Code of the Watchers

by Cyn

R for language

Spike needs a summer job and Giles needs to make amends

For the Immortal Beloved, PG Wodehouse, and cherished betas Miriam and Diane

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Let me go out Like a blister in the sun Let me go out Big hand I know you're the one

~Violent Femmes

I bent over the shapeshifter, patiently adjusting her garish spangled ruff and trying to prevent a fresh onslaught of tears. "You looked wonderful, my dear."

"I l-l-ooked like deflated funball!"

"It's a marvelous performance."

"I've lost my dignity!"

"Tut. Shh, Zuptya, you'll bring down the house. That's what we want, isn't it?"

"Mr. Giles!" The manager was darting through the tables, waving a cell phone. "Mr. Giles, we have a situation. The truck with the pigeons overturned on Howard Street."

"Then call the humane society," I snapped, the stress of opening night beginning to fray my customary air of competent command.

The manager blinked. "I can't, sir," he replied, offering the phone. "It's for you."

I took a breath and summoned calm. No need to betray nerves, no need to suffer nerves at all, really. It was only showbiz. "Hello?"

"Mr. Giles! Mr. Giles, thank God I reached you."

"Ah, Mr. Dundee. Is something wrong?"

"I don't know what happened, Mr. Giles. I was calling a spiritual guide for my wife, and something happened to the living room ceiling. Water everywhere! It's like a pipe burst."

"Perhaps a pipe did burst, Mr. Dundee."

"But something else came down from the ceiling -- a man, it looked like a man. He went right through the floor and disappeared. Now there's just water. It's ankle deep in here, Mr. Giles -- what should we do?"

I closed my eyes and pinched my nose, marshaling my tone to its most even and reassuring. "I would suggest that you call your staff and mop it up, Mr. Dundee."

"But --"

"The summoning you recited is perfectly harmless. It appeals only to blessed spirits from the highest regions of light and even if you... failed to do it properly and happened to damage your plumbing, there's nothing to fear. Now," I said lightly, with that unflappable equanimity that has ever shown me up in such trying circumstances, trying to bring the aggravating interruption to a close, "May we hope to see you and Mrs. Dundee tonight? This is your show, really -- you own half the club and it simply won't be the same without you."

"I --"

I spoke a few more firm, soothing words, calming my chief investor and eliciting a promise to attend opening night, and finally got rid of him. With a weakened sigh I handed the phone back to the stage manager, who was hopping from foot to foot in an ecstasy of nervous tension.

"Jeffries!"

"Yes, Mr. Giles!"

"Take the van and go down to Howard Street. Gather what pigeons you may - enlist the fire department, if you have to. We must have those pigeons, Jeffries."

"Yes, Mr. Giles!"

I turned back to the stage. Zuptya the shapeshifter had dried her tears and was attempting to perfect her routine. I watched her bounce spherically past the row of tiny footlights, pulsing and glittering.

She looks rather aimless, I thought. Perhaps if we -

Shouts of dismay erupted from the kitchen, followed by crashes, bangs and the roar of water. I started forward, only to narrowly avoid being mowed down by a panicked stream of cooks and helpers charging through the swinging door.

"Sacre Bleu!" cried the chef, rolling his eyes. "Life-threatening! This place should be condemned and have done, and be damned, anyway! Damn all aristos! Au revoir!"

I pushed past him and into the kitchen. Water surged from a burst oven in a powerful torrent, cascading onto the floor. It reeked of myrrh and violets and I had barely a moment to register this odd perception when the oven shuddered, cried out like a living thing, and shot a human figure out onto the tiles.

The gushing flow stopped. A man lay on the floor, drenched and immobile, clad in jeans, one tennis shoe and half a black sweater. His blonde head was curled into the crook of one arm, and his expression was as guileless and peaceful as that of a sleeping child.

I took a cautious step forward, alarm warring with disbelief. Every instinct I possessed urged flight or at least preemptive attack, but I hesitated. A long moment passed in which the only sound was the drip of water and the hiss of steam. The sodden figure on the floor showed no inclination to stir. I reached out and my fingers closed around the handle of a sushi knife.

"Spike?" It didn't quite work. I tried again. "Spike?"

****

The Spike-like thing took a huge gulp of air and began coughing explosively. Then it began sneezing, and this fit was followed by a brief transitional period, if I may so frame it, of scrabbling blindly at the floor like a mudskipper of the American bayous.

It looked like the devil, really. The preternaturally sharp face I remembered looked blurred, somehow, and there were deep lines of care etched from the brow to jaw. It looked bleached. Badly laundered. Bedraggled, is the word I'm searching for.

Buffy had told me everything, poor girl, about the final moments on the lip of the Hellmouth. I knew that odds were vanishing small that the creature before me was actually Spike, but I thought it best to start with what I had.

Keeping a firm grip on the knife, I repeated:

"Spike?"

The mudskipper scrabbling subsided and the thing rolled onto its back and exhaled prodigiously, surveying the upper reaches of the kitchen with astonished blue eyes.

"Fuck me," it breathed. "Oh. Sorry."

"What are you?" I demanded, with that note of authority for which I am not unjustly famed. "Whence do you come?"

The astonished blue eyes rolled and focused on me, and became, if that were possible, even more blue and astonished.

"Watcher?" croaked the thing.

"What is your name?"

"Good Christ, Rupert, is that you?" The Spike thing winced. "Oh, sorry."

"What is your name?" I roared, filling the kitchen with that echoing authoritative thunder that, objectivity compels me to record, has put not a few demons to flight in its day.

The creature blinked. "It's me. Are you all right? What's this, then?" With an effort, it managed to get its elbows propped and take a look around. "Where are we? Why you? Is this a kitchen?"

I must confess that this response dismayed me. With dark manifestations one may rely on a certain linear train, as it were, in the initial phases of the interview. One demands a name, and one gets a response such as Legion or C'Lothor, followed by a boast of unlimited power and a counsel to despair. I had never, in my experience, been confronted by a demon who seemed perplexed by the proximity of ovens and piping.

I took a breath. I took a step forward. I looked hard at the face before me, so familiar and yet so changed. The eyes were the same. Dazed, rather, but recognizable. Candid, steady and fearless.

I knelt and laid the knife between us. "Hard trip, was it, Spike?"

Spike grinned and every trace of care vanished. "Hell, no, Rupert. It was brilliant."

*****

A sort of interview followed, during which I assisted the subject to his feet and half carried him to the dank, lightless hole that served as my office. Sentinel of Right that I am, I grilled him per forma on his last hours and agonies; his dispositions and intentions and so forth, keenly aware that this was an opportunity never to be matched. He answered with an evasive, monosyllabic courtesy -- punctuated by profanity and apologies, in an uneven stream -- that I found rather difficult to retain. I am writing this after the fact, don't you know, and simply for posterity as I am the last of my kind, after all, one can only do what one can, can't one?

RG: Do you need blood?

WTB: Huh?

RG: Are you in pain?

WTB: Christ, what's eating you? Sorry.

I called the subject's attention to his mangled attire. He evidenced surprise.

WTB: Oh. Well, that's more than I started with. Alright.

RB: What do you mean?

WTB: May I have a glass of water?

I provided water.

RG: Did you die?

WTB: Like a nail in a door.

RG: What happened then?

WTB: More water?

I was taken by a wild surmise. I laid a finger on his wrist and found a pulse, and in an instant I was dragging him to the employee's restroom.

WTB: Oi! Watcher! Ow!

I am not a sentimental man -- the exigencies of my profession preclude it -- but that was a moment to remember. I held Spike up by the collar of his borrowed chef's shirt and watched the wonder, awe and realization dawn upon his naked face as he confronted his reflection.

More or less.

WTB: I look like shit!

I released him and coughed, shielding my eyes. "You seem to have regained your humanity. Astounding. I must salute you, William."

This endorsement seemed to leave Spike unmoved -- the great development was apparently old news to him. He examined himself in the mirror critically, poking and dragging at his lower lids. "Looks matter to her," he muttered. "That's it then. Oh, well."

RG: Spike, you have been reborn.

WTB: Yeah. Thanks.

RG: What happened to you? I must know. Do you understand what this means? Where did you go?

Spike obliged me with a few more words: the flames of immolation, I gathered, had united him with the Oversoul as his corrupted form fell away, and he had spent a cheery span in Paradise. In that realm of light and peace he had found his cup of charity so brimful that when the reigning spirits offered him the chance to risk his life, soul and heart on a bizarre and unnatural -- yet positive -- re-embodiment, he signed up like a trooper and popped on through. I inferred that a certain amount of blameless attachment to Buffy came into play with this -- but bear in mind, that is my opinion only and all of the foregoing is heavily paraphrased.

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One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble Not much between despair and ecstasy One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble Can't be too careful with your company...

~Murray Head

Opening night was a disaster, of course. If seven years on the Hellmouth had been capable of teaching me anything I might have steeled myself but Hope -- wretched, perverse Hope -- had refused to surrender with dignity. I had nursed all manner of sorry fantasies about a smash. The Magic Club to end all Magic Clubs, small and intimate and cherished by the cognoscenti. A solid money maker wherein the co-owner might himself take the stage on occasion, to divert the audience with a display of the milder majicks, if the audience asked very nicely.

You may well imagine how my dreams were answered. My headliner let me down, the useless ponce. It was agony to behold. The utter failure of Dozo the Unnerving to meld wedding rings, read minds or even shuffle cards had been the first shock of cold water -- why did everyone seem to fall apart at the test? And then poor Zuptya, freezing like a doomed squirrel and failing to change into the flurry of rainbow hued snowflakes that would have awed and delighted the multitudes. Oh, the humiliation of it. How much rehearsal did people need?

Life seemed bitter and, in a word, unfair. Was it so much to ask, to provide a bit of entertainment for the rare but discerning hipsters of Omaha? To scrape a little substance from what I knew best? To raise the curtain on a new chapter of life with a modicum of poise? What was a man to do, after all? Was an office job and a retreat into fatalism the last option for Ripper?

"Spike!" I snapped.

Spike jingled to a halt at the door, looking sheepish. God knew it was justified: he had been the only hit of the evening, bussing tables and looking dazed, flashing the pearly human masticators at any kind nod and working the disheveled, plane-hopping diffidence for all it was worth. Patrons had showered the tosser with coin.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Just a breath of air, Watcher," he mumbled.

Entirely the wrong response, not to mention the flat and unenthusiastic delivery. One almost had to pity Spike: resurrection had done exactly nothing for his capacity to dissemble. I was in firm possession of his number in all events, having kept an eye on him when I could spare one from the grotesque spectacle presented by my performers. The keen envy with which Spike had assessed the smoking customers could not have been missed even by the subtle beavers schooling in the muddy Missouri eight blocks away.

"Put it out of your mind, Spike," I told him sternly. "This is your chance. New beginnings. A human body and a clean start. And I will see you dead before I let you within an arm's reach of nicotine, you bloody fool."

"Right," he said humbly. "Good for you, Watcher, good thinking. S'clear I'll have a tendency to backslide, but you'll see me through." He peeled away to scoop up a plate of desiccated hotwings and toddled submissively off.

It's simply not the sprightly wheeze it might seem to the uninformed observer, this business of being the go-to fellow in all seasons. It wears on a man. Takes a toll. Why, in all the world, the sovereign powers of heaven had seen fit to deposit Spike on my doorstep was a question I had reviewed with not a little resentment, I have to admit. But there was an element of implied approval to it that was beginning to soothe my harried self-esteem. It was abundantly clear that there were wheels within wheels: a vampire didn't get a soul and sacrifice himself on the altar of love every day, much less dust and reassemble in Nirvana to finally shoot out of an oven on a wave of perfumed birthwater, terrifically shiny and human, no, not by a long chalk. The implications were, not to put it lightly, enormous. I needed to find a quiet space to ruminate, to ponder. I needed a library, I needed to get online -- and you may judge thereby of my fever for information, because I detested those two employments with all of my not-inconsiderable strength. Actually, I didn't need either, come to that: I needed Willow to do it for me, hang it all.

"I quit! I'm no good!" shrieked Zuptya, putting a rude end to my reflections. "I can't stand myself, I have no talent, goodbye!"

"Now, Zuptya," I said wearily, quashing my instinct to heartily agree. "We all have our off nights."

"I suck!"

"You must learn from it, Zuptya. Chin up. The show must go on."

"Did you even see me? I spazzed! Jeffries had to prompt me from the wings!"

"It was his pleasure, my dear," I assured her, knowing this, at least, was true.

