[A/N: Title is from The Clash, arguably the best punk band that ever existed, the song is “The Sound of Sinners”. I will never forget the first time I saw them live, blew me and everyone else away. Disclaimers in full force and effect, though I really wish Joss would sign over his rights long enough for me to write a screenplay, wherein Angel loses the girl for once and always]
Previously: Willow is feeling the effects of her power, Giles is determined to discover the origins of whatever-it-was and Buffy has finally seen the light and given Spike his crumbs and now, just a bit more . . . .
Chapter 24. The fuel of evil is raining from the sky.
The gates of Hell are open night and day;
smooth the descent, and easy is the way;
but, to return, and view the cheerful skies;
in this, the task and mighty labour lies.
Virgil, the Sibyl of Cumae, the Aeneid, bk 6
The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.
David Hume, The Natural History of Religion, section 10
Hell isn’t merely paved with good intentions;
Its walled and roofed with them.
Yes, and furnished too.
Aldous Huxley, Time Must Have a Stop, chapter 12
By the time they were ready to patrol, with nearly everyone assembled at the Magic Box, Spike was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was in a singularly good mood, unable to contain his excitement. Between the two of them, he and Giles had managed to get Buffy out of the house, and while she wasn’t quite up for patrol, she had agreed to do some research and look for whatever-it-was based on Spike’s meager description.
Giles had nearly fallen over when Buffy had said she would hit the books, knowing full well his slayer hated research with nearly the same amount of passion that Xander did. But at least she was out, which was in his mind, a step in the right direction. It was good to see her dressed and relatively ready to go.
She was still too thin, her bones still pronounced beneath her skin, but she was looking better. Her skin was pale and her eyes were too big, but she was almost back to being herself and that was a good thing.
It was hard to look at her with the Buffybot standing nearby, but Spike would rather have the real girl than the one he’d commissioned from that Warren geek. He stood across the room from her, leaning against the glass display, just watching her. She was still, sitting beside her sister, just watching everyone around her. There was no way any of them could admit she wasn’t changed by what had happened, he could see it plain and clear. But then, the scoobies weren’t exactly adept at reading each other’s emotions. In fact, as a whole, they were incredibly dense about each other. Not a one of them, with the possible exception of Buffy, was attuned to anyone other than their own self, and even she was fairly oblivious most times. He wondered, looking at her now as she moved away from Xander, if her time away would change that for the better.
To be sure, he hadn’t expected her to change her views about him. Although he’d done his damnedest to make sure that she noticed, he’d not expected much in the way of pay-off. He’d always been one to reach for the impossible, his heart knowing no limits. The unattainable was always more attractive than what he could have. And in his whole existence, there’d been no one more unattainable than Buffy.
Until this morning.
Suddenly, everything he ever wanted was almost within reach. And now, he was forced to admit to himself, he was scared out of his mind. This girl, this golden beautiful girl, his own, no, he wasn’t going to call her an angel, but, this sprite, had giggled in his ear this morning and told him he had a crumb. He smiled, looking at her, his heart in his eyes. She must have felt his gaze on her, because she glanced up at him, and literally, the fear that had been building melted away at his stare. They stared at each other for a good few minutes, the rest of the room receding as their eyes met and held.
Their exchange hadn’t gone unnoticed. Dawn had felt the intensity of Spike’s look, and, glancing up in time to see her sister respond to his silent call, suppressed her own smile. Tara too, had seen them, and smiling a bit from her spot by the bookshelf, she caught Dawn’s grin with her own.
Then suddenly, in a flurry of weapons and instructions, it was time for those that were going, to hit the cemeteries and patrol. Buffy and Dawn were the only two remaining in the Magic Box, while the others went off to find whatever-it-was or at least something to lead them to it. Willow hadn’t shown up at all, no one had seen her all day, and she hadn’t left a note for anyone back at the house either. Spike wasn’t in the mood to face her, in any case, he didn’t want anything to disturb his current good mood. And he knew that no matter what Buffy’s admission that Willow had pulled her out of heaven would light a flash to his temper the first time he laid eyes on Willow.
Giles was the first out the door, admonishing Anya as she idly swung the short sword she was carrying in a wide arc, followed by the others, with Spike bringing up the rear.
“Stay inside, Bit.” were his words to Dawn, while staring long and hard at the slayer. It was hard to resist the instant urge to sweep her up in his arms and give her a goodbye kiss, but he resisted when she rolled her eyes in her sister’s direction. Dawn was staring at the two of them, as they stood there awkwardly, both wanting to give some gesture, but afraid of the reaction they’d get from an audience. Mindful of that, Spike tilted his head to the side, whispered something softly to Buffy, touched her face and strode out the door, without looking back.
It took all her will power not to say something cute to her sister, but Dawn managed to curb that, just barely. It was sooo sweet. Adorable really. It would be nice, the teenager thought, if they actually did get together. Would give her hope for herself, that maybe she could have a family, a real family, for the first time.
