Souls and Spells

It was a little past noon when Spike entered the Magic Box. He had left Buffy home with her Watcher. The two kids – not kids, gotta stop thinking they’re kids – had gone out for a picnic. He was at the shop supposedly to get a book for Giles, but he had another agenda too.

“Hey, demon girl,” he said with his best ingratiating grin. “How’s business?”

Anya eyed him warily from behind the cash register. She was always quick to point out that Buffy was the co-owner of the shop, not him, and that his interest in the register seemed highly suspicious to her.

“You are very cheerful,” the girl commented. “I take it you had a good time in LA while some people kept working in Sunnydale?”

Decades of practice allowed Spike to control his expression and not scowl at her words.

“A bleedin’ good time,” he replied. “I have a question for you.”

He had her interest now. She looked at him expectantly, flattered as she always was when someone needed her knowledge or asked her opinion.

“Did you sell an Orb of Thesulah recently? To one of the Witches, maybe?”

A frown barred her forehead. This apparently was not the kind of question she had expected. She turned to one of the display cases and pointed to it.

“Just one in stock. It’s been there for a while. I sold the last one to an old guy who wanted a pretty paperweight.”

Unconsciously, Spike frowned at the clear crystal ball. He had a very deep urge to grab the offending object and smash it to pieces. So, the Witches hadn’t bought one of the damn things. But maybe they hadn’t needed to buy one, maybe they owned one already. Or maybe Anya was lying. Maybe they were all conspiring…

“Did you want anything, Spike?” Anya asked with a twinge of annoyance. “I was in the middle of something.”

Her question brought him back to the present.

“Uh, yeah, I need a couple of books for the Watcher. One’s about portals and dimensions, he said you’d know the one. And the other…do you have anything about how to detect if someone has a soul?”

Anya was already handing him the first book before he had finished asking for the second. She eyed him for an instant, obviously ready to ask a question, but thankfully did not. She went to another bookcase, pulled out a book, and began flipping through it with an air of concentration. At last, she found what she wanted; only briefly scanning the page before looking up at him.

“It’s a spell,” she announced. “Easy one, you should be able to do it by yourself. All you need is a bit of clear crystal. Do you want it now?”

He stared at her, surprised by how fast she had found the thing, how easily she had seen it was for him, not the Watcher. She seemed to notice his shock, and smiled slightly.

“I did it on myself, a while back,” she explained softly. “I wanted to know if the human package had come with a soul or not. Which apparently it did. Not that it really matters, but I just wanted to know. What makes you think you have one?”

Again, for an instant, he was just speechless. That the bint could see through him was unnerving, to say the least.

“’M not sure,” he said grumpily. “I’ve just been doing weird stuff lately. Feeling weird stuff. Stuff I should never feel. Unless Red or Glenda decided to have some fun and curse me.”

Anya shook her head slightly, a small grin gracing her lips.

“You know as well as me that demons can feel any emotion, just like humans. That they usually don’t doesn’t mean they’re not capable of it.”

Unreasonable anger rose in Spike as Anya spoke. If it hadn’t touched him so, he might have admitted that she was right. As it was, he didn’t even want to think of the possibility. It wasn’t natural for a vampire to feel guilt. There was an explanation, and he would find it. He needed to find it.

“So, where’s the bloody crystal?” he asked through clenched teeth.

She shrugged as she handed him the book and strode toward a display, picking out the shiny crystal that would tell him whether he was the owner of a soul again or not.

“It’s $3. Do you need a bag?”

Sitting on the floor of their bedroom, Spike stared at the piece of crystal in his hand. The still clear piece of crystal. Frowning, he read the book again, before repeating the incantation carefully. And still, the crystal remained clear.

He was in the middle of a string of colorful curses in just about every language he knew when Buffy entered the room, and he cursed some more, silently this time. He had made sure she was busy in the kitchen before he came up to try this damn spell, exactly to avoid her walking in on him.

