Still Ensouled 9

The Adventures of Captain Peroxide and Deadboy

The Angel/Spike Zone of the BtVS Writer's Guild

Spike had hoped to make it back to Sunnydale in a few hours. That hadn’t happened. He had only been on the road for about an hour when another blinding headache threatened to split his head open. He had pulled the car over just outside of LA and found a small motel, hoping to take enough of a rest to let the pain subside, that was two days ago.

He had given the manager an extra hundred dollars to keep him from calling the police, the screaming was upsetting the other guests, the man had said. Spike believed him. He was only able to stop for a few minutes at a time, and even then the echoes of his own voice were so loud in his head he could find no peace. Some time around dusk on the third day there had been a knock at the door. Spike was vaguely aware of a large body entering the room and holding out a glass of water to him. He took a drink, followed by another. Then a thick set of fingers pushed several pills into his mouth and forced him to drink again. There were no words of comfort, as one might expect, just the hands and shadows pouring the lukewarm water into his waiting mouth. And then the figure was gone.

About twenty minutes later Spike was able to have his first coherent thought in days.

"I must get to Sunnydale." He said to the room. The need to get out of this dingy place was overwhelming. He watched the last of the sun’s rays slip into the distance and gathered up the few things he had managed to get out of the car after taking the room. As he was putting on his jacket he noticed a bottle on the night stand with a small note.

Come back when you are ready to play - A

Spike shoved the bottle into his pocket and tossed the note into the trash. He promised himself he wouldn't look back to LA. His life was in Sunnydale, and he was going home.

"Angel's back." Willow said, looking out the window.

"He couldn't be." Dawn said. "He just called here not fifteen minutes ago."

"Maybe he was on his cell phone."

"Don’t think so, I could hear sirens and stuff, sounded like a pay phone."

Willow continued to look out the window. "Nope, it's just Spike."

Dawn opened the door for the haggard looking vampire, but when he reached the threshold he stopped.

"Willow." He said. "Get Buffy now, before I come in."

"Why? Spike what’s wrong?"

"Just get her. Now." He said, leaning on the door frame.

"Okay. I'll get her." Willow made a dash for the door that led to the basement. Once downstairs she waded through a mass of teenage girls, narrowly missing a few swings of a broadsword and another from a mace. "Hey watch it or I'll turn you all into little hoppy toads."

"Hey, Will, what’s up?" Buffy asked.

"It's Spike, he's here and he won’t come in."

"Why not?" Buffy asked as she ascended the stairs.

"Great, because all I need right now is a cryptic vampire."

Spike was still standing, or more accurately slumping, against the wall when Buffy reached him. She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside, despite his resistance.

"What is your deal, just waiting to see if you immolate?"

"No fear of that, sun’s still an hour away." He said quietly.

"Where’s Angel?" Buffy asked. "You look like crap. Tell me you didn't drive here by yourself."

"It's okay, I'm on drugs." Spike laughed. He took a seat on the couch and fell back into the deep pillows. "Nice relaxing drugs."

"Dawn, go check on the potentials." Buffy said to her on looking sister.

"Oh come on Buffy. Like I'm going to become some strung out junkie girl just because Spike's hooked on the dope." Buffy did not return the teenager's smile.

"No." Spike said, trying to sit up. "Get them all out of the basement."

"Why?" Buffy asked again. "Spike, you have to tell me what is going on."

"You're going to chain me up again, lover." With much effort he stood up and headed for the stairs.

"Oh, goody, more chains." Buffy said, following Spike to the basement.

Life in LA just wasn't what Angelus had remembered. The last time he and Angel had been here there had been demons and lynching, and a generally good time. Angel still drank human blood then, cold, coagulated blood, but human nonetheless. Now there weren’t humans anywhere. At least none that hadn’t already been sampled, and if there was anything worse than sloppy seconds Angelus couldn't think of it. His short drought from Lilah’s already dead body notwithstanding he had a few years of thirst to quench.

