The two of them followed the flying talisman's path. Walked over to the compost pit and looked down.

"Oh. Ew", said Buffy.

Xander sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that," he said. "Hand me that stepladder, would you?" He dragged it over and lowered it into the pit in the corner of the potting shed. Took a deep breath before climbing down and in.

The cistern… was… disgusting.

About five feet across, with smooth concrete sides, cisterns were originally used as holding tanks for collected rainwater, acting as a kind of backup well for washing and any other job that didn't require completely pure drinking water. Figg had decided to use this one as his compost pit, but unfortunately he'd never disconnected the old rain-collection pipes from the roof. Now, his clippings and rotten vegetation floated in a thick layer over about three feet of fouled, slimy water, with at least another foot – at least – of actual compost down underneath all that. Wet compost is also known as mud. Slimy, black, silty, thick, gloppy, slippery mud.

And of course most people didn't have dead bodies in their compost piles. Xander had grabbed a fistful of shining white bone the first time he'd reached in, looking for Spike. Pretty sure the bones weren't human, either. Now he was poking around with the handle of the shovel Figg had taken down from the wall.

Buffy refused to get anywhere near the smelly mess. Xander didn't blame her; he was just glad they'd had the foresight to pack an extra change of clothing apiece. It was amazing how many different ways there were for a demon to destroy a person's wardrobe. And yeah, it was also a pretty safe bet he was never going to salvage this pair of jeans.

Just lovely. Buffy got the life-threatening jobs. Xander only got the disgusting ones.

Although to be fair, he could tell Buffy was still upset over having to kill Figg in the first place. She was standing near a work bench, one covered in gift baskets and different kinds of wrapping, twisting a bit of pale green ribbon around and around in her fingers, back and forth, back and forth.

It was almost the color of Figg's eyes.

Xander glanced over his shoulder at her as he poked through the sludge in the pit. Her face was thinner than he remembered, with hollows under the eyes that spoke of more than just one week's jet lag wearing her down. She didn't eat much, didn't talk much when he was home with her… and she'd actually jumped when he had slung that first false-alarm handful of bones up and out of the hole and onto the floor of the shed.

Yeah, the Xan-Man might have a reputation for stupidity – and God knew he'd worked hard to earn it – but it didn't take a genius to look at his friend and start worrying.

Wait – there. Xander braced himself and reached down and into the stench and the slime. Up to his armpit – up to his chin – eugh – got him. Upper arm, and there was a chain wrapped around him. Xander started to lift, hoping the chain wasn't attached to anything in the bottom of the tank.

"Buffy – little help – found him!"

Spike's head cleared the sludge, lolling forward on his neck and utterly limp. Explained why he wasn't putting up a struggle, at least. Xander got one arm hooked around his chest, lifeguard-style, and started lugging him up the stepladder.

And of course, they'd no sooner hauled Spike up and onto the floor of the shed, legs still dangling over the side of the tank, when the rung he was standing on snapped, and Xander plunged back down and under a foot of rotten weeds and three feet of slimy stagnant water, to land on his ass in the muck.

"Xander!"

He came up sputtering, standing chest-deep in the cistern and wiping God-knew-what from his face. Pretty sure he'd landed on another set of bones, too. Buffy looked pretty freaked out, once he got his good eye open. "I'm okay, just give me a hand up," he said. Spit the taste of spoiled lettuce out of his mouth. "Ladder's toast."

And it was, too. Before Xander's eyes, the wood of the rungs rotted and crumbled away, and the metal fittings rusted into uselessness, before the entire thing collapsed next to him and sank with barely a noise and a bubble to show where it had stood.

Maybe he should have been more surprised by this. Life on the Hellmouth. Makes a man jaded, after awhile.

Buffy grabbed his wrists – let's hear it for Slayer strength – and he managed to clamber, sopping wet and more than a little annoyed, back onto solid ground. Scraped blackened, dead leaves out of his hair. "What the hell was that about?" he asked.

As if in reply, they both heard glass shatter out beyond the doorway. When they looked out into the greenhouse, what they saw stopped them dead in their tracks.

