She’d been working in this dinky little Real Estate office for several years, and she knew ‘good’ customers when she saw them.

These weren’t good customers.

The man was gorgeous, even she had to admit that; though she had always disliked that 80's punk look, it rather suited him. And he had beautiful eyes - but his clothes were well-worn and just this side of shabby.

The girl with him - he had off-handedly introduced her as his ‘kid sister’ but the agent had serious doubts about the truth of that relationship - had crossed over the line into definite shabbiness. Her clothes were old and threadbare and too loose on her thin little frame.

She had a feeling that they had about as much money as she had men lined up waiting to take her out.

"Want something big," the man said, "solid. Something old; they built ‘em better in the old days."

"For a business, you said," she replied doubtfully, flipping through her catalog.

"Yeah, ducks, s’wot I said."

"Spike, be nice," the girl whispered, but she was smiling at him.

"I have a nice storefront on Clements Street," she started, going to the really cheap entries in her book.

"Clements?! Place is full of druggies and dem... and, uh, deviants. Can’t have my girl there, can I?" Her customer didn’t look happy with the suggestion. "Sides, want somethin’ bigger’n a storefront."

"How much bigger?" She peered over her glasses at him again.

He made a large rectangle shape with his hands, frowning at her. "Dunno, bigger! Like, warehouse sized! Got any warehouses?"

"A warehouse?" She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. Didn’t the news say that gangs and drug dealers were the ones who wanted warehouses? Oh, well, that was the police’s responsibility. Hers was to sell and rent property, and she had a ‘white elephant’ of a place that had been on the firm’s books practically forever.

"I’m afraid we don’t have an actual warehouse," she said slowly, turning her chair to open a file drawer on the cabinet behind her desk, "but I have something you may be interested in." She took out a file and opened it, lifting a picture and handing it to Spike.

"A factory?" he stared at the huge brick building. "Full o’equipment?"

"No, most of the equipment was sold when the business went bankrupt. There are still some tables, chairs, desks, things like that. Some old appliances in the cafeteria. It’s a very, very large building."

"It is that," he nodded, handing the picture to Emily. "Can we see it?"

"Of course. I’ll get the keys and escort you there. Do you have transportation?"

"Yeah," Spike replied, grinning a little.

His Childe echoed the grin. She adored her Sire’s new ‘transportation.’

"Very well. The address is there," she gestured to the top page of the open file. "If you know where it is, I’ll meet you there, or you can follow me."

"Know ‘bout where that’s at," Spike nodded. "We’ll see ya there. Gotta stop an’ get my girl some dinner."

"Very well. In, shall we say, half an hour?"

"Yeah, all right."

She watched as they went out the door, then she retrieved the keys and made a few phone calls to let her associates know where she was going.

Just to be on the safe side.

*

"Wow, it really is huge," Emily said as she climbed off the back of the shiny new Harley.

"Yeah, pretty big," Spike agreed, taking the helmet she handed him and stowing it in its compartment. He didn’t bother wearing one, but he wasn’t taking chances with his girl.

"Do we need this much space?" she asked shyly, uncertain if she was allowed to question her Sire.

Spike looked up at the four-story brick building, nearly a block long, and shrugged. "Don’t have to use all of it. ‘Sides, never know how life’s gonna turn out. Might be glad we got such a big place before it’s all over."

Emily smiled, took his hand - and blinked suddenly as a vision of her Sire surrounded by vampires - souled, smiling vampires - flashed through her head. "Hmm... maybe you’re right," she said softly.

"Never know," Spike said again. He completely missed the hazy look in her eyes and the grin she was sporting now. "Ready to go in? Where’s that bint with the keys?"

"Over there," Emily pointed toward a modest little car parked in the shadow of the building. Spike immediately started for it, with his usual graceful stalk modified a bit so his much-shorter Childe could keep up with him. Emily was glad - her Sire might not be tall, but he had very long legs. When she’d been following him through the city, before he’d claimed her, she’d usually had to trot to keep him in sight.

