Chapter 21
“…Where shall I find a red rose budding?—/Out in the garden where all things grow.—/But out in my garden a flood was flooding/And never a red rose began to blow ./ Out in a flooding what should be budding?/All flooding!/Now is winter and now is sorrow,/No roses but only thorns today:/Thorns will put on roses tomorrow,/Winter and sorrow scudding away,/No more winter and no more sorrow/Tomorrow.” ~Christina Rossetti, “Where Shall I Find a White Rose?”
Spike had been expecting Buffy to arrive for patrol that night. What he hadn’t been expecting was the look of despair on her face.
It had been quite a while since either of them had been out on patrol without the other. At this point, it was simply understood that Spike would accompany her. The truth was that both of them enjoyed the other’s presence enough to not avoid the contact.
Spike wasn’t quite sure what to do with this Buffy, however. She rarely let any weakness show, and she certainly never volunteered the information. This time Buffy was coming to him not because she wanted him to kill a demon, but because she expected him to cheer her up.
He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.
“What’s wrong, luv?” Spike asked immediately.
Buffy shook her head, her arms wrapped around herself. She didn’t know what she was doing here. It would have been better to just go home. The hours of research the gang had helped her with had been worthless. There was nothing about curses on Slayers, nothing about why she might suddenly lose all her strength and coordination.
When she didn’t reply, Spike led her into the living room with a hand on her back, sitting down on the couch and waiting for her to join him. “Buffy?”
“Have—have you ever heard of a curse on Slayers?” Buffy asked, her voice holding an edge of desperation.
Spike frowned. “Not that I recall. Nothing specifically for the Slayer anyway. What’s this about then?”
Buffy explained about the vampire that had nearly bitten her two nights before, losing her coordination, and—worst of all—not even being able to stop a no-neck from getting rough with Cordelia. “He just shoved me, and I fell on my ass,” Buffy finished. “Giles keeps saying that it’s nothing, that it’s some flu bug.”
“You don’t think so?” Spike asked.
Buffy shook her head emphatically. “I’ve been sick before, Spike. This isn’t being sick; this is me not being the Slayer.” She stood, beginning to pace. “Who am I if I’m not the Slayer?”
Spike stood as well, stopping her by placing his hands on her shoulders. “Buffy, being the Slayer doesn’t have anything to do with being strong. It has to do with you going out night after night, trying to keep the worst from happening.”
“How can I do that if I can’t even stop a kid at school? Cordelia did a better job of fending him off than I did.” Buffy shook her head. “If I’m not the Slayer, Spike—”
He gave her a little shake. “Quit it, Summers . You are the bloody Slayer. Haven’t you been listening to me?”
“You didn’t know me before I got Called ,” she argued. “I was worse than Cordelia.”
“So what?” Spike shot back. “You’ve changed since then. We all change when we have to.”
Buffy stared at him. “You changed.”
“I had to.”
“I don’t understand,” Buffy said suddenly. “Why do this? You said this isn’t just a job to you anymore, but I don’t know what changed.”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “Dunno, luv. It’s just different.”
“Spike…”
Buffy was asking him to describe what couldn’t be put into words. Spike feared trying to explain, not knowing what her reaction might be, what she might say. He thought she might feel something for him, but his growing affection made him cautious.
Spike had cared before, but not like this. Not since Drusilla. And that was the whole problem right there.
“It’s not about you being the Slayer,” he finally said. “You—you try.”
Buffy watched as he turned away, and she could feel the emotions rolling off him in great waves. Spike frightened her sometimes with his intensity. The depth of feeling that hummed between them.
The realization that it was happening again. She was falling in love again.
And Spike was just as scared as she was.
Buffy took a tentative step forward and laid a hand on his back, the thin material of his t-shirt the only thing that stood between them. Well, that and their pasts, and the whole being a Slayer thing. Those were pretty big, too.
They stood like that for a long time, the silence strangely comfortable, before he finally turned to face her. “We’ll get this sorted,” he promised.
“I know.” Buffy knew she’d have to make the first move in this case, and so she stepped closer, within the circle of Spike’s arms.
Spike held her. It had been so long since he’d been able to indulge in something so simple as a hug. It felt unbelievably good. “I’ll drive you home.”
She pulled back slightly. “You don’t have to, Spike.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re joking, right?”
“Spike, I—”
“Don’t argue.” Spike cut her off abruptly. “I’m driving you home. If you think I’d risk you getting hurt, you’re mental.”
