For The Love Of Spike
Chapter 15
After about two seconds, Spike backed away. "Not this time, Dru. You can't reel me in any more with your false displays of emotions." He turned away again, and ignored the scream of rage behind him.
"False? I'll show you false, you bloody bastard!" Spike reached the bum, who was just awaking from Drusilla's cries. "Don't you walk away from me!" Spike reached down to pluck him up by his shirt front.
"Hello there. Care to have a bite with me?" he said, and struck. He pulled once, twice, and let the man drop. Drusilla was right behind him. She grabbed him by his coat and flung him around, slamming him up against a wooden pillar, then aimed long, thin, needle-like fingers straight towards his eye sockets. Spike caught her wrists easily and threw her to the ground. He knelt swiftly and pinned her wrists down, grinding the tender white skin into the small rocks.
"Did you really think that I'd let you and Angel live after what you did to Katherine?" he hissed through gritted teeth. "Say your prayers, luv."
"Because they'll be your last."
Spike, drawing his lips away from long, slender fangs, leaned in for the kill.
Then, just as he was about to strike, hands gripped him by his coat and lifted him. He hissed, twisting around to see who his assailant was. Buffy Summers.
"Didn't I tell you, 'no killing'?" she said in a stern tone of voice. She looked down at Drusilla, still on the ground. "But then, maybe I could make an exception."
With this, Buffy whipped out a stake from under her jacket and drew back her arm. At the last second, Spike grabbed her wrist. "Why should I let you kill her? Katherine's MY girlfriend."
Buffy shrugged. "I'm the Slayer?" she supplied.
Spike shook his head. "Not good enough. I say, we let her go back to Angel with a bit of a warning." He turned to Drusilla, climbing to her feet, unsteady on heels in the loose gravel. Gripping her by her throat, Spike turned the tables and slammed HER into the wooden pillar.
"Now then, because I'm not featuring that you want to be on our side, we'll let you go back to Angel and you tell him that his days are numbered. A cliche, I know, but a true one." He flashed a grin at her, the quickly slammed his fist into her jaw, knocking her unconscious. Spike let Drusilla's limp form crumple to the ground and turned to follow Buffy to the parking lot, where Giles was waiting in his old clunker of a car.
As Spike climbed into the backseat, Giles turned around in his front seat to say, "I took the liberty of calling the hospital. Katherine's woken up a couple of times. She's doing very well." With this, Giles faced forward again and started the engine. But before he started to pull out of the slot, he paused, his hand on the gearshift. "She's asked for you," he said quietly, and glanced at Spike.
Spike's jaw tightened. "I should be there," he said, equally quiet. Buffy broke in.
"We can't stop Angel with you at her bedside. Oz and Xander are keeping watch until midnight, and then they'll switch with Cordelia and Willow."
"No offense," Spike started in a voice designed to lightly scorn, "but what can your human friends do against him?"
"Not much," she tossed back, stung. "But a hospital full of orderlies and...and other guys with big arms could do SOMETHING." Spike merely shrugged her off and stared out the window. He felt a sea of emotions boiling inside him. Rage, of course; helplessness, and even a little sadness at not having been there for Katherine. How could he have been so stupid, leaving her alone like that? One thing was for certain, though: Angel was going to die, and HE was going to do the honors. Spike pulled himself from his thoughts as Giles tried to get his attention.
What happened, there in the park? You and Buffy were gone for quite a bit of time."
Spike glanced at Giles, then back out the window. "Drusilla showed up."
"And?" Giles prompted.
"Nothing. We took care of her. She has a warning to take to Angel."
Giles nodded, slightly, and then an uncomfortable silence fell. Nothing more was said until the car pulled up to the mansion where Angel and Drusilla had lived in the atrium with Spike, while he had still been in his wheelchair.
Spike was already out of the car and heading into the building before Giles and Buffy had even begun to step onto the pavement. He was also well up the three flights of stairs before the other two had reached the landing between the first and second floor. By the time they caught up with him in the atrium, he'd been waiting for five minutes.
