Chapter 37: No Cigar
Kennedy planted the axe in Jenny’s tummy. The look on the girl’s face was stunned and almost mournful, like someone learning about a death in the family. Pale lips mouthed a silent scream as the blade was unplugged and then buried again, high on the chest this time and lung-deep.
Like chopping down a little tree, Kennedy mused.
Nearby, a scrum of girls and demons fought on the threshold of the control room’s garage-sized door. The Watcher’s bimbo squad actually seemed to be holding their own – winning, even. She watched with grim fascination as her old pal Violet Singer put two of her lieutenants down for the count, and then scissored off a Chakau’Ri warrior’s head with a pair of gleaming knives.
Vi was always pretty good. She still looked the part, too: tough and snake-quick, jaw jutting defiantly. As a matter of fact, Miriam Kennedy Corliss had always wondered exactly how good and how fast Violet really was. So, she decided to take a stroll over there and find out.
“Stay focused,” Violet shrieked. “Hold the line.” The woman’s eyes flashed indignantly when she noticed Kennedy was there, striding up through the middle of her own crumbling ranks. Kennedy just smiled back at her, the axe draped casually at her side, like a tool you’d eventually hang in a woodshed.
The path between them gradually cleared, as though everyone sensed what was about to happen on some subatomic level. “Hey old buddy,” Kennedy laughed. “Reconsidered my offer yet?”
The redhead didn’t say a word. Instead, she took a very long, martial breath. Just like Buffy taught you, Kennedy mused.
The next ten seconds were like something out of a dream - Vi whirling gracefully, her daggers blurring like the teeth of a chainsaw, steel screaming furiously off steel. After weathering this initial storm, Kennedy retreated three paces, her mind gunning like a race car's engine, trying to solve the puzzle.
For some reason, a bit of her old Tekko training flitted through her. She felt her arms and legs reorganizing into a shape that was almost architectural in its strength, poised for her opponent's next charge. The moment Vi's head fell into range, Kennedy raked her axe handle upwards, surprising her with a sharp tap on the chin.
The rest was all flawless poetry. Kennedy curled into a tight spiral, letting the momentum drive her weapon towards the sweet spot.
When she connected it was explosive, like a batter swinging on a fastball.
A warm, red wave baptized her, and then the thing that used to be named Violet fell into two neat pieces at her feet.
When it happened the fight stopped for a moment, like a heart skipping a beat. A lone voice cried out in disbelief. The triumph felt larger than Kennedy’s body could contain – standing at the silent center of the battle, bathed in the woman’s life force. She could almost feel the blood cells wither and die against the skin of her face, the last bits of Vi winking out of existence.
After that, everything was academic. Kennedy swept forth into the fray, the girls falling in twos and threes around her. Energized by this violent tour-de-force, her troops rallied to her side, thwacking and hewing at the enemy mass until it finally broke. Remnants of the opposition fled in ten directions, like rats from a sinking ship.
“Let ‘em go,” Kennedy commanded, marching towards the control room’s massive computer bay. Soon, there’ll be nowhere left to run, she thought.
The place looked like it had been abandoned in a hurry. Loose papers were strewn around the floor amid half-toppled stacks of silvery discs. A large screen was broadcasting a familiar graphic: a bird scrawled in red pixels, clutching a spear in its claws. This was the Watcher’s calling card – an emblem of the man’s pathetic yearning for a more aristocratic pedigree. Kennedy knew all about real aristocracy, though, and Rupert Giles would’ve been outranked by her stable boy.
It all comes down to blood…
She scanned the floor for clever faces. “Tasha,” she said. “Be a dear and crack this open.”
The needle-nosed Russian slinked up to the keyboard, little hacker fingers immediately tapping out a symphony. “A strange encryption pattern,” she murmered. “You give us ten minutes, yes?”
Kennedy frowned back. She was about to say something like, “You’ve got five,” when her two-way began to bleep. It was Channel Red, a frequency reserved for only the biggest emergencies.
'It doesn’t mean you’re in trouble,' she’d carefully explained to them. 'It means I am.”'
She clicked the TALK-button. “Better be good,” she growled.
***
“Sir,” the girl stammered, “It’s Deirdre.”
“Who?” the voice crackled back.
“Sergeant Green, sir. We have a problem.” Faith shot Buffy a teasing glance, as if to say, Ooh, a sergeant.
“The suspense is killing me, Sergeant Green.”
