Ronin

by Cyn

Spike, Andrew, Dana, post AtS
AU/no spoilers
ycymartin@cox.net

Thanks to Barb

****

In three days Los Angeles never really stopped burning. Fucking horrible corpse of a town, hellhole, charnel pit. Cinders drifting through the dead air, piling up in drifts, sluicing into the gutters when the greasy rain fell by night. Putrid fucking place.

The flames had spread to hills and they left the hills to burn themselves out. Spike could see the glowing lines low against the sky, little red veins in the blackness, hungry unchecked destruction. No engines to spare for the hills when half the city was in ruins, while the dogs and their humans still scrambled over the rubble under the arclights, searching for the dead and the highly improbable survivors. Spike had tried to do his bit with that, stumbling past the tape and digging about, following his nose as well as any mutt, pulling a severed arm or two out of the wreckage until the uniformed pricks got in his face. He'd laughed when they told him it was too dangerous for bystanders and nearly took a guy's head off with a left hook, and after that he figured maybe he wasn't thinking too clearly and to hell with it, anyway.

It was hot. The sirens had stopping moaning and shrieking after the first day, but it was too hot to sleep, even in the damp steaming hole where the Wilshire Line used to be. Everything stank of fuel and fire and filth. He was famished, but broken. The thought of feeding made him heave tiredly, and he wondered if he might not just stay where he was, drying out like a mummified insect in the bowels of the earth, growing rigid and empty as his mind fell away. Forgetting. But that was shite, of course. The towering pile of girders and twisted steel at Sixth and Hope pulled at him, put pictures in his head, compelled him. On the fourth night he pulled himself out of the crawlspace next to the third rail and staggered back to the spot where Angel had died in his arms. Poor Angel, poor sorry bastard. Angel had done his best, right to the end, and small thanks with it. They'd done the job, all right. Debris was still falling as Spike crawled to Angel, over the corpses of the others. Took him up and cradled him as Angel's face withered, crumbling under the weight of two centuries' age, too much for a weak human body. Spike had clutched him and begged stupidly: Come on, Angel, now, come on, don't quit, but Angel had only smiled and whispered, "I'm Liam," and died. Eyes shining, the only thing alive in his ruined face. But then his eyes filmed over and became fixed, staring. Staring at heaven, probably, and Spike supposed that was good enough by Angel's lights. He hoped it was. It seemed like a sucker's deal all the way around to Spike, though.

The intersection of Sixth and Flower was quiet. All the trucks and flashing lights had moved on. In his mind's eye Spike tried to see the radius of destruction surrounding Wolfram & Hart, the blast zone, everything flattened and fanning out, people's shadows etched onto the few walls left standing. His thoughts floated above the broken streets like a night bird riding an updraft, trying to see the edges of things, get a sense of scope. The radio said the center was three miles wide. Jesus. And how many dead? It was hard to take in, that they'd killed themselves and hundreds of others, thousands, just to take down a bunch of evil lawyers with suits and briefcases. Had they saved the world? It didn't feel that way at all. Charlie gone, Percy gone, Harm gone, hell, even that green git Lorne had insisted on fighting a fight that wasn't his, and had died for it. Illyria fried to her constituent atoms, or whatever she was made of, and a thousand other people he'd never met or thought of were dead, too. Nothing left.

Spike sank to his heels, leaning against a chunk of broken concrete, and listened to the night. Very quiet now. They'd taken his friends away in bags and he hadn't lifted a finger to stop them. Shock, maybe, from the explosion and the significant hole it had blown in his guts. Shock had kept him on his feet for a few days, God knew how or why. But he was thinking clearly now, and the last of his strength was ebbing. The hole hadn't closed or healed, and wasn't going to. He tried to ease his legs and realized, distantly, that he'd never stand up again. He waited instead, thinking about them, about the look in Angel's dead eyes. He waited quietly into the cold blue watches of morning, into the gathering light of dawn, waited for the sun to clear the rolling smoke above the hills and take him. He had a word or two with his soul to pass the last bit of time, and his soul seemed to be okay with things, but very tired. Couldn't seem to work up any fear of hell, which was a mercy. Nor any rush of triumph like he'd had in Sunnydale, which was a faint sadness but no surprise.

The sky became gray, and then brown. Spike lowered his head. Locked himself away inside, bracing, trying to prepare.

A van rolled up the street and stopped at a barricade. He heard a door slam and footsteps crunching over the glass and bits of strewn crap, the steps speeding up, then running, heading right for him.

"Spike?" A hand on his shoulder, felt from very far away. "Spike?"

It was getting too bright, just scent and shapes in a glowing haze. Spike had to squint. Andrew, of all fucking people. Andrew in a long coat and scarf, of all fucking things.

"Spike, what are you doing here?" The hand began to pull at him. "Spike, get up."

Spike tried to say: "Can't," but nothing came out except a cough.

Astoundingly, wee ickle Andrew got an arm around him and pulled him up, dragged him weaving toward the van. There was Andrew-babble of some sort going on, high and anxious, though Spike couldn't make a syllable's sense of it. He felt giddy from the renewed pain, felt his exposed face beginning to sting, felt his legs fail just as Andrew shoved the sliding door open and pushed him inside. The door shut him into darkness again. Spike lay sprawled as he had fallen, face down on the shag. The engine started and Andrew threw the van into reverse, yammering the while about two heroes meeting past all hope on the field of the Pelannor, or some such incomprehensible trash.

The van bounced a little on the buckled streets. Spike rolled with it. He listened to the hum of the engine, to the traffic noises closing around them, to the astonishing comfort of a familiar if idiotic voice. Andrew seemed to be talking about brave samurai, and castles in the sky, and those who do or die. Spike lost the thread early, though, and passed out.

****

It was broad day when they got to Van Nuys, because of the checkpoints and downed overpasses, and because they were driving a suspicious-looking vehicle that jumpy patrolmen liked to flag and inspect, a problem Andrew hadn't foreseen. Once over the Sepulveda pass it wasn't too bad, though -- Andrew turned off on Sherman Way and found the wide boulevard almost empty. The despised San Fernando Valley was 20 miles and a world away from the destruction of downtown Los Angeles, and only the smoke boiling up from several points on the horizon made it look like anything but another hot Valley morning.

It was a tight fit getting the van into the parking-breezeway under his aunt's apartment building, but Andrew had been taking badass driving courses and knew his stuff. No way was Spike going to be forced into a blanket-dash in his condition, not with the Andmeister as wheelman. He scraped a rainpipe loose as he squeezed the van down the ramp, but that was nothing, collateral damage. Spike was the priority.

Brave Spike, battered but manly, limp but well-muscled still. He roused only a little as Andrew drew him out of the van and up the garage stairs, his coat flapping around the horrible mess that had been his stomach. Andrew wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to open that coat and take a good look at the wound without doing something stupid, like cry or whatever, but he was determined to try. First a little battlefield vamp triage, then a trip to the Big Lots for... did Big Lots sell blood or just really bloody meat? Maybe a Carnecia? Or a Botanica, were Botanicas good for blood? Something Mexican...

First things first. Andrew propped Spike against the door frame while he fished out his duped keys, and told him firmly: "Enter, Vampyre, freely and of your own will," which got a grunt from Spike that he interpreted as a good sign.

Andrew got Spike onto his aunt's bed and started pulling curtains and gathering towels, while Spike lay still, eyes shut in a white hollowed face.

When Andrew brought him a glass of water to tide him over, Spike waved it away with visible effort, rasping, "It'll just run out again." Andrew set it on the headboard shelf next to his aunt's bible and chewed his lip.

"I'm going to get you something to eat," said Andrew. "You'll be okay for an hour, won't you?"

Spike opened his eyes. "They're all dead. Everybody."

"I'll be right back," said Andrew.

****

The blood ran out of the wound as predicted, but Andrew kept forcing it on him, and after a few hours it slowed to a trickle, easily contained by the towels.

The apartment began to swelter. Andrew resented the banging of the air conditioner -- it was gross and disrespectful in the sickroom of a wounded hero -- but when he tried to turn it off Spike growled, "For God's sake, what does it matter," which made Andrew retreat in confusion and leave it on.

Around midnight he heard Spike stirring and jumped up from his laptop to intercept him. Spike was trying to rise, trembling and panting, and his bandages were blooming red. Andrew soothed him, and when that didn't work Andrew pushed him. To his amazement Spike fell back on the bed, unable to resist. Andrew brought him more blood. Spike drank it prone, with a look of shame that broke Andrew's heart.

"Give yourself a day or two, Spike, Jeez," Andrew made bold to say.

"Yeah," sighed Spike.

In the morning Andrew woke to the sound of television. Spike was hunched stiffly on the recliner next to the couch, watching news footage of rescue efforts in Los Angeles. Andrew didn't like the expression on Spike's face at all.

"They're saying people shouldn't be watching news all the time," said Andrew timidly. "It's prolonging the trauma."

Spike turned down the volume but kept his eyes on the screen. "How'd you fetch up here, Andrew?"

"I'm... I'm looking for someone."

"Thought you were in England, training with Giles, getting 82 percent bigger balls and so forth."

Andrew sat up. "Mr. Giles isn't teaching me anymore. He quit."

"Quit?" Spike snorted. "How very unlike him."

"He said he was tired, and that he'd taught me all he could."

Spike's lip curled.

"I don't think he was telling the truth," said Andrew, pulling the pillow carefully onto his lap. "I know he had more to teach me. But he went all Samuel L. Jackson, said he wanted to walk the earth and stuff, and then he left."

"Well, that's the wanker down to the ground. Pretty typical, in fact. Tough luck."

Andrew played with the pillowcase. "I really have a talent for Watching, Spike. I've learned to be the strong pillar of support, the center of calm, the deceptively mild-mannered mentor who explodes into action at the first hint of threat to my charge."

"Have you."

"I just need someone to complete my training."

"Is that so."

Andrew nodded, beaming. Spike turned, wariness kindling behind his eyes.

"Spike --"

"Forget it."

"But, Spike --"

"No way. No way in hell, Andrew. I'm a vampire, and I've retired too, as of four days ago, in case you haven't been keeping up with the news. If you came to Los Angeles to talk me into teaching you anything, you wasted a bloody trip."

Andrew tried to hide his disappointment. The idea had struck him while Spike slept; he'd examined it from every angle and could see no flaw in it. But he'd jumped the gun and thrown a scare into Spike, Spike who certainly might have been wooed if Andrew had just taken things a little slower. Stupid, as always. Stupid and lame.

"I didn't come to L.A. looking for you," admitted Andrew, rising and gathering up his sheets. He began to fold them, patting the creases flat.

Spike turned up the volume. "Right. Vacation, then?"

"Not exactly," replied Andrew. "I lost my Slayer. I think she's here."

****

Spike was grieving. Lost to everything, ready to take a stroll in the UVs, stunned, shocky and overwhelmed. It was just like Beauty and the Beast, the one with Dazzler and the Beast by Marvel, not the shamefully egregious ripoff Disney musical. Andrew tried to explain this distinction to Spike, but Spike didn't seem to appreciate how much cooler Marvel's Beast was.

"But the real Beast, the Marvel Beast circa 1982 as immortalized by Ann Nocenti in a last burst of creativity just before the Revlon buyout, he was just like you. When he lost his team, he lost all will to live. Until a glitter-clad disco superheroine on skates gave him back a sense of love and purpose."

"For the love of Christ, shut up," sighed Spike.

"Courage is what you need. Remember the words of Hurin son of Thurin, at the Nirneath Arnoediad. Channel the spirit of the Edain, Spike. Dawn will come again."

Spike thumbed the volume.

"It's okay. It's jake, dude. Roger with the surly fretfulness, mio hermano, all the way, what with getting your intestines blown out and losing your beloved sexy dominant Sire, and probably cursing the stupid pride that kept you apart until it was too late." Andrew opened his hands. "You're in a safe place, Spike. Let it all out."

Spike heaved himself painfully up from the recliner and went to the bathroom.

Interesting, deeply interesting. Four bathroom visitations in 12 hours. Another Spike anomaly or a new vampiric field observation? Andrew made a note.

