Taking the Initiative by TalesofSpike

Taking the Initiative by TalesofSpike

Chapter #1 - Chapter 1

Chapter #2 - Chapter 2

Note: This fic is my way of saying thank you and happy birthday to my regular beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support... but I still got her to step in once the first draft was complete to beta it for me.

Over the course of the writing process, while t_geyer was taking a well-earned rest, alwaysjbj was a ready 'ear' on Yahoo and an extra pair of eyes when it came to spotting my mistakes.

Chapter 2

"Isn't that Ethan Rayne?"

"So I'm told," Spike answered. "Never met the man in person, though I have come across his handiwork a time or two. Giles didn't seem to think you'd know who he was."

Wes raised an eyebrow and fixed Spike with a sceptical stare. "Those two were the Seventies cabalistic equivalent of Leopold and Loeb. When Giles dropped out of university, he headed straight for London. He wasn't interested in staying under the council's radar. He wanted them to know that he was raising hell. Rayne would probably have come to the council's attention eventually, in any case, but the things he and Giles got up to together put him on the fast track. When Giles reneged and left Rayne to fend for himself, Rayne was never able to accept that Giles made the choice freely. He blamed the council for taking his playmate away. Do you really think they, or the academy, got off scot free when it came to his more anarchic exploits? So, yes, I know who Ethan Rayne is."

"Why do I think I'm going to get a rain check for our afternoon at the beach?" Marie asked, dropping her briefcase by the bottom of the stairs and kicking the front door closed with a crash before she strode into Wes's office, settled her hands on her hips and fixed both vampire and husband with a resigned glare.

"I'm not entirely sure," Wes admitted. "I haven't heard anything about Ethan Rayne for over a decade..." He waited for Spike to provide an explanation.

"That's probably because Giles didn't want to file any reports with the council about him acting like a randy sixteen-year-old or gettin' turned into a Fyarl demon," Spike pointed out. "Long story short, last time Rayne hit town was when the Initiative were around. I dare say, once Rupert got his own body back, and Captain Cardboard and his platoon marched his mate off in handcuffs, his first thought was, 'Thank God he's someone else's problem now.' A couple of months down the line and it begins to sink in what that lot were really capable of, and the old guy is suddenly having second thoughts... By the time the council put him in charge, he tried using his position to find out what had happened to him, but it's like he never existed." Spike shrugged. "Black ops. What can you expect?

Anyway, seems like the watcher figured that there'd have to be records somewhere and he started recruitin' some of the folks his ex, the gyppo, used to know... I mean the council's always had its share of magic users, but they've never been big on the hi-tech stuff, so Rupie-Bear figures that it's time they did something about it. He starts with the ex's address book and starts running background checks, trying to weed out the whackos and work out who they can bring on board. It's slow, but over the years he gets himself about a dozen of these techno-pagans who're willing to hack into classified government systems and good enough to get away with it and, finally, as of today, they come up with a location..."

"Which presumably is somewhere near here?" Wes added.

"Middle of nowhere outside of Stockton," Spike agreed.

"I don't suppose it would do any good if I asked you not to go," Marie sighed, looking first and longest at Wes, but turning her eyes briefly to Spike as well.

"I have to go," Wes argued calmly. "Ethan Rayne might leave a trail of devastation in his wake, but he was never evil per se. He's there because of what he is, not what he's done. There but for the grace of God..."

Spike allowed them three or four seconds worth of meaningful looks before he cut in. "Your fella's right. Even if I wasn't bored shitless and looking for a little slice of payback, he couldn't just leave the guy in there to rot. I could, but then I am Evil.

I was in that place less than a month, and I still have nightmares. Who knows what state that guy will be in after six or seven years? And you wouldn't have fell for the watcher the way you did if he wasn't all Dudley Do-Right."

"You're leaving now?" Marie asked, glancing at the clock that said it was just after eleven in the morning.

"Might as well," Spike admitted. "Give us a chance to scope the place out before dark, pick up anything we think we're going to need and rest up a bit before we go in."

Marie nodded her acceptance.

Spike turned on his heel, leaving the two of them alone. "I'll go let the sproglets know we're heading out." He looked up when he reached the bottom of the stairs, but Rosa was already waiting on the upstairs landing, so he just stepped back and let her walk down to meet him. At ten and a half, her head already reached his shoulder.

"Jaz?" he asked, using his nickname for her half-sister, Jacinta.

"Over at the Harrises', with Amy."

"Guess we'll have to swing by on the way out of town, then. So you heard?" the vampire asked.

"I know they're both scared... but he'll do whatever it is anyway. I don't know the details," Rosa replied with subdued equanimity.

"Turns out the Initiative aren't quite as gone as we thought, Rosebud."

The girl gave a rueful smile. "Better go get them, then." She turned to Wes as he and her mother came out of his office and threw her arms around his neck. "Be careful," she whispered into his ear. "They already got my first dad..." She stepped back and let her mother walk Wes to their car, shadowing them from a couple of feet behind and pulling open the rear nearside door as they said their goodbyes.

Spike ran across the lawn, his blanket clutched tight around his head, and dived into the back seat, giving Rosa a grateful smile as she slammed the door shut behind him.

Rosa wrapped an arm around her mother's shoulders as the car rounded the corner at the end of the street. "I think there's a Jimmy Stewart double bill on TCM, and we've got Häagen Dazs... Might as well be worried together."

"Looks like the missus and the little 'un aren't exactly over the moon," Spike remarked. "If you wanted to change your mind..."

Wes gave a snort of reproof. "Do you really think I'd be able to look Rosa in the face if I let the people who killed her father get away with doing the same thing to someone else?"

"Guess not."

"What did Buffy say?" Wes asked.

"Not a lot," Spike replied cheerfully.

"She must have said something," Wes protested. "I can't imagine she'd be particularly keen on you going up against the people who chipped you. Especially when she's not around."

"Yeah, well, that's why I don't plan on telling her until after it's all over."

"We-e-ell, so far as Rupert's been able to find out, there aren't any demons at this place, and I wasn't exactly planning a mass break-out this time," the vampire hedged. "Like you said, the watcher's mate's more amoral than evil, but who knows what the rest of them are like... Even if they were pure as the driven snow when that lot got hold of them, there's no guarantee that being in there hasn't turned them psychotic."

