Watcher, Vampire, Slayer, Witch
Disclaimer: WIth the exception of Ann Grove all the characters in this story belong to Joss Wedon and Mutant Enemy and not the author. Ann Grove is a creation of the author.
Chapter 1: Somebody's Watching Over Me
"Buffy..."
"No!"
"I'm sorry, Buffy, but you should wake up."
Buffy's eyes opened. Ann Grove stood at the foot of her bed. "How did you get in here?"
"Bear in mind that I am not a vampire. I can usually get in wherever I wish, without waiting to be invited, if I consider the matter sufficiently urgent."
Buffy turned to the clock. "It's 6:15 in the morning," she said. She sat up and glared at Ann, partly for waking her up so early and partly for looking as if she had just
spent three hours with a pair of stylists and had selected her clothes from a complete Armani inventory for the past fifteen years. Today Ann wore a grey pant suit
and a green shirt. "Ferragamos, too, I bet," she muttered, running both hands back over her hair. "What matter?"
"Spike's back."
"Oh," Buffy said. "All right. Say, when did you and Giles get back? I didn't expect you until later today."
"Yesterday, even earlier than this, about 3:00. Rupert decided five concerts in six days was enough. Would you like a wake-up drink?"
"One of your productions? Sure."
Ann handed her a tall glass, filled with pale pink opaque fluid that fizzed gently as Buffy took it.
It tasted faintly of strawberries and orange juice, and it bubbled. Drinking it, Buffy thought, was perhaps like standing in one of those things they always had at any
science museum--the thing that worked from your feet up or your arm in and frizzed your hair out like a chrysanthemum, although in this case it was from your
stomach out.
"So what does Spike want?"
"I'm not sure what he wants in exchange, but he wants to tell you and Rupert that you are both in danger."
"So? We always are."
"I'd rather you heard it from him. Is Finn here?"
"No, he went home early," Buffy said.
"Do you mind if we pick him up?"
Ann was occasionally far too perceptive, Buffy thought. "No, that would be all right," she said.
"I'll go get him while you dress.
"Ann, are Giles and I in immediate danger?"
"I think we have an advantage we may lose if we delay, which is why 6:15 in the morning rather than any time later. Meet you downstairs," Ann said, and blinked
out.
>>>|||<<<
Ann moved Buffy and Riley directly to her foyer, where Spike had once been a lamp. Giles was waiting for them. "I thought we might manage to listen to Spike while
we have breakfast, unless there are any objections," Ann said.
"Fine," Buffy said.
"We're using the small north room, down the hall. I'll get Spike." She went up the stairs and turned left at the top.
Buffy and Riley followed Giles down the hall and into what had been a small sitting room and kitchen-office where Ann had a huge collection of cookbooks. The
bookcases were still there but the desk and the sofa and arm chairs had vanished. Now, the room held a table and five side chairs. The three windows looked out at
a curtain of plants in baskets hanging from a lath-house awning that had not been there last week.
Ann came in with Spike behind her. He looked different, then Buffy realized he was nervous. His gaze flitted over the newcomers, but never settled on anyone,
moving from them to the door and the windows, then back to the humans. On the other hand, his clothes, although worn too long, were of a quality he had not had
before. Except for being tense and jittery, Spike looked better than ever.
"Buffy, if you take the far end, with Finn beside you, Rupert can sit between him and Spike, across from me," Ann said.
Which at least, Buffy silently agreed, kept Riley and Spike apart. She moved to the head of the table and sat. As Ann sat in the center of the long side on Buffy's left,
juice and blood appeared on the table and everyone else took their places.
>>>|||<<<
"Look," Spike said, putting down his empty coffee cup, "can I start? She"--obviously Ann--"says she wants you to hear it all."
"Go ahead," Giles said.
"Just don't interrupt. There's a lot to tell and I want to get it in the right order the first time.
"OK," Spike continued. "A while back I acquired this fine car."
Well, Buffy thought, that was one way of putting it. The police jargon would probably be something like grand theft auto. She saw that Ann had a wry smile, and
wondered again why Ann had not reported the theft.
"I wanted a vacation from Sunnydale, so I got on the freeway and headed north. Drove as far as San Francisco that night, and found out Ann there had witched the
Viper."
Oh, Buffy realized. The Viper was like Giles's BMW. If anyone had connected the changes in either car with Ann, she would have had some awkward moments, at
the very least.
"She's put in some features which made my trip easier. An ever-filled picnic basket, a trunk that holds any amount of luggage, the greatest mileage I've ever heard of,
and best of all, a wallet with ID and credit cards. Life's a lot less fraught when you can use the service economy up front. I rented a medium suite, went shopping at
North Beach Leather, prowled around a bit, then decided to head north again.
"That was how I spent the next two months or so, heading north off and on, staying in fine hotels, shopping, whatever. Eventually, I ended up in Seattle, which is far
too wet, and decided to come home.
"I got here three days ago, at dusk. Looked around, checked who was where, what was on at the Bronze, Willies, then crashed. And the same the next night.
"Last night, things got complicated. Outside your house, Summers, I found someone else watching."
"My house?" Buffy, giving way to her growing impatience. "What were you doing outside my house?"
