Chapter 8
“What are you doing?” Spike dropped down onto the floor beside Buffy and leaned back against the couch on which she was sitting. She felt his cool hand close about her ankle and slide back and forth, a light caress hidden from Emer and Cadhi moving about the living room.
“Trying to keep tabs on this damn thing.” Buffy glowered down at the map she had spread on the coffee table in front of her. “There’ve been three—well, let’s call them sightings, for lack of a better word, though nobody actually saw it—three jumps of Baniel’s meter thing so far today. Each one hundreds of miles apart. Do you think there’s more than one of these creatures?”
Spike glanced over the readouts the Adept had sent. “Don’t think so. That would have to show up at some point, two readings at the same time with distance between them. Here, the reading stops in one place and turns up later in another. Suggests something changing locations. God, the thing moves fast, doesn’t it? Even over some very rough country, if these contour maps are accurate.”
“Hope it is just the one. Hope there’s not a whack of them.” Buffy shuddered at the thought.
“Hope it’s not female. Eggs,” he said simply. “Offspring of some sort?”
She gave him a horrified look. “Oh, God, we might be here for years!”
“Nah. Just have to get rid of the big one and these people can take care of any babies that might be around.”
“If only the frigging thing would stay still!”
“Gotta settle sooner or later. It’s doing recon. See? It’s quartering the area like we did at Faisi. Except the territory that it’s covering is that whole range of mountains.”
There was a pattern to the sightings if one looked at it that way.
“That suggests it’s intelligent.”
Spike shook his head. “Big cats do that. Tigers, for instance. Walk their territory, checking for competition and danger. Looks sentient if you just see the pattern, but they’re not really.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere!” Buffy said in exasperation.
He reached up to stroke her hair gently. “Hey. We’ll suss it out.”
“Yeah, but when? I keep dreading another attack.”
“We’ve got time. No, really,” he said when she gave him a disbelieving glance. “Look at the time factor. Week to ten days between attacks. Time to digest, maybe?”
“Eww. Can’t be eating hundreds and hundreds of people and cattle and whatnot. I don’t care how big it is. That’s way too much of a bellyful.”
“Lots of piles of ash around and bits of melted metal that could have been buttons and belt buckles and suchlike. Fries most of them, I think. It sounded really pissed back there.”
She remembered the hatred in the thing’s shriek. “Yeah, it did.”
“I mean, there must be mammals and things in those mountains. Deer or boar or goat equivalents. It could eat those if it wanted. Maybe it does. But people it’s mostly choosing to fry. Got a grudge on, I’m betting.”
“Great.”
Spike was sitting sprawled out, a forearm across a bent knee, the fingers of his dangling hand flicking restlessly back and forth. He had a wry, amused look on his face. He tipped his head back onto the seat of the couch and looked up at her.
“You’re being slow, pet. Something huge that fries things. That throws fire. What do you think it might be? Godzilla?”
“Godzilla doesn’t throw fire.” Her eyes widened. “No, no, no. Don’t say it.”
“Dragon.”
Buffy put her head into her hands. “You had to say it.”
“Baniel brought through a dragon and it’s not happy to be here.”
“Dragons don’t exist.”
“Demons don’t exist. Or vampires.” He was laughing at her. “Stop fighting the idea, Slayer. These people were fooling around with magic without realizing the consequences. Is it so surprising they brought a mystical, half-magical creature here?”
“No wonder it gets over ground so easily. It flies. It didn’t pass through the city. It flew over it. That’s why no one saw it.”
“Yeah.” Spike’s eyes were shining. “This is going to be fun!”
“Oh, God, you’re getting a charge out of this!”
“No wonder they needed a champion. Slayer. Dragonslayer. Has a nice ring to it. Always wanted to take on a dragon. All those fairytales when I was a kid.” He struck a dramatic pose. “Knight in shining...leather.”
Buffy giggled involuntarily. “This is awful. How do you fight something like that, Spike?”
“A horse, lance and shield is traditional, I understand. That’s the way St. George did it. Mind you, asbestos armor might help.”