"They're just people like you or— Well, like me. Okay, so they have some abilities, but nothing that should put them beyond the system's ability to deal with them."

"You do remember Red, don't you?" Spike barked. "Maybe this is the system's way of dealing with them."

Wes made a reflexive attempt to catch the vampire's gaze in his rear view mirror before he pulled up onto the hard shoulder and turned around in his seat. "I don't understand," he told his friend. "I would have thought you would have been desperate to get as many people out as possible."

"You're the one with the conscience," Spike reminded him. "I'm just doing a favour for the watcher and hopin' I'll maybe get some payback along the way."

"But you've been in a place like that. They experimented on you. You spent years with the chip."

"Yeah, and, in theory, I don't have a problem with letting them all out and leaving it up to the police and the hospitals and social services to sort out the mess," Spike agreed, "but what if it turned out that it's not just harmless mages they've got in there? What if that bitch Sam or someone just like her was in one of the other cells? How about if we let her loose, and she came after Bitlet again?"

"It's a valid point, but I'm sure the authorities would give priority to capturing the most dangerous cases—"

"And I was here when Adam was around, and I'm sure they'll give priority to the ones that are most valuable to them, which is not the same thing—"

"And it would provide a distraction, making it easier for us to get out. Say, for example, they had Tara locked up in there..." Wes no longer sounded as if he were entirely sure about his own argument.

Spike actually growled, a deep rumbling noise from the centre of his chest. "If they touched one hair on her head I'd rip them limb from limb to get her out."

"You see," Wes said triumphantly, "I bet there are people in that place who've not done anything other than having magical ability... Just like Tara."

"Yeah," Spike agreed, "but we don't know what those people have done to their brains, and it's not as if we're going to have access to their case notes or time to try to work out who's harmless and who's not."

"You don't know that. We might be able to—"

"Do you know where the nearest big city to Stockton is, Watcher?"

"San Francisco, b—"

"And do you know what's between Stockton and San Francisco?"

Wes rolled his eyes. "Berkeley."

"Exactly!"

"Dawn isn't even there."

"She will be a week from now, and her fella's still around."

"Spike, the chances of anything happening to either Dawn or Brandon would be a million to one—"

"And million to one chances come off nine times out of ten," Spike stated unequivocally.

"What if we could check the individual charts?" Wes tried as he pulled back onto the road.

Spike sighed. "You really don't want to go back and tell the kid you left anyone in there, do you?"

Spike passed the binoculars back to Wes, pushing them out from under the edge of the blanket that protected the vampire's head and hands from the afternoon sun. "Check the roof."

Wes trained the glasses on the area the vampire suggested. "Looks like the guards are in standard army issue fatigues."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Those guys aren't on guard duty. Look at them. They're California's Least Wanted. Smokers. That's our way in."

Wes looked sceptical. "And exactly how is that easier than walking through the main door?"

"They're going to notice if we take out everyone at the front desk," Spike argued.

"They're going to notice even quicker if we set off an alarm getting in," Wes countered. "Not to mention we have to get onto the roof in the first place."

"Fire exits. Twenties building like that, they're going to have the pull down ladders between first and ground. It's not exactly going to be a problem for me to get it down," Spike pointed out. "And ten to one, if we do set off an alarm getting in, they're going to think it's one of the guards or the nurses sneaking out for a quick drag. They might send someone to check, but, as long as there's no damage, they're not going to worry about it too much."

"We still need to do something about security cameras. That periscope trick you pulled when you went after the Axis of Pythia isn't going to be any good."

"Well, for one thing, it wouldn't work since you have a reflection... and I'm not wearin' a balaclava."

"No one is asking you to. I think with a little adaptation I can do something about it. I'm going to have to talk to Tara and Bee and possibly Anya and I'll need supplies. We might be able to get what we need in Stockton, but it would give them an easy trail. We're going to have to detour to San Francisco."

Spike tilted his head to one side slightly as if to give his assent. "We were going to have to go most of the way anyway. And the watcher can't expect you to use your own car, so we'll have to pick up something second hand for cash, assuming you're too prissy to let me nick one."

"It's not a matter of being prissy," Wes protested. "My wife's the District Attorney. It wouldn't look good if her husband was picked up in a stolen car, and it wouldn't get Rayne out of that place either. Besides, it's not as if you won't love every minute of making Giles reimburse you."

Spike couldn't keep the glint of amusement from his eyes. "True." He crawled back from the ridgeline, keeping the blanket over his head like an old fishwife's shawl in a period drama, and then he pushed up onto his feet. "Let's go get something to eat while we sort out our shopping list, an' then we can make a start on the phone calls."

"Michaels, get your ass out here!" Brandon heard his boss yell. "You got visitors."

Brandon put the wrench he'd been using back in its drawer and wiped his hands on an old rag before he headed through to the clean part of the workshop. "Sorry, Gus," the young man whispered, knowing his boss didn't like his student friends hanging around the motorcycle showroom.

"Don't be sorry," Gus replied, tapping the top pocket of his overalls, which bulged as if there was a small wad of paper in there. "Just get here early enough on Monday to have that bike ready by nine."

"I can—" Brandon had been about to protest that he'd get it finished before he left for the night. Then, as one of the visitors pulled down the hood of the oversized sweatshirt he wore, Brandon caught the glint of white-blond hair and did a double-take. Suddenly, he understood Gus's gesture.

"And next time ask your English friend to leave his gun at home," Gus added. Then, a flicker of doubt passed across the old biker's face. "Assuming you want to go. If you're in trouble..."

Brandon gave a rueful smile. "Want to, not so sure. If they're here when Dawn's out of town, it won't be a social call, but, no, I'm not in trouble." He mentally added a 'yet'. It wasn't that he didn't like Spike. He did. It was just that, whenever he showed up, Brandon had to change how he looked at the world. It was as if the life he and Dawn had built together over the last few years was a tissue-thin covering over the world of demons and monsters. It felt real. Most of the time he forgot that it wasn't, but every time Spike showed up and reminded him that it was nothing more than an illusion, he felt like he'd been kicked in the teeth. "They're okay."

Gus looked unconvinced.

"The blond one is Dawn's brother-in-law and the other one's a friend of the family. He's a private eye. That's why he's got the gun."

"If you say so," Gus answered.

Brandon gave the two guys by the entrance a wave and then pointed back to the workshop area before grabbing his jacket from his locker and heading out to meet them.

