Re-entry
Part 1Awake again. It's still dark.
I miss clocks and calendars.
You big ol' fool, you just thought slavery was the worst. At least there there was color; you could see.
And hear.
And taste.
And touch.
And smell.
Here there's nothing. You can fill the space with equations, and formulas. And when that runs out, with spells memorized for casework and for amusement during periods when you only thought there was nothing to do.
Once, briefly, she thought someone else was there. She had finished reciting all the lyrics to Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" and was in the middle of a retrieval incantation when there'd been a sudden strong surge of emotion, something akin to fear but much more primal: Self-Preservation. As though a missing piece of her was being threatened. Her knee-jerk reaction had been to silently scream -- "COME HERE!" -- and she'd felt something rush past, but then it was gone.
And now you're alone again with nothing but thoughts, of spells that have no effect and formulas that lead to nothing and loved ones you miss so badly that you'd die of loneliness if only you knew how.
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Rain does such interesting things to odors; it sharpens them, alters them, stirs them up. Paloma did her best hunting after a rain.
"You got to listen with your whole body, Hermana," she cautioned Thu, and the younger girl nodded and quickened her pace to keep up. They crossed an almost-empty parking lot harsh with the glare of sodium-arc lamps, and followed the side of a building until they found the unlocked back door and slipped inside.
The scent of sweat and rubber was thick in the air here. Grunts now, too; sounds of a struggle. An inner door crashed open and a man the size of a Sherman tank ("AH-nie," Thu giggled later, in a bad imitation of Governor Schwarzenegger) landed at their feet. With an assenting nod from her companion, the girl pulled a whittled piece of pine from her jacket pocket and slammed it into the man's chest. AHnie vanished in a plume of dust.
Paloma peeked through the destroyed doorway, counted heads in the melee within, and sighed. Phoenix was not as popular with the dead as it used to be, she reflected. But what a bitch that the few who remained had turned the entire membership of a Gold's Gym. Beside her Thu jittered like a cat with raised haunches preparing to pounce, her eyes wide and intense and virtually glittering. She looked like a sprinter about to burst from the starting blocks. It made Paloma smile.
Good hunting, Little Sister.
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Tiring. I'm getting really really tired. Little persistent voice in his brain nagged at Angel. These guys were bodybuilders, not martial artists, and most of their punches were wild, but there were so damn MANY of them. They had Spike backed into a corner, hissing and roaring in frustration. Blood ran into Angel's eyes, momentarily blinding him; he tasted dust and the odor of sulphur.
When his vision cleared he lunged up at the oily body looming over him, staked it -- and saw that the gymnasium was empty save for Spike and a young woman. Tall and athletic, jeans, boots, leather vest, short black shaggy hair. Joan Jett lookalike, Spike commented afterward. ("You know, Joan JETT! The Blackhearts? The Runaways? ...god, you were out of it in the Eighties, weren't you?") She rose from a crouch and glared at them, her face feral, and held up a stick of wood menacingly.
Suddenly she stopped and sniffed the air between them, and stared at the fanged and wrinkled men in amazement. A tiny Asian girl appeared at her side, also clutching a wooden stake and clearly on the verge of rushing one of the vampires, when 'Joan' put out a hand and stayed her. The woman's voice was low and melodic, with a soft Spanish accent. Her eyes never left Spike and Angel as she spoke.
"Chica, wait...these guys have souls."
There were several seconds of silence; Thu's face scrunched into a "Huh?" as the three adults sized each other up. Then Paloma rocked a finger at Angel.
"I heard about you," she breathed, "You're the dudes that were runnin' that Los Angeles law office." She began to grin. "Shit, man, what'd you DO to that place? They are so fuckin' pissed off!"
Her laughter subsided. "You know there's a price on your heads, right? Don' worry, we're not gonna narc. But I'd keep a low profile if I were you, okay?"
Thu interrupted. "Are they still vampires?" She peered up with a puzzled expression at Spike, who had just shifted out of gameface.
"Yep. What are you, Ittybitty?"
"The Slayer." She paused. "A slayer. I think there's like a tribe of us now."
"You're a slayer, too?" Angel asked the other young woman.
"No. Chupacabra." A goat-sucking demon. That explained the sulphur smell.
"Nothing personal, but don't you people usually look more..."
"Inhuman?" Paloma smiled. "Protective coloration. Some of us are better at morphing than others. I'm not starting a colony here, though; we're just in the city to visit the kid's grandparents."
"We're from Ass Crack," Thu added. The two men looked at her blankly. Paloma rolled an eyeball.
"Ashcraft," she translated. "It's a community north of here. It's become the devil's watering hole since the hellmouth in California closed down. I think Ashcraft may be on a fissure. There's a group of us there trying to keep the well salted. That reminds me, shit- " She glanced up at a clock hanging above the shattered remains of a Bowflex -- "I promised your family I'd bring you home early, Child. Here..."
She fished a card from her vest pocket and handed it to Angel. "If you ever want to get in touch with us, call this number."
Angel looked at the little business card and saw that it bore the name and phone number of a certified public accountant. He opened his mouth to tell the demon woman that they were a little beyond the help of a CPA, then thought better of it. No point in insulting her. He merely nodded as Paloma patted the tiny slayer's head affectionately and steered her toward the exit with a "Vamanos, Baba Looey." The questions popping into his head -- How many in your group? Does the girl have a watcher? How do we know you're on our side? -- would have to wait. Right now he was bone-tired, and it had been days since either he or Spike had fed. Until the obliging meat processing plant employee they'd found returned from his vacation, they'd be having to make do with sucking raw steaks, and resting.
Part 2"You're early."
She sat quietly, stiff and upright, not taking her eyes from the TV screen. Illyria sat quietly quite often now, attempting to make sense of the new situation.
She still didn't like it much.
"Didn't take us as long as we thought." Angel crossed the threshold of the tiny apartment, followed by Spike, who dropped his jacket in the corner and began rummaging through the refrigerator. "What's that you're watching?"
"Lifetime Television. Your women are vapid."
Angel sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I'm gonna take a shower."
As he disappeared into the bathroom, Spike reemerged from the frig's depths, clutching a longneck. He slumped onto the end of the couch opposite Illyria, where a pillow and blanket had been piled in an untidy heap. Beyond the couch a folding cot lay open in a similar unkempt condition. The place was too damn crowded, not designed to house so many people, but it had to serve until...well, until things got better.
God knew, things could be worse. Four against a legion of ghouls and a flying dinosaur had not been good odds. The stinking, screaming, howling Thing that was the Senior Partners could have slaughtered them in their tracks in the alley, could have gotten 'em all and then spread unchecked like a cancer.
And as in uffish thought they stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
They left it dead, and with its head
They went galumphing back.
It hadn't happened that way, though. In fact, there'd been almost no fight at all, because one moment they'd been poised, wired, every nerve screaming and bracing for assault...
And the next moment they were standing in a field in Tempe, Arizona, almost four hundred miles away.
With them were perhaps half a dozen disoriented demonic soldiers and a large portion of the dragon's thorax and head.
The soldiers were easy enough to kill (and the dragon was Dead On Arrival); getting Charles to a hospital before he bled to death was much harder. A driver had spotted them on the roadside and called an ambulance, but Gunn flatlined twice and had only recently been upgraded to Fair Condition. None of them had a clue how they came to be in the field. But for the moment, at least, inexplicably, Wolfram & Hart seemed to be unaware of where they were.
Now they hung at loose ends, not quite certain where to go or how to proceed, waiting for Gunn to recuperate and occupying themselves with vampire-hunting to continue the Good Fight (it was Illyria who suggested removing the cash and pawnables from the demons' pockets before dusting them.)
