Buffy languished in the pale arms of her lover. Spike placed a cool kiss on her forehead and stroked her golden hair back. The two of them swung gently in a wide hammock, mounted on the roof of the building that contained Pan’s lair.
“Penny for your thoughts, luv?” Spike asked quietly.
“Believe it or not, despite all the death and ultra-suck of the last few days, I’m thinking happy wedding-shaped plans.”
Spike chortled. “Arranging flowers, seating charts that kind of thing?”
Buffy grinned. “Yeah, and I decided I want a traditional church wedding.”
“Pffft, yeah, you have a good time with that,” Spike retorted.
Buffy socked him in the ribs.
“Ow, bloody hell!” Spike groaned with a grin.
“And I want to take your last name,” Buffy said.
Spike’s jaw dropped, “You want to do what?!”
“Why the ubershock?”
Spike shrugged. “I was under the impression that a modern girl like yourself would want to keep her name or have one of those god awful hyphenated names.”
“Call me traditional. But it’s something I think would be kind of old-fashioned romantic.”
“Yeah and you’re all about old fashioned.”
“Oh shut up.” Buffy retorted elbowing her lover. “So what’s your last name?”
Spike suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Luv, there’s a long, ugly, history attached to my lineage: murderers, rapists, thieves, lunatics. I did my best to try and put as much distance between them and myself. Tried to make a proper gentleman of myself, get my way into polite society,” he sighed, “Bloody well blew that.”
“So what do you want to do?” Buffy asked.
Spike stared up at the stars above them and the velvet black of the night sky as he gave his thought words. “William Summers has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
Buffy looked shocked. “You’d take my name,” she said stunned, “And you’d go by William?!”
Spike shrugged. “Babe, I’ve spent a hundred and twenty six years roaming this grand ol’ ball of rock in space, looking for truth and fun…well, yeah okay mostly fun, but anyways,” he pressed on, ignoring Buffy’s wry smile, “I’ve knuckle-dusted with the best of them, seen the world and I’ve done it all with a smile on my face.” Spike put his hands behind his head as Buffy placed a warm kiss on his bicep.
“I think I’d like to take a load off for a while, you know? Relax. Let someone else tear the world up for a while,” Spike sent her a wry look, “Your brother seems keen on taking on all comers.”
Buffy looked troubled, “Yeah, it’s starting to give me a wiggins,” she said to herself.
Spike sent her a confused look. “What do you mean babe?”
Buffy shook her head, “It’s nothing,” she turned her attention back to her lover. “So you think being married to me is going to be a vacation huh?”
Spike grinned, “Piece of cake,” he assured her.
The Slayer rolled her eyes, “Yeah right,” she said with a laugh and she pinched Spike’s arm hard. He cried out in pain and the two of them tussled in the hammock causing it to pitch and sway.
Spike stopped then and turned his eyes eastward, “Getting to be about that time,” he said grimly. He turned his attention back to his lover, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Buffy nodded emphatically, “If I spend one more day in a sewer or a crypt or an underground tunnel, I’m going to go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
Spike sighed and nodded, “All right then, let’s see if we can get this bloody thing to work.” Spike took a grip of one end of the hammock, Buffy took the other and together they gently pulled.
Huge, green leafy pedals gently folded around them as the vine hammock gently bore them down to the ground. With a gentle puff of air, the giant flower they were resting within sealed shut. There was a slight, warmish green glow emanating from outside but other than that, the couple was blocked away from the sun’s approaching rays.
“How does it feel to you?” Buffy asked Spike as she settled against his chest, her fingers tangling into his hair.
“Like I’ve been sealed into a bloody Venus Flytrap,” he replied gruffly.
Buffy chuckled and kissed his smooth cheek. “’ William Summers’, I like it.” she said with a grin.
Spike placed a responding kiss upon her golden head. “Yeah, me too luv.”
“Good night William.”
“Good night Buffy.”
And the couple dreamed away the day embraced in each other and in living green.
A rat sniffed in the darkness. Its whiskers twitched as its beady eyes peered this way and that. It darted from shadow to shadow, scurrying on tiny clawed feet. For a moment, it picked up a piece of detritus in its pink paws and nibbled at it before discarding it as something inedible.
Suddenly, the tiny rat cocked its head curiously. There was something moving in the darkness before him. The rat scuttled up to it, sniffing curiously.
The thing in the dark raced towards the rat and entwined itself around the creature. The rat began to squeal even as the dark thing attached itself to the creature’s head and wrapped its body even tighter around the rat. The rat screeched and thrashed, blood spurting out of its pink eyes and nose, its little paws kicking and struggling as the coils of the other creature squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.