When Spike came back 40 minutes later Andrew renewed his attack.

"Spike! I've got an idea! Let's rent a DVD, Spike. Or a game. What do you say?"

"What's say you clear out and look for your bird," muttered Spike, flipping channels.

The very digit on the problem. There was gumshoe Dark Knight detective work to be done, but as Spike had healed and started moving around, Andrew had become less and less easy about leaving him alone. Too many opportunities for the desolate bereaved many-times-dead to make a bad choice. A quandary.

Andrew placed his carefully prepared cup of blood on the coffee table. On a saucer, with a napkin. Then he leaned back.

"I'm dying to check out Maze 4," he said. "It's a challenge like no other, they say."

Spike's eyes slid to the coffee cup. His hand drifted to the bulge under his shirt, grazing the bandages Andrew had renewed, tirelessly, for three days.

"Right," he said softly and at last. "If you like."

As a diversion the game-choosing was quiet. Too quiet. Not a spark of fight in Spike at all, even when Andrew suggested they try a rudimentary bloodless motocross nobrainer, as a test. Spike followed where he was led, and agreed to what Andrew pointed out, and the stunned empty look never left his eyes.

"Have you ever had a Krispy Kreme?" asked Andrew. "It's all the rage."

"Sure, if you like," shrugged Spike.

****

Spike took one stoic bite of his Krispy Kreme, grimaced and laid it aside.

Andrew folded his paper, angling the Valley section obscurely, just to be safe. "Buffy's good," he said.

Bad move. Spike's face dissolved like a sandcastle under a tide, and there was an awkward moment as Spike turned to the window and fought himself into control.

"I can't tell her. I couldn't save him." Spike's voice was steady, but his fingers wandered, shaking, stroking the tablecloth. "She loved him. I can't tell her."

There was nothing to say to that. It was all too complex and beautiful and tragic.

"I never told her about you," said Andrew, instead.

Spike's nervous hands stilled.

"Thanks," he said, without looking.

****

Andrew had been counting on Spike's daze of noble mourning to buy a little creative driving grace, but the fourth time they crawled past a welter of yellow tape and squadcars Spike's eyes narrowed.

"This place is worse than Sunnydale," he murmured, craning. "What the hell's going on?"

****

"You simpleton, you twit, you perfect ass!" Spike was very angry.

"Spike, this task is mine alone. On me the burden falls, on my head lies the --"

"She's gonna twist your head clean off, you demented sod!"

Andrew checked his holster, releasing the flap. "I can handle her."

"Like you did in the alley? For fuck's sake, Andrew, the pair of us together didn't even slow her down."

"Spike, you're staying here. You're wounded in body and personally- acquired soul, crushed by grief at the loss of your beloved companieros. No offense, but you couldn't fight your way out of a wet paper bag."

Spike hissed, face rippling. "Give me one of those guns, Andrew."

Andrew stood his ground. "I fear I must refuse, O seeker of a noble end. I know, Spike, I know. You desire an honorable death at the hands of a worthy foe, like Yagyuu Jubei. You seek to join those who have gone before." He turned away, fumbling pellets into his utility belt, eyes filling. "And it's beautiful. I mean that. But I won't let you do it, Spike, I won't."

"Who's Yagyuu Jubei? Is somebody helping her? Christ, that's all we need."

Andrew wiped his eyes and moved, getting between Spike and the door. "Spike, I must face her alone."

Spike shrugged into his coat and slammed past him into the hall.

****

Spike was waiting in the van when Andrew arrived.

As he slid the key into the ignition Andrew said: "Spike, I know you resent me for interrupting your vampire seppuku. That's okay. But I need to tell you that I find your hostile takeover of my personal mission intrusive and demeaning. I wanted to spare you all this, Spike, and had only the best intentions. I need you to know I feel very underappreciated right now."

"Drive," barked Spike, and Andrew frowned and put the van into gear.

****

Spike had never seen an uglier town. It made Sunnydale look like Shangri-La. At midnight heat was still boiling up in waves from the sun-cooked asphalt, withering the leprous palms. Every corner and every street was the same, an endless succession of discount tire joints, taco stands and 24 hour supermarkets. Dark figures loitered outside taverns, shouting and laughing. Music boomed from rolling SUVs. Televisions flickered behind windows with wrought-iron bars, and the smell of tortillas and fish sauce drifted like a fog.

Here it was as if nothing had happened. 20 miles over the hill Los Angeles was a smoking pyre, but no hint of horror or loss disturbed the trashcan rhythms of the San Fernando night. Here everything was blinking shopsigns and creeping cars and ugly, insulated, selfish peace. By the time they had cruised Sepulveda from Roscoe to Brand and back, Spike was seething.

"So? What happens now?" he demanded.

"Patience, my friend," murmured Andrew. "We're on the hunt."

"I know hunts. You don't. As hunts go, this sucks, Andrew."

"There have been unexplained incidents in this corridor," replied Andrew sagely.

"So, what, we're going to drive around until she jumps on the roof?"

"She's a cunning predator, and more than a match for ordinary trackers. I'm following a hunch."

"A hunch," muttered Spike, drumming his fingers.

Andrew signaled and moved carefully into the left lane. "Exactamundo. I get hunches now, and follow my instincts. Mr. Giles said that to be an effective Watcher I should let go my conscious mind and reach out with the Force... well, he didn't say it exactly like that, but I knew what he meant."

A squad car pulled into traffic behind them.

"How'd she get loose, Andrew? How'd she come to be your personal mission?"

"I'm thinking," said Andrew, glancing nervously in the sideview mirror, "that such a delicate question should be answered back at basecamp, Spike. We need to stay frosty out here."

The warning lights on the roof of the police cruiser began to spin silently. The siren burped, a short blatt of challenge.

"Oh, God," said Andrew. "Oh, God."

"I thought as much. You muffed it, didn't you? You tried to take a thorn out of her paw and she scarpered. That's what comes of going soft, Andrew. You're lucky she didn't chop off your --"

"Spike. There's a cop back there."

"Yeah? And?"

"He's pulling us over," quavered Andrew.

"Huh?" Spike twisted, wincing and annoyed. "Why the fuck should he?"

Andrew was staring into the rearview, quaking. "Atmosphere of terror, Spike. A baffling catastrophe levels downtown Los Angeles. Death follows on a mass scale. Paranoia, confusion, and, well, we're driving a suspicious van." Andrew's hands fluttered on the steering wheel. "I never should have borrowed the van."

"He can't pull us over just for driving a --"

Andrew hit the gas and the van lurched, tires squealing.

"Brilliant," sighed Spike. "And off we go."

The van whined as it struggled to accelerate. Andrew fought it across several lanes and cut into a parking lot, ramming through a tangle of shopping carts as pedestrians fled. "I'm wearing four tranquilizer guns, two bandoliers of ammo, six explosive gas caps and an electric net," panted Andrew. "I can't let Chuck roll me now. If Imperial Troops board this vessel the mission's over."

Another cruiser joined the pursuit, followed by a third. Sirens howled through the rushing night as Spike lowered the window. "Right, the mission," he sighed. "Look, Andrew, find a place to ditch this boat, and run. I can hold off a few miserable cops."

"Never!"

"Don't be a git."

"I'll never leave you!" cried Andrew, as the van bounced off a service road and wallowed up a loose grade, tires spitting gravel.

"Train," said Spike.

"If you go, I go," chanted Andrew.

"Train!" roared Spike, and dove for the wheel.

The van slewed right. A locomotive roared down on them in a cataract of silver noise. It clipped the van's bumper, knocking it back and sending it into a slow, dreamy spin. Loose comics and Slim Jim wrappers filled the cab. The van rolled, tumbling down the incline and onto the flat in a shower of glass and dirt and gravel.

Spike opened his eyes. The door was above him, like a skylight. The sirens were louder. He pulled himself out and yanked Andrew free, hustling him away from the van and into the shadow of a loading dock.

"Andrew!" Spike shook him. "Andrew!"

Andrew's eyes rolled. Spike cuffed him, once.

"Andrew!"

"Ow!"

"Andrew, you have to beat it. Go on."

Three black and whites screamed into the lot at the far end, gunning for the van.

Andrew burst into tears and clung, protesting. Spike resisted the urge to punt him over the tracks.

"Andrew, go on now. Find your Slayer. I'll catch you up."

And then Spike gave him a good hard shove and stepped out to meet the forces of John Law.

It turned out to be a long overdue spot of entertainment -- sliding into gameface with a roar, sailing headfirst into a knot of cops, going down with them like a scatter of ninepins. Made a bloke forget, for a moment. Took a lad's mind right off things. It was a rare and precious balm to watch the disbelief and shock as patrolmen emptied their clips, to hear their rising panic as they shouted and called for backup.

Didn't dislike the tossers, didn't grudge them their duty. Couldn't bring himself to actually do much harm, what with all the inhibitions and conscience and shackling devotion to Goodness lurking in his marrow. But a bit of mayhem to buy time for Andrew was apparently just fine with the soul, so Spike spread himself within those holy limits: heaving patrolmen about, tipping cars, taking a few bullets and making as much fuss as possible. It was a touch of relaxation he hadn't tasted in months.

When he heard more sirens wailing over the distant ash heaps, though, Spike judged the hour full and abandoned the field. A running leap and a drainpipe took him to a rooftop, and that rooftop led to another, and another. He landed badly once and when he rose there were three dots of light converging on him from the heavens: it put him in mind of Angelus and Darla and Dru, which was so stupid and crazy it made him laugh. Then Spike scrambled to his feet and ran again, skimming over tarpaper and pipes and parapets, in the rising open wind, under the clearing stars.

****

Andrew had never seen anything so beautiful. It was almost too much to hold in. He wanted to find a keyboard, write it all down for posterity, preserve the account for the ages. Spike the heroic, the selfless, the noble. Spike, the vampire with a soul, who threw himself to the enemy to buy the escape of a mere human, a mere Watcher's apprentice, of all things. It was bigger than an Elf Lord rescuing a mortal. It was bigger than Rogue saving Wolverine. It was bigger than anything, it was huge, and he had seen it happen. Andrew huddled in the bus shelter and wiped his eyes.

Had Spike looked like that in the Hellmouth, after he thrust Buffy from him and bade her depart? He must have looked just like that, except for being more... on fire. Spike, perishing in flame. Eyes glowing with love and resignation. Mouth curving in a rueful smile. Facing his end alone, calm in the knowledge that others would live.

"Go on now, Andrew," whispered Andrew.

He'd told Buffy to go, too. Except that morning Spike was giving himself to save the whole world. Tonight he'd done it just to save... Andrew.

Spike had fled east, over the top of the Ace Hardware. Andrew could see helicopters circling a few miles away, searchlights raking the streets.

The Roscoe Blvd bus finally arrived. Andrew climbed on, found a window seat, and kept his eyes on the sky.

****

Flipping off police choppers was fun as far as it went, but it got to be work right about the time Spike realized they weren't the only ones trailing him.

No footfalls, nothing so amatuer as that. Not even a scent, because she kept the wind in front of her. Spike slowed. She slowed. Spike left the rooftops and dropped back to ground level, and she followed. Never close enough to hear, never close enough to smell. But he didn't need that. He knew her as surely as if she were in his hands.

"Sod this," snapped Spike, halting. "Oi! Mental case! Come on, here I am."

The searchlights drew closer, pools of illumination playing over the streets.

"Wounded vampire, here," called Spike. "Weak and riddled with wounds, right? No match for a psycho loony Slayer. Come on, love. Take me down."

He turned a slow circle, arms wide. Dust billowed in the wash of a chopper. A searchlight found him and the night was lost in an immense, blinding glare.

She was on him instantly, kicking, punching, hammering. A low noise whined from her even as she struck, a growling sob, the uneven keening of an animal in pain.

"Oh, yeah," grunted Spike. His head rocked under her blows; he grinned at her through the blood. "Yeah, baby. That's the way. Thanks for coming out."

****

She fought like a rat in a coffee can. Like a cyclone, like a spinning wheel. There was no mind in her at all.

