.
Not sure she wanted to face this new development alone, she turned her head towards the staircase and shouted, "Spike!"
A moment later, he stood behind her. "Mr. Herrington's staff, I presume. Something tells me they're not going to be too cut up about his death," he said into her ear.
Buffy stepped into the room, hands up, and with her eyes followed the length of chain attached to the furred creature closest to her, from its ankle to the foot of what seemed to be a laboratory bench. She turned her head and did the same for the goblin to her right, whose chain anchored it to a large anvil like the type used to shape weapons. A third chain connected what may have been a human to a table that appeared identical to the ones upstairs. All around the room stood other creatures chained to various work areas, each of them watching her with wide, fearful eyes.
"Anybody speak English?" she said.
The slight, pale woman at the table raised her hand.
"Great," Buffy said. "Do you know where the keys are?"
"Keys?" she said in a deep, heavily accented voice, frowning at Buffy.
"To your chains. You'd like out, right?"
"Oh, ah." She looked around at her fellow prisoners, expression veiled. "Mr. Herrington… he, er..."
Spike stepped through the door. "Is dead." He shoved his hand into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a key ring that Buffy guessed he must've found when he'd been searching the shopkeeper's body. He set it to jangling with a shake of his hand. "You lot have a choice. Be helpful, be set free. Or…" He left his threat unfinished.
"Of course, Master," the woman said, bowing her head.
Buffy snatched the keys away from Spike. "He's not your master," she said, stomping on his foot in an effort to wipe the stupid grin off his face. "Nobody is. You're free to go, no strings attached to your freedom. But if you don't mind answering a few questions first, we'd appreciate it."
"Yes, Master," the woman said.
"Okay, that's going to get old fast." Buffy crouched by the furry creature and examined the chain and its lock, and then the keys on the ring. "You guys worked for Mr. Herrington?"
"Yes, Master."
Buffy fitted key after key to the lock. "I'm not your master. Anybody else work for him? Who's not in this room?"
"No, Master."
Behind her, Spike sniggered, and she craned her head to shoot him a dirty look. Unfazed, he wagged his eyebrows at her and continued to lean against the doorjamb, grinning lasciviously.
She found the correct key and undid the lock. "There you go, you're free." She stood, and the creature looked at her, then at the chain, uncomprehendingly.
Buffy looked over at the woman. From the corner of her eye, she noticed that the table the woman stood next to held several of the items the one upstairs had earlier, including the bloody pliers and large scissors. No sign of her hair or Spike's canine, though.
"Can you tell him – her? – they're free?" she said to the woman.
"Gunshee understands your words, Master," the woman said. "But not the concept of freedom."
"Great," Buffy muttered.
She moved from creature to creature, repeating the process, while Spike smoked and looked on in amused silence. Some of the creatures remained immobile by their station once she'd freed them, while others milled about the room, eyeing her and the vampire guarding the door with wary looks. Buffy put a few more questions to the woman as she worked – what type of demon had Mr. Herrington been, were any of the chained creatures dangerous to humans other than the goblin, did she know where the vampire fang and lock of blonde hair had ended up – but didn't receive any useful answers.
At last, Buffy had freed them all. "How do I get them to leave?" she said to the woman, indicating Gunshee and the others.
She shrugged one shoulder, and Buffy turned to Spike. "Any ideas?"
Spike ignored her, eyes narrowed as he focused on something behind her. Buffy turned to see the goblin hastily remove its hand from its ragged pants. A long strand of blonde hair clung to one of its fingers.
"You see that, Slayer?" Spike said in her ear. When she nodded, he said, "You get that one. Use the iron dagger on it. I've got the other bugger what thinks he can steal my sodding tooth."
Spike broke away from her and she dove for the goblin, who squalled and kicked and clawed at her. All around them the room erupted into chaos, with creatures screeching and running around, but none of them came to the goblin's rescue.
Buffy soon had the goblin subdued. When it shuddered one last time and finally lay still, she cut open its pocket, not wanting to reach blindly in there, and took back her hair. It seemed to be about half of what the old man had taken, and she hoped that was because the other half had gone to the potion for fighting the Grdnith rather than into someone else's pocket.