Buffy finally sighed. “Okay. You can drive me home.”
Spike’s phone rang, and he answered it, impatient with the interruption. “Yeah.” He frowned when he heard the voice on the other end. “She’s here, Watcher.” There was a longer pause, and then his eyes went cold, colder than Buffy had ever seen them. “We’ll wait for you.”
“What is it?”
“Your Watcher is on his way over,” Spike said quietly. “Says he knows what’s going on.”
Buffy stared at him. “It’s more than that,” she stated. “You know what it is.”
“I can guess,” was all Spike would say. He had grown silent and remote, and Buffy couldn’t understand it.
For Spike, the pieces had finally fallen into place. Giles had wanted him to go out looking for Buffy. The Watcher had called Joyce to be sure she’d arrived home safely, and when she wasn’t there, he had grown worried.
Much more anxious than he probably should have been if Buffy was simply fighting off a touch of the flu.
Giles’ insistence that he come over immediately, the thread of guilt that Spike could hear in his tone, and—perhaps most telling of all—the fact that the Watcher had asked him not to come to Buffy’s training this last week.
Spike had the feeling that Giles knew exactly what was behind Buffy’s loss of strength, and there was a good possibility that he had something to do with it. The vampire wasn’t going to voice his suspicions, for fear of upsetting the Slayer needlessly if he was wrong.
Buffy was searching his face for some kind of sign, and Spike met her eyes. “I can’t say for sure, pet. We’ll just have to wait for Rupert.”
They didn’t have to wait long. Giles was knocking on the door less than ten minutes later, and as soon as he entered the house, Spike knew his suspicions had been correct. He’d been around long enough to know guilt when he smelled it. His talent for sniffing out that sort of thing had served him well over the years, and he was amazingly accurate.
Spike wished he wasn’t this time.
Giles was quiet as he came into the living room. Buffy watched him, and Spike could see the fear on her face. “Do you know what’s wrong with me?” she asked. “Can we fix it, Giles?”
Her Watcher put a leather satchel on the couch, opening it and pulling out a syringe and a small bottle. “It’s—it’s an organic mixture of muscle relaxants and adrenal suppressors.”
Spike felt Buffy’s shock. “What?”
“The effect is temporary,” Giles assured her. “You’ll be yourself again in a few days.”
“You?” She turned to look at Spike. “Did—” When he shook his head, Buffy looked at Giles again. “Why?”
Giles swallowed hard. “It’s a test, Buffy, given to the Slayer when—if she reaches her, um, her eighteenth birthday. She is disabled, and then trapped in a house with a vampire. To pass the test she must kill it.”
“You bastard,” Buffy spat. “You saw what this was doing to me!”
Giles wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. “In matters of tradition and protocol, I must answer to the Council, Buffy. My role was quite specific. I was to disable you and lead you to the old boarding house on Prescott Lane . I wanted to tell you, but—”
“Liar!”
The single word struck him like a blow. Giles flinched. “The vampire has escaped and killed at least one of the Watchers that was there,” he continued, forging on. “Now that I’ve told you, the test is invalidated. You’ll be safe, I promise.”
“How will I be safe?” Buffy demanded angrily. “You stuck a needle in me! I could have been killed before I even got to this stupid test.”
Giles reached out to comfort her. “Buffy—”
“If you touch me, I’ll kill you!” she spat, backing up right into Spike’s chest.
The vampire brought his hands down on her shoulders. “Easy, luv,” he murmured. “We’ll sort this.” The blue eyes were cold when he looked at Giles, and the Watcher knew he hadn’t been far wrong when he worried about Spike killing him. “What do you know about this vampire?”
“His name is Zachary Kralik,” Giles said. “When he was alive, he tortured and murdered more than a dozen women before he was put away in an asylum for the criminally insane. While a vampire…” He trailed off, realizing that further detail was unnecessary.
Spike’s face was set in a grim expression. “Right, then. Buffy, I want you to stay here.”
She turned to look at him, searching his face for any sign of pity—anything that would suggest he believed her incapable of handling matters. Maybe she couldn’t handle Kralik in her current condition, but Buffy hated to think that Spike thought of her as weak.
As if reading his mind, Spike lifted a scarred eyebrow and cocked his head. “You are recalling my job descriptions, aren’t you? Doesn’t make any sense for you to risk yourself when we’re going to need you for a bigger battle up ahead.” He looked from Buffy to Giles, his voice growing sharp. “You should have remembered that, Rupert, even if your bloody Council couldn’t. What kind of help is a dead Slayer going to be?”
