The scent of the fire fills her nostrils, while his eyes burn into her as hot as the blaze. "Never going to stop wanting the world, pet. 'S not in me, not to. But I won't take more than you can give. Learnt that one."

She's peppering his face with kisses. "And since we're trapped and unlikely to get out -"

His hands are everywhere. "You're going to get out, pet."

And it feels so good. "You're sure?"

"If I have to rip every rock out of here, love." She can feel him tense with absolute determination and complete honesty.

It's one hell of a turn-on. "You would, wouldn't you?"

He rumbles, "Oh, yeah," and she feels its truth in her bones. "Going to get off too, Syd. Both of us."

"You're sure of that?"

He's kissing her like she's an oasis in the desert and he's dying of thirst. "Oh, yeah."

She's drowning in him. "I think you're right."

He's everywhere, hands caressing hair, arms, pushing the blanket away from her shoulders, teasing pleasure from her breasts right to the very heart of her. His powerful legs pull her closer to him. He's raining kisses across her face, down her neck, kissing her just hard enough to hurt in all the right ways. He's so fast and so strong she knows she can put her burdens on his shoulders and just take this, him - put the pain away, just for now, feel the pleasure, the escape.

And it's what she can give him.

He's writhing under her hands on his skin. Each caress melts him closer to her, so she's having more and more trouble knowing where her skin ends and his starts. When she pushes the blanket off his hips and finds his ass as strong and smooth as the rest of him it's almost more than either of them can take.

He rolls them away from the fire onto her fallen blanket. There's nothing to stop her questing fingers in exploring him and he's no disappointment. Flawless skin, gleaming in the firelight over muscles so powerful that she feels delicate, like a girl not an agent. She knows she has to tell him that. "Feels so good".

As she rolls herself on top so she can kiss her way down his chest, he frees her from the blanket round her waist. His groans of pleasure match hers as his fingers - oh, God, his fingers - work their magic. She feels boneless.

He's hard as granite.

And she's locked into a kaleidoscope of sensation. It's a trip of his mouth on her, hers on him, hands everywhere; skin melting into skin; pleasure building upon pleasure that just doesn't stop. Time speeds up so it seems moments since they started, yet slows to such a crawl that it seems like they've always been here, always will be, and in hundreds of years explorers will find them still entwined together.

And when he's not kissing her, suckling on her nipples, tasting every inch of her he can, he won't stop talking. He's a litany of, "Pet" into her throat, "Oh, love,' as he laves comfort into her scar, "So salty, you are," as he laps the well-water from her skin, and what can only be described as a groan as his tongue rasps across her grazed palm repeatedly. She can feel the crystals dissolve, and the pain's exquisite yet somewhere very far away.

She's not quiet. The chamber rings with her giggles as he sucks her toes. Her, "Fair's fair," before scratching his back hard enough to leave her mark gives her his whimpers of pleasure to play with. Which she does, returning the favour, tasting, hungry for him, freeing every inch of his face from the salt, nipping at his neck, play biting her way down his chest, hearing his groans all the way through her, yet as through a glass darkly. She knows what she's doing, can feel everything he's doing with tongue, hands, the weight of him on her and around her, but it's like she's dancing on the edge of a fever-dream. Somehow it's all enveloping but she's watching herself, him, them , almost at a remove she can't escape and doesn't want to.

Certainly not when he follows up, "Sweetest salt of all, pet," with going down on her for what seems forever, and the advantages of a man genetically modified not to need to breathe becomes abundantly obvious, over and over again. His hunger for her is palpable and she feels consumed in all the right ways. And his nose, his nose just works .

She's already come twice before he finally thrusts into her. She doesn't ever want him to stop. Which is good, as he doesn't. They're thrusting into each other so hard that it's a wonder they haven't tunnelled through the stone floor, but she's cushioned by the soft blanket underneath her and the hard one enveloping her in passion and release. Her third orgasm waves through her whole body, rippling right through to her toes, leaving her so spent that she loses her grip on his ass and could swear she sees stars in the rock ceiling. As she takes him with her, the firelight flashes his eyes yellow for moments before he collapses on her, head buried into her shoulder. She's not sure she'll ever be able to move again. She knows she doesn't ever want to lose this.

She knows she'll have to. That she will, even if they get out of here - and they'll die if they don't. But right now, all she wants is to lie there, safe, warm, and float the last ripples of joy still tickling her nerves.