"Oh, God!" Zuptya crumbled into my arms, quivering and morphing and soaking my shirtfront. "How can I ever go up there again?"

I heard a bit of shoe-scuffle in the offing and there stood the aforementioned Jeffries, coughing into the hollow of his hand. "I thought you were great, Zuptya," he said bravely.

Zuptya did not deign to notice him. "I wish I could die," she moaned against my buttonhole.

What goes on with women, I asked myself, and not for the first time. "Jeffries! Stop him!"

Spike was making another try for the door. Jeffries leapt at my word, going his best. There was a moment of confrontation that ended, predictably, with the game and good hearted Jeffries brushed aside like a fly, and Spike was away.

No one will ever be able to accuse Rupert Giles of lacking snap when it comes to Watching. I was after him like a shot. But no one will ever be able to accuse William the Bloody of dawdling when he had a goal, and it was a lively two blocks before I drew even and caught him amidships, and that was only because he was hammering at a pay phone and cursing, amid stammered apologies, to fetch the law.

"Spike! Stop!"

Fat American quarters rang onto the pavement. "Sod off, Watcher," grunted Spike, struggling to dial. "Sorry! Lemme go. I have to make a call."

"It's no good, Spike. That number doesn't work anymore." I reached past him one handed and snapped the receiver down.

Spike wheeled on me with an air that would have had me reaching for a weapon in days of yore.

"Give me one that does, then," he said quietly.

"I don't know where she is."

"You expect me to believe that? I was in heaven, not the nuthatch." Spike took a step forward. "Do yourself some good, Giles, and give up her number like a smart boy."

"She doesn't love you, Spike."

It was low and cruel and dashed effective. Spike stiffened at the blow and then the starch deserted him and his eyes fell. "I know that," he said finally. "I know. But it was different, at the end. We were friends, like." He looked up, pleading and defiant. "Say Harris snuffed it and came back from the dead, and didn't ring her up? Come on. She wouldn't be half pissed when she found out, would she?"

"Spike, listen to me. Think of her. She's been through so much, and she hasn't even begun to heal. Just one more supernatural imbroglio would finish her, Spike. Do you have even the faintest idea what you are? Let me tell you. You are unprecedented. You have never happened before, not in the history of the world. You were annihilated, yet now you breath the free air. What do you think that means? Use your head for once, you prat. You are a creature, I have no doubt, at the nexus of realities, because that is how it works. For pity's sake, stop and consider! If I drew a map and gave it to every malignant power in the universe with you as the bullseye, I couldn't make you a broader target. Is that what you want to bring down on her?"

I saw a vintage expression, then, on the newly-minted face of Spike. He stared at me -- trapped, furious, heartbroken and belayed. "No," he grated. "She is with Angel now," I lied, sliding the knife home with surgical precision, scorched with shame and loathing myself to the farthest corners of my spotted soul. "They are trying to build a life together, Spike, and she is happy. Let her rest. Let her live. Let her be."

It is one of those terrible things they never tell you, when you are young and powermad and straining at the slip to make destiny follow your tune. No one tells you -- and you wouldn't believe it if they did -- what it feels like to extinguish the light in a man's eye, in cold blood and for all the best reasons in the world. No one can put into words how it feels to defeat a man, to see him lower his head and walk away desolate, and know, at your core, that he is above you, absolutely your superior in any way that counts, your moral better in time and eternity. And that if he weren't you couldn't have beaten him.

"Sorry, but go to hell, Watcher," said Spike tiredly, beginning the long plod back to the club.

I had no illusions, in that sad hour, that I wouldn't.

But then again, perhaps not. I retrieved the good old cell phone and trotted to catch him up. "Spike. I've thought it over. Given it due consideration. Perhaps the risk would not be unsupportable. Here."

Spike ignored me.

"Give her a ring, that's the fellow. Just hit two, she's on speed dial."

"Naw, you've wrecked it now." Spike walked on.

"Spike, don't be an old woman. Where's the dash? Where's that feckless daring? Go on, call her -- it's only decent, as you said."

"Look, you wanted to scare me. Fine, I'm scared. Good Christ," he lamented, "I'm dead sick of being scared. I apologize and all, but I'm so sodding sick of this. Burning wasn't bad fun, really, compared to the thought of putting her in danger, you know that? You had to go and make me think, didn't you?"

"I was mistaken. Fear had me in thrall. It will be all right," I soothed, dusting off the fabled RG suavity. "It's safe, it's good -- it's expected, Spike. Go on."

Spike started walking again. "No. Stop nagging me. Leave it."

There was clearly nothing for it but to take ownership of the situation. I hit two.

"Hello, my dear, it's Rupert. No, no, not at all. Everything's fine - absolutely topping, in point of fact. I have news, Buffy. News indeed. I happened on a friend of yours this morning and -- well, here he is."

Spike reached for the phone with a noticeable tremor. And then my pricey cellular appliance was gone, arcing into the night sky, revolving with the lazy grace of a satellite before disappearing altogether. I might have heard a splash down by the riverfront -- I can't be sure.

"Well, that was certainly bloody stupid," I hissed.

"And no worse than you deserve, thou son of perdition," Spike shot back.

I raised my eyebrows. Spike blinked.

"I mean," he amended, "You... rotter."

I threw up my hands. "I admit it. You have me. I am a cur, Spike."

Spike accepted this confession readily, nodding. His eyes narrowed. "Funny that Angel didn't pick up the phone, innit? Trouble in the lovenest?"

"As you may have guessed, that was a fabrication. A bald lie. But it was well meant, Spike -- I thought I might make it easier on you."

"Easier on me!" he exclaimed.

"All right, easier on me. There, you have sounded the depths of my rotterhood. "I sue for pardon, Spike."

"Just keep on suing, then, if you like wasting time." Spike halted yet again. "Oh, I forgot," he muttered. "Right, you're forgiven. But no calling her. Don't bring it up any more."

I nodded, having already decided when and how to resume the attack. "It's late. Let's get you home, Spike."

"Where's home?"

"You're staying with me, of course."

Spike groaned. "I suppose a kip in a bathtub is better than none at all," he said after a moment, resignedly.

"Don't be absurd. I'm putting you to bed and taking the couch until we can, I don't know, get one of those futon contraptions. They're very clever, really, practically assemble themselves. There's nothing like a good futon."

Only a flicker of a glance showed me how tired Spike actually was.

"We'll get another solid meal into you as well." I added, and giving the ill-fitting chef's tunic a cursory eye. "And some decent clothes, first thing in the a.m. How does that sound? It sounds fine, doesn't it?"

Spike nodded uncertainly. "Wouldn't say no. I'm skint. Are you giving me a job?"

I concealed a smile. "Oh, absolutely."

"Don't go thinking I'll kiss your ass if you hand me a paycheck, Watcher," he warned.

"Of course not, Spike."

*****

After getting outside of a late supper of eggs and beans I set Spike up in my room as best I could. He looked boneless and spent as he lay back, but as I fussed with pillows and whatnot he became increasingly wary.

"What are you doing?" he demanded at last, when I provoked him to speech by laying a fresh toothbrush on the night table.

"Taking care of a guest," I replied imperturbably.

"I'm a guest now? Not a pain in the ass or a very broad target? Why's that?"

Because you are a victor, I wanted to say. Because you conquered yourself and the armies of darkness and sealed the Hellmouth into the bargain. Because you are tired and spent and I have used you badly these last years. Because I am weary unto death with being brutal and ruthless. And because I need a successor, being the last of my kind.

But I had an intuition these answers would agitate him further. So I folded my arms and said: "Tell me about heaven, Spike."

His face changed, the creases smoothed out, and the light that I had extinguished made a tentative reappearance. "It was... it was all sweetness and flame, and people were good to me."

"Flame? That sounds more like hell. Except for the nice people," I added, lest he take offense.

"See, no one gets that. Love is the flame of heaven the way pain is the flame of hell. When I was burning down here, the pain got worse and worse but then it wasn't pain anymore, it was joy." Spike frowned sleepily. "Well, that's not really it. That doesn't tell it at all. It's like if you took two metals, and one was pain and the other joy, and you melted them down and made something new, like an alloy. You could call it by another name: jain -- or poy, maybe. I mean, if that didn't sound so stupid..." A yawn. Spike's eyes closed. "When there was nothing dark left to burn... I went, and then it was all joy. Feel it now," he mumbled. "A wound that burns --" one hand drifted to his chest, "all the time. It's precious, and that's my home, really...but this is nice, too..."

I left him to sleep, marveling at the peace on his slack face.

Much to do tomorrow, much to do. Time to train the bugger up in the Way of the Watcher -- and none too soon, I had to admit.

It was beginning to feel like I wasn't the last of my line after all. And what was a permanent move to the couch compared to that?

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O flame that burns to heal O more than pleasant wound... That dost in grace abound And dost new life reveal And slaying does from death to life translate

~St John of the Cross

I'm walkin' on sunshine, baby Yow! -- and don't it feel good

~Katrina and the Waves

I am not too stoic to admit that once I got Spike settled, the stygian watches of the night crawled by unpleasantly for R. Giles. Remorse, that enthusiastic gnawer of vitals, put up its feet and made itself at home. Bitter were the reflections that assailed me as I tossed on my couch of pain, and sharper than a serpent's tooth were the memories that spooled through my weary mind.

Ah, savage remorse -- who can escape the studded whip it wields? Vividly I recalled the image of Spike, beaten to a pudding by Glory - how I tried to wring admissions from him when he was yet too dazed to speak; how, failing that, I left him in his undefended crypt to recover or not, as chance would have it, and went my busy way. With sorrow I remembered Spike in his absurd driving goggles, arriving in broad daylight at the wheel of a stolen RV; with shame unbounded I remembered Spike keening with grief, unable to approach Buffy's body because his leg was broken (but I couldn't remember who, if anyone, took him in hand that night -- presumably he was left to shift for himself). I remembered the long, bad summer that followed, when Spike carried the heavy end of our endeavor to keep the vampire population of Sunnydale under control; I remembered feeling annoyed by his silences, his drinking, his attachment to Dawn, his dogged refusal to simply clear off and leave us alone.

I could not, however, remember trading with him a single word beyond that required by our duty, not in all those months, and certainly not after Buffy's return.

The worst of these recollections, of course, was my dreadful business with the supremely unbalanced Principal Wood, wherein I actively conspired to see Spike murdered. Remembering that was enough to get me off the couch and send me to the bottle of the Glenfiddich under the sink.

I sat and sipped and brooded, turning events over and over in my mind, applying the logic of caution and duty and the Watcher's Code for all I was worth, but the conclusion was inescapable: I had behaved like a skunk of the first water.

It rocked me, that realization, and it sent the level in the bottle down another inch. There is nothing quite so close to the nadir of misery as sitting at a kitchen table at three in the morning and watching your sins play out like a trailer for a bad Scandinavian movie, and it would not be too much to say that I felt low. I felt base. I felt morally craven and worse, I felt fallible. I had been dead wrong about Spike -- and about many other things, besides.

And there you had Rupert in a sorry nutshell. Proud, blind and - not that I had meant to be -- cruel. The only cure for such a grim epiphany rested in good resolutions and I found them springing up like the dragon's teeth of fable as I drank. I would make reparation. I would gather the thistles I had sown. I would fix everything, somehow -- for when you looked at it in a certain light, Spike wasn't the only fellow who had been given another chance.

Buoyed by this resolve and a last shot from the bottle, I crept soundlessly out and placed a call to Buffy on the club line.

****

There is nothing like upheaving one's entire modus operandi to give one the pip. I returned to the flat drained, and not entirely due to the predictable confusion and emotional stress of the Buffy conversation. I was morally certain that tipping her the wink was the right thing to do, but the knowledge that I had gone expressly against Spike's will in the matter occasioned guilt of a novel and unexpected sort. Strange and disconcerting, that. When had life become so maddeningly grey? I had taken charge -- my unarguable role in circumstances much foggier than these -- yet still I felt that I was trespassing, somehow, on sanctified ground.

I sat on the couch and answered myself that such scruples were rubbish. The sundered lovers needed a reunion, and I was going to provide it, and the joyous coda was only hours away.

But these are deep waters, I retorted. You are meddling yet again.

If not I, who? I countered. If not now, when?

A gasping cry interrupted my internal debate. I sprang up and was at the bedroom door in an instant, for I had been expecting nightmares from Spike -- it being the usual thing, in my experience, with people who come back from the grave.