He had tried to congratulate himself for escaping from his cage, but it was hardly a daring escapade. He’d had a harder time getting loose of leather pants than duping the morons at Angel Inc. It had taken all of an afternoon to get them so turned against each other the men were fist fighting while the girls offered to suck him off if he would just cooperate and help them kill Stonehenge. He had played along, even put up with the little light show Cordelia had put on trying to stuff the soul back down his throat, but he had to draw the line at the hugging. That was just too much, so while his exit had been a quick one it hadn’t really involved more than a leap out a third story window.

Now he would be happy if he could just find a decent bar where the patrons were more than Anne Rice fans that had let themselves be turned in the vain hope that all vampires looked like Brad Pitt and Stuart Townsend. Good luck in LA, he told himself. The first few dives he had tried turned up little in the way of promising minions, and the third certainly wasn't any better, but he had heard a few rumblings about an insane vampire holed up on the other side of Valencia. A few of the fledglings sitting at the bar had heard it was William the Bloody and were planning on making a reputation for themselves by dusting him while he was in a fit.

Once Angelus had made sure that all three vampires would fit in a baggy, he made a quick detour to the Motel 6. It was so pathetic watching the childe he had once tormented writhe in pain that he couldn‘t even bring himself to rape him. He’d have plenty of time for that later.

Angelus was back in LA within the hour and even managed to find a real live human girl for dinner when he heard a group of vampires talking about the Slayer being in LA.

"Great." Angelus said, tearing into the girl’s throat. After a few short gulps he let her limp body drop to the ground and walked to a nearby pay phone. He dialed the Summer’s house from memory, and waited for the voice on the other end.

"Dawn, Hi." He said, "Yeah, it's me. Is your sister home? She is?" He hung up the phone. "Great, it's the other one." He said as he headed for the warehouse district in search of one more bar that he had heard might have some decent company.

"Sounds like a ruckus going on up there." Spike said as Buffy came down the stairs.

"I don't think you’d believe me if I told you." The Slayer replied.

"Let me guess, more bad?"

‘That’s a safe guess around here any day of the week." She said, giving in to a pained laugh. "You know you don't have to stay down here. I trust you."

"Then you're a fool." Spike said. "You cannot trust me. There is something seriously wrong with me. Something wrong with the chip, and since the First has already found more than one way to set me loose, I think this is the only place left for me to be until you..."

"You already know the answer to that." He smiled.

"I am not going to kill you Spike. We are going to do more research and figure out what is happening."

"Start with Behavior Modification Devices Throughout the Ages." He said, placing a gentle hand over hers.

"Right, so it's not a research thing. Maybe it's a..." She paused to think, "It's a phone thing."

"Hello," Buffy said into the phone, "I'd like to order a dozen roses for Agent Riley Finn." She gave Spike a questioning look as he sat on the stairs and clutched at his head. The bottle of pills was nearly empty so he had tried to space them further out, blindingly further apart.

"No, he works there, Agent Riley Finn. Maybe I'm not supposed to say that. Is this actually a flower shop, or is this still the number for special ops. Oh, maybe I'm not supposed to say that either. Please make the card say that Spike's chip is misfiring and that I need it, well I don't know what I need. Can you sign it Seeking Answers in Sunnydale? Oh, okay, just Buffy then. Um, all right, I guess that's it."

She turned to Spike and hung up the phone. She then took a seat beside him on the stairs and ran her fingers through his tangled hair. "Well, that was either a wrong number or an elaborate government conspiracy." She continued to stroke the vampire's hair. "It's going to be all right. They’ll call back. They’ll help, Spike."

"Maybe we can't wait." Spike said just in time for another pang to shoot through his brain, nearly knocking him unconscious.

Finding the Beast had only taken a matter of hours with the help of some otherwise useless vamps that had been lucky enough to spot him entering a little used warehouse the night before. Although the vampires in question were terminally stuck in the eighties, right down to the Pacino and Flock of Seagulls haircuts, they had proved a good enough distraction for Wesley. He and Faith, the Vampire Slayer, had managed to track him to the warehouse, no doubt using his creepy offspring as a bloodhound. Although Connor had not arrived with them, he could smell the boy on Faith’s clothes as she wandered the dark aisles of the building.

