Irony

*

There was only one tech in the lab, sitting at a computer that looked like a prop from the set of Star Trek: TNG with flashing things and glowing things and gauge things and a whole lot of other things that I also didn’t understand. I felt an urge to kill the tech, or at least injure him enough to make the room safe. Yeah, hyena power…not completely of the good obviously, since the tech was some poor kid just doing his job. Now Dr. Pencil Neck? Him I could kill.

“Have you isolated target 337?” Riley asked, in the same bored tone of voice a person might use to discuss the weather.

“The portal isn’t quite stable enough yet, but the energy levels are rising and we expect to be able to send your team through at 22:30 hours, sir.” The techie’s words meant exactly zero to me, but from Spike’s expression, I was guessing this was not of the good, in an apocalypsey sort of way. Obviously portals meant something to him.

“I don’t want any screw-ups like with 213. Run the sequence now,” Riley ordered. The tech glanced over at me and Spike, and I tried to look like I belonged…I put on the blankest, stupidest face I could.

“Are they on your team?” the tech asked, and my inner soldier-self noted that he was being as pointed as he could be without being insubordinate.

“Jafo,” Riley whispered quietly enough that humans wouldn’t have heard from across the wide room. Then he snapped out a brisk, “Do your job, soldier.” Spike looked at me, and I nodded back reassuringly. Yep, that’s us, just another fucking observer or two, so go right ahead and ignore us, I thought at the tech. I didn’t think mind control was going to be one of my new powers, but hey, ya never know.

The tech’s fingers fiddled with a knob and pressed a button and typed in a series of commands and then fiddled more and pressed more and typed more, and whatever kind of portal he was opening was so very not user-friendly because that was entirely too many buttons to press. Thank god I hadn’t followed my instinct to get rid of one more white-coat, because then none of us would have been smart enough to figure out that machine.
That was Willow type techie stuff, and to be perfectly honest, none of us had Willow type brains.

“All systems are responding,” the tech finally announced.

“Power levels?” Riley demanded.

“37.2, Sir.”

“Excellent.” I have to give Riley credit here…he moved so fast that I didn’t know what he was planning until he had the tech in a choke hold. The panicked tech’s feet kicked at his chair so that it went skittering across the room and crashed into the far wall, and then his struggles became more and more sluggish as Riley put pressure on the side of his neck. Eventually the tech stopped moving and Riley lowered him to the floor.

“Time to go,” Riley announced as he turned a key and flipped a toggle switch that made a door slide open on the far side of the room.

“And where exactly would we be goin’ then?” Spike asked even as we both followed Riley into a huge empty room where purple and blue and black swirls were starting to form at the far end.

“L.A.” Riley said tensely and then the swirls suddenly came together into a giant whorl shape on the wall. And hey, I always though that classic Trek had really cheesy special effects, but ironically enough, the swirls growing on the far wall looked just like those time travel thingy from that Trek episode where Kirk has to let the love of his life get hit by that car, and let’s just hope it wasn’t some omen cause the whole lettin’ a loved one die thing….I so wasn’t going there. Of course, it might just be an omen that I really watched too many sci fi reruns. Before I could make a decision on that one, Riley walked forward right into the whorl and disappeared.

“So, we trust the wanker?” Spike asked as he turned to me. Yeah, like I had any answers.

“Any place is better than this,” I said with a shrug.

“Don’t say that, pet. There are places out there ya don’t want ta see.” Okay, I had been perfectly willing to walk into a wall before that, but Spike’s doubts made my heart jump, and we were back to anything that scared Spike turned me into a pile of jello. But just because my legs were jello didn’t mean I wouldn’t still go. Right. So go.

I stood and looked at the wall. Spike held out his hand and for a moment I resented the idea of being held by the hand like a child, but then he took a deep breath, and I realized that he was just as scared, probably more so if the whole forgetting he didn’t need to breathe thing was any indication. After all, he was putting his life in *Riley’s* hands, and great, now I made myself even more nervous. It’s hard to trust the guy who got ya locked up even if he didn’t mean to.

So, I put my hand in Spike’s and we walked forward into the vortex without making eye contact. It’s a guy thing; when doing something unguyly, it doesn’t count as long as we don’t make eye contact. It’s like women with ice cream—if they eat it out of the container it doesn’t have calories. Same theory of physics involved.

