Disclaimer: Please see Part 1, Chapter 1…
Sugar & Spice
Part 3
Chapter 4
"The eagle has landed."
Harmony's head shot up at the wry voice and she beamed at Spike. "Is she okay?"
"Perfect." he assured - then his mouth made a sudden dash right past his better judgement, "You want me to come over tonight?"
She blinked rapidly. "Er…Spike, I…I'm sorry but with looking after Cordy I'm just too tired to…"
Eh? Oh. He rolled his eyes, "I meant for Cordy, you bint. I can play with her and feed her and stuff while you…do the ironing or whatever…I don't know, get a full eight hours of rest?"
Harmony bit her lip in a way that told him everything he needed to know – thanks to necrotempered glass in offices and cars, working for Wolfram & Hart put a serious crimp in a vampire's unlife cycle. With Cordelia Mark II in the mix, Harm had to be getting even less down time now.
"If you like, I could even introduce you to a childminder I know – very good, and very expensive because she's so good. She specialises in non-human and part-human kids. No more risking this place's holding pen for Cordy."
She eyed him suspiciously, "How do you know so much about looking after children?"
"My mum – she was honorary aunt to half our neighbourhood. She never remarried after my dad was killed – he was her one true love and nobody else ever matched up, but if he hadn't gotten himself killed in that carriage accident I'd be the eldest of an even dozen, I'd wager."
"Okay," Harmony nodded; she had nothing to wear and a pile of ironing and laundry, she hadn't fed except here at work, as she certainly couldn't go out and leave Cordy alone in the apartment, even for the ten minutes it would take to nip to the Korean Market for some chickens or blood. Not only was her apartment not safe from human predators but as she was already dead, other vampires and nasty demons could enter at will.
Besides, she would much rather Cordy get one-to-one time and attention from Spike's babysitting woman-friend versus being one of the herd. Mother had had a bespoke nanny for Todd when he was little, yet had put her in day care. And look how that turned out: Todd Kendal, mega-genius who could use quadratic equations in context, earning 'ka-ching!' amounts of money in some global corporation with his perfect trophy wife and perfect trophy kids and Malibu mansion; and her: dead and dead-end job stuck as a mid-management PA in an evil law firm.
"Fine, I'll –" Spike paused as he became aware of the third vampire, Borganicht, from Inhuman Resources.
"Why is he staring at us like that?" Harmony whispered.
"Not a clue," Spike glowered at Borganicht, who was simply standing there gazing vacantly at Harmony and him in a total zone-out. "Oi, you, get lost."
Borganicht blinked rapidly as if he'd been daydreaming and slowly obeyed, casting puzzled glances back as he went up the stairs.
"What was that all about?" Harmony muttered.
"Just another day at the office in this place, pet," Spike opined cheerfully.
"Tell me about it – oh, that reminds me, you weren't here. Wesley got a phone call last night from Giles. Some hired hitman tried to whack Dawn Summers."
"What?!"
"Don't freak – the Scoobies cornered him before he could do any damage and he offed himself. But it could be a harbinger –"
"Haaarmony!"
"Ah, our master's dull roar." Spike snorted. "You'd best go and soothe my granddad, love; they all get so cantankerous in their old age. I'll go see the other tall dark and dreary and get the skinny."
As Harmony tripped into the lion's den, Spike went to Wesley's office, where he found the man, as usual, surrounded by esoteric texts written in a multitude of ancient and mostly non-human tongues. However, instead of the post-hurricane motif of earlier days – immediately in the aftermath of Fred's apparent death and Illyria's rebirth - at least now a lot of the tomes and scrolls were neatly stacked on the furniture. Wesley himself was wearing a fresh T-shirt and over shirt, shoes on his feet and was reasonably clean-shaven; he also did not reek – well, not quite so much – of 12-year-old Lagavulin, further indication that his Illyria-inspired disintegration was slowly reversing.
"Dawn's all right," Wesley accurately guessed the reason for the look on Spike's face and pre-empted the blonde's questions. "I'm trying to see if we've got anything that will help us ID one way or the other if these attacks on Dawn are one Big Bad working to his, her or its own agenda, or some part of the Senior Partners' machinations."
