TRIALS
An hour after they captured him Buffy went down to see Spike. As she got to the cell she could see him pacing furiously back and forth like a wild animal trapped in a cage, which she guessed is what he was. He was in full vampire mode, snarling on every turn and kicking the wall. He stopped when he saw her. Their eyes locked and Buffy felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, terrified but unable to move. She could almost feel the evil he exuded, his yellow eyes boring into her. It was nothing at all like the vampire Spike she’d known and loved.
“We’re going to fail,” she said to herself, suddenly sure this would only end one way - with her having to dust him.
She could tell Spike was seriously stressed despite his fury. He was breathing hard, taking deep totally unnecessary breaths, giving away how close to the edge he was.
“Slayer,” he snarled. She winced at the contempt in his voice. He really did see her as the enemy.
“Spike,” she said, forcing her voice to be calm.
“So what are you planning? Keeping me as a pet?”
“Think you’re a bit vicious for a pet,” replied Buffy, “More of a pet project.”
For a second she thought she saw fear in his demon eyes but it was so fleeting she couldn’t be sure. She turned on her heel abruptly and left. Another couple of hours and they could start.
Oooooooooooo
The next time she went down, Buffy was accompanied by Giles, who’d come over to help, and Willow. Andrew was back at the safe house. Spike had stopped pacing but stood with his hands on the glass looking in their direction as they approached, no doubt having heard or smelled them with his enhanced senses. He was still in vamp mode, demonic features on show. Buffy was glad as it made it easier to cope with, seeing the face of the demon who’d taken her lover away. His breathing was back to normal.
The three stood looking at Spike for a few minutes then Willow checked her watch. It was time. She took a crystal out of each of the two pockets in her jacket, carefully holding them apart - one on each palm of her outstretched hands.
Spike looked at the crystals and the serious silent people in front of him and decided this couldn’t be good. He slowly started to back away from the glass, eyes fixed on Willow’s hands.
Suddenly, in one fluid movement, she cupped her hands together and the crystals melded as one. She threw it with all her might at the glass. It passed through as if it didn’t exist and hit Spike in his chest. He gasped and looked down. It had pierced his heart. He just had time to think that if it’d been wood he’d have had it, when the pain hit him. It ran through his body, forcing itself outwards from his non-beating heart. He collapsed on the floor, dimly aware that the others were still watching. He writhed, legs kicking, hands clutching at the floor. He screamed.
Buffy stood watching, tears running down her cheeks. She told herself that it wasn’t ‘her’ Spike who was hurting but the demon within. But the sight of that body she knew so well, knew every part of, being in such agony was unbearable. With a sob she left. He’d be like that until the moon set and she wasn’t going to watch him for that long.
Ooooooooooooo
Hours later Spike, hardly conscious, felt the pain ebb away and his limbs were able to relax. He rolled over to get on his hands and knees. He tried to stand but after getting only halfway up before he collapsed he gave up and just lay there, wondering for how long they were going to torture him. The trouble with being a vampire, stakes, beheadings and such aside, they were impossible to kill. This could last quite a while.
He heard footsteps approaching. Strangely he couldn’t get the scent of them. He looked up at them from where he lay, too exhausted to get up. His fear at what they’d do next kept his vampire features on show, and he hissed when he saw them.
Again it was Giles, Willow and Buffy. This time Willow was holding a bag of blood. It looked like one from a hospital. His stomach rumbled but he’d no intention of drinking it, it was bound to be loaded with some nasty potion or other. Again they stood there silently and it was beginning to freak him out.
“What you got there, Red?” he asked with more bravado than he felt. “Who are you, the wicked stepmother with the poisoned apple? Not going to be drinking that.”
“You will Spike,” said Willow.
She threw the blood at the glass and, like the melded crystal, it passed through as though it wasn’t there. Spike shuffled back a bit but it landed harmlessly a couple of feet away from him. He took his eyes away from it to look at her with a sneer but before he could open his mouth he was pushed backwards by an unseen force until he was sitting with his back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him.
The bag of blood flew towards him, stopped inches from his face, and hovered there. He was transfixed - what the hell was going to happen now? His left hand moved towards the bag. He looked at it astonished - he wasn’t moving it. It felt as if it was still by his side but it gripped the bag and brought it to his lips. Again having no control he realised he’d bitten into it and was drinking it hungrily. The bag disappeared once it was empty, and his hand fell back to his side.
