Fic: Twilight of the Gods, 1/3
Part 2 will be posted tomorrow. Part 3 is still in beta, but should be up by the end of the weekend (knock wood.)
Twilight of the Gods
by Barb C
Disclaimers: The usual. All belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy, and naught to me.
Rating: PG-13. Violence, swearing, but sadly, no sex.
Characters: Angel, Spike, and a few surprises.
Pairing: None as such. Background B/S, mentions of B/A & Cordy/A, and S/A if you squint. SUBTEXT FOR EVERYONE!
Words: 19,000 or so
Distribution: Ask and you shall receive, I'd just like to know where it ends up.
Synopsis: Forty years later, a now-human Angel enlists Spike's help to stop a wizard from plunging the world into eternal winter.
Author’s notes: Written for the second lynnevitational. Thanks to germaine_pet for getting the band back together. This story takes place in the same universe as "Raising In the Sun," "Necessary Evils," and "A Parliament of Monsters." It's set approximately forty years after POM, and contains spoilers for the rest of the series to date. Eternal gratitude to sgac, wildrider, slaymesoftly, gillo, kehf, typographer, bruttimabuoni, Rainkatt, partri65, deborahc, and hobgoblinn for slapping me upside the haid when I need it.
In Angel's dreams, all the trees were made of bones, and their skeletal fingers sieved the wind for the howls of wolves.
The pounding on the cabin door was barely audible over the moan of the storm, but it was enough to wake him out of restless slumber. He rarely slept through the night any longer; old habits, old impulses died hard, or so he told himself. Or perhaps it was only that the nights were so much longer now. Some time after midnight the snow had started to fall again, and he could hear the creak of pines bending to the lash of the wind. The pounding came again, insistent, along with a shout of "Oi! Let me in, you antiquated bastard! I'm freezing my balls off!"
Angel ran a thumb down the sleeping bag's thermal seal and rolled over, fumbling for the switch of the battery-powered lantern on the table beside his cot. Yellow light flooded the cabin, a sickly false dawn. The fire had gone out, any remaining coals smothered beneath a layer of ash as white as the snow outside. His breath hung on the bitter predawn air. Neither darkness nor chill would have mattered to him, once. Now the cold woke aches in his bones, the ghosts of old breaks and bruises. Shouldering into his coat, he swung both legs over the side of the cot and shoved his feet into unlaced boots - he'd slept in his clothes, partly for warmth, partly in anticipation of this. The floor was icy even through layers of wool and leather.
"Come in," he said, savoring the power in those two words. He slid the deadbolt. "You're late."
Wind slammed the door back against the wall. Spike blew inside, snowflakes eddying in his wake. He was wearing the same beaten-up black leather motorcycle jacket he'd worn for the last forty years - on the theory, no doubt, that it was just now getting properly broken in. "Yeh, well, took me a while. Not as young as I used to be," he shot back, stamping packed snow from the soles of his boots. He was limping, Angel noted, and there was a jagged tear in the leg of his jeans, its edges black and stiff with frozen blood. "And nobody mentioned the sodding blizzard. In sodding August. Or the sodding wolves. Liam, you ascetic freak, it's colder in here than out there!"
"I don't have a carbon permit." Angel put a shoulder to the door and forced it shut against the wind. "And the last thing we need is the Forest Service showing up." Not that it was likely that they would, in this weather. He caught Spike's arm, urgent. "Do you have it?"
"Fine, thanks, and so's the missus." Spike shrugged out of his backpack, yanked his earflapped cap off, and strode over to the fireplace, where he picked up the poker and gave the bed of ashes a few hopeful jabs. When that produced no results, he knelt and began piling on fuel from the wood box on the hearth. Angel made no move to stop him - as long as it was Spike wussing out first, a fire didn't sound like a bad idea. He watched, arms folded, as Spike ripped pages from the stack of yellowing magazines beside the fireplace, stuffed them under the logs and applied his lighter. Flame trembled, caught, and blossomed, orange tongues devouring the tinder and licking hungrily at the undersides of the logs.
"Ah, that's more like." Spike rose and stretched luxuriously. "Globe could use a bit more warming, you ask me. And yes, I've got your golden ticket." He noticed Angel staring, and cocked his head. "Wossmatter? Spinach farmer in my teeth?"
"Nothing. Just...it's been awhile."
"Ten years. Whose fault's that?" Spike wheeled away and began nosing around the cabin like an inquisitive terrier, opening cupboards and prodding at the meager contents. For all his grumbling, he still radiated the nervous, irrepressible energy of old. If you counted only the time they'd spent as mortals, he was two years older than Angel, but he could pass for ten years younger - whether that was the natural consequence of his demon blood, or just Spike's innate talent for being annoying, Angel could never decide.
Not that the years hadn't touched him. The short-cropped sandy-brown hair was liberally salted with grey now, and deep laugh-lines framed the blue eyes and mocking mouth. The sight of him pained in a way that Angel's own reflection never had. The old man in the mirror was a stranger. This was Spike, who'd once insisted so passionately that demons didn't change.
The demon in question held up a tin of unflavored oatmeal with a tch of disgust. "What is this, a Sunday School retreat? No fire, no liquor, not even any sodding marshmallows..."
Angel bent to lace his boots, studiously maintaining a straight face. "The last thing you need is marshmallows." After all these years, Spike's fondness for hot wings and otter's blood was finally getting a march on his ferocious workout regimen. His lean frame was stockier now, and in profile it was apparent that he was starting to acquire a small but unmistakable gut.
"I've earned every ounce of it, mate," Spike replied cheerfully. "Anyway, ate on the road." He pulled a palm-sized golden disc from his coat pocket, flipped it, caught it, slapped it down on the cabin's small table. The alien designs inscribed upon its surface winked in the firelight. Outside the pitch of the wind changed, rising in a long-drawn howl of rage. "Here it is. I had trouble enough getting it, too - seems they don't let just anyone stroll into Tak'alik A'baj' and start rooting around in the altar-stones these days. You going to tell me what this little excursion's in service of now?"
"It's a long story." Angel picked up the disc, hands shaking with - not hope. Not yet. Too soon for that. He traced the glyphs with a finger, pulling up comparisons from all-too-accurate memory. On the opposite side, a snarling, stylized jaguar-face glared back at him.
Spike sighed and rummaged through an inside coat pocket, coming up with a pouch of contraband tobacco and a packet of Zig-Zags. "Well, I'm stuck here till sundown. Have to pass the time somehow." He tapped a shreddy brown line of tobacco onto the paper and cocked an eyebrow at the window. "Not that sunrise appears to be a problem at the moment."
Angel pulled a rickety wooden chair over to the table and sat down. He held up the disc, framed in his hands - big hands, and still powerful... for an old man's. "How long," he asked, "since you've seen it snow like this?"
Spike perched on the edge of the other chair and frowned, licking the edge of his rolling paper. He finished his masterpiece off with an expert twist of his fingers and committed his second (or possibly third) felony of the night by lighting up. "In California?"
"In anywhere."
Exhaling a plume of vile blue smoke, Spike glanced out at the swirling snow. "Been awhile," he admitted.
"Two years ago they called it El Nino," Angel said, spinning the disc. "Last year it was a freak fluctuation of the jet stream. This year it's a disturbing climactic trend. What are they going to call it next year?"
Spike laced his hands across his middle and rocked back on the chair's hind legs. "Why guess when you're itching to tell me?"
"They won't call it anything, because there won't be a next year. We're looking at worldwide crop failure, famine, war, refugees with nowhere to go - " Angel leaned forward, searching Spike's face - God knew Spike had never been remotely interested in politics, but how could he have ignored the pictures on the newsfeeds? Africa, Asia, Europe and North America - everywhere, crops froze on the tree or rotted in the ground, and spring brought only torrents of brown meltwater to rip the scant remaining topsoil from land that had been desert five years ago, cropland twenty years before that. Rivers of desperate, starving faces, too, converging on cities, on countries too overburdened to hold them - or to hold them back. Glaciers creeping down the flanks of mountains that had been bare of ice for twenty years. Fuji, Whitney, Everest, all hungry to take back what was rightfully theirs...
Blue eyes met his, as cold and indifferent - as soulless - as the storm outside. Of course Spike had seen - he just didn't care. Spike could grow old and die like a man, but he wasn't one. Or... no. Not completely indifferent. Marginally curious. Which for Spike was the equivalent of joining the Peace Corps. "Right. And how's that different from any point in the last...oh, forever? The world's fucked up. What else is new? We always bollocks on through somehow."
