New-found Friends
Outside the school Oz is sitting on a bench in front of a wall taking out his lunch, as Spike approaches him.
"Hi! It's Oz, right?" he asks as friendly as possible.
"Yeah, why?" Oz replies and looks up. "Or, I mean, hi. Uh, did you want me to move?"
"Okay, let's start again. I'll say 'hi, I'm Spike', then you say 'hi, I'm Oz', and then I start about asking you a favor," Spike says, and takes place next to Oz. "It does not involve moving of any kind, it just involves hanging out with me for a while."
"But, aren't you hanging out with Angel?"
"Can't I do both?"
"Not on this school."
O-kay, this will get at least as hard as my previous school. I thought they were over this kind of thing in America. But it's the same everywhere: nerds, cool gang, blah blah blah, the same old crap.
Spike takes a deep breath, sighs, and says: "Look, I really want to get by here, new school, and... that Angel bloke's been nice and all... but... anyway, I don't like him, I like you, and I have this strange, burning desire not to flunk all my classes in the first semester. Plus, I heard a rumor that you were the person to talk to if I wanted to get caught up."
"Oh, well... in that case... sure! How 'bout we meet in the library, sixth period?"
"Yeah, or not. I prefer not. You see, I have this thing with books... I can't be in a room with more than three for a longer period of time without losing my mind. And that library just... sends chills down my spine," Spike stutters, trying to sound convincing.
Everything but that library!
"Oh. You know, it has that effect on most kids here. I love it, though, it's one of the greatest collections around here... in fact, it's the only one around here... and that new librarian, she's... kinda cool."
This kid has GOT to get a life! And I'm sure as Hell not going back there again. I agreed with my father to move here to get away from that stuff. And... wait a minute...
"She's new?" he inquires.
"Yes, she just started. She was a curator at some Canadian Museum of Natural History, I'm not entirely sure. But she knows everything, and she brought all these historical volumes and biographies, and I am quite possibly the single dullest person alive," Oz finishes.
"No, not at all. Trust me, I've known duller people than you, and... and that should say something about me, I guess."
Onto the wall behind the two guys hops Cordelia, and sits on it between them. Darla Gertran, a girl with a pair of blue jeans and a yellow tank top, stands in front of them and drops her bag.
"Hey, you guys busy? Are we interrupting? I think not, we're never interrupting," Cordelia says, and tosses her bag to Darla.
"Hey!" Oz greets the two.
"Hey," Spike adds, not nearly as enthusiastic.
"Hey there!" Darla says, while dropping Cordy's bag next to her own.
"Spike, this is Darla, and that's Cor-, eh, Talon," Oz introduces the two girls.
"Oh, me and Spike go way back, we're very close. But then we got separated, and I searched for him to renew our friendship, but here he is, sitting near my good friend Oz, whom I believe is my closest friend and now you're friends too, or so I think."
Oh God, why don't I just shoot myself? Why doesn't the ground just open up and swallow me? I don't think I have acted this way since... well, since I started singing in the band.
"Eh, Talon? Is it just me, or are you talking total nonsense now?" Darla remarks.
"Eh, no, I... I think it's not you. I'll... I'll just go drown myself now, okay?" Cordy says with an uneasy smile on her face.
"Well, it's nice to meet you girls, or so I think. And please, don't go drowning yourself on my behalf. It didn't sound as bad as you think," Spike reassures the girl.
"You know, we just wanted you to feel welcome, make ya feel at home, unless you have a scary home..." Darla starts.
"... and to return this," Cordy finishes, jumps down, gets the stake out of her bag and and holds it in the air.
"The only thing I can think of is that you're building a really tiny fence," she says and hands it over.
"What, that? Oh no, that's for... self-defense. Everyone has them in Edinburgh. With the pepper spray and all every criminal in town now wears safety goggles, so..."
"We get the picture. So, what do you do for fun, what do you like, what do you look for in a girl? Come on, why don't you spill?" Cordy asks cheerfully, all too glad Spike seems to have ignored her rambling.
"Do you have any painful, dark secrets you'd like us to publish?" Darla fills in.
"Eh, it's ehm... nice that everyone wants to know about me all of a sudden," Spike says, a little bit drawn back.
"Well, not much goes on in a ghost town like Sunnydale. You're pretty big news," Cordy states with a semi-serious voice.
"I'm not. Take it from me, I'm regular guy. Really."
Suddenly a familiar voice interrupts the awkward conversation: "Are these guys bothering you?"
Thankful for Angel's interference, but not at all looking forward to having to stick with him again, Spike replies: "Not at all."
"He's not hanging out with us," Oz quickly intervenes.
