Slaying Dragons

Five months later . . .

Westingford, Alabama

October 13, 2004

A pale hand, a splatter of blood between the knuckles of the first and second fingers and across
the back of the hand. The pale fingertips gripping a cigarette.

Laying across the hood of the blue Mustang, with the windshield behind his neck, Spike brought
the cigarette to his mouth and took a long pull. The embers at the tip of the cigarette brightened.
He held onto the breath for long moments, his eyes closed, a brief sense of momentary euphoria
passing across his pale, sculpted face. His hair was longer than it had once been, wavy brown
but still frosted platinum at its furthest length. He was wearing a gray tee-shirt and blue jeans.
He let slip the breath.

“I sometimes grow weary of this,” said Illyria. She was sitting in the sun in the long, yellowed
grass beside the car, brushing her hands across the top of the grass. “I’m curious how I withstand
it. I have not the chance to become accustomed to anything. To take it into myself and let it
become mine. Our life is little but miles of crushed stone and concrete. Most of the landscape
passes too quickly to comprehend, and when we do find a place to settle ourselves it is too
briefly.”

She took a brief look at the car, parked in the tall grass nearby, with Spike laying down the hood.
The Mustang’s convertible top was open. The fenders were dented in places. The blue paint
wore scratches here and there on its surface like battle scars.

Illyria cocked her head slightly. “I feel somehow nostalgic for the empty corridors of Wolfram &
Hart. The empty offices after the sun had deserted us and I was left to my own devices. The
expectation of seeing familiar things each day. The comfortable familiarity of the lab.” She
looked around uncomfortably. The open field that they had parked in and the trees in the
distance. The distant shape of birds could be seen in the wide blue sky above the trees. “This
isn’t the world I left behind.” A hint of a frown crossed her face. “This world is too large for us.
We are but two small figures in an endless stretch of barren landscape. I feel . . . lost. I have
little idea what to do with myself. It’s . . . disconcerting.”

“That seems to be our lot in life, Blue,” Spike responded spiritlessly. “We don’t belong
anywhere,” he said in a quiet voice that simply accepted that this was simply the way the world
was. “We drive from place to place, trying to find a bloody place in the world. But there is no
place for us. No home. You and I . . . we’ll never fit in anywhere.”

Illyria looked at him and tilted her head. “You are an aberration.”

Spike chuckled, laying on the hood of the car in the bright sunlight. His eyes were half-lidded
against the light. “Thanks ever so.”

“You have been different since we fled Los Angeles,” said Illyria as she gave him a slightly
curious look. “You no longer shy from sunlight like other half-breeds of your kind. You retain
the strength of your infection, and yet I can hear your heart beat. And yet this does not seem to
please you. In many ways you seem to be as out of place in this world as I am.”

Spike closed his eyes and sighed. Took a moment to take a drag off his cigarette. He exhaled the
smoke and chuckled humorlessly, “Old Spike’s got himself a shiny lil’ gift.” He quietly looked
at his pale, bloodied fingers gripping the half finished cigarette just if front of his face in the
sunlight. “It’s nice I s’pose, but . . . I can’t help but think that this particular gift came at too high
a price.”

Illyria looked at him thoughtfully. “I understand,” she responded. “I wish I did not but I
understand.”

When she finally spoke again it was with a soft, thoughtful voice. The barest hint of a smile
played about her face. “I like the quiet.” The small shapes of birds played over the tops of trees
in the distance. A gentle wind was blowing across the open field inciting a slight motion of the
tall grass. It was a clear day, with only faint wisps of clouds in the sky, the sunlight leaving
everything in a bright, beautiful clarity. “But it will not last. They shall overtake us again soon.”
She looked both at Spike and at a dark shape laying in the grass nearby. Some of the yellowed
grass around the shape was spotted and bloodstained. Spike’s bloodied katana sword stuck out
of the top of the dead demon like the mythical sword in the stone. “This piece of meat was only
the first.”

Spike sat up and slipped off the hood of the car. He walked over and looked down at the dead
demon in the grass. Gray skin. A face that was horrid and unspeakable. Something harsh and
bitter pinched Spike’s face. He reached out and wrenched the sword from the corpse.

