The Worst Journey in the World Part Four

[shapinglight]

For pairing, rating etc see Part One

The Worst Journey in the World Part Four



"Good boy. Go-od boy!"

Spike was crouched in front of the blue-eyed sled dog, stroking it and pulling its pointy ears. As Buffy watched, he leaned forward and rubbed his cheek against the dog's furry face. "Knew you'd be back, you wanker! Couldn't live without me, could you?"

The dog panted, looking vastly pleased with itself.

Spike pushed himself to his feet. He went around each of the dogs one by one, insulting and praising them in equal measure as he fastened them back into harness. Task completed, he turned back to Wesley.

"How far to the depot?"

Wesley still looked grey and strained, but he was back on his feet. "Not that far - and it's the last one. After that, it's a straight run to our goal - the heart of this place - where we have to take the crystal."

Spike was staring over Wesley's head, back in the direction they'd come from. "Just as well. Don't like the look of that sky at all."

Buffy glanced around, to see the horizon behind them sunk into a deep wall of blackness, dark as the pit at the bottom of the ice-fall - and the blackness was spreading by increments across the sky. As she watched, lightning zig-zagged through it.

"Another storm?" She sighed. "No fair. We've only just gotten through the last one."

"No ordinary storm." Wesley's face had gone very pale under the greyness. "No more soft-pedalling with retrieval teams. They're coming for us, and they mean business."

"Listen." Spike had gone into vamp face, head cocked. "You hear that?"

"I don't -" Buffy began, but at that moment, the blue-eyed sled dog put back its head and howled, and the others joined in, their voices rising and mingling in eerie chorus.

"Shut i-it!" Spike's voice rose above the noise. A moment later there was silence, save for the constant background whine of the wind.

Buffy cleared her throat. "What do they - what do you hear?"

Spike shrugged. "What I heard five years ago in a dirty alley in L.A. Was raining, and Charlie's life-blood was draining away onto the ground."

Wesley dug his ski poles hard into the snow. "Ironic," he said, as he skied past them. "I missed all that the first time."

The dogs snapped and snarled at him as he went by, like always. Then he was gone and heading off into the distance.

"Come on, love. Jump in." Spike was fastening his safety harness. He indicated the sled.

Buffy shook her head. "I'm fine."

He frowned. "No, you're not. You’re hurt."

As if reminded by his words, her bruised side gave a twinge. She frowned back at him.

"All right, but only for a little while, okay?"

"You're the boss," he said.

*

The depot stop was brief this time - long enough to feed the dogs and restock the sled and for Buffy to cram some hot food down herself. It was astonishing how much she'd eaten on this trip, and yet she was sure she hadn't gained a single pound - quite the opposite, in fact.

Best diet regime ever.

Her hasty meal finished, she turned to Spike and held out her wrist. He had to be hungry again by now. Demon blood wasn't very nourishing for vampires - the equivalent of fast food, Spike said, only not as tasty

"Feed - and that's an order, mister."

Spike licked his lips. He glanced at Wesley, who was standing well away from the dogs, leaning on his ski-poles, observing them with his usual inscrutable expression.

Buffy frowned. "Never mind him. Just do it - and hurry up before I freeze."

"Fuck!" He seized her wrist in his gloved hands, rubbing the fingers to keep them warm, while he bent his head and vamped out. Fangs pierced her skin with delicate precision and she felt the familiar strong drawing sensation as he began to feed.

She gave him two minutes, but even before she could order him to stop, the cat-rasp of his tongue soothed the incision closed. When he let her go, she jammed her hand back into her glove and took hold of her ski-pole.

"We should get going."

He glanced back at the louring sky. "Yeah."

The world narrowed down to the steady rhythm of their progress, arms and legs moving like clockwork, the ache of protesting muscles forced to the back of the mind - something to think about when there was time to think.

She kept abreast of the sled, Spike's shouts of encouragement and the dogs' answering barks very loud in the icy stillness. Above their heads, the red moon still shone alone, while behind them the darkness spread further up the sky, engulfing the stars as it climbed.

Wesley was some way ahead, but suddenly he stopped and pointed with his ski-pole.

