Title: The Sacrifices
Author: mispel
E-mail: Buffy deals with a new threat and calls on Xander.
Spoilers: Early season 7
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing
Feedback: Any comments would be welcome.
A/N: Takes place in early season 7, not long after Beneath You and Same Time, Same Place.
Previously: Spike made a wish and got buried in a cave in. Anya and Buffy barely escaped with the baby. Willow rescued Xander and Dawn. Despite vengeful influences, Buffy decided to dig out Spike.
The Sacrifices
Chapter 20: Endangerment
While Anya was being kind of quiet, Halfrek was reminiscing about the good old days. Buffy was only half listening while piling rocks on the side of their pit. Halfrek was talking about the olden times and the Denekari beast. Something about a great battle of vengeance demons vs. snake beast.
"That was before our time, even before D'Hoffryn's time," Halfrek kept talking like someone was listening. "His predecessor led the expedition. It was epic. They sing songs about it. Admittedly, they are not good songs," she said as if to a rapt audience.
"You're not going to sing are you?" Buffy asked her worriedly.
"No, I am not going to sing. Though it is customary, and I do have a lovely voice," Halfrek said with a toss of her head.
Anya scoffed.
"I do. Anyway, I will only give the likes of you the synopsis - the great, epic battle for dummies," Halfrek said then she cleared her throat. "Worthy individuals assembled for a journey deep underground. Like in that movie."
"Lord of the Rings?" Buffy asked.
"No, Journey to the Center of the Earth," Halfrek corrected her while Buffy tried to figure out if that was the one with the submarine.
"You're showing your age, Hallie," Anya said as she threw some rocks they had dug up over the edge of their dirt crater.
"Me? I am a mere baby compared to you, a fetus, an embryo, a zygote," Halfrek said to Anya who glared more severely with every word.
Halfrek didn't seem to mind. Vengeance demons were probably right at home around massive amounts of wrath. To them it was probably like the smell of bread baking. The thought made Buffy hungry. She tried to think of something else – cookies baking. No good.
"And now that we have established Anyanka's extreme old age and my comparative youth, back to out story. The brave troop of vengeance demons - hand picked by their leader for their matchless strength and viciousness - went down through the tunnels the beast itself had dug within the earth. They found the beast's fetid lair down in the hot bowels of the earth," Hallie continued grandiosely. "Rivers flowed lava. Caves made of metals forged in magma unseen by pitiful human eyes, protected the beast from our ability to travel. That's where it went to hide."
"Coward," Buffy said making Halfrek stare at her reproachfully for the interruption. Seeing that Buffy was properly chastened or really hungry, Halfrek continued.
"And that's where the foul beast was found. The vengeance demons sent up a battle cry. They raised high their lances and their sabers - sabers were the in thing in those days – some kind of fad, I think," Halfrek explained interrupting herself this time. "They charged the beast led into battle by their bloodthirsty leader. They hacked and speared, and blood flowed into the burning center of the earth."
"They killed it? So who was that we just saw? Son of Snake Beast?" Buffy asked but Hallie didn't answer.
"Shh. It was a great battle of the likes you will never see," Halfrek said looking right at Buffy, "and unfortunately a great defeat. The leader of vengeance demons was eaten. It was the beast's appetite for wish stones. He went for the biggest one. It was just too tempting. The many jaws opened and..."
"He could be killed just like that?" Buffy interrupted again. She had always had the impression that the head vengeance demon, like D'Hoffryn, wouldn't be so easy to kill. Not that she was planning anything like that. It was just that knowing how to kill things was kind of her thing. She liked to stay informed.
"Oh, he wasn't killed, he was eaten alive. He is probably still giving that beast indigestion. Or pieces of him are. The beast caused a cave in then too -it doesn't have an extensive repertoire. The great leader's head is buried with all the others who fell in the great battle. A few pieces of him were left to lie twitching, nearly lifeless for the rest of time."
"Nearly lifeless?" Buffy said and made a disgusted face. "Are all your stories gross?"
"Oh, that's not gross, let me tell you..." Hallie began.
"Don't tell me," Buffy told her as her cell phone rang.
Buffy answered her phone getting it dirty in the process. She listened to Willow while with one hand she flattened dirt on the side of the hole so it wouldn't slide down.
Buffy wondered if this was really the time for geek talk. Willow asked about the printouts, which Buffy had taken mostly to humor her, stuck into the pocket of her jacket, and forgotten about. It wasn't like she was going to consult research notes while in the middle of fighting - 'oh hold on I just have to double check this one footnote'.
