---

Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

This story is a remix (done for the Circle of Friends Remix) of “Blessed Relief”, by M. Scott Eiland.

Note: The story contains references to events in “Oaxaca Nights”.

Part I

They made a striking pair, the two in the diner, and any onlooker could be forgiven for leaping to some obvious conclusions, or at the very least for calculating the likeliest possibilities. Aspiring actress and the bad-boy ex she’d tried to leave behind? Mid-level model getting her weekend thrill with a little rough-and-tumble? A recruiting pitch, offered to someone who had outgrown gullibility but who might, perhaps, have learned her own limitations: a few days’ work with an independent film company, very tasteful, but nude …?

‘Working girl’ and her ‘manager’, however, could be pretty well ruled out. He would be too flashy for this neighborhood, too conspicuous: out of place, vaguely threatening, attracting far too much of exactly the wrong kind of attention. The black leather duster, the bleached and slicked hair, and most of all that face: knifelike cheekbones, icy blue eyes, a sensuous mouth that could so easily twist with cruelty or curl in jeering … No. Bad news there, and far too obvious, he simply couldn’t operate in this environment. The woman, yes, ripe and sleek, with haughty eyes and smooth dark glossy hair, an automatic aura of class and challenge and deep-buried passion; she’d be a natural in the business, she’d be a sensation, but only with a suitable (and less flamboyant) handler. Whatever this was, it wasn’t that.

It was a mystery, exotic and enticing. Unless one was close enough to hear their conversation.

“I don’t give a toss whether you’re hungry or not,” the man was saying. “I want some wings. Spicy, mind, with ranch dressing and horseradish for dipping.”

“I didn’t come here to feed you,” the woman retorted. “Not in any sense of the word. And why would you bother with something that won’t nourish you anyhow?”

The response was a snort. “Why do you order that silly caffeine-free diet swill? No sugar, no calories, no zip to it: what’s the point?”

“I like it,” she defended. “I just like the taste, okay? God, if you had any idea the things I do without, you’d never —”

“Yeh, yeh, cry me a bloody river.” He leaned back in his seat, grinning in a way that showed very white teeth. “But that’s the answer: I just like the taste. And since you’re the one wanting a favor here, it’d be a good idea to keep me happy.”

“Nuh-uh,” she shot back. “You’re not doing me a favor: Giles did me a favor, by sending you to me. If you won’t help, there’s the door. If you will, let’s get to it. Either way, we’re not dickering here.”

He eyed her with amusement and speculation. “Quite a piece of work, aren’t you? You’ve come a ways from the high school gossip courts.”

The young woman sniffed. “The only thing you know about high school is when you tried to turn Parent Night into a vamp buffet. Please: you were part of my formative years, is it any surprise that I can take you in stride now?”

“I never gave you the attention you really deserved,” he pointed out. “Always too obsessed with the bloody Slayer … No, if I’d ever paid you proper notice, you’d treat me with more respect.” He tilted his head, one eyebrow rising. “You are afraid of me, though. Been so long, I’d almost forgot how it felt. — Handle it pretty well, you do, but you’re definitely afraid.”

“You’re a vampire,” she said. “The Sunnydale crew may think you’re harmless just because Uncle Sam wired a bug-zapper into your skull, but I’m taking nothing for granted. Besides, if you weren’t dangerous, what good would you be to me?”

“Dangerous,” he repeated. “Yeh, that’s a word. I’m dangerous. I’m a bloody animal. And it’s nice to have somebody recognize it.” He settled back into the booth with languid grace. “I may help you out here just for that. Or I may tell you to go take a flyin’, just to show I’m no pitiful wanker beggin’ for scraps. But I’m listening, at least. You’ve got that much.”

“Color me thrilled,” she said. “Look, Spike —”

He leaned toward her. “Oh, are we on a first-name basis now?”

Her answer was a scornful phht! “According to Angel, you picked out the name for yourself, so I figure it’s what you want to be called. Are we going to get down to brass tacks here, or would you rather waste more of our time posturing? Because we do have a little deadline problem, that being another reason you’re here at all.”

“Wondered about that.” He set his elbows onto the table. “Right outta nowhere, Jeeves tosses me some car keys ’n’ a set o’ directions and says it’ll be worth my while if I can meet you here quick an’ give you a hand. Unexpected, like. I mean, I’m barely past bein’ tied up in Droopy Boy’s basement, they treat me like some toothless soddin’ lion, the Slayer makes cracks about ‘flaccid’ —” He stopped, expression going thunderous as she visibly bit her lips to keep from laughing. “Yeh, that’s right. Have a good chuckle at the Big Bad bein’ brought low, and just see how much help you get from me!”

“Sorry,” she said, though she didn’t look it. “I could picture her face when you said that about her making cracks. World-saving hero and all, it still doesn’t stop her from getting her little digs in … and she doesn’t let up if her target can’t hit back, either.”

“Can’t fault her there,” he observed grudgingly. “Havin’ mercy on weakness, that’s a pansy’s game. Which you’d know all about, hangin’ with the Big Poofter. Doesn’t mean I much like it.”

“So can we get back to the main subject?” she demanded.