Spike looked at Willow, seeing the triumph in her eyes. The power she commanded was unbelievable. She gave a little sigh, wobbled a bit and was steadied by Giles.
“Willow, are you alright?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “That was a bit harder than I thought.”
The three of them left Spike alone once more. He sat there waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.
“Bit of an elaborate way to make me eat my dinner,” said Spike aloud, his voice sounding oddly muffled in the confines of the cell and it did nothing to put him at ease.
Sure enough, some time later he felt something happening. His stomach felt like it was going to explode. He dragged himself towards the toilet but before he could get there he vomited, and kept vomiting until he felt he was going to turn inside out. The amount being expelled bore no resemblance to the small amount he’d taken. It was just blood, and seemed like as much as he’d drunk since he’d turned. When finally the retching was over, he rolled on his back, too weak to move further or to notice that the blood around him just disappeared. He closed his eyes.
Ooooooooooooo
Giles, Willow and Buffy sat in the guest apartment at the Council. Apart from Spike they were the only ones in the building.
“How do you think we’re doing so far?” asked Buffy.
“On schedule I think,” said Willow, “It’s hard to know exactly but I’m sure the spells are working.”
“I think Willow’s right,” added Giles, “The spells are having an effect and the further we go with him the less of the demon we have to deal with.”
The only way to rid Spike of the demon within was to ebb it away gradually. Ancient prophecies aside, it wasn’t possible just to pull it out when it was at its full strength. The crystals had been to weaken it and dull its senses. The blood containing a teaspoon of Joy’s blood was to act as a catalyst to expel the blood he’d taken as a vampire. Joy’s blood was the beacon to guide his soul to return to its rightful home.
The next day would bring the final push to rid Spike’s body of the demon, which would then leave it ready for his soul to return. Merl had warned them that there could be a time lapse of even up to a couple of days before Spike’s soul found its way home.
This time the three of them got to the cell and stood there for a second or two before Spike was aware of them. His senses were now reduced to human levels. For the first time since his capture his demonic features weren’t on show. As soon as he realised they were there he vamped up but it seemed to take a couple of attempts before the transformation was complete. He stood up.
“I’m still here,” he said.
“So I see,” said Buffy quietly.
Spike tensed when Willow stepped towards the glass. He hadn’t liked what she’d done so far and guessed this would be no different.
She took a pale blue feather out of her pocket, placed it in the palm of her hand and pressed it to the glass. The feather floated into the cell, not falling to the floor but just staying at the same height and moving about the cell.
It circled Spike. He kept turning as it did, not wanting to let it out of his sight or for it to touch him. When the circuit was complete Spike was lifted as if by a rope around his waist and suspended in the air. The cell began to fill with a pale blue substance oozing from the outside edges to slowly engulf Spike in its mists. He thrashed wildly, held by his invisible restraints. The substance entered his mouth and his nostrils, filling his lungs. He went limp, just hanging there in the air, surrounded by thick blue smoke, gas, fog or whatever the hell it was. Buffy could watch no more and ran away up the corridor.
“How long?” asked Giles, inclining his head to the cell.
“Dunno,” replied Willow, “Until either the demon or the body is dead. We’ve weakened the demon as much as we could, now only time will tell.”
“And if the body dies?”
“That’s it, game over. Nowhere for his soul, his essence, to inhabit - just dead,” said Willow. She glanced at the eerie scene in front of her, then she and Giles followed in Buffy’s wake.
Ooooooooooooo
Giles went down to check on Spike, unsure after Willow’s words what they’d find and not wanting Buffy to witness it if things had gone badly.
He found his pace was slowing as he neared the cell, reluctant to see what had befallen Spike. Finally he reached the cell. The blue substance had gone, although the walls looked a bit discoloured. Spike was lying face down on the floor. Giles guessed he’d simply stayed where he’d fallen once he’d been released.
Giles couldn’t see if he was breathing. He put a hand on the door of the cell then he remembered Merl’s words not to go in until it was finished. He rapped on the glass, a weird sensation as it gave slightly under his knuckles.
Nothing.
“Christ!” thought Giles.
He rapped again, harder and then slowly, so slowly to start with that Giles couldn’t tell he was moving, Spike turned his head. He pushed himself up until he was sitting then shuffled round so he could look at the direction of the noise.
His eyes met Giles. There was no trace of the demon left but equally there was no trace of ‘Spike’. His eyes just looked empty, vacant, blank. He looked at Giles with no hint of recognition. He didn’t seem to care where he was, he was just ‘there’. His soul had obviously not found its way home yet.