“I had a duty,” Giles replied, but it was a weak excuse and he knew it.
“Bugger duty,” Spike shot back rudely. “Sometimes you have to ask the questions. Duty and tradition are worth sod-all if they aren’t what’s right.” He muttered a few more imprecations under his breath, striding off to a chest sitting in a corner of the living room.
Buffy watched as Spike shoved a few extra stakes into various pockets and grabbed a crossbow, tossing it to Giles. “Let’s go, Rupert. You’ve got a mess to clean up.”
The Slayer was a little surprised when Spike left without a backwards glance. Giles stayed still for a moment, appearing to want to say something to his Slayer, but unable to find the words that would heal the breach that had been created between them. In another moment, Giles was gone as well, leaving Buffy alone, waiting for someone else to take care of the problem.
It wasn’t a role she was accustomed to playing. She wanted to be out taking care of this vampire herself. Buffy wanted to maintain the illusion, if not the reality, of strength. The idea that she suddenly wasn’t capable of doing what she had been chosen to do was uncomfortable, to say the least.
That was why she was so angry with Giles. More than anything else, it was the fact that he had stripped her of her identity, of her power. It felt like rape in a way. Buffy was the Slayer, and now she wasn’t.
Why on earth had she ever thought she wanted to be normal? One day as normal, and she couldn’t wait to go back to being the Slayer.
Sitting around in Spike’s—admittedly—comfortable townhouse wasn’t doing her any good. Buffy wanted to be out solving her problem. As much as she appreciated Spike’s help, and she did, she still wanted to be the one in charge.
She didn’t like being taken care of. That was also a new revelation.
After half an hour, Buffy decided she couldn’t wait any longer. She was the Slayer. Spike had been right about that. It was her job to make sure that Kralik couldn’t kill anyone else, her responsibility to see to it that more innocents didn’t suffer on her account. Maybe the Council had brought Kralik here, but in the end, she would be the reason that people died.
Unless she did something about it.
Buffy rummaged around in the same chest that Spike had gone through. It would have to be a stake, or something else that didn’t require a lot of accuracy at a distance. She’d proven earlier with the throwing knives that she couldn’t hit squat with the drug in her system.
The holy water and cross were also possibilities, but Buffy wasn’t going to hold her breath. She would have to be sneaky, that was for certain. If she allowed him to get close, he would be able to kill her without breaking a sweat.
If vampires did sweat. Buffy decided she’d have to ask Spike about that when it was all over.
The Slayer decided that she’d start at that old boarding house on Prescott Lane . Giles had mentioned that the Council had been keeping Kralik there, and it was a possibility that he would return.
After that, she’d just have to try and pick up his trail.
~~~~~
Giles was finding the silence in Spike’s car most uncomfortable. The vampire’s face was set in an implacable expression, enforcing a distance that had never existed until now. He finally couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Spike—”
“Don’t. You betrayed her.”
The Watcher swallowed hard. Spike’s words brought the truth into sharp focus. His guilt threatened to eat him alive. “I had no choice.”
“We always have a choice.” Spike glanced over at him, his blue eyes flashing. “You were the person Buffy trusted the most, and you betrayed her.”
“I answer to the Council!” Giles shot back, stung into taking the defensive. “I am not some rogue agent as you are.”
Spike smiled grimly. “There’s definitely something to be said for being a rogue agent.”
Giles blanched, realizing that he was hardly helping his case. “Can you find this Kralik?”
“This isn’t that big of a town, Rupert. I think I can manage.” Spike’s face grew even harder, his expression forbidding. “From what you’ve said, he’ll try to find a nice warm body, and then he’ll probably take it back to his lair to play with. If we don’t run across him in another hour or so, we’ll head back to the boarding house.”
~~~~~
Buffy wondered if she was being unreasonable about this. The old boarding house loomed up in front of her, a forbidding structure she wouldn’t have given another thought to entering a week ago. Now, its appearance was enough to make her think twice.
Of course, that still wasn’t going to stop her.
Buffy took a tighter grip on her stake and slipped in the front door, trying to make as little noise as possible. The old floorboards creaked slightly under her weight, and she froze, listening for any sounds that might tell her that there was someone inside with her.
It was silent. Funny how that didn’t make her feel any better.
She crept forward, keeping on the alert, her senses stretched out to the full. In spite of her efforts, the vampire seemed to come from out of nowhere. Buffy hit the floor, her stake flying out of nerveless fingers. The air rushed out of her lungs, and she reached for her weapon.