Gus watched as the blond pulled his hood back up, so that his face was almost invisible beneath its cowl, despite the fact that the early evening was far from chill.

The Englishman wrapped an arm around the young man's shoulders before pulling a crumpled wad of notes from his coat pocket with his other hand and pressing them into Brandon's grip.

Gus decided that it wouldn't do any harm if his Sunday morning ride took him past the kid's apartment.

Brandon schooled himself not to flinch away from Spike's welcoming arm.

"Tell me, Mikey Boy, have you still got that fake I.D. you used to use before you turned twenty-one tucked away somewhere?"

"What?" Brandon began to protest but Spike just raised an eyebrow. "Okay, yeah, I've probably got it somewhere."

Spike reached into his pocket and pulled out the sort of cash Brandon never saw all together in one place unless he was the one cashing up at the end of the day, and only rarely then. "In that case you get to buy a truck. One of us would do it, but they'd be bound to remember the English accents."

"Why do you need a truck?" Brandon asked. From his viewpoint, Spike's grin verged on maniacal, but the vampire just nodded to Wes who was left to explain.

Wes's voice sounded so calm and reasonable that Brandon had difficulty believing his words. "You need a truck so that after we break into a mental hospital and liberate one of the inmates, you can smash through the twenty-foot high wrought iron gates and get us out of there."

"Tara has been recasting the spell on our homes and workplaces at intervals for years now," Wes explained as he carried the new ropes and climbing equipment they had bought earlier from his car to the 'new' pick-up truck. He and Spike had already changed into their army surplus fatigues and were wearing leather gloves so that they wouldn't leave DNA on the rope. "I simply undid the modifications she made to prevent it from affecting our own phones, cameras and so on. Then, I applied it to the amulets rather than to an area."

Brandon pulled his cell phone from his pocket, pressed a few keys, and Spike's coat began to play The Sex Pistols' version of 'God Save the Queen'. Brandon looked down at the crystal shard that hung around his neck on a leather thong. "So why did that work?"

Spike flipped open his phone as Wes replied.

"Try talking to him."

Brandon looked uncertain but spoke into the phone. They could all hear what he said, but there was no echo from Spike's cell.

"I had to make sure they would simply mask the wearers from electronic detection, rather than disable any devices in the area. Otherwise, not only would the disruptions be suspicious, but we would have had some difficulty letting you know when we needed you to make your entrance."

Brandon looked from Wes to Spike as they moved the last of the equipment into the truck's flat bed. "So let me check I've got this straight," he said in a sarcastic drawl, as if he didn't know whether to be amused or pissed off. "You're breaking into secret government installation disguised as a V.A. hospital. I'm your getaway driver, but it's okay because as long as I don't get shot - again - they won't see me on the security cameras because I'm wearing a pretty necklace?"

Spike paused and tilted his head to one side, as if considering the boy's words. "That's about it," he conceded, and then lifted a plastic crate full of broken bottles into the flatbed.

"Miss you, too, Baby," Spike whispered huskily into the phone, "but it sounds like you and the Bit are havin' fun."

There was a pause, presumably while Buffy made some sort of reply.

"Talk to you tomorrow," the vampire promised and then slowly closed the phone. He took the amulet Wes passed him and tucked it in place under layers of olive drab.

With a flick of his wrist Spike threw the door open and returned his picks to their case, which he then put back in his pocket. He took a cigarette from his pack and ripped it in two near the filter, lighting the short end without putting it near his lips. He dropped the glowing ember just outside the door and then took the stairs to the floor below.

Wes followed him down.

Chapter #3 - Chapter 3

Note: This fic is my way of saying thank you and happy birthday to my regular beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support... but I still got her to step in once the first draft was complete to beta it for me.

Over the course of the writing process, while t_geyer was taking a well-earned rest, alwaysjbj was a ready 'ear' on Yahoo and an extra pair of eyes when it came to spotting my mistakes.

Chapter 3

Spike ghosted his way along the hospital's top floor, checking each door as he went. Wes stayed about six feet behind him, and the vampire took care, even when he crossed to the same side of the corridor to check a door, that his fellow countryman had a clear line of fire for the pistol he carried. He had reached the ninth door, and the lift machinery had ground into action, before he found a room that was unoccupied and unlocked. He strode in and then held the door open for Wes, who backed into the room keeping his gun trained on the lift doors, until Spike closed the door with barely a click.

They pressed themselves against the wall to either side of the doorway, letting their eyes adjust to the darkened room after the brightly lit corridors.

The lift doors rumbled open, and weary steps trudged towards the staircase leading to the roof. There was a second of static, and then a Brooklyn accent announced that it was, "All quiet on the top floor." The fire door squeaked loudly, and the guard's footsteps receded into the night.

Wes was ridiculously aware of the rapid beating of his heart as they waited for the guard to return. He consciously slowed his breathing, counting out thirty breaths before he hissed to Spike. "What's taking him so long?"

For answer, Spike only tapped the pocket that housed his pack of Marlboro, and placed his finger to his lips.

Eventually, the guard returned. The lift doors opened, and the mechanism clattered back to life.

Wes had just pushed himself away from the wall when Spike's arm flattened him back into position. After a few seconds, he heard a metallic rattle followed by the squeak of soft-soled shoes on linoleum. The steps paused every few feet along the corridor, but kept on going past the room where Wes and the vampire were hiding. Eventually, they reached the far end of the corridor, where they doubled back, this time without any pauses. There was another rattle, and the footsteps sounded more muffled and quickly became too quiet for Wes to make out. This time, he stayed in position until Spike made the first move.

"Great," the vampire muttered as he stomped off in the direction of the lift.

"What's the problem?" Wes asked as quietly as he could.

Spike prodded the button to call the lift with rather more than the required vehemence. "They must keep the stairwell doors locked."

Wes gave a long-suffering sigh. "And it's going to be beyond your capabilities to pick the lock?" he enquired.

Spike gave an offended snort. "'Course not."

"Then stop pouting like a five-year-old and see to the lift," his companion instructed as the lift doors lumbered open.

Wes took position just inside the lift doorway, leaning against the door to stop it closing, pistol at the ready.

