~*~

Buffy needed to know what had really happened with the events that had led her to finally put an end to her relationship with Spike. She knew that in some way they had both been manipulated, but why, and who besides Riley was involved?

Somehow finding those answers would lead her to finding the missing vampire. Buffy wasn’t sure how she knew that was true, but she would have bet her life on it being the case.

Spike really had few friends, well, none that Buffy could think of offhand. Then she remembered the strangely cute, floppy-eared demon from Willie’s backroom poker game. She remembered Spike bringing Clem to her last disastrous birthday party when her wish for more time at home had been answered by Anya’s vengeance demon friend Halfrek in a typically unpleasant way.

Spike had worn the still visible reminders of the beating she’d given him the week before. She expected him to use guilt to wheedle her favor, but he never even mentioned the fact that she had taken her rage and impotence out on him and left him
in that alley without another thought. They had been trapped for over a day in the house and he never tried to use what she had done to him to his advantage once! Buffy remembered that she had never once said she was sorry, either. And she was sorry, so terribly sorry for every undeserved blow, for every cruel, hate-filled word that called him things she knew did not apply anymore.

Buffy wasn’t sure where Clem lived, but remembered that her coworker Sophie had mentioned going to a movie with him a couple of weeks after they met at Buffy’s party. She’d start there. Sophie would give her Clem’s number and Clem might be able to give her some answers.

Clem lived in a small boarding house in the part of town that catered to demons and asked few questions. He was rubbing his eyes and had obviously been awakened by Buffy’s knock when he opened the door to find the Slayer.

"Buffy! Girl, nice as it is to see you, you better get in here quickly. Wouldn’t do for the neighbors to see who’s knocking on my door, and not with threats and weapons either", he said.

He moved to the side to let Buffy enter the small, dark room and glanced nervously down the hall to be sure they were unseen. Clem might like the Slayer, but none of his neighbors were that open-minded. A human friend might be acceptable and even normal in some homes, but the Slayer was not just some human.

"Clem, I don’t mean to bother you and I’m sorry if I woke you up, but I really need to ask you some questions …about Spike", she began.

"Well, I don’t know where the big guy is if that’s what you want to know, Buffy. I went by to catch a VH1 special about the Ramones last week and he wasn’t there. Didn’t say he was going out of town to me or anything and I can’t believe he’d miss that program! He didn’t even have a tape set up, so I set one for him. I haven’t seen him around in, gee, I guess a couple of months or more really. Did you two have a lovers’ spat? I mean, not that it’s any of my business or anything and not that I’m saying there’s any ‘lovers’ to spat about or that I know anything at all really", he continued nervously.

Buffy sighed deeply and moved further into the living space. "I didn’t really hold out any hope that you’d know where he is right now. I think you might know something that can help me find out, though", she said.

"Sure thing, Slayer, always glad to help out. Um, maybe you’d better not spread THAT around, okay. It could get kind of unhealthy for me if some demons knew I was on speaking terms with the Slayer, let alone helped you in any way. As many times as I’ve patched up Spike after some demon or other’s objected to his working with you and defending your honor and all … well, I’m not a fighter like he is--that’s all I’m saying. I don’t heal as fast".

Buffy smiled at the jittery demon with the sad eyes and almost comical appearance. She really liked Clem, even if he did have cat issues. Well, so did the Koreans, for that matter.

"I’m not going to ask you anything they’d care about you answering, Clem. I won’t put you in the middle of the whole Good/Evil war thing, I promise. What I really hope is that Spike confided in you about a project of his that might have gotten him into trouble, maybe really bad trouble. This is important, Clem. Anything you know might help me to help Spike", Buffy implored.

"I’m all for that Buffy, Spike’s been a good friend to me. Met him when he saved my life. I owe him. I hope I can help". Clem’s face became very serious. He motioned for Buffy to have a seat on his worn sofa and offered her something to drink. He listened to her explain what little she did know as he made a pot of coffee for them to share, his face showed increasing concern for his missing friend as he listened to the tale.

"Yeah, I remember the egg deal. I was never supposed to tell anyone about it because he didn’t want you to know where the money came from. See, Spike worried about you having to work at that awful place. Said it was killing you, sucking out your spirit and that you were too good to have to be there at all, let alone all the extra hours you’ve had to put in since your sister left. Now, Sophie likes it there, but she doesn’t work as much and she’s still in school, not out saving the world every night. He was working on a way to get the money to you without you knowing it came from him. Figured you wouldn’t take it, even if you were starvin’, if you knew it was from an ‘evil vampire’. You ’wouldn’t believe it was all legal and moral and all’ is what he said", Clem continued.

Buffy blanched when she heard how well Spike had known her and how he had just come to accept her attitude without complaint. She remembered how he had been the only one to even notice how unhappy the Doublemeat Palace made her. Everyone else was supportive, but in a "yay, Buffy, you got a job and free food" kind of way. Spike just wanted her to not have to be there. He could always tell.

"So, what was the deal, Clem? What kind of eggs were they? Why did he have them there at his crypt? What kind of ‘legal and moral’ deal would pay for big bug eggs?"

