Chapter Thirty-Eight
Spike expelled a deep breath, trying to ignore the tremors that shuddered across his body as he approached the bed. For the past hour or so, the screaming had dwindled to nearly nothing. A few writhing moans here and there; she couldn’t seem to keep still for any amount of time. Her body arching with pain, whimpers tearing at her throat with such rawness, such agony that every sound that whispered through her lips tore deeply at his heart.
His Slayer. His gorgeous girl.
His girl that he had to claim now. Claim for reasons he had never before fathomed. It was something he had wanted on some level since he first touched her. Something he couldn’t remember not wanting. A burning in the pit of his stomach that would have consumed him eventually, yet something he would never have presumed to take from her. Claiming. Mating. Making her his forever.
Right now, the line between transience and forever was so blurry he could barely make it out. It was this or possibly lose her forever. To Spike, there was no alternative.
Call it selfish. Call it anything. He could not lose her.
Not like this. Not to a god so wholly unworthy of her. So fucking unworthy.
His eyes hazed over with tears. He had shed so many over the past few days. An eternity between where he stood now and where he had been in a span of worthless hours. Just hours. Forty-eight, fifty-four at most. Hours. Time.
Willow was getting ready to perform the Rite of Thrieve. He knew he should feel something for having her shoulder that sort of power, but there was nothing but urgency. Before the day was over, they would know. Buffy would either be back in his arms and they could begin as they should have, or he would have lost her forever.
Though being what he was…the creature of evil that he was…he knew the bliss she offered was something he would never deserve. And similarly, feared that factor alone would condemn her to death. He had defiled her. Tainted her purity with the blackness of his being. That was something unforgivable. For him. For Buffy. They were marked forever. Blemishes in that wretched continuum of time.
He was so bleeding nervous; he was genuinely surprised when he didn’t reduce himself to dust by anxiety alone. It came down to this. To time. Time would tell if the Powers would take her away from him or give her back. A matter of empty minutes. A clock ticking away until the winds selected her fate.
Hers and his.
Spike’s eyes swelled as he watched her, the pain in his chest nearly unbearable. It had to be now. He expelled a deep breath and approached her on quaky knees, a watery smile forcing its way to his lips. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said gently, sitting on the edge of the bed, just beside her. “’S me.” He brushed a hand across her forehead, dropping to caress her cheek. Her skin was warm beneath his. So bloody warm. Alive for everything else that was happening to her.
“There’s this thing I gotta do now. I never…I din’t think it’d be like this. I never thought it’d be like this.” He wet his lips and lowered his head to brush a kiss at her temple. “You know I love you, baby. So much. I can barely think for the feel of it. It happened so fast; I barely knew what hit me. One minute I was watchin’ you…the next…” A storm of emotion overwhelmed his voice, and he forced himself to choke back a sob. “I don’ know how it changed. When it changed. When it went from wantin’ you to loving you as much as I do. It just did. You’re my goddess, Buffy. You’re my own heaven…as close as I’ve come, or will ever come.” He released a sigh that shook his foundation. “I love you. I’ve never loved like this. Never will again. This is it for me. You’re it for me. The one. For now an’ ever.” A beat. His eyes fell to the quilt he had wrapped around her broken body after the thrashing stopped. “I jus’…I jus’ wanted you to know, okay? I have to do this thing…I need you to know that it’s more than that to me. This thing. It’s everything. I love you so much. An’ this…” He raised a hand to her face, curled knuckles tracing a line across her cheek. “’S more to me than a claim. It’s a promise.” Another tremulous sigh escaped his body and he glanced down again. “Anyway…I gotta do this thing now. I jus’…I jus’ wanted you to know.”
The scent of his own tears tickled the air. He released a deep breath and carefully gathered her precious body in his arms, holding her up so that her head rested against his shoulder. He took another minute, burying his face in her throat, inhaling her sweet scent. His free hand drew her hair to the side, lips busying at her skin. Her taste intoxicated him, drowned him in a wealth of splendor that he would never find after her.
Splendor that would not exist without her.
Almost against his will, he felt the bones in his face shift as the bumpies that had defined him for over a century made a reluctant appearance. With all the want to taste her blood, he never thought he would feel this sickening pull at his insides at the thought of penetrating her flesh with his fangs.
His tongue worshipped her, his hands trembling. And before he even registered what had happened, the ivory of his bite found the sweetness coveted by millions and cherished only by a fortunate few. The intoxicating indulgence of Slayer blood filling his mouth. Paradise made sour for the knowledge of what it meant. He felt her hands curled around his shoulders, but didn’t think. Couldn’t. It had to be done. For him. For her. For the world.
