4.
Seeing Spike confined to an iron cage was nearly more than Buffy could bear. He hardly slept, as his senses appeared to be at full alert mode twenty-four hours a day. He roared and growled and foamed at the mouth. Buffy spoke to Willow about erecting some wards around the room as a precaution. He needed to be securely contained and even in a feral state Buffy knew he couldn’t be chained indefinitely. At least this way escape was not something Buffy need worry about.
He stayed in full demon mode both asleep and awake for two weeks. It was a frightening spectacle intensified by the fact that Spike didn’t recognize Buffy or Giles. Buffy tossed containers of pig’s blood from a safe distance. She wanted to be a soothing presence but that was not the case. She was nothing more than a tantalizing slab of meat dangling just beyond his grasp, teasing him.
Buffy tried to swallow her fear but was less than successful. Day after day his agitation grew. Occasionally he lashed out at her in words she could decipher. He baited her with the ugliest taunts she’d ever heard and even masturbated in front of her. From that disturbing day Giles took over the feeding duties for a time.
What had she been thinking? She wanted so badly to ease his discomfort but instead she’d stimulated him back to the level of his initial murderous mania. With the onset of her menstruation she should have known better than to go near him. The combination of her mounting fears and the scent of blood was too much for him to take.
What disturbed her most was that she couldn’t get a handle on her fear. It was the scent of her fear that excited him. It hardened him. That was something she’d never experienced, not with the Spike she knew or with the demon she knew. She wasn’t sure what was in that cage. His agony caused her abdomen to ache. Out of necessity, Buffy removed herself from his care for a while. She needed to steel herself and prepare for whatever was to come.
*
For once Buffy was thankful for Giles’ mysterious and misspent youth. He used methods she didn’t need to know about to discover some interesting pieces of information. A little additional detective work confirmed that Drusilla had in fact been in town exactly when Spike went missing. Buffy knew too well what the rest would be. Drusilla was responsible for this.
“I have to find her Giles, she needs to be dust!”
“Buffy, try to calm yourself. I have made calls and set some surveillance in motion.”
“What have you found out?” Buffy looked up from the back table of the shop at the tinkling of the entry bell. It was a customer. That was really beginning to annoy her. Strangers barged right in, walked around touching everything and then had the nerve to interrupt and ask about the merchandise. It was intolerable.
“There’s some good information that Drusilla and her traveling companion, an unidentified demon, boarded a container ship in New York a few days ago. It was bound for Europe.”
“Send out the troops, Giles. She’s got to be stopped. She has to tell me what she did to Spike.” Tears welled again and Buffy’s headache rebounded. Drusilla could have done anything…conjured something…tortured–
“Excuse me, are those the only dodecahedral crystals you carry?” That was the tone of a customer requiring prompt attention. The woman was obviously suffering from the delusion that Buffy worked in retail. She looked out of place in a magic shop, but Giles drew in some weird clients. Why not a soccer mom in a crisp sweater set and drool worthy sling backs? She should be in Target buying a super-econo bale of toilet paper, not in a magic shop asking about potentially unstable vengeance crystals…and why the hell did Giles have those things in his sale inventory in the first place?
Buffy had no patience for pristine looking suburbanites with annoyingly perfect highlights. “Is there something written on my face that says ‘I work here, ask me all your pressing shopping questions?'” Buffy aimed her best don’t mess with me face at the unsuspecting woman.
“Oh! I’m sorry. Don’t you work here?” Buffy’s head dropped to the table top with a wooden thud.
“How can I help you, madam?” Giles’ elegant voice intervened. He discovered that deeply soothing vocalizations positively influenced the bottom line. Amazingly, the more he lulled, the more the customers purchased. Soon the agitated customer started fiddling with her hair. Retail seduction worked like a charm.
Eventually Buffy felt a vibration on the surface of the table and looked up to see Willow opening up her laptop and activating it.
“Will…when did you?” Buffy moved quickly to wipe some drool from the corner of her mouth. She’d fallen asleep at the table. It must have been the sound of Giles’ soothing ‘buy something expensive’ voice.
“I didn’t want to disturb you, Buffy. You were asleep–“
“God, what time is it?” Buffy jerked upright and rubbed her neck. Oak tabletops aren’t the best places for forty winks.
“It’s 3:30.”
“Any news?” Buffy wiped her face with her palms.
Willow had a friend at the university who, thankfully, wasn’t as clueless as his colleagues regarding certain biological anomalies that went bump and grr in the night. He was an elderly professor of archeology but his real passion was forensic demonology. Willow had taken a seminar from him and they became friends. She knew the swab she collected could tell them something, but she needed an expert. If there was mystery demon goo to be classified, then Professor Grzb was your man. Exotic excretions excited him like nothing else. When this learned man peered into the lenses of the powerful microscope, his fastidiously manicured mustache began to quiver.
“Your demon goo guy, did he have anything to say?” Buffy drew her fingers back through her hair.
“Buffy, that stuff practically made Professor Grzb squeal like a little girl. Believe me, that’s not something anyone should witness. It was a little freaky.”
“Was it a good squeal or a bad squeal? Did he say anything that can help Spike?” An absence of customers brought Giles back to the table.
“Have you news, Willow?” At her nod Giles pulled up a chair and waited for Willow to begin.
“At first he thought the sample was tainted because the cellular structure was so odd.”
“Odd is bad.”
“Buffy, please. Do continue Willow,” Giles urged.
“Professor Grzb thinks the enzyme residue indicated the presence of a transmutational demon.”
“What does that mean?” Buffy had never heard of that kind of demon.
“An Alchemist? He thinks he detected that?” Giles’ forehead creases deepened. “What is the evidence?”
“What chemist?” Buffy raised her eyebrows in hope of some answers.