There was a loud SNAP and the rat spasmed once and then was still. Slowly, the darkness enveloping its head made its way down the rest of its body, swallowing it up. Within moments, all that remained of the small rat was a tuft of hair and a small spot of blood.
With a sound like a whisper on silk, the thing of darkness slithered back into the darkness from whence it had came.
Alec awoke with a jolt and lurched to his feet. His guts were on fire as he staggered out of the bed he shared with Willow and made for the bathroom. Stumbling, tendrils of darkness shot out of his arms and wrist like spider silk, attaching themselves to the ceiling and floor, supporting and anchoring him reflexively even as he staggered along.
He felt gorge rising in the back of his throat and he reached the sink just in time to vomit, hard and convulsing. He dug his hands into the porcelain of the sink to keep from collapsing as he jerked and coughed.
Finally, it was over. Alec spat out a mouthful of bile and turned on the florescent light, the only source of light in the bathroom.
The sink was stained with blood; thick, dark, and red. Alec gaped at in shock. Something within the bloody mess caught his eye. It looked solid, like he had expunged a piece of himself in the tide of bile and blood.
Great, he thought to himself, Best case scenario: This is a tumor and I have cancer. Worst case…. Alec really didn’t want to think of what the worst case scenario could be, especially one added in the possibility of demons.
Gingerly, he reached into the sink and plucked the disgusting object from the sink and held it up to the light.
A tiny, bloody rat skull.
Alec jerked his hand back as if the object had scalded him. The gory skull hit the sink and shattered, the pieces disappearing down the drain.
He leaned forward to peer into the mirror, confusion racing through him as he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue before then proceeding to pull down his lower eyelid, examining himself in the mirror closely. .
A tiny strand of darkness, about the size of a tapeworm, slithered up through his eyeball and disappeared into his head.
Leaping back from the mirror he bit his tongue to keep from crying out.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Alec muttered to himself. He frowned at his reflection. Something didn’t look right. Gingerly, he lifted up his t-shirt and instantly wished he hadn’t.
Where once there had been a series of tight, compact muscle covering his chest and stomach, now the muscle was gone and his ribs protruded visibly. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in months. Alec gaped as he traced a line across a bony rib. His skin was also two shades of pale white, nearly corpse-like. He realized his face had a sunken, sallow look to it and there were pronounced bags under his eyes.
“Ohhh….this just sucks.”
“Alec…?” a drowsy voice emanated from behind him.
Quickly, Alec jerked his shirt down covering himself and killed the light.
“Yeah love?”
“Are you all right? I thought I heard something?”
“Yeah, love, I’m fine,” he reassured Willow before taking another look down the drain, “Just something I ate is all.”
“Come back to bed,” she asked quietly.
“Sure, love.”
Gently, he padded back over to the bed and wrapped his arms around her. She smiled and nestled against him, then frowned slightly.
“Have you lost weight?” she asked, still not really awake.
“Fighting the forces of evil; best weight loss program in the world,” he said before adding in a roguish tone, “Well, second best,” he amended as he pinched her backside.
She giggled and sighed and before long she was back asleep.
Alec however did not sleep. He could no longer be sure what would happen if he did. And what else was waiting to take hold of him in the darkness of his dreams.
Several hours later, the group had assembled in what was commonly being referred to as the audience room. It was the room where Pan was planted in front of his computers and where there was the most space. Buffy sat perched on Spike’s lap, Angel stood off to the corner, leaning against the wall, looking impassive, Faith and Dawn sat on the floor near Pan while Xander and Anya took up space on an old couch while Giles conferred quietly with their host.
A few moments later, Willow came into the room, pushing Alec along in his wheelchair. The assembled people exchanged confused looks at this.
“You look like hell, mate,” Spike commented.
“Coming from the walking corpse, I’ll take that as a compliment,” Alec replied wryly.
Spike made an obscene hand gesture towards his friend as Giles came over to examine his son.
“Son, are you feeling all right?” he asked with parental concern.
Alec waved him away as he coughed into his hand, “Just feeling a little under the weather. Comes with the territory.”
Giles frowned, “Strange, I can’t recall you ever falling ill before.”
Alec grinned gently, “Relax dad, it’s just a touch of a cold. No harm, no foul.”
Giles nodded reluctantly but he exchanged a sober look with Buffy before settling back to speak with Pan.
“So, what’s the plan?” Alec asked, changing the subject.
“Currently we find ourselves at an impasse. We have no leads in regards to this ‘wordless hymn’ that Dracula referred to.”
