Predatory Acts
by Jane Davitt


Chapter 4

Spike hesitated, one hand on the door, the other gripping Xander’s shirt. It had taken him a while to dress Xander and he’d had time to reconsider his initial strategy. That was a rarity for Spike. He tended to make a plan and execute it without second thoughts. If the plan didn’t work he made another. Eventually the problem went away, usually because everyone who had been a problem was dead.  It was messy, but effective.

He had been going to offer Xander to the Master; the perfect lure for the Slayer. In return, he wanted the use of Dalton for a while. Dalton, a thin, balding vampire who looked meekly at the world through old fashioned glasses, would have been dust decades ago were it not for his skills in translating arcane texts and doing research into prophecies and portents. He was invaluable but the Master owned him. Only a prize like a Slayer would persuade him to release Dalton from his task of looking for ways to free the Master and look for a cure for Drusilla instead.

That idea was still a good one but it would end with Xander’s inevitable death and Spike wasn’t sure he wanted that. He remembered Xander’s face as he bent to lick the blood from his hand, intent and serious, and his fist clenched in a reflexive spasm, as it had done around the boy’s neck. He wasn’t done with Xander. He wanted to see him fight the hyena until it was under his control; he’d sensed that it wasn’t, not yet. He wanted to tame the animal without breaking the boy and enjoy them both. As a human, he’d been denied a lot of his dreams, as a vampire, never. Eternity could get dull and Xander would be entertaining for a while.

He thought about turning him, wondering what he would be like as a vampire, and then shrugged. Xander already had the blood lust, the cruelty and an alien soul. What would be the point? Besides, an ally who could move around in the sunlight would be useful. Dru probably wouldn’t mind. She might take one of her fancies to him – Spike’s thoughts broke off abruptly. The Slayer. He didn’t know her, and he’d never heard of a Slayer having people close to her before, but if the boy was telling the truth, this Slayer might not abandon him, even after what had happened. Or she’d hunt him down and kill him fast out of kindness. That was about as kind as a Slayer got to a demon.

Spike sighed, leaning his head against the wall and resisting the urge to bang it hard against the plaster. It was getting complicated. “All I wanted was a bloody shag,” he muttered. “This stupid, fucking town. People turning into hyenas, Slayers getting pally with the plebs, politicians who’ve sold their souls – well, maybe that’s not just in Sunnydale.”

Xander stirred restlessly and Spike drew back his foot, intending to kick him back into unconsciousness but found he couldn’t. The boy looked so helpless. Xander moved again, his eyes opening slowly. He squinted up at Spike and held out his hand in a wordless request to be pulled to his feet. Spike took it, feeling a tingle as their palms met, and hauled Xander up. Xander was heavier than he expected and his weight pulled Spike off balance. With a snarling smile, Xander ploughed his fist into Spike’s stomach, doubling him over.

“Bloody hell!” said Spike, staggering backwards. “Mate, listen –”

“You betrayed me,” Xander said, each word weighed down with hurt and disillusionment. “We were pack and you were going to –”

“I was going to use you to save the woman I’ve loved for five times longer than you’ve been sucking in air. Don’t expect me to feel guilty about that.” Spike’s face was so still now that it reminded Xander of an action figure; perfect, plastic, dead.

Xander shook for a moment, trembling with reaction. Spike stepped towards him, his open hand extended. To Xander the hand seemed to waver as though a heat haze surrounded it. Silly. It was a cold hand, a dead hand. His eyes moved upwards and met Spike’s. Those eyes weren’t dead. There was pain in their depths, an ineffable weariness.  Even human, Xander would have been uncomfortable with the charged emotions sparking in the air. As he was, he took refuge in the cruelty that ran through him as a pattern runs through fabric. He laughed in the vampire’s face, watching the pain vanish as anger replaced it. Anger he could deal with.

“They’re coming for me,” he said. “Once you hurt me, they knew. They’ll be here soon.”

Spike sneered. “Your little puppy pals don’t scare me. What are they going to do, piss on my shoe?”

