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

SECTION 7 - LAKE OF FIRE

People cry, people moan.
Look for a dry place to call their home.
Try to find some place to rest their bones.
While the Angels and the Devils try to make THEM their own.

(Nirvana, Album - MTV Unplugged with thanks to Zanthinegirl for the suggestion)




Chapter 7.09
Sunday, July 14th, 2002


"I envy them. Isn't that the strangest thing?" The speaker's features and even the softness of her tone might have resembled Buffy's in every detail but her casual familiarity with the turncoat preacher, with whom she strolled the underground wine cellar, was proof enough that it was really The First.

"Well, it does throw me a tad. I mean, they're just." Caleb screwed his face into a grimace. "Well, they're barely more than animals, feedin' off each other's flesh. It's nauseatin'. But you. you're everywhere." His voice grew louder and his expression more rapt as he continued. "You're in the hearts of little children. You're in the souls of the rich. You're the fire that makes people kill and hate, the fire that will cure the world of weakness. They're just sinners. You are sin."

"I do enjoy your sermons," the phantasm replied, but her cleric was not yet done.

"And you're in me. Gave me strength no man can have." His eyes were filled with an insane reverence. His gratitude obvious to the world, had anyone else been there to see.

"You're the only man strong enough to be my vessel. And I know you feel me but. I know why they grab at each other. To feel. I want to feel." The First's voice was filled with yearning, before it turned to ice. "I want to wrap my hands around an innocent neck and feel it crack."

"Amen," the clergyman added with all the fervour of a television evangelist.

"But the time when that will happen draws nearer..." She fixed Caleb with a stern glare. "I f you don't continue to let the slayers and their tame vampire annihilate all my earthly followers."

"The slayers and their people won't matter. Let them chase our little no-eyed boys all 'round town. It shouldn't be long now. Prophesies say one thing, brute strength says another. We'll get it out."

"I heard you, Caleb."

"We're almost there," the clergyman argued.

"Yes. That's true. Now rouse the Bringers that we have got left and get them back to work."

A series of dull thuds drew their attention to the stairs that led up to ground level, and a bringer landed almost at their feet, his own dagger embedded in his chest. Buffy stood on a small landing where the staircase took a right turn. Everything about her demeanour announced that this time she had come to settle this. "Hey. I heard you got something of mine." Buffy placed a hand on the metal rail at each side of the staircase and lifted her feet so she slid gracefully and swiftly to the basement, appearing as practiced as any mariner. "Some kind of holy hand grenade or something?"

Once she reached the lower level, her eyes darted left and right, taking in the huge casks that seemed to be built into the walls of the large, open chamber. Other not quite so large drums sat in groups on their ends, and the smallest ones, which were still at least as large as your average garden rain barrel sat on racks two or three high or were stacked on their sides. Nowhere was there anything to indicate where something might be hidden. There was no doorway, no staircase to lead down to the level where she and Spike had heard the bringers digging.

Caleb sauntered toward her, his tone casual and yet ominous, just like every crooked good ol' boy sheriff in a slew of movies from the seventies and eighties. "Well, if it ain't the long-anticipated Slayer. I thought you might have taken me up on that little invitation a mite sooner. I guess li'l Shannon wasn't as convincing as she might have been."

"Where's it at?" Buffy interrupted. She wasn't about to let him know just how big an effect his invitation had had on her. "I'm going to find it sooner or later."

Caleb continued to close the distance between them with the same nonchalant gait. "No, you're not. I lay one hand on you and you're just a dead little girl."

"Lay a hand on me." Buffy replied, turning her words into a dare with a tilt of her head and a raised eyebrow that would have made Spike proud. "If you can."

Caleb smiled complacently and pulled his arm back to throw a punch. As his fist flew forward with a force not known to any human, Buffy bent over backward, almost into the crab position, and the blow sailed right over her head.

"You do realise that if you wanted that punch to be a surprise you shouldn't let your jawas know what's going on." She twisted out of the way as he staggered forward, his momentum throwing him off balance.

The preacher let loose with a right hook and Buffy ducked under his flailing arm and dove forward, tucking into a roll that brought her up several yards away. Caleb's insincere smile had faded now and when he turned to face her his countenance was livid with rage. He lunged for Buffy like an NFL linebacker aiming to sack the quarterback, his shoulder aimed squarely for her solar plexus, but Buffy flipped up into a handstand on top of one of the upended casks, and then back onto her toes atop one of the stacks of kegs, her balance so perfect that the pyramid didn't move so much as a fraction of an inch. Buffy danced her way along the top row of barrels. "And people say that cheerleading is no use in real life?" she goaded the one-time clergyman, scanning the room from her new vantage point as she did so for any way to a lower level or anything sufficiently out of place to indicate a possible cache.

Caleb made a grab for Buffy's ankles but was just a touch too slow. His weight and the strength behind his lunge sent the stacked drums crashing down around him, splashing red wine all over him as they tumbled to the floor. He threw aside shards of wood and metal as he got to his feet, looking around frantically for his opponent. His gaze fell on the blonde, who sat perched atop one of the upended casks, her legs swinging like those of a small child on a porch swing as she watched him. She raised her eyes to look over his shoulder. His head whipped around to find another Buffy staring down from where she was walking the rafters behind him like a tightrope.

"Guessing that IQ isn't a major requirement when you're recruiting?" Buffy asked her simulacrum as Caleb's head twisted backward and forward.

The woman on the barrel shook her head with frustration. "Caleb, this is getting embarrassing."

