Previously:
They looked away from each other, both dropping their eyes to the ground. Suddenly, Buffy's head shot up in response to hearing a tussle in the distance.
"Sounds like trouble," Buffy said, sad that the realization was such a relief.
"Alright then, love. Let's go be heroes," Spike said.
~*~*~*~
Spike watched her running through the obstacle course of marble headstones, gliding like an arrow. She was exquisite when driven by purpose, ceasing to be an individual and instead engendering her whole line. It wasn't Buffy's hand that drove the stake in again and again, it was the hand of the Slayer. Spike shook himself from his reverie as they neared the source of the commotion. Buffy looked to him and hunkered down, creeping along the corner of the crypt so they could approach undetected.
Within the heart of the graveyard a group of about thirty vamps was ringing a stone altar. The undead were kitted out in crimson, feathered headdresses reminiscent of Mayan costumes. There were three, young, blonde girls wearing long, white gowns cowering in chains beside a vamp standing before the ceremonial table. The leader raised a dagger with a foot of squiggly, silver blade that glowed blue in the light of the full moon.
"Looks like they're doing your classic virgin sacrifice," Spike said.
"Great. Killer clichés," Buffy mumbled.
"It is a bit camp, yeah, especially with them bein' dressed like one of those low rent Vegas shows that come with a free buffet," Spike said. Spike didn't add that there was a time in his unlife when he would've loved the kitsch value and had to get in line to tap an unspoiled vein. He was pretty sure Buffy would've been disgusted by that revelation.
"And how do they even know the girls are virgins, anyway?" Buffy asked, warming to the topic.
"Taste test. Virgins have an astringent finish."
"Ew," Buffy said.
Buffy turned to Spike, putting her hand on his back.
"I'll take the one dressed like Cher and free the girls. You kill the rest at will," Buffy said.
"Sounds good," Spike said.
Buffy was off, his sexy, little wrecking ball, plowing through two vamps who didn't even notice her as she made her way to the rescue. Spike tumbled after her, getting the undead who saw their compatriots dust before they could begin to attack Buffy. The Slayer cut a gray line right to the altar, felling vampires like blades of straw. Spike got caught up in his own battle, which was kicking up more feathers than a pillow fight.
Spike wasn't tiring, if anything, the violence was invigorating him. He loved the crunch and the smash of a brilliant brawl. He loved the victory. Combat was much simpler than puzzling out Buffy.
"SPIKE!"
Buffy's voice tore through all the screams of the crowd. He looked up and saw that Buffy had the chosen victims standing up on the table above the fray while she punched a vampire, then used his body as a club to defend the virgins.
More than half of the collected acolytes were dead and the rest, save for the bloke Spike was wailing on, were swarming Buffy. Spike staked the creature he'd been toying with and ran to Buffy's aide. In ten minutes, they dispatched them all. Buffy and Spike stood gasping surrounded by a cloud of dust, leaning back to back.
"God, that was...you were—"
"No kitten, that was all you. And you were bloody amazing—"
"Spike, you were so good—"
There was a polite cough above them. Spike looked up and saw the girls who'd narrowly escaped being human sacrifices illuminated in the silvery moonlight. Their white gowns were translucent, so fragile looking, like cherry blossoms scattered by the wind. The shortest one squatted down and extended her arms which were bound at the wrist.
"Hey, maybe you could cut these ropes so we could leave?" she asked.
Buffy hurried to them and grabbed the shortest girl's hands.
"Sorry, sorry, just basking in the afterglow. How'd you get here, anyway," Buffy asked as she slit the bonds and helped the young lady to the ground. The tallest girl went next.
"They offered to buy us beer," the tallest girl said, taking Spike's arm and jumping to the ground. She smiled at him and he detected the barest batting of eyelashes, which proved that some people never learned. He fanged out for a second and she yelped, then grabbed her friend's hand.
"Didn't they teach you anything in school? Don't drink, don't take gifts from strangers and definitely don't hang out with evil vampire cults," Buffy said. The last girl scooted to the edge of the platform.
"Yeah, I'll certainly keep that in mind," the last girl said as Buffy freed her.
The three virgins linked arms and began running across the cemetery toward the road.
