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Nan
AU, continues from The Blood Is the Life. As Spike and Buffy try to
hold onto their partnership and their love, recently unsouled Spike tries to
secure his position as self-proclaimed Master Vampire of Sunnydale...against
the wishes of The Powers That Be and the Slayer's ancient mandate. Magic, new
arrivals, old friends (and enemies), dreams, visions, e-Bay, tribute blood,
and cookies all play a part in the tense give and take between vampire priorities
and human necessities.
Disclaimer: All is Joss's. None is mine. No profit. Just more Spikejoy for everyone.
Leaning wearily on the edge of the half-open door, Buffy said, “And the fun just keeps on coming.”
Clustered on the front porch--the two guys in front and the rest huddled anxiously behind--about a dozen kids from the safety class looked back at her with expressions variously hopeful, indignant, worried, and glum.
The lead guy said, “When we went to the gym, there was a sign that the class was canceled. And then Mona said she’d seen you clearing out your office this morning. So…I guess there was a problem about the dance?”
“Seems so, Andy.”
The guy pointed to his companion. “He’s Andy. I’m George.” He looked embarrassed for her mistake.
Buffy shut her eyes. In the den, Dawn and Lady Gates were arguing over who should have present tenancy of the body. In the front room, Mike was refusing to sit down to recover from a probable concussion and Willow and Anya were trying to keep him from bolting before he’d said what had happened in the basement. Xander was off conveying Janice and Luanne to their respective homes, charged with coming up with some explanation of Dawn’s screaming fit that wouldn’t stir up still more trouble. And still no sign of Spike, which had begun to worry her.
Just when it seemed there was no way things could be more bizarre and nerve-wracking, the doorbell rang and Buffy found herself confronting a deputation from the course.
Before Buffy had thought of anything to say, Anya and Willow came backing out ahead of a thunderously scowling Mike: a rather scary prospect with blood in his hair and soaked into his shirt’s neckband. Buffy wheeled, blocking the door with her body, and Mike hauled up short, then pivoted (Willow dodged out of his way) and started off down the hall.
“Mike,” Buffy called, finding within herself a flat voice of command, knowing force would be a real bad thing to try here. “Stay put five minutes, until I understand what’s going on. All right?”
Mike didn’t answer, but he halted.
Meanwhile Anya had been listening to the deputation’s grievances and concerns with exclamations of “No!” and “I had no idea! That’s terrible!” Turning to Buffy, she said, “They canceled your class?”
Buffy shrugged. “Sort of goes with the whole being-fired dealie.”
“Well, all of you come by the Magic Box tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll have a notice posted of the new schedule. And anyone who’s short of the new experimental scent, I have it on sale for only ten dollars a bottle, so you can stock up.” Anya smiled at them brilliantly.
George (or Andy, whichever it was) said, “So you’re going on with it, Ms. Summers?” seeking Buffy’s confirmation.
“Of course she is!” Anya declared. “Other arrangements will have to be made, that’s all. And there may be a small fee involved, since it’s no longer a school-sponsored activity. Overhead, you understand. But you all appear suitably affluent, so I’m sure it will be no hardship.”
One of the girls in the back--Buffy thought it was Candy--chirped, “And Spike: he’s still part of it, right?”
“Of course! Spike’s always involved. That’s a given where Buffy is concerned. Now don’t forget, come by the Magic Box tomorrow and the new schedule will be posted. Goodbye!” Shoving the door shut with her back, Anya lost the smile. “Buffy, I don’t understand you at all. You should have told me immediately! You’ve developed this fine commercial possibility and there’s just no follow-through. I don’t understand at all. You’ve left me barely any time to negotiate a different venue. I’ll have to call Albert at home, very unprofessional, but I trust he’ll understand.” Going into the front room, she sat sideways on the weapons chest, dialing the fixed phone that lived there.
Willow asked softly, “What was all that about?”
“I have no idea.” Taking a steadying breath, Buffy got everybody into the front room and more or less seated, except Mike, who leaned against the wall, sullenly inspecting his boots.
Standing in the door arch, arms folded, Buffy said to him, “What you ran into, in the basement--Spike, right?”
Mike shook his head. “Didn’t say that. Not saying nothing.”
Looking around, Anya interrupted her call to direct Buffy, “Tell everybody about the Chaos Stone being stolen.”
“To put this all in context,” what was plainly Lady Gates began, back in control, just as Xander blew in the front door, a grocery bag in his arms, voicing the desperate plaint, “Beer?”
So everything stopped and there was yet another sorting--mainly beer distributed and snacks set out--before the conference resumed. Ducking Anya’s solicitous approach with a wet towel, Mike got himself cleaned up and smoked a funny smelling cigarette on the porch. He seemed calmer when he came back, consenting to sit on the floor by the TV and turning a cold beer can around and around in his hands without opening it.
Perched prissily on the couch like a posed mannequin, undeterred by the interruption, Lady Gates began again, “To put this all in context and starting from the top, a Chaos Mage called Ethan Rayne is gathering materials and forces needed for an attempt to reopen the Hellmouth. Whichever of them initiated the contact, it’s plain that he’s currently in collaboration with a vampire called Digger and a witch named Amy Madison, as well as calling other mages, wizards, and the like, of various disciplines, to him. Since the mass virgin sacrifice was aborted by you and Spike,” (the Lady nodded at Buffy,) “Rayne has instead secured for a power source a magical artifact, a dimensional key known as the Chaos Stone. However, this artifact alone, untuned, is not sufficient for the task. As it currently is, it scatters any power directed into it and might well scorch severely…or kill…any mage, however skilled, who tried to manipulate it. He--”
“This is all your fault,” Anya told Willow, glowering. “I told you about the stone in the strictest confidence, and you blabbed!”
“I never!”
“Anya,” said the Lady, and Anya shut up instantly, looking nervous. “Your injudicious prattle has been more extensive than you evidently remember. Though my contact has been interrupted, Spike knew the stone’s location--you’d told him in the course of a phone call. That’s how Rayne learned about it: he now has access to whatever Spike knows. As a means of securing and controlling the stone, and in furtherance of Digger’s aims, Rayne has bespelled Spike and compelled him to become his instrument and agent. And I don’t like it. I won’t tolerate it. We’ve claimed Spike for our instrument and will not have that subverted. However, in any direct contest for control between us and Rayne, Spike would be…broken. That outcome is intolerable to the part of us that is Dawn. Her perspective and sensibilities are now part of our view and must be taken into account, in terms of what action we determine to take.”
