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Ring of Fire by TalesofSpike
 
Chapter 1:10
 
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SECTION 1 - SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND

You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

(Pink Floyd)




Chapter 1.10
Monday, May 13th, 2002

Gunn was the first to speak after the television screen turned into a blur of white noise. "You can't be telling me you still think going after that animal is a rescue mission, 'cause in my book, I call that a 'seek and destroy'."

The group filled every corner of Wesley's apartment. Everyone was there except Dawn, who had been packed off on the ten past six flight for Sunnydale the previous evening. Angel had even compromised his dignity enough to undertake a quick run from one of the cars to Wesley's building under Spike's blanket. Of course, the fact that the hotel was bereft of not only a VCR but also a TV set, had pretty much forced the issue. Buffy had found herself close to tears as she watched the vampire stamp out the flames around the already scorched edges.

"Then buy a new book," Buffy retorted. "Rewind it Wesley."

"Buffy-" Angel began in a soft voice.

"Can the soft soap routine, Angel, I know him."

The tape clunked to a stop, and Wesley started to play it over.

"Are you sure? That looked an awful lot like the Spike I knew for twenty years. You swore blind to me last week that he wouldn't change if he got the chip out. I think we've got pretty conclusive proof here to the contrary."

"It's... it's not right. There's something. I know it looks bad... Tara, you've known Spike for years, now. Tell him." Buffy exhorted the witch to take her side.

"Buffy, I don't know. I don't think he would, but I never knew him before he got the chip. If they took the chip out, I can't say for sure."

"I'm sure."

Everyone's head swivelled toward Clem.

"See. It's not just me." Buffy clamoured for all the support she could get. "Tell them he just couldn't do that sort of thing any more."

"Oh, he could totally do it." Clem pronounced much to Angel's evident satisfaction. Willow and Tara looked toward Buffy, concerned as to how she would take this bit of news. "He just wouldn't. Not unless the alternative was something that would hurt Buffy more. Besides, I can't be the only one that thought the music was meant to be a message." The floppy eared demon swiped quickly at his cheek. "That song always makes me cry."

"Rammstein makes you cry?" Gunn asked, as most of the group turned to look at the floppy eared demon. Angel and Connor, however, were listening to the tape with renewed attention.

"So?" asked the teenager. "Somebody's humming in the background. You can hear somebody crying, too? It doesn't make a difference to what you can see. The demon helped kill the girl, even if he didn't kill her himself."

"Is Robin Hood song," Lily offered by way of clarification or those whose hearing was not as sensitive as that of her son. She extracted a neatly folded, cotton handkerchief from her purse and passed it to Clem.

"Aahhh!" Willow vocalised the relief that most of the Sunnydale crowd now felt.

"I knew it sounded vaguely familiar," Angel said looking slightly confused at the way everyone else except Connor seemed to now be disregarding the evidence of Spike's perfidy. "...And, obviously, I know it's Lorne... Is there something I'm not getting?"

Gunn shook his head softly. "Man, you really did let entire decades of pop culture pass you by. Not, in this case, that most of us wouldn't want to." He looked across to where Lori, Clem and Lily were squashed up on the sofa, the floppy-eared demon gently dabbing the tears from his eyes. "And can I just say, that you have to be the sorriest excuse for a demon that I have ever met."

"I spent five years in a hell dimension an' even that wasn't enough to let me forget that one." Fred put in.

Angel still looked blank. "What? I never saw the film. Robin Hood was just a bunch of English propaganda, and half the actors were American anyway. Cuchulain's far more interesting."

"Not that our Irish friend would be biased, of course," Wesley commented dryly. "I believe that Clem's point is that the words of the song's refrain are something along the line of 'Everything I do, I do it for you', meaning Lorne, assuming it is he, was trying to let us know, that Spike was under duress."

"Duress or not, he still killed the girl," Gunn commented. "I don't care what they threatened to do to his bony white hide. He ain't walkin' away from that with no free pass."

"'Cept if she'd been alive, that neck wound woulda been pourin' with blood round about now." Fred pointed at the screen as Spike lifted his head. "I'm guessin' she was dead before they even started filmin'. They just want us all to think he's killin' again."

"Well, thanks to Clem, we know better, so maybe we can get back to our original plans for this morning," Willow suggested.

 




 

"Bryan 'bloody' Adams. That was the best you could come up with?" Spike looked at Lorne through the one eye that would actually open.

"And what would you have suggested?" Lorne asked, as he tried to sponge off he dried blood from Spike's face and neck.

Spike fish-mouthed a couple of times. "Not the point, mate. That could end up bein' the last record that I even existed an' you're hummin' bloody Bryan Adams, and for whose benefit? A cultural retard an' a kid that hasn't even been in this dimension a month. It's not like any of the ones who would recognise it, could have heard you."

"So you think our hosts'll get what they wanted?" Lorne asked.

"Dunno. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Just leave that bit alone." Spike pulled as far back as his chains would allow. "We had a bust up last night, 'cause she didn't want to believe what a rotten shit her ex was. Least, not on my say so. Don't know whether that means she just doesn't want to think the worst of anyone, or whether she just doesn't trust me." Spike let his head hang forward.

