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Xanpet
DEDICATION: To Elizabeth, wherever you are. We all love you.
It had been nearly a week since Spike had first seen the monster and the ‘Scooby Gang’ machinery had started to roll. Now it was time to bring all the elements together into a plan, and whatever that plan was, Spike would report to the Viscotti’s.
They were all seated around the large table in the back of the shop. Dawn twiddled her long brown hair. Willow muttered to herself as she put the finishing touches to a spell. Xander and Spike sat on opposite sides of the table. “Could we be any more obvious?” Xander thought.
“Do you wish to begin, Spike?”
“Na, your show Watcher. I’ll just interrupt.”
“Oh, what joy.” Giles deadpanned. “Well, we know Scylla is immortal however upon a closer inspection of the text we find that Odysseus had considered a plan to kill her. He actually asked the Goddess Circe if it were possible. Circe then cries, ‘So you are not prepared to give in even to immortal gods? I tell you Scylla was not born for death: the fiend will live forever. She is a thing to be shunned, intractable, ferocious and impossible to fight. No; against her there is no defence and valour lies in flight.’ She goes on to say that if he delays to put on his armour then Scylla will try again and take more of his men. She is fast.”
Xander waved his hand, “But not ‘vampire fast’ right?”
“Possibly not, but Spike cannot take her alone.”
“Yeah,” Spike added, “And she might just bite me loaf off before she finds out…”
“Oh deal. Like you ever use it?” Dawn chipped in.
“…I’m not edible!” He finished. “Cheeky tyke. No more homework help for you.”
Willow, with her nose still buried in her books, said, “I think, I might, have a slowy time spell or it could be a chant against warts.” She looked up to find them all staring at her with worried looks. “That was a funny, people. Ha ha?”
“I can modify it so that it only slows time for the monster. Tricky, but doable. Now here comes the not so good bit, I have to keep up with the chanting, no fighty fighty for the spell caster.”
Spike decided he should add his bit to the conversation. “That still leaves us with how the fuck do we do the old girl in? Next to the passage Book Man just read there were some notes. Circe says that Odysseus should pray to Crataeis, the creature’s mum and she will stop a second helping of Greek sailor but Crataeis ain’t the only thing credited with birthing the bitch.”
“Certainly not.” Said Giles. “Echidna and Lamia also have that dubious honour and Circe herself may have turned her into the monster.”
“The notes say that all of Echidna’s kids can be destroyed with the sword of their father, the giant, Typhus and…” The next bit Spike said in a singsong voice, “…I know where the sword is.”
It seemed that everything mystical converged on one hellmouth or another eventually. The Spanish who had settled in the area had brought with them many things. Typhus’ sword had been given to the Moorish leaders by the Turks and taken to Spain. Eventually making its way to the Hellmouth. It was in the same crypt as the Gem of Amara had been.
Xander and Spike were to go and get the sword. They would meet the others down by the docks later. As they got to the door, Willow heard Spike say, “You go on, Sunshine, I’ll catch you up.”
She didn’t trust the vampire. She liked him in a strange ‘he wants to kill you but he can’t’ sort of way but vampires by their very nature were duplicitous. “It would by kinda helpy if he ever used a person’s name.” She thought.
She followed him to the phone box on the corner of the street. Casting a ‘see me, hear me’ spell, she sat on a bench as if just taking the air, and listened.
Spike phoned the Viscotti’s. “I wonder if they’re good with coffee?” He thought as he waited for the phone to be answered. “We have a plan.” He said, when it was finally picked up. “We can kill the beast.”
“No.” Said Martin Viscotti, “Allow them to kill her and it’s off. We must bring her back alive.”
“I don’t know what you want with the Whelp anyway. The puppy’d be better off dead but I need this chip thing gone so I guess it’s your shout.”
Willow was in a state of shock. Whelp? Wasn’t that one of Spike’s nicknames for Xander? He used so many. He was trying to get the chip removed. He was going to kill them all! She ran back to the magic shop.
Spike continued his conversation, unaware of the panic in the red headed witch. “So how do I catch her?”
“Injure her and she’ll slow down but recover. Just don’t take the last head or go for the heart. We caught her before. We have the items necessary. Slow her down and we’ll do the rest.”
Then Spike hung up the phone and went to find Xander. Inside the magic shop however the panic and anger was rising. Without the Slayer, an unchipped Master Vampire could be extremely bad news.