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[elgrey]

Darkness Visible, Part Five

Spike realized he’d been waiting for a while now for Wesley to snap; like an elastic band stretched too far and too thin. Everyone was watching him while trying not to make eye contact with him, while Wesley himself had found this mental place to be that was just above the chaos. He spoke quietly, moved so carefully that he presumably didn’t set off enough pulled muscles and bruises at any one point to make him whimper, and kept his eyes firmly averted from everyone else. No one wanted a true exchange of feelings here and he could not have made it clearer that he didn’t want their sympathy or even their acknowledgement of what had been done to him.

 

Still moving carefully, he advanced towards the bed where Angelus was still festooned in chains and padlocks. It might have been funny, all the handcuffs and links of cold iron wrapped around his limbs, but Angelus had already reminded everyone just how very unamusing a guest he made when he was free and at large. He, alone of all of them, kept trying to make eye contact with Wesley.

 

“Careful.” Gunn was watching Angelus unblinkingly, a slow seethe of frustrated rage. He also felt dangerously close to snapping; his need to kill a vampire right now something Spike could have sensed across the street never mind across the room.

 

“I know.” Wesley spoke over his shoulder to no one in particular as he pushed up Angelus’s sleeve and brought the hypodermic nearer to the skin.

 

“Good luck finding a vein.” Angelus grinned at him. “No heartbeat, remember?”

 

“You bleed.” Gunn pointed the crossbow at his eye. “And you’re gonna bleed for a week if you don’t shut up right now.”

 

Spike could feel the palpable tension in the room as Wesley moved closer to Angelus; the last place any of them wanted him to be right now. Spike said, “Wouldn’t my blood do?”

 

Lorne said, “No. Unlike laughing boy here, you have too much soul. It has to be the bodily fluids of an unsouled creature for the spell to…”

 

“Well, Christ, Wes, don’t be coy.” Angelus grinned at Gunn, triumphantly malevolent. “There must be at least two pints of my bodily fluids inside Watcher Boy right now....”

 

As Gunn almost jammed the crossbow bolt into Angelus’s eye, Wesley grabbed his wrist and held him still, speaking impassively. “He’s just trying to get to you. Ignore him. In a few hours he’ll be Angel again and I think he’d probably appreciate having both eyes.”

 

Gunn kept gazing into Angelus’s dark eyes with burning hatred. “How about castration? It’s not like Angel can get any anyway and this sorry son of a bitch without a soul sure as hell doesn’t need to keep his balls for anything useful.”

 

Wesley gently but firmly moved the crossbow bolt away so that it was pointing at the wall instead of Angelus’s face. “When Angel becomes human again I'm sure he’d like to be able to lead a normal life.”

 

“You still clinging to that bedtime story, Wes?” Angelus demanded. “It’s never going to happen. The Powers That Be like to offer the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but it doesn’t really exist. It’s just not me saying it, Angel thinks so too. Your big hero is never going to be human and I'm always going to be here inside him, just waiting my chance to have another tango with you and your vamp groupie pals.”

 

“You always were a worthless piece of shit, Angelus.” Spike lit a cigarette. “Nice to see some things never change.”

 

“I was just thinking the same thing about you, Spikey. You were always a pathetic loser and guess what, you still are. Oh, did ickle William go and get himself a soul to make his Buffy-Wuffy wuv him?” Angelus sneered. “She never will. She loves Soul Boy and, anyway, it’s bad luck to have more than one dumb blond in the same relationship.”

 

Spike just shrugged. The jibes hurt, a little, yes, like old bee stings, but it had diverted Angelus’s attention away from winding up Gunn, which was all he’d been focusing on. He’d heard about Wes getting shot in the gut that time and Gunn being the only thing between him and life and death. That friendship had taken one hell of a hammering since then but recent events seemed to have made all the old protective feelings kick in again and Gunn was hanging on by a thread right now. Anything he could do to keep the guy from going postal had to be a good idea.

