XXIX

Sierra Madre

Her abduction still played like a snuff film in his head, but it didn’t keep him from spotting the truck swerving to the left.

“Oi. Shitface. They drive on the right side in this country, mate.”

Sonny answered instead. “He’s not lookin’ too good up here, Spike.”

“You mean he looks like shit?” Gina joked.

Sonny rolled her eyes. “Seriously. I think I should take over the wheel. His neck is still oozing, Spike.”

“Don’t tempt me, Slayer.”

“Spike–“

“So you drive. If the guard sees you first, we’ll handle it.”

“Pull over,” Sonny ordered.

As Shaggy slowed the car to a stop along the side of the highway, Sonny dragged him across her lap and into the passenger’s seat, then tied his arms behind his seat. She had the group back on the road in short order.

“You know you took too much,” Tori chided.

Spike ignored her. “So Shaggy, what else can you tell us about this facility then?”

No reply.

Sonny shoved him roughly.

“I told you,” he croaked. “You go in, you’re not getting out.”

Spike pursed his lips. “Hm. So you say. Well we already know there are four exits, each with two guards, plus a watchtower with two, and the outer gate. That’s eleven men.”

“Or women.” Mel.

Spike bowed his head. “Touché. And cameras? How many?”

“Too many. Everywhere. If a guard spots you on the cameras, it’s over. The place will go into lock down. And they how to kill vampires. Though it’s not like they’re in the habit of being stormed by them.”

“So then they’re not in the habit of carrying stakes and crossbows.” Spike smirked. “That’s one for the ‘plus’ column, ladies.”

Gina huffed. “The hell it is. My ass can still get killed by a crossbow, Spike.”

He ducked his head.

“Crossbows or not,” Shaggy continued. “We’ve just captured the world’s only immortal Slayer. In the middle of a public beach, I might add. A creature more powerful than any of you will ever be. You really think you’ve got an advantage because our guards don’t carry stakes?”

Spike tensed, ruffled more by the reminder of his failure that night, than by the accusation that Buffy was undeniably stronger than him.

Gina sucked her teeth. “Forget him, man. We’ll make it out.”

He said nothing.

“Buffy, too,” she insisted.

He nodded once, and then returned to his vigil out the back seat window.

* * * * * *

Iduna Headquarters

“Oh my god,” Berger whimpered. “What are you going to do me?”

Buffy wrapped her bloodied fingers around the chain link at her wrists and glared mischievously.

“What you wanted, Dr. Berger. I’m gonna show you what a Slayer is really made of.”

“You wouldn’t.”

She arched a brow.

“You’re a Slayer. You’re supposed to save lives!”

Rolling her eyes, Buffy dropped her chains to tie her hospital gown tightly at the neck. “Technically, Dr. Berger, a Slayer is supposed to slay. You know, as in kill. The saving of lives can be a happy side effect though.” Looking behind her, she searched in vain for the second string to tie her gown at the waist.

“Buffy, nothing will be gained by your–“

“By my what?” she asked distractedly. “How the hell am I supposed to tie this thing at the back, anyway?”

Berger open and closed her mouth dumbly.

“Okay… Then where are my clothes?”

No reply.

Buffy sighed. “Forget it. Let’s go.” She took a step towards Berger, who reflexively stepped back.

“Hard or easy, Doc. Your choice.”

Approaching Berger again, Buffy felt no resistance when she twisted the woman’s arms behind her and pushed her out of the OR.

“So how do we get out of this place?”

“Buffy, there’s no… unh!“

“Try again.”

“There’s an exit to the right. It’s not the main exit, but it will get you out. But–“

“Shut up and lead the way.”

“But–“

“Raise your voice again, and I take your tongue.”

“Buffy, please,” she persisted in hushed tones. “You have no idea what you’re giving up by leaving us.”

A bitter laugh escaped Buffy’s lips, unintentionally loud. She shoved the doctor forward to move her along, while scanning the white corridors in front and behind her.

“What do you really know about your nature, Buffy? Your power?”

“More than you do, Dr. Berger, if you don’t even accept the existence of magic.” There were no guards that Buffy could see as yet, which only made her more on edge.

“I accept that you believe you were made immortal by a magic spell, Buffy.”

“Becoming immortal isn’t something you choose to believe, Doctor Phil. It kinda demonstrates itself when you don’t stay dead.”

“You miss my point,” Berger replied, seeming to rapidly regain her composure. “I don’t question your immortality, Buffy, merely the point at which you became so, and by what means.”

Buffy kept moving. “So you’ve done your homework. Only badly. Yeah, I died once before. Drowned. But a friend brought me back. That wasn’t a resurrection. It was CPR. Ever heard of it?” She shoved the doctor again to pick up their pace.

