Chapter V - Décision de la Cour

From where he sat still languishing against the bar with one eye fixed on the slayers, the main entrance to the Culver City Bar and Grill soared a storey and a half above his head and slightly behind his left shoulder. That, along with the spiraling staircase and the wood-carved balcony, made it one of the most ornate structures Spike had seen in a demon bar since St. Petersburg.

It was predestined for grand entrances.

Demon wannabe superstars like Sylvester Corleone ate up the chance to use it, too. They’d push through the ten-foot tall double doors, as Corleone had done the night before, and pause at the banister, narrowing their eyes at the crowd below, waiting for adulation. It wasn’t an entrance unless everyone noticed.

And the Culver City Bar and Grill always did.

The walls were covered with white sheer curtains, hanging from the rafters of thirty-foot high ceilings. The white fabric pooled in heaps on the hard wood planks below, lapping over the baseboards and spilling onto the floor. They announced each entrance with a shimmering ripple that sped through the bar like wind.

Oddly enough the four slayers hadn’t entered through the main entrance, noted Spike. They’d filed in through a door a few feet from Gunn’s table.

Spike lifted his chin, his eyes canvassing the balcony above. Something had crept in through the doors, something fast—very fast—but the curtains hadn’t budged. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and his nostrils flared. He raised an eyebrow at Connor, still seated at his side. “What’s going on up there?” His vampire senses couldn’t compare with Connor’s abilities in some areas.

“There’s another Slayer in the balcony.” The boy’s voice was a whisper.

“That can’t be good,” mumbled Spike.

Just then the brunette slayer, standing less than ten feet from Spike and Connor, ordered a shot of Jack Daniels. Uncharacteristically, the Muumuus bartender moved like lighting. The muscle-bound slayer had her drink in her hands before the words were out of her mouth. Once she had it, she gulped it down and raised two fingers, requesting another. Then she tilted her down and whispered into the ear of the redheaded slayer, propped on the barstool next to her. Of course, Spike could hear her. She was saying that the white-haired vampire was watching them. The redhead raised her pretty square chin and smiled in Spike’s direction.

“What is it about you that makes them do that?” said Connor, his eyes shifting from the balcony to the slayers. “It’s weird, don’t you think?”

Spike was thinking about Corleone. The Wolfram and Hart VP had promised the A.I. team that these slayers would show their true selves tonight. Make it bloody clear that they were evil assassins who needed to be put down. So far, they’d acted like college girls out for a night on the town. It was creeping Spike out.

Connor had turned away from the balcony and was staring at Spike. “If we’re trying to be inconspicuous you aren’t exactly doing the best possible job, here, you know?”

“I’d say you’re the one blowing our cover.” Spike was rummaging through the pockets of his duster. It suddenly occurred to him he hadn’t brought a stake.

“Doesn’t appear we’ve got a cover to blow,” suggested Connor.

Spike nodded, adding an audible sigh. For a change, he was pretending to be annoyed with Connor’s blabbering, but he knew the miracle child was tracking the slayer slinking about in the balcony. “These little girls have been here for an hour,” said Spike. “And they haven’t done much except drink and bat their eyes at every man or demon that has wandered within their reach.”

Connor shifted in his seat. “You think Corleone was lying?”

“Never thought he was telling the truth,” muttered Spike, frowning. He couldn’t get the thought out of his head about forgetting the stake. “It doesn’t make sense that Corleone would think we’d want to come here to meet a team of rogue slayers just to watch them party.”

“But this is the night they’re supposed to prove to us they’re killers,” said Connor, looking around the bar with a sudden puzzled expression on his face. “Who’s the target? Who’s here for them to kill?”

Spike assessed the landscape, giving the bar the once over. Wasn’t anyone of importance there that he recognized. It was after one o’clock in the morning, but the place was still relatively empty. No big dogs, as Gunn would say, had made a grand entrance. No bad-ass demons or screwed up humans, either, outside of the adventure junkies jostling for a place at the opposite end of the bar. It was the regular Tuesday night crowd at the Culver City Bar and Grill.

Then Spike felt the anvil of realization land on top of his head. “How could we be so bloody stupid?”

He’d barely gotten the words out of his mouth when the brunette slayer charged. Leaping across the room, she bolted over Spike and Connor on her way to Gunn’s corner and Herschel. She was on the Bracken in a heartbeat, baring fangs the size of baboon incisors. Spike had never seen a baboon in his un-life, but he pictured the grisly beasts vividly for an instant. But the thought was fleeting.

“Duck,” he yelled at Connor. The blonde punched Spike in the nose on her way to unleashing a vicious roundhouse kick that caught Connor dead in the chest, hurling him to the ground. A second later, Spike lay sprawled next to him. The second leg of the blonde’s assault had connected with the side of Spike’s neck, throwing him off his stool.

Then Connor sprang from his back into a squat and reached out a helping hand to Spike, or so the vampire thought. But the next thing Spike knew he was being flung across the room. He had to think on the fly and grabbed a stake from the outstretched hand of the redhead, jabbing it deep into her chest in one motion. She crumbled to the ground, a heap of dust, as Spike landed flatfooted next to Herschel and the brunette. Her fangs were inches from Herschel’s throat as Spike spun her around and buried the stake in her chest.

“Fuck.” This one hadn’t turned to dust. She just started screaming and came after him, eyes blazing, mouth twisted into a nasty snarl.

