Many thanks to Always_jbj for being my beta while slaymesoftly is out of town.





Chapter Thirty-Nine




Boxer Rebellion
Peking, China
1900




“Looks to be quite a party.”

Spike, the first out of the hull of the ship, clung to the sloping rail of the gangplank, grinning, first at the scene before him, and then over his shoulder to where Darla and Drusilla stood behind and slightly above him, their mouths agape. Although well after midnight, the city before them was ablaze with the light of torches and lanterns, even of burning buildings. Throngs of people swarmed the streets, and although some of them were clearly in the middle of an evacuation, others seemed just as determined to impede their retreat. The violence between them was incredible, even to the experienced eyes of the three on the ship, and for a moment, they simply stood there, watching.

Finally, Spike gave a jerk of his head, indicating something off to the left of them. “Look there.”

A seemingly endless line of ships bobbed along the riverbank to each side of them. Darla looked without comment, but Drusilla whispered, “Look at all the pretty boats.”

“Ships,” he corrected. She started down the gangway and he automatically held up his hand for her to hold onto as she descended. “Military ships,” he added, once she and Darla were beside him. He pointed to the one nearest them. “And that one, at least, is flying the Queen’s flag. There’s legations for at least a half-dozen nations in this city, and now, with the Boxers so put out about foreign interlopers, my guess is those nations called out their navies to keep the diplomats safe.”

Darla raised an eyebrow. “That’s rather foolish, considering that the insurgents could easily burn the place down.”

“Not likely, I heard the captain talking right after we threw anchor—and just before I did him in—that they’re all crowded into one compound now, and they’ve got a cannon to keep the little bastards off them until this whole nasty mess is over.”

“Well, I hope we haven’t traveled all this distance for the thing to be over with in a few days,” sniffed Darla, as they made their way to shore. “That ship was an absolute nightmare. I’ve seen better accommodations in cargo holds than in those so-called ‘passenger quarters’.”

“What’d you expect on a ship bound for a land where the tourists get tortured to death?” he countered. “Anyway, we didn’t want the best of the best. First class has the pretty views, but the pretty views will also make you burst into flames if you’re not careful. We’re better off in steerage.”

“You are better off, perhaps.”

“You don’t like it? Then, bugger off. I won’t exactly weep into a pint over the loss of your company.”

That much was true. In fact, he had dropped several hints during various parts of the journey that he would have found it much more pleasant without Darla. However, since Angelus’ defection in Romania, she had developed a renewed interest in Drusilla—even in their little family as whole. Aside from a few excursions to the Master, she had spent most of the past two years in their company. Not that this softened the mutual hatred between Spike and her; but at least they had come to a truce of sorts, and each tolerated the other’s presence with only a mild show of hostility.

Most of the time.

Weeks spent in the cramped and musty rooms of a steerage compartment had not done their tempers any good, and the greater part of their voyage had been spent bickering. Now, they could not escape each other fast enough, and parted ways the moment their feet touched land.

“Well, I’m off to find something of interest,” Darla said breezily, already well on her way. “I’ll catch up to you later.”

“Don’t go too far,” Spike called. “Be a shame if someone set fire to you, thinking you were an outlander’s silk divan.”

She ignored the insult to her clothing—and her figure—and continued on her way.

Because he felt insistently contrary to everything Darla thought, said, or did—which often got him into trouble, for she did have a good bit of sense—Spike took the left road away from the docks as she took the right. Darla loved a good religious war, for which reason she had been eager to arrive in China. News of the uprising had spread like wildfire in Europe, particularly in France, where they had been spending the last few months. Spike would never have followed her but for the fact that another bit of information had reached his ears at around the same time.

The Slayer was in China.

He had kept his ear to the ground for some time, waiting to hear about her; but in his ignorance, it hadn’t even occurred to him that she might not be in Europe. After all, all the others had been. Or, at least, the two that had mattered to him. Things that did not affect him directly—even Slayers—did not interest him at all, and he had never troubled himself to conduct any research on the previous ones.

He did, however, research this new one. Her name was Xin Rong, and she lived in the northern city of Peking. She was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty—an impressive age for a slayer; they usually died in their teens. The difference between her and the last two slayers he had tackled was that her family had been made aware of her mantle long before it was necessary for her to carry it. The reason for this was not really clear, and Spike could only guess that perhaps the Watchers’ Council was now attempting to prepare their slayers early on, in order to prevent such speedy casualties. At any rate, Xin Rong had been in training since childhood, and at the time of her calling, she was already considered an expert in chángquán. As rumor had it, she was one of the most skilled and feared slayers of all time.

