The Man With A Thousand Faces: Twenty Two
by redmoon
Twenty Two
23 May, 2001, Sunnydale
Glory shoved her minions aside, deciding they were standing far too close for their rotten smell. As she waded through the small adoring crowd of filth-bags, a particular one came before her, bowing low.
“Many pardons, most lustrous one,” he began, bowing low again. She sighed and was about to shove him aside as well when a tall figure behind the mob caught her attention.
“Quickly, what is it?” She demanded, in no moon right now for games. She was hungry.
“One most tall and unholy has requested an audience with your radiance, oh radiant one,” the underling said quickly. As he spoke, the tall, unholy and decidedly pointy demon strode through the muttering crowd of minions. The sounds of construction in the background ceased momentarily as he snatched a minion by the cloak and threw him into the scaffolding.
Glory raised an eyebrow. She stood her ground as the demon approached, admiring his boldness, while pitying his stupidity. She considered his two long horns which protruded up from his dark head, making him look like something removed from a demonic safari. Something that might have been hunted for sport in her world, or served medium rare.
When the demon was close enough to her, and there were no minions between them, he raised one arm and pointed to her menacingly. She looked unimpressed, however, as he spoke.
“Give it to me,” he said in a raspy, throaty voice. He turned his outstretched hand over, closing his fingers into a fist. “I will have it now.”
Glory crossed her arms and shifted to one foot in annoyance. “Just who the hell do you think you are? Pushing around my filth, demanding to have my things! I mean, you look like you were raised in a zoo, but honestly!”
The demon’s nostrils flared and his eyes grey wide. “I will have it now,” he demanded, his voice growing louder, making the surrounding minions pull back a bit farther.
She reexamined him, then shifted to her other foot, narrowing her eyes. “Did the Slayer send you?” She said, as if it was all some sort of joke at her expense. “Well, you can go back and tell her that it’s my Key now, and also that I’m very disappointed she sent a big stinky Werlech demon to do her rescuing.” Glory began to turn, satisfied with herself.
The Werlech demon howled, lunging forward, to the horror of the minions who rushed in to surround him. As if it were an afterthought, Glory turned and caught him by the throat, crushing it tightly. “You just don’t quit, do you?” There was some trace of admiration behind the smugness in the hellgod. “Well, if you won’t leave... will you join me for lunch?”
The Werlech demon screamed in agony as the hellgod’s fingers reached into his brain. With her fingertips stroking his skull, none too delicately, she frowned. She felt no more satisfied. Inside this big ugly, she found nothing. She reached deeper and he screamed all the louder, his voice wavering and gurgling as she reached up to her wrists. Nope, still dry.
She raised an eyebrow in surprise, removing her hands from his forehead. “Hm,” she thought, perplexed. “Let’s have a look-see, shall we?” And her solidified fingers closed around his horns, her right thumb grasping a small notch in the base of one. She pulled.
There was a short grunt, then the demon’s head split in two, letting black bile spill out down his black jacket. Glory held the half which had been torn from its body in her right hand, gazing curiously into the cavity that was the creature’s skull. “What d’ya know? Not a thing in there.” With a wet thunk, the body fell to the ground. She tossed the other half of the skull on top of it. “Get rid of it,” she offered, turning away again, “I’m busy.”
23 May, 2001, Los Angeles
Loki’s pen pressed firmly into the paper before him. There was no writing on the page, just a groove which was becoming deeper by the minute as his hand jammed the pen into it. Soon his hand quivered with the effort of trying to drive the pen through the table.
“That girl, what’s her name?”
“Stephanie,” Loki said tonelessly.
“Stephanie, right,” Angel nodded. “She get her soul yet?” The vampire folded the newspaper and began reading the next page.
Loki clenched and unclenched his jaw. “No,” he said, keeping his voice emotionless, “and she never will. She doesn’t really want it; she lost it on purpose. She’s a party girl,” he added resentfully.
“Huh,” Angel nodded distantly, his eyes scanning the column. He had come to Loki’s as he infrequently did when he needed a spell written, a spell that the AI team couldn’t manage on their own. He waited now as the conjurer wrote it for him, unaware of the unusual tension in the room.
