Chapter 7
The
The slayers kept shifts. All
four of them were awake for eight hours during the night, two stayed with Buffy
and two with the baby. Then from early morning until late evening only two
would stand guard as the other pair took their eight hours rest. It was a
tedious business but they took it seriously and stayed alert.
Erica and Chris had pulled the
babysitting duty and were sitting outside the room, where the sleeping babies
were monitored.
“Erica?” The bigger girl looked
across as her name was whispered. “That nurse…?”
Erica looked across and knew
what her partner meant. The nurse set her slayer senses jangling.
“Vampire.” She whispered back.
Chris nodded. “I’ll go deal.”
She disappeared from sight. The
‘nurse’ appeared to feel something was amiss and sped up. Erica remained
watchful. The nurse may be a distraction, which meant she might have to deal
with the real thing. She tensed, as once again she heard her name being
whispered.
“Erica…”
“Angelus.” She replied.
“So I get to deal with the fat
slayer. My lucky night.”
She moved with all the
additional speed and strength that the recent training with Spike had given her,
to pull off a surprise attack. Angelus was sent reeling as a punch crashed into
the side of his head.
“Whoa! Has somebody got some
muscles hidden somewhere under those layers of flab?”
A spinning kick and her
outstretched foot caught him on the chin cracking his head backwards. He
somersaulted further down the corridor, she followed keeping him covered and he
took a moment longer than he needed to recover, hoping to entice her in, but
she’d been taught well and maintained her distance.
“Not quite so svelte yourself
these days, Angelus.”
“Luckily mine is solid muscle. Rock
hard, I promise you. Would you like to feel?” He gave an impish grin.
She just maintained her watchful
stance.
“In my day someone with your
ample shape would have been a tavern wench.”
She bent and drew a stake from
her boot.
“Uh, uh. I know the drill.
You’re supposed to capture me alive.” He licked his lips. “A little dangerous
waving sticks around in front of a vampire.”
He backed away a couple of steps
to give himself more room and then swung in with a foot to her solar plexus but
she caught it before it could strike, he used the firmness of her grip to flip
backwards into a standing position, landing with a solid thump. She dived in
low and swept out with her left leg, hoping his landing would be off balance
and she could bring him crashing to the ground. He anticipated the manoeuvre
and leapt over her leg, leaving her disadvantaged and frantically trying to
recover her position. The momentum of his jump carried him forward so that he
was now behind the slayer.
She suddenly found herself being
hauled up, one arm around her neck, whilst the other hand snatched the stake
from her loosened grip.
“You know, I really think tavern
wench would have been the better career move.” He pulled her tightly to his
body and a small gasp escaped her. “I’ve been in this position with so many of
them. You would have been perfect at it. Serving the customers before you…
serviced the customers. You slayers! Fighting gets you so damned horny, I could
take you here and now and you’d love it wouldn’t you?”
He played the wooden stake over
her body, letting it stroke her lips, down over her neck, caressing her exposed
cleavage. He could smell her arousal and knew he spoke the truth.
“It must be so rare for a slayer
to feel dominated. It’s a turn on isn’t it? In the old days I’d have obliged.
You could have me one side me and Spike the other… Oh! That got you. Did you
like that little image? Looking down and seeing one dark head and one blonde,
nestling into you?”
His dirty, sweet words were
exposing a frailty she never knew she had. Her knees were turning to jelly and
her stomach was churning. She wanted what he described. She closed her eyes and
came back to her senses. It was just a scenario, it wasn’t on offer to her and
she’d better accept that and get on with the job.
Angelus felt the change in her
stance and sensed she had mastered her weakness. To her surprise he was
gradually loosening his grip.
“Sorry, Sweetness, I was just
the enjoyable distraction. The baby is gone.”
Her head whipped around and she
saw the door to the baby’s room had been broken open. He punched her with all
the force of his vampire strength and, cold clocked, she went down. He quickly
set off to rendezvous with Smith.
Chris returned. She’d killed the
vampire. It had some skill, but was probably only a fledge. The open door first
caught her eye, she looked down the corridor and saw Erica just beginning to
come around.