Giles went to tell the others what had happened. Well, at least he was ‘alive’. He reminded Giles of how poor Tara had been after she’d been brainsucked by Glory but with even less left behind. The girls looked at him as he walked in the room.
“The demon is gone and he’s no longer a vampire,” said Giles.
“But?” said Buffy as he paused before continuing.
“But, he’s not back yet,” finished Giles.
“But there’s time, right? There’s still time?” She looked at Willow as she spoke.
“Yes, there’s time,” she replied.
Ooooooooooooo
They went down to see Spike first thing the next morning. When they got to the cell they could see Spike was standing up. He was leaning against the padded wall of the cell in such a typical ‘Spike’ way that Buffy’s heart missed a beat. She rushed forward and put her hands onto the glass front.
“Spike,” she said.
He looked over to her but his expression didn’t change. Like Giles had said the night before, his eyes were empty. She looked at the others and by the time she looked back at Spike he’d dropped his eyes from her face and was just standing there, leaning on the wall and taking nothing in.
“Is there anything else we can do? Buffy asked Willow.
“Well, we do still have that teaspoonful of Joy’s blood left. I think if there’s no change by this evening we should give it to him as a second dose. Perhaps the strength of the demon destroyed the first lot. Plus this vampire version of Spike was so much more evil than he’d been before that perhaps his soul needs a little more help.”
“How do we get him to take blood now he’s not a vampire, even if it such a small amount?” asked Giles.
“I’ll work something out. I don’t think we can just go in there though, Merl did warn us about waiting until it was over before going in. I think it would disturb the magical forces that are in place.”
“What about food? He hasn’t eaten or drank since we put him in there, not counting that blood,” said Buffy.
“It’s all under such magical influences that I don’t think real world issues like food apply,” said Giles.
They’d checked on him several times throughout the day. Each time he sat or stood in the cell apparently quite content with his lot, with still no soul in sight.
Willow had thought hard all day how to get the blood into Spike without him spilling it or refusing it. She couldn’t do the spell she had before to make him drink the bag of blood as it wasn’t subtle enough. It was one thing getting a vampire to suck half a litre of blood down, quite another to get a human to drink a teaspoonful. In the end she’d decided to put it into a very small amount of soup and just hope he’d take the mug and drink it.
The three once more trailed down to the cell. They’d realised over their past visits that it wasn’t his name he responded to, just whatever anyone said first, probably because right now he wasn’t actually Spike - he was just in limbo.
Willow was actually a bit nervous but she concentrated hard and soon the mug with the drop of soup laced with a little of Joy’s blood floated its way through the glass and hovered near Spike. He looked at it in a bemused fashion then back at Willow. She mimed taking it and drinking it and after she’d done it a couple of times, like a small child he copied her and took the mug. He brought it to his lips and drank it in one swallow, then he just let the mug drop. Willow had to concentrate quickly to catch it and float it back through the glass wall and into her hand.
They left hoping the morning would bring some change.
It didn’t.
They stood there not knowing what to do or say. Spike at that moment was sitting down and leaning back against the wall, legs drawn up to his chest.
“Ow!” cried Willow.
All of them jumped, including Spike, at the sudden noise.
“What is it?” asked Giles.
“I’m not sure,” she replied, “It feels like something hot is in my jacket pocket.”
She put her hand in carefully and rapidly pulled it out.
“Ow!” she said again. “It’s too hot, I can't touch it.”
“Here, try this.” Giles produced a handkerchief from his pocket.
She took it and used it to wrap around whatever it was so it didn’t burn her.
Spike stood up and walked into the middle of the cell.
Willow looked down at the object she’d just fished out and saw it was the small box Merl had given her.
“I guess this is what he meant by saying I’d know when to use it,” she said.
Buffy and Giles peered at the box in her hand.
“So what do we do with it?” asked Buffy.
“Open it, I suppose,” said Willow.
She slowly opened it. The box contained a glowing golden sphere of light. As they looked at it, it flew upwards out of the box, startling them all, and hurtled its way through the wall of the cell. It hit Spike in the chest.
He fell to his knees, body arching backwards, suffused with the light, eyes shining golden as if lit from within. He cried out then as the light disappeared. He fell forwards so he was on his hands and knees, breathing hard, head hanging down.
“Spike!” cried Buffy.
He looked up and into her eyes.
“Buffy,” he whispered.
To be continued………
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