The Worst Journey in the World Part Three
For rating, pairing etc see Part One
The Worst Journey in the World Part Three
Buffy wasn’t sure to start with what had woken her. Nothing had changed. The wind was still howling outside, and Spike hadn’t moved. But he was awake. She could sense it. In fact, he'd probably never been to sleep.
She began to sit up, only to feel his fingers close around her wrist and squeeze. He was looking back over his shoulder at her, eyes glowing gold.
“Spike?” she mouthed at him. “What is it?”
He motioned with his head towards the wall of the tent, which thrummed as the force of the wind made it vibrate.
“There’s something out there.”
A chill ran down her spine, and not with the cold.
He let go of her wrist and began to struggle out of his sleeping bag, while she did likewise. Meanwhile, in the far corner of the tent, Wesley slept like the dead man he was.
Spike was pulling on his boots. “Whatever they are,” he hissed, “they hurt the dogs or damage the sledge, we’re sodding well finished.”
“I know that.” She fumbled her own boots on, then scrabbled amongst their supplies for the weapons bag. “Here.” She tossed him an axe and he caught it clumsily in his gloved hand.
All the while, his head was cocked, straining to hear noises from outside, while his nostrils flared wide, chasing after scents.
Suddenly, he put his finger to his lips and pointed towards the front wall of the tent. Buffy gripped the Scythe more tightly. “How many?”
He held up three fingers. “Dunno what they are,” he mouthed back. “Never smelt anything like ‘em.”
Great, she thought, but didn’t say aloud. She watched Spike track the progress of whatever-it-was in the direction of the flap.
Suddenly, he whirled. “Wes, wake the fuck up!”
Even as he shouted, the tent wall split apart right next to where Wesley lay sleeping and something - she couldn’t get a bead on it, some kind of walking darkness, vaguely man-shaped- slid inside.
“Spike, two o'clock!” Another shadow shape pushed its way through the flap, while the skin of the tent burst apart in two other places, allowing two more to enter, along with a blast of freezing air filled with whirling snowflakes.
The ceiling of the tent bellied upwards and Buffy heard the creak of straining guy ropes.
“Fuck!” Spike moved forward, axe swinging. Light from the wildly swaying lantern flashed on steel as the blade came down and there was a snarling grunt of pain from one of the shadow shapes. It went staggering backwards to collide with its fellows.
Buffy had only time to observe that whatever the shadow shapes might be, at least they had some kind of substance, before leaping across the intervening space to engage an opponent of her own.
The Scythe sheared through darkness and there was another of those grunting noises, but in spite of that, and in spite of the fact that the shadow shape retreated several paces - or rather flowed away from her- it didn’t feel like she’d struck anything solid.
“Slippery buggers, aren’t they?”
Buffy risked a glance over her shoulder to see the shadow Spike was fighting recover from his initial blow and move back towards him. Meanwhile the third was closing on her from her left. They slipped and slid as they moved, difficult to watch, like an oil spill. She narrowed her eyes to lessen the effect and slashed left, then right, leaping back again while they tried to flow around her.
"Ms Summers - Spike! Help!" It was Wesley's voice.
The original shadow shape had Wesley in a headlock and was attempting to drag him out of the tear it had made in the tent skin. Wesley was clinging on to one of the supports, but his grip was loosening.
"Help me!" he shouted again.
"Hang on, Wes!" Spike lunged forward, plunging his axe blade into what appeared to be his opponent's torso and retreating again. It howled - an eerie, ululating sound - but it barely faltered in its advance. Instead, it brandished its own blade above its head in a showy display of swordsmanship, forcing Spike towards the opposite corner of the tent from Wesley.
Meanwhile, Buffy's two adversaries were still trying to outflank her, but only to her left, where Wesley still struggled. If she moved right towards Spike, they let her go.
Spike had noticed it too. "Fuckers're after Wes, not us!" She heard his roar of fury as he went into vamp face and, all thoughts of finesse forgotten, threw himself on the shadow shape, like a lion on its prey.
Buffy seized the central support of the tent and used it to launch herself into the air and pivot, delivering a thunderous roundhouse kick to her two foes in passing. They staggered back, and before they could flow forward again, she was past the barrier they'd made and barrelling into Wesley's would-be abductor at full-on Slayer speed.
The shadow shape flowed away from her at the last minute, but even so, she managed to dislodge its grip on Wesley's leg. He went staggering forward, colliding head-first with the tent support he'd been clinging to.
"Unh!" Wesley slumped to the ground, while Buffy took up a defensive position in front of him as the three shadow shapes advanced on her.
Beyond them, Spike and his opponent rolled this way and that on the tent floor. It looked like Spike had the upper hand, because as Buffy's eyes flicked from the fight to the three shadows in front of her and back again, the fourth shadow seemed to be coming apart, patches of darkness ripping away from the central column as Spike tore at its outer edges. But even as she watched, she could see how the shreds stealthily knit themselves together again.
"Spike!" Buffy put on her Slayer voice, because even now, he could get lost in a killing frenzy. At the sound, his head came up, fangs bleeding darkness, and he howled. Outside, the dogs howled back. Then, they began to bark.
The other three shadow shapes didn't halt their advance. As one, they raised their weapons, while through the rents in the tent fabric, the wind whistled and wailed, and the dogs went on barking like mad things.
"Come on, then. What're you waiting for?" Buffy raised the Scythe, while the shadow shapes flowed forwards and then back again, wavering, making her dizzy.
She parried the first blow, and the second. The third passed right over her head - too close for comfort - like the cold blast from outside, and she felt a chill settle into her bones.
She took the fight to them, the Scythe blade flashing up, then down, taking shreds of darkness with it - but there was nothing to be seen behind that darkness, except more of the same, flowing back together, indivisible. She parried, stabbed, gave ground - and again, but they kept advancing. She was jammed right into the corner of the tent now, with Wesley at her feet. He groaned. He was regaining consciousness.
"Wes, how the fuck do you kill these damn things?" Spike's yell became a snarl of frustration. He was still tearing, but fighting a losing battle to stop his foe reconstituting itself.
Wesley groaned again. "It's no good ripping bits off it," he slurred. "You have to go for the core - disrupt the energy matrix. From the inside out!"
