Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Three

The Poisoned Chalice

A/N This episode is predominantly about Spike, and dealing with him as a vampire. For his human life, I have written a separate story on that, if anyone wants it, titled William Pratt: The Mama's Boy, The Myth, The Poet which is already finished. And I am planning a story more on the Whirlwind, at some point. So this chapter is going to be relevant information.

*Dream* The Boxer Rebellion, China, the world without shrimp - 1900

Her throat, her blood, her sword heading straight for him. Spike ducked but she caught the edge of his face. A thick line cut into his forehead, his eyebrow slitting, dripping his own blood down his face. Spike didn't wince, he didn't even flinch, just took a thumb to his cut and sucked the blood from it. He laughed menacingly, remembering how this felt. But in the present his body was shaking, his eyes refusing to open. His legs were kicking out trying to escape but he was locked in the dream state, his back against a cold tombstone.

Spike saw that slayer, the first one to fall to him. He could smell her, his senses were so fresh. There was a line of sweat threateningly to fall from her cupid's bow to her bottom lip. She was held in concentration, her hands poised on her sword and her stake. She breathed silently, but Spike could feel it. There was heat all around them, coming from various fires blazing in corners of the room. One small adjustment of his wrist and it'd be all over. Her life would fade from her eyes and she'd beg for her mother in a language Spike couldn't understand. Nor did he care. She was just a piece in his plan to win over Angelus, to prove his worth, and loyalty to their bond of death. The Whirlwind. Darla's unlikely children.

Spike twisted in his sleep. Normally Buffy would wake him from his soulful nightmares, but tonight he was alone. He was cold and the tomb was hard. His eyes running around inside his skull behind the coffins of his eyelids. He should've woken himself by now, but it continued. He tasted the slayer's blood on his lips. Drusilla at his side, his most soulless moments. He could taste her too. The blood of the lamb and all that, was an aphrodisiac for their kind. Now he wouldn't dare do it, that was the difference between him and Angelus, him and Angel - when he tasted the blood of a slayer he spit it out.

There were many things that separated him from the rest of the group. His wanton willingness to change for love, his loyalty and drive. He killed not one but two slayers under Angelus' nose without the man being able to equal him. Spike surpassed the skill of the Whirlwind long before Darla disbanded them. Long before Drusilla left him in the dust of Brazil. Long before Buffy told him she didn't love him, and pushed him away, before she said he was beneath her, before she changed her mind about him and saw his sacrifice.

His soul almost hammered inside his chest. The nightmares had never been this intense before, never in HD and surround sound. He couldn't taste them before now. He knew subconsciously something was wrong, but when he finally managed to break himself out of the spell, he shook his head violently and looked around. Same old crypt, new city, same old body. He couldn't remember a thing. Bits and pieces of his own memories were there, but other than a slightly niggling feeling in the back of his mind, there was nothing remaining of his dream. He rubbed the back of his head, smoothing over any dust that'd stuck to his hair. He had known of the physical signs of fear, no sweat, no racing heartrate. How was he supposed to know that in his mind he was thinking about blood, and Drusilla? About breaking the skin of a girl younger than Buffy and using it for his own sexual means? He thought that was behind him.

Las Vegas, the world without shrimp - June 2006

Drusilla sat over her tarot cards. Death, strength, the lovers. These were not part of a reading, there was no luck, no optimism, no randomness about this spread. These cards had selected. Chosen for a purpose. Drusilla cackled to herself as she felt his energy draining. Her link with him was stronger now she was back in America. The land of the idiots, as she called it. But there had been fewer chances to catch up with her ex-lover from London, now she was here, more well-travelled. And Spike was lusting after someone he shouldn't again. Well she just wouldn't have that.

The cards stared back at her intensely, giving her what she wanted, giving him a link back to her. Spike would be torturing himself right about now, a punishment for falling for the slayer.

"Not that you're still bitter." The voice said from behind her. The figure stood over her shoulders and lay a hand around her neck. Drusilla took a deep in breath, sucking in her chest at the touch.

"Grandmother stop-" she said, "the cards are in alignment. If everything goes to plan, he will come back to us." Drusilla replied to the thin air, the image of Darla in her simplicities receded back into the depths of her demonic mind. "We can be a family again," she said creepily, rubbing her hands together. She had changed considerably over the last few years, her nails were longer, now talon-like and sharper. She could slit a girl's throat with just her hands, and often did. In the back alleys of London, York, Richmond and there in Vegas, she was haunting figure in black and purple. Her face had hollowed back to her bone structure, and she was high off some kid smoking too much pot behind the casino.

