"So now what do we do?" Xander asked. They were home, the back doors open, and starting to slide Spike and his camp cot out into the garage. It was dinner time, or close to it.

"Warm water and blood," said Buffy. "And I get this stuff off of him. Break the spell."

"Are you sure you want to do that without any backup?" he began. "I mean, I'm no student of the dark arts here, but even I can tell this is a big nasty piece of – ow." He looked over his shoulder. Eye patch a blot of darkness on his face in the late afternoon sun.

"What's wrong?" Buffy adjusted the tarp over Spike's body. So far, he hadn't regained consciousness and she was starting to worry.

Oh, who was she kidding. Happy and relieved to see him again? Really? She'd stuck with that story for as long as she could; the truth was, it was all she could do not to start hyperventilating. There was no starting to about her worry. Only the fact that they weren't lugging a stretcher full of dust gave her any comfort whatso-freaking-ever. Any hope that Spike could come back from what had been done to him.

Xander was chuckling. "I'm stuck," he said. "I didn't think the garage counted as a threshold. Or that I'd actually need to give Spike an invitation to enter, considering I'm in the middle of lugging your unconscious undead ass inside bodily. Stupid…. Fine, I invite you in – whoa!" The barrier vanished and Xander stumbled backwards, barely keeping his footing as Buffy fought to keep the cot steady.

"Anyway," he went on. "This is some pretty serious mojo. I had Cathy look up binding spells while you were asleep this morning. She basically said the more props the spell used, the worse it was." He raised his eyebrows at her. "The more complicated to take off."

"I can imagine," said Buffy. "But I… I'm pretty sure I know what to do with this one. I – kinda saw it. Back at the greenhouse."

"You mean when you were…"

"Yup," she said. The lowered Spike carefully to the floor of the garage, flipping the legs of the cot out so that he rested about a foot off the concrete. "There were all these colors that Spike was bound in, in different ways. I mean they each did something different to him. And there was a charm she gave me, to help me remember the sequence."

"She, who?" asked Xander.

"Um," said Buffy. Looked away, rubbing her arms. "Drusilla, kinda? Only not. Only maybe she was. I dunno."

"Buffy!" Xander ran his hands through hair caked with dried gunk from the cistern. "Ugh. Okay, never mind, you can probably already guess what I'm gonna say and I really want to take a shower. I'd like to call Cathy or someone just to be on the safe side, but if you're sure about this – "

"Completely," said Buffy. "It's a Slayer thing. I can feel it."

"Then let's do it sooner rather than later," he said, "so at least one of us can stop smelling like The Thing That Oozed From Okefenokee and start cooking dinner. 'Kay?"

Buffy was startled into a laugh. "Yeah, okay." She reached inside the van and pulled out the cooler and their supplies. "We'll need blood for him as soon as he wakes up, and I'd like a bucket of warm water or a, a garden hose, or something to help rinse him off." Slapped the button to close the overhead door.

"You got it," said Xander.

---

He was losing time… at least, he was pretty sure… he was, wasn't he? That sense you get sometimes… really drunk… you know when something happens and then another thing happens and there was an… a thing… a gap between them, but you missed it? Like time… time passing without bringing him along for the ride.

Hard to tell, trapped as he was.

Mostly just pain though… maybe a little confused. He ought to be confused, yeah? Confusing… Figg pulling him out of the water. Shoved on his stomach… on his… and his chest… always good for… few laughs, that was. What with the broken bones and all… but then, as far as he could remember… it was hard to remember. But he was pretty sure… pretty sure. Not totally… but… pretty sure Figg hadn't tried to feed him yet. Not yet.

Pretty sure. As blinding as the hunger was, he was pretty sure he'd remember it. Wouldn't he? Or maybe… it'd block out everything… block out the rest of it… everything else by now, including memory? He couldn't tell.

At some point he'd felt his body shaken about, vibrating almost. Didn't make sense.

Cracked skull, though. He remembered that. Maybe that was why it was hard to think… no. No, that was the sodding spell, don't be an idiot…

The skin-crawling sensation of crossing a threshold. Maybe now he was dead, and he'd just crossed over?