Six months in the bosom of her fellow Slayers had done nothing for her by way of skill, certainly. She swung wide, she hesitated, she took clumsy steps. It was all Spike could do to keep the thing going.

"Dana? That your name? It's Dana, right?" Spike danced under a kick, slapped her smartly, danced back. "Wake the hell up, Dana."

Dana lunged. Spike let her catch him and they sprawled, twisting on the asphalt. Her fists hammered him without rhythm. Spike put his hands on her throat and began to squeeze, staring up into her eyes.

"Little girl, this is bullshit. You're losing. I'm going to kill you. Is that what you want?"

Dana howled and kicked free, rolling to her feet. "You die," she spat.

"Talking won't do it," growled Spike.

Dana took two steps back and faltered.

"I remember you," she whispered with effort, her voice rough and slow. "I remember."

"You remember what? You remember me killing you in New York? You remember cutting my arms off in that rotten basement? Don't be such a goddamned bore, pet. Let's go." Spike beckoned with his fingertips, inching toward her. "What's the trouble? Vampire, slayer, we've done this already, and you won. What are you waiting for? You've been killing people all over town, haven't you?"

Dana's face twisted and a tremor shook her, a shudder of terror and wretchedness. "They're all dead."

Spike scowled. "Yes, and a fine job you made of it, too. Time to finish."

Dana dropped her hands and ran.

****

Spike closed with her at last in a U-Haul compound. When she turned at bay she had a weapon, a jagged hunk of tin; it was like wading into the blades of jet engine. Bits of Spike flew away, simply flew away, as he put his head down and plowed into her.

He absorbed the searing cuts, forced himself inside her reach. They locked together and reeled, snarling, rolling in the falling roof joists and spilling containers. She wrested her hands free and slammed his head into the concrete. He used the moment for his legs and caught her, tossing her back, and dove forward before she could recover.

He had her down. Her elbows pinned by his knees, his hands locked on her jaw. She bared her teeth and howled at him, writhing, defeated, screaming defiance.

Spike stared down at her battered young face, contorted by hate, streaked with his blood. Her brown eyes were bottomless and empty.

Then Spike was twisting through the air and landing on his back and Dana was coming at him, slow, like all such moments were slow, heaving a broken picture frame, the jagged wood trailing canvas but quite sharp enough on the business end. And that was it, God damn it, that was all, and nothing to do but brace and snarl in turn.

With a bang it all went sideways: a concussive explosion of air, everything rushing and burning yellow, papers and clothes and bits of garbage flying, lost in a searing golden fog.

****

"Gas?" Spike slumped on the pavement and scrubbed uselessly at his eyes, retching. "You threw gas at a Slayer? Gah. Fuck me."

Andrew's voice was almost dog-whistle high behind the mask. "I'm really sorry. It's excellent gas, though. Does it sting?"

Spike hawked and spat.

"We should get moving, Spike. They're coming."

Spike pointed at Dana, crumpled in the wreckage, unmoving. "And what about her? God help anybody who runs into that hellcat."

"Oh, she's coming with me, of course." Andrew knelt and gathered Dana gently into his arms. "She's my responsibility."

"With you."

"I've taken an oath."

"Then do her, Andrew, if you're so bleedin' responsible. She's a rabid dog. Do her now."

Andrew paused in his attempts to lift Dana. His eyes were unreadable behind the goggles. "She's my Slayer," he said, his words soft and flat through the filter.

"She's your Slayer," wheezed Spike bitterly. "Sure she is."

Andrew had another go at heaving Dana upright and nearly dropped her. "Um, Spike? She's a little heavy."

"You're having me on. You expect me to haul that crazy bint across town?"

"If we get started now we can make it back to the apartment before sunrise. I mean, if we get started now," said Andrew.

Spike laughed. "To hell with that. I ain't touchin' her."

"Spike."

"Forget it, Andrew."

****

Spike settled Dana and stepped back. No more bed for Spike: it was the comfy chair for Spike yet again. The crazy murdering psycho Slayer looked cozy enough, though.

Andrew arranged the blankets carefully, checked Dana's restraints, laid a finger on her pulse. The first weak rays of dawn filtered through the gaps in the curtains. Spike watched, frowning.

"This'll never work. You can't keep her tied up like that, Andrew. She'll go raving mad when she comes around. Well, madder."

"One thing at a time, my friend, one thing at a time." Andrew straightened. "How badly are you hurt? Do your wounds gape? Do you need anything?"

Spike waved irritably and turned away. Andrew trailed after him into the living room.

"There's a safehouse in Ensenada, Spike. If we can get some transport it's a perfect place to begin her reintegration."

Spike dropped into a chair. "Have fun, then."

"Spike, can you help us?"

"No."

Andrew hesitated, then withdrew to the kitchen to make a cup of blood. Returning, he placed it delicately on the coffee table and perched on the couch.

Spike ignored the offering, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"Thank you for saving me, Spike," said Andrew. "Back by the tracks. It was an epic confrontation worthy of Toshiro Mifune, and I'll never forget it."

"Andrew, don't."

"It was the coolest thing I ever saw. I think... I think that if you wanted to, you could do anything. Because you're an unstoppable force, like a warrior kami or a -- " Andrew swallowed. "I've been rubbing elbows with a lot of heroes lately, walking with the mighty. But there's nobody like you, Spike. Nobody."

And wasn't that the fucking truth? Angel was lost, gone to his vague- as-hell, pie-in-the-sky reward, and the others with him, every last one. Gone into the everlasting, gone into the void, gone down, maybe, to the fiery hells. Gone, at any rate, and there Spike sat.

Spike tipped his head back and shaded his eyes, weary unto death.

****

The screams reached him through a blanketing fog of nightmares, more fever than dreams, horrible loops in which the world lit up and Angel perished, smiling and withering, over and over. Spike shot upright and bolted into the bedroom before he was fully awake, charging blind. Halted and clutched the doorframe as the slamming backlash of weakness hit him.

"For Chrissake, shut her up, Andrew. She'll have the whole neighborhood down on us."

Andrew was talking in a low, rapid voice, face ashen. "Dana, it's all right. It's Andrew. It's all right. We watched Gundam Wing in the TV room, remember?"

Dana shrieked, writhing in her bonds.

She looked so weirdly like Dru, with her brown hair plastered to her face around her gaping mouth and her tiny body arching in pain. Like Dru having one of her bad turns; Dru after Angelus had finished with her.

"I've got to give her something," said Andrew miserably. "Thorazine. A shot."

"Get it, then." Spike moved to one side as Andrew passed, his eyes never leaving Dana. He felt disconnected, muzzy, as though the dream still held him, as though it had punched a hole between now and the everlasting and parts of him were running into the gap like water.

Slowly, Spike sat on the bed and slid his arms around Dana, holding her as she stiffened and struggled. "Hush, now, pet. Hush now, lovey."

Dana moaned. It was a sound of such utter desolation Spike shivered. He lifted a hand and drew the hair out of Dana's eyes, let himself slump onto the bed, laid his own head next to hers on the damp pillow.

"Be calm now. No call to be afraid. There," he said. "Spike's got you."

Dana stilled and began to weep, quaking and shuddering. Spike felt the tremors in his bones like a pulsing echo. Outside the echo, nothingness; outside the echo, a void. The dim light in the room narrowed to a point and the sound of Dana's heartbeat grew louder, a ribbon of noise, a torrent rushing to the sea. There was life there, life and pain, and it pulled at Spike vertiginously, plucking at him with icy fingers, tempting him to dark, ugly things.

"Hush now, don't worry," mumbled Spike. "That's not me. That part's over."

And then heat bloomed in his chest, heat like the last minutes in the Hellmouth only keener, more concentrated. A star fallen from heaven, lodged and burning beneath his ribs.

He was too tired to struggle against the pain of it, too heavy to move. When Andrew appeared and began to shake him, gently at first and then with rising urgency, Spike was able to think, right: completely buggered now, but he didn't have the strength to say a word.

****

It took four hours to get clear of LA, inching south in gridlock on the San Diego freeway. Traffic loosened up through Orange County, then clogged again on the seaside stretch around Camarillo and Oceanside, which Andrew considered bitterly offensive. Andrew and his brother had made the trip to Tijuana with the parental units many a time before moving to Sunnydale, and it had never been this bad. California had gone completely wrong. Too many people. Too much of everything. It was like Soylent Green without the cool sets and penetrating cautionary message. And why were so many cars on the road a bare week after an apocalypse, anyway?

The air conditioner was spitting out a funky rental smell and it was burning gas something fierce, but Andrew kept it cranked as high as it would go. The heat was brutal.

Every time Andrew looked back Spike was sitting up again and letting the blanket slip. Spike didn't seem to notice what he was doing. He didn't seem to understand where they were, or that the sun was passing its zenith and starting its long descent into the blue Pacific. Every time Andrew took his eyes off the road and risked a peek back Spike was massaging his chest and watching the water twinkle, absorbed.

It was freaky, seeing that empty blanket move in the rearview. Andrew could hardly take his eyes off it.

"Spike, lie down, okay?"

"What? Oh. Right."

A mile later Spike was up again. Andrew pulled over at a rest stop, taking care to park in the lee of an eighteen-wheeler, and got out. He opened the passenger door and spoke to Dana. Dana shrugged and unbuckled her seatbelt. Then she got into the back with Spike, on the side facing west.

"I guess I'm your shade now," she said tonelessly.

Spike stared at her. Then he pulled the blanket over his head and leaned against the far door.

All the security was for traffic leaving Mexico rather than entering, as usual, so that went okay. Spike doffed his blanket at the toll and resumed it when they were clear, and then it was smooth sailing to Ensenada as the sky turned red and the sea burned beneath the setting sun.

"Hey, you missed Ensenada," muttered Spike after a while. He'd revived some as darkness came on.

"The place we want's a little south, about nineteen miles. Not far. Do you need blood?"

"God, no," grimaced Spike.

"There's some in the Coleman. I got a sports bottle. It's right behind you."

Andrew turned his head as he spoke and caught Spike glancing at Dana.

"Nah," said Spike.

"Dana, do you need anything?"

Dana folded her arms and shook her head.

Well, everybody was a little tense. Long drives made the best of people cranky. At least Dana was acting really sane, almost as sane as England!Dana. Andrew couldn't help but congratulate himself on chucking the Thorazine and going for Narvane with a Cogentin chaser -- that was so totally the ticket, and Andrew had thought it up all by himself.

Andrew smiled proudly, thinking about how pleased Mr. Giles would be to hear it. And then he remembered that Mr. Giles was off walking the earth and didn't care anymore, about Dana or anybody.

The headlights picked a sign out of the darkness.

"La Bufadora," announced Andrew. "Gem of the seaside and home of the Blowhole, a mid-sized ocean geyser. They also have dog racing. Please exit in an orderly manner and check the overhead compartment for personal items."

The beach house was made of cinderblocks, with a little porch on pilings that rose out of the sand. The jeep's engine ticked, cooling, as Andrew pulled their bags out of the hatch. Spike and Dana stood around, looking stiff and worn.

"This house has its own name. Papalote. I don't know what that means," admitted Andrew. "But we picked the town because it's funny. Bufadora. Buffy, we ador-a. We all thought it an amusing jest for the inner circle. Oh, I'm sorry, Spike. Come in, okay?"

"Why didn't you just pick a town called Hey, We're Over Here?" grumbled Spike, stomping into the tiny living room. "Fugitives, remember? Well, at least one of us is, eh?"

Dana sneered and crossed to the window, staring out at the dark.

"Hey, look!" Andrew sensed it was important to remain positive. "Hey, somebody put a new stove in. Wow, that must've been Xander. And bunks! I get the top."

Spike didn't want to sleep. He found the remote and turned on a variety show. The room filled with noise and tinny applause.

It was exhausting work, being a Watcher. Andrew went to bed.

***

In the morning it was all about digging in for the long haul. Andrew made a list.

"Gotta get some bottled water. Or more of those tablets, they're almost gone. Dana, don't drink out of the tap."

"I heard you the first time," said Dana.

