CHAPTER 17: FORSAKEN

I thought that I knew it all
I'd seen all the signs before.
I thought that you were the one
In darkness my heart was won.
You build me up then you knock me down.
You play the fool while I play the clown.
We keep time to the beat - of an old slave drum.
You raise my hopes, then you raise the odds
You tell me that I dream too much
Now I'm serving time, in a domestic graveyard.

            ~The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegroove, Dead Can Dance
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They lifted the globe from its pedestal, and—

The dazzling light winked out like a candle flame caught in a sudden wind.

Spike blinked—and found himself holding an empty ball made of spun glass. Other than the fact that the room warped interestingly within its concave insides, it seemed perfectly ordinary, unremarkable, even. The kind of thing a fake fortune teller would have set up in the center of her tent.

Spike gasped with the loss of it, and beside him, he dimly heard Buffy cry out, low and keening. He felt as if something vital had been ripped from his chest, as if someone had reached inside and scooped out everything that mattered, everything that made sense, leaving behind a ragged, bloody hole. He stared with wide, watering eyes, lost; and grief swept through the corridors of his mind like wind through the branches of a hollow tree.

Buffy crumpled to the floor. The din of warring voices in her mind slowly returned, like someone turning up the volume knob on a stereo, and she whimpered and clapped her hands over her ears. Dark water consumed her, devoured her, and swept her away.

Eons of unimaginable despair passed. Slowly, rationality began to return.

Spike knew its name. He couldn't pronounce it, but he knew it. In fact, he wasn't even sure if it was English. Hell, he wasn't even sure it was a word. More like a cacophony of syllables that danced on the back of his tongue and kind of made it itch.

One thing he knew for sure—whatever this thing was, it was incredibly powerful.

He still held the globe in his hands, but now it was something far less than the religious artifact it had been before, and his fingers were not so careful, no longer filled with awe. Tilting his head, he examined it in a slightly more dispassionate manner. He still felt betrayed somehow; all that singing and calling and promising of sweet things not delivered. But, as his sense of irony returned, he was remembering that he'd grown used to that over the last few years. The feeling of desertion lost some of its intensity, and he squinted at the thing, turning it over in his hands. When it failed to light up or bite him, he closed his eyes, averted his face, held it at arms length and shook it slightly.

Nothing happened.

He opened one eye and gazed at it mistrustfully. "Well, that's bloody brilliant," he muttered, his voice echoing oddly off the now still stone walls. "Now what?"

In response, the floor trembled beneath his feet.

"Oh, of course." He rolled his eyes and tucked the globe close against his chest with one arm turning to grab Buffy's hand.

"Buffy?" He had a real moment of fear when he saw her curled on the floor in the fetal position. He hadn't even noticed she'd fallen. That's what a grip the bloody thing had had on him. That worried him.

"Come on, luv," he almost pleaded, pulling at her. "A spot of Indiana Jones and then we're out of here."

She opened her eyes, mad irises of gray-green that smirked from their very depths. "You forgot the bag of sand?"

He gave a rough chuckle. "I did," he answered gravely.

She took his hand and they ran from the room.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

They'd barely reached the outer room where the lackey vampires lay unconscious and bleeding when Buffy stopped, turned to him and demanded, "Give me the globe."

"Luv," he half-laughed. "We can play show and tell later. This whole place is going to come crashing down around our ears any second now."

"Then give it to me, and we'll keep running." Her eyes were cold and hard.

Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip. The movie voice careened through his mind crazily, making him want to laugh even harder. Only this wasn't funny.

He didn't want to give it to her—for a multitude of reasons he couldn't puzzle out right that second—but he didn't want to be a nancy boy about it, either.

"Here then. Take it." He thrust it at her with churlish pride.

She ran her hands over it, eager and hungry, eyes devouring every slick, gleaming curve. Spike's mouth tightened and he scowled and—good Lord. Was he jealous? Bloody hell if he wasn't. And he wasn't sure if he was jealous of her attention to the globe because he wanted her, or because he wanted it.

She stared into the glassy depths, tiny frown curling her brow like a spoiled child who wants its way. "Why isn't it lighting up?" She sounded almost frantic. "It should light up for me." The lines of her frown deepened into worry. "Maybe it's broken." She shook it gently.

"Luv, if we don't go now, it will be broken," he tried to appeal to the smallest slip of sanity she might have left.

"But why won't it work?" she asked, eyes huge, lower lip trembling.

He focused his attention wholly on her, knowing they'd never get out of here if he didn't get through to her. Years of Dru-conditioning at work. "What do you want it to do?"

Startled by the question, her eyes jolted away from his. Slowly, her arms slid up over the globe and pulled it to her chest possessively. "What it did before."