"Like this, you mean?" Buffy twirled the Scythe around and jabbed the pointed wooden stake on its haft right into the centre of one of the cloaks of darkness. She felt something give, and again came the horrible, ululating howl, which turned to a scream as she ripped up and then downwards.
Suddenly, the shadow began to shrivel, crumbling at the edges like butterfly's wings. Underneath, was just your average demon, it seemed, all spines and horns and claws, its lumpen body covered in scaly hide, like a lizard's. Black blood gushed from its ruined innards, soaking Buffy's arm to the elbow.
"Eww!" She leapt back, bringing the Scythe with her, and the lizard demon crashed to the ground and lay still.
The other shadows hesitated. It seemed that with their dirty secret exposed, they'd lost their mojo. When she lunged at them, they turned tail and ran, out through the tear in the tent wall and away into the storm, Spike’s battered opponent limping after them.
Spike was on his feet, still in vamp face, breathing hard. "What the hell -"he began, voice lisping through bloodstained fangs. But then there was a particularly loud outburst of barking. "Fuck! The dogs!"
The next moment, he was out of the tent in hot pursuit.
"Spike - wait!"
Buffy made to follow him, but Wesley grabbed her arm.
"Ms Summers, if you get lost out there, you'll die."
She shook him off. "I won't get lost, and for crying out loud, Wes, my name's Buffy."
*
“Spike!” Buffy raised both hands to her mouth and shouted.
The wind whipped her voice away, and she choked as its icy breath entered her throat. Pulling her scarf up to cover the lower part of her face, she peered into the murk.
The wind had dropped a little, but even so, snowflakes whirled crazily in front of her, blasting into her face with stinging force. She could feel her eyelashes beginning to ice up.
Glancing over her shoulder at the tent, she saw Wesley on the inside, attempting to fix one of the rents with the repair kit. They had a spare tent of course, but it was still packed onto the sled and trying to put it up in this storm wouldn’t be easy.
The sled! That was where Spike would have gone. Going back to the tent, she oriented herself carefully, feeling her way along the straining fabric in the direction where the dogs were tethered. They were silent now, which couldn't be good.
Round back of the tent, protected from the wind in its lee, she could see for herself that the dogs were gone. Their picket lines lay slack on the ground, half-buried already under new-fallen snow. Beyond them, a dark shape hulking in the gloom signalled that at least the shadow demons hadn't gotten away with the sled too.
In the circumstances, it was cold comfort - literally.
"Spike, dammit!" Buffy made her way over to the sled, hoping to find Spike there, but there was no sign of him. Again, she peered into the storm. Again, nothing.
Of course, he couldn't die out there, but he could still get lost. Her imagination went into overdrive. Spike - turned to a pillar of ice, frozen into the very substance of this world, still un-living. Forever.
"Buffy." When the voice spoke in her ear, she almost jumped out of her skin. She whirled around, right fist clenched, left forearm raised.
He backed up in a hurry. "S'okay, love. It's me."
She pulled her punch, but just barely. A sock to the jaw was the least of what he deserved for scaring her so badly.
"Spike - where the hell have you been?"
He grabbed her arm, steering her back in the direction of the tent. "In this? Not far. I tracked the dogs for a few hundred yards, but it's difficult to pick up scents in this muck. I had to turn back."
"Good thing too." She wound her fingers tightly into his parka sleeve in case he bolted again. In front of them, the lamplight inside the tent dipped wildly as Wesley set the lamp down on the floor.
Things weren't a whole lot better back inside. Two rents were shored up and Wesley was busy repairing the third, but already, the fabric of the tent was straining at the seams, tearing away from his handiwork.
"Here!" Buffy snatched the repair kit off Wesley and set about fixing the final rent, while Spike heaved the dead demon's body out into the storm, zipped up the flap behind them and shook snow off himself like a dog.
The repairs completed, Buffy threw back her parka hood.
"What were they?"
Wesley answered with his back to her, still meticulously working. "Fortunately for us, a standard Wolfram & Hart retrieval team - Unsichtbar demons, I believe. The cloaking is part of their natural armament, but as you can see, they're not invulnerable."
"Fortunate in what way?" Buffy gestured around them at the chaos in the tent. "They took the dogs, Wes, or drove them off. We're stranded."
"Ah." Wesley paused in his task. "That's very…that's not good."
"You think?" Buffy realised she was shivering. She picked up her sleeping bag and shook it, dislodging snowdrift onto the ground. The air in the tent was icy.
"We should get the stove going." Spike moved forward and crouched down to re-assemble the thing, which had been kicked apart during the fight.
"Agreed." Wesley stood up. "In the circumstances, a cup of tea would be very welcome."
"Tea?" Buffy felt her fists clenching again. "Is that your answer to everything?"
"No, of course not." Wesley almost smiled his superior smile, but seemed to think better of it. "But it can't hurt, can it?"
"Nor can telling us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the sodding truth," Spike muttered with his back to them. “Just for once.”
"I don't-" Wesley began, but Buffy held up her hand for silence.
"They were after you, Wes. They weren't interested in us at all. We both noticed that. Care to explain?"
"Yeah." Spike looked back over his shoulder. "Care to explain that -Percy?"
Wesley's face went still again. His forehead looked clammy and his skin was greyer than ever.
"As I said, that was a standard retrieval team, armed only with its natural armaments. I would imagine that, once the theft of the crystal was discovered, it wouldn't have taken long for the Senior Partners to put two and two together and link the theft to my vacation request."
"That makes sense, sure." Buffy shrugged. "And I guess they'll keep trying until they get you - and the crystal - back."
Wesley cleared his throat. "Indubitably. In fact, once they know I have help - which I'm sure they didn't expect, because -well, no one likes Wolfram & Hart employees, we don't have - friends - I would imagine they'll send something a great deal more formidable."
There was a faint whomp! of igniting gas behind Buffy and a clattering as Spike looked through their tumbled belongings for a saucepan.
"Good to know," he muttered. "Would've been even better to have known it before we lost the sodding dogs."
Buffy kept her eyes on Wesley. "What he said."
