A New Englishman in Fork Part I AND II COMPLETE!

by GenieVeeBee

Vampire on the prowl for something more than undeath.Exerpt:Spike rose to his feet, wobbling, and wrapped his arms around his concave chest. A tiny groan of blood lust escaped his razor thin lips a freakish, high‑pitched whine that snaked around the room.

1. Chapter 1

A NEW ENGLISHMAN IN FORK.

By GenieVB

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. Joss Whedon owns 'em. We love 'em.

Rating: PG (some words, some humor, lots of anguish!)

Buffy/Spike centric.

Summary: Vampire on the prowl for life, liberty, and Buffy.

WARNING! Serious angst! Absent character death.

Author's note to readers: I picked the town of American Fork 'cause the name! Too perfect! I used liberties in the writing regarding the towns/cities, etc. I'm not American but am America friendly.

Spikes' "rise" to vampirism from human life, to his redemption as a reformed soul baring vampire, to his self induced fall into death (his freedom from the deeds committed and perhaps finally forgiven for?), much reminded me of these words of Shakespeare's Prospero character in The Tempest, one who teeters between good and evil, but finally redeems himself. The verses below are Prospero's final speech as he prepares to depart.

Loreena McKennit's musical adaption of this fabulous verse spawned the idea for A New Englishman in Fork, I & II.

I highly recommend listening to these refrains on her CD The Mask & the Mirror.

Prospero's Speech:

And now my charms are all o'erthrown

And what strength I have's my own.

Which is most faint: now t' is true

I must here be confined by you.

But release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands

gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails.

Which was to please. Now I want

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant

And my ending is despair,

Unless I be relieved by prayer.

Which pierces so that it assaults

Mercy itself and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardon'd be

Let your indulgence set me free.

William Shakespeare The Tempest.

A New Englishman in Fork

SPIKE

Buffy gulped down her coffee, the last mouthful having gone from pleasingly hot to disappointing tepid.

Dawn, busy messing eggs around in a pan, didn't look up, "That was only your third cup. Needing a fix much?"

Buffy placed her mug in the sink, running the fingers of one hand through her just combed hair. "O o h, believe me, I need it. I had a mid nighter down at the center. A kid's family had a major melt down. He figured his life would be easier if he lived on the street."

"We all thought that at one time or another." Xander Harris entered the sunny kitchen, knotting his tie. "Me, I preferred the smelly but otherwise disgusting locale of my friend Rickie's closet whenever my parents pressed each others scream buttons." Xander poured himself a coffee, adding liberal amounts of cream and sugar. "Fortunately it only happened two or three times a week."

Buffy gathered her briefcase. "Well. Today's suppose to be my day off but I really need to talk to his parents, see what the deal is."

"I'm sure you'll find they're insane or simply maladjusted just like most American parents. But take a pointy stick just in case."

"Xander!" Buffy scolded but he could tell she wasn't serious. All things vampire had been quiet since the sinking of Sunnydale. That was nearly two years ago. They were all living in an old, rented house, they all had jobs, and a new town to call home: American Fork, Utah.

"Sorry, Buffy. I guess it's a bit too early for tasteful jokes." A knock at the front door sent him out of the kitchen. "I'll get it."

Buffy sorted through her papers. "I can't wait till this is a paying job."

Willow had joined them in the kitchen. She was neatly dressed in slacks, shirt and jacket for her job at the local paper, typing up obituaries and, when required, doing research for The Fork Herald. "I thought it was a paying job? You bring a paycheck home every month. Are you doing slaying on the side, charging for it and not telling us?"

Buffy. "I mean a better paying job. I've gone from Sunnydale poor to Fork "Buddy can ya spare a dime?" broke."

"It'll get better, Buffy. They need you there." Dawn said. She believed in her big sister. And it was true. Dawn also knew that Buffy needed the job even more because Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn't slaying just then. And a slayer with nothing to do is a depressed, brooding pain in the ass.

Xander had entered the kitchen again. When Dawn turned and saw his face, she knew the news had to be bad. Real bad. His face was white, but he had two red spots on either cheek like he'd been standing in the front hall for a while stressing on how to break the news.

He turned to Buffy. In his hand was a folded telegram. Xander swallowed. "It's about Angel."

Everything in the kitchen, the bustling of a busy day's beginnings, the sipping of coffee and conversations about what they would all do that day, had stopped. It was eerie how they all suddenly knew what shit had just come down the pipe. Even the inviting smell of breakfast cooking had taken on a sour stench; now not fresh, happy eggs frying in bacon fat but a nauseating burnt sulfur stink.

Buffy took the note from Xander, taking the impact of the what had to be terrible news onto herself, sparing him the agony.

As she read the note, her face confirmed what they had already supposed. No one sends good news in a telegram. Buffy didn't even read it aloud. Her stricken eyes said the words as though she'd spoken them. They all knew.

"Angel is dead."

Xander dragged his feet through the dirt as they walked away from the small plaque they had all chipped in to erect in Fork Memorial Cemetery. The inscription had read simply "Angel Friend, Champion. Beloved & Forever cherished. July 31, 2006."

Small dust devils waltzed around his legs. It had been an unusually dry summer.

Buffy, mute during the service, had cried herself out the previous few days. Everyone felt drained.

There would be no gathering at the house, all of Angels friends were already present save for Cordelia and Wesley who had stayed in L.A. to keep the business open. When hero's die, criminals rejoice.

The phone rang insistently as they entered the house, most drifting to the livingroom and plopping down on stuffed chairs or the sofa. Xander took the call. "I have to go to the site." He said as he hung up. No one said anything but Willow acknowledged with a nod. "Something about a cranky contractor." He explained. "I didn't think anyone was working this evening."

"See you later." Dawn said. He nodded and left quickly.

Xander was thankful that, through all the hell of the hell mouth, he had kept his business going. It brought in almost enough to keep and feed them all. Willow and Buffy supplemented the money pool with their part time jobs. Dawn was enrolled at the local community college. She had insisted on not going away to attend a better school. "I want to be with you and our friends!" She yelled back to Buffy

during one past argument. "How many times do I have to almost lose everyone in my life before you understand that?"

Their small, plain bungalow was almost but not quite enough room to house them comfortably. Xander, ever the gentleman, had opted for the smallest and dimmest bedroom, the one in the basement. It had the appearance of having been hastily built on in the last few years. The drywall was bare and only a worn area rug in the style of East Indian cheap covered most of the plywood floor. But at least they were together.

Yes, they were all living together.

With his good eye, Xander watched the road as he drove to the other edge of town. (The local highway authority seemed content to turn a blind eye to Xander's blind eye. His small construction firm was bringing building contracts to their little fork in the road and it made fiscal sense to leave him behind the wheel of his Seville. A discount super mart had decided to set up shop in Fork and Xander was the one the town fathers had to thank for it).

Yes, the scooby gang was all together. But to what end? Xander had been keeping a few things to himself since their collective move to Fork, Utah. Like he had met a local woman and it was starting to get serious. He had told no one about it but the "problems at the mart" excuse was working overtime. Somebody was bound to see through it soon.

He didn't want to live single forever. And Fork, Utah wasn't exactly his first choice of a town to set up permanent shop. Fork's twenty streets and twenty thousand residents didn't qualify for an economic power center.

It was dusk when Xander pulled his silver Seville onto the work site.

No one was there. Everything was ship shape though. Xander did a once through the area anyway to check things out. A kid's crank call was his guess. But a weird crank call. Mind you, this was Utah. People baptized their dead relatives here. A rather hell mouthy ish thing to do he often thought, though their goal was sending them to heaven, not some demon dimension where the main course was often human brains or intestine salad.

A movement caught his eye. Something swayed in the dark, by the concrete pylons erected last week. "Hello?" Kids smoking doobies maybe. "Look, I know you just want get high away from your parents, but you can't be in h "

The form moved from the shadow into the small light of the moon sliver. White skin and black coat.

And no mistaking that hair bleach. "Spike?"

The vampire in question walked toward him, but not too close Xander noted. After all, neither had ever really trusted the other. Or much liked for that matter.

"Besides the obvious entertainment of lurking around a construction site in Utah, what are you doing here?"

Spike didn't answer directly. Already that bothered Xander the way Spike always bothered him. Someone who half answers's a question usually tells only half truths too.

"How was the funeral?"

That pissed him off. Xander could feel his blood pressure rising like it always did whenever Spike showed his sallow, sardonic face. "How do you think? Buffy sobbed till I thought she was going to collapse in on herself. Other than that cheeriness, we're dealing. And what do you care anyway vampire-who-is-suppose-to-be-dead?" Xander then remembered what Spike had done to save all their cans in Sunnydale and choked back his next snide retort. "Why didn't you come and see Buffy? She could have used a friend, I mean of the non-living kind."

Spike didn't twitch at Xander's attempts to hurt him. He just lit a cigarette. "I hear you had to say goodbye to Anya, though not personally, like."

Xander held up a finger. "Wait just a second " He did not want to discuss Anya with Spike.

"Would you have wanted Cordelia there when you said goodbye?" Spike pulled a long drag of smoke into his blackened lungs.

Xander took the point. No, he wouldn't have. And Spike had not wanted to put Buffy in that position. Having to weep over one lover while the jilted one stood by. "I give you that."

Finally Spike closed the distance between them and Xander got a full view of the man but vampire. He looked terrible. His face nearly the color of his bleached hair. His jaw worked hard and the tiny knot of tendons and muscles at the mandible joint pulled the skin taut over his finely molded features, making the bones of his face even more angular than usual.

Xander could not place the look on the human looking creatures face. No one word described it. He finally decided it was the expression of a man who had no choice but to look his enemy in the eye and beg.

"I need your help." Spike said quickly, the words coming clipped, darting this way and that. Oh how those words had not wanted to be said!

"That couldn't have been easy." Xander put his hands in his suit pants pockets to put himself at ease as much as the nervous vampire. "What kind of help?"

"Do you have a place? I mean one away from Buffy and the others?"

Xander looked at his own feet, his black leather shoes covered in fine concrete dust. "Yeah. I do." A place he had not told the gang about. Somewhere to take his new found lady friend and occasionally just a place where he could go to get away from so much estrogen and menstrual cramps all fighting for dominance. Where he could put up his smelly feet and watch sport after sport with a beer in one hand and popcorn on the carpet. "We've pretty much hated one another since the day you showed up in Sunnydale. But I'm willing to put that aside for now and for what I think will be the only time during my lifetime, say the words: How can I help you, Spike?"

"It's right up your alley, sport." Spike said. "I need you to help me die." He flicked the smoldering butt away into the dark.

Xander drove them to his small bachelor suite in the better of the two apartment buildings in the whole town. It was only an eight minute drive but it was time enough for

"Are you nuts? That I used to fantasize about you dying is, I suppose, beside the point. I just have to ask why you want me to kill you?"

Beside him in the passenger seat Spike looked out the window at the dark town. "No night life here." He commented. "All the little folks asleep in their beddie byes, night lights burning. What a right boring little town Fork must be."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

"When we get to your place."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"I need a shower."

Xander loathed the idea of Spike taking up residence in his private pad even for a few hours but said "Fine. You can use my shower on one condition. You can't tell anyone about the apartment? Okay? Not Buffy or anyone. It's my own place."