On the flickering screen, Tori Spelling was in peril from a mysterious stalker or a switched-at-birth baby or perhaps both. Illyria and Spike watched numbly, then: "I'm going out."
Illyria's outings were harmless, a walk to the roof of the building or around the block to work off the claustrophobia that threatened at times to overwhelm her. She rose abruptly and crossed the room.
And collapsed face down on the floor.
"...the hell?" Spike knelt by the prone woman and turned her over, and suddenly a scent, sweet and dear and heartbreakingly familiar, rolled over him like a wave. Illyria's eyes were open, moving wildly; they fixed on Spike and widened in recognition.
Spike's blood turned to ice. He peered into the face, hardly daring to believe what he saw there.
"Fred?"
Then she was gone. The scent vanished, and a stone-eyed Illyria stared up at him suspiciously.
"I don't remember lying down," she announced. She scowled at Spike, as though holding him responsible. Then without another word she got up and walked out the door.
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"You didn't stop her?" Angel's gazed swept each end of the empty hallway outside of the apartment. Nothing was there but the usual filthy carpet, peeling paint, and dusty light fixtures.
"Christ, it threw me off guard; I didn't know whether to even SAY anything to her or not!" Spike recognized Angel's dubious expression. "I'm telling you, it was FRED! I fuckin' SMELLED her!"
"You've seen Illyria mimic Fred before. How can you be positive she wasn't doing it again while she was unconscious?"
"Because she can't mimic ODORS. She's here, somewhere, Fred I mean. We've gotta get someone. Willow-"
"We can't risk contacting Willow. The Partners are probably watching them all like hawks; if they thought anyone from Sunnydale knew where we were there's no telling what they'd do to get our location from them."
"Well, that group, then, the one Goat Girl told us about." Spike rifled Angel's coat pockets and found the card the chupacabra had given them. "What've we got to lose? They already know who we are. Maybe there's a witch in the bunch; someone who can at least tell us what's going on."
"What makes you so sure Illyria will cooperate?"
"First, I don't give a shit if she likes it or not. Second, oh yeah, she'll want to go. She didn't like that fainting business one bit. She'll want to get to the bottom of it."
Angel stared silently across the room. Then, "One of us has to stay here, to look after Gunn."
Spike nodded. "Got the flat to yourself for awhile, then. Indigo and I are packin' a bag."
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They left Phoenix at dark, in a stale-smelling pickup with a bad transmission (formerly owned by one Aubrey Belkner, recently turned and now part of the grit and sand that graced the floor of his vehicle.) The new occupants were silent for most of the drive, the glow from the dashboard illuminating taut, grim faces. Spike pushed the truck as fast as he dared as the headlights ate into the highway.
At last a turnoff brought them to the outskirts of their destination. Off the shoulder of the road they passed a metal sign bearing the optimistic message
WELCOME TO ASHCRAFT
We May Be Small,
But Watch Us Grow!
Below the inscription the sign was festooned with the insignia of various civic organizations: Elk's Club, Rotary, Civitan. Someone, probably not an Elk but quite possibly an Elk's teenage son, had spraypainted an S over "Ashcraft"'s H and a CK over its FT, then given a second t to the "But" for good measure. A few yards beyond, they saw that the same artist had added to a "JESUS SAVES" billboard the words "AT FIRST FEDERAL SAVINGS & LOAN."
"This burg's shapin' up nicely," Spike muttered. "Directions say the motel where we're meetin' 'em's somewhere down this road...right, here it is."
A driveway led off the road into a circular parking lot. Several old cabins designed to look like enormous teepees, constructed of concrete and painted with gaudy faux Native American symbols, formed a preposterous ring around the parking area. The largest of them bore a neon OFFICE/VACANCY sign and a Coke machine beside its front door. Hovering above the office was another electric sign, almost as old as the cabins: "HAPPY TRAILS TOURIST COURT. AIR-CONDITIONED/COLOR TV. PARK AWHILE AND COOL YOUR INJUN."
"They've got to be fucking kidding."
Part 3The office interior looked as if it hadn't changed much since 1965. Knotty-pine wall paneling, wire postcard rack, chipped and scarred Formica-topped front desk. A Middle Eastern man in his fifties glanced up from behind it as Spike and Illyria entered the building.
"We're supposed to be meetin' some people here," Spike told him. "A 'Michael' something - wait, where'd that bloody card go now..."
The deskclerk nodded toward an interior doorway. "They're in there. Go on in."
Feeling somewhat apprehensive now, Spike opened the indicated door and took in the room beyond it. It was obviously a parlor: sofa, armchairs, coffee table, telly. The chupacabra and another young woman were bent over the table, consulting a map. Beside them was a bookish, fortyish-looking man in a suit and tie - thin, fair, acne-scarred, bespectacled. (Little yellow Giles, Spike said to himself.) The diminutive slayer sat on the floor, immersed in school books and homework.
"Ah, here you are!" The bookish man quickly rose and smiled pleasantly. "Spike, isn't it? And Ill...yria? We spoke earlier on the phone. I'm Michael Wight."
He extended a hand. Spike hesitated, took it, and shook, feeling awkward.
Wight appeared to take no notice, motioning them to the couch. "Please, sit down. Can we offer you anything? ...You're sure? Well, let's see, you've already met Paloma of course, and Thu. This is Kay, another of our associates..."
The young black woman - plump, pretty, smartly-dressed - smiled a greeting.
"And Dilip Singh, who owns the place." The desk clerk had entered silently and taken a seat at a dinette in the corner.
"I've explained your problem to everyone here; of course we'll all do whatever we can to help. I wish I could promise something, but...anyway, we'll give it our best shot."
Illyria began to wander the room as he spoke, openly scrutinizing the people and furnishings, fixing them with a pale, unblinking stare. The slayer's activity caught her attention and she paused, towering over the girl, cocking her head back and forth like an inquisitive chicken.
"Algebra," Thu whispered. "It sucks donkey balls."
"How's this little squad operate?" Spike was asking. "You part of a coven, or that Council of Watchers?"
"The COW? Heavens, no. We're employed by the City of Ass Cra- sorry, Ashcraft. Officially we're on the books as Law Enforcement Consultants. That's legalese for the town council quietly realizing that simple bullets aren't enough to stop the otherworldly activity that goes on here."
Wight's round, boyish face and high-pitched Midwestern voice were so mellow that he might have been talking about the weather. "We've got a variety of skills among us. I'm a seer, like your friend Miss Chase."
How the hell does he know about...oh, right; seer.
"...clairvoyance, mostly, with some retrocognitive and telepathic abilities."
"Sees through walls, sees the past, reads minds," Spike translated to Illyria.
"Kay's a telekinetic -she moves objects with her thoughts. Dilip knows a bit of sorcery, and Paloma and Thu provide muscle. Paloma's also our link to the demon worlds - sometimes I think she could sell ice to the Eskimos."
Paloma smiled at the compliment. Behind her, Illyria suddenly spoke.
"Is this Shiva, the Destroyer?" she asked, pointing to a Hindu figurine on the bookcase. Dilip nodded.
Illyria turned away from the statue. "It's not a good likeness."
"Hey, show a bit of respect, will you? They're offerin' to help us here," Spike scolded.
Illyria stiffened, as if taken aback, then announced forcefully, "I do not wish to die."
"All right," Wight agreed. Then, quietly, "What would you like?"
