Saturday's Child

Chapter Fifteen

…

If she was honest with herself, Buffy had to admit that she enjoyed the hunt. The kill at the end, when necessary, was satisfying in that it completed her task of taking out the bad guy, but it was the hunt itself that really got her going. Right now, though? Right now, she wanted the slaughter. She wanted to storm the office of Wolfram & Hart and rip all of the employees into tiny shreds with her bare hands.

No, no, that would be wasteful. She'd kill the demony ones, but she'd just knock out the humans. Then, after she'd found Spike, she'd rip open their throats and feed them to him. Human blood, fresh from the tap. It'd be good for him and Aliena. She could raid the break rooms for Tupperware and thermoses to save the extra.

A little voice made disgusted and distressed noises in the back of her mind, but she could barely hear it over the fury and terror riding her. Spike and their babies at the mercy of the world's most evil law firm. What was being done to them? Were they together, or had they been separated? Oh god, poor little Thursday, separated from both Mommy and Daddy and possibly being experimented on.

And Spike…. Did he still have his amulet? Would they know he needed to be kept warm? And that he needed human food along with human blood? She swallowed hard, feeling like she was going to be sick. Calm down and think, Buffy. You have to think. Spike wouldn't be there long enough for starvation to be an issue, and Willow had figured out both that (though not that he needed human blood rather than animal) and the cold thing just from looking up a website. Evil Incorporated would know how to take care of Spike. He'd be okay. He was going to be okay. She had room to breathe. To call in backup and form a plan. A calm, intelligent plan where they'd sneak in and… and she'd rip all the bastards to shreds for –

A cry of pain snapped her out of her thoughts and helped her push away the rage. She'd started clenching her fists, forgetting that one of her hands was wrapped around someone's wrist. What? Oh right, Holtz. Trying to kill Angel for what had been done to his family. She took a deep breath and slowly eased her hold on him without actually letting him go. A quick look around showed Angel staring at her like he'd never seen her before while Wesley and Fred peered worriedly from the office.

Buffy was pretty sure they hadn't just been standing around watching her in silence for several minutes, which meant her crazy murder fantasies hadn't lasted very long at all. Good. Good. That was… that was good. She took another deep breath and closed her eyes. The urge to run from the hotel and storm Wolfram & Hart as a one-woman army was rising again.

If I do that, I'm going to end up dead, she told herself bluntly. And if I'm dead, who's going to rescue Thursday and take care of Spike while he's carrying the baby? The effects of the ritual let up, leaving Buffy feeling wrung out and still pretty panicky, but in control of herself.

"Buffy…?"

"Shut up, Angel," she said quietly, not even looking at him. She was focused on Holtz. There wasn't time to deal with him right now. "That message we just heard? Some really bad people have my… husband and –"

"He is not your husband!" Angel growled, interrupting her.

"Shut up, Angel!" she repeated, snapping it out this time.

He was technically right. She and Spike weren't legally married, but all the legal documents Giles had set up for him, including his driver's license, said William Summers. It was also what was listed on Thursday's birth certificate. He was hers. It didn't matter that there was no marriage certificate reflecting that.

In and out. Deep breaths, count to ten. She continued talking to Holtz. "They have my husband and our baby. She's only eight months old. I may need Angel's help to rescue them. After that, you can do whatever the hell you want to him, I don't care. Just don't start anything until my baby is safe, okay?"

Expressions flashed across the man's face. Anger, grief, despair, hate. Finally, he closed his eyes and tried to pull away from her. She let him, and he opened his eyes again.

"Very well," he said, a venomous look aimed at Angel. "Make use of the monster to rescue your child. It is fitting, after all the children he has slaughtered. After that, vengeance shall be mine."

Buffy nodded and turned away from him as she pulled her cellphone out of her pocket. If she was going to get Spike and Thursday away from Wolfram & Hart, she couldn't just count on Angel's team to help her. She didn't know their strengths and weaknesses. She had to call in backup that she was familiar with.

…

...

Reality flickered in and out. Blurry flashes of color and light broken up by bouts of near nothingness that seemed to last both forever and only a moment or two. Sight and scent and the feeling of being moved about came and went like the peaks and valleys of a sodding rollercoaster, but sound followed him down. One sound. The sprog was crying. Wailing in terror. He had to…. The struggle to cling to the edges of consciousness and pull himself up only shoved him back down. Everything went away then, even the crying, for eons and seconds and everything in between.

