Chapter Five

"Using the Slayer’s pet demon to free your own." The witch turned her cold, black stare on the sadistically smiling parody of her best friend. "Kudos."

What can I say," the Buffy/the First shrugged. "I like the way he looks without a shirt." It shivered with delight. "And the way he screamed for me…"

Willow felt the rage burning in her gut as she observed the obscene mockery of life standing before her. Rage was good. Power was better. Willow held that power within her; was itching for the chance to let it loose and destroy the thing, which had declared open season on her friends and loved ones. It was the thing that had come to her in the university library wearing the guise of a recently deceased student. It had told her it had come with a message from Tara. The First had been cruel, vicious in its taunts as it suggested that Willow commit suicide.

Only Willow knew it was all a lie. Tara would never have said those things. She was all that was good and pure in the world. She had loved the world and life so much.

Now the First stood before her once more wearing a difference face to mask as well as deliver the same cruelty. The knowledge that the First had already decimated the Watchers Council and sent It’s army of Bringers on a mission to hunt down and tear apart any and every girl in the world who had been born with the potential to one day become the Chosen One, helped to fuel the rage within.

Willow felt the dark energies unfurl within her being like as though it were some great leviathan swimming closer and closer to the surface. It hovered there, just beneath her skin in ready anticipation of the perfect moment to strike. Willow could end this now, she realized. She could bring forth those energies and decimate the Bringers; incinerate them where they stood and call the power of the gods to smite the entity before her.

Spike whimpered quietly and the small sound was enough to bring Willow back to herself. It gave her the chance to grasp a tentative hold on her rapidly fading self-control. She waved a hand toward the enhanced chains binding Spike to this prison of rock and earth and magick. The manacles opened and dropped, the vampire slumping forward in a boneless flow of abused flesh and broken bones. His pain was as evident to her as the bloodloss and starvation he had endured in the long days and nights of captivity and torture.

"You really think I’m just going to allow you to walk out of here with my favorite toy?"

"You really think you can stop me?" Willow answered with a question of her own. She wrapped an arm around Spike’s waist and turned them toward an exit now blocked by four robed Bringers.

"No," the First replied truthfully. "But I bet they can." It vanished then, leaving the field of engagement to, presumably, watch avariciously as the fight began.

Willow took a brief moment to study the minion-shaped roadblock preventing her escape back to the world above. Beneath the hems of the black robes, she clearly caught the glint of steel blades. Sizing up the two in the middle, she sent a silent apology to the man at her side before shoving him out of the way and allowing the dark powers within herself to finally have the outlet they were waiting for.

Yes!!, the power exulted as it raced through her veins; swirled and bit at her arms and arced from her fingertips. THIS was what she was made to do. This was right; taking the power of the earth to which she was connected and using it to vanquish that which did not belong. These lowly rats; these filthy vermin that scurried beneath her feet.

The two on the end broke from the others just as Willow sent a blinding flash of purple energy bolting into her targets. Screams pierced the damp air with the stench of singed hair and roasting flesh. The smoking corpses dropped where they stood and were already an afterthought as Willow took on the other two minions as they charged.

She seemed to lose time, then, as the pent up rage and the dark magicks tore through one Bringer after another. A flash of white brought her back to find Cordelia standing before her with a knowing look in her eyes.

"It’s over," the Seer told her. "Time to go."

Buffy saw Spike for the first time since he had been taken and was torn between wanting to vomit and wishing they had left a few of the Bringers alive so that she could kill them slowly. It was worse, so much worse, than what Glory had done to him. The hellgod had only had a few hours in which to torture Spike into telling her where her Key was.

The First had been torturing Spike for days for Its own sick pleasure. He was starved, beaten, burned in places. Claw marks slashed down his back and one ear still seeped blood.

With Xander’s help, she picked Spike up as gently as possible. His eyes opened and a faint, reverent smile curved his cracked, swollen lips. "You came for me," he whispered in a voice thick with emotion and pain. It brought tears to Buffy’s eyes as she wrapped an arm around his waist.

"I’ll always come for you."

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"And that’s how the First got to him," Willow told Cordelia as the two worked side by side in Xander’s kitchen. They were busy making a mixture of healing herbs and oils for Spike. The vampire would need a great deal of care in order to heal. Something he wasn’t likely to do with a houseful of teenaged girls. Giles, Anya and Dawn had taken the potentials back to Revello Drive while the rest had brought Spike to the apartment he shared with Xander.

Right now, the vampire was stretched out on his bed with his head in Buffy’s lap. Xander was paying a little visit to a local veterinarian who sometimes provided them with medical supplies in exchange for Buffy having saved his life on several occasions.

Cordelia thought over Willow’s explanation as she wandered into the bathroom to fill the tub with warm water. She didn’t know everything that had occurred between the blonde couple. Even her tenure on a higher plane hadn’t told her everything. The Powers liked to keep an eye on their champions. They enjoyed their stints as puppet masters while the warriors of each dimension fought their wars on the physical plane. Some things were meant to happen, predestined and therefore unavoidable, while other things happened outside the Powers’ control.

The relationship between the Slayer and the Aurelian was one of the predestined events. They weren’t the first to fall in love and they wouldn’t be the last. Cordy didn’t know what the PTBs had in store for them. She just knew that it had never been intended for Buffy and Angel to be together, much to the Seer’s surprise.

Although, looking back at all she had learned over the years and during her forays as a higher being, Cordelia could understand it. Buffy was supposed to put Angel on his path to redemption. Angel was supposed to prevent the opening of Acathla and then get his undead butt to Los Angeles. That was all. They weren’t supposed to fall in love and get groiny. Angel wasn’t supposed to lose his soul. Only, they did and he had.

