“So we should be all set for tonight?”
Willow nodded and handed Buffy a vile of Almer’s Root to put with the rest of the memory spell supplies. “Barring death or destruction of the hotel.”
“Both of which are entirely possible,” the Slayer pointed out, adding a baggie of some noxious green herb to the box of ingredients and placing a lid on top.
Willow grinned and took the box from her friend. “The only thing we’re missing is the Lygon and Wesley said he’d bring that with him when he came back. Oh, and the crystals from Lorne.”
“Good. I want to get this over with.”
The Slayer busied herself with the pretense of cleaning up the bits of herbs that had fallen onto the kitchen counter and Willow watched her carefully. “So, Faith’s not up yet?”
“No,” Buffy replied absently. “Not yet.”
“And no word on anyone following us, or figuring out that Faith is here?”
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s at least something. I keep waiting for the black-ops guys to come rappelling in here, bursting through windows. All tricked out with their night-vision stuff.”
The conversation broke Buffy’s reverie. “Angel thinks it’s a possibility that someone will make the connection between he and Faith. After all, he was her only visitor the entire time she was in prison.” Satisfied that the counter no longer contained a speck of stray herbs, she nodded and threw down the damp rag she’d been using. “But we’ll hold down the fort here as long as possible.”
Willow looked sadly at the pantry. “We’ll need some food if we’re going to stay.”
“Xander and Gunn got to it, huh?” Buffy guessed, glancing at the much-diminished supplies.
“It was like nothing I’d ever seen,” her friend whispered as they walked out into the lobby, each carrying a box of spell ingredients. “And I witnessed Xander and the great Meatloaf Marathon freshman year.”
Buffy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t even want to know, do I?”
“Five pounds of meatloaf in three minutes, twenty-two seconds. He beat out Larry by a good half minute.”
The Slayer turned a decided shade of green. “Never repeat that again,” she warned as they stored the boxes in the office and walked back out to join their friends, back at the research but now strewn about the lobby. “It’s sorta like being back in the dorms,” she observed, taking in the bodies lying around, books and papers everywhere.
“Anything new?” Willow asked, plopping down next to Anya, Xander, Gunn and Fred.
“Nope,” Gunn told her. “Just really wanting to get on with that spell of yours.”
“Wesley said he’d bring the herb I’m missing when he comes back, and Lorne is getting the crystals from some supplier… It should all happen tonight,” she assured him.
“Things have a way of not happening like we think they will,” he grumbled.
Her eyes turned sympathetic. “Here, too, huh?”
Catching her tone he looked Willow in the eye. “Sunnydale not that much different, I’m guessing.”
Xander snorted. “Well, let’s see… We’ve been here a day and so far we’ve been attacked and broken someone out of prison and now we’re plotting a spell to reverse the ill effects of another spell, cast by one of our own, mind you… And do any of us look fazed?”
Fred and Gunn grinned. “Have to come visit that little Hellmouth of yours sometime, compare the action.”
“We’ll show you all around,” Willow nodded. “Never a dull night in Sunnydale.”
“Unfortunately,” Cordelia said, approaching them from the stairs. “Thought I’d be getting away from all that when I left.” She stopped when she reached them but didn’t sit. “So, I found a day-planner of mine up in that mess of a room you guys left me with. I don’t have a single audition scheduled for the past six months!”
Fred looked away. “Yeah…well…ah…”
“Which must just mean I’ve got a steady job right now that I’m missing,” Cordelia concluded breezily. “You know, the kind where you don’t write down when you work, ‘cause you’re there every day at the same time.”
“That’s exactly it,” a very relieved Fred told her, patting Cordelia’s shoe.
Cordy smiled and knelt down. “I knew it. So…what do I do? Soap opera? Aaron Spelling 90210 spin-off? Talk-show host? And please tell me that someone called my bosses and told them I’m sick. I don’t want to get my memory back to find out I’ve been fired--”
She stopped abruptly and her eyes flew open wide. “Guys? Hey, guys? Oh my God!” she shouted, staring blankly ahead. “Spike! Spike’s here! Where’s Angel? Get Buffy…Spike’s here!”