His game of cat and mouse had been rather short. He had been waiting for years to meet her again. Unlike the elder slayer, this one had an edge to her. Definitely a few qualities he wouldn't mind sinking his fangs into. He had delivered her into the hands of the Beast, hoping the walking pile of magma could soften her up a bit. He knew he wasn't physically as strong as the slayer, but hoped that after a few rounds with the Beast she wouldn't put up quite as much of a fight. It was amusing watching her taught body being tossed around, the blood that dripped from the dozens of cuts that now covered his body only served to excite him to the point he couldn't wait any longer.

He stepped up beside the Beast as he taunted the fallen Slayer, enjoying her prone position immensely; Angelus let the moment linger. As the Beast went in for the killing blow Angelus took the sheath that the Beast had forged for his "master" from the inside pocket of his coat.

"You know Faithy, the only thing that could hurt him is him." He thrust the jagged knife into the center of the demon's back where he couldn't reach it. As the Beast flailed he threw Angelus to the ground, where he watched as the Beast exploded into a cloud of dust. The light that flew from the body was momentarily blinding, it flew towards the sky in a powerful stream and released the tendrils that had blocked out the sun for days.

"Oh, crap. You mean killing the Beast really does bring back the sun? I thought that was just Angel's retarded fantasy." Angelus picked himself up off the floor and sidestepped the heavy cables that Faith had sent flying at him. "Oh, nice try, but a swing and a miss." He turned just in time to see the chains break through the large window that stood behind him, letting in a bright swath of sunlight. He moved into the shadows and brushed at the front of his jacket as it started to smolder. "Just you and me now, Faithy."

"Can’t wait." Faith said as she passed out in the sunlight.

It hadn’t taken long to find the partially sealed entrance to what had once been the Initiative headquarters. The halls inside were pitch black and as their flashlights scanned the walls Buffy and Spike saw bodies left half decomposed throughout the compound.

"They just left them here." Buffy said, pulling her shirt collar up over her mouth and nose to try and filter the smell.

"Come on, Buffy. Let’s try to find the holding pens. I imagine if there are going to be any of the drugs left, that's where they’ll be."

"We'll try to find some files too. Maybe Willow can figure out what’s going on with the chip if she has a bit more information to work with."

"Yeah, right, let’s make the drugs the priority." Spike said. "A solution would be great, but I'm looking forward to seeing fluffy bunnies and daffodils."

"It works that well, huh?"

"Oh yeah. When they first put the bloody thing in me I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted to kill them all. Every time one of those little white-coated wankers walked past the glass my brain would implode. Then they'd shoot me full of the happy juice and I'd be okay. For a while at least." Spike took the lead and made his way through another grouping of dead demons. As he rounded a corner near the main laboratory he heard a scuffling sound that made him jump. Buffy had heard the noise as well and was now close on his heels.

"Do you think anything survived the attack?" She asked him, taking a stake from her jacket pocket.

"Would have preferred to not find out." Spike answered. He took a few more steps forward before he was lunged at by a foul smelling demon dressed in rags. As soon as he turned to retaliate the chip fired and sent him to the ground. He struggled to keep hold of his flashlight and aim it at the demon so Buffy could fight it, but the light he shone was wavering at best. He lay on the floor, helpless. Spike tried to keep an eye on the Slayer as she pinned the demon to the ground but as she fought she was forced to let go of her own flashlight. Spike's heightened eyesight allowed him to see most of the action as long as he was able to keep his eyes open. It was, however, only a minute before the battle, for him, was reduced to the grunts and clanging of the Slayer and the demon that was quickly gaining the upper hand on her.

Spike closed his eyes and tried to will his brain to stop throbbing, but he received a renewed volley of pain when suddenly two dozen flashlights illuminated the area in front of him and the sound of a tazer gun rang through the air. He opened his eyes enough to see Buffy toss the dead demon off of her and a group of soldiers begin to move closer.

"Miss Summers." One of them shouted to her.

"See, I told you, government conspiracy." Buffy whispered in Spike's ear.

People said "Goodbye Mr. Chips."..

Violators will be beaten to death with a shovel

(A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend)