Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.


SECTION 4 - ANGELS AND DEMONS

You always knew there'd
Be a price to pay

(The Tourists)


Chapter 4.06
Wednesday, June 12th, 2002

As always, it took Xander a few minutes to work up to full eating speed. He knew that the food was a vast improvement on anything Buffy had ever served up and better even than most of the take-out places she used to order from, but just knowing it was prepared by dead hands gave him the willies. He knew it was irrational, but instead of Spike's hands as they actually were, he kept imagining puffy bits of zombie flesh sloughing off into whatever he was serving. It really did gross him out, at least until he ate enough of whatever the vampire served up to make him forget. Three weeks ago, he wouldn't have touched anything if he knew Spike had prepared it. Now, as part of the 'new' Xander campaign he forced the tender meat down and almost managed a convincing show of appreciation as he did it.

Anya gave him an encouraging smile, knowing exactly what he was thinking. He still had a long way to go but for the first time ever she felt like Xander was actually trying to change, to see things from her perspective, instead of simply trying to make her conform to his very human womanly ideal.

"Well, if everyone's finished now..." Giles began as Xander finally pushed his plate to one side. "Perhaps we could be enlightened as to why we're all here... while we're waiting on dessert." He looked around the table, where not only the usual Scoobies, but Wes, Bee and even Brandon were seated, until his gaze connected with Tara's.

"I-it's the orbs," the blonde witch stammered ever so slightly at being the centre of attention. "E-ever since we did that trance when Spike was poisoned, we've known that the orbs actually work by harnessing the spirit of a Nezzla demon. I don't know how, but when I did the trance it was like I intuitively knew things about him, like I knew that, however he was transformed, it was a sacrifice on his part that he undertook so that his people could live in peace. I knew he was disorientated at being taken away from them but that he didn't blame us for the fact that he was here.

Since then... well, since I finished my exams really, I've been doing some research. There's not a lot that I can find out about them, though. The book where Spike originally found the orbs mentioned gave details of how to find them, but you needed some artefact that seems to have gone missing. It wasn't in the stuff that Buffy found at the nerds' old place and by now that whole building will have been picked clean by the police, so, for some time, the whole question of whether we should return them to their rightful keepers was kinda moot. I mean those caves go on for miles. Without some sort of idea where we're headed we could wander around down there until we starved to death.

Then, well, Bee came in... She managed to find a few more references in some of the demonic texts, enough to hint that even though their communication seems to be largely telepathic, they do have a ceremonial language that has similar roots to one of the languages she speaks. After what happened at The Magic Box, when they stopped working, I didn't know whether the demon's spirit would still be trapped or whether when they were drained it was either freed or consumed. As it turns out, the spirit is held within the orbs, but the energy it uses is drawn from all around it and then stored until it's needed. Willow drained the orbs until there were no reserves and it took them some time to recharge, but when Spike found them this afternoon, they were working again.

I did the trance again today. With Bee to act as a translator, we, well, it's not like we could really hold a proper conversation... It's sort of like a modern day Italian trying to speak medieval Latin, but we managed to communicate enough to know that he wants to go home and he can show us the way."

"I see..." Giles' response fell slightly on the cool side of neutral. "I'm sure your intentions are all very good but I'm not sure that now is a time when we can afford to give up any sort of advantage we might happen to have."

Bee's eyes narrowed as she stood up on platform heels that still left her well short of the watcher's height when he rose to meet her challenge. "So, if it would help you, you would be prepared to keep a human being imprisoned against her will? Or is it just okay because it's the spirit of a demon?"

"I swore a vow when I joined the council, as did Wesley, to do whatever was necessary to protect mankind from the forces of evil. Yes, unpleasant as such a duty might be, if for some reason they were a threat I would keep a human prisoner."

"If they posed a threat?" the demi-demon urged him to clarify his position.

"Well, yes... that's what I said."

Turning to Wesley her voice softened only slightly. "What about you? You would hold a human prisoner if they posed some sort of threat?"