Glancing around worriedly the group jumped to their feet. “What? Where?” Xander asked, spinning to take in the entire room.
She pointed to something beyond them and they turned collectively, not seeing what she did. “There…Xander? Can you hear me? Xander? Gunn?” Cordy’s eyes flickered back and forth, as she began to panic. “Spike’s…wait…where the hell am I?” she demanded.
Fred jumped to her feet, holding Cordelia steady. “She’s having a vision,” the timid girl explained. “That’s how she has them now…no more rock you off your feet headaches or pain...it’s more like she’s suddenly in them, like a ghost watching it all happen.” Turning Cordelia to face her, Fred gripped her shoulders. “What’s going on Cordy?”
“Spike,” the seer rasped. “Vampires, demons…and lawyers.”
“There’s a difference?” Gunn wanted to know, taking hold of Cordelia’s arm as she swayed before him.
“No Lindsey…just that woman, Lilah someone,” Cordelia continued. “In a giant cavern…they’re raising something. It’s coming. Something’s going to come out of the ground right…” The vision ended abruptly and Cordelia blinked several times, refocusing on the people around here. “There.”
“Are you okay?” Fred asked her, guiding the woman to a chair and forcing her to sit. “I know, it’s probably kinda scary…they’re not like before.”
Cordelia shook her head, still slightly dazed. “That was…woah. So much better than before! What did I do to get the non-searing visions?” she asked, then promptly held up a hand to stop Fred from answering. “No…wait. Don’t tell me. I probably don’t want to know, do I?”
Fred shrugged helplessly.
“Cordy, what did you see?” Xander tried again. “And…hello, visions?”
“I get them now, you know that…I got them from Doyle before he…left.” Her eyes clouded momentarily before clearing and looking from person to person, all crowded around her. “But before they came with skull-rocketing pain and ended up with me sprawled on the floor.”
“Sometimes there was drool,” Fred put in.
“I saw Spike,” Cordelia continued, shooting Fred a hot glare. “God, for a minute I thought he was here. It was like he was right in front of me. But I could see you guys, too…in and out. It depended on where I looked. And then suddenly you were gone and I was in this giant cave thing. There were demons…ugly things…and vampires. And the lawyers. I only recognized one of them. The usual bringer of pain the ass, Lindsey, wasn’t there. They’re raising something. From the ground. I don’t know what, I didn’t see. But it…it scares me.”
“Stuff being raised from the ground tends to do that,” Anya told her.
Willow glanced over at the Slayer, sitting across the room with her sister, researching quietly. “Could you tell where this was happening?”
Cordelia’s brow furrowed in concentration as she thought about it. “Yeah…I think so. I mean, there wasn’t a Rand McNally nearby or anything, but I think I could get us there.”
“We’d better tell Buffy,” Xander sighed.
The Slayer was less than pleased. “Are you sure that’s what you saw?” she demanded of Cordelia.
Cordelia nodded. “Positive. Spike was sitting in a chair, before this giant blackened hole in the ground, demons all over the place, chanting.”
Buffy’s shoulders sank and she rubbed at her temple, a headache threatening.
“What does that mean?” Gunn wanted to know.
Sinking onto the arm of the chair Cordelia was occupying, Buffy looked him in the eye. “I think it means we’ve got our answer to whether or not Spike will join their side.”
“B-but maybe they’re forcing him,” Dawn tried nervously. “Maybe they’re making him do this ritual chanting thingy and he doesn’t have a choice. We still need to rescue him.”
Her sister looked at her forlornly. “We knew this was possible, Dawn.”
“No. I won’t believe that. He’s my friend.”
“He’s a vampire,” Xander reminded her.
“Wait…I know he’s a vampire,” Gunn interrupted. “But he’s got a soul, right? Like Angel? Some shred of humanity in him?”
Her gaze hardened and Buffy shook her head. “No…he’s not like Angel.”
