A Very Ordinary Evil

Part 28 Dead Ends and Distractions


Immediately following the previous part


Willow spoke up. “I think we’re going to need a variety of firepower. These are the useful combat spells I can use effectively: Transmogrify, Teleport, Not Here and Barrier. Giles, Spike and Xander are all reasonable with crossbows. Spike is excellent at hand to hand and Xander can handle himself.” Willow came to a blushing halt at Anya’s coarse snigger and Xander’s offended yelp. “Cordelia,” she continued bravely, as she blushed furiously, “do you have any abilities that you’ve picked up in LA?”

Cordelia looked surprised at the clinical detachment that the Sunnydale Scoobies brought to the discussion. They had matured, and she realised it was like when she had worked with the guys in LA, before Angel’s intolerance had driven her back to the Hellmouth. “Yes Wills,” she answered after a moment of thought, “I can use a crossbow pretty well. Not great but not horrible either.”

Willow nodded. “Good. In that case, I think we can do it. Spike my love, I do like your idea to lure the empath demon away, but I can cast the spellsomesomeone else and they can do it, leaving me to help take down the big guys. I’m thinking Anya would do that well, and Xander to guard her. Plus, no offence, Anya, but your brain is … weird enough that it may confuse the empath for a while.”

Anya looked up, offended. “At least I’m a patriotic …”

Willow cut her off as she was just beginning to hit her rhythm. “Anya, I meant that you were a demon for over a thousand years. That should confuse the empath more than anything we could do.”

“Oh, I suppose that’s all right then.” Anya huffed.

Giles looked over at Willow. “This ‘Barrier’ spell of yours, if we could separate the humans from the vampires, you could hold them off with ease. That would allow us to shoot and if necessary, Spike could go hand to hand against either that may have survived.”

“So hao handles Holly while we’re doing all this? Willow is magic casting, Spike is fighting, Giles is, I assume, shooting while Xander and Anya are keeping the empath busy.” Cordelia asked the question simply and directly.

“Well,” Willow ventured, “I was hoping it would be you. She knows you, and you should be able to lead her to ‘safety’ away from the fighting.”

“Me? How come I’ve gotta do Why Why do I always have to be the sweet one? Why can’t I shoot? Oh, I know. Don’t bother answering. It’s that she’ll trust me because we used to hang. At least it’s a logical reason this time. In L.A. it was always ‘protect Cordelia’.” She sighed dramatically as she wound down.

“Which leads us rather nicely, albeit somewhat long-windedly, to the next question,” Giles continued once Cordelia had finished. “Where will we take Holly?”

Xander entered the conversation. “Why not to my parent’s basement? Nobody’s ever there, the windows are still covered from when Spike was there and I still have a key. It won’t be needed long, just enough time for Wills to do her thing with the truth spell and then we can blindfold her and dump her somewhere.”

“Good plan Chubs, in part.” Spike’s interjection came unexpectedly. “She’ll recognise Huntress at the very least though. We need a way to erase her memory. Or, we could just kill her. Less fuss that way.” He looked genuinely surprised at the shocked looks he received. “What? She’s evil too. Way eviller than me. Plus, we fight evil. And she arranged a contract on me, and possibly Red. I take that all rather personally. Just because she’s a human she gets special treatment? That seems a bit dubious.”

Spike’s diatribe had caught the others by surprise. They instinctively realised the validity of his points, but, with the exception of Willow or Anya, were unable to overcome the fact that he was a vampire. It also raised another legitimate issue. Did Holly Charleston deserve death, and if so, should her humanity give her some special status? Conflicting thoughts whirled through everyone’s minds.

At length, Giles decided it was time to take the bull by the horns. “The question that Spike raised has to be considered. What consequences would there be if Holly finds out who we are? Would we put ourselves in danger? And, is killing her our only option? Willow, do you have a spell which blocks memory?”

“No, I’ve never even looked for such a spell. There are chemicals that may do the trick, if we can get them.” Willow spoke a little distractedly. She was thinking about the points which Spike had raised. {Are humans inherently different?} She thought, {are they somehow entitled to be treated by different standards than demons?}

Willow realised the discriminatory nature of the arguments, but this was the first time she had considered it seriously. She found, to her surprise, that Spike was right. The double standard was wrong; that both humans and demons should be judged on their behaviour, not their species. The realisation was doubly shocking when she saw that it was simply the next logical step past racism, and concluded that she had, until now, been too close to the centre of things to take the time to reflect properly.

“I’ve got no problem in killing her if we have to.” Willow’s voice cut through the quiet conversation like a knife. “Spike was right about one thing at least. We shouldn’t be judging by a double standard. If she deserves to die, then her humanity shouldn’t protect her.” She was rewarded by a collection of stunned looks. “What?” Willow asked in an unreasonably reasonable voice.

