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Shadows, Part Five
Wesley heard a twig snap a few feet behind him and spun around. Nothing. Dappled shadows; the woods surprisingly dark given that it was only late afternoon. It was automatic to note that Angel would probably be safe here as long as he kept moving and avoided the clearings. Wesley wondered how long it would be until he lost the habit of looking out for a shady way from one place to another, how long it would take until some part of him stopped flinching from sunlight. If he would ever be able to sit out on a beach again and just enjoy it rather than thinking of how deadly an environment it would be for Angel, feeling guilty about being able to walk in the light while Angel was doomed forever to dwell in darkness.
It was so strange to be in the same building as them all, his former friends, people who had used to matter to him so much; who had been his whole world, in fact. He was cast out from their affection now, but that didn’t mean he had the reciprocal luxury of no longer having to care about them. They had apparently been able to turn off their friendship for him as if it were as simple as the flick of a light switch. He hadn’t been so lucky. He had to keep reminding himself that he no longer had the right to care; that it wasn’t his problem if Cordelia looked pale, with shadows under her eyes. It might be his fault indirectly – too many nights spent crying over the baby he had lost, and the heartbreak of Angel’s that he had caused – but didn’t have the right to hand her some Tylenol or make her a cup of tea. Gunn had a bandage on his arm. He’d noticed that at once. But he hadn’t been there when it happened. He didn’t know what it was that had bitten or clawed or slashed him. That felt odd – wrong – not knowing; not having the right to ask. There had been a time when he would have been the first to know; the one who would have been with him when whatever it was attacked. Fred looked like a ghost; even thinner than he remembered, so fragile and so beautiful with those huge eyes in her lovely face; but ill and weary-looking. He’d felt as if he were doing something forbidden all the time he was talking to Lorne. Having to fight not to look over at Angel to see if he was giving his permission.
That was the worst of all, of course, being this close to Angel and yet not being able to speak to him. They knew each other too well. He had read all those conflicting thoughts that flickered across that too-familiar face, his frustration and hurt; his feeling of rejection, that gaze turned to Buffy to see how she would respond to him, that pained look at Dawn; and when he and Wesley inadvertently made eye contact there was the shock of being read so effortlessly by the other. Wesley’s arm had been hurting and he had briefly locked eyes with Angel before hastily wrenching his gaze away, but he had seen the man really see him, read him, then look at that arm and frown, all in the brief instant before Wesley averted his gaze. So horribly comforting to have that again, to be effortlessly understood. But it was a double-edged sword now that they were no longer friends. It hurt to think that the person who knew him best in all the world now hated him. What did that say about him that to really know him was to really hate him?
He heard the sharp crack of a branch breaking under something heavy and spun around again, heartbeat spiking. He had to dart another glance at the sky to remind himself that it was still daylight, mottled with shadows in these ancient trees, certainly, but definitely not night-time yet. He gazed into the trees, trying to see what it was that had disturbed the undergrowth but there was nothing to see – just dapplings of light and shadow. His heart was still pounding as he realized that he had wandered much too far from the mansion in his need to put some distance between Angel and the others and himself, desperate for some solitude to snatch a breath that didn’t come snagged through the pain of new enmities and old affections; nor had he snatched up a weapon, which was just plain careless. His side was already aching as if in remembrance of previous stupidities, as was his shoulder and arm; wounds throbbing as if…
...And these are damned creatures, evil demons summoned from the innermost pits of hell, and so cruel are they and so bathed in the blood of Lucifer that the wounds they inflict upon the soulled groan when they are near, and should their blood touch soulled blood it will rebel and rise up in fever heat to burn the evil blood out...
He had read that this morning, one entry amongst a score of others. It had seemed like mediaeval Christian superstition at the time but now he appeared to be the empirical evidence that they had written no more than the truth. Wesley swallowed and turned a slow circle; but all he could see were trees and shadows; trees and…and the gleam of a dark eye in a dark wood amidst a hyaena-spotted coat perfect for blending in with the dappling pattern of dim sunlight amidst dark trees…
He was running before his heart had snatched another fearful beat.
There was a furnace in his chest, white fire with every inhalation, a dragging rake of internal claws with every breath that burned its way into his lungs. He hurdled a mossy log, stumbled and flung himself forward, driven on always by the thunder of Hukkarish bounding after him. His wound had broken open with the effort of running and he had a hand clamped across it as he zig-zagged through thickets in a desperate attempt to slow their pursuit. Then he saw it, sunlight, a brighter green through arching trees, and he dived forward, felt the faint sear of claws as the Hukkarish pounced and only raked his calf, and then he was throwing himself at the sunlight, a full out dive and roll, somersaulting to the oasis of sunlight and snatching his legs away from a swipe of heavy paw.
Wesley staggered to his feet, sides heaving, sweat pouring everywhere to mingle with the blood now seeping from his abdominal wound in a warm trickle down his thigh. He snatched up a branch that would do as a cudgel, feeling like Mowgli but without the gift of fire to assist him. The Hukkarish were snarling at the edge of the clearing, circling him like the hyaenas they resembled, seven or eight, standing up on their back legs now that the pursuit was over, letting him see the fall of their dappled manes, the white curve of their terrible canines, the flex of their three inch talons. He had no hope against so many, now they had him surrounded they could rip him apart within seconds. They kept sniffing the air and then baring their teeth in another vicious snarl; clearly he reeked of their stolen treasure; a thief to be dismembered so that the amulet could be retrieved.
Strange to be in Sunnydale again and to once again find his life demanded in payment for a stolen amulet left in Angel’s safe-keeping. He had despised the man he had used to be for so long, cringing at the memory of his cowardice, but now he felt pity for him for the first time, because pain and death were always so new and unexpected however many times one faced them. Yet there was a sort of resignation that set in after a while that helped one through the moments like these, and that other Wesley hadn’t yet been burned by enough fires to be able to bear the flame. He seemed so young and far away that Wesley felt it almost possible to forgive him. He had no desire now to end his days ripped open by the claws of angry demons, but he accepted that was probably about to happen, and he had been tested in the furnace enough times to know that eventually the pain stopped and darkness intervened, and the only real regret was for all the things left undone. He was sorry, for instance, about Connor, that he had never found a way to undo that or at least to do something else to try to balance his cosmic account book, and sorry too that he was going to die without the comfort of knowing that there were people who would regret his passing and think well of him. Giles would probably tell his father a few kind lies. Giles was a decent man like that, and the word of a fellow Watcher might carry some weight with him, perhaps. It was a relief to find he cared a great deal less than he might once have done what his father’s last thoughts of him were. He cared a lot more that he had forfeited the friendship of Angel, Gunn, Cordelia and Fred. Not that he was dead yet, of course…
He felt in his pockets, and his fingers closed on a Swiss army knife, a leftover habit from his Boy Scout days, and the stones he had been collecting. In an inside pocket were probably some matches and string as well. An orb would have been more useful but he didn’t tend to carry one of those around. A focusing crystal was more of a possibility and he searched every pocket diligently just in case. No. He had given Willow everything he had with him, acknowledging that her magical powers were a great deal more advanced than his own. He had given the matches to Dawn that morning, he remembered, so she could put them next to the candles in readiness for the evening. He had a knife which would fold out to give him a four inch blade of dubious sharpness and – yes, as suspected – a piece of string. And three stones with a high iron ore content. Somehow he doubted that was going to be enough to see off seven eight feet tall slavering Hukkarish demons in a snit.
