36. The night of the forbidden patrol
I had too many extra hormones inserted in too many places, and the wait for the heartbeat ultrasound felt like forever away. During the wait, I was not allowed to do anything physical whatsoever, the extra shifts at work were not distracting or stimulating enough, and I had no idea why the blue god had shown up at Dawn’s apartment. All I knew was that her message had been vague, and she was scary.
This made for an extremely restless and grumpy Slayer.
My muscles were aching with the need to release pent up energy, and my nurse and Dr. Google said that what I really wanted to do was off limits.
Spike, my usual source of comfort, was driving me batty because he was being so hover-y. He wouldn’t even let me pick up items around the house. How could cleaning the pots and putting them away possibly constitute exertion of any sort? I didn’t want to even think about his cleanout of the cabinets and fridge. All that money down the drain. He’d thrown out so many of my favorites, including all the soda (but none of his beer) and any sort of cleaning supplies that had chemicals in them (aka all of them).
He’d also packed up all the shoes with any sort of heels in a giant box that he’d then locked in the shed in our backyard. As if a little lock could keep me out. Still, I’d humored him. But what was I supposed to do without my pair of favorite chunky-heeled boots? The extra height was part of my vampire-intimidation repertoire. There really was something to the power heel.
Honestly, if Spike did one more crazy, over-the-top thing, I was going to kill him. So far, I’d managed to bite my tongue, mostly because I knew he was doing it out of love, and he frequently overran my protests with his decadent foot rubs.
I had to admit that his male protectiveness reminded me a tad bit of Riley, which was not an association I ever thought I’d make with Spike and was so not an association I planned on sharing with Spike.
So, sue me, I was taking a short, late night, after-work stroll through St. Louis Cemetery #1, one of two Catholic cemeteries near the Quarter. The cemetery was one of the oldest in New Orleans. It was also a huge tourist attraction because Marie Loveau, the voodoo queen, and other historical figures were buried there. Newly turned vamps tended to gravitate to the old burial grounds for some reason that even Spike hadn’t figured out. There was no inherent magical pull to the cemetery, yet vampires and other demons often sought it out.
If I happened to run into a baby vamp, it couldn’t hurt to do an easy kill. I only had one bit of hesitation about even doing this, and it wasn’t about it being too dangerous. What if slaying something only made me crave it more?
I innocently meandered along the paths, lingering in the areas with older tombs, pretending to be very interested in their carvings and architecture while keeping my senses heightened. The air was cooler and a bit dryer than normal, an indication of the coming winter. The sky was clear and the full moon bright above. Didn’t a lone girl standing in the middle of a creepy, historical cemetery look enticing? I pulled my hair up into a high bun and tried my best to make my face look innocent and my neck appear longer and appetizing.
After thirty minutes with nothing to show for my efforts, I heaved a disappointed sigh and reluctantly started toward the gate and in the general direction of where I’d parked the car.
Rolling my eyes heavenward in annoyance, I spoke aloud to no one, “You didn’t even have the decency to show up and try to eat me.”
Right at that moment, I felt familiar tingles on the back of my neck along with something else unidentifiable. Score! Deftly pulling a stake from where it was tucked in the side of my (flat-heeled) boot, I spun in the direction I’d sensed the vampire and found myself face to face with three bloodsuckers. They didn’t exactly look like the typical fledglings either. Discerning new vampires from the rest wasn’t about cleanliness, not in New Orleans with the above ground burials. I could tell they weren’t newbies because of the power that emanated from them. Damn.
“Slayer!” the tallest male hissed. “You’ll make a tasty treat.”
“Ron, be careful. This one’s a powerful one.” The slighter male figure sidled up beside the big redhead, running a hand through his longer dark hair.
“Really, Harold,” the trailing female said with derision, her form in shadow. “You’re much too tentative. Where’s your courage? There’re three of us and one of her.”
“Shut up, Miney,” Harold said, shoving her shoulder. With a low roar, he shifted into game face and sniffed the air. “She smells funny. You two need to pay attention to things like that. It could mean – ”
Ron lunged at me before Harold could finish. The big vampire took a swing at my head. He was quicker than I thought, and he grazed my shoulder as I dodged. Still, he stumbled with the force of his unrealized attack.
I dropped into a ready stance and grinned. “What do you mean I ‘smell funny’? Shouldn’t I be saying that to you, you being dead and all? Being a rotting corpse is kind of odiferous.” Spike, on the other hand, smelled like home.
Ron growled and charged again. “I’m not rotting.” He tested the air around me. “And you’re right, Harry. She smells. . . off.” A strange smile spread broadly across his face.
To wipe the disconcerting expression off his face, I swung a punch that connected hard and gloriously with his jaw. Before I knew it, their banter had ceased, and I found myself in the middle of an all-out brawl with three vampires, who turned out to be much more adept at fighting than a group of baby vamps. They also seemed to be almost toying with me instead of desperately going for the kill.
As I narrowly ducked a roundhouse from the female vampire, I grabbed her by the hair and jerked back. She howled in pain. There was a gush of something warm and wet between my legs, and panic set in. A gasp escaped my throat, and one of the male vamps shoved me hard from behind. Whirling, I protected myself from the onslaught of arms and legs, punches and kicks. Somehow, none of them hit my stomach, but the barrage was so intense and my anxiety so high that I found myself backed against one of the tombs.
The searching for an accidental slay was turning out to be at the top of the very-bad-ideas list.
Suddenly, a burst of dust flew around me, and I blinked through Ron’s leftovers, which were floating toward the ground. Spike was in front of me, his ridges and fangs firmly in place as he growled and jerked Harold away from me. The dark-haired vampire tripped over his own feet and fell in a heap in the grass. As he scrambled to push himself back upright, I squatted and snagged his ankle, pulling him down again. Spike drove his stake home.
My eyes scanned the shadows and found the female vampire watching with eerie quietness, her shoulders hunched and her eyes glowing golden. Before Spike or I could make a move, she ran. I tossed my stake after her, but she swerved left and the wooden weapon bounced off a tomb column and clattered to the pavement.
Instead of chasing after her, Spike addressed me. “What the fuck are you doing?”
My cheeks flooded with heat. “You’re driving me crazy!”
“You’re not following the doctor’s orders!” Spike growled.
“And you’re acting like I can’t handle anything!” My hands balled into fists. “In case you haven’t noticed in all the years you’ve known me, I really need a way to let off steam!” God, I sounded like Faith.
“And you can wait until you’re cleared!” Spike stalked toward the tomb and scooped up my errant stake.
I felt like I was at the end of my rope. “All I do is follow guidelines!”
“And you’re the one who wanted this!”