“Hey love, whatcha doing?” she said cheerfully as she unbuttoned her white shirt, which had a large stain of what appeared to be tomato sauce right on the front.

Distracted by the expanse of skin she was revealing, he answered without thinking, wincing even as he heard the words leave his mouth.

“A spell.”

She had already found a clean halter-top to wear and was pulling it over her head when she froze for a second, looking at him questioningly.

“What kind of spell?”

Busted.

Lying, not an option. Changing the subject successfully, improbable. Truth..?

“Come here, pet,” he beckoned her. “Hold this.”

He rose to his feet and she took the crystal he handed her, looking at him curiously. For the third time, he repeated the incantation.

“Animus petrum revelat.”

Instantly, the crystal started shining in Buffy’s hand, and she let out a small gasp of surprise. When the light dimmed, the crystal had turned opaque, its milky surface glittering with a thousand spots of different colors like an opal.

“Oh! That’s beautiful! Thank you!”

Still wide eyed, Buffy was turning the small crystal in her hands, a delighted grin on her lips, and Spike couldn’t help smiling too at her pleasure. Throwing the book on the bed, he encircled her with both arms, and leaned in for a kiss. Too quickly, she was pulling away, protesting weakly.

“Gotta get back down. Dinner…burning…”

Reluctantly, he let go of her, and she pressed the crystal into his hand and a kiss to his cheek.

“Put it in my jewelry box please?” she asked as she hurried away.

Alone again, Spike’s smile disappeared and he frowned at the crystal. Apparently the spell was working, since the damn thing had changed for Buffy. So the answer was obvious. He didn’t have a soul. What wasn’t so clear, however, was why he had felt – no, still felt – bad about killing the brunette Slayer.

Puzzled and annoyed at not having found his answer, though somewhat relieved that the Witches hadn’t played a soulful trick on him, he opened Buffy’s jewelry box on her dresser and found a place for the crystal. As he did so, his eyes fell on a familiar piece of jewelry, and he pulled it out, his conscience questions forgotten for an instant.

As he held the skull ring between his fingers, a grin came back to his lips. The silver piece brought back memories of another spell every time he saw it. He had been truly surprised the first time he noticed it in the box. He would never have thought she would have kept it once Red’s spell had been broken. Precious few hours, where everything had been so easy.

Why should things ever stop being easy, anyway? Why was he trying to find answers to questions that didn’t really matter? He had killed Faith. So what? She was alive and well now, and he had no reason to feel guilty. If he had been planning to kill other people, the feeling might have been disturbing, but since he wasn’t going to kill anyone anytime soon, it didn’t matter. It was the past. His present and future was downstairs, cooking dinner, and that was really all he should care about. Placing the ring back where it belonged, he closed the box and left the bedroom, deciding to put all this unnatural remorse out of his mind. He didn’t have a soul, he certainly wasn’t getting one, and this had only happened because she was a Slayer, like his Buffy. Reasonable explanation to unreasonable guilt. Problem solved and forgotten.

For a change, the dining room had been returned to its original purpose, and cleared of anything related to the shop’s online business. The liberated table had been covered with Joyce’s finest tablecloth and china, and was now surrounded by the Summers girls, their respective boyfriends, the Harrises and Giles. It was an apocalypse-free dinner, just old, and new, friends sharing a good moment together. Discussions were taking place all around the table, about subjects as varied as Buffy’s improved cooking abilities, Giles supposed girlfriend in England, college majors and the latest numbers of the Magic Box’ sales.

At some point, while listening to Giles vehement denial that the lady who had once answered Buffy’s call was anything but a friend, the Slayer caught a few words between Spike and Anya.

“So,” the ex-demon asked offhandedly, “did you try it?”

Spike only nodded.

“And?” she insisted.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked quietly.

“Just curious.”

“It didn’t work for me. But it worked for Buffy.”

“Well, duh! What did you expect?”

If Spike answered, Buffy didn’t hear it, as she returned her attention to teasing Giles, and she had soon forgotten all about the overheard exchange.