FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD, Dawn, Spike, Willow, Buffy, assorted OCs
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
or A Girl and Her Hellbeast
By Barb C.
Summary: Lost in Pylea and accompanied by a Spike who's not quite himself, can Dawn find her sister before the Covenant of Trombli discovers she's the Key?
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Blood, gore, off-stage sex and occasional swearing. This story is set in an AU where Spike and Buffy are in an established relationship, and the story contains mentions of same.
Author's notes: This story is set in the same universe as A Raising in the Sun, Necessary Evils, and A Parliament of Monsters.
There was a whole lot of hard underneath her, and something bright and hot was stabbing her eyes. Stab. Stab. Stab-stab. Dawn blinked and rolled over, creaky and old-woman slow. Someone had velcroed her to the ground with sticks and old leaves, and a dozen twiggy little fingers snagged her hair. The stabby thing was sunlight, filtering down through an irregular canopy of leaves. "And we call this enemy the sun," she muttered. She squinted up through the branches. "Or suns, as the case may be."
A dust-devil of fear and excitement spun through her gut. It had worked, then. She sat up and rubbed her gritty eyes. She was sitting in a drift of old leaves beneath a mossy, undercut bank in the middle of a wood. For a hell dimension, Pylea was pretty big on the scenic. The trees were sparse enough that she could see for a good distance around, but there was no one else in sight. Unfamiliar birdsong twittered in the background, and by the angle of the freaky double shadows it was a little before or a little after noon. Dawn picked up a handful of leaf mold, sifting fragments of leaves and bark through her fingers. Were these the same trees she knew? Names went through her head, oak and alder and beech. Face it, Summers, the only beech you could tell on sight has lifeguards and towels.
She got to her feet and climbed out of the hollow, rubbing her elbows and looking around with growing unease. "Buffy?" Her voice was obtrusively loud and absurdly tiny at the same time; no one more than ten feet away could have heard her, but the birdsong shut off like someone had flipped a switch in the sound room. She felt terribly exposed all of a sudden, and backed hurriedly into the nearest tree. The bark under her fingers wasn't as reassuring as she'd hoped it would be. "Willow? Spike?"
No answer. No sound at all except the wind in the branches and the returning chirpy noises--birds, frogs, vermicious knids, who knew? Where was everyone else? The metal was supposed to keep them together, wasn't it?
There was a path of some kind a few yards away, barely more than a set of overgrown wheel-ruts winding between the trees. She walked over and crouched down to examine it; she couldn't make head or tails of the faint marks, but she didn't think any of them looked very recent. Still, trail, right? Had to be better than wandering in circles. Except weren't you supposed to stay put when you were lost? They'd be looking for her. They had to. Key Girl was their ticket home.
Dawn looked up as a new sound intruded on the silence, a clop-clop-click-clop-clop more regular than wind or birdsong. A horse, or something like it, coming towards her at a brisk walk and kicking up the occasional stone. That was good, in theory. She could ask directions, find out where she was and if anyone had seen the others.
Or she could hide under the bank and pray the Black Riders didn't get her. Dawn dove for the little hollow and burrowed down under the leaves, trying to breathe softly. The hoofbeats grew closer and more distinct. Two riders, going more slowly as they approached.
"Here?" a voice said.
There was a rustling, slapping, leathery noise. "That's what the oracle said. I don't see any--"
"Wait," the first voice interrupted. "I smell cow." Booted feet thumped to the ground. "Look here. Footprints."
Dawn silently cursed the fresh and distinctive treads of her hiking boots. Crap. Maybe she should take the initiative here. The cow thing wasn't encouraging, but there'd been reforms, hadn't there? Cordelia had left Pylea a bastion of truth, justice, and no more trading humans for quatloos. She stood up with her perkiest smile and most puppyish eyes, and waved. "Hey. I'm kinda lost. Could you guys do me a super big favor and point me towards the Library of, uh, Korthspar? Am I pronouncing that right?"
The riders were dressed in brown and green, not black, but they were otherwise sufficiently scary, being charter members of Star Trek's Forehead Of The Month Club with a sideline in tusks and bristles. "That's her!" the first one cried, pulling a big-ass knife from his belt and brandishing it with alarming enthusiasm. "Get her!"
Dawn braced herself, trying to remember all the moves applicable to two guys charging you with drawn knives, and then realized that none of said moves worked really well when the charge in question involved half a ton of horse. She whirled and ran like hell, something she was damned good at, thank you very much, no stupid high heel tripping for this little black duck. The cavalry thundered after her; she could hear the jingle of tack and the snorts of the horses getting closer and closer and...
"RRRAAAAARRAAAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!"
She knew that roar. A scaly grey-green blur dropped out of the branches overhead, fangs flashing, claws tearing, eyes blazing. It looked kind of like a cross between a velociraptor and Mighty Joe Young. It fell on the haunches of the nearest horse, rear talons digging bloody furrows in the beast's rump. The horse screamed in terror, rearing and thrashing, and the Thing closed on its rider. Ivory fangs tore through leather and flesh, and blood spattered the ground as the rider toppled over, still trapped in the Thing's savage grip. Dawn heard bone crunch and shatter beneath the pressure of those powerful jaws, and the rider screamed along with his horse and went limp. The Thing spun around with a snarl of fury, bloody jaws slavering.
The first rider's horse was hightailing it for elsewhere. The second rider was fighting with his own plunging mount. Sulfur-yellow eyes narrowed, powerful muscles bunched, and the Thing leaped again, its scimitar fangs meeting in the horse's throat, crushing its windpipe. Underbrush snapped and tore as the horse crashed to the forest floor in a spray of crimson. The Thing abandoned it for its rider, rending, tearing, burying its bloodstained muzzle in the red ruin of its prey's chest.
Dawn clung to the bole of the nearest not-beech and watched, sickened and fascinated, her heart clawing its way up her throat. The Thing raised its gory head and turned, its citrine gaze pinning her to the tree. It snuffed the air and growled deep in its chest, a low, rumbling, oddly pleased sound. She knew that growl, too. It left the limp red rags of flesh lying on the trampled ground and prowled towards her on all fours, its wide nostrils drinking in her scent. It dropped haunches to ground a foot or two away from her and sat there, licking its chops and regarding her with unfathomable golden eyes.
And most of all, she knew those eyes.
Possessed of a crazy, trembling confidence, Dawn stretched out a hand. The Thing sniffed her knuckles and allowed her to run her fingers through the coarse curly mane that ran from the back of its skull down the curve of its shoulders. Growing bolder, she stroked its head, rubbing around the bases of the spiky horns framing jaw and forehead. The Thing's eyes slitted to crescent moons of bliss and it nuzzled her hand with rough affection, leaving smears of drying blood.
"Spike?" she whispered.
The Thing cocked its head to one side, as if thinking very hard, and then its long, raspy pink tongue curled around her wrist. Dawn fell to her knees with a sob of relief and flung her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his hideous spiny muzzle--that was vampire for hello, wasn't it? Spike didn't hug back, but he broke into a thunderous purr and head-butted her enthusiastically. Dawn sat down abruptly under the onslaught. "Whoa! Human and fragile here!" She hugged him again. "Can you...talk?"
Spike blinked and nuzzled her shoulder with an agreeable little rumble.
"I guess that means no. But you can understand me, right?"
Blink.
"A little? Maybe?" Dawn got to her feet and looked around. "Who were those guys? Do you know where Buffy and Willow are?"
Spike shook himself, eyed the remains of the horsemen (horsedemons?) and snorted as if congratulating himself on a job well done. He got up and ambled back to the bodies, still on all fours. Dawn followed, uncertain. He nosed disdainfully at the two fallen demons, then flopped down in the scrubby grass and began ripping into the horse's jugular, gorging happily at the bloody feast. Dawn waited for a moment, then bent down and tugged at his shoulder. "Shouldn't we look for the others?"
Spike looked up, narrow-eyed, and growled. He might have gone all spiny and scaly, but he still had the most expressive eyes she'd ever seen, and right now they were expressing I'm hungry. Don't bother me. A second later it seemed to occur to him that perhaps he was being ill-mannered; he ripped a dripping hunk of horseflesh free of the carcass and nosed it towards Dawn with a look of polite contrition.
"Uh...thanks, but no thanks." Dawn clapped a hand over her mouth and went over to a nearby tree to sit and wait it out; she prided herself on not getting squicked by vampire stuff, but this was a little bit too Animal Channel for comfort. While Spike fed, she watched the shadows and tried to figure out which way was north, not that it helped any since she didn't have any idea what direction anything was in. It had been around eight in the morning when Willow had done the portal spell, but who knew if time here was like time at home? And how long had she been unconscious? She was thirsty, and a little hungry--well, not so much hungry after another look at Spike's lunch. She swallowed queasily. Should she be trying to salvage some of the horsemeat and...dry it, or cook it or something?
It hit her for the first time that her backpack was nowhere to be seen. That meant no lighter, no jackknife, no fifty-foot rope, no first aid kit, no canteen, and no emergency copy of the pltzgrb incantation. Oh, God, she was screwed.
But not entirely without resources. Face screwed up in disgust, Dawn returned to the scene of the crime. She navigated gingerly around the oblivious Spike and knelt down beside the least-mangled of the demon riders. He was carrying a leather satchel and the aforementioned big-ass knife, both of which she appropriated. The more-mangled rider had a similar satchel and a small leather bag full of weirdly-stamped bronze and silver coins. Neither of them were packed for a long journey, so obviously there must be civilization somewhere nearby.
She took everything she could carry and retreated to her tree to sort through the spoils of war. She'd consolidated most of the useful items into one satchel when Spike, having finally drunk his fill of horse, wandered over to drop down heavily at her side with a contented belch. He proceeded to wash his face and paws, licking meticulously between his toes... fingers... whatever... like a cat. Toilet concluded, he laid his spiny head on crossed forelimbs and watched her picking through the contents of the satchels with the detached interest of a man indulging a friend's pointless hobby. After awhile his eyelids began to droop, and he yawned and curled up, head against her thigh.
Dawn poked him. "You can't go to sleep! We need to find water!"
Spike opened one eye and growled softly, rolling over to expose his bulging tummy. I've just eaten half a horse, you silly bint. What we do now is take a nap.
"Look, I can't see well enough in the dark to travel at night, remember? And I've got to have water."
For a moment Spike didn't move. Then he heaved a martyred sigh, rolled to his feet and threw back his head, scenting the air. After a long moment he grunted and set off at a purposeful lope, looking back impatiently to see if she was following. Dawn took a deep breath, stuck the knife in her belt and slung the satchel over her shoulder, and trotted after.