"There."

She came up beside him, while Spike brought the sled to a halt.

"What the fuck …?" Spike's mouth had dropped open in astonishment.

"I know," Wesley said. "When I set eyes on it for the first time myself, I thought I'd gone insane."

In front of them, the ground fell away suddenly into a vast, circular pit, the ice at its edges precisely cut as if with a saw. At the bottom of the pit there was open water, an intense dark green in colour, little wavelets, tipped with white foam, breaking against the smooth ice-walls.

Sticking up out of the water, just offshore, like an ominous dark finger, was a tall column of rock, as black as a starless night - so black as to not seem real, like an image seen in negative, throwing the white of its surroundings into an intense, and surreal, relief.

"It's land," Spike said, softly. "Fuck me, if it isn't land."

"That's right," Wesley agreed. "The only solid land in this entire world."

Buffy couldn't take her eyes off it. It was like it had trapped her gaze somehow.

"How can it be here? And how come the water's not frozen? That's - freaky."

"It's a null point," Wesley said. "Its effects are felt to varying degrees throughout this dimension, increasing as you near this place, but here, the effect becomes total. On that outcrop of rock, nothing works - not machines, not magic, not even simple physical laws. That's where we have to take the crystal."

Buffy looked from the finger of rock to the edge of the pit and back again. The water was a very long way down. There was no sign of the fabled shrimp.

"This another reason why you couldn’t do it alone?"

"Exactly." Wesley was unfastening his skis. "I decided I couldn't take the risk. If I'd fallen trying to reach the null-point - well, all those years of planning - all that effort laying the depots - would be wasted, and Wolfram & Hart would still have their apocalypse."

Spike had unfastened his safety line. He came to stand next to them, while the dogs settled down to rest, heads on paws, coats steaming.

"That's just…the whole thing's fucking insane."

"Yes." Wesley smiled wryly. "Or possibly very, very sane."

He swung his pack off his back and set it on the ground. "The quickest way to get across, I think, is if I rope myself up and you literally throw me. It's not that far. With your superior strength, between you, you should be able to manage it."

Buffy shrugged off her own pack. "And then what?"

Wesley blinked, as if he didn't quite understand the question. "I place the crystal on the null-point."

"And?" She rolled her sore shoulders. "It nullifies Wolfram & Hart's Apocalyse-y plans for good?"

Wesley was fishing in his pack for ropes and karabiners. "Something like that."

"Sounds awfully convenient-" she began, but then the sled dogs leapt to their feet barking raucously and Spike muttered, "Too late."

It had gotten very dark. In the sky, the red moon was obscured behind a black blanket of cloud - cloud that was twisting itself into discrete dark funnels, like small tornadoes, and spiralling down to touch the ground.

She could hear the sound now too, a horrible noise, a mixture of hoarse yells and screams, and a roaring, like something large and fierce were very angry indeed.

"Buffy!" Spike had flung aside the sled covers and brought out weapons. She caught the Scythe almost by instinct when he threw it at her handle-first. The shadows had reached the ground, pulsing and glowing before coalescing into a horde of very pissed off looking demon soldiers, bristling with weaponry. Behind them, vast and lightning-lit, there was an honest to god dragon.

Her mouth dropped open in wonder. That was a first, even for her.

"Deja fucking vu." Spike was busy unfastening the dogs' tug lines from the central gangline. "A sodding dragon - just like the one that did for Angel five years ago. All we need now to complete the nostalgia-fest is for it to start raining."

The demon horde was no longer shadow of any description. Solid, red moonlight glinting off scales and armour like a slow tide of blood, it moved steadily towards them while the screaming and howling grew louder. The sled dogs milled uncertainly around Spike's feet, whining.

"Fuck off, will you?" he snarled at them. "Gerroff out of it, you stupid mutts. Run!"

The blue-eyed dog yelped as Spike kicked it, but it only moved a short distance away, the other dogs staying close to it. Wesley, meanwhile, took no notice of the approaching horde, busy with ropes and harnesses.

"Hurry!" he called. "We have to do this before they get here."

