Part 10-12
The small figure sniffed the air. It could smell things, tasty things. Its bulging eyes gleamed with anticipation. More food was near, food was coming. The air smelled sweet with the scent of blood. “Kappas hungry. Kappas want food-”
Suddenly, it stopped. Then sniffed the air again. It looked down at itself, then sniffed at the air again. A huge, grotesque grin appeared in the wrinkled face as it cackled with glee. “Kappas ready! Ready Kappas! Powder near! Food near!”
It clapped its hands as it made its way through the tunnel, not even noticing when the earth moved and the ceiling tunnel dropped all around it.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Giles gasped for breath as he leaned against the sewer wall. He looked at the breathless man beside him. “We have to hurry. Buffy may need us.”
“Yes,” Gabriel panted as he lifted his head from against his knees. He looked at the older man. “We have to-“
The ground began to shake, and shards of the sewer tunnel started to fall all around them.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Buffy leaned hard against the sewer wall, praying that nothing would hit her as the tunnel shook from the earth’s force. When it was all over, Buffy cautiously stepped away from the wall. She grimaced as she felt the slime cake her hair with grime. “Oh, yuck. Note to self, as soon as I find Mom, I’m gonna get an industrial sized bath.”
As she took a step forward, something hit Buffy on the knee. She looked down and saw the sewer currents make a huge, motionless figure hit her knee again.
She slowly knelt to turn the body over. Panic started to explode through her, making her heart run faster. “Oh, God! Oh God, no!”
It was the dead man from her dreams.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Spike coughed as he sat up. He rubbed his sleeve against his nose; grimacing as he tasted sewer water on the tip of his tongue. “Well, that was one hell of a ride, wasn’t it, Joyce?”
There was no answer. Spike looked down at the woman in her arms and gave her a small shake. “Joyce?”
Still no answer came from her lips. He shook her harder. “Joyce? You still with me? Joyce? Joyce!”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Buffy ran through the endless tunnel, pausing every few seconds to look at the dead bodies and their parts surrounding her. Her lips trembled as her eyes lingered on the more chewed on body parts. Dead eyes without faces stared at her. Severed joints were strewn all over on the wet tunnel ground. She swallowed as a decapitated head faced her, his mouth open in horror. And with each horror she looked at, there was an absence of blood and the presence of seaweed. “Nasty little beast, isn’t he?”
Buffy turned away, only to look at a more stomach-rolling sight. She forced herself to step closer to a large cardboard box. Filled with small body parts. Clenching her jaw, she forced herself to look at it. Study it without emotion. There was no blood, anywhere. Buffy frowned as she picked up a finger and studied it. The parts were gnawed on, like the others, but these were especially chewed on. Her eyes narrowed further as she looked at the pattern the parts were in. And arranged. Arranged like the demon was-Buffy threw down the finger and clutched her heaving stomach, desperately trying not to breathe in the sewer air. “My God. He eats them, then plays with their bodies!”
Buffy stood far from the box as she could. She closed her eyes as her mind whirled with a litany of prayers. [Oh God! Please, let Mom be all right! Please! Let me be there in time! Please God! I’ll be a good girl! I’ll never ever complain when she says something embarrassing! And I’ll clean up my room! I’ll even help out more at the gallery! And do more Mom-Daughter things with her! Please God! Just let her be all right!] “Please God-”
Her hands bunched into fists, Buffy clenched her jaw. “I really don’t have time for this! I have to rescue my Mom. Why don’t you guys just call it a night and get out of here?“
“Because we like it here,” snarled the leader. He smiled as he stepped closer to Buffy. “And we’re hungry!”
“Yeah! Real hungry!” snarled a second vampire. The third vampire simply leered at her as he flashed his fangs at her.
“Oh, just great. It’s ‘Buffy meets the Three Vampire Stooges’, tape one,” Buffy quipped. Then she narrowed her eyes as she pulled out a stake from her back pocket. “Fine, then let’s get this over with.”
