Chapter 1
The sky in London is lower than other skies. He had thought that before. That is London. You cannot rise too high above it because you cannot go beyond what you are, and what you are is what London is. A conglomeration of people who are. The great, heavenly arc that transcends other landscapes in London is no more than a backdrop. Elsewhere the face of God is etched in the stars; in London you find it in the man behind the newspaper stall; the girl on the street; the child crying; and the stars hang in the sky like a string of lights on a distant motorway.
He had been here before. And right now that was all he knew.
He watched them all as they walked past him along the half-lit street, a paintbox of low-key neon signs that owed nothing to taste and everything to budget. He felt conspicuous sitting on the bench. It was stupid, because the bench was there for that very purpose, and yet nobody else wanted the time to stop and sit. They all had somewhere to go, someone to be.
"Mind if I join you?"
She was drunk. She was drunk, and he envied her, because to her oblivion was a friend.
"Seat's free."
To him oblivion was nothing, all he had was nothing, and oblivion, and he didn't know if he cared.
"You surprise me. I had you down for a 'best offer I've had all day' line. Don't know why. Maybe the cheekbones? You have a…a thing about you."
He liked her for noticing that, and for caring who he was.
"A thing about me?"
"That's it, that's what I was expecting. The can't-touch-me cool. The shrug."
She took out a cigarette and he instinctively reached into his pocket for his lighter.
"You love this, don't you." she slurred, waving the bottle at him.
"I'm more of a bourbon man myself."
"I didn't mean that. This. Here. You. Me."
"This here you me?" He thought she was indicating the parking meter.
She smiled, and shook her head.
"This. Being better than me. The gentleman act, the lighter. So you tried it on for size, does it fit?"
"What do you mean?" He asked because he derived some peculiar comfort from her alcohol-saturated words.
"Oh come on. I see you. You're an outlaw, just another low-life like me."
"I'm not like you."
"Yeah, and you got this wallpapering." She touched her finger lightly against the scar carved through his eyebrow.
"What can I say, I have dangerous taste in wallpaper."
"Damn right you do."
She tipped her head up to the stars and soaked back another throatful of the amber liquid, extending an unsteady hand in his direction.
"I'm Laura."
"They call me Spike."
They? Who were they?
"Spike, you look like a man who could use a drink."
"You think you've got me sussed, don't you?" His voice cracked with dry curiosity.
"I think I know you better than you know yourself right now, at least."
He raised an eyebrow, and the twist in his mouth demanded an explanation.
"You're alone Spike. We're all alone. But you're sitting here talking to me at this moment and you're still alone. It's all you are Spike. What you are in this conversation, what you are in my head."
He noticed it then, in the silvery fair hair that clung to her face, and the violet-laced skin that scarcely covered it, that strange, stinging vulnerability.
"I don't know what's in your head but I'd damn well like to try it" And he took the bottle she held out to him, because she was right, he was alone.
When he drifted back into consciousness he heard the silence and felt the soft weight of her head resting against him. But more than that, he sensed something forbidding, something watching him. There in front of him, half-illuminated by the tired orange glow of a street lamp, stood a faceless figure.
He was aware of something like a bomb ticking against his chest, and in that moment it struck him that his heart was beating.
"Spike." It was not even a voice, just a shadow of something once heard.
"What d'you want?"
"You think you choose your destiny. You delude yourself. It is spelt out in the stars."
"What is this?"
"This is the very last place you were human."
It should have been a bombshell, but he acknowledged it as inevitable.
"The girl?"
He heard himself ask the question, and it felt like an epiphany.
"You have one month to find her. One month to find her and convince her that it's worth her while to save your sorry life."
"Save my life?"
"If you do not succeed she will be lost to you for ever. And you…you will be nothing."
"I'm already nothing."
Spike's words were bitter, but a flickering hope ignited inside him.
"Her name? Why can't I remember her name?"
"Her name, her face, every moment you ever knew her and every place you ever met her has been blanked from your memory."
It swamped over him in a torrent of hopelessness.
"And don't tell me, from now on I will become mute and have to inhabit the body of a toad."
His sarcasm was brushed aside in a gesture of contempt.
"This was your choice. You thought you could take on the stars themselves. Let's see how you play your hand."
And suddenly the figure was gone, yet he felt it all around him, a formless presence that deep in his mind he reached out to grasp, the ghost of a memory that lived and breathed and stirred something within him too precious to name.
And he knew it was true. He knew it because for the first time that night he felt real. He felt alive. He was one of the people that are.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
How long she had lain awake Buffy did not know. Her eyes rested on the dark outline of the coat hanging on her door. As she lay there in the blackness she was all too conscious of the nameless dull ache that would not let her sleep.
It was emptiness, and the only name she could give it was the one name she dared not.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dawn filtered into the street between the time-drenched buildings. Spike lifted his face towards the morning sunlight and contemplated his fate. The daylight filled him with a fresh determination. As he felt the alien warmth on his skin he almost believed.
And it was only then that he realised that the thin, fragile hand that had sought its last moment of warmth in his was cold, and the fair head nestled in his lap was drained of its life blood through the tiny double puncture in her neck.
To be continued…