Chapter Two
The alarm clock went off with an ear shattering buzz. Dawn reached out and slapped it with the palm of her hand. She crawled out of bed more then half asleep and stumbled into the bathroom. She turned the shower on as hot as would go and stripped her pajamas off. Once she was under the steamy spray she begin to wake up a bit more. She rolled her neck. She was sore from her fight last night.
Dawn stepped out of the shower and swiped a hand across the steam fogged mirror. She wrinkled her nose, sorry she had. A yellow green bruise colored her jaw bone. There was really no covering this one up. She sighed and went into her room to get dressed. Maybe if she stalled long enough Buffy would be already be gone. When she finally ran down the stairs, long hair down hoping to mask the worst of the ugly bruise, Buffy was still in the kitchen.
"You better hurry, Dawn. I made scrambled eggs and I'm already going to-what the hell happened to your face?" Buffy said.
"Oh, uhm, fight at school?" Dawn said.
Buffy sighed. "Dawn if you don't stop fighting your going to get kicked out of school and then social services will take you away from me. Is that what you want?"
Dawn rolled her eyes. "No, Buffy. It was just-she called you a freak." Dawn stammered. The best way to get out of this was to make Buffy totally wig out.
"What? She called me a freak? Oh please, I mean sure I slay vampires but it's not like I'm a freak. Who was this girl?" Buffy asked, completely taking the bait.
"It's not important. I gave her a black eye. It looks way worse then my jaw." Dawn lied glibly.
"Why didn't the school call me about this? They used to call about these things." Buffy said.
"Uhm, it was after school, on the quad. It was broken up before any of the teachers saw." Dawn offered.
Buffy looked at her doubtfully. Crap, the gig is up. Spike was right. Dawn thought.
"Alright, but no more fights, Dawn. I'm serious. If you can't behave I'm gonna have to talk to Dad about letting you live with him." Buffy threatened.
"Oh and that would be so helpful since he's never there." Dawn rolled her eyes and grumbled.
"Social Services doesn't really care about that. He looks good on paper. I mean good job, nice trophy wife, and good salary. He has community brownie points, or something. Anyway, they'd send you to him in a millisecond if we gave them half a chance and I really don't want that, Dawnie." Buffy said.
"Alright, I'll stop with the fights." Dawn grumbled.
"And the shoplifting." Buffy said.
"That's been stopped for like months." Dawn said. Well almost, she thought to herself. Occasionally she still nabbed thing, but only if she really wanted them and she was sure she could get away with it, like her leather jacket.
"Alright, go to school before you're too late and they give you detention." Buffy said.
"Okay, okay, I'm gone." Dawn grabbed her backpack and dashed out the door. She schlumped through the school morning. She hadn't really gotten enough sleep last night. Lunch was something wiggly and gelatinous, something that wasn't supposed to be that way. Dawn pushed her lunch tray away and snuck out to the quad to spend her lunch hour. She lay down on the grass underneath a tree, using her backpack as a pillow. The bell rang and she just couldn't bring herself to get up and go to class. Once everyone had gone back into the school, Dawn got up and slipped off campus. She walked at a brisk pace, ducking into the cemetery where Spike's crypt was. If she hurried she could still make it for most of Passions. She banged on the door to the crypt and opened the door, slipping in.
"Afternoon, Niblet." Spike said barely looking up from the television. "You come to watch the telly with me?"
"Yeah," She said dropping her backpack and curling up on the couch. She leaned her head against Spike's shoulder with a yawn. "So what's going on?'
Spike briefly explained to her what she'd missed in the first fifteen minutes. "Aren't you s'posed to be in school?"
"Eeenh, "Dawn groaned keeping her eyes locked on the television.
Spike chuckled and sipped at his mug of blood. That was one thing Dawn liked about Spike. He didn't chide her about doing things she shouldn't, except for the slaying, and he didn't treat her like a kid, like everyone else in her life did. Spike treated her like an equal. It was nice, and rare.
She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew someone was banging on the crypt door.
"Crap, Slayer." Spike was on his feet and opening a trap door. "Come on, Niblet, down here."
Dawn jumped into the trap door and Spike slid it shut. Dawn let her eyes adjust and looked around the room. She was in a basement of sorts and it was cool. It smelled smoky from the fireplace and Spike wasn't the best housekeeper in the world. She understood now why Spike held on to this musty old crypt. The basement was twice the size of the crypt proper. It had a fireplace, a big comfy bed and a couch. There were bookshelves filled with books and other objects. There was a small desk littered with papers and books. There was even a little kitchenette with a small fridge and microwave and a retro forties style round table. It was a little dusty, but all in all it was a very cool space. Above her Dawn could hear the conversation going on pretty well. It seemed to echo through the floors.
