“I am the weighty one of striking power, the one who makes his own way. I have traversed, so make a path for me. May you allow that I pass and rescue.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


“I do not deal with your kind, vampire.” The Mriatryna’s thin grey lips pulled back in a sneer that revealed rows upon rows of black, serrated teeth.

Usually, that kind of talk was a good way to earn a swift ass kicking, but tonight was different. Spike had arranged this meeting in Willy’s back room, and had come with hat, or at least briefcase, in hand. His ego could take the abuse this one time; the night’s business was too important.

“Not even for this?” He popped the latch on the briefcase, which had previously been doing time as an elbow rest. Inside, wrapped in protective folds of fabric, was a carved statue of a demonic warrior, dark stone worn and stained by the passage of time.

That certainly got the haughty demon’s attention. “The Imbrikai!” He reached a taloned finger forward, running it down the smooth line of the statue’s amazingly detailed armor.

Spike smirked. Now we’re getting somewhere. “That’s just a down payment, mate.” He plucked a Polaroid out of his jacket and tossed it across the table. In the little image was another statue, the mirror image of the first, carved of pale grey stone. “What’s somethin’ like that worth to you?”

The mriatryna tried unsuccessfully to hide its keen interest. “Where is it?”

“Keep your pants on.” The vampire held up a hand when the demon’s red eyes started to blaze with anger. “You’ll get it, and all you have to do it kill one lousy human. Think that’s fair don’t you? These being such… important artifacts to your race?”

The demon looked back and forth between the statue and the photograph. In the end, the decision wasn’t a hard one, as Spike had predicted. “To have the Imbrikai and the Imbrikao united in Mriatrynan hands once again is worth any price. Tell me of this human.”

More pictures slid across the table, snapshots of a brown haired medical intern. “Name’s Ben. Should be an easy kill if you take him unawares. Only problem’s he’s got this, ah, thing. Livin’ in him. If he turns into her, you’ll be shit outta luck. Kill him quick ‘n clean, and everything should be fine.

The demon nodded. “A rider. I will be cautious, but this should not unduly complicate matters.” He ran his hands over the statue one more time before closing the briefcase and taking it in hand. “And the rest of my payment?”

Spike leaned back in the rickety chair, satisfied smile well in place. “I get proof he’s dead, I’ll arrange another meeting here. You have my word.” The Mriatryna nodded. Members of his species included the most renowned assassins in any dimension, and even the weakest of them knew ways to kill that defied reason and at least one law of thermodynamics. It would be stupid indeed to try to double cross one of them in a fair deal, and one thing was for sure, Spike was not stupid. The demon knew he would get the second of the sacred statues, and Spike knew that it wouldn’t take very long for Ben, and through him Glory, to end up in the ground.

All the vampire really needed to worry about was what to do when Anyanka found the pieces missing from the Magic Box’s inventory.

*****

Day 11

Spike was spitting mad.

Yes, the watcher had stitched up his back, expertly closing the gaping wound. He’d even given the vampire enough scotch to knock him out for the duration. But when Spike had awakened the next day and brought up the idea that something had kept both his opponent and himself from dusting, the man had scoffed in his face.

Being kicked to the curb with a curt, “You were lucky. I have real work to do,” was all the impetus his dormant pride needed to rekindle and blaze with indignation.

And all it took to quench it again was finding Dawn on the back porch, face streaked from crying. Quick as thought, he was beside her, hunkered low to try to meet her gaze. “Bit, what is it?” Spike asked, trying to keep the panic he felt out of his voice.

“They brought it back,” the girl was shaking, tears escaping from the corners of her eyes again. “Willow and Tara and Xander. I found it in a chest in the basement.”

Spike managed to lever the girl’s chin up with a gentle finger. “What’s ‘it’, Bite Size?”

“The ‘Bot,” she said brokenly.

The vampire rocked back on his heels and ended up sitting abruptly against the porch’s railing. That machine had never seemed like more of an abomination that it did in that moment. For Dawn to have found the broken bits and shredded pieces of the wire and silicon Buffy replica, shoved in a storage room like a pile of spare parts or an old vacuum… Well, it was an ugly mental image, one that Spike was desperately trying to erase from his own mind.

“Bitlet, I’m sorry,” his voice cracked on the last word, broken by his own strong emotions. “So, so sorry.” Sorry he had ever had the thing made, sorry it hadn’t been completely destroyed during the fight with Glory; sorry that anything he had done could cause the kind of pain he was seeing in Dawn’s eyes. Sorry for a lot of things, enough to bow his shoulders under their weight.

He had to do something, but what? Spike started running through a list of things he did to try to get his mind off his troubles. Killing demons was definitely up there, but he didn’t think Dawn was up for that kind of therapy. Drinking was out too, thanks to the killjoy that was the human legal system. As was gambling, petty theft, breaking and entering, and vandalism.