He knows he'll have to move at some point in the next century or two, but it's absolutely the last thing he's up for. He reckons he's done pretty well to have rolled off her and got her snuggled up to him, shoulder to shoulder, wrapped up in each other and the blanket, all comfy like.

He doesn't quite get it. Normally he'd be warming her up for round two - he certainly wants another go - but he feels like he's melting into a marshmallow, everything soft and sweeter than sweet. There's a pinpoint of awareness at the back of his brain screaming that even the best sex shouldn't have him this flaked out and content, especially when he's crashed out on a stone floor with only ancient textiles - that aren't exactly museum quality anymore - and her to keep him warm. But the last time he felt this languorous was after Dru and him munched their way through an opium den in Limehouse and shagged on the carpet of corpses, and it's a bloody good feeling - and one he's missed.

He could kill for a cigarette, and though he's long moved beyond that being an option, it doesn't take away the cravings - any of them. He knows the kick from the nicotine might help boot the slightly spacey awareness he's got left into something slightly more useful in the whole getting them out thing line. Might get the taste of her blood, the tang of her out of his mouth too. He really doesn't want to get the munchies for her blood, but it would be so easy; she tastes so very good - not a slayer-feast, but something appetising all her own and just as rare - and he's so hungry, so very hungry for all of her.

She fits.

Heart to heart, head to head down to their entwined feet - and hey, he's always wanted to play footsie among the rubble - she's a perfect match. Not too cold, not too hot; the kick-ass bird that can kick his arse and kiss it better and who can let him into her mind and heart. He can't help gathering her closer and murmuring into her ear. "You're my missing piece, Syd."

Her smile's as slow as molasses and twice as tasty. "I am?"

He can't help stroking her hair, even though he seems to have to concentrate very hard on getting the movement just right. And it seems somehow vital that everything be right. He's just not sure why, just that it is. "Yeah. Been looking lifetimes for it. Thought I'd found it before, like."

"You said." She's stoking his arm with the same deliberation.

"Never worked. Always blew it. Or it was the wrong girl, or the wrong time - mostly me. But this, this feels good." And she does; her warmth's soaked into his bones and he'd happily melt into the floor with her. "Could stay like this forever."

"But we can't." And she looks almost sad about it. "And if we fall asleep I might not get up again."

Nothing he'd like better than sleeping with her in his arms. But, "Can't have that."

She looks like she's heading for the land of nod herself. "So we should stay awake."

"Yeah. 'S important, that is." Moving is about the last thing he wants to do, though he knows they have to.

She's clearly stumbling for words before she comes up with, "And we should check that the Pieta is ok."

"Good idea, pet. I'll go fetch, right?"

"Thanks."

Getting up feels like being a rocket launch, all fire and movement pushing through his head, with a definite sensation of flying, and he'd worry about it, but he has to concentrate too hard on his mission, to get it done, so he can lie down again. Both missions, in fact: getting the pretty statue for the girl, and the small voice in his head that sounds very much like Wesley that's talking about acid and wiping out the formula the CIA can't be allowed to have. But the acid's in his pocket and he doesn't want to put his clothes back on right now. Not and lose the sensation of her skin warming his.

Besides, all he wants just now is to lie there looking at his prize with his girl, maybe with a drop or two from the flask, even if it's not the sweetness he's craving right now. And, God, he's hungry, and he can't think why; he ate on the plane and he shouldn't be peckish. But he could slaughter a plate of chips with some blood sauce all curried up. But there's no blood here he'd let himself drain. He knows he shouldn't have tasted her hand earlier, that it's roused the hunger, but he's learnt enough control over the time with Buffy to keep his fangs to himself, and even though his voice of reason sounds smothered in cotton wool, it's not something he's letting himself change now.

So he takes out the urge on the remaining mummy bits under their coverings. Spearing both heads into the fire, and trying hard to ignore the screams that he's pretty sure they've no tongues to make. The fact that Syd's showing no signs of hearing the wails is a worrying sign he might be losing it again. But he decides to hope it's something only audible to vamp ears, ignore any dead folk yelling at him or singing little songs and concentrate on getting the statue. It's surprisingly difficult and seems to take place in slow-motion, but he gets it and gets back to her, subsiding down into her arms, and getting tucked up nicely so they can both look at it.

"It's still beautiful, pet."

