Ring on her Finger
By Nickeltaffy
Disclaimer: I would like to thank Joss for the use of his characters. They are still his and will never be mine. (heavy sigh).
Synopsis: Anyone ever notice that Buffy never returned Spike's ring from when they were engaged? What if Willow's reversal of the Will Be Done spell from the Something Blue episode was not exactly 100% effective? What if Buffy was still under a spell and still considered herself engaged to a horrified Spike?
…
Chapter 8
The next day, all of the Scoobies gathered around Giles' dining room table with the exception of Buffy who was stuck in a lab she had forgotten about that afternoon. Willow had brought the research from her computer with her. She drafted Xander to lug in the large number of books from the college library regarding the occult, folklore and various sciences from her car. Giles, Xander and Willow each grabbed a book and sat down to study it. As the afternoon wore on, they were getting nowhere in their investigation.
"I didn't find much per se on this particular creature. I did find that the Diye Cagiriyor is Turkish." offered Willow as she was pulling another book out of the pile on the table.
"Was that where he first appeared?" Giles countered.
Willow shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head to the side.
"...Spike?" Giles said, as the group looked over to the vampire.
"I don't know." replied the sullen vampire sitting over by himself at the far side of the living room, away from the small group of people gathered around the table.
Spike did not want to speak to bunch of gits gathered at the table and he did not want to participate in their damable silly research. The dimwitted Scoobies continued to press him for more information regarding the creature as if that would change anything. All he wanted was to leave, but he couldn't do that because of this bleedin chip and the roid junky commandos were still on watch for him. He was stuck here, an unwilling mark for the Slayer's latest game. No one believed him about Buffy's little escapades last night. Now, Giles was blaming his outrage on the chip. That's bloody perfect, he thought. He kept as far away from the group as he could. He begrudgingly answered their questions with the least amount of words possible. If he was going to be stuck here, he wasn't going to let anyone enjoy it.
Back at the dining room table, Willow pulled out her research from the computer out of her bag. She then pulled out an ancient oversized book and began flipping open the pages..
"In the ancient folkIore of a tiny region by the Black sea, I did find something about people disappearing into a hole that suddenly appeared. It might have been the portal that Spike mentioned." she stated.
"Spike, How far back does the appearance of this creature go back in vampire lore?" Giles called to the vampire.
"I don't know" Spike replied snippily
"From what particular area, did these stories start?" Giles continued to question
"I don't know."
"Are you going to be of any assistance?" Giles asked as he pulled off his glasses.
"Not if I can help it." answered Spike
"Spike, I realize that you may be still upset from last night, but this affects you just as much as it does us, maybe even more so." Giles countered.
"Really, Spike, you could be a little more helpful. After all, free room and board doesn't pay for itself. " Xander added in a smart mouth tone.
"If I had known there was going to be a test, I would have studied." Spike replied grumpily.
"What's going on with Unhappy Gilmore over there? He seems kinda outa sorts." Willow asked Giles in a low voice.
"Yeah. If he keeps it up, I think we should offer him lots of chocolate and roomy pajama pants." Xander announced to everyone.
The other three people slowly turned their heads toward Xander, each giving him a disgusted look.
"Ugh. And instantly, the vampire is NOT the creepiest guy in the room." Willow said, shaking her head in a "not funny" expression.
"Hey, Okay, movin on! So, what's goin on with you know who?" Xander said, hoping to change the subject back to Spike.
"He's been this way since last night. Buffy and I believe he may be experiencing side effects of the chip. He locked himself in the bathroom last night and he has been acting very strangely this morning." Giles said matter of factly. "I was worried that I would to have to enter intense negotiations just to get access to my own bathroom."
"I hate to interrupt your deft investigative discussion, but I can hear you." Spike said exasperatedly. "Remember, Vampire goin mental over here!"
Willow looked at Spike sitting there with his arms wrapped around him. Ever since their talk in her room when he tried unsuccessfully to bite her, she had developed a soft spot for the beset guy. He had been rather kind in his comments that she was extremely bite-able even though at the time, his world had been pulled out from under him.
"Spike, if you help us, the sooner we can get out of here and leave you alone.." she said as an olive branch
"Well, if you put it that way. Anything to get the whelp to leave." Spike said as he stood up.
Spike walked over to the table and leaned over Giles to look at the mass of books and printouts lying on the table. He immediately pulled up a folklore book with a picture of a summoning hand from a nebula suspended over a pastoral landscape.
"No, that's wrong." Spike flatly stated.
"What? What is it?" Giles leaned over to see what Spike was looking at.
"This drawing. It was probably put in this book to titillate; it's too cheap, too maudlin. This was obviously done for the tourist industry. It looks like it drawn for a penny arcade fortune teller booth; much too boorish to have been inspired by the actual event. See here, it is just a hand, he is much more terrifying than that."
It was then that Spike began to remember the incident in the alleyway in Krakow. It had never really left him, although he had like to think that it had. Drucilla and Spike had come Krakow by following two other vampires they had met in Czermna. Dru and Spike had been spending the late autumn of 1906 at a lovely spa in Czermna. It catered to the indulgently ailing from the upper classes. The wealthy had come to reclaim their health and beauty at the spa, but they had run into something unexpected instead: vampires. He and Dru had blended in with the expensive clientele at the spa. Dru had enjoyed sipping on her fellow guests as they enjoyed the waters. She would silkily slide up to the guests at the springhouse and sip so gently at their necks that they never noticed. Many nights, there would be a string quartet playing in the dining hall. Spike could remember gliding with Dru under the glowing gaslights in the hall and then out into the garden, where their next victims waited for them unaware. There were soft gentle nights spent there, just him and Dru. Spike thought it ironic that the guests believed the fatigue and paleness were just a side effect of the water's healing properties. As it always happened, the peaceful nature and lack of excitement at the spa soon became oppressive to the vampires.
