December 24 - Part E

Fighting against evil plant-life did not top Angel's list of fun things to do. Dusting other vamps or axing a Suvelte demon, those were good for the soul. But wrestling trees? Didn't even make the top twenty. The last one had cost him two outfits, the one borrowed by Groo, and the one he'd worn himself.

Angel was leaning strongly towards dipping into the armory of W & H's very own evil SWAT team and getting a nice little flame thrower to take care of Treebeard's evil twin. But he didn't like change much, and having to break in another secretary when this one went up in flames as part of the collateral damage? He'd rather deal with another ruined outfit.

It took him less than a second to come to this decision. With a giant leap, Angel hurled himself at the tree, targeting the serpentine vine that grasped Harmony's ankle. Beside him, Spike was doing the same thing, getting in the way, as usual. Dodging branches that were swatting at them with more nimbleness and speed than a tree had any right to possess, the two vampires unleashed a flurry of kicks and blows, hacking away at the possessed plant-life like two princes competing for a sleeping - or in this case - screaming beauty.

With Spike on his way to Harmony, Angel was free to concentrate on more important things: like giving their foe a good clobbering. With single-minded determination, Angel fought his way to the main trunk and started to pummel away, in the hopes of hitting a vital organ.

"Let go!" Spike yelled, meaning the handrail Harmony was clinging to. He grabbed the vice-like branch, ready to pry it off her leg.

"I can't," she yelled back. "Ethan…That sick bastard chained me up, right next to the psycho tree. If I see him again, I am so going to kill him."

Chained? That's when Spike spotted the handcuffs. Ordinarily, they shouldn't have been a problem. Meaning, these had to be enchanted.

"Key?" he shouted over the din of thwacking and splintering sounds. About three yards away, Angel grunted, doubling over in obvious pain, pummeled over the head by a thick branch. Spike paused to gloat, his happy grin immediately turning into a grimace of pain when suddenly a sharp piece of wood skewered his belly - not just drawing blood but running him through like a wooden foil. Another branch wrapped itself around his leg and then he was lifted off the ground like a pinned beetle, arms and legs flailing in the air.

"He put it on my desk." Harmony pointed one foot in the general direction of her workplace, to wrapped up in her own problems to be aware of Spike's predicament.

Fred had no intention of joining the hand-to-branch combat, but her instincts told her to help Harmony. Taking a safer, less thorny route, she'd arrived a few seconds later than Spike but still in time to catch his question about the key and Harmony's reply. "Key. Desk. Right, I'm on it," she shouted, and edged away, careful to stay out of branch's reach. The desk was on the other side of the lobby and it seemed the tree was still growing, leaving barely enough room to maneuver.

Meanwhile, the others hadn't just stood there gaping, they'd taken action. Wesley had emptied the clip of his gun into the writhing mass, aiming - for lack of inviting targets like big eyes or a soft underbelly - at the creature's maw and trunk, but without discernible effect. Gunn had paused a moment to watch the slugs hit bark and solid wood. Obviously, the grotesque tree was impervious to ordinary weapons fire.

"I have spell books in my office," Wes muttered, and rushed off.

"I'll be right back," Gunn said, practically at the same time, heading back into Angel's office, rudely shoving Eve out of the way. A moment later he held the ancient katana that adorned the wall behind Angel's chair in his hands, a weapon he'd long itched to touch. He reverently pulled the blade out of its lacquered sheath. Oh yes, this baby was wicked sharp. Not some dull fake showpiece but the real deal. Gunn turned on his heel and rushed back to the lobby to hurl himself into the melee.

In his office, Wesley scanned the bookshelves. The more potent spell books were locked up, practically out of reach, but what about a simpler spell from one of the lesser grimoires? He pulled out a thick volume, put the gun down on his desk and began to hurriedly turn the pages, reading while he slowly walked back into the lobby.

Lorne had made a half-hearted attempt to save the presents from destruction but when a forceful blow from a swishing tree-limb smacked the Santa hat off his head, missing his horns by less than an inch, he decided that caution was the better part of valor. He was now hiding behind Harmony's desk, clutching a penknife.

Eve made no move to get involved. Staying well out of harm's way and looking poised and elegant in all that turmoil, she watched silently as the two vampires battled away. When Spike was lifted off his feet and flung into the air like a toy, the only thing she lifted was a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

Spike shouted as he was first dragged almost into the ground, then tossed high into the air, off the branches with a sickening slurp to land on the upper level balcony. Perfectly placed to see a slightly rumpled looking Englishman, gleefully watching the mayhem below.

Spike picked himself up, slower than usual, because well, there was a hole in his belly. "Look who's here," he grinned wolfishly, covering a grimace of pain.

Ethan swallowed. "When will I ever learn?" he muttered, taking a tentative step backwards.

"You're a bloody disappointment, you are," Spike told the chaos mage, stepping forward.