Little Deirdre gave the group a wary look. Despite the fact that Faith was holding the blade a hair's length from the girl’s jugular, Buffy realized the little Slayerette suddenly wasn’t sure who to be more frightened of – Kennedy or the knife. Faith resolved the question with a minor incision. “Buffy Summers,” Deirdre gasped. “She’s here.”
“So what?” The way Kennedy just rattled it off stung a bit. Buffy immediately began to imagine all kinds of whats to show her the next time they met.
“Sh-she’s got someone with her,” the girl continued, proceeding according to the script. “A witch.”
There was a delicious beat of silence on the other end. “Where?”
“I saw them in Sector R. Down in the tunnels. It looked like they were headed toward the power core.”
A longer silence, now. A deafening one.
What’s the matter, Kenny? Buffy thought. Afraid of ghosts?
“This witch… Did she have red-hair?"
“Uh-huh.”
Giles and Buffy exchanged anxious glances. It was a long shot, maybe. But if anything might throw Kennedy off her game, it would be this. “Stay where you are,” Kennedy crackled at last, her voice as flat as a robot's.
There was a tiny click, and that was it. Faith jammed the walkie-talkie in the Watchers knapsack, and then hit Deirdre with a whopper of a punch that sent her off to Disneyland. While she was busy dragging the girl into the ventilation shaft, Giles let loose with the proverbial sigh. Betcha wish you had those glasses right about now, Buffy thought.
“I’m still not entirely clear what we’ve accomplished here,” he said.
“Buying you time.” Buffy eyed Drusilla doubtfully, the vampire glaring back this time, frighteningly present. “Are you sure you can do… that thing you said?”
Giles straightened, obviously insulted by the question. “You’ve no idea the lengths I’ve gone to make sure I can.”
“I mean, can you do it right here? Now?”
That one seemed to give him pause. He looked to Ethan, who had busied himself by quietly fishing through the fallen Slayers’ pockets. The warlock shrugged back. “Not ideal,” he chirped. “On the other hand, the first time this was done they were in a bloody cave.”
Giles thought about it for a second. Then, “We’ll take her to the palestra underneath the east gym. It’s only a short walk. We’ll have more room to work there.”
She nodded, then strode to where Ethan was kneeling. The illusionist peered up at her, eyebrows bowing softly over an oh-so-innocent smile. Her blood was screaming at her, the demon pounding out the words Wrong Bad Wrong over and over in savage Morse Code. “Any luck?” she asked.
“It’s still rather vague,” Rayne admitted. “Perhaps I can get a better connection when we’re all settled in.” She kept glaring at him, gritting her teeth. “No worries, Slayer,“ he continued. “I’ll know when the deed is done.”
“How?”
“Well, I’ve touched it, you see?” Ethan’s eyes were gleaming again, the same, unsettling way they had on the side of the highway. “It’s a part of me now, Slayer. I can feel its pull. It's like the tides of the Moon, guiding us all out to sea.” The last few words were almost tender, and Buffy instantly recalled how Nancy Stark looked after her own private dance with the Now. Something like love, but farther away…
“When it’s done,” she said. “The second it’s done.” She let her eyes tell the rest.
“Of course. Should be a snap, so long as your friend hangs onto my talisman…”
“Swear it to me.”
The grin faded sharply, leaving only the warlock’s cool, unreadable mask in its place. “Your wish,” he said, “is my command.”
***
They’d only been walking for around twenty minutes when Andrew began to get seriously, seriously freaked out. Melvin the Monster hadn’t stopped talking once, not even to breathe it seemed. Whenever one head got tired another just took over, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. It wasn’t babbling, exactly, but it was all very confusing, and flat-out annoying. Strange names of people and places kept popping up over and over, and whenever they did a pair of snakelike faces would start hissing some kind of weird song:
His mighty standard bearer Michael claimed,
Azazel as his right, a cherub maimed,
For whom the Host of Hosts upsent a shout
That tore bright Hell’s concave, and parceled out
The light from dark, the blamelessness from blight,
And cast them down to chaos and to night…
“Stop!” Andrew finally cried. The sound broke into little pieces that echoed down the labyrinth. Andrew turned to address the evil horrible thing he’d summoned, less sure than ever where to look. As he'd realized the full potency of his binding spell, the creature’s appearance had gradually lost its power to terrify him. Now, Melvin was mostly just confusing to look at, like one of those 3D posters they used to sell in malls. “You gotta stop," he said. "We’ll never get out of here if you keep… singing, or whatever.”
The demon made a mournful sound. “What’s the point?” he bawled. “Might as well just sit here. Might as well just sit here and die.”
