Like a Lamb

by Cecily Halfrek

After grieving Buffy's death for more than a year, Spike falls in love again, only to find that his new lady's life is in danger... at the hands of her own mother

AU, "Lies My Parents Told Me", rated 'R', Spike/Other This story takes place approximately a year and a half after Buffy dies for good. Also, contains spoilers for Episode 17

Standard disclaimer- I don't own the characters in this story, etc., Joss rules
Like a Lamb

By Cecily Halfrek

Chapter One

Willow took a deep breath, tried to become one with the pool cue, the cue ball, the six ball just inches beyond it, and beyond that the side pocket. She took her shot. The cue ball connected with its target and sent it spinning toward the center of the table. She sighed and looked at Spike, who smiled and shook his head. He had been kicking Willow's ass at the pool table on a weekly basis for the past several months. Willow really didn't mind, though. Having a soul had mellowed him over the past few years, had sweetened him. Yet he hadn't completely lost his cynicism or his biting sense of humor. Spike was actually a lot of fun to be with, at least when he wasn't pissant drunk and grieving for Buffy, which was happening with rapidly decreasing frequency. He was healing.

Spike moved around the table, surveying it found a likely shot. Suddenly, Willow said, "Spike, don't turn around." He started to turn around. "No, no, don't look." He turned back to the table, took a deep breath, let it out, made his shot, and then walked around the table to stand beside Willow. He looked at the table, saw that his next shot was going to be a tricky one.

"And what, exactly, am I not supposed to be looking at?" he asked, leaning over the table and lining up his shot.

"That girl over there, the one in the red blouse. She's checking you out."

Spike glanced up, saw a dark, Latin-looking girl in a red silk blouse and black jeans, sitting on a couch, sipping a bottled water and not looking at him. He missed his shot. "Bugger." He rested the end of his cue on the floor. "She's not even looking at me. You're just trying to distract me."

"No, really, she was checking you out," insisted Willow. She moved to the end of the table. "And I'm not. Trying to distract you." She found an easy shot, took it, and made it. "She was looking at your ass."

"Nah, she wasn't. Was she?" As Willow lined up her next shot, Spike moved to the end of the table. From there, he could surreptitiously look at the girl in the fish-eye mirror. Now he could see that she was, in fact, looking at him, and quite admiringly. She was, he realized, beautiful. Strong cheekbones, large, deep-set liquid brown eyes, and a wide, but not too wide, mouth with full, red lips. The front and sides of her thick, wavy black hair were pulled back, twisted, and held in place by two black lacquered chopsticks. Probably gets teased for that, he thought. Probably doesn't care. As her eyes moved up and down his body, he could almost feel them caressing him. It was a sensation he found flattering, but vaguely disconcerting.

Willow missed her shot. Spike took his and made it, leaving only the nine ball on the table. "I think you should go over there and talk to her," chirped Willow.

Spike tilted his head and looked up at her. "What, now, just when I'm about to win?" he looked back down at the table, drew back his cue.

"Uh-oh," Willow said, softly.

"Uh-oh what?" Spike was mildly annoyed now.

"She just looked up into the mirror and saw your not reflection." Spike took his shot, sinking the nine ball. He straightened up. "So what if she did?" he asked. "You think she's going to try to stake me now?"

Willow shook her head. "I don't think so. She'll probably just rationalize it, decide it was her imagination or a trick of the light and she's looking at your ass again."

Spike smiled. "Can't say I blame her." Willow smiled back. "Me neither. You have a really nice ass. For a guy."

"Pfft." Spike tossed his head and rolled his eyes, shaking off Willow's left-handed compliment. "Want to play another game?"

Willow shook her head. "I think I've been humiliated enough for one night. And I think you should go over there and talk to that girl."

" You don't think she'll be freaked out by my not casting a reflection?"

It became apparent to Willow that Spike was trying to dodge the issue. "No. Well, probably not. I mean, she probably knows perfectly well that there's no such thing as vampires. Or maybe she will be freaked out and wave a crucifix at you. Or, maybe she'll be freaked out but she'll get over it once she sees what a sweet guy you are. But you'll never know if you don't go over there and talk to her."

Spike sighed, then his voice hardened. "Willow, why are you so bloody insistent that I go over there and talk to that girl?"

"Because, well, she seems nice."

"How can you say she seems nice?" interrupted Spike. "You haven't actually talked to her."

"And she seems interested in you, and she's really hot, and, and, well." Willow trailed off.

"Well, what?" asked Spike, then answering his own question, said, "You think it's time I started dating again."

Willow nodded. Spike's voice softened. "I can't. It's too soon."

Now it was Willow's turn to sigh. "Spike, I know you miss Buffy. I miss her too. But she's been dead for over a year now. You can't spend the rest of your eternal life being all alone and miserable. You have to pick up the pieces and move on."

Suddenly, she saw anger flash into Spike's eyes, and he nearly shouted, "I'll be the one to decide when it's time for me to move on, thank you. I don't need you to tell me how I should live my life." He replaced his cue in the wall rack and picked up his jacket. "Tell you what, Will. If you think that girl is so hot, why don't you go over there and talk to her? I'm going home." He stuffed himself into his jacket and stalked off toward the door. "I don't think I'm her type," Willow said to his retreating back. He stormed out the door, narrowly avoiding a collision with Xander, who was coming in.

Xander watched as Spike disappeared down the alley. Then he saw Willow standing near the pool tables, looking bewildered and a little hurt. Approaching her, he asked, "What's with Spike?"

Willow shook her head. "Oh, he's just. nothing." Just then, Xander saw the girl who had been checking Spike out walk by, headed toward the bathroom. The girl paused, lifted a questioning eyebrow. Willow looked at her and shrugged. The girl went on her way. Xander watched her, eyes on her hips.

"Nice," he said, then, realizing, "She's the nothing?"

"No," answered Willow, sounding deflated, then, "Yes. Well, sort of."

===

Spike walked along Maple Street toward the Peaceful Gardens Cemetery and the crypt he called home. Peaceful Gardens, he thought. What the bloody hell kind of name is that for a cemetery?" Peaceful Gardens was the newest of Sunnydale's twelve cemeteries, so by the time the plot of land had been zoned for that purpose, all the good names had probably already been taken.

It wasn't yet ten o' clock at night, and here he was, heading home. What was he going to do when he got there? Watch TV? Like he didn't do too much of that already. Read? He'd already been through all the books he owned a half-dozen times, and besides, he was feeling too wound up to read. Ten o'clock on a Friday night, and he was alone with nothing to do. It was his own fault, he knew that. Half an hour ago, he had been at the Bronze, playing nine-ball with Willow, and being looked over by a very lovely young lady. Now Xander was there, too. While Spike and Xander weren't exactly friends, the two of them had made a kind of peace, and Xander was agreeable company. Maybe Willow was right, maybe it was time he started dating again. Maybe he should have struck up a conversation with that girl at the Bronze. She had obviously been attracted to him, even after she had seen his "not reflection" as Willow had put it. Oh, well, it was too late now. Maybe he would see her there again. Maybe he would talk to her, ask her to dance. He hadn't danced with a girl since Buffy. oh, God, Buffy. The image of her shattered corpse flashed through his mind again. He shuddered. He was grateful that Dawn hadn't been there, hadn't seen her sister's body until the morticians had done their bit, patched the body up and laid it in the casket, all presentable. He doubted the Niblet could have handled watching her big sis die a second violent death. Technically, it was the third, but he tended not to count the first one, as Buffy hadn't needed to be buried.

Spike suddenly realized that he most decidedly did not want to go home. But where to go? The Rocky Horror Picture Show was the midnight movie at the Seventh Street Theater, which, due to Sunnydale's frequent and sometimes violent geological disturbances, was actually on Eighth Street. But Rocky Horror was something you did with friends, and preferably in drag. Spike had once shown Buffy, Dawn, and Willow a picture of himself in drag that Drusilla had taken in nineteen seventy-nine. Ten minutes later, Xander had come into the room, seen the three women on the floor, quivering with laughter, shoved Spike against the wall and demanded to know what he had tone to them. He decided to patrol, and headed for the docks.

===

".And then I said, 'you can't spend the rest of your eternal life all alone and miserable,' and then he said 'I don't need you to tell me how to live my life. If you think she's so hot, you go talk to her,'' and then he stormed off, and that's when you came in." She swallowed the last of her beer. Willow seldom drank alcoholic beverages, but right now, she needed one. She and Spike had become close over the past year, and to see him suddenly become so angry with her...

"You know, Will," Xander began tentatively, knowing Willow was feeling a bit bruised, "Spike does have a point. If the guy's not ready to start dating, you really shouldn't push him." He looked over at the girl, who was playing pool with some college guy. "But, I gotta say, to have a gorgeous babe like that looking him over, a guy'd have to be dead not to go for it."

"Um, Xander, you do know we're talking about Spike here, right?"

"Oh, yeah." He sipped his beer thoughtfully. "That kind of puts him at a disadvantage, dating-wise. I mean, yeah, some chicks might think the idea of having a vampire for a boyfriend is mysterious and romantic. Other chicks live in Sunnydale."

"Most of the chicks who live in Sunnydale don't believe in vampires, Xander. They just think there's a really high rate of death by barbecue fork. " She extended her first two fingers and poked them at Xander's throat. Then she looked up to see the girl sink the eight ball, then hold out her hand. Her opponent got his wallet, counted out a few bills, and handed them to her. The girl then slipped on a black fringed leather jacket and headed for the door. Xander watched admiringly then turned back to Willow.

"Damn," he nearly laughed. "It's a shame Spike didn't go for it. She is definitely his kind of girl."

Willow switched to bottled water, Xander to coffee. Their conversation drifted to other topics. "How can you tell if a clam is happy?" Xander was wondering aloud. "It's not like they have faces, so you can tell by their expressions. And do clams even have moods?"

Willow thought for a moment. "I don't think so. I think they're just continually like, 'Om.'" She quickly assumed a lotus position. "But the way the edge of their shells curves around, it does kinda look like they're smiling. Maybe that's where the saying comes from."

"Maybe. But if they." Xander was cut off by a terrified young woman rushing in through the door. Running up to the bar, she cried, "Somebody call nine one one! A girl outside has been attacked! She's unconscious!" Willow looked at Xander. "Vampire?"

"Let's go." They hurried out to the alley and saw a young woman in black with long black hair lying curled in a fetal position beside the dumpster. It was the same girl who had been eyeing Spike earlier that evening. Xander realized that she had to have been lying there for at least fifteen minutes. Her hair and jacket were covered with gray dust, and blood trickled from what appeared to be a bite would on her throat. The wound was punctuated by two deep punctures. In her right hand, she clutched a black lacquered chopstick. He knelt beside her and turned her onto her back. Willow knelt down next to him. He checked her pulse. It was rapid and weak, and her breathing was shallow, but she was alive. Xander could hear sirens in the distance, coming closer. Good. An ambulance was on the way, the police as well. The girl stirred; her eyelids fluttered, then opened. She tried to speak. "Shh, just relax," soothed Willow. You're going to be all right." An ambulance pulled into the alley, followed by a police car. The girl's eyes closed as she lapsed again into unconsciousness. Two paramedics jumped out of the ambulance. Willow and Xander got out of their way and let them work. The paramedics took the girl's vital signs, and treated her for shock. Within a few minutes, they had placed her on a stretcher, loaded her into the ambulance, and driven off, headed for Sunnydale General. Two police officers had briefly questioned the woman who had found the injured girl, but she had not witnessed the attack. They made a few notes, then got back into their squad car and drove away. The small crowd that had gathered in the alley dispersed, leaving Willow and Xander standing alone. Then Willow spotted a chopstick, the mate of the one the girl had been clutching, tight-fisted even while unconscious. She picked it up and examined it. It was lovely, black lacquer with a red floral design. It was easy to see why the girl had chosen the pair as hair ornaments. Xander took it from her and he, too, examined it. "Hard to believe, isn't it?"

"What's hard to believe?"

"That girl killed a vampire with one of these things." Xander replied, fingering the chopstick.

"I don't think it's so hard to believe. I mean, it's wooden, it's pointy, and she was probably really scared. Adrenaline can make people do some pretty amazing things. " Xander didn't argue. He knew from experience that Willow was right.

===

Evelyn Kowalski was furious. Her daughter, Mar y Sol, was supposed to have been in by eleven. It was now two minutes after, and the little slut hadn't come in yet. She'll have to be disciplined, thought Evelyn, glancing at the heavy wooden dowel stick that leaned in the corner.

Since she had turned eighteen, Mar y Sol had gotten the idea that she was an adult and could do as she pleased, running with boys, staying out until all hours. Evelyn would teach her differently.

She crushed the gallstone from a jackal into the incense powder she was mixing, venting on it, and putting her anger into it. She had read somewhere that this would give it energy or something. The gallstone, mixed with myrrh, tobacco and some other, bitter herbs, the names of which she could not pronounce, even if she could remember them, would not make for pleasant-smelling smoke- not to a human nose, anyway. She picked up a yellowed envelope from the table, took out the document inside and examined it. The lettering was made up of wedge-shaped marks, Cunnyform, she thought it was called, in the ancient Summeran language. To Evelyn, it was so much gibberish. Gibberish, except for the signature at the bottom. Evelyn Kowalski's signature, written in her own blood. She could not read the words on the page, but she knew what the terms of the contract were. She folded the paper and placed it back in the envelope, then poured the incense from the mortar into a small, ornate glass jar, put the lid on it, and placed the jar of incense and the envelope in a large wooden box, with the other things. Then she lifted it from the table and placed it under the bed. Later, she would carry it up to the attic.

She looked at the clock again. Seven minutes after eleven. Mar y Sol had better get home soon. She couldn't believe the girl would dare be late. She was nearly twenty; one would think she would have learned some responsibility. No matter. In a couple of months, she wouldn't have to concern herself with Mar y Sol anymore.

The doorbell rang. Who could be calling at this late hour? She went downstairs and opened the door. Two uniformed policemen stood outside. "Mrs. Kowalski?" ventured the younger of the two.

"Yes, how may I help you?"

"Ma'am, your daughter has been assaulted. She's in the hospital."

===

It was four in the morning when Spike decided to call it a night. He hadn't gotten much play. Two vampires, neither had given him much of a fight. The second one he had simply staked as it crawled out of its grave. He reached his crypt, went inside, had dinner, or breakfast, or whatever the hell you called a meal consumed at four a.m. just before going to bed. Sheep's blood. Or was it goat? No, goat was an exotic meat in these parts, he was pretty sure it was sheep. Oh, well. It was fresh, that was the main thing. He finished his meal, undressed, crawled into bed, and failed to fall asleep. He felt so utterly. alone. He didn't even have a corpse for company. The bloke who had the crypt built had died in Pennsylvania, and some distant relations had buried him in a family plot somewhere in New England. Spike sat up, looked around the crypt. It was obvious by the size of the place that the guy had intended to found a dynasty in sunny So Cal, but he had left no heirs. Spike had done little in the way of decorating. There were a few folding screens with Japanese-style landscape paintings on them that served as room dividers, and a beige carpet remnant that made for a nice area rug, but that was it. Buffy had died shortly after he had moved in, and he hadn't done anything with the place since.

What I need, he thought, is really good shag. No. What he needed was a companion. A lover. Someone to talk with, laugh with, cry with. Someone to share his heart. to share his soul with. He found himself thinking about The Girl at the Bronze again. Willow was right, he decided. He should have talked to her. Sighing heavily, he put apologizing to Willow at the top of his mental "to do" list, just ahead of talking to The Girl, if he ever saw her again. Then, finally, he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Two

"No, it's okay, really, I totally understand," said Willow, stepping aside to avoid tripping over a low headstone. 'You're still missing Buffy. You lost someone you loved, you're not ready to look for a new someone yet, and I wasn't being respectful of that."

Spike was surprised at how graciously Willow had accepted his apology. He supposed he shouldn't have been. Willow was a very sweet, very forgiving young woman. She was also very pretty. If she weren't gay. "No, Will, you were right. I am miserable being alone." They came upon a fresh grave, and Spike knelt down to inspect it. "Ground's been disturbed." He picked up a handful of earth. "Looks like someone's gone for a midnight stroll." Willow looked around nervously. As many times as she'd patrolled, first with Buffy and Xander, and now with Spike, the thought of something nasty jumping out at her still gave her the heebie-jeebies. "Do you think it's still around?" she asked, fingering the stake she had concealed up the sleeve of her jacket.

"Not likely. This looks like it's a couple of days old." He stood, tossed the dirt back onto the grave. They changed directions, heading South. "I just don't know how I would approach a lady." Willow smiled. "Oh, no, don't tell me you're getting all shy, now."

Spike laughed. "No, I'm not getting shy. It's just that if I do get involved with someone, I want it to be someone with a soul, And since there hasn't exactly been a mass movement of vampires going off to get their souls back, that means someone human."

"And you're afraid of what would happen if she found out you're a vampire."

Spike stopped, leaned against a monument. "Not if. When. I wouldn't want to hide it from her. If she didn't suss it out on her own, sooner or later, I'd have to tell her. Then, if she didn't think I was barking mad, she'd either try to stake me, run screaming into the street, or I'd end up with some crazy bint who gets off on the idea of shagging the undead."

"Or maybe she'd be freaked out, but then she'd get over it when she sees what a sweet guy you are."

Spike smiled. "I've been thinking about that girl we saw at the Bronze last night."

"Oh, my God," Willow gasped. "That girl. She's in the hospital. She got bitten by a vampire."

"And she survived? It must not have been very hungry."

"Well, actually, she killed it."

This gave Spike a start. "She killed a vampire while it was feeding on her? How the hell'd she manage that?"

"She took one of the chopsticks from her hair and staked him with it. Or her. It might have been a her."

"You didn't actually see her kill the thing, then." Willow shook her head. "So how do you know?"

"Well, she was holding on to the chopstick for dear life, and she was all covered with dust."

Spike had to concede. "That's a good indication, all right. "He shook his head. "She killed a vampire with a sodding chopstick. Good for her."

