Mustard Seed, Chapter 3
Author's Note: WARNING WARNING WARNING. Character death in this chapter. And it was gut-wrenching and horrible and hard to write. Why is it so hard? It's just made-up people in a made-up story doing made-up things. But it is. *sob*
And for those of you who know Latin animal names...The Sciurian Demons were on purpose. It probably gives you a funny mental image, but if you picture them six feet tall with big claws and teeth, maybe that will help.
Chapter Three: Lost Among the Stars
"C'mon, Spike," Dusty said gently. "They aren't letting her go. You need to come home with Dru and me and get some rest." The sun was pushing tentative rays over the horizon and Spike had smoked the entire pack of cigarettes and half of another.
He shrugged Dusty's hand off his shoulder. "Not goin' anywhere, mate. They might still call."
"If they call, Lorne has your number. You aren't doing her any good sitting here and brooding."
The "B" word shook Spike out of his funk. He sighed and stood up. "Right then. I'll see you later today."
"Oh, no," Dru said. "You aren't going home by yourself."
***
"Yeah, this is helping," Spike grumbled to himself, staring at the ceiling from their couch. He trailed his hand over the side and found Hansel's solid, comforting presence there. Sleep? That was a laugh. What were they doing to his Slayer? And how the soddin' hell was he going to get her back?
The soldier boys were going to pay for this. Yes, they bloody well were.
***
He made good on that promise later that evening. Spike gave Dusty the slip when they went out, and found a group of six camo-clad young men and women patrolling a park. He and Mandy had seen them before, different bunches, over the last year, and generally avoided them. Not tonight. Tonight, he was spoiling for a fight. He knew he couldn't kill humans...but he wasn't adverse to breaking them.
He landed in the middle of them like a chainsaw on meth. It wasn't much of a battle, really. Humans moved too slowly to be any challenge, even humans trained in demon combat. His boots, knees, elbows, fists, and head crunched bones and drew blood every time they connected with a soldier's body part. The little squad was left in a smashed pile of bleeding flesh. "Tell your boss that William the Bloody said hello," he said, lighting a cigarette and walking away to find some real combat. This had been satisfying in a getting-back-at-the-wankers-who-kidnaped-my-wife way, but he needed an all-out brawl with something powerful to keep from exploding.
***
Mandy lay on the bed in helpless fury while the so-called doctors put an IV in the back of her hand, to drip God-knew-what poison into her veins. She hoped she'd still be her when they got done. That Doctor Whatshisname, Finn, she thought, had looked sympathetic when he'd come in the night before to draw some blood. Big deal. Sympathy didn't get her out of here, did it? The Major had sat down next to her a couple more times and tried to get her to talk. He didn't say what had happened to Spike, though--which made her rather less inclined to cooperate with him.
What had happened to all the vampires? What was the life of a Slayer like? What did she do when she wasn't out demon-hunting? How strong was she, really? He'd noticed the ring on her left hand--what kind of person was her husband?
He's a better person than you are, even when he was a demon! she wanted to shout at him. But all his questions were met with stony silence. After a half hour or so, he would get frustrated and leave. Fine with her. He could go pound sand as far as she was concerned. Maybe if they untied her and got this damn IV out of her hand, she might be willing to speak. Until then? Big fat raspberry.
Carlisle came in later that night, smoke practically coming out of his ears. "Seems you have powerful friends, Slayer," he growled at her. "One of my teams got taken out tonight."
Mandy feigned disinterest, but her ears perked up. If someone was out there taking out Initiative teams...then Spike was okay? She couldn't think of anyone else strong enough to win against one of the highly-trained squads. Unless there really was a new Big Bad in town. In which case, she needed to be out there fighting it instead of in here fighting the government. She was still keeping her mouth shut until she had more details. If it was a new threat...she might consider helping them. If it was Spike...go him. She bared her teeth in a grim smile that wasn't really a smile.
