A/N : This chapter continues my re-write of Hellbound, the next chapter will finish it, and then there will be just one or two more chapters after that to the end. I have no reason to drag this out through the whole of Season 5 or anything, I just want it to be a little fic, still I hope you won't be disappointed. Big thanx to the reviewers, as always; Moonjava, EMBER91, Mony19, Moluvsnumber17, bella-lover, Demonica Mills, Brunettepet, Celestia Nailo, goldenshadows, sheilamarie. You guys are the best!
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 6
"Wes?" Fred called several feet before she reached his office.
"Fred, is everything alright?" he checked. He had planned on going straight to bed when he left the lab and had thought she would do the same, but work had distracted him and apparently her too.
"Not alright yet, but could be soon" she said, scribbling on a piece of paper before thrusting it toward him, "How fast can I get these?" she asked.
"The Magdalene Grimoire, Necronomicon des Mortes, Hochstadter's Treatise on Fractal Geometry in 12-dimensional Space...Fred, why do you need all these?" he wanted to know.
"I think I figured it out" she grinned, proud of her achievement, "I think I know a way to re-corporealise Spike and Buffy"
Spike didn't feel comfortable and he wasn't certain exactly why. The ghosts that had been haunting only him seemed to be gone and he hadn't faded out for hours, which was an improvement. He fancied that was what made him so nervous, the fact it was all going too well. Life, unlife, existence in general was never that kind. The moment it all seemed to be perfect something was guaranteed to go horribly wrong.
Buffy spotted the frown that had re-appeared on his features.
"You're doing it again" she said as they walked down the corridor towards Angel's office. He really was the last person Buffy wanted to see right now but they needed something to do and hearing about the gang's latest adventure was better than nothing when one was a ghost.
"Doing what, Slayer?" Spike asked her and she gave him a look.
"Frowning" she told him, "Like something's bothering you...Spike, you have to tell me what it is" she said firmly, stopping walking and turning to face him.
"Nothing more than you already know" he lied, "Bein' a damn ghost, unable to affect change and all that rot. Doin' my bleedin' head in"
"There's something else" Buffy shook her head, just knowing it, maybe sensing it.
"I don't know what you...mean" Spike's sentence was disjointed as he looked past her and saw not one but two or three of the horrifying figures that had been following him around for the past week, "No...No, I don't!" he yelled back away from them and consequently Buffy. She followed his eyeline and found he was staring at nothing. When she turned back he was striding down the corridor, stopping here and there to yell at people she couldn't see at all.
"Spike!" she called, hurrying after him. She frowned when he turned and walked through the door of Angel's office, but she followed anyway, "Spike, what the hell is going on!"
The maniacal laughter that escaped his throat made her shudder involuntarily. He was really starting to scare her, even more than crazy-in-the-basement Spike had.
"That's right ain't it" he laughed, "Hell is going on, right here and now"
"What is wrong with him?" Angel wanted to know but Buffy shook her head not knowing yet herself.
"Spike, talk to me, tell me what's happening?" she said, moving forward and putting her hand to his arm.
"Buffy?" he said, squinting his eyes like he was trying to see her through some kind of fog, "Why are they doing this to me?" he asked and she looked around for the people or things he referred to - but they weren't there.
"Who are they Spike and what are they doing?" she checked as Gunn and Lorne came in to see what all the noise was about.
"Ghosts, but not like us" he told the Slayer, "Real hell types and they want to take me..." his voice grew softer from the rest of the gang's perception as his form faded out to nothing.
"Spike?" Angel called and though the ghostly vamp answered, his grand-sire could neither hear nor see him, "Where'd he go?"
"He's right here" Buffy said like her ex was stupid, "Standing right next to me, Angel, quit screwing around"
"You can see him?" the vampire checked. The blonde nodded.
"You can't?" she asked and the three people confirmed they couldn't see or hear him at all.
"Buffy, I don't know how long I can...No, dark soul? What? No, not yet! You're not taking me yet!" Spike's sentence started off aimed at her but soon switched to the woman beyond with the shard of glass sticking out from her face.
"He's coming to get you" she sing-songed like a taunting child. Spike backed up a step and Buffy followed, reaching out to him again. She was shocked when her hand passed straight through his arm.
