Beneath the surface, the inside of the SUV was anything but calm.
“You stupid fucking twat!”
Angel hauled the thrashing vampire out of the foot well, a grin spreading over his face as he listened to the tirade.
“Fifty fucking years and it’s the same old same old. Tin can forty feet under and ‘Swim for it, Spike.’ Well tough shit, mate, ‘cos swimming’s not on the agenda. You can swim, I’ll hang on to your sodding gargantuan STUPIDITY!” Finally righted in his seat, Spike subsided slightly and glared at Angel. “What! Expression like that makes you look like a constipated chimp.”
“You’re speaking.”
“Well, duh! Oh…” Spike frowned, puzzled.
At last Angel could get an answer to all those questions he’d been wanting to ask. Like, how did Spike get away from Dana?
“Oh yeah. Brilliant,” Spike continued. “So anyway… you, me, underwater, another tin-can. Never occurred to maybe stop and, I dunno, maybe hide UNDER the bloody car rather than drive it straight into the sodding LAKE!”
When had the dreams started? What happened to him when he drank the tea? And why, exactly, were they sitting at the bottom of a lake in Nebraska?
“Or blankets, back seat. Not that I’d fancy spending the day snuggled up to Mr. ‘let’s try driving underwater.’
Now if he’d just shut up long enough for Angel to get a word in edgewise.
“God forbid you’d actually try anything like GIVING A BLOKE SOME WARNING!”
“Shut up, Spike!” Six months of relative silence. Angel was nostalgic already.
“Not like I can bloody swim,” Spike said, waving the stumps of his arms under Angel’s nose. “Not even doing the doggie paddle with these.” He paused, staring out at the browny green water, and then down at the floor where it was starting to seep into the car.
Angel held his breath, hoping the worst was over, till Spike started up again, morose and pouting. “Could have a drink, I s’ppose. Not much else to do. Or have a fag. Water’s gonna be knee deep soon and it’s not like we need the air.”
“Or we could go and look for whatever it is you dragged my ass all the way to Nebraska to see.”
“A burial mound.” The water had reached chest level in the time it took Angel to get a lucid story from Spike. Now he was wet, cold, and feeling more than slightly resentful.
“Yep,” Spike replied, puffing on his cigarette.
That was the other thing. They may not need the air, but Angel was starting to feel like a smoked haddock.
“And we can’t see the entrance until the moon rises.”
“Uhuh.”
“That we can’t get into until the sun goes down.”
“That’s about the size of it, yeah.”
“And you have no idea where to find it or how to get in, but it’s at the bottom of this lake somewhere.
Spike nodded slowly.
“This lake. That’s gotta be a mile long and Christ knows how deep.”
“Um, yeah.” Spike’s cocky attitude disintegrated bit by bit, his shoulders dropping as the enormity of the task ahead of them became clear.
Angel shook his head. “I guess we’d better get started then,” he said. “Not like I haven’t done the underwater thing before.”
They trudged through the mud, Angel ahead holding one end of Spike’s safety belt like a leash. The other end was tied firmly around Spike’s waist. That hadn’t been popular, but like Angel pointed out, although staying out of the sun wasn’t an issue, light barely penetrated three feet below the surface. That made searching for anything, be it burial mounds or missing vampires, virtually impossible.
The hours passed in relative silence. With drowned lungs – to stop them bobbing to the surface like inflammable buoys – there was a limit to what noises they could make. Spike tried speaking just the once but after Angel suggested he sounded like a whale, he gave up and dragged along behind, accompanied by his personal entourage of curious fish and hungry leeches.
Sometime during the late afternoon – Angel’s watch turned out to be waterproof but not silt proof – they both stopped at the same moment, sensing a change. Perhaps in water pressure or ambient temperature, neither could say for sure, but the fish noticed. They flooded past, thousands of them, silver slivers of reflection all heading in the same direction. Away from whatever it was the vampires could sense.
Pointing towards the surface, Angel mouthed, ‘Moon?’ It was the only explanation he could think of that would make the creatures react, unless there was some kind of tide thing going on.
