Spike normally slept until around noon at the earliest, but today he was woken at ten a.m. by a pounding on the crypt door. “FedEx delivery! Mr. Walworth! Delivery for you.”
“What on Earth?” he muttered, rolling off the sarcophagus and grabbing up his jeans. “FedEx, here? And calling me Mr. Walworth? I haven’t even told Buffy my real name. The Council of Wankers?” He pulled on the jeans and stumbled towards the door. “Hang on a tick! Just getting some clothes on,” he called. Just before he reached it his mind cleared enough to sound a note of caution, and he snatched up a kukri from an alcove and tucked it into the rear of his waistband. He then opened the door warily, careful to avoid any stray sunbeams and not to expose himself to being seized and dragged out into the fatal daylight.
“Mr. Walworth? Sign this, please.” The man standing there wore overalls with the FedEx logo, held an official-looking clipboard, and was proffering a FedEx ballpoint pen, but Spike was still suspicious and exercised extreme care when taking the clipboard and signing the receipt slip which it bore. However, the delivery man made no hostile moves, merely taking back the clipboard and handing over a large cardboard carton in exchange. “Never had to make a delivery to a cemetery before, pal,” he commented. “Guess you must be the caretaker. Nice place, but it wouldn’t suit me. See ya, pal. Have a nice day.”
Spike carried the carton into the crypt and set it down on the sarcophagus. He felt cold, and paused to don a T-shirt. It didn’t occur to him for a while that the sensation was unusual; a vampire didn’t normally feel the cold until the temperature dropped to within three or four degrees of freezing, but after all it was February.
He returned to his examination of the carton. It didn’t seem heavy enough to be a bomb, so he opened it; although still somewhat gingerly. It proved to be full of separate envelopes, all addressed to him by his human name. William Walworth, or W. A. T. Walworth, and one even had his name in full; William Alexander Tyler Walworth. That particular envelope was addressed in a beautiful flowing copperplate script which he recognised, even though it had been nearly a century since he had seen it last, and he opened it first.
‘My dear William,’ the letter began. ‘It has been nearly one hundred years since the encounter in which I incurred a debt to you of eleven pounds. It has been pointed out to me lately that it is beholden upon me to settle the debt, and that I should also recompense you for the enormous delay in repayment. In present day terms the eleven pounds would equate to six hundred and eighty six pounds, but there is of course the matter of interest, and I find the task of calculating the appropriate sum beyond my ability. I therefore propose to transfer to you the proceeds of certain US assets, formerly the property of the late Nicolae Ceaucescu, which I acquired subsequent to the fall of his regime in 1989. Retrieving those assets would prove problematical for me at the present time, and so I will pass them on to you.
These US assets, totalling approximately eight hundred thousand dollars, were used by myself to purchase a replica medieval castle in Sunnydale, which I understand is your own present location, prior to my visit there in the late summer of 2000. The deeds have been transferred into your name. The castle is up for sale, and an offer has been received from a motion picture company. They propose a property exchange, the vendor to receive a modern furnished apartment and twenty-five thousand dollars in cash. Should those terms not be acceptable to you, then you are at liberty to decline and to retain the castle or negotiate your own sale. I expect, however, that you will accept, as I am well aware that you do not share my respect for the ancient vampire traditions. I trust that you will find this acceptable as a full and complete settlement of my debt to you. Your old friend, Vladimir Tepes, Prince of Walachia, Count Dracula.’
“Is this some kind of joke?” Spike muttered. He searched through some of the other letters, ignoring unrelated ones even if they looked interesting, until he found a bundle of deeds and a letter from a firm of realtors. The deeds were to a castle, two miles out from the centre of Sunnydale, built in the late 19th century by a mad railroad baron. There, Spike knew, Buffy had indeed encountered Dracula. The realtors’ letter discussed the proposed property exchange, and gave details of the apartment in question. It was in one of three luxury blocks on the edge of town; one of which had been chosen by Glory as her base whilst the mad Hell-goddess had been in Sunnydale. This apartment was in a different block, much to Spike’s relief.
