Unseen #3 - The Long Way Home by Holder Nancy & Mariotte Jeff

Author:Holder, Nancy & Mariotte, Jeff [Holder, Nancy & Mariotte, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Can’t be done, man,” Ren’chlad argued, running his fingers through his greasy, matted hair.

Disgusting, Spike thought. Good thing he’s already a vampire — I could be starving to death and I wouldn’t take a bite out of him.

“Anything can be done,” Spike countered. “If you want it enough.”

“You sound naïve,” Malon pointed out. They sat in the shade of the big rocks, waiting for the sun to drop below the horizon. It was low in the sky, so soon they’d be making their nightly pilgrimage to the river to drink and fill the skins they carried back to their sleeping area.

“Listen, mate, I’ve lived plenty long enough to have the naïveté long since knocked out of me,” Spike said. “What I am is a realist, and I know I’m not willing to be an exhibit for the rest of my life.” Which, with a free-flowing river of blood and no natural predators, he knew, could be a very long time indeed.

Now he knew what Hell was. Not the place they told stories about, the place he knew Angel had spent some serious down time in. No, it was an everlasting stretch of time with these apathetic fools in a vampire zoo, being observed by tourists on holiday like a bunch of chimps in a cage.

“Ain’t so bad,” Ren’chlad countered. “Plenty to eat. Nobody tryin’ to stake you. Place to hide out when the sun’s up.”

“Not so bad,” Spike repeated with a sneer. “Where you guys are from, do you have a Slayer? Someone whose job is just to hunt you down and kill you?”

“Something like that,” Malon said. “We don’t call him that.”

“It’s a man?” Spike asked.

“Yeah,” Malon replied. “A kid, really. But tough.”

“Ours is a girl,” Spike said. “Young, beautiful . . .” He pictured Buffy in his mind’s eye, wearing red leather pants and a sleeveless black top, a stake clenched in her fist and a determined gleam in her lovely green eyes. “Anyway, the challenge of it all — outwitting her, dodging her, outmaneuvering her — helps make life worthwhile, you know? The thrill of the hunt. The chase. Knowing that one wrong move could be your last. Without that, why bother?”

“Sounds stupid,” Ren’chlad said.

“Yeah, well a bath sounds stupid to you,” Spike shot back. “But some of us believe in soap and water — just not to drink. And we believe in living by our wits, using our heads for something more than rooting our hair.”

“Hey,” Ren’chlad said. Anger flashed in his eyes.

“What?” Spike asked, leaping to his feet. “Don’t like it? Want to take a swing at me?”

Ren’chlad waved a hand at him, languidly. “Naw,” he said.

“Leave him alone, Spike,” Issak broke in. “He don’t want to fight you.”

“Looks to me like none of you want to fight anything,” Spike said. “You just want to sit back and take what you’re handed.”

“Life’s easy,” Malon said. “Why stress?”

“Because easy’s boring!”

“To you, maybe,” Ren’chlad said. “Not to us.”

Spike paced in the big rock’s shadow. “I can barely believe you used to be vampires,” he said.

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