Made by Spikes Slayer2


“He’s getting worse,” Tara whispered to her girlfriend, as she reached the corner of the room where she was working on her laptop. Willow rose as Tara reached her, taking both of the blonde’s trembling hands in her own, trying to offer the comfort of her touch that she needed so desperately. Tara was trying to be strong, trying to be there for Julian – and for Giles – but her voice trembled, unsteady, as she went on tearfully, “I don’t think he’s gonna…”

“*Don’t*, Tara,” Willow gently shushed her, pulling her into her arms, her hand on Tara’s shoulder as she spoke softly into her ear. “Don’t give up. We’re gonna find a way. Just a little more time…”

Tara pulled back, meeting Willow’s gaze with a look of honest heartache in her eyes. “Will – Julian doesn’t *have* any more time,” she whispered, refusing to be lied to, even for her own good, before glancing back to the spot across the room where she had left the boy, cradled in the arms of the Watcher.

Willow followed her gaze with troubled eyes, having no words of comfort to offer. Julian had gone into massive convulsions about thirty minutes before, and even in his weakened state, it had taken both Aaron and Giles to hold him down and keep him from hurting himself any worse.

Then, just as suddenly as they had begun, the seizures had stopped, and the boy had gone completely still, not moving or breathing, completely unresponsive.

Had he been human, they would have thought that he was dead – but the fact that he was still in human form at all, not dust, told them that in some way, he was still alive. But he showed no signs of life whatsoever, despite their efforts to rouse him – completely comatose.

And the unrelenting heat radiating from his body had only increased.

Unobserved by the boy for whom he had been trying to be so strong, trying to hold out hope and keep him from being any more afraid than he had to be, Giles had finally felt the freedom to break down. It was somehow deeply disturbing to Tara – to all of them – to see his tears, hear his sobs, as he cradled the lifeless form of the young vampire close to him, rocking him helplessly, wishing desperately for a cure that he was increasingly convinced would never come.

Now, half an hour later, Julian still had not moved or shown any sign of awareness at all, but he was not dust. Giles had calmed somewhat, but still sat on the floor, holding him in sorrowful silence.

Finally, Tara pulled reluctantly away from Willow’s reassuring embrace, looking back toward the Watcher and the dying vampire and steeling herself to return to them. She was closer to Julian – and to Giles, for that matter – than any of the others in the room, and she knew where she was needed at the moment.

As she slowly crossed the room, Willow resolutely returned to her laptop behind her. It might be a futile exercise at this point, but until Julian was well, or dust, she had no place but at her computer, seeking an answer.

Silently, Tara knelt in front of Giles, who seemed unaware of her presence, his tearful eyes focused on Julian’s slack, still face. She felt a lump rising in her throat, tried not to cry – the boy appeared to be peacefully sleeping.

Unfortunately, she knew it to be so much worse than that.

She glanced around the room at the others, each face reflecting the grim understanding that for Julian, the end was very near now. Xander and Anya sat against one wall, quietly comforting one another, taking the reassurance they needed from each other after their traumatic separation. Aaron and Mara sat nearer to Giles and Julian, but still maintaining a respectful distance, worry etched into their faces.

Tara’s solemn eyes turned back to the Watcher, and she edged closer to him – close enough to touch, but not touching yet. She studied his face for a long moment, a mask of practiced calm, though there was anguish in his red-rimmed, ice blue eyes.

When she reached a cautious, gentle hand to rest on his arm, he jumped, startled, only just realizing that she was even there. He stared at her for a long moment, before looking away from the gentle sympathy in her eyes.

“Has Willow made any progress?” he asked, his voice low and carefully controlled, after his emotional outburst earlier. His tone held little hope; he knew that if Willow had found anything helpful, Tara would have told him already.

Hope was in such short supply.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head as she looked down at Julian’s face – so deceptively peaceful. “Not yet.”