"Spike, have you seen Dawn?" Buffy asked.
"Ain't seen the Niblet in a couple of days. She come up missing?" Spike said.
"She skipped her afternoon classes today. School called me. I made up some excuse about a doctor's appointment." Buffy said.
"Haven't seen her. I'll give a look see and send her home if I find her." Spike said.
"Okay, thanks. I'm going to go call her friends again and check by the magic shop, again." Buffy sighed.
Dawn heard footsteps above her and the crypt door closing. Spike slid open the trap door.
"She's gone; you can come on out, Niblet." Spike said.
Dawn climbed up the stairs. "Spike that place is really cool."
"Yeah, only the best for the Big Bad." Spike said lighting a cigarette.
Dawn flopped back down on the couch. Her stomach growled.
"Hungry, Platelet?" Spike asked.
"Yeah, kind of. I didn't eat lunch. It was wiggling." Dawn said.
"Exactly the way I like my food. Well then come on. I'll take you down to The Fish Tank and we'll have one of those bloomin onion things. Not likely Big Sis will look for you there."
Dawn jumped up and shrugged on her leather jacket. Buffy would kill her and stake Spike if she ever found out he'd taken her to a place like The Fish Tank, but Buffy wasn't here and she wouldn't find out, just like she wasn't going to find out about the superhero powers.
The Fish tank was fun. Spike wouldn't let her have a beer, even though the waitress offered to bring her one. Dawn munched on the onion thing while Spike told her stories about him and Drusilla and their "glory days" as he called them.
"You loved her, didn't you?" Dawn said.
Spike took a deep breath and a swig of his beer. "Dru and me, we spent a hundred and fifty years together, not something you take lightly. Dru needed me. She was fragile and unstable. She used to say I was her knight in shining armor. I don't know that you could call what Dru and I had love, not even sure I know what that is. I figure it was close enough." Spike ground his cigarette out on the table.
Dawn leaned back in her chair, full of greasy fried onion pieces and ranch dressing. "You know, there's this thing about ranch dressing, you can dip anything into it and it tastes good. French fries, cheese sticks, buffalo wings, chips, veggies, anything."
Spike pondered her words a moment. "I'll have to give it a mix with some blood and see how it turns out. Ready to go, Lil Bit?"
"Yeah, I should go do the patrol thing before I go home and face Buffy's wrath." Dawn said standing. They both knew she was just avoiding the inevitable.
Spike walked with her to her chosen cemetery for the night, Shady Hill. "I'm goin to go take care of some business. I'll be back to do the guardian bit after while."
Dawn grinned. "Kay, I'll be around."
"Don't worry, I'll find you." He said with a wink.
She smiled and knew he would. He always did.
*
"Anamoira!" Dawn shouted. She threw her hand up and she felt the power ripple through her. It was weak though. Her other fingers searched the ground she lay upon for her stake. She'd brought more then one. She knew it. She always brought more then one stake. She threw her hand up one more time and shouted "Anamoira!" The shield wasn't even strong enough to knock the vamps back. She was going to have to try something else and it was going to hurt like hell. She stumbled to her feet, wincing as she put weight on her left ankle. It was a bad sprain, possibly broken. She hadn't had enough experience with battle wounds to know for sure. She balanced her weight on her right leg and swung her left up for a high snap kick that forced the closest vampire to stumble backwards.
"Faruss!" She yelled, rolling the r just the way she'd practiced a few nights ago. It should have tossed the vamps back further away from her. At least it had when she'd practiced it. It didn't though. It hardly made them twitch. She was just too tired. She had to run there was no choice here, it was run or die and there were four vampires, the odds were stacked against her in this condition. She gritted her teeth and took off as fast as she could. It was a hobbling, slow pace with her ankle injured. She might have been okay. The vampires were scared of the things she could do, but she committed the fatal horror movie bimbo mistake. She tripped and fell. They were on her before she could scream.
The lead vamp kicked her in the ribs, sending her flying to smash against a headstone. She struggled against the blackness that threatened to wash over her. She pushed into a sitting position, only to be smacked hard across the cheekbone. She rolled, kicking up with her right leg as she did. The vampire she kicked cursed. She smirked, that was some satisfaction. At least if she were going to die they could hurt over it. She caught a right hook in the mouth.
"Wipe that smirk off your face, girly." The vamp snarled.