"Thank you!" the shortest one shouted over her shoulder.
As Buffy and Spike watched them recede amid the monuments, their forms like stone angels come to life, he wondered if the girls would make it home alright given that they were traipsing on the Mouth of Hell. Spike turned to Buffy, the question on its way, when her eyes went wide.
"Werewolf," Buffy said, pointing behind him. Spike whipped around, seeing a furry beast with claws and fangs hunkered down before them as though preparing to strike. The creature leaped at them and Buffy tackled Spike. The beast's claws just missed the top of his head as they fell and rolled, stopping when they landed against the marble mausoleum. Buffy was lying on top of him when the werewolf turned around, digging up massive clumps of earth with its paws.
"Jesus, it's the bloody monster mash tonight," Spike said.
"I am starting to feel like Abbot to your Costello. I don't think that's Oz, but if it is be extra careful. We'll contain it in one of these crypts until morning," Buffy said, jumping to her feet and then offering Spike her hand.
"Alright, I'll herd, you find a corral," Spike said, letting Buffy help him up.
"You want me to call you cowboy, don't you?" Buffy asked with a brief slash of a grin.
The werewolf was barreling towards them, saving Spike from admitting that he did want her to call him cowboy. They were about to make a gambit, Buffy running left and Spike going right when the furry animal stopped in mid-leap, crackling with blue sparks. The werewolf fell down motionless with a loud thunk. Spike looked at Buffy, his eyebrow cocked. He was certain his expression was just as confused as hers. In the same instant, Buffy's face contorted with pain. Spike caught her as she fell and that's when he saw the black-garbed man standing behind her. Anyway, Spike figured it was probably a man seeing as he was standing on two legs and all, but his face was covered so there was no way of knowing for sure. The strange weapon in the attacker's hand looked like a giant ray gun. It must've been terribly powerful to take out a raging lycanthrope and he'd zapped Buffy with the thing. God knows how the blast scrambled her brain.
There were more of them dressed in black, stalking carefully around Spike and Buffy; the men's backs were bent and their guns were drawn. Spike knew he wouldn't be able to keep hold of Buffy and fight them off, but the second he set her down they could take her away.
"What's all this then?" Spike asked, softly, cradling the Slayer against him with one arm. She was so light, so terribly light.
One of the men made a hand gesture, like he was pulling the break on a subway car. Out of the corner of his eye, Spike saw another come up behind him. The vampire didn't hesitate. He kicked the stranger's leg, breaking it just below the knee. Spike scrambled around the prone form of the howling man, Buffy held tight to him. He didn't make it past the shadow of the mausoleum before his body was wracked with pain and he lost consciousness.
~*~*~*~
Buffy woke up on a hard floor. She could tell it would be too bright before she even opened her eyes because her lids had a red glow, like falling asleep outside on a sunny day. Except it wasn't a sunny day, not where she was. She was in a room that had rounded sides lined with silvery foil. The walls were smooth save for a rectangular door inset into the far right side. Buffy looked above her. The ceiling was massive and made of corrugated, white metal like an airplane hangar. At the mid-point of the room were spotlights spaced evenly along the top of the curved enclosure and she sensed movement behind the blaring lamps. She was in some sort of amphitheater without seats. Then a buzzer sounded near the door and a chute opened. A terse, feminine voice was amplified overhead as the door came down.
"Hostile Nineteen interacting with Hostile Fourteen."
Out tumbled a mud-covered vampire dressed in a filthy, brown suit. He came at Buffy fangs bared and she grabbed for the stake she always kept in her back waistband. It wasn't there. She reached for the one in her boot and took it out just in time to dust the vamp. No sooner had its remains landed than they were sending in another monster.
"Hostile Nineteen interacting with Hostile Number Five."
Buffy figured she must be Hostile Nineteen. The next comer was a blue demon that kind of looked like the creature from the Black Lagoon. Lucky for her, a stake to the heart did it for him, but he was a lot harder to subdue than the fledgling vamp. She wondered if that was intended as some sort of warm up. Each demon they sent out got progressively more difficult to kill. There were two older vampires, a monster in a black cloak with a face that looked like he used way too much self tanner and a creature with scales that reminded her of the much-despised potato chip cookies her grandmother used to make for Christmas.