“Let them come.”

---

US Route 31 Northbound

11 miles outside of Little Creek, Arkansas

October 19, 2004

It was drizzling. The water left a sheen on the pavement that the Mustang’s headlights picked up
as they cut a swath out of the darkness. All that was visible was the sheen of the concrete as it
rolled by beneath the Mustang’s tires.

Spike sat blearily behind the wheel, watching the empty blackened landscape go by.

Illyria sat in the shadows, with her back to the passenger side door, her legs scrunched up
carelessly in the Mustang’s bench seat. There was a half empty bag of cheetos tucked up
between her legs. The car radio was a static noise in the background of their lives. Song after
song. So many that they began to blend together.

Illyria was playing with a lock of her hair, twirling it around her finger, and singing along with
the radio softly, almost as if she didn’t even know she was doing it.

I couldn’t sleep last night

My ears were ringing in my head

best friend with the boogie man

I may be better off here dead

She held one of the cheetos in her fingers. Holding it up and studying it. Orange stuff stained
the tips of her fingers. Finally she slipped the cheeto into her mouth and reached noisily into the
bag for another.

The blackened landscape rolled past outside the window behind her.

Running on empty once again

Too tired for tears I dread

Sink deep to those magic dreams

While I blast off in my bed

The brake lights of a trailer-truck appeared ahead out of the rain soaked dark. Spike silently,
checked the mirrors, glanced over his shoulder, and slid the car over into the next column of
staggered white lines coming out of the dark. The dark blue Mustang slipped past the large
anonymous truck like a wraith.

And you know I played it all in here

Where everyone hides their darkest shades of fears

And I threw my whole night down the drain

And you know ‘cause everyone says I’m not the same

Since I changed my name

Her voice drifted off with the song.

Illyria seemed to be silently studying the hint of orange coloring from the cheetos that remained
on her fingertips. One finger at a time she sucked the color away daintily.

She lay still with her face near to the car window. She was quiet as the radio turned over to
another song, watching the darkness roll by. What little she could see was blurred by the
raindrops against the glass.

---

Canyon Springs, Kansas

October 26, 2004

It was a small diner. A comfortable place. One of those small, long buildings you remembered
nostalgically if you were old enough. A long counter running most of the length of the place
with stools up against it and tables and booths against the windows on the opposite wall facing
the street.

Spike, wearing blue jeans and a tee shirt, sat in one of the booths. He was sitting across from a
slender brunette with a large plate of pancakes in front of her. A smaller plate sat in front of him.

Spike brought a fork full of eggs to his mouth and took the first bite. He closed his eyes in bliss,
making a contented noise. “Jesus, there were times I forgot what an omelet tasted like.”

The woman looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “How did you live with it?”

The vampire chuckled. “That sounds right strange coming from you, Blue.”

She gifted him with a sly look. “I am versatile.”

“Trust me, I noticed.”

She tilted her head slightly and smiled at him. The barest hint of a blush colored her cheeks. Her
eyes drifted away, coy, giving him several halting glances before she finally went back her
pancakes.

A few minutes later Spike put his fork down and slipped out from behind the table.

Fred looked up at him with big brown eyes. A large bite of pancake on her suddenly still fork
dripping syrup. “Are we leaving?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. Finish your breakfast, luv,” Spike told her. “I’ll just be a
moment.”

He walked toward the far end of the diner, weaving his way between a few of the patrons. He’d
made it most of the way across the diner when suddenly a large man unexpectedly stood up from
his chair and the two of them bumped into each-other.

The man was a little taller than Spike. Tall and broad shouldered. He wore time faded blue
jeans and a flannel shirt.

Spike looked up into the man’s face briefly. That glimpse was enough to see that there was a
kindness there. This man didn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders. This man didn’t
appear crushed beneath an untenable burden. This man was content, with what he was, with his
place in the world, however small it may have been.

“Excuse me,” Spike said.

The large man looked at Spike apologetically. “Yeah, sorry I was . . .”

