Title: The Sacrifices
Author: mispel
E-mail:Rating: PG-13
Summary: Anya and Halfrek fight the demons. Spike struggles against his insanity. Buffy joins the fight.
Spoilers: Early season 7
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing
Feedback: It's not easy to improve without feedback, so let's have some.
A/N: Takes place in early season 7, not long after Beneath You and Same Time, Same Place.
Previously: Xander and Dawn were on their way to return the child. Buffy forced Harmony to help her. A demon delivered another baby to the cult. Anya and Halfrek were close.
The tunnel opened up into a cavern with a high ceiling. Shadows flickered on the walls and ceiling cast by burning pools of oil in stone pots. Loose rocks had been moved off to the side making a central clearing. Pedestals and an alter made of stacked, gray stone had been arranged in the space. As Anya and Halefreck hid in the shadows, watching, the scaly demon demanded his reward for the baby. His strange, squealy language was drowned out as the child's cries filled the space.
About two dozen gray demons with bald heads, mouthless faces, slick skin, and arms that looked like two snake tails, stood around covered with elaborately decorated cloaks that hid most of their smooth, unattractive bodies. One of them held a child, about the same age as the one Xander had found. This one was a girl, if one judged by the pink outfit. She had dark curls and skin and kicked unhappily as the demon's arms coiled around her holding her in place.
A demon dressed in the most elaborate robes had his back turned to the scaly demon. The demon in fancy robes opened a case with several large, curved knives. He chose one unhurriedly as Anya and Halfrek watched. Suddenly, the gray demon turned and beheaded the scaly demon with three quick slashes. The complaining squeals stopped.
Halfrek and Anya ducked back to make sure they couldn't be seen. The body fell and the head rolled away from it. The blood that spouted out of the scaly neck and the head joined into one dark green pool on the cavern floor. Not far from it, a dead hand opened and released the payment in jewels. Two demons bent down and scooped up the jewels that had fallen out by curling the ends of their snaky arms around them. None of the stones were from vengeance demons, of course. These were obviously flawed and unworthy leftovers. The sight of them still reminded Anya of why they were there.
"Let's just go in and rip them up," Anya suggested. But as she moved to go, Halfrek stopped her.
"The baby," Halfrek reminded her.
Anya groaned at the reversal. As Halfrek and Anya watched, the main demon took the baby and placed her onto the alter made of stone. It had a deep indentation where the baby fit perfectly. It was almost like a stone cradle.
"Damn it, you're going soft over a potential, future client," Anya complained but held back. She remembered the box of knives.
"I take a long view. And you are the one who has gone soft," Halfrek retorted as she watched the ceremony.
The baby was surrounded by three demons who made signs in the air over it. Another demon approached and spilled something on the baby making it shriek.
Halfrek didn't wait for Anya - she rushed in and shoved some demons out of her way. She grabbed the arm of the demon that held the ceremonial cup. The arm came off his body, making the cup fly and bluish gray blood spurt out of the demon's stump.
Briefly, Hallie turned back to Anya and asked, "Is this soft?" Her face dropped its human mask. Her voice became deep and rough. She still held the snake arm she had detached from the demon. It coiled feebly in her grip a few last times and dripped blood until Hallie dropped it with disgust. Anya rolled her eyes. But she also felt a surge of the vengeance demon inside her. She let her own human face fall.
While Halfrek was turned, three other demons encircled her. Their twining arms took hold of her. One of the arms snaked over to grab for her necklace. An enraged growl escaped Hallie's throat. She kicked the demon going for her necklace, making it let go of her and crash into a stone pedestal. The others still held on. But Halfrek was already getting loose as Anya joined her.
Anya threw one of Hallie's attackers into a wall. It went down stunned. Halfrek killed another by repeatedly hitting its bald head against a rock. As the last of the three demons stood over the baby, Anya grabbed him. His twisting arms made things hard for her until she got hold of them and ripped them off.
"I'd forgotten how their arms just pop off," Anya said still holding a pair in her hands. Halfrek smiled at her. The veins on her face were splattered with blue-gray blood.
As the two vengeance demons turned, they saw the rest of the demons move to surround them. Then one from the back went flying right over the others. His head made a sickening noise as it hit a wall.
"Hey, moonlighting vengeance demons, what's this? Don't tell me. You guys were bored and decided to step all over my slaying to pass the time?" Buffy said as she kicked and shoved her way through the demons to the baby.
"See, even she knows it's just boredom, nothing human about it," Anya said to Halfrek, feeling vindicate. Halfrek only looked blood-splattered and disdainful.
The breeze barely stirred the dry grass. Spike's hand had reached through it into nothing. Then further in and he held a handful of dirt. A handful to throw on his coffin.
"It's an ugly thing. It does no good," Spike had told Buffy from the ground, his dirty hand to his chest. He looked up at her, but her eyes turned away, and she looked at the hole he had found. He wanted to tell her what's what. But before he could find the right words, Buffy went past him and down into the rabbit hole. He was left alone with Harmony.
"Are you talking about your, you know, wiener doggy?" Harmony asked him grimacing. "I mean, it's not pretty, but it's not supposed to be pretty. It's not for decoration, you know. And I've seen way worse. Some demons..."
Spike laughed - a jagged sound that hurt his insides as it bounced around. It was no use trying to make himself heard. Everything that came out of him was twisted. It all turned and spoiled and couldn't be recognized.
