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Beta and banner by dawnofme.
Chapter Ten

“What do you mean the results are inconclusive?” said Roger Futter.

“Just that, sir.” The technician shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “The victim’s DNA was present in the blood taken from Seventeen’s mouth but it wasn’t as we would expect it to be.”

“Are you deliberately trying to come across as cryptic? Has my head operative killed on duty or not?”

“Like I said, sir –”

“Yes or no!” Roger glared at the tech.

“It’s not as simple as that,” said the tech hesitantly. “If I had to say one or the other, sir, then I would go with no.”

“But how does that explain the traces of her DNA?”

“We’re not entirely sure, sir. We’ve asked the US HQ to run some trials with the vamps in the retirement sheds over there. I’m sure that they’ll soon have a definitive answer.”

Sighing loudly, Roger said, “And so what do we do with Seventeen until then?”

“We need to run tests on why the cameras failed, sir,” said the technician.

“That was rhetorical,” said Roger brusquely. “His handler will be in charge of what happens. He will let you know when Seventeen will be brought down for the tests.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

The tech watched the boss walk away and felt a twinge of sympathy for Seventeen. It was well known around the facility that Mark was furious at the deficiencies displayed by the vampire. Oh, well. If something like that incident ever happened again, they’d be sure to be able to give a definitive answer after the research was completed.

*~*~*~*

Craig slipped into Cameron’s room and glanced over at the bed. His brother didn’t stir and so Craig crept in a little further, his hands reaching out in the dim light shining in from the open door, for the jacket hanging on the back of the chair. He found what he was looking for in the right hand pocket. A cell phone. And not the one their mother had given him. Craig pressed the buttons to reveal stored numbers and found only one. There was no name, just the number one keyed into where the name should be. Quickly copying the telephone number to his own phone’s memory, Craig put it back in the pocket and left the room, pulling the door silently closed behind him.

Just what the hell are you up to, little brother?

Back in his own room, Craig checked the numbers stored in his own phone and those in the book usually kept near the landline downstairs, to see if he got a match. With a groan of frustration, he put them all down and flopped onto his back. None of the numbers matched the one in Cam’s mysterious new phone.

Whatever he’d said to Cam, he had no intention of letting him go anywhere without following him.

*~*~*~*

Buffy and Willow collapsed through the door to the witch’s apartment.

“Oh! I think I have had a bit too much to drink.” Buffy giggled as she weaved her way to the couch.

“I know I have,” said Willow, beating Buffy to sitting down by a millisecond.

The women kicked off their high heeled pumps and as one, leaned down to rub their sore feet.

“I haven’t danced that much since…hell, since we used to go to the Bronze!” said Buffy.

“Told you – middle-aged!” Willow grinned.

“I might be a retired slayer but I’ve still got the moves, so you’d better watch out, missy, or I’ll whup your ass!”

“Coffee?” said Willow, waving a hand in the air.

“Yes, as long as you make it. My feet are throbbing. I can’t move off this couch.”

“Me either.”

Buffy frowned. “So no coffee then?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Willow nodded her head in the direction of the low table in front of them and as Buffy looked at it, two steaming mugs of coffee appeared.

“Will! You said you never use magic for personal benefit.”

“It’s the exception that proves the rule,” Willow said wisely. “I can make it go away if you like?”

“No, no, that’s fine,” said Buffy.

She leaned forwards and picked one mug up, wrapping her hands around it and curling her feet up under her on the couch. Glancing around the apartment, she could clearly see the touches that Willow had added to the rather ostentatious décor. Quirky little statues with no doubt some magical use, but pride of place was a photograph of the redhead with Tara. They might be many miles away and many years on from those days in Sunnydale, but Buffy wondered if the Hellmouth had cursed them by making them fail to find a lifelong partner. Or by killing them when they had been lucky enough to find their soulmate.

Willow saw where Buffy was looking and reached out to squeeze her hand.

“You’ve never got over losing her, have you?” said Buffy softly.

“Well, I’ve never loved anyone as intensely as I loved Tara, but she’s gone and I know she wouldn’t want me to be alone, so I guess I’ll keep on looking. Maybe I’ll find someone that I can love almost as much.”

Turning to look at her friend, Willow said, “How about you? Are you going to be all right? Can you move on from loving Spike?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. He was…oh, he was a mass of contradictions. Even back when he first came to Sunnydale.”

“There wasn’t much contradictory about him wanting to kill you.”

“You’re wrong, aren’t you? Because in the end he did just the opposite – he helped me save the world.”

“True,” said Willow, shuddering as she recalled Angelus’s killing spree starting with her fish and ending with the death of Jenny Calendar.

“I saw him in there, you know. Years before he came to live with me and the boys,” Buffy said, quietly. “I should have gotten him out then. He didn’t deserve that. Not after saving the world.”

“I don’t think that they would have let you take him before he was no longer of any use to them,” replied Willow.

“I should have tried. I can’t believe I didn’t even check up on him.”

“You had enough to cope with at the time, what with Peter leaving and all.”

“I suppose.”

“How long had he been in the program?”

“He would never talk about it, but his old handler, Jerry, told me that he’d been captured in 1999. A long time, Will.

“That time I saw him was the first time I went to the Initiative’s buildings, even though I’d been on call to help them most nights for years.” She shook her head, sadly. “The stuff I witnessed…I’m ashamed I didn’t do more. He was stored, in between going out tracking, in a freaking pod that paralysed him! I watched him walk to it and climb in as placidly as I’ll get into my bed tonight. I saw footage of him waking up blinded. God, Will, he screamed. He was terrified. No wonder that he couldn’t handle going back to that, even though he was surrounded by people who loved him.”