“See?” Willow declared to Anya, who seemed to take no notice, gazing at Mike with hard, suspicious eyes.
“Michael, who killed Olaf? You didn’t say, so I assumed you didn’t know. You let us assume that.”
Everybody then looked at Mike, who very largely and loudly said nothing.
Buffy called back into her mind the image of Olaf’s huge, unsightly corpse. She could remember no evidence of a weapon. Olaf had been “done” by hand. Quietly, she said, “Mike, you have to tell us. We have to know what’s happened to know what to do.”
“Don’t got to tell you nothing!” Mike burst out. “Don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here, with you people. Don’t know how you’re apt to act. I got my own line to follow. I’ll listen here a little, if that’s what you want, because Spike sets value on you and I figure he’d want me to not cross you, go along with what you want some ways. But-- No.” He shook his head, setting the beer can away from him, to avoid bursting it with his hands. “No.”
Looking around, Xander said, “Spike’s gone? Then who’s gonna approve the invoices?”
“What invoices?” Buffy asked.
“Never mind,” Xander said, retreating by stuffing his mouth with cheese puffs.
Rising from the couch in her party finery, Lady Gates was suddenly natural with it, inhabiting it in a way she hadn’t before. Settling onto the floor by Mike, she brushed her hair back from her face in an automatic gesture, and Buffy realized it was Dawn. “Mike, do you trust me?”
A silence while Mike considered her. “I guess,” he responded finally.
“We have to find Spike. We have to get him out of this. I can’t promise that nothing bad will happen. But it won’t be your fault unless you try to take it on, all on your own. It will take all of us. Half the problem is that we all know a little but nobody knows it all. We’re all split up, divided. In Spike’s place, I’m telling you: tell us what you know and what you think. We need you for this.”
Another long, considering silence. “All right.” After a moment, Mike added, “Does this mean you’re talking to me again?”
“Guess so,” Dawn admitted, looking aside and twisting a pinch of her skirt.
Mike nodded, then looked up at Buffy, calm and open-faced. “What do you want to know?”
Somebody leaned on the doorbell.
As the one nearest, Buffy said resignedly, “I’ll get that,” and yanked open the door. She stared: it was Giles--disheveled in an unbuttoned overcoat, unshaven, red-eyed, jet-lagged, hair standing up in crooked tufts as though he’d been plowing his fingers through it. “Giles,” she said blankly. “What are you doing here? Of course I’m glad to see you, but--”
“Yes, quite,” Giles said curtly. “May I come in?”
For a second, Buffy had the unnerving thought Giles had been turned. She seized his hand: warm. And of course: he was just Giles. A pull on his hand drew him inside. She let go to shut the door.
Catching sight of Giles, Willow and Anya ran out to greet him, Willow offering to take his coat, Anya commenting gaily on how terrible he looked. Behind, in the arch, Xander silently proffered a beer.
Giles ignored their greetings and attentions. “Never mind that,” he said, grim and direct. “Where’s Spike?”
**********
Mike knew who Giles was but hadn’t had much contact with him. So it was pure discovery and satisfaction to watch the man take charge, and all the rest fall into place: everybody knowing where they stood in relation to the others and what they were supposed to be doing. It was as though the Scoobies (as Spike sometimes called them) suddenly came into focus, became comprehensible. A missing center, returned, made sense of the rest.
Not that Mike was a part of it. His only connection was to Dawn. But that was enough.
She was being Lady Gates again at the moment, but that didn’t signify to Mike as much as it had. Dawn was close and knew all that went on; when she was the best one to deal with something, her immediacy and fire as compared to the Lady’s cool distance, then it was Dawn that was present. To him, she could be Dawn, and he suspected she didn’t know what it meant for him to say he trusted her. Or maybe she did. It would be nice if she did, knew what a huge exception he made for her, considering that he didn’t entirely trust Spike. Vamps weren’t particularly inclined to trust. Just not how it was.
But she was being the Lady now to deal with Giles as one ancient to another and not have her young girl aspect mixing in and confusing things between them. Ancients didn’t need to explain much to one another: the right phrase or two, and they just knew.
Just as Giles had clearly known, from that scrap of phoned conversation, that he had to come, and set down everything and got on a plane within a couple hours and came straight on until he was here. Go right at a thing, head on: Mike understood that.
The Lady had sketched in the present lay of things, and the affront to her authority that Spike’s being taken was, in only a few words.
Giles came back, sure and bitter, “Ethan is a fribble soul: he cares nothing for the Hellmouth. Returning to Sunnydale to reopen it, much less risking himself to do so, would never have occurred to him. He’s been put up to it. The potential for disruption is what would have appealed to him.”
The Lady looked around at Mike sharply, as though he’d said something, but he hadn’t. “Mike, please set your watch aside.”
Mike thought about that a minute, then slipped the watch from his pocket and laid it on the floor, still in easy reach.
“What’s this,” she said, “about a severed hand?”
“Something was down there,” Mike said, falling back into the comfortable habit of report--giving all the pertinent factors as concisely as possible. “Turned out, it was Spike, completely off his head. Said he was supposed to come up to give Dawn this ripped-off human hand, fresh, as a present. But he’d been putting it off. Fighting doing it. My going at him let him break it off, leave. He was pulled two ways about it,” Mike continued soberly. “Wanted to be here, yet didn’t. Wanted to see Dawn, give her something, but not that. Whatever was pushing at him--this Rayne, I guess--was going half the distance on what Spike wanted, himself. The rest, that was what Rayne wanted him to do.”
The Lady reflected, “So some capacity to resist still remains. Control is not complete.”
“It’s variable,” Giles commented bleakly, looking up as Buffy came in with a mug of strong tea on a tray for him. As she set it out, he continued, “Having a slave is no fun. Ethan only enjoys collecting pets: creatures capable of surprising and entertaining him. He enjoys their frustration and confusion. He…rewards them for it. Addiction, rather than outright enslavement. As far as I know, he’s never had a vampire for a pet before. They wouldn’t interest him: too simple; too direct. Too insensitive to magic. Whereas Spike….” Picking up the mug, Giles took a cautious sip.
