Part Two "Lost Potential"
Leaning against the side of the car, Eve stubbed the end of another Gauloise Blonde under the toe of her Jimmy Choo pump, gaining no pleasure from the cigarette's satisfying crunch she felt under her toe. She hated to wait.
"This next one was a kook the last time I met her and all signs are pointing to a repeat performance," she muttered to the black-suited chauffeur, who let no emotion slip past his mirrored shades while he stood sentry. "Who can't get on a plane? If I'd known international travel was this big of a pain in the ass, I'd have chartered the flight myself." She sighed. "But no, because then it would be on the books and Angel might see it. I made the right decision." She smiled at the solemn bodyguard. "I'm so glad we brainstormed on this together."
"Ma'am, I'm afraid you're going to have to move this vehicle," said a state police officer as he sauntered up to the company limousine. "State law requires all personal vehicles to be parked away from the curb."
Eve rolled her eyes. "Vinnie," was all she had to whine. Without hesitation, her guard escorted the officer back to the police car. Eve smirked as the cop quickly pulled around the limo and sped away from the terminal. "God, was it something I said?"
At that moment, a smudged, wary face emerged from the sliding doors of the international terminal, a wisp of a girl in dingy black leather pants and matching motorcycle jacket, cut-off white t-shirt and knee-high lace up combat boots. She slung her bike messenger bag over her shoulder and looked around her suspiciously.
Eve broke into a tight smile. "There's our girl. All toughed up and crazy to go." She approached the young woman with her manicured hand out in greeting and Vinnie in tow.
"Darling," Eve purred. "I'd know you anywhere. You're the picture of your sister."
The girl stared back. "I don't look nothing like that skank," she said flatly. Eve took in the full impact the girl made and saw her as the photo negative of a Scandinavian ice queen. Where the hair should have been gossamer, hers was bloody amber. Black charcoal kohl and pencil lined the lids and rims of her green cat-eyes. Instead of pink blush, a razor-thin scar lined her cheek to the corner of her surly pouting mouth. If Lilah Morgan had seen more fisticuffs than facials, Eve thought, you'd get this face.
"Yes, very little resemblance now that you mention it," Eve agreed offhandedly. "But if it weren't for her, we'd never know about you."
"So where is the cunt?" The girl asked baldly.
Eve looked at her closely. "You do realize, dear, that your sister is dead? So obviously she can't be with us at the moment. That's part of our deal, don't you remember?"
The girl would not break her stony stare. "So why are you here? Don't you got minions for this?" She pointed to Vinnie. "Who's he?"
Eve put on her most ingratiating façade of courtesy. "I wanted to pay a personal visit to you, to let you know that on behalf of Wolfram and Hart, we're looking forward to a mutually beneficial relationship. You're an important client and Vinnie here is standing by to ensure that our relationship gets off on the right foot."
The girl twisted one of the eight studs ringing her left earlobe and grinned wickedly. "What you got under that coat, Vinnie? A holster full of Special K?" She turned to Eve. "I eat that shit like candy, no lie. One shot take down an elephant, but damn I suck those lawn darts dry. You ask that bounty hunter Nazi fucker I just left how good they work on me. But then he ain't talking much without his tongue."
Eve blinked and the smile froze on her face. "Is that your calling card? Leaving a man speechless?"
The girl licked her cranberry slicked lips. "I don't know if you could call 'em all men afterwards." She chomped greedily on her gum and winked. Vinnie backed up imperceptibly towards the driver's door of the car.
"Wow, well, all this conversation, long trip, you must have some appetite," Eve said with false brightness. "We'll finalize our arrangements over a quick bite. Of food," she added quickly. Vinnie jerked open the door and stepped protectively behind it. The two women slid into the limo.
"What are you going by these days? Another creative alias?" Eve asked as the limo glided towards the expressway.
"I got no reason to hide anymore," the girl replied. "I got a real name. Leah Morgan."
"How fitting for you," Eve purred. "You'll so enjoy your meal at Katana, really fabulous sushi."
"Fuck that!" spat the girl. "I don't eat no raw, E-coli-shit fish. Vinnie, pull over," Leah ordered. "Here."
The limo veered suddenly off the road. "Tell 'em I want six hamburgers, supersize fries and a chocolate shake. And a pie. And check it, will ya? They always fuck you at the drive-through."
Eve watched with fascination and disgust as Leah wolfed down her meal with all the table manners of a hyena, her chunky silver rings flashing while she ate. The girl appeared to hover on the edge of the lunatic fringe. Eve wanted to hold the energy, contain it, and use it before the poor girl burned herself up completely.
"Leah, I have to say, we were prepared to offer you a much more substantial meal, nothing but the best for the newest member of our team. I'm sure you'll find your accommodations more than adequate."
"Whatever," Leah muttered. She stopped chewing long enough to ask, "Place got cable?"
"Satellite, actually. But that's beside the point. As I said earlier, our relationship is mutually exclusive, which means--"
"Yeah, yeah, you suck my dick, I suck yours. Whadaya want, Eve?"
Eve pulled a deep breath. The girl's patchouli oil barely masked the growing indication that Leah hadn't bathed in possibly weeks. "I want to set up some ground rules. First of all, after today, you've never seen me before in your life. Any kindnesses that are bestowed on you will be on behalf of the new management of Wolfram and Hart. You must consider ingratiating yourself to these individuals in order to advance your own cause."
Leah fumbled in her jacket and lit a clove cigarette. Eve's nose curled further.
"In return, we will supply all the necessary tools for you to complete your mission. When the senior partners deem your contribution complete, we will reunite you with your sister," Eve finished, pressing a button to open the car's moon roof.
Leah exhaled a stream of thick smoke out into the late afternoon air. "What kind of tools you talking about? Knives?"
Eve beamed. "The accoutrements of your position go without saying. But we have a very exciting first stop, Leah. Right in Wolfram and Hart's offices. Have you ever wanted to be a history major? Maybe a math whiz, or a science brainiac? All you have to do is ask."
The crude, violent girl considered the offer, bringing one black painted fingernail to her mouth and ripping a cuticle between her teeth. "I never went to school much."
"I gathered that," Eve answered tentatively.
"I knew things," Leah continued defensively. "They're all real, monsters, living nightmares. No one saw, no one believed.made me a killer, fucking Lilah, all of them, thought they could lock me away--"
"No," Eve concurred sweetly. "You were chosen. And now we choose you. Your sister made some grievous mistakes that we hope you can correct. The balance is upset. You can change that."
Leah suddenly grabbed Eve's wrist, the tiny hand locking down a rough, cold vise that immediately squeezed off her circulation. "Where is she?"
Eve winced. "It's just as we talked about, Leah. She's, she's in limbo. One good soul could save her immortal essence and unbind her from her contract. Or--,"
"Do I look like a good soul?" Leah whispered, gritting her teeth and digging her nails into Eve's flesh.
Eve shook her head fearfully. "But we can make you into whatever you want to be."
Leah released Eve's hand and relaxed back into her seat. "I want to be everything. Everything I never got."
"Of course you do," Eve said and rubbed vigorously on the back of her hand, feeling a small bone twinge in response. She pulled a stack of files out of her briefcase. "Here's all the necessary information you'll need about our management team: vital statistics, addresses, even personal habits." She paused. "One more thing: for all intents and purposes, all of these creatures have souls. Any problem with that?"
Leah glanced at the black folders and the names Angel, Burkle, Wyndham- Pryce, Lorne, Chase, Gunn, Spike.
She smiled coldly. "No problem at all."
*** "Wow. What kind of trials does it take to get a soul anyway? I mean, it doesn't seem like there should be trials at all, because a soul is something way beyond any abilities to try to get it back you know?" Fred asked Spike as they returned from one of their daily walks.
Spike sighed wearily. "Certainly I've exhausted that headache out of you by now, haven't I? You're not still hurting?"
"No, I mean, yes, ow!" she grabbed her forehead in mock melodrama.
A couple walked by and gave Fred a curious look. Spike leaned over to her. "I don't think everyone can see me. They looked at you yammering to yourself as though you're mental."
"Oh, I'm used to that," she dismissed. "Finish the story!"
He continued to tell her the details of battling both his mental demons and the tricks of the First Evil when he fought what he assumed was his final battle.
"Jolted the hell out of me when I showed up on Angel's doorstep," Spike said. "It was the last, and I mean truly last thing I expected."
She stopped walking when she saw his disheartened expression. "Spike, are you disappointed? That you're not dead?"
He opened his mouth to speak and then seemed to change his mind. He closed it again. "Yeah." He shrugged. "Doesn't seem much point to me anymore, does there?"
"Because of Buffy? We can call her, find a way to get her here." Anything, Fred thought, to keep him here.
"NO," he said firmly, glaring at her. "I don't need a bloody intervention. I need a purpose. I don't know this world anymore, love. I don't know what it holds for me, even if I do get my body back."
Fred wished she could touch him or provide some kind of comfort. "Your love for Buffy was a goal, the thought you could be together."
He pointed at her. "Exactly - was - past tense. We've all got our pasts to move away from: you and your Pylea, me and the slayer."
She shook her head impatiently. "Spike, you're not comparing true love to a hell dimension?"
"Obviously you never caught Buffy Summers on a bad day," he said with a wry grin.
"Seriously."
"All right. I've engaged in a bit of self-reflection of late, pet. Bloody only thing I can do really. I'm not one for following the mystics, but I also don't believe in ignoring their signs: when you turn the entire town that witnessed your love into a huge smoking crater, I take that as a giant red flag from the universe that it's time to move on."
She thought over his rationale. "So that's what you're doing? Moving on?"
"I'm trying, pet. All I can do." He looked down at their hands, swinging side-by-side but apart. "Weak sodding escort I am, I can't even take your hand."
"It's more than just holding hands," Fred said softly, catching a fragment of a memory.
Spike gave her a puzzled look. "That's a curious thing to say, where'd you get that?"
"Wesley." she said, catching sight of a figure near her apartment.
"Why the hell would he."
She pointed. "Look, there's Wesley. What's he doing? Wesley!" she called, running over to him.
Wesley finished reciting a passage, closed a book, and held it behind his back, but not before Fred caught sight of the familiar binding of his favorite spell text.
"I said I needed to get away from magic," she complained. "Not bring it all back with me."
"A simple protection spell while you're at home can't hurt," Wesley argued huffily.
"A protection spell's containment, a block, and it might affect the amulet, therefore negating any of my work. Undo it," she said.
"I will not. And I won't have this conversation in public." Wes glared at Spike.
Spike rolled his eyes. "Right. I'll be in the lobby."
"No, don't go," she said and instinctively put her arm out to stop him. "I took a responsibility when I took that amulet, Wesley. I'm not going to push Spike aside because you want to lecture me in private."
"I don't want to lecture you, Fred. I'm horribly worried about you, the number of hours you put in at the lab lately, your migraines." Wes pleaded.
"They're not true migraines, you know, " Spike interjected. "The sunlight doesn't bother her."
"When I'm interested in your opinion, Spike, I'll ask for it," Wesley answered.
Spike pursed his lips in anger and smirked maliciously. "Actually she seems to seize up in pain whenever your name is mentioned."
"Don't," Fred said, stepping between them. "Wesley, go. I'll call you, OK?" She waited until Wesley walked down her path before continuing into the apartment building.
"Sheesh," Fred said worriedly. "I don't think he's slept in weeks, Spike, he looked awful."
Spike chuckled. "Bookworm boy has it bad," he mused.
She gave him a sidelong glance. "What do you mean?"
"For you. He's obviously in love with you, Fred."
Her mouth gaped open in surprise. "No. No! It's crazy!" she scoffed.
"What on principle makes such a notion utterly crackers, then?" Spike asked.
She thought for a moment, considering the categorical imbalance she felt whenever a romantic thought of Wesley came into her mind. "Him? Me? Non- computational equations?" She could tell from the look on his face that this explanation would not satisfy Spike.
"The him part of the equation I get, but the you side of it, I can't fathom. The non-whatever-you-said, sounds like that pretty little story you tell yourself when life gets rough," Spike told her.
"HUH?"
"Come off it, love. Here comes a big touchy-feely gone bad and you scurry behind your microscope to analyze the life out it. That habit probably saved you when you were in slavery, but part of you hasn't tuned into the fact that you're not there anymore."
Fred felt completely open and exposed. Somehow, Spike spoke to her in a way no one else did and had even successfully uncovered some of her deepest secrets. "You do the same thing with jokes," she replied defensively. "You take emotional stuff and joke it to death."
"Touché," Spike smiled. "I see the scientist's taken her notes."
She unlocked the apartment door and allowed him entrance. "Pretty insightful work. Maybe you should be a psychoanalyst when you get your body back," she teased.
"Sod off," he replied.
To a student comfortable with libraries and laboratories, spending this much time inactively at home proved a challenge. Fred filled her days with research on spells, gems, and histories of prophecies. The solitary nature of the research she began in the lab, coupled with Spike's curiosity and nervousness on her progress, began their friendship. She noticed that her mind worked quicker when they bantered, usually because she was desperate not to let his wordplay get the better of her. Glances were exchanged; long silences followed his compliments of her work. The close quarters of her apartment only distilled their mutual affection for one another. Their combined energies of hope and disappointment bonded them.
