Chapter 10
Restless: Part III
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“It’s not about right. It’s not about wrong. It’s about power.”
Buffy strode up to him, a nasty sneer on her beautiful face as he glanced up at her. The air around her seemed to grow heavier with her regal imperiousness.
“What are you doing here?” he choked, tears still sliding down his face, along with the blood that still flowed freely from where Drusilla had scratched him.
“Oh, I’m everywhere,” she laughed. “All around you… dancing.” She began moving her body sinuously to an unknown music, and Spike was instantly drawn back to the first time he had seen her, that night at the Bronze.
“Bloody hell!” Spike got up. “You’re not supposed to be here! Not in my head! Not in my heart!”
“These will not destroy you…” someone interrupted him.
“What?” Spike looked at the man, dumbfounded. Two cheese slices that had been cut in half dangled from his hands.
“These will not destroy you,” the man repeated again, smiling at him. “They’ll just cut you in half…”
He vanished.
“Oh, I’ll cut you in half alright,” Buffy drew his attention back to her. “I’ll do more than that.”
“Just try, Slayer,” he snarled, going into demon face, ignoring all of the physical and emotional agony he was suffering. “If it weren’t for this sodding chip, we’d see who’d win this!”
“But it’s a dance,” she smiled coyly as they moved into battle positions. “And you can’t win a dance. It just goes on and on and on… until the music stops.”
“So let’s fight then…”
“Uh, uh,” the Slayer skipped backwards. “The music hasn’t changed yet… but it’ll never end…”
Suddenly, they were back in his crypt, and darkness enfolded them. The only one candle remained alight. The rest had been blown out by chill gusts of wind coming in from the open door.
“Slayer?” he asked cautiously. He could feel her, hear her heartbeat… but where was she?
“Right behind you,” she whispered, and then struck with Slayer strength as he turned.
This time, he screamed as he fell backwards into the wall once more. The rest of his ribs had lodged into his heart, broken by her blow, filling his body with a sharp pain he hadn’t experienced for a long, long time. Not evenat Angelus' hands hadhe ever felt this pain.Even his Mother, Cecily and Dru hadn’t hurt as badly as this. He screamed again, a scream of utter desolation and agony.
He couldn’t even see her this time, but he knew that she moved closer to him, standing over him.
“You’re beneath me.”
He snapped.
“I know that!” he roared. “I bloody well know that! Beneath everyone! Always beneath everyone!”
He panted, curled up in a ball against the unyielding wall, and then sobbed quietly. “Go away.”
“Oh no,” she smiled. “I’m staying. I’m not leaving you. I’ll run away, but I won’t leave.”
He only wept harder.
“You know what, Spike?” Buffy asked, a sadistic tinge to her tone. “You’re nothing. Can’t be a man, can’t be a demon. Oh poor, poor little Spikey.”
Between tears, he snarled at her.
“Angelus was more a demon than you’ll ever be. And Angel more a man. Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Go away…” he sobbed. “Oh please, go away…”
Everything rushed in on him now, hitting his vampiric senses mercilessly. His pain, most of all. Shredded ruins of a once proud demon lying in a mixture of blood and tears. The stench of the crypt. He hadn’t really had too much time to clean it, yet. Just lighting the candles… he loved candles…
Her scent. A mixture of vanilla, roses, and danger. Her heartbeat, sounding in his ears, in time with the blood rushing along her veins. It sounded like music…
And then it was all gone. Spike felt an unnatural heat on his skin, and stood up in demon face. He tried to change back, but found he couldn’t. Then he opened his eyes, and almost screamed again as he realized that he was in the sunlight. In a cemetery. For the first time in over one hundred years… oh no, wait. Midst all of his pain, he smiled wryly. The ring of Amara…
“You don’t belong here, you know.”
He turned to see Tara walking towards him, her golden-brown hair wrapped in a loose bun at the back of her head. He suddenly realized that he’d been totally bereft of his beloved leather duster until now… it hung around his shoulders in an almost comforting embrace, yet he felt a strange urge to hurl it away.
