Title:  Secret as the Grave, Chapter 5: Displacement

Author:  Miss Murchison

Rating:  R

Disclaimer:  All characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.  Only the lame plots and dialogue herein are mine.

Notes:   This starts after “Showtime” in Season 7 and starts going AU immediately.  Thanks to Devil Piglet, DorothyL and Kes for great feedback and suggestions.

“Hi, guys,” said Andrew, coming into the kitchen.  “What’cha doing?”

Buffy pulled herself away from Spike and stared at Andrew as if she couldn’t remember who he was.

Xander looked at him in exasperation.  “We’re having an important discussion.  Don’t you have something else to do?”

Andrew shuffled his feet and looked forlorn.  “Well, I wanted to watch TV with the others, but the girls voted down all my choices.  They said they were stupid, but I still say that Ben Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms.  And Tobey Mcguire’s performance in Spiderman was very underrated.  Anyway, can’t I be part of your discussion?  I have ideas, you know.”

“It’s not the quantity but the quality of your ideas that concerns us, Andrew,” said Giles.

“Huh?”

“Never mind.  The time for discussion is over,” said Buffy.  “Now we have to find out what’s happening and figure out what resources we have to fight this thing.  We have to use every tool we have.” She turned to Andrew.  “Speaking of which—”

“Tool?”  said Andrew.  “I’m a tool?”

This drew synchronized eye-rolls from all of the Scoobies, but Buffy’s face stayed stern.  “Go with Xander—” she began.

“I’m Xander’s tool?”

“Andrew, shutting up and listening would be a really good idea right now,” said Buffy.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor.

“Good,” said Buffy.  “Go with Xander.  The two of you will be in charge of collecting more mundane-type weapons.  Axes, guns, rocket launchers.  Look through that stuff of Warren’s we salvaged.”

“Pretty much anything we can find, okay,” said Xander, getting up from the table.

“No,” said Buffy emphatically.  “We’re talking about Warren’s junk.  I don’t want anything that Wile E. Coyote would have thought it was a neat idea to use.  That stuff never works.”

“Okay,” said Xander.  “We’ll leave the cartoon anvils and the Flash Gordon ray guns and stick with old-fashioned, sensible instruments of murder and mayhem.  Whatever we can salvage.”

Buffy turned to Willow.  “You’re in charge of magic.  Figure out what we have that’s safe to use.”

Willow nodded unhappily and looked around.  “I’d like some help.  Dawnie, will you stick with me?”  She turned back to Buffy.  “If that’s okay with you.  I—I don’t feel all that safe touching certain things myself.”

“Okay,” said Buffy quietly.  Neither she or any of the others said any more.  Words of reassurance would have been hollow and useless.

“And what about me?” demanded Anya.  “I know magic better than Dawn.”

“You also know demonic history better,” said Buffy.  “I want you and Giles to go back into research mode.”

Giles shook his head, looking uncomfortable.  “Buffy, we already tried every source we have on the First Evil.  There is no more information to collect.”

“That’s not the demon I want you to research,” said Buffy.  “I want you to go back and look at Slayer origins.”

There was a moment’s silence.  “You said ‘demon.’”  It was Xander who pointed this out.

“Yes, I did.  Because it’s clear now that’s where my power as Slayer comes from.  I have to know more about it, how it works, how it comes to me and the other Slayers.  If the disruption in that power is what brought the First back into action, I need to know what kind of a demon I’m dealing with.  What kind of a demon I am.”  Her voice was calm and matter of fact.  Her expression was serious but undismayed.  Only her eyes reflected grief and horror.

Once again, no one argued or offered reassurance.  There was another uncomfortable silence that perhaps included a sense of relief that this truth had finally been put into words.

“Unfortunately,” said Giles, “most of those records were destroyed with the Council.”

“Which means they probably were really important,” said Anya.  “Too bad they’re just a pile of ash.”

“But some of them are a bundle of bits and bytes,” said Willow suddenly.  She turned to Giles.  “Remember all those books you had me scan a few years ago?  Would they help?”

Giles shifted on his feet, a faint hope stirring in his eyes.  “Yes, yes, if I could have those documents, I could make a start at least—” 

“I’ll give you the CDs,” said Willow, heading for the stairs.  “I have copies saved.”

