CHAPTER TEN

Subtitles will be in parenthesis.

CHAPTER TEN (Surprises south of the border)

Spikes revelation sent the room into silence. All the scoobies where shifting their eyes everywhere but to Spike. Dawn was the first to speak up "Maybe there is some other way" she began.

"No" Spike said getting up. "There's no other way, this is it. Let's get started" he said in a very serious tone and began barking out orders. "Dawn, I want you to go to pick me up dinner and bring back enough to last me until day after tomorrow" Dawn just nodded. "Red, you get jacked in and find out where those monks are, if you can make contact find out what else we need to do for them to perform their ritual and see if you can get them to come here to do it. Do you think you could do some sort of spell to keep Drusilla from know that I'm coming?"

"That's a hard one, but I'll try" Willow said

"Xander, you Giles and I are going to go kill us a Ghora demon, go grab the tranquilizer gun, a couple of those big axes from the training room and a couple large duffel bags." Spike continued with his orders.

"Check" Xander said as he scrambled up and headed to the back.

"Dawn, why don't you head out" Spike said

"K, I'll be back in a few" Dawn replied as she headed towards the door.

"What can I do?" Tara asked the agitated vampire.

"Just help Red, to find those monks and a spell" Spike said.

Tara nodded and went over to where Willow was working on her laptop; they began talking quietly together.

"Why do you need Xander and Giles to help you kill the demon? Can't you do it by yourself?" Anya asked.

"There's three heads and the eggs to carry back" Spike explained.

"Oh" Anya said, "What should I do?"

"You keep an eye on Dawn and help Red if she needs it" Spike explained calmly as Xander re-entered the room with the requested equipment.

"Spike, could we please talk in the back?" Giles finally spoke up. Spike just nodded and followed Giles into the training room.

"So Rupert, what did you want to talk about?" Spike asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Spike, have you given any thought that you don't know where Drusilla is?" Giles asked.

"I know where she is, it was in Buffy's journal. She found out from Angel a few days before . . . " Spike trailed off.

"Oh, you've read Buffy's journal then?" Giles asked a little shocked. "When did this happen? Last time I checked we weren't allowed to touch any of Buffy's things or enter her room" Giles continue sounding a little perturbed.

"Yeah well, the last part of it anyway. I had another dream last night. Buffy told me there would be information in it that I would need. I guess she was right, again." Spike said visibly shaken at the thought of what he was going to have to do.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Giles asked softly laying his hand on Spikes shoulder.

Spike shrugged it off, "Well killing a woman that I loved for over a century won't be exactly the high light of my day but since that's the only way I will bloody well do what ever I have to" Spike said sternly "And I would appreciate it if we didn't have to talk it to death before hand. Now lets go kill that god forsaken demon and get it over with." Spike stated as he turned and returned to the others while Giles followed along meekly behind knowing that Spike was hurting inside but also knowing that there was nothing anyone could do to help.

When Spike entered the room, he saw that Dawn had returned "Thanks Little bit" he said while patting her on the head. "Can you do me another favor?" Spike asked.

"Sure anything I can do to help" Dawn replied.

"Run out to the car and grab Buffy's journal for me" Spike asked and Dawn nodded and turned to do as she was asked. "Thanks"

"Spike, how much tranquilizer should we use?" Xander asked

"How much do you have?" Spike asked, then continued on. "Just put in as much as you can in each bolt"

"Sure thing Captain Fang" Xander said mock saluting him.

Spike chuckled silently just a bit at Xander "I guess I have been a little on the bossy side, huh?"

"Just a little, but you doing a good job. We're going to have Buffy back in no time now" Xander offered sincerely.

"I hope so," Spike said quietly as Dawn returned with the journal. "Thanks Dawn, I'm just going to go find a quiet place to read for a few minutes then we can go" Spike said as he headed to the training room.

In the training room Spike flopped down on the couch propping his head on one end and his feet on the other and opened up the journal and began to read:

Well Angel just called, checking up on me for the first time after the funeral. Things just aren't the same anymore between us. If I didn't know better I'd swear he has a crush or Cordy, but that's good, he needs someone in his life. I'm sure she would never give him a true happiness moment, she'd ruin it by telling him his hair looked stupid or his sheets didn't match his comforter or something like that. I really need to see if Willow could somehow anchor his soul permanently so that he could have a normal relationship with someone. He was furious when I told him about the Me-bot, I thought he was going to drive down here tonight and stake Spike but I convinced him that Spike has turned into a genuine good guy and his heroics with Glory had proved that once and for all. I personally think he was just upset he hadn't thought of it first. I had better not drop in for a visit and find a Me-bot in LA, geesh men! He did have some interesting information about Darla and Drusilla. I still can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to bring back that blonde bitch from whatever hell she was in. Anywho, I guess her and Drusilla got into an argument over something, he wasn't really clear what about and they split up. Darla was headed to New York, like that place doesn't have enough problems, and Drusilla was headed Tijuana with some demon she had picked up at a demon karoke bar, who heard of such a thing? I know the girl is crazy, but I don't know why she picks up these skanky demons when she could be with Spike. Oh yeah, I guess she can't be with him anymore. He kinda put an end to that one when he kicked her to the curb because of me, I don't blame him, he could do much better than that crazy vamp. I don't know what I'm going to do with that bleached vamp. I'll think about it later, right now Dawn and I are going to go check on Willow and Tara. Dawn blames herself so much for what happened to Tara and I just don't know how to comfort her about it, I wish Mom was here . . . . .

