Dawn had no memory of running to the broken window.  Suddenly, she was leaning out to stare at the patch of grass below.  Buffy and Spike had reached the earth in a shower of glass and splintered wood, rolling to the ground a few feet apart, their bodies bathed in the early morning sunlight.

        Blood welled up between Dawn’s fingers as her hand clenched the remains of the windowsill.  Too caught up in the scene below to notice her own injury, she waited breathlessly for Buffy and Spike to burst into flames. 

        Instead, the two vampires merely snarled and stared angrily at the calm blue sky.

        "Well, this is weird," said Buffy after a few seconds.  "And painful—ow!"  She held out a hand, watching it redden before her eyes.

        "Yeah.  I seem to have gone from a tendency to spontaneous combustion to just spontaneous sunburn," said Spike.  He took up a defensive posture.  "Not that it changes much."

        "Really?"  Buffy’s smile was evil.  "Who was trying to distract me with the big talk about not wanting to die a few seconds ago?  But the sunlight didn’t kill us, Spike.  Want to take bets on what will?  Or what won't?"

        "We’ll just have to go with trial and error," he said grimly.

        "Works for me," said Buffy, kicking out and landing a blow on his shoulder. 

        He spun around and landed on all fours, growling like an enraged animal.  She moved forward.  For a moment, it looked like she would be able to press her advantage.  But instead of trying to rise and block the blow, Spike caught her foot in his grip and twisted.

        Buffy rolled along the ground, not seeming to try to stop herself.  Dawn thought at first that she had been knocked unconscious, but then realized her sister was taking advantage of the momentum that was moving her away from Spike and into the shade of some trees near the edge of the school campus.  Spike howled and moved with amazing rapidity.  A moment later, both of them had disappeared into the small patch of cover.

        "How—?" cried Anya.  Dawn turned to see both her and Giles standing just behind her.

        "The blood of the Slayer," said Giles in an awed voice.  "The Power has begun to flow into the blood of the Slayer."

        Dawn understood immediately.  "And Spike drank from Buffy just a few hours ago," she said in a small, sick voice.  "He's getting the Power too.  That's why they risked changing her.  Because they knew he'd probably be stronger than her, at least at first."

        "So they’re both becoming like—super vamps?" asked Anya.

        "I don’t know," said Giles.  He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.  He looked incredibly tired, and his voice shook.  "I don’t think the shamans ever imagined this particular set of circumstances.  The transmission of the Power was never described very accurately, and now the entire process is completely out of control."

        Anya was still trying to work out the implications.  "So, it's not that they're becoming like that Ubervamp thing the First made.  This is different.  All we know is Buffy and Spike are stronger than ordinary vampires, but we don’t know in what ways.  And we have no idea what will actually kill them.  We're not even sure if they'll stay like this until the Power transfer is complete at nightfall or just keep getting stronger until then."

        "Essentially, yes," sighed Giles.

        "Well, I’m essentially scared," pronounced Anya, staring at the spot where Buffy and Spike had disappeared.

        "Well, maybe this Power-sharing thing means she’s not as strong as she would be otherwise," said Dawn eagerly.  "Maybe there’s a chance we can capture her, or—or something."  She scanned the faces of her companions, grimaced in anger and frustration at what she saw there, and pushed her way past them, running down the steps and out of the building.

        Buffy brushed past Drusilla without a word, knocking the pomegranate out of the woman’s hand and onto the floor.  The Slayer ran for the door that led to the path William had shown her on her first visit.   Her heart was thudding wildly as she heard a cry from the reception desk.  She shouldn't have been so violent, shouldn't have started running before she got outside, into the garden.  The angels had noticed her now.

        Dawn was desperate to catch up with Buffy and Spike, and she soon realized she had to track them by sound rather than sight.  They were sensitive enough to the light to be using every patch of cover they could find.  Dawn tried feverishly to think of some way she could use that fact to her advantage, but she needed all her wits just to track the fast-moving combatants.  She barely noticed that she had long since left Giles and Anya behind.

        Dawn hadn’t thought she could be sickened even further by the morning’s events, but that was before she came close enough to hear her sister’s words over the sounds of blows.

        "You can’t fool me.  You can’t unlive by yourself, Spike.  You have no life of your own.  You only stayed around with that soul gnawing at your gut because she needed you, right?  Because of that stupid chivalrous streak of yours.  Sir William, the Slayer's black knight.  You can’t abandon a woman you love.  You clung to that wacko bitch Drusilla as long as you could.  Then whining, snooty Buffy kept you here, and, when she was dead, even the useless brat Dawn was pitiful enough to keep you mooning around.  Wasn’t she?"

