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Chapter Two

As soon as Gavriel and Natan had declared the game begun, the field and everything in it had dissolved away, leaving Buffy standing in a long, stone corridor.

“Spike?” she said, tentatively. There was no answer, and her Slayer senses were telling her that she was alone. Her mind was racing with the list of rules that the two gamemasters had kindly – she rolled her eyes – provided them with.

First one to find the finish line and cross it would win. No food is provided, everything must be foraged. Nothing is what it seems except for the times when it’s exactly that. No killing your opponent. And absolutely, positively, definitely no working together. Buffy was pretty sure that they wouldn’t have to worry about that one being broken.

Gavriel and Natan had also given both of them a dial on a long, silver chain. There were two hands on the dial: one in red, and the other blue, representing herself and Spike. The hands would move depending on their progress in the game.

Both hands were currently pointing towards the twelve o’ clock position, and Buffy wondered if Spike had thrown himself into the challenge or if he was taking stock like she was.

Buffy shook her head, and moved towards the wooden door at the end of the corridor. She took a deep breath, and pushed it open.

Here we go.

***

When the field dissolved around him, taking the Slayer and the two pompous wankers with it, Spike was feeling pretty cheerful.

Here he was, in an alternate dimension where he could stand in the sun without being burned, play a silly game and get the chip out of his head. He was happy as Larry, and absolutely convinced he’d be able to beat the Slayer.

She might have brawn, but she’d never been one for the brains. ‘Least, that’s the impression he’d always had of her. Whereas he – well, William had been a pathetic ponce – but he’d had a university education and now over a hundred years of life experience. Spike knew he could handle whatever Gavin and Nerdo threw his way and beat the Slayer to the prize.

And what a prize! Getting the chip removed had been his obsession from the moment he’d discovered its existence, and now all he had to do was race Buffy to the finish line? Easy!

He checked the dial on the chain around his neck, and grinned when he saw that Buffy’s blue hand hadn’t moved an inch. Not that he could afford to dilly-dally for too long, of course.

Spike looked around, bemused when he saw that he was in a dark stone corridor, flickering sconces on the walls and a heavy wooden door at one end. Seemed like the two gamemasters had been taking their inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons, circa 1983.

Spike sauntered along the corridor, slipping into his vampire face along the way to help him see better in the half-light. He pushed open the door, and when he saw what was waiting for him, he smirked.

***

Buffy was starting to wonder if Gavriel and Natan had been lying all along, and this wasn’t a quest, it was some sort of sick prank. She had walked through the door, only to find herself in another long corridor, with another door at the very end.

She’d gone through the second door, and had been faced with the same thing all over again: another long corridor, another wooden door, almost identical to the previous. There were two very small differences: this new corridor was ever-so-slightly darker, and the new door was much smaller.

Now she stood in front of the newest door, gazing at it.

“Please don’t lead to another creepy hallway,” she muttered as she lifted the latch and turned the handle. “Damn it!”

Once again: an identical passageway, slightly darker, and with a considerably smaller door at the end. Buffy groaned. “Is this a test in patience? 'Cos I gotta tell ya, mine’s wearing thin right about now!”

Buffy wasn’t tall, not by a long shot, but she had to bend almost double to fit through. She felt like crying when she saw what lay ahead. “I feel like Alice in Wonderland. I just hope this one doesn’t lead to a sea of my own tears.”

It didn’t, but there was yet another hallway, and another door, this one so small that she had to wriggle ungraciously through it on her stomach. She stood up, and broke into a wide smile of relief when she found herself not in yet another passageway, but a dimly lit room.

There was a lone torch in a sconce on the wall next to her head, and in the flickering light, she could make out two tall, shadowy figures standing next to each other against the back wall. “Hello?”

“Welcome.” The voice was low and gravelly, and sent a shiver down Buffy’s spine.

“You are challenged with the task of making a decision,” said the other, as both figures took one step to the right, revealing that they had been standing in front of identical doors.

“Not more doors!”

“You must decide through which of these doors you will pass,” the first spoke again. “One will lead you on your way; the other will take you back to the beginning of the game. But the passage back will be more difficult second time around, and yet more dangerous and challenging on your third.”

“When questioned, one of us will answer only lies.”

“And when questioned, one of us will tell only truths.”

“You may ask one question, and one question alone. Make sure it is a wise one.”