"I'm about to make your week," he announced one evening. "Watch."
Narrowing his eyes and chewing his lip with concentration, he affixed his stare on one of the ancient prophecy texts and turned the page.
Fred clapped her hands with delight. "Go you!"
"I can finally do some good, instead of hanging about like some stuffed mascot." Smiling teasingly, he successfully tossed the book on the sofa. "You're next."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm in the middle of this passage."
He stood next to her as she sat next to the desk, puffed up with pride at his accomplishment. "A spot of tea? A biscuit? Bit of, oh, a shoulder rub perhaps?"
She shifted in her seat and pushed the book in his direction. "Latin translation, please," she said, feeling the warmth radiating from his presence.
He sulked. "Turn one page and I become the scholar? No bloody threat to society here." He leaned over the text and scanned the page dejectedly.
"Cogito, ergo sum," he read aloud and smiled, his eyebrows rising slyly. " 'I think therefore I am'? Nice touch."
She giggled. "Well, I picked up Descartes by mistake. I happened to hit that sentence when you showed me your progress. Great timing, huh?"
His face glowed with affection and delight at the workings of her mind. "Impeccable."
In days past, it was the space in which each of them would turn away, had turned away, and would wrench their eyes from one another to return to work. Yet this time, each held on to the gaze of mutual fondness. Their lively smiles faded into deeper expressions of trust, adoration, even fear.
Fred swallowed and the reflex flooded her face with heat. She was afraid to breathe, to speak - to move. She wanted nothing to break the moment.
She saw how Spike waited for any sign from her, watching her longingly, his lips open slightly in the faintest look of hope. She felt his eyes reach further into her, touching places in her no one had found. He plunged further still and returned to her sweet expectant face, quietly asking for and receiving permission to continue. She saw all and still held on to him.
"You.hold on to me," he said finally. "I can't.you don't let me push you away. Even at my worst. Even if I try to..."
She shook her head faintly. "You never go too far."
"I go pretty far."
"I can take it. I can take a lot."
His lip trembled for an instant. "Yes, I believe you can, too. Am I the only one who knows that about you?"
"I think so. And--I, I want to," she whispered. "Take whatever you have to give."
He inclined his head almost shyly. "You want--?"
"You," she finished. The word felt monumental in her mouth and fear welled up inside of her at her admission. Quickly she asked, "Do you--?"
"Win, yes, God yes," he said in a rasping voice. He stepped towards her and impulsively she moved backwards. "Not yet?" he asked tenderly. She shook her head.
"Is it because I can't touch you?" he asked, still not breaking his eyes' hold on her. He stepped forward again but this time she didn't move.
Fred's skin prickled with the need to be touched. "Um, well. That's part of it, yes. And, and no," she stammered.
"What if I could touch you?" he whispered, moving behind her. "Where would you like me to start?"
The heat rose to an impossible level around her face. So badly she wanted to let go, to fall into his arms - but she would fall into him and fall to the floor. This realization broke Fred out of her fantasy.
"But you can't!" she cried, pulling away. "You can't, Spike. Let's just, just, leave it at that." She pushed her glasses back on her nose.
"I watch your dreams, love. When are you going to live one for a change?"
She whipped around to face him. "What?"
Spike's swagger returned. "I said, you keep yourself on a shorter leash than I'm on with that amulet. Who registers your temperature above lukewarm, Fort Knox in the lab maybe?" he asked with tantalizing bravado. The hairs on her arm raised up and a tingle stirred the back of her hand. Fred jumped back in real surprise.
"I'll practice, love. Makes for perfect, don't they say?"
He returned to the couch. "You'll tell me how I can do my bit about the house. Don't want to wear out my welcome."
Fred watched him in bewilderment. "Well, since you can turn pages, I could use a study buddy, with the research, I mean."
"Whatever the lady wants," he said softly and bowed. "In the meantime, you might want to consider what you truly want before you doom yourself to not getting it," Spike finished and then evaporated.
*** Leah watched the blond ghost and the skinny scientist enter the apartment building. She made her move when the twiggy girl closed the door. I can help get her through it again - by her neck, Leah thought. She strode out quickly from behind the hedge towards the glass double doors. With a brief flash of light, a force field of energy sprung her away from the steps and bounced her back to the pavement. For a moment, she thought that the ghost must have seen her and pushed her back, but the couple had disappeared from the lobby into the elevator.
"What the fuck?" Leah muttered, jumping up and trying for the door again with the same result.
"OK, now I'm pissed," she said, brushing the dirt off her leather pants. "Someone's gotta die tonight."
Leah wandered dazedly through the late afternoon-lit neighborhoods through evening, until she found the streets she recognized, the bodegas, the ghettos, and the tenements, the streets that once hid her and kept her safe. Her nose twitched in the stagnant night air with the thrill of the chase.
She could smell them before she saw them: flowered perfume gone sour with the sweat of fear, vampire spit mixed with moldy Drakkar Noir and the musty leather of a classic El Camino. As the girl ran screaming past her towards an alley, Leah calmly waited for the barrio-boy to reach her. She blocked his path, calmly dodged his attempts to punch her, then hit him squarely between the eyes with a closed fist, and staked him while he staggered backwards. A typical vampire scenario - blind date turns into feast - Leah turned towards his girl sobbing behind a dumpster.
"Get up," Leah told her. "I said get up." Leah leaned over to the girl and took her face in her hands, roughly wiping the girl's tears across her cheeks and watching her distress with curious detachment.
The girl cowered and sniveled miserably, frozen in the shock of her near attack and her date's supernatural end. Leah realized how supple and generous was the body that heaved in her hands, how silky the hair - bouncy, honey blonde highlights, like Lilah's once, plump, pliant breasts like Lilah.Lilah the sister who swore her protection after their parents died, who promised they'd be together with the sweetest of kisses.
"Lilah," Leah said to the girl and stroked her hair absently.
"No, my name's Sandy," the girl said in a trembling voice.
Leah only saw her beloved sister in the tear-stained face. "Lilah, you left me to rot in there! I didn't kill anybody and you knew that, you believed me, only you, Lilah, I fucking loved you!" Leah raved, tightening her hold on the girl's face.
"You saved me," the girl murmured, transfixed by the savage beauty of Leah's stricken face, ripe with animal desire, and instinctively moved towards her lips. With a quick jerk, Leah snapped the pretty neck and let the limp body fall back to the ground.
"Wimp," she growled and strode out of the alley.
*** Gratefully for Fred, she and Spike relaxed back into easy, warm camaraderie. Yet an undercurrent of tension now stirred below the surface. Every morning in the shower, she could feel him hovering. Embarrassment and brazenness took over equally when she sensed him lingering so near to her naked body, but she could not bring herself to discuss it; she knew if she called him on it that he would stop. That was it: she wanted him there, wanted him to see her as exposed in skin as they'd been together in emotion. She thought of it as her private message to him that she hadn't forgotten, that she waited for him. In the evenings, traditionally her loneliest time of day, she would change for bed in the moonlight with the shadows reflected off her skin, and crawl between the covers. She felt him move by her side, humming gently to himself, his sound and his presence soothing her into peaceful sleep. He'd become the guardian of her dreams; the headaches and nightmares ceased. Until the night of the phone call.
The Caller ID read, "Unknown." Fred let the machine pick up.
"Hello, Dr. Burkle," Eve began snidely. "You have something that belongs to us and we're prepared to take further action to get it. If you want to bring the ghost home in the evenings for, . well. What employees do on their own time is their affair. But your lab needs you. I suggest you end whatever experiment you think you're conducting and return to regular business hours. Otherwise, we may be forced to recalculate the lab's budget and your involvement there."
"Bitch knows I'm not a doctor," Fred muttered and erased the message with shaking hands.
"Here, sit down, Win, you're trembling."
"I'm fine, Spike, really. I can't worry about Eve, about any of them disturbing the work. The work's all that matters. Better get back to it," she turned away from him and put on her glasses.
"That's it? You think you can erase her voice and that'll be the end of it? We've got to get a plan together," he said worriedly.
She put her nose back in a book and didn't answer.
"Love, we've got to talk about this."
"Don't want to," she mumbled.
"Too bloody bad. What am I going to do, speed read her to death?"
She threw the book down. "You want to talk? Great, let's talk. I don't have any data, Spike!" she exploded. "I think the gem's made of faceted amber. But what does that mean? I can't test it; I don't dare carbon-14 date it. What will happen if I destroy it? I don't know anything! With one blow, they could wipe out the amulet and you."
"This will work out. I know it. You're too damn brilliant for it not to."
She barked out a short sad laugh "I'm not brilliant, I'm pathetic. I've put you in danger, Angel, the lab. All because I wanted a roommate?" She cast her eyes down and saw him kneeling before her. "I want you here, Spike. But I don't know why I want you here," she said. "I've got to think rationally. What's best for you in this condition."
"You. You are," he whispered. "I didn't want you to bring me here because of the work. It's you. I only feel anything like a man when I'm with you."
Hearing the craving in his voice, Fred's resolve began to melt. "This is so difficult."
"Is anything worth getting not?" he asked softly.
She felt herself pulled towards him as though he held some force field drawing her in. He likewise moved towards her, ready to lose them both in a kiss. She breathed out a rush of hot breath and closed her eyes. An electric shock jolted her lips.
"Bugger. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."
She shuddered, her stomach and pelvic muscles clenching with need. Tears sprang to her eyes.
"Right. I'm pathetic," she said again, smiling gamely.
"Win, no," he started. She walked into the bedroom and shut the door.
Fred tossed in her bed, unable to find sleep. She kept replaying their almost-kiss and every time, an ache of raw desire and heat flooded her body and broke out in a release of sweat. Her hair and chest were soaked with it.
"Spike?" she called out hesitantly. "Are you here?"
"Always, love, all you need to do is ask," he answered. "I'll not take too many liberties with my spirit status, following you through walls, and that nonsense. I can give you at least a semblance of privacy."
She smiled to herself, thinking about their shared morning showers. Worry grabbed at her again when she thought of Eve's call. "Spike, I'm scared. I know that something's going to happen here, but I don't know when, and I don't know if we'll have enough time."
"Hush," he whispered. "See to those dreams of yours."
"But Spike."
"And you're not pathetic. Bloody ridiculous, that is. I shouldn't have tried to kiss you because.you deserve better than this. When I kiss you, I'll be solid and do it proper."
She curled up, scooting closer to the edge, spooning against an empty half of bed. The gentle tingling of almost-touch caressed her hair, her cheek, and her neck, across to her back, rested against her head, and soothed her to sleep.
****
"Now your Deathwok, there's some of your more interesting demons there," the bulldog-faced man droned on.
Leah rolled her eyes. "Not to hear you tell it." Here I am, big new brain, and I'm buying watered down drinks in a dive demon bar for a guy too ugly to waste the time skinning, she thought. Killing Lorne barely seemed worth this torture.
"Nah, I'm serious. You can uh, cut off their heads but you have to mutilate their bodies for 'em to die. And you don't even want to know what happens to 'em without sleep."
Leah stubbed out another cigarette, her patience thinning. "I don't suppose it kills them."
"Oh sure, sooner or later, but here's a secret, just for you, 'cause I don't mind saying that I'm sweet on you, girlie. Deathwok's got real sensitive blood Ph. You find something that messes with it, you got yourself one sick Deathwok," he said.
Her interest returned. "Like what?"
"Over the counter? Any of your heavier, less pure alcohols would work, not vodka, gin maybe.tequila, sure, whiskey--hey why you wanna poison a Deathwok anyway?" he asked.
"Bastard fucked with my sister," she lied. It could be true. Everyone fucked with her sister; everyone fucked with her. Everyone needed to pay. Leah got up from her barstool.
"That's some strong family loyalty. Hey where ya goin'? I thought you said you'd pay me."
"Right. Here's your money." She unzipped her new leather kit bag and pulled out a handful of cash, tossing it in his direction.
He scrambled to catch the money. "Wait, I'll walk you out."
"Forget it," she replied. She walked out of the bar fumbling with the bag, still awkward with the zipper. She dropped a wooden stake on the ground and knelt down to retrieve it. The man opened the door. Seeing the stake, he crushed his biker boot down onto her hand, pinning her to the cement. She screeched in pain.
"Hey, you a slayer, baby? I knew there was something about you. Oh, man. How'd I get so lucky?" Before she had time to react, the man kicked her head into the door, taking advantage of her momentary confusion to wrap a rope around her wrists. "You know how much they want for you on the black market?" He pulled the two long ends of rope around her waist for makeshift reins.
"NO!" she yelled, thrashing on the ground desperately. Flashes of prison, straightjackets, needles, and probing doctors' fingers crashed into her mind.
"Come on, girlie. It's so much better on you when you don't fight. I get so much more when you ain't all bruised up," he coaxed her, pulling on the rope.
She knelt pitifully on the ground, her head bowed in supplication. The man pulled hard on the leash and she felt her left shoulder separate from its socket. The quick spasm of hot pain cleared her mind and quieted her thudding heartbeat. She looked up at him with calm hatred and got to her feet.
"Where are you taking me? " She pretended to sob. "Please, please let me go."
"Me and my buddies got a nice training regiment for our girls. We gotta test you out first, make sure you perform. You ever faced a nest before, baby?" he asked, pulling her down the dark alley.