“But that’s just it, Buffy. If you truly had been dead, as in brain dead, CPR would not have saved you. It can restart the heart and supply oxygen to the brain until your heart resumes its normal function, but it cannot revive the brain once dead.”

Buffy tensed, but didn’t slow their pace.

“And yet your ridiculous mythology states that you had to have died for another of your kind to be awoken, yes?”

Buffy stumbled. Walking and thinking at the same time weren’t usually so difficult. But she was rapidly losing the plot here. Her knowledge of modern medicine was murky at best and Berger was muddying it even more.

“Clearly you’re confused.”

She didn’t deny it.

“I don’t challenge that you were resuscitated from a near drowning. That is the most rational explanation for that event. I do deny your mythology, however. And science doesn’t allow for you to have truly died unless you had this extraordinary power of resurrection at that time.”

Buffy stopped. “I didn’t.”

Berger twisted around to face her. “I know. From our research, you continued to age after that event until you were 19 or 20.”

“That’s right. And then I jumped off the tower, died, and Willow brought me back.”

Berger smiled with condescension.

Buffy narrowed her eyes. “What exactly is so amusing?”

“Something else happened to you around that time, Buffy.”

Buffy stopped, searching the doctor’s eyes for an answer before it came to her. Dawn. Oh god. Though the alarm bells were deafening inside her, she kept her poker face. She’d die for real before she’d ever let Berger take Dawn.

“Yes,” Berger answered. “The vampire.”

Silence.

“Huh?”

“He bit you, if I’m not mistaken. And more importantly, you drank his blood.”

Shifting her eyes back and forth, Buffy tried to make sense of where the conversation was going. “Wait. You’re talking about Count Eurotrash?”

Berger pursed her lips.

Buffy was flummoxed. “So you’re telling me that you believe in Count Dracula of all things, but not in magic?”

“I acknowledge the existence of vampires because they’re an observed and studied phenomenon, Buffy. “

“Okay...”

“You drank his blood.”

Buffy released Berger from her grip, fully aware of her own power in the situation. “Only a little. So?”

Berger tipped her head to the side, like a patient schoolteacher. “Buffy, forgive the review of vampire basics, but surely you can tell me the effects of drinking a vampire’s blood.”

She was really starting to hate the doctor now. “Nothing,” she insisted, “if you haven’t been drained first. If you have, then you turn.”

“So you suffered no effects from drinking the blood of an ancient vampire?”

Buffy wrinkled her forehead in annoyance and confusion, before a flood of vivid memories assaulted her.

~ ~ ~
Do you know what a Slayer is?

Do you?

~ ~ ~
I’m the good guy, remember?”

Perhaps. But your power is rooted in darkness, you must feel it.

~ ~ ~
You are magnificent.

I bet you say that before you bite all the girls.

No. You are different. Kindred…. I have searched the world over for you. I have yearned for you. For a creature whose darkness rivals my own.

~ ~ ~
My friends–

They’re here. They will not find us. We are alone. Always alone…. There is so much I have to teach you. Your history, your power, what your body is capable of.

I don’t need to know.

You yearn to. All these years fighting us, your power so near to our own…. You think you know what you are, what’s to come. You haven’t even begun…. And you will have eternity to discover yourself. But first, a little taste…

~ ~ ~
No.

He’d wanted to turn her. She was sure of it. That’s what he’d meant by ‘eternity’. He couldn’t have–

“Buffy?”

But she was lost in the past.

“Buffy.” Berger spoke with new force. “We have reason to believe from our research that the characteristics of the vampire are the consequence of a unique virus. A retrovirus, to be specific. One with the power to transform human DNA.”

“What–?”

“We believe humans are infected with the virus by the vampire bite, but are only transformed when they near death from exsanguination and have ingested enough vampire blood to overwhelm their immune responses. We’re not sure if the human ingests a viral load, or if there’s some sort of secondary catalyst ingested that promotes viral replication. These details have eluded us in our study.”

A chill ran down her bare back. “You think I’ve been infected.”

“On the contrary. I think you’re immune from infection.”

She blew out the breath she’d been unconsciously holding. But her confusion was no less dizzying.

“I suspect that you’ve found a way to incorporate the virus into your DNA, but to your own benefit. You possess the very qualities that enable the vampire’s prolonged survival – spectacular tissue regeneration, resistance to DNA and cellular degradation. But with one important difference.”

She didn’t attempt to mask her curiosity.

“The nature of this elusive virus is such that the vampire requires the continued ingestion of some as yet unidentified component of human blood to sustain it.”

“But I don’t.”

“No. Nor are you sensitive to the sun, which leads us to believe that you have co-opted the virus for your own benefit without it becoming the dominant force in your physiology. In the crudest and not entirely accurate sense, you’ve become a carrier. In another, you represent a new phase in the evolution of virus, vampire and human.”

