Chapter Eight
Buffy did a quick patrol after dark the next evening, then headed for Giles’ apartment to bring everyone up to date on what she had learned from Riley. She asked Spike to meet her there so that they could plan a strategy.
When she reached the door, she was surprised to find it already open and she got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she entered and saw an overturned table next to an unconscious Anya and Tara. Anya appeared to have a vampire bite on her neck, but she was alive and breathing. Tara was clutching a wooden stake in her hand and had a small dusting of something on her clothes.
As Buffy knelt beside the two unconscious women, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and the familiar tingling that meant there was a vampire near. She whirled in time to see a skinny, dark figure trying to escape out the door.
“Hey!” she shouted as she jumped to her feet and sprinted toward the door. She stopped abruptly as she nearly ran into the fleeing vampire – now held aloft with Spike’s left hand wrapped around his neck.
“Lose somethin’, pet?” he drawled as he brought the struggling vampire back into the apartment.
“What happened here?” she ground out, ignoring Spike’s question and pinning the vampire with a glare. She was pure Slayer as she pulled the vampire out of his grip and shook him.
Spike watched her in admiration as she pressed a cross to the vampire’s face and repeated her question.
“Th-th- the master wanted us to bring him your watcher and the witch. We took the man too just in case.”
“What happened to Tara and Anya?”
“We....we....were hungry?” he offered in a shaking voice. “We tried to eat them, but they fought back and Joe got staked, and then I heard you coming, and-“ His confession was brought up short by the stake Buffy drove through his chest.
By the time Buffy finished with the vampire, Anya and Tara were awake and clinging together as they eyed Spike warily. They confirmed the minion’s story and said Giles opened the door to what he thought was one of Riley’s commando buddies, but which turned out to be a human/robot creature that did not require an invitation to enter the apartment. When he had thrown Giles out of the house, he then invited the rest of the attackers into the building and they proceeded to knock Willow out before she could work any magic on them. Tara had staked the vampire that was attempting to feed on Anya, but was then struck on the head by something.
“Let’s go, Spike,” Buffy said grimly as she headed for the door.
“It’s got to be a trap, love. You know it is.”
“I know,” she sighed, her shoulders slumping. “But what else can I do? I can’t let him turn my friends in mechanical zombies or vampires...”
“All right, pet. We’ll do it. He won’t be expecting both of us. I think I have a plan to get us in safely....”
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As Spike and Buffy strode through the caves to Adam’s lair, the Slayer concentrated on looking dazed as though she was in a thrall. She trailed behind Spike as he confidently walked into Adam’s inner sanctum and began the story they had prepared.
Against the wall Buffy could see Giles, Willow and Xander. Willow’s mouth was taped shut; Buffy assumed so that she couldn’t make a spell, and Giles and Xander were tied up. Willow appeared to be free but she was guarded by a young minion who straightened up threateningly every time she tried to move.
Adam looked at Spike with his usual lack of expression and said coldly, “And once again you are with the Slayer. Why is this?”
“Saw her headed here with fire in her eye and thought I’d follow along to see if you needed me.” Spike replied with no trace of guile or concern. “Put her back in the thrall first, just in case.”
Behind him Xander was sputtering and cursing as he heard what Spike said. “You see!” he snarled at Giles and Willow. “I told you she couldn’t trust him! He was lying about helping her. Now he’ll-“ He was abruptly cut off as Willow smacked his face and glared him into silence.
Adam studied the young brunette for a minute then turned to Spike to ask, “Her friends knew about the thrall? And they didn’t stop you? I find that very hard to believe, vampire.... they seem to think you were assisting the Slayer. I would find that very.....disappointing.” He stared at the vampire speculatively.
Xander paled as he realized what his ranting had done. He shrank back against the wall as Spike fixed him with a look that clearly promised the imminent removal of his lungs.
