Introduction
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| Family | Shadow |
Buffy pummels a vampire in the cemetery. This one looks like it’s a refugee from an 80s heavy metal rock band. “You know, it’s probably none of my business, but I just got to ask…” Buffy ducks under a punch the vampire swings at her and gives it a kick. “…you smell this bad when you were alive?” She gives it another spinning kick to the head, and knocks it sprawling into a headstone. “’Cause if it’s a postmortem thing, then, boy, is my face red.”
The vampire gets to its feet and tries to hit her again. Buffy blocks it easily and punches it, knocking it flying over the headstone. “But, just so you know, the fast-growing field of personal grooming’s come a long way since you became a vampire.” She pulls out her stake, and jumps over the headstone—doing a somersault in the air before she lands in front of the vampire—and plunges her stake down toward its heart.
The vampire catches Buffy’s descending arm and twists it around, redirecting the path of the stake into her abdomen. Buffy gasps in pain.
Buffy punches the vampire away from her, and pulls the stake out of her gut. Blood has already started to soak her sweater. Buffy clutches at her wound, staggers away from the vampire, and starts to run. The vampire moves faster, and gets in front of her. “You’re going? But you were having so much fun a minute ago.”
Buffy swings her stake at it, but it blocks her easily. It knocks her up against the side of a crypt, and she drops the stake.
The vampire bends down and picks up her stake. It slowly moves toward Buffy, who is too weak to run anymore. She watches, helpless as it raises the stake over its head. The vampire begins to bring it down on her.
Riley blindsides the vampire, and knocks it away from Buffy. He pulls his taser and tries to shock the vampire, but it hits it out of his hand. The vampire takes off as Riley scrambles to recover his weapon. Riley looks back and forth between the fleeing vampire, and Buffy as she sags to the ground. Riley lets it escape, and goes to Buffy. He asks her what happened, but Buffy passes out before she can answer.
Riley bandages up Buffy in her room. She’s a little embarrassed that she passed out on him, but Riley’s surprised she’s capable of moving with a wound like hers. He really thinks she should be seeing a doctor about it, but Buffy doesn’t want to go near the hospital. If she does that her mother will find out what happened. She tells him not to worry. Rapid healing is part of the Slayer package. “And the boyfriend who comes complete with combat medical training? That’s just a Buffy Summers bonus.” She pulls her blouse down to cover her bandages.
Riley wants to know what it was that did this to her, and is surprised when Buffy tells him it was a single vampire. Riley thinks it must have been some sort of super vamp, but Buffy tells him no, it was just one of the regular variety. It just beat her. She doesn’t really understand how it happened, she’s in the best shape of her life. Before they can talk any more Dawn bursts into her room without knocking. Buffy is a little upset by that, and Riley quickly starts to gather up the blood soaked cotton swabs he had used to clean her wound.
“Sorry to interrupt the sex-capades,” says Dawn. “I just wanted to tell you that Mom’s coming.” Riley quickly finishes packing up most of his medical kit before Joyce gets there. He shoves a couple of bandage wrappers under Buffy’s bed when she arrives at the door.
Riley asks Joyce how she’s feeling. She says she’s fine. “Bordering on chipper, and tomorrow, planning on being obnoxious,” but she doesn’t really look it. She tells Buffy that she wants to talk about the grocery shopping. She notices the bottle of alcohol, and some clean cotton swabs that Riley hadn’t had time to get hidden. “Are you disinfecting something?”
Dawn quickly grabs them while Buffy is still fumbling for an explanation. “Mine. Some nail polish experiments are doomed before they even begin.”
“But you keep pushing the envelope, honey.” Joyce leaves Buffy’s room.
Dawn turns back to Buffy and Riley with a smug smile on her face. “Did I just pull a Slayer-related Mom cover-up thing? Come on. Who’s the man?”
“You are,” says Buffy. “A very short, annoying man.” Dawn’s smile fades, and Buffy takes pity on her. She really did help, and didn’t deserve Buffy being snarky about it. “If I show you something, you promise you won’t tell?”
Dawn makes a “cross my heart” gesture, and Buffy lifts her blouse to show Dawn her bandage. At first Dawn thinks it’s cool, but she switches to gross when she sees the look Buffy and Riley give her. Buffy tells Dawn that their mother is not to know about this, and she’s going to need Dawn’s help with the housework to keep it covered up.
“Oh, sure. I save your butt and you dump all your chores on me.”
