It was only two hours after he reached Sunnydale that Spike got confirmation the Slayer was there. He had heard two vampires discuss the small blonde spitfire that had wrecked havoc on a party they had been having in the street. No doubt to have, it was just her style. He was a little relieved to have found her again. Her Watcher had mentioned California, and the first thing that had crossed Spike’s mind was that there was a Hellmouth there too. Two nights and a day of driving above speed limit still meant two nights and a day behind her. She could have gotten herself killed while he was catching up on her. Didn’t she get it, still? Her life was his to take. Drusilla had predicted as much.

The pain burned bright as his mind fluttered around the memory of his Princess, and he could see her again, her mouth open in surprise as the bloody Slayer had plunged the stake into her chest. He fed the memory to the flames of his anger and pulled hard on his cigarette, wishing he had a bottle of scotch to indulge in.

It was his fault. He should have killed the Slayer the first time he had tried, instead of playing with her. Now though, he had a reason to play. She would beg for death long before he was done with her. Hell, she was already scared, if her running act was any indication. It didn’t matter, though, since he had found her again. Cleveland or Sunnydale, the only difference was that it wasn’t snowing here.

That, and the small detail that Sunnydale seemed to be run by vampires. Not a bad thing in itself, except that finding dinner revealed a bit tricky, with the humans hiding in their closets from the monsters they now knew existed. He finally found his luck by following his nose and the scent of marijuana; the sixties were long gone and he had little interest left for drugs, but if a nice buzz left an idiot too happy to be scared and run, who was he to complain?

His hunger appeased – at least for now, he had a feeling he’d get the munchies later – Spike set off to find the Slayer. In a town like this, with a proper Master from what he had heard, the chances were too high that a random vampire would off her before Spike could get to her. Better to find her now and get on with the program. Better to shorten the show than to have it stolen from him.

Finding her was not all that complicated. After weeks of tracking her, he knew her scent as well as his own, and all he needed was to find the trail. Easier to do in Sunnydale than it had been in Cleveland. By midnight, he had found her in the middle of a cemetery, pummeling a newly risen vampire rather than using the stake at her waist or the crossbow slung behind her back. He watched her until she was done; it was always good to study one’s enemy. He had done it for a few days before their first fight, watching and learning how she moved, how she struck, how she parried. Only when he had been satisfied that he knew her had he attacked. By then, Dru had shared her vision with him, promising him that the Slayer would be his to take. She had never said anything about her own death. He still couldn’t understand why she had gone to fight the Slayer when she was still weak from the incident in Prague; couldn’t understand either why she hadn’t believed her own prediction and had tried to kill the Slayer herself.

This train of thought never led anywhere; Spike had run through it often enough in the past weeks to know that. Usually, he drowned it in whatever alcohol he had at hand. This time, he put an end to it by finally advancing on the Slayer. Her back to him, she had a hand on her right side, cradling her ribs. Hurt, then. He filed the bit of knowledge in the ‘weaknesses’ bin, along with those easily pushed buttons of hers.

“You didn’t think you’d be able to hide from me, did you?”

She spun to face him, crossbow neatly sliding off her shoulder and into position in her hands, feet spread to have the best possible footing. For some reason, she relaxed when she saw him, just a little bit. Then she hit the trigger.

Spike had been ready, and he easily ducked as the slim piece of wood shot past him. An impact sound behind him caught his attention, and he turned just in time to see what remained of a vampire disperse into the wind.

“I wasn’t hiding,” Buffy said as he looked back at her, an eyebrow cocked appraisingly. Pure luck, or had she planned the shot? “I just found more interesting things to kill.”

Lighting a cigarette, he observed her through the smoke. She seemed almost relaxed as she reloaded the crossbow, yes, but it was no deeper than the surface. She was ready to shoot again if he took one step toward her, and waiting for him to do so. In his experience, she rarely waited long before tiring of listening to him, and she often left openings in that first round of attack.

“Really?” he sneered. “So you didn’t run away from me, two nights ago? My mistake. It really looked like you did.”

He had hit a nerve; the scar across her lips was twitching. He had put it there himself, using her own knife, marking her as his prey. Time to make good on that promise.

“You know what, Spike?” she spat, sliding the crossbow back onto her back and crossing her arms. “Attack, or fuck off. I’m not playing your games tonight.”

With that, the infuriating little minx had the nerve to turn her back on him and walk away.

“You think you can get away like this?” he called after her. “I could kill you right now. I could have you dead before you even knew I touched you.”

“You won’t,” she shot back above her shoulder. “It would be cheating.”

He laughed incredulously at that, and easily caught up with her.

“Cheating?” he repeated, standing in her way and forcing her to stop. With a shake of his head, he shifted to his demon features. “I’m a vampire, luv. Of course I cheat. Hell, every time I look like this—” His face rippled back to his human visage. “—I’m cheating.”

It never occurred to him, despite all his protests, that she was standing there, a foot in front of him, arms crossed and in no way ready to defend, and he wasn’t taking advantage of the situation as he was claiming he would.

For a few seconds, she remained silent, observing him through unreadable eyes. “You won’t kill me like this,” she finally said, her calm voice belying how fast her heart was beating, “because if you truly loved Drusilla like you claim – and I’m not saying I believe you, because demons can’t love – but if you really think you did, then her memory deserves a real fight when we’re both giving everything we have, not a random strike of luck when I’ve got other things to do.”

