The Fever, Part Seven Author: Elsa Frohman Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: Through the end of BtVS and AtS S4. Archive: http://www.the-sandlot.com and http://www.spikedreams.com Summary: Spike is back and working for Wolfram & Hart as an outside contractor. He's human, sort of. This is my AU S5 AtS. Note: Thanks to my fabulous beta, JanK, who has kept the grammar and punctuation on track, and offered some great suggestions. Liverpool, 1888 The streets were empty. Far from the chaos and good hunting Angelus had predicted, it was more like breaking into one of those monasteries where everyone takes a vow of poverty and trying to pick pockets. Even the gas lamps on the street corners were unlit. Apparently, nobody cared to venture outside to do it. There was ample evidence that there had been trouble. The buildings were decorated with broken windows, and the streets dotted with abandoned carriages. Here and there on the pavement were dark splatters that the vampires could easily tell were dried human and vampire blood. The remains of a bonfire -- undoubtedly an attempt to keep evil at bay -- blackened the intersection of two boulevards. At another intersection the remains of a barricade were strewn across the pavement. A dead horse that seemed to have been ravaged by wolves or starving dogs lay spread out on the cobblestones. One of its legs had been torn off and its neck was twisted at an impossible angle. Its throat had been torn out. "There aren't any rats," Darla whispered. "Listen -- there's nothing living within earshot at all." "The humans are all hiding in their homes," Angelus replied in a low voice. "Windows shuttered, doors barred. They don't dare step out into the street. We're too late. It's over." Darla shook her head. "It's more than that," she whispered. "There should be scavengers. After a slaughter, there are always scavengers -- rats, dogs, maggots and the like. There's nothing moving here -- no rustles from the alleys, no skittering from the shadows. Something's wrong." Angelus paused and listened intently. When he heard nothing, he sniffed the air. "You're right," he whispered back. "Why are we whispering?" Spike said loudly and impatiently. "There's nobody to hear us. Some hunt this turned out to be." Drusilla giggled insanely. "They'll be here soon enough," she cackled. "Be quiet!" Darla snapped. "We're here! We're here! Come one, come all!" Drusilla called out. "Keep her quiet!" Angelus snapped at Spike. "Drusilla, princess, Angelus wants you to be quiet," Spike said with sarcastic sweetness. "Doesn't matter," she giggled. "Daddy can't hide. They're coming." "Just the same, pet, let's humor him." "Very well," the dark-haired vampire said with a prim smile. "No matter. They're here." She pointed down the street ahead. A small group of figures had emerged from an alley. They were fighting amongst themselves, pouncing on one another, rolling and tumbling, clawing and biting. "What the hell?" Angelus said quietly. "They're all vampires. And they're trying to feed on each other." Drusilla laughed again. Angelus strode forward to see what was going on. Darla didn't follow him. She stood her ground, staring at the knot of struggling figures. When Angelus was about halfway to the struggle, Darla suddenly called out to him. "No! Don't go any closer!" Angelus turned. "What?" "Run!" Darla shouted. "Now!" She turned and picked up her skirts to take off in the opposite direction. Spike watched her in confusion. The vampires had noticed Angelus' presence, and broke off to come after him. Angelus hesitated for a moment, considering the choice between assuming a defensive stance and running as Darla had. The eerie silence was broken as the pursuing vampires set up an ear- shattering howl. Angelus broke and ran. Spike grabbed Drusilla's hand and dragged her along behind him. She was struggling against him, trying to get away to join their pursuers. Darla was out ahead, running as fast as her skirts would allow. Angelus streaked past. "You'd better get her moving," Angelus called back over his shoulder. Spike paused just long enough to snatch Drusilla off her feet and toss her across his shoulder. He was moving again, and caught up to Angelus and kept pace for a bit, even though Drusilla was struggling against his hold and throwing her weight back and forth, endangering his balance. "Settle down, pet," Spike hissed. "Let me go!" Drusilla screamed. "I have to go to them." Angelus put on a burst of speed and pulled ahead of Spike. They pounded down the street, looking for a way to escape the mad, shrieking vampires on their heels. Darla ducked into an alley and Angelus followed. By the time Spike got there, the two older vampires were scaling the brick wall at the end -- their shoes kicked off, and their fingers and toes finding purchase in the mortar. They skittered up the wall like huge spiders, finding holds in what seemed like a smooth surface. Spike couldn't follow them carrying Dru, and if he let go of her, he was certain she wouldn't follow him up the wall. "All right, then," he said under his breath. "We stand and fight. Like it better that way, anyway." He took Dru off his shoulder, and she immediately tried to break away and go back the way they came. Spike took her by the shoulder and spun her around to snap his fist into her face -- just hard enough to do the job. She crumpled to the ground unconscious. "Sorry, pet. Can't protect you and keep you from running at the same time. You'll thank me when you've got your wits about you." Spike stepped across her prone body to take up a defensive position, his ridged and ferocious demon face emerging as he prepared to make a desperate stand. Suddenly, the mouth of the alley was full of vampires. But they weren't coming toward him. There were more than there had been