"Yes, luv. But why?"

"So I…" She glanced to the side for an instant, as if unnerved by the question. The room trembled and she pulled herself together, wrapping herself in a thick cloak of dignity that seemed all too familiar to him. If there'd been a moment of doubt, a modicum of the Buffy he'd seen in the other room, she had vanished now. This girl was cold as ice and mad as a hatter. "So we can finish the apocalypse."

"Buffy," he said slowly, carefully. "You don't want that."

"Don't I?" she asked, face and voice coveting the object in her hands.

The room shook again and he staggered sideways, trying to hold onto his dignity. He wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of here, but be damned if he was just going to let her go after the show she'd put on in the main chamber. Yeah, he noted with cynical detachment, it was a bloody wonder he was still alive after all these years, given his stubborn stupidity. But sod it all; the whole world could crash down around them, it didn't matter. He'd never been much on logic when it came to love.

"Luv. I know you. This obsession with destroying the world? It isn't you."

"Isn't it?" she asked with a vicious smile.

"No. It isn't. Tell me you didn't just cry for help in there. Tell me all you really want is to kill everyone you love. I don't believe it. Not anymore. Not after seeing you like that."

Her face was a livid sea of hatred that made him want to wince. "You want to see me, Spike? Well take a good look, because this is what I am now." Her mouth curled into a sneer so devoid of humanity that it was almost painful to look at. "See, everybody thinks they know. They've got this image of poor, sad Buffy in their minds, and all they feel for her is pity." The self-loathing in her voice could have disintegrated stone. "But they don't. They don't know what it's like to feel like this. To be brought back here from total happiness. Everything hurts. And the only time I don't think about how much it hurts is when the other voices in my mind take over. Then I'm just… free. It's a beautiful thing, really."

"That's not freedom, luv. That's giving up."

A chunk of ceiling shivered and fell to floor, and she glanced at it with disinterested eyes.

"It's all I've got."

"No." He shook his head helplessly. "It isn't, luv. Don't you see? You had—you have so much more. You have people who love you, people who would die for you. People who miss you so much that they'd risk bringing you back from the dead. Buffy… you have it all. Everything. Even me. You made me love you. Evil, nasty vampire, falling all over himself over a Slayer. You think I would have done that if you weren't something special? If you weren't worth it?" His eyes blazed at her, piercing blue, almost angry.

"You wouldn't be the first," she said, voice distant and resolute.

Stone shifted, growled and slid, and he didn't care. A harsh laugh escaped him and he didn't just roll his eyes—he rolled his whole head. "Oh, don't even try to compare this to Angel. You know this isn't anything like that. Buffy—I don't even have a soul and I love you."

"You think you do," she agreed.

"You know I do," he answered, his voice deathly quiet, trembling on the edge of darkness.

She shook her head, one corner of her delicate mouth curling up in a smirk. She stepped toward him, all attitude and icy anger, and for a disconcerting moment he was reminded of Faith. "Let me tell you what I know, Spike. I know that I'm here, and I hate it. All I want to do is die. Do you understand that?" Her voice seemed louder for all its insidious quiet. "No more fighting evil, no more dead mother, no more little sister dependent on me, no more being more machine than girl, no more saving the world, no more pain. That's why I jumped into the portal." Her body trembled with barely contained rage and sorrow, but her heart was walled up tight behind the lifeless marble of her face. "I'm done here, Spike, and they should never have brought me back."

He stared at her, at a loss for what to say for one of the few times he could remember—and yet, his mouth opened. "Buffy—"

"No. I'm not finished!" Her voice shook, and her body trembled so violently that he feared she might shake herself apart. "I can't die until they're all dead, and the only way they're all going to die is if we end the world." Unshed tears of anguish welled in her voice as she spoke, gray-green eyes pinning him in place with burning intensity. "We need this." She clutched the globe so tightly to her chest that he feared it might break and cut her. "I need this," she fairly shouted at him. Then, abruptly, as if realizing how emotional she had become, she stood up stiffly, composing herself. Her face twitched as she brought herself under control, and her gaze grew dispassionate again. "Now. Are you with me, or not?"

"Buffy…" He paused, attempting to gather his thoughts in the wake of her emotional torrent. He couldn't help but wonder how much of this was her talking, and how much of it was the madness inside her head.  The floor rumbled and cracked beneath his feet, and he had to fight every impulse to hit her over the head and simply carry her out of the building. "Buffy, this is madness. This thing," he jabbed at the globe impudently, "whatever it is, it's not the answer. It's alive. It's smart. It made us into puppets, made us do what it wanted. It used us, not the other way around. Do you really think the Master will be able to control it?"

"The prophecy says he will."