It was quite possibly the longest speech he had ever heard her make. An eyebrow arched, she seemed to dare him to say something. When he didn’t, she stepped past him, and he could only turn to watch her leave.

What pained him the most wasn’t that she was getting away and he wasn’t catching her again. Rather, it was that she was right. If she wasn’t going to fight with the best she had, it wasn’t worth it. It simply wasn’t enough.

So he was back to his earlier dilemma. In a town like this, she might be dead before he had his shot, and that just wouldn’t do. If she wasn’t ready to give him the fight she owed him right now, he would have to make sure she survived long enough for him to take what was rightfully his.

Buffy hadn’t truly been surprised when Spike had showed up on her patrol earlier. Part of her had expected he would. Spencer had let it slip that she was off to California, and that was certainly enough for someone as tenacious as Spike.

She hadn’t been surprised either when mentioning Drusilla had been enough to throw him in for a loop; it might be a dirty trick, but it had worked before, and she would use it again if needed. Spike wasn’t the only one who knew how to wield words as weapons.

She wasn’t even surprised when an hour or so after she had left him behind, she ran across him again. What did surprise her was the offer he made her.

“A truce?” she repeated, disbelieving. “What the hell do you mean, you want a truce?”

Judging by the way his mouth twisted, he wasn’t particularly fond of the idea, which made his offer even more suspicious.

“You were wrong when you said demons can’t love,” he said darkly. “But right that I want a true battle. I’ll kill you, but it has to be a fair fight.”

Even as he talked, she remained alert; she wouldn’t have put it past him to change his mind and decide that killing her, whatever the means or circumstances, was good enough.

“No need for a truce. Just stay away from me until I’m done with my business here.”

He exhaled a puff of blue-gray smoke toward her; she didn’t flinch.

“And if your ‘business’ gets you killed, what does that leave for me?” he practically growled. “Something’s brewing, something big, I’ve been here for half a night and already I can tell as much. And I won’t let anyone else snap that pretty neck of yours. You’re mine to kill, Dru foresaw it.” His face closed, as it always did when he pronounced his dead lover’s name. “So, truce. I help you with this fight, and then we have ours.”

There were few things that Buffy disliked as much as people thinking she was stupid. Did he really believe she would accept his offer and trust him to help, when of his own admission, he wanted to see her dead? It was a trick, of course, and she wasn’t going to fall for it. That didn’t mean she couldn’t pretend.

“Fine. Truce. You can start by taking care of these two.”

Indicating with a tilt of her head the two vampires that were trying to sneak up on them, she wondered if he would even pretend to hold up his end of the offer. He did roll his eyes and let out a barely audible sigh, but already was moving toward the two vamps. Shrugging, Buffy decided she didn’t need to watch and continued forward to leave the cemetery and go back to Rupert Giles’.

She hadn’t spent much time with the Watcher yet, but so far she liked him more than she did Spencer. For one thing, he hadn’t demanded to know why she had knocked on his door a full day after her plane had landed in Los Angeles. She wouldn’t have told him if he had asked; it wasn’t any of his business that she had dropped by her home to watch her parents from outside. After hours of standing guard, she had only seen her mom, and she was trying very hard not to wonder what that meant.

“I didn’t expect you to be back so soon,” Giles commented when she walked in. “Did you see enough?”

Walking further in, she slid the crossbow off her shoulder and rested it to the side of the couch before sitting down. “I wanted to get a feel for the town, I’ve got it, now I’m ready to attack. I just need to know where.”

Taking off his glasses, Giles sat down across from her. He seemed tired but hopeful.

“The Master made his lair in an old club on the outskirts of town. That might be a good place to start.”

“You know where he is and you haven’t taken him down yet?”

“We tried,” the Watcher defended himself. “But without a Slayer, we didn’t…”

Buffy stood, immediately reaching for the crossbow. Checking the position of the arrow and that the safety was still on were things she did without a second thought. “Well, I’m here now. Just show me the place.”

She was actually a little surprised that he hadn’t led her to that lair as soon as she had arrived in town; that was what Spencer had done when she had first arrived in Cleveland, later claiming that he needed to know what he was working with exactly. She had never felt as much as a weapon as she had that day.

“I… I’d suggest patience,” Giles said on a tone that was half commanding, half pleading. “A few local students work with me on hunting vampires, and their help might be useful to us. We can talk to them tomorrow, and go to the lair in the evening when…”

“I don’t work well with others,” she cut in abruptly. “Now tell me where this club is before I start getting testy.”

It was her best hard look, the one that always got her what she wanted, and Giles did seem to fidget under it. But then he shook his head and slid his glasses back on.

“As much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, Miss Summers, I have to remind you that I am, for the time being and as per the Council’s orders, your Watcher, and I would ask you to treat me as such.”

She snorted at that. “If I did, I would already have thrown you across the room and gotten that information out of you. Want me to try that?”

By the way Giles swallowed hard, he believed her threat, even though it was – slightly – exaggerated. Nonetheless, he stood his ground.

“Morning will be on us fast,” he said calmly. “Do you really want to rush alone into a lair that must hold at this hour between thirty and forty vampires, all of them well fed and alert?”

As much as she hated to admit it, the Watcher had a point, and she conceded it with a slight inclination of her head. “What do you suggest, then?” she asked, gritting her teeth.