"Vampires? No, no, I'm not ready! I just started! Please don't do this!" She begged while trying not to smile. She twisted her hands behind her back, dislocating her right wrist so that it would slip out of the weak loops and snapping it back into place when she freed herself. She held the loose rope in her fists and waited, primed for her next move.
"Shut up. Here." He came to an abandoned warehouse with a padlocked and bolted door. "These boys ain't ate in days." He reached for her and she reared back with her left fist, slamming it against his temple. He dropped the lead of rope and fell to his knees with a groan. Before he could recover from this initial blow, she kicked the other side of his head with the heel of her boot.
"Fucker!" she screamed. She grabbed the rope lying on the ground and pulled his arms behind his back, heard both of his shoulders pop as she dug her boot into his back and tied him.
"See, this is a fucking knot, asshole," she instructed, pulling the expert ties in place.
She went back down the alley towards the bar for her leather bag. She pulled out the crossbow with the automatic stake loader and turned to the hunter. He struggled to his feet as she approached and desperately began running towards the pier, glancing back at her in terror.
Shaking her head in disgust, she fired one of her stakes at the back of his leg and caught him directly through the right kneecap. He howled in an animal's screech of pain and fell to the ground. She caught up to the writhing man quickly.
"Now see, that's just fucking rude. I only got so many of these to go around, ya know?" She yanked the stake out of the screaming man's knee, sending out a fresh flow of blood and enraged cursing.
"I guess I can forget about you telling me where the keys for this shack are." She pulled him up by his shirt and propped him against the warehouse wall. She broke the chains holding the door handle with one hand, pried the door open a crack with her foot, and shoved the bleeding man inside.
"NO! Fucking bitch! NO! NO! NO!" he shrieked, banging uselessly from inside the warehouse while she held the door fast. She felt the weight of the man release from the other side of the door and heard the familiar sound of vamps growling, ripping flesh, and feeding. She wrapped the chains loosely around the broken door handle and backed up, leaning against a brick wall with her crossbow aimed and ready to strike.
Sure enough, half dozen vamps broke through the door after the feeding frenzy ended and headed her way. The automatic crossbow dusted each in quick succession.
She entered the stuffy warehouse cautiously with the crossbow cocked, grimacing at the stink of nested, starving vampires. The remains of the man lay in the middle of the warehouse floor. She walked over and picked out his wallet from the pieces of torn and stained denim, pulling out the now blood-soaked wad of cash she'd given him in the bar.
"Help me," she heard him gurgle.
She tossed the wallet into the ripped open hollow of his chest. "No," she replied and left the warehouse.
*** After Eve's call, Fred stepped up the research even further, calling in as many trusted consultants outside the realms of Wolfram & Hart that she could think of. She knew her experiment existed on borrowed time and often felt desperation tugging at her to submit, to give up, and to lose hope. She only had to look at Spike, how much he depended on her and believed in her, to keep going.
"Anything good in that one?" she asked as he leafed through another book.
"Not a bloody thing. I'll put it in the dead-end box." He gingerly picked up another text. "This one looks promising. According to Giles' note, it covers ancient spell-casting gems."
She leaned over him. "What's it written in? Can you read ancient Zapotec script?"
He met her eyes. "Not the last time I checked."
"That makes two of us. I think I saw a translation dictionary in those books we put downstairs in storage. It'll be good to stretch my legs." Fred got up from the couch and glanced at him. He wore the most alluring intense expression while flipping through books, channeling his energy to turn the pages. Her stomach unexpectedly turned over when he met her eyes again.
"What?" he asked.
She moistened her dry lips and felt her cheeks burn. "I was going to ask what you wanted to order for dinner, and then I remembered you don't eat dinner."
His eyes returned to the page. "Thanks for the thought, pet. You're ordering in again?"
She bit on her thumbnail. "I guess."
Fred couldn't stop looking at him, the curve of his jaw, the pout of his bottom lip. If only he would look at her and not stop, like the look they shared that day when she thought everything changed between them. With the threat of Eve hanging over them though, they'd returned to roommate status and Fred wondered if she'd imagined her connection with Spike. The more they worked these days, the less she felt it.
Spike shook his head. "Never seen a bird so keen on the takeaway. You need a wholesome supper, brain food."
She laughed nervously. "I keep telling myself that cooking is a kind of science, but it must be like taxonomy or entomology." She saw his lost expression. "I stink at those," she explained.
"Ah." He finally held her gaze. "Something else?" he asked politely.
"Are you horribly bored? We've done nothing but read and surf the net and study. Do you want to go out?"
He shrugged. "Do you?"
"I've never been one for the nightlife," she began. Then she remembered his connection to the amulet. "Oh, sorry, I get it. You can't go, unless I go and I take the amulet."
He nodded his head slowly. "That's how it works, yeah."
"I'm a terrible hostess," she apologized. "I'm so into the work we're doing. And, and I'm enjoying working with you, Spike. I don't feel like I need to leave," she added, standing awkwardly next to him, waiting for some indication that he understood her desire, that he shared it.
His brief smile held no clues. "I feel the same."
"You're so helpful," she continued. "And I want to thank you for that and for understanding, you know, after our big talk. As opposed to the little talks that we have, not that they aren't important."
Spike looked back down. "No worries."
"I think we should continue to move forward through the books that Mr. Giles sent, stay determined, and press onward for a solution," she finished, hoping he would talk her out of it.
"Sounds very sensible."
Fred gave up her brave face. "Why do you keep doing that?"
He stared hard into the book. "Doing what?"
"That!" Fred exclaimed, pointing at him. "You're not a man of few words- that I do know."
He got up from the couch with a sigh and walked over to her. "Look. I thought we both decided I should leave you be. I'm not going to force myself on you."
"Spike, why haven't you tried to touch me again?" she blurted.
The determined lines of his mouth softened. "So that's what this is all about. Who says I haven't?"
She suddenly realized the reason for his distance - he didn't want to disappoint her. "Oh, you mean you've tried and."
"Nothing," he said, shaking his head sadly.
Instead of sitting back down, he slid behind and she felt steam rise from him. "You think there isn't anything more I'd want to do than stroke the nape of your neck, caress your back, nibble your sweet ear, run my palms down your hips--is that what you want me to say?"
Unwillingly, Fred felt her eyes close. "Spike--" she breathed.
"You've thought of me talking to you like this?"
"--Yes." She wanted to weep with the relief of hearing the desire in his voice.
"All I've wanted is to be near you like this again. Remember what I asked you to do for me? Think about what you wanted?"
She shuddered. "Please--"
She thought she could feel his breath scorching her neck. "You're burning up, love, I can feel it. I feel you everywhere in me. Do you know that when you come to bed, I'm there? I feel you fall into me every night, almost like having you in my arms. Sweet beautiful Winifred--"
Her head swam with heat and desire. Her body ached with wanting him and still she tried to fight the emotion.
"Spike, you see me work all day with theories, and theorems, and suppositions about all the things that could happen, that might happen, when is anything ever real?" she whispered.
"Sshh, I'm real, how I feel about you is real, how you feel about me--"
She reached around to grab him and felt nothing but air. She pulled away. "I can't!"
Spike bowed his head and laughed coldly. "So we're going to go back to denial are we? Looks like I'm as good as you when it comes to waiting, love."
Fred squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out his words. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. Let's forget it." She backed up.
He clenched his hands into fists. "Forget it. There's a pleasure. I'm to be a good quiet boy and we're both to believe that not one second of your day is spent wondering how I'd rate behind your little Hardy Boy in the lab if I were flesh and bone? You're not dying to know where this heat comes from?"
"No, I'm mostly wondering where I'll rate in your life if I do my job right," she snapped and turned to walk out of the apartment.
"Fred!" he yelled, reaching for her, making contact with her arm. They looked in wonder at the embrace of his wrist around her arm.
"There's no contest, love," he said softly. " What I had before wasn't a life." His grasp slipped through her arm. "Bollocks."
Fred stared in amazement and pieced the puzzle together. "No, wait, this is something. I can't believe I didn't think about this before. Both times when you've made contact with me, what's been happening with us?
"We're tearing our bloody heads off?"
"No," she said exasperatedly. "Not violence. I'm not really truly mad at you, or want to hurt you. Do you want to hurt me?"
He sighed heavily. "Not even close." He raised his eyebrows. "Unless pinching counts."
She blew short breaths into her sweaty palms. "It's the heat! Body heat. In a chemical reaction, heat's a catalyst." She caught sight of the amulet, its dull surface now glowing golden orange and yellow light, pulsing gently. "Look!"
"Bloody hell."
The wheels of her mind began turning. "That's it! I'm turning off the A/C and kicking on the heat, electric bill be damned. Maybe I should increase the temperature artificially, buy a kerosene heater? Or ten?" she asked while she raced around the apartment.
"Hold on. Are we stirring the amulet up? Or is it the other way around?"
She stopped. "Well, I don't know. I guess we need to test it out more."
At that moment, her phone rang. The caller ID read, "GUNN, CHAS." She hit the speakerphone.
"Hey, Charles. Long time no ring." Spike turned to leave the room, but she motioned for him to stay.
"I've gotten all your messages, pretty lady. I'm just swamped. How goes the house arrest?" Spike furrowed his brow.
"It's going really well, actually. We found some pretty good stuff today." She raised her eyebrows and smiled at Spike.
"WE?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, me and Spike. He's a huge help with researching. He knows so much!" Spike brushed her compliment away modestly.
"You still talking about Spike?" Gunn asked. Spike glared at the phone and flipped it the bird.
Fred stifled a giggle. "We've really hit a stride these past weeks. Taking that amulet out of the lab really made a difference. It's changing, Charles, right before my eyes. I miss all of you guys, of course, that hasn't changed."
"Hey, before I let you go, how about meeting all of your old buddies out for a drink tonight? Lorne's got some dance club deal going on, I know you're not all down with the club scene, but we'd love to see you." Fred jumped up and down. Spike shook his head back and forth.
Fred clapped her hands lightly. "You know, that's a great idea. I'd love to go there. Dancing is great cardiovascular exercise." She sent thumbs-up in Spike's direction. He in turn made a pantomime of hanging himself.
"Yeah exercise, that's definitely why I go out," Gunn answered sounding confused. "OK, so Caritas, at 10 o'clock."
"Bye!" she shrieked and hit the button to end the call.
"No fucking way," Spike told her flatly.
"You're going. We have to test this out. I'll dance all night if I have to." She paused, thinking about all the ways she could increase body heat. "Maybe I'll even drink from strange glasses, get sick from somebody, and run a temperature!" She smiled excitedly.
"Oh, yes, if we're truly fortunate you'll burn up with fever," he answered sarcastically. "Are you mad?"
She walked over to him and looked deep into the eyes she'd come to love. "Spike, please."
She watched the fight leave his body. "I'm seeing that I don't have a choice in this."
"I'll wear the amulet tonight, to see what happens. You're stuck with me no matter what, so you might as well enjoy yourself," she said.
"I'll go," he agreed grudgingly. "But I'm not showing my face in some sodding dance club."
***
Angel entered Caritas to a raging techno beat.Let me tell you something you don't know/If you keep the secret I won't show/I'm burning for you. Lorne had replaced the usual karaoke stage with a multicolored-lit dance floor, complete with spinning disco ball. Angel found Gunn at a table near the demon dancers.
"Yo, where you been?" Gunn asked impatiently. " I've been calling you for an hour."
"Something came up. Where's Fred?" Angel asked.
"Check it out, man. Girl hit the floor the second she came in."
Amid the crowd of demons, a raven-haired woman in a tight black v-neck blouse and short chiffon skirt danced gleefully alone. "That's Fred? That doesn't look like Fred," said Angel, her smiling face filling him with worry.
"I hear that," Gunn sighed.
"I'm giving up," Wesley said grimly, sitting at the table with two shots of tequila in hand. "I can't get a dance in edgewise."
Angel couldn't stop watching her. "But Fred doesn't dance. At least, I don't think she does. Not alone."
"She's not alone. See the lucky charm around her neck?" Gunn asked, pointing to her.
"She's wearing the amulet. That means--Spike. I don't like this," Angel muttered.
"Don't you love this?" Lorne approached them beaming. "Once a mere duckling, now behold our swan, shaking her tail feathers, and what plumage. A fabulouso debut night for Dance Fever Friday!"
Angel pulled him aside. "Lorne, she's dancing with a ghost, the ghost of Spike no less. Why can't I see him, anyway?"
"Seeing how I'm pulling a whole-two-left-feet vibe from our spectral guest, I'm thinking it's for the best. Not that our Fredling would care, she of the cotton candy colored aura," Lorne said.
"When did this become a good thing with you? Last I knew you couldn't believe I was letting her go with him."
"That's before I saw this. That is one smitten kitten. Bravo, ma fille. Tres chic," Lorne blew kisses in Fred's direction.
"You read dancers now?" Angel demanded.
"What reading? Take a gander at that youthful carefree glow. You do remember, don't you Hon? How our Fred's just a small lady with a big brain and a dearth of light-hearted souls around her?"
Angel glanced at Fred again. "Sure, she's bored and lonely, so what a perfect time for an opportunistic manipulative ghost of a vampire to come into the picture."