The panes of glass in the greenhouse ceiling were falling in, crashing among the plants and along the walkways. But the plants themselves were dying, fading and wilting before their eyes as weeds sprung up, impossibly quickly. Tables collapsed, faded and gray as if they'd aged decades in only a few seconds, spilling dirt and pots across the floor, which cracked and pitted as they watched.

Looking outside, they watched as the grass grew tall, faded and yellowed, then bowed over, choked with weeds. Shrubs shot up a foot or more in height, sometimes collapsing again, sometimes continuing to leap skyward; tree limbs thickened and a few cracked and fell from their trunks. Shingles slid off the roof of the old farmhouse and an entire wall caved in, wooden siding clattering to the ground in a cloud of dust. The paint faded from a cheerful yellow-and-white to dingy gray, finally flaking off and leaving only patches behind. Windows fell out of their casings. The chimney collapsed.

Buffy came to her senses first.

"The van!"

Shit. Xander slopped toward the nearest door, staggering as he tried to yank keys out of a soaking wet pocket, and shoved his way across the overgrown parking lot –

– but the van was fine. In danger of getting its axles tangled in weeds, but nothing worse than that. Engine started first try, the things they'd brought were all intact (Xander grabbed a tarp to sit on), even his drive-through soda was still cold and fizzy. Whatever was happening to Figg's land, it didn't seem to be affecting them or their stuff.

Xander drove carefully across the yard, dodging brush that hadn't been there a minute ago, and turned to back the van up to the potting shed doors. It was still broad daylight; the shorter the distance they had to carry the bloodsucking undead, the better.

So he was staring right at the little building through the rear door windows when the roof caved in.

"Buffy!"

---

She'd heard the thunder-crack of the roof beam splitting, and had managed to shove Spike's limp body under the nearest workbench, but was just a hair too slow in following him.

Now she was standing in a gray place, alone, with nothing around her that she could see. She spun in a slow circle, looking for a way out, and when she came back to her starting point Drusilla was standing before her, dangerously close, watching her. Buffy leaped backward into a defensive crouch. Felt in her waistband for a stake. Came up empty.

"You're safe here, Slayer," said the vampire. "Nothing can harm you."

"And I'm supposed to take your word on that?" Buffy glared.

But Drusilla didn't rise to her bait. Said only, "There is something you need to see." She gestured, half-shrugging, half-beckoning to Buffy.

And then there were three pools of color, red, black, and white, equally spaced around them, each only a few steps away.

"Will you not look?" asked Drusilla.

"What is this?" Buffy wanted to know. Not letting her guard down.

"It's Spike," she replied.

Buffy frowned. Stepped toward the red pool. Gasped.

The color was coming from a glowing welter of… wires/cord/bars?… surrounding a naked form lying stretched, spread-eagled, on the gray floor. Spike. Buffy could just make out his features inside the net/cage/web covering him. As she watched, he writhed within their bonds, barely enough space to move more than a few inches, crying out whenever he touched one. At least, she thought he was crying out – she could see his face contort but couldn't hear a sound.

"Red for flesh and blood," murmured Drusilla. Buffy looked up, surprised the other woman could sneak up on her like that, but instead of seeing her she found herself looking at the black area she'd seen earlier. A pool of darkness and shadow in the gray nothing.

Spike was inside again, still naked, but this time with his game face on. His eyes glowed gold in the dark and his fangs flashed around a gag that looked like it was made of black iron. He roared and hissed, the sound garbled, spittle dribbling down his chin like a rabid beast. Vamped-out Spike flung himself wildly against the bars of a black cage, only to be thrown back with equal violence. His hands were crooked like claws and she saw his nails had grown into talons, needle-sharp. Black burns crisscrossed his body wherever he touched the cage, but he didn't stop throwing himself at it as hard as he could.

It was hurting him, Buffy could see, but he wouldn't stop. Tears welled up, in her dream.

"Black for the demon within," whispered Drusilla.

Buffy blinked, and without moving found herself staring into the white light of the third pool. Huddled within this one was a man with soft brown hair instead of familiar blond, but when he looked up, he had Spike's blue eyes, Spike's anguished face.

William. Buffy wasn't sure how she knew.