“Stop saying that. Dying really sucks, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because it just does,” Andrew insisted, losing what was left of his patience. “Because once you die, it’s all over. You can’t ever make up for it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. Make up for it. Make it feel better.” The monster’s whole body seemed to respond to this last part, a dozen heads suddenly gazing down at him with rapt attention. “By doing good stuff,” he added hopefully.
The monster’s biggest head tilted in wonder at the idea, like a dog trying to understand a physics lecture. “I don’t get it,” it said.
“When you help people, it’s like making up for all the bad things you did. And after awhile, you start to feel better inside.”
Melvin pondered the words for what felt like a very long time, various brows knitting in concentration and anguish. Then, “No, it won’t work, dude. I’ve been helping you morons for, like, a long ass time now, and it felt exactly the same.”
“That’s different,” Andrew explained. “You only helped because I forced you to. You have to do it when no one is making you.”
“You mean, like, for no reason?”
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“Well,” the monster decided, “that sounds stupid!”
Andrew exhaled sharply, sure he was messing up the whole explanation somehow. He was just about to try again when he heard something that shut him completely up. The echo trickled softly down the walls of the tunnel, a little jumble of female voices. He thought of what Dawn said again, about Kennedy being here, and felt his stomach knotting up again. So, he shushed Melvin and beckoned him to follow, the two of them moving slow and catlike in the direction of the sound, the words gradually taking shape as they drew near.
“Are you sure this is it?” said one girl.
“Pretty sure,” said another. “Big. Glowy. I mean, what else could it be?”
“Maybe we should call to check.”
“Oh, okay. You wanna call her?”
“Hell no I don’t.”
Andrew crept around the bend of a curved passageway, clinging close to the wall, totally stealthy. Waves of spectral light dribbled out of the tunnel’s mouth, gently crisscrossing like the reflection of pool water down at the old community center. He peered out into what seemed to be another big deck.
There were only four of them – which, Andrew realized, was kind of like saying there were only four Jedi Knights. They were standing around some sort of gigantic glass column. Bright, gooey shapes were twisting and overlapping inside it in a way that reminded him of a king-sized lava lamp.
The girls all wore outfits like the soldiers back in the bunker, charcoal grey and snug and expensive-looking. One of them was super tall with wide muscular shoulders that looked like they could dish some damage even without super-Slayerly strength. “Alright, let’s get it over with,” that one said, her voice full of country gruffness. “Rhonda? Mireaux? You gals need a written fuckin’ invitation or what?”
The girls named Rhonda and Mireaux snapped into action, one of them setting a briefcase down at the base of the column and carefully opening it. Then the other one knelt down in front of it with a sort of Willow-ish thinky expression on her face, and then started paging through a little red booklet. Big Boss Lady sat down heavily on a little steel ledge and lit up a cigarette, and a cute brunette stood nearby, looking kind of nervous. Miraculously, Andrew recognized her from his brief stint as a Watcher. Her name was ‘Anna May’ Something.
A little light started blinking in Andrew's brain, trying to process it all. He decided that whatever the ladies were up to, it was no good. There was something about way the nerdy girl was trembling while she read the little book that set off a big alarm bell. It was almost exactly the way Jonathan had always looked near the end, he realized, when Warren’s plans started to go all the way Psycho Scary.
He glanced back at Melvin, who was slumped a few dozen feet down the tunnel, looking out of it. Andrew thought about trying to call Dawn again. But even if he got through, what was he supposed to say? Last time they talked, it kinda sounded like she had her own problems...
Think, Andrew, think.
He retreated to the monster’s side. “Shhhh,” he whispered into a ragged hole he hoped was an ear. “Don’t make too much noise, okay.”
“What is it? Who’s there?”
“Four Slayers,” Andrew said. “The evil empire kind.”
“Oh, no sweat, kid. ” Melvin whispered. “Just lift this Bind of Galgamek you saddled me with. Then I’ll run in there and open ten kinds of whoop-ass on those broads.”
Andrew eyed the creature suspiciously. “Yeah, nice try,” he hissed. “Look we’re just gonna have to try to think of something else. Something devious.”
Melvin groaned. “How many times do I have to tell you, man? I don’t do subtlety real well.”
Andrew let out a little, despairing sigh. He squeezed his eyes shut, thinking harder than he’d ever thunk before. This wasn’t exactly his specialty either, he knew. Thinking, scheming – that was Warren Territory, all the way. Andrew had pretty much always gravitated towards the Henchman career path. It seemed so much more straightforward. Just sit back and wait for the orders to roll in, like a good little toady…
...bad little toady, he corrected himself.
