Part 13-14
When the quake stopped, Spike rose his head, then grabbed it as a shot of pain went through it. “Now that hurt.”
He shook his head slightly, and immediately regretted the action. Shoving away the pain, he grinned as he looked down at Joyce. “That was some quake, wasn’t it, Joyce? Joyce?”
The pale face remained silent. Spike slowly gathered her into his arms. As he softly shook her, he saw his mother, lying still on the bed, not moving. Her blonde hair fanned against the pillow. His normally husky voice, gone. And in its place was the voice of a young boy, frantic to wake his mother up. “Come on, Joyce, wake up. Wake-y, wake-y!”
Spike banished the image of his younger self, but still saw Mummy, drenched from the sudden rainstorm, her eyes feverish and haunted as she searched for him. “No fooling around now, Joyce. Wake up.”
He saw Joyce, in the alley, throwing a melon at Rickster. “Come on, now! This isn’t funny, Joyce!”
His mother’s face when gave her his flowers. Her face when he spoke of New Orleans. “Come on, Joyce! Wake up!”
“Come on! Wake up!” His mother’s face as she protected him from the harsh words and glares from his uncle. Joyce’s face etched with pain as she protected him from the demon. “You have to wake up!”
Their faces melded together, their eyes closed and their faces pale as he looked at them and held them in his arms. ”Mum, wake up! Wake up! Mummy, wake up! You wake up now! Mummy…please…”
She remained silent, not even moving when he gingerly touched her broken arm. After touching it again, Spike slowly gathered her close to his chest and let out a mournful roar.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Kappas lifted its head quizzically as it heard an alien sound echoing through its home. Puzzled, it sniffed the air and smiled as it smelled blood. Food was near, and so was the pretty powder.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
When the ground steadied, Giles cautiously lifted his head and immediately looked at his Slayer. “Buffy, are you-what was that?“
Buffy looked at the where the sound seemed to be coming from. “I don’t know, but it’s coming from above ground!” She spied a ladder going up. “Let’s go!”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Spike buried his face into her golden hair and smelled the sweet scent of lavender that clung to her curls. An ache started to build in his chest, and his throat hurt as let out the pain. It wasn’t fair! It just wasn’t fair! They were going to get out, he was getting them out! He was getting her out. He stroked her pale cheek. “You aren’t going to die here, not now. You aren’t. I’m getting us out! I am, just you see!”
“I don’t understand you, Joyce, I don’t,” Spike whispered as he saw his hand tremble. “I don’t. I tell you I killed as a human, and you don’t blink. I show you my demon, and you still don’t run from me. And-and you knew I had to have a reason to kill them-you knew. How did you know I killed them because of what they did to her? To my mother? What they did to her grave? How?”
Spike stroked her cheek. “Even after all I tried to scare you, thought to hurt you, you still think I’m special. Just like her.” Flashes of his mother on her deathbed went through his mind, and he had to close his eyes, turn away from them. “And now…and now, you-re dying-dying, just like her…”
Joyce remained silent, and his fingers curled tightly into his hand. Spike swallowed hard as he stared at her. A look of determination filled his face. He lifted her up into his arms. “But that’s not going to happen, Joyce. I won’t let it happen; you’re not going to die like she did. Not while I have anything to say about it.”
Spike’s arms tightened around her protectively as he looked down at her pale face. Joyce Summers, the Mother of the Slayer, wasn’t to be a meal. Not for him or for anyone or for anything, not as long as he was undead. “Right then. I’ll get us out of here. I’ll make sure that you’ll get what you want, and-and if you di-die-I’ll make sure that there’s no irises. To hell with the Slayer if she likes them, I’d kill her before she decorates your casket with them.”