“Dawn,” says Buffy.
“I got it. You’re covered. We’re good.” Dawn smiles. “Just lucky it’s not bikini season.”
Riley figures that he can take over the patrolling duties while Dawn keeps the home front covered, but Buffy doesn’t want him doing it alone. She tells him to take the gang along. Riley reluctantly agrees to that.
“When do I get to patrol?” asks Dawn.
“Not until you’re never.” says Buffy.
Riley moves quietly through the cemetery, keeping low, using the headstones for cover. He pauses behind one of the stones and pumps his fist in the air a couple of times.
Xander, Willow and Anya are standing about twenty feet behind him, watching him curiously. Xander is holding a bag of chips, which he’s sharing with the others. They wonder what Riley’s hand move was all about. After quietly discussing it among themselves, Willow suggests that they ask.
“Hey Riley! What’s the, uh…” Xander pumps his fist in the air. “…all about?”
Riley stands up. “It means yell real loud so the vampires who don’t know we’re coming will have a sporting chance.”
”See? Now he’s all mad and sarcastic.” Xander whispers to Willow as they start toward where Riley is standing.
”It’s because you were doing all the yelling, Mr. Stealthy-pants.” she tells him.
“It’s their fault.” Anya tells Riley.
Riley suggests that it might be a good idea of they split up to cover more territory. He will take the cemeteries. They can cover the Bronze. The trio quickly apologises, and promises to be more stealthy in the future. Riley acquiesces, but tells them to lose the chips. Willow grabs one last handful for herself, and stashes the bag. Riley resumes his stealthy movement through the cemetery.
”You know what he’s like? He’s like a cat.” whispers Xander. ”You know, a big jungle cat. How come I’m not like that? It’s just so cool.”
Anya gives him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and Willow tells Xander she thinks he’s cool around a mouth full of chips.
Buffy is in the Magic Box with Giles going through the Watcher diaries. She’s looking for accounts of how Slayers died, but she isn’t having much luck. Accounts of Slayers deaths are pretty thin. Buffy finds that the accounts of most Slayer’s lives boil down to “Slayer called, blah, blah. Great protector, blah, blah. Scary battles, blah, blah. Oops! She’s dead.” She wants the details. What made that last fight different? Why did the Slayer lose. Buffy wants to know what their mistakes were, so she can avoid them.
Giles doesn’t think that the diaries are going to be much help with that. “The, uh, the problem is that after a final battle, that, uh, it’s difficult to get any, um, well, the Slayer’s not…she’s rather, uh…”
“It’s okay to use the ‘D’ word, Giles.”
“Dead…and hence, not very forthcoming.”
“Why didn’t the Watchers keep fuller accounts of it?” asks Buffy. “The journals just stop.”
“Well, I suppose, if they’re anything like me, they just found the whole subject too, uh…”
“Unseemly?” asks Buffy. “Damn. Love ya, but you Watchers are such prigs sometimes.”
“Painful, I was going to say.” Buffy instantly regrets her flippancy. “But you’re right. Accounts of the final battles would very be helpful, but, there’s no one left to tell the tales.”
Buffy suddenly looks at Giles intently.
“What?” asks Giles.
“Ow!” says Spike as Buffy pushes him up against the wall of his crypt. Then he realizes that didn’t hurt nearly as much as it usually does. He asks Buffy if she’s feeling all right.
Buffy doesn’t let him switch topics. “Slayers: you killed two of them.”
“I did,” says Spike cautiously, wondering where Buffy is going with this.
“You’re going to show me how,” says Buffy.
Buffy sits with Spike at an out of the way table by the stairs in the Bronze. Spike finishes off a mug of draught beer. He doesn’t think it was very good, even by American standards.
Buffy reminds Spike that they aren’t there to talk about hops. She holds up a wad of money. “It’s about two Slayers, one in China during the Boxer Rebellion, one in New York. Both got killed by you. Tell the tale, you get the cash.” She shoves the money back into her coat pocket.
“Right. You want to learn all about how I bested the Slayers, and you want to learn fast. Right, then. We fought. I won. The end. Pay up.” Spike holds out his hand. Buffy wants a little more detail than that, and Spike tells her that is going cost her a bit more. For starters he wants a plate of spicey buffalo wings. He’s feeling a little peckish. Buffy twists around to flag down a waitress, and winces and holds her side.
Spike isn’t surprised. “As I thought. Some nasty thing got a taste of you.”
