Doesn't Anyone Stay Dead Around Here?
Chapter 13
Still stunned from the revelation that vampires existed, Abe almost missed Spike's reaction to the small glass sphere their captor held in his hand. Somehow, though, the fact that a vampire, a blood-sucking creature of the night, so visibly and negatively reacted to the sight of the crystal ball set off a warning klaxon in Abe's head. *Danger, Danger, Will Robinson! This can't be good,* he thought to himself.
"What? What is it?" Abe demanded.
"It's an Orb of Thesulah." The answer came in a frightened whisper from Dawn.
Spike had ignored the cameraman's question, keeping his eyes glued to Doc as the demon prepared for a ritual. However, when he heard Dawn's response to Abe's question, he looked sharply at her.
"How'd you know that, Bit?" He knew because Drusilla had thrown a fit when he'd brought her an Orb as a present not long after forcibly dragging her out of Sunnydale. He'd thought she would like it; maybe she would start gazing into it like a crystal ball and quit crying for the set of tarot cards he'd left behind in Angelus's mansion. Instead she had smashed it and attacked him for hurting her 'Daddy.' It was only later that he found out the Orb's significance in soul restoration.
"We, we have one. At home. In the Angelus box," the teen explained, still looking at the orb.
"The ~what~ box?"
"We-, Mom-, after, after Angel came back, you know, from hell?" Dawn paused in her explanation, unsure of how much Spike knew about that time in her and Buffy's lives. "Buffy didn't tell anyone right away that he was back. When we found out-, this wasn't long after Mom and I found out that Buffy was the Slayer. Anyway, when we found out, Mom went to Giles and they made a box. For emergencies. It has all the stuff to do a de-invite and a copy of the spell and the ingredients to give Angel his soul back. One of those is an Orb of Thesulah. You know, in case he goes all evil again?"
"Good for Joyce." Spike smirked as a thought crossed his mind. "I'll be the Slayer was good and brassed off when she found out about that."
"Oh, we didn't tell Buffy," Dawn said. "Mom kept it in her room, and showed me where it was, in case…something happened. When she…I moved it into my room. I showed Willow and Tara where it was when they moved in. Turns out Willow, Xander, and Giles each have a box, too. Giles thought it was a good idea. He-, after Buffy, he suffered the most from Angelus."
"Right," Spike internally winced at the memory of the torture Giles had suffered at Angelus's hand and what he'd had Dru do to get the information from the watcher. Even though he and Giles weren't close, he'd come to feel a certain kinship with the British man during a summer of slaying. His suggestion to Angelus on how to get Giles to talk might have kept the man alive, but the watcher hadn't deserved Dru's psychological games.
During Spike and Dawn's exchange, Blair's hysteria had driven him to an almost catatonic state. The sight of him staring blankly unnerved Abe, but not any more than the almost reverent way in which the vampire and the girl talked about the glass ball.
"Why are you afraid of it? What does it do?" he demanded.
"It gives someone their soul," Dawn explained. Her eyes widened, and she turned to glare at Doc. "Hey, freaky old guy who likes to go around worshiping hellgods and cutting people, you'd better not be thinking of giving Spike his soul! I'll kick your ass!"
Doc paused in his preparations, and seeing the intent look on Dawn's face, he laughed.
"Poor, naïve child. Thesulan Orbs are not only for soul giving. They serve as spirit vaults for all rituals of the undead."
"Huh?"
"The demon." Spike spoke as a feeling of dread settled over him. "You're going to put the Master's demon in someone the same way the gypsies put the soul in Angel. But since souls come from the ether, and demons come from hell, you have to open the Hellmouth first."
"You always were a smart one. To think, you had such potential." Doc said, shaking his head as if he was a disappointed father. He walked about the room, lighting the candles he had placed around the three sacrifices earlier. "Pity I'll have to kill you."
"Who're you going to put him in?" Dawn demanded. "If we're for opening the Hellmouth, and Spike's here for the Master to kill, who're you going to put him in?"
"Too bad those monks didn't give you a better education, Key." Doc clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Your addition skills are somewhat lacking."
"It's you." Abe realized what the others had overlooked. "You're going to put this other guy in you."
"I think we're all set here," Doc said, surveying the magick paraphernalia in the room and ignoring Abe's statement.
He sprinkled some herbs into the bowl of blood and began muttering over it in a language none of the others recognized. Slowly the floor in the center of the three sacrifices began to dissolve into a swirling vortex.
Doc dropped a match into the bowl and flames leapt from the bowl. The Orb, surrounded by four candles and sitting in a cushioned basket next to the bowl began to glow as it was filled with a dark, swirling light. Dawn shivered as she watched the Master's demon be drawn into the Orb.
Doc's chanting grew louder, and large tendrils of a plant-like material began to creep out of the Hellmouth's opening.
"Geez, Little Shop of Horrors, much?" Dawn asked, determined if she was going to die, to at least go down like a Summers: punning.
"Don't worry, Dawnie." A familiar voice came from where the doors to the library had once been. "It's nothing a little weed whacking won't cure."
