Chapter 4: Meet the Competition
“Spike.” This was said with a surprised smile now as Buffy fully absorbed the fact that, yes, he was really here.
“It’s really you?” Spike’s voice sounded so soft, almost hopeful.
Buffy managed a wry laugh at that. “I was just about to ask you the same question,” she agreed. All these years apart, and we’re still so in sync with each other.
A slightly amused glint entered Spike’s eyes as well. “So.uh,” he ran a nervous hand through his hair, “why’re you here?”
“Some demon-y problem,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m here to kill it. You know, the usual.”
“Oh.”
God, he sounded so disappointed. Why did he sound so disappointed? “What about you?” she inquired.
“The same.” His face was closed off from her now, the hint of hidden emotion she’d seen earlier gone.
She took a moment to study him, re-memorizing all of his handsome features.
It had been about two months after Dawn had finally left for good that she’d first had the uncontrollable craving to see him again, to just know that, yes, he really had existed. Six hours had been spent frantically searching through the old photo albums in the basement, desperate for just one image of him she could hold onto.
What she had found left a sinking feeling in her stomach. She, Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, Tara.hell, even Anya had all gone through various stages where they took pictures like mad. There were literally dozens of albums detailing practically every moment of Scooby existence. All sorts of various groups of people smiling for the camera – in her house, at the old Magic Box, in Giles’ apartment. Hundreds, maybe thousands of photos. But not one of them had been of the face she was longing to remember.
She had cried that night for the first time since he’d left. It had never really struck her before just how much of an outsider they’d made him so that, on none of those dozens of occasions, no one held ever turned the camera on him and said “Hey, Spike, smile!” in an effort to snap a candid shot.
The one image she did recover was of her and Riley holding each other tightly and smiling with the most fake smiles she’d ever seen. The photo had obviously been taken in her freshman year of college since there in the corner of the background was Spike, leaning against the doorframe to Giles’ kitchenette, his head tilted away from the camera.
It was ironic that all that effort went into preserving something so utterly meaningless as the memory of her relationship with Riley, when the man she wanted to remember only existed in the background, as a mistake, something no one ever considered might be important.
It had taken over two years for her to stop feeling silly about the whole thing and have the image of Spike blown up and her and Riley cut from the picture. Still, the picture only showed the side of his face, his chin tilted away, blocking most of his features. She could see the sharp line of one cheekbone, the cut of his chin, and – although she still wasn’t sure whether she was hallucinating it or not – the slight curve of his eyelashes against his cheek.
It hadn’t been nearly enough to remember him, even though she’d tried so hard.
But, now, as he stood before her once more, her mind’s picture of him could once again turn vivid. Slight errors and exaggerations were corrected, gaps were filled, and before she knew it the fine masterpiece had been restored, more beautiful and right than even she could have imagined.
“You.uh.” Her mind was scrambling desperately for something to say and fighting the nearly uncontrollable urge to fling herself into his arms. “.So, you still kill demons?” she finally finished lamely.
“Yeah.”
This was different. She hadn’t remembered him this cool, this closed-off. She remembered vibrant, unquenchable passion, whether it was in a smoldering glance he longingly sent her way or in the way his hands caressed her as he made love to her. She didn’t think she’d imagined that.
“So, where did you go after.?” I beat you to a bloody pulp in a back alley and left you for dead. She flinched inwardly.
“Around,” he gestured vaguely. “You?”
“Still on the Hellmouth,” she said with a fake laugh. “Only, not a Hellmouth anymore.mostly just a demon tourist trap now.”
“Heard about that,” Spike nodded.
He hadn’t always been this quiet, had he? Surely, he hadn’t always been this quiet. She remembered him constantly talking, flirtation and innuendo in everything he said, harsh truths that she hadn’t been ready to hear whispered against her ear. But she was ready now. She wanted.
“Well, fancy meetin’ you.” Spike picked up Dawn’s last two bags and hauled them over his shoulders. “Good luck with the slayin’.”
And, with that, he walked off.
And Buffy just stood there, stunned.
* * *
“Absolute emergency, Holden!” Buffy practically screeched into the phone, hands shaking slightly as she did so.
“Buffy?” the therapist said in slight confusion. “I’m with another client right now.”
“He’s here,” Buffy retorted. “I just met him in the hotel lobby.”