"Somewhere to slap the salami in private?"

Xander stopped the car with a respectable squeal of the tires. "Get out. The deal's off."

Spike was already talking. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right? I mean I get it. I miss having' my own crypt too." He missed those times.

"TWO conditions." Xander held up his finger to emphasize them as he started the car moving again. "Keep my apartment a secret and keep your mouth shut until we get there."

Spike nodded once.

Xander was amazed that the vampire actually complied. He didn't make a sound the rest of the trip.

In fact, he didn't say a word until after he'd showered, dried and sat down with a cup of coffee. Even thanking Xander for it.

Xander was not prepared for what the words he next heard from the vampire's grim lips. "It was a slayer who murdered Angel."

The stun of hearing it was a slayer rose, fluttered around his heart, then disappeared. The curiouser word murdered hung round a bit longer. Point of view he supposed.

"How do you know? Were you there?"

"No to the second. To the first, I know because they want to dust me too."

Xander looked at his own hands. They had been clasped togther. He relaxed them on his knees and leaned back in his easy chair. "You said "they"."

"Yeah. They, as in more than she. As in a gang of slayers. This is a new trend among potentials. Well, they're all slayers now aren't they?" Spike slumped a bit in his chair. In the lamp light of the small room, his eyes appeared sunken and dark.

"This doesn't make sense. Angel had a soul. Every slayer we've ever known knew that. Why would they want to kill him?"

Spike lit another cigarette. The room was becoming a hazy blue. The vampire leaned back and took a long drag on the unfiltered stick. "Well, ya see, souls have become a new trend as well. Among vampires that is. I personally know of a few who went out and traded for them."

"Traded what?"

Spike ran a bloodless hand over his forehead and through his hair. "Oh, whatever there is. The heart of Isis, the wings of Kulborot, the golden tooth of the Hell Angel Galtus. The balls of Malduk are probably on E Bay by now. Anything worth trading for a human soul is being bargained for as we speak. Dead humans, souls a plenty if the price is right. Get it? It's not like they'll be needing them now, will they? Cheating bastards. The vampires I mean."

Xander shook his head. "Just a second. Let me sum this up: these soul slayers, who hunt vampires who have souls, are after you. And you want to give them the slip by having me kill you, 'cause you'd rather be dead by dying than be dead by being killed? I'm completely for sure in the know. It's as clear as the inky night."

Spike flicked the ash on the carpet. When he spoke, Xander could see the words as though carved in the air between them. He'd heard Spike talk many times with cocky assurance, spitting dismissal, complete indifference and gleeful fury. But never with the profound soberness he heard now. "I hear they cornered Angel in a warehouse. Beat him unconscious. Strung him up in chains. Performed some kind of ritual that released his spark from his body, which turned him into Angelus of course. The spark they stuck in a crystal and then smashed it to bits. The pieces they burned. Melted like sugar. Didn't want to release the spark back into the Ether I guess. Then they staked him and dumped his ashes

in the sewer."

"Holy shit." Xander walked to the window and looked out at the feeble lights of the little town. "You can't ever tell Buffy the...details. She can't ever know."

"You think I'm still that cruel? I would never hurt Buffy. I only told you because that's what's waiting for me if these Soul Slayers ever nab me."

"So these vampires who are getting souls, doesn't sound so bad. All the more on the winning side."

"Hitler had a soul, mate."

"They're staying evil despite their souls you mean."

"Yes. Because they're getting them by illegal means in the underworld sense anyway and they're sporting them like Kate Moss would the latest frock. It's become a status symbol among the un-dead. Bling for the Bad." Spike suddenly jumped from his chair like a man who just had to leap from his skin. He followed Xander's same path to the window to look out into the darkness. A creature of night drawn to its natural domain and the natural domain clutching back from the shadows. "Angel was a pain in my ass, but I come to respect him before he was murdered "

There was that word again.

" he got his soul legitimately, by a curse, yes, but he could use it to be the man he might have been before the fangs did him in."

Xander sat again. "And you?"

"Got it all by myself."

Xander leaned forward. "So what do you have to do? I mean, you want to die "

"You can't tell Buffy I'm here or about any of this. Got it?"

Xander nodded and held up the three fingers of his right hand. "Scouts honor."

Spike sat back down opposite Xander. He was all business now. "I want to live. But I have to die and if I have to I want it done by someone other than a bloody slayer gone all self righteous. Besides,..." Spike looked at the blank wall next to his chair. "I'm so bloody tired."

It was nearly dawn when Xander arrived home to his other home he shared with three women. It was sunday morning, early, yet there was already a light on in the kitchen. It was Willow, nursing a cup of coffee and reading one of Gile's old volumes on Demon curses. Xander thought how apropos that was.

"Hi."

"Hi." she said, surprised and glad to see him. "All nighter huh?"

"Yeah. You could say that." Xander was beat and not just in his body. He had to keep his promise to Spike, but he knew he couldn't do it without help. He grabbed a mug of coffee for himself, removed his suit jacket and laid it over a chair back. He fairly fell into the seat opposite Willow.

She noted his eye bags. "You look terrible. It's like you've seen a ghost..." Then at his grave expression, "..Or something worse."

Xander gave a tiny, ironic guffaw. "We got a big problem, Willow. I need to tell you something, and get your help with something."

"Sure." Willow sat up straighter. Friends since childhood, she knew instantly when Xander was deadly serious.

"And Buffy can't know anything about it."

"Figures. I always hate that last part."

Xander set Spike up in a place that was secure, private and, above all, inescapable, an underground weapons cache that only he, Willow and Buffy knew about. As quiet as things had been nether-worldly wise, Buffy believed in being prepared.

A fifteen minute drive into the country, where Xander then turned off the Seventy-Three onto a secondary gravel road brought them closer to their goal.

"Just a few more miles." Xander said needlessly to the silent vampire sitting in the back seat and

the pensive face of Willow in front. "This place is totally secure. Trust me on that."

Spike said nothing. He pulled something from his pocket and looked at it for a minute under the light of the dashboard.

"What's that?"

"Just a keepsake." He said.

Xander had just got another half answer.

A long, narrow tunnel ending in a door of iron with bars as thick as two inches, (where the

most lethal weapons were usually stored), fit their needs or, rather, the need of one single

minded vampire. Once Xander and Willow had transferred all weapons into trunk of the car, Spike entered the damp, dark cell and Xander shut the door behind him. He secured it with a locking crossbar with a thick padlock. And then added another through two rings connecting the door with the concrete walls into which the iron bar frame had been sunk all around to a depth of two feet.

"Just for a bit extra." He said.

Spike sat down at the back of the cage, just six feet from the front. It was large enough to move around in and to perhaps lay down but that was all. There were no comforts; Spike had specified he be given none. "To hurry it along." He said to them.

Xander stood before the cage and looked for a few seconds at the vampire he had hated for a long, long time. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yup. Are you sure you can keep your mouth shut?"

"Yes."

Spike nodded. He was satisfied.

Xander exchanged glances with Willow who looked like she wanted to upchuck just a bit. Xander took

her arm and led her to the iron ladder leaning against the entrance hole eight feet over head. They climbed the ladder and shut the opening behind them, leaving Spike alone in the blackness as he'd requested. Willow helped Xander spread the brush and dirt back over the entrance to the cache to again conceal it from accidental eyes.

There was nothing else to do.

They drove home.

A week went by.

Then two.

"We can't let him do this."

Willow dragged Xander by the arm into the main floor bathroom one day. He'd stepped in the front door from work and found himself propelled by the unstoppable force that was little Willow. Ex witch maybe. Present fireball without argument.

Xander had this discussion with her twice already. "Are you gonna to make him?" He lowered his voice. "Willow, it's been two weeks already. The deed is probably already done."

She shook her head vigorously. "No. I did some research, and in some cases well in the one known case that was recorded four hundred years ago in Patagonia it can take up to four months with speculations to longer periods depending on the weight of the vampire. And other individual factors "

Xander grabbed her shoulder, more forcefully than he intended, causing her to sit down heavily on the toilet seat. She seemed content to stay put. "Sorry. We've gone through this. Spike said this in the only way."

Willow shook her head. Then looked up to him with those eyes of desperate appeal. "Then you've got to tell me how I can keep my conscience from killing me, because this is something Buffy has a right to know. God, I know and it's hurting. How do you think Buffy will feel when she finds out we knew and didn't tell her?"

"It isn't about Buffy's rights. This is what Spike wanted and he has a right to choose his own way out."

Willow looked away from her friend to the wall, then the toilet paper sitting in neat piles on the back of the tank. "But it isn't...the way it should be, Xander."

"It is his choice."

"No one...nobody... should die alone. Not even Spike."

"So, working late again, huh?" Carrying a basket of laundry from the kitchen, where the washer and dryer used one third of the cramped kitchen, to Dawn's bedroom at the end of the narrow hall. Buffy still did her best to play mom to her younger sister, though Dawn was nearly twenty.

Xander loosened his tie as quickly as possible and took it off as he closed the door. He hated wearing the thing a moment longer than necessary. Sometimes he took it off during the drive home, the novelty of dressing as a respected businessman having faded a long time ago. "Yeah, I "

" Liar." Buffy said, setting the laundry down in the hallway and crossing her arms.

"What?" Buffy was a master at the deadpan. It was impossible to tell whether she was serious or not.

"Liar. I know what you're up to. What you've been doing all these late nights!"

Xander's heart sunk. With Buffy, it was also impossible to know just how angry she was until you got an earful. "Look, Buffy. I wanted to tell you, but I made a promise. I just didn't know how."

"Well, I'm not stupid. Who is she?"

Xander saw her tiny smile. "Don't do that to me. And you don't know her. I'm not ready to introduce her to...the gang." To our in no way run of the mill gang: "Hi, I'm Xander. This is Buffy the vampire slayer who just saved the world. This is Willow, the once evil witch who almost destroyed it. This is Dawn, our resident former key to the demonic dimension deadbolt. Oh and, just FYI, we're keeping our pal Spike, a former blood thirsty one hundred and twenty year old vampire and champion warrior locked in our deadly weapons cache just outside of town. So how do you like me so far?"

Xander let the humor of it play around inside his head for a minute. There was little chance he would be introducing Monica to Buffy or anyone else. He and his lady friend had cooled during the last few weeks. Not that it had ever reached hot, but with the job and now with looking in on Spike to see how far he had...progressed and being unable to explain to her the reasons for their canceled dates, Monica had chalked it up to him losing interest and had started making her own excuses about why she couldn't meet him.

It was just as well, Xander told himself. He was glad Buffy didn't press him any further, but she was waiting for a response.

"Sorry, Buffy. I'll make sure to introduce anyone who I'm serious about."

"Guess it can't be easy. Living with three women. I'm not sure I could explain it if it were me."

"It's not that, it's just.. I'm not ready for any big changes right now. There's been so many in the last couple years."

Nodding, "Yeah, well, no argument there. And you've stuck with us all this time, through everything. Do you have any idea how great you are for doing that? And how much I love you for being my rock. You are. I don't think I could have done any of this without you."

"Well, yeah, you have but I never get tired of hearing it."