"Buffy!" Dawn cried out in relief at the sound of her sister's voice and turned her head to see Buffy wielding a large sword. Behind her, as soldiers faithfully following a trusted commander into battle, stood the other four Scoobies. Xander and Anya stood to her left, while Willow and Tara flanked her on the right. All were armed and combat ready.
"'Bout time, Slayer. Thought I might die of old age before you got here," said Spike.
Willow noted the magick items throughout the room. She looked closely at Doc and her eyes widened at what sat on the ground in front of him. She recognized the Orb for what it was and knew that any spell requiring such a powerful artifact called upon dark and potent magicks.
"Buffy, shut him up before he can finish the spell!" Willow commanded.
Even before she spoke, Buffy had begun to move towards Doc, the candlelight glinting dangerously off her weapon. However, before she reached him, Doc stopped chanting, and the Orb radiated a brilliant, harsh light. It was nothing like the comforting glow Willow remembered from when she had given Angel his soul back. As the light faded, so did the Orb, dissolving as if it had never been.
Doc's eyes blazed a feral yellow and his body began to convulse. By the time Buffy reached him, the seizure had stopped, and the demon lay on the floor unconscious. Buffy drove her sword into his chest. Then, she made a show of dusting her hands, indicating a job well done.
"Uh, Buffster?" Xander asked. "That's not going to do it. Fangless and I already tried that once and it didn't kill him."
Buffy shrugged, pulled her sword out, and used it to cleanly detach Doc's head from his body. She knew that decapitation worked on most demons. Just to be safe, she decided to chop the rest of his body into smaller pieces, and burn them separately. Before she could begin, though, the deadly vines rapidly retracted into the Hellmouth, and the vortex swirled closed.
"Hmmph. I guess he's really dead," Buffy said.
"Spike!" Dawn's worried voice drew her attention to the chained vampire on the ground.
What Buffy saw scared her. Spike was convulsing, like Doc had a moment before. His eyes, too, flashed yellow and the shaking stopped. He opened his eyes and when his gaze fell on Buffy, his face hardened.
"You! I killed you!" He began to struggle against his chains. He paused, considering. "Then you killed me."
The others stared at him, confused not only by his words, but by the changes in his speech. His accent was gone, and his normal speech rhythms had changed perceptibly. No longer were his words clipped and quickly delivered. On the contrary, he seemed to drag the syllables out, sometimes almost hissing.
His game face emerged and his lips twisted into a chilling smile. "I guess it's my turn again, Slayer."
tbc
Chapter 13
Still stunned from the revelation that vampires existed, Abe almost missed Spike's reaction to the small glass sphere their captor held in his hand. Somehow, though, the fact that a vampire, a blood-sucking creature of the night, so visibly and negatively reacted to the sight of the crystal ball set off a warning klaxon in Abe's head. *Danger, Danger, Will Robinson! This can't be good,* he thought to himself.
"What? What is it?" Abe demanded.
"It's an Orb of Thesulah." The answer came in a frightened whisper from Dawn.
Spike had ignored the cameraman's question, keeping his eyes glued to Doc as the demon prepared for a ritual. However, when he heard Dawn's response to Abe's question, he looked sharply at her.
"How'd you know that, Bit?" He knew because Drusilla had thrown a fit when he'd brought her an Orb as a present not long after forcibly dragging her out of Sunnydale. He'd thought she would like it; maybe she would start gazing into it like a crystal ball and quit crying for the set of tarot cards he'd left behind in Angelus's mansion. Instead she had smashed it and attacked him for hurting her 'Daddy.' It was only later that he found out the Orb's significance in soul restoration.
"We, we have one. At home. In the Angelus box," the teen explained, still looking at the orb.
"The ~what~ box?"
"We-, Mom-, after, after Angel came back, you know, from hell?" Dawn paused in her explanation, unsure of how much Spike knew about that time in her and Buffy's lives. "Buffy didn't tell anyone right away that he was back. When we found out-, this wasn't long after Mom and I found out that Buffy was the Slayer. Anyway, when we found out, Mom went to Giles and they made a box. For emergencies. It has all the stuff to do a de-invite and a copy of the spell and the ingredients to give Angel his soul back. One of those is an Orb of Thesulah. You know, in case he goes all evil again?"
"Good for Joyce." Spike smirked as a thought crossed his mind. "I'll be the Slayer was good and brassed off when she found out about that."
"Oh, we didn't tell Buffy," Dawn said. "Mom kept it in her room, and showed me where it was, in case…something happened. When she…I moved it into my room. I showed Willow and Tara where it was when they moved in. Turns out Willow, Xander, and Giles each have a box, too. Giles thought it was a good idea. He-, after Buffy, he suffered the most from Angelus."
"Right," Spike internally winced at the memory of the torture Giles had suffered at Angelus's hand and what he'd had Dru do to get the information from the watcher. Even though he and Giles weren't close, he'd come to feel a certain kinship with the British man during a summer of slaying. His suggestion to Angelus on how to get Giles to talk might have kept the man alive, but the watcher hadn't deserved Dru's psychological games.