Buffy asked softly, “What’s he doing to Spike?”
“Whatever he pleases. If it’s allowed to continue, not even the fact that he needs Spike to be reasonably coherent to manipulate the stone will matter. Ethan breaks his toys. And then discards them. He loses interest, walks away, leaving others to clean up his messes. Others would have to…dispose of whatever was left.” Giles met Buffy’s anxious eyes squarely. “Spike is formidable enough in himself. After Ethan was done with him, he would be wholly random. Wholly out of control. That…would have to be dealt with.”
“No,” said Buffy. “No way!”
The Lady said coolly, “Ending would be a kindness. So it must not be allowed to reach that point.”
Willow, who’d been sent off to do a locator spell, came back downstairs carefully carrying a folded map, held level like a tray, and a small glass jar half full of red powder. She knelt down by Giles, showing him the map, commenting, “He’s not anyplace. Not here, not in the state, not in North America. I’d have to get some different maps to check anyplace else.”
“No need,” said Lady Gates in a distant voice. “They’re dimension-hopping. Rayne is opening portals, perhaps to test out the stone and Spike’s ability to tune and focus it.”
“What makes you think so?” Buffy challenged.
“My dear, consider who I am,” said the Lady dryly. “When a portal is opened anywhere, it’s through me, and I know it. That is my nature and my power.” She looked to Giles. “Most cross-dimensional traffic is random and accidental. The interstices gape and close to accommodate the flexing of the space-time continuum, and sometimes things fall through. It’s not hard to open a portal and pass through if you don’t care where you end up. However, interdimensional motion to and from a fixed point is unusual, especially within a limited span of time. I should be able to locate them; and the next time they return, lock them down. But to do that, I need full access to my own resources.”
Giles nodded politely. “I understand.”
“Geezul Pete, I thought she’d never leave!” Dawn exclaimed, springing up and spinning around on her toes. Coming to a halt, she did a friendly little finger wave. “Hi, Giles.”
“Hello, Dawn.”
“How come you know all this about what Ethan Rayne wants, how he behaves, how he treats his pets?”
“I’ve made something of a study of it,” Giles said, which wasn’t an answer but was plainly all he intended to say. “Is there any least chance of something resembling a sandwich?”
“Baloney?” Buffy offered. “Or I could make baloney and peanut butter.”
Giles shuddered. “If you must.” As Buffy headed for the kitchen, Giles asked, “Dawn, how long is the Lady apt to be?”
Dawn made an open, airy gesture. “Could be an hour or a year.” Then she frowned and changed her mind. “Not long. Not considering Spike…. Willow, if she can lock them into this dimension, I guess the rest will be up to you: stopping whatever he tries until we can take Spike back. How will you do that? Have you ever faced a Chaos Mage?”
“No,” Willow admitted. “I’ve never been in a full-scale wizard’s duel, and now that I think about it, I really don’t like the idea. Giles, can’t you--?”
“I hold myself ready to assist,” Giles said, finishing the tea and setting the cup down. “However, Dawn is right--the actual opposition will fall to you, Willow. I can store a certain amount of power that you can draw upon.”
“Me, too,” Dawn chimed in.
“Are there rules?” Willow asked Giles worriedly. “Do you take turns? Where should I look to research this?”
Collecting his watch and putting it away, Mike asked Dawn, “They done with me here?”
She looked surprised and disappointed. “Don’t you want to stay and help?”
“Got my own line on that and my own business to tend to. Don’t know much about magic except it smells bad, so there’s not a lot of help I’m apt to be with whatever you all will be doing.” Feeling extremely daring, he smoothed her hair down her cheek and patted her shoulder. “I expect I’ll get my oar in some way…. I’m real glad you’re talking to me again. I won’t never do what made you fall out with me before.” He smiled ruefully. “Find some new way to be dumb, most like.”
“It’s hard, without a soul, to know where the limits are,” Dawn commented, which maybe was forgiveness. “Or even why there are any limits to begin with. If it’d been me you were taking pot-shots at, you would have held back, wondered if I’d be mad or truly hurt. But since it was Spike, you figured you knew. You just didn’t take me into account.”
“I won’t never not take you into account again. Not on purpose. Except if I don’t know no better,” offered Mike humbly.
She slipped fingers into his palm. “If you don’t have to go this minute, maybe you’d help me with my presents. I didn’t really have much chance to look at them, and I have to know what’s from who to write the thank-you notes.”
“Oh, I’d bet you’d know, all by yourself,” Mike said, accepting being towed across the hall to the den by that fingertip touch. “For instance, guess who gave you a stock certificate.”
“Just as long as one of ‘em isn’t a severed hand. I think that would be pretty major industrial-strength ick.”
“He didn’t want to,” Mike said earnestly, as Dawn seated herself by the scatter of open presents and wrapping paper. “He was trying his best not to.”
“Yeah, one thing Spike isn’t is a practical joker. So we’re spared that, at least.” Lips pursed and face solemn and intent, Dawn took up the small glass dragon carefully by the back and set it in her open palm. Not looking up, she commented, “I guess I know who gave me this.”
“Expect you do. Sort of like giving you a snowflake: you know it’s not gonna last. Don’t you be upset if it gets busted--it’s just for now, to remember. Not to keep. It’s not strong that way, to last.”
“Maybe it could,” Dawn argued. “Maybe it will. It’s a dragon, after all, and I found out the hard way that no matter how delicate they look, they’re really strong and fierce and dangerous!”
“Won’t dispute it with you. If anybody would know, it’d be you. Just didn’t want you to expect of it anything it didn’t have in it, to give. Didn’t want to give you something you’d feel responsible for…or something that would ever make you sad.”
“And aren’t we all about the subtext tonight!” Dawn set the dragon down on an open part of the table and looked up at him brightly. Then her expression shifted to curious, pensive. “Or maybe not. Maybe the text is all there is, and it’s not fair to read more into it. OK: who gave me this spectacularly ugly scarf?” She held it up with two fingers as though it were a dead rat.