“His final years were happy, Buffy. You have to concentrate on that. He knew love, and as much freedom as you could give him. Feel glad for the time you had with him and not sad for the time you missed. Trust me, nothing good will be found by going down that route.”

“I know you’re right, Will. I just wish he’d confided in me when his sight failed, given me a chance to work him through it.”

Willow put her arm around her friend and Buffy leaned into her embrace. “I wish I hadn’t been so stupid and stubborn and gotten to know him. I’m so sorry for not being there for you.”

“Listen to us. One cup of coffee and we’ve gone from laughing to maudlin,” said Buffy.

The women stayed there for a time before sleepily going to their beds.

*~*~*~*

The door slid open and Spike cocked his head, as he listened and sniffed the air for some clue as to what was going to befall him. The scent of his handler didn’t reassure him as it should. Over the past days – surely it wasn’t more than a week – whenever he’d visited, he’d abused him in some way.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

Spike opened his mouth but all that emitted was a dry croak as dehydration robbed him of his voice.

“Well, the good news is the tests are back. The bad news is that they think that you at least had a taste.”

Again, Spike resembled a goldfish as his mouth opened and closed soundlessly. The rattle of the chains suspending him from the ceiling told Mark how afraid his vampire was.

“You understand that you have to be punished, don’t you?” said Mark pleasantly.

Despite the anger burning deep inside, Spike nodded and couldn’t help but fear what was going to be done to him. Without warning, the chains holding him up released and he collapsed onto the floor as his legs were unable to take his weight. He groaned as the strain in his shoulders gave way to cramps when he tried to move his arms.

Mark bent down and grabbed Spike’s face, pulling it up and with swift movements squirted something up both of Spike’s nostrils. Spike tried to pull away and sneezed blood-tinged mucous as the Holy Water sizzled and seared. Mark was too strong and Spike only managed a scream as more Holy Water was poured into his ears. His harsh rasping cry appeared to cut off, but Spike was the only one who no longer could hear it.

Devoid of his senses and weakened through hunger, Spike offered no resistance as he was dragged by his collar from the room. The vampires in the section where Spike was normally kept were startled when the fronts of their cells became transparent. They all moved to peer out, seeing a handler dragging a vampire along the floor, blood visible at its nose and ears. Several stepped back in alarm as the human’s voice echoed loud inside their normally silent cells.

“This is Seventeen,” said Mark, as he let go of Spike’s collar and the vampire moved feebly on the tiles, trying to stand up.

The vampires who had been subjected to Spike’s attentions while training craned their necks to get a better look at their former tormentor.

“He’s had privileges that most of you could only dream about,” Mark said, exaggerating the benefits that Spike had been given. “Yet still he thought fit to disobey when out on a hunt.”

Spike was halfway to standing when Mark’s boot met his torso with enough force to propel him a couple of yards down the corridor. The vampire began to crawl, but disorientated he actually crawled towards Mark.

“Disobedience will not be tolerated!”

Mark then subjected Spike to a vicious assault, kicking him, using a baton and even making the chip fire, until the vampire lost consciousness and lay limp and bleeding on the floor.

Panting with exertion, Mark stared at the other hunters, pleased to see them all transfixed at the sight of Spike. Two guards appeared and helped Mark to hang Spike from his ankles in the middle of the corridor.

They positioned his legs some three feet apart, leaving his genitals exposed. His wrists were cuffed behind his back and when that was done, Mark stood back to check that it was set up as he’d liked. Satisfied, he nodded to the guards and they all walked away, leaving Spike visible to all of the other vampires.

Used to solitary confinement, the vampires were unable to keep from looking at each other and the upside down figure of Spike. Several grinned as he began to come around and his moans were heard through the intercoms. Spike hurt everywhere, every small movement brought a protest from somewhere on his body.

He’d been suspended there for two days before a vampire was needed for a hunt. On its return to its cell, as it passed Spike it was ordered to bite him. Its fangs were due to be re-clipped that day and so they were sharp and sank into the flesh of Spike’s right buttock as easily as a warm knife through butter. Spike twisted in his chains desperate to avoid this new pain.

For the next two days, Spike was kept there, until finally the guards cut him down and carried him to his cell Too weak to drink when offered blood, technicians were called to pass a feeding tube down his gullet and he wriggled and moaned as his stomach stretched when the blood filled it.

The tube was pulled out and he was left alone. For hours he didn’t move, and then slowly the blood began to heal the various injuries that he’d sustained. He bit back a scream as the raw flesh of his many wounds rubbed against the tiled floor when he tried to move. Hearing was the first of his deprived senses to return and the first voice he heard was Mark’s as the door to his cell slid open.

“Maybe it was a mistake to erase those memories. Seventeen had never looked likely to disobey since we hurt the boy.”

Spike gave no sign that he was conscious, trying to process what had been said. Mark nudged him none too gently in the ribs.

“Still out for the count, then. When he wakes up. Give him as much blood as he can take – tube him if necessary. We need him fit by the end of the week.”

To Spike’s relief the door slid shut and Mark and the person he’d been talking to left. He forced himself to stay where he was until he counted to a hundred before he dare risk moving.

What had they meant – erasing memories? I know who I was. The slayers I’ve killed. Dru. Capture. Tracker. Hunter.

He couldn’t understand it. There were no gaps. Pushing up with his hands, he managed to crawl to his bed and pull himself on it. His thumb and knee ticked metallically as he crawled.

Thumbs. I had two metal ones once, but when were they done? Try as he might he couldn’t remember. Is this what they mean?

Exhausted, he fell asleep despite trying to work out what Mark had meant.


Chapter End Notes:
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