He did laugh aloud this time. "News flash for you, luv. Prophecies? Not the most reliable creatures in existence. You were supposed to die according to one once, remember?"

"I did die," she said frostily.

"Well," he twisted and postured, throwing back his shoulders as he wrestled out an answer for that one. "Yeah. But you came right back."

"And I'm back now," she said, flat and emotionless. "Ask me again how happy I am about it."

"Oh, so you're just going to give up? Made your grandstand, took your swan dive and now you think everything should be tied up in a nice little bow?" And now he was furious. "Look at me! Not a man, not a vampire. You think I love this?"

"Oh, being evil is so hard," she mocked.

"Oh no," he said with a smirk. "Evil's all fun and games—'til they give you a handicap." His eyes narrowed meaningfully on her. "Isn't it?"

"You don't know the first thing about it." She was livid with anger.

"Oh. Don't I?"

"You're not me," she seethed.

The room bucked again and he snarled at it. "You're not you," he snorted. "The Buffy I knew would never give up, no matter how bloody pathetic she felt."

Her face could have been carved from Arctic mountains. "And what do you think I should do?"

He blinked. "Well…" he paused, drew himself up and hooked his fingers through his belt loops, leaning back. Posturing. Posturing was good, especially when he felt like such an idiot for arguing what should have been her side of things. "Take it to the others. Let them figure out what it does. It's what they do." And then, unable to contain himself, he stepped closer to her, anger falling away, revealing the softness that was the bane of his existence. The words burned on his tongue, filled with regret and reluctance, and yet he couldn't help but speak them.

"We can find a way to fix you, luv. Make you happy again." His eyes locked on hers intently, smoldering with the unconscious intensity that was inherently his. "I know it's what you want." His eyes flickered back and forth over hers, focusing just to the side of her gaze. "Even if it means you don't want me."

"You don't want that," she contradicted him hotly, almost sounding fearful.

"No. I don't," he said earnestly. "But I don't want this either. Seeing you like this, knowing you hurt. Knowing you hate being what you are. You…" he hesitated over the words, took a deep breath and pushed on. "Somewhere in there, you hate yourself for being with me. I know it, because I know you, luv. I saw the look in your eyes when you realized what you'd done, what you've been doing. I can stand a lot of things, Buffy, but I can't stand only having part of you. I want it to be real… or not at all." And oh, that was only half the truth, but the only half he could stand existing with.

"Then let me go," she said, voice torn between plea and demand.

He shook his head, slow and resolute. "I can't take watching you die again."

The room shuddered around them, cracks appearing in the intricately carved artwork. The face of a primitive human split down the middle, wall bulging angrily through the upper half of his broken brow.

Buffy's head fell to the side and she shook her head, eyes closing as if in pain. "Oh, Spike," she said with soft melancholy, and he thrilled to hear his name spoken in those caressing tones. She moved up to him and touched his face, letting one hand run along the sharp, lovely contour of his cheekbone. He thought the room might have shook again, but he was too distracted to be sure. He leaned into her caress, eyes pleading with her to see reason, and she smiled, the most odd smile he'd ever seen on her lovely face.

"So predictable," she whispered, regretful.

He'd barely begun to frown when the stake appeared in her hand.

"I should've known you couldn't stand this."

Instinct screamed at him to move, but his heart knew better, and his mouth had other plans.

He'd scarcely opened it to speak when the stake thrust into his chest.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

"She's done it," Daeonira announced, running her fingers through the surface of her makeshift scrying pool. "The Winnowin is ours."

The Master smiled. "Wonderful." He paused, considering. "And the vampire?"

Daeonira had no need to ask which vampire he referred to; there was only one who was of any import to them. "Dispatched." She pronounced each syllable of the word with great satisfaction. "Just as I predicted."

"You are truly an expert on the evils of the female heart," he accredited her. "I knew she was devoted to our cause, but I would never have suspected she would kill one so useful."

"He was far too human for his own good." She sneered. "His love made him a great tool, but she is done using him now; he has served his purpose. Precise, efficient and focused. The Slayer is as fixated on what she wants from this as we are."

"Yes. Pity we couldn't persuade her to stay on after the apocalypse."

Daeonira stiffened. "She is fixated, but short-sighted. Anything beyond the apocalypse would fail to hold her attention."

A sly smile stole over the Master's features. "Ah, Daeonira, you're jealous."

She went still as stone and just as hard.

"Don't worry, my dear," he soothed, walking up to her and taking one of her hands in his. He wrapped the other around her waist, lifted her to her feet and danced her in a small circle. "No one could ever replace you. We shall rule the world in blood and dance like this beneath the madness of the stars of a thousand worlds."

