Chapter 22 – He Knows


Angel kicked Spike’s boot. Before Spike had been locked in the same cell with Angel for two hours, Angel had discovered it was possible to kick Spike if he laid on the floor at the maximum length of his chains and stretched his arms out as far from the wall as possible. That hadn’t worked out for Angel the first week or so, because Spike could reach Angel, too, but now he could kick Spike with impunity.

“Wakey, wakey, Spike boy.”

Spike didn’t move. He was too tired and weak. He’d never thought he’d sink so low that he’d let that bastard Angelus kick him without some kind of response, but he had. “Piss off.”

“I feel like talking, Spikey. You know, what you said when you first got here – about Buffy coming to rescue you? That’s been weighing on my mind.”

“Has it then? Your brain must be flatter than a sodding pancake by this time.”

Buffy’s failure to rescue him had been weighing on Spike’s mind, too. She must not have been able to figure out where he was. Or, she hadn’t been able to bust in yet. Not that it would make much difference in another day or so.

Angel ignored Spike’s insult. “Yes, I’ve been worried about my childe. All this time, you’ve been lying around the old cell, waiting for Buffy to come rescue you and she still hasn’t shown up. What’s it been? Two weeks since you got here? Yeah. You know, Billy, I’m beginning to think that she’s not coming for you.”

Spike grunted. She’ll come for me.

“Why didn’t she come? Could it be she doesn’t know where you are? No, I don’t think that’s the problem. Well, let me ask you what you think. Could it be that Buffy doesn’t love you? Could it be that she doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about you and that’s the reason she hasn’t hustled over here for the Great Prison Break?” Angel kicked Spike in the ribs to keep him from drifting off.

“Don’t see the Slayer hurrying to your rescue.”

Angel smirked. “Buffy doesn’t know where I am, or I’m sure she would have been here months ago.”

Spike sighed. He would have smirked at that, but it took too much effort. “I seem to remember that Buffy killed you once before for peeing on the carpet. What do you think she’s going to do to you this time?”

“Buffy’s going to be forgiving and loving, like always. I can count on Buffy.”

Spike curled his legs closer to his chest, partly to get away from the insistent prodding of Angel’s boots and partly to relieve the insistent leg cramps that had developed in the last day. It wouldn’t be much longer.

“There’s something else, Spike Boy. I really hate to see you being so delusional. About Buffy, being pregnant. You really haven’t had much experience with women, so I have to tell you these things. Women say things they don’t really mean. Tell you they love you. Tell you they’re pregnant with your kid, when the kid really belongs to somebody else. And, since you’re not exactly prophecy material, I think Buffy was just stringing you along.”

Spike said nothing. It wasn’t possible that Buffy’s baby belonged to anyone but him. He didn’t understand how it happened. He was a vampire and that sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen. No, he didn’t understand. But, he knew one thing. Buffy and the little nibs were his.

“Not talking, Spikey? I know how you feel. Betrayed. Buffy played you, let you fall in love with her, let you think the two of you had a future. Then, she let you down. No, she’s not coming for you. You might as well admit it. Under the circumstances, you might as well have a bite to eat and save yourself.”

She’ll come for me.

***

The island of Fuego, three miles off the coast, southwest of Isla Vista, hunkered on the evening horizon. The walls surrounding the facility appeared inky black with an occasional red blinking light to show the walls were not part of the rocky island themselves and to warn off visitors.

Giles navigated the Boa Sorte, a seventy-foot, Princess Flybridge yacht, toward the island, throttling back the twin 1200 horsepower engines so the other boats could keep up. He’d borrowed the Boa Sorte from a fellow member of the Council and wangled a fuel supply from his Watcher’s black item fund.

A flotilla of speed boats, cabin cruisers and smaller boats followed Giles’ yacht toward the island, carrying a group of people holding signs, laughing and drinking out of coolers. The boats contained Sunglow Panger and Joyce’s other new friends from SPIT and some of Aspen’s friends to fill out the crowd. Another boat, containing a news reporter and camera crew from Isla Vista, cut ahead so they could set up on the island’s pier and take shots of the incoming group.

Joyce, Buffy, Xander and Willow sat in the Boa Sorte’s comfortable cabin and finished their final preparations for their assault on the Initiative fortress. Buffy checked and rearranged the equipment in her combat vest. Willow mixed some foul-smelling ingredients for a spell. Xander studied plans of the fortress layout.

Buffy had thrown up three times already on the short trip to Fuego and another heave was on the way. Between the bouncing waves and the smell of the nasty concoction Willow was stirring up, Buffy felt miserable. Boating, Witchy Brewing and Baby Hatching, not mixy.

Don’t think about throwing up.

The past two weeks had been the longest of Buffy’s not very long life. Stealing weapons, assembling magic supplies and ripping off useful Initiative information had been a snap. Putting together a diversion so Buffy, Xander and Willow could break into the compound without taking on a couple hundred armed soldiers had been a nightmare.