Buffy stepped back, pulling her hands through the hair at her temples.

“Don’t you see, Buffy? There is so much yet to learn about what you are, what you’ve become. You’re the key to mankind’s salvation from this epidemic, and quite possibly to the evolution of the vampire as well.”

Buffy looked up at that.

“Imagine if we could discover a way of evolving the vampire into something beyond a single-minded animal. You’d become a Slayer of an entirely different sort. A Slayer of the animal instinct within these creatures – creatures once human, like you and me. Creatures that never asked to be infected.”

Buffy stared at the doctor with new eyes. She had no idea if anything Berger was saying was possible or true, but it all sounded terribly rational. And when she really thought about it, her own world had always seemed too fantastical – so much so, that she’d once believed it a delusion.

But Berger’s theory allowed for the reality of the supernatural world scientifically, which made it all the more persuasive in a very Willow-like way. And the prospect of better understanding her nature was attractive, but not nearly as much as the prospect of having a more lasting impact in the world.

“Say I help you,” Buffy replied tentatively. “Give you blood and…” She grimaced. “Samples. You wouldn’t have to keep me captive here. I could work with you, come every–“

“Freeze!”

Buffy whipped her head towards the sound of an angry voice down the corridor, pissed at herself for not having heard his approach.

“I said freeze! Or I’ll shoot!”

It was one of the security guards she’d knocked unconscious in the operating theatre - god only knew how long ago. She should’ve tied them up. Slowly, she raised her hands and looked to Berger for help.

The doctor met her gaze and nodded, then turned to her security guard with authority. “Shoot her anyway.”

* * * * * *

Iduna Outskirts

Sonny slowed the truck as the trees of the compound came into view. “We’re here.”

“Keep it slow, Sonny. Don’t arouse suspicion.”

“I know the plan, Mel.”

“What about Shitface?” Gina.

Sonny nudged him again and he awoke with a cough. “You’re all going to die now, you know.”

“We’re not the ones with two holes in our neck, homeboy,” Gina countered, winking at Spike.

Spike stilled at the camaraderie of the gesture – shaken suddenly by the fear that Gina would die inside. And the others. He didn’t love their chances of all making it out alive, but it was a given that he’d take the risk a thousand times over to keep Buffy safe. But them. She was a leader to them, sure. But they’d already lost so many in the battle with the Dragvlocks.

And he’d been strong for that battle. Whole. Able to fight off a half dozen Dragvlocks at a time for them. Now? With a shattered pelvis and who knew what else broken and bleeding on the inside, it took everything in him just to put one foot in front of the other. If he didn’t feed soon, and heartily, he’d be useless to them. And to her.

But he wasn’t volunteering that information to anyone at the moment.

As the truck arrived at the outer perimeter gate to Iduna, the lone guard stepped out of the station to meet the driver. The guard spotted Sonny, and put a hand to his. “What the hell is this?”

Sonny opened her mouth, but it was Shaggy’s voice that pierced the silence.

“Shoot her!”

Spying Shaggy’s neck, the guard gasped, stepped back and withdrew his–

THUMP

With a well-placed tranquilizer dart piercing his chest, the guard crumpled into a heap on the asphalt. Slipping out of the car, Sonny hauled the unconscious man back into his booth.

Gina hopped into the driver’s seat and glared at their captive. “Nice try, sucker. Did you really think–?”

“Just drive, Gina!” Tori shouted.

“Uh, I’d love to, T. But Sonny’s taking all damn day to get that gate op–”

The gate opened.

Restarting the engine, Gina drove the group slowly into the main compound. After the gate closed, a pounding on the back door alerted them that Sonny had rejoined the group.

“Mel. Back door.” Spike.

Mel bristled. “Excuse me? How come you’re the boss of this raiding party?”

“Cause I’m three centuries older than you, kitten. Now mind your elders and get the bloody door.”

Mel scowled as she opened the back door, and Sonny slipped in deftly. “I’ve got goodies, girlies. Keys, a communicator, a swipe card, and a piece.”

“We need the lot,” Mel replied with an open hand.

“Mitch, you copy?” The tinny voice of a security guard echoed through the communicator in Mel’s hand.

“Shit.” Mel looked to Spike. “Now what?”

“Ignore it.”

“But–“

“Mitch, this is Thompson. You copy? Is that Reynolds you let back in?”

Silence.

The girls exchanged nervous glances before settling uncertain eyes on Spike.

“Alright. We don’t have much time. We just need to get into the bloody building. They can set off whatever alarms they want once we’re there. But we gotta get in. There’s only two sorry guards at the front door standing between us and Buffy. We’ll worry about the watchtower once we’ve taken care of them.”

The girls nodded.

“Let’s do this, then, and quick.”