"This isn't just fucked up," Angel said tightly. "This is Fimbulwinter. There's a wizard who's performing a ritual to summon the wolf Skoll, who's going to eat the sun. "
Spike looked skeptical. "Eternal darkness? Again? That trick never works. Ought to let the pillock go through with it."
There was no mistaking the expectant look in his eyes now - all his bitching was pro forma; for whatever inscrutable, amoral reason, Spike was just waiting to be talked around. Angel had no intention of obliging him. "I'll be heading out as soon as the sun's up. You can stay here till sunset. There's pig's blood in the cooler, and I left my truck parked a mile down the - "
"Hold on," Spike interrupted. "Who says I'm staying here?"
"You've done your part." Angel tapped the disc. "This isn't your fight. Go home."
"Oh, bosh," said Spike. "Any fight is my fight. You owe me, mate - you think it was hard getting hold of that trinket? It was nothing compared to getting away without Buffy asking awkward questions. That storm's not breaking any time soon. And if you think I'm going to let you ponce off and take all the world-saving credit after I bloody near drown myself fetching your tinkertoy there..." His gaze sharpened. "And speaking of Buffy..."
"She doesn't need to be involved in this." Angel felt a twinge of conscience and ruthlessly suppressed it. He tucked the disc into his own coat pocket. "And if Buffy's not involved, there's no percentage for you in looking heroic, is there? We don't have time, anyway. Everything's going down today. There's a spot higher up the mountainside. Ley lines, favorable mystic convergence, the usual."
Spike glared at him for a moment. He held up one hand and ticked off on his fingers, "No sun, no hops. No hops, no beer. Not in favor of a world sans beer. Not to mention the beleaguered tobacco industry. Hard enough to get a decent fag these days. No sense in making it harder. Bugger the Slayer, I'm in."
"You're saving the world for beer and cigarettes these days?"
For a moment Spike looked genuinely offended. Then he grinned. "You wouldn't believe me if I said it was for puppies and Christmas. 'Sides, it's been too long since I had a proper scrap. It's all politics and negotiations back in Sunnydale these days - you'd hate it. You're lucky to get a decent bar fight in a fortnight. It'll do me good to run some of this off." He patted his compact little paunch, stubbed his cigarette out and stretched, wincing a little as the muscles of his wounded leg pulled. "Naff business, this getting old. Ten years ago the buggers wouldn't have laid a fang on me." He tugged his cap down over his eyes, propped his boots up on the table, and settled back in his chair. "Wake me when it's apocalypse time, Grandpa."
****
Spike caught a quick cat-nap while Angel readied for the trip and waited for the sun. When it finally cleared the mountains, it was only a pale grey smudge in a dark grey sky. The pine-clad slopes of the Sierra Nevadas rose in a vast upsweep of stone around the cabin, their snowcapped peaks shorn off by the low-hanging clouds. Angel packed light: besides the disc he took canteen, knife, lighter, his cell, dry socks, a couple of energy bars, the Winchester Super X and an extra box of shells. Spike didn't bother with that much; when he woke up, he stuck a brace of throwing knives in his boots, a hip flask in his pocket, and left his backpack on the cabin floor. When Angel offered him a weapon, he laughed, shook his head, and said he didn't think he'd need one.
Showoff, Angel thought as he locked the cabin door behind them. You'd think he'd be used to it by now - Spike strolling lightly in and out of his life, making everything look so goddamned easy. He still had to remind himself that Spike hadn't known what the outcome of his choice would be, all those years ago. He'd had no reason beyond blind hope to think that the Mohra blood which had kick-started both their hearts would leave a soulless vampire anything other than a mindless hunk of meat. He'd taken the chance on life anyway, and gotten death as a gift with purchase. Angel didn't resent the fate that had made him a man again - how could he, under the circumstances? What galled wasn't that he was alive, but that Spike had chosen what he'd had forced upon him.
Oh, well. It could have been worse. The little bastard could have run off and gotten himself a soul.
"Where to?" Spike asked, sniffing the breeze. It was crap weather for tracking, but vampires relied on scent far more than even they realized - it had taken Angel years to get out of the habit of relying on his nose. He pointed to the line of dark fenceposts leading off across the snowbound meadow and disappearing into the shadow of the forest. Spike nodded, and set off in the lead, plowing through the thigh-high drifts of snow by main strength. Angel followed, toiling along in the smaller man's footsteps. Good King God Damn Wenceslas.
It was half a mile's trek to the forest's edge, with the shush-shush of wind in their ears all the way. The going grew no easier under the pines - they were heading uphill now, over ground made treacherous by hummocks and fallen branches half-hidden beneath the snow. The only sign of life was a raven in the branches overhead. It cocked a glittering black eye at them, cawed, and flapped heavily skyward.
The underbrush thinned as they climbed, heading into old-growth forest. Yellow pine and incense cedar gave way to red fir and lodgepole, their huge trunks rising from the mountainside like the columns of a vast, wintery cathedral. There were valleys older than time in these hills, sheltering trees that had been saplings when mankind was still battling the Old Ones to inherit the Earth. For the last four decades the forest had been beating a glacial retreat up the slopes, inch by inch, driven out of the foothills by summers that grew longer and winters that grew drier each year. Now the ice had returned to reclaim its due.
"Hsst," Spike whispered, laying a hand on Angel's shoulder. He stood at bird-dog attention, head cocked, nostrils flared. Angel strained his ears, but besides the wind and the creak of snow-burdened branches, their own heavy breathing was the only sound. Spike held up a finger, and then Angel heard it too, braided into the wind: the distant cry of a raven, and the howls of wolves.
"They've found us," Spike murmured. "And not by chance They're aiming to cut us off. I only ran into three of 'em last night. There's more than that on the way now, I'll wager. "
"It doesn't matter," Angel said. "We keep going."
Spike remained motionless for a moment longer, head high, nostrils drinking in the wind. Then he nodded and set off, still following the sagging skein of barbed wire. Angel looked back along their trail uneasily. He might not have a vampire's sense of smell any longer, but he knew these woods, and he knew Spike. "You're positive you weren't followed?" Angel asked. "We - the guy we're after has eyes and ears everywhere."
"'Course I was followed." Spike swatted a low-hanging branch out of his way. The ice sheathing the drought-brown needles shattered and a shower of wet snow narrowly missed smacking Angel in the face. "Ran into a couple of inquisitive blokes in Bishop yesterday evening. Claimed to be investigating looted archeological sites." Yellow light flickered in his eyes. "Told you I'd eaten on the road." With the air of someone adding a tiresome but necessary legal disclaimer, he added, "I didn't kill 'em. Much."
If Buffy were here, there'd be a furious argument about that. Buffy still cared about things like the lives of random strangers. Some day he'd have to ask her how she managed it. "You're certain you got them all?"
The vampire lifted one snow-frosted eyebrow and pointed back along their trail, where the blowing snow had already half-obliterated their footprints. "If anyone's following us, mate, he's a better tracker than I am."
An hour later, the fence intersected an old logging road in a rusty tangle of wire and rotting boards that had once been a gate. On either side of the ruined gate, paired wheel-ruts squiggled off into the pines. No one had driven here for decades. Here and there a few stunted saplings thrust up out of the snow, and a raven circled overhead - Angel couldn't tell if it was the same one. A second raven perched on the top of the ruined gate. It screamed at them and exploded into flight, circling swiftly upwards to join its fellow.
The wind had died down somewhat, and snowflakes fell in lazy arabesques around them, dusting their shoulders with white. By Angel's reckoning they'd traveled about five miles in distance and two thousand feet in elevation from the cabin. Not too shabby, though his knees were starting give him hell.
"Dunno about you, but I'm knackered," Spike said. "Good enough place to rest a bit." He propped a hip against one of the less rickety fenceposts, fetched his tobacco pouch out, and began the intricate process of rolling himself the perfect nicotine delivery system.
Angel crossed his arms and leaned back against a tree-trunk with a white huff of breath. Counting off the seconds till his heartbeat returned to normal, he wondered if Spike was doing the same. He strongly suspected that Spike had called the rest stop mostly for his benefit, but perhaps not. The vampire's limp was barely noticeable now - he must have been serious about having fed recently - but the exposed skin of his face was a bright sunburnt red. Angel didn't think he was going to burst into flame any time soon, but braving even indirect sunlight wasn't without its dangers.