Caleb lunged at the feet of the Buffy behind him, but she tucked into a handstand and back upright again, before she added one more somersault as she dismounted, landing yards from the disoriented man. Caleb made another desperate dive, but when Buffy twisted out of his reach he hit the ground hard near where The First was sitting.

"Do you have to look like that?" he asked, as he raised his eyes toward his deity.

"Will you concentrate?" she retorted.

"It's just a little confusing," Caleb half-sighed, sounding vaguely exasperated.

"Fine. Go. Kill." The First seemed to fold in on itself, and then from its centre there was a ball of light that expanded sideways and blinked into nothingness.

Buffy grinned down at the preacher from the top of a pile of drums. "You know, it seems to me like your floor is leaking more than solid concrete should." She looked down at the steadily shrinking puddle of wine on the floor.

This time, instead of making a grab for her, Caleb tugged away the cask from under her feet.

Buffy skipped to the next barrel along and pushed off against it, grabbing at one of the ceiling beams and swinging to land on the floor once more out of Caleb's reach, and closer to the area where the wine was draining from.

Choosing one of the foremost kegs at random, Buffy grabbed the top edge with a hand on either side and tilted it until it fell over on its side before she kicked it in the cleric's direction. Maybe she couldn't go toe-to-toe with this guy, but she still had slayer strength.

The First's disciple stared at her from his hunched position where he seemed to be using one of the casks to help him stay upright despite his breathless, scarlet-faced fury, only dodging out of the way of the incoming barrel at the last instant. "You whore."

"You know, you really should watch your language," Buffy remonstrated, her voice painfully chirpy as she skipped her way to the top of a rack. "If someone didn't know you, they might think you were a woman-hating prick."

Caleb grabbed another of the containers and hoisting it over his head, he threw it straight at the slayer, only to have her nimbly twist out of the way and let it go sailing past her. It smashed to kindling as it hit the nearby wall, splashing more full-bodied red over the floor. He snatched another barrel from its resting place and this time he scored a perfect hit.

Buffy fell backward, but she managed to push the drum to one side before it crushed her between it and the floor. She rolled to her feet, her eyes meeting the preacher's before they dropped to the now exposed trapdoor in the floor and then returned to Caleb, both of them watching for the tell that would give away their opponent's next move. The slayer began to circle round, as if hoping to draw him away from his spot just feet from the way to the chambers below.

Caleb hurled another keg in her direction and she dodged to one side. The impact sent one of the racks tumbling, casks spilling in all directions and covering the entrance to the lower level in a pile of debris. "Not so smart now, are you, little girl?"

Just then a reedy electronic version of "London Calling" began to play from the pocket of the slayer's jacket. Buffy's eyes sparkled with laughter as the cleric seemed to sense something wrong for the first time and began to lumber his way toward her over the mound of wood and metal in his way. The slayer darted up the stairs to the upper level. "Gotta go. My ride's here."

For a second the preacher stared after her retreating form, but then with a howl of rage he began to pull the mess away from the access hatch that led down to the excavations below.

---

Earlier that morning
 

"Yeah, yeah!" Faith rolled her eyes at Spike. "I've got it. Go in through the tunnels. Kill any bringers that get in the way. Find Excalibur Mark II and steal it. Need reinforcements, call Buffy's cell. Got the goods, call yours and Buffy can get the hell outta Dodge. It's not rocket science. I get Scottie here on Wes's motorcycle for my getaway driver. B gets Wes with Giles' Jeep. Either way, we're out of there pronto."

"Alright, then," the vampire concurred slightly morosely before passing his cell over to Buffy.

The slayer gave him a grateful smile and pushed the device into the opposite pocket to the one where she carried her own phone. "I never expected to say this to you, but it's a good plan," she whispered, leaning in close to his ear. "It'll work. He won't be expecting us to come from both sides."

"I hope you're right, pet." Spike turned and rested his forehead against hers, long pale digits brushing a caress against the claim mark on her neck. "Just make sure you don't let him lay so much as a grubby finger on you."

Buffy placed her hand over his. "Check. I've got all the fingers on me that I want."

"Geez, get a room," Faith teased scornfully, but she didn't pull her own hand free of James's as the couple made their way out into the false dawn.

Buffy pushed onto tiptoe and wound her fingers in Spike's curls to draw his lips down to meet hers. His arms folded around her, holding her close until she drew her head back and then slipping reluctantly away to let her go. "Come on, Wes. Quicker we go the more chance we have of getting back before he combusts from pure impatience."

"Actually," Wes corrected her even as she pushed him out the door. "When we can leave is rather more dependent on how long it takes Faith to find this thing you're meant to wield, and whether it's specific to you or whether it can be used by any slayer."

Buffy turned at the bottom of the school steps and gave Spike an apologetic smile. "Back soon," she mouthed silently.

"Just come back in one piece an' I'll be happy," Spike whispered in a belated reply as he stood in the school's doorway to watch Giles' 4x4 disappear down the drive.

---

 

Faith twisted the neck on the last remaining bringer. For the first time she was free to give her attention to the weapon that rested with its blade embedded in solid rock. The bringers had chipped away the granite surrounding it into a podium of sorts. The rock immediately adjacent to the blade had been burned and blackened, melted almost into glass. The edge of the blade was a gleaming silver, the remainder a gleaming metallic red. There was a grip behind the axe head and the end of the wooden shaft was sharpened into a lethal point. Faith couldn't help but gaze at the axe in awe. Slowly, she made her way forward, a growing sense of belonging coming over her. She reached out and with almost no effort she pulled the axe from its resting place. She tested its weight in her hands and for the first time since her father had walked out she felt like she was home.