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 Spike’s Very Bad Day, Part Three

Spike paced up and down the floor of Sirk’s office again. It didn’t help, and was starting to make him feel like a caged animal. The urge to rip the guy’s throat out was almost overwhelming – he was just so slow. There had already been that long delay while the amulet was collected from the front lobby by people wearing more protective gear than the clean-up crew at Chernobyl, and it was now in some big plastic cube where it could be examined without being touched. Sirk seemed a lot more interested in the provenance of the amulet and the spellwork that had gone into it than he did in reversing what had been done to Wes, Fred, and Gunn, and it was really starting to piss Spike off.

 

“Will you get on with it?” he demanded.

 

Sirk glanced up as if surprised to find Spike was still in the room. “These things take time.”

 

“I can’t leave them unsupervised for long. They’re barely four years old. Possibly three. Maybe five. I’m not too sure on their age, really. The point is – they’re very, very small.”

 

“We do have several hundred employees in this building. I’m sure you can find someone to take on the onerous task of watching over some…children.”

 

Sirk said ‘children’ the way most people said ‘anthrax’ – with a little shudder of distaste.

 

“Not nice people. I need nice people to look after them. I can’t have people shouting at them and getting all irritable, and they need to be people with quick reactions. Wesley’s very sensitive – you can’t raise your voice to him, and Gunn’s really fast – I tell you, he can have a Sdenski Ritual Scimitar down off the wall before you can say ‘unscheduled amputation’. And Fred doesn’t like loud voices either, and she has that blood sugar thing, and just because she’s titchy now, doesn’t mean she can’t open a portal into a hell dimension, and then there’s Wesley with the ritual reading and the vortexes…”

 

Sirk glanced at Spike as if he were a beetle he had found in his cereal. “Would this be the appropriate moment to mention how little I care?”

 

The change into game face wasn’t even a conscious decision, just the natural reaction to someone being indifferent to the fate of Spike’s kids. Well, Angel’s kids, technically speaking, but they were Spike’s responsibility and there were the little faces to think of and – “Unless you want to see what your insides looks like spattered all over this office, you’d better start caring,” Spike snarled.

 

“Being in pieces isn’t going to make me understand the workings of this amulet any faster,” Sirk told him loftily.

 

“No, but you being in pieces would make me feel a lot better.” Spike changed back out of game face and went back to pacing, but he had already decided the time for being Mr Nice Guy was well over. “You’ve got ten minutes. After that you start losing body parts.”

 

***

 

Malcolm had finally managed to shoulder-charge the door open, and was ready to wring the necks of those little rugrats himself. This was poetic justice as far as he was concerned. He was the acting head of Rituals & Incantations. It was his internal organs on the block if the annual sacrifice to Kali Ma didn’t go ahead. The last person who had disappointed Archduke Sebassis had been the previous acting head – and they were still trying to get the last few pieces of him out of the office pencil sharpener.

 

It had taken a lot of fast-talking to stop Sebassis from murdering him the night before –when he had delivered the legal document denying responsibility for providing Sebassis with his sacrifical offerings from that bastard Gunn. And it had cost him every last cent he had to get that amulet and spell whipped up in double quick time. He had needed to promise his second-born to Sebassis to sweeten the deal (his firstborn had long since been promised to the Senior Partners) and he just knew his wife was going to give him hell about it.

 

Now, all he needed to do was grab those little monsters and take them down to the basement for the ritual, and he – unlike them – just might live to see another dawn. Without the three brains of the group, he couldn’t see Angel, the big bad vampire, managing to work out what had happened. The guy could bluster and threaten all he liked, but everyone knew that he could barely work the phones yet, never mind work out who had created an evil amulet or made his clever little sidekicks disappear.

 

He surveyed the room with satisfaction. There was no way for the children to have escaped. They must be hiding in a closet or under the desk. He strode forward, determined to have them down into the basement getting their do-gooding child-sized hearts cut out in the next ten minutes. Something squeaked underfoot and he jumped in surprise. There was the fraction of a second when he realized he had just trodden on a soft toy of some kind. He was still trying to work out if it was a teddy bear or a puppy when he landed on the goods car of the steam engine chugging its way around the track. For a moment, he wobbled precariously and was just regaining his footing when the train went under a tunnel and he was sent flying through the air.