Wanker, he thought. You're not… not allowed to die yet. We still… we… there's Buffy… need to go to her.

Pillock. Invited across a threshold… vamp, right… he had to be. Had to be invited. Couldn't die without being invited… that was funny. Explained a lot, that did.

Explained a lot of… something. There was something… Hard to think.

There was a jolt.

---

"Okay, so 'take the chain' makes sense," said Xander, gesturing at the links wrapped around Spike's body. "But what is 'break the bone' supposed to mean? I mean. I mean, we're not supposed to – you know – actually break his bones, are we?"

"Maybe he has some kind of talisman on him that we can't see from here," said Buffy, carefully unwinding the links around Spike's ankles. "Oh, God," she breathed. "What did they do to you?"

Spike's flesh was puffy, bloated with water after having been submerged for who knew how long. Everywhere she pressed, she left dimples. No, it was worse than that – she left dimples, with her fingerprints clearly visible in them, all over his skin. Every link of chain she pulled away left its mark behind. The thing was as much sunken into him as it was wrapped around him.

His hands and feet had gotten a severe case of bathtub-wrinkles, the skin actually peeling away from them to the point that his feet looked like he was wearing a pair of loose white socks. She could barely stand to touch him, knowing that she was only knocking more of his skin away from the tissues underneath. Might not be a big deal for a drowned corpse, but for one that was undead instead of dead-dead… she didn't want to think about how much it had to hurt. How much it would hurt once he woke up.

The swelling, the peeling skin, made the barbed wire wrapped around his ankles look even more hideous. It was deeply embedded, the twisted wire cutting and the barbs tearing at his flesh – but she couldn't just grab a pair of Xander's wire snips and cut him free because there was also red cord wound around and through them.

Red had to wait for last.

She got about two feet along the chain when she felt something sharp poke her through the slime. Dumping water over it, she found a fragment of bone wedged into the links, about the size and shape of the clarinet reeds Dawn kept leaving around the house back when she was in band, in the sixth grade. Only Dawn's reeds didn't have freaky magic sigils etched into them.

"Break the bone," she murmured, holding it up for Xander to see.

When she snapped it, Spike's toes twitched.

"Here," she told Xander, "pour the bucket over him, try and rinse off the chain. I'm gonna feel around and see if I can find more of these."

Together they worked their way up the chain, slowly peeling it away from Spike's legs, sitting him up to free his arms and torso, and finally clearing his neck. They found eight more pieces of bone, and each one they snapped in half made Spike twitch or flinch in some way.

Finally the chain was removed, and Spike lay on the cot, dripping with warm water, a towel protecting his dignity. He was still wound about with filthy cord, but it had been rinsed well enough they could see what color it was all supposed to be. They could also see the barbed wire around his wrists, every bit as bad as his ankles, the skin gloves peeling away from his hands, and the marks…

God, he was covered with markings, weird runes and sigils cut directly into his skin, strange almost-words that made Buffy's eyes hurt if she looked at them too long. They crisscrossed his body, crawled up his arms and down his legs, were cut into the soles of his feet and, if she had to guess, the palms of his hands as well. Everywhere the cuts were peeling strips of dead white skin, and the extra fluid in his body made the wounds gape to show pale, gray-pink tissue underneath.

Buffy was relieved, at first, that none of the wounds started to bleed when she accidentally bumped them, or when the chain came away. Then she stopped and thought about what it meant, that a vampire wasn't leaking blood where he was cut open.

Spike was in really bad shape.

---

Something was happening to him. Something was happening to him, and Spike couldn't see or move or hear or do anything to fight whatever it was. Or help… wasn't sure which. Couldn't be sure… had no way to find out – and it was driving… driving him crazy.

There were hands on him. Not Figg's – they didn't have those… that callused feel or the, the almost-hooves… 'stead of fingernails – and they were doing things to him.