“That was from Janice.”
“I always suspected Janice was colorblind. So that’s two accounted for. How about the earrings?”
“That was Harris.”
Mike had been gradually circling the table, pushing chairs in to get by, and had now arrived at Dawn’s side, at her right hand, as she continued to inventory the presents. He breathed her scent, that rose to him. She smelled exactly like herself, and that was part of how her eyes flashed, amused, wary, and curious, when she glanced at him, and part of how her fingers grasped things, all precise, like calipers. Part of the odd angle her elbow made, lifted a little away from her, when she reached. Part of the solemn part in her hair, right down the center, and the smooth curve of forehead and the hair so silken and soft to either side, falling from there past her shoulders.
Doing his own inventory, Mike found all as it should be. He touched her hair, at the back of her neck. If she felt the touch she didn’t object, which probably was all that mattered.
**********
Taking the bike, Mike was back at the factory within fifteen minutes. Checking with Huey, he found all as it should be: the fledges who’d been digging were drunk and unconscious. Mike was under orders to dispose of them. But he’d thought about that on the way back and come to a different decision.
“Lock ‘em down,” he told Huey, “and let ‘em be. You keep watch. Nobody comes in or goes out except I say so.”
“Spike said--”
“Spike ain’t here. Till he is, you go by my word. You too, Emil,” Mike added over his shoulder. “A straight matter of stand up, or stand down. You want to try me on?”
Emil, as big as Mike and a good deal older, lifted both hands, taking himself out of contention. “What you call is fine by me. No objection here.”
Mike switched his attention to Huey, who plainly wasn’t happy with the situation and was even older than Emil. Huey responded bluntly, “Don’t like it. Don’t think you’re up to being in charge. Spike never named you second, not in so many words. But he did name you his get, and he’s been using you for lead, most times, so I guess it’ll have to do. You answer for it, though.”
“I will,” Mike agreed. “If Spike wants to take it out of my hide later, then that’s how it will be. In the meantime, I have the call. Let the fledges sleep it off. Huey, you double check everything Spike had going, make sure it’s running right, they’re not waiting for something from us to go ahead. If they do, and it’s money, Slayer, she has the same rights over the account as Spike does. She’ll see to it. If you find any like that, make a list. I’ll deal with her. Anybody Spike was supposed to meet with, put ‘em off, say we’ll get back to ‘em. Don’t give no reason. As far as anybody else goes, Spike’s here and nobody knows any different. Nobody knows his business or has any right to. Except the Slayer, and I’ll deal with her however’s needed.”
It occurred to Mike that more than Huey and Emil needed to know this. So he sent Emil to gather up the crew while he and Huey split up contacting the SITs. Spike had always included them, so Mike would do the same. Whether or not they chose to go along, that was up to them.
Since Amanda was the one always least eager, most likely to pull out, Mike did that call himself. When he’d got through a layer of parents and a younger brother and actually was talking to her direct, he said, “’Manda, it’s Mike. We’re having a thing tonight. Has to do with Spike. I’m briefing on it in fifteen. If you’re coming, you be here. Yeah: at the factory.” Without waiting for any answer, Mike ended that call and hit the number for Kennedy, but only got the machine she and Rona shared at the boarding house. He left pretty much the same message for them there and figured his duty toward them was done. Either they’d show, or they wouldn’t, and Mike didn’t much care which.
Wanted to play it, as far as he could, the way he thought Spike would have wanted but wasn’t gonna let himself be hamstrung by that neither.
He hadn’t fed yet today, and that was all right. He figured it gave him a bit of an edge, and he might well need that.
Emil had rousted out what of the crew still happened to be around: fifteen fighters, not counting Huey or Emil. Three short. Probably off helling around, hunting. Mike would give them a lesson about what “on call” meant, next chance he got.
“All right,” he said, surveying them. “Spike’s been taken, and we’re gonna take him back. Nobody says a word about it, outside. I’ll personally dust anybody who--”
Mary interrupted grimly, “Digger?”
“Don’t think so. Not directly. Though he may send back-up, and if he does, we take them out. Not a one gets through. And if he does, we’ll know and settle up for it later. The one we know about is that he-witch I’ve had you tracking, the last couple of nights. Huey and Emil, they're minding the store. Gonna split the rest in half. One bunch, check out everyplace we’ve found so far where he’s been lairing. If they’re all empty, the mark is the freshest one found, that big place on Crawford. If he’s gone back to one of the others, and you get fresh trace, call and tell Huey and he’ll relay to me.”
A new fighter, called himself Fury, piped up, “Don’t have enough phones.” Len, still intent on getting above himself, smacked him before Mike did, pointing out that there were public call boxes on nearly every corner. Fury backed off. So that was settled.
“It’s possible,” Mike resumed, “but not likely, you may run across Spike himself, or his trace. If you do, take him down and hold him. He’s off his head.” He saw several vamps shaking their heads or otherwise looking real unwilling to take Spike on, crazy or not. Mike reconsidered. “All right, do this instead. You come on him, you shadow along and send word, like I said before. Don’t think it’ll happen, but if it does, that’s what you do. All right?”
Len asked, “What’ll the other half be doing?”
“Some to lay an ambush, a little away from the mark, for any back-up Digger sends. The rest, I have another errand for. Julia, you lead off checking the lairs--you get four, besides yourself. Choose ‘em out. Len, you lead off on the ambush. You get five. The rest are with me, to run my errand. Ford, bring the car around.”
Everybody looked, because there was hammering on the outside door. Emil went off to check and returned with Amanda and Rona, in street clothes: they hadn’t even taken time to change into the colors.
Scowling, Rona called, “This better be good!”
Spike always allowed the SITs a lot of latitude, didn’t slap ‘em down for mouthing off to him, so Mike put up with it too. For now.
“You heard from the Slayer?” he asked.
Amanda shook her head, and Rona said, “Not a peep, at least that I know of.”
“You’re with me, then.”
Hands on hips, Rona demanded, “What’s with Spike?”
“Tell you later,” Mike decided.
“But it ain’t even fifteen minutes yet!”
“I lied. Len, take two more on the ambush. SITs are with me. We'll hook up with you later." Looking around, he asked, "You got your tasers?”