More immediately worrisome were the occasional furtive glances Spike kept throwing at their back-trail, but nothing moved in the monochrome landscape behind them. Angel pulled his cell phone out, flipped it open and consulted the GPS reading.
"Where'd you get that antique?"
Angel scowled at the screen. "It does the job." He hadn't noticed it earlier, but there was a tiny silver stud in Spike's left ear - the external receiver for a bone-conduction cell implant. Spike had always ricocheted between traditionalism and fascination with anything new; he'd once slaughtered an entire family just so he and Drusilla could play with their newly-installed electric lights. "I would have thought you'd be the last guy to want another microchip in his head."
"This one gets the footy scores." Spike flicked his lighter, drew his cigarette to life with a satisfied sigh and made silent offer of a drag. At Angel's curt head-shake he shrugged, settled back against the fence post, and tipped his head back to blow contemplative smoke rings at the overcast sky. A moment later, the sharp scent of whiskey cut through the odors of pine and damp wool as he undid the cap of his flask.
"We follow this road east from here," Angel said. "Four miles in, there's a trailhead leading up to a cave entrance. That's where we'll find our man. He'll have some kind of guardian - the wolves at least, and wards to boot." The screen fuzzed and he gave the phone a shake. "This thing won't be any good for much longer - we're already getting magical interference. Does yours...?"
Spike pursed his lips and scratched the salt-and-pepper stubble coming in along his lean jaw. "Nah. Out of service since last night. I can deal with the guards, but magic on the fly's not my department." He took a swallow and tipped the flask in Angel's direction.
"I can deal with the wards." Angel waved the flask away. "Gave it up."
"So could Willow. In fact, there's been many a time in the last three weeks when I've said to myself, 'Spike, old chap, wouldn't our Will be handy right about now, to magic a way past a few of these clever death-traps?' Or 'Blimey, I'd lay odds Dawn could translate this demon gibberish heaps faster than I can.' Or 'Buggering hell, where's the Slayer when you need her?' But for reasons someone tall, broody and thinning on top refuses to explain, he insists we go it alone, and what do you mean gave it up? What kind of Irishman gives up whiskey?"
"One who's got a sentimental attachment to his liver," Angel snarled. "Damn it, Spike, I told you this was a solo gig from the start! If you can't hack the big time any more, stay home and play Bingo, or whatever the hell it is you do in Sunnydale these days!" He brushed a defensive hand across the top of his head. "And I'm not thinning on top!"
Spike took a startled half-step back, before recalling that Angel could no longer back up the snarl with fangs. His expression turned to mulish obstinance. "Oh, right, and tell Buffy what when your mutilated body makes the six o'clock news? Not a bloody chance. You know what she was doing right before I left? Fretting because she doesn't have an address to send your sodding wedding invitation to!"
"Wedding?" Angel repeated blankly.
Eyeroll. "Connie's. Our eldest girl. Remember? Your boy Lawson's finally convinced her to make an honest vamp of him. 'Bout bloody time, too, she's up the duff again." Spike screwed the lid of the flask back on and interred it in his coat pockets again. "What are we sitting around here for? Miles to go before we sleep and all that."
And he was off, keeping to the shadows of the trees. Angel stood staring after him for a minute, then floundered into a run. "Wait a minute! Lawson? Sam Lawson? I thought he was with the Initiative!"
The sun climbed higher as they hiked, though the cloud cover stayed heavy enough to prevent Spike from singeing. Spike had caught his second wind, and was obviously feeling chatty; he continued to regale Angel with father-of-the-bride stories, general Sunnydale gossip, and accounts of the varied accomplishments of his and Buffy's progeny which Angel couldn't help but feel were slightly embroidered.
Sam Lawson was still with the Initiative, but he'd followed in Spike's incredibly risky footsteps and hunted down a Mohra demon to jump-start his pulse. Fred Burkle had a research fellowship at MIT. Willow Rosenberg was collaborating with her on a paper about quantum magical effects. Rupert Giles had died of a stroke several years ago, after which Faith had cut short her semi-retirement in England and moved back to Boston to start slaying hard and drinking harder, not that Spike was insinuating any connection between the two events, oh no. Xander and Anya Harris had retired last year, sold the contracting business and the Magic Box, and were touring Europe.
Angel listened, at once envious and strangely detached. He'd known these people once, hadn't he? Loved them, hated them - they'd mattered to him, or some of them had. Now it was all like the plot of a soap opera he'd watched a long time ago. Sunnydale 90210. When had he drifted so far away? It had taken more than ten years to travel so far, surely.
"...all Connie wanted was a justice of the peace, but what with never having a proper blow-out herself Buffy talked 'em into a big 'do, and now she's driving the both of 'em barmy with 'suggestions.'" Spike shook his head. "If I get home and find my Constance strangling her mum with something borrowed, I'm blaming you."
"How the hell did we end up like this?" Angel murmured, half to himself.
Spike's smirk had lost none of its bite. "Dunno. But in my case, I'm pretty certain all the shagging had something to do with it."
"No, I mean..." There'd been previous invitations, to birthdays and graduations and weddings and more birthdays and the occasional funeral - he'd lost track of how many, but the Summers-Pratts were a prolific clan. He'd attended a few such occasions, early on, but it was always so awkward. Hi, I'm Buffy's ex-vampire ex-lover. Easier to send a card, a cash transfer, a quick text message. Or not to answer at all. "You were always the one chasing after death or glory, and you end up with the white picket fence and the..." He waved one hand to indicate indefinite but alarming quantities of offspring. "I was the one who wanted..."
He'd never dared put a name to what he wanted, but he knew it when he saw it, and he was pretty sure that the last time he'd seen it was in Connor's face, just before the look of stunned betrayal replaced it. The irony was that it was the same thing Connor wanted. Connor was just willing to sacrifice far too much to get it.
Spike snorted. "Oh, put away the tiny violins. You're the one who periodically drops off the face of the earth. Been in touch with the cheerleader lately, or that psychotic little bugger who calls you dear old Dad?"
Ah. Yeah. There was the pain. Knew it had to be around here someplace. Angel grabbed Spike's shoulder and spun him around, slamming him up against the bole of the nearest tree. Funny how bodies remembered what even his relentless memory had let fade, like the precise way that his fingers spanned the column of Spike's throat. It was easy to forget sometimes just how small Spike was, when he packed a six foot eight attitude into a five foot eight frame.
"The last time I saw Connor was the day I tried to slit his throat," Angel said evenly. "I'm not expecting a Father's Day card any time soon. Cordy's in another world now - she made her choice."
"She's in bloody Sacramento! It's barely another zip code!"
"Either way, I don't hear her knocking down my door," Angel snapped. That wasn't precisely true, but it had been years since Cordelia Chase had last used her considerable money and influence to try tracking him down. "Satisfied? You'd better be, because anything else about my personal life is none of your business."
Blue eyes boring into his, so close - how long had it been since anyone had been close? He'd never been into the touchy-feely thing. The backslapping and the hail-fellow-well-met were Spike's deal; Spike had always been as quick with a hug as with a left hook. He should let go. But he didn't. He could smell the stink of tobacco and old blood on Spike's breath, hear the slow inexorable beat of Spike's heart against his chest, a strange new backbeat to a familiar song. Feel Spike's body against his own, strong and solid and strangely warm in contrast to the frigid air.
Muscles tensed beneath his weight, Spike's silent reminder that he was perfectly capable of throwing Angel off. But he didn't. Angel searched those eyes, ready to lash out at any (unforgivable) suggestion of pity, but there was none. Of course not. Spike wasn't capable of it. And they were long past the point when a fist-fight could prove anything, for either of them. Worse luck.
He let his hands drop and stepped back, feeling foolish. "She's doing all right, isn't she? Buffy, I mean."
Spike sucked his cheeks in, tugged his jacket into place, and then nodded, accepting the change of subject. "She is. Little trouble adjusting to the concept of bein' a grandmum, some while back, but we're safely past that." For a second the wintery eyes warmed with something almost like compassion. Almost. With visible effort, Spike added, "Come see her some time. She'd like that."
