Chapter 2.05
Tuesday, May 14th, 2002
"Look. We can climb to the top of that pointy
bit there and then maybe we'll get a signal."
"Buffy, you are not bloody climbing that
without a rope or anything," Spike retorted, looking at the
near-vertical rock face.
Buffy responded by poking him on his right side.
"And you're going to go?"
Spike flinched visibly. "Bitch."
"Answer the question. You really think you're
in a fit condition to go climbing cliffs, but I'm not?" she
pushed him.
"Yes, I do. It's a vamp thing. It's what
we do. It won't take a bloody minute."
"You really think there's anything that
you can do in that condition that I can't match?"
"I can still get a hard on. Like to see
you try that one, princess."
"Em, guys? And can I say ew?" Willow
interrupted.
"What?" both the blondes snapped.
"Discussion kinda redundant." Willow
let her gaze swivel from the bickering pair to the top of the
peak. Buffy and Spike turned to see what she was looking at. Framed
against the full moon, coat billowing in the wind, Angel stood
with his cell phone against his ear.
"See... I told you it was a vamp thing. I
could have been up there by now if it wasn't for you arguing,"
Spike insisted.
Buffy merely rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, right. Can't think of an argument,
just go for the eye roll. Thought you were a bit more adult than
the Bit. Seems I was mistaken," Spike taunted.
"Seems to me like, right about now, neither
one of you would be winning any prizes for maturity, and seeing
as how one of you is over a hundred as near as Angel's sayin',
that's quite an achievement," Gunn commented.
"Just because I managed not to turn into
some brooding stick in the mud with a penchant for Barry Manilow,
there's no need to snipe. I'll have you know I pride myself on
my youthful outlook," Spike replied.
Buffy wrinkled her nose and looked up to where
Angel was still posed heroically. "Barry Manilow? Really?"
"What? Don't tell me you burnt his albums,
too, love?" Spike teased.
"He never had any, least not that I saw,"
Buffy began before Spike joined in, "but then you wouldn't
let anyone see your Barry Manilow records."
"Even Rupert had better taste than that.
Speaking of Rupert, have you talked to his Right Royal Poofiness
about the wedding?" Spike asked.
"Do I hafta?" Buffy stuck out her lower
lip.
"Course not, not if you don't want to."
Spike turned to where Angel was still apparently talking on the
phone. "Hoi! Mate!" Before he could get any further,
Buffy administered a sharp elbow in his solar plexus.
Spike sucked in a sharp breath, and then continued
as if he'd had no intention of saying anything either rude or
tactless at all. "Are you gettin' a decent signal up there?"
Angel gave those waiting below a thumbs up sign.
"Tara and Wes came up with the co-ordinates. We've got a
precise grid reference." Angel rattled off the numbers, rather
perturbed when Spike rattled off the last four along with him.
"Right where I told you lot it was in the
first place. But no, certain soulful vampires, who shall
remain nameless, wouldn't believe me, would they?"
Lorne listened to the sound of the helicopter,
unable to overcome his disappointment as the noise grew fainter.
In the cellar, the first flames sprang to wavering life. At this
stage, the fire could still be smothered with a blanket, or just
possibly put out with their carefully hoarded water. It had yet
to reach either the bottles and casks of spirits or the canisters
of gasoline.
"Okay, people. Sounds like we've missed
our chance for now, but if that's who I think it is, they'll be
back. For now, we'd best keep on checking this place out."
Lorne took charge again, heading back downstairs. "Is there
anywhere we haven't looked yet?"
"There's a door in the kitchen that won't
open, but I figure it's probably a meat locker or something like
that," their chef replied.
"Let's see what our light-fingered friend
can make of it," Lorne replied.
The girl in question made her way downstairs
and into the kitchen area under the rooms on the upper level.
"You really think that was someone looking for us?"
she asked Lorne as she drew level with him.
"Well, I'm reliably informed that some acquaintances
of mine, including the guy that I was sharing a room with, managed
to borrow a helicopter."
The two made their way over to the door their
culinary expert indicated. The girl ducked slightly to get a look
at the lock before she shook her head.
"I don't think I can get this one. You're
going to have to break it in if you're determined to get
in there," she told the anagogic demon.
"There's an empty gas cylinder under the
bench there," the kid who had been busy in the kitchen offered.
"I could have a go with that."
Lorne stepped out of the way as the boy picked
up the cylinder in question and began to rhythmically pound the
area of the door where the lock was situated. Making a joke of
the lack of effect his efforts were having, the kid began to sing
in time to the pounding of the cylinder against the door.
