Kralik growled in anger and both vamps pushed their stakes into the other’s chest … punching the other’s ticket to hell with the jagged, deadly wood.
Suddenly, Spike heard the snipers fire and tranquilizer darts zipped through the air, one hit Spike in the shoulder, and three hit Kralik in the back, but still the vamps didn’t stop, pressing their stakes deeper … closer to the other’s heart.
The snipers reloaded quickly and fired another round of four darts and Spike felt himself losing control of his muscles … he felt Kralik’s grip loosen on this throat. In just moments, both vamps lay unconscious on the floor of the bloody … literally bloody, room.
“Get them out of there and find that Gem!” Travers ordered to no one in particular, waving his arm down into the field of battle. When no one moved, he screamed, “NOW!” and everyone in the observation area suddenly jumped to life.
Mac unlocked the door and the guards began dragging the unconscious vamps out. “What do you want done with them?” he asked, looking up at Travers who remained in the mezzanine above, watching the activity.
“Blue room for them,” Travers answered coldly, indicating Spike and Kralik. “Take her to solitary confinement…”
**~**
Spike moaned as someone slapped his cheeks. “Time to rise and shine!” a voice called brightly, slicing through the fog in his brain like a razor.
Spike’s head was bowed and lolled back and forth as the owner of that voice continued to slap him awake. Spike finally rolled his head up and opened his eyes. Everything was out of focus … like he was looking through an old, distorted piece of glass, and he blinked to try and clear his vision.
“There you are … just in time for the party,” Weatherby announced gleefully before turning his attention to the still unconscious Kralik.
Spike looked around and tried to figure out where he was now … it wasn’t hell, of that he was certain. Then everything started coming back to him and he realized this was the blue room … the room filled with every torture device ever conceived by man, the room from which only screams escaped. Spike looked down – he was stripped naked, someone had stuffed part of his t-shirt into the wound in his chest to staunch the bleeding. He was strapped into a straight-backed, heavy wooden chair; Spike pulled against his restraints, but they were secure and didn’t budge even a millimeter.
“There now …” Weatherby began as Kralik woke up, as well. “I am Mr. Weatherby … you can call me ‘sir’ … I’ll be your Master of Ceremonies for the remainder of your stay at the Bates Motel.”
Spike looked over at Kralik, he was also naked and strapped into the same type of chair, then Spike looked at their ‘MC’. “What … not even dinner and a movie? I don't want to rush into anything.”
“Funny guy,” Weatherby sneered. “Don’t worry … I’ll be gentle, start out slow, get you in the mood before I break your heart … along with the rest of you … quite literally.”
“I appreciate that, mate … I've been hurt, ya know,” Spike continued to quip as he kept pulling on his restraints and looked around for some means of escape.
“Not by me … you’ve never felt pain until you’ve felt mine, mate,” Weatherby assured him as he picked up the cattle prod that he’d used on Bess. “This should get some sparks flying for you… might even get your heart all atwitter,” he quipped darkly as he pressed the prod against Spike’s bare, blood-stained abdomen.
Spike’s body jerked and strained against the leather restraints that held him in the chair as 20,000 volts surged through his body, burning his skin and rolling his eyes back in his head. “Not so funny now, are ya, blondie?” Weatherby asked rhetorically as he pulled the prod away and Spike slumped forward the chair.
Weatherby turned his attention to Kralik who had been enjoying the spectacle and chuckling. “Whoa, man! I didn’t do anything!” Kralik argued.
“Not your man, not your mate … you will address me as sir or master,” Weatherby informed Kralik as he pressed the prod against the big man’s stomach as he’d done Spike.
Spike actually felt his heart beat for a few seconds as the electricity flowed through him – it was a surreal feeling, as if something that might’ve killed a human was actually bringing his body to life – sending blood pumping in his veins. The stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils and brought him back out of the irony of his situation to the moment, though. He knew that he could take a lot of punishment and he didn’t fear that … but sooner or later Weatherby would get tired of playing with them. He’d been on dust’s doorstep in the white room … he really didn’t want to march up to it and bang on it here in the blue room, he was pretty sure someone would open it for him here.
Spike could hear Weatherby’s heart racing with excitement as he plied his trade of tortures. It was clear that the … what was he? A Watcher? … Whatever he was, he definitely got off on inflicting pain. After a couple of hours of ‘small’ tortures, like the cattle prod on their stomachs and necks, the branding iron, which emblazoned a large ‘W’ on their chests and backs, and the blow torch on their feet, (each burning torture followed immediately by being doused with ice-cold water, to keep them from actually igniting and dusting), Weatherby took a break. Spike figured he went to wank off … if the man had gotten any more aroused, he would’ve cum in his bloody pants.
