CHAPTER FIFTY

Rescue

Jonathan woke up to the sound of Warren snoring. At first he wondered at the noise. Then he remembered where he was and what was happening. Cautiously he peered over toward the other end of the room. Warren was sitting down on a chair with wheels on the bottom. The top of his body was sprawled out over the end of the work bench that Spike was lying on. He had one arm over his captive's shoes and the other over his Molecular Disturber. The remote control was on a small table to his right.

Spike's body wasn't twitching anymore and his eyes were closed. He actually appeared to be sleeping and was breathing, steadily and calmly.

Jonathan stood up slowly, trying to keep his chair from squeaking. Then he approached Warren. His friend's snoring never varied. This was Jonathan's big chance to run. But first he stopped and picked up the remote control device on the small table. The red light over the control buttons was lit, indicating that it was still turned on. Judging from Spike's lack of reaction to it, Jonathan wondered if perhaps the chip's battery was finally spent. Warren had said it was likely to happen. Jonathan turned off the remote anyway, just to be sure. He wondered for a split second how much of Spike's sanity was left. But he didn't have time to find out. He had to get out and get help as soon as possible.

- - - - - - - - - -

At the Magic Box, Willow and Tara were conferring over spells, while Anya and Xander stocked shelves. Xander wasn't expected on his job until afternoon that day. They were building a new post office downtown named after some long dead historical figure and they were doing a small ground breaking ceremony before the actual digging crews came in.

When Jonathan charged in looking all disheveled, the Scoobies stopped what they were doing to look at him. "You've got to come. Warren's lost his mind," Jonathan gasped. "That diamond we stole, Spike said there was a curse on it."

"You've seen Spike?" Xander asked, putting down the book he'd been placing on a shelf and coming forward.

"Warren's got him," Jonathan said.

"You're the one who stole the diamond?" Willow asked, standing up slowly.

"Well, sort of. It was Warren really." He looked from Xander to Willow and back again as they advanced toward him. Xander's attitude was all concern, but there was something menacing in Willow's steps. "Spike said the diamond puts this curse on humans who own it," Jonathan continued. "That it drives them insane."

"Then you're the one who shot Tara," Willow said, her eyes darkening. "You could have killed her."

Jonathan saw Willow's eyes change. He knew magic and he could see the potential danger in Willow's black eyes.

Xander realized the danger too. He pushed Willow aside, hoping Tara would take control of her. "You talk to me," Xander said, trying to sound more macho than he felt at that point. "Now, why do you have Spike?"

"Warren wanted to get his revenge on him for taking the diamond. I wanted to see if we could make a trade with the Slayer. You know, get her to stay out of our way while we took over Sunnydale." He laughed nervously. "But Warren was bent on revenge."

"What have you done to him?" It was Willow again, her voice sounding very threatening.

"Willow, please," Tara said, trying to take hold of her lover's hands and turn her away from their unwanted visitor.

"I didn't do anything to him," Jonathan said, starting to get scared. "It was Warren. It was all Warren! We found out about Spike's chip, see? And Warren ran all these diagnostics to see what it did. And he found out. And then he made this remote control so he could turn the pain on in Spike's head. And he ran it constantly for the last two days, trying to question him about the diamond. But he was also thinking he could burn his brain out and turn him into a motorized zombie. Only now I think the battery in the chip ran out, so Spike's not in pain anymore. But he's unconscious or sleeping or something. I didn't have time to check. I just had to get away before Warren woke up, so he wouldn't use his Molecular Disturber on me."

"And what the hell is that?" Xander asked.

"I'm not sure actually. But Warren says it scatters your molecules around so you go poof. If we go in there, he'll probably try and use it on us."

"Doesn't sound like something I want to go against," Xander said. "But I guess we don't have a choice. I've got the car outside. Let's mount up."

"I'll call Buffy," Anya said, rushing to the back of the shop.

