Spike pretty much tried to stay out of Faith's way the next morning. He was not sure how her mood would be after their dangerous encounter of the night before, but he was not quite feeling up to risking another such confrontation.

His wounds from Buffy's savage interrogation had almost healed already, but he still felt weakened by the ordeal, far too weak to successfully take on another Slayer -- especially a deranged, paranoid, psychopathic Slayer.

*You ought to just forget the whole thing and get the bloody hell away from the soddin’ Hellmouth and leave the two bints to off each other!* he told himself. A part of him knew that it was good sense, knew that he was at the point of a double-edged sword, playing a dangerous game for which there were too many ways that he could lose.

The larger part of him simply did not care. Faith was going to pay for what she had done.

He forcefully ignored the tiny voice in his head that told him that even if Faith was dead already…he would still be there, in Sunnydale. Images of the pretty blonde Slayer, in all her deadly, passionate glory the night before, wielding her power with boldness and authority, flooded his mind, and he wondered that he should find such images so appealing. After all, the girl had nearly killed him.

And all he could think about was seeing her again.

Later that afternoon, he was passing the closed door to Faith's room, when he once again heard the sound of a softly spoken conversation coming from the other side of the door. He recognized the quiet tone as one that she rarely used; he knew that for Faith to be speaking in that soft, hushed tone, there was only one explanation.

She was trying to hide something.

And he was determined to find out what.

*Better get good at eavesdropping, mate,* he reminded himself grimly. *Might just be your best source of information after that little falling out last night.*

"I don't believe a word of it," he heard her say, her tone angry and suspicious. "I mean, I guess there's really no reason not to believe him -- nothing I can put my finger on -- but I just get the feeling that he's lying about something."

He felt his stomach drop a little as he realized that she had to be talking about him. He was not surprised, really, but it was a little frightening to hear it from her own lips, and know for a fact. So she had not really bought his story at all, then. As he had feared, she had stopped her brutal questioning of him the night before, not because he had convinced her that he was telling the truth, but because she could not prove that he was lying.

"Yeah. It doesn't really matter." Faith let out a weary, frustrated sigh before she agreed with whatever the caller had just said. "I have almost everything I need for the ritual anyway," she went on, her voice brightening a bit. "It should just take a few more days to get everything ready -- and then *no one* will be able to stop me!" There was a chilling, dark triumph in her voice that sent a sense of foreboding through Spike as he listened.

*Ritual?* he thought with growing apprehension. That was the first he had heard of any sort of ritual that Faith was planning. And whatever it was, this ritual was supposed to make her unstoppable?

Mentally and emotionally unstable, deranged and psychopathic, and *unstoppable*?

Well, *that* certainly did not sound good.

"Yeah, I really don't care *what* you do to him at this point, Honey. Whatever. He's turning out to be more of a liability to me than anything else," Faith went on. "Go ahead. You know...if you feel like you're up to taking him on." He could almost hear the careless shrug that no doubt accompanied her words.

Faith did not seem to care much more about what happened to her new consort than she did about what happened to him.

"Oh, by the way," Faith continued, "Just so you know…Buffy is *so* out for blood right now."

There was a brief pause before she laughed aloud. "Yours, dumb-ass. She just doesn't know it yet. She thought that Spike did it for a little while, for some reason.” Pause. “I don’t know, I think her friends told her that or something. I'm not sure, she might still think that he did it." Another pause.

"Don't worry so much! She has absolutely no idea that you're even in town...even *alive*, for that matter...I don't think you're in any immediate danger, Babe," she assured the caller.

Spike was trying to take it all in, filing away every word to go over them later and try to make sense of the cryptic conversation, when he suddenly registered a slightly longer silence on the other side of the door, just before Faith spoke again, suddenly, abruptly.

"Hey, I've gotta go. I'll call you later," and Spike heard the suspicion in her voice before the sound of the receiver being set down quickly.

Hurriedly he backpedaled away from the door and down the hall a bit, fully aware that being caught eavesdropping at a time like this could not possibly end well. If Faith knew that he had heard *anything* about her plans, which seemed to include a top secret ritual of some kind and his own death, he knew that he would be as good as dust.