"Oh, good, you’re here," the woman said, peering at them as they materialized from the shadows. "Let’s go in, please, before it gets darker out."

"Place have electricity?" Spike asked as they followed her, past some really huge doors to a smaller one tucked around a corner.

"Oh, yes," she said, reaching out to a little white keypad mounted by the door. "We have an excellent security system installed, and all the lights are on timers."

"Sounds a bit pricey for somethin’ you’re tryin’ ta sell," Spike commented, watching as she placed herself firmly between them and the keypad as she typed in the access code. He wondered what she’d say if he told her his hearing was sharp enough to tell the difference between the little number ‘beeps’, and that he’d memorized each number’s sound a long time ago. Always came in handy when you were gonna break into some other demon’s lair - surprising how many had switched from magical wards to electronic surveillance.

"Oh, it’s not so bad," she replied, stepping closer to the door and getting out a huge ring of keys. "We get a tax break, because it helps prevent the crime rate in the area from rising." She paused in the middle of unlocking the rather astonishing amount of padlocks and deadbolts on the door to glance at him, but continued when she saw that Spike was apparently much less concerned about ‘his girl’ being around criminals here.

Opening the door now that it was completely unlocked, she led the way inside. They stepped into a small, narrow hallway. There were about six doors on each side, all of them open and showing small rooms with dusty, ancient office furniture - old metal desks, manual typewriters, rusty filing cabinets. At the end of the hallway, an opening showed a staircase, where one could go up or down.

"This place has a basement?" Spike’s interest was growing every second, although he kept his tone perfectly bland. No need in the bint raising the price, after all.

"Well, I suppose you could call it that. There are actually two floors below ground; the first has small windows all along the tops of the walls, but I’m afraid the second has no natural lighting at all."

"That a fact?" Spike fished out a cigarette and lit it, ignoring Emily’s grin. The Real Estate lady had no idea that she was describing perfection to them, not the bad selling point that she obviously thought it was.

"Shall we go up?" the agent asked, making a vague attempt at the brightness that her younger colleagues used endlessly.

"Rather see the basement rooms first," Spike said decisively. If those floors weren’t what he wanted, then there was no use at all in looking at the rest of the place.

"Well... all right..." the woman blinked, but led the way down the left-hand stairs. "There are two elevators," she said over her shoulder, "but they haven’t been inspected in a few months, so I’d prefer not to take them."

"S’all right," Spike shrugged, unconcerned. They were vampires, after all - running up and down stairs was nothing to them.

The stair case had those little landings for each floor, but instead of a door, there was just an opening into what looked like a yawning black void.

"Where’s that switch - ah!" and huge lights came on so suddenly that Spike and Emily were temporarily blinded.

After blinking their sight clear, they were presented with a single cavernous room, dusty brick walls going down at least two stories below the deck-like structure they were now standing on. The floor was concrete, and the room was completely empty. There wasn’t even leftover trash down there. A metal catwalk with a safety banister completely circled the room, leading to an identical platform on the other side, then back around to theirs. The other platform held a rickety desk and a broken chair laying on its side. There was another door over there, and a set of stairs beyond it. Both platforms also had metal staircases that led down to the room below.

There were windows on this floor, like the woman had said, small rectangles so dirty that Spike doubted sunlight could get through even if it was noon. They were set about a foot down from the ceiling and at least twenty feet above the floor. The room had two elevator doors, one set of metal like a regular elevator, closed, "that’s the nice elevator," and one set of wire-cage doors that were open to show an old-fashioned wooden freight elevator.

"Do you want to look around here?" They were asked doubtfully.

"No point," Spike shook his head, "let’s see the next one."

The bottom floor was almost exactly like the one above it, save that there were no windows and one corner of the vast space was taken up with a huge old gas furnace and a branching forest of pipes.

"The furnace does work," the agent said when she saw him looking at it, "but there’s electric heat, as well. Do you want to look around here?"