"Spike said some Ravnar demon offered to broker a deal where Spike would egg-sit some Ferrisite eggs. Yeah, they do look like bugs, don’t they? They have this venom that some human doctor wanted collected. You milk them when they hatch, see, like snakes or scorpions. They aren’t fatal to humans but no human would be quick and strong enough to pull that job off, that’s for sure! Anyway, this doctor was using the venom in his research….some disease that was found in some small place in India or Iran or somewhere like that. He was going to pay top dollar, too, because of the danger and all. Spike wasn’t worried, said he wasn’t about to get all ‘jelly-legged over a bunch of overgrown ants’ and all. You know Spike! The eggs
had been delivered the day before you guys blew them up. They were near to hatching and Spike had expected to do the job, kill the Ferrisites and have it all cleaned up before you came by next time. He didn’t want you to know".

"So these Ferris Wheel demons, they kill people?" Buffy asked.

"Ferrisite. No, they don’t kill. It’s a kind of poison that works through the nervous system of some demons and all humans. Kind of like Botox, in a way. I don’t know what happened to the deal after the eggs got destroyed. Gee, Buffy, do you think that doctor was so mad he staked Spike? I didn’t think doctors hurt people, I thought they were only supposed to help them". Clem shook his head sadly at the thought that all those wonderful TV doctors might have only been fiction in their high morals and desire to do good.

"No. Well I guess I don’t know really, but I doubt it was some human doctor that caused Spike to disappear. I really don’t think he’s been dusted, Clem. Somehow I think I’d know if he had been. Did you ever hear the name of this doctor? Did Spike ever give you the name? He may know something anyway. If not, I guess I owe it to Spike to at least take the blame for those eggs, too".

"I only heard him called The Doctor. The Ravnar demon might though since he was the middle man. His name is Argot, but I heard he took his twelve kids and three wives and left Sunnydale right after the whole egg mess. Maybe there was some reason to be afraid of someone over that whole thing, huh? I think I overheard Argot say something about the Doctor once though. Of course, he was drunk and Ravnars don’t hold their liquor well so it might have been just blowing smoke, you know", he warned.

"Tell me. I’ll take any clue I can get at this point", Buffy pleaded.

"Well…. Just before he left town, Argot was in Willie’s mumbling about how the doctor wasn’t so human after all. Said something about a tail. I remember because the Gack demon he was talking to thought he meant tale and Argot explained that he meant the twitchy kind, you know, in the back, like a cat. He said the doctor had turned around once and he’d seen it. He looked human enough otherwise. Kind of like that guy in the musical "Caberet", he said. Ravnars love musicals. I wish I could help you more, Buffy, but that’s all I know really", Clem admitted.

They finished the coffee and Buffy thanked him for his help before leaving. She took care not to be seen by any of Clem’s more hostile neighbors as she left.

It might not be much, but Buffy had one clue at least. The Doctor had been a demon and Spike didn’t know that. Had some demon gotten even with Spike for his helping her? That guy Argot had been the one to approach Spike. It was sounding more and more like a set up to her. But how did Riley and Sam Finn fit into this?

It was time for a Scooby meeting. Willow was still in intensive care and Buffy wasn’t going to pull Tara away from her love’s side, but Xander and Giles were available. They would just have to put aside their problems with Spike and help her on this. She feared they might need more help than just the three of them, though.

"Angel! Yes, I’ll call Angel to help. He might even have some vampire-y way of knowing how to locate Spike. I’ll call tonight, after he’s sure to be up and awake and I’ve worked out the start of a plan with Giles and Xan", she decided. Angel may not like Spike either, but he would help her, she was sure. Besides, Spike was kind of like his family or something. You always helped family, even when you didn’t like them.

~~~

Hunger was beginning to take a toll on Spike’s mental condition. So far the doctors had left him alone. ‘They must have done all the diddling about they wanted in my insides. Guess they don’t need me anymore’, he thought. "Well I’ll be bloody well happy to leave then, if it’s all the same to them", he said aloud.

"They may be finished with you for their purposes, but one more danger has yet to begin, vampire. The one with a personal reason to see you suffer has been planning ways to continue your journey here in purgatory. He will put payment upon you for your sins", the dark, cloaked figure said.

Spike wasn’t sure the figure was real or not. Sounded real, but the sound was like it was inside his own head. "Great, now I’m getting as bug-shagging loopy as Dru. Can’t eat, but I’d better find some way to keep it together or I’ll be namin’ the bleedin’ stars like she did", he said to himself.

"Dante prays for you, son. He has been on this journey, but only as one viewing the events. He says that you may deserve an escort to Saint Bernard as well. The poet seems to feel you are not as evil as you might once have been considered, that you have made a journey of your own. Dante will continue to pray", the voice finished. Then the dark figure disappeared.

Spike sank to the floor and shook his head. "Dante….. journey …. What’s this then, the Big Bad starring in the Divina Commedia? Who was that supposed to be then? Bloody Virgil? I’m going starkers here. Fittin’ that it’d be poetry in the end", he said with an ironic burst of laughter.

The wounds were not healing very fast. In fact, without feeding, Spike was losing both weight and blood at an alarming rate. He was going to have to start accepting the tainted food supply after all if he had ANYONE’S prayer of surviving and getting out of this place, wherever he was.