"Soon," she murmured, fingers running down the uneven surface of his cheek reverently, dark talons scraping lightly over pale skin.

"Soon," he agreed. He spun and dropped her into a dip, then leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers, sealing their agreement with a kiss.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

There was a moment of burning pressure, a splintered shard through Spike's chest that left him hunched and weak, blood rising up from his gullet and dribbling down his chin. His eyes never left hers though; deep blue widening, staring at her with a combination of child-like grief and innocence. After all this time, even after this, he still believed; couldn't accept the finality of her coldness, the depth of her hatred.

"Damn," she whispered, voice guttural. "You moved." For a split second he thought he heard the ghost of regret rise up in her. "Guess I'll have to try again," she said with a grin.

Spike grunted in pain as she yanked the stake from his chest. And then he was moving, turning out and away from her, duster flaring behind him. He couldn't have hurt more if she had pierced his heart, and the blood that poured from him was his love for her, useless and stupid and mortal. Oh, how Drusilla would have laughed.

He knew better than to stay and try to face her now. She'd kicked his ass soundly every time he'd squared off with her, and he wasn't about to try for a rematch while he was so badly wounded and she was insane.

Maybe logic prevails in the end, after all, he thought bitterly.

He twisted and spun as she came for him, survival instinct taking over, barely dodging the stake as he caught her beneath the chin with the back of his fist. She reeled backward away from him, stumbled but didn't quite fall, and he gave her one last longing look.

Her eyes were the mouth of madness.

The building bucked and writhed beneath his feet, sending him sprawling to the floor. Chunks of stone exploded all around him as they struck the ground, and he had a moment to realize what was happening.

His last vision of Buffy was a cruel smile through the rising dust.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

Donner stepped into an alcove, fingers creeping down over the pistol at his belt. Back pressed against cool stone, cold metal against his fingertips, he felt some of the heat of adrenaline leave him. He edged his head out past the lip of stone and cocked it, one eye fixed on the object of his hunt.

Angel and Faith emerged from the inner chamber, the Slayer bantering almost casually with the vampire. He felt his lips curl into a derisive sneer and his fingers reflexively tightened on the gun. Watching her casual, almost belligerent body language, listening to her offhand almost arrogant banter, he felt a wave of resentment and hatred sweep through him like a brush fire. Damnable Slayer. Little more than a girl, everything depending on her and she had the nerve to be here, ignoring her duty to destroy the monsters below, and flirting with a vampire of all things. She was an affront to the Council and Slayers throughout time. He was of the opinion that they should have killed her outright and begun the training of a new, more obedient Slayer, but the Council vote had come out against his favor.

And the vampire. He was even more of an abomination. Oh, his fingers itched to plant a stake through the creature's heart, feel the cool blood slip down his wrists in the instant before death took the monster. He would grin into the ashes and dance in their wake. Soul or not, the only thing any vampire was worth was staking, and it was beyond him why the Council hadn't killed Angel when they'd had the chance. Why Buffy hadn't, why Faith hadn't. Were they all blind to the evil that resided in Angel? He could see it clearly in every movement, behind the guise of puppy dog eyes, lurking just beneath, barely held under control.

His fingers gripped the handle of the gun, muscles coiling in anticipation. He could take them both right now. Kill the Slayer and disable the vampire to the point where staking would be a simple matter. Two gunshots, maybe three, and it would be all over. The Council would never know.

"No way," Faith was saying with a grin, pausing in the corridor as she turned back on Angel. "Remember that time when we threw down in LA? I was totally kicking your ass."

"I still won," Angel said with an enigmatic smile.

"Only 'cause I let you," she shot back, still grinning.

Angel paused. "I still won."

"You know, I know what I said before, but when all this is over, I think I'm gonna have to jump your bones and kick your ass into submission."

"I wouldn't say no."

Faith paused, seeming surprised. "To which one?"

"Either one," he said after a moment. He moved closer to her, hands in his pockets.

Faith stepped up to meet him, head tilting up and back to meet his eyes, lips dangerously close to his. "Tease," she accused.

"Try me."

She leaned up to kiss him, and Donner clenched the handle of his pistol in a death-grip.

Angel hesitated, his mouth a fraction of an inch from hers. "Did you hear something?"

Immediately they turned in Donner's direction. Donner felt his muscles clench, adrenaline running through him like liquid fire. Slowly, ever so slowly, he eased the pistol from its resting place, blinking away the steaming sweat that rolled down into his eyes.

Angel took a slow step in Donner's direction. He knew the vampire hadn't seen him yet, or there wouldn't have been any hesitation. Still, he raised the gun, muzzle fixed between the vampire's eyes. The gun might not be high enough caliber to take Angel's head from his shoulders, but it was enough to disable him and scramble his brains for far longer than Donner would need to finish the job. The metal barrel shook slightly, and his finger twitched against the trigger.

