CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Stake-out
The next night, while most of Sunnydale was resting up in order to face the next day's responsibilities, the Slayer and her vampire squire were sitting in their friend Xander's borrowed car, keeping watch over the building at 666 Lindemann. It was getting late, but nothing was happening. No sign of Fire demons or anyone else coming or going.
Stretched across each of their laps was a cross bow. After seeing the fire jets of the Fire demons, it was obvious that throwing knives were just not going to work. They talked about guns again, but neither was really expert at using them and Buffy was still hesitant. Spike understood but he cautioned her that since reloading a cross bow would take time they'd have to be more careful about putting themselves in danger.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Buffy said. "What's the good of being immortal if you can't be a little daring?"
"Because," Spike pointed out, "almost all creatures, demon or not . . . immortal or not, can be killed by fire. It's one of the great equalizers."
Grudgingly Buffy said, "OK." But it was clear she didn't like it.
For the first time Spike found himself wishing that Giles was there. He was afraid that knowing she was immortal would make Buffy careless. Giles would have been able to make her see, better than anyone else, that immortal meant you could live forever, just as long as you didn't get killed. It didn't mean you were indestructible. He was going to have to keep a close eye on his slayer.
As they sat on their stake-out, Buffy was mostly quiet. All her attention was on the warehouse, her muscles taught and ready for action. Spike couldn't help but sit and admire her. "I like it when you look like that," he said at last with a smile on his face.
"Hmm? Look like what?" she said, not bothering to turn around.
"The hunter, all concentrated on the hunt."
"Would you stop. I'm not a hunter."
"Then what do you call it? You're sitting here watching for your prey with a crossbow on your lap. I'd call that looking like a hunter."
"We're looking for clues. We're not hunting."
"Whatever you say." But he knew better.
At about two o'clock in the morning, Buffy was getting ready to call it a night. Suddenly she noticed a flash of light in a window much further down the avenue. It was one of the few buildings still standing. "Did you see that?" she asked, pointing with her chin.
As Spike looked there was another flash of light. And another. And another, all on different floors.
"The building's under attack," Buffy said. "Let's go!"
The two of them tore out of the car and ran down the block. The doors on this building were a lot more formable than they had been on the warehouse. But between the two of them they were still able to knock them down. Somewhere an alarm was sounding and there was a rush of Shadow demons dematerializing from the ceiling, the walls, and floors. They were coming and going in every direction, obviously on the run.
Spike grabbed one of them by the arm. "What's happening?"
The frightened Shadow moved his round mouth but came out with only one word, "Fire."
Spike let him go and he evaporated through the floor. "I think the Fire demons are cleaning house," Spike said to Buffy.
Almost on cue, two Fire demons rounded a corner, chasing several Shadows. They stopped, touched their chests in preparation and shot out fire jets from their hands. One of the Shadows was hit. He tried to dematerialize but the fire jet was too strong for him. With a long moaning cry of agony, he disintegrated into nothing. Buffy took aim at the Fire demon that had killed the Shadow with her crossbow. When the arrow hit its target, the demon cried out in pain and stopped shooting out fire. Spike took aim at the other demon and shot also. The second Fire demon also immediately stopped sending out fire. This gave the Shadows they'd been pursuing a chance to dematerialize through the outside wall of the building into the street. The two injured Fire demons retreated toward the downstairs.
The smoke was really starting to fill the air by then. And the alarm that had been ringing had stopped because all the electric in the building had been disconnected by the fire. "Let's go upstairs," Buffy said, intending to stop the fire.
"No!" Spike said. "If there's this much smoke down here, the building is doomed. It's old, it'll come down fast. The best we can do is try and cover the Shadows who run out of the building in this direction."
Buffy made a face and shook her head no. She wanted to at least try and save the building. Ignoring Spike's warning, she started toward one of the nearby stairwells. There were two of them next to a bank of elevators, one leading to the upper floors and a second right next to it, leading to the lower depths of the building.
"No!" Spike said, pushing in front of her. "It's too dangerous. The Fire demons can't go through walls like the Shadows. They're probably all on their way down here now, coming by that stairwell. We can't shoot all of them.
"We can't just let them take down the building."
"It's too late!"