Buffy hardly heard him. She was staring at broad leathery wings, clawed like a bat's, a pointed snout with gaping nostrils from which fiery breath steamed into the cold air, a forked tongue that flickered in and out of a mouth armed with two rows of teeth, like daggers.

"That - thing -or something like - killed Angel?"

"Yeah. Could even be the same one. Who knows?" When she glanced sidelong at Spike, his face shone wetly -the sight all the more bizarre with his vampire fangs and ridges. "Almost the last thing I heard him say - "I kind of want to slay the dragon." Didn't work out that way, though."

She'd heard the story before, but that didn't prevent the pang, like a hard fist gripping her heart.

"Payback time, then."

When she looked at Spike again, he was grinning. "Too fucking right, Slayer."

"You can exact revenge afterwards," Wesley protested. "Help me first. That's more important."

"Sod that!"

As the foremost skirmishers reached them, Buffy gripped the Scythe tight and leapt forward, Spike close behind her.

The Scythe met another blade in a clash of metal - a horrible shearing sound as they slid past each other. Instinct took over at once. Don't think, just fight. Become one with your weapon - a single-minded engine of destruction.

Shapes flowed past Buffy’s legs and it took her brain a moment to understand that it was the sled dogs, throwing themselves joyfully into battle. A demon soldier went down with the blue-eyed dog at its throat.

She was dimly aware of Spike away to her left, guarding her weaker side, as he always did, while she returned the favour. Another demon went down, clumsy feet skidding on the icy ground, and, as she reversed the Scythe and stabbed into an exposed throat, she had time to think that Wolfram & Hart must have been in an awful hurry, because they hadn't sent their army very well prepared.

Leather and metal and the stench of angry demon pressed close about them, and behind her she heard Wesley yell aloud in frustration. "Not now. We're so damn close. Not now."

Then, she broke through the ranks of demon soldiers to find the dragon looming above her. She was in its shadow, under its belly, which was soft and un-armoured, like a worm's. The great, wedge-shaped head swivelled as the beast tracked her. Fire scorched the ground and she threw herself clear, the Scythe blade small and impotent-looking next to the dragon's bulk.

"Slayer! Watch out!"

She rolled clear again, as fire erupted from pits of nostrils black as tar. One of the dogs howled and she smelt burning hair.

The dragon opened its mouth and roared, a column of flame shooting up into the sky. Buffy wiped sweat and stray bits of hair from her eyes, and staggered to her feet. Several of the dogs, one of them the blue-eyed one, were on the dragon's back, worrying at it like it was dinner. Under the dragon's body and spread wings, a wide circle of ice had turned to slush from the heat of the flames and many of the heavily armed demon soldiers were half-sunk in it, struggling to extricate themselves.

As she wobbled upright, she saw a demon head go flying, to bounce across the ice almost to her feet. Spike's white hair was visible through the melee, blade flashing up and down, machine-like, while beyond the struggle, Wesley stood, desperation stark on his face, alone on the lip of the pit, looking as if he was considering jumping into it.

She felt oddly cut off from everything suddenly, islanded in a moment of stillness, but even as that moment telescoped out into eternity, her legs began to move. Then they'd propelled her towards the dragon, feet digging into its scaly sides as her momentum took her to sit astride its back, while it roared and flapped its wings, trying to buck the dogs off.

"Oh, no you don't." Raising the Scythe, she plunged the pointed wooden stake through the gap between armoured plates deep into the base of the dragon's skull, a killing blow if the beast bore any resemblance at all to anything found in nature.

"Buffy!" Spike's shout was drowned in the dragon’s bellow. Its head thrashed from side to side while she clung on grimly. You killed my Angel, she thought, as she saw first one dog and then the others flung off onto the frozen ground. You don't get to walk away.

Fly away - whatever. She redoubled her grip as the dragon's wings flapped again, the wind from them scattering the demon army like dead leaves. Then it was airborne, wings dipping crazily, while she grabbed hold of the Scythe handle and pushed downwards with all her strength.

If this thing even had a brain, that should mess it up good.

