Title: Life Could Ever Grant Me
Author: Emelye
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: Mature
Summary: Sequel to The Resolute Urgency Of Now, and Such A Part Of You.
Disclaimer: Not mine, all theirs.
Warnings: None.
A/N: Artwork by the lovely![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
katekat1010
The air in Sunnydale felt charged. The clouds had begun rolling in a few days earlier but the wind had left with the sun. Now silently flickering heat lightning flashed above the valley and made everything move in slow motion in the still air. Every living and unliving thing felt pulled from cover by the breath in their lungs. An unspoken Armistice settled over the Hellmouth as the humans acknowledged the demons among them with shared prescience. Something was here.
Bob Thompson stood on the edge of his manicured lawn and saw the young woman with blue-streaked hair shiver and lean into the tall, fey looking young man she shared an apartment with across the street as they looked up at the green tinged sky. A small something tugged on his pant leg.
“Mister Thompson, can I have a drink of water?” Bob looked down into the blue-spiked face of the little girl as her parents talked a few feet away.
Bob ruffled her hair and nodded as the Cartwrights conferred and began walking over. Angela already racing into the house, Margie held the door open for her.
“Bob, have you seen Spike or Xander?” Pete asked.
Bob looked over at the silent house next door. “Storm’s coming. Boys’ll be back soon.”
Pete and Melissa shared a look. “Can Angela stay with you and Margie for a little while?”
Bob nodded and looked up Monroe street. “Why don’t you both stay for a bit. Margie put on a pot roast. May as well call up the MacArthurs and Lehmanns. See if Peggy’s folks are still in town.” Melissa nodded tightly and followed her daughter into the house.
“Bob, I—”
“Need a beer. C’mon.”
The ancient Frigidare was stocked with Pabst and hummed loudly in the garage that smelled of gasoline and stale Pall Malls. Bob turned on the small set on his work bench and the sound of college basketball filled the silence. He handed Pete a cold one and gestured to the sagging couch. They sat for a while, watching the game. Gradually they heard the screaming begin outside and the slamming of the front porch door as the others arrived.
Pete flinched.
“It’ll pass, Pete. Storms always do.”
“And if it doesn’t? If this is just like Forestville?”
“This is your home, Pete. You’re not running anymore.”
“Bob, I can’t—”
“You can’t run forever. Someone’s always gonna chase you.” Bob’s knees cracked as he stood and fetched two more beers from the fridge. “Got a good chance of making the playoffs this year,” he commented, noting the score as he lit up a cigarette. There was a sound like gunfire across the street and a peel-out. “Finally wised up and started investing in the players they had. This garbage of sending recruiters out with promises of cars and money—if you can’t play without all that you won’t play with it.”
“No one’s seen the Slayer in days, Bob.”
“Talked to Anne this morning. Said they’re coming home later today.”
“Spike and Xander too?” Bob took a drag off his cigarette. Pete looked darkly at the door to the house. “If I lost Angela—”
“Shut up, Pete. Game’s still on.”
Pete took a swig off his now warm beer. The ref called a foul.
“Our defense is shit, Bob.”
Bob chuckled darkly.
“Yes it is.”
The flight to New Mexico was silent and grim. Henri’s jet touched down in Santa Fe and he, Spike and Xander transferred to a helicopter for the remaining journey. En route they had all shuffled through piles of papers taken from Seward’s house looking for something—anything that would give them some insight into Stazzi’s plans. They hadn’t found anything of use, though, and as they boarded the chopper they took up the discussion once more.
“Got our boy, isn’t that enough?” Spike asked as they lifted off, but there was no heat in his voice and his tone was defeated.
Henri shook his head, absently, looking for something and finding it as he fastened himself into the provided harness. “Stazzi wanted to subjugate and enslave the human race. Seward wouldn’t have been nearly satisfied with that. He wanted to end the world. Whatever information he fed Stazzi would have directed him to that end without his knowing.”
“Seward called the hits, you reckon?”
“I believe so.”
Xander squeezed Spike’s hand. “Besides excellent taste in men, what else did we have that Seward needed us out of the way for?”
“Hellmouth. That’d be obvious.”
“So location. And you?” He addressed Henri.
Henri appeared to think. “Apart from being most likely to expose him, I’m not sure. The attempts on my life ended after your stay with us.”
