Chapter Six:

The crypt was shrouded in darkness, the only light a bank of white tapers on the western window ledge, tiny wavering flames throwing dancing goblin shadows on the rough stone walls. The air was heavy with their cloying, clashing scents--gardenia, jasmine, lily of the valley--and just a hint of decay underneath, a familiar, funereal smell. It was curious illumination for a highly flammable creature with electricity access, a lovely, pointless, dangerous display, like so many of his gestures. But then Spike liked playing with fire, always had, every candle and cigarette and daytime stroll a stroke of defiance at the rules which would hem him in. There was nothing he loved better than toying with the very things that could cause his destruction.

It went a long way towards explaining his attraction to her.

Buffy started at the sound of the heavy vault door slamming shut, and turned around to see him gliding down the stairs towards her. His face was still preternaturally calm, but his keen raptor's glare never left her for a second, cold indigo eyes flicking back and forth from her face to her right hand, which was drawing distance from the stake at her waist. She hadn't been able to read this static expression last night, but now she understood it for what it was: the vampire with every mental wheel turning, the potent combination of all his human intelligence and demon cunning focused on a single object. The chaotic restlessness which normally surrounded his every movement was gone--he slowly closed the distance between them with all the deadly deliberation of a stalking cat.

He stopped about two feet away from her, going as still and remote as a marble statue except for his eyes, which continued to bore into her like blue volts. For an endless moment they stared at each other, time drawing out like a blade in the dim hush of the tomb. Buffy could feel him taking her in, predator's senses attuned to every breath, every blink, every heartbeat, distilled in a look so intent it seemed to carry physical weight. The glassy wall surrounding her consciousness began to tremble violently under its intensity, a crystal bell struck hard by an iron clapper.

With an almost painful effort she tore her eyes away, forcing her gaze down to where the view was less dangerous, surveying the cruel chevrons of his cheekbones, the sensual curves of his mouth, the moth-pale sheen of the skin left exposed by his open shirt. The dire vibrations inside subsided, easing into smooth waves of desire that left the emptiness at her core untouched. Hands following eyes, she reached out and began to trace a leisurely path from his collarbone to his navel. God, the feel of him, so soft and so hard at the same time, like velvet over steel. At her touch a tremor went through the vampire, breaking into his strange stillness like a mini-earthquake, and she smiled a little.

"You're tense, Spike. Long day?" she said softly, fingertips running down the polished furrow of his sternum.

"Something like that," he said slowly, almost reluctantly, as if the sheer effort of concentration was robbing him of his usual glibness.

"I'll bet," Buffy replied absently as she fondled the carved plane of his abdomen, relishing the way the muscles there quivered at her touch, like tiny aftershocks. "Trapped here, ripped away from everything you ever needed or wanted. Yeah, that can add up to one long, lonely bitch of a day." Reaching her final destination just above the low-slung waistband of his jeans, she allowed her right hand to linger for a moment, palming the burgeoning hardness below. He was ready for her. He was always so ready. She grasped him firmly, testing the heft and shape of his need, feeling him grow taut as a bowstring, before turning and heading back north.

"But that's every day for you," she continued, busy fingers strumming along the tense line of his clavicle. "Stuck between worlds, not what you were, no idea what you are now. Knowing all the time, that it's something sad. . .and wrong. . .something that never should have been. How do you stand it, Spike? How do you go on?" Her voice broke a little on the last question, and she felt the bell jar shivering violently again, threatening to rupture and let the unimaginable in. Shaking her head as if to clear it, she brought her hands to his shoulders, which were as coiled and strained as a crouching tiger's. Still not wanting to look into his eyes, she stretched up and whispered into the pale shell of his ear.

"What would you do to have it back again, what you lost?" she murmured, nuzzling the fine curve of his jaw like a cat marking its mate. "Any part of it, even for a moment?" Another tremor went through him, and he slowly, hesitantly, bent his head, mobile mouth hovering avidly near the place where the crucial juncture of veins was marked by Angel's crest. The fine hairs on her arms and the nape of her neck started to tingle invitingly.

"It draws you, doesn't it?" she sighed, nipping at his earlobe before turning to the silky skin below, lining the useless blue web of veins there. "I have two others lower down, but that's the one you always find. You know whose it is, and it drives you crazy, knowing he's had me that way, and you haven't." And then Spike was right there, tasting the ill-used flesh, quickening the blood underneath to a breathless pulse. A wave of heat began to break over her, a full-body flush of arousal which made his lips seem deliciously icy by comparison.

"Angel's always getting there first, isn't he?" she whispered. "Marking the things you want." At the sound of the hated name Spike gave a long, low growl deep in his chest, and Buffy sensed the first, faint singing in her spine, that infallible alarm which told her a demon was stirring, and hungry. She gripped his shoulders harder, fingers biting mercilessly into the steely muscles.