A dark form slammed into Angel, all snarling fury and fangs as it tore at him.

Angel fell sideways then righted himself, discarding the vampire like an errant article of clothing. Then Faith was in motion, stake flashing out and into the vampire in the blink of an eye. It vanished in a hiss of dust and the two turned to each other.

"And here I just thought you were trying to get out of the conversation," Faith said.

Angel took one last, scouring look down the corridor, and a bead of sweat slipped down into Donner's eyes like a veil. He blinked once, twice, gun never wavering, eyes never leaving the vampire.

At last Angel turned back to the Slayer. "We should get going." There was a moment of shared hesitation, as if they were reluctant to leave the tunnels, then two turned and walked away down the stone hall.

Donner eased back into the alcove, lowering the gun to his side. His heart beat a thunderous rhythm in his chest and he swallowed, willing the adrenaline rush away. He wondered at the sensations, not having felt them for more than a decade. He hadn't hunted anything this dangerous in a long time. Demons, vampires, werewolves, and many other monstrosities, but nothing so cunning and intelligent as the Slayer and her vampire companion. Deplorable they might be, but they were truly worthy prey.

So close. He could have killed them in the blink of an eye. Why hadn't he?

Simple enough. They weren't the mission. Buffy was the mission, and if he played his cards right, all he would probably have to do was wait and they'd lead him right to her. And even if they didn't… well, there was plenty of time for killing them afterward.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

By the time he'd scrambled from the collapsing building, ceiling falling in with a final, thundering crash, she had been gone. The car they'd come in had vanished and the sun had been rising like doom on the horizon.

Enter Spike; high, dry and screwed again. He was getting really tired of this theme.

"Hey!" An old woman screeched indignantly, shambling up on wobbly legs that had clearly seen better days. "That's my stuff!"

"Sorry luv. I need this a bit more than you do." Spike pulled the thin blanket over his head and draped it around him like a cloak.

"Get your own blanket! And get out of my alley!" the bag lady yelled, moving protectively toward the shopping cart he'd just raided. Spike's vision was partially obscured by the fuzzy material curling around his face, and he was so caught up in his final adjustments to his cover, brain already racing with possible plans, that he never saw her coming. The glass bottle she'd been collecting for recycle money smashed painfully into the back of his head.

"Stupid bint!" he snarled, turning on her, and without realizing it, slipped into game face. The chip twinged with warning, but not hard enough to send him reeling in pain.

The old woman took a long, wide-eyed look. "Monster!" she screamed. And then, to Spike's amazement, instead of dropping the glass and running for her life like any sane human would have, she raised the remains of the jagged bottle neck and tried to stab him with it.

Spike gathered the blanket tightly around him and ran.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

The hole in his chest throbbed, and that was actually a good thing, because when it ached badly enough it kept random maudlin poetry about its origins from springing to mind. Often, it was even bad enough to keep him from slipping into self-loathing about the lump on the back of his skull where the bag lady had smashed it. That gave new meaning to adding insult to injury.

Spike sighed and leaned against a stained brick alley wall, wishing the pain could drown out the smell that wafted from the blanket draped around his head, too.

He'd already tried calling the Scoobies, and he'd gotten the answering machine at the Magic Box. He'd left them a message, but there was no telling where they'd gone, or when they'd be back. Likely they weren't checking the answering machine at this point, anyway. What the bloody hell was he going to do? It wasn't like he could call a cab or hop on a bus with the sun all bright and shiny in the sky. And he didn't know a single person in all of LA—

Well, there was one person.

"Oh, bloody marvelous," he sputtered angrily. "This just keeps getting better." He shook his head. "No. There's got to be another way."

But after a few minutes of serious debate, he knew there wasn't. Biting down bitterly on the inside of his cheek, he took off in search of a phone book.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

In the basement of the Magic Box, the trap door to the sewers rattled. Anya hastily adjusted her skirt and pushed Xander away, cursing under her breath. "Damn. They're back already."

"Yay, more of the Faith and Angel show, my favorite." Xander sighed, reluctantly resigning himself.

The trap door opened and Faith stepped out, Angel right behind her.

"Hey guys," Faith said. She took a better look at them, walked forward a few steps and pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "Hope we're not interrupting anything," she added with a knowing grin.

"Well you are," Anya said abruptly. "Xander and I were going to have brief, tension-relieving sex with our clothes on, and now you've ruined it."

Angel's eyes widened and he stared fixedly at an empty corner of the room. Faith's brows rose and she snorted a laugh that was half disbelief, half approval.