Buffy pushed him out of the way and Spike grabbed her back. She pushed again and this time knocked him to the floor. Before he could get to his feet, she had run to the stairwell and started up . . . right into the path of a several Fire demons. One of them immediately stopped and raised his hands to his chest. Buffy shot her crossbow, but her aim was off in the dim light of the stairway. She hit one of the Fire demons behind the leader. When light sprang from the demon's claws, Buffy tried to leap to her left out of the way. But a searing pain on her hip told her she hadn't escaped completely. The jet of fire continued past Buffy and hit to the right of the stairwell door, which opened in. The Fire demon tried to readjust, but it was a struggle. The jet of flame seemed to have a mind of its own. This gave Spike a chance to send an arrow in at him, catching the demon squarely in the center of his body. As the demon cried in pain, his fire jet went out and Spike dragged Buffy
out of the stairwell, dumping her unceremoniously just outside the stairwell. He closed the door and jammed his cross bow into its handle so that the demons couldn't open it. They tried of course, but their physical strength was diminished because of all the fire they'd been shooting out. They pounded and cursed on the other side of the door and finally started to blast it with fire. Spike could feel the door warm up. But because it was a fire door, it was going to take a long time for it to burn down.
"Are you all right?" Spike asked.
"My hip," was all Buffy could say.
From one of the upper floors they heard a cry of agony.
"The Shadows?" Buffy asked.
"No. They moan. That was a Fire demon. Even they can be killed by fire."
Buffy breathed heavily as yet another cry of pain rang out. She saw that there were no more Shadows appearing and disappearing. "Let them out," she said.
Spike hesitated for beat, taking in the woman he loved. His instincts were still dominated by the fight. If it had been up to him, he would have left them there. But Buffy was able to separate herself from the hunt and feel empathy for her prey. It was one of those times when he realized how much more of a hero she was than him. He didn't question her judgment this time. "Go and hide back there," he said, pointing to a desk on the other side of the bank of elevators. Outside in the street, he could hear the approach of fire engines. There wasn't much time. He waited till Buffy had limped out of the way. Then he pulled his crossbow from the door.
The door was too hot for a vampire or an immortal slayer to touch, but since Fire demons can touch fire with their hands, it was no problem for them to pull open the door. The fire and smoke on the upper floors was so thick by then that the demons had no thought of anything but escape. They ignored Spike as he ran off toward the back of the building and then paused, ready to offer himself as a decoy away from Buffy. The Fire demons came charging out of the upstairs stairwell and ran on without glancing in his direction. Some of them headed for the open front doors of the building, others ran down the second stairwell toward the basement areas and the underground tunnels.
Ledic was near the back of the group, helping along one of this fellow demons who'd been injured by falling debris from one of the upper floor ceilings. He was the only Fire demon to notice Spike standing near the back. He recognized his platinum hair and long coat. Ledic had no doubt that the slayer was somewhere nearby as well. They had obviously helped the Shadows escape but had not exterminated his people. He found that interesting. But there was no time to think further on it right then. He had to get his injured comrade to the cool tunnels below.
As soon as the Fire demons were gone, Spike returned to Buffy and helped her out the front door. The fire trucks were almost upon them by then. As soon as he had Buffy in Xander's car, Spike screeched out into the street and started them back uptown. He didn't say anything. He was still lost in appreciative amazement at Buffy's sympathetic actions toward the Fire demons. She had depths of kindness that he thought he never could have.
Buffy however, had no trouble finding her tongue. "You shouldn't have stopped me," she complained.
"Stopped you?" he asked. For a moment he honestly didn't know what she was talking about.
"You shouldn't have held me back."
"Oh," Spike said, remembering. He should have known that would brass her off. "What you wanted to do made no bloody sense. The building was coming down and so were all the Fire demons."
"If I'd gotten up there sooner . . ."
"You just would've gotten caught at the top of the stairwell instead of the bottom. And then I couldn't have pulled you out. At least this way you only got injured and not killed. But if you don't mind, I would have preferred to have neither happen. How's your hip?"
"It hurts . . . a lot. But you shouldn't have stopped me."
"Buffy, I am not gonna automatically do what you tell me to like Will or Harris. If I think you're doing something stupid, I'll tell you about it."
"Yeah, and I'm getting tired of it."
"You let Giles tell you when something wouldn't work."
"But you're not Giles."
"No. But I'm a hundred and twenty year old vampire who has some experience in these things. And you're just mad because you know you were wrong and you hate it when you're wrong."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Get used to it, Buffy. Sometimes you make the wrong call. And I'm not gonna knuckle under to you like your little Scoobie friends. I follow your lead, but I'm not gonna do it blindly. I wouldn't be any use to you if I did that."
