Spike sent another man tumbling head over heels down concrete stairs. Leaping over him before he’d even hit bottom, Spike tore down the stairs three steps at a time, twisted down the rail and threw open a metal door.
“Right then! Here comes, Spi…-”
His voice trailed away as his brain caught up with his eyes.
Eight men were caught up in ropy tendrils of darkness and each one was slowly being picked apart like petals on a daisy. Arms were pried off, legs ripped free, heads twisted off; the casual brutality with which they were murdered was staggering. The floor was stained black with the enormous amounts of blood that had spilt out of their mutilated bodies.
On the floor, a pretty blond woman was shot up six ways from Sunday.
As Spike very slowly traced back the origins of all this carnage, his mouth dropped.
Alec was suspended by what looked like a web of the stuff that stretched from one end of the room to another, his clothes were in tatters and the darkness poured out of his mouth, his eyes, even pushing its way out of his bare skin.
And he was smiling exultantly through it all. He was having fun.
“Yes, well, that’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen,” Spike commented through a suddenly dry throat.
Slowly, Spike advanced on his best friend.
“Uhh… right then, mate. ‘Cops and Robbers’ is over, time to go.”
A tendril of darkness knocked him clear across the room to smash through the trophy case. Shocked, Spike shook the glass off his body and winced as he pulled a great shard out of his hand.
“Right. Well, this rescue isn’t going according to plan,” he groaned.
Getting to his feet, he tried to take it all in. It was like some kind of freakish nightmare made worse by the fact that it was his best friend responsible for the worst carnage he’d seen since China.
A door burst open at the other end of the room, causing Spike to tear his eyes away from the grotesque spectacle. Several other men barged in with gas masks and machine guns.
“How many bloody cops are there in this place?” he asked, amazed.
Spike quickly reached an inescapable conclusion: either the cops would fill his friend with lead or Alec would tear them apart. For a moment, he blond wasn’t sure which one disturbed him more but either way it was going to end badly.
Acting on impulse, Spike charged Alec, snatching up a shotgun and kicking a rolling chair out before him. Planting a foot on the desk, he leaped up and tackled Alec hard. Miraculously, Alec slumped in his arms, unconscious, the darkness dispelling, dropping the gory remains of the previous inhabitants wetly to the floor.
Twisting his body in mid air, Spike landed in the rolling chair. Throwing Alec over his shoulder, Spike twisted around and, with a scream, opened fire with the shotgun, using its force to propel him towards some broken windows while at the same time making the police keep their heads down. The seat tipped backwards and they fell. Spike twisted his body as best he could and pushed Alec off and away.
The screech of tires tore Faith away from her pacing. She was worried about what was going on inside; they had been in there too long. She could hear screaming, gunfire and only the occasional vampire roar to confirm that both vampires were still alive.
“Finally!” she snarled.
Reaching down, she helped Xander pick up the near-unconscious witch. Giles cut the car into a tight turn, and with an expert display of stick and brake, sent it screeching to a rest in front of the three. Dawn kicked the door open, showing Anya sitting in the back seat.
“Let’s go!” Dawn cried out.
Xander handed Willow off to Anya as Faith turned to regard the police station; Giles burst out of the drivers’ side door and came running to her.
“Are they out? Where are they?” he demanded.
Faith spun on him. “I don’t know!” she screamed as she turned back to face the building.
“They’ve been in there-”
With an explosion of glass and deafening gunfire, a form exploded from the window and sailed three stories down. The group reflexively ducked at the sound of firing; Anya, Dawn and Xander huddled inside the car.
The form landed hard on the roof of the car, the metal buckling as it caved in, glass exploding as the back window and windshield collapsed. Anya screamed in terror. Faith rushed over and gasped.
“Angel,” she whispered.
The vampire was unconscious and looked shot to pieces.
Faith dragged him to the edge of the roof, and with a grunt, heaved his form off the ruined car.
“Get him in the car!” she screamed.
“HOW?!” Xander screamed back, folded in on himself as best he could to keep from being crushed as he gestured to the doors, twisted into useless metal by the impact.
With a growl of frustration, Faith shoved her fist through the shattered windshield. Tears of pain sprang to her eyes as the glass cut into her, but she ignored it and tore out the glass windshield in one piece, hurling it to the ground.
“Here!” she yelled, handing Angel’s limp form through new opening.
Xander and Dawn took a shoulder and dragged him in.
“What about Alec?” Dawn yelled.
Giles spun on Faith, who was busy getting Angel’s feet into the car.
“I have no idea!” she screamed.