When he opened his eyes again he began to study Melvin’s body, as objectively as he could. All that useless muscle seemed to be mocking him, now, bound by the strength of Galgamek against harming human beings. Above it, the Hellbeast’s mass of ugly faces gazed down at him morosely, all of their creepy eyes glittering back like a sea of flashlights.
And, it dawned on him.
“Okay,” he said. “But, how are you at impressions?”
***
Spike gazed out the window at the empty lot. It’d been twenty minutes since they'd barricaded themselves, and the night outside remained eerily undisturbed. How that normally delightful darkness had transformed into such an unsettling landscape was something he kept from her, at least for the time being.
He wasn’t even sure he understood it himself. It wasn’t a scent. Wouldn’t even have made much sense if it were. More of a tingle, really, up at the final bone of his neck. As soon as he felt it, he knew what was coming for them.
He also knew that it was bollocks and impossible and rot.
The girl was close, weaving a path across the factory floor with a slightly spellbound look about her. The old war stories were probably unspooling in her brain, now. They’d had a few memorable clashes here, when they were Slayer and Vampire in the more conventional sense. That was back when Dru was still the flaming core of Spike’s private Sun. His Alpha and his Omega.
Tonight, it almost seemed like the old murderess was haunting the place, mocking all his latest, futile schemes. It suddenly occurred to him – too bloody late, as per usual – that if this golem chasing them was what his blood told him it was, then the Factory mightn’t have been the best place to square off after all.
Buffy threaded an old, dangling chain between her fingers. “You know, I never really got what you saw in this place,” she said. “I mean, sure, there's the whole creepy, abandoned Lair O’ Evil vibe. But, why a factory?”
“Inside joke,” Spike said, and torched up another Marley. “There was this bloke named Warhol, had a place he called “The Factory’ back in New York.”
Buffy gave a vague nod. “Demon, huh?”
“Well, no. But he was one sick little twist, that’s for sure. Gave Angelus a run for his money in certain departments.”
He crossed to where Buffy was standing, guiding her into his arms. She kissed him easily, breathing her warmth into his mouth. The seconds seemed to last for hours, and it was as though they were completing some foolish contest they’d started long ago. When it was over, they just stood there looking at each other. A single tear ran down the side of her cheek, and he raced to catch it.
“What’s this for?”
“It’s nothing,” she said, smiling a strange smile. “It’s just, have you noticed how we never seem to have any time? Why is that?”
He shook his head. “Rotten luck, maybe. The fact we keep getting ourselves killed probably ain’t a big help, either.”
She chuckled at this, but he could feel that old bitterness welling up inside her. It occurred to him that there was something very cold and sinister about a world that richly rewarded all its monsters, yet sentenced creatures like Buffy to the infinite lash. This was the sort of black truth that Darla would have delighted in, her eyes ablaze like a set of stolen doubloons. But all it did was fill him with rage.
Not her, though, he mused. She laughs at it, or scolds it with a single tear. Because she’s better than you. Better than the whole benighted mob of humans and demons and everything in between…
Before Spike knew it, he was starting to leak a bit too. He felt himself fight it down, swallow it. Somebody had to be hopeful about this wretched world. Or, if not, at least had to fake it.
“Wait right here,” he said, a thought snapping into his head.
So, he dashed off, past the old welding rig and up the platform steps to the observation deck. He threw a sequence of switches on the control panel there and then listened as the machine shop’s old P.A. system whined to life. The grimy tape was still where he left it, middle drawer of an old dented cabinet, second one from the right. He jammed it into the deck, and then twisted the knob, lighting up the speakers nice and slow as the first notes of the song began to play.
Down on the floor the girl was already smiling at him. Or at his cleverness, or at the sodding moon for all he cared. So long as she was smiling.
We are young,
Heartache to heartache we stand,
No promises no demands,
Love is a battlefield…
William the Bloody grinned back at her sheepishly and shrugged. Grabbed the mic. “They’re playin’ our song, pet.”
***
He could hear the song sailing down to them on the night air. Cheeky bastard, Spike thought, and then remembered he made that tape, too. He even recalled that night he did it, mechanically plinking and plunking the big plastic buttons of that old bloodstained boombox, carefully knitting the music into a narrative for reasons that were mysterious even to him. It was just another one of those odd bits that didn’t quite fit. When it was done he’d hidden the thing like it was pornography, of course. No need for Dru to find out. She was already a bit suspicious of some of her toy’s queerer tendencies...
...his compulsions…
Don’t start, the monster warned him.
Bloody pop quiz is over, mate. You know what you are.