Fury filled my chest. “Does that mean I can’t complain? Or, or be miserable with the situation? Am I just supposed to happily go along with it like a robot?” I was tempted to snatch my stake from him, but I held back as I remembered something else. Instead, my hand went to my abdomen. I still didn’t know what was now saturating my panty liner. Fear tugged at my heart. I needed to check the fluid for blood. Tears filled my eyes, and I blinked my eyes rapidly to prevent more liquid overflow. “And I thought you wanted this, too.”
Spike softened. “Oh, pet. You know I do.” He noticed the movement of my hand. “What’s wrong?” His words of concern came out in a lisp with his fangs in place.
“Something gushed.” The car, home, and bathroom seemed lightyears away. “I mean, it has before, but this time, it was in the middle of –”
“So, check.” He nodded at my hand.
“In the cemetery?” That wasn’t a half-bad idea.
He lifted an eyebrow at me as he placed a gentle hand on top of mine. “Thought you said there were too many rules. No one’s around. And I seem to recall that we’ve done much more intimate things in public.”
I laughed. He was right. I’d seen much worse in the Quarter, too, which was a much more public place than Sunnydale ever thought about being. I’d seen men dressed in business suits passed out on side streets, men and women headed to orgy houses, people of all ages doing drug deals in broad daylight, and a woman who pulled down her pants in front of me and took a dump on the sidewalk. Still. . .
“Will you be my lookout?” I traced my fingers over the ridges in his forehead. I knew every dip and curve of them by heart.
He kissed my temple and turned away, true to his word. “Of course. If it helps, I don’t smell any blood.”
“Oh, good.” I fumbled with the button on my dust-covered jeans and tugged them down. The moonlight revealed nothing but creamy white-blue discharge, the aftereffects of shoving estrogen and progesterone up my vagina. My heart thundered in my ears. “It’s okay.” I hastily pulled up my pants and buttoned them.
When Spike faced me again, I saw that his ridges were gone and that my relief was mirrored in his blue eyes. “Thank god.” He took me by the hand. “If something happened, I’d never forgive myself.”
I sighed and pulled him in for a hug. “Me, either.”
He broke away first and tucked my hand in his elbow. As we headed toward the exit, he said, “So, did I hear one of the Three Musketeers was named ‘Ron’?”
I kicked a pebble with the toe of my boot. “Yeah. The redhead. And the dark-haired one was Harold. Not sure the female’s name. Miney or Whiney or something. Why?”
“They named themselves after the witches in Harry Potter?”
I gave him an incredulous look. “You read Harry Potter?”
He drew his shoulders back and put his nose in the air. “Sure, I have. Everyone has. It’s literature, isn’t it?”
I smirked. “Dawn?”
He sighed and admitted, “Dawn. After the retrieval. She sent them to me to read on that app on my phone. What’s it called?”
“The Kindle app?”
“Yeah.”
I frowned as we stepped over the threshold to the cemetery. “Think they were witches, too? I felt something. . . different about them.”
Spike’s eyebrows drew together. “Vampire witches? Rare but not unheard of. I was too busy rescuing you to notice anything of that sort.”
Every little thing made me think of Illyria’s visit. “Think it could be tied to – ”
Spike shook his head. “Unlikely.” He paused for half a second. “But possibly.”
I hugged his arm tighter. “We should tell Emily and her Watcher, just in case.”
“And Rupert and Red.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“In the meantime, let’s get you home, so you can rest.”
“A fantastic plan.” My whole body was sending out flares, letting me know how emotionally and physically drained I was. “Can you at least let me have my shoes back?”
Now, it was Spike’s turn to smirk. “Went a little overboard, didn’t I?”
“Um, yes.” Understatement of the year.
“All right then.”
“I promise I’ll be more careful. No more patrols for Buffy.” I’d learned my lesson.
“At least until exercise restriction is lifted,” Spike amended. “I believe, however, that I have some ways that we can get around said restriction and have you. . . let off some steam without you know. . .”
I glanced up at him. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah. I’ve had more than enough time to think about it.” My poor vampire. He was as eager for action as me. How could I forget about that?
I removed my arm and maneuvered in front of him, standing on tiptoes for a generous kiss. My whole body felt like it was coming alive as he returned my affection. When I finally needed oxygen, I pulled back and tilted my head at him. “Show me?”
“Can’t wait, eh, love?”
I simply beamed at him.
37. The day of the six-and-a-half-week-or-so ultrasound
My phone vibrated again in my palm. I jogged the screen to life. Another text. . . no multiple texts in my group chat. I opened the messages app, my leg jiggling.
Giles wrote, “We really should discuss this matter on the phone and not over text messaging. Someone could hack into the system and read our texts.”
Willow replied, “And the government might be watching. Giles, we’re all in different time zones, and you’re constantly traveling. My head hurts from trying to figure out a time to make it work.”
“I’m not traveling now. I’ve been at home for nearly two weeks.” I smiled. I could almost picture Giles’s disgruntled expression.
“Phone tapping has been around since at least the 1890s, but I highly doubt that anyone is going to be reading these texts and thinking much of it,” George, Emily’s Watcher, texted.
“See, Giles,” Willow said.
“Nevertheless, we should talk in code,” Giles insisted.
Emily joined the conversation. “Y’all are texting too early in the morning for me. Some of us patrol almost all night, you know? To get this over with so I can go back to sleep: we didn’t find anything out about the HPV’s from the usual sources (i.e., books, online forums). But I do have an idea about who to shake up a bit to find out more.”
“Code! Use a code for patrol! HPV’s?” Giles typed. “Human papillomavirus?”
Emily replied, “I have no idea how to code ‘patrol.’ Walking through cemeteries with a big wooden stick? That seems much more obvious.”
“You tried,” George noted. He was much younger than Giles and very tech savvy. “That’s the main thing.”
“Not the virus. And I thought patrol was code-friendly,” Willow said.
“Thanks, George and Willow. So encouraging,” Emily wrote.
“It doesn’t do much good if the code is one that no one understands but the person texting,” Giles grumped.
I imagined Emily rolling her eyes with her next text; well, I rolled my eyes. “Harry Potter vampires, Giles.”
I decided to join the group. “Spike can go with you, Em.”
“Thanks. I could use the help.”
Giles wrote, “Thanks for the clarification. I’ll look through the texts here. Er, the actual books, not text messages. Good Lord, this texting thing is much more tedious than an actual conversation. There is some bit of prophecy that I read about a month or so back that talks about vampires who are witches. It was tied to vague portents about an apocalypse involving multiple hellmouths.”
“I’ll speak with the coven here, too,” Willow said. She didn’t bother pointing out that Giles was not being very sneaky in his texts. No doubt, he gave up. “And hey, Buffy, good luck this morning.”
My cheeks turned pink though no one could see that but the local fertility clinic receptionist, another couple sitting kinda far away, and Spike. “Thanks.”
“Good luck about what?” Emily asked. Oops. She didn’t know about me being pregnant.
