Interview With a Slayer
New Mexico, late evening a few days later

"Next you'll be telling me you and Lestat are poker buddies..." Luba protested, as she heated a deep pan full of oil.

"Seriously... Bloke's more a traitor to my former race than everybody said I was. Spillin' his guts to that Stoker guy. Next thing you know, it's bloody crosses everywhere. An' the wanker never did catch on to the new-fangled inventions like the coat. The rest of the world's gettin' ready to move into the third millennium an' he's still poncin' around in a cloak like some Bela Lugosi wannabe."

"So you're just gonna turn up on his doorstep in Transylvania and demand your 'eleven quid'?"

"Actually thought I'd try his old London gaff first, but, yeah, why not? Should be worth a giggle."

"How about because you're on the menu now, Einstein?"

Spike finished drying the onions that had been soaking for the last hour in ice water and placed them in the wire basket that went with the pan before passing it over, cats milling around his legs as he did so. "S'pose... I could prob'ly still take him though."

"And it's worth the risk? Take your break, have a poke round the old home town or whatever and make up your mind what it is you want to do... other than go see a Saturday afternoon match at Old Trafford, that is." The oil bubbled up as she lowered the basket into the pan.

"Aw, hell, pet. I'm human, not geriatric."

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that you haven't got all the time in the world any more. I know you don't want to get sucked into hanging around on the fringes of her world again, but if you've been doing stuff that has a purpose for the last couple of years, then I don't think either a solo version of The Scourge's globe-trotting tour or some nine to five is gonna make... you happy," Luba told him, hesitating when the doorbell sounded.

She pulled the pan to one side and turned off the flame before they both headed for the living room. Luba let Spike shift the curtain that covered the bay window a fraction of an inch, waiting for his okay before she made any move to answer the door. Instead of which what she heard was a muttered string of very British swear words.

"Are you just going to swear all night or are you going to tell me who's there?"

The doorbell echoed through the house again. Twice in quick succession.

"It's Buffy," Spike answered, making for the door to the room and the staircase upward.

"So I don't answer, then?"

The doorbell began to go off continuously as if someone were leaning on it.

"The lights are on. She knows someone's home. I wouldn't put it past her to kick the damn door down, but look, just tell her I left yesterday, tell her I'm dust, whatever you want, just don't tell her I'm here." Quick as the beat of a hummingbird's wings and silent as a moonbeam, he was gone, two cats trotting rather more sedately after him.

* * * * *

Luba managed to pull the door open just a fraction of a second before Buffy's side kick impacted with the lock. As it was the kick pushed the door into Luba, who was knocked over with the force of the blow, and her dog began to bark frantically, waiting only for her command to punish the intruder.

"Oh, geez, I'm sorry... At least, I'm sorry so long as you didn't have anything to do with hurting Spike."

Refusing Buffy's offer of a hand up, Luba brushed at her jeans as she stood. "I think, young lady, that you have the wrong house. You could try the Collinses three doors up. They have a bulldog. It might be called Spike. Now, if you'll excuse me, I was in the middle of cooking."

Luba stepped up with the dog's help, hoping to herd Buffy out the door and close it behind her.

Buffy looked around as if unsure what to do even as she let them back her up toward the door. "Look, I know I've got the right house. I don't want to hurt you or your dog, but I'm not going anywhere until I find out once and for all what happened to him. I will sit on your front porch and live off pizza deliveries until my phone battery runs flat and I go over the limit on my Visa card. I know he was here the other night. I know you let him in. I know you talked to him. Just tell me what happened."

"Look, maybe some freak did come round, but Spike wasn't the name he gave me. Maybe I did speak to him but that was last week, and I told him I wouldn't sell my picture to his pushy law firm and now he's gone."

"Gone? What do you mean, gone? Gone, walked out the door?"

"What other sort of gone do you think I might mean? Gone in a puff of smoke?" By now, Buffy had been backed up through the front door and onto the porch. "What do you care? For all I know you work for those damn lawyers. You just want me to say something crazy sounding so you can have me committed and get your hands on the picture that way." Luba waited to see what answer the slayer would give. There was only one that wouldn't get the door slammed in her face.

"I..." Buffy hesitated, still reluctant to put her emotions into words. "I care because I care about him."

Luba looked the blonde up and down, allowing just a touch of contempt to colour her voice. "Yeah, and I care when I see famine relief ads on the TV." The door was slamming closed even as she continued. "No wonder he said it wasn't enough."

Buffy couldn't quite get her foot in the door fast enough, and she was reduced to hammering on it with her fists. This time when the door opened again, there was a heavy security chain restricting its movement. "Do you want me to call the cops and have them arrest you for disturbing the peace?" Luba asked.

"Please... I don't just care about him. I love him. I'm begging you, just tell me what happened."

"Why? So you can follow him and then when you find him you can keep him hanging round waiting for scraps of affection until you eventually decide you want the guy who sent him here to die instead? Or maybe you'll find some dashing principal?"

"Look, there isn't anyone else... or, well, there was... but it was just because I thought he was dead. I thought he'd want me to live. If Spike's alive, I need to find him. Maybe he doesn't want me any more... and, well, if he doesn't then I've just got to be okay with that, but if he still thinks I was just saying that to make him feel better because he was going to die, then I've got to put him straight."

The door closed once more, and in the second it took Luba to remove the chain Buffy wondered if maybe she just wasn't convincing enough, but then it re-opened.

"What if when you find him he's not who he used to be?" Luba asked, finally quieting the dog, which had been growling quietly ever since Buffy had been forced back to the porch.

"I- I- Look, all I want to do is find him, be with him. If he's gone bug-eating crazy again or something, then I'll deal with that problem when I come to it, but I'm not letting him go."

"And how about if he's no longer what he used to be?" the older woman suggested.

"Lady, he could look like Shrek and, as long as it was my Spike inside, I wouldn't care, so if you're about to tell me he's human, don't think it's going to put me off."

"How did you know?"

"Wes. He decided to check all the reports that some guy who disappeared had done for them, starting with the one on the medallion that Spike came here to find. Turns out Watcher guy only translated part of the passage."

"So what did Angel think it would do to William?" Luba asked.

"Let's just say that once I find Spike I'm figuring on making a detour to L.A. to settle some scores before I go back to Rome."

"Then head on upstairs and try the back bedroom on the left."

"He's still here?" Buffy asked incredulously, expecting him to have been long gone.

"Unless he climbed out the window... which is actually a possibility, so I wouldn't hang about if I were you."

Buffy didn't need telling twice.