"I've been working on the—" The kid
never got as far as railroad. Everything happened at once. The
doorframe finally split so that the door to the cellar swung open.
Lorne knocked the kid to the ground with a flying tackle and the
oxygen-deprived conflagration that had flickered and smouldered
fitfully, roared into life, sending a ball of flame over the heads
of both Lorne and the boy. As soon as the first ball of flame
passed overhead, the green demon grabbed at both kids.
"Run." He pushed them toward the main
room. He pulled the kitchen door shut behind them just as the
first gasoline can exploded. The first explosion was immediately
followed by a second louder one, as the rest of the accelerants
detonated. The whole cabin shuddered from the concussion.
Lorne made his way to the front door while the
other two raised the alarm. Not that even those upstairs could
have missed that something was wrong, but the cries of, "Fire!"
left them in little doubt as to the nature of their emergency.
Pulling the front door open, Lorne found himself on the wrong
side of some seriously heavy duty, steel shutters. There was no
way to get at the locks from this side. Lorne frantically scanned
the room for anything he might be able to use to pry up the shutters
before his gaze alighted on the fireside set.
Rushing over he grabbed the poker and managed
to jam it into the gap under the shutters. As he tried to lever
the shutters upward, however, the metal bar simply bent in his
hands. Yanking it free and throwing it to the ground in exasperation,
he turned to find all six teenagers watching him.
"What now?" the bravest of them asked.
"Now we stay as far away from that side
of the room and as low as we can and hope that whoever was in
that helicopter comes back to check on the bonfire," Lorne
told them with a sigh of resignation. He didn't want to mention
that since the room under them was already ablaze, there might
be a limit to how long they could stay where they were.
Lorne pulled the phone from his pocket again.
He cut in before Fred could get any farther than "Angel."
"Fred? The cabin is on fire. We're trapped—"
The line went dead, and when Lorne looked down, he saw that the
display was now blank.
"I can do that trance to see spells. You
know. The one you did when you thought someone might be using
magic to make your mum ill," Willow insisted. "That
way I can see what's really there and guide them in."
"Don't you need candles and magic sand and
stuff?" Buffy asked.
"Normally, and it would be easier, but I'm
pretty certain I can work 'round it with a bit of time to prepare.
And it looks like we've got time." She indicated the two
pilots who were using an old hand pump to transfer the fuel from
the barrels they had brought into the helicopter's fuel tank.
"That works fine in theory, Red," Spike
countered. "Only I doubt we can persuade the nice people
to believe you when what they can see tells them they're about
to hit a tree. And in their position, I can't say that I would
blame them."
"Well, I'm sure if I concentrate, I can
get them to see what I'm seeing."
"Bollocks to that! I'm sorry, Red, but your
track record isn't exactly spotless, and I'm not having you mucking
around in the head of the people we're relying on to fly that
thing. What happens if they forget how?"
"I haven't done anything wrong in a long
time. Well, nothing major."
"So you didn't wipe everybody's memories
a month or two back?"
"Well, yes, there was that, but that wasn't
my fault. The whole bag burned. If that bit hadn't fallen and
landed on the hearth everything would have been fine," Willow
argued.
"Yeah, well, whatever went wrong this time
probably wouldn't be your fault either. If you muck around
with that stuff, you have to take responsibility for whatever
happens, not just stand around expecting everyone to pat you on
the back whenever you do something right." Spike's voice
rose in anger.
"Anyway, who says you have a right
to criticise? I'm not the one who turned Buffy into a zombie,
am I?" Willow countered.
"And I admit I was wrong. Given the way
things turned out, I can't even say I'm sorry, but I'd never willingly
put Buffy at risk again. And that's why you're not mucking around
in those bloke's heads."
Spike sighed and ran his hand through his currently
unkempt curls. "It's not like you need to anyway," he
announced in a far softer voice.
Willow responded in like tone. "Why?"
"Cause there's a rope ladder in the back
of that thing. We don't have to get them to land, just hover close
enough for us to go down."
"You'd rather dangle in mid-air on some
stupid rope ladder than trust my magic?" the witch asked,
astounded.
"I'd rather dangle in mid-air on a rope
ladder than trust anyone's magic. I'd rather dangle in
mid-air on a rope ladder over a stack of scrap lumber- no, make
that burning scrap lumber before I trust your magic."
Spike folded his arms at the end of his piece in a gesture that
said, "So there," as plainly in the language of the
playground as if he'd said the words.