The mewling creatures had backed against the far wall during the melee, while the pale woman, now paler, stood in front of them with arms spread wide in a protective gesture. A half a dozen sets of eyes darted between her and where Spike stood over the body of some scaly thing, part of a tooth between his thumb and forefinger. Spike spat on the tooth and rubbed it against the sleeve of his coat, then fanged out and shoved it into the gap.
"I guess that solves that," Buffy said. "What about the rest of these guys?" She didn't know what to do with the frightened creatures, and had no idea whether the remainder were harmless or dangerous. But after their enforced slavery, it seemed only right to give them freedom. If they would accept it.
"I will take them, Slayer," the woman said, her deep voice trembling. "I will take them through the tunnels to safety."
"Far away from humans."
"Yes, Slayer." She led her little coterie to a trapdoor in the far corner and ushered them through it, eyes on Buffy the entire time. Finally, she disappeared as well, and the wooden door clanged shut behind her.
Buffy pushed away her worries about the ragtag group and what they might do with their new freedom, along with the guilt she felt at having traumatized them. She was the Slayer, not a supernatural babysitter – and not even that anymore.
Naturally, her brain wouldn't let her drop it. She turned to Spike, who was poking through the odds and ends on one of the laboratory benches. "Did I do the right thing, letting them go?"
He pivoted to face her, eyebrow raised. "You're asking me?"
She grimaced. "Right."
"I would've done for the whole lot, especially after we offed some of their mates. But what's done is done. Still, best be safe, in case any of them are the vengeful sort." Spike dragged a heavy table to position it over to the trapdoor, grunting and puffing, and dusted his hands off in satisfaction. "That'll keep 'em from coming back in through the tunnels, at any rate."
Buffy still didn't know if she'd made the right choice, but he was right. What was done was done.
She watched him reposition his broken fang, eyes screwed up as he prodded at it with the tip of his tongue. "You feeling better now you got your tooth back?"
"Will be in a few hours," he said, voice distorted around his tongue.
"Good." She even meant it. "So… what now?"
"Gonna move my car – it's almost daylight and I want it safely parked before then, so it doesn't get towed," he said to her questioning look. "Since you can't be trusted to do it. Then I'm going to go upstairs and hope old Mr. Herrington enjoyed the finer things in life, like a big comfy bed and full bottle of Scotch, so I can make liberal use of them."
Buffy shivered. "Morbid much?"
"Not like he's got any need for his stuff now. Might as well make use of the free accommodations. And then tonight we'll train, and figure out where to set our trap."
"Train, yeah," she said, rolling her eyes. She'd forgotten about his moronic idea.
"Oh come on, Slayer," Spike said, heading for the door. "You have to admit I beat you hands down. Honestly, it was a bit pathetic. After all that buildup, I feel gypped. I expected it to be more – epic."
Buffy followed, glaring at his back. Her fingers itched to take her stake and bury it in the broad expanse of black leather. Did he think so little of her that he could turn his back on her like that? Or did he actually trust her not to – literally – stab him in the back?
"You try for epic after a twelve hour shift serving cholesterol burgers." And your heart in shreds and your soul so torn up you don't know what's up or down anymore. "Besides, you didn't seem to mind at the time how one-sided you thought it was." She shuddered at the memory, fingers curling more tightly around the stake in her pocket.
"Well, honor's for wankers," he said, grinning at her over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs. "I'll take my victories as I find them."
She couldn't even pretend to be outraged. Nor did the calm manner in which they were discussing his attempt to kill her faze her. After the last few days in Spike's company, Buffy was pretty sure she was full out of faze. She just trudged up the stairs after him in silence, and wondered whether she'd been spending too much time with only a soulless vampire for a companion if the thought foremost in her mind was whether the dead shopkeeper had something good to eat in his fridge.
.
.
Night passed into day in relative calm, to Buffy's relief. Spike had moved his car, and then they'd explored the upstairs, where they'd found nothing more exciting than a well-stocked bar (to Spike's delight), and a well-stocked fridge (to hers). He'd happily settled into the master bedroom, no compunction whatsoever at sleeping in the bed of somebody he'd just killed, and gone straight to sleep. Meanwhile, Buffy had claimed the small living room complete with television and lumpy old couch, and now took advantage of the dummy-box's mind-numbing qualities.