A series of shotgun blasts echoed through the night air. Faith jerked her head up and frowned, trying to peer up into the dark.
“INCOMING!” Xander yelled.
Faith frowned harder, then her eyes went wide.
“Down!” she cried out, tackling Giles and knocking him to the ground as what looked like a rolling chair smashed into the hood of the car and then rolled off.
There was a slight whistling of cloth and then, with an ear-splitting crunch followed by another yell of terror from inside the car, two forms landed on the machine – one on the roof, one on the hood.
“Spike!” Faith cried out.
The blond vampire groaned and lolled, rolling over onto his side from his resting place on top of the roof, before nearly falling off the top of the car. Faith caught him and dragged him inside the car. Willow was jostled to full awareness.
“What happened?” she asked groggily
“Alec!” an agonized voice cried out.
Faith turned and almost dropped Spike.
Giles was cradling his son’s head… at least she thought it was his head, it looked like nothing more than a bloody mass of tissue and bone.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Faith whispered, crossing herself for the first time in years in sheer horror at the sight.
Giles wept as he held his son’s body.
“Save the religion and the water works, your boy is still alive,” Spike spoke up, shaking himself free of Faith’s grip.
Giles took a pulse and then exhaled hard.
“He’s alive, barely,” he whispered.
“Help!” Xander’s muffled voice cried out from the car.
The final impact on the roof had nearly crushed them and even now seemed to be on the verge of doing so. Faith and Giles helped Alec off the hood of the car as Spike dug his hands into the machine, and with a roar of rage, tore the ruined metal roof clean off and hurled it away.
“Hulk smash,” Xander commented before he got a good look at Alec, which made him pale.
“Oh man,” he whispered.
Willow pushed her way past him. “Where is he?!” she demanded.
Xander tried to hold her back. “No. Wait! Wills!”
It was no use; she saw him and went rigid. He looked dead, he had to be dead.
“Alec,” she whispered, her voice filled with more pain and grief than Xander had ever heard in anyone’s voice.
Dawn scrambled around to get a better look and began to keen a wail of grief and agony.
“Oh, God. Alec,” Dawn whispered brokenly.
A gunshot cracked loud in the air, followed by another. The group ducked, Giles throwing his body over his son's as Faith and Spike hit the ground and those inside the car tried to huddle for protection.
All except Willow.
She tore her gaze from her mutilated lover and looked up at the window. Several police officers in gas masks were shooting at them. Raising her arms high above her head she began to chant.
“Uh-oh, the witch bitch is pissed,” Spike commented.
A burst of gunfire exploded near him, driving him down and away from Faith. Giles dragged his son back behind the car, seeking whatever meager shelter they could as Anya, Xander, and Dawn dragged Angel out of the car and down to join them.
Suddenly, the humming filled the air again, their fillings began to throb and several tiny shards of twisted metal began to float in the air. Faith was the only one, exposed and out in the open that saw this, saw the look on Willow’s face, a look that chilled her blood because it was so similar to the one she had had at one time.
The face of a killer.
Willow screamed out her rage, her thoughts filled with a pounding conclusion over and over. These men had killed her lover.
The metal fragments screeched up to the window, slicing apart anything and anyone in their path; they moved like they had a mind, seeking out each and every person in that room that wasn’t already dead.
Within moments, ten men were sliced into meat to join the remains of the eight that had already died and the one woman who had sacrificed herself to serve and protect another.
Willow slumped to the seat, unconscious; Faith just gaped in horror at what she had seen, trying to recollect the concept of mass murder with this seemingly gentle girl she had known for years.
“Let’s go!” Anya yelled out, breaking Faith out of her grim reverie.
Hoisting the mortally wounded Angel and Alec into the backseat, everyone attempted to pile into the car. Giles floored the accelerator, and with a screech of tires, he cut the wheel hard, twisting the car around before launching them away from this place of slaughter and torture and deep into the safety of the sheltering night.
“How is he?” Dawn yelled, near hysterical.
Miraculously, amongst all the swollen blood-encrusted skin and broken bones, a single damaged eye opened to regard the group in a blank haze of pain and puzzlement. Spike, perched in the front seat, turned to Alec and smiled, giving him a thumbs-up.
“Cheer up, mate, you’re rescued,” he quipped while lighting a cigarette.
“Alec,” Dawn whispered breathlessly, reaching out to stroke his hair back from his bloody face with a shaking hand, almost afraid that her touch could sever the young man’s tenuous hold on life.