Buffy smiled. "I'm going to finish putting these away."

It was nice to hear the gratitude, but Xander was glad for a few minutes alone in his tiny basement room. He threw off his suit and donned a worn pair of jeans and a black tee shirt. It fit his mood.

Monica had been his first pleasant encounter of the female type in almost two years. Looked like it was going to be his last for a while. There was always tomorrow. At least that's what he used to tell himself; that he was young; in no hurry; didn't really want to settle down.

But time burns quickly. He was twenty six. Not old by any means, not even middle aged, but how quickly would the next four years go? How soon before some sort of demon or vampire horde re organized (or reborn), and marched once again on all that was surface world? And then, how many years after that before they could take a life breather and do a normal thing like have a date? Any of them?

The more time went by, the more Xander had come to understand that it was not the same for him as for Buffy, Willow or even Dawn. Buffy was and always would be The Slayer, destiny written and thrust upon her. She would always find one man (or one vamp') or another to fall in love with. In fact, although she complained about her lack of male cuddling, she'd actually seen more action in the bedroom and crypt than anyone in the group. Willow had a brief, burning love in Ox, a deeper but just as quick affair with Tara and, since Kennedy split, nothing.

He'd had his one tumultuous relationship with Anya and nothing since.

All of them had loved and lost. But Buffy was BUFFY, Willow was the Witch, Dawn of the Mist was sister to the Slayer and he...

He was just Xander, the repairman. He had nothing special about him. And someday he wanted to at least be the special someone to someone. Maybe, too, a family? He felt he served less and less real purpose to this house other than it's bill payer.

He heard the upstairs door shut and feet coming down the stairs. It had to be Willow. She didn't knock but just thrust his bedroom door open and walk in. It made him the more glad he had rented an alternative place. He spent considerable time thinking he might just move there permanent and Willow's rude entry made the idea all the more appealing. Only one thing stopped him. If he did, then his only real purpose for being in any of their lives would disappear and he'd be totally alone then. The thought of that was less appealing and so he did not scold Willow for her social faux pax. "What's up?"

"Did you look in on...?"

"Yeah." Of course.

"How does he look?"

Xander wondered what she actually wanted to hear. That he looked better? That he wasn't still locked in a cage letting himself die? That he had decided after all, to wait around and let the soul hunters do the business for him? Xander felt irritated at the pointlessness of the question. "What do you want to know, Willow?"

Willow picked up on his mood and probably some of his thoughts. She could not read minds, but occasionally words from her or Buffy (there was that slayer and witch specialness again) popped into his head loud and clear. "I've been thinking that these soul hunters could be on their way. We have no idea whether Spike was followed here or not, do we?"

Xander sat up. He hadn't really considered that. Spike had assured them he had not been followed, that no one knew he was here, not even Wesley. But Spike might have been tracked. Slayers have special abilities when it came to sniffing out vamp's.

"Shit." He said. Not very helpful.

Willow indicated with a jerk of her head. "Come on. I've been doing some reading."

In the living room where their one shared computer sat on an old fashioned desk in one corner, Willow booted up. "Where's Buffy?" She whispered.

Xander looked outside the back window into the small yard. Buffy was drinking something from a cup and sitting on the back two seated rocker with Dawn. It was something they did often, sharing memories of their mother or stories about the "old days" when slayer-dom was in full swing.

"They're outside for now. What have you found out?"

"Well, there's not much about them 'cause they're sort of new. But I found an online chat room where there's a lot of talk about The Exurgent Ones. Now that's Latin, and it means to start out or rise above the rest. And they are spoken of in fear. The members keep talking about the Fallen One who was the first to be divided. Now, this could be talking about a lot of things only this chat room has an exclusive membership vampires only. I've managed to access the outer level. The "Lobby". But there's the "Game Room" and the "Cellar" and finally "The Crypt". Which one do you suppose the really pertinent vamp gossip lurks?" She asked sarcastically. "Anyway, if my guess is right, they're talking about a group of Elite Slayers who've set themselves up above any who have come before and their first kill, the first one they "divided", the first soul they separated from it's host was Angel's."

"And who's the Fallen One?"

"Again, that's Angel. From a vampire's point of view at least, Angel fell when he stopped being Angelus, was given a soul and became good."

"Do we know where they are, these Soul Hunters?"

"Only rumors. The vampires talk about the one seeking flesh, but that could mean Spike when he was bad or it could mean a Soul Hunter seeking a kill."

"Or a horny vampire."

"Please tell me you're not looking at vampire porn."

Xander started at Buffy's voice from the kitchen door. She was taking off her coat. The air was getting chilly and they were no longer in southern California. In Utah, late September is jacket weather.

Willow quickly exited the web site and stumbled over an excuse. "Naaa. Just remembering the bad old days."

"Well, let's eat. And we can trade stories on the new, possibly more boring but safer days."

At 2 AM Dawn wandered to the kitchen. Cramming for an exam always made her hungry. Cutting herself a big piece of chocolate cake, she poured a glass of milk and sat at the coffee table. Nearby the computer hummed. Willow had forgotten to turn it off. Dawn moved to the desk, hit the space bar and the monitor awoke. She found Recent History and skimmed through the pages. "Vamp'sRUs"?" She read aloud. "How pathetic." There were hundreds of such sites and Willow must have checked at least several dozen. Most were vampire wanna be clubs usually administered by high school girls looking for something beyond homework and their boyfriends uncomfortable rear car seat. Some were run by people who fancied themselves vampire hunters although from the information provided, none had ever encountered a real vampire.

The illegitimacy of a site always became clear when no mention of Slayer was made. Or what a Slayer really was.

Dawn tried to gain a login account but an eerie voice said: "You didn't say the magic word."

Dawn had become quite adept at hacking but none of her efforts to circumvent the security was successful. Bored, she exited out of the page, put her plate and glass in the sink and went back to her books.

Dawn ate her lunch gratefully. The two hour, dreaded exam was over and she was sure she had done well. Her plans were veterinary school. But to pursue that to its conclusion would mean a move to a larger center, something they just couldn't afford right then. So she took computer courses and Business Ed' to keep her occupied and give her an alternative in case the vet' thing didn't pan out.

"Man, this site's so amazing. I'm going to meet one tonight, to join."

A brunette freshman talked at the next table.

"You're crazy Ashlen." Her friend answered. "You have no idea who they are or what it's all about. It could be dangerous."

"I'm not twelve you know! We're meeting at Dusty's. In a public place."

"How'd you get into it anyway? We tried every magic word in the book and couldn't make it."

"That's because I figured it out last night."

"I still say you're crazy. Listen I gotta go, are you coming to the party tonight?"

"No way. New guy."

The friend left and new guy girl gathered her lunch tray, preparing to leave. Dawn stood at the same time. "Excuse me."

At the girl's vaguely irritated look, "Sorry." Dawn said, trying to look apologetic. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but if I'm guessing right, you're talking about Vamp's R Us, right? The web site?" Dawn tried to feign ignorance of all things computer. "I've been trying for weeks to get into that place and no go. Would you mind letting me in on how you did it. I am so dying to join."

"Well, there's a magic word you have to know."

"Oh, I get that part, but I can't figure it out. I've typed in hundreds "

"Oh, the word changes every day, so it takes a bit of mental work to guess what it's going to be."

"Oh. Well, what did you type in last time?" She figured maybe it would give her an idea where to begin.

"Oh, that's the really cool part. You don't type it in. You say it."

Dawn smiled, "Great. Thanks." And walked away. "Say it?" She said aloud but to herself. "This could be bad."

"You say it?" Buffy leaned over the desk and watched as Dawn typed in word after word.

"Yeah. But I've been trying dozens of different words. It's a shot in the dark and my aim is obviously way off."

Buffy was home just a few minutes when Dawn dragged her to the computer and brought her up to speed on her conversation with her fellow student. Dawn had one of Willow's magic word books open to the fourth page of one word incantations. "Now I'm trying words that mean "open", "enter" or "let me in".

"Nothing so far?"

Dawn shook her head.

Buffy flipped through the book. There were hundreds of pages and thousands of words. "Maybe what we need is a word that not only means open or enter but one that means something to vampires. You know? Something only they would really understand in their own twisted kind of way."

"Okay, but what?"

Buffy was still wearing her work clothes, a grey pantsuit number with her hair in a long braid. She squirmed. "I have to change." From the bedroom, she called, "Is that all the girl told you?"

"Yeah. At first she was talking to a friend of hers and I listened in. She said she was going to meet someone tonight at Dusty's."

"Who?"

Dawn thought for a second, recalling the specific phrasing. She swallowed heavily. What if ?

"Buffy. I think this girl might be going to meet a vampire!"

Buffy, changed into tan jeans and a maple pullover, came back to the living room. "Why do you think that?"

Dawn stood up. "Because she said she was going to meet "one of them". What if this site is protected by a spoken magic word because there are real dark forces protecting it? What if these are real vampires, Buffy?"

"Then that girl is going to a dinner date where she's the main course."

Buffy walked to the door. "Come on!" On the way to her tiny Isuzu, Xander drove in and parked.

"Where're you two going?"

"We may have a dental problem."

At Xander's puzzled look, "A vampire." She added.

Xander's heart skipped a beat and he jerked his reflexively toward the west, where their cache of weapons used to be and the dying vampire was. "My car, ladies. And, uh, what makes you say so?" He asked while they all piled in to the larger, faster and more comfortable Seville.

Buffy quickly filled him in. "She's supposed to meet him at Dusty's."

Xander said under his breath. "When we first moved here, did anyone else think the name of that place had a kind of vampires eat here obviousness?"

"If there are any vamp's, it'll only be dusty once I'm through with it." Buffy said.

The pub appeared usual. Countryfied bar with a half dozen cars parked on an angle out front. Cheap neon sign that said simply Dusty's Bar. Inside, Steve Urban strummed his guitar from the juke box and fifteen to twenty people sat at tables nursing frothy beers. At a table in the corner three men played cards. Two women sat at the bar's two electronic nickel machines, and a busty waitress wandered around in uncomfortable looking cowboy boots, take orders and deflecting come on's.

The three, all dressed in clothing more suited to schools and Laundromats's, paused at the entry near the bar. "Seems normal enough." Xander observed.

"Hmm." Buffy took a seat at the nearest table but one which allowed her to view the front and rear doors, plus the short hallway that lead to the restrooms. Dawn sat beside her.

"I'll check the bathrooms." Xander tried to look like he belonged in a country bar and wandered to the back.

"Will you recognize this girl when she shows?"

Dawn nodded. "No problem. We talked for a few minutes. She's got long brown hair and she's a bit taller than me."

Buffy handed Dawn her cell phone. "Oh, you should call Willow so she knows what's going on."

Dawn dialed. As Dawn talked to Willow, the waitress came to the table. "What'll you have?"

"Oh, we're waiting for someone." Buffy said.

The waitress, "Nancy" as her name tag read, pointed to a laminated table card on which was displayed pictures of various cocktails. "Two drink minimum, honey. It's happy hour 'till nine."

"Oh. Okay, I'll have a Virgin Madonna."

"No such creature." Nancy said succinctly. "Just what you see, darlin'."