The Major noticed that and was happy in a way that they'd finally managed to get some sort of emotion out of their unresponsive Slayer, even if it was unseemly glee about the Initiative's misfortunes. Good. Maybe he could use this. "Yep. No one was killed, thank goodness, but all six of them are in the hospital. It's too bad. They were good people. You know, Slayer," he said, his voice softening, "we're all on the same side here. Hunting demons and killing vampires is what we do too. Why can't we work together?"
Because I have a problem with being kidnaped and being held against my will, she wanted to say. Instead, she just turned her face to the wall and said nothing.
"Fine," Carlisle said, frustrated. "You don't want to give us anything. Well, we have ways of getting what we want. Starting now." He motioned to the doctor, who injected something into the IV. A minute later, Mandy felt herself zoning out. "I hope you're in shape, Slayer," was the last thing she heard.
***
Dru startled awake. "Dusty!"
***
"Bloody hell," Spike said, breaking into a run. He landed in the middle of a pack of Sciurian Demons, hacking, kicking, throwing them off the still form on the ground. He had a horrible suspicion of what he would find...and he was right. He berated himself for abandoning Dusty and going on a private hunting expedition.
The DeSoto was around the corner, but Spike didn't want to leave Dusty alone to go get it. Moving him that far looked like a bad idea too. He grabbed his phone and called Lorne, who left his bar in the very capable hands of his bouncer and drove over as soon as he heard Spike's rapidly gasped-out story. And Spike's white face and complete silence on the drive back to the club told Lorne all he needed to know about what had happened. He pulled up to the back door of Caritas and carried Dusty inside to a back room cot. Spike followed like a lost puppy, and Lorne chased him out, telling him to send Phil, one of the bartenders, back.
Spike nodded wordlessly and did as he was told. He sat down at a table with his head in his arms, listlessly smoking a cigarette. His phone startled him, and he cringed when he saw who it was on the caller ID. "Hullo, Dru," he said.
"Spike? Is Dusty all right? I tried to call him, but he didn't answer his phone. I had a dream..."
"No, sweet, he's not all right. Stay put; I'll come and get you." He hauled his leaden body off the chair and went to get his car. Oh, God, what was he going to tell Dru? This was all his bloody fault; if he hadn't left Dusty and gone hunting on his own, then her husband--the father of their child!--wouldn't be fighting for his life in the back room of a demon bar. He gnashed his teeth at himself during the entire drive over.
She was waiting for him with Hans on the sidewalk when he pulled up in front of the apartment building. "What happened?" she asked, getting in behind the Doberman and pulling her seatbelt on.
He checked the mirror and pulled carefully out into the street, hating himself for putting off the answer. Hating the answer more. Staring straight ahead and taking a deep breath, he told her all of it. How he had ditched Dusty and stalked the Initiative soldiers, taking them down in a matter of a few minutes. How he had come back and found her husband buried under a mass of fur and teeth and claws and muscle. The frantic phone call to Lorne. The strained, silent drive to the club...
"Is he going to be all right?" she said, her voice so low he could barely hear it.
"I don't know, pet. They kicked me out. But I'm not going to lie to you. He didn't look good."
"Was it satisfying? To beat them up? Did it make you feel better?" Same low voice.
He exhaled shakily. "Not anymore. God, Dru, I'm sorry. I'm so bloody sorry."
"You should be. What were you thinking?"
He wished that she'd yell at him. This quiet bitterness made him feel even worse. "I wasn't thinking." He pulled the DeSoto behind Lorne's Lincoln in the back alleyway behind Caritas.
"Well, maybe you'd better start. Getting your friends hurt or killed through carelessness isn't going to bring Mandy back any quicker." She got out of the car without another word and walked into the club. He trailed in after her. Lorne caught him in the hallway as she opened the door to the back room and went in.
"How is he?" Spike asked.
"It's bad. It's really bad. Both the bones in his left forearm are broken. So's his right tibia, and a bunch of ribs. You saw the cuts. He lost a lot of blood. And one of the ribs--" Lorne took a deep breath "--might have gone through a lung. He probably has internal injuries. But that's not the worst of it..." Lorne trailed off.
"What?" Spike grabbed his arm. Worse than all that?
"I think his skull is fractured."
Spike collapsed backwards against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. "Oh God."
Both their heads whipped around when they heard Dru's voice singing from behind the closed door.
"Who killed Cock Robin?
I, said the Sparrow,
with my bow and arrow,
I killed Cock Robin."
Spike and Lorne stared at each other in horror for a second, then both of them were through the door and into the room. Dru was sitting next to the cot, holding Dusty's pale, still hand and crooning softly.
"Who saw him die?
I, said the Fly,
with my little eye,
I saw him die."
Spike looked for movement, any kind of movement, coming from Dusty's chest, to tell him that his friend was still breathing. Still here, in the land of the living, no matter how tenuous his hold on it was. Please, God, let him take just one more breath. Just one? Please?
Nothing.
"Who caught his blood?
I, said the Fish,
with my little dish,
I caught his blood."
Blood. There was a lot of it, even though Lorne and Phil had done their best to clean it off. Spike had seen blood before, of course. He'd spilled quite a bit of it himself...even tonight. His conscience assailed him again. He'd taken that little Initiative team apart without regard for whether they were responsible for Mandy's disappearance or not. He wondered if any of them were in a sterile room, fighting for their lives, because of him. Was a spouse or a parent sitting there next to a squad member, going through what Dru was going through right now?
"Who'll make the shroud?
I, said the Beetle,
with my thread and needle,
I'll make the shroud."
His stomach lurched. He spun around and stumbled out of the room, barely making it to the restroom in time. "Oh, God," he said over and over again. Please make it stop. Please let me wake up from this nightmare in my bed with my wife next to me. Please make it so that none of this happened. Please, God...
But when he opened his eyes, he was still in a bathroom stall in a demon bar, and nothing had changed. Dusty was dead, and it was all his fault. Dusty would never see his baby, never watch him take those first steps, hear him say the first words, watch him grow up. Drusilla would have to raise a child all by herself. Spike and Mandy--if she were still alive--would help all they could, of course, but they couldn't make up for not having Daddy around.
This was what came of letting the monster take over from the man. This was what happened when he forgot the price of letting himself off the leash. Because he still had to keep Spike on a leash. Fused or not, there were still times when he had to slap down his darker side and stop himself from doing something violent or crazy, just because he could and it would feel good. Never again would he forget. Not ever. It cost way too bloody much.
Taking a deep, shaky breath (something else Dusty would never do again, he told himself), he made his way back to the little room. Dru hadn't stopped reciting her horrible nursery rhyme and was on the tenth verse. Lorne was still standing there, shattered, unable to do anything for her.
"Who'll carry the coffin?
I, said the Kite,
if it's not through the night,
I'll carry the coffin."
"Dru, baby," Spike said gently. "Time to go."
She gazed up at him, her eyes empty. "Spike? Dusty won't talk to me." She looked so lost. "He's gone among the stars, and I can't hear them whisper anymore."
"I know, princess." His voice cracked. "But you need to rest."
"He's not coming back, is he?"
"No. No, he's not."
***
Mandy awakened slowly, gradually becoming aware that she was lying on a cement floor in a fairly large, echoing room. Whatever they had given her had no lasting effects, and she was recovering quickly. She sat up and looked at her surroundings.
She had her own clothes back, which was a plus. The room was divided in half by a series of two-inch metal bars, set six inches apart. In the other section, a Yanfarl Demon was coming to, shaking its antlered head and grumbling. A mirror that Mandy was sure was two-way was set near the top of the twenty-foot ceiling, and four cameras in the upper corners recorded the ongoing events. And they'd given her a battleaxe. Oh, goody.
