32.
“Uh– uh– uh– uh–“
Harmony’s voice convulsed to a trickle of staccato blips. Barely supported by numb legs, she neared a state of vampiric apoplexy staring at the empty space that now held only a tiny scorched smudge. An identical scorched smudge seared the recesses of her battered heart.
Hamilton’s icy demeanor wobbled while he tried to process the past couple of weeks. What sprang to mind was a number of dancing interludes and countless satisfying sexual encounters involving among other props, a feather duster, a table tennis paddle and some lick-me-quick edible body paints. He’d been held in the grip of a powerful spell that forced him to behave in a decidedly unprofessional manner by engaging in a personal relationship with what he now knew was the faux CEO of Wolfram and Hart and an emotionally unstable vampire. There was, however, one caveat in the whole sordid mess; magical interference meant limited personal liability on his part. Yeah, he could work that angle. No problem.
“Miss Kendall–“
“Don’t you Miss Kendall me,” Harmony howled. “YOU ZAPPED MY PUSSY! And…and now…”
Her eyes swept wildly back and forth. The truth settled into her fragile consciousness in waves of unwelcome restitution. She wasn’t the respected boss at the hub of a vast corporate super structure, people didn’t hang on her every word and the assembled crowd didn’t really care for her that much. It was her worst nightmare magnified to apocalyptic proportions.
“I’m a big NOBODY again!” She stamped her foot in anguish.
“Calm down, muffin– I mean, um, Miss Kendall.”
“I told you so,” Spike spoke to no one in particular and took out the well-thumbed note pad from his breast pocket. After flipping through several pages he at last indicated a line of writing with his index finger. “Enchanted pussy. Not my first choice but it was on my list.” Spike held up the page and tapped his fingertip near a line of knotted scrawl. “Bloody obvious really,” he reasoned, “now that I think of it.”
“Shut it, Spike,” Angel snapped.
“Yeah, right. Music to my ears.” Spike pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket. “Sod off, you big, stinky wanker. Liked you better when you were making the coffee.” A muscular flick of his lighter completed the insult.
“HELP!” Andrew’s distress could now be heard distinctly. “Buffy! Somebody! ANYBODY! I’m trapped under a pile of unstable rubble, my sinuses are inflamed and I think I’m claustrophobic!”
“Wait a minute.” Fred rubbed her temples, still uncertain of what was real. “Harmony’s not…”
“Harmony is NOT.” Spike sighed with satisfaction and a rousing internal chorus of I told you so.
“Oh God, I think I work for Wolfram and Hart!” Buffy pulled her name tag from the pocket of her two toned, pink velour tracksuit. There it was in black and white with pink highlights. “Greeter: Hi, my name is Buffy.” Memories of happily greeting all manner of unsavory characters flooded her mind. There was also a memory of hot rollers, volumizing hairspray and a tiara that concerned her.
“Harmony– I mean Angel, I quit!” Buffy’s hands flew to her hair to check that she wasn’t, in fact, wearing a tiara. Thankfully, there was no tiara, but she was wearing a sparkly scrunchy and a constrictive push-up bra that was doing amazing things for her cleavage.
“Nice scrunchy, Buffy,” Dawn smirked at her sister’s color palette.
“Autographs, anyone?” Buffy shot back.
“Shutting up now,” Dawn sighed and stayed close to her sister.
“I’m sure we can all put this unpleasantness behind us.” Hamilton assumed the familiar facial expression of corporate detachment.
That wasn’t going to cut it with Harmony. Her chest heaved with sobs that wouldn’t stop. What was the point of being a totally hot, supernatural babe if she was constantly at the mercy of her emotions? One thing was certain: corporate phenomenon Harmony didn’t cry all day long. She got the job done and broke hearts while doing so. Harmony swallowed her pain and forced herself to calm. There’d be time to crumble and cry later. Now she needed to avenge the one true friend she had in all the world.
“You can’t kill Mr. Pussy and get away with it,” she declared miserably. “I won’t let you.” Harmony tried to sound as confident and in control as before but it wasn’t the same. Her shoulders drooped with the returning weight of sorrow.
“Nor will I.” Wesley stepped forward and stood ready to respond. Hamilton would be called to account if Wesley had any say in the matter. An ego as malignant as Hamilton’s could not go unchallenged and Wesley’s personal code of honor demanded action. Gallantry had not evaporated along with the kitten.
“I don’t get it.” Contempt flowed unabated from Hamilton’s lips. “All this loyalty for that mangy, flea bitten scrap of fur?”