“Of course I wasn’t helping them, you git. Had to tell them something to explain the Slayer’s lack of killin’ me, didn’t I? Why don’t I prove it to you by eating that wanker right now?” he growled as he turned toward Xander. He reached for the young man and managed to slash his bonds as he lunged at his throat with his fangs. He shoved the shaking boy into the watcher and slashed his ropes quickly also.
Xander was gibbering in fear and shrinking away from Spike as he screamed, “Buffy, Buffy! Help me!” Giles, however, was much quicker on his feet and grabbed both sets of ropes and held them behind his back so as not to give away their new unfettered status.
Buffy was saved from the sight of her lover tearing out the throat of one of her friends by Adam’s, “No, I think not. Stop now, vampire.”
Spike appeared to reluctantly pull away from Xander’s throat, leaving only two tiny holes where his fangs had pierced the skin. He looked toward Adam and snarled, “What?”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t you prove your thrall by drinking from the Slayer. Now. Where I can see you.” The cyborg’s voice indicated quite clearly that he was issuing an order.
Spike became, if anything, paler than normal as he turned a panicked face toward Buffy. Before he could do or say anything that would get them all killed immediately, she raised her chin and offered him her throat. Her eyes gazed into his with complete trust and his unneeded breath caught in his throat.
“Come here, Slayer,” he managed to snarl out, never taking his eyes off of hers. He hoped Adam would attribute the long term staring into each other’s eyes as part of the thrall process and not recognize it for what it was – an apology on his part and permission on hers.
When Buffy had walked up to him and once again tilted her head to give him access to her neck, he leaned in to her and whispered, “I’m so sorry, love,” as he slipped his fangs into her throat.
He held her up as he pulled the precious and strengthening Slayer blood into his mouth, taking care not to let his demon take over and drain her. He could feel his body exploding with energy and borrowed strength from her blood and when he felt her begin to weaken, he pulled back and whispered, “I love you, Buffy” as he threw her to Giles.
“Get her out of here!” he cried, as he intercepted the minions rushing to recapture them. With his borrowed power, he was able to hold off the entire group of vampires, whirling, kicking, punching and breaking bones with such speed and strength that they couldn’t get past him to follow the rapidly escaping Scoobies. The large numbers of opponents actually made it easier for a while as they got in each other’s way more than they helped.
Spike’s innate fighting ability, combined with the extra strength provided by Buffy’s blood, allowed him to cripple or dust almost all the minions Adam had with him in the lair. However, even enhanced as he was, eventually the sheer numbers took their toll and he ended up unconscious on the floor at Adam’s feet.
The cyborg shook his head almost sadly and said, “What a perfect example of how incapacitating emotions can be. This one could have been my second in command. Instead, his emotions have turned him into an enemy.”
The remaining vampires, all nursing various injuries inflicted by the unconscious blond at their feet, asked if they could drink from him. They jostled each other to get closer in hopes of tasting some of the borrowed Slayer blood.
To their great disappointment, Adam instructed them to carry Spike to the entrance to the Initiative’s complex and to leave him on the doorstep. In spite of his insistence that emotions were a waste of time, he found the thought of Spike’s being experimented on by the Initiative to be very pleasurable.
Chapter Nine
Since it was obvious that Giles’ apartment was no longer safe from Adam’s army, the Scoobies hustled to Xander’s house and huddled in his basement room to discuss the situation.
Buffy was furious with them for taking her away and leaving Spike to fight by himself, but had to admit that, weak as she was, she would have been more of a hazard than an aid. Her frustration at having to lie around regaining her strength was making her more short-tempered than usual.
When Xander reminded her for the third time that Spike had bitten her, she threw the empty orange juice carton she had just finished at his head and screamed, “What part of ‘it got us out of there alive’ are you not getting? I’m not dead; I’m not drained; and I’m not really even hurt. Give me another hour and I’ll be fully recovered. That borrowed Slayer blood is what allowed Spike to hold off 40 other vampires while we escaped. I do NOT want to hear about it again!”