Illyria considered. "I want the body I once had. But I concede that there are no more like it, and that your conjurer's magic cannot create one. I want...I want to be free to move through dimensions again. To be as mist. I want to float."
"Be honest, Blueberry. You want to conquer," Spike smiled wryly.
"I want to escape."
The room fell quiet. "You'd be content to be a disembodied entity?" Wight asked.
"If it meant freedom to move, to travel...yes, it would be enough. I've never known such restriction as I have had in this body."
"You'd give it back to Fred Burkle, provided we can find her?"
"Yes."
The queep of a cell phone interrupted them. Kay tucked the phone to her ear and spoke briefly, taking notes, then slid the instrument back into her purse.
"Doper Dave's back," she said to Paloma, "And he's brought another road crew. I've got an address. If we leave now we can probably catch them all before they fan out for the night."
"Sounds good. Thu?"
"I'm done." Thu slammed her textbook shut and hopped to her feet.
"Liar. Bring a flashlight and you can finish in the car." Paloma turned to Spike. "Hey, if you want to come with us, we could probably be done a lot faster. It's a vampire nest, and the last time they were in town it was just Kay and me, and a lot of 'em got away."
Spike hesitated and regarded Illyria. "Don't know if I should leave when..."
"I think we'll be all right, if Illyria's willing to bear our company for a couple of hours," Wight said. "We'll call you if anything happens."
Part 4
The drive to the home of Doper Dave didn't take much time; Kay's sedan pulled over just long enough for Paloma to dart into a grocery store and return with a Fresca and a pound of raw hamburger, which she ate from the Styrofoam tray with a plastic spoon. Several blocks from their intended neighborhood, they parked the car and got out.
"We might as well do a sweep of the area, and meet at the nest site," the goat-eater decided. "Kay and I'll do this side of the road, and you two can take the other. That'll put a human on each team. Sometimes the smell draws 'em out."
Spike took the stake offered him, and with the little slayer trotting at his heels, crossed the street and began to make his way through the numerous alleys and yards. He was finding it difficult to concentrate on the job at hand -- his mind kept drifting back to the odd little motel and its precious cargo. If Fred still existed, Illyria was quite probably the only link to her. The sheer number of dimensions she could have been transported to was endless.
He tried not to think of the worst of them.
"What?" It took Spike a moment to realize that Thu had spoken to him.
"I said I'm sorry about your friend," the girl repeated sympathetically. "But Michael and Dilip are really smart. Maybe they'll be able to find her."
"Hope so," Spike replied. He regarded the kid and almost shook his head in amazement. Little denim jacket and jeans; bobbed hair held away from her face with one of those stretchy headbands; four-foot-something and couldn't weigh more than six stone soaking wet.
"They're really robbin' the cradles for you birds now," he commented, "What are you -- ten, eleven?"
"Thirteen. I'm small for my age." Thu's eyes continuously scanned the darkness ahead of them as she spoke. "I've only been activated a couple of months. A slayer in Anchorage got killed, and I was next in line, I guess. Michael flashed on it, and found me and explained what was going on."
"Must've been a shock, gettin' hit with slayer memories and a bolt of superpowers out of the blue."
Thu screwed up her face. "I just thought I was finally starting my period."
A search of a small, ancient cemetery came out clean. When they exited, Thu picked up the conversation again:
"What was it like getting your soul back? That must have felt pretty good."
"Not exactly, growin' a conscience after murdering people for over a hundred years."
"Oh...yeah." She mulled the thought over for a moment. "Did you go see a psychiatrist about it or anything?"
"No. Did go crazy, though...an' then an evil power talked me into hiding in a basement over the hellmouth and tried to convince me to do m'self in."
Thu's eyes widened. "No shi- I mean, really? Why didn't you leave?"
"Didn't know how."
Thu obviously found this notion hard to conceive. "Well, I mean...just walk out. I got out of a gymnastics class that way once. The instructor told us to go on some lame starvation diet, and then he saw me eating a jerky chew, and he yelled 'Put that damn thing away' and I said 'Okay, bend over'; then I just went outside and sat in the parking lot. And then my dad showed up and cussed him out in four different languages."
Silence.
Then:
"The Wankers' Council must've screamed in terror when they saw you comin'."
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The nest was located in a decrepit mobile home with a vacant lot on either side. The surrounding houses were similarly run-down, and most appeared empty. The throbbing bass beat of stereo amplifiers vibrated from the trailer house; light and screeches of laughter spilled from its windows. Kay and Paloma had pulled up cinderblocks and were using them as stepstools to peer through one when Thu and Spike arrived."We've counted about twenty," Kay informed them, "I can take out at least half, and you guys should be able to pick off the rest when they come out the front and back doors." Someone inside cranked the volume up even louder, and Def Leppard shook the structure.
"'Least someone appreciates the classics," Spike murmured. "Aren't you going to need a stake?"
Kay smiled at him conspiratorially and held up a small cardboard box. "Got about two hundred of them."
Paloma tore back a corner of the plastic pleating on the side of a window-unit air conditioner, and Kay held the box out on her palm and gazed at it. It rose slowly from her hand and hovered in the air, then floated through the newly-made hole and into the midst of the revelers.
"Watch -- this is SO cool," Thu whispered. Still unnoticed, the box's lid opened and two hundred and fifty Ace's Best Party Toothpicks came out of the little carton and formed a ring around it, ends pointing outward.
"Bloody hell!" Spike breathed admiringly. Kay blinked, and the projectiles suddenly shot outward, piercing bodies like shrapnel, and then snapped back to the box as though pulled by rubber bands. Powdery explosions dominoed through the room with a soft whumpwhumpwhump. Twice more Kay sent the little wooden toothpicks flying, and at last the remaining vampires comprehended the danger and began to flee the trailer in terror.
The blood sang in Spike's ears now; huntsman's blood, joyous and powerful and exhilarating. He felt it emanate from Thu and Paloma as well; from the corners of his eyes he saw them racing, leaping, twirling in a mad dance as they found their prey. Occasionally a fist slammed into Spike's chest or face, and that felt good, too. He slammed back, shouting with euphoria. Satisfying thud when his foot connected with a stomach; snap of bone when he twisted a head so hard that he broke it off; sudden give when a body beneath his weight dissolved and turned into dust.
All that was missing was the feeding, and that part was tainted now; an innocent's agony no longer a source of pleasure but of misery and shame. No, that part of the hunt was scratched out with fierce, heavy strokes, but this...
Oh, this part was glorious.
At length the singing began to fade; he slowed down and took his bearings. At the edge of the yard he spotted the slayer squaring off with a whorish-looking middle-age woman in too-tight shorts and a tube top. The whore's pasty gut bulged from between the two pieces of clothing. She bared rotting teeth and hissed an obscenity at Thu. Unlike most slayers Spike had observed, this one wasted no energy exchanging back-and-forth blows with her opponents. She darted to the whore's left, cutting her off. The woman began shifting into gameface, and in the brief instant of the transition in which her eyes were refocusing from human to vampire, Thu simply reached up and popped a stake into her chest.
On the trailer's garbage-covered porch, Paloma crouched on top of the single remaining vampire, pinning him face down. She too was morphing: her ears and nose had receded into her skull; claws formed at the ends of her fingers. And now her jaw was opening impossibly wide, exposing dozens of small, pointed, razor-sharp teeth. She sank them into the back of the vampire's neck, and he shrieked in rage and pain. She set her teeth even more firmly, held the bite for a moment, then clamped her jaws so tightly that they bit completely through the neck and severed the head.
She stood up, spitting, and stepped down into the yard. The streetlight revealed that her eyeballs had taken on their natural color, slate grey, the pupils horizontal slits like those of an octopus.
