Chapter Seven
Not Good News
Hours passed and since Spike was banned from helping with the research so he could concentrate on keeping his own identity, he just mooched about holding his jacket, trying to reminisce about the bad old days, which was proving harder than he’d thought it could be. At one point he’d even dipped a finger into Giles’ blood in the refrigerator and tasted it, hoping it would help him focus but it just turned his stomach.
“I’ve found something.” Willow’s voice was triumphant, “I’ve got an account here of a vampire involved in a Morowgwi demon induced body swap. The ritual to reverse the spell was done, but…” she paused.
“But? There’s a but?” said Spike, leaping up, “What’s the but?”
Willow looked at him, her big eyes full of sorrow. Spike started to back away a little, not wanting to hear the answer anymore.
“Go on, Willow,” urged Buffy.
“But,” she said quietly, “the vampire didn’t survive the switch back.”
“What happened? How did it die?” asked Giles.
“What’s it matter what happened? Dead is what happened. Does it matter how I end up dead?” cried Spike, “I’m too sodding young to die!”
“Spike, calm down. We’re not going to let you die,” soothed Giles, “Why don’t you and Buffy go out and patrol for a bit? Leave us to work this out.”
“Okay,” said Buffy, “Come on, a bit of violence will do you good.”
Spike cheered momentarily and left with her.
“Right, now he can’t hear us. What happened to the other vampire?”
“The switch went ahead, the human back in his body with just a bit of nausea recorded. The vampire appeared to re-enter his body but then just dusted with no external signs as to why,” said Willow.
“Do you think this is because of this sort of fading identity he’s got happening?” asked Xander. He never liked Spike but did feel a bit sorry for the guy.
“Yes, I think that must be the key. We’ve got to try to focus him on himself as much as possible and I think we need to provoke his vampire behaviour as soon as he’s switched. That might be strong enough to help prevent the dusting, or damn it, that might be the cause of the dusting!” said Giles in exasperation, “Willow, does it say anything else? How long were they in the wrong bodies? Perhaps that’s the key?”
“They were…oh…” said Willow. She looked up at Giles, “It was two days less than it’ll be with you and Spike.”
“Can’t we do it earlier then?” asked Xander, “Do we have to wait?”
“We haven’t enough dust to summon it until the boundaries of the dimensions are at their weakest, so no, that’s not an option,” said Giles.
Oooooooo
Buffy and Spike returned after the others were asleep. Spike had cheered up a bit, especially as he’d managed to dust a vampire.
Buffy went upstairs to bed, she and Willow still claiming it each night. Giles was asleep on the couch and Xander in one of the armchairs.
“God, that boy could sleep anywhere.”
Spike was a bit too wired to sleep straight away. He hadn’t sounded like Giles in his thoughts whilst he’d been on patrol and so was feeling a bit better about the whole thing, well, as long as he didn’t dwell on the whole ‘turning into a big pile of dust’ thing. He wandered round then poured himself a Jack Daniels. Someone had bought it for him obviously knowing it was his favourite. He selected a book off the shelf and settled down to read until he felt sleepy.
He was so engrossed in the book that he didn’t hear Buffy come back down the stairs to use the bathroom. Suddenly the book was snatched from his hands and he was punched in the face.
“No! You’re Spike. You’re Spike, not Giles,” said Buffy.
“Er..yeah…I know I am, pet,” said Spike, “What the hell was that for?” He put a hand up to his bloody nose.
“When I saw you there reading…….” She looked down at the book in her hands, moving it out of Spike’s reach as he tried to snatch it back, “…poetry, I thought Giles had taken you over.”
She looked back at Spike to see him blushing furiously. Blushing is something vampires can’t do, so it was a very strange sight to see Giles’ face bright red. Buffy was so taken aback that Spike was able to grab the book back off of her.
“Yeah, well, everyone said I should do stuff that makes me feel like me and I couldn’t sleep so…”
“So you decided to do something so completely Giles just by accident? God, it’s getting worse. You don’t even know you’re doing it anymore,” interrupted Buffy.
“So,” continued Spike, glaring at her, “I saw he had the same volume that I have in my crypt and decided to read a bit, alright? You tell anyone and I’ll bite you when I can, chip or no bleeding chip.”
Buffy started to giggle.
“I mean it.”