 

His success was short-lived – Angelus turning to look at Wesley as the man carefully inserted the needle into a vein. “So, when did you and Charles here start dating and how come Angel missed it? The last time I saw you, you were punching each other’s heads over skinnybitch the science geek. Decided to stop fighting those repressed feelings, did you? I’d give you a big hoorah for finally catching on but first you gotta tell me, Wes, does Gunn ever let you go on top?”

 

As he carefully slid back the plunger, a dribble of precious red fluid in the hypo as he did so, Wesley said, “Did you ever think your obsession with other people’s sex lives could be in any way Oedipal?”

 

“For starters, Wes, if we’re talking Daddy Issues here, I think you got me beat by a mile. Maybe I ate my father but I didn’t put nine bullets in him first. And for seconds, I don’t remembering you saying much about complexes when I was nailing you to the mattress. As I recall, you were too busy biting the pillow the way they taught you at boarding school…”

 

“Angel could fight almost as well with a couple of fingers missing,” said Gunn through his teeth.

 

“It’s what Angelus wants.” Wesley stepped back from the bed, voice even, and only Spike could smell the shock and pain still emanating from him that revealed the true fragility of his condition. “He knows he’ll be gone soon and he wants to hurt Angel before he goes. Ignore him. It’s what he hates the most.”

 

“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Angelus grinned at him triumphantly. “You could be ignored to gold medal standards if they ever made it an Olympic Event. All that build up to stealing my kid and no one even noticed you were unravelling right in front of them, least of all good old Angel, who never gives you the time of day unless he wants something.”

 

Wesley’s gaze and voice were equally even as he turned to look at the vampire. “I could point out how illogical it is of you to mention Angel not noticing something he obviously must have noticed or else you wouldn’t know about it. However, it’s quicker just to point out that we covered all of this a long time ago while you were otherwise engaged being an impotent demon trapped within Angel. As far as reopening old trauma goes, you’re talking to an empty room.”

 

“Another situation you must know a lot about, Wes, baby. Or would that be talking to an empty dark little cupboard under the stairs? Did you tell yourself Daddy was doing it because he loved you? He didn’t, you know. Never did. Never will. He punished you because he hated you and he wanted you to suffer. You could drop dead tomorrow and all he’d do would be heave a sigh of relief. Damn, I should have taken some polaroids to send to the old boy, let him know just how up close and personal you are with your boss these days.”

 

Ignoring Angelus completely, Wesley nodded to Gunn. “I’ve got what I need.”

 

“You think it was all me back in that bedroom, Wes?” Angelus’s smile was just as nasty as Spike remembered it. “What makes you think I wasn’t doing exactly what Soul Boy wanted to do too?”

 

Wesley glanced at Angelus with as little emotion as if they were discussing the weather. “I like to think Angel would at least have bought me dinner first.” He turned to Gunn. “Let’s go.”

 

“I hear you.” Spike crossed to the bed and stubbed his cigarette out on Angelus’s hand. “We won’t meet again, so that’s for old times sake.”

 

“Ooh. Pain.” Angelus blew him a kiss even as his skin sizzled from the heat. “Now you’re just turning me on. What, no blowjob for old times sake as well, Spikey? Yours were never as good as Darla’s or my dear little Dru’s but at least you always swallowed. You should teach Wes – he’s a choker.”

 

Spike grabbed Gunn by one arm as Lorne caught the other, it needing the two of them to hold him back. As he hauled Gunn away from the bed, he wondered when he’d had to become the grown-up of this little group; missing the days when it was okay for him to be the one to lose it.

 

Angelus’ voice followed them: “You brave boys going to leave me all alone then? Such a pity you let Fredikins get killed off, Gunn, because, I gotta tell you, even if she never had a rack like vision girl, I could have had all kinds of fun with her.”

 

Lorne looked across at Spike. “I so wish Illyria was here right now.”

 

“Illyria would have pulled his head off three hours ago,” Spike shrugged, tossing his extinguished cigarette onto the floor. “So, yeah, I'm with you on that too.”