She was sitting upstairs in her new lair, a bedsit she'd rented with money from 'the kid's' pockets. He had been probably in his twenties, thin and rakish, but he tasted sweet. Drusilla had missed the thrill of a quick murder, she'd been starving herself for travel purposes. It was harder to move about with a corpse in tow, and she wasn't one for burying her meals. They came up tasting funny. She was here for the night but soon enough she'd be leaving for California, for the valley of the sun, she was coming for Spike.

San Francisco, the world without shrimp - June 2006

Spike met up with Buffy in the cemetery, their usual patrolling routine. All they needed was a quick kill to cover them and then Buffy would pretend to lure him back to her apartment and he would follow her like a lovesick puppy. But tonight everything was going too slowly. The vamps were getting stuck in their graves, and there wasn't a demon in sight. Spike had his head down most of the time, he didn't feel like slaying, didn't feel like doing much of anything lately. His back was killing him. He rubbed it weakly as he approached Buffy from behind.

"Not much luck here tonight, baby B." It was a new nickname he was trying out, one that Buffy didn't seem to be too keen on but he was tweaking it. He sucked the nicotine from an earlier cigarette from his fingers. Buffy looked at him and tried not to gag.

"I 'spose not. Maybe we should just go home," she sidled up to him. "Put on a boxset, snuggle." She said wrapping her arms around his neck. Normally he would be into public flirting, really into it. But he was so achy, with the not sleeping and the confusion when he woke up, he was too preoccupied to think about anything else. "Hey?" Buffy said, waving a hand in front of his face.

Spike backed off, out of her grip, stumbling backwards into a grave. "Oof, who puts these in?! Why are they always so random?!" He yelled at the headstone of some guy who only died a week ago, whoever 'they' was, they were quick.

Buffy rubbed her forehead for a minute, "what's the matter with you? Usually your vampy instincts kick in by now." She said, pulling him up off his sorry ass and back onto his feet. He wouldn't meet her eyes, instead he took great care in studying his shoes. Then mumbled something incoherently. "I'm sorry what?" Buffy repeated, her hand going to her ear as she closed the smallish gap between them.

"I uh, I've been feeling just sorta bad for the last few days. Off my game." He added, Buffy put a hand on his arm and lightly squeezed, urging him to go on. "Nightmares, I've been having nightmares." He said it strained, like he had to force the words out. His elbow creased as he held a hand in front of his face. Buffy brushed it to one side. "It's nothing. Don't even worry about it." He broke away from her, starting to walk away through the graves.

"No- Spike hang on," Buffy called after him, but it didn't matter. He didn't want her knowing, not properly, not until he got his own head around it.

"Hang on, what's this?" Dawn said, holding up a scroll for Leo to look over. They were routing through boxes Mrs Silvera had left them before her trip to South America. They were on par for being the Council's secretaries at this point.

Leo looked up from his book, a worry line appearing on his forehead. "I don't know, here lay it out on the floor." He said, putting the book down and clearing some space on the carpet, they were in Dawn's bedroom, having persuaded Buffy to start letting him stay the night. Dawn opened the scroll and it revealed some symbols in Ancient Sumerian. There was a gold border around the edge of the symbols, but the main bulk of text was almost illegible. There were chunks of the parchment missing because of the Council office's apparent silverfish problem.

"I can't read it, we haven't gotten to Ancient Sumerian yet, Giles didn't teach me enough," Dawn said, pointing the paper towards her boyfriend and moving to sit beside him.

Leo put on the face that he usually made when using his watcher academy skills - usually when reading something old. But Dawn had seen him make it a few times when he was making himself a sandwich. "Mine is a little rusty I'm afraid," he said, "but it says something about a prophecy. Something here da da duh, um oh here," Leo pointed towards the neat scrawl at the bottom. "There will be a transfer, a debt repaid. I think." Leo reeled off, his worry line reappearing. "But I can't make out the rest of it, it's either been eaten, or it's in a code. I'll have to break it down to decipher it." Dawn shot him a look, "alright we will, but in the morning."

Dawn agreed, her chin resting on his shoulder as the looked over it together for a final time before putting it away into one of the boxes. "Do you think it's important, babe?" Dawn said as they got ready for bed.

Leo rubbed the back of his neck as he pushed Dawn's hand away from ruffling his hair, she gave him a pout before going into the en-suite bathroom. "I'm not sure, any prophecy is worth looking at. You never know what you might find. That's the interesting thing about them." He eventually replied, taking off his slippers and settling under the comforter. Dawn came back from the bathroom with her toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, she took one look at him and smiled. Or half-smiled, around the toothbrush. He had never seemed less like Giles at this moment, something she had been intensely worried about the first six months of dating him. No, Leo Silvera was a quaint, English sort of cute. His blonde curls flicked up as he shot her one of his award-winning (in her opinion) smiles and rested his hands on his knees. He was perfect in his own Watcher's Council premium package kind of way.