They had met Gustav and Karima at the Chapel of Skulls in Czermna. Dru had begged Spike to take her to see the Chapel that night. Dru had wanted to see the pictures painted in her head by the sonorous voices of the skulls inside. Spike was intrigued by the name and as long as they did not brush up against any crosses, he believed they could blend in with populace. He and Dru had waited until the nighttime masses were over, so they could enter the chapel as the congregation left the chapel. He and Dru could then look at the masses of skulls and bones to their hearts content. By the time everyone had left, the priest had retreated back to his quarters, so there was only he and Dru in the chapel. Spike picked up a shin bone and twirled it in his hand, knocking an occasional skull to hear a hollow thunk sound. On the other side of the chapel, Dru's hands were hovering over the wall of skulls as to absorb the symphony of terror coming from the bones. "Oh, pretty, pretty, pretty" she murmured back to them.
It was a moment later that a wildly disarrayed and drunk Gustav accompanied by a laughing Karima burst through the doors. The vampires immediately recognized their own kind. It had been a long time since Dru and he had had a wild night. Since the atmosphere was so polite at the spa, so Spike was overjoyed to find other vampires who kindred in their pursuit of pleasure. Later, Gustav and Karima convinced Dru and him to accompany them to Krakow.
It had been an extremely good night that particular night in Krakow. Just little over an hour before dawn, Gustav and Spike were good naturedly leaning against each other as they followed their girls who laughed and danced ahead of them. They were returning to their lodging after a night filled with liquor, dancing and killing. It had been a very good night, indeed. The music at the dance hall was excellent that evening and Dru loved the Polish folkdances. Earlier, she whispered to him as he spun and lifted her in an Oberek that they were dancing over a cave of a dragon. It leant a magical quality to the air that night, it was only later that he realized that the magic did not come from a dragon, but something far worse.
As the group moved down the street, Spike began to notice a voice muttering something indefinable, probably some drunk reciting poetry he decided. Karima had been the first to feel it. The undeniable pull, at first only, plucked at her as the group came closer to an alleyway the emptied onto the street. Perhaps due to her otherworldly senses, Dru had stopped and moved back toward Spike, her hand held toward him. Not knowing the danger yet, Spike casually reached for her hand, smiling. It was just then that Karima fell forward and was being pulled at a steady pace back down the alleyway.
Karima cried out in terror as she furiously fought against the force pulling her. Gustav leaped forward to grab Karima by the arms and stop her progression toward the other end of the alley. Spike and Dru countered and took a few steps back away from the struggling pair, so they could see down the alley. There at the other end was a mass of dark air swirling in on itself and in the center was something, not a man, something more…. It might have been something like a man once, but now it was too tall, its' skin gleamed many colors and flashed brilliantly like the blade of a knife turning under the light, it was too beautiful and too frightening. Where there should be a face…it was indescribable, it was definitely not of this world.
Kneeling, Gustav frantically used all his power to stop Karima from being dragged down the alley. Digging his heels into the earth, his arms straining as he tightly gripped her in his arms, he could not gain purchase to stop her movement down the alley. She wrapped her arms around his neck, sobbing in fear and calling his name. In the next instant, she was gone. Then, the force turned to Gustav. He had stood up when he realized that Karima was not in his arms. The pull made him stagger a little bit, then the pull got stronger. Gustav was suddenly on his back being pulled down by that same force. He flipped over on to his stomach and clawed at the ground. He called to Spike for help.
Spike instinctively took a step toward Gustav. "No" commanded Dru. She kept him clutched beside her. He, being a younger vampire, stayed beside her since he could not overpower her. They watched as Gustav tried in vain to resist the power pulling him, and then he too was gone. The power next reached out for Spike. First, it was a little pull, like a mis-step you take off a curb; then it became stronger. Dru kept her hold on Spike till she too was being dragged with him. Dru managed to grab on to a light pole and used it as an anchor, but she was not able to stop Spike's motion down the alley. She drug them both to the ground hoping to slow the progress, using all her strength to hold on to Spike and the pole. The metal pole crushed in her bloodied hand. Spike continued to be dragged ahead of her, so he turned on his side to look back at Dru to say goodbye. When she saw that she was about to lose her grip on Spike, Dru gave up her grip on the pole to keep a hold of Spike. She wrapped both her hands around his right hand. Spike looked into her eyes, and for moment saw clarity in them. She was willing to sacrifice herself for him. If he could do anything, he needed to do it now to save them both. For some reason, he held up his left hand as a defense against the dark mass at the end of the alley and then there was a red flash.
The next thing that Spike knew he found Dru and himself lying up against a building on the opposite side of the alley. Dru was knocked senseless and was mumbling incoherently to herself. Spike quickly got his feet, and roughly pulled Dru to hers. He wrapped his arms around her as they quickly ran away from that terrible scene. He kept looking back expecting that creature to suddenly pursue them, but they managed to get away
Spike shook his head and came back to the present. He was still holding that book with the moronic picture. He looked down at it. Yep, they definitely had it wrong, he thought.
Just then, Buffy came through the door.