Chapter Fifteen: To Me You Speak Not

In a see-the-big-picture, grand-scheme-of-things context, having to share a body with a diabolical hellgod was a really shitty lot in life.

It wasn't as if Ben hadn't tried hard to be a meaningful contributor to civilized society. Because he had. He'd been a good kid, done well in school, made his parents happy. He'd dedicated every last penny, a whole decade of his existence to the pursuit of higher education. He'd lost countless nights and weekends shadowing the bigwig physicians, trying to impress the hospital board. There was real sacrifice there. Heart and soul kind of sacrifice. Making the world a better place and all that jazz.

In the long run, though, none of it mattered because, deep down inside of him, there lay a sentient being with an utter lack of empathy and a delight in brutal manipulation. Who, quite literally, thrived on the mindfuckery of others, who could pop up unexpectedly, always at the very worst moment possible, and who was more than happy to sucker punch him into next Tuesday.

Take the latest episode of Life With Glory, for example.

A few hours into a hellish night shift, and in the wake of one of the most thrilling secret identity reveals since Who Killed JR, Ben had found himself transported from hospital break room to god-knows-where. A matter of seconds, and Sayanora, Sunnydale General. With no clue how long he'd been gone or how he'd gotten there, covered in mud and leaves, scratches and bruises, feeling as if he'd been dropped from the roof of a fifteen floor building. And as usual, dressed a la Glory: slinky red mini dress restricting the flow of blood to his lower half, strappy high heels four sizes too small, thong shoved so far up his ass he could feel his scrotum in his throat.

Ultimately, after much fabric ripping and tantrum throwing, Ben had emerged from the woods to find himself on the north end of Sawgrass Road, an old trucker's passageway skirting the edges of Sunnydale. A walkable distance from home, thank goodness, since in that getup, it would have been near impossible to come off as anything but cross-dressing, psychopathic serial killer.

Ben had arrived home just before dawn to a minion-free penthouse apartment. Spent the morning self-administering first aid on wounds of unknown origin, the rest of the day agonizing over what-ifs. Come nightfall, he'd fretted himself into a full blown anxiety attack, replete with heavy guilt, self-loathing and suicidal thoughts.

There was but one course of therapy. Misery, after all, loves company. And lots and lots of alcohol.

Ben had been at the Bronze for nearly an hour, several doses deep into his self-prescribed treatment plan, before he'd realized Buffy was there, too, reclined in a lounge chair across the club. The Slayer's lithe form had sent him into a panic and he'd set his half-drunk drink and two twenties on the bar, then hauled his cowardly ass toward the front door, hoping he'd escape before she saw him.

No such luck.

"Ben, hi!" Buffy had said.

He'd smiled, hoping he hadn't looked as I'm-about-to-shit-myself as he felt. Made a joke about owning a wardrobe more expansive than blue hospital scrubs. Watched her dazzling smile turned into a laugh.

"Um, listen, so my sister," she'd said. "She told me what happened at the hospital last night. You know, before I got there."

Cue the rush of debilitating panic in his belly.

"And, well, I just wanted to say...thanks," she added. "For looking after her?"

"Oh, that's okay," he'd eeked out. "I'm just glad Dawn's all right."

But it felt wrong to take credit, as if he was admitting he was some kind of hero and not merely the meat suit of a mass murdering hellgod. So he'd bid a quick goodbye and retreated, tail between his legs, back to the somber solitude of home.

Which was where he now found himself, gods-knew-how-many fingers of bourbon later, gazing out from his balcony over the expanse of park below. Alone and terrified of what might have occurred. Filled with heart-wrenching regret and wondering, if he gazed long enough, whether the world would reveal to him the answers he so desperately sought.

What would he have done if Dawn had witnessed his transition into Glory?

What if Glory had hurt Dawn as she had the mindless patients littering the hospital's hallways?

What if Glory discovered Dawn's true identity?

He didn't have the answers to those questions, but he was sure of one thing: it was up to him to do something, and he needed to do it soon. Because in the meantime, thanks to his hellgod sister, he posed a danger to everyone around him.

Ben groaned, dropping his forehead to his arm to the railing, wishing with every fiber of his being for a different life, a different destiny, a different burden. It didn't matter what he did. Didn't matter how clean his heart was or how hard he worked to make his life truly mean something.