He was still feeling cold, so paused to put on a shirt over the T-shirt before moving on to examine another letter. This one turned out to be from the British Consulate in Los Angeles, enclosing a new passport to replace the one which he had – according to the letter – reported lost. He stared at it in total amazement. His own face stared back at him from the photograph inside. His name was shown in full; his date of birth was correct except for the year differing from his actual year of birth by one hundred and twenty years. 1975 rather than 1855. There was a stamp inside the passport bearing the US Government insignia and the legend ‘Processed for I-551’. He guessed that it had something to do with granting him permission to reside in the USA.
More letters with contents which struck him dumb with astonishment.
One from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, enclosing a Category II Limited Immigrants Visa, Sub-category B2 ‘Members of the Professions’. Or, in popular parlance, a green card. Most of the letter was meaningless to him, but he spotted a reference to ‘I-551’ and deduced that his thoughts about the passport must have been correct.
A letter from the State of California Department of Motor Vehicles, containing a Driver License and ID Card. The photograph on the card was a recent one of himself, but he had no idea when it could have been taken.
A letter from MBNA enclosing a Platinum Visa credit card with a credit limit of $7,500.
A similar letter from Morgan Stanley, enclosing a Platinum MasterCard with the same credit limit.
One from the Sunnydale branch of Wells Fargo Bank, welcoming him as a customer and enclosing an ATM card. A separate letter with a PIN code, and another enclosing a statement showing an opening balance of twelve hundred dollars.
A letter from the Faculty of Classical Studies at UC Sunnydale, inviting him to attend an interview for a position as a Graduate Research Assistant.
A letter from an auto trader, confirming that they had removed the 1958 Dodge DeSoto Fireflite as per agreement, and enclosing the registration documents and keys for its replacement. A money order for $235 was attached, together with a reproachful note stating that due to the regrettable condition of the DeSoto’s interior they had deducted a valeting charge of $115 from the price agreed. It took Spike a second reading to work out that they had accepted the old DeSoto in full payment for the new car, and actually given him change.
The key fob for the new car was green and bore an instantly recognisable logo. A leaping big cat in gleaming silver. A Jaguar. He scanned the registration documents, insurance certificate, and manual. A brand new, 2002 model, only released in California that very month, Jaguar S-Type R; 4.2 litre supercharged V8 engine, with all available option packages including sunroof. “Won’t be needing that,” Spike muttered. It was all too much to take in, and there were still letters unopened, but he gave way to an impulse of sheer unrestrained joy and began dancing around the crypt singing …
“I’ve got a brand new car
Looks like a jaguar
It’s got leather seats
It’s got a CD player, player, player, player,
But I don’t want to talk about it any more
I think we’re going to make it
I think we’re ...”
He stopped, smitten by sudden discomfort, and dashed down the ladder to the lower levels of the crypt where he had basic toilet facilities. He climbed back up the ladder a few minutes later, shaking, eyes wide, and pulled on the rest of his clothes hastily. “What’s happened to me?” he muttered, staring wide-eyed at goose-pimples on his arms. “What’s going on? This is crazy. I digested food. There’s vapour on my breath. I’m breathing. God, I’m breathing. I’m not alive – am I? I can’t be. I must be insane. All this stuff and now this. I must be going mad. I need help.”
He stumbled over to the television and gazed at the blank screen. His reflection showed up dimly on the glass. Hesitantly he reached out a finger and touched the screen. “I’m not a vampire. I’m human. This just can’t be happening, it can’t, it can’t. I’ve gone crazy. I don’t understand. It can’t be happening. Help me. Help!” He sank to his knees on the stone floor, panic sweeping through him. “Help me, oh God, somebody help me!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, then slumped to the floor and sobbed.
Buffy strode briskly out of the bank, humming to herself, and with a big beaming smile all over her face. She had deposited the check, and had been instantly transformed from someone who they had rejected for a loan even after she had just prevented a bank robbery, into someone to whom they were falling over themselves to offer loans and credit cards. “Get the double treat, that’s the double sweet …” she sang absently, and then caught herself and frowned. “God, gotta stop doing that,” she muttered. “I’ve been at that damn place way too long. And gotta go there now, which is way unfair. I want to see how Spike is doing now he’s all human and rich. Wow, he’s gotta be over the moon.”