"No," Spike didn’t elaborate. He’d already seen the weaknesses and strengths the room had; he could work with it, but he wanted to see the rest of the place before he made up his mind.

The second and third floor of the place had ceilings only a little higher than normal, and one was divided up into office cubicles, some of which still had desks and some that were empty. The top floor had a board room with a rather nice table, and bigger offices. There were nice bathrooms, some even with tubs and showers. Both floors had huge floor-to-ceiling windows made up of dozens of small panes of glass.

The last place they were shown was the main floor, the one with the huge loading doors. They were shut tight, but if opened, would lead down a solid concrete ramp into a big room that smelled of gasoline and machine oil. A broken-down pickup truck was parked there, and the agent nodded when he asked if it came with the place. Another big room was crammed full of every kind of tool Emily could imagine. Some were rusty, all of them were filthy. The factory workers’ restrooms were here, long rows of stalls and big open shower rooms with a dozen showerheads. There was also a cafeteria and a kitchen; both fully equipped even though the appliances were old fashioned.

"Well?" the woman asked after she finished showing them everything.

Spike looked thoughtful. "I dunno. Bigger place than what I was thinking of. Needs a lot o’work, too. How much they askin’?"

The woman named a price that made Emily goggle.

Spike whistled. "Bit pricey for this dump."

"It’s in a good industrial area," she argued, "and the building is very solidly built."

"How’s the roof?" Spike asked, and the conversation descended into a rather technical one that Emily didn’t really understand.

She backed away a little and went to look around the kitchen. She wasn’t sure about this place - it was very big that she felt small and lost in it - but when that vision came true, they were going to need lots of space. Something else tickled at the back of her mind, and she frowned for a moment, then went and tucked her hand into her Sire’s.

Then she grinned. Physical contact always brought those ‘tickles’ of visions into sharp focus - now she knew what they needed to do next.

She just hoped her Sire would go along with it.

"Well, I’ll letcha know," Spike was grumbling, "you gotta card?"

"Of course," the agent handed one over.

"Good." Spike took the small white piece of thick paper. "I’ll call ya t’morrow evenin’. Got some people ta talk this over with first." A quick squeeze of his hand told Emily he meant her.

A few minutes later and they were standing outside the factory, watching as the real estate lady drove away.

"Well, pet, what do you think?"

"It’s very big," she said doubtfully.

"Won’t be usin’ much of it. Make us a nice lil’ den in that basement. Be warm, an’ dark, an’ safe."

Emily nearly purred. "That sounds very nice. But it’s so expensive."

Spike shrugged, slinging an arm around her and leading her back to the door, where he easily punched in the code. "Go on in; m’gonna get the bike."

"We’re staying here?" she asked, surprised.

"Might as well. See how we like it. We’ve fed, so t’morrow evenin’s good enough to go get the fridge and our stuff."

"Okay."

"Need to check all the doors and windows, see how tough it’ll be for someone to break in," Spike muttered, walking away and then wheeling the bike back. "‘Sides, if we wait a few days, she’ll lower the price. Play hard ta get, ya know?"

"You’re so clever, Sire," she said happily.

Spike grinned. "Can always think of a plan; stickin’ to it’s the hard part. But you make that a lot easier, pet."

Now Emily was grinning. "You don’t have to flatter me."

"Not flatterin’ ya," Spike said honestly, "tellin’ the plain bloody truth. Ya make everythin’ easier, pet - ya make existin’ easier."

Emily kept smiling, but her green eyes narrowed, studying her Sire for signs of depression. She knew - she couldn’t help but know - that he could slip back, so easily, into the dreadful darkness that had hounded him when she’d first started following him.

She wasn’t going to let that happen.

"C’mon, pet," Spike called to her, "let’s poke around in some o’these closets and see if they left anything good here."

Emily smiled, and followed him. A treasure hunt sounded like fun, and it would keep her Sire distracted. She had some planning of her own to do.