Wesley gazed up at the sky and saw a cloud coming; it lay to the north and was sweeping in across the forest, a leaden rain cloud of majestic proportions. When it reached the place overhead between the clearing and the sun he was going to be plunged into shadow. The Hukkarish were scenting the air eagerly, a thin line of drool running from between shark-like teeth. He opened out the Swiss Army knife blade, aware of how pitifully inadequate it looked and wondering what had possessed him to walk out without so much as a stake, let alone a sword. Did he have a deathwish? If so his wish seemed about to be granted. Given how exhausted he felt, he wondered if there was a part of him that just wanted to escape; the same way he had felt when he had translated that prophecy and realized that whatever decision he made, his life was now ruined. He shoved knife and branch into one hand and pulled one of the stones out of his pocket.
As a Hukkarish edged forward hungrily he threw the first stone, catching it hard on the snout. It roared with pain and shook a muzzle that now sprayed blood; its green eyes promising him all kinds of retribution. He got a second between the eyes with a resounding crack that made it drop to the ground and suggesting it wasn’t going to be getting up again. He had hoped it might frighten the others off, but with the cloud almost overhead and his amulet-scented blood evidently calling to them like a serenade, it was clearly going to take more than a few stones.
He shoved his last stone back in his pocket, transferred the branch to his right hand and tightened the grip on the penknife in his left. Running again was out of the question; his lungs were still a burning bellows and the blood was already pouring from his wound. If he got ten feet before they pulled him down it would be a miracle. A last stand was definitely all that was left to him. He remembered that when Faith had him captive and there was no hope of any rescue that a kind of clarity had descended then, because there really was nothing left now except to die well, or at least without screaming. In this instance, all that seemed to be left was to try to take a few of the Hukkarish with him so that Buffy’s task would be a little easier.
The cloud was sweeping closer, he could see the smoke grey billowing of its folds; it looked like something Turner might have painted in some boiling evening sky. Wesley could feel the Hukkarish tensing in readiness as the shadow skated across the woods; life during daylight for Angel, death in this clearing for him. It was almost upon him – and then it was. The air chilled and darkened as the cloud passed overhead. He lifted the branch and then as the Hukkarish sprang forward, swung it with all his might. It cracked into the side of the open jaws, snapping loudly on impact and showering him with moss and splinters of wet wood, but knocking the Hukkarish away temporarily. As it snarled and somersaulted, another lunged at him and he drove the penknife hard into its furry guts. Its blood sprayed all over him and he jerked his head out of the way of the blinding gore and raking claws with difficulty. His shirt was sodden with Hukkarish blood now, as well as his own, and the stink of it was choking. He staggered backwards, trying to wipe blood out of his eyes as the next Hukkarish closed in. The blood burned where it mingled with his own – like white spirit on an open wound.
The first one was already getting up and as he heard the snarl of a third closing in knew this was it, two at the same time were going to rip him limb from limb. As the third one pounced, something hit it with a snarl that made his blood momentarily freeze in his veins, a blur of flapping black all he saw before it bore the Hukkarish away and slammed it into a tree hard enough to snap its spine. A yelp followed by another resounding snap as its neck was broken by one savage twist. The first one was lunging at him and he snagged the last stone from his pocket, tossed it into his right hand, and threw it hard and fast as if the opposing batsmen was running for the wicket and only his throw from the boundary could stop him. The stone caught the Hukkarish on the skull hard and it went down, but there were more coming, snarling furry open jawed messengers of death. He wheeled around, weaponless, and a Hukkarish lunged at him –
“Back off, bitch!”
And then there was a tall dark man in a red sweatshirt, arrived from out of nowhere apparently, throwing himself between Wesley and the pouncing Hukkarish and swinging a sword with all his might.
Wesley gaped in confusion as the Hukkarish’s head rolled across the clearing while its headless corpse crumpled to the ground and the man turned and gave him a painfully familiar shit-eating grin over his shoulder. “Enjoying the nature ramble, English?”
“Gunn…?” Wesley gazed at him in disbelief, and then saw the man’s face change from mocking mid-battle good humour to narrow-eyed hate. Wesley was still feeling sick inside at the look in Gunn’s eyes as the man lunged forward, and shoved Wesley hard out of the way. Wesley hit the ground, rolled, and saw Gunn fighting with a particularly huge Hukkarish that was slashing at him viciously while Gunn warded it off as best he could with a sword; a Hukkarish that had been about to kill Wesley until Gunn saved him – for the second time in a matter of seconds.
Wesley saw another Hukkarish making for Gunn and was up off the ground and throwing himself at it so fast that he didn’t even feel the pain of his bleeding wound. He hit it hard enough to knock it to the ground, and shoved his hand hard under its jaw, trying to clamp the teeth closed or at the very least yank its head back far enough that it couldn’t bite. Claws slashed across his back and he cried out at the white burn of them.
Gunn yelled, “Wes!” in a voice raw with anxiety.
Then someone was grabbing him and yanking him off the Hukkarish, as they jammed their booted foot down hard on its throat. Wesley looked up at a yellow-eyed game-faced Angel in confusion, the vampire gazing back at him with an anxiety that was painfully familiar. Familiar, but which made no sense.
“Here…” The vampire threw him a short sword with his left hand while raising a long sword in his right. He plunged the blade into the Hukkarish as Wesley snatched a couple of much needed breaths, then tightened his grip on the sword Angel had given him. A snarl from a Hukkarish spun him around and he raised his sword, grabbing another breath. His back felt as if he’d been birched, he didn’t even want to look at the wound in his abdomen for fear of finding his intestines unravelling in plain view, and his arm and shoulder were throbbing as if freshly pitchforked, but he wasn’t dead yet and he could definitely still fight. There was a clash of blades and claws, howls of fury from Hukkarish, snarling jibes from Gunn about how they were going to end up the dog food this time, and that ominous growl from Angel that left the Hukkarish snarls standing when it came to the ability to freeze blood in the veins. Wesley stumbled towards where Gunn was fighting off two Hukkarish with none of the flair of Errol Flynn but all the dead-eyed determination of a man who was intending to be still standing when this combat was over.
Wesley staggered towards them, managing a feeble croak from his dry throat to distract them from Gunn. The first Hukkarish turned away from Gunn to swipe at him, jaws open in a drooling invitation to die. He ducked and plunged the blade up from below; more blood spattered him and the Hukkarish flailed and roared, smacking him hard across the side of the head with a raking paw and sending him flying into the unyielding ground. Gunn decapitated the second with a clean slice of his blade while the first rolled Wesley over with another raking blow before drawing back to lunge forward with all its strength. Gunn was there in an instant, elbowing it hard in the head to distract it and it turned on him with its teeth bared in a terrible snarl of rage, slashing at Gunn with razor curved claws. One slash laid Gunn’s arm open and the second knocked the sword from his hand.
Wesley was on his feet before he had thought, grabbing it by the mane to yank it away from Gunn and back onto his sword, jabbing the short blade hard into its thick fur, hide and bone. It elbowed him in the side of the head, spraying blood and roaring with pain as it yanked the blade from its back and threw it down; Wesley hit the ground hard again, jerking up an arm instinctively as the Hukkarish lunged at his throat. Through half-closed eyes he saw Gunn hit it with a fallen branch, knocking it away from Wesley before another Hukkarish landed on his back, bearing him to the ground with savage force and a blood-curdling snarl.
“Gunn!” Wesley threw himself at the creature, trying to get an arm around its throat to hold off its jaws which were snapping dangerously close to Gunn’s face. Gunn tried to brace it away from him and the Hukkarish, slashed and roared, rolling over to crush Wesley under its weight and wind him. He cried out in agony as its massive bulk pressed down on his bleeding wound, and heard Angel snarl something a second before the Hukkarish roared and went limp.
“Angel!” Gunn yanked at the Hukkarish corpse as Wesley did his best to wriggle out from underneath it, and then the snarling on the other side of the clearing ceased and the weight was abruptly lifted as Angel hauled the corpse off with one yank and threw it aside.
“Wes…?”