“AJ. He needed to give us AJ,” concluded Xander.
Henri and Spike nodded, picking up steam. “There were texts relating to the assumption of the Antichrist housed in St. Petersburg,” Henri told them, gravely.
“Astana and Penom Penh?”
A sudden jolt from the helicopter interrupted their train of investigation. The instrument panel began beeping loudly as the propellers fought the sudden upward thrust of a massive updraft.
“What the fuck is going on?” Spike shouted over the roar, ducking and shielding Xander’s head from flying debris.
Another moment and the chopper leveled back out. “Nearly there!” The pilot shouted back to them. Xander fastened his harness and after a minute’s intensive glaring, Spike did the same.
“I have no idea,” said Henri.
The helicopter touched down on the edge of the reservation unimpeded. Xander, lifting his arm from his face as the dust settled around him got his first look at the red desert by night.
“Where is everybody?”
“Quiet, ain’t it?” Spike asked Henri. “Not so much as a cricket.”
Henri nodded grimly in agreement.
As Spike and Henri unloaded their weapons, Xander kicked his feet through the dust and scrub, walking aimlessly for a few feet before stumbling upon a body.
“I think I found the welcoming committee,” Xander said. Spike quickly caught up to him at the edge of a line of scrub brush and saw the mangled remains of a corpse, bloodied and covered in the red dust of the desert but oddly bereft of the customary life that inhabited the dead. Not a maggot or beetle in sight.
“He looks local,” Spike noted, taking in the turquoise jewelry.
Henri nodded. “This is a holy place. It would have been defended.”
The Shiprock itself loomed large in the distance. They quickly outfitted with axes, knives, stakes and crossbows and began their journey.
Stazzi’s laugh was an unpleasant, high-pitched giggle that no one enjoyed hearing, least of all the captive demons chained and manacled to one another in rows of ten. He was giggling as a little girl, no more than five was led, whimpering to the throne of bleached human skulls. Stazzi, lazing casually, a leg draped over a velvet-cushioned arm snatched the little girl and vamped, making her scream. That drew another burst of laughter from him before he sank his teeth into her forearm, drawing out her death as painfully as possible while she cried and soiled herself and begged for her mother.
She was discarded like a broken doll on the charred linoleum of the burned out school, a few feet from the great, gaping hole leading to the mouth of Hell.
The demons, chained and forced to watch, reacted with varying degrees of horror. Some were mostly indifferent, others wept and protested openly until the hulking vampire guards began beating them unconscious.
“I can’t begin to imagine why you would choose to willfully subvert the natural order of things and be ruled by your prey, your own food. But no matter, in the course of a few days this world will be rid of humanity all together and you will be faced with the choice to take back your place in this world, or you, your mates and your spawn will be painfully and utterly destroyed. I am aware that not all of your number are present here and a great many more demons are tucked away in collusion with the humans, but I trust you will act in your best interest and ensure the others do so as well. Take a few minutes to think it over. Meanwhile…”
Two vampires in plain black suits with Mandarin collars came forward. One carried a large box with an ornate clasp and the other a long axe on a black velvet pillow. Stazzi opened the clasp on the box and a flash of light momentarily blinded the room as he removed what looked like a crystal ball from it’s satin enclosure. The ball was illuminated from within and the surface appeared covered with swirling, pewter clouds.
“I do love souvenirs, don’t you? I found these in a quaint monastery in Cambodia.” Stazzi placed the ball in a small, indented stand beside the throne then took up the large, weathered axe. Without warning he brought the axe down upon the ball. A column of light and heat exploded upward. Thunder roared through the ruined school. A great, creaking moan echoed from the Hellmouth. Above them, the column of light and energy fed the swirling storm clouds above, sending off threads of electricity in every direction. Rain began to fall. Stazzi, now slightly damp with rain, looked at the assembled demons with a cold smile.
“I don’t suppose anyone thought to build an ark?”
There was a gulch leading to the rock that provided them some cover. Thunder cracked overhead, and clouds swirled ominously above them. “Are we there yet?” Xander asked, tripping over a large rock.
Spike reached out a hand and steadied him. “Not much longer now. Can hear them inside.”
Xander’s blood ran cold as he began to hear the susurrus of low voices.
There was no advance guard as they reached the rock. “I guess they weren’t planning on company,” observed Spike.