With an outraged roar, all three vampires charged at her. Feeling like Xena, she gave a battle cry of her own. “KOWABUNGA!”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Peering into the darkness, Giles gasped as he leaned away from the tunnel wall to look at his fallen comrade. He started to kneel to help the man up, but he was waved off. “Are you all right, Gabriel?”
Getting up cautiously, Gabriel took a mental inventory of his body. Everything in him ached. He rose to his feet, then grimaced at the clammy feel of his clothes. “I believe so. Where- what the hell was that?“
“Dear God! It’s coming from the other end of the tunnel!” Giles shouted as he started running towards the screams. He stopped when he heard a familiar roar. “Buffy!”
Part 11
“Joyce!” Spike shouted as he shook her again. “Wake up! Wake up! You can’t die on me like this! You can’t! Wake up!”
“Ow, stop shaking me,” coughed a weak voice. Spike closed his eyes and thanked whatever god Joyce prayed to. “It’s so-so cold here.”
“I think I can handle that,” Spike said as he carefully lifted her out of his arms and gently set her down. He took off his duster and wrapped her in it. “There you go, nice and warm.”
“Th-thank you,” Joyce whispered. She closed her eyes, then forced them to open again. “Where are we? Are we still in the tunnels?”
“It looks like it,” said Spike as he stood and looked around. The entrance that Spike barreled them through was blocked off by huge chunks of debris. He looked for another way out. It was a small room they were in, less than six feet long and two feet wide. “Looks like we’re in a passage way of some sort, Joyce.”
Spike sniffed the air. The strong scent of something sweet filled his dead lungs instead of something rotting. “I can smell lavender. We’re nearly out of here, don’t you worry.”
“Not-not worried at-at all, Spike,” Joyce coughed as she huddled deeper into Spike’s duster. Spike frowned at her; the smell of blood on her breath was getting stronger and her heartbeat, weaker.
“Let me carry you,” Spike said as he bent and gently picked her up. A wave of dizziness hit him for a moment, then disappeared. He gave a small smile to Joyce. “Have no fear, Spike is here. Let’s blow this pop stand.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Buffy!” Giles shouted as he ran down the tunnel. He heard another scream, and prayed that it was the demon dying and not his Slayer. “Buffy!”
“Giles! Gabriel! Here!” shouted Buffy’s voice, from around the corner at the end of the tunnel. “I’m over here, guys! Just be careful!”
Giles and Gabriel raced towards Buffy’s voice. Then stopped suddenly when they saw Buffy kill off a vamp with a flourish of her stake, then she killed off the last vamp with a quick stab as he charged at her. She looked up at the grimy gentlemen. “These guys were too stupid to run.”
“I see,” Giles panted as he leaned heavily against a tunnel wall. Gabriel simply folded over while standing. “So what was all the screaming about?”
“It was the second vamp. I told him that he looked like Curly,” Buffy said as she dusted off her jeans, then grimaced. “I sure hope slime comes off.”
“Curly?” Gabriel panted as he looked up from his knees. He lifted himself up cautiously. “Who the hell is ‘Curly’, Slayer?”
“From the Three Stooges?” Buffy prompted. At his blank look, she looked at Giles. He had the same look on his face. “God, you Watchers are all so T.V. deprived, it’s not even funny.”
“I know who Curly was, it just took a few seconds to figure out who you were referring to,” Giles said as crisply as he could. He ignored Buffy’s skeptical look. “I will withhold, for the moment, the speech about how some sociologists believe that the Three Stooges adversely affects people in society.”
“There are guys that actually go around testing people about Moe, Larry and Curly?” Buffy asked with round eyes. “Man, I’d ace that thing.”
“I’m sure that you would,” Giles muttered dryly. Then he shook himself as he looked around the small alcove. “Anyway, where are we?”