Just then, they spotted a vampire coming out from behind a crypt. He came toward them, eyes on Willow, expecting an easy meal, then recognized Spike and took off in the opposite direction. Spike pursued. Willow followed several yards behind. She had long since given up trying to keep up with Spike. Spike overtook the other vampire and sent it to the ground with a sidekick, then drew a stake. Catching up, Willow also drew her stake. The vampire rolled, got to his feet, lunged at Spike, then suddenly turned to run away, only to collide with Willow, who quickly disentangled herself and swept a foot around the vampire's leg, tripping it. It fell on its butt, and Spike grabbed it by the back of its jacket, hauled it to its feet and staked it. The vampire crumbled away to dust.

"Poof", commented Willow.

Spike looked at his watch. It was about ten after eleven, early by vampire standards. "I think we've put in a good night's work, " he said. "What do you say we knock off?"

"Okay," agreed Willow. She checked her own watch. "It's still pretty early. Want to go do something?"

"All right," said Spike. They headed for the cemetery gate.

"So," asked Willow, "Whatcha wanna do?"

Spike thought a moment, then asked, "Have you ever seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show?"

===

Mar y Sol Kowalski made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. She still felt woozy, even after a transfusion and two days of bed rest. Having a third of the blood sucked out of her body had been a severe shock to her system. As she hung her jacket in the closet, a black lacquered chopstick fell out of the pocket. The chopstick that had saved her life. She shuddered at the memory of the vampire holding her by the shoulders; fangs sunk into her carotid artery, sucking the life's blood out of her. She had somehow managed to pull the chopstick out of her hair and force it upward under the fiend's breastbone, piercing his heart. The vampire had, rather inconveniently, crumbled away to dust, leaving no corpse on which an autopsy could be performed that might at least partially verify her story.

She had told the police what had happened, exactly the way it had happened, including the crumbling to dust part. Of course, they hadn't believed her. Mar y Sol sighed. Finding exsanguinated corpses with punctures on the throat was a routine occurrence in Sunnydale. You'd think that somebody in authority would concede a belief in the existence of vampires, but none would. It was politically inconvenient. Mar y Sol had stuck to her story even after her mother had slapped her hard across the face and called her a liar. "I'll tell you what happened," Evelyn Kowalski had told the police officers. "She was teasing a boy at the bar and he followed her outside to get what he wanted." Mar y Sol had rolled her eyes and held her tongue.

She stood before the full-length mirror, removed her bandage, and examined the wound. It was healing nicely. She could tell there would be some scarring where the teeth had sunk in. The two big punctures still oozed a little.

Suddenly, her mother's reflection appeared over her shoulder. "Admiring yourself?" asked Evelyn coldly.

"I'm checking out the bite wound," Mar y Sol replied. "You have a problem with that?"

"Don't you talk to your mother like that." Your mother. Third person. Evelyn did that a lot. Mar y Sol found it disconcerting.

She was struck by how much she did not look like her mother. Evelyn was tall and slender, with straight gold-blonde hair that showed no sign of graying, creamy skin, ice blue eyes and a rosebud mouth. Mar y Sol would have thought her mother beautiful if she didn't look so hard. Mar y Sol was shorter, stockier, and dark skinned with wavy black hair. I look Mexican, she thought. Maybe that was why her mother had given her a Spanish name.

Evelyn retreated. Mar y Sol took a tissue from the box on her dresser and dabbed at the puncture wounds, then headed for the bathroom to get a couple of Band-Aids. As she applied them to her throat, she thought of the other vampire she had seen at the Bronze that night, the bleached blonde guy who had been playing nine-ball with the red-haired chick. Now, he had been gorgeous. She wondered if the redhead knew. She probably did. The two of them had a long-time friends vibe about them. She was fairly certain the woman wasn't his girlfriend though.

She wondered if she would see him again. There was something different about this one, and associating with humans he obviously wasn't planning to feed on was just a scratch on the surface of the enigma. She didn't go to the bronze very often, maybe once every couple of months. She would have to go back, maybe this Friday if she felt up to it. She returned to her room, sat down at her desk and wrote a brief description of the weekend's events in the diary she kept on the top drawer. Then she lay down on her bed. She felt tired.

===

Spike stood on the balcony, leaning on the railing, watching the main floor. It was Thursday night; there was no band and not a lot of people at the Bronze. Spike was actually enjoying the solitude this night. When he had gotten up that afternoon, he had found an envelope that Willow had slipped under the door of his crypt. Inside was a letter from Dawn, who was having a wonderful time her junior year at UCLA. Reading the letter had lifted Spike's spirits not a little.

Dawn had started college at UC Sunnydale, but had transferred to Los Angeles after Buffy had died. Spike blamed himself. He had always been protective of Dawn, but after Buffy's death, his ever-watchful eye had become oppressive and his relationship with her had become strained. But now that she had some breathing space, she had warmed to him again. Her letters were chatty and newsy, and when she had returned to Sunnydale for the Christmas holiday, she had come to visit him even before going home. Besides, as much as he missed his little Niblet, having someone from the Sunnydale camp in a position to keep an eye on Angel gave him some comfort. The stupid git had gotten himself disensouled twice, and Spike wanted to be bloody well certain that his sire, well, technically his grandsire, didn't lose his soul again a third time.

He almost didn't recognize the girl when she came in. He was shocked when he saw her. It looked like the vampire had taken more than just blood out of her before she killed it. She seemed pale and listless; her skin had taken on a bluish cast. Even her hair hung dull and lank around her shoulders. She made her way across the floor to the couch, sat down, and curled herself into the corner where the back met the arm as though she were trying to hide.

Even though he didn't know her, it pained Spike to see her like this. He had to go and talk to her. He descended the stairs, stopped at the bar and ordered a Guinness for himself and bottled water for the girl. As he approached her from behind, she lifted her head and, looking at him out of the corner of her eye, she said, "I have garlic and I'm not afraid to use it." Her voice was thin and thready, but there was no trace of fear.

"Really?" he replied. "I thought chopsticks were your weapon of choice."

"Oh, you heard about that, huh?"

"Well, yeah, word gets around," he said, handing her the bottled water. He sat down at the opposite end of the couch, maintaining a respectful distance. "I'm Spike," he said, extending a hand. Almost surprisingly, she clasped it firmly with her own.

"Mar y Sol", she replied.

"I know this isn't exactly on the list of accepted pick up lines, but you look awful."

Her eyes brightened, as she seemed to sense his concern. "Thanks. Having a couple of quarts of blood sucked out of your neck will do that to a person."

"How do you feel?"

"Crappy"

"That's to be expected. Takes time to recover from something like that. You're lucky to be alive."

"I don't know how much luck had to do with it", she told him. "I sensed the thing coming and the fight or flight response kicked in."

"And you decided to fight?" Spike was amazed.

"No, I decided to run away, but he was faster than me, so I had to go for the chopstick."

Spike smiled, then began to laugh.

"What? What's funny?"

"I'm sorry," said Spike. "I shouldn't laugh. It's just that I'm a hundred forty-seven years old. I've seen a lot of strange things in my time, and done some stranger ones, but I've never met anyone who defended themselves from a vampire with a chopstick before."

"And I've never met a vampire with a soul before."

Spike nearly choked on his Guinness. "You can see it? You can see my soul?"

Mar y Sol polished off her bottled water and set in on the table. "Not so much see it as feel it, then it's more what I don't feel."

"What do you mean?" Spike was intrigued.

Mar y Sol took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I can usually spot a vampire coming half a mile away. I can sense the demon, feel the hunger, the bloodlust. But you, when I saw you last week, I didn't know you were a vampire until I looked up in the mirror and didn't see your reflection. At first, I thought your friend was masking it. She radiates a lot of power."

"She's a very powerful witch."

"Kind of figured. Anyhoo," she continued, "When you came up behind me just now, you hardly registered on my radar. The demon's there, I can feel it, but just barely. It's not in control of you. Also, you feel warm. You're dead, but inside, you're warm. Mostly, you read as human."

"Warm", murmured Spike. "He put the spark back in, but all it does is burn." He fell silent. After a long moment, he felt a soft hand against his cheek. He looked up to see Mar y Sol sitting close to him, her dark eyes full of questions. He clasped her warm hand in his cold one. "Tell me," she said quietly. He smiled softly. "It's a very long story." She smiled back. "Well, barring wooden stakes, fire, or the sun deciding to party until dawn, I'd say you have all the time in the world to tell it."

"That I do," he agreed. He looked around and saw the place was starting to get crowded. "But not here. Somewhere quiet."

"I know a place," said Mar y Sol. She stood, too quickly, and her knees started to buckle. Spike got to his feet in time to catch her before she fell. He slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her close. She leaned against him, hands on his shoulders. A thrill shot through him, a flash of desire, followed by shame. My God, what am I thinking? The girl's ill. After a minute or so, she recovered, grew steady on her feet, but did not move away from him.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

"Yeah, I just got a little lightheaded." She allowed Spike to hold her a moment longer then stepped back. He slowly released her.

"So, where are we going?" he asked her as they walked toward the door.

"My mom owns a bookstore about four blocks from here. There's a couch and a couple of chairs there. And tea. I think tea is important."

===

Marcus Kowalski hid behind his newspaper, determined not to watch his wife pace the living room floor. They had gotten new carpet less than a year before, and already Evelyn had worn a path down the middle with her incessant pacing. She looked at the clock again. "The store closed almost two hours ago. Where can she be?"

"Maybe she stopped to eat on the way home," Marcus suggested. "It's not likely that she's out partying. She's still not feeling well."

"I cooked a nice supper. She doesn't need to eat out. Her mother's cooking should be good enough for her. And besides, she knows she's not allowed to go out on weeknights."

Nice supper if you're into eating cardboard, Marcus thought but didn't say. "For God's sake, Evelyn, the girl is almost twenty years old. She's an adult. There's no reason why she shouldn't go out for a few hours after work. It's not like she's drinking or into drugs or anything like that."

"You always were too lax with her," Evelyn hissed. "If I didn't discipline her, she would be running in the streets getting in trouble with some boy. If she wants to live in my house, she has to live by my rules."

"She doesn't want to live in your house," Marcus muttered.

"What did you say?"

He didn't repeat it.

===

Mar y Sol sat on the couch with Spike in the candle-lit bookstore and listened for nearly two hours as he spun out his tale. Occasionally, she interjected a question, but for the most part, she just listened. He had begun with his arrival in Sunnydale the week before St. Vigeous Day more than ten years ago. He told her about his fights with the Slayer. "I had fought and killed two Slayers already, but this one just kept kicking my ass." He told her about his alliance with the Slayer to stop Angelus from destroying the world. He told her about the behavior modification chip the Initiative scientists had implanted in his brain, about how he had fallen in love with Buffy.

On hearing the Slayer's name, she interrupted. "Not Buffy Summers? The high school counselor?"

"You knew her?" Spike knew he shouldn't be surprised. Mar y Sol would likely have attended Sunnydale High, and at least known who Buffy was.

"Yeah. I got sent to her office a couple of times. She was cool."

Spike went on. He told her about Glory, and the Key. He told her about the Buffybot. He told her about Buffy's death and the spell that Willow and the others had used to resurrect her. "Of course, they didn't tell me what they were up to. They just went off to the cemetery in the dead of night while I looked after Dawn. It was a hell of a shock to her system, being dragged out of Heaven like that. When I first saw her, she was. I thought Dawn had somehow managed to put the Buffybot back together." He told her about their sordid sexual affair, and how it ended. He told her of his attempted rape of Buffy, and the remorse that drove him to seek the return of his soul. "I realized I had hurt her, hurt the one person I loved more than anything else in this world. I wanted to undo it, and I knew I never could. I wanted her to love me, that's the thing. I had tried to force her to love me, but she couldn't. I had to change, and not just my actions. I had to change from the inside. For all the emotion, all the passion I felt, I was still cold and dead inside."

He told her of the trials he had to endure in order to win his soul back, and the insanity that followed. He told her how the First Evil had wormed its way into her fractured psyche, forcing him to kill and sire other vampires, and how Buffy had helped him break its influence over him. "We never did find out exactly why it wanted me to create all those vampires. I think it was trying to raise an army of vampires that the Turok-Han could lead in a fight to destroy the Slayer and the potentials." He saw by her expression that he'd lost her there, and had to explain to her about the Harbingers trying to kill off all the potential slayers, and how they had used his blood to raise the Turok-Han. "It was sort of a primordial vampire. Incredibly powerful. Tortured me for weeks, while the First tried to convince me to join up with it, said that I would never be able to do any good in this world."

He told her about the chip's malfunctioning, nearly killing him, and how Buffy had contacted the Initiative for help, and ultimately had the chip removed. "She could have just asked them to repair it, but she had them take it out. The girl trusted me more than I trusted myself." He told her about how the First had finally been defeated. How he and Buffy had gradually become friends and finally lovers.

When he fell silent, Mar y Sol sat in quiet awe. She was sitting here with a creature, with a man, who had completely recreated himself, and he had done if out of love for a woman who despised him. And though he had suffered much pain, he did not regret doing it. But there was more. He hadn't told her how it ended.

Hesitantly, she asked, "How did she die?" The wave of pain that radiated from him was so powerful that Mar y Sol could almost feel it physically. "If it's too painful to talk about, you don't have to."

"No, it's all right. I never have. I think I need to." He bit his lip. "She was killed fighting an N'sguri demon. Nasty buggers, those are. I've got to hand it to the lady, though; she gave as good as she got. She had put a sword through the demon's neck. The thing knew it was dying, and it decided to take her with it. Skewered her with its claws, and threw her to the ground like she was a sodding ragdoll. And I was right there watching the whole bloody scene, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to help her." He began to weep silently. Mar y Sol brushed a tear from his cheek. "I'm sorry, I." he began.

"Shh, it's all right." She picked up the cup she had forgotten and sipped tea from it. It was cold. "I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to watch someone I loved get killed. And to have it happen twice, that's just."

They sat for a while in silence. A second time, Mar y Sol brushed a tear from Spike's cheek, and as she did, she felt his pain settle into quiet sadness, then subside. Finally, she spoke. "You're amazing, you know that?"

A smile tugged at the corners of Spike's mouth. "Am I really?"

"Well, yeah. You've taken the concept of courtly love to a whole new level. I mean, doing brave deeds for your beloved is one thing, but for a vampire to go off and seek his own soul, and all the guilt and the shame and the pain that goes with it, that just goes above and beyond."

"I don't think it's so amazing," murmured Spike. "I was only doing what I had to do to make myself worthy of her."

"You tore down your whole psyche and rebuilt yourself from the ground up. Hell, it's hard enough to get most guys to turn the game off at half time and pay a little attention to their wives or girlfriends. You went out and got your freaking soul back, and you did it for a Vampire Slayer. In my book, that qualifies as amazing."

Spike drank from his own cold cup of tea. "Oh, all right, if you insist. I'm amazing." He set the cup down and rested his arm on the back of the couch, alongside hers, touching it. "So, what about you, then?"

"What about me?"

"Well, for starters, how long have you had the ability to sense the presence of vampires?"

Mar y Sol thought for a moment. "All my life, I think. At least as far back as I can remember. Once when I was little, I must have been about four or five; my mother had taken me out to the mall Christmas shopping. I saw this woman, she was really pretty, long red hair, a few freckles, but she just seemed so cold and hungry. I don't even remember thinking it, I just started screaming 'She's dead, she's dead'. Mom just dragged me out to the car, and when we got home, she opened up on me with a yardstick. I literally couldn't sit down for a couple of days. After that, when I would see one of these cold, hungry, dead people, I would keep quiet about it."

Spike didn't quite know how to respond to this. After a moment's thought, he asked, "Did your parents never take you to see a child psychiatrist about."

"No. Mom doesn't believe in them. She thinks any problem a child has can be solved through proper discipline."

Spike bit his lip. "You can sense other things, not just vampires."

"Yeah. I can sense demons in general, even if I can't see them, which I rarely do. And anyone who has a lot of power, like your friend. And I can pick up strong emotions. I can't really read thoughts, but I can sense someone's general mental state, and I can almost always tell if someone's lying. Also, if an object or a place has a lot of energy, I can feel it. Which made going to Sunnyvale High a lot of fun. There is some serious bad juju coming up from the ground under that place."

"It's built on top of a Hellmouth," Spike told her.

"Oh." The news didn't surprise her. "So, let me guess, the opening is, where, right under the principal's office?"

"Well, the Hellmouth is locked up pretty tight now, but, good guess."

"Not so much. I got sent to Principal Wood's office once when I got into a hair-puller with another girl. I freaked out completely. Literally ran screaming from the office. Hence the visits to Miss Summers. And the cool thing was, she believed me. ''Course, now I know why. She knew about the Hellmouth. After that, I hunted up a couple of kids I heard were into magick and asked them to make a mojo bag o' protection. Principal Wood seemed kind of amused when I gave it to him, but he humored me and kept it."

"Wood knows about the Hellmouth."

"He does?"

"Yes, but that's a story in itself. Maybe I'll tell you sometime, after we've gotten to know each other a bit better." As much of himself as he had already revealed, Spike wasn't up for telling a girl he had just met that he had killed her high school principal's mother, or that the same principal, who she apparently liked and respected, had tried to kill him more than once.

The clock behind the counter began to chime. Mar y Sol looked at it. It was a quarter to midnight. "Oh, hell. I have to get home. My mother's going to have a fit."

"You're not walking, are you?" They had walked to the bookstore from the Bronze, and Spike hadn't noticed a car parked in the small lot beside it.

"Kind of planned on it. It isn't far."

"No, you're going to let me drive you home. You're not well, and in case you hadn't noticed, there are vampires about."

"Oh, is that what those guys with the bumpy faces and the fangs are?" she teased.

Spike threw a wet teabag at her. "My car's parked at the Bronze. I won't be long."

===

On the drive home, they had been listening to one of Spike's Sex Pistols tapes, and Mar y Sol informed him that "God Save The Queen" was a gay rights anthem. Now he listened bemused as she deconstructed it for him. "See, the word 'queen' has three levels of meaning. The first is Liz Two, that's a gimme. The second is a metaphor for the gay male population of England. The third is a metaphor for England itself. That's where the 'we love our Queen' line comes in. Gays feel oppressed, but they're still loyal subjects of the Crown. 'And our figurehead is not what she seems', less than subtle implication that Liz is a closeted lesbian."

Spike thought about this for a minute. He wanted to give her a carefully considered opinion of her theory. "You're a loony," he finally said. They arrived at Mar y Sol's house, and Spike pulled to the curb, let the engine idle for a few seconds, then switched it off. "Although you might want to toss that theory up to Willow sometime, see what she thinks of it."