“Don’t get all excited,” says Buffy. “I’m fine.”
“Oh, right. Stuck in a dark corner with a creature you loathe, digging up past uglies, ’cause you’re fine.” Spike will tell Buffy how he killed the Slayers, but he’s going to do it his way, and that includes getting a plate of wings.
“Were you born this big a pain in the ass?” asks Buffy.
“What can I tell you, baby? I’ve always been bad.”
London, 1880
William sits off in the corner at a busy upper class party writing in his notebook. A servant passing by offers him an hors d’oeuvre. William looks up at him. “Oh, uh, quickly. I’m the very spirit of vexation. What’s another word for ‘gleaming?’” The servant looks puzzled. “It’s a perfectly perfect word as many words go,” says William, “but the bother is, nothing rhymes, you see.”
The servant just nods, and moves away to offer his tray to other guests. William goes back to puzzling over his poem, until he spots Cecily coming down the stairs. She joins a group of other young people who are chatting across the room from him. He is struck with inspiration and quickly writes it down before he gets up and goes over to them.
The topic of discussion is the recent wave of disappearances. The police don’t seem to have any notion what is responsible for it. One of the gentlemen asks William for his opinion. William tells them he doesn’t have one. He leaves thinking about that sort of sordid thing to the police. “I prefer placing my energies into creating things of beauty.” He holds up the page he has been writing on, and casts a nervous glance toward Cecily. She seems embarrassed by his attention.
The gentleman quickly grabs the page away from William to see what it is that he has been writing now. William tries to get it back—it isn’t finished yet—but the gentleman holds it away from him, and gets up on a stool so everyone can see him as he recites William’s latest creation:
“My heart expands, ’tis grown a bulge in it.
Inspired by your beauty effulgent.”
“Effulgent?” he asks William, as everyone in the group laughs. William snatches back his poem, and retreats away from them.
“And that’s actually one of his better compositions,” says one of the other gentlemen in the group.
“Have you heard?” asks a young lady. “They call him ‘William the Bloody’ because of his bloody awful poetry.”
“It suits him!” says the gentleman who had read the poem. “I’d rather have a railroad spike through my head than listen to that awful stuff!”
Cecily has retreated from the group too, and found a place on a sofa by herself. William approaches her. She asks him to leave her alone. He thinks that she’s just upset because of the way the others were behaving, but that isn’t it. She tells him she is going to ask him a very personal question, and asks him to tell her the truth. “Your poetry, it’s…they’re…not written about me, are they?”
“They’re about how I feel,” says William.
“Yes, but are they about me?”
“Every syllable,” admits William. Cecily is not pleased to have her suspicions confirmed. “Oh, I know,” says William. “It’s sudden, and…and, please, if they’re no good, they’re only words, but…the feeling behind them…I love you, Cecily.” She asks him to stop. “I…I know I’m a bad poet, but I’m a good man. All I ask is that…is that you try to see me—”
“I do see you. That’s the problem. You’re nothing to me, William.” Cecily stands up and looks down at him. “You’re beneath me.” She turns and walks away.
William stumbles out into the street, tearing pages out of his notebook and not looking where he’s going. He blunders into a man walking along with two women companions,1 and drops the scraps of paper in his hands.
“Bloody— Watch where you’re going!” says William as he scrambles to pick up the papers. He doesn’t even look up at him, and stumbles away down the street.
William sits on a bale of hay in a stable, still ripping up the pages from his notebook. He hears someone enter, and he looks up and sees a beautiful raven haired woman walking toward him.
“And I wonder what possible catastrophe came crashing down from heaven and brought this dashing stranger to tears?” asks Drusilla.
“Nothing,” says William. “I wish to be alone.”
“I see you, a man surrounded by fools who cannot see his strength, his vision, his glory.” Drusilla slowly walks toward William. “That, and burning baby fish swimming all around your head.”
William gets off the bale of hay and starts to slowly back away from this mad woman. He thinks she may be a pickpocket. “You’ll not be getting my purse, I tell you.”
Drusilla backs William up against a post. “Don’t need a purse. Your wealth lies here.” She places her hand over his heart. “And here.” She moves her hand up to his head. “In the spirit and…imagination. You walk in worlds the others can’t begin to imagine.”
“Oh, yes! Uh, I mean no. I mean, uh, Mother’s expecting me.” William tries to get away from Drusilla.