“CDs?” said Giles.  “You mean they’re saved on those things you put in the computer slots?  I think I know how to use those.  Without damaging them.”  He looked uneasy.

“Don’t worry,” said Anya.  “I’m on your team, and I’ll help you with the putting of things in the right slots.”  She beamed at him.  “We’ll work on it together!”

“Yeah,” said Buffy, her eyes widening at Anya’s expression.  “You and Giles—can work on that.”  She looked away, met Spike’s eyes, and almost burst into laughter in spite of everything.

“What about us, pet?”  he asked.  “Do we get to put things in the right slots?”

“Not now,” she said firmly.  “Our job is to train our fighting force.”

        Giles and Anya had set up operations on the dining room table with two laptop PCs that they had commandeered from Willow and Dawn.  Anya was paging industriously through files she had pulled up on one laptop, while Giles ignored his and made notes on her findings in a leather-bound journal.

        “Anything useful in this latest one?” he asked about an hour into their studies, returning from the kitchen with a cup of tea for himself and a diet soda for her.  “It’s a particularly old text, but, as I recall, no more informative about the origins of Chosen Ones than any of the others.”

“I’m not going through the parts on Slayers,” said Anya.  “I’m searching for information on vampires.”

“Like the Turok-Han?”

“Like Spike.”

“Spike?”  Giles was startled.

“Yes, Spike.  Buffy said that the last time the First showed up, it went after Angel.  And this time, it went after Spike.  Two vampires with souls, each of whom boinked a Slayer who came back from the dead.  Coincidence?  I think not.”

Giles winced at her language, but then looked more thoughtful.  He shoved his PC further off to the side and shifted his chair closer to Anya’s to read over her shoulder.  “Yes, it is possible, indeed probable, that the return of Spike’s soul is as much a part of this equation as Buffy’s return from the dead.” 

“See, I thought the chance to blame Spike for something would make you more cheerful,” said Anya brightly.

Giles had turned away and was sorting through the pile of CDs.  “This one,” he said.  “This is the text that informed me it was Angel’s blood that could release Acathla.  The fact that he had once had a soul was important, I recall.  We must examine this concept more closely.”  He smiled at her.  “That was an excellent idea, Anya.”

Anya took the disk from him, smiling with happiness at this praise.

Vi screamed.  Buffy sighed.  Spike watched her whole body tense, her hand adjusting its grip on her stake.  He began to count slowly.  His guess was that she wouldn’t make it past ten.

“One . . .” he muttered under his breath.

Kennedy and Molly managed to save Vi from the vampire she was struggling with, more by dint of getting too many bodies in its way and forcing it to stumble over tombstones than by any stunning use of martial arts skills.  Buffy still stood quietly, if anxiously, next to Spike, doing nothing.

“Two . . .”  Rona and two of the others were sparring with another vampire.  One of the girls was about to stab it when another Potential knocked the stake out of her hand.   Not that it would have mattered.  A stake in the butt might be painful, but Spike could vouch for the fact that it was not going to slow a vampire down, much less kill him.

“Three . . .”  Kennedy made a valiant attempt to rush her vampire and got thrown backwards like a rag doll.  She hit the wall of a mausoleum and lay on the ground, stunned.  Buffy still did not move.

“Four . . .”  Spike cocked his head to one side, watching the tangle of legs that was Rona’s group trying to sort itself out, while their vampire crawled over the grass a few feet away, apparently just as confused as the Potential Slayers.

“Five . . .”  The other vamp grabbed Vi again from behind, and Molly was too far away to help.  His fangs came down against her neck . . . and he exploded into dust with one blow from Buffy’s stake.

Vi fell to her knees and gaped up at Buffy.  “T-thanks.” 

Buffy sighed again and nodded at the other vampire.  “Help them now,” she ordered.  She looked over at Kennedy, who was pulling herself to her feet and looking around for a weapon.  Smiling grimly, Buffy stepped back to Spike’s side and resumed her watchful role.

“So now it’s six of them against one newbie who hasn’t figured out which side of the neck the jugular’s on,” said Spike.  “Who are you betting on?”