Still driving at an unsuspicious speed, Gina drove the truck down the tree-lined lane towards the main doors of the circular building. Arming themselves, the group stood ready at the truck doors.

“They look suspicious,” Gina warned, eyeing the guards walking slowly towards them.

“Hm,” Pipa said. “Get us as close to the doors as possible, Gina, so we attract the least amount of attention from the tower.”

As the truck advanced to meet the guards, the two men naturally parted to either side.

“Any second now, guys, and they’ll recognize it ain’t Reynolds driving this thing!”

“Wait,” Spike ordered as he slid open the back seat window, stepped away, and signaled Mel to take his place.

The guards stepped closer, squinting to identify the driver.

“Spike!” Pipa urged.

“Wait...”

“Spike, man.” Gina groaned anxiously.

He let another five seconds pass.

“Any day now, brotha… “

“Now!”

Hopping to a perch on top of the truck’s side windows, Tori and Mel each aimed at her target, dropping a guard with a single shot.

“Huzzah!” shouted Mel.

Tori patted her weapon with admiration. “God, I love tranq guns.”

Once the truck had slowed to a stop at the front of the building, the girls slipped out of the vehicle silently and crept to the front doors, carrying the guards behind them. Spike grabbed Shaggy with one hand, and carried his mace in the other. “Longstock, you and Rachel get one guard’s gear. Gina, you and Sonny get the other guard’s and follow me.”

“Fine. But which way are we going?” Mel.

Spike fisted the hair at the back of Shaggy’s head with his free hand. “You heard the lady. Which way to the watchtower?”

“Fuck you, you dead piece of–“

THUMP

Shaggy’s blood smeared the nearby wall, courtesy of his nose. But it didn’t make him any more forthcoming.

“Sod’em. Even if he did tell us something, there’d be no way of knowing it was the truth. Let’s just stick to the plan. Three groups, three directions. My team goes east… Longstock and Rachel, head west. Tori and Mel go up. This building is a doughnut, so you’ll reach the watchtower if you look for a door to the center.”

Mel nodded. “We’re wasting time, then. Tori. Let’s go.“ Pulling out the guard’s swipe card, Mel searched in vain for a way to access the front door with the card.

“There’s a box right there, Mel!” Tori.

Mel huffed. “I can see that, genius.” She swiped the card over the screen. “It isn’t recognizing the card!”

“It might be voice recognition.” Gina offered. “Get Shaggy to say something.”

Shaggy chuckled. “You’ll never figure it out.”

“Wait,” Pipa injected. “Let’s just think about this. It’s four in the morning or something. This is a high security biotech complex. They’re likely to have increased security at the doors overnight.”

“Okay…” Tori replied with impatience.

Pipa continued. “So with only a few guards needing to access the building overnight, they probably have physical recognition software, like fingerprints or retinal scanners or something.”

“Right.” Sonny. “The security panel is flat there, and way too low for eyes. Pipa, help me get this guy.” Dragging the nearest guard to his feet, Sonny positioned his hand, palm down on to the flat screen of the door’s security panel.

“What do we do if–“

The main doors slid open.

Sonny grinned in victory, as Gina pushed her into the building. “Save it, Sonny. We got shit to do.”

“But what do we do if we need the guard’s hands again?” Rachel whispered. “We can’t haul these guys around unconscious.”

The group exchanged glances.

“Who’s got the bowie knife?” Spike.

Pipa gasped.

“Are we serious?” Rachel.

“Shaggy here’s got two hands,” Spike continued, unperturbed. “One for us. One for Tori and Mel, seeing as they’ve got to hit the tower.”

“Holy crap.” Tori.

“Bowie knife, ladies.” He could feel Shaggy squirming in his grip. “Who’s got it?’

“Wait!” Shaggy protested. “Please!”

Spike put his lips to Shaggy’s ear. “Say pretty please, mate, and I’ll be quick and neat about it.”

“Stop! You don’t need to do this!”

“Yeah?”

“Yes! You only need palm recognition to get in! The swipe cards are all you’ll need inside!”

Spike winked at the girls, all looking variably mortified. “Right. And we should believe you, why? We just saw what it took to get in here, mate.”

“I’m telling you the truth, god dammit! It’s a passcode or swipe card to the operating room, holding cells, and laboratories. Go to the left and take the fourth door on the right to access the stairwell to the tower. Go to the right and follow the signs to the OR and you’ll find Buffy. Just please! Don’t–“

“Fine.” Spike suppressed a smile. “We’ll do it your way, mate. You keep your filthy hands for the moment.”

Six sets of shoulders slumped in relief.

“So we’ve got a plan,” Gina declared, mainly to settle the group. “Let’s get in there already.”