"Why, is she."

"Yeah, couldn't you pick that up from her?"

"Nah, I was too busy looking at your ass."

Spike laughed. "Right, then, let's get you inside." He got out of the car, went around to the passenger's side, opened the door and offered a hand to help Mar y Sol out. He escorted her up the front walk, feeling the warmth of her arm linked with his.

"I didn't know guys actually walked girls to the door," she said. "I thought that was a myth."

"More like a legend," he replied. "It actually has some basis in fact. It was quite common practice until about thirty years ago. I think it went out with knowing someone's last name before you got into bed with them." They stood on the porch as Mar y Sol fished her house keys out of her purse. "I'd really like to see you again," said Spike. "May I call you?"

"Absolutely." She reached back into her purse and produced a fountain pen and a small notebook. She wrote down two phone numbers, tore the page out and handed it to Spike. "This is my home number, this is the bookstore. I expect to hear from you, now. If you don't call, I'll feel all cheap and used." Spike grinned. "I'll call you, probably about the middle of the week." He brushed a stray hair away from her face, then cupped her chin in his hand. She thought he was going to kiss her, but he only gazed into her eyes, then drew his hand away.

"Well, goodnight, then."

"Goodnight."

Spike waited until Mar y Sol was safely inside, then walked slowly back to his car. He got inside, then looked at the door of the house. He felt a warmth in the pit of his stomach that he hadn't felt in a long time. He gave a contented little sigh, then started the car and drove away toward home.

===

Mar y Sol closed the door and locked it. She leaned against it for a moment, listened as the engine of Spike's De Soto roared to life then faded into the distance. As she turned toward the stairs, suddenly her mother sprang from her hiding place behind the coat rack and brought a dowel rod down across her shoulders. She fell against the door, then turned to face her mother, quickly raising an arm to deflect a blow that was aimed at her temple. Evelyn swept her leg, sending her to the floor, and brought the dowel rod down on her twice more. "Where have you been?" she asked coldly.

"I went out for a while," gasped Mar y Sol.

"You know you're not allowed to go out on weeknights."

Mar y Sol tried to get to her feet. Evelyn kicked her, driving the heel of her shoe into Mar y Sol's shoulder, knocking her over on her side. She wasn't finished with the interrogation yet. She rested the end of the dowel rod on the floor. "Who was that man you were with?" she demanded.

Mar y Sol propped herself up on her elbow. "His name is Spike. I met him at the Bronze."

"So, you just go off in cars with men you pick up in bars?"

"It wasn't like that." Mar y Sol sat up, wincing with pain. "He bought me a bottled water, then we went to the bookstore to talk for a while, and he gave me a ride home."

"You went to be alone with a strange man?" Evelyn was almost shrieking. "Don't you care what people will think of your mother when they see I've raised a tramp who just goes off with men she meets in bars?"

Mar y Sol struggled to her feet. "He's not men. He's just one man, and he's stranger than you know." She made her way to the stairs and climbed to the landing. "I'm going to see him again," she said, then turned and climbed the stairs to her room. She undressed, put on her nightgown, sat at her desk, made a brief entry in the diary she kept in the drawer, then crawled into bed and listened. All was quiet for a minute, then she heard her mother ascend the stairs and pull down the metal steps that led to the attic. She went up there a lot. Mar y Sol often wondered why, but was never curious enough to go up and investigate. After several minutes, she heard her mother come back down the steps and push them back up and close the trapdoor, then go into her bedroom. There was some rustling as Evelyn got ready for bed, then silence. Mar y Sol waited a few more minutes, then got up, reached under her bed into the box springs, pulled out her diary, her real diary, and began to write.
Chapter Three
"So, how come you're Home Improvement Guy all of a sudden?" Xander was seated, backward, on a dining room chair in the middle of Spike's crypt, watching him trowel a layer of terra cotta colored concrete onto the floor. He had already painted the walls a soft rose. Xander had given Spike instructions on how to mix the concrete and prepare the floor so it would adhere and not chip away. Now he felt obligated to "supervise" the project.

Spike sat up. "Well, the place was all gray and cold and dreary. I thought it could use a bit of color. Liven it up a bit." He splatted another trowel full of concrete onto the floor and began spreading it.

Xander smiled. "So, you've been living here, what, almost two years, and you're just now noticing this?"

"Not so much just noticing. I just haven't felt terribly motivated to do anything about it until now."

"And that begs the question of how come you're Home Improvement Guy all of a sudden."

"And you're going to sit there and annoy me until I tell you."

"That's pretty much the plan, yeah. So, come on, what's up with the sudden attack of interior decorativeness?"

Spike sat up again. "All right, if you really must know, I've met someone."

"Now, when you say someone, you mean someone as in a girl?"

"No, I mean someone as in the first Jamaican bloody bobsled team. I'm having them over for tea next Thursday. Of course it's a girl."

"A human girl?"

"Well, yeah."

"A human girl with a soul?"

Spike set the trowel down and looked at him. "No, a human girl suffused with the Spirit of the Invisible Pink Unicorn. What the bloody hell do you think? Or do you think?" He picked the trowel up again and started laying concrete fast and furious.

Xander was at a loss for a comeback. Spike had snarked him down. "Hey, no fair bringing the IPU into play," he complained. Spike grinned at him, then returned his attention to the concrete. It was nearly sunset, and he was working his way toward the door. "So, does this girl know you're a vampire?" Xander asked.

"Yes."

"And she's not some kind of psychotic vamp wannabe?"

"No. Actually, she's been known to take out a vampire with a chopstick."

"Really? You're going out with that girl?"

"The very one." Spike finished the last patch of floor, backed himself out the door, set his bucket outside, did the threshold, then took his jacket from its hook. "I'm going out for a while. Do me a favor, keep an eye on the place while I'm gone, will you?"

"Yeah, sure," said Xander, watching him disappear out the door, then, "Oh, my God." He looked around to see that he was completely surrounded by wet concrete. "Spike, this isn't funny!" he shouted.

"Yes it is," he heard Spike call back.

"I am an idiot," he said as he buried his face in his hands.

===

"Hey, don't I know you from someplace?" said a voice from behind Mar y Sol as she was about to walk out the front door. She turned to see her father standing behind her.

"Yeah, I think we've had dinner together a few times," she replied, smiling.

"You planning to pull an all-nighter at the bookstore?" Marcus asked, gesturing toward the bag she carried.

Mar y Sol laughed. "Nothing so sinister. I have a date tonight, and he's picking me up at the store after work."

"A date? Are you allowed to do that?"

"No, but I'm going to anyway."

"Is this date with the guy you met at the Bronze last week, what is his name by the way?"

"Yes, and Spike."

Marcus was incredulous. "You're going out with a guy named Spike? Sounds kind of dangerous."

"Nah, it's okay, he only looks harmless. At first glance, he comes off as kind of a rough customer, but he's really quite the gentleman. He even walked me to the door when he dropped me off."

"Walked you to the door? Do guys still do that nowadays?"

"Spike does. He said it used to be common practice. I thought he was pulling my leg."

Marcus shook his head. "No, he wasn't. Actually, many years ago, it was mandatory if the girl's father was going to let the boy take her out a second time. Do me a favor, kiddo, try not to be out too late. I don't want to listen to your mother bitch until the small hours."

Mar y Sol smiled. "I'll try. I have to work tomorrow anyway, and I need my beauty sleep. Well, see you around." She turned and walked out the door and headed for the bookshop.

===

Spike awoke in the late afternoon. Looking at the clock, he realized he had missed "Passions" again. Oh well. He really only tuned in once or twice a week anyway. The show hadn't been the same since Little Timmy died. At least one of us got to become a real boy, he thought, then went about choosing the clothes he was going to wear for his date with Mar y Sol. After a few minutes of going through his rather limited wardrobe, he found an outfit he hoped would be suitable. It was going to be guesswork, unless Willow or Xander should happen to stop by and tell him how he looked.

It was one of the many drawbacks to immortality. He couldn't check his appearance in the mirror.

===

Mar y Sol put the "closed" sign in the window, but didn't lock the door. She gathered the cash from the register, the bills that had been paid that day, and the ledger book and took them into the back room. It usually took her about twenty minutes to balance out the day's receipts, but her mother had stayed at the store until closing today, which meant it would probably take longer. It did. As she was counting out the cash, Evelyn stood behind her, tapping her foot, interrupting constantly. "Make sure you count the money correctly." "Put the different denominations in separate piles." "Hurry up, I have to get home and cook your father's dinner." The result was that Mar y Sol had to start over three separate times.

When her mother interrupted in like fashion while she was trying to add up the paid receipts, Mar y Sol finally threw down her pencil and said, "To hell with this. You want to stand there and tap your foot and tell me how to do a job I do every freaking day without your help, you can just do it yourself." And with that, she went into the bathroom to pee, freshen her makeup, and change into the outfit she had hidden in the broom closet- a teal midriff-baring blouse with puffy sleeves gathered at the wrist, a full, midcalf-length black denim skirt, and black ankle boots. She brushed her hair and put it up with a pair of teal lacquered chopsticks. All the while, her mother pounded on the door, shrieking, "How dare you speak to your mother like that! You get out here and finish balancing the register this instant!"

She heard the bells that hung over the door jingle. That would be Spike. Her mother left the bathroom door and went out to what passed for a sales floor.

Spike entered Evvie's Book Nook and was met by Evelyn. "We're closed," she informed him stiffly.

"I know," Spike replied. "I'm here to see Mar y Sol."

"What is your business with her?" Evelyn demanded.

"We have a date."

"A date?" Evelyn stood blinking, seeming not to understand.

Spike couldn't resist goading her a bit. "Yeah, back in England, we have this quaint little custom called dating. See, a fellow takes a lady out for a bite, then maybe to a movie, or maybe somewhere dancing, then he gets her drunk and shags her in the back of the car. Usually results in unwanted pregnancy, venereal disease or marriage. All three if a bloke knows how to do it right. I thought I'd take Mar y Sol for one, see if she likes it."

"I know what a date is," Evelyn informed him. "Mar y Sol isn't allowed to have dates."

"Isn't she now?" He looked up to see Mar y Sol standing in the doorway watching this little scene unfold with obvious amusement. She walked past her mother to approach Spike. "Hello," he said, taking her hand and kissing it. "Don't you look lovely tonight."

"You look lovely yourself," she replied. And he did. He wore a light blue sweater, black jeans and a black suede jacket. His hair wasn't slicked back as it normally was, and the natural curl gave him a gentler look than usual.

"Ready to go?" he asked her. "I'm ready," she replied, reaching over the counter to grab her white cardigan.

"You're not going anywhere with him," Evelyn said sharply. "You're going back to the back room to finish balancing out the register."

"And keep this peroxided Adonis waiting?"

Evelyn ignored her, and turned to Spike. "And you are going to leave this instant, or I'm going to call the police."

"All right, I'm leaving." And he did leave, with Mar y Sol on his arm. As they walked out the door, Evelyn could see Mar y Sol's reflection in the glass.

"So, that was your mum, then?" asked Spike as they walked to the car.

"Or so she claims," Mar y Sol replied. "I think she's really a pod person, and my real mother has been, ah, dispensed with."

"Oh." Spike opened the passenger's side door and helped her into the car, then walked around to the driver's side and got in.

"So, what's the plan?" she asked.

"I don't really have a plan, as such. I thought we might go for a bite, then go back to my place and watch a couple of movies."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

"So, where do you want to eat, then?"

Mar y Sol considered briefly. "Well, I know a cute little diner where they make the best cheeseburgers in the known universe."

===

Mar y Sol looked on mystified as Spike bit into his cheeseburger. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing. It just seems weird sitting here watching a vampire eat actual food. I thought you were supposed to be on a liquid protein diet. The blood is the life and all that."

"Well, yeah, but just because a fella's dead doesn't mean he can't enjoy living." He took another bite. " I'm not getting any nutritional value out of this cheeseburger at all. It's pure hedonistic pleasure." He took a drink from his glass of Coke. "So, I'm wondering, why isn't an intelligent girl like you in college? With your brain, you should be working on a degree in quantum mechanics or some other such nonsense."

"Engineering, actually. Mom won't allow me to go. She thinks if I went to college, I'd just go to frat parties and drink and do drugs and 'get in trouble with a boy.'"

Spike almost laughed at that. "Get in trouble? She actually uses those words?"

"Yeah. It's the second most annoying thing she says, right behind referring to herself as 'your mother,' as in, third person. It gives me the creeps when she does that."

"Don't see why it should. A lot of mums do it."

"I guess it is sort of a mom thing, but still. I don't know, it's like she's trying to distance herself from herself, you know?"

"I think I get what you mean. Back in ninety-two, when Bob Dole was running for President, he kept referring to himself as 'Bob Dole'. It made a lot of people nervous. Someone in his campaign staff finally pointed it out to him and he stopped doing it. Lost the election anyway."

"That's the general principle. Anyhoo, she keeps me busy working at the bookstore so I don't have time to go to college. I think if she actually had to pay someone minimum wage, the place would go belly-up."

Spike chewed a French fry thoughtfully. "Have you ever thought of getting a real job and paying your own way?"

Mar y Sol gave a bitter laugh. "I've had four real jobs already. They never worked out. Documents I'd sent to the printer queue wouldn't get printed, or if they did, they'd come out in Wingdings or some funky-ass font, objects would fall off shelves or tables and break as I walked by, office equipment would go kerflooey, and I'd get fired. Sometimes I think I'm cursed."

"You may very well be. Do you have any enemies?"

"Not likely. You actually have to meet people to make enemies, and I've never really had what you'd call a social life."

"What about your mum? Think she might be working some mojo on you to keep you under her thumb?"

Mar y Sol laughed, blowing vanilla Pepsi out of her nose. "Ow", she said as the bubbles stung her nasal passages. "My mother? She doesn't believe in magicks, or anything supernatural."

"But there's a New Age section at the bookshop."

"Yeah, but it's all lightweight crap. 'What color is your aura', that kind of thing."

Spike drained the last of his Coke. "Is she really adamant about not believing in things supernatural?"

Mar y Sol's eyes widened. "Very. She has this fake laugh thing she does if it comes up in conversation. Exactly five 'ha's'. No more, no less."

"Those are the ones you have to watch out for, pet. A lot of people either claim they don't believe, or are really obnoxiously anti-occult and anti- witchcraft because if they were caught at it, their reputation would be ruined, then they turn into a giant snake and eat the high school principal and half the graduating class."

"That really happened?"

"Yes, it really did."

"Oookay." She chewed on a straw for a few seconds. "Now let me ask you this. About five years ago, was it my imagination, or did the whole world go all Gilbert and Sullivan?"

"Not the whole world. Just Sunnydale. Why? Is your mum in denial about that, too?"

"In a big way. I did this number about how I didn't think my parents were really my parents and she denied my mouth out with soap."

"Her idea of 'proper discipline'?"

"Yep."

Spike winced at the thought. "And what did your parents sing about?"

Mar y Sol leaned back. "Well, my dad was out of town on business, and my mom didn't sing."

"She was completely unaffected?" Spike was surprised to hear this.

Mar y Sol lifted a questioning eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Now, that's interesting. This demon, Sweet, descended on the town, had everybody breaking out into songs that revealed their hidden feelings. Everybody in town, including the local demon population, was affected. A few people even went up in flames, but your mother was somehow immune to all of this?"

"I never really thought about it, but that is awfully strange. You thinking what I think you're thinking?"

"I'm thinking that your mother was using some kind of magick to protect herself. Keeping her true feelings from being revealed."

"But she didn't protect me. I wonder why."

"Maybe she sussed out what was happening, and wanted to find out what was going on inside your head. Or maybe she has something to hide. Or possibly both."

"I'd bet on both." Mar y Sol reflected a moment. "Or maybe she had the spell working before Sweet did his mojo on the town. Something else I never really thought about. I can't read her, Spike. I can't pick up any emotion from her at all. Even when she's having a total hissy fit, it's all on the surface. I can't sense any real feeling behind it."

"And how long has that been going on?"

"Since I was about seven or eight. I'm thinking now that maybe that was about when she figured out I could tell what other people were feeling."

"So she drew a veil around herself to keep you from knowing what her feelings were. I'd say that's definitely a sign that your mother is a woman with something to hide."

"So, maybe my parents really aren't my parents. Maybe I'm adopted and they don't want to tell me."

"Now, there's a possibility," Spike mused. "You don't look a thing like your mother, and 'Kowalski' isn't exactly a dark, Latin sounding name, so I'm guessing you don't look much like your dad either."

"I think I look even less like him than my mother. If that were possible."

"It might be something you ought to look into."

A waitress appeared. "Would you two like some dessert?" she asked.

Spike looked at Mar y Sol. "How about it, pet?"

Mar y Sol shook her head. "No, thanks, I'm full." Spike asked for the check.

===

"Evelyn, she's twenty years old, and she's single. It's normal for a girl her age to go out on dates. Hell, it's normal for high school girls to date, which she never did." Marcus Kowalski was exasperated. It seemed that at a time in her life when Mar y Sol should be becoming more independent, Evelyn was trying to rein her in. "You should be glad that she's met someone she likes."

"Well, I don't like him," huffed Evelyn. "He's not a good person. He looks like some kind of punk rock person."

"Oh, for crying out. you had one thirty-second conversation with this young man. That's not really enough to determine what kind of person he is, and so what if he bleaches his hair? That's the style these days."

"He's going to get her in trouble."

Marcus put down his fork. He really didn't want to eat the dried out chicken breast and overcooked string beans his wife had served him, and this conversation was doing nothing to help his appetite. "Evelyn, Mar y Sol is a smart girl. She has a good head on her shoulders. I'm sure that if one thing leads to another, she'll make sure he uses protection."

"That's not the point," Evelyn countered. "She knows she's not allowed to have dates, and she went out on one anyway. And she disobeyed me when I told her to finish balancing the register. She defied me. She's getting out of control."

"Damn right, she is, and frankly, I don't blame her. You're being completely unreasonable. All she wants is to have a social life, go to college, date, do all the things normal girls her age do, and the more you try to control her, the more she's going to rebel." With that, he put his napkin on his plate, stood, and walked out of the dining room.