"Kiss my ass," Dawn spit blood. She ran her tongue along her teeth. They all seemed to be there. She could feel blood running down the back of her neck. She didn't want to die. She was 17, she didn't want to die and not like this, not in the dirt, bleeding.
"Sassy to the end, I like that. But you know this is the end." The lead vampire said. He kicked her again. She didn't fly as far this time, just a couple of feet, but it hurt more. She waited with eyes closed. She knew what came next. He was crouched over her. She could smell his sour blood breath as he opened his mouth. She almost let him bite her. She wanted to know what it felt like. In the end, she couldn't do it. She shoved the stake she'd finally found up into his heart. One down, three to go and not a hope in the world.
The remaining vampires stared at her in shock. She struggled to her feet. She couldn't breathe, or rather she could but the pain was excruciating. She started to hobble run. It didn't take much for them to catch up to her, especially now. One of them hit her squarely between the shoulder blades. She fell face first into the soft green grass. Cemeteries always had the most beautiful grass. Why is that, she wondered. I mean it's not like the dead people care and the vamps certainly don't. A kick to the gut forced any air she had managed to suck down out of her lungs. A hard roundhouse punch came down and hit her brow bone. She felt the skin split and the blood run. It really was better if they just killed her now. She was never going to be able to explain this to Buffy.
One of the vamps, the shorter one, grabbed a handful of her long hair and pulled her to her feet. She couldn't get enough air to scream or even wince.
"Whaddya know, you're not nearly as pretty as you were when we first started this." The vamp hissed in her face.
"That's more then I can say of you." Dawn spit blood as she spoke. She watched as the vampire snaked his tongue out and lapped up some of the bloody spittle that had landed near his lip.
"This is going to be good eating." He nearly purred.
Dawn brought her knee up into his groin as hard as she could. It was enough that he dropped her. Pain fired through her body and the blackness returned, dancing just on the edge of everything. This was not how she was supposed to die. She was a key. She was supposed to die opening portals to dimensions, not being beat to death by vampires.
"It's time you learned some respect." One of the vamps said as he delivered a kick to her mid section again. She flew up against a headstone, striking her head again. As the blackness engulfed her she heard a familiar British voice saying.
"You're the one goin to learn some respect, Wanker."
The alarm clock went off with an ear shattering buzz. Dawn reached out and slapped it with the palm of her hand. She crawled out of bed more then half asleep and stumbled into the bathroom. She turned the shower on as hot as would go and stripped her pajamas off. Once she was under the steamy spray she begin to wake up a bit more. She rolled her neck. She was sore from her fight last night.
Dawn stepped out of the shower and swiped a hand across the steam fogged mirror. She wrinkled her nose, sorry she had. A yellow green bruise colored her jaw bone. There was really no covering this one up. She sighed and went into her room to get dressed. Maybe if she stalled long enough Buffy would be already be gone. When she finally ran down the stairs, long hair down hoping to mask the worst of the ugly bruise, Buffy was still in the kitchen.
"You better hurry, Dawn. I made scrambled eggs and I'm already going to-what the hell happened to your face?" Buffy said.
"Oh, uhm, fight at school?" Dawn said.
Buffy sighed. "Dawn if you don't stop fighting your going to get kicked out of school and then social services will take you away from me. Is that what you want?"
Dawn rolled her eyes. "No, Buffy. It was just-she called you a freak." Dawn stammered. The best way to get out of this was to make Buffy totally wig out.
"What? She called me a freak? Oh please, I mean sure I slay vampires but it's not like I'm a freak. Who was this girl?" Buffy asked, completely taking the bait.
"It's not important. I gave her a black eye. It looks way worse then my jaw." Dawn lied glibly.
"Why didn't the school call me about this? They used to call about these things." Buffy said.
"Uhm, it was after school, on the quad. It was broken up before any of the teachers saw." Dawn offered.
Buffy looked at her doubtfully. Crap, the gig is up. Spike was right. Dawn thought.
"Alright, but no more fights, Dawn. I'm serious. If you can't behave I'm gonna have to talk to Dad about letting you live with him." Buffy threatened.
"Oh and that would be so helpful since he's never there." Dawn rolled her eyes and grumbled.
"Social Services doesn't really care about that. He looks good on paper. I mean good job, nice trophy wife, and good salary. He has community brownie points, or something. Anyway, they'd send you to him in a millisecond if we gave them half a chance and I really don't want that, Dawnie." Buffy said.
"Alright, I'll stop with the fights." Dawn grumbled.
