Slip Slide Melting

* * * * * * * * *
Part 1

It was dark when he came to in the alley. Dark enough that it actually took him a good few moments to realize that things were different than they’d been when the… when the what?

Spike’s brow furrowed and he forced himself to roll onto his side, his body tensed for the overwhelming pain he was expecting.

“Huh. Don’t that just beat all?” he mumbled to himself before swallowing hard at the raspy tone of his own voice. Bloody hell, his throat was dry. Then again, it had been… fuck, hours since he’d last fed, and even then he hadn’t had much.

‘Need to stay in fighting trim, Spike. Don’t want you all bogged down with bloody-belly or anything’, Angel had said, handing him the one measly mug of blood. “Not even the big mug, either,” he grumbled. “Pissant wanker.”

So yeah, he remembered his last so-called meal… then they’d… he’d…

“Right. The alley. But if I’m still alive… or as much as I was before… then what the bloody fuck happened?”

It was a good question, he realized, as he struggled a bit to maneuver himself relatively upright, putting his back to the wall that had initially been beside him as he ticked the recollections off on his fingers.

“The baby.” One finger. “Kicked the Brethrens’ asses.” Second finger. “Met Broody the Wonder-Git in the alley…” Third finger—appropriately enough, Spike thought with a smirk.

He frowned then, remembering… Wesley hadn’t made it. He’d died facing Vail.

Gunn had made a good stand against the hordes and Illyria had been wrong. He hadn’t lasted ten minutes. He’d made it for fifteen before going down to a combination of blood loss and heavy attack, and Illyria hadn’t been far behind, though the burst of energy when her ‘shell’ had been terminated had done more damage to their foes than the loss of her had done them, he supposed.

“Bloody hell,” he sighed softly, looking up at the stars as something made his vision blur slightly, “Angel… Angel and that bleedin’ dragon!”

He’d seen the older vampire slay the beast, although it hadn’t been a pretty or neat proposition and he’d been engaged in his own battles at the time. Still, he’d found the time to spare a glance for the Aurelian Master every now and then, and…

“The sword… right up through that soft spot under the thing’s chin… and fire…”

Spike shivered.

He remembered it all now.

His acting Sire, because Dru had never been stable enough to be such, regardless of making him… Angel, in flames… Angel, dust.

He’d been frozen as he’d watched that. So frozen, in fact, that it had gotten him a scythe in the chest… and then the dragon had exploded, a large chunk of brick and mortar had been coming straight for him and he still couldn’t move, and then pain and a flash of… something in the sky, and then…

“Nothing. Bloody…”

He shifted again, slowly, carefully, waiting for the pain that never came.

“What th’…” Spike muttered, looking down at himself.

Same clothes-- torn, bloodied, singed in places… but no wounds, no scrapes, not even a bruise. And that was when he finally looked at the alley he’d woken in.

“What the bloody… fuckin’… hell…” he whispered to himself, getting to his feet as he stared, stunned, at the clean cement, the spotless walls that still bore the scars of the battle but none of the detritus he expected.

One hand pressed against the bricks, their solidity somehow comforting as he moved slowly towards the street and it was only as he reached it and looked behind him that he noticed the plaque.

On this spot, 19 May, 2004, with the death of the Dragon, the Magic was released into the World. Powers help us all.

“What the bloody fuckin’ hell…” Spike whispered again, “Did I wake up in another bleedin’ dimension or somethin’?”

“A better question would be how you managed to get into the Citadel grounds, vampire.”

* * * * *

Apparently there were some sort of wards set in a good three block radius around the Hyperion, Spike realized as he sat in the relatively comfortable chair the… soldiers?... cops?... security guards?... whatever they were, had pushed him into.

“Look, you bloody gits,” he said for approximately the thirtieth time in the last half hour, “I. Don’t. Sodding. Know, do I? Woke up, you prats nabbed me, and here I bloody am, right? Don’t see you telling me how you know I’m a vampire, either.”

The two guards in the room exchanged an amused glance, though one of them found himself frowning immediately after. “Humanoid. No heat signature. No breath or heartbeat. Besides, everyone knows Citadel guards are spelled to see the truth while on duty…”

“George!” the second guard hissed, “what are you doing? He knows that. He has to know. Everyone knows!”

George sighed and shook his head. “I know the seeing spell didn’t hit you very hard when it was cast, Jordan, but look at him. I mean, really look at him! He has no idea of what we’re talking about.” He glanced again at the clearly impatient vampire. “Do you?”

