Buffy The Vampire Slayer - The Lost Slayer - The King Of The Dead

by Christopher Golden (lit)

  Jax might be the master's right-hand man, but Spike was his enforcer, his assassin. At least when Drusilla was alive. Now, though... Giles has a lot to answer for.

  Valerie, one of those whom Giles had trusted and pro­moted, glanced uneasily at Spike as she stood. He flashed the girl a grin born from his savage heart and she flinched and looked quickly away. Valerie moved for­ward and stood beside Jax, staring up at Giles in total subservience. She even bowed.

  "Lord and master," Valerie said, her voice sweet and yet confident. "The Los Angeles operation proceeds as per your charted strategy. LAPD sirings are at twenty-two percent. Complete departmental takeover is sched­uled for next Wednesday, with the mayor and the commissioner twenty-four hours previous."

  Giles stroked his chin thoughtfully, his gaze distant. Half a minute ticked by and no one dared interrupt his thoughts.

  "Oh, all right, you pompous git. Get on with it," Spike snapped. He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, fee-ling self-conscious there at the front of the courtroom.

  He expected a flare of anger, but Giles did not so much as blink. Valerie glanced at Jax, then shifted un­comfortably from one foot to the other. Jax seemed un­willing to even acknowledge there was something odd about the master's behavior. After another half minute ticked by, though, he moved into Giles's field of vision.

  "My lord?" Jax ventured.

  "Hmm?" Giles muttered. Then he glanced down at Spike and Valerie and blinked several times. "Oh, right. Sorry. Late night, wasn't it?"

  Valerie giggled like a schoolgirl and Spike wanted to rip her heart out for it. The king was getting a bit dotty. They all had to see it. Ever since Buffy had bro­ken out of her cell, Giles had been scattered. Never mind that he'd turned up missing from his chambers half a dozen times, not telling anyone where he'd gone.

  "Valerie, I don't believe you mentioned the studio heads," Giles reminded her.

  "Last night, my lord," she replied. "Just as you in­structed. We missed at Paramount, though. He took some unscheduled personal time, went to a spa in Nevada. A team has been dispatched."

  "Excellent initiative." Giles stood up. The instant he did so the entire room also rose. "We'll pick this up to­morrow morning. Any urgent reports or requests can go to Jax." His smile grew wider as he looked at Spike. "In my chambers, now, William. And we'll discuss your be­reavement."

  Jax shot Spike a withering glance as he moved into the aisle, only to be surrounded by those Kakchiquels who felt that their business with the king could not wait. Spike caught Valerie studying him with fascination. An­other time he might have flirted with her, strutted for her. But the tears were dry upon his cheeks and Drusilla's death was too fresh for him, too close.

  Giles stepped down from the high chair and went to the heavy wooden door that led into the judge's cham­bers. He opened it and stood aside, waiting for Spike. The smile was still there, but a chill ran through Spike when he caught the glint in the other vampire's eyes. Though he remembered well when Rupert Giles was the Watcher, a stuffy Englishman who relied more on knowledge than on violence, this creature was not that man. Not a man at all. It retained Giles's memories, his intelligence and cunning, and it had turned them to its advantage.

  But this king of vampires had not become lord and master to thousands by chance.

  That knowledge calmed Spike somewhat as he stepped past Giles and into the darkened chambers beyond. The windows had been blacked out and the three lamps that burned in the room were unable to dispel the shadows there. In the corner, the skeleton of Judge Warren Hester had been arranged in an embrace around a coat rack. Tufts of hair and dried skin still clung to the bones. At night the windows were opened to air the rooms out, but over the years the smell had mostly dissipated.

  "Hello, your honor," Giles said to the bones.

  Then he turned and leaned against the desk, crossed his arms and gazed at Spike with sympathy in his glit­tering orange eyes. Sympathy as false, as feigned, as the benevolent mask he always wore.

  "Have you got another cigarette?" Giles asked.

  Spike raised one eyebrow in surprise, then shrugged and tugged the pack from his pocket. He held it out and Giles took a cigarette. Spike lit it for him, clicked the lighter closed, and slid it back into his pocket with the cigarettes.

