A/N: I took a few creative liberties in this chapter. After researching on the net, I think you can’t actually go to the crater in a Jeep. Most tours that are offered are bike tours and you need a guide with you. But for the sake of the story, let’s pretend it's possible. Enjoy!

Also, I'd like to thank Linne--or the Red pen Goddess as I like to call her--for being my fabulous beta. Linne, you're the best. Thanks.




CHAPTER 14: Road trip




Sitting behind the wheel, Buffy looked at a map provided to them by the hotel, her little nose scrunched up in concentration. Spike looked anything but comfortable in the back seat, wrapped protectively in a thick blanket. It had been reluctantly agreed upon that Buffy would be the one doing the driving since the sun was still high enough to be harmful to the vampire. Despite his love for the girl, Spike had absolutely no faith in her driving skills, but it was a necessary evil until the sun was low enough behind the mountain not to be a danger to him anymore. Then they would switch places.

Buffy looked up from the map with a triumphant smile. She turned in her seat to show the map to her vampire lover.

“Here. That’s us right there.” She pointed out their current position helpfully. “That big thing right here is Haleakala and over there is the entry point to the national park. It doesn’t look too complicated. We should be there in no time.”

“If we don’t crash into a tree on the way.” Spike mumbled sullenly.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a baby. I’m an excellent driver. I just don’t get enough practice, that’s all.”

Spike snorted, not bothering to hide his disagreement.

“Hey! You wanna do this or not? I still think I can drive better than a flaming vampire could. So shut it and try to have some faith in me would you? You’re making me nervous and nervous Buffy is not a good thing when her foot is on the gas. Got it?”

“Fine. Let’s go before I come to my bloody senses and change my mind about this.”

She turned the key in the ignition, but with her foot on the gas instead of the break, the Jeep jerked forward abruptly.

“Oops. Wrong pedal. Gas right, break left. Got it.”

Spike groaned.

“That big stick over there on your right with the little numbers on it? You gotta put it in reverse, pet. It’s the little ‘R’.

She pouted slightly. “I knew that you poophead. Don’t be a backseat driver. I don’t need help, I’ve driven sticks before… once.”

“Bleeding hell. We’re gonna die, aren’t we?”

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The tall Italian woman walked along the secluded beach, cursing under her breath at the sand getting in her shoes. She stopped briefly to remove them, then kept walking, ignoring her companion. Ben was following a few steps behind, looking like his puppy had died. They hadn’t said a word to each other since they’d left the hotel half an hour earlier.

She finally stopped walking when she judged that she’d found the perfect place for her purpose. There wasn’t a living soul for miles so there shouldn’t be any interruption.

She dropped her shoes to the side carelessly and then put the box she was carrying down on the sand. In it was everything she would need to put her plan into action. Deciding she had no time to waste, she pulled everything out while mentally going over the steps one more time to make sure everything would be perfect. Then, she traced an inverted pentagram in the middle of a circle around her, the downward tip pointing toward the ocean. She wanted to roll her eyes at how typical this was, but apparently it was required for the spell to succeed. Something about mind over matter.

When Benjamin snickered, she wondered briefly what stopped her from drowning him in the ocean or choking him with her mind. “Something funny, mio caro?”

He gestured to the pattern she had drawn in the wet sand. “Inverted pentagram, how very spooky.”

“Poor honey, you have no clue, do you? Of course an amateur like you would mistake this as merely a symbol of evil. Not that I would waste my time trying to enlighten you. You’ll just have to see for yourself that this conjuring is far from amateur.”

His arms crossed sulkily over his chest, Ben narrowed his eyes at the object of his hatred. He watched her close her eyes and mutter some words under her breath. Seeing that she was lost in the spell, he reached with his foot and tried to erase part of the circle, hoping it would be enough to disrupt the conjuring. But the line remained untouched and the circle, as well as the pentagram, started glowing.

Carlita reopened her eyes and smiled in fake innocence. “What? Did you think that’s all it would take? Maybe you thought that the circle would be broken, the beast would still be conjured, and wouldn’t be bound to me therefore would try to eat me. Is that it, Benjamin darling? Because that would not be very nice of you. Now shut your mouth and stop distracting me!” She snapped angrily.

Ben glared, then went to sit on a boulder at a safe distance. He wasn’t brave enough to anger her more than she already was and risk pushing her over the edge. So he settled for observing the scene in silence since he apparently couldn‘t do or say anything to make her change her mind.

He watched as she whispered words that were lost in the wind, lifting her arms to the side with an ornate dagger clutched firmly in one pale hand, and a small velvet pouch in the other.

Carlita emptied the pouch, glittery powder floating in the breeze coming from the ocean, then she quickly fell on one knee and brought her arm down to embed the dagger in the wet sand.

In the next moment, Ben was on his feet with his mouth agape in shock. The circle surrounding the witch was ablaze, the flames reaching wildly toward the darkening sky, and the inside of the circle was hidden from view by a small tornado of whirling sand. Next thing he knew, the contained storm died down, and there in the middle of the circle stood Carlita, and what looked like an eight feet tall tower of muscles, claws and teeth. Ben took a step back, nearly tripping over rocks.

“Dear lord…”

Carlita was looking up at the beast, a triumphant smile on her lips. She said a few words he couldn’t hear, then took a step back to break the circle. As soon as the protection was breached, the beast fell on its four legs and took off.

Ben’s heart clenched in fear at the idea that Buffy and Spike would have to face this thing, and he hoped that they’d find a way to come out of this alive… or undead, whatever the case may be.

Carlita turned to him, looking quite pleased with herself.

“Well, that was fun. Now, why don’t we use all this magical energy coursing through me and open a little window to see what our lovers are up to, shall we? I want to see first hand when the beast sink its teeth into that Slayer.”

