Things Change
Chapter Fourteen
The door caved under her foot and fell with a loud crash. Her sword whirled and sliced the head from a demon that had stood by the door as a guard. She clasped the sword between her hands and Dawn stood by her side, her stance mimicking her sister's. Willow flanked Buffy's other side, a ball of glowing magic suspended above her palm. Buffy spared her only one glance, searching her eyes for the darkness that Buffy remembered from years ago. There was none, where black was, there was white and Buffy felt a rush of relief that her friend was running on good magick, not the bad she had fought for so long.
She heard the familiar laughter over the sound of the elevator doors opening and her blood chilled when Glory emerged. She turned, smiling widely at Buffy and lifted her arm higher, displaying Spike, her hand twisted in his hair.
"Hi, sugar," Glory smiled.
"Dad!" Chrissy screamed, lunging forward.
"Christina!" Giles shouted, grabbing the hood of her jacket and pulling her back.
Buffy glanced back, met Giles's eyes and checked that his hand was fisted tightly in Christina's jacket before she stepped forward, further into the lobby, her body language deliberately nonchalant.
"Glory, how you been?" her eyes flicked to Spike, then back to Glory.
"Good," Glory nodded. "Didn't you die?"
"Yeah. But I'm back now. You too, I see."
"Oh, yeah," Glory grinned. "Alive and kicking. Wanna see?"
"Love to," Buffy answered, squaring her shoulders.
Glory threw Spike to one side, his body hitting the wall with a thud, leaving numerous bloodstains. Glory ran forward, delivering a kick to Buffy's stomach. Buffy stumbled back, into the crowd of her friends. Her hands found Todd's, her sword was pressed into his hand, and the troll hammer filled hers. He gave a grateful smile and his strong muscles relaxed with the much lighter weapon in his hands.
"Hey, Glory," Buffy said, straightening up and walking back towards Glory. "Remember this?"
Glory's eyes bulged when she recognised the hammer, remembering how every blow sent massive quakes of pain through her body.
Grinning at the Goddess's discomfort, Buffy lunged, the hammer raining repeated blows on her head and upper body. With Glory under control, the rest of the group charged, racing toward the small army of demons that descended the stairs, alerted by the screams.
Anya and Josh scooped Spike up, Anya holding his shoulders and cradling his injured head to her chest while Josh held his feet.
The plan was to get him out, into Josh's car and back to Buffy's, where they should start patching him up. They skirted the outside of the fight, pausing shortly to allow Josh to glance at where Dawn stood, slashing furiously at three demons. Anya cast her eyes around and they rested upon Xander who was giving as good as he got in a one on one fight.
Willow stood in the centre of the fight, casting small balls of energy from the larger ball at the demons, knocking them out. Chrissy and Todd threw themselves furiously into the fight, seemingly after revenge for their father's treatment. Giles was looking particularly Ripper-ish as he stood by Dawn's side and attacked with ferocity.
Shaking herself out of her intense gaze, Anya cradled Spike's head gently and hissed at Josh to get moving. Josh pulled the blanket sharply from over his shoulder and tossed it over Spike's body, Anya tucked it securely over his head and arms. They carried him quickly out into the fading sunshine.
Spike groaned and his head lolled slightly, his eyelids straining against the swollen bruises and line of blood. His eyes were bloodshot, causing the blue to shine brighter against the red and the black bruises. Anya gasped and ran her hand gently over his hair, pulling it back off his forehead.
"Hey, ssshhh," she whispered, glancing up at Josh, who was staring in shock at Spike's injuries.
"Jack," he croaked through cracked lips.
"Oh no," Anya murmured as Josh helped her manoeuvre Spike into the back seat of his car. Anya got in after him and cushioned his head in her lap, pulling the black blanket from his face. "He thinks I'm a guy called Jack," she paused and looked incredulously at Josh. "He thinks I'm a guy!"
"Anya," Josh said, his voice a gentle warning to be quiet. "Spike? Who's Jack?"
"Jackal," Spike groaned. "Edward is… Jackal."
Anya shook her head vehemently and Josh tilted his head to the side in question.
"He wants the kids…. Chrissy and Todd… Stop him…. Buffy…"
"No," Anya said firmly. "Ed's in England, remember? And he's not the Jackal! He can't be the Jackal!"