Buffy didn't say anything else for the rest of the trip. Her hip was aching too much and she just wanted to strike out in anger at Spike. As soon as the car came to a stop she pushed out of it and limped toward the house on her own, clearly wanting to put as much distance between them as she could. She got to the door first, but she couldn't get it open before he was there behind her. "Maybe you shouldn't stay here tonight," she said with her back to him."
He sighed deeply with exasperation. "Buffy, Luv, you're blowing this way out of proportion."
"No, I'm not."
"Look. We're a couple now . . ."
"No we're not."
"Yes, we are. You wanna argue about it here under your sister's window?"
Buffy didn't answer. But she pursed her lips awfully tight.
"You can't go off your bird and just order me off. That's not how it works. Maybe last year, but not anymore."
Buffy's eyes filled with tears, not at his words but at the pain in her hip. It felt as if it was still on fire. It felt much worse than the knife wound she'd received from Eric the Ugly's henchman.
Spike saw her pain. "Let's get you inside," he said more gently. "I'll see to your hip.
This time she didn't give him a fight. He unlocked the door and helped her upstairs. In the strong lights of the bathroom he helped her remove the charred remains of her pants so he could tend her wound. She held onto the towel rack for courage as he cleaned it and applied a heavy bandage. "It's pretty bad," he said. "The skin is charred black and cracking in some places."
Buffy could only answer with tears. It hurt so much. She wanted to cry out as Spike cleaned it with cold water. But she didn't want Dawn to hear, to know that once again she'd gotten hurt. "Dawn will be furious," Buffy whimpered.
"Yeah, well. She doesn't want you to get hurt either." Spike closed up their first aid drawer. Most family bathrooms have a corner shelf with a few first aid items, but the Summers home needed a good sized drawer dedicated to this function. In addition to the usual, Tara and Willow had added a bevy of wiccan salves. "I don't know which of these salves is good for burns. I'll ask Willow in the morning. Or, I can go knock on their door right now if you want me to."
"No."
"OK. But if you can't sleep . . ."
"No," she repeated again, more sharply this time. "And I don't want Dawn to know. She'll think I did it on purpose."
"Let's get you to bed. Here, at least take some aspirins."
Buffy took the aspirins and then hobbled to bed. But sleep wouldn't come. She was in too much pain. She curled up far away on her side of the bed. But Spike put his arm over her shoulders to comfort her. Buffy grasped his hand and held onto it tightly. For a moment he considered waking up Willow to ask about the salves, but he knew it would only make Buffy angry again. It was a full two hours before the pain dulled and her hand slipped out of his.
- - - - - - - - - -
It was four o'clock in the morning and Jonathan's phone was still ringing and ringing and ringing. Once again he'd disconnected his answering machine to avoid Warren. And once again Warren was undeterred. Jonathan knew he was calling him via the squawk box on his telephone. That way he could work at his desk while the phone kept ringing.
On Friday morning when Jonathan had gone out supposedly to pick something up for breakfast, he hadn't gone back to Warren's basement. Warren must not have noticed because he hadn't started calling him till early Sunday morning. Now, almost a day later, the phone was still ringing.
Jonathan looked at the phone. He should have pulled the thing out of the wall, disconnected it completely. But somehow he couldn't. It was like he had started this thing and now he just couldn't stop. It was dragging him on, seemingly against his will. Was he also crazy now? Was Warren's insanity catching?
Without knowing why, he finally picked up the receiver. "Hello," he said tentatively.
"Jonathan?"
"Yeah."
"It's Warren."
Like who else could it be? "What do you want?"
"Where have you been? I've been calling and calling."
"Oh . . . I've just been out."
"Well, clear your calendar, cos we're almost ready to roll. I've figured out what the chip does. It's really clever. I wonder who put it in, if it was the Slayer or someone else."
"What does it do?"
"It keeps Spike from attacking humans. Andrew and I ran all these diagnostics and stuff. That has to be it. It sends out a pain signal if he does anything to a human. The device has a limited function. But I think Andrew and I can rig up a remote control for the pain signal. It should be ready by Tuesday."
"That soon?"
"Yeah, well, Andrew and I don't sleep or eat much anymore. That's for wimps. Be here at my place Tuesday morning. And we'll begin our Spike hunt."
"You sure?"
"Absolutely! I want my diamond back. I won't be sane till I have it."
"OK," Jonathan said. But he doubted very much if Warren's sanity would ever return.
