Truth Denied

A.N. I am done writing Truth Denied. Now, that does not mean there is no room for a sequel, or  side dances, or the odd added branch of chapters, or maybe even a side story of Chad, I don't know, all I know is, I've left it completely open for a reason, and that reason is, I love this story, so very much, but the lack of comments has made it hard to write anything else based on this 'vers. Maybe, someday, I'll write more. But you got 62 chapters of Spander goodness in the end for this fic, so I hope y'all appreciate it!

Spike and Ben walked down a dark alley, Spike was wearing his old ‘big bad’ outfit, all the way down to duster and slicked back hair, even his nail polish was done. It gave him a feeling of confidence that his frail human body was taking away from him. This late at night in this part of town, his back crawled, knowing some vamp or some beastie was eyeing them, and only the scent of a drennar was keeping them at bay. He stayed close to Ben.



Ben stood tall, looking from side to side, a plain wooden stake in his hand, just in case. Neither of the men had ever seen a vampire out and about their city, but that just meant they hadn’t seen one, not that there weren’t any. The city wasn’t unknown for it’s murder rate, so they remained cautious… anything could happen while they lurked about, trying to find that damned demon bar.



Spike finally found the dusty neon sign, “got it, it’s down here.” He made to lead the way in, but Ben held his shoulder and when Spike looked back at him, he shook his head and lead the way instead. The bar was suddenly silent, everyone was taking the newcomers in, then the noise came up again, an easy dismissal. Spike frowned and made his way to the bar and sat, Ben sat beside him.



“Barkeep, best of your O nega…. Brandy, best of your brandy please.” The bartender raised an eyebrow, kinda going ‘why are you pretending, if you’re really a vampire?’ but gave him the brandy in a smudged glass.



Ben held the bartender’s hand before he could retreat, “I got a question for you…”



The bartender swallows and nods, “yea yea yea, I got answers, lots of answers, ask away tough guy. No need to tighten that grip there fella.” He laughed, trying to sound casual, but beads of sweat had just popped out all over his forehead and were sliding down his face in a hurried dribble.



Ben smiled congenially, “Where was the human taken from Priape’s temple?”



“Temple? Temple? Whoa! I didn’t know there was any temple!” The bartender laughed and tried to straighten up, Ben pulled him forward, making him bend over the bar even further with a grunt. 



“Okay okay, so I know there’s a temple.” Ben ground the bartender’s wrist bones against each other making him cry out. “OKAY! There are a lot of temples! Which one you want? What are you in the mood to worship? Huh? I can get you something for just about anything!”



Spike stopped Ben, frowning. “Just how many temples are we talking about here?”



“Look, I got something for everyone, just tell your big buddy to let go and I’ll point them all out to you, yeah? Okay?” He was sweating, chattering, scared*;* Ben’s remorseless stare was not an easy one for him to endure.



Ben held on and frowned. “What do you mean? We’re not talking false gods, we mean actual temples, with real gods or goddess’s or whatever you worship, in attendance, active priests, that kind of thing.”



The barkeep gasped and nodded. “Yeah yeah Newburgh’s full of ‘em, they’re all hidden in plain sight, just like yours is.” Ben let him go, the bartender gasped and panted thanks, holding his wrist, but not running, not daring to.



“Why didn’t someone tell me I wasn’t the only demon around? That I wasn’t running the only temple?” Ben asked, angrily, grabbing the bartender by the shirt.



The bartender smiled an oily smile and shrugged, “Not up to us to tell a demon he’s on a hellmouth, if he’s too shut off from his senses to realize it. But why else would there be an already built, sanctified, energized, ready and waiting temple to Priapus for you to build your strip club on? You think they’re one in a dozen? They’re rare! And you’ll only find the like on hellmouths, just like all the other temples. Something about being this close to hell gets people all religious like.” He flinched a little, ready for a smack from either of them.



Instead, they stared at each other, gobsmacked.