"Really?" She tilted her head to the side in an approximation of a nod. "Well." She stepped closer to Anya and clapped her gently on the shoulder. "I'll be sure to tell the others to give you an extra five minutes before they call you up." She dropped Anya a wink and craned her neck at Angel to follow her up the stairs.

"Hey! It'll take a lot longer than five minutes!" Xander said loudly, pointing at the two of them as they walked up the stairs. The door shut and he turned back to Anya furiously. "Five minutes?"

"Well, it's not enough time for sex. And the others will come looking for us any second now," Anya chimed in resentfully. Then something about the idea struck her. A spark of warmth ignited in her dark, beetle-like eyes, and she wound cajoling arms around her lover. "Do you remember the last time we were down here like this?"

"Oh, you mean when we were looking for the dried bats wing and came across Giles' secret stash of special 'herbs'?" He used his finger to make air quotes and grinned. "That was funny."

"No," she said impatiently, eyes pinning him almost accusingly. "The other time. The important time," she prompted.

He looked blank for a moment, then memory hit him like lightning. "Oh! That time. Right." He cleared his throat and glanced away from her, uncomfortable. "Well, I guess they're probably wondering where we are, huh?" he asked, sounding eager.

Anya pulled from his arms. "Oh, that's right. Now that I want to talk about our relationship you want to run to Faith and Angel."

"Anya, it could be important," he tried, already knowing he was fighting a losing battle.

The warm spark in her eyes leaped into full blown fire. "You'd rather spend time with people you hate than talking about us."

"Anya, that's not true. I—"

"You never want to talk about our relationship. Every time it comes up there's something really important on TV, or you're too tired, or there's a new monster or a new Slayer or an apocalypse." She snorted and rolled her eyes dismissively. "You're just like all the men I've been reading about in those magazines!"

"What? You mean Cosmo? Honey, somehow I don't think they were taking the relationship challenges of a Hellmouth into account."

"Well they're right! You act like I'm some kind of dirty secret you can't tell your friends about."

"Um, I think they already know about you, An."

"You know what I mean! It's been almost a year and you still haven't told them we're engaged. No one's even seen my large but reasonably priced diamond ring."

"An, honey," he blinked, looking bewildered, and damn him for being so good at it. Anya blinked back hot tears, hurt and anger barely held in check. "You know this isn't the time. This whole year hasn't been the time—"

"It's never going to be the time, is it Xander?" She tilted her head from side to side, mimicking his tone. "Buffy's dead, Faith's our enemy, Faith's our new leader, Willow's under a lot of stress, Giles has a hangnail!" She broke off the tone and re-launched into anger. "What about me? What about us? I'm sick of it! There's never going to be a time, and if you can't make one—if you can't be… be proud enough of me to tell everyone how you feel about me, then maybe… maybe we shouldn't be together." Her lower lip trembled, but her face was firm with resolve, and she had no idea how beautiful she looked to him just then, annoyed as he was or not.

"Anya, I promise I'll tell them all about it very soon. Just not right now, okay?" He took her hands in his, dark eyes imploring.

She drew back and looked at him, one corner of her mouth quirking back in a thoughtful frown. It was the first time he'd promised. "You promise?"

"Absolutely," he said, kissing her again and driving all the doubts from her mind.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

Angel shut the door behind them as they entered the shop, and every eye landed on them expectantly. Suddenly Faith wanted to turn and run back to the sewers.

"Well?" Dawn asked.

"Well, the bad guys seemed pretty sparse. And no sign of Buffy, or Spike." Faith tensed and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, bracing for impact.

"So she wasn't there," Willow said, sounding triumphant.

Faith fought the urge to cut her eyes at the witch. "No. I still think she might be around there somewhere though. We didn't get to go in too deep because there were still too many vampires crawling around." She cast a sideways glance at Angel, still slightly annoyed that he'd talked her out of having her way.

He didn't return her gaze, but was obviously aware of it from the small smirk that curved his lips.

"Then we should get going," Dawn said, rising from her seat.

"In a moment, Dawn," Giles said and rose from the table, fingers still lingering on the pages of the book he'd been perusing. "We discovered something while you were gone, Faith."

She shoved her hand in the pockets of her jeans and looked up at him with scarcely veiled trepidation. "This time it's really the recipe for how to bake a better ziti, right? Because I don't need any more prophecies, thanks."

"Nothing quite so cataclysmic," he said with a faint smile. "Willow did some research on the coroner's files. You remember the Jane Doe body we discovered when looking for Blackwell?"

"Not much chance of forgetting that one."

"It seems there has been a string of these er, odd deaths over the course of the last eight months or so. All exactly the same circumstances of death and removal of organs."

"Yeah? That's great Giles, but I don't see what it has to do with anything," she said impatiently.