“Yeah,” Spike responded awkwardly, “. . . I was just tryin’ ta get by.” He gestured vaguely at the
door to the bathroom in the near back corner of the diner.

The other man stepped out of his way. “Yeah, sorry.”

~ * ~

Spike closed the door to the diner’s small cramped bathroom as if he were shutting out the world.
Leaning against it he closed his eyes and took a quiet breath.

He eventually straightened and looked down sadly at the brown leather wallet he had palmed in
his hand. He unfolded it and looked at the stack of bills inside. The face on the drivers license
stared out at him. Smiling photos of a young woman and a small child. A little girl, blond and
beautiful. Innocent. He removed the money and dropped the wallet in the small trash barrel in
the corner beside the sink. The cash he slipped into the back pocket of his jeans.

Standing there in front of the sink, Spike looked at his reflection. The man in the mirror looked
back at him with tired, washed out eyes. He turned the faucet on, put his hands beneath the water
and quickly washed his hands.

---

Seminole, Nebraska

November 3, 2004

Spike and Illyria stood side by side, looking at the barn. The blue Mustang was parked in the
gravel driveway behind them. Tall yellowed grass stretched into the distance.

The barn was old. It wasn’t a barn in the classic sense. It was more of a long building of sheet
steel over a frame of girders. It was the kind of place where tractors, plows, and the many odds
and ends necessary for a farm could have been kept. The steel was old and rust stained.

“I know, it’s not much,” Spike told Illyria. “Just a barn really. There’s a lot of empty farms out
this way. Even if they’re lookin’ out this way it’ll take ‘em a while to run us down.”

Spike put and arm around Illyria’s shoulder comfortingly and she unconsciously leaned against
him.

An old rusted harrow, rows of sharp teeth, like a giant rake, that once would have been dragged
behind a tractor to prepare the soil, had been left off to one side of the building to rust and rot.
Weeds and tall grass grew in tangles around it as if trying to grasp at the harrow and drag it back
down into the earth.

The girl slipped out from under his arm and glanced around briefly.

Behind the barn, tall yellowed grass stretched toward the small roll of hill that made up the near
horizon.

The land off to the right sloped down toward a small river not quite a hundred yards distant. The
area around the river was wooded. The closest portion of the river was clearly visible, the water
barely moving, flat and still, with the faint brown color of silt.

“We’ve got enough supplies to last us for a bit without having to go into town or anything. I
think we can hold out here for a while.”

Illyria looked at him and finally gave him a faint smile. “It should be sufficient.”

Spike managed a brief hesitant smile. “Then that’s good then.”

---

November 4, 2004

The large propane tank sat against the back wall of the sheet metal barn between the rusted
skeletons of farm equipment. Thick patches of rust clung to the tank and the snake of pipes
coming out of it like a second skin.

Spike and Illyria stood beside it.

The rust was rough sand beneath Illyria’s fingers. The wrench in her other hand slipped and
clanged clumsily against one of the pipes.

“Are you sure you can do this,” Spike asked, standing just behind her shoulder and leaning
forward to see. “If we’re going to live here for awhile it’d be nice ta’ have some . . .”

“I told you I could do it, did I not.”

“Yes, goddess,” Spike responded, kindly unrepentant as a smile was hinted at on his face. “Yes
you did.”

---

November 7, 2004

The small stone Spike had thrown carelessly splashed into the water with a plop. Faint ripples
spreading out in ever expanding circles before washing against the shore and finally being wiped
away by the nearly invisible current.

Moments later the water was nearly still once again.

“Brief ripples in the water,” Illyria said cryptically. She was sitting beside Spike on the
riverbank.

Spike gave her a curious look. A few moments later he looked back out at the water. For long
endless moments they just sat there silently.