“I see what you want.” Drusilla puts her hand up near William’s head. “Something glowing and glistening. Something…” She snatches something out of the air, and pulls it too her. “…effulgent.”
”Effulgent.” whispers William.
“Do you want it?” asks Drusilla.
“Oh, yes,” says William. Dru takes his hand and places it on her breast. “God, yes!”
Drusilla looks down at William’s hand. When she looks up again she’s showing her vampire face. William is startled, but he doesn’t try to pull away. Drusilla’s mouth moves to his throat.
“Ow!” says William as her teeth sink into his neck. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” he repeats as she feeds. “Oh! Oh! Ohh.”2
Sunnydale, 2000
Riley moves quietly through the cemetery with Xander, Willow, and Anya following him. They have gotten much stealthier. Riley spots something up ahead and waves for them to close up with him. It’s the vampire who got Buffy. They pause to let it move on a little farther ahead of them, and then follow it.
Riley signals for them to stop and wait when the vampire enters a crypt. The sound of other voices can be heard coming from inside it. Riley creeps up to the door alone and looks inside. There are at least five vampires inside, laughing and joking with each other. Riley quietly creeps back to the others.
“It sounds like a party in there,” says Xander.
“Forget about crashing,” says Riley. “There’s too many of ’em. We’ll come back at daybreak when they’re asleep and we’re better armed. It’s okay. We can kill ’em just as dead in the morning.” They move away from the crypt.
Spike sinks the seven ball in the corner pocket. Buffy is getting impatient. He hasn’t told her anything about how he killed a Slayer yet.
Spike tells Buffy to wait, he’ll get there. “Becoming a vampire is a profound and powerful experience. I could feel this new strength coursing through me. Getting killed made me feel alive for the very first time. I was through living by society’s rules. Decided to make a few of my own. ‘Course, in order to do that…I had to get myself a gang.”
Yorkshire, 1880
Angel pushes Spike up against the tunnel wall in a mine shaft, with his hand around Spike’s throat. “Perhaps it’s my advancing years that makes me so forgetful, William. Remind me. Why don’t we kill you?”
“…ike!” Spike manages to get out.
Angel releases his grip on Spike’s throat. “What’s that?”
“It’s Spike now,” says Spike. “You’d do well to remember it, mate.” Angel does not like this upstart calling him “mate” and he wonders what’s happened to his posh, upper-class accent.
Darla’s brings them back to the point. They barely got out of London alive after what Spike did. “Everywhere we go, it’s the same story, and now…”
“You’ve got me and my women hiding in the luxury of a mine shaft all because William the Bloody likes the attention,” says Angel. “This is not a reputation we need.”
Spike doesn’t give a damn about their reputation. They’re vampires. Angel thinks that is a good reason for a little extra finesse.
“Bollocks!” says Spike. “That stuff’s for the frilly cuffs and collars crowd. I’ll take a good brawl any day.”
“And every time you do, we become the hunted,” says Angel.
Darla watches the two of them with growing delight. “I think our boys are going to fight,” she tells Drusilla.
“The King of Cups expects a picnic.” Drusilla claps her hands and giggles. “But this is not his birthday.”
“Good point,” says Darla.
Spike tells Angel that he prefers getting caught to being hunted, because that leads to a good fight. “When was the last time you unleashed it? All out fighting in a mob, back against the wall, nothing but fist and fangs? Don’t you ever get tired of fights you know you’re going to win?”
“No,” says Angel. “A real kill, a good kill, it takes pure artistry. Without that, we’re just animals.”
Spike thinks that Angel is just a poofter, but Angel has had enough of this punk kid. He pushes Spike away, picks up a pick, and breaks its handle, making himself a stake. He attacks Spike, and pushes him back onto an ore truck. His pick handle stake plunges toward Spike’s heart.
Spike catches the pick handle, and holds it off. Darla and Drusilla watch in anticipation.
“Now you’re getting it!” Spike laughs.
Angel lets go of Spike. He figures that sooner or later Spike is going to learn the hard way. “If I can’t teach you, maybe someday an angry crowd will. That, or the Slayer.”
Spike sits up. “What’s a Slayer?”
Sunnydale, 2000
Spike and Buffy are still by the pool table in the Bronze. Spike tells her how he became obsessed with the idea of killing a Slayer. To most vampires a Slayer is a thing of cold sweat and nightmares, but he started to seek her out. “I mean, if you’re looking for fun, there’s death, there’s glory, and sod all else, right?” He shrugs. “I was young.”