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It didn’t feel right anymore, patrolling without her. Giles thought it was the strangest thing to be out here, in the cemeteries while Buffy stayed behind, even though he and Spike had patrolled together without her often the past few months. Knowing she was back made the difference, he supposed, but even when they’d taken out the Buffybot, it hadn’t been the same.
They were going out in pairs, each pair taking a third of each cemetery, hoping to catch a glimpse of, he sighed, whatever-it-was, he was really going to have to talk to Spike about naming the unidentified nasties a bit better. He and Spike were teamed up, taking the largest area, though Spike was going to range about more widely, since his speed far outmatched any of the others, including the Buffybot. The vampire was yards ahead of him, hopping over headstones instead of walking around them like any sane person would, his boundless energy needing a release. Spike had been in an uncommonly good mood all day, something Giles had noted, which was a nice change. He was even humming as he’d caught up with him on their way into Restfield, something the vampire rarely did.
Deciding he’d rather not know what had put him in such a good mood, Giles questioned him, “any idea where we might find this?”
“Nary a one” was the vampire’s off-hand response. “Only place it seems to like is by the tower. But” he paused as he jumped over a small cherub, “that fire destroyed enough to make it hard for it to hide.”
Which was true. Spike hadn’t admitted it outright, but Giles had more than a firm suspicion that he’d been the one to start it.
“And no further idea about whatever it might be?” Giles’ gaze was drawn to his left, where Tara was patrolling with the Buffybot.
“‘Nother dead end.” Spike was striding forward, his voice carrying behind him.
A yell sounded off to the right, and Spike took off at a flat out run, Giles not to far behind him.
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Xander had been trying to make sense of some things for the past couple of days. When they’d gone to the house for dinner that night, the absolute last thing he’d expected was to find Buffy there. That had been just amazing. On top of that, it was his best friend who could make with the magic and actually, well, he’d always felt a little intimidated by Buffy, even as he’d sort of had a crush on her, but Willow, who’d ever have thought little Willow could do all that?
What he really didn’t understand was why everyone was so unhappy. Seemed like to him, that the open portal was a good enough trade off for Buffy’s return. He didn’t get why Giles was so worried about it. Wasn’t like some Hell god had followed Buffy back.
But what really confused Xander was Anya’s reaction to all this. She had stood there, looking at him a couple of nights ago, after he’d ranted about his confusion over the whole situation, and when he’d finished, she’d said, with typical bluntness “its dark magic Xander, something Willow knows nothing about and she messed with the natural order of things. She tried for something really dangerous, so the stakes are higher. The dimensional rules require the payment to be of equal value. It’s quite similar to the capitalist system, really, if you think about it.”
At which point, Xander stopped listening.
He stopped listening because it was something he didn’t want to hear, and didn’t really understand. To him it was all so very simple, or it should be. Buffy was back and that was good. Everything else could be dealt with and dismissed.
Another thing he’d wanted to dismiss from their lives was Spike. Now that Buffy was back, he thought the vampire should just be given his walking papers and sent back to his crypt, far away from all of them. What he didn’t know, and what no one had cared to enlighten him about was the frequency and intensity of Buffy’s nightmares, which was a well kept secret between the inhabitants of Revello Drive, and anyone’s, but Spike’s, inability to subdue the slayer when she was thrashing about and crying.
Xander thought about complaining to Anya again, but having gotten zero sympathy the first time around, figured he should just keep his mouth shut. Instead, he brought up one of the other things on his mind. “Do you think Buffy looked okay?”
Anya stopped walking to gaze at him. “She looks better than she did that first day. At least she’s starting too. I don’t think there was much food wherever she was.” She paused, obviously thinking hard, then said “she could go into modeling, she’s thin enough now. Might be too short though.”
“Not exactly what I meant Ahn” he replied.
“Oh. Well, she’d probably hate it anyway” was her pragmatic response.
Shaking his head, Xander continued walking, his eyes trained on the ground.
“This is a stupid idea. We don’t even know what we’re looking for” Anya continued grousing.
Picking his head up, Xander held up a hand to silence her. “Did you hear that?”
She started to say no, when a low deep growl came from somewhere to their right.
“Ahn, come here.” Xander didn’t like the sound of that at all.
Following his instructions, the former demon started to do just that, until the growl sounded again, this time much closer. “Okay, change of plans” he spoke very calmly. “Gonna come closer to you.”
As he did, the growling just increased. Anya turned around, shrieking out loud.
They weren’t very big, not compared to some of the demons they’d battled over the years, but they were intimidating anyway. At first count, Xander thought there were at least a dozen or so, but then the lead dog growled again as Anya moved and he realized there were only nine. Nine wild dogs in Sunnydale. Nine growling, snarling wild dogs.