Buffy looked straight at Giles as she answered. She really didn’t need to see this end of the tunnel again. “We’re in, what I’m really guessing, the little demon’s dining room. He likes to play with his food.”
“Play with his food?” Gabriel echoed. Buffy simply pointed to the small display behind her. It was a small box filled with body parts. “Oh, my God!”
“Oh, my lord!” Giles whispered as he looked at the gruesome sight. He swallowed hard, and went to kneel in front of it. It looked like a demented child’s play box. He picked up a bony finger. “Buffy, did you-“
“Really don’t need to see it again, Giles,” Buffy called out, still refusing to turn around to look at it again. “Blood’s not there, parts were sucked dry. Giles-the demon plays with them. After he drains their blood, he keeps some of its victims and plays with their bodies. Like they were some dolls.”
Gabriel shook his head. “No, no. That can’t be. The murders at the pier were recent. The demon could not have killed this long-not without anyone knowing about it.”
Gabriel stared at her with growing horror. Buffy continued ruthlessly. “It was a hidden water baby, getting used to its new place. Its new digs, until it was sure of its place. No one comes after it, so it gets braver, bolder.”
“Hence the police hunt for it, not knowing that it was a demon,” Giles said as he looked at Buffy, then at the bloodless pieces. He took off his glasses tiredly and rubbed his face, barely noticing the grime on his hands. “So more food for the demon. More body parts for the demon to play with.”
“And Mom’s being hunted by this damn thing,” Buffy said tightly. Panic threatened to explode, as she thought about her mother, helpless in the hands of the Kappas. She shook her head to try and clear the growing panic. “She’s going to be its next-next victim.”
“She won’t be, Buffy,” Giles said, his voice more firm than he felt. He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “We will see that she doesn’t. And she will be all right, Buffy.”
Buffy nodded quickly. “Right. We’ll kill the water demon’s ass and then we’ll all go home.”
“Quite right,” Giles said with a tight smile. He looked at Gabriel, who nodded back tightly. “We will kill this monster.”
The three fell silent as they avoided looking at the box. After a moment, Gabriel asked, “So how do we kill it?”
“This thing is a water demon from Japan, right?” Buffy said slowly as she looked at Giles. “Willow said that the murders started when the people imported a statue from Japan, the murders started. We find that statue, we’ll find the Kappas. Let’s find that underground garden. Let’s go up and see where we are.”
‘There’s an exit,” Gabriel said as he pointed. After reaching it, Gabriel asked, “How could a water demon be tied to the statue?”
“A question for the research team,” Buffy said as she reached for her walkie-talkie. “Willow? Got a question for you.”
The walkie-talkie crackled to life. “Willow here, Buffy. Shoot.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
With a measure of relief, Spike saw the outline of another entrance. He forced a jovial note in his voice as he spoke. “Well, here may be way out, Joyce. Don’t you fret, we’ll be out of here in a nonce.”
“Go-good.” Joyce shivered as she buried her face into Spike’s neck. Faintly, she smelled cigarettes and lavender. “It’s cold and I’m so sleepy.”
Growing alarmed, Spike looked down at her. “Now, Joyce, you know that you don’t want to go to sleep here. It’s disgusting down here, not at all for the likes of you. You want to go above where it’s nice and clean.”
“Yeah, it’ll be nice to die on a clean bed,” Joyce coughed as she morbidly imagined her death bed. “Maybe have some lavender. Roses, springs of baby’s breath and-and lilacs surrounding me. Even some heather on the wreaths, but no irises. That’d clash with the ice blue of my coffin.”
Spike froze and glared down at Joyce. “Don’t SAY that! You are not going to die! You’re not!”
“Everything dies, Spike. Even vampires,” Joyce coughed as she tried to look at him. “It-it just matters on how we go. Just-just promise me you’ll get me above so I can-can have a pretty funeral, Spike.”
