Chapter Five

"You son of a bitch!" Halfrek screamed, leaning to collect the shattered remains of her amulet. "I was trying to help you!"

Spike grabbed her wrist, jerking her up until she was nose-to-nose with him. "I don't need your help, Cecily." His voice was dangerously calm. "I never asked for your help. I never wanted your help."

"You bastard!" she shrieked. "You think you got something over on me, don't you? You think by breaking my necklace you've repaid me for whatever wrong you believe I've done to you!"

He looked at her incuriously. "Haven't I?"

She pulled back on her arm, struggling to free herself from his grip. "You arrogant fool! Do you think D'Hoffryn would just sit by and let one of his demons suffer? I'm the best he's got! As soon as he finds out about it he'll give me another amulet!"

"Right. And then you plan to extract your revenge on me for my boorish behavior." He paused. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Cecily, but aren't vengeance demons barred from performing their own vengeance spells?"

She paled.

"…which would mean a vengeance demon only has the power to grant the wishes of others, not to extract revenge on their own enemies." She opened her mouth to speak, but Spike held his finger to her lips. "No, no. Don't argue something you know to be true. It's a waste of time and energy."

He sighed.

"When I think about all we've been through together, Cecily…all those years ago. You knew me as no one else does. You were, in a way, the catalyst in my salvation. Had it not been for your…well, rather nasty behavior to me, I might have never met Drusilla. I might never have become a vampire without you. I suppose I owe you a lot in that respect."

He smiled at her.

"And I always repay my debts."

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Buffy could not believe the nerve of him. Was there no tender moment Spike wouldn't ruin with his obsession? She had gone to him to make amends, to apologize to him for being so hard on him. Now she realized she hadn't been hard enough. Despite everything, she had said to him—things she had said a dozen times or more—he still believed they would end up together. She had not wanted to tell him such harsh things; she had wanted to go to him as a friend, to talk to him as a friend would. She wanted him to understand, finally, that she loved him…but only as a friend. And of course, he would not allow that. He had to misunderstand everything and argue with everything she said. He had to make her hurt him when it was the last thing she wanted to do.

Buffy quickened her pace when she saw the sign for the city park. She wasn't ready to go home yet, and she did not feel comfortable hanging around the graveyard when Spike was in one of his black moods. She scowled. Of course, when was he not in one of his black moods these days? He was like a child, throwing a tantrum whenever he was told he couldn't have something he wanted. She had thought that it was the lack of a soul that made him so stubborn, so utterly lacking in self-control, but that did not seem to be the case. After all, he had a soul now…and he was just as willful, just as uninhibited, as he had ever been.

Had Angel ever been like this? She didn't think so. Angel had always been concerned over her feelings; it had been his idea to keep their relationship platonic when he realized how dangerous a sexual relationship could be. He was willing to banish himself from Sunnydale—willing to separate himself from all he knew—just to keep her safe. He had never thrown childish tantrums and cried for something he knew he couldn't have. He had always been selfless, generous. Why couldn't Spike be the same way? He was a hundred and twenty-two years old, for heaven's sake. He should be a little more mature than this.

And since Spike wasn't the same way, why did Buffy love him so much?

She wrinkled her nose a bit at this last thought. Loving him was so distasteful an emotion she had a hard time admitting it even to herself. Not because he was a vampire. If he had been the least bit like Angel, she would not have minded the demon bit half so much. Angel was good and noble. Loving him had been painful for her, but it was still a reasonable kind of love. Spike, however… There was nothing good in him! How could she love something that had no redeeming qualities? Something that was evil and…icky? She couldn't. That was all. She just couldn't.

Buffy set her jaw in determination, hardening her heart against the pangs of guilt as she thought of Spike's wounded expression. She could not afford to think about this in terms of his feelings. She had to think about what was best for her…and loving him was not good for her at all.

So she wouldn't do it anymore.

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How?

The thought throbbed in his head, keeping in time perfectly with the thumping of his heart, the pounding of his feet against the soft, well-kept grass of the cemetery.

How…how could someone live through pain like this?

His chest felt like a gaping wound—each step, each breath, each beat further ravaging the already bleeding mess that was once his soul.

His soul.

Fuck that. What was it about a soul that made you better? What? A soul was nothing but a weapon for your enemies, a blade you carried that could be turned on you in a moment of weakness. The feelings he had were the same as before, only more intense. The instincts were the same, only tempered with guilt. He was the same bloody person as before! Nothing had changed except that now he was alive and wished he weren't. Same trappings, different cage. It seemed no matter how long he lived or where or with whom, he would always be the same person inside. The same awkward, unlovable William. Cecily had been right. He had not changed at all.