Spike pulled himself to his feet and staggered to his little refrigerator. He was desperately thirsty, and the thought of either blood or beer made him nauseous, but he kept a couple of bottles of Nestea Iced Tea there in case Dawn, who liked it, called in. Not normally to his own taste, and he teased Dawn by calling it ‘Nasty’ Iced Tea, but it was all he could face. He pulled out a bottle, wrenched it open, and drank eagerly. Once he’d consumed half of the bottle he felt a little better, and he replaced it in the fridge and returned to the pile of envelopes on the sarcophagus. “Got to be something there to explain this,” he mumbled. “Something saying ‘congratulations, you’re human’, and telling me why.”
A copy of a birth certificate, all the details matching those of his birth save for the year. A University of Oxford standard degree certificate, showing him to have a BA First Class Honours Degree in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History. A clipping from the Balliol College newspaper, dated 1997, showing a picture of him being awarded his degree; and another clipping showing him posing with Rosa, the college tortoise, after the reptile’s victory in the annual inter-college tortoise race. “They still do that after all these years, then,” he smiled nostalgically, but then felt a sudden wave of baffled frustration and fury.
“This is madness!” he shouted to the empty crypt. “I can’t just have turned human, got all this stuff, this money, this background. It’s crazy. I’m trapped in some crazy dream. Things like this just don’t happen. There’s got to be some logical explanation. I’m hallucinating. Got to be.”
Hallucinating. Could that be the explanation? It did seem far more logical than any other alternative. Some hallucinogenic had been put in his blood, or had been released into the crypt as a gas, or – the eggs downstairs. Spike suddenly remembered those mysterious eggs, and remembered a particular episode of ‘Star Trek’, and a horrible suspicion crept over him. The eggs had released spores which were affecting his mind, trapping him in a dream, and something ghastly would emerge from the eggs and burrow into his body. He ran to his weapons chest, took out his shotgun, some shells, and a baseball bat, and set off down the ladder.
The eggs did indeed look sinister, reminding him of the Xenomorph eggs in ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’, and he approached the nearest one warily. He laid down the bat and the shotgun, drew the kukri from the back of his waistband, and sliced off the top of the egg. Something wriggled within. Something insectoid. It bore a vague resemblance to the face-hugger stage of the Xenomorphs, and Spike panicked. He snatched up the shotgun and fired at the egg, blowing it apart, and fired the second barrel at the next egg. He reloaded, and fired again. And again, and again, until he had run out of shells. He hardly paused, but snatched up the baseball bat and began smashing the remaining eggs, beating any intact larvae to a pulp. Eventually there were no more eggs left intact, no larvae which could possibly be alive, and Spike’s frenzy subsided. He let the bat fall and slumped against the wall, panting, sweating, and covered in yellow slime.
He raised a trembling hand to his face, saw the slime, and retched. He stumbled towards his improvised shower room, where he had tapped into a water pipe, and showered, fully dressed, beneath the icy spray until the slime was gone, then stripped and washed again. He laid the soaking clothes on a clean slab of stone to dry and climbed the ladder once more; naked, cold, and dripping wet.
“I’ll be sorry to lose you, Buffy,” Lorraine, the manager at the Double Meat Palace, told her with a smile. “You got off to a bad start, but since then your work has been exemplary. It’s very good of you to come in today. Most people who quit just don’t turn up. I won’t insist on you working out your notice. If you want to quit today you can, seeing as how you can hand in your uniform, which saves us time and money. I would be very grateful if you could stay for a half shift, though. I can get Sophie to come in at five to cover, but if you went now then Todd would be on his own between three and five.”
“Sure, I’ll do that,” Buffy agreed willingly. She had expected to be stuck there until nine. “Lorraine – I won’t lie, I’ve really hated working here, think you know that, but you’ve been a good boss and about the only thing that’s made it bearable. I’ll miss you. And Sophie. Won’t miss the griddle and the grease traps, though.”
“But you’ve always done the job, never complaining, never trying to get out of doing your share of the dirty jobs. If you ever want a vacation job for a little extra cash, or a part-time stint during college time, there’ll always be a place open for you here.”