Holden Webster’s brow furrowed at this. Buffy had first come to him for help when she couldn’t stand her marriage any longer. In the time since, she’d been one of his most difficult patients, the seemingly endless list of nightmarish relationships each leaving deep emotional scars. But nothing had ever effected her so much as her regrets about him.
“I’ll be done in ten minutes,” he assured her. “I’ll call you right back.”
“You’re got the inn number, right?” Buffy asked wearily. “I’m in room 123.”
“Yeah,” Holden agreed, “I’ve got it.”
* * *
Dawn had returned to their suite expecting to find Spike literally bouncing off the walls, trying to drag her off to the town for some violence and mayhem. What she hadn’t been expecting was Spike, collapsed in the center of the room, tears streaking down his cheeks and body convulsing uncontrollably with shivers.
Instantly, she ran over to him, and she couldn’t even have said how they managed it, but somehow they became wrapped in a veritable tangle of limbs, him whimpering softly as he tried to bury himself in her embrace.
“Shh, Spike.” Dawn soothed, stroking his hair comfortingly. “What happened?” She felt her shirt dampen with tears but didn’t care if it was drenched. All that mattered was.
“Buffy.”
Dawn started in surprise at that. He never mentioned her unless he absolutely had to. “What?” she asked, confused.
“Buffy.” He gulped and shut his eyes, as if steeling himself up. “Buffy.is here,” he finally finished.
Dawn’s face whitened in response. “Here?!” she repeated, just short of panic herself. “How? Why?”
“I ran into ‘er in the lobby,” Spike answered shakily, running a hand through his spiky hair. “She said she was here to kill the nasty, too.”
Dawn’s face hardened. “This is our case,” she insisted. “So she can just go home.”
“No,” Spike shook his head. “Let her handle it. We need to go-“
“Did she hurt you?” Dawn asked, suddenly concerned, looking him over. “She didn’t touch you, did she? ‘Cause, so help me.” She left the threat unfinished.
He shook his head meekly. “I just can’t.” he began helplessly.
“You can,” she assured him, squeezing his hand gently. “C’mon, I know you’re strong enough to beat this. I’ve seen it. We’ll just go to the meeting tonight, work something out, and if we don’t like the way things turn out, then we’ll leave tomorrow.”
Spike calmed at this and seemed to compose himself, giving her a reassuring little nod.
She smiled in response, placing an affectionate kiss on his cheek. “It’ll be all right,” she insisted.
As the pair disentangled themselves from the floor, the hints of red light that had been flickering about the corners of the room, just out of sight, turned a sickly green color for a moment before bursting back into red and vanishing through the walls.
The Key and the Vampire remained oblivious.
* * *
“My name,” the pompous British man at the head of the room said, straightening his finely manicured suit as he did so, “is Simon Whitteborn, attorney at law. I represent the Danvers estate and will supervise this investigation.”
Spike rolled his eyes, leaned back up against the ‘no smoking’ sign, and lit his cigarette, decadently blowing a stream of smoke into the recreation room.
Simon shot him a dirty look as did the female of the pair of D’vorak Demons that sat on the couch next to him, her antennae twitching blue in irritation. No one else seemed to mind.
“You ask us to solve your problem,” a bored-looking woman with long red hair, tight leopard-print clothes that showed off her shapely figure, and a wine glass in one hand replied, “yet you intend to step on our feet as well?” She took another dainty sip from her glass, her dark eyes searching out Spike’s over the rim and giving him an approving look.
“I assure you, Miss Duvall,” Simon huffed slightly, “it is in the best interest of everyone involved. Previous independent hunters have met with.unpleasant ends.”
“Yeah, that’s what I want to hear about,” Buffy said determinedly, arms crossed over her chest in a no-nonsense manner. “‘Cause I was under the distinct impression that I was the first – and only – demon hunter being called in.”
“Second that,” a tall, Hispanic man wearing dark sunglasses said from his position sitting atop the pool table.
“Yes, well,” Simon fidgeted slightly, “I am sorry that we misrepresented our deal to you, but I assure you all that it was most necessary.”
“I’d be a lot more assured if you explained why it was ‘most necessary’,” Dawn said pointedly, leaning back against the wall beside Spike.
“The problem we face is multifold in its complexities.” the lawyer began.
Buffy instantly tuned out. Aside from the observation that British lawyers could drone on and on just as long as British watchers could, there was nothing to keep her interested in the endless double-talk tirade of the older man. Especially when she had so many other things to think about.