With more instructions than they’d ever anticipated getting from Shaggy, the girls silently parted ways – Mel and Tori heading for the tower stairs, Rachel and Pipa passing them westward, and Spike, Sonny, Gina and Shaggy heading east.

But Spike was worried now. He hadn’t expected the girls to be so mortified at the prospect of taking Shaggy’s hands. He’d known the bastard would relent before he’d cut his hands off, but he wouldn’t have hesitated to do it if it’d been necessary. He might have a very large problem with the Slayers when it came time for him to feed.

And a proper feed was rapidly becoming very necessary.

* * * * * *

“Shoot her anyway.”

The guard looked at Berger with surprise, giving Buffy just enough time to lunge forward, swinging the chain link at her wrist towards his face.

“Agh!”

A single shot went off.

* * * * * *

Spike skidded to a stop along the eastern corridor, his stomach twisting at the sound of a shot.

“Shit.” Sonny. “That came from our direction, Spike.”

Spike looked back at Sonny with golden eyes, and the group ran faster down the corridor.

“There’s another one!” Sonny pointed to a camera above their heads.

Pushing Shaggy into Sonny’s hands, Spike swung his mace above their heads and obliterated the thing, barely slowing his pace.

“How much further to the OR?” Sonny asked Shaggy, hustling him roughly in front of her. “We passed the sign five yards ago.”

“It shouldn’t be too far from–“

Spike halted.

“What?” Gina asked.

That scent.

“Spike?” Sonny insisted.

Blood.

“Spike, man. What–?”

“Buffy.” It was a solemn declaration.

The girls looked around, bewildered.

“She’s bled.”

Silence.

His roar reverberated through the corridor.

* * * * * *

She hardly had to wrestle the gun free of his hand, so shaken was the guard by what he’d done.

“I… I…”

“Killed your boss. Yeah, I noticed that. Nice work.”

“But I–“

“Killed my chance of learning more about this virus theory, too. Yeah. Thanks for that.”

“What are you going to–?”

A roar reverberated through the corridor.

Buffy jumped to her feet.

Spike.

She chastised herself immediately for the thought. If the ex-Watcher hadn’t been lying, Spike was alive, but badly wounded. In no state to mount a rescue. She just prayed that he’d been able to find cover before dawn, then chastised herself again. Of course he had. He’d survived this long.

She looked down at the guard at her feet, his gun held limply in her hand. “You’ve got vampires in this place?”

He nodded absently.

She glowered. “Of course you do.” Narrowing her eyes at the guard, she crouched down towards him.

“What are you going to–?”

With another knock of his head against the floor, he was out cold. This time she made sure he’d sleep a while.

Turning her gaze towards Berger’s bleeding head, she could hardly resent the doctor now. And a part of her could understand the woman’s single-minded pursuit of the truth.

If it had been the truth.

But there was no time for reflection on that score. Unsure of how to get out of the building, Buffy searched both their pockets for swipe cards, scoring one from each. She stuffed them into her underwear, since she had no pockets in her flimsy gown. As much as she hated guns, she decided to keep the guard’s, if only to keep it from anyone else.

As she stood up, she considered her direction. The doctor had been leading her one way, which she’d flat out acknowledged wasn’t the main exit. But every building had a back exit. She just had to find it.

So she went forward.

* * * * * *

He was in full game face now, disregarding all but his nose. They’d passed half a dozen doors since he’d first picked up her scent, but he ignored them all. The scent of her blood grew stronger straight ahead.

It was alien to his nature not to salivate at the smell. But his need to find her was stronger than any sense of self-preservation. At that moment, he thought only of her. Of the awful possibility of her suffering yet another resurrection. Of his own impotence in the face of her abduction. Of his somehow losing her despite her immortality. Of her mouth. On his. Spitting his name. Biting into a peach. Stretching into a smile.

“Freeze!”

He hadn’t sensed the guard coming; and by the look on the guard’s face, he hadn’t expected Spike.

“Help me!” Shaggy gurgled.

Sonny had a knife to Shaggy’s throat, and the guard seemed to wrestle with which intruder to confront. He’d know full well that his bullets wouldn’t stop a vampire, but there was no getting at Sonny behind Shaggy.

Growling, Spike slowly approached.

The guard shifted his gun toward Gina.

Spike stopped in an instant.

“I’ll kill her.”

“The hell you will.” Spike was too far away to knock the gun from the guard’s hand without eating a bullet, so he accepted that he’d have to get bloody.

In the space of a growl, Spike threw himself between Gina and the guard, taking two bullets to the chest before he knocked the gun free, sending it flying into the air behind him.

Grabbing the guard by the throat, he debated drinking him or knocking him out – the scent of Buffy in his nose still beckoning. With the girls looking on, he quickly opted for the latter, and dropped the unconscious guard in a heap at his feet.

From behind him, two shots fired.