“Yeah, let’s go with that. Much more comforting than the thought of walking into a trap,” said Xander.
“Here,” said Henri. “The entrance is through there.” He pointed to an opening in the rock face. As they scrambled out of the dry riverbed, Xander stood and looked out over the red desert with an odd sense of déjà vu.
The tunnel was low and close and dim and filled with the sound of demons chanting indistinctly. Eventually the tunnel opened into a large cavern and the black-robed demons could be seen and heard clearly. A red rock altar stood in the center of the room surrounded by twenty or so demons, one of whom read from a scroll, the others echoing him in chorus.
And lashed to the altar, still, small and silent, was AJ.
Xander bit back the cry in his throat and clenched his fists, helplessly.
“He’s not dead, pet,” Spike reassured him, flexing his hands around the axe. “Need him alive to finish the ritual. Reckon we make a scene they’ll try an’ get him out of here so plan is, Henri and I cull this lot. There’s another tunnel across the way. You move that way and when they try to sneak AJ out the back, you grab him.” Xander nodded. “We’ll give you a head start. Move quick and quiet as you can.”
Xander kept to the outside of the cavern wall, staying behind the outcroppings of boulders as he made his way to the opposite tunnel. With the sound of metal on flesh, he heard the fight begin somewhere behind him and started to run. The demon with the scroll cut AJ’s bindings and threw him over his shoulder.
He heard Spike cry out and suddenly a sharp pain lanced through his side. Xander didn’t pause, just kept running, running toward the tunnel. Another pain in his calf, and he stumbled at the mouth of the tunnel, but kept his feet and ran until he could nearly touch the hem of the demon’s robe. Something hit him in his head and he felt the trickle of blood flowing down his hairline, but nothing mattered but getting to his son, harder as it was becoming to think of anything else. A burst of speed, lungs burning and he grabbed the back of the demon’s robe and yanked. The demon was strong and pulled him a short ways before stopping to drop his load and backhand Xander into the tunnel wall. Xander collapsed, but he saw AJ, lying in the red dirt, unconscious, and levered himself to stand as the demon advanced, raising a club-like fist to finish him off. Xander ducked beneath his arm and limped to place himself between AJ and the demon. The demon turned and struck him. Xander struggled to his knees only to be hit again, finding himself swimming in and out of consciousness.
A shout from inside the tunnel and for a moment, the demon was distracted. Xander reached out for the creature’s ankle and with every ounce of strength he pulled, wrenching him off his feet.
The demon went down, it’s head cracking on a rock. It lay still. The pain Xander had ignored until that moment now came rushing in to meet him and for the second time he swayed and nearly lost consciousness. Quickly, he struggled to pull AJ up, his dead weight seemingly so much heavier than it ought to be and he nearly lost his grip. He had nearly managed to get to his feet when he heard Spike’s panicked,
“Xander!” And suddenly Henri was pulling AJ up effortlessly into his arms as Spike’s arm went around his waist. “Oh, love, hold on, hold on,” he said.
“It’s okay, I got him,” Xander told Spike, not quite understanding the weakness in his own voice, nor how far away it sounded.
Spike’s voice sounded slightly strained. “Yeah, love, you got him. You got him.”
They began limping through the tunnel, but the pace was faster than Xander could manage. He was suddenly so unbelievably tired even though he knew they had to hurry. Spike wordlessly began to half carry, half drag him. He could have lifted him easily but his size made it awkward and the tunnel was too narrow and too low for that.
“Spike, hurry!” Henri called back to them, and now Xander was being carried more than dragged, pressed uncomfortably up against Spike’s side, his bony arm pressing against something that hurt.
“Almost there, Xan. Come on, love. Just a little further.”
Xander could hear the shouting now, behind them. The voices that numbered in the hundreds, maybe thousands and the clinking of weapons he’d long since learned to recognize in countless patrols and battles.
It was getting louder faster. “Spike, drop me.”
“No.”
“Leave me.”
“No! Goddamn you, keep up you thick git!”
Suddenly, miraculously, they were plunged into the frigid desert night as the cave opened up above them into a violent-looking sky and the scrub littering the floor of the gulch resumed stinging Xander’s legs. Spike continued maneuvering them over the rocks. Xander looked up and saw Henri quite a ways ahead with AJ in his arms.
