Chapter Seven – the Package
Once the goons were gone Spike stepped out from behind the heavy door. He took a moment to study the facility, the barrier was not the Initiative’s MO—so that was an up and up. Anything mystical had been abominable to them—god bless their little corn-fed hearts. Spike scanned the area as he waited for Wesley to arrive. He couldn’t smell anything and his keen sense of sight was a little hampered by the fluorescents. He put his own hand up against the magical barrier and felt nothing.
Odd.
He was about to step though the barrier until he heard Wesley’s voice behind him.
“Don’t!” he said. “If it stopped Buffy but not you I believe it’s a salt circle protection spell.”
“A containment spell?” the vampire demanded.
“It’s meant to keep humans out and supernatural forces in, they must have thought that as a slayer Buffy would be allowed through as well and then trapped.” the former-watcher replied not even a little surprised Spike knew what he was talking about. “If you go in there I’m afraid you won’t be able to get out. Let me take a look at it.”
He examined the entrance, it looked for all purposes to be a normal, containment center, concrete walls, heavy protective door, but right at foot level: two hastily drawn protection runes were scribbled in marker. A protection spell to keep something in—curious. He turned to the vampire who was pacing restlessly back and forth.
“You think they knew we were coming?” Raj’s voice came through the comms.
Wesley shook his head.
“No, if they knew then they would have used something they knew Buffy could make it through in her condition. This looks likes it really is intended to keep something in.”
“Buffy’s condition?” Raj piped up over the airwaves. Neither man answered him.
“I think I know which spell they used.” Wesley said after a moment.
“Think you can you break it?” Spike demanded.
The watcher paused and then nodded.
“I can but it will take some time.”
“Then I’m going in for that package.”
“Spike, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get you out.”
“They had guns, watcher, and they’re running after her not shootin’. You and I know that she has something they want.” Spike said giving the watcher a meaningful look. “I’ll get the bloody package pass it over to you. Right now hurtin’ them is the most important thing. You concentrate on breaking that spell.”
“Spike, what if I can’t—”
The vampire glanced meaningfully at the nearby foliage and then turned his blue eyes back to the watcher. “Then you make sure that they don’t have a vampire to use as leverage.”
Before Wes could do anything else he turned his boot heel and ran into the facility.
“The familial resemblance is quite remarkable!!” Wesley shot after him. “It’s not all about disappearing in a whirl of leather you--You dramatic masochistic prat!”
The vampire turned for a moment, game face in place and gave him the two fingered salute before turned a corner and disappearing from the watcher’s view. Wesley cursed a mean streak about blaze of glory obsessed idiot vampires in the Aurelius line and ran back to the van to grab some ingredients yelling and Raj to start looking up salt circles in the watcher’s database.
*****
Spike ran through the halls following his instinct and his acute vampire hearing. If this Package was as important as Oxford and the Boy-wonder had made it out to be then any guards that were not out pursuing the slayer would be guarding that thing with their lives. Ever before he started the fight Spike steeled himself of the chip’s torture. The Genesis Project seemed to know this about him and only ever employed human guards and scientists. Or perhaps they were purists like the Initiative seeing anything supernatural as something sub human. Either way it was really becoming a pain in the arse.
Spike wasn't sure if Buffy was aware of what was going on, he reckoned she had no idea or she would be spitting venom and vinegar into her own mic demanding to know what Spike and Wesley were talking about. This would be the worst possible time and place for that particular discussion. Spike should have known the plan was too easy; too straightforward. They had to have learned from Spike and Buffy escaping the first time and it looked like they did, for all intent and purposes, while else create a magical barrier to keep things in?
Raj had been directing Spike. Spike was rather impressed with the boy, he was managing to juggle the map of the facility while simultaneously searching for some sort of procedure to break the spell.
“Turn left.” Raj said. “Oh shit, I mean right!”
“Prasad I know 6 different ways to skin you!”
Competent as he was, Raj had been in a panic since the alarm had started going, on the other hand Wesley it seemed was just getting calmer and calmer the more dire their situation seemed to be.
“Now, now, Spike, no need for that.”
“You’re next, Oxford!”
“Just keep searching, Spike.” Wes instructed. “Raj is going to take advantage of the distraction. And leave some more intelligence gathering insects.”
“Bugs.” Raj corrected.
“So really your capture and death and Buffy’s subsequent hate of me for killing her only strong ally will not be in vain.”
At the back of his mind Spike had time to affirm that Wesley Wyndham Pryce was definitely not living up to Giles’s assessment.
“When did you become so accustomed to violence, Oxford?”
“You’ve seen us fight Cambridge, I trust? Never underestimate a Dark Blue!.”
The vampire rolled his eyes. There must be something they put in the Sunnydale water, or the Slayer gang training, the worse off the situation, the most often they quip.
“It’s no wonder grandpappy left,” Spike muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Never you mind."