Stake-out
The next night, while most of Sunnydale was resting up in order to face the next day's responsibilities, the Slayer and her vampire squire were sitting in their friend Xander's borrowed car, keeping watch over the building at 666 Lindemann. It was getting late, but nothing was happening. No sign of Fire demons or anyone else coming or going.
Stretched across each of their laps was a cross bow. After seeing the fire jets of the Fire demons, it was obvious that throwing knives were just not going to work. They talked about guns again, but neither was really expert at using them and Buffy was still hesitant. Spike understood but he cautioned her that since reloading a cross bow would take time they'd have to be more careful about putting themselves in danger.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Buffy said. "What's the good of being immortal if you can't be a little daring?"
"Because," Spike pointed out, "almost all creatures, demon or not . . . immortal or not, can be killed by fire. It's one of the great equalizers."
Grudgingly Buffy said, "OK." But it was clear she didn't like it.
For the first time Spike found himself wishing that Giles was there. He was afraid that knowing she was immortal would make Buffy careless. Giles would have been able to make her see, better than anyone else, that immortal meant you could live forever, just as long as you didn't get killed. It didn't mean you were indestructible. He was going to have to keep a close eye on his slayer.
As they sat on their stake-out, Buffy was mostly quiet. All her attention was on the warehouse, her muscles taught and ready for action. Spike couldn't help but sit and admire her. "I like it when you look like that," he said at last with a smile on his face.
"Hmm? Look like what?" she said, not bothering to turn around.
"The hunter, all concentrated on the hunt."
"Would you stop. I'm not a hunter."
"Then what do you call it? You're sitting here watching for your prey with a crossbow on your lap. I'd call that looking like a hunter."
"We're looking for clues. We're not hunting."
"Whatever you say." But he knew better.
At about two o'clock in the morning, Buffy was getting ready to call it a night. Suddenly she noticed a flash of light in a window much further down the avenue. It was one of the few buildings still standing. "Did you see that?" she asked, pointing with her chin.
As Spike looked there was another flash of light. And another. And another, all on different floors.
"The building's under attack," Buffy said. "Let's go!"
The two of them tore out of the car and ran down the block. The doors on this building were a lot more formable than they had been on the warehouse. But between the two of them they were still able to knock them down. Somewhere an alarm was sounding and there was a rush of Shadow demons dematerializing from the ceiling, the walls, and floors. They were coming and going in every direction, obviously on the run.
Spike grabbed one of them by the arm. "What's happening?"
The frightened Shadow moved his round mouth but came out with only one word, "Fire."
Spike let him go and he evaporated through the floor. "I think the Fire demons are cleaning house," Spike said to Buffy.
Almost on cue, two Fire demons rounded a corner, chasing several Shadows. They stopped, touched their chests in preparation and shot out fire jets from their hands. One of the Shadows was hit. He tried to dematerialize but the fire jet was too strong for him. With a long moaning cry of agony, he disintegrated into nothing. Buffy took aim at the Fire demon that had killed the Shadow with her crossbow. When the arrow hit its target, the demon cried out in pain and stopped shooting out fire. Spike took aim at the other demon and shot also. The second Fire demon also immediately stopped sending out fire. This gave the Shadows they'd been pursuing a chance to dematerialize through the outside wall of the building into the street. The two injured Fire demons retreated toward the downstairs.
The smoke was really starting to fill the air by then. And the alarm that had been ringing had stopped because all the electric in the building had been disconnected by the fire. "Let's go upstairs," Buffy said, intending to stop the fire.
"No!" Spike said. "If there's this much smoke down here, the building is doomed. It's old, it'll come down fast. The best we can do is try and cover the Shadows who run out of the building in this direction."
Buffy made a face and shook her head no. She wanted to at least try and save the building. Ignoring Spike's warning, she started toward one of the nearby stairwells. There were two of them next to a bank of elevators, one leading to the upper floors and a second right next to it, leading to the lower depths of the building.
"No!" Spike said, pushing in front of her. "It's too dangerous. The Fire demons can't go through walls like the Shadows. They're probably all on their way down here now, coming by that stairwell. We can't shoot all of them.
"We can't just let them take down the building."
"It's too late!"
