That's when he gives in. "I know someone who knows her, the Slayer."
        Lilith softens her grip, her interest piqued. "Do you now?"


☀︎


        The vampire — whose name Lilith discovers is Bernie —leads her down to a tunnel through the city's sewers. He promises it's just a little further down as Lilith nags about the putrid smell, claiming there are places in Hell that smell better than this. 
        Thinking it's never going to end, they finally get out of the sewer as they take a turn that leads to some old, unused mine shaft — that's where some light at the end appears. Getting a brighter yellow the closer they get, Lilith can start making out voices — till finally, the room expands. They're in some sort of dome, surrounded by vampires, all too focused on a project. Some carry scrolls, others have mining hats on them and a mattock at hand. 
        However, there's a single man they all seem to turn to who Lilith figures to be the leader of sorts. He has his back to her and a distinctive platinum head. Bernie leads her towards him. 
        The leader senses their approach and turns around. He hopes to see the meal he had Bernie fetch for...not her.
        For the first time tonight, Lilith is caught off-guard, her words stuck in a lump in her throat. Of course, it'd be Spike, she thinks, since wherever a Slayer goes, he seems to follow. 
        Spike averts her gaze. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," he bellows. His English accent thick, much like she remembers. 
        He turns to his lackey. "What part of bring me something human and barely alive, Bernie, did you not understand?"
        "Vampire-knowing-Slayer. Of course, it's you," says Lilith, looking around the tunnel. Bits and pieces leading to Spike's latest scheme were scrawled everywhere.
        "She- she can kill the Slayer," Bernie blurts out, trying to save his ass.
        Both Spike and Lilith furrow their brows at his words. "I never said that," Lilith claims. 
        Spike, clearly annoyed with his lackey's incompetence, turns to Lilith for the truth behind this. The first time their eyes meet in decades and they still see each other so clearly. He sees her unrepentant, liar's eyes. She sees his resentful, hateful eyes.
        "Other than thwarting my dinner, what do you want?" He sets his drill down, having been using it before her arrival. "You ate it, didn't you? You were always the gobbler. Wanting what you can't have, taking it anyway."
        Lilith sneers at the bruises of the past. On the table he'd been working on, she sets her hands and licks her teeth. She has never let him get to her, ever-so leaned to placidness. "If I knew that delivery was for you, I would've fetched him myself," she flirts, making those eyes — the way she used to do whenever she mocked him. 
        Thinking she might want to get close, Spike steps behind the table. "Trying to bag a Slayer for yourself, are you?"
        Lilith leans back on the table, crossing her arms. "We had so much fun, you and I. Paris...roaring twenties. I wondered, when will it ever repeat?"
        "You're like a dog with a bone."
        Their tension isn't akin to that of ex-lovers, but rather rivals. Fueled by envy and propelled by competitiveness, each trying to outshine the other. In their kills, their conquests, their malice. The sight of the other burns like gin down their throats. Never quite friends; never quite enemies.