“Yeah, plus we’ve got the Order of Teraka taking potshots at us,” Xander put in.
“Then that’s what we should deal with,” Alec replied with confidence, “We take the fight to them.”
“Still subscribing to the school of ‘charge the front gates’ tactics?” Angel asked in a quiet, biting tone.
Alec glared at him. “We’re going to run out of luck long before they run out of assassins and I’m tired of playing defensively.”
“It’s very risky, son,” Giles said gently.
Alec slammed his fist down onto the arm of his wheelchair, causing a few people to jump. “Yes! It’s risky! We’re at war! War is risky!” he exclaimed in frustration, “But we cannot afford to let risk become a deterrent. We need to be able to accept the risk as part of the equation and handle it.”
“And you’re going to tackle these guys all by yourself, from your wheelchair and all?” Spike asked wryly.
The young man sent him a dirty look. “I believe you can all remember that when push comes to shove I can hold my own in combat, even in my current state. Besides, I was planning on having a little help from my friends and family?” He said this last bit in a questioning tone as his gaze swept the room.
Buffy sighed and got up from Spike’s lap, “I hate to admit it, but he’s right. I don’t see these assassins stopping anytime soon and there’s no way we’re going to be able to get our ‘save the world’ vibe on if we have to worry about these losers.”
Alec nodded, “Thanks sis-”
“But,” Buffy interrupted, “We need a plan, a REAL plan. I know you, bro, you’ve been known to leap before you look.”
“Who? Me?” he replied in mock innocence. There were a few chuckles at this. “Okay, yes, you’re right; a real plan is the way to go,” Alec sighed and settled back against his wheelchair, “Okay, so what do we know about these guys?”
Buffy turned to Spike, “Well babe, you’re the one that sicced them on me originally, what can you tell me?”
Spike rolled his eyes. It was sometimes difficult to reconcile the fact that only a few years ago he had been trying very hard to put this young woman in the ground.
And now I’m marrying her. Strange bloody world he thought to himself.
“It was pretty straight forward,” he began, “I got in touch with Willy, Willy got in touch with them.”
“Wait a minute? Willy?!” Xander exclaimed, “How does that little nematode know how to get in touch with a society of deadly demon assassins?”
“Didn’t ask, didn’t care,” Spike replied, “Within a day or so, Willy got back to me with a number: the fee for their services and what it would buy me.”
“What was it?” Buffy asked curiously.
Spike named a figure. The others gaped.
“Bloody hell,” Alec muttered.
“And how,” Willow added, “You could buy your own Manhattan sky-rise with that kind of money.”
“With enough left over to stock your garage with some nice, foreign cars,” Xander put in, “Where did you get that kind of cash?”
“Do you remember the great Chicago bank job of 1925?”
“No.”
“Neither does anyone else,” Spike said with a fierce grin, “The perks of leaving no witnesses.”
“Charming,” Buffy muttered, rolling her eyes at her lover’s homicidal delight.
“At any rate,” Spike continued, “I delivered the money to Willy, he took his cut and passed it along to the bounty hunters and within a day or two, I was sent three hunters.”
“Yeah the big guy, the bug guy, and the chick with the gun,” Buffy replied, “I remember them.”
“I distinctly feel that I did not get my money’s worth,” Spike said sourly.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
Buffy smacked him upside the head.
Even as Spike was nearly catapulted out of his chair, Alec leaned forward.
“Okay, so we know that they work through intermediaries and what the going price is for a contract. Do we have any idea if there are any caps?”
Spike shrugged, “Way I figured it, they’d kill just about anything if the price was right.”
“And send as many people as it took to finish the job,” Angel put in quietly.
Alec turned and frowned at the vampire, “That reminds me, Buffy told me that you managed to convince the Order to cease and desist, right around the same time there was that whole ‘robot dating her mom’ thing.”
“And?”
“How did you do it?”
“Carrot and stick approach. I paid them off to stop and then threatened to send back any other assassins in pieces”
“With your reputation, I imagine that wasn’t a hard sell,” Alec conceded.
“Hold on a second there, poof,” Spike interjected, “Just where did you get the money to buy out the contract I paid for?”
“Several pounds of Nazi gold,” was all the other man said.
“Where the hell did you get Nazi gold?”
“From robbing a Nazi gold train in Germany during World War Two.”
“Well, ask a stupid question,” Xander quipped.
“Hijacked Nazi gold, I like it,” Alec mused, “Okay, well, is there any way we can find out how much the current contract out on us is, so we can buy it out?”
“No, the contacts I had in the Order aren’t talking anymore.”
“Dead?”
