The Three 'F's

Chapter 8: Travelling South They moved south along the western coast of Mexico. Wolfram and Hart had (for a small fee) provided them with the demonic equivalent of a triple-A travel guide for Mexico and Central America. It told them where to find bars that sold blood, and hotels that rented rooms by the day, rather than the night. They travelled by night, and holed up for the day. Sometimes they’d pause in one place for a few days, if it looked like the hunting might be good, but they never stayed anywhere for as long as a week. The Bitch discovered how much fun it was for something that didn’t need breathe to go swimming in the warm ocean. They could submerge themselves for hours, without having to worry about bulky scuba gear, or any of the other things that human divers had to wear. Fucking under water was a lot of fun too, without any arguments over who was on top. The hunting easy. What guy would run from a naked mermaid who emerged from the waves, and walked up a moonlit beach toward him? Sometimes she would invite him to come swimming with her, to lure him back to where Adrian was waiting, and sometimes she’d just kill him there on the beach. She fucked a few of the luckier ones before she killed them. Adrian liked to watch that. Sometimes he’d hang back, watching until the Bitch had a guy down on his back, with her riding his cock, before he’d come up behind her, and start to fuck her ass. Most guys lost it when that happened, but one or two really got off on it, until their faces would transform, and two sets of fangs would come down on either side of the bloodbag’s neck. Other times they’d pretend to be playing together in the surf, having a little late night skinny dip, and they’d invite some couple they found on the beach to come join them. If the couple accepted their invitation, they would never be seen again. Disposing of the bodies was easy. Just drag them a few hundred yards off-shore, and then shove them into some under water crevasse, or weigh them down with rocks. A couple times Adrian tried using the bodies to troll for sharks. Any body that got a few good sized bites taken out of it, he’d just let drift. Reports of deaths by shark attack went up, all down the coast. There was one problem with picking people off the beaches at night: they didn’t usually have much cash on them. They’d left Los Angeles with nearly ten thousand dollars, but that was slowly being eaten away. They made a few big scores against tourists staying in beach-front cabins—they could get into places like that without an invitation—but they were still spending their money faster than they were bringing new cash in. It took them a couple of months to reach Acapulco. The resort town had lots of night life to entertain them, and lots of rich victims to help them rebuild their cash reserves. It was still a lot smaller than L.A. though, so they had to be careful about who they picked off. For casual dining it was usually better to eat Mexican. The cops didn’t put as much effort into investigating the disappearance of locals as they did the tourists. --- Adrian spotted him in a popular night spot, leaning over a pool table. He was so surprised that he cried out his name without thinking. “Spike!” Adrian regretted his outburst even as it was leaving his lips. Spike was pretty much the last vampire that he wanted to see right now, or ever, and it looked like his calling Spike’s name just then made it worse. Spike missed the shot he had been taking, and turned around in annoyance. “You made me miss my shot.” He looked Adrian up and down, as if appraising how much effort it would take to rid the world of him, and then snorted, as if it wouldn’t even be worth the effort. “Do I know you?” he asked, as he turned his attention back to the pool table. “Uh, Sunnydale, a couple of years ago,” said Adrian. “You gave me to Drusilla as a gift. She sired me.” He really hoped that Spike wouldn’t remember the last time they had met. He had tried to hang back when Mr. Trick had sent him with a bunch of other vampires on a mission to eject Spike from Sunnydale six months ago. Most of the vampires on that detail had wound up dust, on the wrong side of a fight with Spike, Angel and the Slayer. Adrian credited his own survival that night to his being at the back of the ‘welcoming committee.’ Fighting helpless bloodbags might be fun, but Adrian liked to avoid any sort of confrontation that was likely to get him killed. Fortunately, Spike had left town that same night, so the survivors had been able to report back that they had driven him away, and Mr. Trick hadn’t felt it necessary to punish them for their failure. Adrian really hoped that Spike wouldn’t remember that he had been there that night. He wanted to run, but if Spike did remember, it probably wouldn’t do him any good, and if he didn’t, it would make Spike wonder why. That could have equally disastrous results. Best to try to bluff this out, and seem to be happy to see him. Spike’s pool opponent missed a shot. Spike took over, and cleared the table. The guy he’d been playing handed Spike a thousand pesos, or about a hundred bucks. Spike stuffed the money into his pocket, lit up a cigarette, and took a drag from it. He turned back to Adrian. “So, what have you been up to?” “Oh, the