Turning, his fangs withdrew at the sight of both girls on the ground.

“You know, you have got to be the most compassionate vampire I’ve ever met,” Shaggy remarked with amusement.

Ignoring him, Spike quickly scanned the Slayers to find that both had taken non-fatal shots – Sonny in the knee, Gina in the foot. The wounds would hurt like hell, though, and he felt for them almost as much as he hated the man in front of him.

“You look as if you want to kill me right now, Spike.”

Spike flinched.

“Of course I know your name. And you should know that I’m not in the habit of killing Slayers. I’m actually the good guy in this scenario.”

Spike let forth a growl, low and menacing.

Shaggy chuckled. “No, I really am. Consider for a moment what you’re here for, Spike. One thing.” He raised a finger in emphasis. “Her. Just Buffy. That’s it. You want what’s yours. Like every man and beast of the field. Me?” He spread his free arm wide and smiled, all the while pointing his gun at Sonny, still clutching her knee on the floor. “I’m here for all girls everywhere. I’m here for the benefit of mankind.”

“You won’t be here much longer, mate.”

“One step and I blow a hole in her head.” He’d stopped smiling.

“You blow a hole in her head, and I sink my teeth in yours.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to take her – Ungh!”

Gina twisted her knife into Shaggy’s foot, redirecting his attention, and giving Spike the slimmest window of opportunity to charge.

Hastily, Shaggy emptied every bullet in the chamber into Spike’s chest – every slug a hot scalpel through already fragile muscle and bone. The agony of the assault slowed Spike long enough for Shaggy to turn and flee towards the main exit, Gina’s knife still embedded in his boot.

He was stopped in three strides by the spikes of a ruby studded mace in his skull.

* * * * * *

Without Berger to slow her down, Buffy sprinted down the corridor – only slowing at the faint sound of muffled laughter up ahead.

Guards, she thought. Pressing her back against the interior wall, she slowly slid forward, the chain link of her left shackle gripped firmly as a weapon, the gun held backwards in her right hand, almost forgotten.

As she peered her head around the bend, a smile threatened to break free as the exit door came into view. She could just make out the i arm of a guard on the outer side of the glass exit doors. By the look of the light outside, dawn was not far away.

On the inside wall to the left of the doors was a touch screen or something – no doubt the means to open and close the door. She pulled the swipe cards out of her underwear.

Okay, Buffy. She whispered. Maybe six steps to the swipey thing. Doors open. Two karate chops to the guards and I’m free. Easy.

One… Two…

“Buffy!”

“Gah!” She jumped back comically.

“You’re alright!” Pipa exclaimed.

Buffy gaped at her dumbly.

“Are you alright?” Rachel whispered.

Buffy nodded. “Wha-?”

“Long story,” Pipa replied.

“We all came to rescue you,” Rachel explained.

“Okay. Not so long.”

And with that, she let a smile break free.

But it didn’t last.

The sound of sliding doors interrupted their reunion. The guards at the outer doors must have heard them and were headed their way.

Signaling the girls to back up, Buffy raised her right arm reluctantly and stepped into the middle of the hallway.

“Now it’s my turn to say ‘Freeze’.”

Hands still on their holsters mid-stride, the guards complied.

“Ladies?” Buffy.

Rachel shot them both.

Buffy’s eyes widened.

“Tranq gun, Buffy.” Pipa.

Buffy pouted. “I knew that.”

“Buffy!” Mel’s disembodied voice echoed from Pipa’s wrist.

Pipa smiled. “That’s Mel. She and Tori have been tracking you from the watchtower since you entered the corridor. They told us we’d catch up with you.”

“Who else is here?” Buffy asked. “And do you know what happened to Spike?”

The girls exchanged glances. “He’s here, Buffy,” Pipa replied.

Buffy didn’t hide her surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah. With Gina and Sonny. They’d be behind you, catching up at some point.”

Buffy turned on her heels towards the direction she’d come.

“Wait!” Mel shouted at Pipa’s wrist. “Buffy, we’ve got no visuals on them. They’ve knocked out the cameras from the main exit and haven’t advanced to the next operating one. Who knows what they’re dealing with down there.”

Buffy frowned disapprovingly at Pipa’s wrist. “Then they’ll need our help, won’t they?”

Rachel stepped towards her. “Buffy, we’ve all risked our lives to rescue you, which was our choice, we know. But Spike would never forgive himself, or let any of us live, for that matter, if we didn’t get you out of here when we had the chance.”

Buffy exhaled in frustration.

“You may be immortal, Buffy, but he isn’t,” Rachel added. “Or, well, he can die, anyway. But he’s lived a hell of a lot longer than you have without your help. He doesn’t need you to save him now. He needs you to save yourself. The others have his back.”