Falling, falling, down into the velvet dark before floating back up. Smears of light and color. Flesh toned blobs staring down at him. Naked and cold while flesh blobs made sounds at each other. Cold…. Something about that penetrated the vague confusion of his mind. Cold was bad. Why was cold bad? He chased the thought with a butterfly net of tattered consciousness, but it scattered and flew away, breaking into thousands of smaller flutterbies as something stabbed into his skin and took some of his blood away.

No, no, no. That was his blood. Needed that, he did. Had to find his little girl. She'd crawled off down the rabbit hole and he'd no hope of chasing after if he hadn't any blood in him. He struggled again, and this time his body started to obey, rousing him slightly instead of dragging him back under. The noises started to make some sort of sense.

"…edatives, he's start… ake up."

"We can't… too much. Not safe… aby."

"… have blood and tissue samples. Go ahead and take him to the prepared room."

Movement again, strapped down to something as hallways streamed past. With each passing moment, he felt more himself, but he was still weak and groggy when the movement finally stopped and he was unstrapped. Spike envisioned himself leaping up from the gurney he was on, busting heads and tearing the whole place apart as he searched for Thursday. What actually happened was he twitched a bit and nearly fell off before someone caught him and shoved him into a room.

He threw himself clumsily at the door as it swung shut, but only ended up bouncing off it with a bone-shuddering thud. No handle or knob on his side, just a smooth, flat metal door. He threw himself against it again. And again. Again and again until the fact that he was shivering so much he could hardly stand finally penetrated.

Bloody hell. Spike dropped down to the floor, huddling in on himself, even though there bloody well wasn't much point to it. Being a vampire and all, he didn't produce body heat, but the human instinct to curl up to preserve warmth was apparently still there. Bastards had taken the little stone amulet along with his togs, and Aliena was sucking down what little heat he was absorbing from the air around him, turning him into a sodding vampsicle. Meant the wee bit had survived the drugs they'd used on him, but neither one of them was going to for much longer if he didn't get warm.

A quick glance around the room put that fear to rest, at least. There was a right cozy looking bed against one wall with an electric blanket on it and plugged into a wall socket. He struggled up to his feet and staggered to the bed, glorious, wonderful heat soaking into him as he burrowed under the blanket. He took slow, deep breaths, trying to fight back the panic threatening to drown him now that he'd shaken off most of the sedative.

They had Thursday. He knew they did. He hadn't heard or smelt her since coming to, but he knew he'd heard her crying at some point after they'd captured him. Darla hadn't been able to keep her away from them. Had the bloody bitch even tried?

The need to hold his girl, feel her in his arms and breath in her scent, was nearly overwhelming. Was she even real? Had he dreamt it all up, a fantasy to escape from the reality that Dru had stolen her right out of him and had never really given her back? He squeezed his eyes shut and took in several shuddering breaths.

Come on, now, Spike, m'lad. That's crazy talk, and you sodding well know it. Thursday was real and she was his. Not much he could do right now. Even if he managed to break down the door, he'd be too cold away from the electric blanket to be of much use. Buffy had a backup warming amulet. She'd bring it when she came for them, and they'd find their sprog together. And she would be coming for them. All he had to do was wait, and then…. Demon, man, and soul were all in agreement, then these bastards would pay for taking their girl.

…

...

"… daylight soon. Rescuing a vampire and a half-vampire baby isn't going to be easy."

"We'll take some human blood with us, and a thick blanket. Spike knows how to keep out of the sun, and the blood will help the baby heal the nasty sunburns."

The conversation echoed in Holtz's mind. The child the Chosen One wished to save was somehow half vampire. She burned in the sun and consumed human blood. He'd stolen away to an unused room after hearing that, the memories of his dear little Sarah overwhelming him. He remembered those last hours, singing to her and watching her play.

He'd known what he would eventually have to do, but he'd needed those hours. He'd struggled during them, thinking perhaps he could keep her with him. Give her animal blood, train her to be a person again. But in the end, he'd done what he must. He'd turned his precious little girl out into the sun.

The Slayer's get was an abomination that had to be destroyed, but it was also an innocent child. Around the age of his son, who had, thankfully, been killed outright rather than turned like his older sister. What if that hadn't been the case? What if he had had to render that tiny little body into dust as well?

The thought sickened him, as did the knowledge that it had to be done to the Slayer's child. But not by her hand. The Chosen went through so much in their short lives, and he would not allow her to shoulder this burden. They would rescue the child, and she would have a few precious hours with her baby.

Then, God help him, Holtz would take matters into his own hands and slay the beast.