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Chapter 10 - Things that Go Bump in the Night
Spencer and Jeanette Borkett went down to the cell where Emily was being held.
"Are you sure she is secure?" Spencer wondered.
"Yes, as soon as I suspected the situation, I had her bonds, both here, and in the lab, magically enhanced."
The master nodded his approval, and they continued to the holding cell.
Since the tests started, Emily had been allowed no freedom at all. When she was returned to her cell, she was still secured to the table on which she had been tested. The trolley was chained inside the cell, and she was left with no consideration as to her comfort.
She had still not been permitted to feed, and the hunger was severe. She would no more consider killing a human to assuage her hunger than she would consider flying to the moon, but, she knew she needed blood. At that moment, a passing rat would have looked like a cordon bleu meal.
Spencer was initially surprised at the young woman strapped to the table. She seemed so small, so vulnerable. Of course, the injuries she had endured still marked her body, and they certainly belied her strength. Together, they wheeled the trolley to one of the labs - this time a different one from that used before. This lab had a hidden door to the private lift, and was therefore more appropriate for the task at hand.
"What do you intend to use?" Spencer's tone was casual. He was surprised that Emily had not spoken, and he was looking forward to her fear when she realised her end was fast approaching.
Emily's eyes flickered to Jeanette as she waited for her answer. She didn't know what was going to happen, but assumed it would be more of the same. She felt her stomach clench unpleasantly at the prospect of further pain, but she had tried to loosen her bonds for hours at a stretch, and they remained in pristine condition.
"I thought I'd keep it simple, and use a stake." As she spoke, Borkett walked to a cupboard in the lab and brought out a suitable weapon.
"Very well," Spencer approved.
Emily was frozen in panic. Throughout her ordeal, the one thing that had kept her going was the belief that, despite the odds, she would get out of this. She would see Alasdair again. She would hold him, make love to him, and spend the rest of his life with him. Tears formed in her eyes as she imagined how he would take the news of her demise.
Jeanette lifted the stake and placed it carefully over Emily's heart. She glanced at Spencer, and he nodded encouragingly at her, agreeing that the stake was well placed.
The stake was very sharp. With even the minimal pressure currently being used, it had pierced what was left of Emily's skin, and she could feel it slowly moving lower.
"Is it a standard stake?" Spencer wanted to know.
"It was fashioned from oak, and sharpened for optimal performance. It has been magically strengthened so that the fine point will not break. We don't all have Slayer strength, you see."
"I see. Well, go on." Spencer seemed impatient.
Borkett increased the pressure on the stake, driving it slowly into Emily's chest. She gasped at this new source of pain, almost grateful that it would not last long. The stake travelled further, and Borkett stood back, determined not to be covered in dust when the inevitable happened.
It was then that she noticed the difference. Blood was welling around this most recent injury. She had, in the course of her duties, staked a number of vampires, but none had ever bled like that before. She glanced at Spencer, panic rising within her. He looked irritated.
"Well," he commented, "there are two possibilities. The first is that she is an anatomical oddity, with her heart on the right rather than the left side of her chest. The other, is that we are already too late."
Nodding at the master, Jeanette pulled the stake out of Emily. The vampire let out a moan of pain, the agony of the stake being removed actually worse than the initial staking.
Jeanette repositioned the stake on the other side of Emily's chest and repeated her action. Again, blood welled from the wound, and the vampire stubbornly refused to turn to dust.
"Very well, we shall just remove the protection spell," Jeanette decided. She pulled a piece of parchment from her pocket. Several such pieces were created during the protection spell, and the destruction of any one of them ended the spell.
"You may wish to stand back, Sir," she warned, stepping away from the trolley. When they were both at a safe distance, she ripped the parchment in two, and watched where Emily lay, pain, terror and confusion marring her features. There were no flames.
Jeanette was starting to wonder what was happening, but Spencer spoke. "I think we may be too late. Let's try to decapitate her. If that doesn't work, we must rely on a method which I would have preferred not to use.
Borkett prepared for the next stage. The standard laboratory method for beheading vampires was a mechanical contraption something like a circular saw. It had been developed specifically for this purpose.
Emily saw everything through a veil of pain. She didn't understand why she wasn't dust. She knew she should be. The saw being lined up with her neck was terrifying, and she was starting to wish that one of the earlier methods had actually been successful. At least they would have had the benefit of being quick.
The noise as the saw started to spin was horrific. She remembered visits to the dentist as a small child. Although she had never had any remedial treatment, she remembered hearing the sound of the dentist's drill as she waited her turn, and had imagined any number of horrific pictures to go with that sound. None of her images matched the one she was now facing.
When the sound reached its peak, Borkett pulled a switch, and the saw started to move along its run, towards Emily's neck. She tried to pull away, but she had been secured too well, and managed only to postpone her end by a few seconds.
Just as the saw reached her skin, the noise increased exponentially. She shuddered , expecting a new source of pain, but nothing happened. There was movement around her, and the sound was cut off, fading into silence.