Wesley had the grace to look apologetic. "I'm sorry. Usually, Unsichtbar demons are focused on their target to the exclusion of everything else. I wouldn't have expected them to take the dogs. They're not known for their strategic thinking."
"Well, you were wrong. Not for the first time."
Wesley looked away. "I know. On the plus side, I think we’ve proved we’re far too formidable for them to take down on their own. And at least you know I wasn't lying when I said I hadn't brought you here to assassinate you."
"I suppose so."
Buffy wiped her hand across her face. She felt unutterably weary suddenly.
"Here, love. Have a seat." Spike turned solicitous at once, throwing a blanket around her shoulders and urging her down into a nest of tossed sleeping bags.
"Don't fuss!" She batted his hand away angrily, but she sat down all the same.
He looked stubborn. "Gotta look after you, Buffy. S'my job. ‘Sides, anything happens to you, the other Slayers'll have my guts for garters."
She sighed. It was true - and the blanket's warmth was very welcome. She let herself zone out for a while, eyes half-closed, listening to the hiss of melting snow in the pan.
A while later, sipping watery hot chocolate, she turned her mind to their very big problem.
"How far to this place, Wes, and break it down for me this time?"
Wesley was cradling his own drink in his hands to warm them. Outside, the wind had dropped to a sullen howl, still hard on the ears but nothing like its earlier scream. "If we had the dogs, another five days' march, I'd say. Without them - I don't know. Twice that long, if we dump some of the supplies to make the sled lighter."
Buffy grimaced. The idea of hauling the sled by hand didn't appeal much, but there was no other option.
"We've come this far. I'm not turning back now. We'll take the spare tent, our sleeping bags, the stove, the lamp and the food. Everything else stays here. We'll pick it up on the way home."
"Fair enough." Wesley nodded.
"Yeah," Spike growled. "How about you leave that sodding book behind an' all."
Wesley took a long swallow of his drink. "Which 'sodding' book would that be?" His tone dripped sarcasm.
"Don't piss about. You know which one. S'like we're doomed to follow in that Scott tosser's footsteps whether we like it or not."
"That's ridiculous!" There was an edge of contempt in Wesley's voice now, and Buffy practically heard Spike's hackles rise in response to it.
"Guys!" She interrupted quickly. "Cool it. We're in enough trouble as it is, okay?"
She turned to Spike. "What does Wesley's book have to do with anything?"
Spike shrugged, looking half-defiant, half-embarrassed.
"S'what Scott did - man-hauling. Except he chose to do it, because he was - as aforementioned many times- a wanker. His men hauled their gear to the South Pole on foot -no dogs - and it killed them. Now, through no fault of our own, we're in the same bloody boat."
"Great." She sipped her chocolate, which tasted kind of oversweet and artificial. "Just great."
*
Sweat ran down Buffy's back in rivers. Her shoulders and arms ached more than she'd ever thought they could ache, and her thigh muscles weren't in a much better state. Every step forward was agony, the sled resisting their attempts to tug it smoothly forward.
Just their luck that they'd come to this area of rough ice -a swell in the frozen sea - just when they started man hauling.
Spike was in the harness next to her, while Wesley skied alongside, helping to steer the sled over the bumpiest bits of terrain. He'd had a turn pulling, but quickly become so exhausted, she'd told him to stop. He might be some kind of weird zombie without a zombie's bad eating habits, but in the ways that counted he still seemed all too human.
"How're you holdin' up, Slayer?" Spike's words came in gasps, each one articulated separately with a hard-won breath in between. When she turned to look at him, the hectic flush was back across the sharp bridge of his cheekbones, his flesh sinking away beneath them into deep hollows, making his face look almost skull-like. His eyes were feverishly bright.
"I'm fine," she lied. "You?"
"Not too bad," he said, which made her realise he must be in a pretty bad way. Vampires didn't do well without regular meals.
"Another five miles to the depot," she said. "We can do it."
"'Course we sodding well can." But his head sank onto his chest and he didn't speak again.
Above their heads, the red moon shone alone, its rays casting an eerie sunset glow across the ice. Buffy wondered idly how the three moons could be such different colours. Were there three suns too? There could be blue suns, couldn't there, and red ones, as well as yellow ones. And where were they? They never saw them.
She shook her head, blinking sweat out of her eyes. This world made no sense at all. Maybe that was why Wolfram & Hart had had no interest in it. Either that or they had a big hate-on for shrimp.
The sled bumped up and down another wavelet, while Wesley hauled back on it as hard as he could. But he couldn't quite stop its inexorable forward momentum, and Buffy half-ran, half-staggered a couple of paces forward before it caught the backs of her legs.
It was only when the danger was past that she realised she'd been dragging Spike with her, and that he was on his knees now and struggling to get back on his feet.
"Dammit!" She shucked herself out of harness and skis while Wesley hauled on the sled again. "Spike - are you okay?"
Spike shook his head. He looked half-dazed. At the same time, his game face was flickering in and out of view. "Felt better," he muttered, and he shook his head again.
"Maybe I can -" Wesley came forward, but Buffy stuck an arm in his way.
"Stay away from him, Wes. I'm warning you."
"But I'm not -" Wesley began, only to jump back with a yelp as Spike vamped out and lunged at him. "Oh God!"
"Spike! Get a grip, and that's an order!" Buffy put on her Slayer voice, but Spike didn't respond. Instead, he lunged at Wesley again, snarling like an animal, only restrained by the harness that still bound him to the sled.
"He's ravenous," Wesley said.
"That's right." Buffy didn't lower her arm. "He hasn't eaten in four days now - not since we started man hauling. His body's devouring itself."
"But-" Wesley's voice petered to a halt. He cleared his throat. "I would imagine you're not quite up to providing - er, the requisite nourishment just at present."
"You imagine right." Her knees felt weak, even as she spoke. "Guess I'm gonna have to, though - provided we can get him calmed down. He’s no use to anyone like this."
Wesley cleared his throat. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should never have involved you two in this. You don't owe me anything."
She flashed him an irritated glance, then pushed him back again as Spike made another lunge. She was probably going to have to knock Spike out and hog-tie him before she could feed him, and that would delay them yet again.
"We're not here for you, Wes. We're here to save the world, remember? Prevent the apocalypse forever?"
