warnings and the usual empty threats, but she's gotten it into her head that I'm just a dream so she rarely speaks any more. Makes it easy to keep my own trap shut. Last night, though, she was feeling chatty.
"It'd be really nice if I could go one night without any vampires," she said when she came in, pouting a little. God, that little lip—made especially for sinking your teeth into. Shame it's wasted on such a bitch.
"I staked Dracula tonight. Three or four times. Didn't take, of course, and he's long gone by now… You ever meet Dracula?" she looked straight at where she thought I was, and it's uncanny how close she actually got. Her eyes focused somewhere near my mouth, which got me hard and horny.
I couldn't respond, of course. Not that that stopped her from nattering on. Funny, how she clams up round her mates, but give her a silent and captive audience and she lets slip all sorts of things.
"He's really annoying. Full of himself. I thought he was kind of pretty, at first, for a vampire. No bumpies for Dracula. He probably thinks they'd ruin his image. I wonder if vampires get plastic surgery?"
I choked on a laugh. Mocking Dracula is an old past time for me, and hearing the Slayer do it made it even better. Plastic surgery. Going to remember that one. To my eternal delight, she laughed, too, and kept on.
"Well it is California. They'll plastic up anybody. He looks like vampire Barbie."
I snickered silently.
"So I guess you're not him, then."
That got my full attention. She thought I might be Dracula? Thought I was that poncy wanker? Doesn't she have any fucking sense?
"Well, I figure if you were Dracula, you wouldn't be laughing at yourself. He doesn't strike me as the self-deprecating type."
Oh. Right. Well, that was all right then.
Also, I'm a little stunned that her vocabulary includes words like 'self-deprecating'. Sometimes she comes off as such a valley girl it's hard to remember that there're brains in there, somewhere. Love to crack her skull open and poke about in them a bit, see what turns up.
"The thing is… he said some stuff to me… tonight. I… you know I'm the Slayer, right?" Her face was screwed up with uncertainty, like it had just occurred to her that I might not. Like any vampire could enter a room with her in it and not sense that she was the Slayer. Even fledges can tell, though they don't know what that hum of danger and power means, why it's warning them away.
I shifted, not sure how to let her know, or whether I ought to let her know, but she's a clever girl and got it anyway.
"Right. So, he said that … my power comes from darkness. And… it kind of wigged me, you know? Well, maybe you don't cause you're all about the darkness but… I'm not supposed to be. I'm supposed to be the good guy, the white hat. I didn't believe him. But then he made me drink some of his blood—"
I fell off the bed.
Not proud of that. But I'll admit it. Knocked me back flat, hearing her say that she'd tasted that wanker. I started to swear, then remembered in time that I couldn't.
All of a sudden I had this mad idea that he’d thralled her so he could shag her. That that supreme arsehole had shagged my Slayer. Could smell him on her and there were fresh fang tracks on her pretty little throat. I saw red, the demon roaring back to the surface, eager for blood.
Still, despite her clearly execrable taste in men, I couldn’t imagine her fucking that wanker. She might have let Angel have a poke, but no way was she going to let another vamp that near her again.
But he'd had a taste.
There have been far too many fangs in my Slayer. Next pair are going to be mine, and I'm going to erase all their marks when I tear her throat open. Getting bloody tired of being last in line.
"Are you okay?" she asked, all concerned-like. I lifted my head, shocked all over again. Slayer's concerned about me? Not possible.
And it wasn't, of course, because a second later she frowned so hard I could see it in her face she was remembering that I'm a vamp and she's the Slayer and she should be trying to kill me, not coddle me. Funny that it was her first instinct, though.
Slowly I picked myself up and dusted off my trousers, then climbed back in bed. Haven't slept naked since that first night. Little too vulnerable, laying next to the Slayer with all my bits within her easy reach. Helps keep the demon in check, too. I could probably shag her bloody myself, but since I can't kill her I'm fairly certain she'd want to suss out who I was, after, which would cock up everything. So for now I'll keep my prick to myself.
We stared at each other for a while.
Well, I stared at her. She stared in my general direction. She was looking at my mouth again, which wasn’t helping my erection in the least.
When I couldn't take it anymore I gestured for her to hurry it up and finish her story, then winced.
"I can't see you, you know that, right?"
Irritated with myself, I tapped on the bed.
"Is that a yes?"
For a moment I wondered if doing the whole séance gig would constitute speaking, but the Frost Bitch had been pretty specific about the not saying a word thing. I decided to take her literally. Most demons aren't too good with grey areas and mostly ignore them.
I tapped again.