Every so often her mind would drift, and she'd quickly change the channel in search of a new distraction, but the relief of the relative calm was giving way as she remembered why having nothing to do was of the bad. She had neither exhaustion nor numbness to subdue her mind and heart, and her thoughts kept circling back to Sunnydale.
The sights and sounds of the television faded away once more, replaced by a horrific loop of Angel being sucked into hell in excruciating slow-motion detail, over and over.
Blinking hard, she climbed to her feet, looking for a different way to occupy herself. With her appetite gone once more, the contents of the fridge held no interest for her. Buffy wandered through the small apartment, finally peeking into the room where Spike slept the sleep of the scruples-less, splayed out on his back, hand curled lovingly around an empty bottle of something-or-other.
Shucked of his coat, hair tousled, he looked surprisingly sweet and innocent in sleep – everything he was not, but might've once been as a little boy. Before the demon had stolen his face and his life.
Too heartsick to contemplate the injustice of human William's fate, Buffy shifted her gaze to the empty decanter he cradled.
Maybe a bottle of something-or-other would hold the oblivion she craved. If she hadn't had to worry about Furry showing up in a few hours, she would've tried it, but they had no idea how long a reprieve they'd have. She should've been sleeping as it was, recuperating for the battle ahead, but sleep was out of reach and not likely to come any time soon. Not so long as her brain was stuck on repeat, reliving those last few moments with the man she loved.
The man she'd killed to save the world.
Buffy stared dully at the sleeping vampire in front of her, and wondered how it was fair that he was still here, still mostly cheerful even, while Angel, who had tried so hard for redemption, suffered untold torment in a hell dimension. Her truce with a mass-murdering fiend, a demon who deserved a fate far worse than Angel's, might as well have been for naught. Maybe the world had been saved, but hers had ended all the same.
She saw again Angel's trusting eyes. His gentle smile. The sharp, deadly sword in her hand, then in his gut. His look of utter confusion and betrayal.
His eyes… his smile… the sword...
Her breath hitched, and she gripped the doorjamb so tightly it splintered beneath her fingers.
She barely noticed.
She was seventeen. Seventeen! She was seventeen, and she'd already died once, and she'd turned her lover evil and regained him only to send him to hell, and for the extra cherry on top of the crap sundae that was her life, she'd been run out of her home by her own mother for doing her sacred duty and saving the world.
If nothing but pain and heartache was what being a champion of good netted her, then the universe could stuff itself and her sacred calling with it.
Buffy hiccupped out a quiet sob, and turned away to stumble down the hallway. She'd been down this thought path a million times over already, without a single thing the different for it. She couldn't stand to think of it anymore, couldn't stand the hot, sharp weight in her belly that knotted and curled into her chest and made it so she couldn't breathe.
Being on the run from Furry, fighting for her life, had distracted her temporarily. Maybe she could focus on that again. She trudged downstairs, back to the shop, with the idea that she might find something about Furry in the collection of books still strewn about the shop floor. But research was no more her wheelhouse than it had been before, and she didn't know how to spell the stupid demon's name anyway, so she gave up after a few half-hearted page flips.
She climbed back up the stairs with the idea of waking Spike. His company, much as she loathed it, would at least be a diversion from the merry-go-round in her head. Maybe she'd even consent to his stupid training idea – she was that desperate. But when Buffy leaned closer to shake him awake, the ropy scar around his neck reminded her that he needed sleep too. Not to mention that he wasn't too likely to be keen on the idea of serving as entertainment for her. Best to let sleeping vampires lie. And recuperate.
The still-full decanter on the dresser called to her, promising drunken oblivion, but she dismissed it. Shaking her head, and shaking temptation away with it, Buffy thought maybe she could go scout the area. She could find a butcher for Spike – always a good idea to keep the vampire well-fed – and a place to set their trap for the demon.
Physical activity, that was the ticket.
Using the inkpot on the dresser, Buffy dripped out a splotchy mess of a note and left it next to Spike's head – he really did sleep like the dead – and headed out into the Portland drizzle.