Spike snorted and shrugged. “Know the both of you are bloody daft, don’t I? Fine way to greet a bloke, too. Sticking a sodding taser in his back and making him goosestep to your bleeding brig, yeah?”

Jordan sighed and turned away, ignoring the urge to shift to his true seeming even though he’d be able to smell whether the vampire was lying or not if he were in his natural state. Still, the Magus Prime preferred it if his guards maintained one appearance while dealing with a suspect. He said it kept the perps—‘possible perps’, Jordan reminded himself—from getting confused.

George chuckled quietly, fully aware of what his partner was thinking. They’d been working together for close to six years, after all. It would be sad if he didn’t know Jordan’s moods by now. Hell, he spent more time with the half-Grathnic than he did with his own wife and kids.

“Okay, point,” he said with a nod to the vampire. “And maybe you’ve got some totally innocent reason for being inside the wards and looking like that. Maybe you’re not here with some ‘new’ idea to kill the Magus Prime, but you need to understand…” George pulled a matching chair across the floor and sat down a few feet away from the bleached blond. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as he met pale, robin’s-egg-blue eyes frankly. “We get at least ten attempts every year. Vampires, other demons… hell, we even get a true human every once in a while. And they all want the same thing. To end him. End his rule.”

Jordan snorted and mastered the urge to shift before he turned back around. “Why is it that you people never understand that you can’t do it? He can’t be killed, can’t be stopped. And even if he could be, what’s the alternative? Chaos?” He snarled softly under his breath. “Thanks, but we had that. We had it for two and a half years before the Magus Prime consolidated his rule. Things were… beyond bad until he took over, and you people want to go back to those days? To nobody but the Darksiders being able to walk the streets at night?”

Spike knew he was blinking but he couldn’t help himself. “What the bleeding fuck are you talking about, mate? Who the sodding hell is this Magoo, and what the fuck does he, she or it have to do with me?”

The two guards shared another glance with each other then turned away from the vampire. This one was better than the others, they recognized. He actually seemed to be sincerely baffled.

It wasn’t until they entered the blond’s information into the magetrix and received a flashing blue screen with the words ‘contact the Lieutenant’ that they even entertained the notion that he might truly not know what was going on.

Then again, the Lesser Magi were always finding new spells, so maybe the vampire truly believed that he didn’t know.

* * * * *

As the more level-headed of them, George made the call.

“Lieutenant. Agent Argila. Septant Nine. I… the magetrix instructed… yes,” he said, relieved.

He tried not to stare at the vampire who was obviously fidgeting as his superior spoke.

“Yes, sir… yes, just above the left. Uh, one moment, sir. I’ll ask.”

Spike arched a brow as the ‘agent’ cleared his throat.

“Uh, your eyebrow. How did you get the…”

The vampire smirked. “Sword. Slayer. China. Boxer rebellion, if you really want to know.” He wasn’t sure of what exactly was going on but he had a feeling that… if he had any hope of escaping this bloody interrogation room, it lay in answering the so-called agent’s questions… and honestly, as much as it might rankle.

“Bint tried telling me something, but I didn’t speak Chinese. Still don’t, in point of fact.” He frowned. He’d been meaning to learn. He’d just gotten… sidetracked, what with his bizarre obsession with Buffy, getting his soul, saving the world, coming back as a ghost, saving the world again—apparently—and once again not dying permanently in the last… ‘final battle’.

George relayed that information, even though he had a feeling the Lieutenant had heard the vampire’s words. His brow furrowed a moment later, but he dutifully repeated his superior’s next question.

“Who was your Sire?”

Spike growled softly and looked away from the surprisingly non-offensive bloke who’d just asked a very touchy question.

“Define ‘Sire’,” he demanded a moment later, his fingers lacing together in his lap.

“De… define?”

Spike snarled. “If you mean the one what turned me, that was my Dru. My ripe, wicked plum.” He sighed softly, still missing her a bit although not nearly as much as he’d done in the past. “If you’re talking about the one who… raised me, for lack of a better term, that was Angelus. Of course, then he went and got cursed with a soul and abandoned us, and Angel was no bloody Angelus, but that’s a whole other bleeding story, isn’t it?”

“S-so your Sire…?” George asked again, worried by the Lieutenant’s indrawn breath.

The blond rolled his eyes. “Made a vampire by Drusilla, who was made by Angelus. Trained by her Sire, that same Angelus, because my Princess was too bloody barmy to do it herself.” He cocked his head. “Or not without teaching me to bark at the bloody moon in any case, and Darla never would have stood for that. Bitch had a bit of a control problem. Had to have it and made it everybody else’s bloody problem until she did.”

