Childe of my Heart ~ Chapter Thirty-eight
by Shanyah
 

In a deserted amusement park a few miles from Sunnydale Cemetery, Warren – the new owner of a pair of power orbs - detained an armoured truck carrying a fortune. He dispatched of the truck’s security guards and stuffed his backpack full of money. Jonathan and Andrew too filled their rucksacks with cash, hurrying when Warren paced up and down the park’s central promenade, a scowl on his face.

“Where is she?”

“It’s probably her night off,” Jonathan said.

With a growl of frustration, Warren punched the side of the armoured truck. His fist perforated the reinforced metal. He drew his hand out and smiled at his super-human knuckles. “Yeah baby.”

Andrew hugged his backpack to his chest and tottered towards Warren, his gaze awash with hero-worship. “Do it again.”

A blue dot sparked just beyond the truck’s hood, diverting Warren’s attention from Andrew. Another blue dot joined the first, then another and soon, there was a hive of dots throwing bright blue light onto the hood. Warren had hoped for a final showdown with The Slayer, but the freaky blue hornets made him nervous.

He zipped up his backpack and said to Andrew, “The pigeons are ready to fly the coop.”

Smiling vacantly, Andrew twiddled with the bills sticking out of his open rucksack. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we jetted out in a phone booth like Dr Who?”  

While Jonathan scouted the air for pigeons – or possibly phone booths – Warren fired up the jets secured to his backpack and hovered above ground.

Andrew patted around the side of his rucksack for his jet-pack ignition. “Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me!”

Hearing thuds travel through the night air, Warren descended and switched off his jet engines. “Dude, what’s…are those demons?” He whispered, pointing at the queue of red eyes cruising in from the west.

Andrew squinted at blonde figure lagging behind the red eyes. “It’s Buffy.”

“Get into the back of the truck,” Warren ordered.

“I thought we were lighting out?” Andrew said once inside the truck.

Breathing heavy with excitement, Warren peered out through the crack between the armoured doors. “And pass up a chance to watch demons make Buffy eat asphalt?”

Having established that his backpack was not equipped with jet engines, Jonathan loudly complained. “I’m your virgin sacrifice? You were going to fly-”

“Zip it, dimwit,” Warren clapped his hand over Jonathan’s mouth. “Your whine carries, they’ll hear you.”

*    *    *    *

Buffy closed the distance to the Pirates, rewarded when the blue portal came into view just beyond the armoured truck. More Pirates flowed from the dark to join the convoy sprinting down the amusement promenade. Buffy didn’t worry about that nor did she stop to investigate the whispers coming from the truck when it rocked under the Pirates’ clambering. The truck’s bonnet became a rigid trampoline as one Pirate after the other bounced on it, diving into the portal.

“You cannot follow where we go,” a straggler informed her, speaking loudly as some do to impress their message upon one who speaks a foreign language.

“Sorry, didn’t bring my French phrase book,” Buffy cocked her fists at the Pirates lining for their turn on the truck. “Get out of my way!”

They got out of her way, idly conversing as she climbed onto the truck and judged the distance to the portal. Giles caught up and deciphered enough of the discussion to make an accurate summation.

“Perhaps a little caution-”

“Not now, Giles!”

Her bounce denting the truck, Buffy launched into the portal. Threads of blue lightening netted her, closed around her like a crackling mouth and spat her out. She landed several feet away from the truck, stunned by the electrical current, deafened by a motorcycle roar and smarting at Pirate laughter.

“Buffy, can you hear me?” Giles’ face, framed by the stars, did this thing where it dimmed and glowed around the edges.

“What happened?” Buffy groaned.

“Their portal is booby trapped against Slayers…quite sensible I suppose, if you’re a demon.” He waved his hand in front of her face, “Can you see me?”

“I’m fried, it hurts and we’re losing the Pirates.” She tried to sit up, her elbows buckled and the back of her head thumped the ground. “Dammit!”

“Are you alright?” Giles asked.

Her throat worked. “Yes. Go.”

“I can’t possibly abandon you-”

“Go Giles! Now.”

The on-foot Pirates had passed through the portal and the motorcycle Pirate revved the engine, spinning the wheels on the tarmac, intent it seemed, on flying the bike over the truck.

“It’s too high. He’ll never make it without a ramp,” Giles said, getting into position.

The bike sped down the promenade towards him. Heart palpitating, Giles bided his time then pounced on, clutching Pirate hair and leather as the bike swerved under its doubled load. The Pirate laughed in guttural amusement, rode past the truck, about turned sharply and drove for the blue hive. Giles could see the truck’s head through the portal, could see its headlamps and front-guard and feared what would become of him in the head-on collision should the portal close before the bike reached it.   

He clamped his arms around the Pirate’s waist, yelling as the portal widened its gullet for motorcycle, rider and dare-devil.

*    *    *    *

Warren swaggered across to the fallen Slayer. “Flat on your back, legs spread wide…I never saw you looking so good,” he said.

Buffy rose onto all fours and staggered to standing. “I’m all out of quip, but feel free to make with the nauseous puns while I slap you silly.”

“Bring it on, bitch. Bring it.”

Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes.

*    *    *    *

The bike came to a standstill. The rider gave Giles no time to orientate himself to the surroundings but threw him bodily into a garage and shouted in French, “The Vampire’s cargo has arrived. Where is Jude? I stink, I’m hungry and I have not the desire to spend an evening waiting for him.”

“Quieten down, Amran,” a demon came round the head of an ambulance. “Must you always be so boorish?”

Giles catalogued the demon’s green warts, tawny eyes and characteristic language blending, elated by this first sighting of the elusive Gypsy Demon. Jude, he assumed the Gypsy Demon was called Jude, ordered demons of various species closer to the cave mouth and called, “now!”