She stood, scooping up the weapon and testing the heft and edge of it. It wasn't as well-made as the axe she had at home, but it would do. Eyeing the demon on the other side of the room, she walked around a little, swinging her arms and loosening muscles, getting warmed up for what looked like a glorious fight. Well, she wanted to kill something anyway. Might as well be something these people gave her--since it would kill her if she didn't fight back. Couldn't have that--although it would give them a satisfyingly nasty shock if she just stood there and let it eat her, she thought with an evil grin. But she wasn't quite ready to die just yet. So.
As she watched, the bars began retracting into the floor. The demon bared its teeth , biding its time until it could get at her. A patient demon. That meant it might be smart. Mandy had never dealt with this species before, although she had run across it in Spike's books during research. The antlers were problematic, the brow tines making it nearly impossible to get in under the other points for close combat. She guessed she'd see how it fought when it came at her.
Which would be right about now. As the bars continued to slide into the floor, the demon leaped over them when they were still four feet high. It was agile, then. It swung at her face with a clawed hand, and she dodged back barely in time. Fast, too. Well, she was fast. Let's see just how good this thing was.
It charged her, and she ducked under its swing and came up behind it, aiming at its back with her axe. The demon avoided the stroke and countered with a stab of its antlers. She parried by tangling her blade in the horns and delivered a spinning kick to its jaw. The creature staggered backwards, and she followed up by kicking it in the stomach with her other foot, then swung at it with the axe. Roaring, it grabbed the handle before the head connected and wrenched her weapon away, flinging it across the room.
The Yanfarl lunged at Mandy again, head lowered, and she grasped an antler in each hand and collapsed backwards, her foot in its stomach. She flipped it over her head, and it landed with a "whump" onto its back, winded for a second. That was long enough for her to roll across the floor and pick up the axe again. As the demon sprang at her, she flipped her wrist and sent the axe flying towards it. Unable to dodge, since it was in the air, the creature could only watch in stunned amazement as the blade buried itself in its chest. It was dead before it hit the ground in front of her.
She stood, dusting her hands off. "That all you got?" she shouted at the mirror above her head--then realized that she hadn't said anything to the Yanfarl as she was fighting it. No quips, no hurled insults. Just the battle and the kill. If this was what the Initiative was turning her into, she decided she didn't like it. She needed to balance her desire to not give them anything with her need to hold on to her personality. It gave her something to think about as gas filled the room and she slipped into unconsciousness.
***
"I just saw that with my own eyes, and I don't believe it," Major Carlisle said. "It took a whole team with tasers and rifles to take one of those things down, and she did it by herself with a battleaxe? Are we sure she's human?"
Dr. Finn answered. "According to the blood sample she is. She's got some interesting things going on in her DNA, but nothing really out of the realm of what being human is."
"Can you imagine an army of Slayers?" the Major mused, half to himself.
Dr. Finn looked at him sharply. "There's only one. There's only ever one, unless something really unusual happens."
"Surely, with the state of science these days, we could do something about that, doctor."
Riley III gazed around the room at his colleagues. The soldiers looked enthusiastic, the doctors, cautiously optimistic. Was he the only one who had reservations about this idea? Maybe it was time to talk to Granddad again.
***
"...So I don't know what to do," Riley III told his grandfather. "It's horrible. She won't eat, she won't talk. She just lies there and stares at the wall. We have to feed her intravenously. And when we put her in a room with a Yanfarl demon, she killed it almost contemptuously--then practically begged for more."
"Are you sure you're supposed to be telling me this?"
"No. But there's no one else I can tell. You dated a Slayer once. Is this normal?"
Riley snorted. "Who knows what's normal for a Slayer? I do know that you can't keep one restrained like that. It will mess with her mind, very seriously. And are you sure that food is the only thing in that IV?"
"They wouldn't..." He stopped, realizing just how silly that statement was, in light of what had happened in the observation room after the Slayer had sent her battleaxe into the Yanfarl's chest.
His grandfather looked at him. "Wouldn't they? Mind-altering drugs, chemistry-altering hormones, demon toxins. You should know by now what they're capable of."