The necessity of framing a reply to that was mercifully cut short. A savage howl echoed down from the hillside above, and a lupine chorus answered from the opposite ridge. Spike looked up. "Bugger," he muttered. Whirling, he grabbed Angel's shoulders and gave him a little shake. "Angel, get out of here. Climb a tree or something."
"What? Don't be stupid." Angel shook his hands away and unlimbered the Winchester. He checked to make certain that there were cartridges in both chambers and the magazine, and thumbed off the safety. "Get up against that boulder, where they can't circle us. We're up against animals, not demons, and I'm in better shape than you are."
"Like hell you are, and I wouldn't be any too sure of that." Spike, somewhat mysteriously, tugged off his gloves, unzipped his motorcycle jacket and tossed them aside, revealing a black cable-knit sweater beneath. "Just don't want 'em ripped up," he added, at Angel's look. "Oh, balls, never mind, but don't say I didn't warn you."
The wind was rising hard and fast, picking up stinging sheets of snow and whipping them down the mountainside. Branches creaked and snapped overhead. The first wolf howled again, closer now. Backs to the fissured stone, Angel and Spike stood shoulder to shoulder in the heart of gathering storm, eyes fixed upon the fir-covered heights.
Wind and wolves howled together, a mocking chorale. Beside him, Angel heard Spike's answering growl, a low warning rumble. He scanned the wilderness of rocks and trees and blowing snow, but whatever Spike's far-sighted predator's eyes had picked out, it was still invisible to him. Then he saw them. A waterfall of grey shapes, fleeting down the rocky slopes above. Wolves, bounding from ledge to ledge, parting and merging again in a ravening cascade of fur and fang, muscle and bone. Servants of the frost giants - or the descendants of a pack released in Yosemite in the '20s, as the newsblogs claimed, driven south by the anomalous winter, hungry and desperate enough to risk an encounter with Man. Keep your pets inside.
Angel raised the shotgun, braced the stock against his shoulder. No fancy stuff. Body shots. This had been Wesley's favorite weapon. There was irony for you. He sighted, aimed. Waited.
Fired.
The shotgun roared and leaped against his shoulder as he hit the lead wolf with both barrels. The leader of the pack spun into the air and fell to earth in a crimson winding-sheet of blood. Its comrades coursed over its body without hesitation. Angel jacked another cartridge into the chamber and aimed again. The wind rose to a scream as he got the second shot off. A second wolf yipped and went into a splayfooted roll, splattering the snow a cherry-snowcone red in its wake. For a second Angel could have sworn that the wound bled blue flame. And then the pack was upon them.
"Come to Daddy!" Spike sang, spinning into a kick that staved in a furry ribcage. Heedless of the snapping fangs, he grabbed the beast's muzzle and twisted. Bones crunched and muscle tore, and Spike pitched the carcass nose over tail at the next wolf like the fast bowler he'd been in another lifetime.
Angel squinted into the whirling snow, praying to whatever would listen for a clear shot. The urge to jump into the fight was nigh-irresistible, but he'd given in to that urge often enough when he was younger to have learned the hard way how stupid it was. He braced his shoulders against the lichenous rock, waiting another opportunity to pick off another wolf without hitting Spike. There. The shotgun roared again, and another wolf went down.
Two more heaps of bloodsoaked fur lay at Spike's feet. Any normal wolf-pack would have retreated by now, but their attackers pressed closer. They danced in and out again, a semi-circle of savage jaws, striking one, two, or three at a time, and then darting away. If Spike connected, a wolf died, and they knew it. But Spike's reflexes, though still far swifter than any human's, had lost a few crucial fractions of a second over the years. Every now and again, a wolf would get past his guard. Not all of the blood on the snow was theirs. Sooner or later - probably sooner - Spike would falter. And then Spike would go down.
Unless Angel blew them all to kingdom come first.
Sight. Aim. Fire. Five down. Spike snapped the spine of a huge black-furred wolf across his knee. Six. Angel blasted a seventh wolf just before it sank its teeth into Spike's still-healing leg. More howls rang along the ridge-tops. Reload. They could do this. Might take a little longer than it used to - and there was the rub. It was closing up on noon, but going by the featureless sky it could have been dawn or twilight. They might win this battle, but all the wolves had to do to win the war was delay them long enough.
"We've got to get out of here!" Angel yelled. "We can't afford to waste time on this!"
Spike doubled over and braced his hands against his knees. He was panting hard. His cap had fallen off and his hair was a riot of sandy-grey curls, matted with frozen sweat and blood. "Doing my best here," he gasped.
"Then do better," Angel snapped. "Tubby!"
"Says the bloke who was checking out my arse just now." Spike straightened. "Oh, bloody hell."
Angel followed his gaze. Up the slope where it had first fallen, the lead wolf's coat shimmered from grey to white. It staggered to its feet, black tongue lolling, its eyes blazing blue. It threw back its head, howled like the damned, and raced down the slope, blue flame frothing at its jaws. Hellishly fast, preternaturally strong, the ghost-wolf leaped into the air and soared over the heads of its living packmates to bury its fangs in Spike's throat. At the last moment Spike twisted and the icicle teeth met in the muscle of his shoulder.
Angel fired off the remaining barrel of the shotgun as the ghost-wolf's weight bowled Spike over, and spun the gun around to club the nearest wolf on the skull with the stock. He dropped the shotgun, whipped his Bowie knife out of its belt sheath, and buried the blade between the ghost wolf's heaving shoulders.
Flame spurted from the wound, blue as gaslight and cold as dry ice. The wolf dropped Spike with a howl of rage. Before Angel could prise the blade free or drive it deeper, the wolf spun, jerking the knife out of his grasp, and lunged for his throat. Angel rammed his left forearm into the beast's maw and flailed around the furry bulk of its body for the handle of his knife. If he could just catch hold - there! Gripping the knife handle, he wrenched with all his strength, carving a deep gouge in the ghost-wolf's side. The wound closed behind the blade instantly.
There was an inhuman roar, and out of the corner of his eye Angel saw a horrific vision surging up from under a snarling, writhing heap of wolf-flesh. Vampire, but worse. Scimitar fangs lined a leonine muzzle, feral eyes flared sulfur-yellow beneath ridged brows studded with stubby horns. The coarse grey mane sprouting along the crown of its skull gave way to glossy grey-green scales and Jesus Christ, it was Spike.
Demon-Spike caught the ghost-wolf round the throat, inch-long claws penetrating the thick ruff and digging deep into icy, translucent flesh. With a savagery to match its own he tore into its jugular. Bone crunched and hide ripped, and the ghost-wolf shredded like a badly-made pinata, dissolving into a flurry of snow.
All around them, the bodies of the fallen wolves were shimmering, changing, rising. Spike spat out a gobbet of disintegrating blue-white fur and whirled to face the remaining wolves, roaring again in challenge. The ghost-pack howled as one, and jumped him.
Angel felt his pockets for the box of shells and looked around for the shotgun - there, over by the rock face. Now, while the wolves were momentarily occupied with Spike. He scrambled to hands and knees and lunged for the barrel of the gun, belly-sliding across the last few feet of bloodstained ice. His fingers were clumsy in their Snopro gloves; he fumbled badly breaking the shotgun open and dropped half the shells into the snow. Cursing, he scooped up the cold brass cylinders and rammed them into the magazine.
The next fifteen minutes were a blur of blood and snow. Angel shot wolves, and Spike tore their ghosts to shreds. Eight down, four rising. Nine down, six rising. On and on it went, until the last two living wolves took stock of their situation and broke off, loping away into the concealing storm.
Spike swung around to stare at him. He was bleeding from a dozen bites and gashes, and his sides were heaving like a bellows. Angel held his breath, knuckles whitening on the trigger. How deep did the change go, and to what extent was Spike's demon aspect in control now? He had one shell in the left chamber and two more shells in the magazine before he'd have to reload again, and he hoped that was enough to stop... whatever the hell Spike was now. Spike rasped something Angel couldn't catch, his voice gravelly and distorted by the altered bone structure of his jaws. He dropped to his knees, then to all fours. His golden eyes rolled up in his shaggy, monstrous head and he collapsed face-first in the snow.
Angel climbed stiffly to his feet and staggered over to the fallen vampire. When he turned Spike's limp body over, the fine-boned features were entirely human again. "Knew there was something about those wolves I forgot to mention," Spike whispered. "Gotta kill 'em twice."