Thinking outside of the box, he came up with the one thing he thought might help cheer up a teenage girl: copious amounts of sugar and/or caffeine.

“Want to get out of here?” he asked.

The girl just nodded, sniffling and dragging one sleeve across her nose. He glanced towards the back door, but she deflected his unspoken question. “Willow left for L.A. to tell him, and Tara thinks I’m in bed.”

“Right then,” Spike’s voice was aiming for upbeat, but fell flat. The last thing any of them needed right now was Angelus showing up and casting even darker clouds over everyone’s lives. He hoped Willow agreed with that assessment. “Sounds like a plan.” At least he could actually fund the evening’s exploits. Palming the watcher’s platinum Visa was the least he could do to repay the man for treating him like a half-wit.

*****

Spike tore a path through the cemetery. He’d held it together until Dawn was snug in her bed, stuffed to the gills with enough ice cream sundaes to choke a horse. Once he was out of sight, the walls had come crumbling down. He had fled through the streets of Sunnydale, unaware of his surroundings until some spoiled brat had laid on his horn when Spike took a little too long to get out of the crosswalk. Maybe sticking the metal pole of a Yield sign through the kid’s radiator hadn’t been the most civically responsible act, but damn it had felt good.

Anger, hot and seething, hummed just beneath the surface of his skin. Much of it was aimed at himself, but most was just undirected rage. He needed an outlet before the fire in his veins burned him from the inside out. With no demons in sight, he took it out on whatever pieces of property presented him with real or imagined slights, the most notable probably being the twisted hood of an Escalade sticking out of the front display window of the Bike Emporium. When nothing else worth hitting presented itself, Spike finally turned for home and the last bottle of Jack he had waiting there.

What he wasn’t expecting was to find was a pair of oddly dressed humans, a man and a woman, standing in the center of his crypt.

They had olive complexions and blue-black hair that would fit perfectly in any number of countries framing the Mediterranean. Both were dressed in loose fitting linen, sheer kilts and tunics cut oddly and offset with layers of gold jewelry that covered their wrists and throats. They could have been siblings, with the same willowy build and angular features.

Throwing caution to the wind, because he honestly didn’t care what happened to him anymore, Spike let the crypt door slam closed behind him with a resounding thud. “And just who the fuck are you?” he growled.

The woman ignored him, her sharp features set in aloof disdain, and looked at the man on her right. There was power in them, magical energy that crackled and hissed in the air. “You are sure that this is he?” she asked with obvious distaste.

The man nodded. “He is one of them, but he follows his own path and longs for death. He will help us.”

Spike felt the rough edge of a fingernail slice through the flesh in his palm from where he had clenched his fists into white-knuckled balls. “He’s also standin’ right here.”

The man’s dark eyes sparkled with silent humor, and even the woman seemed to soften. “Indeed you are, William who is known as Spike.” She inclined her head fractionally. “I know you and I know your names. Know mine. I am Ma’at.”

Spike snorted disbelievingly, but the involuntary inhalation brought the pair’s scent to his nose. Despite their appearances, they weren’t human. The tingling feel of raw magical force that was sending the vampire’s senses humming was overtaking anything he had experienced before. He had no idea what they really were, but surely they couldn’t really be…

“And I am Anubis,” said the man, contradicting Spike’s thoughts.

He knew those names, had actually aced a Classics test on them in grade school in another life, and every fiber of his being was screaming that these were not human, or even demonic, imposters. These were gods. Gods seemingly unhindered by binding spells and entrapped in human bodies. The real McCoy.

Bleeding fuck…

Spike managed to stop staring and wrap the shreds of his dignity back around himself. “Think I’ve had enough of gods and the like lately.” His words were harsh and threatening, an act of empty bravado. He was far outclassed, and he knew it.

Ma’at tilted her head to one side, dark eyes unfathomable. “You speak of Glorificus.”

“Would it comfort you to know that her heart was one of the last Ammut ate?” Anubis asked with the smallest of smiles.

Spike had to think for a second to remember who, or what, Ammut was. A faint memory rose to the surface: Ammut, the Devourer, who ate the hearts of the damned. The Victorian fascination with all things Egyptian was serving him well over a hundred years later, and in the strangest of ways.

However, nothing from his education or past life would have predicted that particular brand of gallows humor from the Egyptian god of the dead. Then again, making any assumptions at that point seemed an exercise in futility.

And yes, the news was darkly pleasing. The vampire allowed himself a moment to savor the idea.

The expectant expression on Anubis’ face snapped Spike back into the present.