 

The necro-tempered glass unfortunately proved to be a lot easier to break than it had said in the sales brochure.

 

Someone passing the office might have heard the distant scream that receded to become fainter and fainter before terminating in a dull wet splat.

 

Through the big hole in the window, balloon animals drifted out into the clear blue sky. In the empty room, the breeze ruffled the children’s paintings which were scattered liberally across the floor, while the steam train continued to chug merrily around the track.

 

***

 

It had been fun riding in the elevator. Fred wondered why she had never noticed how cool it was the way the floor just dropped and everything went whoosh. It was automatic to try to estimate the velocity at which they were falling but she kept forgetting her calculations in her need to squeal with pleasure. It had been so much fun that they had completely forgotten why they had gotten into the elevator in the first place, and had just giggled their way up and down the floors. It was chance that the doors opened for them outside her laboratory and she remembered that there was a present for her waiting to be found.

 

“Oh! My present!” She grabbed Gunn and Wesley by the hands and tugged them after her. They came a little reluctantly, not quite ready to give up riding up and down in the elevator yet, but Wesley was quite obedient, she found, and only gave a lingering look back. Gunn needed a slightly harder tug, and she had to lean forward and pull quite hard. He stumbled after her and she kept a tight grip on his hand so he couldn’t run off.

 

“Wait…” Wesley whispered in her ear, and began to pull her towards the laboratory – which was where she was going anyway, so that was a bit silly of him. She pulled Gunn after them, and they all bundled into the doorway a little breathlessly. Wesley put a finger to his lips and then said: “Look, it’s the bad man from the party.”

 

They all peered around the corner and Fred’s eyes widened in surprise as she saw Archduke Sebassis, here in Wolfram & Hart, when she definitely remembered that Uncle Angel and Uncle Lorne were supposed to be having a meeting with him. He was down the far end of the corridor waiting impatiently for a different elevator. She didn’t know who the red-skinned man was who was with him, but she didn’t like the look of him, or the horrible wheezing noise he made. One of the people looked like a normal woman with fair hair, but the others were definitely demons. “I think they’re all bad people,” she said.

 

“Archduke Sebassis is definitely bad.” Wesley nodded earnestly. “Oh!” He grabbed Gunn’s arm. “He was going to kill babies today! That’s why Uncle Angel went to see him – to tell him that he mustn’t.”

 

Gunn got his resolved expression. Fred had learned very quickly that there was no arguing with Gunn when he had that look on his face. “We have to follow him and make sure he’s not killing any babies,” Gunn said.

 

Wesley nodded. “We’ll have to be very quiet, so he doesn’t know we’re there.”

 

“But I want to see my present.” Fred peered longingly into the empty laboratory. She could just see something big and exciting-looking standing on a table. It wasn’t wrapped up in shiny paper like she’d been hoping, but it looked very interesting all the same. She hoped it was filled with chocolate and candy. It had definitely not been in the laboratory the last time she had been in there, so it must be what Knox had meant. She wondered where Knox was.

 

Gunn had already run down the corridor to look at the elevator that Sebassis and his friends had got into. He ran back even faster. “They’re going to the basement.”

 

“We need to go to the basement after them and check for babies,” Wesley said.

 

“I want to open my present.” Fred felt very woebegone. She was worried about the babies too, but her present was right there, so close she could almost touch it.

 

“Why don’t you stay here and open your present, and then you can follow Gunn and me to the basement and help us to save the babies?” Wesley leaned across and bravely gave her a quick kiss on the nose. He drew back quickly, looking as if he thought she might be about to smack him, but she beamed at him in surprise, then leaned forward and kissed him on the nose.

 

Gunn rolled his eyes. “You two are making me sick.”

 

Fred decided that Gunn was just too immature to understand how important love and marriage were. She gave him a stern look. “If you’re not nicer about Wesley and me getting married, you can’t be the best man.”

 

Wesley looked shocked. “We’re getting married?”

 

She really did love Wesley, but he was very slow sometimes. “Yes. Otherwise, I can’t have a puppy.”

 

“No one can get married until we’ve saved the babies anyway,” Gunn retorted.

 

“We’d better hurry or we may be too late.”

