Chapter 13: Deliverance
Pain. Unbelievable pain.
It wasn’t like he’d never been tortured before, but Glory had been an amateur and too easily wound up; The First had had a nasty line in psychological torment, appearing as Dru and Buffy to taunt him, but couldn’t be called much cop as a torturer if it thought drowning was really anything more than an inconvenience to a vampire that didn’t need to breathe.
These blue handed gits, on the other hand, knew a thing or two about pain, and they were even teaching him, William the bloody, what torture was really like. Of course, the majority of his experience in torture had been on the giving rather than the receiving end, which was really a lot more fun.
Like enough, they didn’t know he was a vampire. Or maybe they did. Either way, they had quickly worked out that burning caused him pain, handy, since the lightning they seemed to be able to shoot out of their hands at will caused his skin to crackle and burn. The smell was the worst part, the sickly odour of charred flesh that made him want to vomit.
*
Inara blinked back her shock at Buffy’s words.
“You want me to help? How?”
“Zoë won’t take Serenity back to rescue him,” Buffy stated.
“I’m not surprised, all things considered,” Inara conceded.
“I don’t intend to let that stop me,” Buffy replied, jaw clenched. Inara appraised the smaller girl and concluded that her determination was not to be interfered with.
“Do you have a plan?” Inara asked, curious.
“Serenity isn’t the only ship in the world,” Buffy smiled darkly, “She’s not even the only ship on board.”
“Not the only ship on board, what do you mean…” Inara’s voice trailed off as she realised what Buffy was getting at. “My shuttle…”
“That’s right,” Buffy nodded. Inara paused to think. It was a crazy idea. Two girls, in a shuttle, attempting to storm the sinister stronghold they had just escaped from and rescue a prisoner. If he was even still alive. But if she refused to help, Buffy would likely take the shuttle anyway…and then she and Spike would almost certainly die. Inara sighed. There wasn’t much of a choice, really. If it was Mal still in there…
“Are you with me?” Buffy demanded, in a tone which expressed what Inara had already suspected. She would be going, with or without her. Buffy held her breath while she waited for Inara’s answer. If she refused to help, both she and Spike were, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed. And yet, if she agreed…after what she had seen, there could only be one reason.
“I’m with you,” Inara said, slowly. Buffy felt a mixture of relief and despair which quickly pushed away from her.
“Let’s go.”
*
She will come for me, she will come for me, she will come for me…Spike repeated the words over and over in his mind, not trusting his bruised lips to utter them out loud. It had worked before, she had come for him. Still there was a large part of him that knew that if they had waited for him, they would be here by now. They must have gone without him. At least, if they had any sense, they had gone without him. A worse alternative crept into his mind, one which he didn’t even want to contemplate. Even though the thought of Buffy coming back for him was pretty much all that was keeping him alive, he would gladly give up his life – if you could call it that - in an instant just to know that she was safe and not suffering the same horrible fate as he was in another room somewhere.
One of the blue-handed men floated towards Spike with a large syringe. Buffy’s face was the last image in his mind as he felt the sharp pressure in his arm and instantly lost consciousness.
*
They were approaching. Acquiring transportation had been the least of her worries, Buffy realised, still desperately trying to come up with a way to get in – and out – without getting herself or Spike killed. Just then, a rustling from the inner chamber of the shuttle derailed her train of thought.
“What was that?” she asked, turning to Inara. “Do you keep a pet back there or something?”
“A pet? No,” Inara frowned. Buffy picked up one of the guns she had ‘borrowed’ from Jayne for this particular mission and headed through to investigate the source of the noise.
“Don’t shoot!” At the appearance of the gun, the girl who had been hiding in Inara’s substantial wardrobe showed herself, hands up.
“River!” Buffy cried, a mixture of surprise and relief evident on her face. She lowered her gun. “River, what are you doing here?”
“Here to help,” River shrugged, “Slayer business.”
“Well, yes I suppose it…No, it’s not Slayer business, River, it’s my business and I have no right getting you involved in it.” Buffy cursed herself. River was just a kid. About the same age she had been when she had died the first time. About Dawn’s age, she couldn’t…
“Can’t turn back,” River shrugged matter of factly. She was right, Buffy reflected, they didn’t have time to turn back and drop off their stowaway. Suddenly, the glimmer of a plan began to form in her mind.
