Chapter seventeen
Author’s notes: After giving birth, women tend to be very hormonal; this is the explanation for Buffy behaviour being slightly different than her normal self….
Vi wanted to find Andrew to tell him about her idea. She knew that he should be still with Xander in the nursery, putting the finishing touches on the room. She waited till Spike and the others were out of sight and then followed them up the stairs and on the second floor went looking for her watcher. Entering the nursery she found the two watchers deeply in some Star Trek discussion again.
“Andrew, I need you to help me help Spike.”
“Why? What’s wrong with him?” Andrew was concerned for his best friend, even though Spike denied their friendship vehemently.
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me, but he looked sort of pale and drained. I know that he fed Tara earlier and maybe he’s just tired. You know Spike, always putting on his “I’m the big bad” act, but something seems off about him.”
“Vi, if he had asked you to help him I would, but I’m not going to interfere, if he never asked for your help. He’ll eat me for sure, just like he tried before when the First was controlling him in Sunnydale.”
“But Andrew, I just can’t sit back and watch, if Spike is hurting. Remember how we went to patrol a few months back and he threw himself in front of us to catch the darts these strange demons were firing on us. You know the darts would have killed us and when…”
Xander had observed the exchange between the watcher and his charge carefully and realized the moment the situation was sliding out of Andrew’s hand and Vi was wrapping him around her little finger and tried to guilt him into helping Spike.
“Vi, listen to your watcher of once, if Captain Peroxide never asked you for help, don’t give him any. That way there’s less of a chance of him turning on you. Andrew, come on, we need to get this finished today.”
All Xander wanted to do was get the job at hand finished and then have a real long rest. The last 24 hours or so he’d hardly sat down. First chasing and catching Drusilla and then finishing off the nursery at short notice too.
Vi looked at both Xander and Andrew and shook angry and disappointed her head.
“You’re both wimps! How Spike puts up with either one of you is beyond me. I don’t need you to help me, as if you even could. ”
Xander decided that Vi had said enough and was in for some lecture herself.
“When you’ve know Spike for as long as I’ve know him and you’ve been offered to him as dinner or he has bitten you, then you can tell us how to act around him. Now go and do what you were told to do by Faith and patrol little girl! And I better not hear you talk like that to us or any other watcher again. Maybe that whole Slayer-gig is going to your head and you should learn some respect again.”
It wasn’t very often that one of the slayerettes, as Spike called them, pissed Xander off that much, but Vi had pushed him to far this time.
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Upstairs Buffy and Spike were entering the attic room with Giles in tow, where Beatrice had taken care of Drusilla.
Spike looked at his sire as she rocked back and forth talking to her bloody doll. Whatever she knew, they had to find it out. Buffy stood beside him with her fists clenched into small balls and when he looked down, he took one of her hands in his own and tried to caress the tension out of it, so that she would relent and hold his hand.
“Ready sweetheart?” he said to her as he started to cross the room, taking her with him to his sire.
“Uh huh.” Buffy just wanted to get this over and done with. She wanted this crazy vampire out of her house and as far away from her and her family as possible.
“Drusilla, look at me pet!”
Buffy gripped his hand tighter as he spoke to his sire. Crouching down beside her he gently pulled Buffy down too.
“Dru, can you tell us what the book said about Angel and our Daughter, please?”
“No shan’t!” Drusilla was not going to play this game. Her dark prince smelt of the sunshine again and he didn’t love his mummy.
“Oh come on Princess, don’t be like that. Look if you tell us what you know, I’ll buy you a new dolly you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Spike was getting exasperated; he’d offer her the moon if he thought it would help.
“Ohhh, can she have hair like the little green ball and can I play with her too? Mummy likes the little green ball.”
Drusilla had thought about the offer Spike had given her; she was crazy but not stupid. Spike would give her anything she asked for, if he was that desperate to know what she knew.
Pulling Buffy up he walked back out into the passageway outside the room where Drusilla was.
“Where’s the Nibblet Buffy?”
“Spike, don’t even think about giving my sister to that crazed vampire. I’d stake Dru first, before I gave her my sister. Did she drain you of your common sense as well as your blood?”
Buffy was pissed at Spike, how could he even think of giving her sister to Drusilla?
“Clam down Buffy. I’m not going to let her harm Dawn. I love her as I would my own sister, but if she is willing to help us, we could use her as bait, so Dru will tell us what she knows, ok?”
Buffy though a few minutes to her self about what Spike had suggested, she knew he would put his life at stake to protect her sister and her. He had done so more than once in the past. Yes, if he was sure this would work, then she would get her sister up here.
“Okay, but if she gets hurt, even a tiny scratch, Spike you’ll know it! I’m going down to fetch her and then you can explain to her, why we send her to play with a crazy vampire.”
Just minutes later Dawn appeared at the top of the stairs with Buffy behind her, still scowling at her mate.
