Rebuilding

Ch 18 – Slippery Slope

Tara handed Monique a steaming hot mug and forced it into her hand as the young woman sat shivering with shock on the Summers' sofa. Next to her Jan and Lisa were practically holding each other and shivering like on a cartoon, but far less funny. Willow was speaking quietly with Spike, getting an update on what had happened while Dawn paced back and forth.

"Their faces…God, their faces," Monique whispered as she stared at Tara with wide, watery eyes.

"It'll be alright," Dawn tried to comfort them, but she sounded unconvinced.

"There was… there were fangs," Jan exclaimed suddenly.

"What the hell was that," Lisa demanded. "What… what… how could their faces look like that!?"

"We're being punished! I'm being punished… please God, I'll never flirt with a boy again! Oh, my God… the eyes," Monique began rocking and crying. Tara was forced to pry the tea from her as the orange-brown water began sloshing over onto the carpet.

Tara looked with concern at Willow as she sensed her girlfriend arrive at her side. Will crooked a finger silently, summoning her toward the kitchen where Spike was waiting. He had a square of white gauze taped to his neck and it just peeked out from under his jacket and plain, black sweatshirt.

"Here Dawn," she said quietly while pushing the mug of tea into her hands. "See if you can get them to sip some of this… I added a nip of whiskey. I need to talk to Willow."

Once the three had stepped into the kitchen, Willow immediately laid out the plan that she and Spike had agreed on. "I want to use the Tabula Rasa spell," she said.

Tara looked on both of them without comment. Her hanging open mouth was more than enough to get her shock and revulsion across.

"I know," Willow nodded. She had known that Tara wouldn't be happy. "But look at them, Tara. They can't handle this knowledge."

"But… but to … Willow, it's their minds you're talking about. It… it seems so wrong!"

"It's the right thing to do Wicca," Spike said in a subdued voice. "We can't let them leave in their state."

"Spike? You can go if you want," Willow told him. "I know that you and Xan had a night planned…."

"…He'll understand, Red. Besides, I can't let the girls go home alone. We don't know if that was all of 'em."

"You said there were five," Tara said. "That accounts for the missing kids."

"But where are the moms? And who changed them? No, somebody is still out there playing," he said. "I'll walk them home."

"After the spell," Willow said, again looking at Tara.

She watched along with Spike in silence as Tara struggled with her belief in the sanctity of the individual with what she'd witnessed. Another yowl of terror erupted from the living room which seemed to decide for her.

"I-I guess we don't have another good choice," Tara acquiesced. "But this is a very slippery slope. I don't want us to get too used to resorting to this type of magic. We're playing with enough danger as it is," she directed at Willow.

Spike frowned for a moment, but let the comment pass uncommented on. "Is there something I can do to help?"

"Not unless you became a witch recently," Willow rather rudely told him. "There's crystals in the basement and some Lethe's bramble locked in our dresser drawer… bottom one," she turned away from Tara and started for the basement.

Tara gave a worried nod and started for the stairs. She was very anxious about performing this spell, not only for the moral reasons, but because Willow seemed so cold to it all. They had performed a purification and ritual bath to wipe away the darkness that Willow had picked up during her magic battle with Glory. Now, Tara wondered if it had done any good. Her girlfriend still seemed in a hurry to take the easy way out with dubious magic.

On the other hand, what choice do I have, she bit at her lower lip as she retrieved the flower buds. We can't lock them up here indefinitely and we sure can't send them home in this state.

The actual spell only took minutes and as the three young women dropped off into a temporary sleep, the gang quickly cleared away and hid the signs of spell casting. Moments later, they woke up as one. They were confused, but Dawn stepped in with some energetic babbling about the movie and the girls seemed to forget that anything was amiss.

"Well, I guess I should get you girls home," Spike said.

"Oh, we can walk by ourselves," Lisa smiled with a little blush.