"Spike?" I let myself in. "Courage, man, it's only a --"

Spike was lying in a nimbus of light, one hand clutching his heart. His eyes were shut and his face was a lamp of bliss. Perhaps that should have been a clue to me, but when I saw that his hand was actually ablaze I lost my head rather and raced forward, snatching up the glass that sat on the bedside table and dumping it all over him. I was trying to help, you see.

Spike came around with a start. The odd light took a moment to fade, but when it did I realized he was staring at me with not a little resentment.

"What did you do that for?" he demanded.

"I.. er, well. I thought you were on fire, you see."

"Have you been drinking?"

"I might have had a nip. Sorry about the water. Here, let me get you a towel."

Spike refused the towel, grumbling and waving me off. He seemed not to trust my good intentions. I muttered various apologies, upset the lamp, replaced the lamp, and bade him goodnight. Spike watched suspiciously until I backed out of the room.

I returned to my couch, feeling a bit of an ass. And so night wore on to morning, as they say.

****

There were no further pyrotechnics on my watch, and rosy-fingered dawn found me in that reduced condition particular to those who drink but do not dream. Spike, for his part, slept the sleep of the just.

Indeed, so whacking just was his sleep that there was no shifting him once life began to stir on the streets below. My gentle remonstrances were ignored. Repeated attempts to rouse fell on deaf ears -- he only rolled over and tunneled deeper amid the pillows. At intervals I retreated to fortify myself with tea as the morning crept away.

I read a book when I was a lad, some epic tragedy about a horse. Sad stuff. This horse, you see, fell into the hands of bounders and was subsequently done down by fate in just about every way imaginable. Heavy carts and whips and hunger, that sort of thing, torture unending. On and on it went. At any rate, just when I got thoroughly fed up with all the misery and decided to chuck the book and read something fun, a boy popped onto the scene determined to right all. He was nice to the horse. Gave it oats. Generally made the poor creature glad to be alive and ready to caper among the poppies once again. I don't remember how they went on after that, but it seemed as sound a technique as any to apply to Spike.

When I went back I resisted, therefore, the temptation to tip the mattress and dump the sluggard clean onto the floor. I tugged gently at the blankets instead.

"Up we get, Spike, there's a good man. It's going on for nine o'clock, don't you know."

Spike stirred not.

I bit back my annoyance. The day was shaping to be full, to put it mildly, and my Gentleness Technique was playing hell with the schedule, but I had resolutions to keep.

"Up, Spike," I prompted.

Spike rolled away and began to snore.

In the end I was forced to lure him from his happy coma with the rattle of pans and the sizzle of pork. Watching Spike at the club between shifts had been instructive: if Spike the vampire had found human food amusing, Mortal Spike was a machine at the trough. I had barely gotten the skillet sizzling when he bobbed up, tousled and wary and unmistakably peckish.

"Is that bacon?"

"Bacon it is."

"Don't suppose I could have any?"

"It's breakfast, Spike. Sit down."

I ignored his look of surprise at being invited to table and sat myself, trying not to wince as he tucked in. A critical shortage of foodstuffs loomed in my mind's eye.

"So. Spike," I began, taking a sip of the life-giving Earl Grey, "What do you see for yourself, under the circumstances? How do you wish to proceed?"

Spike swallowed and came up for air. "You said you'd give me a job."

"I intend to."

"Right." Spike pronged another forkful, already casting about a refill. "If you let me wait tables instead of bussing, I'll scrape the dosh to get out of your hair in month. Get me a ride, I guess, and a telly. What do you pay for cable, Watcher?"

Spike was never one to take the long view, alas.

"I don't want you to bus tables, Spike. Last night was an emergency, what with the staff defecting, but I will be hiring new personnel forthwith. There will be no more bussing of tables."

"Bartending?"

I repressed a sigh. "I had something loftier in mind, Spike: a noble calling tailor-made to -- if not fated by -- your unique background and experience."

Spike eyed me with suspicion.

"Spike, it is my intention to train you as a Watcher."

Spike had just taken a sip of orange juice and sent a spray of it across the table at my words. "No fear," he sputtered, appalled.

"Hear me out. Reflect. Think, man: you sit at my table, recently undead, cremated more recently than that, and now resurrected by a mind-boggling contravention of supernatural law. I cannot believe that you were sent to grace my oven with your rebirth simply because we have a nodding acquaintance. Eh? Do you? Seems a bit thin, doesn't it?"

Spike shrugged, busying himself uneasily with some eggs.

"And consider this," I continued. "Things have changed. The world is chock-a-block with slayers at this stage of the game and nary a Watcher to be had for any of them. The Council is gone, yet the battle continues. You," I waggled a finger at him, "you, for your part, know the habits and vulnerabilities of vampires in all circumstances. No ordinary man could hope to match what you know; you have more than a century of wisdom at your call. You are meant for something, Spike: anointed by fire and death to take up the struggle and tip the scales in favor of the Light. It is fate," I told him. "It is destiny."

"It's bollocks," muttered Spike.

It was a long moment before he added his apology and he did so with marked ill grace, but I had promises to keep and merely smiled.

****

Time was short. We lost a few minutes at the start: there was a minor hitch when Spike balked at stepping into the glad light of day. He hesitated and scowled in the doorway, trying to conceal his jumping nerves in a manner painful to see. I did my best impersonation of the Oat Boy, gentling him with reassurances and whatnot, and at last Spike's native courage won through. He descended to the sidewalk, rigidly awaited combustion, grinned a bit when it didn't happen, and then we went on.

The first order of business was clothing, obviously. I patted a breast pocket stiff with cards of credit and Spike fell in behind, slogging along in my overlarge loafers like a penurious Dutch peasant.

Right off I knew I was in for a deuce of a time with Spike's moods. He began to drift and out of awareness like thistledown. The spot of tension over breakfast evaporated, and by the time we had gotten him to a store and decently shod he seemed to have forgotten my existence entirely. He took to gazing at the sun-splashed streets with wonder, absorbed in everything but the business in hand, soaking up the gestalt of spring in Omaha with an expression that verged, in my mind, on the disturbed.

I put it down to a kind of jet lag -- dying a holocaust in a furnace of pure charity would take it out of anybody -- and did my best to keep him from stepping into traffic.

Spike delivered a minimum of sarcasm and complaints, at least, in that frame of mind, and stood docile as I piled his arms with shirtings of quality. I for my part hid my anguish at the damage to my wallet -- be it recorded that I spared not my very substance on suiting out Spike. I wanted his appearance to awe from the neckwear down when a certain flight from Cleveland debarked at Epply Field, and did everything short of dipping into payroll to ensure it.

We were laden with needful attire within an hour and heading back when Spike startled me by halting in front of a gaudy window. "Oi, Watcher. Here."

He ducked inside and I met him at the counter, pointing out a tray of baubles to a shopgirl.

"I would have," intoned Spike dreamily, "a single gem of golden topaz, a stone alone and singly fret, upon a slender band of slender silver set --"

"You want a ring?" I asked him, trying hard for the patient tone.

"That one."

"If you insist, but I don't see --"

The shopgirl laid it in his hand, giggling, and I paid.

Once we were on the sidewalk Spike threaded the ring onto a silver chain, for which I had also paid, and held it up.

"It is the color of her hair," he murmured. "A snare to catch the sun. As fair and terrible as an army with banners... "

He sounded absolutely sozzled, like Whitman or Blake or one of those weird poet birds who would fall into ecstasy at the drop of a pin, and it filled me with a dread of things to come. It was clear I had to a tie a can to the mystic blighter, at least as far as fits of rapture were concerned, or my job would be hard indeed.

Watchers are hard men. Watchers are the very dickens when it comes to effacing themselves. Watchers do not lose their heads on street corners and draw undue notice, and Watchers are not known for besotted effusions even in private, so far as I know. Self effacement and cool control are the Watcher bywords, and I realized I needed to take Spike in hand.

"Spike!"

"Mm?"

"Spike, I have a task for you."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" I took a breath, remembering my resolutions to be gentle and patient and all that rot. "Your job," I told him firmly. "You wanted a job. Pull yourself together, Spike -- it's time to go to work."

****

The club was in its customary state of midafternoon chaos, but I managed to steer Spike through the crowd of distraught performers, interviewees and mopper-upers to install him in my office. At least he had shown signs of rousing on the way back -- perhaps it had something to do with being dragged along by the collar of his shockingly expensive new shirt.

"There," I said, shoving the hated laptop at him. "I want you to start digging, Spike. There have to be some hints, somewhere, about what has happened to you. Don't roll your eyes at me, I know you can find your way about. You are not to stir until you find a prophecy or a parchment or a fragment or, well, something. I don't care what -- just find it, Spike. We have four hours."

"What happens in four hours?" asked Spike, beginning to tap at the keys.

"Something you'll like," I told him, devoutly hoping it was true.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where's the new guy? Where's Spike?"

It's always the way with these performers and artistes. They can't stick to the matter in hand. They float like thistledown from one enthusiasm to another, and Zuptya's latest hobby seemed to involve a great deal of interest in Spike.

Jeffries shot a scowl across the club, toward the office door behind which Spike was sequestered. As usual, Zuptya took no notice of Jeffries.

"Is he working tonight?" she persisted.

"He is working *now,* Zuptya, as you should be. Look, Zuptya," I said as to an errant child, "Here is Jeffries, to help with your blocking."

"Hi, Zuptya," said Jeffries.

Zuptya registered his presence at last. "Oh. I guess we better get started, then," she sighed.

Poor Jeffries smiled and off they went.

I was possessed of a strange and lightsome zip, courtesy of my newfound resolutions, and the day's business went forward swiftly. Staff was coaxed back, let go, or hired off the street, gate receipts were recorded with a careful hand, repairmen were called in to do battle with our ruined oven. I buzzed into my tiny office well before the appointed hour, full of beans and buck and ready to make the world a topping stopover for sundered lovers everywhere.

"Ah, Spike. Hard at work, I see. Stout lad. What's the verdict? What did you find?"

Spike looked up with his secondhand soul in his eyes. "I found it," he breathed. "I found the answer."

I nipped forward and peered over his shoulder at the screen of my laptop. Thereupon was a web page of curious design, full of scrolls and illuminated letters, exuding a general air of overwrought and earnest pomposity. "Contemplation," declared the legend at the top, "is a labor of devotion." In one corner there was a species of list or schedule in which the words "work" and "prayer" figured heavily, and the whole was dotted by photos of tonsured fellows puttering about in fields and choir stalls.

"Monks?" I frowned. "Did monks bring you back?"

"What?"

"Monks. Bring you back. Did they?"

Spike shrugged, baffled by the question. "Beats me," he replied. "I sorta got off the track. This is more important. Watcher, this is it -- I know why I'm here. I know what I've got to do."

I was not following. Fogged. The drift was eluding me. "Oh, ah?"

Spike nodded somberly. "I'm going to become a monk," he said.

It took me a moment to stop laughing, but I mastered myself and gave him the stern Watcherly eye. "Spike. We're getting off on the wrong foot entirely. This is no way to commence your training, this bald blowing off of a simple assignment and babbling out the side of your neck. Lesson One: a Watcher is sobriety itself. Put jokes and raillery aside and tell me if you managed to find anything of value."

"I'm not joking, you wanker," scowled Spike. "Sorry. Anyway, this's what I'm supposed to do. See, these monk blokes renounce the world and do penance and whatnot. They mop floors and pull weeds. They devote -- " Spike paged back and began to read directly from the screen: "'They devote their lives to poverty and prayer, earning their bread by humble labor and perfecting themselves by the practice of obedience.' And there you have it. That's the answer."

"Good lord."

Spike tapped the screen. "S'all clear now. I was sent back for a reason, Watcher. This is the payout. This is it."

He was perfectly serious. I felt a stirring of alarm. Clearly Spike was still unsteady on his pins -- resurrection always did rather harsh things to the mental poise of the resurrectee -- and I was uncertain how to proceed. The kid gloves seemed to be indicated yet again.

"Spike," I said gently, "It's rot. Blithering lunacy. You rave, man."

"Why? I'm human now, same as anybody else. And I still got my soul."

"You may have a soul, but you are also a satyr of unconstrained sexual appetite, a stranger to religious feeling of any sort, a practitioner of petty larceny, a rouster, a layabout and an obstinate mule. You'd go mad in a day, you silly yob."

I could tell by Spike's crestfallen expression that I had mislaid the velvet gloves and spoken perhaps a touch too frankly. As it happened, Spike demonstrated his native grit in the face of resistance. He dropped his eyes and muttered stubbornly: "I could learn."