She stopped and glared at her friend, with no trace of anything but the Slayer on her face. The young man shrank back away from her in fear. He had seen that look before, but never directed at him and he quickly determined that he never wanted to see it again.
“I’m sorry, Buffy,” he mumbled. “I just thought.....”
She whirled away from him and glared around the room. “Does anyone else have a problem with what I did?”
The other youngsters all hastened to assure her that they were fine with her decisions. Her watcher met her glare steadily, then nodded his head.
“It was a good decision, Buffy. It would, obviously, not have been my first choice, but it did allow all of us to escape.”
“Not quite ALL of us, Giles,” Buffy said quietly as she turned away so they couldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She blinked them away, then turned back to the room. “I have to find him. I have to know.....” She drew a ragged breath instead of finishing her sentence.
Her surrogate father’s voice was gentle. “Buffy, you know it is very unlikely that he survived that battle. As strong as he was-“ at a look from her he amended his verb. “is, as strong as he is, the chances that he was able to defeat that many other demons, as well as Adam himself.....”
“A chance is a chance, Giles. I won’t believe he’s gone until I see the dust.” She turned away to indicate that she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She went to the small refrigerator and pulled out another carton of juice. While she drank, she paced the small room impatiently.
While they waited for Buffy to regain all her strength, they were startled by a knock on the door. Xander hesitantly put his hand on the doorknob as the Scoobies moved away from the door and picked up weapons. Buffy got up from where she had been resting on the bed and stood to his side, balanced and ready for whatever came through the door.
“Who’s there?” Xander asked loudly.
“It’s me, Riley. I need to find Buffy.”
At her nod, Xander opened the door and let the burly commando into the room. Riley stopped abruptly when he saw Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies.
“Buffy! You’re all right!” The relief was evident on his face and she softened her look as she answered him.
“I’m alive and not being turned into a robot,” she allowed. “I think all right might be a stretch. What do you want, Riley?” she asked, not unkindly.
“Well, when we found your....vampire....” He tried to ignore her gasp as she turned a hopeful face toward him. “When we found Spike,” he spit out the name as though it was something distasteful, “and saw his condition....”
“Condition?” Buffy wrapped herself in her Slayer persona to keep the quiver out of her voice.
“He was badly beaten. Lost a lot of blood I guess and had some broken bones. Someone had left him at our front door. I guess they thought we could use him. Maggie – Professor Walsh – was happy to have him. Even though he killed two of our men before we got him into the cage.”
He glared at Buffy, daring her to defend the vampire, but she ignored him except to say, “I told you to leave him alone.”
Riley stared at her with disbelief.
“Did you hear me, Buffy? I said he killed two of my men.”
“Did he eat them?” she asked calmly.
“What? No, no of course not. He was fighting them, trying to keep them from putting him in the......” His voice trailed off as she raised an eyebrow at him.
“So,” she said conversationally. “You found someone you knew I was counting on to help me. He was badly injured, but instead of calling me or helping him, you decided to keep him to experiment on and use as a disposable weapon. And when this badly injured...friend... of mine killed two soldiers while trying to defend himself, you decided to come and complain to me?
“Does that about sum it up, Riley?” she asked, slipping immediately into Slayer mode and chilling him with the look on her face.
“He’s a VAMPIRE, Buffy,” he blustered. “A thing.”
“Where is he?” she asked shortly. When there was no response, she grabbed the large man by his shirt and pinned him up against the door. “I asked you where he was, Riley. Tell me. Now.” She emphasized her seriousness by shaking the large man she was holding with one hand and banging him against the wall.
Riley stared back at the girl he had thought he knew and spat out, “He’s in the lab. Being fitted for the chip.”
Before he finished speaking, she dropped him to the floor and pushed him toward the door. “Take me to him,” she ordered as she grabbed Willow’s hand and pulled her out the door with them.
