Don’t go Toward the Light:
A pounding noise sounds from the condemned farm house at the end of Bolen Avenue echoing off its ancient walls. Robin Wood holds a hammer in his hand within the house nailing crosses to the walls. Now that Buffy - the slayer, has switched sides, as Wood believes, he knows that the First will win, and while Wood is positive that he can’t take out the great evil on his own, he think just maybe he can take out Buffy and Spike and keep them from helping it out. Vendetta fuels every hit he makes turning the farm house into a formidable fortress of death, well death for the undead at least; even if he doesn’t make it out alive after this he doesn’t expect them to either.
--
Once again Buffy and Spike found themselves sleeping side by side to ward off Buffy’s nightmares, and once again she slept soundlessly. In the early hours of the morning, just after Buffy had dozed off, Spike was sure he had heard Buffy’s door open as someone peeked in to see what they were doing. However, if they had been expecting to see something interesting they would have been let down.
A few odd looks had passed them after they got up that afternoon just before sunset, but no one said a word. Now they sit side by side in the kitchen at the island eating breakfast while everyone else has their dinner in the dining room or, for the potentials, in the living room. Buffy had refused to sit by anyone other then Spike still not wanting them to see her feed. She didn’t vamp out this time, but the thought of having her friends watch her drink blood bothered her more then she liked. Over the last few days, despite the odd turning of events that have happened, the house has fallen into a smooth and comfortable routine, and so far that comfortable routine is all they have since they’ve found few leads on how to make the First corporeal and what they do have needs to be translated.
Buffy has her mug up to her lips when the phone starts to ring. For a moment she thinks to herself that she’s surprised that the phone hasn’t been shut off yet with the lack of bill-payage that's been done, then she sets her mug down and goes to answer it.
“Hello,” Buffy says.
“Buffy,” A voice says through the receiver.
“Principal Wood?” Buffy chokes up trying to remember what Dawn had told him about why she wasn’t coming to work anymore.
“It’s alright Buffy, Dawn told mw about your... plans with the First, I’m calling because I figured you had stopped coming to work because of slayer related business and I think I’ve seen something you should investigate.”
“I’m listening.”
“There’s a house at the end of Bolen Avenue, it’s down past…”
“I know where it is.” Buffy remembers walking down the Avenue many nights on patrol, it was filled with decrepit houses which vampires sometimes took up as nests, one of which she and Spike had demolished over a year ago the first time they…
“The one at the end of the row with blue shudders… something shifty is going on there. I think you need to check it out. I’d bring your strongest fighter with you but no one else… the guys, or things I’ve seen go in there look really dangerous.”
“Do you know what’s going on there?”
“I haven’t gone inside, but I’ve set up watch there for two nights now… Buffy, sometimes they bring people in and they don’t come back out.”
“Thanks, I’ll check it out.” Wood hangs up without saying another word.
--
Silently Buffy and Spike move past the rundown houses on Bolen Avenue. They move beneath the lights of the yellowed street lamps, their shadows flow behind them following them down the road. A half crushed house comes up on their left and they both pause for a moment. Memories flash behind Buffy’s eyes of slamming Spike against a wall and falling through floorboards. She remembers glass breaking and plaster floating around her like snow. Buffy closes her eyes for a moment wanting to force the thoughts out of her mind and concentrate on the mission at hand. Spike places his hand on her shoulder and they pick up their pace closing in on the house at the end of the row.
The place seems inconspicuous enough after they walk through the front door, but as it slams shut behind them they know something’s wrong. Buffy looks around the room, she and Spike are the only ones there. It’s soundless; soundless, except for one single heartbeat. They’ve been led into a trap and Buffy has just realized it. She glances at Spike to see a look of fear and confusion cross his face.
“What the blood hell.” Buffy follows Spike’s view and for the first time sees that the walls are covered in crosses of various shapes and sizes, some metal some wood, some ornate others plain. Buffy also notes that the room smells of gasoline and when she tries to open the door she finds that it’s solidly locked and most likely barricaded from the outside.
“What do we do now?”
“Bugger if I know, but we need to get out of here.”
“I think Wood set us up… He must have found out… he must have seen me at some point and known.”
“He thinks we’ve switched sides… come on, maybe there’s a way out the back.”
Buffy follows Spike through the house. She feels uneasy as they move. When Buffy was alive the symbols that fill the walls used to represent something good, something pure, they were a symbol of the good in this world, a symbol that would burn the evil; and it's not that they are not that still but now they're also a symbol that will burn her. The religious things that can harm Buffy such as crosses and holy water are the hardest for her to acknowledge, harder than the sun. Having those things hurt her makes her wonder if there’s anything left for her after this life. Buffy wonders even with all the good that she’s done if simply by being a vampire she will be locked from Heaven’s gates. Even though Buffy has been there before she doesn’t know if what she’s become will ever allow her to return. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to rest in peace.
The back door comes into sight. It’s covered in crosses just as the rest of the room which makes it hard to find against the wall. The door knob has been removed and surely it’s securely shut, but Buffy and Spike continue walking toward it none the less. Darkness, the lights go out. Before reaching the door Buffy and Spike spin in search of the cause of the blackness but their eyes are slow to adjust.
“I’m really not liking the looks of this slayer.”