****
Hell was beautiful this time of year, but after two or three long hours of trudging along a dusty, stony trail in what must have been ninety-plus degree heat, Dawn was heartily sick of the whole place. She'd never been much into the great outdoors as a concept, and the novelty of having two shadows wore off really fast. Once you'd seen one picturesque glen or flower-strewn meadow, you'd seen them all. Spike ranged ahead and circled behind, leaping out unexpectedly from behind rocks and fallen logs to chivvy her on whenever he felt her merely human pace was lagging. Vampires were such urban creatures, she'd have figured him for a spazmo in the wilderness, but Dawn strongly suspected he was enjoying himself.
Of course, Spike wasn't exactly a vampire any longer. Or was he? Willow had said something about metaphysical laws being different in other dimensions. Maybe this was what vampires looked like here. Or maybe someone had met him straight out of the portal (and what was with that, anyway?) and zapped him with a shape-changing spell.
The satchel was digging into her shoulder something fierce; obviously ergonomic backpack design was not an art much practiced by the locals. "Time out," she shouted as they reached the top of the next rise. "Pebble break." She halted in the shade of some trees that were close enough to pines for government work and leaned against a lichen-covered boulder. Up here there was a breeze, at least. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and bent to pry her left boot off.
Spike came bounding up, leaped atop the boulder and crouched there, observing the process over her shoulder. His hide blended almost perfectly with the rock beneath him. It was weird, how much he still looked like Spike, despite the Godzilla effect--the eyes, of course, but he still moved like Spike, and did that head-tilt thing, and there was even something Spikey left in the angles of his bestial face. Dawn frowned, smacking the boot against her palm. "The way I see it, there's two big questions. Who were those guys and how did they know I was going to be there, and did someone do this to you or did it just happen? Honestly, you don't seem to be real upset. You'd think you turned into a demon every day."
Spike yawned, displaying a deep red cavern lined in razor-sharp teeth. Bit, I'm not going to dignify that with a reply.
"Shut up, you know what I mean. Do you remember how it happened? Ethan Rayne turned Giles into a Fyarl that once. Did someone--"
Spike ran his tongue out with a barking noise that Dawn was certain was derisive laughter. "Well, how about one snarl for yes and two snarls for no?" She bent to put her boot back on, grumpy with heat and thirst. "You're not exactly Mr. Communication today!"
His horned head bumped her shoulder, and Spike took the sleeve of her t-shirt in his teeth with a little whine. Dawn moaned and slumped back against the rock. "Fine. I'm sorry I didn't let you sleep, OK? Are you happy? Can I rest for ten minutes now?" Spike tugged harder, and Dawn rammed her foot back into her boot and stumbled to her feet. "Great. Whatever. Lead on, MacGruff. My feet won't hurt after they've fallen off--oh!"
Once past the crest of the rise, the ground fell away down a steep bank covered in knee-high bracken, and at the foot of the cut, a swift-running creek rattled along between ranks of faux-oak and pseudo-alder, deep brown pools alternating with frothing white rapids. The path ran down the bank, crossed the stream at a shallow ford, and disappeared into the trees on the other side. The rush of the water over the rocks was the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard.
Spike plunged down the cut and splashed into the creek as if he'd personally arranged to have it put there. Dawn raced headlong after him, sliding to her knees in the muddy drifts of leaves at the water's edge. Probably bears had pissed in it, but who cared? She dunked her head and flung her dripping hair back, scooping up handful after handful of cold crisp liquid. Spike lapped a courtesy mouthful, but the water didn't interest him nearly as much as the dead horse had. He shook himself, generously providing Dawn with an unexpected shower, and padded over to the nearest pool to study his reflection--hey, how about that, Spike had a reflection!--from various angles, twisting and turning in ludicrous figure-eights in the attempt to see all of himself.
Come to think about it, the not bursting into flame was a new talent, too. Dawn looked up, squinting through the branches. The suns, while still a good distance from the horizon, were definitely sinking. Two (unfortunately mostly empty) leather water bottles had formed part of her looting spree. Dawn pulled them out of the satchel to fill them, a little dismayed to see how heavy they were when full. Her shoulder was gonna get sliced clean off, which was probably preferable to gradually dehydrating.
Mission accomplished, she crawled a little bit further up the bank and sat down amidst the bracken. The riders had been carrying some kind of gross, crumbly trail food wrapped up in waxy cloth: grain mixed up with suet and honey, maybe. If she hadn't been so hungry it would have been pretty revolting. Strike that--she was starving, and it was still revolting. What she wouldn't give for some good old marshmallow and macaroni casserole.
Spike climbed up to lie down beside her as she chewed on her unappetizing meal, with a look that said you should have tried the horsemeat. Dawn made herself comfortable against his scaly ribs and took the opportunity to give the new Spike a thorough examination. His hide looked and felt more like alligator than like snake, tough and leathery on his back and flanks, smooth and supple as kidskin on his chest and belly. The grey-green was mottled here and there with darker greens and browns, and faded to a gold-tinged cream on his belly. The only visible hair was the coarse mane which started behind his ears and ran down his spine to his shoulders. He had a tail, which she hadn't noticed at first--not much of a tail, only about six inches long, but it thumped when she rubbed his ears. He was still very obviously male, but the accoutrements were sheathed up close to his belly like a dog's, which made it slightly less embarrassing.
All of which was very interesting, but didn't tell her a darned thing about how he'd gotten this way, or what, if anything, she should do about it. "We need a plan," she said aloud.
Spike blinked in lazy agreement, but showed no particular inclination to propose one. It was difficult to tell how much he understood, but his demonic tendency to live in the moment seemed to be turned up to eleven in this shape. For once she was the hero and he was the sidekick, and the notion was kind of terrifying. "OK. You can find water, and that's cool. Food's going to be a problem." She waved the remains of her medieval power bar under his nose; he snorted with disgust. "You can hunt things, but I don't have any way to light a fire." She poked around in the satchel. "Unless this is a tinder box, but even if it is, I don't know how to use it."
Spike's left ear flicked forward. Don't bloody ask me. I was born well after the invention of the lucifer.
"And no offense, but eating raw smeerp, or whatever they have around here, is a one-way ticket to an exciting death by alien parasites. So we've got to find real food." She hefted the bag of mystery coins. "We've got money, and this trail has to lead somewhere," she said. "So if we follow it, then--"
Both Spike's ears flicked to attention, and he shook his head violently.
"Oh, yeah? You have a better idea?"
He jerked his head upstream with a 'grrf!', heaved himself out from underneath her, trotted a few paces, and looked back expectantly.
Dawn folded her arms and glowered. "That's dumb. Everyone except those morons in Blair Witch knows that you either stay on the path or you follow streams down."
The ears went back. "Raargh!"
"And your plans always work so well?"
Spike looked back the way they'd come, a determined glint in his eyes, and zip! he was behind her, shoving her in the direction he wanted her to go. Dawn tripped over a moss-slick rock and almost fell in the stream. "Hey! Quit that! Give me one good reason to go--"
Clop-clop-clop-clop...
Dawn had never realized that the sound of hooves could be so chilling. She dove down into the bracken, flat on her belly. Spike crouched beside her, motionless, his eyes molten slivers and his lips skinned back over his fangs. The creak of wheels and the jingle of harness soon joined the hoofbeats, and after an eternity, an ox-ish looking thing pulling a wagon full of purple cabbage-like plants came swaying around the bed of the road. Ox-Thing clomped to a ponderous halt on the other side of the stream, its wet nostrils flaring, and tossed its shaggy head with an unhappy bellow.
The saggy, warty demon in the driver's seat looked about uneasily, and flapped the reins at the creature's rump. "Gee up, Buttercup! We've no time to waste when night's coming!"
Buttercup slewed sideways, seeming greatly disinclined to gee. Spike stirred infinitesimally beside her, and Dawn realized the ox-critter had probably caught his scent. A second later she realized what the infinitesimal stirring meant.
"No, Spike!" she hissed. He froze, his eyes half-glazed with bloodlust. "You can't possibly be hungry and they haven't done anything--"
A rusty-tan creature sat up by the warty driver's side, growling. It looked a little like Spike, except smaller, with more mane and no horns. It braced its forefeet against the side of the cart and snarled in their direction. This was apparently too much for Spike to endure; he snarled back, ears flat and tail lashing. The driver scrabbled about in the seat for a crossbow. "I'm armed!" he shouted, waving the weapon about in a manner more threatening to random tree branches than to his assailants. "You'll not take me alive, you brigands!"
This was getting out of hand. Admittedly the direct approach hadn't worked so well the first time, but... Dawn rose cautiously to her feet, one hand wound tightly in Spike's mane. He was growling non-stop now, straining against her grip as if he'd like nothing better than to give the farmer, his ox, and his little dog Toto the same treatment he'd given the riders. "No, Spike!" she repeated. "We're not brigands," she shouted down to the farmer. "We're just trying to find the nearest town. I'm looking for my sister, Buffy Summers--" Spike interrupted his growling for an eager whine--"She's like me, except shorter and with lighter hair. Our friend Willow might be with her--she either looks like me except with red hair, or like him--" she pointed at Spike. "I'm not sure which. Have you seen them?"
The farmer cuffed his dog-thing (which was still yammering at Spike) and stood up in the box, peering short-sightedly at her and clutching the crossbow. "Why, you're but a little girl-cow," he said.
Spike's eyes went red and he lunged at the cart with a slavering roar, dragging Dawn several feet down the bank before she could wrestle him under control again. "I'm not little, and if I were you I'd lay off the C-word. He gets cranky."
"These are parlous times, when honest tillers of the soil are accosted by..." The farmer broke off with a cautious glance at Spike. "...humans at every turn! I suppose you'll be demanding tribute, aye, and calling it--"
"All I want is to find my sister." And the books they'd come for--wouldn't it be wicked cool if she and Spike could complete the mission while Buffy was wandering around in the wilderness somewhere? "Can you tell us where the nearest town is? Or take us there?" She reached into the satchel and extracted a random coin from the leather bag. "We can pay."
The farmer's eyes widened. "Why didn't you say so, young miss? Climb aboard!"
****
It didn't take Dawn long to decide that she'd made a huge mistake.
Riding an ox-cart turned out to be not much faster than walking, the ox-thing smelled like butt, the wheels kicked up entire Depression-Era novels worth of dust, and independent suspension was still on the drawing board. She clung to the seat of the wagon as it clunked into another rut and lurched out again. Just think, Mom could have saved all that money on dental work if she'd known Dawn would have all her teeth jarred loose by the age of sixteen. Spike and Tobi (Tobi was the trackerbeast) crouched in opposite corners of the wagonbed, snarling across the heap of alien cabbages and doubtless hatching plans to do away with one another at the earliest opportunity.
At least Farmer MacGregor (his real name was Grntspruut of the Gathwok Clan, but Dawn wasn't even going to try that one) seemed more than willing to shoulder the lion's share of the conversational burden. "...Korthspar, eh? You're well out of your way, young miss, for it's a good fifty leagues south of here. I've heard nowt of any who might be this sister of yours, but could be you'll find news in Leetle Cheeping. There's to be a fair this very morrow, and travelers from aye and about'll be there for the inquiring. It's a good thing for you I happened along, young miss," he said, shaking a blunt-clawed finger beneath her nose. "The roads aren't safe for lone travelers these days."