 

As they prepared to leave, Angelus raised an eyebrow. “What, you’re just going to go off and leave me? I don’t even get a guard? You really think that’s all I'm worth?”

 

“I think you’re entirely worthless,” Lorne said quietly. “But we happen to value the person whose body you’ve been borrowing.”

 

“Would that be Angel you’re talking about or Wes? Cause I got to tell you I don’t know which body I had the more fun…borrowing tonight.” Angelus blew Wesley a kiss. “Got to admit you surprised me, Wes, old boy. Ever since Buffy said that you screamed like a woman I was hoping to find it was true. Damn that stiff upper lip. Given a little more time though who knows the kind of music I could have got you to make.”

 

Spike stopped dead. Enough with the self-control already. He turned to Gunn. “Can I torture him? Just a little. For old time’s sake.”

 

“Sure.” Gunn nodded. “Be my guest.”

 

“No.” Wesley put a hand on his arm. “You can’t torture him. And it’s time to go.”

 

As Wesley picked up an adze and followed Lorne out of the basement, Gunn hissed to Spike: “Wesley isn’t even angry about it. Why isn’t he angry?”

 

Spike patted him gently on the arm, not having the heart to tell Gunn that Wesley was clinging on by his fingernails, a breath away every minute from crawling into a corner and shaking and vomiting with shock. “Cause now isn’t the time. He can be angry later. Right now we have to get Angel his soul back and send shithead there back to hell.”

 

***

 

Lorne had offered to carry all the accoutrements of re-ensoulment while Gunn hefted their homemade demon box on his back. He was also carrying an axe while Wesley had picked up an adze and Spike carried a sword. Around their necks they all wore the bag of herbs that Lorne’s research on the streets had suggested might protect them, at least temporarily, from the demon’s soul-stealing magic.

 

“This stuff stinks,” Gunn whispered to Lorne.

 

The empath demon shrugged. “No one says sulphur and ammonia make the best air freshener, but when mixed with a few warding spells, some thyme, cinnamon, ragwort and essence of snakeshead fritillary, they apparently do help you hang onto your soul.”

 

“Are we still following Angelus’s trail?” Wesley asked Spike.

 

The blond vampire glanced at him. “No, I just thought we’d take the pretty route through the sewers on the way to the fish and chip shop.”

 

“They don’t have fish and chip shops here,” Wesley reminded him. “Uncivilized colonial outpost of the faded empire, remember? They have Chuck-E-Cheese.”

 

Spike sighed wearily: “Yes, we’re still following Angelus’s trail.”

 

“I imagine seizing a prize like Angel’s soul would satisfy it for some time so the demon may not have moved very far,” Wesley said thoughtfully.

 

“Oh, because Angel’s soul is so much more special than your common or garden human soul?”

 

Wesley returned Spike’s gaze unblinkingly. “Having been magically restored to him by gypsies, then ripped from his body by first a gypsy curse and then by a dark shaman of the Kun-Sun-Dai and twice restored to him by very powerful witchcraft I would venture a resounding ‘yes’.”

 

“What, so being third hand makes it taste better? I’d’ve thought it was getting pretty stringy by now.”

 

Gunn said quietly to Spike, “Shutting up would be a good look for you.”

 

Spike felt another wave of Gunn’s need to stake a vampire to dust and bit down his retort. Apparently Wesley couldn’t even be disagreed with right now, even when he was talking crap. Fine. He got that. He also knew just how unstable this crew was, and they made the Scoobies look like the poster children for good mental health. When they weren’t trying to kill each other – which seemed to be a fairly regular occurrence – they were looking to kill something else, usually vampiric in nature, and right now he was the only vampire within beheading distance.

 

“It’s close by,” he muttered. “I can sense it.” Hear its heartbeat, was more accurate, but there was something more than that, a thin shriek in the darkness, no, score of shrieks, wails, whimpers, the sound of trapped souls. But he wasn’t telling them that; wasn’t even admitting to himself that souls had a voice, as that would have meant his own had been calling to him for more than a century while he ignored its cry.