Buffy still wants to know how he killed a Slayer.
“Funny you should ask.” Spike walks behind Buffy. He puts his hand around her throat. Buffy spins around and reaches for the pool cue beside her but Spike was expecting that. He grabs her wrist before she can get to it.
Spike takes the pool cue. “Lesson the first,” he says, with his hand still on her throat. “A Slayer must always reach for her weapon.” He transforms into his vampire face and shows her his fangs. “I’ve already got mine.” He shakes his head, and transforms back to his human face. “Good thing, too.” He lets go of Buffy, and backs away. “Become a vampire, you’ve got nothing to fear. Nothing but one girl. That’s you, honey. Back then…it was her.” He takes his next shot.
China, 1900. The Boxer Rebellion
The city is on fire. People stream through the streets. Some seeking escape, others looking for victims. Looters ransack abandoned houses.
Spike fights with the Slayer inside a temple. She is a young Chinese girl, and she’s armed with a sword. It flashes almost too quickly for the eye to follow, but so far Spike has managed to avoid any injury from it. She slashes at his face, and this time Spike doesn’t pull back quite fast enough. The tip of her sword nicks his left eyebrow.
Spike maneuvers around, looking for an opening. He’s enjoying himself, but the Slayer’s sword keeps him out of striking distance. She thinks she sees an opening, and she lunges at Spike. He deflects the sword, and its tip embeds itself in the tiger statue behind him, and gets stuck there. Spike darts forward, and knocks her away before she can free it.
They continue to fight, hand to hand. The Slayer is just as good at this as she was with her sword. She pushes Spike up against a pillar beside one of the temple windows and her stake plunges toward his heart.
Before it strikes the Slayer is thrown off balance by an explosion just outside the window. Spike breaks free, and knocks the stake from her hand. The Slayer moves quickly to try to recover it, but Spike is quicker. He grabs her reaching arm by the wrist.
Spike twists the Slayer’s arm around behind her back, grabs her head, and pulls it aside, exposing her neck. He sinks his fangs into her neck and feeds.
When he is finished he turns the Slayer around and looks at her dying face. She speaks to him in Chinese. “Tell my mother…I’m sorry.”
“Sorry love, I don’t speak Chinese.” Spike drops her body on the floor. Spike wipes her blood from his lips, and licks it from his fingers. “A fella could get used to this.”
Spike stands over the body of the dead Slayer. Drusilla finds him there. “Ooh, Spike. Look at the wonderful mess you’ve made. That’s a Slayer you’ve done in. Naughty, wicked Spike.” She extends her hand toward him.
Spike slowly walks over to Drusilla, grabs her around the waist and pulls her to him. “You ever hear them saying the blood of a Slayer is a powerful aphrodisiac?” He holds his blood covered hand up to her. “Here now…have a taste.” Drusilla licks the blood from his fingers.
Spike picks Dru up, spins her around and pushes her against a pillar. Then he lowers her down, and gives her a kiss. Drusilla starts to pull off his clothing.
Spike and Dru leave the temple. They find Angel3 and Darla walking through the carnage of the city. Drusilla can’t wait to tell them the good news that her little Spike killed a Slayer.
Angel doesn’t seem very overjoyed to hear this. He glowers, and looks Spike up and down. “Congratulations. I guess that makes you one of us.”
“Don’t be so glum, mate!” says Spike. “The way you tell it, one Slayer snuffs it, another one rises. I figure there’s a new Chosen One getting all choseny as we speak. I’ll tell you what. When and if this new bird does show up, I’ll give you first crack at her.”
Drusilla growls and moves toward an alley entrance behind Angel. “I smell fear.”
Angel moves in the opposite direction. “This whole place reeks of it.”
Spike comes up behind Drusilla and hugs her. “It’s intoxicating,” she says, and they laugh.
“Let’s get out of here.” Angel grabs Darla by the elbow and leads her away, she gives him a suspicious look. “This rebellion’s starting to bore me.” Spike pulls Drusilla around and they follow after him.
Sunnydale, 2000
Spike sucks on a slice of lime. “That was the best night of my life, and I’ve had some sweet ones. What are you lookin’ at?”
Buffy is looking disgusted with Spike. “You got off on it.”
“Well, yeah. I suppose you’re telling me you don’t? How many of my kind reckon you’ve done?”
“Not enough,” says Buffy.