Beneath it all, Glory made him unworthy.

Anya waved to Buffy, thanking her for accompanying her home from the Bronze and indicating that she'd made it safely to the front door, then waited for the Slayer to depart for patrol. Then she took a deep breath and, turning her attention back to the front door, pushed into the hallway very gingerly. Given Xander's luck — not to mention Buffy's engaging recollection of his exit from the Bronze, which was riddled with words like 'squick' and 'green' and 'barf' — it was entirely plausible that a putrefying intestine demon might come ripping out to attack her at any moment.

Those little shits were fantastic when it came to exacting gut-wrenching vengeance, but from the receiving end, they were a real pain in the ass. Literally.

When she instead walked — quite safely, in fact — into a dark and silent living room, spotted Xander's jacket draped over the back of the sofa and his keys on the table beside it, Anya took it as a good sign that it didn't reek of fermenting innard. He must have made it home safely and was probably asleep.

Then she heard him howl, his Panicked Xander voice breaking the silence from behind the closed bedroom door. It sounded sort of like a cross between those shrieking eels in the Princess Bride and the woop-wooping noise an ambulance makes when its siren first revs up. And it was followed by a loud crash, slapping flesh and a thud on the wall. She raced to his rescue fearing the worst.

Whiskey fumes strong enough to fell a horse hit her the moment she flung open the bedroom door. His lamp was on the floor, its shade askew, and his clock radio was hanging by its cord from the bedside table. She looked up to find her boyfriend perched atop the bed, toes scrunched into the pillows and arms splayed out against the wall, clad only in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle boxers and staring like a star-drunk lunatic at the ceiling above him.

With a sudden gasp, he slurred, "Getthafuckout!" And then he dissolved into a fit of stark-raving-mad giggles interspersed with "Are you really?" and "But how?" and "Tha's so freakin' cool!"

After a few moments, Xander's initial excitement seemed to wane, and when his half-drunk voice once again slurred at the ceiling, "Well, it's nice t' meet ya," she figured she'd seen enough.

"Xander," she called, keeping her voice low for fear she'd send them into shock or give him a heart attack if she pulled him out of his hallucination too soon. Or was that sleepwalking? She groaned. All of these stupid, human things to worry about. Maybe she shouldn't take the chance. Only slightly louder, she called out to him again. "Xander. Can you hear me?"

He didn't seem to register her presence, too engrossed in his conversation, so she watched, frozen and silent, as he nodded, furrowed his eyebrows, drew his mouth into a wide, goofy smile and then nodded again.

"Well, yeah, I guess so," he said. "I mean, it's not like they told me what t' expect. Never been invited to a demonic Tupperware party before." Xander listened for a second then laughed. "Well, yeah, as far as results go...I think I can deal with this. I mean, you're already stuffed so far up in my ass I can taste you in my throat, right?"

"Xander," she tried again, keeping her voice level even she found it a little off-putting to hear her boyfriend discuss anal sex with the drywall.

When he swung his head around, glanced down to see her standing here, she was relieved. But Xander made no comment other than, "Oh, hey, Ahn," before returning his attention to the ceiling. As if he was greeting a neighbor over the zucchini bin at the grocery store.

"Well, du-u-u-uh," he continued to address his invisible confidante. "What'd you expect? 'Course she's gorgeous. She's my girl." And after a beat, "Wait, are you serious?" After another, "You what?" And then, his voice at an unnaturally high pitch, "With her?"

"Xander?" Anya called out again.

"Aw, c'mon. You gotta be kidding," he said, ignoring her. Then more forcefully, "No, absolutely not. There's no way I'm gonna—"

"Xander Harris!" Anya's palm slammed twice against the bedside table, the impact knocking the clock radio the rest of the way to the floor and sending a bolt of pain up her arm. It did the job. Xander's head swung in her direction, eyes lit with surprise.

"Huh? Wha—"

"Xander, you need to tell me what the hell is going on," she threatened.

He just stood there, dazed for several long seconds before the confusion seemed to clear. Then he sighed, braced one hand against the headboard and lowered himself to the mattress. With the other, he rubbed the back of his neck in a weary, wary, self-conscious gesture that Anya found nauseating...and okay, maybe a little adorable at the same time.

"Xander!" she intoned again, a warning.