Spike nodded grimly to himself, vaguely aware that Xander was talking again, and that he should at least pretend to listen. All told, Xander Harris was perhaps about as useful as any of Spike's henchmen back in the dark old days. And while that was bloody far from a compliment, it was still better than nothing, considering the present odds. “Hmmm, what was that?” he murmured.
“I said, ‘what about the sewers?'”
“No, no, he’s got everythin’ locked off by now," Spike replied. “I mean, not much use in having a secret headquarters if blokes like you can just waltz in any time you feel like it.”
“Well, first of all, it was never much of a secret.” The boy’s tone was exasperated all over again. “And secondly, I’m pretty sure that we waltzed in, like, hundreds of times.”
“Well that was different,” Spike seethed. “Back then, you had her. You really think you nobs would’ve stood a chance in Hell without the Slayer on board?”
Xander shot him a somewhat wounded look. “We did okay,” he argued. “That one summer…”
“That one summer, you had me. Had a mighty Witch and her tweety bird. Had a soddin’ powerful vengeance de…” Spike pulled the chain on himself, a heartbeat too late by the look in the boy’s good eye. “Point is, we can’t just go chargin’ in like the bloody L.A.P.D. Not enough firepower, and that other one’s already twigged me out.”
This seemed to cool Xander down a bit, and he went back to quietly surveying the factory facade, prodding for the soft bits. Spike kept thinking about it, though, the strange way that he and the doppelganger had seemed to almost bump skulls back on that street corner. He wondered how the bloody hell one would go about sneaking up on oneself, and if such a thing was even possible at all. He looked at Harris again. Something began to simmer.
“Might work,” he murmured, almost daring himself to believe it.
“What? You thinking something?”
“Yeah,” Spike said. “Thinkin’ maybe you’re not so useless after all.”
***
Ripper was on his way to her, his head tilting at a curious angle as it filled with ancient horrors. The Witch had propped herself up on her elbows; not as near to death as she ought to have been, but closing in. Circling the yard. He strained at the secret door inside him, fighting to keep it wedged open while the dark energies flowed through. The risk was great. He knew he may never come back from this.
Might not want to, he mused.
Giles, Willow said, directly into his brain, her eyes broadcasting a blend of raw, animal panic and something else that he couldn’t quite identify. Can’t you see it now? Can’t you touch it? It’s so close.
“It won’t work,” he hissed. “I know all your tricks, girl.”
No you don’t. You knew all Her tricks. And she’s dead.
The ocean kept roaring into him, the long, murky waves and whispered promises gradually overtaking his rocky shores. It wasn’t at all what he’d expected. The power was not rage, but rather the balm that healed it, drowning the sharp edges in something far more pliable and cool to the touch. He closed his eyes for a moment, steadying himself against the currents. “How did you do it?” he heard himself ask. “There’s… so much…”
Too much, Giles. It’s too much. And if you don’t stop now it’ll kill you. Kill us all. Her voice was almost unrecognizable to him, now; a ghost from a past that never happened, but should have. Look at the sky, it begged him. Please, just look at it.
He was on the beach then; standing barefoot on the sharp pebbles and shells, the tide swallowing him to the waist. He gazed up into the sky and saw the hole in it – a massive and terrifying absence, like ten black suns collapsed into one. After a few moments he realized it was getting larger, devouring all the storm clouds along its edge.
“No!” Ripper gasped, reeling from the vision. The water kept rising. It was up to his neck, the salty spray stinging his lips. “It’s a bloody trick.”
You know it isn’t.
“All a lie…”
Look into your soul, Giles. You kn-
His eyes snapped open, the world coming to heel all around him. The circle was complete.
“No,” he explained, flawlessly composed, now. “Jolly good try, though. Perhaps we can carve that on your next headstone.” He raised his left hand, watched the dollop of black energy there crackle and leap like a half-starved beast.
He was about to reach out to her, to set this final poison on it’s its path, when he felt something shift in the corner of the room. It was a small change, like a thermometer ticking one degree north.
In the next moment he was struck hard, with a blow the approximate size and shape of a bus. It launched Ripper sideways, his arms and legs flapping like a ragdoll's on the wind.
When he smacked the wall, the lights flickered for a second. Then, it was Tara’s face he saw, lit sharply in the archway of the sanctum. There were others too; a nightmare pet that was like a large spider, and a certain vengeful devil who had stood upon the ashes of dead empires and yawned. But it was mostly Tara’s face he saw. The soft angles there caged an almost limitless flame, he knew. He could see it smoldering behind a pair of lidded eyes that might have been confused for sleepy on any other damned-to-Hell world.
They were looking at him.