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Ring of Fire by TalesofSpike
 
Chapter 6.13
 
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Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.


SECTION 6 - GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN

Some boys take a beautiful girl
And hide her away from the rest of the world
I wanna be the one to walk in the sun

Hey now, hey now
What's a matta with ya?
Girls just wanna have fun now
Come on

(Cyndi Lauper, Album - 12 deadly Cyns... and then some)




Chapter 6.13
Wednesday, May 15th, 2002

Spike pulled the bike to a stop alongside the rearmost car of the train, just as Gunn and Lorne dropped from the car's roof less than twenty feet away.

"And I thought they'd pretty much done away with that form of economy travel everywhere except India." Spike drawled as he pulled the tranq rifle from the rack on the side of the bike.

He turned toward the rear of the train. "You got some plan for where you're goin' with that thing?" Gunn asked, not able to tell in the very first flush of the false dawn whether the hefty rifle Spike carried was designed for bullets or darts.

"Sure, I'm going to go shoot that guy your bit of fluff has pinned down, hopefully swap guns with her, and then work my way through toward the front until I find the bitch that hurt Dawn." He didn't even break stride as he answered.

"Any objections?" Spike asked the question in a tone that intimated that if there were, then the person making them might be on the receiving end of whatever the rifle did hold.

"Nope, not unless that thing fires bullets." Gunn's answer came just as Spike rounded the end of the train, levelled the rifle and shot two darts into the soldier's thigh in rapid succession before he became aware of the new threat, all of which was pretty impressive with a bolt action rifle.

Fred heaved a sigh of relief as the soldier slumped to the ground, knowing that even with the truck's door as cover, the stand-off couldn't have lasted. As soon as the soldier had realised the pistol she held was only a tranq gun it would lose all value as a deterrent, partly because the chances of her hitting at that range were slight and partly because being tranquillised just isn't as scary as being shot.

"You do know those darts are meant to be strong enough to take down a werewolf, don't you? Using two on an ordinary guy's kind of overkill."

Spike took a moment to assess the man's breathing even as he took the pistol from Fred's unresisting hands and passed her the rifle, which he had reloaded as he crossed the ground between them.

"Ammo?" He held out a hand and Fred passed him a handful of darts. "He'll live. Didn't want to risk him staying up. You've got two darts left there, pet. It's ready to fire but it's bolt-action, so make sure you hit first time or you might not get a second shot." He tapped the chest of the fallen man as he made his way to the door by which the soldier had exited. "And they're wearing body armour so go for the legs."

"Maybe we should go start from the front?" Gunn suggested, but Lorne was already following Spike into the train.

"Hell, no. I want to see this," the green demon responded.

Fred passed the rifle to Gunn. "Guess it's down to us."

Willow hesitated for a fraction of a second but then decided the humans with only two darts were far more likely to need her help than the invulnerable vampire. She scurried after the couple.

As it turned out, there was only a squad of eight on the train. Connor had accounted for two, one tranqued and one pistol-whipped into unconsciousness before the third member of their squad had become more wary of the teenager, only to be shot from behind when Spike made his way through from the rear car.

Angel had taken out one with the tranq gun, by the time Spike made his way into the car where he, Connor and Sam were. The soldier's partner had dropped back, and broke cover only occasionally to take pot shots in the hope of getting a lucky hit, and from his caged position there didn't seem to be much Angel could do about it.

"Need a hand there, grandpa?" Spike asked as he bent to grasp the first set of shutters.

"You won't be able to shift those," Sam crowed. "They're titanium alloy and once they're locked in place, it would take over a ton of pressure to lift them."

Spike barely seemed to strain a muscle as the locks anchoring the shutters, deformed and then gave, allowing him to push the metal rods back up into the ceiling.

"Really? Then I guess I'm just imagining this." Lorne and Connor watched from cover behind the car's stainless-steel units, as the desperate soldier emptied his clip in the direction of the seemingly unstoppable vampire, who calmly moved to open the shutters separating him from his grandsire.

The panicked private fumbled as he tried to load a new clip into his SMG even as he knew it was hopeless, the spent shells falling around the blond's feet a testament to its futility.

"Thought you weren't going to be able to make it?" Angel queried from his cover behind the examination table as Spike stepped through to remove the last obstacle between him and their attacker. Fortunately, the hail of bullets also kept Sam trapped in her cover under the desk.

"Change of plans. Buffy seemed to think it was important that this bitch," Spike reached under the desk and pulled Sam out by her hair before dragging her to the exam table. ".should learn that you don't go messing with our family and expect to get away with it."

Passing his gun to Angel, he then pulled a set of handcuffs from his coat pocket snapping one end around Sam's wrist and fastening the other to the rail that ran around the table. Only a second after passing his gun to Angel he reclaimed it.

"You just happened to have those in your coat pocket?" the older vampire asked.

"Yeah. Same way I just happened to have a tranq rifle. We did get enough notice to pick up some bits and pieces, you know."

By this point, the dispirited soldier was scrambling backwards across the floor away from the two vampires.

"Can't say we don't appreciate the help," Angel responded dryly, as he raised his pistol to shoot the last guard in the leg, even as Gunn, Fred and Willow appeared behind his target.