"And I'm right across the street," Janice giggled.

"I'm just going to walk Jan over," Dawn said.

"Be careful, Bit. As for you ladies, I'd feel better if you let me drop you off at your door," he smiled his most dashing smile. This led to more embarrassed giggles from Lisa. Her sister just smiled coquettishly.

"That's very nice of you Mr. uh…?"

"It's just Spike, luv."

He could tell that the girls were infatuated with him and adding the charm had them agreeing with no fuss to the escort. As they headed out of the door, Spike turned to Willow and Tara, "Stay in, yeah?"

"We will. And we'll watch Dawn come back," Willow smirked with a nod of her head at his admirers.

Tara stood behind them with her arms crossed in front of her chest. She wasn't happy at all with what they had just done and even more bothered by the casualness of the others toward messing with the girl's minds. This wasn't the way magic was supposed to be used and even if it was necessary, they should all feel badly about it, in her opinion.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Spike didn't get in until nearly twelve-thirty. The apartment was in complete darkness, but there was enough ambient light for his vampire eyesight to make out everything clearly. On the dining room table sat two tall candles. They both had melted wax, which was now hardened, dribbled down their sides.

He hissed to himself with regret when he saw that the whole of the living room had candles set up in various places. In the air was the tang of citrus and spice from when Xander had lit them and awaited his arrival. Returning his attention to the dining table, he saw a place setting laid out for him. Xander's spot was empty.

As he wandered to the kitchen, he spotted dirty dishes in the sink. He opened the fridge to retrieve a pint and saw a small glass bottle with a cork stopper that hadn't been there earlier in the day. Inside was the dark crimson of his meal-blood.

Spike uncorked it with a small smile and gave it a whiff. It was cow blood, but there was some sort of spicy scent wafting under the heady smell of blood. When he sipped it, he found that Xander had added a little bit of cinnamon to it.

The kitchen light suddenly went on and he spun to find Xander standing in pajama bottoms and nothing else. On his face was a mixture of hurt and anger.

"You missed dinner. And everything else," he said flatly.

"I know, Love. I'm sorry."

"Sure. No big deal. I'm going to bed. Got an early morning. Suppose you'll be up all night, alone, again?"

"I know you're angry, but I got held up."

"You're a vampire. I understand that you don't get 'romantic night in'. It was a stupid idea. We should have just gone patrolling together," Xander crossed his arms and looked slightly humiliated.

"Romance with you would have made my night, Love. Honestly, I wasn't out goofing off," he said as he lowered his jacket and tugged at his shirt. He was able to give Xander a clear view of the gauze bandage.

It had two very clear circles of moist blood soaking through.

"Jeez, what happened? Where's Dawn?! Is she alright?!"

Xander knew that Spike had taken her and her friends to the movies. He was supposed to have been back no later than eleven so they'd have a few hours to themselves… all night if he could have seduced Spike. His anger obviously evaporated immediately on seeing that Spike had been wounded.

"The missing kids happened. They sprung out of the woodwork and came after Dawn and the giggle-triplets. I'm alright, and so are they."

"The kids bit you!? Oh my God, please tell me that somebody didn't vamp some innocent children?"

"Sorry, Babe. I'm afraid so. We were able to dust 'em; you would have been proud of the Pint… she held her own just fine, but I was worried about letting the girls walk back home on their own."

"You did the right thing," Xander conceded, shaken. Even in Sunnydale, the crime rate against the tykes was very, very low. Even most of the demons that visited apparently had their threshold for what was tolerable. "Damn it… kids."

"I know," Spike pulled him into an embrace. "There was more trauma afterward, but Willow whipped up a spell and made the teens forget what had happened."

"I bet Tara was happy with that," he said facetiously.

"She's a good woman; maybe too good for the things that we sometimes might need to do to win. But that's a worry for another apocalypse…." he leaned in and captured Xander's mouth. "I really am sorry that you went to so much trouble."

