3.
Spike woke again. A pillow lay under his head and his legs were tangled in a blanket. A few comforts for the condemned? That didn’t make sense. Comfort never factored into Angelus’ games. Spike felt woozy and his head ached. His blurred vision cleared to reveal that same girl sitting in the chair. She was looking at a magazine, but only just. Her focus was on Spike. There was something about her he couldn’t quite articulate.
“You work for him, sweetheart?”
“Who?”
“Angelus.” Spike let out an irritated sigh. Humans for minions? Entr‚es didn’t really qualify as a useful workforce. Maybe the poof was getting sloppy in his old age, mixing up muscle with munchies. Spike pushed himself up against the wall and draped his wrists over his widely spread knees. “AN-GE-LUS!” he bellowed as his face twisted with bitterness. Mysteries bored him. “WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE WITH DRU?”
“Sorry. No Angelus here. No Dru either. Only me and you.” Buffy looked at him and went back to her reading. The lives of bed hopping starlets usually held her interest, but today she couldn’t get past the first paragraph. Her companion snickered at her.
“You can’t fool me. This has Angelus written all over it. Where’s the old bugger at?” Spike tilted his head to one side and called out with false sweetness. “Yoo hoo! PEACHES!” Buffy shifted her hands to conceal her smirk with the magazine.
“OI! ANGELUS! Get your arse in here!” The lack of a response gave way to a darkly thoughtful expression. “What are you, pet, one of his whores? He still likes ’em young and tender I see.” Buffy’s breath caught in her throat. She blinked and forced a neutral expression, but she couldn’t stop her accelerating heartbeat.
“I’m the one with the blood supply, you baboon. Think before you insult me.”
“Yeah? Well get a fucking stake, girlie, and get this over with because I bore easily. I’m not a bloody puppet for him or you or anyone.” He could hear her heart pounding from across the room. His teeth itched at the thought of draining her, swimming in her blood. A sweet little thing like that? She’d top him up nicely. That would teach Angelus. Send a bloody useless human to do a demon’s work. The bastard must have gone soft or something. He better not be meddling with Drusilla.
Spike’s headache rebounded with the thought of Drusilla out there, alone and unwell. Then the oddest thought struck him. He wasn’t hungry, not at all. For some reason this human was feeding him. It was the only explanation. He tried to stretch his mind around that concept when another disturbing thought drifted into his mind. If there was a possibility that this situation was not Angelus’ doing, then he was in trouble.
*
When Buffy wasn’t in the Magic Box she wandered the rooms of her home in silent desperation. Days passed with little effort expended on her part to acknowledge them. She had no appetite for food and ate infrequently. Each day began and ended with the same uneasy malaise weighing down her heart. Nothing existed but his absence.
He wasn’t telling her they were low on beer and crisps. He wasn’t delighting in the latest over the top schemes on “Passions”. He wasn’t out sneaking a smoke on the back porch. He wasn’t waiting to pounce from behind their bedroom door. He wasn’t there, period. Not in their home, not in their bed. Not anywhere she could find him. He was just gone.
And then it started again, like a videotape paused at the ready to tell the tale anew. Idle thoughts brought it all back in lurid clarity. The helplessness Buffy felt that day consumed her once again.
It wasn’t like Spike not to come home. His days of disappearing were behind him. They made a pact and made promises. They had a future. They had a reason. They had each other. By the time Buffy realized that something was up and that she should start looking, the trail had gone cold.
After a disappearance of three days, Spike reappeared on Buffy’s doorstep. A large demon deposited Spike’s still form and rang the doorbell before sprinting away at a speed too swift and agile for one so extensively muscled.
Buffy opened the door and there he was, not conscious, but seemingly unhurt. There was a trickle of blood on his earlobe. At Buffy’s alarm, Giles and Willow came to the door. Buffy brought Spike inside and knelt beside him on the floor, trying to assess his condition. Slowly, his face began to move, morphing uneasily into various gradations of the demon and human visage. It was obviously causing him pain.
“Giles, what is this? What’s wrong with him?” Buffy looked up into Giles’ puzzled face. Willow was the one who registered a change in Spike. She sensed the residue of a powerful demon energy. It permeated Spike. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. This was not good, not good at all.
“Buffy, do you have any of that demon tranquilizer left?” Willow’s tone indicated that urgency was required.
“Will, it’s Spike.” Buffy failed to register the supernatural crescendo Willow sensed.
“This isn’t right. Buffy, something is really wrong. Can’t you feel it? We have to confine him. Now. Get the tranquilizer!” An alien sound escaped Spike’s lips, a deep and scraping caterwaul.
Buffy raced to the weapons chest in the living room and plunged into its depths. A lone dart lay discarded at the bottom under a pile of impressive blades. She returned just as Spike started to move.