“Okay, okay, your sordid secret’s safe with me,” chuckled Buffy. “Spike reading poetry - what was that all about?”
to be continued………
CHAPTER SEVEN WAS SHORT SO CHAPTER EIGHT IS HERE TOO. PLEASE READ ON....
Chapter Eight
The Ritual
The next morning the gang started preparing for the ritual the next day. They decided to do it at 1 am as that was the very earliest the alignment was correct. They daren’t leave it any later as at one point Willow called for Giles and both Giles and Spike turned to answer her, before Spike realised what he’d done and stormed out, clutching his beloved duster. They didn’t follow him this time -just let him have some space.
They were just starting to worry where Spike had gotten to when he arrived back at the apartment.
“Where’ve you been?” asked Willow, “You’ve been gone for so long.”
“Just around and about, pet. Couldn’t face sitting here all day,” said Spike, not wanting to tell them he’d gone to his crypt to see if it would help him focus but it hadn’t helped at all. It hadn’t felt like home, so he’d wandered round Sunnydale for the rest of the time. He’d tried to not even think of anything for fear of hearing Giles’ voice in his head.
“Right then, we’re ready to go. It’ll take us a while to set things out,” said Giles.
“Go where?” asked Spike, “Aren’t we doing it here?”
“It has to be done at the site of the first switch. We think that’s why the vampire dusted, because it wasn’t in the same place,” said Willow.
“Was that ‘think’ or ‘know’, pet?” asked Spike dryly.
No one said anything.
“Got another little problem to worry about if we’ve got to go back into the graveyard. It’s crawling with Initiative troops, so just in case I don’t bleeding turn into a pile of dust, I can get captured and experimented on instead,” said Spike.
“Damn, just what we don’t need,” said Giles, “Look, Willow, you know how to set everything out. I think I’d better stay here until just before we’re ready to start. They won’t be interested in what you’re doing.”
“Oh no,” said Spike sarcastically, “They won’t find anything suspicious about a middle-aged man and a bunch of youngsters half his age setting up some weird magical stuff in the middle of a graveyard in the middle of the sodding night. Oh no, they won’t give it a second thought.”
“We haven’t got any other options,” said Giles, “Go on, get it all organised and I’ll meet you there at one.”
So off they went, each carrying a bag with some of the supplies they needed and Willow carrying the ancient book that held the vital incantation. When they got to the site of the switch they started to lay out the summoning circle.
Willow carefully made a circle with enchanted sand, placing five candles at equal distances around it. A further two sand circles were marked out for both Giles and Spike to stand in. Half of the dust would be thrown into the empty circle to summon the demon and the rest thrown over it to provoke it to reverse the switch whilst Willow chanted the incantation.
At one point an Initiative patrol did pass by but although they gave them all strange looks they continued on without questioning them. Shortly before 1 am Giles appeared, arriving so stealthily that he startled everyone as he spoke.
“Are we ready?” he asked.
“Jeez! Can you go easy on the creeping up?” said Xander, nearly dropping his precious handful of dust.
“Yes, we’re ready,” said Willow, “Spike, Giles, stand in those circles and make sure you’re standing at the correct side of each other so it’s as you were when you got switched.”
Giles went into the left hand circle. Spike hesitated a little, then raised his chin, squared his shoulders, and stepped into the circle on the right.
“Hope this works, pet,” he said to Willow, hoping no one would notice he was trembling slightly.
“Okay, here goes,” said Willow.
All the candles were lit and Willow began to read from the old book she held in her hand. The words were in a language she didn’t understand so she hoped the pronunciation was in the ballpark. Her voice was a soft monotone, almost hypnotic. She threw the dust into the empty circle. Suddenly, with a burst of static energy, a demon appeared. As soon as it did Xander leapt forward and threw the remaining dust into its face. Its dull orange eye opened wide and a burst of brilliant orange light flew from it and hit Giles and Spike and threw them off their feet and out of their circles. As soon as the light stopped flowing from the beast Xander rushed over to the two fallen men.
“Giles! Spike! Has it worked?” he yelled.
Giles sat up slowly and looked down at his body.
“I’m back,” he said before turning to the side and vomiting .
Spike lay still. Xander shook him.
“Spike, Spike.”
“Huh?” said Spike, blearily lifting his head off the ground, “You did it, I’m not dust.” Then he flopped back down, barely conscious.
“It worked!” shouted Xander.