"Right," Spike nodded his thanks, wishing not for the first time that he could split himself in two and have one Spike in Sunnydale guarding the Niblet (and watching that walking hormone Connor Riley who'd better keep his hands in plain sight at all times) while the other stayed here and had Team Angel's back.
"Appreciate it," he added sincerely, remembering all too well how snippy Giles had been when Angel phoned because Illyria was killing Fred – 'course it was all entente cordiale with the Scooby Gang an' all that now, but still.
"Actually we might have a visit –"
"Oh please, not another bloody Slayer Convention," Spike groaned. "I realise training the Slayers is important and all, but Team Angel have got more urgent problems at the moment…though I suppose Illyria could give them a gym work-out like no other-"
"I think that would be extremely unwise," Wesley vetoed, his mouth pinching together.
About to disagree, Spike reconsidered rapidly as he noticed the scar on Wesley's neck, now more visible since he'd cut back on the Miami Vice designer stubble. LA's own Chosen One, Justine Cooper, was still running around the city live and unleashed with a distinctly hostile attitude to her fellow Slayers – and just about everything else. Nor was she Miss Popularity now probably the entire English-speaking world knew she'd gone Sweeney Todd on Wesley during her time as a minion of that loony vampire hunter Daniel Holtz may-he-rot-in-a-hell-dimension.
Then there was Faith, Mistress of the Dark, possibly even more dangerous now she had a Slayer bun in her Slayer oven. Reformed, Redeemed or whatever, their own Psycho-Smurf had accessed Fred's memories sufficiently enough to know how Faith had gone Hannibal Lecter on Wesley. Slayers both and neither would be making Illyria's Christmas card list any time soon.
"…at the most, one person or two," Wesley was saying. "To be honest they can't spare any more. Dawn's reasons for coming to LA to find her Champion to deal with Staavuz are still as valid – they're working flat out eight days a week just like us. They don't have time to up stakes – sorry, let me rephrase –"
"'Preciate it,"
"They don't have time to drop everything and trundle down here en masse every time Evil sounds the gong just like we don't have the capacity to go hurtling back to Sunny Delight every five minutes." Wesley reiterated with more appropriate phraseology.
"Okay then."
Wesley checked his watch, "If you want to feed, it'll have to be now because I need to be –"
"I'm fine for today," Spike lied with a cheerful demeanour; there was no way he dared risk feeding from Wesley now with his current injuries - the flimsiest of excuses would tip him over the edge and cause him to drain the man dry.
"That's –" Wesley broke off as the phone on his desk sounded to indicate an internal call and he picked up the handset. "Wyndham-Pryce…What? Are you sure?"
"Now what?" Spike asked irritably – he wasn't in any shape to be pummelling nasty beasties at this juncture – hell, he couldn't pummel bread dough at this juncture.
"That was Lorne. He and Gunn went in to see Angel, just in time to see Angel make a pass at Harmony."
"You're not serious?!" Spike laughed.
"As a heart-attack, apparently," Wes replaced the receiver with obvious bewilderment. "Harmony's gone home for the day. Punched Angel in the jaw with a solid left jab – a close-to-Mohammed Ali level example of the pugilistic art, according to a surprised and admiring Gunn - and stalked out calling him a necrophiliac pervert."
"I don't think Necrophilia applies when both of you are dead," Spike pointed out.
"I'd best go and see what's going on." Wesley decided.
There was a loud click as Wesley's office door opened and one of Wolfram & Hart's paralegals entered. Spike glowered as he saw it was Borganicht again. The man was followed by a pretty African-American who was Letitia Something from Runes & Rites.
"Yes, what is it?" Wesley asked.
Neither paid any attention to him whatsoever. They stared at Spike vacantly and moved forward a couple of steps, still staring at him with heavy, empty eyes.
"What is your problem?" Spike snapped at Borganicht, allowing a bit of his aggression to seep through – no matter how badly injured he was he could dust this ponce trussed up like a Christmas goose and deep frozen; had the berk not been an employee of Wolfram & Hart he'd have lasted all of an hour as one of the undead. "Oh, and your girlfriend here's a vamp too. Let's all be friends. What part of get lost didn't you understand?"