The dragon lurched, tipping her this way and that. On the ground, the demon soldiers flung themselves down to avoid the beating wings as the dragon passed overhead, but even so, they couldn't escape the gouts of flame from its mouth. Demons burned like kindling in the dry air. She saw Spike, head down, with his arms around one of the dogs, shielding it, and, as the dragon opened its mouth to flame again, dug her heels hard into its side. It sheared off at the last minute, and the flames struck another phalanx of demons, and then another, turning them into living torches.

The dragon was slowing. It banked and turned, coming lower, and then she saw Wesley. He was still standing on the edge of the pit, the rope and safety harness around his waist, the box containing the crystal in his hand.

His eyes met hers and he held out his free hand. "Ms Summers - Buffy - for God's sake, help me!"

Later, she wasn't sure what exactly it was that had made her reach down and seize his hand in hers. Maybe it was the urgency in his voice, the desperation in his eyes? Whichever it was, she twined her fingers about his wrist and, as the dragon flapped lower and lower over the open pit and the finger of rock loomed below them, she released her grip at the same moment he did.

He dropped like a stone, the nylon rope connecting him tenuously to the piton buried in the ice trailing after him. At the same time, a strange sensation - an absence of sensation - overwhelmed her. The null point loomed like a crack in reality - a glimpse into the nothingness between dimensions.

Her mind reeled. She groaned, plastering herself flat to the dragon's back and digging her left heel in hard, forcing it to turn again towards the land.

"Buffy! For fuck's sake, jump!" Spike's voice seemed to come from very far away, but somehow she made herself do what it said, just as the dragon's wings folded up, like a dying moth's and it plummeted down towards the tossing waves. Her hands scrabbled, trying to find purchase on ice as smooth as glass. Then cold fingers closed around her wrist, at the same time as sharp teeth seized the sleeve of her parka, and Spike and the dogs between them hauled her over the lip of the pit to safety.

She looked down just in time to see the dragon hit the water far, far below and disappear from sight with hardly a splash.

Spike gathered her into his arms and hugged her tight. "You were fucking amazing. Buffy the dragon slayer."

She didn't feel amazing, as she pushed him away and puked up her guts on the ground. Not in the least.

"Take it easy, love. It's okay." His hand smoothed her hair. "We won. We beat the bastards, thanks to you."

Tears squeezed out of her closed eyes as she listened to his soothing nonsense. But then he tensed.

"Wes? What the fuck…"

Pushing away from him again, she turned, to see Wesley balanced precariously on the very tip of the null-point, looking like at any moment he would fall backwards into its black maw. He was holding the box close to his chest, cradling it like it was something precious. His lips moved, but she couldn't hear what he said.

Then, he opened the box, and blue-white light erupted from the crystal in a sudden blaze so bright she flung up her arm to shield her face while the dogs howled their distress. When the glow faded, red spots danced in front of her eyes, which felt hot, as if the retinas had been burned.

"What just happened?" Spike was rubbing his eyes, in no better state than she was, and when she managed to focus again, it was to see Wesley still standing on the null-point, holding an empty box.

He was crying, tears streaming uncontrollably down his cheeks. As she watched he crashed to his knees and hid his face in his hands.

There was an excited burst of yelping from behind her, and she turned to see the dogs set off in pursuit of the poor remnants of the demon horde - a few strays, some of them burnt and bleeding. All that remained after the dragon-induced carnage. It didn't surprise her when the dogs pulled them down easily, swarming over them in a seething mass of fur and teeth, until nothing was left save twitching corpses on the ground.

"Thorough little bastards, aren't they?" Spike's voice was tinged with admiration as he watched them. His arm was still tight around her shoulders and when she made to get up, he helped her.

"Have we won?" Her voice sounded strange to her, hoarse - like her vocal cords were singed.

"I dunno." He shook his vamp face away. "The old man'd be proud of you, though."

She shuddered, feeling again the sensation of the Scythe cutting through flesh and bone, the wooden point sliding between scales the colour of poison to pierce the dragon's brain. Then she gasped.

"Wes -no!"

Not that they could have done anything to prevent Wesley’s swan-dive off the null-point.

