Chapter
6.13
Wednesday, May 15th, 2002
Spike pulled the bike to a stop alongside the
rearmost car of the train, just as Gunn and Lorne dropped from
the car's roof less than twenty feet away.
"And I thought they'd pretty much done away
with that form of economy travel everywhere except India."
Spike drawled as he pulled the tranq rifle from the rack on the
side of the bike.
He turned toward the rear of the train. "You
got some plan for where you're goin' with that thing?" Gunn
asked, not able to tell in the very first flush of the false dawn
whether the hefty rifle Spike carried was designed for bullets
or darts.
"Sure, I'm going to go shoot that guy your
bit of fluff has pinned down, hopefully swap guns with her, and
then work my way through toward the front until I find the bitch
that hurt Dawn." He didn't even break stride as he answered.
"Any objections?" Spike asked the question
in a tone that intimated that if there were, then the person making
them might be on the receiving end of whatever the rifle did hold.
"Nope, not unless that thing fires bullets."
Gunn's answer came just as Spike rounded the end of the train,
levelled the rifle and shot two darts into the soldier's thigh
in rapid succession before he became aware of the new threat,
all of which was pretty impressive with a bolt action rifle.
Fred heaved a sigh of relief as the soldier slumped
to the ground, knowing that even with the truck's door as cover,
the stand-off couldn't have lasted. As soon as the soldier had
realised the pistol she held was only a tranq gun it would lose
all value as a deterrent, partly because the chances of her hitting
at that range were slight and partly because being tranquillised
just isn't as scary as being shot.
"You do know those darts are meant to be
strong enough to take down a werewolf, don't you? Using two on
an ordinary guy's kind of overkill."
Spike took a moment to assess the man's breathing
even as he took the pistol from Fred's unresisting hands and passed
her the rifle, which he had reloaded as he crossed the ground
between them.
"Ammo?" He held out a hand and Fred
passed him a handful of darts. "He'll live. Didn't want to
risk him staying up. You've got two darts left there, pet. It's
ready to fire but it's bolt-action, so make sure you hit first
time or you might not get a second shot." He tapped the chest
of the fallen man as he made his way to the door by which the
soldier had exited. "And they're wearing body armour so go
for the legs."
"Maybe we should go start from the front?"
Gunn suggested, but Lorne was already following Spike into the
train.
"Hell, no. I want to see this," the
green demon responded.
Fred passed the rifle to Gunn. "Guess it's
down to us."
Willow hesitated for a fraction of a second but
then decided the humans with only two darts were far more likely
to need her help than the invulnerable vampire. She scurried after
the couple.
As it turned out, there was only a squad of eight
on the train. Connor had accounted for two, one tranqued and one
pistol-whipped into unconsciousness before the third member of
their squad had become more wary of the teenager, only to be shot
from behind when Spike made his way through from the rear car.
Angel had taken out one with the tranq gun, by
the time Spike made his way into the car where he, Connor and
Sam were. The soldier's partner had dropped back, and broke cover
only occasionally to take pot shots in the hope of getting a lucky
hit, and from his caged position there didn't seem to be much
Angel could do about it.
"Need a hand there, grandpa?" Spike
asked as he bent to grasp the first set of shutters.
"You won't be able to shift those,"
Sam crowed. "They're titanium alloy and once they're locked
in place, it would take over a ton of pressure to lift them."
Spike barely seemed to strain a muscle as the
locks anchoring the shutters, deformed and then gave, allowing
him to push the metal rods back up into the ceiling.
"Really? Then I guess I'm just imagining
this." Lorne and Connor watched from cover behind the car's
stainless-steel units, as the desperate soldier emptied his clip
in the direction of the seemingly unstoppable vampire, who calmly
moved to open the shutters separating him from his grandsire.
The panicked private fumbled as he tried to load
a new clip into his SMG even as he knew it was hopeless, the spent
shells falling around the blond's feet a testament to its futility.
"Thought you weren't going to be able to
make it?" Angel queried from his cover behind the examination
table as Spike stepped through to remove the last obstacle between
him and their attacker. Fortunately, the hail of bullets also
kept Sam trapped in her cover under the desk.
"Change of plans. Buffy seemed to think
it was important that this bitch," Spike reached under the
desk and pulled Sam out by her hair before dragging her to the
exam table. "...should learn that you don't go messing with
our family and expect to get away with it."
Passing his gun to Angel, he then pulled a set
of handcuffs from his coat pocket snapping one end around Sam's
wrist and fastening the other to the rail that ran around the
table. Only a second after passing his gun to Angel he reclaimed
it.
"You just happened to have those in your
coat pocket?" the older vampire asked.
"Yeah. Same way I just happened to
have a tranq rifle. We did get enough notice to pick up some
bits and pieces, you know."
By this point, the dispirited soldier was scrambling
backwards across the floor away from the two vampires.
"Can't say we don't appreciate the help,"
Angel responded dryly, as he raised his pistol to shoot the last
guard in the leg, even as Gunn, Fred and Willow appeared behind
his target.
"There were two guarding the driver, but
we knocked them out and tied the driver up," Fred reported
when Angel raised an eyebrow in their direction.