Without any flicker of a response, both vampires moved another couple of steps towards him, their eyes still vacant, but they opened their mouths about an inch, clearly scenting Spike. He looked from one to the other, beginning to be freaked out – vampires had virtually no body scent, one of the markers that enabled other vamps to avoid wasting their time hunting each other as food. Even idiots like Borganicht and Let-whatever knew that.
There was a dull thud, which neither Borganicht nor Letitia reacted to, as if something had walked into Wesley's door, then Curtis from Live Accounts also walked alongside the big Polish guy – Pisarski? – from Posthumous Accounts – or was it Archives?
"Spike, aren't they –" Wesley began softly.
"Both vampires, yeah," Spike tensed and moved to stand so he was in the middle of the room, between the four vampires and Wesley, who prudently remained standing behind his desk.
Individually none rated on the break-a-sweat-o-meter but in his current condition, if they attacked together, he'd been in trouble. "Wes' go through your connecting door and shut yourself in your vault room, right now."
"What are they doing?" Wesley made no move to obey the injunction, instead opening his top drawer for the large stake and cross he kept there.
"How the hell should I know?" Spike growled out of the side of his mouth, not taking his eyes from the group. "It's like an Amateur Hour version of Night of the Living Dead."
"It's not possible to zombify a vampire," Wesley contradicted, "you're already dead so the magic doesn't apply."
Whatever response Spike might have made was not uttered as three more people entered the room and joined those surrounding him. Neither Wesley nor Spike recalled their names but they did recognise them as part of Wolfram & Hart's undead contingent. Borganicht suddenly began to make a soft growl-purr sound in his throat, moving as if to invade Spike's personal space. The blond vampire tensed to strike but Curtis went vamp-face and snapped at Borganicht who ceased his advance and snarled wordlessly at the other man before they all returned their attention to Spike.
Wesley picked up the phone, "Ang – Gunn? Yes, I know about Harmony. Angel thinks he's under some sort of enchantment? Yes -. I was on my way down. Gunn, listen. Get up here with a security team and Angel. I have sev – uh-oh, make that eleven – Wolfram & Hart employees in my office, every one a vampire, prowling around Spike like they're back-alley tomcats and he's a hundred pounds of catnip– " he broke off and dropped the phone back down as Little George from Contracts, right on the periphery of the circle, turned and snarled at him. "Oops, don't mind me."
Little George – ironically nicknamed because he stood about six feet seven inches tall in his bare feet – moved away from the group, shaking his head slightly as if dazed, but then he licked his fangs and focussed on Wesley's jugular.
From a standing start Spike was in the way, catching George a stunning blow to the side of his head on the way past. Vamping out, Spike roared wordlessly at the other vampires as he crouched protectively in their way of getting to Wesley. Seemingly unaffected by the blow that would have shattered a human jaw, Little George raised his head but seemed suddenly distracted reaching out one hand to try and stroke Spike's hair, an action that would have cost him his hand had not Borganicht lashed out at Little George before he could make contact and the two vampires began to snarl at each other.
"What the hell is this?" Angel, Gunn, Lorne and Illyria-definitely-not-with-Fred were suddenly in the doorway.
"I don't know," Wesley said leaning around the group so they could see him.
"I don't care," Spike snarled, "Make them go away."
"Okay, that is enough!" Angel stepped forward towards the group surrounding Spike. "I don't care what –"
"Angel?" prompted Lorne when the vampire stopped and didn't resume.
"Yeah, need a bit more than that, gramps, please. Oi, touch me, Borganicht and I'll have your arm off." Spike warned.
Angel went vamp-face and growled softly in his throat.
"Uh-oh," Gunn and Lorne looked at each other.
"You've got to be kidding," Spike protested. "Angel, snap out of it!"
Angel sprang from a standing leap and landed directly in front of Spike, lashing out in a motion that sent the other vampires down like skittles and threw Borganicht into the wall of Wesley's office. He snarled savagely at them and grabbed Spike by the neck of his duster, twisting it as he pulled at the blond vampire, leaning in towards his neck and taking a deep sniff like a child smelling a rose.
