Chapter 27
Author's Notes:
A/N: Running off to work…I really wish I’d done this last night, but time slipped away from me. Just thank you to my betas and my lovely readers. I hope to have another update soon.
Oh, and I keep meaning to add this but…so many people have emailed me in regards to this fic and I know I owe about a thousand emails back. I’m really behind in answering those. Just wanted to shout my thanks to everyone who’s emailed me. I hope to answer everyone…it’s just a matter of finding the time to sit down and do so.
Chapter Twenty-SevenThere was good reason why Paimon was the demon Buffy had summoned. His name colored page after page, listing accomplishments and powers believed attributed to him that, had Giles not been the educated man he was, he would have guessed it to be the demonic equivalent of padding one’s résumé. There were chapters detailing the plagues, famine, wars…even people for whom Paimon was allegedly responsible. He had power beyond his means—there was no doubting that.
And now he had Buffy’s life in his hands. In less than a week, her power would be his and she would be gone.
Giles sighed heavily and removed his glasses, resting his back against the wall. He was on the floor of his flat, as he had been since Buffy and Spike retired upstairs after Buffy made a few phone calls. He didn’t know why he’d insisted on her staying with him…perhaps with the idle hope that he would find the coveted loophole in the night and wouldn’t risk waking her mother. As it was, Buffy and Spike were sleeping, and Joyce believed her to be at Willow’s house. As though it were an everyday research party.
There had never been a time in all his years wherein he would have thought it
safer to have a vampire around. Giles knew the second he asked her to stay put that the invitation was extended to her mate. They were bound now—it bewildered him to think of a time when they hadn’t been. More than the obvious affection between them, more than the heartbreaking echo of Spike’s sobs and the devastation which flooded Buffy’s face, there was something about the auras which seemed to complete one another’s. Of course, Giles wasn’t an aura reader and he never had been, but there was no better way in his mind’s eye to explain what he witnessed. The special bond which went beyond the laws of science or even the philosophy of love. Perhaps it was the claim he was seeing; he didn’t know. All he knew was that it was powerful. And it made him very glad for Buffy.
It made him glad that Spike was here and not elsewhere. Giles was certain she was only being brave to keep them both from shattering.
No matter how comforting the vampire’s presence was, however, it didn’t make the truth any prettier. It didn’t make what was coming more bearable. For the past three hours, Giles had been poring over his
books, searching his own personal library for any and all information on the demon Paimon. Each passage was grimmer than the last. The demon always acquired the thing for which he bargained. There had never been any slick moves or loopholes to save the intended at the last minute. There had never been anything but the price, and Paimon took what he saw as his.
What he was rightly owed.
He didn’t need to stalk the innocent—they sold themselves willingly. Believing in something beyond a demon’s grasp. Believing that being a good
person would win out over evil in the end. Believing in the nonexistent clause which dictated the malicious always got what they deserved.
Most people didn’t realize that evil was created by man. Demons just had a way of pointing and guiding the willing in the right direction.
Giles couldn’t save Buffy.
The knowledge was crippling beyond anything he’d ever known. Beyond anything he’d ever faced or ever dreamt of facing. The prophecy last year had nearly killed him, but he’d pushed onward because, as most in his field knew, it was impossible to pinpoint exactly how any given foretelling was set to play out. There hadn’t been much hope, but there had been some.
And some was infinitely better than none.
It always was.
Just because his options were at an all-time low didn’t mean Giles was throwing in the towel. He wasn’t going to sit by idly and watch his slayer wither into nothing.
No. This time, the battle wasn’t hers. Buffy had already died twice. He wasn’t going to let her die again. Not for this demon, not for the world; not even for her precious William.
“We are all fools in
love,” he murmured wisely, climbing to his feet.
If he couldn’t find a loophole in her bargain, he would simply create one.
No matter what it cost him.