"It appears it has everything to do with everything." He picked the book up in his hands and showed her the page he'd been reading.

She stared at it with a mixture of horror and incomprehension, not quite sure what she was seeing in the sketched lines of the drawing he displayed. "What… what is that?"

"It's Daeonira."

"Then—then that's how she…" her face contorted as she worked through the emotions, then finally smoothed into hardness. "We know what she is."

"Indeed."

Her dark eyes were eager as she took a step toward him.

"How do we kill her?"

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

The entry in the phone book had been easy enough to find. Walking up to the door though, that was turning out to be the hard part.

Muttering curses under his breath, Spike hardened his resolve and slipped from the shade of the building's eaves, hurrying through the bright sunlight.

Pausing beneath the porch awning, he took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and knocked on the door.

It swung open and he leaned forward as far as the mystical barrier would allow. "Don't shut the door. I know what this looks like—"

"It looks like you're a walking ad for the 'Homeless Today' catalogue." The woman in the doorway paused, then wrinkled her nose. "And what is that smell? Ew."

And here he'd thought she would be frightened.

"Look, I need a favor."

"You need a make-over. Then again, I guess it's nothing a little stake to the heart wouldn't cure. Need help with that?"

"Cordelia. Luv," he said with infinite patience, dripping condescension. "I don't have time for this. I've got to get to Sunnydale."

"Oh. Okay then. Bye!" She waved at him with a bright, patronizing smile and started to slam the door.

He tried to wedge his foot in before it could shut and struck the mystical barrier. The impact shook his body, sent the blanket sliding slowly down over the crown of his head, and his skin began to hiss as an errant patch of sunlight fell on it.

"Ow! Dammit!" he yelled, grabbing the thin material and pulling it back up over his head.

Cordelia paused in utter fascination. "Wow. Your glory days are really gone, aren't they?"

He rolled his eyes up at her with a look that could have killed, and spoke in slow, measured tones that made evident just how much restraint he was showing. "If I don't get to Sunnydale a whole lot of people are going to die."

"And what? You're afraid you'll miss out on your quota of the body count?"

He paused, taken aback, averted his eyes and hedged, "No." For the first time, the implications of what he was about to do set in.

"Then what do you have to do that's so important?"

"I've got to—" He broke off, disgusted with himself. His face worked within the hood of the blanket, wincing and grimacing as he wrestled with the words. At last he sighed and turned his head to the side, defeated and disgusted.

"I've got to save the bloody world."

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

Cordelia was still laughing.

Spike seethed beneath his blanket with all the dignity he could muster. "You stupid bint. I'm not kidding."

"Oh, I'm so sure," she said, covering her mouth as another giggle escaped her.

"I'm serious. Buffy's got this magical thing that the Master is going to use to end the world and if I don't get back and let the others know what's happening so that Faith can stop her—"

"Are you on drugs?" Cordelia asked, completely serious. "Buffy's dead. So is the Master. And I don't care what Angel says, I don't believe for a second that Faith—"

"Believe it," Spike cut her off. "Look. Buffy's already got a good two hour head start on me. You know about the chip, know I can't hurt you, right? So why not just drive me there and see for yourself?"

"Yeah. Like I haven't heard this one before. Next thing you know I'll be pregnant with demon spawn or tied up getting tortured in a warehouse somewhere." She paused, frowned. "Which, comparatively, really wouldn't be all that different."

Spike rolled his eyes with helpless anger. "Are you going to give me a ride or not?"

Cordelia stared at him as if he were crazy. "Not." She started to close the door and Spike found the words leaving his mouth before he'd even had a chance to think them through.

"If no one stops her, everyone in Sunnydale will die. Including Angel."

The door wavered. "You're going to help save Angel?"

He froze, mouth working, face twitching. With difficulty, he finally managed to spit out an answer. "Yes." His upper lip curled as if the word tasted horrible.

He put a hand on his forehead, leaned against the doorframe and gave Cordelia a look of pure wounded pride.

"Bloody hell I can't believe I'm doing this."

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

The battered sedan sped along the freeway toward the sunrise, Buffy humming behind its wheel as she drove. A pair of aviator sunglasses she'd found in the glove box were perched on her nose, blocking out the bright yellow glare of early morning. The Winnowin sat beside her on the passenger seat, still empty and dark, a simple ball of glass that did nothing except reflect the color and shape of its surroundings.

Her humming was tuneless, a mindless, unconscious sound that she was completely unaware of. She felt good, strong. Happy even. The Winnowin was secure on the seat beside her and Spike had been left behind in the rubble of its prison. She was on her own, fate of the world resting in her hands as always, and there was no one to stop her from tipping the balance over once and for all.