“Spike, what’s Buffy on about? I’m not the key anymore. Why does Drusilla want to play with me?”
Dawn felt very confused and insecure. She wasn’t the key anymore and now Spike’s sire was saying that she was. Did that mean that some God could come looking for her again? Was there a possibility that she still could be used to open a gateway to hell?
“I don’t know Nibblet, but I’ll protect you. We have to find out what she knows okay?”
Spike was putting on a brave face for Dawn’s sake. He would protect Dawn, but he wasn’t so sure, that they were right about her not being the key anymore. Ben/Glory had died under the tower, then Buffy had died saving Dawn, but no one had actually tested Dawn to see if she was still the key, they had just presumed she wasn’t anymore, because Glory’s time span had run out and they never learned of any other “function” of Dawn as the key in all those hours of research.
But that wasn’t the issues at the moment. The issue was what Drusilla knew. Why the bloody hell hadn’t he read the bleeding codex himself. Fuck, why was Dalton dust when he needed him? Oh yeah, the fucking Judge had cremated him.
“Right then, shall we ladies?”
Spike graciously opened the door for Buffy and Dawn and then followed them into the room, where Giles and Beatrice had taken care of Drusilla in their absence.
“Drusilla, look what we brought upstairs.”
Drusilla started to clap her hands excitedly and danced around the room in circles with everyone keeping a wary eye on her.
“Oh Spikey! Look how beautiful she is glowing, all a lovely green and sparkles. Can I really play with her and get a dolly too?” Drusilla looked at her childe expectantly.
“Yes Dru, you can play with Dawn, but only if you tell me about Tara and the great Poofter and if you don’t hurt her!”
Spike kept eye contact with Drusilla and warned her with a slight growl to do anything to his Nibblet.
“Okay then, but don’t call Daddy a Poofter, you know he doesn’t like it!”
Drusilla was happy. She had almost gotten everything what she‘d asked for. If she had the green ball she could help keep Daddy away from the baby pixie and help with the secrets that Miss Edith had whispered to her.
“Okay, okay Dru, no more name calling. What do you know about bloody Angel and Tara? Please petal, we need to know and you’d like that new dolly soon wouldn’t you?”
“It’s in the book that grand mummy gave Daddy to look after. It says how to keep Daddy away from the baby pixie. It is a spell but I don’t remember all the words and ingredients, but there was a riddle in the beginning.
Enie mieenie minie mo, the bad daddy just has to go…Um, the little tree’s love will make her swoon, if you bring him back from talking to the moon? Blood from the ball, all shiny and green, maybe our daddy won’t be so mean?
I don’t remember anything more about what was written there. Can I play now please? When can I have my new dolly? Miss Edith said we’d been good.”
“Yes Dru, you can play now, but nicely, remember what I told you, don’t hurt Dawn and Dru is that really all you remember?”
“Uh huh, I’ll be good, I promise. Oh goodie, Miss Edith wants to play Patty cake, can you play little Dawn?”
“Yeah sure, why not, it can’t hurt. Come on, let’s sit down here Drusilla.”
Spike turned away from his sire and moved over to where Buffy stood with Giles, quietly talking about what they learned from Drusilla.
“Spike, Angel has the codex. How are we going to get it back from him? He’s not just going to give it to us, is he?”
Buffy was close to tears again and needed her mates comfort, so Spike wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head before nuzzling his mouth at his claiming mark on Buffy’s neck.
“Shh now Kitten, I’ll get it and I’m sure there must have been more than one copy, so somewhere must be another one.”
Beatrice had sat on the bed in the room watching her sire and grandsire talk for a while. Spike was getting nowhere with the questions he had asked her and he’d promised her a new doll and got Buffy’s younger sister upstairs to use as a bargaining tool too. Now he was comforting his mate with promises he may not be able to keep. Then it came to her, the codex, yes one copy Angelus did have, but it had been lost, so she figured that he was using a copy that Wolfram and Hart had in their library. Maybe Angel’s original one could be found again? Maybe Willow would be able help.
“Excuse me William, if I might have a word in private please?”
“Of course Beatrice, can you wait in the hall for me? I’ll be just outside Buffy, okay sweetheart? Call me if you need me.”
“It’s ok Spike, I am fine. I’ll keep an eye on Dru and Dawn, although they seem to get a long quite well.”
Dru and Dawn were sitting on the couch and still played Patty cake and were laughing over their game. With a last disbelieving shake of his head, Spike went for the door.
Beatrice stood in the passageway waiting for her sire; head bowed and hoped he was in a slightly better mood than earlier, when she had been told to leave her grand sire in his care. What she was going to tell him, she’d only just remembered and now she was a bit nervous over telling him what she knew.
“Well Beatrice, what’s so important that you asked me out here?”
Spike was irritated that he’d had to leave his mate and her sister in a room with his crazy sire, not that he’d show it in front of Buffy.