The agent swallowed hard at the next question he was to ask, but he voiced it anyway. It wasn’t as though the vampire could harm him, after all. Not with the spell over the Citadel. Then again, the vampire had passed the wards, and that wasn’t supposed to be possible either.

“Who… Gods. Who did you die for?”

Spike found his brows arching as he looked at the man. It wasn’t a simple question, after all… and an even less simple answer, considering.

“Which time?” he finally said. “When I was turned, when I was on the Hellmouth, or… here in L.A.? Because the answers are different for each.”

George repeated that information into the hexicon, then paled at the order he received. “Y-yes, sir… I… we’ll see to it personally. Yes. Myself and agent Dolash. Yes, sir. Ten minutes at most.”

Jordan’s brow was furrowed as his gaze shifted from his partner to the vampire they’d apprehended. “What’s going on, Georgie?” he demanded. Usually their job was simple; even when they came across people like the vampire who was obviously trying to eliminate the Magus Prime. Being told to call the Lieutenant wasn’t usual, though… and neither was their superior asking questions, be it through the hexicon or in writing.

“The Lieutenant wants to see him,” was all the taller man would say as he nodded at the vampire and gestured towards the door.

* * * * *

“Captain,” the Lieutenant said towards the small, shell-like unit on his desk, “The Septant Nine team have another infiltrator.”

He heard the deep sigh coming over the hexicon and tried not to grin. He wasn’t particularly fond of his superior, although he’d never say as much or show it in any way. He knew which side of the bread the butter was on, after all, and no one had ever called him stupid. Naïve, maybe, back in the day. Nerdy, too, and he couldn’t argue with that.

But these days, that was something to be proud of. The ‘nerds’ of fifteen years earlier were the movers and shakers of the post-Change world, after all.

“And why are you bothering me with this?” he heard the Captain say irritably.

The Lieutenant grinned more, still keeping it from his voice. Odds were, the Captain was busy with his wife… or possibly with his husbands, although he didn’t hear the Archivist or his Apprentice in the background.

“This one… well, he knows things that aren’t in any of the available documents. It… he was found at the mouth of The Alley. He apparently has the look, and…” the Lieutenant broke off to bite his lip in a way he’d not done in years.

“And?” the Captain demanded, his voice trembling through the hexicon, though the Lieutenant knew it had to be due to a fluctuation in the conhexion. The Captain was never anything but stolid and stoic, after all.

“He knows about Drusilla,” the Lieutenant said quickly. “And about Angelus teaching Spike to be a vampire.”

“Are you still there?” he asked after nearly two minutes of silence during which he could hear the chattering of children and small sounds of metal being moved. Most likely, the Captain’s family was preparing dinner while the children played.

“Yes. Yes, I’m here,” the Captain said finally. “You have to kill him.”

The Lieutenant blinked. “I thought we should find out who prepped him so well. I mean, the next one could be even better, right? And it would be good to know where and how whoever sent him got their information, right?”

“No!” the Captain growled. “Dust him. That’ll show whoever sent him that we can’t be fooled, even if they send someone who seems like… him again.”

The Lieutenant frowned, keeping his own disagreement from his voice. He’d learned how to do that a good few years earlier, after all, though the Captain hadn’t seemed to notice. “Fine, sir. I just wanted to keep you in the loop. If you feel it would be best to eliminate the vampire, then I’m happy to accommodate your needs.”

The Captain couldn’t keep the smirk from his voice. “I know you are. You always have been.”

The Lieutenant seethed once his Captain ended the hexicon call. ‘Always have been’? Well, yeah. He’d spread himself for the bigger man more than once, and while they’d both enjoyed it, it had been… empty. The Captain had a wife and two husbands, and between the four of them they had six children.

Granted, none of the six were the Captain’s, but biology didn’t much matter. Emotionally the children were the Captain’s, and…

And he was avoiding, the Lieutenant admitted. Avoiding thinking about what his boss had told him to do.

The Captain had never told him to eliminate any of the previous pretenders. Not even once. In fact, he’d never even suggested it in tone OR words. And yet… here he was, telling him to just… kill the faux-Spike? Out of nowhere?

It was… worrisome.

In fact, it was so worrisome that the Lieutenant found himself leaning closer to the unit on his desk and speaking words he almost never used during work hours.

“Magus Prime.”

* * * * *

tbc...