At that moment, Spike reached over and squeezed my knee. “You okay, love?”
I switched off my phone and smiled at him before laying my head on his shoulder. “Yeah. Volunteered you for something.”
“What’s that now?” He took my hand in his.
“To go with Emily to help her,” I glanced at the other people in the waiting room to make sure no one was listening, “knock some information out of someone.”
He chuckled. “Can do, pet.”
“You should have all the texts.” Spike was in the group, too.
He played with my thumb. “Not really worried about that right now. It’ll keep.”
“I can’t believe we’re here,” I said softly, studying our hands together.
“Me either.” Spike had been trying his best to hear the heartbeat by pressing his ear to my belly. His efforts had been to no avail though. When my worry spun off into the world of catastrophizing, he assured me that my heartbeat was simply too loud for him to hear anything else.
“Buffy Summers?” a nurse called from the doorway.
I stood hastily. “Here!”
“Good morning. Come on back.” The dark-haired, youthful nurse looked familiar and peered at my chart as we cleared the doorway. “Date of birth?”
“January 19, 1981.” Then, I did my best version of anxious, babbling Buffy. “How are you this morning? It’s kinda humid out for November. Do you like working here? Are you ready for Thanksgiving?”
She smiled with patience. “I’m good, love working here, and am so not ready for Thanksgiving. Y’all?”
“We’re nervous,” Spike offered.
“Understandable.” She gestured us into what was now one in a series of familiar exam rooms. “Put on the gown and sit on the table. You can leave your dress on but remove your underwear. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
I shucked off my sandals and tugged off my panties, slapping them against Spike’s open palm. “You know? This whole me-getting-half-naked thing in front of strangers is really for the birds.”
Spike opened his mouth, and by that twinkle in his eye, I knew he was planning on saying something sarcastic, but he shifted at the last second. “You know I’d do anything for you if I could, including trade places with you.”
“That was not what you were going to say!” I protested.
“Keeping my trap shut.” I knew exactly what he was doing, and I was letting him do it. Distraction thy name is Spike.
“Come on!” I pouted.
“Technically, there is witchcraft that could be done, and it’d take some finagling, but it could happen. Didn’t Red plan on changing that bloke, AJ or whatever his name was, into a girl?”
“RJ,” I corrected. I pretended to thoughtfully stare at the ceiling. “And I believe she was.”
He pointed at me in confirmation. “That’s the name. And she was. Harris and I stopped her little chant.”
“Thank you, by the way, for stopping me from killing Robin.” I’d never thanked him. “I haven’t thought about that in years!”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “If I remember right, you were going to do more than ‘kill’ him. You were going to blow him up with that missile launcher you used to kill Big Blue. Had to wrestle it away from you.”
“Oh yeah.” I perched on the paper-covered examination table and fussed with the flimsy cover that was supposed to go over my legs. I changed the subject away from the embarrassing part about how I’d chased Spike down trying to get back said missile launcher. “So, you’d let Willow turn you into a girl, so you could carry a child for us? Would you want to?”
Spike slouched back into the chair across from me, only the slight tension in his jaw giving away how nervous he was, too. “Never said that I’d relish the idea, love. While I’m right fond of all your girlie bits, I have no desire to have any of my own.”
I laughed just as the nurse knocked on the door. Spike and I both sat up straighter as she entered the room and dimmed the lights.
“Y’all ready?” She pulled on some gloves and made casual conversation. “My name is Lindsey. Forgot to introduce myself earlier. I know this is the hardest part, so we’ll get going fast as we can. Go ahead and lay back and scoot down to the end.” As I followed her familiar instructions, she sat on the rolling stool and wheeled up to me. The ultrasound machine was already on and ready. “You know this will be a transvaginal ultrasound, right?”
I peered down at her. I’d read online that this type was used when babies were too small to be detected by the ultrasounds done on the outside of the belly. “Yeah. Used to those.”
She didn’t laugh even though I was halfway joking. “I imagine that you are. Just a warning. Expect some bleeding later. It’s normal.”
“Got it.” My other nurse, Elaine, had already counselled me about the same thing.
Lindsey motioned to Spike. “C’mon over. You’ll want to be close.”
Spike didn’t need more permission and stood at my side, reclaiming my hand.
Then, she adjusted the paper modesty cover, which I continued to think really wasn’t all that modest, and prepared the wand with clear gel. Clutching Spike’s hand in a firm grip that would have broken any other guy’s hand, I held my breath and stared at the screen as she inserted the device and slowly began searching my womb. Shapes came and went into view, and then, she found it: a roundish shape with a little stick within it.
As she moved the wand inside me, she explained what we were seeing, “So, there’s the yolk sac and that’s the fetal pole.”
“So, that’s?” Spike’s voice was full of more awe than I’d ever heard.
“That is your baby.” Lindsey sounded happy. “Congrats.”
“Our baby?” I couldn’t look away from the screen. He or she looked like a little grain of rice.
“Your baby,” she assured. Her free hand moved to some buttons on the ultrasound control board. “Let me just take a quick measurement here, and then, I’ll let you hear the heartbeat.”
“Oh my god.” A grin slowly spread across my face.
Lindsey worked to finish whatever calculation she was making. I felt Spike’s arm go around my shoulders as he leaned down to be close to me. I touched my head against his as the nurse pushed some more buttons.
Then, the sound of the baby’s heartbeat filled the room, a fast, strong little sound.
“A hundred and twenty-six beats per minute,” Lindsey announced.
“So fast! Is that normal?” I asked worriedly.
“It’s perfect,” she assured. “I’ll be sending these results over to your nurse at the other clinic. You should hear from them today with further instructions regarding bloodwork and medication.”
“Thanks.” I glanced at Spike who was staring at our baby with tears in his beautiful blue eyes. I kind of hoped the baby would have his eyes, and then, I realized that having a baby with him might actually be a reality. Before with the rising beta numbers, I knew intellectually that I was pregnant, but now, with the heartbeat in my ears, my heart came up to speed with that truth. The heartbeat made it real.
“We’re going to have a baby,” I whispered so that he turned his eyes to meet mine.
He smiled through his tears. “We are.” He turned back to the image of our son or daughter. “She’s got a good strong heart like her Mum.”
“Or he. Daddy has a strong heart, too.” Even if Spike’s heart didn’t physically beat anymore, it was certainly one of the strongest and most loving I’d ever known.
38. The night Aunt Dawn moved in
There was a loud crash from the living room, and my little sister said a string of curse words that I’d never heard come out of her mouth. Ever. Then, there was a scraping sound as if something was being dragged across the hardwood floor.
This got me out of bed post haste because not much good was associated with those sounds. I hurried across the cold bathroom tiles to peer around the doorframe at my sister who was red-faced and half-dragging, half-kicking a particularly heavy box of her belongings. Her long hair was askew and her jacket – a jacket much too warm for a New Orleans December – was half-hanging off her shoulder. She had to be sweating buckets.