“Hey!” Angel’s voice rose along with a digit of warning. “That’s our mascot you’re–” He stopped talking. The complications had begun. Angel knew that wasn’t true but he still felt a pang of anger that Mr. Pussy had been lost to the supercilious whim of Marcus Hamilton.
“Liked the little fella, myself.” Spike flared his nostrils, eager for the violence to begin. The pungent scent of conflict hung heavy in the air. “He was good company.”
Gunn agreed and stepped forward beside Wesley, Spike and Angel ready for a confrontation but they were all blindsided by the cataclysmic rage of Harmony Kendall.
“WE CALLED HIM MR. PUSSY!”
She slammed herself full force upon the physically imposing tower of muscle that was her former lover. The unwieldy tackle threw them both against the now animated machine. Even with her vampiric strength and vengeful motivation, Harmony was no match for him. With little more than a flick of his wrist, Hamilton sent her sailing backward across the floor in an unladylike sprawl on her bottom.
“Hang on there, matey,” Wesley spoke through clenched teeth. He’d had enough of Hamilton’s conceited disregard for common decency and wanted nothing more than to crush him like a bug. Harmony wasn’t his boss anymore but he didn’t wish her ill. “It’s not cricket to strike a lady.”
In a flash Wesley, Gunn, and Angel rushed Hamilton, followed closely by Buffy, Lorne and Fred. Dawn ran in the opposite direction toward the complaining pile of drywall. She started peeling off layers in order to free Andrew.
“Angel!” Spike bellowed. “Back off for once! You’re getting everyone covered in dragon guts.”
Not wanting to be left out of the fray, Spike flicked aside his cigarette and took a running leap off a nearby railing. He dove at the furious and slippery heap of fighting force and knocked the surly pyramid of fists to the ground. A few moments later everyone flew away from Hamilton in a spray of bruised bodies as he repulsed their attack with seemingly little effort.
Hamilton picked up his remote, rose to his feet again and wiped the dregs of dragon juice from his crinkled lapel. “Come now, folks.” He took a moment to straighten his tie and slowly crack his neck. “Can’t we all get along?” His smirk had never looked more cruel. “I may start to take your animosity personally.”
Wesley raised to his elbows and found himself within easy reach of one of the pistols. Without another thought he grabbed the weapon and emptied the full clip of bullets directly at Hamilton. The bullets hit their mark, no question, but incredibly, they flattened to misshapen lumps against his torso and dropped to the floor, leaving only a small grouping of telltale scorch marks on the fine Italian weave.
Wesley’s eyes widened with incredulity. “Oh, bugger,” he gulped.
“Now that was just rude,” Hamilton laughed and wiped aside a few detached fibers. “I swear, there’s no appreciation for handmade craftsmanship these days.”
“Come on, Angel,” Spike rallied with murderous intent. At last things were getting interesting. “We can take him. No way this tosser is Superman.”
“STOP!” Harmony yelped and scampered through the Wolfram and Hart team toward Hamilton, waving her arms wildly to thwart any further assault. “Stop attacking my boyfriend!” She spread her petite form like a shield between Hamilton and the good guys.
“Stand aside Harmony,” Wesley spoke harshly. “Don’t defend him. This blackguard has no regard for you beyond a momentary flash of physical pleasure and I have serious doubts of whether he’s even capable of that.”
“Yeah, he used you Harmony,” Fred called out. “Like a sex tissue.”
“You could do way better than him, girl,” Gunn added, not that he was volunteering or anything.
“The spell is broken, right?” Spike questioned. “Forget the after school special, we need to get back to the scrappin’ right quick.”
“I’m all for the kicking of a certain butt,” Buffy indicated her agreement.
“WAIT! I can’t lose everything!” Harmony wailed and acknowledged a distressing inventory. “Mr. Pussy, being CEO and now the bestest boyfriend that I ever, ever had.”
“Ta, love.” Spike rolled his eyes. He’d been on the receiving end of Harmony’s dramatics before.
She threw herself again at Hamilton, but this time she looked like a pathetic female desperate not to lose her man. She oozed herself over Hamilton’s apparently impervious person, activating all her feminine wiles . “You know what you were saying before about ruling the world, Hammy? I think I’d like that. Very much.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Lorne hadn’t anticipated this development. “Harmony’s switching sides?”
“Of course she’s switching sides,” Spike blinked, nonplussed. “She’s Harmony!”