He thought maybe they were trying to help. Pretty sure the hands were taking the chain off his body… felt a faint, distant hope – they might keep going, yeah? Set him free? Maybe he'd still be… still be able to feed himself – if he could open his soddin' eyes… if he could move. Maybe… maybe he'd still be able to get to Buff – to get to, to Buffy.

But mostly, those hands… they just hurt like bloody hell.

If he could have… would've screamed, thrashed when… oh, Christ, when they bent his knees up… gettin' at the chain under his legs. Would have cursed – they sat him up, broken ribs shoving and… and sliding against one another. Probably would've moaned whether he wanted to or not – would've – when they laid him back down… cracked skull… felt every tiny impact, even though he was pretty sure… not completely, but pretty sure… that whoever it was, they were trying to be gentle with him.

It was better with the chains off. Still wasn't breathing, still couldn't… his lungs felt heavy in his chest. The runes carved into his skin, those still burned, and he still was entirely helpless to move or speak… but this… at least this much, they'd taken away… taken from his portion. And the warm water he felt pouring over him was sodding divine.

But then there were those jolts. Every so often, the hands would stop what they were doing… a pause, yeah?... and then an elec – a shock through his body… all down his spine… his feet… the soles of his feet. Thought he felt himself twitching, once or twice.

What the bleed… what… bleeding hell was that about?

Be just his luck… get found by someone – rescued – only they turn out to be some kinda… some mad scientist… some warlock. Experimentin' on him. Cut him up for parts, maybe. Use him.

He was so bloody tired of being used.

Bloody tired all over. Sodding spell… near sucked him dry. A battery almost run out of charge, he was. Barely hanging in there… barely hangin' on – but the jolts wouldn't let him rest (can we rest now, Buffy?). Drusilla was gone… not sure… is he alone now or not? Helpless… at their hands… at the hands of friends or enemies. Too tired to be afraid about that. Too exhausted to hate it.

He could only lay there like a dead thing, and wait to see what would happen to him next.

---

When Spike's body was finally free of the chain, they paused for a moment. Buffy looked at the pile of bone fragments on the floor of the garage. Nudged them with her toe.

"Does your witch friend have any idea what we should do with those?" she asked.

"Not sure," said Xander. "But I know if you want to get rid of something completely, burning it is never a bad idea."

Buffy looked around the garage for a second, then got up and dragged a little charcoal grill out of its corner. "Do it," she said. "I'll wait, make sure it doesn't do anything to Spike."

"You okay, Buff?" he asked. Squinted at her, watching how she moved around the garage. Not pacing. She wasn't.

"I just – yeah," she said. "I just need a minute." She waved at the grill. "You do your thing and I'll… watch."

"If you say so," he replied. Stretched. Moved the grill over to the back door and opened it for ventilation. "Hard concrete floor and my knees. Bad combination."

Buffy nodded, not really paying attention. She was… it… she had no idea what she was feeling. Part of her wanted to grab Spike by the shoulders and shout at him, wake him up, yell at him for leaving her alone the past year. Part of her just wanted to wake him up, period, to see his blue eyes open and aware and looking at her and going to be okay. Part of her wanted to wrap him up in her arms and never, ever let go. And part of her couldn't stand to touch him, knowing how badly he was injured, knowing she was hurting him no matter how gentle she tried to be.

It made her hands itch, and she kept tensing her arms and then having to force them to relax.

It made her heart hurt.

"Okay, I got the fire going," said Xander. "Could you hand me the… Buffy?" He stepped over to her.

"What? Oh." She sniffed, wiped at her eyes. Not many clean spots left on these sleeves. "Here." Handed him the bone. "Tell me as soon as you put them on, so I can see whether he reacts."

"Yup," said Xander. "Okay, now."

Spike didn't move, didn't seem to be suffering… but he started to sweat.

To drip, actually, the extra fluid in his limbs finding its way out through his ravaged skin. Buffy watched as the hideous puffiness faded away and his joints became visible again. Watched him grow thinner. Watched him grow thinner still.

Too thin.

"Xander, stop!"

---