"Spike?" Xander stuck his head in the door "We're ready when you are" he said.

Spike flipped the journal closed and got up and said "Let's go"

. . . . . . .

Giles, Xander and Spike arrived with their equipment just outside the Ghora's lair. Spike took one of the tranquilizer guns and handed the other two to Giles and Xander and whispered "It just in there" he nodded towards the entrance. "There is some good rock coverage, we just pop in, use the rocks as shields and start hitting her with the tranq darts I don't expect they will have much effect but hopefully it will slow her down a little so I can go in and take care of it without getting banged up too much. I don't want you two to get into striking range unless something goes wrong" Giles and Xander just nodded and followed Spike in.

Once all of them were in position they started shooting their darts into the sleeping reptilian. To the men's surprise the darts didn't even wake it up. Spike just shrugged and whispered "Must have tough skin, Watcher how long do you think it will take for the drugs to start working?"

"When we used them on Oz it only took a few seconds but he was a mammal type beast this is a reptile, I have no idea how long before it takes effect or how long it will last" Giles whispered back.

"We'll just give it a few seconds" Spike said then I'm going in. "Ok here goes" Spike said as he crept out from behind the rocks and made his way stealthy across the chamber to the still sleeping creature. He looked back at Xander and Giles and shrugged and began to raise the axe when the creature suddenly sprang to life with one of it's head ripping the axe right out of Spike unsuspecting hands and flinging it behind them. "Blood hell!" Spike exclaimed as he dodged under one of the heads dropping into a roll and bouncing up on the other side of the beast. As he rolled he had pulled the hunting knife he kept in his boot out and it was in his hand as he returned to his feet and launched himself on the back of the beast stabbing it and twisting the knife where the three necks converged into the body he then jumped back as two of the heads turned to attack him. The middle head never turned to attack instead it fell lifelessly to the floor with a thud. Spike meanwhile was back peddling trying to retrieve the axe that he had lost. He spotted it behind a rock just as the two remaining heads thrust towards him. He dove towards the axe grabbing it with both hands as he somersaulted over the ax coming back to his feet in one smooth movement with the ax in his hands. He spun and ran using his momentum to carry him up the wall so that he was parallel to the ground, he continued around until he launched himself away from the wall spinning so that he hit the one head in back of the neck with his feet knocking it all the way to the ground so that Spike was now standing on top of the one head. On the way down he had cleanly sliced off the other head as he passed it on the way down. The detached head thumped against the ground and the neck spouted green blood that splattered all the way across the cavern to where Xander and Giles where watching opened mouthed at the scene that was unfolding before them. Spike then used the axe to separate the head he was standing on from the body before it had time to regain its senses. Spike hopped off the creature and finished the job by cutting the last remain head off the creature and yelled over to his two dumbfounded compadres "You guys gonna help me collect this stuff or what?" Spike asked as he lit a cigarette.

Giles and Xander walked slowly across the cavern with the duffel bags in hand to help collect the heads and eggs. "Tell me something, Spike" Xander asked coming out of his stupor. "Why exactly have we been helping you patrol all this time if you could handle yourself like that? I mean that was just as good as Buffy."

"Well, you guys needed something to do to keep your minds occupied and off of Buffy now didn't you?" Spike replied easily "Besides you guys already knew that I was pretty close to Buffy's equal, every fight we ever had ended up in a draw, remember"

"I guess we just didn't think . . ." Giles trailed off deep in thought.

"Yeah well, sundown is in a half hour and I want to be on the road by then so lets get this stuff and get back to the house so I can pick up a few things for the trip." Spike said as they hurriedly packed the duffels and headed down the sewers back towards the DeSoto. They drove straight over to the house and Spike ran in under the cover of his blanket. It was only slightly smoking as dusk was settling in. He returned to the car 10 minutes later with a small suitcase and small cooler in hand, glad that the sun was already set. He has spent way too much time in the sun for one day. The three men drove back to the store in silence.