“People, please!” Lorne pleaded, his palms raised in conciliation. “In the immortal words of Al Green, let’s stay together!”
“Jesus, Harmony, control yourself.” Angel looked upon the sorry display with discomfort. “Have some pride. This guy’s not worth it.”
“What do you know, Angel?” Harmony lashed out with bitter tears of anguish. “Everybody loves you! Buffy, Cordelia, that hairy girl, what’s-her-name? I won’t lose the Hamster of love! I won’t!” Once again Harmony burst into tears and buried her face in Hamilton’s pocket square.
“There’s a hairy girl?” Buffy looked askance at Angel.
“We’ve had a few dates.”
“‘Hamster of love’?” Lorne curled his upper lip with repulsion. “I’m starting to feel lightheaded, kids. I may need to sit down.”
“BUFFY DOESN’T LOVE ANGEL!” Spike announced with theatrical flair. “What do I have to do to convince you lot? Take out a classified ad? She’s moved on, okay? Angel is ancient…bloody…history. She and I are an item and have been for years. If you’d paid attention at all, you would know that by now.”
A sharp wolf whistle brought everyone’s attention back to the crisis at hand. Fred spoke with uncharacteristic harshness. “Focus! We’re talking apocalypse here, remember? There’s still a hell machine to deal with.”
At that prompt, Harmony made a fumbling grab for the hand held control in Hamilton’s grasp. It was an unexpected, valiant and foolhardy move.
“Not so fast.” Hamilton struck like a viper, grabbing Harmony by the throat and holding her aloft in his unyielding grip.
“Way to be devious, Harmony!” Fred cheered the vampire’s action. “I almost thought– Wow, you go girl! Harmony’s still one of us!”
“Yay us,” Spike commented dryly.
Harmony winked at Fred and then stuck her tongue out at Spike while she dangled helplessly from Hamilton’s relentless grip like a deflated doll. Something close to admiration shone in Hamilton’s eyes. If he wasn’t just about to rip off her head and be done with it he might have considered another tumble on the sheets. The vampire had pluck.
“Oh, muffin, you’re still trying to win. I love that about you.” He puckered his meaty lips, blew her a kiss and activated the remote. The huge phallus extension began to glow an ominous purple as the power levels increased yet again.
“Yeah, I tried.” Harmony gurgled and clawed at his crushing grip.
Sensing victory close at hand, Hamilton ignored Harmony’s dwindling actions and spoke to the others in a voice of buoyant, despotic triumph. “Let me make it perfectly clear for the rest of you losers, you’re not going to win so you may as well stop trying. Not only is the deck stacked against you but you were never really in the game. The house has all the cards and all the chips. Don’t you see? You can’t win.”
“Okay…has he always been this much of a butt munch or is it me?” Buffy interrupted Hamilton’s self-aggrandizing momentum to take an opinion poll. “Because, I’m thinking, nice shoes, nice suit…personality could use an extreme make-over.”
Wesley answered in a tone of casual contempt. “It’s not you. He is, in fact, a butt munch beyond compare.”
“Thought so.” Buffy stood defiant.
“Silence!” Hamilton demanded. “You’re nothing but puny ants that I will squash beneath my feet!”
“Would that be your butt munch feet?” Angel added a smirk.
“Could do with some work on his rhetoric,” Spike commented. “Bit fey if you ask me.”
“His whole aura simply screams over compensating,” Lorne waded in with his own derisive one-two punch. “It’s sad, really. I guess it is true what they say, big hell machine, small–“
“Shut up!” Hamilton shouted, color rising in his cheeks for the first time. “This world is finished and all you miserable vermin along with it. It can’t be stopped! Not by you…not by anyone!” Hamilton had the comic book villainy down pat, complete with bulging forehead veins, ominous, empty eyes and a maniacal, ghoulish laugh.
It soon became obvious that holding Harmony aloft interfered with his plans to gloat and preen, the established routine of any maniacal psychopath. He abruptly dropped her lifeless body to the ground in order to revel in his victory and initiate the final sequence of the machine. “You haven’t the mental capacity to begin to comprehend the scope of our greatness. The human race is nothing but an amoeba in a single drop of water compared to the ocean of the Wolf, Ram and Hart.”
“See what I’m saying?” Spike needled. “F-A-Y.”
“E-Y,” Wesley corrected.
“E-Y?” Spike questioned. “You sure?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You should be on your knees before me,” Hamilton’s eyes glowed a strange, violet light. “I have the strength, knowledge and resources of the Senior Partners at my fingertips,” he raved, “in my hands…” His thumb hovered over a small black button. “Flowing through my veins!”