“Probably.”
“Well, then like I said, we go to the source: the Order of Teraka’s headquarters in Mexico City. That is where you said it was, right?”
“I also said going there was essentially a time-consuming method of suicide,” Angel retorted.
“Oh that sounds pleasant,” Xander put in.
“Another good reason to head down Mexico way, do we remember Quetzalcoatl and Golobulus?” Alec asked his voice slipping into what his sister called ‘The Giles Voice.’ “They originated from that area after encountering some nasty demon activity. If there is, in fact a connection between the evil powers in Mexico and the Hellmouth, we need to find it and preferably a way to kick its ass.”
Spike grinned, “I like this plan. Mexico. Got some good memories of Tijuana,” he frowned, “I think.”
“Any of them involve donkey shows?” Xander asked with a laugh.
“On behalf of all those who possess functioning imaginations, please stop talking,” Buffy pleaded.
“All right, so we have a plan. A real plan, we make our way to Mexico City and do the Scooby Doo thing,” Buffy said, “And no,” she turned glaring at Spike, “We are definitely not stopping in Tijuana.”
“No sense of fun,” Spike growled.
Buffy laughed and turned to her brother.
“See Alec, that wasn’t so hard, was it? A plan and everything.”
Alec rolled his eyes. “Oooo. Ahhhh.”
Giles spoke up, “Anya, you’ve had over a millennium of experience as a demon. Do you have any knowledge regarding the Order?”
Anya looked taken aback, “No, sorry. The Order just works with their clients: humans, demons, vampires, whatever. They work for money, magical artifacts, whatever.”
You’re lying, was all Giles thought to himself even as he calmly sipped some tea that Pan had brewed for them.
“Okay, yeah, no this works,” Alec said. He turned to Xander, “How long would it take us to get to Mexico with the camper?”
Xander looked agog, “Like forever and a day man, gas would cost an arm, leg and possibly a spine,”
“Ummm, okay, a train then?” Alec suggested.
“Uh again, mucho travel time,” the young man replied.
“Look I hate to ask the obvious question here but why aren’t we looking at the obvious option?” Buffy asked, “Fly. How long could it be to get from New York to Mexico City? It’s not like it’s the other side of the world or something”
“Flying…” Alec mused, his voice taking an odd tone, “…yeah.”
Buffy frowned, “What’s the issue?”
Willow spoke up from her perch upon Alec’s lap, “Oh yeah, I forgot,” Willow turned to face him, “Alec’s afraid to fly.”
“Love!” Alec cried out forlornly even as Spike hooted with laughter and the others stared at each other in shock.
“That’s too good!” the blond vampire cried.
Giles looked stunned as he regarded his son, “Is it true, son?”
Alec rolled his eyes. “Look, dimensional travel and planar shifting are one thing. Being locked in a tin can built by the lowest bidder thirty thousand feet in the air completely at the mercy of the guy at the controls just praying that he’s not having some kind of off day and decides to go all kamikaze on us because he had a bad fight with the wife is another,” he sighed, “Besides I hear the food stinks.”
Faith swallowed a grin and did her best to make her tone serious. “C’mon D, show us some of that British stiff upper lip.”
Pan spoke up, “Flight’s only five hours from JFK to Benito Juárez International Airport.”
“It’s December, five hours is enough to get there before sunrise if we get the right flight.” Angel put in.
“It will be prohibitively expensive though,” Giles mused, “After all, we are talking about ten round trip tickets after all, especially at the height of holiday travel.”
“Ah, I believe I can help with that,” Pan put in quietly, casually reaching over to his desk and handing Giles a leather satchel. Giles frowned at it as he opened, then gaped at what he saw. The satchel was filled with bundles of hundred dollar bills.
“There has to be thousands of dollars in here,” he commented.
“Where’d you get all the cash, Pan?” Dawn asked curiously.
Pan grinned and gestured to a series of potted plants behind him. Dawn padded over to them and peered at the leaves then stared in wonderment. The leaves were grown in the shape of perfect hundred dollar bills.
“Who says money doesn’t grow on trees?” Pan quipped.
The Scoobies laughed out loud at this even as Spike leaned in to address the plant man.
“Mate, tell me, where can I get a few of those?” he asked.
“Sorry ‘mate’, trade secret.”
“Okay, so we’ve got cash covered. What about passports? We’ll be traveling internationally,” Giles gestured to Dawn, “And with a minor.”
Pan held up a bark encrusted finger, “I had a feeling that you be needing these when you first showed up,” he reached over and handed Giles a bundle tied in brown paper, “Heroes often find themselves going on far-flung quests so naturally…” Pan simply gestured at the bundle. Giles unwrapped them to reveal a set of passports.