He had to have her.

Driven by that desire, Spike had readily agreed to Darla’s suggestion that they travel to China to see the rebellion they had been hearing so much about, and it was he, who suggested that they make Peking their first stop. However, once there, it wouldn’t have bothered him in the least if she had been beheaded by an angry Boxer rebel the moment she stepped onto the dock.

After parting from her, he and Drusilla strolled through the chaos, arm in arm. Foreigners were despised in China, at the moment, their presence having been at the root of the uprising. While Dru looked nothing like an easterner, her dark hair and eyes might have allowed her a bit of anonymity, given that there was too much activity in the streets for anyone to be checking her features too closely. But Spike’s light hair and blue eyes stood out in the crowd like a horse in a herd of antelope, and he had hardly begun his walk down the dusty street before someone attacked him with a wooden pole.

A wooden pole, for Christ’s sake. It really was too easy, and, making short work of the assailant, Spike continued on his way unscathed.

His senses hummed in tune to the activity around him: nostrils flared, nerves quivering, hair on end. She was here. He could feel her. As if they had some connection already, something far different from what he had experienced with Maertge, or even Emiliana. For a moment, it seemed almost as if he could close his eyes and become her, see the city from her perspective and feel the smooth wood of an ornately carved stake in his hand. The most violent activity seemed to be taking place in Dōng jiāomín xiàng, near the walls of the Forbidden City, and it was to here that Spike felt inexplicably drawn.

Drusilla traveled with him most of the way, but as they neared the legation compound, she pulled to an abrupt halt in the dusty street and looked around her with an eager, hungry expression. Spike also stopped, albeit impatiently, and asked her what was the matter.

“I smell little children,” she sighed, and rolled back her eyes in that particular, rhapsodic expression she got when young blood was close by. “They are so afraid, and there isn’t any grown-up person around to comfort them.”

“Go on and get them, then,” answered Spike—a trifle irritably, for he was eager to be on his way.

She pouted briefly. “You aren’t coming?”

“Don’t have time, love. Go on and get a pretty one, and then come find me later. I’ll be nearby.”

Thus placated, Drusilla smiled at him and turned into a building to the right of them, a battered shop that had broken windows and a door that dangled loose and useless upon its hinges. As she said, however, it did have quite the strong odor of fear about it. And the agonized screams that erupted from within, once she had entered, followed Spike all the way down the street.

And then, suddenly, there she was. The Slayer.

Spike stopped dead for a moment, dazed by his success. How strange for him to find her so easily, so quickly, and in the first place he had thought to look. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, he thought. And he—who had never been a believer in Fate—was altogether certain that this must be a sign of it at work. This slayer, this best-of-the-best, was meant to be his. Whether it be for his downfall or his triumph, he didn’t know. But the second he set his eyes upon her, engaged in battle with some scrawny thing unworthy of her attentions, he knew that she was something special.

Shaking himself out of his stupor, he swaggered down the rutted, cart-filled avenue. A wide berth had been cut around the Slayer and her adversary—a Caucasian female vampire who resembled a mummy swathed in black silk—and with a bit of shoving, it was fairly easy to close the distance between them.

He broke a spoke off the wheel of a cart that sat overturned in the dirt, and held out the splintered end as a stake. When Xin Rong delivered a tornado-like kick to the vampire’s flat chest, she staggered backward and, just as Spike knew she would, landed on the sharp point of the wood.

Afterward, he tilted his head at the Slayer and smiled. “And then…there were two.”

She looked taken aback, momentarily confused as to why he would help her. Then, he dropped the stake to the ground, and took a step forward. She read the intent in his eyes.

And she ran.

Amazed by this behavior, Spike quickly gave chase. He could hardly believe that the same slayer every demon in Europe was talking about could be such a coward. And, in fact, she was not one. Two buildings down from them was an ornate temple with a heavy set of wooden double-doors. Xin Rong wrenched them open and darted inside, glancing over her shoulder as if to make sure he was following her. He was, of course. And once he entered the temple, he understood the reasoning behind her retreat.

On the slick, stone floor rested a sword and several piles of dust. She must have been fighting there earlier and dropped the sword at some point in the battle. Rather than suffer the loss of the female vampire he had helped her kill a few moments earlier, she had left the weapon in pursuit of her prey. Now, it seemed, she had returned for it.