Buffy looked over the cocktails. "A Bloody Mary." It contained the smallest amount of alcohol. She did not want to feel tipsy when the vampire showed up.

Dawn ordered a diet Pepsi. When the drinks came, Buffy stared at hers for a moment. It was brownish and murky. She only sniffed it. Dawn had caught up with Willow on the cellular. "You have to come to Dusty's. That bar at the end of the strip mall on Second Street."

At Buffy's glower, Dawn lowered her voice, though the old familiar thrill was rising. Like an old friend. Life had become so like average life, she welcomed the excitement. "We think there's a vampire in town. No, we heard about it the usual way rumor. No, we're not sure but it's kind of cool, don't you think. A vampire in dull old, Fork, Utah. We'll explain when you get here." Dawn closed the phone. "Willow's on her way. She sounded all gulpy."

"Huh?"

Dawn pulled at her shirt collar and swallowed. "You know, "Uh oh a vampire!"."

Xander had checked the bathrooms out a few times just to give himself time to think. He was sure the vampire rumor was in fact about Spike but somewhere between the girl at school, Dawn's overhearing her, the conversation and Dawn's relating that information to Buffy, the data had gotten mixed up.

Xander left the back hall and re entered the main bar area. Buffy saw him and came over, Dawn in tow. "So?" He asked.

"I think we've got a case of bogus rumor." Buffy appeared half way between relieved and disappointed. Xander himself felt he had narrowly averted a "Buffy just found out we've been lying and she's really pissed off" disaster.

Dawn looked around the bar. "But I was sure she said she was meeting him here."

"Maybe she was just meeting a vampire web site groupie here, but they changed plans." Xander offered. He walked casually to the door, playing up his best "See? No vampires in Fork" face.

The Seville was parked next the alley entrance. Buffy tossed her purse on the front seat but didn't climb in. She and Dawn seemed to want to linger a bit and it made Xander toes curl inside his black leather business shoes. After a few minutes, all that could be heard was the dim twang of bad country music and a barking dog.

The barking was coming from overheard. All three looked up to see a poodle with his head hanging out an apartment window, barking furiously at something in the alley. "Probably a cat." Xander said. But the dog didn't stop.

Buffy walked into the alley to see with the other two taking up the rear.

"Come on, Buffy. It's a cat or a really good looking bone."

They heard a small cry and then a snarl.

"Xander!" Buffy ran hard and Xander and Dawn followed.

"Maybe it's a big cat!" Xander said not so much from genuine belief as hope. Maybe Spike had escaped? Had Willow checked on him tonight? It was her turn but she might have had to work late. A dozen possibilities entered his mind and they came upon the reason for the disturbance.

"I knew there were no vampires in Fork!" Xander said, "Except that one."

Buffy had already pulled the vampire off the girl and was wailing on him. To the girl, "Run!" To Xander, "I need a stake!"

Xander raced to the car and grabbed one from Buffy's purse. He ran back into the alley with it and tossed it to Buffy during a few seconds when the vampire wasn't on her nor she on him. Buffy feigned to the left and the vampire lunged. But she twisted hard to the right and drove the stake deep into its chest. In a thick cloud the color of charcoal, the creature fell to dust.

As the vampire saw his last, Willow arrived breathless. She had not seen the vampire slaying, just Buffy wiping her hands on her pants. "Buffy!"

Xander's felt a cold chill in his chest. Willow had just come upon the scene and Willow did not know that the vampire they had been scouting for was not Spike. "Willow..." He tried to warn her to keep her mouth shut without sounding like he was.

But Willow was already deep into explanations. "Buffy. Dawn filled me in, so I guess now you know. But before you say anything or fly off the deep end, we're sorry, okay? We're really sorry we didn't tell you about Spike. But it was his decision and he made us swear not to say anything. I swear, he made us swear!"

Buffy's face, her eyebrows drawn together, told the tale that she was completely in the dark and not because she was standing in a dark alley. "Spike? What do you mean? What about him?"

Willow was caught up short. "What do you mean what do you mean?"

Buffy looked from her to Xander and back. "Willow, Spike's dead. What do you mean he made you swear? When? Spike's been gone for two years."

Willow covered her face with her hands, then dropped them, looking to Xander for help. He sighed heavily, preparing for the worst Buffy could dish out. "We didn't mean for you to find out this way."

Buffy had gone from puzzled to pale. Her eyes were searching but quickly turning deadly. "What do you mean, Xander?"

He spread his hands. "Actually we didn't mean for you to find out at all."

Buffy held up a palm. "Stop. I want the truth right now." It was a quiet request but served with severity.

Xander opened his mouth to explain. But he didn't know how. How could he tell her that, just after Angel's death, Spike had blown into town as large as the un dead could be but instead of visiting Buffy in her hour of need, was at that moment dying. Or probably already dead.

It couldn't be explained. It was too much. He had no idea how to say the words. "It's easier if we just show you."

Buffy carefully lowered herself down the ladder into the hole. Their weapons cache. She'd tried to wring the answers from Xander during the drive but he just shook his head as though he couldn't quite believe it either.

At the end of the empty cache, Buffy knew was a heavily fortified cage. And, without being told, she knew Spike was behind its bars.

The why had yet to be revealed.

"Who's there?" It was Spike's voice and Buffy bit her lip so not one tear would fall. The last time she'd seen him he was dying in a brilliant show of light. And then falling to nothingness in a terrible haze of dead ash. She had said three words before that moment. Her last to him.

The ones he hadn't believed.

"Xander? Is that you? I think I need some blankets. It's too bloody cold down here." It was Spike's voice but smaller, and as dry as dust.

Xander switched on his small emergency flashlight and shone it into the dark. "Spike? Buffy's here."

There was silence for a few seconds. Then faintly, "You bastard."

Buffy walked forward, but Xander had not shone the flashlight any further than the dirt floor in front of the bars. "Spike?"

He didn't answer. "Why is he here?" Buffy asked Xander without turning around.

"He'll have to answer tha "

"I want you to!" She demanded.

When Xander offered nothing more, Buffy took the flashlight. "I want to see you Spike."

"No. Go away." The feeble voice answered.

Buffy did not shine the flashlight on the bars but waited for him to comply. When he didn't. "Spike? Spike!" She didn't know what they were all hiding but she was furious. And all her unreasoning fears were bubbling at the surface. Barking out orders seemed the only way to calm herself and deal. "Spike! Dammit! I'm not leaving until I see you."

"You want to see?" His voice, low and crazy with outrage, slithered from the dark cell. Without warning, he threw himself at the bars full height and pressed his dying face mask to the light. "Then look!"

Buffy screamed and dropped the flashlight. The dark reached out and snapped them up.

Outside again, under the half moon night sky, Buffy wiped a few tears from her face. "What the hell is going on? What have you done to him?"

Xander resented her assumption that this was his doing. "This was all Spike. He came to me."

"And then you should have come to me." Buffy told him.

"And tell you what? That Spike didn't want to see you? That he wants to die and wants me to help him do it?"

Buffy shook her head, rubbing hands over a weary face. "I don't understand any of this."

Xander handed her the flashlight again. "If you want more than that, you'll have to get it from him."

Buffy took it and stepped on the top ladder rung. Willow followed. "Let me come too, Buffy, I know a little more about it. Xander, do we have that battery powered lantern?"

Xander nodded and retrieved it from the car's trunk. "Maybe you should stay with Dawn." Willow cautioned. "She's a bit stunned too." Xander returned to the Seville.

Willow turned the lantern on and descended after Buffy.

The lantern cast a gentle but effective glow over the mud walls of the underground cache.

Spike, head resting on his knees, sat with his back against the far wall, the thick bars obscuring parts of him. A bit of Spike, a bar, a bit of Spike, a bar...

Buffy, careful not to look at him directly, sat on the floor and crossed her legs. Willow stood farther away, knowing her knowledge might be useful but not wanting to be an intruder.

Buffy looked at the bars and at the vampire wasting away behind them. Now that she was free to speak, she could find no first question that seemed...dignified.

So, simply, "Why Spike?"

He just sighed heavily. "I was nearly half way."

"Half way to what? Your grave?"

"I'm tired, Buffy." Meaning he had not the strength for long explanations never mind short ones.

Behind her, "Buffy? I can explain."

"Okay. Go ahead."

Willow sat down too. "Spike told Xander that Angel was... murdered. Killed by a slayer."

Buffy turned and looked at her. "Who did it?"

Willow shook her, "We don't know. But it's a group that calls themselves the Soul Hunters. And they're after Spike now too."

"Why would they want to kill vampire's with souls? You and Angel helped people."

Willow said, "We're not completely sure "

"-I am." Spike whispered from his agony.

"Why?" Buffy spoke softly, afraid that volume might somehow add to his pain.

"Are all people, all human souls, good?" He asked.

Buffy did not have to think about it. "Of course not. There's lots of terrible people."

"Just because a vamp' trades on the blackest market for a soul doesn't mean he gets the good boy feelin'."

"Angel was good." Willow added. "And Spike was, I mean, is. But most others aren't. Especially when they've acquired their souls illegally, according to demon law. Spike says vampires are, for lack of a better word, wearing their ill gotten souls like trinkets. It's underworld fashion. And there's rumors that some vampire's are killing people just to trade the soul if it happens to be one they admire. They're even trading for the souls of long dead kings and tyrants."

"I thought vampires, when they got a soul, became almost like a human again, in their behavior. Maybe not good, but not as bad." Buffy said.

Spike took a couple of deep breaths. The exchange was clearly wearing him down. "Angel got his unwillingly, but it was for good cause, so he became good. I got mine because I wanted...to be a better person. And mine I own outright."

Willow scooted closer. "But these Soul Hunters don't seem to care about the distinction."

"And if they're killing people to get the souls, they're making more vampires, not just trading for dead spark." It was a long sentence and Spike seemed to fade in strength from the effort of it. He slowly fell over and lay on his side.

By doing so, his face came into view and was fully exposed to Buffy. She could not tear her gaze away from the hollowing eyes, the almost translucent skin stretched thin over sinewy cheekbones. She could see his skull through white, thinning hair. His lips were a narrow, dead line.

"Never mind how you're alive in the first place. I don't get why you would want to lock yourself away to die instead of seeking protection? People were always trying to kill you, Spike. Including me." The tragic humor of it escaped Buffy's mouth in the form of a little bark of sad irony, but her eyes were not in a laughing mood. "Why give in without a fight?"

Spike made one last effort to lift his head, but he looked at Willow.

"I think I know the answer to that, Buffy." Willow got a tiny nod of approval from Spike. She went on. "There's a legend that if a vampire dies a vampire's death, meaning he has to forgo blood until he expires, he might live again. He might be able to come back...as a human being."

Buffy stared at Spike. It was impossible to envision him as anything, or anyone, other than the one hundred and twenty year old vampire he was. "That's insane. That's just a legend. Suppose it isn't true? Suppose by dying as a vampire, you're just dead and that's it?"

Spike did not answer. He had his eyes closed against the light and, Buffy suspected, her words.

Buffy stood up. "No. This is crazy. I won't let you do it."

Spike sighed deeply. Willow knew this is what he must have feared if Buffy found out. Not her grief or anger, but her interference.

