Chapter Fourteen

The children were distracted... circling the wagons around their fallen Slayer and settling in to wait out her flu. It meant he had a few days. He wouldn’t waste them. He, in fact, wasn’t wasting them.

He shut his eyes and let the night air move over him. So different from the air of his youth. In England, nights were cool and damp. They touched you like gentle wet leaves, heavy with scents and chill. Here, the air was warm and dry. Always warm and dry. Such a static thing, so empty. This air couldn’t hold anything.

But, still, it fairly crackled with magic. That was the Hellmouth, of course, not anything to do with Southern California.

The power of the Hellmouth, which he was tapped into right now, with a rough power circle sketched around him on the concrete where he sat, cross-legged with this hands resting, palms up, on his knees. Just outside the circle, Jenny was pacing, holding the book he’d retrieved from the library on the night Buffy had been admitted to the hospital.

Jenny’s voice cut cleanly through the dead, brittle air, and he caught each word and repeated it, feeling the power gather closer, pulse stronger with each repetition of the verse.

Twice more, twice more and it would be seven and the spell would be cast.

His eyes fell open and he stared straight ahead, as the power filled him and focused.

His words had not been mere frustration. They could never truly cast him from his home. Willow wouldn’t know that, of course. It would give him an edge.

Twice more the verse was repeated, and then, a clap like thunder, the scent of ozone and power in the air, a soft click, and the front door of his apartment drifted open, welcoming him in.

He smiled and stood up, kicked at the chalk of the power circle, to blur the lines, and then walked in the door. Just past the threshold, he paused, glanced back over his shoulder and said, “Do come in, Jenny.”

She smiled and shut the book with a heavy thump, then followed him inside.

The place was dark and quiet, but not undisturbed. By the look of the arrangement of pillows and throws on the living room couches, and the scent of the place, Willow and the werewolf had been spending a lot of time here, even sleeping here.

The papers on his desk were more or less where he’d left them, only more neatly stacked, which told him the children had been sorting through them. Understandable.

Some of the books he would take. Others, he had no use for, so he would leave. He’d already compiled a list of the volumes he wanted to take, and he noted with satisfaction that Jenny had immediately moved to begin packing up those books.

He had a more personal matter to attend to.

His bedroom, as it turned out, had not been spared, most of his clothes were already in boxes. Not that it really mattered. There were only a few things he wanted. It took a bit of digging, but he found a pair of black jeans, a grey sweater and undershirt, and, most important, his long black overcoat.

The biker jacket had been an impulse decision, a mad grab at his former youth, which he’d thought he could reclaim now that he was an ageless creature. Over the past week, he’d quickly realized that that was an error in judgment. His youth was gone, and he didn’t even particularly want it back. He was something new, and, more important, older and wiser.

Of course, Spike’s constant taunting had nothing at all to do with his decision to change his look.

He quickly stripped and changed clothes, then grabbed his glasses from the night stand and slipped them on.

As he stood, feeling the weight of the trench coat settle around him, and enjoying for the first time in a week clear vision, he felt as though something had clicked into place. The clothes may not make the man, but there was something about the way one presented themselves that linked back intrinsically to who they were. For the first time, he felt that he had got it right.

He tossed one glance at the mirror over the dresser, and it took seeing nothing there to remind him that he wouldn’t see himself. He rolled his eyes at his own ineptitude, then headed back down the stairs.

Jenny paused her work in the living room, and looked up, approval shining in her eyes.

“Nice. The glasses... look pretty good, actually. You sure you need them, though?”

He snarled softly.

“You think I’d wear them if I didn’t? Hardly. Bloody obnoxious things.”

“Aww,” she said, in mostly-mocking sympathy. “Here. Have a book.”

He took it from her and then began checking the shelf she hadn’t gotten to yet.

“Everything’s accounted for?”

“So far, so good. Oh, ‘Death Magicks and Talismans.’ Isn’t that kind of silly name for a book? I mean, usually it’s something like ‘ The Forbidden Tome of So-and-so,’ or something. What is this, some kind of bargain-basement ‘Kill Things for Dummies’?”

Ripper snatched it from her hands.

“It’s a modern translation of one of the most ancient and dangerous texts known to mankind.”

Jenny looked impressed.

“Sounds like fun. We gonna play with it?”

He sighed.

“I’ve told you. I have no plans to end the world.”

“Why not? I’m sure you could do it. Probably got all sorts of arcane Watcher secrets somewhere in that brain of yours... all that stuff that the good guys don’t want us bad guys to know. And just *think* of all the suffering and gratuitous violence.”

“I was thinking more of the lack of fresh human blood that would be available should everyone on the planet happen to die,” he said, softly, letting his words drip with irony.

“Hmm. Spoilsport,” Jenny said, reaching for the next book. “If you’re not going to use it, why take it?”

He waited a moment, then said, “In case I ever change my mind.”

Jenny grinned up at him, an attractive evil glint in her eye. He found himself grinning back, and dropped to one knee, going game face and pressing a hard, brutal kiss to her lips. She rumbled low in her throat, a sound that was closer to a purr than a growl, and licked away the blood his fangs had drawn from her lip.

“Are you good here?” he asked, standing up and sweeping the coat irritably back away from his legs.

She nodded up at him.

“Good, then. I’ve got to go. There’s an old friend I need to get back in touch with.”

***

Oz froze, one step inside the door, and sniffed. Death. Vampires had been here.

“Willow. Back to the car. Now.”

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