Buffy’s face fell in defeat. Undoubtedly, she had faith in him. In his power and survival skills. But that faith was nothing compared to the need she had for him to get out of there alive. And that was the problem. He needed her faith. And if it was ever going to work with him, she had to start giving it – giving in general.

For one moment, she let herself look back with longing, before settling into a new resolve.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

And Pipa led the way to freedom.

* * * * * *

Gina pushed herself up and scooted back against the wall, breathless from the pain in her foot. She looked down the corridor at Shaggy, prone on the floor, with his new ruby-studded hat. “I know I’m supposed to feel bad about killing humans, man, but what you just did with that mace was fuckin’ excellent and long overdue.”

Hands on his knees to steady himself, and soaked in his own blood, Spike only hoped she’d feel that way when it came time for him to eat. Would she mind if he ate the guard he’d just knocked out? Was he a bad enough guy for him to kill?

Probably not.

He looked down at Sonny, still clutching her knee – her face pressed into the ground. “You alright?”

“Fuck, no!” she yelled through clenched teeth. “He shot me in the fucking knee cap!”

Gina scooted to Sonny’s side. “Can you keep going, Sonny? Or do you need to go back?”

Sonny pounded the floor with a fist.

Spike considered his options. He couldn’t let Sonny and Gina be hurt further because of his weakness, and he couldn’t feed properly with them in the picture.

“Go back to the truck, the both of you,” he insisted. “I’ll go on ahead, find Buffy, and meet up with the others.”

“Nuh uh. Try again, brotha. What the hell are you gonna achieve by yourself, lookin’ like that? You couldn’t beat my Nanna in your condition.”

Spike fumed.

“Go, Gina,” Sonny whispered painfully, pulling the swipe card from her pocket. “I can make it back to the truck, but I can’t go any further.”

Gina pulled the older Slayer’s hair from her face to see her eyes. “You sure?”

She nodded.

“Do you need me to carry–“

“Christ, Gina! There’s no time! Just go. I’ll be fine. You know me.”

Gina nodded. “You’re the boss, homegirl.”

Painfully, Spike pulled himself straight. “Gina, you’ve got a bullet in your f–“

“Toe, homeboy. Just a toe. I’m straight. Let’s go.”

Beaten, Spike dropped his head and started moving. There was no point in pretending he wasn’t a right mess now, so he staggered down the hallway.

“Can you still smell–?“

“Yeah. Up ahead. Getting stronger.”

Gina hobbled beside him, sparing her right foot, looking very much like the young girl she was.

“Man, he unloaded a shit ton of metal in your ass. I can’t imagine how much that’s gotta hurt. Do you even feel pain like us?”

He glared.

She raised a hand in defense. “I mean, yeah, I know you feel pain. But is it, like, numbed? Or less severe or somethin’? Cause you look like hell, but you’re still standin’.”

“Couldn’t tell you. The only time I’d been hurt as a human was when I was turned. And I was too shocked to process the pain. And then… well… I guess liked it.”

Gina looked at him askance. “That’s some fucked up shit, ma–“

Spike raised a hand to silence her, then pointed ahead.

She nodded.

As they moved forward, a door came into view with a trail of blood on the floor beyond it. The sign above the door read “OR 1.”

Had she fled that room? Or fled to it?

A low groan emanated from the room, and Spike hurried to the door, extending an inpatient hand for the swipe card.

As the door opened, he quickly scanned its contents and found nothing unusual for an empty operating room.

Gina stepped in behind him. “Where–?”

Spike raised a silencing hand again at the sound of two heartbeats behind the door, steady and strong.

“Buffy?” he asked plaintively, from the other side of the door.

Slowly, he stepped around the door, steeling himself for what he might find. A security guard was out cold, and a lab coat was groggily regaining consciousness.

His shoulders slumped. “She’s gone. Was here. But she’s gone.”

Gina peered around the door. “Well, that’s good, right? Looks like she put these clowns down and made a run for it. That means she was well enough to escape.”

He shook his head. “But the blood. The scent is so strong here.”

He looked around the room before his eyes settled on a machine beside an operating table. He crossed the room to inspect it, and noticed a connecting tube with its free end on the operating table. It had a needle at its tip, pooled with blood.

“Bastards.”

“What?” Gina.

“They tried to drain her.”

“You mean?”

“Her blood. It’s in here.” He put a hand on the machine as if it were somehow an extension of her.

The grumbles and moans of the lab coat on the floor grew louder. Spike’s eyes yellowed instantly, and he bolted across the room. Grabbing the guy by the shirt, Spike forced him up and against the wall, only to crumble from the exertion, and drop him unceremoniously back to the floor.

Stumbling back, his knees buckled from under him and he collapsed on to the cold, white tile.

“Jesus, Spike. You’re out of juice.”

He didn’t answer.