"Yeah," Angel gasped. "Figured that part out."
Continued in Part II
Twilight of the Gods
by Barb C
Disclaimers: The usual. All belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy, and naught to me.
Rating: PG-13. Violence, swearing, but sadly, no sex.
Characters: Angel, Spike, and a few surprises.
Pairing: None as such. Background B/S, mentions of B/A & Cordy/A, and S/A if you squint. SUBTEXT FOR EVERYONE!
Words: 19,000 or so
Distribution: Ask and you shall receive, I'd just like to know where it ends up.
Synopsis: Forty years later, a now-human Angel enlists Spike's help to stop a wizard from plunging the world into eternal winter.
Author’s notes: Written for the second lynnevitational. Thanks to germaine_pet for getting the band back together. This story takes place in the same universe as "Raising In the Sun," "Necessary Evils," and "A Parliament of Monsters." It's set approximately forty years after POM, and contains spoilers for the rest of the series to date. Eternal gratitude to sgac, wildrider, slaymesoftly, gillo, kehf, typographer, bruttimabuoni, Rainkatt, partri65, deborahc, and hobgoblinn for slapping me upside the haid when I need it.
In Angel's dreams, all the trees were made of bones, and their skeletal fingers sieved the wind for the howls of wolves.
The pounding on the cabin door was barely audible over the moan of the storm, but it was enough to wake him out of restless slumber. He rarely slept through the night any longer; old habits, old impulses died hard, or so he told himself. Or perhaps it was only that the nights were so much longer now. Some time after midnight the snow had started to fall again, and he could hear the creak of pines bending to the lash of the wind. The pounding came again, insistent, along with a shout of "Oi! Let me in, you antiquated bastard! I'm freezing my balls off!"
Angel ran a thumb down the sleeping bag's thermal seal and rolled over, fumbling for the switch of the battery-powered lantern on the table beside his cot. Yellow light flooded the cabin, a sickly false dawn. The fire had gone out, any remaining coals smothered beneath a layer of ash as white as the snow outside. His breath hung on the bitter predawn air. Neither darkness nor chill would have mattered to him, once. Now the cold woke aches in his bones, the ghosts of old breaks and bruises. Shouldering into his coat, he swung both legs over the side of the cot and shoved his feet into unlaced boots - he'd slept in his clothes, partly for warmth, partly in anticipation of this. The floor was icy even through layers of wool and leather.
"Come in," he said, savoring the power in those two words. He slid the deadbolt. "You're late."
Wind slammed the door back against the wall. Spike blew inside, snowflakes eddying in his wake. He was wearing the same beaten-up black leather motorcycle jacket he'd worn for the last forty years - on the theory, no doubt, that it was just now getting properly broken in. "Yeh, well, took me a while. Not as young as I used to be," he shot back, stamping packed snow from the soles of his boots. He was limping, Angel noted, and there was a jagged tear in the leg of his jeans, its edges black and stiff with frozen blood. "And nobody mentioned the sodding blizzard. In sodding August. Or the sodding wolves. Liam, you ascetic freak, it's colder in here than out there!"
"I don't have a carbon permit." Angel put a shoulder to the door and forced it shut against the wind. "And the last thing we need is the Forest Service showing up." Not that it was likely that they would, in this weather. He caught Spike's arm, urgent. "Do you have it?"
"Fine, thanks, and so's the missus." Spike shrugged out of his backpack, yanked his earflapped cap off, and strode over to the fireplace, where he picked up the poker and gave the bed of ashes a few hopeful jabs. When that produced no results, he knelt and began piling on fuel from the wood box on the hearth. Angel made no move to stop him - as long as it was Spike wussing out first, a fire didn't sound like a bad idea. He watched, arms folded, as Spike ripped pages from the stack of yellowing magazines beside the fireplace, stuffed them under the logs and applied his lighter. Flame trembled, caught, and blossomed, orange tongues devouring the tinder and licking hungrily at the undersides of the logs.
"Ah, that's more like." Spike rose and stretched luxuriously. "Globe could use a bit more warming, you ask me. And yes, I've got your golden ticket." He noticed Angel staring, and cocked his head. "Wossmatter? Spinach farmer in my teeth?"
"Nothing. Just...it's been awhile."
"Ten years. Whose fault's that?" Spike wheeled away and began nosing around the cabin like an inquisitive terrier, opening cupboards and prodding at the meager contents. For all his grumbling, he still radiated the nervous, irrepressible energy of old. If you counted only the time they'd spent as mortals, he was two years older than Angel, but he could pass for ten years younger - whether that was the natural consequence of his demon blood, or just Spike's innate talent for being annoying, Angel could never decide.
Not that the years hadn't touched him. The short-cropped sandy-brown hair was liberally salted with grey now, and deep laugh-lines framed the blue eyes and mocking mouth. The sight of him pained in a way that Angel's own reflection never had. The old man in the mirror was a stranger. This was Spike, who'd once insisted so passionately that demons didn't change.
The demon in question held up a tin of unflavored oatmeal with a tch of disgust. "What is this, a Sunday School retreat? No fire, no liquor, not even any sodding marshmallows..."
Angel bent to lace his boots, studiously maintaining a straight face. "The last thing you need is marshmallows." After all these years, Spike's fondness for hot wings and otter's blood was finally getting a march on his ferocious workout regimen. His lean frame was stockier now, and in profile it was apparent that he was starting to acquire a small but unmistakable gut.
"I've earned every ounce of it, mate," Spike replied cheerfully. "Anyway, ate on the road." He pulled a palm-sized golden disc from his coat pocket, flipped it, caught it, slapped it down on the cabin's small table. The alien designs inscribed upon its surface winked in the firelight. Outside the pitch of the wind changed, rising in a long-drawn howl of rage. "Here it is. I had trouble enough getting it, too - seems they don't let just anyone stroll into Tak'alik A'baj' and start rooting around in the altar-stones these days. You going to tell me what this little excursion's in service of now?"
"It's a long story." Angel picked up the disc, hands shaking with - not hope. Not yet. Too soon for that. He traced the glyphs with a finger, pulling up comparisons from all-too-accurate memory. On the opposite side, a snarling, stylized jaguar-face glared back at him.
Spike sighed and rummaged through an inside coat pocket, coming up with a pouch of contraband tobacco and a packet of Zig-Zags. "Well, I'm stuck here till sundown. Have to pass the time somehow." He tapped a shreddy brown line of tobacco onto the paper and cocked an eyebrow at the window. "Not that sunrise appears to be a problem at the moment."
Angel pulled a rickety wooden chair over to the table and sat down. He held up the disc, framed in his hands - big hands, and still powerful... for an old man's. "How long," he asked, "since you've seen it snow like this?"
Spike perched on the edge of the other chair and frowned, licking the edge of his rolling paper. He finished his masterpiece off with an expert twist of his fingers and committed his second (or possibly third) felony of the night by lighting up. "In California?"
"In anywhere."
Exhaling a plume of vile blue smoke, Spike glanced out at the swirling snow. "Been awhile," he admitted.
"Two years ago they called it El Nino," Angel said, spinning the disc. "Last year it was a freak fluctuation of the jet stream. This year it's a disturbing climactic trend. What are they going to call it next year?"
Spike laced his hands across his middle and rocked back on the chair's hind legs. "Why guess when you're itching to tell me?"
"They won't call it anything, because there won't be a next year. We're looking at worldwide crop failure, famine, war, refugees with nowhere to go - " Angel leaned forward, searching Spike's face - God knew Spike had never been remotely interested in politics, but how could he have ignored the pictures on the newsfeeds? Africa, Asia, Europe and North America - everywhere, crops froze on the tree or rotted in the ground, and spring brought only torrents of brown meltwater to rip the scant remaining topsoil from land that had been desert five years ago, cropland twenty years before that. Rivers of desperate, starving faces, too, converging on cities, on countries too overburdened to hold them - or to hold them back. Glaciers creeping down the flanks of mountains that had been bare of ice for twenty years. Fuji, Whitney, Everest, all hungry to take back what was rightfully theirs...
Blue eyes met his, as cold and indifferent - as soulless - as the storm outside. Of course Spike had seen - he just didn't care. Spike could grow old and die like a man, but he wasn't one. Or... no. Not completely indifferent. Marginally curious. Which for Spike was the equivalent of joining the Peace Corps. "Right. And how's that different from any point in the last...oh, forever? The world's fucked up. What else is new? We always bollocks on through somehow."
