The Sick Rose
by Pandarus


13. The House of Witches

"So this is where they hocus their pocus?"

She shot him another repressive look and peered back at the slice of courtyard visible through the archway. The building stood at the foot of Vysehrad hill - big, but unprepossessing. The faade was decorated with faded art nouveau swirls, but this was unremarkable in Prague - certainly it was nothing like as grand as the front of the Hotel Europa.

"William?"

"Yes?"

"Kindly shut up."

He was going to carry on needling her, but then his eye was caught by a flicker of familiar movement in the courtyard and his heart suddenly sank.

Drusilla, her narrow back towards them, pacing towards the door.

"Sodding HELL."

The bandages on her feet were filthy. The chains of the mangled steel cuffs dangled uselessly from her torn wrists and swung against the bloodied nightgown like the latest outr bangles to grace the catwalk. Bondage chic, he thought numbly, as his legs carried him down the street towards her at a run.

He never even heard the golem move behind him, but it plucked him from the ground effortlessly and Spike found himself hanging suddenly by the scruff of his neck with all the dignity of a wet kitten. He swore in several languages and wriggled uselessly, his vicious kicks and bone-splintering punches having absolutely no impact whatsoever on the damned thing that carried him. God damned magical perversions.

Spike was unceremoniously deposited at Mrs Post's feet. He whipped around in time to see Drusilla step inside the building, then threw back his head and howled pure yellow-eyed fury.

"I'm sorry, William," said Mrs Post carefully as he turned towards her, sharp-toothed and murderous. "But that approach simply would not have worked, I assure you. Believe me, this way is the best. She has their full attention now. They won't be expecting us."

He glared at her for a long moment, angry beyond words. Exerted every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from killing her then and there, golem or no. Reminded himself that he needed the bitch's help and that the little Czech watcher had told him the witches couldn't harm women. Even demon women. Drusilla was not about to be dusted, whatever it was they had in mind; but that really wasn't the point.

He should have known that the cuffs wouldn't hold his darling long if she truly wanted to be free of them. Normally she didn't want to escape. He shouldn't have left her alone.

Shit.

"Tell me," he said at last, his brow still crumpled with wrath.

"This isn't a dwelling. You aren't bound by the Invitation Rule. But," her tone was peremptory, and paused him on the brink of turning. "It is warded against humans and demons alike. Nothing living or dead can enter uninvited without setting off the...well, we shall call them 'alarms'. The invader will be ignited on the spot. It's a very powerful spell."

"But Drusilla -"

"Was plainly invited. We aren't."

He scowled at her and heard her pulse quicken; he could smell the mixture of fear and exhilaration on her body.

"So?" His voice was lethally calm.

"So - the golem. The witches' spell is centred in that orb," she said briskly, pointing at a dull sphere set into the lintel over the door. "Demons of all denominations will be set afire if they try to enter uninvited. So will humans. Golems, being neither human nor demon, neither living nor dead, should be impervious to the spell."

"Should? You'd better be a whole lot more certain than you sound, Mrs Post."

Her composure flickered for a moment.

"I'm perfectly certain. I'd stake my life on it."

"That's just as well. So what are we waiting for?"

He could hear chanting from somewhere deep within the building - had heard it very faintly all this time, but now he grew more conscious of it as the voices swelled to a crescendo and then - stopped.

Christ.

"Get on with it, you dozy cow!" he snarled. So much for tact.

Her lip curled, but Gwendolyn Post muttered something in Hebrew that sent the giant striding across the street at once. They watched it pass effortlessly through the archway and stalk up to the door. Watched the huge fingers bunch into a fist and punch straight into the orb. No human gesture, that blow; no attempt to draw the arm back and build up momentum. Just a clean, punch straight forward that shouldn't have worked but clearly - disquietingly - did.

The orb crumbled under the impact and Spike was on his feet and running at once. Patience be damned. Magic be damned. Mrs Gwendolyn Post and her ruddy great garden gnome be damned. Drusilla needed him.

Mrs Post watched the vampire hurl himself into the building and permitted herself a complacent smile. It was all progressing like clockwork. She snapped out a quick command to her golem, picked a speck of lint from her jacket and proceeded through the archway like a conquering queen.

* * *


Losing Drusilla.

It was the only thing he feared. Not Angelus or The Master or the ever-changing Slayer; such awful, awe-full figures inspired him with nothing but an impish urge to defy and let fly with fists and fangs. Losing Dru was another matter entirely. His imagination balked at it. Spike ran past whitewashed empty walls, beneath bare light bulbs dangling from the ceiling at intervals, over floors clean and smooth and characterless. He ran as if running itself would answer everything; and he tried not to think of what he might be running towards.

It was all ridiculously stark, like some amateurish set design; as if decoration were far too frivolous for this place. Spike had seen his fill of monasteries and convents back when his unholy family was still intact and Angelus was still fervently bent on corrupting Christians as creatively as he could. This had something of that feeling - institutional, practical, everyday and yet still incontrovertibly a holy place.

Where the devil was she? He could smell the faint metallic taint of her dried blood on the air, a delicate note below the more brazen layers of burning myrrh and rosemary. She was close, he would swear to it, but he found himself unable to judge the direction. But his lover was close, of that he was sure. As were the witches, damn their eyes; the throb of a dozen human heartbeats blending together into subliminal music thrumming somewhere up ahead. And abruptly the muffled chanting resumed, but it sounded different this time around; pitched deeper and more threatening.

Rounded a corner and the scent of her was stronger still. He could hear a sliver of sound that was surely the silvery scrape of steel against steel from Drusilla's tortured handcuffs - but it seemed to come from behind him, not ahead. It was the bloody witches, wasn't it? Messing with his mind.

Spike hated magic.

Didn't have a plan. Didn't have a plan. Didn't have a plan. A nagging voice in the back of his head reminded him that Mrs Gwendolyn Post had undoubtedly had a plan of some description, as well as some serious eldritch firepower. But he wasn't prepared to wait for her any damn longer, not with Drusilla defenceless in the middle of this place. The Watcher had got him in, and for this he was glad he had resisted the impulse to break her irritating neck. His patience would not extend any further.

Spike's plan, such as it was, involved biting, breaking and running, in whatever order seemed appropriate at the time. It was a tried and tested formula and had always served him well. Of course, generally it hadn't involved breaking or biting or running from a coven of Super Witches.

The air around him was charged with power, magic so thick that he felt like he was running through water. His shirt plastered itself to his unmoving chest like a second skin, heavy with not-quite-static that unaccountably made his gorge rise. His peripheral vision was peopled with figures that vanished as soon as he swung his head around for a proper look. His teeth ached.