“What do you think we are: stupid?” Rona came back at him.
“Maybe. You’re not wearing the smell. So you’d best stick close,” Mike commented, heading for the door. The pair not chosen out by the leads he’d named knew enough to follow. Which gave him four, besides himself. Plenty enough for the errand he had in mind.
When they’d all piled into the ancient, sagging car, Mike directed, “Casa Mike.”
Except for the SITs, none of them was armed. That was how Spike liked it. Kept the fighting pretty even, everything hanging on the balance of strength, skill, and ferocity. Mike, he’d always thought a different way.
It was his incendiaries that’d taken out most of the Turok-han. He was, by training and inclination, a sniper, even though that was from the before. Mike liked the odds in his favor and liked the things that modern weaponry could do. With no present need, he’d moved his small armory to the basement of Casa Mike and added to it any time the chance to acquire good ordnance on the cheap presented itself.
Fuck magic. Mike was a hell of a lot more comfortable with an M-16 firing .50 caliber armor-piercing rounds. Take a vamp’s head right off or blow a hole in its chest big enough to stick your fist into, except of course they’d dust first. Plastique, if there was leisure to place a few shaped charges. Some incendiary grenades. Against vamps, even highway flares could be good weapons, and he had those in quantity. See how Digger liked them apples, not to mention that bastard, Ethan Rayne. Mike had something extra special in mind for him.
Let the Slayer take the inside and do him if she could, her and the witch. But if he got past them, if he came outside and tried to get clear, Mike would blow that fucker into confetti. Then see what kind of magic he could do.
**********
Dawn was pleased not to have to fight about going along, even though it was because of the Lady. It was the Lady who’d determined what Rayne’s go-back-to point was: the mansion on Crawford, that had been Angel’s (as much as it was anybody’s: Dawn doubted Angel had ever held title). Spike would know its advantages of defensibility and isolation, so Rayne had chosen it for a base.
And without Dawn as conduit, the Lady wouldn’t have the eyes and ears she needed to follow what was going on while retaining access to her own powers.
It made Dawn feel a bit like a hole in the air, everybody looking past her, beyond her, or through her, but better to be in charge of her own body than be a helpless bystander as she’d been since the Lady had decided to usurp her and take up residence.
But not everybody looked through her: Mike hadn’t. And he knew for certain, instantly, whether it was her driving, or the Lady, even when she hadn’t said a word or twitched so much as a finger. Smell, maybe. Anyway, he knew, and that was a good counterbalance to Dawn’s bouts of suspecting that she wasn’t really real, the way Buffy was, or Xander, or Willow. That she was just a fiction everybody had tacitly agreed on, not an actual person in her own right. A dimensional key: just like the sodding Chaos Stone, that nobody could ever mistake for a person.
A tool; an open door; a hole in the air.
Since her displacement, her confidence in her own reality was pretty much at an all-time low. She wished Mike had stayed. Or that Spike was here, where he should be. They’d all forgotten her once, and that had been scary and horrible. Everybody except Spike, who’d slowly forced them all to remember or at least accept that he did. Spike had held on.
Now she figured it was her turn. If not feeling quite real was the price of catching hold of Spike and hauling him back to a safe shore, then she didn’t grudge it, or the Lady’s voice periodically muttering in the back of her mind, wanting to know this, or wanting her to say that: not in residence, but not absent, either. When real people had voices talking to them in their heads, they were crazy…or occasionally telepaths. But Dawn was neither. She wasn’t 100% sure, anymore, what she was. That scared her.
Buffy accepted her, loved her; but Buffy had forgotten like the rest and didn’t worry about ridiculous things like not being real.
But Dawn’s connection to Spike, that was bedrock. They’d sometimes get fed up with each other and go off like rockets, but those times were just the passing storms that punctuated weather.
If it was her turn to hold on, she certain sure wasn’t letting go. Whatever that came to entail.
Right now it entailed having the Front Seat of Honor between Buffy, driving, and Giles, trying hard not to watch her drive. Willow and Xander were in the middle seat, Willow anxiously researching in a big book laid across her lap, Xander helpfully holding a flashlight for her. Anya had claimed other business. Kennedy was in the back.
They hadn’t been able to reach Rona, but Amanda’s mom said there’d been a call for ‘Manda and she’d gone out, the mom mildly concerned that it was a school night and now past nine. Dawn had learned long since that ‘Manda had somehow ended up with all the guts in that family: all the rest were wispy, indecisive doofuses. Doofi? Anyway, from that, there seemed a good chance they were with Mike--maybe for tonight's sweep, on the principle that with Spike or without, the show had to go on, right?
Willow was ticked because she’d hoped to have all three SITs for an energy drain, via Giles. Dawn privately thought that was idiotic, just nervousness, since through Dawn Willow had one of the Powers of the universe to draw on. Maybe Lady Gates’ power tasted funny or something. Or maybe Willow was afraid of it--like it would be too much, more than Willow could handle without going black-eyed and veiny-faced.
Turning and kneeling on the seat--no seat belt constraining the middle position--Dawn inquired buoyantly, “What if it’s a trap?”
Looking, wide-eyed, up from her spell book, Willow exploded, “Geez, Dawn, be a little depressing, why don’t you?”
“Well, it could be,” Dawn argued reasonably. “Maybe he doesn’t really want Spike at all, or much, and Spike’s just bait to bring you into it. Or Buffy. I’m sure Digger would love a chance to get rid of Spike and the Slayer at one go. Then he could do whatever he pleased.”
Giles said flatly, “It’s not a ruse. Ethan needs Spike to manipulate the Chaos Stone. Or at least not primarily a ruse…. A valid point. Buffy?”
Facing straight front, Buffy said, “Get in, get Spike, get out. How’s that for a plan?”
Dawn looked back and forth between them like a tennis match.
“Perhaps slightly lacking in subtlety,” Giles commented mildly. “Might an initial reconnaissance be in order?”
“You just don’t want to go back to the mansion,” Buffy charged.