"Oh God" she gasped, realising how bad things were getting. He really was slipping away, out of sight of the gang and now untouchable to even her.
"I have to go" Spike shook his head, "Can't do this to you" he said looking pained as he ran, leaping through the wall and disappearing completely. Buffy called after him but to no avail. She looked halfway between angry and terribly upset. All Angel wanted to do was hold her and make it better, but the only way to really improve her mood, he guessed, was to save Spike.
"Buffy, tell us what's going on" he urged her, "Tell us and we'll try to help"
"He's gone" she began to explain, "He saw something, maybe someone and then he left...he said something about a dark soul?"
"Wish I'd told you what was happening sooner, pet" Spike sighed as he watched Fred working away in the lab, "Startin' to wonder if it's all too late now"
"Carry the quotient load across the remainder...support the imbalance with Lumirea's fourth constant..." the scientist mumbled to herself, frantically scribbling down equations and referencing texts and charts. She of course had no idea anybody was there, watching her.
"I know what they are" Spike continued as he circled around her "the things I'm seeing. They're the welcoming party...Guess hell's getting impatient to have me move in" he said, shaking his head, "I don't want Buffy getting dragged down by the current, trying to stay out of her way but..."
"I'm a genius!" Fred's joyous cry made him stop and listen "Just cancel out the radical..." she paused considering it before sighing with frustration "Which causes a feedback wave that liquefies half of Los Angeles" she said throwing her paper across the desk "I'll never figure this out!" she complained, and Spike winced, seeing his possible only chance of salvation slipping away.
Fred left to go and find Wesley. She wasn't quite out of ideas yet, but she was going to need his help if she was ever going to solve this.
"Not long now" a male voice chuckled in the emptiness making Spike shiver with it's deathly tone.
"Spike?" Buffy called as she appeared through the wall, "Why did you run off like that?" she said in frustration, "I'm the only one who can still see and hear you, you idiot" she said quite angrily as she came towards him, "You have to tell me what is happening"
"Don't want you near me, pet, not now" he said backing up fast, "This thing, I can't control it, and I don't want it getting you too"
"What is going to get me, Spike? I don't understand" she said exasperated by the whole thing. She was losing him again and this time she couldn't go with him, he wasn't going to let her. The least he could do was explain what was happening and why.
"Making my final trip, luv" he said with sad smile from beyond a couple of desks he knew she could pass through anyway, but at least wanting to fool himself he was putting safe distance between them, "Fire and brimstone won't wait forever, sending it's people round to fetch me"
"No" Buffy shook her head in disbelief, "No, you're a champion, you're not going...there" she said, almost in tears by now.
"I saved the world for you, luv" her reminded her, "Not for the glory, not to atone. I did it because I needed the world to keep on turning so you had a place to live on" he smiled, "Kinda buggered that plan by hanging on and letting yourself burn in my arms, but...doesn't change the fact, you might be saved yet"
"What good is my being saved if you're gone?" she cried.
"You don't need me, pet, you never did" he told her, so wanting to touch her again, just one last time before he had to go forever.
"You just said you saved the world for me" she snapped, "You did it to save me, and now I want to save you, and I'm going to whether you like it or not"
"That's what she thinks" said a voice that only Spike could hear.
"What are you...?" he asked the ceiling, "Who are you?"
"He is death and hell and everything you fear" said the armless woman he'd seen before as she appeared in the corner and came towards him, blocking Buffy from his view, "Reapers gonna take you" she laughed maniacally and then she was gone.
"Reaper?" Spike frowned, "Is that what this is about, the bloody Reaper?"
"Reaper?" Buffy echoed, "The dark soul is the Reaper?" she guessed, "Spike!" she called as his form began to flicker and fade. In a second he was gone.
"The Reaper" Buffy repeated as she turned and ran for Angel's office. She was going to save Spike, she had to, and with the gangs help she would.
"Hello William" said the male voice again as a figure stepped out of the shadows, "I believe you've been expecting me"
"You, you're the Reaper?" the ex-vampire asked, looking him over, "Don't look like much to be afraid of"
"Looks can be deceiving" the old-fashioned English spectre grinned evilly, "Your own as well as mine. Why your friends do not see you...and your girl" he added, staring after her.