"Put it aside," I told him, my alarm rising by the second. "Leave off this daft blather and get a grip. Life is to be lived, Spike, and *that* is what you are here to do. Besides, I'm training you to be my successor," I added. "To be a Watcher."

"Don't want to be a Watcher."

"Well, no one does at the beginning, but that will pass. Now get up and make yourself presentable. Straighten that collar. Run a comb through your hair. We have an appointment and I want you looking sharp."

Spike complied with ill grace and cast a glance of longing at the laptop as he logged off. "Where? What for? With who?"

I checked my watch. Buffy's plane was due in just under three hours. Despite Spike's dazed, mystical and generally loopy post-revenant affect, I had no confidence that he wouldn't put two and two together if we spent excessive time hanging about the airport. I wouldn't have put it past him to take a runner. Surprise was key: I had to synchronize. My plan was to shoot Spike up to the velvet ropes just as the plane debarked, precipitating a face to face with the woman he adored, and then retire to the wings as True Love cast its mighty spell. I was confident that Buffy's presence alone would turn the trick. I had my money on a few Buffily-generated romantic tears, needless to say, and knew that Spike would melt like wax when he laid eyes upon the damp and cherished visage. All his moral hesitations, fears and babble of monks would evaporate like mist in the face of a little lachrymosity. It was only a matter of getting him into position.

"Clients," I told him. "Persons of quality with an interest in the mystic arts. And then some errands. And perhaps we will look in at a pub..."

"No pubs," replied Spike firmly. "That's over."

Blast the fellow. I had been counting on an assist from John Barleycorn, in aid of rendering Spike susceptible to love's sweet song, but any Watcher worth his badge can improvise, I always say.

"Just as you wish, then," I agreed soothingly. "Now look slippy, there's a good Spike. We have places to be."

****

A Watcher suffers many trials. Life is no day at the beach for Watchers under the best of circumstances. A Watcher perforce develops a high tolerance for stress and irritants and never loses his composure no matter how sorely provoked, but that day I came dashed close.

It was hot. It was humid. It was close. The sun hammered the landscape like an anvil and my company, to turn a phrase, was uncongenial. Despite my lack of endorsement Spike was undeterred in his dreams of habits, hairshirts and breviaries, and eager as dammit to share all he knew. He wearied me mercilessly with tales gleaned from the internet, about the singular beauty of the cloistered life and his motives for seeking the steep path of perfection.

"I need to atone, see," he informed me for the fiftieth time as my miserable car chugged along the byways, belching fumes and sans anything that could be remotely described as air conditioning. "All that penance and tillin' the fields, all that bowing and scraping, that's just the ticket, Rupes. Sort me out for all the evil stuff I did. Balance the scales, maybe; pay the debt. I hear they sleep on straw."

"Ah, straw. That's good."

"And they get up in the middle of the night to chant psalms. And they're veggie, too -- no meat, not even a chicken's foot, unless they're dying."

"Fine, Spike, very fine."

"There's all sorts of 'em," continued Spike. "A big variety to choose from. Gonna give those Zen blokes a closer look, and the Hindus. And the Trappists in Kentucky... they wear wool year round and never talk..."

I blinked the sweat out of my eyes and brought the car to a stop on a leafy residential street. All about us was the glory of high summer, with bees dragging themselves listlessly from one wilted blossom to next, cicadas wheezing and dogs splayed on porches as if they had been shot. I trudged across a wide lawn that sent up waves of heat to rival the sands of the Mojave and Spike trotted at my side, fresh and utterly unaffected, nattering without pause. His silence of the immediate post-oven-exiting era, which had so concerned me, had passed into fond memory.

"They still scourge themselves, some of 'em. Bet that's effective. They make jam, and books, and cheese --"

I leaned tiredly on the bell and in due course a maid hove into view to raise the portcullis. We followed her into the elegant environs of Dunnfair, frequent subject of the Notable Homes Tour and residence of my chief investor, Alfred Dundee. Persons of varied aspect punctuated the layout, sipping at tall drinks and chatting in knots.

"Oh, Mr. Giles!" Mrs. Dundee detached herself from one of the aforementioned clusters and fluttered toward us, trailing chiffon. "I'm ecstatic that you came, Mr. Giles. We haven't even drawn the shades and ectoplasm is manifesting already. I can feel cold phantom fingers tracing their portents over my skin and filling me with a numinous dread of the unseen. It's going to be a perfectly lovely afternoon!"

"Mrs. Dundee, may I present my new assistant, W --"

"Spike," said Spike, sticking out his hand.

"Spike," beamed Mrs. Dundee. "What a pleasure. How did you find yourself in the Midwest, dear?"

"Oh, just got into town after a month or so spent being dead. I was a vampire before, then I got killed in an apocalypse -- but no worries, these things happen, all flesh is as grass, right? Except in my case it was more like charcoal briquettes. It was quick, anyway. I'm human now," concluded Spike. "And a really big target, according to some people."

"Oh, you poor thing," crooned Mrs. Dundee. "What a lot to go through!"

"It's not so bad. Except Rupert here's bent on making me into his sorcerer's apprentice and personal valet. Thinks he can browbeat me 'cause I used to be one of the evil undead. But I'm not having it," confided Spike. "Gonna be a monk. Giles thinks I don't have the stuff, but when I was burning to death on the lip of hell I was steadfast as billy-o, so it's just pettiness to suggest I couldn't hack it as a mendicant friar, don't you think?"

"I think it's an admirable goal! Too few are answering The Call these days. Would you like a mimosa, my dear?"

"Got anything without alcohol?"

It was horrible in its way, watching the two go at it without a second's consideration for form or reticence. I coughed. "Spike. A word, if you please."

I took his elbow and steered him to an alcove, reaching for the trusty old forbearance and calm. "Spike, you seem to be taken by a spirit of candor and while under many circumstances that's laudable, perhaps here and now you could try shutting the deuce up."

"Just tryin' to be truthful, Rupes. My life isn't my own, is it? Just here to fetch and carry and follow orders, and why not? Clean slate, like you said. New leaf and all."

Spike's tone was guileless, but he couldn't hide the burblings of grievance that simmered beneath the surface. Perhaps Spike's fur was up over my failure to embrace the monk scheme, or perhaps it went back a bit farther than that, or perhaps it was just the heat of the day affected him after all; in any case he was making his displeasure felt. I chose, however, to ignore the seething undercurrents and adopt the serene avuncular mask.

"Place the leaf-turning at the bottom of the agenda, old man. All that is required is that you hover attentively and keep your honest gob zipped. Do you think you can handle that?"

"Sure," replied Spike indifferently, but his manner still seemed reminiscent of a member of the Bounty's crew tugging the forelock for Cpt. Bligh, prior to slipping away and counting up musket balls. Resentful, I mean. Evocative of the slow burn.

"We're ready!" announced Mrs. Dundee. "Please, everyone, let's make our way to the solar."

****

Those who know Rupert Giles may well describe him as a sort of keen-eyed jungle cat, a veritable skein of instinct and poise and coiled alertness. R. Giles and vigilance are synonymous in the right circles; Rupert Giles, they'll tell you, is one fellow who lets not down his guard. A watcher's watcher, so to speak. It takes, in short, a threat of no common obscurity to nip up and prong the two fingers into Giles unaware.

Therefore, if I tell you when I walked into the solar and came smack up against the grinning and gnomishly repellent mug of Ethan Rayne that my resulting consternation was extreme, you may take my word to the automatic teller.

My head swam. My mouth may have gaped. A gurgle or two may have escaped my stunned and bloodless lips.

"Hullo, Ripper," smirked the reptilian and repulsive bounder Rayne.

"What are you doing here?" I managed to whisper. "You --! They --! It --!"

"Oh, you know how it is, Rip. The just desserts ain't been invented that can keep old Ethan -- why, hullo." Ethan broke off to acknowledge Spike, who had just parked himself to starboard. "Greetings. Name's Rayne."

"Spike's mine. Just got into town after a month or so spent being d -- Oi!"

I elbowed Spike in the brisket and hauled him away without ceremony. My mind was racing. Where had Rayne been when Spike decanted his life's tale to Mrs. Dundee? Had Rayne overheard him? It was beyond the reach of the chance's most freakish mutations that Ethan Rayne would simply bob up here, of all places. What new evil was on foot? Was Spike already compromised?

"Quit pullin' at me," Spike growled.

"We have to get out of here, now," I panted, manhandling Spike, who cooperated not at all, out through the parlor and toward the front door. "That man is known to me and when he shows up nothing good follows. Do you remember the Fyarl incident? That was the very blighter! For God's sake, move!"

I cast a look back and caught a glimpse of Rayne standing amidst the throng. He gave me a nod and an ugly grin that sent chills coursing from my collar to my toenails.

Then Mrs. Dundee was between us, chirping with dismay. "Mr. Giles! Mr. Giles, you're not leaving?"

"Sorry, something's come up. Must dash," I grunted, shoving Spike ahead of me.

"Oh, what a pity," clucked Mrs. Dundee. "Do call when you are free."

I got the door open and froze. The sun was gone. The grounds were shrouded in darkness and the air was heavy and still. The menacing clouds seemed to boil overhead, turning the dome of the sky into witch's cauldron of bubbling green.

Spike stared, slackjawed. "What the hell --? Sorry, I mean, what the f --"

A low, dreadful sound reached us. It rose in pitch and volume, rose in urgency, rose in a terrible atonal scream to be joined by others from every quarter of the city. In an instant we were surrounded by a howling cacophony of alarm, ringing through the treetops, raising the hackles on my neck.

"There go the sirens," said Mrs. Dundee composedly, turning to address her guests. "Tornado, everyone! Grab your drinks and join me in the basement, won't you?"

****

An evil wind was tossing the distant treetops. Hail began to pelt the earth, smoking where it lay. A bolt of blue lightning split the sky from pole to pole and the thunder that followed was like a blow from Titan's fist -- in all, a thoroughly hearty display of Nature's unbound fury that would send any creature with functional legs hotfooting it for shelter.

Spike looked at me. I looked at Spike. We were two minds united by a single thought, more or less.

"Don't like basements," said Spike.

"We're getting out of here," I replied.

We plunged out into the rising tempest and staggered across the lawn, which felt, in that hour, like the widest and most dishearteningly uncrossable lawn in the history of landscaping. The hail assumed the proportion of golf balls, then cricket balls, then watermelons. Car alarms began to whoop and we reached the street just in time to see a massive tree limb crush my poor Saab like a Post-it note.

I pointed and tried to yell: "Down there!" but got a mouthful of needle sharp rain for my trouble. Spike seemed to understand anyway. We staggered for some low ground adjoining the residential golf course, avoiding trees, blinded by the staccato flashes that tore the sky. Amid much slippage and undignified sliding we fetched up in a ditch of sorts, lashed by whipping reeds.

It is hardly my purpose in this document to criticise The United States of America. Heaven knows the place has much to recommend it, if one is in a congenial mood and warmed by as much liquor as is helpful. I have enjoyed fond ties to many Americans, and their aw-shucks informality can be endearing even to one who cannot reciprocate. But for the love of everything holy, must the place be so damned excessive in every way? Can't even the weather show a bit of restraint? The biblical wrath that fell upon Spike and I as we floundered in a ditch by the 18th hole surpasses my power to describe. It would have put Durer's silverplate engravings to shame. Blind, choking, expecting at any instant to fry as lances of pure electrical discharge smoked the green and sent nearby transformers into explosive oblivion, I had to ask myself why I was not at home where I belonged.

"Damned boring, this!" I shouted.

"Oh, I dunno!" Spike yelled.

"The Tunguska Blast knocked this sideways, you know!"

"That was better, yeah!"

Like someone flipping a switch on a soundstage, the wind dropped and died. I don't know how to say this without exposing myself to the charge of narrative hyperbole, but in that moment of charged stillness I heard the earth groan.

"God," whispered Spike. "Here it comes."

The layer of cloudcover became luminous. It collapsed upon itself and began to descend like water swirling into a drain. Then I realized, to my considerable dismay, that for all intents and purposes we were sitting at the bottom of the drain. The twisting tongue of tormented precipitation that mocked water's natural descent was descending right jolly well upon us, and I grabbed Spike and emitted what might not be unfairly described as a yelp of terror.

"Time to go!" I hollered, though I hadn't the faintest idea where.

And do you know, he fought me. He threw me off. That barmy git pushed me away and craned his neck to the horrible spectacle, fighting me when I got an arm around him.

"It's alive," he groaned. "It's alive!"

I enjoined him in the strongest language at my disposal not to be an ass and come away. His response was to twist under my grip and send me sprawling and small thanks with it, frankly. The ungrateful idiot raised his arms and burst into flames rather, which made me happy in balance that he had eschewed my assistance.