The demons poured from the mouth of the tunnel as a flash of lightning tore the night sky followed by a deafening peal of thunder. Spike wrestled an axe from the nearest demon and began cutting through the hoard, decapitating the front line. Lightning struck the ground not far from them and Xander looked up, out, over the red desert. A cool wind blew dust into his eyes but he didn’t dare close them, and suddenly, Xander remembered.
Xander looked at the Shiprock and recalled his dream the night AJ was born.
He smelled ozone.
“Spike!” His voice was weak. He tried again, breathing hard against the pain in his chest. “SPIKE!”
Spike turned as he finished the last of the first wave of demons. “Run,” Xander said as he felt the first drop of rain. Spike, looking from left to right at the banks of the gully suddenly understood what Xander was saying.
Xander was crushed to him as Spike attempted the same sort of drag and carry as before only the rocks and scrub made the going impossibly slow and the second wave of demons were gaining on them. With an apologetic glance, Spike hoisted him into a fireman’s carry and they ran, over the rocks, through the gulch, leaping over brush and fallen trees. Xander’s ribs screamed in agony. He grit his teeth against the pain and prayed nothing was punctured in the escape as his eyes tracked the demons chasing them, gaining, always gaining.
The rain began to fall steadily and the rocks became slick and Xander began to hear a sound like the rumble of a distant train that grew steadily louder.
The nearest demon threw an axe and narrowly missed them, lodging it into a petrified branch near their feet. Spike put on a burst of speed and slipped on the wet stones, pitching them forward and losing momentum in the struggle to right himself and his burden.
The demons were nearly atop them when the roaring reached an almost deafening crescendo. They looked down, and saw the trickle of water at their feet. Spike leapt, thrusting Xander up over the bank of the gully and clambering up himself just as the swiftly moving water crashed into the hoard of demons, unfooting them and sweeping them back toward the Shiprock.
They sat beside the flash flood in the pouring rain and couldn’t hear the descent of the helicopter until the rope ladder was lowered in front of their faces and they saw Henri shouting down to them to climb aboard.
No one was at the house on Revello drive. Giles’ flat was empty as was the Magic Box. Anya didn’t answer her door.
They drove through the town, looking for signs of their missing loved ones, and found the streets deserted, all the public buildings empty.
“Are we too late?” Willow shakily asked.
“We should check on Mrs. Pratt and see if any of the lieutenants are holed up at Spike and Xander’s,” Angel suggested.
“Would she be in danger?” Giles asked.
Buffy snorted. “She’s fine. She’s like minor royalty to those guys. But Angel’s right,” she added. “If Stazzi’s already in town, the court would be assembling there to either kick his ass or accept tribute.”
“Would they still assemble there without Master William?” Manon asked. “Surely he would see the foolishness in providing Stazzi an obvious target.”
“Of course he wouldn’t call them to assemble,” Angel snapped defensively, though his eyes betrayed his sudden concern as Wesley spoke.
“But he didn’t order them not to, either. There wasn’t time.”
As they all realized the implication Giles gunned the engine and sped toward the house as Tara attempted to reach Anne on her cell.
The SUV Screeched to a halt outside the gate. “She’s not answering,” said Tara as Buffy and Angel leapt out. Buffy ran around the back to the garage while Angel ran to the main house.
Suddenly they heard the sharp rap of knuckles against the driver’s side window. An older man in uniform stood waiting outside the SUV. Giles slowly lowered the window. “Yes?”
“Mr. Giles, Sergeant Juarez. Orders are to direct you to HQ.”
“Whose orders?”
Sergeant Juarez smiled. “Sergeant Major Harris, sir. The rest of your party is waiting for you there.”
Giles shared a look with Manon. “Is Anne Pratt there?”
“I don’t know, sir. I was only instructed to direct you to the Harris residence.”
As Giles looked up, three or four vampires ran from the rear of the house. He didn’t recognize any of them, but he wasn’t as familiar with Spike’s court as the others.
“Those aren’t Master William’s lieutenants,” Manon said.
Fear gripped his heart.
A moment later, the house at 423 Monroe exploded.
Author: Emelye
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: Mature
Summary: Sequel to The Resolute Urgency Of Now, and Such A Part Of You.
Disclaimer: Not mine, all theirs.