Spike shrugged. Still it was their best clue and Angel had learned never to look a gift mystical event in the mouth. Keeping his eyes half shut in a vain attempt to stop the grit getting in them, he shuffled off against the tide of fish, towing Spike in his wake.
It rose like a mythological chelonian in front of them; huge, green and slime covered; though unlike the average turtle, it was firmly anchored to the sea bed. Angel felt his way around it, stumbling over the dead trees and rocks littering the boundary between the lake bed and the mound. Looming sides vanished into the darkness, unmarked by anything except slow regular curves; he was a blind man hunting the future in something so ancient it made Illyria look like a jumped up novice. Who knew how big the thing was or where the entrance lay. What was the rhyme again? Maybe there were clues.
Angel leant against the mound, seeing Spike as he’d been in Santa Fe – eyes closed and swaying slightly in the sunlight.
‘In the south land by the flat water, drowned am I,’ Spike’s voice said, ‘yet pulse still with life; the dying serpent given breath by those who have no need of air.’ That was mound and its location at the bottom of this lake.
‘When the moon bulged full with life, my people stood before me, and when the rooster heralded glory’s death, they opened to me and I entered them.’
‘My people stood before me…’ That suggested a door of some sort. If it was a serpent then the mouth was the obvious place, unless the mound builders had a more ribald sense of humour than was customary for ancients. Though did snakes actually have assholes?
An irritable tug on the rope made him glance up. Spike glared at him and gestured impatiently to the right. Angel sighed and set out again. Worse case scenario, they got to spend another day underwater searching for the right spot.
Gandalf made it look easy in Lord of the Rings; glowing letters on a mine door and a seamonster. The entrance to the burial mound was going to be more of a challenge.
Angel slid a hand over the stone, noting the lack of mortar and the tight fit of the joints. Either the glamours around this place were particularly strong, or archaeologists were stupider than Angel gave them credit for, because the work was obviously Mayan or older. How this had been allowed to vanish into the bottom of a reservoir was anyone’s guess, even during the cult of desecration rampant during the thirties.
He inched backwards, gazing up at the top jaw hanging at least fifteen feet above them. The bottom jaw lay buried in inches of silt. And between them? The serpent’s mouth was nothing but a gaping maw framed by fangs and filled with a blackness that resisted every effort to penetrate. It didn’t make sense. The moon was up, the sun was going down, so what the hell was its problem?
The tingle started in his toes, like the circulation coming back when you’d sat on your legs. Not that Angel remembered the sensation that well, but when you were around humans you’d learned to recognise it. By the time it reached his knees, he was worried enough to try moving, only to discover he couldn’t. A quick glance in Spike’s direction proved he wasn’t alone, which was almost a comfort. If something bad was happening, at least Angel wasn’t the only one it was happening to.
Further up his body, it left twitching spasming muscles in its wake, but now Angel was starting to get the hang of it. And a suspicion as to what it was. He stopped fighting and, after his heart pulsed a single ominous beat, felt the spirit enter him with a rush, jostling his awareness to one side.
The snake’s empty mouth suddenly filled with magic and he stepped towards it, arms raised in supplication. He couldn’t speak, being possessed didn’t stop his lungs being full of water, but words formed and fell in his mind. They should have been incomprehensible, but emotions and images came with them.
“Blessed Ones grant us access to your domain. Blood, once shared, became the way to tear us apart. In birthing us, you gained naught but death. We come at last and bring the sacrifice that will furnish your return.”
The magic across the entrance faltered, clearing to allow Angel entry. Not that he would have, given the choice. Unfortunately the spirit inside him wasn’t playing fair and simply picked his feet up and walked him through a doorway that vanished behind him. Then it abandoned him, leaving him coughing and heaving up lake water on a dry sandy floor.
“Bugger this for a game of soldiers,” Spike choked up next to him. “No more amulets, no more slayers and absolutely no more frigging ghosts. I’ve had it with getting sliced and diced for someone else’s laughs.”
“You and me both,” Angel growled, staggering to his feet. The antechamber was as plain as the outside, though the crackle of magic suggested there was more than he was seeing. It was also light. Strange, considering they were forty feet under water inside a burial mound.