"Oh." Wesley sounded startled. "Of course. I forgot." He indicated Spike. "I'm very sorry this has happened to him, though. Not pleasant."
She scowled. "If you don't like it, don't damn well watch."
He looked hurt. "You misunderstand me. I meant it's not pleasant for him."
"Oh. Gotcha." She was circling to her left, towards the sled. An axe-haft to the back of the head should fell Spike temporarily, but she'd have to be quick and careful.
"And believe me," Wesley went on, “if I thought my own blood would be of any use, I'd willingly donate some. It wouldn't be the first time.”
As she fished in their baggage, she decided not to think through the full implications of that statement.
Turning, axe in hand, she gestured to Wesley to move aside. "Out of the way, Wes."
Wesley took one step. Then he froze. "Watch out!"
Even as he spoke, something heavy landed on her back, knocking all the wind out of her and crushing her face into the snow. She struggled, but was held down with ease. A forked tongue flicked her right ear.
It was the Unsichtbar demons. It had to be.
She struggled again, but the Unsichtbar demon was astride her now, knees dug into the snow on either side of her body, pinning her down.
Stale breath, smelling of meat, even worse than the dogs', wafted into her nostrils and she almost retched, while a warm, wet drop of what felt like saliva dripped onto the exposed back of her neck. Where it touched her, it burnt.
Terror gave her strength. Bucking her body wildly, she succeeded in throwing the Unsichtbar demon off, rolling desperately to one side and staggering to her feet. It lumbered after her, squat body blocking her escape, arms with clawed hands spread wide.
The axe haft was still in her hand. She spun the weapon blade up and adopted a defensive stance.
"Bi-ig mistake, letting me back on my feet. I know how to kill you now."
The Unsichtbar demon's tongue flickered in and out of its mouth. It gave no sign it had understood her. Over its shoulder, she could see two of the others dragging Wesley away, while at the front of the sled, Spike was trying to chew his way out of the harness, so far gone that he'd forgotten how to use his hands.
"Spike!" She tried the Slayer voice again. "I need you." If that didn't get through to him, nothing would.
As she spoke, the Unsichtbar demon lumbered towards her. She swung the axe, but before the blade could connect, blackness flowed over the demon's skin, cloaking it from sight, and the blade glanced aside without doing any damage.
"Wes, dammit! Get Spike out of that harness."
A glance Wesley's way showed that wasn't going to happen any time soon. He hung from his captors' grip, limp as an unstrung puppet. His skis lay abandoned on the ground.
A sudden flurry of movement brought her eyes back to her opponent. She dodged to one side as a blade came down, to shear across the surface of the sled, taking chips of wood with it. After that, things got a little confusing. She struck, the Unsichtbar demon parried, she struck again and hit only swirling darkness.
She was panting, and there were coloured spots in front of her eyes. She was moving on autopilot now, only able to block and parry, not to attack, limbs and back aching. And she was giving ground, each step taking her further away from the sled and Spike, feet scrabbling and slipping on ice.
There was sweat in her eyes. She felt a sharp pain in her side just as her feet went out from under her and she fell on her back on the ground. Later, she thought that her sudden fall had probably saved her life, turning what should have been a killing strike into a glancing blow.
The darkness loomed above her. Then it fell away, revealing the face of her demon opponent, grinning down, forked tongue flickering. It raised its sword.
She gritted her teeth. No way was it ending like this.
Even as she dug her boots in hard and flipped back onto her feet, coming in low under the Unsichtbar demon's guard to plunge the axe blade into its belly, there was another flurry of movement and a horrible roaring scream. She rolled clear, to find herself caught in the middle of a frenzied vamp attack.
"Spike!" Buffy staggered to her feet, leaning against the sled with her hand pressed to her bruised side, watching as he tore the Unsichtbar demon apart, ripping the limbs from the trunk, turning it practically inside out. But she had to turn away when he buried his face right inside the exposed guts and began to feed.
"Jesus!" She couldn't help it. This morning's scanty breakfast came back to pay an unwelcome return visit.
She rested her face against the sled, breathing deeply, listening to the sounds of feasting behind her and thinking that she was glad it wasn't often she had to confront this side of Spike's nature.
"Buffy?" His voice was hoarse, but at least it was his voice, not an animal's snarling.
She raised her head to find him attempting to clean the blood off his hands and face with snow. He looked human again, which made the bloodstains around his mouth all the creepier.
He must have guessed her thoughts, because he ducked his head, looking embarrassed. "Sorry, love. Hate you seeing me this way."
She shrugged, hand still pressed to her side. "It's not the first time. Besides, at least you've had something to eat."
He grimaced. "Yeah, tasted fucking horrible, but beggars can't be choosers." Then his brow creased with concern. "You're hurt."
"I'm fine - just bruised. We need to get after them - rescue Wes and the crystal."
"I'll do it," he said. "You stay here." Then, "Did you hear that?" And before she could answer, he was off, loping wolf-like, sure-footed on the icy ground.
“Spike - wait!”
She strained her ears, but heard nothing. Fumbling her skis back on, she hurried after him.
In the end, she didn't have far to go, and it wasn't long before she heard what Spike’s more acute hearing had heard before- the frenzied barking of dogs. At the sound, her heart lurched in her chest and she tried to ski faster despite her protesting muscles.
When she caught up with him, it was like walking into an abattoir. Shreds of dead Unsichtbar demon were strewn across the pristine snow while the sled dogs fought over the tastiest morsels. She stared at the carnage, unable for a moment to take in what it meant. Then, a wave of relief washed over her, so powerful it put her exhaustion to temporary flight.
Wesley lay on the ground nearby, with Spike standing over him. Wesley was conscious, but he didn’t look good. His complexion was greyer than ever.
Buffy skied smoothly to a halt beside them. "What happened?"
Wesley's voice was weak. "Not sure. The dogs came out of nowhere, and they - well, see for yourself. A good thing Spike turned up when he did, or I think they might have gone for me too."
Spike had a big, self-satisfied grin on his face. "Knew they'd be back if they weren't dead. They know who's boss, the bastards."
When Buffy turned to look at the dogs, the blue-eyed one was gazing at Spike, long tongue lolling out of its mouth, its shit-eating grin a mirror of his.
