Chapter 18
The shadow people fluttered around Jeep's head like swarms of gnats, until finally he began to wheel and snap at them in irritation. They scattered and regrouped at his heels.
"We tried, Dark Master; oh, we tried. We couldn't bring anyone through."
"You brought me through. How the hell hard can it be?" Jeep cupped his palm and scooped a mouthful of water from the brook, swallowed, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He had taken his human form again, and he was bored and horny. The she-wolves had satisfied a part of that lust, but he had no desire to be a canid 24/7, and now he wanted a woman. There were things a woman could do that a wolf couldn't.
He scowled at the groveling wraiths.
"Use some of that hoodoo that you did to make this-here." He gestured around at the cliffs and the meadow. "An' I want something to eat. Not one a' them forty-eyed rabbits, either. I want a barbecue sandwich and a two-liter bottle of RC Cola."
"The wolves were simpler, Master. The deer and fowl were simpler. Even then, we...we sometimes get the parts mixed up."
"Cain't trust you to make a woman, then, huh? Goddammit." He thought of soft, slick feminine bodies, some willing, some captive and struggling, and he let out a roar of frustration.
In the depths beneath the meadow, other residents of the hellmouth chuckled among themselves. One of them rose up and manifested itself in a fetid cloud and breathed into Jeep's ear. "Whip 'em into shape, Old Son. They won't remember anything without incentive. They owe you a queen, don't you know?" The demon leaped away from Jeep and landed in the brook with a splash. It regained its true form, and winked at the werewolf with a hollow, blasted eyesocket before disappearing into the water.
The wraiths whirled around one another, anguished. They had succeeded in bringing their new lord here because he had been a supernatural being; he was partly already of their world. Where to find another like him? Where to find another for him?
It was so hard to remember.
There was a side to Fred that never failed to impress Spike. It was in full view now, both literally and figuratively, in the filtered noonday light of the curtain liners on the north side of their bedroom, and he watched it while lying flat on his back and groaning. She was perched astride him, slippery as a seal, her mouse-brown hair loose and curling and sticking to the damp of her back and breasts and shoulders, slender fingers digging into his abs, and she kept her eyes opened as long as possible and stared into his. At times he fancied that he saw a kind of frenzied determination there; an attempt to hold onto him with her gaze and a fear that he would vanish if she blinked or looked away.
Little savage. He could imagine her looking this way in Pylea, naked and feral and clinging to survival with a death grip (well, perhaps not naked, but as good as...blimey, Angel, you must have been blind as well as stupid.) Only when he moved his hand up and stroked her face to reassure her - "I'm not going anywhere, Luv. Take it all, now," - did she let her eyelids close and her head relax and lean back, far back. She rose and fell like a dancer; up on one toe and down again. Once, she frowned and shook her head as though something was distracting her, and muttered, "Not now. Not now."
It became so hard, at times like this, to hold himself in check. His body screamed to buck into her full-strength, to hammer and squeeze and plow until they were both raw. "Ripe, wicked plum,"..."Bite your tongue." "Bite it for me."..."I've never been with such an animal..."
But she wasn't a slayer, and she wasn't a demon. Her frail body could never withstand it.
So instead, he willed himself to relax with her; to enjoy the pretty view as sensation flooded her. And his orgasm, when it came, was not earth-shaking, although it was satisfactory.
Afterward, though...when she didn't roll away with a dead face or a flip remark; when she not only allowed him to cuddle her and hold her close, but cuddled him right back, and whispered little nonsense words of praise and endearment and turned her gaze on him again, a gaze now happy and peaceful...
He decided that it was definitely an adequate trade-off.
Around half an hour later, the microwave gave a small ping, and the smell of warm blood filled the air. Spike stuck a finger in it to test its heat, then raised the mug to his mouth and took a long, savory gulp. Behind him, Fred stirred in the bed, yawning and blinking. Suddenly she froze in mid-facerub, and her eyes widened.
"Shit."
"Beg pardon?"
"Oh, shit, why didn't she wait until we were finished? I've told her not to try to talk to me while we're in the middle of...of relationy..."
"Rumpy-pumpy?" Spike turned one of the dinette chairs around and sat down on it. "Who're you talking about?"