 

As they edged up to the corner of the sewer, Spike saw an outlet tunnel that led straight up. There was an iron ladder and a dim bluish light leading down from above. The cry of the souls was louder there and he pointed to it.

 

“Isn’t this under that place that used to be a convent?” Gunn turned to Wesley who nodded in agreement.

 

“I think you’re right.”

 

“Angel’s soul will be happy then,” Spike grunted. “He always had a thing about convents.”

 

“We know,” Wesley whispered back.

 

“And you’re still okay working with him?”

 

Wesley began: “That wasn’t Angel, that was…” Then apparently deciding that it was a waste of time having that conversation with Spike again, he shrugged. “What can I say? He cooks great eggs.”

 

As he swayed, Spike automatically reached out to grab his elbow and saw Gunn do the same from the other side. For a moment it was clear that the hissing in Wesley’s ears was on the verge of knocking him over and then he swallowed down what Spike guessed was a very strong urge to hurl, and straightened up. “Let’s get on.”

 

Spike reluctantly let him go. “I guess that stiff upper lip is good for something then. I’ll go first.” He looked at Gunn and went to jerk his head at Wesley but the look the man gave him made it clear how he would take any suggestions about helping his injured friend from someone who wasn’t his friend and should back off right now on teaching his grandmother to suck eggs. Shrugging, Spike caught hold of the ladder and began to climb.

 

Wesley was behind him; Spike could smell Angelus on him still so strongly that he knew Wesley must be able to smell it too. He wondered what that was like, to have to carry the scent of your rapist’s come all over you because there wasn’t time to shower if the person whose body had done this to you was going to be saved. In another life he presumed Wesley had been a religious fanatic or the right hand man of a cult leader, someone, anyway, who obviously had to have something to believe in, and in this life had chosen Angel and his redemption. Or perhaps this wasn’t Angel, the Cause, Wesley was trying to save, just Angel, his friend. Either way he found it a little freaky. He knew Gunn was climbing the ladder below Wesley, ready to catch him if he fell, but he didn’t think Wesley would fall, not now, not while there was still a job to be done, a soul or six to be saved. The fall would come afterwards. Perhaps that alone was justification enough for trying to get Angel back, because he might be the only guy who could catch him if he did.

 

Spike pulled himself up into the mouth of the opening and found that sure enough he was emerging into a cavernous pillared building, still stinking of lost piety. The soul-eater had its back turned to him, about thirty feet away, and he quickly reached down and hauled Wesley up, holding his shoulders briefly as the man reached ground level to make sure he wasn’t swaying, then helped up Gunn and Lorne. Lorne was weighed down with spell-making materials and the box on Gunn's back scraped against the stairwell entrance as he clambered up. The creature spun around to face them at once and Spike got a good look at its horns. And teeth. And spiked dorsal ridge. Oh yes, and its claws. Wouldn’t want to miss those.

 

“No problem.” Spike tried not to admit this was quite possibly fear he was feeling. He loved a fight after all, and this creature promised plenty of fight, but he didn’t want to lose who he was; this person he was right now; and what the hell was he going to do if it sucked out Gunn’s soul? He could hardly start chopping the heads off Angel’s crew. He’d have to lay them out with one hand while fighting off a ten feet tall demon with the other. That could get a little…testing.

 

Gunn seemed to be following the same thought process. He handed over the box from his back. “This stinky herb spell of yours had better work, Lorne.”

 

“It’s a temporary deterrent,” Wesley whispered. “It won’t work forever. Like the not-Ethros box, it’s only supposed to work for long enough to give us time to come up with a more permanent solution.”

 

“Looks like he has a permanent solution in mind for us.” Gunn hefted his axe as the demon began to march towards them purposefully.

 

“Showtime,” Spike agreed.

 

They spread out, giving it multiple targets. Spike had automatically gone to shove Wesley behind him but Wesley evidently thought he was up for fighting ten feet tall demons despite being kicked all round his flat earlier, and moved out of his reach.