He set his mouth in a stubborn line. “Soon’s I get my wings.”

“Again with the wings?” She made an extravagant gesture of impatience. “God, you’re like a two-year-old! ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme, I want my Happy Meal’ —”

“Time was,” he broke in, “Happy Meal would’a meant you.”

She regarded him with flat, steady eyes. “Yes, well, that time isn’t now, is it?”

“Wings,” he repeated, just as flat. “You give me the score while I nosh down. Put me in a good mood, I might even feel like goin’ along with whatever you’ve got in mind.”

“Okay, fine, have it your way.” She stood and started for the main counter, paused to glare back at him. “Just understand something: when Giles said it would be worth your while, he meant they’d owe you. And they take that kind of thing seriously, or I wouldn’t have been able to call in such a big favor on such short notice. I’ll cover your damn spicy wings, but don’t think you can shake me down for more. I’m stripping the petty cash fund as it is.”

He grinned at that. “Sounds like Peaches isn’t doin’ too well with the whole ‘help the hopeless’ gig.”

“It’s a daily struggle, believe me,” she muttered, and turned to continue on to the counter.

He sat back again in the booth, and to himself he said, “Well, what d’you know? Mood’s gettin’ better already.”

*               *               *

“There’s an amulet,” she said once the wings had arrived. “I need it.”

“There’s always an amulet,” he shot back. “Bleedin’ West Coast’s thick with ’em. D’you know Los Angeles has twenty times as many mystical artifacts, per square mile, as any place in Europe or most parts of Asia? And Sunnydale’s ten times worse than that.”

“You should know,” she observed. “You went scrounging for enough of them. And the one I want, like always, has a guardian. Or guardians. That’s where you come in.”

“Right,” he said. “ ’Cause doin’ violence to the demon set is all I’m good for now.”

“Damn straight,” she returned. “Lucky for us both, you’re really good at it.”

“Killing somethin’s as good a way as any to while away the hours.” He looked her over critically. “If this amulet thing’s so important, why don’t you have your own lot huntin’ it out?”

She looked away, and her tone was not quite so firm as it had been. “They’re busy with something else. This just came up, and I didn’t have the time to pull them away from what they’re already doing.” Then she seemed to come back to herself, and met his gaze steadily. “The really, vitally urgent thing they’re already doing.”

“Right.” Spike settled back, studying her with a thin smile that grew in satisfaction as she refused to look away. “An’ why call for me instead of one of the goody-two-shoes bunch you used to belong to?”

“I never belonged with them,” she replied sharply. “I dropped in now and then to lend a hand, but they were miles below me and they all knew it.”

“Meaning I’m not?” The smile deepened. “Besides, you just tried to slide away from the question: why not one of them, if you needed true-blue heroism? Is this job maybe not so spanky clean as they might like?” He gauged her reaction, and gave her a slant-wise grin. “Or is it more that you don’t really want ’em knowin’ all the particulars here?”

“It’s no more your business than it is theirs,” she told him with a harshness that, in someone with less self-possession, might have fallen into shrill. “This is a job, a job, not a fishing expedition into my personal life —”

She stopped. He waited, expression growing predatory in its triumph. “Personal, then?” he said at last, with a softness that somehow seemed more threatening than a snarl would have been. “I can only try to imagine what kind of ‘personal’ would have you callin’ on someone like me for muscle-work.”

She sat for several minutes, eyes still level with his, not trying to stare him down but feeling no need to look away while she thought her own thoughts. When she finally spoke, her tone showed displeasure but no loss of control. “Is there any chance you’d be willing to just do the damn job, go back to Giles and the others with them knowing they owe you, and leave it at that?”

He shook his head slowly, still smiling. “You know me … or my rep, anyhow. Once I’ve got my teeth into somethin’, I never let go. An’ I can already tell this one’s too juicy to turn loose, so you might as well come clean.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” she said, and for a moment one might have wondered if she was even talking to him. “I had my life mapped out. I knew where I was going to go, I knew how I was going to get there. Home, hotel, hotel, husband. … And then maybe another husband and my own island, some things you have to play on the fly, but the basic picture was still set. Cordelia Chase, living the sweet life, adored by millions, or at least a select few hundred. Not Cordelia Chase, living on Folgers and Spaghetti-O’s and getting a railroad spike rammed through her skull three or four times a week by these God-damned visions —!”

Again she stopped, and looked at the man (or not) seated across from her. “What?” she said.

Where before his voice had been soft with sly amusement, it was now the still, dead cold of Arctic night. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”

“Joke?” she said. “What joke? That your ‘Yoda’ — yeah, I heard about that one — can pillage Europe for a century or so and still not stack up enough loot to afford a decent medical plan for his long-suffering employees? I can’t afford the fancy prescription stuff, and over-the-counter isn’t cutting it any more, and why in the world would you think I was joking?”

“The bit about railroad spikes,” he prompted, though her tirade had shaken him out of the deadly menace of a moment ago. “It’s … not the kind of thing a bloke hears every day.”

She gave him a raised eyebrow. “Oh, right, that used to be one of the games you played, didn’t it? Boy, you must miss those days.”