I felt the cold rush of wind, which was funny because there wasn’t actually any wind, and then I dropped out into another room, and oh shit—Demon Central. Riley was already backed up against the wall brandishing a broken chair with two or three angry, bleeding demons circling him. I pulled the gun, Spike snarled menacingly, and the angry bleeding demons spread out a bit to take all of us into consideration.

“Riley?” I half asked, half accused in a slightly sharp tone of voice.

“Whoa there, no need for a Jean-Claude Van Damme impression from the newcomers,” a smiling green demon insisted as he pushed his way smoothly forward. His hands were up in the surrender position, but I didn’t let that distract me from aiming my gun between the demon’s little red horns. Riley seemed to have the same thought because he shifted stance to square off against the speaker.

“Hey, you said Caritas was safe,” a demon from the crowd complained, and that answered one question. We were on Caritas, and as soon as I got back to earth I was going to kill Riley for getting us lost. I’ll admit, I once ended up in Bakersfield instead of LA when I started driving because I got the whole north-south thing confused, but at least I never ended up on another frikkin’ world.

The green guy waved a dismissive hand and beamed a hospitable smile towards the heckler. “Darlings, Caritas is the sanctuary where you can let go of all your worries, this is just a little glitch in the magical programming. I’ll have it fixed faster than Samantha can twitch her pretty nose, but right now let’s all just put down our weapons. Durthock, I believe you promised me a Clint Black number,” and damned if he didn’t wink at a big hulking demon, and that’s when noticed the stage, and oh god, this was a hell dimension. I just knew hell would have karaoke.

“Now cutie, just put the gun down and get Billie there to stop snarling at the customers. Caritas doesn’t permit violence by demons and starting tomorrow, we won’t allow violence by humans either.” At first I thought he was talking to Riley because yeah, I did notice that Riley was kind of cute….stupid and way too willing to follow orders, but cute in a way I’m never again going to admit noticing.

Then I realized that he was looking at me what with me being the only one with a gun, and some demon did *not* just call me cute. What the hell was it with me and demons anyway? At the speaker’s urging, others started wandering back to the scattered tables to listen to a Clint Black song get mangled so bad I didn’t even recognize it. Since the guy did seem to have saved us from death by demon mob, I eventually slipped the gun back in my pocket. The green guy didn’t miss a beat, though- he turned with that perfect-host smile and said, “sweetie, guns aren’t allowed here at Caritas so either check it with the doorman or I’m going to have to throw your cute ass out.” He glanced at Riley and continued, “and you need to put the wood down. Too many demons in here have an intense aversion to sharp bits of wood.”

I snapped a quick look at Spike, unsure what to do, but he’d put on his carefully neutral expression. Was getting thrown out of a demon bar really such a bad thing? Of course there was the whole demon world out there, and it had to be pretty bad if demons were seeking sanctuary in here. Okay, decision suddenly pretty easy, here. I took the gun out of my pocket and handed it butt-first over to the demon.

“Harris!” Riley snapped, and I involuntarily flinched at the tone and then I involuntarily felt an overwhelming rage at being publicly questioned, and then I very voluntarily turned around to do what I had wanted to do since the first Initiative soldier had appeared in that cemetery where Spike and I had been captured: I swung my hardest punch at Riley’s head. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that since the hyena meant I had the whole super-strength thing, and like Spiderman found out, super powers require super responsibility. But the man had told the Initiative where we hunted, and he had given information about the girls that was going to get the girls captured, and he had gotten us lost in some other dimension so I couldn’t save the girls, and I was just having a bad day. Somehow I didn’t feel bad at all about taking it out on Riley.

However, the day got worse when my punch somehow missed Riley altogether and I found myself launched backwards and landing in a table. Yes, *in*, as in I hit the table and then promptly used my ass to break the table so I landed *in* the broken remains. And Harris luck was running true to form because the sudden pain in my ass suggested that not all of the table stayed on the outside. And here comes Harris luck again because that was Riley ready for a counter attack with his own piece of chair. I suddenly had a whole new appreciation for Spike’s whole not being able to attack people thing. If I couldn’t attack Riley, Riley sure as hell shouldn’t be able to attack me, and yet here he came with his wood. It wasn’t fair, but that was just my luck, especially today.