"We'll see about that," Evelyn said to the empty room.

===

"Ten rules to live by," commented Mar y Sol as they watched the closing credits of The Great Rock and Roll Swindle.

"Ten rules to get filthy buggering rich by," replied Spike.

"I wonder what the world would be like if everybody lived their lives by Malcolm MacLaren's rules of rock and roll?" she wondered.

Spike hit the rewind button on the remote. "Well, let's see. You'd have crass commercialism, style with no substance, people in jobs that they're not competent to do, and lots of people being incredibly nasty to each other for no apparent reason. In other words, exactly the same as it already is."

"Hey, you don't suppose."

Spike smiled. "No, I don't suppose. It's human nature, pet. People are out to make money any which way they can, and they want guys working for them who won't make waves. It's been going on since the dawn of civilization." The tape finished rewinding and Spike ejected it from the player and put it back in its case. "Want to watch another one?" he asked.

Mar y Sol looked at her watch. It was after one in the morning. "I'd better not. I'm going to be in hot water with my mother as it is. If I come straggling in the door at four in the morning, there'll be nine kinds of hell to pay."

"She wouldn't wait up for you that late, would she?"

"Oh, yes, she would."

"All right, then, I'll take you home."

===

"I actually saw the Sex Pistols live in London before they got to be a big thing," Spike told Mar y Sol on the way home. " Sid Vicious was completely fucked up- liquor, heroin, anything he could get his hands on. And he had just barely learned to play the bass, so he was off rhythm and missing notes all over the place. It was a great show."

"And you were how fucked up yourself?" Mar y Sol asked.

"Extremely. I'd just fed off a junkie, and had a few shots of Cutty Sark. I actually got addicted to heroin for a while back then, from feeding off junkies." They pulled up in front of Mar y Sol's house. "Well, here we are," he said.

They walked to the front door in companionable silence. They stepped onto the front porch and turned to face one another. "I guess this is goodnight, then," Spike said softly.

"I guess it is."

Spike stroked her cheek, brushing aside an imaginary stray hair. Then he put his arms around her, pulling her close, and leaned his face toward her, gently brushing her lips with his own. She trembled slightly in his arms, then tilted her face up to return his kiss. He didn't hesitate to kiss her a third time, passionately, his tongue darting between her teeth. When their lips finally parted, he drew her closer and held her, feeling her warmth. She lay her head on his shoulder, arms encircling him, feeling the strength in his cold muscles. Then she lifted her head and looked up into his eyes. "You haven't told me your name," she said, her voice low.

"William," he whispered. "My name is William."

She reached up and touched his face with her fingertips, stroked his hair. Then she kissed him once more, softly. "Goodnight, William," she said, then she unlocked the door and went inside. Spike placed his hand on the door and leaned his forehead against it.

"Goodnight, my love."

Mar y Sol locked the door, one eye on the coat rack, but no, her mother wasn't hiding there. Maybe she went to bed already, she thought. It wasn't likely, though. She climbed the stairs, trying to sense her mother's presence. Nothing there; Evelyn seemed to be surrounded by a bubble of dead air space. Mar y Sol would have to rely on her eyes and ears. As she reached the top of the stairs, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and reflexively, she ducked. The dowel rod whistled over the top of her head and slammed into the corner of the wall, chipping paint and plaster. Mar y Sol stood up straight again, wrested the dowel from her mother's hand, leaned it against a wall, and brought a booted foot down on it, snapping it in two. "No more," she said to Evelyn, who stood gaping, in shock. "No more." She picked up the broken pieces of the dowel rod and carried them to her room. She undressed, put her nightgown on, then waited. She heard her mother going through her getting ready for bed routine, then quiet. She waited another twenty minutes, then got out of bed, slipped quietly out of her room, and crept downstairs to her father's den, where the family's important papers were kept.

===

Spike entered his crypt, opened the refrigerator, got out a jar of blood, poured a mugful, and put it in the microwave. While it was heating, he took his jacket off and hung it up. When the microwave beeped, he took the mug of blood out, sat at the table and drank it, reflecting.

Mar y Sol was amazing. Beautiful, strong, intelligent, and he thought, just a little crazy. At the same time, she was so vulnerable. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something about the girl that made him want to put his arms around her, to protect her. Maybe that was just his male ego. He finished the blood, washed the mug out in the sink, wondering briefly if the caretakers at the cemetery would ever suss out that he had tapped into the water line that serviced the sprinklers. He then brushed his teeth, undressed, and crawled into bed.

I'm in love, he thought, and the thought gave him a feeling of peace as he drifted off into a contented sleep.
Chapter Three
".so, I got to spend a fun-filled evening sitting alone in a crypt watching concrete dry," Xander complained to Willow. "And what's up with the IPU, anyway? Aren't invisibility and pinkness mutually exclusive?"

"That's the mystery of the IPU, Xander. Invisibility and pinkness are opposites contained in one being. When she appears in her pink aspect, she embodies the joy and wonder and powers of imagination we all had in childhood, and when she appears in her invisible aspect, you can't see her."

Xander was baffled. "But if you can't see her, she hasn't really appeared, has she? Isn't that kind of the definition of an appearance?"

"No, you don't understand. The appearance isn't in the seeing, it's in the experience of her presence."

"But how can you experience her presence if you don't know she's there?"

"You have to have faith, Xand."

"This guy bothering you?" Willow was startled. She hadn't seen Spike approach their table.

"No more than usual," she replied. Spike pulled up a chair and sat down.

"So. Spike," Xander asked, "How was your date with the Wielder of the Chopsticks of Annihilation?"

Spike grinned. "Not much to tell, really. We went out for a bite, then we went back to my place and watched a couple of movies, I drove her home and kissed her goodnight. Oh, yeah, and her mum's an evil pod person."

"So, you didn't get any action?"

Spike seemed shocked at the question. "Xander! It was our first date!"

Xander leaned across the table and whispered conspiratorially. "Um, Spike, I know you've been out of the dating loop for a while, but people do have sex on the first date nowadays."

"Oh, yeah, right, and take all the mystery out of it. Don't spend any time getting to know each other, just hit the sheets and find out each other's names when you check their I.D. in the morning. What's the world coming to?"

Xander looked at Willow. "And when, exactly did he become a gentleman?"

Willow thought for a moment. "I'm not sure. I think it was a gradual change. It seemed like he changed sort of gradually."

"Heads up, people," Spike said suddenly. Willow and Xander turned to see what he was looking at. They saw two young men who looked like they still thought, despite two decades worth of accumulated evidence to the contrary, that Quiet Riot was a heavy metal band leading a pair of girls off the dance floor and toward the door. Willow and Xander quickly checked the fish- eye mirrors. The men cast no reflections. The three of them quickly left their table and followed.

They got outside and found one of the vampires nuzzling "his" girl's throat. The other was a few yards away, quietly chatting up his new acquaintance before making his move. Just as the first vampire went into his game face, ready to bite, Spike tapped him on the shoulder. The girl saw the game face and screamed. The other vampire, now also in game face, glanced up and saw Spike, Willow and Xander. The girl he had been about to bite also screamed. He held her firmly by the wrist. "And just what, exactly, do you think you're doing?" The vampire whose shoulder he had just tapped turned to face him, and as he did, his captive tried to run away. He grabbed her and shoved her to the ground. "Why don't you mind your own business, dude?" The second vampire had guessed by now who was talking to them, and said, "Dude, chill out," then to Spike, "We don't want any trouble."

Spike tilted his head. "Don't you, now?" He walked toward the other, a bit of swagger in his step. "And I suppose you were just going to take these two ladies out for a bite." He paused a moment, then said, "What am I saying? That's precisely what you were going to do."

The first vampire said, "You gonna try and stop us?"

"As a matter of fact." Spike said and punched him squarely in the nose. His companion released his victim and ran. Spike shoved the first one toward Xander and Willow and gave chase. Willow tripped the vampire, something she had gotten quite good at, and he stumbled, but didn't fall. Xander punched him twice, then he landed a punch on Xander's jaw and turned to Willow, who kicked him hard in the gut. Xander recovered, grabbed the vampire's arms from behind and held him. Willow drew a stake and plunged it into the vampire's heart. As soon as he was dust, the two of them took off to see if Spike needed any help. He didn't. He seemed rather to be enjoying himself. He kicked his quarry, sending him spinning, then punched him in the face. The other vampire punched back then tried to kick Spike in the groin. Spike dodged the blow, turned and elbowed him in the solar plexus. He responded with a backfist to Spike's face. Spike gave him a backward head butt, turned to face him, and drove a stake upward under his breastbone. As the fiend crumbled, he looked up to see Xander and Willow watching the show.

"And we were feeling guilty about taking the night off," Willow said. They went back to the alley to check on the two intended victims, but they were long gone. The three of them headed back inside.

===

"The book is out of print," Willow was telling them, "but the clerk said he could do a search and find a used copy for me."

"Will, have you ever questioned the wisdom of mucking about with Atlantean ritual magick?" Spike asked her. "After all, we are talking about the guys who managed to lose an entire sodding continent."

"Without even a trace of its ever having existed," Xander added. "Now, a lost city, I can see, even a medium-sized island. Volcanoes could bury them or sink them. But a whole continent? That just screams 'spell gone horribly wrong.'"

"Yeah," agreed Spike. "With the magicks you're using now, if it goes wrong, the worst that could happen is that some poor sod gets engaged to someone he's going to fall in love with anyway."

"Or be followed around by demons. Which, actually, is a lot worse than being engaged to Buffy."

"Giles went blind," said Willow. "You guys just ended up being annoyed. Giles was actually harmed."

"Which only proves our point, Will," said Xander. "The spells you're working with now, if it goes bad, someone needs stronger glasses. Atlantean magick, something goes wrong, and three hundred million people suddenly need life preservers."

"Keep the cartographers in business, though. They'll be redrawing the globe for decades."

"Come on you guys, it's been years since I've had a spell go wrong. And besides, I don't think Atlantis is really lost."

"You think they've just mislaid it then?" teased Spike. "It'll turn up when they're dusting off the continental shelves?"

"Behind the collectible tectonic plates," Xander added.

"No, I mean they've hidden it. Used magicks to put it into a dimensional bubble or something, to protect themselves from conquest, or having the secrets of their magicks stolen."

"If that's true, then a fat lot of good it did them, if there are copies of their books floating about where shopclerks can hunt them down and sell them to people."

Willow responded by pouring the rest of Spike's beer over his head.

"And once again, a woman has the last word," commented Xander.

===

"Let's go to the Bronze tonight," Spike suggested as he started the car. Mar y Sol wrinkled her nose. "I'd rather not. I know we met there and all, but to tell you the truth, it's not really on my list of favorite places."

"What's the matter? Don't you want to be seen with me?"

Mar y Sol sighed. "I don't want to be seen, period. I was kind of a social pariah in high school, and a lot of people I went to school with hang out there, so I don't like to go there too often."

"I saw you there twice in the space of a week," he reminded her.

"Yeah, well, the second time, I was looking for you."

Spike brightened. "Were you really?"

Mar y Sol grinned. "I really were."

He reached over and cupped her chin. "I want to be seen with you."

===

There was nothing left on the table but the eight ball, and it was Mar y Sol's shot. She took it, and realized the angle was just a fraction off. The eight ball bounced off the side of the table just an inch from the pocket. Spike took the shot and easily sank it. "Damn, you're good," said Mar y Sol.

"You ain't seen nothing yet, baby." He slipped an arm around her waist, pulled her close and kissed her. They didn't see Willow and Xander come in. Neither of them spoke. Even though they both knew Spike was dating The Wielder of the Chopsticks, the reality hadn't quite sunk in. Here was a girl who, just over a month ago, had nearly been killed by a vampire, and now here she was with Spike. And she knew.

After what seemed like a ridiculously long time, Spike and Mar y Sol's lips parted company. Mar y Sol spotted them first. "Oh, hello," she said, recognizing them. "Hello," they said back. She turned to Spike and said, "Well, since we all know each other so well, I think you should introduce us."

"All right. Mar y Sol Kowalski, Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris. Willow, Xander, Mar y Sol. They shook hands and exchanged "Pleased to meet you's" and headed for the corner where the comfortable furniture was. Spike and Mar y Sol nestled at one end of the couch, Willow took the other end, and Xander settled into the overstuffed chair.

"So," observed Xander, "You're not invisible or pink"

"Or a unicorn," said Willow.

Mar y Sol looked at Spike. "You told them you were dating the IPU?"

"No, I told Xander you were suffused with the spirit of."

"Same difference."

Xander dove in. "So, you're saying that to be suffused with the Spirit of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is to be the Invisible Pink Unicorn?"

"Well, yes. The Unicorn is in me, and I'm in her, and we are one. She is me and I am her. Except that I'm not. Spike, why did you tell him that?"

"He asked me if you had a soul," Spike replied a bit sheepishly. "I told him no, and it just sort of went from there."

"Spike, the IPU doesn't suffuse soulless beings. She stabs them with her horn."

Willow chimed in. "I always thought the IPU was strictly an nonviolent being."

"That's a common misconception. She's actually quite a badass fighter."

"Maybe we should recruit her," ventured Spike. "We can always use an extra hand in the fight against evil."

"Good idea," said Mar y Sol. "Next time I see her, I'll ask her about it."

"You've actually seen the IPU?" Xander asked.

"Well, yeah, hasn't everyone?"

Willow, Spike and Xander all looked at each other. "No" "Not me" "I haven't"

"So, exactly what shade of pink is she?" Xander wanted to know.

"I don't know," Mar y Sol replied. "I've only seen her in her invisible aspect."

A waitress came and took their drink orders. "So," began Xander, "How did you two meet? I mean, actually up close and personally?"

Spike fielded the question. "Not much of a story, really. I was here on my own, and she came in all on her own, so I decided to chat her up a bit."

"He plied me with bottled water and took conversational advantage of me."

"And don't tell me you didn't like it," Spike teased. "Then we went off to her mum's bookshop and I told her my whole bloody life's story, and she deconstructed 'God Save the Queen' for me."

"The English national anthem?" Xander asked.

"The Sex Pistols song."

"It's a gay rights anthem."

"Shush, it is not," Spike said and kissed her on the top of the head.

"No, wait," said Willow. "I want to hear this."

Mar y Sol gave her the abbreviated version.

Willow thought carefully for a few moments, then said, "Spike, your new girlfriend is a loony."

"Yeah," agreed Spike, "but I love her all the same."

"Bollocks," retorted Mar y Sol. You love me because I'm a loony."

The drinks consumed, Willow had, with Mar y Sol's permission, enticed Spike onto the dance floor. "I don't get it," Xander was asking Mar y Sol. "What's the attraction. I mean, yeah, okay, he's good-looking, and he's got the English accent going, but I figure that would maybe get you through the first date, but you look like you're ready to settle in for the long haul. What do you see in the guy?"

Mar y Sol sat back and thought for a few seconds. "Well, he has an I.Q. that's bigger than his biceps measurement, for one thing. He's literate, he's cultured in a postpunk kind of a way, and." she glanced furtively around, then leaned close to Xander. "I think I can make a fortune off him in bar bets."

Xander was intrigued. "Yeah? How do you figure."

"Well, think about it. He's a bleached blonde guy with an English accent, right? So, take him to a karaoke bar, queue up 'Mony Mony', find a few suckers who'll take me up on a given number of people breaking into a chorus of 'hey, motherfucker, get laid, get fucked,' collect winnings. Repeat many times. Spike could make me a very wealthy woman."

"And here I thought you only wanted me for my cold, muscular body." Spike and Willow had returned from the dance floor.

"Au contraire, mon cheri. You have real economic value." She kissed him quickly.

"Spike. Economic value. Now there are two words that don't belong in a sentence together," Xander commented dryly.

"Actually, that's three words," said Mar y Sol.

"Well, we have to make allowance for him using words with more than one syllable," said Spike.

"Oh." She seemed to understand.

===

"So, what do you think of my friends?" Spike asked Mar y Sol as they walked across the parking lot to his car.

"They're pretty cool, but I have a feeling that Xander doesn't really fall into the 'friend' category."

"You're right, he's more of a long-term acquaintance, but we do get on better than we used to. We were roommates for a while, did I tell you that?"

"No. How'd that work out?"

"It didn't"

"Oh."

They got into the car. After a few moments of silence, Spike asked, "Mar y Sol, what is the attraction? Why do you stay with me? The real reason."

Mar y Sol turned to face him. "Remember that night when we actually met, when we got up to leave?"

Spike nodded. "You nearly passed out."

"And you caught me, and you held me for a minute, and I wanted you to never let me go. It was the first time in my life I ever felt safe, really safe."

Spike smiled softly. "You know, if someone had told me that ten years ago, I would have been insulted." He reached over and took her hand. "Now it's the greatest compliment you could have given me. I love you, Mar y Sol. I think I've loved you from the night we met."

Mar y Sol's eyes misted over, and she began to choke up a bit. "Oh, William," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I love you, too."

Spike touched her cheek with his fingertips, and leaned over to kiss her. Then he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot and drove her home- his home.

===

Evelyn sat on an old trunk in the attic, poring through her books. There had to be a spell or a potion in one of them that would bring Mar y Sol back into line. She had to do something drastic, and do it soon. The girl had gotten completely out of hand. Discipline wouldn't work anymore; Mar y Sol no longer feared the rod. She looked at her watch- it was after two in the morning, and the girl hadn't come home yet. She was probably spending the night with her new man friend.

She paged through an ancient volume- it was in English, but had been written during the Middle Ages. The language was different back then, and the text was hard to understand. At last, she found something- it was a potion that would break the girl's will, and make her quiet and obedient, but the ingredients would be hard to find. Since the old magic store had been destroyed, there were few places in Sunnydale where she could get her supplies. She would have to order them by mail, and that might take a few weeks. She wished she had learned how to use the Internet- that would make it easier, faster, but computers were complicated, and she shied away from them. She picked up a pen and notebook and began to copy the list of ingredients. She would have to get on the phone first thing in the morning if the things she needed were to arrive in time. In the meantime, she would try one more time to get the girl to leave her man friend, if "man" was the proper word for what he was, and then she would let her have her own way, for a little while.