Part Four
The Worst Journey in the World Part Three
Buffy wasn’t sure to start with what had woken her. Nothing had changed. The wind was still howling outside, and Spike hadn’t moved. But he was awake. She could sense it. In fact, he'd probably never been to sleep.
She began to sit up, only to feel his fingers close around her wrist and squeeze. He was looking back over his shoulder at her, eyes glowing gold.
“Spike?” she mouthed at him. “What is it?”
He motioned with his head towards the wall of the tent, which thrummed as the force of the wind made it vibrate.
“There’s something out there.”
A chill ran down her spine, and not with the cold.
He let go of her wrist and began to struggle out of his sleeping bag, while she did likewise. Meanwhile, in the far corner of the tent, Wesley slept like the dead man he was.
Spike was pulling on his boots. “Whatever they are,” he hissed, “they hurt the dogs or damage the sledge, we’re sodding well finished.”
“I know that.” She fumbled her own boots on, then scrabbled amongst their supplies for the weapons bag. “Here.” She tossed him an axe and he caught it clumsily in his gloved hand.
All the while, his head was cocked, straining to hear noises from outside, while his nostrils flared wide, chasing after scents.
Suddenly, he put his finger to his lips and pointed towards the front wall of the tent. Buffy gripped the Scythe more tightly. “How many?”
He held up three fingers. “Dunno what they are,” he mouthed back. “Never smelt anything like ‘em.”
Great, she thought, but didn’t say aloud. She watched Spike track the progress of whatever-it-was in the direction of the flap.
Suddenly, he whirled. “Wes, wake the fuck up!”
Even as he shouted, the tent wall split apart right next to where Wesley lay sleeping and something - she couldn’t get a bead on it, some kind of walking darkness, vaguely man-shaped- slid inside.
“Spike, two o'clock!” Another shadow shape pushed its way through the flap, while the skin of the tent burst apart in two other places, allowing two more to enter, along with a blast of freezing air filled with whirling snowflakes.
The ceiling of the tent bellied upwards and Buffy heard the creak of straining guy ropes.
“Fuck!” Spike moved forward, axe swinging. Light from the wildly swaying lantern flashed on steel as the blade came down and there was a snarling grunt of pain from one of the shadow shapes. It went staggering backwards to collide with its fellows.
Buffy had only time to observe that whatever the shadow shapes might be, at least they had some kind of substance, before leaping across the intervening space to engage an opponent of her own.
The Scythe sheared through darkness and there was another of those grunting noises, but in spite of that, and in spite of the fact that the shadow shape retreated several paces - or rather flowed away from her- it didn’t feel like she’d struck anything solid.
“Slippery buggers, aren’t they?”
Buffy risked a glance over her shoulder to see the shadow Spike was fighting recover from his initial blow and move back towards him. Meanwhile the third was closing on her from her left. They slipped and slid as they moved, difficult to watch, like an oil spill. She narrowed her eyes to lessen the effect and slashed left, then right, leaping back again while they tried to flow around her.
"Ms Summers - Spike! Help!" It was Wesley's voice.
The original shadow shape had Wesley in a headlock and was attempting to drag him out of the tear it had made in the tent skin. Wesley was clinging on to one of the supports, but his grip was loosening.
"Help me!" he shouted again.
"Hang on, Wes!" Spike lunged forward, plunging his axe blade into what appeared to be his opponent's torso and retreating again. It howled - an eerie, ululating sound - but it barely faltered in its advance. Instead, it brandished its own blade above its head in a showy display of swordsmanship, forcing Spike towards the opposite corner of the tent from Wesley.
Meanwhile, Buffy's two adversaries were still trying to outflank her, but only to her left, where Wesley still struggled. If she moved right towards Spike, they let her go.
Spike had noticed it too. "Fuckers're after Wes, not us!" She heard his roar of fury as he went into vamp face and, all thoughts of finesse forgotten, threw himself on the shadow shape, like a lion on its prey.
Buffy seized the central support of the tent and used it to launch herself into the air and pivot, delivering a thunderous roundhouse kick to her two foes in passing. They staggered back, and before they could flow forward again, she was past the barrier they'd made and barrelling into Wesley's would-be abductor at full-on Slayer speed.
The shadow shape flowed away from her at the last minute, but even so, she managed to dislodge its grip on Wesley's leg. He went staggering forward, colliding head-first with the tent support he'd been clinging to.
"Unh!" Wesley slumped to the ground, while Buffy took up a defensive position in front of him as the three shadow shapes advanced on her.
Beyond them, Spike and his opponent rolled this way and that on the tent floor. It looked like Spike had the upper hand, because as Buffy's eyes flicked from the fight to the three shadows in front of her and back again, the fourth shadow seemed to be coming apart, patches of darkness ripping away from the central column as Spike tore at its outer edges. But even as she watched, she could see how the shreds stealthily knit themselves together again.
"Spike!" Buffy put on her Slayer voice, because even now, he could get lost in a killing frenzy. At the sound, his head came up, fangs bleeding darkness, and he howled. Outside, the dogs howled back. Then, they began to bark.
The other three shadow shapes didn't halt their advance. As one, they raised their weapons, while through the rents in the tent fabric, the wind whistled and wailed, and the dogs went on barking like mad things.
"Come on, then. What're you waiting for?" Buffy raised the Scythe, while the shadow shapes flowed forwards and then back again, wavering, making her dizzy.
She parried the first blow, and the second. The third passed right over her head - too close for comfort - like the cold blast from outside, and she felt a chill settle into her bones.
She took the fight to them, the Scythe blade flashing up, then down, taking shreds of darkness with it - but there was nothing to be seen behind that darkness, except more of the same, flowing back together, indivisible. She parried, stabbed, gave ground - and again, but they kept advancing. She was jammed right into the corner of the tent now, with Wesley at her feet. He groaned. He was regaining consciousness.
"Wes, how the fuck do you kill these damn things?" Spike's yell became a snarl of frustration. He was still tearing, but fighting a losing battle to stop his foe reconstituting itself.
Wesley groaned again. "It's no good ripping bits off it," he slurred. "You have to go for the core - disrupt the energy matrix. From the inside out!"