"I didn't realize," Dawn said in the breathless, you-are-so-wise tone she'd perfected on teachers and social workers in the last two years. "I heard that Pylea was very law-abiding."
MacGregor shook his head, plucked a straw from the brim of his hat, and sucked on it mournfully. "Time was, young miss, a pretty young maid could walk the length and breadth of this land decked out in gold and jewels, and none touch a wart on her nose. But there's been naught but trouble since the Covenant fell from power some years since--not what it wasn't their own fault, mind you, putting a co-a human on the throne, Sight or no Sight! Heedless, silly thing she was, pronounced a passel of new laws and pranced off leaving the Groosalugg to rule. I'll not argue he wasn't a mighty champion, but--" MacGregor tapped his forehead. "His virtue was in his thews and not his thoughts, and had no more idea how to run a kingdom than to fly to the moon. Inside a year the realm was in shambles and he was gone, clean disappeared. Some say as the remains of the Covenant had him slain, others say he followed his cow princess..." He cast a wary look at Spike, but Spike didn't seem to object to the adjective when applied to Cordelia. "Be as may, there's been war since, this band and that claiming the right to rule. Frothgar of the Deathwok Clan holds sway hereabouts, but there's riff-raff of all kinds abroad, and few of them friendly towards your kind, begging your pardon. You'd do best to stick close by me till you find your friends."
If what he said was true (and that was super-sized if) that pretty much aced the idea of claiming to be an emissary for Princess Cordelia. There should be some kind of law about fairy tales meeting realpolitik. "Which side's winning the war?"
MacGregor spat over the side of the cart. "Don't know, and don't care. The only difference it'll make to us is what livery the tax collectors show up wearing come harvest time." His eyes darted over her, as if he were assessing a flehegna heifer, and he fingered the sleeve of her t-shirt with one gnarled paw. Was that glitter in his eyes cunning, or greed, or just dust? "N'er have I seen the likes of this cloth, fine as gadnar silk and so cunning wove! You must have traveled far indeed, young miss."
Dawn squirmed, recalling Spike's sage advice that a lie was all the better for having some truth in it. "Yeah, I make finding Nemo look like a trip to Circle K. I'm going to Korthspar to search the library for an, uh, sick friend of ours. Of the Deathwok Clan." Better not get too specific; Angel and Wesley had separately impressed upon all of them that Lorne wasn't exactly a celebrity in his home town. "His sensing talent thing that they do? It's kind of been out of whack lately. Almost as if he's been cursed." Warming to her tale, she added, "He's at death's door, all pale and languishing and feverish. So we swore a mighty oath to travel the length and breadth of the land and bring him healing or perish in the attempt--"
MacGregor seemed duly impressed; apparently heroics went over big in Pylea. The forest thinned and disappeared, replaced by fields and pastures and farmsteads. They began to run into other travelers: on foot, riding horses, driving flocks of sheep or pigs or herds of flehegna (that being the proper name of the ox-thing). They rode wagons and pushed wheelbarrows full of vegetables or racks of dried fish or bolts of cloth. They reached the walls of Leetle Cheeping an hour or so before sundown, passed through the gates by a couple of bored-looking Deathwok Clanners in rusty, ill-kept armor. It was a bustling metropolis of several thousand people (using the term 'people' very loosely).
Dawn stared as MacGregor urged Buttercup down the main street. The center of town boasted cobbled streets and tile-roofed stone buildings rising two or three stories tall, but most of the streets were muddy and most of the shops and houses were wood and plaster and thatch. All around were demons: pale, jowly demons of the Gathwok Clan; green-skinned, crimson-eyed demons of the Deathwok Clan; hooded, rust-skinned demons of the Covenant of Trombli; and ordinary humans bustling in all directions. The stench was incredible--open sewers and rotting food and way, way too many species of unwashed bodies. Not that she was all that fragrant herself at this point, but ugh. She wondered how Spike could stand it, but then, he was a demon, so maybe this was roses to him.
"I guess this is where we get off," Dawn said. She fished the silver coin she'd waved at him originally--neither the largest nor the smallest--out of the pouch and offered it to MacGregor. "Is this enough?" She made her eyes all wide and pitiful. "It's all I have." Somewhere Anya was probably committing ritual suicide in shame in having failed to pass on any of her haggling skills, but if she was giving the guy a hundred-dollar tip on a ten dollar cab fare she was just going to have to soak it up. At least she wasn't dumb enough to let on that she had a fistful of dollars just like it.
MacGregor snatched the coin readily enough, but when she started to hop off the wagon seat he laid a clawed hand on her arm to restrain her. "Not so hasty, young miss!" At Spike's warning growl the old farmer let go immediately. "What I mean to say is, my conscience wouldn't let me rest, knowing a morsel like you was wandering round a rough place like this untended, and I'll tell you now, you'll not get an innkeeper in town to admit that beast of yours."
Dawn glanced at Spike, who was hanging over the side of the wagon bed with his tongue lolling out, eying the passers-by as if trying to pick out the juiciest. "Why not?"
"Don't you know what you've got there, girl? That's no common trackerbeast, that's a Van-tal, one of the drinkers of blood. 'Tis a curse passed only among c-humans, that if one's bit, they die, and rise again, seeming healthy and well--but soon or late the rage takes them and they transform into this dreadful monster, fearsome as a drokken, which kills all about it for the pleasure of seeing the blood run. When they come to themselves again they may remember nowt of it, and go on as before, until the rage takes them again. Come to the last, if they're not found out and slain, they become the beast for good and all, and never walk as a man again."
Huh. It sounded like vampirism worked more like werewolf stuff here. It was a relief to know that Spike could turn back, if only he could figure out how--he made a cool demon-thing, but Spike without running commentary was deeply wrong. "I know what Spike is." Dawn patted his shoulder. "But he's different. He's..."
"Aye, and you can explain that to the innkeeper afeard of having his paying customers slaughtered in the night?"
Dawn looked around; the streets were starting to empty, and smoky yellow lights were coming on in the windows. Her stomach growled loudly enough to make Spike blink. "We'll sleep in an alley, then."
"And get rapped on the head by the night watch for vagrants and thieves? No, missy, I couldn't rest easy knowing you were huddled shivering on muddy cobbles whilst I slept soft and safe. Listen: The owner of the Blighted Pig is well-known to me, and on my word she'll grant the both of you leave to sleep in the stables. Tisn't fancy, but you'll sleep warm and dry, and have a sup as good as any in the old palace as was. Then in the morning you can inquire about your sister around and about the fair."
"Well..." She didn't entirely trust MacGregor; demons weren't always evil, but they generally looked out for number one, and all this altruism for a total stranger was suspicious. But she was in a strange town in a strange world, and now that the suns were down, it was starting to get surprisingly chilly. The idea of spending the night in the gutter was gross beyond belief, especially considering some of the things floating in it. "OK. Lead the way."
****
Grigna, the owner of the Blighted Pig, was a large Deathwok woman with a gimlet eye and impressive biceps, very Charles Dickens-meets-Terry Pratchett. The inn's trackerbeast, a huge grizzled grey and black creature missing half an ear and covered with scars, snarled at them from a kennel near the front door. Hmph. There was no denying Spike was far handsomer: sleek and muscular, with bright eyes, well-shaped horns and glossy scales.
Grigna planted one fist on an aproned hip and looked the two of them up and down, stroking her blazing orange beard. "So, you want to stay the night?" she rumbled. "And I suppose you want to be fed on top of it. What if this creature of yours runs amuck, or frets the horses?"
"Spike won't cause any trouble," Dawn assured her. Spike lowered his head and matched the rumble, pressing close to Dawn's side. "He's perfectly safe, most of the time, as long as you don't get him mad and he's not too hungry and--and I can sweep up the stable or wash dishes or something." She didn't want to fling any more money around till she had a chance to do some clandestine observation at the fair tomorrow, and get an idea what things cost.
"Come, Grigna," MacGregor said with an ingratiating grin. "Do them a good turn and it'll come back to you, as Frugot says."
Grigna shot him a significant look which had Dawn's hackles almost as bristly as Spike's. "True, true, must give a bit to get a bit. Here's an offer, girl: if you're out of money, as Goodman Grntspruut says, and that Van-tal of yours is as well-trained as you claim--"
"Aye, he's well-trained," MacGregor allowed. "I've never seen the like."
"--I'll take him off your hands for a tri-bit. I could use another good watchbeast."
"Spike's not trained at all!" Dawn snapped. "I don't own him. He's a friend of mine. He goes where he likes."
"Aye?" Grigna said, as if the concept of 'friend' flummoxed her. "Perhaps you'd care to set up a match between your beast and our Goggle. Naught brings in the coppers faster than a good beastfight."
Dawn glanced over at Goggle. Goggle was bear-sized, considerably larger than Spike, but his ribs were showing and his hide was dull and patchy. "No, thanks. It wouldn't be fair to your beast."
Spike tucked in his chin, puffed out his chest, and preened. There was another exchange of significant looks, and Grigna shrugged. "Suit yourself. Stable's this way."
As they followed Grigna across the courtyard of the inn, Dawn had uneasy premonitions of trying to sleep between the hooves of a restless horse. But the small room to which the innkeeper ushered them was apparently meant to house the grooms and stableboys during the times when the inn was prosperous enough to afford them, which didn't seem to be the case at present. A door in the back opened directly into the stables proper, but the room itself was safely horse-free. It was dusty and obviously unused, but otherwise far superior to the gutter. There were three cots supplied with thick, scratchy wool blankets and musty straw-tick mattresses that made Dawn itch just looking at them. A small pot-bellied stove and a hod of rather damp coal took up one corner, and a small table the other. Spike padded in and began nosing around the room, poking his snout under the beds.
"Here's your lodgings," Grigna said. "You can come to the common room and fetch yourself a bowl of stew if you like, but the Van-tal stays here."
"I get a bowl for Spike too, of course," Dawn said, pleased that her haggling genes had finally kicked in. "Unless you have some fresh blood."
Grigna pulled a long face. "We slaughtered a pig this morning, but the drippings are marked for blood sausages--"
Spike lunged at something under the bed, shouldering the cot halfway off the ground. There was a snap and a crunch, and he backed out holding a spiny greyish thing that looked like a cross between a rat and a horny toad. He gave it a decisive, neck-snapping shake and pranced over to lay his prize at Dawn's feet. Dawn tried not to wince.
"Thanks, Spike. You can have it." Spike snapped the rat-lizard up and swallowed it whole, and Dawn gave Grigna a cool look. "Since he's going to be taking care of your rat-lizard problem for you..."