Buffy pushed him out of the way and Spike grabbed her back. She pushed again and this time knocked him to the floor. Before he could get to his feet, she had run to the stairwell and started up . . . right into the path of a several Fire demons. One of them immediately stopped and raised his hands to his chest. Buffy shot her crossbow, but her aim was off in the dim light of the stairway. She hit one of the Fire demons behind the leader. When light sprang from the demon's claws, Buffy tried to leap to her left out of the way. But a searing pain on her hip told her she hadn't escaped completely. The jet of fire continued past Buffy and hit to the right of the stairwell door, which opened in. The Fire demon tried to readjust, but it was a struggle. The jet of flame seemed to have a mind of its own. This gave Spike a chance to send an arrow in at him, catching the demon squarely in the center of his body. As the demon cried in pain, his fire jet went out and Spike dragged Buffy
out of the stairwell, dumping her unceremoniously just outside the stairwell. He closed the door and jammed his cross bow into its handle so that the demons couldn't open it. They tried of course, but their physical strength was diminished because of all the fire they'd been shooting out. They pounded and cursed on the other side of the door and finally started to blast it with fire. Spike could feel the door warm up. But because it was a fire door, it was going to take a long time for it to burn down.
"Are you all right?" Spike asked.
"My hip," was all Buffy could say.
From one of the upper floors they heard a cry of agony.
"The Shadows?" Buffy asked.
"No. They moan. That was a Fire demon. Even they can be killed by fire."
Buffy breathed heavily as yet another cry of pain rang out. She saw that there were no more Shadows appearing and disappearing. "Let them out," she said.
Spike hesitated for beat, taking in the woman he loved. His instincts were still dominated by the fight. If it had been up to him, he would have left them there. But Buffy was able to separate herself from the hunt and feel empathy for her prey. It was one of those times when he realized how much more of a hero she was than him. He didn't question her judgment this time. "Go and hide back there," he said, pointing to a desk on the other side of the bank of elevators. Outside in the street, he could hear the approach of fire engines. There wasn't much time. He waited till Buffy had limped out of the way. Then he pulled his crossbow from the door.
The door was too hot for a vampire or an immortal slayer to touch, but since Fire demons can touch fire with their hands, it was no problem for them to pull open the door. The fire and smoke on the upper floors was so thick by then that the demons had no thought of anything but escape. They ignored Spike as he ran off toward the back of the building and then paused, ready to offer himself as a decoy away from Buffy. The Fire demons came charging out of the upstairs stairwell and ran on without glancing in his direction. Some of them headed for the open front doors of the building, others ran down the second stairwell toward the basement areas and the underground tunnels.
Ledic was near the back of the group, helping along one of this fellow demons who'd been injured by falling debris from one of the upper floor ceilings. He was the only Fire demon to notice Spike standing near the back. He recognized his platinum hair and long coat. Ledic had no doubt that the slayer was somewhere nearby as well. They had obviously helped the Shadows escape but had not exterminated his people. He found that interesting. But there was no time to think further on it right then. He had to get his injured comrade to the cool tunnels below.
As soon as the Fire demons were gone, Spike returned to Buffy and helped her out the front door. The fire trucks were almost upon them by then. As soon as he had Buffy in Xander's car, Spike screeched out into the street and started them back uptown. He didn't say anything. He was still lost in appreciative amazement at Buffy's sympathetic actions toward the Fire demons. She had depths of kindness that he thought he never could have.
Buffy however, had no trouble finding her tongue. "You shouldn't have stopped me," she complained.
"Stopped you?" he asked. For a moment he honestly didn't know what she was talking about.
"You shouldn't have held me back."
"Oh," Spike said, remembering. He should have known that would brass her off. "What you wanted to do made no bloody sense. The building was coming down and so were all the Fire demons."
"If I'd gotten up there sooner . . ."
"You just would've gotten caught at the top of the stairwell instead of the bottom. And then I couldn't have pulled you out. At least this way you only got injured and not killed. But if you don't mind, I would have preferred to have neither happen. How's your hip?"
"It hurts . . . a lot. But you shouldn't have stopped me."
"Buffy, I am not gonna automatically do what you tell me to like Will or Harris. If I think you're doing something stupid, I'll tell you about it."
"Yeah, and I'm getting tired of it."
"You let Giles tell you when something wouldn't work."
"But you're not Giles."
"No. But I'm a hundred and twenty year old vampire who has some experience in these things. And you're just mad because you know you were wrong and you hate it when you're wrong."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Get used to it, Buffy. Sometimes you make the wrong call. And I'm not gonna knuckle under to you like your little Scoobie friends. I follow your lead, but I'm not gonna do it blindly. I wouldn't be any use to you if I did that."