He swallowed her blood almost against his will, trying his damndest to ignore how good—how pure—she tasted.
“Mine,” he murmured into her red throat, clutching her tighter to him. “Mine. Oh God, Buffy. Oh my God.”
And then something shuddered through the air. Something soft and sweet; unprecedented by all counts. A voice scratched raw with her own hands. Music so blissful he felt his insides break down and weep.
“Yours,” Buffy whispered back, pulling away with arms that quivered with the weight of her drained strength. “Yours to all of the above.”
His eyes widened. “God, Buffy—”
A small, weak smile crossed her face. “I don’t know...” she rasped. “I don’t know…it hurts…”
“Buffy—”
“Yours. I want to be yours.”
The fresh sprout of tears that he had been battling for the past ten seconds broke through the dam. He choked a sob and tugged her into his arms again. “We’re gonna be okay, baby,” he murmured. “I promise. I’m not gonna let anythin’ happen to you. I can’t. I—”
“I’m yours.” When he pulled away, the pain in her eyes broke his heart all over again. He wanted to tell her not to speak if it hurt, but she pressed a finger to his lips and smiled as best she could. “I want to be. Never…ne …never wanted to…to be anyone’s. But…for wh-whatever…time we have…today…forever…” She pressed her brow to his. “I’m yours.”
An incursion of something indescribable flooded his insides. A feel of raw bliss so pure, so agonizingly singular that it somehow, in the midst of the wholesomeness of ecstasy, made the hurt that much more potent. His lips found hers, bruised and chipped from bleeding. The most glorious sensation to grant his broken body with evenhanded grace.
“We’ll get through this,” he swore against her mouth. “We’ll get through it.”
“Yes.”
There was a lack of conviction buried in her voice. It broke him, but he would not play the fates when he did not possess the winning hand. He would hold his proverbial breath, pray to a god that had long ago shunned him, and wait with guarded hope for a miracle the Powers did not grant on a whim. “’m gonna be right here,” he promised. “I’m not lettin’ you go.”
“I’m scared.”
To hear her confess that tore his insides to shreds. His Slayer was never scared.
God.
Spike brushed another kiss against her temple. “Not lettin’ you go,” he said again. Softly. “Never. If this bastard wants you, he has to take me, too. I’m not goin’ anywhere without you.”
“Spike—”
He shook his head, burying his face in her golden hair. Her golden hair splattered with aging red. “Never. I’m right here.”
Buffy drew in a deep breath, wincing when it hurt, and curled in his embrace.
These moments. These stolen moments.
Moments before her control was gone. Moments before she was forced aside, and the thing that was not Buffy returned.
Moments before they engaged in war with the devil.
*~*~*
The calm that overtook the main bedroom of the townhouse would not last; Willow was almost certain of that. Once Quirinias felt that his impending hold on Buffy challenged, he would strengthen his power over her—send her through a spiral of agony that would make what she had already endured seem like child’s play. A windstorm that they could not avoid.
Spike was already on the bed with her, his hand clasped with hers. He looked strangely serene for the tempest that loomed ahead, his cheek resting atop her crown, his free hand stroking her shoulder absently. They looked so tranquil together; Buffy’s head snuggled at his chest. She seemed relaxed; as though even with the wrenching of the world that was twisting her body in ways none could fathom, she had never felt more at peace. More safe. More content. There in the arms of a vampire.
The last thing Willow wanted to do was disturb them, but time was a factor. A factor now like it never had been before. Thus, tentatively, she approached the invisible circle that she had implemented for them and licked her lips apprehensively. “Spike?”
The vampire wasn’t asleep. She knew that for the tension in his aura.
“Red.”
“We have to do the thing now. I’m about to make the binding spell permanent…neither you or Buffy will be able to leave the circle.”
“Well aware, pet.”
“I’m just saying…with whatever happens—”
“Red, jus’ do the soddin’ spell.”
Willow licked her lips. “I know. I know. But this is important, and even though I know you know, and you know I know you know, I need to go over it again. Okay?” She waited a minute, encouraged when his eyes sparkled with that aged humor that she didn’t even realize she had missed. There was something about the platinum blonde that if one took even the slightest measure away from him, the weight of loss could be felt for eons. “Since we’re working to banish Quirinias before he even really takes her, it’s going to be me. Just a part of the actual ritual, because I think more power would kill her. And there’s that thing where I’m the only one qualified. And even though it’s not going to be as powerful as the actual Rite of Thrieve would be—if it was performed to the text and not just the Cliff Notes—you need to understand how important it is that you do not…do not, do not, do not let go of her. Mentally, physically…if you do, she’s gone. The impact of the magic will throw her into some dimension or tear her to bits or do something…this is a god we’re talking about. Nothing like what we’ve faced before. Therefore the magic itself is going to be deeper…more powerful than anything I’ve dealt, and by default, anything we’re used to. So you can’t…no matter how terrible it gets…you can’t let her go.”
