DEDICATION: To
Elizabeth, wherever you are. We all
love you.
Chapter 6
It had been nearly a week since Spike had first seen the monster and
the ‘Scooby Gang’ machinery had started to roll. Now it was time to bring all the elements together into a plan,
and whatever that plan was, Spike would report to the Viscotti’s.
They were all seated around the large table in the back of the
shop. Dawn twiddled her long brown
hair. Willow muttered to herself as she
put the finishing touches to a spell.
Xander and Spike sat on opposite sides of the table. “Could we be any more obvious?” Xander thought.
“Do you wish to begin, Spike?”
“Na, your show Watcher. I’ll
just interrupt.”
“Oh, what joy.” Giles
deadpanned. “Well, we know Scylla is
immortal however upon a closer inspection of the text we find that Odysseus had
considered a plan to kill her. He
actually asked the Goddess Circe if it were possible. Circe then cries, ‘So you are not prepared to give in even to
immortal gods? I tell you Scylla was
not born for death: the fiend will live forever. She is a thing to be shunned, intractable, ferocious and
impossible to fight. No; against her
there is no defence and valour lies in flight.’ She goes on to say that if he delays to put on his armour then
Scylla will try again and take more of his men. She is fast.”
Xander waved his hand, “But not ‘vampire fast’ right?”
“Possibly not, but Spike cannot take her alone.”
“Yeah,” Spike added, “And she might just bite me loaf off before she
finds out…”
“Oh deal. Like you ever use
it?” Dawn chipped in.
“…I’m not edible!” He
finished. “Cheeky tyke. No more homework help for you.”
Willow, with her nose still buried in her books, said, “I think, I
might, have a slowy time spell or it could be a chant against warts.” She looked up to find them all staring at
her with worried looks. “That was a
funny, people. Ha ha?”
“I can modify it so that it only slows time for the monster. Tricky, but doable. Now here comes the not so good bit, I have
to keep up with the chanting, no fighty fighty for the spell caster.”
Spike decided he should add his bit to the conversation. “That still leaves us with how the fuck do
we do the old girl in? Next to the
passage Book Man just read there were some notes. Circe says that Odysseus should pray to Crataeis, the creature’s
mum and she will stop a second helping of Greek sailor but Crataeis ain’t the
only thing credited with birthing the bitch.”
“Certainly not.” Said
Giles. “Echidna and Lamia also have
that dubious honour and Circe herself may have turned her into the monster.”
“The notes say that all of Echidna’s kids can be destroyed with the
sword of their father, the giant, Typhus and…” The next bit Spike said in a
singsong voice, “…I know where the sword is.”
It seemed that everything mystical converged on one hellmouth or
another eventually. The Spanish who had
settled in the area had brought with them many things. Typhus’ sword had been given to the Moorish
leaders by the Turks and taken to Spain.
Eventually making its way to the Hellmouth. It was in the same crypt as the Gem of Amara had been.
Xander and Spike were to go and get the sword. They would meet the others down by the docks
later. As they got to the door, Willow
heard Spike say, “You go on, Sunshine, I’ll catch you up.”
She didn’t trust the vampire.
She liked him in a strange ‘he wants to kill you but he can’t’ sort of
way but vampires by their very nature were duplicitous. “It would by kinda helpy if he ever used a
person’s name.” She thought.
She followed him to the phone box on the corner of the street. Casting a ‘see me, hear me’ spell, she sat
on a bench as if just taking the air, and listened.
Spike phoned the Viscotti’s. “I
wonder if they’re good with coffee?” He
thought as he waited for the phone to be answered. “We have a plan.” He said,
when it was finally picked up. “We can
kill the beast.”
“No.” Said Martin
Viscotti, “Allow them to kill her and
it’s off. We must bring her back
alive.”
“I don’t know what you want with the Whelp anyway. The puppy’d be better off dead but I need this
chip thing gone so I guess it’s your shout.”
Willow was in a state of shock.
Whelp? Wasn’t that one of
Spike’s nicknames for Xander? He used
so many. He was trying to get the chip
removed. He was going to kill them
all! She ran back to the magic shop.
Spike continued his conversation, unaware of the panic in the red
headed witch. “So how do I catch her?”
“Injure her and she’ll slow down but recover. Just don’t take the last head or go for the heart. We caught her before. We have the items necessary. Slow her down and we’ll do the rest.”
Then Spike hung up the phone and went to find Xander. Inside the magic shop however the panic and
anger was rising. Without the Slayer,
an unchipped Master Vampire could be extremely bad news.
>>> Chapter
7
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5
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