"Anya," Josh said urgently. "Who's the Jackal?"
She fixed wide eyes on Josh, her voice low and terrified.
"It can't be him. The Jackal… He's an immortal human. He's pure evil. A murdering, evil human with the blackest soul ever possessed. That can't be Ed."
"Dawn," Josh muttered, and ran back into the apartment block, leaving Anya screaming his name.
Buffy was seriously enjoying beating Glory to a bloody pulp.
The way she just seemed to cave in was the best fun Buffy had had in a long time. And the way she stopped talking after Buffy had whacked her in the mouth with the troll hammer, now that was fantastic.
She looked up only once to see Anya and Josh carrying Spike's blanket clad body outside. She had seen the demons falling quickly beneath the swords and axes of her friends and she smiled when she saw the fiery concentration on her childrens' faces.
Glory was a lot weaker than when Buffy had last fought her. And she's a hell of a lot weaker now, Buffy thought as she looked at the God's battered body.
Suddenly a heavy body hit her in the side, hands gripping her waist and propelling her into the far wall. Buffy moaned under the weight of the body and swung the hammer, dimly aware of metal connecting with shoulders and a back. Her back ached and she opened her eyes to stare blearily at her attacker.
But before she focused on that face, she saw Glory, in an all too familiar red dress, stagger to her feet, swaying, but with a grin on her face. Rage consumed Buffy and she thrust her hand out, slamming into the solid body that covered her. Shocked when her Slayer strength did not shift the person, she looked into the face.
Her stomach lurched when she recognised the face. The hair and eyes were darker, less messy and there was a cold edge that was so not -
"Ed?" she gasped. "But you're in England."
He grinned at her. "Is that what your boyfriend told you?"
Her eyes widened in horror and she went to lift the hammer, but he yanked it from her hand. He stood and glared at her, lifting the hammer ready to swing.
"Let's see how you like it, eh?" he asked.
She moved, her foot lashing out to kick his knee. But he dodged and pressed his heavy boot against her stomach, pinning her in place.
"Dawn! Buffy! Ed's the Jackal! Get out!"
Dimly she heard her soon-to-be brother-in-law's voice, but the words meant nothing.
Josh ran toward Dawn and repeated Anya's statement. Giles frowned, and then he pressed his hand to his mouth when the words "The Jackal" hit home with terrifying familiarity. He recalled the horror stories of a man ruined over a century ago by a prophecy about a God. A man who went on to commit the most heinous crimes imaginable, crimes Angelus would probably not have thought up, but were conjured in minutes by the Jackal's twisted imagination.
"Buffy," Willow said, and cast her now normal eyes around, searching for Buffy.
They all stood, frozen solid, Chrissy's hand grabbing Todd's in her abject fear. Then Willow let out a strangled cry when she saw Buffy's foot protruding from around one of the walls. She, Chrissy, Todd and Dawn ran forward and watched in horror as Ed brought the hammer down towards Buffy, while Glory watched, laughing.
"Dia, armena!" Willow yelled, throwing her arms out, the bright energy emitting from her hands streaming in two directions, hitting Edward, then Glory. Her eyes were black this time, her magic powered by pure anger. "I've improved since last time," she hissed at Glory's prone form.
"Mom!" Todd yelled, crouching down to scoop his mother up. She pushed him back, just supporting herself on his shoulder, then on Chrissy's when she moved forward.
They helped her into the lobby, while Willow continued to blast Glory and Edward with the energy.
Giles pushed Dawn and Josh toward the door after her sister and niece and nephew. Then he looked over at Xander who was standing beside Willow, staring at her, ignoring the limp bodies before her. His hand grabbed her shoulder and gave a hard yank. The streams of energy stopped immediately, the black faded from her eyes and she stared at Glory and Ed for a while before collapsing against him and sobbing. He wrapped an arm around her and stoked her hair as he moved her to the door.
"Ssshh, Will, it's ok. You did what you had to do. You're ok, you're all right."
Giles followed them, throwing a glare at the lifeless bodies of their enemies before clicking the door shut behind him.
When the silence had fallen, Edward's eyes snapped open and he stood up shakily and shook his head.