It was a good thing she’d gotten to talk with Holden for a good hour or so – long-distance charges firmly attached to her therapy bill – because, if she hadn’t freaked enough at seeing Spike once again, seeing Dawn would have pushed her right over the deep end. Fortunately, Holden had always had a rather amazing ability to cut right through all her emotions and make her look at the truth. Actually, he kind of reminded her of Spike in that way, only without the whole unholy temptation factor that had always caused her to lash out at the vamp.
Now, however, she did as Holden had suggested and really studied the black-clad pair of demon hunters leaning casually back against the door. Don’t deny the past, but don’t pretend that things haven’t changed, either. Learn everything possible, watch for reactions, don’t jump to conclusions and let things balloon out of control.
It was frightening how often she had to repeat this over and over again to herself, especially when dealing with Spike.
Dawn was the easier of the two, though, so Buffy started with her. Her first reaction was ‘where has my little kid sister gone?’ Dawn seemed commanding, confident, in control. She was asking tough questions, demanding that she got the answers she needed, and – believe it or not – she actually seemed to have the authority of her and Spike’s team.
Buffy could still remember when Spike had been babysitting her little sister, and now she was. Grown-up. That was it. She was a grown-up now, and a strong one at that. Buffy hoped she wasn’t deluding herself when she thought she saw a bit of herself in her sister. Besides the whole demon hunting thing, of course.
That had her a bit panicked, but for all she knew Dawn could’ve been fighting demons for over five years now. Buffy had to face the fact that she didn’t really know what her sister had become or who she was. Whoever she was, though, she didn’t seem to need the protection that Buffy instinctively wanted to give her.
“Now, if I can have your attention, please,” Simon said wearily, realizing that he’d lost half his audience in the interim. Buffy, Spike, the woman Buffy had labeled ‘Leopard-Skinned Skank-Ho’, and that D’vorak Demon that had been giving her a weird look all turned their attention back to the matter at hand. “The situation is as follows,” Simon began, gesturing with a pointer to the board beside him.
“October 15th. A newlywed couple from Vermont moves into room 242. At midnight, the husband – Arthur Anderson – leaves. The next morning, his young wife, Emily, is found by one of the maids. She managed,” he grimaced slightly, “to hang herself with a bed sheet.”
“Maybe the hubby killed her,” a gruff chuckle sounded from the far side of the room.
Spike cocked one eyebrow in the direction of the three men gathered by the dartboard. They’d been too preoccupied with talking among themselves to contribute anything up until this point. Spike had been possessed with an instant distaste for them. They seemed to represent everything that annoyed him about Americans – loud, rude, stupid, ignorant beyond belief.and with absolutely nothing but deluded macho-ness to back up their images.
Simon gripped the bridge of his nose. Had he had glasses and the certain habits of another Englishman, he would have undoubtedly been cleaning them. “The police investigated the matter,” he informed the group. “Mrs. Anderson died at approximately 3:30 in the morning – long after her husband left. Apparently, the two of them had had a.conflict earlier in the evening in which Mr. Anderson had abruptly declared that he actually preferred men and had only married her because his parents had pressured him into it. The death was determined to be a suicide.”
He gestured to the next name and date, written neatly on his chart. “Mr. Patrick Adams, aged 58, single all his life, avid hiker and outdoorsman. Found in his room on November 1st after a large explosion. The investigating officers found that he had shot himself in the head. A note was left behind, explaining how the late Mr. Adams could no longer bear to live in a world where he was so constantly alone. His mother and sisters were completely shocked by the news.”
The next date, November 9th. “Madame ‘Cassandra Cleopatra’,” Simon read off the name skeptically, “had apparently heard of the two recent deaths and decided it would be wise to hold a ‘crossing-over with the poor, tortured souls who ended their lives so tragically’. Madame, er.Cleopatra was a wealthy enough woman that my client, Mrs. Danvers,” he gestured to the innkeeper sitting beside him, “agreed to let her.experiment. At ten o’clock on the night of the 8th, Madame Cleopatra locked herself in this very room to ‘speak with the spirit world’. She gave instructions that she was not to be disturbed until one. Some such nonsense about the spirits being most conversational at midnight, I believe.”
Despite the lawyer’s rather monotone account of the events, everyone in the room found themselves riveted to his story. Maybe it was the bit about the flaky psychic. All stories were more entertaining the minute flaky psychics entered them.