"I think you're confusing the vampire with the ghost. This incarnation of Spike isn't hurting Fred in the least. If he were, you'd see it-- instead of the ecstatic face she's got on," Lorne told him.
Angel watched Fred mouth the words to the next song, and felt himself growing angrier by the second: Sometimes the way that you act makes me wonder/What I am to you and sometimes I can't stand the way that I'm acting/To be part of the things you do/Often I ask you for too much of your time like I'm stealing/ And when I dream of the fear that you're leaving/ I reach out my baby then you put your loving arms around me--
He'd seen enough. "I gotta put a stop to this," he muttered.
Lorne grabbed his arm. "Easy, Daddy Warbucks, hasn't she had enough of the hard-knock life? Come to think of it, where were you the last two times your roosters stormed her hen house?"
"Gunn and Wesley? They were sweet on her, careful with her. They were no threat. She's never met someone like Spike," Angel explained.
"'Sweet, careful, and no threat?' Sounds like a recipe for pudding, not passion. Let me tell you something about that pedestal you boys have perched her on, sweetie. She knows there's only one-way to go in your eyes, down and hard, so she never risks it. Spike doesn't know cow-slave Fred. Spike knows the Fred who's working to save his tuchis. In fact, he may know more of the real Fred than we ever will. Face it, Angel cakes," Lorne patted his shoulder. "Methinks our little girl is all growed-up."
Angel couldn't help noticing her smile, her unabashed joy. "Lorne, is he going to ruin her?"
"Hey, if Pylea can't do it, I doubt a vapor trail of a former vampire can. Seriously, boss, I'd love to hear our fangy friend's stirring rendition of 'Lust for Life' and check him out for you, but the microphone is off for the evening. And as of now, so am I. Nighty-night," Lorne waved and headed for the bar.
Angel went out to the dance floor to retrieve Fred. She turned to him and grabbed his hands excitedly. "Angel, hi! Are you dancing with me?"
"We were thinking of leaving but--Fred, you're burning up! Don't you want a drink and cool down?" he asked, feeling her hot and sweaty palms.
"Spike just said something that I'm not going to repeat," she giggled.
"Tell Spike I want him to show himself," Angel said angrily. "Tell him I'll rip that amulet off your throat and--"
Spike materialized complete with a look of annoyance. "Easy! You and your dramatic flair. A little courtesy for the lady, please."
"Fred knows I'd never hurt her. Does she know that about you?" Angel asked him.
Fred peeked her head between them. "Yes, she does. I do. I'm Fred."
Angel put his hand on her arm and glared at Spike. "I need a minute alone with him, OK?"
She sighed. "Fine. I'll say goodnight to the guys."
Angel and Spike moved off the dance floor and faced each other.
"What's your game anyway?" Angel asked.
Spike smirked. "She rolls the dice and gets me a body. I advance three spaces to tell you to bugger off."
Angel tried to control his anger. "You have no idea what that girl's been through, how long its taken her to get a normal life."
Spike looked around incredulously. "You call this normal? You've a daft sense of the everyday. Compared to what, her slave-gig? She's told me, not that she had to. Ancient history, mate."
"I suppose you repaid the favor by regaling her with your tales of vamp packing through Europe?"
"As a matter of fact, I did. She asked me. Unlike you, I told her," Spike said.
"What are these, bedtime stories?"
"Come off it, you know I can't touch her," Spike dismissed, but Angel saw Spike's eyes glance over and look for Fred. He'd never distrusted Spike more.
Angel drew himself up to his full height and leaned into Spike's face. "You hurt her and I'll find a way to make you pay."
Hearing familiar voices rising in anger, they turned towards the bar to see Gunn, Wesley, and Fred engaged in the middle of shouting match.
"You're both pathetic!" Fred spat. "You're jealous over an experiment?"
"Your freak-on with that ghost ain't no experiment!" Gunn growled. "You're making all moony-eyes at him and calling it science. It's sick."
"You've isolated yourself completely from the people who care the most about you to bond with some inanimate thing? He's using you, Fred! God, are you blind?" Wesley continued contemptuously.
"You don't know me at all, either of you! If you did, you'd rip your tongues out for what you're saying to me right now! How dare you!" she cried.
Lorne rushed over to them followed by Spike and Angel. "OK, kiddies, recess is over.break it up here."
Fred disengaged from the circle and stood next to Spike. "You don't know me," she told the men spitefully "And I don't care to know you, either. I don't want to understand what's caused you to do this." At that moment, her small body doubled over, her hands grabbing onto her head. Angel reached for her but Spike stepped in his way.
"Not this time, Galahad. You don't get to save her this time."
"Spike," Angel gritted his teeth. "She's not another goddamn contest! You can't challenge me and think you'll win her!"
"You're right," Fred said to Angel fiercely. "He's already won." She ran out of Caritas and into the night. With a final glare at Angel, Gunn and Wesley, Spike took off after her.
"Yes, scurry away, you weak useless incorporeal vermin--" Wesley muttered drunkenly.
"Enough!" Angel shouted.
Gunn shook his head. "Man, I don't know why I thought anything would change tonight. You're still the same, Boss, still tryna run everybody's deal," he said with disgust. "I'm outta here. You page me when you want a real partner, not some feel-good kiss ass." He strode out of the club.
Wesley sat at the bar, shielding his eyes with one hand and gripping an empty shot glass with the other. "Another magnificent idea, Angel. Let's rally the team for poor Fred's sake. Thing is, she's not Poor Fred anymore. Wonder when that happened." He motioned for the bartender to fill the glass again.
Angel rolled his eyes and leaned his head back in wearied frustration. "Wes, not you, too. I can't take another scene tonight. Come on, I'll walk you out. Haven't you had enough to drink?"
"Not even close," Wesley grunted as he threw back the shot. "Seems to be the only way I sleep these days. Leave the bottle," he said to the bartender. "There's a good man."
Angel looked at Wesley with concern. "You're not sleeping?
Wesley turned to face him. The ex-watcher's stubbly, haggard face stared out to Angel devoid of any emotion, frighteningly blank. "You know, Angel. What did you really expect, when you made the decision to take on Wolfram and Hart? No consequences for you or any of us? We'd share notes in the morning at the coffee klatch and meet for lunch in the break room?" He asked with cold sarcasm.
"I thought we could do some good, help people--" Angel began.
"Ah, my noble leader, but there's the causal fallacy in your rhetoric!" Wesley grinned bitterly. "You didn't 'think' at all about us, only ran to grab your own brass ring." He poured another drink. "Go home to your penthouse, you champion of the people."
Angel stared at Wesley's back, unable to comprehend the sudden turn of events that separated them. He walked over to Lorne sitting at the end of the bar.
"You know, maybe Fridays are a little too rough for Dance Fever, get a much more relaxed crowd on say, Tuesdays," Lorne was saying to the bartender. He turned to Angel. "Everybody go to their respective corners, sweetie?" Lorne asked him.
Angel looked completely baffled. "What the hell happened here tonight? I suggest a simple get-together with old friends and they all open up with barrels blazing."
Lorne sighed. "Don't fool yourself. That little showdown's been waiting to happen for a long time, though something definitely brought it to a head tonight. Hon, your heart's pure, your intentions are noble to say the least. But you agreed to manage a firm of the devil's advocates here. Recall a turn of phrase: good intentions? Pavement to hell?"
"Actually, the road to hell looks more like gravel," Angel pondered for a moment. "Do you think we've been set up? I knew the danger with taking over Wolfram & Hart, but I didn't think it would take over us. Now I'm remembering something: 'Lure them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion.' Damn it, why didn't I see this before?"
Lorne held up his glass in salute. "The boy knows his Art of War after all. I suggest damage control big-time. Not raises either. Nothing Wolfram-in-sheep's-clothing related. Go on, son. Get your friends back."
Angel heard the familiar strains of Burn, baby, burn and exited the club on those notes.
*** Fred and Spike drove back to her apartment in silence. Despite her fiddling with the heat settings on the car's dashboard, the amulet recorded no change.
She entered the apartment in a flurry of activity. She packed up all of their books and carted them down to storage. She went over to the thermostat and jerked the heat up. She looked around the apartment wildly for more ways to increase the temperature.
"Love, what are you doing?" Spike asked gently.
"Glad I got all of those books out of here, so I don't damage them, any minor fluctuation in temperature could turn them to dust, and since they're not mine."
"Winifred, stop."
"What?"
"Why do you want to do this?" he asked.
She stuck her chin out stubbornly "I want you to get your body back." She closed the window shades.
"Why?"
"I want to help you," she mumbled, pulling blankets out of the cedar chest.
"Why?" he demanded again, appearing behind her and forcing her to sit on the sofa.
She jumped back up and moved around him, smiling anxiously. "You'd make a good scientist. You're good at asking probing questions."
"And you're good at avoiding them. Haven't we danced around this long enough, love? If you get me solid again, what will you do with me?" he asked, his eyes pleading with her.
She dropped her head and stepped backwards, making contact with the living room wall. "Spike--"
"Because I know what I'll do with you," he said huskily, his voice like a caress over her. He leaned his hot presence against her.
She closed her eyes and Spike brought his hand to her face, his palm stroking her cheek. "Who needs artificial heat?" he whispered.
"I can feel you!" she said excitedly, her eyes flying open again, seeing the amulet flashing with light from around her throat
"Don't move, don't break it," he answered. She leaned her head back, panting while he continued his slow exploration of her body. He traced his fingers into the notches of her ribcage, slipped down and kneaded her thighs through the slippery chiffon of her skirt. He pressed his lips gently at the base of her neck and sucked at the skin that trembled with her pulse.
"Don't stop," she begged. "Please."
"First things first, get rid of this," he muttered, pulling the amulet over her head. Suddenly it began to glow brighter when he pulled it into his grip.
"What? What's happening?" she asked, looking up at him.
He dropped to his knees and threw his head back, his mouth ripping forth a scream of unbearable agony. He clenched his fists, raising them up in horrified supplication, as if being scalded by the worst sort of acid.sulfuric it would have to be for sure, based on how his muscles were seizing up like rigor mortis, she thought. Realizing his actual pain, Fred rushed to him but he threw himself away from her like a caged animal.
"No," he breathed, his whole body shaking. The jewel of the amulet had disappeared or rather, had completely transformed. He was enveloped in a thick amber-tinged cloud that radiated the warmth of a small fire. He shuddered as spirals of pain wracked his body.
His raw suffering paralyzed her. All she could do was watch him in stunned helplessness. "My God, what do I do?" she cried stupidly, as she watched him writhe on the floor.
"Get the meter," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Read me."
Fred dropped her jaw in shock at the request. "No, no, I can't--not like this--not when you're--"
"DO IT," he growled. He rolled over into a fetal position and faced her, his blue eyes gleaming fierce. "Do your job."
She swallowed past the lump in her throat and steadied herself, desperate to feel the calm she usually found from using her brain. With shaking hands, she plugged the device into her laptop and flipped its switch. Before she could bring it to him, the meter began to crackle and hum. Scores of data poured onto the screen, the computer beeping faintly as it tried to keep up.
"You're off the charts," she announced with undisguised delight. "Your heart rate--I'm getting your heart rate! Oh, but, it's registering as a human in cardiac arrest." she watched him desperately.
Spike managed to shake his head, his teeth chattering, gulping through the torture.
She looked back down at the meter. "You're registering a body temperature but--I can't tell whether--it's like you're just above freezing to death and just below burning up."
He nodded, concurring with her diagnosis, and hurled himself onto his back. The bands of pain tightened on him anew and he howled again, his arms and legs contorting as if he were being electrocuted.
"There are, there are high levels of carbon dioxide being emitted," she read in a loud uneven voice. "That is concurrent with you processing oxygen through human respiration."
His arms and legs returned weakly to the floor, still vibrating with the force of the energy pulsing through him. The golden vapor around him began to pulse. His chest heaved with the labored effort of his breathing and she heard his lungs begin to wheeze from the strain.
"And your, your brain waves," she sobbed. "Are characteristic for a human man who is, God, who's being burned to death and I CAN'T! I can't do this!" She dropped the meter on the floor and ran to him.
She flung herself across his quivering body and cried out as the liquid fire seeped through her skin. He grabbed on to her violently and buried her face into his chest trying to shield her from the pain his body caused her. The fog surrounding them expanded until the entire space throbbed with its heat and glare. She felt the floor and walls begin to tremble, heard the foundations squeak with the tension of holding the room together. The solid construction of the building groaned beneath them like a rickety shed and the concrete floor below them bowed under their heat. With a final lunge, the pent-up energy exploded through her picture window, shattering glass around them, which immediately evaporated into smoke. The amber light dissolved into a dusty haze as it floated out of the apartment and into the humid, smoggy air.
Lifeless, they huddled together on the floor, soaked with sweat and tears, covered with a fine, yellow powder like the pollen of a spring day. He lay dressed in the clothing he'd last worn in Sunnydale, both the outfit and the body wearing it intact.
End of part two.
Notes: "Special K" is the street name for animal tranquilizers, used as an illegal drug; Lyrics to Burn for you, by Kreo, used without permission; Lyrics to Your Lovin' Arms, by Billie Ray Martin, used without permission; Lyrics to Disco Inferno, by the Trammps, used without permission; Angel's quote from The Art of War by Sun-Tzu used without permission
Leaning against the side of the car, Eve stubbed the end of another Gauloise Blonde under the toe of her Jimmy Choo pump, gaining no pleasure from the cigarette's satisfying crunch she felt under her toe. She hated to wait.