“And we just keep coming. But you can kill a hundred, a thousand, a thousand thousand, and the armies of hell besides, and all we need is for one of us—just one—sooner or later to have the thing we’re all hoping for.”
“And that would be what?” asks Buffy.
Spike steps up close to her, bends down and whispers in Buffy’s ear. ”One. Good. Day.”
Buffy pushes Spike away from her.
“Hey! You asked, and I’m telling,” says Spike. “The problem with you, Summers, is you’ve gotten so good, you’re starting to think you’re immortal.”
“Not really,” says Buffy “I just know I can handle myself.”
“Oh…and how do you explain this?” He reaches out and pokes her wound. They both cry out in pain, Buffy’s in her stomach, Spike’s in his head. It attracts the attention of the other patrons in the Bronze.
“So that’s it?” asks Buffy. “Lesson over?”
“Not even close.” Spike takes his pool cue and heads out of the Bronze. Buffy grabs her coat, and follows him.
Riley approaches the crypt where the vampire who injured Buffy is regaling its buddies with the story of how it “killed” the Slayer. Riley is alone. He hasn’t waited for sunrise the way told the others they should. He enters the crypt as the vampire is showing the bloody stake to its friends and telling them that they ought to put it in a museum.
“You know what they put in museums?” asks Riley. “Mostly dead things.”
The vampire spins around and attacks Riley with the stake. Riley blocks it, grabs its arm and twists it, forcing the vampire to drop the stake. He catches the stake and buries it in the vampire’s chest. The vampire explodes into dust.
The other vampires start to rush toward Riley, but they hesitate when they see what Riley has pulled from his pocket: a grenade. Riley pulls the pin, releases the handle, and sets the grenade down on the floor. He turns and runs for the door. After a second the vampires run too.
Riley gets out of the crypt before the grenade goes off, but none of the vampires do.
Spike and Buffy have moved outside. “Give it to me!” says Buffy.
Spike kicks at Buffy’s head, but she ducks under his foot. She comes back up, grabs him by the throat and pushes him up against the fence. Spike starts to laugh. She wonders what’s so funny.
“Lesson the second,” says Spike. “Ask the right questions.” Buffy lets go and steps back. “You want to know how I beat ’em? Question isn’t: ‘How’d I win?’ The question is: ‘Why’d they lose?’”
Buffy doesn’t see the difference.
Spike thrusts the tip of the pool cue toward Buffy’s throat, stopping it short by a couple of inches. Buffy doesn’t even flinch.
“There’s a big difference, love,” says Spike
Buffy kicks the pool cue out of Spike’s hands. “How’d you kill the second one?”
“A bit like this.” Spike makes a quick series of punches toward Buffy’s head, all of which she dodges easily.
“Didn’t that hurt?” asks Buffy.
Spike tells Buffy that he knew he wouldn’t hit her, and his chip only cuts in if he’s actually trying to hurt someone. “If on the other hand…” He vamps out, and lunges at her again, and stops, crying out in pain, and holding his head. “See, now that hurt.”
“Yeah? This hurt too?” Buffy punches him in the stomach, and then again in the head. He falls to the ground. “How’d you kill ’em Spike?” she asks as he gets back to his feet.
Spike swings another punch at Buffy, but she grabs his arm, and flips him over onto the ground. She’s starting to have had quite enough of this. She crouches over Spike, pulls a stake from her pocket and plunges it toward his heart.
Spike catches Buffy’s arm before the stake strikes. “You’re not ready to know,” he says.
Buffy thinks she is.
“Alright then. It went like this.” Spike grabs Buffy and throws her off of him.
New York City, 1977
The Slayer rolls, springs to her feet, and spins to face Spike again. She is a young black woman, in her early twenties, with a short afro haircut. She’s wearing a black leather duster. Spike is at the peak of his punk rock phase, looking even more like Billy Idol than he does now. She and Spike are fighting in an otherwise empty subway car.
Sunnydale, 2000
Spike is demonstrating his moves in the fight to Buffy, sparring with her, as he describes his fight with the Slayer in the subway car. He tells Buffy that she reminds him of her, she had a similar style.
New York
The Slayer and Spike trade punches and kicks in the subway car. She grabs hold of his arm, and kicks him in the stomach, then she bounces his head off the back of one of the seats. She keeps her hold on him, and smashes his head through one of the windows. Spike yells into the wind from the motion of the train. He’s having fun. Now it’s his turn.