“And?” Buffy’s ‘Leopard-Skinned Skank-Ho’ asked breathlessly.
“The door was opened at one o’clock exactly.” So, maybe Simon had a bit of a dramatic sense after all. “Madame Cleopatra was found sitting directly in the center of the room, the candles around her all blown out. She was dead.”
“How?” This was from the Hispanic man with the sunglasses.
“The doctor’s verdict was that it was heart failure,” Simon concluded. “But-“
“You should have seen the look in her eyes,” Ms. Danvers spoke up for the first time. “Pure, wide-eyed horror.”
The three tough guys by the dartboard shifted uncomfortably. They were used to kicking the crap out of physical threats, not facing some unknown terror.
“It was around this time that the incidents escalated,” Simon continued in a voice so prim and precise that everyone wondered whether they had imagined the collective chill that had run down their spines. “A large painting fell from the wall in the restaurant, injuring one guest and breaking another’s leg. Items began disappearing from various rooms, only to reappear elsewhere days later. Theft is considered unlikely in these cases since those who found the missing items in their rooms promptly returned them. There have been reports of voices – whispers – at night, encouraging the most terrible acts.”
Buffy herself shivered at this, remembering her own creepy feelings when she’d first entered the place.
“But it was not until November 30th that we had our next fatality,” Simon continued. “In an effort to combat the situation, an old friend of mine from the Watcher’s Council-“
Surprise, surprise. Buffy, Dawn, and Spike all rolled their eyes in unison.
“-sent a rather powerful Witch’s Guild psychic to investigate. That night she was cheerful, enthusiastic, and eager. The next day she was found outside, at the edge of the woods, frozen in her efforts to crawl away from the house. Cuts covered her entire body and, upon examination, it was discovered that every piece of glass in her room had been shattered.”
The three men at the back of the room seemed to be getting more and more agitated as the story progressed. What the fiercest demons could not accomplish, simple fear of the unknown was doing admirably.
“December 5th marked a daughter stabbing her mother in the stomach as she slept. Afterwards, the girl could offer no explanation of why she would have done such a thing and, in fact, seemed quite traumatized by the event. She was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Denver and is still on suicide watch.” Simon pulled the cover down over his chart.
“And, that,” he concluded, “is why we have invited you all here tonight. Upon the advice of my friend in the Council, it has become apparent that normal methods of dealing with this.haunting are inadequate. It has killed professionals-“
“And may very well kill us, too!” One of the men in back shouted out angrily. “If you’ve got nothing for us, then why should we stick around and wait to die?”
“A possibility,” Simon admitted, “although one that we are making well worth your while. Whoever eliminates the problem will receive the total sum of the offers that each of you has been given. That is three-hundred thousand dollars, for those of you who cannot do the maths.”
This seemed to spark the interests of the three men once more. “So we just hope whatever it is knocks off the others first while we ferret the bugger out?” the loudest of the group asked.
Simon gave him a distasteful look but nodded. “Crude, but to the point,” he conceded. “We are hoping there will be safety in numbers.”
“But only one of us gets all that money?” Leopard-Skin was back in the conversation.
“You are encouraged to work together,” Simon caught the instant looks of distaste on many faces, “although it is not required.”
“What about the guests?” Buffy asked, her brow furrowed. “If this is such a big danger, why are you still letting innocent people stay here?”
“They stay at their own risk,” Ms. Danvers insisted defensively. “We have made no secret of the incidents, but we cannot afford to shut down at this crucial point in the season.”
“Not even if lives are at stake?” Dawn added sarcastically.
Her tone seemed to have caught the attention of the young Hispanic man on the billiard table, but his glasses concealed whatever his eyes would have given away. Spike’s own eyes narrowed at him suspiciously. There was something about that guy that just didn’t feel right.
“Lives will not be at stake so long as you all do your jobs,” Simon insisted somewhat huffily. “If it ever seems absolutely necessary to me to shut the lodge down for the protection of its guests, it will be done. But not a second before.”
“An’ let me guess,” Spike snorted derisively, ” ‘absolutely necessary’ looks a lot like ‘legally culpable’.”
Simon didn’t have a response for that. “I will expect regular reports from you all, but I will leave it to yourselves to arrange how you plan to investigate. We have compiled a list of regions within the lodge that seem particularly susceptible to this presence.” He set the list on the armrest of the D’vorak Demon beside him. “However, may I suggest that you at least introduce yourselves?”
Several groans at that, especially from the back of the room.