 

“How does this magic mojo work, Lorne?” Spike demanded of the anagogic demon.

 

“We have to enclose it in a circle,” the demon answered.

 

“Okay, so we hold its attention and you draw the circle, scatter your powders or whatever. Just tell us when to get out.”

 

Lorne nodded, already opening his bag of magic tricks. The demon turned its attention on Wesley who hefted his adze from one hand to the other, keeping eye contact at all times, weight balanced evenly on the balls of his feet. He looked as if he were ready for a fight, unfortunately he also looked as if a strong breeze would knock him over but Spike presumed that was just an optical illusion as Wesley seemed able to get in there and mix it on other occasions despite his skinny frame. It just usually meant that when powerful demons belted them all Wesley performed a slightly more graceful arc as he was knocked through the air.

 

“Oy!” Spike yelled. “What do you want one of those boring new souls for when you get another secondhand one here?”

 

At once the demon spun around to face him. It reached out a clawed finger and for a moment Spike felt something tug at him, a force like icy fingers reaching through his ribcage and then the cold sensation abruptly stopped and he automatically felt his chest – as if he could tell if his soul was still there or not.

 

“Did it work?” Wesley asked.

 

“Do you still have your soul?” Gunn shouted.

 

Spike shrugged helplessly. “I don’t want to eat you.”

 

“Well, were you hungry before?” Gunn demanded.

 

“I don’t remember.”

 

“Well, how good is your soul anyway if you can’t tell if you still have it not?”

 

Wesley sighed. “Cordelia said hers was better.”

 

As the demon rushed Wesley, the ex-Watcher ducked under its slashing claw and hit it in the ribs with his adze. Snarling, the demon spread out its clawed hand again and this time Spike saw the green glow of light trying to envelop Wesley’s chest and being repelled by the bag around his neck.

 

“It’s working!” Spike shouted.

 

“Good!” Wesley hit it again with the adze.

 

“Lorne, you’re definitely the man,” Gunn told him.

 

Evidently realizing that brute force was needed here, the demon reached out and grabbed Wesley by the throat. At once Gunn was charging it, axe swinging, and sank the blade of the weapon into its back.

 

“Don’t kill it!” Wesley shouted before the creature’s fingers tightened further on his throat.

 

Still holding onto Wesley, the demon spun around and slashed Gunn across the shoulders, sending the man staggering back. “Not a problem,” Gunn muttered. “It killing me, though, could be a factor…”

 

Despite being choked, Wesley managed to swing his adze hard enough to cut open its arm. Snarling, it backhanded him fifteen feet across the ground, sending him skidding through the white powder Lorne was rapidly shaking around them. “Sorry…” Wesley said apologetically.

 

“Keep him out there!” Spike shouted.

 

Gunn darted back in, seized the handle of his axe, hauled it out with some difficulty from its back and hit it again. “How are we doing, Lorne?”

 

“Almost there.”

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Spike saw Lorne catch hold of Wesley’s shoulder and hold him back then push a book into his hands, saying: “You’re up, mojo boy.”

 

“I guess we’re the diversion,” Gunn grunted and ducked a slashing blow from the demon.

 

The need to keep it in the circle meant they were handicapped, having to fight in close and keep it cornered, which meant their greater speed was less of an advantage. As it slammed Gunn across the circle, Lorne reached out and caught him, before giving him a gentle shove back into the fray. “Only a few more minutes, cupcakes.”

 

It slashed at Spike, clawing his chest, and then struck him a blow that made his head ring. He sliced with his sword, parrying its claws. “If I stick this in its guts am I going to be slicing up the souls?” he demanded.

 

“I don’t know,” Wesley called back. “I couldn’t find a reference work that covered that.”

 

“Bloody Watchers,” Spike muttered darkly.

 

Wesley and Lorne were doing something mystical with bones and feathers and crystals around the circumference of the circle. Spike was aware of them somewhere on the periphery of the crunch and slash of the battle. He could smell Gunn’s blood, and his own, both of which were now splattered around the interior of the circle. His head was ringing and as the demon slammed its elbow into Gunn’s head he was amazed the man stayed conscious, never mind on his feet.