A slight smile, completely devoid of humor, tugged at the corners of his lips. Cecily was wrong, however, to assume he would merely stand by and bear her insults. The old William might have done it—the old William had done it more than once before. But Spike—who was essentially William of another time and place—did not. He bore Buffy's abuse with fair good grace because he loved her. And in a way, he needed the abuse. Pain was a part of loving; Dru had taught him that and he knew it to be true. But he didn't love Cecily. Not anymore. Not for a long, long time. And he didn't need her abuse. That was something different, at least. William had been content to take abuse from everybody…Spike was not. And unlike William, Spike was not content to keep his pain to himself. When he was hurting, he made those around him hurt too—another lesson Cecily had learned the hard way.

The breaking of the pendant was supposed to have been his revenge. But it had not left him satisfied. If anything, it had simply fed his rage, made him want to hurt her even more. So he did. For the first time in his existence—in this form or any other—he had allowed himself the luxury of losing complete control with a woman. He had not killed her; though if he had wanted to Spike knew nothing would have stopped him from doing so. But he didn't want to kill her. He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to humiliate her the way she had humiliated him so long ago—the way she tried to do again today. He backhanded her when she screamed at him for breaking her necklace, knocking her to the floor. When she lay there crying, he pulled her up by the hair, pushed her into the wall.

"Here—take your sodding pendant"—shoving the broken shards into her palm until both their hands were cut and bleeding.

He could have killed her, but the humiliation was what he wanted. It was enough.

He threw her out of the crypt and into the dirt where she belonged. Then he stepped over and walked away, leaving her in a crumpled heap, crying over her bleeding hand.

Spike's own lacerated palm began to sting, drawing him out of his reverie. The moment's satisfaction gained in his memory fled, leaving only the intense pain that seemed to characterize human existence. The anguish of this night was so reminiscent of his last night as a human he could almost expect Drusilla to come out of the shadows to deliver him from his hell. She didn't of course. She wouldn't. It was up to Spike to deliver himself this time.

And he knew just where to start.

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Willow was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, one of Giles' dark arts books propped open on her knees. She felt better than she had in weeks. School was going well, the Scoobies were treating her more normally, and the pain of Tara's death was beginning to ease. She still missed her—she would always miss her—but now the grief had diminished enough for her to focus on her memories instead of brooding over the tragic circumstances of Tara's death. She was finally able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour at night—no lying awake, worrying. And no more nightmares.

Of course, she did experience occasional pangs of guilt over helping Spike. Tara would not have liked her returning to magic. Nor would she have approved of taking the books from the Magic Box, even if they were planning to return them. However, even the memory of Tara could not waylay Willow's determination to help Spike. She wasn't sure why she felt so emotionally invested in this. Perhaps it was merely a wish to return recent kindnesses. More likely, it was a desire to heal old wounds that drove her. Spike had made some serious mistakes…but then again so had she. Willow felt that if she deserved a second chance at life then so did he. Despite all the things he had done to imply otherwise, Willow knew Spike did love Buffy and she knew Buffy returned his feelings. Though she was not exactly approving of the match she was determined to help get them together because it was obvious, it was what both of them wanted—even if one of them did not know it yet.

Willow was musing the best way to achieve this when her bedroom door swung open suddenly—so suddenly that it crashed against the wall and bounced back, almost closing again. It would have closed had Spike not moved forward, blocking it with his body.

"Okay, new plan," he said, pushing his way into the room.

Willow gasped. She was startled not just by his abrupt entrance, but also by the drastic change she sensed in him. Since his return from Africa Spike had been gentle—wounded, angry sometimes, and frustrated, but gentle. Now, however, his aura was reeking of anger. She could taste his hate, his need for vengeance almost as though it were her own. Indeed, it was strangely evocative of her rage the on day Tara died and in the night immediately following it. For just as strong as his anger—though buried so deep it was hard to find—was the same raw pain she had felt. She looked at him with pity. Obviously, the meeting with Buffy had not gone as she had hoped it would.

"New plan?" she asked him lightly. She patted the area of carpet next to where she was sitting, inviting him to sit down beside her; but he ignored her and continued to pace around the room like a caged animal.

"Where are they?" he asked.

"Giles is at the Magic Box, Dawn is still at school. Buffy…" Willow hesitated, unsure of how to go on.

"Buffy what?" Spike demanded.

"Buffy never came back from her visit with you." She was eyeing his bleeding hand as she spoke, but Spike did not see it. He was too busy processing what she had just told him.