"Illyria."
Spike choked on his drink. "Bloody hell! You mean that bitch was in the bed with us?"
"She wasn't trying to spy or perv on us or anything; she's not even interested in sex - well, not human sex, but it fascinates her when dogs do that Pushme-Pullyou thing and she likes praying mantises 'cause she thinks it's funny when the female bites the male's head off." Fred waved her hands in agitation. "The thing that was upsetting her - she says that something's going on in the hellmouth, and it's just going to get worse, and she wouldn't care except that it's scaring all the ants and hellmouth people just piss her off in general...wait, let me try to remember."
She pulled her knees up to her chest and put her hands over her eyes. "...It's a threat to us, I think, although I don't know if she'd admit that that would bother her. It's more than protecting my shell; it's about protecting me, too. Sometimes our thoughts get scrambled now. She gets lonely sometimes, and we're the only company she's got-"
"Fred." Spike moved to the side of the bed and gently tugged her hands down. "The hellmouth part, right?"
"Oh, right. Well, we'll need magic, that's for sure. This thing's got magic coming out the wazoo. And it wants women; that's what the pool table deal was all about. The more it gets, the more it wants. It's a greedy little sapsucker."
"Where's Illyria now?"
"She left. I don't know where she went." She looked so small sitting there, and so vunerable without the Old One's hard blue armor plate. Spike scooped her into a sudden embrace and kissed her lovingly.
"Better get dressed, Pet," he murmured through the kiss, "Guess we've got to round up the troops and form a battle plan."
"Okay." She smiled a sweet smile of love back at him, and waited until he had his back turned before ducking her head and licking the blanket to wipe the icky taste of pig's blood off her tongue.
"Buckle up, Jordy." Oz stuck his arm through a mound of gifts and clothes in the back seat of his uncle's car and located the end of the safety belt. Burrowed in the middle of the mound, little Jordan wiggled the belt's clasp out from underneath his bottom and clipped the buckle into place. Oz closed the rear door, and waved to Maureen and Ken through the driver's side glass. They mouthed a muffled "See you in a few days," and the car pulled slowly out of Michael Wight's driveway and down the street and away, bound for home in Phoenix.
Oz watched them until they disappeared around the corner. Then he shrugged deeper into his jacket and walked back through the carport to join the others in the house.
They gathered at the big dining room table, twelve now, armed with steno pads and golf pencils and Mace and machetes and incantations. Gunn ran through the division of labor again.
"Angel, Paloma, Spike, Oz, Thu, Singh: into the hellmouth. The rest of us hang out at Happy Trails, where there won't be any neighbors to freak out. Michael's our walkin' walkie-talkie, and under no circumstances is anyone without superpowers gonna set foot in Hell Central.
"...'Course we'll prob'ly break that last rule three or four times," he added lamely.
Nina gnawed thoughtfully on the end of a pencil. "Is there a chance that someone supernatural would be more susceptible to a hellmouth's influence?"
Paloma shook her head. "Not necessarily. Hellmouths attract the evil, not the mystical. We just wanna make sure that we send down people who can fight their way through pretty well. Oh, an' it also helps if they can run like a son of a bitch."
Singh narrowed his eyes at her. "Thanks a lot."
"No fear, India," Spike grinned, "One of us can always carry you out pig-a-back."
The sun was lowering, the last of its rays dragging over the edge of the world. The twelve loaded into their vehicles. Oz chewed his lip as he watched Elsie D dig her keys from her pants pocket and climb into her battered Camaro. She cranked the ignition and looked up through the windshield at him, her quiet face undecipherable. Finally he got in beside her.
"El, are you sure about this? It's never too late to change your mind. There's nothing wrong with staying here tonight, where it's safer."
"No. I want to go with you."
From the lips of a Southerner, "y'all" was always plural. Oz's years of travel had taught him that for a vernacular fact. "You," though - "you" meant ONE. One particular, singled-out, individual, chosen person.
His face glowed with a smile. "You're a brave little toaster."
He slide on a pair of black sunglasses and propped an elbow on the ledge of the Camaro's passenger window. Elsie switched a console button, and Black Oak Arkansas bellowed from the speakers as they whipped into the street behind the rest of the demon hunters.