At his silence, Buffy stood and approached the bars, fists clenched in little pressure balls of anger. "Do you hear me? I won't let you do this! Not while I can protect you."

Spike did not respond nor move. But she could see him breathing. Stupid, useless movement of a vampire chest that did not use oxygen to sustain its un dead flesh. "Do you hear!" She yelled in the confined space, making Willow's ears hurt. Spike's vampire ears must have been ringing.

When Buffy still received no reply from him, she unscrewed the flashlight head from the battery holding base. Sliding the curved edge of the flashlight case across her wrist, Buffy produced a thin line of blood.

Willow stepped forward. "Buffy...what are you ?"

Buffy ignored Willow, and squeezed her own arm above the wrist. Blood drops pooled and ran down her fingers. She stuck her arm through the bars. Spike would already have smelled the blood. And it was not animal blood. Not ordinary, cold stored, thickened beast blood. Not even ordinary human blood that was often tainted by the taste of tar, alcohol or a host of other gross substances some humans willingly ingested.

No, it was slayer blood. And not just any slayer blood, but the strongest and longest living slayer ever to walk the earth. The slayer who had conquered the underworld. The slayer he had made love to. The one who had saved his life and said the words.

The slayer whom he loved so deeply it physically hurt.

So would a cruel hunter offer a bloody rare deer steak to a starving wolf just before shooting it in the head.

Spike rose to his feet, wobbling, and wrapped his arms around his concave chest. A tiny groan of blood lust escaped his razor thin lips; a freakish, high pitched whine that snaked around the room. A burst of hunger raged through every cell in his body. He stared at Buffy murderously. Unbelievingly. Hatefully.

But his body was too weak to make the change. His brow remained smooth and human like. However his self control, already splitting into a thousand shards, finally flew apart in a burst of starving vampire instinct. Awareness failed. Insanity arrived. The world slipped away from his vision, like the blood drops into the dirt at Buffy's feet.

He appealed to Willow with one terrified and pleading glance. Then his eyes shut and he succumbed, finally screaming, "Get her out of here!"

Willow tugged at Buffy's arm as hard as she could. "Buffy. We should go!"

Buffy pulled away as though from a child's grip. "No. I won't let him do this to himself."

Spike screamed again and threw himself at the bars, trying to get his teeth around her fingers. Buffy, drawing quickly away, felt the smallest triumph before she realized he was doing it again. And again and again until the skin on his face began to split under the repeated impacts. He then slammed himself against the hard dirt wall at the back of the cage, over and over. Each collision sounded like the flailing of a trapped and mad beast that did not know the walls were unyielding. "Get her away from me!" He screamed to Willow. "Get her away.Get her away.getheraway!"

Only then did Buffy come to her better judgment and let Willow pull her away form the bars and up the ladder. Spike thrashed around until the trap door had been replaced. The noises from below faded and died.

Willow was on her hands and knees in the dirt. Buffy sat on the ground nearby, numbed by what had just occurred. "That was the cruelest thing I've ever seen in my life." She hissed.

Willow stood and walked to the car, with one hand on her queasy stomach. Xander and Dawn had gotten out of the car. Even they must have heard the vampire screaming from the pit.

Buffy, standing up and looking down at the wooden planks covering a hole to a cage that surrounded what was left of Spike, awakened to the awful thing she had just done. "What?...why...o-my-god"

Back home, Willow made tea and served it up to the exhausted group. Dawn's eyes were red from crying. Buffy, white as a sheet, sat on the couch, her face in her hands from shame. "I don't know what I was thinking. I was just so angry."

Xander accepted that. "We should have told you."

Buffy accepted the tea from Willow with a contrite smile. Willow smiled back, assuring her she was forgiven and it was move on time. "I mean I was suddenly furious with Spike. I wanted to hurt him, I was so angry. How could I do that when he was...like that?"

No one really had an answer. Buffy did not expect one. "I may not be sure of my feelings...regarding Spike but I'm sure of one thing. I can protect him. We have to convince him of that and bring him here."

"What if the soul hunters know where he is? What if they followed him here?" Dawn asked.

Willow offered, "Well, he's been in the pit for two weeks now and no one's showed. Maybe they don't know."

Xander disagreed, "My bet is they know where you live, Buffy. And if they know that, they can guess pretty easily that sooner or later Spike would show up here."

Buffy took one sip of her tea and set the cup down in the middle of the coffee table. She was in no mood to be comforted. She wanted, needed, to act. And this time with more positive results. "Xander's right. We need a place to hide Spike for a while, until he recovers."

Xander knew the answer, but he asked it anyway,. "So you're going to ignore Spike's wishes?"

Buffy looked at them all individually. "Look. Maybe it's selfish, but I we, just lost Angel. And knowing Spike is alive...I just can't...I'm not ready to lose him again, too. Whether he likes it or not. I'm not going to let him die." Directly to Xander, "Will you help me?"

He nodded and straightened his shoulders. "To be honest, even though I still pretty much hate the guy, if these soul hunters are for real and it looks that way, we're going to need our strongest warrior, other than you, to close them down." Xander was at heart glad that they were going to do something besides wait for Spike to die or the soul hunters to show up and maybe kill them all trying to get to him.

"Then what?" Dawn asked Buffy. "I mean. We feed Spike and then...what? We hide Spike somewhere and then the soul hunters show up and...are we talking big battle?"

Buffy turned to her. "I'm not sure. But hopefully we'll have time to figure that out before whatever's coming down comes down."

Xander shifted his position on the arm of the sofa. "I know a place."

Spike fought but in his weakened condition was no match for Buffy and Xander. All they had to do was toss a blanket over his head and steer him to the back seat of the Seville.

At his no longer private apartment, Xander unfolded the hide a bed and Buffy arranged a pillow under Spike's head. Willow had been sent to scout out a farm where she might acquire a few quarts of pig's blood. The town's lone butcher didn't trade in it.

Buffy felt like she needed to watch him closely. Spike kept his head turned away from her. She guessed he was still pretty pissed off.

After an hour, Willow came through the door with bags filled with what looked like quart jars. She placed them on the counter. "If you don't mind, I'm not going to stay. The guy said this is two days fresh. Diluted. He still charged me for it." Willow was making small talk and Buffy let her. It was a shortcut passed having to deal with the things that were said. Things that didn't matter anymore. Feathers on the wind. Buffy nodded. "Thanks."

After Willow left, Buffy took a large mug from Xander's cupboard and filled it with the thick, red stuff. Warming it to room temperature, she carried it to the hide a bed and placed it in sight of Spike. He looked at her with defeated eyes then sat up slowly. The effort nearly left him faint. He took the mug from her and looked into it's ruby depths for a few seconds. Its warm, metallic scent must have filled his

nasal cavity but he made no move to taste.

Buffy heard him take one, shuddering sigh. It was a terrible sound.

"You bloody bitch."

She had expected anger from him over her decision, but not put so bluntly. No matter. It had been the right decision. "I couldn't let you do it, Spike. I don't want you to die. I need you here."

He took a long gulp. Licked cracked lips. "Well, maybe, just once, it wasn't about what you wanted."

In just a few days, Spike was on his feet, paler than usual, and thin but growing stronger. He was quiet when Buffy visited. Answered her questions, told her what she wanted to know in as few words as possible. If he spoke sharply, she ignored it and came anyway. Each day she came.

One day she asked, "So, what can you tell me about these soul hunters?"

Spike knew quite a bit but wondered what he ought to filter out of the conversation. There were some things about his little dying project that were none of her business. "I know a bit."

"Like who they are?"

"I didn't mention it before but I heard a name: Kennedy."

Buffy let out a tense breath she must have been holding. This was good, something to focus both of their energies on besides a stew of emotions all directed at each other. "Does Willow know?"

"No. I didn't tell her anyhow."

"She's going to be upset."

Spike laughed. A short, ill humored yip. "Sure. Kennedy turned vampire with a soul slayer. Let's all worry about how Red's gonna feel. I'll bet Angel felt a thing or two." Spike bit his lip. He hadn't meant to bring up his dead ex boss.

Buffy blinked a few times and looked at her shoes but didn't tear up. Instead, in a tiny voice, "Do you know how many there are?"

"No. Rumor has it, there are a half dozen slayer gangs maybe just in our neck of the world. Each has one leader. Faith might even be one of 'em for all we know."

Buffy walked to the window, pushing aside a curtain to watch the quickly setting sun. Careful not to let any direct sunlight touch Spike, she stared as it turned orange, then red and sank behind the hills to the west. "I thought..."

Spike poured a cup of blood, warming it in the micro wave. "You thought what?"

"I don't know. I mean, after Sunnydale, I figured, that's it. Done. No more evil to battle. No more vampire's to dust " She stopped. But of course, Angel and Spike had been left and surely others still un dead across the globe. Nests of vampire's biding their time.

Spike had known. "We were nothing more than stop gap measure, Buffy. I hear there may even be another Hell mouth in Cleveland, like that place needs any help being lousy. Evil just moved above ground, Love. No one's going to end evil unless it's...you know."

"Hm?"

"I'm a vampire, I don't like to say the G word and The Name even less. But, you know, the Big Guy."

Buffy smiled. "I guess."

"You're still the H.S.I.C. So how do we prepare for this one?" Spike asked.

"H.S.I.C?"

"Yeah. The Head Slayer In Charge. You're the most experienced and the one that's kept herself alive the longest. That makes you Chief."

"It's funny. I'm almost twenty six years old, though I feel a hundred. I hold a responsible job, I've raised my sister. Still am raising her in fact. And, with help, I've saved the world one or twice. And all I can think to do right now is call Giles and beg him to come home and help me."

"Nothing wrong with that. Maybe he's sick of kippers and afternoon teas."

"Are you ready to come home?"

"You mean to the house?" Spike hadn't considered that Buffy would want him there. It would be the first stop on the soul hunter's tour. "But what about...?"

" Bring 'em on. If there's a fight coming, let's get rocking. Things are slow this week down at the clinic anyway."

"I don't get this. Why would any vampire ever want to possess a soul? Especially when they don't use them anyway?" Willow was the first to throw down questions. "What started all this?"

"Yeah. Angel's soul some of the vampires we knew, back then, knew he had one, but they hated him for it. I mean, he killed other vampires." Xander said.

"I know why." Andrew offered. He was wearing a tee shirt with "I Survived the Sunnydale Vampire Holocaust and all I got was this Lousy Tee shirt" stenciled across the front.

Spike, looking physically much revived, stared dully at him. "Oh?"

"I frequent vampire chat rooms. It's because of Spike."

"Because of me?"

"Yes." Thrilled to be under the in the know spotlight, he straightened his shoulders. "Spike's nearly a legend in the vampire community. He's managed to stay alive, or un dead, for over a century. And he's bagged two slayers." He looked quickly at Buffy. "And no offense..." He forged ahead, "...had a sordid love affair with a third."

Buffy glared stakes.

Andrew continued despite her disapproving frown. "Plus, then he went out and endured the worst torture to get his very own soul back. He's the only vampire who has legal ownership of his own soul." Andrew sighed. "To them he's kind of an icon. An Ubervamp."