"And we need salsa and chips, and maybe some stakes. Vampires in Mexico are crazy. They smell a Slayer and they lose all common sense."

Spike looked interested for the first time. "They do?"

"It's amazing. Barely got Paloma out in one piece, they say."

Dana put down her fork and got up from the table. But there was nowhere to go in the tiny room but closer to Spike, so she started to circle like a caged panther.

"Don't be scared, Dana," said Andrew, abashed at his usual stupid lack of tact. "I'm your Watcher. I'll protect you. And Spike here is a Champion of the Good and stuff -- we saved the world together. Don't worry."

"Yeah. Don't worry," muttered Spike.

Andrew stuffed the list in his pocket. "I'll pick up fish tacos. Ever had a fish taco? Dana? Spike? No, I mean it, have you? Well, they're a taste explosion the likes of which one must ... eat without fail. You'll like them," he concluded hopefully, but neither Spike or Dana were listening. Spike was staring at the TV again, and Dana was hovering at the window. When Andrew reached for the doorknob, though, Spike was at his elbow. Spooky.

"Take her with you," whispered Spike, tipping his head in Dana's direction.

"Dana? Shopping?"

"Yeah, Dana. Shopping," repeated Spike impatiently. "She gives me the twitch, Andrew. Don't like being alone with her."

"Spike, it's not really safe, is it? I mean, she just killed all those people."

"Fuck you," rasped Dana. "I'm not deaf."

Spike turned, eyebrows lifting. "Tut. They teach you to cuss like that in the loony bin?"

Dana froze and shot a glare of such fearsome hate Spike's way that Andrew waved at her hastily. "Come on, Dana. Let's, you know, forage."

Andrew held the door, trying to smile in a kind, encouraging, Watcherly way. Spike watched stood there, watching them go. Andrew thought his face was troubled and a bit ashamed.

****

The waterfront was a cheery jumble of white stands. American tourists thronged, fussing over pesos when they had to, but mostly using dollars. Dana walked beside Andrew, wide-eyed and a little nervous.

"Look, tiny saints." Andrew peered at a collection of plaster statuettes. "Of all shapes and persuasions. Colorful."

Dana touched a hanging cluster of rosaries and the beads winked in the sun. "These are pretty."

"Want one?"

"Can I?" Dana drew one off the hook, sky blue beads with silver caps. "I like this."

Andrew paid grandly and they walked on.

"Just don't, uh, leave it were Spike might find it, okay? It can burn him and stuff."

Dana put the rosary in her pocket. "Vampire."

"Well, he can't really help that, Dana. And he's good. Really genuinely good."

"Why's he so creepy?"

Andrew stopped before a stand heaped with trays of ice and shiny fat fish. "He's just sad, Dana. His great heart is broken. Usually he's very cool."

"I cut off his hands. In the city."

"Yeah, but Spike doesn't do grudges. Dana, he's gonna be a little weird for a while because his beloved band of fellow crusaders perished in an apocalypse. But we have to be patient, okay? And nice."

"I don't get it."

"Don't worry. It's confusing sometimes. Just don't go attacking him unawares and it'll all work out." Andrew pointed out a large bass and watched as the stall-keeper wrapped it in paper. "How are you feeling? This new stuff helps? You seem really ... okay."

"My mouth's dry."

"Yeah, that's the meds. But you feel alright?"

"I guess." Dana rubbed her palms on her thighs. "It makes my hands sweat, too. All the time. I wish I didn't have to take meds. I hate them."

"It's not forever, Dana," said Andrew, knowing it probably wasn't true.

****

"Cervezas!" cried Andrew, displaying the bottles with a flourish, mightily relieved that the expedition had concluded without incident. "And lime!"

Dana picked one up. "What do you do with the lime?"

"You cut it thin and drop it into the neck," said Spike, rising from his permanent duty station in front of the TV. "It's not bad."

A civil statement from Spike. An unmistakable olive branch. Andrew busied himself with the mesh shopping bag, pleased. "I got everything we need for la fiesta fantastico. See, the aforementioned chips. Tacos de los pescados. And this," Andrew held up a styrofoam carton, "is the finest, freshest blood south of the border."

Spike took a sniff. "What the hell? This is fish blood, Andrew."

"Exotic, don't you think? New cultures, new tastes." Andrew snapped on the radio and the room filled with the bouncing pulse of Alica Bridges singing I Love the Night Life in Spanish. "Let us party, mi amgios."

It took a few bottles and some tequila scrounged from under the sink for Spike to hit a groove, but he got there. He almost became chatty. At that point they made their way down to the beach and made a pile of driftwood, torching it with Spike's zippo.

"Demons rise and hellmouths fall," murmured Spike, holding it up in the dancing firelight, "But my sodding lighter endureth forever."

Andrew turned. "Hey, Dana. Slow down, okay. That's your third."

"I'm legal here, you said so." Dana grinned crookedly. "And it keeps the cold away."

"Christ, my chest hurts," sighed Spike.

Andrew had graduated to tequila himself and was feeling bold. "Why?"

"Dunno. Burns."

"Want me to look at it?"

"Nah, skip it. Forget I said anything. I'm just tired, is all."

"You freaked me out in Van Nuys, Spike. It was like somebody plugged you with a phaser." Andrew plopped another lime slice into a fresh beer. "Is that what happens when you get shot?"

"Guess so. Maybe. Who cares," muttered Spike. "Andrew, if we never talk about that place again it'll be too soon for me. Let's forget soddin' Van Nuys."

"Roger. You like your sunglasses?" asked Andrew.

Spike adjusted them. "Not sure. How do I look?"

Dana snickered and took a pull at her bottle. "Vampire with sunglasses."

"They look great, Spike," said Andrew sincerely.

"Guess I'll keep 'em, then."

Andrew felt a glow. "I was thinking that maybe since you're up in daylight all the time it wasn't so hot for your eyes. Mr. Giles said that vampires who adopt human habits usually suffer progressive debilitation. Well, okay, he was talking about you. He said that in Sunnydale you started to look older and weaker, toward the end."

"That bastard."

"I think you look terrific, though." Andrew took a hasty shot. When he finished coughing he said: "Mr. Giles showed me a book that said vampires are supernaturally resistant to change, and that when confronted with change, many will chose death. The book said the reason fledges are easy prey is because they can't make the change from human to vampire successfully, and take reckless chances."

Spike frowned. "Yeah, and they're afraid of garlic, too. Don't go filling your Slayer's head with all that stupid Watcher splooge, Andrew, you'll just get her killed. Fledges are smarter than anybody likes to think."

"Buffy -- "

"Buffy's a case apart, for Christ's sake. Buffy was death on two legs for vampires. If you want to keep your little girl over there alive, forget about Buffy."

"Okay, Spike."

"There's nobody like Buffy."

"You're right, Spike," soothed Andrew.

"It smells weird here," muttered Dana. She stood, rubbing her arms. "It smells... too strong."

"It's nothing, just raw sewage," replied Spike pleasantly.

"I want to go inside."

"So go."

Dana backed away, staring up the cliffs. "Not that way. It's worse that way. It gets worse when you go that way."

"Time for another shot, I think, Andrew." Spike peered into the neck of his bottle. "Your girl's setting up for one of her --"

A few pebbles fell from the cliffside and everything blew apart. Vampires shot out of the night from all sides, howling, a blitzkrieg of fangs and crude weapons. Spike and Andrew were struck simultaneously, bowled over by hurtling black shapes.

"Dana!" screamed Andrew. "Dana, run!"

Spike rolled with the onslaught and came up swinging, right, left, right, left. Andrew snatched a piece of driftwood and put it through one vampire, and caught another on the backswing as the first exploded. They kept coming.

Spike was buried under a knot of assailants snarling obscenities in Spanish. Andrew staggered free in time to see the whole crowd pressing, step by step, into the bonfire.

"Chinga tu madre," shrieked one, its voice high and terrible.

"Suck me, you gutless prick," grunted Spike.

And then they were all alight, a seething tangle of burning vampires. Andrew cried out and dove toward the flames.

"Spike! Oh, God, Spike!"

Dana cannoned out of the darkness and into the fire. Burning vamps burst around her like skyrockets, but Dana didn't slow down. She plunged straight through, legs pistoning against the sand, and drove Spike before her into the sea.

****

Spike was in a bad way. His face was a raw, red, seeping mess, and his eyes were just scary -- bright and glittering with pain. He was trying to make jokes as they carried him up to the house and laid him on a bunk.

"Did the fuckers break my sunglasses?"

"I've got them, Spike," lied Andrew.

"Well done," said Spike, and broke into a ragged giggle. "Get it? Well done."

"Should I get water?" asked Dana. She had begun to shake when the worst was over, and had nearly dropped Spike on the climb up from the beach.

"Water's good." Andrew turned and reached out to her. "He'll be okay, Dana. Vampires recover."

Dana backed away. Andrew heard her banging around in the kitchen, opening cupboards and knocking things over.

Spike had closed his eyes. "Your bird saved my life, Andrew. Eh?"

"Yeah."

"She hurt?"

"A little. Not bad."

"Bleedin' piss." Spike twisted as the pain took him. "Fucking pissing fuck. She got hurt. What do I do now?" he gasped.

"Don't worry about it, Spike."

"It's too much," panted Spike. "I mean it. It's too much."

Andrew patted his shoulder, wishing he understood more about the noble heartache of the heroic undead.

****

Eventually Dana came back, put the water bottle within reach, and climbed silently into her bunk. Andrew dozed, leaning against the bed frame.

After starting awake half a dozen times, Andrew finally got up and made his way out to the kitchen table. The little zippered bag was resting there, among all the stuff from Los Angeles. Andrew pulled back a chair, rubbed his eyes, and opened it.

The hypodermics were disposable, in little packets; he'd have to find more, though he hadn't the faintest idea where. Andrew pierced the ampoule's foil cap with the needle, biting his lip in concentration. He tapped the cylinder three times, just to be extra safe about air bubbles, and went back to the shadowed bedroom.

He stopped in the doorway, surprised into stillness.

Dana was on Spike's bunk, her slender body wedged into the narrow space between Spike and the wall. One hand rested lightly on Spike's chest, as though shielding him. Her face was as peaceful as Andrew had ever seen it.

Andrew stood there for a long time. Then he went back to the kitchen and put the needle in the red sharps canister, and put the canister in the trash. Then he returned to the bunkroom, stretched out on his scratchy blanket clothed, and watched them, alert and keenly aware that he had a stake under his pillow.

Dana and Spike didn't show any signs of roaring awake and pulling each other to pieces, though. They didn't even move.

Eventually Andrew slept, too.

****

Andrew was aplying floss when he heard Spike mumble and shift. The sleeper was... awake? Waking? Awakening, like Paul Atreides after a spice dream, and in as much discomfort, no doubt. Andrew leaned out of the tiny bathroom to offer a cheering, "Buenos Tardes, Spike," but stopped at the look of dismay on Spike's singed face.

Spike was staring at the top of Dana's head as though he couldn't quite compass the situation. He seemed at an unSpikean loss. After a tense moment he began to inch away, with agonized care and offering as little disturbance as possible, like Sigourney Weaver backing out of an alien nest.

Having extricated himself without waking Dana, Spike turned to Andrew and hissed furiously: "What's the matter with you? Are you nuts?" and pushed out of the room.

When Andrew joined him in the kitchen, Spike wheeled.

"What kind of bleedin' Watcher are you? Huh?"

"Spike, everything's fine. Nothing happened. You did the same thing in my aunt's apartment and it helped her, I'm sure of it."

"I was off my head in your aunt's apartment."

"Dana's a good person, Spike. And brave. And trusting, when you look past the paranoia and impulses to random homicide. I think she was saying, thanks for being there, Spike, with an added: look, I'm here for you, too!"

Spike shook his head, appalled. "Start packing, Andrew. Get this lot into the jeep. Time to go."

"Spike, we just got here. And you're all messed up."

"We gotta get out of this shack. It's indefensible. And too small by a damned sight." Spike winced and touched his chest. "Every vamp from here to Sonora's got our number, that's plain enough. We gotta get your Slayer to higher ground."