“Simon’s going to kill me…” she muttered to herself.
*
Buffy held River firmly, gun to her head. With every step she willed River not to freak out, to remember the plan she had explained so carefully to her in the shuttle. It was of vital importance that River didn’t become separated from her. If River was taken, she couldn’t protect her, and River’s presence as her supposed captive was the only thing stopping Buffy herself from being attacked. She was nodded through, doubtless anyone on the lower levels assumed their superiors would deal with her with a quick lightning blast once they had their prize.
Out of sight, Buffy relaxed her hold on River. The two girls found their way to the room they had been to before, the room in which Buffy had found the Source. It was empty. No sign of Spike.
“Shit,” Buffy swore under her breath. “River, any ideas?”
River closed her eyes and tilted back her head, taking in a deep breath. She opened her eyes again, wide and scared.
“I don’t know, I don’t want to.”
“I know, River, I know you don’t want to remember, I know they frighten you,” she stroked the younger girl’s hair, soothingly, “They frighten me too, but we have to go. I have to find him,” there was a note of desperation in Buffy’s voice which made River cock her head to one side, quizzically.
“If you are joined by love, can’t you find him that way?” she asked, as if it were simple.
“It…it’s not like that, River, we’re not… joined.”
“Simon found me,” River shrugged.
“I know, I know he did. But where were you River, can you remember?”
“High up.”
“High up.” Buffy scanned the corridor. She spotted a staircase at the far end. “Up it is, then.”
*
They didn’t speak. Spike didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. He was beginning to feel weak. Dizzy. It was worse than the bruising, and the burning, much as that stung. He was losing blood. And while he could survive being beaten up, or drowned, or burned a little bit, a vampire was not a vampire without blood.
The shorter of the two men with blue hands approached him again with what looked like another syringe. Spike felt his vision blurring. And then, all of a sudden the man was gone, in a whirl of flying hair and scissor kicks. Buffy? Not Buffy. But a Slayer.
River.
“Hello,” she smiled at him before rounding on the blue handed man now kneeling on the floor and delivering a series of debilitating kicks and punches.
Through his blurred vision, Spike could just about make out a similar whirl of beauty and violence at the far end of the room, this time, one with blonde hair. A gunshot, and a splatter of blue blood. And then,
“Spike?” The mixture of anguish and relief in her voice as she ran towards him, stepping over the fallen bodies of his torturers was both heart-rending and blissfully welcome. She had come for him.
“Spike?” she repeated, more softly this time, as she reached him. “Oh god, what have they done to you?” she cried, as she took in the marks on his half-naked body. He felt hot tears stinging the raw wounds on his chest. Despite his dry throat and bruised lips, Spike managed to croak one word:
“Buffy.”
She was in his arms then, her soft body pressed against his, her hair surrounding his face, her lips, soft and sweet against his. Spike closed his eyes as he inhaled her scent, wondering whether he had died and this was heaven. The sweet pain as she kissed his swollen lips and he returned her kiss hungrily assured him he was very much alive and his bruises were very much real.
“Buffy, they’re coming.” River’s voice broke into the lovers’ silent reunion. “They know we killed them and more will come.”
Reluctantly pulling away from Spike, Buffy looked around at the two bodies on the floor, and at the door.
“There’s always more,” River said, shakily, “They always come, two by two…”
“Bolt the door,” Buffy told her, “We’ll have to find another way out.” She turned back to Spike and began undoing the chains that bound him.
“Another way,” River looked up, “High up…” Buffy followed her gaze. At the top of the ceiling there was glass. If only they could reach it. And if only they could survive outside without needing to breathe. There was a bang at the door which startled them all. Spike grabbed instinctively onto Buffy’s arm. She slid her arm around him to support him as she tried to get him to stand up.
Just then there was a crash and a shower of broken glass. Something landed with a thud in front of them. A rope. Looking up, Buffy could see a space craft of some kind hovering above them. Inara’s shuttle. Gratefully, she grabbed onto the rope, still supporting Spike.
“River come on,” she urged. River clung on, and they began to be pulled upwards, safely out of firing range as the door of the room below them burst open.
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