When Eternity Lies In The BalanceBy Jericho TGF
Chapter Three
Spike struggled against the beast that had him firmly in its grasp, despite the blades of fiery heat that were lancing into his body. He dimly noticed the tear that the creature came through close up behind him. Dawn's terrified face was the last thing he saw and his mind screamed out in fury at being ripped so unceremoniously away from his duties as watchdog for the Slayer's sister.
Ranking tops on his list of worst days ever, a spot previously held by - but totally eclipsing - the day the Initiative shoved that chip in his skull, the past twenty-four hours had bore witness to the whole spectrum of Spike emotions. This latest affront was just too much to take on top of a huge list of things that were too much to take.
For long minutes he thrashed, cursed profanely, bled profusely, and thrashed some more. Nothing he did seemed to have any affect on either the body or the stride of the demon holding him. Just after acknowledging that he couldn't fight his way out of the demon's grip, the creature's hold on him shifted. Hope that he was slipping free flared briefly but was quickly dashed as he was flipped around and tossed over the creature's wide shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Spike tried to see where he was, or to be more precise given his current position, where he had been, but the path behind him was just an unbroken wall of unrelenting blackness. Then again, it's possible that his blood, following the laws of gravity, was dripping from his chest onto his face and obscuring his vision. He didn't know which it was and it struck him that it really didn't matter, he was just as helpless to save himself either way. At least the creature's claws were no longer slicing into his body unmercifully.
Better to suffer the slings and arrows of indignity than the more solid type, mate.
The wry thought did little to soothe either his temper or his growing fear.
With each step the creature took, Spike could feel himself growing weaker and weaker. He lost track of how long they moved, but he knew he wouldn't be able to survive much more in the way of blood loss and remain mentally intact.
Losing all his blood wouldn't kill him, but as he explained to Giles once, a vampire running on empty wasn't a pretty sight. They tended to be little more than walking skeletons and not all there in the smarts department. And something told him if he had any chance at all of surviving whatever beef this creature had with him he would need to be at his tops with the wit and wisdom.
As Spike's strength waned he started fading in and out of consciousness. After what seemed like hours of dangling from the creature's shoulder, his mind started to play wicked little tricks on him.
Buffy was alive and everything was fine. He had saved Dawn and won Buffy's support and admiration. He had killed Glory just as she was preparing to crush Buffy's skull and Buffy was so thankful she kissed him again like she had in his crypt after the whole being vamp napped by Glory thing. Buffy kissed him, Buffy loved him, Buffy wanted him.
They were dreams, all of them, and farfetched ones at that. During his more lucid moments he knew the truth. He didn't care. They gave him comfort. It was all that he had left, and he knew that, too.
His favorite little exsanguination-induced dream was part fact, part fantasy. Earlier that evening (Yesterday? He didn't know anymore.), when he had gone with Buffy to get some weapons and a change of clothes for the Buffybot, Buffy invited him back into her house. He was pretty sure that was fact, along with his words to her - words that needed saying before they went into the battle of their lives. The memory was so vivid it had to be real.
"I know you'll never love me,” he’d said. “I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man."
He was going to say something else before embarrassment and common sense stopped him, he remembered that.
The part that was vague, the part Spike feared was a dream, was when Buffy smiled down at him in response and said, "You are a man, Spike. I treat you like a man because that's what you are. You're a monster, too, it's true, but you are far more man than you are monster. It wasn't always like that. It is now."
That's all she says. No words of love, no kisses or warm embraces, just that. And still it was Spike's favorite out of all of them. It was the one that gave him the most comfort. It was the one, when he clawed his way back into consciousness and remembered the dreams for what they were, that made him ache in misery. It was the one, when he tumbled back into oblivion, that he wanted to have again and again. He didn't know why.
During one of the more lurid dreams, Spike felt a sudden change in the atmosphere around him. It was significant enough to drag him back into awareness and he opened his eyes on the red, scaly backside of the demon carrying him. Normally that wouldn't be considered a good thing, but he could see it, which is more than he had been able to do before. He wasn't blinded by blood. It had been the darkness that prevented him from seeing where he had come from.
