“I have collected this magic in every place where it was, from the possession of anyone who possessed it, more speedily than a hound, more swiftly than a shadow.” – The Book of Going Forth by Day


Spike had never seen such wretched workmanship. Glory’s tower listed and groaned, shuddered and creaked as the vampire ran towards his ultimate goal, Dawn.

He rounded the first corner, and the tower leaned with him. He tripped on a twisted bit of metal and staggered while the structure shook with sympathetic quakes. He bounced off a supporting strut when he swung a corner wide, and the metal screamed in protest.

So when Spike was nearing the top, he had a good idea what the tower’s various sounds meant. And what they were telling him was that the long platform leading to Dawn would fall if given the slightest provocation. Killing Doc, because Doc it was who was flashing a knife at the Bit, wouldn’t solve anything if the fight sent them all plummeting to the ground below.

A rusty chain, hanging suspended from a wrought iron support strut, grabbed the vampire’s attention. Thinking quickly, he grabbed at the rusty links, pulling them free. He took up the heavy pulley that was attached to one end and heaved it as hard as he could at the back of Doc’s head.

Metal contacting bone made a dull cracking sound, muted only slightly by Dawn’s surprised cry. The demon slumped to the side, tumbling from the tower headfirst. The sight earned a snide smile.

Spike started running again, taking the last lap around the spiraling ramp. The rickety platform had held two before, surely it would again.

At least until he got Dawn free.

After that, he hoped the whole damned thing fell into rubble.

*****

Day 23

It was her hair that had done it.

It was spun gold and styled to perfection, despite the blood that stained the tips.

The dead girl didn’t really look like Buffy. She was too tall for one, long and rangy like a volleyball player or a long distance runner. Her face was all wrong as well, with sharp angles and no deceptively soft curves. Her clothes, her scent, nothing else had reminded Spike of the slayer.

Nothing except for her hair.

Spike thought he had been getting a handle on himself, at least enough to fake it in front of the Scoobies. He had shoved down his emotions, bottled them up in the darkest recesses of his mind, so that when Dawn needed a friendly ear after bombing another quiz in summer school or if another Grrychla demon decided to set up camp in the Bronze’s kitchen, he was able to do what needed doing.

Then again, things hadn’t turned out so well when Mount Saint Helens had clamped down on the pressure in his heart either.

The crypt was a mess.

Willow swore she was working on some better way to deal with their unslayable vampire issue, but until she produced something other than a fizzled flash-bang in the Magic Box’s storeroom, Spike was left to Angelus’ less than tidy solution.

Not that he had minded, especially in this case. Spike was soaked to the elbows in blood, covered in its wet, viscous spray. He fingers gummed together, sticky from the quickly cooling liquid, and the walls of the tiny mausoleum looked like someone had thrown buckets of red paint on every available surface. Some of it was his, most not, but it was impossible to differentiate. One kind of blood looks much like any other half-lit and splattered across carved blocks of weathered marble.

He had found the two vampires, clawed hands clutching the dead girl in a perversion of an embrace, drinking the last dregs of blood from her cold corpse. Her head had lolled at an odd angle, neck torn open from two sets of fangs. Her dead, blue eyes had glared at Spike accusingly when he had stepped through the crypt door, sword at the ready in his left hand.

And the girl had had Buffy’s hair.

Spike had flung his weapon aside, forgotten in his white-hot rage, and had proceeded to literally tear the vampires limb from limb with his bare hands. He had never felt anything like the rage that had infused his every move, not at the mob in Prague, not when he had first awakened in the Initiative’s cell, not even when Angelus had made a point to make sure his scent, mingled with Dru’s, had covered every available sleeping surface in the run down Factory or at any point during the entire Glory debacle.

Never.

Spike didn’t know how long he sat there in the blood spattered crypt, staring at the body of the nameless dead girl. That was the catch, wasn’t it? She had a name, and friends, and a family. Somewhere. People who would mourn her passing, people who would miss her.

He watched the play of the moonlight across the golden hair and was vaguely relieved to see that there wasn’t any blood on her pale lips. She wouldn’t be rising then, and he wouldn’t have to cut her up as well. It was a small relief.

The sound of dripping blood brought Spike out of his dark thoughts. He looked out of the crypt’s barred window and noticed that the moon was drifting at a much higher angle than it had when he had first heard the sounds of struggle inside the small McGowan crypt.

Snapped back into the present and knowing full well that he looked like a stunt double for Carrie, Spike staggered listlessly to his feet. He had just enough time to wash the worst of the gore away before the meeting at the Summers’… now only Dawn’s, house.