A moment’s silence, before Giles said softly, “Try again.”

Tara was surprised – and dismayed – by the request. She opened her mouth to protest. They had tried every healing spell she and Willow knew on the way here in the van, and she had made several other attempts since their arrival, while Willow was working on the laptop, with no success. Whatever magical barrier Riley had erected against them was strong, and it held firm against their best efforts.

But she simply could not bring herself to remind him of that fact. She closed her mouth firmly for a moment, before reaching down to take the Watcher’s hand in hers. He looked up at her in mild surprise, a question in his eyes.

“Let’s try it together,” she suggested, compassion in her soft voice as she placed her free hand on Julian’s chest and prepared to speak the words of the healing spell again. She knew that it would help Giles to feel like he was doing something, *anything*, to help Julian, even if their efforts at this point were nothing more than…

Tara’s sad train of thought was cut short with a sudden, startling realization. Her soft gray eyes widened on the still form under her hand, which pressed gently, but firmer, on the vampire’s chest, shifting slightly, then running up and down the cool flesh, searching, searching for – for any sign of the overpowering, unnatural heat that had consumed the frail body only minutes earlier.

It was gone.

“What?” Giles asked in a voice of hushed urgency, his serious eyes focused on the young witch’s face. “Tara, what? What is it?”

“Giles,” she whispered, excitement sparkling in her disbelieving eyes, barely daring to hope. “He’s cool. Feel him! His body temperature is returning to normal!”

Giles did not move, simply stared down at the boy in wonder. He had been holding him the entire time, but had not noticed the change as it had taken place, because of its gradual nature, or because his own emotions had not allowed him to notice – but at some point, the brutal, searing heat that had been slowly killing the creature had ceased.

Tara’s mind was racing with the possible explanations. The way Julian had explained what Riley had told him about what would happen, the heat from the electric current produced by the chip should have just kept gradually increasing, until the agonized vampire just combusted, burned alive from the inside out. An unspeakably cruel, painful death for an innocent such as Julian…

And yet – an unexpected merciful reprieve…

“Do you suppose…” Mara’s quiet but hopeful voice from right beside her drew Tara’s attention back to the present, and she smiled, remembering the keen vampire hearing that had revealed this new development to Mara and Aaron – who had apparently revealed it to the others.

The entire little group was now gathered around them with a sense of hopeful expectancy.

“Do you suppose the chip just – burned itself out?” the female vampire speculated.

“It’s possible,” Giles mused, the beginnings of an excited smile forming on his lips, because regardless of the unknown cause, the fact was that the burning heat was gone from Julian’s body – which could only be a good thing. “But – highly improbably. Riley has murdered others using this method before, and in each of those cases the chip lasted longer than – than his victims.”

“We hadn’t even begun the spell,” Tara shook her head slowly in response to the possibility she had briefly considered, but had not yet voiced aloud.

“No,” Giles agreed. “I don’t believe it was the magic.”

“Then…how?” Willow whispered, eyes wide with wonder and joy as they moved between the still-unconscious vampire and the Watcher’s face.

“Does it matter?” Tara asked, her voice trembling with tears of joy rather than fear, her eyes shining with gratitude and relief. “All we know is that the chip’s stopped firing. And that’s all that matters.”

Amidst the group’s joy at this unexplained stroke of good fortune, a thoughtful frown suddenly appeared on the face of the ex-vengeance demon.

“I don’t mean to spoil the mood here, but – has anyone checked the feed from Buffy’s camera lately?” Anya asked hesitantly – reminding them all of the only *other* thing that did matter at the moment.

“I’ll check it,” Willow promptly nodded and slipped away from the excited chatter of the group, to her laptop across the room.

She minimized the screen she had been working from, displaying the useless encrypted information from Riley’s computer systems, and pulled back up the screen showing the video feed from the camera attached to Buffy’s collar. Suddenly, her eyes widened with shock at the scene that appeared on the screen.

