AUTHOR'S NOTE: The language is Swahili. I had to use an on-line translator so forgive me if something seems off. Also, there is no word for "vampire" in Swahili. I came as close to the meaning as I could.
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BATH, ENGLAND
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Giles hadn’t slept in days. The file glowered at him from his bedside table. As he paced the floor, he was amazed how frightened he was by its contents.

The details were cursory, but even glancing at them he knew that, if he were to do as Travers asked, and followed the information where it led, he would be sounding the Council’s death knell. No governing body can exist when it is built upon a false paradigm. If he took this on, his own life’s work would be called into question. But then, he realized, he’d questioned the Council’s methods, and their motives, before.

Giles walked out into the lounge of his flat, and went straight for the bookcase, and his brandy. He poured himself a drink and pondered the Council and its archaic beliefs. Beliefs that, Spike had forced him to reconsider, almost from the moment he stepped foot in Sunnydale.

He dimly remembered his time as Angelus’s captive. There were times he thought he heard a voice in his ear, bolstering him up between Angelus’s sessions of torture. If it hadn’t been for that voice, he was sure he would have broken, “Don’t give him anything, Watcher. If you do, you’re dead, and that would not be good, for either of us. The Slayer’s coming.” And then later, ”You have your way with him, you’ll never get to destroy the world. And, I don’t fancy spending the next month trying to get librarian out of the carpet. There are other ways.”

It wasn’t until years later, when the Council had begun to show its true colors, that he put a face with the words.

“William the Bloody,” the scourge of Europe, was the voice of reason. Spike’s voice was the voice that saved his life. The Council held that demons, and vampires in particular, were incapable of anything resembling empathy, or regard for another. Yet, the fact that he still drew breath meant that, perhaps that was not always true. He himself had been witness to the depth of feeling that Spike had for Buffy, and Dawn as well. He had seen just how extensive Spike’s injuries had been when he’d been captured by Glory. And he’d seen, with his own eyes, the affect Buffy’s “death” had had on him.

He knew, in his heart, what Travers meant to do with Spike, if the rumors were true. A vampire that could exercise free will, a demon that could make a conscious choice to be better was an affront to his beliefs and all he’d been taught. There were many things that Travers might have planned. None of them were pleasant.

Giles knew he had to find him. There was no telling what state Spike would be in, if he’d managed to survive. And, if Spike had somehow gotten word of what happened to Buffy, before he could tell him himself, Spike might …no, he would let the Council do its worst. Giles shuddered, even at the thought.

The Initiative had been plebian in these matters. The Council was more refined. It had hundreds of years of tradition behind it.

The Council kept its secrets well.

Giles sighed, and downed the rest of his brandy. Once it was done, there was no turning back.

He picked up the telephone and informed Buffy where he could be reached if he were needed during her recovery from Willow’s attack. After he was certain that Anya would not seek retribution for Xander’s death, he rang the coven in Devon, and asked Althenea to keep him apprised of Willow’s progress. Only then did he book his seat on a flight to Africa.

It was the right thing to do.
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SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA

It might have been the concussion. It could have been the painkillers, Buffy wasn’t sure. What she did know was that she was shocked.

Giles had just called and told her, at least she thought he did, that he was flying to Africa, to find Spike. There seemed to be rumors floating around the Council. Rumors about a vampire who had gone through a test- to have his soul returned to him.

Buffy hadn’t seen Spike since that night. She remembered going by his crypt and finding Clem there instead. Spike had left.

Could he have gone to Africa? Could it really be true?

KENYA, AFRICA
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He lay motionless on the gritty sand floor of the cave. He didn’t know how long he’d been there, but it must have been quite some time. As he floated in and out of consciousness, he heard snippets of a language he had once known. He had trouble putting the words together, to make them make sense. He strung the words he did remember together. Marehemu, nduli, marehemu. Yes, he was all those things. He was a vampire. He was a killer. And, he was among the dead.

Now he was nothing. The white-hot explosion annihilated him. Leaving nothing but the burning, and the voices.

They all told him to go…to Hell. It burned. Oh, how it burned, seeing their faces as they begged and screamed, “Please, don’t. Please…don’t.” The faces were different, faces he should have known, but didn’t. They all blurred into one face, hers. Her eyes, her trembling voice, begging him to stop. Her tears burned him, even now. Especially now, “Spike please…stop. Don’t do this! No, Spike…stop!”

All the voices that pleaded for mercy he would not give, became hers. All the voices that told him to go to Hell melded into one, clear voice. Her voice.

How many hundreds were there? How many begged him to stop, and he didn’t? He didn’t.

Oh, God, he didn’t stop. And now they were forever seared into him. He knew each one intimately. They had all left their stinging lash marks deep in him. He felt every last bitter, well deserved, stripe. Deep under the skin, he could feel the hot tendrils spreading out and taking over.

He convulsed in pain, as the fire grew. Something was wrong. Something was poisoning him. The poison was deep inside him, so deep he didn’t think he would ever be free of it.

Acrid copper rose in his throat. He tried to swallow it, but the heat and sand caught in his throat.

He couldn’t see anything through the haze of red, the smear of blood. And then there was… oh, God the smell. The taste, so sweet as it rolled over his tongue. He wanted it. Disgusting thing that he was, he remembered it. He wanted it.

And the more he wanted it, the more it made him sick. The thought of it made his stomach rebel.

He rolled onto his side and spilled bile in the sand. The bitterness and grit in his mouth was nothing to the parasite that had burrowed deep under his flesh. It invaded everything he was. It gutted him, and showed him the monster he had become.

The pain was too much. And, he knew there was only one way to stop it. The poison inside of him, the monster had to be torn out.

He didn’t know how deep the monster went, but it did not matter. He had to be free of it. He had to be pure again, and he would never be, not with the monster poisoning his soul.

So, almost without thought, his hands became claws that tore at his breast, trying to root the monster out so that he could be free, and pure, once again.

But even as he blindly tore his flesh in twain and felt the slick ichorous fluid oozing beneath his fingers he felt the thing burrow further inside of him.

Claws invaded cavernous flesh and came out again, grasping at nothing and shining black in the dim light of the cave. The scent of blood once again made him wretch, making him unable to continue his assault.

Somehow, the beast had eluded him. Perhaps there was no escape now. He didn’t know if his soul could survive the pain and torment of knowing what he had become.

He knew now that there was no way to make it right. No way to atone for what he’d done to them, and to her.

He howled, and his body quaked in anguish as the realization came to him. The snippets of words he’d heard had not been spoken about him. They were about her. The vampire slayer was dead. She was dead, and there was no way to make things right.

The one person he needed absolution from could no longer grant him that mercy.

He knew his body was weakened, but he did not need strength to finish this. If he survived the pain until sunrise, Spike knew it would be his last.
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