Willow spoke with accelerating enthusiasm. “Well, first he thought it was a catalyst, something like the Prokaryote stone. You remember? When we were trying to break the First’s control over Spike? Well, this thing had a definite cellular substructure and that means it was alive.” That news sent a shudder down Buffy’s spine. Willow continued speaking.
“The protein chains were nothing he’d ever seen before. The spectrometer images indicated that they were in flux. He did the tests several times. It was kind of blurry but the matter reconfigured on its own in each successive sequence.”
“Does that mean a shape shifter?” Buffy asked.
Willow shook her head. “Not a shape shifter, more like a sculptor. And it’s old, like Paleozoic kind of old. The Professor said it was like a living fossil. It was a process of elimination, plus gut instinct. He said a transmutational entity was the only thing that explained his findings.”
Giles looked like he was preparing to speak but his face stayed in pause mode.
“Buffy,” Willow spoke with breathy excitement. “It’s like a demon from a story book…like if you found a unicorn grazing in your backyard.”
“What does this demon do?” Buffy turned to Giles who was still deep in thought. “Giles! Tell me something.”
“Buffy…the chronicles do have some references to Alchemist demons but they are most certainly extinct. I’ve always thought of them as more legend than reality.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“Alchemists were said to be able to feed from the brain of any creature.”
Maybe she didn’t want to know about this after all. “Giles, don’t tell me something’s– Oh God!” Buffy covered her mouth with her palm.
“They were said to be able to alter demon behavior, to eat away illness. Their exact capabilities were never fully specified. As I said, they are extinct; an actual specimen has never been documented.”
“What has this thing done to Spike?”
“Upon a human an Alchemist would certainly bring death, but for a demon the Alchemist could restore strength, presence of mind, purpose. They were said to be purifiers, like the term implies…transmuting base metals into gold.”
“Spike’s been purified? Turned into gold? What the hell does that mean?” Buffy’s mind flashed on the beast that had lunged for her time and time again with nothing but the fires of destruction in its eyes. “Is he still Spike?” Her voice became softer, less sure. “Spike’s a good man. He fought so hard. He has…” A soul. Buffy’s chest began to hitch. She had difficulty catching her breath. “What has she done to him?”
“We don’t have the answer to that yet. Continued observation should shed some light on this. We’ll continue to research, of course.” Giles always had a matter of fact way of addressing problems.
Buffy sat in a stupor, unable to process what she had been told. “Do you have the book that has the legend in it here at the shop?” Giles nodded and stood. He climbed the ladder quickly and brought down an old volume held together with string.
“It’s something at least…isn’t it Buffy?” Willow raised a hopeful eyebrow.
“I don’t know what it is Willow.” Buffy took off the tattered string and opened the fragile book. She wasn’t the best researcher but this was different. This was Spike and he needed her help.
Lost so deep in the woods, he needed help to find his way home again.
Giles walked back behind the counter and pretended to look over an inventory chart. His mind churned. In the past he’d certainly had his differences with Spike but time altered his perspective. His vaunted council had not fared so well in retrospect. Quentin Travers and the others who were erased from this world by the minions of the First would never have seen let alone accepted another truth inside Spike. The same truth Giles came to accept in the aftermath of the First.
The First, the devastation wrought on Sunnydale in the aftermath, Spike’s heroism and near miraculous return; these things changed Rupert Giles and shook him from his previous prejudices. Spike was an integral member of the team as any of them. He was a singular demon. He had an affinity for humanity. He’d earned his soul, saved the world and had been resurrected.
What would that demon have eaten? What could be considered an affliction to be eradicated? What would Drusilla want cleansed? His humanity? His soul? The truth of the champion he’d fought so hard to become? Giles could not shield himself to the possible consequences if this ally was lost to them. Lost to the demon. Lost to the darkness.
It was a cruel irony that Drusilla searched the world over and a handful of minor sub-dimensions as well to find that mythic glow worm and then failed to use it’s restorative abilities for herself. Such was the nature of her madness that she was completely oblivious to her own condition. Drusilla might have attained some kind of peace with that creature’s healing abilities. The Alchemist could have eaten her madness and left her to exist as a vampire but devoid of the torturous legacy of Angelus’ attentions. But for Drusilla, her insanity was the only remnant she had of her beloved sire’s touch. It was her only true possession.
Buffy turned the dusty pages until she came to a page entitled “The Tears of the Maiden”. The print was tiny and in a really distracting font.
“In the time of darkness when the tribes of Moloch wandered without purpose and the clan wars spilled upon the dry land, a sword found its way through the flesh of the unclean…”
It read like a blurb on the cover of some weird fantasy novel or computer game Xander might have quoted, but it was longer than a blurb. Much longer. Apparently, long ago before the primordial swamps got their own Starbucks franchises these biggy big demon god-like thingys wanted to unite the hordes of vampires and other preternaturally creepy crawlies so they found this Amazon tribe of demon maidens and…
Well, from there it went off on a few uninteresting tangents, each heavily detailed with exceptionally vague metaphors complete with unhelpful footnotes. The chronicles could have really used some reader friendly editors. It was tough slogging but Buffy eventually came to a big climactic uprising. The remaining paragraphs were action packed but mystifying. Anyway… big hairy demon warrior and bigger, hairier demon maiden chick and the shedding of a tear that dissolved into the hero and made him all heroic– er, demonic again. The end.
Buffy’s headache began to crackle in her skull. What exactly was she supposed to derive from all this hairy detail?
Prophecies were so much better than legends. Prophecies were succinct at least. For better or worse they usually got to the puzzling point in ten words or less. Legends meandered through reams of perplexing minutiae. Why didn’t the Watchers ever go for a Cliff’s notes version? It would be shorter and easier to digest. Buffy’s head lowered to the table once more with a slow defeated thunk.