Warnings: None.
A/N: Artwork by the lovely
katekat1010The air in Sunnydale felt charged. The clouds had begun rolling in a few days earlier but the wind had left with the sun. Now silently flickering heat lightning flashed above the valley and made everything move in slow motion in the still air. Every living and unliving thing felt pulled from cover by the breath in their lungs. An unspoken Armistice settled over the Hellmouth as the humans acknowledged the demons among them with shared prescience. Something was here.
Bob Thompson stood on the edge of his manicured lawn and saw the young woman with blue-streaked hair shiver and lean into the tall, fey looking young man she shared an apartment with across the street as they looked up at the green tinged sky. A small something tugged on his pant leg.
“Mister Thompson, can I have a drink of water?” Bob looked down into the blue-spiked face of the little girl as her parents talked a few feet away.
Bob ruffled her hair and nodded as the Cartwrights conferred and began walking over. Angela already racing into the house, Margie held the door open for her.
“Bob, have you seen Spike or Xander?” Pete asked.
Bob looked over at the silent house next door. “Storm’s coming. Boys’ll be back soon.”
Pete and Melissa shared a look. “Can Angela stay with you and Margie for a little while?”
Bob nodded and looked up Monroe street. “Why don’t you both stay for a bit. Margie put on a pot roast. May as well call up the MacArthurs and Lehmanns. See if Peggy’s folks are still in town.” Melissa nodded tightly and followed her daughter into the house.
“Bob, I—”
“Need a beer. C’mon.”
The ancient Frigidare was stocked with Pabst and hummed loudly in the garage that smelled of gasoline and stale Pall Malls. Bob turned on the small set on his work bench and the sound of college basketball filled the silence. He handed Pete a cold one and gestured to the sagging couch. They sat for a while, watching the game. Gradually they heard the screaming begin outside and the slamming of the front porch door as the others arrived.
Pete flinched.
“It’ll pass, Pete. Storms always do.”
“And if it doesn’t? If this is just like Forestville?”
“This is your home, Pete. You’re not running anymore.”
“Bob, I can’t—”
“You can’t run forever. Someone’s always gonna chase you.” Bob’s knees cracked as he stood and fetched two more beers from the fridge. “Got a good chance of making the playoffs this year,” he commented, noting the score as he lit up a cigarette. There was a sound like gunfire across the street and a peel-out. “Finally wised up and started investing in the players they had. This garbage of sending recruiters out with promises of cars and money—if you can’t play without all that you won’t play with it.”
“No one’s seen the Slayer in days, Bob.”
“Talked to Anne this morning. Said they’re coming home later today.”
“Spike and Xander too?” Bob took a drag off his cigarette. Pete looked darkly at the door to the house. “If I lost Angela—”
“Shut up, Pete. Game’s still on.”
Pete took a swig off his now warm beer. The ref called a foul.
“Our defense is shit, Bob.”
Bob chuckled darkly.
“Yes it is.”
The flight to New Mexico was silent and grim. Henri’s jet touched down in Santa Fe and he, Spike and Xander transferred to a helicopter for the remaining journey. En route they had all shuffled through piles of papers taken from Seward’s house looking for something—anything that would give them some insight into Stazzi’s plans. They hadn’t found anything of use, though, and as they boarded the chopper they took up the discussion once more.
“Got our boy, isn’t that enough?” Spike asked as they lifted off, but there was no heat in his voice and his tone was defeated.
Henri shook his head, absently, looking for something and finding it as he fastened himself into the provided harness. “Stazzi wanted to subjugate and enslave the human race. Seward wouldn’t have been nearly satisfied with that. He wanted to end the world. Whatever information he fed Stazzi would have directed him to that end without his knowing.”
“Seward called the hits, you reckon?”
“I believe so.”
Xander squeezed Spike’s hand. “Besides excellent taste in men, what else did we have that Seward needed us out of the way for?”
“Hellmouth. That’d be obvious.”
“So location. And you?” He addressed Henri.
Henri appeared to think. “Apart from being most likely to expose him, I’m not sure. The attempts on my life ended after your stay with us.”
“AJ. He needed to give us AJ,” concluded Xander.
Henri and Spike nodded, picking up steam. “There were texts relating to the assumption of the Antichrist housed in St. Petersburg,” Henri told them, gravely.