“I’d have expected more from you!” Spike nearly shouted. “You-the Mother of the Slayer! What are you going to do? Die here among the muck and dregs? In the sewers of San Francisco? With a-a demon on your tail?”
“Because it is!” Spike shouted at her. His panic grew as her eyes started to close again. “You go to sleep on me, I’ll turn you into a vampire like me, Joyce. You’ll be a demon like me, and I’ll be your sire and we’ll go hunting! For your daughter! The Slayer! I can promise you that.”
Still shivering, Joyce opened one eye. “You won’t turn me into a vampire.”
“I can well bloody do whatever I want,” Spike shot back at her. He felt his true face shift forward. The scent of blood on her breath caused his stomach to grumble. “I can make you into a vampire if I feel like it.”
“You-you won’t turn me into a vampire, Spike,” Joyce gasped out. “I won’t-I won’t have Buffy kill you because you made me into a vampire. I wo-won’t, I’d-I’d kill myself first.”
His head reeling, Spike stared down at her. “What-what are you saying?”
“Think-think about it, Spike,” Joyce coughed. She frowned as she tasted something metallic at the back of her throat. “Buff-Buffy won’t rest until she-she finds me. If-if I’m a-a vampire, you’re dead. Can’t-can’t let that happen. Won’t let it.”
“I don’t understand,” Spike whispered hoarsely as he stared at her. He couldn’t understand, he wouldn’t understand her. “Why? Why would you care about what happens to me?”
“Why-why not?” Joyce whispered back as she closed her eyes. It was so easy to go to sleep. “You’re sp-special, Sp-spike. Why-why not?”
Anger filled him as he roared, “Because I’m a bastard! A monster, that’s why! I murdered my mother, Joyce! I killed her! Do you know why I’m called Spike? Know why I was called William the Bloody? It was because I killed everyone! My uncle! My aunt and cousins! I killed them all! With a spike! And I felt good about it! Damn good about it!”
Spike opened his mouth, knowing that he looked like the monster he knew he was. “Just like I could kill you now! What do you think about that?”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“And that’s the sitch, Will,” Buffy said as she looked up at Giles. “Can you find anything for us?”
The walkie-talkie cackled into life. “I’ll give it a shot, I think there are some books here on-wait! Oz found something!”
“Buffy? Here’s some background, but there’s not that much,” Oz said. “Like what we said before, a general Kappas can be made powerless if you spill the water from its head off.”
“So that should work with this one, right?” Buffy asked. When there was no answer, Buffy glanced at Giles and Gabriel. “Right?”
“On a regular Joe Blow Kappas, yeah,” Oz said slowly. “But this one’s different. Real different.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Buffy muttered. “Shoot me with the info.”
Willow's voice came through the cackling walkie-talkie. "Okay, here's the long and short of it: A normal Kappas can be rendered harmless if you spill the water on its saucer-shaped head. But this thing is different, Buffy. There’s a small fairy tale or folklore about it. I’ll try and make sense of this okay?”
“Okay,” Buffy said as she looked at Giles. “I really don’t like this, Giles.”
Part 12
“I-I think that you probably had a reason,” Joyce whispered as she looked at him. She coughed, and tasted blood on her tongue. “It-it was more-it had-had to be more than your st-stolen in-inheritance. What-what did they do?”
“It’s the lack of clean air,” Joyce whispered as she blinked her eyes. Things were becoming real blurry. “A-a dis-distinct lack of oxygen mixes up my common sense.”
“I-I suppose it does,” Spike said as he looked at her. He didn’t need a mirror to know that his true face gave way to his human one. “You know, I’m used to people running from me when they see my demon.”
“Would-would it help to-to say that I’d be-be screaming for my-my daughter if-if I had the strength?” Joyce coughed. She opened her eyes. “Re-really.”
“That’s nice to know,” said Spike as he felt something inside him shift and break. His mouth tightened as he looked down at Joyce’s closing eyes. He didn’t understand what was going on or what he was even feeling but he knew only one thing. He would not let her die. Joyce Summer was not going to die, not if he could help it. “Don’t go to sleep. I’ll get you to a hospital, Joyce. You hear me? Joyce?”
