Warning: Insect alert.
Thanks to bogwitch and sexymermaid for the betas. I did some extra tinkering after though, so any mistakes are ones I added.
Chapter 15
Mayor Wilkins laughed infectiously and straightened. "Look at me. Leaning against the wall like a kid. Bad posture encourages bad habits." He entered the kitchen. "I was watching you two with that baby. It was a pig, sure, but you were acting like real parents."
He looked around the kitchen, took an appreciative sniff of the applesauce, and then sneezed. "A place like this would be great for raising kids." He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his nose. "I know. You're thinking--but what kind of world would we be bringing them into? What parent doesn't think that? But what a chance you have here. You bring your kids up right, teach them strong morals, discipline. Why, then they'd go out and spread that kind of thinking across entire dimensions." He rolled the handkerchief into a ball, and lobbed it into the fireplace.
"Spike and I aren't likely to be married or have children." Tara refused to look at Spike. "And strong morals are nothing without compassion. Discipline's a weak substitute for love."
The Mayor's smile softened. "You remind me of the late Mrs. Wilkins." He chuckled faintly, his expression laced with nostalgia. "There won't ever be anyone to replace her. And I can tell you and Spike have that lasting kind of love. You're meant for each other. But it's so easy to let things to get in the way. I didn't understand that for a long time, and once I did it was too late. Hate to see that happen to such a nice young couple like you."
She could see Spike's muscles tensing beneath the armor. "Don't need Advice to the Lovelorn, mate."
"Stubborn. Well, children who won't listen have to learn the hard way." The Mayor did a two-step, chanting, "Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there…", and he disappeared from her sight. She gasped as an arm wrapped around her waist, and pulled her away from Spike. The Mayor laughed at her kicks and wiggles and thumping fists.
"Now, Spike." He threw up a cautioning hand, keeping Tara between them. "Don't make me do something we'll both regret." The Mayor's laugh echoed in her ears. He wrapped a hand over Tara's mouth, pushing her head back, and cutting off her breath. "See, death is The First's thing, but I prefer to resolve things without violence. I mean what kind of message does that send you?" His voice took on an edge. "But I will kill her if neither of you listens to reason."
"You won't last two seconds longer than she does." Spike's gameface emerged.
"The only thing that matters is Tara, right? Just agree to be her spouse and father her children, and you can both be happy together-- forever. Don't be a fool. You only have to agree to do what you want to do anyway. It's a win-win situation. Honestly."
Spike stopped in his tracks, his face melting back to human. He shook his head. "Wouldn't either of us be us if we agreed. Price is too high."
"A vampire that worries about metaphysical price-tags. What'll they think of next?" The Mayor's grip loosened, and Tara twisted her arm loose, grabbing for one of his fingers, and bending it back until she heard it crack. He made a sound of pain and she stumbled as he disappeared again. He appeared to her left, laughing. "Fiesty." He nursed the finger and faded as Spike jumped at him.
"Don't you just love this now-I'm-here, now-I'm not? It is the niftiest tri…" The Mayor slammed against the wall, as Spike met him with a solid sock to the jaw.
"Vampire, as you pointed out. Got your stink in my nose."
The Mayor made a face of disgust. "That's just crude. Well, drat. You're limiting my options, here." He erupted with laughter, and his body shook: his face bulged, bubbling like water coming to a boil; his body snapped forward at the waist; segmented limbs ripped through his suit; his thorax thickened; his waist thinned; and his once-human legs pushed upward to flatten and flutter into wings.
Tara gagged and she threw her hands to her mouth.
Spike shoved her; the man-size wasp slugged past like a giant fist, the whoosh tugging at her hair and clothes. She hadn't seen the insect move.Spike rolled her beneath a table in the corner, and they hugged up against the wall.
"The Mayor turned into a giant snake!" she protested. "Not a giant bug."
The wasp landed on the table, feet pattering against the wood above them. Its wings buzzed, hypnotically
"What's it doing?" Spike shoved a fist against the tabletop and the wasp froze. She found the silence frightening and was relieved when the pattering started again.
"He's supposed to be a snake," she insisted.