"Any more?" she called up into the air, where Kay was levitating thirty feet above their heads, safely out of reach of vampires.
"No." Kay drifted back to the ground slowly and sat down on the curb, rubbing her forehead. Sweat beaded her upper lip. "I'm a little woozy, though. One of you may have to drive on the way back."
Thu popped her head out of the mobile home's doorway. "House is clear."
"You gonna be all right, Ducks?" Spike asked, looking at Kay in alarm.
She nodded. "I'll be fine in about half an hour. Levitation's always pretty draining." She fished her car keys out of her pocket and handed them to him. "Someone want to turn off that silly music?"
Part 5
Twenty minutes later a recovered Kay took Thu home, dropping off Spike and Paloma in the motel's parking lot. Michael Wight met them at the office door.
"Illyria passed out again twice after you left. The second time we made her lie down so she wouldn't fall and hit her head. We didn't see any sign of Miss Burkle; the fainting came and went so fast. Now that you're back, I'd like to try to look for her."
The Old One lay half sitting up, propped with pillows. Dilip's single-size bed was undoubtedly a far cry from her former thrones, and she looked vastly ill at ease. Michael drew up a chair next to her.
"This won't involve any magic; just some simple extrasensory perception -- well, extra for most of us, anyway. All you'll need to do is sit quietly." Michael's owlish face looked her honestly in the eye. "I have no idea what I'll find or what will happen. I can't guarantee anything, except that if we kill you, it won't be on purpose."
Illyria's eyes widened incredulously. Her mouth opened as if to speak -- Little man, kill me and you HAVE no purpose -- then snapped shut. Michael turned to Spike. "You said that no one's attempted to contact Fred before?"
"Not unless Pryce tried and didn't tell us. I didn't think she still existed 'til I smelled her scent yesterday. Thought her soul had been destroyed -- that there wasn't anything left of her."
Dilip spoke up sharply. "Souls can't be destroyed. Who told you that?"
"Well...Wolfram & Hart. Their chief surgeon. He said her soul had been consumed."
The Indian raised his eyebrows. "And you believed him?"
Spike suddenly felt incredibly, horribly foolish. Why had they simply taken the bastard's word? They'd been so helpless against Fred's death, and the brutality of it; had just swallowed the bitter pill and tried to move on. Christ on a crutch, all this time...
"Find her," he pleaded, and his voice was raspy with emotion. "If I knew she was in a better place -- Heaven, or whatever you want to call it -- I'd be okay with it. But if she's somewhere else...someplace bad..."
The room fell quiet and still. The yellow glow from the bedside lamp suddenly seemed frail against the blackness of the universe, and the unknown horrors it might contain. The five looked at one another, and finally Wight broke the silence.
"Well, let's get started." he placed his hand on Illyria's wrist, and closed his eyes.
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For Michael, the ocean was always a good place to start. He imagined himself cruising birdlike just above its surface, small caplets of seafoam rushing past, the horizon stretching out in all directions. It was night on this ocean, and the stars were out. He held the object in his hand in front of him, and felt a gentle magnetic pull. He floated, and let the pull tow him.
The soft murmur of the seacaps became silent, then water and stars alike disappeared. He was moving now through inky blackness. The pull weakened, then ceased.
"She's here."
He was somewhat surprised at not being able to hear his own voice, but he continued to speak anyway.
"Everything's dark; she's in here somewhere..." He began to sweep his arms through the darkness, fishing about as though trying to locate an eel in a barrel of murky water.
Suddenly he felt her. She careened into him and through him, and he tasted the nauseating wash of her terror. He reached out into her wake, but his hands closed on empty air.
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Someone's here. Fred jolted into alertness and was seized by a mixture of joy and panic.
Don'tleavedon'tleaveohpleasegoddon'tleave she screamed soundlessly, and began to race wildly in every direction, in an agony of fear that whoever it was would be gone and maybe not even know she was there and never come back and I want to go home I wanttogohomeIwanttogohome
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Dilip, Spike, and Paloma stood transfixed by the scene at the bed. Illyria's eyes were open, but her breath had become shallow and she lay perfectly still. Michael's eyes moved rapidly back and forth behind his closed lids, and his free hand began to make little grabbing motions. His face tightened into an expression of frustration.
Then his lips started to form words.
"...other way. It's her. She can't find the way out."
"You can see her?" Spike gasped, moving to stand at the vacant side of the bed. Michael appeared not to hear him.
"I can't catch her, she's moving too fast, too much. Tell her to stop moving so much."
His voice had begun to take on a tone of alarm.
"Tell her to stop moving!"
Frightened, Spike leaned over Illyria and gripped her shoulders. "Fred!" he bellowed into her face. "BE STILL!"
"FRED!"
A deep, familiar voice burst into her mind. A voice she trusted. SPIKE. SOUND. She froze, a rabbit trapped in the headlights, and heard sounds again.
"BE STILL!"
She obeyed instinctively.
And in the seconds after she became still, Michael-In-The-Void found her, locked his arms around her, and flew backwards.
"HAH!" Simultaneously, the woman on the bed in the Happy Trails apartment gasped and the man opened his eyes.
Part 6
For the second time in twenty-four hours and a painful number of months, Winifred Burkle's scent filled the air. From her perch on the dresser Paloma caught it, her gun-metal eyes growing wide with wonder.
"Fred?" Spike whispered, and a smile began to break over his face. "Fred?"
The girl's blue-tinged features were suddenly suffused with expression. She stared up at Spike. Then with a hoarse shriek, she threw her arms around his neck and clung as if she were drowning.
Fred. He wrapped his arms around her thin frame and squeezed as tight as he dared, burying his face in her hair and inhaling deep lungfuls of her. Joyous laughter bubbled up out of him, and he struggled to blink back tears.
Oh, Pet, I've missed you.
So delirious was he that it took several moments before he realized that she was absolutely terrified. Her breath was coming in wheezing pants; her fingers dug into his back, grasping handfuls of fabric and pinching his skin. Sweat poured from what few parts of her body weren't covered by that damnable catsuit, and in spite of its thickness he could all but hear her heart pounding.
He pulled her head up and pushed the hair away from her face and saw that the alien blue eyes were almost bulging from their sockets. They jerked from one corner of the room to the other before lighting on his face and fixing there. Twice she tried to speak and failed. Then at last her voice, FRED'S voice, tore from her throat in an agonized plea.
"TAKE ME WITH YOU!"
"Mother of God," Paloma murmured. "Pobrecita! Poor little thing."
Spike's own throat tightened painfully. Someplace bad, then, as he'd feared, someplace that had reduced her to begging like a child to be taken away from it.
"I am, Sweetheart. You're safe now. Not gonna leave you behind." He gave her cheek a kiss and laid her head back on his shoulder and began to rock her as if she were a baby.
"We'll be in the living room," Michael said gently, rising from his chair.
"Huh? ...Yeah," Spike answered, becoming vaguely aware of the rest of the room. Paloma and Dilip had already slipped out, quiet as cats.
At length Fred cautiously raised her head and looked around in bewilderment.
"We're at a motel, Luv," Spike explained, "Had to find some people who could bring you back." He paused. "Do you remember what happened? How you got to the place you just came from?"
She stared at him blankly. He repeated the question, and this time she appeared to understand, to try to focus and pull her wits together.
"...I was sick."
Her words came in hitches.
"I was sick and my stomach hurt. When I woke up it was black. Everything got black...I couldn't see or hear. Anything. But I was awake. Sometimes I fell asleep, I think. I didn't want to be awake. I couldn't feel myself...there weren't any walls. Is that right?"
