Disclaimer: Annette, mine. Christopher, mine. Reagan, mine. Spike and Buffy, not mine. Got it?

Author’s note: *Hugs* and thanks to the fab Bloodytearsoflife for being such a great beta.

Thanks to Copy, CM, spet, wulfie, Tasha, Marzbar and BTL for the fab reviews!
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Chapter 18: Double Cross

Friday morning came without incident. Christopher was enjoying the company of his cousins immensely.

Buffy felt bad for her son, cooped up in the countryside without companions his own age in an effort to get him away from the threat of the Immortal.

It was during their morning tea that Reagan was brought a letter by her housekeeper, a normal everyday occurrence in the Watcher’s house.

The older woman curtseyed as she handed the letter to the lady of the house. Buffy put down her teacup, watching Reagan open the letter, as its arrival had interrupted their conversation.

Reagan read the letter impatiently, her face turning a shade or two paler as she read to the bottom of the note.

The Watcher looked up with terrified eyes at her friend, her mouth agape, and handed the letter to Buffy without a word.

With tentative fingers Buffy reached for the letter, wondering what it contained that frightened her friend so.

Madame Reagan,

I am bade write this note to you. I am the prisoner of the Immortal. He has ordered me to inform you that it is my life for the life of Madam Erixel’s child. Madame, please, I would rather die than let the child suffer for my stupidity. Please tell Madame Erixel that I am sorry.

Annette Labiennemorte

Buffy gasped, raising a hand to her mouth as she shook her head. Standing up, she gently bit her lip as she began to pace.

“What are you going to do?” asked Reagan.

“Get her back.”
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The wheels in Buffy’s brain were turning. The Immortal was not a demon capable of teleporting, he had to deal with the transportation system of the age as well. Annette couldn’t be in Italy yet. They were still in England. She had to make a strike against the Immortal and get Annette back to safety. She was going to need help.

Leaving Christopher in Reagan’s capable hands, Buffy sucked in a breath and did what she had been hoping she would never have to do. She teleported into Austria.

Into Drusilla’s bedroom.

Exhaling, Buffy surveyed the room that was illuminated only by a dying fire’s fading embers. A corpse lay on the floor at her feet, a gaping hole where the heart should have been. Buffy rolled her eyes and stepped over the body, careful not to get blood on her dress. The room was dark, foreboding, and stank like a dozen rotting corpses were lying undisturbed under the floor boards.

She wrinkled her nose at the smell, wondering just how a vampire with enhanced smell could tolerate the horrible stench.

The room was cluttered by pieces of porcelain dolls, chains, puddles of blood, urine, shards of glass, and torn fabric. The room had no window and the only furniture in the room was a unmade bed, its sheets desperately needing to be washed, and a table, stained with blood, and showing signs of misuse; there were punctures and gashes that tore up the wood.

This was her play room, Buffy reasoned as she saw for the first time the chains on the walls.

But she didn’t come here for Dru or her games. She needed Spike.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. A body she had mistaken for a corpse twitched.

Buffy cringed, hoping that it was just post mortem twitching and that the unfortunate soul who had been tortured and bled by the crazed vampire her William was hopelessly in love with was dead.

“Buffy?”

Buffy squinted into the darkness, making out the form of her beautiful William ravaged and tortured and laying in a puddle of blood.

“Spike?”

The form moved closer, into the light from the fireplace’s glowing embers, revealing the beautiful face of her vampire. She crouched beside him and cupped his face with her hand, careful of the open wounds marring it.

“What did she do to you?” she asked tentatively.

A groan came from the vampire. “Nothing more than she usually does. Beautifully destructive she is.”

Buffy stood up annoyed. “And if I didn’t need you right now, I’d leave you with your bloody destructive princess,” said Buffy with a sneer. “The Immortal has Annette. He wants to trade her for Christopher.” She willed the tears back. Now was not the time.

“Christopher?” asked Spike, settling back on the floor with a moan of pain.

“Your son.”

In the darkness Buffy could hear rather than see Spike try to get up off the floor despite his multiple injuries.

“Bloody hell,” he cursed as he fell to the floor once again.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Dare I ask just why I find you tortured and useless?”

“Lost one of her bloody dolls,” he moaned, finally reaching a kneeling position. “Bloody wish this vampire healing thing would kick in already,” he muttered.

“Wish granted,” Buffy said, slipping into her demonic guise for a moment before helping Spike to his feet, fully healed.

“Thanks pet.” He smiled, blue eyes gazing into green.

Buffy looked away from him, still mad, and annoyed, and worried. Without a word she opened a portal to Arashamahar and stepped through, leading Spike in with her.
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“You’ve been to the Immortal’s home before right? To get back Darla and Drusilla?” asked Buffy as she walked into her Arashamahar, lair tugging Spike through the portal.

“Years ago,” admitted Spike.

Buffy nodded. “Be right back,” she said before opening another portal and disappearing.

Spike looked about the room for a moment noticing the changes in the lair since his last visit. The room looked like it was more lived in, there were clothes scattered about the room, various boxes and ribbons littering the floor.

But the item that caught his attention was a small picture that sat by the bed, of a little boy with curly blonde hair.

His son. Christopher.

Spike reached out to touch the picture, his hands shaking at making contact, making it real.