“You okay there?” I asked, not bothering to hide my humor now that I saw that nothing was bodily wrong with her.
She righted herself and glared at me while trying and failing to blow a strand of her long, dark hair out of her field of vision. “Does it look like it? And you’re supposed to be in bed!”
“How do you know that?”
Giving up on puffed air doing anything for her, she raked her hand through the strands and crossed her arms. “What’d you think? Spike and I wouldn’t talk on the way from the airport?”
I almost laughed but didn’t. “Well, no.”
Dawn made a face at me. “No, we wouldn’t talk? Or no, you didn’t think we would?”
This time, I laughed, but the sound faded on my lips as Spike appeared in the doorway, both eyebrows raised at me. He shifted two of Dawn’s boxes to one arm and pointed back toward the bedroom. “Bed. Now.”
Chastened and more than a little annoyed, I hurried back to the bed, leaned back against the headboard, and propped my feet back atop the pillow Spike had tucked under me earlier. Taking a sip of tepid water out of the large, half-empty cup we’d pilfered from the movie theater, I held my breath and waited for the inevitable appearance of my vampire.
Spike’s eyes were flashing as he rounded the corner, his teeth gritted. “Are you still bleeding?”
“No!” I’d been spotting for the last few days and called Spike from work in a panic the first time it happened. He’d left a message for Elaine, my nurse, who’d given him instructions to pick me up. Luckily, Mary was understanding and told me to take all the time I needed. Spike had kept me under house arrest since then, and I was absolutely going crazier than before. On the third day, Crystal had texted and offered to bring over some chicken gumbo and watch some Netflix, but I’d turned her down because Dawn was moving in.
“Your nurse said feet up, rest, and water!”
“And I’ve been doing it!” I held up the water to him. “See. All with the drinking!”
He peered over the edge of the glass. “It’s only halfway gone.”
“This is the second glass this evening! And I haven’t been bleeding in six hours! And Elaine said dark brown blood was okay. Might even be the applicator. And you’re so doing it again!”
“Doing what again?” Dawn appeared in the doorway behind Spike, question marks in her eyes.
“Being Mr. Overprotective and not letting me do anything!” I informed my sister.
“But I thought you were bleeding?” my sister asked tentatively.
“See!” Spike gestured behind him without glancing at Dawn. “Even your sister agrees!”
Dawn’s eyes widened in an “uh oh” expression at me. “Agrees with what? I don’t even know what I’m agreeing about. With. Whatever.”
I sat up a little straighter, my knees angling up. I fixed Spike with challenging stare. “Do you smell any fresh blood?”
Spike growled at me, and mindful of my sister in the room, he delicately sniffed between my knees. “No.”
“So, did you and Dawn get all of her stuff in?” I was so ready for him to go to work.
“Hold on,” Dawn said, dashing off to check the living room. “All accounted for!”
Determined to hold onto my strong stance, I set my mouth at Spike. The problem was the corner of his mouth was lifted in a half-smirk of relief and humor. Damn it. The guy wouldn’t let me stay angry with him, and this forced bed rest-y thing was making me angry all on its own. I reached my hand out for him, and when he acquiesced, I tugged him along until his lips were near mine. Kissing him gently, I said, “I’m relieved, too. Go to work. Dawn and I will be fine. We had George set the wards. Nothing is going to get us.” The magical wards were connected to an app in all our phones; they got tripped, and we’d have all kinds of help coming to the rescue.
“Fine. I love you,” he ran his hand over my belly, “and this little one, too.” I reminded myself that we weren’t even to week ten yet, and he still wasn’t able to hear baby’s heartbeat. Hence, the anxiety.
“I love you, too.”
Dawn appeared back in the room as Spike grabbed the car keys and phone. Back to serious mode, he instructed her, “Don’t let her do too much, and call me if you need anything.”
Giving him a little salute, she grinned. “Got it. Thanks for the pick up at the airport.” Then, she gave him a big hug. “And for letting me stay with you guys.”
Spike looked extremely pleased by her sign of affection. “Anytime, Bit.” He ran his fingers over the wool of her coat sleeve. “You won’t need that here.”
As if she suddenly realized how hot she was, Dawn shrugged off her coat. “You’re telling me!” She heaved a sigh. “You know, I thought I knew New Orleans was muggy and humid because you told me so. But phew. Experiencing it is a whole other animal!”
Spike glanced back at me and hesitated. I reiterated my position, “Go. We’ll be fine.”
He nodded. “I’m coming home early. Alex and John offered to close up.”
“Okay.”
As soon as the front door was shut and locked, Dawn bounced on Spike’s side of the bed, snagging the TV remote off his pillow and leaning against the headboard. “So, any news?”
I emulated my little sister. “Any news about what?”
“I dunno.” She started listing things. “Illyria, Angel, those HPV’s, the prophecy Giles mentioned, Willow, baby?” She paused and pressed her lips together. “Spike?”
I laughed. “Where do you want me to start?”
Dawn pushed her lips to one side as if considering the choices. “Spike.”
I decided to get through her list with as much expediency as possible, so we could relax. “He’s a wreck because of the bleeding. Because no one’s been able to get in touch with Angel or Illyria, Because even when Spike’s been out with Emily to find Hermione, they’ve come up empty-handed.”
“Wouldn’t Faith know where Angel is?” Faith was the person in our circle who’d most recently known Angel’s whereabouts.
I shook my head. “No. I called her. She and Robin are in Cleveland still, dealing with some demon circle there, and a couple of Slayers in that region who’ve disappeared off the grid.”
“Oh, crap. Slayers have disappeared?”
“Yeah. One from Canada named Natalie, and the other’s from Minnesota. They didn’t show for the Quarterly conference Face Time meeting that Andrew organizes. Giles has Faith’s girlfriend on it. She’s the Chicago Slayer.”
“Joy?” Dawn guessed.
“Yeah. I think that’s her name. How do you know about her?”
“Faith’s been using that new app, Snapchat, a lot. They post a lot of videos.” At my horrified expression, Dawn explained, “Nothing Slayer-y or sexual. Well, maybe a little of the second. They go out a lot. Dancing.”
I lifted a hand. “More than I wanted to know. Do you have this Snapchat?” God, I sounded old. God, I sounded like Mom! “And do you and Thomas. . .”
“I do, and we don’t. Did I tell you I broke things off with him?”
“Oh, really? Spike will be pleased.”
“I know. But it wasn’t because of Spike’s dislike of him. I just got bored.” She grinned. “I’ll show you the app later. It’s fun.”
“Okay.” I was cool with my little sister keeping me in the know.
“How’s the baby? Bleeding’s not good, right?”