The burning pain in his wound was much worse than before; it felt as if someone had poured acid into it and he could feel his blood heating as if he had been force-fed pure alcohol. Opening his eyes was a terrible effort but it was worth it. Gunn was leaning over him, eyes full of anxiety, a gentleness on his face Wesley had never thought to see again.
“Let me see…”
That was Angel. Wesley winced as his shirt was eased back from his wound by gentle fingers. As he watched, Angel’s face softened from yellow-eyed demon to concerned human.
“There’s so much blood,” Gunn said anxiously.
“Some of it’s Hukkarish.”
“It burns,” Wesley admitted, looking between the two of them in confusion.
Angel laid his hand on Wesley’s forehead and winced. “We have to get him out of these woods. There could be more of them out here. Gunn, help me make a stretcher...” He bent low over Wesley. “Wes, you’re going to be okay. We’re going to get you back to the mansion. Just hang in there.”
Wesley watched in bemusement as Angel pulled off his coat and he and Gunn hacked at branches to find poles of the right length. The coat was buttoned, the poles pushed through the arms and then he was being lifted onto it, still very gently. As if he was fragile and breakable and it was important that he was kept intact. He thought about telling them he could walk, but had to admit that at the rate he was losing blood, even lying still, moving around was probably not an option for him.
“How can they move around during daylight?” he asked.
“The same way I can,” Angel returned. “They just need to stay in the shadows.”
“I should sue the authors of Habits of the Lesser Hell-Beasts,” Wesley observed.
He felt Gunn’s hand on his forehead, not as cool as Angel’s against his heated skin, but a warmth that was still comforting. “Man, he’s burning up.”
“I don’t feel so bad,” Wesley protested.
“Compared with what?” Gunn asked quietly. “Being shot in the gut by a zombie policeman? Bleeding to death slowly of a slashed throat?”
Wesley looked up at him in shock. He hadn’t expected to ever hold a conversation with Gunn again about any subject, except possibly the weather or how very much Gunn did not want the guy who had stolen Connor as a part of his life ever again; he had certainly not expected what sounded like a sympathetic reference to what Justine had done to him. He snatched a breath and wished his throat wasn’t so dry and painful. “I was thinking of the last Hukkarish attack in LA. I woke up in a dumpster that time with a Hukkarish corpse on top of me and flies buzzing around my head. I much prefer the stretcher service.”
“I’d really like five minutes alone with the son of a bitch who keeps summoning them,” Gunn observed.
Wesley let his eyes drift closed again while Angel and Gunn murmured things over the top of him; Gunn saying something about how little he weighed and Angel saying something about blood loss. It didn’t really matter what the words were anyway; the tone was kind and concerned and they weren’t telling him they hated him. He had thought he was prepared to be so defiant in the face of their dislike, to hang onto the truth that whatever had resulted from his kidnap of Connor, his intentions had been honourable and selfless and after two years of fighting side by side and him risking his life for theirs, they had owed it to him not to turn on him so completely. But he was more undone by their anxiety than he had been by their rejection. He felt exhausted with emotions he was too worn out to bear, and slid under all of it, their words, his feelings, the burn of that wound, the way his veins ached with inexplicable heat, to find a restful place just underneath the pain and only on the shoreline of consciousness.
“Angel…?”
That was Buffy’s voice, and there was an answering echo from Groo.
“We’re over here!” Angel called back.
Wesley jolted back into consciousness to find Buffy gazing down at him anxiously while Angel filled her in on his condition.
“Yes, the wound’s opened up again but I don’t think that’s the problem as much as the Hukkarish blood that got into the wound…I don’t know… We’ll have to research it…”
“No, we have to take him to a hospital, right now!” Buffy reminded him unaccountably of Cordelia in that moment.
“We can’t…” He wished his voice wasn’t such a feeble croak.
“Wes…” She glared at him in a way that would have made him want to hide under a table a few years before but which he now found oddly comforting.
“He’s right.” That was Angel; saving him the trouble of having to make an explanation. “I can go into a hospital, Buffy, which means the Hukkarish can too. It’s indoors, plenty of places to get out of the light, and lots of sitting targets who can’t run away. Wesley stinks of the amulet. The Hukkarish will go where he is, and they’re hungry. I can smell their hunger. They want human blood. The only thing stronger than their hunger for blood is their hunger for the amulet. Wesley in a hospital spells wholesale slaughter. We have to patch him up ourselves.”
“We can get a doctor…” Gunn began.
Wesley shook his head. “The Hukkarish killed the last one.”
Buffy peeled back his shirt to look at his wound and Wesley peered awkwardly down his body to look at her examining it. Her fingers looked small and her nail polish absurdly shiny as she peeled back his shirt from the bleeding gash. “Some of the inner stitches are ripped. We might be able to sew those up again. Then stick this back again. We still have the superglue.”
Groo said, “I know a recipe handed down by my grandmother which is most efficacious in the treatment of infection.”
Buffy nodded to him. “And Willow and Tara have plenty of witchy stuff they can try. Wes, do you have any idea how bad this fever from the Hukkarish blood is going to get?”
“I’ll have to research it.”
“Giles will research it,” Buffy said firmly. “You’ll be resting.”
“We still have to find a means to destroy the amulet,” Wesley reminded her. “That has to be our first priority.”
“Wes…” Gunn put in. “Right now our first priority is getting you home before you get turned into demon kibble, so would you like to shut up and let us do that?”
Wesley gazed up at Gunn and saw he was wearing that expression he remembered so well from the past, the reassuring smile plastered over a deep anxiety. He remembered Gunn telling him he was going to be okay in the past and seeming to think that was enough; if he just rode roughshod over common sense and killer zombies, at the end of it Wesley would still be alive because Gunn said so. It was no less comforting now than it had been then. Wesley glanced up at Angel and there was that look he’d never thought he’d see again, smoke-dark anxiety for him, gaze fixed on Wesley’s face as if he could will him back to health. He saw that Buffy was prowling on one side of his stretcher with her sword at the ready and Groo marching on the left, also scanning the undergrowth. Through the trees he could see the white stone of the mansion.
“Wait for a cloud,” he reminded them. “There’s a patch of open ground and Angel…”
Angel gazed at him as Wesley said his name, serious and kind; that look so intense it was like warmth in his blood. “Let’s get you inside,” he said gently.
And then they were passing through light and shadow and out of wood into stone, and his body was burning and bleeding and when they moved him from the stretcher onto a pile of bedding by the fire, everything hurt, his skin, his bones, his muscles, his veins, but when he opened his eyes again, Cordelia was cradling his head with one hand and holding a cup of water to his lips with the other, voice very gentle as she said, “Try to swallow some of this, sweetie.” He found that someone was holding his hand. He blinked in confusion and saw it was Fred, gripping his hand as tightly as she had that time in Caritas when she had been so afraid of dying, except this time the fear was all for him. She smiled at him while Cordelia stroked his hair back from his face and gave him one of those bright scared smiles they all used on one another when there was a pint or two too much blood on the carpet. He looked around for Willow and said, “I didn’t get the stones.”
“That’s okay.” Willow handed another cup to Cordelia while giving him another of those strained smiles. Lorne said something soothing to him or possibly someone else, words a little difficult to make out through the blood loss hiss in his ears, but definitely a sound from someone who cared.
Tara laid a wet flannel across his forehead and Dawn and Giles and Xander fussed around somewhere just out of the periphery of his vision, doing something with first aid kits and medical books. His spine ached with fever and the burning pain in his wound was much worse.
Giles said brightly, “We’re just going to give you an injection, Wesley, so we can do something about that wound.” Then someone rolled up his sleeve, rubbed something inside his elbow, and there was the prick of the needle sliding under his skin. He felt Fred tighten her grip on his hand and then the needle slid back out again. He felt that familiar multi-coloured swirl of warmth and comfort go through him and looked around for Gunn.
“Morphine.”
Gunn smiled. “We know how you love that stuff.”