An hour later, she'd secured a light for the stove, a candle, a bowl of spicy and surprisingly good stew and a mug of small beer for herself and a bucket of pig's blood for Spike. Dawn set her empty bowl on the table and curled up on the sturdiest of the cots, a horse-blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Spike licked the last drop of pig from his muzzle, swiped a paw behind his ears and hopped up on the cot with her, laying his head in her lap. The two of them settled back with a mutual sigh of repletion.
She was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep just yet. She leaned against the wall, watching the flicker of the coals through the grate of the stove, and threaded her fingers through Spike's mane, scratching behind his ears and down his neck and shoulders. Spike flexed his toes and groaned with pleasure, digging his claws into the blankets. Dawn grinned. "You are going to be SO embarrassed when you turn back into yourself, you big slut." Spike snorted, dismissing the possibility. "Farmer MacGregor said you could turn back, you know. Do you remember how?"
"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh." Got a full belly and a pretty girl scratching my ears. Why would I want to?
"Well, you can't stay like this forever." Dawn frowned down at the bonelessly relaxed demon at her side. "This fair thing sounds like our best bet for finding the others. Even if no one's seen them, we can tell people what they look like and leave messages and stuff. And we can find out exactly how to get to Korthspar." She yawned; the combination of a long hard day, a full stomach, and Spike's drowsy rasping purr was soporific. "But I gotta pee first. Did they leave us a chamber pot, or do we just piss against the wall like everyone else seems to?"
An examination of the cobwebby space under the cots revealed that there was, in fact, no chamberpot. Irritated, Dawn walked over to the door and tugged on the handle.
It was locked. From the outside.
"What the...Grigna must have locked it when she brought over your blood." After a futile rattle or two, she went over the the stable-side door. It, too, was immovable. Dawn kicked it, to no avail.
Spike's eyes narrowed. He reared upright, wrapped his finger-paws around the door latch and pulled, putting some vampire muscle into it. The door shuddered. Spike yanked again, harder, and the board in the latch outside snapped with a loud crack. Dawn peered out into the courtyard--she'd grown up in the light-haze of L.A., and the sheer darkness of the unelectrified night was creepy. The windows of the Blighted Pig were aglow with fire and lamplight, and the crowd of fair-goers staying there were obviously making a night of it. Roars of laughter and the drumming of dancing feet drifted across on the night air.
"Should we just make a run for it?" Dawn whispered. The thought of gutter-sleepage still wasn't very appetizing.
Spike eyed the lamplit windows and ran his tongue over his teeth.
"You're right, we need to find out what's going on. OK, this is where it would be really useful for you to turn human again, because I need those vampire ears and I need you to be able to tell me what they're saying."
A wrinkle appeared between Spike's brow ridges, and he turned round on his stubby tail several times in succession. He hunched his shoulders and scrunched his eyes shut. Nothing happened. After a moment he looked up at Dawn and whined.
Rats. "It's OK," she whispered. "You'll figure it out. It's like riding a bicycle. Did you ever learn how to ride a bicycle?"
Spike's ears went flat and his horned jaw thrust out. You've got to be joking.
Dawn gave him a reassuring pat and pulled her blanket more firmly about her shoulders. If she was remembering right from her trip in to get the stew, Grigna's private quarters had been off at the rear of the inn, which would make them that window right over...there. "Come on, Spike. Let's see what we can find out."
She crept along the side of the inn, keeping a wary eye towards the front of the inn where Goggle snored and grumbled in restless sleep. The gigantic trackerbeast was chained to its kennel, but if it started making noise, they were in for it. Spike padded along behind her, yawning. Well, he'd had a hard day too, and done a lot more running around than she had. Even vampire stamina had its limits.
The glass in the windows was thick and wavery, impossible to see or hear through, but the corner of one windowpane was broken and a bundle of dirty rags had been stuffed into the gap. Dawn tugged the rotting cloth free and pressed her eye close to the triangular opening.
There were three people in the room: Grigna, MacGregor, and a Covenant guy in hooded robes. His hood was thrown back to reveal a bald, brick-red skull, and his ruddy forehead was tattooed with the creepy black eye symbols that signified a priest of the old order. He was pacing in small nervous circles, wearing more holes in the braided rag rug underfoot. Grigna was seated at a large desk covered with tally-books, accounts, receipts, quill pens, blotters, inkwells, and assorted other scholarly paraphernalia. MacGregor stood by the fireplace, pulling on a long-stemmed pipe, Tobi snoozing at his feet.
"...you're certain it's the cow the oracle spoke of?" the robed demon was saying.
"Now, how can anyone be certain of that, Zekediah, when the oracle's words can be read six ways today and seven on market-day?" MacGregor puffed on his pipe, sending a cloud of fragrant blue smoke towards the window. Dawn mashed her hand against her nose to stifle a sneeze. "The important thing is, there's sure to be someone who'll believe she's the cow the oracle spoke of, and pay well--"
Zekediah slammed a fist on Grigna's desk. "If she's truly the Key That Unlocks the Doors of Air, the last thing I want to do is sell her! She's our only hope for contacting the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart, and regaining control over the cursed cows--"
Dawn stuffed the rags back into the broken window and dropped to the ground beneath the sill, her heart slamming against her ribs. Crap, crap, crap! The riders Spike had killed had said something about an oracle, too--there must be a mystic APB out on her.
Until a week ago, when Wesley had done the divination to find the nearest dimensional hot spot, she'd been certain that she was de-Keyed, used up, plain ol' ordinary Dawn Summers. But guess what, the nearest dimensional hot spot turned out to be wherever plain ol' ordinary Dawn Summers was standing at the moment, and Fred pointed out that it wasn't really all that likely that closing one measly Hellmouth could permanently deplete a mystical force designed to open and close all the dimensional walls in existence.
And it kinda hadn't sucked, being Key Girl again. All she had to do was stand there while they read off the tongue-mangling words of the incantation, and instant portal, no cutting or bleeding or dying required, yay for the miracles of modern science! Well, as long as where she wanted to go was Pylea, since that was the only dimension that Fred had the transformational coordinates for. Yet. But that was fine, since Pylea was where they needed to go.
In the rush of actually being able to do something useful with the Key gig for the first time, she hadn't let herself think about the fact that all the old baggage was still attached. Someone, somewhere, would always be trying to grab her and use her in some stupid apocalyptic scheme. Dawn let her head thunk back against the inn wall, giving in to self-pity for a moment, and then straightened with steely-eyed resolve. Fine. This time it was going to be different. No more damsel in distress, no more being a pawn in everyone else's mystical reindeer games. This Key was going to kick ass and take names. Or maybe just run like hell, that being something she was really good at, after all. "Let's grab our stuff and get out of here," she whispered to Spike. "Spike?"
Spike was curled up in a scaly grey-green circle, nose tucked into his paws. Dawn shook him. "Spike!"
Spike snored.
This was a situation calling for serious profanity. "Shit." She shook him harder, yanking on his mane. "Double shit. Spike, wake up!"
Muzzy golden eyes blinked up at her. Spike's tongue flicked out to rasp against her hand, and then he was dead to the world again. This wasn't right. Spike never slept that hard unless he was drunk, badly wounded, or utterly exhausted. They must have drugged the pig's blood--she should have suspected something earlier, the way Grigna had been trying to get Spike away from her. Crappity crap crap crap.
They couldn't stay here. Someone would notice them. OK. She'd moved Spike once or twice the summer after Buffy died, when she'd come to his crypt and found him passed out on the floor. She could do this. Of course, the summer after Buffy died, Spike had been conducting a scientific experiment to see if vampires could survive on a diet consisting solely of alcohol and Cheetos (it hadn't been a big success) and probably hadn't weighed more than one-forty. He hadn't been easy to lug around even then. In the year and a half since, he'd regained his appetite and considerable muscle, and there was no way she could haul almost a hundred and seventy pounds of rock-solid demon very far.
She looked desperately around the courtyard. Goggle's kennel? No, too dangerous. The stables? First place they'd look. What was the last place, the purloined letter of Pylean architecture? The place that was...
...right in front of her face.
Dawn scrambled to her feet and worked her hands under Spike's forelegs, heaving as hard as she could. "Ooof!" She managed to stagger a few feet before tripping over the edge of the cellar doors and collapsing in a panting heap on top of the comatose vampire. She yanked the cellar door open and heaved Spike over the threshold in an excess of adrenaline and panic--either the cellar of an inn counted as a public place, or Grigna's earlier permission to sleep in the stables counted as an invitation. Or maybe that was another vampire rule that worked differently here. They'd have to experiment. Later.
Getting Spike down the stairs was easier than trying to drag him across level ground--she just gave him a shove and he rolled most of the way down on his own. The cellar was at least well-provisioned, full of crates and bags and boxes of weirdly-shaped roots and dried fruit and flour and wheels of cheese. A row of big oaken barrels with spigots that smelled malty and weird cut half of the cellar off from the other half, and Dawn wrestled Spike behind one of the barrels and dashed back up the stairs, gasping with fear and exertion. She peered out into the courtyard; no one was in sight, so she raced across to the stables and bundled up her satchel in two of the horse-blankets. On the way out she took the broken stick which had barred the door and flung it over the wall of the courtyard, replacing it in the latch with another from the pile of firewood. There. Let them wonder about that locked room mystery a bit.
Spike was stirring when she got back, shaking his groggy head and wincing at his collection of mysterious new bruises. He started a growl and broke it off when he realized who she was. "Shh," Dawn said. She pointed at the second set of stairs, which led up into the inn's kitchen. "Grigna drugged your blood. They want to get rid of you and sell me because of a prophecy or something. It's--no, Spike, wait!" Spike was staggering lopsidedly towards the stairs with blood in his eye. Dawn tackled him, grabbed his hindquarters, and managed to knock him off his feet. "You can't take on the whole place!"
"RAUUURGH!" And why the fuck not?
"Because I just knocked you over, is why! You're still all dopey! Wait till it wears off and kill them tomorrow!"
Spike glared at her for a long moment, then subsided with a sullen snarl. He paced unsteadily back into the depths of the cellar, sniffing at every suspicious box and crate, until he found a little box-cave to crawl into. Dawn spread out one blanket on the packed earth of the floor, and draped the other one across the boxes, and the two of them crawled into their makeshift hideaway and curled up together. Dawn flung an arm across Spike's side and buried her face in his mane; he didn't have any body heat to speak of, but it was still a comfort to lie close to another friendly body. Stripped of the leather and cigarette smoke, he still smelled like Spike: earthy and male and comforting. His ribs rose and fell under her hand--did he need to breathe, in this world, or was he just doing it from habit, like always?
A wet raspy tongue caressed her cheek. Spike didn't care who was after her or why, whether she was the Key or not. Spike just loved her. And that... that was pretty cool. After awhile, Dawn's eyes closed, and she slept.