"Hey! Angel!" Darla exclaims, and stands next to him.
"Hi Darla," Angel says uninterested, and shifts his attentions to Spike.
"I didn't mean to interrupt this conversation which I'm sure is very interesting to you," Angel stops for a few seconds before continuing, "but I want to inform you that you won't be meeting Coach Argyle, the teenage nightmare, because gym was cancelled due to the dead guy in the locker."
"What?"
Angel has Spike's full attention now.
"Wh-what are you talking about?" Oz stutters.
"Someone stuffed a dead guy in Jonathan's locker! Do I have to spell it out for you?"
"Oh my God," Darla whispers.
"A dead guy, stuffed in Jonathan's locker? That must have been a nightmare... for the dead guy," Cordy snaps at Angel.
"You know, don't you have an elsewhere to be?" Angel snaps back at her.
"How did he die?"
"What?"
"How did he die? The dead guy?" Spike clarifies.
"How should I know? It's not like I killed him. Are you into horror or something?"
In one gracious move Spike picks up his stuff, looks at everyone and says: "I, eh, I've got to bail, I'll see you guys... later," before running off towards the school.
Angel stares after him, and wonders what his deal is. Maybe I misjudged him. He's a lot... weirder than I thought.
&&&&&&
In another part of the school Spike sneaks up to one of the entrances to the gym. He tries the door. Locked. Of course. He glances around quickly, to make sure no one sees him, and forces the door open. Sometimes being the Slayer does come in handy. But only sometimes. Inside the gym he goes straight to the locker room, where he sees the body lie, covered with a sheet. Slowly he reaches down, and pulls back the sheet.
"Oh, bloody Hell!" he exclaims from the bottom of his heart.
On the boy's neck are two tiny, round puncture marks. The bite of a vampire. Damn! I thought I'd gotten away from all that, even when I met that freaky librarian! It seems Fate has other plans with me...
Secrets
Minutes later Spike barges into the library, and says, loud enough to be heard by anyone in the room: "Okay, what's the deal?"
"Sorry?" sounds the librarian's voice from the stacks. Only now does Spike recognize the Canadian accent.
"Sorry? Don't you sorry me, love! You heard about the dead guy, right? The dead guy in the locker?"
While she steps into the light, Summers softly says: "Yes."
In one smooth move Spike puts his bag on the study table and rushes up the stairs, where he meets the woman's gaze. Before he continues, he looks her right in the eyes. In his eyes burns a cold fire.
"Glad to hear that, 'cause there's this one weird detail that keeps bothering me. That guy's got two tiny, very tiny holes in his neck, and all his blood's been drained from his body. Now isn't that strange? Aren't you gonna say something like 'what?', you know, like totally baffled people do sometimes?"
Summers returns his look, if possible with an even colder fire burning in her eyes. Spike almost takes a step back. Almost. But then her eyes soften, and she whispers: "I was afraid of this."
"YOU were afraid of this? I can't believe this! It's my first day at a new school, in a new town, in a new country! I was afraid I might be behind in classes, that I wouldn't make any friends because of this little secret, and that the school I would attend would be even more dull than my previous one! The LEAST of my bloody problems would be vampires! And there are vampires in Sunnydale, the world's most boring stupid town on this Earth! And you dare to say YOU were AFRAID?! I couldn't care less about those stupid ass bloodsuckers!"
During Spike's outburst Summers stays completely calm. Now that he's finished, she replies with an even: "Then why are you here?"
"Why I'm here? Well, to... to tell you that. I do not care, not in the least... and... I will leave now, because... I told you I don't care. Okay? See you around," he stutters, not really sure why he had come.
She's right. Why did I come? I don't care, I don't want to be the Slayer! I want to be normal! I want... I have to go. Spike starts to turn around and leave, when the librarian asks something.
"Will he... will he rise again?"
The words sound through the library and hit Spike like a whip, causing him to swirl around and look back at Summers.
"What?"
"The boy, will he rise again?" she asks, clearly articulating her words.
"No. No, he's just very, very dead."
Now Spike is beginning to get irritated. I just want to leave. And forget all about this. I don't want to be the Slayer! Just get off my back!
"How can you be sure?"
The Slayer makes a snorting sound and replies: "And you're supposed to be a Watcher? Oh, wait, no, you're just testing me. And I'm not falling for it. Good bye."
"You don't know it, do you?"
Suddenly the cold is back, but now it's in her voice. It's a challenge, and in his anger to get the librarian out of his hair, Spike accepts.
"Yes, I do know. To make a person a vampire the vampire has to suck the person's blood. Then that person has to suck the vampire's blood. It's kind of gross if you think it over, especially nowadays with all those eerie diseases and all. Now... Good bye."