Some of them were white, with red splotches and red ears while a couple were red with black, sort of like deranged Dalmatians, but the big one in front, though, was all black with blood red eyes.
“Nice doggies. Nice calm quiet doggies. Ahn, stop shrieking now, you’re making the dogs howl.” Xander tried talking very calmly, hoping that he and Anya could back away from the dogs. “C’mon honey, one step at a time.”
The dogs snapped, the lead one inching closer, his jaws dripping with slobber. “Ahn, shush.”
Her shrieks stopped, but she was frozen in place, mesmerized by the snarls. Slowly she started backing away, one step at a time, stopping between each movement. The sword she was holding dropped to her side as she tried hard to relax. “Xander. These aren’t normal dogs.”
“I know” was his response. Everytime he moved, one of the pack shifted to move with him, growling and snarling.
“What the bleeding . . “ Spike’s voice cut through the air, drawing their attention momentarily away from the pack.
All business now, Spike stepped in front of Anya, speaking quietly, “Pet, when I tell you, start backing away and don’t stop until you get to Rupert.”
His movement caught and held the attention of the dogs, and while they snarled and growled, they moved no closer and didn’t snap their jaws.
“Harris. You get Glinda and send the damned bot this way.” Spike moved closer to the dogs still blocking the other two. Taking the short sword from Anya’s hand, he continued speaking, “Anya tell Rupert that I’ve found our baddies. Ready?”
Swinging the sword in a wide arc, Spike yelled “GO!” and charged at the dogs, giving the two humans a chance to escape.
Minutes later, realizing he had only six of the dogs to fend off, Spike was starting to re-think his prior nobility. “Dunno why I saved the whelp. Useless boy probably tripped over his own feet and is now kibbles for the poochies.”
Jumping straight up onto a mausoleum, Spike watched as the hounds circled, baying for his blood. Snarling and growling back at them, he realized, wasn’t really helping matters, but it did make him feel better.
He could barely make out other, more distant noises over the din surrounding him, but Spike thought he heard the cavalry arriving. “Right then, you lot of Baskerville, let’s see who can growl the loudest.”
Flipping down behind the dogs, Spike swung the sword around, hoping to take down a few of them before Rupert arrived and he had to protect the watcher.
******************************* ***************************************
Two of the dogs had chased after him, practically nipping at his shins as he raced through the headstones. He could see the Bot and Tara up ahead and tried calling out to them, but he was running too fast to swallow enough air.
“Ta . . . Tara!” He finally managed, catching her attention.
“Xander!” The bot exclaimed, clotheslining the first dog and absently flipping the second one over.
“What . . . what happened?” Tara stuttered out, picking up on the fear in Xander’s eyes.
“Dogs. Pack. Spike saved.” His breathe was returning, but Xander was still too out of breath to speak coherently. “Go help” he gestured at the Buffybot, who following the line of his outstretched finger, took off in that direction.
“Xander” Tara touched his shoulder as he hunched over.
“Okay. I’m okay. Lots of crazy hellmouth dogs. Teeth. Whhoooaaa big teeth.” Gulping in air, he continued “lots of dogs. Spike. Damn stupid vampire, gonna fight all the dogs at once.”
“Oh no.” Tara’s soft voice rang with sincere emotion. “Oh no, we should go back.”
“Uh Tara, did you see the dogs chasing me? All like that.” Xander was shaking his head in denial of her suggestion, but his feet started heading back toward where he’d left Spike.
She just smiled and kept walking, speeding up to an almost run.
******************************* *****************************************
Anya reached Rupert, breathlessly informing him of what was going on, when the dog caught up with the both. Pushing the girl behind him, Giles muttered an incantation, which temporarily froze the dog in mid-snap.
“Let’s go Anya. Spike’s going to need some help.”
“Oh no, I’m not going back to fight crazy rabid hell dogs.” Anya shook her head, moving away from Giles, back toward the exit.
“Very well, I’ll go myself.” Not giving her a chance to argue with him further, Giles headed toward where Spike was fighting.
******************************* ****************************************
“Bloody stupid idea. Where the hell is my backup? Damn whelp can’t tie his own shoes. How can I expect him to find two birds in a cemetery.” Spike was getting pissed. Bloody fucking dogs were all around, circling, snarling and nipping at his legs and arms. Trying harder to keep them away, Spike got his hand caught in the jaws of one, ripping at his flesh.
He faltered, the dog tugging at his right hand, pulling him off balance. “Don’t go down, Spike, otherwise you’ll be dogmeat” he growled to himself. Trying to right himself and disengage his hand, Spike punched the dog’s jaw, then pivoted, bringing up his left leg to kick another one hard.
A third dog came at him, closing its teeth around his shin and Spike yelled his frustration. Sensing their prey’s weakened state, the dogs began closing in.
Just before they brought him down for good, Spike thought he heard someone call his name, then it all went blurry.
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