  Giles inhaled deeply, cig clutched between two fin­gers. Then he let it dangle in his hand as he leaned against the desk once more.

  "You know how important Drusilla was to me, Spike," he said, as the ash lengthened on the cigarette. He did not take another drag from it, however, only let the ash grow longer. "Honestly, I find it more than a bit disturbing that you'd accuse me of having some sort of responsibility for her destruction. Why would I do something like that?"

  Feeling more than a bit petulant, even childish, Spike glanced at the ground. "Not saying you did it on pur­pose, Ripper. But, look, you're playing with the girl. Me, I always thought it was brilliant, keeping Buffy locked up like that. You don't kill her, they don't get to train another one. But she got out, didn't she? Not sure it was too bright an idea puttin' that new one, the little cutie came along after I took care of Faith, in with Buffy. Gotta figure that was a mistake, but it's too late to do anything about it now. Right. Fine. But they could have caught up with Buffy five minutes after she was out the door, or any time while she was on her way to Sunnydale. You told 'em to wait. More'n that, you left her that damn crossbow."

  A ghost of a grin whispered across Giles's features. "You knew about that?"

  Spike shrugged. "Saw you leavin' with it, put two and two together. At the time I figured you were just toying with her, having a bit of fun all your own. I can under­stand that. Once upon a time, she was your girl, yeah. In a way, you were her sire the same way Angel was mine. He didn't make me, but he trained me to be what I am. You did the same for her. So maybe you play with her a bit, give the mouse a little string, but you don't let her go."

  Spike took off his sunglasses, stared hard at Giles. "You don't let her run around killing your best people. Harmony was an idiot, but she was vicious. Matthias and Astrid, they were the best of the ones who came here with Camazotz. And Dru—" his voice broke off.

  "I should've been there!" Spike snapped, shouting at Giles, who watched him impassively. "You had us all spread out, but I think you knew just what Buffy'd do. You trained her, after all, right? Who'd know better than you. You probably predicted every move she made. You played with her, but you gave her too much rope and now Drusilla's dead."

  Giles nodded slowly, reasonably. "True," he said. "All of it. You know, you've always been underestimated, Spike. You're really far more perceptive than you get credit for."

  Spike shook his head, not knowing what to say next. The last thing he had expected was that Giles would simply agree with him, taking responsibility for Dru­silla's death.

  The vampire lord rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, Spike!" he cried with frustration. "What would you like me to do about it? I'm sorry Dru's dead. Truly. She was always a source of great amusement. Couldn't find any better. And the occasional vision, when it wasn't too truncated by her lunacy, was helpful as well. But she's dead. So now what? You stomp around like a five-year-old and then go huffing off to Greece or Brazil to lick your wounds? Feel free, if you need to."

  Spike flinched. He felt the anger boiling up inside him, dwarfing anything he had felt before. This wasn't just the pain of his loss, the void in his gut where his love for Dru had been ripped from him. It was more vis­ceral, more personal even than that. He had spent over a hundred years proving his worth after Angelus and Darla had disparaged him. He had killed more Slayers than any other vampire he knew of. But Giles had just brushed him off as though he was worthless.

  "I'll tell you what you do," Spike snarled. His face changed with his anger, his fangs lengthening, his brow contorting into the face of the beast. "You get a posse up like an old Western, as many of your loyal subjects as you can pull together on short notice, then you track her down a
nd you kill her before she can do any more dam­age. Or maybe you don't remember the habit Buffy has of interfering with the fun?"

  Giles's upper lip twitched once. He glanced away and idly reached up toward his face as though he were about to remove a pair of eyeglasses. His fingers paused inches from his face and he made a fist, then dropped his hand. Spike frowned as he took note of this strange behavior. It was, in that moment, as though Giles had forgotten that he no longer needed glasses. An echo of an instinctive nervous behavior that he had engaged in when he was still human. Still alive. Still re­ally Giles.