He shook her slightly. “Joyce! Tell me about your first time in America. Did you get a shock when you saw the Yankees?”
“Never saw the Yankees. Saw the Mets. Nana caught a foul ball for me,” Joyce frowned as she tried to concentrate. “I still have it somewhere. Around.”
“So your Nana caught you a foul ball, did she?” Spike asked as he looked at her. He opened the heavy metal door, and caught a full blast of scented air. It smelled of dirt, flowers, sewer and blood. He stuck his head through and found another corridor riddled with piles of debris. But at least it was lit with those flashing, red emergency lights. “She the one that abandoned you with your Auntie and Uncle Freeze?”
“She didn’t abandon me, she had to leave me,” Joyce coughed, unaware that her voice had taken a lost little girl’s quality. “She had no choice but to take me to Aunt Regina. It wasn’t safe for me to be with her or Grandda, or anyone in England. I had to be safe in America.”
“Safe from what?” Spike asked as he looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, so he shook her a bit, still careful not to jar her broken arm. “What were you in danger from?”
“I’m not really sure, all Nana said at the time was that I had to be safe. By the time I was old enough to know, I didn’t care,” Joyce swallowed, she tried to ignore the blood she tasted at the back of her neck. “We don’t talk about it, not supposed to. Ever. Far as Nana is concerned, life started in America for me. ~yawn~ I’m so sleepy, Spike. Tell me when we get to the-“
“Now, hold on, I need you to stay awake,” Spike interjected quickly. He went through the door and followed the sweeter scent, and hoped that he was nearing the underground garden. If he was there, then maybe he could get some help for Joyce. “You have to keep me awake or else I’ll-I’ll be out and that-that reject from Sigmund and the Sea Monsters will be after me- what was your first stop?”
Struggling to stay awake, she said drowsily, “When I came to America, my first stop was New York with Nana, then Chicago. I was so disappointed that both cities looked a lot like London. Not a horse or cowboy to be found, and everyone had a strange accent. Where was your first stop when you came here?”
“New Orleans, Dru wanted to see Louisiana,” Spike said as he leaned against a wall. He was not feeling dizzy, he really wasn’t. “She got a book and wanted to see if had lots of flowers, like the Spaniards said it did. She loved the swamps, had a lot of fun with the alligators.”
“Did you like the alligators?” Joyce asked as she tried to concentrate on his words, but it was as if he were talking through a tube. His voice was deeper and muffled.
“They were fun, useful pets,” Spike said after a moment. And only for that fleeting moment, he wondered why he omitted the fact that he and Dru used them to help get rid of the bodies after they fed. “Anyway, New Orleans is a nice place, even if it is a bit sticky in the summer. When you feed in New Orleans, there’s a faint taste of pepper everywhere. Even in the blood. Once there was a man who really tasted sweet and peppery-“
[Because it’s in the blood] thought Spike as he looked at her, and saw her wince. He stood still, poised to say it, ready to be really vile and describe the blood gushing into his mouth. Instead, he heard himself say, “Maybe it’s because of the way they cook. You know that Creole or Cajun cuisine cooks go heavy with lots of sweet and peppers. Blackened this or that. Always thought it was another word for burned food.”
“I once took a class in Cajun and Creole cooking once. They like a lot of flavor in their foods,” Joyce coughed. She looked at him through closing eyes and tried to smile. “I wanted to go there to see Bourbon Street and the plantations but Hank wanted to go to Palm Springs for golfing and such. Did you see the houses there?”
“What an ass,” Spike muttered. He looked at Joyce and wanted to say no; that all he did was feast on the tourists then threw them with the alligators when he was done with them. Instead he heard himself say, “Some of them fancy, older houses makes you think that it’s a bit like England. One of them kind of looked like my home. Except it had a white fence laced with honeysuckle instead of pink roses.”