Continued in Part II
Demon-type Spike
or A Girl and Her Hellbeast
By Barb C.
Summary: Lost in Pylea and accompanied by a Spike who's not quite himself, can Dawn find her sister before the Covenant of Trombli discovers she's the Key?
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Blood, gore, off-stage sex and occasional swearing. This story is set in an AU where Spike and Buffy are in an established relationship, and the story contains mentions of same.
Author's notes: This story is set in the same universe as A Raising in the Sun, Necessary Evils, and A Parliament of Monsters.
There was a whole lot of hard underneath her, and something bright and hot was stabbing her eyes. Stab. Stab. Stab-stab. Dawn blinked and rolled over, creaky and old-woman slow. Someone had velcroed her to the ground with sticks and old leaves, and a dozen twiggy little fingers snagged her hair. The stabby thing was sunlight, filtering down through an irregular canopy of leaves. "And we call this enemy the sun," she muttered. She squinted up through the branches. "Or suns, as the case may be."
A dust-devil of fear and excitement spun through her gut. It had worked, then. She sat up and rubbed her gritty eyes. She was sitting in a drift of old leaves beneath a mossy, undercut bank in the middle of a wood. For a hell dimension, Pylea was pretty big on the scenic. The trees were sparse enough that she could see for a good distance around, but there was no one else in sight. Unfamiliar birdsong twittered in the background, and by the angle of the freaky double shadows it was a little before or a little after noon. Dawn picked up a handful of leaf mold, sifting fragments of leaves and bark through her fingers. Were these the same trees she knew? Names went through her head, oak and alder and beech. Face it, Summers, the only beech you could tell on sight has lifeguards and towels.
She got to her feet and climbed out of the hollow, rubbing her elbows and looking around with growing unease. "Buffy?" Her voice was obtrusively loud and absurdly tiny at the same time; no one more than ten feet away could have heard her, but the birdsong shut off like someone had flipped a switch in the sound room. She felt terribly exposed all of a sudden, and backed hurriedly into the nearest tree. The bark under her fingers wasn't as reassuring as she'd hoped it would be. "Willow? Spike?"
No answer. No sound at all except the wind in the branches and the returning chirpy noises--birds, frogs, vermicious knids, who knew? Where was everyone else? The metal was supposed to keep them together, wasn't it?
There was a path of some kind a few yards away, barely more than a set of overgrown wheel-ruts winding between the trees. She walked over and crouched down to examine it; she couldn't make head or tails of the faint marks, but she didn't think any of them looked very recent. Still, trail, right? Had to be better than wandering in circles. Except weren't you supposed to stay put when you were lost? They'd be looking for her. They had to. Key Girl was their ticket home.
Dawn looked up as a new sound intruded on the silence, a clop-clop-click-clop-clop more regular than wind or birdsong. A horse, or something like it, coming towards her at a brisk walk and kicking up the occasional stone. That was good, in theory. She could ask directions, find out where she was and if anyone had seen the others.
Or she could hide under the bank and pray the Black Riders didn't get her. Dawn dove for the little hollow and burrowed down under the leaves, trying to breathe softly. The hoofbeats grew closer and more distinct. Two riders, going more slowly as they approached.
"Here?" a voice said.
There was a rustling, slapping, leathery noise. "That's what the oracle said. I don't see any--"
"Wait," the first voice interrupted. "I smell cow." Booted feet thumped to the ground. "Look here. Footprints."
Dawn silently cursed the fresh and distinctive treads of her hiking boots. Crap. Maybe she should take the initiative here. The cow thing wasn't encouraging, but there'd been reforms, hadn't there? Cordelia had left Pylea a bastion of truth, justice, and no more trading humans for quatloos. She stood up with her perkiest smile and most puppyish eyes, and waved. "Hey. I'm kinda lost. Could you guys do me a super big favor and point me towards the Library of, uh, Korthspar? Am I pronouncing that right?"
The riders were dressed in brown and green, not black, but they were otherwise sufficiently scary, being charter members of Star Trek's Forehead Of The Month Club with a sideline in tusks and bristles. "That's her!" the first one cried, pulling a big-ass knife from his belt and brandishing it with alarming enthusiasm. "Get her!"
Dawn braced herself, trying to remember all the moves applicable to two guys charging you with drawn knives, and then realized that none of said moves worked really well when the charge in question involved half a ton of horse. She whirled and ran like hell, something she was damned good at, thank you very much, no stupid high heel tripping for this little black duck. The cavalry thundered after her; she could hear the jingle of tack and the snorts of the horses getting closer and closer and...
"RRRAAAAARRAAAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!"
She knew that roar. A scaly grey-green blur dropped out of the branches overhead, fangs flashing, claws tearing, eyes blazing. It looked kind of like a cross between a velociraptor and Mighty Joe Young. It fell on the haunches of the nearest horse, rear talons digging bloody furrows in the beast's rump. The horse screamed in terror, rearing and thrashing, and the Thing closed on its rider. Ivory fangs tore through leather and flesh, and blood spattered the ground as the rider toppled over, still trapped in the Thing's savage grip. Dawn heard bone crunch and shatter beneath the pressure of those powerful jaws, and the rider screamed along with his horse and went limp. The Thing spun around with a snarl of fury, bloody jaws slavering.
The first rider's horse was hightailing it for elsewhere. The second rider was fighting with his own plunging mount. Sulfur-yellow eyes narrowed, powerful muscles bunched, and the Thing leaped again, its scimitar fangs meeting in the horse's throat, crushing its windpipe. Underbrush snapped and tore as the horse crashed to the forest floor in a spray of crimson. The Thing abandoned it for its rider, rending, tearing, burying its bloodstained muzzle in the red ruin of its prey's chest.
Dawn clung to the bole of the nearest not-beech and watched, sickened and fascinated, her heart clawing its way up her throat. The Thing raised its gory head and turned, its citrine gaze pinning her to the tree. It snuffed the air and growled deep in its chest, a low, rumbling, oddly pleased sound. She knew that growl, too. It left the limp red rags of flesh lying on the trampled ground and prowled towards her on all fours, its wide nostrils drinking in her scent. It dropped haunches to ground a foot or two away from her and sat there, licking its chops and regarding her with unfathomable golden eyes.
And most of all, she knew those eyes.
Possessed of a crazy, trembling confidence, Dawn stretched out a hand. The Thing sniffed her knuckles and allowed her to run her fingers through the coarse curly mane that ran from the back of its skull down the curve of its shoulders. Growing bolder, she stroked its head, rubbing around the bases of the spiky horns framing jaw and forehead. The Thing's eyes slitted to crescent moons of bliss and it nuzzled her hand with rough affection, leaving smears of drying blood.
"Spike?" she whispered.
The Thing cocked its head to one side, as if thinking very hard, and then its long, raspy pink tongue curled around her wrist. Dawn fell to her knees with a sob of relief and flung her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his hideous spiny muzzle--that was vampire for hello, wasn't it? Spike didn't hug back, but he broke into a thunderous purr and head-butted her enthusiastically. Dawn sat down abruptly under the onslaught. "Whoa! Human and fragile here!" She hugged him again. "Can you...talk?"
Spike blinked and nuzzled her shoulder with an agreeable little rumble.
"I guess that means no. But you can understand me, right?"
Blink.
"A little? Maybe?" Dawn got to her feet and looked around. "Who were those guys? Do you know where Buffy and Willow are?"
Spike shook himself, eyed the remains of the horsemen (horsedemons?) and snorted as if congratulating himself on a job well done. He got up and ambled back to the bodies, still on all fours. Dawn followed, uncertain. He nosed disdainfully at the two fallen demons, then flopped down in the scrubby grass and began ripping into the horse's jugular, gorging happily at the bloody feast. Dawn waited for a moment, then bent down and tugged at his shoulder. "Shouldn't we look for the others?"
Spike looked up, narrow-eyed, and growled. He might have gone all spiny and scaly, but he still had the most expressive eyes she'd ever seen, and right now they were expressing I'm hungry. Don't bother me. A second later it seemed to occur to him that perhaps he was being ill-mannered; he ripped a dripping hunk of horseflesh free of the carcass and nosed it towards Dawn with a look of polite contrition.
"Uh...thanks, but no thanks." Dawn clapped a hand over her mouth and went over to a nearby tree to sit and wait it out; she prided herself on not getting squicked by vampire stuff, but this was a little bit too Animal Channel for comfort. While Spike fed, she watched the shadows and tried to figure out which way was north, not that it helped any since she didn't have any idea what direction anything was in. It had been around eight in the morning when Willow had done the portal spell, but who knew if time here was like time at home? And how long had she been unconscious? She was thirsty, and a little hungry--well, not so much hungry after another look at Spike's lunch. She swallowed queasily. Should she be trying to salvage some of the horsemeat and...dry it, or cook it or something?
It hit her for the first time that her backpack was nowhere to be seen. That meant no lighter, no jackknife, no fifty-foot rope, no first aid kit, no canteen, and no emergency copy of the pltzgrb incantation. Oh, God, she was screwed.
But not entirely without resources. Face screwed up in disgust, Dawn returned to the scene of the crime. She navigated gingerly around the oblivious Spike and knelt down beside the least-mangled of the demon riders. He was carrying a leather satchel and the aforementioned big-ass knife, both of which she appropriated. The more-mangled rider had a similar satchel and a small leather bag full of weirdly-stamped bronze and silver coins. Neither of them were packed for a long journey, so obviously there must be civilization somewhere nearby.
She took everything she could carry and retreated to her tree to sort through the spoils of war. She'd consolidated most of the useful items into one satchel when Spike, having finally drunk his fill of horse, wandered over to drop down heavily at her side with a contented belch. He proceeded to wash his face and paws, licking meticulously between his toes... fingers... whatever... like a cat. Toilet concluded, he laid his spiny head on crossed forelimbs and watched her picking through the contents of the satchels with the detached interest of a man indulging a friend's pointless hobby. After awhile his eyelids began to droop, and he yawned and curled up, head against her thigh.
Dawn poked him. "You can't go to sleep! We need to find water!"
Spike opened one eye and growled softly, rolling over to expose his bulging tummy. I've just eaten half a horse, you silly bint. What we do now is take a nap.
"Look, I can't see well enough in the dark to travel at night, remember? And I've got to have water."
For a moment Spike didn't move. Then he heaved a martyred sigh, rolled to his feet and threw back his head, scenting the air. After a long moment he grunted and set off at a purposeful lope, looking back impatiently to see if she was following. Dawn took a deep breath, stuck the knife in her belt and slung the satchel over her shoulder, and trotted after.