"This next one was a kook the last time I met her and all signs are pointing to a repeat performance," she muttered to the black-suited chauffeur, who let no emotion slip past his mirrored shades while he stood sentry. "Who can't get on a plane? If I'd known international travel was this big of a pain in the ass, I'd have chartered the flight myself." She sighed. "But no, because then it would be on the books and Angel might see it. I made the right decision." She smiled at the solemn bodyguard. "I'm so glad we brainstormed on this together."
"Ma'am, I'm afraid you're going to have to move this vehicle," said a state police officer as he sauntered up to the company limousine. "State law requires all personal vehicles to be parked away from the curb."
Eve rolled her eyes. "Vinnie," was all she had to whine. Without hesitation, her guard escorted the officer back to the police car. Eve smirked as the cop quickly pulled around the limo and sped away from the terminal. "God, was it something I said?"
At that moment, a smudged, wary face emerged from the sliding doors of the international terminal, a wisp of a girl in dingy black leather pants and matching motorcycle jacket, cut-off white t-shirt and knee-high lace up combat boots. She slung her bike messenger bag over her shoulder and looked around her suspiciously.
Eve broke into a tight smile. "There's our girl. All toughed up and crazy to go." She approached the young woman with her manicured hand out in greeting and Vinnie in tow.
"Darling," Eve purred. "I'd know you anywhere. You're the picture of your sister."
The girl stared back. "I don't look nothing like that skank," she said flatly. Eve took in the full impact the girl made and saw her as the photo negative of a Scandinavian ice queen. Where the hair should have been gossamer, hers was bloody amber. Black charcoal kohl and pencil lined the lids and rims of her green cat-eyes. Instead of pink blush, a razor-thin scar lined her cheek to the corner of her surly pouting mouth. If Lilah Morgan had seen more fisticuffs than facials, Eve thought, you'd get this face.
"Yes, very little resemblance now that you mention it," Eve agreed offhandedly. "But if it weren't for her, we'd never know about you."
"So where is the cunt?" The girl asked baldly.
Eve looked at her closely. "You do realize, dear, that your sister is dead? So obviously she can't be with us at the moment. That's part of our deal, don't you remember?"
The girl would not break her stony stare. "So why are you here? Don't you got minions for this?" She pointed to Vinnie. "Who's he?"
Eve put on her most ingratiating façade of courtesy. "I wanted to pay a personal visit to you, to let you know that on behalf of Wolfram and Hart, we're looking forward to a mutually beneficial relationship. You're an important client and Vinnie here is standing by to ensure that our relationship gets off on the right foot."
The girl twisted one of the eight studs ringing her left earlobe and grinned wickedly. "What you got under that coat, Vinnie? A holster full of Special K?" She turned to Eve. "I eat that shit like candy, no lie. One shot take down an elephant, but damn I suck those lawn darts dry. You ask that bounty hunter Nazi fucker I just left how good they work on me. But then he ain't talking much without his tongue."
Eve blinked and the smile froze on her face. "Is that your calling card? Leaving a man speechless?"
The girl licked her cranberry slicked lips. "I don't know if you could call 'em all men afterwards." She chomped greedily on her gum and winked. Vinnie backed up imperceptibly towards the driver's door of the car.
"Wow, well, all this conversation, long trip, you must have some appetite," Eve said with false brightness. "We'll finalize our arrangements over a quick bite. Of food," she added quickly. Vinnie jerked open the door and stepped protectively behind it. The two women slid into the limo.
"What are you going by these days? Another creative alias?" Eve asked as the limo glided towards the expressway.
"I got no reason to hide anymore," the girl replied. "I got a real name. Leah Morgan."
"How fitting for you," Eve purred. "You'll so enjoy your meal at Katana, really fabulous sushi."
"Fuck that!" spat the girl. "I don't eat no raw, E-coli-shit fish. Vinnie, pull over," Leah ordered. "Here."
The limo veered suddenly off the road. "Tell 'em I want six hamburgers, supersize fries and a chocolate shake. And a pie. And check it, will ya? They always fuck you at the drive-through."
Eve watched with fascination and disgust as Leah wolfed down her meal with all the table manners of a hyena, her chunky silver rings flashing while she ate. The girl appeared to hover on the edge of the lunatic fringe. Eve wanted to hold the energy, contain it, and use it before the poor girl burned herself up completely.
"Leah, I have to say, we were prepared to offer you a much more substantial meal, nothing but the best for the newest member of our team. I'm sure you'll find your accommodations more than adequate."
"Whatever," Leah muttered. She stopped chewing long enough to ask, "Place got cable?"
"Satellite, actually. But that's beside the point. As I said earlier, our relationship is mutually exclusive, which means--"
"Yeah, yeah, you suck my dick, I suck yours. Whadaya want, Eve?"
Eve pulled a deep breath. The girl's patchouli oil barely masked the growing indication that Leah hadn't bathed in possibly weeks. "I want to set up some ground rules. First of all, after today, you've never seen me before in your life. Any kindnesses that are bestowed on you will be on behalf of the new management of Wolfram and Hart. You must consider ingratiating yourself to these individuals in order to advance your own cause."
Leah fumbled in her jacket and lit a clove cigarette. Eve's nose curled further.
"In return, we will supply all the necessary tools for you to complete your mission. When the senior partners deem your contribution complete, we will reunite you with your sister," Eve finished, pressing a button to open the car's moon roof.
Leah exhaled a stream of thick smoke out into the late afternoon air. "What kind of tools you talking about? Knives?"
Eve beamed. "The accoutrements of your position go without saying. But we have a very exciting first stop, Leah. Right in Wolfram and Hart's offices. Have you ever wanted to be a history major? Maybe a math whiz, or a science brainiac? All you have to do is ask."
The crude, violent girl considered the offer, bringing one black painted fingernail to her mouth and ripping a cuticle between her teeth. "I never went to school much."
"I gathered that," Eve answered tentatively.
"I knew things," Leah continued defensively. "They're all real, monsters, living nightmares. No one saw, no one believed.made me a killer, fucking Lilah, all of them, thought they could lock me away--"
"No," Eve concurred sweetly. "You were chosen. And now we choose you. Your sister made some grievous mistakes that we hope you can correct. The balance is upset. You can change that."
Leah suddenly grabbed Eve's wrist, the tiny hand locking down a rough, cold vise that immediately squeezed off her circulation. "Where is she?"
Eve winced. "It's just as we talked about, Leah. She's, she's in limbo. One good soul could save her immortal essence and unbind her from her contract. Or--,"
"Do I look like a good soul?" Leah whispered, gritting her teeth and digging her nails into Eve's flesh.
Eve shook her head fearfully. "But we can make you into whatever you want to be."
Leah released Eve's hand and relaxed back into her seat. "I want to be everything. Everything I never got."
"Of course you do," Eve said and rubbed vigorously on the back of her hand, feeling a small bone twinge in response. She pulled a stack of files out of her briefcase. "Here's all the necessary information you'll need about our management team: vital statistics, addresses, even personal habits." She paused. "One more thing: for all intents and purposes, all of these creatures have souls. Any problem with that?"
Leah glanced at the black folders and the names Angel, Burkle, Wyndham- Pryce, Lorne, Chase, Gunn, Spike.
She smiled coldly. "No problem at all."
*** "Wow. What kind of trials does it take to get a soul anyway? I mean, it doesn't seem like there should be trials at all, because a soul is something way beyond any abilities to try to get it back you know?" Fred asked Spike as they returned from one of their daily walks.
Spike sighed wearily. "Certainly I've exhausted that headache out of you by now, haven't I? You're not still hurting?"
"No, I mean, yes, ow!" she grabbed her forehead in mock melodrama.
A couple walked by and gave Fred a curious look. Spike leaned over to her. "I don't think everyone can see me. They looked at you yammering to yourself as though you're mental."
"Oh, I'm used to that," she dismissed. "Finish the story!"
He continued to tell her the details of battling both his mental demons and the tricks of the First Evil when he fought what he assumed was his final battle.
"Jolted the hell out of me when I showed up on Angel's doorstep," Spike said. "It was the last, and I mean truly last thing I expected."
She stopped walking when she saw his disheartened expression. "Spike, are you disappointed? That you're not dead?"
He opened his mouth to speak and then seemed to change his mind. He closed it again. "Yeah." He shrugged. "Doesn't seem much point to me anymore, does there?"
"Because of Buffy? We can call her, find a way to get her here." Anything, Fred thought, to keep him here.
"NO," he said firmly, glaring at her. "I don't need a bloody intervention. I need a purpose. I don't know this world anymore, love. I don't know what it holds for me, even if I do get my body back."
Fred wished she could touch him or provide some kind of comfort. "Your love for Buffy was a goal, the thought you could be together."
He pointed at her. "Exactly - was - past tense. We've all got our pasts to move away from: you and your Pylea, me and the slayer."
She shook her head impatiently. "Spike, you're not comparing true love to a hell dimension?"
"Obviously you never caught Buffy Summers on a bad day," he said with a wry grin.
"Seriously."
"All right. I've engaged in a bit of self-reflection of late, pet. Bloody only thing I can do really. I'm not one for following the mystics, but I also don't believe in ignoring their signs: when you turn the entire town that witnessed your love into a huge smoking crater, I take that as a giant red flag from the universe that it's time to move on."
She thought over his rationale. "So that's what you're doing? Moving on?"
"I'm trying, pet. All I can do." He looked down at their hands, swinging side-by-side but apart. "Weak sodding escort I am, I can't even take your hand."
"It's more than just holding hands," Fred said softly, catching a fragment of a memory.
Spike gave her a puzzled look. "That's a curious thing to say, where'd you get that?"
"Wesley." she said, catching sight of a figure near her apartment.
"Why the hell would he."
She pointed. "Look, there's Wesley. What's he doing? Wesley!" she called, running over to him.
Wesley finished reciting a passage, closed a book, and held it behind his back, but not before Fred caught sight of the familiar binding of his favorite spell text.
"I said I needed to get away from magic," she complained. "Not bring it all back with me."
"A simple protection spell while you're at home can't hurt," Wesley argued huffily.
"A protection spell's containment, a block, and it might affect the amulet, therefore negating any of my work. Undo it," she said.
"I will not. And I won't have this conversation in public." Wes glared at Spike.
Spike rolled his eyes. "Right. I'll be in the lobby."
"No, don't go," she said and instinctively put her arm out to stop him. "I took a responsibility when I took that amulet, Wesley. I'm not going to push Spike aside because you want to lecture me in private."
"I don't want to lecture you, Fred. I'm horribly worried about you, the number of hours you put in at the lab lately, your migraines." Wes pleaded.
"They're not true migraines, you know, " Spike interjected. "The sunlight doesn't bother her."
"When I'm interested in your opinion, Spike, I'll ask for it," Wesley answered.
Spike pursed his lips in anger and smirked maliciously. "Actually she seems to seize up in pain whenever your name is mentioned."
"Don't," Fred said, stepping between them. "Wesley, go. I'll call you, OK?" She waited until Wesley walked down her path before continuing into the apartment building.
"Sheesh," Fred said worriedly. "I don't think he's slept in weeks, Spike, he looked awful."
Spike chuckled. "Bookworm boy has it bad," he mused.
She gave him a sidelong glance. "What do you mean?"
"For you. He's obviously in love with you, Fred."
Her mouth gaped open in surprise. "No. No! It's crazy!" she scoffed.
"What on principle makes such a notion utterly crackers, then?" Spike asked.
She thought for a moment, considering the categorical imbalance she felt whenever a romantic thought of Wesley came into her mind. "Him? Me? Non- computational equations?" She could tell from the look on his face that this explanation would not satisfy Spike.
"The him part of the equation I get, but the you side of it, I can't fathom. The non-whatever-you-said, sounds like that pretty little story you tell yourself when life gets rough," Spike told her.
"HUH?"
"Come off it, love. Here comes a big touchy-feely gone bad and you scurry behind your microscope to analyze the life out it. That habit probably saved you when you were in slavery, but part of you hasn't tuned into the fact that you're not there anymore."
Fred felt completely open and exposed. Somehow, Spike spoke to her in a way no one else did and had even successfully uncovered some of her deepest secrets. "You do the same thing with jokes," she replied defensively. "You take emotional stuff and joke it to death."
"Touché," Spike smiled. "I see the scientist's taken her notes."
She unlocked the apartment door and allowed him entrance. "Pretty insightful work. Maybe you should be a psychoanalyst when you get your body back," she teased.
"Sod off," he replied.
To a student comfortable with libraries and laboratories, spending this much time inactively at home proved a challenge. Fred filled her days with research on spells, gems, and histories of prophecies. The solitary nature of the research she began in the lab, coupled with Spike's curiosity and nervousness on her progress, began their friendship. She noticed that her mind worked quicker when they bantered, usually because she was desperate not to let his wordplay get the better of her. Glances were exchanged; long silences followed his compliments of her work. The close quarters of her apartment only distilled their mutual affection for one another. Their combined energies of hope and disappointment bonded them.