*~*~*
He remembered peace beyond recognition. He remembered soft light. He remembered the tragic beauty of her face breaking under the weight of sorrow, her heavy sobs tearing through her chest as she begged him not to leave her. As she screamed at God and apologized a thousand times for initiating the events which led to his death.
As she apologized for being what she was.
Spike couldn’t sleep. His mind was stuck on repeat; on the night he’d last looked at her before he’d first set eyes on her in his new body. Before he’d seen her at the Bronze. If he focused, he could almost taste the salt of her tears on his lips. He could hear her sweet voice pleading in his ear. He could reach out and touch her. Reassure her. Tell her everything would be all right.
Beg her to let him die and remain dead, so he didn’t have to know the pain she knew all too well.
He just got her back. A century-and-a-half not knowing her, not remembering her, knowing he loved but not knowing whom…he’d just gotten her back. She couldn’t do this to him.
She couldn’t make him watch her die.
A trembling breath pressed through Spike’s lips. Buffy was asleep. He didn’t know how she could sleep, but sleep she did. Dressed only in his t-shirt, she was pressed against him intimately, her leg draped over his thigh, her hand resting gently on his bare chest. It was a mocking rendition of the way they’d lain together just a few short hours ago. The way he’d held her after making love to her in the crypt. The way everything had seemed so perfect then. So immovably perfect. So infinitely secure.
He’d known there was an evil to fight, of course. He’d known Buffy had made a bargain and the price was heavier than she’d anticipated.
He just hadn’t thought it would be like this.
Bloody stupid. Of course it would be like this. With them, it always was.
Spike sighed again, his fingers curling around Buffy’s wrist. He lifted her arm delicately, inching away from her on the mattress, mindful to keep his movements to a minimum lest he wake her. Though he loathed to leave her side, he knew he was going to drive himself out of his skull if he did nothing as time ticked by. As the hours between now and her death grew closer.
He had to do
something. And he wasn’t the only one.
“Evenin’, Rupes,” he said as he stepped onto the ground floor.
Giles made a
sound which would’ve been right funny under different circumstances, the matchbox in his hand shooting into the air. He whirled around quickly, eyes wide with alarm as his palm slapped itself across his chest. “Bloody hell,” he gasped. “What…are…you…”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Spike arched a brow, fighting off a grin as the old man was assaulted by a rainstorm of matches. “Neither could you, I’d wager.”
“Sleep is a luxury I can’t afford,” Giles replied, clearing his throat and doing his best to look dignified. “Something the matter?”
The question was ridiculous and they both knew it. However, the watcher’s tone provided the guise of normalcy—a guise both resented and strangely needed. Spike didn’t know Giles particularly well and he didn’t figure he ever would, but he saw immediately what the man was trying to do. And he appreciated it…failed an effort as it was.
“Other than the fact that the woman I love is demon fodder in less than a week?” he replied. “No, nothin’ I can recall.”
“You didn’t know you loved her before tonight,” Giles argued weakly.
It was a statement based on fact and logic, but it couldn’t help irritating him. She might not have been at his side every minute, but he’d always loved her. It was just a matter of rediscovering her—rediscovering her and himself. Of remembering who she was. Remembering who
he was…and everything in between.
He might have fought the knowledge that he loved her, but he’d still loved her. He always had.
Always. “She’s always been mine, Watcher,” Spike replied, his voice low and dangerous. “She’s been mine longer than—”
“I know.”
“You know an’ yet—”
“I don’t…I thought it might help if…” Giles inhaled sharply, avoiding his gaze and instead casting his head downward. “I don’t know what I thought.”
Spike didn’t say anything; there was nothing
to say. Instead, he nodded numbly, his eyes taking in the watcher’s disheveled appearance before wandering to the design on the ground. The one made of salt. A protective circle. He’d read once or twice about how those who summon demons needed salt to ensure their safety. And without need for warning or confirmation, he knew what the bloke was going to do.
He knew exactly what he was going to do.
It must have been on his face, for the next thing Giles said was an explanation of his motive. As though he needed one.