"You're a very weird vampire, and this is a very weird dream."
She wasn't wrong. Not about the first bit, anyway. Only thing wrong with the second bit is her assuming it was a dream. Couldn't correct her, so I didn't.
"I guess you were a little surprised about me drinking Dracula's blood?"
Clearly. I tapped again.
"It's not like I had a choice!"
Like that's an excuse. There's always a choice.
"Stupid thrall," she muttered. Bugger that. Girl's strong enough now that I don't think even Dru could thrall her. Count Wankula couldn't have been that difficult to overcome, if she'd put her will to it.
"Okay, so it was a dumb move. And it didn't really show me much of anything. Just me fighting. And that crazy rasta-mama first slayer chick that tried to kill me in my dreams once… and blood, only all in close up, which… ewwww."
She paused, her face scrunching up adorably. "Probably not from your perspective, I guess."
Shocked, I couldn't help but stare. Probably not from your perspective, I suppose, I'd said to her, just after finding out that Dru had bagged that unimpressive little Jamaican Slayer. She's quoting me. Possibly unconsciously, but still.
After a pause she continued, "It's just… there's so much about being the Slayer that I don't understand. You'd think that I would. I've been doing this for five years now. But I don't really know anything about… where my powers come from or even the extent of them. Which I should. I totally should. I know I'm not all book-girl but… maybe I should, like, look it up… If for no other reason than to keep from having to drink icky vamp blood in order to figure it out."
Sometimes I wonder how this one managed to stay alive so long.
I've seen plenty of Slayers, killed two, but fought more than that—some of them were so weak it wasn't really a let down when something else beat me to them. No glory in fighting them when they're still all trembley and dewy and newly called. The two I killed had both been at the top of their form, real prize-winners both. They'd made names for themselves among my kind and taking them down had been a challenge.
Angelus once suggested I had a death wish, going after Slayers. Darla thought it was for sport. Dru saw it as an obsession.
They're all wrong.
It's like trying to find your equal. Your match. Knowing that out there is someone as good as you. As strong, as fast, as fierce. I'm a predator, top of the food chain (or I would be without this sodding chip in my head). A hundred plus years of studying, fighting, learning… you get to be good at what you do.
The fight was never it for Angelus. When I was a fledge, yeah, he kicked my arse more times than I care to remember and made sure it hurt like hell every time. Then he spent a hundred years wallowing in the sodding gutter and feeding off rats like an Anne Rice cliché. Me? I travelled round the world. Learnt (and ate) the best there were, trying on fighting styles as often as Dru changed her dresses. I know now that I got lucky against that Chinese girl, but by the time I got to Nikki I was more than her match.
You dance with a Slayer, though, and there's only one way to end it. One of you has to die eventually, and it wasn't going to be me.
This one, though… this little blonde girl with her big eyes and pouty lip and her little gang of Scoobies, she's been different from the first. I've never gotten such a rush as when I'm fighting her. First time I laid a fist on her and she barrelled right back at me, I knew it'd be a long, long time before I found an adversary like this again. Someday she might even be the dust of me, but it won't be until I can go out fighting.
She won't admit it, but she wants the dance as much as I do. There's no glory in taking out the weak, no honour in it. Not that I give a fuck about honour, exactly. We've stalemated so many times, left openings wide when the timing wasn't right—someday we'll meet on the battlefield again, me and her, and it'll be so bloody fantastic that it'll rock the whole world. Clash of the Titans. Epic. A duel for the ages.
The Watchers are going to write reams about the two of us. We'll be legend.
And whichever one of us walks away…
Don't like thinking that far, somehow. There won't be another like her, even if I live until the sun explodes and takes this planet with it.
In the meantime, though, I can't help but ponder the mystery that is Buffy Summers. She's barely scratched the surface of what she is. Doesn't even know what she's capable of yet. What's to come for her.
And she's already better than Nikki.
Not killing her isn't such a trial, at the moment.
Give her another year. See what she becomes.
When I came out of my thoughts, she was starting to drift off to sleep and I'd missed whatever she'd said after that last bit. Her head was turned into the pillow, showing off the healing fang marks Dracula had left her. I squinted at the scar in the low light.
I knew the Master bit her. Knew Angel had torn into her at least once. Their marks were layered, one over the other, building a single scar. I leaned forward and traced it with one hand. Vaguely 'Y' shaped, it was. Familiar.
Like the scar that mars my left brow.
Can't see it in a mirror, but I've seen it in photos, and had Dru sketch it a time or two. I know it well enough after a hundred years.
Interesting.
Guess the Powers sent me that certificate after all.
