Chapter Three
The next day, Dawn finished her cereal with casual disregard for her dirty dishes, leaving them in the sink, as always, for Buffy to clean. But as she looked out the window into the back yard, saw the wind in the bushes, a small change occurred in her brain. The tiniest tick within that struggle her mind had been warring since the previous night's adventure.
It was a subtle change. Even she was not aware of its implications as she attended school that day, though any who knew her might have said she was slightly distracted.
That afternoon, however, she arrived home and strode down into the basement of the Summers home to find Spike asleep on his cot. Without any idea of why, she pulled the wall manacles from their hanging positions and attached them gingerly to his wrists.
The final clink of metal and careless brush of her hair across his face served to wake him. She jumped back instantly.
"Right now," he frowned, suppressing a yawn. "What you up to, nibblet?" He glanced at the manacles now secure on his wrists. "Now, hang on just a minute. What's going on here? Get these bloody things off, I'm in no mood for games."
"I need you to answer some questions," Dawn said, after a moment to analyze precisely what she indeed had done. "And I can't let you tell Buffy."
"Well, she's bound to find me down here sooner or later. I'm not above a good yell."
"I don't care about later. I need some answers now." Her tone was uncharacteristically calm but hard.
Spike glared hard into her. "Are you alright?" There was a pause. "Dawn, what are you about?"
"I'm fine, and I'm sorry I chained you up, but I need time. Now answer and I'll leave."
"What do you want to know." He quickly added, "and I'm not promising anything."
"Before you had a soul." She spoke the question that had been forming in her mind all day. "Before; what did it feel like?"
"What do you mean what did it feel like? I was a bloody vampire, literally."
"You still are."
"I was Big Bad, I killed people." He frowned at her. "Little girls, by the hundreds. You know that."
"But you're still a vampire. How do you know you have a soul? What does it feel like?" The earnest of her questions piqued Spike's curiosity.
"What's this all about anyways? I've been snoozin here all day. Did something happen last night?"
"No. Now answer. You were a human, with a soul, then you got sired, lost your soul, then you got your soul back. You have perspective." She insisted. "What's the common link? What does your soul feel like?"
"Like a bloody vice grip, alright?" He hissed at her, angrily, stalking towards her, to the end of his chains. "Like a tight iron grip around my bloody heart, squeezin' all the time squeezin. Every time I see a person like you, or smell the scent of.. Bloody food prancin' about, it's what's squeezin the urge to feed, squeezin the need to taste your blood on my lips."
She tried and failed to remain unfazed. "It keeps you from acting on those feelings?"
"No." He answered sharply. "It squeezes those feelings until they hurt like a mother f-" he checked himself "a lot. They pound and throb inside my head, but always they're floating in a deep well of knowing that if I act on them, I won't bloody well be able to live with myself." He sat down on his cot. "Got it?" He snarled. "A bloody waste of a quest it was." But when he looked up again, Dawn was already gone.
"Oh... bollocks."
Dawn hugged her backpack tight to her as she sat on the bus as it moved relentlessly towards Los Angeles.
And my mind is a mind that I have come to know.
And my eyes can't conceive a world that cannot grow.
And on the day I die, thank God my soul will be released.
Dawn ground her teeth together. The bitterness of her mind set was filling every cavity of her thoughts. No one could really understand her. Not now. There was one common thing to everyone around her, one common element in their lives. When they died, they wouldn't really be dead.
The sign flashed by the window. Los Angeles - 56
Buffy was going to be so pissed. Somehow, however, the part of her mind which generated this thought failed to cheer her up, or even fill her with the sense of excitement that it used to. There was something building inside her, deep in her chest, it was uncomfortable and sooner or later it would get out.
That night, in the motel room she charged to Buffy's credit card, she lay on her back, fully clothed, her backpack still tightly in her grip. She blinked up at the ceiling as the full weight of what she was doing, and had already done washed over her.
By reflex, she curled into a ball on her side and cried herself to sleep.
The next day, she was positive, everyone would be out looking for her. She had to do what she wanted to do and get out. She gave a little smile, rubbing the dried tears from her face.
Four shopping trips, five taxi rides, a hairdo and eight hundred and seventy dollars later, it was dark again and Dawn was sitting in the backseat of her taxi, dressed more like a skank, and in less material than ever before in her life. Her hair was stylishly pulled back, to mimic the hairstyle of Buffy in her driver's licence photo, which Dawn now carried in her new purse.
"We're here," the cabby informed her. "That's forty six, fifty," he said casually. The money changed hands. She stepped out of the cab, over the small rivulet of drainage water flowing down beside the curb. Her heels clacked satisfactorily on the cement as she approached the nightclub entrance. The gold inlay on her high neck, low backed blouse glittered in the sick orange of the LA streetlight.
A thick, heavy set man in a black turtleneck at the stairs leading down to the club uncrossed his arms and put a meaty hand on her shoulder. "Where are you going?" he chuckled with an expression akin to do you think I'm stupid?
Dawn produced her licence and raised an annoyed eyebrow. The big man squinted at it and chuckled again. This time he said it. "You think I'm stupid or something?" He threw her licence back at her. "This ain't no Coco Bongo club sweety, you wouldn't last ten minutes down there."
Without hesitation, she drew the small knife from the only fabric covering her left arm, holding it close to her side and pressing it threateningly against the big man's gut.