She's peering hard at it. "Lucrezia Borgia was one of the most beautiful women of the Renaissance."

"Couldn't hold a candle to you, love." And at her grin, "Or firelight anyway."

"You're so full of it."

"Oh, yeah. Rather you were though." And the swat registers through the fog, so he concentrates on the Pieta like a good boy. "And that's her brother-lover she's holding, right? The one that got her all killing people, along with her twisted fuck of an ol' dad, of course. Family that kills together, and all that."

"Cesare, yes. And she does seem to have lived a fairly blameless life after they died."

"No more poisonings then? Not like in the stories?"

"Not according to her papers."

And he can't help looking into the marble face of the Virgin Killer, or the yearning in his voice. "So you reckon a person can change. Make something of their life. Turn it all round after slaughtering so many?"

She shrugs. "Seems to have worked for her."

"'S encouraging." He can't help smiling.

"She did die in childbirth."

"Not so encouraging, pet." He can't help pouting.

She gives him a Madonna smile before turning the statue to look at the robe, when the smile freezes and fades. "The gold paint with the formula, it's gone!"

And he peers at it, harder than he'd usually have to as everything feels and looks fuzzier than it should, even at this distance. "You're right. But I don't get it. It was there before we went for the dip in the briny: remember seeing it before that posey git showed up and it all went boom."

She's reaching around them for the torch, so he risks vamping for a second. Everything gets sharper, but the hunger's worse, and that, if nothing else, sends him back to human like a rat up a tunnel in time for her to come back and shine the torch on the Pieta. The light's painful after the kind firelight, but it does pull him closer to the surface. It also reveals, "All the gold paint's run. Look, you can see the same happened with the halo." And he can see it, so he nods at her before she continues, "But some of that got caught in a crack in the ivory. The robe was smoother, so it all washed away."

"Must have been why the water was salty, then?" He'd been wondering.

"Of course! A solvent! A perfect failsafe - and I triggered it. And blew the mission."

"Not your fault, pet. Had to, if I remember, or the smug git would have got his mitts on it, and we couldn't have that, could we. Besides, your blokes back home, bound to find something." He knows from his quick looksie that there's nothing left for them to get, but he hates to see the upset on her face. At least he didn't have to cause the look.

She nestles into his shoulder, while he takes the statue in one hand and strokes her hair with the other. He's about to suggest some mission-failure comfort-sex when something more worrying happens. "Syd, Lucrezia - she just winked at me!"

He's freaking, but he's not the only one. "And this floor is rolling."

"Nope. Feels solid to me." But at her look and in the silence there's something else. "But the roof's breathing."

She's scared but mission girl. "Something's wrong, and if it's both of us, it's something we've taken. The flask?"

"All kosher and above board, well, not kosher just pisco. Same stuff as I had before, when my sense of smell was working full-on and would have noticed anything dodgy. Still doesn't feel right, it don't."

She's using her hand and mouth to wash his nose like a mother cat, and it helps slowly bring it back all proper like.

In between he picks up the torch and looks and bites into the stray leaves by the fire. They're stale, withered and ancient, but with grains of lime that must have spilled on them when they got tipped out and brought to the fire the tingle in his teeth's unmistakable. "Coca leaves."

"You're sure?"

"Teeth beginning to go a bit numb. Feeling spacey but more awake by the second. Oh yeah." He's not going to tell her about his past experiences of trying to eat with numb fangs. "I'm sure."

"But those leaves have been in there for centuries."

"Bloody good seal on some of those chests, pet. Loads went onto the fire too, mixture of stuff an all. Trying to remember." The long dried plants looked like nothing he's tried before - he knows that.

Her brow's furrowed in thought. "There was something that looked like a vine."

"Stairway to Heaven vine?"

"I don't know. Designer Drugs, processed cocaine, heroin, even cannabis and I'm your expert. Not personally, of course, but that's shamanic if I remember from Castanada, and that isn't something I've dealt with."

"Bit of a trip certainly, if not normally a fire thing. But never really seen it in the raw, so to speak." Just ticked it off on the Spike tries anything and everything to get off his head Ever, that's he's worked his way through in the last hundred and twenty years.

"English agencies must do things very differently." The note of disapproval is tangible.

"Variety from alcohol's a good thing, pet. Besides, different drug laws, in different times and places too. Can still buy the leaves in the market up top here, love. Dope too, I reckon, even if it's not so legal."