"Yeah. Yeah, I do." And Dr. Riley Finn III had a moment of clarity.
TBC...
Chapter Four
And for those of you who know Latin animal names...The Sciurian Demons were on purpose. It probably gives you a funny mental image, but if you picture them six feet tall with big claws and teeth, maybe that will help.
Chapter Three: Lost Among the Stars
"C'mon, Spike," Dusty said gently. "They aren't letting her go. You need to come home with Dru and me and get some rest." The sun was pushing tentative rays over the horizon and Spike had smoked the entire pack of cigarettes and half of another.
He shrugged Dusty's hand off his shoulder. "Not goin' anywhere, mate. They might still call."
"If they call, Lorne has your number. You aren't doing her any good sitting here and brooding."
The "B" word shook Spike out of his funk. He sighed and stood up. "Right then. I'll see you later today."
"Oh, no," Dru said. "You aren't going home by yourself."
***
"Yeah, this is helping," Spike grumbled to himself, staring at the ceiling from their couch. He trailed his hand over the side and found Hansel's solid, comforting presence there. Sleep? That was a laugh. What were they doing to his Slayer? And how the soddin' hell was he going to get her back?
The soldier boys were going to pay for this. Yes, they bloody well were.
***
He made good on that promise later that evening. Spike gave Dusty the slip when they went out, and found a group of six camo-clad young men and women patrolling a park. He and Mandy had seen them before, different bunches, over the last year, and generally avoided them. Not tonight. Tonight, he was spoiling for a fight. He knew he couldn't kill humans...but he wasn't adverse to breaking them.
He landed in the middle of them like a chainsaw on meth. It wasn't much of a battle, really. Humans moved too slowly to be any challenge, even humans trained in demon combat. His boots, knees, elbows, fists, and head crunched bones and drew blood every time they connected with a soldier's body part. The little squad was left in a smashed pile of bleeding flesh. "Tell your boss that William the Bloody said hello," he said, lighting a cigarette and walking away to find some real combat. This had been satisfying in a getting-back-at-the-wankers-who-kidnaped-my-wife way, but he needed an all-out brawl with something powerful to keep from exploding.
***
Mandy lay on the bed in helpless fury while the so-called doctors put an IV in the back of her hand, to drip God-knew-what poison into her veins. She hoped she'd still be her when they got done. That Doctor Whatshisname, Finn, she thought, had looked sympathetic when he'd come in the night before to draw some blood. Big deal. Sympathy didn't get her out of here, did it? The Major had sat down next to her a couple more times and tried to get her to talk. He didn't say what had happened to Spike, though--which made her rather less inclined to cooperate with him.
What had happened to all the vampires? What was the life of a Slayer like? What did she do when she wasn't out demon-hunting? How strong was she, really? He'd noticed the ring on her left hand--what kind of person was her husband?
He's a better person than you are, even when he was a demon! she wanted to shout at him. But all his questions were met with stony silence. After a half hour or so, he would get frustrated and leave. Fine with her. He could go pound sand as far as she was concerned. Maybe if they untied her and got this damn IV out of her hand, she might be willing to speak. Until then? Big fat raspberry.
Carlisle came in later that night, smoke practically coming out of his ears. "Seems you have powerful friends, Slayer," he growled at her. "One of my teams got taken out tonight."
Mandy feigned disinterest, but her ears perked up. If someone was out there taking out Initiative teams...then Spike was okay? She couldn't think of anyone else strong enough to win against one of the highly-trained squads. Unless there really was a new Big Bad in town. In which case, she needed to be out there fighting it instead of in here fighting the government. She was still keeping her mouth shut until she had more details. If it was a new threat...she might consider helping them. If it was Spike...go him. She bared her teeth in a grim smile that wasn't really a smile.
