Spike was enjoying himself. A bit too much, perhaps.
"Slimy buggers ! Come to Daddy !"
Slice !
The blood was humming in his ears, awakening him. He must've killed ten of those green things by now, and 'tired' wasn't yet in his vocabulary. Picking up a vampire and throwing it bodily into a wall, he cackled in a rather unsettling manner. A heatseeker, that's what he was. At the heart of the action, devoured by love, enveloped in the dance. Couldn't stand to be away from the fire very long. Forever flickering at its edges, letting it burn him, just a little. He would never be human, it was true. But for now, he was warm. So warm.
"I'm coming !" he called out to her, wherever she was. She felt close. Just another couple of sword thrusts.
"STOP !" and mostly everything did. Except Spike, of course, who felt rather cheated when the vampire facing him paused, and turned to face his leader, who was standing on the altar beside Buffy. So he just lopped his head off anyway, and ignored the lost points for form. "I said STOP !" Lumhe bellowed again, and Spike gave him a toothy grin, terribly pleased with himself.
"Ain't one of your minions, Lumpy."
"Regardless..." he let the knife waver dangerously close to Buffy's throat, "...let's talk first." There was a sudden angry sound from Spike, deep in the base of his throat, that made the hair on the back of Willow's neck stand on end.
"Back off." he said quietly. "Back the fuck off from her."
"You're not the one talking conditions, here."
"Back the fuck up," he said again, "or I'll rip you apart before I kill you." It wasn't that his voice was particularly loud, or particularly angry-sounding. But it carried an unmistakable ring of truth. Lumhe stared him down for a moment, but everyone in the room already knew which one of them meant it. The younger vampire sighed.
"I'd hoped we could be more reasonable. It's obvious you want this one." he lifted a few loose curls of Buffy's hair, while she made various obscene threats at him. "So let's call a truce." The dark-haired vampire's eyes, odd in a human face, flickered yellow, on and off. "All the spell demands is her blood. I'd let you turn her, if you wanted."
"Wha-" the offer was like a cold slap in the face, and Giles' eyes, focused on the slayer, turned to Spike instead. If he says agrees, I'll have to kill him, the older man realized painfully. He looked down at his already tiring arms. And I'm not sure I can.
"Spike !" Xander hissed. Anya and Willow shot each other panicky glances, and the redhead tried to remember which spells worked on vampires and which didn't. Tara, silent before this, twined her fingers with Willow's.
Trust him, she said suddenly, between their minds.
"Think about it." Lumhe urged. "It's what you want, isn't it ?"
Images flashed through the blonde's head. It'd be so easy. Too easy, maybe. Isn't it what he wanted ? Hunting with her, holding her... his lover and childe, golden for all eternity. And when she drew him close, she'd take him in with those...
...dead, empty eyes.
"Fuck off, mate." He said, pleasantly. "Lady likes her heartbeat." he added, and lopped off the nearest vampire's head, which bore an expression of extreme surprise for about three seconds. Lumhe sputtered and cursed, and a rather half-hearted battle between the scoobies and vamps started up again. In a flash, Spike was on the dais beside their leader, tilting the blade back and forth, letting the light catch and slide along its edge. "Why don't you and I..." he said carefully, "...have a go ?" Lumhe looked him up and down, Spike's golden eyes reflecting his movements.
And then Lumhe decided to take him literally, and went. Straight off of the platform, down the steps, and across the room as fast as his legs could carry him.
"Never want to play." Spike sighed, and brought down his sword on the chains holding her.
The "Khlouds" versus the scoobies had been holding their own. Maybe more than their own. Giles was nursing a battered shoulder, Xander a leg wound, and Willow and Tara seemed to be shaking under the pressure. So the battle might have ended badly, if Lumhe hadn't run.
But he did run, and the slayer was free, and there was no hope for any of Lumhe's men after that. She and Spike sliced a path wider than a yacht through the ranks of his shabby army, cracking jokes as they went.
"Here's one just your size, Slayer !" he called out, tossing a smallish, screaming vampire her way. She caught it deftly on the end of a stake.
"Not my color, though. Hope you kept the receipt !" I could do this all night, she thought, driving her palm against the wrinkled bridge of a vampire nose. But they can't. She watched her line of friends be pushed back another inch. There's got to be a way to end this, faster. I'm not sure if I can protect them and fight... and then it came to her. "Spike !" she called out sharply. "Come with me." They hacked and staked their way to the corner of the room. He turned to her in frustration.
"We're boxed in, love ! You got an idea ?"
"Yeah. One, up." she said, pointing to the drapes, and staking the next-to-nearest vampire. "And then, take cover." He grinned at one side of his face.
"You're a wonder, you know that ?" he said, and pulled her to him. He felt her shock, up against him, as he kissed her full on the mouth.
"Spike ! We're-" she started angrily, but instead of replying, he grabbed her feet and hoisted her up swiftly to the drapes. She climbed, hand over fist, to the rather rhythmic sound of Spike busying his fists against vampire skulls.
"It's got to be here somewhere..." Buffy muttered, pawing through the folds of drapery that were piled up on the ledge. At a dizzying height, she could see her friends fighting below. "Come on... alright !" she crowed, and dragged on the heavy cord attached to one end. It didn't budge. "Darn it. I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this..."
Giles, taking a breath, just happened to look up, and caught sight of Buffy plunging into midair.
"God, no !" he cried out, not understanding, but when she arced gracefully instead of hitting the floor, he had to laugh. It was like some sort of odd cartoon. She was swinging across the hall on the drapery pull.
And just like that, the room flooded with light.
There were a few screams, and a few 'poufs', mostly drowned out by the noises of K'bbeths drying up, rapidly and horrifyingly. It took everything in Willow to keep her lunch down.
"Talk about reverse suction..." Xander said, ignoring the queasiness in his stomach. Buffy landed on her feet, catlike, and stalked over the increasing dust piles with disgust written on her face.
"Blech." she said. "Can we go now ?"
"Not just yet..." came an accent to her right. "I think we missed one." Spike, wrapped in a piece of the now-fallen drapes, shoved Lumhe out into a small patch of light. He screamed, and fell backwards into the shadows, clutching his face. "Best for last."
The slayer in her, for some odd reason, chose this moment to take control of her hips, and she found herself doing a grim sashay over to the cowering ex-master vampire. She took the sword from Spike, and drew the blade across the floor, leaving a thin groove on the stone and a horrendous screeching in everyone's ears. Lumhe looked at her, and looked at the line between them, and looked back at her again, confused.
"Cross it." she said. He stared at her. "Cross it." she said again, more forcefully. He remained still, and Spike kicked him.
"Do as she says." The kick propelled him a little, but Lumhe remained in the same place.
"I didn't think so." she spat. "How about I let you live this time, sort of, and you go tell all your little vamp buddies that I'm not taking any crap anymore." He nodded, and Spike dragged him upright by the collar. "And- get lost."
If the ratio of pride to brain cells in Lumhe's subconscious had been just a little less, he would have walked away; and perhaps he would've told the vamp community of the slayer's undiminished prowess, and perhaps he might've just run away to someplace quieter. As it was, the ratio had been going up exponentially since Spike had kicked him, and he felt, with all the remains of his wounded ego, that a parting blow was necessary. It was important that he impart to the slayer and her buddies just who they were messing with, after all. So Lumhe, fueled by pent-up rage and thwarted ambition, launched himself at the slayer, because Spike was still looking a little too deadly.
"You messed with the wro-" and, quite suddenly, he became vacuum-sized.
"I really hate having to kill the messenger." Buffy sighed, tucking the stake back into her waistband. "It's just such a cliché."