“Thanks for sharing, pookie,” Harmony choked out the words, morphed and bit decisively into Hamilton’s undefended and ample crotch. The resounding crunch that followed caught everyone’s attention while efficiently immobilizing Hamilton. Instead of pressing the remote, he crushed it in his fist in an involuntary spasm. In seconds his boisterous and singularly unattractive megalomania shrank to a few helpless yelps of paralyzing pain.
“Now, this is a Kodak moment if ever there was one,” Buffy indicated with satisfaction. “You’ve got style, Harmony. I’ve got to give you credit for that.”
The male contingency stepped back as a single, choreographed unit.
“YE-AHK!” Lorne squawked at the merciless display and moved his hands automatically to shield his crotch. All the males in the room let loose a collective shudder of extreme vulnerability and mirrored this protective posture.
After Hamilton collapsed to the floor, Harmony struck like lightning and bit deeply into his jugular. Angel took a step closer to see if Harmony required any assistance.
“Oi, Angel! Keep your distance,” Spike warned as he stepped further back. “That’s some serious scorn, that is.”
“Well done, Harmony, um, continue.” Angel praised her quick and vengeful thinking and then retreated to a safe distance.
Unfortunately, Hamilton was only part of the equation. They still had a hell machine chugging away on autopilot or self-destruct mode or some equally catastrophic setting. The metal monster wobbled and shook in a dangerous volcanic dance while intermittent lasers burst forth from the blunt aperture, opening minute rifts in the air and ground. To make matters worse, a vicious wind of hellish origin squeezed through the dimensional incisions and whipped around the ruined warehouse at a harrowing velocity.
Amid the confusion, Fred tried her best to make sense of the control panel of the machine.
“Your research?” Wesley strained his voice to be heard above the growing din. “Could it be applied?” Fred looked at Wesley with frantic eyes. She didn’t have time for anything fancy. Her mind raced over the promising experiments she’d conducted with stable dimensional thresholds but this wasn’t her lab or her equipment. And hell was just about to bust out all over.
“We have to do something!” Gunn shouted at the top of his lungs.
“That knob looks ready to blow!” Buffy yelled.
“I can’t take this!” Lorne shrieked.
“Just unplug it.” All eyes turned to see the powdery figure of a man. Andrew stood coated in dry wall dust, leaning against Dawn. “When your points are down, sometimes it’s the only viable option.”
Fred and Wesley looked at each other. Could it be that simple? They were dealing with a self-contained machine that had to be given specific instructions. “On” and “Off” were fairly standard commands for gadgets; even sleek, penis shaped hell gadgets and this machine was obviously running from some self-contained power source. They needed to get to that source.
Fred erupted from the pilot’s seat and began feeling her way around the back of the machine. The others immediately joined her. “Look for an access panel!” she ordered. Every set of hands scratched at the gleaming, impenetrable surface.
“I’ve got something!” Gunn yelled as he outlined the camouflaged panel. Buffy’s smaller fingers had more success and she easily ripped it off.
Angel and Spike stepped forward, itching to get on with the actual hero work. Angel had already dispatched a dragon and nothing was going to stop him from unplugging the machine that could destroy Los Angeles and unleash hell on earth. For his part, Spike wasn’t about to let Angel get the jump on him, not with Buffy watching.
Operating on high octane, adrenalin overdrive, Lorne impulsively pushed Spike, Angel and Buffy aside. He reached inside the mysterious machine with both hands, grabbed a pulsating, spongy metal mass with hundreds of coiled tubes attached and with a grunt of effort yanked it free. The machine released a sharp squeal of air and powered down instantly. Dozens of small, glowing fissures fizzled out of existence as the dimensional barrier stabilized once more.
“Ouch! Ouch! OUCH!” Lorne threw the throbbing device over his shoulder and glanced at his melting hands. The room began to swirl around him. Voices of jubilation slowed to a single, distorted honk and then faded to silence. Similarly, the relieved faces of his friends fused into a jumble of eyes and noses. Lorne stared at a remove while the injured Pylean teetered in slow motion. Unable to move, Lorne could only think that someone really needed to help that poor guy. When he raised a finger to catch someone’s attention he noticed skin dripping from his hands. His mottled, green hands.
The pain returned like a roaring train.
“Medic! I need a med–” Lorne’s eyes rolled back into his head and he fainted dead away.