Sometimes things happened unexpectedly. Sometimes they happened for a reason. That’s life. It’s hard and messy and takes the most unexpected turns at the most inconvenient times.

Cordelia yawned with the realization that she hadn't slept in nearly two full days. Two days that had been mentally and physically draining despite the nifty physiological upgrade courtesy of the Powers That Be. And Cordelia had already expended a great deal of her mystical reserves in healing the Slayer's body while easing her spirit.

Then. of course, there was the problem with Willow. The witch held so much power within herself that it was, indeed, frightening. They had all been lucky in the caves, narrowly avoiding becoming Scoobie flambe as Willow sent surge after surge of magick zinging through the air. Anything could have happened. Willow could have brought the whole place crashing down around their ears. Any one of their team could have been struck by a stray energy blast.

For the briefest moment, Cordelia longed to speak to one of her own gang back in L.A. It passed quickly, however. Everyone at Angel Investigations was tied up in his or her own lives. It was for this reason that she had decided to bring Connor along on this trip. The teen might not be hers by blood, but he was the closest thing to a son she thought she'd ever have. Not to mention that, ever since his father had become involved with Gwen the electro-superslut, the Seer and the son of two vampires had grown closer; they had found a common ground while re-learning how to survive in the world of their birth.

Cordy sighed quietly. Gunn and Fred were still in the newlywed phase of couple-dom. Wes was busy being Mr. Badass Rogue Demon Hunter and screwing the frigid Bitch Queen of Hell, Inc. Lorne had taken himself off to Las Vegas to escape the eternal fight of Good vs. Evil. It was a real shame, too. The empathy demon would be the perfect one to give Cordelia the advice she needed right about now. Stupid demon talent agents.

Another yawn escaped her lips and Cordelia decided to wait until after she'd gotten some sleep before making any definitive plans. Right now they had a houseful of teenaged girls with death sentences hanging over their heads; a wounded vampire to take care of; and a prehistoric vampire demon with serious anger management issues. Behind it all was an entity that made Angelus at his worst look like a friggin' altar boy. The First wanted the Slayers gone so It could bring Hell to earth. Somehow, Cordelia doubted It would let anything stand in the way.

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Buffy had no idea how long she had been sitting there with Spike's head resting in her lap. Conversations flowed around her, doors opened and closed as people came and went. She ignored it all as her eyes drank in the multitude of wounds Spike's once perfect flesh had sustained suring the vampire's captivity.

The tears had long since come and gone, leaving a quiet sadness in their wake. The rage she felt upon seeing him in the First's lair had burned away once morning found them all safely indoors. She had her vampire back with no casualties on their side of the brief battle.

Despite the weariness weighing heavily upon her slender shoulders, despite the too brief restorative sleep her body had finally succumbed to, Buffy refuse to close her eyes. Her world had narrowed down to the man whose head was snuggled firmly into her lap and she couldn't look away if she wanted to. For the longest time, Buffy studied the wounds with a burning intensity. She could almost feel every cut and bruise as though they had been inflicted to her own body. In the back of her throat, she could very nearly taste the phantom metallic tang of blood well up in confirmation of a punctured lung.

Just seeing him like this, the way all the frownlines and fear seemingly melted from his face and left his appearance resembling that of a young boy, brought some small measure of solace. It was this look which brought her protective instincts to the surface. There was something almost maternal in the way Spike's sleep-softened expression affected her. A part of her accepted it without question even while a greater part of her acknowledged this was the very first time she had ever simply held him without it leading to the animalistic rutting of their previous relationship.

It happened then as if the very memory of their former relationship was a trigger very much like the one the First had programmed into Spike's head. Or, maybe, it was the scent. Wood smoke and aged leather unhampered by traces of stale cigarettes and cheap booze filled her senses, made her stomach clench. Some primal element deeply ingrained within her cells gifted her with dawning knowledge. They were the same, she and Spike. Cut of the same cloth; two halves of the same whole; equally matched in all things. And just about every other cliche in the books which all gave voice to the simplicity of that truth. Individually they were powerful, together they were unstoppable.

Of their own volition, Buffy's eyes slid from Spike's pseudo-peaceful countenance and roved down his body, seeing beneath the imperfections- the bruising, the dried and caked fluid clinging relentlessly to the savage cuts and the angry abrasions. The urge to taste him made saliva pool in her mouth, caused her to swallow convulsively while need climbed higher and higher within her. Desire ran rampant, images so visceral she had to close her eyes for a moment. It only made the sensation so real that she could already feel her tongue gliding over the rippling muscles of his abdomen.

Her body tightened further, her breaths coming faster as she yearned to crawl inside his skin and wrap herself up in all that sinuous flesh. She wanted to cover his body with her own; absorb everything he was through her very pores. In her lap lay the most succulent of delicacies- rich, dark. Decadent. It called to her in a wordless invitation to lean in and devour him one lucious bite at a time.

Spike's nostrils flared unconsciously as his demon scented the heavy perfume of her arousal now painting the air. His eyes fluttered restlessly behind still closed lids as he swam ever nearer to awareness. Buffy thrilled internally at the idea that his demon wanted her every bit as much- if not more- as the soul of the man. The primal element within her- her Slayer- exulted in the knowledge. Her tongue snaked out to moisten dry lips, some small sound escaping at the sight of the brow ridges rising from the smooth flesh above his eyes.

Without warning, a presence appeared in the doorway, called her name apprehensively as the Slayer let loose a growl of warning. The human, misunderstanding the meaning behind that sound, took a step closer. Buffy clutched her mate tighter, growled louder at the human male standing at the foot of the bed.

"Get out," she hissed dangerously. Dark brown eyes grew large and round in Xander's face before he carefully set down the white plastic bag of supplies and backed slowly from the room.

A moment later, the door shut with a definitive click.

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