So he crosses the Pacific, the so-called peaceful ocean. But in Japan, pacing gingko-lined streets, he finds only confusion. The wildly colored hair of the young evening crowds runs the gamut of the rainbow, sometimes even nearing the gold of hers. But he quickens his stride to overtake those blonds and glance at their faces only to be disappointed. It's not even evening, really; the lurid fluorescent lights decorating every downtown building refuse to let the day fade away.

He tries to decipher the few words of English that break up the high-speed Japanese jabberings the natives deign to toss his way. Most are curses, which he shrugs off as impersonal, except when they're directed at the pictures he shows them. Even then, the chip holds him back. They wouldn't recognize her, anyway, not when she's laughing in all the photos.

He expected word to travel like wildfire: The Slayer is here. Yet the best he can drum up is a vague set of directions to a dim bar that the local demons frequent. Inside, the tables are widely spaced, and a strange harmony of deep, guttural voices and high-pitched ones is the only music. Even the low lighting can't hide the odd shapes of the people who take up the seats. He approaches one of them that seems less ugly than the rest, but up close, his skin looks like patchwork and doesn't seem to quite fit correctly--acquired, probably, rather than a part of himself, and in pieces, too. But the demon is civil enough, doesn't try to add a vampire's skin to his collection, and tells him that the kitsune in the corner might remember something.

The sleek, elegantly-coiffed woman there gives him a fox's grin when he shows her a snapshot. Her dark eyes flicker over it before they fix on him without wavering.

"I have seen such a girl," she says in stilted English. Her voice is honeyed, as much out of place here as her evening gown and the delicate bone structure of her face. "Fair as many summers."

He catches the emphasis and leans toward her. "Tell me."

She sways closer and snakes her arms around his neck. "I wonder what it is worth to you," she purrs.

He reaches for his reserve of cash, but she stops him by settling into his lap, and, surprised, he lets her.

She raises her face and lets her mouth drift to his. Her lips brush against his skin as they move: "An hour or so of pleasure, perhaps?" Her voice is husky and low for a woman's.

He hesitates, unsure of which is the greater sin: paying the price for her information, or failing to do so.

She takes that for agreement and begins to tease his lips apart with her tongue. Her hands slide from his shoulders and down his chest, just a hint of nail pressing through the cloth. He catches her hands before they can lift his shirt but, still mired in indecision, he doesn't move them away. She only shifts her caress to his forearms and kisses him more deeply.

Something rolls from her mouth to his.

"Bloody hell--!" He shoves her away despite a sudden dizziness, and spits it out.

It is hard and round and glitters as it arcs into the air. The woman cranes her head back and snaps it up gleefully; then her face turns ashen and her body is limp, boneless, as he slams her onto the table and pins her there.

"Care to tell me what you were trying to do?" He tightens his grip on her wrists.

"You taste... strange." She sounds distant. "Like the grave. What are you?"

For an answer, he shifts into game face. Perhaps it will intimidate her.

"Ah. I mistook you for human. Your skin seemed cold but there was warmth in you."

Spike growls. "Your turn for show-and-tell."

"It is a fox-jewel." She lets it loll out on her tongue, and it looks like an opal. But he senses that it is something more, tugging at him like a miniature black hole. "I use it to steal the life-essence of men. You should have told me that you were not one."

He scoffs. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she says, and she does something strange with the vowels that makes him laugh. She smiles up at him, slyly. "Release me. I will help a fellow predator."

He doesn't want to trust her, but this corner isn't free from others' attentions, judging by the number of heads turning their way. Spike stares back, meeting their eyes one by one to show he has no fear of them. Even of the hulking figure in the next corner who reminds him of the African demon with shadows over each shoulder. He sneers, and it finally looks away. Only then does he let go of the kitsune.

"Thank you," she says.

He snorts. "Said you'd help. Try starting now."

She restores her hair to order, coiling it atop her head with a single long pin, and her arms hide her face as she speaks. "I chose a thief some time ago and took him to my room. He left his clothes behind when he realized what I was and fled. I found among them some things that were not his. Makeup, American money, an American passport." She brings her hands back down. "They are gone now. But I remember the name in the passport. Buffy Anne Summers."

"Buffy," he breathes. His hands curl into fists, clinging to that shred of triumph.

She observes him with amusement. "You track your prey over a great distance. How much farther are you willing to go?"

"As far as she runs," he says, and it is a vow.

"You love her very deeply."