“I wonder if the palace tailors can stitch some up.”
They both laughed.
“You thought of this before, didn’t you?” Buffy said.
“It was just a thought. Nothing to back it up. Still don’t really have anything, Slayer. This is all just a guess.”
“But it hangs together. That’s why you checked out those caves.”
“Dragons like caves, right? But these were too cold and wet. Hot creatures, dragons.”
“Reptiles,” Buffy objected.
“Not really. A demon. No real connection to the natural world. No Jurassic Park dino here, pet.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Only the Chinese legends connect dragons to water. Every other legend talks of fire and air. Except for when it attacks, it’s sticking to the mountains. Might be drier caves up there.”
“Thousands of square miles of them. We’re back to: where exactly is it?”
“Any repetitive sightings?”
“It’s moving and Baniel’s device is moving, trying to track it. Between the two sets of movements, we’re lucky to catch any sightings at all,” Buffy sighed.
They pored over the maps.
“Couple of repetitions here and there,” said Spike. “But that just looks like part of its territorial sweep. Four times in the mountains at Reishi. That might be a possibility. Cadhi,” he called.
“Yes, aver?”
“Anything special about Reishi?”
Cadhi shook her head. “A remote district, aver. Quiet. Not much industry. Logging, a little mining, some tourism, but only in summer when the snows have left the mountains and people can make the long journey up to the Caves of Fire.”
“The...Caves of Fire?” Spike said very carefully.
“Yes, aver. It is quite spectacular. Those mountains are volcanic, though there has not been an actual eruption in centuries. But vents and fissures in the caves allow the passage of fire and steam and gases. An impressive sight.”
Buffy and Spike glanced at each other.
“Ohh-kay,” said Buffy. “We want to go there.”
Cadhi gaped at her. “We, er, we can certainly arrange that, but...”
“Right away.”
“Y-yes, avera. But the rail line will only take you part of the way there. You will need h’laren for the rest of the journey. And camping materials. You will have to camp overnight both ways. It will take a little while to organize.”
“Please do it, Cadhi. It’s very important. We need to take a look at those caves. And contact that Adept, what’s his name? Jirun? Tell him to get Baniel’s device to the train station closest to the Caves of Fire. Are those Caves within two hundred miles of the station?”
“Oh, yes. Far less.”
“Tell Jirun to concentrate on Reishi and keep a watch for anything showing up near those Caves.”
“Yes, avera. At once.”
“Just a recce,” said Spike sharply to Buffy. “Nothing more. We go there, suss out the place, then work out a way to deal with the thing. You don’t rush in there, screaming, ‘Banzai!’ Okay?”
“Hey, that’s your technique, not mine!”
They grinned at each other.
They couldn’t leave for Reishi until the next day. Tariess insisted that a troop of twenty Guild and a Guildmaster accompany them. Dehren was back, limping only a little and swearing that he was perfectly okay to ride, though a long hike might be problematic. Since the h’laren could take them right to the mouth of the Caves, Buffy couldn’t find an acceptable reason to leave him behind.
The Adept with Baniel’s device was waiting when they reached the train station at Reishi. The device had shown the presence of the dragon last night, but the thing had flown away again that morning.
“We need to take that device with us,” Buffy said. “We need some early warning if it comes back. Do you ride, Jirun? Will you come with us or do you want to turn the scanner over to one of the Guild?”
“I’ll come, avera,” said Jirun. He might be only a scholar, but he was determined to do his duty.
“Good man,” said Dehren, thumping him on the shoulder, and Jirun looked startled and pleased.
Three of the h’laren were loaded up with their tents and supplies. Saddles with pommels were found for Buffy and Jirun, and the two most docile h’laren were located, though as usual their docility was a debatable point. The trip to Faisi had helped. Buffy was actually riding and balancing properly on her mount, unlike poor Jirun who sat his like a lump and was looking rather green around the gills. She still left the reins wrapped around the pommel though and didn’t try to control her h’laren, trusting Cadhi and Dehren to keep it moving with the rest of the herd.