===

Spike poured Mar y Sol another glass of wine, then refilled his own glass. She sipped her wine, her eyes fixed on his, then moved closer to him, slipping her arm around his shoulders. His arm slid around her waist, pulling her closer still. He buried his face in her hair, drinking in her scent, then kissed her hungrily. "God, you're beautiful," he whispered, his voice husky. Mar y Sol said nothing. She set her wineglass down and ran her fingertips up his arm, from the wrist to the shoulder, tracing the muscles, then slipped her hand around behind him.

His lips moved toward her throat, caressing it, tracing her collarbone, then back up to her lips, as her hands wandered over his back, shoulders and arms, exploring the musculature. She began to feel flushed as heat spread from her lips down the center line of her body into the pit of here stomach, the inside of her arms, and finally into her inner thighs. Her heart raced as she felt his hand slide up her thigh, then her waist and briefly cup her breast as his mouth went back to her throat, and he undid the top two buttons of his blouse. She felt his breath on her breasts. I thought vampires didn't breathe, she thought briefly. She slipped her hands inside his tee shirt, feeling the coolness of his skin, then began to pull the shirt upward. He allowed her to peel it off of him, then resumed kissing her lips and throat, caressing her breasts. Then, all in one movement, he slipped one arm around her shoulders and the other underneath her legs, lifted her from the couch and carried her to the bed.

He lay her down, then lay down beside her, kissing her, caressing her, as he finished unbuttoning her blouse and slid it off her shoulders. She pulled her arms out of the sleeves and slipped them around him, allowing her hands to wander over his cool marble body until they found his belt. With a deft motion, she unbuckled it, then undid the top button of his jeans, and feeling for the zipper, she found. another button, then a third, his stiffening cock straining against them. He wasn't wearing underwear. As she unbuttoned the last button, he undid the clasp of her bra and slipped it off her, and rolled over to lie on top of her, his mouth devouring her lips, her throat and shoulders. She felt the heat of her body warm his cool flesh as the bare skin of his chest pressed against her breasts. She kicked off her shoes, arching her hips upward as she did so. Through her skirt, she could feel him hard against her inner thigh. Her breathing grew fast and deep, as she felt the aching hunger in her lower belly. She trapped first his left foot, then his right between her feet, using her toes to push his shoes and socks off. He ran a hand down her side, unzipped her skirt, then hooked the waistbands of her skirt and panties and pushed them down over her hips as she wriggled out of them.

Finally, she pushed his jeans down off his ass, caught the waistband with her feet and slid them down his legs and onto the floor. She felt Spike shudder as she stroked his muscular buttocks, now like the rest of his body warmed with her heat. Then she felt him begin, slowly, gently, to push himself into her. She gave a short gasp of pain as her maidenhead stretched and tore. He paused, looked into her eyes with wonder as he realized that he was her first. then he began to thrust himself into her, slowly at first, then more quickly, her hips arching upward to meet him. Soon her pelvic muscles began to contract rhythmically, slightly at first, then more intensely, her breath coming in short gasps as she came to climax, her toes curling, her whole body arching upwards as wave after wave of pleasure swept over her, then gradually she began to relax. She opened her eyes to see Spike looking down at her, smiling softly, as he continued to move inside her. She lay back and sighed as yet another wave washed over her, less intense this time, but lasting longer, then finally she felt him throbbing, pulsing inside her, his breathing now quick and hard, as he came to climax. He sighed deeply as he drew himself out of her, then lay on his side, leaning on one elbow as he gazed tenderly at her, his free hand stroking her hair, her face, her breasts, her belly. Mar y Sol reached up to touch him, tracing his collarbone with her fingertips, running her hands over his chest. Neither of them spoke. At last, Spike gathered Mar y Sol into his arms and they drifted off together into a deep, contented sleep.

===

Mar y Sol stirred then opened her eyes to see Spike lying still beside her. Too still, she realized. He wasn't breathing. Quickly, she felt his neck, over the carotid artery. No pulse. "Oh, God," she whispered. She rose to her knees, placed a hand under the back of his neck, pinched his nostrils shut, and he opened his eyes.

"What the bloody hell." then he looked up to see Mar y Sol's startled expression. She let go of his nose.

"Good morning," she mumbled.

Spike sat up, tilted his head and asked, "Mar y Sol, my darling little snapdragon, were you just about to start CPR on me?"

She turned away from him. "Yes," she whispered. Spike lifted a mocking eyebrow. "Well, you weren't breathing. And you didn't have a pulse."

Spike suppressed a smirk. "Of course I don't have a pulse. I'm dead." Mar y Sol said nothing, tried to hide behind her hair. Spike couldn't stand it anymore. He began to laugh almost convulsively.

"It's not funny," Mar y Sol whined. "I thought you were dead."

Spike managed to compose himself long enough to say, "I am dead. I thought we covered that already." Mar y Sol grabbed a pillow and swung it at him, nearly knocking him off the bed. Spike grabbed another one and hit her with it. When Mar y Sol swung again, Spike snatched the pillow away from her, put an arm around her waist, pulled her close and kissed her hard on the mouth. She squirmed, trying to pull away, but he was too strong. After putting up a brief struggle, she finally surrendered. He lay her back on the bed and quickly made her forget that she had been angry with him just seconds before.

===

Spike lay in a half-doze. Mar y Sol was wide awake. She lay beside him, propped up on her elbow gazing down at her lover. He was beautiful. She stroked his eyelashes with a fingertip, and his eyes fluttered open. "You have pretty eyelashes," she told him.

He smiled. "After all that, this is your great commentary, that I have pretty eyelashes?" He pulled her down so that she was lying with her head on his shoulder.

She snuggled closer. "So, how long does this last?" she asked.

"How long does what last?"

"This peaceful contentedness."

"I don't know. Depends on a lot of things. Of course, if it wears off, we can always have another go." He grinned at her. She giggled and grinned back.

"I love you," she said, almost matter-of-factly.

"I know you do," he said. "I love you, too." They lay there for a while longer, saying nothing, each quietly enjoying the closeness of the other. After a while, Spike sat up and asked, "So, are you ready for breakfast?"

"Actually, now that you mention it, I'm starving." They got up, he put on his pants and she put on his shirt. Spike went to the kitchen and made chorizo and eggs on the hotplate and warmed a tortilla for her to eat with. Then he poured himself a mug of blood and started to put it in the microwave. Suddenly, she fairly shouted, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Warming up my breakfast. Look pet, you know."

She cut him off. "You're not going to heat blood up in the microwave! You'll kill all the cells! The blood is the life and all that, remember?"

Spike was amused. "And how the hell am I supposed to heat it?"

"Double boiler."

"Haven't got one."

"Oh, bloody hell, you men are so helpless." She got up, rummaged through the cabinet until she found a large bowl, filled it with water, put it in the microwave and finished her breakfast while she waited for it to heat.

"I don't know what your problem is, luv. I've been eating microwaved blood for years."

"That's probably why you're so freaking pale. You've gotten anemic."

"Or maybe it's because I haven't gone out in the sun in a hundred twenty years," he retorted.

"Shush." The microwave beeped. Mar y Sol took the bowl out, set Spike's mug in it and began to stir it slowly. Spike watched her and began to laugh softly. "What?" she demanded, testing a drop of blood on her wrist to make sure it was warm enough.

"You," he said gently. "We've just spent our first night together, and you're acting like an old wife. Also, you're warming up a cup of blood for me like it's the most normal thing in the world."

"Well, it is normal, by Sunnydale standards."

"And you're not the least bit grossed out?

"Why should I be? It's only blood." She handed him the mug. Spike shrugged and drank his blood. Mar y Sol retreated into the "bedroom" and got dressed.

"What, you're not leaving already?" Spike asked plaintively. Mar y Sol sighed. "Yeah, I have to go to work."

"I thought the shop was closed on Sunday."

"It is, but there's a cartload of books that came in yesterday. I have to unpack them and get them on the shelves, or listen to my mother bitch at me all day tomorrow. God forbid that she should have to do any actual work in her own bookstore." She kissed him sharply, then again, more softly, letting her lips linger on his. She put her arms around him and lay her head on her shoulder, suddenly wanting, needing him to hold her. He held her tightly, nearly crushing her body against his. They released each other, and she kissed him one last time. "Call me tomorrow?"

"Of course I'll call you." She turned and walked out of the crypt. As the door swung shut behind her, suddenly, inexplicably, Spike felt very afraid for her.

===

It took Mar y Sol nearly three hours to unpack the boxes of books, log them in inventory, and place them on the shelves. After she finished, she decided to do a bit of cleaning. It was a stall. She didn't want to go home. She wanted to be with Spike. She dusted off the shelves, got the vacuum cleaner out and swept the carpet. As she put the vacuum cleaner away, a wave of depression suddenly swept over her, and she began to cry.

She had just pulled herself back together when she heard a key in the lock. She looked up in time to see her mother come in. Evelyn surveyed the main floor, then went to the back room to check for the boxes that had come in the previous day, and found them empty and broken down, ready for the trash. "Well, I see you decided to come in and do your work after all," she said sharply.

"Sure, why not, I do everything else around her, I might as well unpack the books and clean, too."

Evelyn glared at her. "How dare you say that? There is a lot of work involved in running a bookstore."

"Yes, I know, I run it."

"You do not run this store, I do."

Mar y Sol sighed. "Yeah, there's ordering the books, which is the only thing you do, there's unpacking and shelving them, which I do, there's waiting on the customers, which I do, ringing up the purchases, which I do, making sure the rent and power bills get paid, which I do, keeping the books, which I do, and cleaning, which I do."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I pay the bills."

"You sign the checks. I'm the one who keeps track of the bills, fills them out and gets them into the mail. I put in sixty hours a week working my ass off, you put in twenty, and then all you do is stand around and look pretty."

"I make coffee and tea for the customers."

"You make coffee and hot water. The customers make their own tea. That's what, maybe five minutes work a day."

Evelyn realized she had lost the argument, so she changed the subject. "You didn't come home last night."

"No, I didn't. I spent the night with Spike."

"So, my daughter sleeps with men she picks up in bars."

"No, I slept with a man, who I've been dating for six weeks now, and, by the way, who I love."

"He doesn't love you, you know that. He only takes you out because you let him have sex with you."

Mar y Sol rolled his eyes. "Well, he sure puts a lot of work into it. We've gone out together, let's see, twice a week for six weeks, that's twelve dates, and I've only slept with him once. Not a very good batting average when there are plenty of women who hang out at the Bronze he could pick up for a one-night stand."

"He's going to get you in trouble," Evelyn said coldly. Then you'll see how much he loves you when he leaves you on your own to take care of it."

"And you know this from personal experience?" There was a challenge in Mar y Sol's voice.

"What do you mean?" Evelyn demanded. It seemed like most of Evelyn's questions were demands.

"You know what I mean. I was born, what, six months after you and Dad got married."

"You were born prematurely."

"I weighed seven and a half pounds. A six-month baby would weigh maybe two. And I don't look a thing like Dad. I look Mexican, for crying out loud. So, you were seeing two men, got pregnant and dumped by one of them, told the other I was his, and convinced him to marry you."

Evelyn was livid. "How dare you say that to your mother? I wasn't in trouble when I married your father. I'm a respectable woman."

Mar y Sol was on a roll now. "Or was it the other way around? You dumped my real father and married Dad because he made more money, is that how it was?"

Evelyn's responded with the back of her hand across Mar y Sol's face. Mar y Sol only laughed. "Hit a nerve, did I? This is how you respond when I confront you with the truth? By hitting me?"

Evelyn hit her again, harder this time. "You have no right to speak to your mother like that. I gave birth to you in pain, I supported you."

"Your husband supported both of us."

"I cooked, I cleaned."

"The housekeepers you keep firing clean, and you can't cook for shit."

"I changed diapers."

"Nannies. A dozen of them. As soon as I would get attached, you'd fire them."

Evelyn raised her hand to strike Mar y Sol again. This time, she blocked the blow, and pushed her mother away. Evelyn fell on her butt, and suddenly began to scream. "Aaaaahhhhhhh, aaaahhhhhh." The scream sounded artificial, like an actress in a bad melodrama. Mar y Sol stepped toward her, and suddenly she jumped to her feet, and ran into the street, screaming, "Help, help, she's beating me, she's beating me!" Mar y Sol simply closed the door behind her and locked it. She watched through the glass and watched her mother run into a store across the street. She could see through the shop window that Evelyn was having an animated conversation with the counter girl, who picked up the phone and dialed. Then she touched her cheek. It was already beginning to swell. She would probably have a nasty bruise by the time the police arrived, and, judging by the way the swelling was spreading toward her eye, a nice shiner as well. She went to the back room, opened the refrigerator, and made herself an ice pack.

Within minutes, she heard a siren. A police cruiser pulled up in front of the shop her mother was in, and the officers went inside. From where she was sitting on the couch, she couldn't see what was going on inside the other store, but she could imagine her mother creating quite a scene. After a few minutes, her mother came back, policemen in tow, and let them into the store. Evelyn pointed at Mar y Sol. "Arrest her, arrest her, she's a madwoman!" More bad melodrama. She stood to meet the officers, who immediately noticed her bruised cheek. The older of them looked at Evelyn.

"You say she was beating you?"

"Yes. She's violent. Insane. Arrest her."

"So how come she has bruises and you don't?"

"Because she hit me and I didn't hit her," Mar y Sol chimed in.

The two police officers whispered among themselves, then the older one took her mother outside, while the younger remained in the store to take Mar y Sol's statement. "So, what happened here, miss?"

"We got into an argument, and she punched me in the face twice. She was going to hit me again, but I blocked it and pushed her away. She fell on her ass, then started screaming and ran into the street," she told the officer.

"What was the argument about?" he wanted to know.

"I spent the night with my boyfriend last night. She doesn't like him because he bleaches his hair. Apparently, a man changing his hair color is a sign of low morals in her book. It kind of escalated from there until I reminded her that she was three months pregnant when she and my dad got married, and I don't look like him."

"You look Hispanic, and he, um, isn't, is that it?"

"Yeah. He has light brown hair and very fair skin. Anyhoo, when I pointed that out to her, she punched me."

The officer looked her over, then put his notebook away. "I think that's all I need to know, miss. Do you need medical attention?"

"Nah. It's just a bruise."

The officer went outside to confer with his partner. Then they both spoke to Evelyn. Mar y Sol couldn't make out what they were saying, but through the door, she could tell their tones of voice were harsh. Then they got into their squad car and left. Evelyn watched them drive away, then got into her own car, started it, and headed for home.

Mar y Sol sat back down on the couch, applying her melting ice pack to her cheek once more. She had left out some detail, but what she had told the police officer was basically true. She wondered what her mother had told the officers. She decided she didn't care. She pulled a paperback novel out of her purse and began to read. She decided she was going to wait a few hours for the dust to settle before she went home.

===

"I don't know, call it a premonition," Spike was saying to Willow across the pool table. He missed yet another shot. Willow was going to win this game, that was clear. "Did you try to call her?" she asked, making her shot easily.

"Yeah. She wasn't at the bookstore, and when I tried to call her at home, her mum said she couldn't come to the phone. I'm going to wait until late tonight when everyone's asleep, then go pay a visit." He missed another shot. He was way off his game tonight. Willow took her shot and made it, then proceeded to mop up the table. "Want to play another game? Kill some time before you go?" she asked.

"Nah. I can't concentrate. I'm too worried." They put away their cues and found a table in a corner.

"When did this feeling start?" Willow asked.

"Right after she left my crypt today. As soon as the door closed, I just got this feeling that she was in danger. I don't know, maybe it's nothing."

"I wouldn't dismiss it, Spike. You have a connection with Mar y Sol, even more so now that you've made love to her." A waitress came to the table and they ordered drinks. Newcastle for Spike, iced tea for Willow. "If you want, I can do a spell to reveal what the danger is, if she is in danger."

Spike shook his head. He didn't like magick, and generally turned to it only as a last resort. "Not just yet, Will. I'll go to her house tonight, see if she's all right. If she's not, or if she's gone missing, then we'll talk about doing a spell."

"Okay. Let me know if you decide you want to do it."

Spike smiled. "I will."

===

Mar y Sol was awakened by a tapping at her bedroom window. She got up and looked out to see Spike perched on the back porch roof. Quickly and quietly she opened the window and stepped back to allow him room to enter. He didn't. "Um, Mar y Sol."

"Oh, sorry, I forgot," she whispered. "Come in, Spike." He climbed in, and Mar y Sol turned on the light. He blanched when he saw the bruise that nearly covered the left side of her face.

"Oh, God, what happened?"

They sat down on the bed together. "Well, remember our first date, we were speculating that I might be secretly adopted?" Spike nodded. "Well, I picked the lock on my dad's desk drawer and found my birth certificate. I'm not adopted, but I was born about six months after my parents got married. I had a confrontation with my mother about it at the bookstore this afternoon."

"Didn't want to admit to it, did she?"

"Nope. She insisted I was born prematurely. 'I'm a respectable woman' she says."

"Was that before or after she slugged you?"

"Before, I think. She hit me twice. She was going to hit me again and I pushed her down on her ass. She ran screaming into the street, and called the police. It was a whole big scene."

"God," was all Spike could say. He kissed her bruised cheek, trying to make it well, then kissed her on the lips. She lay her head on his shoulder, and he held her awhile. "Does she do this sort of thing often?" he asked her after a few minutes' silence.

"Not really. I don't step out of line very often, at least I didn't before I got bit, but when I do, I get whaled on. She used to use a dowel rod, but I took it away and broke it, so I guess all she has left is her hands."

"So, you've started showing you've got some pluck just of late? Since the attack?"

"Yeah. After I almost got killed, I realized that life was too short to stay under my mother's thumb. I had to get out and start living it."

"Looks like you paid a hell of a price for it, pet."

"Worth it." She suddenly stood. "Let's go downstairs and have some tea. And talk."
"What is it with you and tea?" Spike wanted to know.

"Tea is the world's second most important social lubricant, right behind alcohol," she informed him as she set a kettle of water on the stove to boil. "And hey, aren't you English?"

"Just because I'm English doesn't necessarily mean I like tea," he scolded gently. "I didn't think you'd be one to fall for stereotypes. Next you'll be assuming that because I'm a vampire, I should look good in formalwear."

Mar y Sol looked him over. "Hmm."

"Oh, God, please don't try to imagine me in a tuxedo."