“It’s not among my favorite places, no. But that’s of no consequence. I didn’t come several thousand miles to stop short a few meters from the goal. If you can face the unpleasant memories embedded in that place, I can certainly do the same. Dawn, explain to me about Mike, please. On the phone, he identified Spike as his sire. At first, I assumed that meant Spike was hunting again, and Mike was some unfortunate he’d turned. But now that I’ve met him, I know that’s not the case. He’s not a stupid fledge, overwhelmed with the change. I gather he occupies a position of some authority and responsibility within Spike’s developing court. So in what way can he regard Spike as his sire?”
Accepting the blatant change of topic, Dawn slid back down on the bench seat. “Angelus turned him, about six years ago.”
“Ah, yes: the demonstration. Now I recollect where I’ve seen him before. Persuading Angel that there is actual inheritance through the demon, and the same demon is transferred in the turning. I’ve produced some preliminary notes on the subject; when there’s time, I’d like to do a full-scale monograph for the Council journal. Privately circulated, of course, but quite prestigious in certain circles. It is, to put it mildly, a revolutionary concept: nothing along those lines has ever been suggested, much less documented. So that’s the Michael concerned, that I’ve written several reams about. How embarrassing, not to have recognized him. I hope I didn’t offend him, not greeting him properly.”
“Mike’s different,” Dawn responded, thinking it out. “He’s just on the edge of becoming a mature vamp. So he acts different and probably looks different--sharper, quicker, more confident than even a few months ago. Not looking, every minute, for somebody to tell him what to do…or not do. Standing his ground. Taking calculated risks, not just diving in blind. It’s no big deal, your not knowing him, Giles. Hardly anybody bothers to tell one vamp from another. Except for Spike. He won’t tolerate being ignored. Mike, he’s cool with it.”
She wished Buffy had accepted her suggestion to let Mike know Rayne had chosen the mansion as a base, to call him into it. But to Buffy, the idea of vamps as back-up (any that weren't Spike) wasn't worth considering.
Now that she no longer had to be officially mad at him, Dawn would have felt better if Mike was along. And she knew that nobody, not even Buffy, would be more determined to get Spike out in one piece than Mike. Sometimes somebody utterly single-minded and way dangerous was very comforting to have on your side. But Buffy wouldn't hear of it and the Slayer was nothing if not stubborn and bossy.
“Which still doesn’t explain why he’d claim to be Spike’s get,” Giles pointed out. “True, he’d be of the Aurelian bloodline….”
“It was Spike who claimed him,” Dawn replied. “Publicly. And if Spike says, and Mike agrees, who’s gonna argue with them?”
“Still another…connection of Angel’s that Spike’s inherited, then. He seems to make rather a habit of it.”
They both waited, but Buffy was attending strictly to the driving and offered no comment.
Giles continued, “I thought my mild sense of deja vu was merely because….”
“Because he looks as though he could be Riley Finn’s cousin,” Dawn supplied accurately. “Buffy thought so, too. Spike puts it down to something he calls ‘the Wild Geese syndrome.’ Mike was a soldier and then a mercenary, in the before. And then Riley, with the Initiative.”
“Yes, I see. Hired violence: Ireland’s chief export, for centuries. He’s become Spike’s enforcer, then?”
“Spike is his own enforcer.”
“Yes, quite.”
“What’s Ethan doing to him?” Dawn asked, echoing Buffy’s earlier question.
Giles sighed and bowed his head. In a voice as distant and cold as stars, he replied, “Bewitching him. It’s what he does. Until he grows bored, or his…pet successfully defies him.”
There was subtext there. Giles probably didn’t think Dawn could hear it, but she did. She wondered, Did you defy him? Or did he just get bored and indifferent, and let you leave? And are you entirely sure which? But with new tact that maybe was part of turning seventeen, she didn’t ask.
Buffy braked the SUV, set the hand brake, and turned the key. “We’re here. Or close, anyway. Per the plan of our master strategists, I’ll go have a look around. Willow, you get charged up, or whatever you do. Then we’ll go in.”
Everybody got out. Buffy retrieved her favorite sword and a bag of stakes from the back, then vanished into the adjoining park. Holding hands, Giles and Willow began chanting quietly on the sidewalk. Presently each held out a hand: Willow to Xander, and Giles to Kennedy, who looked decidedly nervous and not all that eager to hold hands with two guys. Because after a minute or so, Xander and Ken were directed to make contact, completing the circle. The air around them seemed to thicken like lemon Jell-O with chopped carrots, except the carrot bits were wandering sparks.
Dawn mooched off down the block, because she wasn’t a direct part of any of it. She didn’t scout; she didn’t do magic. She was only the vehicle and the vessel for the Lady, who well might do both. Though probably not: the Lady didn’t think Spike could survive, caught in the middle of a direct confrontation between a Chaos Mage and one of the Powers. Sure, the Lady could likely squash Rayne like a bug. But not without squashing Spike, too, because of the connection there. And the Powers mostly didn’t squash people like bugs--it wasn’t their style. They watched, and hung back, and debated endlessly, involved but not concerned.
If they decided to act, it was by pushing, and nagging, and bringing intangible pressures to bear to edge events in one direction or the other, generally so glacially slowly that nobody would notice anything had moved until a couple of centuries afterward, if at all. As bad as Ents for godawful slow. Except sometimes, when something they considered important had come to crisis sooner than they’d expected. Then they’d choose an Instrument or a Champion and shove him headlong into the middle of it. Whether he wanted to or not. Whether he survived it or not. Whether it entirely fucked up the rest of his life or not. As long as their purpose was achieved, what did they care?
(The Lady imparted, “You misvalue the long view; through you, we’ve gained some appreciation for the short term and the immediate. Both have their wisdoms.”)
Dawn shot back rancorously, “Fuck the wisdoms. Spike is crazy again, and hurting, and you don’t give a single damn.”
(“If he can be spared, he will be spared. And you are spared knowing what a wretched, self-centered, sybaritic, sadistic reptile this Rayne is. If you would be a child forever, you’ll be spared such things. Cherish your innocence: it comes at a price others pay, that you may have this luxury. Be grateful. Now hush and don’t interrupt me. I’m tying a dimensional knot.”)
Dawn stuck out her tongue and rancorously kicked a stone. Then she patted her overalls pocket, where her taser was. At least maybe she could fight. Hard to ignore somebody zapping you in the ghoolies. That would give her great satisfaction.