They moved out at a sedate pace, two of the Guild taking point. There was no need for hurry and they had a long ride ahead of them.
“What I wouldn’t give for a donkey,” muttered Buffy. “Or one of those off-road motorcycles.”
Spike’s brows shot up. “You on a dirt bike? Please. You’re dangerous enough behind the wheel of a car, Slayer.”
“Hey!”
“I’ve seen you drive. At least with the h’laren, you’ll just kill yourself, not every other person within a mile radius.”
“Guess who’s sleeping alone tonight. Dammit, isn’t there any way to make it stop doing that?”
Her h’laren had decided to snatch at a particularly tempting patch of grass between its front feet. The movement brought its head down to the ground and Buffy jolting forward over the pommel.
“I’m going to fall!” Then she regained her balance as the creature’s head came up again. “These things are evil!”
“Yeah.” Spike thwacked his with his riding crop to keep it from taking a piece out of Cadhi’s mount ahead of them. “Getting to like the sods.”
Buffy gave him a look and he laughed.
The way was soon very steep. The h’laren, with their clawed feet, had no trouble. The train station was quickly lost behind them. Turns on the trail revealed magnificent views of the mountain range, foothills furred with trees, snow-streaked peaks raking the sky and marching away on all sides into the blue distance. The air was crisp, cold and very clear, with an invigorating tang to it.
“Beautiful country,” remarked Spike.
“I’m a city girl,” griped Buffy. “Rather see a billboard or a pair of golden arches.”
“And you’re the one with the soul.”
They both laughed.
Nightfall found them three quarters of the way up the mountain. Jirun said that the dragon had not returned.
“Even so, we will make a small fire only for cooking and then douse it after,” said the Guildmaster firmly. No one objected. Anything flying over them would certainly see a fire. “Lanterns in the tents are acceptable. The light will be negligible with the tents under the trees and the thick canvas that we’re using.”
“Anybody been in these Caves?” Buffy asked while they were eating.
There was a chorus of assent. Many of the troop had.
“How many entrances are there?”
The Guildmaster frowned. “The one great one on the side of the mountain. But that is not what you mean.”
“No. I’m talking about accesses aside from the main entrance.”
“It is a mountain, avera. There must be many.”
“Big enough to allow something a hundred feet wide to pass?”
“Ah! I think not.”
“That’s our job tomorrow. Work our way all around there and try to pinpoint any access that’s at least a hundred feet wide.”
“What are you thinking, pet?” Spike was stretched out on the ground, his hands behind his head and his ankles crossed, looking dreamily up at the stars.
“We can’t let it get airborne. That would give it too much of an advantage. A thing like that dive-bombing us? You saw what it did to Faisi and the other towns and villages. What was that you said about Dresden being firebombed?”
“Mm.”
“We have to keep it on the ground. It’s going to be tough enough to kill there. I don’t care about St. George. Swords and lances are no good against something that size. And it breathes fire. It’ll fry us to a crisp. I may be the Slayer, but that’s not something I want to go up against mano a mano.”
“Yeah.”
“No really useful long distance weapons here. Only thing we have is the ballista. Okay. Seal up every other exit that exists so there’s just the main one. Let it go in there, then skewer it with the ballista when it tries to come out.”
“Yes, yes,” muttered the Guildmaster. “Or if that is not successful, drive it back into the Caves, bring down the entrance and trap it within. Starve it to death.”
Buffy nodded. “Lots of options if we can only keep it contained.”
“Chancy,” murmured Spike.
“Got a better idea?”
“Maybe.”
“What?”
He smiled up at the stars. “Working on that.”
Clearly he wasn’t going to tell her yet. She opened her mouth to protest, then thought back to their previous argument and closed it again.
He grinned crookedly. “How about that? You do learn,” he said softly so that only she could hear with her acute Slayer hearing.
“Don’t have to be mean.”
Everybody had finished eating. A couple of the Guild collected the tin plates and mugs and took them down to the stream to wash. People were already heading for their tents, where the tiny lights would still allow conversation and dice or card games.
“Why do you keep looking at the sky?” Buffy asked. “Watching for the dragon?”
