Prologue
I felt it when Darla died the first time, a little tickle in my heart. Dru knew what it was, and where, and all that jazz, but she’d always been more attuned to that sort of thing. It was then I decided that I wanted to go to Sunnydale, figuring that whatever killed Darla deserved a pint as a sort of thank-you for doing vampire-kind a public service. And maybe it was a Slayer, and I could get another notch in my belt, was my thought at the time.
And here it was years later, and I was lying on my cot, in my cell, when I felt her die again. That little pinprick in my heart, and it was drowned out by the searing agony and loss that I felt as Dru die at her side, consumed in flames. I could see Angel’s face there, watching her burn, that bastard. I was drowning, Drusilla was screaming and burning and flailing about in my skull, clutching at my entrails for desperate bloody life as she was sucked down into hell. At least that’s what it felt like, and afterwards, I felt like she’d gutted me, pulled my intestines down with her, and I didn’t know or care that I was wailing and crying and putting on a right show for the skirts watching the cameras.
Harris showed up a few minutes later, his eye all bleary from sleeping, and he sat next to me on the cot, asking some stupid question. I just glared at him to shut him up and turned away. I wasn’t gonna cry in front of the git, but I still felt like I’d been slit open and left out to dry. After a minute of my lying there, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You’re not the only one you know.” I remember turning to look at him, having no idea what he was on about. He was flexing his metal hand, and the fingers were squeaking and clicking as he made a fist and stretched it out again. “You’re not the only one who’s lost who he used to be, who’ll never be whole again.”
The berk thought I was bawling over the chip. I just laughed and he left me alone.
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Epilogue
When I returned, I was holding a silk nightie. Which would have been a little easier to explain if I hadn’t been summoned to that extra-dimensional pow-wow thingie from a staff briefing, and didn’t reappear in front of a dozen Initiative soldiers and scientists clutching a sheer black teddy…
After assorted explanations and cross-examinations and a few badly-disguised tests of my sanity, I was ordered to mobilize to assess, and if necessary, deal with this Glorificus threat. I gathered my men, briefed them as best I could and sent out patrol details. Within a matter of hours, they radio-ed back with her address, having found a posh house in the south end that contained three human heat signatures, four signatures of shorter humanoids with body temperatures ranging from 86.2 to 86.6 fahrenheit, that I assumed to be those ‘hobbits’ that I’d been warned about, and one female humanoid that alternately registed as room-temperature, non-existent, or hot enough to burn out the thermal-scanner.
So I assembled the heavy-hitters, Lt Gates, Lt Miller and myself, and did the thing I’d been putting off.
The detention area always puts me off. I don’t like the glass doors. I think I’d prefer big iron doors with tiny windows or something. He’s lying back on his cot, looking up at the ceiling, like pretty much always. Funny how much he looks like a vampire these days, all bald and Nosferatu-y. He spends more time in game-face, too, as if he doesn’t care to look human, since he’s got nobody to fool, nobody to sneak up on or lie to.
“Hey Hoss, time to saddle up. We got an op.”
“The names Spike. Not ‘Hoss.’” He’s complaining, true to form, but he’s still getting up. He won’t admit it, but he likes going on the hunt, even if he doesn’t get to choose the prey.
“Quit yer bitchin.’ Beats me calling you ‘Hostile 17’ like everyone else around here.”
“So, we dusting more of my poker buddies?” He asks argumentatively, but I know he doesn’t care one way or another, that this argument is habit and is heart isn’t in it. He’d kill his ‘poker buddies’ as soon as me and for a lot less reason.
“Nah, I wouldn’t call out the big guns for small fry.” He perks up a tiny bit at the thought of being a big gun, but I pretend not to notice. “We’re going after a hell-goddess. I thought you might be up for it, if you’re not scared.”
His response in non-verbal and requires two fingers. He rolls his eyes and adds, “Master of the child psychology there, Harris.”
So we move out. The rest of the squaddies do their level best to ignore Spike, although a few of the newer recruits are still visibly nervous around him. I look back to see that he has gone into game-face and is softly growling menacingly as he passes, and I snap for him to cut it out. For the sake of appearances, I try to sound more annoyed and less amused…
At the deployment site, I can see that the neighboring houses have been evacuated, under pretext of a gas leak, and we move in. Spike smashes down the door and we rush in. The entryway is a bit of a cluster, and I have to invite Spike over the threshold while Forrest and Graham secure the point of entry, zapping a pair of robed demonoids. Hobbit-sized perhaps, but looking more like Gollum on a bad hair-day. As we move into the living area, a large ‘pit’ living room with balconies from the overhanging bedrooms (why the hell have a house built like a ski lodge 700 miles from the nearest mountain?), the team spreads out to engage the remaining hobbits, both of which fall. We don’t know what to make of the humans, all three male, wearing mostly nothing and chained to the wall by their ankles, and before we can figure out what’s up with that, Glorificus is on us.
She moves through us like a sword, scattering people left and right, and I manage to fire my tasers at her, only to see her pivot neatly (while hurling Spike away with her other hand) and seize the wire-guided darts out of the air. I release the current, but she only jerks slightly and then uses the wires to pull me off-balance and the next site I have is of a wall breaking around me. I stagger to my feet to see Spike being restrained and beaten with bathing implements by the chained humans. His chip prevents him from fighting back, and one of them has just finally realized that he’s been using the wrong end of the loofah, as he reverses it and makes to stake Spike. “Shoot the humans!” I shout, and the squaddies behind us turn neatly and stun the humans into unconsciousness, starting with loofah-boy.