Just being able to see again re-ignited his fury at his circumstance and he dug deep into himself to pull forward a new burst of energy. With a clench of his aching muscles and a twist of his battered but wiry frame he managed to push himself off of the demon's shoulder and slide down one muscled arm.
Unfortunately, it did little to help. The demon was just too fast and caught him up easily in one meaty and talon-tipped claw.
Then, much to Spike's astonishment, the demon swung its arm back and - treating him as if he was nothing more than an oddly shaped bowling ball - sent him rolling, butt over brains, along the length of a very hard stone floor. His body came to an abrupt stop when he collided quite painfully with a marble pillar of some sort.
He lay where he was tossed for a few seconds and tried to get his addled mind to catch up with his shaken-not-stirred body. Glaring balefully at the demon responsible for his pain, Spike managed to get his feet underneath him and he rose slowly. He didn't know what the demon planned next in the way of torture the vampire, but Spike tried to be ready for whatever it was. If he was going down, he'd go down fighting, and damn the pain and blood loss.
Had the Big Bad been able to see himself, he would have been amused. He swayed on wobbly legs, one arm curled protectively around several severe lacerations - not to mention a good many broken bones (lest he forget he took a two hundred foot dive off of a Hell God's tower of terror just hours - minutes? - ago), and he had blood dripping down his face, chest, and arms. Still, he stood ready to fight the demon in front of him. A demon, by the way, that was several feet taller and several times larger than the vampire himself. Yes, if it weren't for the physical and emotional agony, Spike would have been very amused.
What the demon did next completely flummoxed the already reeling vampire, however. It changed. Literally. One minute...huge, scaly, scary, red demon - the next...short, squat, smooth-skinned, not scary, blue demon. Spike wiped a tattered leather sleeve over his eyes to clear them and looked again. It un-muddied the picture a little, but the image was the same. The red beast was gone, and in its place was a blue marshmallow-looking thing. Spike smiled viciously. This was something he could fight.
A low growl rumbled out of his chest and he ran his tongue over one of the elongated canines of his game face. "Well, well," he said, smiling sarcastically, "someone's big evil batteries run down? Let's see...whatever shall I do? Oh, I've got it. How 'bout I kill you?"
The little puffy blue guy either didn't understand Spike, or had no fear of his words, because he took several tottering steps towards the mightily pissed off and royally injured vampire with its hands outstretched like some blueberry baby doll. Shifting his weight to his back leg, Spike prepared to drop the little beastie with a spinning swing kick as soon as it got in range.
"DESIST!"
The air practically vibrated at the thunderous command. Spike forgot all about the blue demon the instant that order rang out. It was loud, so loud in fact that he had no idea if he actually heard the word or just felt it. Either way, it was loud enough to cause pain, and he gripped his head in response.
He spun wildly, noticing the room he was in for the first time since being rolled across the floor.
The walls were a pinkish-gray marble, the floor was black stone of some kind. There were pillars, he knew that when he collided with one, but he saw that there were nine of them spaced evenly throughout the room, supporting the ceiling, and they were carved with Grecian or Roman architecture in mind. There was no furniture to speak of and the only thing that would catch a person's eye was the black stairway leading up to a domed archway.
Well, that and the two people (Spike doubted 'people' was the right word, but at the moment he was at a loss for something more descriptive) standing at the top of those steps and staring down at him imperiously.
Spike gaped at the two figures with an unflattering, slack-jawed expression on his face. His human face, as the bumpy forehead/sharp tooth look disappeared at the 'desist' command. They were a surprise, to say the least. Spike had no idea anyone but the demon was in the room with him.
Must be hurt worse than you thought, mate, not to notice those two. Not exactly dressed for subtly now, are they?
No sooner did the words pop into his head than the male of the pair smiled slightly and glanced down at his gold and silver toga and sandals before raising an arm and examining his gold and green skin with mock intensity. Spike was left with no illusions over their ability to read his mind.