“Nah. It’s just pretty, is all.”
She looked up herself and found herself looking at splendor. The sky was peppered and spangled with stars, billions of them. She hadn’t really looked up until now. Even back in Sunnydale, she had never seen so many.
“Whoa. They’ve really got a lot here.”
“No light pollution. It’s the same back in our dimension once you get away from the streetlights.”
“It’s beautiful and I didn’t even see. But you did.” She smiled affectionately at him. “Yeah, the poet’s still there.”
He winced. “Thought you weren’t going to rub that in.”
She laughed down at him. “Kinda like it.”
He made a scornful sound. “Believe me, you wouldn’t have liked William. He was all wet.”
“But you’re not. Is it the demon then? The character change, I mean.”
He shook his head. “The demon gave me the strength and the speed, gave me the chance to be what I wanted to be. Opened the door. Took me decades to learn, to change, to become really me.”
“Spike. The new persona.”
His teeth flashed white in the darkness, mocking. “The killer.”
“What’s wrong?” she said suddenly. “You’re down. I can feel it.”
“I’m not down. Things are going well. We get this thing, we may not have to spend that much longer in this dimension.”
“Yeah! Isn’t that great!”
“Isn’t it?”
She caught the edge in his voice. “But...”
The Guildmaster stopped beside them. “We will break camp at first light tomorrow, if that is agreeable to you, avera. The more daylight we have for the search, the better.”
“Yes, of course,” Buffy nodded.
“More time to find a place to hide,” murmured Spike sardonically under his breath. “Rather see it than it seeing us.”
“You are all bad moody tonight.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re sniping.”
“Don’t I always?” He got to his feet irritably. “Jirun. What’s the score, mate?”
Jirun blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Any pretty lights on your little box?”
“Ah! No, the creature has not returned. We are safe so far.”
“You may sleep without alarm, averin,” the Guildmaster said. “The men on watch will take the device and pass it along to each watch. We will have warning if the...dragon, do you call it?... appears.”
“Thank you.” Buffy got to her feet, then stumbled.
Spike steadied her quickly. “You all right, pet?”
She grinned ruefully. “Stiff.”
“Oh, yes,” muttered Jirun ruefully.
The Guildmaster chuckled and held out two little pots. “It was thought you might be. This may help.”
Buffy sniffed at her pot cautiously. The herbs that the staff had dropped into the bath water the last time had been pungent. But this had only a faint pleasant odor.
“This is nice. Thank you.”
“We use it often, avera. It is good for strained muscles.”
“And I’ve got those, all right.”
Cadhi and Dehren had set up a tent for them under the trees in the most sheltered part of the camp, where it would be overlooked by anything flying overhead.
“We’re the Champions,” muttered Buffy. “It doesn’t seem right that we have the safest spot.”
“Not the way they see it, luv.” Spike was setting up the tent’s light, which turned out to be a candle behind a strong magnifying lens in a small lantern. It cast a surprisingly bright glow.
The tent could be partitioned into two, but the partition had not been raised, had just been left hanging against the back wall. Cadhi and Dehren seemed to be as much aware of their relationship as the staff was. Buffy flushed a little.
Spike laughed, seeing the color come up in her face. “Household, pet.”
“Damn. Do the rest of them...?”
“Shouldn’t think so. They’re only on loan. Not part of the family, if you see what I mean.”
“Hard to get used to this,” she muttered.
“People knowing?” He smiled crookedly. “Just remember. No one will know back in Sunnydale.”
“Huh.”
The bedrolls had discreetly not been spread out, leaving it up to them whether they wanted to make one bed or two. Spike made one, without bothering to ask her preference. He had kicked off his Docs and was pulling off his T-shirt when he noticed her working away with the Guildmaster’s little pot of ointment.
“Here, give me that. Better when someone else does it for you.”
“You give massage?” Buffy teased.
“Got good at it that year Dru was sick. Lie down.”
He was good at it, that innate tactility of his given free rein. She lay limply drifting in a contented haze while those clever, sensitive hands worked her from neck to heel, kneading out all the knots in her aching body.