 

Wesley looked a little small to be saving babies to Fred, but he did seem very resolved, too, and he did have Gunn with him as well, but they would need more help than that.

 

“Wait! You need weapons!” She ran to the cupboard in the laboratory where she kept her inventions. Gunn and Wesley helped her pull her old decapitating machine out into the room. She had always meant to adapt it to make toast too – maybe one day, when she had more time. It was much too heavy to carry very far, but there were some knives and even a quite small axe kept in the cupboard behind it. Fred remembered that when she had first moved into Wolfram & Hart, she had been a little nervous of the people she was working with, and liked to have some weapons close to hand. That seemed silly now, as they were really very nice when you got to know them.

 

Wesley said: “Ooh! A Strong’ian Morgath dagger!” He waved it about excitedly.

 

“Careful,” Fred scolded fondly. “It’s very sharp.”

 

Gunn was holding an axe in his arms which seemed to be a little bit heavy for him, but he had his stubborn face on so she didn’t waste time arguing with him, just said: “You go and start saving the babies, and I’ll open my present and then come and save them too.”

 

“Okay.” Wesley nodded very bravely and she leaned forward and gave him another kiss on the nose, giggling because his nose tasted of chocolate from when she had kissed him last time.

 

Wesley beamed at her very happily and Gunn rolled his eyes again. “You two are so icky,” he said.

 

Fred shook her head. “You won’t say that when you can come around to our house when we’re married and play with my puppy.”

 

“Will it be my puppy too?” Wesley asked a little anxiously.

 

Fred considered the point. “You can play with it, too, but I want to name it. I may want to call it Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, or possibly – Fluffy.”

 

“I like cats.” Gunn knuckled his eyes, looking as if he needed a nap. His axe was definitely drooping.

 

“We could have a kitten too, maybe?” Wesley looked to Fred for permission and she nodded at once.

 

“Yes, I think it would be good to have a kitten as well. But not a conduit sort of kitten, just the regular kind that chases mice.” She remembered that they were all supposed to be doing something right now. “Oh! Babies!”

 

Wesley looked nervous. “Do we have to have those as well as the puppy and the kitten?”

 

“Saving babies,” she reminded him. “From the bad people in the basement.”

 

Gunn stopped rubbing his eyes and pulled up his axe, cradling it in his arms. “We’re on it.” He headed purposefully for the elevator.

 

“Yes, we’ll go and save the babies right away.” Wesley leaned forward and gave her a quick peck on the cheek, blushing a little, and then ran after Gunn. She watched them from the doorway of the laboratory as they jumped up to press the buttons and they waved to her bravely before the elevator doors closed and swept them away to the basement.

 

Fred turned around and looked at the big stone casket lying on the table. At once the babies receded a little and she could only think about how much chocolate and candy one could fit into a box that big. “Now for my present,” she said.

 

***

 

Lindsey McDonald uncurled himself painfully and cautiously stretched out a hand. He seemed to be in a small prison this time, one not unlike an upright coffin. His back was still aching from the impact with whatever had shattered when he had been violently flung into this space, and his throat was so painful it felt as if someone had been trying to cheesewire his head off. The last thing he remembered was an enormous masked demon looming over him with a ritual dagger in its hand, apparently intent on cutting out his heart. Then something bright and swirly had sucked him up and pulled him through fiery air and the screams of the damned, before slamming him into this small dark space. Cautiously he kept reaching and touched wood. He gulped in shock. Despite concerns about being one of the living dead, he still had a heartbeat and a pulse and needed to breath; if he had been buried alive then he was going to asphyxiate very fast. He pressed both hands against what he was already thinking of as the coffin lid and pushed.

 

The door opened easily, swinging back on newly-oiled hinges and Lindsey blinked in confusion. He was in the supply closet of an office, standing on the broken shelving that his body had smashed on impact, a bright, well-lit, entirely normal-looking office. As he moved, the necklace – the chain of which snapping as it snagged on a shelf was what had bruised his throat – fell to the floor. Looking down on it, Lindsey abruptly remembered everything – the shiny hell dimension where, beneath the bright warm gloss of normal family life, lived a demon in the basement that cut out his heart every day. He brought his heel down hard on the necklace and it shattered into powder.