"Like this, you mean?" Buffy twirled the Scythe around and jabbed the pointed wooden stake on its haft right into the centre of one of the cloaks of darkness. She felt something give, and again came the horrible, ululating howl, which turned to a scream as she ripped up and then downwards.
Suddenly, the shadow began to shrivel, crumbling at the edges like butterfly's wings. Underneath, was just your average demon, it seemed, all spines and horns and claws, its lumpen body covered in scaly hide, like a lizard's. Black blood gushed from its ruined innards, soaking Buffy's arm to the elbow.
"Eww!" She leapt back, bringing the Scythe with her, and the lizard demon crashed to the ground and lay still.
The other shadows hesitated. It seemed that with their dirty secret exposed, they'd lost their mojo. When she lunged at them, they turned tail and ran, out through the tear in the tent wall and away into the storm, Spike’s battered opponent limping after them.
Spike was on his feet, still in vamp face, breathing hard. "What the hell -"he began, voice lisping through bloodstained fangs. But then there was a particularly loud outburst of barking. "Fuck! The dogs!"
The next moment, he was out of the tent in hot pursuit.
"Spike - wait!"
Buffy made to follow him, but Wesley grabbed her arm.
"Ms Summers, if you get lost out there, you'll die."
She shook him off. "I won't get lost, and for crying out loud, Wes, my name's Buffy."
*
“Spike!” Buffy raised both hands to her mouth and shouted.
The wind whipped her voice away, and she choked as its icy breath entered her throat. Pulling her scarf up to cover the lower part of her face, she peered into the murk.
The wind had dropped a little, but even so, snowflakes whirled crazily in front of her, blasting into her face with stinging force. She could feel her eyelashes beginning to ice up.
Glancing over her shoulder at the tent, she saw Wesley on the inside, attempting to fix one of the rents with the repair kit. They had a spare tent of course, but it was still packed onto the sled and trying to put it up in this storm wouldn’t be easy.
The sled! That was where Spike would have gone. Going back to the tent, she oriented herself carefully, feeling her way along the straining fabric in the direction where the dogs were tethered. They were silent now, which couldn't be good.
Round back of the tent, protected from the wind in its lee, she could see for herself that the dogs were gone. Their picket lines lay slack on the ground, half-buried already under new-fallen snow. Beyond them, a dark shape hulking in the gloom signalled that at least the shadow demons hadn't gotten away with the sled too.
In the circumstances, it was cold comfort - literally.
"Spike, dammit!" Buffy made her way over to the sled, hoping to find Spike there, but there was no sign of him. Again, she peered into the storm. Again, nothing.
Of course, he couldn't die out there, but he could still get lost. Her imagination went into overdrive. Spike - turned to a pillar of ice, frozen into the very substance of this world, still un-living. Forever.
"Buffy." When the voice spoke in her ear, she almost jumped out of her skin. She whirled around, right fist clenched, left forearm raised.
He backed up in a hurry. "S'okay, love. It's me."
She pulled her punch, but just barely. A sock to the jaw was the least of what he deserved for scaring her so badly.
"Spike - where the hell have you been?"
He grabbed her arm, steering her back in the direction of the tent. "In this? Not far. I tracked the dogs for a few hundred yards, but it's difficult to pick up scents in this muck. I had to turn back."
"Good thing too." She wound her fingers tightly into his parka sleeve in case he bolted again. In front of them, the lamplight inside the tent dipped wildly as Wesley set the lamp down on the floor.
Things weren't a whole lot better back inside. Two rents were shored up and Wesley was busy repairing the third, but already, the fabric of the tent was straining at the seams, tearing away from his handiwork.
"Here!" Buffy snatched the repair kit off Wesley and set about fixing the final rent, while Spike heaved the dead demon's body out into the storm, zipped up the flap behind them and shook snow off himself like a dog.
The repairs completed, Buffy threw back her parka hood.
"What were they?"
Wesley answered with his back to her, still meticulously working. "Fortunately for us, a standard Wolfram & Hart retrieval team - Unsichtbar demons, I believe. The cloaking is part of their natural armament, but as you can see, they're not invulnerable."
"Fortunate in what way?" Buffy gestured around them at the chaos in the tent. "They took the dogs, Wes, or drove them off. We're stranded."
"Ah." Wesley paused in his task. "That's very…that's not good."
"You think?" Buffy realised she was shivering. She picked up her sleeping bag and shook it, dislodging snowdrift onto the ground. The air in the tent was icy.
"We should get the stove going." Spike moved forward and crouched down to re-assemble the thing, which had been kicked apart during the fight.
"Agreed." Wesley stood up. "In the circumstances, a cup of tea would be very welcome."
"Tea?" Buffy felt her fists clenching again. "Is that your answer to everything?"
"No, of course not." Wesley almost smiled his superior smile, but seemed to think better of it. "But it can't hurt, can it?"
"Nor can telling us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the sodding truth," Spike muttered with his back to them. “Just for once.”
"I don't-" Wesley began, but Buffy held up her hand for silence.
"They were after you, Wes. They weren't interested in us at all. We both noticed that. Care to explain?"
"Yeah." Spike looked back over his shoulder. "Care to explain that -Percy?"
Wesley's face went still again. His forehead looked clammy and his skin was greyer than ever.
"As I said, that was a standard retrieval team, armed only with its natural armaments. I would imagine that, once the theft of the crystal was discovered, it wouldn't have taken long for the Senior Partners to put two and two together and link the theft to my vacation request."
"That makes sense, sure." Buffy shrugged. "And I guess they'll keep trying until they get you - and the crystal - back."
Wesley cleared his throat. "Indubitably. In fact, once they know I have help - which I'm sure they didn't expect, because -well, no one likes Wolfram & Hart employees, we don't have - friends - I would imagine they'll send something a great deal more formidable."
There was a faint whomp! of igniting gas behind Buffy and a clattering as Spike looked through their tumbled belongings for a saucepan.
"Good to know," he muttered. "Would've been even better to have known it before we lost the sodding dogs."
Buffy kept her eyes on Wesley. "What he said."
Wesley had the grace to look apologetic. "I'm sorry. Usually, Unsichtbar demons are focused on their target to the exclusion of everything else. I wouldn't have expected them to take the dogs. They're not known for their strategic thinking."