Spike carried the duffel bags into the shop and put them in the big deep freeze in the back with the perishable magic supplies.

"So how'd it go?" Willow asked Xander and Giles who was carrying Spikes cooler.

"It was so cool, you should have seen Spike, it was amazing. I am soooo glad he is on our side now" Xander exclaimed.

"Yes it was quite impressive" Giles agreed as Spike re-entered the front of the store carrying the blood that he had retrieved from the back.

"Thanks Dawn" Spike said indicating the cartons of blood. Dawn just nodded not saying anything. Spike then turned to Willow "Did you find out anything, Red?" he asked as he started packing the blood into the cooler.

"Actually I did, Tara and I already cast the spell, you should be undetected until you get there but she might still be able to read your mind once she sees you.

"That'll work, anything else, about the monks?"

"Yeah, there is a small sect of the same monks that live in the desert in Arizona outside of Vegas if you can believe that. They have their own website!" Willow said excited as she turned her laptop around so the others could see the home page she was looking at. It has a large green glowing ball in the middle of the screen and was going through a Flash segment.

"Uhg I hate flash sites, hit the skip intro button, will ya" Spike said obviously annoyed.

"Sorry, I thought it was kinda neat" Willow said clicking away the offending screen. "Anyway they have some contact information but I thought that Giles should probably be the one to contact them. I'll just print it out for you Giles"

"You're right" he said to Willow and then turned to Giles "see if you can get them to come here or arrange for us to go there, whatever you have to do" I figure I'll be gone for about two days, one for the drive down and find her and one to take care of business and drive back. It would be nice if the monks were here when I returned"

"I'll do my best, I'm sure they will cooperate after I explain the prophesy" Giles stated.

"Good, well I'm off then" Spike said.

Dawn who had been silent the entire time flung herself in to Spike's arms crying much to Spikes chagrin "Be careful, Spike, I can't lose anyone else"

"Don't you worry your pretty head about me Nibblet, I'm going to be just fine, you'll see. Have Xander tell you what a bad ass I am and how I killed that demon today, then you'll realize no flaky ex of mine will be a problem." Spike reassured her with a hug and headed out the door.

He climbed into the DeSoto and put a cigarette in his mouth started the engine and lit the cigarette. Then he peeled rubber and flipped a U-turn and headed south out of town. As he approached the city limits he thought 'should I?, I am supposed to be a goodie goodie now, eh to hell with it' he thought to himself as he barreled over the "You are now leaving Sunnydell" sign and cranked up the radio expecting to hear a song from his favorite radio station blaring from the speakers instead of that he heard Brittney Spears singing "Oops I did it again" Spike just chucked and said "Note to self: Remind Nibblet not to mess with a man's stereo." He said as he quickly popped the Billy Idol tape into the cassette silencing the bubble gum sounds radiating from the stereo and replaced them with a Rebel Yell.

A couple hours later the Desoto pulled up to the Mexican border, and joined the long line of people trying to get across to Tijuana. "Bloody hell, this is bloody ridiculous. Only Dru would decide to hole up in a bloody tourist trap. Finally it was Spikes turn at the border. He rolled down his window and handed his ID to the officer. "Buenas Noche" Spike said losing all hint of his English accent. The officer just took a look at the California State Driver's license and his insurance card, handed them back and waved Spike through. Spike drove on past and speed on into the night wanting to cross the last few miles as quickly as possible which was hard to do in all the traffic. Spike deviated from the flow of traffic as soon as he reached the city limits. He got on the back streets and headed toward a hotel he remembered from years ago that he hoped was still in business.

It was still in business, boy was it in business, it was now a vampiric brothel. It'll work for one night, he said to himself as he grabbed his satchel and cooler and headed up the front stairs and entered the building. He was greeted my several vampire women who seemed very happy to see him and couldn't keep their hands to themselves. "¡Échese para atrás! (back off!) Spike said angrily. The women quickly withdrew their hands and Spike continued in a gentler tone "¿Quién está a cargo aquí? (Who's in charge here?)" Spike asked. None of the girls said anything but one of them pointed to a door to the left. "Gracias" Spike said as headed towards the door and knocked.

"Entra" he heard from the other side so Spike opened the door and walked in to see "Oh bloody hell, what next!" Spike said as he dropped his bag and cooler and started pacing back and forth in front of the door. "What do you Powers want from me?" Spike shouted at the ceiling "How much is a man supposed to take!" he ranted to the Powers that Be if they were listening.

TCB . . . . .

(Author's note: sorry about another cliff hanger but I just couldn't help myself anywho, I'm thinking about having another song in the next chapter and I was just wanting to get some feedback on it. If you guys thought it was really stupid last time I may not do it again but if you liked it I will. Thanks and let me know. Taulmaril@fanfiction.net)