“When I was a kid,” Spike said, “I used to swim in the river. Bigger river than this but . . . The
water was clean enough, at least in London. Not so much down river, but London was nice.
Sometimes I’d spend all day along the shore, swimming, watching the boats go by, before finally
going home and falling exhausted into my bed. There was a tree that I was . . . fond of . . . that
hung out over the water. I used to sit on the moss under that tree, looking out at the water, and
write poems.” He looked over at Illyria, expecting her to say something, but she just sat there,
watching the water. “Those are some of my fonder memories, in those brief summers before I
began to realize how cruel people could be and certain innocent charms began to lose their
luster.”

Illyria opened her mouth to speak and hesitated. Spike was surprised to see her nervous swallow
than then watch her bite nervously at her bottom lip. “Winifred . . . this shell . . .” She stared out
at the water thoughtfully. “I learned to swim in a pond. My father taught me. It was frightening
in a way. All alone in the deep water. But my father sat there watching me, always close, and I
knew, I knew I wouldn’t get hurt. Daddy would never let anything hurt me.

“When I was older we used to go skinny-dipping in that pond. We’d have parties on the beach.
Always a bonfire . . . a big one. And at the end of the night, as the fire started to burn low, some
of the kids would strip off all of their clothes and wade out into the water. Not many, but a few.

  

“I never really had the nerve. Not me. Not ‘til those last few weeks. The last summer after
graduation when it seemed like the whole world was coming to an end. The days right before I
packed up and moved to Los Angeles.” The corners of her lips curved up into a soft smile. “It
was the end of the world. The water was so dark at night. So still. Like black glass. And the
kids on the beach seemed like they were a world away.

“That was one of my fondest memories,” she said in a softly distant voice, “that one quiet
moment . . . naked out there in the water at the end of the world.”

Spike was rolling another small stone around in his palm absently. Carelessly, Spike raised a
hand and tossed the stone. It arced through the air and dropped into water with a plop.

  

Moments later he looked up and suddenly realized that the girl beside had gotten to her feet. She
had shed her clothes somehow. She was standing shamelessly nude beside him. Her blue tinged
skin was somehow pale in the sunlight, turning to a slightly darker shade up the sides of her arms
and the visible curves of her breasts. The bluer portions of her skin weren’t pure blue. Her skin
seemed to be covered with tiny blue spots and stipes in those places, like a tiger or leopard,
patches so tightly and elegantly woven that they seemed a soft even blue under anything but the
closest examination.

Her body was lithe, slender and delicate. A graceful motion as she walked past him out into the
water. The soft skin at the small of her back was darker as well, following a gentle line up along
the curve of her spine. When the water reached the base of her spine she bent over and
submerged herself. She swam beneath the surface for a short distance before she reappeared, a
blissful expression on her face as water poured down across her raised face and through her dark
hair.

The fresh air was moving with the faintest hint of a breeze. The vague shapes of birds were
visible above distant shape of the trees. The sun was shining from a clear sky above.

Spike sighed and began removing his own clothes. He toed off his boots, lifted his tee-shirt up
and off himself, and slipped out of his blue jeans, before walking out into the water. He settled
gracefully into the cool water and swam out to her.

Spike and Illyria swam together silently. Not a single word was shared. The coolness of the
water was the only thing between them.

For one long moment it seemed the world slipped away. It was just the two of them. Their feet
kicking silently beneath the surface in thoughtless rhythm, treading water just to stand still.

For one silent moment their eyes met. Neither spoke a single word. Whatever it was was beyond
words. It simply was.

And then the moment was broken as Spike’s hand glided in a short elegant arc across the surface
of the water, splashing water up and over Illyria. A scandalized expression suddenly fell across
her face, as if she couldn’t comprehend that someone would have possibly even considered doing
something like that to her. Rivulets of water ran down through her dark, course hair and across
her befuddled face. A thick lock of her hair hung down near her ice blue eyes drizzling water.

Suddenly her expression hardened, moments before she sent a similar arc of water back in
Spike’s direction. Suddenly they were in an all out splash war.

Laughter floated out over the water.

---

November 12, 2004

A small pan sat atop a small two burner camping stove, the recent remnants of a meal inside.
Two bowls, each with a spoon inside, sat beside it on the floor.