“Plus I’m not a bloody sacrifice. Been there, done that, got deep fried. If they want one they can find some other sucker.” Spike paused, significantly, then continued exactly as Angel suspected he would. “Hey, Ange, you’re good at this sacrifice lark. Fancy giving it a whirl?”
“I hate to disappoint you,” Angel said, wandering over to the internal wall and laying his hand against an indentation which virtually screamed ‘press me.’ The stone sank and an entire section of the wall swung back. A grin spread over his face. “But I got the impression we were both destined for the altar this time.”
“And you’re just gonna walk in there all willy nilly?” Spike said, waving his arm at the gap.
Angel shrugged. “Why else are we here, dream boy?”
“I dunno. Maybe it’s an evil dream. And since when did you start listening to me anyway?”
“Since you dragged me halfway across the country during an apocalypse.”
“You coulda stayed in LA.”
“And you’da done what? Thumbed a lift?”
Spike’s face fell. He barged past Angel and through the gap muttering, “Right then. Know where we stand. Let’s go get disembowelled or whatever goodies they’ve got in store.”
There was no altar, for disembowelling or anything else. What there was, was
an empty room. Like the antechamber, it had a sandy stone floor and walls built
from closely knitted blocks. Magic crackled around it, invisible but sparking
off Angel’s senses and making his hackles rise.
“Now what?” he said strolling in after Spike.
Spike didn’t answer and when Angel caught up with him, his eyes were staring blankly at the middle of the open space.
Damn. Looked like his seer was off in vision land again. Angel worked out exactly where Spike was staring and went over to investigate. He couldn’t see anything, but then again there was so much magic around, there could be half a dozen glamours working and he’d never be able to sense them.
In the centre of the room, the temperature dropped precipitously and the air took on a strange sweet scent. Angel quartered the space and, surprise surprise, the scent, the chill and Spike’s gaze all focused on the same spot. Dropping to his knees, he inspected the floor, tapping it gently and listening. A human wouldn’t have been able to detect the difference, but vampiric hearing could. There was a hollow chamber of some description concealed under the floor.
He punched it, cursed as his knuckles split, and punched it again. Stone crumbled, pounded into dust by the force of his fist. Deeper and deeper it went, blood smearing on the stone and gathering into a pool that turned the dust crimson and splashed up onto his face. He brushed aside the pain; like himself, in the greater scheme of things, it wasn’t important. What mattered was gaining access to whatever had brought them there.
Spike had suggested his dreams were evil but Angel knew with startling clarity that they weren’t. In this quest, he hoped to put right what he’d started by declaring war on the Senior Partners, and if it cost him pain, his dignity or even his life, this time, he’d follow through.
The stone finally failed, pitching Angel forward as his arm shot through the floor. He dragged it free and peered down into the darkness. No sign of anything. Though the scent was much stronger.
Behind him, Spike stirred, coming round from his daze. He shook himself, rolling his head as though to clear the cricks from his neck and came to look down the hole.
“Gotta be big enough for us to wriggle through,” he said, toeing the blood splattered sand. He stared at Angel’s fists and mumbled, “Sorry. Not much use.”
Angel shrugged. In some ways this was easier. If Spike had been able to help then they’d only have ended up fighting over who was to do it.
Wincing slightly, he grabbed the edge of the hole and yanked at the stone. It shifted and with another inhuman heave, Angel managed to pull it lose. He staggered back and tossed the stone into the far corner, standing on shaking legs until he felt ready to try the next one.
Four stones later and they had a gap even Angel would fit through. It was dark, forbidding and apparently bottomless.
“Last time I went down a hole I was escaping from demons,” he said ruefully.
Spike sighed. “Last time I went down a hole I came back with no arms.”
Their gazes met, eyes saying exactly the same thing. Life’s shit, but what ya gonna do.
“You go first,” Spike said. “Meet any monsters with bone saws, you can take them out before I end up with one leg.”
Angel thought back to Dana and the story that had emerged as they searched for her. “She was an innocent,” he said as he balanced on the edge of the drop.