He stopped a short distance away from her door, turning to face it as if he had been heading in that direction, consciously calming his breathing and expression as he headed casually toward the door. When Faith opened it a matter of moments later, he was just walking up to it, calmly and in no hurry, and still a good ten feet away.

She frowned suspiciously as she glanced up and down the hallway…but then smiled when she saw him. Obviously his little ruse had worked…this time.

"Hey, Baby," she said softly, affectionately -- as if the events of the night before, her cruel abuse of his injuries and brutal interrogation, had never happened at all.

As if she had not only moments ago given her permission to someone for him to be murdered.

"Hello, love," he replied, forcing himself to match her warm, pleasant tone. "How are you?"

She shrugged. "Five by five...now." A slow, suggestive smile crept across her lips as she spoke. She glanced back toward her room and then met his eyes with an invitation in her own dark chocolate gaze. "You busy?" she asked softly.

It was an intense battle of will for the master vampire, as he looked at the Slayer who had viciously tortured him the night before, was now plotting against him behind his back, and had taken the life of his greatest love, not so very long ago -- and forced himself to return her seductive, inviting smile, moving smoothly forward to take her gently in arms that longed to choke the life from her body.

For a little while longer, the detested charade had to go on.

"Never too busy for you, love," he reassured her, his voice low and seductive, as she pulled him eagerly into her bedroom, her lips already claiming his mouth, as she kicked the door shut behind them and led him toward her bed.


Buffy was frustrated. *Really* frustrated.

She needed to kill something – and soon.

She had been patrolling for over an hour, and had not come across even a single vampire. There seemed to be less activity on the Hellmouth tonight than there had been *before* she had left town. A part of her realized that this was probably a good sign, rather than something to be disappointed about.

Her goal had been to thin Faith’s ranks, to take out enough of her vampires minions to weaken her forces and put the other girl on the defensive. And whether the lack of vampires for the dusting was because she had simply killed most of them already, or because they were all hiding from her – either way, it was a sign that she was making a definite impression.

Sunnydale’s original Slayer had returned, and she was making her presence known.

She was headed reluctantly home, disappointed with the utter lack of the violence that she had so craved when she had left her house that evening, her thirst for the kill left frustrated. Suddenly, she became aware of a familiar sensation, a slight tingle at the back of her neck, the physical manifestation of a sixth sense that she alone possessed, warning her of the presence of her prey.

A vampire was nearby.

She did not change her pace, or alter her breathing or movements in any way, as she continued casually down the sidewalk. She did not want to give any indication to her enemy that she knew they were there. Her well-honed instincts kicked in, and though she had not yet seen her stealthy pursuer, she was aware of his every movement as he stalked her down the street.

She could sense him behind her, knew that he was drawing closer to her, preparing himself for his attack – probably completely ignorant of the danger that lay hidden in the deceptively small frame of the seemingly normal, helpless girl.

Her hand slid down into her pocket, closing around the blunt end of the stake she kept there. An instant later, she sensed her enemy preparing to pounce, and whirled around, one arm shooting out to grip the throat of the vampire standing behind her, shoving him back against the trunk of a tree a few feet away, as her right hand drew back her stake to strike.

Then, her eyes widened in surprise and her hand froze, a mere instant away from driving the stake through the creature’s unbeating heart.

She let out a weary sigh of irritation – and a little disappointment at losing her imagined kill – rolling her eyes as she demanded of her captive in exasperation, “Spike – what the hell are you doing?” She lowered the stake in her hand, but did not yet release him, still eyeing him with suspicion.

Xander’s warnings about Spike stabbing her in the back played over in her mind as she raised her eyebrows expectantly at the vampire she had pinned against the tree. He just flashed her an infuriatingly arrogant grin.

“Looking for you, pet,” he replied, his voice a little choked by her hand still at his throat.

Still irritated by the cruel twist of fate that made the one and only vampire she managed to find that night be the only one that she could *not* stake, Buffy rolled her eyes as she slowly released him, stepping back a little, but still not taking her eyes off of him.