        "Yeah."  Spike’s voice was surprisingly strong and steady.  "Love’s bitch, that’s me.  I told Buffy that a long time ago.  You can’t expect to overwhelm me with the revelation now."

        Dawn followed the angry voices into a graveyard.  A tombstone crashed over.

        "You told me that, Spike!  Not some other girl. I’m your Buffy."

        "Can’t seem to make up your mind about that, can you, pet?  Having a bit of an identity crisis, are we?"

        The battle moved behind a mausoleum, and Dawn crept along its walls, wishing she couldn’t hear the bitter words.

        "You’re a good one to talk, William."

        "I’ve had time to work through my issues.  Seems to me you’re still a bit conflicted."  There was a splintering sound, and a tree tottered and fell, tilting over onto the roof of the mausoleum.  Dawn reached up a hand to grab a branch just before it struck her head, crouching down as leaves and debris rained over her.

        Then she stood up slowly.  That branch was awfully easy to hold over her head. She looked around her.  Just how fast had she run here from the high school, following those two?

        The horrible parody of a lovers' quarrel continued.  "Hardly," said Buffy.  "I know what I am for the first time ever, and I’m loving it.  I love what I’m about to become even more.  I'll finally get to channel my inner bitch without suffering all those nasty guilt trips every time I'm a bad girl.  Damn, I can't wait to really enjoy the killing!"  She grunted as if in pain, but went on a moment later.  "Too bad I won't be able to convince you to team up with me.  But you couldn't even manage to be completely evil when you were soulless.  Now, you're just useless.  Still, you were an awfully good lay.  Finding a replacement won’t be easy.  Since we all know that fangs and lumpies are my turn-ons, I suppose I’ll have to sire a few good candidates." 

The entire mausoleum vibrated as if something or someone had been thrown against it with tremendous force.  Probably Buffy, because there was a slight edge of panic underlying the bravado when she continued, "Or I could find my ex and fuck him until he loses his soul and agrees to play.  I never really had the chance to find out what he could do in the sack."

        Dawn gulped and hoped this baiting wouldn’t attain its obvious goal of driving Spike to furious, jealous imprudence.  She was already sure he was holding back, playing a delaying action for some reason.  What the hell is Plan B?

        "Think a bit much of yourself, don't you?" said Spike harshly.  "I got over Drusilla.  I'll get over you."

        "Trying to fool me that you’re going to stake me and go back to watching Passions and cutting jokes?  I was right when I said you're a shell of a loser. You'd never get over killing me, Spike."  There was another huge crash of masonry.  "Never.  And you know what's the only thing more pitiful than you?  Poor stupid Buffy.  Tearing herself up because she used you.  Because she needed you.  Well, congratulations, Spike.  I don’t need you anymore.  In fact, you’re in the way.  So little Buffy is going to get her wish!  She gets to kill Spike for good and for all."

        Dawn saw Spike now.  He was reeling backwards, shoved out of the shadows by some ferocious blow.  He blinked and snarled in pain, but before he could rush back into the fight, a tombstone flew through the air, striking him down and pinning him in the harsh daylight.

        Dawn began to run to him.  She had barely taken a step when she was grabbed from behind and pulled back into the shade of the mausoleum.  "I thought I smelled something good to eat," said Buffy.  She spun Dawn around so fast the girl's head reeled, and she was barely conscious that her sister was holding up her red-streaked arm, staring in fascination at the long trickle of blood trailing down it from her cut fingers.  "The perfect choice for my first victim."

        "No, Buffy, no!"

        "Now, how did I guess you'd whine?" said Buffy.  "My greedy little sister doesn't like sharing."  Her skin was still reddened from her encounter with sunlight, and it was hot against Dawn's.  Hot with a rosy, hellish warmth that parodied the glow of living flesh.  Her eyes gleamed in the shadows like amber jewels. 

        Dawn twisted her arm away from Buffy's seeking lips and, in spite of herself, she smiled grimly at the look of astonishment in the vampire eyes.  "Blood of the Slayer, remember?" she said. 