“So were we... once upon a time,” Spike answered just as Angel let himself fall.
The drop wasn’t so far. Certainly nothing like the oubliette Spike had been
in. It was maybe twenty feet deep and the walls were rough and easily scaleable.
Angel landed lightly and stood ready to catch Spike if he needed help. He didn’t
and alighted like a cat.
They quickly moved back to back, each inspecting their own half of this new chamber. It was smaller than the one above but just as empty.
“S’like bloody Russian dolls,” Spike grumbled. “Full of nothing but more sodding rooms. I tell you, we’ll get down far enough and there’ll be a bit of paper with April Fool written on it.”
With a groan, Angel began pounding his way through another layer of stone. “If there is,” he said. “I’ll make you damned well eat it.”
Each time was harder than the last. Angel’s ability to heal rapidly vanished
under such punishment; the skin on his knuckles stayed ripped, bones remained
bruised and broken. Still he didn’t stop. Spike watched with increasing dejection,
uselessness radiating off him as he nudged away the chips of stone Angel loosened
with his hands. On each level the cold and the sweet scent grew stronger until
both of them instinctively stopped breathing. Even a vampire’s lungs could freeze,
and although they would thaw, it was as uncomfortable as drowning.
Finally Angel could continue no longer. It wasn’t the pain. He’d felt worse in hell. Or on a Saturday night patrol for that matter. His hands were simply too badly damaged to break the rock any longer. Almost weeping with frustration, he kicked at the floor. “Fucking bastard thing!” he exploded. “What’s the fucking point of hiding it so far down not even a fucking vampire can reach it.”
Spike’s arm appeared in front of his face, blood dripping from the gash he’d made with his fangs. “S’not much, but it’s better than nothing and it might get yer feelers working again.
Nodding his thanks, Angel pressed his mouth to the wound trying not to remember the last time he’d tasted Spike’s blood. Drinking deeply, he took as much as he could without leaving Spike weakened and though cold, this time it was far from rancid. Angel could feel it working its magic, knitting his bones and healing his flesh, and wished he could do the same for his grandchilde.
He was about to begin again, pounding through the stone with his bare fists, when Spike shucked off his jacket. “Make good wraps,” he said. “Make them last a bit longer.”
Angel nodded and did as he was bid. It helped and he cursed himself for not thinking of this before. Another layer of floor crumbled beneath him and this time the blast was from the hole was both arctic and reeking. Better still, a soft light glowed in the darkness illuminating a low plinth containing a crystal orb that looked distinctly familiar.
“Jasmine,” he muttered.
“Not unless it’s rotting,” Spike answered, referring to the smell.
“No,” Angel said, “the orb. Wes found one just like it and it opened a portal into Jasmine’s dimension.”
Spike simply looked confused.
“Long story,” Angel said. “Renegade power we took down last year. She was trying to bring on world peace.”
“Well that’s all… huh? World peace?”
Ripping out the last piece of stone, Angel frowned. “Like I said, long story,” he said, and then dropped down the hole. Spike followed him and they found themselves in a tiny cell like room, no more than ten foot square.
“Damn, I knew I knew that smell,” Spike said, sniffing gingerly. “Formaldehyde. Used to get it sometimes when Buffy dusted a vamp. Nasty stuff.”
Angel was too busy looking at the orb to really concentrate. It looked identical, though presumably lead somewhere that wasn’t Jasmine’s dimension. The inscriptions on the altar were in a language he didn’t recognise but vaguely resembled Sumarian Cuneiform. Another archaeological anachronism. If word of this place got out, historians the world over would have collective apoplexy.
“What do reckon these are?” Spike asked from the other side of the room.
Angel glanced up. “Gauntlets,” he said, standing up to take a closer look. He removed one from their wall niche and turned it over in his hands. “They’re medieval. Except that’s impossible. This place hasn’t been opened for centuries.” They also stank. Apparently they were the source of the formaldehyde.
“No more impossible than that,” Spike said gesturing at the altar. The inscriptions on this side were written in English, modern comprehensible English.