The Major noticed that and was happy in a way that they'd finally managed to get some sort of emotion out of their unresponsive Slayer, even if it was unseemly glee about the Initiative's misfortunes. Good. Maybe he could use this. "Yep. No one was killed, thank goodness, but all six of them are in the hospital. It's too bad. They were good people. You know, Slayer," he said, his voice softening, "we're all on the same side here. Hunting demons and killing vampires is what we do too. Why can't we work together?"
Because I have a problem with being kidnaped and being held against my will, she wanted to say. Instead, she just turned her face to the wall and said nothing.
"Fine," Carlisle said, frustrated. "You don't want to give us anything. Well, we have ways of getting what we want. Starting now." He motioned to the doctor, who injected something into the IV. A minute later, Mandy felt herself zoning out. "I hope you're in shape, Slayer," was the last thing she heard.
***
Dru startled awake. "Dusty!"
***
"Bloody hell," Spike said, breaking into a run. He landed in the middle of a pack of Sciurian Demons, hacking, kicking, throwing them off the still form on the ground. He had a horrible suspicion of what he would find...and he was right. He berated himself for abandoning Dusty and going on a private hunting expedition.
The DeSoto was around the corner, but Spike didn't want to leave Dusty alone to go get it. Moving him that far looked like a bad idea too. He grabbed his phone and called Lorne, who left his bar in the very capable hands of his bouncer and drove over as soon as he heard Spike's rapidly gasped-out story. And Spike's white face and complete silence on the drive back to the club told Lorne all he needed to know about what had happened. He pulled up to the back door of Caritas and carried Dusty inside to a back room cot. Spike followed like a lost puppy, and Lorne chased him out, telling him to send Phil, one of the bartenders, back.
Spike nodded wordlessly and did as he was told. He sat down at a table with his head in his arms, listlessly smoking a cigarette. His phone startled him, and he cringed when he saw who it was on the caller ID. "Hullo, Dru," he said.
"Spike? Is Dusty all right? I tried to call him, but he didn't answer his phone. I had a dream..."
"No, sweet, he's not all right. Stay put; I'll come and get you." He hauled his leaden body off the chair and went to get his car. Oh, God, what was he going to tell Dru? This was all his bloody fault; if he hadn't left Dusty and gone hunting on his own, then her husband--the father of their child!--wouldn't be fighting for his life in the back room of a demon bar. He gnashed his teeth at himself during the entire drive over.
She was waiting for him with Hans on the sidewalk when he pulled up in front of the apartment building. "What happened?" she asked, getting in behind the Doberman and pulling her seatbelt on.
He checked the mirror and pulled carefully out into the street, hating himself for putting off the answer. Hating the answer more. Staring straight ahead and taking a deep breath, he told her all of it. How he had ditched Dusty and stalked the Initiative soldiers, taking them down in a matter of a few minutes. How he had come back and found her husband buried under a mass of fur and teeth and claws and muscle. The frantic phone call to Lorne. The strained, silent drive to the club...
"Is he going to be all right?" she said, her voice so low he could barely hear it.
"I don't know, pet. They kicked me out. But I'm not going to lie to you. He didn't look good."
"Was it satisfying? To beat them up? Did it make you feel better?" Same low voice.
He exhaled shakily. "Not anymore. God, Dru, I'm sorry. I'm so bloody sorry."
"You should be. What were you thinking?"
He wished that she'd yell at him. This quiet bitterness made him feel even worse. "I wasn't thinking." He pulled the DeSoto behind Lorne's Lincoln in the back alleyway behind Caritas.
"Well, maybe you'd better start. Getting your friends hurt or killed through carelessness isn't going to bring Mandy back any quicker." She got out of the car without another word and walked into the club. He trailed in after her. Lorne caught him in the hallway as she opened the door to the back room and went in.
"How is he?" Spike asked.
"It's bad. It's really bad. Both the bones in his left forearm are broken. So's his right tibia, and a bunch of ribs. You saw the cuts. He lost a lot of blood. And one of the ribs--" Lorne took a deep breath "--might have gone through a lung. He probably has internal injuries. But that's not the worst of it..." Lorne trailed off.