“Oh hell! What happened?”
“Angelus.”
“He got the baby?”
“Seems so.” She got to her feet.
“Better go face the music.”
“So Angelus was tough then?”
Chris gave her friend an arm to
lean on.
“Yeah he was, but you remember
how Spike warned us that he’d distract us with words?”
“Uh huh.”
“If I have to face him again I’m
going to stopper my ears with wax.”
“What did he say?”
“It’s still a bit… you know. I’ll
tell you about it later when this whole thing is over with. I might be able to
laugh about it then.”
“That bad?” Chris sympathised.
“Let’s just say I never really
understood the seductive power of vampires until now.”
“Oh? Oh…”
oooo
Angelus stripped off his leather
coat and handed it over to Smith, taking the baby in return.
“I want you to distract them.
Make sure they see you and then run in any direction except back to the lair.
Here.”
He took a shawl from the baby
and handed it to Smith.
“Wrap a stone or a bag or
something in that. Make it look like you’ve still got the brat.”
Smith nodded his understanding
and Angelus got into the car and put his foot down, heading back to the
warehouse.
Meanwhile the slayers were
regrouping. Buffy was sleeping and Giles made the decision that she was not to
be told until the morning. He sincerely hoped the baby would be recovered
before then.
Kirsty was staring out the
window.
“Hey you guys? I think I can see
Angelus and the baby.”
He seemed to suddenly notice
that he’d been spotted and hugging his bundle to him he strode away.
“Right. Kirsty and Neesha follow
him and keep in touch. Call if you need backup. Erica and Chris, I’ll take you
to the lair and we’ll pick up Spike. We still have the advantage, Angelus
doesn’t know that we have located his lair. There is every chance that that’s
where Angelus is heading this very moment.”
“Ummm.” Andrew half raised his
hand. “What shall I do?”
“Sorry. I assumed you’d want to
come along and rescue Spike.”
“Rescue… Sure that would be
cool.” He agreed and tried to hide his smile at the thought of seeing Spike
again.
The two slayers who were chasing
on foot had already left, the rest of them headed to Giles’ car. An air of
excitement hung over them. This was the fight that the slayers had been waiting
for since Angelus had first emerged and Spike had been snatched.
oooo
Spike could feel the effects of
Angelus’ blood as it coursed powerfully through his body. And it seemed not
just his body. His mind was gradually awakening again. He knew his job wasn’t
completed and he couldn’t afford the self-pity of blanking out. He stretched
out his muscles and couldn’t understand why he was still unchained. Perhaps
Angelus had considered him completely broken and decided he was no longer a
threat. He reached out and gulped down the second bottle of pig’s blood. It
helped, but it was Angelus’ blood that had done the trick. What had possessed
the old Poof to share his blood?
He stood up and felt returning
strength flowing through him. He stretched a couple of times and winced as
bones seemed to click back into place. He then went through some whiplash fast
moves. He was only a couple of weeks away from his intensive training with the
slayers. With his strength back, he was satisfied that he still had the moves.
His eyes gleamed with a new determination.
“Bring it on, Angelus.”
He went up the steps and
hammered on the door. No one shouted or responded and he assumed he was alone.
The door was steel and of heavy industrial construct, the weakness would be at
its hinges. If he had time he might eventually get through, but he suspected
time was the one the one thing he was short off.
He went back down and walked the
perimeter of the room. He could hear flowing water and knew that sometimes a warehouse
would be built into the bank of the river, so unlike the other three walls the
riverside wall would not be underground. This appeared to be the case here. He
knocked on the walls as he passed and found a weakness. There was an old double
door that faced the river, which had been blocked up in more recent times. The
newer bricks were built abutting the old wall, without being dovetailed in. He
gave it a kick and could feel it shudder and crack along the joining seam. He
did it again, this time throwing all his strength into it. A part of the wall
shifted and fell, and Spike was scenting freedom for the first time since his
capture.
He wriggled outside and made his
way to the front of the warehouse and then back in thorough the front entrance.