She watched, mouth open, as he arrowed downward. Then, her eyes met Spike's and they flung themselves at the rope, hauling on it with their full strength as it went taut and jerked, trying to drag the piton out of the ground.

Spike peered over the edge.

"Bastard's lucky. The rope isn't long enough to reach the water. Otherwise he’d be shrimp food." He grinned at her. "What say we haul him up, Slayer? See what he has to say for himself - that is, if he hasn't broken every bone in his body?"

*

Wesley's hand shook. Hot tea slopped over the rim of his mug onto his fingers. He seemed shock-y, more grey-faced than ever, livid patches of dead looking skin standing out startlingly on his face.

Buffy glanced sidelong at Spike, to see him flare his nostrils and frown.

"Drink up, Wes." She patted Wesley's knee and tried to smile when his gaze came back from whatever faraway place it was staring into and met hers, but what she saw in his eyes made her shiver.

"Is that it, then?" Spike asked, suddenly. "Did your precious crystal do its stuff? Have we stymied the bastards' apocalypse for good?"

Wesley blinked. He looked down at his hands and up again. Then he drew in a deep breath and set his mug down. "No."

Buffy’s hand stilled mid-pat. "Huh? What do you mean- no?"

Next to her, Spike had tensed. "He means he lied to us - again." He leaned forward suddenly, scenting the air around Wesley. "What did you just do, Wes? And why the fuck do you stink like grave dirt?"

Wesley gave him a wan smile. "Because I'm dying. That's why." He picked up the mug and took another sip, the smile going all lop-sided. "Must admit, I thought it would be quicker - instantaneous even. But I suppose that would have been too easy."

Spike had moved half in front of Buffy, arms widespread. "Dunno what your game is, but if you so much as breathe too hard around Buffy -"

Wesley laughed. Tipping back his head, he drained the contents of his mug. "I don't know why you assume Wolfram & Hart would want the Slayer dead. She's a known quantity, and maintaining the status quo is good for business." His eyes, when he looked at Spike, were bleak. "Even now, after what's just happened, she's perfectly safe, and so are you. They were never interested in you."

Spike didn’t lower his protective arm. "Think you can get under my skin, Percy, think again. Know I'm nothing special. No prophecies about me, are there? But here I am, the joker in the pack - and you know what? I like it that way."

Wesley's face softened a little. "It's true. You are difficult to quantify. Some might even call you a chaos bringer. But to Wolfram & Hart, you’re an irrelevance."

Spike tilted his head. "Suits me."

Wesley coughed - a rattling old man's cough. "It's why you survived the alley fight, you know. Unconscious, buried under a pile of dead demons, they just forgot about you."

Spike growled deep in his chest. "Stop trying to psych me out, Percy. I’m over that ‘beneath you’ crap. It won't fucking work, believe me."

"I'm not -" Wesley began, but Buffy interrupted.

"Okay, this is absolutely the last of this macho bullshit I'm gonna take from you two. Fess up, Wes. What did you do? What was that crystal really? "

Wesley coughed again. He looked down at his hands. "Like I told you, nothing works at the null-point. Not machines, not magic -nothing that relies on any kind of physical law. Everything is null and void, and that includes a Wolfram & Hart contract."

When he looked up again, his eyes were bright in his grey face. "I freed them," he said. "All of them."

They stared at him. Buffy opened her mouth to speak but no words came. It was like she'd suddenly forgotten how to talk.

After a moment, Wesley said, gently, "I know it's hard to take in."

Spike was on his feet. "Hard to take in? Understatement of the fucking century. So - you're saying that crystal was…"

"…the storage facility for those souls bound to Wolfram & Hart in perpetuity by their contracts. Yes." Wesley nodded. "It was explained to me once. Apparently, it takes a great deal of magical energy to revivify a dead body, so Wolfram & Hart tend to opt for one at a time. For reasons of their own, for the last five years, that's been me. The others are kept in storage until needed. It's rather neat really."

"Neat!" Spike's hands had clenched into fists. He hung over Wesley, looking mere inches from tearing him apart. "You're saying that Charlie's soul was in that crystal?"