“What’s happened?” the lab coat asked pitifully.

Gina cast a scathing glance his way. “Buffy knocked your ass out and escaped. And you’re lucky that’s all she did.”

“Oh. Listen, Miss. You don’t understand. We didn’t–“

Gina kicked him unconscious.

It took exactly two seconds for her to register the pain in her toe. Slumping to the floor, she cradled her injured foot.

Spike was solemn.

“Gina.”

She looked up.

“We can’t go on like this.”

“No shit.”

He looked her dead in the eyes. “I need to feed.”

She looked back at the lab coat and security guard. “They ain’t like that other jackass, Spike. He had it comin’. Sorry, man, but you can’t kill these guys.”

Pause.

“I’ve got a chest full of bullets, Gina.”

“I know!”

“And internal injuries you don’t know about.”

She looked surprised, though it wasn’t like she hadn’t known he'd been hit by a truck that very night.

“I’d need to drain them both completely for it to do even a little good to me now. These things take some time. We heal fast, but not that fast. Not like Buffy.”

She seemed to consider his words, before her eyes widened.

“Buffy.”

“Yeah?” he asked warily. “What about her?”

“Spike.” She pointed at something beyond him.

He turned his head slightly before the realization dawned.

“No.”

“Look, man. I’m no good with this foot, and you’re fucked as all hell. But you’re the only one of us that can get any better in a hurry. Right?”

“I’m not drinking from Buffy, you stupid bint.”

“No kidding, you pasty mother fucker. And that’s the last goddamn time you call my ass stupid!”

He looked down, suitably chastened.

“No one is asking you to drink from the woman. You drink what they already took.”

He shook his head.

“Why the hell l not?”

“Because that’s still Buffy, you stu-“

“Hey!”

“I’m not drinking from Buffy.”

“I know you’re not. You’re drinking from a fucking machine, so heads up already so we can get the fuck outta here!”

“I’m not drinking from Buffy.”

“Like you’ve never done that shit before?”

Sonny and Angel came instantly to mind. “Buffy isn’t like that.”

“The hell she is. She put out for Angel once.”

Spike growled, then quickly calmed himself. “That was different. He was dying. She was trying to save the ponce’s life.”

“And she wouldn’t save yours?”

He shut up.

“Look. Your ass is on the line right now, man. And so is mine if you don’t get your drink on. Nobody has to know.”

Spike looked back at the machine and considered it for some time, before looking back at Gina. “She’ll know. Because I’ll tell her.”

Gina smiled. “That’s why I like you, Spike.”

But he couldn’t find anything to smile about in their situation. Gingerly, he forced himself up, and dragged his body along the length of the operating table towards the machine.

After a few minutes scanning the equipment for a way in to its contents, he broke the top of the metal box off to explore its innards. In the center sat a central canister.

“It’s all separated.”

“What is?”

“The red cells and the plasma.”

“Well drink’em both.”

He took a steadying breath. “Forgive me, pet,” he whispered. “Please, god, forgive me for this.”

Lifting it to his lips, Spike tipped the canister forward and drank.

The ridges of his brow popped out instantly as the first drop hit his tongue, and a warm tingling sensation spread throughout his mouth. No. Not a tingling. More like a vibration . Alien, but not unpleasant. The sensation continued down his throat, and into his chest, where the force of the vibration slowly dislodged the burnt, twisted metal of a dozen gunshots embedded in his flesh. As the bullets were expelled, he could feel the shredded fibers of his muscles re-stitch, and the shards of broken ribs refuse.


He drank faster, and in desperate swallows; and the sensation spread down further, mending a broken pelvis and reducing partially dislocated joints. He could feel himself standing taller and arched his back.

He didn’t stop swallowing until the last drop had fallen. Looking despondently at the emptied container, he settled for licking its sides, then swiping greedy fingers along its bottom.

“What’s in that bag?” Gina asked from behind him.

He’d completely forgotten she was there. She was pointing to a plastic bag half full of yellow fluid on a hook beside the machine.

His eyes glowed yellow. “More.”

Ripping the bag off its hook, Spike tore it open with his teeth, sucking its contents like marrow from bone. Tearing open the emptied bag, he licked its insides too. Only after there was nothing more to drink, did he stop to consider what he’d done and what had happened.

“Spike?”

His whole body was vibrating so forcefully he could hear it – blaring at first, then settling down to a low-pitch hum that only gradually faded away. He looked down at his hands, turning them one way, then the next.

“Spike?”

He started to tremble now, and not from his meal. “What the hell have I done?”

Gina groaned. “Man, forget that, already. I counted ten bullets hitting the ground, which is some crazy shit. How do you feel?”

Stretching even taller, he turned around.

And Gina’s mouth fell open.

“Like a new man.”

* * * * * *