He walked around and examined the space where he would take on Angelus. He took
it as a good omen that the first thing he found was his clothes and duster, and
with a sense of satisfaction he pulled them on. It made him feel like his old
self again. Unbeatable. All his doubts and questions and frailties began to
dwindle. Shit happens, deal, move on. That was the only philosophy that had
ever made any sort of sense to him. Ok, the doubts were still there but he was
beginning to bounce back again, just like he always did.
He found an ideal spot on top of
some packing cases, to the right of the door. From here he had a view of the
whole floor. He worked loose a solid baton of wood, used to support the corners
of the wooden cases. It came free and he hefted it in his hand, getting a feel
for the weight and the balance. It felt good but needed a better point. He
worked on that whilst he sat down to await his Sire’s return. Sharpening the
stake against the brick wall, grinding it into a fine point was soothing and prevented him from dwelling on
who else might walk through the door with him. He would deal with that when it
happened.
oooo
Neesha’s voice crackled over the
radio.
“We’ve caught up with the
vampire. He is not. Repeat. Is not Angelus. The baby is not with him. He was a
decoy.”
“Very good. Stake it and make
your way to the lair.” Giles replied.
“Will do.”
Andrew cleared his throat
nervously.
“Ummm. So Angelus will be back
at the warehouse then... with Spike?”
“Don’t worry, Chris and I can
take him.” Erica was still smarting from her earlier defeat.
“I’m not worried.” He lied, “But
shouldn’t we be discussing tactics, making plans? Supposing he threatens Spike
or the baby or…”
“Andrew. We’ve been trained by
the best. We’ll suss out the situation and we’ll adapt.”
“Andrew’s right.” Giles agreed.
“We need some basics in place. We want to take Angelus alive but he is not to
escape again and he is not to harm the baby. If there is any threat of that
happening you’re to do whatever it takes. However, we have the tranquillizer
guns, so if you can hold him for a second Andrew or myself will take him down.
We need to handle this as a team and all stay aware of what our goals and
priorities are.”
“And Spike?” Andrew asked.
“If anyone can handle Angelus
it’s Spike. He’s not our immediate priority.”
Chris and Erica exchanged looks
and nodded. Giles had allowed sentiment to cloud his judgement. For the good of
the Council they had set a slightly different agenda. Save Spike, bring Angelus
in alive, save Spike’s kid. In that order.
oooo
Angelus sensed something was different
as soon as he entered the warehouse. Some indefinable change in the atmosphere,
as though he could scent the determination that rolled from the waiting
vampire. He hid the baby under his shirt, where it slept, peacefully unaware
that its fate was in the hands of one of the most fearsome vampires to stride
the world.
He felt quiet satisfaction that
his plan was working out. Spike was growing strong, and shortly Angelus would
have to make the decision that would change both their lives forever.
Spike made a mistake. The baby
was covered in the vampire’s scent and he didn’t immediately notice it. He saw
the large vampire enter and then pass right in front of the packing cases where
he kept his vigil He seized his chance and jumped lightly down behind his Sire.
“How much do you love your life,
Angelus?”
The threat was implicit in the
stake that the dark haired vampire could feel against his back.
“At the moment? I’m thinking
it’s pretty shit. There again, how much do you love the child?”
Spike finally noticed the lump
under his shirt and wondered how he could have missed that warm beat of
humanity that seemed to light up the dark space. Their uneasy stalemate was
drawn up, defined by the stake in the back of the vampire and the knife at the
throat of the child.
“Love? Don’t even know the
brat.” Spike replied indifferently.
“You’re not fooling me.”
Spike considered for a second.
“There’s a way out of this.” He
offered.
“Go on.”
“Give me the baby and I won’t
kill you. I’ll haul you in and hold you until
“So Hobson’s choice. Captivity
or death.”
“Which is it to be?”
“Your position is strong, but
you’re weak. I don’t think you could really kill me or kill Angel.” He made a
slight gesture with his hand and momentarily the knife was no longer resting
against the baby’s throat. “You’re too…”
Spike took advantage of the only
opportunity he might have and thrust the stake home, prepared to snatch the
baby from the falling ash. Angelus’ knife hand whipped back to the baby, as
Spikes’ arm shuddered under the impact. Spike gasped and leapt back. His stake
had not plunge home. It had met a barrier and shattered.