before, and they were fighting each other again. They had gone mad - - madder even than Drusilla. They howled and snarled like animals. They tore at one another and bit one another. Their blood was flying out in great gobs, splattering against the brickwork and cobblestones. Spike backed up slowly. He'd never seen anything like this. He knew that vampires would occasionally fight one another -- particularly if there were a prize in the balance. But this was something else entirely. There were no sides. Every individual was fighting every other. They were tearing one another apart. Spike took another step backward and realized Dru wasn't on the pavement where he'd left her. He looked up and saw Angelus' head sticking over the edge of the roof above. "Come on!" he called. "Now, while they're distracted." Thinking Dru must have come to her senses and gone up while his back was turned, he kicked off his boots, leapt onto the wall and climbed up. Angelus gave him a hand onto the roof. He stood up and found only Angelus and Darla were waiting for him. "Where is she?" Spike demanded. "I don't know," Darla said irritably. "She ran off while you were watching the fight." "I've got to go after her!" "No! Go after her and you can't come back to us. Not ever!" Darla said vehemently. "What do you mean? Of course I'm going after her," Spike replied. "How can you think of leaving her behind with everyone gone mad down there?" "If one of them so much as touches you, you're lost! If you touch the blood they've spilled, if you even come near to one of them, you're as good as dust," Darla replied. Spike stared at the blonde vampire. Darla looked terrified. In the eight years he'd known her, Spike had never seen fear on her face, but he saw it now. "What the bloody hell are you talking about?" he demanded. "Yes, love. What are you talking about? What's going on?" Angelus asked warily. "It's the Blood Fever," Darla said in a hushed voice. "The Master told me about it. He ran into it in Tuscany before the Renaissance. He said it threatened to destroy every vampire in Europe. "The fever makes your hunger grow until it drives you mad. First, the infected attack every human they can find, until there's no one left to eat -- then the hunger drives them to feed on one another." "But it didn't wipe out every vampire in Europe, obviously," Angelus said impatiently. "No. The Master stopped it. He chose sacrifices amongst his followers. He tied them to stakes in the apse of an abandoned church. He used them to lure the whole band of infected vampires in; then he barred the doors and set it aflame. He burned them all." Spike backed away. "How can you even think of leaving Drusilla out there?" "She's lost, boy," Angelus snapped. "By now, she's probably already infected." Spike was unmoved. "She's yours. Don't you revel in reminding me of that every night of my unlife, Angelus? 'My women,' you say. I'm just here to take care of your woman. You created her. You claim to own her. And now you're willing to walk away and leave her to that fate?" "Throw your existence away if you like, you fool," Darla snapped. "But for my part, I intend to be gone from this place before the sun rises. I'm sure Angelus will be coming with me." "We've got to get out of here without encountering any of them," Angelus said with a frown, Drusilla seemingly forgotten. "If we go back to the streets, we don't know when one of them is going to come out of an alley or around a corner at us. Even if we stick to the roofs, we may encounter one of them." "There's nothing for it. I say we stay up here and take our chances," Darla replied. Angelus nodded. Spike backed away from them. "Come with us now, or you're on your own, boy," Angelus snapped. "Run, if you like, coward," Spike sneered. "But remember this. You've given her up for lost. She's not yours any more, and she'll never be again. She's mine now, and I take care of my own." Spike stepped off the edge of the roof and plummeted to the pavement below, where he landed in a feral crouch. He sniffed the cobblestones searching for Drusilla's scent. Finding that delicate fragrance among the odors of dung and blood and mud, he followed. ------------- Spike heard the door slam as Ralph went back inside. He closed his eyes and continued to lean against the cool hood of Gunn's truck. His stomach hurt. His throat was raw. He was barely suppressing the shaking. So, this was what it meant to be human. It made him a victim of his own body. Well, bugger that. He stood up straight and forced his feet to walk back to the house. No more hiding. No more watching. It was time to do something... but what? "Knox!" he bellowed as he came through the back door. --------- The light of her laptop screen illuminated Fred's face. She paged through document after document, data table after data table. She took quick notes in a separate window in the corner of the screen. "No -- that can't be," she mumbled, as she came across a particularly unlikely bit of data. She went back several documents and checked what she'd read again. "What on earth are you up to?" she whispered. ---------- Angel put his forehead against the glass of the panoramic window of his office. It was cool. He seldom opened the blinds unless it was night. He knew he didn't have to worry about the sunshine, thanks to the special coating that kept out the harmful part of the spectrum, but he still wasn't comfortable with sunlight falling on his face. The city lights twinkled through the darkness. It was an impressive sight even if it was near midnight. He could watch the moving headlights of the cars out on the freeway, or the blinking wing lights of a plane landing at LAX, or the dark skyline peppered with a few office lights still on in distant glass towers. Life was going on out there. People were