"How long were you there?"
"'Til now."
Shit. Months it was she'd been trapped, then, in some kind of damned cosmic sensory-deprivation tank. First the bloody slave dimension, and now this. It was a wonder she had a sane thought left.
He began to fill in the blanks for her then, to explain as gently as he could that a creature had killed her and taken charge of her body, that they'd left Wolfram & Hart in a shambles, that Gunn was in hospital and Lorne had taken a powder and they wouldn't be returning to L.A. anytime soon. The hardest part was telling her about Pryce. After that he didn't try to explain anything more; he simply held her close as she wailed out her grief. Finally she was spent and slumped against him, exhausted; eventually she slept.
For Spike, sleep didn't come as easily. Only in recent years had the deaths of anyone mattered to him. Mother, of course; and Joyce's passing had saddened him because Joyce had been one of the few people to show a bloke kindness without caring what he was. Tara had been right decent, too, most times, and so had poor Anya. Losing Fred had been particularly painful, though. Not once had she ever distrusted him or spoken a cross word, and a sunnier bird had never existed. The milk of human kindness, that was Fred. The ache left behind in his heart after her death had never diminished.
Seeing Buffy die had been the worst of all. The world became a cold, bleak place, sleep with its accompanying dreams almost as much a misery as waking. When she returned he had wanted more than anything in the world to hold her but it hadn't been allowed because he was a MONSTER, and MONSTERS were not permitted to participate in human affairs or to soil a person with their touch.
Now, though, there were no Scoobies to drive him out, no flat, numb stares to hold him at bay. There was only the girl, newly resurrected. Suddenly he hugged her to him fiercely and sobbed through gritted teeth, wetting both their faces with hot, scalding tears.
Part 7
Consciousness tugged at the corners of his brain...there was movement in the room. Spike woke to find himself tangled, half sitting/half lying, in an uncomfortable wad, Fred a soggy ball wedged up against him. The movement came from the seer, Wight, who was quietly closing the windowblinds.
"It's almost dawn," he explained in a whisper, "These east windows get full sun." He looked down at Fred. "How is she?"
"Pretty ripped up...had to tell her one of our friends was dead."
"Oh, my," Wight said sadly, "I'm so sorry." He indicated a paper sack on top of the dresser. "I've brought some clothes for her to change into; I don't imagine she'll be very comfortable in what she's got on now. We've got one of the cabins reserved for you to use, too. You're welcome to stay as long as you like, and I think it'd be a good idea for us to watch her for a few days, at least -- I haven't been able to locate Illyria, and there's still a lot we don't know about this situation."
"Take you up on that; thanks."
"You're welcome. The cabin's got a minifridge and a microwave, and it's the one next to the office so you should be able to move back and forth during the day -- I think the trees will provide enough shade. Paloma can pick up some blood for you this afternoon. It'll have to be chicken; I'm afraid the poultry processing plant is the only available blood source in this area."
"Yeah, chicken'll be fine." He'd never even tasted chicken blood before.
"Well, sleep as long as you like; we'll be right out here." Wight closed the door softly behind him.
Spike rested his chin on top of the dozing girl's head and stroked her blue-brown locks absently. Fred's hair felt rough and brittle under his hand; he wasn't sure what toiletries Illyria had performed during her visits to the Phoenix apartment bathroom but they apparently hadn't included conditioner, unless she ate the goddamn stuff.
He shifted slightly, and his muscles cramped with discomfort. Buggar this, he thought to himself, and sat up. Fred remained in a deep sleep and tumbled limply away from him. Illyria's catsuit suddenly looked obscene on her. He could hardly strip her out of it right now, but the smaller bits could be jettisoned. Carefully, he straightened her out on the bed. Trying not to wake her, he tugged off the heavy boots and the gloves. The material had an odd texture; smooth and almost oily to the touch, although it left no residue on his hands. He dropped the items off the side of the bed, stretched out beside Fred, and draped an arm over her body. Within minutes he fell back asleep.
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Awake again. There's LIGHT
Fred's eyelids flew open. Light and color and furniture and weight and the smell of eucalyptus.
She flexed her fingers cautiously; the cloth underneath them remained. Wesley is dead rose up and kicked her in the gut, and she mashed her fist against her mouth and drew a ragged breath.
As the pain ebbed somewhat, she became aware that a man's body was spooning hers. She turned under his arm and looked into Spike's sleeping face. In repose it wore none of the cocky mischievousness that so often graced it when awake. It was calm; peaceful, even. The cocoon he formed around her felt safe and comforting and she burrowed into it, loath to leave. Handsome man saves me from...the Nothingness.
At length she sat up, unintentionally waking him, and grogginess momentarily seized her.
"Fred?" Spike was now upright too, touching her arm. She looked up at him and nodded mutely. He swung off the bed and she attempted to follow, her legs at first feeling like stilts. The pressure of solid surface beneath her feet was strange but good.
At the closet door mirror she halted and gazed soundlessly at her new appearance: the startling turquoise streaks in her hair; the matching smears on her face and neck; the inhuman blue eyes with their pindot pupils. She knew, he'd told her about the changes the thing had made to her body, but seeing it...
Spike stepped in front of her, purposely blocking the image. "The loo's in here. Why don't you go put these on; likely feel more comfortable." He placed the bag of clothes in her hands and guided her into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar, then leaned against the bureau and crossed his arms nervously. God, but he could use a fag right now. And a shot of-
"Can you help me?" Her voice from inside the bathroom was small. "I can't..."
She was struggling with the clasps of the catsuit's bodice. They were small and tight, barely visible; her fingers evidentally didn't possess the strength to manipulate them. Spike unfastened them for her. As the last one gave way, the stiff leather fell open of its own weight. Fred flushed miserably and pulled the sides back together, but not before they'd both seen that the blue streaks continued across her breasts and down her torso, disappearing beneath the waistline of her pants. Spike hurridly loosened those as well, discreetly averting his eyes, and stepped outside again as Fred slowly pulled on the T-shirt and jeans and sneakers borrowed from Paloma's laundry.
Wight and Singh were immersed in a game of Crazy Eights when they emerged from the little bedroom. Fred smiled wanly as they introduced themselves, and Spike eased her into an empty kitchen chair.
"Spike told me what you did," she said to them. "Thank you. Both of you."
"We're glad to have you here," Wight replied. "Why don't I fix you something to eat. It'll only take a minute." He began to clatter around in the little kitchen, and soon set a spoon and a bowl of Campbell's Chicken & Stars soup in front of her. After offering the same to Spike, who declined, he settled back into his own spot at the table and gathered up the cards from the now defunct game.
"We've been puzzling over your case all morning," he commented, "And frankly, we're stumped. What transported you folks from Los Angeles to Phoenix, why your pursuers seem to have lost your trail...Illyria may have been a key in some way; if we knew more about her kind- "
His words died off as he and the others at the table simultaneously turned their gazes on Fred. Fred, who had been eating slow bites of her soup, then begun to scoop the spoon to her lips with increasing speed and was now holding the bowl to her mouth and gulping from it directly with enormous swallows. Finally she sat the container down and sat gasping, eyes half closed in blissful satiation, broth dripping from her chin.
It began to dawn on her that her companions had fallen silent, and she suddenly broke out of her trance, stared down at the emptied bowl, and looked up at the others guiltily.
"Oh my god, I'm acting like a pig," she whispered, turning red with embarrassment. "It's just been so long since I tasted anything..." She trailed off and dropped her eyes to her lap.