Spike faced off with the control panel and began a familiar routine of patting down all his pockets, only this time, instead of cigarettes and a lighter, he triumphantly produced a tiny tube. He unscrewed the cap and broke the seal. Holding the tube delicately in his left hand, he pressed the door open button with his right index finger, checking how far it could move up and down and left and right. He tilted the button as far downward as he could and then carefully inserted the tube's nozzle down the side of the button and very gently squeezed the base of the tube. Pulling the nozzle out, he broke off the thin clear string that joined the tube to the control panel. Then, he pushed the button as far up as he could, keeping it pressed in, and waited for a count of thirty before he let it go.

It stayed in place.

He put the cap back on the tube of superglue and returned it to his pocket. "Done."

Wes gave a little nod, and both men moved off in the direction of the main stairwell. "You're sure the area we're looking for will be below ground?" Wes asked as he waited for Spike to open the door. It wasn't as if he could be more impatient to reach his objective than his undead companion, but from here on out it was just a matter of time before someone realised there was a problem with the lift, and anything more than the most cursory investigation, especially if the smell of glue didn't dissipate before then, would make it plain that it was sabotage. There was no knowing what obstacles they might encounter if there were a full alert.

"Yeah," Spike answered. "Well, maybe ninety-five percent sure. They might dope them up to the eyeballs and keep them in plain sight, but I think they're too greedy for that. My bet, they're trying to work out how to use them, and, if they want to do that, they can't interfere too much with their magic. What's up here - that all just icin' on the cake. It might keep in a ground pounder that's seen one too many demons. It's not going to work with even a half-way decent mage. Now, shut up and let me work."

Eventually, the door gave with a final click, and the two men slipped through into the stairwell and pulled the door closed behind them as quickly as they could, hoping against hope that no one would be watching the right monitor at just the wrong time.

Wes looked down the centre of the stairwell, counting the floors in order to confirm their suspicions. If there were levels below ground, this was not the way to reach them. If Spike was right, there had to be another staircase somewhere, but it would have been built after the Initiative took over, and it would probably be heavily camouflaged. If it had been used regularly, there might have been a chance of Spike tracking it by scent, but most likely it was reserved for emergency use. That meant their best chance of getting in before an alarm was raised was to use the lift-shaft. They moved down one floor, and Wes stood guard while Spike picked the lock on the stairwell doors.

After several excruciating minutes the lock capitulated, and Spike and Wes made their way back toward the lift shaft. When he got there, Spike reached out as if to force the doors open, but, before he could bring his strength to bear, Wes tapped him on the shoulder and held up a roughly T-shaped piece of metal. Inserting the vertical stroke of the T into a hole above the doors, he gave it a clockwise twist. The doors parted an inch at their centre and when Wes pushed them apart they slid open smoothly.

"Where d'you get your hands on that, Watcher?" Spike asked in obvious surprise.

"Last time the repairman came out to the lift in Lily and Clem's building, I talked him into leaving a spare in case anyone got stuck." Wes unslung the rope that he'd been carrying looped diagonally across his chest. After assessing the visible superstructure of the lift car on the floor above, he selected a karabiner from a pouch at his waist. "Of course, they're all a standard size so that the fire departments don't need to have dozens of different ones... I thought it might prove useful," he explained as he looped the midpoint of the rope, which he had marked earlier with some tape, through and over the top of the clip. Then, he held onto the door as he reached out and hooked the clip onto the car's framework as near to the centre as possible.

Spike kicked the coiled rope into the shaft and was rewarded by a distant splash. He took one of the ropes from the watcher and, not bothering with any other equipment, he wrapped his leg around it twice, checked his grip and stepped into the shaft.

Wes rolled his eyes, but refused to be intimidated into following the vampire's example. He'd had to do emergency rappelling once before, and given the choice it would really have to be an emergency before he did it again. He donned a harness as quickly as he could and clipped onto the second rope. Just before he dropped into the shaft he reached up and removed the key. As he rappelled downward, the doors above clanked closed, enclosing them in near-total darkness.

"Watch it!" a familiar voice whispered and Wes felt his legs pushed to one side. "Your great clod-hoppin' boots are about six inches from my head."

Wes carefully lowered himself the last five feet or so until he and Spike hung shoulder to shoulder and locked the rope in position. "Can you see where the key fits?" he asked. Thin ribbons of light shone through at the outer edges of the doors, but not enough for him to make out more than the barest outlines of anything in the gloom... other than the gleam of a pair of golden eyes moving up and down as Spike nodded.

"Guess the reception committee is up to you," the vampire conceded as he took the proffered tool and waited for Wes to steady himself and bring his pistol to bear. Spike held onto the ledge above the doors with one hand to steady himself and, although he didn't immediately free his leg from the rope, he balanced on tip-toe on the bottom edge of the doorway. He shuffled to the right and then reached up and out with his left hand to slide the key into place and give it a twist. As the doors shifted, he inserted the fingers of both hands into the gap and wrenched the door to the right.

The guard seated behind the reception desk had barely begun to get to his feet for a better view when Wes's first shot took him in the neck. The other guard had had his back to them, and as he spun around, coffee arced over the floor as the mug in his hand tilted precariously. The second shot took him high in the arm as he turned, and he staggered a couple of steps toward the counter.

His mind full of images of some sort of panic button, Spike threw himself over the nurses' station and tackled the guard to the ground. Bones crunched as Spike's shoulder drove the man into the floor. Spike rolled away from him, making a grimace of distaste as he found himself lying in a puddle of coffee.

The guard didn't move.

Wes swung forward and stepped into the corridor. To right and left, as far as he could see, the corridor stetched on and on, cell after glass-fronted cell. Instinctively, he raised his pistol to fire at the fatigue-clad figure far down the corridor, even though he knew the man was well outside his effective range. It was only when his reflection raised his gun, mirroring his every move, that Wes realised the truth and moved to help Spike rearrange the two men to look as normal as possible.

Spike had already pulled the dart from the second guard's arm and was lifting him into the spare chair.

The first guard had fallen back into his seat but it had glided backward and Wes wheeled him forward, somehow managing to prop his head up in his hands as though he was watching the monitors in front of him.

Spike didn't even try to mimic Wes's success. Instead, he picked up both his guard's legs and propped them on the counter, one crossed over the other at the ankle. The guard's head flopped back but was propped up slightly by the chair's back.