 

“You must have a thicker skull than I do,” he muttered.

 

“No one has a thicker skull than you do, Spike.” Gunn ducked the next blow and swung his axe again. Clearly dazed, he was a little slow and it ripped the axe from his hands and hurled it at Spike, who ducked instinctively, only to see it heading for Lorne, who Wesley yanked to the ground just in time. They landed with a thud, dropping the spell book in the process.

 

Looking at the rip on his sleeve, Lorne said, “Okay, now I'm pissed. Does that thing know how difficult it is to invisibly mend raw silk?”

 

As the demon rushed the now weaponless Gunn, claws slashing, Spike decided souls be damned, literally or otherwise, and sank the sword into its back. The scaly hide was difficult even for him to penetrate and he hoped Wesley and Gunn were going to be up to the slice and dice needed for later.

 

“Get out of the circle!” Wesley called. And then Spike felt the air start to fizzle, that unmistakable build up of magic sensation that always made his hair want to stand on end like Angel’s.

 

“Gunn!” Spike shouted.

 

“Heard Wes the first time,” Gunn said grimly; he rushed the demon then, punched it hard in the scaly face, and then ducked out of the circle, leaving it dazed and staggering.

 

As Spike also jumped backwards over the powdery line of entrails and doodads; the circle shimmered and a wall of blue light went up, trapping the demon inside it.

 

“Well done.” He looked at Lorne in surprise. “One of your spells worked.”

 

“Save the sarcasm for later, snarkypants,” Lorne told him.

 

Wesley was still intoning in a language Spike didn’t even recognize, while the soul eater slashed angrily at the blue light, which sizzled and bowed, maintaining only the most fragile kind of hold. Wesley came to the end of a passage and then fell back, sweat glistening on his forehead. “It’s stronger than… It has the power of every soul it’s stolen but hasn’t yet consumed. We’ve got very little time. Lorne, help me with the summoning spell. Spike, Gunn, hold the box open.” Lorne tossed Wesley something carved out of bone that the man held up in front of him like a crucifix, beginning to intone rapidly in what was now definitely Latin.

 

Spike helped Gunn haul up the box and hold it open. “Think this is going to work?” he muttered.

 

“Think we’re dead if it doesn’t,” Gunn muttered back.

 

“Just how good at this magic mojo is Wesley anyway?”

 

The demon lunged at the walls of the circle again, claws slashing, light fizzled, like tears in flame, and then a long jagged line of brightness opened up.

 

“Oh crap…” Gunn breathed.

 

Wesley slammed the bone he held across the mouth of the tear in the binding spell and snarled something in Latin; a wild wind shrieked through the once-holy place, the air fizzled, and then the soul-eater was turned from body into light and something hit the box Spike and Gunn were holding with the power of a stampeding rhino. They slammed the top down fast and Gunn said, “Wes? Mojo-wise? Pretty good actually.”

 

Wesley was staggering with the effort and Lorne caught him under the arms to hold him up. “Do you need a breather, crumpet?”

 

“No time,” Wesley gasped. “Have to release the souls.” He crumpled to his knees and Lorne pushed the next spell book into his hands.

 

“Gunn,” Wesley said breathlessly, “the spell should tear the souls from its body and with luck will weaken it in the process. When it gets out of the box you only have seconds before it will regain its strength. You have to get it straight away. Spike, remember, you won’t be able to strike the killing blow.”

 

“Got it.” The box was writhing and thumping under their grip like a living thing. Gunn gritted his teeth as he tried to keep the lid held down.

 

“You didn’t think to fit a padlock?” Spike demanded, trying to get his knee onto it.

 

Wesley had staggered to his feet and was intoning Latin again. Lots of it. Calling on Ashtoreth, Astarte and a whole lot of other Witch-goddesses that Spike suspected they really wouldn’t want to meet if they ever decided to start answering these calls in person. As Wesley’s voice rose higher, his body shaking with the effort of channelling the magic, the atmosphere fizzled again and he jerked his head back, snatching a breath from the suddenly swirling air.