As her hands touched his face, his eye closed gently, his breathing became a bit more steady, the lines of pain and fear smoothed, and within a few moments, he seemed to be resting quietly, if not comfortably.
Xander looked up at the young girl in awe. “How did you…?”
Dawn only shook her head as she gently stroked Alec’s face.
“I have no idea,” Dawn whispered.
“Dawnie’s got a gift,” a tired voice piped up.
Faith, sitting between Spike and Giles in the front, looked up into the rear view mirror to see Willow slowly rise up from the back seat. Keeping her expression carefully guarded, the Slayer instead turned her attention to the front seat as Willow brushed aside the snowy lock of white hair from her face and peered down at her lover.
“He seems to be doing better, but he really needs some patching up,” she whispered grimly.
Anya snorted.
“Yes and I’m sure that any hospital in the tri borough area would be happy to admit a fugitive half-demon,” she commented.
Willow sent her a very dark look as the tension in the car rose dramatically.
“He’s not the only one,” Dawn put in attempting to defuse the situation. “Angel’s shot up pretty badly.”
Spike nodded. “Yeah, looks like the great poof zigged when he should have zagged. Caught a gut-full of high caliber automatic weapon fire.”
Faith slugged him hard on the shoulder, nearly causing him to spill out of the car, his cigarette sent flying out of his mouth to dance across the speeding pavement below and spark flaming into the night.
“Bloody hell!” he roared.
Faith held up a warning finger. “Watch it, blondie,” she growled darkly.
Spike adjusted his jacket and ran a hand through his hair, regaining his cool and removing another cigarette from his jacket; he cupped it with his free to protect it from the whipping wind and lit up.
Faith turned her attention to Angel; he looked bad… again, it seemed like he’d just recovered from his ordeal in the Deadlands, now this happened.
What was it about heroes and copious amounts of injury?
Willow cradled Alec’s head in her lap, gently stroking the wounds on his face.
“Animals,” she whispered quietly, her voice full of black hatred.
Dawn looked up at her and shook her head.
“Victims,” the younger girl corrected, guessing who the witch was referring to. “Corrupted by the Fleshdancer. I don’t think they knew what they were doing.”
Willow looked up at her, her expression murderous.
“I don’t care,” she commented simply, chillingly.
Dawn swallowed and gripped Alec’s hand tightly. Her fear was washed away in a wave of quiet happiness when she felt his hand reflexively grip her tiny hand. She squeezed back just as tightly, blinking back tears. He was alive and that was all that mattered.
She could almost feel him; feel his life in his body. It was like a tiny spark surrounded by darkness. Dawn ran her fingers gently over his, touching him gently, lightly tracing the outline of a bad bruise. She could sense the damage, down to the cells and then beyond that, down to his soul.
Focusing slightly, she felt something inside her, her love for him, the way she felt, push forward out of her, just a little. The damaged skin of his hand began to smooth and within moments the bruise had faded. Dawn shivered in delight; for a moment, she and Alec were almost like one person.
The smile froze when she sensed that darkness surrounding his spark begin to stir and begin to stalk her, chasing her out of his body. She had a brief flash of a terrible and evil mind, vast and vicious. Then she tore her hand away with a gasp.
Willow looked up at her confused. “What is it?” she asked worriedly.
Dawn merely shook her head. “It’s nothing, hand cramp,” she lied.
Willow, too preoccupied with her lover’s condition, merely nodded.
Dawn examined her hand. It was bone white, just as if it had suffered severe frostbite, the fingers were stiff, the skin felt frigid. Cradling her wounded hand she settled back against the seat to stare into the dark.
Spike, watching from the rear view mirror, observed Dawn rubbing her hand and the condition it was in. He slowly shifted his gaze to Alec’s bloody and unconscious form. There was more than simple darkness within his friend.
There was evil.
Pure.
Hungry.
And all too real
God help us all, we band of buggered.
“His wounds are quite severe, but I believe with constant attention, some magic, and also time, he will recover partially,” DeGanon informed them.
The rescuers had made their way back to the sewer lair.
Giles frowned. “What do you mean, ‘partially’?”
Faith and the others, sans Angel who was also resting from his ordeal, looked also concerned.
“Let me show you,” DeGanon whispered, gesturing.
Leading the group into the make-shift infirmary, they passed Angel, who had had to have every bullet extracted from him and then the wounds bandaged, past Buffy, who lay resting, her bandages no longer leaking blood, to Alec.
Alec looked the worst. There wasn’t a square inch of his flesh that wasn’t stitched, bandaged or wrapped in gauze. Willow merely shook her head at the sight, grief and rage making her sick.