With that Buffy, who’d been positioned to the side of the summoning circle, swung her axe and decapitated the demon.
“You won’t be messing with my friends again,” she cried.
It disappeared as it hit the ground, its body sucked back into its own dimension.
“Come on, guys, we’ve got company,” said Xander.
They all froze for a moment. They could hear the Initiative patrol getting close, no doubt drawn by the static disturbance.
“Leave the stuff. Willow, Xander, you get Giles home. I’ll get Spike.”
Xander went over to Giles, who by now had gotten to his feet and, despite looking a bit green, seemed okay. Spike was still on the floor. Willow and Xander grabbed Giles and hustled him away. Buffy got to Spike’s prone body.
“Come on, Spike, time to get going.”
She gave him a shake. He looked up at her vaguely. She gave him another shake and started to pull him up. He got the message and tried to stand but got halfway up and his legs gave out. He sat down with a thump.
“Christ! Come on!” urged Buffy.
“Too tired,” came his mumbled reply.
“You’ll be too dead if the Initiative catches you. Spike, can’t you vamp up or something? We need to move. Now!”
His features didn’t change but he staggered to his feet and this time managed to more or less stay upright, leaning heavily on Buffy. The pair of soldiers had worked their way in front of them, effectively cutting off the easiest route to Giles’. Buffy glanced around and saw they were near Spike’s crypt.
Luckily Slayer strength meant she could half carry Spike to the crypt. He seemed totally out of it. They made it but to her dismay she heard the soldiers talking on their radios saying they were going to check the crypts once more. She’d let go of Spike to shut the door and when she turned back round he’d slumped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. They’d be here any second. She dragged the barely awake vampire over to one of the tombs. She slid back the lid put him in it and slid it back again, then she quickly ran and jumped into the entrance to the sewers. She held her breath.
The soldiers came in and poked about a bit.
“This is pointless. We’ve done all these once already,” one grumbled.
“Yeah, but when the professor wants it done it gets done,” said the second, “But there’s nothing here. Let’s go.”
They went out of the crypt and Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. She needed to get Spike a bit more ‘with it’ if she was to get him back to the apartment. She pulled back the lid of the tomb and hauled Spike out. He was as limp as a rag doll. She decided to get tough and slapped him a couple of times across the face, hard. His eyes came open a slit and he squinted at her.
“Slayer? What’re you doing here?”
“Saving your undead ass is what I’m doing,” she snapped, “We’ve got to get you out of here. The Initiative are patrolling.”
This time the words had a little more effect. His eyes focussed a little more sharply and he pushed himself up, swaying alarmingly as he did so.
“Ooh, I don’t feel so good, pet,” he said, his words a bit slurred.
“You’ll feel better once we’re at Giles’ place. You can rest there.”
The pair of them made their way out of the crypt and back towards the apartment. They managed to hide when a patrol went past. Buffy was barely able to get Spike to his feet afterwards but struggled on with him.
“Buff? Is that you?” A voice came from ahead.
“Xander, thank God. Help me - Spike’s barely conscious.”
Xander rushed to them and between him and Buffy they soon had Spike safely indoors.
Ooooooooo
They all stood looking at the vampire lying on the couch. He hadn’t moved or spoken in the half hour he’d been there.
“Least he’s not a pile of dust,” said Willow.
“Perhaps he just needs to sleep it off?” said Buffy.
“Perhaps,” said Giles, but he was worried for Spike. His own feelings of nausea and dizziness had passed quickly. He would have thought a vampire’s constitution would have bounced back quicker than his own, since he’d obviously survived the switch. “Well, there’s nothing more we can do tonight. It’s nearly three am – let’s try to get some sleep. We’ll take turns watching him. I’ll go first.”
They all made their way to their now usual sleeping places, the girls in the bedroom, Xander in his preferred easy chair, Spike on the couch and Giles settled in a chair to watch over him.
It’s when a vampire is unconscious that you truly realise they are in fact not alive. Although not needing to breathe on a physiological level the body carries on as if it does but when unconscious it falters and barely happens at all. If it was possible for Spike to look any more pale than usual then he did. Giles sat and wondered what he could do. After a couple of hours he roused Xander from his sleep to take the next watch and settled back in his own chair, falling asleep within minutes. The trouble was, so was Xander.
To be continued………
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Author's Chapter Notes:
thanks to Carol for her beta work