I turn to deal with Glorificus to see Forrest pounding into her. Graham has hit her with at least a half-dozen tranquilizer darts, any one of which could knock out a small European country, but she’s still on her feet. Forrests armored fists make thunderous booms as they impact with her ribcage and chest, and she flies back, dress smoldering from the detonations of his reactively charged armor-plates (a Soviet invention, but hey, it was a good idea, armor that explodes when hit). And it all goes to hell, as she puts on a burst of speed like I’ve never seen, not even in five years of fighting vampires and demons. She’s off the wall like she’s on a spring, and she grabs both of Forrests wrists and just snaps his hands off, while her leg comes up and impacts into the center of his chest with a sickening crunch. A trail of blood comes from his mouth as he flies backwards, and I shout, “Hit the girl!” and watch five charged particle streams intersect on the enraged goddess. I add a fifth from my damaged wrist-taser. It’s not as powerful as if I’d gotten a wire into her, but it will have to do. She staggers and I nod to Graham, still gamely delivering tranq darts into her, as she’s been ripping them out as she notices them. Together we move as the electrical blasters enter cooldown and grab her arms, pinning her back against the wall. I see Spike grabbing one of her legs, and he bites down into her calf. For a second I think of him as one of those annoying terriers tugging at someones pants leg, but I am already giving the next order. “Hard ammo, open fire!”
Within seconds, the squaddies have dropped their recycling blasters and drawn M-16s. They open fire on her chest, while Graham and I shudder under her struggles. Her body rocks, the bullets staggering her, but making little impression on her hide for long moments, and I wonder if she’s just plain unbeatable when she seems to begin to lose strength, and the bullets start to have an effect, leaving behind noticeable wounds. After another minute, and a full clip reload, she finally hangs limp from our arms, her chest a sunken ruin. Graham is bleeding as well from a bad shot, but seems okay.
Taking stock of the situation, Forrest is dead, I find out later at base that both of his lungs and his heart were collapsed when his ribcage was crushed. PFC Ryan is also dead, struck in the face and killed instantly when Glorificus threw Forrests severed fists at the squaddies to distract them. Graham has a bullet wound in his arm, and it turns out that I have one in my back, that I didn’t notice (it hit metal, so it isn’t a wound to be healed so much as damage to be repaired). Spike is limp at our feet, and I think for a second that Glory just stepped on his head and killed him, but then I hear him snoring. Dumbass just drank half of Graham’s tranq supply…
I carry him back to the truck, and we gather our dead and move out.
My report stresses my responsibility for Lt Gates death, that I may have been too focused on the battle between Hostile 17 and the human captives, but the reports of my squadmates are wonderful works of creative fiction, stressing how we all would be dead if not for my ‘quick thinking, brilliant unconventional tactics and decisive leadership.’ I have no idea what they are thinking, sometimes. I fucked up, and Forrest Gates and Jeremy Ryan are dead.
So instead of a dishonorable discharge, I get a commendation for quick thinking under fire, a pat on the back and a half-hearted verbal warning that my ‘contact with Hostile 17 will be monitored.’
After drinks with the crew, I find myself in the detention area again. It takes me a few minutes to work up to checking on him, but I finally stop candy-assing around and turn off the camera on my way into his cell. He looks asleep, but I can feel the electrical currents in his brain, through the handy volt-o-meter / taser / particle blaster that used to be my left hand, so I know he’s awake. When he’s really asleep there’s no signal, like he’s actually dead or something. Big faker. “I can tell you’re awake, Hoss. I brought you a present for doing good today.” I throw a bag of blood on his chest, and he grunts, looking up at me.
“So we won again, eh?”
“Provisionally. Glory’s dead, but so’s Lt Gates and PFC Ryan.”
“Damn shame that.” Not an ounce of remorse enters his voice, he doesn’t even look up from the bag of blood, just weighing it in his hand, thoughtfully.
“Don’t lie Spike, you don’t even know who Jeremy Ryan is, and you hated Forrest.”
“Well he was a right ass, so what? He hated me right back, so all was right in our world.” He looks up, and his face has some weird kind of question in it. “Which one was Ryan again?”
“Blonde, really intense blue eyes. You scared the shit out of him and he jumped back when you growled at him this afternoon.”
“Ah, damn. Fun kid, that. Liked having him around.”
I snort, not thinking, “Yeah, almost made you feel dangerous, huh?”
His eyes turn cold, and I can tell this was a foot-putting-in-mouth moment. One of many in the life of Xander Harris, so I’m used to them, and used to the fact that Spike, like Cordelia, is one of those people that apologizing to is a waste of time, and only likely to get me in even deeper dutch.
I turn to leave, damage here done.
“It’s still warm.”
Huh? “Huh?”
“The blood, ‘s still warm.”
Oh, that. “Yeah, you like it heated, right? Like I said, good job today. We probably saved a lot of lives. Like all of them.” I’m babbling. I’m busted. Give up now…
I fumble my keycard, I can’t get out of here soon enough.
“You never did tell me where you get this stuff.”
I’m too tired, and probably too drunk, to keep up this game. “Don’t bullshit me Spike. You’re a vampire with vampire senses. You can damn well tell who it’s from.” As the door closes behind me, “It’s not like there’s anyone else here who would bleed for you.”