"You had to open your big mouth, didn't
you, boy?" Angel looked out from his vantage point into the
middle distance where a dark column of smoke could be seen rising
into the air.
For an instant all eyes were fixed on the rising
plume. "I guess we better volunteer for pumping duty."
Spike was the first to react and edge one of the apparently older
men out of the way. Angel jumped from the peak to land on the
far side of the outcropping of rock so that the pilots wouldn't
be able to see. Within seconds he took up a position opposite
Spike, and Buffy ducked between her fiancé's arms to add
her strength to the effort. The pump began to move with a speed
the pilots found hard to believe.
Willow steered them toward the pilot's compartment.
"I think we know where we want to go, now. Maybe you can
do all your pre-flight checks and stuff while they finish up with
the fuel. Just tell us where you put the petrol cap."
In what was really only a few minutes but seemed
far longer, the chopper was ready to go, and the pilots had radioed
in a fire alert to the local emergency services.
"You guys know we can't go near that fire,
right?" the pilot said as soon as the combined Sunnydale/AI
crew began to pile into the machine. This time the pilots didn't
wait for everyone to belt themselves in.
"We know," Angel and Spike both confirmed.
"Just get as close as you can, and we'll do the rest,"
the blond told them.
"Am I missing something?" Buffy asked.
"Ash," Spike answered by way of clarification.
"If it clogs the air intakes, no more engine. No more engine,
and there isn't really such a thing as a controlled crash landing
for a helicopter."
"Oh. So, I guess we don't want the helicopter
to go near the fire, then," Buffy concurred as the aircraft
lifted off once more. "That rope ladder's starting to look
pretty good. So who goes in?"
"I think we're going to need all the muscle
we can get to open those shutters, pet."
"Or one witch," Willow answered.
"Past comments not withstanding, I'm willing
to listen if you've got a plan."
"These shutters are like shop shutters,
right? If the locks weren't a problem, you could just push them
up?" Willow waited till Spike nodded in confirmation before
continuing. "I know this spell. I can't do the whole door,
but I can make the areas where the locks are really brittle. One
slayer kick, no more locks."
"Okay, Tabitha. You're first down, once
we're in position. As soon as we're holding steady, we'll lower
the ladder with you on it, so all you have to do is step off at
the bottom. Then the rest of us will follow you down. Don't wait
for us unless you hit a problem. Just go do your mojo on those
locks and get clear. For now, best get trancy and see where we
really are, 'cause I don't fancy steppin' off that ladder into
thin air."
"And who put you in charge?" Buffy
demanded of the blond vampire.
"D'you have a problem with the plan?"
Spike asked.
"If I did have, you would know by now. I
do have one modification, though."
"And what's that?"
"As long as Gunn doesn't have a problem
with heights..." The demon hunter shook his head. "...You
might as well lower me and Willow together. That way there's more
weight on the ladder. It shouldn't swing about so much, and I'm
there ready to do the kicking as soon as Will does her spell."
"If I asked you to promise to be careful,
it wouldn't do any good would it?" he asked in a soft voice.
"Probably not," she admitted looking
up into his dangerously expressive eyes.
"Then all I'll say is think twice before
you go rushing into a burning building. Remember, way more people
die from smoke inhalation than from being burned, and you've got
two people backing you up who don't inhale. Okay?" He reached
up to smooth away a stray strand of hair, even though in the downdraft
cause by the propeller blades such an action was patently pointless.
Buffy acknowledged the waves of acceptance and
support that accompanied the love and concern conveyed in his
touch. "I won't forget," she whispered.
The helicopter began to move forwards, and the
change in momentum had Spike grabbing for the helicopter's framework
with one hand and holding Buffy close with the other as she stumbled
into him.
It was too good an opportunity to miss. Buffy
grasped handfuls of the leather that covered his shoulders and
tilted her head back, so her lips were only inches from his when
he looked down to check she was okay. Spike watched transfixed,
as her tongue darted out to moisten suddenly dry lips before he
softly covered them with his own.
When several seconds of throat clearing failed
to produce any effect, Willow was forced to tug on the couple's
sleeves.
"Not that I want to intrude, but getting
trancy, as you put it, is kind of easier if I have some floor
to sit on." She let her gaze shift to the bench seating at
either side of the aircraft and then back to the couple's feet
planted squarely in the middle of the floor space.
The vampire grinned, mischief lighting his eyes.
"You could have just said," he teased as he plonked
himself down on the bench opposite Angel and Gunn and drew Buffy
into his lap.
|