 

Cautiously he edged out into what seemed to be an empty office. Despite having been apparently carried here by some kind of wormhole of evil, there were no outward signs of his arrival. He had evidently been sucked into some kind of matter stream of demonic energy which had rematerialized him in the supply closet of – Lindsey peered at the desk and saw that it had the nameplate ‘Doctor Sparrow’ on it. Next to it was some headed notepaper, confirming the doctor’s name and his place of work: Wolfram & Hart, LA branch. Lindsey blanched as he wondered if this was another fiendish headgame being played with him by the Senior Partners; or had there been some kind of glitsch in powering that holding dimension where they were keeping him prisoner? For some reason he had been sucked out of the place where he got his heart cut out every day and sent here. Even if he was just a rat in a Skinner box right now, he was still going to do everything he could go find an exit, find Eve, and get out of here.

 

It was only then that he realized the connecting door between the doctor’s office and his lab was ajar and he could hear a voice coming from it. Edging to the doorway, he kept out of sight and listened intently. Given that this was a totally one-sided conversation, he guessed that the not-so-good doctor was probably talking on the phone:

 

“…I did my part, Knox, and I hope we both agree that it is a little more difficult to persuade Mr. Gunn to let me mess with his mental circuitry for a second time than it is to coax an over-curious young woman to look at a sarcophagus…. I don’t care that you don’t know what’s causing the delay. Go back to the laboratory and see if Miss Burkle is there, and if she isn’t, get her there. You know how vulnerable our lord is while still trapped in that tomb. Even now, that detestable Lord of the Rings wannabe can still summon Illyria back to the Deeper Well….”

 

For a moment, Lindsey’s curiosity was piqued, but then he gave himself a mental shake. He had no time to get caught up in any more scheming and planning. He needed to get away from this place. Advancing cautiously, he crept past the open door and checked that the corridor outside was empty. He could still feel the bruises where he had been slammed into that closet, but it was nothing to the pain of having his hurt cut out, not to mention the fear and confusion of not knowing why this terrifying creature was doing this to him…. Lindsey shuddered inwardly; he never wanted to be that person again, the one who understood nothing and was helpless to save himself. In the past he had been torn between wanting to join the Circle of the Black Thorn or to destroy them, just as he had been torn between wanting to join with Angel or kill him. Now, he wanted to get the hell away from this place and never come back.

 

Swiftly he made his way down the corridor until he reached the stairwell. Evil exercised on a treadmill. No one in Wolfram & Hart ever used the stairs, not even the janitors. There could be no more secret way to reach the basement, and no one ever went there. A few more minutes and he might even be out of this place….

 

***

 

Fidgeting in the doorway of Sirk’s empty office, keeping watch for nosy grown-ups, Gunn was in a hurry to get to the basement and get on with rescuing the babies. Also his axe was starting to feel really heavy. “Hurry up, Wes,” he hissed.

 

“I’m hurrying,” Wesley said plaintively. He was still climbing carefully down from Sirk’s desk, but he looked a little dizzy, and it obviously felt very high up to him.

 

Darting a look down the corridor to check that no one was coming, Gunn hurried over to the desk and held up his hands. “Give me the book.”

 

“Careful.” Wesley held it out. “It’s very heavy.” Proving his point, the book slipped out of his fingers and fell down. Gunn tried to catch it, but forgot he was already holding an axe. In trying to catch it, he dropped his axe and got his fingers bent back, which made him cry out, and the book ended up crashing to the floor.

 

At once a burning hole opened up where the carpet had been and flames shot down out of it into what looked like a long fiery tunnel into darkness. With tears in his eyes from his painful fingers, Gunn looked down at the hole in the floor and then up at Wesley, who was gazing down at him wide-eyed.

 

Wesley put a hand up to his mouth. “Oops.”

 

“What kind of book is it anyway?” Gunn edged away from it.

 

“It’s a book for opening portals. I thought it would be useful, and Uncle Spike locked up all of mine and he locked up my office.” Wesley scrambled down from the desk onto Sirk’s chair and then jumped down on the floor, carefully edging around the burning hole in the floor. He struggled to pick up the book.

 

“Should we close that?” Gunn picked up his axe and took another step away from the burning hole.

 

“I’ll try.” Wesley was trying to turn pages while holding up the book, and was clearly buckling under the weight of it. “It didn’t used to be this heavy!”