“You know, our deal that makes you exempt from slayage doesn’t really apply when you come sneaking up on me like that,” she informed him. “You almost got yourself staked there.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” he smirked, his blue eyes sparkling, mocking her, as he rubbed at his neck with one hand. “The other way is that you almost got yourself bitten!”

Buffy’s eyebrows rose again challengingly at his words. “Oh, really,” she replied with a mocking laugh. “You know, I really don’t think so. I *so* would have had you staked *way* before you could have bitten me!”

Spike’s smirk only widened as he laughed, shaking his head at her.

“What?” she demanded, feeling suddenly a little defensive, unsure why he was laughing at her.

“Not me, pet,” he explained. “*I* wasn’t going to bite you!”

She frowned, confused. Only then, as his words sank in, did she look down to notice that Spike also held a stake in his hand. So he had *not* been the one stalking her down the street, sneaking up behind her to attack her.

Once again, he had staked a vampire to save her life.

“You know,” she remarked, recovering enough to return his smirk. “You’re kind of a weird vampire, you know that? Carrying around stakes and dusting other vampires? To help a *Slayer*, no less?” She frowned suddenly, realizing exactly what she had just said. “Not that I -- *needed* -- your help or anything…because I didn’t…I totally knew he was there and had it under control.”

“Right. That’s why *I’m* the one that almost got staked,” he laughed. “Because your bloody Slayer senses are *so* finely tuned!”

“Was there a *reason* why you were looking for me?” she asked him, crossing her arms over her chest, her annoyance clear in her stance, her voice, everything about her. “You know, besides the whole taunting thing?”

His smile faded suddenly with the reminded of the business at hand. “As a matter of fact, yeah, love. Faith’s planning something. Something big. Some sort of ritual to increase her power.”

Buffy frowned. “What kind of ritual?”

Spike opened his mouth as if to respond…then hesitated, letting out his breath slowly before he admitted, “I haven’t a bloody clue.”

“Gee, that’s helpful,” Buffy replied dryly. “I can see I *totally* made the right choice in not staking you.”

He gave her a withering look before he went on, “She was talking to some bloke on the phone, someone who’s working with her. This guy was watching you while you were in LA. Faith had him keep an eye on you for her. And whoever it is, he’s got it in for me, too. And – and I think…” He hesitated for a moment, then met her eyes and rushed on, “I think he’s the one that killed your mum.”

Buffy was instantly alert and focused on what he was saying. “How do you know?” she asked.

“They were talking about it. She mentioned something about it. I’m sure that whoever it is, he’s the one that did it,” Spike assured her. “Only problem is,” he admitted with a little grimace. “Haven’t got a bloody buggering clue who she was talking to. But it’s someone we both know.”

“Human?” Buffy wondered, questioning eyes focused on him.

“It was a vamp that killed your mum, pet,” Spike reminded her, his voice uncharacteristically gentle as he mentioned the painful subject.

“But you’re the only vampire I know,” Buffy muttered, a slightly petulant sound coming into her voice with her frustration. This just didn’t make sense. She suddenly gave him a dark look and corrected, “I don’t even *know* *you*…not really. At least I don’t want to.”

Spike gave her a patronizing smile at her rambling attempts at being sure that he knew how little she thought of him. “Good,” he remarked. “Glad we’ve got that settled. Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for you right now, Slayer. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, though, and let you know if I hear anything more. Right?”

Buffy nodded slowly. “See if you can’t find out a little more about this ritual she’s planning…what sort of a ritual it is.”

Spike nodded, and turned to go.

“Spike,” Buffy said suddenly, almost as an afterthought, and he turned slightly without looking at her. “Thank you,” she added, a little awkwardly…as if she felt it was the thing to say, but still felt a bit odd saying it.

He smiled with his back to her, gave a little nod, and walked away into the night.

Buffy turned back toward her house, dark thoughts circling in her head as she made her way home. Magic rituals to increase a Slayer’s power? Why had she never heard of anything like that before? she wondered. Suddenly a thought occurred to her, and she stopped short on the sidewalk, her eyes widening with realization.

“I need Giles,” she said aloud, to no one but herself, and took off again at a run toward her house, determined to find out from her friends what she now could not believe that she had not thought to ask.

What had happened to her Watcher.