Bloody hell. What's with the mind power bit? Everyone wake up all clued in to my bleedin' brain waves this mornin'?
At the thought, his mind flashed back to Willow and her call to send him up the tower that Glory's people built for the sacrifice. His memories led him directly to his failure to stop Doc and the broken body of the Slayer. All mockery and attempts at sardonic humor fled.
He didn't know who these two were, and quite frankly he couldn't care less, but they were probably the reason he was here. And the gold and green female didn't look terribly impressed with his thoughts at all. She was far more serious in her demeanor and expression than the gold and green male.
Spike did notice the definite familial resemblance between the two that transcended the body color and clothing duplication. Length of hair and height were the only characteristics that differentiated them. Brother and sister he would guess, and the female, who was still glaring down her aquiline nose at him, nodded her head once as if in reply.
Okay, Spike. Time to make nice with the oddly colored creatures.
"We are not creatures," was the woman's immediate and scornful reply. "We are entities. Oracles, to be precise. So mind your thoughts, vampire."
Spike started slightly in surprise at the woman's voice. He hadn't expected it to be quite so...melodious, given her austere countenance. It was also a bit of a shock to his ears, as only a sudden sound in a vacuum of silence could be. In his defense, he recovered quickly.
"Oracles. Right then. Well, if you don't mind, I'll be with you in a minute. I have to kill the bastard that put all these lovely little holes in my body, not to mention my favorite jacket."
Spike turned his back on the wonder twins and moved to accost the little blue demon. He was actually surprised that the bugger had hung around, but he was still there, a few feet away, and staring at the Oracles with rapt fascination.
Easer than stealing smokes from a cripple, Spike thought. He thought it on purpose, knowing the two standing on their holier-than-thou dais were listening. It was a mistake.
Just after he took his first step, he felt the full force of what could only be described as a mental slap smack into the side of his head and send him sprawling. He lay on the unforgiving ground and stared at the ceiling for a second before shaking his head to clear it of the remnants of the attack. Spike lifted his head and stared wide-eyed at the pair.
"What the bloody hell did you do that for?" He cried. "You've seen what that violet blob did to me. Nothin' wrong with a little payback."
As he pulled himself back to his feet he noticed the blue demon hadn't even given him the courtesy to appear afraid. In fact, it didn't appear to have noticed Spike's approach and threats at all. It was still staring at the Oracles, oblivious to its surroundings.
Oddly, that made Spike feel a little guilty for trying to kill it. He shrugged the feeling off, chocking it up to residual softness from hanging around the Slayer and her Scooby troupe for too long. Then he regretted the knee-jerk blame that he placed.
What a mess. He was mixed up, emotionally torn, mentally exhausted, physically damaged, and he couldn't even work out his own logic anymore. It had been a really bad day. Spike gave up. He put away all his monsterish impulses and turned to face the Oracles like the man he had vainly hoped the Slayer would see him as.
The pair saw his emotional turmoil, saw the war he waged with himself, and heard the things that were running through his mind in a tumultuous bundle. The brother turned to his sister and smiled slightly.
“That didn't take as long as I had feared it would.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Of course not. I told you he would be the one we needed.”
“Yes, sister, you did. I never doubted you for a minute. Now, would you like to proceed or should I?”
“I will, brother.” She turned back to Spike in time to see the speculative gaze cross his face. He held his tongue, though, a point in his favor, and she decided it was time to tell him why he was here. “This should be interesting.”
She felt the brother’s soft mind chuckle as she started to speak.
"First, vampire, let us address the creature next to you. It did not inflict the wounds to your body. Nor is it responsible for your newly vented clothing. It is incapable of doing that kind of damage."
The sister heard the mental rumblings of disbelief. She heard Spike make a less than flattering comment about her parentage, but given the circumstances and given what he was, she chose to ignore it.
"The creature that did that to you was the Dialetylth. The creature next to you is a Borymous. Neither one are demons, both are from another dimension. The Borymous is a shape shifter, of sorts, and he is one of our many species of helpers. When he changes form he adopts the characteristics of the creature he becomes. The Dialetylth is familiar to his home dimension, and quite a nasty sort. I'm sure that was what was responsible for your injuries, not the Borymous."