"Too late," she said, grinning. "Already got the visual." She glanced at the teakettle. Steam was just barely starting to rise from the hole in the spout cover. She took it from the stove before it could start to whistle. "Could you do me a favor and make the tea? I have to go powder my nose."

"Why do women always say they're going to powder their nose when they go to the loo?" Spike wanted to know. Mar y Sol only giggled then left the kitchen to go to the bathroom. Spike shook his head, put a couple of teabags into the porcelain teapot he found sitting on top of the microwave, as though it was overseeing all the kitchen's activities, then poured in the hot water. He heard footsteps on the tile, and turned to find Evelyn standing there in a robe and slippers. The robe seemed to have been neatly pressed.

"How did you get in here? You can't come into my house unless I invite you."

Spike lifted an eyebrow. "Now, there's an interesting choice of words, but since you asked the question, I'll tell you. Mar y Sol invited me in. Anyone who lives in the house can do it. It doesn't have to be the person who holds the mortgage." Evelyn seemed surprised to hear this. Apparently she had a few misconceptions about the rules. Spike picked up the teapot and placed it on the table. As he did, he saw Mar y Sol appear in the doorway behind her mother.

"What are you doing up?" she asked.

"How could I sleep with all this racket?" Evelyn replied.

"So, what, Spike was making tea too loud?" She opened the breadbox, took two slices of bread from their plastic bag, and put them in the toaster. Then she opened the cabinet and found cinnamon.

"What do you think you're doing?" Evelyn asked.

"Making cinnamon toast," Mar y Sol replied tartly.

"No you're not. You're going back to bed. And you," she turned to Spike, "are going to leave before I call the police."

"And tell them what, that he came in and ate toast without your permission? Yeah, that's it, you can tell them a burglar was stealing toast." Evelyn knew she had lost again. She turned and left the kitchen to go back to bed.

"Déjà vu," commented Mar y Sol.

"All over again," replied Spike. "Is she a robot?" The toast popped up.

"No," said Mar y Sol as she buttered it. "She's a pod person, I told you that." She sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on the toast, gave it to Spike, then put two more slices of bread into the toaster for herself. Then she poured the tea. Spike took a bite of the toast, then sipped his tea. "You make wonderful cinnamon toast," he told her.

"Thanks. It's an old family recipe." The toaster popped again, and she buttered, cinnamoned and sugared it. Then she sat down at the table across from Spike.

"She knows," Spike said, taking another bite of toast.

"What do you mean?"

"Your mother. She knows what I am."

Mar y Sol nearly choked. "How? How could she know?"

"I don't know, but when she came into the kitchen just now, she asked me how I got into the house. Said I couldn't come in unless she invited me. I told her anyone who lived in the house could, but the point is, she knew I can't come into a house without an invitation."

Mar y Sol toyed nervously with her toast, then said, "Then she knew you can't get me pregnant."

"Well, yeah, but what does that have to do with."

"When we had our little tiff today, she said you didn't care about me. That you'd get me 'in trouble' and dump me. And she knew you couldn't."

"You think she's still trying to pretend she doesn't believe in vampires and such?"

"Well, if she is, she just gave herself away."

"So why would she confront me with it?"

"My guess, it was a Freudian slip. She probably meant to ask what you were doing here and it just came out that way."

"Do you think she realizes she's let the cat out of the bag?"

"Not yet. It'll dawn on her slowly. But it might not occur to her that you would say anything to me. She really isn't very bright." She took another bite of her toast, not really tasting it, and washed it down with tea. Then she looked up and said, "Spike, is it possible for a person, a living person, to not have a soul?"

"You're asking the wrong bloke, pet."

"Spike, I'm serious."

"So am I. Being a vampire with a soul doesn't make me an expert on the subject." He could see that this was not the answer Mar y Sol wanted to hear. "I suppose it is possible, theoretically. Some people think that psychopaths were in the back of the queue when souls were handed out and somehow missed getting one, or got one that was defective. And there are some stories of people who sold their souls, and the demon collected it before they actually died." He could read the expression on Mar y Sol's face. "You think your mother hasn't got a soul." It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

Mar y Sol nodded. "If she did sell her soul, how could I find out?"

Spike finished his toast. "There would be a written contract. Might be in the house somewhere. Is there anyplace she's really secretive about? A drawer or a cabinet she always keeps locked?"

Mar y Sol thought a moment. "Well, she does go up into that attic a lot, usually in the middle of the night, when she thinks Dad and I are asleep. Like the noise she makes pulling the steps down wouldn't wake the dead." Spike gave her a look. "Sorry, bad choice of words, but you know what I mean."

"I know. Want to go up and have a look 'round? I could probably get the stairs down quietly enough."

"Not unless you have a hand of glory on you. Mom's a very light sleeper."

"That's a sign of a woman with something to hide. I could talk to Willow. I doubt she has a hand of glory, but she might know a spell that would keep your mum asleep while we poke around the attic and see if we can find anything."

"I'd appreciate if you would."
Chapter Four
"God, Will, you should have seen her. She looks awful. The whole side of her face is one big bruise." Willow was surprised that Spike would come to her to ask her to do a spell so soon after turning down her offer of one.

"But you still don't want me to do one to find out what kind of danger she's in? 'Cause I don't think a punch in the face is the kind of danger that would bring on a premonition that she's in danger."

Spike smiled. Willow had matured so much since they had first met, hardly stammered at all anymore, but she still had that way of phrasing her speech in tongue-twisters. "I think I know what the danger is, or at least where it's coming from. It's her mother. Any woman who would beat her grown daughter with a dowel rod for coming in late has an agenda. I think if we find out what she's hiding in the attic, we'll know what her agenda is."

"So when do you want to do the burglary?" Willow was starting to sound excited. It had been a couple of years since they'd had to do any investigative work. Since the Hellmouth had been corked, Sunnydale had become less attractive to vampires and demons with an agenda that consisted of anything more than feeding and random mayhem.

"I'm not sure. Probably later in the week. I want to give Evelyn a few days to cool off before I try to see Mar y Sol again. No point in risking her getting hurt again."

"I could go see her if you want," Willow offered. "Her mother doesn't know me, so I might have a better chance of getting past her. Plus I still have some healing ointment left over from when Xander got into it with that Rivnik demon, so I could fix her bruise up for her."

"Sounds like a good plan," Spike agreed. "You should probably go to her house tomorrow during the day. Her mum's the keeping up appearances type. She wouldn't want to put Mar y Sol in public view at the bookshop with her face all black and blue. Plus, there would be less of a chance of running into her, since somebody has mind the store."

"Okay, I'll stop by there as soon as I get off work."

Spike kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you, Willow."

===

Spike smiled broadly when Mar y Sol walked into his crypt. Willow's ointment had done its work. There was no trace of the massive bruise that had stained her face only three days before. He rose from his chair and kissed her. Xander and Willow also stood to greet her.

"So, what's the plan?" Xander wanted to know.

"The plan is, Willow works her mojo to keep my parental units snoring while we make a lot of racket searching the attic for incriminating evidence," Mar y Sol replied.

"Slightly more complex than 'I'll grab the guy, you take his jacket,'" commented Spike. After four years, he was still teasing Xander about his 'plan' to confiscate the girl-attracting jacket from, what was that football player's name? "Of course, if Mar's mum is into the kind of magicks I think she is, her little bag of tricks won't be hard to find."

"Why, do you have some kind of mojo-sniffing device?"

Spike slipped an arm around Mar y Sol's waist. "Meet my mojo-sniffing device," he said proudly.

"Really?" asked Willow. "I thought you could only detect demons and vampires and souls and stuff."

"No, I can also detect witches, and places and objects that have a lot of juju."

"Juju?" asked Xander.

"Yeah. That's what they make mojo out of. Kind of the raw material."

"Oh."

===

At one a.m. they all piled into the De Soto and headed to Mar y Sol's house. Once there, Willow and Xander traced a circle of colored sand around the house, while Spike and Mar y Sol used more sand to create runic symbols by the front and back doors. Mar y Sol was dubious about this. "I don't know. If my mom sees this, she'll have many questions, and I will have few answers."

"Don't worry about it pet," Spike reassured her. "I've seen Willow do this sort of spell before. Once she does the incantation, the sand just sort of goes poof." Willow and Xander reappeared, from opposite sides, carefully pouring sand until they met on the front walk. Willow then motioned for them to step outside the circle.

"Anything inside it will go into mega-sleep, which would make searching the attic a bit difficult. So. We who search in safety keep, let those inside blissfully sleep." The sand seemed to burst into flame, then the air above it became distorted, and in an instant, the sand was gone.

"Wow," said Mar y Sol.

"And I thought I wrote bad poetry," Spike said. "So, how long have we got, Will?"

"About three hours, maybe four."

"More than enough time," said Mar y Sol. "The attic isn't that big. Let's go."

They entered the house and went upstairs. Spike opened the trapdoor that led to the attic and pulled down the steps, and Mar y Sol led the way up. Immediately she stopped, seeming to feel the air.

"And already her spider sense is tingling," commented Xander. She picked her way around two decades worth of accumulated junk and stopped in front of a trunk. It seemed to be the centerpiece of a carefully arranged stack, in the midst of haphazardly placed other items.

"It's here," she said simply.

"Right then. Xander, let's get this stuff of the trunk so we can open it."

"Not in the trunk, behind it."

Spike and Xander quickly lifted the heavy boxes off the trunk, revealing a large wooden box, surrounded by storage crates as though in a nest. They pushed the trunk aside and Mar y Sol knelt in front of the box. It was locked. "Oh, hell."

"I have a key," said Spike, pulling a bobby pin out of Willow's hair, sending the left side of it tumbling around her shoulders. Spike bent the bobby pin and handed it to Mar y Sol, who inserted it into the lock and turned it several times, but couldn't find the catch. Finally Spike knelt beside her. "Here, let me try. I'm an old hand at this sort of thing." She moved aside, and in a matter of seconds, Spike had the box open. Mar y Sol flinched. "Bad juju?"

"Very bad juju." Spike put a comforting arm around her shoulders. Something in the box caught Willow's eye, and she sat on the floor beside Spike. She reached into the box and lifted out a long dagger in a wooden sheath. The sheath was ornately carved with images of monsters and demons the like of which none of them had ever seen, and between Spike, Xander and Willow, they had seen quite a few. Willow drew the dagger from the sheath and examined it. The blade was inscribed with cuneiform writing

"It looks like a ritual weapon, maybe a sacrificial weapon."

Mar y Sol squirmed, and finally said, "OK, would you please put that back? It's radiating serious evilness." Willow complied.

"Is it really that bad?"

"Yeah. It's been used to kill people. A lot."

"So Mrs. K is into human sacrifice. And here you thought that those burgers on the hibachi were made out of cow meat."

"Harris, can you for once in your life be serious?" Spike said sharply. Mar y Sol was starting to look a little ill.

"We don't know that she's used that dagger," she said, her voice quavering. "I think the thing's really old, like millennia." She composed herself and began to examine the other contents of the box. She quickly found what she was looking for. She carefully lifted the yellowed envelope out of the box, opened it, and unfolded the document inside. The writing, like the inscription on the dagger, was cuneiform. "Sumerian, or Akkadian, maybe?" she suggested.

"Sumerian would be my first guess," said Willow, "but there were at least half a dozen languages that used cuneiform writing. This looks like a job for Giles."

"Or for Dawn. She is majoring in ancient languages after all." Willow understood Spike's reluctance to deal with Giles. He had forgiven the former Watcher for setting him up to be killed by Wood, but still didn't fully trust him. "So, is there a copy machine in the house, pet?"

"In my dad's den. He has a whole office away from the office down there."

===

Mar y Sol leaned against Spike and watched the printer/copier do its work. It was an older model, and was printing the copies of Evelyn's contract with painful slowness. "You know, if you stare at the printer really hard, it will print even slower," Xander said. This raised a glimmer of a smile.

"And if you give it a good swift kick," added Willow, "It'll stop working altogether."

Mar y Sol relaxed visibly. "Will it really?" she asked.

"Yeah, Willow's quite the computer genius," Spike informed her. "She knows dozens of ways to make them annoy people." The printer finally finished, and dropped the two copies in the tray. Mar y Sol picked them up and handed them to Willow, then headed upstairs to put the original away. Spike and Xander followed, carefully placing the concealing boxes in their original arrangement so Evelyn wouldn't notice that her nest had been discovered. They were obviously heavy.

"Hard to believe your mother moves these things a couple of times a week," Xander commented.

"Yeah. She's either got more muscle than she looks like, or she moves them with mojo," Spike said.

Mar y Sol touched her recently healed cheek. "I'll vote for the muscle. She is pretty strong. Works out at a health club a couple of times a week." They got everything back into place, went back downstairs and Spike pushed the steps back up and closed the trapdoor, while Xander went back to the den to rejoin Willow. Spike checked his watch. They had accomplished their mission in less than an hour. He grasped Mar y Sol's shoulders. "I want you to pack a bag and come with me," he told her. "You're not safe here, I can feel it. And with that bloody knife up there."

"No, I think I should stay. I don't want Mom getting suspicious, and if I took off, she'd hunt me down. She'd have the police and who knows who or what else looking for me. I think it's better if I just stay put."

"All right, suit yourself, then. I won't force you, but if you get scared, or change your mind, my door's always open for you." She smiled. "I know. I feel safer just knowing." He pulled her into his embrace, and kissed her. "I love you."

"I know. I love you too."

===

There was supposed to be a band at the Bronze, but it hadn't shown up, much to the disgruntlement of the patronage. Management decided to deal with the problem by giving away free beer- domestic brands only, so Spike had to pay for his Guinness, and, strangely, he thought, for Mar y Sol's bottled water. It was worth it, though. Mar y Sol herself had said that drinking most American beers was like making love in a canoe. "Fucking close to water," she explained in response to Spike's questioning expression. Since the disc jockey also wasn't in tonight, the manager was filling that role as well, much to both Spike's and Mar y Sol's delight. He had called home and had his wife bring in his personal music collection- mostly mid sixties to mid seventies music. Mar y Sol had a theory about popular music. "The last good song was actually written in nineteen seventy-four," she told Spike. "Anything good you hear that was released from 'seventy-five on was pulled out of a filing cabinet in the old Brill building. They have a massive archive there, probably enough to keep the industry supplied into the next century."

"It is the next century, pet," Spike pointed out to her. "And the supply of good songs seems to be running a bit low."

"Not to worry, sugar. Genetic material has been collected from all the great songwriters and spliced into selected embryos. The new talent should be ready to start producing lyrical material about the time the archive is exhausted."

Spike laughed. "You're a loony," he told her yet again. He seemed to be telling her this on a regular basis now.

"Yes, I know, that's why you love me, remember?" was Mar y Sol's standard reply. "One reason among many," Spike said, and kissed her. The manager/deejay queued up "The Air that I Breathe" by the Hollies, and Spike led Mar y Sol onto the dance floor. He crooned along into her ear as they danced. "Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe, and to love you."

"You don't breathe," she whispered.

"Shush." He kissed her. The song ended, and was immediately followed up by "Long Cool Woman (in a Black Dress), so they stayed on the dance floor. Spike was an impressive dancer, and had spent hours with Mar y Sol in his crypt teaching her so that she wouldn't step on his feet at the Bronze. It hadn't been a difficult task. The lady had an impeccable sense of rhythm, and was a quick study. "I think we're the only couple here who are actually touching each other," remarked Spike. Mar y Sol glanced around and saw that it was true. Once the beat had picked up, pairs of dancers who had been clinging to one another during the slower song seemed to have retreated to opposite sides of the dance floor. It was a phenomenon that Spike didn't care to understand.

As the song ended, they spied Willow coming in. The three of them headed for the comfortable furniture. "Any word from Dawn yet?" Spike asked her.

"Yeah, I got an e-mail from her this morning. She says the contract is definitely in Sumerian, but it's a dialect she's never seen before. She forwarded it to Fred, and they're doing tag-team translation. I also sent it to Giles. Between the three of them, they should be able to get it translated, but it'll take time, maybe a week or so."

"I hope that's not more time than we've got," said Spike. He turned to Mar y Sol. "I wish you'd get out of that house. I can't sleep days worrying about you." Mar y Sol leaned over to him and whispered, "I can help you get to sleep."

===

Evelyn stood in front of the stove stirring the contents of the cast-iron pot that she reserved for making potions. She added a pinch of yet another foul-smelling herb, shivering against the cold. It would soon be spring, and the weather had been warming, but the nights were still chilly, and she had opened both the kitchen door and windows to ventilate the room and keep the smell of her potion from getting all over the house. All the ingredients were combined, and together with the incantations that had accompanied the addition of each one, would make for a very potent potion; so potent that it would start to work as soon as the person it was given to breathed the vapors. Now all she had to do was simmer it until the water evaporated out and left a thick oil. Added to food or drink, it would bring Mar y Sol under her control, and not a day too soon. The girl's twentieth birthday was less than a week away.

===

Spike awoke to hear the television playing at low volume, and looked over to see Mar y Sol sitting on the floor in front of it. He listened a moment, realized what show was playing on the battered set. "Please tell me you're not watching 'Forever Knight'," he said.

"I'm not watching 'Forever Knight'," she told him.

"Now you're lying to me," he teased. He could hear the unmistakable cadence of La Croix delivering a Nightcrawler monologue.

"No, I'm not. You told me to tell you I'm not watching 'Forever Knight,' and I did. That's not lying, it's complying with a request."

Spike sighed. Mar y Sol had a strange addiction to the show that he couldn't understand. He had slipped into her house every night since they had found Evelyn's little box of horrors to make sure she was all right, and had tried to watch it with her, but he couldn't stand it. He found it preachy, melodramatic, overacted and generally lame. He also felt the flashback scenes detracted from the main plot of the show. And it hadn't been the same after Schanke had gotten blown up with the airplane. "Why the bloody hell do you even watch that piece of crap?" he asked. Her answer, "Three words. Geraint Wyn-Davies."

"That's only two words, snapdragon. Wyn-Davies is hyphenated, only counts as one."