"Yeah," Xander shrugged with a sigh. "Well, it's not like this is the first time that my plans have been cancelled due to Hellmouthyness. Are you really okay? You're still bleeding a little and it looks like he got you in the jugular?"

"The little shit came close, but yeah, I'll be fine. I need to get back to the blood though. You should go to sleep… you got work awfully early and you'll be moaning, groaning and bitching as it is," Spike smirked.

"I do not 'bitch'," Xander insisted indignantly. "I may kvetch a little."

Spike dis-entwined himself from Xander's hold and went back to the bottle of blood. He heard Xan sigh as he returned to their room.

Or his and Hyena's room, Spike thought with longing. Don't suppose it's really my room right now… just a place I borrow when the sun's a bit bright.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

In 'The Cantina', Andrew Wells was bouncing a rubber ball against the wall. April was wandering Sunnydale, looking for demons or vampires and he still hadn't seen hide nor hair of Buffy all day. He was beginning to wonder if the two of them ever were in the same place at the same time, at all. Maybe Buffy had a prejudice against robots?

His mind was wandering to one of his fantasies about Warren. In it, Obi Wan would come into the lair dressed in leather and looking really tough and macho… kinda like Spike, actually, but warmer. He'd stroll up casually behind him while he was monitoring and place his strong hands on his shoulders, beginning to rub as he expressed worry that Andrew's muscles were all knotted.

As Andrew tried to relax, Warren would begin pressing harder, leaning over further until his hot breath would linger on the skin of his neck. He'd protest, of course, that Warren was too close, but in his fantasy, Warren would just laugh and ask if he was sure he wanted him to step back.

Warren would reach past him and grab the arms of the chair he was in, swinging him around so that they were face to face. As Andrew tried to hide how excited he was getting, Warren would lean in very close, his lips to his ear.

"I know you've been watching me, Andy," Warren would whisper before running his tongue just barely over the outside of his ear. "It's just the two of us… I told Jon to take the night off… all that work at the Pump. Ooh… did I say 'Pump'?"

Warren at this point would let a hand fall to Andrew's crotch… and begin to gently knead. Of course, he'd tried to protest, but Warren wouldn't take that! He'd dive into his mouth with his hot tongue, forcing him to submit to his rough, manly kiss.

Andrew knew he'd be but putty and Warren would… well, he'd do stuff. The fantasy wasn't very explicit at this point as usually Andrew would start to panic and shake off the daydream.

As he did now. When he looked at the monitor again, the screen was showing a close up of Willow's face. He quickly turned up the receiver's volume.

"…r not too damaged? If you need work done, I need to know so I can schedule time to get into your guts."

"No," Faithbot's voice echoed slightly through the speaker, "It is only cosmetic damage. And that giant sewer snake won't be eating any more workmen in the meantime. I'd like to see Buffy try tangling with that!"

"I'd like to see Buffy at all," Andrew whined to Willow over the monitor.

"Well, why don't I take a quick look anyway while you're charging. I wish I knew how Warren took care of your batteries. You seem to suddenly be holding a charge for less and less amount of time," Willow complained.

Oh, oh! If she starts digging into the battery case, she might find the transmitter, Andrew worried. We may need to step up Adam's assault on the Slayer's forces. I'll have to remember to mention it to Warren.

Pulling out a day planner, Andrew jotted a note to himself.

"Just relax and let yourself power up," Willow smiled.

In the background, Andrew heard Buffy's voice complaining that Faithbot was spending less time at the Slaying than she was and she had a sister that she needed to take care of and blah-blah-blah.

Andrew excitedly leaned forward and turned the speaker on the PC up to full. He started the audio/video capture application and began to digitally record. He had just enough time to record Willow's sigh and a streaming video of her rolling her eyes before April shut down and his feed went blank.

"Arrggghhhhh," echoed throughout the empty iron works plant.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

End Ch 18