Act IV
"Dead."
Such an ugly word. Final. Clinical, sterile, like a freshly mopped lab. Or a morgue.
Dawn shook her head in disbelief. Odd, this refusal to accept the facts, an instinctive reaction when one could not handle the brunt of all of them at once.
"How...how did it happen?" Xander whispered hoarsely.
"The Trio," Buffy said. "Willow and Tara got too close to the house they were hiding in, and...they must have let something loose, a demon. Tara -"
"Willow," Xander interrupted. "Where is she? She's not hurt or -"
"Willow," Buffy said distantly. "She...she's not hurt."
"Thank God," Xander breathed. Then he saw the look of sadness on Buffy's face. "And the bad of that is..."
"Xander...she was there when it happened. She just...she was holding Tara when she died. I think s-something snapped. Willow went crazy -"
"Oh, no," Dawn said, the implications of what Buffy was saying hitting her first. "Magic."
"Magic," Xander repeated, confused, and then again, horrified. "Magic. Oh, man."
The color drained from Buffy's face. She started to shiver. "She slaughtered them. Threw Andrew into the basement wall. Through it... And Warren...Spike said...Spike could smell blood, on the road. Like Warren j-just...melted into the asphalt, or something."
"Where is she now?"
"Spike knocked her out, just as she was about to...finish Jonathan off," Buffy replied. "I think he was going to try to lock her in his crypt, or something. Until we figure out a way to calm her down."
Xander shook his head. "His crypt. If she...if she's really lost it, that won't hold her for long."
"I know," Buffy said. "I'm hoping it won't have to."
Spike shagged a cig out of his pocket, brought to his lips, and lit it, breathing in deeply. Bad habit - he'd picked it up back when it had been the "in" thing for the American blokes, post-war, before the days of surgeon general warnings and kids making commercials with people crawling through New York with bloody rat costumes on. Not that it mattered. His lungs could be charcoal for all he cared. Wouldn't change the fact that he didn't need oxygen to live.
The redhead hadn't come around yet. It had been an hour since he had cold-cocked her, and she hadn't made a move or a noise since. Fine bloody thing if he had knocked her into a coma, even if she had gone crackers.
"Spike -"
Sudden, the sound of her voice, so sudden that he was startled into dropping the cigarette. Cursing under his breath, he stooped over, picked up the fag, brushed it off perfunctorily, and jammed it back between his lips.
"That you, Red? Thought maybe I'd knocked somethin' important loose."
Sounds of a struggle with the locked door. "Let me out, Spike." Commanding. Dark. Not like the Willow he remembered at all. He supposed the death of loved ones did that to a person.
"Sorry, pet. Doctor's orders. No murder for at least a week."
IT'S NOT MURDER! A furious and terrified shriek that echoed only in his mind like gunshot in his ear. He grunted in pain, stumbled away from the crypt, cig dropped again and this time forgotten.
"Where'd you...l-learn that neat little trick, p-pet?"
Trade secrets. she crooned, more softly, almost sensual, and still in his mind. Let me out, Spike.
He massaged his temples to keep the ache at a distance. "Can't. It's for your own good."
He could almost see her smiling at that. And since when is William the Bloody concerned about what's in anybody's best interests but his own?
"I couldn't care less," Spike replied, a tad indignant. "But Buffy'd stake me if I let you out now."
I could get out of here on my own. You saw what I did to the Trio.
"Yeah, I saw. Nice bit o' work, that. But somehow, I think if you really could get out of there by yourself, you'd have done it by now."
He sensed...frustration? A definite sharpening of her anger, at any rate. So she wasn't all-powerful, after all. Where the hell were Buffy and the rest of this lot?
You're like an open book, Spike. Humans are complicated, chaotic, thoughts flashing here and there without any rhyme or reason. But demons...remarkably one-track. It's very refreshing.
He didn't know how to answer that, so he started to light another cig.
"Open this door, Spike," she said out loud. Again with the commands. Getting damn tiresome.
"Listen, luv, third time's not the -"
OPEN THIS DOOR!
Spike screamed at the blinding agony that filled his head, worse, much worse than anything the chip had ever done to him. He fell to his knees, helplessly gyrating and convulsing, even as the echoes of her banshee shriek fell through all the deepest depths of his mind.
"Open the door," she said, this time mercifully using her real voice. The pain subsided, slowly, in waves, from the first brilliant flash to a dull buzz, like a hive of bees stirred into slow anger. "Open it, or the next time will shatter you like a mirror."
Buffy walked to the cemetery, slowly, Xander and Dawn a few steps behind. Dawn had insisted on coming with them, and Buffy hadn't stopped to argue. In truth, Buffy wanted Dawn as far from the danger as she could get, as always, but she didn't have the strength to fight with her. Dawn had promised to stay out of the way if...if things...
Buffy grimaced, blinking back tears, forcing herself to look ahead of them instead of down at the ground. Hard to think that it was Willow they were going to see. Were going to try to calm down. Were going to fight, if necessary.
"Hey -"
Some commotion, ahead. Buffy looked up - they were nearing Spike's section of the cemetery. She didn't want to have to fight off any minion vamps, the kind that always seemed to be around when there was trouble, but if duty called...
As soon as it started the noise stopped.
"What the hell was that?" Xander said.
"Don't know," she replied worriedly, starting to run forward. "Sounded like...somebody screaming."
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