The gabble of voices prevented anyone from airing their views clearly. Eventually, Cordelia’s penetrating voice overcame the opposition. “Yeah! Wills is right. Remember Doyle? He was half Bracken Demon. He gave his life to keep innocents from being killed. He was just as good as any human.” Cordelia received as many odd looks as had Willow. “What? Sorry people, remember the tact comments you used to make? Well, I still only say true stuff. So deal with it.”

Giles was deep in thought as he considered what both Willow and Cordelia had said, and was consequently surprised at Anya’s foray into the discussion. “Isn’t treating demons and people differently unconstitutional? I mean, ‘all men are created equal’ means that you can’t treat people differently.”

“Anya, demons aren’t people. And you have to remember that when the Declaration of Independence was written, that phrase meant precisely what it said.” Giles moved into lecture mode with practiced ease. “Women weren’t entitled to vote, and in most ways they a woman was also seen as the chattel of the man to whom they were married.”

Giles looked over his glasses at the suddenly silent group and smiled. He realised they were really listening, and so he continued. “There was no real equality between women with men, legally, until women were granted the vote. That was done first in New Zealand in 1893 and the United States didn’t follow suit until 1919. What you’re talking about, Anya, is essentially the same thing. You can look at the issue of slavery as another, similar example. Legal equality is an emotional minefield. In short, Anya, no, there is no constitutional right for a demon to be treated in the same manner as a human.” The entire gang was looking at Giles stunned. They had become used to him having known more about demons and vampires than the rest of them combined. However, having him know about voting rights for women had wigged them all.

“The issue, though,” Spike said, “is this daft bint Holly. What do we do with her?”

“I really don’t know,” Giles answered. “I’m really rather unhappy with the idea of killing her, but I can’t think of anything else at the moment. Can I suggest we have an early night and resume this tomorrow?” Murmurs of agreement came from all sides, and the meeting broke up without resolving anything.

* * * *

Spike eyed Willow as they shut the door behind the rest of the group. “Well, pet, a day off. Any ideas on how we could fill in this unexpected gap in our schedule?” The look on his face was one of pure lechery. Willow, looking away, didn’t detect the lechery, however.

“What we should do, Spike, is start either my combat training or your hacking lessons. Which would you prefer?” She turned innocently towards him, and was surprised at the confusion that covered his face. “What?” she asked, confused. “We were talking about that outside the Bronze.”

“Er, true pet. Sorry. I got thinking nasty thoughts, again.”

“Again, don’t you mean still?” Willow’s pert, even cheeky, answer, was belied by the smile on her face, one which communicated love so intensely that it proved that love wasn’t only blind, but also mentally retarded. As she spoke, she moved up against Spike and wrapped around him, almost leech-like. She lifted her head and kissed him softly. “Much as I’d like to, I really do want to start learning how to fight.”

“All right Red, if you’re determined to get bruised without any fun, we’ll do some basic hand to hand training.” Spike grinned as he spoke, enjoying the teasing banter that they always shared. Spike wrapped his arm around Willow’s shoulder and they walked companionably toward the small, enclosed courtyard.

* * * *

Willow groaned as she soaked in the bath and simultaneously indulged in self-recrimination. (Spike had suggested a nice little play session,} she thought. {Did I listen though? No, of course I didn’t! Even if He’d tried out the new flogger, I’d be hurting less than this. Goddess, every inch of me aches. And not even a decent spanking to show for it.} She groaned again as bruises and rarely used muscles protested vehemently at the slight movement she had made.

As Willow thought back to the training session, her first, another thought occurred to her. She was sure that not every vampire had had the kind of combat training Spike had received, so why did all vampires seem to have the martial arts abilities that they had? She saw almost immediately what had to be the answer. The demon. The demon had to have inherent combat capabilities, some combination of unarmed combat skills. So … in the same way that the human personality provided the demon with a cover, a way of readily blending into human society, the demon aided the human as well. Willow smiled. That fit the Law of Reciprocity quite nicely.

She suddenly became aware of the coolness of the bathwater, and sighing regretfully, clambered out of the tub in an ungainly fashion. Groaning as her muscles once again protested the movements she required them to do, she began drying herself. Willow had discovered very quickly after she and Spike had begun living together was that he didn’t like locks on internal doors. In fact, he had gone through the whole apartment and removed every internal lock in the place except the one to the playroom in the basement. Therefore, Willow wasn’t totally surprised when the door opened and a concerned face peered in, asking “Are you all right there pet?”

The petite redhead looked up and smiled a little shakily. “Pretty much, except for the muscle pain. No-one ever tells you how much this sort of thing hurts. At lethe the worst that’ll happen to you is a sore wrist.”

Spike laughed very coarsely. “Had them before luv.” He grinned as he spoke. “When you’re dry come into the bedroom, I’ll fix you right up.”

Willow smiled happily. She had been ‘fixed up’ once before. Who would have suspected that Spike was such a skilled Shiatsu masseur? “I’ll be right in.”