For the second time Spike turns around and goes down the stairs. Summers moves over to the railing, and raises her voice. She sounds agitated.
"You really have no idea what's going on, do you? You think it's coincidence, you're being here? That boy was just the beginning."
Again, Spike stops to talk back, although he keeps his face to the doors. He knows he's reaching his boiling point, but refuses to leave before he has made his point. So he tries to keep his voice even.
Through gritted teeth he says: "Look, why can't you people just leave me ALONE?"
"Because," the woman starts, while coming down the stairs, "you are the Slayer. Into each generation a Slayer is born, one boy in all the world, a Chosen One, one born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires..."
With a sarcastic tone Spike interrupts and finishes: "... to hunt the vampires, to stop the spread of their evil, and so on, and so on. It's beginning to get boring after you've heard for about, oh, let's say a thousands times. And believe me, I have heard it a thousand times."
"I really do not understand your attitude. You have accepted your duty, you have slain vampires before-"
For the second time, Spike interrupts. His blood is boiling, adrenaline races through his veins, but when he answers, he sounds dangerously calm.
"It's like the commercial: been there, done that. It's in my past, and if you're smart, you will leave it there."
Out of the blue the librarian asks: "What do you know about this town?" thus throwing Spike seriously off balance.
"Wh-what?"
Surprised by this sudden turn of events, the anger flows away, and his tensed muscles relax. Not entirely, but Spike realizes it's enough to steer clear from an outburst of anger. I... I should thank her for that. The last time I let go...
&&&&&&
Images of faces, laughing faces, annoying faces. They hunted him down, humiliated him. All his life he had run from Them. They always chased him, in real life, in his dreams. When the Calling came, he found an outlet for his ever present anger. But it was always there, always, watching, waiting, lurking...
The faces again, Their evil faces, They blurred into one face, always laughing, always mocking him, always hunting him down... The anger came, and took over. Blood everywhere, the breaking of bones, the cries of anguish, the satisfaction... Then he awoke, his hands were covered in blood, and They lay on the street before him, in the dark, squirming, whispering, pleading...
"Please, no more, please, it hurts, it hurts so much. Please, no more, God, no more..."
For one moment he listened to Their begging, to the soft cries of pain They made, and he felt satisfied. But when one of them said that word, "God", the anger returned in full. He jumped on top of the guy, and began to pound his face violently. With every blow he said a word, and the words were bound together into a stream of words to form a short sentence, over and over again.
"There-is-no-God! There-is-no-God! There-is-" and continued until everything else faded away.
As did his anger. When his senses returned to him completely, he had beaten that one guy to a bloody pulp. A bloody, dead pulp.
"No..." he said, and he felt the looks of the others peering in his back, "no..." he whispered, and the looks became piercing, "NOOO!" he screamed, at the top of his lungs, tears of anger and sorrow rolling down his cheeks...
He got up and ran, ran, ran... The next morning he didn't hear anything on the news, or the day after that, or the day after that... When he finally returned to the alley, their bodies were all gone. From that time on the anger had never left him alone again...
&&&&&&
And now the anger is washed away by a simple question from a female Watcher. Blinking with his eyes to regain consciousness again, he sees that Summers has gone into her office. While he tries to get some of his anger back again, he answers her question in an attempt to be funny and says: "It's two hours away from the nearest Burger King?"
Ignoring the remark, Summers tells Spike about Sunnydale from her office.
"Dig a bit in the history of this place. When you do, you'll find a unusual steady stream of unnatural and strange occurrences. I believe this whole area is a center of mystical energy," she emerges from the office with quite a few books, "and this causes things to gravitate towards it, things that you might not find elsewhere."
With a heavy thump Summers puts the books on the table.
"Like vampires," Spike says, and feels another all too familiar feeling surfaces. Revenge.
"Correct. Like zombies," she puts the first book in his arms, "werewolves," the second book, "incubi," the third book, "succubi," the fourth book, "along with everything you have ever dreaded was in your closet, lurking from the shadows, but told yourself couldn't be by the light of day. They are all real!"
"What? Did you sent away for the Time-Life series or something?" Spike asks, thrown aback by the amount of occult books and knowledge this Watcher possesses. She sure is a Hell of lot better prepared for serious Slayage than the previous Watcher. Merrick...
"Uhm, as a matter of fact... yes," Summers says, suddenly taking a turn for shyness.
"And what did you get? The free calculator?" Spike remarks sarcastically.
"No. I got the calendar."
