by Nancy Holder
“She got it done,” Robins observed.
“Always has,” Spike said, a tinge of pride in his voice.
“So far,” Robin replied.
* * *
(I am not sitting in my fancy library. I’m sitting on a toilet. I am not suave and debonair. I am . . . just Andrew.)
“Here’s the thing,” he said into the camera. “I killed my best friend. There’s a big fight coming, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t even think I’m going to live through it.”
He looked down, centering himself in the real world, the one beyond the story, the world in which he lived.
“That’s uh, probably the way it should be. I guess I’m . . .”
He turned off the camera.
Chapter Seventeen: “Lies My Parents Told Me”
New York City, 1977
It was raining hard, and Robin’s mama was fighting for her life.
Her coat whipped like bat’s wings as she faced down the vampire, and they were kicking and hitting each other like comic book heroes. Robin was very, very scared as he hid behind the park bench.
He had seen a fight like this before. She got so badly beaten; monsters tried to bite her and kill her. She always beat them.
But even at four, Robin knew his mama might die one night . . .
His mother was Nikki the Vampire Slayer, and right now she was double-kicking the white-haired vampire in the chest. He went down, then rolled back up and bouncing on his heels like a boxer on TV.
“Well, all right!” he said. “Got the moves, don’t you? Gonna ride you hard before I put you away, love.”
“Sure about that?” she challenged him. “You seem a little wet and limp to me. And I’m not your ‘love.’ ”
She charged him, launching another attack. They collided, fighting and smacking each other. The vampire dodged her punch and twisted her arm behind her back. Then he wrapped his other arm around her throat and pulled her close to him.
Robin jerked in his panic, knocking into the trash bin next to him.
The vampire was distracted by the noise, and Robin’s mama seized the chance to butt him with the back of her head and break free.
As he staggered back, Nikki somersaulted to her feet, reached into her long black leather coat, pulled out a stake, and threw it at him.
The white-haired vampire caught it in midair.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he said to her. “Taken me a long time to track you down. Don’t really want to end the dance so soon. Do you, Nikki? Music’s just getting started, ‘in’it?”
As he turned to go, he tossed the stake aside.
It clattered to the ground, very close to Robin.
The vampire turned back again; Robin froze.
“Oh, and . . . love the coat,” he said, striding off into the darkness.
The Slayer watched him go for a moment until Robin said anxiously, “Mama?”
She turned her attention toward her boy, who emerged from behind the bench. She went to him and crouched next to him as she straightened the hood on his rain slicker.
“Did real good, baby boy,” she told him warmly. “Stayed down just like Mama told you.”
His teeth were chattering. He was hungry.
“Can we go home now?”
She shook her head. “Nuh-uh, not safe there anymore.” She smiled at him. “Hey, how about I leave you with Crowley? He’s got those spooky doodads you like playing—”
“No,” he said quickly. “I want to stay with you.”
She took that in. Then she looked in the direction where the vampire had headed off, paused, and said, “Yeah, I know you do, baby. But . . . remember, Robin, honey . . . what we talked about. Always gotta work the mission.”
He looked away.
“Look at me,” she said firmly. “You know I love you. But I got a job to do. The mission’s what matters, right?”
He nodded.
“That’s my baby. C’mon.”
She stood, taking his hand, and they walked off a bit before Robin pulled free of her grasp, turned, and ran back to retrieve the stake that was lying on the ground. He picked it up.
“Robin!” she called.
Lighting flashed . . . and the four-year-old became Principal Wood, fighting in an alley with Buffy and the very same vampire, now wearing his mother’s duster. Buffy was squaring off with a large vampire while Spike, sent his adversary crashing into a Dumpster, then decapitated him with a shovel.
But Robin with a jagged piece of wooden crate in his grip, was going down.
He had gotten in a few licks, but the tide had turned. The vampire swept his legs out from under him and he was down.
Now the demon was loomed over him, ready to strike.