His eyes widened. "She told you she was coming to see me?"

"No."

"Then how did you know?"

Willow shrugged. "She's my best friend. I just know."

Spike nodded as though this made perfect sense. His eyes darted around the room in an agitated manner. When they landed on the book Willow held open in her hands, he sneered.

"Forget these," he said, taking the book from her. "Nuts to these." He threw the book against the wall so hard the spine broke, throwing a shower of pages in every direction.

"Spike!" Willow jumped up to retrieve the book and scattered pages. "How could you do that? This book is an antique…and you know we have to return it to the Magic Box."

Spike grabbed her shoulders so suddenly she dropped the armful of pages. "Don't you get it?" he asked, wild-eyed. "Don't you see? It doesn't matter!"

He pushed her away from him with an impatient gesture and Willow asked, "What doesn't matter, Spike?"

"This!" He gave the already battered book a vicious kick that sent it skidding across the carpet. "It doesn't matter what we do…it doesn't matter how well or how poorly the African spell worked. She doesn't care. She won't change. She will always see me as a monster, a thing, something to be embarrassed of." He turned to her.

"Help me, Willow."

"Help you do what?" she asked, nonplussed by his jumbled words. "What did you mean by 'new plan'?"

"Willow," he said, and his voice was almost frighteningly intense. "She doesn't love me—she won't let herself love me. She says I'm an embarrassment to her. Even at my best, I'm an embarrassment to her."

Willow drew a sharp breath, hardly believing her best friend could be so cruel. "Spike…"

"So obviously it no longer matters whether that spell went right or not," Spike went on restlessly. "But I have a new plan."

The look of solid determination in his eyes chilled the pit of Willow's stomach. She spoke to him slowly. "What is your new plan, Spike?"

"I want you to perform a love spell for me."

"Spike, you know I can't do that."

"Yes, you bloody well can!" he shouted. "If you can dismantle a building brick by brick then you can do a ruddy love spell!"

"Well I'm not going to," she shot back. "I shouldn't be doing magic at all…and this spell….Spike it not only is completely unethical but it can also be very dangerous. If I got just one of the ingredients wrong or mispronounced a single word I could completely mess up her range of emotions."

"Unethical?" Spike echoed in disbelief. "Wait a minute…so skinning a man alive is okay in your book, but casting a love spell is 'unethical'?"

"Spike, listen to what I am saying! It's dangerous! It's messing with someone's private thoughts, feelings, and desires…The odds of success in something like that is slim to nil. Even if I got the spell to work, it might last only temporarily. Or it might be cast too strong and she would end up obsessed with you. Do you want to risk that? Do want to risk her being permanently damaged?"

"There must be something you can do!" he yelled. "You have to have some sort of little last resort spell stored away for a situation like this….Don't you?"

"Spike there is nothing I can do!" she insisted. "I know you are hurting right now, but I cannot make Buffy feel something she doesn't—or doesn't want to—feel." She sighed. "Look. Just give me some time with the books. I've almost figured out the spell that was performed on you in Africa, and when I do, we will go from there, all right? Just be patient."

"Bugger that," he said, pulling the door open. "I'm sick of being patient."

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Anya regarded him uneasily. Even with the safety of the counter separating them, she felt uncomfortable having Spike prowling the Magic Box. She knew what would happen if Giles was to suddenly return from lunch to find Spike there. She knew what he would think. And, fear of being caught aside, Spike's very behavior was dubious. He had never seemed overly interested in the Magic Box before; the only time Anya had known him to set foot in it voluntarily was to be near Buffy. Or to steal something.

Her eyes narrowed. She'd be damned if she would let him take anything from her. She worked hard for what she had; it was bad enough to find out Dawn had been robbing the place blind. She didn't need that from Spike too. She watched suspiciously as he skulked around the shop, picking up this and reading the label of that.

"Do you need help finding anything?" she asked sweetly.

He glanced at her. "Did I ask for anything?"

His frank displeasure at her interest irked her. This was her store, after all. "I was just wondering how much longer you would be pacing the floor, touching everything," she retorted. She looked disapprovingly at the item he held in his hand. "You're getting fingerprints on the barrier crystal."

"God forbid I do that," he said, placing the crystal back on the shelf. He shot her a meaningful look. "Don't hang around on my account; I'm doing well on my own. So if you have an inventory to catalogue or a restroom to clean feel free to do so."

"No," she said. "I'm fine right here."

He scowled at her. "Good then."