"And the shoplifting." Buffy said.
"That's been stopped for like months." Dawn said. Well almost, she thought to herself. Occasionally she still nabbed thing, but only if she really wanted them and she was sure she could get away with it, like her leather jacket.
"Alright, go to school before you're too late and they give you detention." Buffy said.
"Okay, okay, I'm gone." Dawn grabbed her backpack and dashed out the door. She schlumped through the school morning. She hadn't really gotten enough sleep last night. Lunch was something wiggly and gelatinous, something that wasn't supposed to be that way. Dawn pushed her lunch tray away and snuck out to the quad to spend her lunch hour. She lay down on the grass underneath a tree, using her backpack as a pillow. The bell rang and she just couldn't bring herself to get up and go to class. Once everyone had gone back into the school, Dawn got up and slipped off campus. She walked at a brisk pace, ducking into the cemetery where Spike's crypt was. If she hurried she could still make it for most of Passions. She banged on the door to the crypt and opened the door, slipping in.
"Afternoon, Niblet." Spike said barely looking up from the television. "You come to watch the telly with me?"
"Yeah," She said dropping her backpack and curling up on the couch. She leaned her head against Spike's shoulder with a yawn. "So what's going on?'
Spike briefly explained to her what she'd missed in the first fifteen minutes. "Aren't you s'posed to be in school?"
"Eeenh, "Dawn groaned keeping her eyes locked on the television.
Spike chuckled and sipped at his mug of blood. That was one thing Dawn liked about Spike. He didn't chide her about doing things she shouldn't, except for the slaying, and he didn't treat her like a kid, like everyone else in her life did. Spike treated her like an equal. It was nice, and rare.
She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew someone was banging on the crypt door.
"Crap, Slayer." Spike was on his feet and opening a trap door. "Come on, Niblet, down here."
Dawn jumped into the trap door and Spike slid it shut. Dawn let her eyes adjust and looked around the room. She was in a basement of sorts and it was cool. It smelled smoky from the fireplace and Spike wasn't the best housekeeper in the world. She understood now why Spike held on to this musty old crypt. The basement was twice the size of the crypt proper. It had a fireplace, a big comfy bed and a couch. There were bookshelves filled with books and other objects. There was a small desk littered with papers and books. There was even a little kitchenette with a small fridge and microwave and a retro forties style round table. It was a little dusty, but all in all it was a very cool space. Above her Dawn could hear the conversation going on pretty well. It seemed to echo through the floors.
"Spike, have you seen Dawn?" Buffy asked.
"Ain't seen the Niblet in a couple of days. She come up missing?" Spike said.
"She skipped her afternoon classes today. School called me. I made up some excuse about a doctor's appointment." Buffy said.
"Haven't seen her. I'll give a look see and send her home if I find her." Spike said.
"Okay, thanks. I'm going to go call her friends again and check by the magic shop, again." Buffy sighed.
Dawn heard footsteps above her and the crypt door closing. Spike slid open the trap door.
"She's gone; you can come on out, Niblet." Spike said.
Dawn climbed up the stairs. "Spike that place is really cool."
"Yeah, only the best for the Big Bad." Spike said lighting a cigarette.
Dawn flopped back down on the couch. Her stomach growled.
"Hungry, Platelet?" Spike asked.
"Yeah, kind of. I didn't eat lunch. It was wiggling." Dawn said.
"Exactly the way I like my food. Well then come on. I'll take you down to The Fish Tank and we'll have one of those bloomin onion things. Not likely Big Sis will look for you there."
Dawn jumped up and shrugged on her leather jacket. Buffy would kill her and stake Spike if she ever found out he'd taken her to a place like The Fish Tank, but Buffy wasn't here and she wouldn't find out, just like she wasn't going to find out about the superhero powers.
The Fish tank was fun. Spike wouldn't let her have a beer, even though the waitress offered to bring her one. Dawn munched on the onion thing while Spike told her stories about him and Drusilla and their "glory days" as he called them.
"You loved her, didn't you?" Dawn said.
Spike took a deep breath and a swig of his beer. "Dru and me, we spent a hundred and fifty years together, not something you take lightly. Dru needed me. She was fragile and unstable. She used to say I was her knight in shining armor. I don't know that you could call what Dru and I had love, not even sure I know what that is. I figure it was close enough." Spike ground his cigarette out on the table.
Dawn leaned back in her chair, full of greasy fried onion pieces and ranch dressing. "You know, there's this thing about ranch dressing, you can dip anything into it and it tastes good. French fries, cheese sticks, buffalo wings, chips, veggies, anything."