**********
Buffy gave the mansion a cursory once-around because Giles thought she should. She didn’t expect to see anything, and she didn’t.
The chimney breathed smoke. It was a cool evening: the mage had lit a cozy fire in the fireplace. How nice.
At least it was confirmation that Rayne was resting after the day’s dimension-hopping exertions. In place and now locked in, thanks to the Lady’s closing the ways against him.
Once, Buffy had known the mansion so well. Every dip in the ground, every vista through the trees, all of it golden and dreamlike. Now the ground was ankle-deep in fallen leaves and untended, forlorn. Dropping down from the retaining wall, she was in the paved pocket garden where she’d had her final fight with Angelus. Its fountain was dry and clogged with slimy leaves. All the riot of flowers were dead brittle stems. Angel had literally courted the light, she recalled: trimmed away branches to let it shine at noon into this little sunken court so he could gaze at it from a safe distance out the window. Enough to keep the flowers alive….
She’d been driven back against the wall, just there. Against Angelus’ hateful jeering that she’d lost everything and had nothing left, she’d found herself declaring that she had herself and catching the sword blade between her two hands. The fight had turned then, on that realization.
Then, being alone and knowing it had been a strength. With only herself on the line, all fights were simple, although she’d lost a few along the way. Died a couple of times. Not until Spike had she ever truly let anyone into her essential Slayer solitude. Her friends, they helped, sure. But when push came to shove, she was the one in the lead and on the line. They were concerned but not committed--they could walk away anytime. Like Oz had. Like Angel had. Like even Willow and Xander had, after a fashion. Unavailable to her, anyway.
Not Spike, though. Spike stayed--even when she hadn’t wanted him to. Like candle lighting candle, he took his purpose from hers and was right out there on the line along with her unless she forced him away, refused him completely. Once, she’d actually succeeded in driving him away, and she’d thought he was gone for good: when he’d been off winning the soul. It had been a bitter satisfaction.
And then, despite everything, he’d come back. Crazy, filthy, starving, frightened, helpless, a whirlwind of confusion. A burden and a responsibility, not a help. Not at first. Except that just the fact of him made her know she wasn’t alone. Couldn’t be, even when she wanted to. She was half of a wacky set, all crooked edges and sharp points, and she’d finally resigned herself to that. It’d been a while longer before she’d taken any joy from the connection; any peace; any love. But they’d been there for her all along, if she’d only had the eyes to see and the grace to accept.
Love was finally such a little word, such a Hallmark sentiment, for what Spike was to her now.
So all breath was driven from her body when she looked in the window and saw them there, by the fire: Rayne, with his neat, dry, creased, quizzical face and flying dark eyebrows, like he knew a naughty secret and was gonna inflict it on you, sitting across Angel’s big wood chair, one leg thrown over the arm padding, back propped at crooked ease into the corner, looking down and laughing, all lazy gaiety. Laughing back at him was Spike, stretched out on the carpet like a great pale cat; eyes wide and wild and drawn oblong with liner, like an odalisque’s; all smooth power in repose, his torso painted with chocolate shadows and tangerine highlights by the flames and shining beyond that: oiled, sleek, leaned easily on a bent arm, hand propping his tilted head.
Rayne was feeding him something--offering, then drawing away, happily teasing and playful. The faint blush on Spike’s skin meant he’d already fed well and to his satisfaction.
Around Spike’s neck was a broad black leather collar dotted with steel studs. The match to his watchband and to his belt. Very decorative. Very deliberate.
Buffy wrenched away and threw up into the dry fountain.
Spike would hear. Couldn’t be helped.
She took the wall at a bound, still fighting the impulse to heave.
She’d visualized something like his captivity by the First: chains; bruises; wounds. Not luxurious collared ease. Nothing like this. Nothing she’d ever imagined.
She ran, practically headlong, into Giles. Until he offered her his handkerchief, she didn’t realize she was crying, and ducked her head and let herself be walked away a little distance from the others, all standing by the SUV and staring at her.
“Buffy, what is it?” Giles asked her with all the quiet and concern she so conspicuously lacked. That she’d missed so terribly, but couldn’t say so because Giles was a grown-up and had his own life, and rebuilding the Council and monographs on Mike and yada yada.
She clutched his lapels and sobbed. She was the Slayer. She was allowed.
“My dear child. What has he done?”
“I think maybe,” (Buffy blew her nose explosively, then scrubbed at her eyes: wrong order, didn’t care) “we should just leave it, OK? Lady Gates is this big Power, why can’t she just shut off the Hellmouth, too? Why does she need Spike to stop it? Why can’t she just let him alone and…and let him just be happy? He looked happy, Giles. And if he can be, why not just let him be? Why do I have to jump in and ruin everything?”
“Buffy.” Giles patiently teased the handkerchief out of her fist and presented her with another from a hip pocket. She imagined him producing an endless stream of handkerchiefs like a magician pulling scarves out of people’s noses, which was gross and not at all magical. She was giggling and sobbing at the same time. “Buffy, it’s an enchantment. A spell. You’ve been bespelled yourself, a time or two--remember? While it lasts, it’s utterly convincing. You can’t see past it or around it. It simply is. Which is among the reasons why I came. Age sometimes grants perspective, Anya aside.” He waited for her to notice his small, pursed smile.
“But…he looked happy. And strange. And…not mine,” she blurted.
“Would Spike, of his own volition, ever deliver to Dawn a severed human hand?”
“No,” Buffy admitted.
“He has no choice, or very little, in what he does, how he seems. We all have monsters within that can be teased out, flattered into complaisance…captured, for a time. Spike’s is merely more accessible. Closer to the surface, unsouled as he is. And unsouled as he is, he has nothing that can withstand such beguilement. It would be most unfair to judge him by what he cannot help and can’t control. What’s been imposed on him by another. Give any of us what we believe to be our heart’s desire, even if it’s a complete fraud, and there are few of us who could resist being ensnared. In that place, Drusilla came to me as Jenny and I told her at once what I’d endured torture rather than reveal. Don’t judge him, Buffy.”
“But…there was oil. And a frickin’ collar!”