Seeing that he was not going to be left to his own devices anytime soon, Spike dropped the act and marched over to the book section. If she saw him, she saw him. Who was she going to tell, anyway? After what had happened between the two of them, Spike knew Anya would not be anger to bring up his name to her friends. It would be like reminding them of her indiscretion.

He could feel her eyes on him as he pulled the Advanced Book of Spells from the shelf and began thumbing through it.

"Hey, this isn't a library!" she said.

He shot her an indignant look. "I'm going to buy it! I just need to see what else I need."

Anya looked uncomfortable. "You're planning to do a spell?"

He snapped the book shut. "Did I say that?"

"Well you are planning to buy a book of spells," she said, "so I would assume…"

"Don't assume," he said, moving on to the herb section.

"What spell?" Anya persisted, leaning her elbows on the counter and watching him.

"None of your business!"

"…because if you are planning to use it on Buffy, I might have a suggestion for you."

He stared at her suspiciously. "Why would you want to help me?"

She shrugged. "I'm not trying to be your hero or anything. It's my job to be helpful."

He considered this. She was right; it was her job to be helpful to the clientele. Of course, it made it all a bit strange, her wanting to help him cast a spell on one of her friends; but maybe money was the bottom line. Anya was a levelheaded girl, smart enough to realize that everything was expendable when it came to cash—even friends. He smiled, pleased. Anya was easy to understand. It was a nice change from Buffy, who he never understood and Willow, who rarely understood him. Maybe it was a demon thing.

He dropped his selections on the counter. "What is your suggestion?"

"Well, for one thing, you're getting a book of spells that is way too advanced for you. No offense or anything, but you aren't exactly educated in that department. If you try to cast a spell on Buffy using that book, you're going to end up mutating her or sending her to another dimension. You should try The Beginner Book of Spells; it's much easier to understand."

Spike frowned. "But the spell I want is in this book."

"That's another thing. Why do you want to cast a love spell on someone who might very well already care for you?"

"Because she won't care about me! No matter what she feels for me, nothing will override her distaste for me. She'll never let herself love me."

"Use a candor spell."

"What's that?" he asked.

"It's a spell to make people say and do things they wouldn't normally do. It doesn't create feelings…it just lowers a person's inhibition so he or she will admit to feelings they are keeping secret or do things they are afraid of doing. It's sort of like alcohol…only it lasts longer and doesn't make you sick afterwards. It's a fairly simple spell, almost no chance you could hurt her if you screw it up."

His eyes lit up. "That sounds perfect. Thanks, Anya."

"Oh, don't thank me," she said. "The ingredients for the candor spell are more expensive, so I'll be making more money if you use it."

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By the time he had lugged his purchases home half an hour later, he was having second thoughts. This always happened to him. He was too impulsive when he was angry. It made him do—or almost do—stupid things which he later regretted. The initial pain and anger of his encounter with Buffy was beginning to fade, leaving him with an uncertainty that this was perhaps not the right thing to do. If she found out he had done the spell, Spike knew Buffy would probably never speak to him again. On the other hand, if he did the spell, he would finally get to hear what her real feelings for him were. It was a tough choice, especially in light of Willow's Tabula Rasa spell, which had gone awry and left everybody pissed off. Spike didn't want to repeat that disaster.

He compromised by telling himself he would sleep on it. If it still seemed like a good idea in the morning then he would have to assume it wasn't (too) awful a thing to do. If, however, it seemed like a completely horrible plan, he would utilize the Magic Box's fourteen-day return policy. If he was still undecided then he could always flip a coin to see which it would be. This was probably not the best way to decide things, but given his state of mind at the moment, it was the best he could do.

Pleased with himself for making a decision, Spike crossed the last few feet to his crypt quickly. He was surprised to find that the door was ajar, but he wasn't overly concerned. It was probably some stunt of Halfrek's to get him back for breaking her amulet. He pushed the door open wider and stepped inside.

The first thing he saw was Clem. The droopy faced demon was standing directly across from him, only a few feet from the doorway. At first glance, nothing seemed amiss, but when Spike looked again he could see that one of Clem's floppy ears was torn and bleeding. There were several smaller lacerations on his face and arms, and his face was drawn tight (or as tight as it could be) with worry.

"Spike…" he began without a trace of his distinctive joviality.

Spike's eyes, now fully adjusted to the dim light, could clearly make out several other creatures in the crypt. At least thirty demons of various origins were standing behind Clem, staring at him with cold eyes. One of them was the vampire he had rescued Dawn from the night before. Spike knew what was about to happen and his eyes never left the vampire's face, though he forced himself to pay attention to Clem's words.

"…I don't think we can be friends anymore."

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End of Chapter Five