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Forever and a Day by Lilachigh
 
Chp 13 Invincible
 
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Buffy stared at the piece of broken wood Spike was holding out to her; she took it and ran her fingers along the sharp jagged edge. She sighed. “You want me to try staking you? Of all the stupid remarks you’ve made over the years we’ve known each other, that is about the stupidest I’ve ever heard!”

“Buffy, the Plague is making us invincible. I know it.”

“Then why didn’t it make those two vamps we dusted in the church invincible? They’re floating out across the sea at this very moment. If you want to join them, OK.”

Spike frowned. “I still think that’s what Willow and Giles have discovered – that the Plague changes vampires in a different way to humans. We don’t revert to childhood, but we get even stronger than normal. And just getting stronger wouldn’t get Giles’ tweed boxers in such a twist. I’m sure we can’t be killed. Maybe those vamps had just risen and the Plague hadn’t had time to effect them.”

“Maybe the moon is made of green cheese. We’re not trying any stupid experiments. End of story.”

Spike sat down on a straw bale, the merest suggestion of a pout on his lips. “OK, Miss Bossy-boots. I give in. We won’t try staking me, but I know I’m right about the greater strength.”

Buffy sat next to him and sighed. “Well, it would certainly explain why Giles and Willow are so freaked. And why I feel so full of energy, when I should by right have double pneumonia and be wondering how to put one foot in front of the other.”

Spike wrapped an arm round her thin shoulders and gave her a brief hug. “So, my love-making isn’t the cause of that pink glow in your cheeks, Slayer?”

She smiled and licked her lips, enjoying the way his eyes slitted with desire at that simple action. “I’ve got a pink glow in all sorts of places, but at the moment let’s forget about how strong we are and concentrate on the Plague thingy and how we’re going to defeat it.”

He sighed. “OK, pet. Plan time.” There was a pause, then, “Have you got a plan?”

Buffy stared unseeingly at the scattered straw and mud splattered floor of the barn. All she could picture in her mind were the faces of the children she had already met, Jack and Mandy, at the inn, the vicar and verger at the church, turned back into children and destined to die in a world bereft of adults.

“I was relying on Giles to come up with something,” she admitted. “All of this Plague business seems to be rooted in the past and that’s his territory.”

Spike sent her a glancing look from under raised eyebrows. “Do you want me to try talking to him, pet? You know, man to man, vampire to Watcher, dead to alive, I’m not going to kill you all, sort of chat?”

“Do you think it’d do any good?”

“Not a soddin’ chance in hell. Your Watcher made up his mind about me a long time ago. Back when he tried to get Robin to stake me.”

Buffy shuddered as she recalled that dreadful night. She could still remember her breath tearing in her chest, as she’d run through the graveyard, trying to get to Spike before Robin killed him. She’d thought she’d never forgive Giles for his treachery, but events had moved so quickly, the battle with the First, the final apocalypse, loosing Spike, having to train all the new Slayers, that somehow they’d drifted into a polite surface friendship that seemed to fool everyone – except her.

She knew that deep down, she’d never entirely forgiven him and she was certain that Spike hadn’t, either.

“OK, we go it on our own. We know that the Plague is carried by the mist – “

“Or is the mist!”

“True. So logically, the deadliest part of the mist must be right at its leading edge – the first part that touches the adults and changed them.“

Spike nodded slowly. “I can believe that. Wouldn’t be any use having your big weapon fifteen or twenty miles behind your front line.”

“So we need to get in front of it. See what’s actually there. I mean, is something or someone making the mist? It can’t just appear all on its own.”

Spike frowned. “You think it’s a sort of cloaking device – like you get in some bloody sci-fi movie. Start Trek or Star Wars?”

Buffy sighed and wriggled herself closer to him. “Where’s Andrew when we most need him?” she muttered sarcastically. “But yes, that’s what I reckon. Not in an alien spaceshippy sort of way, more a demony sort of thing.“

“Reckon we need to head north west,” Spike said suddenly. “The mist is definitely drifting in that direction.”

“Wish our car wasn’t still buried in that ditch.”

Spike stood up and pulled her with him. “Let’s try the farmhouse, sweetheart. There’s bound to be some sort of vehicle there. I don’t reckon the changelings will be using cars. Let’s face it, their feet won’t reach the pedals!”

Hand in hand, they left the shelter of the barn and made their way through the snow across the yard to the farmhouse. The front door stood wide open where Spike had forced it earlier and snow was drifting in, driven by the wind. Glancing in, they could see broken glass and splintered furniture. It looked as if someone had tried to set fire to the wooden shards.