“Spike is, ah…” Willow stammered. “The whole soul thing is new to him. He hasn’t really had a chance to get used to it. And mostly, lately, he’s just…”
“Stone-cold crazy,” Anya supplied. “Nuttier than a Payday bar.”
Xander nodded. “Which, up until now, hasn’t made him any more dangerous, what with the chip. Just more annoying to deal with.”
“He babbles,” Anya said simply. “Quite irritating.”
“So…with this chip he can’t kill anyone,” Gunn began.
Dawn nodded. “Except demons.”
“So what’s the problem…he still has the chip, right?”
As a new thought struck them the Sunnydale group exchanged horrified glances.
“If you wanted Spike on your side…” Willow began worriedly.
“And, forgive the pun, you needed a bargaining chip…” Xander continued, shoulders sagging.
“You’d offer to give him a chipectomy in exchange for fulfilling an evil world-ending prophecy,” Buffy concluded. “Right. They’ve thought of everything.”
Gunn’s hand went up. “Could someone please tell me what the hell is going on? You know, for those of us who haven’t been dealing with, and not-staking, this vampire for years?”
“The chip,” Xander sighed. “The lawyers want to sweeten the deal for Spike to take Angel’s place in this world-ending prophecy? Offer to get that chip out of his head, make him a free-reign killing machine again. Ten bucks that’s what they’re going to do, if they haven’t already.”
“But if he has a soul, he won’t kill anyone, right?” Fred asked. “I mean…his conscious wouldn’t let him?”
“There’s no way to be sure, though, is there?” Gunn murmured. “That’s the point You can have a soul and still be a killer.”
“It’s fine,” Buffy said suddenly, decisive. “We’ll deal with it. If Spike can be persuaded to go all big and bad again we should have figured they’d go this route. From now on, stuff like this doesn’t go unchecked. Willow, Xander, you guys know him best out of this group. I want you two working on other things they might use to push him.”
“Anything they can do that might make Spike just a little more agreeable to turn on all of us.”
Xander snorted, eyes on Buffy. “Like he needs too many more reasons. I figure getting back at you is good enough motivation.”
Her eyes were steely when they ticked back to his own. “Just because I’m the Slayer doesn’t mean he’d turn out of spite.”
He tilted his head condescendingly. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
She glared at him until he backed down while Fred, Cordelia and the others exchanged confused glances. Gunn raised his hand. “Some back-story we all need fillin’ in on?”
Xander and Buffy continued to stare at each other until Buffy blinked, her point having gotten across, and turned to Gunn. “No. No back-story. Spike’s a vampire, I’m the Slayer. He’s never been able to beat me… That’s it.”
Unconvinced, Gunn nodded. “Okay. So, we research on him, try to figure out what else they might pull to get him on their side, then what?”
“We do this spell tonight, get things with you guys squared away. In the meantime, half of us research on Spike, the others work on figuring out how we’re going to get him out of that law firm.” Buffy turned back to Cordelia. “Do you have any idea when this whole thing was going down?”
“Couple days,” Cordelia answered her lamely. “I didn’t get a definite feeling.”
“Nothing like a deadline,” Buffy sighed. “We’ll need everything we can get if we’re going to try and break into the law firm and get him out. If there’s even a chance we can convince Spike not to help them…we have to try.”
“Having two Slayers might help.”
The group turned in the direction the voice had come to find Faith on the stairs. She’d stopped halfway down and now stood, watching them uncomfortably.
Buffy nodded after a moment. “Yeah, it might.” Taking a step towards the other girl, then another, she crossed the room and halted a few feet from the staircase. “How are you feeling?”
Faith let out a snort. “Like I got drugged up and busted out of prison. But otherwise fine.”
There was a beat as the two women assessed each other. “Good.”
“Thanks…for that.”
Because she knew how difficult it was for Faith to say those simple words, Buffy let it go with a nod. “Sure.”
Faith descended the last few steps and entered the lobby with trepidation as all eyes were on her. “Where are we?”
Angel appeared from seemingly no where, rounding a corner and coming upon the group and Faith. “My hotel.”