  "You don't want to kill her, do you?" Spike asked, astonished. "What's got into you, Ripper? You gone soft?"

  A shudder seemed to pass through Giles. He bent over slightly, staring up at Spike from beneath heavily lidded eyes. His face changed, became monstrous, lips curled back to show his elongated fangs. Slowly, he took a step toward Spike.

  "You have a certain value to me, Spike. I gave you a great deal of rope because of it. No more."

  Spike tried to protest, but Giles was too fast for him. The vampire lord darted in and grabbed him by the throat. Lifted off his feet, Spike beat at Giles's head and arms, trying to break his master's grip. Giles gave him a swift head-butt, connected with a loud, solid crack, and then slammed Spike into the dead judge's desk.

  "It is not your place to question!" Giles roared as he kicked Spike in the ribs once, twice, a third time.

  Bones snapped.

  "Somebody's gotta do it," Spike snarled, not sure if he felt brave or just stupid. He clutched at his side and tried to rise, and Giles grabbed him by the front of his jacket and threw him hard enough that he crashed into the coat rack and the wall and sent the dead judge's skeleton clattering in pieces all over the floor.

  When he looked up, Giles stood over him. The vam­pire lord kicked him in the face and Spike felt his cheek give way.

  "Son of a bitch!" Spike grunted in pain.

  Giles crouched beside him. His face was human again, his features soft, the mask back in place. Some­how that was more terrifying to Spike than anything else.

  "Everything she is, she owes to me, just as though she were my own daughter. She is a more perfect creature, a more effective predator, than any of the beasts who fol­low me. I wanted to see that beauty, the flow and rhythm of it, again. To know that it is still there."

  Spike wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and it came away bloody.

  "Yeah, that's brilliant," he muttered. "Things are going too well for you, too smoothly, so you've got to muddy the water a bit. Seen it a million times. Done it myself, even. Winning's no fun if you don't have some­one to beat. Doesn't mean it isn't stupid."

  Giles kicked him in the gut, then bent to pick up a length of broken coat rack. He turned and strode away, as if Spike were little more than a nuisance, now almost forgotten.

  "I toy with her. For my own pleasure. It isn't your business. But if you must know, I don't intend to kill her, not really. I didn't want her to escape, but now that she's out, she'll never let herself be captured alive again. I want to see if she's still as deadly. It seems all her time in that cell has made her even more so. Buffy Summers is the perfect killer. Imagine what she could be if I turned her."

  Spike's eyes widened. Painfully, clutching at his bro­ken ribs, he climbed to his feet. "You're gonna make her a soddin' vampire?"

  Giles glanced over at him and smiled sweetly. "Of course I am. Anything else would be a terrible waste, don't you think? Besides, I'm going to have to have someone to replace you."

  "What—" Spike began.

  He was not allowed to finish. Giles darted across the room at him, broken coat rack in his hands. It whistled as it cut the air, then collided with Spike's skull. He staggered backward, lifted his arms to try to defend himself, and Giles broke his right hand with another swing of the coat rack.

  "No!" Spike roared.

  "I have to set an example," Giles said simply, coldly. "If only you hadn't been so fresh."

  The vampire lord jammed the coat rack into Spike's gut and propelled him with a mighty thrust back through the blacked-out windows. The painted glass shattered and Spike tumbled out into the daylight. He fell three stories, twisting himself in midair, trying to control the descent. When he struck the pavement below, he dislocated a shoulder and his broken ribs tore up his lungs. Pain erupted in him like fireworks and he blacked out for a second or two.

  His clothes began to smoke and then tiny flames erupted all over his body. Spike started to burn.

  His eyes popped open and he screamed in anger and agony. With some difficulty, he got to his feet and ran for the entrance to the underground parking garage.

  Self-righteous bastard, he thought as he slipped into the cool relief of the garage, out of the sun, slapping at his clothes and hair to douse the flames. His keys rattled in his pocket.

  Can't kill ol' Spike that easily.