“Blood, once shared, became the way to tear us apart. In birthing them, I gained naught but death,” Angel read. “Isn’t that what the spirits said?”
“Alongside the stuff about sacrifices, yeah. You reckon it’s the last bit of the riddle?”
“Jasmine’s orb needed blood, maybe this one does too.” Angel stripped the leather wrap off his hands and reached out for the orb. As he touched it, it flared with a blue light but then subsided back into its steady glow. “But not mine.”
“Must be me then,” Spike said. He bit into his arm and held it out so the blood dripped onto the crystal. Again it flared, this time brighter, but still no portal opened. “Or maybe neither of us.”
“Or maybe,” Angel said, picking up one of the gauntlets, “it needs these too.” He tried forcing his hand inside only to withdraw it with a grimace of disgust. “Ok,” he said. “That’s not gonna work.” Holding it out to Spike, he added, “I bet it’ll fit you.”
“Don’t be daft,” Spike began, peering into the gauntlet. “How’s it gonna…Oh.”
“Yup,” Angel said with a grin. “I reckon the last person to wear them was pretty armless.”
“Hah, bloody hah. They’re still gonna fall off though.” Despite his protests, Spike held out his arms. Angel slid the gauntlets onto them.
For a second nothing happened, then metal claws shot from the wrists clamping into Spike’s flesh. He yelled, dropping to his knees. Blood streamed from his arms, dripping to the floor. “Get them off me,” he shouted. “Get them the fuck off me!”
Angel glanced between Spike and the pulsing orb and made his decision. Grabbing Spike under the arms, he lifted him to his feet and guided the gauntlets down onto the orb. It flared and, as Spike’s blood ran into the metal gloves, flared again. This time, the light continued to grow, throwing a beam off to one side. It crackled as it hit the wall, tearing a hole in reality, creating a window into another world.
“Bugger me,” Spike whispered, staring at the ranks and ranks of motionless humans
visible through the portal.
Angel gave him a quick hug and resisted saying later. Though the idea made him grin. “Think we’ve discovered where everyone vanished to,” he said. “Now we’ve just gotta work out how to get them back.”
“That will not be your concern,” someone said.
Both vampires started in surprise when the speaker stepped through the portal. “It’s you,” Spike said, “Bloody Annoying Starry woman. I’d sue your make up artist if I was you, love.”
The elderly woman smiled, her face crinkling into a thousand creases. “Would you prefer this?” she asked and shimmered into the young girl Angel recognised as Changing Woman. “Appearance is irrelevant,” she said, “for myself at least. I wanted to be the first to offer our thanks for freeing us.”
“Us?” Angel queried.
Another woman appeared at the gateway. She was middle-aged, tiny and light skinned and held a bottle in her hand. Glancing nervously around, she followed Changing Woman through into the room. “There are thousands of us, but we are all one,” she said. “Much as you are all one. Descended from a single demon and yet still carrying the original inside each one of you.”
She pottered over to Spike and held the bottle to his lips. He drank gratefully, and Angel released him as the tension in his body fell away.
“You’re demons?” Angel asked and received only laughter in reply.
“Don’t be a twat,” spluttered Spike. “These ladies make our lot look like bloody infants. Reckon they were around well before demons arrived.”
“Your friend is correct,” Changing woman said. “We were here long before the first creatures clambered onto the earth, from heaven, hell or the seas. We stood aside and allowed time to take its course, letting the races grow. We saw as first one then another gained ascendancy, their blood mixing so rarely that we despaired. We watched our mother being plundered and took no action, too far removed to do more than nudge the balance and speak through others who held us dear. Always wondering if there would be a place for us during the final days.
And thanks to you, there will be. Thanks to you, we were able to bring our children here, all of them. The humans to our dimension, the demons to the world above. All that now remains is to rejoin them as they always should have been.”
“Rejoin?” Angel’s mouth dropped open as Changing Woman spoke. He could accept that they were the powers. He could accept that the visions which had guided his life for the past few years had been sent by them. But rejoining demon and humankind? That was impossible.