"If they posed a threat... or if I had some sort of pressing need that only they could help with and they were unable or unlikely to co-operate of their own free will, then, yes, I would hold them under duress. I suppose it comes down to how to serve the greater good."

Bee sighed. "You can't serve the greater good, you can't serve any good by perpetrating evil... And, you," she rounded on Giles. "Unless you're prepared to admit to having a double standard I don't see how you can use the argument of the orbs being a threat to justify keeping them. Spike?"

The vampire sighed. "Havin' them around is kinda handy an', personally, I've never had much of a problem holdin' anyone prisoner as happened to suit, so I can't say as that exactly bothers me, but Glinda's not happy about the idea. Under ideal circumstances, I'd rather keep hold of them for at least another couple of months, but I'd as soon not have her stakin' me in me sleep so she can set her demon guy free." The wink only the witch saw showed he didn't really think she was a threat, but then he wasn't about to own up to wanting to make her happy in front of such a large and potentially disbelieving audience.

"Buffy?"

The slayer shook her head. "I'll sit this one out. I can see both sides of the argument and I know morally I should agree with Tara, but then there's the selfish part of me that loves spending time with Spike in the sun. We still don't know what The First is up to or what could be lurking just around the corner for that matter. I'm sure whatever we decide, we'll regret it, so I'll leave it up to you guys to sort it out."

"Well, I won't," Dawn interrupted indignantly. "Spike needs those orbs. I mean what happens if Social Services turn up for a surprise visit and we can't open the curtains. You all talk about how wrong it is to keep this demon a prisoner, but what about Spike? Without them, he's the prisoner."

The sadness in Tara's eyes didn't match her conciliatory smile. "Dawn, Spike can't use those orbs any more, at least not to walk around in daylight. If he did, then the council would feel duty bound to destroy them. If Giles' suspicions are correct Quentin Travers has already tried once to have Spike killed. The orbs on their own just by their very existence would constitute a threat they would be unable to ignore. Even if we could somehow get them to accept that Spike wasn't a threat to them, which I suspect would be all but impossible, they couldn't risk the possibility that they might fall into the hands of another vampire."

"Okay, well, when you work out a spell that lets him walk in sunlight, then you can give the orbs back to whoever they came from-."

"Like hell she will, Bitlet!" Dawn was stunned by the vehemence of Spike's reaction. "If anyone ever came up with a spell to let vampires walk in sunlight, then, you might as well all walk out and shoot yourselves now. Best case scenario, your council would obliterate anyone that even knew about it. Worst case, your whole damn planet would be overrun in a couple of months at the outside."

Xander cleared his throat loudly. "I kinda believe that all this arguing is forgetting to take into account one thing..."

Everyone turned around to look at the man as if Rogue had suddenly stood up on her hind legs and spoke. "As I recall, Blondie actually gave those orbs to me for a wedding present. That would make this my decision."

"Xan-." Giles tried to interrupt but the brunette cut him off.

"I know I'm not meant to be the brains of the operation, but I think this is more about heart than head, in any case. The way I see it, with the council here, there and everywhere Spike can't afford to be using the orbs to go wandering around in the sun all day, anyway, but the real deciding factor is this... What if it was Buffy? What if at some point down the line, the only way that she could protect the people... and I use that word in its loosest possible sense, I hasten to add, but, say, the only way she could protect the people she loved was to allow her soul to be captured in some sort of amulet. That's fine so long as the people she cares about are there to take care of this amulet, but what happens if it ends up in the hands of total strangers? What if these demons had that amulet with Buffy inside?

I don't think we have a choice. We have to give them back."

Spike's eyes searched the boy's face and found not a hint of duplicity. He wasn't making excuses to justify taking the orbs from the vampire out of pettiness. He really meant the words he spoke and put like that, there was no way the vampire could argue with him. The boy was growing up. When Xander's gaze met his, the vampire gave the slightest nod. It could have meant almost anything but when the younger man returned it Spike knew it had been interpreted as he meant it, a subtle show of respect, not of course, that he probably wouldn't be calling the boy worse than muck again by the end of the night, but just this once, the boy had managed to do something right without someone else pointing him in the right direction first.