He took another deep breath and finally looked up, glancing quickly at the ceiling with a scowl before his eyes alighted once again upon hers. And then he finally spoke.

"George says hi."

She inhaled deeply, drawing the surrounding scents in through her nostrils, over the back of her tongue, down into lungs long since stilled. She could sense him, her William, in every corner of the crypt and all around her. The scent of that vile swine's blood, the whiskey he drank, the cigarettes and the worn leather. The bite of nail polish and the peroxide that burned holes in his scalp. Air thick with power, on the walls, in the dirt, under the fuzz covering the tiny feline whose lovely, sharp claws brought beads of blood to the surface of her own ivory skin.

Drusilla had sensed him, even in the traces he'd left throughout the cemetery. Blood calling to blood, Childe to Sire. But different. Brighter. Sweeter. Like grape popsicles in the bright, summer sunshine.

"My little birdy's learned to fly," Drusilla crooned sadly. "Soon, now, he'll touch the sun."

Though if she was honest with herself, she'd always known it would happen. The stars had told her long ago, and the pixies said he was closer this time than the other. For this time he'd have someone to keep his wings from melting away.

On a sigh, Drusilla tongued her forearm, licking the blood left by the kitten's talons as she listened to the whispers around her. The invisible companions who accompanied her everywhere, dancing, licking with their own tongues of heat, screaming like star music, like a meteor's flash, blank when it's gone...gone...gone…

No! There were too many. Too, too many voices. A hard shake of her head dispelled them, admonished them. She focused again on him.

William…. My William... My sweet, darling, deadly William….

As indubitably as she knew her own name, knew her own bloodline, she knew this would be their goodbye. He wouldn't follow her. The bad sister was coming, lured toward her freedom before she got pulled like a turnip back into slavery once again. Like a dustpan filled with the dirt of ages...covering the parlor floor as the drapes were pulled back.

The burn...oh, the burn. Drusilla held the back her hand against her forehead, swaying a bit. It burned so badly, she wailed.

Even when the pain ebbed finally, petering out, a scorching flame sunk to a low smolder, she continued to hold her dark head between tapered, blood-red fingers tipped with white moons, and whispered forlornly to whoever was listening.

"Butter won't tame the burn, my sweet. Not even the best butter, for crumbs have gotten into it and now it's spoiled for Mummy."

The mention of crumbs set the pixies a-giggle once more, and as they fluttered about, they whispered secrets into her ear and made her smile once again.

Sighing, she stretched, gathered her strength. And with the thorns of the rose she'd purloined from a nearby grave, she dragged channels into her cheek, the flower's velvet petals coating the raw flesh with the sickly, sweet fragrance of decay. And with one last nod to the stars and the moon and the pretty, pretty pixies, she swept gracefully into the crypt to find her mark.

After the 24 hours he'd had, Spike hadn't even bothered questioning Harris' suggestion. He'd simply finished his smoke and the last of the Scotch, then sauntered across the crypt and dropped easily from the first to the subterranean level.

An odd sense of...something lingered over him as he'd made his way across his bedroom and into the corridors behind. A tingle of familiarity, calling to him, tugging at the corners of his mind. It passed, though, and he set about his task.

The mannequin had gone first, blonde polyester wig and all, shoved bodily into the rubbish bag, consigned without a second thought to the same dump from which it had originally been scavenged.

He'd lingered a bit over the blue cashmere sweater, stretching it wide before him, then wadding it up in a soft ball against his nose so he could breathe her in. Feeling as if his very existence depended upon her scent for survival — and perhaps it did — he'd decided to keep the garment.

The photos came next, pried carefully from their mount on the vanity mirror. He worked slowly, peeling off the bits of sticky tape, taking his time so nothing tore. He'd caressed the curve of her cheek in one picture, studied the shine of her hair in the next, imagined tongueing the expanse of stomach in another. Some photos were packed into an old shoe box under the bed. One found a home in his jacket pocket. Three particular favorites were tucked into the volume of Keats he kept in the drawer of his bedside table.

When he was finally done — when the vanity was much less shrine-ish, the pieces more..well, sprawled around the bedroom — he stood, just in time for the kitten to come tearing down the ladder. She seemed to be fleeing from something and came careening, right up Spike's leg and into the safety of his arms. Rubbing chipped fingernails against the animal's soft head, Spike made low, comforting noises until the tiny body relaxed. Then he brought the pet to his nose. It smelled of fear, adrenaline...blood.