“Well, no, but it’s not been a lot. Just spotting. It’s apparently really common in IVF pregnancies for some reason, and it’s also really common with repeated use of the applicator for one of the meds. If you bump up against your cervix, it can cause some bleeding. The nurse said to rest and as long as it’s mostly dried blood – dark brown – it’s okay.” I was so paranoid that every time I wiped after using the bathroom, I held my breath. Seeing the dark tinge to the discharge was taking some getting used to.
“Gotcha. Still. That’s kinda scary.”
“Tell me about it. I’m so glad you’re here.” Dawn would provide some nice distraction from being in my head. “So, your program is good with you taking a short time off?”
She nodded. “They are. I explained your situation, and as long as I work on my thesis here, they’re good with me shifting some course work to another semester. I just have to have weekly phone meetings with my advisor and turn work in throughout. It’s all good, and I’m really glad to be here. A god king who lost her ability to travel to different dimensions and who’s used to want-take-have with the whole world scares the crap out of me. I’d much rather be around family.” She drew her knees up to her chest and shuddered.
I gently touched her arm. “It’s the best idea. Until we have some idea of what’s going on.”
She laid her cheek against her left kneecap and smiled at me through her fear, her long hair fanning over her shoulders. “Thanks for getting it.”
“Plus, we don’t get much sister time anymore.” I missed my sister more than she knew.
“We don’t. Spike isn’t gonna know what to do with the two of us.” She grinned.
I ran my hand over her hair. “He’s very excited that you’re here. He went grocery shopping just for you.”
“Did he get the –”
Before Dawn’s arrival, Spike had been so proud of his purchases and had deposited all the bags on the bed before stowing the items away in the kitchen. “Everything he knows you like to eat and drink.”
Her eye lit up. “Anchovies?”
I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “Yes. Even the anchovies.”
She pumped her arm without moving her head up. “Yes!”
“Just don’t grill them,” I said sternly.
“Huh? Why not?”
“Grilled meat makes me want to hurl.”
Her blue eyes brightened with this tidbit. “Like really? Do you have morning sickness? Or cravings?”
“No morning sickness. No weird cravings. Well, actually, that’s a lie. I’m putting really spicy sauce on everything.” My breasts were majorly sore, but I hadn’t had any nausea or vomiting. Spike was also excited that I could tolerate the heat like he could. “But grilled meat smells horrendous.”
She sighed as if completely put out. “Fine. I won’t grill any anchovies. Not that I was planning on it.”
“Good. I can eat fried whatever though.”
Dawn shrugged. “That’s the good stuff anyway.” She frowned as if just remembering something. “Any news from Giles or Willow?”
“Not much from Willow yet; she’s still gathering info from the witches she knows in Virginia. And Giles’s prophecy is majorly vague as most prophecies are. He’s taking a page from Wesley’s mistakes and not rushing into things, but he is digging further and keeping us in the loop. So far, all he has is that there is a prophecy about witches and possibly vampire witches casting a spell at multiple hellmouths simultaneously to gain some sort of power. Somehow, it’s also tied to the either the blood of powerful women or. . . cows.”
Dawn made a face. “Cows?”
I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. That’s all I know.”
“Speaking of cows. I’m assuming Spike stocked the freezer with frozen nuggets?”
Now, I made a face. “Yes, but explain this logic of yours, please?”
She grinned. “Well, I’m hungry, and since you can’t eat grilled meat, I’m assuming burgers are off the list, so then, I thought of the Chick-fil-A cow, who is always saying to eat more chicken. So, then, I thought of chicken nuggets. Most nuggets are fried. And,” she gestured at me, “you just said you can eat fried meat.”
I laughed again. “I do not want to know what goes on in that head of yours, do I?”
She bounced off the bed and practically skipped toward the kitchen. “Nope! Chicken nuggets coming right up!”
“With the spicy sauce!” I called after her.
39. The morning before the big meeting at Christmas-time
My butt hurt. My butt hurt a lot. I recapped the syringe, tossed it into the overflowing red sharps container, frowned, and rubbed at the giant knot on my left side.
“What’s wrong, love?” Spike’s arms came around me from behind, embracing me lightly.
I leaned back against him and closed my eyes at his touch. “Nothing. Nothing at all because you’re here.”
“Then, why were you rubbing here?” He brought his fingers gingerly to the injection site and the giant painful knot, and I winced. “It’s hard.”
“And it’s my own fault.”
“How so, love?”
“I thought that with my Slayer healing powers, I could inject myself in the same area every day and it not make a difference. But apparently, I was wrong. So, now, I need to switch to giving the injection in the opposite muscle.” The nurse had recommended it, I’d read about switching in the forums, and I’d studiously ignored the advice. “It’s just more awkward with my left hand. But never mind that. We have more important things to worry about.”
“Like wrapping the Bit’s Christmas presents while she’s hanging out with Em?” Spike asked, pushing aside the strap of my tank top and kissing my shoulder so that a ripple of desire coursed through me. The shirt braced by my arm, he ran a finger over the top of my breast before cupping it gently. “Little blue veins.”
I shrugged and nuzzled the concave of his cheek. “Uh huh. Freaked me out, too. Google told me that it’s the increased blood and hormones.”
He squeezed. “And they’re bigger.”
I laughed. “You, of course, would notice that.”
“I notice changes in the woman I love,” he said, slightly affronted, “and more than just what you’re insinuating.”
I pulled his other arm tighter around my mid-section. “Hey. I know you do. I’m looking forward to less time with injections and insertions and patches and more time with you.” I felt so bad about the shift in our sex life.
He turned me in his arms then and cupped my cheek. “I am not worried about what we do between the sheets or outside of the sheets, as it were.” He smiled and then softened. “Do I miss the way it was? Not gonna lie. I do. But I love you for far more than that. Thought you knew.”
I nodded but still avoided his eyes. The guilt wasn’t going away that easily. “I know that.”
“Look. You’re so tired that you can barely stand on your feet half the time. You’re creating a bloody life inside you. I wouldn’t be a proper gentleman to my lady if all I cared about was putting it to you.” He ran his hand over my stomach, the stomach that was still bloated from the medicine but didn’t have a proper bump yet.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Okay. There’s more to us than that.”
“Now see, that’s what I’m saying,” he teased, tucking my hair behind my ear.
“I guess you’re right.” My shoulders sagged. “Half the time lately, I feel like I’m walking through mud. And we might need a new sofa because the one we have now? It totally has some sort of glue on it. Makes it hard to get up.” It was true. I fell on the sofa after work and couldn’t work up the energy to make it to the bedroom, let alone change in my pajamas. For the past few weeks, Spike had been carrying me to bed, helping me change, and cuddling under the blankets with me.
“Has the Bit said anything about the sofa being adhesive?” Dawn camped out on the sofa at night, her boxes half-unpacked with most of her belongings neatly stowed behind the Christmas tree.
I pretended to think about it. “Hmm. Nope.”