Looking around and seeing nothing, Spike growled in frustration. Then he sniffed the air, and smiled grimly. He could smell soil and flowers, dead ahead. With quick but careful steps, Spike moved around the debris. He couldn’t afford to get lost, his Mum’s life depended on it.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Buffy panted as she reached the top rung of the ladder. She used her flashlight to look around her. There was debris everywhere, chunks of rock and dirt all over the place. She sniffed, and smelled something in the air. The sewer air was still smelling like a sewer, but there was something else in the air. “Giles? Gabriel? You smell something?”
“I’m desperately trying not to breathe, Buffy,” Giles gasped as he climbed out of the hole. Giles took a deep breath with his mouth, and tasted the rot of the sewers on his tongue. “Let me assure you that I trust your senses implicitly.”
“All I smell is sewer, Slayer,” Gabriel said as he followed Giles. “Not a pleasant smell at all.”
“Like duh, stating the obvious,” Buffy muttered. She flashed the light again, and saw an entrance partially covered with debris, and headed towards it. “I think I smell some fresh flowers or something. We must be near that underground garden somewhere.”
“Let your nose lead the way,” Giles said nasally as he followed Buffy and watched her climb over the debris. A waft of something particularly foul teased his nose. He looked at Gabriel. “After you, Gabriel.”
Gabriel’s nose twitched at the rancid scent. “Definitely not my pleasure, sir.”
Part 14
Spike kicked at the metal door, and it went flying through the air and landed with a splash. As he carefully poked his head through the entrance, a blast of cool, fresh evening air hit him. He grinned gleefully as he saw the remains of a decorative, underground grotto. He turned back to gather his Mum in his arms. “We’ll be out of here yet, Mum.”
As he stepped over a huge pile of debris, he saw what the earthquake did to the underground garden. Flowers were crushed, trees were uprooted, the stone trails were completely destroyed and there were piles of debris and pools of water everywhere, courtesy of a mid-sized bubbling geyser of water in the middle of the garden. Streams of crystal-clear water created new black pools as it mixed with the foul waters of the ruptured sewage pipes, dead flowers and soil of the garden.
Spike snorted as he saw the remains of the huge fountain stone fountain. A huge concrete slab had smashed the outer edge. The inner parts of the fountain, the parts that spewed the water on to the decorative statue that had toppled over. The pipes that lead the water to the fountain stuck out from the base like long, bony fingers spewing out water. He barely glanced at the fallen, seaweed covered statue of a woman whose hands were wrapped around the neck of a hideous Asian warrior as he passed it by.
Stopping, he looked up at the ceiling to see another huge hole on the other side of the crushed fountain, and the silver crescent moon shining down. “Ah-ha! And there’s the exit! Hang tight, Mum. We’re on our way out!”
As Spike started rushing towards it, he heard a maniacal cackle. His head turned to see the little sewer demon standing on top of a fallen tree, hopping on one foot, then the other. “Food! Food! Powder! Kappas happy! Happy Kappas!”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Buffy!”
The three figures jumped as the walkie-talkie shouted, echoing through the tunnel. “Hey, Buffy! Giles! You guys there?”
Sheepishly, Giles reached for his and answered Xander’s call. “Giles, here Xander. Anything new to tell us?”
“Yeah, this library here has one hell of a collection of fairy tales and stuff on the supernatural. This place makes our library look like a light weight! Ow!“
Affronted at the insult regarding his collection, Giles gave a withering glare at the walkie-talkie. “I can assure you that my collection is one of the finest in the region, if not the best in the entire West Coast. Especially, when you take in the fact that I am on a limited high school budget. Perhaps-“
“Hey! Guys! Enough!” Buffy snapped as she took the walkie-talkie from Giles. She gave a steely, Slayer glare at Giles then at the walkie-talkie. “Xander, you have anything important to say or are trying to un-Research Man Giles for the hell of it?”
“Uh…sorry Buffy. But we did find something-hey!”
Cordelia’s voice crackled through. “We found a diary of sorts, and a few more references, which may I say, are totally gross if it’s all translated right. Will and Oz are making double sure that it’s right.”
“What does the diary say?” Gabriel asked eagerly. “Does it tell how we may destroy the demon?”