 

“Everything’s got heavier.” Gunn nodded sagely, he had noticed that too. Fred would probably be able to tell them why, but he thought it was something to do with gravity. He tried to help Wesley hold the book and they turned the pages together. Upside-down, the book looked even creepier, with lots of strange symbols and pictures of people swirling like water had been spilled on a painting. It made Gunn feel weird just looking at them.

 

“I can’t find the spell to close it.” Wesley peered at the pages in confusion. “And all these words are very long and difficult. I don’t remember them being this difficult.”

 

Gunn risked another look at the swirly burning hole in the floor. He suspected Uncle Spike was going to be angry about that. “Let’s just go.”

 

“Okay.” Wesley seemed relieved to be able to close the book. “We should probably do that.”

 

They edged back to the doorway and peered out. Gunn was expecting grown-ups to turn up any minute and start yelling at them about the burning hole in the floor and, given how jumpy Wesley looked, he guessed he was too. “They don’t have to find out it was us,” he said.

 

Wesley gave him a grateful look for the ‘us’ but still looked scared of getting into trouble. “They might guess.”

 

“Not if we’re not here.” Gunn nodded his head at the elevator, which was still waiting for them with the doors open. They ran for it together and this time used Wesley’s book to stand on to reach the buttons.

 

Wesley looked down at the red leather binding dolefully. “It’s not supposed to make portals without being told.”

 

Gunn suspected it probably wasn’t supposed to be dropped either but didn’t say that out loud. Wesley was inclined to start crying at the moment if people were mean to him. A thought occurred to him: “Could it make a portal with us standing on it?”

 

The horrified look in Wesley’s eyes suggested that it could, and they both jumped off quickly. “Let’s just use it to wedge the door open on the lift,” Wesley suggested.

 

Gunn nodded and held up his axe in readiness. The floors were lighting up as the elevator swept down lower and lower. They were a long way below any of the places he knew now. He took a deep breath as the ‘B’ for Basement lit up, and the doors slowly whooshed open. He and Wesley exchanged a look and he was pleased to see that Wesley had hold of that dagger Fred had given him. Just in the back of his mind he could remember waiting with Wesley to do battle with a big fire-breathing monster and how scared he had been then. He was every bit as scared now. In fact he was probably even more scared, but he wasn’t going to admit that to anyone.

 

Wesley pushed the book in front of the doors to stop them closing again and then peered out. “I can’t hear any babies,” he whispered.

 

“Where are those wretched children? Malcolm should have been here by now. I will have his entrails made into a hood ornament!”

 

The voice of Archduke Sebassis made them both jump and clutch at each other in fear. Gunn looked down at Wesley’s hand holding onto his and thought that it wasn’t really fair to let go of him when Wes was obviously scared. Bravely, he said: “Come on. The elevator is the first place they’ll look.”

 

Still holding hands, they crept out of the elevator and into the shadows, Wesley with his dagger and Gunn with his axe, and both of them more frightened than they had ever been in their lives.

 

***

 

Fred had tried jumping. She had jumped as high as she could until she was tired out and starting to get hungry again, but it was no good, she just couldn’t see more than the sides of the big box housing her present. Unless the box was her present. She frowned. It was a very impressive box, and seemed to be made from some possibly exciting unknown elements that she could analyze and discover, but she had licked her finger and touched the box and then tasted her finger very carefully and it was absolutely not made of candy. So, if that was all the present was – a really big empty box, then she thought it wasn’t a very good present at all.

 

She looked around the laboratory, skipping past the decapitating device that she would definitely put away before she left, because Uncle Spike might think it was dangerous and get cross again if she didn’t, and tugged at one of the stools on wheels that were all around the room. It was much heavier than she remembered.

 

Frowning, Fred tried to tug at it, but the wheels wouldn’t turn in one direction and made a horrible squeaking noise. She pulled at the stool angrily and it fell over, nearly hitting her. She only just jumped out of the way in time. It had been so much easier to pull Angel’s chair with Gunn and Wesley helping her. Fred tried pulling at another stool, and as she did so she could see pictures in her head of how it would fall and the energy it would use if it did that, and how air would be displaced all around it, but she absolutely could not get the silly thing to pull in a straight line. Very cross now and quite upset, she thought about sitting down on the floor and crying until a grown up came along to help her. Then she remembered that horrible man who had pulled her hair. She didn’t want that sort of a grown-up helping her. He would probably shout and try to take her present for himself. If only Knox had been here, like he was supposed to be, then he could have helped her, or Uncle Spike, but she didn’t know where either of those people were.