The vampire’s hands were on her throat now, and he was squeezing. Buffy knew that she had to do something fast, so she gave up on the stake and reached for the cross in her pocket instead. She managed to shove the cross into his face, forcing him to loosen his grip. Once she had a little more room to wriggle, Buffy reached for another stake she’d hidden on a different part of her body. With a grunt of effort, Buffy shoved the stake through his heart, feeling the dust drift down around her.
Gasping and choking from the dust she’d gotten in her mouth, Buffy forced herself to her knees, then managed to stagger to her feet. She might have paused to savor her hard-won victory, but a voice cut through the silence of the house. “You came.”
It came from behind, and Buffy whirled, nearly losing her balance in the process. The vampire grinned at her toothily. “You must be the Slayer,” Kralik said. “I was told to expect you.”
“I hate to disappoint,” Buffy replied, knowing that it was a weak quip but unable to come up with anything else.
Kralik smiled pleasantly, his fangs showing. “I’m really looking forward to this, you know. I think your first meal should be your mother. You do have a mother don’t you?”
“Not someone you’re ever going to see,” she hissed, backing up. Buffy needed to regroup, to figure out how she was going to deal with him.
“That’s not very nice. I plan on getting to know you really well.” The vampire took a step forward. “Don’t you introduce all your friends to your mother?”
Buffy decided to take a chance and make a break for it. She ran for the stairs, letting out a very un-Slayer-like shriek when she felt him grab her. Kicking back, Buffy hit him in the face, scrambling up the stairs on all fours.
She was still trying to find a place to hide when she heard an inhuman sound. Whatever had happened, Kralik sounded like he was in pain, and Buffy didn’t care.
Dashing from room to room, the Slayer looked for anything she could use, preferably to make a booby trap that would incapacitate Kralik for the few moments she would need to kill him. Her mind was racing too fast to form a coherent thought.
This was definitely a stupid idea. She could have stayed safe at Spike’s place. She could have let him take care of Kralik; Buffy knew he would have. He’d have managed it. If there was anyone she could trust, it was Spike.
Buffy was here now, though, and so she had to see it through.
She heard another howl. There had to be something she could do.
An idea occurred to her, and Buffy headed for the closet in the nearest room. As she had hoped, the clothes rod in the closet was wooden, and she pulled it out easily. The fittings were old and loose, which meant even with normal strength, Buffy could manage.
Buffy couldn’t do anything about sharpening one of the ends, however. She would just have to hope that she could work up enough momentum to force the wood through Kralik’s heart.
Too bad there wasn’t enough time for that.
Buffy whirled, holding out the rod in front of her like a pike. “Where is my medicine?” Kralik demanded.
She stood frozen, unsure of whether she should try to rush him or wait for the vampire to come to her. Buffy didn’t have to wait long. Kralik took another couple steps into the room, his face contorted in pain. “Where are my pills? What have you done with them?”
Suddenly he was hurtling towards her, and Buffy didn’t have time to do anything except hold the rod out in front of her, watching in disbelief as Kralik impaled himself.
“What the bloody hell were you thinking?”
Spike stood in the doorway, and Buffy realized that he had pushed the other vampire towards her. If Kralik had been controlling his own motion, he never would have staked himself. “Spike.”
“Well?” he demanded again. “Didn’t I tell you to stay put?”
Buffy conveniently forgot that she’d been thinking the very same thing just a few moments ago. “You don’t have any right to give me orders, Spike! I’m the Slayer, and this was my responsibility.”
“And mine is keeping you alive!” Spike snapped. “How the hell do you expect me to do that when you’re running straight into danger?”
She set her chin stubbornly. “I told you. This is my job, and I don’t need you to do it for me. If you can’t handle that, then maybe you should just leave.”
Anger and relief had always caused Spike’s mouth to disconnect from his brain. “Maybe I should.”
With that, Spike whirled, stalking out of the room and leaving Giles behind in the hallway. Buffy met her Watcher’s eyes. He moved towards her slowly, reaching out to brush her hair out of the cut on her forehead that the first vampire had caused when he tackled her. “We should get that cleaned up.”
Buffy stared at him. She didn’t trust him, not now. At the same time, however, Giles hadn’t been obligated to tell her. He could have stuck to the Council’s mandate, and he didn’t have to go after Kralik.
That counted for something.
“Okay,” she replied, too numb to do anything else.
Buffy would think about Spike’s words tomorrow.