"Well, however many words." Mar y Sol was cut off by Spike kissing her. She was amazed at how quickly and quietly he had gotten out of the bed and across the floor. She melted into his embrace as he kissed her again, began caressing her body. She didn't turn off the television, but she did tune out the show.
Chapter Five
Mar y Sol sat in her room reading a battered paperback copy of Dracula. She knew Spike had a grudge against the old count that went back more than a hundred years, but he hadn't provided her with any details as to why, and she thought the Bram Stoker "novel" might provide her with some insight. She laughed quietly at a scene that described a daylight encounter with Drac, knowing that any vampire exposing himself to direct sunlight was doomed to go up in flames.

Unexpectedly, a knock came at her door. "Yeah?" she called out. The door opened. Evelyn stood in the hallway.

"Sweetheart, why don't you come down and have a cup of tea with your mother?" Mar y Sol was surprised.

"Sure, I'll be right down." She put a bookmark in Dracula, and headed down the stairs. She was suspicious. Evelyn never knocked at her bedroom door, preferring to barge in with the hope of catching Mar y Sol at something she might "discipline" her for. And she never, ever, addressed Mar y Sol with any term of endearment, such as "sweetheart", "honey", "snapdragon," she thought, smiling, or anything else of that nature. The woman was up to something, and the only way Mar y Sol was going to find out what that something was would be to play along.

When she arrived in the kitchen, she found Evelyn sitting at the table, which was laid out with a teapot, cups, saucers, sugarbowl, cream pitcher, bowl of lemon slices, and a plate of little cookies. The tea was already poured. "Sit down, dear," Evelyn half-invited, half-ordered. Mar y Sol obeyed. "Sugar?"

"Yes."

"One lump or two?"

Mar y Sol sighed. Her mother was going to go through the whole ritual "One," she said. Evelyn placed a lump of sugar in Mar y Sol's cup. Only you would have a bowl of sugar that came in spoon-sized lumps, she thought. She stirred the tea, then sipped it, wincing as she did. The tea had a sour, earthy smell to it, and tasted bitter. The vapor made her nose feel slightly numb. "What kind of tea is this? It tastes terrible."

Evelyn smiled her saccharine smile. "It's a new kind of herbal tea. It's good for you. If the taste is too strong, you can put some lemon in it." Mar y Sol did so, but there wasn't much improvement. She was starting to feel lightheaded.

"So, what's in it?" she asked, dubious.

"Oh, natural herbs. Drink it, it's good for you."

Mar y Sol tried another sip, then another. The inside of her mouth began to feel numb, and she couldn't taste the tea as strongly. As she drank, Evelyn began to speak. "Now, dear, there's something I want to talk about. We had a little misunderstanding last Sunday." So that's what this is about. You're afraid I'm going to tell Dad I don't think he's my real father.

"You call that a misunderstanding?" Evelyn ignored the question. Mar y Sol took another drink of tea.

"You know your man friend, what's his name again?"

"Spike." The tea was nearly gone now, and Mar y Sol was starting to feel calm, even complacent.

"Spike, yes. You know he doesn't really care about you."

"He doesn't really care about me," agreed Mar y Sol, then she shook her head. Somehow that didn't seem right.

"And you don't want to see him anymore, do you?"

"I don't want to see him anymore."

"And you know your mother wasn't in trouble with a boy when she married your father. You understand that, don't you?"

"I understand." Repeating what Evelyn said was becoming to complicated. Better to just agree.

"Good. Now, I want you to go to your room and wait there until I call for you."

"Okay." Mar y Sol stood, left the kitchen, went to her room, and sat on her bed, staring blankly at the wall, waiting for her mother to call.

Evelyn finished her own tea, then washed the teapot and dishes, being careful to scrub the residue from Mar y Sol's cup. She couldn't have her husband smelling the potion, although the idea of using it on him did appeal to her. She put on her coat, hat and gloves, went out to the garage and climbed into her car. She turned on her GPS unit and scrolled down until she found the address she was looking for, then started the car and pulled out onto the street.

===

Spike left the Bronze, got into his car and drove to the old industrial district. He was alone. He had a date with Mar y Sol, but she hadn't shown up. He cursed softly under his breath. Something was wrong. It wasn't like Mar y Sol to stand him up. Maybe her mother had made other plans for her.

There was no point in going home, so he decided to patrol. That seemed to be his standard response to feeling alone. Oh, well, at least he was doing something useful.

===

Evelyn entered Willy's bar, sniffing disdainfully at the patronage. She preferred not to come here, not to do business with such low creatures, but it was necessary. What she needed done, she wasn't strong enough to do herself. She approached the bar, and Willy turned around to see her. "Hello, ma'am, what can I get for you tonight?"

Evelyn smiled, her plastic smile. "Nothing, thank you," she said with exaggerated politeness. "I was wondering if you could help me. I need to have some work done. I need to find a demon who can do it for me."

Willy put down the glass he was pretending to clean. "Work? What kind of work?"

"There's someone I need to have eliminated. A vampire."

A green-scaled demon with ram's horns interrupted. "You'll be hard put to find someone to do that job for you, woman," it said in a guttural voice. "We demons don't like killing other demons, even half-breeds like vampires."

"Not even a vampire who carries on with human women?" she asked. The demon perked its ears.

"Well, that may be a different case, depending on who the vampire is. And what you're willing to give in return."

Evelyn smiled. "Well, what I'm willing to give in return is a matter for discussion. As for the vampire, I believe he goes by the name of Spike."

"Spike?" the demon seemed surprised and almost pleased. Every other demon within earshot turned to listen with interest at the mention of the name. It seemed Evelyn was going to have no trouble finding someone to do this job for her.
Spike slept fitfully, plagued by dreams. Mar y Sol in some cold, dark place, bound hand and foot. A dagger raised over her, the same one they had found in the Kowalski's' attic. The dagger came down, plunged through Mar y Sol's neck. Spike woke up screaming. He looked at the clock. It was late afternoon. The sun would be low enough in the sky that he could brave a trip outdoors. He dressed, got his sun blanket, went to the phone booth that stood on the street corner just outside the cemetery. The last phone booth in Sunnydale, he mused. He picked up the receiver, put change in the coin slot, and dialed.

"You have reached Evvie's Book Nook," said Evelyn Kowalski's voice. "The store is closed now, so there is no one here to take your call. Our regular business hours are Monday through Friday, from nine a.m. to seven p.m. and Saturday from ten a.m. to six p.m. Thank you for calling." Then silence. There was no invitation to leave a message, just a beep.

"Mar y Sol, are you there? Mar y Sol? Please, God, if you're there, pick up." Then he heard a click and a dial tone He looked at his watch. It was barely five thirty, which meant the store had closed early. Spike slammed the receiver of the pay phone back into the cradle, then picked it up again, put thirty-five more cents into the coin slot, and dialed Mar y Sol's home number. He didn't really have much hope of reaching her. He knew that Mar y Sol was almost never home alone, and Evelyn would more than likely intercept the call. But he had to try.

"You have reached the Kowalski residence." Evelyn's cold, polite, formal voice again. "We are not available to take your call. Please leave your name, number and a brief message, and we will call you back as soon as we are able." God he hated that voice. He waited an interminable second for the beep, then said, "Mar y Sol? It's Spike. Please, if you're there, pick up the phone. Please?" Then a click and dial tone again. God, where can she be? It was possible that Mar y Sol had gone out to dinner with her mother, but it wasn't very likely. He looked to the western sky saw the red disk of the sun disappear below the horizon and let his blanket fall to the ground.

He was worried, almost frantic. It was Tuesday, and he had neither seen nor heard from Mar y Sol since Saturday morning. The image from his dream flashed through his mind again. He hung up the phone, then tried Willow's number. She wasn't home either, but her answering machine message was more inviting. "Will, it's Spike. Mar y Sol's gone missing. I'm going to go look for her at the Bronze, but I don't think I'll find her there. Meet me there as soon as you can." Then he hung up, picked up his battered sun blanket and carried it back to his crypt. Once there, he opened the small wardrobe closet that stood in the corner, took out his leather duster and put it on, found a pack of cigarettes and his lighter in the drawer of his bedside table, and left for the Bronze.

===

Mar y Sol was cold. She sat up, then stood, and tried to walk. She didn't get far. Her wrists and ankles were shackled and chained to the wall. She pulled at the chain, to no avail. It was anchored securely to the rock. She was in a cave. Her mother had drugged her, or fed her a potion, driven her to a cave outside of town, and chained her to the wall. And left her. No food- she had dropped by in the evening and brought her a badly cooked meal. But that was all. She hadn't left anything for Mar y Sol to eat later. She pulled at the chain again, but succeeded only in bruising her wrists. She knelt down and examined the anchor. It was secure, solid iron. Rust touched the surface in places. It had been here a while. She wondered who had put it here, and for what purpose. She wondered how her mother had known it was here. I should have stayed with Spike, she thought glumly and sat back down.

===

Willow entered the house, went to the kitchen to get something to eat and saw the light on the answering machine blinking. One message. She pressed the button, and heard Spike's frantic voice. Mar y Sol was missing. She checked her e-mail. Realistically, she wouldn't be expecting either Giles or Dawn and Fred to have Evelyn's contract translated for at least two or three days, but it was still worth checking. Nothing. She picked up the phone and dialed Dawn's number. "Hello?" said an almost frighteningly perky voice on the other end. It was Lynnette, Dawn's roommate.

"Hi, is Dawn there?" she asked, trying to hide the nervousness in her voice.

"No, I think she's at the library. She won't be back 'til late, I think she's trying to translate some kind on ancient Babylonian document thingy. Can I give her a message?"

Willow took a deep breath. "Yes, tell her Willow called, and to call me back, no matter how late she gets in. It's kind of urgent."

"Okie-dokie, I'll tell her," said Lynette. Willow hung up, breathed a sigh. For all her ditziness, Lynette was a fairly responsible girl. She could be relied upon to give Dawn the message. She pressed the speed dial button for Angel Investigations, hoping to raise Fred, or possibly Wesley, but got the answering machine. She left a brief message, then headed out for the Bronze.

When she arrived, she saw Spike pacing the balcony like a caged wildcat. Xander stood leaning on the railing, talking to him, probably trying to calm him down. Then it hit her that Spike was wearing the duster. That meant serious bad. Quickly she crossed the floor and climbed the stairs to join the two men. "Spike, it was a dream," Xander was saying. "It might not mean anything except you're worried about her and it's got down into your subconscious." Spike turned to reply, then saw Willow step onto the balcony.

"What's going on?" she asked. Spike briefly related the dream that he had awakened from in a sweat early that afternoon.

"The bitch is planning to kill her, Will. I can feel it in my gut."

"Or maybe that's just the spicy hot wings," said Xander. Spike shot him a withering glance. He shut up.

"So what's the plan?" Willow asked.

"Haven't really got one just yet. I thought I'd go to the house later when everyone's asleep, see if Evelyn's got Mar y Sol locked up. If she's not in the house, I'll go up to the attic and have another look in that box. There might be something inside that might tell us. something."

"I could do a locator spell," offered Willow. "I'd need you to bring me something of Mar y Sol's, though."

"I'll do that." Without another word, Spike descended the balcony stairs, crossed the floor and was out the door. Xander looked at Willow. "I hope he finds her," he said. "I can't remember the last time I saw him that crazed."

"I can," said Willow softly.

===

Spike didn't even make it to his car. A Shubagwa demon stepped from the shadows and stood between him and the De Soto, wielding an axe. Two more appeared behind him, carrying maces. Both also had axes slung over their backs. "Hello, Spike," the first demon said.

"Hello. What can I do for you?" Spike asked coolly.

"You can die," the demon replied, swinging its axe. Spike ducked, heard the blade whistle over his head, slicing a furrow into the chest of the creature behind him. He quickly surveyed his wounded opponent. Flesh wound. Just enough to piss the demon off. It swung its mace, Spike raised an arm and deflected the blow, but it cost him a cracked bone. He melted into his game face, planted a knee firmly into the demon's groin and wrested the mace from it, but not before the third demon brought its own weapon down across his back. He shouted with pain, then turned to face the creature, swung his captured weapon, shattered its collarbone. The demon kept fighting. The one he had kneed recovered, drew its axe and charged. Spike sidestepped and brought the mace down on its head, crushing its skill. The thing collapsed in a heap, dead.

"Two against one. I like these odds better," he snarled.

"We'll see how much you like being dead," the first demon replied. Both demons swung their weapons. Spike managed to keep his head attached to the rest of him, but he felt a mace deal a second blow to his back. Not as strong this time. The thing was fighting injured. He focussed his attention on this one, keeping one eye one its companion in order to avoid the axe. He charged, roaring, brought the mace down a second time, breaking its arm. From the corner of his eye, he saw the other swing the axe, again avoided decapitation, but felt the blade bite into his right shoulder. No matter. He was left-handed. He staggered slightly, then sidekicked his opponent in the belly, sending it sprawling. As it got to its knees, Spike raised his mace and drove in into the back of the demon's neck, crushing its spine, killing it.

He turned to face the remaining demon. He felt the pain of his injuries, hoped he could hold out. The demon laughed. Obviously it thought he was too badly injured to go on fighting. Spike intended to prove it wrong. As it stepped forward and swung its weapon, Spike met it with the mace, feeling the force of the blow in his cracked ribs. He swung at the demon, missed, swung again, striking a glancing blow off its shoulder. The thing roared, kicking Spike in the chest, sending him crashing against the dumpster. He fell to the ground, then struggled to his knees and looked up to see the Shubagwa standing over him. It brought down the axe, aiming for his neck. Spike raised the mace to block it, and the weapon was knocked from his hand. He ducked the blow, reached for the mace as the demon raised its weapon again. The mace was just out of reach. The demon took one final swing at Spike's neck, but before the blow landed the creature suddenly jerked backward, as though pulled by an invisible hand, and fell flat on its ass. He looked up to see Willow standing at the end of the alley, hands outstretched, eyes black. Xander was standing beside her. Quickly, Xander picked a mace up from the ground and clubbed the creature in the head before it could get to its feet. The thing was dazed, but still conscious. It stood, lifted its weapon and charged Xander, but was blocked by an invisible wall. The demon flung itself at Willow's force field once more, then turned to Spike and said, "This isn't over, vampire. I'll come for you when your friends aren't around to help you, and I will finish you." And with that, it turned and walked away.

Willow and Xander knelt beside Spike to help him up, but he waved them away. "No, don't touch me. A vampire's blood isn't something you want to get on you; you should know that by now." He struggled to his feet, staggered to his car and sat on the hood. Then he reached into his pocket, took out a pack of cigarettes, lit one and took a deep drag. "So, it's official, then. Mar y Sol's mum has got it in for me."

"How do you know." Xander began. Spike nodded toward the two demon corpses lying on the ground.

"Shubagwa demons. Mercenary types, not easily controlled. Their favorite food is human flesh. My guess, somebody promised them a meal as payment for doing me in. And I'll wager I know who's on the menu."

"They were going to get Mar y Sol's flesh as payment for doing the hit?" asked Xander. "Wouldn't it be easier to just catch their own dinner?"

"Well, yeah, if they wanted to get some homeless person who might be diseased or drug addicted, but Shubagwas like their meat from healthy animals. To get a tender young girl like Mar y Sol, they might chance it if they were just passing through town, but if they were settled, they wouldn't want to risk taking someone who might be missed. They don't like being hunted." He took another drag from his cigarette. "So, are the two of you up for another round of housebreaking?"

"We are," said Xander, "but I don't know about you. You look pretty thrashed. Maybe you should let me and Willow handle this one." Spike opened his mouth to argue, but Willow cut him off. "Xander's right, Spike. You should sit this one out. If Mar y Sol's mother is sending demons after you, you're going to need to be at full strength to fight them. Besides, I left a message for Dawn to call me tonight, and someone should be there to answer the phone when she does."

"And you're not there now because."

"Her roommate said she wouldn't be home until late. I guess she's been burning the midnight oil working on translating that contract. And I got your message to meet me here, and I figured I'd have a few hours before she called."

Spike sighed and flicked away his cigarette. "All right, then, casa del Summers it is."

"That's the spirit," said Xander as he opened the passengers side door of the De Soto and let Spike in. "Get some rest, drink plenty of bodily fluids, and you'll be as good as new again in no time."

===

The spell cast, Xander and Willow found an unlocked kitchen window and entered the Kowalski house. Willow headed upstairs, Xander to the basement, to look for Mar y Sol. They met again in the living room, both shaking their heads. "Let's check the attic," said Xander.

Once they were up there, they carefully moved the storage crates that concealed Evelyn Kowalski's wooden box of magick and ritual supplies. Xander shined a flashlight on it while Willow picked the lock and opened the lid. It was empty, well, almost empty. There was a small brown bottle at the bottom. Cautiously, Willow unscrewed the cap and sniffed the contents, winced, and closed it again. "This is bad," she said.

"What is it?" asked Xander. "A potion. It breaks the will of the person it's given to and makes them all compliant. It wears off in a day or two, though. You have to keep feeding it to them. I wonder why she left it here?"

"Maybe she didn't need it to work for very long," Xander suggested. "Maybe just long enough to get Mar y Sol out of the house and take her to the scene of the crime."

Willow shuddered. "Come on, let's go." They hastily arranged the boxes, not really caring if their activities were discovered this time, descended to the second floor, and Xander pushed the stairs back up. Willow went back into Mar y Sol's room, found a well-worn stuffed dog on the bed, and the two of them went back downstairs and out the kitchen window where they had climbed in. "Xand," said Willow tentatively, "you don't think she's already done it?"

"God I hope not," he replied.

===

Spike lay on Buffy's bed, he still thought of it as Buffy's bed, Buffy's house, trying to keep still. He had placed the telephone on the bed beside him so that when it rang, he wouldn't have to reach to answer it. He had managed to take a shower and bandage his wounds, but after he had lain down for a while, the pain had set in. He checked his watch. Just past midnight. Willow and Xander should be back from Mar y Sol's soon, hopefully with Mar y Sol herself in tow. Hopefully. He doubted they would find her in the house. The phone rang. He grabbed the receiver and said, "Dawn?"

"Spike?" It was Dawn, all right. "Is Willow there?"

"No, she and Xander are on a search and I hope rescue mission. I got worked over by a trio of demons so they left me behind to man the phone."

"Are you near the fax machine?" she asked.

"No, I'm in Buffy's room."

"Get down there quick. I got your girlfriend's mother's contract translated. It's bad, really bad."

"Alright, I'm going," he said, and sat up. "Ow," he said, feeling the pain in his injured shoulder, arm and ribs."