"No! Angel, what are you -!" Spike twisted and jerked away. "Are you tripping?! Angel, stop it!"
"Angel!" Wesley barked, coming round his desk.
The dark vampire ignored them, scenting Spike and suddenly purring as he began to pet the blond vampire's head clumsily.
"Do something!" spat Spike through gritted teeth as his face twisted into distaste; fortunately for Angel, he was one of the only two vampires in the world who could do such a thing without provoking a fearsome response from the Sid Vicious of Nosferatu.
Illyria, having been watching proceedings without any evident interest for the duration suddenly stepped forward. "Wesley, cast a nullifying enchantment around Spike, one that will prevent any other from detecting any body scent."
"Why?"
"Who cares? Just do it." snarled Spike as Angel continued to croon softly and pet him.
Grabbing the appropriate Source Book Wesley uttered his requirements and opened it, somehow reading fluently aloud from the volume despite it being an ancient and non-human language spoken by beings with extendable jaws and many more teeth.
For several moments nothing happened and then Angel blinked rapidly and frowned. He had his hand on the top of Spike's head at the time and yanked it back as if it were in direct sunlight, snapping his head around to where the other vampires were also standing up and looking at each other with obvious 'what happened there then?' expressions.
"All of you get out!" barked Angel at the vampires who all hastened to obey, traipsing out of the room casting glances back at Spike and exchanging mutters along the theme of what the hell were we doing?
Angrily Angel turned on Spike, "What do you think you were doing, indulging in a Ka'hak now, when I need you in the game! How stupid are you?!"
"What?" Spike yelped. "I wasn't the one just petting me like a puppy – hang on, strike that, I know what you used to do to puppies."
"'Scuse us," Gunn indicated himself and Lorne, "but would someone mind giving us the Cliff Notes on this 'kayak'?"
"Ka'hak, pronounced to rhyme with fire lack." Wesley interposed, "it's the Vampire Death Battle."
"No I haven't," Spike protested, "I've never even heard of…whatever."
"Lie," hissed Angel.
Spike promptly rabbit-punched Angel in the face, snapping his head back. "I don't lie and I've never heard of this kayak thing, but you want to rumble, happy to oblige, you brow-ridge buffoon."
Angel snarled but resisted the urge to hit his grandson back. "The Master fought one once, you're saying you don't know about the Ka'hak Ritual Death Battle?"
"Angel, this is me," Spike indicated his Punk Rocker appearance, "I was never into tradition, and neither were you for that matter. I only met my Great-Great-Windbag of a Grandsire 'Thuh Maaahsta' a couple of times and I tuned out about ten seconds after he started waffling about the history of the undead. St. Vigius was cool, but other than that –"
Illyria stepped forward and without pause gripped the front of Spike's T-shirt, ripping the cloth from his body effortlessly as he yelped in alarm. There was a collective, sharp intake of breath. The wounds on Spike's torso were everywhere and savagely inflicted; some of the deepest still hadn't closed up properly.
"That was my T-shirt you –"
"Harmony," said Angel suddenly. "You had a death battle with Harmony. That's why I -"
"No, I didn't!" Spike protested again, thinking furiously.
Okay, brain work: He'd bet his last cigarette that Harmony had collected Cordelia from the crèche before she stormed off in high dudgeon over Angel's grab-a-grope moment, and she would go postal if Angel & Co tried to interfere with her Perfect Mother fantasy right now. Besides, they might decide to take punitive action against Harmony if they started thinking that since she was capable of such distilled savagery once, she might do it again. So, time for my usual MO: lie truthfully...
Fortunately, he'd been pulling off the 'dim as a flickering wick' routine for over a century; it was amazing what you could get away with if people thought you were as thick as a brick and if he could fool Angelus back in the day, he could certainly fox this bunch, including Little Miss God-King of the Primordium.