They all had hearts, someplace, and Buffy was able to stake them, though each one sapped a little more of her strength. Buffy was tiring, not just physically but also growing weary of the scenario. She didn't like being out of control. Buffy figured with the formality someone was either taping the fights or betting on them or both. She'd heard of fighting rings being conducted with demons. Maybe that's what this was, some insane sport.
"Hostile Nineteen interacting with Hostile Eighteen."
The werewolf she and Spike had seen at the cemetery came bounding into the room. It scented on Buffy immediately. All Buffy had in way of defense was Mr. Pointy and the enormous creature was locking eyes with her. Looking at it in bright light, Buffy couldn't be sure the lycanthrope wasn't Oz. It was running at her, slavering with its teeth bared and one bite would change her forever or rip her apart.
But it was a person. It was a person when it wasn't overtaken by the dictates of its nature a human being like—
There wasn't any more time, the werewolf charged her with a guttural snort and Buffy rolled out of the way. When the beast tried to turn, it skidded. While the werewolf was attempting to gain footing, Buffy jumped onto its furry back. She plunged her stake through its ribs and pierced the monster's heart. The werewolf shrank as it careened to a halt and Buffy was thrown forward from her perch. Buffy landed on her shoulder, feeling the joint pop out of place. She stopped herself from careening across the floor with her other arm and curled up on her side, protecting the injury. Buffy found she was staring into the unblinking eyes of the girl she'd just killed.
The woman was on her stomach, naked save for being enrobed in her own blood. Her arms were spread out and so were her legs, her chin-length, blonde bob was matted to her head and her round, blue eyes were sightlessly bulging out of her head. Buffy gradually pushed herself up to a sitting position using one arm. Gingerly, she tugged her sweater coat off and then dragged it over the dead girl. Buffy knelt beside the corpse, holding her injured arm and tilting her face up.
"Are you done yet?" Buffy screamed out at the invisible onlookers.
Her question called up only an echo in the cavernous building. She scanned the balcony for some type of response on the other side of the blinding lights. There was silence for a long moment, allowing all the pain, all the weariness to descend on her. Buffy knew the next monster to come after her would be the last because she could not continue the struggle any more.
Without any forewarning, the portal opened and four men in identical, close fitting, black uniforms entered, approaching her tentatively. They looked like action figures come to life. Earlier in the evening if she'd seen the group of them out at the Bronze, Buffy would have thought they were attractive. At that moment, though, she only saw their guns.
Given her wounds and fatigue, Buffy knew she wouldn't be able to escape, but reasoned she could probably hurt at least one of them very badly. She glanced up from the strange weapons they carried to assess each of her captors. Buffy started back when she recognized the leader.
"Riley?" Buffy asked.
It was the cute teaching assistant she'd smacked with books on the first day of school. Now she wished the objects landing on his head were much, much heavier, like a few buildings. Riley had a round, boyish face with wide-set eyes. Those aspects, combined with a prominent jaw line, gave him a contradictory look. When she first saw him, Buffy thought he seemed wholesome and sweet with his sandy, blond hair flopping on his forehead, but in this light she saw the hard contours of his features. His mouth fell open as the man recognized her.
"You're Willow's friend," he said.
"Buffy," she said as her good arm snapped up, punching his face. The two other people beside Riley zapped Buffy and she blacked out.
~*~*~*~
"You didn't have to do that," Riley said, resting his gun at his side and pinching the wide bridge of his swollen nose.
Mitchell had the girl's arms and Graham had her feet.
Forrest gave Riley a smile.
"Come on, she's an animal. Besides, you're not supposed to engage with the hostiles," Forrest said, inclining his head to the door as an indication that the other men should begin carrying Buffy to the exit.
"She's a freshman who likes taking notes with shiny, purple ink. Also, she was injured," Riley said, following the other two soldiers. Forrest fell in line last.
"Still managed to take a swat at you," Graham said with a smirk.
"Right, and I'm sure you're going to let me live it down," Riley said.