****
Hell was beautiful this time of year, but after two or three long hours of trudging along a dusty, stony trail in what must have been ninety-plus degree heat, Dawn was heartily sick of the whole place. She'd never been much into the great outdoors as a concept, and the novelty of having two shadows wore off really fast. Once you'd seen one picturesque glen or flower-strewn meadow, you'd seen them all. Spike ranged ahead and circled behind, leaping out unexpectedly from behind rocks and fallen logs to chivvy her on whenever he felt her merely human pace was lagging. Vampires were such urban creatures, she'd have figured him for a spazmo in the wilderness, but Dawn strongly suspected he was enjoying himself.
Of course, Spike wasn't exactly a vampire any longer. Or was he? Willow had said something about metaphysical laws being different in other dimensions. Maybe this was what vampires looked like here. Or maybe someone had met him straight out of the portal (and what was with that, anyway?) and zapped him with a shape-changing spell.
The satchel was digging into her shoulder something fierce; obviously ergonomic backpack design was not an art much practiced by the locals. "Time out," she shouted as they reached the top of the next rise. "Pebble break." She halted in the shade of some trees that were close enough to pines for government work and leaned against a lichen-covered boulder. Up here there was a breeze, at least. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and bent to pry her left boot off.
Spike came bounding up, leaped atop the boulder and crouched there, observing the process over her shoulder. His hide blended almost perfectly with the rock beneath him. It was weird, how much he still looked like Spike, despite the Godzilla effect--the eyes, of course, but he still moved like Spike, and did that head-tilt thing, and there was even something Spikey left in the angles of his bestial face. Dawn frowned, smacking the boot against her palm. "The way I see it, there's two big questions. Who were those guys and how did they know I was going to be there, and did someone do this to you or did it just happen? Honestly, you don't seem to be real upset. You'd think you turned into a demon every day."
Spike yawned, displaying a deep red cavern lined in razor-sharp teeth. Bit, I'm not going to dignify that with a reply.
"Shut up, you know what I mean. Do you remember how it happened? Ethan Rayne turned Giles into a Fyarl that once. Did someone--"
Spike ran his tongue out with a barking noise that Dawn was certain was derisive laughter. "Well, how about one snarl for yes and two snarls for no?" She bent to put her boot back on, grumpy with heat and thirst. "You're not exactly Mr. Communication today!"
His horned head bumped her shoulder, and Spike took the sleeve of her t-shirt in his teeth with a little whine. Dawn moaned and slumped back against the rock. "Fine. I'm sorry I didn't let you sleep, OK? Are you happy? Can I rest for ten minutes now?" Spike tugged harder, and Dawn rammed her foot back into her boot and stumbled to her feet. "Great. Whatever. Lead on, MacGruff. My feet won't hurt after they've fallen off--oh!"
Once past the crest of the rise, the ground fell away down a steep bank covered in knee-high bracken, and at the foot of the cut, a swift-running creek rattled along between ranks of faux-oak and pseudo-alder, deep brown pools alternating with frothing white rapids. The path ran down the bank, crossed the stream at a shallow ford, and disappeared into the trees on the other side. The rush of the water over the rocks was the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard.
Spike plunged down the cut and splashed into the creek as if he'd personally arranged to have it put there. Dawn raced headlong after him, sliding to her knees in the muddy drifts of leaves at the water's edge. Probably bears had pissed in it, but who cared? She dunked her head and flung her dripping hair back, scooping up handful after handful of cold crisp liquid. Spike lapped a courtesy mouthful, but the water didn't interest him nearly as much as the dead horse had. He shook himself, generously providing Dawn with an unexpected shower, and padded over to the nearest pool to study his reflection--hey, how about that, Spike had a reflection!--from various angles, twisting and turning in ludicrous figure-eights in the attempt to see all of himself.
Come to think about it, the not bursting into flame was a new talent, too. Dawn looked up, squinting through the branches. The suns, while still a good distance from the horizon, were definitely sinking. Two (unfortunately mostly empty) leather water bottles had formed part of her looting spree. Dawn pulled them out of the satchel to fill them, a little dismayed to see how heavy they were when full. Her shoulder was gonna get sliced clean off, which was probably preferable to gradually dehydrating.
Mission accomplished, she crawled a little bit further up the bank and sat down amidst the bracken. The riders had been carrying some kind of gross, crumbly trail food wrapped up in waxy cloth: grain mixed up with suet and honey, maybe. If she hadn't been so hungry it would have been pretty revolting. Strike that--she was starving, and it was still revolting. What she wouldn't give for some good old marshmallow and macaroni casserole.
Spike climbed up to lie down beside her as she chewed on her unappetizing meal, with a look that said you should have tried the horsemeat. Dawn made herself comfortable against his scaly ribs and took the opportunity to give the new Spike a thorough examination. His hide looked and felt more like alligator than like snake, tough and leathery on his back and flanks, smooth and supple as kidskin on his chest and belly. The grey-green was mottled here and there with darker greens and browns, and faded to a gold-tinged cream on his belly. The only visible hair was the coarse mane which started behind his ears and ran down his spine to his shoulders. He had a tail, which she hadn't noticed at first--not much of a tail, only about six inches long, but it thumped when she rubbed his ears. He was still very obviously male, but the accoutrements were sheathed up close to his belly like a dog's, which made it slightly less embarrassing.
All of which was very interesting, but didn't tell her a darned thing about how he'd gotten this way, or what, if anything, she should do about it. "We need a plan," she said aloud.
Spike blinked in lazy agreement, but showed no particular inclination to propose one. It was difficult to tell how much he understood, but his demonic tendency to live in the moment seemed to be turned up to eleven in this shape. For once she was the hero and he was the sidekick, and the notion was kind of terrifying. "OK. You can find water, and that's cool. Food's going to be a problem." She waved the remains of her medieval power bar under his nose; he snorted with disgust. "You can hunt things, but I don't have any way to light a fire." She poked around in the satchel. "Unless this is a tinder box, but even if it is, I don't know how to use it."
Spike's left ear flicked forward. Don't bloody ask me. I was born well after the invention of the lucifer.
"And no offense, but eating raw smeerp, or whatever they have around here, is a one-way ticket to an exciting death by alien parasites. So we've got to find real food." She hefted the bag of mystery coins. "We've got money, and this trail has to lead somewhere," she said. "So if we follow it, then--"
Both Spike's ears flicked to attention, and he shook his head violently.
"Oh, yeah? You have a better idea?"
He jerked his head upstream with a 'grrf!', heaved himself out from underneath her, trotted a few paces, and looked back expectantly.
Dawn folded her arms and glowered. "That's dumb. Everyone except those morons in Blair Witch knows that you either stay on the path or you follow streams down."
The ears went back. "Raargh!"
"And your plans always work so well?"
Spike looked back the way they'd come, a determined glint in his eyes, and zip! he was behind her, shoving her in the direction he wanted her to go. Dawn tripped over a moss-slick rock and almost fell in the stream. "Hey! Quit that! Give me one good reason to go--"
Clop-clop-clop-clop...
Dawn had never realized that the sound of hooves could be so chilling. She dove down into the bracken, flat on her belly. Spike crouched beside her, motionless, his eyes molten slivers and his lips skinned back over his fangs. The creak of wheels and the jingle of harness soon joined the hoofbeats, and after an eternity, an ox-ish looking thing pulling a wagon full of purple cabbage-like plants came swaying around the bed of the road. Ox-Thing clomped to a ponderous halt on the other side of the stream, its wet nostrils flaring, and tossed its shaggy head with an unhappy bellow.
The saggy, warty demon in the driver's seat looked about uneasily, and flapped the reins at the creature's rump. "Gee up, Buttercup! We've no time to waste when night's coming!"
Buttercup slewed sideways, seeming greatly disinclined to gee. Spike stirred infinitesimally beside her, and Dawn realized the ox-critter had probably caught his scent. A second later she realized what the infinitesimal stirring meant.
"No, Spike!" she hissed. He froze, his eyes half-glazed with bloodlust. "You can't possibly be hungry and they haven't done anything--"
A rusty-tan creature sat up by the warty driver's side, growling. It looked a little like Spike, except smaller, with more mane and no horns. It braced its forefeet against the side of the cart and snarled in their direction. This was apparently too much for Spike to endure; he snarled back, ears flat and tail lashing. The driver scrabbled about in the seat for a crossbow. "I'm armed!" he shouted, waving the weapon about in a manner more threatening to random tree branches than to his assailants. "You'll not take me alive, you brigands!"
This was getting out of hand. Admittedly the direct approach hadn't worked so well the first time, but... Dawn rose cautiously to her feet, one hand wound tightly in Spike's mane. He was growling non-stop now, straining against her grip as if he'd like nothing better than to give the farmer, his ox, and his little dog Toto the same treatment he'd given the riders. "No, Spike!" she repeated. "We're not brigands," she shouted down to the farmer. "We're just trying to find the nearest town. I'm looking for my sister, Buffy Summers--" Spike interrupted his growling for an eager whine--"She's like me, except shorter and with lighter hair. Our friend Willow might be with her--she either looks like me except with red hair, or like him--" she pointed at Spike. "I'm not sure which. Have you seen them?"
The farmer cuffed his dog-thing (which was still yammering at Spike) and stood up in the box, peering short-sightedly at her and clutching the crossbow. "Why, you're but a little girl-cow," he said.
Spike's eyes went red and he lunged at the cart with a slavering roar, dragging Dawn several feet down the bank before she could wrestle him under control again. "I'm not little, and if I were you I'd lay off the C-word. He gets cranky."
"These are parlous times, when honest tillers of the soil are accosted by..." The farmer broke off with a cautious glance at Spike. "...humans at every turn! I suppose you'll be demanding tribute, aye, and calling it--"
"All I want is to find my sister." And the books they'd come for--wouldn't it be wicked cool if she and Spike could complete the mission while Buffy was wandering around in the wilderness somewhere? "Can you tell us where the nearest town is? Or take us there?" She reached into the satchel and extracted a random coin from the leather bag. "We can pay."
The farmer's eyes widened. "Why didn't you say so, young miss? Climb aboard!"
****
It didn't take Dawn long to decide that she'd made a huge mistake.
Riding an ox-cart turned out to be not much faster than walking, the ox-thing smelled like butt, the wheels kicked up entire Depression-Era novels worth of dust, and independent suspension was still on the drawing board. She clung to the seat of the wagon as it clunked into another rut and lurched out again. Just think, Mom could have saved all that money on dental work if she'd known Dawn would have all her teeth jarred loose by the age of sixteen. Spike and Tobi (Tobi was the trackerbeast) crouched in opposite corners of the wagonbed, snarling across the heap of alien cabbages and doubtless hatching plans to do away with one another at the earliest opportunity.
At least Farmer MacGregor (his real name was Grntspruut of the Gathwok Clan, but Dawn wasn't even going to try that one) seemed more than willing to shoulder the lion's share of the conversational burden. "...Korthspar, eh? You're well out of your way, young miss, for it's a good fifty leagues south of here. I've heard nowt of any who might be this sister of yours, but could be you'll find news in Leetle Cheeping. There's to be a fair this very morrow, and travelers from aye and about'll be there for the inquiring. It's a good thing for you I happened along, young miss," he said, shaking a blunt-clawed finger beneath her nose. "The roads aren't safe for lone travelers these days."