The expression on Faith’s face was one of immense relief as her eyes lit on the vampire and for an instant Buffy felt a jealous pang as she realized that Angel was completely relaxed around her, too. “H-hey,” Faith whispered, a faint smile on her lips.
He smiled back at her easily. “Hey. I was wondering when you were going to wake up. You sleep like the dead.”
“You can talk,” she shot back with a grin. “Lookin’ good, vampire. Nice to see you without glass between us.” His quizzical look was mimicked on Faith’s face. “What?” she asked, turning from Angel to Buffy.
Buffy raised her eyebrows, mildly irritated. “Right, sorry. They don’t have any memory of the past three years. Spell that backfired. We’re working on it.”
Faith nodded. “Wow. You guys really know how to complicate stuff. Memory spells, demon guys, prison breaks. Wanna throw in a little extortion or some espionage while we’re at it?”
“It’s pretty close to that,” Angel told her. “You up for debriefing?”
She nodded tentatively. “Sure.” Glancing around she noted the familiar faces as well as the new ones. “The gang’s all here…”
“This is Charles Gunn and this is Fred,” Angel introduced them as they walked across the lobby, leaving Buffy and the others behind. “They work for me…apparently.”
“Memory thing, huh?” Faith asked.
“Yeah…something like that.”
She nodded again, glancing back at Buffy and her friends as they whispered to each other. “So, ah…No Wesley? Not that I’d blame him…”
“No, he’ll be here,” Angel reassured her. “He was a part of your rescue, too.”
“Oh…good.”
They approached the office and Angel pulled out a chair for her, taking the one across from her. “Can I get you anything before we start? This might take a while.”
“I think I got some of it, eavesdropping on the stairs.”
“Sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up,” he apologized. “Things are a little hectic around here.”
“I seem to remember that,” she said with a fond smile. “I like hectic.”
“Well, you’re in for a real treat, then,” Buffy said breezily as she stepped up to the counter and leaned over it. “We don’t have a lot of time for pleasantries, sorry. You understand.”
“Yeah…got it,” Faith nodded slowly, eyes darting from Buffy to Angel. “Fill me in.”
“There’s a lot to cover. We’ve got a band of demons, the Bringers or something like that, after you and me, and my guess is any of the potential Slayers in the world, Spike’s got a soul now and is being recruited with gusto by this law firm--”
“Law firm?” Faith asked, eyes ticking worriedly to Angel.
He nodded, remembering Faith’s own assignment from Lilah and Lindsay several years before. “The same one. Lilah Morgan and the rest are trying to convert him.”
“From what I remember about Spike it won’t take much.”
“Probably not,” Buffy cut back in. “Anyway. Besides all that we also have this memory thing we’re dealing with. But that should be taken care of this evening.”
“And then my recent not-so-sanctioned parole,” Faith said quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap. “I’m probably just creating more problems for you.”
Wouldn’t be the first time, Buffy’s mind screamed, but she bit back the words. “It’s fine. If you’re up for it, we could use you.”
Faith looked up at the elder Slayer. “I’m in. Just tell me what to do. I want to help.”
Their gazes locked for a moment, then another. Finally, Buffy nodded. “Good. Chores for everyone.” She turned to Angel then. “Willow says the spell will happen as soon as Lorne and Wesley get here with the final ingredients. She also wants to do a protection spell on the hotel.”
He nodded. “Fine. I checked out the weapons supply in the basement. It’s all there, like Fred said it would be. Should be enough to get us through, for a while anyway.”
“I have a little with me, too. Just what we could bring from home.”
“We’ll make due. I’ll see if we can get anything else from around the city on short notice.”
“Cordelia had a vision. Something in a cave, vampires, demons…Spike and the lawyers. She says they’re raising something from the ground.”
From beneath you it devours.
The thought struck Buffy instantly. “What?” Angel asked, worriedly.
“N-nothing. I just remembered something. Recurring theme on the hellmouth,” she said softly. “From beneath you it devours. That’s what these demons have been telling us lately…and one of the dead girls in my dreams.”