“Astana and Penom Penh?”
A sudden jolt from the helicopter interrupted their train of investigation. The instrument panel began beeping loudly as the propellers fought the sudden upward thrust of a massive updraft.
“What the fuck is going on?” Spike shouted over the roar, ducking and shielding Xander’s head from flying debris.
Another moment and the chopper leveled back out. “Nearly there!” The pilot shouted back to them. Xander fastened his harness and after a minute’s intensive glaring, Spike did the same.
“I have no idea,” said Henri.
The helicopter touched down on the edge of the reservation unimpeded. Xander, lifting his arm from his face as the dust settled around him got his first look at the red desert by night.
“Where is everybody?”
“Quiet, ain’t it?” Spike asked Henri. “Not so much as a cricket.”
Henri nodded grimly in agreement.
As Spike and Henri unloaded their weapons, Xander kicked his feet through the dust and scrub, walking aimlessly for a few feet before stumbling upon a body.
“I think I found the welcoming committee,” Xander said. Spike quickly caught up to him at the edge of a line of scrub brush and saw the mangled remains of a corpse, bloodied and covered in the red dust of the desert but oddly bereft of the customary life that inhabited the dead. Not a maggot or beetle in sight.
“He looks local,” Spike noted, taking in the turquoise jewelry.
Henri nodded. “This is a holy place. It would have been defended.”
The Shiprock itself loomed large in the distance. They quickly outfitted with axes, knives, stakes and crossbows and began their journey.
Stazzi’s laugh was an unpleasant, high-pitched giggle that no one enjoyed hearing, least of all the captive demons chained and manacled to one another in rows of ten. He was giggling as a little girl, no more than five was led, whimpering to the throne of bleached human skulls. Stazzi, lazing casually, a leg draped over a velvet-cushioned arm snatched the little girl and vamped, making her scream. That drew another burst of laughter from him before he sank his teeth into her forearm, drawing out her death as painfully as possible while she cried and soiled herself and begged for her mother.
She was discarded like a broken doll on the charred linoleum of the burned out school, a few feet from the great, gaping hole leading to the mouth of Hell.
The demons, chained and forced to watch, reacted with varying degrees of horror. Some were mostly indifferent, others wept and protested openly until the hulking vampire guards began beating them unconscious.
“I can’t begin to imagine why you would choose to willfully subvert the natural order of things and be ruled by your prey, your own food. But no matter, in the course of a few days this world will be rid of humanity all together and you will be faced with the choice to take back your place in this world, or you, your mates and your spawn will be painfully and utterly destroyed. I am aware that not all of your number are present here and a great many more demons are tucked away in collusion with the humans, but I trust you will act in your best interest and ensure the others do so as well. Take a few minutes to think it over. Meanwhile…”
Two vampires in plain black suits with Mandarin collars came forward. One carried a large box with an ornate clasp and the other a long axe on a black velvet pillow. Stazzi opened the clasp on the box and a flash of light momentarily blinded the room as he removed what looked like a crystal ball from it’s satin enclosure. The ball was illuminated from within and the surface appeared covered with swirling, pewter clouds.
“I do love souvenirs, don’t you? I found these in a quaint monastery in Cambodia.” Stazzi placed the ball in a small, indented stand beside the throne then took up the large, weathered axe. Without warning he brought the axe down upon the ball. A column of light and heat exploded upward. Thunder roared through the ruined school. A great, creaking moan echoed from the Hellmouth. Above them, the column of light and energy fed the swirling storm clouds above, sending off threads of electricity in every direction. Rain began to fall. Stazzi, now slightly damp with rain, looked at the assembled demons with a cold smile.
“I don’t suppose anyone thought to build an ark?”
There was a gulch leading to the rock that provided them some cover. Thunder cracked overhead, and clouds swirled ominously above them. “Are we there yet?” Xander asked, tripping over a large rock.
Spike reached out a hand and steadied him. “Not much longer now. Can hear them inside.”
Xander’s blood ran cold as he began to hear the susurrus of low voices.
There was no advance guard as they reached the rock. “I guess they weren’t planning on company,” observed Spike.
“Yeah, let’s go with that. Much more comforting than the thought of walking into a trap,” said Xander.