Buffy took her place at the grill with a light heart, and set to flipping the burgers with a carefree smile. Four and a half hours to go, and she’d be out of Double Meat Palace for good, and she’d actually leave feeling good about it. And then she could find Spike, or rather William, and see what he was like as a living, breathing, human. ‘Shoulda stopped off at the drug store on my way here’, she thought. ‘Human, fertile, specified that. Trojans kinda essential, and he might not think of them himself. Must remember to get them on the way home. Although, maybe don’t want him to know I did it. Wishing, kinda stupid, would probably wig everybody out. Don’t want the Bad Buffy lecture. So, no Trojans, don’t want to look like I knew about it in advance, or like I was planning on boinking someone else. Just have to wait, keep my dimpled knees together. And if he walks in here, I gotta act wigged.’
Spike put a cigarette between his lips with trembling fingers, and picked up his lighter. It took him three attempts to strike a light. He lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and erupted in a fit of coughing. It tasted indescribably vile, and he spat the cigarette onto the floor. That was the final straw, and he sat down on the sarcophagus and wept, sobbing in utter misery for a full ten minutes before the tears dried up and he was able to stand again.
He returned to the fridge, and finished off the iced tea, which at least cleared the horrible taste from his mouth. He was becoming extremely hungry, and there was no food at all in the crypt. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered. “I’m rich, and I’m sitting here starving because I don’t dare to go out. There’s got to be someone who can help me.” Dawn would be at school, Tara at college. Giles was five and a half thousand miles away in England. There was no point in approaching Xander; he’d never even give Spike a comforting word. It wouldn’t be wise to go to Willow for help with anything which might involve magic, not these days. The Slayer would think it was some kind of trick, and probably punch him in the face. Now that he was human, assuming it wasn’t all some kind of hallucination, a punch from the Slayer would probably drop him dead on the spot. His new friend Tarantula? No, he had only a vague idea where she worked in the daytime. A bookshop, he thought, but he wasn’t sure. It had never crossed his mind that he’d ever see her during the day, so he hadn’t asked. There were only two possible sources of aid, or at least some sort of comfort; Clem, or Anya.
Clem had never invited Spike back to his lair; the wrinkly demon always came over to visit Spike, never vice versa. He would be round straight away if Spike phoned, of course. For a moment Spike considered making his way through the sewers to a payphone, then rejected the idea. Anya was a better bet. She’d know all about the implications of suddenly finding yourself human, and she would have Giles’ telephone number. She’d be at the Magic Box, of course, so easy to find. The only problem would be dragging her mind away from her twin obsessions of her impending wedding and making money. And getting there, of course.
It was possible to get there through the sewers without ever having to go into the daylight. He thought about that for a moment, then decided that he couldn’t risk encountering some demon down there now that he was human and vulnerable. He had made far too many enemies who would delight in taking revenge if they saw his weakness; that’s if they didn’t just treat him as a potential meal. If he was human, he could walk to the Magic Box in the open.
He dressed once more, from his dwindling stock of clean dry clothes, and found a pair of shoes to replace his Doc Martens, which were drying out downstairs. He gathered up all the papers, put them back in the cardboard carton, and put the credit cards in his pockets. Finally, he donned his old leather coat, only to find his nose wrinkling with disgust as the smoky smell which clung to it reached his nostrils. He pulled it off and held it out. Suddenly a memory hit him, and he saw himself stripping it from the limp corpse of Nikki Wood. Repulsed, he flung the garment across the crypt.
“Sorry, girl, so sorry,” he found himself saying. “You had style, you had class, you didn’t deserve to be treated like that.” Suddenly he found himself on the verge of tears again, but fought them back. “Got to get out of here,” he muttered, and resolutely made his way to the door, carrying the carton of documents.
At the door he hesitated. Could he really walk out into the daylight? He extended his hand gingerly, putting only the tips of his fingers into the light, and then moving his arm out further as there was no immediate pain. Eventually he stepped fully into the daylight for the first time since October 1999, when he had briefly possessed the Gem of Amara, and stood there blinking.
“Sun beaming down in a nice non-fatal way,” he commented quietly. “It’s scary, but nice. I wonder if I’ll freckle?”