Spike just looked at her.
“So…I’m guessing you knew that, huh?”
He grinned wryly.
“And I’m also guessing that I just spent two minutes of my life that I’ll never get back telling you something that you would’ve done even if it wasn’t a thing, right?”
A small, humorless chuckle rumbled through his lips. “You’re the one that needed to say it all again, ducks. ‘You knew that I knew,’ an’ all that rot.”
“Yeah well, you could’ve stopped me.”
“Unlikely.” He stopped for a minute, gaze wavering to the blonde in his arms. “’m not lettin’ her go, Red. Not for this god wanker, not for you, not for anyone. You could pour holy water on me an’ I wouldn’t budge. Understand?”
Willow smiled gently. “Yeah. I know. I just…I just needed to say it.” She glanced down, counted to ten, then looked back up again. “You know…if anything goes wrong…if we do this thing and she’s still…if she wakes up and she’s not Buffy, she’s going to rip your heart out.”
A trembling sigh rolled off his shoulders. “’F she wakes up an’ she’s not Buffy,” he said softly, “she’s welcome to it.”
There was a beat and the redhead nodded. She had expected as much, but there was a certain effect of admiration in hearing it spoken. When the vampire had become so close to her, she didn’t know. When she stopped being surprised at the depth of love he held for her best friend, she didn’t know. She only knew that Buffy was more than fortunate to have him in her life right now. Now more than ever, if at any point more than ever.
“I’m about to put a sphere of protection around the bed,” she noted, stepping back. “After I do, the others will come in to help further solidify our hold on Buffy.”
“Strength in numbers?”
“Something like. The Rite of Thrieve says a circle enforces unity and strengthens…something. I don’t know if it means a circle of power or a circle of people…so I’m doing both.” She expelled a deep breath and smiled. “Ready?”
“As I ever bleedin’ will be.” When she nodded and raised her hands, he quirked his head at her and bade her to stop. “Willow.”
She blinked at him, surprised at the unbidden use of her given name.
“Thanks,” he said gently. “For everythin’.”
It was a strange thing coming from the mouth of a demon that had tried so many times to kill them all. A demon that had, such a short time ago, pined for the death of the very Slayer he had now sworn himself to protect. It was strange. So strange. But not beyond heartwarming.
“She’s my friend, Spike,” the Witch replied. “I can’t not help.”
“No. That’s not what I meant.” His eyes leveled with her and for the briefest minute, the universe around them did not exist. “Thank you.”
A stolen breath escaped her body. And she nodded.
There were times when they were utterly nowhere. This was one of those times. But her acceptance in everything, the quick days since he and Buffy announced their relationship, meant more to him than she could ever imagine. She didn’t need him to say it to know that was what he meant. It was in his eyes. In the every ripple that coursed through his body. One of those things that she just knew.
He was thanking her for treating him like one of them. Like a man. Like someone who deserved the woman in his arms.
“Yes,” she said automatically, nodding and raising her hands again. “Okay. I’m gonna do this, now.”
“Okay.”
Jolts of energy burst between her fingers. Even with all the practice she had endured, there was something about this moment that always made her a little nervous. That took her off guard. And all things considered, it wasn’t the best sentiment to focus on with everything that was riding on what she had to do.
“All right, then,” she murmured. “All right. You might wanna close your eyes.”
Her skin began prickling, little shards of electricity flickering off her skin.
This was it. Showtime.
*~*~*
Fifteen minutes later, the bedroom was overly crowded, which made it entirely difficult to dodge the digital clock that yanked itself from the wall and jolted through the air toward Xander’s head while untouched by human hands.
Spike tossed the boy a worried glance while struggling with the Slayer’s snarling attempts to yank her hand away from his. He had resolved just seconds before that the only way to maintain contact was to straddle her at the waist and hold her down to make sure a part of him was always touching her.
“Sorry,” he yelped.
Anya was struggling against Giles’s barked commands to not break hands with the people on either side of her. “What happened?”
The Slayer was cackling a long, malicious laugh. “Diabolus fecit, ut
id facerem!” she shrieked giddily. “Postatem obscuri lateris nescitis!” And then dissolved in a series of screeches that would make any demon shudder.
Josh blinked numbly. “Do we need holy water or a priest or something? ‘The power of Christ compels you?’”