"What?" Spike grabbed his arm. Worse than all that?
"I think his skull is fractured."
Spike collapsed backwards against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. "Oh God."
Both their heads whipped around when they heard Dru's voice singing from behind the closed door.
"Who killed Cock Robin?
I, said the Sparrow,
with my bow and arrow,
I killed Cock Robin."
Spike and Lorne stared at each other in horror for a second, then both of them were through the door and into the room. Dru was sitting next to the cot, holding Dusty's pale, still hand and crooning softly.
"Who saw him die?
I, said the Fly,
with my little eye,
I saw him die."
Spike looked for movement, any kind of movement, coming from Dusty's chest, to tell him that his friend was still breathing. Still here, in the land of the living, no matter how tenuous his hold on it was. Please, God, let him take just one more breath. Just one? Please?
Nothing.
"Who caught his blood?
I, said the Fish,
with my little dish,
I caught his blood."
Blood. There was a lot of it, even though Lorne and Phil had done their best to clean it off. Spike had seen blood before, of course. He'd spilled quite a bit of it himself...even tonight. His conscience assailed him again. He'd taken that little Initiative team apart without regard for whether they were responsible for Mandy's disappearance or not. He wondered if any of them were in a sterile room, fighting for their lives, because of him. Was a spouse or a parent sitting there next to a squad member, going through what Dru was going through right now?
"Who'll make the shroud?
I, said the Beetle,
with my thread and needle,
I'll make the shroud."
His stomach lurched. He spun around and stumbled out of the room, barely making it to the restroom in time. "Oh, God," he said over and over again. Please make it stop. Please let me wake up from this nightmare in my bed with my wife next to me. Please make it so that none of this happened. Please, God...
But when he opened his eyes, he was still in a bathroom stall in a demon bar, and nothing had changed. Dusty was dead, and it was all his fault. Dusty would never see his baby, never watch him take those first steps, hear him say the first words, watch him grow up. Drusilla would have to raise a child all by herself. Spike and Mandy--if she were still alive--would help all they could, of course, but they couldn't make up for not having Daddy around.
This was what came of letting the monster take over from the man. This was what happened when he forgot the price of letting himself off the leash. Because he still had to keep Spike on a leash. Fused or not, there were still times when he had to slap down his darker side and stop himself from doing something violent or crazy, just because he could and it would feel good. Never again would he forget. Not ever. It cost way too bloody much.
Taking a deep, shaky breath (something else Dusty would never do again, he told himself), he made his way back to the little room. Dru hadn't stopped reciting her horrible nursery rhyme and was on the tenth verse. Lorne was still standing there, shattered, unable to do anything for her.
"Who'll carry the coffin?
I, said the Kite,
if it's not through the night,
I'll carry the coffin."
"Dru, baby," Spike said gently. "Time to go."
She gazed up at him, her eyes empty. "Spike? Dusty won't talk to me." She looked so lost. "He's gone among the stars, and I can't hear them whisper anymore."
"I know, princess." His voice cracked. "But you need to rest."
"He's not coming back, is he?"
"No. No, he's not."
***
Mandy awakened slowly, gradually becoming aware that she was lying on a cement floor in a fairly large, echoing room. Whatever they had given her had no lasting effects, and she was recovering quickly. She sat up and looked at her surroundings.
She had her own clothes back, which was a plus. The room was divided in half by a series of two-inch metal bars, set six inches apart. In the other section, a Yanfarl Demon was coming to, shaking its antlered head and grumbling. A mirror that Mandy was sure was two-way was set near the top of the twenty-foot ceiling, and four cameras in the upper corners recorded the ongoing events. And they'd given her a battleaxe. Oh, goody.
She stood, scooping up the weapon and testing the heft and edge of it. It wasn't as well-made as the axe she had at home, but it would do. Eyeing the demon on the other side of the room, she walked around a little, swinging her arms and loosening muscles, getting warmed up for what looked like a glorious fight. Well, she wanted to kill something anyway. Might as well be something these people gave her--since it would kill her if she didn't fight back. Couldn't have that--although it would give them a satisfyingly nasty shock if she just stood there and let it eat her, she thought with an evil grin. But she wasn't quite ready to die just yet. So.