Wes picked up a clipboard that rested on the counter between the two guards and checked the heading on the front page. 'Subject list.' Eagerly, he flipped the page over, hoping to find the list of subjects would come with a list of cell allocations. It did... but where Wes had hoped he'd be able to look down the list until he found 'Rayne, Ethan,' there were no names, only 'Aberrant 47', 'Aberrant 83' and even 'Aberrant 259'.

"God in heaven," the watcher spat out as he dropped the board back where he had found it. "They don't even use names."

Spike shrugged. "They never did."

"But— I mean, with most demons it's not as if they could ask."

The vampire eyed the filing cabinets that lined the back wall. He doubted the guards would have access to the information inside them, so he didn't waste time checking them for keys, but he also doubted they would be alarmed. Even though he knew they were already on borrowed time, he waited for the camera to sweep to the other side of the room and then, with a whine of twisting metal, pulled open the top drawer of the rightmost cabinet.

He pulled out the front file for 'Aberrant 1' and skimmed through it. He'd hoped for some sort of photograph, but those there were only showed copies of x-rays, so he ran his finger down the summary page until he found the admission date. 09/07/80. He pushed the folder back in and pulled out the one at the back of the drawer. 'Aberrant 30' - 12/20/83. Their guy hadn't been picked up until January 2000. Spike took a couple of steps to his right and pulled out another drawer. 'Aberrant 241' - 12/20/02. The vampire backtracked a little and chose one of the middle drawers. Without even taking them out of the drawer he quickly checked the admission dates on the first few. Then he pulled all the others out and passed half to Wes.

"All these were admitted after Giles' little playmate got carted off. If we're lucky they sent him here sooner rather than later. Let me know if you find anything that looks like it might be him."

Spike started to go through his bundle of files, tossing aside any that were obviously too young, too old, too female... and it seemed that nearly three quarters of the people being held there were women. As he worked, his subconscious pricked at him, telling him that something wasn't right. There were no thumps of discarded files coming from the other side of the station. He looked over at Wes. His compatriot was still on the top file.

"Don't tell me you got him first time?" Spike asked.

Wes turned another page and then looked up. "What? Did you say something?"

"We're looking for one guy, Watcher, not collating evidence for Nuremburg. If that's not him—" The vampire froze and ducked down under the counter, freeing his pistol from its holster as he did so.

Footsteps clacked authoritatively along what had been an empty corridor and Wes joined Spike in ducking out of sight until they drew nearer.

"Sergeant Kowalski!" The woman's voice was harsh. "Sergeant, why isn't the eleva— What—"

Spike turned, rose and aimed all in a single seamless motion, the first dart catching the white-coated woman in the chest and the second in the forehead. Spike vaulted the counter and dragged her around behind it almost before Wes was upright. As soon as her body was out of general view, Spike began ransacking her unconscious form.

"What on earth are you doing?" Wes asked.

"What does it look like?" Spike demanded. "Going through her pockets looking for loose change."

Wes's mouth opened as if he would argue, but he returned to his bundle of folders instead. As if the woman's appearance had reminded him of how little time they had, he began to flick through them more rapidly, dropping the discards on the floor. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Pause. Spike looked up, hopefully.

"I think we've got him. One nine seven."

Spike picked up the patient list and skimmed down it. "Room twenty-three." He nodded to the right of station. "First one that way says thirty-one."

Wes looked to the left. "Twenty-nine."

They both broke into a run. Wes reached the cell first. Like all the others it was bare except for a mattress set on a low shelf and a bucket. Wes began to hammer on the glass, but the cell's inmate did not stir, though Wes fancied that he saw his back stiffen under the hospital gown that he wore. He kept his back turned to the world, maintaining what little privacy he had in the only way he could. Even as the watcher looked around in frustration for a way to open the cell, Spike gave a smug grin and from his pocket he produced a plastic card with a magnetic strip, swiping it through the slot to the right of the glass.

The glass slid aside, and the two Englishmen moved as one to retrieve the cell's occupant.

Spike grabbed an arm and used it to roll the man over and then haul him into a sitting position. He peered at the gaunt, lined face. "Right bloke?" he asked Wes.

"Right... person," Wes confirmed. He fumbled in his trouser pocket for a second before he drew out the last of the amulets he had made earlier that day and slipped it over Rayne's head.

"Ready?" Wes asked, grabbing hold of the man's other arm and putting it around his shoulders.

The figure between them finally showed signs of interest. He looked from Spike to Wes as they began to drag him out of his cell. "You're English?"

"As good old Queen Victoria," Spike replied.

"And this?" He lifted the amulet as if it were made of lead.

"Stops you showing up on the cameras."

"Don't you want to know who we are and where we're taking you?" Wes asked.

The skeletal face twisted into what might once have been a wry grin if the man hadn't forgotten how to smile. "It's hardly going to be anywhere worse."

They stepped out into the corridor, and Wes looked at Spike. "We need to find the stairs. There's no way he'll be able to—"

Anything else Wes was about to say was drowned out by the sound of klaxons. Solid steel plates slammed up from the floor so rapidly that the men were left in no doubt that, had they been crossing the line where they were set into the floor when the alarm went off, they would have been missing important portions of their anatomy.

"Bloody hell!" Spike shouted. "Guess they learned some lessons."

"I guess they did," Wes yelled back. He nodded to the man they held, who was writhing in their grip, clutching at his head with both hands, his mouth wide in a drowned-out scream, an anguished cry that had a muffled echo behind every security screen. Spike used his free hand to tilt Ethan's head to the side and down. The scar had faded to white, but it wasn't hard to see under the crew cut.

"He's chipped. They chipped them all."

Chapter #4 - Chapter 4

Note: This fic is my way of saying thank you and happy birthday to my regular beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support... but I still got her to step in once the first draft was complete to beta it for me.

Over the course of the writing process, while t_geyer was taking a well-earned rest, alwaysjbj was a ready 'ear' on Yahoo and an extra pair of eyes when it came to spotting my mistakes.

Chapter 4

It took several attempts on Ethan's part before Wes realised that he was attempting to point at something, rather than simply flailing around in his pain. "Spike." Wes leant in towards the vampire's ear, trying to shout over the din of the sirens. "I think he's trying to tell us something."

The vampire turned his attention to the mage, focusing all his attention on the man's lips. After a couple of seconds his face tightened, and he pointed clearly in the direction that Ethan's flopping limb had seemed to indicate.

Wes didn't bother trying to get an explanation. He'd never be able to hear it. He simply did his share of the work of dragging Rayne, who had gone back to clutching his head in both hands as soon as Spike appeared to understand his message, along with them. They had covered almost forty feet and had another fifty or sixty to go before they reached the end of the corridor when the mirror at its end slid up like a portcullis, and green-clad men began to spill out.

Wes and Spike dropped their burden instantly. For a second, the watcher considered drawing the tranquiliser pistol, but a dart would simply be too inaccurate at this distance, and he reached under his right arm for the other holster instead.

"Who the—" The foremost of the men didn't get any further with his challenge. The bullet hit him three inches below his left clavicle. He dropped his submachine gun as he tumbled to the floor clutching the wound.

Spike was sprinting down the corridor, a gun in either hand, firing both, apparently indiscriminately, as he ran.

What had looked like a wall of green only seconds before had scattered like ashes in the wind. Some had dived for the scant cover of the concrete pillars that separated one cell from the next, some had hit the floor and were shooting from prone positions, and three or four disappeared out of Wes's line of sight behind the last pillar on the left.

Wes followed the soldiers' example and took cover as best he could behind the three inches of concrete that protruded past the heavy steel screens. He tried to choose his shots carefully, aiming to incapacitate where he could. Spike would probably nag all the way back about him taking cover rather than joining the charge, but, as a vampire, Spike could afford to get shot half a dozen times over. Wes couldn't.

Their job done, the klaxons lapsed back into silence.

Spike barrelled into the men who were left at the end of the corridor. It was a brutal ballet that Wes had seen a hundred times over in the years since he had returned to Sunnydale. The vampire pirouetted to sweep the legs out from under three men at once. He whipped the now empty gun so sharply across another's face as he rose back to his full height that bones cracked and the man slumped to the floor.

All the time shots rang out from behind the last pillar. Wes rolled diagonally across the corridor, so that he came up two cells nearer the corridor's end and hugging the opposite wall. From there, he was able to see the doorway where at least four of the soldiers had taken shelter, one crouched low at either side, another two firing over their heads. At this angle the concrete gave little or no cover. He knew he didn't have time to take careful aim. As soon as he fired the first shot he would be as much a target as Spike. He took a breath and, as he exhaled, he snapped off four shots in rapid succession.

The first three bullets each lodged in the upper torso of one of the soldiers, but, as Wes fired the fourth, a shot grazed his left arm before lodging in the screen behind him. The momentum of the shot twisted Wes's upper body slightly and the last shot hit his target in the arm. Before he could fire again, Spike was there, a high kick canting the man's head over at an angle it had never been intended to form.

"Estúpido!" Wes muttered under his breath. "So much for not leaving DNA or fingerprints behind. Come on." He headed back to where Rayne lay curled in a foetal ball on the floor. He pulled the mage semi-upright, gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm as he did.

"Couldn't the missus at least teach you some proper swear words?" Spike asked as he grabbed Ethan's free arm and began to jog back along the corridor, forcing Wes to match his pace. They didn't get more than twenty feet before a shot rang past their heads.

"Get him in the room!" Spike ordered as he loosed his grip and focused on the new threat.

Two more soldiers, flanking a white-coated man in his forties, stood where the mirror had once reflected the corridor on into infinity.

"Wait!" Wes momentarily dropped Ethan, slotting a fresh clip into his gun before tossing it underhand to the vampire.

Spike caught it with preternatural ease and twirled it into a firing grip. "And make it bloody quick," the vampire added as more men in green spilled down the staircase behind the doctor and his bodyguards. Spike flew at the enemy, getting between them and the open doorway before they could advance far enough to close off the Englishmen's retreat.

Wes hooked his arm through Ethan's and ducked down the corridor at a crouching run, dragging his fellow countryman along the floor behind him, and trusting that Spike would make sure no one got an easy shot at them. He ignored the bullets that ricocheted off the steel to either side, his attention focused on the door that he had to reach and on Spike, ready to drop Rayne again and charge in if the vampire appeared to need his help.

Meanwhile, as soon as Spike had passed the open doorway, he strode deliberately towards the end of the corridor, raising his arm and taking aim as he moved. His first shot hit true.

The doctor hadn't even ducked or taken cover, obviously believing that the blond would go for the more heavily armed targets first, but Spike had seen enough in those files to know who was truly dangerous, and he wasn't about to take any chances. The shot spattered brain matter over the men behind.

He was hit by another couple of bullets, causing his second shot to go high, taking one of the doctor's escorts in the throat rather than in the chest. Then, he was so close that he was able to reach out and grab the remaining bodyguard, pulling him in front of him as a human shield and pointing the pistol at his forehead. "Slowly and carefully, without bending down, take your gun by the barrel and slide it across the floor toward that room," he instructed his hostage. The man complied.

The men behind hesitated, and Spike backed himself and his hostage into the doorway that Ethan and Wes had just entered, kicking the assault rifle his unwilling companion had been using into the room ahead of him. "Back behind the line," the blond ordered, nodding at the slight groove where the mirror habitually rested. The other men retreated, but Spike knew it was only a matter of time before they would try to rush him. "Get a move on," he hissed at Wes from the corner of his mouth.

Wes stood in front of a panel with hundreds of flashing LEDs, trying to make sense of what was there. Every light in the display was flashing, and underneath each one was a printed label with a number. Some of the labels were layered four and five deep. Next to each indicator was a switch, and Wes quickly found the one marked one hundred and ninety seven and flicked it. The light above it continued to blink red. Wes scanned the row of buttons at the top of the panel until he found one that was marked 'Code Red'. With a mental shrug, he pressed it. All bar one of the little red LEDs stopped flashing. He quickly reversed the switch next to light one nine seven and Rayne's convulsions immediately stopped.

"Got to smash it," the hoarse whisper came from the floor. "Got to destroy the whole damn thing, or the guards will just reactivate it using their remotes."

Wes looked at the solidly constructed panel doubtfully. "Can't we just get out of range?"

"Oi! Maybe you two have forgotten, but I've got a dozen guys out here who're far from friendly and a hostage who doesn't seem to realise I could snap his neck like a twig..." Spike called out.

"Maybe we should let the other prisoners out?" Wes suggested. "That would keep them more or less occupied, and I think I worked out which controls—"

"For Christ's sake! You're like a broken record," Spike bit back. "Leave those bloody buttons alone and just give me a hand."

"Sorry," Wes answered, sounding abashed as he reloaded dart after dart into his remaining pistol. When he finished, he pointed the gun at the leg of the soldier Spike held and fired, drugging the vampire's hostage into submission. Then, he flattened himself against the wall by the door.

Freed from the need to keep his gun trained on his human shield, Spike began to pick off the men by the stairs, while they surged forward in an effort to mob him.

Wes swung around the edge of the door, firing three carefully aimed shots and then ducking back into cover before the advancing men could draw an accurate bead. His eyes widened as he rolled back against the wall. The metal screens were dropping back to their original position and, behind them, the glass barriers were opening.

He turned and found Rayne had levered himself into one of the seats behind the controls. The mage was chanting, and, as he finished, a weak shimmer of sparks radiated from his hands.

"What the hell?" Spike demanded as inmates began to spill from their cells. "Didn't I bloody say to leave those buttons?"

Ethan turned momentarily from his self-appointed tasks, giving the vampire the ghost of a mischievous grin. "Oh! You meant these buttons?" he drawled with feigned ingenuity. "So sorry. Won't happen again."

Spike gave a defeated sigh and returned his attention to the fight, which was suddenly turning in their favour.

Most of soldiers changed their aim, but a young woman near the front of the crowd, who appeared less emaciated than some of the other prisoners, simply raised her hand. The area in front of the advancing crowd glowed a delicate shade of lilac, and the bullets dropped from the air.

The inmates were winning, but it all changed in an instant when one of the guards remembered his remote. The magical shield disappeared and the women and men dropped to the ground, twitching like the catch on a New England trawler.

"Hold the door," Wes shouted as he dived for the forgotten assault rifle. Pushing Ethan away from the panel, Wes fired what was left of the clip into the general area. Then, with a short chant he extended his arm, palm outward towards what was left. A small ball of yellowish flame shot from his hand into the tangle of wires and circuit board under the counter. Acrid smoke began to rise from the mess, and then flames began to curl upward.

Ethan came to just as the sprinklers kicked in and drowned the flames almost before they could take hold.

"Great thinking!" Spike called back from the doorway. "Now we get to sit in wet clothes. This job just gets better and better."

This time Ethan's chanting seemed firmer, his resolve strengthened, and when he plunged both hands into the tangle of half-burned wiring, he was wrapped in a writhing blue nimbus all the way up his arms to the shoulder, and the electronics melted under his touch.

"I thought your speciality was ritual Chaos magic?" Wes inquired.

"I've been broadening my skill base," Ethan answered as he drew away from the area of destruction. He wiped at the blood that now dripped from his nose in a steady stream with the back of his hand.

"Come on!" Spike yelled from the doorway. "That bird's back up, and the soldier boys are making a run for it."

Wes reached into a pocket and pulled out a neatly-folded square of white cotton, which he passed to Rayne as he pulled the man's other hand around his shoulders and helped him toward the exit.

"My God," Ethan drawled before breaking into a racking cough. "A proper handkerchief. You really are English."

The crowd was moving forward, the young woman's shield driving the soldiers inexorably back, even as they tried to prevent their retreat from turning into a rout. Spike and Wes simply fell in with the flow.

Wes tried one last appeal to Spike's sympathy as they headed out. "Couldn't we fit some of these people on the truck? At least give them more of a chance of getting away?"

"Can we have this argument later? I'm busy right now." Spike fumbled in his pocket with his free hand to find the right speed dial key without bringing the phone into the open and making it obvious what he was doing.

It was Ethan who answered, instead. "Actually, no, not unless you have some more of these pretty necklaces or one of you happens to be a neurosurgeon, you can't. It's not just the control chips. We're all implanted with tracking devices. Apparently they had some sort of mass break out at one of their other stalags so now everyone comes with GPS."

"Bugger!" Spike retorted. "That bint could have had her uses, but not if it amounts to giving the soldier boys a route map."

Wes smirked but declined to comment on the vampire's complete about face on the matter of the other escapees. "If Tara could cast the spell on a house, I don't see why it wouldn't work on the truck... We've got three miles of private road to get it working before we get back onto the highway proper. It'll have to be quick and dirty, but it should hold for a couple of hours, maybe more."

"You got the stuff?" Spike asked.

"I wasn't a Boy Scout for nothing," Wes responded dryly. "Better to have components to spare and not need them than to come up short."

"Fine," Spike conceded. "They're on the truck when we're ready to leave and not a second later, and we'll take them as far as the rendezvous and fill it up with a fresh tank of gas. After that, they're on their own."

"Oh goody!" Ethan drawled before he raised his voice. "Listen up, people. Our friends here have organised a little road trip. Numbers are limited, however, so unless you're young, pretty and can stop bullets with your mind, it's first come, first served." He let his hollow-eyed gaze take in the young woman from head to toe, admiring the way her sodden hospital gown clung to her curves.

"Not even if you were thirty years younger," Spike replied.

"Some women appreciate the charms of a more mature, compassionate, experienced partner," the mage managed despite a renewed bout of coughing.

"And some of them can spot an egocentric old bastard who just wants to give the bad guys as much trouble rounding everyone else up as he can," the vampire countered, "and they know that he doesn't really give a toss about anyone but himself... specially the ones as can read auras, which is probably a good few of these ladies."

"You wound me," Ethan protested with a hint of his old sarcastic humour.

"We read the file," said Wes. "You wanted to sell newborn babies to a demon."

"Can't we make allowances for the indiscretions of youth?" Ethan asked as Wes and Spike half-carried him along the asylum's ground floor.

"You were forty-seven," Wes reminded him.

"But a very youthful forty-seven," Ethan argued.

The young witch stalled when they reached the entrance lobby. The soldiers had spread out, some blocking the way to the front door, others taking cover in opposite wing. "I can't get us out," she muttered under her breath. "If I try to make the barrier bigger, it won't be strong enough to protect us, and if I don't, they'll come around the sides."

Without a word passing between them, Spike and Wes set Ethan onto his own two feet. "You're going to have to manage the last bit on your own," Spike announced, putting a fresh clip in the gun Wes had loaned him before passing it back to the watcher and reloading both of his own pistols.

"We'll worry about the sides," Wes assured her.

A car horn blared loudly from outside.