He laughed, a big heart felt belly laugh, as he was truly amused. Before she could think, a thick meaty vice grip clamped around her weapon arm, and the other spun her around until she was pinned, facing outward, against his stomach.
"I take it back," he chuckled, "you wouldn't last two minutes down there." His arm crushed harder across her chest, his hand gripped tighter around her wrist until she dropped the knife. She grunted in pain, wrestling once to escape his grasp but failing. The hopelessness of what she was trying to accomplish sped at her like a wild horse. A thought popped into her head which nearly choked her breath away.
"Please," she almost sobbed, "I- I need a fix..." She whimpered, convincingly. The grip on her chest loosened. Roughly, she was released and spun around. There was now a sadness in the big man's eyes.
He waited for a heartbeat, during which Dawn wasn't sure if she was going to be tossed into the club or ushered to a rehab facility. Finally, she was released and the man's arms crossed again. Within an instant. He stepped aside, opening the way into the club.
Inside was like nothing Dawn had expected. The only club-type she had ever been to was the Bronze back in Sunnydale, and this was nothing like the Bronze. The only island of refuge, it seemed, from the dank, dark of the club proper was the halogen lit bar, and the stools surrounding it. She shouldered her purse, touched her hair mindlessly and proceeded in.
The smell was the first thing that hit her. Not the rotting body smell she had imagined, or the smell of animals feasting. Old leather, with a hint of sweat.
She sat down at the bar, trying to ignore the couples doing who knows what in the dark corners of the establishment. The bartender approached, an honest looking demon with small unassuming horns and the tiniest hint of a wolfish face.
"What's it to be?" He asked after a moment of staring at her.
Immediately, she realized her mistake. She had no idea what to order at a real bar, let alone a demonic one. The worry she had felt at implementing the plan tripled as she felt it was coming crashing down around her. "Whatever's good," she dismissed, trying to act tired and slightly annoyed. She really should have put more thought into this. The barkeep gave her an odd look, then returned a moment later with a tall narrow glass of what looked like iced tea. One sip, however, told her it was not.
From out of the back corner, in the darkness, a young man approached, hair swept back akin to Spike's, yet jet black instead of white. "Hey, hot stuff," he smiled gingerly to her, touching her elbow, sitting down beside her. "You look like you need some company. Why don't you come back to a private table with me, where we could... get to know each other."
Dawn's stomach trembled, her hand slipped inside her purse to grip the sharpened stake she had there. "I don't need company," she informed him, trying desperately to keep the fear from her voice. "I need information."
He sighed to himself in mock worry, "hmm, well, information is not cheap around here. Everyone likes to keep what they know to themselves." He leaned in a bit closer, bringing his mouth within inches of her exposed neck. "However," he inhaled deeply, "I'm sure we could make some sort of an... arrangement?"
Dawn swallowed hard. "You answer my questions and we'll see," she turned to face him.
"In that case," he murmured, "my answer is yes," he drew closer to her, breathing in the scent of her young flesh.
"If I don't like your answers, however," she cautioned, jabbing the tip of the spike into his ribs. At that moment, his face grew vampiric and his fangs protruded.
"Slayer," he hissed, backing up.
"No, just someone who wants answers." She tilted her head to the side, seductively, exposing more shoulder and neck.
He resumed his human facade and closed his eyes to breath in her scent again. He seemed almost overpowered by it.
"That's better," she crooned. "Now tell me. Where can I find the oracle?"
Without missing a beat, he answered her. "In the basement of the crypt of Hans Vorditd," he took her arm, lightly, "now let's find a more private table."
Her information acquired, Dawn saw no need to continue this conversation, and drew back her stake to impale him. But it was wrenched from her hand by a frowning barkeep.
"Now, now, we don't want any trouble in here." He warned her. "I can't have you dusting my good customers. Why don't you two just find a nice table for the evening?" His eyes showed no sympathy for the teen's situation.
Horrified, Dawn was led to a table at the rear wall, where she was seated, her arm resting elbow down on the table. The vampire took a long whiff of her neck again, then proceeded to trail his way sensuously over her shoulder and down her arm to the crook of her elbow, where he nuzzled his cheek awhile.
Dawn's other hand gripped a fist tightly, her eyes closed, her teeth clenched for fear of screaming and being eaten. Then the cool feel of his cheek left her arm and two hot sharp pricks of pain replaced them. She stifled a moan as she felt his teeth sink into her arm, her blood welling up in his mouth. Without warning, a thick hazy cloud of pleasure floated down on her. Her eyes opened, wearily, heavy, and her fist relaxed. Her breath slowed to shallow panting as he fed on her. The rushing of her blood in her veins filled her ears, as he drank from her wound.
Time seemed to slow, a small corner of her mouth tilting in a smile as the sensation, very much like a drug, washed through her whole body. All too quickly, however, it was over. She felt his lips, hot with her blood, removed from her arm. She slowly, like she was made of lead, looked down to see him passed out on the table beside her, his mouth red with her fresh blood, a heavenly smile on his now human face.
Dawn blinked, trying to rouse herself from the same feeling, shaking her head. She pressed her palm to her arm to stop the bleeding and uneasily stood. She nearly dropped back into her seat again, when the dizziness hit her. Somehow, she managed to stumble to the exit, past the faces of the grinning, almost leering people, and the amused expression of the barkeep.
"Come back soon," he chided.
Somehow she managed to find her way back to her motel room, where she passed out in a weak and uncertain daze.