"He got in so deep that night," she breathed. "I thought he was never coming back out again. I've never felt anything like it since." Spike was following the red river of her jugular, tracing its pounding current from her right ear to the hollow of her throat, again pausing only to survey the white island of the scar. The singing was growing louder, and even though his teeth were still blunt their pressure was becoming serious, threatening to break the skin even without benefit of razored fangs. Buffy arched her neck, magnifying the sweet-sharp pain, and his face went plastic, bones shifting and peaking, mouth flinty-hard against her fevered veins. She went boneless against him, heart fluttering, eyes closed, slayer siren wailing senselessly in her ears as she asked the question that had consumed her since that fateful night in the alley.

"How deep can you go, Spike?"

And suddenly she was knocked halfway across the room, crashing into one of the crumbling stone pillars, the back of her head smacking its surface with an audible crack. She crumpled against the rough stone, her brain spinning from the force of the blow.

"Never figured you for such a coward, Summers," Spike growled, his voice like rusted metal. Dazed as much by his words as by his sudden violence, she looked up at him bewilderedly. His eerie composure was in shreds: he was standing over her literally shaking with fury, face twisting and darkening as the demon clawed for release. His eyes were awful, sulfur swirling through blue in mad pinwheels.

"Don't sit there with death in your eyes and play dumb with me, girl," he said in that same corroded tone. "I've seen that kamikaze look before, remember? Least the other slayers had the self-respect to put up a decent fight first. They were above the sacrificial lamb bit." His eyes raked over her prostrate form pitilessly, mouth curling with an emotion she'd never seen him direct at her before.

Utter contempt.

That was when the glass bell finally broke, shattering into a million brilliant fragments that cut into her like shrapnel. All the pain, and all the anger, and all the rage that she'd been holding back for so long came crashing in, blending into a bright white hate that scorched everything it touched. With a sound somewhere between a screech and a wail she charged, slamming him into the opposite wall, both hands grasping his neck with a ruthlessness that would have crushed the trachea of a normal man. But the vampire merely smiled at her, that cruel, teasing grin that always made her blood percolate. She let go of his neck with her right hand, ready to smack the smile off his face, when Spike took advantage of the shift in her grip and brought his knee up with tremendous force, catching her in the stomach and knocking the wind out of her. She staggered back and he pressed forward, backhanding her into the central sarcophagus with a savage blow that set her ears ringing.

Buffy landed against one of the sharp corners of the coffin, the cold stone digging between her shoulder blades and shooting bolts of pain down her spine. Still half-breathless, her head and back screaming, she leapt up almost immediately and rushed him once again, all strategy and sense lost to anger. She went instinctively for the stake tucked into her knotted sweatshirt, but before she could grab it Spike snatched one of the dangling sleeves of the shirt and jerked her forward. The thick fleece knot at her waist came undone and he whipped the garment off her, spinning her around and again throwing her off-balance. The stake went clattering to the floor and she dove for it blindly, but he kicked it away into the shadows and threw himself on top of her, straddling her ribcage and pinning her arms above her head. The full demon was on him now, and his grip was like iron shackles. She tried to buck him off but he threw his full weight on her chest, leaving her barely enough room to breathe, as effective a body block as she'd ever encountered. She lay there gasping, all her manic energy draining away, the pain and adrenals churning through her system leaving her nauseated.

"What did I tell you about reaching for your weapon?" he snarled. "You should've had it in your hand from the first go. Pathetic." He was breathing hard, almost panting, an atavistic reflex that underlined how close to the edge she'd pushed him. "I wouldn't even need a halfway mediocre day to take you right now."

He leaned down, yellow gaze lingering over the white brand on her jugular. "And I know that's what you want. Saw it the minute you arrived. You're just begging for it, aren't you?" he said, his amber eyes ravenous. The vampire made a small, involuntary movement towards her neck, and for one breathless second she thought instinct was going to win out after all. Then he closed his eyes and swallowed the demon back, his whole body stiffening with the effort. When he opened them again his face was fully human, and the hunger-stung look in his eyes had been replaced by something strangely wounded.

"I am not your bloody magic bullet, do you hear me?" he rasped.

She stared back defiantly. How dare he look at her with those accusing eyes, like he was the one who'd been hurt? She began to struggle violently once again. "I swear to God, Spike, when I get loose--" she hissed.

"You'll what, dust me for refusing to bite you?" He laughed mirthlessly, a harsh, choking sound. "What a difference a day makes."

"Goddamn it, let me GO!"

"So you can run off and find another demon more obliging than me? Forget it. You're not stirring a step till you tell me what's brought this on. We'll stay here on the floor all bleeding night if we have to." He smirked at her, though it never reached his eyes. "Wouldn't be the first time."