“Well, I seem to remember that Angelus’s copy of our family codex went missing when we had to move quickly once a few years before Romania and Angelus getting his soul back. You and Drusilla were too tied up in each other to notice it and never really cared about the codex at that time. Angelus never told Darla because he knew she would beat him and show him the cold shoulder.
After he lost it, I overheard Angelus ordering some minions to find the codex again and he threatened to stake me if I ever told anyone about him loosing the codex, so because I was so scared that he’d really go through with his threat, I kept my mouth shut and forgot about it until Drusilla started singing the rhythm. I remember that Angel had staked every minion that came back with empty hands.
Darla was the only one of us that cared that the codex stayed with us all the time and somehow he always managed to distract Darla when she asked about the codex and then he told her, that he had it in storage because it would be better, so it wouldn’t get lost. That would mean, that the codex Angelus uses now, doesn’t have to be the original one and we could find it again. Maybe it is possible for Willow to do a locator spell to find it. We were living here for a short time when it went missing, so it’s possible it may not be that far away.”
After a few minutes to process what Beatrice had just told him, Spike started to rant, he was tired and if he had had this information maybe 24 hours ago, just maybe, his loony sire wouldn’t be here giving him even more grief than he already had at his hands.
“How could you keep that from me? I'm your sire, I need to know if anyone ever threatens to stake you, you may have been my nanny and maybe I made a mistake never calling you on being my childe, but you should have told me about him threatening you then. Did you forget that I always protected you, why did you think it would be any different than the other times before?
As for the bloody book, if I’d known this, let’s say 24 hours ago and not now, maybe I wouldn’t have to baby sit my loony sire and also have with her another potential danger for MY family in MY house. In the future you’ll tell me everything you know, when you find it out, plus you’ll tell me, if you’re ever threatened again, or I’ll fuckin’ stake you myself. Do you bloody well hear me?”
Beatrice looked up at William. He had never spoken to her like that before, but she knew she had messed up and he was entitled to be mad.
“Yes Sire, I’ll do whatever you tell me and in the future I will always tell you what I know or what happens. I’m sorry and I am angry at myself for not remembering the codex before.”
By calling Spike “Sire” she hoped he would start to forgive her, she had been scared of Angelus all those years ago and William hadn’t been there that day to protect her, but she should have gone to her sire for protection from the older vampire.
“Now go get Willow, then out of my fuckin’ sight. Go to Tara, make sure she clean and ready for her next feeding.”
Slamming the door as he went back in the room, Beatrice was left in the passageway visibility shaken by her sire’s sudden ability to chastise her.
Spike came back into the room and then went over to the couch were Drusilla was still playing with Dawn. He beckoned Giles and Buffy to come a bit nearer, so that they could hear him talking to her.
“Drusilla, do you remember where Angel put the book Darla gave him to look after? Think pet think, maybe if you don’t remember, Miss Edith does, ask her please?”
Spike pleaded to his sire’s more loony nature, hoping she think the bloody doll would tell her where the Aurelian codex was.
“No my Spike, I can’t remember, it’s been so long and those days were so dark and gloomy, don’t want to remember them. Daddy was always so angry, and not nice angry to me. Miss Edith can’t remember either.”
Just then Willow knocked the door and came into the room and Spike, Giles and Buffy met up with her a bit away from Drusilla.
“Spike, Beatrice said you’d like me to do a locator spell. I brought a London map and the right incense, candles and such.”
“If you could Red, I think we might be able to find out, how to get the bloody Poofter out of our hair. Beatrice just told me, that Angelus might not have the original codex. We need to find my family codex “The Codex of the Aurelian family” which was lost by Angelus before he got cursed.
Rupert you did check the council’s library, right? Not that we do all this and a copy of the book is laying peacefully in one of the shelves at the council?”
“No Spike, I checked that already and I was trying for years to find the codex. Since Buffy became involved with Angel and later you, I was looking for it to find more information about your family.”
“So Red, then it is up to you.”
“Okay I’ll try, but no promises, it’s been years since the book vanished and it could be anywhere by now.”
Willow sat in the lotus position on the floor and lay out the map. Lighting the candles and incense stick she then began to chant.
“Oh goddess Hecate, Mother of the Earth, I beseech you, please show us what was lost to Angelus/Angel. The codex of Aurelian family.”
As Willow continued to chant, Drusilla excitedly clapped her hands together and pointed towards Willow.
“Look Spike, look it’s a pixie, look at it, dancing in front of the little tree.”
Over the map a bright spark had appeared which then started to dart about the room. It tapped itself against the door and then the window, before diving back down and under the edge of the door.
Buffy looked to Spike and yelled at him as she ran across the room, pulling open the door and tearing down the stairs after the bright spark.
“Don’t just stand there, follow it!”
Tbc…
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay I'm adding the next four chapter one another another today because I don't feel all that great......THanks to Evelynne for the Betaing.....Please leave a review good or bad my muse needs feeding.....