Sam glared at him. “This isn’t a movie, Josh.” He frowned and turned to Willow. “That wouldn’t help, would it?”
“No.”
“All I’m saying is, it worked for Reagan MacNeil.”
“Josh!” Donna hissed.
The Slayer writhed and wriggled, nails drawing red rivers down Spike’s cheeks and whatever flesh she could manage. There was something maniacal in her eyes—something that hadn’t been there before this. She spat at him, the growls scratching at the back of her throat growing more intense with every beat. “Damnant quod non intellegunt!” she screamed, twisting to point at Toby, who was directly in her peripheral view. “Mater tua criceta fuit, et pater tuo redoluit bacarum sambucus.”
“Yeah,” Toby said slowly. “’Cause I’m following that and everything.”
Spike growled lowly and seized hold of her wrists, flipping her under him again, not reacting when she spat at him once more and wrenched another hand free, digging her nails into his side. “Vampir,” she sneered. “Ne feceris ut rideam.”
His eyes widened and he grasped her wrist again, compressing his thighs on either side of her. “Willow!”
The Witch was already standing in the middle of the half-circle, a book curled in her arms, a nervous look battling with wrought determination. And just like that, a collective hush fell over the room aside the strangled snarls erupting from the Slayer’s mouth. A darkened shade fell over her eyes, and she began. “In nomine patris et filii et spiritus santi. Shadow passes, light remains. I call the living hand in hand by the grace of God to learn to live and remember death. We come to cast out the unholy one.”
Buffy’s eyes blazed and she jolted forward, succeeding in twisting the vampire over her for a second before he was atop her again. “Non! Quod incepimus conficiemus!”
“No, pet,” he growled. “I really don’ think you will.”
Willow continued, heaving deep breaths. “There is no avarice without penalty—”
“Alea iacta est!”
“Hey,” Wesley said brightly. “I know that one.”
“The journey is over…your Judgment Day begins.” Something around them crashed and the lights throughout the townhouses burst into darkness. The book toppled from Willow’s grasp, her head flying back with a gasp as her body climbed inches into the air. Then she hissed in pain, her hand flying to her abdomen, her eyes widening dangerously.
A worried look befell Sam’s face. “Willow…”
The room darkened even more, the howls of the figure on the bed notwithstanding. Fabric ripped and hands lashed; a purplish tint formed between the Witch’s fingers. “A precipice in front, wolves behind,” she said lowly in a voice that was no longer hers. “Hell calls hell; one misstep leads to another. May the omen be absent. May the light bathe in light. Make the spirit noble. Bring them into arms again.”
“Rupert!” Toby yelped. “What the hell is—”
“Quiet!”
The Slayer expelled a long moan, her teeth sinking into the welcoming beckon of Spike’s shoulder. A splatter of red painted the wall behind them, her howls seizing intensity as the waves crashing over her body diminished the line of violence with an entirely new translation. Her eyes were glowing, now. Red instead of gold. As though the specks that had always colored her sight had now taken over. The last of purity to be cleansed from her body in preparation for the oldest of the old.
“Te volja knotkle istinit bol, veštica!” she screamed, fists pounding into her vampire protector as he held her down with determination none in the room had ever seen before. “JA ce kupanje na otvorenom unutra tvoj krv pa obrstiti tvoj oko rupa. JA ce tvoj telo jedan utocište umjesto moj ljutina. Dopust mene zatim!”
Xander’s eyes widened. “What the hell?!”
“It’s Zulu,” Anya answered. “You don’t want to know what it means.”
“He’s gaining power. Pulling in from other cultures.” Giles pushed forward. “Willow!”
The Witch was forgone. Now at least fourteen inches off the floor, her hands outstretched, her eyes darkened. Something terrible in formation between herself and something else. There were marks, now. Along her arms, across her calves. Streaks of red down her face born there by claws that had no arm. And yet she remained distant. A step and a half away. Focused now in a world to herself. “A god in man’s clothing. A god that knows of flesh. Bringer of deceit and destruction. Bringer of horror and death.”
“You’re telling me this isn’t Exorcist material?” Josh demanded, twisting to face Donna, snark betraying his fear.
A crash snapped in the middle of the room, stealing the floor from the semi-circle of observers. Their grips on each other remained steadfast even as they fell in unison to the whim of an enemy they could not see. The light forming between Willow’s hands had grown too bright to look at.
“Justitia omnibus,” the Witch bellowed in a voice that was not her own. “Leve fit, quod bene fertur, onus. Lusus naturae! Lux mundi, lux et veritas. Liberate te ex inferis!”