“Think it’s the hormones, love.”
“You’re right, you’re right.” I thought back to what Willow said about bodily systems working together. Now I was building another system in addition to my own. I never knew such exhaustion. . . not even when I was depressed all those years ago in Sunnydale. “Should we wrap presents now that Dawn is out for a bit?”
Dawn had taken to hanging out at Emily’s place a few days over the past couple of weeks to study and give us some privacy. She and Spike had spent yesterday evening babysitting Leah and decorating the Christmas tree together. Leah, of course, didn’t know about the baby yet. We didn’t want to confuse her if something should go wrong. If Spike had his way, he wouldn’t tell anyone about the baby until he or she was eighteen. It was a funny thing seeing him be so careful. He was impulsive, rash, and impatient, a front to how much he really cared for those he loved and to how tender his heart was. I shouldn’t be surprised in the least that he was cautious with the pregnancy.
“You know me and wrapping presents,” he joked. He wasn’t the best at finagling the paper and the tape, but he did his best.
“Well, come supervise at least? Hand me the tape?”
“Of course.”
Thirty minutes later, Spike and I were sitting on the hardwood floor in the living room. We were neck deep in wrapping paper, tissue paper, bags, and wrapped and unwrapped presents. Somehow, we’d managed to wrap all of Dawn’s gifts. Spike tried to cut the paper, but maybe because he was left-handed, his lines were often crooked, resulting in a large heap of unusable wrapping paper.
“Let me cut the paper this time!” I insisted, pulling my long hair into a low bun and reaching for the scissors in his hand.
“I got it!” he maintained, holding the scissors away from me. “You just focus on the tape and folding parts.”
“But have you seen our discard pile?” I gestured with both hands at the crumpled scraps of paper.
He put his nose in the air. “All part of the art!”
I patted his knee. “My creative vampire.” He’d written me some beautiful poems over the years. His words never failed to bring tears to my eyes, partly because he cared so much and partly because I’d missed it for so many years.
“That’s right.”
He began trimming off another swath of paper for Leah’s present: a grey-blue-colored Breyer horse named “Wild Blue” and a book called, “The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses.” Spike said the book reminded him of “The Silver Stallion” movie that Leah loved. He was very proud of how he’d picked out her gift. (Luckily, Crystal said she hadn’t bought either item for her yet.) He’d even somehow found Christmas paper with tiny horses wearing sprigs of greenery and red holly berries in their manes and tails.
Gift giving made me think about my family. I hardly ever talked with my biological father anymore, and my real family – the family I’d made – was all going to be in town for the holiday. Spike and I had one more ultrasound before Christmas to confirm the heartbeat and measurements, and then, I could start weaning off medication. We planned to tell at least the major players in our lives as a kind of Christmas/Hanukkah gift. When I thought too much about it, I felt a zing of anxiety through my stomach. I was most nervous about telling Giles, and I had no idea why.
Spike set the horse box in the middle of the paper he’d successfully detached from the roll and folded the paper over one side. “Are you ready for tonight?”
“I think he’ll be happy for us,” I said, drawing out a long length of velvety red ribbon for Leah’s package.
His eyebrows drew together in minute confusion, but then, he refocused on his task, holding the two sides of the wrapping paper in place with one hand and fumbling for the tape with the other. I was falling down on the job. “Who, love?”
“Giles. I’m not sure how he’ll react.” I fingered the ribbon, focusing on the soft material.
“I’m sure he’ll be right over the top like always.” Spike glared at the ends of the package (his least favorite part of wrapping). “And I’ll be right there with him until we suss out what’s going on and put a stop to it if needed.”
Wait. How was telling Giles about the baby going to put Spike over the top? “Are you talking about what I’m talking about? We’re talking about the baby, right?”
Spike chewed his cheek and mashed one end of the paper together, somehow making neatly folded corners that looked halfway decent. “We’re talking about the vampire witches, disappearing Slayers, and the possible Hellmouth situation, which could be tied to our baby. Yes.”
“Oh.”
His head lifted at that, and he arched an eyebrow. “Oh? What’re you talking about, pet?”
Rolling the extra, uncut ribbon back onto the spool, I shook my head. “Just feeling nervous.”
Though I didn’t lift my head, I felt him studying my face. “About Rupert? Never known you to be nervous around your Watcher.”
“Yeah.” I suddenly felt like I was back in high school and asking Giles to do fatherly things – things my dad would never do. The recliner suddenly seemed very interesting as tears filled my eyes.
Spike’s hand rested on top of my fuzzy-sock-covered foot. “Hey. He’s going to be very touched by your gesture.”
I blinked and wiped away the tears before they could get too out of hand. “You think?”
“He is. He may have failed you in many a way, pet, but he loves you like a father. He’d do anything for you.” Spike’s blue eyes were steadfast on me. He knew how Giles had hurt me.
I made a face at him. “He tried to have you killed.” And that. . . that was why I was so nervous. Would he want to be a grandfather to a child tied to me and Spike? I was afraid he wouldn’t. I shouldn’t be afraid, but I was, and I think that said more about me than him.
“Water under the bridge. It’s not like I haven’t done the same. Neither of us has done anything of late.”
A laugh bubbled up out of my throat. “True.” I sobered. “I’m worried about what this all means, you know? Illyria, Angel, the Slayers, the vampires. I just wish one thing was straightforward about all of this.”
“Nothing is straightforward when it comes to Angel,” Spike muttered as he tackled the other end of Leah’s gift. Discovering that he’d measured out too much paper to successfully fold the other side, he growled with impatience and shoved at the package.
My heart aching for the pain he’d had in his relationship with Angel, I realized I could handle at least this one little problem. “Hey! I got this.”
Slipping in front of him so that I was cradled against his abdomen, I picked up his hand and kissed his palm. Then, I scooped up the scissors, trimmed the paper, and neatly finished the wrapping job. Spike slid the ribbon under the finished product, and together, we added the extra bit of flare to one special little girl’s surprise.
“We make a pretty good team,” he whispered in my ear, giving me the good shivers.
I snuggled into his embrace and sighed with happiness. “That we do.”
40. The night of the big meeting
“I don’t know what to say, Buffy.” Giles’s eyes were misted over, and he peeled off his glasses with one hand, still holding the grey onesie with “Pop Pop: Because ‘grandfather’ is for old guys” emblazoned on it in the other.
Unable to help myself, I perched next to him on George’s leather sofa and gave my Watcher a big hug. “You’re going to make a wonderful grandpa.” Spike, Dawn, and I had arrived at George’s apartment early to surprise Giles, who had flown in from England the previous day. Spike was in the other room, helping George and Emily set up the technology, so we could Facetime the people who couldn’t attend the meeting.
Giles stared at the words, stroking the soft cotton with his thumb. “Are you certain that you want me to – ?”
I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Yes! Of course! I’m sure. I’m surer than sure.”