        But Buffy just grasped Dawn's wrists more firmly and pulled the girl back towards her, shaking her so brutally the world began to blur.  Dawn smelled something sweet and horrible, and realized sickly that it must be Spike's flesh burning where he lay trapped in the glare of the morning sun.   His resistance to light wasn't going to save him from immolation; it was just going to draw out the agony.

"So my little parasite got some of the Power too?  It's not enough for you to beat me, and it just proves what you owe me.  Do you hear, bitch!"  Buffy's voice quivered with rage as she slapped Dawn across the face.  "You. Owe. Me.  You were never real, never had a right to live.  The monks stole my blood to make you.  You're a thief—you shoplifted my whole damn life.  I can't believe even Buffy was stupid enough to sacrifice herself for you."

Dawn kept struggling throughout this speech, but her head was spinning too much to make a concentrated defense.  Viciously, Buffy punched her in the stomach, knocking the breath out of her, before slamming her against the mausoleum wall and pinning her there. 

"Now I need my blood back to win this fight."   She bent her head and was about to lick the red streak on Dawn's arm when Spike made a noise between a groan and a grunt.  Buffy glanced over her shoulder.  Dawn's vision began to clear, and she saw that although his skin was smoldering, he was trying to push aside the tombstone. 

"Damn.  No time to play with my food, I guess," said Buffy. 

Dawn should have closed her eyes as her sister's mouth descended on her neck.  Because then she wouldn't have seen Spike free himself faster than she had believed possible, rise, grasp a thick tree branch, and aim it at Buffy's back. 

Dawn's last thought before oblivion took her was that at least she wouldn't survive this disaster, wouldn't be stuck trying to put her life together again after this final, most devastating loss.

         Buffy thudded up the hill at full Slayer speed and tumbled to the ground under the tree where she and William had made love.  Frantically, she began scrabbling around in the grass.  "It has to be here," she muttered.  "It has to be."

        She heard a cry behind her but didn’t turn to look up.  The trip out here had taken too long, too long.  The angels had found their wings and were swooping down on her. 

        She found what she sought hidden under a small pile of leaves.  It had turned brown and begun to rot, and it looked as if someone or something else had bitten into it since she had tossed it aside to concentrate on making love to William. 

        "Stop!" cried a voice, and she felt the vibration of a body landing on the ground beside her.  Hands reached out to grasp her and pull her away from the tree.

        She whirled around, still holding the apple in one hand.  The other hand curled into a fist and smashed into the face of a celestial being, just as he was starting to say, "See here, young lady—"

Ignoring the angel's moaning complaints that his nose was broken as well the cries of the other, still-airborne bureaucrats, Buffy looked at the apple core in her hand.  It was definitely the nastiest thing she had ever contemplated eating, products of the Doublemeat Palace included.  She bit down hard, without hesitation . . .

        . . . and felt the rich, salty taste of Dawn’s blood in her mouth.

        Giles and Anya followed the sounds of sobbing into the graveyard.  They found Spike crouched on the ground next to Dawn, murmuring words of comfort to her as he pressed a cloth torn from his shirt against the wounds on her neck.  He was naked from the waist up, and they could see the patterns of horrible burns where the sun had scorched him earlier.

        It took Giles a moment to realize that Dawn was not the one who was weeping.  She was clinging to Spike and staring blankly at the small, crying figure curled in a fetal position over a nearby grave.

        Spike helped Dawn to her feet and pushed her into Giles' arms.  "Here's another one for the hospital," he said tiredly.  "But she's going to be all right, aren't you, Bit?"

        Dawn nodded at him, but her face was grim and her eyes devoid of hope.

        "We're all going to be all right now," Spike said in the voice of a man trying to reassure himself.  He looked at the Watcher.  "Take care of the Little Bit for me, Giles?  For a few hours, at least.  I'll see to Buffy."

        Giles stared at the woman sobbing on the ground.  "Buffy—?"

        "Buffy's like Spike now," said Dawn dully.

        "Yeah, Bit, and I'm all right, ain't I?" said Spike.  He brushed a lock of the girl's hair out of her face, meeting her eyes carefully.  "She will be too.  I'll find a place to keep her safe 'til nightfall, then I'll call you.  She needs to stay out of the sun, and to get more used to things before she's got to face everyone."

        Giles led Dawn towards the street, with Anya, silenced for once, trailing behind somberly.  None of them turned to watch Spike kneel beside Buffy, but they heard her first words to him before they exited the cemetery grounds and stepped out onto the sunny street.

        "I’m so cold inside."

Chapter Seventeen