“More every moment,” Spike said.

“Whatever. No, I wasn’t even thinking of you, that’s really what it feels like. If this is how it was for your nutso girlfriend, no wonder she went off the deep end.”

Now he was shaking his head, and he held his hands up, palms out. “Stop,” he said. “Please.” She did, and he sighed. “Cordelia,” he said, “might I inquire as to just what the sodding hell you’re talkin’ about here?”

“Visions,” she said. “You know, vizh-uns. I heard Drusilla was big on that kind of thing, and I’m not in the least inclined to feel sorry for a vampire but if I was, this would do it. Did she drool? because sometimes, I wouldn’t swear to it but sometimes, I think maybe I drool when one hits.”

He made as if to lift his hands again, then caught himself. “Let me see if I’ve got this,” he said. “You get … visions. And they hurt.”

The glance she shot him was scornful. “Well, duh.”

“And this has somethin’ to do with the amulet you’re set on?”

Her laugh was a sharp bark without mirth. “I’m not after it because I’m that desperate for fashion accessories.” Then, collecting herself, she went on. “I’ve been studying up on it, in the books Wesley keeps piling up in the back office. Saw an illustration, worked out the translation — and just who the hell writes in Etruscan anymore? — and thought it might help stop the damn things from hurting so much, but the other texts said it had been destroyed about 2,500 years ago. Then this morning I got a flash, and once I picked myself up off the carpet I started hunting up somebody who could help me go fetch it, because there’s some kind of phase-of-the-moon deal, I don’t really understand the whole thing but the upshot is I have to get it and use it tonight or I don’t get another shot for … well, I wasn’t really clear on that part. Seven years, seven eons, one of the two. Either way, I didn’t want to wait.”

Spike dipped a spicy wing in ranch dressing and then consumed it abstractedly, crunching the bones between powerful teeth while he thought. “Demon guardians, you said.” He looked to Cordelia. “What type of demon?”

“Juwara demon,” she supplied. “Really tall, blueish skin, horns on the front of the head, nasty-looking elbow spurs … What?”

Spike was shaking his head. “Not a Juwara demon,” he corrected her. “This one’s an Altcchon, actually, but the tosser calls himself Juwara. Think it means somethin’ like ‘crushes the lesser beings beneath his hind-claws’ in Altcchon lingo, only they stole that from Fyarll —”

“So you’ve heard of him,” Cordelia said.

“Tussled with the sod, ’bout forty years back.” Spike sneered. “Strong enough, and he won’t quit, I’ll give him that, but he’s got no … no …” He gestured impatiently, still looking for the right word. “… no fire. Just keeps comin’ at you, never diggin’ into his own guts for the proper energy, never puttin’ it all on the line at once. A plodder.”

Cordelia weighed the dismissive assessment. “Does that mean you can beat him?”

“Breezin’,” Spike agreed … then gave her a rather nasty grin. “ ’Course, he’d be well out o’ your league. Good thing I’m here, hmm?”

Cordelia scoffed. “Oh, yeah, this is me counting my blessings. Look, I know I’m not built for heavy combat, that’s why I made the call to Giles.” She frowned, considering. “You’re sure this Juwara is one demon?”

Spike shrugged. “Matches the description. I mean, he wasn’t guardin’ any amulet back then, so it might be a different Altcchon, but even if somebody else took the name, it’d still just be one bloke.”

Cordelia was nodding understanding, but didn’t look happy. “Well, I don’t think it’s alone there,” she told him. “My vision showed me other demons: runty, scabby grey guys, with sharp little rabbit teeth, but I was seeing numbers, five or six at least. And I’m pretty sure there were some vampires there, too.”

“Might be.” Spike’s mouth twisted in scorn. “Some o’ the bottom-of-the-barrel types got no pride, they’ll minion for anybody. Not puttin’ any fear in my heart.” He reflected for a moment. “Not if we run into ’em one or two at a time, leastways. Clustered up, though, along with the greyboys and Juwara … that could be a bit sharp.” He raised his eyes to Cordelia’s. “Weapons. Big clangin’ broadsword, or maybe a double-bladed axe, I don’t fancy tryin’ to rip through a crowd with just fists ’n’ fangs.”

“Not a problem.” Cordelia stood. “I know just where Angel keeps the heavy metal, we can be outfitted in twenty minutes …” She stopped, glaring down at where Spike sprawled back in his seat. “Oh, give me a break.”

“Not done yet,” he told her loftily, reaching for another spicy wing. “Can’t deny me my small pleasures … ’specially when I can’t have the pleasures I’m really thirstin’ for.”

Cordelia’s face was set in a hard mask. “All right,” she said at last. “I’ll go pay the bill. You come on up front once you’re finished.”

She wheeled and stalked away toward the cash register at the door. Spike smiled and dipped the wing, this time in the little cup of horseradish. (Vary the sensations, that was the trick, never let yourself get limited.) He wouldn’t drag this out here, but there was no reason to rush, either.

Small pleasures, indeed, but pleasing all the same, and worth relishing for what they were.
 

|    Next Part     |    Chapter Index     |