“And now this one…” Giles would have made a good doctor, Wesley found himself thinking. He had just the right mixture of reassurance and briskness. Another slide of the needle, another tightening of the grip on his hand from Fred; and then everything became much brighter and then much darker and softer and warmer and absolutely nothing hurt any more as he slid sideways into something very close to sleep.
***
Cordelia hated the way Buffy and the others had annexed Wesley as if he were their personal property. She understood that they were concerned about him – hell, who wasn’t concerned about him given that his temperature kept going up and up? – but she didn’t see why they needed to be quite so possessive. Tara and Dawn seemed to think they were the only ones who could mop a damned brow these days. She would have liked to point out that she had been mopping Wesley’s brow when they wouldn’t have given him the time of day.
Giles kept being all voice of reason at them and that was a whole other level of annoying. “Distressing as it is to see Wesley so unwell, he was absolutely right when he pointed out that the priority here is to find a way to destroy the amulet. We’ve done as much as we can to stop the bleeding and now we really have to go on with this research.”
Faith added quietly: “They’re going to come back when it gets dark. And they’re going to be a lot stronger when they do.”
She had made it back to the mansion by a whisker, three Hukkarish on her tail, and they were now snarling outside, waiting for nightfall to come and their strength to grow with the darkness. Giles believed Lorne’s sanctuary spell would certainly delay them. The question was for how long?
Willow looked up guiltily from her spell book. “But, Wesley…”
“Is burning up with fever,” said Dawn tautly. “Giles, if we can’t take him to a hospital and we can’t treat him, he’s going to die.”
“I’m not saying you can’t treat him, I’m saying we have to find a means to destroy the amulet, and Wesley would be the first person to…”
“I don’t care,” Dawn snapped back. Xander put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently.
“Easy, kiddo. We all know Giles is right. Willow needs to concentrate on the amulet and at least some of us need to concentrate on defending this place. If the Hukkarish get in here Wesley’s dead anyway and if the world ends…he’s dead again.”
Cordelia watched the way Dawn defiantly laced her fingers through Wesley’s before mopping his brow again. “Wes…?” she said softly. “Wesley, it’s Dawn, do you know who I am?”
Cordelia could see him trying to focus on the girl, those long eyelashes flickering, and then he managed a faint smile. “Dawn…” He tightened his grip on her hand and Dawn looked torn between smiling and crying at his period of lucidity. He moistened his lips painfully. “The Annals of Ximanon. I think there’s a reference to something…” He frowned. “I can’t remember….”
“On it!” Buffy shouted to him, hurrying over to where the books were piled. Xander helped her, the two of them searching through the volumes until Giles intervened.
“Xander, concentrate on those barricades. Buffy, keep an eye out. I’ll find the book.”
Anya surprised Cordelia by quietly kneeling down beside Giles to help. Everything was a muddle of possessions gleaned from Giles’ house and from the Magic Box; their higgledy-piggledy condition unfortunately adding to the impression of a last stand.
Willow hurried over to Wesley, a cup of something bitter-smelling in her hand. Tara was there in an instant, helping to raise him up a little. “Wesley, you need to drink this. It’s from Groo’s recipe…”
Cordelia watched as they tipped the nasty-looking greenish liquid into his mouth, making him cough and Dawn wince in sympathy. Tara was murmuring soothing things to him, Dawn was still holding his hand, and Willow had his head cushioned in her right hand while she held the cup to his lips with her left.
Gunn stepped forward. “Is that going to do any good? Wes isn’t Pylean.”
“It should help,” Willow told him. “It has the same ingredients as a fever recipe we found in an old book for warding off demon blood infections.”
“The blood of the Drokken can also cause serious illness if spilled upon an open wound,” Groo explained.
Gunn spun around to look at Angel. “He needs to be in a hospital.”
“It isn’t what Wesley wants,” Angel replied quietly.
“Well, right now I care a lot less about what Wesley wants than I do about Wesley not dying on us, which he is going to do if we don’t get him some help soon.”
“No hospital…” That was Wesley, a faint croak but very firm.
Gunn hurried over to him and crouched down next to him. He laid a hand across his forehead, touch surprisingly gentle for such a tall impetuous man. “Wes, man, you’re on fire.”
“It’ll pass…” Another croak from Wesley. “Where are the Annals?”
“Here!”
Cordelia looked around in surprise to see Anya triumphantly holding it aloft. It was very dusty and the leather binding had been worn off in several places.
“What do you want us to look for?” Tara asked.
“I’ll know it when I see it…” Wesley croaked faintly.
Dawn gave Giles a begging look and the man hurried to intervene. “Wesley, I don’t think you’re up to researching right now. Try to get some sleep.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to work.” Cordelia couldn’t bear it any longer. She strode across the room and snatched the book out of Anya’s hand, then sat down next to Wesley. “Tell me what you think you’re looking for?”
“Something about a pillar and a symbol of a snake.”
Cordelia was aware of people exchanging glances over Wesley’s head and she wasn’t sure herself if that was his big brain working or just his fever, but she started flicking through the pages anyway. “Is there a picture?”
“Yes.” His eyelashes flickered again and he grimaced apologetically. “Or I may have imagined it.”
“Well, I can work with that – possibly delirious ramblings of a feverish mind. Compared with translating uncaptioned obscuro visions from the Powers That Whatever it’ll be a cinch.”
Fred had evidently been itching to get in on the research gig as she was there in an instant, saying, “Let me check Rheinhardt’s. Wesley always looks there first.”
Gunn turned back to Angel. “We’re just going to stand around and watch him burn up?”
Tara had been flicking through pages quickly and now looked up. “This says it will get worse before it gets better, but there are several cases of people surviving Hukkarish blood infection.”
Gunn looked more hopeful. “Really? How many?”
She checked the entry and grimaced. “Well…two. But they did make a complete recovery.”
Cordelia was aware of Gunn and Angel talking rapidly in the background.
“…survived having his throat cut…”
“...exactly my point, Wes has only just recovered from a serious infection…”
“The point is, it’s Wesley’s call. This is his deal.”
Gunn looked at Angel in exasperation. “Is this about him taking Connor?”
Angel returned his gaze levelly. “It’s about him being right about doing what you think is right for the greater good sometimes coming at a price. Do you honestly think Wesley would thank you for getting half the patients in Sunnydale hospital slaughtered in their beds by slavering Hukkarish? Because that’s what taking Wesley to a hospital would mean. I’m putting my faith in Willow. If she could put my soul back she can keep Wes alive.”
Willow looked up anxiously. “So no pressure or anything then…”
Tara helped him take another sip of medicine and Cordelia saw that Dawn’s fingers were still laced through his. She felt absurdly proprietorial, wanting to point out that Angel, Gunn, and Wesley were the exclusive property of her and Fred, and the Sunnydale women could damned well fuss over Giles and Xander if they wanted to mop someone’s brow. But Wesley was smiling at Tara as she helped him sip, that look in his eyes he reserved for his closest friends, and Tara’s expression as she gazed at him was undoubtedly the kind one would reserve for a loved one.
“Use fire if they come,” Wesley said hoarsely. “Hide the amulet.”
“I will, I promise,” Tara assured him.
“Use fire.”
“We will,” Dawn said quickly.
“I think it’s under the tree. I think I read it.” He closed his eyes again and Tara and Dawn exchanged an anxious look. Tara bent and kissed his forehead gently and Cordelia felt something twist in her guts. She met Fred’s eye and they exchanged a long look of mutual concern.
She looked up to find Lorne with his arms wrapped around his body as if the world was cold outside, despite the way it was still summer; as he gazed at Wesley his red eyes were full of worry, and a glance across at Angel and Gunn did nothing to reassure her.
"He's not going to die," Cordelia told them all shortly and wished that just one person would agree with her or even meet her eye...
