Fic: Interrogations
Title: Interrogations
Creator: drizzlydaze
Rating: PG
Setting: NFA battle
Word count: 997
Prompt: Life or Death
A/N: Part Seven. Parts One ( Chapters), Two ( Like Old Times, But Not), Three ( Help), Four ( Victim), Five ( Property), Six ( Escapee).
“You want answers? You find them. It’s your fault, you know-”
“My fault? I say it’s all on Evil Incorporated. Tell me what you did to him!” The image of Spike lying comatose on the hospital bed races back to the forefront of her mind. “He hasn’t woken for two days! He’s getting worse, and you’re about to get a whole lot worse if you don’t tell me why.”
“I’m not with W&H anymore, you know.”
Punch.
“Thought you didn’t hurt humans! Honour of the Slayer, right?”
“I won’t kill you,” she says evenly, “but I can think up a whole lot of fun things to do in the meantime.”
Punch.
“Start talking.”
The man raises his hands, palms forward. “Okay. Okay. I don’t much feel like being a punching bag for a corporation I don’t even serve anymore.”
“First. Why’s Spike not waking up?”
“He’s trapped. He belongs to the Senior Partners, and they’ve trapped him in his own mind.”
“Belongs to the Senior Partners?”
“Yeah. Like property. Contractually, mystically, physically, mentally-Spike is the property of Wolfram and Hart.”
“Why?”
“A contract. Transference of ownership. It’s all very lawful. Spike was the property of Illyria, now he’s the pr-” The man abruptly cuts off. Blood leaks from his slit throat. A few sparks of magic dance around the wound.
Buffy immediately shifts into battle stance, eyes darting around for any sign of the attacker. But there’s nothing.
Great. The one W&H employee (okay, former employee) she managed track down, her one informant, is dead.
She’s got one important answer, though. Spike is somehow trapped in his own mind. So he’s still conscious, somewhere inside. Maybe like what happened to her when Dawn was taken by Glory, except this was deliberate. Forced. And the Senior Partners could do it because, for some unfathomable reason, he was their property, taken contractually from Illyria.
Which begs the question: why? Why was he Illyria’s property to begin with? And why is he with W&H now? She wishes she could consult the records she knows Wolfram and Hart kept, but they have all been destroyed in the whole LA going to Hell debacle.
She needs Spike. She needs to rouse him from his unnatural sleep, bring him out from his own mind-maybe she can try what Willow did that time too? She needs him at her side.
And she needs the full story. She needs to talk to Illyria, who has vanished to another world, whether permanently or not. She needs to talk to Wesley, who, she hears, had been knowledge guy around these parts, but he’s dead. She needs to talk to Gunn, the lawyer of the bunch, but he’s dead too. She needs to talk to someone who knows about these contracts, who knows Wolfram and Hart, who knows their way around the Senior Partners.
Whether or not she can get info, she has to be able to do something. She does have all of Spike, no matter what a stupid contract says. She has his body, and he’s trapped in his mind, so she just has to get him out.
She resolves to try getting into Spike’s mind with Willow’s help when Mikki runs up to her.
“Buffy! We found another W&H employee.”
That must be the one who killed her informant. Buffy quickly follows Mikki back to base.
The employee is a ‘she’ this time, and she’s a mage. Confirms it, then. She’s the one who killed the guy. Her hands are bound with magicked handcuffs, courtesy of Willow.
“We tried a truth serum,” Mikki explains, “but she’s immune. She must’ve cast a protection spell before we caught her.”
So she’ll only answer what she wants to. Buffy waits till Mikki is out of the room. “So what will you tell me?”
The mage remains stubbornly silent, glaring at Buffy.
“You’re not very good. I mean, you got caught. Pretty much failing at the whole silent assassin thing. You must’ve known the place was swarming with Slayers. So why was it so important for you to kill him? Who ordered you to? I thought all the W&H people were on the same side,” Buffy muses. “LA branch goes to Hell. Senior Partners only rescue higher-ups. Equals pissed off employees, because the Senior Partners are bastards. Which they should’ve known anyway, but-”
“Shut your mouth, filth. Dirtying the Wolf, Ram and Hart with your ignorance.”
That’s her chance. “Enlighten me, then.”
“The man I killed-filth too. A traitor to the Senior Partners. There are many like him, and many more I must kill.”
So there’s been a schism. Half the employees going against the Senior Partners, half of them continuing to carry out their duties.
“I see no harm in telling you what they intend. It goes against your interests. Well, interest, singular.” She gives a half-smile. “Your precious vampire. He is precious to us as well. The other side intends to kill him.”
“That’s what your Partners are doing, idiot.”
“No, they are not. Why should they kill their own property? They want him alive. The detractors, in their infinite ignorance, wish to thwart them. They have already had an attempt on his life,” she adds thoughtfully. “I hear they sent him an interesting note.”
“…The Partners want to use him,” Buffy realizes.
“Of course. Everyone else seems to have had their own turn in using him. Especially you.”
Buffy clenches her fists. It’s not like that now. That was… a long time ago. Doesn’t make it right, but it was. I need to focus on saving him now. Anything. I’ll do anything. His life-his death-everyone wants something from him. I just need to get him back.
The mage smiles in earnest now. “What did you say about my capture? That I had failed? No, the Senior Partners have asked me to deliver a message.”
“Message?”
“William the Bloody is hostage. Give us Angelus and you get him back.”