Buffy didn't say anything else for the rest of the trip. Her hip was aching too much and she just wanted to strike out in anger at Spike. As soon as the car came to a stop she pushed out of it and limped toward the house on her own, clearly wanting to put as much distance between them as she could. She got to the door first, but she couldn't get it open before he was there behind her. "Maybe you shouldn't stay here tonight," she said with her back to him."
He sighed deeply with exasperation. "Buffy, Luv, you're blowing this way out of proportion."
"No, I'm not."
"Look. We're a couple now . . ."
"No we're not."
"Yes, we are. You wanna argue about it here under your sister's window?"
Buffy didn't answer. But she pursed her lips awfully tight.
"You can't go off your bird and just order me off. That's not how it works. Maybe last year, but not anymore."
Buffy's eyes filled with tears, not at his words but at the pain in her hip. It felt as if it was still on fire. It felt much worse than the knife wound she'd received from Eric the Ugly's henchman.
Spike saw her pain. "Let's get you inside," he said more gently. "I'll see to your hip.
This time she didn't give him a fight. He unlocked the door and helped her upstairs. In the strong lights of the bathroom he helped her remove the charred remains of her pants so he could tend her wound. She held onto the towel rack for courage as he cleaned it and applied a heavy bandage. "It's pretty bad," he said. "The skin is charred black and cracking in some places."
Buffy could only answer with tears. It hurt so much. She wanted to cry out as Spike cleaned it with cold water. But she didn't want Dawn to hear, to know that once again she'd gotten hurt. "Dawn will be furious," Buffy whimpered.
"Yeah, well. She doesn't want you to get hurt either." Spike closed up their first aid drawer. Most family bathrooms have a corner shelf with a few first aid items, but the Summers home needed a good sized drawer dedicated to this function. In addition to the usual, Tara and Willow had added a bevy of wiccan salves. "I don't know which of these salves is good for burns. I'll ask Willow in the morning. Or, I can go knock on their door right now if you want me to."
"No."
"OK. But if you can't sleep . . ."
"No," she repeated again, more sharply this time. "And I don't want Dawn to know. She'll think I did it on purpose."
"Let's get you to bed. Here, at least take some aspirins."
Buffy took the aspirins and then hobbled to bed. But sleep wouldn't come. She was in too much pain. She curled up far away on her side of the bed. But Spike put his arm over her shoulders to comfort her. Buffy grasped his hand and held onto it tightly. For a moment he considered waking up Willow to ask about the salves, but he knew it would only make Buffy angry again. It was a full two hours before the pain dulled and her hand slipped out of his.
- - - - - - - - - -
It was four o'clock in the morning and Jonathan's phone was still ringing and ringing and ringing. Once again he'd disconnected his answering machine to avoid Warren. And once again Warren was undeterred. Jonathan knew he was calling him via the squawk box on his telephone. That way he could work at his desk while the phone kept ringing.
On Friday morning when Jonathan had gone out supposedly to pick something up for breakfast, he hadn't gone back to Warren's basement. Warren must not have noticed because he hadn't started calling him till early Sunday morning. Now, almost a day later, the phone was still ringing.
Jonathan looked at the phone. He should have pulled the thing out of the wall, disconnected it completely. But somehow he couldn't. It was like he had started this thing and now he just couldn't stop. It was dragging him on, seemingly against his will. Was he also crazy now? Was Warren's insanity catching?
Without knowing why, he finally picked up the receiver. "Hello," he said tentatively.
"Jonathan?"
"Yeah."
"It's Warren."
Like who else could it be? "What do you want?"
"Where have you been? I've been calling and calling."
"Oh . . . I've just been out."
"Well, clear your calendar, cos we're almost ready to roll. I've figured out what the chip does. It's really clever. I wonder who put it in, if it was the Slayer or someone else."
"What does it do?"
"It keeps Spike from attacking humans. Andrew and I ran all these diagnostics and stuff. That has to be it. It sends out a pain signal if he does anything to a human. The device has a limited function. But I think Andrew and I can rig up a remote control for the pain signal. It should be ready by Tuesday."
"That soon?"
"Yeah, well, Andrew and I don't sleep or eat much anymore. That's for wimps. Be here at my place Tuesday morning. And we'll begin our Spike hunt."
"You sure?"
"Absolutely! I want my diamond back. I won't be sane till I have it."
"OK," Jonathan said. But he doubted very much if Warren's sanity would ever return.