Dawn, however, remained troubled by what she had felt inside him, though she too was obviously affected. Willow leaned over to place a kiss on Alec’s head as DeGanon gently turned him over. Gently peeling back a bandage he gestured to a patch of skin at the base of his spine, spanning roughly one hand in size, completely smooth and almost glassy in texture.
“This is the mark of the Fleshdancer.”
Faith frowned. “You mean this guy put his hand inside his body…”
“…And fused his spine. He will never walk again,” DeGanon informed them grimly.
A loud crash jerked their attention away; Spike had kicked over a table in rage. Willow had tears in her eyes and Dawn was not far behind. Faith just shook her head in dismay.
“Oh man,” she whispered, remembering their sparring, how much he’d enjoyed it, how much he loved fighting against the evil.
And now he’d never walk again.
Giles sat down, aghast, and just shook his head over and over. DeGanon reapplied the bandage and laid the unconscious man back down.
“His other wounds are quite serious: he’s been shot, several bones in his face have been broken, one of his eyes has been ruptured, several ribs are broken as well, several more are cracked, so are bones in his arms and legs,” DeGanon concluded, looking at the sleeping man. “He was obviously tortured in addition to whatever happened beforehand.”
“I’m going to kill them!” Spike roared. “I’m going to go back to that police station and I’m not leaving till every single stinking person in there is a corpse.”
“Want some help?” Willow asked quietly, her eyes dark.
Dawn stepped in. “That’s enough,” she scolded.
“Mass slaughter isn’t going to solve anything and it’s certainly not what Alec would want,” she put in.
Wanna bet? Spike thought to himself as he scowled at her darkly and Willow merely turned her attention back to her lover.
“Hey D,” Faith chimed.
Dawn turned to her, ready for another argument. She was angry at what had happened to Alec, furious in fact, but she could not condone butchering people like cattle.
“Yeah?” she asked, lip stuck out defiantly.
“You’re right.”
Dawn’s defiance slipped. “Oh… okay,” she replied awkwardly.
Faith smiled at her. “Alec would be proud of you.”
Dawn blushed all the way to the roots of her hair; Willow smiled slightly, attempting to shake off her dark mood.
“She’s right. Alec’s a warrior, not a killer,” she told Dawn, placing a hand on her shoulder.
Spike sent them an unreadable look.
Giles stood up. “How long did Daenna say that they will be unconscious?” he asked.
DeGanon, his expression carefully guarded, chose his words just as carefully.
“Unfortunately, Daenna has gone missing, none of the tribe have seen her since the incident earlier,” he informed them calmly.
Spike’s eyes narrowed.
“Wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the fact that she was the only one of the tribe that knew you had a Dahaka on your hands, would it mate?” he asked.
Slowly, all the eyes in the room fixed on DeGanon, who merely crossed his arms.
“I assure you, every effort is being made to find her and bring her home,” the gypsy chieftain replied coolly.
“Yeah, well, I have a sneaky suspicion that’s not going to work out too well,” Spike replied.
Stalking over to the bed, he dragged a chair between Alec and Buffy’s beds and sat down.
“What are you doing?” DeGanon hissed.
Spike looked up him casually.
“Making sure none of the other people who know about that flesh freak turn up missing,” he replied.
DeGanon’s dark features darkened further as he strode over to the chair to loom over the vampire.
“Are you implying-?”
“I wouldn’t call it an ‘implication’, mate,” Spike replied.
DeGanon moved his hands to the hilts of his kukri.
And stopped dead as the seated Spike produced a butterfly knife and, with a deft wrist movement, rested the tip of the blade lightly against the standing gypsy’s groin.
“Careful, mate, a flick of my wrist and I can put an end to your ham eating days,” he warned darkly.
DeGanon slowly moved his hands away from his weapons and regarded the vampire with raw anger.
Spike coolly refolded the knife and pocketed it.
“Your day will come, shimulo,” he warned darkly.
Spike smiled wryly. “Tougher men than you have said that, mate, think you’ll die as easily as they did,” he replied.
Flushed with anger, the gypsy stalked away muttering in Romani.
“Was that wise, Spike?” Giles asked. “Alienating our host can only result in confrontations later.”
Spike gestured with a finger at the departing gypsy.
“I don’t trust that bloke. You heard what he said – his ultimate loyalty is to the tribe and his master is Dracula. Put those two together and you get the fixings of a fanatic and the problem with a fanatic is that you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly stupid,” he commented.
“I know I’ve heard that line somewhere before,” Faith replied.