Spike knew that their MC was just getting warmed up, judging by the implements of torture in the room … he had a long way to go before he reached his stride. Spike had refused to scream … not giving Weatherby the satisfaction, which he could tell was ticking the man off, but Spike didn’t know how long he could keep that resolve as the sadistic bastard moved on to harsher and more painful tortures. Spike and Kralik both struggled against their restraints while Weatherby was gone, but there was no budging them … they still wouldn’t give at all, and the heavy chairs were bolted to the floor, they wouldn’t even tip over.
After about thirty minutes, Weatherby came back into the room and brought a guest with him – Travers. Quentin walked up and stopped in front of the two vamps, giving Spike a smug smile as he surveyed the damage that Weatherby had inflicted thus far.
“So, I see you’ve met our Mr. Weatherby,” Quentin began amiably. “He’s really quite talented, don’t you agree? Before long you’ll both wish I had let you dust in the white room, I can assure you.”
“Do you have some point, Watcher?” Spike sneered at him. “‘Cos you’re keeping us from the fun ‘n games… he was just starting to get me all warm and tingly inside.”
Weatherby punched Spike in the face, rocking Spike’s head to the side and bloodying his mouth as his teeth cut into his lip. Spike licked at the blood dripping from his split lip and smirked at Travers as if that hadn’t hurt at all.
Travers stared at Spike for several long moments before turning his eyes to Kralik. “The first one of you who tells me where the Gem is will be sent back to your cell alive … or undead, at any rate. I assure you that no further harm will come to you,” Quentin promised, crossing his arms over his chest and looking expectantly from Spike to Kralik.
“Sod off!” Spike exclaimed. “Any nit can see we don’t ‘ave the bloody thing!” he pointed out, looking down at the wounds and burns that covered his body.
“Pretty boy had it last!” Kralik asserted.
“Bloody well did not – you buggering Neanderthal! You tossed me away ‘fore I could get it … you musta hid it in there … maybe in them tables,” Spike defended.
“You sorry son-of-a-bitch! I never found it after you knocked it out of my hand! You had it last!” Kralik contended.
Spike shook his head and pursed his lips. “He’s bug-shagging crazy, ya know …” he pointed out unnecessarily to Travers. “He had it…”
Travers sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. “I’m sure after a few more hours with Mr. Weatherby, one of you will be happy to go back to your cell … while the other can be kept in here for … years. There really is no limit to our Mr. Weatherby’s passion for pain. I can wait …”
Travers nodded to Weatherby as he turned away from the vamps and left the room … Kralik protesting the whole time that Spike had it last. Spike had sometimes wondered if there was a more sadistic motherfucker in the world than Angelus … he reckoned he was about to find out.
**~**
Buffy wanted desperately to pace in her cell, but her battered and bruised knees wouldn’t allow more than hobbling across the cell and back to the cot once before forcing her to sit down again. She’d been awoken that morning with breakfast, which she ate … saving the apple for later. She’d talked a little bit with Bess, calling back and forth down the corridor to see if she was alright and tried to assure her that they would find a way out of this. Buffy really wished someone would assure her of that… so, of course, she tried to contact Spike … and tried and tried – but he never answered her. Then she heard the guards taking Bess out of her cell and down the hallway and Buffy forced her knees to pace the cell without sitting … she knew what going down the hallway meant for Bess – but she was powerless to stop it. If she made trouble, she knew it would only be worse on the girl.
As she paced … or hobbled, back and forth across her cell, her mind raced … racking her brain for some way out of this. No one would even know where to begin looking for them ... well, certainly they would check with Travers and the Council, but how would they find this place, which was at least four stories below the sewers. If Travers did what he described, their friends may not even know to look for them. If she could just get word to Willow or Faith or Giles … Then it dawned on her! The same way they knew to look for Bess in the first place could be used to get a message to Faith! In the dreams Bess shared with Billy. So simple! She again tried to contact Spike … but again was met with silence. Where was he? What was going on?