"I like it here," said Dana from the doorway, rubbing her eyes.

"I'll scout something up." Spike ignored her, dropping to the couch and reaching for his boots. "Yeah, and right now. I'll find something. I'll get us a place."

Andrew felt Spike was waxing extremely Kirklike for a guy who looked like a skinned tomato.

"Spike, it's high noon."

"Don't you think they have sodding sewers in sodding Mexico?" bellowed Spike.

****

Andrew frowned at his edition of X-Men Especial. It was difficult to grasp the nuances of mutant group dynamics when you couldn't read the balloons.

And it was harder still to concentrate on lessons, however vital, with Spike off doing Yoda knew what, Magneto knew where.

"How old is Rogue?" asked Dana.

"Which universe?"

"Standard universe."

"Perhaps nineteen," replied Andrew.

"Why does she have that white streak in her hair?"

"Ah, that's the question." Andrew steepled his hands. "Trauma is one theory, Dana. Originally Rogue was an Evil Mutant, and when she absorbed the psyche and powers of Ms. Marvel, aka Carol Danvers, both women suffered. Rogue came out of the clash with compromised mental stability and white hair at the temples, demonstrating that psyche- suckage is almost as bad for the suckor as the suckee. Remember that. Nothing in this world is without price, Dana. With great power comes great responsibility. Choose wisely."

"But the streak moves." Dana tapped an issue of X-Men A Hora. "I can see it move. If it's from trauma, why won't it stay?"

"Well, it may be a dye job. No one truly knows."

Dana fingered the edge of the page. "Do you think he's dead?"

"Dana."

"It's been two days."

"Spike is one with the night. He runs swift and deadly beneath the gibbous moon. He is the demon that uncool demons fear."

The front door banged open and Spike rolled in, barefoot and spattered with filth.

"Hey, Andrew." Spike nodded at the air above Dana's head. "Slayer."

Andrew leapt up, caught Spike in a fierce embrace, and tried not to gag as the stink hit him. "Spike! Our Spike is restored to us. Oh, Spike, it's so good to have you back, even if you smell like a stockyard."

"Oh, that." Spike peeled Andrew off. "Been exsanguinatin' a few cows, local custom. Sorry."

"You look much better."

"Feel okay. Found us a crash, Andrew. Fine place. Secure, secluded, roomy as hell." Spike turned to Dana and his manner became formal. "If it's all right with the Slayer," he said.

Dana touched her hair nervously. "Sure. I guess. If it's all right with you."

"I'll get your things," said Spike, moving past her to do it, and managed to avoid looking at her again.

****

Curious. Spike's vibe was passing strange. He seemed to have cast himself the role of Dana's valet -- wouldn't let her carry anything, wouldn't let her lift a finger -- but he couldn't meet her eyes, didn't respond when she talked, refused to share the back seat. Spike installed himself shotgun before Dana reached the jeep, and actually locked the door.

Andrew started the engine without comment and pulled out onto the highway, and thus they abandoned Bufadora by the sea.

An hour east Andrew ventured to say, "This is pretty remote, Spike. And getting remoter."

Spike was smoking thoughtfully, watching the sky. "So? That's just what we want."

"Well, I mean, the jeep's a rental. I have to take it back to Avis pretty soon, given the critical shortage of dineros."

"I'll do it."

"And we'll need to get victuals now and again."

"I'll do it."

"I didn't kill anyone in Los Angeles," said Dana suddenly. "It's all lies. When the arrow strikes, you can't help it."

"And we might need a pharmacy," said Andrew.

Spike grunted but made no promises.

Another hour passed, nothing around them in any direction but darkness and mesquite and the spangled arc of the Milky Way.

"The hyperspace jump in A New Hope is in every way a truer representation of faster-than-light travel," said Andrew, taking up the debate again, "than the lamentable Kodachrome bang that swallows the Enterprise. And this despite several years of budget inflation and CGI advances."

Spike tapped ash out the window. "The Next Generation had better relationships, Andrew."

"Indeed, but well-realized relationships are a poor substitute for science."

"Right. Left," said Spike.

Andrew glanced at him, puzzled.

"Left, you git! Turn left!"

The jeep bounced off the highway onto a narrow, rutted track. An overpowering perfume of sage filled the cab.

"Is this a legal road?" asked Andrew, through chattering teeth.

"It gets smoother over that ridge."

Andrew thought he saw a glow, a faint suggestion of light beyond the jagged tangle of shrubs. "Is it a town?"

"Nah. Not in these parts. You'll see."

The jeep topped the rise. Andrew gasped. Spike grinned.

"It's a mission. A possessed mission. Complete with Pig Demon and silver."

****

Andrew was applying floss when he heard Spike mumble and shift. The sleeper was... awake? Waking? Awakening, like Paul Atreides after a spice dream, and in as much discomfort, no doubt. Andrew leaned out of the tiny bathroom to offer a cheering, "Buenos Tardes, Spike," but stopped at the look of dismay on Spike's singed face.

Spike was staring at the top of Dana's head as though he couldn't quite compass the situation. He seemed at an unSpikean loss. After a tense moment he began to inch away, with agonized care and offering as little disturbance as possible, like Sigourney Weaver backing out of an alien nest.

Having extricated himself without waking Dana, Spike turned to Andrew and hissed furiously: "What's the matter with you? Are you nuts?" and pushed out of the room.

When Andrew joined him in the kitchen, Spike wheeled.

"What kind of bleedin' Watcher are you? Huh?"

"Spike, everything's fine. Nothing happened. You did the same thing in my aunt's apartment and it helped Dana then, I'm sure of it."

"I was off my head in your aunt's apartment."

"Dana's a good person, Spike. And brave. And trusting, when you look past the paranoia and impulses to random homicide. I think she was saying, thanks for being there, Spike, with an added: look, I'm here for you, too!"

Spike shook his head, appalled. "Start packing, Andrew. Get this lot into the jeep. Time to go."

"Spike, we just got here. And you're all messed up."

"We gotta get out of this shack. It's indefensible. And too small by a damned sight." Spike winced and touched his chest. "Every vamp from here to Sonora's got our number, that's plain enough. We gotta get your Slayer to higher ground."

"I like it here," said Dana from the doorway, rubbing her eyes.

"I'll scout something up." Spike ignored her, dropping to the couch and reaching for his boots. "Yeah, and right now. I'll find something. I'll get us a place."

Andrew felt Spike was waxing extremely Kirklike for a guy who looked like a skinned tomato.

"Spike, it's high noon."

"Don't you think they have sodding sewers in sodding Mexico?" bellowed Spike.

****

Andrew frowned at his edition of X-Men Especial. It was difficult to grasp the nuances of mutant group dynamics when you couldn't read the balloons.

And it was harder still to concentrate on lessons, however vital, with Spike off doing Yoda knew what, Magneto knew where.

"How old is Rogue?" asked Dana.

"Which universe?"

"Standard universe."

"Perhaps nineteen," replied Andrew.

"Why does she have that white streak in her hair?"

"Ah, that's the question." Andrew steepled his hands. "Trauma is one theory, Dana. Originally Rogue was an Evil Mutant, and when she absorbed the psyche and powers of Ms. Marvel, aka Carol Danvers, both women suffered. Rogue came out of the clash with compromised mental stability and white hair at the temples, demonstrating that psyche- suckage is almost as bad for the suckor as the suckee. Remember that. Nothing in this world is without price, Dana. With great power comes great responsibility. Choose wisely."

"But the streak moves." Dana tapped an issue of X-Men A Hora. "I can see it move. If it's from trauma, why won't it stay?"

"Well, it may be a dye job. No one truly knows."

Dana fingered the edge of the page. "Do you think he's dead?"

"Dana."

"It's been two days."

"Spike is one with the night. He runs swift and deadly beneath the gibbous moon. He is the demon that uncool demons fear."

The front door banged open and Spike rolled in, barefoot and spattered with filth.

"Hey, Andrew." Spike nodded at the air above Dana's head. "Slayer."

Andrew leapt up, caught Spike in a fierce embrace, and tried not to gag as the stink hit him. "Spike! Our Spike is restored to us. Oh, Spike, it's so good to have you back, even if you smell like a stockyard."

"Oh, that." Spike peeled Andrew off. "Been exsanguinatin' a few cows, local custom. Sorry."

"You look much better."

"Feel okay. Found us a crash, Andrew. Fine place. Secure, secluded, roomy as hell." Spike turned to Dana and his manner became formal. "If it's alright with the Slayer," he said.

Dana touched her hair nervously. "Sure. I guess. If it's alright with you."

"I'll get your things," said Spike, moving past her to do it, and managed to avoid looking at her again.

****

Curious. Spike's vibe was passing strange. He seemed to have cast himself the role of Dana's valet -- wouldn't let her carry anything, wouldn't let her lift a finger -- but he couldn't meet her eyes, didn't respond when she talked, refused to share the back seat. Spike installed himself shotgun before Dana reached the jeep, and actually locked the door.

Andrew started the engine without comment and pulled out onto the highway, and thus they abandoned Bufadora by the sea.

An hour east Andrew ventured to say, "This is pretty remote, Spike. And getting remoter."

Spike was smoking thoughtfully, watching the sky. "So? That's just what we want."

"Well, I mean, the jeep's a rental. I have to take it back to Avis pretty soon, given the critical shortage of dineros."

"I'll do it."

"And we'll need to get victuals now and again."

"I'll do it."

"I didn't kill anyone in Los Angeles," said Dana suddenly. "It's all lies. When the arrow strikes, you can't help it."

"And we might need a pharmacy," said Andrew.

Spike grunted but made no promises.

Another hour passed, nothing around them in any direction but darkness and mesquite and the spangled arc of the Milky Way.

"The hyperspace jump in A New Hope is in every way a truer representation of faster-than-light travel," said Andrew, taking up the debate again, "than the lamentable Kodachrome bang that swallows the Enterprise. And this despite several years of budget inflation and CGI advances."

Spike tapped ash out the window. "The Next Generation had better relationships, Andrew."

"Indeed, but well-realized relationships are a poor substitute for science."

"Right. Left," said Spike.

Andrew glanced at him, puzzled.

"Left, you git! Turn left!"

The jeep bounced off the highway onto a narrow, rutted track. An overpowering perfume of sage filled the cab.

"Is this a legal road?" asked Andrew, through chattering teeth.

"It gets smoother over that ridge."

Andrew thought he saw a glow, a faint suggestion of light beyond the jagged tangle of shrubs. "Is it a town?"

"Nah. Not in these parts. You'll see."

The jeep topped the rise. Andrew gasped. Spike grinned.

"It's a mission. A possessed mission. Complete with Pig Demon and silver."

****

Andrew gazed up at the twin bell towers, pink and luminous against the indigo sky. "I'm not so sure about this, Spike. I mean, it's glowing. It's like Morgan le Fay's Castle of Glorious Lard."

Spike began to pull bags out of the jeep. "Don't be a nelly. Get tough. Jesus, Andrew, cut us a break."

"I have a bad feeling about this. Don't you have a bad feeling about this, Dana?"

Dana shook her head, watching Spike.

"It's a church, Andrew, a bleedin' house of worship. Haven't you ever heard of sanctuary? Haven for travelers?" Spike shifted his burden and pounded on the green bronze plating of the door. "Oi! We're here! Open up!"

The vast doors parted slowly, swinging wide with groaning hinges and squeaks of sand. Spike disappeared into the inky well beyond the threshold. Dana slipped after him like a shadow.

Andrew cast a yearning glance back at the jeep, sitting so plain and normal and unenscorceled in the creepy glow. Then he squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and followed his Slayer.

The air smelled damp, heavy with the ancient, ghostly smells of incense and beeswax. Andrew jumped as the doors began to drift shut behind him. He started forward, but too late: they met with a rolling boom, extinguishing the sliver of blue moonlight and wrapping him in darkness.

"Welcome, my precious children," said a voice at his elbow.

"Yahhhh!" shrieked Andrew.