"Well, you were wrong. Not for the first time."
Wesley looked away. "I know. On the plus side, I think we’ve proved we’re far too formidable for them to take down on their own. And at least you know I wasn't lying when I said I hadn't brought you here to assassinate you."
"I suppose so."
Buffy wiped her hand across her face. She felt unutterably weary suddenly.
"Here, love. Have a seat." Spike turned solicitous at once, throwing a blanket around her shoulders and urging her down into a nest of tossed sleeping bags.
"Don't fuss!" She batted his hand away angrily, but she sat down all the same.
He looked stubborn. "Gotta look after you, Buffy. S'my job. ‘Sides, anything happens to you, the other Slayers'll have my guts for garters."
She sighed. It was true - and the blanket's warmth was very welcome. She let herself zone out for a while, eyes half-closed, listening to the hiss of melting snow in the pan.
A while later, sipping watery hot chocolate, she turned her mind to their very big problem.
"How far to this place, Wes, and break it down for me this time?"
Wesley was cradling his own drink in his hands to warm them. Outside, the wind had dropped to a sullen howl, still hard on the ears but nothing like its earlier scream. "If we had the dogs, another five days' march, I'd say. Without them - I don't know. Twice that long, if we dump some of the supplies to make the sled lighter."
Buffy grimaced. The idea of hauling the sled by hand didn't appeal much, but there was no other option.
"We've come this far. I'm not turning back now. We'll take the spare tent, our sleeping bags, the stove, the lamp and the food. Everything else stays here. We'll pick it up on the way home."
"Fair enough." Wesley nodded.
"Yeah," Spike growled. "How about you leave that sodding book behind an' all."
Wesley took a long swallow of his drink. "Which 'sodding' book would that be?" His tone dripped sarcasm.
"Don't piss about. You know which one. S'like we're doomed to follow in that Scott tosser's footsteps whether we like it or not."
"That's ridiculous!" There was an edge of contempt in Wesley's voice now, and Buffy practically heard Spike's hackles rise in response to it.
"Guys!" She interrupted quickly. "Cool it. We're in enough trouble as it is, okay?"
She turned to Spike. "What does Wesley's book have to do with anything?"
Spike shrugged, looking half-defiant, half-embarrassed.
"S'what Scott did - man-hauling. Except he chose to do it, because he was - as aforementioned many times- a wanker. His men hauled their gear to the South Pole on foot -no dogs - and it killed them. Now, through no fault of our own, we're in the same bloody boat."
"Great." She sipped her chocolate, which tasted kind of oversweet and artificial. "Just great."
*
Sweat ran down Buffy's back in rivers. Her shoulders and arms ached more than she'd ever thought they could ache, and her thigh muscles weren't in a much better state. Every step forward was agony, the sled resisting their attempts to tug it smoothly forward.
Just their luck that they'd come to this area of rough ice -a swell in the frozen sea - just when they started man hauling.
Spike was in the harness next to her, while Wesley skied alongside, helping to steer the sled over the bumpiest bits of terrain. He'd had a turn pulling, but quickly become so exhausted, she'd told him to stop. He might be some kind of weird zombie without a zombie's bad eating habits, but in the ways that counted he still seemed all too human.
"How're you holdin' up, Slayer?" Spike's words came in gasps, each one articulated separately with a hard-won breath in between. When she turned to look at him, the hectic flush was back across the sharp bridge of his cheekbones, his flesh sinking away beneath them into deep hollows, making his face look almost skull-like. His eyes were feverishly bright.
"I'm fine," she lied. "You?"
"Not too bad," he said, which made her realise he must be in a pretty bad way. Vampires didn't do well without regular meals.
"Another five miles to the depot," she said. "We can do it."
"'Course we sodding well can." But his head sank onto his chest and he didn't speak again.
Above their heads, the red moon shone alone, its rays casting an eerie sunset glow across the ice. Buffy wondered idly how the three moons could be such different colours. Were there three suns too? There could be blue suns, couldn't there, and red ones, as well as yellow ones. And where were they? They never saw them.
She shook her head, blinking sweat out of her eyes. This world made no sense at all. Maybe that was why Wolfram & Hart had had no interest in it. Either that or they had a big hate-on for shrimp.
The sled bumped up and down another wavelet, while Wesley hauled back on it as hard as he could. But he couldn't quite stop its inexorable forward momentum, and Buffy half-ran, half-staggered a couple of paces forward before it caught the backs of her legs.
It was only when the danger was past that she realised she'd been dragging Spike with her, and that he was on his knees now and struggling to get back on his feet.
"Dammit!" She shucked herself out of harness and skis while Wesley hauled on the sled again. "Spike - are you okay?"
Spike shook his head. He looked half-dazed. At the same time, his game face was flickering in and out of view. "Felt better," he muttered, and he shook his head again.
"Maybe I can -" Wesley came forward, but Buffy stuck an arm in his way.
"Stay away from him, Wes. I'm warning you."
"But I'm not -" Wesley began, only to jump back with a yelp as Spike vamped out and lunged at him. "Oh God!"
"Spike! Get a grip, and that's an order!" Buffy put on her Slayer voice, but Spike didn't respond. Instead, he lunged at Wesley again, snarling like an animal, only restrained by the harness that still bound him to the sled.
"He's ravenous," Wesley said.
"That's right." Buffy didn't lower her arm. "He hasn't eaten in four days now - not since we started man hauling. His body's devouring itself."
"But-" Wesley's voice petered to a halt. He cleared his throat. "I would imagine you're not quite up to providing - er, the requisite nourishment just at present."
"You imagine right." Her knees felt weak, even as she spoke. "Guess I'm gonna have to, though - provided we can get him calmed down. He’s no use to anyone like this."
Wesley cleared his throat. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should never have involved you two in this. You don't owe me anything."
She flashed him an irritated glance, then pushed him back again as Spike made another lunge. She was probably going to have to knock Spike out and hog-tie him before she could feed him, and that would delay them yet again.
"We're not here for you, Wes. We're here to save the world, remember? Prevent the apocalypse forever?"