"You have to understand," Ethan hastened to assure him. "It's nothing personal."

Beneath them the sound of fighting continued. Both men had to duck a sweeping branch. From the looks of it the pine needles had hardened into needle-sharp thorns.

"Undo it," Spike ordered.

Ethan took another step backwards, hands raised. "I can't."

"You called it, so send it back," Spike insisted, following up.

"It doesn't work that way," Ethan admitted resignedly.

He sounded truthful, but Spike hadn't forgotten how Ethan/Edgar had fooled everybody at Wolfram & Hart, projecting an image of reliability and harmlessness while pushing his mail cart around. In order to fool not one but two vampires the man had to have the lying down to a tee. On the other hand, if what Ethan said was true and he didn't have the power to stop his creation, well, there really was no reason to keep him alive, now was there? Unless one counted the unwritten rule that champions - and Spike still didn't feel comfortable with that label - never killed an unarmed man.

"I'm not going back," Ethan stated, an edge of panic creeping into his voice. He was still slowly edging backwards, and - since Spike regarded him with a puzzled frown - explained: "Prison. Not going back there."

Spike hesitated. From below, a shout of pain could be heard, then a curse. At least Harm was no longer screaming her lungs out - hopefully that meant Fred had managed to unlock the hand-cuffs. But other than that it didn't sound like the fight was going well. Spike sighed. He'd probably regret this but still…. "Get lost," he said, dismissing the old mage with a flick of his fingers. "But if I ever see you again…."

Spike didn't wait to see if the other man was running or not. He leapt over the balcony railing and back into the fray, his landing cushioned by the tree itself.

"What took you so long?" Angel asked, when Spike reappeared beside him.

"What? You can't do a measly tree all by yourself?" Spike snarked, humming a few bars of a merry tune that Angel couldn't quite place.

Angel was bleeding from a few minor cuts and lacerations, his expensive suit torn in about a dozen places, and he was breathing heavily from the exertion, but there was a wicked gleam in his eyes. He'd done considerable damage already, not so much to the trunk but to the tree's roots and limbs, causing splinters to fly in all directions. Unfortunately the creature seemed unimpressed. It was still growing, as if the entity from beyond was still funneling mass and energy into its tree-host.

Standing next to Harmony's desk, Wes was reciting a spell from his book, protected from attacks by Gunn and his katana, who was methodically chopping at wayward roots and branches.

Meanwhile, Fred and Harmony rummaged through the drawers of the desk, tossing out hairbrushes, lipsticks, bottles of nail polish, and other fashion articles.

"It has to be here somewhere," Harmony assured her nervously, then squealed. "There! I told you, didn't I?"

Fred grabbed the can of hairspray. "Does anybody have a light?" She yelled.

It was Lorne who handed her a silver lighter.

Can in one hand, the lighted zippo in the other, her index finger poised on the can's nuzzle, Fred approached the evil pine. For a moment the creature seemed to pause, to regard her curiously, but then half a dozen branches rushed towards her, eager to bash and tear her to pieces.

"Take this, you ugly thing, this is for trying to ruin my Christmas," Fred exclaimed, aiming her can at the nearest branch and pushing the button. With a 'fump' - resembling the homely sound of a gas ring being lit - the hair-spray ignited and a small plume of flame licked at the hostile tree. The thorn-like needles burnt up like matches, in noisy little explosions, reminiscent of Chinese fire crackers, singing the branches they protruded from, even leaving a few small fires behind. The little hot spots winked out rapidly, extinguished by the fire-suppressant spell that had been cast on the tree to protect it from its hundreds of enchanted candles.

Even so, the effect was gratifying. With a loud groan the evil tree recoiled. In fact, even the gnarled roots that had been crawling towards the humans shuddered, and then started to slowly move backwards, away from the fire. The tree was afraid.

Encouraged, Fred stepped closer, producing a few more fiery bursts from her improvised flame thrower, causing more fires to spring up. The tree monster trembled and shuddered, than shrank some more, looking almost like an injured animal about to slink back to its lair to lick its wounds.

Beside her, Wesley was still reading from his spell-book, his voice raised, ensuring with his incantation, that the dark entity had only one possible avenue of escape: back to the plane it had come from.

A few more bursts of fire and suddenly Angel and Spike were without opponents, as the branches before them first sagged limply to the ground, then stopped moving altogether. The dark entity was gone, leaving in its wake a lot of splintered wood, a completely ravaged Christmas tree and a big pile of squashed presents.

For a moment there was silence. The only sound was the strained creaking of the gutted tree.

Then: *Clap! Clap! Clap!* Eve stepped forward. "Congratulations," she told Angel. "I always knew you'd be good at pruning."

Spike grinned and clapped Angel on the shoulder, breaking into the song he'd been humming earlier. "He's a lumberjack, and he's okay...."

That's when the sprinklers activated.


TBC