“I know that, Glinda…” he turned to look up at her, realizing he was curled against the cemetery wall. It was so high…
“I know I’m not supposed to be here,” he laughed bitterly. “I’m supposed to be beneath… beneath…”
He scrabbled at the dirt, feeling it give way under his fingertips. Suddenly his chip fired, and he fell back with a howl.
“You don’t belong here, in the sunlight.”
“Yeah, I know. In the darkness. In my grave,” Spike spat.
“No, you don’t belong there either,” Tara disagreed softly.
“Where?” he demanded then, desperation overcoming him. “Where do I belong? I just want to be… I just want to find… somewhere I belong…”
The last word was almost a keening wail. Tara looked compassionately at the vampire who had stopped digging. “You belong in the shadow,” she whispered. “In the grey. In the shadow, until you finally choose.”
“Choices,” Spike snickered, choking on his own bile. “I always screw them up.”
“Don’t make mistakes with this one,” Tara warned. “It’s important.”
“Isn’t it always?” he sneered.
She merely smiled at him again. “You’ll be needing this.”
She handed him a card. He looked at the picture. A red river. One bank had life abounding on it. Flowers, trees, gentle swallows and deer. The other was barren, devoid of life. Charred and burnt, with twisted bodies lying in the ground. With a sudden catching of his breath, he knew that all of those bodies, and they stretched out for miles, were his victims. Then… why the life on the other side?
“Arrakis, blood,” Spike whispered.
“Yes, life,” she affirmed. “Here.”
He looked at the card. “But what am I supposed to do with this?” he asked empty air.
Tara had disappeared. He cursed, and threw the card down into the makeshift hole he had made. It immediately dissolved into a heady mixture that shone as it sparkled back at him. Crimson blood, and yet…
He hadn’t realized he was still crying, blood combining with tears to run down his face. A single drop dribbled down from his eyes to land in the strange, shimmering hole. Immediately, a wall sprung up.
It was different from the ones he’d been thrown against. Staggering to his feet, he looked up. He was in darkness, now. The wall seemed to block out the sun at this level. But the middle of the wall was grey, light filtering through cracks. At the very top, it was pure, blinding white. Life… the light…
Ignoring the pain of his body and all of the broken ribs, he climbed.
It seemed to go on forever. An endless scrabbling of pain and stone and even wood. The wall stared back at him, filled with memories. It was hard to find a grip. There were times when he fell, and it took all of his strength to pull himself back up again.
Suddenly, he heard a growl, and he was knocked sideways by a body. Before he could fall to the earth, the wall turned horizontal, and shifted into a greyland. Again, one side was in darkness, the other in light. He stood in the middle, his chest afire with excruciating pain, and something circling him.
“Vampire,” it hissed.
“Yeah,” he winced, feeling blood bubble out of his mouth. “I got that part about a hundred years ago. Who the hell are you?”
It walked from the darkness to the light, and finally, he could see it properly. A woman, clad in rags, with black dreadlocks shadowing her face. She held a stake in one hand, and a sword in the other.
“Oh great,” he threw his hands up in the air in disbelief. “Another Slayer, right? How many of you do I have to bloody well kill?”
With the sight of her primal power, he felt his demon respond, and the tears slowly dried. He snarled at her, and she responded in kind.
“Vampire,” she hissed again.
“Yeah, I told you,” he could almost feel his cocky façade returning, despite the pain and the tears and blood that were drying on his face. “I already knew that.”
“Vampires… evil.”
“I know that too,” he rolled his eyes. “Look, could we just get to fighting? You look animal enough, maybe I can hit you.”
She launched herself at him then, and he ducked and rolled, wincing. He knew he couldn’t take this fight. The little matter of all his ribs being broken and smashed into his heart played a rather large part of that.
“Vampire! Why do you help?”
“Help?” he asked, puzzled as she circled him again. “I don’t help. I kill. Me… the Big Bad, remember?”
She growled, and then attacked again, swift as lightning. Reflexes hampered by pain and emotional exhaustion, Spike was too slow. She knocked him to the ground and stood over him, one foot on his throat.
“You’re different.”
It was a statement, but he still shook his head. “Nup. No way. Same as any other Master Vamp. Powerful. Big Bad. I want to end the world, see. And kill all the Slayers. Got myself a reputation, after all.”
“You’re different,” she insisted.