“Do I want to know where you got these?” he asked.
“Not unless you want to be an accessory to multiple federal crimes.”
“Right. Didn’t know. Couldn’t have stopped you.”
“Good man.”
“Okay, cash and passports, we should be good to go,” Alec commented quietly. “If Pan is willing to book us some tickets?”
“First class?” Pan asked with a grin.
“I am not travelling coach,” Dawn put in haughtily. “Not if we’ve got beaucoup bucks to burn.”
Buffy snorted, “Yes, your highness.”
Alec sighed; he knew he was beaten. “Fine, then we fly,” he relented. Without warning he fell into a harsh coughing fit. Willow got off his lap and felt his forehead.
“Alec! You’re burning up!” she cried.
Alec waved it away and spoke as soon as he could suck in air to breathe, “I’ll live. We’ve got more important things to do.”
Pan wagged a reproaching finger at the young man, “Now, now young man, if you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything.”
“Cribbing lines from ‘The Princess Bride’ are we?”
“Good boy,” Pan said approvingly. He reached out with a vine and brought forth what looked like a large pomegranate, dropping it into Alec’s lap.
The other man frowned, “Okay, and this is?”
“Heartsfruit, my boy. Very old and powerful stuff.”
Willow gasped, “I’ve heard of it! It’s supposed to have been fruit that came from the Garden of Eden.”
“Well, I can’t confirm that. But what I can do is promise you that a single seed from this fruit taken once per day will restore health over time.”
“Okay, and the catch?”
“One: it’s a gradual process. You must take one seed per day and only one seed. Any more and the results may be…unstable.”
“Define ‘unstable’”
“Did you ever see ‘The Fly’?”
“Got it. Caveat number two?”
“When you take the seed, you must be calm and under control. The seeds respond to your emotional state and amplify it. If you’re calm and at peace, you’ll heal.”
“And if I’m, oh say, cranky?”
“Again, I point you to condition number one.”
“Sounds like fun,” Alec sighed. Gently he twisted the fruit and pulled the two halves apart. Surprisingly it didn’t drip a drop of juice as he plucked a dark red seed from it and popped it into his mouth.”
“Nummy,” he commented as he brought the two halves back together, the fruit sealed itself shut.
“Okay then,” Buffy called out, “It looks like we got enough cash here to buy whatever we need as far as luggage and clothes once we get there. How does our itinerary look, Pan?”
Pan brought his long, spindly fingers to the keyboards surrounding him and tapped a few keys in rapid succession. “There’s a redeye flight leaving JFK in an hour that’ll get you there about an hour or so before dawn.”
“We’re going to need to have accommodations worked out ahead of time,” Angel commented quietly, “I don’t want to be scrambling to find a sun proof room once we land and dawn is nipping at our heels.”
“Hey!” Dawn called out indignantly.
“He’s being literal Dawney,” Willow gently interjected.
Dawn blushed. “I knew that.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Pan assured them. You’ll have someone waiting for you once you get off the plane.”
Buffy nodded, “Okay cool, thanks,” she turned to the rest of the group, “Ready to go?”
“We’re off to see the wizard,” Xander quipped lightly.
“With our luck, the ‘wizard’ will turn out to be a homicidal psychopath bent on world domination,” Alec commented glumly.
“Well aren’t WE a ray of sunshine?”
“Bite me, Harris.”
Xander laughed even as the others filed out of the room and out onto the street.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry for such a posting delay! Deacon has a long-term illness and recently it has gotten worse, and he was only able to write a little each week. However, two weeks from now there will be a new chapter (I have it already) but in the future, if the posting schedule is a little wonky, it is because it is based on when Deacon can stand to write.
He has informed me though, that reviews definitely make him feel more motivated, so if everybody that reads could leave one, you are more likely to get a faster chapter. He'd just like to know that he is writing this mammoth of a trilogy for a reason, so let's give him one, OK? Any comments, concerns, questions, can be directed to our e-mail: hm_ascendent3@yahoo.com
Sincerely,
Rachelia
He has informed me though, that reviews definitely make him feel more motivated, so if everybody that reads could leave one, you are more likely to get a faster chapter. He'd just like to know that he is writing this mammoth of a trilogy for a reason, so let's give him one, OK? Any comments, concerns, questions, can be directed to our e-mail: hm_ascendent3@yahoo.com
Sincerely,
Rachelia
Chapter End Notes:
Remember to review! Thanks for reading Part 1 - make sure you read Part 2!