"Trying to guess what sort of mood you were in. A grumpy Slayer is a vicious Slayer, we vampires always say. Don't interrupt. Where was I? Right, the lurker. Well,
he was something new, so I followed him. I like to know what's going on where I live, after all. He joined up with a bunch of guys just like him. Older in general than
the Soldier Boy's group, subtler, too, and much better dressed. They were armed with crossbows and cameras, more cameras than crossbows.
"There were six or seven of them . Unfortunately, I was a tad overeager. They caught me, grabbed me, enough of them so the fact that I couldn't hit them wasn't
noticeable. I was stuck.
"One of them put a torch on me. I had instant fans, or at least star recognition. 'William the Bloody,' they all cried. Then they aimed the crossbows at me. One of
them tugged another by the sleeve and whispered. The second guy started to shake his head, then frowned over my way. Pretty soon, all but one or two of them
were in a scrum, whispering, shifting around and occasionally sticking a pale face up out of the huddle to look me over again.
"Eventually, one of them came over and put this story in front of me: They'd been hired by some kin of someone whom Buffy killed a few years ago. They were
supposed to kill her."
"These guys were human?" Riley asked. "You said you couldn't hit them."
"Interruptions just drag this out," Spike snapped, very much up to his normal levels of unfriendliness, "and I'm tired."
"Why haven't they tried to kill me?" Buffy asked.
Spike looked down the table at her. She could see him get his temper under control. "I told you this was complicated. They have a bit of a scheduling problem.
They're supposed to kill Giles first, and apparently he's been hard to find recently."
"Why?" Buffy asked.
"They didn't say," Spike said. "But it seems that's absolutely the only way they can work this."
"We've been away," Giles said.
"Which I think is very much to our advantage," Ann Grove said in her low voice. "Let Spike tell the rest, though, Rupert."
"But that story is nonsense," Giles said.
"I wasn't in a position to indulge my wit in literary criticism, however valid, you know," Spike growled. "There were usually three crossbows on me, if not more,
depending on how the scrum was going. So I said yes, sure I'll kill her, if the price was right."
"So what am I worth, Spike?" Buffy asked.
"I got them up from their original bid. Fifty thousand dollars, half up front."
"Fifty thousand?"
"They would have agreed to any price, but don't get a swelled head, Slayer, they have no intention of letting me have anything. Once they caught me, I had damn all
chance of getting out of there alive. If I didn't agree to kill you, twang, crossbow bolt in the heart right then. I show up with your corpse later, and I just get staked.
They find out I've got this chip in my head, and can't kill anyone, I'm dead, anytime. I run, they track me down and kill me. I bargained them up because I would
have done that if I could and would kill you, and I wanted them to believe they bought me."
"Did they give you half?" Buffy asked.
"Yes, also pictures and maps. Cell phone, even, when I said the crypt I had taken over didn't have phone lines."
"Show us the money," Giles said.
"Hey! It's mine."
"Spike, maps of Sunnydale and even photos of Buffy are relatively easy to obtain. Twenty-five thousand dollars is somewhat more difficult. Show us the money,
because if you don't have it, you're lying," Giles said.
"Here," Spike said, tossing out a clip of hundreds and three pictures of Buffy.
Buffy picked up the money and flipped through it. "Twenty-five hundred, Spike. Where's the rest?"
"In the picnic basket, in the Viper."
Ann Grove snapped her fingers. A picnic basket, a very nice picnic basket, just what Ann might have in the trunk of her own car, with padded leather handles and a
mahogany lid with shiny brass hardware, appeared in front of Buffy. She opened it and inspected the contents. She saw cans of what looked like single servings of
tomato juice but which proved to be Cambells Vat Grown Bloody Mary Mixer, type A negative, two small unlabeled bottles of what seemed to be
champagne--already cold; two brands of vodka she had never heard of--ditto; small cheeses, foil pouches of smoked salmon and turkey, packets of crackers, four
or five different pots of pâté, two tall glasses and two champagne flutes; and in the lid, elegant horn-handled table ware, linen napkins, and graceful translucent white
plates. Loose in the bottom she found and removed four packets of hundred dollar bills and another twenty-five hundred in loose hundreds.
"The money checks," Buffy said. She tossed the money back in the basket, Ann Grove snapped her fingers again and the basket disappeared Spike started to put
the first fold of bills and the pictures of Buffy back in his pocket.
"Give me those," Buffy said. Spike passed her the pictures. "Week before last; I got that sweater week before last; but this one, Mom took this one, about four
months ago. How'd they get it?"
"They didn't say," Spike said. "Look, there's just a little bit more, and then I'm going to bed. Listen or not, I don't care."
"Go ahead, Spike," Ann Grove said.
"You were a much more professional audience," Spike complained to her.
Buffy felt Riley stiffen at the implied insult. He stayed silent, however, and she controlled herself and prepared to pay attention to Spike.
"What was really interesting about these guys wasn't what they said, so much, as the vocabulary they used. They talked just like us, I mean exactly like us, with two
exceptions, which I'll get to in a second. Now, I'm a vampire, and a lot of people know that. Summers is the Slayer, and a lot of people know that, too. A lot of
people even know that Rupert, here, is a Watcher. Summers has killed a lot of people, some of whom may have left survivors, sure, but anyone who just knows her
could have reasons for wanting her dead; and as for Rupert, who knows what can come up from his vivid and varied past? But I can think of only one group who
might want you both dead, who knows who and what we all are, and who might call one of you a 'traitor Watcher,' and the other, a 'renegade Slayer.' Which is what
they did."
On to Chapter 2
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