"This isn't just fucked up," Angel said tightly. "This is Fimbulwinter. There's a wizard who's performing a ritual to summon the wolf Skoll, who's going to eat the sun. "
Spike looked skeptical. "Eternal darkness? Again? That trick never works. Ought to let the pillock go through with it."
There was no mistaking the expectant look in his eyes now - all his bitching was pro forma; for whatever inscrutable, amoral reason, Spike was just waiting to be talked around. Angel had no intention of obliging him. "I'll be heading out as soon as the sun's up. You can stay here till sunset. There's pig's blood in the cooler, and I left my truck parked a mile down the - "
"Hold on," Spike interrupted. "Who says I'm staying here?"
"You've done your part." Angel tapped the disc. "This isn't your fight. Go home."
"Oh, bosh," said Spike. "Any fight is my fight. You owe me, mate - you think it was hard getting hold of that trinket? It was nothing compared to getting away without Buffy asking awkward questions. That storm's not breaking any time soon. And if you think I'm going to let you ponce off and take all the world-saving credit after I bloody near drown myself fetching your tinkertoy there..." His gaze sharpened. "And speaking of Buffy..."
"She doesn't need to be involved in this." Angel felt a twinge of conscience and ruthlessly suppressed it. He tucked the disc into his own coat pocket. "And if Buffy's not involved, there's no percentage for you in looking heroic, is there? We don't have time, anyway. Everything's going down today. There's a spot higher up the mountainside. Ley lines, favorable mystic convergence, the usual."
Spike glared at him for a moment. He held up one hand and ticked off on his fingers, "No sun, no hops. No hops, no beer. Not in favor of a world sans beer. Not to mention the beleaguered tobacco industry. Hard enough to get a decent fag these days. No sense in making it harder. Bugger the Slayer, I'm in."
"You're saving the world for beer and cigarettes these days?"
For a moment Spike looked genuinely offended. Then he grinned. "You wouldn't believe me if I said it was for puppies and Christmas. 'Sides, it's been too long since I had a proper scrap. It's all politics and negotiations back in Sunnydale these days - you'd hate it. You're lucky to get a decent bar fight in a fortnight. It'll do me good to run some of this off." He patted his compact little paunch, stubbed his cigarette out and stretched, wincing a little as the muscles of his wounded leg pulled. "Naff business, this getting old. Ten years ago the buggers wouldn't have laid a fang on me." He tugged his cap down over his eyes, propped his boots up on the table, and settled back in his chair. "Wake me when it's apocalypse time, Grandpa."
****
Spike caught a quick cat-nap while Angel readied for the trip and waited for the sun. When it finally cleared the mountains, it was only a pale grey smudge in a dark grey sky. The pine-clad slopes of the Sierra Nevadas rose in a vast upsweep of stone around the cabin, their snowcapped peaks shorn off by the low-hanging clouds. Angel packed light: besides the disc he took canteen, knife, lighter, his cell, dry socks, a couple of energy bars, the Winchester Super X and an extra box of shells. Spike didn't bother with that much; when he woke up, he stuck a brace of throwing knives in his boots, a hip flask in his pocket, and left his backpack on the cabin floor. When Angel offered him a weapon, he laughed, shook his head, and said he didn't think he'd need one.
Showoff, Angel thought as he locked the cabin door behind them. You'd think he'd be used to it by now - Spike strolling lightly in and out of his life, making everything look so goddamned easy. He still had to remind himself that Spike hadn't known what the outcome of his choice would be, all those years ago. He'd had no reason beyond blind hope to think that the Mohra blood which had kick-started both their hearts would leave a soulless vampire anything other than a mindless hunk of meat. He'd taken the chance on life anyway, and gotten death as a gift with purchase. Angel didn't resent the fate that had made him a man again - how could he, under the circumstances? What galled wasn't that he was alive, but that Spike had chosen what he'd had forced upon him.
Oh, well. It could have been worse. The little bastard could have run off and gotten himself a soul.
"Where to?" Spike asked, sniffing the breeze. It was crap weather for tracking, but vampires relied on scent far more than even they realized - it had taken Angel years to get out of the habit of relying on his nose. He pointed to the line of dark fenceposts leading off across the snowbound meadow and disappearing into the shadow of the forest. Spike nodded, and set off in the lead, plowing through the thigh-high drifts of snow by main strength. Angel followed, toiling along in the smaller man's footsteps. Good King God Damn Wenceslas.
It was half a mile's trek to the forest's edge, with the shush-shush of wind in their ears all the way. The going grew no easier under the pines - they were heading uphill now, over ground made treacherous by hummocks and fallen branches half-hidden beneath the snow. The only sign of life was a raven in the branches overhead. It cocked a glittering black eye at them, cawed, and flapped heavily skyward.
The underbrush thinned as they climbed, heading into old-growth forest. Yellow pine and incense cedar gave way to red fir and lodgepole, their huge trunks rising from the mountainside like the columns of a vast, wintery cathedral. There were valleys older than time in these hills, sheltering trees that had been saplings when mankind was still battling the Old Ones to inherit the Earth. For the last four decades the forest had been beating a glacial retreat up the slopes, inch by inch, driven out of the foothills by summers that grew longer and winters that grew drier each year. Now the ice had returned to reclaim its due.
"Hsst," Spike whispered, laying a hand on Angel's shoulder. He stood at bird-dog attention, head cocked, nostrils flared. Angel strained his ears, but besides the wind and the creak of snow-burdened branches, their own heavy breathing was the only sound. Spike held up a finger, and then Angel heard it too, braided into the wind: the distant cry of a raven, and the howls of wolves.
"They've found us," Spike murmured. "And not by chance They're aiming to cut us off. I only ran into three of 'em last night. There's more than that on the way now, I'll wager. "
"It doesn't matter," Angel said. "We keep going."
Spike remained motionless for a moment longer, head high, nostrils drinking in the wind. Then he nodded and set off, still following the sagging skein of barbed wire. Angel looked back along their trail uneasily. He might not have a vampire's sense of smell any longer, but he knew these woods, and he knew Spike. "You're positive you weren't followed?" Angel asked. "We - the guy we're after has eyes and ears everywhere."
"'Course I was followed." Spike swatted a low-hanging branch out of his way. The ice sheathing the drought-brown needles shattered and a shower of wet snow narrowly missed smacking Angel in the face. "Ran into a couple of inquisitive blokes in Bishop yesterday evening. Claimed to be investigating looted archeological sites." Yellow light flickered in his eyes. "Told you I'd eaten on the road." With the air of someone adding a tiresome but necessary legal disclaimer, he added, "I didn't kill 'em. Much."
If Buffy were here, there'd be a furious argument about that. Buffy still cared about things like the lives of random strangers. Some day he'd have to ask her how she managed it. "You're certain you got them all?"
The vampire lifted one snow-frosted eyebrow and pointed back along their trail, where the blowing snow had already half-obliterated their footprints. "If anyone's following us, mate, he's a better tracker than I am."
An hour later, the fence intersected an old logging road in a rusty tangle of wire and rotting boards that had once been a gate. On either side of the ruined gate, paired wheel-ruts squiggled off into the pines. No one had driven here for decades. Here and there a few stunted saplings thrust up out of the snow, and a raven circled overhead - Angel couldn't tell if it was the same one. A second raven perched on the top of the ruined gate. It screamed at them and exploded into flight, circling swiftly upwards to join its fellow.
The wind had died down somewhat, and snowflakes fell in lazy arabesques around them, dusting their shoulders with white. By Angel's reckoning they'd traveled about five miles in distance and two thousand feet in elevation from the cabin. Not too shabby, though his knees were starting give him hell.
"Dunno about you, but I'm knackered," Spike said. "Good enough place to rest a bit." He propped a hip against one of the less rickety fenceposts, fetched his tobacco pouch out, and began the intricate process of rolling himself the perfect nicotine delivery system.
Angel crossed his arms and leaned back against a tree-trunk with a white huff of breath. Counting off the seconds till his heartbeat returned to normal, he wondered if Spike was doing the same. He strongly suspected that Spike had called the rest stop mostly for his benefit, but perhaps not. The vampire's limp was barely noticeable now - he must have been serious about having fed recently - but the exposed skin of his face was a bright sunburnt red. Angel didn't think he was going to burst into flame any time soon, but braving even indirect sunlight wasn't without its dangers.