“My bones feel like wet noodles,” she sighed and he laughed. “Gonna fall asleep. I can’t keep my eyes open.”
“No need,” he said simply and, given permission like that, she did drift off to sleep.
She woke some hours later to find herself lying back against him under the blankets, her head in the curve of his shoulder and his arms around her, holding her closely to him. The candle in the lantern was burning low, but it was still dark outside. She could feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing against her back.
“You’re awake,” she said. He hardly ever breathed when he was asleep.
“Yeah.”
She twisted around to face him. His profile was very still and quiet, his gaze fixed on the canvas roof above their heads. His hand slid up and down her back, absently caressing her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’ve been strange all evening.”
He turned his head to look down at her, his gaze moving lingeringly over her face from hairline to chin. She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes because his lids had dropped, leaving only narrow, shadowed curves.
“What if the spell doesn’t work the way we think?” he said. “What if we kill that thing, but we’re still stuck here the whole sixty days? Will you mind?”
“No, not really.” She pushed herself up on one elbow to see him clearly. “Will you?”
His mouth twisted sardonically. “Got all I want here, don’t I? Slayer blood, sex, posh digs, booze, staff at my beck and call...”
She laughed involuntarily. “Vamp paradise. But it’s not home though, is it?”
His gaze went up to the canvas again. “Guess not.”
“Hey, come on. Don’t get gloomy again. Forty-five days more isn’t that long to wait, is it?”
“No, it’s not long at all.”
“Look on the bright side. Maybe the spell will work the way we hope and we’ll get poofed back right away.”
He looked at her with wry amusement. “You’re something else, aren’t you, Slayer? Oh, well.”
She looked down at him, puzzled by the odd tone in his voice.
“We could enjoy ourselves in the meantime, right?” She stroked his face lightly and he turned his head a little, pushing against her fingers like a cat. “Hey, you like that.”
She ran her fingertips delicately over the planes of his face, down the long cord of his neck, across his collarbone, watched his eyelids grow heavy and half-close, his gaze turn inward, focusing on the way the caress felt. She bent and kissed him softly, and felt his breath shudder and his mouth respond helplessly to her own.
Gentleness. Who’d have thought a vamp would respond to gentleness? But then he had always been gentle with Dru. Had Dru been gentle back? Buffy thought not, from his surprise at her caress, the way his face went so defenceless and vulnerable. Tenderness touched something deep inside him. She saw his lips part, heard the little, shuddering catch of his breath. He yearned for it.
“Buffy.” His hands caught her upper arms, drawing her down to him.
“No.” She pushed his hands flat on the blankets. “I want to try a couple of things. Want to explore.”
“Anything you want.” He looked up at her, a strange expression in his eyes. “I’m yours.”
She could feel his body relaxing, become pliant and unresisting, surrendering itself to her. She ran her hands over him, feeling the deep, subterranean shudders that went through him, bent and kissed his throat and felt him arc it to her mouth.
Having power over him like this was incredibly arousing. She ran her hands and her mouth over him, coiled about him, taking her time, stretching it out, feeling him shiver and flex and conform to her movements, pliable to her demands. He was a pleasure to touch, those supple muscles, that very lickable sixpack.
“Could play with you like this for hours,” she purred.
“Want you to,” he muttered. “But...”
‘But’ was right. It was getting too much for him, his body demanding completion. He was tensing involuntarily, muscles firing off without volition, surging against her. She teased his nipples with her tongue, bit him just below his navel and felt him jerk against her. His fingers were clenched on the blankets, trying to hold himself back.
“Buffy...”
She pushed one leg sideways and bit her way up his inner thigh.
“Christ, Slayer!” His other knee was starting to tremor.
“Haven’t even started yet,” she purred.
“God, you’re gonna kill me!”
“But you like it.” She was exploring his balls. His hips jolted. He was painfully erect by now. “Oh, yeah, you really do.”
Her hand closed upon his cock. Velvet over steel. She ran her hand up and down it, bent and probed the sensitive slit at its top with the tip of her tongue.