"You leave her out of this" Spike snapped, "I deserve hell, I know it, she doesn't"
"Not part of the plan, dear boy" the man shook his head, "Only the tainted souls will keep me here. You go and I shall stay"
"Not tonight mate" the bleached blond said with a shake of his head, hastily striding away through the wall.
"Have your fun, vampire" the apparent 'Reaper' smirked, "It will not last for long"
"The Reaper" Buffy yelled as she came into Angel's office through the wall, causing Lorne to jump so violently he threw a sea-breeze all over the carpet, "Cross-reference Dark Soul with The Reaper" she told them, finding it strange that after all the running she'd done she wasn't at all out of breath.
"Got it" Gunn nodded, "Matthias Pavayne, dark soul number one-eighty-two"
Wesley flicked pages in the refence book until he found what he was looking for.
"Matthias Pavayne" he read from the text "European aristocrat, eighteenth century. He was a doctor, nicknamed 'The Reaper' for performing unnecessary surgery on his patients. There's a file on him in internal archives, classified histories"
"He worked for Wolfram & Hart?" Gunn frowned and Wes shook his head.
"Not exactly" he replied before reading allowed from the book in his hand "'Word spread of his unorthodox practices, and he fled to California. His arrival coincided with a rash of brutal, ritualistic murders, and pieces of the victims placed in a manner suggesting an intimate knowledge of the dark arts'" he went on "'The slaughter continued for the better part of twenty years, but the perpetrator was never caught...at least, not by the authorities'"
"Wolfram & Hart took this guy out" Angel guessed, "but why? Aren't they supposed to employ evil like this Pavayne"
"They needed his blood" Wesley realised as he read on through the text, "Representatives from Wolfram & Hart were looking to build a new branch in what would eventually become Los Angeles. Unfortunately a Spanish mission was already resting on the site their seers recommended, and they needed an appropriate sacrifice to deconsecrate the grounds"
"So this place was built on the blood of a mass-murdering psychopath?" Gunn said thoughtfully, "That actually explains a lot"
"It does" Angel nodded thoughtfully, "That text said Pavayne knew about the dark arts. Maybe he knew enough to figure out a way to stick around"
"But how would he do that?" Buffy threw in. She'd been listening to the three guys discussing this til it made her head spin. She just wanted to find a way to save Spike, the rest was irrelevant.
"I have a suggestion" Lorne piped up, "Spike's seeing ghosts that no-one else can, speaking from a mystical point of view, maybe they're not really here" the green demon suggested.
"They're here enough that Spike can see them" Buffy reminded him.
"But neither Spike or you are running on the same wavelength as the rest of us, honey-pie" he told her, "If this Pavayne guys whats to stick around, chances are he's using the life force of other evils to do it, kinda munching on their essences to stay here in limbo-land"
"If he's doing that, Spike could be next" the Slayer said, eyes and voice full of worry.
"He won't be" Angel assured her, "We're not gonna let it go that far"
Whilst he knew he was agreeing to save the unruly grand-childe he'd quite happily see dead and gone for good, Angel knew he had to help him. If Buffy lost Spike she'd probably blame the LA crew and he couldn't bear to be any more firmly in her bad books. Besides if Pavayne was successful in taking Spike, there was nothing to stop him making Buffy his next target.
"Pavayne!" Spike yelled in the foyer, "That you is it, mate?" he called to the man who had threteaned him moments ago, "They know who you are now, found out before you dragged me too far"
"They will not help you" Pavayne chuckled as he came into view walking down the stairs towards Spike, "You are under my control"
"Under no-one's bleedin control you stupid wanker" he countered, trying to hide the fact he was truly scared.
"Think you know vampire, you have no idea" his nemesis grinned, "I control all here, whether they see you, feel you..."
"You" Spike snapped, "You made it so they couldn't see me" he realised, "and Buffy, can't touch me anymore"
"More than that" Pavayne chuckled, "So much you don't understand...Reality bends, my desire" he said with a gesture and suddenly they were back in the basement.
"So what now then?" Spike asked, jutting out his chin, determined to look strong even if he was feeling less so, "More of your friends coming to play or you just gonna stand there talking til you bore me to return-less death?"
"Now" Pavayne smirked dangerously, gesturing with a hand that opened up a swirling black portal a few feet away, "You make your final journey, William"
To Be Continued...