The vampire bent low to gently close the girl’s staring eyes before walking into the night.

*****

Dawn had answered the front door with a wan smile and a critical eye. Spike was suddenly very glad that he had scrapped his first round of clothes and went for a clean set after his literal bloodbath. He doubted he would have passed muster otherwise.

The others were waiting in the living room. The group dynamic had shifted ever since the vampire’s abortive suicide-by-Xander attempt. The boy still made his ham-handed jokes, but few of them were actually aimed at Spike. They also tended to be followed by long stretches of silence and troubled looks from the boy. It was a welcome reprieve, even if Spike would never have admitted it out loud.

Anya brightened when Dawn reentered the room and flopped on the couch, but her natural blunt exuberance had been muted over the last few weeks, which was probably for the best.

“Hey Spike,” Willow’s welcome was tentative to say the least, but despite the lack of strength in her voice, her position in the room was obvious. Spike wondered if the others had even noticed how they were gravitating around the redhead.

The witch stood at the mantle, Tara seated in the easy chair on her left. Giles was standing in the far corner, leaning wearily against the desk there. The others were lined up down the couch, and all of their eyes, after briefly glancing over Spike upon his entrance, were turned towards the girl.

Even if he understood the instinctive logic, after all, Willow was the strongest one amongst them, the polarization of the group sent Spike’s spirits even lower, if that was possible. The new leader she might be, but Willow made a piss poor Buffy.

Spike stepped up to the couch, sitting on the armrest nearest the door.

Willow nodded to herself and started talking.

“So, now that we’re all here, I… uh, I mean we… We asked everyone to come here because I think I… We,” she winced and looked down at Tara, who gave her a little encouraging smile. “We think we’ve figured out how we can deal with the vampires. At least, you know, until we figure out what’s making them all unkillable.” She smiled apologetically before continuing, “It’s kinda complicated though.”

Spike couldn’t help himself, he chuckled in dark amusement. “Damn near anything’s better than ripping them into bits and hidin’ the pieces, Red.”

That earned a wry snort from the Watcher, which come to think of it, was the most emphatic sign of life from the man that Spike had heard in days.

Willow looked a little taken aback, as if she had forgotten the ‘solution’ Spike had been using over the last few days. But Anya’s curt, “Can we move this along? I have places to be,” seemed to get things rolling.

“Well, I found a way to make kind of a holding cell. But more like a dimension.” Once she got started, it was hard for Willow to contain her enthusiasm. “It’s really flexible, so it expands to fit the occupancy, and we can stock it with whatever we want. I was thinking, like, cow blood and cots or something… maybe a TV because we don’t want to be cruel and unusual…” She trailed off at the watcher’s scowl. “I’m just trying to be humane about it, even John Wayne Gacy got a last meal,” she added defensively.

“I’m sure the vampires will thank you for your thoughtfulness, but I believe I am familiar with the spell,” the watcher removed his glasses and stared through the lenses dully. “It is connected to an inanimate object, such as a door, is it not?”

“Yeah, and a specific motion, like the door opening, triggers the portal,” Willow nodded, her green eyes too bright by far for Spike’s mood. He wondered what mystical bomb she was getting ready to drop on them.

“But the inscriptions?” Giles protested weakly, heart obviously absent from the argument. “That requires a great deal of surface area to work with, which would make the object prohibitively large to take on patrol…” he trailed off at the shared glances the younger humans were sharing.

“That’s the other thing we wanted to talk to everyone about,” Willow glanced nervously at Dawn. “Remember my little, uh, run in with Moloch?”

Giles nodded, interest coloring his eyes in spite of himself. Spike glanced around the room, noticing that only Dawn and Anya seemed to be out of the know, which was… interesting.

“Well, that got me thinking about entering spells into a digital format,” Willow said quickly.

Spike glanced down, wondering why Dawn had suddenly stiffened against his leg from her perch on the couch. He didn’t have long to wait.

“So I programmed the pocket dimension spell into the ‘Bot,” Willow concluded in a rush.

Silence.

“You what?” Giles asked slowly.

Willow’s voice was a little firmer, a little more sure of herself. ““I programmed the Buffy ‘Bot to be a portable portal generator.”

More silence.

Xander and Tara were studiously looking at their feet, avoiding all eye contact. So, of course, it was Anya who broke the silence. “Other than the obvious awkwardness, I actually think that is an admirable, efficient use of our limited assets.” She seemed to genuinely mull over the idea before continuing. “That is, if you can convince Spike…”

The rest of her comment was lost to the vampire, cut off as it was by the slamming door and his own rapid departure.