“Who the hell is that? That wasn’t Giles was it? ‘Cause he sure lost his accent big time in the huge drainage-“
“No, it’s not Giles,” Buffy said curtly. “It’s a fellow Kappas demon hunter. So how do we kill the demon?”
“Yeah, and the moral endings and translations of the spells were different, too,” Xander said with disgust. “And all of them are weird, I tell you. One really gross translation said, something like, she makes her body into stone, her grief cursing her blood, her blood is poisoned water, then demon imprisoned. Then something and something about after three times grief on her face, three times of poisoned water on the demon’s crown, the Kappas’s life is gone. Then another one says that the statue-Hey! I was just getting to the other gross stuff-Ow!”
Buffy gritted her teeth as she heard Cordelia smacking at Xander. “Guys? Hey guys! You still there?”
“Yeah, we’re still here, Buffster,” called out Xander’s voice. “Newly bruised but still here.”
“Xander, go back to that account that you just remembered and read it again carefully,” Giles ordered. “And do that now.”
“Yes, sir O Librarian of Research-“
“Now, Xander,” Giles ordered. A few moments of silence came through the walkie-talkie. He clicked it on again as he spoke through the receiver. “Does anyone have anything more to give us?”
As they waited for an answer, the trio started walking through the tunnel, the scent of dead flowers and soil perfuming the air.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Not moving his eyes from the little demon, Spike gently put Joyce down on a soft pile of dead flowers. He stepped over her still body, guarding her effectively. “You think you can take her for food, you little ponce?”
The demon merely grinned maniacally at him as it hopped from one foot to the other. “Food! Pretty, pretty Kappas! Toys for Kappas. Kappas play with toys! Play with food!”
Spike’s demon face came forth as he rushed at the demon. “Not with my Mum you aren’t!”
At the same moment, Kappas laughed gleefully as he rushed at Spike. The demon gleefully avoided Spike’s punches as it threw them both into ground, with Spike landing on the bottom of the demon. It cackled as its talons tried to maintain a grip on the pretty powder.
Spike roared as he kept the razor sharp teeth away from his neck and its clawed hands away from his body. With another roar, Spike managed to grab a handful of seaweed and yank the demon back. Grabbing it with two hands, Spike threw the demon into the huge black pool of water when the demon suddenly latched on to his wrist and pulled him with it.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Oz here. From everything we could find, they all agree that there is a statue, and that she used her life’s blood to bind him. Plus there was a minor article of the town’s history, something from the early 1790’s. We did some more research and found a reference. It seems a serial killer was on the loose, killing women. The killings stopped when there was a body found draped over a statue. It was concluded that the man was the killer and had committed suicide because of the blemish on the family honor. He drowned his sister ‘cause he found out that she was secretly engaged to the family’s enemy, and then he killed his fiancée and a few other girls ‘cause he assumed that they were probably in on keeping the two lovers together. Wait, Willow has something more.”
“There’s even an account before that,” Willow said quickly. “In a local ghost story. The dead woman’s soul is running around ‘cause she committed suicide in front of a statue because she wants justice. Her sister and friends were dead because a water monster was roaming the riverbeds. Details are sketchy on what type of monster or how the girls were, but it popped up when we searched for info.”
Frustrated, Giles started pacing. “I need to see those books. All I can gather is that the witch somehow turned the demon into stone and bound it to a statue. Blood is used to rebind it. From what Xander read, the blood has to be from someone that had been a victim of the demon, but that still doesn’t answer on how-Good Lord! What on earth was that?!?”
Buffy’s eyes widened with fear. “That sound like screaming-We have to split up! Giles, you and Gabriel find Mom and that statue! I’ll find that demon!”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The black pool of water started to bubble and suddenly a mad cackle filled the sewer air. Seaweed floated on the water as the small demon happily bobbed up and down towards the food lying on the shore. “Pretty food! Pretty, pretty toy!”