A tip of light flared as Spike lit a candle, holding it up to send shadows jumping back in fright among the pews and alcoves. Dana stood half hidden by a pillar to Spike's left, eyes gleaming.

"That's Lucero," said Spike. "Lucero, that's Andrew."

Andrew stared down at Lucero -- who appeared to be a mouth balanced on two bristling porcine haunches -- and managed not to recoil.

"Hi," said Andrew in a cracking voice.

Four rows of overlapping teeth gleamed in the candlelight. "Welcome to San Santiago, my beloved son. What a blessing on your head, to visit us in our poor mission so far from everything." The creature waved a vestigial pincer. "I have made up the hearth, for humanity, and laid out linen of cloth with the forks."

Andrew bit his lip.

"Supper," clarified Lucero. "Supper to eat."

Spike slapped Andrew on the shoulder. "Brilliant, 'cause we're starved."

Lucero exploded with mirth, a wet hacking wheeze that bounced off the pillars and echoed to the vaulted ceiling. "He makes the jokes without stopping, your honored Spike. Ha! Ha!"

"Ha," agreed Andrew, feeling ill.

"Let's eat," said Spike.

Lucero bounded ahead, leading them from the church into a long gallery, where towering windows of stained glass admitted moonlight through a prism of red, gold and blue. Spike trudged after, head down, holding the candle cautiously.

Andrew took Dana's arm. "Don't worry," he whispered. "Spike is good at making friends."

Dana smiled, her face milky in the strange light.

Lucero's dining hall was a low, timbered room with plaster walls and a fireplace the size of a Honda. The heat from the blaze smacked Andrew like an open hand. He began to sweat.

"Comforting?" asked Lucero hopefully. "Is there relief now? A light shines in the darkness for my tiny beloved children, and the desert is far away. All is well."

"It's fine," said Spike, dropping into a chair.

"Do you like it?" Lucero asked Dana anxiously. "See, there is wine and water."

"Okay," said Dana.

Andrew hastened to pour for her. It seemed wise, since Lucero didn't have much in the way of arms.

Spike lifted a cover from a platter of spitted meat. "Mm, badger," he nodded, shooting Andrew a warning look. "Can't beat a good badger."

Lucero leaned forward. "Are you truly going to eat?"

"Hey, I eat," shrugged Spike, tucking in with determination.

"How the world is changed," murmured Lucero.

"I'll just have the bread," said Andrew. "Thanks."

Lucero wriggled onto a chair at the head of the table. Dana reached for a helping of badger and he beamed, showing his horrible teeth.

"You are from el norte," said Lucero politely, passing a gray soup with difficulty and spilling half. "It is good you have all your pieces. Terrible about the apocalypse, terrible."

"Yeah, that one sucked," grunted Spike.

"Spike helped win it," said Dana. "Evil things hate him because he's so good. But if they met him they would start to care. "

"Do you have electricity?" asked Andrew in haste, because Spike was gazing at Dana with real alarm.

"What is that?" asked Lucero.

After supper Lucero led his guests on a tour. "Here is a saint's finger, in a glass case with copper handles, very powerful. And here is a window with a leather latch."

"Sweet," said Spike appreciatively.

"Here at San Santiago there are beds and sheets, my precious children. There is a kitchen garden with a spring. There is a vestry with albs and chausables, worked in silver and gold thread, wrapped in paper. And a tamarind tree."

"It's pretty," said Dana.

Lucero stiffened and peered at her. "Do you like it, my little daughter?"

Dana glanced at Andrew, who had gone cold with foreboding. He shook his head. Then Dana looked at Spike, who nodded.

"Yes," said Dana.

Lucero crowed, clasping his tiny hands. "Then it is yours, my beloved daughter!" he exulted. "Every tile and beanpole, every brick and pane, from the altar to the troughs to the cellary! The cloister is yours, and the outbuildings, and the barracks of the muleteers long dead. All of San Santiago is thine, my cherished mija, and may you blossom here in the hope you bring your miserable servant." His eyes rolled hopefully at Dana. "You will stay?"

"Okay," answered Dana, after another nod from Spike.

Lucero collapsed and began to sob in deep snuffling gasps.

"Wait," said Andrew. "I don't think we --"

Lucero's great rubbery lips peeled back and dribbled foam with his tears. "Thank you, my children," he wept, scrubbing at his eyes. "Gracias. Glok thutta buhn."

Spike plucked a candle from a sconce and yawned. "Right. That's settled. Let's go to bed."

"But, Spike --"

Spike took Andrew by the collar and steered him firmly down the hall, away from the weeping demon. "Don't be rude, Andrew," he whispered tightly. "Don't stomp on the poor tosser's happiness. It's cruel, and he might bite you off at the knees."

Andrew lowered his voice, mindful of Dana. "There's something creepy about that guy, Spike."

"Who? That two thousand year old expatriate Bloshu pig demon back there? You think?"

"Okay, comprendo, we've seen worse. And brave desperate trios in exile can't be choosers. But we can't just trust --"

Spike turned sharply, his expression narrow and pinched in the wavering light. "Goddamn it, if you've got a better idea, there's the fucking door. Take your Slayer and clear out." He pulled a hand over his face, looking abruptly drained. "I've sick of the pair of you, anyway. I didn't sign on for this. Go on, get lost."

A wave of remorse washed through Andrew, to see Spike looking so exasperated and weary. "I'm sorry, Spike. It's a nice mission. It's better than the road. And... and Dana likes it."

Dana moved to Andrew's side and nodded firmly. Morning was beginning to show through the high windows at the top of the stairway, and Andrew could see an unfamiliar expression in Dana's eyes: worried, focused, concerned. "We want to stay," she added. "It's good."

"Fine," said Spike, pushing the candle at Andrew. "There's cots and shite at the top there, near the ladder to the bell tower. Pleasant dreams."

Andrew winced as a drop of wax seared his hand. "Wait. Where are you going?"

"They gotta fine crypt under the altar," muttered Spike, retreating with a heavy step.

Dana looked alarmed. "No. We'll go too. It's - I'm - it's not good, alone."

"I think we should stick together," agreed Andrew.

"Ha," said Spike, sourly mimicking Lucero. "Crypts are for honored vampires. Go to your beds, precious little children, and sleep on sheets." He waved offhandedly, once, before disappearing into the shadows beneath the church.

****

>From his high window Andrew watched the sun rise over the blue ramparts of the Sierra Juarez. The first rays touched the walls of the arroyo beneath the mission, and the high banks flamed under their fringe of thorn.

A stream wandered at the bottom of the gully, green as kryptonite in the steep gloom. Andrew watched it for a long time, thinking about Spike's tired face.

****

The mournful chords of a pipe organ drifted from San Santiago. The melody carried over the bristling dunes, pulsing and fading in the gusting wind: something old and faintly spooky, something Gregorian. Adoro Te Devote, maybe.

Spike sat beneath a twisted cottonwood watching the sky. The hard blue dome of heaven was a world unto itself in the desert, an endlessly changing panorama of clouds, all of them distinct as human faces. Tiny discrete puffs rode the high reaches without change, while closer to earth majestic piles of thunder glowered over the mesas in constant motion, boiling, rising, pulling themselves apart.

"How're you doing with it?" asked Angel, toying with a stick, picking at the bark. "Holding up okay?"

Spike tipped his head to look at him. "Well, what do you know. A visitation. Wasn't expectin' that treatment, somehow."

"I thought I should. It's going to be different for you."

"Yeah, I got that."

"Just ride it out, Spike," said Angel gently. "Try going with things, for once. Let it happen. There's nothing to be scared of."

That made Spike want to close his eyes, but looking at Angel was better, in an odd way. Angel was wearing his usual stupid clothes, but he looked easeful and happy, sitting in the dappled shade of the cottonwood tree. Spike rubbed his chin. "If I asked you what it was like, would you tell me?"

"Sure."

"I don't think so."

"Ask. I'll tell you."

"No, you won't," retorted Spike, suddenly angry -- and angrily satisfied -- that he'd caught Angel out. "It doesn't work that way. Proves you're a sodding phantom, so piss off."

"I came for you, and I'll come back, as often as it takes."

"Don't do me any favors, ya dumb figment."

Angel smiled patiently. "You've got a little time. Try to tie things up, if you can. And take it easy with Dana, okay? Stay clear of that one, Spike."

"You're still bent. She's a kid. I'd never."

"You sure?"

Spike snorted disdainfully.

"Good man." Angel stuck his twig into the sand and rose. The sunlight danced through the leaves, made a perfect halo for his head. "Just keep your nose clean and don't worry so much, Spike. I'll come back."

"Stick around," said Spike. "Hang out. I'm sorry I called you a figment."

"I'll come back," said Angel, reaching down as if to touch him in benediction.

Spike flinched back and woke in the ringing silence of the crypt. The air was cool and damp in his laboring lungs, and he could hear a tiny rattle there, next to the burning thing that had once been his heart.

Spike pulled himself up to sit, legs dangling over the side of the carved marble tomb. He ran a hand through his hair, head low, as Andrew trotted down the stairs with a candle.

"Spike, you need to see this," squeaked Andrew.

"I already have," sighed Spike, but followed him anyway.

****

The vampires were ranged across the esplanade -- carrying torches, the dirt-brained twerps -- and shouting in livid, wrathful voices.

"Bah!" yelled Lucero, from the choirloft window. "Do your worst, estupidos! This is a human house now, you maggots, you creeping motherless vermin. You'll never get back in! Go sleep in the sand, and choke on the sand, like the turtles and ants you are!"

A vampire hurled a torch. It burst against the encasement as Lucero ducked. "They have been asking for you," he said, noticing Spike.

Spike moved to the window. He found it difficult to look at Dana, who was staring avidly down at the square, hands clasping and unclasping. He felt his temper, always chancy, beginning to fray.

"What'd'you fuckers want now?" hollered Spike.

His voice was greeted with screams of rage. The vampires danced in fury, shaking their fists, roaring in Spanish.

"They say you are a murdering traitor and a dog's rectum," translated Lucero composedly. "They are very upset about their sire. They are unhappy with me also."

"Tough!" bellowed Spike.

"They want you to come down and fight like a vampire. They say, if you coveted this lair, you should have won it honorably."

"Tell them I'll be happy to dust all their arses, when I get around to it."

"Let's do it now," murmured Dana.

Andrew started. He grasped Dana's shoulder and pulled a tough face. "No. I -- I forbid it. Dana, that's a lot of vampires. Dana. Be cool, okay?

"A lot of vampires," whispered Dana throatily, eyes glittering.

The crowd in the square shrieked like a gale. A tall scarecrow stepped forward from the rest, shouting and jabbing his finger at the observers. To punctuate his harangue he spat onto the ground.

"That one gives his name," Lucero informed Spike. "Eusabio. He says your soul stinks from here, and that you are a slave. He says that you reek of sickness and that your testicles have rotted off." Lucero glanced from Spike to Dana, abashed. "Forgive me, my precious little daughter, that's what he says."

"Then let's kill him," replied Dana.

Eusabio was still yelling. Lucero said: "He says you are weak, honored Spike. He says you will wither and die in a bed, and you deserve it, because you are too cowardly to make a decent end. He says -- "

Spike felt the last of his patience vanish with a pop, like a soap bubble. He did not tarry. He thundered down the winding steps and burst through the massive bronze doors with a howl, skull buzzing as his face shifted.

He charged Eusabio first and they went down together, snapping and snarling epithets. Spike found purchase on Eusabio's neck, twisted hard, and Eusabio was gone, but there were plenty of others. Dedicated bastards. They were trying to use their torches, and some had axe-hafts, and they didn't seem to give a toss about surviving the fight if they could get a lick in, which made things interesting. Spike dodged and struck, weaving through clouds of ash, and then Dana was there, armed with a chair leg and doing respectable damage.

Spike came to grips with one of the torch-wielders, holding the fire away with a trembling arm as he stared into his adversary's fixed yellow eyes.

"You lose," it rasped, grinning. "All the vampiros de los Juarez, tambien, we die to get you. You lose."

The torch went out with a hiss under a cascade of water. The vampire recoiled like a doused cat, and Spike rammed the torch handle into its chest, and the fight was over.

