16. Revelations
Drusilla stood in the center of the
circle, her
hands outstretched, her low, maniacal laugh echoing in the darkness of
the room as the flame continued to burn in the circle. Had she been
thinking rationally, Dru might have noticed that the flame seemed to be
burning longer than it naturally should have. She might have noticed
that when it should have long since burned out, it was still
smoldering, flickering, burning the herbs in the center of the circle,
but not consuming them as quickly as it should have.
But then, this was no natural fire.
And Drusilla rarely thought rationally.
She waited patiently, not minding the time it seemed to be taking --
because in the end, she was certain, this spell would bring her boy
back to her. And as far as she was concerned, that was worth the wait.
But as the flame became to burn down, fading away, Drusilla's mood
shifted drastically -- as the stars she had listened to so trustingly,
now revealed their deception. Her dark, mad eyes went wide with horror
and despair, as she saw what was to come -- saw the error of her spell.
What Drusilla had not known was that there were forces at work far
beyond her control or understanding, working to bring about not what
she desired, but what was rather fated to be. Her spell had not been of
her own making -- and she now knew, the results would not be exactly
what she had supposed that they would be.
The spell would indeed lead Spike to his destiny, as the Latin words
she had spoken had said...but...but that destiny was not with her.
A smoldering rage rose up in her eyes, as she reached out with her
fists, smashing them into the dying flames, crushing out the remaining
red glow of them too quickly for them to harm her -- smothering the
fire before it could finish of its own accord, in a desperate last
ditch effort to break the spell she had cast.
But the stars whispered a mockery in her ear -- it was too late.
It was already done.
A low wail rose from her lips, as she collapsed to the floor, sobbing
bitterly against the cold stone, tearing at her hair -- mourning the
loss of the childe that would never be hers again.
*********************************
About twenty minutes earlier -- just as Dru had been beginning to
perform her spell, in fact -- Spike felt his heart lurch within him as
the Slayer stepped toward him, the heavy iron shackles in her hand,
with no threat and a trusting smile on her face.
After all -- she believed he was willing to accept the chains she held,
the chains she had just locked firmly around his right wrist...
"Wait!" he objected sharply, swallowing hard in an attempt to steady
the desperate tremor he heard in his own voice, deliberately softening
his tone as he repeated, "Wait...just..."
Buffy frowned. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Spike, you can trust us.
We're only doing this so that once you lose Angel's soul you won't go
all postal on us, or run off or something. *Nobody's* going to do
anything to hurt you, I promise."
She held his gaze firmly, and he could see the sincerity there, as she
spoke. In spite of his situation, he found that he couldn't help a
slight smile as she glanced pointedly toward her vampire-hating friend
Xander as she said the word "nobody". He knew -- and found it strangely
warming -- that she really meant her words, and had no intention of
allowing any harm to come to him.
But he knew that her intentions would change drastically when she
discovered the truth.
"I know," he nodded, his mind racing in the attempt to come up with
some way out of this. "I know -- just -- let me do it -- all right? Let
me put the chains on myself?"
Buffy's frown deepened for a moment, but it was with concern rather
than suspicion. The softening of compassion he saw in her eyes, as she
misread the reasons behind his request, intensified his own queasy
feeling in the pit of his stomach, the feeling he would have labeled
"guilt", had he not been incapable of guilt.
At least -- he was supposed to be.
"Sure, Spike," Buffy agreed easily, nodding and holding his gaze
despite the mingled protests of her Watcher and her friends. "That's
fine." She held out her hand, offering the shackles to him.
He took them, feeling a possibly premature feeling of relief at this
stroke of good fortune -- and hoping against hope that she would not
feel the need to check the chains once he had "fastened" them.
As for her friends, he knew that none of them would dare venture that
physically near to him, soul or no soul, now that he was physically
stronger than he had been when he had come here. As he sat back down on
the sofa and made a show of closing the shackles around his ankles --
though subtly leaving the locks not quite all the way closed -- he was
aware that the only one who might discover his ruse of the moment was
the Slayer.
And she did not seem inclined to double check his work.
As he carefully chained his left wrist as well, making it appear as if
he had locked the tiny padlocks on the latches, while leaving them just
barely open, Spike desperately tried to formulate some sort of a plan.
Hopefully, the lot of them would be distracted once the magical
fireworks started -- and he would be able to make a break for the door.
"Okay, so how does this spell work exactly?" Buffy asked, curiosity in
her voice, without a trace of nervousness.