Faith rose to her feet. “Me too, I heard the girls say that, too. Any idea what it means?”
Buffy’s gaze trailed out into the lobby and settled on Cordelia. “I think we’re about to find out.”
*~*~*
The room was dark, as he preferred it to be, and taking a cigarette from the tattered box in his jacket pocket, Spike lit up, the single flame producing the only light in the entire apartment. His belly was full, with real human blood for a change…not that he’d been able to eat…not yet anyway. But you had to admire a law firm that had their own blood bank on the premises.
Their proposition was interesting, to say the least. Until the event itself it sounded like he did little more than sit on his ass and be adored. And then after…once it began…
William the Bloody, King of the Underworld.
Had a nice ring to it, if you thought about it. And he did.
The only problem now was this damned nagging soul.
Don’t do it, the soul warned. Don’t. You fought for this, for me, for too long just to give up now.
“Shut up,” he mumbled, puffing vigorously on the cigarette. Leaning back against the fine leather of the chair he closed his eyes.
You did it for her, and now, after such a short time, you’re willing to give it up?
Spike ignored it, shifting uncomfortably.
She’s coming around, you know it. You could have her, so easily, with just a little more effort.
“Shut up!” he roared suddenly and the room went quiet.
Until the laughter started. Opening his eyes he darted them over the room until from the shadows appeared…him.
“Not you again,” he groaned feebly. “Leave me alone.”
“Can’t, won’t,” his other self grinned evilly. “If you’d just behave I could let it end. But no…you have to keep flip-flopping, which side you’re on.” The other Spike leaned in, plucked the cigarette from two bloodless lips and placed it in his own. “It’s time to weigh in.”
“I don’t…”
“You do,” the phantom nodded. “Oh, but you do. You know that soul’s not the end-all to goodness. It takes work. It takes heart, dedication, desire, all the poofy crap that’s given you so much trouble, even when you were mortal. God…it took Angel, what? A hundred years to even find the bleedin' road to redemption? Like you’ve got that much time. She’ll be dead by then, and then where will you be? Good…and alone. Without the girl you stunk yourself up with that soul for.”
Spike watched himself, through wide, terrified eyes, sit on the coffee table before him. “I can do it.”
His alter ego laughed, absurd giggles. “No, you can’t. You never could. Gettin’ a soul’s not like popping a Prozac. You aren’t suddenly Pollyanna, Mary Poppins and Gidget rolled into one. You’re a bloody demon, first and foremost. And you’re not even much of one at that.” He puffed again on the cigarette before grinding it out ferociously on the tabletop. “Yep. Better all around if you just take this way out…do what you’re meant to do. You’re an animal. Having a soul is unnatural. As unnatural as a vampire loving a Slayer.”
Spike’s eyes fell to his lap and he curled his legs up against his chest, burying his face in his hands. “Stop. Just stop.”
Phantom Spike laughed and leaned in closer. “Oh, please. You want to be all good and noble and you can’t even take a little self-criticism? Yeah, you’re going to make quite the do-gooder.”
“She loves me. She’ll love me.”
“No, she won’t. Not like this. Look at you. Curled up in a chair, whimpering like a baby. Girl needs more than that. Likes it dark, doesn’t she? Turned to you, didn’t she? Slayer could have run from the Hellmouth a hundred times to him, to Angel. Didn’t. Tried it with Duddly-Do-Right, too. Couldn’t make that work. No demon, no dark in him. Hardly enough man in him, for that matter.” His voice dropped and he leaned in just a bit more. “She didn’t come here, though. Didn’t turn to Angel. Why? Because she had you. She needed you,” he said slowly. “She needs you know. Doesn’t know it, would deny it if you told her that. But she’ll realize that, sooner than you think. Then all the truths come out, and who’ll be standing in the end?”
“Standing. No. Standing.” The room was quiet for a moment, then a minute, then five. Spike wrung his head in his hands, blocking it out, fighting the voice. When he looked up again, it wasn’t his own face that stared back at him.
“On the right hand of God,” Buffy smirked.
Spike screamed.