I growled and moved back before she could sit up, her heart racing a little and fear leaking from her pores. Only one word, pounding in my brain, throbbing through me with every beat of her heart…
Mine.
1 October 2000
Research is starting to pay off. Watcher never bothered to disinvite me, so accessing his collection is usually just a matter of waiting for the old fool to fall asleep, then snatching a book or two and putting back whichever I’d borrowed the night before. Never suspects that evil is afoot in his very own home, all tucked away in his beddy-bye and snuggled up to his bottles of scotch. Plonker. Scoobies might think I'm useless, but I never let them see even half of what I'm capable of. I’ve got an invite into most of their homes, be so easy to take them out, if I wanted, chip be damned. Set a little fire, muck with their brake lines… They're always so willing to underestimate me.
Doesn't help that the Council of Wankers seem to dismiss the idea that vampires without souls might be more than just fangy graveyard pests. Oh, they keep track of our exploits and all. Found my little nothing of an entry in the Watcher's book the other night. Angelus they have a whole sodding book on (including a whole bleeding chapter on his hair. It grows straight up. That's it. End of story. Also, he likes Herbal Essences cause it's the only way he can get a happy without losing his nancy little soul.)
I get a measly seven paragraphs.
[Note: the following bit has been torn from another book and taped into the journal.]
WILLIAM (the Bloody)
William the Bloody, (approx. 1880, sired by Drusilla, Aurelian line but not a member), also known as "Spike," "Slayer of Slayers," and member of the "Scourge of Europe" (not to be confused with Scourge, The, see index) and "The Whirlwind".
His human life is largely unknown. William speaks with a working class London accent. His love of brawling and distaste for the upper-class have led to postulation that he may have been a gang member, pimp, or lower class worker before his turning. Of medium height and athletic build, William's "human" face has blue eyes, a roman nose, and dark brows. His natural hair colour is recorded, historically, as medium brown, although he has been known to go so far as to dye his hair in order to change his appearance—an unusual resource among vampires—and since the mid 1970's has preferred variations of pale blond to white hair. At various times, however it has been dyed black. He can be identified otherwise by his prominent cheekbones, and a scar that trisects his left eyebrow and seems to be immune to his vampiric healing abilities. How this scar was obtained is unknown, and should the information be stumbled upon, it would be of great interest to the Council.
In his early years, he obtained his nickname "Spike" through the use of railroad spikes as torture devices, even going so far as to drive them through the heads of several victims.
William the Bloody is the only known vampire currently in existence to have killed two Slayers within the span of a century. The first, Xin Rong (b. 1883. c. 1898, d. 1900), was stationed in China, and met William during the Boxer Rebellion. Her Watcher's diary indicates that she never met William prior to their final, fatal battle. The second, Nikki Wood (b. 1955, c. 1970, d. 1977), stationed in New York, fought against William several times, before their final battle sometime during the New York Blackout of '77. This death was initially unconnected to William, as her body was discovered in a subway car, beaten, with her neck broken and with no signs of vampiric trauma. It was only through William's penchant for boasting that his culpability in her death was discovered, and later confirmed by his wearing of her leather coat as a trophy.
William, along with his sire, Drusilla, is also suspected of being directly responsible for the deaths of an untold number of Potentials during World War II. Several other Slayers at various times have reported encounters or fights with this creature, though his reasons for backing down or fleeing from battles he might have easily won are unknown.
He is highly skilled with weapons, despite a preference for unarmed combat, and has been known to test Slayers several times, retreating, then approaching again when they are off guard. He is not known to have a thrall, but as with all vampires this should not be taken as a rule. Considered highly unpredictable, volatile, and extremely dangerous, William the Bloody should be approached with all due caution.
William is also considered something of an anomaly among vampires in that it is unknown if he has ever sired another vampire. Also unusual is his intense loyalty and commitment to his sire, the insane vampire Drusilla. The two are rarely seen separately and he has been known to slaughter entire mobs in retaliation for harm done to her.
(cross reference with Angelus; Aurelians; Boxer Rebellion; British Vampires; China; Crowley, Bernard; Darla; Drusilla; Master, The; New York; Potentials; Scourge of Europe; Slayers; Vampires; Whirlwind; Wood, Nikki; World War II; Xin Rong)
(see also: Centennial Vampires, List of Known Slayer Killers, Master Vampires)
No mention of the fact that I speak over two dozen languages (including several demon languages) or (unlike my antique sires) that I actually like technology—both nuggets of information that would have been useful to the Scoobies.