Wesley heard a twig snap a few feet behind him and spun around. Nothing. Dappled shadows; the woods surprisingly dark given that it was only late afternoon. It was automatic to note that Angel would probably be safe here as long as he kept moving and avoided the clearings. Wesley wondered how long it would be until he lost the habit of looking out for a shady way from one place to another, how long it would take until some part of him stopped flinching from sunlight. If he would ever be able to sit out on a beach again and just enjoy it rather than thinking of how deadly an environment it would be for Angel, feeling guilty about being able to walk in the light while Angel was doomed forever to dwell in darkness.
It was so strange to be in the same building as them all, his former friends, people who had used to matter to him so much; who had been his whole world, in fact. He was cast out from their affection now, but that didn’t mean he had the reciprocal luxury of no longer having to care about them. They had apparently been able to turn off their friendship for him as if it were as simple as the flick of a light switch. He hadn’t been so lucky. He had to keep reminding himself that he no longer had the right to care; that it wasn’t his problem if Cordelia looked pale, with shadows under her eyes. It might be his fault indirectly – too many nights spent crying over the baby he had lost, and the heartbreak of Angel’s that he had caused – but didn’t have the right to hand her some Tylenol or make her a cup of tea. Gunn had a bandage on his arm. He’d noticed that at once. But he hadn’t been there when it happened. He didn’t know what it was that had bitten or clawed or slashed him. That felt odd – wrong – not knowing; not having the right to ask. There had been a time when he would have been the first to know; the one who would have been with him when whatever it was attacked. Fred looked like a ghost; even thinner than he remembered, so fragile and so beautiful with those huge eyes in her lovely face; but ill and weary-looking. He’d felt as if he were doing something forbidden all the time he was talking to Lorne. Having to fight not to look over at Angel to see if he was giving his permission.
That was the worst of all, of course, being this close to Angel and yet not being able to speak to him. They knew each other too well. He had read all those conflicting thoughts that flickered across that too-familiar face, his frustration and hurt; his feeling of rejection, that gaze turned to Buffy to see how she would respond to him, that pained look at Dawn; and when he and Wesley inadvertently made eye contact there was the shock of being read so effortlessly by the other. Wesley’s arm had been hurting and he had briefly locked eyes with Angel before hastily wrenching his gaze away, but he had seen the man really see him, read him, then look at that arm and frown, all in the brief instant before Wesley averted his gaze. So horribly comforting to have that again, to be effortlessly understood. But it was a double-edged sword now that they were no longer friends. It hurt to think that the person who knew him best in all the world now hated him. What did that say about him that to really know him was to really hate him?
He heard the sharp crack of a branch breaking under something heavy and spun around again, heartbeat spiking. He had to dart another glance at the sky to remind himself that it was still daylight, mottled with shadows in these ancient trees, certainly, but definitely not night-time yet. He gazed into the trees, trying to see what it was that had disturbed the undergrowth but there was nothing to see – just dapplings of light and shadow. His heart was still pounding as he realized that he had wandered much too far from the mansion in his need to put some distance between Angel and the others and himself, desperate for some solitude to snatch a breath that didn’t come snagged through the pain of new enmities and old affections; nor had he snatched up a weapon, which was just plain careless. His side was already aching as if in remembrance of previous stupidities, as was his shoulder and arm; wounds throbbing as if…
...And these are damned creatures, evil demons summoned from the innermost pits of hell, and so cruel are they and so bathed in the blood of Lucifer that the wounds they inflict upon the soulled groan when they are near, and should their blood touch soulled blood it will rebel and rise up in fever heat to burn the evil blood out...
He had read that this morning, one entry amongst a score of others. It had seemed like mediaeval Christian superstition at the time but now he appeared to be the empirical evidence that they had written no more than the truth. Wesley swallowed and turned a slow circle; but all he could see were trees and shadows; trees and…and the gleam of a dark eye in a dark wood amidst a hyaena-spotted coat perfect for blending in with the dappling pattern of dim sunlight amidst dark trees…
He was running before his heart had snatched another fearful beat.
There was a furnace in his chest, white fire with every inhalation, a dragging rake of internal claws with every breath that burned its way into his lungs. He hurdled a mossy log, stumbled and flung himself forward, driven on always by the thunder of Hukkarish bounding after him. His wound had broken open with the effort of running and he had a hand clamped across it as he zig-zagged through thickets in a desperate attempt to slow their pursuit. Then he saw it, sunlight, a brighter green through arching trees, and he dived forward, felt the faint sear of claws as the Hukkarish pounced and only raked his calf, and then he was throwing himself at the sunlight, a full out dive and roll, somersaulting to the oasis of sunlight and snatching his legs away from a swipe of heavy paw.
Wesley staggered to his feet, sides heaving, sweat pouring everywhere to mingle with the blood now seeping from his abdominal wound in a warm trickle down his thigh. He snatched up a branch that would do as a cudgel, feeling like Mowgli but without the gift of fire to assist him. The Hukkarish were snarling at the edge of the clearing, circling him like the hyaenas they resembled, seven or eight, standing up on their back legs now that the pursuit was over, letting him see the fall of their dappled manes, the white curve of their terrible canines, the flex of their three inch talons. He had no hope against so many, now they had him surrounded they could rip him apart within seconds. They kept sniffing the air and then baring their teeth in another vicious snarl; clearly he reeked of their stolen treasure; a thief to be dismembered so that the amulet could be retrieved.
Strange to be in Sunnydale again and to once again find his life demanded in payment for a stolen amulet left in Angel’s safe-keeping. He had despised the man he had used to be for so long, cringing at the memory of his cowardice, but now he felt pity for him for the first time, because pain and death were always so new and unexpected however many times one faced them. Yet there was a sort of resignation that set in after a while that helped one through the moments like these, and that other Wesley hadn’t yet been burned by enough fires to be able to bear the flame. He seemed so young and far away that Wesley felt it almost possible to forgive him. He had no desire now to end his days ripped open by the claws of angry demons, but he accepted that was probably about to happen, and he had been tested in the furnace enough times to know that eventually the pain stopped and darkness intervened, and the only real regret was for all the things left undone. He was sorry, for instance, about Connor, that he had never found a way to undo that or at least to do something else to try to balance his cosmic account book, and sorry too that he was going to die without the comfort of knowing that there were people who would regret his passing and think well of him. Giles would probably tell his father a few kind lies. Giles was a decent man like that, and the word of a fellow Watcher might carry some weight with him, perhaps. It was a relief to find he cared a great deal less than he might once have done what his father’s last thoughts of him were. He cared a lot more that he had forfeited the friendship of Angel, Gunn, Cordelia and Fred. Not that he was dead yet, of course…
He felt in his pockets, and his fingers closed on a Swiss army knife, a leftover habit from his Boy Scout days, and the stones he had been collecting. In an inside pocket were probably some matches and string as well. An orb would have been more useful but he didn’t tend to carry one of those around. A focusing crystal was more of a possibility and he searched every pocket diligently just in case. No. He had given Willow everything he had with him, acknowledging that her magical powers were a great deal more advanced than his own. He had given the matches to Dawn that morning, he remembered, so she could put them next to the candles in readiness for the evening. He had a knife which would fold out to give him a four inch blade of dubious sharpness and – yes, as suspected – a piece of string. And three stones with a high iron ore content. Somehow he doubted that was going to be enough to see off seven eight feet tall slavering Hukkarish demons in a snit.