It was all too easy to remember Buffy's words. "That's all it is to you, isn't it? Just another body! ...You don't have a soul. There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside. You can't feel anything real."

He tried to remember instead all the memories of the past week or so, of how she had claimed him, but the poisonous words from that alley by the police station just wouldn't leave his mind. Now, Buffy had Technicolor footage and another body to back her words.

Lorne looked at the mass of raw flesh. He was almost sure he could see Spike's collar bone through the scorched flesh. Once the video session was over, Dru had resumed her earlier games, seemingly intent both on getting Spike to renounce his feelings for Buffy, and to obliterate all physical signs of Buffy's claim. His shirt had been first to go, Dru taking satisfaction in ripping the rich material, that Buffy had chosen, from his body. It was to the same end that she had positioned a folded washcloth at the base of his neck and poured holy water on it. She left the moist cloth against his skin for hours, using a pair of tongs to lift it every so often. At first, it was to check whether Buffy's teeth marks were still visible. Later, she merely probed the open wound as she asked Spike whose dog he was.

The right side of his chest and back were covered with pink runnels where the holy water had run down his body, thanks to his upright position. Lorne knew, however, that the worst of the clean up was yet to come.

"I can leave that, puddin', but those jeans are going to have to come off," Lorne announced. As the water had run down, it had soaked into the material of Spike's jeans, burning the flesh underneath. If the jeans weren't removed they would continue to fuse to his flesh as he healed.

Spike grimaced. "Do it quick, mate." Lorne knelt before the blond vampire, fumbling with the fastenings of the skin-tight denim. Under normal circumstances, Spike would have made a joke about their compromising position, but for once his humour failed him. He'd used up all his best efforts to taunt Dru and show his defiance over the course of the afternoon, evening and night.

Once the fastenings were undone, Lorne grabbed a handful of cotton at the sides where the material was dry, and quickly yanked the jeans down. Spike couldn't hold back a short-lived scream before he lost consciousness, to hang limply from his chains.

Lorne silently worked to stem the fresh flow of blood, and once he had done that, he pulled a sheet from the bed. He tried, only partially successfully, to drape it over and around Spike's slumped figure, to allow him some semblance of modesty.

The teenager, who Lorne had earlier tried to comfort, watched as he ministered tenderly to Spike's wounds, even as he stepped over the body that still lay on the carpet near Spike's feet.

"Why'd you do that for him? He deserves everything he gets. He's a monster."

"But he's a monster who's trying to be a good man." Lorne turned to look the teenager square in the eye. "And he's a monster who, at least for a while, managed to buy the safety of half a dozen kids."

 




 

Spike came awake the next morning to the sound of Lorne humming to himself as he checked over Spike's wounds. The human blood that he had consumed over the last day was enough to start the healing process. In fact, his healing had progressed better than Spike would have expected, but so much flesh had been eaten away by the sustained application of holy water that it would take weeks of steady nourishment before the wounds were totally healed.

His arms burned, from the strain of supporting his body's dead weight, and he stood up trying to ease the ache slightly. He looked down at the sheet draped around his slight frame and smiled his thanks to the anagogic demon.

"How long was I out?"

Lorne shrugged. "Can't say for sure. After they brought the kids in, they started locking the door. Figure our hostess isn't so sure that all her guards will use force on a bunch of kids if they get out. I suspect that most of the ones on duty through the day are still human, in the broadest possible terms. My guess is it's about mid-morning."

"Prob'ly gives us another couple of hours before princess gets back to work."

"Couldn't you just pretend to give her what she wants?"

Spike shook his head slightly. "Would work for all of about two minutes. She'd either do a readin' or somethin' or she'd just straight out try and make her own claim. Even if it wasn't for Buffy, 'd be damned if I'd let her do that now. Was never good enough for her when we were together. Buggered if I'm goin' to play along with some nutty bint just because she doesn't want somebody else to have me."

Lorne sighed. "But how long can you keep taking all this punishment?"

"Till she gets bored."

"And what happens then?"

"She either gives up... or she finally stakes me," Spike said with a wry smile.

 




 

Dru arrived with a cavalcade of followers when she finally made her entrance. The group spread out around a man that neither Lorne nor Spike had seen previously. As best Spike could tell, the man, who knelt next to the room's fireplace, was human, which would normally have made Spike wonder why he was being treated with such deference by the vampires. What gave it away was the plastic baggy filled with dried flowers and the large crystal that the man carried.

The man pulled a couple of large sprigs of the dried flowers from the bag and held a lighter under the flowers. Spike's skin where there were still hairs to stand on end began to prickle at the magic that filled the air as the warlock began to chant.

"For William, fair one, this I char.
Let Lethe's Bramble do its chore.
Purge his mind of memories grim,
Of pains from his sire's slights and sins.
Let dead love be now reborn,
Take Drusilla's wicked form."

Spike began to panic. He struggled ineffectually in his chains; his efforts merely reopening partially healed wounds. He watched the man hold a large crystal in the flames that rose from the burning flowers, completing the casting.

"When the fire goes out, when the crystal turns black, the spell will be cast.

Tabula rasa, tabula rasa, tabula rasa."
 
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