“Uh, yeah…” he replied lamely. Bloodthirsty, diverting thoughts aside, he still didn’t know why the two deities were standing in his crypt, trying in a backwards, alien way to make small talk. The vinegar tack seemed a good way to get vaporized, and he had promised Dawn to stop with the suicide attempts, so honey it was. “So, booze? Blood? Not exactly prepared to entertain.” Okay more like mead. He just couldn’t seem to keep the sarcastic sneer off of his face.

Ma’at looked around the crypt and seemed to notice the dust, beer bottles, and rickety furniture for the first time. If possible, her nose crept even higher into the air. She looked like a queen. A very unimpressed, stone-cold bitch of a queen. Apparently being the goddess of order and balance robbed the deity of any claim she might have had to a sense of humor.

Anubis, on the other hand, quirked a tiny smirk of his own. “Have you noticed anything… unusual of late?”

“Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t.” Caution held Spike’s words, even though he was pretty sure he knew where this conversation was leading.

“We do not have the time to be coy, abomination,” Ma’at snapped. The goddess’ façade cracked for a moment, and Spike could see fear behind the smooth, calm mask. A dark sense of anticipation settled over him. Anything that could scare a goddess couldn’t bode well for the merely undead.

Anubis held up a calming hand and the emotion faded from Ma’at’s dark eyes, leaving her cool and serene again. “We wish to strike a deal. We need your help, and we are in the position to grant you a boon.”

“Wrapped up nicely with a load of strings, no doubt,” Spike retorted, sarcasm thinly veiling caution and he was willing to admit, fear. “You’re supposed to be all powerful, go fix your little problem yourself.”

Ma’at looked fit to be tied, but Anubis seemed more amused than anything else. The two exchanged a weighted glance, and the goddess finally nodded with a soft sigh of disgust. “The Gates into the West are closed. We are unable to manifest in this realm for long without experiencing… problems.” Anubis’ voice was a low rumble, surprising Spike with the open honestly it held. “I will explain the situation in full, if you are willing to listen. I truly believe that a discussion would prove to be mutually beneficial.”

Spike narrowed his eyes, searching for some hint of deceit in either of their faces, but found none. “Think I’m gonna need a drink for this,” he muttered.

Anubis gestured expansively towards the worn cabinet along the left wall. “Feel free.”

Soon, Spike found himself leaning against his television, facing a god who was managing to make his battered armchair look like a throne. Ma’at had retreated to the far corner of the crypt and seemed absorbed in ignoring her surroundings.

Anubis stared at the vampire, eyes dark and unblinking. After a long silence, he finally spoke. “Ammut is missing.”

Spike’s whiskey bottle clinked down on the TV with some force, sending the amber liquid sloshing. “Missing…” he repeated. This was just getting better and better.

“The Gods of the Tribunal suspect theft, but Thoth’s texts and Isis’ Sight have given us no solid information. Others are being contacted even now, but Ma’at and I chose this place and time to initiate a search, she for the order, I for the irony.” Anubis leaned back in the armchair, hands steepled in front of him. “Fate is like cruel poetry, and its patterns can sometimes be read as such, but you already knew that.”

“Your point, if there is one.” Spike’s voice was tense, his words terse.

“The point,” Anubis drawled, ignoring the vampire’s hostility, “is that the judgment of hearts has ground to a halt. The Gates into the West will remain closed until Ammut has returned and the threat has passed. None save the gods themselves may cross over.”

That earned a long thought. “So, what you’re sayin’ is that no one can die,” Spike asked with a deceptively collected voice. Inside he was mulling over the dark irony that true immortality seemed less than appealing of late.

“No, mortals may still die, but their souls are splintered into their component parts, and their way into the next world is blocked. Their Bas wander lost, their Kas remain trapped in their rotting flesh.” Anubis’ expression made it clear that all theology and understanding of the nature of souls aside, such was not a pleasant fate. “The undead are already splintered. For example, your Ka has crossed over and there it waits, but your Ba is tied to your remains, bound with the Ka of a demon. Until the Gates are open again, no power can separate your demon-Ka from your body.”

“The world is slipping into chaos. For the balance to be restored, we must find Ammut. When that happens, all who should have crossed over, will cross over. All who should have died, will die.” Anubis’ hands dropped across the arms of the chair, curling around the rests, but his eyes never moved.

The revelation deserved a long pull from Spike’s bottle of Jack and a moment of consideration. “So you want me to hunt a demi-god, or whatever. As I recall, you also mentioned payment. Other than the obvious,” Spike’s injured back twinged painfully with the promise of release in time, “what did you mean?” Dawn would hate him, he had promised to stop actively seeking death, but Death had found him, and he wasn’t about to cast him aside.

Ma’at reappeared behind Anubis, walking silently through the crypt, and placed a hand on the god’s shoulder. “It will not matter unless you find Ammut. We will discuss your reward if and when you find her.”

Anubis’ black eyes glittered with dark humor and unspoken secrets before the two figures glimmered and faded into nothing.