“Um – guys?” she said in a slightly trembling voice. “I think – you might wanna see this.”


Riley was still uselessly pressing the button on the device in his hand when that device was knocked from his hand with an effortless blow from the hand of the vampire in front of him, sending the device skittering across the floor and crashing into the wall across the room, where it broke into several pieces.

“Bloody stupid remote control,” Spike muttered with false sympathy, shaking his head with a little smirk. “Those things never work for long.”

Riley’s eyes widened with fear as he realized the truth of his situation. The chip was no longer working. And even weakened by the torture he had already endured, the vampire was still clearly stronger than he was. Riley’s hand moved to his pocket, seeking the weapon he kept there, a small pistol loaded with wood-tipped bullets.

In a motion too quick for his eyes to register, his wrist was seized in a bone-crushing grip, his throat seized in the vampire’s free hand and his body slammed into the wall behind him. He struggled uselessly against the vampire’s strength, but Spike easily held him, pinned and helpless against the wall.

He realized, too late, that he had seriously underestimated the power of his opponent – all along only restrained – but never destroyed – by the chip in his head.

The now useless chip in his head.

Leaning in closer in a menacing way, Spike gave the larger man a chillingly cold smile. “Now are you reaching for the key to those chains over there?” he asked softly, nodding toward Buffy, “or am I about to snap your bloody wrist, mate? Which is it, hmm?”

Riley let out a pathetic gurgling sound from his throat that was unintelligible as any human speech.

Spike chuckled softly, “Oh, sorry, mate,” he said with false regret. “Guess you need to breathe to speak don’t you?” He loosened his grip, just slightly, on Riley’s throat, adding speculatively, “That oughta be enough. Wanna try and answer my question again?” As he spoke, Spike gave the wrist, attached to the hand still hidden in Riley’s pocket, a vicious twist.

Riley tried again, managing to get the words out in a rasp that Spike could barely make out as, “Other – pocket.”

“Oh, the keys are in your *other* pocket,” Spike said with wide-eyed innocence, nodding leadingly. “Is that it?”

Riley nodded desperately, gasping for breath as the vampire’s hold tightened again.

“Well then,” Spike’s smile faded. “S’pose you won’t be needing *this* anytime soon.”

Without hesitation, he jerked Riley’s hand from his pocket and gave his wrist a savage, wrenching twist that caused an audible crack, leaving the larger man screaming in pain as the vampire reached casually into his other pocket, removing the keys to the chains that bound the Slayer to the wall.

Unmoved by the pitiful – and terribly unmanly – moans of agony from the soldier, Spike released him, allowing him to sink to the floor, cradling his shattered wrist, as he moved casually across the room to Buffy.

He reached up to the shackle around Buffy’s left wrist, inserting the key and turning it, as he did so leaning in to place a quick kiss on the parted lips of the stunned – and very impressed – Slayer. Her eyes were wide with wonder, looking at him with new eyes, as it were, after the completely unexpected display of his power.

When he removed his lips from hers and turned his attention to freeing her right wrist, he smiled at her soft, awestruck voice, thick with the desire his actions had managed to awaken in her, despite their current situation.

“*You* are *amazing*,” she declared.

As her wrist was freed and she automatically put her arms around him, allowing him to steady her as she regained her balance after being in the awkward position for so long, he leaned in for another brief kiss, pulling back to smile at her with a wicked sparkle in his eyes.

“Just now figuring that out, love?” He pulled halfway out of her embrace, leaving one arm around her and turning to stand at her side, regarding their captor-turned-prisoner, who was recovering from the agony of his broken wrist, and struggling back up to his feet, a murderous fury in his eyes.

“I’ll have to show you just how amazing later, love,” Spike murmured with a grim smile, a light of rage dawning in his own eyes as he looked at the man responsible for the years of cruelty and degradation he had endured.

“Got a bit of business to attend to at the moment.”