After all -- she had nothing to worry about, did she? This little
ritual was going to give her exactly what she wanted.
Her boyfriend back -- and a good relaxing slay.
"Well, it's actually not just one spell," Willow explained. "It's more
like 2 -- or 4, even. The first part is a locator to verify where
Angel's soul is -- that it's really in Spike. Then, the second part is
to put it back in Angel. And then, the other two parts are just the
same -- only -- with *Spike's* soul, not Angel's..."
Buffy nodded, as the shy, awkward little redhead explained the
procedure for the spell, and what everyone would have to do. Jenny
Calendar was going to be the one actually performing the spell, and
Willow herself would be meditating, opening her mind to the answers
that would hopefully come to her mind as a result. Though the others
would not be actively participating, they would still need to be on
hand to be sure everything stayed in order while it was going on.
Mostly, Willow told them, they just needed to stay out of the way, and
be sure everyone else did, too.
Spike watched with swiftly increasing anxiety as the little redhead and
the gypsy teacher set up what they needed to perform the ritual. When
all was ready, the teacher took her position in the center of one of
the two magic circles they had formed, and prepared to say the words of
the first spell; Willow quietly sat cross-legged in the middle of the
other, her eyes closed, apparently attempting to focus her thoughts.
Almost without even realizing he was doing it, Spike rose to his feet,
glancing toward the door. He had to wait -- had to be patient -- wait
until they were all distracted, and then...
Suddenly, he felt a firm hand on his shoulder, shoving him down onto
the couch again, and glanced up indignantly to see the Slayer's young
male friend standing beside the sofa, a mean smile on his lips.
"Relax," he advised with a cool, falsely friendly tone of voice. "Just
have a seat, Spike. No reason to get jumpy, is there?" The slight edge
to the boy's voice told the vampire that he had not completely bought
his story, and planned to do everything in his power to keep him from
getting away, should he make an attempt.
And at the moment, "everything in his power" was actually quite a bit,
considering that Spike couldn't fight back.
*But that's not exactly true, is it, mate?* Spike reminded himself
grimly, giving the boy a nasty, very obviously fake grin that became
menacing as he momentarily shifted to his game face. *You *can* fight
-- it just hurts like bloody hell.*
"Hey!" the boy yelped in fright, staggering back a step or two,
although Spike's face was already back to human again. "He just --
Buffy -- he..."
The Slayer turned to look at them with an irritated frown, taking in
the shaken boy, pointing and babbling as he looked wildly between her
and Spike, and the vampire who was seated and shackled on the couch,
looking up at her with a wide-eyed, innocent, bewildered expression, as
if he had absolutely no idea why Xander was reacting the way he had.
"Xander," Buffy sighed, annoyance in her voice, "we're trying to do
serious magic here. It might help if you tried not to be distracting."
"But...but..."
"Xander!" Giles snapped, cutting off any further protests as he gave
the boy a severe look. "This is quite serious. If you can't be quiet,
perhaps you should go find something else to do until we are finished."
"Fine," Xander muttered, a bit resentfully, holding up his hands in a
gesture of surrender as he casually half sat, half leaned on the arm of
the sofa, uncomfortably close to where Spike sat. "Okay...I'm fine..." He
paused, glancing disgustedly at the vampire, before adding, "...I've
*got* something to do..."
Spike felt his heart sink even further with the knowledge that despite
his half-successful scare tactics, the boy was still determined to keep
a close eye on him throughout the ritual -- which would make it much
harder to try to get away.
But not impossible, he reminded himself darkly.
And he just might have to suffer the pain of the chip, in order to
avoid a staking.
Once the ritual was ready, time seemed to move very quickly, rushing
Spike on toward the moment of truth -- in more ways than one. Within
moments, the teacher was chanting, every word bringing them all closer
to the revelation of his lie. The only small mercy seemed to be that
while she was chanting, the focus of everyone in the room seemed to be
locked onto her.
Everyone, perhaps, except for Xander.
As Jenny reached the end of her part of the spell, a swirling white
light began to circle slowly around her, then moving faster and faster,
shimmering in the air surrounding her like a golden, sparkling tornado,
and the teacher's head flew back, her breath coming harder and faster,
her eyes closed, lost in the power that was surrounding her.
All at once, still tornado-like, the golden light lifted up off of her,
moving through the air to hover over Willow's head. As it descended
onto her, Spike felt a cold knot of dread in the pit of his stomach,
and suddenly *knew* that this was it. In a moment, the truth would come
to light -- and he would have to fight, and flee -- or die.