Spike didn’t seem to think so. “Humans and demons, huh? Like the slayers then. Human with a dash of demon on the side.”
The bottle holding woman’s face darkened. “That was an obscenity!” she declared. “The girl was ours. They stole her from her family and forced the demon into her. Ravished her with a power that was hers by right!”
“Hush, Demeter,” Changing Woman said, patting the woman’s arm. “Such things that have already happened cannot now be allowed to fuel hatred.” She smiled at the vampires, who now both looked shell shocked. “The girl was destined to be the first mother of the mixed races,” she explained. “Betrothed to a Brachen demon and deeply in love until the Watchers stripped away her humanity.”
“Bastards. Always knew I didn’t like Watchers,” Spike rumbled at the same time as Angel whispered, “Brachen,” and remembered Doyle.
“They did what they did out of a will to do good,” insisted Changing Woman.
Beside her, Demeter nodded sadly. “It was misguided, but they meant it for the best,” she agreed. “That is why we guarded her and her descendants for so many years. Allowing the power to be passed on so no other girlchild would have to be taken in such a way.”
“Guarded,” Angel muttered. His eyes narrowed and he glared suspiciously at the two women. “The scythe was yours.”
“Mine,” Demeter acknowledged with a nod of her head. “My daughter was trapped between worlds when we departed and she held it for us, ready to pass it on when the time was ripe. She played her role well.”
Silence fell between them, a moment of respect for the Guardian who had given her life, then Spike said brightly, “So this is it. The big one. End of the world as we know it and all that jazz.”
“It is,” Changing Woman agreed. “Though it will be many years before the new world is born. There is much work still to be done.”
Angel nodded. “Mopping up. That’s gonna take a while.”
“Are you offering your aid, champion?” Demeter asked. “Knowing there will be no reward at the end.”
Glaring at his boots, Angel nodded silently.
Spike’s gaze shot immediately to Angel. “What about the shanshu thing?” he demanded. “You not gonna be a real boy after all?”
When Angel refused to answer, Spike turned to the women. They exchanged glances and Demeter sighed. “It was never his,” she said sadly. “Angelus is not a champion without his soul.”
“Fuck that!” Pulling away from Angel’s restraining hand, Spike stomped over to Demeter and got in her face. “You telling me you pissed around with him and his for sodding years and never had any intention of ponying up? You bitches!”
“Thus speaks the true champion,” Changing Woman said.
“What?” Spike spun round, the heavy gauntlets thumping against his legs. “Hang on a mo. You saying it’s mine?”
“Yes,” said Demeter. “Your task is fulfilled. Your journey over. You may now rest as you have so often wished.” She gestured to the portal, which twisted violently for a moment coming to rest on a face both vampires recognised.
“Step through, William, and you will be as she now is. Untouched by demonic influence. Human in body, mind and deed. We will prepare the way for your return.”
“Will I…” Spike swallowed, unable to drag his eyes from the sight of Buffy. “Will I remember?”
Changing Woman smiled. “You will,” she said, “And your sacrifice will be with you forever, a physical reminder of the burden you carried.”
Angel couldn’t look. He turned away, clenching his fists in his pockets as he waited for Spike to accept the gift of humanity. And why wouldn’t he? That was why they had fought over that stupid cup, for the right to walk into Buffy’s life and sweep her off her feet as a living breathing human.
“No.” Spike’s voice came at long distance volume and for a second Angel thought he’d misheard, until the word was repeated, louder and more insistent. “No. I don’t want it.”
Angel rounded on him, accusing, “Idiot! She’s offering you everything. Take it!”
“At what cost?” Spike insisted. “What could I give her?” He held up his gauntleted arms, illustrating his point. “Without these I’ll never hold her or touch her face. She’d always be just beyond my reach, like she always has been.”
“You would chose to remain?” Demeter asked.
“Yeah,” Spike said quietly, just as Angel bellowed, “No!”
It wasn’t right. Yes, he’d resented Spike when he’d first turned up full of how he was the true champion, the only one worthy of the shanshu. But at a table beset with demons in down town LA, Angel had put that behind him. Believing Spike dead, he had put his faith in Connor, the living embodiment of his future – his shanshu. Now Spike had the opportunity to become human, it was yet another chance. A way for Angel to clear his conscience of William’s corruption.