Spike nodded. “Yeah, works just as well for honest people.”
“I’ll take second watch,” Giles put in grimly.
“I got third,” Faith replied.
“I’ll stay for all of them as best I can,” Willow added. “If he comes at us with gypsy magic, you’ll need me.”
If he comes at us at all, they’ll be scraping what’s left of him off the ceiling, Faith thought darkly, the grisly results of the witch’s murderous prowess springing vividly to mind.
Dawn looked concerned.
“Are you sure, Wills? You haven’t been sleeping much,” she asked worried.
Willow nodded, her hair falling into her face.
“I’ll be okay,” she inhaled. “I’m a Rosenberg, we’re a tough breed.”
“All right then. Giles, Dawn, and I will get some Z’s, the rest of you keep your eyes open, your ears pricked…” Faith began.
Spike looked up and grinned at this, Faith shot him a wry look.
“I said EARS pricked, not the other way around.”
Willow giggled and Spike made a big show of ‘misunderstanding’.
Dawn frowned. “Okay, you lost me.”
Faith patted her shoulder. “It’s a play on words, I’ll explain later,” she assured the younger girl.
The dark-haired Slayer then turned to Willow.
“Go see if you can rouse Xander and Anya, maybe we can divvy up guard duty a bit more proportionately.”
Willow nodded. “On it.”
Faith sighed. “All right then, troops, you’ve got your assignments, let’s remain five by five and take care of our people.”
“What is it with this family and people barking out orders?” Spike demanded.
Giles chuckled quietly and rested a hand on his son's head.
“We have within us great strength, a quality trait in those who would become leaders of men,” he replied softly before leaning down and gently placing a kiss upon his sons head. “Rest up, son, you’re needed.”
“Damn straight,” Spike commented raising his now near-empty flask in toast to the sentiment.
Willow took up watch near the door, Spike near the beds; the others began to file out. Only Dawn remained, and she gently leaned over Alec and whispered in his ear.
“You’re needed,” she told him, her heart in her voice before moving away.
Willow looked up at her. “What did you tell him?” she asked.
Dawn looked embarrassed and laughed a little.
“Oh, nothing. Just wanted to wish him pleasant dreams,” she tried to mention lightly.
Willow nodded as Dawn left, wondering whether or not Dawn’s ability to fabricate a lie on demand would get better with more practice.
DeGanon cursed himself over and over as he stalked through the corridors of his domain. It hadn’t been enough to murder the old woman who had understood exactly what her fate would be once she learned of the Dahaka; hence her fleeing into the pipes. She had to die though, and in the end she knew that and had remained oddly passive when DeGanon caught up with her and held her head under the surface of a pool of raw sewage until she had stopped thrashing and the currents took her body away.
Her death was necessary to keep panic from sweeping through the kumpania, but now the cursed Slayer and her family were beginning to get suspicious. He wiped at his face with a white linen handkerchief and cursed in Romani. None of them knew how dangerous the Dahaka was, to the world and to the tribe. And, most of all, to him.
Wringing the handkerchief in worried agony, he frowned when it began to take on an odd texture. He looked down… and gasped in shock and horror.
The handkerchief was stained with blood, almost black. Racing to a pool of water framed by a nest of rusted pipes, he peered into the murky water.
There was no wound. DeGanon frowned in disbelief, staring at the bloody rag in his hands. Hurriedly, he threw the rag in the water, and immediately the dark water became red and thick, viscous and gory. The gypsy peered into the pool in shock, then screamed as a bone-white hand burst from the surface and grabbed at his shirt, trying to drag him into the pool.
Daenna’s face rose from the blood like a ghost, her expression twisted in rage as she clawed at her murderer. Twisting out of her grasp, he tore his kukri from his belt and with a single slash decapitated her. The head bounced and rolled across the wet stone floor. The rest of the body sank back underneath the red water and was no more.
Cautiously, DeGanon approached the severed head, which remained very real. Picking it up by the hair, he turned it to face him. The eyes shot open, a horrible milky white, and the mouth hissed at him.
“Dahaka, the sins of the Spaarti have returned! Your sin, DeGanon! Your sin!”
With a roar of rage and fear, DeGanon hurled the head high in the air; it sailed up and away and came to rest in a large pool of black water, quickly sinking into its depths.
But as it flew, the voice repeated its black mantra.
“Your sin.”
DeGanon, shaking and terrified, crossed himself. This was prikasa, bad luck, a sign of dark things to come. And dark things already arrived.
DeGanon watched as the last bubbles from the pool stilled and were no more.
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