"I didn't realize," Dawn said in the breathless, you-are-so-wise tone she'd perfected on teachers and social workers in the last two years. "I heard that Pylea was very law-abiding."
MacGregor shook his head, plucked a straw from the brim of his hat, and sucked on it mournfully. "Time was, young miss, a pretty young maid could walk the length and breadth of this land decked out in gold and jewels, and none touch a wart on her nose. But there's been naught but trouble since the Covenant fell from power some years since--not what it wasn't their own fault, mind you, putting a co-a human on the throne, Sight or no Sight! Heedless, silly thing she was, pronounced a passel of new laws and pranced off leaving the Groosalugg to rule. I'll not argue he wasn't a mighty champion, but--" MacGregor tapped his forehead. "His virtue was in his thews and not his thoughts, and had no more idea how to run a kingdom than to fly to the moon. Inside a year the realm was in shambles and he was gone, clean disappeared. Some say as the remains of the Covenant had him slain, others say he followed his cow princess..." He cast a wary look at Spike, but Spike didn't seem to object to the adjective when applied to Cordelia. "Be as may, there's been war since, this band and that claiming the right to rule. Frothgar of the Deathwok Clan holds sway hereabouts, but there's riff-raff of all kinds abroad, and few of them friendly towards your kind, begging your pardon. You'd do best to stick close by me till you find your friends."
If what he said was true (and that was super-sized if) that pretty much aced the idea of claiming to be an emissary for Princess Cordelia. There should be some kind of law about fairy tales meeting realpolitik. "Which side's winning the war?"
MacGregor spat over the side of the cart. "Don't know, and don't care. The only difference it'll make to us is what livery the tax collectors show up wearing come harvest time." His eyes darted over her, as if he were assessing a flehegna heifer, and he fingered the sleeve of her t-shirt with one gnarled paw. Was that glitter in his eyes cunning, or greed, or just dust? "N'er have I seen the likes of this cloth, fine as gadnar silk and so cunning wove! You must have traveled far indeed, young miss."
Dawn squirmed, recalling Spike's sage advice that a lie was all the better for having some truth in it. "Yeah, I make finding Nemo look like a trip to Circle K. I'm going to Korthspar to search the library for an, uh, sick friend of ours. Of the Deathwok Clan." Better not get too specific; Angel and Wesley had separately impressed upon all of them that Lorne wasn't exactly a celebrity in his home town. "His sensing talent thing that they do? It's kind of been out of whack lately. Almost as if he's been cursed." Warming to her tale, she added, "He's at death's door, all pale and languishing and feverish. So we swore a mighty oath to travel the length and breadth of the land and bring him healing or perish in the attempt--"
MacGregor seemed duly impressed; apparently heroics went over big in Pylea. The forest thinned and disappeared, replaced by fields and pastures and farmsteads. They began to run into other travelers: on foot, riding horses, driving flocks of sheep or pigs or herds of flehegna (that being the proper name of the ox-thing). They rode wagons and pushed wheelbarrows full of vegetables or racks of dried fish or bolts of cloth. They reached the walls of Leetle Cheeping an hour or so before sundown, passed through the gates by a couple of bored-looking Deathwok Clanners in rusty, ill-kept armor. It was a bustling metropolis of several thousand people (using the term 'people' very loosely).
Dawn stared as MacGregor urged Buttercup down the main street. The center of town boasted cobbled streets and tile-roofed stone buildings rising two or three stories tall, but most of the streets were muddy and most of the shops and houses were wood and plaster and thatch. All around were demons: pale, jowly demons of the Gathwok Clan; green-skinned, crimson-eyed demons of the Deathwok Clan; hooded, rust-skinned demons of the Covenant of Trombli; and ordinary humans bustling in all directions. The stench was incredible--open sewers and rotting food and way, way too many species of unwashed bodies. Not that she was all that fragrant herself at this point, but ugh. She wondered how Spike could stand it, but then, he was a demon, so maybe this was roses to him.
"I guess this is where we get off," Dawn said. She fished the silver coin she'd waved at him originally--neither the largest nor the smallest--out of the pouch and offered it to MacGregor. "Is this enough?" She made her eyes all wide and pitiful. "It's all I have." Somewhere Anya was probably committing ritual suicide in shame in having failed to pass on any of her haggling skills, but if she was giving the guy a hundred-dollar tip on a ten dollar cab fare she was just going to have to soak it up. At least she wasn't dumb enough to let on that she had a fistful of dollars just like it.
MacGregor snatched the coin readily enough, but when she started to hop off the wagon seat he laid a clawed hand on her arm to restrain her. "Not so hasty, young miss!" At Spike's warning growl the old farmer let go immediately. "What I mean to say is, my conscience wouldn't let me rest, knowing a morsel like you was wandering round a rough place like this untended, and I'll tell you now, you'll not get an innkeeper in town to admit that beast of yours."
Dawn glanced at Spike, who was hanging over the side of the wagon bed with his tongue lolling out, eying the passers-by as if trying to pick out the juiciest. "Why not?"
"Don't you know what you've got there, girl? That's no common trackerbeast, that's a Van-tal, one of the drinkers of blood. 'Tis a curse passed only among c-humans, that if one's bit, they die, and rise again, seeming healthy and well--but soon or late the rage takes them and they transform into this dreadful monster, fearsome as a drokken, which kills all about it for the pleasure of seeing the blood run. When they come to themselves again they may remember nowt of it, and go on as before, until the rage takes them again. Come to the last, if they're not found out and slain, they become the beast for good and all, and never walk as a man again."
Huh. It sounded like vampirism worked more like werewolf stuff here. It was a relief to know that Spike could turn back, if only he could figure out how--he made a cool demon-thing, but Spike without running commentary was deeply wrong. "I know what Spike is." Dawn patted his shoulder. "But he's different. He's..."
"Aye, and you can explain that to the innkeeper afeard of having his paying customers slaughtered in the night?"
Dawn looked around; the streets were starting to empty, and smoky yellow lights were coming on in the windows. Her stomach growled loudly enough to make Spike blink. "We'll sleep in an alley, then."
"And get rapped on the head by the night watch for vagrants and thieves? No, missy, I couldn't rest easy knowing you were huddled shivering on muddy cobbles whilst I slept soft and safe. Listen: The owner of the Blighted Pig is well-known to me, and on my word she'll grant the both of you leave to sleep in the stables. Tisn't fancy, but you'll sleep warm and dry, and have a sup as good as any in the old palace as was. Then in the morning you can inquire about your sister around and about the fair."
"Well..." She didn't entirely trust MacGregor; demons weren't always evil, but they generally looked out for number one, and all this altruism for a total stranger was suspicious. But she was in a strange town in a strange world, and now that the suns were down, it was starting to get surprisingly chilly. The idea of spending the night in the gutter was gross beyond belief, especially considering some of the things floating in it. "OK. Lead the way."
****
Grigna, the owner of the Blighted Pig, was a large Deathwok woman with a gimlet eye and impressive biceps, very Charles Dickens-meets-Terry Pratchett. The inn's trackerbeast, a huge grizzled grey and black creature missing half an ear and covered with scars, snarled at them from a kennel near the front door. Hmph. There was no denying Spike was far handsomer: sleek and muscular, with bright eyes, well-shaped horns and glossy scales.
Grigna planted one fist on an aproned hip and looked the two of them up and down, stroking her blazing orange beard. "So, you want to stay the night?" she rumbled. "And I suppose you want to be fed on top of it. What if this creature of yours runs amuck, or frets the horses?"
"Spike won't cause any trouble," Dawn assured her. Spike lowered his head and matched the rumble, pressing close to Dawn's side. "He's perfectly safe, most of the time, as long as you don't get him mad and he's not too hungry and--and I can sweep up the stable or wash dishes or something." She didn't want to fling any more money around till she had a chance to do some clandestine observation at the fair tomorrow, and get an idea what things cost.
"Come, Grigna," MacGregor said with an ingratiating grin. "Do them a good turn and it'll come back to you, as Frugot says."
Grigna shot him a significant look which had Dawn's hackles almost as bristly as Spike's. "True, true, must give a bit to get a bit. Here's an offer, girl: if you're out of money, as Goodman Grntspruut says, and that Van-tal of yours is as well-trained as you claim--"
"Aye, he's well-trained," MacGregor allowed. "I've never seen the like."
"--I'll take him off your hands for a tri-bit. I could use another good watchbeast."
"Spike's not trained at all!" Dawn snapped. "I don't own him. He's a friend of mine. He goes where he likes."
"Aye?" Grigna said, as if the concept of 'friend' flummoxed her. "Perhaps you'd care to set up a match between your beast and our Goggle. Naught brings in the coppers faster than a good beastfight."
Dawn glanced over at Goggle. Goggle was bear-sized, considerably larger than Spike, but his ribs were showing and his hide was dull and patchy. "No, thanks. It wouldn't be fair to your beast."
Spike tucked in his chin, puffed out his chest, and preened. There was another exchange of significant looks, and Grigna shrugged. "Suit yourself. Stable's this way."
As they followed Grigna across the courtyard of the inn, Dawn had uneasy premonitions of trying to sleep between the hooves of a restless horse. But the small room to which the innkeeper ushered them was apparently meant to house the grooms and stableboys during the times when the inn was prosperous enough to afford them, which didn't seem to be the case at present. A door in the back opened directly into the stables proper, but the room itself was safely horse-free. It was dusty and obviously unused, but otherwise far superior to the gutter. There were three cots supplied with thick, scratchy wool blankets and musty straw-tick mattresses that made Dawn itch just looking at them. A small pot-bellied stove and a hod of rather damp coal took up one corner, and a small table the other. Spike padded in and began nosing around the room, poking his snout under the beds.
"Here's your lodgings," Grigna said. "You can come to the common room and fetch yourself a bowl of stew if you like, but the Van-tal stays here."
"I get a bowl for Spike too, of course," Dawn said, pleased that her haggling genes had finally kicked in. "Unless you have some fresh blood."
Grigna pulled a long face. "We slaughtered a pig this morning, but the drippings are marked for blood sausages--"
Spike lunged at something under the bed, shouldering the cot halfway off the ground. There was a snap and a crunch, and he backed out holding a spiny greyish thing that looked like a cross between a rat and a horny toad. He gave it a decisive, neck-snapping shake and pranced over to lay his prize at Dawn's feet. Dawn tried not to wince.
"Thanks, Spike. You can have it." Spike snapped the rat-lizard up and swallowed it whole, and Dawn gave Grigna a cool look. "Since he's going to be taking care of your rat-lizard problem for you..."
