CHANGE OF SPACE

7

By Annie

Summary: Lex looks for the Slayer and her friends, and finds near- Apocalypse instead. Rated: R Disclaimer: Once more with feeling, not mine. Spoilers: The Gift; Buffy Season 5 Feedback: crehnert@ptd.net







Measures would have to be taken. Simple measures at first of course, which would be the best way to start off. Save any big guns I might come up with as a last resort. I needed to retreat, not to admit defeat, but to regroup. Revitalize, as it were. I never even checked out of the hotel in Sunnydale, pessimistic about being able to obtain what appeared to be the only hotel suite in town when I got back. I only planned to be gone for a week or so, let Spike sort out his problems with the Slayer or whoever, maybe let him mull over in his mind the memory of that fresh blood I had offered to him.

Things were comparatively calm at the castle, which grated on my nerves. I still missed the beat of the city, the never-ending parade of distractions, be they male or female. Being back in Smallville did nothing to alleviate the aching need I had for.something. I wasn't even sure what I needed anymore, and the disturbing, cock-hardening presence of Clark Kent did nothing to assuage the hunger growing inside. I needed something a bit more legal, a bit more unorthodox.

Sunnydale never left my mind; I thought about what Spike had said, over and over. The mystery of it pulled at me persistently. What was a Hellgod? Where did Spike get a robot? That was what interested me the most I think. My own scientists were hard pressed to make an electronic puppy, and there in California was a vampire who not only had a robot, but apparently he missed it very much. I wanted to know more. I wanted to find out what the heck the story was there at the Hellmouth, and after two or three days of pacing like an agitated wild man in the mansion, I headed right back to Sunnydale.

I had to talk with the Slayer after all, it seemed. She could tell me what was going on, unless she tossed me out on my ass, too. But, maybe she'd be happy to have Spike leave Sunnydale. There had to be ways to persuade her to give me a clue as to how to accomplish that. Maybe ways with dead presidents and numbers on them. Maybe other ways.

I tried the magic shop first, and it was closed, contrary to the hours posted on the door. Strange. Anya didn't seem like the type to deviate from normal hours when there might be potential sales coming in after dinner. Okay then. I found all their addresses, by simple courtesy of the telephone book and my infallible memory of the names I had read in my reports. I started at Revello Drive. Simple house, homey-looking enough, but empty. Like everywhere else I tried.

I was getting frustrated and that was something to which I was not accustomed. Nobody stood in my way. Nobody. Not the Slayer, or her Watcher, or any of her friends. I tried the Bronze as a last resort, and then decided to simply take my life in my hands and go back to the crypt. Just offer the vampire too much money to refuse and be done with it.

I saw the tower on my way there, just as I neared the edge of town. The only reason I noticed it at all was because of the light. A freaky, undulating kind of thing, suspended in the air near the top of the tower. I slowed the car, peering up through the windshield, and that was when the ground started to shake and all Hell broke loose. I nearly laughed. Hell on the Hellmouth. Why should I be surprised? At the same time, I could barely make out two small figures way up there on a walkway. Then the street trembled again splitting open in front of me.

I slammed on the brakes, my heart all but stopping permanently as a huge .THING. flew up out of the wide crack in the street. It paid no attention to me, grazing scaly wings against the front of the car, screeching defiantly and running smack into another, different..THING.. that suddenly appeared in a rip in the air in front of the car. It glared at me through the windshield with hateful intent out of deep-set rotted eye sockets, then was abruptly eaten in two gulps by something even bigger and more putrid that descended out of the electric sky. Next thing I knew, there were creatures everywhere, appearing from the street, coming out of the very walls of the buildings near me. Cars were careening all over the place and two of them crashed into mine before I had the presence of mind to slam the shifter into Park and get the hell out of there.

As I started to run, ducking and lurching away from those indescribable beasts, I felt Spike. I felt the magnetic draw like I had when I neared his crypt. It steered me in the direction of the tower, and his words came back to me. 'Shit storm.' 'Hellgod.' I probably should have stayed in Kansas.

But the feelings coming over me were of a Spike in need, in pain, and I ran heedlessly in his direction. Just before I got to the clearing at the base of the tower, it all stopped. The creatures, the eerie light above, the quaking of the ground beneath my unsteady feet. I hesitated a moment, confused, but then suddenly overpowered by a feeling of tremendous pain. Spike was in a lot of trouble, and the Igor in me, the remnants of the effect of Spike's feeding on me, propelled me forward again. I was wading through waves of pain and something else. Grief. Overwhelming grief so powerful I was almost bent double and had to keep walking anyway. Damn that vampire. I should have never allowed him to feed from me. At that thought I almost laughed crazily. First and foremost, what I wanted more than anything was to have him feed from me again.

First I had to get to him.

I was stopped in my tracks by the tableau that greeted me at the base of the crazy-looking tower.

The Watcher, Xander and Willow were all standing, staring in horror at. my God, the Slayer, who lay in a limp heap on a pile of rubble. Tara was leaning on Willow, and Xander was carrying Anya, who appeared to be battered and unconscious. A younger girl, insanely dressed for a masquerade ball or something, was stumbling down from the tower, her own eyes glued to the fallen Slayer. I didn't see Spike at first, but then I found him, crashed to the ground, bloodied face buried in his hands, too weak with grief to even stand up, too overwhelmed to even look at her. The others were ignoring him, so I forced my legs to move and went to him.

I knelt down next to him and spoke his name softly. He either couldn't hear or didn't care. I expected him to cringe as I laid a hand reassuringly on his leather-clad back, but he ignored that as well. The sight and sound of him was enough to tear my heart out, he was so obviously crushed into nothing by grief. So then I knew; knew why he had come back to Sunnydale, why he had to stay and assist in a fight with a Hellgod, who had apparently been winning for a few minutes there. I couldn't fathom the details, and figured I would probably never know them, but my main concern now was Spike.

I don't usually feel such genuine concern for others without some selfish motives, except for Clark of course, who would be the sum and total of my universe if he would allow it. If I could allow it. With Spike, it was almost an instinct, and the thought of leaving him here, with them, so lost and neglected, was something I wasn't prepared to do. I tried to pull him to his feet, and as I did so, the Watcher finally spared a glance in his direction, dampening his own grief long enough to come over and help me get the vampire into an unsteady standing position.

"Spike," Giles was trying to speak to him, but Spike ignored him, too, finally pulling his hands from his wet, bloody face to stare at the body of the Slayer in disbelief. The bruises he had suffered at the hands of the Hellgod were mostly gone, but the pain on his face now was even harder to watch. "Spike," Giles repeated. "We need to go. We need to take Buffy and.."

His voice broke, and he looked down at the cracked ground beneath his feet, trying to compose himself, brutally proper.

"I'll take him," I said, putting an arm around Spike's waist and beginning to lead him away. He didn't want to turn his gaze away from Buffy, and I had to reach up and grasp his jaw, forcing him to look away. "Spike, come with me," I insisted.

He moved as if to rush to the spot where she lay and then Giles laid a restraining hand on his chest, lightly, so that I thought Spike would just fling him aside and out of the way. Except, he didn't. "Go with him, Spike." Giles told him quietly. "We'll talk tomorrow. I promise."

Spike nodded numbly, and as I started to lead him away, back to the car that I hoped was still in working order, I called back over my shoulder to the Watcher. "I'm at the Regency. I'm taking him there. Call me tomorrow."

The Englishman looked at me strangely. "There will be a tomorrow now. I'll call."