He pulls himself back inside the train, and punches at the Slayer, getting in a couple of good hits. He grabs her and pushes her up against the doors. She pushes him away, and resumes her attack.
Sunnydale
“She was cunning, resourceful. Oh, and did I mention? Hot.” Spike continues to spar with Buffy. “I could have danced all night with that one.”
“You think we’re dancing?” asks Buffy.
“That’s all we’ve ever done,” says Spike. Buffy grabs him and throws him…
New York
…down the subway car. Spike looks around. He sees one of the poles holding up the hand rail, and he breaks it off. He advances toward the Slayer, swinging his weapon.
Sunnydale
Spike advances toward Buffy swinging the pool cue. “Every day you wake up, it’s the same bloody question that haunts you: is today the day I die?” He swings the cue at Buffy’s head. She blocks it, and…
New York
…the Slayer punches Spike and knocks him back. He recovers quickly, and swings the pole at her again. He knocks her to the floor.
Sunnydale
“Death is on your heels, baby,” says Spike, “and sooner or later, it’s going to catch you.”
New York
Spike swings the pole at the Slayer lying on the subway car floor, but she catches it, and kicks him in the crotch.
Sunnydale
“And part of you wants it.” Spike watches as Buffy slowly moves toward him. “Not only to stop the fear and uncertainty, but because you’re just a little bit in love with it.” Buffy punches him…
New York
…knocking him the to floor. The Slayer gets on top of Spike, holds him down, and punches him over and over. The lights go out momentarily as she punches at him. When they come back on their positions are reversed. Spike is sitting on top of the Slayer with his hands around her throat. He looks up. “Death is your art.”
Sunnydale
Buffy looks down at Spike, kneeling in front of her. “You make it with your hands day after day…”
New York
“…That final gasp, that look of peace…”
Sunnydale
“…part of you is desperate to know what’s it like? Where does it lead you?”
New York
“And now, you see, that’s the secret. Not the punch you didn’t throw or the kicks you didn’t land.” Spike is still sitting on top of the Slayer, holding her by the throat as she struggles. “She merely wanted it. Every Slayer…has a death wish.” He grabs the Slayer’s head, and gives it a sharp twist, breaking her neck. “Even you.”
Sunnydale
Spike slowly gets to his feet. Buffy stands looking at him, without saying a word.
New York
Spike gets to his feet, and walks down the subway car to the emergency brake handle. He pulls it. He walks back to the Slayer and starts to strip her coat off her body. “The only reason you’ve lasted as long as you have is you’ve got ties to the world. Your Mum. Your brat kid sister. The Scoobies. They all tie you here, but you’re just putting off the inevitable.” He gets the coat off of her, and tries it on for fit. He likes the look. “Sooner or later…you’re going to want it. And the second—”
Sunnydale
“The second…” Spike slaps his hands together under Buffy’s nose, “…that happens, you know I’ll be there. I’ll slip in. Have myself a real good day. Here endeth the lesson. I just wonder if you’ll like it as much as she did.”
“Get out of my sight, Spike. Now.”
“Oh…did I scare you? You’re the Slayer. Do something about it. Hit me. Come on. One good swing. You know you want to.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.” Spike steps up close to her. “Give it me good, Buffy. Do it!”
“Spike…” warns Buffy. He steps in closer, staring at her, but then his expression softens, and he starts to lean toward her, as if he were about to kiss her. Buffy pushes him away. “What the hell are you doing?”
Spike tries again, but Buffy holds him off.
“Come on. I can feel it, Slayer,” says Spike. “You know you want to dance.”
“Say it’s true. Say I do want to…” Buffy pushes Spike away hard, and he falls back onto the ground. “It wouldn’t be you, Spike. It would never be you.” She pulls the money she promised him out of her pocket and throws it onto him. “You’re beneath me.” She walks away down the alley.
Spike starts to sob as he gathers up the money. Then he looks down the alley in the direction Buffy went. There’s murder in his eyes.
Harmony asks Spike what he’s doing as he rummages through a chest in his crypt. “Beneath me. I’ll show her,” he mutters. He finds what he’s looking for and pulls out a double barrelled shotgun. “Put her six bloody feet beneath me,” he says as he loads it. “Hasn’t got a death wish? Bitch won’t need one.”
“Okay, I’m trying to be supportive here,” says Harmony, “so don’t drive a stake through my heart like last time, but…” Harmony signs. “You can’t kill Buffy. She’s the Slayer. She is so going to kick your ass.”
“I’ve got two barrels here that’ll prove you wrong,” says Spike.
“How are you going to kill her? Think! The second you even point that thing at her, you’re going to be all— aah!” Harmony mimics the way Spike clutches at his head when the chip cuts in. “And then you’ll get bitch slapped up and down Main Street, unless she’s had enough and just stakes you.”
Spike knows this is going to hurt, but he figures he can take the pain for the second or so it will take to pull the trigger, and killing Buffy will be worth the hours of pain that will follow.
“Fine!” says Harmony as Spike leaves the crypt. She continues to shout at him after he’s outside. “But don’t come crying to me when you fail! You couldn’t kill her before you got the chip. You had plenty of chances!”
South America, 1998
“Why can’t you kill her?” asks Drusilla.
“You’re the one who keeps bringing her up!” says Spike. “I haven’t said a word about the bloody Slayer since we left California. She’s on the other side of the planet, Dru!”
“But you’re lying! I can still see her floating all around you. Laughing. Why? Why won’t you push her away?”
“But I did, Pet. I did it for you. And you keep punishing me. Carrying on with creatures like this.”
The Chaos Demon, slime dripping from his antlers, thinks that he should be going. He didn’t know that Dru was involved with someone else. Spike thinks that that sounds like a good idea.
“I have to find my pleasures, Spike,” says Drusilla. “You taste like ashes. You can’t blame a girl, Spike. You’re all covered with her. I look at you…all I see is the Slayer.”
Sunnydale, 2000
Buffy steps into her mother’s room to tell her that she has the grocery list all finished. She’s surprised to see that her mother is packing an overnight bag. Buffy asks where she’s going.
This is a conversation that Joyce had been hoping to put off for a little longer. “You know the nothing that I’ve been dealing with the last couple of weeks? It might not be nothing.”
Joyce is going into the hospital for observation and a CAT scan. It should be for just one night. She tries to reassure Buffy. Even if they find something, her doctor is pretty sure that they’ve caught it early, since nothing has shown up in any of the other tests. “I’m going to be fine.”
Buffy smiles at her mother. “I know you will.”
Buffy steps out onto the back porch of her house, a tear running down her cheek. She sits down on the steps, buries her face in her hands, and starts to cry.
Spike steps out of the bushes and walks toward her. When he gets close he cocks his shotgun. Buffy hears the sound, and looks up at him. She doesn’t even seem to notice the gun in his hands. “What do you want now?” she asks, looking desolate.
Spike looks at Buffy, and notices the pain on her face. He can’t go through with it. “What’s wrong?”
Buffy looks away from Spike, and tells him she doesn’t want to talk about it.
Spike looks at Buffy for a while. “Is there something I can do?”
Buffy still doesn’t look at Spike. Confusion and bewilderment get added to the expression of grief on her face. Spike cocks his head at her.
Spike sits down beside Buffy on the steps and continues to look at her. He reaches out and gives her a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
Buffy really doesn’t know what to make of this. She still doesn’t look at Spike.
Spike pulls his hand away, but stays seated beside Buffy. He and Buffy sit beside each other on the steps, neither of them saying a word.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| The Chinese Slayer | A temple in China, in 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion | Bitten by Spike |
| “Heavy Metal” vampire | A crypt | Staked by Riley |
| Four other vampires | A crypt | Blown up by Riley |
| The New York Slayer | A subway car, in 1977 | Neck broken by Spike |
This does put to rest any doubt about who Spike’s sire was though. Despite him calling Angel his sire in School Hard it is Drusilla.
Angel catches up with Darla in China, and tells her that he wants to go back to the way things were, in spite of having his soul restored. She reluctantly agrees to give him another chance. He joins her, Spike and Drusilla—to whom Darla has told nothing about the soul—in their hunting. Darla notices that Angel’s heart isn’t in it though, and he is being very selective in who he kills. Limiting himself to rapists and murderers and such.
While Spike was killing the Slayer, Angel had been searching the streets for Darla. He notices something in an alleyway, and goes in to investigate. He finds a missionary family cowering there. A man, his wife, their young daughter—who is maybe twelve years old—and a baby in a basket. A man with a sword attacks them. Angel rescues them, and then leaves the alley again without exchanging a word with them.
After he has left the alley Angel runs into Darla. She is curious about what’s in the alley, and he tells her there’s nothing there but bodies. He starts to lead her away. They see Spike and Drusilla coming toward them from the temple.