"Let it go, love. He's a bloody wasp. Big but…" He thunked a fist against the table again. "Male, so no stinger. Fast, but I'm more than a match for a bug, oversized or not. Am I missing anything?"
"Yes. It's got those sideways teeth thingies." She moved her fingers like insect jaws.
Spike mimicked the motion. "Yeah. 'Cause in the flicks, monster bugs always get you with those." The table cracked and the sideways teeth thingies tore through, spitting out chunks of table. Mandibles, Tara remembered: The sideways things were called mandibles.
"Bloody hell." They scrambled from underneath the collapsing table and Spike pushed Tara across the floor. She felt the friction tearing at her knees.
The wasp shook itself, an oily liquid cascading from its jaws. She stared at the drops splattering on the stone paving. They hissed, and popped, and an ugly wound formed. Black foam bubbled, eating a cavity into the stone.
She forced herself to look back at the wasp. Black, velvety bubbles beaded along the mandibles."He's venomous!"
"Got it, sweet pea. The armor's good. Just stay out of the way."
Scorch marks streaked across Spike's chest. The tortoiseshell was pitted, but she couldn't see foam. If Spike hadn't been wearing the armor--she looked back to the floor. The black cavity was twice as large, and still growing.
"Get under something, Tara. Now."
She pushed her way behind a china cabinet and ran her hand along the wall, the back of the cabinet, moved her foot along the floor. Nothing useable as a weapon. Goosebumps traveled down her spine. A horrible sound--grinding, crunching, scraping—etched into her ears. She peered out. Spike thrashed in the wasp's jaws. He rammed his fist into one of the compound eyes, and black venomous ichor sprayed across his arm.
The wasp dropped him, and hopped like a maddened kangaroo, careening against the wall. She heard a pop, and one of the mandibles drooped.
Spike huddled on the floor. Fine hairline sprays flowered on his tortoiseshell armor, nesting on dark pitted stains. The wasp's head convulsed up and down, jaws clacking, working the venom into ropes.
To Tara's horror, both of the horrendous eyes were in perfect condition. Spike lunged upward, slamming his fists like a club against the broken mandible. The wasp reared back, legs wheeling furiously but Spike stayed close, like a dancing partner, following each twist and turn the wasp made. He wrenched his weapon free, and stabbed again and again.
He was thrown from the body as it arched backward: wasp head met wasp abdomen, muscles spasmed; wings thrummed, and the body collapsed. It shimmered and the Mayor's human body sprawled where the wasp had been, head crushed, brains spilling to the floor.
"Are you all right?"Tara pulled her gaze from the body, and turned to Spike. The armor's magic had kept his skin free of the venom, but pinkish-grey blisters, from the fumes, puffed around his neck and face.
"Fine. Where's that bonnet?" He slammed the mandible against the wall, breaking off a portion. "Quick, love. Going to pull my glove around this bit. Want you to tie it up."
She nodded. The tortoiseshell from the Master, venom from the Mayor. A pattern. She searched and found the bonnet where it lay on the floor.
He held the inverted glove toward her."You know how to tie a good knot?"
"I'm a wiccan, and a farm girl. I can tie a knot." She tied the strings, using the bonnet as a cradle, and tied a second loop so the whole could be carried without touching the glove.
The bonnet showed signs of discoloration. She wondered if the glove's magic would last. Maybe the tortoiseshell was only meant to protect Spike, and now he'd taken it off the venom would eat through it.
A sound made her turn, and then everything juddered into the familiar sensation of hyperspace travel. Her brain processed what she'd seen before the jump. The Mayor transforming once more, his wasp shape whole and gleaming. He was looking in her direction, clacking his perfectly formed mandibles.
"Oh goddess! I don't think we killed the Mayor! We didn't accomplish what we were supposed to."
Spike didn't answer. She looked up and followed his gaze. They stood on a wide, dirt road, lined with hedges on one side, and a broad stone wall on the other. An odd, egg-shaped figure sat solidly atop the wall.
"I've been waiting for you," the figure said.
"Humpty-Dumpty," Tara whispered.
"Adam," Spike replied.
TBC…