As she watched, the bars began retracting into the floor. The demon bared its teeth , biding its time until it could get at her. A patient demon. That meant it might be smart. Mandy had never dealt with this species before, although she had run across it in Spike's books during research. The antlers were problematic, the brow tines making it nearly impossible to get in under the other points for close combat. She guessed she'd see how it fought when it came at her.
Which would be right about now. As the bars continued to slide into the floor, the demon leaped over them when they were still four feet high. It was agile, then. It swung at her face with a clawed hand, and she dodged back barely in time. Fast, too. Well, she was fast. Let's see just how good this thing was.
It charged her, and she ducked under its swing and came up behind it, aiming at its back with her axe. The demon avoided the stroke and countered with a stab of its antlers. She parried by tangling her blade in the horns and delivered a spinning kick to its jaw. The creature staggered backwards, and she followed up by kicking it in the stomach with her other foot, then swung at it with the axe. Roaring, it grabbed the handle before the head connected and wrenched her weapon away, flinging it across the room.
The Yanfarl lunged at Mandy again, head lowered, and she grasped an antler in each hand and collapsed backwards, her foot in its stomach. She flipped it over her head, and it landed with a "whump" onto its back, winded for a second. That was long enough for her to roll across the floor and pick up the axe again. As the demon sprang at her, she flipped her wrist and sent the axe flying towards it. Unable to dodge, since it was in the air, the creature could only watch in stunned amazement as the blade buried itself in its chest. It was dead before it hit the ground in front of her.
She stood, dusting her hands off. "That all you got?" she shouted at the mirror above her head--then realized that she hadn't said anything to the Yanfarl as she was fighting it. No quips, no hurled insults. Just the battle and the kill. If this was what the Initiative was turning her into, she decided she didn't like it. She needed to balance her desire to not give them anything with her need to hold on to her personality. It gave her something to think about as gas filled the room and she slipped into unconsciousness.
***
"I just saw that with my own eyes, and I don't believe it," Major Carlisle said. "It took a whole team with tasers and rifles to take one of those things down, and she did it by herself with a battleaxe? Are we sure she's human?"
Dr. Finn answered. "According to the blood sample she is. She's got some interesting things going on in her DNA, but nothing really out of the realm of what being human is."
"Can you imagine an army of Slayers?" the Major mused, half to himself.
Dr. Finn looked at him sharply. "There's only one. There's only ever one, unless something really unusual happens."
"Surely, with the state of science these days, we could do something about that, doctor."
Riley III gazed around the room at his colleagues. The soldiers looked enthusiastic, the doctors, cautiously optimistic. Was he the only one who had reservations about this idea? Maybe it was time to talk to Granddad again.
***
"...So I don't know what to do," Riley III told his grandfather. "It's horrible. She won't eat, she won't talk. She just lies there and stares at the wall. We have to feed her intravenously. And when we put her in a room with a Yanfarl demon, she killed it almost contemptuously--then practically begged for more."
"Are you sure you're supposed to be telling me this?"
"No. But there's no one else I can tell. You dated a Slayer once. Is this normal?"
Riley snorted. "Who knows what's normal for a Slayer? I do know that you can't keep one restrained like that. It will mess with her mind, very seriously. And are you sure that food is the only thing in that IV?"
"They wouldn't..." He stopped, realizing just how silly that statement was, in light of what had happened in the observation room after the Slayer had sent her battleaxe into the Yanfarl's chest.
His grandfather looked at him. "Wouldn't they? Mind-altering drugs, chemistry-altering hormones, demon toxins. You should know by now what they're capable of."
"Yeah. Yeah, I do." And Dr. Riley Finn III had a moment of clarity.
TBC...
Chapter Four