“If there is something I can do,” he said softly, “to negate Buffy’s bargain…I will do it.”
Spike inclined his head, at once humbled with respect and gratitude. “She won’ like it—”
“Don’t try to talk me out of it.”
“’m not. If it comes down to you or her, old man, an’ you know which way I’m swingin’ my axe, yeah?”
Giles’s brow furrowed and his lips pursed, but he nodded with the same sense of quiet esteem. “And you know if it comes down to you or her…”
“You better aim for the heart. I had to die a long painful death once. Don’ particularly fancy doin’ it again.”
A ghost of a smile crossed the watcher’s face. “I believe we understand each other.”
“Yeah. So is this a one-man-only summonin’ or can I—”
The air chilled and cut his words in half, a gale of icy wind whispering through his
skin and making his bones rattle. He’d always thought it was an expression—the bones rattling bit, but there was no part of this sensation which wasn’t real. And without warning, he was visited by an image of Hell. The Hell he’d known between dying and being rescued. There was fire, but it was cold. Christ, it was so cold. So much so, flames froze in mid-roar, screams shattered like glass, and shadows hardened into statues. It wasn’t always cold in Hell; sometimes it burned so fiercely he felt he might dust all over again. It kept him there on the boundary between existence and death—that horrible second before a vampire’s body dissipated into nothing, when there was nothing but pain and the sensation of falling. Falling forever but never landing—left instead with the permanent knowledge that death was coming, but denied the solace of rest.
The cold in Giles’s flat was one no witch could replicate. This was the cold of Hell.
They were no longer alone.
The molecules surrounding them tugged steadfast in one direction, and there he was. Standing a full seven feet, dressed immaculately in the finest Armani
money could buy. His skin—if one could call it skin—was as colorless and pale as a slab of stone, his eyes naught but slates. A jeweled crown rested atop his head, buried in a nest of what one might call hair. The demon was the picture of elegance—he looked almost human but anyone who saw him would know better than to mistake him for one. The planes of his body were composed of shadows. He moved and the air around him rippled.
“While I appreciate the attention, I assure you, there is no need for theatrics.” He raised his hand, his eyes indicating the circle of salt on the ground. “Or old wives’ tales.”
Spike couldn’t remember a time in his life when he’d been paralyzed with fear. Fear wasn’t something he was used to facing…at least fear which didn’t involve the welfare of another. He thought himself beyond fear. Beyond fear for himself, especially at the expense of other demons. He thought himself above many things.
One glance at Paimon and he remembered Hell. He remembered despair. He remembered pain. He remembered everything.
And beyond that—beyond the shadows of memory. He
felt everything.
“Paimon,” Giles said, his voice strained but strangely lacking in fear. Perhaps he didn’t feel it. Perhaps he didn’t feel
Hell. Perhaps Spike was the only one who could.
“I prefer
King Paimon, if you don’t mind,” the demon replied, straightening his tie. “After all, if you had performed the ritual, I would have made you say my name several times just to make sure you dialed the right number.” He tossed Spike a smirk. “You’d be surprised at how similar my summoning spell is to others.”
Spike’s jaw fell slack. He saw the words he wanted to form; he saw them clear as day, but they wouldn’t come.
His body wouldn’t let him speak.
“Paimon,
King of Hell,” Giles said calmly, nodding. “I am—”
“Rupert Giles, watcher to Buffy Summers. Please don’t insult me.” He nodded at Spike. “And this would be our girl’s William. I must admit…for someone who inspired such passion…I thought you’d be taller.”
A rush of outrage split Spike’s veins. He longed to scream. Longed to yell. His feet wanted to rush forward—his body wanted to tackle the bastard to the ground and beat him within an inch of his unlife, or whatever sort of existence demons of his caliber entertained. He wanted to empty his grief, his anxiety, and every strain against the fabric of his being into making Paimon beg for respite. Until there was nothing left but the two threads of their individual lifelines. He wanted to make Paimon suffer as he’d suffered in the last few hours—he wanted to give him the eternity of agony he was owed for even thinking about ripping Buffy away from him. He wanted so many bloody things, all of which paved the way for carnage and destruction.