He lashed out, determined to push Spike into making the right decision. The only decision. “Don’t expect me to play nursemaid. I had enough of that pandering to Dru.”
Hurt flashed across Spike’s face. He turned his back on Angel, his head bowed. “I can’t do it. See revulsion in her eyes when she looks at me. We played that dance and both of us stung from it in the end.” His shoulders shook allowing Angel the terrible insight that he was fighting tears. The guess was confirmed when Spike choked out, “So let’s end it. Take back what Dru did, ‘cos either way my heart’s getting ripped out and I reckon the quicker way’s less painful.”
“You would take the coward’s way out?”
Spike lifted his head to glare at Demeter. “Not much bloody choice, is there. Get kicked to kerb by Buffy or taken apart by numbers when some demon gets a hankering after dead meat. No, ta. I might look like a tosser but I know when the gig’s up.” Straightening his shoulders, he spun round to face Angel. “Do it,” he demanded, chin jutting obstinately. “End what your girl started, Angel, and let’s make a finish.”
A sudden rush of whispers filled the air, a thousand thousand voices. Angel prepared for the killing blow, not even sure why he was doing this except it was what Spike wanted.
“Enough!”
Bonds tighter than any chains held Angel immovable. He squinted over at Changing Woman, who stood surrounded by a nimbus of power, holding their futures in her grasp.
“You would throw away all for the price of your hands?”
Spike stomped over to her and waved the gauntlets in her face. “See these,” he said. “You try having a fag without them. Or a beer. Or a wank. Then tell me that’s a life worth living.”
“You would have the sun, children, a chance to live out your life.”
“As what!” Spike yelled, virtually hopping up and down. “I’ve been around since they invented the loo for Christ’s sake and now someone would have to wipe my arse!”
“You really don’t want this.”
“Finally, you cotton on. No, I don’t bloody want it and I don’t want to stay here watching Angelus have all the fun, when I’m stuck trying to sup dinner through a straw. So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll just say my goodbyes and go join the choir invisible.”
“You are obstinate and rude, however your choice is valid,” continued Changing Woman. “If you so wish it, the burden will be yours once more. Do you choose it?”
Angel’s eyes widened. He knew that tone. There was a double cross going on. Unable to speak, he made a couple of desperate grunting noises in the hopes of getting Spike to shut up before it was too late. He didn’t of course.
“After you lot stuck dreams in my head and dragged me all over this bloody country, I’ll choose whatever it takes to get you off my sodding back,” Spike snapped.
A smile spread over Changing Woman’s face. “Return to us when the way has been prepared,” she said. Gathering her blanket around her shoulders, she followed Demeter back into her own dimension. “Morrigan will be disappointed that her armies do not to fly, but I shall soothe her with tales of your victories.”
“Victories?” Spike mouthed, as the portal flickered out of existence. He spun on Angel. “What the fuck was all that about.”
“At a guess,” Angel said, finally able to move, “I’d say we’re in for the long haul. Congratulations, you just turned down help saving the world.”
“What?”
“Morrigan’s armies, Spike. I think they were supposed to rid the world of evil demons.”
“And?”
“And now we get to do it.”
“Bugger. Sorry ‘bout that.” Spike’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Me and my big mouth. Never did learn to keep it shut.”
“I dunno,” Angel replied. “It could be fun. We can drum up some demons in McCook and ride out at the head of an army. I always fancied doing the general thing. Plus,” he said, “there is this.” He grabbed Spike’s gauntlets and tugged gently.
They slid off and Spike stopped mid pout. He had hands. Not his own, granted. They were a stranger’s. Slimmer and smaller than the one’s he remembered. But when he flexed them, they responded. When he made a fist, he could feel the power of them. And when he reached out for Angel, he touched cotton and hard flat muscle.
A wild grin spread over his face. “Army, was it?” he said, starting to bounce on the balls of his feet. “Tell you what. Best of three gets to be general.”
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