"I'm about to make your week," he announced one evening. "Watch."
Narrowing his eyes and chewing his lip with concentration, he affixed his stare on one of the ancient prophecy texts and turned the page.
Fred clapped her hands with delight. "Go you!"
"I can finally do some good, instead of hanging about like some stuffed mascot." Smiling teasingly, he successfully tossed the book on the sofa. "You're next."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm in the middle of this passage."
He stood next to her as she sat next to the desk, puffed up with pride at his accomplishment. "A spot of tea? A biscuit? Bit of, oh, a shoulder rub perhaps?"
She shifted in her seat and pushed the book in his direction. "Latin translation, please," she said, feeling the warmth radiating from his presence.
He sulked. "Turn one page and I become the scholar? No bloody threat to society here." He leaned over the text and scanned the page dejectedly.
"Cogito, ergo sum," he read aloud and smiled, his eyebrows rising slyly. " 'I think therefore I am'? Nice touch."
She giggled. "Well, I picked up Descartes by mistake. I happened to hit that sentence when you showed me your progress. Great timing, huh?"
His face glowed with affection and delight at the workings of her mind. "Impeccable."
In days past, it was the space in which each of them would turn away, had turned away, and would wrench their eyes from one another to return to work. Yet this time, each held on to the gaze of mutual fondness. Their lively smiles faded into deeper expressions of trust, adoration, even fear.
Fred swallowed and the reflex flooded her face with heat. She was afraid to breathe, to speak - to move. She wanted nothing to break the moment.
She saw how Spike waited for any sign from her, watching her longingly, his lips open slightly in the faintest look of hope. She felt his eyes reach further into her, touching places in her no one had found. He plunged further still and returned to her sweet expectant face, quietly asking for and receiving permission to continue. She saw all and still held on to him.
"You.hold on to me," he said finally. "I can't.you don't let me push you away. Even at my worst. Even if I try to..."
She shook her head faintly. "You never go too far."
"I go pretty far."
"I can take it. I can take a lot."
His lip trembled for an instant. "Yes, I believe you can, too. Am I the only one who knows that about you?"
"I think so. And--I, I want to," she whispered. "Take whatever you have to give."
He inclined his head almost shyly. "You want--?"
"You," she finished. The word felt monumental in her mouth and fear welled up inside of her at her admission. Quickly she asked, "Do you--?"
"Win, yes, God yes," he said in a rasping voice. He stepped towards her and impulsively she moved backwards. "Not yet?" he asked tenderly. She shook her head.
"Is it because I can't touch you?" he asked, still not breaking his eyes' hold on her. He stepped forward again but this time she didn't move.
Fred's skin prickled with the need to be touched. "Um, well. That's part of it, yes. And, and no," she stammered.
"What if I could touch you?" he whispered, moving behind her. "Where would you like me to start?"
The heat rose to an impossible level around her face. So badly she wanted to let go, to fall into his arms - but she would fall into him and fall to the floor. This realization broke Fred out of her fantasy.
"But you can't!" she cried, pulling away. "You can't, Spike. Let's just, just, leave it at that." She pushed her glasses back on her nose.
"I watch your dreams, love. When are you going to live one for a change?"
She whipped around to face him. "What?"
Spike's swagger returned. "I said, you keep yourself on a shorter leash than I'm on with that amulet. Who registers your temperature above lukewarm, Fort Knox in the lab maybe?" he asked with tantalizing bravado. The hairs on her arm raised up and a tingle stirred the back of her hand. Fred jumped back in real surprise.
"I'll practice, love. Makes for perfect, don't they say?"
He returned to the couch. "You'll tell me how I can do my bit about the house. Don't want to wear out my welcome."
Fred watched him in bewilderment. "Well, since you can turn pages, I could use a study buddy, with the research, I mean."
"Whatever the lady wants," he said softly and bowed. "In the meantime, you might want to consider what you truly want before you doom yourself to not getting it," Spike finished and then evaporated.
*** Leah watched the blond ghost and the skinny scientist enter the apartment building. She made her move when the twiggy girl closed the door. I can help get her through it again - by her neck, Leah thought. She strode out quickly from behind the hedge towards the glass double doors. With a brief flash of light, a force field of energy sprung her away from the steps and bounced her back to the pavement. For a moment, she thought that the ghost must have seen her and pushed her back, but the couple had disappeared from the lobby into the elevator.
"What the fuck?" Leah muttered, jumping up and trying for the door again with the same result.
"OK, now I'm pissed," she said, brushing the dirt off her leather pants. "Someone's gotta die tonight."
Leah wandered dazedly through the late afternoon-lit neighborhoods through evening, until she found the streets she recognized, the bodegas, the ghettos, and the tenements, the streets that once hid her and kept her safe. Her nose twitched in the stagnant night air with the thrill of the chase.
She could smell them before she saw them: flowered perfume gone sour with the sweat of fear, vampire spit mixed with moldy Drakkar Noir and the musty leather of a classic El Camino. As the girl ran screaming past her towards an alley, Leah calmly waited for the barrio-boy to reach her. She blocked his path, calmly dodged his attempts to punch her, then hit him squarely between the eyes with a closed fist, and staked him while he staggered backwards. A typical vampire scenario - blind date turns into feast - Leah turned towards his girl sobbing behind a dumpster.
"Get up," Leah told her. "I said get up." Leah leaned over to the girl and took her face in her hands, roughly wiping the girl's tears across her cheeks and watching her distress with curious detachment.
The girl cowered and sniveled miserably, frozen in the shock of her near attack and her date's supernatural end. Leah realized how supple and generous was the body that heaved in her hands, how silky the hair - bouncy, honey blonde highlights, like Lilah's once, plump, pliant breasts like Lilah.Lilah the sister who swore her protection after their parents died, who promised they'd be together with the sweetest of kisses.
"Lilah," Leah said to the girl and stroked her hair absently.
"No, my name's Sandy," the girl said in a trembling voice.
Leah only saw her beloved sister in the tear-stained face. "Lilah, you left me to rot in there! I didn't kill anybody and you knew that, you believed me, only you, Lilah, I fucking loved you!" Leah raved, tightening her hold on the girl's face.
"You saved me," the girl murmured, transfixed by the savage beauty of Leah's stricken face, ripe with animal desire, and instinctively moved towards her lips. With a quick jerk, Leah snapped the pretty neck and let the limp body fall back to the ground.
"Wimp," she growled and strode out of the alley.
*** Gratefully for Fred, she and Spike relaxed back into easy, warm camaraderie. Yet an undercurrent of tension now stirred below the surface. Every morning in the shower, she could feel him hovering. Embarrassment and brazenness took over equally when she sensed him lingering so near to her naked body, but she could not bring herself to discuss it; she knew if she called him on it that he would stop. That was it: she wanted him there, wanted him to see her as exposed in skin as they'd been together in emotion. She thought of it as her private message to him that she hadn't forgotten, that she waited for him. In the evenings, traditionally her loneliest time of day, she would change for bed in the moonlight with the shadows reflected off her skin, and crawl between the covers. She felt him move by her side, humming gently to himself, his sound and his presence soothing her into peaceful sleep. He'd become the guardian of her dreams; the headaches and nightmares ceased. Until the night of the phone call.
The Caller ID read, "Unknown." Fred let the machine pick up.
"Hello, Dr. Burkle," Eve began snidely. "You have something that belongs to us and we're prepared to take further action to get it. If you want to bring the ghost home in the evenings for, . well. What employees do on their own time is their affair. But your lab needs you. I suggest you end whatever experiment you think you're conducting and return to regular business hours. Otherwise, we may be forced to recalculate the lab's budget and your involvement there."
"Bitch knows I'm not a doctor," Fred muttered and erased the message with shaking hands.
"Here, sit down, Win, you're trembling."
"I'm fine, Spike, really. I can't worry about Eve, about any of them disturbing the work. The work's all that matters. Better get back to it," she turned away from him and put on her glasses.
"That's it? You think you can erase her voice and that'll be the end of it? We've got to get a plan together," he said worriedly.
She put her nose back in a book and didn't answer.
"Love, we've got to talk about this."
"Don't want to," she mumbled.
"Too bloody bad. What am I going to do, speed read her to death?"
She threw the book down. "You want to talk? Great, let's talk. I don't have any data, Spike!" she exploded. "I think the gem's made of faceted amber. But what does that mean? I can't test it; I don't dare carbon-14 date it. What will happen if I destroy it? I don't know anything! With one blow, they could wipe out the amulet and you."
"This will work out. I know it. You're too damn brilliant for it not to."
She barked out a short sad laugh "I'm not brilliant, I'm pathetic. I've put you in danger, Angel, the lab. All because I wanted a roommate?" She cast her eyes down and saw him kneeling before her. "I want you here, Spike. But I don't know why I want you here," she said. "I've got to think rationally. What's best for you in this condition."
"You. You are," he whispered. "I didn't want you to bring me here because of the work. It's you. I only feel anything like a man when I'm with you."
Hearing the craving in his voice, Fred's resolve began to melt. "This is so difficult."
"Is anything worth getting not?" he asked softly.
She felt herself pulled towards him as though he held some force field drawing her in. He likewise moved towards her, ready to lose them both in a kiss. She breathed out a rush of hot breath and closed her eyes. An electric shock jolted her lips.
"Bugger. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."
She shuddered, her stomach and pelvic muscles clenching with need. Tears sprang to her eyes.
"Right. I'm pathetic," she said again, smiling gamely.
"Win, no," he started. She walked into the bedroom and shut the door.
Fred tossed in her bed, unable to find sleep. She kept replaying their almost-kiss and every time, an ache of raw desire and heat flooded her body and broke out in a release of sweat. Her hair and chest were soaked with it.
"Spike?" she called out hesitantly. "Are you here?"
"Always, love, all you need to do is ask," he answered. "I'll not take too many liberties with my spirit status, following you through walls, and that nonsense. I can give you at least a semblance of privacy."
She smiled to herself, thinking about their shared morning showers. Worry grabbed at her again when she thought of Eve's call. "Spike, I'm scared. I know that something's going to happen here, but I don't know when, and I don't know if we'll have enough time."
"Hush," he whispered. "See to those dreams of yours."
"But Spike."
"And you're not pathetic. Bloody ridiculous, that is. I shouldn't have tried to kiss you because.you deserve better than this. When I kiss you, I'll be solid and do it proper."
She curled up, scooting closer to the edge, spooning against an empty half of bed. The gentle tingling of almost-touch caressed her hair, her cheek, and her neck, across to her back, rested against her head, and soothed her to sleep.
****
"Now your Deathwok, there's some of your more interesting demons there," the bulldog-faced man droned on.
Leah rolled her eyes. "Not to hear you tell it." Here I am, big new brain, and I'm buying watered down drinks in a dive demon bar for a guy too ugly to waste the time skinning, she thought. Killing Lorne barely seemed worth this torture.
"Nah, I'm serious. You can uh, cut off their heads but you have to mutilate their bodies for 'em to die. And you don't even want to know what happens to 'em without sleep."
Leah stubbed out another cigarette, her patience thinning. "I don't suppose it kills them."
"Oh sure, sooner or later, but here's a secret, just for you, 'cause I don't mind saying that I'm sweet on you, girlie. Deathwok's got real sensitive blood Ph. You find something that messes with it, you got yourself one sick Deathwok," he said.
Her interest returned. "Like what?"
"Over the counter? Any of your heavier, less pure alcohols would work, not vodka, gin maybe.tequila, sure, whiskey--hey why you wanna poison a Deathwok anyway?" he asked.
"Bastard fucked with my sister," she lied. It could be true. Everyone fucked with her sister; everyone fucked with her. Everyone needed to pay. Leah got up from her barstool.
"That's some strong family loyalty. Hey where ya goin'? I thought you said you'd pay me."
"Right. Here's your money." She unzipped her new leather kit bag and pulled out a handful of cash, tossing it in his direction.
He scrambled to catch the money. "Wait, I'll walk you out."
"Forget it," she replied. She walked out of the bar fumbling with the bag, still awkward with the zipper. She dropped a wooden stake on the ground and knelt down to retrieve it. The man opened the door. Seeing the stake, he crushed his biker boot down onto her hand, pinning her to the cement. She screeched in pain.
"Hey, you a slayer, baby? I knew there was something about you. Oh, man. How'd I get so lucky?" Before she had time to react, the man kicked her head into the door, taking advantage of her momentary confusion to wrap a rope around her wrists. "You know how much they want for you on the black market?" He pulled the two long ends of rope around her waist for makeshift reins.
"NO!" she yelled, thrashing on the ground desperately. Flashes of prison, straightjackets, needles, and probing doctors' fingers crashed into her mind.
"Come on, girlie. It's so much better on you when you don't fight. I get so much more when you ain't all bruised up," he coaxed her, pulling on the rope.
She knelt pitifully on the ground, her head bowed in supplication. The man pulled hard on the leash and she felt her left shoulder separate from its socket. The quick spasm of hot pain cleared her mind and quieted her thudding heartbeat. She looked up at him with calm hatred and got to her feet.
"Where are you taking me? " She pretended to sob. "Please, please let me go."
"Me and my buddies got a nice training regiment for our girls. We gotta test you out first, make sure you perform. You ever faced a nest before, baby?" he asked, pulling her down the dark alley.
