When they had recovered some of their equilibrium, the group set out again for the Tree - at some point, it had acquired proper noun status in all their minds. Buffy wasn't sure whether it was simply a trick of the dim, watery light, but it seemed to have grown much closer in the time they had been stopped.
After some time, the low hills began to level out as they pressed on, giving way to a wind-scoured plain. Buffy's only reaction was thanks that it would at least make it easier to see anything advancing on them. They travelled in silence; no one wanted to discuss the encounter with the apparition of Joyce.
Spike walked beside her, but much of his normal swaggering confidence was gone from his step. "Slayer," he rumbled deep in his chest, so low that she almost couldn't hear him.
When he stops calling me love, or pet, there's trouble. She waited, but he didn't seem inclined to continue. "What's bothering you?" she prompted. "If there's something I should know . . ."
He wouldn't meet her eyes, and his words sounded like they were being pried out of him by various unpleasant instruments of torture. "I'll not be much good to you here if all he has to do is send in attackers that seem human."
"We'll deal with that if or when it happens," she said. "Otherwise, you stay with me." Can't you tell how much I depend on you?
His eyes blazed up; twin fires of devotion.
**********
The monotony of their surroundings was becoming so oppressive that Buffy was almost relieved when Spike pointed out two objects advancing towards them in the distance.
"Any idea what they are?" He shook his head.
"I see them," Willow said, and murmured, "video." Her eyes lost focus as she directed her magical sight far ahead of the group. "It looks like a couple of mountain lions, only . . . they're on fire."
"Flaming cat demons?" Xander's voice was incredulous. "Who the hell's been having nightmares about flammable felines?" No one admitted to being the source of the latest threat.
"I don't think they're from anyone's nightmare. I think we've left the land of our nightmares and are getting close to the centre of the Nightmare Master's power," Tara said. "These could be some of his own defences, rather than something from our subconscious."
"Okay, but if we run into a giant marshmallow man, I'm holding you responsible." Xander looked around into uncomprehending faces. "What? Am I the only one here who has the classic movie cable channel?"
"Just get ready," Buffy instructed, "but do nothing until I give the word. Let's see what he's sending us this time."
The two large cats came leisurely into view, twining sinuously about each other as they advance. Pale blue eldritch flames wreathed their bodies, but didn't seem to harm or consume them. As they approached, Buffy stood with the tip of her sword at her feet and rested her hands on the crosspiece of the hilt in front of her. Though outwardly she appeared calm, Spike could read the lines of tension and anticipation in how she held herself.
The cats made no immediate move to attack, but split apart to encircle the group on opposite paths. Buffy's eyes directed Spike to shift, and they matched this move, weapons ready, circling the four others now clustered together between them.
"Buffy, I can-" Willow began, but Buffy cut her off with a sharp gesture over her shoulder.
"Not yet!"
"Dead man," said the cat moving in front of Spike. Its voice was a thousand glass chimes.
"That a threat, or just an observation?" he replied coolly. It didn't reply, but continued circling.
"Wildfire," said the other - strong winds in a vast Aeolian harp - looking at Willow.
"Ocean." The first again, now peering around Spike at Tara, though he tried to keep himself between them, his axe raised.
"Man, most mortal." At Xander. The two crossed again outside the circle. Dawn gasped involuntarily, knowing she'd draw their attention next.
They both turned to face her. "We know you, Key to the Great Door, Opener of the Way. Why do you fear us? Among all these, you have a place here."
"No," she whispered, and recoiled.
Buffy moved quickly to interpose herself. "You leave her alone and deal with me," she demanded.
The cats ignored her and spoke again to each other. "What of the one who guards them with the sword I do not like at all?"
"She doesn't know what she is or what she will become. She will die as easily as the others." Around them a ring of pale flames rose, and more cat-forms began to appear in the fire.
"Now! Before the new ones are completely formed!" Buffy shouted, lunging forward and attempting to spit one of the two original cats on her sword. It danced back out of her reach.
"Finally! Something I can kill!" Spike rejoiced.
"Then what are you waiting for?" Buffy admonished him as she recovered for a second strike.
Spike waded into the fray with glee, his face split in a wide, tongue-wagging grin. She looked at the laughing face of her demon lover and felt a thrill of passion - and the tiniest hint of fear - seeing the love, lust and chaos that he leashed and unleashed solely at her word. His guilt-free joy in the pandemonium of battle called strongly to some deep place in her soul.
