Chapter 26 - What Are You Going to Do?


The Initiative’s fledgling vampires slipped through the main gate and mingled with the SPIT crowd waiting outside. The vampires mixed with the crowd and were handed signs to carry. The sky was still dark, but the first faint glow of light was beginning to change the eastern horizon into velvety navy blue.

The SPIT group shouted slogans and waved their candles. The candles kept being blown out by the wind and the Spitsters had to keep flicking their lighters to rekindle them.

“Careful with those lighters,” Willow said as she approached Joyce. “Vampires are highly combustible.”

Joyce waved to the people behind her to shout louder.

“Save the demons! Restore the Ryzarks! Equal Rights for Terrestrials!” The protestors, who had been fortifying themselves with adult beverages, shouted enthusiastically. Some of them began to sing Kumbaya.

“Do they have to sing?” Willow asked. “They’re not going to sing Blowing in the Wind next, are they?”

“Where’s Buffy?” Joyce shouted over the crowd.

“She went to get Spike,” Willow said. “He was being held in another place. We should get the vampires on the boats. The soldiers are bound to find out they’ve escaped soon.”

Thomas spotted Aspen in the crowd, waving a sign with a cartoon of Count Dracula on it. He walked over to her and she leaped into his arms and wrapped her legs around him and cried on his shoulder.

Sunglow chatted with the reporterette.

“Tell us about the history of SPIT, Sunglow,” Perqui Thimmig-Rounce said. She’d had more than enough of dealing with prissy camera hog, Joyce Summers. Who was the star here, anyway? This Sunglow person could hog the camera all she wanted, but the viewers would still rather look at young, attractive, well-groomed Perqui rather than an old hippy bag lady with a grey hair braid down her back.

“In 1995, I broke off from the Haight Asbury Vegetarian-Vegan Ovum-Eschewers Committee. I felt they were too involved in developing whole bean tofu marketing strategies and ignoring important environmental issues. Then, I heard about a demon nest in New Mexico – right down the road from Roswell. The nest was being dislodged for the expansion of Area 51. That’s the secret government agency that is keeping information about outer space beings from the public.”

“The government doesn’t appear to be doing a very good job of keeping it secret,” Perqui said. Did this woman wrap aluminum foil around her head on a regular basis?

“Thanks to the efforts of concerned citizens like myself and Joyce Summers, Big Brother’s tricks are being exposed.”

Once the green mist had blown away, the soldiers were able to form up and contain the SPIT group and keep any more of them from getting into the fortress. Agent Gates lowered his rifle and took off the safety. He pointed it at Joyce.

“You and your group will have to leave the island immediately,” Gates said. He’d had more than enough of these looney tunies for one night.

“I don’t think so, young man,” Joyce said, “and, don’t point that thing at me. It’s not safe. Someone could get hurt.”

“You have to leave, ma’am.” He raised the gun and attempting to look intimidating.

Joyce waved to the nearest camera man. “Are you going to shoot me on national television? I don’t think your commanding officer would approve. And, neither would your mother.”

Gates lowered the gun. Maggie Walsh would definitely not approve of him shooting a civilian on television and his mother would tear a strip off his hide. “It’s not national TV, it’s only local. And, don’t you know how dangerous demons and vampires are? They’re not cute and fuzzy.”

“My daughter’s boyfriend is a vampire and I happen to think he’s very cute. Not fuzzy, though. Except his hair, but he keeps that gelled down.”

Willow turned on her walkie-talkie to see if she could hear any news from Buffy, but she only heard the soldiers talking among themselves. They were searching for some intruders, presumably Buffy and Xander, but didn’t yet know their vampires had escaped.

A siren blared. “Attention all personnel. Hostiles have escaped the holding areas. This is not a drill. Attention …”

Willow tapped Thomas on his shoulder. He was busy kissing Aspen and growled at Willow in a very vampirey way and snapped his fangs. Apparently chips didn’t prevent growling and snapping.

“That’s our cue,” Willow said from a safer distance.

She asked Thomas to get the fledges on the boats. The vampires filtered through the crowds and got into the boats. Thomas and Aspen boarded the Boa Suerte and locked themselves in one of the luxurious private cabins for their reunion.

Willow raised another glamour spell to prevent the soldiers from noticing the vampires as they got into the boats. This time the mist was rosy pink. When they were all on board, Willow called ‘Captain Summers’ on her walkie-talkie and gave Buffy the clear word. She hoped Buffy could hear her.

“Spit,” she said and cut off the speak button.

***

The effects of the sip of Slayer’s blood he’d allowed himself wore off. His knees buckled and Spike sank to the floor.

“Doctor,” Buffy said, “what did you do to this vampire? He’s a valuable specimen. Walsh will cut off your balls if anything happens to this one.”

If you have any left after I get through with you.

“It’s not my fault, Captain. He refused to drink. We offered him several vict … bags of blood, but he refused to drink any of them. He claimed they were all drugged.”

Huh? Had they offered Spike bags of blood and he refused to take them? Plenty of time to worry about how boneheaded Spike had been when she got him out of here. Play along for now.

“Were they drugged?”

“Yes, we keep most unaltered vampires sedated. We can’t take any chances with them. Hostile 17 escaped from the Initiative’s control once before and managed to disable his implant. He fought with several soldiers on his arrival and had to be tranquilized.”

Buffy had a hard time masking her smile.

“Do you have any blood that hasn’t been drugged?” Buffy asked, edging her voice with the demanding, petulant tone of an officer confronting a stupid subordinate. It was the same voice she used on Xander when he was being goofy.

“Yes, but …”

“Get some. It’s getting late. I want him off the island before the sun comes up.”

The doctor scurried away and returned with two bags of fresh, human blood.

Xander had been using this time to consider the idea of Spike without a chip and how he’d ended up on the floor of the Bronze a few weeks ago. He also considered how he’d been rubbing Spike’s fur the wrong way for months and how Spike might decide to revenge himself. He handed Buffy the last set of orders.

“Captain, what about the third set of orders?”

Buffy wanted to crack Xander’s skull open. It would be wrong to crack his head open, wouldn’t it? She flipped through the third set of orders and examined them. She glowered at Xander and dared him to contradict her.

“They’ve expired, Private Harris.”

Xander realized his mistake and that he might be in more danger from Buffy than he was from Spike, and mouthed the word, “Sorry.”

“We could use a gurney to get this hostile to the loading dock,” Xander said to the doctor. “Evil Dead, er, this specimen is too heavy to carry and he doesn’t appear able to walk.”

“Thank you, Private Harris,” Buffy said. “An excellent idea. See to it, doctor.”

The doctor hurried to provide a gurney. He helped Xander lift Spike onto the gurney. Buffy ripped open the first bag of blood and held it to Spike’s mouth until he regained sufficient strength to hold it himself. Xander wheeled the stretcher out of the laboratory with Buffy following.

Spike closed his eyes.


***

While he was waiting, Riley checked the video cameras at an auxiliary security station. He flipped one of the monitors to the laboratory. Buffy had already managed to get Hostile 17 out of his cell. Dr. Ekl was helping Harris put Seventeen up on a gurney. Good, he wouldn’t have to worry about fighting Seventeen; he was too weak to walk.

Buffy was nearly in his grasp. Buffy and that bloodsucking scum, Hostile 17.