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Every time they came face to face with another car’s headlights on the narrow road, the Jeep inevitably jerked to the right and Spike had to shut his eyes tightly and force himself not to shriek in fear. A vampire could be killed in a car accident if the car exploded. Fire and vampires equaled dust, that was a well known fact. Seeing a clearing, Spike finally had enough of this torture. Even Angelus in the good old times hadn’t been this cruel.

“Alright, pet. The sun is low enough. Pull over, it’s my turn to take the wheel.”

Doing her best to hide her relief, Buffy grumbled. “I was doing just fine.”

“Not saying otherwise, but I’m tired of sitting here… I’m getting a bit restless. C’mon, be a good Slayer and pull over.”

“Fine. We’re almost there anyway. Time to look at the map again to make sure we’re still going in the right direction. Feels like we’ve been driving around the damn volcano for hours.”

Buffy carefully signaled for what seemed like an unnecessary long time before pulling aside, to the great joy of the four other cars that had been tailing them for the past half hour. She put the car in park and got out.

Spike extricated himself ungracefully from the backseat and stretched his sore muscles. “Bleedin’ hell, luv, are you sure we’re not lost because this felt like an eternity to me.”

“An hour and a half is not an eternity, especially not for someone who lived for more than a century. Maybe it’s taking a little longer than expected, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

She spread out the map on the hood of the car and tried to figure out where they were.

Spike pulled out his pack of smokes. He put a cigarette between his lips, cupped his hand around it to shield it from the light wind and lit it with a sigh of pure pleasure.

“Maybe, but for a smoker, an hour and a half IS an eternity.”

“You’re just whining because I wouldn’t let you pollute my air. Come on, help me find where we are. It’s getting darker and I can’t find it.”

The sky was darker now that the sun was hidden, and the trees surrounding them were casting them in shadow, making it more difficult for Buffy to see the details of the map.

“We should just go back. We’re not gonna make it before the sun sets. It was a stupid idea anyway. Maybe if I hadn’t stopped like twenty times to take pictures on the way…”

She leaned against the bumper of the car, looking away. She was trying to sound casual, but Spike could tell she was disappointed and he hated seeing sadness in her eyes.

“Don’t be daft. You’ll get your volcano crater and your bloody sunset. Give me the map.” He picked up the map to look at it more closely. After a few moments observing it, he folded it again and shoved it in his back pocket. “Got it. Come on pet, get in the car. The sun’s not going to wait for us.”

“You know where we are?” She asked hopefully.

“’f course I do.” Spike lied. He didn’t know but he was confident enough that he could find which way to go. After all, they hadn’t lost sight of the volcano yet, so that was a good indication they weren’t that lost. All they had to do was to find the entrance to the park. “Let’s go.”

Spike got behind the wheel and waited until Buffy was settled before gunning the engine and driving off. It took him about twenty minutes to finally come to the conclusion that they were buggered.

“You should have taken the exit we just passed. It indicated a village. We could have stopped at a gas station and asked for directions.”

“Don’t need soddin’ directions. I know where we are.”

Buffy rolled her eyes in annoyance. “What IS it with men and asking for directions? I really don’t get it. Anyway, admit it. We are lost. As long as we could still see the volcano and we were driving along the coast, I could entertain the delusion that we knew were we were going, but now… This looks like the freakin’ jungle to me.”

Spike didn’t answer. For the tenth time, he looked into the rearview mirror and frowned.

“Bugger…”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure.”

Coming across a smaller road, he turned the steering wheel sharply, the sudden motion of the car throwing Buffy against the door. The Jeep started going uphill as he drove it deeper into the rainforest, stepping heavily on the gas.

“What the… Oh great, another manly cliché: The short cut.” Buffy snickered. “If we weren’t lost before, now we will be for sure. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Look. There’s something following us. It’s big, it’s fast, we’re in the middle of soddin’ nowhere and we don’t have weapons with us. So if you don’t mind, I’ll lose the damn thing first, then I’ll worry about finding our way back.”

Buffy frowned and turned sharply in her seat to see what he was talking about. She squinted, trying to see something in the shadows of the tall trees surrounding them.

“Something’s following us? I don’t see anything.”

“Believe me, I do.” He said through clenched teeth. “I can’t tell what it is, but I can tell you it’s big.”

He drove fast in hopes of losing whatever was following them. They both remained silent for a few minutes, until the Jeep started slowing down and finally came to a stop.

“Spike? Why did you stop the car.”

“… I didn’t.”

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Carlita looked into the small puddle of ocean water with a satisfied smirk on her face. “Everything is going according to plan.”

There, in the magical window, she could see the Slayer and the vampire getting out of the Jeep and looking around themselves with worry on their faces.

Carlita turned to Benjamin. “Oh for Christ sake, would you turn that frown upside down? Soon we’ll be back in our comfortable hotel room, order some room service and forget the whole thing. Of course… I’ll be the one who will have the pleasure of calling Quentin considering I did all the work. But I might even be nice and say that you helped.”

“Keep me out of this. I don’t fancy playing any part in your little assassination plot.”

“Darrrling, you are such a kill joy. You never seem to be happy about anything.”

“Oh bugger off you blasted cow.” Ben muttered, kicking sand into the magical window. The image was instantly lost.

Carlita glowered at him. “Now look what you’ve done you pathetic little rat. It took all I had left of my energy to open this window and I probably won‘t be able to open another one. How am I supposed to know if we succeeded? ”

“How YOU succeeded. I told you not to include me. And why should I care? I believe it is your problem, Carlita, not mine. Personally, I’m going back to the room.”

Ben walked away, leaving a seething Carlita behind.

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