Spike and Illyria lay nearby on top of a sleeping bag. She was curled up comfortably against him
in the shadows against the wall. Her head rested against his chest and his fingers absently
brushed through her course dark hair.

Illyria blinked at the darkness wearily.

“You need to get some sleep,” Spike told her softly.

“I don’t . . .”

The former vampire shook his head slightly. “But you’re not you anymore, are you?! Not
completely.”

Illyria looked up at the vampire holding her in his arms. “You’ll be here when I awake?”

Spike brushed some hair back away from Illyria’s face tenderly. He gave her a caring look, a
slight smile lifting at the corners of his mouth, and comforted her in a soft voice, “I’ll be here.”

Illyria let her eyes slip closed, as Spike brushed at her hair softly with his fingers.

~ * ~

She reached out and touched her face as it was reflected in the mirror, her fingers gently
brushing across the glass.

“Illyria.”

Illyria turned. Wesley was standing behind her uncomfortably close. “My name,” she said.
“You would presume to speak my name. Because I was returned in the body of a human you
would presume to speak my name. It’s disgusting.”

Wes looked at her pitifully, “Who is Winifred Burkle?”

She spoke carelessly. “I thought the humans would have long died out by now. Instead you've
grown bold.”

“So you don't know who Fred is?”

“Nor care!” She turned away from him. “Bleat at me no longer. We're done.” She suddenly
stopped and looked over her shoulder at him. “Oh . . . now I remember. Winifred Burkle is this
shell I'm in.”

“She's the woman you killed.”

“This is grief.” The words were like a realization. “I'm watching human grief. It's like offal in
my mouth.”

Wesley walked up behind her and spoke to her softly. “If you stay here you'll taste it every day,
every second. Humans rule the earth, for the last few millennia, like roaches crawling
everywhere. Crying and sweaty and puking their feelings all over you. Go and sleep until
you’re gone from this world, ‘til fragile, silky demon wings carry you to the one beneath.
Leaving this world is the only option that will save you from that. You’re bound to the carcass of
what she once was. What she still is. You couldn’t change that no matter how much you might
wish to try. Your kingdom and the armies that served you long ago disappeared from this world.
Their ash is the soil from which it grows.”

Illyria stared down at the floor wide-eyed. “It’s gone. My world is gone.”

“Now you know how I feel.” She looked up at him and into eyes that held no life. Eyes that
were somehow both sad and emotionless, as hers could be.

She looked down at the corpse on the floor near her feet. “You even killed my Qua’ha Xahn.”

“He was a threat to the world some of us once loved. And which some still do.”

“You seek to save what’s rotted through,” she told him. “You, your leader, and the white haired
one. You cling to memories of what it was that once burned like life in you and has now burned
out. The one who leads you fights for the favor of memories that are now nothing but vitriol in
his mouth. And the white haired one fights for something as ephemeral as a moment. That what
you love withers and dies . . .”

Illyria suddenly looked at him wide-eyed.

With one bloodied hand held just beneath his ribs, Wesley stumbled. His feet couldn’t hold him.
He nearly fell to the floor but Illyria caught him in her arms and kneeled down beside him.

“Wesley.” She looked at where the blood soaked through his shirt. Torn fabric and violently
sundered flesh. “This wound is mortal.” 

Wesley swallowed. “Aren’t we all.” Wesley smiled up at her weakly, “It was good . . . that you
came.”

“I killed all mine,” the girl responded awkwardly, “and I was . . .”

“Concerned?”

“I think so,” Illyria admitted cautiously. “But I can’t help. You’ll be dead within moments.”

Wesley accepted this fact quietly, “I know.”

Illyria hesitated. She was visibly uncertain of what to do or say. What were the words for a time
like this? She finally managed to meet his eye. “Would you like me to lie to you now?”

“Yes.” His eyes slipped briefly closed. “Thank you. Yes.”

When he opened his eyes again it was Fred looking back at him. Looking down at him kindly.
Her slender fingers brushed at his cheek tenderly.

“Oh Wesley. My Wesley.”

“Fred.” Wes opened his mouth and then swallowed as if her were choking on the words. All he
could manage was a soft whisper, “I missed you.”