 

“It’s working,” Lorne breathed.

 

“Or killing him,” Spike pointed out.

 

Wesley’s voice didn’t falter even as the light show began to get more spectacular, swirling streaks and colours in the heavy air; he was dripping with sweat, body shaking, but he kept intoning with clear authority.

 

“Wes can do this,” Gunn insisted, slamming his knee down onto the box as it tried to rear up again.

 

Hoping they were right, Spike watched Wesley stagger as something that looked and smelt scarily like lightning singed the air around them in a sheet of blue flame, and then he was shouting his invocation above the grating roar of the pillars around them and the trembling of the ground, and abruptly the box was tearing across the lid, bleeding arrows of light. Gunn and Spike were both knocked back and the arrows turned into swirls, green, gold, red, fawn and blue. Wesley collapsed onto his knees, head hanging, panting for breath.

 

“The souls…” Lorne breathed.

 

“Bet Angel’s is the beige one,” Spike muttered.

 

With the last of his strength, Wesley threw up his arms and shouted a final invocation and the souls were arrowing away from the chamber as if fired from a bow.

 

“Let’s hope they know where they’re going,” Gunn said.

 

Then the box exploded into shards of broken wood; thyme-covered nails spitting out in all directions, Gunn barely ducking one, Spike not quick enough in getting his arm out of the way, and the furious soul-eater demon was corporeally intact in front of them and clearly mad as hell. Spike shoved Lorne out of the way just before the creature lunged at him. One of the nails had impaled his arm and he had to toss his sword into the other hand before he could slice at it. It caught his wrist and twisted it, then hurled him ten feet away. As Spike hit the cement with an impact that felt as if it had dislodged every vertebrae, head ringing dully and blood pouring into his eye, he saw the demon head for a still-kneeling Wesley with what was undoubtedly murder in its intent.

 

“No way, José,” Gunn said firmly, he lifted his axe, swung it back and then sliced with all his strength.

 

Spike had to admit, from his vantage point on the concrete, that he could not have done that better himself, as the soul-eater’s head spun in one direction and its body crumpled in another, streaks of blood between the two severed parts leaving an interesting spatter pattern on the ground.

 

Looking up at Gunn from the ground, Wesley said breathlessly, “Nice work.”

 

“You too.” Gunn held out a hand and Wesley snatched a breath before taking it and letting himself be hauled to his feet. Leaning on his axe, Gunn nodded at the dead demon. “Do we need to chop it up?”

 

“I have no idea,” Wesley admitted. “But I think it would be satisfying to do all the same.” He tried to take a step and swayed, Lorne hastily taking his other elbow. Wesley snatched another breath and gestured at the dead demon. “Why don’t Lorne and I sit over here and…supervise while you and Spike do the chopping?”

 

Gunn grinned at him and patted Wesley gently on the shoulder. “Best idea you’ve had all day, Wes.”

 

Spike staggered to his feet, realizing that everything was still hurting and that someone seemed to have disconnected all the component parts of his ribcage at the same time they were diddling with his spine. “So, how do we know if it worked?”

 

Wesley shrugged. “We go home, unchain Angel, and wait and see if he eats us. If he doesn’t I’d say it worked.”

 

Spike thought about what a dumb plan that was and how there ought to some kind of magic failsafe that could test for the presence of a soul, thought about saying any of that aloud and then decided that he was too tired and would rather be chopping up demon guts anyway. He shrugged back. “Works for me.” Picking up his sword he advanced on the dead demon purposefully, only to find that Gunn was already there ahead of him with a really mean look in his eyes.

 

“Prepare to become kibble,” Gunn growled at the corpse.

 

A moment later there was the satisfying sound of flesh being separated from bone with clean slices of angry blades and the wet warmth of fresh blood being sprayed around everything in the vicinity. 

 

***