"I guess that only leaves us one little
problem to deal with, then." Spike began to pull open the
doors of the various base units seemingly at random, until he
found one which concealed a trash receptacle. Pulling out the
garbage bag, he tipped its contents out onto the desk beneath
which Sam had been hiding. Flipping aside a couple of bloody swabs,
he surveyed the other items.
"Okay, we're looking for another bottle
that says V64, I suppose if someone finds a clean syringe we can
use it, otherwise this one'll do and we're also looking for what
came out of here." Spike held up a small cellophane wrapper.
"Well, come on! There's more than enough
cupboards and drawers in here for everyone to take one, or do
I have to do everything? Quicker we find out what we want, the
quicker Dawn gets fixed and you all get to go home."
Spike moved to a roll-front wall unit that opened
up to display a bewildering array of bottles. All were numbered,
some marked with a "V", some with an "A".
He pulled all the ones marked with the number 64 from the shelves
and shoved them into his pockets with the exception of one bottle
of the venom. He shook the bottle of milky fluid in his hand as
he walked
"Okay, lady, and I use the term extremely
loosely. You are going to tell me exactly how you would treat
someone who's been injected with this stuff. You better tell the
truth, because once we know what—"
Spike was cut off by Fred's startled epithet
as she pressed the button that opened the plexiglass screen obscuring
the homeless man's cage. "My God!" she exclaimed as
she stared in shock at the filthy, malnourished man in his confinement.
The rest of the crew turned, alerted as much by the malodour as
by Fred's comment.
"Keys?" Angel demanded, holding his
hand out in front of Sam, "unless of course you would rather
we do a strip search."
The brunette grudgingly pointed to the desk drawer.
Willow pulled the drawer open, finding not only the keys but also
the other thing they'd been searching for. She tossed the keys
to Fred and then held up the Dictaphone for Spike to see, the
tape marked simply with the word Key and the previous evening's
date.
As Fred freed the unfortunate man, Spike turned
back to their captive.
"Okay, Mrs Mengele, as I was saying, you're
going to tell me exactly how to treat Dawn, because I am going
to inject this stuff into you. I am going to wait until you are
in at least as bad a state as Dawn was when I last saw her, and
then I might think about following your instructions to make sure
you're not lying. In fact, just to speed things up I might go
for a double dose."
"Y-you can't," Sam pouted in disbelief.
"You really think anyone here is going to
stop me? Or that they could?"
"Y-you c-can't hurt anyone, you're— The
chip."
"Hey, well, I guess scum who harm people
I care about rate as subhuman even with the chip, or didn't it
actually hurt when I pulled you out from under that desk by the
hair?"
A look of shock crossed Sam's face as she belatedly
registered the significance of her earlier pain. This was no toothless
guard dog.
"Bollocks it, I'm bored already just waiting
for you to start talking."
Spike picked up the used syringe and used it
to puncture the lid of the bottle he was holding, drawing the
contents of the bottle into it. He depressed the plunger just
enough to expel any air bubbles and then pulling on Sam's free
arm until her stretched out position allowed her no resistance
he plunged the syringe into the centre if her back, through the
scrubs she wore, only removing it when it was empty.
"Okay, still think I won't do it?"
Spike pulled another bottle from his pocket. Shaking it in front
of Sam's suddenly sweating face.
"So what is this shit?"
"Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik venom."
This earned her an almost casual backhanded slap
from Spike. "You sadistic bitch! You mean you were just going
to leave her like that. We wouldn't have had a hope in hell of
curing her, even if we worked out what was wrong. Not unless Red
here could have summoned one of those ugly bastards, and you know
she can't be doin' with that dark mojo."
Sam wiped a thin trail of blood from her mouth.
She wouldn't have been entirely convinced if someone told her
that Spike's blow had been deliberately restrained.
"That was the plan."
"Spike." Angel's voice was soft. "Let
me."
The blond paced to the far end of the car, where
the sight of Dawn's new boots standing in a corner enraged him
even more.
"Spike, here, never really did have the
patience required for torture. He'd forget how fragile humans
are. So, if I were you I'd talk quick before that injection starts
to have an effect, because if you go catatonic on him, I wouldn't
count on your still being able to speak, when and if you ever
come round."
"You inject a bottle of the antidote A64."
"You don't drink it?" Willow asked.
"You can make a form that you drink, but
the injection works more quickly."
"And that's it? One injection?" Angel
prodded.
Sam nodded. "Unless there's no improvement
after an hour, in which case you might need a second dose."
"So what now?" Willow asked.
"We wait." Most of the group turned
to look at the blond, except Fred and Connor, who were busy trying
to see to the alcoholic who seemed to be unable to stand on his
own, though whether this was a result of his previous cramped
conditions, hunger or alcohol was anyone's guess.
"This stuff might only work if it's administered
within minutes of the venom or something like that, so we wait
until she's symptomatic before we give her it, and in the meantime
we check that tape to make sure there's nothing that contradicts
what she just told us."
Willow picked up the Dictaphone and rewound the
tape before playing back the first few seconds.
Suddenly, the door diagonally opposite the one
Connor and Angel had used to enter the train was jerked open.
Framed in the doorway, Riley and Graham levelled submachine guns
at the group.
"Mind if we join the party?" the scar-faced
soldier asked.
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