“They can take him,” said Buffy. 

He heard the doubt behind her bold assertion and merely cocked a sardonic eyebrow.

Buffy sighed.  “I’m no good at fooling you or myself, Spike.  Even if they manage to dust this vamp, they’re not ready to fight the kind of big bad we’re up against.”

“And much as I’d like to do my old cocksure I’m-the-biggest-bad-around act, I have to admit that I’m not back to full strength.  I should be, but something the First did to me left me weak.”  A Potential screamed as the remaining vamp grasped her by the shoulders and began to sink its fangs into her neck.  With a grunt of irritation, Spike stepped forward, snapped the creature’s neck to stop the attack, and held up its body for the Potential to stake.

The girl stood staring at the resulting cloud of dust, one hand holding her stake and the other clasping her bleeding neck. 

Spike stepped back to Buffy’s side, away from the smell of fresh blood.  He forced his mind back to their previous topic of discussion.  “It had to be that ceremony to create that Ubervamp.  It took something more from me than just some red corpuscles.  Don’t know what.  Couldn’t have been my sense of style, because the thing had none.”

Buffy smiled perfunctorily at his joke.  “At least you’re sharing that with me,” she said.  “Unlike other things.  What was that about, Spike?  Afraid I’d kill the messenger?”  Her eyes shifted away from his, and her voice cracked slightly on the last words.  Spike followed her gaze, wondering if it was only the sight of the Potentials gathering up their weapons that made her seem so uneasy.  None of the girls was congratulating herself on the demise of the last two vamps.  Most of them fanned out to examine the rest of the hiding places in the graveyard.

He was silent for a minute.  Buffy had already known there was something he wasn’t telling her about himself.  Now she knew that he had guessed she was the source of the disruption that allowed the First to be active.  He wasn’t sure just how much trouble he was in, or even how they would cope with a real argument under the terms of this strange new version of their relationship.  “I decided it was share time because it’s something you need to know,” he said finally.  “I didn’t mention the other because why we’re in this bloody mess isn’t important any more.”  His expression was almost rueful.  “And in case you haven’t noticed, giving pain isn’t one of my turn-ons these days.”

“You’re wrong, Spike,” said Buffy, and then added quickly, “about this being important, I mean.  On a need to know basis, this was something I needed to know.  This information about me could be important.”

  He shook his head.  “I don’t know that I believe that, pet.  That horse escaped long before you sent Giles chasing to shut the barn door.  It’s the future that matters.  That’s why I’m telling you my full strength isn’t back.  You need to know that you may not be able to depend on me in a fight.”

“You’re still the best fighter I’ve got, Spike,” said Buffy.  “And you’ll come up to full strength in time.  I believe that.  I need to believe that.  Because you’re all I’ve really got to get through this.  Because Willow, Giles, and the others aren’t coming up with any answers.  And as hard as I’m trying to teach these girls, they’re just not cutting the ketchup.”

At this, he grinned with real amusement.  “Mustard,” he said reflexively, wondering if she had made the mistake just to see him laugh.  I did something that pissed her off, and not only is she not hitting me or bitching about it, she’s making jokes?  I don’t know whether to be thankful or worried.

She shrugged, answering his smile with a wry one of her own.  “Mustard, ketchup, salsa, or anything else in the condiment category.  They’re not making it, Spike.”

He turned to see that one of the Potentials had not followed the others.  Rona was standing a few feet away, listening to their conversation with a fearful expression.  He cursed himself inwardly.  Whether it was the residual weakness left by the First’s ritual or the strange visions of a distant place that haunted him, he was seriously off his game.  The stench of the girl’s fear was so strong, it was incredible that it had not alerted his hunting instincts.  How had he become so careless of his surroundings that he could ignore the presence of a human standing that near to him?

William could not help pondering his surroundings.  They were strange in their perfection, but familiar in their style and content.  It occurred to him that perhaps the form of this lovely place was merely a metaphor culled from his own mind, and that the people around him might perceive it very differently.