"Oh." Wesley sounded startled. "Of course. I forgot." He indicated Spike. "I'm very sorry this has happened to him, though. Not pleasant."
She scowled. "If you don't like it, don't damn well watch."
He looked hurt. "You misunderstand me. I meant it's not pleasant for him."
"Oh. Gotcha." She was circling to her left, towards the sled. An axe-haft to the back of the head should fell Spike temporarily, but she'd have to be quick and careful.
"And believe me," Wesley went on, “if I thought my own blood would be of any use, I'd willingly donate some. It wouldn't be the first time.”
As she fished in their baggage, she decided not to think through the full implications of that statement.
Turning, axe in hand, she gestured to Wesley to move aside. "Out of the way, Wes."
Wesley took one step. Then he froze. "Watch out!"
Even as he spoke, something heavy landed on her back, knocking all the wind out of her and crushing her face into the snow. She struggled, but was held down with ease. A forked tongue flicked her right ear.
It was the Unsichtbar demons. It had to be.
She struggled again, but the Unsichtbar demon was astride her now, knees dug into the snow on either side of her body, pinning her down.
Stale breath, smelling of meat, even worse than the dogs', wafted into her nostrils and she almost retched, while a warm, wet drop of what felt like saliva dripped onto the exposed back of her neck. Where it touched her, it burnt.
Terror gave her strength. Bucking her body wildly, she succeeded in throwing the Unsichtbar demon off, rolling desperately to one side and staggering to her feet. It lumbered after her, squat body blocking her escape, arms with clawed hands spread wide.
The axe haft was still in her hand. She spun the weapon blade up and adopted a defensive stance.
"Bi-ig mistake, letting me back on my feet. I know how to kill you now."
The Unsichtbar demon's tongue flickered in and out of its mouth. It gave no sign it had understood her. Over its shoulder, she could see two of the others dragging Wesley away, while at the front of the sled, Spike was trying to chew his way out of the harness, so far gone that he'd forgotten how to use his hands.
"Spike!" She tried the Slayer voice again. "I need you." If that didn't get through to him, nothing would.
As she spoke, the Unsichtbar demon lumbered towards her. She swung the axe, but before the blade could connect, blackness flowed over the demon's skin, cloaking it from sight, and the blade glanced aside without doing any damage.
"Wes, dammit! Get Spike out of that harness."
A glance Wesley's way showed that wasn't going to happen any time soon. He hung from his captors' grip, limp as an unstrung puppet. His skis lay abandoned on the ground.
A sudden flurry of movement brought her eyes back to her opponent. She dodged to one side as a blade came down, to shear across the surface of the sled, taking chips of wood with it. After that, things got a little confusing. She struck, the Unsichtbar demon parried, she struck again and hit only swirling darkness.
She was panting, and there were coloured spots in front of her eyes. She was moving on autopilot now, only able to block and parry, not to attack, limbs and back aching. And she was giving ground, each step taking her further away from the sled and Spike, feet scrabbling and slipping on ice.
There was sweat in her eyes. She felt a sharp pain in her side just as her feet went out from under her and she fell on her back on the ground. Later, she thought that her sudden fall had probably saved her life, turning what should have been a killing strike into a glancing blow.
The darkness loomed above her. Then it fell away, revealing the face of her demon opponent, grinning down, forked tongue flickering. It raised its sword.
She gritted her teeth. No way was it ending like this.
Even as she dug her boots in hard and flipped back onto her feet, coming in low under the Unsichtbar demon's guard to plunge the axe blade into its belly, there was another flurry of movement and a horrible roaring scream. She rolled clear, to find herself caught in the middle of a frenzied vamp attack.
"Spike!" Buffy staggered to her feet, leaning against the sled with her hand pressed to her bruised side, watching as he tore the Unsichtbar demon apart, ripping the limbs from the trunk, turning it practically inside out. But she had to turn away when he buried his face right inside the exposed guts and began to feed.
"Jesus!" She couldn't help it. This morning's scanty breakfast came back to pay an unwelcome return visit.
She rested her face against the sled, breathing deeply, listening to the sounds of feasting behind her and thinking that she was glad it wasn't often she had to confront this side of Spike's nature.
"Buffy?" His voice was hoarse, but at least it was his voice, not an animal's snarling.
She raised her head to find him attempting to clean the blood off his hands and face with snow. He looked human again, which made the bloodstains around his mouth all the creepier.
He must have guessed her thoughts, because he ducked his head, looking embarrassed. "Sorry, love. Hate you seeing me this way."
She shrugged, hand still pressed to her side. "It's not the first time. Besides, at least you've had something to eat."
He grimaced. "Yeah, tasted fucking horrible, but beggars can't be choosers." Then his brow creased with concern. "You're hurt."
"I'm fine - just bruised. We need to get after them - rescue Wes and the crystal."
"I'll do it," he said. "You stay here." Then, "Did you hear that?" And before she could answer, he was off, loping wolf-like, sure-footed on the icy ground.
“Spike - wait!”
She strained her ears, but heard nothing. Fumbling her skis back on, she hurried after him.
In the end, she didn't have far to go, and it wasn't long before she heard what Spike’s more acute hearing had heard before- the frenzied barking of dogs. At the sound, her heart lurched in her chest and she tried to ski faster despite her protesting muscles.
When she caught up with him, it was like walking into an abattoir. Shreds of dead Unsichtbar demon were strewn across the pristine snow while the sled dogs fought over the tastiest morsels. She stared at the carnage, unable for a moment to take in what it meant. Then, a wave of relief washed over her, so powerful it put her exhaustion to temporary flight.
Wesley lay on the ground nearby, with Spike standing over him. Wesley was conscious, but he didn’t look good. His complexion was greyer than ever.
Buffy skied smoothly to a halt beside them. "What happened?"
Wesley's voice was weak. "Not sure. The dogs came out of nowhere, and they - well, see for yourself. A good thing Spike turned up when he did, or I think they might have gone for me too."
Spike had a big, self-satisfied grin on his face. "Knew they'd be back if they weren't dead. They know who's boss, the bastards."
When Buffy turned to look at the dogs, the blue-eyed one was gazing at Spike, long tongue lolling out of its mouth, its shit-eating grin a mirror of his.
Part Four