I spent nearly an hour laughing over their theories on what I was before turning. If they only knew. Watcher would cack himself if he knew I was almost as educated as he is. More so, if you figure I’ve got better than a hundred years of learning on him. Got a claptrap memory, too. Haven't forgotten a lick of all those bloody years at Eton and Cambridge.
Morons, the lot of them.
Found the hell bitch last night, buried in a book on Finnish deities. Old Norse isn't one of my languages, but this was a French translation, thank the Powers for small favours.
Her name is Louhi, and according to the Fins she's the witch goddess of Pohjola, some mythical land they thought of as the Far North, but which is probably a hell dimension. Seems she got a bit too big for her knickers and somehow they banished her from this world a few thousand years ago. Other than that there's not much in the way of details on her.
Which of course doesn’t do me a lick of good.
Tonight I'm going after specifics on this sodding deal I've made. Figure there's a chance my hunch is correct, and killing the Slayer while she's awake will break the bargain. Right now that's about all I've got to go on.
Though if I can’t be the one to do it myself… not sure what I’ll do.
3 October 2000
Harmony has a gang.
Said she was going to take out the Slayer with that bunch of namby-pamby, wet-behind-the-fangs litter of minions. If they were any more wriggly and panting I'd have to put newspaper down behind the gravestones to keep them from piddling everywhere.
Slayer's barely going to break a sweat on that lot.
Be almost funny if it didn't leave me feeling so fucking pathetic.
I'm the oldest vamp in Sunnyhell. I'm supposed to be running my own gang and gunning for the Slayer—but, oh, no, not old Spike. Instead I've got a bug zapper in my noggin and spend my time with the Slayer practically having a cuddle.
I hate this town.
Someday I want to watch it burn to the ground. Or maybe collapse into a giant hole or something. Suck it right into the mouth of hell.
Wouldn't that be neat?
4 October 2000
Should have figured the Slayer would find some way to pin Harmony's stupidity on me. What is it with her and my nose?
After she showed up last night and used my face for a punching bag, she then had the nerve to drop into dreamland feeling all chatty again. Started telling me all about Harmony kidnapping the carpenter, but I was more interested in dreaming up various ways of draining her dry through her stupid, pugnacious little nose than paying attention to her prattle.
Be so easy to kill her there, too. Haven't tried it yet, but I don't think the chip works in that place. Not sure how I know that, but if I couldn't possibly kill her in the dream dimension then why make it one of the rules that I can't?
Not that I'm going to. Not yet, anyway.
I've got to find a way out of the Snow Queen's grasp first.
But I can entertain myself by imagining it. Over, and over, and over.
She'd been nattering on for awhile before she said something that caught my attention.
"I wonder if it's Spike?" she said, and I froze.
Witch didn't say anything about what happens if she guesses it’s me. Just said that the Slayer couldn't look at my face (which in this light wasn't going to happen anyway), and that I couldn't speak (and if I have to stuff my fist in my fangs to keep from doing that, I will). But if the Slayer guessed it was me, she'd want to check somehow, and then I'd be buggered.
I didn't move. Didn't make a sound. Didn't want her to think she'd guessed right.
"I mean, we don't know when she was vamped. He could have done it just before that whole fiasco with the Gem of Amara…" she said, and I realised she'd been pacing for awhile. Couldn’t suss out what the fuck she was talking about. When who was vamped?
"Oh, wait. No. She said she was going to Paris for the summer, after graduation, but couldn't after she was turned. I remember Willow mentioning it. And Spike didn't come back ‘til after the fall semester started."
Paris. Sodding Paris. She was talking about Harmony.
Then it hit me: hold on, wait a tick. She thinks I would sire Harmony? Is she completely daft?
"Crap," she said. "I was kind of looking forward to locking them up together. He'd probably kill her and that'd be one less vamp I'd need to dust. Besides, they dated or something. That had to be torture. For both of them."
I repressed a shudder and settled for a glare—that she couldn't see, of course. Yeah, sure, I'll shag Harmony until she can't walk straight, but I’ll rip her head clear off her shoulders the minute she gets annoying. Which, let's be honest, is the minute when having to put up with her is more trouble than shagging her is worth.
The idea that I would have turned her, however, is utterly repulsive. Slayer was barmy even to consider it.
She finally dropped off to sleep, but I must have stared at her for another hour or so, watching her chest rise and fall and listening to her heartbeat.
As fun as our little chats are I know the minute she figures out that it’s me she’s opening up to, it won’t just be my nose she'll be going after.
Although, if she staked me, that'd be one way of getting out of the White Witch's clutches, wouldn't it?
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