He rose to his feet, forcefully shaking the boy's hand off his shoulder
as Xander reached out to grasp it.
Before anyone could do anything more, Willow's eyes suddenly shot open,
shimmering with the same light that now surrounded her, and she stared
at Spike with a sort of shock, as all at once, the light completely
disappeared, and the atmosphere in the room instantly returned to
normal.
Willow shook her head slowly, and Spike was strangely troubled to see a
look of disgust in her eyes now, to match her friend's.
"What is it, Willow?" Buffy asked, frowning with worry, not aware of
what exactly was wrong, but quickly picking up on the change in her
friend's mood. "What's wrong?"
"There's nothing there," Willow whispered, her eyes locked onto Spike's
in accusation. "He's -- empty."
"Empty?" Buffy echoed in a whisper, turning wide, questioning eyes on
Spike.
He felt the boy, now standing almost behind him, grab his arms as if to
hold him back, and then heard Xander's scathing voice from the side and
behind him, clarifying bluntly for the still clueless Slayer.
"Empty," he repeated. "I think it's safe to translate that as
'soulless', Buffy. He's empty because he has no soul. He's lying."
Buffy actually flinched at those words -- and so did Spike, when her
wide, disbelieving eyes locked onto his in confusion and betrayal.
"Spike?" she asked, taking a slow step toward him. "What's going on
here?"
Spike literally watched it as the hurt, the betrayal in her eyes slowly
morphed into anger and menace. "Buffy -- I was -- I was going to..."
"Xander's right," Willow interrupted him, a hard note to her voice. "He
lied. He doesn't have Angel's soul. Angel's soul is just loose --
floating around out there in the ether. It's not 'in' anyone. Spike
lied -- probably just to keep us from staking him."
"Yeah -- like you wouldn't have if I hadn't!" Spike protested, aware
that his tone was confrontational now, but unable to help the defensive
air that came over him at the open accusation and hostility he was now
sensing from nearly everyone in the room. "Yeah, I lied, okay? It's
called *survival*. It's not like I had a bloody..."
"You lied to us," the Slayer suddenly cut him off, shaking her head --
and his heart sank as the inevitable look of revulsion came into her
eyes as well, as the shock of the truth gradually wore off for her.
"You -- you disgusting...evil...*thing*."
And then -- her stake was in her hand, as she began to move toward him.
And he knew that his time was up.
With a single quick movement, he shook the shackles free of his ankles,
jerking his wrist free as well. The boy behind him tightened his grip
on his arms -- to his credit, actually, now that as far as he knew,
there was nothing to keep the vampire from attacking him.
As far as he knew.
Spike drew in a deep breath, preparing himself for what he knew he had
to do. There was no time left for explanations, for attempts at
smoothing things over, or even explaining the truth and hoping for
mercy. After his lie about the soul, there was no way they would
believe him if he told them about the chip now.
He steeled himself for the pain, knowing that he would have to move
quickly in spite of it, because after his initial action, he would not
be able to take the time to recover before acting again. In a swift
flexing motion he shook the boys hands off of him again, swinging the
chain that was still attached to one wrist in a wide, sharp arc that
caught the boy across the face, knocking him backward -- and barely
conscious -- onto the couch.
Through the explosion of pain behind his temples, he vaguely heard the
various cries of outrage from the others as he staggered toward the
door, but he fought through the nearly blinding agony, focusing only on
the door, and his last chance of freedom.
It was the Slayer's concern for her friend that saved Spike for the
moment.
Rather than chasing after him, she rushed to Xander's side, her eyes
wide with alarm as she reached down to support his lolling head with
her hand, clearly dismayed by the bloody gash that the loose shackle
had left in his forehead.
As for the others, they had not had time to register Spike's clear
disadvantage, and none of them was really willing to chase after a
soulless -- and therefore dangerous -- master vampire on their own.
Spike didn't stop moving just because he did not hear the sounds of
pursuit behind him. He kept on going, though his pace was sluggish and
balanceless through the pain that still scorched the inside of his
skull. He had gone several blocks when his weakened, battered body
finally decided that the further punishment of the chip was simply too
much to bear, and his knees gave out under him in the middle of the
sidewalk.
Spike barely managed to drag himself into the mouth of the alley to his
right, before the pain overtook him, and drove him into unconsciousness
-- just as across town, in the mansion where Dru was performing her
ill-fated spell...her maddened fists drove the last of the flames to ash.