He grew used to saying as much everyday, back when he shared his nights with Buffy:

I love you so much, murmured against her hair after he eased away from a kiss.

And her wistful response, never quite what he needed to hear: I know.

But it sounds odd, coming from this woman's mouth. "How do you know?" he asks. He never considers denying it.

"My jewel is rich with it," she says.

He doesn't know where to clutch, to see if an emotion's still there. His panic must show, for she laughs.

"Do not fear; you held the fox-jewel so briefly that it had time to take but little. It is only that those two things are so strong, death and love, that they linger still." She pauses and cocks her head. "Or is it that you want it gone?"

"No." He can't imagine having everything he's done for Buffy tossed away like so much rubbish. The shape of his life became something fuller, deeper, after she entered it. He filled the hollows of his heart with the desire to make her see him, the desire to never do anything that would hurt her. The desire simply for her, not only the slenderness of her body, though that too, but for the smile that could grace his vision like a storm's epilogue, the rainbow. "No," he says, softly this time, but with no less conviction.

She shrugs, a lithe movement of her shoulders that makes a strap slide down, but he doesn't think she means it to be seductive--it's simply second nature to her. "A pity," she says, and the tip of her tongue licks at the corner of her mouth.

"Grave dirt, remember?" He warily maintains the distance between them.

"Still," she says, her gaze speculative. "I could feast on your other memories."

That one word arrests him. "Memories?"

"What do you think a man's essence is?" Her tone is light, mocking. "No, you feed on blood; perhaps you truly do not know. A man is made up of pieces of his past. Take them away, and there is nothing left the same. It is memory that a fox-jewel takes."

"So you have this thief's memories."

She is obviously savoring this game of hers. "Most of them."

"Of Buffy?" He lets some of the rawness of his desperation show, because she wants to see it.

"She would be more beautiful without the weariness around her eyes and her mouth," the kitsune says, closing her eyes. "But he wishes he had not the chance to judge such, for he usually does not see his victims' faces at all. Sidle up from behind them, a quick dip of the hand, move away. The motions are more natural than walking, now. And there is something she is obviously protecting, something valuable." She opens her eyes. "Forgive me. It is difficult to translate his thoughts into English."

He dares not speak. Her voice settles back into the rhythms of reminiscence.

"His first exploratory handful comes up with the usual tourist items, though. He is disappointed. And then she notices somehow, and turns. She is unnaturally quick. She catches his sleeve, and her strength surprises him as well. His jacket tears and he is glad of his experience in running through crowds. He does not lose her as soon as he likes, but once he is sure she will not catch him, he stops and looks at what he has stolen. Inside the wallet are American dollars, an American passport--" She smiles and he fervently hopes she does not mention a gem. "--and an airplane ticket."

She purposely didn't mention this before. But far stronger than his resentment is the sweeping relief of knowing something concrete, anything at all. Mindful of the demons sitting around them, he keeps his voice low. "To where?"

"What is it worth to you?" she asks for the second time. "Another taste, long enough for me to savor?"

If he never finds Buffy, all he will have left of her will be those memories she is proposing he lose. "No. Something else."

She considers that for a moment. "I am not only a broker of memories," she says. "I collect information."

"What do you want to know?" he asks. Information he can do.

"I can tell demon from human. But I become confused with you." She reaches out and holds her palm just centimeters away from his heart, the way she might warm her hands before a fire. "Tell me why I thought you were human."

Easy enough. "And you'll tell me where she meant to go."

They exchange nods.

Spike says, "I have a soul."

She makes her first inelegant movement: her head jerks up and her eyes are wide, sultriness gone from her gaze. "Impossible," she whispers. He braces himself for long explanations and attempts at proof, but before he can frame an answer, her unguarded moment has passed. "You will no longer be welcome here," she says, and her voice is so neutral he can't tell if it's a warning or a threat.

"You know I'm not going to hang around here any longer than I have to," he says. She tasted his love; she must know that it won't let him rest.

She accepts this. Then she moves forward and presses her cheek against his. For a moment, old instincts surge forth and all he can think about is how easy it would be to let his fangs sink into her bare shoulder, that moment of slight resistance before he pierces skin, the headiness that will well forth. Then she drops a single word into his ear and draws away swiftly. Her musky scent strokes under his nose, and as he watches her move away with silken grace, he swears that for a moment that she has a tail.

Only a fool would trust a fox-woman's word.

He rises and leaves for the airport.