But he couldn’t move. It wasn’t about fear anymore. He didn’t know what it was.
“You’d amuse me if I didn’t know you were serious,” the demon mused. “For a creature of poetry, love, and all earthly things, you do have a passion for bloodshed that I can’t help but admire.”
Spike’s throat ran dry.
Paimon arched what could have been a brow. “You really don’t know? Come now, William, I thought you had more wits about you than that.”
Giles blinked in surprise. So did Spike. He distinctly remembered not voicing any of the above.
“That doesn’t matter,” Paimon responded easily, waving a dismissive hand. “You are a thing of Hell. I am a
king of Hell. In the hierarchy of the demon world, you are what we like to call…hmmm…well, other than a cosmic joke, there really is no description. Nevertheless, you do exist as an Other in this world. Whatever thoughts you have, you cannot conceal from me. Nor can you move if I do not wish it. You are a thing of Hell, and you are looking at your monarch. Show some respect.”
“Spike is not why you are here,” Giles said quickly. “I’m the one—”
“Oh isn’t he?” Paimon retorted. “Were it not for him, dear Elizabeth never would have made her bargain. No, she would have died at the hand of some demon, and the Power would have passed from her to the next. You, Mr. Giles, would be the watcher of another, and none of us would be here having this very timely conversation. I think it’s safe to conclude that
Spike is very much the reason why I am here.”
“But I summoned you.”
“Again you are mistaken. I arrived of my own inclination. But I do appreciate the thought.” Paimon at last drew his gaze away from Spike, turning instead to fully face the watcher. “This close to pay-day, I don’t like to be too far from my bounty. After acquiring that which they want, people tend to get the idea that they don’t owe what they promised me. Your Slayer has fallen victim in the same sad, erroneous line of thinking.”
“You can’t have her,” Spike barked, nearly as surprised as Paimon when the words breathed life. His voice had fought for freedom and won; it was
short-lived, but he’d take his victories where he could.
The Hell King held up a hand, his eyes flickering dangerously with flames Spike well remembered. “Oh can’t I?” he replied. “She signed herself over to me.”
“She didn’t know what she was doing,” Giles replied, his voice soft but deadly. “And I believe you know that.”
“I suppose I do, but I’m quite
sure I don’t care.”
“You can’t have her,” Spike snarled again, pushing against the invisible restraints on his muscles, determined to tackle the fiend to the ground.
“I don’t see why you’re so upset with me,” Paimon replied with an apathetic shrug. “I went to great lengths to make sure you wouldn’t give a damn when I came to collect. It’s not my fault you had to get the Hellmouth fever this time of year.”
The fact that words weren’t denied him gave Spike a sense of power, though the larger part of him recognized the allowance was at Paimon’s discretion. He could take speech away from him again whenever he desired. “You would’ve kept us from each other?” he demanded. “Jus’ because—”
“Yes. And wouldn’t that have been better? You would have your life back without being any the wiser to poor Elizabeth’s foolish
gamble.”
The monster was implying that Spike’s memories were worth forgoing his pain; that not knowing Buffy, not knowing he loved her, not knowing what they’d had was preferable this suffering. He spoke as though he wasn’t perfectly aware that not knowing her was where pain hardened into torture.
Paimon must have realized he’d fanned the fire—or perhaps that was his intention. Either way, he robbed Spike of the ability to move the next instant.
“Amore,” he clucked. “It makes fools of us all, doesn’t it?”
“I want a trade,” Giles said abruptly, shivering as though touched by a ghost at the demon’s words.
There was a long, incredulous pause. “A trade?” Paimon repeated. “For what?”