There was a soft swish of something — or someone — falling from the main floor of the crypt above him.

A shuffle sounded behind him.

The scent of something very, very familiar.

Bloody hell.

"Who's there?" he called into the shadows, though he already knew the answer.

"A happy memory, pretty Spoike," came the reply.

Drusilla emerged from the shadows, wrapped in a bandage, holding a red rose against a bloodied cheek and peering at him through long, dark lashes. Her voice sounded like black silk when she spoke again.

"Look who's come to make everything right."

Patrol had been uneventful. A single dusting in an alley near the hospital. A close call in the park, in which she'd nearly staked a human boy giving his equally human girlfriend a hickey. Otherwise, all quiet — and all boring — on the Sunnydale front.

She exited Crestview Cemetery and looped back toward home byway of Main Street. It was late, and the storefronts were all closed for the night. She hadn't seen a car pass for several minutes. As she neared the darkened Espresso Pump, she could hear the beeps and crackling static of a police scanner. The noise was floating out of an empty cop car, parked in front of the coffee shop with its windows left down, broadcasting emergencies to whoever was willing to listen.

"I've got a 1-8-7 at Sunnydale Station," the tinny voice squawked. "No weapons reported but we need a safe response zone in case there are shots fired. It was reported anonymously from a pay phone down the street. Caller stated there were multiple bodies, a lot of blood at the scene."

Replies came in over varying degrees of static, combinations of numbers and cop lingo crackling like popcorn. Buffy didn't stick around to listen. Taking off at a full slayer sprint, she raced off, arriving at the train station, as she'd expected, first on the scene. The 10 o'clock train was parked at the rear of the building, doors open wide as if inviting passengers to fill its belly.

The whole place reeked with the coppery scent of blood.

Steeling herself against the initial wave of nausea, she climbed into an open car and took inventory of the bloodbath before her.

At her feet lay the porter in a pool of red. Blood was still dripping from a wound on the side of his neck. His eyes were open, empty and lifeless, the pupils frozen with terror. The poor man's mouth was wide with one last, silent scream.

To her left, in a seat near the entry, a male passenger lay slumped over to the side, blood on his neck and soaked into the pillow behind his head.

A female passenger, also slumped over in a seat a few rows back, was covered in blood. A rivulet of crimson still oozed from the side of her neck.

Yet another female passenger, eyes wide open in a death stare similar to the porter's, lay across a row on the opposite side. Her arm, outstretched into the aisle, was covered with blood from a wound on her wrist. The last few inches of her long, braided tail of blonde hair were soaked with blood.

Buffy had little doubt there were more victims in the other train cars, but she didn't really need to look. She'd seen enough to make a logical summation.

Survey says: Vampire.

Buffy sighed and looked around again, but outside of the obvious whodunnit she'd already conducted, there was little more to garner in the way of clues. It was clear that there was a vampire — and quite possibly a whole brood of them — roaming the streets of Sunnydale, putting countless innocent residents at risk. The sooner she got to the dusty bottom of it, the sooner she could get back to figuring out how to kick Glory's hellgoddy ass back from whence it came.

Sirens off in the distance told her the police would be there any minute. While the Sunnydale PD was notoriously incompetent, that didn't make it any smarter for her to be found at the scene of a crime. So she turned back toward the door, careful not to disturb the bodies in their state of final repose, and made her way out of the train.

Before she'd stepped down off the ledge, she became aware of her Spidey senses tingling, that dull but incessant vibration in the pit of her stomach. Oddly, it felt the way it did when she was around Angel or Spike, only it felt fainter...more vague.

Instinctually, Buffy closed her eyes and relied only on her Slayer senses, turning this way and that to test them like a game of supernatural Hot and Cold. They seemed to be sharpest when she faced away from the door. Went stronger still when she tilted her head upwards. So she opened her eyes and climbed upon the upholstered seat, pulled herself up with a hand on the overhead bin to look inside.

She froze.

Eighteen inches of the creepiest damn doll she'd ever seen, all dirty lace and poplin and porcelain, with two tiny hands extended toward her. Arms frozen in invitation. And a red velvet ribbon tied tightly around its eyes. Deathly fear in toy form...calling to her.

And she suddenly knew who had been on the train.

And what she needed to do next.