During Spike and Dawn's exchange, Blair's hysteria had driven him to an almost catatonic state. The sight of him staring blankly unnerved Abe, but not any more than the almost reverent way in which the vampire and the girl talked about the glass ball.
"Why are you afraid of it? What does it do?" he demanded.
"It gives someone their soul," Dawn explained. Her eyes widened, and she turned to glare at Doc. "Hey, freaky old guy who likes to go around worshiping hellgods and cutting people, you'd better not be thinking of giving Spike his soul! I'll kick your ass!"
Doc paused in his preparations, and seeing the intent look on Dawn's face, he laughed.
"Poor, naïve child. Thesulan Orbs are not only for soul giving. They serve as spirit vaults for all rituals of the undead."
"Huh?"
"The demon." Spike spoke as a feeling of dread settled over him. "You're going to put the Master's demon in someone the same way the gypsies put the soul in Angel. But since souls come from the ether, and demons come from hell, you have to open the Hellmouth first."
"You always were a smart one. To think, you had such potential." Doc said, shaking his head as if he was a disappointed father. He walked about the room, lighting the candles he had placed around the three sacrifices earlier. "Pity I'll have to kill you."
"Who're you going to put him in?" Dawn demanded. "If we're for opening the Hellmouth, and Spike's here for the Master to kill, who're you going to put him in?"
"Too bad those monks didn't give you a better education, Key." Doc clucked his tongue and shook his head. "Your addition skills are somewhat lacking."
"It's you." Abe realized what the others had overlooked. "You're going to put this other guy in you."
"I think we're all set here," Doc said, surveying the magick paraphernalia in the room and ignoring Abe's statement.
He sprinkled some herbs into the bowl of blood and began muttering over it in a language none of the others recognized. Slowly the floor in the center of the three sacrifices began to dissolve into a swirling vortex.
Doc dropped a match into the bowl and flames leapt from the bowl. The Orb, surrounded by four candles and sitting in a cushioned basket next to the bowl began to glow as it was filled with a dark, swirling light. Dawn shivered as she watched the Master's demon be drawn into the Orb.
Doc's chanting grew louder, and large tendrils of a plant-like material began to creep out of the Hellmouth's opening.
"Geez, Little Shop of Horrors, much?" Dawn asked, determined if she was going to die, to at least go down like a Summers: punning.
"Don't worry, Dawnie." A familiar voice came from where the doors to the library had once been. "It's nothing a little weed whacking won't cure."
"Buffy!" Dawn cried out in relief at the sound of her sister's voice and turned her head to see Buffy wielding a large sword. Behind her, as soldiers faithfully following a trusted commander into battle, stood the other four Scoobies. Xander and Anya stood to her left, while Willow and Tara flanked her on the right. All were armed and combat ready.
"'Bout time, Slayer. Thought I might die of old age before you got here," said Spike.
Willow noted the magick items throughout the room. She looked closely at Doc and her eyes widened at what sat on the ground in front of him. She recognized the Orb for what it was and knew that any spell requiring such a powerful artifact called upon dark and potent magicks.
"Buffy, shut him up before he can finish the spell!" Willow commanded.
Even before she spoke, Buffy had begun to move towards Doc, the candlelight glinting dangerously off her weapon. However, before she reached him, Doc stopped chanting, and the Orb radiated a brilliant, harsh light. It was nothing like the comforting glow Willow remembered from when she had given Angel his soul back. As the light faded, so did the Orb, dissolving as if it had never been.
Doc's eyes blazed a feral yellow and his body began to convulse. By the time Buffy reached him, the seizure had stopped, and the demon lay on the floor unconscious. Buffy drove her sword into his chest. Then, she made a show of dusting her hands, indicating a job well done.
"Uh, Buffster?" Xander asked. "That's not going to do it. Fangless and I already tried that once and it didn't kill him."
Buffy shrugged, pulled her sword out, and used it to cleanly detach Doc's head from his body. She knew that decapitation worked on most demons. Just to be safe, she decided to chop the rest of his body into smaller pieces, and burn them separately. Before she could begin, though, the deadly vines rapidly retracted into the Hellmouth, and the vortex swirled closed.
"Hmmph. I guess he's really dead," Buffy said.
"Spike!" Dawn's worried voice drew her attention to the chained vampire on the ground.
What Buffy saw scared her. Spike was convulsing, like Doc had a moment before. His eyes, too, flashed yellow and the shaking stopped. He opened his eyes and when his gaze fell on Buffy, his face hardened.
"You! I killed you!" He began to struggle against his chains. He paused, considering. "Then you killed me."
The others stared at him, confused not only by his words, but by the changes in his speech. His accent was gone, and his normal speech rhythms had changed perceptibly. No longer were his words clipped and quickly delivered. On the contrary, he seemed to drag the syllables out, sometimes almost hissing.
His game face emerged and his lips twisted into a chilling smile. "I guess it's my turn again, Slayer."
tbc