I won a scripture prize once, for recounting without error the tale of Moses and the burning bush. If you know the scenario you will have a frame of reference for what I saw next. Spike burned like fun but was not consumed. The flame I had seen about his hand on his first nightover enveloped his whole frame smartly, but the lad himself stood firm and took no hurt therefrom. And above him was a pillar of smoke, a tunnel to the stratosphere, lanced by lightning and littered with tractors, mailboxes and cats.

And then it was gone, all of it. Spike reeled and the mighty column passed on. The eldritch fires, as it were, vanished. We were left simply a pair of dolts panting on a golf course and I congratulated myself, fool that I was, that the worst was over.

It's funny how wrong you can be about things like that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Bloody h- heck! F-f-feck me! Sink me! Hang me! Wow!"

Spike was in a species of happy lather quite new to my experience. He was over something of a verbal barrel in that he was attempting to vocalize wild enthusiasm without recourse to blue language. Under other circs I would have found the spectacle fascinating but as it was -- what with the recent and keenly-felt loss of my auto, the brush with gory

doom on a golf course and the thumping wretchedness of walking forty blocks in a monsoon -- I mostly wished he would quit trying.

"Did you see it? Did you mark that thing, Watcher? Cor! Whoo! Yoicks!"

The downpour continued respectably torrential. I squelched onward doggedly, wiping my glasses from time to time to no very great effect.

"I saw it, Spike," I informed him. "As near as I ever wish to. Dangerous things, tornados, very. Also known as twisters hereabouts, by the way. Formed by the collision of hot and cold air masses in an area of low --"

"It was alive! It was alive, I saw it!" whooped Spike. "Frelling farging heck! Let's go find another. I bet I could get real good at chasing those bug- er, those bast- ... er, at chasing them off. I catch fire around them, did you see?"

"I noticed."

"They don't like that. They tuck tail and scarper! I'm gonna go scare up another one. Coming?"

By this time we were limping downtown -- or rather, I was limping and Spike was cavorting through the rain like Gene Kelly.

"Some other day. Spike!" I called sharply. "Get back here! We have things to do."

Spike halted reluctantly and fell into step at my side. "Oh, yeah, errands. Forgot. Oh, well -- there's more where that came from. I can feel it," he added happily.

I was thinking hard. "This tendency to combust, Spike..."

"Hm?"

"The conflagrations, man. The bursting into flames. To what do you attribute it?"

Spike leapt over a rushing storm gutter. "Oh, this and that. Maybe it's my thing now. It certainly was before I got hauled back down here, thanks very much."

I shot him a glance, startled by his tone.

Spike ducked his head. "Sorry," he muttered, as though speaking to someone else. "Look, Watcher, it's not that I got any objections to the adorable fiat of Eternal Wisdom -- who am I to question that- but I kinda been missing it, being consumed in a blazing nimbus of light and charity and all. I recommend it to everybody. If you ever get the chance, Watcher, don't miss out."

"I'm content to take your word for it," I replied, wiping the rain from my eyes.

"And what do you know," continued Spike, "it puts demons to flight, just like they said on that site about St. Eugenia the Astonishing. A sort of added bonus, maybe."

Once again I found Spike's train of thought opaque. "Eugenia the Astonishing?"

"This hermitess bird who lived in a wall. In three pieces, in response to the schism at Avignon."

"What was in three pieces?" I felt it best not to get lost at the critical early stages of whatever the dickens it was we were discussing. "The schism? The demons? The wall?"

"The lass herself. Her head was here, her torso there. Her legs would be off on their own. Can't have been much fun, you know, but she kept it up for yonks. I call that guts, myself," said Spike sincerely. "Anyway, in betweentimes she'd catch fire -- just go foof every time they lugged in a possessed guy for a checkup. And the demon would beat it in a hurry, because demons abhor immolated souls, can't stick 'em at any price. So there you are."

"And you have an immolated soul," I murmured, mentally round-filing the pious argle-bargle about Eugenia and focusing on what I had seen firsthand while cowering in my ditch. "Yes. Of course. The way you - ended, in the Hellmouth. The remarkable circumstances of your return. Clearly you've received the gift of powers rich and strange as a reward for your heroic --"

Spike threw up his hands and shied at the implied praise. "Oi! Hold on. Don't go using the H word, Watcher, and trying to turn my head. In another minute you'll be calling me a Champion and then I'll have to puke on your shoes."

"But surely such a selfless --"

"Do they always have this kind of rain?" interrupted Spike. "This place is wetter than the Malay coast. Not that it's a bad thing, but --"

I decided to let it go. "Spike, all of this begs the question of why a tornado, a simple if violent meteorological phenomenon, should reveal itself to you as a demon. Why hasn't anybody noticed this before?"

"Beats me. It's as plain as day. Holy sh.. holy cats, Watcher, you mean you really couldn't see it?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"Takes all kinds to make a world, I guess," shrugged Spike.

When we turned the corner I saw that the plastic letters had been blown slap off the club's marquee. They littered the street, inarticulate and forlorn. Predictably, the downpour shut itself off just as we reached shelter.

"Don fresh attire," I told Spike as I wrestled my keys out of the warped and resisting stage door. "I've got to fetch something upstairs."

Spike turned. "Watcher. Do you think they'll let me chase tornado demons when I'm a monk?"

"I very much doubt it."

"Not really the thing for monks, is it?"

"No."

Spike nodded sadly. "Gotta renounce it, then. Give it up, do without, toe the line -- that's the program from here on." He looked at me. "But maybe we can flush a few before I leave?"

"Hopefully. Go change your clothes, Spike."

"Mr. Giles!" Jeffries emerged from the back room, giving Spike a dark look as he passed. "Mr. Giles, there's a problem with tonight's show!"

"You don't say. You astound me, Jeffries."

"Please listen to me, sir," said Jeffries rapidly. "A producer was just here. One of those sleazy jerks, all hat and no cattle, you know the type. He walked in five minutes after the storm passed and made a beeline for Zuptya. The guy was totally on the make and she fell for it. They left to look at her glossies! Her glossies! You know how she is about her glossies! She'll never be back in time for curtain!"

"Jeffries, the streets are deserted. Perhaps we should cancel tonight's performance," I sighed.

"The show must go on! We need to find Zuptya! That man's a player, sir, or I'm Drew Barrymore!" Jeffries danced in panic. "Mr. Giles, please. Help. Hold the fort here, sir, and I'll go to her apartment."

"Not so, Jeffries, not so. I'll be needing your car for the airport."

"I'll walk! I'll run!"

One could only feel compassion for a tosser so obviously unstrung by love. "Jeffries," I said kindly, "Fear not. Zuptya is a professional and perfectly capable of fending for herself. Ring up that understudy fellow with the enormous head and tell him to stand by. Proceed with tonight's show as scheduled. Be calm, Jeffries. If Zuptya misses the curtain I'll simply sack her."

"No!" cried Jeffries, aghast. "Have mercy, Mr. Giles!"

What could I do? Rupert Giles is a stern man, but he is not made of ice. He is not deaf to supplication, and when circumstances indicate he droppeth like the gentle rain upon the place beneath as well as the next fellow. I relented and gave Jeffries leave to sort things out as he saw fit.

And it felt good, I have say. I had been trying to learn the knack of sharing authority in a pinch -- delegating, I believe they call it. Training up the loyal aide. Letting him walk the gangplank without interference and develop the skills of command, with an eye toward the glad day when he would have a staff of his own to aggravate him to the point of aneurysm. Mentorship. The passing of the jolly baton. The circle of life.

"Carry on, Jeffries," I said, weighing anchor for the back stairs.

My flat was sweltering. The tiny crawlspace above the hallway, into which I inserted myself at the cost of considerable effort and swearing, could have made a respectable showing as a smelting pit or blast furnace. I inched forward on my belly among the dusty insulation, blind with sweat.

A moment's groping enabled me to retrieve my locked box of arcana. Cursory spells opened it, cursory spells closed it again, and in a trice I was climbing back down the little folding ladder with the Cylinder of Japhut in my hand.

Then I nipped into the shower for a quick sluice. A Watcher must be prepared, but a Watcher must be tidy, too.

****

Dash all Spikes. I entered the office to find him back at the rotten computer, still clad in his sodden togs, tapping industriously away.

I checked my watch with ill-concealed irritation. We were already late. "Spike, for God's sake, can't you follow the simplest instructions?"

"In a minute," muttered Spike. "This is important. I'm making a list."

"A list of what?"

"Pros and cons. Wait, stop, it's private --"

I pulled the laptop away and squinted at the screen.

PRO:

Hard life. Self-denial. Fair shot at saving soul. Salutary humiliations 24/7. PENANCE! No access to tobacco. Already up on Latin. Ringing bells good for biceps.

CON:

No tornado chasing.

I gave Spike a cool eye. "It seems to me, Spike, that you left the vow of obedience out of the CON column."

"Oh, that'll be a skate. The Abbot guy says: Oi, Brother Spike, make a few wheels of cheese. So I make a few wheels of cheese. How hard can it be?"

"What about chastity, eh?"

Spike looked offended. "You may not have been paying attention, Watcher, but I ground base nature under my heel those last few months in Sunnydale. Rose above it. Translated the shagging impulse into something stronger, purer, more effulg--"

Spike stopped and went white as an egg. He was staring past me at the office door, jaw hanging. I turned in alarm.

Buffy dropped her carry-on bag in the doorway and shrieked to split the ceiling plaster. "Spike! Spike!"

Spike gaped at her.

"Spike!"

"B-b-b-" he stammered.

Buffy charged him, tears coursing down her cheeks. At the last instant Spike stumbled to his feet, opening his arms in a stunned manner, and they collided in a fierce embrace.

"Oh, I'll kill you for not calling me sooner!" sobbed Buffy rapturously, covering his face with frantic little kisses. "I can't believe you're alive! How did it happen? God, I missed you so much!

Spike! Oh, Spike!"

Spike suffered this tender assault like a man paralyzed. He seemed slow to wrap his mind around the march of events. He gazed at Buffy as if she were some sort of phantasm or figment from an ecstatic dream, his throat working without sound.

Buffy buried herself against his chest and sobbed. Her hands kneaded the motionless arms that held her. "Oh, God," she groaned. "Spike. You're here, it's you. I missed you so much. Oh, Spike."

Spike raised shaking fingers to her cheek. Buffy lifted her streaming eyes to his.

"Buffy," said Spike faintly. "Buffy."

****

In due course they desired to be alone -- and not before I was ready, for the air in the room was positively clotted with fevered declarations and treacly endearments. I endorsed the suggestion (not that I was heard) and waved a benign good evening (not that they noticed). The besotted turtledoves linked arms and toddled off for the riverfront, billing and cooing the while. I closed the door and sat down to work.

I was suffused, as they say, with a whackingly broad sense of well-being. May have whistled a note or two. Certainly shuffled papers for a moment with a decided jauntiness. I remember distinctly leaning back in my chair and grinning at the ceiling, for that was my position when the phone rang.

"This is Rupert Giles," I sang merrily, for my cup was more or less running over.

"Giles, it's Buffy."

I froze.

"We had to land in Iowa because of the storm. I'm gonna rent a car and drive in. Giles? Giles?"

The phone clattered off the desk and onto the floor as I surged to my feet. I raced through the club knocking chairs, tables and cook's assistants aside, but when I reached the street they were already gone.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

What on earth, I have often been compelled to wonder, makes people so bloody thick? If you were strolling the streets of an evening, taking the air or whatever it is lures strollers to get out and about, it stands to reason you might notice your surroundings a bit, don't you think? Isn't that why people do it? Doesn't it seem that if you were chugging down the avenue and two absurdly good-looking young persons of the blondish persuasion hove alongside warbling, smooching or otherwise making their fervent mutual devotion plain, don't you think you'd notice?

But no one had. No one I stopped had seen a pair to match the description. True, I might have been somewhat affected by the urgency and stress of the situation and not entirely lucid in my inquires. I might possibly have come across as a babbling loon. Difficult to say: recollection of that desperate search is mercifully hazy. In all events I got no aid from keen eyed standers-by and had to continue the frantic old quest solo.

"Spike!" I shouted, forsaking the low public profile to which a Watcher clings in all but the direst circs. "Spike!"

It was no good yodeling for Buffy. Buffy was separated from her resurrected admirer by half a corn-choked Midwestern state. And that, alas, was the best part of the whole balled up mess -- the blame for which lay smack on the doorstep of R. Giles, sorry excuse for a Watcher that he was.