"Look, okay, hands in the air. Yes, me and Harm had a few cross words last night, you know, when we were…and it got a bit physical…a lot physical," he gestured at his injuries. "But that's it. I swear, Angel, pet, I don't know what you're going on about." He gave them his sincerest typical-male-led-around-by-his-cock look.
"That makes three of us," Lorne declared, "Please, someone fill in the spaces with words."
Angel cast Lorne an irritated look but seemed to be buying Spike's 'I blundered into it cluelessly' act. "Remember what I looked like when we were in Pylea? That doesn't usually happen here. A vampire Death Battle is as close as this dimension gets to the pure demon within. Being able to pass for a human protects the demon but also restrains it. It's a human's higher brain functions, their IQ, which means the demon can contemplate past strategies and realise potential consequences."
"That's why vampires do so well in this dimension when pure demons tend to get killed despite having more literal power." Wesley agreed. "Pure demons tend to just leap straight in to the gleeful slaughter without taking time to think that, hey, they might be massively outnumbered or face insurmountable odds –"
"Or one extremely smart Slayer with a rocket-launcher," Spike drawled sardonically; then subsided as Angel glowered at him.
"Like when you two went off on each other over Rutherford Sirk's fake Cup?" Gunn asked.
"No," Angel shook his head, "We never lost our minds. We were always rational."
"That's debatable," commented Wesley in a deliberate stage-whisper.
Angel ground out, "In a death battle its pure demon versus pure demon. Both combatants have been driven into such a primal state of frenzy that there is no rational thought, no strategy, just a basic, fundamental instinct to attack." He glared at his grandson, "Which is why Death Battles are so rare and only an idiot would end up in one – even assuming the 'victor' survives, the creature is so horrifically injured they are easy pickings for any opportunistic lurkers."
"That's how primordial vampires like the Turok-Han became extinct." Wesley mentioned, speaking of the primeval vampires Buffy had faced due to the First Evil. "They might have been far more powerful and impervious to wooden stakes, only killed by immolation or decapitation, but they weren't that high on the IQ ladder. If not controlled by a greater power – such as the First - the Turok-Han would be all over each other in death battles and that made them easy pickings."
"I can't say that grieves me," commented Gunn, though he had the grace to wince as Spike over-dramatically buttoned up his duster to hide his torso since Illyria had done her show-and-tell.
Angel put in, "Assuming a pair didn't just tear each other apart during the death battle, the victor-stroke-survivor was so horrifically injured that other Turok-Han, or 'lesser' vampire species like mine, or other demon races, or even humans could despatch them without much effort. A human-versus-Turok-Han under normal circumstances is a no brainer, but after a death-battle…a single human with a sharp axe could wipe out over a dozen Turok-Han in one night."
"That is partly how the humans conquered this world." Illyria put in from where she had been contemplating Spike with an unreadable expression. "I read this in the histories of this dimension after I was slain by my rivals. My former Qua'Hah'san was correct when he said the human plague possessed extraordinary sneakiness."
"That we do," Gunn smirked.
Ignoring his interruption, Illyria said, "The humans knew demon kind viewed them as cattle for slaughter or slaves at best, and used that against us. Human tribes deliberately moved into war zones or Turok-Han infested places because they knew their presence would trigger a war for possession of them as food or slaves between the demons. If one demon gained ascendancy, the tribe would move into the territory of an enemy demon-king, forcing the demon to constantly be tracking them and also fighting its rivals and protecting the kingdom it already held. Time and again they engineered great wars that ravaged continents, and then slithered in like serpents to slay anything that still lived. We were heedless, until suddenly we were too few to hold our kingdoms, and the humans were overwhelming in numbers."
"I admit, me and Harm lost our tempers," Spike admitted with well-simulated sheepishness. After all, he doubted that I went primal protecting an abandoned baby would go down well, even if they believed him. "But nobody heard me moaning and going on about it, did they? It was you who went all Timothy Leary on me. Need I remind you just who was patting whose head like I was that bloody TV advert Andrex puppy? What was that all about?"
"It is your scent, that is why I had my mate enchant you so the odour does not permeate," Illryia said.
"Vampires don't have B.O., love." Spike contradicted.