I know the feeling, Spike thought to himself, and a flood of shame washed over him. Her behavior upon reentering the world had been nothing to his -- grabbing the nearest skirt and humping it like a rutting hog, then continuing to ride the high from one insane act to another, culminating in a drinking bender that had lasted a solid week. Hadn't given a damn at the time, either: no remorse for taking advantage of the village idiot and using her like a slab of meat; no looking up Fred, who'd knocked herself out to help him, to tell her Thank You or I'm Solid Again or Kiss My Arse. Only days later, after the buzz had finally worn off, had he felt like an absolute jackass. He'd humiliated himself and even now was unable to explain exactly why.
"You're a damn sight more decent than I was, Win," he said aloud.
The color -- all but that ungodly blue -- drained from Fred's face. She gripped the table edge unsteadily, clamped her hand over her mouth, and lurched to the sink. Leaning into it, she began to retch, vomiting so hard that she seemed to be trying to throw up her own toenails. Spike caught her forehead and held her hair as she coughed and sputtered and finally sagged weakly against the counter.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry." Tears and snot dripped from her face.
"It's all right; the Cream of Celery tastes like ass, too." He turned on the tap and mopped her face, scooped water to her mouth, had her rinse and spit. She began to tremble, and as he picked her up to carry her to the couch, Wight startled him by exclaiming, "How could I be so careless! We have no idea what kind of digestive system she has now; our food could be poisonous to her. Did Illyria ever tell you what type of diet she required?"
"No...she picked around in the kitchen some, tasted stuff...I never really noticed what she ate."
Wight's face tightened with worry. "She ought to have a thorough medical exam; see what kind of condition her body's in now. I'm going to call the local clinic -- It's all right, they know about the demon world; a few of their patients are non-human. I think we should take her there immediately."
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Toward the end of an afternoon that felt like a week, Paloma poked her head into the parlor where Spike sat trapped and sick with worry.
"Still not back yet, huh? I'm gonna stash most of this blood in the deep freeze. It's actually not too bad if you doctor it up with some basil." She spotted Illyria's clothing through the bedroom doorway. "Hey, want me to store her rompers someplace? I've got room in my closet."
"Yeah, thanks. If I never see them again it'll be too soon." Spike wanted the Saga Of Illyria put behind them now; wished that he'd listened to his instincts months ago when they'd told him to get Fred out of that place, convince her to quit Wolfram & Hart and go back to Texas, to move in with him, to do anything but keep entering that unholy building day after day. Oddly, he no longer held a grudge against Illyria herself; the big PopTart had merely acted in the only way she knew how.
Paloma brought the clothing into the room with a puzzled expression. "Have you felt this stuff?" She sniffed the alien material; touched it to her tongue. "It's organic."
"Yeah, leather, ain't it?"
"No, I mean it's alive. Dormant, but it's living tissue." She studied the clothes for another moment, then shook her head and left with whatever storage plans she had in mind.
The wait was becoming unbearable.
First chance I get, Spike vowed to himself, I'm blacking out that sodding truck's windows. No, I'm gettin' a better truck. Fuck it, I'm gonna find a TANK and drive wherever the hell I-
The sound of Wight's little diesel car coming up the driveway brought him to his feet. He shot to the office's front door, past the vacationing couple who chattered enthusiastically at the owner/manager/desk clerk, "This is just the greatest Old West place we've ever seen! We've always wanted to sleep in a wigwam. What tribe do you belong to?"
Dilip blinked. "I'm from New Delhi."
Wight gave Spike an It's-Not-Quite-As-Bad-As-We-Feared smile as he escorted Fred into the office. He handed Spike several plastic shopping bags. "We bought some supplies for her on the way back: pajamas, toothbrush, extra clothes, that sort of thing. Let's go to the back and we'll talk." They passed into the manager's apartment while behind them the voices of the vacationers continued happily, "Do the Nudellies have a reservation around here that we could visit?"
Once seated in the parlor, Wight began: "Luckily, the doctors weren't able to detect any allergies or toxic reactions to any of the basic human food catagories; this morning's nausea was due solely to stress. Fred's body does have a functioning alimentary system, although there are other organs present that we don't yet know the purpose of. The extraordinary powers you described -- the superhuman strength, the impenetrable skin -- seem to be tied to Illyria's consciousness; Fred wasn't able to produce them. And in that same respect, we aren't sure how Illyria's absence will affect Fred's unusual pigmentation in the long run."
"Plus the next time I puke, we know it won't be due to morning sickness," Fred quipped with a sad little smile. At Spike's baffled look, Wight explained quietly, "Her reproductive organs are missing."
A cold, furious rage gripped Spike; he suddenly wished Knox was still alive so that he could beat the living shit out of the little bastard. Hope you're roasting in Hell, you fawning, cock-sucking prick. With a nailgun firing rounds up your ass.
The diffused light from the western windows was dimming. Singh's cat rose from its nap on the bookcase and began to bat about a crumpled bit of paper, cavorting like a kitten. The other occupants of the room continued to sit in silence, wrapped in their own melancholy thoughts.
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That night in Cabin #1, Fred was unable to fall asleep without the TV and several lamps left on. She slept fitfully, awakening every half hour or so, and finally left her own bed and crept into Spike's. He found her there the next morning, with her cheek and one small hand resting on his arm.
Part 8
"I'll be all right, really. Go on out and stake some stuff."
For several days following her return Fred had been subdued, furtive, leery of sleep, afraid to let Spike, and often the others, out of her sight. Angel and Gunn had called from the hospital on the third day, and she had wept and laughed and mourned into the phone with them, and after that she seemed to be a little more at ease. Now she stood in the bedroom of the cabin she shared with Spike, gripping her elbows with her hands and giving him what she hoped looked like a reassuring smile.
"You've been cooped up every night and day with me for almost a week. I know you're climbing the walls. I'd feel better if you'd get out and stretch your legs."
"Don't like leavin' you here by yourself, Kitten." He sat on the end of his bed and eyed her worriedly.
"I won't be. I'll spend the evening in Singh's cabin. We'll get drunk and watch dirty movies."
"Right." He still was unconvinced.
"The more of you that are out there hunting, the safer this town will be."
He couldn't argue with that.
"All right," he agreed, "But you stay in that cabin 'til we get back, understand?" He stood up and cupped her face in his hand. "I don't want to lose you again."
The words and gesture, and his serious expression, gave her system a jolt that was startling and unexpected and not at all unpleasant. She flushed to find herself wondering if his lips would feel as nice as his fingers.
"I promise," she managed to stammer.
He started to release her, then stopped and stared into her face.
"Come here a minute; over here in the light."
Puzzled, she did as he asked.
"Look." He turned her head toward the mirror with a smile.
"Your eyes. They're becoming brown again."
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"WE DON'T NEED NO EDUCATION."
Two voices, one chipmunk-pitched, the other masculine and slightly off-key, hammered cheerfully along with the music from the car radio.
"WE DON'T NEED NO THOUGHT CONTROL.
NO DARK SARCASM IN THE CLASSROOM.
TEACHERS LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE."
"You guys shut up for a minute." Paloma turned the volume down and hung her head out the window. They were passing through a little-used area of Ashcraft, one dotted with sheet-metal buildings originally designed for welding and auto repair and now serving as catch-alls, or standing empty. Spike glanced out at the darkened structures and looked questioningly at the young demon woman.
"All in all you're just a- / nother brick in the wall," Thu hummed softly. "How come we're going around this block again?"
"I thought I saw a light in one of those- there, see that?"