Spike pondered her words a moment. "I'll have to give it a mix with some blood and see how it turns out. Ready to go, Lil Bit?"
"Yeah, I should go do the patrol thing before I go home and face Buffy's wrath." Dawn said standing. They both knew she was just avoiding the inevitable.
Spike walked with her to her chosen cemetery for the night, Shady Hill. "I'm goin to go take care of some business. I'll be back to do the guardian bit after while."
Dawn grinned. "Kay, I'll be around."
"Don't worry, I'll find you." He said with a wink.
She smiled and knew he would. He always did.
*
"Anamoira!" Dawn shouted. She threw her hand up and she felt the power ripple through her. It was weak though. Her other fingers searched the ground she lay upon for her stake. She'd brought more then one. She knew it. She always brought more then one stake. She threw her hand up one more time and shouted "Anamoira!" The shield wasn't even strong enough to knock the vamps back. She was going to have to try something else and it was going to hurt like hell. She stumbled to her feet, wincing as she put weight on her left ankle. It was a bad sprain, possibly broken. She hadn't had enough experience with battle wounds to know for sure. She balanced her weight on her right leg and swung her left up for a high snap kick that forced the closest vampire to stumble backwards.
"Faruss!" She yelled, rolling the r just the way she'd practiced a few nights ago. It should have tossed the vamps back further away from her. At least it had when she'd practiced it. It didn't though. It hardly made them twitch. She was just too tired. She had to run there was no choice here, it was run or die and there were four vampires, the odds were stacked against her in this condition. She gritted her teeth and took off as fast as she could. It was a hobbling, slow pace with her ankle injured. She might have been okay. The vampires were scared of the things she could do, but she committed the fatal horror movie bimbo mistake. She tripped and fell. They were on her before she could scream.
The lead vamp kicked her in the ribs, sending her flying to smash against a headstone. She struggled against the blackness that threatened to wash over her. She pushed into a sitting position, only to be smacked hard across the cheekbone. She rolled, kicking up with her right leg as she did. The vampire she kicked cursed. She smirked, that was some satisfaction. At least if she were going to die they could hurt over it. She caught a right hook in the mouth.
"Wipe that smirk off your face, girly." The vamp snarled.
"Kiss my ass," Dawn spit blood. She ran her tongue along her teeth. They all seemed to be there. She could feel blood running down the back of her neck. She didn't want to die. She was 17, she didn't want to die and not like this, not in the dirt, bleeding.
"Sassy to the end, I like that. But you know this is the end." The lead vampire said. He kicked her again. She didn't fly as far this time, just a couple of feet, but it hurt more. She waited with eyes closed. She knew what came next. He was crouched over her. She could smell his sour blood breath as he opened his mouth. She almost let him bite her. She wanted to know what it felt like. In the end, she couldn't do it. She shoved the stake she'd finally found up into his heart. One down, three to go and not a hope in the world.
The remaining vampires stared at her in shock. She struggled to her feet. She couldn't breathe, or rather she could but the pain was excruciating. She started to hobble run. It didn't take much for them to catch up to her, especially now. One of them hit her squarely between the shoulder blades. She fell face first into the soft green grass. Cemeteries always had the most beautiful grass. Why is that, she wondered. I mean it's not like the dead people care and the vamps certainly don't. A kick to the gut forced any air she had managed to suck down out of her lungs. A hard roundhouse punch came down and hit her brow bone. She felt the skin split and the blood run. It really was better if they just killed her now. She was never going to be able to explain this to Buffy.
One of the vamps, the shorter one, grabbed a handful of her long hair and pulled her to her feet. She couldn't get enough air to scream or even wince.
"Whaddya know, you're not nearly as pretty as you were when we first started this." The vamp hissed in her face.
"That's more then I can say of you." Dawn spit blood as she spoke. She watched as the vampire snaked his tongue out and lapped up some of the bloody spittle that had landed near his lip.
"This is going to be good eating." He nearly purred.
Dawn brought her knee up into his groin as hard as she could. It was enough that he dropped her. Pain fired through her body and the blackness returned, dancing just on the edge of everything. This was not how she was supposed to die. She was a key. She was supposed to die opening portals to dimensions, not being beat to death by vampires.
"It's time you learned some respect." One of the vamps said as he delivered a kick to her mid section again. She flew up against a headstone, striking her head again. As the blackness engulfed her she heard a familiar British voice saying.
"You're the one goin to learn some respect, Wanker."