Wesley gazed up at the sky and saw a cloud coming; it lay to the north and was sweeping in across the forest, a leaden rain cloud of majestic proportions. When it reached the place overhead between the clearing and the sun he was going to be plunged into shadow. The Hukkarish were scenting the air eagerly, a thin line of drool running from between shark-like teeth. He opened out the Swiss Army knife blade, aware of how pitifully inadequate it looked and wondering what had possessed him to walk out without so much as a stake, let alone a sword. Did he have a deathwish? If so his wish seemed about to be granted. Given how exhausted he felt, he wondered if there was a part of him that just wanted to escape; the same way he had felt when he had translated that prophecy and realized that whatever decision he made, his life was now ruined. He shoved knife and branch into one hand and pulled one of the stones out of his pocket.
As a Hukkarish edged forward hungrily he threw the first stone, catching it hard on the snout. It roared with pain and shook a muzzle that now sprayed blood; its green eyes promising him all kinds of retribution. He got a second between the eyes with a resounding crack that made it drop to the ground and suggesting it wasn’t going to be getting up again. He had hoped it might frighten the others off, but with the cloud almost overhead and his amulet-scented blood evidently calling to them like a serenade, it was clearly going to take more than a few stones.
He shoved his last stone back in his pocket, transferred the branch to his right hand and tightened the grip on the penknife in his left. Running again was out of the question; his lungs were still a burning bellows and the blood was already pouring from his wound. If he got ten feet before they pulled him down it would be a miracle. A last stand was definitely all that was left to him. He remembered that when Faith had him captive and there was no hope of any rescue that a kind of clarity had descended then, because there really was nothing left now except to die well, or at least without screaming. In this instance, all that seemed to be left was to try to take a few of the Hukkarish with him so that Buffy’s task would be a little easier.
The cloud was sweeping closer, he could see the smoke grey billowing of its folds; it looked like something Turner might have painted in some boiling evening sky. Wesley could feel the Hukkarish tensing in readiness as the shadow skated across the woods; life during daylight for Angel, death in this clearing for him. It was almost upon him – and then it was. The air chilled and darkened as the cloud passed overhead. He lifted the branch and then as the Hukkarish sprang forward, swung it with all his might. It cracked into the side of the open jaws, snapping loudly on impact and showering him with moss and splinters of wet wood, but knocking the Hukkarish away temporarily. As it snarled and somersaulted, another lunged at him and he drove the penknife hard into its furry guts. Its blood sprayed all over him and he jerked his head out of the way of the blinding gore and raking claws with difficulty. His shirt was sodden with Hukkarish blood now, as well as his own, and the stink of it was choking. He staggered backwards, trying to wipe blood out of his eyes as the next Hukkarish closed in. The blood burned where it mingled with his own – like white spirit on an open wound.
The first one was already getting up and as he heard the snarl of a third closing in knew this was it, two at the same time were going to rip him limb from limb. As the third one pounced, something hit it with a snarl that made his blood momentarily freeze in his veins, a blur of flapping black all he saw before it bore the Hukkarish away and slammed it into a tree hard enough to snap its spine. A yelp followed by another resounding snap as its neck was broken by one savage twist. The first one was lunging at him and he snagged the last stone from his pocket, tossed it into his right hand, and threw it hard and fast as if the opposing batsmen was running for the wicket and only his throw from the boundary could stop him. The stone caught the Hukkarish on the skull hard and it went down, but there were more coming, snarling furry open jawed messengers of death. He wheeled around, weaponless, and a Hukkarish lunged at him –
“Back off, bitch!”
And then there was a tall dark man in a red sweatshirt, arrived from out of nowhere apparently, throwing himself between Wesley and the pouncing Hukkarish and swinging a sword with all his might.
Wesley gaped in confusion as the Hukkarish’s head rolled across the clearing while its headless corpse crumpled to the ground and the man turned and gave him a painfully familiar shit-eating grin over his shoulder. “Enjoying the nature ramble, English?”
“Gunn…?” Wesley gazed at him in disbelief, and then saw the man’s face change from mocking mid-battle good humour to narrow-eyed hate. Wesley was still feeling sick inside at the look in Gunn’s eyes as the man lunged forward, and shoved Wesley hard out of the way. Wesley hit the ground, rolled, and saw Gunn fighting with a particularly huge Hukkarish that was slashing at him viciously while Gunn warded it off as best he could with a sword; a Hukkarish that had been about to kill Wesley until Gunn saved him – for the second time in a matter of seconds.
Wesley saw another Hukkarish making for Gunn and was up off the ground and throwing himself at it so fast that he didn’t even feel the pain of his bleeding wound. He hit it hard enough to knock it to the ground, and shoved his hand hard under its jaw, trying to clamp the teeth closed or at the very least yank its head back far enough that it couldn’t bite. Claws slashed across his back and he cried out at the white burn of them.
Gunn yelled, “Wes!” in a voice raw with anxiety.
Then someone was grabbing him and yanking him off the Hukkarish, as they jammed their booted foot down hard on its throat. Wesley looked up at a yellow-eyed game-faced Angel in confusion, the vampire gazing back at him with an anxiety that was painfully familiar. Familiar, but which made no sense.
“Here…” The vampire threw him a short sword with his left hand while raising a long sword in his right. He plunged the blade into the Hukkarish as Wesley snatched a couple of much needed breaths, then tightened his grip on the sword Angel had given him. A snarl from a Hukkarish spun him around and he raised his sword, grabbing another breath. His back felt as if he’d been birched, he didn’t even want to look at the wound in his abdomen for fear of finding his intestines unravelling in plain view, and his arm and shoulder were throbbing as if freshly pitchforked, but he wasn’t dead yet and he could definitely still fight. There was a clash of blades and claws, howls of fury from Hukkarish, snarling jibes from Gunn about how they were going to end up the dog food this time, and that ominous growl from Angel that left the Hukkarish snarls standing when it came to the ability to freeze blood in the veins. Wesley stumbled towards where Gunn was fighting off two Hukkarish with none of the flair of Errol Flynn but all the dead-eyed determination of a man who was intending to be still standing when this combat was over.
Wesley staggered towards them, managing a feeble croak from his dry throat to distract them from Gunn. The first Hukkarish turned away from Gunn to swipe at him, jaws open in a drooling invitation to die. He ducked and plunged the blade up from below; more blood spattered him and the Hukkarish flailed and roared, smacking him hard across the side of the head with a raking paw and sending him flying into the unyielding ground. Gunn decapitated the second with a clean slice of his blade while the first rolled Wesley over with another raking blow before drawing back to lunge forward with all its strength. Gunn was there in an instant, elbowing it hard in the head to distract it and it turned on him with its teeth bared in a terrible snarl of rage, slashing at Gunn with razor curved claws. One slash laid Gunn’s arm open and the second knocked the sword from his hand.
Wesley was on his feet before he had thought, grabbing it by the mane to yank it away from Gunn and back onto his sword, jabbing the short blade hard into its thick fur, hide and bone. It elbowed him in the side of the head, spraying blood and roaring with pain as it yanked the blade from its back and threw it down; Wesley hit the ground hard again, jerking up an arm instinctively as the Hukkarish lunged at his throat. Through half-closed eyes he saw Gunn hit it with a fallen branch, knocking it away from Wesley before another Hukkarish landed on his back, bearing him to the ground with savage force and a blood-curdling snarl.
“Gunn!” Wesley threw himself at the creature, trying to get an arm around its throat to hold off its jaws which were snapping dangerously close to Gunn’s face. Gunn tried to brace it away from him and the Hukkarish, slashed and roared, rolling over to crush Wesley under its weight and wind him. He cried out in agony as its massive bulk pressed down on his bleeding wound, and heard Angel snarl something a second before the Hukkarish roared and went limp.
“Angel!” Gunn yanked at the Hukkarish corpse as Wesley did his best to wriggle out from underneath it, and then the snarling on the other side of the clearing ceased and the weight was abruptly lifted as Angel hauled the corpse off with one yank and threw it aside.
“Wes…?”
