Part 9:

#

Faith was on her way home after one last round through the cemeteries, having found no one to play with. It appeared all the vampires were staying in tonight, which was kind of sad. She had hoped for a chance to try out how her newly acquired coat worked out in a fight. She was thinking something along the lines of Batman, who always used his long cape to distract the crooks until his fists came out of nowhere.

Well, she thought, even if it doesn't help with the fighting, it sure looks wicked cool.

She was but a short distance away from home when she noticed the car screeching to a halt right in front of the Summers' house. She knew that car very well. It was the black convertible Angel had shown them last week. Why he needed a car in a town where just about everything was in walking distance was anyone's guess, but Faith liked the ride. Angel, Buffy, Willow, and Oz poured out of the vehicle.

"What's the what?" she yelled, quickly catching up to them.

Buffy didn't even seem to notice her, she was immediately making strides towards the front door, her face a mask of worry. Angel was by her side like a shadow. Willow and Oz took a moment to look at her.

"Spike! A vampire! He's in there with Mrs. Summers."

That was all Faith needed to hear.

#

"She just up and left you?" Joyce asked.

"Yeah," Spike answered, taking a sip of hot chocolate from the cute frog mug she had put in front of him. "Just ... she didn't even try to kill me before she left. I mean, is that too much to ask? Just a little hint that she still cares?"

His head bent over the mug he couldn't help but sob. "She just told me ... we could still be friends."

Joyce sat down next to him, patting his back. This was very bizarre, she mused. She knew that this man, Spike, was not really a man. He was a monster, a vampire, and unlike Angel he didn't have a soul or anything else to keep him from killing her. Yes, he had worked together with Buffy some months ago, but Joyce had been given the whole story about that and knew he hadn't done it out of the goodness of his heart.

She was also quite aware that her life was hanging by a thread right now. Instead of panicking, though, she did her best to console the heart-broken vampire. It was pretty much the only thing she could think of that might buy her some time until Buffy or Faith got here.

Besides, Spike really seemed to be broken-hearted and the mom-part of her couldn't help but want to console him.

"I doubt she would have said something like that if she didn't mean to hurt you," she said, trying to apply the strange reverse-logic Spike seemed to use when it came to his love life. "She had to know it would, you know. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"Then why is she fooling around with creatures like that?" he asked, exasperated. "I caught her on a park bench, making out with a Chaos demon. Have you ever seen a Chaos demon?"

"I don't think I ..."

"There all ... slimy. With antlers. Ugly buggers. And she ... she wasn't even embarrassed. I told her ... I told her I didn't have to put up with stuff like that."

"You shouldn't," she told him. "A relationship is about mutual trust."

"That's what I've been saying, but she doesn't trust me anymore. All about that stupid truce with Buffy. Said I wasn't demon enough for her anymore. Said I was getting soft and ... she said she had to find her pleasures somewhere and that I ... that I could no longer ..."

He broke down into a sob.

"Breaking up is hard," Joyce said after a while, seeing the splatter of tears on the table. "When I divorced Buffy's father, he and I ..."

"That's different," Spike snarled. "Dru and me were supposed to last forever. Century after century until the end of time. And we would, if not for that entire business with Angel and Buffy and that stone git. Everything would have been all right if not ... oh, who am I bloody kidding?"

He brushed his tears away with the sleeve of his red shirt.

"He always came first in her heart, you know? I was just too blind to see it. When he got all souly I thought she'd finally gotten over it, but no. The moment he came back ... why am I putting up with this? I should be my own man ... demon ... whatever. I don't need ... need ..."

His head shot up, looking at Joyce. "You got anymore of those little marshmallows?"

"I'll have to check. Are you going to be ..."

"All right? No, but thank you for asking. It's nice to know that someone understands what I'm ..."

"You're even more pathetic than I remember, Spike," a new voice suddenly growled.

Joyce looked at the kitchen entrance and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Buffy, Faith, and Angel standing there, the latter with demon face in full ascendance and growling at Spike. Behind them she caught a brief glimpse of Willow and Oz.

"Him?" Faith asked suddenly, a look of disbelief on her face. "That's the dangerous vampire you told me about? That drunken loser?"

Spike looked up, glaring at Faith.

"Who're you calling a loser, slut? I want my coat back!"

His eyes turned toward Buffy and Angel.

"And you two? Back together again? Great, the harps are gonna start playing any moment now. Shoulda known I wouldn't be so lucky as to find that the two of you killed each ..." His voice trailed off as his eyes fixed on Buffy. More specifically her changed eyes and fangs. "Bloody hell!"

"You shouldn't have come back, Spike," Buffy now growled at him. "One free pass was all you got. This time you're leaving by way of a vacuum cleaner."

Spike suddenly laughed, holding his sides as he shook with hilarity.

"I can't believe you, peaches," he managed between fits. "All these months you couldn't kill her and now? Instead of turning her properly you made her a blood junky? This is too rich, really! You're killing me."

"Happy to oblige," Angel growled. A moment later he was airborne, launching himself across the kitchen table and at Spike. The momentum carried both him and Spike right through the kitchen window and to the outside.

"Are you all right?" Buffy asked Joyce, stopping for a moment even as Faith barrelled past her to join the two battling vampires outside.

"He didn't hurt me. He seemed really ... are you sure he's a murdering demon?"

"Judging solely by what I just saw, no, but I know him a bit better than that. I'll be right back."

Outside Faith had yet to join the battle, as Angel and Spike were so entangled that she was afraid to hit the wrong person. The two vampires snarled and growled, laying into each other with vicious blows and seemingly without care to whatever hits they received in return.

"Bad blood between them, huh?" Faith asked Buffy as she joined her.

"They couldn't even stand each other when they were both soulless."

Finally the two Slayers went in and pulled the two vampires apart, Buffy throwing Spike into a nearby tree as hard as she could. She could clearly hear a rib break, but Spike was back on his feet in a moment.

"What happened, peaches?" he asked, sounding amused and angry as hell at the same time. "Gave her a taste of the good stuff to get your kicks? Or weren't your wrinklies big enough to make her fully into one of us?"

"It ends tonight, Spike," Angel snarled back. "You won't leave here alive."

He was about to jump into battle again when the night around them suddenly came alive. Dozens of vampires emerged from the surrounding bushes, quickly encircling their prey Buffy counted over thirty of them, all in demon face and looking ready for a fight.

"Well," Spike said, clearly as surprised by their appearance as anyone else. "Welcome to the club."

In a warehouse on the other side of town Sebastian Khan sat on a couch and watched the proceedings on a big screen TV, the corpse of a pizza delivery man cooling at his feet.


"And the game is on," he mused, licking the last splatters of blood from his lips.

TO BE CONTINUED