When Spike finally opened the bond, her hope for reassurance from him was squashed like a bug on the sidewalk; he sounded … resigned. He sounded very much like she felt that time she went into the Hellmouth alone to fight the uber-vamps and the First Evil, and that filled her heart with dread. He wouldn’t tell her what was going on … he would only say that he loved her … admonished her to not give up and not let the Council get their hands on their baby. Buffy tried to stay positive … every minute that passed without a hole opening in her soul meant that he had made it through that minute. But her mind imagined the worst … knowing what they’d seen in the blue room, her mind wandered down that road of its own volition. Buffy stopped herself and tried to think positive thoughts … but mostly she was positive that Spike was being tortured. She didn’t know why, but she just knew that was happening and he didn’t want her to know – that’s why he wouldn’t open the bond. Buffy finally gave up pacing and lay down on the cot and cried into her pillow in frustration – she hated not knowing what was going on and she hated the images that her mind was conjuring up.
When she heard someone coming down the hall, Buffy jumped up and watched two guards drag an unconscious Bess down the corridor, past her cell and beyond.
“Bess! What happened!? What have you done to her!?” she demanded of the guards, but they just ignored her and kept going. Buffy heard the heavy double doors at the end of the hall open … the ones that led to the room where she first joined Billy in his dream of the dungeon, the doors that Spike and she had pried open to get in here from the bomb shelter, and then close again and the lock fall.
“What the fuck is going on!?” she questioned again when the guards came back by without Bess … but she was again met with only silence.
**~**
1:00 pm
Buffy finished her sandwich and glass of milk … saving her apple for later, and sat back down on her cot, massaging her sore knees to try and get the swelling to go down. The guards that brought her lunch wouldn’t talk to her … she still knew no more than she had that morning about what was going on. She tried calling to Bess, but could never get a reply; she didn’t know if the girl couldn’t hear her through the door or if she was still unconscious; she kept trying to contact Spike … but was met with silence there, as well.
As Buffy sat on her cot, she heard footsteps approaching and looked up just as Travers came into view. The Council Head stopped in front of her cell and crossed his arms over his chest. “Your demon is quite the comedian … did you teach him that or he just a naturally cheeky? A recalcitrant, like you, possessing no respect for authority?” Travers asked her.
Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. He was alone …no guards. If he’d just come two steps closer she could reach him … she could strangle him through the bars and oh how she longed to do that.
“I respect authority,” Buffy informed him. “Just, you know, not the kind that wants to tell me what I can or can’t do…”
“Indeed,” Travers intoned dryly. “Well, I believe your demon will be getting a proper lesson in respect for authority very soon now…”
Buffy’s stomach tightened, but she tried to remain nonchalant on the surface. “Well … good luck with that. I’ve been trying to get him to pick up his wet towels off the floor for years … if you find something that works, you let me know, ok?”
“Ever the cheeky wench … I suppose you’ll still be tossing out quips on your final judgment day as you stand before God,” Travers observed.
Buffy snorted a soft laugh. “I’ve got news for you …” she began, standing up and moving slowly closer to the bars, closer to Travers. She motioned with her hand for him to come closer and he stepped slightly nearer. Buffy moved up to the bars and leaned towards him, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Between you and me,” she began, keeping her voice barely audible, “God doesn’t dirty his hands with the whole due process thing.”
Travers narrowed his eyes and took another step closer so he could hear her better. “How would you know such a thing?” he questioned.
“Spike and I have been there … at the trails … before the judges. We’ve both died before, you know,” she informed him, lowering her voice even more as she started to describe the tribunal process. When Travers took one more step closer, Buffy reached out, grabbed his tie, and yanked him towards her, slamming his forehead against one of the bars. She pushed him back and slammed him against the bars again … and again and again until his face was a bloody pulp and his mind was in a daze. Buffy dropped him to the ground and began reaching through the bars, frantically searching his pockets for keys.
Travers cursed when Buffy grabbed him – he knew immediately that he’d let her lure him too close. He dropped a hand into his jacket pocket and pressed the remote alarm button that everyone entering the dungeon had to carry. He hoped that it wouldn’t take the guards too long to find him…
Buffy pulled out his wallet and a box of breath mints from his pockets then finally found a set of keys. She jumped up with them and hobbled to the lock on her cell, looking frantically for one that would fit … but these were just house keys … car keys – none were the large skeleton type keys that fit the cells. “Fuck!” Buffy exclaimed, dropping them onto the floor and turning back towards Travers, but in her excited state, she hadn’t noticed that the guards had arrived to aid their leader. As she started to go back towards the downed Council Head, she realized the guards had already dragged him out of reach. Before she could react, two tasers hit her in the chest and she collapsed to the ground … crying out in pain both from the electricity that surged through her and from landing on her injured knees as she went down.