There was a white mist surrounding him, like a fog, only it swelled and moved as though a wind were stirring it. Whenever it brushed past William he would flinch and cover his head where he knelt, cowering at the far edge of the light. Tears rolled down his cheeks and his ears were bleeding, if it could really be called blood. A thin diluted fluid, glistening in the light as it trickled down the side of his neck.

Buffy almost missed the gaping wound in his chest, over his heart. It glowed white, so bright she could barely look at it.

"White for the soul he bears," said Drusilla.

The three images merged, and dimmed, until she was looking at a faintly rose-colored shape. It made her dizzy to see all three Spikes inside it. Made her sick to watch them all weaken and fade, gradually stop struggling and drop, exhausted, to the gray floor.

"Remember this, Slayer," said Drusilla. Her voice fading too. "White first, then black, then red. The binding must be removed in the same order as it was placed. Take the chain, break the bone; then remember the colors. White, then black, then red. You mustn't forget this, Slayer."

"I won't," whispered Buffy.

"Swear it," said Drusilla. Suddenly before her, eyes intense. "Swear it on your love for him."

"I swear," said Buffy.

"And one more is the charm," said the vampire. "The charm – remember it:

Red for flesh and blood
Black for the demon within
White for the soul he bears.
Take the chain
Break the bone
White, then black, then red
End at his toes, begin at his head
To bring your lover home.

Promise me!" commanded Drusilla.

"I promise," said Buffy, the dream giving her the words, "Three times I swear it, three times binding, thrice I say and done. I will remember. I will not forget…"

She could feel Xander shaking her shoulder. Her eyes opened.

"…I will bring him home."

"Buffy?" Her eyes focused gradually, until finally she could make out Xander's worried features. "Hey. Buffy? You okay?"

"Fine," she mumbled. Struggled to sit up. "I'm…" she felt. Nothing hurt. A little ache on the back of her head, nothing serious. "I'm fine."

"You sure?" Kneeling in a pile of aged timbers, hands scraped and shaking.

"Yeah," she said. Buffy got to her knees and started shoving wood and shingles out of the way. She had to get to Spike.

"I couldn't get you to wake up," Xander said. He swallowed, hard. Hands weren't the only thing shaking when he said it.

She threw the now-ancient ruins to one side, leaving only the main part of the workbench to shield Spike's bound body from the sun, now that the building was open to the sky.

"There was something I needed to see," was all she said.

---

Finally, finally, they were on their way.

They'd slung a tarp over Spike and hauled him into the back of the waiting van, laying him on a camp cot they'd brought in case they needed something to use as a stretcher. After a bit of discussion, Xander was leading the way home, driving Spike's predatory little roadster while Buffy manhandled the van along and hoped she didn't have to deal with too many corners before they reached the interstate.

It was all she could do not to look back at him every three seconds. She kind of needed to keep her eyes on the road if she wanted to make it back to Toledo, but it was hard.

Spike looked horrible.

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting to find, but a naked, bloated, drowned corpse with the skin peeling off his hands and feet and all wrapped up in chains and string was not it. Between her and Xander they'd managed to get most of the dead vegetation off of his face and out of his hair, but there was still plenty caught in the bindings, clinging to the chain that wound around him from neck to ankle. Thick black mud was smeared all over him, gritting in his eyes and ears and hair, under his nails and fouling his teeth. She didn't want to think of all the places that filth had probably managed to creep.

Spike oozed, dripping excess water off the cot and all over the floor of the van. It would have been worse if Xander hadn't remembered some technique from his days on the swim team and managed to shove most of the water out of Spike's stomach and lungs before they'd gotten underway. He looked like a bleached-out version of the Swamp Thing, and smelled like it too. It would take a fire hose and a bucket of industrial-strength toilet-bowl cleaner to get him anywhere close to clean again…

…and Buffy had never been so relieved and happy to see anyone in her entire life. That was her story, anyway, and she was sticking to it. Ignoring the little knot in her stomach so she could drive.

It was an hour and a half back to Toledo from here. Give or take. Depending on how religiously a person felt like following the speed limits.

Then they'd be safe. Out of the sun, no rush to escape collapsing anythings, nowhere else they needed to direct their energies. Then she could reverse the binding on him, set him free.

Bring him home.

---