VERTIGO


CHAPTER 3

A low keening escaped Buffy when she looked into the mirror. Oh God... Nothing but the room behind her reflected in it, with the rumpled bed and the overturned chair. Her hands flew up to her face, her fingers trailed across the ridges and bumps of her vampire face. Her eyes grew big with horror. She whimpered again and hung her head, hiding her face behind the strands of blond hair that fell forward.

"Buffy, luv, look at me," Spike said softly somewhere at her right shoulder.

Buffy shook her head. "No."

He sighed, his breath a whiff of cool air against her cheek. His fingers clasped her shoulders, forcing her to face him. She resisted a moment, then with a sigh of her own allowed him to turn her around. Her head whipped up and her eyes blazed with anger when her gaze met his.

"Look at me. Look at me!" she hissed between her fangs. "Happy now, Spike? Proud of what you did?" Her composure broke and tears welled in her eyes. They looked odd, coming from the yellow irises.

"No, luv," Spike whispered. "Not happy. I didn't have a choice, we couldn't lose you again." He ran a finger along her brow ridges and she shrunk back from his touch. "It's not so hard to control," he told her. "Concentrate."

A small furrow appeared among the ridges as she tried to make the demon retreat. Her appearance flickered between ridged and bumpy and the smooth planes of her human face. Then she stood before him. Buffy. As she used to be. A bit paler perhaps, but just as beautiful, with her green eyes, dark lashes and pink lips. She lifted a hand to prod her features.

He smiled. "See?" he said. "It's not so bad."

Not a smart thing to say. Renewed anger surged through her and the demon threatened to come forward again.

"Not so bad?" she yelled. "Not so bad? Spike, you made me a friggin' vampire! I can't even be in the same room with my sister without wanting to feed from her! How much worse do you think it could be?"

"You could be dead," he whispered.

Her shoulders slumped. "That wouldn't be worse. That would be better. Anything would be better than this."

"You'll learn to control it, Buffy," Spike promised. "I did."

"You have a chip," she spat. "You don't control it, it controls you! What have I got?"

"Me, pet," he said. "As long as you need me. As long as you want me. I'll help. There's still some of the old, proud, stubborn slayer in there. You only have to find it."


* * *


"What am I going to tell Willow and Xander? Or Giles!" Buffy let out a strangled noise. "Giles is going to have a heart attack when he finds out! Thank God Mom isn't around to see this!"

Dawn wished she would shut up. Buffy had been yammering non-stop about her fate for the past three hours and it was beginning to seriously grate on her nerves. Guiltily the teenager wondered if perhaps they should have let Buffy die. Her sister was even more aggravating undead than when she had been alive.

They had gone down to the kitchen and were seated around the kitchen table. Actually, Dawn thought as she watched the other two, things looked normal. Well, as normal as they ever did around the Summers' house. On her left Spike sat nursing a mug of O-neg and Buffy was being her usual annoying self on her right. Yes, everything looked normal. If you discounted the mug of blood in front of Buffy that she sipped from when she wasn't voicing complaints and grievances.

"We'll tell them nothing," Spike suggested, raising an eyebrow in Dawn's direction.

"Yes!" Dawn agreed quickly. "Nothing. It'll be, like, our secret!" Hopefully she looked at Buffy.

"Dawn! Really!" Buffy exclaimed after a shooting a glare in Spike's direction. "I can't not tell them. What about the sudden sun allergy? How do I explain that they'll need to invite me into their homes again? Not to mention the liquid diet?"

"Slayer's got a point," Spike muttered into his blood.

"Don't call me that," Buffy snapped, finishing off her drink. She crinkled her nose and sniffed, leaned closer to Spike and sniffed again. "What's that?" she asked, her eyes trained on his mug.

"Blood, of course," he said, pulling the cup away from her scrutiny. "What else would it be?"

"It smells different. Sweeter."

Spike's features softened. "It's human. O-neg. Bought fair and square from Willie's, so don't give me grief."

"Can I have a taste? Please?" Buffy batted her eyelashes at him for a moment before directing her gaze back to the cup in his hands.

Dawn swallowed. The nausea in the pit of her stomach threatened to overwhelm her.

"No!" Spike raised the mug and swallowed its contents in one gulp. "I don't want you to taste human blood."

"But it smells nice!"

"Buffy, it'll only make things harder for you. Stay with the pig's blood, all right, you'll be happier that way. And so will Dawn."