More immediately worrisome were the occasional furtive glances Spike kept throwing at their back-trail, but nothing moved in the monochrome landscape behind them. Angel pulled his cell phone out, flipped it open and consulted the GPS reading.
"Where'd you get that antique?"
Angel scowled at the screen. "It does the job." He hadn't noticed it earlier, but there was a tiny silver stud in Spike's left ear - the external receiver for a bone-conduction cell implant. Spike had always ricocheted between traditionalism and fascination with anything new; he'd once slaughtered an entire family just so he and Drusilla could play with their newly-installed electric lights. "I would have thought you'd be the last guy to want another microchip in his head."
"This one gets the footy scores." Spike flicked his lighter, drew his cigarette to life with a satisfied sigh and made silent offer of a drag. At Angel's curt head-shake he shrugged, settled back against the fence post, and tipped his head back to blow contemplative smoke rings at the overcast sky. A moment later, the sharp scent of whiskey cut through the odors of pine and damp wool as he undid the cap of his flask.
"We follow this road east from here," Angel said. "Four miles in, there's a trailhead leading up to a cave entrance. That's where we'll find our man. He'll have some kind of guardian - the wolves at least, and wards to boot." The screen fuzzed and he gave the phone a shake. "This thing won't be any good for much longer - we're already getting magical interference. Does yours...?"
Spike pursed his lips and scratched the salt-and-pepper stubble coming in along his lean jaw. "Nah. Out of service since last night. I can deal with the guards, but magic on the fly's not my department." He took a swallow and tipped the flask in Angel's direction.
"I can deal with the wards." Angel waved the flask away. "Gave it up."
"So could Willow. In fact, there's been many a time in the last three weeks when I've said to myself, 'Spike, old chap, wouldn't our Will be handy right about now, to magic a way past a few of these clever death-traps?' Or 'Blimey, I'd lay odds Dawn could translate this demon gibberish heaps faster than I can.' Or 'Buggering hell, where's the Slayer when you need her?' But for reasons someone tall, broody and thinning on top refuses to explain, he insists we go it alone, and what do you mean gave it up? What kind of Irishman gives up whiskey?"
"One who's got a sentimental attachment to his liver," Angel snarled. "Damn it, Spike, I told you this was a solo gig from the start! If you can't hack the big time any more, stay home and play Bingo, or whatever the hell it is you do in Sunnydale these days!" He brushed a defensive hand across the top of his head. "And I'm not thinning on top!"
Spike took a startled half-step back, before recalling that Angel could no longer back up the snarl with fangs. His expression turned to mulish obstinance. "Oh, right, and tell Buffy what when your mutilated body makes the six o'clock news? Not a bloody chance. You know what she was doing right before I left? Fretting because she doesn't have an address to send your sodding wedding invitation to!"
"Wedding?" Angel repeated blankly.
Eyeroll. "Connie's. Our eldest girl. Remember? Your boy Lawson's finally convinced her to make an honest vamp of him. 'Bout bloody time, too, she's up the duff again." Spike screwed the lid of the flask back on and interred it in his coat pockets again. "What are we sitting around here for? Miles to go before we sleep and all that."
And he was off, keeping to the shadows of the trees. Angel stood staring after him for a minute, then floundered into a run. "Wait a minute! Lawson? Sam Lawson? I thought he was with the Initiative!"
The sun climbed higher as they hiked, though the cloud cover stayed heavy enough to prevent Spike from singeing. Spike had caught his second wind, and was obviously feeling chatty; he continued to regale Angel with father-of-the-bride stories, general Sunnydale gossip, and accounts of the varied accomplishments of his and Buffy's progeny which Angel couldn't help but feel were slightly embroidered.
Sam Lawson was still with the Initiative, but he'd followed in Spike's incredibly risky footsteps and hunted down a Mohra demon to jump-start his pulse. Fred Burkle had a research fellowship at MIT. Willow Rosenberg was collaborating with her on a paper about quantum magical effects. Rupert Giles had died of a stroke several years ago, after which Faith had cut short her semi-retirement in England and moved back to Boston to start slaying hard and drinking harder, not that Spike was insinuating any connection between the two events, oh no. Xander and Anya Harris had retired last year, sold the contracting business and the Magic Box, and were touring Europe.
Angel listened, at once envious and strangely detached. He'd known these people once, hadn't he? Loved them, hated them - they'd mattered to him, or some of them had. Now it was all like the plot of a soap opera he'd watched a long time ago. Sunnydale 90210. When had he drifted so far away? It had taken more than ten years to travel so far, surely.
"...all Connie wanted was a justice of the peace, but what with never having a proper blow-out herself Buffy talked 'em into a big 'do, and now she's driving the both of 'em barmy with 'suggestions.'" Spike shook his head. "If I get home and find my Constance strangling her mum with something borrowed, I'm blaming you."
"How the hell did we end up like this?" Angel murmured, half to himself.
Spike's smirk had lost none of its bite. "Dunno. But in my case, I'm pretty certain all the shagging had something to do with it."
"No, I mean..." There'd been previous invitations, to birthdays and graduations and weddings and more birthdays and the occasional funeral - he'd lost track of how many, but the Summers-Pratts were a prolific clan. He'd attended a few such occasions, early on, but it was always so awkward. Hi, I'm Buffy's ex-vampire ex-lover. Easier to send a card, a cash transfer, a quick text message. Or not to answer at all. "You were always the one chasing after death or glory, and you end up with the white picket fence and the..." He waved one hand to indicate indefinite but alarming quantities of offspring. "I was the one who wanted..."
He'd never dared put a name to what he wanted, but he knew it when he saw it, and he was pretty sure that the last time he'd seen it was in Connor's face, just before the look of stunned betrayal replaced it. The irony was that it was the same thing Connor wanted. Connor was just willing to sacrifice far too much to get it.
Spike snorted. "Oh, put away the tiny violins. You're the one who periodically drops off the face of the earth. Been in touch with the cheerleader lately, or that psychotic little bugger who calls you dear old Dad?"
Ah. Yeah. There was the pain. Knew it had to be around here someplace. Angel grabbed Spike's shoulder and spun him around, slamming him up against the bole of the nearest tree. Funny how bodies remembered what even his relentless memory had let fade, like the precise way that his fingers spanned the column of Spike's throat. It was easy to forget sometimes just how small Spike was, when he packed a six foot eight attitude into a five foot eight frame.
"The last time I saw Connor was the day I tried to slit his throat," Angel said evenly. "I'm not expecting a Father's Day card any time soon. Cordy's in another world now - she made her choice."
"She's in bloody Sacramento! It's barely another zip code!"
"Either way, I don't hear her knocking down my door," Angel snapped. That wasn't precisely true, but it had been years since Cordelia Chase had last used her considerable money and influence to try tracking him down. "Satisfied? You'd better be, because anything else about my personal life is none of your business."
Blue eyes boring into his, so close - how long had it been since anyone had been close? He'd never been into the touchy-feely thing. The backslapping and the hail-fellow-well-met were Spike's deal; Spike had always been as quick with a hug as with a left hook. He should let go. But he didn't. He could smell the stink of tobacco and old blood on Spike's breath, hear the slow inexorable beat of Spike's heart against his chest, a strange new backbeat to a familiar song. Feel Spike's body against his own, strong and solid and strangely warm in contrast to the frigid air.
Muscles tensed beneath his weight, Spike's silent reminder that he was perfectly capable of throwing Angel off. But he didn't. Angel searched those eyes, ready to lash out at any (unforgivable) suggestion of pity, but there was none. Of course not. Spike wasn't capable of it. And they were long past the point when a fist-fight could prove anything, for either of them. Worse luck.
He let his hands drop and stepped back, feeling foolish. "She's doing all right, isn't she? Buffy, I mean."
Spike sucked his cheeks in, tugged his jacket into place, and then nodded, accepting the change of subject. "She is. Little trouble adjusting to the concept of bein' a grandmum, some while back, but we're safely past that." For a second the wintery eyes warmed with something almost like compassion. Almost. With visible effort, Spike added, "Come see her some time. She'd like that."