Dawn plopped down on Giles’s other side and joined in on the hug fest. “We love you, Giles.”
Giles blinked for a moment before his shoulders relaxed, and he put an arm around each of us, leaving the onesie in his lap. “Oh.” He was quiet for a heartbeat too long and then said, “I believe that I love you both very much.”
“We know you do,” Dawn said, looking him in the eye.
“But it’s nice to hear you say it out loud,” I added so that he regarded me, too.
“You know this news about the pregnancy means that you must be on high alert from this point forward.” His hand tightened in his fear, and I gently extricated my shoulder.
“You know? Isn’t that what parents the world over say?” I asked teasingly.
“This is not a joking matter,” he insisted, his tone equal parts tense and gentle.
“You sound just like Spike.”
“As I very well should.” He frowned. “I can’t believe I just said that.” Dawn and I whacked him lightly at the same time. “Ow!” He rubbed the arm I’d hit. “I can admit that I was wrong.” Giles was referring to something else altogether – to a time when he wanted Spike killed.
“’Bout time,” Dawn said, which made me smile. She and Spike really had made up.
“But I had reason to be wary,” he added.
“You did,” I acknowledged, aware of the continued double meaning of the conversation.
He put his glasses back on and adjusted them until they were in a comfortable place. Then, he studied both of us. “I’m proud of both of you and very excited to be a grandfather though the name you chose for me is very undignified.”
“Spike picked it,” I couldn’t help but note. So, my tone was a bit gleeful.
Giles rolled his eyes. “Of course, he did.” He sobered. “He approves of the role I’ll assume in your child’s life?”
Straightening my dress over my knees, I considered a lighthearted approach again, but I settled on serious. “He is.”
Giles picked up the onesie in both hands, stretching the message taut and staring at the words. He pressed his lips together slightly. “I’m very honored.”
The doorbell rang, likely heralding the arrival of Willow and Oz. They had flown in to visit for Christmas and were staying a condo in the French Quarter. Giles was staying with George, but Willow, Oz, and Giles planned to come over to our little shotgun house on Christmas Day. Willow and I were cooking dinner, a throwback to our efforts at Thanksgiving that one year in Sunnydale. Well, my efforts.
George hurried from his dining room to the front door and peered through the peephole. He swung open the door with flourish and grinned as Liz and Katie, the Slayers from Lafayette and Baton Rouge respectively, barreled in. They bore brown paper bags and wore winter beanies despite it being close to sixty degrees outside. We didn’t get much cold weather in Louisiana, and the girls tended to get excited with the slightest drop in temp. I couldn’t say much. When I was their age, I was always cold and wearing coats in the Southern California winters.
I stood to my feet and gave them each a warm hug around their packages. “What’re you guys doing here?”
“Didn’t Emily tell y’all we were coming?” Katie asked, balancing her grocery bag on her hip. She was my height or a little shorter and fond of wearing the same chunky heels I used to wear before Spike confiscated them. (He still hadn’t returned them despite our earlier conversation. I’d been too tired to drag them inside myself.) The vibrant blue streaks in her dark blonde hair made her sapphire eyes shine.
“Nope.”
Emily poked her head around the doorframe. “Perfect timing! We just got everything set up.” She glanced at me. “Thought we could use some extra eyes and ears.”
“Good idea. Where are Kishan and Michael?”
Liz smirked. She was taller than Katie and wore her long brown hair in twin braids over her shoulders. Though the braids made Liz look younger than her age, she was actually five years older than Katie. “Take a wild guess where our Watchers are.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Avery Island.”
Their Watchers were good friends and often went crabbing, fishing, and camping together in New Iberia. They were also far from their families, so proximity made them close. George was more of a stay-home-and-play-video-games guy, so he usually didn’t go with. Field work was not his favorite thing to do. Luckily, Emily was proficient and adaptable.
“Bingo!” Katie pointed at me with her free hand. “I swear, I think they have a thing.” She addressed Liz. “I know you don’t think so, but. . .”
Liz shook her head vehemently. “They are not a couple. I asked Kishan.” He was her Watcher. He was Indian but grew up in London and trained with Giles.
Katie’s eyes widened to the size of silver dollars. “What?! You did? When did you do that?”
The corner of Liz’s mouth went up. “The other day.”
Katie stood her ground. “Kishan rechristened your dog, ‘Girlfriend.’ That says something right there.” Liz’s standard poodle was named Gershwin.
Liz cocked her head and looked thoughtful. “Good point.”
Crossing his arms, Giles cleared his throat.
Liz blushed. “Where do we set up?” She held up her bag which was sagging on one side.
“What’d you bring?” Dawn asked the younger woman.
Katie grinned. “Stuff for egg nog. Figured we should celebrate even if we’re having a serious pow wow.”
Liz lifted her bag up, the contents shifting. “And snacks. Fresh cracklins, boudin balls, and crab cakes.”
“Oh my god, I really am in Lousiana!” Dawn’s smile was huge.
Liz laughed, the sound big and welcoming. “You are!”
Katie’s eyes lit on the onesie in Giles’s hand. “What’s that?”
“Oh. Um,” Giles fumbled and tried to tuck the bit of cloth into his pocket but failed.
Spike appeared in the doorway then, gave the situation a once over, and nodded to me. I glanced at Dawn who stuffed her hands in her pockets and shrugged.
I held up a hand. “It’s okay, Giles. Really.” I addressed the group. “Spike and I are having a baby.”
Katie and Liz let out simultaneous shrieks of excitement and gave me more hugs, smashing me between arms and lumpy bags. I couldn’t help but beam at their enthusiasm.
“Congrats!” Katie said with sincerity. She gave me a once over. “You’re not showing yet.”
“Thanks. Well, we’re not quite to the second trimester,” I explained. Spike joined me and slipped an arm around my waist. I smiled up at him, leaning into his familiar touch.
“I heard that the first trimester is exhausting,” Liz noted, concern in her brown eyes. “Do you have morning sickness?”
“Surprisingly no. But grilled meat is disgusting. And it’s hard to tell how much the extra hormones are affecting me and how much is the pregnancy.” They gave me confused looks, and I tacked on, “We did IVF.”
Their eyes lit as if that explained a lot, which it did. The most important question they probably had was how Spike could possibly be the father, but I left them hanging on that one. It’d require too much explanation.
George’s voice was gentle. “We should probably get started.”
The group set up the food, and Liz and Katie whipped up some sort of uber-fast Amish eggnog with cooked eggs. The recipe apparently didn’t call for rum, but the girls were of age and added it anyway. I certainly didn’t mind not having any, but Spike poured himself a glass. Willow and Oz showed up mid-food prep. They were thrilled about the baby, and Willow appropriately gushed over the Pop Pop onesie, which made Giles squirm all over again.