She could almost envision it; glass globe opening up in a ray of blinding light and swallowing everything whole. Actually, she had no idea what it was going to do at all, but she could envision it just the same. Everyone she knew would be dead, and she would be free again at long last.

Something about the thought gave her pause, and there was a hesitation in her humming, as if a dark shadow had passed over her.

What could be wrong with that?

Nothing, she decided after a moment, reaching down and cranking up the radio. A slow, chilling smile spread over her face, and her eyes were blank behind the tinted lenses of her sunglasses. There was nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, that sounded just as right as rain.

She could hardly wait.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

Spike sighed and curled up tighter in the trunk of the car, wishing desperately that he could move his arms high enough to shield his ears from the never-ending procession of pop songs that thumped and pounded through his brain courtesy of the rear speakers just a foot or so away from his head, and hadn't he had enough humiliation today? Bad enough to be confined to the trunk—sodding Cordelia wouldn't paint her windows black no matter how much he begged—but far, far worse to be subjected to three hours of Britney Spears and company. That qualified as cruel and unusual punishment. Dissertations and sermons about Sylappha Demon Ram Gods would have been a welcome alternative.

He beat against the rear wall of the trunk with one hand, and was rewarded by the sweet, sweet sound of decreased radio volume.

"What?" Cordelia's voice was heavily muffled by the car's interior.

"Turn it off," he yelled, motivated by sudden, desperate hope.

"Turn it up?" Cordelia's muffled voice asked, and did he detect just the slightest bit of sarcasm around the edges? He thought he did. "Alrighty then." The volume zoomed up to easily twice what it had been before, piercing not only his eardrums but also his eye sockets with mind-rotting bubblegum pop. Hope flickered and died.

And Demons of Gehenna save him—was she singing along?

Oh yeah. His day was complete. Anything that beat out screeching infants deserved a place in the Spike Hall of Infamy.

He rolled his eyes so far back in his head that only the whites were visible and wondered if it were possible to will himself into unconsciousness.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

Time passed in a seemingly endless blur of Top 40 dance hits. At last, mercifully, the car came to a stop and the music cut out in mid-mindless-lyric. And just when he made the mistake of thinking maybe he'd been saved, of course it was Angel who answered the door at the Magic Box, sniveling infant in his arms.

"Cordelia?" Angel blinked, shocked.

"Angel," she grinned and threw her arms around him in a big hug.

"What—what are you doing here?"

"She's with me," Spike said, hurrying through the doorway behind Cordelia.

"Spike?" Angel did a double-take, then wrinkled his nose, suddenly distracted. "What is that smell?"

"Ode de Homeless, ala Spike," Cordelia said with a nasty look at the blond vampire. "I'm gonna have to scrub for a month to get the smell out of my trunk."

"Yeah, well the music scars on my brain will never come off, so I'm thinking you got the better end of the deal."

Abruptly she turned to Angel. "He said he was coming here to save the world. Is that true or can I stake him now?"

"Of course it's true," Spike interrupted, cutting Cordelia a snide look in return.

"Well…" Angel glanced back and forth between them uncertainly. "It could be true," he admitted, reluctantly.

"Where is everyone?" Spike asked, looking at Angel.

"They're all out looking for Buffy."

"Buffy really is alive?"

Spike gave an abrupt, harsh laugh. "They're not going to find her unless they plan on taking on the Master, the mistress and all their little lemmings."

"So she is working with them?" Angel looked surprised. "Faith was right." Then his expression turned suspicious. "Wait. How do you know that?"

"Because I was with her, you wanker."

"Yeah, she tried to stake him and left him stranded in LA," Cordelia informed Angel with a smirk.

"You were helping her?" Angel looked back to Spike, accusing.

Spike clenched his jaw and stared off into the distance, silent for a long moment, expression stormy and barely contained.

"Look, just get the others here and I'll explain everything."

"You know where Buffy is?"

"I'd bet my life on it."

Angel considered him in silence for several seconds, then reached for the walkie talkie on the table.

*           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *           *

"Spike's there?" Faith echoed into the walkie talkie, hoping the vast relief she felt didn't show in her voice. When Angel replied affirmatively, she let her arm fall and shook her head.

"Faith?" Giles asked. Having noticed she was no longer behind him he'd backtracked his way across the park. "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah," she looked up at him with eyes that didn't quite register his presence yet. She blinked, focusing. "Yeah. Spike's back, says he knows where Buffy is."

"That's wonderful," Giles said, face lighting up. "I'll get the others."

Thoughts and emotions swirled just beyond comprehension; a tangled ball of yarn with a bleached-blond center.

She switched off the speaker and snapped the walkie talkie onto a belt loop.

"Yeah. Wonderful."