The necessity of framing a reply to that was mercifully cut short. A savage howl echoed down from the hillside above, and a lupine chorus answered from the opposite ridge. Spike looked up. "Bugger," he muttered. Whirling, he grabbed Angel's shoulders and gave him a little shake. "Angel, get out of here. Climb a tree or something."
"What? Don't be stupid." Angel shook his hands away and unlimbered the Winchester. He checked to make certain that there were cartridges in both chambers and the magazine, and thumbed off the safety. "Get up against that boulder, where they can't circle us. We're up against animals, not demons, and I'm in better shape than you are."
"Like hell you are, and I wouldn't be any too sure of that." Spike, somewhat mysteriously, tugged off his gloves, unzipped his motorcycle jacket and tossed them aside, revealing a black cable-knit sweater beneath. "Just don't want 'em ripped up," he added, at Angel's look. "Oh, balls, never mind, but don't say I didn't warn you."
The wind was rising hard and fast, picking up stinging sheets of snow and whipping them down the mountainside. Branches creaked and snapped overhead. The first wolf howled again, closer now. Backs to the fissured stone, Angel and Spike stood shoulder to shoulder in the heart of gathering storm, eyes fixed upon the fir-covered heights.
Wind and wolves howled together, a mocking chorale. Beside him, Angel heard Spike's answering growl, a low warning rumble. He scanned the wilderness of rocks and trees and blowing snow, but whatever Spike's far-sighted predator's eyes had picked out, it was still invisible to him. Then he saw them. A waterfall of grey shapes, fleeting down the rocky slopes above. Wolves, bounding from ledge to ledge, parting and merging again in a ravening cascade of fur and fang, muscle and bone. Servants of the frost giants - or the descendants of a pack released in Yosemite in the '20s, as the newsblogs claimed, driven south by the anomalous winter, hungry and desperate enough to risk an encounter with Man. Keep your pets inside.
Angel raised the shotgun, braced the stock against his shoulder. No fancy stuff. Body shots. This had been Wesley's favorite weapon. There was irony for you. He sighted, aimed. Waited.
Fired.
The shotgun roared and leaped against his shoulder as he hit the lead wolf with both barrels. The leader of the pack spun into the air and fell to earth in a crimson winding-sheet of blood. Its comrades coursed over its body without hesitation. Angel jacked another cartridge into the chamber and aimed again. The wind rose to a scream as he got the second shot off. A second wolf yipped and went into a splayfooted roll, splattering the snow a cherry-snowcone red in its wake. For a second Angel could have sworn that the wound bled blue flame. And then the pack was upon them.
"Come to Daddy!" Spike sang, spinning into a kick that staved in a furry ribcage. Heedless of the snapping fangs, he grabbed the beast's muzzle and twisted. Bones crunched and muscle tore, and Spike pitched the carcass nose over tail at the next wolf like the fast bowler he'd been in another lifetime.
Angel squinted into the whirling snow, praying to whatever would listen for a clear shot. The urge to jump into the fight was nigh-irresistible, but he'd given in to that urge often enough when he was younger to have learned the hard way how stupid it was. He braced his shoulders against the lichenous rock, waiting another opportunity to pick off another wolf without hitting Spike. There. The shotgun roared again, and another wolf went down.
Two more heaps of bloodsoaked fur lay at Spike's feet. Any normal wolf-pack would have retreated by now, but their attackers pressed closer. They danced in and out again, a semi-circle of savage jaws, striking one, two, or three at a time, and then darting away. If Spike connected, a wolf died, and they knew it. But Spike's reflexes, though still far swifter than any human's, had lost a few crucial fractions of a second over the years. Every now and again, a wolf would get past his guard. Not all of the blood on the snow was theirs. Sooner or later - probably sooner - Spike would falter. And then Spike would go down.
Unless Angel blew them all to kingdom come first.
Sight. Aim. Fire. Five down. Spike snapped the spine of a huge black-furred wolf across his knee. Six. Angel blasted a seventh wolf just before it sank its teeth into Spike's still-healing leg. More howls rang along the ridge-tops. Reload. They could do this. Might take a little longer than it used to - and there was the rub. It was closing up on noon, but going by the featureless sky it could have been dawn or twilight. They might win this battle, but all the wolves had to do to win the war was delay them long enough.
"We've got to get out of here!" Angel yelled. "We can't afford to waste time on this!"
Spike doubled over and braced his hands against his knees. He was panting hard. His cap had fallen off and his hair was a riot of sandy-grey curls, matted with frozen sweat and blood. "Doing my best here," he gasped.
"Then do better," Angel snapped. "Tubby!"
"Says the bloke who was checking out my arse just now." Spike straightened. "Oh, bloody hell."
Angel followed his gaze. Up the slope where it had first fallen, the lead wolf's coat shimmered from grey to white. It staggered to its feet, black tongue lolling, its eyes blazing blue. It threw back its head, howled like the damned, and raced down the slope, blue flame frothing at its jaws. Hellishly fast, preternaturally strong, the ghost-wolf leaped into the air and soared over the heads of its living packmates to bury its fangs in Spike's throat. At the last moment Spike twisted and the icicle teeth met in the muscle of his shoulder.
Angel fired off the remaining barrel of the shotgun as the ghost-wolf's weight bowled Spike over, and spun the gun around to club the nearest wolf on the skull with the stock. He dropped the shotgun, whipped his Bowie knife out of its belt sheath, and buried the blade between the ghost wolf's heaving shoulders.
Flame spurted from the wound, blue as gaslight and cold as dry ice. The wolf dropped Spike with a howl of rage. Before Angel could prise the blade free or drive it deeper, the wolf spun, jerking the knife out of his grasp, and lunged for his throat. Angel rammed his left forearm into the beast's maw and flailed around the furry bulk of its body for the handle of his knife. If he could just catch hold - there! Gripping the knife handle, he wrenched with all his strength, carving a deep gouge in the ghost-wolf's side. The wound closed behind the blade instantly.
There was an inhuman roar, and out of the corner of his eye Angel saw a horrific vision surging up from under a snarling, writhing heap of wolf-flesh. Vampire, but worse. Scimitar fangs lined a leonine muzzle, feral eyes flared sulfur-yellow beneath ridged brows studded with stubby horns. The coarse grey mane sprouting along the crown of its skull gave way to glossy grey-green scales and Jesus Christ, it was Spike.
Demon-Spike caught the ghost-wolf round the throat, inch-long claws penetrating the thick ruff and digging deep into icy, translucent flesh. With a savagery to match its own he tore into its jugular. Bone crunched and hide ripped, and the ghost-wolf shredded like a badly-made pinata, dissolving into a flurry of snow.
All around them, the bodies of the fallen wolves were shimmering, changing, rising. Spike spat out a gobbet of disintegrating blue-white fur and whirled to face the remaining wolves, roaring again in challenge. The ghost-pack howled as one, and jumped him.
Angel felt his pockets for the box of shells and looked around for the shotgun - there, over by the rock face. Now, while the wolves were momentarily occupied with Spike. He scrambled to hands and knees and lunged for the barrel of the gun, belly-sliding across the last few feet of bloodstained ice. His fingers were clumsy in their Snopro gloves; he fumbled badly breaking the shotgun open and dropped half the shells into the snow. Cursing, he scooped up the cold brass cylinders and rammed them into the magazine.
The next fifteen minutes were a blur of blood and snow. Angel shot wolves, and Spike tore their ghosts to shreds. Eight down, four rising. Nine down, six rising. On and on it went, until the last two living wolves took stock of their situation and broke off, loping away into the concealing storm.
Spike swung around to stare at him. He was bleeding from a dozen bites and gashes, and his sides were heaving like a bellows. Angel held his breath, knuckles whitening on the trigger. How deep did the change go, and to what extent was Spike's demon aspect in control now? He had one shell in the left chamber and two more shells in the magazine before he'd have to reload again, and he hoped that was enough to stop... whatever the hell Spike was now. Spike rasped something Angel couldn't catch, his voice gravelly and distorted by the altered bone structure of his jaws. He dropped to his knees, then to all fours. His golden eyes rolled up in his shaggy, monstrous head and he collapsed face-first in the snow.
Angel climbed stiffly to his feet and staggered over to the fallen vampire. When he turned Spike's limp body over, the fine-boned features were entirely human again. "Knew there was something about those wolves I forgot to mention," Spike whispered. "Gotta kill 'em twice."
"Yeah," Angel gasped. "Figured that part out."
Continued in Part II