Jeanette was examining the saw with concern. "It's ruined," she said. "The blade's been completely trashed, and by the sound of it, the motor's gone too. I could get another one, but …"
"You suspect it would meet the same end," Spencer finished. "I was concerned about this. There is one other thing I can try, but I have to do it alone. I can vouch for its efficacy, but I'm afraid I cannot allow you to see what happens."
"But .."
"I'm sorry, Jeanette, but that's my final word. The records will show that the creature succumbed to the original staking at your hands. There will be no suggestion that you have failed in any way."
Jeanette's shoulder's slumped, as she realised there was nothing she could do.
"Return to your office, and report accordingly."
When he was alone, Spencer activated the door to the private lift, and pushed the trolley inside. When the door was closed, he regarded the slight girl with interest.
"You have caused us some problems, Miss Stevenson, you realise that, don't you? But, difficult as you have made it, your end is near."
Emily felt tears start to flow as the lift plummeted lower and lower. The tears weren't for her, but for Alasdair.
"They won't let you get away with this," she warned him through her tears.
"Ah, but my dear, I already have. Your friends are powerless against the Council, as you will soon experience at first hand. We have allies you could not even imagine."
At the appointed hour, Buffy, Spike and Alasdair were welcomed into a shop in Mayfair. It purported to be a health-food shop, but it also provided some rather unusual herbs and other materials needed by the local wiccan community. Its owner unlocked the door at precisely nine o'clock, and locked it again behind her visitors.
She was a mousy-haired witch in her forties, with a pleasant, friendly face, and dark grey eyes. She had an air of furtiveness about her, as she pulled each of the others into a circle she had drawn on the floor. Once inside, she started to explain what she was going to do.
"The first step, will be to do the sleep spell. You will remain immune to its influence even while in the building, because you are within my circle. Once that is complete, the circle will contain the protection spells I will use.
Their host had made no attempt to introduce herself, but was efficiency itself. Once everything was ready, she stood within the circle, and seemed to concentrate deeply on something. After a few moments, her appearance altered slightly. You couldn't say she was actually glowing, but there was certainly a luminance about her that didn't seem entirely natural. Then she started to speak, and Alasdair recognised the language as Irish Gaelic, although he couldn't make out the individual words.
The first spell took about two minutes to complete, and when that was done, the witch seemed to relax slightly, even smiling to some unknown stimulus. Having rested for a short while, she began again, reciting words none of the others could understand. This time, the luminance from the witch seemed to flow into the circle inscribed on the floor. From there, it snaked up to the other three occupants, surrounding each in turn, then seeming to sink into their bodies.
The light faded gradually, and the witch seemed to slump visibly. Alasdair started towards her, thinking to support her, but she waved him away.
"I am well, thank you. You may leave the circle now. Grianne sends you her love, and hopes you are successful."
Each of them stopped to shake the witch by the hand before she pushed them from her shop, her apparently irritable manner hiding her concern for them. "Get her out of there, and keep her safe. She is important to more than you. May the goddess protect you."
With those words, she locked the door behind them, and the three would-be rescuers made for the Council building, the two vampires flanking the single human.
This time, Spike entered through the front door. It seemed the simplest way to gauge the remaining security while still leaving themselves a simple way out. After all, they could always pretend to be tourists who wandered into the building by mistake, as long as none of them was recognised.
They needn't have worried. Inside, the one security guard manning the reception desk slept peacefully in his chair. He had a colleague at another desk next to the stairwell and main lifts, and he was also asleep. The three made for the stairs, Spike in the lead, and headed down to the basement.
When they reached the office Spike had seen Michael Barrat go into, Spike tried the door. It was locked. He grinned in delight and said, "No need to keep quiet tonight," as he kicked it in.
Inside was a plush but standard office. There was a desk, and on that a computer. An unknown woman slumped on the chair in front of the keyboard. While Spike and Buffy looked around, trying to find some sort of exit, Alasdair looked at the computer. It was switched on, and there was a floppy disc in the drive.
He hit the keyboard once, and the machine came out of stand-by. A password was required to log on again, and after a few half hearted attempts to guess at what sort of password Michael might use, Alasdair gave up and pocketed the floppy. He turned to see how the two vampires were doing. Spike had been painstakingly tapping on the walls, trying to find some sort of different acoustic which would imply a hidden doorway. Buffy was watching him, a wry smile on her face as she followed his progress around the room.
"You might want to help instead of doing a cheshire cat impersonation," he snarked, catching sight of her face.
"Just enjoying the view," she answered him, "and you seem to be doing so well."
Alasdair was momentarily annoyed at them for their light-hearted attitude. Had he been quicker tempered, he might have said something before he realised that the flippancy was simply the way these two had of dealing with pressure. They really did care about finding Emily, almost as much as he did.
With a grunt of pleasure, Spike found what he was looking for. The wall was apparently a partition between the office and next door, but it sounded much more substantial than the rest of the partitions. Rather than looking for some sort of subtle opening device, Spike started kick the wall, and Buffy joined in a moment later.
In no time, the plasterboard had been removed to reveal a doorway. Another kick from a boot-clad foot, and the door gave way, revealing a flight of stairs leading down.