Poor Spike. One had to pity the miserable devil. He was like one of those unfortunate chappies in ancient Greece, really, who couldn't catch a break to save their lives. Spike, card-carrying world saver, who had earned his just repose, shot out of heaven and plunked down into the care of possibly the most careless and incompetent Watcher in the history of supernatural observation. Poor Spike, who had asked only to die for love and was now, thanks to my blundering, in the lion's den pitching his best woo at an impostor with undoubtedly sinister aims.

I raced into and out of cafes, scanning the merry throng. A thousand anguished questions unspooled in my fevered brain. Was there any hope? Was I too late? Was Spike even now stopping a cement-filled sock with his skull, in prep for a journey to some hell dimension in a rolled carpet?

I nipped round a corner and lo, they were before me, nose to nose at the railing by the river's edge. "Spike!" I yelped. "Stop! Hold! Stay your hand! Spike!"

Spike and the Pseudo-Buffy released each other. Spike looked irritated. The Psuedo-Buffy looked alarmed. I staggered the last few steps and clutched at the railing for support.

"Zuptya," I panted, as the need for oxygen reasserted itself and bent me nearly double, "You're fired."

"Eeek!" cried Zuptya.

Zuptya, it must be said, possessed no flair for the cloak and dagger game at all. Someone else pulling a Mata-Hari might have tried to brazen the thing out or throw herself in the river or draw a revolver: Zuptya simply burst into tears and resumed her own features.

"F-f-fired?"

Spike retreated a stunned step or two, a series of expressions chasing themselves across his face, with Bitter Comprehension taking the honors and Heartbreak coming in a close second.

"Yes, fired," I told Zuptya. "And if you don't want something worse, tell me who put you up to this."

"It was just an audition!" wept Zuptya. "I just wanted a gig! That guy said that if I was convincing he'd make me a star."

I grasped her by the shoulders. "Who was it? What did he want?"

"Might have known," Spike muttered dully, to neither of us. "I should have known..."

"Some producer guy. I just had to get Spike back to my place, without, you know, dropping character. The guy gave me pictures, told me what to say. He's waiting there right now."

I had heard enough. "Spike!"

Spike didn't move. He was staring at the moon-kissed currents of the wide Missouri, the entire set of his jib wilted and forlorn.

"Spike! Spike, don't you see it? This is a trap, man."

Spike nodded absently.

"Zuptya." I shook her. "Take my advice and get out of town. You've gotten mixed up with a very bad lot and if you go home, now or ever, I can promise you'll regret it."

"Ayii! Seriously?"

"Damned seriously. Run!"

Zuptya squealed and made off into the shadows. Spike listened to her high heels clatter and fade, then shook his head sadly. "I should have known it wasn't her."

I turned to Spike and attached him by the collar. "Spike, we are leaving. You are in extreme danger. The knives are well and truly out now, as this incident clearly demonstrates. If I do not miss my guess, that so-called producer was Ethan Rayne, a black warlock famously unburdened by ethics, caution or common sense. If he's after you God knows what the harvest will be. We have no time to lose."

Spike appeared indifferent. Listless. As one to whom the bright panoply of life had been revealed as a hollow sham no longer worthy of interest. There seemed no point in trying to reach him with measured argument and I didn't try. Spike needed a firm hand, not therapy.

He suffered himself to be led as I waved, danced and generally humiliated myself in quest of speedy transportation. Flagging a cab -- an optimistic undertaking in any city -- soon showed itself poignantly hopeless in the teeming throng of Omaha's riverfront on a Saturday night.

"Damn his eyes! He drove right by us, Spike! Did you see?"

Spike shrugged.

"Perhaps we can rent an auto. Who rents autos in this infuriating town, I wonder..."

Spike heaved a sigh. "What's the point," he muttered.

"Because we need to warn Buffy, you git."

I had thought that might elicit a spark, and it did.

"Buffy?"

"She is on her way, Spike, at this very hour."

"Why?"

"Why? Why? To see you, you idiot! I have summoned her into a trap!"

"You told her?"

I hustled Spike into a shambling trot, still waving at passing hacks. "Of course I told her! You did not see her after the Hellmouth, Spike. The poor girl was inconsolable. Stern and self-controlled, yes, and lovely in her grief, but crushed withal: a shell, a specter."

Spike blinked. "Buffy? A specter?"

"Absolutely a specter."

"Over me?"

"None other. She mourned you to the skies, Spike, in her way. She lost her last bit of zing when you died and has been surviving -- if you can call it that -- on will alone ever since."

Spike shook his head. "That isn't right. Not over me. It wasn't supposed to make her sad."

"Well, it jolly well did. God help us if you get killed again, at this time of day. It'll finish her."

"No!" exclaimed Spike in dawning horror. "Not that, never that! What are we going to do?"

I was spared the necessity of confessing I hadn't a clue by a battered sedan veering out of traffic and homing for us like a torpedo. I knocked Spike aside. Tires screeched as the vehicle braked to a messy halt at the curb.

"Get in," barked Jeffries, gunning the engine.

"They're right behind us!" added Zuptya, at his side.

****

You can never see too much of the rural countryside, that's my opinion. I make a point of it in all travels. Of course one sees precious little while blazing down backroads in the middle of the night with hell at one's heels, but into each life some rain must fall, I suppose.

Jeffries was no very bad drains as a driver, be it recorded. Once we slipped the surly bonds of Omaha and reached the wide spaces he positively sent up smoke. He put our pursuers well back with a turn of speed that left my secret insides a quivering jelly, and lost them altogether with a sprightly detour through a previously neat bean field.

The soft summer night whizzed by. The stars smiled from their lofty thrones. The engine whined.

"Who has a phone? We need Buffy," I opined.

"Leave Buffy out of it," retorted Spike. "We have to lead those tossers away from her. Point this thing at Canada, Jeffries."

"Let's table that Canada notion for the moment, Spike," said Jeffries calmly. "I have no phone, no idea where we are and no clue what's going on. So much for me. Zuppy, are you celled up?"

"Nope."

"I guess we need to look for a station or a farmhouse, then."

"Nobody's calling Buffy," insisted Spike. "No Buffy in the equation. No."

Zuptya leaned through the gap between seats. "I'm sorry I tried to seduce you," she told Spike. "With the pretending to be your lost love and stuff. I just really wanted a feature role and besides, you're a muffin."

The car swerved, almost putting Zuptya into Jeffries' lap.

"Hey! Watch the road!" she squealed.

"My looks are getting to be a sore point," Spike confessed. "To be honest I wish I were a bloody toad. My looks have never brought me anything but trouble -- I died in an alley because of my charming face, you know."

"How awful!" clucked Zuptya.

A sign reading: Bendy Crutch -- Pop. 42 zinged past, but of houses, shops or civilization I saw no trace.

"It's dead awful to be this handsome," lamented Spike, displaying all the signs of a lad getting thoroughly worked up. "Buffy only gave me the time of day because of my looks. She used me, and I was glad to be used, but that's all it ever was."

"You poor thing," crooned Zuptya.

I felt it my duty to lodge an objection. "You wrong her, Spike. Buffy's had a change of heart. She's enshrined you in her deeps and so forth."

"Bollocks. I'm onto you, Watcher. You manipulative bugger, telling the lovesick blouse a pack of lies to motivate him into the car and out of harm's way. Fine, you did your stupid job. And call her if you want, what do I care. Just warn her somehow and we can have the obligatory sodding awkward reunion and then I'll sod off to the sodding monastery, right?"

"Language," I chided.

"You can take language and pound it up your arse. You're not my boss. I'm completely fed with you and your guilt and your orders and your godawful peahen fussing. Go repent all over somebody else, you wanker."

"Guys," said Zuptya uneasily. "Don't fight, okay?"

Spike waved her off. "Just trying to put the duffer wise, Pumpkin. Rupert here seems to think that he put a big black hole in the center of my unlife by treating me like shite when I was a vampire, see. Seems to be laboring under the delusion that the best way to atone for hurting my feelings, back in the day, is to make me his cabin boy. What he can't get through his fat head is that I didn't give a fuck then and don't give a fuck now. I couldn't care less."

"If you are insensible of the honor I do you," I sputtered, "That's your loss. The path of the Watcher --"

"I had things going on, you know? Life was full. There I was, trying to win the heart of the woman I adored. Getting a soul. Saving the bleeding world in a whacking great bonfire of agony and upright intentions. The good opinion of Mr. Pitiful Tight Ass Rupert Giles, C.O.W., was at the bottom of a very long list, believe me. And I've tossed the list anyway," added Spike. "I'm paid in full and squared away proper. I did my bit. My agenda's my own now."

"Very commendable," I sniffed. "Classic. William the Bloody returns from eternity singing the same wretched tune. Go thou and look out for Number One, Spike, as always."

"I DON'T WANT TO BE A SODDING WATCHER!" roared Spike.

"Keep it down," grated Jeffries, peering at the driver's rearview mirror. "I'm trying to concentrate. I think we've reaquired our tail."

"Stop the car," snapped Spike. "I'll give them a fucking tail, I will. I'm sick of this running crap. Stop the car."

"No, don't!" cried Zuptya. "Keep going, Jeff-baby!"

I tried to interject a note of command. "Jeffries, accelerate. Spike, for pity's sake calm down. Zuptya, stop that infernal writhing, you'll distract Jeffries. Keep your heads, everyone. We're not cornered yet."

"Nothing wrong with corners," muttered Spike. "I do my best work in corners."

Lightning seared our collective retinae, illuminating a massive wall cloud at 12 o'clock. What made this particularly problematic was the accessory to said cloud, an evil wedge-shaped funnel ploughing the world and heading straight for us.

Jeffries hit the brakes. The car nosed into a patch of corn. An unholy roar filled the air.

"Right!" shouted Spike, popping the door and tumbling out. "High fucking time."

Cornstalks whipped and swayed. Jeffries pushed Zuptya down under the dash. I fought myself out of the car and staggered after Spike. A pair of headlights caught him in profile and he raised both fists, grinning. He appeared to shout defiance. The headlights drew closer.

The wind became punishing. I lost my footing and all track of events for a moment or two, and when my sight cleared the wind had died. There was only silence in the world, a hushed, breathless calm.

Two figures knelt in the littered road among the broken cornstalks, wrapped in each other's arms. They spoke not, nor did they move.

I gave them a discreet moment or two, then cleared my throat. "Buffy, my dear. Bit of a blow, wasn't it? Are you all right? Spike, anything missing?"

They didn't answer. They betrayed no consciousness of my presence at all. It seemed only decent to give them another moment or two or three, so I went to check on Jeffries and Zuptya.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You've heard of Schopenhauer? Pouty tosser, very, or so I thought back in the heady days of vandalizing the East End. Poor Schopenhauer, clearly unable to get a leg over anything, forever on about how life was a cruel parody of death, or something in that line, and how the smart money was on anticipating the process and slapping an asp to the jugular. Once upon a time I had no use for the fellow at all - too much like my old governor altogether. But it's funny how experience alters perspective and mellows the reactionary prejudice of youth. Didn't Schopenhauer boost for the modesty of lovers? Shame came into it somewhere, I'm not sure why, but any rate he was clearly supportive of couples getting a room, if you follow me, and didn't hold with public displays of affection. And as I lay panting under the axle of Jeffries' sedan and watched another gout of flame pierce the Iowan sky, I was obliged to admit the man had a point.

Where was nature's sheltering veil when you really wanted it, I had to ask myself. Didn't somebody write a poem about the subject, something about all creation conspiring to conceal the Lovers' blushing pride from human envy and prying eyes?

The rain to the wind said, "You something and I'll something, too" They so smote the garden bed That the flowers actually, I forget, And lay lodged, I think, on something else.

Perhaps that's the wrong one. At any rate, if you want conspiracy to conceal, strike nature from your list. Nature's sheltering veil was a bust that night in the cornfield. A reasonably blinding pillar of fire rose at intervals from amid the trembling rows, and one would have to be considerably dimmer than the dimmest brick not to infer what was going forward with Spike and Buffy.

"What *is* that?" asked Zuptya, peering.

"Agricultural burn," smirked Jeffries. "Give me a hand over here, Mr. Giles." We had high-centered between a ditch of sorts and a tussock of some description, and getting the sedan free was proving jolly Herculean. Much business having to do with crawling under chassis and wriggling among clods like the base worm was involved, and I began to think that love was all very well, but the assistance of a Slayer and a newly promoted demiurge would not be ill-applied in the circumstances.