Everyone bickered. Joyce argued with Giles about staking Spike. Giles reminded Buffy three times a day that she would probably have to kill Spike and Angel. Anya argued with Sunglow about patriarchal repression of orgasms in women and establishing a Demon Homeland in Utah. Anya preferred New York City and orgasm self help. Xander lectured Buffy on vampire evil, in general, and Spike evil, in particular, and crabbed because Buffy wouldn’t let him bring along a rocket-propelled grenade launcher they’d stolen from the Army base.

She could have ignored the complaining and lecturing and fighting, if only Willow could have found out something – anything – about Spike. But, the Initiative’s information on Spike and Angel required three high level passwords. Passwords they didn’t have. Even Willow’s magic spell hadn’t been able to break the code.

The only peaceful moments Buffy enjoyed were when she was chatting with Aspen about baby plans.

Through all the planning and preparations, Buffy worried. Every day that passed made it more likely that Spike had succumbed and killed someone. She didn’t think there was much chance Spike would turn anyone into a vampire, considering his general attitude to other people, but how long could she expect him to hold out if he was starving? And, if he refused, what would the Initiative do?

Buffy finished tucking equipment into her combat vest, and went outside and sat down on the deck of the Boa Sorte and gazed up at the twilight sky.

Joyce returned from fetching Giles a cup of coffee and sat down next to Buffy.

“We’re almost there, Buffy,” Joyce said, rubbing Buffy’s hand between hers. “We’ll get him out.”

Yeah, if it’s not too late. If he hasn’t been biting people. If the Initiative hasn’t traded in him for parts or done something else terrible to him. If Spike isn’t a big pile of dust.

“It’s been two weeks since they took him,” Buffy said. “Willow couldn’t find out what they’d done with him. There wasn’t anything on their computers. What if they killed him? If they dusted him, I’d never know he was gone.” She bit her lip to keep from crying. It would be too unbearable to lose Spike, just when she’d realized she loved him.

“Shhhh,” Joyce said. “They kidnapped him because he was useful to them. You’ll find him. We’ll get him back.”

Sure, Spike was useful. He was useful for making more vampires.

“Mom? I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell him I loved him.” She bit her lip to hold back her tears.

I was selfish and stupid. I ran around with that bonehead Riley, when I could have been spending all those weeks with Spike, the vampire I love. The vampire who loves me, who waited for me to come to my senses. Well, he didn’t wait exactly. He stalked me all over town, stole my underwear, threatened to kill Riley and made a nuisance of himself. All because I had some dumb idea that my life ought to be normal.

Joyce tucked a strand of hair back under Buffy’s black combat cap. “He knows you love him, honey. He knows.”

Giles steered into a huge wave and the yacht bounced hard. Buffy leaped up and lunged to the side of the boat and threw up again. If hurling wasn’t sufficient misery, the baby kicked her. Buffy rinsed her mouth out with water from her canteen and spat.

I feel like kicking some Initiative ass tonight. Not.

Their boat pulled up to a pier on the east side of the island, followed by the other boats in their company.

The Fuego guards watched the group and talked on their radios to their superiors inside the facility. As the boats approached the pier, the guards sounded an alarm and jogged forward with their rifles to seal off the pier and prevent the SPIT group from getting onto the island. More soldiers poured out of the compound.

“Ready, Buffy? Xander?” Willow asked. She turned the page of her fat book of spells and handed Buffy a carved copper conjuring bowl from Tokelau.

Buffy, Xander and Willow stepped into the middle of the groups of SPIT members getting off. The three were wearing uniforms similar to those worn by the Initiative soldiers – cross-draw combat vests in woodland green, camouflage battle dress uniform pants and shirts and spit-polished combat boots. The girls tucked their hair into knitted camo caps. Xander wanted to wear a balaclava for the coolness factor, but Buffy squashed that idea, so he settled for an idiotic floppy hat in urban camo black and white. They picked up SPIT signs and mixed with members who were disembarking on the pier.

“How do I look in my hat? Combat ready? Cool, Deadly Nerves of Steel Guy?” Xander asked. He adjusted the brim four or five times before Buffy threatened to swat him.

“You look more like Squishy Nerves of Wet Pasta Guy,” Willow said, “but the spell should remedy that. No one but Buffy, me and the two million viewers in the Southern California television audience will know your secret.” Willow muttered the first words of her spell.

“Mist obscure so friends may hide. Fog be thick where enemies lie …”

“Flamma,” Willow said. A tiny flame sparked the contents in the copper bowl. She chanted the glamour spell and conjured a thin, lime-green concealing mist. The mist thickened and swirled around them until they were barely visible to each other.

The soldiers shouted, waved their rifles around and backed away from the billowing green cloud.

“You said it was going to be gray,” Buffy said. “Gray mist. I’m positive I heard gray mentioned.”

“I was missing the gray ingredient. So, what if it’s lime green? It’s working.” Willow fanned the fire to increase the density of the sparkling green fog that poured from her magic bowl.

Inside their cloak of green cloudiness, the trio drifted towards the entrance to the Initiative stronghold, infiltrated the group of guards and entered the fortress unobserved. Several soldiers stormed into the mist and fell off the pier.