"That's eh, nice. But, you see, first of all, I AM the Vampire Slayer. I don't do demons, werewolves, or any kind of cubi. And I also don't do vampires, because I am retired. But you know what? This may sound crazy, but... why don't you kill them?"
"Because... because I am the Watcher, I haven't got the skill to-"
"Oh, come on, a stake through the heart, a little sunlight to get them crispy black... It's like swatting a fly!"
"Well, I... A-a Slayer slays, a Watcher..."
"...watches?"
"Yes. No!"
She takes one of the books in her hands, and turns it over and over while trying to explain. This one is more recalcitrant than any of the Slayers ever born! How can the Council expect me to train this one, let alone discipline him?
Reluctantly she answers: "No. She-she trains him, she, she prepares him-"
"Prepares me? PREPARES ME? For what?"
The feeling of revenge is drowned in the sudden wave of anger that flows through him again.
"Prepare me for getting kicked out of school? For loosing all my friends? For moving to another country? For having a father that thinks I'm a freaking loon? For having to spend all my bloody time fighting for my bloody life and never getting to tell this bloody secret to anyone because I might endanger them? If that's what you're here to prepare me for, than go ahead! PREPARE ME!"
The Watcher takes a step back, frightened by Spike's primal anger and his highly tensed muscles. Every fiber of the Slayer is ready to fight and kill. They look at each other for a moment, the looks in both their eyes as cold as the other's. But then Spike exhales, relaxes his muscles once more, turns around, and leaves the library in disgust. Summers hesitates for an instant. To herself she mumbles: "Damn!" and runs after Spike.
When the doors close, Cordelia walks out from behind the stacks, a look of utter disbelief on her face. Two words sum up the thoughts and feelings that run around in her head.
"Say what?"
&&&&&&
In the hall Summers catches up with Spike. While catching her breath she says: "It's getting worse!"
"What's getting worse?" Spike asks, veigning interest.
Abruptly Summers takes him by the arm, guides him over to the wall and speaks with him in a low voice.
"The growth of the undead population, the... supernatural occurences, it's been building for years now. There's a reason why you're here and a reason why it's now!"
"Because now is the time that my father decided to move here," he sneers, and tries to evade her.
But she puts her arm out to stop him.
"Listen! Something's coming, something... something is coming, and is going to happen here. Soon!"
Although she sounds imploring, Spike still won't pay attention and says: "Gee, I wonder if you could be any more vague than you already are."
"The signs," Summers continues, "as far as I can tell, point to a crucial mystical upheaval, very soon. Days. Possibly less."
"Come on, Watcher! This is Sunnydale we're talking about! How bad an evil can come here, unless it was Mr. Rogers made flesh?"
&&&&&&
Somewhere in Sunnydale, in the underground labyrinth of sewers and drainage pipes, hundreds of candles light up a natural cave with an eerie glow. In the cave are vampires, some of them bear torches, and one very large and bulky vampire chants as the undead draw closer to him. They all stare at an enormous puddle of blood, and the large vampire continues to chant.
A vampire couple witness this from the shadows. He lights up a cigarette and forces his undead lungs to inhale the smoke, enjoying every poisonous swirl of air. She puts her arms around him, smiles a wicked smile when thinking of all the mayhem that lies ahead, and looks up at her lover. He looks down at her, and a ray of light illuminates his blind right eye and the scar across it.
"Soon, my feral princess," he says with an evil grin while stroking her hair, and exhales the smoke, "soon."
"And then I'll have her to play with, won't I?" she asks with a semi-innocent voice.
"You will have her, along with as much toys as you want, my weeping Willow. We will bring fear and sadness to all inhabitants of Sunnydale."
"Ooh, Xander, you spoil me too much," Willow purrs with a dark twinkle in her eyes, embracing him even tighter.
"I know, love, I know. But you're very hard to say no to. We'll have our own fun, once we get rid of the Master. When he's gone..."
"... we'll rule Sunnydale," Willow whispers.
He throws away the cigarette, embraces her fully, and they kiss passionately. Then they hold each other, while listening to the chanting, watching... and waiting. No other vampire dares to stand near them, for their reputation has preceeded them. The Deadly Duo. The Devil Pair. Willow the Wicked. Xander the Vicious, also known as One because of his one blind eye. Even the large vampire, Luke, trembles when they pass him. And maybe, just maybe, not even the Master, whose coming the vampires are waiting for, is no match for their combined evil.
Luke continues his chant, hoping the Master will rise and reject those two. He heard the rumors, they are said to have fed on other vampires, and feast with and on werewolves. They do not deserve to be part of the vampire race.
"The sleeper will wake The sleeper will wake. The sleeper will wake. The sleeper will wake, and the world will bleed. Amen!"
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