  Giles had slipped into the shadows quickly enough that he was barely scorched by the sunlight that streamed in the broken window. His face and hands felt warm, but that would pass in moments. The window would have to be replaced, of course. He could have had it boarded up instead, but he thought, perhaps, that his affection for the symbolism of painting the windows over might have finally waned. No, this time he wanted a real window, with a fine wooden frame and heavy drapes to block the sun during the day. That way, should he ever have occasion to enter that chamber after dark, he could look at the stars.

  Spike would probably survive, he knew. But despite his swagger, Spike had never been the most courageous of creatures. Self-preservation was always his greatest motivation. Without Drusilla to trail along behind in puppy-dog fashion, he was likely to grumble under his breath and wander off, go on an intercontinental ram­page or the like, then come back in ten or fifteen years with his plumage showing, all cock of the walk.

  When he did, Giles suspected he would take Spike back into the fold. By then he would appear to have been properly chastised. And he was useful, after all. His leg­end was more substantial than he was, but Spike was an excellent hunter, a bright boy, and a decent strategist when he set his mind to it. A bit too emotional, but then, Giles was not entirely without guilt in that area himself.

  He thought of Buffy again, and smiled to himself. Never had he seen another creature so resilient, so durable. In his secret heart he had been disappointed that it had taken her so many years to escape, though she was quite a nuisance. Now that she was out, though, he rejoiced in the carnage she had caused.

  Always, she had been like a daughter to him. Soon enough, she would be his daughter in truth. His blood would make it so.

  Careful to avoid the sunlight, Giles went to the corner where Judge Hester's bones had been scattered, and he began to tidy up. He whistled happily while he put things back in order, thinking about the evening to come, and the brief journey he would make that night.

  A journey south.

  Chapter 2

  In her dream, there are two of her.

  Buffy-at-nineteen seems to float in a current of dark­ness that rustles her hair and clothes, pushes against her. She can feel it dragging against her from behind as well, particularly at the base of her skull, as though some unseen thing has violated her flesh, painlessly plunging a hook through the peak of her spine. It tugs on her, but the flesh and bone are uncomfortably numb.

  Amid the darkness that sweeps by her there is a bright core, a deep purple vein that surges with electricity and menace. Now that she has noticed it, she can see that it disappears into the distance ahead of her and behind, weaving in serpentine fashion and yet following the same path as this river of darkness that pulls at her.

  A chilly certainty shudders through her and Buffy traces the purple vein with her gaze, follows it until she realizes that it runs right up to her chest. Suddenly it is warm there, where the energy cable enters her, and she feels stronger, more aware. How she did not notice be­fore that this power touches her, sh
e has no idea. But she also suspects that the feeling at the base of her skull, the fishhook that is tugging her along the river of dark­ness ... that feeling is there because the bruise-colored, thrumming energy stream that enters through her chest exits her body right at the top of her spine.

  This thing. This is what's pulling on me, she thinks.

  Yet something holds her in place, floating there. Something has anchored her here.

  Buffy-at-nineteen glances downward. A kind of spot-light is shone in this dark place, and she sees Spartan living quarters, a hard bed, a rough blanket. Upon the bed, Buffy-at-twenty-four rests uneasily, dreaming, twisting beneath the blanket. Her features are beautiful, but hard-edged like diamonds. Her arms where they snake out from beneath the covers are corded with sinewy muscles, her fingers leathery with callus.

  Me, she thinks. That's me. Or it will be.

  No. No, it is me. It shouldn't be, but it is.

  Buffy-at-nineteen blinks, and she truly sees. The pur­ple vein snakes from her, back through the darkness, where it attaches to Buffy-at-twenty-four like some mon­strous umbilical cord.

  And she knows what it is.

  This is the power, she thinks. From the first Slayer to the last, this is the power of the Chosen One. And on the heels of that thought, another. Why is it so dark?

  "Buffy?"

  A voice swirling in the river of darkness.

  She turns to look back along the rushing river, the serpentine vein twisting in the flow, and she sees a face back there. For a moment it is vague and out of focus, but then the features shimmer and become clear. Waves of blond hair, a kind but tired smile. So familiar, so inti­mate.