Spike shrugged. "I didn't want to brag." He shifted uncomfortably under Andrew's admiring stare. "Start humming the theme to Superman and I'll snap your leotard."

"You gained access to a vampire website?" Willow asked Andrew. "Which one?"

"Um, VampsRUs."

"Why didn't you say so? It took us hours to find the right word."

Andrew withered under Willow's scrutiny. "I didn't want anyone to find out my online persona."

Xander said, "Oh I got it! Count Stupida?"

Andrew looked at Dawn. Sometimes she came to his support when the teasing went overtime. "No. Lestat44." He said.

"Oh please!" Was Spike's only comment.

"You're nothing like Lestat, or the forty four nerdy imitation Lestats." Xander said. "You're more like the Sesame Street vampire."

"Enough!" Buffy went to the phone. "I'm going to try Giles again. Let's have more talk on these Slayer Soul Hunters and less about what Andrew does during his private geek time."

Andrew crossed his arms. "No one ever appreciates the dynamic I bring to the group."

"We are thankful, Andrew, for the information. But we need something concrete so we can know what we're dealing with here. They want to kill Spike, so we have to figure out what they're likely to try before they try it." Buffy divided her attention between Andrew and dialing the phone. "What else did you find out in the chat room?"

Andrew took out a notepad with a picture of Captain Kirk on it. "I made some notes. Some of it I didn't understand, but I'm sure Dawn and Willow can figure it out."

Buffy noticed Andrew blush when he mentioned Dawn's name. Dawn didn't notice though she did perk up at his compliment.

The phone at the other end rung and went on ringing. Buffy, wanting to keep Andrew's mind on work and not on her sister, "And...?"

"I think the nests are worried. They keep mentioning a dust storm, code that slayers are on the way. There's talk of an exodus to the cities."

Xander said "The nearest big city is Salt Lake. My bet is they'll find a place to hold up, try and ride out the Slayerfest."

"Yeah, its easier to get lost in the crowd and the pickings are better." Willow added.

"Anything on the local vamp's?" Buffy asked.

Andrew checked his notes. "The rumors of the Soul Slayers are really confused. It's like an elite group or something has emerged to clean up the leftover evil on earth. The vampires think the slayers have long term plans to slaughter until the earth is cleansed and the slaying's already started. There's probably a few locals planning on making tracts to the city A.S.A.P."

"Looks like I'm a dying breed." Spike said.

Buffy looked sharply at him. "They sound really scared. Maybe there's already one of these soul slayers in town?"

Willow said, "We don't know. But if you're gonna broom the earth, you don't want to miss the corners."

A knock at the door made them all jump. It was late, passed eleven thirty. "Hide Spike." Buffy said. Spike and Andrew made a quick retreat to the back hall with one foot out the door just in case. Buffy walked to the front door. "Who is it?"

"Buffy? It's Giles. I got your message and took the first flight out I could "

Buffy threw open the door and hugged him hard before he had a chance to finish.

" I rented a car and drove the rest of the way." He finished, gesturing to the generic looking vehicle parked on the street.

"You are in desperate need of a cell phone." Buffy said into his jacket. "I'm so glad you're here." She finally released him and called over her shoulder while ushering him inside. "It's okay. It's Giles."

Dawn and Willow greeted him with less confining embraces.

Xander, offering his hand, "How about a nice, manly shake?"

In unison Andrew and Spike said simply "Hey."

Buffy ushered Giles to a comfortable chair in the living room.

Over beverages suited to taste, Giles was brought up to speed on the current situation. "You say their intent is to slay all vampires, soul or soulless, violent or peaceful?"

Willow gestured to the computer behind her. "We've researched it as best we can and from what we've been able to gather, they believe that if there's even one vamp' left in the world, that's a door left unlocked for evil to gain a foothold outside of their usual domain. Even run of the mill vampire evil. But, again, we only have rumors and..." Willow stopped.

"And Angel." Buffy finished for her. "You probably haven't heard "

"Yes." Giles answered. "A fallen...Angel doesn't escape the demonic or slayer grapevine. I'm am truly sorry, Buffy. Even if you hadn't called, I was still coming. Just not quite this soon."

Buffy took her grief and rage over Angel and funneled it into something more useful. "Have you heard anything in England?" She asked.

"Disturbing reports of vigilante slayers, working outside the boundaries of the law even Watcher procedure. But with the old Council gone, there are no checks and balances in place. Guess work mostly. There's a question I must ask, if you'll forgive me, Buffy. How exactly did they kill Angel?"

No one wanted to cut that one open.

Buffy awoke as if from a nap. "No one actually told me about the details Spike?"

Spike looked at Xander. "Xander?"

Xander looked uncomfortable.

"Tell me, Xander. Please."

He did and the silence that followed made it hard to breath.

Buffy announced, "I want them to pay for that."

"A personal vendetta against a planet's worth of slayers?" Giles asked.

"No. Just those few." Then at Giles worried expression, "When the time is right. But now isn't that time."

"What should we do?" Xander asked. "Stay here? Go to Salt Lake? Where do we make the stand? And what kind of stand?"

"Lots of questions." Giles stated. "I think we should get a good night's sleep. Before you go to bed, pack what you think you'll need, including your cash, whatever you have. Buffy and I'll take care of any research materials and weapons. Now as to transportation..."

Willow said, "Well, we have three cars."

Xander reminded them of something. "But what if one or more of the slayers are already in Fork, already know Spike is here and are just waiting for the best time to pick him off? Plus he can't travel in a car in the daylight any normal car..." He looked around the room.

On the sofa, Andrew leaned over and whispered something to Dawn.

"We can blacken out the windows on my car. Spike can ride with me." Buffy said.

"And if your car gets attacked, we'll lose both of you." Xander pointed out.

"Xander's quite correct. A slayer would recognize the reason for blacked out windows." Giles added.

Dawn piped up. "Andrew has a good idea."

More than one set of raised eyebrows waited expectantly.

Dawn nudged him in the ribs. "Ow!" He cleared his throat. "Well, I was watching Clear and Present Danger and Harrison Ford plays this CIA man who "

Giles prompted, "The short version, Andrew, please."

"To confuse the bad guys, the good guys used decoy vehicles. Only one carried the crucial witness."

"That's a good idea." Buffy took it up, looking at Dawn and Andrew, "Dawn, there's some paint cans in the basement. Dark colors I hope. Can you two take care of that?"

They nodded. "On it." Dawn said. "Come on." They disappeared down the stairs.

Giles stood and went to the phone. "I have a contact in Salt Lake who may be able to arrange a place to lay low for a while. Plus he has some ancients texts that may be useful."

"In the meantime, pack up and be ready to leave in the morning. We'll call our prospective schools and work from the road."

Xander checked his cell phone. "I don't have any vacation time coming. But I'm the boss and I make my own hours. Important meeting with the money rollers excuse coming up." He dialed his foreman.

"I'll call Dawn's collage and the clinic. What about you Willow?"

She gave and "all set" smile. "The best thing about writing for a newspaper is," She tapped a finger on her laptop. "you can e mail the finished product."

Spike road with Andrew and Xander in the Seville. Buffy and Dawn were in her Toyota in the lead and Giles and Willow in the rental took the rear of the small convoy.

Twenty miles out, on a lonely road west of Fork, a heavy duty crew-cab pick-up truck traveling the opposite way swerved with intent into Buffy's vehicle, swiping it along it's side and making it skid. The Toyota flipped and came to a grinding halt on it's roof just near the embankment.

The pick-up then took out the front left corner of Xander's Seville, forcing him into a spin. He managed to keep it under control and brought it to a stop a few hundred feet from Buffy. Giles rental took a direct head-on hit. By that time Giles had slowed to almost a crawl and the truck evidently hit him just to be certain he stopped completely.

In minutes six people jumped from the truck, two approaching each of the damaged cars, carrying what looked like large gage sidearms and crossbows. Both types of weapons were raised and at the ready should resistance be encountered.

"Exit the vehicles. Now!" A woman's hard voice ordered. All had their faces covered by black bandana's. All wore black baseball caps and coveralls.

Buffy and Dawn crawled from her heavily damaged car. Dawn limped and Buffy helped her walk. Giles had to exit Willow's passenger door as his was buckled and would not open.

Andrew and Xander got out last, Andrew holding a bloody nose.

One of the women barked another order. "Check the trucks and back seats for him. Check under the back seats."

Willow thought she recognized the voice. "Kennedy?"

The woman removed her bandana. "Hello Willow."

Willow had not seen Kennedy for over a year. The young woman had become a slayer during the Sunnydale holocaust and had proved an especially adept one.

"Got tired of teaching?" Willow asked.

Kennedy. "This has nothing to do with you, Willow -"

"You just about ran us off the road, looks like I'm in it whether I want to be or not."

"That's your choice. We just want the vamp'."

"His name's Spike."

"Well, soon it's going to be Dusty."

Buffy and Dawn were brought over by the other weapon wielding slayers.

"Toyota's clean." One of them said.

"Got him!" A slayer shouted from the Seville. Her partner dragged Spike out of Xander's Seville, allowing him to keep out of the sun beneath the protection of his blanket. They clearly wanted to kill him in their own way and time.

"Why are you doing this, Kennedy?" Buffy demanded. "You know Spike doesn't hurt anyone anymore."

"It's no use explaining it to you, Buffy. You've always had a soft spot for the en-souled un-dead. But

sooner or later, something will happen and he'll turn bad again and you'll maybe stop him. But not before he slaughters a few dozen innocent people. We're doing preventative maintenance here."

"Like you did with Angel?" Her heart felt wrung out like a dishcloth on the thought of Angel really being gone. She would never see him again. It was almost too much to bear.

"That wasn't personal. And like I said, you've got a soft spot. For us it's duty." Kennedy answered. "Take him." She ordered and two of the masked slayers forced Spike toward the truck.

"Wait!" Buffy said. She had no idea how to stop it. They had all underestimated the determination and preparedness of the Soul Hunters and she was no match for six armed slayers hell bent on the hunt.

Buffy looked at her friends. "You want to kill him. Fine. But Kennedy, let me talk to you about this in private for a moment. Okay? What's another couple of minutes going to change?"

"That's my question, but out of respect for you, Buffy, you've got your two minutes."

Buffy and Kennedy, under the watchful eyes of the other slayers, stood away from the group and spoke. Buffy did most of the talking. Finally Kennedy nodded once.

"Ladies." She announced to her party. "We're taking a little road trip. The vamp' rides with us."

Spike was loaded into a steel cage mounted on the back of the truck The box was sheltered from the sun, had a few air holes but was otherwise a cold, hard cage and not meant for lengthy occupancy. It had been bolted to the bed of the vehicle. Nothing would move it.

The convoy resumed it's trip, less the Toyota, which had been rendered un-usable. Two slayers, each armed with handguns, (weapons suited to the hurting or killing of non-vampires), road in each vehicle.

Giles, under the watchful eye of Kennedy made his contact when they arrived in Salt Lake City. "The warehouse isn't too far." He said.

It was an antiquated building. Neglected, littered with refuse. It's only serviceable room was a small office at one end. A single overhead bulb afforded the only light but at least it worked. A greasy old desk was shoved into a corner. A thread-bare old swivel office chair slumped sideways next to it.