Buffy stared at the two men, shoulders slumping slightly as she closed her eyes. Her mind was already beginning to spin, and she hadn’t even started to think about what question she would ask.

She pouted. “Great. Brain stuff. I was never good at that.”

***

The man had pounced on him almost as soon as he’d walked through the door. Spike had ducked, whirling out of the way, worried that his opponent was human and would set the chip off if he retaliated.

When the man’s face began to morph and shift into that of an animal – a dog or a wolf, Spike wasn’t sure – Spike grinned around his fangs and threw himself into the fight, relishing the punches he landed on the hybrid’s body.

The shapeshifter was a good fighter, returning Spike’s thrusts and parries with kicks and blows that shook him to the core. It had been a long time since Spike had been able to fight someone this skilled. In fact, the last time had been when he’d had the Gem of Amarra and had been fighting the Slayer, almost a year ago, now.

Spike missed the days when he and Buffy had fought. He might hate the bint, but he could appreciate a good fighter, and she was one of the best. Not as good as he was, ‘course.

With that thought, he swept his leg around, catching the shapeshifter behind the knees and knocking him to the ground.

Spike dropped to his knees, straddling the half-man, half-animal across its chest, and seized its head. He gave it a sharp twist, and with a satisfying crack, its neck broke and it died instantly.

“Well that was piss-easy,” Spike said, sneering.

The far wall of the chamber began to slide sideways, and Spike guessed that was his way out.

He looked down at the corpse, considering. Seemed a shame to let good blood go to waste. The bloke was a demon, but a hybrid: his blood would be mostly human. And who knew when he’d get his next meal.

Decided, Spike dropped to his knees beside the shapeshifter and brought it close to his mouth. He sunk his fangs into its neck, and began to drink.

***

Buffy felt like banging her head against the stone of the wall. Trapped in this room, which was becoming hotter and stuffier by the moment, she had no idea of how much time had passed. It felt like forever, her mind going round and round in circles trying to work out the riddle.

And all the while, the two guards had remained as still as statues, not saying anything, barely even breathing. They stared, though. She could feel the two sets of tiny, beady eyes boring into the back of her head - having turned to escape their gaze much earlier - and it was unnerving.

Buffy tried to organise her thoughts, and take it from the beginning.

“Okay. One of them can only tell the truth, and one of them can only tell lies. I get one question. But I don’t know which of them tells lies and which of them tells the truth. So I can’t just up and ask one of them if the door they’re guarding is the way out, because I don’t know if they’re the liar or not.” She closed her eyes and sighed. This was the same conclusion she had come to over and over, and she was just getting more and more confused. There was a logical answer, she knew it. It probably wasn’t even that difficult. But damned if she could work out what it was!

“Where’s Giles when you need him?” Buffy voiced the rhetorical question to the room, then immediately clapped her hands across her mouth. “That wasn’t my question!

Neither of the guards moved, and Buffy sighed in relief. She shot a wary glance at the dial around her neck. She hadn’t looked at it yet, too afraid that she would see Spike’s red hand far ahead of her blue one, and that would just frustrate her more.

She looked at it now, and sure enough: Spike’s indicator had moved around the face of the dial, and was now lined up with the five past the hour position.

“Great. Stupid vampire.” She dropped the dial back around her neck, and stared at both doors, hoping that the answer would pop into her mind. “Think, Buffy, think. You can do this.”

“Wait. If I asked one of the guards to point to the way out, I wouldn’t know if they were lying or telling the truth. But if I asked him which door the other guard would point to for the way out, and then took the opposite one…” She trailed off. “Cos, he would then be the liar? Or not? Is that right?”

She rubbed her eyes, fighting the onset of a headache. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

Buffy stood up, and addressed her question to the guard on the right. “Which door would the other guard point to, if I asked him which was the way out?”

The guard’s face remained expressionless, but he lifted a robed arm and indicated the door behind him. Buffy let out a breath.

“Okay. So… I’m going to take the other one.”

The guards said nothing, so she stepped forwards, trying to feel confident in her choice. She lifted the latch, and turned the handle, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t find herself back at the beginning of the game.

When she saw the green grass and bright sunshine that lay beyond the door, she felt like sobbing in happiness.

Instead, she stepped through the door, without a second glance back towards the guards.

-TBC-