Andrew stood by the trough holding a bucket. Dust swirled as Dana danced through it, grinning and stomping her feet. Spike started back toward the church doors.

Dana caught at Spike's arm. "That was a good fight."

"Yeah. That was a good fight."

Dana was radiant, her hair wild about her glowing face. "Will there be more? Of them?"

"I can pretty much promise that," said Spike.

Lucero held the door and bowed Spike in with ceremony. "My good friend," he burbled. "Mi amigo santo. Let us convene in the hall together. Let us smoke a pipe."

****

Andrew brought his tiny DVD player down from the bell tower and set Dana up to watch episodes of Cyborg 009 and Blue Gender.

"Are you mad?" asked Dana, worrying the earphones. "Don't be mad. It's not about me, not anymore. It's getting different."

Andrew tried to smile. "I know, Dana. I'm not mad. I just get scared for you sometimes. It's a Professor Xavier thing, you know?"

"But that was all true," protested Dana in distress. "Out there. So don't do that, Andrew. You need to be like the Punisher, not like Professor X, because being scared will kill us faster than anything."

"Okay, Dana." She looked so unhappy, which was such a shame after her big victorious battle that Andrew patted her shoulder. "Okay. I'll try."

Spike was dealing cards from a ratty deck as Lucero poured blood from a goatskin bag. Andrew cleared his throat.

"Um, Spike? Can I ask you something?"

Spike weighed Andrew, sighed, and laid down his cards.

They stood together in the hallway, well back from the door, where the night's glow fell onto the cloister tiles. Watching Spike, who stood so still and impassive, Andrew felt a chill settle into his blood.

"Spike," he asked courageously, "do vampires get sick?"

"Nope."

"Do vampires die in bed?"

"Not usually."

Andrew dropped his eyes. "What happened to Angel? What's going on? What is the shanshu, Spike?"

Spike didn't answer right away, and when Andrew looked up Spike was staring at the murky panes of the deep window, as if he could see past it into the clear night beyond.

"It's a reward," said Spike finally, his words quiet and empty. "Ain't that a laugh? It's my soddin' reward."

****

Dying was a busy job. Spike had a to-do list as long as his arm. Errands and chores and fix-this, steal-that. Prepare for withering death. Check. Train Andrew -- soddin', clueless, grief-stricken, forgetful, perpetually sniffling and swollen-eyed Andrew -- up in the way he needed to go. Check. Avoid Dana without hurting the poor bint's feelings, check. Keep Dana in the dark about shanshus and other potentially disturbing subjects. Check. Obtain for Dana what she needed, not what she wanted, check.

Dana was a good little egg, really, sounder ever day. Blossoming. Coming along fine, speaking whole sentences unprompted and only half of them raving bugfuck paranoia. She was coming down from the psycho stratosphere, taking an interest in life. It wasn't Dana's fault that the sight of her made Spike's heart ache. It wasn't Dana's fault that she'd saved his life on the beach, or that she kept dragging musty blankets down from the bell tower to spread on his sarcophagus, or that a glimpse of her sparring with Andrew made Spike think of Nikki, and the little Chinese girl, and filled him with grief and worry. It wasn't Dana's fault that her face was more sweet and serious by the day, or that she was beginning to read, poring over Andrew's comics and the psalters Lucero laid at her feet. It wasn't Dana's fault, or anybody's, that her mere existence made the whole dying challenge seem untimely, cruel, and miserably unfair.

Spike's awl slipped and his hand smashed into the scored silver. Pain exploded from the impact -- a stupid little nick, for God's sake, and he was practically seeing stars. Rotten creeping humanity, it was worse all the time. Aches and pains, sensitivity to heat and cold, insomnia at high noon. It was monstrous. Spike sucked at his bleeding thumb and seethed.

"Perhaps we can pull some loose, senor."

"Lucero," said Spike with bitter, deadly patience, "these are enchanted silver bricks. If we pull 'em loose the whole soddin' place'll come down."

Lucero blinked his rheumy pig eyes. "I am sorry, senor. When I think how happy you were about the silver, it makes me sad."

"Never mind. It was stupid of me not to ask."

"But this is a great pity. You are a guest of Dona Dana. And you are a good vampiro."

"Oh, how I wish that were true," muttered Spike.

"You grow weak, but you still manage to beat off the ravening hordes. You keep the word. It seems wrong that you should have to work all the time." Lucero poked at the tiny pile of silver shavings with a cloven toe. "You are so busy since you started to turn human and die."

"I've got it handled."

"You must tell me how to help."

Spike brushed his meager tally of silver onto a page of Quatro Fantastico and folded it, careful not to spill. "This'll do for now. Go make supper for the kiddies, Lucero."

In evening the cloister's courtyard grew cool, and the high adobe walls funneled breezes into it, soft zephyrs fragrant with sage and wild rosemary. Dana was always busy in the courtyard at sunset. She had many projects -- a few seedlings that struggled in neat squares of savaged brick, graveyards for the badger bones she'd rescued from the offal pit, mysterious patterns of pebbles marked with posts and bits of wire. Head bent and brow furrowed, Dana tended them every day as the light faded, gravely and with care.

Andrew was perched on the low wall that ran between the surrounding arches, fiddling with his dead laptop. Hanging back in the concealment of the breezeway, Spike caught Andrew's eye and tipped his head in summons.

"Hi, Spike," said Andrew, in a voice meant to carry.

Dana looked up, then rose and rubbed her hands on her jeans. "Hi, Spike."

There being no decent way avoid it, Spike nodded and took a step forward. "Evenin'. Well. That's a fine thing you have going, there, Dana. Andrew, we should be off."

"Okay," replied Andrew, betraying no intention to move. "Hey, Spike, Dana found a cow's skull."

Dana pointed shyly. When Andrew gave him an imploring look, Spike sighed and trudged into her weird garden.

It was a fine skull as skulls went, bleached to alabaster, with one scored horn intact and the other broken halfway from the base.

Spike put his hands in his pockets. "Nice touch."

"I found it out near the well. The well that's broken." Dana bent to tuck a sprig of pale lavender blossoms, already shriveling, into one empty socket. "It must have died of thirst there, in the beginning, when all the rain stopped. If I find people bones I will bury them in the church."

"Good plan," said Spike. "Come on, Andrew, we --"

"It's like a pyramid," said Dana, cocking her head to examine it. "Or the Mitsubishi logo. It has three points. Morning, day and night. They point away from the center -- " Dana indicated spokes of quartz pebbles arranged at the skull's base and joined by a circle of chipped shale, " -- but they are one thing. It would look good on a costume. Everyone can see it, if they want to."

"I can see it," said Andrew. "It's really neat, Dana."

"Let's go," announced Spike, turning on his heel and obliging Andrew to follow.

"Dana, don't fight any vampires while we're gone," called Andrew. "Okay?"

****

Four ounces of enscorceled silver was poor trade, even with humans who didn't shrink from magic. A few batteries, a sack of oranges, a hairbrush. Nothing. Spike was feeling very low.

"Maybe we should sell this soddin' jeep," he sighed.

"Maybe we should have a drink," suggested Andrew diffidently.

Andrew was getting that wobbly look again, the one that spoke of his unbearable sorrow at Spike's impending doom, the one that made Spike want to pull his well-meaning sappy face off.

Spike tossed the oranges on the back seat. "Right."

They drove to a demon roadhouse on dusty track at the feet of the Santa Inez.

"Dos cervezas," warbled Andrew, taking a seat by the flyspecked window.

The bartender merely sneered.

Spike pursed his lips and fetched the needful, and returned to find Andrew drumming the oilcloth table.

"Jumpy?" Spike pushed a bottle at him. "Well, don't show it. That's the quickest way to get demolished in a place like this."

Andrew sniffed. "I'm no longer he who jumps at demons. I mean, uh, after the pubs Giles took me to, a place like this holds no terror." Andrew took a swallow and picked thoughtfully at the label. "A place like this... a place like this... does a lot of business, I bet, out here in the thirsty trackless wastes."

Spike had downed his beer in one pull and was leaning back, letting it hit. "I expect so."

"A big till, as they say. Mucho dinero."

Spike opened one eye. Andrew smiled.

"Don't talk daft," drawled Spike. "Look at the size of those buggers."

"They are many, and they are mighty, in their unclean way," agreed Andrew softly, easing his jacket aside to show his holster. "But lo: I carry the Equalizer."

****

The jeep reeked of stun gas all the way back to the San Pedro Martir road, but it was full of booty. A kitten mewed among the rolling bottles.

"And when I said: My name is Inigo Montoya, they didn't get it!" Andrew crowed. "They cursed all the Montoyas just before they passed out."

"Provincial sods," nodded Spike, in the vast good humor that came from blood on his knuckles and the warm glow of cash well earned. "Every last one. But they were prosperous, I'll give 'em that."

"Loaded to the veritable gunwhales. We're flush. And they're real pesos, Spike, we can spend them anywhere."

"Then set course for Mexicali, Sulu. I've got a list."

****

Fresh ash was swirling over the mission steps when Spike and Andrew returned, and Spike saw Andrew's brow darken.

"Look, Andrew," he said, "Fish gotta swim, you know. Don't go lecturing the girl, you'll just upset her."

"A Slayer's first duty is obedience," replied Andrew.

Spike laughed appreciatively.

Dana was stunned by the haul. Eyes wide, she opened bags and caressed their purchases, then jumped. "Oh! A kitten. It's a kitten."

"He just sort of came along. You don't fancy cats?"

"He's so small. He's gray, too."

Andrew busied himself with the Rube Goldberg contraption he'd devised for the resuscitation of the laptop. The kitten walked up and down the table, sniffing at bundles with his tail straight up. Dana extended a cautious finger and stroked his back. The kitten responded with adoration.

"I guess he's yours, then," said Spike.

Dana picked up the tiny creature and held it with puzzled delicacy as it tried to burrow into her hair. Her smile was soft and faintly awed.

Spike left quickly.

The long gallery ran around the courtyard, and the view from the third floor was bathed in silver light. Spike let Andrew's pillowcase of swag drop soundlessly to the tiles at his feet.

>From above, Dana's garden was a mural. The broken fountain in the center was a human face, with stones for eyes and trailing vines for hair, and a cow's skull at the center like a diadem. Lesser figures played over the tangled confusion of the scratched earth, demons made of pebbles, killers made of glass. At one end was a bright form, made of quartz chips, one hand raised in admonition -- Andrew, no doubt. Opposite, and connected to the head by arrows and links, was another shape -- not one figure but two, linked like siamese twins, with conjoined halos about them and ringed by circles of glittering stones.

The sun was coming but Spike lingered, staring at Dana's garden, until he heard her feet on the stairs.

****

The day's rest was scant and polluted by the usual bad dreams. The basement in Sunnydale. The hard faces of the Scoobies. The forlorn bodies of old victims, rigid in death. Even Angel made an appearance, intoning rah-rah shite about heaven and the glorious boon of humanity. Waking at intervals, Spike fidgeted on his sarcophagus lid, listening to the unnerving soft thup of his awakening pulse.

The desert heat didn't reach underground. The tomb was hard and cold and made his bones ache, and Spike eyed the blankets on the floor with longing. Every morning Spike pushed them onto the floor and every time he returned they were back in place, neatly folded, occasionally graced by a broken flower or a colorful pebble.

Dying by inches was a drag. Each day brought another symptom. Spike had been resisting, drinking the blood that nauseated him now, keeping strictly to darkness, shunning Lucero's plates of badger and boiled cactus. Spike was clinging to his vampirism with grim fidelity, a regular paragon of undeadness even as his heart twitched and pulsed in his chest. And it was hopeless. He couldn't win an extra day.

It was all over but the shouting. Spike knew he'd have to abandon the crypt soon, make his way to some monk's old cell, and adopt the bed he'd eventually die in -- with Andrew holding his hand and a hot water bottle at his feet, probably.

Fuck that. Spike rolled off the sarcophagus. Fuck turning human and withering by degrees. Screw hanging on to every precious second, teasing every additional minute out of what was left, just so Andrew and Dana could find their feet and not go to pieces when he was gone. Things needed saying, and saying loud, before he got so soft he couldn't say anything but goodbye.