Nail holes in the side of one of the metal sheds were lit up like tiny stars. A pale green light leaked out from under the shed's garage door.
"Come on."
They pulled the car over and started up the asphalt drive on foot, when a smaller door of the building burst open and one, two, three adolescent boys flew out and thundered past them, eyes wide with terror.
Spike caught the last one by the collar. "Hold on a sec, what's goin' on in there?"
"It wasn't my idea!" the boy yelled hysterically. From inside the door came the sound of a throaty groan, almost like the lowing of cattle. The youth shrieked and struggled wildly. Spike studied the entryway for a moment, then released the boy.
"Go on, get out of here."
A shadow crossed the interior of the portal and disappeared.
When it failed to show again after several minutes, they entered cautiously. In the middle of the floor they found an electric lantern, which illuminated several small role-playing gaming pieces -- griffins, harpies, a Pegasus -- and some symbols chalked into the cement. Spike smudged one of the markings with his foot.
"Little pustules been playin' wizard. Wonder what the hell they hocused up?"
"WHUFF." A bovine snort issued from one of the unlit corners of the building. Thu craned her head toward the sound and replied in a baffled voice, "Elmer the school glue bull?"
"Goddammit," Paloma scowled, "If those piss-ants have dragged a cow in here..."
It stepped out of the shadows then.
A bull's head.
On a man's body.
A big, big body.
"Oh, SHIT!"
It charged.
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It was wrong to get excited over a few color streaks in her eyes, Fred chided herself. They were all still in danger and still mourning their dead (Wesley; it's so hard to think of Wesley as dead. Or Cordelia. Is Lorne dead, too?), and yet it felt indescribably good to see a tiny part of what was taken from her return.
From the manager's living room window she'd watched the car carrying Spike and Paloma grow smaller and smaller until it vanished from her view. Then she turned on the television and went into the kitchen to feed the cat.
In the front office Dilip busied himself with a calculator and his account books, and became so engrossed that he failed to notice when dusk turned to twilight and the stars came out.
The front door opened and shut as he labored over a column of numbers.
"Be with you in one moment," he said without looking up. His fingers on the calculator's keys made a steady tac tac tac sound.
The only sound.
It occurred to him suddenly that the visitor had not uttered a word. He looked at his watch.
Sundown.
With icewater dread he raised his eyes.
The man on the threshold wore white nurse's scrubs and white sneakers. The uniform was smeared with grass stains, and dried urine yellowed the legs of his pants. He smiled down at the clerk.
"Little piggy," he said.
Dilip reached under the counter and snatched out a palm-sized cameo relief of a swastika -- not the corrupted Nazi version, but the older, benevolent counterclockwise form employed by the rest of the world since ancient times to ward off evil. Holding it out before him, he lunged for the door that separated the public office from the private dwelling portion of the building.
"Mr. Singh?" Fred approached the doorway from the apartment side. "Would you like a san- OH!"
The nurse sprouted fangs and wheeled in her direction, leaped at her, and hit the parlor's invisible barrier. He fell backward and howled in rage. He then turned on Dilip again, grabbing him by the shoulders and baring teeth at his throat. Dilip threw his arm up and braced it against his attacker's forehead and mashed the cameo into the vampire's face. The skin smoked and sizzled. With a scream the nurse flung him away and began circling him in frustration, torn between hunger and the fear of the hot coal his prey held in its hand.
Oh God Oh God Oh God. Fred scrambled back through the apartment, pawing through drawers, across surfaces, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon.
desk the desk pencils in the desk it's oh shit it's a felttip WHERE'S THE PENCILS?
Into the kitchen now, digging through cupboards.
lighter fluid matches got to be something flammable brandy
She yanked open a drawer; silverware and cutlery clattered inside. Panting, she raked through the contents, and suddenly straightened up, a large butcher knife in her fist, never used and still wearing its protective paper sheath. Clutching it to her chest, she tore across the apartment once again, back to the office door.
The demon had Mr. Singh down now, hunger having won out after all. Fred gripped the knife with both hands and plunged it through the cotton cloth of the uniform, through skin, through muscle. The vampire stiffened, clearly in pain and surprised, but still intact. A thin thread of blood outlined the blade where it touched the white fabric. Fred gave a frantic scream and bore down with all her weight, and finally the blade shifted and struck the heart, and she collapsed on top of Dilip and a layer of dust.
Part 9Paloma's car rolled slowly back into the parking lot around 3:00 A.M.and came to rest in front of the motel office. Fred and a not-much-the-worse-for-wear Dilip Singh came out to greet it and found its two occupants so exhausted and battered that they could barely stand.
"Rough night?" Singh asked blandly.
"Bullfight," Paloma smiled through cut and bloodied lips. "Fuckin' rodeo." She hoisted herself out of the driver's seat with a grimace.
"Oh my god, shouldn't we take you to the hospital?" Fred exclaimed over the string of expletives that issued from Spike's mouth when his feet hit the ground.
"Stopped by on the way. 'S okay, nothing life-threatening. Guillermo's got some busted ribs, though. I'm gonna take a bath."
The vampire confirmed her report by hissing in pain when Fred grabbed him around the middle to support him.
"Sorry!" she squeaked, hastily shifting her hold up to his arm and shoulder. Together they staggered to their cabin and limped inside, and with a clumsy effort she got him onto the bed, where he lay back with a groan.
There wasn't a spot on him anywhere that didn't hurt like a fiddler's bitch, he reflected. At least this ass-kicking was ending on a soft comfy mattress instead of a vault, or a sidewalk, or the floor of a cave.
"What happened?" Fred scurried from bathroom to bed, bearing linens, and began cleaning his wounds with a damp towel. "What was that about a bull?"
"Bunch of naughty schoolboys went into the toolshed and made a minotaur."
"WHAT?"
"Uh-huh. Big 'un, too. Horns 'n everything." The wet cloth on his face felt wonderful. "Took forever to kill it. Helluva fight."
"Is the little girl okay?"
"Yeah, she missed most of it; it threw her through a window and her head got stuck in the fork of a tree." The towel was under his shirt now, cool and soothing.
"Can you sit up a minute and pull this up? I want to make sure you weren't gored."
Wincing, he moved to a sitting position and allowed her to tug his T-shirt up under his armpits. At the sight of the massive bruising covering his chest and back she drew an audible intake of breath. Spike turned at the sound and was surprised to see tears in her eyes.
"It'll mend, Pigeon; it always does."
"I know, it's just...it must hurt so much." She wiped her eyes and nose on the towel and unthinkingly began to mop his torso with it again. He gazed at her, at a loss for words, too unaccustomed to being the recipient of open compassion to know quite how to respond.
"You're going to look like raccoons," she sniffled, "Big black shiners. Look at this poor eye; it's swollen up like a pingpong ball. And I'll bet at least one of you lost some teeth."
"'Loma swallowed a couple. Chupas shed 'em like sharks anyway, I think. And I've still got m' fangs." He morphed and grinned at her, baring his upper canines, then rapidly shifted back. It made her laugh but it hurt like hell.
"With a bit of luck it'll be the only pair like it for miles, too. Three slayerettes hunting are really startin' to thin the ranks."
"You missed one, you know," she informed him. "A guy. He came into the office right after dark and jumped Dilip. It's okay," she added quickly, at Spike's look of alarm. "I got a knife from the kitchen and killed him."
"What -- you cut his head off? With a kitchen knife?"
"No, I staked him."
The alarmed look became one of confusion.
"With a metal knife?"
"It had a cardboard cover on it."
He continued to stare blankly.
"Wood pulp."
Click.