.
.
Cold and wet and shivering, Buffy trudged back upstairs to her lumpy couch, mission accomplished. She made a quick detour to check on Spike, wanting to tell him about her encounter with the woman they'd freed, but although he'd rolled onto his belly while she'd been gone, he was still out cold. Buffy had blood for him too, from a butcher a dozen or so blocks over, but decided he needed sleep more than he did food or information for the time being.
She deposited the blood in the fridge, and then took the coat he'd tossed over the back of a chair to use as a blanket, figuring he wouldn't mind since he'd covered her with it himself that one time. As weird as it was to use her mortal enemy's coat as a blanket, it was still less weird than using his victim's blankets. She changed into dry clothes and curled up under the heavy, smoky leather, and fell into a shivering sleep in minutes flat.
When she woke, hours or days later, she couldn't say, Buffy was still shivering. Her eyes felt raw, her head like it had been stuffed with cotton, but at least she'd slept without dreams for once. She tottered on shaking legs to the bathroom and took a long, hot shower, until the water ran cold. The steamy bathroom cleared her head, and she emerged feeling human once more.
A quick peek in the bedroom showed that Spike had decamped. She found him downstairs, booted feet propped on the table and chair balanced on its hind legs, studying a small book with such intense concentration he didn't notice her until she snatched the book right out of his hands. Spike yelped, chair crashing to the ground, and made a grab for her. She spun out of his reach, curious to see what would have a soulless demon so captivated, but couldn't make heads or tails of the words upon the page. It was written in French, she could decipher that much at least, but it may as well have been in proto-Sumerian for all she could read it.
She closed it and inspected the cover, but the plain black binding offered no clues other than the title, which was yet more French.
Trésors… was he reading up on… trousers? Who knew with Spike.
And who knew he spoke French? Just one of those little things she'd never cared to know. And still didn't.
Buffy handed the book back, and he took it with a glower. "There's blood in the fridge," she said by way of greeting. "If you're hungry."
"Human?"
"No!"
"Bugger that, then."
"Look, it's there if you want it." She peered outside, where despite the pre-sunset hour, the skies were as dark as night. "We should -"
She was whirled around with a blow to the shoulder.
"Train, I know." Spike faced her, fanged out, fists raised, and waggled his eyebrows. "I'll go easy on you this time, let you find your feet."
Buffy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Actually, no, we'd better set the bait. Like, now. If it's safe for you to venture out." She recounted her earlier expedition: how she'd found a nearby park that seemed suitable for their trap, and how the woman from the basement had turned up full of suspicious questions, only to disappear before Buffy could stop her.
"What questions?" he asked, instantly alert.
"Who the vampire – you – were, what was your name. Things like that."
Things like that, and Why have you not slayed the vampire? and Are you with him?, emphasis on the with, to Buffy's vociferous objection.
"She knows about the bounty."
Buffy nodded. "That's my guess. Word sure travels fast in the underworld, huh?"
"Let this be a lesson to you, Slayer: no good deed goes unpunished. Dead prisoners tell no tales, get what I'm saying?"
She grimaced. "How about you stick to your worldview, and I'll stick to mine. You know, here in the land of the innocent until guilty."
Spike looked like he was going to argue some more, but Buffy cut him off by handing him the parchment Mr. Herrington had given them the day before. "Let's just – read the directions to me again, so I can be sure of what we're doing, all right?" Spike had gone over them with her before he'd gone to sleep, but since she still couldn't unscramble the archaic script on her own, she – and, damn it, just how often was she going to end up saying those three little words? – needed his help.
"Right you are," said Spike, surprisingly businesslike. As the business at hand involved keeping him un-dusty, perhaps not so surprising as all that. They went through the list together, checking off that they had each item and knew when and where to use it.
"I'll see in you five, then," Buffy said once they'd sorted out the whos and whats and hows.
Spike nodded, and they met back up at the front door after gathering their supplies and, in Spike's case, his big, ugly coat. It did make him look way more badass, so she couldn't fault him for it too much. She'd changed into something a little less mopey and a little more Slayer-ish herself.
"Ready?" she said.
"Ready," he said with a nod. "Let's skewer this bitch."
.