Xander took a deep breath. "Ahh, Just like hell."

There was a basement. "Old meat lockers." Giles announced as he shone his torch inside. The thing wasn't even aluminum, it was double layered thick wooden planks. "Must have been built in the 'forties."

"It'll do the job. If this is the way that crazy vamp' wants to go, fine. As long as he goes."

Later, while Kennedy and her slayers talked amongst themselves, though there was never a moment at least one of them was watching the scooby gang with weapon ready, Giles took a moment to speak to Buffy. "What all did you tell Kennedy?"

"Just enough to get us here in one piece. Especially Spike." She whispered. "I told her he wanted to atone and this was the way he choose."

"And she bought it?"

"I don't think she cares." Willow said, a bit sadly. "Kennedy never went for the magic stuff or the folklore. To her, vampires are just mutations or human/animal beasts gone wrong."

"But she's a slayer...how could she not believe the mystical side? She a daughter of the mystical." Dawn asked.

Buffy shrugged. "I dunno. I don't care. At least this way, maybe Spike has a chance."

"Willow!" Kennedy said loudly. "Got your computer?"

Willow nodded.

"We need you to do some research on the local vamp' scene. Where the nests are. Think you can do that?"

Willow, glad to get the opportunity to get use of her notepad, nodded and stood. She's had no idea when or if Kennedy would have allowed her access to it. They would need it to research Spike's project. She placed it on the desk, plugging it into the wall."I better save the battery in case it's low."

"Thanks." Kennedy said

Willow smiled, a bit ironically. "Well, you're welcome. I guess. Like I'm in a position to say no."

Kennedy said softly, "You are." Then tried to explain. "We're not trying to kidnap you and the others. We're trying to see that all vampires are eliminated. Once Spike's dead, we're gone. We only want him. That's all. Your cooperation is appreciated."

"It's wrong Kennedy. I'll help you. But what you're doing is wrong." Willow felt some of the old feelings for Kennedy start to itch but she shut them out. Kennedy was an expert at manipulation.

Willow had soon learned not too long into their relationship that whatever Kennedy wanted, Kennedy got. And she used her wiles, her wit and her will to achieve that end, while somehow in the process, when things didn't go as planned, making it all seem like Willow's fault. Kennedy was good at shifting blame. So good, Willow had discovered, she herself had stepped willingly into the role of the blamed.

Willow woke up from the role one day, however, and asked Kennedy to change. Kennedy had seen no need. The relationship ended quickly.

"What do you need me to look for?"

"Vampire nests. Any on-line contacts who might know the local joints where they hang out. Any slayers on the hunt and where it's going down...things like that."

"Okay." Willow tried to make her voice sound cooperative yet reluctant. She'd had time to perfect an act or two as well. While she was running a search, she ran and underlying program to search for information on their own agenda: Spike's dying project. Buffy had asked her do such en-route to Salt Lake and she thought she'd made progress until their trip had been so thoroughly interrupted.

While Willow did her computing, Kennedy announced, "All right. Let's get on with it." She looked at Buffy. Three of the slayers entered, two roughly hauling Spike between them, the third with a crossbow aimed directly at the center of his chest.

Buffy stood quickly. "Just like that?" She'd hoped for a few hours to plan an escape or to convince Kennedy to give up her hunt for this particular vampire.

Kennedy nodded. "Just like that." She came close (but not too close) to Buffy with her firearm raised. "I know what kind of slayer you are, Buffy. I know you're smart and resourceful and could kick my ass from here to the state line if you had even half a chance. And I know you're sitting here with the scooby gang trying to hatch out a plan. I can't afford to give you the time. Spike dies. We either start his little dying project here and now or we take his soul and stake him where he stands." She paused, looking around at all their stunned faces. "No debate. Your choice, boss." She finished.

Buffy clenched her fists. At Sunnydale, they'd stood together and beaten overwhelming odds. Saved the day. Here, she was defeated without having had the opportunity to lift a finger in her own defense or anyone's. She choked back her fury and pride. And fiercely resisted the lust to wrap her fingers around Kennedy's self righteous throat.

"Fine." Buffy looked over at Spike, willing her resolve give him strength. "Where?"

Kennedy looked at Giles. "Giles?"

He would know of course. "There's the basement. " His voice sounded pinched. "One of the old meat lockers...will probably do."

Kennedy nodded. "Fine. Two slayers will be on hand for the show. Sorry, Buffy. That's off the table."

Buffy reddened with hate. "I swear to God, I'll make you pay for this. If it's the last thing I do in this life."

Kennedy accepted the statement, and Buffy's hatred, as bare fact. "I know you'll try. You seem to have forgotten on which side you should be."

"I'm on the side of the innocent."

Kennedy shook her head in disbelief. "No vampire is innocent."

In the locker, still holding tightly the stink of old cow flesh, Spike slid down the back wall and got comfortable. "Well, pet, looks like this is it." He said.

"Don't be glib." Buffy answered. "Not now."

Spike pursed his lips. "Sorry. Hard to know what to say in such situations, being that it's a brand new type of situation."

Buffy stared at him. She was still as a stone wall, afraid to make a movement. Afraid to appear weak to them or vulnerable to him. "If I can find a way out of this, to stop them, I will."

"I know."

"I'll do everything I can-"

"Always."

She stopped, knowing promises were not required. Buffy looked at the floor in front of his feet, not at him. Not at him where his eyes might meet her heart to crumble her defenses. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

Spike had wanted a thing or two. But, "Just one."

"Anything." She said it. He heard from the inflection that she'd die to keep that single, all encompassing word.

"Be with me at the end." He offered no explanation or reason. Just fumbled at his pocket. Dropping a small stone on the floor, he crushed it under the soul of his boot.

Buffy did not ask about it, so Spike offered. "A keepsake from L.A. Won't be needing it now I guess."

Unable to speak, she nodded. Then, "Can I sit with you for a while?"

He looked pointedly behind her to the slayer standing there, weapon raised and ears listening to everything. The stranger/hated-slayer nodded.

Buffy settled down on the cold concrete beside Spike. He put his arm around her and she gathered it to herself. One strong anchor just for a little while before the dark ship sailed for good.

"Oh. Just one more thing before we get this show on the road." Spike remembered. "Can I have my cigarettes?"

"Okay, Buffy, that's enough goodbyes for now. We're locking him in."

Kennedy ordered her out of the meat locker. Buffy tossed Spike his smokes and a lighter then reluctantly left, taking one back glance at him. He was tapping a cigarette out of the new pack and flicking his lighter. "See you soon, Love."

Kennedy ushered Buffy back to the dingy office where the others were being held. "Is it on the way, Grace?" Kennedy asked one of her fellow Hunters. Out of earshot the slayer and Kennedy had a conversation.

Willow scooted closer to Buffy. "I think they're talking about a Crystal of Saiwala; a soul catcher. They need the crystal to get Spike's soul, to take his spark. He becomes truly un-dead again once they have that central part of life or what would be life if he were human."

Giles leaned in, "I suspect one reason they're so intent on separating the soul prior to destroying the vampire is that they can then do the task with a free conscience. Killing the en-souled might leave a bad taste."

"We have to find a way to stop this. Think. We can't just stand here and let them murder Spike, we have to find a way to help him-"

Kennedy and the other slayers suddenly had their collective attention on something. Smoke was billowing from the basement stairwell.

Giles said, "Looks like Spike may have found a way himself."

Kennedy shouted: "Watch them!" and she and all but two of her slayers stormed down the stairs.

Buffy nodded to Giles who fell over clutching his chest and moaning.

"Oh my God!" Buffy kneeled beside him, shaking him. "Giles?" Buffy, very convincing tears on her cheeks, yelled at the slayers. "Call for an ambulance! He might be having a heart attack."

The slayers exchanged doubtful glances.

Buffy let loose all her rage and pent up emotion over Spike into one genuine wail. "Help him! Please!"

One slayer opened her cellular and dialed. The other uncertainly called down the stair well. "Kennedy, what's going on? We have a situation up here."

The first slayer had not said a single word into the phone before Buffy, moving as swiftly as Giles had ever seen, dispatched the woman with a incredibly fast, hard kick to the head. Buffy had apparently not held back a thing as the woman dropped like a stone and lay still.

While Buffy took out the first slayer, Willow had tossed her laptop as hard as she could at the second, knocking her off balance. Before she had a second to recover, Buffy was on top and smashing her face in. She was in no mood to be gentle or worry about giving anyone a bloody nose or a concussion for that matter. As strong as any ordinary slayer was, including the woman beneath her, none could match Buffy for strength, speed and most importantly, experience.

The scoobies raced down the stairs. They found Kennedy and the others watching flames lick one side of the wooden meat locker while the other sides quickly became engulfed.

Kennedy, unaware of Buffy and the gang behind her, unbolted the door. Throwing it open she shouted inside to her prisoner. "What are you doing!"

Spike stood against the back wall where the flames had not yet reached. "Taking my fate out of your hands, bitch."

Buffy smiled, delighted with Spike's innovative thinking. "Come on!" She sprang to action like the dead coming back to life and began wailing on the nearest and strongest slayer - Kennedy. "Xander, get Spike out of there. Get out of here, all of you!"

Giles stayed behind and helped Buffy fight the slayers back They didn't need to defeat them there. Not just yet. All they needed was a hole. With Kennedy down, a break in the slayer ranks appeared and they bolted through it and up the stairs. Outside Buffy and Giles lead the way as they raced down the garbage strewn alley. Luckily it was night and Spike could run blanket-free.

The slayers were on their tail but far behind. Buffy was of the mind they might just get away when they came to a dead end. "No!" She shouted, looking this way and that for an escape. A fire-escape ladder

hung sadly on the side of one building. But once on it, they could be easily picked off. Would it even hold the weight of one of them? A large blue garbage bin on wheels slouched beneath it.

"Help me with this garbage can." Buffy began shoving it hard, steering it toward the narrow alley. Xander, Giles and the rest joined in. "Faster!" Buffy heaved. It gained speed, soon it was rolling at a good clip down the alley toward the pursuing slayers. It might scramble a few of them for a minute.

"Up the ladder. Hurry!"

Miraculously, they all made it to the roof. But after that, there was no where to go. At least they'd made a good effort, Giles thought. "We can make our stand here." Xander said.

Spike began shaking and pounding on the joints holding the ladder to the building, trying to rip if from it's bolts.

"That's a better idea." Xander said and joined him. With a rusty whine the thing gave and they sent it crashing down.

"In here." Dawn shouted. An inlaid door to the interior of the building, flat and unused for years was at her feet. It was secured with a lock and chain. Buffy twisted the lock until it snapped.

"They'll be coming in from the main floor." Giles reminded her.

"But it's big, dark and they don't know the building." Buffy explained.

"Neither do we." Willow said.

"Therefore the odds will be even." Giles answered.

One by one they descended into the dark cavity. "At least we'll have a fighting chance." Buffy said.

The top floor, filled with empty offices, had windows. The offices were empty. The next floor down gave away the buildings former occupants. Empty clothing racks loitered about. Some still held a few thin garments, like ghosts of more prosperous times. Empty cardboard boxes lay about.

"Not much here to build a defense line." Xander observed.