“Listen you little shit, I just threw my career away to try and save Willow and Tara, but I’m perfectly happy to call the Initiative and tell them where your pet vampire is.” I heard Spike growl from behind him, but strangely enough Spike seemed to have more patience than I did because he didn’t try to knock Riley’s head off. Strangely, Riley ignored the growly vampire in favor of yelling at me. “I don’t know what’s going on with you and Hostile 17, but the more I see, the more I think you’d be better off if someone removed him from your life. When Buffy and Giles discussed keeping Hostile 17 at your house, I warned them that you were too impressionable to trust with a job like that, and I think you just proved my point. He’s gotten to you, Harris.”

You know how people talk about seeing red? I always thought that was a stupid expression. Really, who sees red literally? Well, I can tell you that I literally saw red as my hyena vision cut in to such an extent that the whole world was reduced to sepia tones with the warmblooded critters sort of a deeper reddish brown than the objects like tables or the unliving like Spike. I felt the growl from the bottom of my soul, and I pushed myself up. I wouldn’t lie on the floor with an enemy over me.

“Mate, think it’s time for you to be leaving,” I could hear Spike, but the reasonable tone of voice and lack of cursing didn’t quite seem very Spike-like. I started walking toward Riley, so angry I was almost vibrating. I expected him to go nose to nose with me, but he didn’t, he started backing up so fast that he stumbled into a table of tentacled demons playing cards…and were those Heinekens on the table? Did they have an Off-world Export Division? I shook my head as I looked around he room.

The karaoke machine was a Toshiba, the demon had been singing Clint Black, and the tables were all sized for humans despite the inhuman occupants. I turned to the green- skinned host who had just returned with a much larger demon, who looked like a big pile of rocks.

“Where are we?” I demanded, entirely too angry to play nice.

“You’re in Caritas, the sanctuary in the middle of the rough and tumble city of the angels.” Okay, for a half second I thought angels as in…well…angels. Then it occurred to me that the land of angels probably wouldn’t have demons, but the City of Angels had plenty. After all, Buffy’s own Angel had had gone to LA just to fight them.

“We’re in LA,” I said.

“And now that you have your bearings, it might be time for you to find some other place in LA to destroy. They have some nice bars about three blocks down on your right where the owners replace the furniture on a nightly basis. I’m sure Elashi can point them out.” The green demon gestured toward the huge brown beast at his side who started lumbering forward.

“Oi, we didn’t do anything, get rid of Captain America there,” Spike protested as he crossed his arms in an ‘I’m not moving’ gesture.

“You sure as hell have done something to Harris, and when we get back to Sunnydale, I’m going to make sure you pay for that,” Riley growled at Spike.

“Why are people talking about me like I’m not here?” I demanded, but only half-heartedly as I looked around at the demons playing cards and listening to horrible singing and clapping politely as the creature finished. Some of them looked close to human, maybe vampires or primals or half-breeds, which didn’t make them less dangerous, but just the idea of the Initiative taking them made my vision shift toward the browns and reds again. I shook it off and tuned back in: Spike and Riley were busy snapping at each other while the green guy talked about releasing negative energies. Great, a New Age demon. Just what I needed.

“You planned on capturing all these demons and sticking them in your labs,” I said to Riley right in the middle of Spike’s diatribe on Riley’s parentage.

“That’s confidential,” Riley immediately turned to face off with me, leaving Spike sort of spluttering to the side, and I sympathized because having an enemy turn its back on you was really infuriating. Again, Spike showed more patience than I had by simply turning his own back and storming over to the bar. From the looks of things, he was trying to intimidate the bartender out of a drink.

“No, that’s despicable,” I corrected Riley. “If you want to kill demons who are attacking people, I’ll stand on the side and cheer you, I’ll carry your ammo, I’ll give you a hand, but you’re planning on attacking demons who seem more interested in cards than apocalypses.” Yeah, and only a child of the Hellmouth would know the plural for “Apocolypse”.

“Wait a minute there, tall dark and grouchy, what are you talking about?” Green guy asked.

“The Initiative…a group of soldiers whose mission is to capture, experiment on, and kill all demons.” Okay, that got a few people’s attention. Several heads of various shapes, sizes, and colors turned my way.

“Harris, we need to get back to Sunnydale.” Riley put on his nice, reasonable tone. Yeah, I’d heard that before. Didn’t like it then, either.