Fred leaned down and gently kissed his lips. Sniffling, she kissed his forehead softly. “It’s
gonna be okay. It won’t hurt much longer. And then you’ll be where I am.” She was crying
openly. Tears coursed readily down her cheeks. She gave him a final watery smile. “We’ll be
together.”

Wes opened his mouth, his eyes never straying from her face, “I . . . I love you.”

“I love you.” Fred smiled at him through her tears. “My love. Oh, my love.”

Wesley stared up at her, motionless. He was lifeless in her arms. Fred gently lowered him to the
floor, being careful of his head. She simply sat there for a few moments. Grief wracked her
frame. She looked as if she was going to curl up on the floor and die. Trembling, she got to her
feet.

Vail, the creature that had killed Wesley, was standing behind her.

He stood there and watched her. “How very touching, his meaningless death was, but this fight
was never for mortals. Mortals live only to die. What proof is a mere leaf against the ravages of
wind and time?”

Fred turned and looked at him. Her face was expressionless. A latent storm of fury boiled
behind her eyes.

“Oh,” the creature smiled at her, unconcerned. He chuckled. “Take your best shot little girl.”

Fred brought her fist back and threw a single powerful punch at him. Mid-way through the
punch the form of Fred melted from around her. Silky brown hair was now course and laced
with blue. The punch went straight through the creature’s skull, shattering flesh and bone. The
body fell dead to the floor. Illyria looked at the pieces of flesh clinging to her hand, sticky
between her fingers. She looked down at the body at her feet disgustedly. She took a quick step
forward. Her sudden kick sent the body flying across the room into the wall.

The wall exploded beneath the impact . . .

~ * ~

Illyria awoke to a loud noise. The loud screeching noise of metal stressed to the breaking point,
as if the aluminum sides of the barn were being ripped open. A moment later a loud bang of
metal crashing against metal echoed through the barn.

Spike and Illyria shared a brief wide eyed look in the dark.

“They’re here.”

Spike took a few steps away from her picked up his katana from the floor. He drew the blade
from its sheath. The razor edge glittered in the darkness as he twirled it in a quick circle in his
hand.

Neither of them knew precisely what was coming, but they were ready.

Beneath the tearing screech of the metal they could hear something else. Something vaguely
reptilian.

“What is that noise?” asked Illyria.

Spike took a few steps back, eyes scanning back and forth over the dark. The odd twisted shapes
of rusted farm equipment which were menacing angles of shadow in the dark corners of the
room. “I ‘ave no bloody clue.”

His hands shifted slightly in their tight grip on the handle of his katana.

And in that brief moment they saw the first of them. A small five foot long dragonet undulating
across the floor. Pale leathery skin. It had legs that it walked on, but it seemed to move in an
almost snakelike motion. It’s eyes glittered. Cruel and malicious. It hissed, a sharp harsh
sounding noise from deep in its throat, and came straight for Spike.

It moved more quickly than Spike expected. Spike scrambled back as it lurched up from the
floor at him. Spike slashed at it feebly with his blade. His second swipe carved a narrow gash
just behind its left eye. The creature flinched back from it slightly. The final slash was more
successful as two meaty pieces of the creature fell to the floor.

Three more of the creatures lurched out of the dark. Two of them were even larger than the first.
One of them sprung straight at Illyria, another coming at her across the floor. Illyria’s hands
came up and caught the first, her fingers hooked into a grip of the rough, loose leathery skin at
the scruff of its neck. Dark beady eyes, thick skin like hide, and rough lines of long, sharp, gray
teeth snapping at her with unthinking ferocity. Illyria’s arm came around, throwing the creature
into the far side of the room, past the menacing shadows of the farm equipment. It hit the wall
with a loud, hollow Boom! that shook the entire barn like an earthquake. A brief moment later
girders came falling down like large clumsy matchsticks.

Spike skewered his opponent into the floor with his katana. It hissed and died at the tip of his
sword.

And yet more of the creatures came, swarming up out of the dark like angry insects. The shriek
of steal from somewhere in the dark as the creatures ripped at it, tearing at the walls, ripping
them open to get inside.