"Right, folks," Spike told the others. "It's decision time. We can all go down, or someone can stay here to watch our escape route. What do you think?"
"I'm going," Alasdair replied.
"Me too," said Buffy. "She might need another woman there," she started to explain.
"And I'm not letting you out of my sight," Spike added. "Guess that answers the question."
With that, Spike started down the stairs with the others close behind.
The stairs led down to a corridor. This area was noticeably newer than the rest of the building. The corridor had an antiseptic feel to it, and when they came to a door, the room beyond looked like a cross between a lab and an operating theatre. It was empty.
Further along the corridor, they found another three such rooms, each of them deserted. The fourth they found was also devoid of people, but there were definite signs of recent occupation. There were a number of implements lying around, among them a bloody stake, and a contraption that looked like a circular saw.
Spike picked up the stake, running his finger along it. He sniffed his finger cautiously, then took a taste. "It's hers, I'd swear to it," he informed the others. Alasdair paled when he heard those words. "Do you think they've .."
"Staked her?" Spike finished. "Don't know. There's not too much dust around here, and you don't get blood when you stake a vampire."
They left that room and searched the rest of the corridor, finding a large room divided into a number of cells. All but one of the cells were empty. As soon as he saw a single trolley in one cell, Alasdair ran to it, thinking he had found Emily. Spike's keen sense of smell convinced him that Alasdair was wrong, but he obligingly tried to force open the door. His best efforts made no impression, so Buffy lent her strength to the effort, and they managed to pull it off by the hinges.
The sight that greeted them caused a stunned silence, and left Alasdair lurching to the corner to bring up the remains of his evening meal.
The vampire was mercifully unconscious. His entire body was covered in burns and lacerations of various sizes and shapes. Even in his unconscious state, his face was pulled into a mask of suffering. The two vampires exchanged a look. With a nod, Spike agreed to Buffy's silent question. She took a stake out of her waistband, and thrust it into the vampire's chest, turning him to dust.
They checked the rest of the corridor, but found nothing. With no further clues, they returned to the lab that had shown signs of use.
"We know she was here," Buffy reasoned. "So, she either left the way we came in, or there's another exit."
Alasdair nodded, asking, "But where?"
With a shrug, Spike started kicking the walls again adding, "Don't know, but I plan on having some fun finding out."
They found the door. It was made of metal, and obviously operated electrically. Spike tried to prise it open, but couldn't budge it. Even when Buffy helped, it wouldn't move. They found a metal bar and tried to use it as a lever, but all that happened was that the bar bent.
Checking around the room for something heavy enough to do some damage to the doors, Spike could find nothing likely to be more useful than his own booted foot. He started kicking, giving it everything he had, but the door just seemed to absorb everything he gave it. It didn't dent, it didn't scratch, it didn't even lose the mirror shine it had.
While this was going on, Alasdair ventured upstairs again. What he saw sent him scurrying back downstairs again.
"She's coming to," he told the others.
"What?" Spike asked over the noise of his attempts to weaken the door.
"The woman at the desk. She's coming too. Looks like the sleep spell's wearing off."
The mouthful of expletives that Spike shouted at that information was almost enough to make Buffy blush, but they all knew they had no choice. They had to get out.
Alasdair was despondent during the journey back to Swiss Cottage. He was quiet, even for him, and the waves of fear coming from him were impossible for the two vampires to ignore. Spike drove Alasdair's car, with Buffy in the back, keeping an eye on the human. The last thing they needed was for him to do something silly.
When they got back, the phone was ringing. Buffy ran to pick up, and was greeted with Andrea's voice. "Well?" she asked expectantly.
"She wasn't there," Buffy answered, keeping her voice down.
"She wasn't? But, Grianne was so sure. I mean,…"
"She was there, recently. We found some blood, but …"
Buffy found she was struggling not to give way to the sobs which were welling up in her. She had been so sure that they would rescue Emily tonight, and that tomorrow, they would find a way to do the same for Giles.
Jenny came into the room as Buffy hung up.
"I was feeding Stephen," she explained, looking at the others with a question on her face.
Buffy just shook her head, feeling unable to speak. Alasdair hadn't come into the lounge at all. When Buffy noticed, she flashed a questioning look at Spike who answered, "He went to his room," and came and put his arms around Buffy.
They stood there for a couple of minutes, just taking comfort in the other's presence, then Jenny asked, "What happened?"
Speaking quietly, to be sure Alasdair didn't hear, Spike told her. Jenny threw herself down on the nearest chair. Her face crumpled with anguish, both for Alasdair and Emily, but also for her own situation. She had been so sure that it was Emily's turn to be freed tonight, and that Giles would follow soon afterwards. They had fallen at the first fence, and she was no longer sure there was any point in getting up again. She gave way to the tears she hadn't shed earlier in the day. The children were asleep, and she didn't have to be strong for them any more. She wept for all of them.
Silently, Buffy disengaged herself from Spike and went to sit beside the other woman, gently cradling her in her arms as she cried herself out.