Cotton holdalls were thrown in, the group caught them and Jude took hold of the bike’s front wheel as it was pushed under the entry arch. Giles’ bemusement escalated when Jude co-ordinated the group into single file, inspected their linen uniforms and said to him, “You are part of Master Spike’s cargo.”

Master Spike? He didn’t know whether to laugh or run for the exit.

Jude spoke in clear, unblended English, “Amran tells me you came attached to the motor cycle. It belongs to Amo Spike as does the rest of this consignment. You therefore also belong to Amo Spike. Am I correct in assuming so?”

Giles noted the grey bands on the demons’ wrists and the subservience with which they treated Jude. Nothing if not perceptive, he said the words with aplomb. “I could not imagine belonging to another. Please take me to my Master,” he strapped on the maroon band Jude gave him.

*    *    *    *

Spike, Xander, Dawn and Fred huddled in the pool with their arms threaded around each other’s shoulders and their heads bowed close together. The Gangr’al Master watched from the gallery, his men flexed their muscles at poolside and also at poolside was Spike’s referee with hour-glass at the ready and a whistle dangling from his lips.

“Keep your guard up, keep focused and give ‘em hell. Yeah?” Spike said.

“Yeah,” Xander, Fred and Dawn chorused.

“Growl at me, Freddy.”

She made a mean face and, “Grrrowl.”

Spike wolf-grinned. “Let’s go,” he wheeled out of the huddle.

The referee turned the hour-glass, sent in the first ten fighters and blew the whistle. Spike felt released from the need to hold back, liberated from not knowing if he’d be good enough come the final hour. Here and now he was bad enough and good enough and he plied bloodletting with his quarterstaff, sent the Gangr’als men to hell.

When Fred got cornered, Spike cracked open her opponent’s skull, shattered another’s spine. Xander lost his sword in the sawdust, Spike shoved the staff at him, “baseball bat, their heads are the balls,” he said, happy to switch to unarmed combat.

When the ref was slow in sending fresh fighters in, Spike ran up the shallow steps, taking it that anyone standing at poolside was there to fight. His steel-capped boots smashed ribcages, his fists landed uppercuts that snapped fighters out of consciousness, his knees created eunuchs. He was juiced up, crazed with energy and he’d only just got started.

The whistle shrilled, Spike grabbed the collar of a fleeing man, slung him into the pool and leapt onto his back, sawdust rising to cover the knees of his black jeans. Again the bothersome whistle, this time with Dawn, Xander and Fred hollering, “Amo! Amo! Master Spike!”

“In the middle of something here!” Spike roared.

“You’re in the middle of Giles,” Xander roared back.

“That you Watcher?” He growled down at the tweed jacket.

Giles lifted his face free of sawdust, “Yes…yes, I believe it is.”

He jumped off the Watcher, “Why didn’t you say?”

Giles gained his feet with groaning determination. “That was…was a remarkable example of pre-emptive attack. It would appear you’re at your wretched best, Master Spike.”

“You haven’t seen my best,” Spike climbed the steps out of the pool. “Where’s the rest of the cavalry?”

“I’m all the cavalry,” Giles said.

“Fantastic,” Spike muttered then, “fantastic,” he crowed when he saw his motorbike standing between Jude and a Runner. “You get all our stuff?”

“It is all accounted for.” Jude grasped the bike’s handle bars, “Where is the consignment to go?”

Spike neared Jude and examined his warts. “You’re the eager little toady ain’t you? Why is that? Tell you what, don’t answer that. Push off, go deliver something.” He watched Jude leave then turned to Giles, “wait here with Harris and them. I’m off to collect my winnings.”

*    *    *    *

Ten minutes later the Gangr’al Master’s purse of woven words had given up no golden information, yet the man hadn’t shut up for any of those ten minutes. “I was born in The Trail and all I know of the outside world comes from Travellers such as Mi Amo,” the Gangr’al now said, resting his elbows either side of his wine goblet on the terrace table. “They say that there are wondrous things in your dimension.”

Spike bent over the gallery railings, watching Fred and Dawn crowd Giles. Xander waded in and pulled Giles in for a bear hug with much back patting. A hard knot formed in Spike’s chest. He spun from the railings and scrunched his brow at the Gangr’al.

“They say that humans in your dimension sit in picture boxes and tell of the news from far and wide,” said the Gangr’al.

Spike lit a cigarette, dropped into the chair opposite the Gangr’al and used the Grang’al’s wine goblet for an ashtray. “The wonders of telly and CNN. So?”

“The Trail also has wonders if you will only see them.” The Gangr’al went to a painting of a fighting scene on the wall and placed his palm it. “Come, do as I do.”

He did as the Gangr’al did.

“Close your eyes,” said the Gangr’al

“Piss off.”

“You are beast, you see with more than your eyes. Close your eyes Mi Amo and feel.”

Spike couldn’t argue with that. He closed his eyes and waited…waited…felt heartache. It knocked him off his feet and he was kneeling with his face pressed to the wall, gagging on his demon’s sorrow. “Shit,” he smothered a sob. Was crying, sodden face, snotty nose the works. Last time he’d felt this destroyed was when Buffy’d dived off the tower.

He stumbled up and away from the wall, backing to the banister and struggling for composure as the Gangr’al came to stand beside him. “You blab to anyone about this and I will…I’ll…” his voice shook. He wiped his face on the hem of his T-shirt, “shit.”

“The wall lives, it tells part of a story,” the Grang’al gazed at the humans standing beside the pool. “The other half is told by the book which clings to Dawn’s bosom as a suckling infant. The last one to nurse that book and him a demon too, did not live long enough to speak of its marvels. How come it that your child fondles its black hide with no deadly affect to her? I should ask her where she has been, were I you.”

CHILDE OF MY HEART ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

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