"There were two guarding the driver, but we knocked them out and tied the driver up," Fred reported when Angel raised an eyebrow in their direction.

"I guess that only leaves us one little problem to deal with, then." Spike began to pull open the doors of the various base units seemingly at random, until he found one which concealed a trash receptacle. Pulling out the garbage bag, he tipped its contents out onto the desk beneath which Sam had been hiding. Flipping aside a couple of bloody swabs, he surveyed the other items.

"Okay, we're looking for another bottle that says V64. I suppose if someone finds a clean syringe we can use it, otherwise this one'll do, and we're also looking for what came out of here." Spike held up a small cellophane wrapper.

"Well, come on! There's more than enough cupboards and drawers in here for everyone to take one, or do I have to do everything? Quicker we find out what we want, the quicker Dawn gets fixed and you all get to go home."

Spike moved to a roll-front wall unit that opened up to display a bewildering array of bottles. All were numbered, some marked with a "V", some with an "A". He pulled all the ones marked with the number 64 from the shelves and shoved them into his pockets with the exception of one bottle of the venom. He shook the bottle of milky fluid in his hand as he walked

"Okay, lady, and I use the term extremely loosely. You are going to tell me exactly how you would treat someone who's been injected with this stuff. You better tell the truth, because once we know what-."

Spike was cut off by Fred's startled epithet as she pressed the button that opened the plexiglass screen obscuring the homeless man's cage. "My God!" she exclaimed as she stared in shock at the filthy, malnourished man in his confinement. The rest of the crew turned, alerted as much by the malodour as by Fred's comment.

"Keys?" Angel demanded, holding his hand out in front of Sam, "unless of course you would rather we do a strip search."

The brunette grudgingly pointed to the desk drawer. Willow pulled the drawer open, finding not only the keys but also the other thing they'd been searching for. She tossed the keys to Fred and then held up the Dictaphone for Spike to see, the tape marked simply with the word Key and the previous evening's date.

As Fred freed the unfortunate man, Spike turned back to their captive.

"Okay, Mrs Mengele, as I was saying, you're going to tell me exactly how to treat Dawn, because I am going to inject this stuff into you. I am going to wait until you are in at least as bad a state as Dawn was when I last saw her, and then I might think about following your instructions to make sure you're not lying. In fact, just to speed things up I might go for a double dose."

"Y-you can't," Sam pouted in disbelief.

"You really think anyone here is going to stop me? Or that they could?"

"Y-you c-can't hurt anyone, you're-. The chip."

"Hey, well, I guess scum who harm people I care about rate as subhuman even with the chip, or didn't it actually hurt when I pulled you out from under that desk by the hair?"

A look of shock crossed Sam's face as she belatedly registered the significance of her earlier pain. This was no toothless guard dog.

"Bollocks it, I'm bored already just waiting for you to start talking."

Spike picked up the used syringe and used it to puncture the lid of the bottle he was holding, drawing the contents of the bottle into it. He depressed the plunger just enough to expel any air bubbles and then pulling on Sam's free arm until her stretched out position allowed her no resistance he plunged the syringe into the centre if her back, through the scrubs she wore, only removing it when it was empty.

"Okay, still think I won't do it?" Spike pulled another bottle from his pocket. Shaking it in front of Sam's suddenly sweating face.

"So what is this shit?"

"Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik venom."

This earned her an almost casual backhanded slap from Spike. "You sadistic bitch! You mean you were just going to leave her like that. We wouldn't have had a hope in hell of curing her, even if we worked out what was wrong. Not unless Red here could have summoned one of those ugly bastards, and you know she can't be doin' with that dark mojo."

Sam wiped a thin trail of blood from her mouth. She wouldn't have been entirely convinced if someone told her that Spike's blow had been deliberately restrained.

"That was the plan."

"Spike." Angel's voice was soft. "Let me."

The blond paced to the far end of the car, where the sight of Dawn's new boots standing in a corner enraged him even more.

"Spike, here, never really did have the patience required for torture. He'd forget how fragile humans are. So, if I were you I'd talk quick before that injection starts to have an effect, because if you go catatonic on him, I wouldn't count on your still being able to speak, when and if you ever come round."

"You inject a bottle of the antidote A64."

"You don't drink it?" Willow asked.

"You can make a form that you drink, but the injection works more quickly."

"And that's it? One injection?" Angel prodded.

Sam nodded. "Unless there's no improvement after an hour, in which case you might need a second dose."

"So what now?" Willow asked.

"We wait." Most of the group turned to look at the blond, except Fred and Connor, who were busy trying to see to the alcoholic who seemed to be unable to stand on his own, though whether this was a result of his previous cramped conditions, hunger or alcohol was anyone's guess.

"This stuff might only work if it's administered within minutes of the venom or something like that, so we wait until she's symptomatic before we give her it, and in the meantime we check that tape to make sure there's nothing that contradicts what she just told us."

Willow picked up the Dictaphone and rewound the tape before playing back the first few seconds.

Suddenly, the door diagonally opposite the one Connor and Angel had used to enter the train was jerked open. Framed in the doorway, Riley and Graham levelled submachine guns at the group.

"Mind if we join the party?" the scar-faced soldier asked.
 
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