meeting, separating, falling in love, falling out of love, making deals and making connections. But it was all on the other side of the glass. He couldn't touch any of it. He was cut off, encased in steel and specially formulated plastic that kept him safe, but also kept him isolated. He was the bubble boy. Not so different from the way he'd been keeping himself lately, he mused sadly. Not so different at all. ------------ Knox wheeled his chair over to the door and stuck his head out of the computer room. "What?" he asked, sounding like he'd rather be left alone. "I want some straight answers," Spike said, steeling his voice to keep out the tremble that was trying to creep in. "OK, let's go outside," Knox said, glancing around furtively. "No. I want answers here, where everybody can hear them. Gunn, Ralph, get in here!" "Look, there are things it might not be the best idea..." Spike grabbed Knox's arm and yanked him out of his chair. "I don't bloody care! We're all entitled to the truth -- me, Gunn, Ralph, Maria and even them," he said, pointing to the four restrained vampires. "Now, wait a minute..." "No, no more waiting. Now. What are you planning to do with them?" Knox bit his lip. "Have you got a drop of humanity in you?" Spike said angrily. "Can you take sentient beings and put them in agony and let them die slowly?" Knox frowned. "Oh, I guess they end up so much better off when you break into their nests and stake them all?" "I don't bloody torture them!" Spike shouted. He took Knox by the shoulders and threw him roughly back against the wall. "I don't do experiments on them. I don't kill them by inches while they feel themselves dying for days on end." Knox looked like a deer caught in headlights. Spike was advancing on him, his face full of rage. "I'm not killing them!" he blurted out. "They're not going to die!" "Liar!" "No! Really! We've found a way to stabilize them in the second stage! They'll be fine. They just can't attack people anymore!" Spike backed off a step. He looked at Knox in disbelief. "I'm not lying. It's the synthetic blood mix. We've added a couple of things to it, and it keeps the disease organism in check. They'll be fine as long as they have some of it every day." "Oh, God," Spike said, his voice dripping with revulsion. "It's sicker than I'd guessed." "What do you mean?" Knox asked, relaxing just a little, since it seemed Spike might not tear his head off, after all. "Wolfram & Hart can build an army of incredibly powerful slaves. They'll be completely dependent on you and completely controllable. And you don't even have to capture infected vamps -- you can make your own." Gunn and Ralph were in the room now, looking at Spike and Knox in mute surprise. "Spike..." Gunn said tentatively, "they can't be up to anything like that. Angel runs Wolfram & Hart, and he'd never..." "Wouldn't he? Then how do you explain this?" Gunn shook his head. "I don't know... Something's not right. Maybe we should call Fred." "I'm through calling," Spike said angrily. "All I get is 'We can't reach Angel right now.' I'm through. This stops here and now." Spike went to a doorframe and pried off a bit of the wooden molding, breaking it so it had a pointed end. Gunn's eyes widened as the former vampire quickly dispatched the four captives, plunging his makeshift stake into each and moving on to the next. Then he went to Maria's bedside. "No! Don't!" Knox cried out. "We need her. We're incubating an antibody culture..." Knox rushed over and tried to take the stake from Spike's hand, but Spike pushed him away easily, knocking him off his feet. "You can't do this. I only need a little longer!" Knox pleaded. He started back toward Spike, but Gunn intervened. "I wouldn't do that, man," Gunn said. "I don't think he's in the mood to negotiate." Ralph was paralyzed. He watched in mute horror as Spike raised the stake over Maria's bed. "Your choice, pet," Spike said. "Tell me what you want." Maria looked up at him for a moment as if she didn't understand what he was asking. Then she nodded. "I think I want to go on living," she said quietly. "You're going to be dependent on their synthetic blood mix," Spike said evenly. "You won't be able to harm humans, or any living thing, for that matter. It will be like wearing a muzzle. I've been there, love. I may not approve of what you do, but I know what it's like when you can't. It's not going to be much fun for you." "Yes, I know. But... I think I want to try..." Spike nodded. "All right." He gathered her up and started toward the door carrying the ailing vampire. "Please! You don't know what you're doing!" Knox pleaded. "Leave the female!" "Ralph!" Spike barked, "get whatever they've got on hand of the synthetic blood. She's going to need it, and you will, too." Knox gave in, knowing he was defeated. "There are two gallons in the kitchen," he said glumly, at least hoping to stave off the demise of his prize specimens. Spike motioned for Ralph to get it. Knox stepped in front of Spike. "Look, I think I understand where you're coming from. But this isn't the way. The Senior Partners are very interested in this project. They aren't going to stand still for you walking off with the main subjects. And you aren't stopping anything, either. We have more subjects at the other location. Maybe they aren't as far along as these two, but we'll have them there in a week." "You won't if I find out where it is," Spike said with narrowed eyes. "This is wrong. If you don't know it, I feel sorry for you." "They're going to send people after you," Knox said flatly. "People a lot scarier than me. You can't believe you're going to get away with this. And what are you going to do when the synthetic blood runs out?" Spike shook his head. "I haven't a clue. I'll worry about it when the time comes." Elsa Frohman http://www.frohman.net/