Wesley remained calm. "Oh yes. Lorne's too - they caught him before he got far, I don't know if you knew that - also Lindsey Macdonald's, though I doubt you care about him. Lilah Morgan's - an old flame of mine, you don’t know her -so many others, many of them quite evil of course, but some mere innocent dupes."

"And Angel?" Buffy heard Spike's sharp intake of breath as she said the name he couldn't bring himself to say.

Wesley gazed at her solemnly. "Oh yes - the soul of the vampire with a soul; the jewel in their collection. And in fact their apocalypse is rather compromised without it."

Spike's hands were around Wesley's neck before she could stop him. He shook Wesley hard, vamp-faced and furious.

"You bastard! You fucking bastard! Angel’s soul was in that box, and you didn't tell us?"

"Spike!" She wrestled with him but she couldn't tear his hands away. "Let him go. You're killing him."

Wesley laughed a choked laugh at her words. He crowed for breath, tongue protruding from his mouth. There was a smell about him too, like death and decay. Spike was right. The smell of graveyards.

"Spike!" She balled up her fist and punched him, an uppercut to the jaw that snapped his head back and sent him sprawling. Standing in front of Wesley, arms spread wide, the way Spike had stood in front of her, she looked down into yellow eyes that sparked like burning sulphur. "Get a grip on yourself, mister. I won't tell you again."

He stared up at her. Then he flung back his head and howled, like one of the dogs. The next moment, he was on his feet and out of the tent and she heard him scream again, and again, lost in his anguish, while the sled dogs barked in sympathy.

Dry-eyed, she turned on Wesley.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

Wesley fingered his throat. His voice came out a rasp.

"I thought you might try to stop me - that you might think you could find some other way to break the contract - bring him back. You loved him. I’m well aware of that. In fact, I relied on it."

Her eyes prickled, but she kept her voice calm. "You really don't know me at all, do you?"

Outside, the ice-world reverberated to the sound of one man's grief and its eerie chorus of mourners. Buffy shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

"I did love him, but I'm not the only one. And you might have had a point, Wes, but you've gotten the two of us confused. I wouldn’t have tried to stop you."

"Ah." Wesley cleared his throat. "I must say, he kept it very well hidden."

She felt bone-weary suddenly. Sinking down to the ground beside Wesley, she indicated his grey skin, more and more breaking out in livid patches, like leprosy. Not that she'd ever seen leprosy, but she could imagine.

"What's happening to you?"

Wesley's Adam's apple jerked. "As I said, I'm dying. My contract is null and void and the spell that reanimates my body is broken. I thought I would die at once, but it seems I’m not to be granted that small mercy.” He looked away into the corner of the tent. “I would imagine that quite soon, I shall become very unpleasant to be around."

She managed to stop herself saying, "Eww!" Instead, she said, like she might have said to one of the younger Slayers, "Don’t give up, Wes. You did a good thing, and I’ll always be grateful to you for Angel's sake - and so will Spike when he comes to his senses. We'll take you back with us. Willow and Giles will find a way to help you, you'll see."

He shook his head. "Very unlikely, I'm afraid."

Outside, Spike’s anguish had fallen silent, but the wind was getting up, the sullen whine turning into something a great deal more serious. She clambered to her feet, every muscle in her body protesting.

"Never say die, Wes. At least, not until you are dead."

As she exited the tent, he said, "But I am."

Spike was sitting among the sled dogs, the blue-eyed dog resting its head in his lap, while he pulled its ears and petted it. It lifted its head when it saw her coming and whined.

"Spike?" She crouched down and put her hand on his shoulder, and after a moment, he looked up at her with haunted eyes, the hollows under his prominent cheekbones darkly sculpted.

"Sorry about that, Slayer," he muttered. "Didn't mean to fucking lose it."

"It's okay." Her voice shook. She cleared her throat. "S'okay, Spike. I understand. I've had years to learn how to live without him - since the day I put a sword through his heart and sent him to hell. But you -”

"Buffy -" His voice broke again. She squatted lower, holding him while he shook and sobbed.

"S'okay," she soothed. "He's free, Spike. He's safe. You don't have to be angry with him any more."

Part Five