Buffy screamed and slammed Spike with her free arm as hard as she could, sending his body toward the head of the bed but not managing to separate his hand from hers. “Trošiti drek, ona - carovnica!”
“Ubi concordia, ibi victoria!”
Spike’s eyes widened and he hauled his broken body toward the writhing Slayer. Where the Witch had picked up Latin, he didn’t know. All he knew was that it was nearly over. It had to be. The loom through the windows was growing. The wails of his girl, while violent, were such to the degree where her energy would soon dwindle to nothing. It had to be nearing its end. It just had to.
“Sic volo, sic iubeo!”
The Slayer’s head whipped back and forth, pain filling her face in the midst of the crimson staining her cheeks. “No! No!”
Oh God.
“Buffy!” He leapt forward, only to be shoved back with an angry howl and another swipe at his midsection. But he had seen her. For that split second, he had seen her back in her body.
In the midst of such fits, that had never happened.
It wasn’t over. He leapt forward again, swooping an arm around her middle to pull her back against his chest. His flesh met a river of blood, and the cold against him made him sick to his core.
Blood shouldn’t be cold. Not hers. Not hers that had just an hour ago been so warm.
“Vi hoteti obžalovanje kakšen vi življati slepar vsepovsod, carovnica,” the Slayer hissed at Willow, tearing madly even if they were separated by proverbial miles. “Bom storil a žetev od vaš drobovje ter slavnost naprej vaš meso!”
“Transit umbra, lux permanet. Esto perpetua!”
The piercing scream that tore through the Slayer’s throat pulled at every wound, current and old on his body. “Nu!” she bellowed. “Nu!”
Willow’s arms outstretched toward her, the ball of energy engulfing the room with its luminosity. “Factum est!” she declared, palm dipping and the beams of light shot forward, tearing through the invisible force guarding them from each other. Spike felt it, too. Felt it as it surged into the girl in his arms. Felt every knot turning, every wound screaming, every pain of long ago jerking to life as never before. “I cast you out! Consummatum est! Consummatum est!”
It was the gift of life. The shriek that tore through the Slayer’s mouth was a physical move. Her body lurched forward as it left her. The entirety of the manifestation. Burning there in refuge, then gone. And just as Spike had tugged her back into his arms, Willow’s hold faltered and she toppled to the floor, a broken, lifeless heap of tangled limbs.
And they settled in darkness.
Buffy panting but unconscious, the tears at her body all but gone. The crowd on the floor coming to with slow awareness. Willow, drained. Breathing steadily, slowly, but dead to the world.
Sam reached her just as electricity burst through the townhouse with a defying crack, and the dying lamps snapped back on as though suffering from a power shortage.
“Oh God.”
Giles sat up, his eyes torn between his tattered Slayer and the unconscious Witch.
“Spike?”
The vampire didn’t respond. The resignation about him, the hesitation between relief and outrage boiled down to a thin red line of tolerance. His face was buried in her hair, and he was rocking her gently.
“Spike?”
“She’s alive,” he sobbed into her blonde locks. “She’s alive. She’s all right. She has to be all right. After all that…she can’t bloody well leave me now.”
It wasn’t clear to anyone if the vampire was even aware others were in the room.
Josh sat up, rubbing his head. “That’s some girl you got yourself, there, Sam,” he murmured, only partially in jest.
“What happened?” Xander demanded, hurrying over to the unconscious redhead. “Is she—”
“She’s fine…she’s out, but she’s fine. It drained her.” Sam sat up, gathering Willow in his arms. “We need to get her back to the main house. She needs—”
“We’re going,” Josh said, nodding to Toby. “Xander?”
“We’re coming.”
The Watchers glanced to each other, then to the two blondes on the bed. They agreed in silent accord to wait in the other room in case they were needed.
In the end, Spike only asked for Donna. Came to enough, aware enough, to ask for Donna. Asked her to sit beside him as the hours rolled by. Asked her, because he knew that if Buffy awoke and needed something, Donna would not hesitate to get it.
Nothing could pry him from her side now. Not with a red sun rising in the east. A matter of simple hours at their disposal.
And a whole new ballgame at their feet. The healing body of a newborn god was cooling in his arms. That, despite all, could not change. It was too foregone. She was lost from the mortal coil and given to something greater. Something none could have foreseen.
Such things would be reserved for tomorrow. It was too much for him to take in. Far too much. All that mattered was that Buffy was alive. Alive and safe, and in curled his embrace. Her calm could not be forfeited in now.
It would take all the demons of Heaven and Hell to move him. And even then, he wagered he would give them a good fight.
He would be by her side when she awoke. Tomorrow, and every day thereafter.
TBC