"It was all Warren, I swear," Jonathan babbled. "I never wanted to do this. I just thought we'd take over Sunnydale or something fun like that. Is there any chance that now that the diamond is gone that Warren will recover?"

"No," Willow said. "He'll just get worse and worse till his brain becomes pudding and he dies." Her tone of voice told everyone that that would be just fine with her.

"Willow, here's your jacket," Tara said. "Now, just calm down. We've got to be careful about how we rescue Spike. We don't Warren to hurt him."

"Oh, I don't think he can hurt him anymore," Jonathan said. "Not if the chip's battery has run down. It wasn't meant to run constantly the way Warren was running it. Without the chip, Warren doesn't have any hold over him."

"He can still be staked," Willow said. "He better be all right."

Jonathan swallowed hard. He decided not to tell them that Spike had been babbling incoherently the night before. Maybe he could make his escape from the Scoobies before they found out about Spike's real condition.

Anya came running with a couple of long sheets of material thrown over one of her arms. "Buffy doesn't seem to be home. I found these in the back." She held up the heavy pieces of cloth. They were splattered with light blue paint. "We used them as drop clothes recently when you repainted the kitchenette, remember? We can use them to cover Spike so the sun won't zap him."

"Let's go," Xander said, leading the way.

Jonathan gave Xander directions in the car and led the way to Warren's basement door. Then he tried to sneak away as Xander tried to open it.

"You're not going anywhere," Willow said, catching Jonathan by the collar. "I'm not through with you.

"The door's locked," Xander said. "A bad sign."

"That means Warren's up and on the alert," Jonathan said. "But we can break the door down. It's a very flimsy lock. I've been telling him that we really needed to . . ."

This time is was Xander who took Jonathan by the collar. "Forget the speech. You're gonna to help me break this door down."

"Sure," Jonathan said. "Anything to help.

The two men ran at the door with Xander giving the signal. Jonathan was right. The lock was flimsy. They had no trouble breaking in. Unfortunately, as soon as the door flew open, they saw Warren in the middle of the basement, his Molecular Disturber at the ready.

"Don't move," Warren commanded, "Or I'll zap you all to kingdom come."

"Enough of this foolishness," Willow said, pushing Xander out of the way. She waved her right hand and the ray gun pulled itself out of Warren's grasp. Then she waved again and Warren himself went flying, hard, against the cement wall of the cellar. He tried to recover and run at them. But Willow just waved again. This time he hit the wall so hard that he slid down to the floor unconscious.

"Willow!" Tara said. "You could have killed him."

"He's lucky that's all I did," Willow replied. She moved her hand up into a fist and brought it down heavily into her other hand, magically causing the Molecular Disturber to smash into pieces.

Jonathan's mouth fell open. Willow was definitely not the geek she used to be in high school. She was now one real dangerous witch.

Xander and Tara ran to Spike.

"Do you have keys to these locks?" Xander asked, referring to the locks that held the chains over Spike's arms and legs.

"Yes," Jonathan answered. "I think I know where they are." He rummaged through a nearby drawer.

"Spike?" Tara called, patting the vampire's face gently. "Do you hear me?"

"How is he?" Willow asked.

"Well, he's breathing. But I'm not sure if that's good or bad or neutral."

"I think it's neutral," Xander answered, taking a ring of keys from Jonathan. "He doesn't really need to breath. But I think it's a force of habit. At least it means he's not a totally dead body. At least, not anymore than usual."

"Spike?" Tara repeated again. "Can you hear me? Spike?" This time the patting of his cheek seemed to get a vague reaction. His head turned slightly toward her. "Spike? Wake up! It's me, Tara. We've come to rescue you. How are you feeling? Can you talk?" She got a groan this time.

Xander finished unlocking the chains and untying the leather bonds that had held Spike. By then, the vampire was starting to moan a bit more. But he still hadn't opened his eyes.

"I wish there was some kind of hospital or something we could take him to," Tara said.

"Well," Xander said, "Giles is the only one I know who could help him. But he's not here. So, I guess we'll just have to take him to Buffy's and hope that he improves with a little rest."