"Nice try, Witch," he muttered, going to crouch by the body of his mistress. He scooped her up and picked his way over the dead bodies of his demon army. "But we're not as dead as you think."
Buffy fell to her knees beside the couch that his battered body laid upon and in a flash she was back to a time when he had only just admitted that he loved her. A time when the same bitch had tortured him for information about her sister. Ignoring her tears, she dipped the cloth into the basin of water on the coffee table and soaked away the dried blood from his forehead.
"Oh, Spike," she murmured. "Why do you always get yourself into these situations? Always getting yourself beat up. Always for me. The kids too. I know that."
She picked the needle and thread up from the coffee table and proceeded to sew up the gaping chest wounds. Her stitches were small, neat and precise. They were something she could concentrate on, apart from his pain and what he went through. She looked up once, saw his eyes flicker open, one side of his mouth quirk in a grateful smile before he tumbled back into a pain-induced sleep.
She leaned forward and planted a tender kiss on his forehead, causing him to let out a gentle, content sigh.
"I love you," she whispered.
"D'Hoffryn, what do you want?" Anya asked, hugging herself around the middle and sneering slightly at D'Hoffryn's lower level, wondering when she'd be allowed to go back to Buffy's.
"I want to talk, Anyanka," she opened her mouth to correct him, but then thought better of it.
"About what?" she asked warily, backing away slowly.
"About your work," his pleasant tone dropped and he glared at her, she cowered slightly. "It's below standard. In fact, it has been for the past sixteen years and I'm not willing to put up with it any longer. I thought you might pick up as you eased back into the role, but that's not been the case. That's not to say you don't deal vengeance, but you're hardly your old imaginative self and the only time you deal out, at best, average work, is in other countries. You live in New York, Anyanka, a place teeming with scorned women. And you're only seconds away from the Hellmouth."
"What about that time I had that man cast into a pit of snakes?" she protested.
"They were jelly snakes past their sell-by-date, Anyanka. Haven't you noticed that you aren't even part of the fold anymore? Even Halfrek has deserted you. If you were doing a good job, you would not be residing with a human. And now I hear you have passed on information about the Jackal to aid the humans! Now, you have a choice, Anyanka."
"What is it?"
"You can choose to carry on with your work as a vengeance demon. By that I mean that you leave your little home in New York and go back to the Anyanka I knew and loved, before that messy Sunnydale business…"
"Or?"
"Or you can give it up and go back to being a human. Now, do you choose the death and chaos the humans deserve, or the life and early death as one of the cattle?"
"I can't," she muttered, head bowed.
"Can't what, Anyanka?"
"Can't be how I used to," she lifted her head. "I know too much about human lives and feelings. I want to keep my friends, I care about them."
"In other words, you still love the boy."
"No! I didn't say that!"
"No matter," D'Hoffryn reached for the necklace around her neck and ripped it from her.
She grabbed for it, suddenly desperate not to lose her immortality, desperate not to go back to that life where she could die at any minute. She didn't want to be as vulnerable as she had been on her wedding day.
But it was too late, because he had smashed it into the wall in a flash of green light.
"Where are they?" Buffy asked, her body shaking as she stared at Giles and Dawn.
"We don't know, Buffy," Dawn whispered. "Everyone went home and the rest of us went to bed. When we woke up, I went to see them and their window was open. And Anya's missing too."
"They probably just went to patrol and then went for ice cream. And you know Anya, she's probably gone shopping," Giles suggested, but Buffy pushed past him and ran up the stairs.
She slipped quietly into their room, not wanting to disturb anything because Dawn and Giles must have been wrong. Her children couldn't be missing. It just wasn't happening.
But the beds were unmade, obviously slept in, but now empty. The window was wide open, the curtains flapping in the breeze. Buffy pressed her hand to her mouth, bile threatening to surge up her throat in a way that it hadn't since her mother's death. Her knees turned to jelly and she dropped onto Todd's bed, her head in her hands. She heard the door open and lifted her head. As she did so, a sharp white edge caught her eye and she grabbed at it, pulling a picture from under her son's pillow.
It was this that made her run to the bathroom and Dawn grabbed it and stared at it, before handing it silently to Giles.
It was a polaroid of Chrissy and Todd tied and gagged on one of the beds in their room.
It had been signed: Your trusted Ed.