"Vampires? No, no, I'm not ready! I just started! Please don't do this!" She begged while trying not to smile. She twisted her hands behind her back, dislocating her right wrist so that it would slip out of the weak loops and snapping it back into place when she freed herself. She held the loose rope in her fists and waited, primed for her next move.
"Shut up. Here." He came to an abandoned warehouse with a padlocked and bolted door. "These boys ain't ate in days." He reached for her and she reared back with her left fist, slamming it against his temple. He dropped the lead of rope and fell to his knees with a groan. Before he could recover from this initial blow, she kicked the other side of his head with the heel of her boot.
"Fucker!" she screamed. She grabbed the rope lying on the ground and pulled his arms behind his back, heard both of his shoulders pop as she dug her boot into his back and tied him.
"See, this is a fucking knot, asshole," she instructed, pulling the expert ties in place.
She went back down the alley towards the bar for her leather bag. She pulled out the crossbow with the automatic stake loader and turned to the hunter. He struggled to his feet as she approached and desperately began running towards the pier, glancing back at her in terror.
Shaking her head in disgust, she fired one of her stakes at the back of his leg and caught him directly through the right kneecap. He howled in an animal's screech of pain and fell to the ground. She caught up to the writhing man quickly.
"Now see, that's just fucking rude. I only got so many of these to go around, ya know?" She yanked the stake out of the screaming man's knee, sending out a fresh flow of blood and enraged cursing.
"I guess I can forget about you telling me where the keys for this shack are." She pulled him up by his shirt and propped him against the warehouse wall. She broke the chains holding the door handle with one hand, pried the door open a crack with her foot, and shoved the bleeding man inside.
"NO! Fucking bitch! NO! NO! NO!" he shrieked, banging uselessly from inside the warehouse while she held the door fast. She felt the weight of the man release from the other side of the door and heard the familiar sound of vamps growling, ripping flesh, and feeding. She wrapped the chains loosely around the broken door handle and backed up, leaning against a brick wall with her crossbow aimed and ready to strike.
Sure enough, half dozen vamps broke through the door after the feeding frenzy ended and headed her way. The automatic crossbow dusted each in quick succession.
She entered the stuffy warehouse cautiously with the crossbow cocked, grimacing at the stink of nested, starving vampires. The remains of the man lay in the middle of the warehouse floor. She walked over and picked out his wallet from the pieces of torn and stained denim, pulling out the now blood-soaked wad of cash she'd given him in the bar.
"Help me," she heard him gurgle.
She tossed the wallet into the ripped open hollow of his chest. "No," she replied and left the warehouse.
*** After Eve's call, Fred stepped up the research even further, calling in as many trusted consultants outside the realms of Wolfram & Hart that she could think of. She knew her experiment existed on borrowed time and often felt desperation tugging at her to submit, to give up, and to lose hope. She only had to look at Spike, how much he depended on her and believed in her, to keep going.
"Anything good in that one?" she asked as he leafed through another book.
"Not a bloody thing. I'll put it in the dead-end box." He gingerly picked up another text. "This one looks promising. According to Giles' note, it covers ancient spell-casting gems."
She leaned over him. "What's it written in? Can you read ancient Zapotec script?"
He met her eyes. "Not the last time I checked."
"That makes two of us. I think I saw a translation dictionary in those books we put downstairs in storage. It'll be good to stretch my legs." Fred got up from the couch and glanced at him. He wore the most alluring intense expression while flipping through books, channeling his energy to turn the pages. Her stomach unexpectedly turned over when he met her eyes again.
"What?" he asked.
She moistened her dry lips and felt her cheeks burn. "I was going to ask what you wanted to order for dinner, and then I remembered you don't eat dinner."
His eyes returned to the page. "Thanks for the thought, pet. You're ordering in again?"
She bit on her thumbnail. "I guess."
Fred couldn't stop looking at him, the curve of his jaw, the pout of his bottom lip. If only he would look at her and not stop, like the look they shared that day when she thought everything changed between them. With the threat of Eve hanging over them though, they'd returned to roommate status and Fred wondered if she'd imagined her connection with Spike. The more they worked these days, the less she felt it.
Spike shook his head. "Never seen a bird so keen on the takeaway. You need a wholesome supper, brain food."
She laughed nervously. "I keep telling myself that cooking is a kind of science, but it must be like taxonomy or entomology." She saw his lost expression. "I stink at those," she explained.
"Ah." He finally held her gaze. "Something else?" he asked politely.
"Are you horribly bored? We've done nothing but read and surf the net and study. Do you want to go out?"
He shrugged. "Do you?"
"I've never been one for the nightlife," she began. Then she remembered his connection to the amulet. "Oh, sorry, I get it. You can't go, unless I go and I take the amulet."
He nodded his head slowly. "That's how it works, yeah."
"I'm a terrible hostess," she apologized. "I'm so into the work we're doing. And, and I'm enjoying working with you, Spike. I don't feel like I need to leave," she added, standing awkwardly next to him, waiting for some indication that he understood her desire, that he shared it.
His brief smile held no clues. "I feel the same."
"You're so helpful," she continued. "And I want to thank you for that and for understanding, you know, after our big talk. As opposed to the little talks that we have, not that they aren't important."
Spike looked back down. "No worries."
"I think we should continue to move forward through the books that Mr. Giles sent, stay determined, and press onward for a solution," she finished, hoping he would talk her out of it.
"Sounds very sensible."
Fred gave up her brave face. "Why do you keep doing that?"
He stared hard into the book. "Doing what?"
"That!" Fred exclaimed, pointing at him. "You're not a man of few words- that I do know."
He got up from the couch with a sigh and walked over to her. "Look. I thought we both decided I should leave you be. I'm not going to force myself on you."
"Spike, why haven't you tried to touch me again?" she blurted.
The determined lines of his mouth softened. "So that's what this is all about. Who says I haven't?"
She suddenly realized the reason for his distance - he didn't want to disappoint her. "Oh, you mean you've tried and."
"Nothing," he said, shaking his head sadly.
Instead of sitting back down, he slid behind and she felt steam rise from him. "You think there isn't anything more I'd want to do than stroke the nape of your neck, caress your back, nibble your sweet ear, run my palms down your hips--is that what you want me to say?"
Unwillingly, Fred felt her eyes close. "Spike--" she breathed.
"You've thought of me talking to you like this?"
"--Yes." She wanted to weep with the relief of hearing the desire in his voice.
"All I've wanted is to be near you like this again. Remember what I asked you to do for me? Think about what you wanted?"
She shuddered. "Please--"
She thought she could feel his breath scorching her neck. "You're burning up, love, I can feel it. I feel you everywhere in me. Do you know that when you come to bed, I'm there? I feel you fall into me every night, almost like having you in my arms. Sweet beautiful Winifred--"
Her head swam with heat and desire. Her body ached with wanting him and still she tried to fight the emotion.
"Spike, you see me work all day with theories, and theorems, and suppositions about all the things that could happen, that might happen, when is anything ever real?" she whispered.
"Sshh, I'm real, how I feel about you is real, how you feel about me--"
She reached around to grab him and felt nothing but air. She pulled away. "I can't!"
Spike bowed his head and laughed coldly. "So we're going to go back to denial are we? Looks like I'm as good as you when it comes to waiting, love."
Fred squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out his words. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. Let's forget it." She backed up.
He clenched his hands into fists. "Forget it. There's a pleasure. I'm to be a good quiet boy and we're both to believe that not one second of your day is spent wondering how I'd rate behind your little Hardy Boy in the lab if I were flesh and bone? You're not dying to know where this heat comes from?"
"No, I'm mostly wondering where I'll rate in your life if I do my job right," she snapped and turned to walk out of the apartment.
"Fred!" he yelled, reaching for her, making contact with her arm. They looked in wonder at the embrace of his wrist around her arm.
"There's no contest, love," he said softly. " What I had before wasn't a life." His grasp slipped through her arm. "Bollocks."
Fred stared in amazement and pieced the puzzle together. "No, wait, this is something. I can't believe I didn't think about this before. Both times when you've made contact with me, what's been happening with us?
"We're tearing our bloody heads off?"
"No," she said exasperatedly. "Not violence. I'm not really truly mad at you, or want to hurt you. Do you want to hurt me?"
He sighed heavily. "Not even close." He raised his eyebrows. "Unless pinching counts."
She blew short breaths into her sweaty palms. "It's the heat! Body heat. In a chemical reaction, heat's a catalyst." She caught sight of the amulet, its dull surface now glowing golden orange and yellow light, pulsing gently. "Look!"
"Bloody hell."
The wheels of her mind began turning. "That's it! I'm turning off the A/C and kicking on the heat, electric bill be damned. Maybe I should increase the temperature artificially, buy a kerosene heater? Or ten?" she asked while she raced around the apartment.
"Hold on. Are we stirring the amulet up? Or is it the other way around?"
She stopped. "Well, I don't know. I guess we need to test it out more."
At that moment, her phone rang. The caller ID read, "GUNN, CHAS." She hit the speakerphone.
"Hey, Charles. Long time no ring." Spike turned to leave the room, but she motioned for him to stay.
"I've gotten all your messages, pretty lady. I'm just swamped. How goes the house arrest?" Spike furrowed his brow.
"It's going really well, actually. We found some pretty good stuff today." She raised her eyebrows and smiled at Spike.
"WE?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, me and Spike. He's a huge help with researching. He knows so much!" Spike brushed her compliment away modestly.
"You still talking about Spike?" Gunn asked. Spike glared at the phone and flipped it the bird.
Fred stifled a giggle. "We've really hit a stride these past weeks. Taking that amulet out of the lab really made a difference. It's changing, Charles, right before my eyes. I miss all of you guys, of course, that hasn't changed."
"Hey, before I let you go, how about meeting all of your old buddies out for a drink tonight? Lorne's got some dance club deal going on, I know you're not all down with the club scene, but we'd love to see you." Fred jumped up and down. Spike shook his head back and forth.
Fred clapped her hands lightly. "You know, that's a great idea. I'd love to go there. Dancing is great cardiovascular exercise." She sent thumbs-up in Spike's direction. He in turn made a pantomime of hanging himself.
"Yeah exercise, that's definitely why I go out," Gunn answered sounding confused. "OK, so Caritas, at 10 o'clock."
"Bye!" she shrieked and hit the button to end the call.
"No fucking way," Spike told her flatly.
"You're going. We have to test this out. I'll dance all night if I have to." She paused, thinking about all the ways she could increase body heat. "Maybe I'll even drink from strange glasses, get sick from somebody, and run a temperature!" She smiled excitedly.
"Oh, yes, if we're truly fortunate you'll burn up with fever," he answered sarcastically. "Are you mad?"
She walked over to him and looked deep into the eyes she'd come to love. "Spike, please."
She watched the fight leave his body. "I'm seeing that I don't have a choice in this."
"I'll wear the amulet tonight, to see what happens. You're stuck with me no matter what, so you might as well enjoy yourself," she said.
"I'll go," he agreed grudgingly. "But I'm not showing my face in some sodding dance club."
***
Angel entered Caritas to a raging techno beat.Let me tell you something you don't know/If you keep the secret I won't show/I'm burning for you. Lorne had replaced the usual karaoke stage with a multicolored-lit dance floor, complete with spinning disco ball. Angel found Gunn at a table near the demon dancers.
"Yo, where you been?" Gunn asked impatiently. " I've been calling you for an hour."
"Something came up. Where's Fred?" Angel asked.
"Check it out, man. Girl hit the floor the second she came in."
Amid the crowd of demons, a raven-haired woman in a tight black v-neck blouse and short chiffon skirt danced gleefully alone. "That's Fred? That doesn't look like Fred," said Angel, her smiling face filling him with worry.
"I hear that," Gunn sighed.
"I'm giving up," Wesley said grimly, sitting at the table with two shots of tequila in hand. "I can't get a dance in edgewise."
Angel couldn't stop watching her. "But Fred doesn't dance. At least, I don't think she does. Not alone."
"She's not alone. See the lucky charm around her neck?" Gunn asked, pointing to her.
"She's wearing the amulet. That means--Spike. I don't like this," Angel muttered.
"Don't you love this?" Lorne approached them beaming. "Once a mere duckling, now behold our swan, shaking her tail feathers, and what plumage. A fabulouso debut night for Dance Fever Friday!"
Angel pulled him aside. "Lorne, she's dancing with a ghost, the ghost of Spike no less. Why can't I see him, anyway?"
"Seeing how I'm pulling a whole-two-left-feet vibe from our spectral guest, I'm thinking it's for the best. Not that our Fredling would care, she of the cotton candy colored aura," Lorne said.
"When did this become a good thing with you? Last I knew you couldn't believe I was letting her go with him."
"That's before I saw this. That is one smitten kitten. Bravo, ma fille. Tres chic," Lorne blew kisses in Fred's direction.
"You read dancers now?" Angel demanded.
"What reading? Take a gander at that youthful carefree glow. You do remember, don't you Hon? How our Fred's just a small lady with a big brain and a dearth of light-hearted souls around her?"
Angel glanced at Fred again. "Sure, she's bored and lonely, so what a perfect time for an opportunistic manipulative ghost of a vampire to come into the picture."