George and Spike managed to call up Faith and Robin on the computer, which was connected to the flat screen TV that was moved into the dining room, and Giles called Xander on his phone and put him on speaker.
Giles spoke first. “We should each take a turn and lay out what we know.” When no one said anything, he started, “The demon world knows that Buffy is trying to conceive, but they don’t know that she’s actually pregnant yet.”
“That we know of.” Spike stood behind my chair at the dining room table, and I reached back for his hand. He rubbed my shoulder instead, and I couldn’t help but relax.
“That we know of,” Giles echoed. “Angel knows, as does his companion, Illyria, who is extremely dangerous.” Contrary to what Spike (and Angel) initially thought, Giles had been devastated that he had not been able to help Fred, whom Willow had held in high esteem. Willow had been unreachable at the time the scientist needed help.
“Which is why I’m here,” Dawn chimed in from her seat next to me. Her eyes widened just slightly as she realized what she said. She amended, “Still can’t believe she just showed up at my apartment.” Not everyone was in the know about Dawn’s origins at my insistence and now Spike’s as well.
“I don’t blame you one bit, little Summers,” Faith said, a concerned expression on her face. She knew about Dawn being a dimensional key, but she was playing her cards much closer to the chest these days.
“You haven’t heard from Angel?” Spike asked the brunette Slayer.
She shook her head on the TV screen. “No. I swear. He’s completely off the grid. He isn’t even answering his emergency phone.”
“You’ll tell us if you do.” I was making a statement, not asking a question.
“Of course!” So, there was just a trace of defensiveness and irritation in Faith’s words despite the passage of time and the healing between us.
Giles ignored the dynamic and pushed onward. “Angel’s concern that something might happen to Buffy’s child is likely driven by his own guilt and fears about what happened to Connor.”
“The poofter’s hang ups aside, there is some validity to his concerns,” Spike interjected. He meant that he was concerned. He’d privately told me that he didn’t think the others understood the ramifications of what he knew regarding Connor and for that matter, Illyria.
Giles huffed and begrudgingly nodded. “The concern is valid, and that is why I’ve been diligently researching. What I found is, as usual, a vague prophecy about witches who are trying to gain power by casting a spell at the Hellmouths in the world. That spell requires the blood of women. One possible interpretation is that they are looking for the blood of pregnant women. There is an inherent power in – ”
“Or cows,” Xander chimed in, his voice tiny from the speaker phone at the center of the dining table. “You said one of the possibilities would be that they’d use the blood of cows, right?”
Liz and Katie giggled but sobered when Giles shot them a look. Willow and Oz watched with bemused expressions on their faces. The Slayers were suddenly very interested in their egg nog and boudin balls. Liz hid her expression in her cup, and Katie poked at a pile of rice and meat with her fork.
Giles kept going. “There are three main Hellmouths in Cleveland, Easter Island in Chile, and Jakarta in Indonesia. There are also a number of mini-Hellmouths. The one here in New Orleans and the one in Shediac in Canada are just two. I bring up the one in Canada because the Slayer there, Natalie, has disappeared.”
“We located the one in Minnesota,” Robin said. “She was on mission and was being held captive by a group of demons. She went to their lair without informing anyone. Her Watcher and a couple of locals rescued her. I’d say she learned her lesson.”
Faith stood up for the girl. “She’s young. Only seventeen. We all did stupid stuff at that age.”
Robin did a half-roll of his eyes. “Speak for yourself.”
“But Natalie is still missing?” I asked.
Running a hand through her hair, Faith nodded. “Yeah. Her Watcher is on it, and we’ve sent some of the other Slayers and their Watchers to help with the search-and-rescue.”
“Xander and I are working on contacting the Slayers and Watchers near each of the Hellmouths and mini-Hellmouths to make certain that they are on high alert, particularly for witches and possibly vampire witches.”
After swallowing a mouthful of food, Emily raised her hand a few inches. “Spike and I have been searching for the remaining witch-vampire here in New Orleans.”
Spike added, “We shook down the usual suspects. Nothing.”
“Keep trying,” Giles said firmly.
I felt Spike stiffen behind me, his fingers more rigid on my shoulder, but before he could retort, Willow jumped in, “I’ve been talking with the witches at Falls Church and the ones in England. Some of them are sensing a shift in the magic around the Hellmouths and are aware of a burgeoning population of vampires who were practicing witches before being turned. There have always been vampires who dabble in magic, but this is slightly different because they were practicing before they were turned.”
George’s face was grim. “This is in line with the prophecy, and it makes sense that Buffy would run into vampire witches in New Orleans. The city is known for its powerful ties to magic and mysticism. Katie and Liz, we could use the two of you, not necessarily here in the city but in the outlying, less populated areas where people live near the swamps and bayous.”
Liz, Katie, and Emily exchanged glances, and then, Liz said, “We’ll take our Watchers with us. Divide up the smaller communities among the three of us.”
“I’ll help, too,” Spike offered.
“We’re on it in Natalie’s area, too,” Faith reminded the group.
Adjusting his glasses, Giles stared at the paper on the table, checking off another item on his meeting agenda. “We need to contact all the Slayers and witches across the globe. Make sure that they’re safe and accounted for and are aware of the possibility of a spell with vampire witches that involves women. . . or cows.”
“Oz, Xander, and I will activate the call tree,” Willow said as Oz slid an arm around her shoulders.
“Perfect,” Giles said. “I’ll help with that as well and continue to research the prophecies.”
“Kishan, Mike, and I will help with the research,” George said, “as soon as they get back from camping.”
Liz and Katie studiously looked away from one another, but I saw a slight tremor in Liz’s shoulders.
“Thank you, George.” Giles turned to me and Spike. “As much as I hate to say it, you two might need to try and reach out to Angel and/or Illyria.”
I couldn’t help myself and peered up at Spike. I could tell he was struggling to stay neutral, so I responded for us both, “I’m worried that reaching out could lead to more complications than we already have.” I forced myself to avoid the fear on Dawn’s face.
Luckily, Giles caught my little sister’s moment of panic. “You’re right. Illyria is a wild card. That leaves Angel.”
Spike purposefully sighed and loudly. He addressed Faith. “I’ll need his contact info.”
Faith pulled her iPhone out of her back pocket and held it up. “Texting it to you now.”
“All right. That’s settled.” Giles folded his hands and surveyed the group. “No one is to take action without touching base with the rest of the group. Is that clear? With the number of us involved, we can’t afford to go off on our own willy nilly.”
“That’s pretty clear. You can count on us to be neither willy nor nilly,” Oz said, and Willow grinned at him.
Then, Giles said something I never thought I’d hear him say. “But before we get too far into the work, let’s take a brief break for the holidays.”
“Despite the evil afoot?” I couldn’t help myself.
Giles’s eyes were full of mirth. “Despite.” Faith smirked. “Go, G-man.”