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, just a bad cut and a few broken bones. I've been hurt worse." He made his way down the stairs carrying the cordless phone. Dawn gave him a brief rundown.

"The demon's name is Vishthapha," she told him. "The actual document starts off reading like your basic soul-selling contract, I, Evelyn Kowalski, petition Vishthapha the great, Vishthapha the mighty, blah blah blah."

"I've got it," Spike told her, lifting the page from the tray of the fax machine. "OK, good," said Dawn. "Anyway, the terms are pretty standard, wealth, respect in the community, a good marriage."

Spike read along. "Oh, look at this. 'My husband must never find out the child I carry is not his.' Mar y Sol suspected as much."

"Look at the last paragraph." Spike did.

"Oh, dear God. 'In exchange for all of these boons, I promise Vishthapha my immortal soul. I may, if I wish, redeem my soul by the blood, the life, and the soul of my firstborn child, to be sacrificed on the eve of its twentieth birthday.' Dawn, Mar y Sol's birthday is this Saturday, and it's already Wednesday."

"Well, help is on the way, sort of. I talked to Fred, she said Wesley and Angel are checking out the old Wolfram and Hart building. There may be a grimoire in the archives that will tell us what time the ritual would take place, the kind of place it would be done in, hopefully narrow the search down a bit."

"That's not much to go on, is it?"

"No, but it's all we've got right now."

Spike sighed. "All right, then, I'll tell Willow. She scanned all of Giles's old books onto computer disk, so she might have something. If she doesn't, I'll try to get hold of Andrew. And Dawn? Thank you."

He dialed Willow's cell phone and heard the ring both over the handset and from the front porch. Xander and Willow were already back.
Chapter Six
"Sit still, you big baby," Willow ordered as Spike squirmed under her touch. She had made a fresh batch of healing ointment and was trying to apply it to the big cut on the back of his shoulder.

"But it stings," he protested.

"Shut up and drink the tea."

Spike sniffed the cup dubiously, then drained it. It contained the same herbs as the ointment that Willow was putting on his cut. "Hope this works," he said glumly.

"It should," said Willow as she opened a package that contained a large gauze patch. "There, all done," she said as she finished taping a bandage over the wound. They went to the dining room to see if Xander was making any progress searching the computer files. "What have we got?" Willow asked him.

"A lot that's interesting, but nothing really useful. Seems Vishthapha was worshipped in a really small area of Southern Mesopotamia about six thousand years ago. The cult died out by the Babylonian era, but enough people still wanted favors from him that there are still a few grimoires around."

"Not to mention the sacrificial daggers," said Spike. "Can we fight him?"

Xander scrolled down the screen. "Doesn't look like it. He's not big on personal appearances. He can be conjured, but the ritual involves human sacrifice. He's a real behind-the-scenes kind of a demon." Willow nudged Xander, and he moved aside to let her use the laptop. She scrolled down some more, but there was nothing more of interest. The article in the book Xander had been looking at was pretty short. "So, what's up with the buyback option?" he asked. "I've never heard of that before."

"It's not really common," Willow answered. "Most demons just want to deal with the person they're dealing with."

"And why wait until she's twenty years old to do the sacrifice?"

"Probably to give the parent serious bonding time. The sacrifice isn't a sacrifice unless you're sacrificing someone you love."

"So Evelyn isn't going to sacrifice Mar y Sol," said Spike. "She's just going to slaughter her."

"Looks like," Willow said softly.

"Fuck," he said, grabbing a pack of cigarettes and heading for the back porch.

Xander occupied himself by going through a leather-bound volume of demonology while Willow checked her e-mail to see if Angel and company had turned anything up. She found a message with an attachment. Judging by the size of the file, Fred had uploaded an entire grimoire. "Bingo," she said and opened the file. Xander decided enough time had elapsed for Spike to cool down a bit, and went out to the porch to check on him.

He found Spike midway through his third cigarette, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. Xander had seen Spike cry exactly twice before- the first time was when Buffy had jumped from the tower to close the dimensional portal opened by Dawn's blood, the second, when she had been killed by the N'sguri demon and they laid her in the ground for good. "You okay?" he asked.

Spike flicked his cigarette away and turned to face him. "Did you actually read the contract? The redemption clause?"

"Yeah, I read it." He began to quote. "'I may if I wish redeem my soul with the blood, life, and soul of my firstborn child'."

"Wonderful choice of words, that," he said, lighting yet another cigarette. "Can redemption be that easy, Xander? Spill the blood of an innocent, and save your soul?"

Xander thought a moment. "Well, if I remember right, there's a whole religion that was founded on that idea. Maybe you've heard of it. It's called Christianity."

Spike laughed bitterly. "I rather think that there's a difference between an incarnate god sacrificing himself to save all of humanity and a woman sacrificing her daughter to save her own sorry ass."

"You've got me there," Xander admitted. Just then, Willow appeared in the doorway.

"Guys, get back in here. I've got something." Spike crushed out his cigarette and they followed Willow back into the dining room.

Spike leaned over Willow's shoulder as she scrolled down the computer screen. She summarized what they were reading for Xander. "The ritual begins at sunset with the drawing of the sacred circle. Then there's a long litany to recite."

"How long?" asked Xander. She turned the laptop so he could see the screen. He hit the scroll button. The litany covered several densely printed pages. "That's long," he said. "Should buy us time."

"A couple of hours at least," Spike agreed. It didn't seem like much, but with less than two days to find her, even minutes might count.

Willow continued. "After the litany comes the lighting of the ceremonial fire. There's a lot of ritual involved with that, too. Then finally, the priest, or the petitioner, plunges the dagger through the victim's neck and tears their throat out and lets the blood run down onto the coals."

"So, Vishthapha likes his meat koshered."

"No, he doesn't consume the flesh," said Willow. "Just the smoke from the blood."

"And the soul," added Spike, his voice strangely void of emotion. Willow guessed that he was completely exhausted, mentally. She scrolled down some more.

"The flesh is eaten afterward in a ritual meal."

"Which, it would appear, she's planning to share with three Shubagwa demons. Well, we have the what and the when. All we need is the where."

"Well, Vishthapha's temples were built inside caves that opened to the west, which narrows things down, but not enough," she said. "Looks like it's spell time."

===

"You're not going to get away with this, you know that." Mar y Sol told Evelyn around a mouthful of cold, dry chicken. Evelyn laughed. "Do you think your lover is going to rescue you?"

"Maybe. Or if he can't, he'll avenge me."

"No he won't. You see, your Prince Charming is dead."

"Well, yeah, I knew that when I met him." Then she realized what her mother was really saying. "Oh, you mean dead dead. Not likely. I don't think you could take him on."

"No, I couldn't, but there are others who could. The demons of this town hate him. It was easy to find three who would kill him, for a price."

"And you paid them with what? I don't think demons have a lot of use for money."

"No, but they do have use for food, and the flesh of a young girl like you would make for a lovely meal."

"Unlike the flesh of this dead bird," Mar y Sol said, throwing a chicken bone at her mother. Evelyn only laughed and collected the dishes. "I'll be back tomorrow night. After I've made my sacrifice, I'll give the demons their payment." She turned and walked out of the cave.

Can it be true? Mar y Sol wondered. Could she really have had Spike killed? It seemed unlikely. She knew Spike was a powerful demon-fighter, and had killed a lot of other- and underworldly creatures. Still, if what her mother said was true, three against one were some pretty dicey odds. She breathed a silent prayer that Spike was still alive.

===

Spike, Xander and Willow stared at Mar y Sol's stuffed dog, which was sitting inside the circle on the edge of a map of Sunnydale and the surrounding area. Nothing was happening. Willow checked her spell book again. "Well, we had the right herbs, I did the incantation right. I don't understand why it's not working."

"Maybe Mrs. K. took her farther out of town than we thought," suggested Xander.

"Or maybe Mrs. K. still has her mojo working," countered Spike as he lit yet another cigarette. The room was filled with a haze. He had been chain smoking since he had gotten confirmation of Evelyn Kowalski's designs on her daughter. "Mar y Sol told me she was a social pariah in high school. I think the bitch has been keeping her in some kind of bubble so there would be no one to miss her when she was gone. It might also be concealing her."

"What I don't understand is why she didn't just do a spell to break you two up."

"She might have tried," said Willow. "Third party spells can be a bit tricky. If the person doing it doesn't have an emotional attachment to one of the other two parties, sometimes it just goes kerflooey." She shuddered at what she had just said. She could believe a woman would kill her own child; her own mother had once tried to burn her at the stake, but that had been under the influence of a demon's spell. To be so detached that she could plan the murder from the day the child was born, even before she was born, was an idea that Willow couldn't quite get her mind around. She shook her head. "Well, I guess we get to start searching the caves." She got online, did a search and found a geological map of the area around Sunnydale.
Chapter Seven
Spike woke up just at sunset, went to the mouth of the cave he had spent the day in. He watched as the last rays of the sun faded, put on his duster and went outside to continue his search. The hills around Sunnydale were pockmarked with caves. Willow had found the locations of forty-two that faced west, and Spike had gone out to begin searching over her protestations. His injuries still pained him, but vampires healed fast, and Willow's ointment and herbs had speeded the process. Willow and Xander had both taken the day off work to help with the search, but it was slow going. Spike guessed that unless she was found, Mar y Sol had about twenty-eight hours to live, and there were still two dozen caves left to search. He sighed, marked the entrance with a neat pile of large stones so Xander and Willow wouldn't waste time with a redundant search tomorrow, climbed down the hill and walked toward the next unsearched cave.

===

Mar y Sol couldn't believe the lunch her mother had brought her- actually it was more of a brunch. Evelyn had brought her the meal at ten in the morning. And what a meal it was. Bul go ke from the Kim Chee Palace, along with vast amounts of kim chee, steamed brown rice and even sake. "So, what's this, you fattening me up for the kill?" she asked as she tore into the bul go ke. The beef was seasoned just the way she liked it- consciousness alteringly hot.

"You might say that," Evelyn replied. "Shubagwa demons like flavor in the meat. Giving the victim spicy food seasons it."

"And here I've been seasoning meat after it's been killed. Silly me." She dug into the kim chee, then had a few bites of rice to cool her mouth. She tried the sake. It was excellent. Evelyn watched her eat with satisfaction. It seemed the girl was resigned to her fate. "Enjoy your meal, dear. It's going to be your last." And she left the cave.

Mar y Sol surveyed the food, and realized Evelyn was wrong. The portion size was typical of most Oriental restaurants- far more than one person could eat at one sitting. There would be plenty left over for a late lunch. She ate heartily but was sparing with the sake. Evelyn was not an intelligent woman. Even if Spike really was dead and there was no hope of rescue, she might make a mistake, give Mar y Sol an opening, an opportunity for escape. She wanted to keep her strength up, but she also wanted to have a clear head.

===

Willow and Xander found the cave Spike was sleeping in about an hour before sunset. The sound of their feet shuffling on the stone floor awakened him. "Any luck?" he asked.

"No," said Xander, "But this would be cave thirty-eight, and the last four are pretty close together, if the map is right. It won't take long to search them."

Spike sat up. "It had better not. Mar y Sol doesn't have long."

===

Mar y Sol was suspended head down over a grate. Beneath her was a bed of coals, not yet lit. Her mother stood beside the grate, dressed for the occasion in a simple red tunic dress with a black robe over it. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders. Evelyn hadn't given her the opportunity she had hoped for. She had struggled, but the shackles hadn't allowed her the freedom of movement she needed to put up an effective fight. So she hung here, listening to her mother read a long litany from a gigantic leather-bound book.

"Vishthapha, the great one, hear my prayer. Vishthapha the mighty one, hear my prayer. Vishthapha the all-seeing, hear my prayer. Vishthapha the wise, hear my prayer.

"Vishthapha, who knoweth where socks that get lost in the laundry go." Mar y Sol chimed in. She was afraid, but she was determined not to let her mother see her fear.

Evelyn slapped her. "Shut up," she ordered, then continued. "Vishthapha, bestower of boons, hear my prayer. Vishthapha, sender of banes, hear my prayer."

"Visthapha, finder of lost car keys."

"Shut up."

"Hey, just trying to help." If Mar y Sol was going to die, she was going to play this for all it was worth. Plus, interrupting the ritual might buy her some time. Even if Spike was dead, Willow and Xander might still be looking for her.

===

Spike picked his way through the rocks at the base of the hill without benefit of a flashlight. He could see well enough by the light of the crescent moon. Willow and Xander didn't have the benefit of vampiric night vision. They used flashlights. Xander shone a beam up the side of the hill. He could see the mouth of the cave about a hundred feet up. The hill was so steep it was almost vertical. "Well," said Xander. "This is cave forty- one."

"Right, then, let's have a look." He began to climb, almost spider-like, up the rocky slope.

"I didn't know he could do that," said Xander. Willow shrugged, and the two of them began to climb the hill slowly, picking their way along an ancient and narrow trail.

===

Evelyn was nearing the climax of her ritual. The coals were lit, and she was coming to the end of the final group of prayers. "And now, Vishthapha, accept my sacrifice, that my soul may be redeemed!" With that, she raised the dagger and plunged it toward Mar y Sol's throat. In that instant, Mar y Sol twisted her upper body, and instead of going through her neck, the blade of the dagger just cut the surface of her skin. She wasn't about to just hang there passively and let herself be killed. She swung back and forth over the coals. Evelyn reached out a hand to steady her, raised the weapon again and from behind her, a hand grabbed her by the wrist and took the dagger from her.

"Spike!" cried Mar y Sol, with a mixture of joy and relief. Evelyn gasped in horror. "But. but, you're dead!"

"Yes, I am, what of it?"

"But I had you killed!"

"Tried to have me killed, you mean. Your demon friends weren't quite successful in their mission."

Evelyn tried to take back her dagger, but Spike pulled away, keeping it out of her reach. "Ah-ah, naughty girl. You shouldn't play with knives. You might hurt someone."

"You have to let me finish," Evelyn said, starting to sound panicked. "If I don't make my sacrifice, I'll be damned."

"And you think you can save your soul by killing your own daughter?"

"I can redeem it with her blood."

"Her life and her soul, yeah, I read the contract. But it doesn't work that way. See, you damned yourself when you sold your soul, and you'll damn yourself if you kill Mar y Sol. Vishthapha may not get your soul, but you'll rot in Hell all the same."

Xander and Willow reached the cave entrance. Spike gestured to them to get Mar y Sol down, while he continued to fend Evelyn off. "But her blood will redeem me!" she insisted.

"No, it won't. It isn't blood that redeems you. It's love. That's the whole point of the sacrifice, isn't it? To give up the one thing you love more than anything else? And without love, there can be no redemption. You can't be redeemed, because you don't love."

"That's not true!" Evelyn screamed. "I have to make my sacrifice! I have to save my soul!" She made one more grab at the dagger, then saw that Willow and Xander had released Mar y Sol. She stood upright, then staggered, dizzy from the blood that had rushed to her head, her ankles numb from the shackles. Willow and Xander supported her and began to lead her from the cave. Their way was blocked by a Shubagwa demon.

"You!" hissed Evelyn. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to collect my payment," the demon said, reaching for Mar y Sol. She pulled back and tried to make for the mouth of the cave. The demon knocked her back into the wall. She pressed against it, looked for a means of escape. Spike stepped between them, facing the Shubagwa, his game face on.

"Your payment for what?" he asked. "You didn't do the job."

"I don't mind being paid in advance," the demon replied, raising its axe. Spike charged it, brandishing the dagger, opened up a deep cut in the thing's belly. The Shubagwa swung its weapon, but Spike dodged the blow, then kicked it hard in the side, cracking its ribs. He grabbed Mar y Sol by the wrist.

"Come on, let's get out of here." She got to her feet and followed him, stumbling from the pain in her ankles. He picked her up, slung her over his shoulder, and carried her out of the cave with Xander and Willow following.

The Shubagwa struggled to its feet, turned toward Evelyn, and began to advance on her. "What are you doing? You get away from me," she ordered.

"No, woman, I won't get away from you. I was promised a meal of human flesh, and I intend to receive it." The demon continued to walk toward her as she backed away.

"I promised you my daughter's body after she was sacrificed, in exchange for killing Spike. You didn't. No, oh, God, no, God, please help me."

===

Spike, Willow, Xander and Mar y Sol heard Evelyn scream, choke, then fall silent. They didn't look back. They could guess what was happening in the cave. Mar y Sol turned to Spike, her eyes wounded, stung with tears. He put a comforting arm around her and led her away from the hill.

===

Mar y Sol lay in the bed, dozing fitfully. Spike sat beside her, stroking her hair, trying to soothe her. "Shh, it's all right, snapdragon. You're safe now." After a while, she fell into a deeper sleep. Spike tucked the blankets more snugly around her. He heated some milk and put it in a thermos on the bedside table in case she woke up later. Then he left the crypt to join Xander on patrol.

===

"So, how is she?" asked Xander, as he picked his way through the broken glass.

"Not good. She hasn't even cried yet. She just sits there with this hollow look in her eyes."

"Yeah, I know the look. I saw it when I picked her up. I can't believe her father would just throw her out like that."

"But he's not her father, that's the thing." Spike stopped and leaned against a brick wall. "I can understand how he feels though, finding out he's been living a lie for the past twenty years."

Xander stumbled over a bit of rubble. He hated patrolling in the industrial district. "Yeah, but just putting her stuff out in the yard and locking the door like that was still pretty harsh. He could have at least waited until after the funeral" He pressed his back against the corner of a doorway, working at a kink in his back. " How did he find out, anyway?"

"Anonymous letter. He got it before he even knew his wife was dead."

"I still wish Mar y Sol would stay with Willow. I'm really not liking the idea of her living in a vampire's crypt."

Spike winced at the jab. "Yeah, I know what you mean. It's not exactly luxury accommodations, but she feels safe with me. I'm going to let her stay as long as she needs to." He sighed. "God, it hurts me to see her in that much pain."

Xander smiled. "What are you smiling at, Harris?"

"You. I never realized you could be all empathetic."

"Comes with having a soul, mate." They walked on.

"You know, Spike, sometimes I think I could get to like you."

Spike looked incredulous. "Really? I don't think I'll ever like you."

They both laughed, and rounded a corner into the next alleyway.