Spike didn't quite catch the logic there and he said so.
"Wait a sec, luv. Let me get this straight. The Borymous is a shape shifter, turned into the Dialetyth, who did this to me. But I'm not supposed to hold one accountable for the actions of the other? How do you figure?"
The sister sighed. “So close, and yet...”
The brother did more than chuckle, he laughed outright in her mind.
“Allow me, sister. I will make sure he understands.”
She nodded in acquiescence.
"Let me make this easy on you, vampire," said the brother.
Spike's head swiveled in confusion to follow the strange cadence of speech from one to the other.
"Borymous have adapted. They are docile creatures that occasionally take on the nature of other, not so docile creatures for our sakes. As a result, they have certain properties that allow them to make up for any possible damage they may cause when they are using another form. Let him touch you."
Spike's jaw dropped in shock. "Let him touch me? Are you completely daft? There's no bloody way-"
“I SAID LET HIM TOUCH YOU!”
There was no mistake this time. That thunderous command exactly matched the first he heard, and this time he knew it wasn’t a spoken command. Of their own volition, his hands came up to his head, probably to keep it from exploding from the force of the mental barrage of words.
"Okay! I get it! Let him touch me, right. Get on with it then." Spike wasn't happy, but he didn't want to risk another one of those vibrating furies of sound in his head. They hurt worse than the chip at full zap.
Soon it was done and Spike was once again completely flummoxed. The Borymous had not only healed his wounds with a touch, but his clothes were back in one piece, the blood was gone as if he hadn't spilled a drop, and even the bones he broke in the fall were repaired. To top it all off, he was clean and feeling well rested. The only pain left was the emotional, but Spike doubted any creature could heal that wound.
I have got to get me one of those, he thought, in reference to the blue creature.
He wasn't serious, and he flashed a slightly sheepish look at the Oracles, desperately hoping they wouldn't mind-slap him again, before muttering a quick, "Thanks," to the Borymous, who bowed deeply to him and promptly disappeared.
"Well then," he said, properly humbled, "I'm assuming you are the ones that brought me here. So, umm, why?"
The brother and sister exchanged glances and probably thoughts too, Spike guessed, before turning back to him.
"Do you know what Oracles are?" the sister asked.
"Haven't a clue," said Spike, "but I would rather this not take long. I've got responsibilities that require my attention."
"To The Key," the brother added, nodding. "Yes, we know. But it is important that you listen without interrupting."
Spike raised an eyebrow but remained quiet, even corralling his wayward thoughts and increasing panic at being away from Dawn for so long.
"The Oracles are seers and guides to the warriors that fight for the Powers That Be," explained the sister. "We provide assistance, when the Powers deem it necessary and the requesting warrior is worthy. Now, you are not a warrior for our side, vampire, yet you ally yourself quite strongly with one that is. We do not understand this, yet we do not need to. It is as we see it. Because of your unique situation we are prepared to offer you a solution to your problem. We are prepared to grant you your deepest desire. Tell us, Spike, what is it you most wish for?"
Of all the things that he could possibly conceive, this wouldn't have even been close to the list, let alone on it. If he understood correctly, these creatures - entities - were giving him a gift for helping the Slayer. And the gift was his deepest desire.
Never in one hundred and twenty-one years had Spike ever been more suspicious of anyone with the same intensity that he was suspicious of these beings. No one, not the 'Powers', certainly not these 'Oracles' gave a damn about him. That begs the question - what are they really after?
Spike knew there was only one way to find out.
The answer was simple. What is the one thing he most wished for? It's funny, six months ago the thing that he wanted most in the world was to have that government chip taken out of his brain. Six weeks ago it was for Buffy to love him as he loved her. The chip wasn't even in the top three - funny how things change. After last night, there was only one thing on the list. Hell, that one thing was the list.
Spike wanted Buffy alive. She could hate him, stake him, spit on him; it didn't matter. Spike just wanted Buffy to not be dead.