At his final, mocking words a radiant burst of energy, one of those startling power fluxes she'd been experiencing ever since her return, suddenly poured over her. She broke his grip with one fast, vicious motion, pounding him square in the chest and sending him rolling away from her. She shot up like an arrow from a crossbow, heading straight for the crypt door. Spike recovered almost instantly and sprinted after her. He caught up at the foot of the stairs and grasped her by the left arm, half-spinning her around. Desperate in her panic, Buffy grabbed one of the enormous stone urns flanking the stairs in her right hand, and launched it at his head with roughly the thrust and speed of a bullet train. It connected with a sickening crack, breaking in two with the force of the impact, and Spike went down like a ninepin.

She dropped the stump of the urn and stood frozen for a moment, staring at the unconscious vampire. He seemed so very dead lying there, sprawled out awkwardly with no sign of breath, like a doll broken and abandoned by a careless child.

When you don't take care of your toys, don't be upset if you lose them.

As she watched, black-red blood began to flow sluggishly from his temple, contrasting starkly with his waxen skin.

The point of the stake pressing into his chest, a single tear-drop the color of a bruise leaching out.

Buffy slowly backed up the stairs, pressing her hands to her head as if she'd been struck with a sudden, splitting migraine.

You'd rather kill me than face the truth about yourself.

She turned and bolted out the door.

I'm so sick of running, she thought hazily as she sped through the cemetery, tripping over monuments, stumbling over the uneven ground, barely feeling the cruel chill in the air. The smell of death and flowers was still in her nostrils, the sound of that final blow echoing in her ears, her heart pounding with a welter of unnameable emotions. She was almost to the front gate, ready to head anywhere but there, when she was jerked off her feet and slammed to the ground by what felt like a gigantic tree branch hitting her in the throat. She looked up dazedly, and saw that the branch in question was actually the huge, scaly arm of an eight-foot Polgara demon. The monster stood over her, in full battle mode with three-foot spines already extended, ready to skewer her like a puppet on a stick.

Still choking from the unforeseen attack, Buffy rolled backwards and jumped to her feet. The red fireworks were suddenly back, exploding across her vision in a shower so thick it was like peering through a rusty screen door. Her mind had gone completely blank except for a high-pitched buzzing, which swarmed through her consciousness like a cloud of wasps.

"Oh look, somebody else wants to play," she whispered hoarsely, her voice seeming to come from very far away. The furious buzz was swelling to maddening levels, the scarlet cloud swirling thick as clotted blood, the burning pain in her throat radiating outward until every bone and sinew was searing. A slow, feral grin spreading across her face, the Slayer drew herself up to her full five feet, three inches and rushed the enormous monster.

Then everything went dim for a little while.

Except for the screaming. And the tearing sounds.

The red haze before her eyes clearing, Buffy stopped and looked around confusedly. The world had gone deafeningly still, the mad hum in her brain faded, even the usual nocturnal rustlings and chirpings muted, as if the night were holding its breath. She was shivering, kneeling on the cold bare earth, and surrounding her in a six foot radius were what appeared to be lumps of greeny-yellow clay. She shook her head and peered closer, and that's when she realized they were all that remained of the Polgara demon.

She had ripped it to pieces with her bare hands.

She held those hands in front of her, and saw they were coated elbow-deep in a sticky dark substance, which was also splashed across her tank top in a gory tie-dye pattern. It was the lifeblood of the unlucky monster, shimmering blackish-red in the pale blue moonlight, the color of her lethal battle haze.

Or the blood streaming down her demon lover's face.

You've slaughtered thousands, and reveled in every grisly minute of it.

There's nothing you love better than the kill.

Buffy looked up into the blank skullface of the full moon and began to laugh.

It was so funny, now that she understood it all. Her silly maunderings over the past few weeks seemed patently absurd, the whining of a slow-witted child. Of course she couldn't die--she was Death. She was defined by it, filled up with it, drowning in it. It was her gift, the First Slayer had tried to tell her that, and hadn't she given herself in the end? But Death couldn't die, stupid to think that, and that's why she came back, would always come back, forever dealing out mayhem and slaughter to everything she encountered. The others were right to run from her, to flee the black void of annihilation that she was. You'd have to be the craziest kind of fool to stick around. . .

"Bloody hell," a voice said softly, almost reverently, behind her. Buffy knew the voice instantly, and that made her laugh even harder, so hard there were tears streaming down her face, as she stared into the cold, impassive face of the full moon.

Then there were strong, cool arms around her, lifting her up, dragging her out of the zone of carnage. She was still laughing, only the laughter sounded more like crying now, which she didn't quite get, since she had everything so beautifully figured out at last. She was leaning against his chest, trying to explain it all, to make him understand because he needed to understand or he'd just keep coming back, but the words were getting all tangled up, tangled up in the frantic sobs that were tearing through her like seizures, and she knew he didn't understand her.

"Shh. . .shh. . .c'mon love, it's all right, don't try to talk now."

And then everything was clouding away again, not in a hurtful red rain like before, but in a cool grey fog that settled over her senses, blocking out everything but the feel of his arms, circling her like a sheltering wall.

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