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We Will Remember Them by Lilachigh
 
Chp 31: Blame the Slayer!
 
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We will remember them…
By Lilachigh


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon



Chapter Thirty One: Blame the Slayer!


“One of the doctors is about to walk through the door, Slayer.” The words were hardly out of Spike’s mouth before Buffy was there holding the door handle tight, pulling it towards her with all her strength. Spike raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s really going to keep them out. Is this your big plan, Slayer? Doesn’t seem like a brilliant one to me!”

Someone was banging on the door now and Buffy could hear a muffled voice calling, “Hey, open up. Whoever’s in there – open this door at once!” The command was repeated in German.

Spike yawned and wandered down the room, rattling his fingers along the bars of one of the cages. From the shadowy depths, something hissed words at him in a language Buffy didn’t recognise. “Come on, Slayer, I know something about these guys and what they’re doing in Sauerkraut Land. You’re never going to stop them unless you kill them – and – ”

Buffy struggled to turn and look at him without letting the door open. “You know about them? How?”

Spike shrugged. “Long story. Spend my whole life avoiding being captured by people wanting to kill me and my kind. I’ll tell you one thing – you’re not going to stop this sodding doctor spreading the word about his work. They’ve tried sending the information to the States already.”

His eyes shadowed as he remembered a submarine, Liam, and afterwards when for the first time he’d stopped to think about the War and whose side he was on. Not that he was on any bloody side, of course. They all wanted to kill him, so were all just meals waiting to be eaten as far as he was concerned. And that reminded him of just how hungry he was. That was the American doxy’s fault, too! If she’d let him get at the doctors, he could feed to his dead heart’s content.

“You need another plan, Slayer and time to think of it!” Swiftly, Spike crossed the room, dragged a heavy metal table towards Buffy and tipped it over on its end so it jammed against the door. “There! That should hold them for a while. Think fast, Slayer, we need another way out of here.”

Buffy stared round the room, her mind racing. The cages that housed vampires and demons stretched away down one side. There were no doors and obviously no windows; they were too far underground. “Perhaps you can get back in your cage and I’ll pretend the door just got stuck. I’ll try and talk my way out and come back for you later.”

“Perhaps you can go somewhere and have another pretty dream! Unless you think you can force me inside and then get the bars straightened out all by yourself!”

“Spike – you’re not helping!”

“Not helping? Bloody hell, Slayer, I’m saving your bacon here. And playing by your rules. I’m telling you, once we get out of here, I’m going to give my plan a go, whether you like it or not.” He waved a hand at the cages. “Demons, vamps – all waiting to get out of here. I’m going to have fun, Slayer! Not that I think you know the meaning of the word. But I do! I’m going to be a General – might even get me a nice uniform, with medals and braid.”

Buffy glared at him. The thought of Spike at the head of a vampire army made her blood run cold. If he had been “her” Spike, chipped and unable to kill humans, then maybe it would have been different. But this vamp! She had no clear idea of why he was even still in France. Why hadn’t he gone off to find Drusilla? He had no allegiance or loyalty to her – not like “her” Spike. Was this his scheme all along? The reason he hadn’t eaten his half of the charm to wipe his memory - to release the vamps and lead them on a rampage through Europe?

Spike leaned against a cage and rattled the bars of it again with his fingernail, ignoring the hisses from within the rank depths. “So – no way out – your doctor friends the other side of the door and me and several very pissed off demons and vamps this side. Anyone want to use the word ‘trapped’?”

Inside Buffy’s jacket pocket, Henry, the toad belonging to Valerie, Witch in Residence to the Watcher’s Council, woke up again. Henry was tired – tired of travelling, tired of being underground in the dark, tired of the rough blue material he’d been lying on. He was also very hungry: he’d tried his sticky tongue on the tough purple and black sweet that lived with him in the pocket, but hadn’t made much impression. He also felt a little guilty because he could sense the magic coming off it in waves. Henry had been toad to many witches and knew that interfering with charms was a bad thing to do.

But he wanted food – cool grass and the flying, buzzing, crawling things that tasted so good. As the people he was with didn’t seem to be providing these for him, he forced himself upwards and half leapt, half fell onto the floor.

“Henry!” Buffy swooped to catch the toad but Spike was faster, his hand tightening on her arm.

“Leave him, Slayer.”

Buffy pulled herself free, irritated by the surge of feeling that rushed through her body at his touch. “If he gets into one of those cages – ”

Spike cursed violently and threw himself at the toad who’d vanished between two cages, neatly avoiding the vampire’s outstretched hand and two long tentacles that swooped out from between the bars above him.

“Bloody animal!” Spike tugged at the cages, hearing the screech of nails as they were dragged from the stone walls. “Why the hell did you need to bring him with you?”