"I think you're confusing the vampire with the ghost. This incarnation of Spike isn't hurting Fred in the least. If he were, you'd see it-- instead of the ecstatic face she's got on," Lorne told him.
Angel watched Fred mouth the words to the next song, and felt himself growing angrier by the second: Sometimes the way that you act makes me wonder/What I am to you and sometimes I can't stand the way that I'm acting/To be part of the things you do/Often I ask you for too much of your time like I'm stealing/ And when I dream of the fear that you're leaving/ I reach out my baby then you put your loving arms around me--
He'd seen enough. "I gotta put a stop to this," he muttered.
Lorne grabbed his arm. "Easy, Daddy Warbucks, hasn't she had enough of the hard-knock life? Come to think of it, where were you the last two times your roosters stormed her hen house?"
"Gunn and Wesley? They were sweet on her, careful with her. They were no threat. She's never met someone like Spike," Angel explained.
"'Sweet, careful, and no threat?' Sounds like a recipe for pudding, not passion. Let me tell you something about that pedestal you boys have perched her on, sweetie. She knows there's only one-way to go in your eyes, down and hard, so she never risks it. Spike doesn't know cow-slave Fred. Spike knows the Fred who's working to save his tuchis. In fact, he may know more of the real Fred than we ever will. Face it, Angel cakes," Lorne patted his shoulder. "Methinks our little girl is all growed-up."
Angel couldn't help noticing her smile, her unabashed joy. "Lorne, is he going to ruin her?"
"Hey, if Pylea can't do it, I doubt a vapor trail of a former vampire can. Seriously, boss, I'd love to hear our fangy friend's stirring rendition of 'Lust for Life' and check him out for you, but the microphone is off for the evening. And as of now, so am I. Nighty-night," Lorne waved and headed for the bar.
Angel went out to the dance floor to retrieve Fred. She turned to him and grabbed his hands excitedly. "Angel, hi! Are you dancing with me?"
"We were thinking of leaving but--Fred, you're burning up! Don't you want a drink and cool down?" he asked, feeling her hot and sweaty palms.
"Spike just said something that I'm not going to repeat," she giggled.
"Tell Spike I want him to show himself," Angel said angrily. "Tell him I'll rip that amulet off your throat and--"
Spike materialized complete with a look of annoyance. "Easy! You and your dramatic flair. A little courtesy for the lady, please."
"Fred knows I'd never hurt her. Does she know that about you?" Angel asked him.
Fred peeked her head between them. "Yes, she does. I do. I'm Fred."
Angel put his hand on her arm and glared at Spike. "I need a minute alone with him, OK?"
She sighed. "Fine. I'll say goodnight to the guys."
Angel and Spike moved off the dance floor and faced each other.
"What's your game anyway?" Angel asked.
Spike smirked. "She rolls the dice and gets me a body. I advance three spaces to tell you to bugger off."
Angel tried to control his anger. "You have no idea what that girl's been through, how long its taken her to get a normal life."
Spike looked around incredulously. "You call this normal? You've a daft sense of the everyday. Compared to what, her slave-gig? She's told me, not that she had to. Ancient history, mate."
"I suppose you repaid the favor by regaling her with your tales of vamp packing through Europe?"
"As a matter of fact, I did. She asked me. Unlike you, I told her," Spike said.
"What are these, bedtime stories?"
"Come off it, you know I can't touch her," Spike dismissed, but Angel saw Spike's eyes glance over and look for Fred. He'd never distrusted Spike more.
Angel drew himself up to his full height and leaned into Spike's face. "You hurt her and I'll find a way to make you pay."
Hearing familiar voices rising in anger, they turned towards the bar to see Gunn, Wesley, and Fred engaged in the middle of shouting match.
"You're both pathetic!" Fred spat. "You're jealous over an experiment?"
"Your freak-on with that ghost ain't no experiment!" Gunn growled. "You're making all moony-eyes at him and calling it science. It's sick."
"You've isolated yourself completely from the people who care the most about you to bond with some inanimate thing? He's using you, Fred! God, are you blind?" Wesley continued contemptuously.
"You don't know me at all, either of you! If you did, you'd rip your tongues out for what you're saying to me right now! How dare you!" she cried.
Lorne rushed over to them followed by Spike and Angel. "OK, kiddies, recess is over.break it up here."
Fred disengaged from the circle and stood next to Spike. "You don't know me," she told the men spitefully "And I don't care to know you, either. I don't want to understand what's caused you to do this." At that moment, her small body doubled over, her hands grabbing onto her head. Angel reached for her but Spike stepped in his way.
"Not this time, Galahad. You don't get to save her this time."
"Spike," Angel gritted his teeth. "She's not another goddamn contest! You can't challenge me and think you'll win her!"
"You're right," Fred said to Angel fiercely. "He's already won." She ran out of Caritas and into the night. With a final glare at Angel, Gunn and Wesley, Spike took off after her.
"Yes, scurry away, you weak useless incorporeal vermin--" Wesley muttered drunkenly.
"Enough!" Angel shouted.
Gunn shook his head. "Man, I don't know why I thought anything would change tonight. You're still the same, Boss, still tryna run everybody's deal," he said with disgust. "I'm outta here. You page me when you want a real partner, not some feel-good kiss ass." He strode out of the club.
Wesley sat at the bar, shielding his eyes with one hand and gripping an empty shot glass with the other. "Another magnificent idea, Angel. Let's rally the team for poor Fred's sake. Thing is, she's not Poor Fred anymore. Wonder when that happened." He motioned for the bartender to fill the glass again.
Angel rolled his eyes and leaned his head back in wearied frustration. "Wes, not you, too. I can't take another scene tonight. Come on, I'll walk you out. Haven't you had enough to drink?"
"Not even close," Wesley grunted as he threw back the shot. "Seems to be the only way I sleep these days. Leave the bottle," he said to the bartender. "There's a good man."
Angel looked at Wesley with concern. "You're not sleeping?
Wesley turned to face him. The ex-watcher's stubbly, haggard face stared out to Angel devoid of any emotion, frighteningly blank. "You know, Angel. What did you really expect, when you made the decision to take on Wolfram and Hart? No consequences for you or any of us? We'd share notes in the morning at the coffee klatch and meet for lunch in the break room?" He asked with cold sarcasm.
"I thought we could do some good, help people--" Angel began.
"Ah, my noble leader, but there's the causal fallacy in your rhetoric!" Wesley grinned bitterly. "You didn't 'think' at all about us, only ran to grab your own brass ring." He poured another drink. "Go home to your penthouse, you champion of the people."
Angel stared at Wesley's back, unable to comprehend the sudden turn of events that separated them. He walked over to Lorne sitting at the end of the bar.
"You know, maybe Fridays are a little too rough for Dance Fever, get a much more relaxed crowd on say, Tuesdays," Lorne was saying to the bartender. He turned to Angel. "Everybody go to their respective corners, sweetie?" Lorne asked him.
Angel looked completely baffled. "What the hell happened here tonight? I suggest a simple get-together with old friends and they all open up with barrels blazing."
Lorne sighed. "Don't fool yourself. That little showdown's been waiting to happen for a long time, though something definitely brought it to a head tonight. Hon, your heart's pure, your intentions are noble to say the least. But you agreed to manage a firm of the devil's advocates here. Recall a turn of phrase: good intentions? Pavement to hell?"
"Actually, the road to hell looks more like gravel," Angel pondered for a moment. "Do you think we've been set up? I knew the danger with taking over Wolfram & Hart, but I didn't think it would take over us. Now I'm remembering something: 'Lure them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion.' Damn it, why didn't I see this before?"
Lorne held up his glass in salute. "The boy knows his Art of War after all. I suggest damage control big-time. Not raises either. Nothing Wolfram-in-sheep's-clothing related. Go on, son. Get your friends back."
Angel heard the familiar strains of Burn, baby, burn and exited the club on those notes.
*** Fred and Spike drove back to her apartment in silence. Despite her fiddling with the heat settings on the car's dashboard, the amulet recorded no change.
She entered the apartment in a flurry of activity. She packed up all of their books and carted them down to storage. She went over to the thermostat and jerked the heat up. She looked around the apartment wildly for more ways to increase the temperature.
"Love, what are you doing?" Spike asked gently.
"Glad I got all of those books out of here, so I don't damage them, any minor fluctuation in temperature could turn them to dust, and since they're not mine."
"Winifred, stop."
"What?"
"Why do you want to do this?" he asked.
She stuck her chin out stubbornly "I want you to get your body back." She closed the window shades.
"Why?"
"I want to help you," she mumbled, pulling blankets out of the cedar chest.
"Why?" he demanded again, appearing behind her and forcing her to sit on the sofa.
She jumped back up and moved around him, smiling anxiously. "You'd make a good scientist. You're good at asking probing questions."
"And you're good at avoiding them. Haven't we danced around this long enough, love? If you get me solid again, what will you do with me?" he asked, his eyes pleading with her.
She dropped her head and stepped backwards, making contact with the living room wall. "Spike--"
"Because I know what I'll do with you," he said huskily, his voice like a caress over her. He leaned his hot presence against her.
She closed her eyes and Spike brought his hand to her face, his palm stroking her cheek. "Who needs artificial heat?" he whispered.
"I can feel you!" she said excitedly, her eyes flying open again, seeing the amulet flashing with light from around her throat
"Don't move, don't break it," he answered. She leaned her head back, panting while he continued his slow exploration of her body. He traced his fingers into the notches of her ribcage, slipped down and kneaded her thighs through the slippery chiffon of her skirt. He pressed his lips gently at the base of her neck and sucked at the skin that trembled with her pulse.
"Don't stop," she begged. "Please."
"First things first, get rid of this," he muttered, pulling the amulet over her head. Suddenly it began to glow brighter when he pulled it into his grip.
"What? What's happening?" she asked, looking up at him.
He dropped to his knees and threw his head back, his mouth ripping forth a scream of unbearable agony. He clenched his fists, raising them up in horrified supplication, as if being scalded by the worst sort of acid.sulfuric it would have to be for sure, based on how his muscles were seizing up like rigor mortis, she thought. Realizing his actual pain, Fred rushed to him but he threw himself away from her like a caged animal.
"No," he breathed, his whole body shaking. The jewel of the amulet had disappeared or rather, had completely transformed. He was enveloped in a thick amber-tinged cloud that radiated the warmth of a small fire. He shuddered as spirals of pain wracked his body.
His raw suffering paralyzed her. All she could do was watch him in stunned helplessness. "My God, what do I do?" she cried stupidly, as she watched him writhe on the floor.
"Get the meter," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Read me."
Fred dropped her jaw in shock at the request. "No, no, I can't--not like this--not when you're--"
"DO IT," he growled. He rolled over into a fetal position and faced her, his blue eyes gleaming fierce. "Do your job."
She swallowed past the lump in her throat and steadied herself, desperate to feel the calm she usually found from using her brain. With shaking hands, she plugged the device into her laptop and flipped its switch. Before she could bring it to him, the meter began to crackle and hum. Scores of data poured onto the screen, the computer beeping faintly as it tried to keep up.
"You're off the charts," she announced with undisguised delight. "Your heart rate--I'm getting your heart rate! Oh, but, it's registering as a human in cardiac arrest." she watched him desperately.
Spike managed to shake his head, his teeth chattering, gulping through the torture.
She looked back down at the meter. "You're registering a body temperature but--I can't tell whether--it's like you're just above freezing to death and just below burning up."
He nodded, concurring with her diagnosis, and hurled himself onto his back. The bands of pain tightened on him anew and he howled again, his arms and legs contorting as if he were being electrocuted.
"There are, there are high levels of carbon dioxide being emitted," she read in a loud uneven voice. "That is concurrent with you processing oxygen through human respiration."
His arms and legs returned weakly to the floor, still vibrating with the force of the energy pulsing through him. The golden vapor around him began to pulse. His chest heaved with the labored effort of his breathing and she heard his lungs begin to wheeze from the strain.
"And your, your brain waves," she sobbed. "Are characteristic for a human man who is, God, who's being burned to death and I CAN'T! I can't do this!" She dropped the meter on the floor and ran to him.
She flung herself across his quivering body and cried out as the liquid fire seeped through her skin. He grabbed on to her violently and buried her face into his chest trying to shield her from the pain his body caused her. The fog surrounding them expanded until the entire space throbbed with its heat and glare. She felt the floor and walls begin to tremble, heard the foundations squeak with the tension of holding the room together. The solid construction of the building groaned beneath them like a rickety shed and the concrete floor below them bowed under their heat. With a final lunge, the pent-up energy exploded through her picture window, shattering glass around them, which immediately evaporated into smoke. The amber light dissolved into a dusty haze as it floated out of the apartment and into the humid, smoggy air.
Lifeless, they huddled together on the floor, soaked with sweat and tears, covered with a fine, yellow powder like the pollen of a spring day. He lay dressed in the clothing he'd last worn in Sunnydale, both the outfit and the body wearing it intact.
End of part two.
Notes: "Special K" is the street name for animal tranquilizers, used as an illegal drug; Lyrics to Burn for you, by Kreo, used without permission; Lyrics to Your Lovin' Arms, by Billie Ray Martin, used without permission; Lyrics to Disco Inferno, by the Trammps, used without permission; Angel's quote from The Art of War by Sun-Tzu used without permission