Spike found himself in a frantic, unthinking battle. He looked up as Illyria twisted one of the
creatures in her hands, anger twisting at her face. The creature’s spine snapped like a branch.
She cast the body aside carelessly. She was the very definition of ruthless brutality.

 

Something larger came out of the dark. It was much bigger than the others. Ten to twelve feet
long. Rough, thick layers of skin like leather that has turned sickly and gray. The darkness and
shadows seemed to embrace it, as if it were from them and had simply pulled itself up out of the
dark. It hissed as it came face to face with Illyria, showing long, serrated ranks of teeth a shade
darker gray than it’s skin.

Spike looked up from his fight with three or four of the smaller ones to glimpse the creature and
a visibly emotionless Illyria facing each-other across the dark.

Spike’s motions were like poetry as his hands and the razor sharp blade of his katana flashed out
at the dark. He spun, his shape forming a brief iconic silhouette in the shadows as he posed
briefly on the downstroke of his sword, another dead dragonet falling at his feet, before he shifted
to deal with the next.

The girl and the massive creature rolled around on the floor, brutal and savage in their
entanglement with each-other. A few of the dragonets lay crippled on the floor, their backs
broken, their bones crushed, as they made the mistake of getting in the way of the fight between
the blue goddess and their larger brethren. Their camping stove was ripped from its improvised
mooring. Neither their few supplies nor the junk that litter parts of the barn proved proof against
the brutality of Illyria and the massive hell beast.

Illyria’s fingers scrambled briefly against the floor, and then suddenly stabbed upward into the
creature’s armpit, the slender shard of rusty metal wrapped in her fingers burying itself deep into
flesh. The creature roared at the sudden, unexpected pain. She rolled them over so she was
suddenly the one on top. One hard fist slammed into flesh at the back of its neck with a single
sharp stroke. The monster’s whole body quivered.

Illyria made a sound like a sob as her hands came down on the monster again and again. Spike
heard bones crunch. The creature splattered beneath the ferocity of her assault. Gore covered her
hands all the way up to her elbows..

“Blue,” Spike yelled at her. “We have to leave. Now!”

She looked up at the sound of his voice, and even in the dark Spike could see the shine of tears
across her face. She took his hand in the brief moment when he offered it, and hand in hand,
Spike and Illyria ran out of the barn as still more of the creatures swarmed up out of the darkness
behind them.

Spike dropped something small as the two of them went out the door. Something that flickered
with a brief light in the darkness.

The creatures swarmed over each-other to follow Spike and Illyria out into the dark. They
swarmed over the junk and the refuse that marked Illyria’s battle with the largest of them. Their
angry cacophony of hisses hid the faint noise coming from the snapped copper pipe near the
remains of the old camping stove.

After a few moments the escaping gas reached the flickering flame that burned from Spike’s
discarded zippo lighter.

~ * ~

The barn exploded right behind them, knocking both Spike and Illyria off their feet. A fireball
turning the darkness briefly alight with bright merciless color. They landed sprawled side by side
in the dirt.

Illyria lifted herself from the ground onto her hands and knees. For a brief moment she was
simply looking at her bloodied hands in front of her in the dirt. Her fingers covered with a
muddy mixture of blood and earth. A sob suddenly worked its way through her, wringing it’s way
up her back.

Spike, now on his knees, reached out to her. A gentle hand brushing it’s way along her back.
The diminished goddess looked up at him with dark empty eyes. His face was lit in the firelight
of the barn burning behind them. She turned to him. Her arms went around him. She clung to
him desperately as she sobbed.

“I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool
Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who
led the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets; the little children are
freezing to death . . . I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of
them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my Chiefs! I am
tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more
forever.”

                          - Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

                     Thunder Traveling to Loftier Mountain Heights”

                            October 5, 1877

 

 

disclaimer: Buffy & Angel obviously don't belong to me. The song used is I Changed My Name by Sugarcult, which also doesn't belong to me. I certainly have a great collection of nothing.