"That's on the fire too?" There's a faint note of hysteria creeping into her voice. "I'm going to be fired."

"Dunno yet. There's something I'm getting now."

"Oh - good." Her head's in her hands.

"That smell. Course! The Mojave Desert. The Doors, Dru!"

"Dru?"

"My ex, before the first ex I told you about."

"I'm going to need a list at some point."

"Anyway. Back in the day. Did us some peyote. Whole trip: Riders on the Storm on replay by one of the minions who was ready to pull us into the van if there was a problem. Bloody fantastic. Finally saw Dru's pixies, but it did something funny to her - she didn't like it - turned her head round. Can hear her now. 'It's a cactus, Spike!' Bless her." And at Syd's look at him. "But that's what's in the smoke, amongst the other stuff."

"We've -"

"Set fire to the secret stash of the Inca Empire."

"We're -"

"Fucked, pet, deeply, utterly and totally fucked. Not to mention that the sodding roof's breathing even louder now." And he's shaking his head. "Bloody typical! Try to do everything right like. What happens? Stoned off my head, just when I can't even bloody well enjoy it, cause I'm stuck in rat-trap!" Off her look of hurt, he backtracks visibly. "Enjoyed that, love. Not half, I did. Bloody brilliant, it was."

She can't help the self-doubt creeping through the fog that's clouding the diplomatic channels between her brain and her vocal cords. "It was?" And he has time to tilt his head to look deeply into her eyes before she's able to get out, "You'd have still wanted me without the drugs?"

"Oh, yeah. I'd always want you, pet." She knows it has to be the hallucinogens, but she can feel the razor blades of hurt in the rich caramel of his voice, and she's hungry for both. "Know you wouldn't touch a thing like me without 'em. 'S all right. I understand. Won't push. Know better now. It's ok."

And somehow, nothing's more important than cupping his cheek and telling him," You're wrong. I wanted you. Without us being here, the way it is, we are - maybe nothing would have happened -"

And there's a desperation in his eyes that slashes at the Vaughn scars in her skin. "This, then, it's not nothing?"

"It's definitely something." She's not sure how it's happening, though the little voice of reason that sounds scarily like her father is screaming for her to get dressed and get the hell out of there, but she's kissing Spike again.

He's around her, on her, in her, through to her soul almost. She knows this is a dumb idea. She knows that they have to get out of here. But she can't help it; the feelings, the emotions he's pulling out of her flying mind, his touch on her skin that's so much more sensitive, yet is at such a remove that she can dance with her own orgasm - everything's magnified and it's magnificent.

He's still in her, and they're boneless in an afterglow full of colours she's never really seen before, and never intends to see again, so she floats in it. The voice telling her to get him off her, get up, get dressed and get out keeps changing; it's Dad, Mom, Dixon, Weiss, even Vaughn, but she can't muster the energy to do anything other than lie there floating on a sea of hormones and substances of varying legalities.

It's when the voice becomes that of Arvin Sloane that it freaks the hell out of her and she pushes Spike off her to his loud "Mwump," and "Time to move, pet?"

"Oh, yes!"

And putting on now dried clothes takes what feels like several years and lots of co-operation due to addled fingers and minds - and even longer due to hormones aided and abetted by the drugs. But they manage it and Spike even wraps the Pieta up into a makeshift knapsack made of blankets and tapestries, before asking, "Now what, Syd?"

And that's the hard thing. "The only thing I can think is to try and move some of those stones blocking the tunnel. It's a long shot -"

He's cocked his head looking at her. "And it'll probably bring half the church down on our heads?"

"Yes." It's true.

He's patting down his pockets almost without being aware of it. "There's the Incredibly Stupid option we could try first, Syd."

"What's that?"

"Been thinking, while I was playing try and get my arms into the duster. One place I didn't look in the other room. Probably cause something even worse than Herky and Jerky by doing it, since it's never good to move mummies with plaques on 'em - not in the films anyway, But -"

"There might be something under the sarcophagus?" It could happen, ok, mostly in the movies.

"Let's hope, eh?" He's smiling at her.

"Worth trying. We can always go back to the tunnel -"

"And the rain of rocks."

"Yes." And it is probably is a waste of time, but - "Ok, let's try the mummy room."

She's felt the power in those arms round her, but feeling him pull the stone coffer across the floor blows her away. She's helping; she can't not and still respect herself. But he doesn't need her to push the heavy stone, even to help direct the sarcophagus. It's not effortless, but his strength's inhuman - and somewhat scary.