"Christ, Fred, that's BRILLIANT!" he beamed.
She smiled modestly and squirmed a little. "I'm thinking of submitting it to 'Hints From Heloise.'"
His abdominal muscles were screaming now. He eased back onto the pillows and stifled a yelp. Fred toyed absently with the towel in her lap.
"Would I have liked Illyria?"
He considered the question. "Dunno. She was nothin' like you. Smart and all, but had an ego the size of Greenland, and bloody arrogant. Didn't give a shit about us lowly peons 'til she lost some of her power and had to live amongst us. Which, now that I think on it, is the story of my life, so I can't very well criticize her."
The throbbing in his face became a crew of busy little jackhammers, and he was forced to shut his eyes against the light. Through a haze of pain he heard, "Do you want an icepack?"
Grunting hurt less than nodding.
He fell asleep before she returned, and dreampt of being on the floor of the repair shed. It was daytime, and concrete and dirty motor oil scratched his face and palms and elbows. Outdoors in the driveway Gunn was telling customers, "Don't go inside. There's a bull in there. Muthafucker'll mess up your vehicle." He wondered what purpose he served the business by lying on the floor, and then a mechanic was leaning over him and punching him in the face repeatedly, keeping a steady cadence, and apologizing tonelessly with each blow, "Sorry. Sorry. Sorry."
Then something cold blocked the fist. It was soft and made a liquid sound, and a woman's voice crooned, "You're just having a bad dream."
Part 10"It won't be like dreaming, exactly. We'll both be wide awake."
Michael Wight took a final sip of coffee, set the cup in the sink, and sat down across the kitchen table from Fred. Singh shuffled past them sleepily and returned the celebrated butcher knife to the cutlery drawer. Shafts of morning sunlight crossed the room.
I have to do this, Fred told herself. We need to know what's been done to me; what to expect. The thought of becoming disembodied again terrified her. Still, this wouldn't be the same as the dark place; it was simple astral projection, and Michael was very experienced at it. She had offered to accompany him both as a guide through the Wolfram & Hart building and as a possible link to Illyria (wherever she went. Damn it, Bodysnatcher, when you said you were leaving they didn't know you meant right that second.)
What she wanted most to do was return to Cabin 1 and crawl back into bed. Spike was there still, sound asleep in spite of having been almost pulverized less than nine hours earlier. Wight had come all the way out here, though, and had been exploring every avenue his mind could navigate, and it would be rude as well as foolhardy not to help him search for answers to their problems.
"We don't have much yet on the true situation at Wolfram & Hart. The demon gossip mill is teeming with rumors -- there's been a buyout, the Senior Partners have all been assassinated, the firm'll be up and running again in a few days. The best one I've heard is that Mary Kay cosmetics seized control of the property and are making it their new corporate headquarters."
Fred managed a little smile. Behind her, Singh fished something out of a utility closet and disappeared into the motel office.
Michael continued, "If I don't come up with anything this morning, I've still got your two friends down in Phoenix to test. I think I've gotten about as much information through Spike as I'm going to -- I saw what he remembered of the Old Ones' cavern, but I still can't get a current vision of it for myself. There may be some kind of cloaking spell around the place."
"I guess it's just as well; I think the telepathy stuff was beginning to creep him out a little."
Michael chuckled. "He said it felt like 'the mental equivalent of having a proctologist's snakelight shoved up your bum for a look 'round.'"
He leaned forward and his voice took on a more serious tone. "Fred, don't do this if you don't want to. It's entirely possible that I can gather information some other way."
The resolve in her face wavered for a moment. Then:
"No, I know it's safe, and I want to find out whatever we can, too."
From the office came the sound of a vacuum cleaner.
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Fred and Michael closed their eyes and began to travel: first an odd rippling sensation in Fred's mind as the psychic scanned her memories of the time between the sarcophagus' arrival and her agonized final minutes (Sweet Lord, he groaned inwardly, How did she stand it?), then a shift as he used those memories to locate the W&H building in the present time ("Quite an earthquake you folks set off here; place is a wreck.") He drifted through the rooms and hallways, Fred in tow to give directions. In her lab they found the sarcophagus, empty and abandoned; Michael leaped on it but its current-time image trail dissipated once it reached the British shore. He attempted to see past images and got a weak, jumbled montage of a sexually excited young man in a lab coat, an airplane's cargo hold, and a blonde with a sandwich.
"This was Wesley's office," Fred said as they moved on to another floor. The room was stripped bare; evidently Pryce's books and artifacts had held value for the Senior Partners, or whoever owned the building now. Wight's impressions here were disquieting ones of a functioning but sociopathic individual slowly, quietly descending into madness.
He felt a wave of sadness radiating from Winifred. In sympathy, he moved toward her to offer a condolence...and suddenly a violent, frightening vision gripped him.
Pryce, at his desk, calmly shooting an employee for daring to question an order; shattering his kneecap with a handgun because the man had failed to see the necessity of neglecting all other cases to work solely on researching Miss Burkle's illness. A second vision came: Pryce stabbing a guilt-ridden friend who had unwittingly had a hand in Illyria's release.
He was off his rocker, Michael thought, horrified. HAD to have been. To skewer a grieving man in cold blood, without a trace of remorse... He turned away from the image, then sensed Fred staring in its direction. She was frozen, locked in shock. He didn't have to ask to know she'd seen it all.
"Let's go back now," he said softly, "I can come back here another time."
They opened their eyes. The sunlight tracks had risen and now lay across the kitchen table. Singh's cat lay there, too, gazing at them through slit, unblinking eyes. After a moment it dropped silently to the floor and squatted in its litterbox, closing its eyes completely.
"He stabbed Charles," Fred whispered. "Nobody told me that."
"They might have eventually," Michael suggested. "Maybe they didn't see any point in bringing it up right now. I wouldn't be angry with them for it."
"I'm not." She wasn't. She was simply sick at the thought of what Wesley had done; hadn't known he was capable of going that far-
I DID know, I saw him mutilate his own father's corpse because the man had threatened me.
"Did...did he cripple that staffer?"
"I don't know."
She looked small and empty sitting there, hands folded forlornly in her lap. Finally she looked up with a rueful smile. "This Cracker Jack box just never runs out of toy surprises, does it?"
Michael scrutinized her sympathetically. "Are you going to be all right?"
"Yes..." She bit her lip and straightened in her chair. "Yeah. I will be, God willin' and the creek don't rise."
He smiled a little, too. "It's been a long time since I've heard that old chestnut. Where are you from originally?"
"West Texas. You?"
"Omaha."
"Texas?"
"Nebraska."
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Back in her cabin, she took a fresh change of clothes and underwear from the bureau; her return to her body had been marked by an outbreak of perspiration and now she felt as if she'd been dipped in brine and dried. Spike continued to sleep like the dead, although in spite of it he'd somehow managed to knock both the bedcovers and the icepack to the floor.
She shut herself into the bathroom and peeled out of the sticky garments and turned on the shower. When she decided it was loud enough, she sagged underneath the spray until her bottom rested on the tub's floor, and wept.
For twenty minutes the shower faucet ran like a little monsoon as her crying jag gradually lost strength and a sense of peace, of all things, took its place.
God willin'.
---------------------------------------------------------------Author's Notes:
Chupacabra demons are an actual part of the folklore of Mexico; they're said to have reptilian features and smell of sulphur.
"Jabberwocky" is from the book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll, 1872. The actual version reads "he" instead of "they.""We don't need no education," etc., are lyrics from the song Another Brick InThe Wall by Pink Floyd, 1979.
"Guillermo" is Spanish for "William."