She reached up and struggled to pull the tasers out as she collapsed the rest of the way down onto the dirt floor, reaching for her mangled knees and, at the same time, trying to rub the pain away where the tasers had embedded into her chest. She heard the guards screaming and the door to the cell open and suddenly she was being beaten with some type of whip. She curled in a ball on the floor, protecting her stomach and head as much as possible from the lashing. She screamed out as three guards slashed her back, buttocks, and legs with flexible, cane-like whips which seemed to explode through the air, announcing each strike with an eerie, grisly whistle. Buffy could feel her clothes and flesh shred and tear; her back felt like it was on fire as the whips ripped her skin painfully and left bloody ridges all along their path.
“Stop … stop …” she heard a man’s voice call from in the hallway … his voice barely audible over the commotion in the cell, but the guards didn’t hear him in their zeal. “STOP!” finally was heard over the sounds of the lashing – it was Travers. The men stopped their whips in mid-swing as Travers stumbled into the cell, holding a handkerchief up to his broken and bloodied nose. “She’s the vessel that carries the Prophecy …” he gasped out as he held onto the bars of her cell to remain upright. “There is a better way… bring her.”
Buffy was starting to fade into unconsciousness just as the beating stopped and everything fell silent. For a moment, all she could hear was her own labored breath as it tore from her throat and the heavy breathing from the over-excited guards, and all she could feel was the excruciating pain that radiated out from her wounds; searing, debilitating pain the likes of which she’d never felt before. The entire back side of her body was covered in long, red, crisscrossing, bloody welts from the whipping – her clothes had been ripped to shreds from the severity of the blows.
As she struggled to remain lucid, she heard the men begin moving again and she tried to brace for more lashes. She involuntarily jumped in fright as two of the guards grabbed her arms roughly, startling her. They yanked her arms away from where she’d had them protecting her abdomen and shackled her wrists and then her ankles. They lifted her ravaged body roughly up from the floor, causing her to scream out as the fire re-ignited and covered her back anew with flames of agony. Every move she made sent burning, singeing bolts of pain through her body from the wounds that covered her back, buttocks, and legs. She moaned and her head lolled forward as they dragged her, barely conscious, from her cell and followed Travers down the long corridor. Travers opened the door to the blue room and the guards pulled her in, dropping her unceremoniously where Travers indicated, on the filthy, blood-stained floor at Spike’s feet.
Spike had been concentrating on going someplace else mentally … it was a trick he’d learned long ago and had practiced quite a lot over the years with Angelus, but he was brought back to the moment when he smelled new blood … Slayer blood. Spike opened his eyes in time to see them toss Buffy’s torn and tattered body down at his feet and his demon came up unbidden as anger exploded within him. He began struggling harder against his restraints and he thought he felt one on his left arm start to give, but it wasn’t enough – he couldn’t get out – he couldn’t help his wife.
“Buffy!” Spike screamed, looking from her to the bloodied face of Travers and then at the other guards, who still held the whips in their hands. “I’ll bloody well kill every last one of you fucking bastards!!!” Spike threatened, struggling even harder against his restraints.
“That’s quite doubtful,” Travers observed dryly as he dipped the handkerchief he had in Weatherby’s bucket of ice water and washed his face gingerly with it. When he’d cleaned his face as well as possible, Weatherby straightened the Council Head’s broken nose with practiced ease, putting it back in place, but there was nothing he could do to stop Travers’ eyes from swelling and blossoming a deep purple color.
When Travers was done with the water, he tossed the bucket on Buffy’s head as she writhed, semi-conscious, on the dirty floor of the blue room, bringing her out of her pain-induced daze with a start. She moaned and pushed painfully up to a sitting position, spitting, coughing, and blowing the water out of her nose and mouth and trying to breathe through the excruciating pain that permeated every cell in her body. She lifted her head and opened her eyes, looking around to try and figure out where she was, what was going on. She was having a hard time focusing … her mind was in a fog … she thought perhaps she’d just awoken from a nightmare … but no, she soon realized it was all too real.
“Spike! Oh my God…” she cried out when she saw him strapped to the chair; his naked body covered in blood, bruises, burns, and cuts of every description – there didn’t seem to be one place that hadn’t been ravaged. The huge wound in his chest told Buffy that they had removed the Gem of Amarra from its hiding place … he wasn’t healing, he could be dusted – she could lose him! Buffy tried to get up, to go to him, but her shackled ankles made her stumble and the guards grabbed her under her arms roughly and jerked her back.
“Now that the touching reunion is over,” Travers began. “I believe it’s time for today’s lesson in proper manners, young lady.”
Before Buffy or Spike could say anything more, Travers picked up a baseball bat that was leaning against Kralik’s chair and swung it hard at Spike’s face. Spike’s head shot back violently, crashing against the sturdy wooden chair at his back as blood gushed from his broken nose. Spike never made a sound, not even a moan escaped his throat as he shook his head to clear the cobwebs the blow had induced in his brain.