They made their way out into the corridor, lugging Buffy. Riley looked at her face, so delicate and pretty, having trouble reconciling the ninety pound klutz with the woman he'd seen take out half a dozen monsters using nothing but a piece of sharpened wood. He hadn't been on the mission that had retrieved Buffy and the other hostiles that night. It had been a rare evening off and Riley had used the time to catch up with his parents on the phone before turning in early.
Apparently, he'd missed an event.
According to Forrest, prior to capture the girl had taken out nineteen vampires. A feat like that was peculiar to the point of maddening. She seemed human but she couldn't possibly be, not with that sort of strength. In addition to her own powers, the woman was cooperating with a vampire who seemed to have turned on his own kind. Graham said they saved a trio of girls who were picked up and judged to be uncontaminated after quarantine. Before their memory wipe, the civilians' exit interviews reinforced what the team had witnessed.
The vampire she'd been captured alongside was another disquieting case. He'd regained consciousness several hours before and would have taken Mitchell's head off if it hadn't been behind a field of electricity and three-inch thick Plexiglass. All the while the hostile was screaming for his girl, claiming he could smell her on Mitchell's clothes. It was curious and unsettling. Riley wanted to talk to the prisoners, try to figure it out what was going on, but that wasn't his place. He was just a soldier at this stage in his life, not the boss like Professor Walsh or Dr. Oliver.
Professor Walsh had been intrigued by Buffy's combat skills while Dr. Oliver wanted to see her interacting with the vampire. Riley was more inclined to agree with Dr. Oliver. They already had video of her fighting, they knew what Buffy could do. The relationship with the undead, though, that was an unknown quantity. Riley reserved judgment, given that Maggie was his mentor, his superior and the one who'd already agreed to give him a letter of recommendation guaranteeing him a spot in Harvard's psychology program next fall. Aside from his self-interest, Riley admired Maggie; she'd taken him under her wing when he was a lost and lonely undergrad. Maggie had been the one who'd convinced him to go into the military in the first place. He owed her everything.
"Hey, where we dumpin' this bitch?" Forrest asked, bringing Riley out of his thoughts.
"Respect, private," Riley said. Forrest was his friend, but he could be sort of crass sometimes. Forrest rolled his dark, brown eyes.
"Fine, where are we placing Hostile Nineteen?"
They were passing by rows of hostiles in their glass cells so reminiscent of aquariums. The demons perked up as they walked by, probably because of the blood on the girl's clothes.
"There's only one room with a toilet. It's adjacent to the cell where Doctor Oliver had you put Seventeen," Riley said.
Mitchell shifted Buffy's weight from arm to arm.
"So it's gonna be like 'Three's Company,' with monsters?" Mitchell asked.
"I only count two, did you want to get in there, too, Mitch?" Graham asked, annoyed that he was bearing most of the load between them.
"He wants to be Chrissie!" Forrest said with laughter, piling onto poor Mitchell who was erubescent up to the roots of his red hair.
"I just meant because of the adjoining rooms, you know what I meant, Finn."
Riley was looking at Buffy, thinking he should ask Doctor Oliver to take a look at her arm.
"All right you two, lay off. I've never caught Mitchell in the middle of a suck and stake, which is something I can't say for either of you," Riley said.
Graham and Forrest became silent. Riley had found them taking turns with a female vampire, letting themselves be bitten before dusting the creature. It had made Riley a little sick that the girl was chained up and helpless. He wasn't sure what else they'd had her do in an effort to be set free and wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"No one touches Nineteen without authorization, is that clear?" Riley asked, as they came close to Buffy's designated containment unit.
The men all nodded yes.
"We're clear," Forrest said.
They passed Hostile Seventeen, who was pacing like a penned jungle cat. When the vampire saw her, he stopped and his eyes went soft, like they'd melt into tears.
"Bloody right you're not gonna touch her," the vampire said.
Riley slapped the glass like he was taunting a puppy in the pet store window.
"We don't respond to threats from hostiles," Riley said.
The vampire cocked his head and then brushed his palm over the brown stubble on top of his head.
"Really, because that sounds like a response right there."
"Keep talking and we'll finish you," Riley said.