It was dry and hot upstairs, with the sun still hammering the desert and the tiled roof of the mission, and the halls smelled like boiled eggs. Andrew was in his room, surrounded by a pile of fragile books from the library, and Lucero was squatting near him, translating Spanish in his highly unreliable fashion.

"Spike! You're up early." Andrew gazed at him tenderly. "How do you feel?"

"Like I'm gonna turn human and kick it any minute. Listen, Andrew, we have to get a few things sorted."

"Spike, I found something. Lucero's been helping me. There aren't any spellbooks here, but there are stories about --"

"Cut it out, Andrew." Spike sat heavily on the bed. "There's no damned spell for this, and we don't have time to arse around. Those fuckers we tossed out of this place have friends, and they're gonna make life very hot for you when I'm gone."

Andrews eyes welled. "We won't let you go."

"Aw, fer chrissake, will you let me talk? You have to get ready, Andrew. I'm going out tonight and find their new lair, and kill as many as I can. You gotta be ready for the ones who get past me, because they'll make a beeline for this place. If you and the girl play it right, you can probably waste the rest. Then you'll have peace for a bit, and you'll be able to make plans."

Andrew had gone white. "So that's it?" he asked quietly. "Tonight's the night?"

"Yeah, it is. Won't be up to it if I wait."

"Please wait," said Andrew.

Lucero bit his rubbery lip in anxiety.

"Don't give all the ugly details to Dana," continued Spike. "Keep your mouth shut for once -- she doesn't need to know about the shanshu or any of that crap. She's a Slayer; she'll understand if I go out on a mission and don't come back. She'll be fine."

"No she won't. And neither will I."

"Don't try me, Andrew."

"Dana will be crushed, Spike. Think of her. I think she's falling -- oh. Hi, Dana"

Dana stood in the doorway, grinning tentatively. Her hair was damp. One wavy strand curled over her brow, bleached white.

"I used some of that stuff you bought," she told Spike. "There's a lot left, though."

"It looks just like Rogue, Dana," said Andrew kindly. "Good job."

Dana looked at Spike. "Is it?"

"Yeah," said Spike. "Good choice."

Dana flushed with pleasure.

****

Spike folded his blankets neatly, collected his stakes, and left the crypt. The church was empty -- Andrew wasn't going to see him off, then. Bleedin' sulker.

Spike paused before the doors. The high altar was gleaming in the twilight, defended by alabaster angels bearing tapers, faces lost in the gloom. Spike felt unhappy and ill-used. Was it so much to expect a farewell, then? A few good wishes after all they'd been through? Humans were cold, that was all, and he wasn't sorry to avoid turning into one of them.

"Hi, Spike." Dana stepped out of the shadows. "Are you going to hunt?"

"Might do. Just a little fun. You have to stay here, though, and guard the fort."

"Okay. But I'd like to go with you sometime, Spike."

"Right. We'll do that." Spike pulled the heavy door aside. "You mind Andrew, Dana, while I'm gone. He's a good lad, and he likes you, and he knows more than you think. Be sure to mind him."

"I will," said Dana, and her fist came out of nowhere and smashed into his jaw like a piledriver. Bells rang and birdies sang and the last thing Spike saw, through the falling curtain of astonishment, was Dana's face floating above him like the moon.

****

"You bastard," rasped Spike through swollen lips.

Andrew took his hand. "I realize you are angry and see this as yet another stab between the shoulder blades, but this long goodbye stuff is so last week, Spike. Wiser heads must prevail."

"I'm going to kick your arse."

"Now, Spike."

"Get these fucking things off me."

Andrew adjusted the bits of old monk's cloth that lay on Spike's chest like a lead weight. "No can do, hermano. I'm glad to see they work. It's the habit of a saintly friar who died here, along with a bit of his shroud."

"I can feel what they are, you soon-to-be-painfully-slaughtered git. I'm choking."

"Yet you do not burn. Fascinating." Andrew patted Spike's hand and took up a sheaf of notes. "I am going to say several prayers now, invoking the aid of the said saintly friar."

"The hell you say! Get me off this goddamned bed!"

Andrew paused. "It's very fortunate none of us has to be a believer for this stuff to work. You just have to be humble and deserving, Lucero says. Dana and I are going to take it in turns, because it's a novena. It'll take nine days, during which we will fast and keep vigil for you."

"Stop," groaned Spike. "Stop."

"The novena to San Santiago the confessor," announced Andrew primly. "Let us pray."

****

It was like a bad dream. It was like the bad dream, in which Spike lay on a human bed in a stuffy room, waiting to die while Andrew fussed. Except for the lack of a hot water bottle and the presence of Dana, it was like the fulfillment of a loathsome vision.

Andrew and Dana stormed heaven. They chanted, they lit candles, they festooned the room with altar hangings. Nothing happened, of course. Spike grew steadily weaker and more furious, pinned under the habit of the holy friar. Day followed night followed day, and the prayers droned on.

"Dana," said Spike one evening, while Andrew was off bathing in the cistern, "this isn't the way, pet. You've got to let me up. I don't wanna go out like this."

"We have two more days," responded Dana stolidly, laying aside her comic book for Lucero's psalter.

"It's not that I don't appreciate the thought," cajoled Spike with a hint of desperation, "but I'm a vampire. Bad, bad vampire. We're SOL as far as all this miracle rot's concerned. It's a waste of time, time that I don't have."

Dana put on her stubborn face, one that Spike had come to know well in the intervening days. "You're not a vampire anymore, not completely. Andrew told me what's happening to you. So it's going to work."

"Let me up, there's a good girl. Just for a minute, there's a good Dana."

"I think what happened to you and Angel was a miracle. It just didn't go right. So we have to fix it." Dana knelt on the hard tiles. "Let us pray."

****

"Spike, wake up. Time for a soothing beverage."

Disgusted and apathetic past all resistance, Spike allowed Andrew to tip a bottle into his mouth. Beer hit his empty stomach and a loud gurgle filled the room. Spike grimaced in shame.

"Wow!" Andrew beamed. "That is a tasty burger! Your stomach's rebelling like an alluvial damper. No, wait, that's for repairs. An broken ion coil? Anyway, I think we're getting somewhere."

"Bollocks. Andrew, I can't stay awake. Listen to me. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I have a bad temper and say things I don't mean. It was nice of you to try this, even if it was a stupid, half-witted betrayal that robbed me of any hope of happiness in my last hours. Thanks."

"What are friends for? Don't worry, Spike, this isn't the end. It's not. Hey, Dana's come to read for you."

Spike hadn't seen her enter. The room was very dim. "I found some poems," said Dana. "In a box."

"I'm going to get the thing," said Andrew.

"Okay," said Dana.

Spike closed his eyes.

The desert wind sighed in the tiled eves. Past the shuttered window, out over the scrub, Spike could hear animal voices, wild and contentious, alien and unconcerned. Dana read slowly, her words rising and falling like a guttering candle.

"Over the ramparts fanned While the fresh wind was fluttering his tresses, With his serenest hand My neck he wounded and Suspended every sense with his caresses.

"Lost to myself I stayed My face upon my lover having laid >From all endeavor ceasing: And all my cares releasing Threw them among the lilies there to fade."

****

The light was harsh, leeching the color out of everything. Just a blind empty haze except for his Ponceness, who hulked darkly at Spike's elbow and was clearly in a bad mood again.

"Thanks a lot," said Angel irritably.

"You're welcome." Spike squinted at him. "What'd I do this time?"

Angel crossed his arms. "Never mind. Too late."

"Oh, that's helpful. Nothing like a bit of mysterious taunting for the dying bloke. God, even heaven hasn't taught you manners."

Angel sighed. His head drooped. "I guess not."

Spike considered him. "Well. Thanks for this last bit of encouragement, Angel. I'll just pop off and go back to being dead, then."

"Yeah," said Angel. He lifted his head and smiled sadly. "Do it right. Just get it right."

****

There was fire. A glowing ingot, a searing coal. On Spike's chest, over his heart, burning straight through.

"YAAAARRRGH!"

Spike threw himself out of bed. The monk's cloth fell away in smoking chunks. A human finger dropped onto the floorboards and Spike recoiled from it, groaning and gamefaced, as Andrew helpfully doused him with water.

"Jesus Christ!" Spike sputtered and slapped at his face. "Ow! Ow!"

"Does it hurt?' asked Dana with interest.

"He's all bumpy, "marveled Andrew.

"Es miraculoso," murmured Lucero. "Gracias, Senor."

Spike stared up at them, smarting, and they smiled down at him benevolently.

Dana picked up the severed finger and presented it proudly. "We broke the glass case. He must have been a very good saint, to set you on fire like that."

"What an event! Truly prodigious," said Andrew, taking Spike's elbow and assisting him to his feet. "This is one for the history books. A reversal. A finger to fate, so to speak. Prophecy averted by the plucky faith of a few loyal companions, an intervention from heaven that must surely --"

"Angel," blurted Spike. "What about Angel?"

Andrew settled Spike's smoking clothes and handed him a mug. "What about Angel, O traveler of the afterworld?"

Spike frowned. He was forgetting. Something about Angel's face -- that resignation, that blighted hope, that loss. Was it in Los Angeles, on the lip of that smoking crater, or after? The memory was slipping away.

"I don't know. It's gone."

Andrew smiled. "If it's important, it'll come back."

"I don't know," Spike said again, troubled.

****

They had a little party when Spike was hale once more, a small, intimate, glad-you're-an-undead-freak-again soiree. Andrew played the theme to Star Wars on his tinny laptop, and Dana sang the Bill Murray lyrics. Then they lit the last of the candles and started loading the jeep.

"Shame to leave all that silver," noted Andrew.

"He's out there," said Spike. "I feel it. We fucked over his shanshu when we worked that little miracle, and they chucked him. He's human now, and God knows what kind of mess he's in. Look, Andrew, I know what I know. And if Angel's out there in trouble, we gotta go."

"Okay, Spike. Far be it from me to quarrel with half-remembered visions from the Beyond." Andrew placed his laptop on the back seat and shut the door. "We'll find him," he added stoutly. "It's a mission. We'll scour the world, using mystical means and our own keen instincts, leaving no stone unturned, and when we do, well... what do we do then?"

"Spend a few days in hospital, I expect. He won't be half pissed with any of us."

"Still, we must," said Andrew in a small voice.

"Yeah," said Spike. "We must."

Dana came down the steps balancing an enormous bundle of books and bedding. Lucero followed her, sobbing.

"You will come back, my child? You will visit your poor servant?"

Dana heaved her burden through the jeep's hatch. "It's still my house, Lucero. No vampires will come in, ever, as long as I live."

"I know, my daughter, I know. But I will be lonely."

Dana kissed his broad, bristled brow. "I'll come back."

Spike and Andrew turned away in discomfort at such a naked display of feeling. Dana joined them in the jeep a moment later, holding the panicking kitten to her chest.

"I told him we'd visit. And we will."

Andrew fumbled for his keys. "We're embarking on an uncertain journey, Dana."

"No telling what'll happen," agreed Spike.

"We're going to visit. And I don't want to sit back here alone," said Dana.

Spike tapped ash out the window. "You've got your bloody cat, haven't you?"

"I want you to sit with me. I sat with you. For nine days."

After a moment of silence Spike sighed and got out, shutting the door with a bit more force than necessary.

Dana smiled as he slid in beside her. "Good. You look happy since you died again. You look nice."

"Don't cuddle, Dana. Sit up like a big girl. Come on, pet, don't be crowding me."

Dana chuckled. "I'm glad you're here."

"Yeah, I'm here," muttered Spike, permitting himself to touch her hair. "What a life."

"It's a wonderful life," said Andrew, starting the engine. He laughed at himself, startled, and threw a smile up at the rearview mirror, where Dana was leaning her head against an invisible support. "Get it? I made a Jimmy Stewart. It's a wonderful life!"

"We get it, Jimmy," said Spike. "Drive."

END

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