With Riley as their very reluctant driver and guide, they sped toward the Initiative base. When he balked at helping them get in, Buffy turned toward him and took a deep, calming breath.
“Riley,” she began carefully, “Listen to me. That...man...in there knows where Adam’s lair is. He is capable of fighting over 40 demons at one time and surviving it. He killed two physically enhanced, well-trained commandos while he was suffering from broken bones and blood loss. Do you understand why I want him out here, fighting by my side when I take on your walking proof that demons don’t make good weapons?”
Riley looked back at her and asked quietly, “Is that why you want him out, Buffy? Because he can fight? Or is there some other reason?”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “I so don’t have time for this kind of crap right now. Yes, there’s another reason. There are several other reasons, one of which is that I asked him to come here and help me. I put him at risk and I owe it to him try to save him. Not to mention, he got into that condition saving my life, and we’re wasting time standing here arguing about it!” She whirled around to keep him from reading the guilt in her eyes.
(No need to mention that I think I love him and if anything happens to him I won’t want to live.....)
Using Riley’s ID and knowledge of the facility, they were soon entering the lab where technicians were attempting to implant the controlling chip in Spike’s brain. Buffy burst into the room through the steel door and shoved an angry Maggie Walsh into the wall hard enough to knock her out. The doctor that was working on Spike’s open head glanced up, holding the chip in shiny forceps.
“Do it!” she heard Riley shout behind her. As the doctor’s hand moved toward Spike’s open brain, Buffy screamed, “No!” and rushed across the large, open room. Beside her, Willow took in the scene and threw her hand into the air, fingers pointing at the doctor.
“Away!” she shouted and smiled when the doctor flew back away from the table. The chip flew out of his hand and skittered across the floor. By the time the doctor had stopped sliding on the tile floor, Buffy had reached Spike and was stroking his slack face, searching for signs of life.
She could see blood seeping from his still exposed brain and knew he couldn’t afford to bleed any more than he obviously already had from the many wounds on his body.
The doctor was staring at the two women in fear and curiosity. The daily work with demons and vampires had expanded his scientific notion of what was possible in this world, but a red-haired coed who could knock him down from 20 feet away and a petite blond who could break in a steel door were not on his list of physically possible things.
Buffy noticed him watching her and growled urgently, “Get up here and stop this bleeding. Sew him up – now.”
The doctor took a moment to look at Riley for guidance, but one look from Willow and he quickly approached the table where Buffy was holding Spike’s hand and staring anxiously at his still-exposed brain. When she gave him another glare, he picked up his instruments and began the process of repairing Spike’s skull.
When he was finished and had moved back away from the table, Buffy pulled Spike into a sitting position and patted his cheeks trying to wake him up.
“Come on, baby,” she muttered. “Rise and shine, Spikie.”
When she got no reaction from the limp vampire, she glared at Riley and the doctor, demanding, “What’s wrong with him?”
The doctor hesitated, then at a nod from the Commando, he explained. “He was given blood with drugs to make him sleep. It was the only way to get him in here without risk to our personnel. You really shouldn’t get so close to him,” he added, as Buffy continued to hold Spike up. “ He is quite vicious and dangerous.”
“Not half as dangerous as I’m about to be,” she snarled at them. “Help me get him out of here and maybe I won’t show you how vicious a Slayer can be when her... friends...are abused.”
Riley cast an apprehensive look at the still-unconscious Professor Walsh, then reluctantly agreed to help. Buffy let Spike lie back on the gurney while she and Willow donned technician’s coats. When they were ready, the doctor pushed the gurney out through the broken door and into the main area. Following Riley’s broad back, the walked quickly past any initiative employees they saw, hoping the curious looks would not become actual questions.
Apparently the presence of Special Agent Finn, as well as the doctor was enough to compensate for Willow and Buffy’s lack of ID, and they were allowed to proceed unhampered to an unguarded door that opened near the fence. On the other side of the gate, Xander and Giles waited with the car.