“You’re right, we do. Because you gave the Initiative information on Tara and Willow, we have to save them, but that ‘we’ doesn’t include *you*.”

“So you’re going with him?” Riley nodded toward Spike, his tone dripping disgust and hatred in every syllable. Spike responded with a two-fingered salute.

“He’s more trustworthy than you are,” I pointed out.

“He’s a vampire, you can’t trust him.”

“I didn’t say he was trustworthy in the being willing to totally trust him, I said he was just more trustworthy than you,” I snapped back, and I was incredibly proud that I had managed to say all that without one babble, stumble or stutter.

“Okay, enough with the pissing contest, boys, there’s one sure way to solve this. Sing.” Wow, had I missed something? It sounded like the green guy wanted me to sing, which made sense of the ‘not even’ kind.

“What?” Riley asked, and I silently seconded that even if I wasn’t about to publicly agree with anything the soldier said.

“It’s my gift. The name’s Lorne, and this little piece of heaven where you can get the best Sea Breeze in town is where I provide readings for creatures great and small, but I can’t read the aura without you providing the sweet sound of music first.”

“Forget it,” Riley said with a snort as he backed away…which seemed to be Riley’s reaction to anything new. His mother never made him try new foods was my guess about where his life went wrong. Personally, I figured the worse thing that could happen was that I would embarrass myself publicly, and frankly I’d so often lately that it hardly mattered anymore. At least I had some clothes on for this humiliation, which made a nice change.

“I’ll make you a deal, you let me call Sunnydale to tell my friends they’re in danger, and I’ll sing whatever you want,” I offered.

Lorne considered that and then smiled, head tilted. “I think you just might have an interesting enough story to make that a good deal. Phone’s by the bar.” Spike was already there, I noticed, hoisting a pint mug containing something that sure didn’t look like beer. I headed over and stood beside him.

The bartender slid me a phone, and that’s when I noticed the smell. Blood. Fresh human blood. Spike had an expression of pure, utter bliss on his face as he drank. Good for him, and please let that be volunteered blood, not that Spike would care, but my conscience was about ready to pop with guilt already, what with the Anya issue and the danger to Willow and Tara and the whole three year secret thing that I obviously had to ‘fess up about, because Riley wasn’t going to keep his mouth shut for longer than two seconds. If it wasn’t for the fact that my girls were in trouble, I would have voted for heading towards Canada and not looking back. Then again, I tried that whole extended road trip thing once already, and didn’t get very damn far. Being that I had no car at all now, I couldn’t imagine even getting out of the city.

I quickly dialed, and the phone in the dorm rang three times before the answering machine picked up. Okay, if the Initiative was tapping the phone, I needed to leave something simple enough that the girls would get it without tipping off the government.

“Hey girls, look, I’ve been thinking about that retreat, and I think it’s a bad idea in an Ampata kinda way, and I’ll try to catch you later.” I hung up, smug that I’d dropped a hint about not everything being what it seemed. Then it occurred to me that the government knew we’d escaped so any message I left would probably be erased before the girls got it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Okay, try again, Xan-man. I dialed the Magic Box.

“Magic Box, how can I help you spend money?” Oh yeah, that’s my Ahn.

“Anya, it’s Xander.”

“Are you calling to beg my forgiveness?” she demanded in a hard voice that sounded far more demony that a non-demon really should.

“Uh…what?” I know *I* didn’t do anything beg-worthy, but who knew what the imposter had said?

“If you aren’t prepared to crawl back and beg for my forgiveness, I just don’t see why I should talk to you.”

“Anya, you don’t un….”

“You broke my heart and crawling from Seattle to here on your hands and knees so that you show up with bloody and torn limbs would be a good start.”

“I need to talk to…”

“And if you think that means I’m just going to take you back, you’re wrong.”

“An…”

“Because I am a liberated woman, and I will not wait around for you to decide whether or not you’re ready for a commitment.

“Jus…”

“And I don’t care how many good orgasms you give.”

Dial tone.

Spike snickered, and my guess was that he’d heard the orgasm comment. My day was just getting better all the time.

There was no answer at Joyce’s house, and no machine picked up. Damn. I left a message with Willy, but from the completely unconcerned tone, I guessed that he wasn’t going to break his neck getting in touch with Buffy to pass it on. I hung up the phone and put my forehead down on the bar. Actually, I would have liked to hit someone, but that hadn’t worked out so well last time, as the throbbing pain in my ass reminded me.