Spike pulled a face at the desolation and made his way round to the side of the building where an old truck stood under a rickety shelter. He pulled open the driver‘s door and clambered in. Buffy joined him, glad to be out of the wind and cold.

“Did you go into the house before?”

Spike nodded grimly. “No one there, pet. Just destruction. No food, phone’s dead, too. Whoever lived there has long gone.”

Buffy shuddered. It was almost impossible to imagine how terrified the owners must have been – waking up to find themselves children, cut off by the snow, no food, no phone to call for help, and even if they could find someone, they would be children too.

She vowed she would defeat this thing and found herself fighting back a surge of anger at Willow and Giles. Surely their enmity towards Spike could be forgotten when there was such a threat to everyone’s existence?

She sighed. There must be some way of destroying it forever. She grabbed a map from the back seat and unfolded it. “You think we should drive north west?”

Spike turned the key and after a few whirring noises, the engine spluttered into life. “That’s the way the mist is heading, pet. ” He glanced down at the map on her knee, reached over and turned it the other way, his lips twitching as he remembered her lack of map reading skills had landed them in this mess in the first place.

“OK – ” She glared at him then ran her finger up the main road leading north. “Spike – “ suddenly she became serious. “Here – twenty miles or so away – look what it says – The Devil’s Punchbowl!”

Spike frowned and fought the wheel as the truck jolted down a rough track, churning through the snow, the wipers fighting to cope with snow and mist.
“Rings a bell, pet. Vast hollow in the ground. Do you reckon -?”

Buffy shrugged. “It’s the first time we’ve seen anything that might be a clue. And it’s definitely north west of here.”

Spike spun the wheel hard as the truck reached the slightly firmer surface of the road. “OK, Slayer. Devil’s Punchbowl here we come!”

A mile away, Giles and Willow were standing in the vicarage kitchen, a map and several large books spread out on the big table between them. The shimmering magic barrier that Willow had erected to prevent the Plague reaching them danced and whirled outside the window.

Willow ran a worried hand through her short red hair and gazed up at Giles. “Are you sure? The Devil’s Punchbowl. Sounds creepy.”

Giles polished his glasses on the end of his tie and rubbed the bridge of his nose where they pinched him. “Whatever it is, it’s heading in that direction. As far as I can tell, it’s spent hundreds of years trying to get here and now it’s speeded up.“

“How do we stop it infecting us if we go outside the barrier?”

Giles looked at her wearily. He felt soul sick, so tired he’d have loved to have crawled into bed, pulled the covers over his head and stayed there forever. “I know it’s a silly thing to ask, but do you think you could make a barrier round the car and keep it there while we drive?”

Willow’s eyes grew very round. “A moving barrier? Giles, I’ve never tried anything like that before. If I get it wrong, or it doesn’t work, then we could be little Willow and Giles before we’ve gone a couple of miles down the road!”

Giles smiled ruefully. He was looking at the most powerful witch he’d ever had the misfortune – or luck, depending on which way you looked at it – he’d ever met. He was quite certain that she would manage the moving barrier effortlessly.

“What about Buffy and Spike?” Willow asked hesitantly and watched as the Englishman’s kind, concerned face hardened.

“At the moment we can’t afford to think about them,” he said. “Spike is infected – that’s obvious from the records.”

“But why is Buffy immune? Just because she’s the Slayer?”

Giles had his own opinion on why. He thought drily that exchange of bodily fluids had a lot to do with Buffy’s ability to cope with the Plague. “Yes, I imagine so. He‘s infected her in some way, mentally if not physically. We’ll have to hope we can save her at a later date.”

Willow bit her lip. She hated to see Giles and Buffy on opposite sides. “Perhaps Spike is still working on the right side,” she suggested hesitantly.

Giles pushed his glasses back on and tightened the knot of his tweed tie. His feelings for the vampire had never changed. For all of Angelus’ actions, murdering Jenny, killing and maiming, in his opinion, Spike was worse.

He could forgive the teenage Buffy for thinking she was in love with a dark, brooding monster. He could even laugh at her having sex with Spike when she was vulnerable and the vampire had taken advantage of her weakness. But he would never, ever forgive the adult Buffy for allowing the Initiative to take out Spike’s chip. When you’d tied a mad dog to a post, you never deliberately loosened the rope.

He picked up the map and looked at it again. “The Devil’s Punchbowl,” he said softly. “Whatever me meet there, let’s hope it’s the final battle.”

To be continued










 
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