“Buffy. I…I don’t know what, but I’ll do anything. Just…release her from the pact, and I’ll do anything.” Giles drew in a deep breath and took a brave step forward. “Whatever you want. Whatever you feel is an adequate…replacement for her debt. I—”
He didn’t get any further. Paimon was laughing.
Paimon was laughing
hard. His chuckles sounded like thunder. His body shook and the walls seemed to shake with him. In an instant the world blackened and Spike couldn’t see—couldn’t see or feel anything but the endless fall of his stomach. The realization that the secret cure for which he longed was nonexistent. This wasn’t something they could defeat—this simply
was. Paimon couldn’t be bought off. Not when he had the thing he wanted.
“You fool,” the Hell King rasped. “Do you really think I deceived her just for the joy of claiming her life? For the thrill of holding the Slayer’s strength in my hand? Her strength is
nothing compared to the legions I have at my command. I could crush her, you, this town…hell, the whole miserable state with a blink if I so wished. And honestly, Mr. Giles…for all the knowledge you possess, all the otherworldly smarts you have lying at your feet, I confess myself…disappointed.”
Giles didn’t move. Neither did Spike.
“You are, after all, a watcher, are you not? You know as well as I do that the Slayer’s power…or
daimons, if you prefer…” Paimon snickered at the word. “The daimon’s power is connected through the generations. The death of one activates the next. And the next. And the next. It’s something that is
passed on. Not kept. If the Slayer willingly sacrifices that power before death, it removes not only her daimon, but the line as a whole. A slayer’s power cannot be confiscated before death…not without her consent. Sweet Buffy…she consented. And in doing so, she damned the world.”
It was as though life itself was sucked from the room. If Giles’s heart had a beat to it, Spike couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the shrieking in his head.
Oh God oh god oh god OH GOD. “The…” Giles swallowed very
hard, and suddenly the silence around them shattered with the thundering of his chest and the heady rush of his pulse. Spike was at once swimming in human sensation. “The…Powers…wouldn’t allow…”
“Oh, the Powers have certainly given me a run,” Paimon agreed. “Even arranged to have the poor girl die last year so that her Calling would be passed on before I could collect. It didn’t take, I’m afraid. As long as little Buffy lives…as long as she pumps her human blood and beats her human heart and lives her little human life, our agreement holds higher value than the line of potentials waiting after her. The girl they tried to Call…well, she’ll die. As will every other girl with an inner daimon. The line will cease to exist. I’m sorry to say…” A smile stretched his lipless mouth. “To think…had her little friend not revived her, he might have saved the world.”
“Good God…”
“I suppose if one of you really wanted to, you could kill the girl to stop me,” Paimon said with an apathetic shrug. “The permanent sort of death. Not the kind she wakes up from with nothing more than a headache and a fear of drowning to show for it. But somehow, I don’t think either of you have the gumption to make anything permanent. Not her precious father…” He nodded to Giles. “Which was why I chose you. You were perfect for her. The antithesis to Kenneth Travers, who would be cutting off her head right about now. And William…” He turned to Spike. “Well…I suppose you might have it in you. Not that I advocate it by any means, but the betrayal on her face would almost be worth losing the world.” The Hell King fell silent for a few long, pensive seconds. “So there you have it, gentlemen. No, I am not interested in selling my acquisition. Dear Buffy’s strength is not for sale.” He paused theatrically, even as his body began to melt into the shadows playing against the wall. “You know…I believe the world will be the embodiment of the old cliché…the
devil’s playground…by this time next week.” He winked. “Should be fun. Hope to see you there.”
And then he was gone. Spike felt it. Felt the release of his bones and the liberation of his voice—well and good now without the hint of a leash. He felt it just as Paimon dematerialized. Just as the cold abated and light entered the room again.
He wanted to lunge for the corner. He really did. He wanted to scream and roar and beat his chest and bury Buffy so far away no demon would ever know where to find them. He wanted. He felt. He yearned.
But the second his will was his own again, all he could do was crash to his knees.
And weep.
TBC