Then the vampire exploded in a cloud of dust . . . revealing Spike gripping the splintered end of the shovel’s handle.
“Little tip, mate,” he said. “The stake’s your friend. Don’t be afraid to use it.
He has on her coat, Robin thought, livid. The vampire who killed my mother just saved my life.
Sensing some unfinished business, Spike wheeled around and said, “What?”
Robin shook his head slightly, as if to say, Nothing. Spike was still not convinced that they were finished, but he moved off toward Buffy.
“Just waiting for my moment,” Robin said stonily.
He was squeezing the stake in his hand so tightly that blood dripped from his fist.
* * *
At the Summers’ home, the phone rang. Dawn got it, and to her surprise it was Angel.
“Dawnie, hi, it’s me,” he said on the line. “Is Buffy home?”
“Yeah, hold on a sec,” she replied brightly.
But the line had gone dead.
Weird, she thought, and made a note to mention it to Buffy.
But she forgot.
* * *
Sunnydale High School was thrashed and trashed. The wreckage of the riot caused by the Seal was everywhere. Painters rolled paint over the graffiti; Buffy doubted that the custodian realized that what he was scraping off the window was the residue of the stressed-out student’s exploding head.
“Situation still normal,” Buffy commented to Robin Wood as they watched through the blinds over his window. “Or as normal as this school ever sees.”
“So it appears,” Wood drawled.
“Well, no fires,” she said, looking on the bright side. “And the Swing Choir and the Marching Band have gone back to their normal, healthy, seething resentment.”
“Been pretty quite around here since you shut down that Seal. You just may have stopped this thing, Buffy,” Robin said, gazing at her.
She demurred. “I saw an army of Ubervamps in my vision. To think I stopped The First . . . No. It can’t be that easy.”
He raised a brow and smiled faintly. “Call that easy?”
“Hey, any apocalypse I avert without dying, those are the easy ones.”
Smiling warmly, he moved toward her and said, “Y’know, you’re something else, Miss Summers. I’ve been watching you when we’re out patrolling. You remind me of my . . .” He trailed off.
She gazed at him with real sympathy. “Your mother,” she finished for him.
“What I remember of her, anyway,” he said faintly.
Her answering smile was wry. “Gotta tell ya, not a line every girl likes to hear. But in this case . . . compliment taken.”
It was a moment that became another moment. She felt herself relax a little, liking this nice man, this guy, this vampire-slaying ally . . .
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe everything’s fine.”
“Everything’s terrible!” Giles cried, sailing into Robin’s office. “A full catastrophe!”
“Giles, what’s wrong?” She hadn’t even realized that he was back in town. He was wearing a sheep-herder’s jacket and he actually looked kind of good.
“Have you seen the new library?” he demanded, in high dudgeon. “There’s nothing but
computers! There’s not a book to be seen. I don’t know where to begin. Buffy, who do we speak to?”
“That’d be me,” Robin said, extending his head.
Giles moved into charming mode and said, “Yes, I’m sorry. Rupert Giles. Buffy’s told me you’re something of a freelance demon fighter.”
“Oh, yes?” Robin asked as he shut the door.
“I’m relieved,” Giles continued, aware that he had lacked discretion. “We’re running dangerously low on allies.”
Buffy heard what he was saying between the lines. “So. I didn’t stop it, then.”
“No,” Giles informed her. “The seers in the coven are certain The First is continuing to gather its forces.” He added gravely, “I’m afraid war is inevitable.” A beat, and then: “So we should go to the school board.”
“What?” Robin asked, as if he assumed he was missing Giles’s point.
“Well, I can have my backup library sent from home in the meantime. It’s not much, but—”
“Giles,” Buffy cut in.
“Knowledge comes from crated bindings and pages, Buffy, not ones and zeroes.”
Buffy thought of the conversations about computers versus books that Giles used to have with his lost love, Jenny Calendar.
My God, we’ve been at this a long time.
“So,” she said, returning to the topic, “did you bring back any Potentials?”