"We could try calling Giles," Tara suggested.

"Or use some magic," Willow said. "Remember how I contacted Buffy's mind last year when she went into shock over Glory taking Dawn? I could do the same with Spike and . . ."

"No!" Tara said, loudly. "You've done enough magic for one day! I'll do it. I'm not as powerful as you are, but I think I can do it. It is probably the best way. If they've been running that chip in his head for two days, there's no telling what state his sanity is in."

"Could he be dangerous?" Xander asked. Without a functioning chip, Spike was now a full fledged vampire again. Xander had been getting to the point where he trusted Spike. But what if he'd gone crazy? What would that mean?

As if to answer the question, Spike moaned again. "Where am I?" he asked, in a soft voice.

"You're with us," Tara said. "You're all right now."

With great difficulty Spike opened his blue eyes and tried to focus them on Tara's face. "Excuse me, but do I know you?" he asked properly.

"Yeah. I'm Tara. And this is Willow. And that's Xander and Anya. Don't you remember us?"

Spike closed his eyes for a moment and then reopened them. "No. I'm so sorry, but I don't. Where is this place?" He tried to sit up but the change in position made his head hurt. "Ooh. I have the most ghastly headache."

"Well," Anya said, "at least he doesn't sound dangerous."

"His whole tone sounds a different," Willow said. "I expected him to sit up and start yelling something like, `Bloody hell!' right away."

"No gentleman would use that sort of language in front of a lady," Spike said.

Tara and Xander exchanged glances. It was as if Spike had somehow disappeared and a stranger was now in his body.

"Hey you," Willow said, waving at Jonathan. "Did you guys do any sort of mind probe on him or something?"

"No, I promise. Warren wasn't gonna do that till later."

"Well, I wouldn't actually say his mind is gone," Xander said, "But he does sound like someone else. Let's get him out of here and over to Buffy's. I'm thinking she's gonna wanna see him as soon as possible. And the more I hear him talk, the more I think Tara should do that little mind spell on him."

"I think I know what's wrong with him," Tara said. "They talked about stuff like this in my psych class."

"Where are we going?" Spike asked, as Xander tried to pull him off the table. "Have you seen my glasses anywhere?"

"Uh, you don't have any glasses," Xander said. "And we're going to Buffy's."

Spike accepted Xander's help down and leaned heavily on him as they started for the door. "Somebody mentioned a Buffy . . . last night. Or maybe it was the night before. Can't remember much of anything anymore. I tried to tell the chap that I wasn't acquainted with her, but they didn't seem to believe me. You say that I know all of you?"

"Oh, yes," Anya answered, throwing the drop clothes over Spike. "We've all known each other for several years now."

"And may I ask what these things are for?" Spike said, making a face at the unsavory pieces of material covering him.

"Oh, they're just a protection from the sun," Anya said. "We wouldn't want you to get too much sun now would we?"

"Jonathan," Xander said, "You open the back door of the car so we can get him in quickly."

"Yes, right away."

Tara and Willow came out of the basement last, at a comfortable distance from the others.

"I can't believe it. You almost killed him," Tara said, referring to Willow's magical smashing of Warren against the wall.

"It's only a matter of time before his mind turns to pudding from the curse anyway," Willow answered with a wave of her hand.

"Even so. Willow, you shouldn't do that!"

Neither one of them noticed that they were being watched from behind a thick privet hedge. It was Doc. He was still following Tara around, trying to find an opening when he might take the next step in his revenge. He waited till the Scoobies drove away. Then he went into the basement where he found Warren just starting to come to.

"So," Doc said, to the slowly rousing Warren, "Did the witch curse you with madness? Or was it somebody else? It sounded as if her friend would be very unhappy with her if she'd accidentally killed you. So maybe that's exactly what we should let her think. It may not get me the reaction I want quite yet. But it will work things along. Let's see. How will we do it? Continued bashing against the wall perhaps?"