“Here,” said Henri. “The entrance is through there.” He pointed to an opening in the rock face. As they scrambled out of the dry riverbed, Xander stood and looked out over the red desert with an odd sense of déjà vu.
The tunnel was low and close and dim and filled with the sound of demons chanting indistinctly. Eventually the tunnel opened into a large cavern and the black-robed demons could be seen and heard clearly. A red rock altar stood in the center of the room surrounded by twenty or so demons, one of whom read from a scroll, the others echoing him in chorus.
And lashed to the altar, still, small and silent, was AJ.
Xander bit back the cry in his throat and clenched his fists, helplessly.
“He’s not dead, pet,” Spike reassured him, flexing his hands around the axe. “Need him alive to finish the ritual. Reckon we make a scene they’ll try an’ get him out of here so plan is, Henri and I cull this lot. There’s another tunnel across the way. You move that way and when they try to sneak AJ out the back, you grab him.” Xander nodded. “We’ll give you a head start. Move quick and quiet as you can.”
Xander kept to the outside of the cavern wall, staying behind the outcroppings of boulders as he made his way to the opposite tunnel. With the sound of metal on flesh, he heard the fight begin somewhere behind him and started to run. The demon with the scroll cut AJ’s bindings and threw him over his shoulder.
He heard Spike cry out and suddenly a sharp pain lanced through his side. Xander didn’t pause, just kept running, running toward the tunnel. Another pain in his calf, and he stumbled at the mouth of the tunnel, but kept his feet and ran until he could nearly touch the hem of the demon’s robe. Something hit him in his head and he felt the trickle of blood flowing down his hairline, but nothing mattered but getting to his son, harder as it was becoming to think of anything else. A burst of speed, lungs burning and he grabbed the back of the demon’s robe and yanked. The demon was strong and pulled him a short ways before stopping to drop his load and backhand Xander into the tunnel wall. Xander collapsed, but he saw AJ, lying in the red dirt, unconscious, and levered himself to stand as the demon advanced, raising a club-like fist to finish him off. Xander ducked beneath his arm and limped to place himself between AJ and the demon. The demon turned and struck him. Xander struggled to his knees only to be hit again, finding himself swimming in and out of consciousness.
A shout from inside the tunnel and for a moment, the demon was distracted. Xander reached out for the creature’s ankle and with every ounce of strength he pulled, wrenching him off his feet.
The demon went down, it’s head cracking on a rock. It lay still. The pain Xander had ignored until that moment now came rushing in to meet him and for the second time he swayed and nearly lost consciousness. Quickly, he struggled to pull AJ up, his dead weight seemingly so much heavier than it ought to be and he nearly lost his grip. He had nearly managed to get to his feet when he heard Spike’s panicked,
“Xander!” And suddenly Henri was pulling AJ up effortlessly into his arms as Spike’s arm went around his waist. “Oh, love, hold on, hold on,” he said.
“It’s okay, I got him,” Xander told Spike, not quite understanding the weakness in his own voice, nor how far away it sounded.
Spike’s voice sounded slightly strained. “Yeah, love, you got him. You got him.”
They began limping through the tunnel, but the pace was faster than Xander could manage. He was suddenly so unbelievably tired even though he knew they had to hurry. Spike wordlessly began to half carry, half drag him. He could have lifted him easily but his size made it awkward and the tunnel was too narrow and too low for that.
“Spike, hurry!” Henri called back to them, and now Xander was being carried more than dragged, pressed uncomfortably up against Spike’s side, his bony arm pressing against something that hurt.
“Almost there, Xan. Come on, love. Just a little further.”
Xander could hear the shouting now, behind them. The voices that numbered in the hundreds, maybe thousands and the clinking of weapons he’d long since learned to recognize in countless patrols and battles.
It was getting louder faster. “Spike, drop me.”
“No.”
“Leave me.”
“No! Goddamn you, keep up you thick git!”
Suddenly, miraculously, they were plunged into the frigid desert night as the cave opened up above them into a violent-looking sky and the scrub littering the floor of the gulch resumed stinging Xander’s legs. Spike continued maneuvering them over the rocks. Xander looked up and saw Henri quite a ways ahead with AJ in his arms.
The demons poured from the mouth of the tunnel as a flash of lightning tore the night sky followed by a deafening peal of thunder. Spike wrestled an axe from the nearest demon and began cutting through the hoard, decapitating the front line. Lightning struck the ground not far from them and Xander looked up, out, over the red desert. A cool wind blew dust into his eyes but he didn’t dare close them, and suddenly, Xander remembered.