“Might not have thought you’d do
it, but came prepared anyway. A lead shield over the heart, back and front.”
Angelus tapped his chest so that the dull thud of the lead barrier could be
heard. “Seems like I hold all the cards again, Spikey.”
Spike dropped to his haunches
and bowed his head.
“What is this then? This
charade? What was the point?”
“I needed to know if you would find
the strength to kill me.” Angelus stepped back and watched him carefully.
“Why?” Spike screwed up his eyes
as though he could find the answers writ large if only he could look closely
enough.
“If you did it, then I knew I’d
be out of bargaining chips was. Except for this final one I saved for
emergencies.”
“There is nothing left for you
to bargain with. You made me confront what I was prepared to give up to bring
you down. The answer is everything. I won’t bargain with my life, body or soul.
I won’t bargain with the baby or Buffy or the slayers. And I won’t bargain with
Angel’s life. I’ll spend them all to see you dead or to see you souled.”
“As I said, all out of
bargaining chips. Save for one. You see, I don’t want to go back to that old
captivity and I don’t want to die.”
“There’s nothing else for you. I
won’t let you wander free.”
“I know it now. You’ve grown
strong. Even when I think you’re broken, spent, nothing left, you still find
the strength for this.” He indicated what was left of the splintered stake. “We
could fight and I could escape but how long would I have? A month? A year?”
Spike nodded his head at the
truth of this.
“We wouldn’t rest until we found
you.”
“As you said earlier, there is
another way.”
Spike raised himself to standing
and slowly circled the powerful vampire.
“So what’s your idea?”
“It’s simple. I want what you’ve
got.”
Spike look at him blankly.
“What I’ve got? What have I
got?”
“Demon and soul in balance.”
“A soul and a demon? That’s what
we’re trying to give you, you pillock!”
“No! You have balance. Your
demon isn’t a captive, so you don’t know what it’s like. It’s hell, Spike.
Remember what Angel did to Pavayne? Locked away, having a window to the world
but never able to affect it? That’s what you condemn me to.”
“You destroyed a world. I’d call
it genocide, but it was worse, I don’t think there’ a word invented for what
you did. If anyone deserves hell, it’s you.”
“So what do you want? To make
the world safe from me for all time or some petty revenge?”
Spike was silent.
“The choice is yours.”
Angelus put the knife away and
tucked the baby back under his shirt. Spike was watched him carefully as he
moved away and slouched against the wall, gently rubbing the baby’s back, as
though the decision meant nothing to him. He was a picture of cool nonchalance,
except for his eyes, which were sharp and bright.
“What exactly are you
suggesting?”
“I figure that the difference is
that you asked for your soul, which is why you don’t have the constant inner
struggle. Your soul and demon accept each other.”
“You’re going to ask for a soul?
I don’t believe you.”
Spike reached for his cigarettes
and slowly lit one.
“So going for the old option.
Hiding behind a fog of smoke and bravado?”
Spike refused to rise to the bait
and instead let out a stream of smoke, which did indeed fog the air between
them.
“Put the damned thing out. It’s
bad for your son.”
Spike flinched slightly, so far
he’d avoided thinking of the baby as anything to do with him. Another emotional
lever was all he needed.
“Consider my choices.” Angelus
continued with a shrug.
“Uh huh.”
“The slayers are closing in,
somehow they know I’m here, I can hear a car screeching though the streets. We
either move now or we play this to its conclusion. We fight. I kill the baby,
maybe some slayers before I either run off, get captured or get killed. The
worst scenario? The baby dead, Angel dead, your slayers scattered and mourning…
Choose quickly, Childe.”
“Me still alive?” Spike cocked
an eyebrow,
“I was considering the worst
scenario from your point of view.”
Spike nodded his understanding.
If Angel were truly gone, why the hell would he want to live? He didn’t let his
thoughts dwell on how he might feel if his son died.
“It wasn’t easy winning a soul.”