Spike backpedaled, praying for the convenient appearance of another weapon. This slag slayer was stronger than the typical watered down variety. Since his last tussle with a newly ‘chosen one’, Spike had learned that even turned into a vamp, they weren’t Buffy quality fighters. Still, they could give him a run for his sodding arse.

Skillfully, he maneuvered out of the brunette’s grasp as he heard high-pitched squeals behind him. Connor was handling the blonde and the black girl. Thank the bloody Powers for Angel and Darla’s little boy thought Spike as he dodged a series of frenzied punches from the brunette. She was loosing steam and all he had to do was wait for his opening.

His good fortune disappeared as the slayer suddenly yanked the wood from her chest. The rules of their game had changed, and not in Spike’s favor.

“Watch out!” Gunn had wheeled up behind them, waving his unsheathed short blade. Grabbing her shirt and pulling her to him, he promptly sliced the brunette’s throat from ear to ear. A bemused expression lingered on her face before her head rolled from her shoulders and onto the floor.

“God damn it, Gunn!” yelled Spike, grabbing the handlebars of Gunn’s chair. “How the bloody hell did you not know Corelone had us pegged as the fucking targets for these assassins!” Pushing Gunn’s chair into the table where Herschel was slumped, dazed and mumbling, Spike didn’t wait for Gunn’s answer. He leapt across the room, snatching the black slayer off of Connor’s back and snapping her neck. He’d left the boy to fend for himself long enough.

Connor had the blonde in his clutches and Spike waited, wiping the slayer blood from his hands onto his duster. “Kill the fucking bint so I can finish kicking Gunn’s ass for setting us up.” Spike’s head hurt and he felt like a train had struck him in the chest. For five years, he’d suspected Gunn of playing him for the fool. How else had they survived the alley and escaped from Wolfram and Hart’s hell? And why had Gunn saved him instead of Angel anyway? Bloody bastard.

Then he watched Connor’s arms go slack and the blonde slayer’s limp body fall to the floor. Why wasn’t he killing her, wondered Spike? Was he in on Gunn’s shit, too? But Connor was staring at Spike as if he was seeing a ghost and Spike hadn’t been a ghost in years.

“What’s wrong with you boy? You think I’m going to kill her?” Spike looked at the slayer on the floor and reaching down, rolled her over so he could see her face. Frightened round black eyes stared up at him. She wasn’t a natural blonde and her face was pockmarked. “I’ve already killed two fucking slayers” He shouted at her. “What am I? A fucking Slayer attack dog?” Standing upright, Spike glared at Connor, but the boy’s eyes were too wide, thought Spike, and they weren’t looking at him anyway. Connor was staring over Spike’s head at the balcony.

Spike clenched his jaw and glanced in the direction of Gunn and Herschel. The boss’ body guard was on his feet now and checking out Gunn’s chair, making certain it was in good working order. But Spike could see Gunn’s eyes. They were glued on the balcony with the same intensity as Connor’s.

It had to be the other slayer, the one Spike had hoped had disappeared. Run off without jumping into the fight, a lass a bit smarter than her doomed colleagues.

Then it dawned on him. There wasn’t going to be a way to avoid more killing. Either Connor would help him or he’d kill the slayer in the balcony himself. He just wasn’t going to do the blonde. Spike sighed, shook his head and squared his shoulders. Might as well see what all the fuss was about before he had to get back to the killing, right?

“What the hell?” muttered Spike, turning and lifting his chin to the balcony.

“Faith?”

It wasn’t Spike’s voice, but Gunn’s calling her name. Spike couldn’t speak. The dark-haired slayer was supposed to be dead. Killed in a jungle with the Principal and a dozen good slayers. Not murdering bitches likes these.

“Come on,” gestured Gunn, his other hand was on the wheel of his chair, pushing it forward. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

Spike recognized her, but Faith had changed. Her eyes were furies, darting madly from Gunn’s face to his and pausing to stare at Connor. She furrowed her brow at him for an instant, looking ready to say something, but deciding not to, before beginning the search again. No telling what she was looking for, but at least she wasn’t running away, and for some reason Spike believed she wanted to, badly.

“Connor.” Gunn motioned and Spike heard a whimper and then a snap, The boy had broken the blonde’s neck.

They’d killed four slayers. For Faith?

“Spike, go up there and get her.” Gunn was giving him an order. “We’ve got to go before they come.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His question was lost in the flurry of his movement as he leaped up and over the balcony railing, landing softly next to Faith.

She flinched away from him, but not too far.

“Are you going to kill me, too?”

Spike froze. “No.”

“Oh.”

She sounded disappointed, but he pushed that idea out of his mind as he scooped her up and into his arms. He then stepped onto the ledge of the balcony and jumped, dropping carefully to the floor below. He felt her arms circle his neck as he followed the A.I. team past the dead bodies and the dust on their way out of the Culver City Bar and Grill.

Faith started shivering as Spike trotted toward Herschel's van. The night air must be cool he decided, stepping up his pace to the vehicle parked at the entrance to the alley. Connor reached it first and opened the sliding side door as Spike stepped into the carved out cab, taking a seat on the floor in the corner near the rear doors. Gunn's wheelchair was placed in the van next as Faith curled closer to Spike's body, her arms snug around his neck.

Thank goodness it was a short trip, he thought. They'd arrive back at the Hyperion in less than an hour and then he'd find out what the bloody hell was going on.

to be continued...