An hour later, she'd secured a light for the stove, a candle, a bowl of spicy and surprisingly good stew and a mug of small beer for herself and a bucket of pig's blood for Spike. Dawn set her empty bowl on the table and curled up on the sturdiest of the cots, a horse-blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Spike licked the last drop of pig from his muzzle, swiped a paw behind his ears and hopped up on the cot with her, laying his head in her lap. The two of them settled back with a mutual sigh of repletion.
She was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep just yet. She leaned against the wall, watching the flicker of the coals through the grate of the stove, and threaded her fingers through Spike's mane, scratching behind his ears and down his neck and shoulders. Spike flexed his toes and groaned with pleasure, digging his claws into the blankets. Dawn grinned. "You are going to be SO embarrassed when you turn back into yourself, you big slut." Spike snorted, dismissing the possibility. "Farmer MacGregor said you could turn back, you know. Do you remember how?"
"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh." Got a full belly and a pretty girl scratching my ears. Why would I want to?
"Well, you can't stay like this forever." Dawn frowned down at the bonelessly relaxed demon at her side. "This fair thing sounds like our best bet for finding the others. Even if no one's seen them, we can tell people what they look like and leave messages and stuff. And we can find out exactly how to get to Korthspar." She yawned; the combination of a long hard day, a full stomach, and Spike's drowsy rasping purr was soporific. "But I gotta pee first. Did they leave us a chamber pot, or do we just piss against the wall like everyone else seems to?"
An examination of the cobwebby space under the cots revealed that there was, in fact, no chamberpot. Irritated, Dawn walked over to the door and tugged on the handle.
It was locked. From the outside.
"What the...Grigna must have locked it when she brought over your blood." After a futile rattle or two, she went over the the stable-side door. It, too, was immovable. Dawn kicked it, to no avail.
Spike's eyes narrowed. He reared upright, wrapped his finger-paws around the door latch and pulled, putting some vampire muscle into it. The door shuddered. Spike yanked again, harder, and the board in the latch outside snapped with a loud crack. Dawn peered out into the courtyard--she'd grown up in the light-haze of L.A., and the sheer darkness of the unelectrified night was creepy. The windows of the Blighted Pig were aglow with fire and lamplight, and the crowd of fair-goers staying there were obviously making a night of it. Roars of laughter and the drumming of dancing feet drifted across on the night air.
"Should we just make a run for it?" Dawn whispered. The thought of gutter-sleepage still wasn't very appetizing.
Spike eyed the lamplit windows and ran his tongue over his teeth.
"You're right, we need to find out what's going on. OK, this is where it would be really useful for you to turn human again, because I need those vampire ears and I need you to be able to tell me what they're saying."
A wrinkle appeared between Spike's brow ridges, and he turned round on his stubby tail several times in succession. He hunched his shoulders and scrunched his eyes shut. Nothing happened. After a moment he looked up at Dawn and whined.
Rats. "It's OK," she whispered. "You'll figure it out. It's like riding a bicycle. Did you ever learn how to ride a bicycle?"
Spike's ears went flat and his horned jaw thrust out. You've got to be joking.
Dawn gave him a reassuring pat and pulled her blanket more firmly about her shoulders. If she was remembering right from her trip in to get the stew, Grigna's private quarters had been off at the rear of the inn, which would make them that window right over...there. "Come on, Spike. Let's see what we can find out."
She crept along the side of the inn, keeping a wary eye towards the front of the inn where Goggle snored and grumbled in restless sleep. The gigantic trackerbeast was chained to its kennel, but if it started making noise, they were in for it. Spike padded along behind her, yawning. Well, he'd had a hard day too, and done a lot more running around than she had. Even vampire stamina had its limits.
The glass in the windows was thick and wavery, impossible to see or hear through, but the corner of one windowpane was broken and a bundle of dirty rags had been stuffed into the gap. Dawn tugged the rotting cloth free and pressed her eye close to the triangular opening.
There were three people in the room: Grigna, MacGregor, and a Covenant guy in hooded robes. His hood was thrown back to reveal a bald, brick-red skull, and his ruddy forehead was tattooed with the creepy black eye symbols that signified a priest of the old order. He was pacing in small nervous circles, wearing more holes in the braided rag rug underfoot. Grigna was seated at a large desk covered with tally-books, accounts, receipts, quill pens, blotters, inkwells, and assorted other scholarly paraphernalia. MacGregor stood by the fireplace, pulling on a long-stemmed pipe, Tobi snoozing at his feet.
"...you're certain it's the cow the oracle spoke of?" the robed demon was saying.
"Now, how can anyone be certain of that, Zekediah, when the oracle's words can be read six ways today and seven on market-day?" MacGregor puffed on his pipe, sending a cloud of fragrant blue smoke towards the window. Dawn mashed her hand against her nose to stifle a sneeze. "The important thing is, there's sure to be someone who'll believe she's the cow the oracle spoke of, and pay well--"
Zekediah slammed a fist on Grigna's desk. "If she's truly the Key That Unlocks the Doors of Air, the last thing I want to do is sell her! She's our only hope for contacting the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart, and regaining control over the cursed cows--"
Dawn stuffed the rags back into the broken window and dropped to the ground beneath the sill, her heart slamming against her ribs. Crap, crap, crap! The riders Spike had killed had said something about an oracle, too--there must be a mystic APB out on her.
Until a week ago, when Wesley had done the divination to find the nearest dimensional hot spot, she'd been certain that she was de-Keyed, used up, plain ol' ordinary Dawn Summers. But guess what, the nearest dimensional hot spot turned out to be wherever plain ol' ordinary Dawn Summers was standing at the moment, and Fred pointed out that it wasn't really all that likely that closing one measly Hellmouth could permanently deplete a mystical force designed to open and close all the dimensional walls in existence.
And it kinda hadn't sucked, being Key Girl again. All she had to do was stand there while they read off the tongue-mangling words of the incantation, and instant portal, no cutting or bleeding or dying required, yay for the miracles of modern science! Well, as long as where she wanted to go was Pylea, since that was the only dimension that Fred had the transformational coordinates for. Yet. But that was fine, since Pylea was where they needed to go.
In the rush of actually being able to do something useful with the Key gig for the first time, she hadn't let herself think about the fact that all the old baggage was still attached. Someone, somewhere, would always be trying to grab her and use her in some stupid apocalyptic scheme. Dawn let her head thunk back against the inn wall, giving in to self-pity for a moment, and then straightened with steely-eyed resolve. Fine. This time it was going to be different. No more damsel in distress, no more being a pawn in everyone else's mystical reindeer games. This Key was going to kick ass and take names. Or maybe just run like hell, that being something she was really good at, after all. "Let's grab our stuff and get out of here," she whispered to Spike. "Spike?"
Spike was curled up in a scaly grey-green circle, nose tucked into his paws. Dawn shook him. "Spike!"
Spike snored.
This was a situation calling for serious profanity. "Shit." She shook him harder, yanking on his mane. "Double shit. Spike, wake up!"
Muzzy golden eyes blinked up at her. Spike's tongue flicked out to rasp against her hand, and then he was dead to the world again. This wasn't right. Spike never slept that hard unless he was drunk, badly wounded, or utterly exhausted. They must have drugged the pig's blood--she should have suspected something earlier, the way Grigna had been trying to get Spike away from her. Crappity crap crap crap.
They couldn't stay here. Someone would notice them. OK. She'd moved Spike once or twice the summer after Buffy died, when she'd come to his crypt and found him passed out on the floor. She could do this. Of course, the summer after Buffy died, Spike had been conducting a scientific experiment to see if vampires could survive on a diet consisting solely of alcohol and Cheetos (it hadn't been a big success) and probably hadn't weighed more than one-forty. He hadn't been easy to lug around even then. In the year and a half since, he'd regained his appetite and considerable muscle, and there was no way she could haul almost a hundred and seventy pounds of rock-solid demon very far.
She looked desperately around the courtyard. Goggle's kennel? No, too dangerous. The stables? First place they'd look. What was the last place, the purloined letter of Pylean architecture? The place that was...
...right in front of her face.
Dawn scrambled to her feet and worked her hands under Spike's forelegs, heaving as hard as she could. "Ooof!" She managed to stagger a few feet before tripping over the edge of the cellar doors and collapsing in a panting heap on top of the comatose vampire. She yanked the cellar door open and heaved Spike over the threshold in an excess of adrenaline and panic--either the cellar of an inn counted as a public place, or Grigna's earlier permission to sleep in the stables counted as an invitation. Or maybe that was another vampire rule that worked differently here. They'd have to experiment. Later.
Getting Spike down the stairs was easier than trying to drag him across level ground--she just gave him a shove and he rolled most of the way down on his own. The cellar was at least well-provisioned, full of crates and bags and boxes of weirdly-shaped roots and dried fruit and flour and wheels of cheese. A row of big oaken barrels with spigots that smelled malty and weird cut half of the cellar off from the other half, and Dawn wrestled Spike behind one of the barrels and dashed back up the stairs, gasping with fear and exertion. She peered out into the courtyard; no one was in sight, so she raced across to the stables and bundled up her satchel in two of the horse-blankets. On the way out she took the broken stick which had barred the door and flung it over the wall of the courtyard, replacing it in the latch with another from the pile of firewood. There. Let them wonder about that locked room mystery a bit.
Spike was stirring when she got back, shaking his groggy head and wincing at his collection of mysterious new bruises. He started a growl and broke it off when he realized who she was. "Shh," Dawn said. She pointed at the second set of stairs, which led up into the inn's kitchen. "Grigna drugged your blood. They want to get rid of you and sell me because of a prophecy or something. It's--no, Spike, wait!" Spike was staggering lopsidedly towards the stairs with blood in his eye. Dawn tackled him, grabbed his hindquarters, and managed to knock him off his feet. "You can't take on the whole place!"
"RAUUURGH!" And why the fuck not?
"Because I just knocked you over, is why! You're still all dopey! Wait till it wears off and kill them tomorrow!"
Spike glared at her for a long moment, then subsided with a sullen snarl. He paced unsteadily back into the depths of the cellar, sniffing at every suspicious box and crate, until he found a little box-cave to crawl into. Dawn spread out one blanket on the packed earth of the floor, and draped the other one across the boxes, and the two of them crawled into their makeshift hideaway and curled up together. Dawn flung an arm across Spike's side and buried her face in his mane; he didn't have any body heat to speak of, but it was still a comfort to lie close to another friendly body. Stripped of the leather and cigarette smoke, he still smelled like Spike: earthy and male and comforting. His ribs rose and fell under her hand--did he need to breathe, in this world, or was he just doing it from habit, like always?
A wet raspy tongue caressed her cheek. Spike didn't care who was after her or why, whether she was the Key or not. Spike just loved her. And that... that was pretty cool. After awhile, Dawn's eyes closed, and she slept.
Continued in Part II
Demon-type Spike