He finally replied.
“I know. But I figure I’m owed.”
Spike tilted his head. He could
feel the genuineness of the words. Hell, he could smell sincerity, virtually
taste it on his tongue.
“It’s a long way to
“Mine is closer to home.”
“Where do we have to go?”
“Back to
“
“What else is there? I’m almost
at the end of the line. At the moment I still have enough power to negotiate
terms, later I may have nothing. Besides which, loneliness is the killer.
Remember that Spike? You and Angel were talking and you said those words. Maybe
I just don’t want to be lonely.”
“You were starting again.
Rebuilding.”
“How do you rebuild three
hundred years? The only one left to me is Dru and she’s not enough. You would
have been, but you withstood me.”
Spike shook his head and said
softly, “I broke.”
“Not wholly. Anyway you mended.”
“Mended? Not wholly.”
“You will. You’re strong”
“You think?”
“Of course. You have me,
Angelus, at your feet, asking for mercy. I’ve been tortured by the inquisition
and spat in their faces. Their religious fervour was nothing to the strength of
your self-belief.”
“You could have killed the baby,
tortured it and I would have broken completely.”
Angelus looked suddenly shifty.
Here was the root of it. He could have done that. At one point the decision
could have gone either way. Then as he looked at Spike so close to defeat, he
wasn’t at all sure he wanted to live in a world that didn’t hold his childe
somewhere on its surface. Not that he could ever admit such a thing.
“I’ve already got one insane
childe.” He replied.
“Why didn’t you just stake me?”
“Frigging hell, you’re family. The
only sane family I have left.”
“Family like Darla? Penn?”
“Angel did that. Although I
didn’t object over much to Penn. Jeez, what an unimaginative idiot the boy
was.”
“I’m curious. Why did Angel
never kill me?”
“You know why. He’s weak and he
loved you.”
“Yet when I was trying to kill
the slayer he hardly knew me or I him.”
Angelus could have told him of
the demon that Angel held within, rattling and wrenching at the bars that
constrained him, screaming through his mind, promising to give him hell for the
rest of their lives, promising to drive him insane with his fury, if he killed
his boy. Then bombarding him with images of Spike. Spike laughing and gleeful,
Spike looking distressed at some rebuff, wounded but bouncing up and fighting
again. He had finally found the soul’s weakness. The looks of endearing
tenderness when Spike thought he wasn’t being observed. The hidden poems. Angel
particularly liked, An Ode to my Sire, no one had ever written poems for him.
He’d wanted the laughing boy, the tenderness and the poems for himself.
“He knew you as I knew you. Saw
you as I saw you and he wanted you.”
Angelus could sense that Spike
was swayed.
“He wants you, I want you and
this is the way. You said once that you loved me. If that was ever true then
give me this. Give me a soul on my terms.”
“Is this really what Angel would
want?”
“Before the soul left he was
considering how to make it permanent. He was doing it for you. Because he
wanted to be with you.”
Spike looked doubtful, so
Angelus continued.
“There’s one other thing you
should consider. I know something that the rest of the goody-two shoes need to
know. If I die or if you wait for
“I can feel your honesty
twanging like a plucked string. Don’t suppose you’ll tell me now?”
“Right. Do I look like an
idiot?”
“You want me to answer that?”
Angelus ignored him
“So, your decision?”
“Ok, let’s do this. Leave the
baby here for the slayers.”
Spike tensed as Angelus gazed at
the childe.
“It’s sort of cute. All pink and
squishy.”
“Put it down.”
“Do you want to see the child
properly before we go?”
Spike glanced at it with
disinterest.
“No. Put it down and let’s go.”
Angelus laid the baby down with
surprising gentleness.
“Not exactly the doting father
act I was expecting.”
“It’s nothing to do with me. I
never asked for it. Never wanted it.”
“Oh very p.c. Taking your
responsibilities like a typical man, I see.”
“You’re right, I can hear the car
and smell the slayers. Airport?”
“Car.”
“Daylight soon.”
“Still got the…”
“Course, where…”
“Outside.”
They broke into a run and leapt
into the waiting Viper.