The sister had been reading Spike's mind. So had the brother, actually, but it was the sister that answered the unspoken desire. The desire that the Oracles knew was the only answer the vampire would ever give them.
"Your wish can be granted," she told him.
Spike sincerely despised having those beings in his head, poking around his thoughts. And he didn't like the way the sister had worded her response, either. A vampire didn't live much longer than twenty years if he wasn't cautious by nature, and Spike was very, very cautious. He had the strange feeling that he was being manipulated, but going in with that feeling should keep him from getting royally shagged.
He raised his head stared at them seriously. "Alright. I'll bite. What do you want me to do?"
"That's quite simple, actually," said the sister.
"We will set time back," the brother continued the thought.
"And you will save the Slayer." The Oracles finished together.
Spike looked at them in stunned disbelief, not only at their ability to finish each other's thoughts, but at what they were suggesting. Hope started to blossom in his chest. If he could go back, do things differently, everything would change.
"Well, alright,” he said, clapping his hands together once in excitement. “Now you're talkin'. How 'bout you set the dial back a bit? Back to when we were all in the RV, before Giles got shishkebobbed. If the Watcher doesn't get hurt, Doctor Boy doesn’t get called. And what with Ben being Glory and all, the royal she-bitch won't get her mitts on Nibblet before her time runs out. No ritual, no Buffy fatal plunge. Bloody brilliant."
He rambled on a while longer before he noticed the Oracles weren't nearly as impressed with his suggestions as he had hoped. Suddenly, things around the campfire seemed a lot less friendly.
The sister was the one that actually said the words Spike was afraid one of them was going to say.
"That is not a possibility. The Key must be used to open the dimensional walls. Balance must be maintained. We will turn back the hands of time to your ascent up the tower. You will wait until the demon uses The Key to open the door, then you will allow The Key to sacrifice itself to bring the walls back up. This is how it will be."
Spike was a rather frenetic vampire by nature, always moving, always doing something - until recently generally up to no good. He got itchy when things moved too slowly or he couldn't release some of his restless energy. He was rarely calm, even less was he ever still. As the sister spoke, however, and the meaning behind her words sunk in, both a strange calm and a death-like stillness descended upon Spike's body. He listened to the sister and felt a kind of peace that he had never experienced before - or at least not since he was a human child, perhaps. With that peace came absolute clarity of thought. An understanding, finally, of what the Oracles were really after and why he had been chosen.
In the few minutes that the Oracles instructed Spike on what he was to do, everything about Spike shifted slightly, became more in line, more in tune, more right. For a vampire, it was almost a kind of Nirvana. For Spike, he knew that nothing would ever be the same again. It was a unique feeling.
He waited calmly, patiently even, for the female Oracle to finish gracing the lowly vampire with her 'gift' of the Slayer's life. And when finished, in the moments of silence following the wonderful bounty they had bestowed on the soulless villain, Spike serenely smiled.
In a quiet and even tone, he looked at them both and said, "Go bugger yourselves."
"Wh-what did you say?" the Oracles stuttered simultaneously, utter disbelief obvious on their faces.
Oh, I think you heard me the first time, he thought, keeping the smile firmly planted on his lips. But what the hell, I'll repeat myself just because I had so much fun the first go 'round. Go. Bugger. Yourselves.
"B-But," they muttered, so alike even their stammering replies came out in one blended voice. "w-we d-don't understand. T-This is what y-you want most. W-we are giving you your deepest d-desire."
Feeling in control for the first time since, well since before he'd even heard the name 'Glory' actually, Spike grinned another dashingly attractive grin at the blithering pair and started to pace slowly back and forth along the bottom of the stairway with feline grace.
"Are you now? Hmmm. Let's examine exactly what you're offerin', shall we? You want me to go back, allow the walls separatin’ the dimensions to fall, then sit idly by as ‘The Key’ - who happens to have a name, by the way, lets use it - so, sit idly by as Dawn leaps to her death so that the Slayer, who also has a name – Buffy - can survive to continue to fight in your little war of good against evil. How'm I doin' so far? Dead on balls, right?"