But, and most importantly right now, he slowly pushes the sarcophagus far enough to reveal two holes in a stone big stone slab in the floor. The holes are too small to get a hand in and too far apart for fingers, so she tells him she'll find something to thread through them so they can pull it open. He nods, veins standing out on his forehead as he pushes the coffin fully off the slab.

She's run back to the hole in the wall and cut some of the rope free when she hears a, "Bugger," a yelp, and the tell-tale leathery crackle of a moving mummy.

He knows it was a mistake to jog the sarcophagus over the bump in the floor. If the crack of pottery doesn't make that abundantly obvious, the creak and break of long dried flesh and bones returning to life pretty much gives the game away.

But he could really do without the mummy trying to kiss him.

The drugs don't help the whole fighting it off thing either. It's like fighting through treacle. The damned thing feels stronger than Herky and Jerky and he can't shift the hands gripping his neck. He manages to croak out, "Not my type, love," to it, as he just can't not say it, but it just keeps on trying to pull him closer to withered lips.

The torchlight goes off as he hears Syd yell, "Spike!"

But it doesn't help. The firelight's still bright enough for him to see as well as feel the mummy's hand strangling him while its other hand grips the back of his head, pulling him closer. His skin's crawling with ants everywhere it's touching him and his fingers feel full of fire where he's desperately trying and failing to free himself from its clutches.

Its kiss is ice and fire pulling through every fibre of his being.

It's like it's trying to draw something out of him, something it can't find, that's maybe not there. But the attempt's infuriating the demon in him - giving him the adrenaline he needs to push it away and stop the agony of its lips on his.

Syd lassoing the mummy to her does the rest. He tears a cloak from one of the long dead conquistadors on the floor and pulls it over the mummy's head. But the darkness doesn't do the trick, even when they use everything they have to force all of it under cover - it's still moving. And even though the drugs have slowed them down and mean they don't feel the bruises it's leaving on both of them, they can't get it to stop moving.

More worryingly for him, it's trying to free itself and latch onto Syd.

Which is when he hears Dawn's voice in the mummy's wails, and he's flashing back to the summer without Buffy. He's laughing again at the story of Xander and a Chosen One turned life-force sucking Inca Mummy Girl, and he's crying as he realises it's happening again - only to him and Syd. But he manages to choke out to Syd, "Get the bits of the plaque. Put 'em back together. I'll keep hold of the Chosen One. Done it before."

Syd nods and leaves him to hunt ceramics in the coffin.

He can feel Slayer in her now he knows who she is - and it certainly explains just how bloody strong she is - slayerness twisted into death. Now he knows what he's holding he can't help the hysteria in his voice. "Looks like you are my type after all, love." It takes everything he's got, using every inch of irony in the situation to fight his way back to deathmatch-level awareness, and all the dirty tricks he's learnt in over a hundred and twenty years to keep the mummified Slayer contained enough for Syd to reunite the pieces of plaque.

She does. Her, "Done," freezes the mummy back into death.

But as she moves, the plaque parts grate against each other and the mummy moves again. So she stops. "We gotta problem."

"Right, yeah. We have, and all. Don't move, pet."

She doesn't. "You're the expert."

The adrenaline's still coursing through him and his brain's not sliding back into mush yet, though he can feel the cotton wool calling him back to post shag-fight naptime. But he's got the awareness still left for now, so he takes advantage of it. He pulls the cloak aside to retrieve the rope before dropping it to the floor.

Then he carries the mummy to the fire and places her onto it, before whispering, "Sorry, love, Viking funeral's best I can manage. Sorry, Buffy; know you'd not want me to leave her like this." He uses the acid spray to help the fire do its job on the girl. He can't help thinking that he's got his third slayer after all. It's the last thing he wants now, so, hey, no wonder.

He takes a moment, picks up the rope and threads it through the holes in the floor. He tries to ignore the crackling of the fire as uses it to pull the slab free. He's just got it up and out, when he feels as much as hears the fire settle into a final half-wail as Syd places the plaque slowly into the coffin.

Spike frees the rope as Syd points the torch down the hole, revealing a steep flight of stone steps. She looks at him, he looks at her. "In for a penny, pet?"

She nods and, with her wielding the torch and him with the knapsack over his shoulder, they hit the stairs.