Wesley was about to question him further when Spike turned a corner and found half a dozen men guarding an otherwise unremarkable door. He did his best to ignore the chip fire as he jumped into the fray making quick work of the first guard snapping his neck and throwing him into his companions. Unlike in the movies soldiers never attack one by one allowing their enemy to recover. These were no different. They did their best to gang up on the vampire, a few tried guns but those didn’t even slow Spike down. Three hung back to reload with what Spike could only guess where some sort of special bullet. One finished while Spike traded blows with his two unit members but Spike dodged each and then pulled one of the guards prone in between him and his teammate. The next for shots sunk right in his torso. Spike tossed him aside and charged intending to wrench the gun from one of the guard’s grasp. He was pushing past the pain of the chip going off, but he could already feel it getting overwhelming. It started as an irritating buzz which quickly progressed to a little cut made by a red hot poker dipped in acid. Dislocating the guards arm in an attempt for the weapon seemed to be enough to put him over the edge though. The chip fired so hard that Spike felt it shoot though his skull and he saw stars dance in front of his eyes.
The final three took that opportunity to try their shot.
Spike managed to get a few good blows in but finally one of them managed to get a clean shot of him and it tore through his shoulder. He roared and swiped his current opponent aside in animalistic rage. He grabbed his attacker and brutally ripped out his jugular staining his face with blood. He felt it go through his mind like a hot knife through warm butter. The world danced around him and somewhere far away Spike felt a mosquito bite of sharp pain 600 miles away. With his head swimming Spike fought to keep his wits about him there was still one trained and capable guard. A capable guard with a stake in his hand and vampire in so much pain he couldn’t get his brain to tell his arms or legs to move. He braced himself for a blow that never came and let go.
He hated himself for failing the slayer. Hated that he would not be able to help her move one. Hated that he would not be there to give her the news he wasn’t sure if she’d take well.
Two seconds and an eternity later he felt someone shaking him awake. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce was standing over him holding a fire extinguisher.
“Bout time you jumped in the fray, Oxford.”
*****
Wesley was cursing Spike as he scrolled through the lap top’s database to find the ingredients to make the potion that could break the protection and containment spell. He wasn’t sure how to do it, usually one would just break the circle by shoving the salt aside, but the salt seemed to have seeped into the concrete or something creating the unbreakable invisible barrier. There were many ways to break the containment spells but those protection runes were common and the only way to tell them apart was to break them—which involved trial and error and time that they just didn’t have. Bickering with Spike wasn’t helping either, but the quips came so naturally that Raj kept giving him funny looks.
Wesley felt the time ticking away and was very close to just trying every remedy they got as fast as they could hoping something would stick but, suddenly Raj’s babbling which, Wes had tuned out as best he could, cut through the former-watcher’s haze of concentration.
“How do they do it?” demanded Raj. “How do the others get though?? The guards and maintenance people and the techs? They’re all human. How do they do it? a talisman? or some sort of amulet?"
“I wish it were as simple as that. Even if it were, we’re not going to have enough time. Buffy would need to get one from them and bring it over here and I have no way of ascertaining her current location.” Wesley said with a frown. Raj deflated, he had managed to install the tracker bugs and Spike had just found the holy of holies. Wes, however, seemed to come to some sort of conclusion on his own. “Right, I have a plan.”
“A plan?” Raj demanded.
“Well, the only thing we have in this van is C4 so let’s see if it’s enough force to break the circle.”
Despite using all the explosives they had in their possession the resulting explosion was underwhelming, it did, however, cause some damage the cement around the bulky door jamb. Wes crossed the barrier with no problem. He advised Raj to meet Buffy and the rendezvous and took off after Spike. The scuffle he could hear through the comm system was starting to get ugly.
Wes turned the corner and almost immediately slipped on blood. Spike was faced with just one more opponent, surrounded by the bodies of the others. The vampire stumbled; this chip he had told Wesley about that night they first arrived seemed to be taking its toll. Wes glanced around for a weapon and spotted a nearby extinguisher; he pulled it off the wall and took a running start. He swung the metal cylinder with all the force his momentum could muster, the guard went down.
“Bout time you jumped in the fray, Oxford.”
Wesley would have smiled if he wasn’t so alarmed at what the state of the vampire. He held out a hand and helped Spike to his feet, but as he tried to get under the vampire’s shoulder to prop him up Spike cried out. There was no way to jostle him without exacerbating one of his many injuries, so Wesley let him gain his balance, they didn’t have time to catalog every cut and bruise. He gestured to the door.
“Don’t suppose you have an idea to get through.” Spike said, “because I’m not going to be much help.”
“Backup is out chasing Buffy so we have a second to figure this out.”
Spike’s face darkened but before he could say anything he heard a scream from the other side of the door and something clicked at the back of his head. Inexplicably it was like a shot of adrenaline or slayer’s blood. Wes had to physically keep him from throwing himself into the door.
“I have another idea!” Wes exclaimed to placate the vampire.