Judging by the Oracles’ amazingly accurate impressions of landed fish, he decided to take that as a yes and continue.
"Okay, then, on we go. Now, I'm guessin’ that you two 'seerers' and 'guides' looked into your great big crystal balls," Spike caught the brother's glance down at the small pool of water at his feet and put two and two together. "Or should I say...cement pond of water, and watched the little battle that we staged for your amusement yesterday. Except I'm guessin’ that things didn't exactly go as you planned. Buffy wasn't supposed to die, was she? She was supposed to do what any other Slayer would have done and allowed Dawn to sacrifice herself for the greater good. It is, after all, what she did with Angel when he opened the door to hell with Acathla. She sent soul-boy straight to the devil like a good little Slayer should. Why wouldn't she do the same again? Boy, for a couple of all-knowing entities, you're really quite stupid, you know that?"
Spike was loving this. And he was hating this. It was quite possibly the single most bittersweet moment in his life, for he could torment these creatures, fail to give them the satisfaction they desire, refuse to play their games, but in the end, Buffy was no less dead. But he couldn't stop yet.
"So, Buffy refuses to play by your rules - which, by the way, was because she was more than just a bloody Slayer. That's where you lost. That's where I lost, too, back when I was tryin’ to do her in myself. She was much more than just a Slayer. She was a daughter, she was a sister, she was a friend. She was everythin’. Buffy had the one thing that you and your grand destinies could never strip from her, no matter how hard you tried. She had ties to the world. She had an understandin’ of sacrifice. And you want me to take that away from her. That's why you tapped me, right? I'm a vampire in love with the Slayer. A soulless monster with an obsession who would do anythin’ to get the object of that obsession back again, even toss aside the one person the Slayer loved more than life itself. I know. I get that a lot. People just don't get it."
As Spike's diatribe continued, he felt the calm receding, only to be replaced by the crushing weight of loss and disillusionment. All of the pain and fear he had seen on Dawn's face before the tear in space and time closed on him and the Dialetylth had been for nothing. It started to piss him off.
"It wasn't an obsession!" he shouted. "I loved her! I love her. I respected her courage and I stand behind her decisions. She wanted Dawn to live, and I will do everythin’ in my power as soon as you let me the bloody hell out of here to make sure that she lives as long and as happy a life as possible. I will always love Buffy. I will ache for her until the end of my days. But I will not betray her. And you know what? It's not just that losin' Dawn would destroy her, losin' Dawn would destroy me, too. I love her almost as much as I loved Buffy. And I didn't realize it until today. Find another fool, people. I'm not playin'. Send me back. Dawn needs me. Buffy needs me. I'm not helpin' you do a soddin' thing."
To say the room was silent after Spike finally wound down was a gross understatement. No one breathed, no one spoke, no one moved. The Oracles had been set on their ears, severely reprimanded by the master of verbal put-downs. They stared at each other with horror and despair, for they had both seen the effects the Slayer's death had on eternity. But they also knew that the vampire before them would do nothing to aide in their goal to set things right. They had made a mistake, another mistake, and grossly underestimated the vampire as they had underestimated the Slayer. Was all lost?
"Hello?" Spike called to the two thunderstruck entities above him. "I'm ready to go home now! No sense hangin' ‘round here anymore."
The sister reached out her mind to her brother, apologizing for her error and receiving a wordless comfort in response. As soon as she felt his caring mental caress she had a thought. Not more than a half a heartbeat later he had the same thought seize him and they gazed at each other with trepidation, afraid to say the words out loud. In unison they spoke to each other's mind.
“When eternity lies in the balance, even the Powers bend the unbendable rules.”
They turned as one to the furious vampire below them and slowly descended the steps to where he stood. Spike watched with suspicion as they approached. When they were directly in front of him they smiled slightly, mirror images of each other. The brother reached out a hand and laid it on Spike's right shoulder, the sister did the same on Spike's left.
As one they spoke to him, their new warrior. "There is another way."
Spike didn't know if he liked the sound of that or not.