Buffy's eyes had closed a little when he had spoken of his soul, before she turned away. She didn't want to have to look at him. And he didn't want to have to look at her, the stuck up priss. But he had no choice - he was searching her face for something. He had to look until he found it.
Harmony was making noise but he didn't listen to her bleating. A hazy thing lurked in the dark just out of his sight. Flitting from shadow to shadow. Bleeding in then bleeding out and reforming into a shape he didn't want to recognize.
Spike squeezed his eyes shut, but he still saw things - Buffy looking down on him, wanting to close her eyes to him; the old, white haired geezer, his lips moving; and the tunnel he had unearthed, widening, its darkness spreading. The old man's lips made words like he was shaping them out of the black air, molding the air with his mouth. Spike didn't want to listen. He went headlong down the tunnel, like a dive into nothingness.
Xander and Dawn sat in the car parked not far from the hospital, with the headlights off. Dawn was wedged in between the front and back seat holding the baby and keeping out of sight. Xander didn't turn as he spoke to her.
"This baby has been on the news," Xander said considering the best way to get them into the hospital without being arrested. Xander hadn't expected so much light and so little action. It was too quiet for them to go in without being noticed. He expected more bustle. Maybe an ambulance full of bus crash victims to provide cover. Like on the good episodes of ER.
"It's a famous baby," Dawn agreed.
"If we're seen with him, we're are..."
"Screwed," Dawn finished not even bothering to cover the baby's ears.
"Language! You'll corrupt the baby."
In the back, the baby made some kind of giggly, baby noise. Maybe Dawn was tickling him.
"We need to hide him," Xander said wondering if anyone would notice if he just stuck the baby under his jacket.
"We can put him in the duffel bag," Dawn suggested seeing one was on the back seat.
"Is that safe?" Xander wondered.
"We won't close it," Dawn said as she sniffed the bag.
Xander didn't hear an "eww". So it must not have been too bad. He only kept a change of clothes in there in case he had to make himself presentable on short notice after dirty, sweaty type work.
"What if he cries?" As Xander just knew he was going to.
"Then we're screw... drivers," Dawn said with some quick editing.
They placed the baby in the bag, on top of Xander's clothes, keeping the bag half unzipped. The baby cried for a little bit, but then he fell asleep. Xander carried the bag toward the hospital entrance careful not to let anyone bump into it.
Harmony stomped her foot in frustration. First, Spike was babbling about his frankensteinfurter not being pretty, then he was laughing, then he was pinching his eyes shut. Then all of a sudden he jumped into the hole and ditched her.
"I'm supposed to get the jewely cluster thingy," Harmony wailed down into the hole. That was before Xander Harris stole her baby, and Buffy hijacked her to use her as a guide dog.
"I'm not a dog! I want my jewely thingy!" She shouted, finally getting enough courage to follow Spike. Feet first, she scrambling down the hole while squealing.
Recovering quickly from Buffy's surprise attack, the demons surged forward. Buffy started to choke as a demon wrapped its arms around her neck. Another demon came at her with the end of its snake arm wrapped around a knife. She kicked the knife out of his grip, sent it flying then caught it in mid air and cut away the arms that were strangling her.
"Look at you with the fancy moves," Halfrek said condescendingly. Anya could tell that she wasn't pleased to have Buffy horning in on their fun.
Halfrek punched a demon that Anya pushed her way and smiled at Buffy in that fake country club way. Buffy grabbed a demon and pushed him to Halfeck. Buffy then focused on keeping the rest away from the baby.
"Do you think D'Hoffryn would like to have Denekari's Cluster as a memento?" Halfrek asked Anya as she used a demon's arms to swing him into another.
"Kiss ass!" Anya said, mad that she didn't think of it first. She was also struggling as two demons entwined their arms with hers and held her immobile. Her arms were outstretched and hurting.
Halfrek grabbed a knife from a demon and threw it at one of the demons giving Anya so much trouble. It sank into the soft looking flesh of its middle. Without seeming to have much effect, it stayed embedded there. The two demons started to move apart as if trying to rip Anya in two.
"He'll just use it as a paperweight," Anya said feeling very uncomfortable.
Buffy was still busy holding off the demons that tried to get to the baby. She used the knife she held to slice at them as they approached. She kicked one's head backward and another in his middle.
"I regret to inform you that tonight's performance of your gross and unholy ritual has been cancelled," Buffy quipped as she fought off the demons still trying to reach the baby. Seeing Anya's predicament, Buffy threw the next demon at one of the two holding Anya.
"Please see the vengeance demons for a full refund," Buffy said as the demon she threw knocked away one of the two holding Anya. Freeing herself from the other, Anya grabbed a knife Hallie had thrown. She pulled it out of a demon's torso and slit his throat. Knowing that a slit throat would heal, Anya gave it another slice and the demon's head came off. The unpleasant blue-gray blood welling up from the neck as the torso fell over.
"Look at the odds - two dozen of them, three of us. These guys just don't know when to quit," Hallie observed while she pummeled another demon who had been attracted to her necklace.
"Maybe they flunked math," Buffy offered.
"Lets chop off their heads, and we'll see if they can't do better," Anya proposed as she turned with a knife in hand toward the next demon. His fancy robe billowed as he rushed her with his coiling snake arms going for her neck.
To be continued