“STOP!” Buffy screamed as Travers pulled the bat back again. Even though every move shot fiery daggers of pain through her whole body, she struggled mightily against the men that were holding her, trying to get to Spike or Travers, trying to stop this. But she had been weakened by the beatings she’d endured and the heavy shackles weighed her down and kept her from kicking or hitting them. She couldn’t stop Travers, she could do nothing but watch, horrified and sickened by the sight and sound of the beating he was giving her husband.
Travers simply smiled ruefully at her when she screamed at him then he swung again … and again … blackening Spike’s eyes and crushing his nose as blood poured like rivers down his face and body. Blood spattered from Spike’s face, covering Travers and Buffy with red droplets of anguish and each blow made a sickening crunching noise when it hit as cartilage and bone met the hard, heavy hickory wood of the bat.
“STOP! STOP! STOP!” Buffy continued to shriek at the top of her lungs through the beating, tears of pain and horror flowing from her eyes as she watched the bastard punish her husband for her misdeed. Spike never made a sound as the bat hit its mark time and again … but finally couldn’t shake the cobwebs any longer and his head lolled back against the chair and he stopped struggling against his restraints, unable to fight his way out of the daze the blows had put him in.
Travers sat the bat down and calmly wiped the blood spatter from his face, hands and arms, then turned to her. “Now, my dear … have we learned something today? Don’t fight my authority, Miss Summers.” Travers advised calmly. “The next time you try something foolish like that… I will rip his eyeballs out of their sockets and feed them to you. Do I make myself clear?”
Buffy’s eyes were wide with horror, her heart raced and her stomach churned … she no longer even felt her own injuries, she could only see Spike. His body covered in red, blue, purple, and black marks, like a roadmap of torture had been carved in his alabaster skin; his nose was pouring blood, smashed into God knew how many pieces, his eyes, now closed, were already starting to swell and turn a purple-black color … they’d be swollen completely shut before long, she was sure.
Buffy turned back to Travers and glared at him as seething anger surfaced above her anguish. “You’re a sick, sadistic bastard,” she informed him, her voice deadly calm. “And we will kill you … you and every last one of your goons.”
Travers smiled at her. “Well, until that day comes, I suggest you mind your Ps and Qs, my dear … otherwise, those lovely baby blues will be on your dinner plate.”
With that, Travers nodded to the guards and they jerked Buffy away, she tried to send a message to Spike to tell him how sorry she was as they dragged her out … but he was too dazed to even open the bond.
“Spike! I’m sorry! God, Spike! I’m so sorry! Please forgive me!” Buffy called back over her shoulder before they slammed the door closed and hauled her back to her cell.
Once alone in her cell, her shackles removed, Buffy collapsed down onto her stomach on the cot and sobbed. What had been done to Spike before she’d made the attempt on Travers was bad enough … but she had to add to his pain and suffering. Buffy still hadn’t been able to get Bess the message to tell Billy where they were, and every minute that was wasted was another horror inflicted on Spike … and she didn’t know how many more he could stand.
“God, Spike … I’m so sorry,” Buffy cried into her pillow as the long slashes on her back began to turn black and blue and crusty scabs formed, which cracked open painfully every time she moved. Buffy tried to lay as still as possible, but her body shook with sobs, especially when she closed her eyes, because all she could see was Spike’s tortured and bloodied body behind her dark lids, all she could hear was the grotesque sound of the bat pulverizing Spike’s face and shattering his bones. She felt her stomach heave and fought the bile back as her tears fell in futile rivers from her eyes …
“Spike … I love you so much … I’m so, so sorry…”
**~**
{{Click here to hear "I Fight Authority” by John Cougar Mellencamp on YouTube }}
They like to get you in a compromising position
They like to get you there and smile in your face
They think, they’re so cute when they got you in that condition
Well I think, it’s a total disgrace
Chorus:
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I’ve come out grinnin’
I fight authority, authority always wins
So I call up my preacher
I say: gimme strength for round 5
He said: you don’t need no strength, you need to grow up, son
I said: growing up leads to growing old and then to dying,
And dying to me don’t sound like all that much fun
Chorus:
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I’ve come out grinnin’
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I’ve come out grinnin’
I fight authority, authority always wins
Oh no
Oh no
I fight authority, authority always wins
Chorus:
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I’ve come out grinnin’
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I’ve come out grinnin’
I fight authority, authority always wins