“Geez, you’re a stubborn, procrastinating chit,” he forced out as her throat pressed harder. “Are you just going to stake me already? End my bloody pain!” The last words came out as a snarl.
“No stake,” she shook her head. “Only the blood. The dance.”
Before he could react, she brought the sword down and left a long, incredibly deep diagonal gash across his torso. He screamed as the blood flowed out. Vampires couldn’t die from blood loss, but he knew from experience that being drained of all blood made him go berserk…
Wait…
He felt a sudden lightness, and choked as he could almost physically feel himself turning to dust. Blood mixed with ashes and tears.
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“Where are my friends?” Buffy asked dangerously.
“You're asking the wrong questions,” Tara explained.
“Make her speak,” Buffy ordered.
The… cavewoman? Shook her head again.
“I have no speech,” Tara said. “No name. I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute ... alone.”
Buffy frowned with a sudden realization. “The Slayer,” she breathed.
“The first,” Tara agreed.
Buffy looked down at her hand, and realized she was holding a pile of Tarot shaped cards. As she looked closer, she saw Giles, Willow, Xander, and herself in the living room watching TV. Then, surprisingly, she saw Spike in the picture. He was laughing with them.
The mountains loomed behind her.
“I am not alone,” Buffy said softly.
The first Slayer shook her head, and Tara answered for her. “The Slayer does not walk in this world.”
“No,” Buffy looked her in the eye, a fierce pride in her voice. “I walk. I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back.”
The first Slayer lifted her chin in anger.
Buffy ignored her, and kept going. “There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones.”
Buffy’s eyes hardened. “Now give me back my friends.”
“No ... friends!” the First Slayer growled in a hoarse voice full of anger. “Just the kill! We ... are ... alone! No vampires! No friends! Just… alone!”
“Hold your enemies closer to you than your allies,” the words rolled off Buffy’s tongue. Then she made a face. “In fact, he’s not even my ally… okay, fine, he is… but he’s a mortal enemy turned ally… what does that make him…?
“No allies. Alone!” the First repeated. “Kill the vampires! No friends!”
A bald man leaned in between Buffy and the First Slayer, holding up two slices of cheese. He grinned and shook the cheese at Buffy, then vanished.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “That's it! I'm waking up.”
Before she could move, the First Slayer attacked her, pushing her to the ground and tried to bash her head on it. Dimly, Buffy realized that she could somehow hear African drums. She rolled the first Slayer off her and kicked her. They both leapt up, and then the First Slayer punched her.
Buffy fell backwards. The First Slayer tried to punch downwards, but Buffy rolled to her feet and kicked her in the back. She kicked again but the First Slayer ducked. Buffy punched. It was identical to the first one the First Slayer threw at her.
The First Slayer fell backwards.
They both stood, glaring. Faceoff. Buffy shook her head.
“It's over. We don't do this any more.”
In response, the First Slayer snarled and grabbed her again and they rolled down the flawless dune, clutching at each other and rolling over and over in a flurry of kicks and punches, before Buffy found her voice again.
“Enough!”
Buffy woke up on the floor, still covered by the blanket. She looked around quickly, and saw Willow, Xander and Giles sleeping peacefully. Groaning, she stood up, but then heard a growl from behind her. The First Slayer landed on top of her, bowling her over, bringing the stake down repeatedly in a frenzied rhythm of death.
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Are you quite finished?”
The First Slayer pulled back, surprised.
“It's over, okay? I'm going to ignore you, and you're going to go away.” Buffy sat up, and then stood, her eyes meeting those of the First Slayer’s.
“You're really gonna have to get over the whole ... primal power thing,” she tossed over her shoulder as she walked to the couch. The First Slayer stared at her in bewilderment. “You're not the source of me. Also, in terms of hair care, you really wanna say, what kind of impression am I making in the workplace? 'Cause-“
They woke.
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(Did you like that? The end of the dream... finally. Please, Read and Review!)
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hope you enjoy, all! Ouch, can you believe it? Three parts… Please, no-one kill me for this. Hope you liked the other two! I promise you, though, this is where Restless ends. Enjoy Part III! And Review! Please! Thankyou for all those who've reviewed my work! )