“Fine,” one of the men huffed, “name’s John. This here’s my brother, Bob, and our partner, Tucker.” The quiet member of the group nodded sullenly. John approached the D’vorak and practically snatched the list from him. “We’re scopin’ out the woods, and we don’t need any of you freaks’“-he cast a pointed glance in Spike’s direction before turning back to look at the D’vorak pair with disdain-“help.”
With that, the three of them stalked off, John tossing the list onto the table before Dawn as they walked by.
“Oh dear,” Ms. Danvers seemed a bit shaken up by the rude exit.
“Er, yeah,” Dawn picked up the list and scanned it. “So, as for the rest of us. Why don’t we divide these places up, each see what we find, and then meet tomorrow evening to discuss it?”
“Why wait for evening?” the male D’vorak let out a yawn. “Seems like a waste of time.”
His female partner gave him a nasty glare.and then flashed one at Buffy as well.
Ah, the popularity of being a Slayer. Buffy couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.
“Some of us have more nocturnal schedules,” Dawn argued. “Does the evening not work for anyone?”
“What I want to know,” Leopard-Skin was at it again, her tone one of practiced droll refinement, “is who you are and why you think any of us should listen to you.”
“Hey!” Buffy moved to speak up, but Dawn cut her off.
“My name is Dawn Summers. I’ve been dealing with the supernatural my entire life. And, unlike some people, I seem to be actually making a plan, instead of just making snide remarks.”
That pretty much shut up any further objections from Leopard-Skin. She got approving nods from the D’vorak couple also, as well as what looked to be a lopsided smile from Sunglasses Guy. Buffy was too dumbstruck at her little sister’s poise and authority to say anything.
“So,” Dawn continued, scanning the list in front of her, “Spike and I will stay here tonight and hope we get a haunting.”
“Spike?” Leopard-Skin looked at her blankly.
Dawn rolled her eyes and gestured to the vampire beside her. “My partner, Spike,” she introduced.
“Charmed,” Spike shrugged, “only.not.”
“Spike indeed,” Leopard-Skin practically licked her lips.
A smirk played across Spike’s own lips in response, causing Buffy to completely miss what Dawn was saying.
“Huh?” she repeated dumbly.
“I just told everyone that you’re Buffy,” Dawn repeated. “Why don’t you take the restaurant? We can get the keys to that, right?” she inquired of Simon. He nodded. “And I don’t want you to do it alone.” Her eyes alighted on Leopard-Skin, and she raised an inquiring eyebrow.
“Veronica,” the redhead said with a bored toss of her long hair. “Veronica Duvall.”
“All right,” Dawn agreed. “Buffy and Veronica have the restaurant. So that leaves.”
“Xel,” the male of the D’vorak pair said with a smile on his face. His offered Dawn a blue-scaled hand and a charming smile. “And this is my mate, Lena.”
Lena looked significantly less thrilled than Xel.although, quite likely, it was because of the look her mate flashed in the direction of Dawn’s chest.
Dawn sighed inwardly and subtly stepped on Spike’s foot to stop him from doing the ‘big brother Neanderthal evil glare’ at every guy who looked at her. “You two can take the pool room, together with.?”
“Ricardo Salvatore,” the young man with the sunglasses said in a voice almost too soft to be heard. The trace of some sort of exotic accent lingered around his words, but they were still quite understandable.
Dawn gave him a little nod of acknowledgement. “We’ll meet at eight tomorrow night, here once more,” Dawn concluded, penning in the names by the locations. “So, are we all clear?”
“What exactly are we supposed to do?” Veronica said with an exaggerated sigh of annoyance.
Dawn cast her an equally annoyed look. “Tell us what happens, what you see. This thing seems to fall more in the poltergeist category, so swinging sharp objects isn’t going to do much good. We need to figure out what it is before we can proceed, and the only way to do that is to gather more information.” She gave Veronica a falsely sweet smile. “Anything else you’d like me to explain for you?”
Veronica scowled at the condescending tone but didn’t say anything further.
“Then, if you don’t mind,” Dawn announced, “I’ve had a rather long day, and I’d like to have dinner before I have an equally long night. Spike?” she turned to her companion.
“Right, luv,” he agreed, following her out the door.
And Buffy bit her lip. Confident, beautiful, grown-up Dawn who had loved Spike all along. Suddenly, she wondered if she was already too late. If she’d lost him long ago.