“Ah, no. Actually my trip was about something else,” he told her. “Regarding Spike. I told you my concerns when you recklessly chose to remove the chip from his head.”
Robin stirred. “Wait. Sorry. Chip?”
“Long story,” Giles said.
Buffy turned to him. “The military put a chip in Spike’s brain so he couldn’t hurt anyone.”
“And that would be the abridged version,” Giles said with asperity.
“But he wouldn’t hurt any one, Giles,” Buffy insisted. “He has a soul now.”
“Unless The First triggers him again,” Giles argued.
“Triggers the chip?” Robin asked, trying to keep up.
Buffy shook her head. “The trigger’s a post-hypnotic thing The First put in his head. Made him . . .” She took a breath; it was difficult for her to say. “He was killing again.”
“So he has a trigger, a soul, and a chip,” Robin summarized.
“Not anymore,” Giles said, making it obvious that he was saying it for Buffy’s benefit.
Buffy frowned at him. “It was killing him, Giles.”
“The trigger?” Robin asked hopefully.
“The chip. The trigger’s not working any more.”
Robin tried again. “Because the military gave him a soul.” Buffy just looked at him and he said, “Sorry.”
“We don’t know that the trigger’s inactive,” Giles argued. “But what I’ve brought may help us to disarm it. And ascertain what it is, exactly, that causes Spike’s behavior.”
“It was that song, Giles,” Buffy said. “I’m telling you, it was the song he was singing.”
“Yes, but he has no memory of it,” Giles pointed out. “Is there any part of it that you can remember?”
“It wasn’t like it had a catchy hook or anything, like, ‘I’m Comin’ Up So you Better Get This Party Started.’ It was boring, old and English. Just like yo . . .” She caught herself as he glowered at her. “Ul,” she said quickly. “Yul Brynner.” A beat. “A British . . . Yul Brynner.”
Robin was intrigued. “This thing you brought. To keep Spike from killing again. How does it work?”
“That will require a bit of magic,” Giles said enigmatically.
* * *
A bit of magic, and some chains . . .
Muttering to himself, Xander shackled Spike to the basement wall.
“Could have put the chains back up a week ago,” he muttered, “Oh, no, we have to work on Spike now, of all times . . .”
“What?” Spike demanded.
“Nothing,” Xander replied.
Spike spotted Robin Wood standing a bit away from the others and asked him testily, “What you doin’ here? You came to see the show?”
“I thought you might need the support,” Robin drawled.
“Uh-huh,” Spike said, completely unconvinced. He turned to Giles and said, “Right. Let’s get this over with. What’re you going to do? Some hypnobeam or disarming spell?”
“Not exactly,” Giles said. “The First has brainwashed you. There’s something in your subconscious that it’s using to provoke a violent reaction.”
He held up a small strange object. “So we have to put this in your brain.”
Spike stared in horror at what appeared to be a pebble between Giles’s fingers. “Bugger that.”
“The Prokaryote stone will move within your mind to reveal the root of the trigger’s power,” Giles explained. “It can unleash ideas, images, memories. Hopefully, once you understand what’s setting you off, you can break its hold on you.”
“ ‘Hopefully,’ ” Dawn echoed. “So it might not work.”
“The stone’s only a catalyst for the process,” Giles explained, replacing the stone into a box. “The rest is up to Spike.”
“And how d’you expect to get that hunk of rubble into my cranium?” Spike demanded waspishly.
Giles turned to Willow who, as was her wont, was holding a large, ancient text. She took a step forward and said, “Okay. Just hope my pronunciation’s in the ballpark.”
She began:
“Kun’ati belek sp’sion. Bok’vata im kele’beshus. Ek’vota. Mor’osh boot’ke.”
The stone began to slither and stretch into an unappetizingly leechlike creature.
Spike was distressed, to say the least.
“Oh, you have got to be joking,” he said loudly. “What now?”
Calmly, Giles explained, “It has to enter your cerebral cortex through the optic nerve.”