"I think we should just try to get out of here." Willow said.

"Kennedy and the others have surely found their way into the building by now. All the stairwells would be covered." Giles said.

Buffy saw what she had been looking for. "Except we're not taking the stairs."

She hurried to the elevator.

"Those are not likely to be working." Giles warned as she pried them apart.

"We're climbing down the shaft." Buffy ordered. "Everyone follow me."

At Giles concern, Xander said, "Don't worry Giles, we won't be shimming down the cables, there's a ladder in these things."

At Giles' 'how could you possibly know' expression, Xander shrugged. "It's in all the Mission Impossible's."

Spike followed Buffy. Xander and Giles took up the rear behind Dawn, Andrew and Willow.

As they passed each floor, Spike listened for the soul hunters. His acute vampire ears and nose could spot one miles away. "They're on the second floor - wait! - two are on the second floor, the rest on main."

Buffy paused. "We go to the main floor. I go through first and clear a path for Spike and the rest. Just run for the front doors and keep on running."

"Where to?" Xander asked.

"A book store." Giles said. "There's a book store on West Market Street. It's a front for more underworldy things. Come tomorrow evening, just after sundown."

"Buffy, you're the strongest person here to defend Spike. You and he should take up the rear." Willow quickly advised.

Dawn added, "The slayers won't hurt us probably. It's Spike they want. We create a wall, we rush them. You and Spike run for it."

"It's a good idea Pet." Spike said.

Buffy considered. "Okay. But then go as fast as you can. Don't hang around to hear their side."

They each squeezed through the elevator doors on main. The place was in darkness save for street light shining through the spider-ed front glass windows a hundred feet away. Many strips of tape had been applied to the glass in an effort to keep them together. "Grab anything you can as a weapon."

There wasn't much. Xander and Giles found some short sections of two-by-four. Dawn a coat-hanger that she twisted into a poking device. Andrew, a running shoe.

Willow did not feel optimistic. "Oh, yeah, this is gonna work."

The line of courageous regular humans advanced through the store's near darkness. The place was heavy with dusty check-out counters, empty display cases, a hundred thousand square feet of shadows and places for non-regular humans - slayers - to hide.

The brave humans didn't get far. When Xander heard the first foot fall of the enemy, he shouted "NOW!" and their bold front, rushing forward in one heart-linked chain, was broken up into it's many much weaker parts. The slayers speed and inhuman power made bowling pins of all of them.

Buffy and Spike's dash for the doors got a few dozen feet further and was then stopped by nearly a dozen figures in black. Buffy was thrown thirty feet onto her back. Four of them were on Spike like a pack of dogs, beating him back and down. He was out of his depth and against the wall in about four seconds.

By the time Buffy had recovered her feet, Kennedy had a large flashlight trained on him and her obedient murdering slayer pals were all training their crossbows on the vampire. "Ah," Kennedy said. "The reenforcements I called for."

Spike's pale skin glowed eerily in the artificial light.

Without a word, one of the slayers walked toward the vampire and plunged a four inch thick wooden stake into Spike's chest. He cried out.

Buffy too.

But he didn't fall to dust.

"Just wanted to make a point, no pun intended." Kennedy said to Buffy. She ignored everyone else and kept her words for Buffy alone. "I had Grace do that on purpose. She didn't have to miss his heart."

"And?" Buffy kept looking over at Spike. He stayed whole but was in great pain.

Kennedy walked to the vampire, the kill was near. "It came close to the sweet spot, didn't it vampire? Can you feel it, pushing your lung aside and pressing against your un-dead, un-beating heart?"

Spike stared straight ahead in agony and did not move. Any movement the wrong way might graze his heart and finish him.

"I know what you're thinking, vampire." Kennedy touched the dull end of the stake lightly, ever so lightly, with her finger. "If I wiggle it, will that be enough?" She stroked his milk colored cheek. "Will that puncture it and start the devil dust?"

Spike looked at Buffy, one quick side glance. Buffy stared back. Inside her somewhere, her own body heard his flesh in its struggle and groaned. She saw his eyes plea and wondered, not the first time, what was it like to die like that? What had Angel felt when the stake had found his true center? Was it a... blankness that opened up in his being? The draining of blood and soul; the life feeling was not possible where no true life was present. So what? How did it feel to know that in seconds you were to be non-existent and no coming back in any form? Do demons feel regret?

What do vampires feel? What does a vampire with a soul feel? Really? "Leave him alone." Buffy said to Kennedy, not a demand. Her tone said everything: I'll do what you ask but don't end him this way.

Kennedy backed off. Then to Buffy, "Now. We finish this," Kennedy spread her arms, "and believe me, we are going to finish it, in one of two ways." She stood directly before Buffy. "We move that stake an inch to the right and you say goodbye to your fanged friend. Or we take all of you to our place of choosing and we finish this the way we had, in good faith I might add, first agreed to."

Buffy felt like a trapped animal. Power, desire, will all still there and screaming for release. But the chains of another kept it motionless. For the first time in her life, she wondered what it was like, really, to kill another human being.

"Okay." Buffy whispered. "Okay."

In an armored vehicle under heavy slayer guard, they were driven north, the east to what Kennedy had described as Sanctuary. It was heavily fortified brick and mortar Monastery in the northeastern Wasatch mountains not far from Salt Lake. "We have such a sanctuary in every large center. These monks are generous and understand the necessity of fighting evil. Plus they really know how to plan ahead, don't they?"

Spike was taken and locked up in a room made of thick concrete and steel. He was given no cigarettes, no matches and no clothes or covering save for one blanket.

Here is where he would be left to his death.

In the comfort of a much posher living area, (really, the Monastery waiting room), Kennedy explained to Buffy. "This is the only way we both get what we want, Buffy."

Buffy, sick with rage and hating the woman. Hating! "This is not what I want."

"What the vamp' wants then."

Buffy indicated with a small sweep of her hand. "And, my friends? Are you going to keep them all prisoners here the whole time?"

"Not prisoners. Guests. Guests under compulsion, I suppose. Anyway, they'll have to stay until this is over. We wouldn't want anything as mundane as the police showing up now would we?"

The slayers kept their words.

Their first word was: Spike was to die.

And the second: Buffy could watch occasionally if she wanted to.

For posterity, the slayer who Kennedy called Grace ungracefully kept a journal of sorts. She marked on a wall with little black marks each day of Spike's dying that transpired. One to four then a diagonal through those to mark five. Quickly it was ten. Then twenty, thirty, forty marks she had written up and yet Spike was not dead. Among the murderer/slayers it became a joke and a thing over which to wager. Black slashes and grins all around.

At fifty marks, Grace said "Wow. These vamp's take a while to ripen, don't they?"

Near the end, they left Buffy alone with Spike in the cold room. Up until the last day, two slayers had always been on hand and in her face. No room was allowed for argument or persuasive tears. No place for mercy; their stand was uncompromising: Spike was a vampire among humans and had to die. Buffy realized they were making certain (hence the windowless, escape proof concrete box) that she did not try to save him again somehow in the last moments.

Buffy had smiled at them sadly for their lack of compassion and frank ignorance of things vampire. It was already too late to bring him back from the edge. He would fall.

But Buffy had made one demand of her own and had made them comprehend her seriousness by offering herself. "You'll have to kill me to keep me out of that room." His final hours would not come without her there.

Out of respect for her as a fellow slayer and for what she and Spike had done to save them all at Sunnydale, the had acquiesced.

Spike, his flesh, was a shadow of itself, the skin draped over the bones like a wet sheet. Sinew, wasted muscle, flat, empty blood vessels testified that the end of his un dead vampire life was imminent. No amount of feeding now, could he even swallow, would reverse the cellular collapse that was occurring.

He would turn to dust as so many as Buffy had turned, though they artificially so via stake. This death would be perhaps the first recorded, witnessed natural vampire death in all history. History, however, would most likely pay no attention.

At the click of the opening door, Buffy turned to reprimand which ever slayer was breaking her word, to see that it was Xander. "Should I go?" He asked.

"No." She shook her head. "Stay. Please."

Xander crouched down at a respectful distance, resting his arms on his knees. The sight of the grossly emaciated body turned his stomach over. He didn't know how Buffy kept looking, and without wavering. She'd been at it for hours, never leaving his side but for a single washroom trip. Xander recalled the frustration on her face that her human body would have betrayed her so in Spike's hour of need by demanding she obey it's natural laws.

Buffy held the skeleton like hand gently. Steadily. Her face held no disgust what so ever. On the contrary, she appeared calm, content to sit by his side and look at him, as though he were just asleep and would soon awaken and speak one of his pet names. She leaned over him slightly, bringing her own human warmth closer, so he would be assured that she was nearby and was going nowhere. Would, in fact, accompany him where he was going if she could.

Suddenly she looked over at Xander. "You're not telling me anything."

Xander understood what she was asking. "Sorry."

"So this is really it? This isn't going to work out the way we hoped is it? Willow..."

"-Found nothing."

"Nothing." She repeated it. To make it real? he wondered.

"No evidence? Not a shred of proof that he might...come back?"

Xander shook his head. "No."

Xander watched her watching Spike and came to understand just then that she really did love him. Maybe not with the hopeless passion that she had felt for Angel. But Spike had directly been in her life longer than had Angel. Does aged love run deeper, Xander wondered? Buffy had grown used to Spike. He had become like an old loved quilt with rips. Maybe not the best, maybe not the favorite even, but...comfortable.

She and Angel hadn't had enough time to develop beyond that first, burning desire, everything new and exciting.

With Spike, after the desire had passed, he was still there. Familiarity. Comfortableness. Endurance. Mutual support and consolation. Who was to say which sort of love was better? Or more real than the other?

Buffy leaned over and whispered something in Spike's withered ear. Inaudible to Xander.

Spike's eyes, incredibly, opened for a few seconds. Opaque, though. Unseeing; at least the physical.

Xander watched curiously and sadly as Buffy spoke to him, things under her breath that Xander could not hear.

Spike, other than his eyes being opened, did not answer of course. Emaciated, helpless, blind, dying vampire. It was tragic and pathetic. The warrior had finally fallen, Xander thought. Surprisingly, he actually felt bad for him.

Buffy placed her free hand on Spike's chest, over what would surely now be his prune sized heart. Whether the nerves were still viable enough to transmit the touch to his brain...?

Probably not, Xander thought.

Buffy started when Spike's chest convulsively rose once, then fell. It did not rise again. She tried to squeeze his hand as he went down into death so he could take the comfort of her presence with him, but his fingers turned to dust beneath her grasp. Then the rest of his body followed, disintegrating into a fine grit that danced across the floor under the movement of her breath. It was over in seconds.

Buffy let the dust fall from her hand. She did not move otherwise, waiting. Xander realized she was waiting for the legend. A human being ought to appear. Spike ought to be reanimating before her eyes.

Though denying its validity, she had in fact hung on to that unlikely eventuality right to the last. A hope from the ancient mist. Like thin shadow, it was gone with the event of day. Now, under the witness of their own living, seeing eyes, they both knew the legend was a lie.

Buffy fell forward, sobbing.

END PART I

Look for A New Englishman in Fork, Part II - coming Nov, 2006.