“I think we need to find a way to get to Sunnydale,” I said to Spike without lifting my head.

“Considerin’ it’s day out there, I think I’ll be stayin’ here,” Spike answered in a contented tone of voice, but then he was drinking human blood for the first time in months, so from his point of view all was right with the world…or at least all was better.

“Fine. Riley, how much money do you have?” I turned around, but the table I broke and the chair that Riley broke and Riley himself were all gone, and come to think of it, the smell of Riley was quickly fading under all the other smells, not the least of which was me. Spike could get away with not bathing, I obviously couldn’t.

“So, will that be a bit of Metallica or maybe a classic Beatles song?” Lorne asked as he appeared at my shoulder. I turned back to the bar and promptly put my head back down. I heard Spike snicker, and suddenly a song came to mind. Also a coffeehouse, and someone with a guitar and an earring that looked like it might be a clip-on. Perfect. I lifted my head, looked at straight at Spike and started singing.

“No one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, to be the sad man, behind blue eyes.
No one knows what it’s like to be fated, to be hated for telling only lies.
But my dreams they aren’t as empty, as my conscience seems to be.”

I hummed a bit where I didn’t know the words before I picked up again.

“My name is vengeance, that’s never free.” As I stopped, I wondered if I’d even gotten the words right. Spike had a sour expression on his face, and I just smiled sweetly at him. No sense being embarrassed myself if I couldn’t dish out a little to him, too.

“Oh ducks, you’ve got quite a path in front of you.” Lorne started. “If you don’t succeed, more than just Sunnydale is going to suffer. And on a personal note, you and your vampire here need to get a few things worked out before the world puts an end to your Romeo and Juliet act.”

“Yeah, Juliet,” Spike said in the most salacious tone possible, rolling the name in his mouth like it was the naughtiest thing that ever… uh, naughtied.

“Hey, I’m the Romeo here,” I retorted.

“Oh, pet, you don’t look like the kind to do the seducin’, you look more like the seducee,” Spike grinned and stepped close so that we were once again chest to chest, so very close that I could smell the blood on his breath. One wicked eyebrow was raised in challenge, and oh boy, hyena instincts knew what to do about that.

“I’ve read the Watcher’s journals, Spike. The only person you ever seduced into your bed was Harmony, and I’m not so sure I’d be bragging about that,” I pointed out with an evil smile of my own.

“Had my wicked plum for over a hundred years, didn’t need ta seduce anyone else, but I’ve had hundreds willin’ ta crawl in my bed. You’ve had exactly one, and she would’ve settled for anyone who could’ve helped her become more human.” That was a little mean, but I didn’t back down.

“Had two, actually… can’t forget a certain Slayer. Plus I’ve had more demons chasing me than you can shake a stick at, including your wicked plum.”

“That was a soddin’ spell, and she wanted ta eat ya, not set up house.”

“She offered me forever.”

“She was out of her mind at the time.”

“She was always out of her mind.” At that Spike flashed his game face at me, and I felt myself shifting into my own glowy-eyed face. I wanted to throw him down right there on the bar, and prove just who was going to seduce who. Though “seduce” was maybe a little on the mild side, considering just what I wanted to do to the sexy, muscular, incredibly good-smelling demon who-

Lorne was suddenly right there, green hands gently but firmly pushing us apart. “Boys, boys…when I suggested you two needed to figure this out, I didn’t mean in the middle of my club.” My vision slammed back to normal when I realized people were watching us. Holy shit, what had I almost done in the middle of an entire room full of people who were watching with great interest, and that should not be exciting me even more. My cock strained at my pants so painfully that it actually balanced out the soreness in my ass from falling into the table.

“Right, need to find a way to Sunnyhell.” Spike said, switching gears immediately. “Any ideas?”

“None that you’d like,” I said as I tried to think disgusting thoughts. Problem was that most of my favorite delustifying images were no longer as disgusting as I remembered them being. Blood, guts, and gore had taken up residence in the “wow that makes me hungry” side of my brain, and I couldn’t come up with an image to make my stubborn dick go soft.

“Right, need to find Angel,” Spike said, and bingo…there’s an image to make a man’s cock deflate. Mine, anyway.

“I so wish I didn’t agree with you.”