“Buffy! NOW!” Willow commanded. Buffy wrenched off the plastic tip and jabbed the full dart into Spike’s thigh, straight through his denim. The demon erupted instantly from a quiet state of repose to one of scratching, seething, homicidal mania.
He was all eyes and fangs and flailing limbs. He flew at Buffy with a fury that stunned her. It was all she could do to hold him off of her with both hands gripping his throat at the furthest length of her reach. She saw deep, empty, evil yellow eyes. His feral snarl of killing passion did not abate. She was prey. A meal. Only warm blood to him.
Just as Buffy felt her trembling arms begin to buckle, Spike’s forehead undulated and he fell unconscious against her body.
“What the hell?” Buffy gasped in shock. She drew in huge breaths. “Giles? Willow?” Her eyes opened wide with concern and fear. She wriggled out from under Spike’s loosening death grip. “I don’t think I could have held him off much longer. He’s way stronger than he’s ever been. What’s happened to him?”
“We don’t have time to talk,” Willow interrupted again. “He’s got to be someplace secure, like right now.”
“Manacles, Buffy, and heavy chains.” Giles spoke up with authority. He began to plan an immediate course of action. Buffy took off into the basement at a run and quickly brought up a cardboard box full of chains. She returned to the foyer to see Willow kneeling at Spike’s side wiping a tissue over his earlobe and placing it in a zip lock baggy.
“Willow?”
“We’ll need to research eventually, and this is something researchable. I’ve seen C.S.I. enough times to know a clue when I see it.”
They worked quickly and manacled Spike securely. Over Buffy’s protests they placed Spike in Giles’ trunk and drove at an alarming speed to the Magic Box. They carried him into a secure room Giles had installed for demon interrogation. Buffy dragged in a heavy iron cage and put Spike into it. Willow assured her the cage would keep Spike from hurting himself. Buffy swallowed her qualms and relented.
Someone had done something to Spike. He was dangerous like this. He needed to be kept safe and secure. Willow and Giles would figure things out and find a solution. Until then, Spike would want to be restrained. Berserk wasn’t something Spike did anymore and he’d be devastated if he did something deadly under the influence of whatever this was.
Willow was right, they hadn’t much time. Almost as soon as he was secured behind iron bars, Spike regained consciousness. Three accelerated heartbeats and nervous breathing proved too much of a stimulant. Spike lunged and strained through the bars and howled in his torment. The most humane action seemed to be to remove the irritant their presence caused.
Giles and Willow slipped from the room. Buffy stood at the door for a moment listening as Spike growled guttural curses in half a dozen demon languages. Her skin felt heavy and her legs began to prickle with a spreading numbness. She looked quickly at the internal perimeter of the room. It seemed sturdy enough. She hoped it would hold him until she could bring him back.
With her mind otherwise occupied, Buffy slowly walked down the long corridor to the shop, willing one numb foot in front of the other. She joined Giles and Willow at the research table and stood motionless beside it. No words were spoken for the longest time. Soon the familiar piping of the tea kettle spurred Giles to action.
Finally Buffy spoke. “I thought you were building an office back there.” Her voice barely registered above a whisper. She was grateful for the secure location but it was hardly constructed with this purpose in mind. The room was basically a steel box with a drain in the floor. A drain that would be needed if there was something to be drained away.
“It was needed.” Giles replied tersely and then attended to the tea. He prided himself at how faithfully he adhered to these rituals of civilization, because he was a civilized man. A civilized man who designed a demon interrogation cell with a drain in the floor to eliminate all manner of nasty fluids.
Buffy nodded absently. Yes, she could see it was needed. Even she realized that sometimes the rules of order had to be tossed. The demon hordes hardly subscribed to established rules of conduct or combat.
“Have some tea, Buffy.” His voice was soft and soothing. Giles turned the tea cup around and angled the handle towards her. A proper tea cup and saucer for a proper gentleman. Spike would have fished out his mickey bottle and forgone the tea for some Jim Beam.
“I have to go back in there.” Buffy stood and started to shake.
“In a minute Buffy, you need to get your bearings. He’s…he’s not going anywhere. Have some tea…there’s biscuits.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Buffy looked at Willow and back to Giles, her face etched with confusion and the beginnings of panic.
“We’ll find out, Buffy. We will. I’m on it.”
“Willow…he’s–” The room tilted in her sight and Buffy’s legs gave out. She collapsed to the floor, heaving a sudden weight of fear from her body in gasps that had no end. Willow took Buffy in her arms and cradled her, rocking her in support and comfort. Giles knelt and placed his hand on Buffy’s back.
They would figure this out. Giles had ways of retrieving needed information. He was ready to use every resource available, and as one of the highest ranking Watchers that arsenal was considerable. But there would be time for that, for research and intimidation and good old fashioned torture if needs be. Right now Buffy needed him to be strong for her.
She needed him to tell her what none of them could know for sure, that everything was going to work out.
Now she needed the comfort of lies.