"They do after a death battle." Wesley corrected him, having grabbed a source book and mouthed 'Vampire Ka'hak' whilst the conversation was going on. "Vampires don't fight death battles unless pushed into a feral, purely primal state by very, very extreme circumstances, which is why this side effect is largely unknown. Every human has a body odour that's as unique as their finger prints or their irises; other humans can't consciously detect it unless the individual decides hygiene is not for him or her. That body scent is secreted through the pores and glands, but vampires are dead, you don't operate sweat glands, it's one of the reasons why a vampire isn't always sinking his or her teeth into another vampire having mistaken them for a human – a vampire's main hunting method is scent, and a human has a scent whereas a vampire doesn't."
"So?" Gunn enquired with interest.
Wesley shrugged and gestured with the source book, "For reasons unknown, a vampire that wins, or rather more accurately wins and survives a Death Battle gives off a pheromone-like scent for about four or five days afterwards, a sort of chemical reaction that might be triggered by the overwhelming injuries that the vampire has to heal. But that scent also triggers a primal response in other vampires for the week or so it lasts."
"Whoa, primal response?" Spike demanded.
Wesley read the list, "Violent mood swings for instance: euphoria one minute, anger, depression the next. Anxiety; agitation; paranoid outbursts and so on. Also sudden and excessive blood cravings and uh-oh…"
"Uh-oh…" Spike tensed, "No, no uh-oh. What uh-oh?"
"Surges in libido, and extreme tactile craving." Wesley finished, "Hence the hair patting."
"Tactile craving –"
"Stroking silk or fur, hugging hot water bottles, weird stuff. Basically other vampires react like teenagers on bad acid at a rave party."
Lorne raised his eyebrows, "Basically, Spike is a lady cat in heat and the other vampires in this building are tom cats?"
Gunn scrunched his face up, "Lorne, I think I speak for us all when I say we really didn't need that visual."
"Damn skippy!" Spike declared. "Make it go away."
"It is a defence mechanism."
"What, Illyria?" Wesley asked.
"It is what Fred is saying, inside my head. Her brain is strange, sparkling and dancing, making such connections…" Illyria seemed momentarily to drift off, but then brought it back. "The survivor of a death battle is so injured as to be vulnerable, but Fred is thinking that the scent is a defence mechanism."
"Hey, that could work," Gunn snapped his fingers, "like tear gas canisters and flash-bangs."
"Huh?" Angel demanded this time.
"Sure, think about it. Vamp's too hurt to defend himself, but he gives off this funky scent while he's healing up some that temporarily sends other vamps ga-ga. Some vamps get too close, they start feeling all edgy and upset and anxious, so they go away and feel better. Other vamps start getting all touchy-feely –"
"Watch it Q-ball," warned Spike.
"The ones that are driven to cuddle probably bring coverings and food and stuff." Gunn suggested. "Whatever response it provokes, other vampires are disoriented and off-balance, meaning there's more chance of the winner managing to survive to brag to his homies about the deal."
"So that was what all the love was about?" Lorne sought to clarify.
"Vampires like most demon species have a complex hierarchy," Wesley put in, "a vampire who won a death battle would go up the social scale several notches. That's probably what the petting was about." He did not elaborate; the group of vampires had been contending to claim ownership of Spike by the Alpha vampire, which not unsurprisingly had turned out to be Angel, but that led into realms of demon behaviour too disturbing to deal with.
"So what do we do?" Spike demanded. "My bite is worse than my bark, people; there are very few pe – anythings - on this planet who can pat me on the head and live to regret it - and most of them are in here with me."
"Maintain the nullifying spell for a week until the scent dissipates," Angel decreed, "and Wesley, put the whammy on Harmony as soon as she comes back into work."
He shot his grandson a looked of disgust still tinged with slight suspicion, "I cannot believe you got into a death battle with Harmony over something as trivial as sex, especially now!"
Faced with the choice of vindicating himself by telling the truth or accepting the reprimand, Spike did what he'd always done; he gave his grandsire two fingers in the British classic insulting gesture and swaggered out of the room. Harmony, you owe me forever.
This Part concluded in Chapter 5…
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The Cat's Whiskers