Dawn nodded in agreement. It was bad enough that her sister had a craving for blood without her going to hunt humans. She really hadn't thought things through last night, Dawn secretly admitted to herself. Spike was the only vampire she knew up close and personal, and he had never threatened to eat her like Buffy did. She always felt safe around Spike. She knew the stories of course. Both Buffy and Giles told her plenty to discourage her from befriending the vampire. And Spike himself was always good for a story or two when she asked, his words giving her delicious chills. But that was all they'd ever been: stories. Now, slowly, it was beginning to sink in that those stories had really happened, what it truly meant to be a vampire without a government chip. And Dawn wasn't sure she liked this new Buffy much.

"More!" Buffy demanded. She slammed her mug on the table in front of Dawn.

Dawn blinked. "Get it yourself! I'm not your maid." Anger began to stir deep within her. This Buffy was insufferable! If it wasn't bad enough before, when she was always bugging her about homework and curfews.

"I died, you have to be nice to me. Or I'll bite you."

"Spi-ike!"

Spike rolled his eyes in silent suffering. "Buffy, shut up. Dawn, please get another bag from the fridge."

"Fine!" Dawn pushed back her chair with so much force that it fell over. She ignored it as she stomped to the fridge and flung it open. "You should have let her die!" From the corner of her eye she caught Spike flinch but she was too upset to feel guilty.

"We're all out," she informed them after a look in the fridge. "No more blood at the Summers Drive-Thru for Hungry Vamps." She folded her arms across her chest and grinned at Buffy with a satisfied smirk. There. Take that.

"Spike, I'm hungry," Buffy whined. "Can I go eat Dawn now?"

Spike lowered his head and rested it on the table's surface.


* * *


So, this was what hell was like, thought Spike, thumping his head against the table hard enough to make his skull throb in protest. None of that eternal fire and infinite pain rubbish, but two women driving him out of his mind with their bickering.

"I. Want. Blood." Buffy demanded. She marked each word with a bang of her fist on the table.

"And I said we're out. Go get some yourself!" Dawn yelled back.

"Both of you, shut the fuck up!" Spike roared loud enough for the girls' mouths to snap shut and their faces to turn to him. Dawn's eyes were wide with shock and Buffy's were glimmering with... with something that he didn't want to think about too much.

"Nibblet," Spike continued, "you're not helping here, luv. Why don't you let me talk to Buffy alone for a minute?" The last thing he needed was Dawn provoking Buffy into going out and making her first kill. The longer he could keep her from crossing the boundary into killerdom, the better her chances of learning to control her cravings. Or so he hoped. Nobody had ever done what he tried to accomplish here: teach a newborn vampire to resist their urge to kill. He was flying by the seat of his pants, fumbling forward without compass or map, and he hoped he was doing the right thing. If not, Buffy's mates would probably stake them both.

Dawn opened her mouth to protest. He quirked an eyebrow and her mouth snapped shut again. Her lips puckered in a stubborn pout, however.

"Fine," she muttered and stomped from the kitchen.

Spike turned his attention to Buffy. She looked at him with barely concealed hunger, despite the numerous bloodbags she had consumed. It got better over time, but the first night the bloodlust was the worst.

"I'll get you some more blood," he said and her eyes lit up. "You stay--" He paused. He couldn't leave Buffy alone with Dawn. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. "No, you come with me. And stay close. No wandering off, you hear?"


* * *


Spike inserted the metal filament into the lock and wiggled it expertly. Less than thirty seconds later he felt the tumblers give and with a muted click the door unlocked. He cast a quick look around to make sure that the street was still deserted. A few feet away, Buffy lounged against the pole of a streetlamp, looking bored and eager at the same time.

He slipped through the crack of the door and quickly made his way across the dark store. In the far corner stood a large walk-in freezer, where the blood was stashed. Spike turned up his nose with disgust at the heavy smell of pig's blood. Raiding the hospital would have been more to his liking, except that stealing human blood would've given Buffy a taste for the stuff. Thus, soddin' pig's blood it was going to be. He glumly imagined he'd have to live on it for a while as well. Had to set a good example for the slayer, after all.

He grabbed a couple of containers and left the store.

No Buffy in sight.

Damn.

She never listened to him when she was alive. What ever made him think she would change the habit when she was dead?

She couldn't be far; he'd been inside the shop less than a minute. Spike cocked his head and pricked up his ears, listening to the quiet sounds of the night. There! A soft deep-throated growl, the quick patter of feet, then a muffled human scream. The noises came from the alley behind the butcher's shop.