Xander’s eyes were distant now, as though he were listening to something far away. He turned, pulled open the door and ran up the short flight of stairs to the back street. Standing in the open, he threw back his head and howled a shrieking, arrogant cry to his pack. Spike cursed, locking the door to buy some time. Five humans he could have handled. Five humans with Xander’s ruthless strength might be a handful. Moving quickly, he kicked the bed aside, lifted the trap door leading to the sewers and disappeared into their noisome depths.

Never sleep where there’s only one exit, especially if it only leads to the outdoors. Good rule for a vampire and one that had saved him more than once. “But you better watch your back, Xander,” he muttered as he twitched his long coat out of the way of a patch of dripping mould. “You owe me and I don’t plan to forget it.”

He hesitated at the junction of three tunnels, getting his bearings, and then strode off. Time to call in some favours.

***

Xander’s pack mates found him soon. They surrounded him, fingering his bruises, making little whimpering noises of comfort, easing his sadness. They went with him to Spike’s room but they could tell that it was empty before they broke down the door. The scent of sex lay heavy in the air and they looked suspiciously at Xander. With a new found certainty he ordered them to leave, to go home, and to meet him at school the next day. They protested, but he was adamant.

School was where Buffy would be.

***

Wednesday Night.

The spell was broken and Xander felt the hyena spirit leave him. He staggered, silently screaming in pain at what he had lost. Memories flooded back, this time unfiltered through an alien intelligence. He fell to his knees.

“Xander! Are you hurt?” Willow exclaimed, ignoring the fact that she’d just come within moments of having her throat cut.

Xander’s lie was instinctive. “I don’t remember...what are we doing here? Is the trip over?”

Willow looked at Buffy and Giles, swallowing. She laid a soft hand on his. “It’s over,” she said. “W-we can fill you in on what’s happened later. It’s all over now.”

He let them lead him away, listened to their story with artfully raised eyebrows and gaping mouth, apologised profusely to Buffy and was forgiven – and avoided Giles’ ironic but sympathetic looks. Giles knew but he wouldn’t tell. He understood that it hadn’t been Xander who did all those things.

It was all over.

***

Thursday Night

Xander waved goodbye to Willow and Buffy and walked away towards his house. It had been good to go to the Bronze, get back to normal. There had been a few odd glances from people he’d insulted, girls who didn’t understand how he’d gone from loser to sexy and back again but the Hellmouth factor was kicking in. Flutie’s death was the big news and he wasn’t involved in that. He had a lot to think about but that was one memory that he didn’t have playing over in his head in full technicolour. He had three others to haunt him instead.

That woman in the alley. He gritted his teeth, swallowing. He would _not_ throw up again. The taste had gone, drowned by mouthwash and gum. His hands were clean. He hadn’t killed her...the vampire had. He refused to think about that, moving on to the second memory.

Trying to rape Buffy. Watching the fear in her eyes, then getting comprehensively beaten up by her. A Slayer was tough. He’d never realised quite how tough before. It meant that any chance he’d had with Buffy had just gone out the window but at least he hadn’t done more than scare her. It wasn’t as if they’d had sex...which brought him back to the vampire again.

Memory three was the worst. it shouldn’t have been. Eating human flesh, trying to rape someone; they should have ranked higher on the guilt meter than sex. Even if it was with a vampire. “I am not gay,” he muttered. “I went right out there and tried to rape Buffy. That proves that I’m – the biggest jerk in history.”

He sighed. He hadn’t been lying entirely when he said he couldn’t remember. The memories were there and the guilt was intense but they seemed far away, like the recollection of a dream. They were fading and he took comfort in that. He’d been possessed. Happened all the time. Not his fault. Could have happened to anyone and it would have been just the same. No way to fight back.

“I would get possessed by a gay hyena,” he said aloud.

The figure following him shook with silent laughter. Spike was close enough to hear Xander’s soliloquy. The demon he’d paid to follow the boy in the daylight had passed on the news that the possession had ended, much to his annoyance, but he decided he wanted to see how the lad was taking it.

Xander was almost at his house when an arm snaked around his neck and a voice whispered teasingly in his ear. “Did you miss me, pet?”

Spike’s hand wandered down Xander’s chest to his jeans, fingers tracing the outline of his cock.

“I see you did.”

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