“Valerie insisted.” Buffy glanced back in desperation to where the door to the other laboratory was now being hammered at by more than the fists of the two doctors. They had obviously called in the guards and even as she looked, an ominous bulge appeared in the thin metal above the lock. Buffy groaned; once the German soldiers had the door open, there would be little she could do. She was quite certain that there was no excuse she could make up to account for having released a dangerous vampire from his cage!

Suddenly she realised they did have one means of escape. “Spike – eat the charm!” she said as he hurled another cage to the floor and something darkly orange began to squeeze between the bars.

“What?”

“I can’t get captured here in Germany. They’ll shoot me as a spy. Eat the charm. Send me back to my time and then save yourself.”

Spike turned, his eyes alight with mischievous delight, his bad mood evaporating at the thought of a fight. “Wouldn’t you fancy me in a posh uniform, Slayer?”

Buffy glanced again at the laboratory door. “Spike!” she hissed, wondering why she couldn’t just stake him and be done with it. He had to be the most aggravating man she’d ever met! “There isn’t time for your games. They’ve got guns. They’re going to shoot first and ask questions afterwards. Eat the charm!”

“Or we can follow Henry!” Spike grinned at her and pulled aside the last cage, the bars bending with the power of his grasp. As a vamp forced his way out with a growl, Spike reached out and pulled Buffy to his side, pointing behind the row of cages.
At floor level, a large dark oblong broke the grey stone wall of the Chateau’s cellar. Buffy raced across to it and peered inside.

Henry was sitting complacently on a wooden shelf, gazing up at the dark chimney-like space above his head. Old pulley ropes on each side of the platform gave Buffy the information she needed. “It’s a dumbwaiter! They must have used it in the olden days to bring wine and beer and things down to the cellars.”

Spike stared at the door at the far end of the room. The metal around the lock was tearing now. The shouts from the other laboratory were getting louder. “Right – in you go, Slayer!”

Buffy started to protest, then realised there was nowhere else to go. Picking up Henry, she put him in her pocket and stepped onto the platform. It was surprisingly large; this hadn’t been built to move food conveniently from one part of the chateau to another – no, she had the feeling that bodies of torture victims had been carried up and down from the dungeons on this thing.

Suddenly there was a tremendous crash and she realised the guards had finally broken through the door. “Spike!” she yelled, just as he came flying through the opening, his arms wrapping round her to keep himself upright. Behind him it sounded as if all Hell had broken loose – screaming, growling, shots being fired - “What were you doing– ? ”

“Letting the guards meet their vampire prisoners face to face!” he murmured in her ear as he reached up and pulled hard on the pulley ropes on either side. Buffy struggled to keep her balance as the walls of the shaft closed in around them; the only way she could was to put her arms round Spike’s waist and hold on.

Slowly, jerking and shuddering, the old contraption rumbled into life and the light from the cellar room vanished beneath their feet. Total darkness surrounded them. Buffy was about to speak when Spike stopped tugging on the ropes and pulled her even closer so they stood on the middle of the platform.

“What - ? ”

“Don’t make a sound, Slayer,” came the whisper in her ear. “We’re level with the guardroom; the Bosch are there; I can hear them talking. We can’t move until they leave - they’ll hear the pulley.”

The silence and dark closed round them like a velvet cloak. Buffy could feel the hardness of his chest pressing against her breasts, his belt buckle digging against her waist. She caught her breath as the hardness of his thighs rubbed against the muscles in her own legs. And she could imagine, dream, desire – she was back home in Sunnydale, in a dark, ruined house. His legs were about to push hers apart, his hard hands would explore every inch of her body in a way that was beyond sex, beyond possession. It was closing a circle, key fitting lock, an end to one journey and the beginning of another.

God, how she missed him, missed what he made her feel, the sensations that he alone could conjure from her body. And even as the trembling grew stronger and stronger, she knew that what she missed wasn’t just the sex – it was the man himself – the friend, the enemy, companion, lover, warrior.

Now, in this complete darkness, her hands tangled in his hair, and there was a roaring in her ears as she raised her face just a little to where Buffy knew his lips would be waiting and with a whimper that died before it began, she let the hunger take over.

William the Bloody hadn’t meant to kiss the Slayer again. Well, he was bloody well certain he’d never meant to kiss her ever – let alone do anything else to her. As the dark surrounded them, he could still see the faint outline of her face as the scent from her body swamped his brain. It was a charm, magic – that was what it had been before when they were hiding in the farm cart, he told himself desperately as his treacherous body began to react to the softness of her breasts against his chest. He tried to bring Dru’s face into his mind, concentrate on dark eyes, cold lips, icy body.

But then the Slayer’s warmth turned his legs to jelly, strong hands tangled in his hair and as he bent his head, he found a hot mouth ready and waiting for him to plunder.


tbc





















 
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