Bold laughter welled up inside her and she let it spill out as she joined him in the battle. They fought side-by-side and back-to-back as though they had been partners for years, each knowing what the other's next move would be even before it was made. Around them, Willow rained destruction from the skies upon their foes, pulling lightning from the skies as easily as a woman might pull her laundry from the line. Tara's magic was less flamboyant but no less effective, causing the earth to open and swallow enemies whole.
The ground should have been littered with the split bodies that Buffy and Spike left in their wake, but wherever one of the great beasts was felled, its body vanished and the flames spread out to spring up somewhere else. Willow and Tara began to falter, stumbling back against each other. More than once, Xander had to strike at a feline form that had slipped past the other defenders, though not one approached Dawn.
Buffy found her strength flagging and the enemy not reduced in number. Her clothes were tattered and her flesh scored in half a dozen places where the claws of a cat had managed to pierce her defences. Spike didn't look much better, but had at least the advantage of no circulation to drive the blood from his wounds. She lunged raggedly once more, knowing that even with her Slayer strength she'd soon have nothing left to draw upon.
But this time, instead of vanishing at the first touch of her sword, the cat in front of her screamed and died, falling to the ground and staying there. The flames surrounding it faded, as did half of the remaining attackers. "Spike! Willow! Find and kill the other one of the original two - the others should disappear!"
"How the hell," Spike panted between strokes, "do you suggest I do that, pet?" He redoubled his efforts, striking out wildly around him with his axe.
"Just don't stop attacking! Willow!" she shouted. "Is there something you can do to hit all of them at once? I can't tell them apart."
Willow spun around; a dervish in peasant skirt and granny boots. A concussive wave of enchantment swept out from her, hammering the air and rattling their bones to the marrow. It passed them by, held harmless in its power, but shivered apart the demon cats all around them until only the two remained, shattered and spent on the ground. Willow, too, collapsed; blood flowed brightly from her nose, and Tara clutched her desperately to her breast.
Spike staggered back to the centre of their ragged circle and took in the two witches huddled together on the ground. "That was a bit of all right then, Red," he offered. "Didn't know you still had that much in you, after the linking spell and all."
"Sometimes I even surprise myself," she murmured, swiping at her streaming nose with the back of one hand and sniffing strongly to staunch the flow. But she didn't try to get up from where Tara was holding her.
The crimson stain held Spike's attention a moment longer than curiosity would justify; he looked up to see Buffy watching him with a troubled gaze. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Letting the others tend to Willow, they moved apart from the group.
He brought one hand to her waist to draw her closer, encouraged when she didn't pull away. "Vampire, love," he sighed, resigned to her censure. "Won't pretend to be something I'm not, or better than I am."
Buffy rested her head briefly on his shoulder, her face turned away. "I don't think you should. It's just . . . you make all of this . . ." an eloquent wave of her hand took in the two of them and their situation, "seem so reasonable, despite nightmares and enigmatic messages from flamey cat-things. Then seeing that . . . takes me by surprise. I suppose it shouldn't." She raised her eyes to him again and drank him in. "But you've changed so much else."
"It's all within the limits of what I am, love. You shouldn't have to pretend to be what you're not either. I saw your face when you were fighting; you were glorious. Your whole body and soul come alive when you fight. You belong in charge of us. Of me.
"Command." His fingers touched her lips, then spread over his heart. "Obey. If I could have the chip out tomorrow, love, I'd still be sworn off of the tasty people snacks now - because you wouldn't like it." He laughed darkly. "Sounds utterly pathetic, but it's how I'm made - in half a dozen ways that have nothing to do with being a vampire.
"Don't punish yourself by denying what you are. Even if you weren't a Slayer, life's too short to not to grab it by the balls and have some fun with it."
"Was that fun? You would think so." Was that a laugh from her, or just a soft, hiccoughing sigh? "Yeah. It's crazy to think this way, with all of our lives at risk, but . . . it was fun." Where do I draw the line? Where do depressingly-responsible-Buffy and enjoying-life-Buffy meet? I'll be years sorting that out. But for now . . .
She looked up at him with a sly smile. "And I suppose you think you're part of the fun I should be having?"
In response he turned them so his back was to the others and to bring her hand down to cup the bulge at the front of his jeans. Her experimental squeeze there was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath. Oh. I can make him breathe.
She leaned into him, lips parted, and he brought his mouth down to hers. His lips had barely grazed her own when Xander's shout interrupted them.
"Oh, bugger this," he said with feeling, releasing her instantly to return to the others.
The bodies of the two cat demons still lay where they had been slain, but the fires around them had been rekindled. Their windsong voices pierced the group with an icy sliver of fear.
"The master comes."