The burning pain in his wound was much worse than before; it felt as if someone had poured acid into it and he could feel his blood heating as if he had been force-fed pure alcohol. Opening his eyes was a terrible effort but it was worth it. Gunn was leaning over him, eyes full of anxiety, a gentleness on his face Wesley had never thought to see again.
“Let me see…”
That was Angel. Wesley winced as his shirt was eased back from his wound by gentle fingers. As he watched, Angel’s face softened from yellow-eyed demon to concerned human.
“There’s so much blood,” Gunn said anxiously.
“Some of it’s Hukkarish.”
“It burns,” Wesley admitted, looking between the two of them in confusion.
Angel laid his hand on Wesley’s forehead and winced. “We have to get him out of these woods. There could be more of them out here. Gunn, help me make a stretcher...” He bent low over Wesley. “Wes, you’re going to be okay. We’re going to get you back to the mansion. Just hang in there.”
Wesley watched in bemusement as Angel pulled off his coat and he and Gunn hacked at branches to find poles of the right length. The coat was buttoned, the poles pushed through the arms and then he was being lifted onto it, still very gently. As if he was fragile and breakable and it was important that he was kept intact. He thought about telling them he could walk, but had to admit that at the rate he was losing blood, even lying still, moving around was probably not an option for him.
“How can they move around during daylight?” he asked.
“The same way I can,” Angel returned. “They just need to stay in the shadows.”
“I should sue the authors of Habits of the Lesser Hell-Beasts,” Wesley observed.
He felt Gunn’s hand on his forehead, not as cool as Angel’s against his heated skin, but a warmth that was still comforting. “Man, he’s burning up.”
“I don’t feel so bad,” Wesley protested.
“Compared with what?” Gunn asked quietly. “Being shot in the gut by a zombie policeman? Bleeding to death slowly of a slashed throat?”
Wesley looked up at him in shock. He hadn’t expected to ever hold a conversation with Gunn again about any subject, except possibly the weather or how very much Gunn did not want the guy who had stolen Connor as a part of his life ever again; he had certainly not expected what sounded like a sympathetic reference to what Justine had done to him. He snatched a breath and wished his throat wasn’t so dry and painful. “I was thinking of the last Hukkarish attack in LA. I woke up in a dumpster that time with a Hukkarish corpse on top of me and flies buzzing around my head. I much prefer the stretcher service.”
“I’d really like five minutes alone with the son of a bitch who keeps summoning them,” Gunn observed.
Wesley let his eyes drift closed again while Angel and Gunn murmured things over the top of him; Gunn saying something about how little he weighed and Angel saying something about blood loss. It didn’t really matter what the words were anyway; the tone was kind and concerned and they weren’t telling him they hated him. He had thought he was prepared to be so defiant in the face of their dislike, to hang onto the truth that whatever had resulted from his kidnap of Connor, his intentions had been honourable and selfless and after two years of fighting side by side and him risking his life for theirs, they had owed it to him not to turn on him so completely. But he was more undone by their anxiety than he had been by their rejection. He felt exhausted with emotions he was too worn out to bear, and slid under all of it, their words, his feelings, the burn of that wound, the way his veins ached with inexplicable heat, to find a restful place just underneath the pain and only on the shoreline of consciousness.
“Angel…?”
That was Buffy’s voice, and there was an answering echo from Groo.
“We’re over here!” Angel called back.
Wesley jolted back into consciousness to find Buffy gazing down at him anxiously while Angel filled her in on his condition.
“Yes, the wound’s opened up again but I don’t think that’s the problem as much as the Hukkarish blood that got into the wound…I don’t know… We’ll have to research it…”
“No, we have to take him to a hospital, right now!” Buffy reminded him unaccountably of Cordelia in that moment.
“We can’t…” He wished his voice wasn’t such a feeble croak.
“Wes…” She glared at him in a way that would have made him want to hide under a table a few years before but which he now found oddly comforting.
“He’s right.” That was Angel; saving him the trouble of having to make an explanation. “I can go into a hospital, Buffy, which means the Hukkarish can too. It’s indoors, plenty of places to get out of the light, and lots of sitting targets who can’t run away. Wesley stinks of the amulet. The Hukkarish will go where he is, and they’re hungry. I can smell their hunger. They want human blood. The only thing stronger than their hunger for blood is their hunger for the amulet. Wesley in a hospital spells wholesale slaughter. We have to patch him up ourselves.”
“We can get a doctor…” Gunn began.
Wesley shook his head. “The Hukkarish killed the last one.”
Buffy peeled back his shirt to look at his wound and Wesley peered awkwardly down his body to look at her examining it. Her fingers looked small and her nail polish absurdly shiny as she peeled back his shirt from the bleeding gash. “Some of the inner stitches are ripped. We might be able to sew those up again. Then stick this back again. We still have the superglue.”
Groo said, “I know a recipe handed down by my grandmother which is most efficacious in the treatment of infection.”
Buffy nodded to him. “And Willow and Tara have plenty of witchy stuff they can try. Wes, do you have any idea how bad this fever from the Hukkarish blood is going to get?”
“I’ll have to research it.”
“Giles will research it,” Buffy said firmly. “You’ll be resting.”
“We still have to find a means to destroy the amulet,” Wesley reminded her. “That has to be our first priority.”
“Wes…” Gunn put in. “Right now our first priority is getting you home before you get turned into demon kibble, so would you like to shut up and let us do that?”
Wesley gazed up at Gunn and saw he was wearing that expression he remembered so well from the past, the reassuring smile plastered over a deep anxiety. He remembered Gunn telling him he was going to be okay in the past and seeming to think that was enough; if he just rode roughshod over common sense and killer zombies, at the end of it Wesley would still be alive because Gunn said so. It was no less comforting now than it had been then. Wesley glanced up at Angel and there was that look he’d never thought he’d see again, smoke-dark anxiety for him, gaze fixed on Wesley’s face as if he could will him back to health. He saw that Buffy was prowling on one side of his stretcher with her sword at the ready and Groo marching on the left, also scanning the undergrowth. Through the trees he could see the white stone of the mansion.
“Wait for a cloud,” he reminded them. “There’s a patch of open ground and Angel…”
Angel gazed at him as Wesley said his name, serious and kind; that look so intense it was like warmth in his blood. “Let’s get you inside,” he said gently.
And then they were passing through light and shadow and out of wood into stone, and his body was burning and bleeding and when they moved him from the stretcher onto a pile of bedding by the fire, everything hurt, his skin, his bones, his muscles, his veins, but when he opened his eyes again, Cordelia was cradling his head with one hand and holding a cup of water to his lips with the other, voice very gentle as she said, “Try to swallow some of this, sweetie.” He found that someone was holding his hand. He blinked in confusion and saw it was Fred, gripping his hand as tightly as she had that time in Caritas when she had been so afraid of dying, except this time the fear was all for him. She smiled at him while Cordelia stroked his hair back from his face and gave him one of those bright scared smiles they all used on one another when there was a pint or two too much blood on the carpet. He looked around for Willow and said, “I didn’t get the stones.”
“That’s okay.” Willow handed another cup to Cordelia while giving him another of those strained smiles. Lorne said something soothing to him or possibly someone else, words a little difficult to make out through the blood loss hiss in his ears, but definitely a sound from someone who cared.
Tara laid a wet flannel across his forehead and Dawn and Giles and Xander fussed around somewhere just out of the periphery of his vision, doing something with first aid kits and medical books. His spine ached with fever and the burning pain in his wound was much worse.
Giles said brightly, “We’re just going to give you an injection, Wesley, so we can do something about that wound.” Then someone rolled up his sleeve, rubbed something inside his elbow, and there was the prick of the needle sliding under his skin. He felt Fred tighten her grip on his hand and then the needle slid back out again. He felt that familiar multi-coloured swirl of warmth and comfort go through him and looked around for Gunn.
“Morphine.”
Gunn smiled. “We know how you love that stuff.”