        However, he could not imagine that his mind was responsible for the creation of the other residents.  The Irishman in particular was a creature William would have rebelled at imagining.  The Irishman had just come in from outside and was heading towards the buffet table.  The Mad Girl was there, contemplating a piece of fruit with the fascination of one who had never seen such a thing before.  William hoped the Irishman would ignore her, but he was unsurprised when the dark man grabbed the girl from behind and shouted an indecent proposal.

The Mad Girl squealed in terror, fingers clawing at the arm around her waist.  The Irishman bent over and whispered something in her ear.   She whimpered as if in pain.

 This behavior was one of the few things that could call the attention of the factotums behind the reception desk.  Once of them began to hurry towards the buffet, fussing loudly, but William was there first. 

“Let the girl go,” he said wearily.

The Irishman laughed and shoved the Mad Girl into William’s arms.  “Want her for yourself, eh?” he shouted.  

The factotum stopped in his tracks, waited a moment, and then faded back to the reception desk.  Merely acting like a drunken lout was not enough to raise an objection from the creatures who ran this place.

Besides, thought William, if one of those creatures in black did anything at all it would simply be to—

“Look what I have, dear boy,” purred a childlike voice.  A beautiful blonde woman held up a bottle of champagne.

--provide a distraction.  William finished his thought with a little coda of admiration for the factotum.  A beautiful woman and good wine.  Either would be a surefire way to divert the Irishman’s attention.

“There you are,” said the Irishman, his eyes gleaming as he pulled the blonde woman towards him. 

William looked away from the passionate embrace that followed.  It was annoyance at their lack of propriety, not jealousy, that made him avert his gaze.  He felt no erotic interest in the blonde woman.  Her babyish voice annoyed him, and he disliked the calculating way she looked at people.  He thought of her as a hag hiding behind a child’s demeanor. 

The Mad Girl was whimpering in William’s arms.  She was terrified of the Irishman, and a single word from him had been known to cause an hysterical fit. 

“Come with me, miss,” said William soothingly.  “Shall we go find your dolls upstairs?  Or would you like to go in the garden and see the pretty flowers?”

“I’m sure she has plenty of toys and pretty things to show you, eh?” said the Irishman, looking away from the blonde woman for a moment.  “She must play very nicely to make up for your having to listen to her mewing and whining.”

        William found the thought of taking advantage of a mindless creature horribly distasteful, and the first time the Irishman had suggested his small kindnesses to the Mad Girl had earned him such rewards, he had been reduced to stuttering incoherence.  Now, the teasing merely irritated him.  He was about to guide the Mad Girl to the stairs when it happened.

        The Irishman disappeared.  He didn’t walk off.  He certainly hadn’t been called to the reception desk.  He was simply gone.  William stood with the others, blinking at the spot where the Irishman had been standing a moment before.  There was a murmur of questions and some excitement.  The blonde woman screamed.

Surprisingly, the Mad Girl did not cry out.  She stared with the others at the empty tiles on the floor and murmured, “It wasn’t supposed to be him.”

The blonde woman took the unprecedented action of going to the desk and demanding an explanation, but the receptionist on duty was as bewildered as the residents.  He kept paging through his ledger, muttering that this wasn’t at all on the schedule.

        Nothing frightens the powerless as much as the suggestion that those in charge have lost control.  There was a stir of unease throughout the building.  William was distracted from the rumblings by the Mad Girl, who began to recite nonsense about curses and prophecies that would be misunderstood.  He tried to give soothing responses to her incoherent ramblings, and eventually she shook her head and merely looked annoyed at him, as if he were failing to understand some simple instructions.  By the time William had a chance to look around him, he realized that the other residents had apparently gotten over the shock of the disappearance and gone back to their usual revels.

        “Come sit down,” he said to the Mad Girl, pulling up a chair for her.  He felt as exhausted as was possible in this place.  He only wanted to rest and think quietly.

        That, apparently, was not to be.  “May we talk?” the Mad Girl asked, her eyes meeting his imploringly.

        He bit back his impulse to shout, “No!”  Instead, he said, “I could read you a story.”  Anything was better than engaging in her strange version of conversation.

        She clasped her hands together like a child anticipating a treat.  “Can it be the one about the girl who goes into the strange, wonderful land?”