Loki returned his attention to the blank page. His thoughts were on anything but the spell requested. His loose partnership with Angel Investigations was a joke. His talent was wasted on them and their petty quest to right the wrongs, help the helpless. Coddle the useless, Loki thought bitterly. These people were beneath his help. He had bigger fish to fry. And this was the week. If he didn’t finish it now, then he would have to wait months before the Key was again stable enough to risk destroying Spike. It had to be now. It had to be tonight.
The Now Sphere had indicated that a wooden bolt through the vampire’s heart while she slept would leave her grieving but not suicidal, since there would be no evidence that he had actually died. Once she was done the grieving process, she would be ready to fulfill her destiny. At least, Loki thought, his interpretation of her destiny. It had to be tonight.
Loki stood from the table, grabbed his already prepared duffle bag and strode to the door of his apartment. “Your spell’s on the table,” he lied. “I have to go.”
24 May, 2001, Sunnydale
It was three o’clock in the morning. Spike swallowed. It hurt to move any muscle in his body. His fall had ensured that. It also hurt to think. Her fall had ensured that. The Slayer was dead. The thought rang through his mind. And it had not been a good day.
He recalled with vile guilt his promise to her that he would be there the day she died; be there when her death wish came true, to have himself a good day. It had been the worst day of his life, and of all the days thereafter. He had killed two slayers himself in his time. One in China, during some uprising or other, the other... his eyes flicked back and forth for an instant. Thirty years ago, was it? On a subway car in New York. He had called those good days. The feeling that pervaded him now was the very antithesis of good.
She snuggled deeper into the crook of his arm, making a small sound. Spike looked down from his memories of happiness which now only brought him pain to the small creature which trusted him so completely. She trusted so completely in this vampire that had killed so many... saved so few.
Dawn’s face was wet with tears. She still wore the dress from the bloodletting ceremony, her cuts held shut by his coat which was wrapped around her. He sat, and she lay against him, in his crypt, where they had gone from the battle at Glory’s tower. Spike had wanted to stay by Buffy’s body; had wanted to stay with her forever, but knew it would only make things harder. And he had a promise to keep. He gently stroked Dawn’s hair. She moved against him, too tired now to cry any more, too tired even to sleep.
She needed to sleep, Spike knew, they all needed to put this day behind them. One day at a time. Spike pursed his lips and began to sing, his voice little more than a whisper, but carrying the perfect tune nonetheless. “All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces...” She slowly closed her eyes, letting her head fit between his arm and chest. “Bright and early for their daily races, going nowhere, going nowhere... All their tears are filling up their glasses, no expression, no expression...” He closed his own eyes and let his head rest against the stone of the wall behind the coffin upon which they sat. “Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow, no tomorrow, no tomorrow...”
Her breathing slowed to a rhythm as his voice eased her off into unconsciousness.
“And I find it kinda funny,
I find it kinda sad...
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had.
I find it hard to tell you,
I find it hard to take...
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very mad world... mad world...”
When she was silent and sleeping, Spike slowly opened his eyes. Looking through the thin slits he let his voice remain quiet but turned it ice cold. “Well are you just going to stand there and think about it, or are you going to take your bloody shot?”
Loki stood at the entrance to the crypt, his crossbow raised. He was frozen, however, unable to close his finger around the trigger. Although the bolt was aimed directly at the vampire’s chest, the specter’s gaze was locked unwaveringly upon the girl who lay asleep on the coffin. Logan hadn’t seen her in the flesh since the day they took her... almost a year ago. He couldn’t draw breath.
“Leave us alone,” Spike said quietly, closing his eyes and setting his head back again, too tired to fight.
Logan lowered the weapon, slowly turning and stepping out of the crypt. Twice now, he thought grudgingly, twice he hadn’t had the heart to finish the vampire. All his thoughts were directed towards the planning and execution of moments like these and here he was: brought to his knees by a lullaby. A part of him was sickened by his weakness. He stalked away through the cemetery towards his car.
There would come a time, he promised himself, when Spike, in his true evil, soulless nature, would find himself confronted one last time with the enemy of Destiny. On that day, Loki promised, I will be not hesitate.
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