A/N Betad by seapealsh and dawnofme


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Chapter Eight

The Ritual

The next morning the gang started preparing for the ritual the following day. They decided to do it at 1 am as that was the very earliest the alignment was correct. They daren’t leave it any later as at one point Willow called for Giles and both Giles and Spike turned to answer her, before Spike realised what he’d done and stormed out, clutching his beloved duster. They didn’t follow him this time -just let him have some space.

They were just starting to worry where Spike had gotten to when he arrived back at the apartment.

“Where’ve you been?” asked Willow, “You’ve been gone for so long.”

“Just around and about, pet. Couldn’t face sitting here all day,” said Spike, not wanting to tell them he’d gone to his crypt to see if it would help him focus but it hadn’t made any difference at all. It hadn’t felt like home, so he’d wandered around Sunnydale for the rest of the time. He’d tried to not even think of anything for fear of hearing Giles’ voice in his head.

“Right then, we’re ready to go. It’ll take us a while to set things out,” said Giles.

“Go where?” asked Spike. “Aren’t we doing it here?”

“It has to be done at the site of the first switch. We think that’s why the vampire dusted, because it wasn’t in the same place,” said Willow.

“Was that ‘think’ or ‘know’, Red?” asked Spike dryly.

No one said anything.

“Got another little problem to worry about if we’ve got to go back into the graveyard," continued Spike. "It’s crawling with Initiative troops, so just in case I don’t bleeding turn into a pile of dust, I can get captured and experimented on instead."

“Damn, just what we don’t need,” said Giles. “Look, Willow, you know how to set everything out. I think I’d better stay here until just before we’re ready to start. They won’t be interested in what you’re doing.”

“Oh no,” said Spike sarcastically. “They won’t find anything suspicious about a middle-aged man and a bunch of youngsters half his age setting up some weird magical stuff in the middle of a graveyard in the middle of the sodding night. Oh no, they won’t give it a second thought.”

“We haven’t got any other options,” said Giles. “Go on, get it all organised and I’ll meet you there at one.”

So off they went, each carrying a bag with some of the supplies they needed and Willow carrying the ancient book that held the vital incantation. When they got to the site of the switch they started to lay out the summoning circle.

Willow carefully made a circle with enchanted sand, placing five candles at equal distances around it. A further two sand circles were marked out for both Giles and Spike to stand in. Half of the dust would be thrown into the empty circle to summon the demon and the rest thrown over it to provoke it to reverse the switch whilst Willow chanted the incantation.

At one point an Initiative patrol did pass by, but although they gave them all strange looks they continued on without questioning them. Shortly before one a.m. Giles appeared, arriving so stealthily that he startled everyone as he spoke.

“Are we ready?” he asked.

“Jeez! Can you go easy on the creeping up?” said Xander, nearly dropping his precious handful of dust.

“Yes, we’re ready,” said Willow. “Spike, Giles, stand in those circles and make sure you’re standing at the correct side of each other so it’s as you were when you got switched.”

Giles went into the left hand circle. Spike hesitated a little, then raised his chin, squared his shoulders, and stepped into the circle on the right.

“Hope this works, Red,” he said to Willow, hoping no one would notice he was trembling slightly.

“Okay, here goes,” said Willow.

All the candles were lit and Willow began to read from the old book she held in her hand. The words were in a language she didn’t understand so she hoped the pronunciation was in the ballpark. Her voice was a soft monotone, almost hypnotic. She threw the dust into the empty circle. Suddenly, with a burst of static energy, a demon appeared. As soon as it did Xander leapt forward and threw the remaining dust into its face. Its dull orange eye opened wide and a burst of brilliant orange light flew from it and hit Giles and Spike and threw them off their feet and out of their circles. As soon as the light stopped flowing from the beast Xander rushed over to the two fallen men.

“Giles! Spike! Has it worked?” he yelled.

Giles sat up slowly and looked down at his body.

“I’m back,” he said before turning to the side and vomiting.

Spike lay still. Xander shook him.

“Spike, Spike.”

“Huh?” said Spike, blearily lifting his head off the ground. “You did it, I’m not dust.” Then he flopped back down, barely conscious.

“It worked!” shouted Xander.

With that Buffy, who’d been positioned to the side of the summoning circle, swung her axe and decapitated the demon.

“You won’t be messing with my friends again,” she cried.

It disappeared as it hit the ground, its body sucked back into its own dimension.

“Come on, guys, we’ve got company,” said Xander.

They all froze for a moment. They could hear The Initiative patrol getting closer, no doubt drawn by the static disturbance.

“Leave the stuff. Willow, Xander, you get Giles home. I’ll get Spike.”

Xander went over to Giles, who by now had gotten to his feet and, despite looking a bit green, seemed okay. Spike was still on the floor. Willow and Xander grabbed Giles and hustled him away.

“Come on, Spike, time to get going," said Buffy, kneeling beside him.

She gave him a shake. He looked up at her vaguely. So she gave him another shake and started to pull him up. He got the message and tried to stand but got halfway up and his legs gave out and he sat down with a thump.

“Christ! Come on!” urged Buffy.

“Too tired,” he mumbled in reply.

“You’ll be too dead if The Initiative catches you. Spike, can’t you vamp up or something? We need to move. Now!”

His features didn’t change but he staggered to his feet and this time managed to more or less stay upright, leaning heavily on Buffy. The pair of soldiers had worked their way in front of them, effectively cutting off the easiest route to Giles’. Buffy glanced around and saw they were near Spike’s crypt.

Luckily Slayer strength meant that she could half carry Spike to the crypt. He seemed totally out of it. They made it but to her dismay she heard the soldiers talking on their radios saying they were going to check the crypts once more. She’d let go of Spike to shut the door, and when she turned back round he’d slumped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. They’d be here any second. She dragged the barely awake vampire over to one of the tombs and slid back the lid put him in it sliding it back again, then she quickly ran and jumped into the entrance to the sewers. She held her breath.

The soldiers came in and poked about a bit.

“This is pointless. We’ve done all these once already.” One of them grumbled.

“Yeah, but when the professor wants it done, it gets done,” said the second. “But there’s nothing here. Let’s go.”

They went out of the crypt and Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. She needed to get Spike a bit more ‘with it’ if she was to get him back to the apartment. She pulled back the lid of the tomb and hauled Spike out. He was as limp as a rag doll. She decided to get tough and slapped him a couple of times across the face, hard. His eyes came open a slit and he squinted at her.

“Slayer? What’re you doing here?”

“Saving your undead ass is what I’m doing,” she snapped. “We’ve got to get you out of here. The Initiative are patrolling.”

This time the words had a little more effect. His eyes focussed a little more sharply and he pushed himself up, swaying alarmingly as he did so.

“Ooh, I don’t feel so good, pet,” he said, his words a little slurred.

“You’ll feel better once we’re at Giles’ place. You can rest there.”

The pair of them made their way out of the crypt and back towards the apartment. They managed to hide when a patrol went past. Buffy was barely able to get Spike to his feet afterwards but struggled on with him.

“Buff? Is that you?” A voice came from ahead.

“Xander, thank God. Help me - Spike’s barely conscious.”

Xander rushed to them and between him and Buffy they soon had Spike safely indoors.

*~*~*~*

They all stood looking at the vampire lying on the couch. He hadn’t moved or spoken in the half hour he’d been there.

“Least he’s not a pile of dust,” said Willow.

“Perhaps he just needs to sleep it off?” said Buffy.

“Perhaps,” said Giles, but he was worried for Spike. His own feelings of nausea and dizziness had passed quickly. He would have thought a vampire’s constitution would have bounced back quicker than his own, since he’d obviously survived the switch. “Well, there’s nothing more we can do tonight. It’s nearly three am – let’s try to get some sleep. We’ll take turns watching him. I’ll go first.”

They all made their way to their now usual sleeping places, the girls in the bedroom, Xander in his preferred easy chair, Spike on the couch and Giles settled in a chair to watch over him.

It’s when a vampire is unconscious that you truly realise they are in fact not alive. Although not needing to breathe on a physiological level the body carries on as if it does but when unconscious it falters and barely happens at all. If it was possible for Spike to look any more pale than usual then he did. Giles sat and wondered what he could do. After a couple of hours he roused Xander from his sleep to take the next watch and settled back in his own chair, falling asleep within minutes. The trouble was, so was Xander.

To be continued…