When Willow asked about the printouts, Buffy raised her head above the edge of the hole. They had kept one side of it clear as they piled dirt and rocks all around so Buffy could have a clear view of the baby. She idly looked to where the baby was lying on her jacket. And she saw small white things crawling all around the child. Buffy dropped the phone and tried to scramble out of the hole sending dirt down and sliding down herself. She finally crawling out as Anya and Halfrek protested that she was ruining their work as the dirt fell around them.
Buffy saw small blobs propped up on white, snaky arms crawling all around the baby. She went for the ones closest to the kid and smashed them with her foot. Buffy picked up the child who was screaming now and stomped all the little creatures she saw. They burst, their guts spilling out of the thin, white skin. Then she went back to the ones she already flattened and flattened them again for good measure. The child seemed freaked and Buffy tried to soothe her amidst the mess of jellyfish-looking corpses. At least the gross mini-massacre had taken the edge off her hunger.
Xander had stopped the car in a turning lane. Dawn was breathing down Willow's neck as Willow was on the phone.
"Who is this!" Willow asked.
"Hallie, give me the phone." This time, it was a voice Willow recognized. "Hi it's me, Anya. Buffy is fine. She doesn't have time to talk. She is busy. She has her hands full."
"Anya?" Willow asked but she had hung up already.
"Anya is with Buffy? Where are they?" Xander asked as if he was ready to go there. Willow just looked at the phone, but all it told her was how many of Xander's minutes she had just used up.
"They didn't say. I think everything is OK now. I guess," she said.
"The guessing is very reassuring, Willow," Dawn said from the back seat.
"No, it is OK. Buffy will call if she needs us," Willow said more firmly this time and looked at Xander like she knew what she was talking about. Xander drove on.
Buffy was taking a closer look at the white creatures, making sure they were all dead. She had trouble telling what they were supposed to look like since she had squashed them so thoroughly.
"Willow said hatching rituals. Is that what these things are, the hatchlings of those Michila demons?" Buffy asked as she looked around for more of them.
Anya was on the phone, and Halfrek didn't climb out to take a good look. Buffy saw Halfreks's head poke out above the lowest part of the dirt pile with minimal interest.
"Sort of albino, wormy things? Probably. The Michila demons call the beast only after they pop out the kiddies. In case they don't survive communion with their 'god'. The poor, ugly things were probably just hungry. Such irresponsible parenting," Halfrek said with misplaced sympathy. Then her head disappeared, and rocks started flying from her furious digging.
"They don't look like their parents. Except for the mouths, which they don't have. So how do they eat?" Buffy said annoyed as she took a close look at the only one that seemed somewhat intact. Then she squished it.
"Oh, it's a larval stage. They secret this stuff through their skin. It's digestive sweat. It dissolves their victim, and they slurp up the liquid through their skin," Halfrek said as she and Anya popped a big rock over the side of the ditch.
"Oh my God!" Buffy looked at the baby who was thankfully not liquefied. "Was that all of them?" Buffy asked wondering if there was a safe place to set the child down again.
"About two dozen, right? That's all of them then. They're like their parents, not big on independence. It's sort of a communal mind thing. You aren't going to find one of those striking out on its own," Anya said finally joining the conversation.
"Nothing to worry about, no more nasty, crawly things," Buffy reassured the baby as she put her down on top of her jacket again, but closer to the hole.
"Buffy, don't have kids," Anya said simply.
Buffy looked at her, offended.
"Oh, let her. It's people like her who keep me in business," Halfrek said and they all went back to digging.
"Do you think Buffy will write me a note, 'absent due to clandestine, nocturnal activities'? Do you think Buffy can spell that?" Dawn asked as they walked into the house and she saw how late it was, or how early.
"Be nice to your absent sister behind her back," Xander admonished lightly and headed to the kitchen, because that's where his stomach told him to go.
"Do you think everything is OK?" Dawn asked Willow, trying not to sound too worried.
"We can call, but if Buffy is in the middle of hand to hand, she might not be able to answer," Willow said while Xander was holding the refrigerator door open.
"She needs one of those ear things, then she can fight and rack up the minutes at the same time," Dawn told them as she sneaked past a distracted Xander to get the first crack at the refrigerator.
Xander's cell phone rang just as Dawn and Willow tried to figure out if the pizza they found was leftover from the last time or the time before that. Dawn took a slice and banged the crust against the counter. The pizza failed the test and went straight into the garbage.
"Hey, speak of the slayer," Xander exclaimed into the phone. He told Buffy how they left the baby at the hospital, but then he just listened and looked serious. Next, he was out the door telling them only that Buffy wanted him to pick her up.
to be continued