"I think our ride is here. Better move before someone has the idea of taking pot shots at it."

As the column moved past the end of the corridor, Spike peeled right and Wes took the left. Where he could get a clear shot, Wes used the tranq pistol, reserving the other gun for suppressive fire. A matronly woman stepped up beside him, electricity arcing from her outstretched palm into the chests of three of the soldiers. The energy discharge continued for several seconds, making them convulse helplessly. "See how you like it," she muttered under her breath as she let the spell drop, blood beginning to drip from her nose and ears.

A middle-aged man's eyes began to glow with a pale blue light, and a fierce wind seemed to swirl into existence, throwing the soldiers backward as if they were so many plastic models.

With so few people, and a short distance to cover, it should have been quick. However, those who were strong enough to use their powers were in the minority. So many of the patients were weak and having to help each other along that the exodus stretched on for over a minute.

Spike and Wes were the last to leave, ushering the last of the escapees ahead of them.

Those few soldiers who had made it outside lay scattered around in twisted poses. One of them was smouldering gently.

The salesman would barely have recognised the truck. Brandon had welded heavy steel plates over all but a two inch strip of the windshield and the other windows. There were plates over the wheel arches, too, though Brandon hadn't been able to fit those too low in case they started scraping along the ground on rough terrain. It wasn't perfect, but it would make it harder for anyone to hit either the driver or the vehicle's tyres.

Ethan had already claimed himself a space on the front seat, and Spike slid in next to him. The rest of the patients had climbed onto the bed of the truck. Wes clambered in after them and pulled up the tailgate.

"Clear a space in the middle," Wes shouted as the truck pulled away, "and pass me that bag in the corner. If it sounds like we're being followed, there's a crate behind the cab."

The once-majestic wrought iron gates bowed underneath the truck's wheels as it left the hospital behind.

"We're gaining," the soldier told his driver as he stared at his laptop screen - so many little red dots, one on top of another, that it looked more like a red square about an inch across. "They can't be doing more than thirty-five. We'll catch them before they hit the highway. Just over the hill."

Immediately beyond the blind summit, the broken glass covered the road's entire width for about six feet. Magic was so much neater than simply tipping it out would have been. The lead jeep swerved sharply to the right as its tyre blew, its front two tyres coming to rest in a roadside ditch. The second car piled into it from the rear and side, before the third was concertina-ed between it and the fourth.

The soldier tried to lift his head from the spider's web of the windscreen, but it was too heavy, so he moved his eyes instead, straining to see the display. The red lights blinked on and off as they approached the highway. Then, they blinked off and didn't come back.

Once he'd changed back into his original clothes, Wes passed out the bits of uniform he and Spike had worn between the remaining mages. Brandon had taken the plates back off the truck before they reached Stockton and sprayed over the bits of burnt paint so that they nearly matched.

"D'you think they've really got a chance?" he asked, as he, Wes and Spike watched the vehicle trundle out of the parking lot where they had agreed to meet Ethan's ambulance.

"More of a chance now than they had in there," Spike answered.

"And Giles' friend?"

"I think he'll land on his feet," Wes answered, letting the lights of the truck disappear before he turned and made his way toward the street where he had left his car.

Wes pulled up outside his house around mid-afternoon the following day.

"I still say you should have called Buffy from the motel," Wes argued, squeezing in one last round of what had been an ongoing argument for most of the way home.

"And who'd have been bandaging you up while I was on the phone?" Spike demanded.

"You poured neat peroxide over a graze and then taped some gauze over it. I dug fifteen bullets out of you... And you should still have called her."

"That would have defeated the purpose of turning my phone off until I got back. Just because you're hen-pecked..."

"You married a slayer. Of course you're bloody hen-pecked," Wes argued.

"It'll be fine," Spike insisted as they both got out of the car, the vamp holding his duster up over his head. "I've told you a million times. What she doesn't know won't hurt her."

"Your funeral," Wes insisted, as the vampire crossed the road.

The door to 1630 was pulled open before the vampire even got within six feet. "And where the hell have you been?" Buffy demanded. "No, second thoughts, don't answer that. I caught enough on the highlight reel. Did you really think that you and Wes could take on the whole damn army on your own?"

Spike looked at his boots. "Giles wasn't meant to tell you unless something went wrong."

"Giles didn't tell me, you idiot!" answered the slayer. "Did you forget when it comes to a fight, I see what you see? You get shot, I bleed? Well, not literally bleed, but it hurts like a son of a bitch."

"Oh!" Spike's teeth nipped gently at his lower lip. "Even all the way in Florida?"

"Even all the way in Florida, you stupid vampire."

"The old guy was really desperate, and I didn't kill any more than I could help," he offered appeasingly.

"I know."

"What about Niblet?" Spike asked. "You didn't drag her home early, did you?"

"No, Dawn's mature enough to look after herself... unlike a retarded vampire who doesn't even have the sense to get in out of the sun. Get in here..."

Buffy stepped back into the hallway, and Spike followed her in, kicking the door closed behind him.

"Missed you," he told his wife in a throaty whisper.

Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body close to his. "Prove it."

Ethan looked around the new headquarters of the Council of Watchers. It was more tinted glass and steel, rather than sandstone and wood panelling, but it was no less opulent than the original had been. "Which way to the guest suite, then, Ripper?"

"Guest suite?" Giles asked.

"You didn't really expect me to forget that it was you who handed me over to those people, did you?" Ethan asked. "I endured their hospitality for eight years, the least you can do is put me up in the manner to which I intend to become accustomed for the same length of time..."

"The way I remember it, you got yourself caught while I was still a Fyarl demon," Giles insisted, "and, if you think you're hanging around here for the next decade, then you'll bloody well have to do some work to justify it."

"Work?" Ethan raised a hand to the gauze patch on the back of his skull. "That's so crass, asking a guest to perform menial labour, especially when he's only just beginning to recuperate. It can be such a long process, you know."

"How about if that work involved finding an attractive young witch who can stop bullets with her mind?"

Ethan paused, looking his one-time friend up and down. Really, he'd just been pushing his luck to see how far Giles' courtesy might extend. The last thing he wanted was to join the council payroll... but it wasn't as if he had anything better to do, and the girl had been intriguing. "I might consider it." After all, he could leave whenever he felt like it, and it would be so much easier to cause chaos and disorder from inside...