"Buffy!" I called, with perhaps a touch of sharpness. "Spike!"

The secret night answered not, except that somewhere to the left a stand of corn shivered, bent, and combusted.

"Spike!" I shouted. "Buffy! You've... you've said hello, and time passes. We have a disabled auto. Minions of darkness seek us even now. The fate of --"

To my astonishment the stalks parted and Spike and Buffy appeared in the glow of the headlights, entwined like a pair of smitten boas on a pharaoh's miter. Little tongues of flame darted about their clingy persons in a manner quite embarrassing to behold.

I indicated our marooned vehicle. "Stuck," I informed them succinctly.

Buffy regarded me, the sedan, me, the sedan again, and then turned her dazed eyes upon Spike. "There's a problem with the car, Spike."

"Before God I worship you," breathed Spike by way of answer.

"Tell me this is real," sighed Buffy, abandoning the subject of cars.

Spike chose to reassure her with his lips and another awkward interval followed as they sought to become mutually certain. The world lost a few more ears of corn.

"About the car," I said, coughing.

Spike broke the kiss. "I cherish and adore you. I live and die in you. I love you like the rain, Buffy, like the rain."

"I love you like the rain too," testified Buffy moistly.

"Oh, God! Say it again! No, stop, don't!" Spike's mental equilibrium seemed rather loose on the spindle, but his face was incandescent with devotion. "You don't have to say that, it doesn't matter. Oh, Buffy, my seraph, my light, my all. Just let me serve you. Let me wait upon your word and tremble at your smile. Let me... let me... do errands, water your lawn, fix your telly..."

"You can do errands if you want, but I'll still love you," smiled Buffy.

"Buffy," vowed Spike, "I am your possession. I am in your hands. Tell me I am yours."

Buffy kissed his nose. "You first."

"Buffy!"

This ghastly avalanche of romantic rot was capped by another sheaf of

flame, which sprang from the earth and enfolded the lip-smacking pair like a glowing sail.

"Wow!" squeaked Zuptya.

"I guess we're on our own with the car," shrugged Jeffries.

Buffy's voice floated out of the soft roar of their private inferno. "I have a car someplace..."

"Blew away, sorry," came Spike's disembodied reply.

"Rental..."

"Forgive me..."

"I forgive you..."

"Oh, God, say it again..."

"There simply must be a service station around here," I said, turning away.

****

Our traipse through the stygian darkness of rural route 6 was assisted, at intervals, by the fitful sparking of Spike and Buffy, who mastered themselves sufficiently to try budging the car, and failing that, to toddle along. Following at a distance that failed to prevent a continuous stream of amorous flapdoodle from reaching our weary ears, Buffy and Spike sent long shadows jumping before our feet, illuminating the asphalt like a pair of besotted strobes.

It was dashed hard on the eyes but my mood improved with every step. Certainly we all remained in mortal danger from foes unknown with no real plan except blind flight, but I couldn't quash the topping glow that comes of seeing the face of Duty when she is satisfied. My chief aim had been achieved. Buffy and Spike were stuck to one another like plasters and Love had bridged the inky void of Death. Spike and I were square, or near it. Moreover I felt certain that the Watcherly succession had been assured -- there's nothing like burning an acre or so of corn to render a lad amenable to guidance re: career options. All in all, the checklist was in fine shape.

At length we encountered a crossroads and two buildings thereat: one, a roadhouse of dilapidated and uncertain appeal and across from it a simple home -- dark but for a string of Christmas lights illuminating the legend Mend Your Ways or Count Your Days painted large on the clapboards facing the tavern. Some tension with zoning laws, I surmised.

For reasons that had nothing to do with alcohol I directed our steps to the roadhouse and ushered my flock inside. A paucity of seating obtained in the cafe section of the establishment, which consisted of two occupied booths and a table scarcely large enough to support a shot glass. Perforce we made for the bar.

Zuptya and Jeffries slumped amid the coasters and waved for aid. Spike and Buffy exiled themselves to the far end, near the phone. I ordered a restorative and after rehydrating I proceeded to phase two, the summoning of Stan, of Stan's Towing -- the rescuer dubiously recommended by the bar attendant, with number on napkin complete.

Buffy had hopped onto one of the stools. Spike leaned into her, having apparently found the next stool over an unendurable gap of separation.

"You are my paradise," he told her.

"Your hair is just the same," replied Buffy, combing it with her fingers.

I dropped a coin into the slot, trying not to bring the receiver within contagion distance of my face.

"Do you forgive me for the bot?" murmured Spike.

"I forgive you."

"Do you forgive me for the tower?"

"All the time."

"The eggs. How about the eggs?"

"What eggs?" asked Buffy innocently.

Spike pressed a fevered kiss to her hands.

Distantly, I heard Stan's phone ringing.

Spike raised his head. His voice was calm but I spied a glint of anxiety. "Buffy, I'm human now."

Buffy's smile was radiant. "Yeah, I caught that."

"You don't mind?"

"Mind? Why would I --" Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Why would I mind, Spike?" She asked evenly.

"Well, love, we both know you like a little mon--"

"Don't you two have drinks yet?" I interjected hastily. "Innkeeper! I say, man, two of those frosty tap marvels on this end, sharpish. It's positively nectar, this beer," I told Spike and Buffy, who looked up as though I had dropped from the ceiling.

"Beer?" repeated Buffy blankly.

"Wonderful beer," I lied. "You must be parched, what with all the... burning."

Their gazes slipped from me and met, kindling. I felt the shoal was safely passed.

"You were beautiful when you were dying," whispered Buffy.

"You were more beautiful when I was dying," replied Spike.

"Did it hurt a lot?"

"Don't be silly, precious, not a bit. It was fun."

Buffy's eyes welled. "I left you there alone!"

"I wasn't alone," said Spike solemnly.

They fell to kissing again.

The ringing ceased. The connection engaged with a bump and a muffled curse. "Do you know what goddamn time it is?"

A harsh inquiry to be coming from an independent tradesman, I felt, but I was in no position to be instructive. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Stan?"

"It's -- Christ, it's past one!"

"Indeed it is. Frightfully sorry. But I am calling you as a professional, sir, in the towing line. A bit of a mishap. Car in a ditch, becalmed. We need your aid, Stan, and money is no object."

Money was in fact a great, looming, dire-visaged object, but this was not intelligence I felt compelled to disclose.

"Whadyousay?"

"We need a tow," I clarified.

"A hundred bucks," growled Stan.

"Done," I said, and gave him our location. I hung up the phone and reflected deeply.

"Spike." I tapped him. "Fancy a game of pool?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Spike," I said patiently," If you hope to make any kind of a go at Watching, you simply must show yourself prompt and obedient at the early phase. Draw a line from the downy goslings who trot all in a row, or those Jesuit lads who get tied to planks and tossed into the Bosphorous, yet never, per instruction, get wet."

Spike's only reply was a distracted smile. The distracted smile was for Buffy. I wasn't in the picture.

"Remember when you stopped that sword?" asked Buffy. "And I never said anything? You were hurt for days."

Spike smiled. "Did you know that your lips are like twin roes that graze among the lilies?"

Buffy's lower lip began to wobble. "Your hands got all cut." She caught one up, pressing it to her heart by way of visual aid. "And -- and I never said anything."

"You're not attending," I interjected, for Spike, to judge by his expression, seemed in danger of melting like a worshipful taffy and puddling off his stool onto the floor, "about that game of pool. We must have a bash at it, Spike. That's an order."

"Don't fancy it, thanks."

"You don't need to fancy it, merely obey. I work in mysterious ways my wonders to perform, and this is just a first step to getting us on our road out of this. Take it on faith. I know what I am about. I have spoken. Tempus, as they say, fugits."

"Giles wants something, Spike," supplied Buffy dreamily, lipping -- and only the Council knows what it costs me to record this -- his fingertips.

Spike tilted his head as the effort of thought warred with his trance of adoration. "So he does. Wants to order me about, at this time of day. He's in his dotage, poor bug -- poor man." Spike halted and smiled. "We must be kind to him, Buffy."

"Okay," sighed Buffy.

"Here -" I said.

"Thou," murmured Spike.

"Spike," whispered Buffy.

"Just a moment," I said.

Buffy's eyes spilled over yet again. "I'm sorry I tried to beat you to death by the police station."

"What police station?" asked Spike.

They moved in for the clinch and a bar napkin began to smoke. I snatched at it and smeared it with my shoe, and in the instant of my distraction, Spike and Buffy had fused like silica.

A Watcher is never stymied, and to the state of being thwarted he is a bold stranger. When confronted by a brick wall in the form of two gluey lovers oblivious of heaven, hell and all the combined peril generally attendant thereto, a Watcher of merit merely falls back to sip his vile domestic scotch and ponder.

And thus I did.

"Fudo," grinned a hearty sort of chap in a gruesome Budweiser T, slapping the meaty paw abaft my scotch-bearing shoulder.

"Fudo," I replied, as it seemed the thing to say, while trying not to spill.

I'd observed that these mid-western sorts swung a perfectly frenetic shoe after a faceoff with Mother Nature. It brought out the hedonist in the meekest Lutheran son of the soil, all that brushing with thunder and fire and living to tell the tale, and they ganged together after as a matter of form, to exult in not being in a ditch or several ditches unable to plant any more corn.

Therefore it seemed perfectly sensible that the bar was packing by the minute and that a stranger should salute me like a brother, however obscurely. That was a lapse on my part, I admit.

The fellow with the meaty paw paused, looking pained for me. "No. I am Fudo. Fudo."

"Oh! Sorry!" I offered my hand "Rupert Giles."

Fudo took it, beaming. "I guard the borders of paradise with a flaming sword. I winnow souls like a sieve. My aspect is terrifying, lacerating, combustive and fatal, most of the time."

"Is it really? Well done." I sipped my drink. Over the heads of the gathered I saw the door open and, impossibly, admit more. "Can't be easy for you."

"It has its ups and downs." Fudo glanced past my shoulder and winced. "So that's your boy, hey? Let me buy you a shot."

It seemed perfectly reasonable. One doesn't meet the guardian of paradise every day, and we were waiting for a tow.

"We're waiting for a tow," I told him, several shots later. I had a recollection, as I said it, that I had said it more than once.

Fudo rolled back in his chair, nearly upsetting the tiny table with his considerable thighs. "He'll come. So, what about this shanshu thing? You like it for the long haul?"

I was warmed by his interest. It was delightful to talk shop with someone so keen about the details. The details that everyone else simply ignored, consumed by bad blood, old grudges and foppish romantic minutiae.

"Stubborn," I confided. "Rebel complex. Won't have it if we present it as... as something we... won't cooperate if we..."

I lost the thread and knocked my glass off the table, retrieved it with much effort, and surfaced to see Fudo nodding at me wisely.

"You want a light rein with that one," he said. "More!"

A slender golden hand placed a full shot in front of me. Another slender golden hand -- which confused me because it came from an angle disparate with the angle of the previous golden hand -- placed a frosty bottle of beer next to it. I watched with considerable fascination as several more hands placed scotch and beer before Fudo, testing the tiny table to capacity.

Having done that, I looked up into seven of the most perfectly beautiful feminine faces of which the male mind could conceive and felt it was not strange, somehow, that the bodies beneath them were lumpy and clad in flannel.

"Fudo," said one of them, promptingly, from a pair of ruby lips.

Fudo sighed. "May I introduce my dear friends. Haptya, Naptya, Feal, Jaal, Pour, Dahl and Jhari."

I rose. Only the chair fell. I kept my feet. A Watcher holds his liquor and inserts the canny bon mot that makes him the life of any gathering, under all circumstances.

"Hullo," I said.

"Hi," they responded in freakish unison. "We're unmarried. We work in the dairy industry. Where's Spike?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It has been said, and said truly, that a clear head in dire circs is the measure of a lad. Oft indeed has the cool reasoning of R. Giles been the difference between disaster and the happy conclusion. And as everyone knows, when one has half a dozen or so goddesses oggling one's new Watcherly disciple with all the appreciation of starving greyhounds at a chili feed, quick thinking is essential.

"I believe Spike is having a conversation," I told them diplomatically.

"Not anymore," they replied in chorus, and off they sloped, slavering.

The wise man who noted that the female is a far more lethal edition than the male must have learned in the hard school of supernatural milkmaids: I tell you, they positively chilled the doughty Gilesian blood. Fearing I knew not what fireworks when they got between Spike and Buffy, who were passing the revels glued together like limpets on a rock, I attempted to rise and put myself, as is my wont, in harm's way.