Impressed by her show of cunning, as well as by the weapon itself, Spike paused in the doorway in order that she might retrieve it. It had a long blade and a gold hilt strung with red silk tassels, and when she picked it up, she handled it with an easy grace that made even Emiliana look clumsy by comparison.

He plunged into battle without any preliminaries, knowing, somehow, that they would not be welcome or necessary. The moment he was within range, she spun like a dervish and thrust out her sword, nearly slicing off his head. But he was quick, far more skilled than he had been nineteen years ago, when Maertge had almost killed him with her ham-handed, awkward style of brutality, and he ducked easily to the side. Her failed blow had left Xin Rong slightly—and very briefly—off balance, and he took quick advantage of that fact, throwing an uppercut before he had even straightened up, knocking her off her feet.

She rolled as if she had intended to do it, and was back on her feet as quickly as a cat. When he came at her again, she backhanded him with so much force that he spun a full 180 degrees before he could right himself. She whirled a circle around him, and came out in front with her sword extended. They both paused as if to consider the situation—she standing on one leg like a ballerina, he wide-legged and braced for a blow. An impressive few leaps on her part, and he staggered backward with her sword between his eyes, just an inch from piercing his forehead. He leaped to the side, but she had already drawn back again and struck, this time managing to slash his left eyebrow. Blood streamed into his eye, burning and momentarily blinding him on that side. But the pain and adrenaline left him oddly euphoric and intensely aroused, and all he could do at that moment was laugh.

As if to punish him for his insolence, she placed a well-timed kick to the side of his head and sent him reeling. He shook off the blow as if it were nothing, however, and gave her a cocky smile.

“Just like I pictured it,” he told her, panting, excited in more ways than one. He asked, “Is this good for you?”

She rolled her eyes, clearly not understanding a word he said and clearly not wanting to. Her sword sliced through the air and he jumped, tucking up his legs just in time to avoid being struck. There was a sort of fierce choreography to their fighting, and Spike counted the beats in his head as they went along. Spin, kick, leap, dodge, punch, duck…

Xin Rong’s first error was one of timing. She took a stab at him when he was already moving away, and her sword struck an elaborate, gold-leafed wooden Buddha. The sharp blade sank deep into the wood, and before she could pry it loose, Spike had forced her away. She was by no means down for the count, but he felt almost dizzy with pride at that small accomplishment: she had lost her weapon.

Still, the combat continued as before. Spin, kick, leap, dodge, punch, duck, punch, punch, punch—

Then, Spike was pressed with his back against a pillar and her foot at his throat. She drew a stake from the depths of her pien-fu trousers and pulled back her arm to drive it home. But some small hesitation on her part accounted for the second error. An explosion from the street shattered the window beside them, and both of them were knocked to one side. And then he had her ankle in his hand, and he threw her off with so much force that it seemed to disorient her. She climbed to her feet and threw out the arm holding the stake in an almost desperate movement that cost her the battle—and, ultimately, her life.

With an easy twist of her arm, she was against his chest, her slender neck stretched helplessly—almost submissively—before him. And he was hard almost to the point of eruption. Then, his teeth were in her, and her blood was on his tongue; and it was almost unbearably sweet and warm. And he thought that nothing—nothing—would ever feel this good again.

And for a good number of years, he would be right.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




He had no idea how much time had passed before Drusilla found him. The Slayer was sprawled on her side on the smooth floor, her dark braid half-obscuring her young face. He couldn’t stop looking at her. It was as if she were a trophy to commemorate some great accomplishment, her cooling body undeniable proof of his abilities. Even the sound of Drusilla’s approach could not tear his attention away from his prize.

“Oh, Spike. Look at the wonderful mess you’ve made,” she whispered. “That’s a slayer you’ve done in…naughty, wicked, Spike.”

Naughty.

Wicked.

He felt a tiny dart of shame even as his cock jumped to attention at the words. Because he was wicked, and he wanted to be. But—

If your girl saw you now…if she saw what you’ve done in her absence…would she still love you?

He pushed the thought away angrily. Because this was his night. His long-awaited triumph. And he would let no one—not even her—take that pleasure away from him.

A tiny spark of rage erupted, and he grasped Drusilla with just the type of violence she loved, pulling her against his length in a way that left her in no doubt of what she was in for. When he spoke, however, his voice was gentle, almost a purr.

“Ever hear them say…the blood of a slayer is a powerful aphrodisiac?”

Her dark eyes lit with rabid interest, and he held his finger out for her to lick.

“Here, now. Have a taste.”

She did. And when he had her up against the wall, a moment later, it was as if he were purging himself of every remorseful thought he had ever had.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~