All those years ago, when Buffy had told him about his son and how she would never let him know where he was, he had been devastated and relieved at the same time. What kind of father could he make to a human boy? What would Drusilla do when she found out about him? It seemed to Spike that his son was in more danger from Drusilla than the Immortal.

There was a burnt smell as Buffy came back through a portal. Spike turned to see her clutching a pile of clothes at him.

“These are Arthur’s, you will have to make do. I can’t have you meeting our son naked,” she reasoned as she thrust the clothes at him.

Spike dropped his hand that was still reaching for the picture frame, and grabbed for the clothes Buffy offered. The real thing was better than a picture any day.
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Fully clothed, Spike stepped out of the portal that Buffy led him through. She dropped his hand as soon as they entered the posh sitting room, in which sat Reagan, who was holding the same little boy that he had seen in the picture in Buffy’s lair.

“Mummy!” shouted the little boy, launching himself out of Reagan’s arms and into Buffy’s.

“Christopher! I was just here! No need to yell as if I’d been gone for weeks,” chastised Buffy, picking up her son, kissing his cheek.

She turned a wary eye to the vampire that was standing off to the side of the room, observing them.

“Christopher? I have someone for you to meet,” she said quietly. “He’s gonna help me get Annette back.”

The little boy turned his head from his mother’s chest to look at the stranger in the room. Slowly Buffy put him down and pushed him in Spike’s direction. Spike crouched low to the ground carefully looking Christopher in the eyes.

“Christopher, this is William,” said Buffy, hesitating from calling Spike her son’s father.

Spike held out a hand to shake, which Christopher gripped politely.

“A pleasure,” observed the little boy. “Are you a demon too?”

Spike was caught of guard by the question, but nodded.

“A good demon?”

This time Spike shook his head. He wasn’t a good demon and refused to lie about it.

Christopher nodded in understanding before turning to his mother.

“He looks like me.”

Buffy felt a tear trickle down her face and she nodded her head.

“Christopher?” came Reagan’s voice from the couch. “This is your Papa.”

Buffy turned to look at her friend sharply.

“Really?” asked Christopher.

“Have I ever lied to you sweetheart?” asked Reagan.

“No, Aunty Reagan,” answered Christopher. Christopher turned to look at Spike again and tilted his head in contemplation of this new information.

It was a purely Spike move.

Buffy wiped away the tears rolling down her face.

Christopher stared for a moment, finally opening his mouth. “Papa? Will you bring Annette home?”

It sent a swell of pride through Spike’s chest to hear Christopher call him ‘papa’ and with a smile, Spike nodded.

Christopher nodded and went back to his Aunty Reagan, sitting beside her on the couch. “Good. Annette took away Mr. Bananas and I don’t know where she put him,” commented the little boy.

“Mr. Bananas?” asked Spike.
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Buffy stood in the street before The Immortal’s house in Rome. Just standing there, waiting for something, anything really.

Her plan, complex as it was, was dependant on the Immortal’s interest in her presence on that street.

Which he didn’t seem to be taking an interest in right now.

“Come on you smug bastard, where the hell are you?” she shouted into the street.

As if he had been planning a stage worthy entrance, the Immortal appeared from a second story window of his house. Gracefully perched against the iron railing, he looked down on the Vengeance Demon that stood in the street.

“I do not see my son, Erixel,” boomed out his voice.

Buffy threw up her hands in exasperation. “He’s not your son, you freak! I have a picture that proves it! Let Annette go! Why do you want my son? I swear to you he isn’t yours!”

The sick sound of the immortal’s laughter filled the courtyard.

“It matters not to me, Erixel, just who’s son he is. It is important to my associates that he is my son. What they don’t know won’t hurt the endeavour.”

Buffy let her mouth hang open aghast at the cold indifference the Immortal portrayed.

“Life is cheap Erixel, you can always have another. Give this one to me and save your little maid.”
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Spike crawled up through a sewer grate and into the stately mansion of the Immortal with a task in mind. He snapped the necks of a few random minions before reaching his intended target.

Throwing back the doors to an ornate armoire, he spied what Reagan had sent him to disturb. Glowing and looking rather delicate, was a carved ivory knife. Tentatively, Spike reached out to grasp the weapon, his fingers making contact with the polished bone.

In an instant, the spell that had been guarding his presence from the psychic security system that the Immortal had in place all over his house was breached. Spike found himself surrounded by more than a few random minions. It was what he had been expecting, that carved knife held the spell that made it impossible for anyone to teleport in to the house.

“How’s about take me to your leader?” spat the cocky vampire as they enclosed the space around him.

Grabbing him by the shoulders and arms, Spike was led bodily into the presence of the Immortal. Spike’s fists clenched as he imagined how good it would feel to bash the pompous git’s face in.

“William!” greeted the Immortal with a smile. “How good of you to come visit me at my home. You must understand that it is a very inconvenient time at present.”

Spike nodded, trying to keep his temper in check. “Thought you’d want to discuss the boy. He’s yours you know. The bitch has been lying to you since the birth. Seen the kid with my own two eyes, he’s not mine. Bloody hell, everyone knows vampires can’t have children, the normal way. I wanna see the little bugger bleed and his mother too.”

Spike smiled his best evil smile at the demon in front of him.
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Buffy looked up at the Immortal, who was suddenly distracted by something going on in his house and teleported away.
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tbc...