“That’s right: be angry. We must go and do this now. Spike is helpless, and in prison, even though the walls may not be visible to us. We cannot leave him there. For his sake, and for ours. When the spell is lifted, you’ll see things more clearly, more truly. Wipe your eyes. It’s time.”
**********
Dawn was nervous, going to confront whatever had freaked Buffy so totally. Buffy, all grim and furious, wouldn’t talk about it, just led off down the sidewalk. Spell book at last set aside, Willow trotted after, and Giles, and Dawn last, glancing at shadows, clutching her taser.
After feebly protesting, Xander and Kennedy were tucked, fast asleep, in the back of the locked SUV. Drained of vitality, they weren’t up to much. So it was just the four of them.
A ruckus started up in the park, off to the right, out of sight. Buffy’s head whipped around, but she just went faster. They all broke into a run.
Following Buffy, they were headed straight for the front door: real subtle, Dawn thought. Maybe it was locked. Didn’t really matter, because Buffy tucked her sword under her arm, grabbed the ornate looped opener thingy two-handed, and hauled the door off its hinges, bang, and pitched it into the yard. Buffy tended to do things like that.
(“Stand ready,” directed the Lady’s cool intention, within her.)
Yeah, right. Ready for what?
What came off was the door. What came out was about half a dozen vamps, snarling and stinky. Buffy went high, with the sword. Dawn went low, with the taser. Willow dithered and Giles economically took out the vamps Dawn had downed, with stakes produced from his deep overcoat pockets. There was a lot of dust. They went inside.
“Why, Ripper!” somebody caroled from out of sight. “What a surprise! Sorry, must dash. Things to subvert, people to do.”
It was something Spike said, slightly skewed. Suddenly Dawn was hot with indignation.
Giles replied coolly, “I think you may find that difficult, Ethan. You have something of ours. We want it back.”
Sidling in behind, Dawn found herself in a large, paneled room. Across from the door, to her left now, there was a fireplace with a fire burning in it. Behind her she’d noticed another door, smaller, with a window to either side. Everything was old and dusty. Moths had been feasting on the carpet. A big padded wooden chair by the fire had been overset, trailing scraps of canvas lining. Everything smelled like dust, mildew, and mice. If the house wasn’t haunted, it should have been.
The Chaos Mage, Ethan Rayne, was a skinny, unprepossessing guy in grey suit pants, a blue shirt, and what Dawn thought was called a smoking jacket--kind of a short robe with red plush panels at the shoulders. Pretty much backed up against the far wall, in front of a ratty looking but ornate couch with curved legs and lion paw feet. Grinning broadly, as though this eruption into his Vincent Price living room was the most delightful thing he could imagine.
Yeah, right. Sure.
Crouched beside him was Spike: bare-chested, in some outfit that made him look like a circus performer in search of a trapeze. Black, of course, and shiny. All greased up, as though for a Turkish wrestling match, like the one in Topkapi, except none of the wrestlers had worn a big black studded collar, that Dawn recalled. Absolutely Spike’s style: she wondered if he’d gotten it at skins, at the mall, where they’d found the belt to match the watch band. Of the watch he wasn’t wearing.
That was when she noticed both arms were the same: the tattoo, her verse, the poetry that meant Dawn was gone. She was so shocked she almost barged right past except the Lady told her the field had to be secured, or some crap like that, and she only rocked against Giles’ back for a second. Lucky she didn’t have her finger on the taser trigger.
Now that she was freaked, Buffy was calm. “We’ve come for Spike.”
“The Slayer, come to reclaim her pet--how touching. But what if he chooses not to go?” Rayne laid spread fingers on Spike’s shoulder, his grin gone a little rigid. “Now would be a good time, dear boy.”
Spike flashed to game face yet somehow looked no different. He hadn’t said a word or shown any sign of recognizing them, or understanding that this was supposed to be a rescue. Both his arms were braced forward, and his hands were set on a chunk of rock: presumably the fabled Chaos Stone. Otherwise known as the ugly chunk of rock that was doing absolutely nothing whatever.
(“Of course not,” the Lady contributed to the general sense of everybody being strange and off-balance. Profoundly off. “Be prepared to stand aside.”)
Spike bent crooked and flinched: Rayne was hurting him.
Taking Willow’s hand, Giles said, “The ways have been shut. Release Spike and you can go where you will.”
The whole room went strange then in a way Dawn could only see, not describe. It wavered. It seemed new and rich, and tatty and old, each shading into the other. Then it seemed like a mouth about to bite down with big black teeth. Dark snapped like a burnt-out bulb, then flickered. Willow and Giles were doing the yellow Jell-O thing, and Willow had one arm extended, fingers spread, in a sort of stop gesture. She was muttering and sometimes shouting in some language Dawn had yet to acquire and the Lady didn’t bother interpreting for her. In one of the flickering moments, Dawn saw that although the contest was presumably between Rayne and Willow, he and Giles were the ones looking at one another with a terrible sadness.
Then she was shoved aside, within herself, but still enough present to feel her hand go out and fling something invisible, hot, and tingly. She seemed to have thrown it at Spike, since he cried out a vowel sound and collapsed, curling into himself and making a keening noise, rocking and trying to curl tighter still.
He’d fallen away from the stone. The black smacked down like a blown fuse and then was gone. The room was its tatty self again, and Willow was crying and leaning into Giles’ supporting arms. The stone was gone. And so was Ethan Rayne.
(“Not interdimensional,” observed the Lady in a vexed tone of mind. “Teleported. The wretch must have had a retrieval spell set on himself, ready to be triggered. Devious. At least he was unable to take Spike with him.”)
Buffy had dropped the sword and was down on her knees next to Spike, trying to get him to uncurl. He wouldn’t, twisting away from her, wrapping arms over and around his head, dragging back whatever she tried to ease straight, still making that noise. Still suffering.
Dawn dazedly figured out she was back at the wheel again and demanded, “What did you do?”
Her sense of the Lady was distant now: retreating. (“He entrusted you with it. It was therefore symmetrical he receive it again from your hand. We have returned his soul to him. That in turn allowed him to choose. He has chosen.”)
Sitting back on her heels, Buffy was holding up both hands, shiny with whatever grease or oil Spike’s skin was covered with. Looking up at Giles in surprised distress, she announced, “It burns.”
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