As Buffy and Willow went to push the gurney toward the gate, Riley grabbed Buffy’s arm again. He quickly released it when he felt her muscle grow rigid, remembering how easily she had manhandled him earlier.
“Buffy,” he started, “I know you’re angry at me – us…” He waved his hand to indicate the Initiative complex, “but we’re all on the same side here. We need to stop Adam before he becomes too powerful. Please, let me – us – help you.”
She blew out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, then nodded her head.
“All right, Riley. You can help us. But I’m going to take care of Spike first. When he’s awake and can tell us what he knows, we can discuss how to get in there and what we need to do to destroy your escaped weapon.”
She started pushing the gurney toward the gate, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll call you later to tell you where we’ll be. You can meet us tonight and we’ll go over things then.”
He looked at the still un-conscious vampire dubiously and asked, “will he be able to tell us anything by then? He still looks pretty--”
“He’ll be fine,” Buffy said cryptically. “I know how to fix him.”
She ignored the shocked look Willow sent at her and continued pushing Spike toward the gate. The red-haired witch hurried to catch up, waving a quick good-bye to Riley as she ran after her friend.
Buffy gently put Spike into the back seat of the car and climbed in after, putting his head in her lap. She gave Giles directions to the crypt Spike had moved in to and settled back against the seat with her eyes shut. Her fingers were gently stroking the vampire’s head as she relaxed for the first time since they had escaped from Adam’s lair.
When they reached the crypt, Buffy insisted on moving Spike by herself. (No reason to let Giles or Xander see this set-up) she though, remembering the soft bed, crimson linens and candles inside. (It looks just like what it is – a place to have lots of mind-blowing sex.)
When she had settled him on the bed (carefully pulling the sheets into some semblance of neatness first), she quickly hid most of the candles, the wine bottle and the chocolates. As soon as she felt that it looked more like a place for a master vampire to bed down for the day, and less like a place for planned seductions, she allowed Giles and Xander to come in.
They glanced around curiously and Xander couldn’t resist commenting, “So this is where evil bloodsuckers stay when they can’t get a motel room. Got to say, Old Drac’s castle had a lot more class.”
Giles had no comment and his continued silence was making Buffy very nervous. Somehow she was sure that he wasn’t being fooled at all about her relationship with the blond vampire. However, as long as he didn’t say anything to her, she was more than willing to pretend he didn’t. Denial was no problem for the Chosen One. No problem at all.
Giles insisted that his apartment would be perfectly safe now that they knew what to be wary of, and he wanted to get back there to see what else Willow could find on-line about Adam or creatures like him. And, he wanted to get to his weapons chest and be sure they had everything they would need for the planned attack.
When he suggested they all leave, Buffy stared at him steadily as she said, “I need to stay here with Spike. I’m not leaving him defenseless. As soon as he’s OK, we’ll meet you there.”
Her Watcher looked at her grimly. “Buffy, I don’t thin-“
“Giles. It’s my decision.”
Only Willow had any idea what the staring contest was about. Xander was looking back and forth between the Slayer and her Watcher in bewilderment.
“I know I’m missing something here, Will. Care to fill me in?”
“Uh – no, no I don’t know what you’re talking about Xander. Just Buffy and Giles having a.... conversation.”
The staring contest between Buffy and Giles could have gone on much longer, but the Slayer finally turned away and walked further into the crypt saying over her shoulder, “We’ll see you later this afternoon – or tonight.”
The older man clenched his jaw, but managed to grit out, “I hope you know what you’re doing”
“I do, Giles. Believe me, I do,” she answered softly. Her eyes pleaded with her only father figure to understand.
Shaking his head, he finally turned away and walked out the door, calling to Willow and Xander over his shoulder as he did so.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
These were short chapters, so I stuck them together. Now just to be sure I don't lose track of where I am in the posting....