 

Crying was seeming like the only option, when she remembered that she knew where Gunn and Wesley were. They would be in the basement, saving babies. All she had to do was go and find them, help them save the babies, and then they could come back and open her present together. They would definitely be able to help her pull a stool over for her to climb on. Then she could take a good look at the big stone box and see what was inside. If they could get the lid off, even if it was empty, it would still make quite a good crib for babies, too, and would stop them crawling off. She wondered if Wesley would like to adopt some of the babies to go with the puppy and kitten. Perhaps he could be persuaded – if she chose a nice one that didn’t cry too much. Much happier now, she skipped away to the corridor and looked around for an elevator. She had to jump up to press the button to say she wanted to go down, but when it finally arrived it was nice and empty. Smiling at the thought of being able to open her present with Gunn and Wesley’s help as she skipped into the elevator, Fred jumped up and pressed the button for the basement.

 

She was four floors down before she remembered she had forgotten to put her spring-loaded decapitation device away. For a moment she thought about going back; but she was getting a little tired of jumping up to press buttons, and the ones for the higher floors seemed an awfully long way up. She decided that it would probably be okay to leave it where it was.

 

The elevator whooshed on down and she giggled at the feeling of her tummy having been left several floors up. Only as the basement doors opened did she think that she should probably have remembered to pick up a weapon of her own.

 

***

 

They had been almost outside the door of Angel’s office when Sirk had remembered that he didn’t have a doohickey he needed. “You have to have it?” Spike demanded. “You can’t – manage?”

 

Sirk looked at him as if he had come in on the Special Bus. “Yes, I need it. One cannot ‘make do and mend’ when talking about the Urn of Sharakan. Unless you prefer it if I attempt to restore your associates to adult size at some later juncture?”

 

“No, now would be good.” Unhappily, Spike trailed after Sirk into the elevator. He thought about throwing out some more threats, but so far Sirk had seemed completely unimpressed. That was the trouble with being a ghost for a while; even when he was  corporeal again, no one took a man seriously.

 

As they walked back into Sirk’s office, the man showed the first sign of animation, increasing his pace as he said angrily: “What the hell?”

 

Spike gazed at the burning wormhole snaking down from Sirk’s floor and felt a definite sense of déjà vu. The kids were locked up in Angel’s office though, it couldn’t be them, and he was going to cling onto that thought with both hands.

 

“Looks like someone’s been eating your porridge, mate.”

 

Sirk glared into the burning hole in his floor and cast around suspiciously. “Some idiot has stolen one of my books.”

 

“Probably not an idiot if they can understand those spells books, though, right?”

 

Sirk’s glower would have frozen the veins of a warmer-blooded creature than Spike. “An intelligent person would have taken one of the templates, not an obscure ancient text on portals.”

 

Spike had an uncomfortable memory of Wesley taking every opportunity to pore over manky old books from the W&H coffers, even though he could summon up their contents just be talking to a template. Giles had been just the same; liked to caress the bindings like old lovers and inhale the book mites like they were brandy. Maybe four-year-old Wes was the same, and just couldn’t leave a ratty old book alone if he saw it. He felt a burning need to check that the children really were locked up safely. “Time to go then?” he suggested brightly.

 

Snatching up a template, Sirk summoned an obscure-sounding text then muttered something with very few vowels. The burning wormhole closed over, the floor lapping across it like an oil spill, although the singed hole in the carpet remained. “We need to find out what damage this has done.” Sirk strode towards the door, clearly furious. “It may have gone through the archives. It could have caused incalculable harm.”

 

The uneasy feeling in Spike’s stomach suggested that this could not be a coincidence. He had seen Wesley open a vortex without meaning to, and this had the same appearance of someone accidentally making inter-dimensional tears all over the place; but as he needed Sirk to turn the children back, he couldn’t very well piss off the very angry ex-Watcher even more than he was already. Meekly, he trailed after him, wondering when, if ever, this day was going to start getting better.

 

***