usual,” said Adrian. “Eating the tourists, taking their stuff, staying out of the sunlight.” “Were you up in Sunnydale a couple of months back?” asked Spike. “I hear that things got a little fun up there. Big ‘gas leak’ at the school.” “Yeah, I saw that on the news. It still amazes me all the explanations the bloodbags come up with to explain stuff away, even after two years.” “I’ve been watchin’ ’em explain things away for over a century, mate,” said Spike. “I stopped being amazed long ago.” He nodded toward the Bitch, who was out on the dance floor. “Pretty bint. Is she with you?” “The Bitch?” asked Adrian. “Yeah, I made her just before I cleared out of Sunnydale. Say, I’m sorry about making you miss that shot. Why don’t I buy you a drink, to make up for it?” “I never say no to a man who’s offering to buy me a drink,” said Spike. Spike didn’t let Adrian buy him just one drink. He had to buy a whole bottle of tequila for him. It took quite a bit to get a vampire drunk. Spike was looking off toward the Bitch again, watching her work the crowd, looking for the sap who would be their dinner tonight. “You like what you see?” asked Adrian. “She’s pretty enough, if you go for blondes,” said Spike. “I’ve always been more partial to brunettes.” “So, how is Drusilla?” asked Adrian. “Is she around?” Spike’s face clouded. He slammed back another shot of tequila. Adrian regretted asking the question. “She’s somewhere in South America,” said Spike, after a moment. “We’re spending a little time apart. You have to do that every few decades, to keep a relationship fresh, you know what I mean?” “Yeah, sure,” said Adrian. “Take your girl over there.” Spike pointed toward the Bitch. “You seem to know when it’s time not to crowd her.” “Once you get to know her, you’ll come to learn that the only time you really want her close, is when you’re fucking her,” said Adrian. “Most of the rest of the time, she’s just annoying.” “You need to learn how to treat a lady,” said Spike. “The Bitch ain’t no lady,” said Adrian. “Ha!” Spike took another shot of tequila. Then he sat, and just looked at Adrian for a few seconds, with a puzzled expression on his face. “What?” asked Adrian. “I just have a feeling that I’ve seen you more recently than a year ago,” said Spike. “Nope,” said Adrian quickly. “I know I’d remember seeing you. Last time I saw you was the night before Angel was going to wake Acathla. What happened with that, anyway? There were some weird stories going around, about you and the Slayer.” Spike took another drink. Adrian was beginning to hope that he’d get drunk enough that he’d be able to slip away. “Yeah, well, things were pretty weird there toward the end,” said Spike. “I decided that I really didn’t want the world to end, so I gave the Slayer a little help taking down Angel. So how did he wind up with his soul back, anyway?” “No one knows,” said Adrian. “He vanished for a few months, and when he came back, he was the Slayer’s lap dog again.” Adrian really didn’t like the way this conversation was going. He didn’t want Spike thinking about Angel and the Slayer. That might remind him of just when he had really last seen Adrian. Fortunately, he saw just the thing to take Spike’s mind off it. The Bitch was leaving, with a guy on each arm. He nodded in their direction. “You want to grab a bite to eat? Looks like the Bitch is bringing enough to share.” “Yeah, sure mate,” said Spike. “Let’s go.” They caught up with the Bitch in the parking lot. The food was trying to talk her into the back seat of their car, which was a beat up old wreck. “I don’t do it in cars,” she was telling them. “Not unless they’ve got leather seats.” “Besides,” said Adrian. “She didn’t bring you out here to do you. She brought you out here so we could eat you.” He grabbed one of the bloodbags and tossed him to Spike. He grabbed the second, and sank his fangs into the guy’s throat. Spike didn’t start to eat right away. He just held the struggling guy, and smiled at the blonde. “Ladies first,” he said. The blonde smiled at him. “Thank you!” Her face transformed, and her fangs sank into the bloodbag’s neck. Spike held him for a while, watching her take the first blood, before he moved in himself, closing his mouth on the opposite side of the bloodbag’s throat. They drank together, holding their victim between them. Adrian searched the empty bloodbags for the car keys after they were done. “Put the bodies in the trunk,” he told the Bitch. “We’ll dump the whole thing into the ocean.” “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” said Spike. “You’re the one who taught me not to leave any evidence behind,” said Adrian. “I’m also the one who taught you what to do with anyone who turns against you,” said Spike. “I just remembered the last time we met, mate.” Adrian never saw where the stake came from. It just seemed to appear in Spike’s hand, an instant before it was driven into his heart. Spike waited for the dust to settle. He brushed a few flakes off the sleeve of his duster. He turned to the blonde who had been with Adrian, and smiled at her. “So, what’s your name, luv?” “Harmony.” “Harmony. I like it.” Spike slipped an arm around her waist. “Let’s you and me go make some music together. What do you say?” Harmony smiled at him. “I think I say ‘yes.’” THE END