“Jesus!”
His hips came right off the bed. Then it was like being hit by an explosion. She was yanked upwards and onto her back and he was coming into her hard. She laughed and wrapped her arms triumphantly around him.
“Yes, come on. Just like that. Yes!”
They strained against each other, taking each other fiercely. She was lost in him, lost in the driving rhythms of his body, the sound of his voice muttering something indistinguishable and intense, the pressure of his face against hers with its desperate, more than intimate closeness. Then his fangs slid into her neck, that slow, deep draw thrilling through every cell in her body, throwing them both so much higher, convulsing.
When Cadhi called outside their tent at dawn, she didn’t want to move. Her body felt heavy and replete, languorous with passion spent, rich and lush with contentment.
“I think my bones have melted,” she muttered into his shoulder.
He laughed a little against her hair. “Mutual.”
“Didn’t think it could ever be like this.”
“Never was before,” he said under his breath. “Not in a hundred and twenty years.”
They both sighed.
Washing, dressing, eating breakfast all passed in a dreamy haze. He came to her when they were all mounting up.
“All right?” he asked.
“I think my brain’s finally starting to function, yeah.”
They both laughed softly, leaning lightly against each other. His hands ran down her upper arms; his lips pressed against her forehead.
“Mine too.”
The h’laren were starting to move out. Spike tossed her up into her saddle and smiled up at her, then turned to whack the shoulder of his own mount. Its knee bent, he caught the reins, then was thrown upwards with a powerful jolt as the creature straightened, settling smoothly into its saddle as it started to move forward.
“Wish I could do that,” she muttered.
He grinned at her. “Few more days of riding and you will.”
“Days,” she groaned. “God!”
They made good time on the last quarter of the climb, reaching the mouth of the Caves by mid-morning. Even the outside was impressive: the raking, grey-black cliff face, the wide entrance with wisps of steam drifting from it, the huge clearing in front ending in a great drop down to the river hundreds of feet below.
“Did you wish to enter, avera?” the Guildmaster asked.
Buffy glanced into the entrance. An enormous tunnel swept away into dense shadow. The end of it was small with distance, a ragged red-orange circle waxing and waning with the flicker of the flames within.
“Maybe later,” she said. Sightseeing could wait. They had a job to do first. “Unless the thing’s down there. If it is, I want to take a look. Jirun?”
“It is not, avera. The device shows nothing.”
“Okay then. Everyone spread out and start searching for other ways in.”
Spike had dismounted too. “It’s been here.”
Buffy looked at the depressions that pockmarked the clearing. Something huge and heavy had landed here, not once but several times.
“Maybe this really is its lair.” She hoped so. If it kept coming back here, that would give them more opportunities to trap it.
“Avera!” Jirun screamed suddenly. “It’s here!”
“Where?” She looked around wildly. “You said it wasn’t!”
“It just appeared! From nowhere!”
Something shrieked above them. Something plummeted like a meteor falling—a gigantic, golden body, the beating of colossal wings. She was knocked off her feet by a downdraft of icy-cold air smelling of ozone. The h’laren screamed in terror and tried to flee as one, fighting the men desperately trying to hold onto them. An immense weight struck the clearing, shaking the ground like an earthquake.
She lifted her head to see a massive shape whip around and disappear into the tunnel, with shocking speed for something that size.
Spike grabbed at her. “Buffy, are you all right?”
She nodded dumbly. From the cold and the smell of ozone that it had brought with it, it had been somewhere in the upper atmosphere.
“Why didn’t it kill us?” she gasped. “It could have fried us! Why...?”
“It took you long enough to get here,” a vast, cold voice said in her head. “Come in. Don’t be shy. I...enjoy visitors.”
TBC
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Author's Chapter Notes:
The fabulous banner is by the awesomely talented Ben Rostock.
Chapter End Notes:
Glossary:
aver: sir / avera: ma'am / averin: plural / nefai: gentle being / nefa'in: plural / ri: three miles
aver: sir / avera: ma'am / averin: plural / nefai: gentle being / nefa'in: plural / ri: three miles