Xander looked at the Shiprock and recalled his dream the night AJ was born.
He smelled ozone.
“Spike!” His voice was weak. He tried again, breathing hard against the pain in his chest. “SPIKE!”
Spike turned as he finished the last of the first wave of demons. “Run,” Xander said as he felt the first drop of rain. Spike, looking from left to right at the banks of the gully suddenly understood what Xander was saying.
Xander was crushed to him as Spike attempted the same sort of drag and carry as before only the rocks and scrub made the going impossibly slow and the second wave of demons were gaining on them. With an apologetic glance, Spike hoisted him into a fireman’s carry and they ran, over the rocks, through the gulch, leaping over brush and fallen trees. Xander’s ribs screamed in agony. He grit his teeth against the pain and prayed nothing was punctured in the escape as his eyes tracked the demons chasing them, gaining, always gaining.
The rain began to fall steadily and the rocks became slick and Xander began to hear a sound like the rumble of a distant train that grew steadily louder.
The nearest demon threw an axe and narrowly missed them, lodging it into a petrified branch near their feet. Spike put on a burst of speed and slipped on the wet stones, pitching them forward and losing momentum in the struggle to right himself and his burden.
The demons were nearly atop them when the roaring reached an almost deafening crescendo. They looked down, and saw the trickle of water at their feet. Spike leapt, thrusting Xander up over the bank of the gully and clambering up himself just as the swiftly moving water crashed into the hoard of demons, unfooting them and sweeping them back toward the Shiprock.
They sat beside the flash flood in the pouring rain and couldn’t hear the descent of the helicopter until the rope ladder was lowered in front of their faces and they saw Henri shouting down to them to climb aboard.
No one was at the house on Revello drive. Giles’ flat was empty as was the Magic Box. Anya didn’t answer her door.
They drove through the town, looking for signs of their missing loved ones, and found the streets deserted, all the public buildings empty.
“Are we too late?” Willow shakily asked.
“We should check on Mrs. Pratt and see if any of the lieutenants are holed up at Spike and Xander’s,” Angel suggested.
“Would she be in danger?” Giles asked.
Buffy snorted. “She’s fine. She’s like minor royalty to those guys. But Angel’s right,” she added. “If Stazzi’s already in town, the court would be assembling there to either kick his ass or accept tribute.”
“Would they still assemble there without Master William?” Manon asked. “Surely he would see the foolishness in providing Stazzi an obvious target.”
“Of course he wouldn’t call them to assemble,” Angel snapped defensively, though his eyes betrayed his sudden concern as Wesley spoke.
“But he didn’t order them not to, either. There wasn’t time.”
As they all realized the implication Giles gunned the engine and sped toward the house as Tara attempted to reach Anne on her cell.
The SUV Screeched to a halt outside the gate. “She’s not answering,” said Tara as Buffy and Angel leapt out. Buffy ran around the back to the garage while Angel ran to the main house.
Suddenly they heard the sharp rap of knuckles against the driver’s side window. An older man in uniform stood waiting outside the SUV. Giles slowly lowered the window. “Yes?”
“Mr. Giles, Sergeant Juarez. Orders are to direct you to HQ.”
“Whose orders?”
Sergeant Juarez smiled. “Sergeant Major Harris, sir. The rest of your party is waiting for you there.”
Giles shared a look with Manon. “Is Anne Pratt there?”
“I don’t know, sir. I was only instructed to direct you to the Harris residence.”
As Giles looked up, three or four vampires ran from the rear of the house. He didn’t recognize any of them, but he wasn’t as familiar with Spike’s court as the others.
“Those aren’t Master William’s lieutenants,” Manon said.
Fear gripped his heart.
A moment later, the house at 423 Monroe exploded.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Wow!
What an update!
Wow!
And did I mention WOW!!
*takenaback*
except of this:
EVIL CLIFFHANGERSSSS!!
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From: (Anonymous)
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Please let something/someone help them all.
L
J
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From: (Anonymous)
Long time, huh? It's TJ
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Re: Long time, huh? It's TJ
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Just for my info
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Re: Just for my info
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Re: Just for my info