Spike ran to the corner and paused. A pair of boys, fraternity kids by the looks of their clothes, huddled in the corner between a dumpster and the shop wall. They were drunk, or incredibly stupid to go wandering about in this part of town after dark. Not too drunk though to know that their lives were in danger from the frail blonde, who advanced upon them with slow deliberation; the heady scent of fear was strong in the air.

Buffy was taunting the frat boys. "That wasn't nice, to run away from me. Not very polite, are you? C'mon, all I want is a little bite, a small taste." While she spoke, she moved closer, step by step, shifting her weight from her left foot to her right and back. At last, the biggest of the two kids, a prat with a shock of dark hair curling on his forehead, gathered enough courage and lunged for her. She laughed. With ease, Buffy blocked his right hook and cuffed him across the face. He dropped like a brick. She snatched the other kid, swung him around and pulled him close to her, her arm around his throat.

Spike couldn't help but admire her feral beauty. Slim of built, she moved with the grace of a lioness. Fierce, unafraid, light on her feet. She was a dancer, all right. Like him. The moment he laid eyes on the slayer, all those years ago at The Bronze, he had known she would make a wonderful addition to their little family. He'd never wanted to kill her. Not really. He had wanted to turn her.

Last night, at last, his most secret dream had come true.

For the longest time Spike hesitated, stuck in indecision. Every undead cell in his body desired to give in to the urge, dump the containers of disgusting pig blood, and join Buffy in the fray. They would be so good together. The soddin' chip wouldn't be a problem. She could kill for him, like Dru had once done. Together, they could rule the world.

A sudden memory flashed behind his mind's eye. Dawn, this morning, her face pinched with worry. "Buffy will be like you, won't she? Not all 'grrr' and evil?"

"Pet, I am evil," he had told her.

Stubbornly, Dawn shook her head. "No, you're not. If the chip went broke would you kill me?"

"No, Nibblet, never." It had taken him less than a heartbeat (hers) to answer her.

"Then you're not all evil. I want Buffy to be like you."

"She will," Spike promised against his better judgement. "She will."

Not if she sank her fangs in fratboy's throat, she wouldn't.

Spike grunted in frustration. When had he become bloody Superpoof?

"Buffy, no!" he yelled. He dropped all but one of the containers of blood. Buffy raised her head upon his approach. A growl rumbled deep in her throat, a warning not to come closer. Again, Spike was reminded of a lioness, a lioness defending her kill. Like the predator of the plains, every vampire was possessive of its kill; if he wasn't careful, she could easily turn on him.

Cautiously Spike sidled up to her. "Buffy, luv, you don't want to do this." He kept his gaze locked on hers, capturing her yellow eyes and drawing her attention away from the young man in her arms. "Here. I have somethin' for you." He wrung the lid off the container in his hand and held it out to her. The smell struck her like a blow to the face. She reeled at the heavy scent, lips curling, and dropped her victim. Instead, she snatched the container from his grip and gulped down the thick, red liquid.

Spike's undead heart clenched in sympathy. A lot of fledglings didn't survive the bloodlust of the first days. It drove them crazy, made them reckless and throw all caution into the wind. They died quickly, unless their sire was prepared to take them under his wing. Like Dru had taken care of him. Like he was going to take care of Buffy.

While Buffy drank, the two college kids stirred at their feet. Spike ignored them as they regained consciousness and what little wits they possessed. When they noticed their captor was distracted they snuck off as fast as their feet could carry them. Spike watched them go with a mixture of relief and yearning.

"Oh God, what am I doing?" Buffy's cry pulled his attention back to her. Her human face glared at him as she threw the empty container at Spike. He ducked, barely in time, and felt the current of air when the plastic flew over his head.

"Luv, you know I had no choice," Spike tried. He took a step closer to her and she took a step backward.

She held out her hand, palm forward, fingers up. "You stay away from me. I don't want to hear you tell me that you love me and couldn't let me die. That everything will be all right. It will never be all right!"

He reached for her, but was unprepared for her sudden assault. Her left foot flew up, connected with his chin and his head snapped backward as he lost his balance and went down. His skull hit the pavement, hard, and all was black.


TBC


DISCLAIMER: this story is based on the Mutant Enemy/UPN/Twentieth Century Fox Television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All characters belong to their original creators. The story was written for entertainment only and no copyright infringement was intended.