“And now this one…” Giles would have made a good doctor, Wesley found himself thinking. He had just the right mixture of reassurance and briskness. Another slide of the needle, another tightening of the grip on his hand from Fred; and then everything became much brighter and then much darker and softer and warmer and absolutely nothing hurt any more as he slid sideways into something very close to sleep.
***
Cordelia hated the way Buffy and the others had annexed Wesley as if he were their personal property. She understood that they were concerned about him – hell, who wasn’t concerned about him given that his temperature kept going up and up? – but she didn’t see why they needed to be quite so possessive. Tara and Dawn seemed to think they were the only ones who could mop a damned brow these days. She would have liked to point out that she had been mopping Wesley’s brow when they wouldn’t have given him the time of day.
Giles kept being all voice of reason at them and that was a whole other level of annoying. “Distressing as it is to see Wesley so unwell, he was absolutely right when he pointed out that the priority here is to find a way to destroy the amulet. We’ve done as much as we can to stop the bleeding and now we really have to go on with this research.”
Faith added quietly: “They’re going to come back when it gets dark. And they’re going to be a lot stronger when they do.”
She had made it back to the mansion by a whisker, three Hukkarish on her tail, and they were now snarling outside, waiting for nightfall to come and their strength to grow with the darkness. Giles believed Lorne’s sanctuary spell would certainly delay them. The question was for how long?
Willow looked up guiltily from her spell book. “But, Wesley…”
“Is burning up with fever,” said Dawn tautly. “Giles, if we can’t take him to a hospital and we can’t treat him, he’s going to die.”
“I’m not saying you can’t treat him, I’m saying we have to find a means to destroy the amulet, and Wesley would be the first person to…”
“I don’t care,” Dawn snapped back. Xander put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently.
“Easy, kiddo. We all know Giles is right. Willow needs to concentrate on the amulet and at least some of us need to concentrate on defending this place. If the Hukkarish get in here Wesley’s dead anyway and if the world ends…he’s dead again.”
Cordelia watched the way Dawn defiantly laced her fingers through Wesley’s before mopping his brow again. “Wes…?” she said softly. “Wesley, it’s Dawn, do you know who I am?”
Cordelia could see him trying to focus on the girl, those long eyelashes flickering, and then he managed a faint smile. “Dawn…” He tightened his grip on her hand and Dawn looked torn between smiling and crying at his period of lucidity. He moistened his lips painfully. “The Annals of Ximanon. I think there’s a reference to something…” He frowned. “I can’t remember….”
“On it!” Buffy shouted to him, hurrying over to where the books were piled. Xander helped her, the two of them searching through the volumes until Giles intervened.
“Xander, concentrate on those barricades. Buffy, keep an eye out. I’ll find the book.”
Anya surprised Cordelia by quietly kneeling down beside Giles to help. Everything was a muddle of possessions gleaned from Giles’ house and from the Magic Box; their higgledy-piggledy condition unfortunately adding to the impression of a last stand.
Willow hurried over to Wesley, a cup of something bitter-smelling in her hand. Tara was there in an instant, helping to raise him up a little. “Wesley, you need to drink this. It’s from Groo’s recipe…”
Cordelia watched as they tipped the nasty-looking greenish liquid into his mouth, making him cough and Dawn wince in sympathy. Tara was murmuring soothing things to him, Dawn was still holding his hand, and Willow had his head cushioned in her right hand while she held the cup to his lips with her left.
Gunn stepped forward. “Is that going to do any good? Wes isn’t Pylean.”
“It should help,” Willow told him. “It has the same ingredients as a fever recipe we found in an old book for warding off demon blood infections.”
“The blood of the Drokken can also cause serious illness if spilled upon an open wound,” Groo explained.
Gunn spun around to look at Angel. “He needs to be in a hospital.”
“It isn’t what Wesley wants,” Angel replied quietly.
“Well, right now I care a lot less about what Wesley wants than I do about Wesley not dying on us, which he is going to do if we don’t get him some help soon.”
“No hospital…” That was Wesley, a faint croak but very firm.
Gunn hurried over to him and crouched down next to him. He laid a hand across his forehead, touch surprisingly gentle for such a tall impetuous man. “Wes, man, you’re on fire.”
“It’ll pass…” Another croak from Wesley. “Where are the Annals?”
“Here!”
Cordelia looked around in surprise to see Anya triumphantly holding it aloft. It was very dusty and the leather binding had been worn off in several places.
“What do you want us to look for?” Tara asked.
“I’ll know it when I see it…” Wesley croaked faintly.
Dawn gave Giles a begging look and the man hurried to intervene. “Wesley, I don’t think you’re up to researching right now. Try to get some sleep.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to work.” Cordelia couldn’t bear it any longer. She strode across the room and snatched the book out of Anya’s hand, then sat down next to Wesley. “Tell me what you think you’re looking for?”
“Something about a pillar and a symbol of a snake.”
Cordelia was aware of people exchanging glances over Wesley’s head and she wasn’t sure herself if that was his big brain working or just his fever, but she started flicking through the pages anyway. “Is there a picture?”
“Yes.” His eyelashes flickered again and he grimaced apologetically. “Or I may have imagined it.”
“Well, I can work with that – possibly delirious ramblings of a feverish mind. Compared with translating uncaptioned obscuro visions from the Powers That Whatever it’ll be a cinch.”
Fred had evidently been itching to get in on the research gig as she was there in an instant, saying, “Let me check Rheinhardt’s. Wesley always looks there first.”
Gunn turned back to Angel. “We’re just going to stand around and watch him burn up?”
Tara had been flicking through pages quickly and now looked up. “This says it will get worse before it gets better, but there are several cases of people surviving Hukkarish blood infection.”
Gunn looked more hopeful. “Really? How many?”
She checked the entry and grimaced. “Well…two. But they did make a complete recovery.”
Cordelia was aware of Gunn and Angel talking rapidly in the background.
“…survived having his throat cut…”
“...exactly my point, Wes has only just recovered from a serious infection…”
“The point is, it’s Wesley’s call. This is his deal.”
Gunn looked at Angel in exasperation. “Is this about him taking Connor?”
Angel returned his gaze levelly. “It’s about him being right about doing what you think is right for the greater good sometimes coming at a price. Do you honestly think Wesley would thank you for getting half the patients in Sunnydale hospital slaughtered in their beds by slavering Hukkarish? Because that’s what taking Wesley to a hospital would mean. I’m putting my faith in Willow. If she could put my soul back she can keep Wes alive.”
Willow looked up anxiously. “So no pressure or anything then…”
Tara helped him take another sip of medicine and Cordelia saw that Dawn’s fingers were still laced through his. She felt absurdly proprietorial, wanting to point out that Angel, Gunn, and Wesley were the exclusive property of her and Fred, and the Sunnydale women could damned well fuss over Giles and Xander if they wanted to mop someone’s brow. But Wesley was smiling at Tara as she helped him sip, that look in his eyes he reserved for his closest friends, and Tara’s expression as she gazed at him was undoubtedly the kind one would reserve for a loved one.
“Use fire if they come,” Wesley said hoarsely. “Hide the amulet.”
“I will, I promise,” Tara assured him.
“Use fire.”
“We will,” Dawn said quickly.
“I think it’s under the tree. I think I read it.” He closed his eyes again and Tara and Dawn exchanged an anxious look. Tara bent and kissed his forehead gently and Cordelia felt something twist in her guts. She met Fred’s eye and they exchanged a long look of mutual concern.
She looked up to find Lorne with his arms wrapped around his body as if the world was cold outside, despite the way it was still summer; as he gazed at Wesley his red eyes were full of worry, and a glance across at Angel and Gunn did nothing to reassure her.
"He's not going to die," Cordelia told them all shortly and wished that just one person would agree with her or even meet her eye...