He set the extinguisher off and aimed the spray of flame retardant chemicals on the door’s lock. It took a moment for him to get the right footing to kick the door open, it revealed a scientist with blue gloves injecting a teenaged girl who was struggling against two large orderlies. Spike’s rush of Adrenaline sent him straight into nurse number one. The chip fired so brutally that he nearly blacked out again.
The girl was skinny, dressed in jeans and a sweater and could not have been older than the slayer when Spike had first met her. He vaguely registered bright red hair before the ground rushed up to meet him.
******
Wesley didn’t see what was happening at the other side of the room. He took it upon himself to take the doctor out. Before the man in the white coat could reach, the former watcher adjusted the fire extinguisher in his grip and bashed his head aside baseball bat-style. He turned, expecting to see Spike taking the girl and running only to see the vampire sprawled on the floor.
“Spike!” Wes exclaimed, alarmed.
The girl had been staring at the vampire in alarm but Wes’s exclamation jolted her out of her split second reverie. She dodged one of the attempts nurse #2 made on strapping her back to the slab. And while the vampire had tried to take down Nurse # 1, he seemed to be coming two. The teenager was about a third the size of the nurses but it was clear she was a skilled fighter, much quicker than they were and knew how to use that to her advantage. A swift dodge sent #1 into #2 knocking his head on the side of the gurney. And then she dove under another attack from the last one standing only to use the wall to aid her jumping on his back. She brought her hands together and forced her elbow into a sensitive spot on his neck and the large black man went down. She managed to scramble off him in time and end up on her feet facing an astounded Wesley, who had taken advantage of the distraction to try and revive Spike.
It was worse than he thought, Spike had rivulets of blood seeping from every orifice on his face. Wesley wondered what the hell could have done something like that.
“You’re friend doesn’t look so good.” The girl yelled over the glaring alarm, neither of them was sure when that had started. She was walked around the room looking for something. It took her a second but she found a shallow tray holding a part of boots and her personal effects.
“No,” Wesley said grimly, He wasn’t sure how to check if Spike was still alive, there was no pulse, no breathing. Although, the vampire wasn’t dust, so there was that. “He does not.”
“How are we going to get him out of here?”
Wesley, a veteran when it came to Aurelian vampires biting off more than they could chew picked Spike up fireman style and gestured for the red head to precede him out the door.
*****
Back at the van Buffy was pacing and cussing out her former watcher as creatively and as loudly as she could. Her earpiece had been ripped out while she was losing her tail and she had no way to contact either of her companions. She was winded, which annoyed her since she shouldn’t be after something as mundane as running a mile or two. And Raj wouldn't tell her what was going on with Spike and Wes no matter how much bodily harm she threatened. Boy wonder was keeping their signals off police scanners and keeping all communication from leaving the network.
The deadline to rendezvous had come and went and Buffy was incredibly close to tearing into the facility to get Spike out, but someone tapped her shoulder. She was wound so tight she nearly clothes lined Raj.
“Sorry! Sorry! I should have made a noise or something.”
“What the hell is going on?” She demanded.
“Wes realized this might be a trap.” Raj started.
Buffy felt her heart constrict. Trap. Her face must have darkened because Raj quickly continued.
“Don’t worry we sorted it. I think it was for whatever was inside there.” Raj said. “Anyway, I came to tell you Wes got Spike.”
“Got Spike?”
Raj paled realizing that telling Buffy about the painful sounding scuffle he had heard Wes interrupt was probably not the best idea.
“Just that they found a way to circumvent the spell and that they’re together now.”
“I can’t do this.” She said. “I just I can’t just wait here! I have to go in there! They probably need my help!”
She is about to run when she feel Raj’s hand at her elbow.
“Don’t do it. They said to meet us here. They will meet us here.”
“They’re running out of time!” Buffy screamed. “Twenty minutes we could keep off the radar of the German army or whatever right? It’s now been twenty three.”
Raj caught Buffy’s eye and despite his intimidation managed to hold his ground. While he knew Buffy could twist out of his grip anytime she wanted, she didn’t.
“They’ll be here!” he repeated.
“So will they!” Buffy yelled pointing up, indicating whomever authorities were on their way. “And who’s to say Genesis can’t have their wonky way with the German police?”
Raj opened his mouth to answer when he is interrupted by Wesley carrying an unconscious Spike running towards them next to him was a girl with bright red hair who was keeping good time with Wesley’s much longer strides. Wes was yelling something and Raj realized his friend wanted him to start the car.
Raj didn’t waste a second, he let Buffy go and jumped into the driver’s seat, he was about to bring the van closer, but Buffy ran to them grabbed Spike over her shoulder and jumped into the back of the van. Raj floored the ignition as soon as he heard the van doors close and Wes yell “go!”
As they were getting to the regular roadways Raj glanced into his side view mirrors to see a helicopter descend searching for whomever had sounded the alarm. And not for the first time Raj wondered who the hell was after them.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
See? I told you it would be much quicker! Thanks for waiting guys and keep the reviews coming--they encourage chapters!