"Try it, soldier boy," Spike said, getting closer to the glass and glaring up at Riley.
"Why are you talking to that thing, Riley?" Graham asked, as he slid a white card through the silver scanner to unlock Nineteen's prison.
The door opened and the men carrying Buffy walked inside. Riley gave Seventeen one last look before following the others. They were dropping Buffy on the bunk in the corner. Riley resisted the urge to cover her with the white blanket bunched at the foot of the bed.
"Something about that guy really bugs me," Riley said shrugging the strap of his stun gun closer as though preparing to shoot.
They walked out of the cubicle and Riley glanced at the silver sliding door segmenting the two white rooms. He knew it could only be opened from a control panel in one of the other rooms where Dr. Oliver was watching on a closed circuit camera. Still, Riley shuddered knowing Hostile Seventeen wasn't going to be chipped. It wasn't so much that he was afraid of a single vampire subsisting on drugged pig's blood. It was more the way Seventeen called Buffy his girl. Riley didn't like the idea of her alone with the vampire, despite her strength and their alliance.
Riley and the other men saw the capsule close automatically behind them. They were nearly to the exit when Riley heard the door keeping Hostile Seventeen from Buffy slide away. He ignored the urge to run back and make sure the diminutive blonde was safe.
~*~*~*~
Spike knelt by the cot and brushed his fingers against Buffy's face. There was blood on her, most belonging to other creatures, but beneath the clothes he knew there were scrapes and bruises.
Before he could fathom what was going on, Spike's attention was drawn to the exit by a buzzer. On the other side of the clear partition stood a man in a white lab coat flanked by two commandos Spike recognized as being called Mitchell and Riley. Mitchell was runty, probably got picked on a lot when he was younger so compensated by working out. Riley was a behemoth and looked suspiciously German. The bloke in the medical trappings looked twice the age of the men with him, but still able-bodied enough to operate in a fight. He had a weak chin that withered into his neck, thin cheeks that hung from high, round cheekbones and straight, gray hair heaped on his head. On either side of his beakish nose were flat, brown eyes.
The three of them had a gurney, which Spike didn't like the looks of at all. The lab coat wearer had one hand in his pocket, the other carried a black, leather bag. The door beside Buffy's cot opened and the older man spoke into a stippled circle cut into the glass wall.
"Step into your own room or I won't attend to the young woman's arm."
His voice was deep and sonorous. It reminded Spike of molasses fermenting into rum.
"If I stay?" Spike asked.
"We'll let you take your chances. If she's dislocated her shoulder do you think you can snap it back into place without severing her axillary artery? Should a break have occurred would you be able to properly set it?" the man asked, primly.
Spike didn't want to concede defeat, but there seemed to be no other way to help Buffy than to let them take her again. He gave the Slayer one last look, kissed her forehead then went back into his room. A second later the door closed. Spike could hear the men enter on the other side.
"It's squared off. I can manipulate it back into the socket, but we'll need X-Rays. Mr. Finn, hold her still."
Spike heard boots shuffling on the ground.
"Like this Dr. Oliver?"
"Yes, son."
There was a soft pop and Buffy moaned. Spike punched the white wall, accomplishing nothing but splitting open his own knuckles and smearing red blood against the sterile-looking surface.
"What is that?" Riley asked.
"Mild opiate, it will help her deal with the pain and make her docile should she rally. I watched what she did to that werewolf and I'm not eager for Nineteen to perceive me as a threat," the doctor said.
Soon Spike heard things shifting as they carried her off. Spike began pacing, wondering if it wouldn't have been better to stay by her side.
He was uncertain how long he waited in that blank space, long enough to imagine every disaster that could have befallen Buffy several times over. When they finally returned to her cell, Spike could smell her through the perforations in the glass. It was a huge relief, one dwarfed by the comfort of being able to see her again once the door separating them was opened.
Spike took her hand, resuming his kneeling position at her bedside like a knight attending his lady.A few minutes before he'd been certain she was dead and yet he was touching her. He kissed the curve of her fingers, grateful Buffy was still unconscious so she wouldn't see the tears rolling down his face.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to Sanityfair for her awesome betaing skillz and to Puddinhead for letting me run this story by her.