“Oh, bollocks.” Spike stared at the creature. “All the rubbish people keep sticking in my head . . . it’s a wonder there’s any room for my brain.”
“I don’t think it takes up that much space, do you?” Giles asked.
Giles lifted the box to Spike’s cheek. The creature undulating out of the box and crawled onto his cheek, then flattened like a worm and eased its way into his eye.
Then he cried out in pain and yanked on his chains.
Contact.
Buffy hurried to him, sitting beside him as she took his hand, trying to still him as he thrashed in pain.
“Listen to me, Spike. You all right?”
He was breathing hard; he nodded, obviously not all right. Then he gritted, “How am I supposed to know if this bug ugly’s doing its—”
* * *
And it was London again, 1880. He was alive again, and with his dear mother in their parlor. She had a handkerchief in her hand, which she held tightly as he read her some of his poetry, another ode to the loveliness that was Cecily.
“ ‘Her eyes, balls of honey . . . angel’s harps, her laugh . . . oh, lark, grant a sign/if crook’d be cupid’s shaft . . .
“ ‘Hark, the lark . . . her name it hath spake . . . “Cecily” it discharges from ’twixt its wee beak.”’ ”
His mother beamed at him. “Oh, William,” she began.
“It’s just scribbling,” he said, suddenly shy.
“Nonsense. It’s magnificent.” She smiled at him. “This ‘Cecily’ of whom you write so often . . . would that be the Underwoods’ eldest girl?”
“Oh, no,” he said quickly, “I don’t presume . . .”
“She’s lovely,” his mother cut in. “And you shouldn’t be alone. You need a woman in your life.”
He gazed at her. “I have a woman in my life.”
She was surprised . . . and pleased. “But you’ve never . . .”
Then she realized that it was she to whom he referred, and she smiled at her son.
He smiled back. “Well, do not mistake me,” he told her. “I
have hopes that one day there will be an addition to this household. But I will always look after you, Mother,” he said firmly. “This I promise.”
She gazed at him with love, and then she began to cough. It overtook her, racked her body. She brought her handkerchief to her lips and when she lifted it away to drink from the glass of water he offered her, he saw the bloodstain on it.
He was alarmed. “Should I send a coach for Dr. Gull?”
“I’ll be all right. Ah.” She smiled again. “It’s passed. Just sit with me awhile, will you?”
“Of course.” He sat at her feet, covering his alarm, savoring this fine moment that they were together, and her illness was not so advanced that she could not enjoy the simple pleasures of womanly life, such as her needle-point. Then, to complete the moment, she began to sing the ditty he loved best, one from his nursery days.
“Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I hear a maid sing in the valley below.”
The song echoed . . . reverberated . . . seethed . . .
* * *
Before anyone could stop him, Spike lunged from the basement cot in a frenzy, full-on vamp mode. He hit Buffy, slamming her across the room, lunging, fighting. He picked up his cot and flung it across the room, hitting Dawn. She fell to the ground.
“Dawn!” Willow cried.
She hurried to help Dawn, then Anya took her upstairs. Buffy prepared to take on Spike when he froze. Then the Prokaryote slithered out of his eye and clattered to the floor, once more a solid object.
Spike morphed back to human guise, and he stared in shock and shame at Dawn, whom he had wounded in his blackout. He caught sight of the principal as well, the man silently observing, and obviously intrigued.
“Get me out of these sodding things already!” Spike cried, humiliated. “I’m fine.” He said to Giles. “Stone of yours is out, in’it? Did its job. So, I’m de-triggered, right?”
“Spike,” Giles asked. “What do you remember? About the song?”
“Oh, yeah.” Spike sighed. “The song. It’s called ‘Early One Morning.’ Old folk ditty.”
“What’s it mean to you?” Robin queried.
“Mean? Nothin’. Just . . .” The next word did not come easily. “My mum. It was her favorite. She used to sing it to me.” Self-consciously he added, “When I was a baby.”