“Hon-honeysuckle’s nice. But pink…I-I like pink roses,” Joyce coughed. She saw him smile, then look at her worriedly and tried to smile back at him. “Don’t-don’t look so worried, I’ll be fi-fine, Spike.”
“Who’s worried?” Spike said flippantly as he gave her a huge grin. He gave her a bigger one even when the scent of blood on her breath became stronger than before. He had to get her above ground and into a hospital, fast. “Not me-no way. I’m not-uh oh.”
“Uh-oh? Wh-what’s the uh-oh?” Joyce demanded in between coughs as he put her down on a pile of debris. She bit her lip as her broken arm slightly jolted, but didn’t say anything. Then she looked ahead of her, but really couldn’t see anything. “Spike? What’s wrong?”
As Spike was about to answer that wouldn’t panic her, he felt the ground below him start to tremor. Pieces of the ceiling started to hit him. “Oh, bloody hell!”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“It will be all right, Buffy,” Giles said as he pressed the button on the walkie-talkie. “Do go on, Willow.”
The walkie-talkie crackled as Willow continued. “The statue came from the ruins of small fishing village on the Noto-Hanto Peninsula. It was unearthed by a team of construction workers who called in a team of archeologists who said the statue was dated back to the early 15th century. They thought it was an icon of the patron/adversary of that destroyed village. Then the construction company allowed the archaeologists send to a museum in Tokyo where it was later auctioned off to the buyers of Amaru Pier.”
“They already know that part, Willow,” Cordelia said as her voice was heard loudly through the walkie-talkie. “Buffy? Here’s the parts you need to know: some villagers protested the auction because it was part of their history, but the real skinny is that they were afraid that the statue would come back to life and start killing everything in sight. Which is what it’s doing now-hey!”
“Cordelia! She needs info on to destroy the small ugly,” Xander scolded. ”Anyway, Buffy, here’s the story, fresh from the musty and dirty library book of Japanese fairy tales we found, you know, I think I smelled some-“
“Xander,” Buffy said through gritted teeth. ”Cliff notes version.”
“Right, right,” Xander said. “Cliff notes version: This little water demon is different cause from the nasty fairy tale that is far too bloody and scarier than Grimm, is said to be a linked to the stone statue by a witch’s curse. The demon killed the witch’s hubby, so said witch imprisoned the little sucker into the statue of her dead hubby.”
“Xander, did the fairy tale say with what or how?” Giles said eagerly. There was silence on the other end. “Xander?”
Buffy let out a small sound of frustration as Giles quickly said, “Yes, thank you Willow. Keep trying to find something we can use. Giles out.”
“Well, that was certainly helpful,” Buffy uttered as she looked at Giles. “A certain font of nothing unless you like demon fairy tales.”
“Buffy,” Giles admonished gently. “They’re trying their best.”
“I know, I know,” Buffy said tiredly. Tears of frustration started to well up in her eyes as she started down the tunnel again. “But this is my mom, Giles. My mom! And that thing has her! Maybe-maybe this is payback for what happened over the summer! Maybe this is the whole fate thing-”
“No, it does not!” Giles said firmly as he took Buffy’s shoulders and shook her slightly. “Your mother had no idea that there are vampires and demons roaming the streets. There was no way of knowing it was here! It does not mean that your are being punished for running away for the summer!”
“But it was fate that brought me here wasn’t it?” Buffy whispered as her face crumpled. “The Slayer goes to stop the swelling of evil again isn’t it?”
“The Slayer always stops evil, yes,” Giles said gently. “You know that, Buffy.”
“But why does my mother have to be in the middle of it?” Buffy nearly wailed at him. ”She’s never done anything wrong! She’s just my mom! Why did fate pick her to be the bait?”
The answer that Giles was about to form was lost as the tunnels around them started to shake again.