“Me neither.” Buffy then notices a soft glow on the floor, a speck of light. She squints still not used to the darkness of the room. Everything is pitch black even through her enhanced vision. “What’s that there?” She moves toward it, then slips.
“I don’t know.” Spike’s words seem farther away as the ground beneath Buffy disappears and she falls through the floor. Buffy lets out an oomph and Spike can tell that she’s not beside him any longer. “Buffy!” he yells. Fear floods his mind. Thoughts of a moat of holy water or pit of stakes run rampant in his brain.
“I’m okay,” Buffy calls back up. “I think I’m in the basement.”
Buffy gets off the ground and finally her eyes adjust. She sees the light that she had spotted earlier; it’s a flashlight lying on its side. Buffy picks it up and spins it around the room, even though her eyes are strong enough to see without it. Upon looking around she sees that the staircase has been destroyed and again crosses cover the walls.
“Where the hell did this guy get so many crosses,” Buffy says absentmindedly.
Upstairs Spike is staring down into the hole in the floor watching Buffy look around the basement.
“I’ve been saving them for years,” A voice calls from behind Spike. Buffy looks up through the hole and Spike spins around. “I see my trap worked,” Principal Wood says with a crossbow raised to shoot Spike. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I wouldn’t shoot that if I were you,” Spike says.
“And just why is that?”
“You’ll be dead before the arrow leaves the bow, and I really wasn’t planning on killing you.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“The second you come after me all I have to do is hit this,” Wood holds up a metal object strapped to his hand with a red button on it. “Then this whole place blows.”
“Spike, what’s going on?” Buffy calls from below, but Spike ignores her.
“And Buffy falling down there that’s all part of the game then? You wanted to separate us? Why?”
“Well Spike, I’ve been searching for you for a very long time.” Wood’s voice is smooth and calm. “You see, you killed my mother.”
“I’ve killed a lot of people’s mothers.”
“Yeah, you’d remember mine… she was a slayer.”
“Right then, so this is about me… so just let Buffy go then.”
“No Spike, this isn’t just about you anymore. You turned her didn’t you, killed her just like my mother… this is about doing what’s right.”
“You’re on the wrong side then.”
“I don’t think so.” Wood fires the crossbow sending an arrow into Spike’s shoulder.
“You missed,” Spike said.
“I never meant to kill you with that.”
Spike then notices the rows of thick metal rings, one on each finger of Wood’s hands. Spike reaches to pull the arrow out of his shoulder, but Wood manages to punch him before his hands are free. He gets another good punch in before Spike sends one back his way. Despite Spike’s strength Wood is a good fighter. Being raised by a watcher has given him some good moves and he’s able to avoid many of Spike’s hits and get in a few of his own. However the punches that Wood takes compared to the ones he gives hurt a lot more, but he doesn’t care. Spike can beat him to a bloody pulp as long as he gets a few good hits in and kills him in the end he will feel like he’s avenged his mother’s death.
Wood pushes Spike up against the wall, the exposed skin of his neck burns ever so slightly as it comes in contact with a cross, then Spike kicks Wood so hard that he falls to the ground with the wind knocked out of him. Spike leers over Wood, he wipes blood from his split lip and watches as the man before him gasps for air.
“You know… we’re in the middle of an apocalypse right now. We really don’t have time for you.”
“Yeah, well the apocalypse can wait.” Spike watches Wood hit the button on the silvery object strapped to the back of his hand.
--
Thumps and bumps, crashes and thuds are heard from above and Buffy can do nothing but listen to the fight between Spike and Wood; however she’s not really paying that much attention to them. Buffy moves around the basement searching for a way out, for anything to get her upstairs, but there’s nothing. Then the thumps and thuds come to a stop and a new sound is heard, a beeping sound. Buffy looks up to see a red light in the rafters, the red light is a number, the number 60 and it’s counting down. 59, 58.
“Spike! There’s a bomb, we have to get out of here now!”
“I know,” Buffy hears from above.
Upstairs Spike is dashing around the kitchen looking for anything that could help him get Buffy out of the basement. There’s nothing, just crosses. Then, he spots it, the door to the basement, hidden of course behind more crosses. Spike ignores the pain of his burning hands as he rips the door from its hinges. He can see Buffy now standing in the basement, but the stairs are gone.
“Buffy, you have to jump.” Without another word Buffy starts at the far wall and runs at full speed toward the door which sits eight feet above the ground. She leaps and Spike grabs her hand as soon as she’s near and pulls her into the upstairs. Spike looks around for a way out. He notices that Wood is gone. He probably went out the back door; although Spike is also sure he locked it behind him. “Come on.”
“What are we doing?”
“Anything.”
They race into the living room. Spike takes a split second to look around. He notices that the boarded up window isn’t that securely boarded up. He glances at Buffy and she knows what he’s thinking. The look across her face tells him that she doesn’t think it’ll work, but she goes along with him as he pulls her, there’s no time for anything else. They run at the window and jump. Spike’s shoulder hits it first and as it does Buffy can feel the heat behind her.
The bomb explodes sending the house up into flames. The window breaks, the boards snap and Buffy and Spike go flying into the night. Broken crosses go soaring as well, splintered pieces of wood zoom and everything lies in destruction.
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