As soon as they gained the top step the smell hit them. Giles gasped and tugged out his handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth. Buffy opened her open mouth to breathe through, thereby avoiding the stench of death and rot. Spike turned to face them, a disgusted look on his face.
"There are some bodies in the corner. Probably the kids that have been missing since Tuesday."
"I don't understand," said Giles. "Why wouldn't Angel or, or Drusilla, ah, dispose of the bodies?"
Spike's frown deepened. "I don't know. But Angel has seemed...unstable...for quite a while now. Maybe he's finally gone off the deep now."
"You're angry," Buffy murmured thoughtfully.
"Hell yes!" Spike shot back. "Angel's been fouling things up for me for far too long. It's about time SOMEBODY did something." He looked at Buffy pointedly. She lowered her eyes. Giles watched this exchange, saying nothing. "Let's go." Spike suggested, and walked between the other two for the stairwell.
Once they were back in the car, Buffy twisted around, her arm braced on the back of her seat, to face Giles and Spike, and said, "Now where?"
"Back to my place," Spike said quickly. "You two drop me off there, and Buffy goes on her little patrol or whatever. And that's it."
Buffy immediately opened her mouth to complain, but Giles cut her off and said hastily, "That's fine. Are you going to come up with a plan?"
Spike nodded silently. He was back to staring out the window. "Goodbye" was the only thing he said when he climbed out of the car at the front entrance of The Woodside. He walked in as the car pulled away, nodding to the desk clerk in greeting and walking toward his private elevator. When he stepped into his room the heady scent of flowers immediately filled his nostrils. Then he saw them: three dozen red roses stood in a Baccarat vase by the doorway to his bedroom. A card lay propped against the base of the glass.
He slowly walked over, picked it up, and read, "She had such a pretty scream."
Spike's hands clenched involuntarily, crumpling the card. He closed his eyes briefly against a wave of anger, then dropped the ball of paper into the recycling bin underneath the sink in the kitchen. He started to pace. What to do? He wanted Angel dead, and could have him in such a state in mere hours. But Buffy and her human friends had a right to his neck also, and Spike didn't want to overstep himself.
Spike sighed and dropped into an armchair. How could he get Angelus to come to him? A thought began to form, and Spike slowly smiled. He rose quickly and left the apartment.
Angelus growled savagely and lifted a table over his head, throwing it into a dark corner. "Where are you?!" he roared through the empty tower. In the echoing silence, right as he grabbed another article of furniture to throw, he suddenly heard...a phone ringing.
Angelus dropped the chair he'd been holding and dug out a cellular phone from beneath a pile of dead leaves. "Hello?" he answered, kicking at the dry, crackling leaf pile.
"Didn't I always tell you to guard your perimeter?" a whispered voice asked.
"Who is this?" Angelus asked, distracted. He was still trying to think of where Drusilla could be.
"Turn around." Angelus obeyed.
A fist smashed into his nose. Blood spurted as Angelus yowled and clapped a hand over his face.
Spike chuckled richly. He stepped out of the shadows of the room and tucked his cellular phone back into a coat pocket. "Poor Angel," he mimicked, and spun into a roundhouse kick. Angelus fell onto his back, dazed. "He's lost his lamb," another punch, landing squarely on Angelus' jaw, knocked him back to the floor, "and doesn't know where to find her!"
Angelus slowly rose, swiping a hand under his nose. "You," he growled.
"Yeah," Spike answered, and vamped out. "What are you going to do about it?"
"THIS!" Angelus shouted. He pivoted on one foot and kicked sideways with the other. But he missed. Spike had jerked his head to the side at the last minute and a slow, triumphant smile spread over his face as Angelus dropped his foot heavily, off-balance.
"Oh, really?" he murmured. His fists flashed out, one and then the other, in quick succession. Angelus' head snapped back with each strike. A final uppercut flung him onto his back. He was out cold.
Spike laughed, pulling a length of bast from a coat pocket. "And now," he said to the unconscious Angelus, "it's time for my fun."
Chapter 16