Fudo stopped me with a brawny arm and I found myself sitting once again.

"Not so fast," he said.

"No?" I eyed the tableau unfolding at the end of the bar with considerable suspense. Spike, at two o'clock. Buffy, also at two o'clock, because she was affixed to Spike. And bearing hard on target, a phalanx of flannel-clad sylphs whose expressions told me they were absolutely out for bear and in no frame of mind to accommodate blushing refusals. It put me in mind of those videos that are so popular these days, of the innocuous snowball that precipitates an avalanche, or the odd shivers that presage the collapse of stadium seating.

"So, where is it?" asked Fudo. He tossed his paint-remover back without shifting the regard of his gimlet eye.

"It?" I replied distractedly. "When you refer to Spike, kindly employ a more polite form of address. He is no longer a vampire, having suffered martyrdom and rebirth, and moreover, he is my student, after a fashion."

Fudo glanced back. "I don't get you. That's just Spike."

"Indeed it is. Do you have a previous acquaintance?"

"Fetched him into paradise, in fact. And sat on him until he calmed down, too." Fudo peered. "Spike's not the Phial of Japhet, is he? When did that happen?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but the clamour of angry voices drew my attention. Interaction at the end of the bar was becoming ominous. Buffy was on her feet, glaring and trying to apply the stiff arm to a dairy lass who had managed to drape herself abaft Spike's collarbone. The others had fetched a compass about them like a ravenous cellular wall and they looked to be absorbing Spike in a blink or two.

"Excuse me," I said to Fudo. "I really must --"

"Hey, Spike!" bellowed Fudo, making the bottles behind the bar shiver and clink. The bar fell silent. The lasses in flannel paused in their attentions. Spike looked our way.

"Oi. Fudo," he said, in the sudden quiet.

Fudo beckoned and Spike detached himself from the knot and strolled over. Buffy followed as rearguard, keeping her eyes on Spike's admirers.

"How's it going, Spike?" asked Fudo.

"Not so bad. Getting married," he beamed.

Fudo slapped him with a brisket-sized paw. "That's the stuff, Spike. Didn't steer you wrong, did I?"

"Doesn't look like it. Thanks for the shove."

"Hah! Remember how stunned you were in the crucible of Perfect Joy? That was pretty funny. They're still talking about you, up there."

Spike nodded. "I expect I'll see them again sometime, if I keep my nose clean."

These obscure pleasantries concluded, Fudo grew serious. "Spike, this guy is trying to tell me you're the Phial of Japhet. Did somebody transform you into the Phial of Japhet since you got back, maybe?"

Spike considered. "Don't think so."

"Here," I said.

"I hope you wouldn't lie about that," mused Fudo. "Because I really need to get my hands on that Phial. Since it got stolen my job's been hell. The Gate's down, the Stairways are all mixed up, and it's just a helluva mess from one end of the astral plane to the --"

"Just a moment," I said.

"Hope it's not me, doing that. Could complicate life." Spike turned to Buffy anxiously. "Would you mind if I was a Phial, darling?"

"I don't care about anything now," averred Buffy meltingly, stroking his arm. "Just be Spike."

"Oh! my life. I exist for you, Buffy."

"I exist for you more, Spike."

"Leave here," I told them. "Run."

Fudo rose. "Only one way to sort this out, I guess. Look, Spike, you just close your eyes while I reduce you to your constituent molecules and sift through your vital essence, okay? I'll catch you in one of these," he added, lifting a filmy shot glass, "and we'll put you back together in a decade or two. Ready?"

"Wait," I protested.

"No!" cried Buffy.

"But I'm getting married," said Spike.

"Brace yourself," said Fudo, raising the glass, and everyone biffed into action at once. Buffy threw herself on Spike in a protective manner, and Spike tried to throw her off, also with an emphasis on defending the beloved object, and a bit of self-sacrifical shuffling ensued. I launched myself at Fudo, which was much like trying to bring down a mastodon with his feet planted on the tundra primeval. The ladies of the dairy industry joined the fray, scratching and wailing.

"Oh, pity him, preserve him, spare him, great Fudo!" they shrieked.

"Mr. Giles!" yelled Jeffries, diving in.

"Jeff!" screamed Zuptya, heaving a bottle.

"I have the Phial of Japhet!" I shouted. "Will you listen! Oof! I have the Phial of --"

That's when we lost the roof. It tore away with a shriek and rotated lazily upward into a bloom of light. Radiance suffused the bar, spilling from a vast stairway that opened above us to the highest reaches of heaven. Awesome, very. A hush fell and all combatants froze.

"Come on, Spike," said Fudo, tucking his shirt in. "Don't make a big deal of this. It's not so bad there, remember?"

The lasses in flannel chimed in solemnly, eyes shining. "And we will follow thee to paradise, O Spike, now that we have found thee. We will stay thee with flagons and comfort thee with apples, and thou shalt not want."

"I want to stay here," said Spike dazedly, reaching for Buffy.

"Spike," moaned Buffy.

"Sorry, kids," said Fudo.

"For God's sake, listen," I croaked, fumbling in my breast pocket. "I have it. I've had it since the Fourth Battle of Herebret, the month before last. Look, here's your wretched Phial."

"Ho!" barked Fudo, cottoning on.

"Ho, indeed." I held it up. "The Phial of Japhet, repository of intuition and prism of infused knowledge, and considerably more trouble than it's worth. Take the bloody thing. Take it and clear off."

Fudo stumped over to me and relieved me of it. "How'd you get it? Why's it smaller?"

"Do you really care?"

Fudo shrugged. "Guess not. Easier to lug back, I guess." He turned to Spike and Buffy, who stood entwined under the eerie light, watching him with two sets of stunned blue eyes.

"Sorry about the hassle," said Fudo. "I hope you'll let me come to the wedding."

"No problem," quavered Buffy.

Fudo grinned and threw his arms wide. "It's a date."

He shot up into the light, roaring and yelling, and the brilliant stairway swallowed itself after him. We were left in the darkness of the shattered bar, in the whisper of the summer breeze, with the spangled night smiling down.

I had a very good view of the spangled night, as I'd dropped like loose change and lay sprawled on my back, unable to stir. I watched a sprinkler discharging fitfully as the stunned patrons began to revive. The goddesses approached Spike and Buffy.

"We'll stay," they announced. "Spike's going to need handmaids."

"Hell, no," growled Buffy, brushing them aside.

"You let Zuptya stay!" they protested. "Why does Zuptya get to stay?"

Buffy knelt at my side, ignoring further appeals, and Spike joined her.

"Giles, can you get up?"

"I'm afraid not, my dear."

"Oh, God! Spike, help me."

They carried me into the parking lot and lay me down gently amid the dispersing throng. Buffy cradled me in her lap while Spike ran his hands through his hair and swore under his breath. A short distance away Zuptya was arguing furiously with the goddesses, waving her arms and pointing at Jeffries.

"Giles. Giles." Buffy's face was white and flatteringly distraught. "How many fingers am I holding up? You're not going to die, are you?"

I smiled bravely. "No, hush, no. But I'm afraid I'm going to be quite helpless for a while, sorry to say. Had rather a lot --" I coughed weakly, "-- a lot of my pranic energy invested in keeping the Phial concealed. It was the Hope of the Watchers, you know."

Buffy smoothed my hair. "Giles, it's gonna be okay."

"The rule and spirit of the Watchers," I murmured faintly and with considerable pathos, if I do say it myself. "The history and the Code. I'm all that's left, don't you see, and I have no successor. The world will have few defenders, now or ever again, and eons of darkness will inevitably descend... but I'm glad you're all right, Spike," I wheezed, offering a weak hand. "That's the important thing."

Spike patted my fingertips miserably, his face a marvelous portrait of guilt, sorrow and resolve. "Take it easy, Rupert," he husked. "We'll work something out."

"But I am the last," I groaned, for a Watcher is no Watcher worthy of the name if life hands him lemons and he pulls a bloomer with the lemonade. "I am the last of my kind. I am the last guardian of the Code."

"No, you're not," said Spike firmly. "You're not the last. Just rest now, Rupert, there's a lad."

*****

The tow, needless to say, never came. Zuptya and Jefferies prevailed upon a trucker to grant us passage in the hold of his eighteen wheeler, and Buffy made me reasonably comfortable amongst crates of plastic reindeer bound for New Mexico.

"My sisters are really good with flowers and stuff," Zuptya told Buffy was we jolted along. "Save you a bundle with the wedding."

"Your sisters?" Buffy repeated. "Those things were your sisters?"

Zuptya shrugged. "They aren't so bad, really. They peel a terrific grape and weave garlands to die for. And Spike could use a few handmaids," she added delicately. "You should reconsider."

I cannot seem to recall Buffy's exact reply.

In Santa Fe we hit an ATM and Spike stole a truck when Ethan Rayne and several goons fell upon us an hour later. We careened through the desert to evade pursuit as the sun set in glory, and I have to say that, lingering paralysis notwithstanding, I was feeling fairly chuffed about developments in general.

"You'll behave civilly in Los Angeles," I told Spike, who glowered and nodded and gripped the wheel. "No regressive battles unto death with Angel, no rebellion, no antisocial tantrums."

"Right, Watcher."

"Attention to duty," I insisted. "Strict adherence to the responsibilities of your honorable position. This is a new day, Spike, and I'll see you a heroic, law-abiding defender of the innocent or kill us both trying. Understood?"

"Right, Watcher," repeated Spike, with a woebegone resignation I found profoundly encouraging.

I watched the two towering dust devils that swirled at pillion, escorting us through the wastes. "I'm intrigued by these things, Spike. See how they catch the last rays of crimson, and lift up their heads to praise the eternal. Rather like unto an army with banners, don't you agree?"

"They're useless," grunted Spike. "Did they come when Fudo had the drop on us back in Nebraska? Do they do anything but kick up dust? Who needs it? Piss off, you useless tossers," he called out the window.

"Not so hasty," I advised him. "Perhaps they are an honor guard of sorts, or even benign kami. You know, a sort of perk for having died so gloriously and well in the Hellmouth." I adjusted my glasses with effort. "How was that for you, by the way? You've never supplied many details."

"It was hot," sighed Spike, without marked enthusiam for the turn of subject.

"But you went to paradise after. I'd like to hear more on that, too. Were there fields of Elysium, or banquets for the bravely slain? Or are you sticking to your description of the place as one long delirium of ecstasy?"

"Could, if I was gonna say anything."

"Do you miss it, or do you prefer the temporal heaven of your union with Buffy, despite the hazards and chances of this inhospitable world?"

"Watcher," asked Spike piteously, "do we have to do all this talking?"

"It's for posterity."

"Don't fancy it."

"You're a Watcher in training. What you fancy is henceforth immaterial. Tell me about getting that soul."

Spike may have obliged me, or not. I'm afraid I nodded off. When we stopped in Tempe I found the strength to ask for a notepad, which Spike and Buffy obediently procured, along with a camp lantern and a packet of pens.

"Don't tire yourself out," said Buffy, planting a kiss on my defenseless brow.

"Pleasant nappies," added Spike, smirking.

*****

The pair of them are gone off somewhere now, prowling the night, scouting for threat and no doubt setting tumbleweeds ablaze. Zuptya and Jeffries, for their part, have fallen asleep. And all is r., so to speak, with the w.

And that is the sum of my report, for the nonce. I hope you will make time to read all this at a quiet moment, Wesley, before you commit it to whatever archive you have managed to cobble together. Should my recuperation fail, or mischance ever befall me, Spike will be entirely in your charge. In such a pass don't use too heavy a hand with him, I adjure you. He reacts better to oats.

But this counsel is unnecessary. I am mending well -- in fact rather better than I am letting on -- and I'm confident I'll be able to see Spike's tutelage through. My methodology and discoveries will be recorded separately, when I have the pep for it.

And now I must lay aside my pen. The light in here is poor, the lonely coyote howls, and Buffy and Spike will go all of a doodah if they return and find me awake. A devilish amount of hovering and fussing is part of the new order, by the way: perhaps they think I like it.

In any case this brief history is enough to be going on with, I think. Rupert Giles, though a man of many parts, has never been famed for blind optimism. Life has taught him too many stern lessons, and the world is too fraught with reverses and disappointments.

But Spike is alive, and Buffy is happier than I've ever seen her, and the Watcher's line will not end with me, after all. At dawn we will tack our stolen truck into the wind and ho for Los Angeles by the shortest road.

To coin a phrase, I think the future's well in hand.

Rupert Giles, C.o.W.

Route 66,

Needles, Arizona

END

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