        “The one where Alice falls down the rabbit hole?”  He was relieved.  There were worse things to be forced to read.

        The Mad Girl shook her head.  “The other one.  The one where she’s on the wrong side of the mirror.  I want to hear the first part again.  Because I think that she can see her reflection on one side of the glass, but I don’t remember if she can see it when she falls through.”

        William sat down and looked at the table that stood by his chair.  To his utter lack of surprise, a copy of “Through the Looking Glass” lay there. 

        The Mad Girl was still musing in her idiotic way.  “Because I think she should only have a reflection on one side of the glass, don’t you?” she asked.

William sighed, opened the book, and began to read.  Why, of all the people here, did the Mad Girl cling to him? And why, when she became desperate, did he feel compelled to soothe her?

        “Calm down, Dawn,” said Willow in a soothing voice.  “Buffy knows what she’s doing.”

        “I just don’t get it.  Using Spike to figure out what’s up with the First I can understand.  But how can she trust him enough to—”  Dawn’s expression hardened into cold anger.  “Not after what he did.”

        “Buffy is good at forgiving,” said Willow.  She looked up from the trunk full of magical paraphernalia that she was sorting through.  “So are you, usually,” she added meaningfully.

        Dawn stared at her.  “Oh.  Well, you’re different.  You’re—”

        “Someone who had a soul and free will and still did terrible things.  Dawn, with this thing around, none of us dares to trust the others absolutely.  But if we don’t stick together, it will win for sure.  And we need Spike.  He’s been close to this thing, and he’s figured out how to fight its influence.”  Willow took a long, heavy box from the trunk and put it on the dresser.  “Would you sort through those things for me?”

        “Yeah, he looked like he was fighting it real well in the kitchen.”  Dawn opened the box and began pulling out bags of herbs.

        “Whatever’s getting to Spike now, it’s not the First, Dawn.  Remember, I felt the First inside me.  I’d know if it was in the room with me.”

        “Okay, great.  So he’s possessed by something else.  Or maybe he’s just delusional.  My sister is sleeping with a psychotic vampire.  I feel much better now.”  Dawn picked up a small wooden box and frowned at it.  “What’s in here?” 

        Willow blinked up at her.  “It’s something Buffy asked me to work on a few weeks ago.  For Spike.  But she doesn’t want me to use it now.  I think I should destroy it, but I’d need another ritual.  And—not feeling so secure with doing the magic right now.”

        “If you’re not feeling okay to do magic, why are we looking at this stuff?”  Dawn lowered her hands, but did not put down the box.

        “Some spells I wouldn’t need to do myself,” said Willow.  “There are some things here anyone can use to make a protection spell for the house.  I’m going to show the rest of you how to activate it; it may offer some protection against the Bringers.”

        “Oh.”  Dawn rubbed her hand over the wooden surface.  “Why doesn’t Buffy want this any more?”

        “Oh!”  Willow cried in dismay as something jumped up from the trunk and began darting around the room.  “Come back here, you!”

        Dawn swatted the tiny ball of light away.  It careened across the room and into a photograph hanging on the wall, knocking it to the floor.

        “Gotcha!” said Willow, snatching the ball of light and stuffing it back into a bottle.

        “What is it?” said Dawn.

        "An imp.  It’s supposed to be useful, for dusting furniture and stuff.”

        “A fairy duster?” asked Dawn.  “Like instead of a feather duster?”

        “Kind of.  But it’s much better at breaking things than at cleaning.” 

        “Oh.  What about this?”  Dawn held up the box she held again.

        “That?  Oh, that won’t do anything until it’s activated.”

        “What will it break then?”  Dawn opened the box a crack and stared at the bright blue orb inside.

“It’s not for breaking something, exactly.  But Buffy didn’t want to use it on Spike after all.  She said it would hurt him.”  Willow picked up the picture that had been knocked down and frowned at it.  The glass was shattered, fragmenting the image of smiling Scoobies beneath it.  “I was going to take that imp to the mall and set it loose in the Thomas Kinkade gallery, but I keep forgetting.”

        “Oh.” Dawn was still looking down at the glowing orb in its velvet box.  “Hurt Spike how?”

Chapter Six